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Workweek Newsletter {beacon}

Ari Murray

Oct 21st, 2026

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Bonjour Millionaire,

Last year, I sent a a version of this during Cyber Week. In retrospect, I think that was a little too late. Because when it comes to setting expectations (and BFCM), there's no such thing as too early. So, I'm updating it for October.

Now is the time to make sure your team knows exactly what you're expecting for the biggest weekend of the year.

In case you're new: I do not play during Cyber. I've even let go of teammates who don't show up over BFCM weekend in the way they needed to. We can't move mountains if you're not up early and on late, or if your computer is off and tucked away. 🌋

So that nobody gets fired, some tips on setting expectations for your team AND yourself. (More below).

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SOME PEOPLE SET INTENTIONS, I SET EXPECTATIONS

I've complied a list of what I expect from my team the week of Black Friday and what to have in place to make sure you team has your back when it counts.

1st, let's define "team." Who do these expectations apply to? To me, "team" means anyone paid to grow the brand. I'm talking agencies, I'm talking our direct reports, I'm talking our non-direct reports. We need everyone to show up in a big way.

If you haven't already, I suggest you broadcas these before anyone surprises you with holiday plans.

Okay, here we go.

MAKE SURE EVERYONE UNDERSTANDS WHAT "ONLINE" MEANS

"Online" does not mean you are slacking me from your phone. "Online" means you're within arm's reach of your computer throughout BFCM. I know, I wince, harsh!! But, it's an expectation & it's number 1 for a reason.

Do I WANT you to bring your computer with you to brunch? Yes, I do and I expect that, if you're going to brunch (I will not be). You need to be connected. You need to answer questions on performance after looking at the data in-full, in real time, and that can't happen if you're texting with 1 hand.

Online means available to move mountains, edit something in Figma, unschedule something in Klaviyo, to fix our Triple Whale bot sending hourly #s, to pull down an ad that's confusing customers. I could go on! This applies to Thanksgiving day. Again, I'm sorry!

DAILY MORNING MEETINGS STARTING 11/23 THROUGH THE LAST DAY OF YOUR SALE

15-minutes. All agencies, internal growth team, everyone. Reading yesterday's data out, and devising pivots to today's plan. Putting our heads together. The earlier in the day the better so we can roll out changes to budgets or tweak send schedules or adjust the site ASAP.

This goes no matter how you're pacing, BTW. If performance is good, your mission becomes: how can we pull up our forecast and run at this quicker?

LOCK IN IRONCLAD REPORTING AND ALERTS

We have multiple layers of reporting and that's just the way I like it. Whatever your reporting is, just make sure you're not susceptible to bugs or human error. An hourly Triple Whale bot that fires, paired with a pacing doc done by hand, paired with Northbeam updating every 6 hours, paired with looking in platform in Klaviyo, paired with Motion, paired with checking the forecast that updates automatically based on yesterday's tally. For example.

The expectation here: check what you usually check, but double-check it by hand more than ever. I will not be forced into accidental overspend on BF because 1 of our dashboards gave us the wrong signal. Not the time for that!

SET UP A DIRECT LINE TO ALL PLATFORMS/TECH PARTNERS

Start collecting your phone numbers now, all the way down to the Pinterest rep. You never know when it'll come in handy, and you won't be able to get it during Thanksgiving weekend. Please get this sorted.

Same goes for your Shopify ecosystem partners. If making a major change to subscription over this crucial weekend, do you have your Recharge account manager's #? Are you providing them the exact time the change now, so they can have it on their radar on Nov 27th? You get it.

PIVOT PLANS

This is when the greater team is usually needed. Maybe something pops unexpectedly, and you need more of the same ad creative concept . Maybe you'll want extra email touch-points, depending on BF's performance. Can a lot of this be prepped ahead of time? 100%! Should you stop yourself from executing on new creatives? 100% no - do not be afraid of change and do not stop yourself from asking for what is needed for performance.

Set that expectation now so that everyone is aware that they may be called in and called up. It's 1-week a year, and if we miss, it should never be because we left something on the field.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I am soooooo rooting for you and your teams.

I genuinely love Thanksgiving, and want to spend as much time with my darling family as I can. But I'm also going to be soooooo honest with you and say that in this week, I pick work. I do it every year. My family knows that, and loves me still. I have a 15-month old baby, and I pick work.

The "this is our superbowl" line gets made fun of a lot, but it's one of those ecom clichés that really is true. It's also temporary to push this hard. That's why setting expectations about going HARD matters so much: because you have one fleeting moment to, in many cases, define your entire year.

SO. If you're in charge you better be trying the very fucking hardest. If you're on the team, how you show up this week CAN accelerate your career. If keeping your computer near you over Cyber doesn't work for you, that's fine and I absolutely understand, but with all the love and light in the world, I don't want you on my team.

Simple as that and good luck to all and we're all going to feel so much better very soon. Also, please link me your sale when it happens, or tell me what to watch out for. I'd love to support as many of you as possible! From one mountain-mover to another. x

^ the volcano motif is because I typed 'move mountains' in the 1st paragraph and then found the volcano emoji and then felt like I needed to visually make this look cooler so here we are LOL.

WORKWEEK