Building and evolving brands

Hi, I'm John, Chief Creative Officer at Herman-Scheer, a strategic and creative brand consultancy. We believe the businesses that prioritize connection over transaction are the ones that succeed. 

Since 2010, Herman-Scheer has helped change the way businesses make people feel. We have big heart and daring instincts. A sunny disposition and assertive gait. 

I consider myself a people-people kind of person, enamored by how brands connect to people and how people connect to brands. I love working with businesses that—put simply—keep people healthy and happy.

My career journey has been about embracing the idea that friction makes fire. 

I believe in mixing the intuitive and familiar with the audacious and novel, creating a healthy tension to captivate and engage. This friction, this interplay of ideas, is where I believe brands find their true voice and distinctive edge.

Alongside Chapin, (The Herman to my Scheer), we’ve built an agency with a strong POV: great health and self-care brands create narratives and identities aimed at changing behaviors—experiences so compelling that customers stick with a product or service even before they see the tangible benefits.

If you're in the wellness industry looking to evolve your brand toward lasting impact, let’s talk shop.

Feel free to reach out here or email me at john@herman-scheer.com.

John Scheer

Roughly 3 years ago, Chapin Herman and I were on a road trip -- he turned down whatever podcast we were listening to and said something along the lines of...

"John, I think we should go all in on this health & wellness space. It aligns with our own values, the work we've been doing already, and I am really bullish on where the industry is headed..."

The potential of closing off the door to the amazing variety of work I assumed we would miss out on kinda bummed me out at first...

After a wee bit of rumination, I realized this was the opportunity to help build and transform the brands that keep people healthy and happy.

Purpose!

And personally, I had just had my kids, my folks were getting older and battling disease, middle age breathing down my wife and I's neck...

I was in.

Fast forward to today. 

Our business has never been healthier, nor have I! 

The companies that work with us are no longer comparing and contrasting us to a bunch of other great agencies with amazing-looking portfolios. 

Instead, they're making a decision to start on third base. 

A choice to work with people who have completely immersed themselves in the world of healthcare, self-care, and well-being.

Who deeply understand the psychographic profiles of early adopters of preventative health modalities, to the mother of 3, juggling life through the aisles of mass market retail.

We’ve now helped dozens of businesses at all different inflection points navigate and grow within this growingly competitve and complex space.

And dare I say we’ve had some fun doing it...

If you’re ready to pull the future of health care, self-care and wellbeing forward…give us a shout and stay tuned with my posts :)

Building and transforming the brands that make generations healthier.

If you've had your finger on the pulse of D2C marketing at all in the last ten years or so, you've no doubt heard of my friend, Nik Sharma...

After years of reading his trusted weekly newsletter, shared clients and fun event run-ins -- I finally got the chance to chop it up with him and talk shop on his podcast Limited Supply. 

Nik asked me about my POV on branding, what it really means - specifically at Herman-Scheer.

If you don't have the time to listen, I've asked Chat to TLDR(L) our convo; 

📌Branding isn’t your logo. It’s your clarity.

In the latest Limited Supply episode, Nik Sharma and John Scheer break down what branding actually means — and it’s not just colors and fonts.

✅ Branding is strategic, not cosmetic
✅ It’s about clarity: who you are, who you serve, and why you matter
✅ Great branding starts before design or marketing
✅ Your brand strategy should align with your business goals
✅ Skip this, and you’ll pay for it later in confusion, wasted spend, and weak positioning

Your brand is the foundation, not the finishing touch. Build it with intention...

Open article: S15 E3: How to Actually Think about Branding by open.spotify.com

S15 E3: How to Actually Think about Branding

CEO at Enavi | Customer-First Conversion Optimization for Shopify stores. Find your metric on fire 🔥 and unlock growth through data and customer research.

If you're curious... I didn't dream of this job. I wanted to be a musician and then failed at that and stumbled my way here. But let me tell you I love it.

I spend my days optimizing some of the biggest Shopify stores at Enavi a Shopify CRO agency.

We specialize in what we call Human-Obsessed CRO. Our process is simple we dive deep into the mind of the customer to understand why they buy and why they don't buy. Then we take those learnings and improve the on-site experience.

I am on a mission to make CRO more approachable, so if you want to chat just reach out!

In my free time you will probably find me watching or playing sports. I like to play board and card games (strategy games of course). You'll probably never catch me not in a hat... if you do, count yourself lucky.

Anthony Morgan

I totally get the struggle as an ecomm director when some (feels random) 2026 goal is set to increase subscription take rate by 50% for 2026.

The worst part is you didn’t set the goal and it’s just added to another list of 50 other goals that create a slew of conflicting priorities.

It’s totally fair to ask… 
How the heck am I going to do that?

The truth is though…

If you look at what your PDP is actually 
communicating about subscription, 
you’ll realize: not much.

A toggle. A small discount. 
Maybe a line about "subscribe and save."

And that's supposed to convince someone who: 

Just clicked a random ad 
Who doesn’t know you from Adam 

To commit to a subscription?

Ya maybe…

If you give them a FAT discount, 
but then they’ll probably just treat it 
like a one-time purchase and... 
unsubscribe right after.

What if that subscription take rate goal 
that you didn’t set and is totally random 
and not backed in supporting data at all...

What if it might not be that unrealistic?

I know that sounds crazy to say, 
but we’ve seen it before.

I unpacked this with 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘄 𝗛𝗼𝗹𝗺𝗮𝗻 on his 𝗦𝘂𝗯𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 podcast. We got into this whole conundrum of data-less goal setting and exactly what's missing and how to fix it.

Here's what we covered:

→ Why most product pages aren't selling (and what cold traffic from ads actually needs to see)

→ The subscription value props framework that lifted take rate 50%+ (this wasn’t just one winning test… no silver bullets… sorry)

→ Why A/B testing is a research tool, not a party trick 🥳 and how to start to actually learn from your wins

→ The biggest waste of time in CRO (spoiler: it's probably where you're focusing right now)

If you're running a subscription brand 
and wondering why your take rate isn't 
where it should be, this episode breaks 
down exactly where the friction is hiding 
and some practical next steps you can do.

👇 Link in the comments

Big thanks to 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘄 𝗛𝗼𝗹𝗺𝗮𝗻 for having me on. 

Always great to dig into the mechanics of what actually moves the needle for subscription brands.

P.S. Today I tried cottage cheese pancakes for the first time this morning. When I say tried I mean my wonderful wife made me some spurred on by 𝗖𝗹𝗮𝗶𝗿𝗲. I don’t know if these are a Canadien or Montreal thing, but I do know they are pretty dang good. Pic in the comments. Have you ever tried them?

Founder & CEO Enavi | We elevate the performance of 8 & 9 Figure Shopify Stores | Pioneering Human-Obsessed CRO

26 Hard-Earned Lessons from 10 Years of Running Experiments for Ecomm Brands

1. Redesigns are 85% of the time a waste of effort and produce ZERO ROI

2. It’s less about the size of the swing and more about the size of the problem

3. AB Testing as a form of research is more important than as a means to validate ideas and impact

4. The intra-site funnel is crucial to understanding and monitoring your on-site performance

5. Not “CRO” but new customer acquisition is WAY more important than retention

6. Your conversion rate can be too high

7. It’s the quantitive data that points to where to focus (problems/opportunities) and the qualitative that points to the why

8. Most optimization on the Shopify checkout is a waste of time

9. The only way to truly mitigate risk is to experiment

10. Product-Market-Fit is not a one time thing. Treat it more like a treadmill, if you stop focusing on it you’ll backslide

11. You test to solve data-backed problems not to test random ideas

12. Sure GA4 is hard to use, but I actually like it

13. It’s better to go a mile deep than a mile wide with your research

14. Basic AB testing statistics is necessary otherwise you’ll lean on unreliable platform data

15. Research is 80% of the CRO effort anything less and you’ll struggle to identify data backed problems

16. Most CRO work in the Shopify space is just window dressing and won’t produce long-term sustainable growth

17. Multivariate testing doesn’t increase your chances to win → Most of the time it only increases the amount of poor ideas that make it as test variants

18. The ROI of a CRO program is quantified in more than just the lifts of winning tests

19. CRO is the process of understanding and influencing human behavior

20. I don’t believe in best practices, but I do believe in table stakes

21. Conversion rate is a deceiving metric and 90% of the times its fluctuations good or bad don’t actually have to do with the on-site experience/performance

22. CRO and the foundation of customer research that forms the process must become the central nervous system for your business

23. Almost every element and section on your site should earn it’s way on the page

24. AB Testing doesn’t stop at the conclusion of the test it’s a loop (3i Iteration Loop) not a line and most tests can be iterated on

25. There is a difference between CRO work that raises the floor and experimentation that raises the ceiling → Most are burning budget on tests that couldn't lift a feather

26. 9-figure brands shouldn’t be treating all users the same, but that doesn’t mean 8-figure brands can do the same → Sample size by segment matters

P.S. Disagree with something I said... then let me know why in the comments? Public discourse is incredibly valuable and we are all learning. I'd be happy to learn something new today.

P.P.S. Yes... this image was generated by ChatGPT, but this post was 100% not. Not one idea or point came from AI. Screw AI slop.

The Shopify CRO space is wrong 90% of the time about AB Testing. 

There are 6 red flags that most ignore…

Especially those on the SaaS side.

If you’re an 8- or 9-figure brand, 
you can’t ignore these.

Otherwise you’re are exposing 
yourself to more risk then if
you weren’t even testing...

It’s a red flag if you have:

These first 3 definitely go hand in hand.

1. 90%+ win rate

2. Tests running for under 2 weeks

3. Test wins with too few of users

These next 3 all have the same root issue: 

Testing is not seen as research, 
but only to validate (mostly random) ideas

4. Ideas aren’t rooted in data-driven problems

5. No hypothesis documentation

6. No post-test review process

Any of these you feel like your testing program falls into?

It's ok. It's part of the process. 
At least you're testing... right?... or wait.

Yep that is right…

At the beginning I said you are exposing 
your brand to more risk, then if you 
weren’t even AB testing at all. 

Bold statement, but I'll double down on it. 

The fact that you're testing is progress 
just know there is more progress to be made.

AB Testing isn't the end goal. 
It's honestly just the beginning.

And if you aren't careful....

The confidence you're currently (maybe?) feeling behind your decisions could be false. And that will come at a real cost.

You might not feel it now, but you will. 
Trust me I started where you're at.
And I've still got a ways to go.
But it's all totally worth it.

P.S. I'm not here to just leave you hanging feeling down. If you are curious and serious about upgrading your CRO efforts in 2026 give me a follow.

After 6 months of launching "winning" test after "winning" A/B test, on-site performance was declining for this 8-figure ecomm brand.

Frustrations were rising. 
Fingers were pointing.

The testing roadmap was stale. 
ROI was barely quantifiable.

And the worst part?

They had pushed live several detrimental ideas that they thought had won.

This was the reality of one of the brands we just started working with.

And here's the kicker:

They exposed the business to MORE risk 
than if they wouldn't had tested at all.

Why?

Because they had all this false 
confidence behind their decisions. 
And that confidence led to real costs.

6-figures in cost... 

Cost in investing in bad ideas. 
Not just the investment to test them, 
but the investment to implement them.

Getting under the hood of their program, 
I bucketed the mistakes in these 6 issues:

The "False Wins" Trio:
1. Inflated win rates (90%+ isn't reality)
2. Premature winner declarations (calling tests before 2 weeks)
3. Low confidence wins (too few users in the sample)

The "Research Mindset" Trio:
1. Random idea testing (not rooted in data-driven problems)
2. The hypothesis documentation void (no clear "why" behind tests)
3. Testing only to validate ideas not to learn and solve real problems

These aren't just theory.

These were the exact issues 
that killed their CRO program.

And cost their brand not only 
6-figures in wasted investment,
but also a declining conversion rate.

That is a compounding loss. 
With tons of lost revenue.

I get this though. 

I've learned the hard way 
over my 10 years of testing.

I can't say I've only had winning programs.

A lot of my strong opinions 
(oftentimes contrarian) 
are rooted in failures.

A lot of this is rooted in 
shortcutting the process. 

This pressure to show activity over insights and wins over learnings.

It's not a recipe for success. 

It's a recipe for declining performance 
that you won't notice until it's too late.

The good news?

Recognizing these red flags is a very important first step.

AB testing isn't the end goal… 

It's just a part of the process for solving real data backed problems.

The end result should produce long-term sustainable growth.

If you're serious about upgrading your CRO program's results in 2026, you should ask yourself am I struggling with any of these issues?

P.S. Any other red flags you've experienced that you had to learn from the hard way? 

I know these ones I mentioned only touch on a fraction of the common issues I see, but in my opinion these are the most important ones to get right.

taplio

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