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Ecom Youtube Challenge - Building a channel with 120 videos in 120 days

Phikey

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I like that you're adding these in. Will be great for you when you look back on this.

Yep I think it’s a good idea. The way this project is going, I think I’ll enjoy looking back on this thread in 6 months and seeing how this whole thing started!
 
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Phikey

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Subs: 191
Views: 5748
Day 37 - video 37

Slowly getting there!!

I've posted everyday on the channel, here are some other ones I posted since friday.

^ this video here is HUGE. really valuable and I reference this a lot in the videos I've been making recently. It takes people through the full steps to calculating the profit for their Ecom stores and I also provide the template they can get access to as well.

I've been using this as a lead magnet and I already have 10 signups to my email list. Epic!! Youtube subscribers are great but having an email list is way better because I OWN that list. I can keep building the relationship with my audience and helping them in other ways. I've also been learning about advanced autoresponder techniques where I can build out email flows for different subject areas and only show each email subscriber an email flow relevant to them. E.g. if the indicate that they are interested in Ecom SEO then I'll send them more emails helping them with that. I find this out by tracking their engagement and interactions with different emails as well as sending them a survey when they sign up.
 

Phikey

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BIG MILESTONE - just got my first client from Youtube!! $1500 per month PPC client. He gave the verbal agreement and we're starting in 3 weeks.

He found me from Youtube Search and had consumed ALL my videos. The sales call didn't feel anything like a normal sales call for me. He was sold before the call, we just talked through the strategy. This is the power of content marketing. Trust and authority was built way before I even spoke to him.

He gave me some great feedback on the channel:
  • He said that I was very different from all the other youtubers in my niche.
  • He said that he could clearly tell that I knew my stuff and that I had REAL experience because I was showing real accounts and had a depth of knowledge that you can't get from just repeating what you read on a blog (he said some competitors do this).
  • He said that my marketing audits were the most helpful videos on my channel. The videos where I go deep into marketing accounts and talk through my recommendations.
  • His feedback was to do more videos about how to THINK like an expert ecom marketer. How to get the mindset so he could solve all the problems specific to his store, himself.
Current stats:
Subscribers: 212
Videos: 43 (been posting every day but just not in this thread)

I'm only at 212 subscribers and I'm getting a new contact form submission on my site every 2-3 days. Often it's requesting help on little problems and they're new stores (so not a qualified lead). I'll help them via email (not spending too much time doing this) but I'm waiting for the more qualified guys like the guy that's now a new client.
I can imagine that when I'm at 1k subs, or 10k+ it's going to be an incredible source of leads and traffic for my brand. I haven't thought about this too much as I've just been focused on getting good content out there.
 

Andy Black

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BIG MILESTONE - just got my first client from Youtube!! $1500 per month PPC client. He gave the verbal agreement and we're starting in 3 weeks.

He found me from Youtube Search and had consumed ALL my videos. The sales call didn't feel anything like a normal sales call for me. He was sold before the call, we just talked through the strategy. This is the power of content marketing. Trust and authority was built way before I even spoke to him.

He gave me some great feedback on the channel:
  • He said that I was very different from all the other youtubers in my niche.
  • He said that he could clearly tell that I knew my stuff and that I had REAL experience because I was showing real accounts and had a depth of knowledge that you can't get from just repeating what you read on a blog (he said some competitors do this).
  • He said that my marketing audits were the most helpful videos on my channel. The videos where I go deep into marketing accounts and talk through my recommendations.
  • His feedback was to do more videos about how to THINK like an expert ecom marketer. How to get the mindset so he could solve all the problems specific to his store, himself.
Current stats:
Subscribers: 212
Videos: 43 (been posting every day but just not in this thread)

I'm only at 212 subscribers and I'm getting a new contact form submission on my site every 2-3 days. Often it's requesting help on little problems and they're new stores (so not a qualified lead). I'll help them via email (not spending too much time doing this) but I'm waiting for the more qualified guys like the guy that's now a new client.
I can imagine that when I'm at 1k subs, or 10k+ it's going to be an incredible source of leads and traffic for my brand. I haven't thought about this too much as I've just been focused on getting good content out there.
Awesome! Tell us when the money is in your account and we'll upgrade this to Gold. Well done.
 

RazorCut

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Awesome news. Congratulations @Phikey.

Love the energy and focus in your videos.
 
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Phikey

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Thanks guys!
Day 45
Subs: 229

I've been focusing on moving my most valuable scheduled videos to the front of the queue so that I'm pushing out a lot of incredibly valuable content for my subscribers every single day.

The last 2 videos for example:
Showing an epic strategy for getting new product videos recorded really easily.

A video that walks my audience through cold calling and cold emailing suppliers. I even include all the scripts and templates that I use - as a lead magnet to build my email list.

I've also started running some basic facebook ads to a free minicourse I created.
The course teaches people how to build high quality product pages and takes them through the process of talking to their customers, building a buyer persona, and then building a product page with this info.
So far it's had 4 signups on the first day with a CPL of $1. I'm going to keep tweaking the funnel and hopefully I can get that down to $0.20 per signup.
I'm still not selling anything at all - just 100% focused on building my audience, adding as much value as possible, and building the relationship.
 

Phikey

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Day 46
Subs: 234

Now getting 10-15 signups to my free course every day. This is wild. I'm only spending $5-10 AUD per day on Facebook ads and I'm getting A LOT of interest. I think it's because my ad copy really talks to my target audience.

Right now I'm just building my email list as people sign up for this free course.

Here's the plan with this:
  • My free course (7 sections), teaches people how to create well-optimized product pages for their Ecom store
  • Throughout the course, I have a lot of my youtube videos embedded, so people are digesting my content in a useful way. It's part of how they learn with the course but they'll also get to know my brand, my content, and that I'm also on Youtube.
  • I also have a call to action at the start and end of the course for them to go check out my youtube channel and subscribe. Here I'll get a couple of people to come in from cold ads, get value out of the course, and in doing so they are introduced to my brand. They then go and consume all my other content and become a fan of what I'm teaching.
  • Once they sign up they'll also get emails from me. Because they signed up for my course, I'm going to put them on an email sequence that is very similar to the course. It adds a tonne of value over 2-3 weeks with lessons from within the free course.
  • After 2-3 weeks they will receive my standard email flow which has emails 3 times a week and it's all VALUE. I'm taking different videos I've made and making them into bite-sized email form. The goal here is to add more value to my audience and get them over to my youtube channel to watch the full video. This way I'm constantly feeding my youtube channel with highly-engaged fans that bump up my Youtube engagement rates (good for the algorithm).
I still haven't even thought about what I will sell these people. But I'm creating this beautiful, high-value ecosystem that feeds into itself so my audience are consuming my content, learning and improving their stores.

Anyway, that's the update for today. We're 1.5 months in and finally I feel like I'm starting to see a bit of an uptick in traction and engagement. This might pale in comparison for what's to come (I hope).
 

Andy Black

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Day 46
Subs: 234

Now getting 10-15 signups to my free course every day. This is wild. I'm only spending $5-10 AUD per day on Facebook ads and I'm getting A LOT of interest. I think it's because my ad copy really talks to my target audience.

Right now I'm just building my email list as people sign up for this free course.

Here's the plan with this:
  • My free course (7 sections), teaches people how to create well-optimized product pages for their Ecom store
  • Throughout the course, I have a lot of my youtube videos embedded, so people are digesting my content in a useful way. It's part of how they learn with the course but they'll also get to know my brand, my content, and that I'm also on Youtube.
  • I also have a call to action at the start and end of the course for them to go check out my youtube channel and subscribe. Here I'll get a couple of people to come in from cold ads, get value out of the course, and in doing so they are introduced to my brand. They then go and consume all my other content and become a fan of what I'm teaching.
  • Once they sign up they'll also get emails from me. Because they signed up for my course, I'm going to put them on an email sequence that is very similar to the course. It adds a tonne of value over 2-3 weeks with lessons from within the free course.
  • After 2-3 weeks they will receive my standard email flow which has emails 3 times a week and it's all VALUE. I'm taking different videos I've made and making them into bite-sized email form. The goal here is to add more value to my audience and get them over to my youtube channel to watch the full video. This way I'm constantly feeding my youtube channel with highly-engaged fans that bump up my Youtube engagement rates (good for the algorithm).
I still haven't even thought about what I will sell these people. But I'm creating this beautiful, high-value ecosystem that feeds into itself so my audience are consuming my content, learning and improving their stores.

Anyway, that's the update for today. We're 1.5 months in and finally I feel like I'm starting to see a bit of an uptick in traction and engagement. This might pale in comparison for what's to come (I hope).
GOLD, for relentless execution and value production.
 
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Phikey

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Wow! Thanks @Andy Black.

Day 49 today
Subs: 246
Email subs: 83

Still posting each day:



My facebook funnel is still going and getting about signups per day at a CPL of $0.50 AUD which I think is really good. Time will tell if my targeting is on point and if these students are engaged with what I'm doing.

I met up with a friend yesterday that's creating content for artists to help them get signed and build their own following. He runs a record label here in Sydney. I showed him my content system and how I'm easily pumping out a video a day and it blew his mind. We're going to sit down and build a similar system for him over the coming weeks. I really think that content is the way - the way I've seen people engage with my brand has opened my eyes up to its power. The ability to automate the trust and authority building process with potential customers is insane.

For anyone lurking this thread, I recommend checking out this blog post here:
Why I build an engaged Audience First before starting my Company

I found this last week, it was posted here on the FLF in another thread. It's a lot of what I'm already doing and it makes so much sense. Find an audience that has a problem and then help solve that problem. Instead of trying to figure out the product first and then trying to figure out who to sell it to, find that audience, build trust, and then solve their problems.

I still haven't even decided what course I would sell to my small audience but I'm getting different subscribers asking for a Google Shopping course and an Ecom email marketing course. I think what I'll do next is to try to interview some of them to find out what specifically they want out of these courses. I'll also add a survey to my email autoresponder sequence so I can gather some more data about the big problems my audience are facing. The worst thing I could do is to spend weeks/months on a course that I think is really useful but totally misses the mark and doesn't help the people I'm trying to help.

Anyway, enough rambling. Thanks for the support so far guys! The feedback I've already received in this thread has been incredible and saved me so much time with getting my videos to a better point.
 

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His feedback was to do more videos about how to THINK like an expert ecom marketer. How to get the mindset so he could solve all the problems specific to his store, himself.
I think this is really good advice. You aren't going to be able to provide individualized advice to everyone on your channel. Especially if you keep growing.

I'm sure there is a percentage of the audience that just wants you to tell them how to be successful. Many are looking for the key to success. That key is always held individually.

Thank you for your efforts documenting your journey here. I've been silently following along. You posted that you pay your VA $12 per hour and pay for video editing. What is the total cost of each video?

I'd like to see a video or a series of them on how you got them all set up. If you've posted it already I must have missed it.
 

Phikey

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I think this is really good advice. You aren't going to be able to provide individualized advice to everyone on your channel. Especially if you keep growing.

I'm sure there is a percentage of the audience that just wants you to tell them how to be successful. Many are looking for the key to success. That key is always held individually.

Thank you for your efforts documenting your journey here. I've been silently following along. You posted that you pay your VA $12 per hour and pay for video editing. What is the total cost of each video?

I'd like to see a video or a series of them on how you got them all set up. If you've posted it already I must have missed it.
Hey @Conscripted ! The total cost per video is about $70 after everyone is paid. You could honestly do everything yourself but I’m also working on my agency, ecom store, and some other projects too.

Here’s a run-down of the work that goes into a video:
  • Keyword research (content manager)
  • Researching the topic, preparing the outline (content manager)
  • Scripting (I do this)
  • Filming (I do this)
  • Editing (editors)
  • Revising edits (content manager)
  • Uploading to youtube (content manager)
  • Preparing description, adding tags, etc (content manager)
You could do this yourself. After 2-3 weeks I think you could get pretty quick at it. But I like that I can batch it all and have my team take care of a lot of the work so that I can focus my executive energy towards other big parts of the business that matter.

I’ll eventually make some videos on my system. I’ve had someone start to pay me to teach them how I’m doing it. It’s a friend of a friend that’s growing his own channel and once he saw my system (and my content management process) he wanted in.

I’m still going to upload an update every 30 days (so the next one in 10 or so days) where I go over the stats, analytics and progress.

Here are my recent uploads!




I now have 157 people on my email list and in my course. I’ve been working really hard the last week to write out some really high quality content for my emails. I want to keep adding value on that platform and keeping people in my ecosystem. Keep them learning more and more.
Later, once I actually have a product (lower-ticket than my agency services), I’ll add in CTAs every 4-5 emails. For now my priority is on building this epic audience. So far so good. Plus, my agency is funding this exercise so it’s a self-growing machine that’s going to shoot off in the coming months.
 
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Conscripted

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Hey @Conscripted ! The total cost per video is about $70 after everyone is paid. You could honestly do everything yourself but I’m also working on my agency, ecom store, and some other projects too.

Here’s a run-down of the work that goes into a video:
  • Keyword research (content manager)
  • Researching the topic, preparing the outline (content manager)
  • Scripting (I do this)
  • Filming (I do this)
  • Editing (editors)
  • Revising edits (content manager)
  • Uploading to youtube (content manager)
  • Preparing description, adding tags, etc (content manager)
You could do this yourself. After 2-3 weeks I think you could get pretty quick at it. But I like that I can batch it all and have my team take care of a lot of the work so that I can focus my executive energy towards other big parts of the business that matter.

I’ll eventually make some videos on my system. I’ve had someone start to pay me to teach them how I’m doing it. It’s a friend of a friend that’s growing his own channel and once he saw my system (and my content management process) he wanted in.
Thanks for taking the time to answer my question.

I've built systems to make my life easier at my day job. I've never built any kind of system like this in the real world. I'm very interested in the topic.

It sounds like this allows you to spend more time on your business and less time in your business. I'll keep following along to see what other goodies I can learn.
 

Phikey

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It sounds like this allows you to spend more time on your business and less time in your business. I'll keep following along to see what other goodies I can learn.
Yep that's right. If I had the time I'd be able to go all in and spend 8 hours per day on the Youtube channel but it's better I spread my attention out to where it will be most effective. That's where systems and hiring good people comes in and makes all the difference.

New milestone, 300 subscribers!
Videos: 57
Subscribers: 302
Email list: 182
Free course signups: 162

Recent videos published:



 

Phikey

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Huge update, first client from Youtube just paid!

34325

$1500 USD retainer per month with a 3 month initial contract. This client is a huge ecom brand that has been around for 25 years. $60 million a year in revenue (across retail/wholesaling & Amazon) but they had never got their store on Google Shopping/Google Ads. They were using their searches on Youtube to find an expert that knew their stuff (and so they found me). The sales call wasn’t even a sales call. It felt like they had already decided to work with me and we were just talking through the details of what it would look like.

Very exciting that this thing has finally born fruit! Maybe a lot of people would be impatient by now. It’s day 61 and I was grinding for 3-4 weeks before my first video so it’s taken almost 3 months to get a client from this. 3 months is a long time to the first sale if you’re starting this from scratch, and you don’t have an existing business to fund it. The thing is, all the videos and assets I’ve created so far are done and now out there. They’re continuing to generate views and my average views per day across my channel is increasing every week (now at 300 views per day).

Other cool things that have happened:
  • Our pipedrive funnel has 12 leads in it, usually we have 3-4 at any one time.
  • We’re getting a new lead ever 2nd day now. Not all are qualified, a lot are beginners that need to be at a bigger point before they can work with us.
  • Had a call with another subscriber that wants to start with us but needs to make some adjustments to his site first. He said that no one else is teaching what I’m teaching on Youtube and it really grabbed his attention.
  • Had a call with another subscriber that is trying the alibaba express general store dropshipping route (I DO NOT recommend this at all) and I think I helped convince him to build a business that adds more value rather than just retail arbitrage (by building a brand with a great buying experience). On the call it was like he had never heard someone talk about Ecom like this before.. I feel like a lot of what I’m teaching is disruptive in this space (because it’s different from all the gurus) but I’m just teaching entrepreneurial principles that have worked for thousands of years. Find a group of people with a problem and then find a way to solve their problem. Super simple.
  • I’ve included all my content in my sales funnel. So when someone books a call on calendly (even if they come through a referral or upwork) then they receive reminders for the call as well as links to my youtube channel and free course. This has been HUGE - I’ve already had a call from upwork where that email had converted him into a MEGA FAN. Usually upwork calls are tough because I’m just another media buyer to them and so I need to REALLY prove myself. In this case, he’d gone through my free course and already gotten measurable results for his store. It was one of the first calls I’d ever had from Upwork where the prospect was sold on me and just wanted to work out the details. He still needs to make a few more changes to his store (converting it to shopify from clickfunnels) and we’ll start working with him in 2 weeks. One of his comments on the call “You should really charge for this course Sam”. So it achieved my goal of trying to provide insane value to the point where they wonder how great my paid services are.
  • What value did he get out of the free course? As part of my course I teach students to go and find their target audience around the web (forums, facebook groups, etc) and find out about their needs, pain points and language they use. He did just this and learned way more about who he was trying to sell to. He found out that he was using the wrong language to describe the product and their problems. He also found that his customers were actually more likely to buy the product for their children rather than for themselves. You can imagine how much this would change all the ad copy, website copy, etc.
  • My Facebook ads funnel is still going and getting 5-10 new signups to my course each day. I think this has helped my channel grow as well. I’m getting cold traffic to go through my free course. Within the free course I embed a lot of my youtube videos and also have a few CTAs (Call to action) to go checkout my youtube channel and subscribe. I see this is a safe way to generate paid traffic to my channel without tanking the engagement rates which can happen if you just drive traffic straight to youtube.
All good things and it feels like so much is happening all at once. After grinding my butt off (as you can see in this thread) it’s now getting more and more results each day (exponential growth).

Update on the stats for the channel:

Day: 61
Videos: 61
Subs: 339
Email list: 201

I made a 60 day update video here:

And some other videos I’ve launched since my last update:




Thanks so much for all the support here guys! I wouldn’t have been able to do it without all the great feedback in the initial pages. I’m half way through my 120 day challenge. I can’t imagine what results I’ll have by 120 days and beyond. If anyone else is considering starting a Youtube channel - I 100% recommend it, as long as you can be consistent and not give up within the first few months (very hard).

It’s a long-term game. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Honestly, I am doing a sprint to 120 videos but I’m making sure I’m consistent throughout this sprint and then I’ll switch to 2-3 videos per week after that. With my filming/editing system I’ve created, I can just spend 1 day per month scripting and filming and then I’ll have all the content done for the whole month. When I get to that point I’ll likely do 1-2 weeks of recording and get all the videos done for a 6 month period and then hand it over to my content manager to handle so I can focus on the other parts of the business.
 
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JohnD Realestate

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Unbelievable. This really is Gold. Thanks learning already.

BIG MILESTONE - just got my first client from Youtube!! $1500 per month PPC client. He gave the verbal agreement and we're starting in 3 weeks.

He found me from Youtube Search and had consumed ALL my videos. The sales call didn't feel anything like a normal sales call for me. He was sold before the call, we just talked through the strategy. This is the power of content marketing. Trust and authority was built way before I even spoke to him.

He gave me some great feedback on the channel:
  • He said that I was very different from all the other youtubers in my niche.
  • He said that he could clearly tell that I knew my stuff and that I had REAL experience because I was showing real accounts and had a depth of knowledge that you can't get from just repeating what you read on a blog (he said some competitors do this).
  • He said that my marketing audits were the most helpful videos on my channel. The videos where I go deep into marketing accounts and talk through my recommendations.
  • His feedback was to do more videos about how to THINK like an expert ecom marketer. How to get the mindset so he could solve all the problems specific to his store, himself.
Current stats:
Subscribers: 212
Videos: 43 (been posting every day but just not in this thread)

I'm only at 212 subscribers and I'm getting a new contact form submission on my site every 2-3 days. Often it's requesting help on little problems and they're new stores (so not a qualified lead). I'll help them via email (not spending too much time doing this) but I'm waiting for the more qualified guys like the guy that's now a new client.
I can imagine that when I'm at 1k subs, or 10k+ it's going to be an incredible source of leads and traffic for my brand. I haven't thought about this too much as I've just been focused on getting good content out there.
 

Phikey

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Unbelievable. This really is Gold. Thanks learning already.
Thanks for the feedback @JohnD Realestate ! Glad people out there are learning from my journey.

This is Gold. Good luck. I can see you at 2k+ subs by 120 videos.
Thanks @Pero123 . I hope so! I can't even imagine the return I'd be getting at 2k subs.

If you guys have any questions on what I'm doing, let me know! I'm happy to help.

If this journey has taught me anything it's that content is still KING and even it takes work to get going, it can form the foundation of a very successful business.
I had another sales call today (we're going to do an audit for her store) and though she didn't come from Youtube initially, she still went through my Youtube videos after booking the call. This meant that on the call she already knew me, my expertise, and I was set apart from the other people she was interviewing for the project. Made it so much easier to close on the audit.

In other news, this whole content project has made me insanely busy. Even though just one client has come purely from Youtube, we've been closing other clients with our Youtube content as part of our sales process. I've now brought on someone to manage the operations of the agency (project manager) while I focus on top-level strategy and sales. Very soon I'll find my first salesperson to take on the sales side (we already have a sales development rep that sends all my followup emails and manages our CRM). I'll then no longer be tied directly into the business. I'll still be overseeing the team and processes but it is a big step back in removing myself from the day-to-day operations. Looking forward to that! My real skills are in strategy and vision - seeing where we need to go as a team and leading us to get there.

Recently just made some more videos on reviews because they are really important for Ecom and it's one of the biggest things people don't have when I audit their stores.





I haven't filmed or scripted any videos for about a month now (except the 60 day update). I was way ahead of schedule and so everything was all automated but now it's time to get back to scripting and filming. I'm going to script 10 more videos this week and get them filmed next week. I've got a lot of great feedback from my subscribers with content ideas and so I'm going to give the people what they are asking for!
 
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Thanks for sharing @Phikey, learning from it. Great initiative, superb execution and solid work ethic.

Looks like you're targeting both >$10k/month profit businesses and aspiring/entry level ecommerce entrepreneurs. I'm in the latter category and I'm happy to share my insights and experience with your offering/experiment.

I really like the clear message and branding. Some keywords that spring to mind: personal, humble, positive, congruent, putting client's needs first, driven, knowledgeable, experienced, systematic, strategic, results focused. You build trust with your content and attitude.

I'm following your free course and I like how it places several of your videos in the systematic order of steps to follow. This helped with making your Youtube content more streamlined for me.

As someone who's new to ecommerce (and Fastlane in general), I found it difficult to follow your Youtube channel at first. Each video is a little snippet with details from a bigger picture which I wasn't familiar with. Where do I start? What do I need? Is this enough? Is this too far ahead of where I am now? Do I need to worry about it now? This may be overwhelming and create a feeling that something is missing.

I know you have playlists. But it was only the course that matched my end to end mind map of how to eat that elephant. I'm executing on it now and I'll report back in my progress thread. Good stuff.

You have plenty of other videos not embedded/streamlined in the free course, so I can picture them creating a similar flow perception issue. I assume you'll get there as you're executing a bigger plan, so that's fine. The detailed videos are great regardless as they answer many low level questions in digestible chunks. They build trust with your potential clients already running stores and experiencing issues you discuss.

The course itself is a great read and the story flows well, especially if you need to get your mindset right. I've spent enough time around various businesses to relate to the "need first" perspective, but it was a good reminder of how to approach the Why of your business. You don't stop there though and give actionable advice that can be implemented on the spot.

I've been using your course as a guiding material and referred to it several times to sanity check my progress to avoid action faking. When used like that, the story flow is a bit in the way of the actionable steps, so I created my own summary checklist. Perhaps it would be helpful to have such a checklist at the bottom of each lesson (or the whole course)?

As a side note, the checklist reminded me of @Andy Black's comment on teaching maths. Andy noticed some of his student's minds going blank after writing a formula/equation. They didn't know how to solve it/what the answer was, so they just starred at the page. Andy suggested writing the equals sign at the end... and this was often enough to prompt the brain to keep figuring it out further. I suppose this simple "keep going with what is to be done next even if you don't know the final answer" step removes the overwhelming feeling of burden of performance and getting stuck in your head. Works for me.

So I used this advice here too, and started working on little bits and pieces that I knew had to be done, even if trivial. Thanks to the checklist inspired by your course. The checklist keeps evolving but it's a very important tool keeping me on track.

I'm waiting for your video on pricing and reviewing various expenses related to running a business. As a newbie, I still need to figure out the viability of my idea. I'm probably unaware of various costs and margins that can make my idea sink or swim.

Keep going Sam. You have a new follower and you've built enough trust so that I know where to go when I reach the $10k per month profit mark.

P.S.
@Andy Black, many thanks for recommending this thread and bringing it to my attention.
 
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Gepi

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Wow! Amazing! I just created my first Skillshare course, so I know how much effort goes into what you are doing! Such a great idea with the challenge.
Thanks for the updates and sharing...wishing you best of luck and may the force/algorithm be with you :)
 

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I'm following your free course and I like how it places several of your videos in the systematic order of steps to follow. This helped with making your Youtube content more streamlined for me.

As someone who's new to ecommerce (and Fastlane in general), I found it difficult to follow your Youtube channel at first. Each video is a little snippet with details from a bigger picture which I wasn't familiar with. Where do I start? What do I need? Is this enough? Is this too far ahead of where I am now? Do I need to worry about it now? This may be overwhelming and create a feeling that something is missing.

I know you have playlists. But it was only the course that matched my end to end mind map of how to eat that elephant. I'm executing on it now and I'll report back in my progress thread. Good stuff.

You have plenty of other videos not embedded/streamlined in the free course, so I can picture them creating a similar flow perception issue. I assume you'll get there as you're executing a bigger plan, so that's fine. The detailed videos are great regardless as they answer many low level questions in digestible chunks. They build trust with your potential clients already running stores and experiencing issues you discuss.
I think this is what I did for folks in the forum regarding Google Ads. I dropped so much content that people started getting lost or overwhelmed. They then asked for a course to help them go through things faster, and in order. I think it's the best way to create a course - pump out so much free content that people could use that to get results, and some people would pay to have a condensed or curated version.
 
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Phikey

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Thanks for sharing @Phikey, learning from it. Great initiative, superb execution and solid work ethic.

Looks like you're targeting both >$10k/month profit businesses and aspiring/entry level ecommerce entrepreneurs. I'm in the latter category and I'm happy to share my insights and experience with your offering/experiment.

I really like the clear message and branding. Some keywords that spring to mind: personal, humble, positive, congruent, putting client's needs first, driven, knowledgeable, experienced, systematic, strategic, results focused. You build trust with your content and attitude.

I'm following your free course and I like how it places several of your videos in the systematic order of steps to follow. This helped with making your Youtube content more streamlined for me.

As someone who's new to ecommerce (and Fastlane in general), I found it difficult to follow your Youtube channel at first. Each video is a little snippet with details from a bigger picture which I wasn't familiar with. Where do I start? What do I need? Is this enough? Is this too far ahead of where I am now? Do I need to worry about it now? This may be overwhelming and create a feeling that something is missing.

I know you have playlists. But it was only the course that matched my end to end mind map of how to eat that elephant. I'm executing on it now and I'll report back in my progress thread. Good stuff.

You have plenty of other videos not embedded/streamlined in the free course, so I can picture them creating a similar flow perception issue. I assume you'll get there as you're executing a bigger plan, so that's fine. The detailed videos are great regardless as they answer many low level questions in digestible chunks. They build trust with your potential clients already running stores and experiencing issues you discuss.

The course itself is a great read and the story flows well, especially if you need to get your mindset right. I've spent enough time around various businesses to relate to the "need first" perspective, but it was a good reminder of how to approach the Why of your business. You don't stop there though and give actionable advice that can be implemented on the spot.

I've been using your course as a guiding material and referred to it several times to sanity check my progress to avoid action faking. When used like that, the story flow is a bit in the way of the actionable steps, so I created my own summary checklist. Perhaps it would be helpful to have such a checklist at the bottom of each lesson (or the whole course)?

As a side note, the checklist reminded me of @Andy Black's comment on teaching maths. Andy noticed some of his student's minds going blank after writing a formula/equation. They didn't know how to solve it/what the answer was, so they just starred at the page. Andy suggested writing the equals sign at the end... and this was often enough to prompt the brain to keep figuring it out further. I suppose this simple "keep going with what is to be done next even if you don't know the final answer" step removes the overwhelming feeling of burden of performance and getting stuck in your head. Works for me.

So I used this advice here too, and started working on little bits and pieces that I knew had to be done, even if trivial. Thanks to the checklist inspired by your course. The checklist keeps evolving but it's a very important tool keeping me on track.

I'm waiting for your video on pricing and reviewing various expenses related to running a business. As a newbie, I still need to figure out the viability of my idea. I'm probably unaware of various costs and margins that can make my idea sink or swim.

Keep going Sam. You have a new follower and you've built enough trust so that I know where to go when I reach the $10k per month profit mark.

P.S.
@Andy Black, many thanks for recommending this thread and bringing it to my attention.
Wow, thanks for the detailed feedback @Flint . I'm really glad my videos and my course have been useful for your journey.

Yes, I've had similar feedback as well - that a lot of my videos are all smaller parts of a bigger picture. I'll later be creating videos that help draw everything together. I like this approach because in the overview videos I can reference all these detailed videos I've created. This means that people can watch the video, and get a list of all the videos they need to go watch specific to their own problems.

I think what would REALLY help my viewers is for me to create a beginners playlist that has a few videos explaining everything from zero. It gives an overview so people can orient themselves before diving deep into all the technical stuff.

Wow! Amazing! I just created my first Skillshare course, so I know how much effort goes into what you are doing! Such a great idea with the challenge.
Thanks for the updates and sharing...wishing you best of luck and may the force/algorithm be with you :)
Thanks @Gepi !! Glad it was helpful!

I think this is what I did for folks in the forum regarding Google Ads. I dropped so much content that people started getting lost or overwhelmed. They then asked for a course to help them go through things faster, and in order. I think it's the best way to create a course - pump out so much free content that people could use that to get results, and some people would pay to have a condensed or curated version.
Yes, 100% @Andy Black. The course helps provide a clear pathway from A to B so that people can go through and make sure they don't miss any steps along the way. Did you have a process for creating your course? How did you know what to include? How did you know how to present it?

@Andy Black , any chance you could use some of your mod magic to remove the section on my first post in this thread where I was updating the number of subs and videos? It's frozen at 30 days because I couldn't edit that post any more after 1 month. I'm wondering if it's going to confuse some people now that I'm well ahead of those stats.

Status update:
Subs: 387 (this jumped by 15-20 overnight!!)
Day: 66
Videos: 66

Oh wow, it's growing quicker now. I was on 300 subs just last week..

My new video for today:
 

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I got on dozens of free calls with people to help them with their campaigns. That’s how I figured out they needed someone thing short and sharp to get them started.

Opening thread changed as requested.
 

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I'm waiting for your video on pricing and reviewing various expenses related to running a business.
I'd love to hear your side on this as well!


My unsolicited advice on how to do pricing (gleaned from a book in my signature, not mine, I just really like it) plus my experience in retail is to price like this:

In our example, lets sell a squawking chicken toy that scares people and makes hilarious noises..
Find the highest point that any person would buy it for (for example, this might be a person that's drunk, and thinks it would be really hilarious to prank his buddy) let's say this person would be willing to pay $50 for it, if he's very drunk and loaded with cash... but you'll only find one or two people like him.

Most people would pay a max of $19 for this, if they really badly wanted it... ? ? do your research...

Your cost for this product if you're making many of them (skid lots) could be at $1.50 each

Your sweet spot is half way in-between the two prices (half way between $1.50 and $19 is $10.25)

Some folks would then use pricing formulas to hit an even better number... for example: $10.90 seems cheaper than $10.25 because "it's just below $11"... but if you sold them side by side you would probably sell more at $10.25. All kinds of science there, I think someone has a thread on pricing formulas?

This is the theoretical "sweet-spot" is where you make a lot of money, and you sell to a lot of people.

Edit: links to pricing on the FLF :)
I really liked this one: Pricing Strategies
Also this: PUBLISHING - Vigilante's Book "Vigilant Kids" Step by Step
also worth mentioning: NOTABLE! - The Basics of Pricing
 
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Flint

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Interesting. My question was mainly about individual costs arising from running an ecommerce business and pricing was just an afterthought. Let's look into this.

This is the theoretical "sweet-spot" is where you make a lot of money, and you sell to a lot of people.

That's not how it works and not how I'd approach it. Starting with a product puts the cart before the horse and leads to the race to the bottom. Nobody wins.

I look at price as something that a buyer is willing and able to pay in exchange for the benefit of using/owning a product. Start with the benefit. Solve a problem, satisfy a need or a want. Only then think of a product that helps you get there (and adds further considerations to price, such as your COGS, marketing strategy etc.). This way you bring value that a buyer is willing to pay for and can approach pricing at the core of this simple value equation:

Value = Perceived Benefits Received / Perceived Price Paid

For sustainability and other obvious reasons, the above ratio should be >1. Maximise the benefit (alleviate pains, maximise gains) and you'll have more room for price. And then you can look for your own benefit (simplified to Price - Cost = Profit). Wouldn't it be great to ask for a high price which is still just a fraction of what the benefit is worth to your client?

As a side note, price is a dynamic element. It will be different at various stages of your product life cycle. In your example, which is a typical dropshipping scenario, you have to start relatively low... and drive it lower pretty fast to escape competition... until you retire your product. But it doesn't have to be that way. Forget about finding the right product and start looking for opportunities where you can maximise someone's benefit. And then you'll discover there's a range of pricing tactics appropriate for your marketing mix strategy.

Good luck!
 

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Interesting. My question was mainly about individual costs arising from running an ecommerce business and pricing was just an afterthought. Let's look into this.



That's not how it works and not how I'd approach it. Starting with a product puts the cart before the horse and leads to the race to the bottom. Nobody wins.

I look at price as something that a buyer is willing and able to pay in exchange for the benefit of using/owning a product. Start with the benefit. Solve a problem, satisfy a need or a want. Only then think of a product that helps you get there (and adds further considerations to price, such as your COGS, marketing strategy etc.). This way you bring value that a buyer is willing to pay for and can approach pricing at the core of this simple value equation:

Value = Perceived Benefits Received / Perceived Price Paid

For sustainability and other obvious reasons, the above ratio should be >1. Maximise the benefit (alleviate pains, maximise gains) and you'll have more room for price. And then you can look for your own benefit (simplified to Price - Cost = Profit). Wouldn't it be great to ask for a high price which is still just a fraction of what the benefit is worth to your client?

As a side note, price is a dynamic element. It will be different at various stages of your product life cycle. In your example, which is a typical dropshipping scenario, you have to start relatively low... and drive it lower pretty fast to escape competition... until you retire your product. But it doesn't have to be that way. Forget about finding the right product and start looking for opportunities where you can maximise someone's benefit. And then you'll discover there's a range of pricing tactics appropriate for your marketing mix strategy.

Good luck!
Yeah, totally skipped over the finding a pain point and went straight to volume pricing strategies :)

My writing style could also use quite a bit of polishing, I just bash out points and expect people to read my mind... oh well, If I ever decide that writing a book would be better then I'll work on that.

I would love to see you do a video or more details on all the fine points of pricing from your point of view, you have a nice writing style that could be very interesting to read, and I always love new strategies for my "pile of tricks" :)
 

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