From Drop-shipping Wantrepreneur to Fastlane

[Xolorr]

Hey Fastlane fam.

Here's my progress thread/brain dump diary for my future business & life. I'm writing this to help clarify what I actually want to do and how I'm going to achieve it, as well as to gain insight and advice from everyone on the forum! Any criticism is wanted please, I believe it's the best way to grow.

Anyways, onto the important stuff.

Past: I wrote my intro thread as a reference for this. Basically, I come from an entrepreneurial family, with a very solid background. I could just chill, join the family business, and be able to live a very very comfortable life if I wanted. F*** that. I hate the thought of living life as a result of my families hard work and just reaping the benefits. I'm here to build something myself and get the most out of life.

Current: I'm at a weird point currently. At the moment, I'm a photographer/videographer, or "content creator". I'm self-studying a marketing degree as a way to get a college education without actually going to college, (the truth is I have probably failed these exams, as I really did zero studying for them) and learning as much as I possibly can on the side. Copywriting, WordPress, basic coding, marketing, social, etc. Through my photography, I've arranged an "internship" of sorts, which lets me travel the world for free with two social media rockstars. They will cover all my costs, and in return, I take photos and make videos of them traveling. This is my dream. Not from the narcissistic, displaying life better than it is side, but more from the experiences it will bring and the places it will take me.

Business: This is my true passion. I've been studying business and successful entrepreneurs since 10th grade. I even got kicked out of my Geography class in 10th grade for reading TMF under the desk. My biggest success business-wise is my current venture. Kind of.

At the end of my school career, I got on the Shopify dropshipping train, with the unscripted mindset of skewing value as much as possible. My store was a hit, and I made $5000 in two months, netting about $2000. The problem? It wasn't a productocracy, and it defied nearly all of the CENTS commandments, and I felt it.

I made money, but I had zero return customers, sales were driven strictly by shoutouts / FB ads, I was getting complaints of slow shipping times, and had to refund a bunch of orders because they just never arrived. I wasn't even able to create content for the product because I didn't have it (I ordered 10 but they never arrived). I slowly lost all motivation to keep it going. I loved building the business and the brand, but once it was established there was little I could do except buy more shoutouts and do shitty customer service, ensuring the customer that their products were on the way, when I had no clue where they were. I killed off the store and threw all of my money into a savings account to think about what was next.

One huge thing this did do, was it proved there was actually demand for my product, as well as funding the venture.

Last month I went on the search for a supplier, and ended up finding one through Alibaba, and made the plunge with $1000 to get 300 units of the product, in custom branded, luxury packaging. Looking back on it, I should've done a smaller order, and got the boxes done through a different supplier, with a smaller MOQ, and less risk. They probably would've come out even better then. From what I've seen through the photos, the packaging looks good, but didn't hit that luxury appearance I was going for. Lesson learned.

My situation.

I leave to travel and take photos on the 18th of June, and won't be back until August, if not later depending on whether I carry on with the social media guys. My product just arrived in the country, and is with customs waiting for clearance.

With South Africa you never know how long that could be. Luckily I did it through a courier so it should be quicker.

However, when I'm traveling I won't be able to fulfill orders... The will be HUGE for my marketing, as I'll be meeting huge influencers in my niche, and intend on taking a bunch of products with me and giving them out in return for post/content as I go.

At the moment I'm trying to find a fulfillment service that can handle my orders and warehousing while I'm gone, as it's the only way I'll be able to make sales while I'm traveling.

If that doesn't work I'll have to sit on 300 units of stock until I get back.
Not ideal.

To do:

Rebuild eCommerce site:

Previously I used Shopify, but I recently built my personal site/blog with Divi and Wordpress, and am looking at using Woocommerce for the business site. This is because I intend on having a large blog, free digital downloads, and other features which are just easier and more customizable with WordPress. Really struggling with Copy. Things like the "Our story", etc is challenging. I'll do a course on copy through udemy or skillshare I think.

Grow the social:

The Instagram page has been sitting dead for a month or two. It's currently sitting on about 1300 followers. I deleted all of the old posts, and refreshed the bio, telling people what's happening. (coming soon, etc) I intend on growing it through influencers and an Instagram bot to follow/like. No spammy comments. Maybe even just based on liking. The influencers will be huge I think. Not looking for shoutouts, but rather sending them the product to use and take photos of. Also looking into YouTubers and bloggers, but I think that will come later.

Fulfillment:

This is the biggest issue. There are very few fulfillment services in RSA, and some of them have stopped accepting new clients. Hmmm. Opportunity? Anyways. I'm worried that I won't have the credibility to get in on one of these services. Although I have 200+ sales through dropshipping, none of them were local, and I have no presence here. I'm worried about minimum sales requirements for these services. Anyways, I've emailed a bunch with no responses. Going to start calling ALL of the services I can find tomorrow. Thinking about it, if worst comes to worst, I could "employ" friends or family to drop off products with the couriers while I'm away, but this is less than ideal.

 

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[Xolorr]

Remember when MJ said that the market mind will speak and you should listen? The craziest thing just happened.

When I was back in the drop shipping days, I sent one of my products to an influencer in the space in return for promos/review. He is a VERY unbiased and blunt influencer, which I loved, and he even loved the generic product from Aliexpress. (He did call me out on the shipping time & packaging in his IG stories though) Well, I was sitting on my computer now, and I got a notification for being tagged in one of his stories (on the business account). Turns out, another company sent him a very similar product to mine for review. He did a whole review AND comparison to my product on his story tonight, pointing out everything which could have been improved on both products!

He basically just told me how I can add more value to my product.

Now as far as the review went, mine came out better in all categories except one, and he identified a major pain-point he found while using mine. The best part? I can do a quick fix for this by simply adding a simple stainless steel key-ring to each product. This isn't the fix the other product had (they went into a large licensing deal with another company who has patented a quick-release system), but it's still better than nothing, and it's a huge thing to keep in mind for the next batch.
In other news, I'm really struggling with filling my personal site with content. The "about me" page is so damn hard to write, but writing is a skill which I want to really expand on, so I'm pushing myself to get through it and consistently post blog posts around my videos, which also give HUGE free value. I should be able to then funnel this into my business if need be, but none the less, it's good for getting more freelance work.
Then I'm going to finish up the landing page and put it up on my hosting account. Currently, I'm using a Hostgator plan to host my personal site, my dad's site, and I'll add the business site to that. I need to investigate whether this will cause issues/security risks, and maybe move it to a plan of its own, but it will be fine just for an email capture page.
Doing a brief run through a Skillshare class on blogging, and another one on copywriting. Also going to go have another look at Sinister Lex's threads now (couldnt figure out how to @ him, so i just linked instead), as well as @IceCreamKid. (I just love his outlook on life and the world so much!)

Edit: Changed the title after watching a lesson on headlines in copy, keen to see if it gets me more clicks. Was cautious as I don't want to come across as action-faking, wantrepreneur, and I felt the last title seemed a bit "guruish".
Old title: Possible to build a business while traveling?

 

[Xolorr]

So I called some fulfilment services today, the one wouldn't accept me because I had no customers in the country yet, but one did, which I'm super stoked on.

Disclaimer: All dollar values are rough conversions from my currency.

They charge a fixed monthly fee of ~$20 per cubic meter of product at the end of the month. Ie: you send them 3 cubes and you sell 2, you only get charged for 1 cube storage.

They then charge a variable cost for pick, pack, and courier.

Pick & Pack is <$1
Courier is ~$3/4, depending on where the order is from.
All in all, a variable cost of ~$5 per sale.

Tonight I'm going to add this to my costing and do a break-even analysis on it to see how the numbers come out. These were rough figures from our phone call, and the guy said he can give me exacts as soon as I have the product to show him.

I'll also need to ship the product to the warehouse, which will have additional costs incurred. In the future, I could get my supplier to ship directly to the warehouse and save costs.

My landed cost of the product is $5 per unit, and I aim to retail at $25 to start with. (Worried about this slightly. There are no alternatives to my product lower than $45 on the local market, but mine is significantly easier to make. It also has no exact variants of it in the country that I could find.) Amazon prices for my exact product are ~$10, but I'm not too stressed about that as that doesn't include shipping, and it is unbranded/generic. Amazon is also not a competitor as they won't ship to South Africa.

I'm sick at the moment which sucks. I spent most of the day sorting out some computer problems I was having, and then setting up an Instagram bot for both my personal brand & my company account.
It seems to be working fine, now I just need to optimize. I only plan on using likes & follows as generic comments are way too obvious, and decrease brand value. Further along the line I won't even use follows, only likes based on hashtags and competitors followings. I also finished editing a video for my personal brand, which is also vital to my spot on the trip. Now I have to edit a client video, which will take a while but I will get $300 more from it, so it's worth while.

To do:

Create a very brief landing page with an email opt in, & start promoting via Instagram. Once I have the product (hopefully early next week), I will take photos myself and start posting, and then move onto shipping out to influencers. I think I will build hype first while I build the Ecom site and get everything going there. I also have a lot of paperwork to do with the fulfilment agency, so it makes sense to build some credibility/social presence while I get the logistics in place.

 

[Xolorr]

Did you already made sales (with another product) thanks to Instagram or Youtube?

Yeah, I made 200+ sales while I was dropshipping the exactly the same product. Now I have just custom branded and imported the product [emoji1417]

 

[Xolorr]

Holy shit.

So much has happened in the last few weeks, it’s insane.

I traveled through Italy with the two social media influencers, and had the most insane experiences of my life. From cliff jumping and scuba diving in Sardinia, to downhill mountain biking in the Alps. All of it was ‘free’, in return for my help with photo and video creation. I learnt more in that week about marketing than an entire semester studying a marketing degree. I was working behind the scenes generating content for some big brands, and got taught SO much in the process.

My biggest take away was definitely the value of being resourceful. This dude does this for a living (and gets paid well for it), and he knows a lot less about video and photo than I do. I WAS TEACHING HIM things about content creation. He has very minimal camera gear, which every film/photography student would laugh at the thought of shooting a commercial on, yet he’s pulling in 4 figure deals per trip. He really taught me to just go out and DO IT. It doesn’t matter what you have or what you don’t have. It seriously pulled me out of my perpetual learning phase, as I have all this knowledge about how it should be done, but I don’t actually put it into practice!

I then flew to Ireland to meet up with my family while they were in Europe. I was extremely lucky to have this time to chill and think, and also work.


Here’s a funny story about control.

As you may have guessed, I was by no means the main attraction for any of the brand projects I was working on, yet I was putting in 90% of the production work. (This will lead onto my next post about getting a mentor)

After Italy, they were going to have a couple weeks of down time at their home, and then move onto Spain, and then the Bahamas. I was told that they would love to have me in the Bahamas, but they didn’t have the budget for it. They were going to try their best to raise budget, but basically, if I wanted to come, I would have to raise budget and organize brand deals for them.

I really didn’t have a problem with this, as it gave me another chance to add insane value to their efforts and business. So I spent the next two weeks typing meticulous marketing proposals to a bunch of companies which they sent me email addresses for.
This all after traveling with my family. I stayed up late almost every night, and sat locked outside the hotel restaurant for 4 hours at night (in Scotland.) just to use the WiFi and try and raise the money.

After sending out all the emails, and going back and fourth negotiating with a few brands, I got a phone call from him telling me that the trip is most likely going to be cancelled, because he and his girlfriend had a fight, and may not be working together anymore.

Yupp. 10+ hours of work, disappeared into thin air in seconds. This may not sound like a lot, but when you’re thousands of miles away from home, with a shoestring budget, and suddenly all of your plans for the next month disappear, it’s quite scary.


Now, a lot of people would get extremely mad, shout and scream, give up, etc.

I didn’t. I support him 100%, and took it as a lesson. We’re still in contact, and I should hopefully be doing more trips with him in the future, as well as a business idea we came up with.

But I did learn that you can NEVER rely 100% on someone. And I learnt the hard way.

 

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[Xolorr]

Things are starting to get REAL!

I just received all of my product, and I am beyond stoked!! It's a lot.
(wtf was I thinking when I ordered 300.)
Anyways, I'm confident I'll be able to move at least 50 of these. (my BE point)
My 10X goal is to sell 3000 this year, and my monthly goal is to make my first sale, weekly, to get the site setup and functioning.

Numerical goals so they can be tracked.

But as my dad's favourite saying goes, bite off more than you can chew, and then chew like hell!

The product came out really good, and the packaging is INSANE! It's a gloss black logo on a matte black box, and I think I nailed it for the first run. For the next set, I want to change the material to a smoother one and add a label with some copy and pictures on the bottom, but that will come in the future.

Now it's time to sell.

Cool. Plan of action:

• First I need to set up the online store, which I'll start now. I already own the domain from my dropshipping, and I'll just link it to my hosting, and try using one of Divi's premade layouts to speed up the design process. I can always change the design later, now I just need to get the site up because that should've been done ages ago! Filling it with content and getting the backend working will be the biggest part, I'm fairly comfortable with design.
• Next I need to go out and take some killer product photos. I already have a couple existing photos, but I'll go and shoot more. This should be fairly easy as I take a lot of photos and am pretty good at it. These will all be interesting and focus on the details of the product.
• Post on Instagram and start growing. I pushed the bot aside as it's taking a while for me to set it up on my server, but that will come later. I think it's better to get the account established organically anyways and then transition into bot so that the Instagram algorithms don't pick it up as spam.
• Reach out to a bunch of influencers and send them products for review, as well as interview questions. I may be able to drive to another city later this week and meet with an influencer I personally know for the first try. This would let me interview in person, and try solidify the brand with him, as well as take photos myself of him using the product. I'm going to push hard for this!
• Once I'm somewhat established I'm going to dive into digital marketing. I found a Udemy course that covers just about everything, so I'll plough through that, then give Fb ads and AdWords a bash!

I promised my freelance client that I'd have his video ready by the end of the week, which sucks because I want to solely focus on this, but that extra $300 will be great for comping the costs of shipping products to influencers.

 

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[Xolorr]

Okay, so time for some business progress.

I Made My first sale.

Someone found my site (It's live, but I didn't mean to make any sales) through Google, and bought a product for $35 incl Shipping.

Now, I was not ready for this. I'm currently in London, and all my products are at home, plus I had NO international logistics organized. My instagram is currently inactive with 3 posts on it. I don't know how the dude found my store, BUT it is a huge confidence boost and reassurer that I'm onto a good product. It has been lingering on my mind that my product was not good enough, it'll never sell, etc, but this put all of that to sleep.

I've got a flight booked to Greece on Tuesday, and have accommodation there for a week. I'm currently working on some vlogs which I would like to put out as a way to increase my social brand, and I'm grinding hard on my online presence and my content.

I'm in two minds about carrying on travelling. It would make sense for my YouTube and facebook videos, as it is SO easy to make good content while you're traveling, but I'm also itching to get back home so that I can focus on my business + health, and get back into some form of routine.

 

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[Xolorr]

Egypt was crazy. The job was for a 5 star resort, and everything was covered, and I had some of the best experiences of my life.

I'm now in Bali, and I have been for around a week. It's crazy here, because there is a huge community of "digital nomads" which I'm meeting and getting to talk to. Everyone is much older than me, which is really cool because
A) they're all amazed I've managed to get to where I am at 19 (even though I don't feel like accomplished anything near what I want to get done)
B) They've all turned into little teachers, and just through conversations, I'm having with everyone. With every successful business owner I meet here, I learn something new. And with my experience with random moments like this, potentially life-changing.

A good example of this is that I was out learning to surf the other day, and a completely random guy asks me: "Hey, where in South Africa are you from?" (he picked it up from the accent)

Long story short, it turns out he owns 30 (major popular) restaurants and a hotel in my city. This dude is doing well. I got his number, both for when I'm back home and I'm in bali, and I've offered to buy him lunch while he's here to talk about business.

Want to know something else that's crazy about all of this?

I know more about business and marketing than a lot of the business owners I've met.

I'm not saying this as a boast, because if you're reading this, you probably know more than them aswell.
Why am I saying this? Because these guys didn't all spend years reading forums and books before they started. They just picked ONE thing and took action on that one thing until it was successful.

^^ This is the biggest lesson I've learnt from my travels so far, and I'm loving every second of this learning process.

 

[Xolorr]

Catch up / brain dump:
This year has definitely been the best and most life-changing. In the beginning of this year, I wrote down 3 goals that, at the time, seemed so far out of my reach it was ridiculous. For some of you reading, these goals might sound retarded and tiny, whereas to others they may, as to me in the beginning of this year, sound scary and "life changing".

They were:
- Make $1000 a month by the end of the year
- Get a visible 6 pack
- Go on a self-funded trip (travel)

That was in January. I worked on them practically every day, with a lot of action faking, but less and less as the year progressed.

I started training 3 times a week, cut out sugar, and ate more consciously.
I started taking photos and videos at least 3 times a week. This one is very much "do what you love", but it is my only source of income right now, and it is the easiest to hustle hard on because I'm passionate about it. This is definitely not the end goal for me.
I started networking as much as I could, mostly in the social media space, and did a lot of work for free just to get to meet gatekeepers in certain areas of my life.

By halfway through the year, it did not look like I would reach ANY of these goals.

In the month of November, I have made $1200. Please note, This is not sustainable yet, and this is a problem I've seen with this goal. It's purely chasing money, and while $1000 is a load of money for me, it has had a very little impact on my life. I need to build something with legacy which is more sustainable. I earnt it through freelance filmmaking, my online store (which is barely turning a profit due to neglect, more on that later), and an Instagram hustle, which is a one-off, but I managed to get paid and grow my following.

I also arrived back from a month and a half overseas, completely paid for by others who I was helping with photo and video. This was the most life-changing experience and solidified for me that I need to create a business which I can run from anywhere.

I am also the most confident I have ever been with my body, and am in the best shape of my life. My heath has been slightly derailed since I arrived back because of a weekend of partying with my friends, but I am course correcting, and I have also found a mentor in the fitness space who is going to help me.

The only regret I have this year is not making my goals bigger, and not taking more action.

Going into 2019, I'm going to be 10Xing my goals, and following the Grant Cardone 10x journal method (i don't own the journal, I just like the idea of writing down my goals twice daily) here they are:

• Be earning $10 000 P/M online, location independently.
• Have 50 YouTube videos on my channel (This is roughly 1 video a week for the year)
• Help my dad build his online marketing efforts and bring him to a 90% occupancy level, and sell two properties he has on the market. (He is involved in office rentals)
• Live a healthy lifestyle, working out at least 4 times a week, and training Maui Thai
• Pass my university exams for the year (I study online)

Looking at these makes me nervous, really nervous.

But, experience has taught me that when I look back on them, I will wish I aimed higher.

 

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[Xolorr]

Nailed today's work. I fell in love with Airtable, and I've set up a productivity system (inspired by @HackVenture) to manage my tasks and to dos, as well as adding my financials to it, and my profit projections & break even analysis. These aren't done as well as they could be, as they still require me to punch in some values and don't auto-calculate entirely based off raw values, but hey it's fine for now. Done is better than perfect.

As far as the productivity goes, it works like this:


I have "bases" for different topics. Here I have "Business", changed to brand name after the screenshot was taken, then "Fitness", to track my eating & working out, and finally "Golden Nuggets", which acts as a brain dump for all the little bits of greatness I find on the internet.



The software is spreadsheet-based, which makes it really easy to dump out a load of information at once. It also doesn't matter about order, because you can group anything by any of your field types.



It also then lets you change how you view all the info. I love using boards like Trello does. My tasks are split up like this, with an "Inbox" which I dump every task that comes into my head into. Then I pull into my "To Do" list. This is only the best and most beneficial for me from the inbox. The rest gets trashed. All based on the GSD system. I know it's early, but so far I love it.

I did a bit of research of the previously stated competitor, and his branding SUCKS. He has a website with some terrible copy ( a lot is spelt wrong and doesn't make sense) and bland images, which then links to his eBay store. Not sure why he does this. His Instagram is pretty weak as well. He only has photos of his product on white backgrounds, and just posts three of each to fill his feed. His bio is: (all caps, I won't do it here) "We are on vacation, back in early July. All orders after June 9th will have to wait till July. Please don't ask for free *product name*!"

As far as his product goes, the extra value comes from a licence from another (big) company for a quick release mechanism. A bit of research shows that the company sells just the quick release for $35 a pop. Now he might be getting a wholesale price, or he might be buying retail, I'm not sure, but his are selling at $50 - $100.

This has shone some light on my pricing situation. I was worried that I was too high at $30, but I think I might push it to $35 or $40... That would push my break even point from 60 to 46, and increase total profit to ~$10000 from $8000. (Maths may seem wrong to you because I'm doing mental conversions, all the maths is correct in my local currency.)

Anyways, NONE of this actually matters until I start making sales. On that note, tomorrow I'm going to dive deep into making my eCom store, and finish up my personal site and start thinking up some blog posts. Then I need to plan out which influencers I would like to target for my inital run. I'm thinking of doing something inspired by @IceCreamKid and interviewing each influencer I use for a blog post. I think that would be huge in driving traffic to the site, as they would link it everywhere because it makes them seem more credible.

This is kinda going on the notion of Gary Vee's Jab Jab Jab, Right hook, and I will pump out free value in the blog section of my site to be the top end of the funnel.

 

[CoolBeans]

It's awesome to see a fellow South African taking a shot at Ecommerce, I hope you succeed in your venture.

I just wanted to ask, how would you receive payments from your ecom store? Last time I checked it was a bit difficult to set up a PayPal account in South Africa.

 

[Xolorr]

It's awesome to see a fellow South African taking a shot at Ecommerce, I hope you succeed in your venture.

I just wanted to ask, how would you receive payments from your ecom store? Last time I checked it was a bit difficult to set up a PayPal account in South Africa.

No ways! So sick to see other South Africans on here! Aren't we a patriotic bunch??
I've never struggled with it. I used paypal for my dropshipping site and had no issues. You just have to bring the money back into the country through FNB within 30 days else it's considered money laundering.

I intend to use payfast or peachy payments for the store. I'm trying to find a way to make it not redirect customers, which I think Peachy may be able to do, but I'm not sure yet.

 

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[HackVenture]

Any reason why you decided not to go with Shopify? I'm thinking that would accelerate your process on setting up the site alot.

 

[Thomas Baptiste]

As I've seen with you, action is the best motivator. Keep doing even if you don't want to. Stay on track and keep disciplined. Even if it fails at first, don't stop man. You're on the road to success. You're taking it seriously and things are shaping up. The more effort you put the more progress you'll make. You're inspiring me really. I've been so damn lazy lately.

 

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[HackVenture]

Icic, I'm not familiar with the ZA payment issues but shopify supports both stripe and PayPal, with they not be appropriate?

Yes costs will be higher with shopify but imo if it allows you to keep up the momentum it's worth it especially since your products are ready.

Would hate to see the momentum watered down from taking woocommerce classes etc but if you're confident of pushing through then by all means stick to the plan, just my 2 cents

Sent from my SM-N950F using Tapatalk

 

[Xolorr]

As I've seen with you, action is the best motivator. Keep doing even if you don't want to. Stay on track and keep disciplined. Even if it fails at first, don't stop man. You're on the road to success. You're taking it seriously and things are shaping up. The more effort you put the more progress you'll make. You're inspiring me really. I've been so damn lazy lately.

Thanks Thomas,

Yeah I just couldn't focus last night and hit a low.

I think it was exhaustion, things are better now!

 

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[Xolorr]

Progress has slowed, a lot.

At the moment, I'm sitting at the airport about to board my first flight, and my store isn't live yet. I'm still waiting for verification from the payment gateway, and it'll only come through once the week starts I guess.

My site is finished, with the best copy I could do at the moment, I guess it'll evolve as I get better at it. Products are listed and all is good to go, just needing verification.

Still ploughing through the udemy course, and reading all the different threads on this site specific to ecom/branding.

This week was stalled a lot due to personal drama with an ex. Top tip: relationships can destroy your mindset and motivation. It's no excuse, but damn it's hard.

 

[AllanB]

Did you already made sales (with another product) thanks to Instagram or Youtube?

 

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[David247]

Rebuild eCommerce site:

Previously I used Shopify, but I recently built my personal site/blog with Divi and Wordpress, and am looking at using Woocommerce for the business site. This is because I intend on having a large blog, free digital downloads, and other features which are just easier and more customizable with WordPress. Really struggling with Copy. Things like the "Our story", etc is challenging. I'll do a course on copy through udemy or skillshare I think.

Grow the social:

The Instagram page has been sitting dead for a month or two. It's currently sitting on about 1300 followers. I deleted all of the old posts, and refreshed the bio, telling people what's happening. (coming soon, etc) I intend on growing it through influencers and an Instagram bot to follow/like. No spammy comments. Maybe even just based on liking. The influencers will be huge I think. Not looking for shoutouts, but rather sending them the product to use and take photos of. Also looking into YouTubers and bloggers, but I think that will come later.

Hey man. I'd love to help you out with your copy and help you with growing your Instagram page if possible (free of charge of course). Just want to give value so I can practice these skills that I have learned myself through a few mentors (via courses, books, etc.) and self-learning and practice. Let me know if you're interested and shoot me a PM. I'm also working on my own e-commerce venture and I too was in the Dropshipping game not too long ago. I'm moving away from that now because it was not sustainable (nor did it have the potential for a productocracy as MJ mentions in Unscripted ) and I felt like a fraud selling drop shipped products that I couldn't control or add real value to my customers.

For a few tips on writing copy: Writing copy requires some research into your target market and requires that you understand their emotions and pain points. Of anything I can recommend to you for a fast tip, it would be that. Your copy MUST transfer emotions over to the reader of that copy. Speak your market's lingo/language. Tell your authentic story. Stories sell. Transfer emotions into your copy and frame your about us section in a way that makes it beneficial to your reader. ("What's in it for me?"). Show them that there's a real person behind the brand, that you aren't just another big corporation or big brother out to take their cash and run with it. Again, this will all depend on your market, niche, product, etc. But, this is the foundation to writing good copy. Understand what the potential customer needs/desires/wants and hit them emotionally to get them to take action (i.e. CTA) from your copy (e.g. buy your product, sign up to your email list, follow you on IG, etc.).

 

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[Xolorr]

5 July 2018

I know it’s been ages since I updated this and a lot of you probably think I’ve given up, but I definitely haven’t.

Spent the last week traveling with my new mentor, helping him with his business and work. It has been insane! Such an eye opener, such a motivator, and such amazing moments.

This guy never stops working, it’s insane. I’m learning so much from him, as well as making some incredible connections within my niche.

He actually doesn’t know that much about Ecom or business but he’s really interested, and it looks like I’ll be helping him setup an info / digital product. It looks like it might turn into a long term connection / relationship, and have already planned more trips with him later this year.

As far as my business goes, I have slowed down a bit, but not stopped.

Right now my logistics are pretty much F*cked. My product is sitting in my bedroom at home, and I can’t ship anything out because no one is at home. So I’m taking this period to create a load of content which I can use for marketing later, and refine my copywriting etc.

All of my time is going into this setup with my mentor, which I love, and think will be HUGELY beneficial.

I should be going home in in the beginning of August, and I will then have a month to get logistics in order and grind on the brand until the next trip!

 

[GoGetter24]

Spent the last week traveling with my new mentor

How did you get the mentor?

 

[Xolorr]

So, what does this mean for me going forward?

I’ve realized, that I have a huge opportunity in the video creation space. Seeing the behind the scenes of how these brands work, there’s big money involved here.

YES IT ISNT FASTLANE.
1. But, it’s an awesome way to raise capital and earn money.
2. I can use it to immensely build my personal brand. I plan on going balls deep into video on YouTube, facebook, IGTV, and Instagram posts.
3. My personal brand links back to my ecommerce brand, as well as the business model myself and my mentor are discussing starting

Going forward:
I have barely used any of the money I allocated for my travels, as most of it was paid for by couch surfing and by my mentor. (Yupp, he paid for everything. Food, flights, taxis, everything)

I’ve decided to stretch my budget as much as possible, and travel, creating as much content as I can. Once I finish that, I will go home, and continue filming in South Africa, as well as starting to GRIND on my business and my brand

 

[jcvlds]

Wow.
Wow.
Wow.

I honestly feel like An entirely new person after this trip. I have newfound energy, ambition, and hustle like never before.
Jumping out of my comfort zone with both feet was the best thing I could've ever done.
Period.

I have clarity like never before, and it's unbelievable. I'm back "home" now, and I have so many stories and lessons that I cannot wait to post and share here, but they will have to wait for now. It's too much to process at this point in time, and I want to take my time with it.

For now, I'm going all in on my Ecom that's been brewing for the last month or two, and the sole reason I started this.

To Do:

• Email every courier service I can find with an office / drop off point in my town. Organize rates, meetings, and finally get the logistics for my products sorted. This is the number 1 priority because without this I can't sell. I'm going to spend the rest of the afternoon (Sunday) researching and writing emails so that by tomorrow morning I should have some replies, and I can then get them on the phone and go through the nitty gritty of this.
• Double and triple check my site. I know it's not perfect, but there's no such thing as perfect, and if you chase perfection you never get anything finished. Time to throw it out into the market and get feedback. Act, Assess, Adjust.
• Market, Market, Market. This is key. My demo is hugely into instagram, so that will be the priority. I have realized through various podcasts, etc, how important facebook actually is. I do not use Facebook AT ALL. I hate it for my own social needs, but it will be hugely beneficial to learn it and get effective at it. To start, I'm going to interview and give influencers in my niche my product. I will buy them coffee, ask them a bunch of questions, write a blog post about them, and then take them for a photoshoot, in return for their posting about my business and using my product. This will cost me: A product ($6 actual, $25 opportunity), a coffee ($2), transport ($~) BUT it will be huge for my social presence. My goal is to get all of the big influencers in my region using my product and posting about it. I will then have INSANE content to use in a digital marketing strategy, using facebook and youtube ads. (I think YouTube ads are extremely under used, and will be especially effective for my demographic. I haven't researched the costs of this as of yet. One step at a time.

Amount Earned: $35

Hey man happy to hear you are motivated again and pushing kings forward.

What made the sudden switch back from your video business into eCommerce again? Last post seemed like you were gonna go all in on video


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Xolorr]

@Xolorr this is a great thread, just noticed it.

Happy for your success and progress. Much respect for setting out to do your own thing.

Hope this is not off-topic, because what you said really inspired me and made my day:



Question for you - would you say a guy with a consumer grade HD camcorder but GREAT ideas could make it work? Or at least something semi-professional is required? Is 4K a must? My thing is also travel but with my own unique spin.

I guess my questions look stupid, but there are things I rock at, like web development, so if you're ever stuck with something, you can PM me

No question is stupid, and I will definitely take you up on that PM sometime soon!

Bro, a consumer grade camcorder or your damn iPhone is all you need. I make youtube videos, and don't have a lens wide enough to vlog on my main camera, so I use my iPhone for all my talking videos. A gopro is also extremely under rated for what it can do.

Check these out if you don't believe that an iPhone is good enough:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aYOd1mAJXg

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNjGkfBphVo&index=2&list=PLrXADhP6uzG5GCp7SCNqscevAk-6y6bZy

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj7AJPijjtQ&index=8&list=PLrXADhP6uzG5GCp7SCNqscevAk-6y6bZy


I don't shoot 4K at all, and when I do, I use it for fake camera movements. All my videos are 1080p and do great. If all you're doing is youtube/insta/facebook (BTW, facebook is HUGE for video. I might make a thread on this once I've found the ins and out of it, and feel I've practiced enough) , 1080P is all you need.

The most important thing is consistency. Stop trying to make your videos perfect, and focus on putting out m0ore videos.

Quantity over quality. Sounds counterintuitive, but in today's digital landscape, it's the only way to win. People are in a never ending scrolling frenzy, and they'll watch your video then just keep scrolling.

 

[Xolorr]

Monday 13 August 2018:

Damn. I type A LOT. I kinda just run away with whatevers on my mind. I haven't even reread this thread at all, because it's just too much to go through. I'll try keeping this updated only when something important happens from now on.

Man oh man. Over 2 months since I started this thread. I know I was travelling for a lot of it, but that's just pathetic that I've only made one sale (By mistake) from this.

So what have I been doing this past week? I had a video and photo job in another town. I took my product with, and managed to shoot some great content for my social media outlets during that time. I have about a month's runway for consistent posting of photos on Instagram, so now I need to move on.

I also spent a lot of time emailing couriers. THEY WANT SO MUCH back and forth before you can ship with them. It's honestly retarded. I had a meeting with one today, and have another meeting tomorrow to discuss rates etc.

This has been a huge limiting factor for me, but I'm just going to push past it.
Yupp. I'm just going to start selling, and I'll organize the logistics somehow, even if it works out a bit more expensive.

Oh. Fun fact, I also haven't covered ANY of my legal work.
Whoops.
I'm getting onto that now. I was so naive, thinking I can trade under my name. I'm waiting on the paperwork to go through, but my company will be registered soon.

I'm also trying to get a job!

Wait, whut?

Yeah. I want to get a job at the restaurant near my apartment. It will be part-time, and should pay well. All of the money I earn will be put back into the business. I also drastically need to improve my social skills (They're not bad, but I want to be amazing with people, they are so important in business.) and a job waiting tables at a fancy restaurant should do this. I've also investigated that they have a terrible Instagram and online presence in general, but they're one of the most popular restaurants in town. I'm going to offer to take photos and manage their Instagram for free, and try and add as much value to this business as possible.

To DO:
- Register the company
- Write up influencer blog posts (I have three in the making)
- Meet with courier company 2
- Schedule Instagram posts for the Business account using Hootsuite/planoly/ or similar. I'm aiming to post at least 3 times a week going forward.

 

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[The Abundant Man]

Monday 13 August 2018:

Damn. I type A LOT. I kinda just run away with whatevers on my mind. I haven't even reread this thread at all, because it's just too much to go through. I'll try keeping this updated only when something important happens from now on.

Man oh man. Over 2 months since I started this thread. I know I was travelling for a lot of it, but that's just pathetic that I've only made one sale (By mistake) from this.

So what have I been doing this past week? I had a video and photo job in another town. I took my product with, and managed to shoot some great content for my social media outlets during that time. I have about a month's runway for consistent posting of photos on Instagram, so now I need to move on.

I also spent a lot of time emailing couriers. THEY WANT SO MUCH back and forth before you can ship with them. It's honestly retarded. I had a meeting with one today, and have another meeting tomorrow to discuss rates etc.

This has been a huge limiting factor for me, but I'm just going to push past it.
Yupp. I'm just going to start selling, and I'll organize the logistics somehow, even if it works out a bit more expensive.

Oh. Fun fact, I also haven't covered ANY of my legal work.
Whoops.
I'm getting onto that now. I was so naive, thinking I can trade under my name. I'm waiting on the paperwork to go through, but my company will be registered soon.

I'm also trying to get a job!

Wait, whut?

Yeah. I want to get a job at the restaurant near my apartment. It will be part-time, and should pay well. All of the money I earn will be put back into the business. I also drastically need to improve my social skills (They're not bad, but I want to be amazing with people, they are so important in business.) and a job waiting tables at a fancy restaurant should do this. I've also investigated that they have a terrible Instagram and online presence in general, but they're one of the most popular restaurants in town. I'm going to offer to take photos and manage their Instagram for free, and try and add as much value to this business as possible.

To DO:
- Register the company
- Write up influencer blog posts (I have three in the making)
- Meet with courier company 2
- Schedule Instagram posts for the Business account using Hootsuite/planoly/ or similar. I'm aiming to post at least 3 times a week going forward.

To improve social skills check these out:
Youtube channel: Charisma on Command

Books:
How To WIn Friends and Infuence People
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
The Charisma Myth
Compelling People

These have helped me with my social skills

 

[Xolorr]

Want to know what the best sound ever is?

Download the Shopify app on your phone, and make a sale when you are least expecting it.
That's what just happened to me.

Yupp, I made my first proper (And local!!!) sale 5 minutes ago! I'm beyond stoked now!

I'm assuming that the sale came from my activity from my Instagram account. Her email address was already listed from last year during the dropship days, and I think she must've seen the new content and gone about it that way.

So what have I been doing?

• Googling a crap load about driving traffic and sales (I don't have access to Amazon here in South Africa! So all of my sales need to come through my Online store or Wholesale) I still don't have a solid strategy, so I've been writing up blog posts with what I do have trying to populate the store with content!
• Posting and engaging on Instagram A LOT! I've been posting high quality images every day via Planoly (Going to switch to something else soon, I used up all the free plan) I've also been following the Gary Vee $1.80 strategy for growth! It's time-consuming, but I love it. I don't stick to the 9 X 10 hashtag rule strictly, but just go on a spree of genuine comments for content in my niche whenever I catch myself mindlessly scrolling (Which is very little ever since I took a break from instagram a while back)
• Meeting with couriers, setting up accounts, etc.
• Been working hard for my mentor. He's releasing a digital product, and I've been helping him a lot on that! He asked how much I want him to pay me for the work, but I told him not to worry until it's making him money, from then he can decide based on my value. TBH I'm more than happy doing it for free because I'm learning SO much from him. I think the knowledge and experience will pay back 100X what he would pay me to be a glorified VA. We also confirmed another film job soon, so I'll be going on another overseas trip at the end of September.

Going forward:

I'm very stoked to say that I'll be doing the Udacity Digital Marketing Nano Degree starting tomorrow! If you're wondering how I'm affording this, I'm not. My parents are paying for it, they encourage me to pursue as many qualified courses as possible, especially with the course my life is taking, and they agreed to fund my education (within reason). I saved a lot of money by studying my degree online rather than generic uni, so now I'm using some of that on more specialized skills which I can see myself using long term.

I need to find a solid way to bring in sales to my store! I'm very interested in what I'll learn from Udacity about digital marketing and will save my money for FB ads once I have the knowledge from this course. For now, I'm going to carry on giving a load of products to a load of influencers, do blog posts and photoshoots with them, and get them to spread the word.

I really want to get a job, but I'm struggling to have any structure to my life right now. I get the feeling that my family is getting annoyed with how little they've seen me, and they're nagging me to come back and visit. I'm going to go back early next week and spend time with them, and that will be a week where I will be back in my hometown. After that, it will be the beginning of September. I will be traveling for the last week of September, so I would only be able to work a job for 2 weeks if September. I can't imagine any employer would like me only for two weeks? I got a wake up call today when I was listening to Ray Dalio's book "Principles", and he spoke about how his mom died when he was 19. That's my age. I cherish my family way more than any travel or money, and it made me realize I've been disregarding them in my pursuit for my dream lifestyle, so I need to find the balance between them.

I need to get on top of tracking my expenses, and quickly. Going to research basic accounting tomorrow, and get a spreadsheet set up so that I can keep track of this.

Amount Earned $65

 

[Xolorr]

Wow, okay. Everyone probably thinks I've quit by now I can assure you, this is not the case.

I'm just having a rough time juggling everything going on in my life at the moment.
Progress update:
- Been going through the Udacity Digital Marketing nano-degree. Will post a review once I've graduated
- Worked non-stop with my mentor on his website, and helped him launch a digital product. It did €20000 on its first day and is now sitting at €40000 a week later. We are now going to launch a fb ads strategy and other forms of promotion, as well as more products. This was such a crazy experience for me. I worked on it as if it were my own business, and without being paid a cent, and I learnt way more than any money was worth, gained the utmost respect of my mentor, and may get a % of the profit from that.
- I will be going to Egypt and Bali at the end of the month, working on projects with my mentor.
- I made another sale for my Ecom company, tracked all of my expenses, and have begun the process of forming a company. I have also worked with 3 more influencers and will be getting promotion from them in the coming months.
- I will be contacting B&M stores, and selling my products at wholesale through niche stores
- Outsourced transcription of interviews with my influencers on fiverr, and am cleaning up two of those transcriptions into blog posts.

I've also been focusing hugely on my health and fitness, which has had a huge influence on my productivity. I'm feeling more present, clear-minded, confident, and sure of myself than I have EVER experienced before, and have been feeling this way over a period of the last month, not in short-lived bursts.

I have also started to realize now more than ever, that you just have to DO (take action) on something, and you learn that way.

I'm learning many lessons which I had heard before through all of my online mental-masterbation, but have only made sense after experiencing them myself.

The next few months are looking hectic, but I will try keep this as up to date as possible!

Also, I made a thread on my productivity system, which you can view Here!

As well as a couple desktop and mobile backgrounds as motivational reminders, which you can grab in the attachments.

Amount Earned:
$95 Ecom

 

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[Xolorr]

WOW.
Update, I'm sitting in a Mc Donalds in Milan airport, about to board a flight to Egypt, where I will be creating content and being paid for it. I then have a month in Bali before I go back home. I have several other film jobs lined up for when I am home aswell.

It is the weirdest feeling being paid to travel.

I know this goes against the fastlane notion because it is very much "Do what you love", but it sure as hell beats a job!

My online store is slowly ticking, with a sale rollling in every few days. I've also done a consignment deal with a large retailer in my niche, which is doing well.

I have realised that I made a huge error picking this product, and buying so much stock of it. (I literally found a YouTube tutorial explaining how to make my product for <$10, lol ) SO, I know this is not the product or business which will get me to the fastlane, but I have learnt so much from the experience, and I will not stop untill I have doubled my money. I should reach my BE point soon.

I have also met up with a bunch of entrepreneurial minded / creative individuals, and we're planning on being roommates next year, which should create a more motivational and growth orientated environment.

 

[JoshA]

Just posting to let you know that I've been silently following your thread. Keep the posts coming.

 

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