How Tyler Jorgenson became the world's top e-commerce consultant | The Nikhil Sai Show 63

What's going on? What's going on, everyone who's actually listening to this podcast right now? First of all, welcome to The Nikhil Sai Show, which is hosted by me, The Nikhil Sai. And guess what's going on today? We are back with another amazing multiple 2 comma club order winner. And the guy who's actually joining the podcast today is one of the craziest stories you'll ever hear. He was officially launching his first business when he was 18 and bought a restaurant when he was 22. Gone to real estate when he's 23. Actually, he's a born entrepreneur. Just to sum up, he's one of the top e-commerce consultants you can know in the entire history. And to mention, guys, he has one of the craziest podcasts in the entire marketing space. It's called Biz Ninja. It's every time on ABC Radio News every Sunday, so make sure to check that out as well. So the actual guy is actually— we are actually going to have right now on the podcast went to a level where he's almost running a million dollar in business in 2010 to actually to negative $14,000 in a snap. And then from there, he took over into e-commerce and scaled to the roof. They have launched over 200 e-commerce stores. So this is going to be like a crazy journey for sure, guys. So let's not waste any time, and actually, let's welcome Tyler Jorgensen, CEO at 4Sale.com.

Hey, happy to be here.

Absolutely, Tyler. What is a pleasure having you, brother. Really glad to connect you today. Absolutely. So Tyler, your journey is one of the craziest journey I've ever seen. From running a million-dollar business to negative $17K, then actually pumping it up to the next level again, like having that courage to leap up, right? Which is pretty amazing. So Tyler, can you please start with the backstory? Like, how did all of this crazy journey started, man?

So, you know, the journey always starts long before the big dramatic story, um, but using that story that you're talking about, um, I was building— I've always loved starting businesses, so I was building a company and I had some partners and we were building it up. This is, you know, during the 2008 financial crisis that some of you might be too young to know about. But in the Great Recession, things kind of started falling apart in real estate. And I was triple invested in real estate here in Southern California. So I had properties of my own, and then I had a real estate company and I had a finance company. And we navigated the first year or so pretty well. And then things just completely fell apart. And there was that moment where I checked the bank account and the bank account was negative. And I realized I needed to rebuild, but I also realized I could rebuild anything. I didn't have to rebuild the same thing. And the big, you know, so that's when I launched my first e-commerce business. We replaced, I replaced the income we needed to survive in the first 30 days and then never looked back. And it's been e-commerce since then.

Absolutely, brother. Wow. And most people stick to one thing and they think it's their blood, and everything, and when something goes wrong in that thing and they believe that they can't pivot to something else, but you have wonderfully pivoted from actually being a real estate guy to being an e-commerce guy. And so Tyler, you've launched over 200 e-commerce stores, which is nuts. So can you talk a little bit about like how to actually launch an e-commerce store in 2021, easiest way?

Yeah, so to me, it hasn't changed a lot from the early days when I first started, because in the end, You have to have a great product that people actually want to buy. And a lot of people make the mistake of trying to have a store that has a little bit of everything. And I always say, you're not going to compete with Amazon. So if you can create it, if you can find a product that has a great niche, that people are irrationally passionate, that people are super excited about, and then find a great product for that niche, you have a lot higher chance of winning. And at least you're gonna win or know the answers faster. So I know some people that have launched not just a— so, you know, a general niche would be something like launching a site that sells products to dog owners. A niche site would be, I sell products to dog owners who love doodles or labs, or, right, a specific breed. And when you get into that type of a sub-niche, you can just really grow really fast.

Absolutely, brother. So yeah, that's the number one mistake most people do. That brings us to the next question, brother. What is the most common mistakes physical product owners do right now?

So they spend too much time trying to sell products that they don't have any margin in. So, you know, there's a lot of people that are— they just are reselling products, which is okay. But if you don't have enough margin, you're not going to have any money left to acquire a customer. And so one of the first things that we look at is, does the product that we're selling have high margins?

Absolutely total, brother. A lot of people look at the revenue and they're like, yeah, I'm running a million-dollar business in e-commerce, but what are the real profit margins in the end? They're like spending money to acquire customers, you know, without looking at profit margins. That brings us to the next question, Tyler. This is going to be amazing, I guess. So how do you actually scale e-commerce store profitably? Because we see the ad cost is increasing tremendously, especially in 2021 Q4. So we'd love to hear your inputs on that.

Yeah, the interesting thing, we, we look at it at 4 things, and in our company we call them the 4Sale Core 4. And so you start by having to have winning offers, right? What we just talked about, you have to have a product that people actually want sold at a price point that actually makes people interested. So if you're selling a really great product but you're more expensive than the competitors, it's not going to work. So you gotta have a winning offer, and then you have to get a good cost per acquisition. So Can you spend less than the margin of the product to acquire the customer, right? So in physical products, you can't do what you can in info products. Info products, you can sell something for $100, and as long as you're acquiring someone for less than $99, you're profitable. In e-commerce, you have to make more than it costs, right? So, and then the last thing, what we do to help that is we really focus on average order value. So if somebody is coming in and they're, they're buying a $20 product, it's really hard to make that profitable in terms of what the cost per acquisition is, the cost of goods of the product. But if we can increase the average order value or increase the cart value, we have a much higher likelihood of being able to break even in acquisition. And the last piece, the last piece of the FourSale Core Four is lifetime value. So one of the biggest things that we do is we run really strong email marketing. To the existing buyers and existing visitors of the site, 'cause your cheapest customer acquisition, your highest return on spend and energy is your existing customer base. So those are the 4 things you gotta do to scale an e-com store profitably.

Yeah, totally, Tyler. And as you were actually talking about scaling profitability and increasing the average customer value, and you've been there, like you've been one of those guys who hosted webinars for ClickFunnels, you've been into Shopify, been to certified partners and whatnot, right? So can you tell us like, which one works better, like in terms of starting and launching and scaling to the roof? Like, is that funnels or e-commerce Shopify traditional stores? Which one works well?

Great question. So in the Four Sale Core Four, winning offers and cost per acquisition and average order value is ClickFunnels. We drive people through sales funnels in order to present our winning offers in a way that they don't get distracted, they stay focused on the offer. Our funnels help us get better cost per acquisition, and our funnels massively help us increase our average order value. On lifetime value, we drive them back to Shopify. That's where they come back to purchase time and time again, and that's where organic and natural sales happen. If someone shares the business with a friend or things like that, because that's the shopping experience people expect, right, is to browse a website. But when we're acquiring customers, we use funnels and that, you know, we've looked at numbers of, you know, our clients compared to people who are running straight to Shopify and our average order value is often twice as high as our competitors.

Oh my God. Wow. That gives us so much lucrative nature to actually, you know, have the courage to spend more to acquire a customer. That was on point, Tyler. So it's like sending a salesman to actually get a new customer than having, let's say, a traditional store offline to have that repeatability. Pretty awesome stuff, Tyler, love that. And Tyler, like you have built over 200 e-commerce stores, which is nuts, right? So as an agency, as a full-fledged digital marketing agency who build these funnels, set up the automations, run the campaigns, set up the stores, whatnot, like how does it look like to actually attract high-paying clients as an agency, especially to the agency owners who are listening to this podcast?

Yeah, the number one thing that, helps attract more high-paying clients is current high-paying clients. So meaning if you are doing a good job for the people you have, uh, then it's going to be easier to get more of them. The hardest thing for any agency is when you're just starting, and, and that usually means you're not even an agency yet. You're a, you're a contractor or somebody that's working as a freelancer. And so results always win. So it, you know, at the beginning If you have to do, you know, hey, let me do a free trial, or let me give you a discount, or whatever. I, I'm not a big fan of discounts. I'm, I'm a bigger fan of like, hey, let me show you what I can do, and if that works, then here's what our contract rate is. Um, but you've got to lead with results. And so if you don't have case studies, if you don't have results yet, you got to find a way to go get those. And you may not get paid to get those results, but you use those results to get your, your next high-paying client.

Yeah, absolutely, Tyler. That was pretty amazing. And like a lot of Agency owners specifically when they're starting out, even when they're in scaling phase of their agencies, like getting 10, 15 clients a month, they still have this mindset of, you know, kind of trying to compete when it comes to the pricing. And you've been cutting through and, you know, straight to the high ticket point. And, you know, like how can an entrepreneur who is in agency business model can actually build his mindset to start selling at high ticket? How would that positioning look like?

You know, the very first thing I always look at is, you can only serve so many clients. What— no matter what size you are, there's always going to be a ceiling. And so if you're serving at the lowest level of price, you're, you're eventually going to run out of energy and not be able to serve. So unless you are really good about productizing and managing large-scale operations to fulfill on that, it just is a better relationship if you can work with people at a higher rate. And so the way that we find a blend of that is, uh, we have a lower, a lower than average base fee. So like, to work with us as a base fee, we're below market. Like, we're very competitive. But then we have a performance fee that puts it in, in a way where, hey, as we win, we all win together. And that makes it to where we're profitable and where we, uh, the, the, our client has a lower risk to work with us and my team has an incentive to really do their best.

Wow, that totally makes sense. Absolutely. I think this is a really amazing pricing model a lot of agencies should consider, which is being the cheapest when it comes to acquiring them and having that pay-per-performance, which is going to increase the profitability of both entities, which is just amazing.

And we're definitely not the cheapest. I mean, there are companies that are a fraction of our cost to do the base fees. We're just at like, we're at a price point that I call the bottom of the top. So when you go to the high ticket, the really good agencies, we're at the bottom of that upper end. But there are people that are 10% our price, but you get 5% of the service, right? So I'm a big fan of being at the bottom of the top.

Yeah, totally, brother. Yeah, that absolutely makes sense. It's not about competing price in a different category. It's about competing the price, the same category, like people who have similar portfolio or better portfolio, right? Absolutely, Tyler, that absolutely makes sense. Let's get to the next question, brother. You've been a host, amazing host, amazing podcast. You had one of the top-notch marketers, entrepreneurs, business owners on your Biz Ninja podcast. We would love to know more about like the impact of actually running the Biz Ninja radio show on ABC News. How does that look like for you as a podcast host?

Yeah, so for me, I started the radio show long before podcasts were really popular. When I first started it, there was only a couple of podcasts that were, even gaining traction. And so it's been interesting watching as podcasts have become more mainstream. But for me, I've been doing the Biz Ninja Entrepreneur Radio Show for over 10 years now. We've taken a couple of breaks throughout the time, but really for 10 years, I've been talking to around 50 entrepreneurs a year and learning their story. How did they overcome challenges? How did they face adversity and what did they do to rise above it? And if you, you started with my story of what kind of was, didn't work, that was why I started it. I started it because I needed inspiration, I needed motivation as an entrepreneur. And so it was this amazing thing where every single week I got to hear, like, get motivated from some of the top entrepreneurs. And so, and eventually as the show grew, I started having entrepreneurs reach out to me to be on the show. So we had, you know, Tim Ferriss and his team actually reached out to us to be on the show when they, when they were promoting one of one of their recent books. Then we've had Neil Patel and we've had, I mean, the list of people that we've had on the show has been amazing. And, but the greatest impact has been in just my giving me that access to talk to people. That's how it's helped me, right? And then our guests, hopefully they get something out of it too.

Yeah, absolutely. I think I genuinely believe like podcast is one of the fastest way to attract people on an A-class. Like you are a total different breed and they're at a total different level. And if you want to attract them, podcast is the only way. And Tyler, if there is one piece of advice you would like to give someone who's starting a podcast or someone who's thinking to start a podcast, how would that look like?

Yeah, so it's similar to my first part, right? Which is pick your niche. You know, there's a lot of general shows out there. So know who your audience is going to be. And honestly, the biggest thing, which is not what I do, don't make it just an interview show. Make sure that you make your— you have episodes that are just you, that are your voice, your message, your thing. If you're going to build an audience around you, then you've got to be willing to share your voice and your message. So interview shows are great, like what we're doing now, but if every third, fourth, or fifth episode isn't just you sharing and teaching and telling your stories, it's going to be really hard to really get that true reach and the impact that you want.

Yeah, absolutely. That totally makes sense. It's making sure that your audience are seeing you as the authority in the niche, which is pretty amazing. And Tyler, if there is like a lot of people that are actually starting podcasts, especially in 2020, we have seen huge number of people getting into the podcast industry, including me. So what would be like your number one suggestion like to actually monetize this podcast? Because I've seen people, they do like, literally 3 episodes a week, every week consistent, and they have this hundreds of episodes piled up, but they have no clue how to monetize. So how would that look like if you would give an advice to someone who's actually in that situation?

So I think it depends if your goal is to make money from the podcast or make money because of the podcast. So for me, I have an agency, so I don't care if the podcast itself makes money because running my radio show continues to put me in front of potential customers and keeps, and the exposure from the show brings leads in. So I don't care about running ads on my show or about getting sponsors or anything like that because my goal isn't to make money from the podcast, it's to make money because of the podcast. So if your goal is to make money from the show, you've gotta build the audience huge. You've gotta be able to show listenership. You've gotta be able to show data and then you've gotta have a salesperson selling sponsorships. That's a lot of work. But if your goal is exposure and reach so that you can grow whatever your core business is, then it just means do a great job, interview good people, make an impact, have fun. And you might only get, you know, your listenership could be really small and it could still be very profitable.

Yeah, totally, Tyler. I think this comes, it comes down to the point where you should be super specific on the type of interviews do and the type of audience are actually attracting. Because if you're general, it's hard to monetize because you need to build that huge following. Your niche down, it's much easier because your audience sees you as an expert, then they can probably get into your services or products or whatnot. That's amazing, Tyler. And Tyler, you've been running an agency, having an educational company at the same time, running a podcast, managing time to have fun in your life at the same time, which is pretty nuts. So I'd love to know more about like what kind of tools you use to manage your projects, clients for productivity.

Yeah, so I mean, we have a whole tech stack of what we use for our, in the agency, but I'll tell you some of my personal time management hacks, right? So first thing, like I use the Google Suite for everything for my emails. Some people use different things, but the reason I use Google is because of the filters. So I have one of my, my number one biggest like secret, my biggest hack is I create a filter with the word unsubscribe and any email that says unsubscribe skips my inbox and goes into a folder of just unsubscribe. I only look at that twice a week and maybe one time a week do I find an email that I needed. The rest of the time it's gone. So I, and I, so that's 200 or 300 emails. And for some people, 200 or 300 emails a day that are just no longer in your inbox. Right. And then I'm really aggressive at setting filters for anything else. Anything that happens that I get more than 3 or 4 emails a week on has a label, has a filter, has a full, like, so that I can control what gets in front of me. That's my, like, my biggest thing. And then the second one, like, my second time hack, right, is a, is a Chrome plugin called Kill News Feed for Facebook. So when I go— when I open up Facebook, I don't see anything in the news feed. I don't ever actually— I don't ever want to accidentally catch myself scrolling social media, right? I check social media, social media doesn't check me. So I turn off— I turn off notifications. I turn all of that off and I only have notifications for people mentions and I have, and then I own, I go and specifically browse social media only when I meet, when I need to so that I don't waste time. And other than that, I'm not the most time efficient person out there, but if I can control the major time sucks, it's kind of the 80/20 rule, right? If I can, then I get 20% of the, of the, you know, tools and hacks and secrets gives me 80% of the results.

Absolutely, Tyler. I think your attention is what drives your next moves, and that really determines where your energy is being drawn to, right? Totally, brother. And if you just make sure that your attention is put on the right piece, then you're gonna compound that at a higher level. Absolutely awesome, Tyler. Let's get to the next question. This is going to be amazing. So like, do you personally have any routines for your day-to-day life? Like, would you like to mention about that, your daily routine for the success?

Yeah, I'm not as routine-driven as some people, but what I do, what I am a big believer on is a slow start. So I think some people wake up and the first thing they do is they check their phone. And that means their entire day is spent in a reactionary state. So I do love the idea of the night before, make sure you're mapping out the day, the next day. And then whether for you, if it's 5 minutes or an hour, having that moment from when you wake up before your workday starts, right? And if that— some people want to go on a walk or want to do things, that's different for every person. But give yourself that space in between when you wake up and you start. Like, I think that's super important.

Yeah, it's like entrepreneurs have sleepless nights. They work and they sleep, they wake up and they just catch up the phone and start reacting to those, and their brain is like constantly buzzing around this. 100 different things which is happening, right? You need that break, obviously, right? Pretty awesome stuff, Tyler. Let's get to the next question, brother. I know you're early in your business and you've been into business like officially, signature, at 18 and built multiple businesses— restaurants, real estate, whatnot, right? But if there is an, uh, you know, option to go to talk to your 20-year-old you or someone who's just getting started, what will be your number one suggestion for them?

You know, it's funny, somebody else asked me a similar question And it's interesting, it wouldn't really be necessarily business advice, even though that's what you're asking. For me, it would be to really enjoy the moments, right? To enjoy the journey, to not try to rush through it and try to— you're not in a race. And sometimes we feel this need to compete and to compare and to say, well, this person is farther along than me. And it's just not how it works, right? So like, it's just you. It's you against you. And so slow down, enjoy the moments. There's a, there's no old concept that, uh, humans overestimate what they can do in a day and underestimate what they can do in a year. And so I like to take the, like, what's my long-term goal? Like, what's my, what's my real play here? And then what's the one big domino I can do every day to keep me moving in that direction instead of just how do I chase every single thing every day? So slow down, be methodical, but honestly, just enjoy it. Like, don't rush through life so much that you're not enjoying life.

Yeah, totally, brother. Yeah, definitely makes a lot more sense, especially people who need that advice. Absolutely. Tyler, let's get to the next question, brother. Your life's biggest achievement so far and any next bigger goals.

Man, life's biggest achievement. I think, you know, I'm a father. I've got 4 kids. They're all growing up fast. Like, I've got 3 kids in high school this year. Um, me, just, I made a commitment to really be present while my kids were growing up, and I'm really grateful I did. I know, like, there's— there were opportunities I didn't pursue. There was businesses that I, I, you know, energy that I sacrificed to be able to do that. But I don't look like it. I don't look at it at all like a sacrifice. So as the kids are getting a little bit older, um, I do have some big revenue goals and some big exit goals. I have a couple of our goal, uh, before 2025 is to exit at least 2 businesses. Um, so I've sold 5 of my e-commerce brands and we want to, we want to sell a couple more here in the next couple years.

Wow, that's pretty awesome stuff, brother. Love it. And this will be pretty interesting, brother, as you have came from that situation where you're down in your business and then spiked up. Like, what was the biggest mistakes in your life, especially in terms of business?

So hanging on for too long. And so there are times when you know, okay, I'm gonna— I'm like another old saying, right? There's a saying that, um, the moment that you know a choice is correct is the easiest it will ever be to make that choice, to act on it. Everything after that will get harder and harder to act on that. So if you're in a business that you know is not the right path for you, wasting that time on that is— it's never going to get easier to leave, right? So I had a couple of businesses and a couple of partnerships where I knew it wasn't right, it wasn't going to be right, and I kept trying to make it work. Well, the only thing I did was lose more time, right? And since time is precious, you can't get it back. The minute you know something is right, act on it. Move. Don't, don't hang on, whether it's for pride or for ego or for whatever. Your future is worth way too much to hang on to things that are wrong.

Yeah, absolutely. And the perspective you have is amazing, brother. Love it, love that stuff. And this would be interesting stuff, brother, like your main inspiration for the success you've achieved so far and any key people involved inside the journey.

So there are a few people that were kind of like my digital mentors or my virtual mentors growing up. And so the first book I read was Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and by Sharon Lechter, who was the, was the ghost author of the book. And the, the book doesn't really teach anything strong, but it gives this framework for how you could do— you could approach the world. And it was the first book that made me realize that the way I saw the world wasn't wrong. It was different, but it wasn't wrong. And so it allowed me to embrace kind of my perception of the world And so, and it was really cool. We ended up being hired by Robert Kiyosaki and his organization to build their e-commerce site. And then we've had, I had Sharon Lecter as a guest on the show. So it was really cool for that to come back. And then the other one was Tim Ferriss with "The 4-Hour Workweek." That one was, it felt like you take "Rich Dad Poor Dad" and then actually put frameworks into acting on it to build your first business. And as Tim calls it, a muse. And I literally followed that blueprint, that define, eliminate, automate, liberate. And I followed those steps to launch my first e-commerce business like no other. I just followed the steps. So I have, and that was cool that then later on I was able to have him on the show. So those were my first two big mentors. Obviously today, one of the great frameworks and marketing educators, Russell Brunson, has just built on that and been an amazing influence.

Absolutely, brother. Yeah, love it, love it. Like, the vibe you actually— like, who you listen to really matters and shapes your future, right? And you, you heard the right people, and here you are. That's amazing stuff, Tyler. Like, you're so knowledgeable, and when it comes to e-commerce, especially scaling businesses, and pretty amazing person inside out. So where can our audience find you mentoring, brother?

Yeah, so your easiest place is on Instagram @bizninja. Uh, from there you can find, you know, Biz Ninja Radio, or you can find me at tylerjorgensen.com. Uh, you can find our, our agency at foursale.com. Uh, I'm not hard to find. You Google me, you find me pretty easy.

Absolutely. So yeah, guys, make— I'll make sure to add all of the links which, uh, Tyler just mentioned in the description, so make sure to check that out and connect with this cool dude in case if you need any help with your e-commerce store for sure. So yeah, tell her it was time well spent. Any last word before we conclude?

I don't— my biggest piece of advice is just whatever you've been putting off, do it.

Yeah, do it like yesterday.

Yeah, just take imperfect action, take the first step. It doesn't have to be perfect. Too many people get stuck worrying about something being perfect or being worrying about what their friends are going to think about a website. Your friends aren't your clients. Launch, do it. And if it makes you feel better, call it a beta launch, but just get launched and improve as you go. If you wait for it to be perfect, you're gonna die broke.

Absolutely, and caring too much for others' opinion would never let you have the right things which you deserve inside your life. Tyler, that was definitely amazing, brother. Again, Tyler, thanks for this amazing opportunity. It was really cool having you on this podcast today. And hopefully guys who actually listened to the podcast so far, make sure to re-listen Tyler, literally laid down how you can actually launch an e-commerce store, scale to the roof, how to increase the order value and whatnot. So make sure to go to the4sell.com in case if you need any more help. Also subscribe to Biz Ninja so that you can listen to his amazing podcast. So stay tuned for the next interview, guys. I'll, I'll be back with another 2 Comma Club Award winners. This is me, Dheenikil Sai, and Tyler Jorgensen signing off for today. Peace.