NEW Ways To Sell Physical Products with Ezra Firestone?

You're listening to Freedom Fast lane presented by capitalism.com. this is the show about building businesses.

And investing the profits so that you can live life on your terms.

And now, your host, the future owner of the Cleveland Indians, Ryan Daniel Moran. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Freedom Fast Lane. This is Ryan Daniel Moran and we always have fun when we have Ezra Firestone here on the show. I kind of have a specialty in Amazon. He is in E commerce and I'm not that great at E commerce. I'm okay, but I'm not great. And EZ is not that great at Amazon. He's okay. So when we come together, we really address the full spectrum of what it looks like to build physical products, brands. And today we're talking about a few new ways to promote your physical products on the Internet. So we talk about using Facebook messenger, we talk about using Pinterest, we also talk about the top places that Ezra gets traffic. He also goes through what I think is the most succinct and clear way to run an E commerce funnel. He does it in about two minutes where he talks about exactly what your ad should look like, what your landing page should be, how you retarget those people. And he sums it up in about two minutes, which I thought was like, man, if anybody is going to take a clip and just play that over and over again, hey, note to the content team. You should turn that into a two minute clip that we can leak on Facebook because this is just one of those things that I thought was, it was just beautiful how he wrapped it up. So we also talk about using messenger and email to generate a lot of new sales. So if you're selling physical products or really anything on the Internet, we talk about how to use broadcast through either Facebook messenger or email in order to make more sales. I have kind of a magic script that I use in my email sequences to generate thousands and thousands of sales. It's really been the foundation of pretty much every business I've ever built. And it was a gift given to me by my mentor, Travis Sego. And I have massaged it specifically for physical products. And now we run all our promotions through that sequence. So I am going to be talking about that sequence at Ezra's upcoming event here in Austin, Texas, August 4th and 5th. It's called E Commerce All Stars. If you grab a ticket to that, I don't make anything, but I get to hang out with you here in my hometown. And I will be teaching that model as well as some things that are working on Amazon right now. And I'll be giving that to Ezra's audience here in Texas in a few weeks in August. I would highly encourage you to be there if you sell physical products. So come to Austin, let's hang out, and you'll see the magic script that we use to to sell a whole lot of physical products, specifically on Amazon. But it will work for anything. Whether you have an email list or you have a Facebook messenger list or you don't have any list, we'll talk about how to build one up quickly so that you can start using those processes. All right, let's go hang out with Ezra.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to Freedom Fastlane. Today we're with the handsomest man in E Commerce and. And Ezra Firestone. What's up, Ezra? Thanks for hanging out with us.

You know, that is absolutely debatable because recently I've gotten so much hate on my ads for my man bun dude. Like, it's unbelievable. The only negative. I don't get negative commentary on the content. I don't get negative commentary on the design. I don't get negative commentary on anything. But my outward appearance about how I choose to present myself in the world apparently is incredibly offensive.

Apparently I've been a dad for too long because you didn't get my dad joke. Let me say this again. Today you're joined by the handsomest man in E Commerce and Ezra Firestone.

You didn't hear my laugh? I totally laugh.

I mean, I'm trying to say I'm the handsomest man in E Commerce.

Yes, and Ezra Firestone. Meaning. I mean, I understood the joke. And by the way, speaking of dad jokes, I probably just didn't give you your due credit. I apologize.

Hahaha. So funny.

Ryan, speaking of dad jokes, were you or were you not recently on national television? Tell me about it.

I was. You know, I don't like to brag about it, especially since. Since it's been a long goal of mine, but yes, I was recently on Kelly Ripa and the Ryan Seacrest show. So how did that, like, happen? Well, here's what happened. I was walking Esther, we were walking down the block and I hear, hey buddy, come here. And I turn around and there's this dude with a camera. And Esther almost loves the camera as much as I do. So I like, turn kind of weirded out. Like there's this big camera. I don't know what to do. And I hear this. There's this speaker that's like, don't forget the baby. And I was like, what is going on? Is there are There people watching. All there was was like a little like podunk speaker and this dude with a camera. So I turn to the camera and I hear through the speaker like, aw, what a sweet little girl. What are you guys up to? And I was like, oh, just going for a walk, enjoying the weather, going to get coffee, and then we're going back to Austin, Texas. I mean, I had no. The whole time I thought they were gonna be like, welcome to the hidden camera show. Cause I hear an audience laughing. I don't know what's going on. I just hear this noise and this dude's with a camera. And we answered a couple questions and I turned and I left. And that was it. I figured it was like some New York morning show.

Sure.

A few minutes later, my phone blows up and it's like, I just saw you talking to Ryan Seacrest. What are you talking about? I'm walking down the street. You were just on Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest. I had no idea it happened. I could have done my Bernie Sanders impression. I could have made Esther do her Trump impression, which she now does. I could have made her make a fart noise when they said, hey, it's the dad of the year. I could have been like, well, that paternity test isn't in yet. I could have made all kinds of jokes. I could have sang a song and been a viral sensation. But no, I sat there like a dork and didn't even know I was on tv.

You know when someone whispers, hey, buddy, come over here. I mean, that's like its own kind of creepy.

Yeah, well, especially when you're with your 2 year old. So I was kind of creeped out. But what do you do when there's a camera there and you hear an audience talking about you? They're like, oh, guy with a. Guy with a daughter. Right. I had. It was just really bizarre. And so, yeah, I was on Ryan Seacrest and didn't even know it.

You know, something tells me that's not your last, you know, time and alignment.

I've been trying. I've been. I've been almost on every major reality show and I finally get my big break and it's. I didn't even know it. That's the worst thing that ever happened to me.

I like the idea of, I've always thought, like some kind of documentary style content that sort of chronicles this world of Internet business owners of e commerce business owners of Amazon business owners, the experience of that, the ups and downs. Like, I don't know how you Would dramatize a bunch of people sitting in front of computers. But, like, I feel like potentially there's something there.

I think. I think it would be fun to have a show called the Investor. And you sponsor new entrepreneurs who want to start a business, and you're the advisor and the investor, and they have to hit certain metrics in order to get the investment. And that part is documented because you see the struggle. You see also the goal at the end. And you have this outside investor who's coming in and providing advice, their contact, their network, and you basically incubate businesses on the Internet. I have always wanted to do something like that.

I love that idea. I got interviewed actually for a. For an investor television show for the History Channel, for A and E, rather, where they basically drive this bus into these small towns. Basically. They're like, innovation comes from small towns in America, but small towns have been forgotten. Like, do you know where the paperclip was invented? And this and that, and. And you go to these small towns where these big inventions have happened. They chronicle the invention that happened in that town, and then they let. They let a bunch of entrepreneurs in that town pitch the investors on their idea, and you sort of roll into town on this bus. I was like, one, you know, interview. I did a bunch of interviews for it. I was one interview away from making it, and then I didn't end up getting the gig.

Story of my life, man. Story. It was like, that's like.

I was kind of excited about the potential of, like, getting on television and, like, sort of creating drama and, like, it would. I thought it would fun.

It's kind of like being on the Bachelor. At first you're like, I don't know if I want to be on this show. And then you get a little bit of. You get a little bit closer, you get a rose, you go to the next line of casting, and then the further along you get, you're like, I think I'm really in love with the TV show idea. And then they cut your heart out. And then you're the Bachelorette the next season.

Totally.

Yeah.

I was almost on this other one called Money Pit, which is sort of a similar. Similar idea where people, let's just start our own show.

I just want you to tell me, would you watch a show with Ezra and I? That's what I wanted to tell me in the comments.

All kinds of drama. And, you know, there's a new one out actually called Planet of the Apps. You got Gary V. Gwyneth Paltrow, and.

It'S Just on itunes. Just on Apple, right? Apple, Itunes.

Is that what it is? I don't know. I just saw an ad on Facebook.

So, yeah, we should. We should do our own show and make it a YouTube show or an Apple show or something.

That's not an idea.

I feel like at least 50 people would watch.

Yeah. Oh, I think maybe we could even get, like 52 to, you know, match the states.

All right, let's wait and see what the comments are like on that idea and then let's see what a TV show.

I mean, I kind of love the idea of, like, you don't need the big network to produce the content. You know, while we're on the subject matter of ideas for TV shows, check this out. What if we did, like, we grabbed a business and we said sort of. And I know this is kind of like almost cliche in a way, because there's no way to really tell, but you grab a business and you say, okay, what sort of advertising medium is the best? Facebook, Google, Instagram, Pinterest, whatever. We're going to give $5,000 to five experts in these fields, and they're going to all amplify this business, and we're going to see sort of which one does the best. I don't know.

I like that idea. So here's what I'm gonna do here. So listening to this episode right now is my buddy Judson. Now, Ezra, I've told you the story that I'm filming a documentary called Losing My Religion. And the documentarian is actually kind of a weird string of events of what happened. I met a producer who said, I don't like this idea. So I'm gonna give this to someone who I think might be excited about it. And he gave it to his documentarian friend who was named Judson, and he pitched him on the idea and he's like, oh, I like the concept. Who's behind it? And he said, some random entrepreneur in Austin, Texas.

And he's like, some random.

Yeah. And he's like, is his name Ryan Moran? Turns out Judd was a follower of the podcast and has an Amazon business. Oh, wow. Yeah. And so he. And so it was just by circumstance that we got put together, and so now we're making this documentary. So, Judd, if you are listening, do you want to film this show with Ezra and I incubating these businesses and we'll come up with a way to pitch that so we could actually make this?

I love that idea.

I do, too. I'm not going to sleep tonight. Speaking of Ideas ez, what are you seeing working in the world of E commerce right now?

You know, it's so interesting that there's more working now than ever before. Like we have like for example, I have this one campaign right now that is. Okay, let me just, I'm now just rambling, but let me just give you a actual answer to that question before I ramble, which is long form sales sequences seem to be making a rise in E commerce. And I'll explain what I mean by that. And long form content seems to be making sort of a rise in business. I think that really the people who actually consistently buy from you over time are people who consume your content, particularly your longer form content. So I think if you've got a business, even if it's only Amazon, you might want to start looking at the potential of creating content. And then the other thing is, brings me to sort of a philosophy that I've been trying to live by in relationship to my brands which is I want 50% of my revenue coming from repeat business. And let me get back to the first point of longer form sales sequences. I've got this sales sequence right now that I'm actually going to be sort of debuting at my upcoming E commerce event in Austin, Texas where the one and only Ryan Daniel Moran will be keynoting that guy.

That guy's a scam artist. You don't want to hear, I don't.

Know man, he's good looking, he's good.

Looking but he's a scam artist.

He might be kind of funny looking but I listened to him and I look at the audience and the crowd like tell you what man, people, people really enjoy your presentations at events or I wouldn't have asked you to speak. But I'll be debuting this particular sales funnel. Essentially what it is is it's like a multi step sales funnel where the offer is hidden in a private message. And what I mean by that is we're like hey would you like, let's just an example, would you like 30% off this particular product comment yes on this post. When they comment yes on the post we then automatically Facebook message them, hey cool, you know, we're super excited that you're interested in this awesome product. Just reply to this message with this word and we'll give you access to your special deal. So they had to comment, now they have to reply. Then they get an automatic message with the special deal and with content related to that special deal that then leads over to Amazon or leads over to a long form sales page. Or whatever. And that sales funnel is working extremely well and it has two micro commitments before you can even get to an offer. And that way people are sort of more committed to that offer because they've done work to get access to it. And this kind of philosophy of making people consume content or making people do work before we pitch them is sort of the direction that I feel like non impulse buy E commerce is going.

And you get that customer data, but you can message them ongoing. So if you do a podcast or a blog post, you can send those same responders broadcasts about it, Correct?

Yeah. So basically, Facebook messenger, once someone messages you, it's now like they've given you their email address, except for they've given you their Facebook messenger inbox address and you can now broadcast to them. You can run autoresponders in there. And one of the big things that we're attempting to do is sort of cross populate our database. So what we do now is we will email. We're using one channel to pop another. I like to say that there are five. Like I used to think of my brand as my email list. Like when I thought I have a brand, that means I have an email list. Now I think of my brand as a group of people and multiple communication mediums. And one of those communication mediums is email. Another communication medium is pixeled lists or advertising. So like once someone visits my website, they're then on a pixel list and I can advertise to them. Those are still the two big communication mediums between brand and consumer. However, there's a third one that is on the rise and that is Facebook Messenger. And so we're trying to do is leverage the current brand assets that we have in email lists and pixel lists to populate the new brand channel of communication, which is Facebook Messenger. So we'll email our list and be like, hey, Facebook, message us with this word to get access to this special deal. So we'll take people from email, we'll put them over on Facebook messenger, we'll run ads to our people who visit our website, people who have bought from us, people are on our email list to say, hey, do this special thing, get over here in Facebook Messenger. Because ideally when we have an email communication, such as a blog post or a sale or whatever, we have a new podcast, whatever we want to email people, we want to run ads about it and we want to Facebook messenger them. So we kind of, because people, you know, they're on their mobile phones and they're getting hundreds of emails a day and they're being bombarded with advertising. So we kind of want to be present on all channels that we can be. And I think that if we look at sort of mobile first economies like China and like WeChat, which is sort of the dominant messaging platform in China, people are finding their dates on WeChat, they are booking their travel on WeChat, they are purchasing their products on WeChat, they're receiving their content on WeChat. And I think that Facebook messenger is that channel for America. And I think over the next two years, we're going to see a lot of apps being consolidated into that messenger channel. And I think Apple iMessage is also going to open up its API so that you can order your Uber from iMessage, you can order your takeout right from iMessage, or Facebook messenger, you can book your American Express travel right inside of Facebook messenger or iMessage. So I think that like we're moving in that direction. And so what I want to do is as a brand owner, try to get anyone who's paying attention to me also on that channel.

I 100% agree. And this is one of those things that we're going really hard on because I really do think the fact that when you can see 90% open rates, then that's what you see, sometimes more than 90% in Facebook messenger, you go all in on that. That's what Gary Vaynerchuk calls the white space. So. And we all know that Facebook has these times where it's kind of a wide open west and then you have to pay for it later. And that's probably what it's going to be at some point, but I want to build up that freaking audience before then. So we're going really? I kid you not. Right before we started recording this, I was in a meeting talking about how we use your strategies on some of our launches. So I 100% agree that that is kind of the biggest white space right now.

Yeah. And you know that sort of like I think when I love that you said that and when people hear that, they get all freaked out that this is their last opportunity for greatness in a way. And it's like, listen, I built a multi hundred thousand person email list at a nickel and email address on Google AdWords in the early 2000s. That was an opportunity at that time. And as long as I've been in this industry, there's been new opportunities. Well, then it was adsense and then it was Google Search Engine Optimization and Article Marketing and then it was Facebook Ads. And then it was Instagram and now it's Messenger. But there's always going to be something, right? It's always like there's going to be a new open space, a new cheap space, a new way of generating visibility or communicating that is effective. So you don't have to like freak out and think this is your last opportunity and that you've missed out on it. You just have to like take action in the direction of taking advantage of what's in front of you. Which at this point in time is Facebook Messenger.

In terms of E commerce and physical products, is there any strategy that you use to send them off site once you are getting them to comment on a post or send you a message? When you have them in Facebook messenger, are you sending them just straight to order with a coupon code or are you engaging them with content in some way?

So we're doing a bunch of different things. I kind of like to think of Facebook messenger as Email 2.0. Everything that you do in email, you do in Facebook Messenger. You send out your content, you send out your sales promotions, you send out your new product announcements. It's essentially a communication channel between a brand and someone who is subscribed. Unfortunately, at this point, since it's such a new communication channel, we don't yet have a way of segmenting people the way we do with email, where we can say these people are buyers and these people have visited the cart and these people are this. Like, we don't yet. It. It's coming. Obviously, like you're going to be able to segment your subscribers in messenger, but that's not really easy at this point. So basically everyone who's on our messenger list just gets all that stuff. You know, they get a new blog post, they get that, you know. And here's an interesting thing that we're doing and it's working out really well for us. We're asking permission. So here's what I mean by that. When we send a Facebook messenger post, like let's say we did the work of getting someone to comment on a post and then that automatically sends them a message that says reply here. To get XYZ incentive, they then reply. Once they've replied, they're on our messaging list. So I'm just now assuming that you have someone on your Facebook messenger list. We are using the tool called manychat M A N Y C H A T dot com and so once they're on that list, when we're going to broadcast a message to them, we say and I'm actually going to pull up a screenshot of this so I can actually look at it and I will give you this screenshot to put into the post of this, you know, put into the post of this podcast. If you, if you do images, if.

You'Re listening to it, you should make it a bonus for anyone who attends the event. That's how we should do that.

Yeah. Well, I'm going to be going over this at the event. So if you want to come to Smart Marketer E Commerce all stars, go to smartmarketer.com allstars or message Ryan Moran, who may or may not have a special coupon code for you.

Message me on Facebook so I can add you my broadcast list.

Yeah, message Ryan Moran on Facebook to get a special coupon for my Use.

The word Ezra coupon to save.

So basically what we'll do is we'll send a message. It'll have an image in it and it'll say, hey, you know, find out how to feel more gorgeous and embrace the signs of aging. In my new blog post. Would you like to read it? And then there's two button options. One says, sure, send it to me. And the other says, not now, thanks. And if they click not now, thanks, then we message them and say, okay, cool. In case you want it for later, you can find it here. Or if you don't want to receive updates from us, you know, click this button that says no more updates. So we give them the option of yes or no. And we do that because it's still like it's an intimate communication channel. People aren't super used to getting messages from brands yet. So we want to have it feel like we are being cool and saying, can I give you this now, yes or no? And the people who say yes, obviously, then go to our website to read our blog post or go look at our sale or whatever. And the people who say no, we still put the link in there. And what's funny is a lot of people come back later and click that link, but we just say, okay, great, if you need it later, here it is.

And what type of results are you seeing from this as far as conversions and sales and open rates? How are people responding to it?

So right now, in the last month, my E Commerce Store, and I'm going to talk to you about how we're using it for Amazon right now in a second. But my E Commerce store has done about $1.6 million in revenue. And the number 12 revenue source is Facebook Messenger. So, like, we're At a sort of very high, you know, it's already number 12. I think it's going to be top five within 12 months. As far as, like, revenue being generated from this channel, when we look at our last broadcast, it was delivered to 6300 people. 5200 opened it. So 77% opened the email, and 28%, 1900 people clicked it. So just to give you an idea, our email list is like 400 or 500,000 people, and I think we only generate, I don't know, 10,000, 12,000 clicks in an email. So this email, this list of 6,000 people on Facebook messenger is generating 2,000 clicks, which, in order to generate 2,000 clicks from an email list, you're gonna need 25, 30,000 active subscribers.

So I have. If you're in the tribe or if you have come to any of our workshops, I've talked about how we use. We call it the four part sequence. We have this magic email sequence where we're able to take. I've had lists of 4,000, 5,000 people go through this sequence, and we've generated a thousand sales out of that. So we can get, like, 25% purchases from this. It's just magic. Ezra. We'll find out some way to give that sequence out to people who come to the event. Why don't we do that as a bonus? Because if they love that idea, if they use that in Facebook, oh, my goodness. It's like, I mean, that it will be magic, the type of conversions that you're able to get off that. So we'll find a way to do that as a bonus for people who come to the event in Austin. I'll work into my presentation. I'll give that as part of. As part of the presentation, how we do that, and we can integrate that with Facebook. And, like, seriously, it is, like, freaking magic. I've made pretty much all. It's basically been the secret to my success as a physical product seller, because I can launch anything profitably. Because you don't need to do big discounts. You just run this sequence to your existing email list and you just. Bam. I'm all jizz or jazzered up now. This will be fun.

That's amazing.

I never thought to do it with Facebook Messenger. I just had a problem with.

Yeah, I mean, it's literally email 2.0, man.

That's freaking great. I have to ask, though. If that's number 12, what the heck is number four or number three as far as revenue generators?

Let me pop into my Google Analytics Real quick, when you say number 12.

Does that mean traffic or does that mean sales?

I mean like revenue by source. So if we look at like email, you know what I mean? Or Facebook. Okay, okay, so I'm just gonna pop back all the way. Let's just go all the way to like January until today. I end up with around 100, sorry like a million sessions a month. I was just like entertaining using this tool called segment.com which is a sort of, it's like a data analysis tool that kind of gives you the ability to sort of see, you know, where all your. Down to a user level. So you can see like if a user opened a Zendesk ticket and clicked on an email and went to a Facebook ad and came from organic search, like you can get user level data and see kind of your true multi touchpoint attribution. So you can get like how well things are. Because really there's no way to get good attribution if you're running a physical products e commerce store.

Right?

That's like true, true attribution. And so this service sort of touts that they have true attribution. But anyways, they were going to charge me like, I don't know, 50 grand a year. And I was like, all right, maybe not right now. Okay. So when I sort by revenue, so just by revenue, my number one Source At a $7 per session value, $7.30 per session is Google organic traffic. And what's interesting about that is I don't rank for anything. So this is all people just typing in my brand and Google sort of taking credit for it. But you can't really call that organic traffic because if they type to my brand, that means they saw me on Facebook where I'm advertising, they saw me on Pinterest where I'm advertising, they saw me on Google where I'm advertising, they saw one of my press pieces. So like they came from, this is my point about attribution. They came from some other source and then came back and searched for me organically. You know what I mean? They heard about me from a friend.

But still, is that $7 per visitor?

$7 per visitor? Yeah. I've had 20,000 transactions on 225,000 sessions. So a 20% E commerce. Sorry, 20% of my revenue and a 9% conversion rate.

That's hot. I mean, that's just the halo effect of all the other media that you do of people then typing it in. That's hot.

That's a great, great way to look at it as Halo effect. Second. So are you interested in sort of revenue sources by quantity or revenue sources by value per visitor? Yes, yes to both. So by quantity, next comes Facebook, next comes Google Advertising, next come Pinterest ads. Next come. Well, I guess actually email comes right after organic because it's all separated out in here. So Google organic email, Facebook, Google Pinterest and then just a bunch of random sort of sources like Bing and you know, Yahoo and sort of all kinds of other.

Can we talk about Pinterest? Because you're the only person I know that has been able to get that to work. And especially like in a top five revenue source, there's not anyone that I know of in the tribes that is focusing on Pinterest. So can we talk a bit about that?

Yeah. I have an updated Pinterest training coming out. By the way, here's the thing to know about Pinterest is it is a query based visibility source, the same way that Amazon is a query based visibility source. So your traffic is limited. If you're leveraging their query targeting, they've now rolled out interest level targeting which isn't anywhere near as good as like Facebook's interest level targeting. So you probably want to stick with query based visibility on Pinterest. You probably want to stick to products that are geared towards women since the user base is 80% women. So it's a sort of perfectly relevant traffic source for me as a man with a beauty brand or as a person with a beauty brand that's targeting women. So I'd say it's much better if you've got products that are sort of geared towards women just because of the user base. Of course, male products can work on Pinterest as well and I know people are making them more and traffic is limited. So it's not a huge visibility source unless you are doing interest level targeting, which isn't as easy to make work. And the interesting thing about Pinterest is much like Facebook messenger, how we discussed that Messenger's sort of interface is not kind of up to snuff. Like for example, you can't segment users yet and therefore it's still basically free. What happens, and we saw this with Facebook, is these advertising channels such as Facebook increase their price as their feature set gets better because you as the advertiser then have easier ability to target people, that is easier ability to make money so they can raise their prices. So the reason Pinterest is cheap right now is because their user interface and their capabilities are extremely inferior to that of Facebook or Google so they have to be cheaper because if they weren't then you would just never use them because Facebook and Google have so much better features. So talking about how we make it work, Pinterest for us at this point is not ROI positive, right? Like it's like basically we're probably at about break even if not losing money on day one. But it's one of those things. Where did you and I talk about sort of the way that these nine figure brands look at their business and the way that I looked at my business and sort of the shift that I made.

If we have. Refresh my memory.

Okay, so basically what happened was I have a friend and this friend sits on the board for private equity firms and venture capital firms. They pay him a several hundred thousand dollars per year salary to be what's called a board member. And basically what they do is when they have deals that they want to invest in, potential E commerce properties that they want to put money in or purchase or acquire, they go to this guy and they say vet this deal for us and let us know if there's potential to grow it. So what he does at that point is he comes to me, he's really good at life cycle, customer analysis, Google Analytics and stuff like that. So he comes to me and he says, okay, look, here's $100 million in revenue, physical products, E Commerce brand. Here's complete access to their Facebook ads campaign, Google Ads campaign, Google Analytics account. Go ahead and investigate this for two days and then put together a plan on how you would grow this. So I've done this now maybe about eight to ten times over the last two years on these giant brands. One of the brands was formerly a $3 billion company that then got sort of ran into the ground and sold for a billion dollars. And they were kind of trying to make a comeback. And so one of the things, one sort of recurring theme that I noticed in digging through these analytics account that I thought was really fascinating and kind of changed the way that I look at my business and sort of allowed me to scale my businesses were stuck at a couple million bucks a year for years. And that's like obviously a cool place to be stuck. Like I was happy with that but like I couldn't figure out how to scale past there. And this one viewpoint shift allowed me to scale past it. And it came from investigating these analytics accounts that people is called an open loop where I tell you about something I'm going to tell you about later and then make you curious to keep listening. So basically I'LL tell you about what that viewpoint shift was in just a second here. So what I noticed in these analytics accounts was every one of these brands had something in common, which was they had essentially one channel that was supporting the entire brand. Maybe it was their Amazon, maybe it was their Google Organic, maybe it was their email. But one channel sort of was like extremely profitable, and then the other channels weren't. They were all like break even or losing money on acquisition. But what was happening was I noticed that what they were doing was essentially buying customers at a loss, a million different channels, ending up with a huge, huge customer database. And then when they run and having one channel that was extremely profitable, that could allow them to go out and buy customers at a loss on other channels. And then when they run their holiday sale campaign, they make a bunch more money than I do because they have a much bigger customer list. And so basically what I realized was that the way I looked at advertising was a campaign worked or it didn't. The way they looked at advertising was dollar in, dollar out. If we are making total dollars on.

The business, not just on the. On the profit center. Right?

That's right. Not just on the ad campaign, but on the business as a whole. And that allows them to scale much bigger. And when I started doing this, that's when we went from 7 million to 3 million to 17 million in a year. And as a company, 7 million to 22 million was when we started approaching our business that way, which was being significantly more aggressive on customer acquisition because we knew we had extremely profitable channels, such as your Amazons, such as your emails, et cetera.

What that gave you permission to do is spend money on things like Pinterest and know that even if it's not a crazy revenue stream, it's going to make up for itself because you're getting that customer data for when you promote it on other channels and at other times.

Exactly. And it's kind of the philosophy that you mentioned with regard to your event. You were like, listen, I'm willing to lose the longest. And so I'm going to have the best thing. And like, that is sort of the strategy that we took and that ultimately resulted in massive scale. And so when I look at these Amazon business owners who are like, my Shopify business isn't working, it's like, dude, are you making $100,000 a month on Amazon, which is like, let's say 20 grand in profit or whatever. Can you invest $5,000 a month in advertising your Shopify brand over the course of a year to grow it. Of course you can.

I 100% agree. So when I got into the Amazon game, I think the reason I was able to win was because I took that same methodology of I'm willing to lose longer than anyone. I'll go into the red, I'll do giveaways, I'll crank up pay per click, I'll build email lists and as a result no one could compete with me. And of course I talk about that very publicly. So as a result of talking about it, more people have been willing to do that, which is awesome. It's how we've created hundreds of millionaires inside of our trainings, inside of the tribe. Because if you're willing to grind it out for that six to 12 month period, that's why we have students who go from zero to pacing a million dollars in three to six months because they're willing to go do that. I have not seen to your point, I have not seen people be willing to do the same thing on something like Facebook ads. So how would you recommend someone make that pivot if they got the cash flow coming in on one source, where would they even spend the money and the energy on one of these other channels to be willing to grind it out?

Yeah, I think you're going to need 500 bucks, 1,000 bucks, 2,000 bucks, whatever you can afford forward. And you're going to need to commit to 12 months of spending that every month on a specific visibility source. And that particular visibility source is going to be dependent on your business model. So like I would say a good one, a good 80% of the time it's going to be Facebook and Instagram which are a combined visibility source because those are sort of relevant to every brand. And what you do is you say I am committed to spending X amount of money and you want to look at it as that money is gone. That money is going into the snowball that is your brand that's going to build over time, research and development. Yeah, you want to put together the most sophisticated sales funnel that you can. So you obviously need a long form, sort of high quality product offer page. And I would highly recommend that you use my landing page builder for Shopify for that. But you're going to need that, you know, you're going to need maybe some form of problem solution style video if you have a product that's under 30 bucks, let's say and you want to go directly to the product offer page. I mean listen, the most common e commerce sales funnel out there by far and away Nine times out of ten this is the sales funnel that E commerce businesses are using. E commerce businesses like the Purple Pillow, E commerce businesses like you know those Harmon Brother videos that are all going to specific E commerce products is a problem solution style video that leads to a product offer page direct from visibility source to product offer page with retargeting of people who watched xyz percentage of the video and retargeting of people who visited the product offer page and retargeting of people who made it into the shopping cart. So like with your retargeting in place with exit intent email collection with all the smart sort of sales funnel Y type stuff that is the sales funnel that most people use and it's the easiest one to set up is problem solution video. So for example, you know you have your car and you drop something in between the two seats and oh man, you can't reach it and you're frustrated and then you stick this little leather wallet in between those two seats and then you drop the thing in there and now there it is, it's like you can just grab it and you show that off in a video leads directly to a product offer page for that product. That's the funnel that most people are using.

Now that was the most, that was the most succinct two minute training on E commerce funnels anyone has ever done. Thank you for that.

Yeah baby.

Imagine three days of this in Austin.

Texas at Austin, Texas August 4th and 5th. Smart Market E commerce all stars, Brian Daniel Moran.

And of course you had to invite my arch nemesis, Brian Daniel Moran.

I totally do.

Would you talk a little bit about, I mean obviously the two of us are going to be there and that's every reason to come to Austin in August. But who else is going to be at E Commerce?

Ulcers. We're going to have. What's his name, Brian Moran who's the founder of cart.

Forget him. Get him out of here.

Yeah, we're going to have this guy called. Well let me, let me get you the famous people first. We're going to have Pilar Gerasimo who's the sort of editor and founder, I don't know what you call that, editor in chief of Experience Life magazine. We're going to have Molly Pittman, you know, vice president of digitalmarketer.com, we're going to have Roland Frazier who's one of the owners of DigitalMarketer.com we're going to have Joanna Galvan who is a sort of very prominent E commerce designer. We're going to have this guy, Steve Weiss, who He spends about $4 million a month advertising e commerce brands, which by the way is like just a little bit under my yearly budget for ads. I spend like 6 million a year. He spends like 4 million a month with his agency and they do all the advertising for me, undies.com and some of these big brands. So he's got a lot to say on advertising. And then I've got what I call sort of hidden gems. So guys like Maxwell Finn and Michael Jackness and one more, Ben Katzman, who all run 7 and 8 figure E commerce brands who have like in the trenches content but aren't famous, sort of celebrities aren't famous like in the industry, but have really good content. We got this guy, Michael Danner, who's the vice president of marketing for Dr. Axe, which is like, you know, I think maybe, Maybe they're at 50 million this year.

Huge. Yeah.

Big names. But it's all like sort of in the trenches. It's all sort of geared around implementable strategies. And one of the things about events while I'm pitching them is in your daily life, you have to take out the trash, clean the car, all this stuff you got to do. So when you sort of step out of your daily life, you step out of the routine and stimulation of your daily life and you just put all your focus on business, your business grows because what you put your attention on grows. And if you have only your business to focus on for three days and you are getting implementable strategies and you're networking, you're meeting people, it's just like, there's no question that it is worth the investment. So if you're anywhere near Austin or if you're in the United States or if you're in Europe, you should definitely come to this.

I 100% agree. And the thing I love about you is every time I talk to you, I have a brain gasm. And then like, I think the world has a brain gasm. When we go into Tesla and we go for, we talk about taking over the world and all the things that we're going to do, which by the.

Way, I think you sold me on getting a Tesla. Like, that thing was amazing.

Okay, so I have to confess something. I'm buying a new Tesla. Ezra.

Really?

And the reason I'm buying a new Tesla is every day since I bought my Tesla, I have regretted not getting the super duper fast version. There's like, there's like the super fast version, which is what I have and then for like 40 grand more, you can get the super duper fast version, right?

Oh, well, I mean, you got to have that duper.

Yeah. And. And it's so not worth it. Like, it's so not worth the upgrade at all. But every time I step on the accelerator, I'm like, could be faster.

It could. But my question to you is so like, I'm sort of the opposite of you in that sense where, like, I'm just chilling out and I don't drive very fast and I just kind of laid back and I don't really find a lot of pleasure and satisfaction in like, sort of speeding around in a vehicle unless it's one of those tiny little go karts on like a little go kart track. Those things. I'm in love with those K1 things. Oh my God, I love those things. But is there just like some sense of like, freedom or some sense of like, thrill?

It is purely ego. I mean, is surely I want to have my friends in the car and I want it to be as fast as possible. If their face is not melting, then.

Well, I mean, you gotta get their duper fast version. Scared the crap out of me with the car. You have, by the way, just throwing that out there.

Well, my new one will be ready first week of August. So when you're here, when you're here, we'll go for a drive in the New Testament.

Oh, my God. Maybe we won't. I don't know.

The most, the proudest moment in my life. I've kind of always felt in the shadow of my brother because he was the sports hero and I was the computer nerd growing up. But I finally realized I made it in life when he was visiting me in Texas and we were driving around and I hit the accelerator. He's like, whoa, that's amazing. And I hit it again. He's like, that's cool. And I hit it a third time. And he went, if you do that one more time, I'm gonna throw up. And I was like, I've made it in life. My big brother's gonna throw up in my car.

Oh, no, I think we're done. I was gonna ask you if your brother is interested in Internet marketing or trying to get a gig with your company or how that's working out, like with relationship to your siblings and you being like a sort of public figure and a famous guy and a super successful guy.

Yeah, I'm just Ryan, when I go home and my whole family is.

Long term employment somewhere, like the really old Model of my brother's a cop, will probably be in the same city his entire life. My sister in law is a nurse. And I actually envy their life a lot of times because they're very stable. They have. The two of them are super close. They've been together since they were 14.

And my dad was a teacher for 30 some years. My mom was a mom. And I kind of envy that sometimes. But I don't know how to be anything else except an entrepreneur. It just. It's just in your wiring. I think you like hire your whole family, don't you?

Yeah, pretty much. I mean, hey, you were born, you.

Have a job with Ezra.

Yeah. My mom used to say, everyone's gonna end up working for you when I was like a kid. And I was like, I don't know what that even means, but okay. And it's sort of like anyone who will take a job, I've now given one too.

Well, I won an award in college called the you and your family will work for me award because I was an entrepreneur in college. And they made up an award because I was in my dorm room building businesses and websites. So they made up an award for me.

Yeah, you know, it's interesting, like, as I've gotten older and sort of a bit more compassionate and able to sort of value all the different types of people, I've realized that, like, you kind of would have to be a maniac to be an entrepreneur. Like, I can't imagine doing anything else, but, like, the amount of responsibility, the amount of sort of turbulence is not one that is sort of right for every personality type. And like, really, everyone shouldn't be an entrepreneur. I'm not. I'm not convinced that it's the right sort of move for everyone anymore in a way that I would.

Katzenbeck had a really good frame on this. He said, you know, I don't take the position of like, screw the man, because I'm the man now. And I need people and I need really good people who I treat well and that want to be with me long term. So I don't take the route anymore that everyone should be an entrepreneur, but everyone needs to be a value creator, and everyone needs to be thinking about the world as if we're making the pie bigger for everyone. And entrepreneurs get to do that with jobs and with ideas. But everyone has to make the pie bigger.

Totally. And you can play that role from within an organization as well.

Exactly. 100% for your clients, your customers, and all the people around you.

Yeah.

Well, hey, as I'm stoked about E Commerce All Stars August 4th and 5th in Austin, Austin, Texas. You'll be with myself, with EZ, and you'll leave with what's working right now, what's cutting edge, what's coming, as well as, you know, a whole bunch of contacts that can help you moving forward. I have had all of my biggest breakthroughs come from events I once, you know, I don't know if I told you the story. As I was at Strategic Coach, my first ever Strategic Coach workshop, we made a list of all the things in our business that they've created like a 10 times result. You know, what were those pivot points in which you're, you know, it had monumental impact in your business. And then there was, on the other side of the column, all the things that you do every day that have not had a result that you want to eliminate. And on the left side of my paper where I was talking about all the places where I had major breakthroughs, every single one of them came from coming to an event, a person I met, an idea I came up with. All of them came from being an event. It convinced me that I needed to do more events. And then Freedom Fast Lane live was born. Now the capitalism comes.

It's so true. I mean, I look back at all the big sort of relationships that I've made that have resulted in sort of major connections such as this one. I mean, we met for the first time at ASM event, right? I mean, so, yeah, it's really true. You got to get. You have to come out to them. It's, it's. You're doing yourself a disservice if you don't come to them and come to mind.

And I'll be there. All right, Ezra, always cool to hang out with you, man. Thanks for hanging out with us.

Thanks, man. Talk to you later.

After we hung up, Ezra and I debriefed to talk about the TV show ideas that we came up with. And I'm actually legitimately thinking about putting together a pilot for something like that. I've always wanted to do some sort of an incubator show where we go in and get our hands dirty and make a business successful. Specifically if it's a business that solves a big problem. Because then we could show that entrepreneurs solve problems better than government can. Like, you know how many entrepreneurs there are working on solutions to health care? And yet we're waiting for Trump to solve it. Really? Like, do we expect politicians to solve problems? Why don't we just incubate entrepreneurial ideas and do it in the private sector via the profit motive. So, hey, if you're a producer or you work in TV or Hollywood and you think this is a good idea, contact us, let us know, because I think we would have a lot of fun and change a lot of lives and get pretty good ratings doing something like that. If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe over on itunes. You can head to freedomfastlane.com iTunes for a super easy link to do so. And if you know anybody who sells physical products on the Internet, get him to subscribe and then bring him to Austin, Texas to hang out with Ezra and I at his event August 4th and 5th. So I'll be sharing what's working well right now. Ezra will be sharing what's working for him, and we'll attack the physical product world from all angles. It'll be a lot of fun, and we'll just get to hang out and probably eat too much and share some laughs. So I hope to see you in Austin here in August. And as always, I appreciate you supporting Freedom Fast Lane. I do this simply because it is fun and it's only fun if you listen and support the show and you do. So I appreciate it. I believe that entrepreneurs solve problems better than government. I believe that entrepreneurs are the leading freedom fighters in the world, that we create a bigger pie and that we basically make the world go round. So you do a great thing in the world by being an entrepreneur or by being an aspiring entrepreneur. It's the greatest gift you can give to the world, to your family, to your community. So I honor you, I appreciate you, and it's a privilege to speak in front of you. Thanks for listening. I'll see you on the next episode.