Jared Goetz: The Advantage of Hitting Rock Bottom

Under some foreclosure as well. I was working 3 jobs trying to make ends meet, and then now I'm like, I want to learn what you guys do.

Okay, well, you know what, it's actually a blessing that you were able to go through that because it built up a muscle inside of you that's gonna like, you know, next time a stressful situation comes to you, you're gonna be able to just blow past it without even, you know, it's It's gonna be like a feather falling on you because you've been through so much other shit.

Yeah.

Oh my God, yeah.

Hey guys, Jared Goetz here. Today I'm about to go call some people who DM'd me their phone number through Instagram to talk about e-commerce, business, life, entrepreneurship, their journey, and everything in between. If you guys get value out of it and if you enjoy it, subscribe to my channel, comment below, I'll answer as many as I can, and please go ahead and share with your friends. See you guys there.

Alright, hit it live so we can get some people on.

What's up, what's up? Here with Brad, Dino, some people downstairs, uh, I mentioned before I'm gonna be calling about 5 people today. We got some cool people who DM'd us, screened pretty much everyone to make sure we have people that were interesting and had cool situations. So what's going on? Who's on here right now? Anyone I know? A lot of people on so far. Awesome. Um, we're about to make, uh, the first phone call. We got a bunch of people on already, so we're gonna start out with Charlie. Charlie, if you're watching this, we're about to call you. It's not coming from my phone number.

Your call has been forwarded.

Oh, Charlie didn't answer. Charlie, shaking my head. Let's, uh, we'll call someone else. He should probably call back. But by the way, Charlie, I know him. If, uh, if you're watching, I'm calling from a different phone number, so make sure to answer next time. He probably just fucked you, bud. Good. We're calling Huff Chase next. Huff Chase. Chase may be your first name or Huff, I'm not sure. What's up?

Hello?

Hey, is this Huff Chase?

Yes, it is.

Hey, Jared Goetz calling you.

How's it going, man?

Good, how are you? Where are you living?

Salt Lake City, Utah.

Very nice. What's going on? What are you up to today?

I'm just hanging out, getting ready to go to the gym and work on my stuff.

Love it, cool. Yeah, so tell me what's going on with your life and what your business— what do you got going on?

Okay, so it's kind of crazy. So I went to college for a year in Salt Lake. I played baseball there and just did my general stuff, and then I moved out to Illinois and played a year of baseball out there and then realized like, hey, this college thing ain't working for me. Like, everybody here is miserable to get a job that doesn't pay them any I was like, okay, I'm gonna go back home and start working on something. So I started an apparel company, Skate Apparel, because I kind of skateboarded all the way growing up. I had a bunch of buddies that loved that stuff. So I created my own logo and on Adobe, got them printed, sold a decent amount of them, didn't profit that much, and didn't really work out. So I was like, okay, So then I looked up, I always knew about the dropshipping e-commerce type of stuff. It never caught my eye where I was like, that's awesome, that's something I can do until I actually looked into it. Then I was like, okay, this is awesome. I know my work ethic. I mean, I played baseball, I played D1 baseball. My work ethic is, I mean, I'm not trying to boast myself, but seriously, if I put my mind to it, I'm going to finish it no matter what. So I started looking stuff. I— there's so many scams online, so it's kind of ridiculous. There's, you know, literally, you know way more about me, I'm sure. So everything I saw was— most of it was a scam. Like, you're paying money here to do this, do this. So it took a lot of time to start growing my knowledge about it, and it's still not that— I don't, I don't know that much.

So you're, you're trying to grow your knowledge before you get started? It seems like.

Right. I have a website up right now. I'm— most of it's like trial stuff. I mean, obviously if I make some sales and make a profit, that's awesome. But as of right now, I'm growing my knowledge as in Google Analytics, Facebook Ads, Google Ads, my Shopify store.

Have you started running ads yet?

Yeah, so I ran a few $5 ads on Facebook. And then I made like a $20 ad for a couple days and I got a lot of reach out there. I got— for the way it does it, I mean, you know, I reached a ton of people and got a bunch of clicks and stuff, but I was selling really cheap stuff like China chips and AliExpress phone cases, jewelry, that kind of stuff. And then I talked to one of my buddies from Michigan and he said He was telling me about how he does it through Amazon and he gets real products shipped from the United States. And so I was like, oh, maybe that's something I should look into. Looked into that a little bit and then found out how to find— because I'm doing everything through AliExpress right now because that's the first way I guess I learned through YouTube videos. It's been countless nights of me staying up all night watching videos.

Yeah.

That was the first way I kind of learned and so I'm doing that now. So I changed my whole entire store, I cleared all of it out of it and now I kind of got a little watch thing going on.

So where are you struggling most? Like where are you caught up?

I guess finding— being able to gain trust from customers.

Okay. So a couple things, you maybe, you may think that your trouble is gaining trust from customers, but why do you think that? Like, you, I don't think that that's necessarily your issue, but I would like to know why you think that.

Okay, um, so my mom, for example, she's the type to never go to a website and just straight up put her credit card in and, you know, buy something that she doesn't know because there's so much There's so much crap out there now. So I base a lot of it off of like looks and at first I didn't have quality pictures. I didn't have good descriptions and because you know all the stuff was cheap stuff from China.

Let me chime in. I've had stores that are just— that I built in like 15 or 20 minutes that have done half a million dollars in a month. And it— so if you focus too much on the store and the quality of the images and all that stuff, you're holding yourself back from a big market that's not like your mom. You know, there's a lot of people out there that do go on and shop and buy things impulsively. In fact, there's millions and hundreds of millions of people that do. So rather than focusing so much on trying to perfect things before you start advertising, you need to start focusing more on testing different things, meaning Testing different price points on your store, different incentives, you know, maybe if it's buy 2, you get free shipping. You want to be testing more audiences. So if you're running Facebook ads, you want to be trying broad audiences, narrow audiences. You want to start retargeting people who engage in your ads, and you want to start testing more ad creatives. So at that point, if you're doing all those things and you start getting sales, then it's worth exploring deeper into that product. But that's why I always recommend that people start out with the general store, that you can actually test products that other people have proven to have sold successfully. So you're not just like thinking, oh, I'm going to try these watches. To be honest with you, to be completely frank with you, if you're just trying to start a watch store and dropship watches or even build a brand, it's a shitload of work to get something like that off the ground. You're better off getting started by just testing products that other people are already selling trending products. And if you see ads or if there's other spy tools out there, we have a tool called EH Product Finder that we use and it's actually our program. But it's basically, you know, if somebody else is selling a product and they're running an ad and they have a price point and that ad has a lot of likes, comments and shares, that means that that person has spent a lot of money on ads and they wouldn't have spent the money on ads if they weren't doing it profitably. If you do something very similar, that's the beauty of the internet, you can find ideas and you can model what works. With any business, you want to model what works. You don't want to just start with something random. If you model what works, you give yourself thousands of times better odds getting some traction. Then once you have traction, then you can start testing outside the box because you're making money. If you're not making money, it gets really discouraging when you start losing in the beginning. I definitely recommend a general store and testing products that are already selling online.

Okay, so I have a question for you then.

Sure.

So, um, I've seen so much more, um, I mean, like I said before, it's hard to trust the internet. It's hard, especially when I'm getting into something that I don't know that much about. So do you think I should sell things, um, that have a bigger margin where I'm making more money off each set? Of each product or something generalized with a bunch of just random smaller—

Yeah, so it depends. There's two different kind of styles here. The main price point that we have the most success with is between $15 products and like $70 products, right? And with those, like, if you're selling a $15 product, you got to be sourcing it for $3 to really have a shot at running profitable ads. You need to keep yourself— a very large margin. But if you're— like a 300%, 400% margin. But if you're selling a product for $70, you can just have 100% margin. You can be getting it for $35 or even $40. So your margin percentage varies. And then if you're getting into the high-ticket dropshipping, if you're selling something that's $1,000 or $2,000, that gets a lot more complex as far as cross-channel advertising where you're starting on Facebook, you're retargeting people on native ads, you're putting on Google Shopping, you're retargeting on Facebook.

Because that stuff is way more narrow.

It's not necessarily more narrow, but it's not impulsive.

Like longboards or something, only people that are interested in that.

Well, for sure, and the price point is not impulsive. If you see a product online that's $13.99, you don't really have to think much about it. You're just like, "Ah, I can use that. I can buy that." We sold a windshield cover in December when it was cold out, and it covers your windshield from snow. We sold it for $13.99. And we said if you buy 2, you get free shipping. So our average order value is actually $31. People were buying 2 or 3 of them as gifts. And it was an extremely impulsive buy. We were getting $5 cost per purchases. We did about $550 grand in sales in 1 month, just during December. And the net profit on it was like $160K. So you need like— those are good products where you have a big margin and you can get people to buy more than 1.

Okay. Okay, awesome. So, generalized store and I guess I just need to learn more about the margins because I don't have that much experience so I need to figure out where to put my ads and how much margin I'm making. Yeah, so— So I can reinvest.

Yeah, for a shortcut you want to use a spy tool or a tool that gives you products and suggested selling prices. So you have less uncertainties.

What was it called?

Your— Yeah, ours is called ehproductfinder.com.

Ehproductfinder, okay.

Yeah, and it's basically a syndicate of all the spy tools online. We just pick the best products and put it on there with video creatives, with descriptions, with selling prices, link to supplier, all that stuff. So it makes it easier for you to test.

Right, okay. So— Do you think I should stick with the AliExpress? Because I'm doing it through Oberlo.

Yeah, so AliExpress is good for testing, but once you get traction, once you're selling, you know, 50+ units per day, you want to move to a private supplier. We have suppliers in China that we worked with. We sometimes import products to the US and warehouse them here for faster shipping. But for testing, we're typically using AliExpress.

Okay. And then we— Okay, so start there until I can get in contact with the supplier and prove to them like, hey, I'm selling stuff. This works. Can I sell your product?

Yeah, exactly. Because suppliers aren't going to work with you if you're selling 2 or 3 units a day unless they have the product in stock. But if you could show 50 or 60 sales a day, a private Chinese seller, which is less middlemen involved before AliExpress, you get cheaper pricing and faster shipping. They'll work with you because they'll just stock like 200 units at a time because it only takes them like 2 days to source the stuff. So if you send them orders, they'll keep sourcing it for you.

Okay, okay, that's awesome. See, there's just so much that I got to learn because there's so many middlemen in the AliExpress type of stuff.

There's—

I feel like there's so much in the middle where I want to be able to eventually cut it back where there's no middleman.

Yeah, well, the thing is like, yeah, that's totally fine and like don't go to get overwhelmed trying to learn it all. Like example, I had a product that I was selling like 2,000 units of per day and it was costing me $22 per unit. But then I had leverage and I was like, I went to my supplier and I said I need it at $17 per unit and then I got down to $17 and I went to another supplier and said I need it for $15. I went to another supplier and I got it for $12. So I ended up saving $10 per unit, which allowed me to spend more money and scale even bigger. So you worry about that stuff once you're growing because then you have leverage to negotiate.

So now I just need to work on finding out what products work, how to do it, how to advertise it, who to target.

Exactly. And you can just cut, shortcut, use products that are already on one of our finding tools. And just start getting it out there because the more you practice, the more ideas you'll start to come up with and the more effective your education will be. It will answer questions that you didn't know you had.

Okay. Is there a— is the eH5 Finder free or is there like a trial I gotta sign up for?

There's a trial. You can check it out. But listen, I actually gotta jump because we have a few more people to call and we don't have too much more time.

Okay, I appreciate the phone call. This has been awesome.

Absolutely.

You're an awesome guy. I appreciate it so much.

Yeah, good conversation. Thanks, man. Have a good one.

All right, you too, man. Thank you. Bye-bye.

All right, let's go. We'll give, uh, give Charlie a call again because he just texted me. Charlie, if you're watching, you better answer this time. Is this Charlie Walk?

Yeah.

What's up, Charlie? It's Jared.

Oh my God!

No, I'm using someone else's phone.

What's up, buddy?

This is for everyone who's watching. This is Charlie Walk. He's a music mogul. Hey guys, it's Charlie Walk.

We're with the living legend, Mr. Charlie Walk. How you doing?

Diddy had called me out one day and said, do you want to move culture with me?

I want to get back into music. Thank you so much, Charlie.

Nice to see you.

You too. Nice to meet you.

Thanks so much. So when he DM'd me, I said we definitely gotta call Charlie. So what's going on, man? You're live.

So guys, here's what's going on. Very inspired by Jared Goetz, the guy is working— What time you go to the gym this morning? I saw 4:30 on my— I clocked you at 4:35.

Yeah, I was in there by— well, actually, I was in the gym by 6, but I was up at 5.

Okay, so you're out there with your boys in the gym, you're hitting the Everlast bag on the belt. Which has motivated me to get on my Peloton and get in the fight with it myself. So thanks for that. But most importantly, guys, I could tell a good friend of this guy, watching him as an entrepreneur, you know, I worked for many music companies as an employee. I was an intrapreneur. So what an intrapreneur is someone suffering from wanting to be an entrepreneur, but they have golden handcuffs on. You can't get out because you're getting paid and you're creating value, but you haven't figured out how to be your own boss. That's what I actually came— I coined that term about 5 years ago. And when I got to meet Jared, was it New York we met?

Yeah, we met in New York in your spot.

Met in my man cave and we had a real conversation and I was obsessed with the fact that you were so calm, you were so focused, and really like retraining yourself from going from the inside of a company to an entrepreneur. It's a really interesting sort of thing to observe, especially when I look at myself in the mirror. You know, the thing about, thing about Jared was he wasn't on his phone every 5 seconds and checking texts and Instagram stories. When he, when he went on it, it was for a reason, right? Manage accounts, look at the business, making sure his posts were tight to make, to feed the base, right, your community, keep that ecosystem alive. So he's been a big influence on someone like me who's learn to become an entrepreneur. So what I've done, Jared, is taking my many, many years of music expertise, and we created Music Mastery, which is going to launch in a few weeks. And, um, it was inspired by a lot of people including yourself, but the big thing that happened to me was one night I was going through my Instagram stuff and a sponsored link came in. It was Tony Robbins, the legendary Tony Robbins. the Tony Robbins Business Mastery. And Tony was talking about his 30 years of experiences and how to apply that to your life and how to have a better life, be a better businessman. And I said to myself, well, every day I kept on getting DMs, keep on getting every day DMs from people that either think I'm going to be able to spend 2 hours with them, listen to their music or advise their musical career, whatever it may be. Probably a lot of the same DMs you get, Jared. And how do you How do you not just even sort of scale it, but how do you make it so everybody can sort of get a piece of your brain and your thoughts and have it in an organized fashion? So we shot over the last few weeks sort of a— I hate to say class or course, but we put together a 6-week information inspirational program with probably 50 modules, special guests that will become a living, breathing online program for people to learn about the business. And not really from a technical point of view, where maybe a lot of what you guys have to do with Shopify, which is incredible, has a lot of technical secrets to it. You know, it's the human emotion part of music that sort of separates people that are good versus great. We talk a lot about that. We talk about a lot of the case studies that have happened in my life with artists. And I think we're making something super compelling. And the other thing that happens, I think, with my program is it doesn't end when week 6 comes and it's over. It sort of begins because we want to have an open ecosystem on Facebook and do Zoom stuff, create some live events, do some close friend stuff, and really keep the community growing and have everybody not say they need me, but they need we, they need us together just to play music together. For each other to upload stuff on YouTube and make it theirs. I thought that was the missing thing. Everyone's like, you know, watch your course or buy your textbook and you're done, take someone's money. I'm like, no, no, no, no, why don't we grow together and learn together? Because your business, whether it's being the top Shopify genius in the world or me being pretty good at music, it changes. Things move, things move. I just read today that Instagram, you know, is, preparing to, uh, be a part of the sales game.

Yep, yep.

And what does that mean? What does that mean to everyone that sort of watches you? And what does that have to do with your business? Well, it has to do with every— everyone, right? Right, right. And, uh, so, and those things are updates. So if your course ended and you're not able to communicate that to the people that rely on you to pivot to make sure they don't get hurt with their stores and their products, shame on us if we're not allowing that access to continue. Does that make sense?

Yeah, well, you gotta either be— you either gotta be the smartest person, meaning you're going around and you're learning all the newest trends and staying in the loop, or you need to surround yourself with the smartest people regularly to keep yourself at that level so that you could stay in the new new when new features roll out.

I completely agree. I mean, I've got a bunch of people They ask me what that means for them is the merch they're selling that are musicians. What does that mean? Because it eliminates a step. It eliminates a click-through. So it takes what I call less friction. There's less friction.

When e-commerce first started out, there was tons of friction. First it was eBay and you had to put even just the checkout process was so much lengthier and it was like a hassle. Now Amazon is setting the precedent for just one-click buys and the product shows up at your house in a day. So all these other companies are going to start adapting. Instagram, Shopify, because they're setting new standards. So in the next few years, buying products is going to be much less frictionless, or much less friction.

Yeah, I agree. We're all connected, right? So Jared may not be an expert in music, and I certainly may be not the smartest kid as it relates to Shopify and what he's done. And I also think there's cross-pollination that's going to happen in the future because we're all selling something. We all have something that we want to get to people and make sure people can make a decision on a product. You can have the greatest Shopify store backend, beautiful, amazing product, but if no one knows about it, No one knows about it. And that's when I always say funny things happen when you don't promote nothing. So the promotion, marketing of what we all do, that's sort of where we synergize. And that's when Jared and I have dinner. It's not just about him working out and figuring out a way to live a great life, which is what he's been able to do based upon being passionate about something early on and identifying that passion. Hardship that he has that, you know, in his brain to amplify. I think everyone that's on this, and of course the team around you that you're building out in Florida and beyond. So it's really about, I think, all of us and guys and girls that can go out there and connect the dots. Why I wanted to hop on was, you know, for anyone that's interested in music, there's another thing that I just did, Jared. I didn't really tell anyone. I put up part of it yesterday. I have so many people hitting me up and saying, Charlie, thank you for the advice, but I can't— I, I can't afford to make a video. I can't afford to record a song even on my computer because I can't buy a Mac. And I said, well, what if I take a foundation— we call this the Charlie Walk Foundation, which I started, um, it's on Instagram now— and a portion of proceeds from Music Mastery of sales went towards underprivileged artists and creators. And then we're going to start being able to do a reach out. I don't care if it's $100, $5, $2. Take some of that money and hand it to people that are in need to be competitive, right? So how can you make great music if you don't even have a computer on your bed? Like, that's crazy. So, you know, if I go— I may be able to go to Apple and make a deal with Apple, like, hey, you can go to underprivileged kids so they can start making music.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, all that. I'm just thinking about anything. Or Or maybe I'll invest in a band that I love and make an investment so they can have a place to rehearse. Maybe they can't afford drums. I don't even— who the hell knows? Or maybe they can't afford the social media guy to shoot a proper video. So it's trying to like get everyone that needs the help to be able to compete on an even playing field and give back. And that was just something that hit me, you know, the other day. It wasn't part of the master plan. Yep. If you can always keep your mind open, think differently, challenge yourself, and look in that mirror and say, "What am I not doing?" It's not even just keeping your mind open.

It's actually about keeping your mind primed. If you were in a lazy, depressed state laying in bed all day, you probably wouldn't have thought of that idea. But you were probably out and about or in a comfortable home or in an office that makes you feel good. And that's where those ideas flow from. So you gotta actually like— for those of you watching, like, you gotta actively work on yourself to make yourself feel really good so that those ideas do flow, which is exactly why I was in the gym this morning at 6 AM, you know, exactly why I meditated this morning, because those ideas are invaluable. You never know when your next idea is gonna be that life-changing idea, and if you're not putting yourself in the right mindset you have such an opportunity, you just, you cut out all these opportunities to have those kind of ideas.

Yeah, you're right. You also have to realize, I don't care what age you are, what you're good at and what your passion is. You know, if your family's in the landscaping business and it's easy for you to be the next Chief Landscaper but you really don't want to be that dude, then don't do that because you were probably born with a different type of, of, of, I call it the starship that maybe makes you want to do something that you love. You have to get ahead of that early on. And that transcends into, yes, going to the gym. It's called doing things for you before you can really be the best at doing things for others. Transcendental meditation is something that's important to me. I do it 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes late in the afternoon. And I have a mantra that comes along with that. And just for whatever reason, for me, it clears your head out. You gotta treat your body, um, you know, you know, the way you would treat your finest car, right? You gotta keep it tuned up, you gotta keep it clean, you gotta keep it running, you got gas in it. And, uh, and, and that's how I think for me— I told you I was dreaming about what was missing in my life. It was like the give back meets making people famous meets showing people how to be the best they can be from an artist perspective, or the artist behind the artist, which which would be sort of the business person, or creating stuff that no one sees coming. You know, we look at— I look at India now. Streaming is just in India. Okay, you can be damn sure that there's going to be amazing sounds coming from India that transcend from the streaming world to the United States. Oh yeah, South Africa, the same thing. You know what's happening in Latin culture, those of you that know who Bad Bunny is, biggest Latin star in the world, but he's selling out these selling out arenas in every major city in America. Yeah. So is he Latin? Is he Latin? Yes. But is he culture? You bet. And that's what happens with technology. Technology has showed us that the gatekeepers that may have blocked a certain type of sound or music, especially in that space, streaming's like, uh-uh. Streaming doesn't discriminate. Music goes up and people listen. People have to listen to what they like. No one's listening to what they don't— they actually, you know, artists get paid by people listening to their music. So it's a very clean, transparent conversation when you think about that. And, and, and the purchase of music is actually a listen, right? If you think about, you know, the Shopify store on that thing is like, okay, you have to be, I guess, a member, a paid subscriber, or, you know, on, on an Apple or have premium streaming on Spotify, Amazon, YouTube, etc. But the thing is, people are getting paid on a transaction called listening.

Yep.

So it's a fascinating time.

So Charlie, real quick, I gotta call like 4 more people here, but what's like the number one— I know you're creating this awesome new business, Music Mastery. What's the number one like thing that's on your mind or like the number one thing that you are facing where you're just kind of uncertain about that I might be able to give you some good advice on.

Okay, I would say the real-time conversation that we're having now, Jared, is the conversation about Stripe, conversation about Instagram, and how you price certain products. and also how do you finance those products so everyone can afford it. So it's the conversation of the ecosystem of commerce. And I would want to ask you, what's the most seamless way to create the ultimate, uh, seamless commerce ecosystem?

Like for people to buy into a program?

Well, I think even for me, for someone that's even making one like myself. For someone that's making something that they're gonna sell, whether it's a t-shirt or an LMS program.

Yeah, I mean, the fact of the matter is that like these days, you know, 2019, there's so many different merchant processors, there's so many different tools and softwares that have mastered the checkout process to make it as frictionless as possible that it's just not hard anymore. You know, you got Stripe, Authorize.net, Those things integrate with ClickFunnels very easily. They integrate with Shopify, whatever program you're using. And it makes it pretty seamless. You can even take payments over the phone. So, I mean, there's just so many tools out there that make it very easy.

Great.

Yo, Charlie.

By the way, before we go, what's your favorite tool?

My favorite tool? I mean, we use so many different software integrations. Probably Infusionsoft.

Interesting. Excuse me, sir. Bye, everybody. Alright, man.

Bye, Charlie. Talk to you soon. Thanks for hopping on. Alright, guys. That was Charlie Walk. If you guys don't know him, look him up. He's actually a really amazing person and someone you want to know. So next we're going to be calling either Kristen or Christine. I'm not sure what your name is, but I'll call you right now and you can let me know.

Hello?

Hey, is this Kristen or Christine?

Yeah.

Hey, what's up? It's Jared Goetz.

No way! Yay!

Hey, what is your actual name?

Christine.

Christine, what's going on? Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you too.

Where are you?

I'm in South Francisco, the Bay Area.

Oh, very cool. I was just there about 2 weeks ago. What do you, uh, what do you do? What are you working on? What's, uh, what's going on?

Um, I'm actually a flight attendant.

For which airline?

Used to be Virgin America, now Alaska.

Very cool. And what are you trying to do?

Um, well, basically overall, back in the 8 years I was in debt, I had pay IRS, I had to pay helping my dad out, my name was under some foreclosures, so I was working 3 jobs trying to make ends meet, and then now I'm like, I want to learn what you guys do.

So have you gotten yourself past the rock bottom state that you were at?

Just as of last year.

Oh.

Lost it over like I was going through hell.

Okay, well, you know what, it's actually a blessing that you were able to go through that because it built up a muscle inside of you that's gonna like, you know, next time a stressful situation comes to you, you're gonna be able to just blow past it without even, you know, it's gonna be like a feather falling on you. 'Cause you've been through so much other shit.

Yeah. Oh my God, yeah.

It's like training. It's like going to the military and training your endurance. And then when you go to battle or when you go to, you know, in your sake, when you're going to start a business, little things that would stress out people that are beginners, you know, like setting up a business entity or setting up something, you know, a legal document or getting served with a cease and desist letter. That would cause people to go crawl up in the corner and be scared. You're not going to be scared of. So you got to, you know, you're a step ahead of the game.

Yeah, I agree with you. Because like I've gone through, oh, hell. So it's like, okay, I know how it is to sacrifice, struggle. Because like it was quite difficult.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, when I was, you know, for those of you guys who've read my book, When I was 22 years old, I lost all the money I had made in my first business. And on top of that, you know, I had a big ego because when I was 21, I made about $1 million and I thought like I had everything made, so I was on top of the world. When I was 22, I lost everything and then I got slapped with a $250 lawsuit from someone who shouldn't have even been able to sue me, but I wasn't able to afford an attorney, so I was fighting it myself in federal court, and that was my rock bottom. And at the time, it seemed like the worst thing that could have ever happened. I wouldn't have wished it on anyone. But looking back, you know, 7 years later, it was actually the best thing that ever happened to me because it prepared me to now be able to take and face much bigger and stronger obstacles. So I'm like very grateful that I went through those things.

$250K, not $250.

$250K, yeah. So, um, so what are you trying to do now?

Um, you know, I've been running through your videos and looking at e-commerce, and now I'm like, oh my God, maybe this is something I could do. So just like studying and looking at YouTube videos, and I don't— I haven't really done anything yet. It's been— I'm like, now I want to get into it.

So you're interested in getting into e-commerce. You have a full-time job and you're like, hey, this looks interesting.

Yeah.

Okay, cool. How much time do you have per day to commit to starting something?

Um, well, let's see. I had 4 jobs at the time. Uh, basically, um, I go on layovers and I have time. I was like laying in bed on layovers like, okay, I want to learn now. Because I used to work these other jobs where I had to be physically there. Right. When I used to serve, I used to bartend, I used to grab my uniform, put it on, and I'd fly to— I'd have to red-eye. And I was not doing this because At the time, like, I was getting garnishment and, you know, helping my dad out. And like, now I'm done with all that. Like, I broke down and cried like last year. I was just like, I can't believe that whole thing is off my shoulder. And I'm just looking into other things and I keep running into your videos. I'm like, oh my God, this is awesome. I, I'm into like advertising too, so it's kind of like Oh, but I don't know anything really about it.

Yeah, well, that's where we all started. That's where I started too, not knowing anything about it. But where I did start was a very similar instinctual feeling that it was something I wanted to do, getting into e-commerce. I was doing something else at the time and it was importing products. I was doing a lot of other things, but I was actually grinding. I was working really hard and it was after a 3-day long trade show. I was tired, about to go to sleep. And I had a flight the next morning at 7 AM. And right before I went to sleep, I got an email and it was like, "How to sell products without ever seeing them or touching them." And I was literally like, "I gotta wake up in like 4 hours." And then I opened the email because I went with my gut and I watched the webinar on it, which gave me some insight on what the business model was, which got me even more excited. And I immediately took action. I actually got to the airport the next morning, 3 hours before my flight, and I built a Shopify store. And put up some ads before I took off. And by the time I got back, there were sales on that store. So like, the key takeaway is— well, first, and also that store went from $0 to $2 million in its first 60 days, which was the crazy part. But— That's awesome. But the key takeaway was like, when you get that instinctual feeling, you have to take immediate action. And then once you do, you have to be consistent with it because like, you'll get little bursts of motivation. You may have just had some motivation to send me a DM and send me your phone number, right? I'm sure some days you're more motivated than others, but the key is if you get started, you have to be consistent with it. You have to— even the days that you don't want to do anything, just start with a small task. Maybe you're like, "I don't really know what to do. Should I advertise? Should I find products?" You might not know exactly what to do, and in those cases, just pick something and start, and you'll build up a momentum that you'll start doing more and more things afterwards. The key is to be consistent with it.

Okay, I like that.

So do you have any specific questions or anything like that, you know, you just think you're curious about or need help with?

Um, how do you— I keep hearing the word influencers, like obviously you're one now, but like how do they get started? Like I'm still— I guess information on that.

On like getting a— gaining a big following?

Yeah.

You know what, I don't really— aside from just consistently putting out value and being consistent with posting and making people like you, you either have to be hanging around with other people that have big followers where they're shouting you out and you're part of something, or you have to be doing something great which will get you press. You know, when I built my store from $0 to $2 million, there was an article that got published in Entrepreneur Magazine about it. And that was like a huge step for me. I went from like maybe 1,000 followers to like 12,000 followers right after that came out. And then, you know, people started DMing me and I was interacting with people. And then, you know, other than that, like once you have a business that's running, like when you're running paid traffic, you can also build up your organic following. But I don't think there's any like, you know, you don't want to be like those people out there that buy fake followers and fake likes and like, because what's the point of that? I mean, people are doing that just to stroke their own ego. So to organically do it is not easy, but you just have to keep doing cool things.

Okay, so what do you recommend I should, my first few steps I should get done?

Well, are you active on your social media?

I am.

I believe from my memory your Instagram profile is private.

Correct.

Okay, well, you can't really gain many followers with a private profile. You should probably— yeah, you should definitely turn that off. Do you use other social media?

I do. I was already thinking about opening up a whole new Instagram since I travel a lot. So I'm thinking maybe I should open up a new one, or should I go on with mine and just You know what you should do?

If you're traveling a lot, that's something you can leverage. Not many people get the opportunity to travel a lot. So in that case, you can get really good content. So I wouldn't just bring an iPhone with you and like snap regular pictures. I would leverage the, the ability to go to all these cool places and take really good content there. That's something that's valuable to people. That's something that people will follow.

Okay.

So yeah, invest in like some nice equipment and like just start putting out good content to the world.

Perfect. I do have some good photos. Oh my God, I should just unblock mine, but you know, when you're like, oh, I don't know yet.

Yeah, but you got to make that decision whenever you're ready.

Oh yeah, sounds good. And then what should I do next after that?

Well, it depends what you're actually doing to start with. I mean, you could Either reach out to people who have big followings in a similar space and tell them how much you admire their work and maybe see if they'll give you a shoutout so you can gain followers from there. You can post something that can go, you know, that's organic and valuable on YouTube, which is searchable and relatable, and you'll gain followers from there. I mean, I wouldn't consider myself an expert influencer. Like, I have about 75,000 followers, but it's pretty much because I've been advertising e-commerce for so long and I've had some articles published, but there's probably people out there I'd consider more of an expert on becoming an influencer than myself.

And learning the technicals of Shopify, how did that go?

You just gotta kind of— like, a lot of people want to learn too much before they get started, and like, the problem with that is that there's so much information out there, which is a beautiful thing, But when you're— you might go watch a YouTube video and be like, "Ah, that makes sense." And then go watch another YouTube video that's like the opposite of what that one was. And you're like, "Shit, who do I listen to? Do I listen to the first guy or the second guy?" And then you get like an internal conflict which actually causes you to do nothing. So sometimes better than learning, it's just doing. Like better than trying to educate yourself is like just dive in. And then when you run into problems, which you will inevitably run into, then the content and the education you consume will be more relatable because you've actually had the problems that they're talking about. So just dive in. That's really—

Okay.

That's really like my advice. Just dive in. It sounds simple, but just dive in. And you're gonna— when you first dive in, you're not gonna know what to do. The key is to just pick something and start doing it. And from there you'll build up momentum. Then you might put out an ad, right? And you're like, okay, I put out an ad. Now it's like, okay, should I test more ad creatives, right? Or should I put up new videos or whatever it is? But if you didn't just do that first step, you would have never thought of the second step. So you kind of just have— like when I get to the office sometimes, I'm like, I have a bunch of things on my list, but I just don't know what to do. And Brad the other day was like, just pick something and do it. And I just picked something and did it, and then I naturally rolled into the next thing, naturally rolled into the thing after that. Next thing you know, I got 10 things done, and that frustration that I had at the beginning of the day was entirely alleviated, and I felt really good about it. But you just gotta pick somewhere and start.

Got it.

So that is my advice for you.

I appreciate it. Amazing. I'm just shocked that you called. I kind of was like, wow, I'm excited. And I'm like, okay, you're making me move. Like, I'm like, you know, sometimes I pray, I'm like, give me some opportunities. What should I do? All these things coming in. I'm like, I don't know if I should do that. I don't know if I should do that. All of a sudden, I'm like, you know, I'm just gonna send him my number and we'll figure it out.

Yeah, well, that's called motivation, and don't mistake it with discipline. 'Cause discipline's a whole different ballgame. Now when you get started with something, even the days you don't want to do it, you gotta do it. This morning I posted on Instagram, I was like in bed, I didn't want to go to the gym. My brain was like, "Nah, you don't need to, you know, you should rest more, you're sore," or whatever. But like, that's when the discipline kicks in and you just gotta get yourself in motion. And once you're in motion, you stay in motion. So, just remember that. Um, Christine, it was nice to talk to you. Thanks for picking up, and I hope you got some value out of our call.

Perfect, thank you so much. I really, really appreciate it.

Alright, you have a great day.

You too, take care. Bye.

Bye.

Alright, so who am I calling next, guys? Let's see. We got a— okay, we got a Mikey who requested I send him a FaceTime audio, so let's see if I can do this. 2. All right, let's see. Mikey, Mikey, if you're on there, I'm about to call you. Just a minute. Hang on tight, guys. Having a technical issue with my phone. You know what, I saved this number as M, so now I can't find it. You have so many M's in here. Let's try this again.

Add number.

—We got M. We're gonna FaceTime audio you right now. It doesn't even let me FaceTime audio you. Sorry, Mikey, I tried FaceTime audioing you, but it did not work. So I'm gonna call the next person. We got Garrett Rogers. If you're still with us, Garrett, I'm about to give you a call. Whoever wants to come up next, shoot me a message on here.

Yeah, that's me.

Is this Garrett?

It is Garrett. Garrett, yeah. What's up, man?

This is Jared.

Hey Jared, how's it going? I'm going good.

Where are you, uh, where are you in the world?

I am in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Okay, very cool.

Canada. Canadian people are typically pretty cool people. So what's going on?

Yeah, not much, not much. Uh, I've been following you for a while and, uh, well, you're gonna be actually the first person that kind of made me start looking into this, uh, dropshipping world and, uh, e-commerce stuff like that. And, uh, I've just been trying to follow along and just doing multiple stores just to try to find products and never really worked out or anything. So I've just been on the go of trying to organize stores and how to make it look good to get people to think it's a real or a good enough store to buy something off of.

So if I understand it correctly— oh, sorry, go ahead, finish up.

I'm really big into— I want to get into I just want to get myself out there into the world, you know, and just do something on my own kind of thing.

Okay, so we got two topics. Number one, your ecommerce and you're trying to figure it out, and you said that you put up stores and nothing has worked for you yet. And number two, you want to just be an entrepreneur for some reason, and I want to know why. But first, let's jump into your e-commerce businesses. So you said you put up a bunch of stores and you haven't had any luck yet.

No, no, I've done 3 products so far and I'm just building my— I'm actually just building my third product right now. So I've done a few and they never really— I got a couple sales but nothing serious.

So you said you put up 3 products so far? Okay, cool. So typically what I tell people is with dropshipping and testing products, like, you want to be ready to test 20 products before you have any traction. Like, 10 at minimum. But like, we have a student who, before she found a winning product— and granted, she wasn't testing efficiently, so like Maybe it wasn't, you know, took her a little while extra, but it took her 67 products to find one that was a winner that actually made her money. She was $15,000 in the hole, but that 67th product made her about $100,000 in a month. It was like, you feel like you're losing. Imagine how discouraged she was at product number 60 and 61. When is she going to give up? So the moral of that story is you never give up until you quit. That's the first thing. And with dropshipping specifically, you can't quit too early or you're never going to make it. That's the main reason people do give up is because they've tried products but they haven't tried enough. So if you're on your third product, that's great. That's great practice. And by the time you do hit something that works and starts— you're profitably advertising it, then you'll have more experience and it'll take less of your energy to utilize the platforms you need to use because you're more familiar with them. So definitely keep testing products and be in the mindset to test at least 20 of them.

Well, definitely, and I'm in the mindset to not quit and I know that this will work at some point. You just need to find when it's gonna happen kind of thing. It could be in a month or it could be in a year, um, depending on— but I know for myself, I'm not a quitter and I want to make this happen because I've seen all these people, um, and they really motivated me. And AK too, um, you've been following me a while and I want to get to you. And I know I can, I just— how long is it gonna take?

That's the only thing. So let me ask you a question. Do you have a job right now?

Um, I do, yeah. I actually just finished university. Um, I've only done 2 years of university and I've just taken a break for a year. Um, because I'm not really motivated to do school at the moment.

Okay, so you have some cash flow. You're not like sitting there with no money.

You're like making some money at a job. No, no, I have an income coming in, yeah. Oh, that's great.

So What I'd probably encourage you to do if you want to have success with dropshipping is write out a month or 2-month-long plan. Find all the products you're going to test, put them in a spreadsheet with the price, the profit margin, and ideally a link to somebody else's ad who's selling it so that you're like, you know, you're pilling products that other people are selling. And put out days that you're going to test those products and be Really disciplined and make sure you actually stick to those days. Right? So you want to lay out maybe 20 products over the next month that you're going to test and allocate a budget to each one. If you're bringing in income, you're probably not bringing in life-changing income, I'd imagine, unless you have some insane job. But you're better off spending that income on testing products which could be a win for you than saving that and making 1-2% per year on a savings account. So I would— it's like a budget. You're budgeting for the month on how many products you can test with your income where you're comfortable and just stick to it and something will click. And I'm actually— I'll give you the permission right now that when something does click, you can hit me up on Instagram and I will give you guidance on what to do next.

Right, okay. Another question, you're saying to do multiple products. I have one Shopify store. Is there— with that, can you have multiple stores?

Yes, so what we do is we have a general store which is where we test products. So it's just one store with let's say 100 different products on it. We're adding products to it every day and whenever something hits and it starts to be profitable or starts to sell well, Then we have someone on our team create a single product store, which converts higher. Our general store converts at like 2 to 4% at best. And then our single product stores convert at like 4 to 8%, which means you're making twice as many sales per person you send. So even if you're breaking even on your general store, you're then profiting on the single product store.

Okay. Yeah, because right now I'm just making one product stores.

No, you don't want to do that because that will just— that takes up too much of your time. You know, just make one store that you test on and then once you get some traction, then build out a store for that one product that you're getting traction.

Right, so once you find that product that you think it's going to go over, then make it.

Yep, exactly.

And another question, do you have any Canadian students?

Yeah, for sure. We definitely have Canadian students.

And now what I've been doing, I've been targeting people, everything that I haven't seen most, a lot of Canadian dropshippers. I've yet to find them. And all the people I follow, are from the United States. So I—

Nah, there's definitely good Canadian dropshippers. What's your problem?

Yeah, okay. Uh, just currency stuff. Like, how do you guys work that out? So see, right now, I, um, everything like AliExpress and all that stuff, they pretty much target or Oberlo, um, they target more towards, uh, US currency. So As a Canadian dropshipper, do I focus on the US?

No, it doesn't matter what currency they charge you in. What you got to do is make sure that your store has an app on it or using a theme that changes the currency based on where people live. But for you to buy products, if you're buying them in USD, it doesn't matter. You can still use your credit card to do that and it's still the same price, it's just a different rate. Rate. So that shouldn't be an issue.

Okay.

No, yeah, that makes sense. But yeah, man, so listen, I got a few more people to call, but the number one thing is make that plan. Since you have an income, you could make— it's almost like making a budget. Make a plan, pick 20 products to test over the next 30 to 60 days, write them out in a spreadsheet, make sure that you're sticking to it and you're consistent, and something will start to work. And then you can personally hit me up on Instagram and I'll tell you what to do next.

Awesome, well thank you very much Jared for the call, I really appreciate that, man.

No dude, you had some really good questions. It looks like people are getting value here. Alright man, alright Garrett, thank you, have a good day. I lost him. Alright, who's going on? Next.

Nice to speak with you Jared, how are you?

You too, are you JBenSimmon on Instagram?

I am the one and only JBenSimmon on Instagram, yes sir.

Nice to meet you, it looks like you're actually in Florida.

I am, I am, actually relatively local. Where at, where you at? I'm in like the Fort Lauderdale area, I'm actually closer to like Davie, Sunrise Plantation.

Very cool, if you ever want to come visit our headquarters here in Boca Raton, you're welcome to stop by.

Dude, I'll floor it there right now.

Watch him show up on this call. So what's going on, man?

Um, not too much, not too much. I'll give you a run-through of my experience with dropshipping so far, so maybe we can see where to go from there. Sure thing. Right now, currently, I'm working at a toy distribution company, and we have a lot of products ranging from novelty toy items to consumer electronics, and we have this one product right now that I find to be pretty good for selling online. Primarily we do business from like business to business, you know, so we're selling like a bulk amount of goods to other companies and they're selling retail individually. But we obviously, you know, want to increase our profit margin, so we're trying to just take it to the next level and create our own online shop. So we do have the items, and I wouldn't necessarily consider this dropshipping because we have the stock at this point, but of course the Facebook ads still come into play.

Display. Yeah, that's even better. Yeah, exactly.

So definitely trying to get this pumping. I've been working on the website for about 2 weeks now. I'm about ready for launch, honestly. I connected my Facebook pixel today, and that's about the backend stuff that I've done so far.

So Jordan, hang on just one second. For anyone on the live, it's going to turn off in 55 seconds. I guess Instagram gives you a 1-hour limit, so I'll just go live again afterwards if you want to keep hearing these conversations. But you can go ahead, I just wanted to let everyone know.

Okay, no worries. So what I was saying was my experience with dropshipping is about like a year ago I tried, a friend of mine and I actually stumbled across some of your videos on YouTube and I've seen some Facebook ads and Instagram ads as well. So that was really like the first I've heard of it and from there we went on to make like an electronic-based dropship site, you know, spent like $200 on advertising, some super garbage products that we had literally no idea what we were doing and ended up just wasting a lot of money. So from there, I, I spent much more time trying to figure out really how to research products because obviously you can't sell something that's garbage. And now I feel that I have something good in my hands. I'm kind of ready to go, but the real concern for me is the Facebook advertising portion of this. Like, where do I start? What's the marketing strategy? Do I make multiple ad campaigns? Do I use different pictures, different ad copies?

Yeah, so I am actually just reconnecting to this Instagram Live right now. So for anyone who's hopping on right now, we got Jordan. He's got a bunch of inventory here in the US, which is cool, which is actually a great thing because you have like unlimited scalability without issues with customer support. Yeah, exactly.

That's why I'm very excited about this. —because we can really blow it up if it gets done.

Like typically when you're dropshipping from China, we're always telling people like be proactive with your customer support because people got to be patient with the shipping.

Yeah. But now we've eliminated half the problem. So you have good quality product and it's in the US is what you're saying. It's in my hands right now, even better than the US.

Very cool. And so your question is you connect to your Facebook pixel, you want to start advertising, where do you start? Yes, sir. Okay, so there's a multitude of different ways you can start. Testing and figuring out who's going to buy your product is the first thing. Do you have creatives? Do you have videos or photos of the product?

Yeah, we actually have like an abundance of lifestyle photos and images from the company that manufactures them. They're actually in Italy and they sent us over basically everything that they have. So I have a database full of images.

So do you have any videos that show the— what kind of product is it? Just general, high level.

Um, what do you mean by that?

Is it like a toy? Is it like—

Um, it's a power bank. Power bank, okay.

So do you have any videos of it being used?

Um, yeah, I think we have like some GIFs. I wouldn't necessarily say like full-on video. Cool.

So when it comes to creatives, this is actually really important. Um, you know, in the past I've spent like, you know, $10,000 on a video shoot with models and, you know, at a with drones and RED cameras, like, to make sick content. And I'd advertise products with those thinking that it would be, like, really good, but—

Yeah, because you paid so much money.

Yeah, like, thinking, like, okay, I got it, I nailed it. And then I advertised the same product, testing a creative that took us 28 seconds to make with no sound, showing the product on an iPhone, and that video got us about 25% of the total cost per purchase. So instead of spending $20 to get a buyer, we were spending about $5 to get a buyer, which was like astronomically better for the business. So with that said, you can just take that product, film a few different creatives in your office, test them against the creatives the company gave you, and find out what creative works best. Now you're basically locked into a few products because you have them on hand, so you need to find something that works, right? Correct. So with that, what you can do, where you can start is you can start with a video view campaign and a PPE campaign and test as many creatives as you can and see what's getting you the lowest— what kind of ad is getting you the— so what you do is the ad set would be a broad audience and then you'd have, let's say, 10 different ads underneath it. Maybe you're spending $50 a day, which would reach a lot of people, and see which ones are getting you cheapest cost per clicks, which ones are the people watching the longest, which ones are getting the best click-through rate, which ones are getting you the lowest cost per engagement. And then you want to take those, maybe the top 5 creatives, and put them in a purchase conversion campaign, right, to a broad audience. And you want to also retarget people who watch 95% of your video and people who have viewed your content, meaning that they clicked the ad and went to your website. And then from there, you're going to find out of those 5 creatives which one's getting us the lowest cost per purchase, you're going to focus most of your energy and efforts using those creatives. That one. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. Okay, cool. So that's where you probably want to start.

Okay, that's not a bad deal.

Yep. So from there, then it comes down to scaling, and that's a whole nother discussion. But do you have any other questions? Do you have any other questions about where you're at?

I guess from there after this little adventure that I have, I have another side hustle I guess you could say that I do. I have a separate Instagram page which I won't use this for promo but I use that Instagram page to buy and sell sneakers and streetwear and obviously these items already have demand but now that I've built myself a following on there, I'm actually trying to create like a niche shop where I sell, you know, sneaker accessories and stuff like that. So that's something else that I've gotten into. So what's a good way to go about advertising products once you've already, you know, established like your following? Like I already have a following.

Yep. So when you say you have a following, do you have an email list?

No, I have followers on Instagram. My Facebook page is growing still, but Instagram has been the priority so far.

And have you gotten a lot of traffic to your website?

Um, a fair amount, yeah, I would say.

Okay, cool. So then you're off to a good start because you can start retargeting those visitors with new products. You can also create lookalike audiences of people that have visited your website. Um, once you get 100 purchases, you can make lookalike audiences of those purchasers, and then you can test all the different sneaker products to that audience and see which product is selling the best. Because selling a product, it's a formula. It's not just like what's the product and what's the ad. It's like what's the product, what price are you selling it for, what's your incentive for them to buy now? Are you giving them buy one get one free? Is it buy one get one 20% off? Buy one get one with free shipping? And then who are you targeting? What's the size of the audience that you're targeting? And what creative are you using? And if you can nail all of those things, then you have a profitable campaign. Awesome, that's some solid information right there. Right, but the key is to find the product that sells first, meaning you can target all those lookalike audiences with many products and see what's getting the most traction, then pick one and start working on it.

Yeah, I got you. I have another question for you. I heard you mention earlier that you test products on a general site that you have, and then from there you go into selling on like a one product store. Why is it that you do that?

Well, simply because when you're dropshipping products, you don't know what's going to work. So rather, are you asking what's the reason we use a general store to test a lot of products or why are we testing a lot of products?

No, why are you testing on a general store?

Simply because when you're in this business, you gotta be an action taker. So like, if you think, if you see something working or you wanna try something, you just gotta do it right now. Meaning like, I don't wanna wait an hour to have a store built. Yeah, you wanna just put it on the site and get an ad out ASAP.

Yeah, essentially lift one product Instead of building a whole website to list one product.

Exactly, exactly. Understood. Yup, do you have anything else?

No, that would be the gist of it. I know you have some other people to call, so I'll let you get to that. And I'm going to DM you off to the side regarding that little offer you threw me at the beginning. Okay. Definitely very interested.

Yeah man, I mean you're right around the block, you're welcome to stop by anytime. Awesome, sounds good.

Well, thank you for your time Jared, I appreciate it.

Alright man.

Alright, you have a good one.

Have a good one, bye-bye. Alright guys, we are way over the time that we meant to go, but we'll make one more call. It seems like people are getting a lot of value out of these calls, which is really the purpose of it. So if you're on this list, we got— so anyone who specifically wants us to call right now, If you want me to call you right now, put your phone number in the chat. I just got a DM. We're getting DMs also. Put your— okay, so we're getting— give me your phone number and why you want the call, just because we have like a bunch of different people and we just got one left. Just like why? Give me a why. Okay, phone numbers, but we need whys. Don't be lazy. Oh, you get— okay, I guess I'll call, call this person. I'm gonna call one, a random person from here. I'm gonna call this guy right here. He's a 16-year-old entrepreneur who graduated high school. That sounds fun. 478-8190.

All right, this is the last call, by the way, guys. Hey man, what's up?

Hey, I'm sorry, what was your first name? Philip. Philip, what's up?

This is Jared Goetz. What's good, dude? Can't believe I'm on your live.

Yeah, that's so cool that you were just watching and now you're on here. Where are you living?

I'm currently in Massachusetts. I can tell by your accent.

Yeah, really? A little bit, the way you said Massachusetts. So what are you— you just graduated high school, you said you're an entrepreneur. What are you trying to do?

So basically I finished high school 2 years earlier because I got all of my credits that I need and basically I started dropshipping. Like I found out about it early on in February, and at that time I got like a letter from my college saying I got accepted for the fall, and my parents told me to go like to college and stuff, like do the college, but for them college is everything, you know, college is like a big deal for them. Yeah. But now we have the internet, we have like all this technology, and it's just not worth going to college anymore. You can build like an online store, e-commerce store, and like make money off that, make way more money off that.

So let me ask you a couple questions. So first of all, if you were going to college, would it be on your own dime? Would you be paying for it? No, I would—

or actually, I'd be paying half, like half of it.

Okay, and just remember, I mean, you're still young. Like, life's not all about money, especially in the beginning. You know, you have so much to experience. You can make money when you're 26, you know? That's true, yeah, of course. So, and college is fun. I mean, where would you go to college?

Oh my God, I got into this college, university, Westfield State University in my, like, in my town. It's a pretty big college. I mean, it's not like what I'm looking forward to because right now I'm doing dropshipping. Like, I have my store running. I'm currently getting like around 15 sales a day, like not too much, but like I'm being profitable for now, you know.

Dude, you should do both. You should pursue ecommerce and go to college.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I mean, that's what my parents told me to do, but I don't know.

Let me tell you something. When you go to college and you put yourself in a new environment, you're going to start sparking different neurons in your brain because you're in a new environment, you're living by yourself, you're meeting people, you're having experiences, and those experiences will shape your opportunistic view. You'll learn things that you didn't know about yourself and then you'll be able to see more opportunities in the world. So like, don't just think this is the be-all end-all. You're not gonna— I mean, you may— there's a chance that you'll build a very successful dropshipping store and then you'll roll that into other things. But life is more about than just money. Like, you know, when I was in college, I actually built a successful business and it took up a lot more time than dropshipping. It was actually— we built our own concert promotion company. So we had We threw the world's largest foam party when I was 20 years old in college. I'm talking like booking arenas and selling thousands of tickets. I was able to balance school and that and a little bit of partying on the side. To be honest with you, I wouldn't have changed that at all. I mean, I wouldn't be the person that I was today if I didn't go away to school and learn about myself.

I encourage you to do both. Yeah, like literally everyone I talk to about college and dropshipping, Everyone tells me to do both because it's an interesting part of your life. So I guess I'll do that, but I just feel like college will take up a lot of my time from doing what I want to be doing because I don't like school. I'm smart with school, but I don't like it.

Yeah, it's understandable not to like it, but you also got to remember that knowledge compounds on itself. So you may learn something about history and you're like, fuck this history class, so boring. But you may learn something that sparks something else that you didn't think of, and that translates into something else. So widen your knowledge base and more opportunities will come your way, even if you don't like it. That's a fact, yeah. So don't resent it, try to enjoy it.

Dude, thanks so much for that advice.

Yeah, I would definitely get out there and get those experiences while you can. You're not going to be able to decide when you're 30 or 40 like, hey, you can go to college, but you're not going to go live in a dorm and like, you know, or whatever you'd be doing, living on your own and having fun. Definitely want to do that.

Yeah, but yeah, like currently in dropshipping, like I got a mentor like maybe 2 weeks ago and right now we're just like testing products. I found a potential winner, but like It's giving me a little bit of profit, but like not as much as I want it to be giving me. So like right now I have like this niche store, a niche store. So like we're just testing products right now and like it's just like my thing, you know? Like I used to, like when I was 14 years old, I used to buy like broken iPhones that have like a broken screen. I just like replace the screen. And like when I heard about dropshipping, it was like, wow, it's like selling products, not even, not even like having the inventory, just like Got my attention, you know.

Yeah, that's where I'm at. So yeah, man, I mean, like I tell everyone, I mean, the fact that you're selling products profitably is fantastic. Now it's just a matter of scaling using Facebook ads. I don't want to get in too many details now because I got to jump, but definitely, like, if you are using Facebook ads, I'll dive in a little bit here.

Yes, Facebook and actually Instagram influencers a little bit.

Cool. So Instagram influencers can go both ways. They've definitely gotten less effective than they used to be, but they can still work if you're paired with the right ones, you get the right deal. But where you're gonna make the majority of your money is with paid social. So Facebook ads, even Snapchat ads are working pretty well. But it's just the—

Snapchat ads?

Yeah, it's, um, you know, because the CPMs on Snapchat are like a tenth of what they cost on Facebook because they want more advertising. Basically, you gotta look at advertising as an auction, right? Like, there's only unlimited inventory. Inventory meaning ad space. There's only so many ads Facebook could show, so many ads Snapchat could show, and Facebook has so many that it's a supply versus demand thing. That's why it costs a lot to advertise on Facebook. On Snapchat, The supply is low and the demand— no, the supply is high and the demand is low. So it's cheap. So definitely I would explore that as well.

Mm-hmm. But yeah, Snapchat will definitely be like a thing after I find a winner, you know. Like I might just jump into Snapchat right now. I'm still learning with Facebook. I mean, I'm getting the hang of it but Snapchat will be a thing definitely in the future if it goes well.

Yeah man, for sure. Well listen, I actually gotta jump off the call here, but I wish you the best of luck. Yeah, for sure. It was good talking to you too, and I hope you, you know, you'll make the right choices. Whatever you want to do will be what's good.

So have a good day, man. Thank you so much. Have a nice one. Alright, bye-bye.

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