YEAR VLOG CHALLENGE DAY 18 | iversify or Die: Why You Need More Than TikTok

It's a Monday morning. I'm feeling good. Not really, actually kind of have a little bit of a head cold, but I'm feeling fantastic in the sense of I'm excited to get to work today. Got a lot on the docket. Got a big week ahead of us. But this morning on my way to the office, I wanted to talk a little bit about this whole TikTok situation because it's been a little bit interesting to say the least. I've always been following very closely this, this, you know, new bill that's been passed. The House of Representatives just actually voted on it. It's going to be going all the way up, I think. Obviously things move slow, so I think that we're not going to see any bans in the, you know, very, very near future. But I do think that this is an interesting conversation to talk about on the horizon. There's a lot of TikTokers that are freaking out out there. A lot of TikTokers that are like, hey, you know, they can't do do this to us. They're going to take away all of our businesses. You know, we've built businesses on this platform. We've invested all this time and energy, these resources to create a following there. It's not fair. I hate to break it to you, but life ain't fair. That just is the reality of the situation. It's never going to be fair. So if you're arguing that life isn't fair, well, that's like saying the sky is blue. There's nothing you can do about it. I'm sorry. But what should you do then? What is the— what is the solution? Well, if you are one of those TikTokers that's got a following right now that's gonna be dramatically affected by this if it passes, like, I actually, I feel for you, 'cause that's brutal, and I know how hard it is to build a following, I know how hard it is to like, take time to create content, try to post it, get out there, but the platform isn't the conversation. It's not like, oh, you should go to LinkedIn, oh, you should go to, no, the platform is agnostic here. The real takeaway is that you should be less focused on the platform and more focused on the eyeballs. You should be focusing your time and attention to getting in front of as many people as possible. And the reality is, is that if any of us are all invested on one platform or two platforms, then our entire business is at potential risk. I mean, this happened with Google. The first time that they did the whole SEO updates and they went from like Panda to something over called Penguin, I think is what it's called, like this huge SEO update and it changed everyone's website SEO rankings.

Rankings.

People had built their entire business off the back of organic traffic on Google and overnight, their businesses got cut in half. This has happened with people that are on Amazon FBA and only on Amazon and they're actually realizing that, "Oh my gosh, my product isn't selling here anymore." Amazon could change the price on a competitive product that they've created and boom, overnight all of your traffic, all of your sales could be shifted over to Amazon's. This is something that you just got to recognize that you shouldn't Never put your eggs, all of your eggs in one basket. And honestly, I'm not, it's not financial advice. I'm not a financial advisor or anything like that. But I mean, any good financial advisor is gonna tell you to do the exact same thing. Say, hey listen, let's not put all of our eggs in one basket here. Let's not be wholly invested into one stock or one type of stock. I mean, the best way to invest, the best way to build a business, to get traffic that's sustainable and scalable long-term is to what? It's to try to diversify your traffic source, diversify your income stream. And so for me, the big takeaway here with this whole TikTok thing, once again, I don't know what's gonna happen, but it's to make sure that I continue to diversify my traffic, that I'm never going wholly all in on one type of a platform, and that I'm doing a good job to build my following across all of the internet and to continue to be focused on where the eyeballs are going. I mean, if this was a, you know, conversation that we were having in like the 1960s, right? Everyone's on radio, radio, radio. I'd be saying, hey, let's get to TV. I'd be saying, don't just focus solely on radio, radio. We need to diversify and we need to try to get on TV because I think TV is a big opportunity. So what are those big opportunities? I mean, it still stands, you know, pretty clear. It's Google for pay-per-click campaigns, bottom of funnel retargeting campaigns, banner display play across the internet. It's YouTube, YouTube advertising, especially for high-ticket programs, high-ticket products, book-a-call funnels. If you're generating leads and book calls, book appointments, YouTube's really important. It's leaning into Meta, everything that Meta's done. And look at Meta, they've actually gone and they've built and acquired businesses. They didn't just rest on their laurels and say Facebook is, you know, the number one platform. No, they went and bought Instagram, they went and bought WhatsApp. They're buying up other social media companies because they want to continue to stay in front of people's eyeballs. They know that. They understand that. You know, LinkedIn could potentially be an interesting one. I think TikTok too could continue to perform if it doesn't get banned. So the key is to be everywhere and to really try to lean into that strategy the best way that you possibly can. So I know it's rough. I know it's probably not the best thing for a lot of people, but let this be a lesson, especially if TikTok gets banned. Let this be a lesson that you can't build a sustainable business If you are wholly dependent on one business for all of your leads, for all of your traffic, for everything that you have, you can't do it. So diversify. Invest the time, focus, and attention that is required to figure out these other platforms. And this isn't to say, oh well, you know, I believe in investing all of my money everywhere all at once. No, like, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that if you are doing that, or if you are focused on one platform right now, that's great, but get to a point where you're the revenue can support you going and investing in testing, you know, getting traffic other places. All right, on the way home. Fantastic Monday today, great day.

That sun is absolutely brutal though, so I apologize if my face and the lighting is not ideal.

But very rarely is on the car, you know, it's not like this is being filmed for optimal viewership.

It's just, you know, kind of just recording my thoughts and hopefully giving you guys some value here. But one of the thoughts that I had on the way home, and it's going to be a short and sweet one, today is that most people underestimate the difficulty that is required to—

let me say this—

the difficulty that is required and the time it takes to build a scalable business and a scalable e-com business.

Meaning sometimes it just takes time to get your products, to get samples, to set up your store, to kind of get data, to just understand what your customers want.

Want. It takes time to do that. But while you underestimate that, most people overestimate how difficult it is to actually sell your product online. It's not that hard to set up and run ads. It's not that hard to set up a Shopify site. It's really not that hard to email your list consistently. And it's really not that hard to just figure out and understand the type of products that your customers want. It just takes time. So the biggest takeaway here is I've been talking to some e-commerce owners today and been going back and forth with them, trying to land them as clients is the following. Get started. If you have an idea, if you want to start a business, you want to sell something online, you want to start an e-com brand, whatever it is, the hardest part is just getting started. That's the most time-consuming part. And it's just going to take you time to kind of get to the place that you want to be. So if you wait another month, another 2 months, another 3 months, you're just prolonging the amount of time that it takes to start seeing results. And jumping all in is exactly kind of the kickstart that that you need to just start going. It's really not that hard once you just decide to get going. The hardest part, the hardest decision is actually just deciding to do it, but it's not that hard once you dive in. And, you know, hopefully I can help that. Hopefully I can help provide answers.

I can show you how to run ads.

I can show you what we're doing behind the scenes. I can help you guys build a site. I can help that site convert well. I can help you set up your emails. I can help you do all of the things behind the scenes that are difficult and time-consuming, um, that quote unquote most people don't get right. And if you just make a decision to start today, then you're already well on your way. So really, kind of this, you know, short blurb here is that just get started, just get going, stop waiting, take action, see it through. I promise you, you're going to be happy that you did. And you can either think to yourself, man, I want a 7-figure, 8-figure, 9-figure e-com business, you know, one day. You can say one day and keep hoping and dreaming, or you can start day one right now. So I like that, one day or day one, you decide. And the best thing that I ever did in my life— I haven't done very many things well, The one thing that I did do well is I decided that on October 12th, 2018, I was going to be my own business. I was gonna start my own business. I was gonna be my own boss. I was never gonna rely on anyone else ever again as a crutch. I was gonna go all in. I was going to make up my mind that I wanted to be a business owner and I was gonna figure it out. And I burned all my ships. Now I'm not saying that's what you should do. I mean, there's a time and a place for that. I was mentally in a place where I was so burned out working for other people, doing other things, that I decided to go completely all in and I was gonna figure it out. I was gonna simply essentially jump out of the plane and build wings on the way down. I was gonna jump off that cliff, build a parachute on the way down. And ultimately, I think that every single person is capable of that same thing. I meet entrepreneurs all the time and I'm just like, dude, these guys are making so much more money than me. Like I talk, I see their business, I see their products, even the clients that we have. I'm like, dude, these guys are making way more money in their e-com business than we are. I mean, we're doing like low 7 figures right now. I mean, these guys are doing 8, 9 figures in their e-com businesses, but they don't, they're not any more intelligent than I am. In fact, we're running are their ads for them? Why are they in the position that they're in? It's because they got started earlier. They just have more time, and that's something that you can't rush. You can't rush the time of being in the game. So for me, I've fully been in the game since 2018, and it was the best thing I ever did. But I wish I would have been fully in the game in 2015. I wish I'd been fully in the game in 2012. I just wish I would have been in the game earlier.

So if this is you watching this channel right now, make a decision.

Decide for yourself to get in the game and figure it out. And if you do that, I'm here along the road. I'm here for it. I'm here to help you. If you want to learn more how to sell more on your e-com store, how to build and grow and sell your, you know, build and grow and scale your sales online, I'm going to teach you everything that I know, everything that I've learned. And this vlog, my channel, everything that I've created is for my younger self to help avoid the challenges and the pitfalls and the expensive mistakes that I've made. And hopefully it will benefit you guys.

So with that being said, really stoked for this week, really stoked for tomorrow.

Hope you guys found this useful. Like, subscribe to this channel, hit that bell notification if you guys wanna see more videos every time I drop a new video, every single time I upload a new one. And let's freaking get after it. It's time to start taking action, it's time to go. And you know, somebody's gotta build that successful e-com business. Somebody's gotta build that successful brand. Why not have it be you? You just gotta make a decision to go.