The Ecomcrew Ecommerce Podcast

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E146: Under the Hood with David Wilson Part 2 – Taking a Plateauing Business to the Next Level May 17, 2018

Show notes

For those who missed Monday's episode, David Wilson is our Under the Hood guest who enjoyed massive sales growth right before suddenly experiencing a plateau. He tried regaining growth by increasing ad spend, to the point that his profits were in danger of drying up. He needs cost-effective ways to get his sales back on pace, and that is what we talk about in this episode.

On Monday's episode, David and I talked about the basic things he needs to take care of before he can move on to actual growth strategies, which is delegation. We talked about his need to hire VAs and let Amazon FBA handle his inventory so he can have some free time to focus on high-level tasks that only he can do.

Today we get into the "meat and potatoes"--the actual strategies David needs to employ to boost his sales. In particular we talk about the following, among others:

Improving product photography
Utilizing all listing image space provided by Amazon
Using infographics
Shooting lifestyle videos and photos
Enhanced brand content
Running promotions and giveaways
Choosing a modern Shopify theme
Utilizing influencer marketing
Expanding to Amazon EU and Canada

I hope you got valuable practical advice from my conversation with David. If you'd like to get a one-on-one coaching session with me and be featured on the podcast, join our Under the Hood program here.

Resources mentioned:

Splitly Famebit SimplyVAT Pacific Customs Brokers

Thanks for listening! Until next week, happy selling.

E145: Under the Hood with David Wilson Part 1 - Taking a Plateauing Business to the Next Level May 15, 2018

Show notes

Massive growth is not uncommon for ecommerce businesses. We, for instance, doubled our revenue every year since we started in 2015. With this kind of trend it becomes very unsettling for most ecommerce business owners if sales suddenly remain the same month after month, even if that sales number is high.

This is what today's Under the Hood guest is going through. David Wilson had been enjoying massive growth when his sales suddenly plateaud--not increasing and not decreasing, just remaining more or less the same every month. His ads no longer worked, paid search was no longer effective, and his cost per acquisition skyrocketed. His business was in danger of losing profits if he kept doing the same things over and over.

David needs cost-effective ways to expand sales and that is the topic for this Under the Hood session. For this episode David and I talk about the first action he urgently needs to do: delegation. Much of his time is tied up on small day to day tasks and he needs to free up time to spend on higher-level tasks that will help recover the growth of his business.

In particular, we talk about hiring VAs and using Amazon FBA for fulfillment, two of the lowest-hanging fruit in terms of delegation. In addition, we also talk about the following:

David's consulting session with me and Grant in the past
His professional background and how he got into ecommerce
How his business started plateauing after experiencing massive growth
What he does on a day-to-day basis

This is just the first part of our coaching session. In Part 2 we get into the meat and potatoes--the specific actions David needs to do to scale his business and gain back his previous growth. These are things that can easily be done, from improving product photography to using a new Shopify theme. Part 2 will come out on Thursday.

If you liked this episode and would like to have your own personalized business advice for free and be featured in the podcast, sign up for Under the Hood here.

Resources mentioned:

Amazon product launch strategy webinar Under the Hood

Thanks for listening! Just comment below if you have questions or advice for David, and get a chance to win an EcomCrew branded mug. Until the next episode, happy selling!

E144: A Train Ride Through Asia May 10, 2018

Show notes

Here's something you don't hear about very often: me and Dave sitting side by side on a train heading to China talking about EcomCrew.

With me being based in the US and Dave in Canada (and Dave most recently living in China for the last 8 months), communication has not been very easy. We had to deal with time zones and dropped calls, making it hard for Dave to be on the podcast with me (he doesn't like being on the podcast very often in the first place, making it a lot harder).

Our trip to Asia was very productive not just for our respective businesses but for EcomCrew as well, as it gave time for me and Dave to be in the same place and talk about EcomCrew in real time. One of these moments was during a train ride from Hong Kong to Guangzhou on our way to the Canton Fair. We decided to record our conversation amidst train noises in the background for your listening pleasure.

Here are some conversation points:

Our speaking engagements at the Global Sources Summit
How well the first EcomCrew mastermind turned out
The Canton Fair we're headed to
Our Gentleman's bet
Using Jungle Scout not to find products but to do something else
Exciting new EcomCrew stuff

Despite the backgound noise of train hums and Chinese chatter, this train ride has been an enjoyable experience--Dave and I even made a gentleman's bet on something in relation the Global Sources Summit. Watch out for the results of the bet in the coming episodes!

Resources mentioned:

Amazon launch strategy webinar E102: Amazon Product Launch Strategy for 2018 How to Launch a New Brand and Product on Amazon to a New Best Seller E127: The Importance of Masterminds on Business and Personal Life

Thanks for listening! Did you find our conversation interesting? Comment below and get a chance to win a free mug!

E143: Traction 3 - Setting Your Marketing Strategy and 3-Year Plan May 07, 2018

Show notes

This is the third episode of the series I'm doing on the business book Traction by Gino Wickman. In episode 1 we covered the importance of setting your company's core values and communicating them to the entire company. Next we covered setting the company's core focus and 10-year goal in episode 2.

Here's where most people hit a snag. 10 years is a length of time most people can't wrap their heads around, and we certainly did not have an easy time thinking about where we want to be in 10 years. On the other hand, setting a 10-year goal will definitely make you think what it is that you actually want to achieve with your company long term. Once you have an idea what 10 years would look like for your company, it's time to break it down into smaller goals achievable within a smaller span of time, and that's what we will cover in this episode.

Before breaking down the 10-year goal into smaller goals, Traction advises that you first set up your marketing strategy. In this phase you'll need to set up your customer avatar, the three things that make you unique, and what process you'll need to put in place in order to be successful. The book provides help along the way as you set these up.

Once that's done, it's time to sit down and formulate a 3-year plan. For most people, this means setting up a revenue number. That is definitely a part of the 3-year plan, but Traction emphasizes that it's so much more than that. You need to visualize not just the amount of money you're raking in by that time, but also the landscape of your company--how many employees you need to have, the products you'll be selling, systems and processes you'll need to set up, etc.

To help you along the process, I share my marketing strategy and 3-year plan in this episode as an example. In particular, I talk about the following:

Customer avatars for some of our brands
Our three uniques--the 3 things that set us apart
The process we'll follow to be successful
Our 3-year plan revenue and profit number
Our 3-year plan company landscape
Acquiring new businesses to enhance our growth
Upgrading our IT systems

In the next Traction episode we further break things down to a 1-year plan. It's very important to keep your core values in mind as you go through this stage to make sure that what you're doing does not go against what you set out to become in the first place.

Resources mentioned:

Amazon launch strategy webinar E138: Traction Part 1 – Company Core Values E140: Traction Part 2 – Company Core Focus and 10 Year Goal Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business (Amazon afiliate link) E129: How to Pick the Perfect Product to Sell in eCommerce E102: Amazon Product Launch Strategy for 2018

Thanks for listening to this week's edition of the podcast. Until the next one, happy selling!

P.S. Comment below to win a free mug!

E142: Philippines Office – One Year Later with Mia, our PH Office Director May 04, 2018

Show notes

Out of all the things I do with EcomCrew and in ecommerce in general, the one thing I get asked about the most is our Philippines office. I'm not sure if it's because I talk about our Filipino employees so much or there are so many entrepreneurs out there who want to find high quality virtual assistants but just don't seem to get landed with one, no matter what they do.

I definitely get the sentiment if it's the latter. Once upon a time, I hired my first Filipino VA. But instead of freeing up my time, that hire resulted in the exact opposite–I felt like I spent so much time daily just getting him to do simple tasks and it came to the point that I can't do what I want to do simply because I spent too much of my time with him. I eventually let him go and thought to myself that I won't ever get a VA again.

Some time later on a plane ride back from China, I decided to give hiring a Filipino VA another go. I'm so glad I did, because in that second attempt at hiring I found Mia.

Mia is the cornerstone of our PH office and without her, there would be no PH office. She was the one who found the rest of our Filipino employees, from virtual assistants to writers to graphic designers. She started as a virtual assistant and has morphed into a director managing 11 employees in just under two years.

I had the chance to get Mia on the podcast during our visit to the Philippines last month. She didn't want to do it, but just like most of the challenges I threw at her, she stepped up and did her part. In this episode we highlight the changes that have happened over the course of a year, particularly the growth of our PH team from just a handful of people to 12 full-time awesome employees.

We also discuss the following in detail:

Why I decided to hire a VA again after my initial disappointment
How we found Mia
How I knew she could handle becoming a manager
What life was like during the first few months with our first hires
Why being very slow to hire has worked out to our advantage
How close our employees have become, and what Mia did that contributed to this
Why we prefer our employees to come to one office instead of working from home
What we do differently that sets us apart and makes us more attractive to high-quality employees
The strategies we use to reduce communication problems between two time zones
Our entire hiring process
Tips to weed out incompetent applicants

If there's just one advice we can give you when you hire a VA, it would be this: don't hire in a hurry. You might have so many things on your plate right now and would want nothing more than to unload as much of that as soon as possible, but hiring the wrong person would cost you so much in the long run. Be patient for the right person to come because it will be so worth it in the end.

Resources mentioned:

Amazon Launch Strategy webinar E96: Our Philippines Team – Hiring and Maintaining a Team of Rockstar VAs

Thanks for listening! Have you ever hired a Filipino VA? What was your experience? Comment down below and get a chance to win this EcomCrew mug!

E141: Get to Know Abby, EcomCrew's Filipino VA Apr 30, 2018

Show notes

EcomCrew has gone through a big transformation ever since the site merged with Dave Bryant's site ChineseImporting.com. In less than a year we've accomplished so much--we've launched new courses, upped the podcast to two episodes per week, and revamped the entire EcomCrew site. Dave and I are tremendously happy with what EcomCrew has become and we are gearing to do even more, but we would not have gone to this point if not for the people helping us behind the scenes.

If you've been listening to the podcast recently or reached out to us at some point, you might have heard of or encountered Abby. Abby is our Filipino VA and one of the people working behind me and Dave to help us get EcomCrew to become so much more. While Dave and I focus (and get distracted) on the course content and speaking at industry events, Abby makes sure everything else run smoothly--from scheduling the podcast episodes to answering emails.

We recently got a chance to get Abby on the podcast (after much persuasion) during our trip to the Philippines. We wanted everybody to meet Abby and get to know her a little, at least virtually. Here's what she and I discussed in this episode:

How we found her and how she became the EcomCrew VA
The challenges she encountered early on in the job
Her day-to-day tasks
How she learned to produce the podcast
What's coming for EcomCrew in the future
Her pro-tip on how to get your VA to stick around

We'd like to thank Abby again for getting on the podcast despite the fact that she was too shy to do it :) If you have someone, or a team of people behind your, never forget to appreciate them and recognize what they're doing to help you get to where you want to be.

Resources mentioned:

Amazon Launch Strategy webinar E96: Our Philippines Team

Thanks so much for listening! Until the next episode, happy selling.

E140: Traction Part 2 - Company Core Focus and 10 Year Goal Apr 26, 2018

Show notes

This is the second episode of a podcast series I'm doing on Traction, a business book written by Gino Wickman geared towards helping business owners run their companies with more growth and enjoyment. My company is currently in the process of applying the system outlined in the book and the impact is so great that I'm documenting the entire process here in the podcast.

In episode 1 of the series I talked about the importance of setting aside time to think about your company's core values and actually putting those core values into writing. In addition, you need to understand that these are not just feel-good buzzwords that will sit on a piece of paper on the bottom of your drawer, so communicating these core values to your employees and everyone else who help you run the company is of utmost importance.

Once you have that done it's time to set your company's core focus and 10 year goal, both of which will be covered in today's episode.

Your core focus is the reason why your company exists. This one can be tricky since Traction explicitly does not consider money-making as a core focus, and money is the reason why most businesses exist in the first place. But putting money aside, what is it that you want your business to accomplish? What is your company's purpose? What's your passion?

Once you've set your company's core focus, it's time to set your 10-year goal, which should be a BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal). This is a length of time most people can't wrap their heads around and possibly skew to either an underestimation or an unrealistic optimism. In this episode I'll tell you how I figured out my 10-year goal and break it down to relatively short-term, achievable goals.

Resources mentioned:

Webinar - 2018 Amazon Launch Strategy Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business (Amazon afiliate link) Traction episode 1 Our 2018 $9.7 million forecast

Thanks for listening! Look out for more episodes on Traction in the future. Also, get a chance to win one of our gorgeous mugs by commenting below. Have you set your company's core values? What about focus and goals? Comment away and win!

E139: Nightmare with AT&T - A Customer Service Horror Story Apr 23, 2018

Show notes

Today's episode is a little different from what we usually publish.

I recently had to undergo a torturous customer service experience with AT&T. Those of you who are or have been AT&T customers and called their customer service hotline at any time know what I'm talking about. I have been an AT&T customer since 2007 when the first iPhone came out--not by choice, but because no other carrier offered the iPhone at the time--and I can definitely say that it has not been a happy ride. But out of all the years I've been with them and all the calls I made to them, this is, by far, the worst of it all.

So here's a little background: I'm in a family program which made eligible to upgrade to the new iPhone X for free, as long as I return to them my old iPhone. The new phone got lost in the mail and they had to find it, and when it finally got delivered to me after weeks of waiting, there was no return label in the box. I had to call them 3 times to get them to email me the return label. I finally got the label, sent the phone back and thought that was the end of it. But as per Murphy's law, I got a text message from AT&T telling me that they have not yet received the phone, but sent me an email informing me that it was actually delivered. So I called again, and they informed me that the text message was erroneous and that I will not get billed the $999. So I relaxed. But... yes, you guessed it, I got billed $999 for a phone I returned.

$999 is a big amount of money and although so much of my time had already been wasted, I wasn't willing to just let them take that money. So what do you do when you run a podcast and need to call a company you're pissed at? Set up the recorder, call them and record everything, then publish the call to your listeners as a podcast episode.

This episode is a condensed version of 2 very long calls I had with AT&T. We edited many parts out to try to keep the episode at around 30 minutes, but if you want to torture yourself and listen to the whole thing, just click here.

I may have lost my temper in some parts of the call and I have nothing against the agents I spoke to, but AT&T's system is just so frustrating. I know I'm shooting for the moon here, but I hope this gets much attention so that AT&T can finally, finally do something and take better care of their customers.

Resources mentioned:

EcomCrew Webinar - 2018 Amazon Launch Strategy Full AT&T calls

Thanks for listening! What's your worst AT&T experience? Share them in the comments below. Until the next episode, happy selling.

E138: Traction Part 1 - Company Core Values Apr 19, 2018

Show notes

We're starting a new series on the EcomCrew Podcast today. This series is called Traction, inspired by a book I read recently which had a tremendous impact on me and my business, so much so that I'm applying the principles laid out in the book to my own company. I'm documenting the process in this podcast series so that you and your business could benefit from my experience.

I've mostly been an entrepreneur for as far as I can remember. When I was 18, armed with a box of business cards and a pager, I started my own company called Discount Computer Consultants. One of my clients hired me and I got a taste of the corporate life. After that stint I went back to being an entrepreneur and have run various companies since. Through all those years, I noticed that there's one thing that kept repeating in all the companies I've run or been in: as the company got bigger, things just started falling apart.

As I run my current company, I've tried my best to avoid the same thing happening especially as we keep on doubling every year. Experience has greatly helped me on this front, but something kept nagging at me and I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

Until I read Traction.

Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business is a business book written by Gino Wickman who developed a practical method for businesses called the Entrepreneurial Operating System, which aims to help entrepreneurs keep their company on track to achieve lofty goals. We certainly have lofty goals for Terran and Traction is already helping us get there.

This episode is the first of many dedicated to Traction. Here are some of the things I discuss:

How I started in eCommerce
The problems most companies face as they grow
Introduction to Traction and the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS)
The importance of sitting down and writing your company's core values
Our company's 7 core values and how we came up with them

We've slowly began rolling out the Entrepreneurial Operating System in our business and we're already seeing big improvements. I'll continue to cover our progress in this series of podcast episodes, and if you have any questions, just comment down below.

And speaking of comments, once you do leave a comment on this episode, or on the previous episode, you get a chance to win a limited edition EcomCrew mug! Just leave a comment by the end of the week and we'll ship you your cool mug anywhere in the world if you win. Check out how fabulous this mug is here.

We're also running another webinar on May 16th where Dave and I will be talking about our Amazon launch strategy. We've talked about our strategy many times both in the podcast and blog, but this is the first time that you can ask us as many questions as you like, as we provide ample time for Q&A.

Resources mentioned:

EcomCrew Webinar Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business (Amazon afiliate link) E120: Getting Fired From My Own Company Basecamp Who Moved My Cheese?

Thanks as always for supporting the EcomCrew Podcast. Don't forget to post your comments down below to win your EcomCrew mug! Until next week, happy selling.

E137: An Inside Look Into EcommerceFuel Live 2018 Apr 16, 2018

Show notes

Hey everyone!

If you went to the EcommerceFuel Live event in January and got shoved a microphone in the face by me, then this is the episode you've been waiting for :)

You might have forgotten what transpired during the event (especially if you got drunk during the party) but this episode, with all the snippets I recorded both sober and drunk, will surely remind you what an awesome event ECF Live is. If you didn't go, I am pretty sure you're going to want to go next time.

This episode is long overdue considering how long it's been since January but this is the first time in EcomCrew history that we're doing something this different. And in light of new and different things, we're doing something that's another first: we will be raffling off an EcomCrew mug for those who comment below.

That's right, just comment anything about the episode down below (for example, let me know if you think Andrew Youderian's prank is mean) and you get a chance to win an EcomCrew mug, shipped to you for free, anywhere in the world.

Special thanks to Andrew for making ECF Live possible. Make sure to check out this awesome community here. Thanks also to those who put up with me during these interviews, and to the cop who was Andrew's accomplice. I hope you read this and know you're awesome :D

Resources mentioned:

E114: Chasing Retail Dreams with Bill D'Alessandro E95: Growing and Selling Drop Shipping Businesses with Andrew Youderian E99: An 18-year Ecommerce Journey with Kevin Stecko E91: Ecommerce Growth and Profitability With Dana Jaunzemis EcommerceFuel E94: On the Road with David Couillard: How to Run an Ecommerce Business while Traveling with Family

Thanks as always for listening, let me know if you like this episode, and until the next one, happy selling!

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