The Ecomcrew Ecommerce Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Episode 96: Our Philippines Team - Hiring and Maintaining a Team of Rockstar VAs Nov 13, 2017

Show notes

"I loved my job when I worked as a VA for Mike and he really made me feel like I was part of the company even though I was here in the Philippines. So I guess what I'm trying to say is to have a Mia and to have a team like what we have in Cebu, you need to be a Mike." - Mia Pamisa, Philippines Team Manager, Terran

If you've been listening to our podcast for a while now you know that we run multiple brands simultaneously and it's no secret that a vital part of our growth and keeping things together is our Philippines team. I've been mentioning them on the podcast and we get asked a lot how we put together such a great team. If you're serious about developing a virtual team, this episode is for you.

During our trip to China, we went over to the Philippines to personally meet with our team there. This episode was recorded with me, my wife Michelle, our Director of Ecommerce Jacqueline, and the entire team in one room. It's refreshing to be able talk to them in person and not just on Skype.

We went around the room and introduced every single member of the team and what they do for us. We also talked about a bunch of other things including:

How we started our team
How we found Mia, our first VA, the one who made everything else possible
Challenges of a content writer not based in the US but with a US audience, and how to conquer those challenges
Training VAs on high-level tasks like Amazon PPC
Managing graphics and photography with remote designers

I always joke that anyone who wants to build a remote team absolutely needs a Mia. She was our first hire and everything single hire was made possible because of her. She is sort of the rock in our team and finding her was a crucial part of our strategy. You can't have a Mia on Day 1 though. What you can do is get the best general VA you can find, build rapport and trust, and gradually train them. Invest a lot on training them -- it will pay off many times over.

If you don't have a VA helping you run your business, I highly suggest you get one now. VAs significantly reduce the amount of time you spend on trivial tasks and save you the mental and physical energy you need to focus on business growth strategies and decision-making.

If you're unsure which tasks you can assign to a VA, we made a list of 25 things we outsource to our VAs and 7 things we do ourselves. Get it here for FREE!

Resources mentioned:

AsiaInspection Stamped.io Tactical.com ColorIt.com Onlinejobs.ph Digital Marketer Training

Thanks for tuning in this Monday and expect a fresh new episode on Thursday. Please leave us an honest review on iTunes and send comments/questions/suggestions our way at support@ecomcrew.com. Happy selling!

Episode 95: Growing and Selling Drop Shipping Businesses with Andrew Youderian Nov 09, 2017

Show notes

"Part of the hard part of selling a business is not just all the mechanics behind the scene, but finding a good buyer who is honest, and who has money, and who isn't pulling your chain and can actually close the deal. And is reasonable. Those are not inconsequential things to find in a buyer." -Andrew Youderian, eCommerceFuel founder

I have an exciting episode today as I am interviewing one of the most awesome people I know, not just in ecommerce but in life in general.

Andrew Youderian is the founder of eCommerceFuel, a vetted community of high 6 and 7 figure ecommerce store owners who help each other grow their ecommerce businesses. The community hosts the annual eCommerceFuel Live event where members get to meet each other in person and share tips and actionable advice on how to successfully run their businesses.

It's one of the events I absolutely love attending and it seems I'm not the only one who shares this sentiment -- event tickets sold out hours after the event was publicly announced.

Andrew launched and sold numerous successful drop shipping ecommerce stores over the years. In this episode we talk about two stores he sold -- TrollingMotors.net and Right Channel Radios -- and a behind-the-scenes conversation about possibly the most interesting ecommerce store sale he made.

Other things we talked about:

What eCommerceFuel is and how it started
A look back on Andrew's successful drop shipping businesses
What triggered him to sell his businesses
His reverse auction sale of TrollingMotors.net
Finding a good buyer
Insights about the sale of Right Channel Radios and whether he regretted it or not
Is it still possible to succeed in drop shipping today?
SEO strategy tips

We hope you enjoy this episode. If you own a store with a minimum of $250K in annual revenue and want access to a treasure trove of information to help grow your business, apply for eCommerceFuel membership here!

Resources mentioned today:

eCommerceFuel eCommerceFuel Live Stamped.io AsiaInspection How to Sell a Business: The Open-Book Sale of My $600K Store (With Complete Financials)

You'll notice we have a different podcast format -- it's just one of the changes we are adopting moving forward. We've committed to release two episodes per week, plus we will be bring you a weekly news roundup so you don't miss anything important in ecommerce land.

Thanks for listening to Episode 95! Please leave us an honest review on iTunes; it will really help us out. You can also reach out to us at support@ecomcrew.com for any comments or suggestions. Happy selling!

Episode 94: On the Road with David Couillard: How to Run an Ecommerce Business while Traveling with Family Nov 06, 2017

Show notes

Many of you might have read or at least heard of Tim Ferriss' famous 4 Hour Workweek. It might seem like a crazy idea, but you've probably seen many people pull it off, quitting their day jobs and "living the dream" -- sipping margaritas on a beach somewhere in the Pacific while money continues to flow into their pockets. But for us running ecommerce businesses and probably with a family to take care of, is it even possible?

In this episode Dave and I interview an ecommerce entrepreneur who was able to make such a lifestyle possible. David Couillard (yes, that's two Daves in one episode) has been on the road for 4 years now with his wife and kid, with another one on the way, while managing his ecommerce business from his RV. He has been hanging out with us here in Hong Kong and we got a chance to ask him about how he was able pull it off.

Here are the highlights of our conversation:

How Dave and I met
The frustrations of getting work done in a trailer
How living on the road has changed over the past couple of years and making this lifestyle possible
What motivated Dave to sell everything and live a nomadic lifestyle
Our Dave's recent move to China
My experience living on the road
Dave's biggest challenge doing this for the past 4 years
Time management and juggling work and family
Is this lifestyle sustainable with more than one kid?
Is there a limit to how big of a company you can run when living on the road?

It's true that such a lifestyle is not for everyone, but many of us dream of having lots of time to spend with family and maybe even to travel the world. We now have more ways than ever to automate our businesses and run it with fewer hours on our end. If you can do it now, why wait?

Resources Mentioned:

AsiaInspection

Stamped.io

This episode is released on a Monday and we have another episode coming out on Thursday. That's right, we're upping the podcast to twice per week with new episodes released every Monday and Thursday.

Please leave us a review on iTunes and send us your thoughts over at support@ecomcrew.com; we'd love to hear from you. Thanks for listening!

Episode 93: 5 Key Takeaways from the Global Sources Summit Nov 02, 2017

Show notes

This week's episode is a special one, as it's one of the few episodes where I get to have Dave on the show. Better yet, we are sitting in the same room in Hong Kong, just a couple of days after the Global Sources Summit where we both had a blast. Hopefully videos of the talks will be released soon for those who were not able to attend the event.

We have many takeaways from our time in Hong Kong but one of the most eye-opening is just how much Chinese sellers are invading the Amazon market. They've grown comfortable using Amazon FBA and have become sophisticated in their marketing techniques. Adding to this is the fact that more and more of these sellers are using downright black-hat techniques to try to win more sales.

This topic is just one of the 5 key takeaways Dave and I will talk about in this episode.

Here are other conversation points:

What Chinese sellers are doing to get market share and what you can do to protect your sales
Amazon's cross-border program and how American sellers can benefit from it
Black-hat tactics employed by many Chinese sellers
PPC optimization
Increasing pollution crackdowns by the Chinese government and how it can affect you
Increasing Chinese labor costs

With Chinese sellers getting on the Amazon train and recent factory crackdowns, we might be facing a challenging time ahead. You might be tempted to attempt black-hat techniques like other sellers are doing to stay on top, but keep in mind that the dire consequences make it hardly worth doing. We highly encourage you to stay on Amazon's good side.

Resources mentioned:

Global Sources ams.amazon.com Stamped.io AsiaInspection

We hope you enjoy Episode 93 of the EcomCrew Podcast. If you want to reach us, just email us at support@ecomcrew.com. Thanks for listening!

Episode 92: Analyzing Amazon PPC Campaigns with Brian Johnson of PPC Scope Oct 26, 2017

Show notes

My guest today is Brian Johnson of the software company PPC Scope and online course Sponsor Products Academy. Brian has been selling online for a number of years now and has really found his stride on Amazon. On today's episode, Brian talks about his selling background and explains why he dove into PPC advertising. This a really meaty episode and there is a lot of information crammed into it.

If you are an established Amazon seller or just getting started this episode will offer some golden advice to make your business grow.

Here's what we covered in today's episode:

How Brian and I met.
Brian's long business journey.
How Brian learned PPC advertising.
The importance of adapting in business.
The most effective way to use PPC advertising on Amazon.
The biggest mistakes sellers make in PPC advertising.
How to use your PPC knowledge off-Amazon.
Where Amazon is heading in their PPC advertising evolution, in Brian's opinion.

If you are wanting to get started in PPC advertising on Amazon, start with Brian's Facebook group called Amazon PPC Troubleshooting. Then check out his software PPC Scope and sign up for his course called Sponsored Products Academy. Let Brian show you the most effective way to use this valuable tool!

Resources Mentioned Today:

Amazon

Amazon PPC Troubleshooting Facebook Group

Jump Send

PPC Scope

Sponsored Products Academy

If you have any questions or anything you'd like us to discuss on the podcast you can now email us directly at ecomcrew.com! Just send those emails to support@ecomcrew.com. Also, we would really appreciate if you would leave us a review on iTunes. Thanks for listening!

Episode 91 Ecommerce Growth and Profitability With Dana Jaunzemis Oct 19, 2017

Show notes

Today's episode is a pre-recorded episode. At the time of this podcast, Dave and I are attending Global Sources. These pre-recorded episodes are a great opportunity to interview some highly successful ecom business owners. My guest today is one of those highly successful ecommerce entrepreneurs.

Dana Jaunzemis is the owner of Homehealthtesting.com. She purchased the business at a time when she saw the potential for profitability. That eye for good business decisions seems to be Dana's superpower. This is her seventh business she has purchased and she has owned it for seven years. On today's episode, Dana tells me what draws her to ecommerce and why she feels she is so well suited for it. Dana has some great insights into ecommerce business. Tune for some solid advice from this awesome entrepreneur!

Here are some of the points of our conversation:

Why Dana likes ecommerce so much.
Dana's addiction to the "growth phase" of business.
What Dana looks for in a business opportunity.
What caused her to shift her perspective on her business.
Why a company should have a "comfort zone."
Why Mike likes to focus on growth.
Why Dana likes the business to business model.
Problems a large amount of overhead can cause a business.
Dana's top 3 skills set.
The importance of knowing your metrics.
How to be more efficient in your business.
Is being "addicted" to growth a bad thing?
The dangers of "hyper-growth."
Why ecommerce conferences and meetups are so important to the community.

A special thank you to Dana Jaunzemis for joining us today! She and I will both be attending EcommerceFuel Live in January. For more information on that event, check out the link below. We will be getting back to live episodes on Facebook soon, but at the moment Dave and I are traveling a lot, so please follow our page for updates.

Resources Mentioned Today:

EcomCrew Facebook Page

EcommerceFuel Live!

Homehealthtesting.com

Global Sources

Episode 90: 10 Ways to Increase Profitability in Your Ecommerce Business Oct 12, 2017

Show notes

Today, Dave and I talk about the tricks and tips we have found running our businesses that have helped our bottom lines. There are a total of ten tips and we share some personal insight with each tip. If you are running your own ecommerce business, then today's episode could be a helpful resource for you.

Here's what we covered during this episode:

Why you need to keep your accounting books current.
How to trim your product catalog to save money.
How to cut back your advertising budget effectively.
Why you should consolidate shipments.
How to find the right manufacturers to save money.
The evils of air shipping.
How to trim back your SaaS tool budget.
The items or prices you should always negotiate.
Why Canada is a good source of cheaper labor right now.
How to choose a high margin product.

Some of these topics are covered in our online course called, Build A $1,000,000 Private Label Business Importing Kickass Products From China. Check the link out below if you are interested in taking part in it. If you are planning to get into the importing business, we tried to build a course that will get you started on the right foot!

We hope this list was useful to you and we plan to be getting back to the live episodes soon. If you want to be part of our live episodes just look for our Facebook page. That's www.facebook.com/ecomcrew and like our page. You will get notices about when we're about to go live.

We also have two sponsors for this episode. Stamped.io, which is a great tool if you need to get some quality reviews for your Shopify store. As well as, AsiaInspection, both Dave and I use AsiaInspection when we have to inspect a shipment from China. Both of these sponsors are great partners and we're happy to have a relationship with them.

Resources Mentioned Today:

AsiaInspection

EcomCrew Course

EcomCrew Facebook Page

Stamped.io

Episode 89: The Technology Stack Oct 05, 2017

Show notes

We get a lot of questions about what services and applications we use in our day to day business. Today I'm going to give our listeners a list of tools and services that really help us stay on top of our business. To begin with, we have four brands under the EcomCrew umbrella. The four brands are Colorit.com, Icewraps.com, Wild Baby, and Tactical.com. We use all these tools to run every brand and keep track of our customers' needs.

Here is a list of those tools:

Shopify -- Every brand we have is built on Shopify. It is the best platform we have found for running an ecommerce business. I will explain how we came to that conclusion during the episode.

Stamped.io -- We use Stamped.io to get good quality reviews. Of course, they are a sponsor of the podcast, but we use their service because it is the best value.

Zipify Pages -- If we are running a promotion or sale, Zipify is the tool we use to build the landing page.

Shoelace -- This app allows us to create retargeting ads fast and easy!

Rewind -- A tool we use to make sure we have system backups.

Skubana -- This app gathers up our orders and distributes them to the right fulfillment station. It is a big time saver. I'm a little frustrated with Skubana, to be honest, but I will get into that during the episode.

Klaviyo -- If you are a long time listener, you know I use Klaviyo a lot. It is a time-saving tool that makes email marketing a lot easier.

ClickFunnels -- ClickFunnels is a service that helps keep track of our special promotion and contest email campaigns.

AdEspresso -- An essential tool for creating great Facebook ads.

Quickbooks Online -- The service we use to keep our books.

Gleam.io and Up-Viral -- We use both for contest promotions.

Phone.com -- This app redirects customer service calls to personal or designated phone numbers, so we can settle customer issues more efficiently.

Sellics -- An Amazon based tool that is similar to Skubana.

Splitly -- A split testing app.

Jungle Scout -- A service we use to research new products and current market trends.

RestockPro -- A tool that helps track our inventory and helps us plan reorders with plenty of time to spare!

Basecamp -- The newest addition to our toolbox. Basecamp is a project management tool that allows us to keep in touch with all team members, no matter where they are based.

So there you have it, our list of tools and services that help us keep the EcomCrew machine humming.

I recently did some traveling on the east coast and I attended an EcommerceFuel meetup and met some great people. So hello, to all of you I met up with earlier!

We have also released our first course on EcomCrew.com! The course is called Build A $1,000,000 Private Label Business Importing Kickass Products From China, if you are interested in the importing business, check out the link below.

As a reminder, I will be speaking at Global Sources (discount code: ec350) during October 17-19 and I will be attending and speaking at EcomerceFuel Live during January 11-13. Please keep in mind that with all this travel the live Facebook shows will be postponed, but there will still be pre-recorded episodes.

In closing, we also have a second sponsor for this episode, AsiaInspection. Dave and I both use AsiaInspection for our overseas shipments. They provide a very important service for anyone needing to double check the quality of their shipments.

Resources Mentioned Today:

EcomCrew Facebook Page

If you have any questions or anything you'd like us to discuss on the podcast please go to ecomcrew.com and fill out the contact form. Also, we would really appreciate if you would leave us a review on iTunes. Thanks for listening!

Episode 88: Exiting Your Business With Joe Valley of Quiet Light Brokerage Sep 28, 2017

Show notes

On today's episode, Dave and I speak with Joe Valley. Joe works for Quiet Light Brokerage and is the Director of Business Services for the company. He joined their ranks back in 2012 after being one of their customers. Since joining Quiet Light he has closed 35 million dollars in transactions.

One of the key things to keep in mind in business is nothing lasts forever. Eventually, you will have to sell your business. Joe is here today to tell us how to make a business valuable to a future buyer. Both Dave and I have been through the selling process, so we have some insight on this subject. Dave has worked with Joe before when he sold a past business. We sort of use that as a reference point in our conversation. If you are considering or planning to sell your business, today's episode is a must listen!

Here are today's conversation points:

Introducing Joe Valley.
What gives your business value?
Why you should give yourself at least 12 months to prepare to sell.
What is an "add-back?"
How to wisely cut expenses to increase value.
What is a "multiple?"
Why you need to hire a bookkeeper.
There is a buyer for every business.

We hope today's episode was useful to you. If you want to get in touch with Joe you can email him at joe@quietlightbrokerage.com or you can check out the company at www.quietlightbrokerage.com.

Resources Mentioned Today:

EcomCrew

Quiet Light Brokerage

Episode 87: EcomCrew Updates Sep 21, 2017

Show notes

Today's episode covers a lot of information. I want to give our listeners updates on several contests, site launches, and other business-related topics. We have a lot going on and I tried to fit as much as I could into our runtime.

Here are the topics I covered today:

EcomCrew's new website and content offerings.
Tactical.com's growth and a contest we're running at the moment.
Our affiliation with ClickFunnels.
Our Color It Ultimate Jackpot Contest.
How ManyChat is proving to be a great lead tool.
My Filipino team is growing and I'm seeing awesome results!
We welcome Jacqueline to the team as our new Director of Ecommerce.
My speaking engagement at Global Sources.
Color Its need for a new 3PL (Third Person Logistics) and what we plan to do about it.
Our recommendations for shipping.

That is a lot to cover in a short time, but hopefully, I answered some of your questions and satisfied some curiosities. It's been a busy year for EcomCrew and we're looking forward to what the future holds.

I will be going over to China on October 11th - November 4th. Anybody who plans to come to Global Sources, I would love to meet you. If you are interested in attending Global Sources (October 17-19) this year we have a special discount code (3ec50) for our listeners that will take $50 off the ticket price! I will be speaking at the event, once on the 17th and once on the 19th.

We have some sponsors to thank as well. The first is Stamped.io, which is a great tool if you need to get some quality reviews for your Shopify store. The second is AsiaInspection, both Dave and I use AsiaInspection when we have to inspect a shipment from China. Both of these sponsors are great partners and we're happy to have a relationship with them.

Resources Mentioned Today:

Color It Ultimate Jackpot Contest

EcomCrew

EcomCrew Facebook Page

Tactical.com Giveaway

If you want to be part of our live episodes just look for our Facebook page. That's www.facebook.com/ecomcrew and like our page. You will get notices about when we're about to go live.

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