Debutify Podcast

Dropshipping never stopped being an attractive option for fledgling entrepreneurs and their brands, it's been my observation that over time; you just need to be more serious about your brand to really take off. Tens of thousands of businesses full of potential could fail whether it's a lack of knowledge regarding the best suppliers, mentors or apps to name a few. Between our episode with Dropshipper's Acadamey and now my guest today Martin Stoimenov and his website dropshipping.com, the conversation is just getting started.

Influencers of varying scale have become a burgeoning subject on the program as of late and I'm not surprised. As advertising becomes harder and more expensive, it's forced sellers to rethink how to use it effectively, especially for new and upcoming brands. This is where influencer marketing becomes pivotal to success as growing brands can align themselves with people trying to grow on their own platforms as well. Enter Social Media College and my guest, CEO and founder Jonathon Tanner, like how influencers can vary in terms of scale, so to can this revolutionary educational program find various methods to share it's knowledge with others.

Jonathon Tanner is a highly motivated and successful CEO, entrepreneur and strategy consultant with a passion for emerging technologies and a track record of delivering results. He has an extensive training and nine years experience as a strategy consultant specializing in growth strategy, mergers and acquisitions and operational improvement.

Today's episode revolves around the relationship between you, your business and social media. My guest Angie Gensler shares her personal experience with the impact social media can have and is fully immersed in that industry, which at this point I think it's fair to call it an industry. We go over the challenges small businesses face when deciding where to put their resources, what having a following can do and what are your key objectives with the platforms in the first place. The clearer your expectations are as well as the more realistic they are, the better off you'll be; and above all else there's no metric quite like "am I enjoying this?"

Angie Gensler help entrepreneurs grow their business using social media and digital marketing. She is a blogger, serial entrepreneur, former corporate marketing leader, mom of two amazing kids, and wife to an amazing stay-at-home-Dad/tech guru/website developer. For nearly 10 years she worked as a professional marketer for a large corporation. After receiving her MBA in 2010, she quickly rose through the ranks and orchestrated every promotion she received.

Although it should be fun and engaging to use social media for your business, or even for your self, according to my guest Konstantinos of simplydigital.gr it's still a matter of dedicating time each day for consistency, 3 hours to be exact. In this episode we also take some time to resolve issues around the generational divide which I recommend taking note of since that may be a factor in knowing your audience.

Simply Digital is a digital agency based in Greece, ran by Konstantinos Synodinos, 2 time winner of the Greek Entrepreneurship award and one of the 32 Entrepreneurs invited by the US Department of State for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit of 2016 in Silicon Valley, California. Konstantinos has worked as Marketing Manager for a few of the biggest brands worldwide (Pantene, Braun, Ariel, Johnnie Walker, Duracel, Pringles, Vicks, and he is also the founder of the awarded Sports platform ChampionsID.com

Our discussion today with Christy Liu of Vancouver's Launcher's Academy is a well needed back-to-basics episode of ecomonics, whether you're still looking for an entry point or in need of a refresher course, our episode today will cover all you need to know to start, continue or evolve your dropshipping pursuit. Beyond that, we also take some time to discuss the nature of running Launcher's Academy, and the vital need to best delegate tasks and responsibilities, a lesson each of us are well to learn.

Christy Liu is the Co-Founder & Website Design, Branding Expert of Launchers Academy, an academy built by dropshippers, for dropshippers. We’re a team of passionate and dedicated dropshippers committed to helping new and aspiring eCommerce entrepreneurs find winning products and launch successful Shopify stores.

Neuromarketing is the new concept of the day, brought to you by our guest Tim Ash who was also kind enough to share a copy of his new book "Unleash Your Primal Brain" with me, warranting a follow-up for sure. It's an interesting read and sheds light on the way our species evolved throughout history, tracing that behavior all the way to how it interfaces with us this very day. I think most people would agree marketing goes hand in hand with psychology, but the degree of which was something I learned through this discussion. Additonally, we touch on a number of important and timely subjects both in and out of ecommerce and it was a blast to record.

Tim Ash is an acknowledged authority on evolutionary psychology and digital marketing. He is a sought-after international keynote speaker, and the bestselling author of Unleash Your Primal Brain and Landing Page Optimization (with over 50,000 copies sold worldwide, and translated into six languages). Tim has been mentioned by Forbes as a Top-10 Online Marketing Expert, and by Entrepreneur Magazine as an Online Marketing Influencer To Watch.

Mike Schmidt of Dovetale at long last, helps me understand a term that for a long time has been of significance to me. In this episode, we talk about his influencer service so aptly named, and how the relationship between it and your business is a reflection of this concept. We talk about what problems in the market it's setting out to solve, his take on influencer marketing and how his journey as a software engineer brought him to this point. Was I tempted to describe how his background in software engineering dovetailed into this platform? Yes. Yes I was.

Mike is the founder of Dovetale.com - a platform to help Shopify merchants work with creators and influencers. Prior to founding Dovetale, he started Listn.co, a social music app, and later sold it to the media holdings group: SFX Entertainment where he led Beatport, now the largest community of electronic dance music fans and DJs. He is on the board of The Knowledge Society, a graduate of Queen’s University in the department of Engineering Chemistry and now lives in New York City.

We don't often make content as brief as today's episode, but we don't often have guests like the amicable Bob Braham with precious little time to spare. We have him on the show today to chat about Famous, a storefront software that focuses on a captivating visual interface for the consumer. Technically, our competition but in the interest of making sure you get the best option out there, we're happy to share the airtime. Going in to this episode, I must inform you that things in ecommerce change pretty rapidly, Bob Braham isn't the CEO any longer and the product itself isn't called famous for much longer either. That said, I'm acutely aware of the rapid nature of business so I always focus on getting in as much evergreen content as I can. Be sure to check our show notes for updates to links and resources.

Bob Braham is the former CEO of Famous, the mobile e-commerce experience platform. He has over 25 years of experience in building and growing enterprise SaaS startups and global tech brands, having worked at marquee companies such as HP, Oracle, and Silicon Graphics (SGI).

Getting to chat with someone who's both a podcaster and business owner is an uncommon treat, so as is my contractual obligation I have to notify you this episode gets a bit meta. With that out of the way, Chase Clymer of Electric Eye Agency breaks down many of the key metrics and procedures his agency uses to push for success; we talk about the major KPIs they base their project work on, the stages of growth he sees businesses undergo and their signature brand scaling framework, all tried and tested, so there's plenty of knowledge packed into this hour, hope you enjoy.

Chase Clymer is the Co-founder at Electric Eye where he and his team create Shopify-powered sales machines from strategic design, development, and marketing decisions. He is also the host of Honest Ecommerce, a weekly podcast where we provide online store owners with honest, actionable advice to increase their sales and grow their business.

Although our episode was recorded some time ago, much of what I learned from my guest Silvia Myers continues to resonate with me, rather strikingly. From her background story which I will not do the the injustice of summarizing, to her characterization of two conflicting archetypes; one trapped in analysis paralysis, the other treating risk-taking like it's their profession and also her growth quadrant, I'm left with a prevailing sense of gratitude for this platform and the opportunity it gives me. An opportunity I am delighted to now share with you.

Silvia Myers (silviamyers.co) is an entrepreneur and eCommerce mentor, teaching online retailers who struggle to take their business to the next level, how to grow profitably online. She helps online stores take their ROAS to a whole new level through a self-created system that’s based on interpreting human behaviour through key simple metrics. Silvia’s successful community of online retailers has grown from Sydney, Australia to 35+ countries around the world with online retailers achieving some amazing results.