The Ecomcrew Ecommerce Podcast

Hey guys! We're back with Joe Valley for part two of talking about the process involved in selling one of our brands ColorIt.com.

In 247, you found Joe and me at that point prior to putting the business up for sale. By the end of the episode, we had gotten a deposit and a signed LOI (letter of intent) from the two wonderful guys who are now the new owners of ColorIt.

A signed LOI is similar to a "gentleman's handshake". We now see the beginnings of a deal at this stage, but not at a point where it is set in stone. Getting from this point to where the deal is actually finalized is what we will be recovering in this particular episode.

You'll hear Joe and myself discuss terms like purchase agreement, due diligence and all the minute things done before finalizing a sale and getting that money in the bank.

The last episode in this 4-part series will be an interview with Nirav, one of ColorIt's new owners and the team members themselves so stay tuned for that one.

If you're interested in getting onsite advice from Mike and have your business featured on a podcast, sign up for the EcomCrew Roadshow today!

Catch the latest episodes of the 5 Minute Pitch on YouTube. Join season two by filling out and submitting the application form.

Finally, if you enjoyed listening and think this episode has been useful to you, please take a moment to leave us a review on iTunes.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below. Happy selling!

Episode 3 and part two of Mike's discussion with Joe Valley of Quiet Light Brokerage on the sale of ColorIt.com. Buyers are now in the picture and the guys talk about moving from a signed LOI to actually getting the deal finalized. Hear about all the little details in this episode.

Episode 2 of 4. Joe Valley of Quiet Light Brokerage is back on the show to talk about the preparations involved in order for us to be able to put ColorIt.com up for sale. Mike and Joe talk about the ups and downs of this entire journey. Definitely one to listen to if you've got plans to sell a brand or business in the future.

Welcome to episode 2 of this 4-part series where I talk about the sale of one of our most profitable brands - ColorIt.com.

In episode 246, I discussed the motivation behind this particular move - from the reason behind the sale down to the brand's new owners.

A major cog in the wheel with this sale is a man called Joe Valley of Quiet Light Brokerage. Joe has been instrumental in making sure that I was able to pick the right brand to put up for sale (at one point, I wanted to do away with all of them). His insights and advice helped us boost ColorIt's saleability even before we put it up on the market.

All the specifics of that are discussed in this episode. If you're planning to sell one of your businesses at some point in the future, give this one a listen. And tune in to the next episode as Joe and I go into more detail about the preparations involved in the sale.

If you're interested in getting onsite advice from Mike and have your business featured on a podcast, sign up for the EcomCrew Roadshow today!

Catch the latest episodes of the 5 Minute Pitch on YouTube. Join season two by filling out and submitting the application form.

Finally, if you enjoyed listening and think this episode has been useful to you, please take a moment to leave us a review on iTunes.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below. Happy selling!

If you've been following this podcast over the past few weeks, it won't come as a surprise to you when I say that ColorIt is officially no longer ours.

We listed the business for sale in December and we officially closed on April 5th.

Being our biggest brand, you might wonder why we sold ColorIt.com among all our other brands.

In this episode we talk about

• The events that led to the sale of ColorIt
• How the transaction transpired
• Who the buyers are
• How much the business sold for
• What's next for Terran

This episode is part of a series we're doing on the ColorIt sale. Stay tuned for our next few episodes where we talk to Joe Valley, the broker who helped me with the sale, and our team in the Philippines who help run ColorIt.

Thanks for listening! Until the next one, happy selling.

It's a race to the bottom on Amazon - the lower your price, the more sales you get. But do you really have to sell more in order to put more money in your pocket? In this episode 5 Minute Pitch contestant Amanda Wittenborn and I talk about why selling less can actually make you more money. We also discuss how to market a new website, the factors that influence a business's ability to scale, and how a business can remain relevant in 2019.

Amazon is crowded. Everyone and their mom is hawking something on Amazon, and since there's only a finite number of stuff most people are willing to buy, everyone is clawing their way up from the competition to page 1.

One tactic sellers employ to get more sales is to lower their prices. The lower your price, the more sales you get. It only makes sense, right?

While it is true to some extent, at the end of the day the race to the bottom hurts the most important thing in business: profits.

In this episode, I am joined by 5 Minute Pitch contestant Amanda Wittenborn of Amanda Creations to talk about how lowering prices can actually hurt your business, and conversely, how raising prices can make you more money.

In addition, we also discuss:

• Whether it's better to learn how to market a new website or hire an expert to do it
• The most important factors that influence the ability to scale
• How a business can stay relevant in 2019

Amanda is a designer who is passionate about spreading joy to kids and convenience to moms by offering custom design services for every celebration. Check out her creations here.

Thanks for listening to this episode! Until the next one, happy selling.

If you're a regular podcast listener, you'll know that I've been involved with something called the 5 Minute Pitch. It's a show where we offer up and coming ecommerce entrepreneurs the opportunity to grow their businesses. This season, we had 32 people make their pitches to us for the chance to win $50,000.

Going into the second round, we've whittled down the contestants to 17. You can watch the final three pitches from Round 1, as well as the deliberation episode on YouTube.

Today, I'll be talking to someone who made the cut. Dawn LaFontaine owns and runs Cat in the Box, a company that sells stylish cardboard boxes for cats. She was featured on the very first episode of 5 Minute Pitch and got a "yes" from all 5 judges.

Dawn left quite an impression on me with her presentation. She has such an infectious personality and a good business story that I thought it would be great to share that with our listeners through an Under the Hood episode.

In this episode, she and I discuss some strategies she could use to drive and convert traffic. These include:

• Getting into interruption marketing by targeting Facebook groups that are cat owners
• Looking at the subset of those cat owners who are homeowners

Join season two of 5 Minute Pitch by filling out and submitting the application form.

If you're interested to get onsite advice from Mike and have your business be featured, sign up for the EcomCrew Roadshow today!

Join this month's giveaway and get the chance to win an annual Premium subscription for free.

Finally, if you enjoyed listening and think this episode has been useful to you, please take a moment to leave us a review on iTunes.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below. Happy selling!

Before I hop on a plane to Asia, I thought it would be a good time to do a review of those goals I made for myself at the start of the year.

* Sell a brand. We already did this. ColorIt is officially no longer ours. We’ll be discussing the sale in a series of separate podcasts which is definitely something I’m looking forward to.

* Position another brand for sale in late 2020. All of our brands now have their own LLCs. I don’t know which brand it will be, but we plan to figure this out in the middle of this year. We’ll start thinking about this now in anticipation that we will be in a better spot with whatever brand we’ll be letting go of next year.

* Getting back to location independence. Now that ColorIt’s off our plate, it’s allowed us to move everything to a 3PL and shut down our California warehouse. It’s also allowed me to start filming episodes of EcomCrew Roadshow.

* Reducing debt to zero dollars. We have completed the first step of this. ColorIt’s sale has allowed us to pay all of our business debt. We are working on clearing our mortgage by the end of this year.

* Hike the West Coast Trail on Vancouver Island. This will be happening in August and I’ve already started training for it and doing 5-mile walks.

* Take at least 10 weeks of personal travel. We’ll be going to Japan and I’m super looking forward to going to Tokyo. We’ll have three full days to spend there. That comes after going to Hong Kong for the Mastermind and Global Sources Summit and the Philippines to visit my team. 

* Record 6 or more episodes of the EcomCrew Roadshow. Two of those are already done. We’re planning to do at least four more.

* Invest in at least 1 ecommerce business. This is either going to be investing in something that can be a great story for EcomCrew or starting something new. Whatever it is, it will be a transparent case study for all of us to learn from.

* Lose 10 more pounds. The plan is to lose about a pound a month. I’m pretty convinced that I’ve lost some weight, although I would need to confirm that with a weighing scale.

* Visit the Philippines office in 2019. I’m gonna be there for two full weeks at the end of the month and at the beginning of May.

* Start selling our services for EcomCrew. We haven’t started on this yet as staff members working for ColorIt were transferred as part of the sale. But the plan is to offer extra services to EcomCrew Premium members to give them the push they need to grow their businesses, at a minimal cost.  The hope is to launch it this year.

* Significantly improve the quality of the podcast. Abby is doing pre-interview stuff to send over to me so I’m more prepared to do each episode. We also have a job offer out for a full-time video and audio editor.

* Film season 2 of 5 Minute Pitch. This will be happening in August. We’ll be filming in Austin for a week. We’re planning to change the format for this new season based on the things we’ve learned from the first one.

* Break each of our brands out into different companies. This is done but we’re still in the middle of the repercussions of this move. We are still working on making things as organized as they can be.

* Start hosting in-person events for EcomCrew. This year, we’re going to do at least two. We’ll then do another one in Vancouver in the summer.

* Speak at 6 industry events. I think I’m already signed up for maybe 8 events at this point.

* Shift to doing things that only bring me immense personal fulfillment. This is a continuing journey but I am particularly enjoying the things I’m currently doing for EcomCrew. With Under the Hood and now with the Roadshow, I’ve had the chance to do this from a more personal level.

Before I hop on a plane to Asia, I thought it would be a good time to do a review of those goals I made for myself at the start of the year.

1. Sell a brand. We already did this. ColorIt is officially no longer ours. We'll be discussing the sale in a series of separate podcasts which is definitely something I'm looking forward to.
2. Position another brand for sale in late 2020. All of our brands now have their own LLCs. I don't know which brand it will be, but we plan to figure this out in the middle of this year. We'll start thinking about this now in anticipation that we will be in a better spot with whatever brand we'll be letting go of next year.
3. Getting back to location independence. Now that ColorIt's off our plate, it's allowed us to move everything to a 3PL and shut down our California warehouse. It's also allowed me to start filming episodes of EcomCrew Roadshow.
4. Reducing debt to zero dollars. We have completed the first step of this. ColorIt's sale has allowed us to pay all of our business debt. We are working on clearing our mortgage by the end of this year.
5. Hike the West Coast Trail on Vancouver Island. This will be happening in August and I've already started training for it and doing 5-mile walks.
6. Take at least 10 weeks of personal travel. We'll be going to Japan and I'm super looking forward to going to Tokyo. We'll have three full days to spend there. That comes after going to Hong Kong for the Mastermind and Global Sources Summit and the Philippines to visit my team.
7. Record 6 or more episodes of the EcomCrew Roadshow. Two of those are already done. We're planning to do at least four more.
8. Invest in at least 1 ecommerce business. This is either going to be investing in something that can be a great story for EcomCrew or starting something new. Whatever it is, it will be a transparent case study for all of us to learn from.
9. Lose 10 more pounds. The plan is to lose about a pound a month. I'm pretty convinced that I've lost some weight, although I would need to confirm that with a weighing scale.
10. Visit the Philippines office in 2019. I'm gonna be there for two full weeks at the end of the month and at the beginning of May.
11. Start selling our services for EcomCrew. We haven't started on this yet as staff members working for ColorIt were transferred as part of the sale. But the plan is to offer extra services to EcomCrew Premium members to give them the push they need to grow their businesses, at a minimal cost. The hope is to launch it this year.
12. Significantly improve the quality of the podcast. Abby is doing pre-interview stuff to send over to me so I'm more prepared to do each episode. We also have a job offer out for a full-time video and audio editor.
13. Film season 2 of 5 Minute Pitch. This will be happening in August. We'll be filming in Austin for a week. We're planning to change the format for this new season based on the things we've learned from the first one.
14. Break each of our brands out into different companies. This is done but we're still in the middle of the repercussions of this move. We are still working on making things as organized as they can be.
15. Start hosting in-person events for EcomCrew. This year, we're going to do at least two. We'll then do another one in Vancouver in the summer.
16. Speak at 6 industry events. I think I'm already signed up for maybe 8 events at this point.
17. Shift to doing things that only bring me immense personal fulfillment. This is a continuing journey but I am particularly enjoying the things I'm currently doing for EcomCrew. With Under the Hood and now with the Roadshow, I've had the chance to do this from a more personal level.
18. Do intermittent fasting for all of 2019 (and eat less meat). I've been able to keep at this for the most part of the quarter.
19. Not to drink the rest of 2019. I have done this but with one exception - a glass of champagne when we closed on ColorIt.

That's where I'm at. You can review the first episode of my goals for 2019 by clicking on the link below.

https://www.ecomcrew.com/e227-19-goals-for-2019/

Join this month's giveaway and get the chance to win an annual Premium subscription for free.

Finally, if you enjoyed listening and think this episode has been useful to you, please take a moment to leave us a review on iTunes.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below. Happy selling!