The Ecomcrew Ecommerce Podcast

This is the fourth and final episode of the series I'm doing on the book Traction. In Episode 1 we discussed setting the company's core values and communicating them to the entire team. We followed that with Episode 2, where we talked about defining the company's core focus and setting the company's 10-year goal. Since the 10-year goal is ideally a BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal), we'd need to break it down into a more achievable 3-year goal, which is the topic for Episode 3. We close everything by further breaking down the 3-year goal to a 1-year plan and defining quarterly rocks, which is what we'll talk about in this episode.

This is the fourth and final episode of the series I'm doing on the book Traction. In Episode 1 we discussed setting the company's core values and communicating them to the entire team. We followed that with Episode 2, where we talked about defining the company's core focus and setting the company's 10-year goal. Since the 10-year goal is ideally a BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal), we'd need to break it down into a more achievable 3-year goal, which is the topic for Episode 3. We close everything by further breaking down the 3-year goal to a 1-year plan and defining quarterly rocks, which is what we'll talk about in this episode.

Obviously, your one-year plan needs to be in harmony with your bigger goals. For example, one of your 3-year goals is to develop a total of 100 new products and in order for us to achieve that, we set to develop 50 new products as one of our 1-year goals. We know how hard it is to constantly develop new products, so developing 50 this year will give us a running start for the following years.

In order to make sure every person in the team is working towards the company's goals, you need to set quarterly "rocks". Your quarterly rocks determine what each employee's priorities are and govern where they spend their time and effort on. These are specific action items for each of your employees to make sure they all work towards the company's goals.

This episode also covers the following:

• Setting one-year goals (our company has 8 goals for the year)
• Identifying and setting quarterly rocks
• Examples of quarterly rocks and individual goals of some of our employees

To end this series on Traction, it's important to point out the ultimate purpose of the steps lined out here and in the previous episodes. In many companies only C-level employees know what "the plan" is, leaving all the other employees unaware of where to actually focus on, apart from what's currently on their plate. Letting them know exactly where the company is heading and the role they have to play to get the company there makes them accountable, proactive, and empowered to do their part.

Resources mentioned:

Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business (Amazon afiliate link) E138: Traction Part 1 – Company Core Values E140: Traction Part 2 – Company Core Focus and 10 Year Goal E143: Traction Part 3 – Marketing Strategy and 3-Year Plan E147: Amazon PPC Strategy – Step by Step Guide on Saving Thousands of Dollars EcomCrew Premium

Thanks for listening! Leave a comment down below if you have any questions about this episode. Until the next one, happy selling!

Many of us starting on the ecommerce entrepreneur route debate between selling two types of products: physical or digital. Between these two, what would be best for someone who wants to foray into ecommerce? Our answer - Both.

In this episode Dave and I talk about how a combination of both physical and digital products is excellent for ecommerce businesses. We also talk about EcomCrew Premium where you get access to ALL of our courses and more for a very cheap monthly price. Head on to www.ecomcrew.com/premium for more details.

Many of us starting on the ecommerce entrepreneur route debate between selling two types of products: physical or digital.

It's relatively easy to demonstrate the value of a physical product, and it tends to evoke the feeling that you're running a real business. Physical products however require higher overhead, as you need ample amounts of inventory and money on shipping operations to keep the business running. On the other hand, digital products require almost no overhead and creating them doesn't tie up any money. On the downside, digital products are far more difficult to create and creation is very time-consuming.

Between these two, what would be best for someone who wants to foray into ecommerce? Our answer - Both.

In this episode Dave and I talk about how a combination of both physical and digital products is excellent for ecommerce businesses. We use Tactical.com and Coloring Club case studies to demonstrate this. In particular, we talk about the following:

• How Dave's entrepreneurial journey started with digital products
• How Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income inspired Dave to integrate digital products into his physical products business
• The challenges of selling digital products
• Types of digital products that are good complements to physical products
• The secret to creating home-run digital products
• Getting the help of experts and influencers to establish authority
• Tips and tricks for those who want to sell digital products

This episode is a great way for us to officially announce our new membership plan called EcomCrew Premium.

Over the past few months we've been releasing courses with individual pricing and we plan to keep on releasing new ones in the future, and selling content on a by-course basis has proven to be difficult and unscalable. We've been giving course discounts to those who bought our previous courses, and keeping track of who gets X amount of discount has become a bit of a headache. That has led to a decision to scrap the by-course pricing model and use a subscription model instead.

With EcomCrew Premium you get access to ALL of our courses for a very cheap monthly price. Aside from that, you also get access to exclusive monthly webinars, monthly Q&A's, templates and swipe files. And of course, there's the private email coaching with both Mike and Dave so you can reach out to them anytime you hit a roadblock.

Click here for more information about EcomCrew Premium.

Resources mentioned:

E117: How an MMA Fighter Built a Multi-Million Dollar Company Selling Digital Products EcomCrew Premium Tactical.com Coloring.club

Thanks for listening! Until next week, happy selling.

This episode is a fully loaded technical explanation of our new Amazon PPC strategy. This strategy helped us drive our spend from $30,000 to around $24,000 and dropped our ACOS from 30% to 24%. We were able to do this with a tool called Sellics, making the job simple and fast enough for one VA to do.

While Amazon PPC is one of the most important tools for any Amazon seller, it's also one that's very expensive. It can potentially drain your profits if left unchecked.

Case in point: In January we spent roughly $33,000 on Amazon PPC, generated sales amounting to around $104,000, with ACOS at 30%. Deducting Cost of Goods and other Amazon fees, we incurred a net loss of $537.

You might ask what's the point of running ads if it's a loss anyway, and the answer is what I call the "Amazon flywheel effect". It's okay for me to take a hit on profits if it means getting more traffic and better conversions, because in the long run it will get me better search positions, in turn driving more sales.

While I'm generally okay with this, it would be nice to get the same results with a little less money--even if just to break even. So early this year I decided to sit down and take a good hard look at our PPC campaigns and see if there's something we can do to save some money here and there. What resulted is an Amazon PPC strategy that after a couple of months of implementation resulted in the rough stats below:

Spend: $25,000 Sales: $103,000 ACOS: 24.1% and dropping Net profits: $6000

Yes, you read that right. We actually gained profits when we implemented this Amazon PPC strategy. The beauty of it is this strategy does not require you to monitor PPC campaigns all the time. You don't even have to do this yourself. We assigned one of our Filipino VAs to this task and it just takes her a couple of hours per week.

One of the tools that hugely helped us achieve this is Sellics. We trained our VA and taught her how to use the software and it has helped her drastically reduce the time needed to monitor our PPC campaigns. Click here to explore Sellics (affiliate link).

In this episode I discuss how we were able to do this and how you can do it too. This episode is quite technical and we might do a screencast in the future to better explain the numbers in our Amazon PPC strategy. Subscribe to our Youtube channel to get updates.

Resources mentioned:

Million Dollar Sellers Sellics (affiliate link) EcomCrew Youtube channel

Thanks for listening! If you have any questions, feel free to comment below.

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.

We talk to David Wilson in today's Under the Hood episode. David had been enjoying massive growth when his sales suddenly plateaued. He needs cost-effective ways to expand sales and regain his previous growth.

For this episode David and I talk about the first action he urgently needs to do before anything else: delegation. In Part 2 we get into the meat and potatoes--the specific actions he needs to do to scale his business and gain back his previous growth.

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!

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!