The E-commerce Leader

[00:00:00] Jason: whoever you can learn from that you can prove really knows what they’re doing and research it. Go with them to learn a model and then decide to pivot
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[00:01:02] Michael: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the e-commerce leader call-in show, especially on the calling app of that same name and an all good podcast towns near you. Today. We are talking with our usual panel, Jason Miles, Chris green, Kyle Haber and myself, Michael VZ, three of us in the U S have a one of us over the pond in London, India.
[00:01:22] And we also can stay on, I think, a really important topic that came out of a discussion we had off-air which we all feel quite passionately about it, but really one way or the other. And that is how to decide on an e-commerce business model. Quite often a lot of us get presented with a course through Facebook ads, for YouTube to whatever else it may be.
[00:01:38] Or maybe we know a friend that is selling on a particular model on particular channel. And we start to go down the rabbit hole with that when in fact sometimes looking at the picture. From a bigger sort of 50,000 foot view could be a really important prelude. So Jen’s looking forward to your takes on this and warm, welcome to everyone who’s listening in from business Facebook group as well.
[00:01:57] So let’s kick off with you, Chris. I know that your very website has multiple business models. You’ve successfully taken to seven figures. So if we see a man that has, a a great deal of background in multiple different business models. So what are your thoughts on how we even begin to get our heads around this?
[00:02:12] Chris: I think if somebody has this question, I would be a great person to talk to, to be honest. And I say that as someone who has done a lot of different things that I’ve enjoyed, things I’ve enjoyed less. I don’t wanna say things I didn’t enjoy. There’s always something I enjoy about them. But a lot of times.
[00:02:29] If you start something because of the thrill or the interest of simply trying new things, then once it’s not new anymore, it’s not fun anymore. And a lot of these things almost like writing my own autobiography in a sense of figuring out these things myself and then saying, oh my gosh, I see other people struggling with things that I used to struggle with.
[00:02:47] And I just want to help them and share information and kind of help them get. Skipped the learning process that I went through over 20 years of trying different things. And like you said, multiple different business models, multiple seven figure different business models. So I’ve got a pretty good idea of the different ways that you can do business and make money on the internet.
[00:03:04] And those different ways are gonna match up with different things. Differently. And sometimes people don’t know exactly why they’re getting into it. Sometimes people don’t realize that they actually have undiagnosed adult ADHD. Sometimes they don’t realize like why they’re even doing it in the first place, other than just to scratch an itch.
[00:03:17] Sometimes people do not have a good work-life balance where they like can focus on saying something. This is work, even if it’s sometimes fun, sometimes not. And this is not work. This is where I’m just going to have fun and not worry about things. And I see people getting confused on all of these things all of the time.
[00:03:32] And like you said, they see a Facebook ad and it looks really easy and fun, and you’re going to make a ton of money without even have to do any work. So you get involved and you’d go down this rabbit trail, then you find out you don’t like it. And then you’ve wasted time. But because he’s wasted so much time and you’re like, oh, I’ve committed to it.
[00:03:45] So now I need to stick around and spend more time instead of cutting your losses and trying something new. And you get completely overwhelmed. And that’s why, honestly, I think you should join communities on Facebook and discord, hire coaches like me or the other hosts here, and do what you can to.
[00:03:59] Figure out what you need to do. What’s the best match for you personally, for your goals, for your specific skills and talents for your interests. And if you can match that up, you’re just going to have such a higher, chance of real success, instead of hopping from next thing to next thing, which again is something I see very common where people like to go from thing to thing, because they’re interesting.
[00:04:20] It’s like the shiny object. And if you don’t get that under control, you’re going to hop from thing to thing. And you’re never really going to get really good at any one thing. And, that’s gonna prevent you likely from getting to the goals, especially the income goals that you’re trying to get with your business.
[00:04:33] So it’s complicated. It’s a big question. It’s something that. Isn’t always something that you can answer in a quick, short, little hot take. But if someone has the time and the resources to hire somebody for a 30 minute, one hour coaching call, or even just 15 minutes, if you can get with somebody at an event and sit down for lunch, buy somebody a beer, that’s gonna put you on the right track.
[00:04:53] In my opinion and my experience. I’d love to hear what you guys have to say about it. Cause I’m coming to edit from more of a newbie point of view, where I know you guys work with, more established or people that have been doing a certain business model for a longer
[00:05:04] Jason: period.
[00:05:06] Michael: Yeah, very interesting points there, Chris.
[00:05:07] Thank you. So Jason, obviously, as Chris says that, we have slightly different clients that we tend to focus on and it’s quite an interesting collision of worlds. In some ways we have a lot in common in this forum. We also work with very different people. So Jason and Kyla let’s continue.
[00:05:20] Jason. First, I know that you obviously started from a very specific business model and unlike Chris, to some degree over time, you’ve added business models as it were to your business and that the clients you work with also come from a variety of business models and channels, which I guess are different things, right?
[00:05:34] So what’s your take on. Yeah. What does this question? Even me, what is a business model and how do you guide your clients through that?
[00:05:39] Jason: It’s a great topic. I love the questions that we’re getting at here. I was just looking through my book. I have a list of business model e-commerce business models.
[00:05:47] I want to cut and paste into the chat and share with everybody because literally there’s no. 18 or 20 that are very prominent, very doable, very well marketed out there as options. And I love this topic because it was a personal point of struggle for me for 10 years, I heard about making money online in 1998, and I wanted to.
[00:06:10] I literally didn’t know how to do it for 10 years. A decade went by and it was really 2008 that we started to put together our E-bay business. And that’s how we started, was selling handmade items on eBay. And before Etsy was a thing, we sold our handmade items at auction on eBay, and that was our business.
[00:06:28] Handmade items, auctioned. That’s very unique business model, but some people pull it off really well. You can have multi-million dollar outcomes with that business model if you’re an artist. But, but I think the, to your point, Chris previous. This is almost gotten to the point where over the last 15, 20 years, there’s so many viable business models.
[00:06:50] The almost need to take something like a college introduction to, how I can philosophy. There’s like introduction to philosophy and you hear all these, the people who made these models or whatever, it’s almost like that for e-commerce now, because there are, we could rattle them off here, just off the top of our head, a a lot of people get into it through retail arbitrage, and then they learn about online arbitrage and then they learn.
[00:07:11] Curbside arbitrage. And then they learn about wholesaling and then they learn about privately. The original private label, then they heard, hear about product, customization, and having your own unique products made. And then they hear about digital publishing and course creation and, what digital goods.
[00:07:27] And then they hear about merge. And then they hear about, what else? You guys chime in here if you want, but, there’s so many that, come to me. I am going to hop
[00:07:36] Chris: in the hot take show, right? You can scroll, go to amazon.com homepage. And we’re just talking about Amazon. We’re not talking about any other platforms, at this exact second, just go to the Amazon homepage, scroll to the bottom.
[00:07:48] And there is a link that says, make money with us. I counted them up one time. There’s over 20 different ways specifically on Amazon and Jason, I think. And tell me if this is the kind of point you’re trying to make picking one mean. Not picking out of 100,000 different internet business models. And that a lot to me personally can be.
[00:08:14] Yeah, picking one means not picking other ones. Is that opportunity cost is that FOMO it’s hard. And it’s something that affects this generation more than any other generation in history. We did not have these options. I
[00:08:26] Jason: try to think about it. Yeah, totally agree. And I think the thing that I would say is when you take a course, like introduction to whatever, one of the exercises as seeing the lands.
[00:08:37] You just want to see the big landscape, because what we frequently do is optimize to a local Maxima as Elon Musk. The genius on the planet says, which is we hear about something. We start optimizing it and we optimize in our way into a cult. I don’t know, they call it a cul-de-sac in London, Michael, it’s like a dead end street.
[00:08:56] And, you get to the point where I’m optimizing the heck out of this business model, but I never even heard of drop shipping. What’s drop shipping, or, I’ve never even heard of these other models and you’ve optimized your way into, down a deep rabbit hole to mix my metaphors.
[00:09:10] And you, haven’t stuck your head up to say what other lay of the land is out there. That might be a better skillset match. Better passion match better prior experience match. And those are the elements that need to go into the exercise at the beginning to really figure out what is optimal for you. We got ourselves into digital goods in a niche way in 2009 in the sewing industry.
[00:09:34] And we’ve been on that track for 12 years or whatever it is, 13 years. And so yeah, I do challenge people to just. At the 30,000 foot view as much as possible when they’re starting out. So there you go. That’s my hot take.
[00:09:46] Michael: Wow. Some deep thoughts here. I think there’s, I guess that’s one thing that strikes me is that, as you’re saying Chris, there’s so much mental head trash that goes with this somehow and we need to find a mindful path through these options.
[00:09:58] Kyle, what’s your take on this? Obviously you come like me from a sort of fairly focused Amazon private label slash customer. Background, but you’re now working on a broader canvas with Jason in your winning on Shopify now become winning online, which in itself tells a story. So how do you approach helping clients?
[00:10:13] Let’s get a bit more practical now cause we’ve dealt with some of the problem and the options. How do you actually go to a process to help people choose which way. Yeah,
[00:10:21] Kyle: no, that’s a great question. I, there are two big paths too. If you’re starting out from scratch, that’s a different starting point than if you already have a business and you’re looking to extend your business.
[00:10:33] They’re looking for business models. Add on, for example, you have a physical. You’re already selling it. You want to add digital products as an extension. It’s a different conversation. You’re going to be approaching it with some guide rails with some obviously you’re not going to be going in and totally different market.
[00:10:50] You’re going to try and stay in the market that you’re in, that you have customers and you have sales, anything you to experience and to build those digital products, ideally. So there’s some guide rails with that, it’s a great question around what, how do you approach it?
[00:11:00] Like what decisions do you make? And I think. Really start with an audit of your own strengths, the strengths of your businesses, that you’ve got to move business that you’re in and the market that you’re in and you’re looking for gaps. Every business needs an edge. And I would say that every new, business model, either if you’re starting from scratch or if you’re doing it as an extension, you really need to be thinking about how do I find my edge?
[00:11:27] How can I make this. For example, you’re just going to be growing your influencer marketing just as if not even a business model, but even drill down even further to a business, like a channel, a marketing channel, it, how do you provide new content to that space from a unique or different way? I think you have to be really cognizant of those things.
[00:11:48] One mental model, this is just an easy way to think about any decision-making. W when you think about it, is the 10, 10, 10 rule, and this is highly simplified and there’s other, there’s a lot of other nuance that you needed to factor into this. But one thing you can do really quickly is think about the decision that you’re going to make regarding, anything in your business or in life.
[00:12:10] And are you going to feel good about it? And the next time. That’s a good decision. Are you, do you think you’re going to feel good about it in the next 10 months? You think you’re going to feel good about this decision in 10 years? And the idea behind it is that you want to try to pull yourself away from the emotional attachment of making those decisions, particularly around doing something.
[00:12:32] If you’re wired like an entrepreneur, you’re going to be like, I got to get in this. I want to figure this out. I’m excited about it. You need to back away from it just a bit and get a little bit of perspective. So asking yourself in 10 months and in 10 years, is this going to be a good decision for my family, for my business and for me.
[00:12:48] That helps you to think more long-term and cult curtail some of that jumping from thing to thing that we’re all prone to when we’re looking at different business models and extension. So once you get a big picture and you look at all of the different models that are out there and ways to make money, Now you go through that sorting process.
[00:13:07] And one, one sorting process is building in these models of decision-making that allow you to get to that ideally the best outcome while avoiding sort of the traps and pitfalls of emotional decision making.
[00:13:18] Michael: I like that avoiding emotional decision-making. So most of the hot takes on this, For my money and it depends how you’re wired.
[00:13:24] Doesn’t it? The truth is to the point you make, Chris, I think is incredibly important. And you mentioned also an audit of yourself, Kyle, I think, it does come from the sort of person you are. I’m very conceptual driven person. So I suppose for me, it feels like you need to get full concepts at some point, not necessarily intellectually, but grasp.
[00:13:39] And the first one is what is the business model as opposed to make money online or make money on Amazon or whatever it is we’ve been advertised that. And to begin to wrap our heads around the real basics of what is a business model, I suppose it means kind of product. We sell how we get the products, our sourcing strategies.
[00:13:54] Which is famously that the main difference between a lot of Amazon type business models, how we sell it. So the sales channel strategy, traffic challenge, it is the capital requirements, which often glossed over and the risk of reward balance, which I think is very often glossed over, particularly by people who are trying to sell a course, understandably.
[00:14:10] And I think also understanding there’s a difference between a business model and a channel. Chris, you just pointed out that there are 20 different business models that even Amazon will tell you that they could, you can form on their channel, which is different from. Should you sell them Superfly. And I think clarifying that is, is important.
[00:14:25] And then really, we talked about pre-existing models that are out there and Jason, you’ve got a big list of them. I think, the self-analysis piece is really important to your point, Chris, I think you’ve nailed that straight away and really critical point, which is a lot of us don’t know what we want until we get into action.
[00:14:40] And I’m a bit like that. I’m not very good at working precisely to goals. And I think that’s okay. As long as we. Don’t continue down a path without clarifying calcium. Some of us like myself, it’s do stuff and then forgot why afterwards. But I think as long as we have that figuring out at some point, and as you said, if you’re willing to talk, somebody’s been there before we can short circuit.
[00:14:58] We can’t avoid necessarily this uncertainty of why am I doing anything? But we can short circuit that I think that self analysis along with somebody else helping is really important. And I think the final piece that strikes me is that the fourth area is matching up ourselves and a business model.
[00:15:13] And to your points called having a structured process really helps. I think, so that was my take on it. I think it helps to have a fuse of conceptual frameworks to stand back from the emotion of it. And to your point that Chris not get caught up in the latest, shiny object. So that’s my response. This one’s back in.
[00:15:30] I’m going to risk, just opening the floor to whoever feels most passionately.
[00:15:34] Kyle: One thing quickly on that and get feedback from other people. You laid out a really great framework, but like you have your own. Vision in your own blinders on when you’re looking at and making decisions. So get input from people, that are not, are not, you is one to also say Floyd, it make better decisions about stuff, like talk to your significant other, your spouse, your business partners, talk to people that you know, and trust get a coach like Chris talked about earlier.
[00:16:00] Who’s already been there and done it and can give you some feedback on it as well. That’s one way to really get clarity and get distance.
[00:16:07] Chris: Dude. I would tell people, don’t just like you were saying, don’t chase money because there’s always going to be something else that you can do. That’ll make more money. So if you’re always like looking to be like, you know what I saw, so you can make more money doing that probably, but it might not be something that you’re good at or that.
[00:16:22] So you can make all this money and do something you actually don’t even like, and that’s no fun. And you can make a lot of money doing something that you actually enjoy. If you can match up something that fits your interests, your skills, your passions, your talents, as well as your income goals.
[00:16:35] And I think people need to have realistic income goals instead of oh, I don’t make a million dollars. I’m a failure. It’s whatever you make half a million dollars. That’s. But don’t be, think you’re a failure because it didn’t make a 1 million, it’s just like weird, million dollar thing because it gets thrown around.
[00:16:48] But I want to say one more thing and it it says on what Kyle was saying. It’s okay to pivot. It’s okay to stop. It’s okay. To try something and say, you know what, I’m not really feeling this and try something else. And that’s okay. But I think a lot of people, they worry about too much. What other people are gonna say, oh, I saw you tried that and you’re not doing that anymore.
[00:17:05] You’re like a failure. One, if you got people like that in your life, cut them out, but it’s totally okay to pivot rather than get into like sunk costs and be like, can’t keep up these some, no, forget it. And here’s an example I think will help people, like people have like a commercial space, right?
[00:17:19] A commercial office or warehouse or something. They generally have to sign like a three or a five-year lease. And when that comes up and you have to say, okay, are we going to do this for five more years? And if you are, if you sign that lease, then mentally. That’s what you’re doing for five years. And don’t go in for two years and be like, I heard about this and you’re off looking at shiny object stuff again.
[00:17:41] It’s no, you committed to five years to this. Now when five years comes up and that lease comes back up and the landlord says, Hey, do you want to sign a new lease? I’m gonna raise your rent. I’m gonna do this. Do I want to do this for five more years or do I want to do something else and put your life into chunks like this, other than you’re just going to go daily and be like, I heard about Merck, I’m going to go run and do that.
[00:17:59] And no, you’re doing something very successful that you’re like right here. Don’t get distracted, make a little list and say, you know what? I want to spend more time. My free time looking at what merch by Amazon is, that might be something I want to add, or maybe even pivot to in the future. But yet once you commit to something, you have to see it through at a certain level.
[00:18:15] Otherwise it’s oh, I didn’t, Gary V says, you can’t be half pregnant. You’re either pregnant or you’re not right. So you’d have to be working on something or not. And that’s it instead of I’m doing a bunch of different things. If you’re doing that, you’re not going to be doing any of them very well.
[00:18:29] Michael: Love it. Great. Takes Jason.
[00:18:31] Jason: Yeah. Three quick hot takes. I’ll just rattle them off and then we can chime in as you’d like on them. The first thing would be, but where the infopreneurs rhetoric and, what I mean by that is you’ll frequently hear people selling a model like, oh, regional arbitrage.
[00:18:47] And they’ll downplay the other models like, oh, it’s, dropshipping is horrible. No one makes money in drop shipping. Do my model. That’s all marketing rhetoric. W I didn’t know anybody who crushed it with drop ship shipping until I did. And then when I saw what they were doing, I was like, holy smokes.
[00:19:03] That model, really, that really ma it’s got some energy there that works. You just, you don’t want to. Get trashed talked out of a model that could be right for you by infopreneurs, who are downplaying the merits of a model. So that’s one pro tip. Another thing is the best model for you at the beginning is any model you could learn professionally from a true expert.
[00:19:29] That’s the best model for you at the beginning, because to Chris’s point cost point, you can pivot. And what you don’t want to do is do a half a backup. To use the gymnastics term with a model and then conclude that it’s not a good model. So professionalism in your educational and training of it in it is really vital.
[00:19:51] I always tell this story, but when I was in high school, sophomore year, I wanted to learn to play the guitar. So I went down to the local music shop. Another guy in my high school also wanted to play the guitar. His name was Norman hedsel. We both started at the same time. I learned from a guy at the local music.
[00:20:07] Yes, nice guy named Jim Norman parents drove him to San Francisco because they heard Christopher Park winning student who like learned from Segovia. Who’s like the classic guitarist of forever was in San Francisco. He learned from them. In the fall, like in October, that year we have the Renaissance fair.
[00:20:30] We, if you guys had those in your high school, Norman hat, so it gets up with his classical guitar and he just starts rocking this song. And I was still learning like G chord C chord and Norman Hatzolah is just wowing an entire audience. And the lesson I learned from that was he went and found the super amazing.
[00:20:52] Coach that person. And the process of having that coach in a high level got him to a level of implementation that was mastery. And, I think that’s really critical. So whoever you can learn from that’s, really that you can prove really knows what they’re doing and research it. Go with them to learn a model and then decide to pivot.
[00:21:14] And the third and final thing is product is absolutely the most important. This is a product selling endeavor and you cannot make money with a commodity product. That’s non-differentiated and non-marketing market it creatively. Now anybody can make money doing anything if they know what they’re doing.
[00:21:35] So commodity can be sold if it’s packaged well, or, you get my point. But generally speaking, what we see most frequently as coaches is people who are trying to. Build a business on an also ran me too undifferentiated product that they don’t have any unique advantage for. Now I get arbitrage. I understand if you buy low and there’s a marketplace for it, you can make great money.
[00:22:01] But my point is the product is preeminent in the whole process. And most people fail to really think through a product strategy that will get them out of. That’s a successful positive outcome for them, in terms of profit and all that. So those are my three hot takes.
[00:22:18] Michael: Amazing. I can hear the brains around the table buzzing to respond to go ahead, gents.
[00:22:23] I got my thoughts, but
[00:22:24] Kyle: one, I just want to say, I always loved that guitar story from Jason, but I still got a little bit lost on it as soon as you said Renaissance bear. Cause I could get the picture of him at a Renaissance fair playing. Out of my mind, we’re in like a little minstrel thing or running around and playing it.
[00:22:38] So that was like stuck in my brain and the rest of his conversation. But, no, where you start, like exactly the whole thing it was, it was crazy. Now to just pivot off quickly what Jason said beyond the Renaissance, Faire was one thing we’ve seen with clients as well when they’re making a decision where to get started, especially if they’re just coming from the.
[00:22:59] Is they’ll leave 20 or 30 years of knowledge and experience on the table and an industry to go try and do something else and get into a brand new industry. And, they get a little bit maybe bored or burned out with the industry they’ve been in, whether it’s, cars or cooking or, whatever it is.
[00:23:20] And they’re like, I’m going to go into the beauty category now because that looks exciting and fun. Or I saw somebody make a bunch of money on YouTube and I think it’s a good idea. So one of the things that we will do all of our clients and just their competition. Tell us about your background, where are you at?
[00:23:35] Where are you starting from? And very often they’re going to have some core level of competency that they have. Even for example, even like finance, maybe they had spent 20 years as a CPA, or they’re really good with finance. That’s an amazing starting point. You may not sell an e-commerce product, based on financial products, but you’re going to have a really strong foundation in which to build upon around how to run a business successfully.
[00:23:59] Where you get history that you bring to the table and your experience, don’t discount that for where you should get started and find out.
[00:24:05] Chris: I just want to jump in and completely disagree with Jason about this whole guitar story, which is his story. So I don’t know the details of the story, but I’ve heard a guitar story and I.
[00:24:16] I think it was it might’ve been mark Manson’s
[00:24:18] Jason: Eddie van Halen. No, but
[00:24:21] Chris: it was, the story was being told by the author of this book. I can’t remember what it is. And he was at school and they were both, it was a music school and he learned to play guitar. And, there was this other kid and he talked to him and he’s man, I’m just not, I can’t find enough time, like practice and do all these things.
[00:24:35] What are you talking to me? You can’t find time to and the other kid just liked to practice, enjoyed, practicing, loved practicing. It was not homework. It was not schoolwork. It was not a burden. It was not something they had to do. Wait, like for school, it was like, they really liked it. And the point was he, that was when this guy figured out, wait a minute, like this isn’t for me.
[00:24:55] I can see this guy loves. I don’t love the guitar. I like the guitar and I want to get better at it, but it’s not something that he was incredibly passionate about. He had that kind of apifany moment. Cause if you’re not passionate about something, you can go see Eddie van Halen and clapped and princess.
[00:25:12] It is still not going to get it. Prince will be there and be like, dude, this is how you do it. And you’re like, yeah. And I’m still struggling with G chord. But if you love it, you’re going to be practicing that G chord in your sleep in your spare time. And that’s the
[00:25:22] Jason: difference. And now, no, wait.
[00:25:24] Now this has turned into a debate. I have to do a rebuttal. That’s true. Okay. In that context. If you have two people who are mutually passionate on seven out of seven passionate, let’s say both of them, the coach in their system raises their expertise and the feedback loop and the performance requirements.
[00:25:47] Definitely adds an X factor that will get the first person with a great coach, way farther than the second person. So there you go. There you go. Yeah,
[00:25:54] Chris: a hundred percent. I agree on that. I do. And I love your backflip example. Like you can’t do half a backflip. I was just begging for you to say, cause you’re going to fall on your head, right?
[00:26:03] That to me, that’s the half backflip, not the half backflip. Cause like you’re not the halfback that you’re gonna hurt yourself. If you do have that. I it, you can’t do it all the way. Don’t even do it. Like I’m maybe be on a match,
[00:26:14] Kyle: be like me at the Olympics, trying to do, the freestyle snowboard event. If they’re flipping around, like I would just end up in the hospital.
[00:26:23] That’s all that would happen.
[00:26:24] Michael: I love this stuff. What’s hilarious to me is listening to other people, talk about music, learning stuff. Obviously I spent several years of my life in music college. My wife did, she teaches piano. And, it’s very interesting trying to work out exactly why people are successful or not at this stuff.
[00:26:39] The couple of other things I would put in. If it’s a valid metaphor and I think it’s trying to achieve anything, isn’t it seems to go down the mincing rabbit hole, but I think it is, it speaks to mentality. Doesn’t it. And relationship to coaches and commitment, I would say. Oh, hello. Thank you. Camera’s very helpful timing.
[00:26:53] I would say the. Other missing pieces are number one. If you traveled to San Francisco from whatever Northern California, that’s a long track, right? Or wherever it is too significant city name, name your city. That’s a long way from being cost a lot of money to get to because you’ve paid, you pay attention.
[00:27:09] And to your point, Chris, this kind of feels like it ties in being forced to decide on a lease for five years is often advertised as one of the downsides of running a retail store, as opposed to e-commerce or something. The flexibility seems like a good thing, but it reminds me of the book called the paradox of choice, which of course means that.
[00:27:24] To your point, Chris extremely valid. This generational too right now is facing a horrendous amount of choice and it takes a lot brain power to decide stuff. Being forced to decide on things for particular periods feels to me a bit like related. Like you get in the car on the way to San Francisco to go some guy you’re paying a hundred bucks an hour, 200 bucks an hour to get lessons from you’re going to get quite serious about it for awhile.
[00:27:46] There can be some difficult conversations before you give them up. And I think there’s something about reducing choice. And committing to expensive education, and expensive and difficult tracks. If you go on a pilgrimage to Las Vegas to go to the prosper show, I personally would rather stay by expects Myers, but I know some, my, my clients, one thing sold a seven figure business that loves that, you know what, th they’re all of this stuff feels to me.
[00:28:09] It’s almost about reducing choice for me. What are your thoughts on that?
[00:28:12] Jason: Yeah, totally. There is a
[00:28:14] Kyle: re a very real phenomenon known as decision fatigue. And, I think it was Barack Obama or something. They asked him about it one time, because he always wore blue tie. If you ever saw Obama, it’s like any president, it almost seems like they always just wear the exact same tie.
[00:28:30] Its exact same suit. It’s never any different. And the reason was when asked about it. It’s it’s all the way out and it’s exactly the same. So I have to, I don’t have to make a decision about it. He’s because I have really important as soon as I need to make. And you don’t want to deplete your decision-making capacity by extending all that capital in that thought and the thinking decision, making processes on stuff that really doesn’t matter.
[00:28:53] And so I thought it’s really interesting to your point. I think that if you can reduce some of that and to really save your decision-making capital for things that really matter and are important, you’re much better off and much wiser for it.
[00:29:06] Michael: Excellent. You see we all to brings to a close tense, any sort of final thoughts for everyone, as you say, Chris, it’s an involved, complex thing, agreed with that.
[00:29:13] But anything that we can say that would help people move on in their thinking.
[00:29:16] Chris: I think people really just have to be okay with committing to something and being okay with not doing a bunch of other things. Otherwise like decision fatigue, you’ll be exhausted because there are literally too many business models to even try in a single lifetime.
[00:29:30] And it’s a little bit of a curse or a generation. And we certainly. Like we humans weren’t made for this, the be honest, to have, to make all of these decisions and choices. So it’s a blessing and a curse at the same time, blessing that we have these options that generations before us simply did not have, but a curse in the sense of we weren’t made for this.
[00:29:47] So we have to navigate this in a fresh new way. And that’s why I say find mentors, find communities for just find anybody that you can talk to, to get their advice. Because if you get little bit of confirmation validation from someone else, That decision a lot easier if someone else says, yeah, you’d be really good at this.
[00:30:01] Like you think so. Okay, cool. And then you can move forward and you don’t have to try things for five years. You can try things in one day and see if you liked them. But eventually you gotta commit. And this is the perfect example. This is the test. Think of anybody out there, or they know like the most famous people, the most, the biggest experts, the most knowledgeable people are they known for one thing or for more than one thing and bet.
[00:30:24] And you’re going to see that they’re all known for one. Because they actually committed, they went all in on something instead of like just, oh, you know what? I’m not going to do Amazon. I’m not going to be the CEO of Amazon anymore. I’m going to go and try this little side project kind of thing over here.
[00:30:37] It’s no, it doesn’t work the way they’re known for one big thing.
[00:30:40] Kyle: Great.
[00:30:40] Jason: It’s worth it. Don’t give up. I spent 10 years driven up inflatable, camping furniture and other stupid ideas that never went anywhere. Not knowing what I was doing. Watching Davis Spino on infomercials. And now I look. All those years later, and I’m so glad I leaned into e-commerce selling, building our own business.
[00:31:03] It transformed our life. I retired from my nine to five career in January 1st, 2014, and never looked back not to say I don’t work more now than I did then, but, it’s life-changing and so I would just encourage people to never give up, keep learning, keep pivoting until you find some paydirt. That you can, get excited about and lean into and scale.
[00:31:25] And, you’ll look back with no regret. If you do your best in the moment to try to find how, you can move forward. And so I just encourage people not to, not to give up.
[00:31:37] Chris: That’s a good point. This will take longer than.
[00:31:40] Michael: Yes. Yeah. But I totally agree with that. And don’t pivot in the mic back flip to mix your metaphor of that.
[00:31:45] Kyle, what’s your final book,
[00:31:46] Kyle: Make a decision and commit to it. I would just echo what Chris said. Like you have to commit to it. And then I think to echo on Jason said it is worth it. You have to have the goal in mind in any sort of business venture that you’re going to be launching into. Get clear on what a good outcome for you is going to look like, but a realistic.
[00:32:06] Are you going to make a million dollars in your first year? Probably not. If you make $10,000 in your first year or a hundred thousand dollars in your first. That’s a measurable outcome that you’re like, okay, I can push towards this and then align your daily, weekly goals to accomplish that as a measurement of, whether or not you’ve hit your goal or not.
[00:32:25] And if you get to a hundred thousand, he made that, and then you can reevaluate. Is this model of having, having enjoying it is, yeah, it might be a lot of work. I might be struggling with it, but am I be getting fulfillment out of it in my, do I see a way for me to achieve my ultimate goal and outcome, whether that’s to quit your job?
[00:32:41] More to, stay, spend more time with your family, whatever is your goal for that business is to produce in your life. Just make sure you’re aligned on it and that it’s actually serving the lifestyle and the life that you want to have, and you don’t become a slave to that business or that business idea.
[00:32:54] And then you got.
[00:32:54] Michael: I need somebody, I would say throughout that is, enjoy the process, enjoy the game. The people that I know the irony is that the people I know that I’ve grown the businesses, the biggest and fastest that I know personally, I’ve worked with other people who enjoy the game the most. So they would in a sense, be okay with not having the money.
[00:33:11] They enjoy the fruits of the money, but they enjoyed the game more than the money. I think if I had to choose. Between the, the Maserati or, the McLaren and all the nice cars versus being in the business that we’re in. I think they choose the business cause they enjoy the game.
[00:33:22] So I think that’s the most important thing to really brings us full circle to the point you were making Chris, which is you’ve got to do something you enjoy basics of life. Really great conversation Jensen. Thank you very much for everyone. Who’s been listening from Jason’s Facebook group.
[00:33:34] And if you’re watching this or listening to us, rather call in live or listen. On the e-commerce leader, lots of ways you can get us now. Calling app is, we’re growing in our fellowship there and we’re going up the charts. So do join us there. It’s only available on iPhone at the moment, as far as I know, but, do you go and done that, download that easy to use app?
[00:33:53] Do you follow us on Spotify? If you are a podcast listener or apple podcasts, and don’t forget to give us some kind of love or review. I believe Jason, you were saying that Spotify now enables you to give some kind of rate of a podcast. Is that right?
[00:34:05] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. Just search for e-commerce with, or without the hyphen between the end of the sea.
[00:34:10] And you should find our show. I’d love to have you follow it and then rate it and review it as well on Spotify. Yeah.
[00:34:16] Michael: Amazing. Thank you very much everyone for listening to us and thanks to our expert panel. Jason Miles, Chris green, Kyle hammer. This is Michael Veazey, London, England signing off.
[00:34:24] Thanks very much for listening to the e-commerce leader. Call-in show
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