The E-commerce Leader

[00:00:00] JM: I want people to realize, be like, like when you do a pixie fair is an incredibly niche, but I’m sure Simmons loves every day. Like she can’t believe that she gets to make enough money to do what she wants to do around something she actually absolutely loves.
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[00:01:52] CG: You were the founder of a top 1% Shopify store. Um, yeah. I mean that’s, is that in
[00:01:56] KH: your Twitter bio now? No, that
[00:01:58] CG: sounds like marketing. I mean, that’s the hook. What’s the story offer?
[00:02:02] Uh, no, you know, it’s interesting, I guess the, the question that it prompted in my mind, Um, the, the early mover advantage, you know, we started on Shopify in June, 2023, sorry, June, 2013. Uh, so that would be, uh, you know, we’re coming up on 10 full years of being on Shopify platform. And, uh, yeah, it’s been a long journey.
[00:02:23] But you know, what we started with in terms of what Shopify offered back then was an amazing. Offered product, uh, product offer. Shopify was just incredible in 2013 and now it’s just so much more. I mean, it’s just, so to me that was, it’s fascinating. Um, so, you know, we had early mover advantage. We’ve had a long standing site now at this point, and a niche that’s relatively ours to, uh, operate in cuz it’s such a small corner of the internet.
[00:02:54] Um, But obviously not a small traffic corner of the internet. You know, I mean, I, I, what that says to me, what that paragraph says to me is, um, you can’t find a small enough niche to not be profitable and to not, you know, do well in these days. The, the universe is so huge of potential buyers go find a small niche and then just totally serve the people.
[00:03:18] And, uh, you know, your site traffic and metrics will reward you for it. So that’s my, I mean, that’s kind of my meta topic on the, on what, what, what that meant to me when I read it, you know?
[00:03:30] JM: Well, Jason, I got a question for you as a 1%. As a top 1%. So if you just had a hundred people, you’re the best out of 100 people, 99
[00:03:38] CG: people.
[00:03:39] Yeah. But just theoretically,
[00:03:40] JM: just so for people that are. 99 people are not doing as well as you. What would you say you are doing better versus like is how much is first mover advantage? How much is luck? How much is, there’s really nothing special to this guys. I just do the work and the other 99, there’s probably a bunch of them that are trying to shortcut and probably think it’s not, it doesn’t take this much or what, or they’re blaming external circumstances or you know, they’re giving an excuse about why they aren’t the top 1%.
[00:04:07] Yeah. You know, do you like, what would you have to say to them to someone? Oh, but you must be like some hardcore amazing ninja just killing it. Wait, or or
[00:04:18] CG: is it not that? No, it’s not that. I wish I was that Clearly not. Our ClickFunnels results websites prove that we’re not that good at stuff. But, um, you know, the challenge of e-commerce is that it’s two or three things in combination that make a success emerge.
[00:04:34] Um, you know, you have to have a product concept. That is a good idea. And you know, it’s interesting as we do consulting, we’ll hear people say ideas to us. I’m like, oh, well that’s just a bad idea. It’s just like, but from their mind, in their heart, their soul, they are riding a pony that’s like, they’re, they’re going, they’re like, I’m, this is my racehorse.
[00:04:56] I’m riding this. And from an outset observer, you’re like, bro, that’s just a horrible product idea. But do they take your advice? I mean, you sometimes. It’s, it’s, it’s how often do they not,
[00:05:07] JM: because like where I want you to go with this is what’s your advice to the 99 people who are not the top 100%? Yeah.
[00:05:13] What’s your advice to someone who says, Hey, someone with a top 1% Shopify store told me your ideas bad. Well, I’m gonna do it anyway. Like when, how can we get people to actually take advice from
[00:05:22] CG: people who’ve been there? I think it’s a Venn diagram, or two or three things in combination. One is a good product idea and the second one is foundationally decent market.
[00:05:31] Uh, you know, I’m, you know, I’m not a marketing guru, whatever. I don’t have ninja skills what of any variety, but I know the basics. Start with a building, an email list. You know, have, have a domain name that’s, you know, helpful in terms of seo. Uh, build a brand, you know, these are basic foundationals of the marketing component of a.
[00:05:54] And when you bolt those found just the basics onto a good product idea. Yeah, you’re gonna get good traction. Um, so that
[00:06:01] KH: makes sense. Let me, let me add into that. So someone who has seen Jason operate for years now and work with him, I would say one thing that he does execute on at a high level is he understands the blocking and tackling of the basics and then just executes on it relentless.
[00:06:16] Like, I think the secret of Pixie Fair was that you guys established some core fundamentals in your business for marketing, like email marketing, list building contest, stuff like that, and you just did them and you executed them on on a weekly basis. Where other people would’ve given up, you know, nine years ago or 9.6, you know, years ago.
[00:06:37] They’re still here 10 years later doing the same things. Consistency. I think that consistency over time allowed them to build the beast that they opt today in Pixie Fair, in their niche.
[00:06:46] CG: Yeah. Yeah. I guess that’s right. Yeah. I’m, you bring it all back to what
[00:06:49] JM: we talked about at the beginning, like I think this is kind of perfect.
[00:06:52] Like, Jason, you didn’t chase this because it was like Kyle talked about earlier, a big opportunity. Yeah. Right. This is very niche, but your wife had like very personal connection to it. Right. This isn’t something Jason Miles was like, you know what, I think there’s probably big opportunity in, in a digital market.
[00:07:07] Like, no, like it, it kind of presented itself, but you had. Interest and passion behind it, you know, in your, your unit of you and your wife, uh, and you, and you put in the work, but you didn’t chase it because it was the biggest opportunity out there. And I, I see a lot of people trying to chase opportunities be, I’m gonna be the next AI guy.
[00:07:23] I’m like, no you’re not. Yeah. I had people messaging me, you should start a competitor and a Ticketmaster. You see how they messed up Taylor Swift? I’m like, I can’t build the next ticket master. Yes. That’s a big opportunity. A big opportunity.
[00:07:36] CG: That’s not my opportunity. Someone else is
[00:07:39] JM: gonna do that. Right?
[00:07:40] And we could all laugh because it’s, it’s such an absurd example, which is why I want, I want people to realize, be like, like when you do a pixie fair is an incredibly niche, but I’m sure Simmons loves every day. Like she can’t believe that she gets to make enough money to do what she wants to do around something she actually absolutely loves.
[00:07:56] You know, and that’s where I think a lot of people need to get, instead of chasing big opportu.
[00:08:00] CG: Yeah, yeah. The riches are in the niches, as they say, and you know, that’s never been more true. Um, so yeah, I, it is a hard, the, the product, finding a product is absolutely the hardest part of any, mm-hmm.
[00:08:13] E-commerce venture. Finding the right product that will serve you as a business owner. Well, and obviously the end user. Mm-hmm. Well, and that you have some point of differentiation, some. Unfair advantage or mm-hmm. You know, access to something special. That’s the hardest part of the whole game. The marketing stuff has become, you know, there’s a million gurus out there that’ll teach you every part of marketing you can want to, to learn.
[00:08:39] There’s, you know, there’s service providers out there that will do everything for you. Uh, there there’s no barrier once you get the good product idea, but if you don’t have a good product idea, nothing else matters. You know, so there you.
[00:08:56] MV: Just to double down on what you were saying about, um, talent and passion, uh, Chris, I think that for me as an outsider, and I’ve met Cinnamon briefly, but looking at the business, it’s clear that there’s an exceptional talent and exceptional [00:09:10] drive going on.
[00:09:11] On the actual product side. And I think that’s something that people overlook because they look at a big market and a trend. And as you say, Chris, well first of all, if you know, ticketing may be a big trend, but it’s not for you cuz you don’t have the skillset. But even more importantly, just cuz something’s big, that doesn’t mean that you can take a piece of that market.
[00:09:28] And the bigger it is, the harder it is to cut through the noise. So the quality of the actual core of what you do has to be, I think, very high in any market that. Tiny and even in a tiny market, to really dominate it. As you have Jason, as you said, you still gotta obsess somebody in your company. Someone’s gotta obsess about the product.
[00:09:46] CG: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, honestly, if you’re struggling to find the a good product for the long term, maybe you’re looking for the wrong thing. Maybe don’t look for the product. Mm-hmm. Look for the artist who’s pioneered something really unique, and just be their marketer. Just cut a deal. And, and, you know, you turn into the marketer for somebody else’s genius.
[00:10:06] And, um, there’s, there’s no, there’s no dishonor in that. I mean, that’s a path to, you know, a, a good outcome where you just realize, Hey, I, I can’t pick a good product. I’ve tried it 10 times. I’ve failed. Maybe I just need to find somebody who can, you know, obsess over a product enough to make it really interesting and.
[00:10:24] Um, so I think everybody has to explore their own mindset in terms of what they’re good at and not good at, and, and, uh, stay in their swim lane in terms of what their core skillset is. You know,
[00:10:35] MV: Yeah, absolutely. Um, and that, that’s exactly what I’m doing in my next venture. I’m working with somebody who’s obsessive, really obsessive, he’s got a law degree and he’s also a manufacturer, so he’s very obsessive about details on the product, which is just not my bag.
[00:10:47] And I’m gonna focus on marketing and stuff on Amazon and we’ll see how it works out. But even if this doesn’t work out, the division of labor and the personality types makes sense to me. So yeah, you’re absolutely right. I think Chris, take it home for us. I dunno, what’s, what’s cooking in your mind?
[00:11:00] There’s always, you are always on the cutting edge of, so, So what’s going on in screen
[00:11:05] KH: today?
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[00:11:54] JM: I like talking about what Jason ow and, and you were talking about. Uh, you know, it’s all interesting. I, you know, to give advice to anybody that’s listening to this, they kind of like, might be like, oh, there’s a lot of information here.
[00:12:03] Where, where should I go with it? It’s to try a bunch of different things and also to, you know, eliminate any preconceived notions that, that they may have about what constitutes a product or how you can bring. To the marketplace. And I do think that that’s kind of a nice niche that I fall into pretty well, where someone’s like, Hey, I wanna make money on the internet.
[00:12:19] What should I do? And if I talk to them for 20, 30 minutes and find out what they’re good at and explain to ’em how they could turn that into a business with either print on demand product or service offer, and then use social media to find people who are already talking about this and market to them and help them for free, it just takes time.
[00:12:34] Uh, a lot of people. They kind of pushed back at that cuz they don’t think it’s real, they don’t think it’s possible. They don’t think, uh, anybody’s actually doing that. Um, but everything that, you know, they can try everything that I just talked about for a freak and they can see if it actually works and they can see people who are actually doing it.
[00:12:49] But there are a lot of two good to be true kind of offers out there or opportunities out there, you know, to me, especially around the print and demand, uh, world. Um, and I’ll, I’ll give you guys something new here at the. Um, I had an idea for something yesterday and I’ve been working on it all morning. Uh, generally when I help people learn to scan products, to resell on either eBay or Amazon Books is an easy one cuz they all have barcodes.
[00:13:08] They’re easy to ship, they’re easy to identify. It just is what it is. And you can see the prices on Amazon with any number of skin apps. Uh, I would frequently tell people, go to a thrift store or a book sale and spend hours there and literally scan every single. Everyone, because you’re gonna learn what is not good.
[00:13:24] You’re gonna be like, oh, all of these romance novels are bad. Ooh, all of these types of books are bad. All these cooking books are bad. So now you’re not gonna pick up as many cooking books. You’re not gonna pick up the romance novel. You’re not gonna waste that time. It’s gonna increase your percentage or your probability of getting something that that is good.
[00:13:39] And I was like, you know what I can do? I can just publish a book. 2000 different barcodes and pictures of books and screenshots and little short explanations of why this is good or not cause it has F b, A or not. Cause as Amazon is a seller or not, cause the sales rank is too high or not. And then you can just get this book from me and stay at home and scan a thousand books and do your homework.
[00:14:00] You don’t have to go to a store and do any of this. Why did I think of this years ago? And it’s gonna be a great kind of bonus, extra thing that you can either print out yourself or you can get the published book from Amazon. And if you pre-order my. Flip game book, you get access to this. I don’t know, I haven’t like finalized the offer yet, but like for whatever reason, I am super excited about this as kind of first mover as no one’s done this before.
[00:14:23] As it’s innovative, as people are gonna really like it, all of these things. Now, will it be a big opportunity? Monetary wise? No, I don’t think so. I don’t think I’m gonna make a million dollars by people downloading a book full of barcodes and they’re gonna sit in front of their TV and scan barcodes for three hours.
[00:14:37] Uh, but it’s gonna help a lot of people and it’s gonna be a great example of how you can use print on demand to create a product. You can then sell direct or supplement or offer as a bonus, uh, use as a free lead magnet, all of these different things. And that’s when. Get more excited because when I have to do the daily, okay, I need to work on this, I need to write an email and send it to my list and exclude my cold subscribers and like, oh, kill me.
[00:14:58] That’s not fun. Not exciting. I do it cuz you have to, but man, it’s so much more fun to do the, the fun, exciting, innovative type things. So I’m working on that. So that gives anybody an idea of what they can do. Knock yourselves out.
[00:15:14] CG: I love that man.
[00:15:15] MV: I like
[00:15:15] KH: that a lot. Somebody, he’s, I said he
[00:15:17] JM: has a copy, but you’re not, you’re not gonna go through it.
[00:15:20] 2000 barcodes, a thousand.
[00:15:23] CG: We have an affiliate link for that tool,
[00:15:27] JM: Jason, which is a great example where you’re like, Hey, that sounds cool. There’s a big opportunity there. It’s not my skillset, but I could be an affiliate and I can promote something and I can make money by promoting someone else’s stuff to an audience that I know like that.
[00:15:38] Like that’s where I, I just scream at. Plug yourself in, in the right spot. Know yourself, just like we talked about with, with Kyle’s topic earlier. Know what you wanna do and then find an opportunity and plug yourself in. And don’t be like, I have to be a ceo. I have to be a number one. No, you don’t. The number three at Facebook is super rich.
[00:15:54] Okay. And no one knows his name. I mean, I’m not sure somebody does. The number 20 at Facebook is super rich, right? And no, like, you don’t have to be the guy. Mm-hmm. Right? Unless you wanna be the guy. It’s a different journey. I,
[00:16:08] MV: I’d be very happy to sell somebody else a, a book of 2000, uh, barcodes and never look at it myself, because no offense, I don’t wanna scan 2000 barcodes, but I like the idea already because you don’t have to.
[00:16:20] I go into a shop, I hate going to the shop. So retail advertiser is never my bag. Uh, I’ve got, well it judges been,
[00:16:25] JM: go ahead.
[00:16:27] MV: Sorry. I was gonna say shutting down Chris when he is in the mid, mid creative flow. Very dangerous thing to do cuz uh, come out with 10 fantastic marketing ideas, but we’ve all gotta head off.
[00:16:36] So, um, gotta say a big thank you to, uh, today’s expert panel car Hamer. Chris Green, Jason Miles, I’ve been Michael Vizi, and thank you so much for listening to the E-Commerce Leader, and don’t forget to subscribe in your favorite podcast player to the show.
[00:16:53] KH: Bye
[00:16:54] CG: bye guys.
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[00:17:44] CG: