How To Turn Your Dreams into Seven-Figure Businesses with Steve Kilbert

Episode 194

Have you ever dreamt of turning your e-commerce venture into a seven-figure business? Steve Kilbert, a seasoned e-commerce entrepreneur, did just that, and he’s here to spill the beans on his journey to success. From his initial foray into the fitness industry to his current work in M&A, Steve’s tale is one of resilience, adaptation, and insightful business acumen.

Join us as we uncover the secrets of tracking customer data, calculating the lifetime value of customers, and harnessing the power of email marketing. We also delve into the nitty-gritty of understanding business numbers, choosing the right business model, and strategically maximizing profits. And guess what? We even cover the ins and outs of affiliate marketing, one of the hottest trends in e-commerce.

But it doesn’t end there. Steve offers invaluable advice on scaling and selling your business, stressing the essential role of accurate numbers. He breaks down complex concepts like cost-requisition, growth rate, and cash flow, giving you the tools to understand and expand your business. As we wrap up, Steve talks about the importance of mindset in achieving e-commerce success, even suggesting a book that’s shaped his own approach. And the cherry on top? An exclusive offer from Steve himself for our dear listeners. Don’t miss out on this enlightening conversation!

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00;00;24;03 – 00;00;46;17
Speaker 2
Welcome, everyone to the Firing Demand podcast. On today’s episode, we have the pleasure to interview Steve Gilbert. Steve has over 20 years of online experience and in the past five years has focused specifically on e-commerce. He knows his e-com business. Business very well. And over a discussion at dinner one night, he grew his e-commerce business into a seven figure company.

00;00;46;19 – 00;00;51;15
Speaker 2
We’re very much looking forward to hearing his story and learning more about e-commerce. Welcome to the show, Steve.

00;00;51;16 – 00;00;55;06
Speaker 3
Thank you, David. I appreciate the opportunity to chat with you again and your audience.

00;00;55;07 – 00;01;01;01
Speaker 2
Absolutely. So to start things off, can you please share with our listeners a little bit more about yourself and your background?

00;01;01;07 – 00;01;28;14
Speaker 3
Yeah, sure. So like a lot of us, we all have variations in our career. I’ll say that I got into the Internet space about 20 plus years ago, just over 20 years ago, and we worked in different companies in the Internet space. And after my last job separation, my parents were having dementia. So I needed flexibility. And I started out doing some consulting and just helping some different businesses adapt to relationships and enjoyed that, but just wasn’t quite working.

00;01;28;15 – 00;01;48;15
Speaker 3
What so that I evolved into the ecommerce. So I had some friends doing that and they were having good success. And so I said to my wife, Look, I’ll give this a try. If I can’t work in six months, I’ll go get a job and, okay, you know, good luck. And so while we didn’t quite turn the corner of that, I would say six months, I had enough momentum not to say, Wait a sec, there’s something here.

00;01;48;18 – 00;02;09;08
Speaker 3
So, you know, kind of kept going in. Now, Xeni, is that a person who starts a business? Small will tell you, as you guys know as well, it’s not a straight line. It’s a lot of ups and and sideways and backwards, unfortunately. And long story short, yeah, with some figures. Now, of course, she covered Rush our business. But that being said, as I know, all this works, and so we’re in the process of building it back up.

00;02;09;08 – 00;02;27;20
Speaker 3
But in lieu of that, because we were at a point we were I had linked up with a colleague of mine about a bunch of deals. He was trying to help five businesses. I’m taking the across that line to have that experience. So we were going to do that. Never fit in this conversation. My wife is having dinner and I said, Well, we sell this thing, we can get this not going to be a homerun, but we could do okay.

00;02;27;22 – 00;02;45;02
Speaker 3
If we have a great experience to start an idea and sell it. I made the decision that I do best in this. We get double or triple, and then some things didn’t work out. Anyway, it’s been it’s been a wild journey. And now that I’m doing a little bit of M&A ad buys, see behind the scene a lot of different business, which are e-commerce or even Saskatoon said.

00;02;45;03 – 00;03;04;19
Speaker 3
But we’ve got a number of competencies. So for me it’s an utterly fast thing because I get to see the financials and I see the business model. I’ll ask them questions on what they’re doing to grow and what what got into whether added course, why are they selling? And there are some common themes which I think your best chance for will hopefully find valuable given there really is pattern of people what they’re not doing.

00;03;04;19 – 00;03;26;15
Speaker 3
It’s really jaw dropping. Some of the things that they’re just leaving on the table. The point is you’ve got to sell your assets. You want to get the most money because they’re not doing very I call simple things in the building a lot of winning table. And they get frustrated. A lot of not all, but sometimes they get to frustrate because of course they want and the marketplace will say that the valuations really work best the the accepting bond.

00;03;26;16 – 00;03;47;29
Speaker 3
So that’s the thing that’s really, really to me, it’s just learning those lessons, starting it for myself, some players having the setback and now knowing what to do to grow back up and now seeing other businesses that are different. Like you can talk about skin care, any kind of e-commerce, but we’ve dealt with number and it’s just it doesn’t matter because the other day it’s just a widget, say to us not to insult people, but it’s a widget.

00;03;47;29 – 00;04;05;00
Speaker 3
But the other day it’s it’s map and it’s just a business model of how to use your product to solve a problem for the marketplace that somebody has a need or something. I’m beginning a little bit as my wife. I work. That’s it. That’s my wife, Marissa. We’re selling fitness accessories. Nothing crazy. It was very big, was very competitive.

00;04;05;03 – 00;04;30;29
Speaker 3
Right. Looking back at them, the wrong products to sell. We’ve been at work, but that allowed me to really dig into the business and understand how it works. And we were solving and need able to was great. A competitive price and just made it work. I knew how to drive. One thing that was really, really helped me as we’re going through our journey is having dinner and that’s where to relatives and to add the newest are the TV on the background and then this was now prime time one of our top priority.

00;04;31;02 – 00;04;51;26
Speaker 3
It’s not our top competitor. One of our top was running a television ad, primetime TV, and it just hit me like, wow, they’re selling some of the same products we are, and yet we will never run ads ask because I know how that’s working. We’re still a capture fraction of the market share. Very small, but it didn’t matter because we so long answer your question but hope that gives a little bit back kind of where I got to work.

00;04;51;26 – 00;05;14;08
Speaker 4
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for sharing all that, Steve. And you’ve been in the space for a really long time now you’re getting in more into the M&A and kind of peek behind the curtain. So you’ve got a ton of knowledge excited to kind of dig into some of these questions and share with the listeners. And so first one is you made you made a comment and you said like there’s a lot of things that, you know, specifically e-commerce, a lot of things e-commerce businesses they’re not doing.

00;05;14;08 – 00;05;21;21
Speaker 4
So can you kind of go over a few of those just to kind of share like what are one of the things that you see that that business owners are not doing that they should be doing?

00;05;21;21 – 00;05;39;02
Speaker 3
Yeah, there’s a there’s there’s really a couple of course it’s I see it. This is a pattern over and over again. That one would work with e-commerce businesses or even other business. But others where you accomplish this is the one that I know your dear and just shocked people don’t don’t know. They don’t know their number. And what I mean by that is I’ll ask them or chief questions.

00;05;39;02 – 00;05;57;13
Speaker 3
I’ll ask every business owner has really applied what is your cost generator Lead the leads to find this email and or call to grow. How can you communicate somebody and that some Aweber direct communication? What is your cost to acquire a leader Let’s say email conversation. They don’t know the answer. Why So they should know about and I knew that I knew the answer.

00;05;57;13 – 00;06;20;26
Speaker 3
Then what is your cost to acquire our customer? With the second question, the third question, a lot of them. Well now is like what is your average transaction value a new customer or email would pretty much have. It’s whether it is in Shopify or Commerce or big commerce, say, and the e-commerce platform out there, they’ll pretty much have a good idea that but a blasted with that they don’t know it to me is arguably the most important question is what is your my top value or your cost and they just don’t know.

00;06;20;26 – 00;06;43;08
Speaker 3
And I don’t have to stop and ask them over and over again. Well, how did you get this far? Nick Wow, we just keep growing. We get customers and you know, we’re making it work. It’s like what? They don’t realize what they mean because they don’t know that Now. Why that so? No, hey, little more so it is it’s, you know, the shoes you can’t sample your like top value under it was a client I was consulting last year she had no idea that was giving her lifetime value.

00;06;43;11 – 00;07;04;09
Speaker 3
So she had no and she then she also didn’t know what it costs or indeed or her offshore customer. She just happened to get it and it just grew another against her. She was more of a specialist, not a marketer now. And so I tried to I showed her that we going to our customer and you could literally spend a $500 for our customer, even $6, and still make this work.

00;07;04;09 – 00;07;24;21
Speaker 3
But obviously you don’t want to spend that. You don’t need to go to the online space. There’s plenty of ways to get Trauger cost or way less, but it was one of those things you took her while they’re really crossed that so I’ll only show her numbers. Yeah, well, no, I’m sure she did. But again, then you went into work out all such things, which is another Chowdhry Audi College, but that’s one of the most knowing you’re not given.

00;07;24;24 – 00;07;51;22
Speaker 3
But long answer. The next thing I would say is it was more of a foundational thing is they don’t know their avatar. The costume ICP is there, it’s out there and a very, very deep. What I mean by our e-commerce business, we knew radio buyer, 47 year old female that lived outside Houston, Texas, and a major, you could say major metropolitan area, but I knew Houston, Texas, they were very college educated, worked in the medical field.

00;07;51;24 – 00;08;07;20
Speaker 3
I had to be more specific. She was a nurse, drove an SUV, had a child and on and I. Now, how the heck did I know all this stuff? Well, you look at all the data, I could actually keep going. I knew what restaurants she went to. I know what travel and magazines you read. All that stuff is out there, but people don’t know where to look.

00;08;07;24 – 00;08;38;06
Speaker 3
The reason that that’s important, that guide. Now go sell the mail. Absolutely not sloppy ordering, not good. But that was our singular. The person I know you guys are heard does have to sell that one person when you really identify that one person, that level of did is described. It allows you to articulate your marketing much different way that you can use email communications and you got the don’t pinpoint that your ideal customer experience is going to resonate because they’re going to feel that why this ad or this this ran is talking me directly.

00;08;38;06 – 00;08;56;20
Speaker 3
We’re Geauga we’re the small business. So this is how we’re you know I really got this is a you wrote us once I understood all those those details that been you realize this name perfect doesn’t matter. But on back to your question, one of the core things about know is they don’t know they’re out. They’ll say it’s, oh, it’s been over 45.

00;08;56;20 – 00;09;13;14
Speaker 3
It’s like, that’s too generic. You have to get really, really granular. So you know what their pain points aren’t. Because the other thing is that as you grow your business, you’re going to want, you know, want to leverage how you search and by knowing all these details about you can then offer the other price ensures that you can deliver or even affiliate.

00;09;13;17 – 00;09;46;03
Speaker 3
And that’s a step on the tip that leverage are asked and that maybe the third thing I will say it on all mother list. I know I’m gonna spam you, but I don’t want people get unsubscribe. It’s like, but that’s an asset up your business you built up and you don’t leverage and it’s mind numbing to be because it’s very money that city right he bought me just choose not to do it It’s a lot of work to create the content I get out I got the real excellence and now it artificial intelligence it’s so easy is it is Whereas now hopefully that gives you at least some detail.

00;09;46;03 – 00;09;47;05
Speaker 3
I could keep going, but.

00;09;47;07 – 00;10;12;06
Speaker 4
I’ve got some quick follow ups before I kick it over to David. And I guess for for the listeners, if they if they don’t know these numbers, lifetime value, cost of acquisition, where can they where do you find those readily available? Do you have to calculate them on a spreadsheet? Where can they go and get these numbers? And then also Avatar, how can how can someone figure out like you went into my new detail on this, on this where you were Avatar is eating dinner like in what magazines they’re reading.

00;10;12;06 – 00;10;14;08
Speaker 4
And so how do you how do you filter that out?

00;10;14;08 – 00;10;34;22
Speaker 3
Yeah, no, it’s and Craig, there’s two great question and so let me it’s the first will not be analogous right. Really whatever your platform is, it’s going to how you’re going to have to download it at their software now that you actually you know it’s going to be a cost but it goes back to get you see the value that which I would argue is if you’re growing business, I want to grow this, but I know a lot of people are on that level, so you do it on a spreadsheet.

00;10;34;22 – 00;10;48;22
Speaker 3
We are going, I did a spreadsheet. It was a little monster, a spreadsheet set up because there was only software that’s available, aren’t they either? I why this was on, but this was in the last few years. I really now open my eyes up to all of the things that are out there and it was on a spreadsheet.

00;10;48;22 – 00;11;03;05
Speaker 3
You can do this. It’s not that hard again, to download all your customer data and sort easy way to figure this out is just look at all of your whatever your your email platform is. You’re going to shop. Why people are going to they’re going to sign up. That happens. It’s that people will we’ve all done as you go.

00;11;03;05 – 00;11;21;17
Speaker 3
You add the car, you do, you get distracted and you add. So you need to email those people after if I want. Yeah, well, we did that now I’ll say well how many emails to send? But abandoned cart met first questions. A lot of people don’t even do that once we get some. But if they do, if they do, they’ll say I sent a wire tweet and also like why you should send a few more because you’d be surprised.

00;11;21;17 – 00;11;42;19
Speaker 3
After the fourth and fifth email, people will actually like that, like got by and I knew this, but they don’t email their list. And so but if you’re looking at their whatever their CRM is, they should, even if it’s Shopify or whatever it is, they’re going to have all this excellent download, all that list of buyers and people who are not subscribers of you, and then just do the math on a time period.

00;11;42;19 – 00;11;57;26
Speaker 3
On the other, I look at six to 12 to 18 months for that. Like Taobao, you can go longer, but that’s going to give you a rule at least or even two years and just divide up the number is like, okay, I’ll resell by I made the by that number. It’s really not that hard to do and yet people at the time to do that on my board.

00;11;57;26 – 00;12;16;05
Speaker 3
But that’s the stuff that we’re also overwhelmed with our business. And answer your question on the Avatar, there are various tools out there. Again, you can take your email list over to the searches and you can then like take a checklist. You can check out the things you want and that will then match on what does it have on these all address their database that will spit you back.

00;12;16;05 – 00;12;31;19
Speaker 3
Here’s all this demo, all that you choose to do. You’re going to pretty much know the the demographic I mean, the gender, but you’re going to want to maybe look at age. You could look at income level as well. I mean, these are different things that are offered. That’s one thing. It’s paid service. But you can also look at some other tools that are out there that are of chart.

00;12;31;19 – 00;12;48;04
Speaker 3
Now, Facebook has made changes to Encino Man, but that was one of our sources early is all you guys would call a few years back and you’re if you look now let’s show it give you some of the details on what things we’d learned about our avatar was that they also like country music. I was like, I never had an idea that.

00;12;48;06 – 00;13;04;08
Speaker 3
So one time we were testing different ads out. I said, okay, what they Facebook is telling us that our our all of our bands which is you’re does generalizing but it’s don’t they like country music. So I ran some ads just charting country music and mobile, all that works out. I was like, okay, I get it right. But there’s other tools that are out there somewhere.

00;13;04;09 – 00;13;17;04
Speaker 3
Rents are paid, but it’s on those things that to be it’s beneficial for you to try to get that deal. And now the other way, it’s also easy to just survey them and ask, how do you need to do that? You know, get on the phone and talk to people. That is blow your mind what? You’ll learn a lot more free to do that.

00;13;17;04 – 00;13;33;11
Speaker 3
But it’s you really should be try to watch your cost they will appreciate it or disobey them And there’s all these rituals out there, whether it’s a Google form or something. Just send traffic to that and just ask them similar questions. Ideally, your your email CRM should do that as well because you don’t want to tie whatever questions your app in that answer.

00;13;33;11 – 00;13;51;26
Speaker 3
Provide it to that because it’ll start to build up in your date. Right? So let’s just say, for example, we are fitness and so weight loss was something I just heard jerk fitness and weight loss together. If we said, Have you ever tried to lose weight? And that was a radio box and they checked. Yes. Not that we would identify that that person all the time.

00;13;51;26 – 00;14;12;24
Speaker 3
You’d bump that up to people say get this amount of people. So I could now send mails that they are people that I remember. I could send a sort of email those people and they’re going be or like to open the email and or do something with that. I make them the right offer. But because they told us they raised their hand and told us, I’m looking for this, right, or I need help with this, that’s the stuff you have.

00;14;12;25 – 00;14;14;21
Speaker 3
Dig a lot more, but very nice.

00;14;14;21 – 00;14;35;17
Speaker 2
I really I like those metrics and as we were going through those, there were certainly some that I think as we operate our own businesses, we we have some room to sharpen our sword. You had mentioned the I and how that is kind of changing things completely. And so it’ll be fun to see those tools continued to develop and and give us business owners more and more information.

00;14;35;17 – 00;14;52;26
Speaker 2
So now moving on, Steve, what would be advice you would give to somebody who is struggling with growth? Maybe they’ve had a business for a couple of years and have plateaued. Maybe they’re just getting started and and are trying to get those, you know, some consistent sales. What advice would you give them?

00;14;52;26 – 00;15;07;23
Speaker 3
Well, the going back to let me answer the second part your question. They’re just getting started. Here’s one piece of advice that I tell a lot of people that asked the questions we had. Our stats is pick something and have a somewhat of an age and that would be your passion in life. You should have something because here’s what happened.

00;15;07;23 – 00;15;33;03
Speaker 3
Because I see this time and time again, you’ve all come in and say, I can sell a bunch of money selling this, which I like, but do you like that widget? Let’s just use fishing, for example. Not the thing that’s fishing. A lot of fish, rather a lot of money fishing. I hear that. But if you’re not an issue, I can I can guarantee you between now and the next six months, you are going to tremendous some challenges and roadblocks you just don’t know, be attracted to patience and better yet, and you’re going to give up and you got to switch now you’re a little large something that six month period but you’re then going

00;15;33;03 – 00;15;48;22
Speaker 3
to start in the next next year keep starting over. And I say this experience because that’s what happened to me. But I see that time and time again we’ll get started as a dots. They don’t pick something that they have a an interest that’s going to motivate you to keep out stories and go back to other questions from the macro right now.

00;15;48;22 – 00;16;00;21
Speaker 3
It ties back to some of that stuff I just went through as take a look at your business in terms like, what are you doing to grow? Like, okay, first of all, what is your long term goal? You want to build this thing up just to make a side income or do you want to build this house the natural?

00;16;00;21 – 00;16;17;11
Speaker 3
Sure, you can sell it one day. This is one thing I would encourage your most because a lot of people aren’t thinking that long term, but they’re bullish because there’s two things that tie together. It’s like anything you have starts, can I do it? So anybody can just put the time and effort and the focus and and follow the right process.

00;16;17;11 – 00;16;33;14
Speaker 3
And there’s many ways to be smart, but you should be thinking of building an asset up, sell it Monday. Whether you make $50,000, $100,000 or not doesn’t matter because here’s what’s going to happen is like some cheap whatever you work at, some is going to cheat the next 3 to 5 years. You may not say in 3 to 5 years.

00;16;33;14 – 00;16;53;07
Speaker 3
So rebuild other assets that the focus on growing its revenue profitability in there can sell these out. Now this ties back your portion of it there’s stop right now it goes back to you really need to focus on all your numbers. So many people just don’t know those numbers. It’s really jaw dropping to me. I talked them now in this M&A role is that you have to know those numbers because it will let you make decisions.

00;16;53;07 – 00;17;11;26
Speaker 3
So back to the example I mentioned earlier, skincare brand I was working with, their life time was seven to now. So knowing that I was like, man, you should be you need to get some working capital. I’m a six year product. And that’s that’s a challenge because and there’s it’s a solvable issue and you should be testing out different ad platforms but it’s still Facebook or whatever.

00;17;12;01 – 00;17;30;08
Speaker 3
There’s many, many do to get traffic. Then you want to build up your list. You have to email or bust and you really span and you’re building your relationship with them. But that goes back to what I said out outer. If you know all those details match your avatar and what your products and services and solve for them, they’re going to be more likely to open.

00;17;30;08 – 00;17;46;09
Speaker 3
And it’s just that now there’s a lot of balls the other year. That’s how you grow a business. And it’s simple. I make it sound simple and I know it’s harder because a lot of moving parts, but those are the things that you New Year numbers are like 4750. I know that I business which have eight 7 hours.

00;17;46;10 – 00;18;00;13
Speaker 3
I would be spending thousands dollars a day to acquire as many customers as I could, then have an end date. So once I get to a certain spot, I’m going to sell you instead of asset and I want you to know how to do that. You do it, and that’s the minute you are failures. But a lot of them don’t think that it’s impossible.

00;18;00;13 – 00;18;15;02
Speaker 3
But there are trust me, there are many buyers out there for e-commerce businesses, even today. But the Archie saga was very common a couple of years ago. The valuations were very they were off the charts. It was like Monopoly money to some degree, but that’s come back to reality and but it’s still we’ve.

00;18;15;02 – 00;18;32;16
Speaker 2
Talked a lot about knowing your numbers and curious if you have any rules of thumb as it relates to what you could source a product for versus what you can sell it for. And I think that’s something that a lot of people getting started may get blindsided by. And so curious if there’s any rules of thumb there.

00;18;32;16 – 00;18;48;22
Speaker 3
Yeah, I mean, that’s a great question. A rule of thumb is you really got to have you have to and this goes back to your number, right? So you’re going to sell widget y. I’ll give you a good example of our but we were selling a product 1999 fitness accessory for 20 bucks. You could buy that and it was cheaper and you could see our competitors at the wrist.

00;18;48;27 – 00;19;06;12
Speaker 3
We had our stuff and Amazon offset Amazon. So Amazon’s customer, we did have stuff there, but it’s a race to the bottom because I know we got to be for everybody because we were getting it. So there are a lot of online tools, hence what you’re selling. So in ecommerce, a lot of a lot of businesses are or you’re going to have to get the other.

00;19;06;14 – 00;19;27;29
Speaker 3
But that’s not a personal decision. And how do you want to do that? If you want, that’s fine. But there’s plenty of websites out there that will let you source products, whether it’s Alibaba, AliExpress, there’s a few other ones out there that get those from. But again, so because now the number is so we knew our business where it’s like 1999 and yeah, I knew on my average cart transaction Boston true it was just under $40, so it’s about $38.

00;19;27;29 – 00;19;52;03
Speaker 3
So it’s almost double, right? Not quite double. But at the same time, I knew that I cost to get product from my stock to reach my warehouse dollar 92 that included everything shipping. And we were we were selling a very. So that’s something your audience is going to have to look too now that shocks a lot of people say you’re basically getting a product showing your site tablets from those numbers of my yeah is you can do that there’s there’s good margin in there but you have to make sure your heart is otherwise.

00;19;52;07 – 00;20;06;09
Speaker 3
You know now you got to get this body eyeballs me traffic to the website we do that there’s plenty of ways to do that but if you find a trap which is what we did as is just one way you can still do it provided body affiliate, joint ventures, all those types of things you would just SEO traffic.

00;20;06;10 – 00;20;20;26
Speaker 3
You’re going to have to know those numbers as you have to have margin built in there so you can grow and scale that business even if you’re doing it as on site, you have to help march and built in. And so that was the number that I looked at it and even then 20 I would take 20 and I just just lost later on door.

00;20;20;26 – 00;20;36;02
Speaker 3
But you have to make money that’s tied back. You really have to know what other products you can sell your customers, whether it’s an e-commerce, something more of the same supply. This one is typically the next upsell would be Would you like to buy two more for this discount? You’re not going to see this elsewhere. And that’s what we did.

00;20;36;02 – 00;20;58;04
Speaker 3
So then that buying multi-packs, that’s what all that card value and then can get that lifetime value, that’s really where you make. So depends on the niche that they’re involved in. But that’s how I realize using in a car and whatever platform to use the tools out there will let you do this. You have to do upsells after your initial or you’re going to ourselves pre post repurchase and upsells post-purchase.

00;20;58;04 – 00;21;03;29
Speaker 3
A lot of people I talked to like, oh, it’s kind of scammy. I’m like, it works at it’s money, so it’s up to you.

00;21;04;00 – 00;21;05;04
Speaker 4
Are you in business or not?

00;21;05;05 – 00;21;07;04
Speaker 3
Exactly. Yeah. Don’t try and make money.

00;21;07;05 – 00;21;22;19
Speaker 4
All right. So, so Steve, I’ve got a follow up question on two of the most important KPIs that you had mentioned, cost of acquisition and lifetime value. And so I always I don’t know why, but I always Jesus Water example are always on my desk. And so so we’ve got it. We’ve just started a business that’s it. We’re about six months old.

00;21;22;19 – 00;21;46;22
Speaker 4
We sell water bottles here, one size, three different colors, whatever. We know that our cost of acquisition is $10 to acquire a customer and our lifetime value. We know after six months that on average, each one person on average they buy 2.5 water bottles. So the water bottle is $20 and so I’d be a $50 lifetime value. And so cost of acquisition, let’s say it’s ten and $50 lifetime value.

00;21;46;22 – 00;22;06;26
Speaker 4
At what rate? Now that we know those two numbers, that’s very powerful, right? And so what rate would you advise a small ecommerce business of, of scaling because you had mentioned earlier, cash flow is always a problem. And so there’s a rate that’s too much. It’ll it’ll bankrupt the company and then there’s a rate that you won’t grow fast enough to capitalize on market share.

00;22;06;26 – 00;22;09;04
Speaker 4
So what rate would you recommend to grow?

00;22;09;05 – 00;22;28;01
Speaker 3
Not so great question. So their number is what’s the cost of product, right? So just make up a number on your water bottle there. Let’s say it’s $2.50, right? And $3. So let’s just say $2.52. Now, I know 1250 is the cost for everything I am shipping in there. So now comes to do you charge for shipping or do you absorb the shipping costs?

00;22;28;01 – 00;22;50;12
Speaker 3
So this is what’s on a spreadsheet. You very much at every column in there, what those cost numbers are. Right. So then if you like a and so do you set people by two and a half. Right. So they happen to buy two, right. Well that’s a different weight. So you need to factor all those numbers in. I know it seems and seems a little bit overkill, but it’s not you need some help, those numbers, because you want to try to get as close to that, especially an item as small like that gets.

00;22;50;14 – 00;23;14;13
Speaker 3
Also the nearest penny right now, again, you can always round up the next time or order that that’s going to allow you to then know what your your real numbers are. So in that example of $50 and you have now let’s just say let’s say $15 shipping and everything for the sake of this conversation. So you have $35 left over that is basically profit that your customer, your customer acquisition is $10 and you’re shipping and everything else is five bucks or your $35.

00;23;14;15 – 00;23;31;29
Speaker 3
So now I would recommend we got this is the way I’ve done beats, I’ve murdered, I’ve run paid traffic just to turn that by now. So I want to turn that inventory over as fast as possible, use that cash load to then buy more inventory if you can get some additional working capital ideal, you’re going to want to try to that learn more about your avatar.

00;23;32;01 – 00;23;50;10
Speaker 3
Is it water bottles are a great example where besides your water bottle, what else could you sell? Like what else do they need besides thirst quenching that you know, but they’re keeping it cool, etc.. Warfare. If they’re in a water bottle, there’s a chance that they might serve out their health, I think. Right. Obviously hydration is a big thing about well, maybe there’s some supplements you could sell somebody you had.

00;23;50;10 – 00;24;08;06
Speaker 3
This goes back to why you really have to know what your avatars look for. Now, granted that you might think while they’re buying, it doesn’t matter because if you put that as you now selling you position right way, dude, they’re eight points, maybe some kind of a power. But there again, there’s there are dropshipping surgeons out there that match one of your other questions earlier about where to source some of that stuff.

00;24;08;06 – 00;24;25;06
Speaker 3
There’s a lot of dropshipping services out there in the States that will like to do that, whether it’s supplements or powder or whatever that is you about. Now, it may come from a different location, but that’s okay. Some of the places will have a house, but just got to that’s the customer. We’ve all experienced that. It’s like I place an order and I got two different packages.

00;24;25;06 – 00;24;50;03
Speaker 3
Why my they, I got orders and that’s one of the things I Yeah but if those are the numbers in a business how I would be very curt $35 is pretty darn good. You could start to scale that and you really got to just balance that with capital. So that’s where a spreadsheet comes in and say, okay, we I’ll start running the numbers by 1000 as a mentor and they expect almost take me to get when I place an order into my work and I’m assuming I’m shipping it right, or that’s how I home or business or party ups.

00;24;50;09 – 00;25;09;21
Speaker 3
Yeah, those are things that I have to factor in. So that became a challenge for to give me some specifics. About 2018, we were coming along, we were spending what I am. I first started spending $20 a day. I assumed no way I would do that. We are spending $2,000 because we had everything down there. And I was frustrated because I realized one day like, wait a minute, I once inventory, I knew that was bought by time place.

00;25;09;21 – 00;25;25;11
Speaker 3
The order is in my warehouse and I don’t I it’s a slow I the time I spend on it was just we’re printing money that’s a challenge you after we monitor all those dials and try to realize okay I spend it this continues. I’m a sell so much I’m spending short per day. I keep this pattern working. So what am I?

00;25;25;11 – 00;25;29;29
Speaker 3
I run up all the tape to replace that. So those are the things your any business owner should know.

00;25;29;29 – 00;25;46;10
Speaker 4
Those great follow up. And I like where you said you were printing money at that point. That’s that’s an entrepreneur’s dream, right? Turning a dial on printing money. And so so it’s just as a quick wrap up on that, essentially your advice is it’s basically a cash flow question and so run the numbers. How much inventory do you have?

00;25;46;10 – 00;25;53;29
Speaker 4
How much is it, how long is it going to last? And when can you get more based on your cash flow and and then scale up based on kind of like I call it, like behind the scenes, right.

00;25;53;29 – 00;26;16;00
Speaker 3
Yeah. No you and that goes back to is you can use a spreadsheet stuff and I know and when I talk to the sales and I ask all those numbers, I don’t think I’ll base their I don’t want to say that right. I’m like, you better learn. But I yeah, I think people get so, like, overwhelmed that begin to use calculus That’s like now we’re talking basically simple you were talking addition some application division that’s pretty straightforward stuff.

00;26;16;01 – 00;26;34;07
Speaker 2
Absolutely So continuing on a seller’s journey, right? So we we’ve launched a successful product, we’ve got customers and maybe we’re thinking about selling. So what are some things, say, six months to a year out from a sale that somebody should be doing to ensure that that sale goes smoothly?

00;26;34;08 – 00;26;54;14
Speaker 3
A great partial. This ties back to knowing your numbers. I really was about having your financials tightly buttoned up. Don’t have things all over the place. Ideally use a service like QuickBooks or Xero, things like that, and that are going to be audited by your CPA or personal account because the more that stuff is organized, the more appealing this enticing.

00;26;54;14 – 00;27;15;04
Speaker 3
I think that we come across any time those people will say, Well, here’s my bank statements. It’s like, well, that’s going to allow us we have to do a lot of work to duct tape this together and create some financials which will do because the end of the day, the numbers have batch, right? So if you choose that, sell your assets, let’s say you were going to try to sell or $2 million to $2000 and it’s based on a profit that the business generated.

00;27;15;10 – 00;27;32;26
Speaker 3
Based on my financials, the bank statements are going to have to match up. So if you’re saying yes, salary deposits in that because of doing e-commerce, your deposits every day of your stripe or whatever payment processor you’re using, you’re paying deposits every day, you’re making sales in the month. That snapshot doesn’t think about this from a buyer perspective.

00;27;32;26 – 00;28;06;14
Speaker 3
What’s the first thing to come to buy? I don’t believe you. The other thing that I stress that people try to have as many absolute key standard operating procedures in place as possible mistake we made earlier. But I learned the more you have that work with reasons and angles so he’s got an organized really tight is that’s going to be more valuable to a buyer because they don’t typically create all that stuff because what’s going to happen I’ll tell you right out with have this out or e-commerce businesses that ones that are very friendly or some people like fiberglass and others that are kind of about on they come in the buyer goes, okay, you

00;28;06;14 – 00;28;23;08
Speaker 3
asked for this let’s say to maybe the financial support it, but tip it’s going to be a lot high. But now that I got all this, that’s okay. My offer is going to be 175. And so now again, you’re negotiating. So now the owner is frustrated. I want to put the you know, your your financials are a little bit I’m not quite sure.

00;28;23;08 – 00;28;56;24
Speaker 3
And I because I can’t be copied and knows that I have to discount that down because you’re on me. Standard operating procedures. That’s to further discount that down. And so now a savvy buyer would start to, as you would be, aspire to be our of this. And that’s the other thing I see time guns is business owners because they’re not they’re not specialists they’ll started it I you don’t have these things in place so that the valuation thing and then having to if they want to sell and most of their burned out they’re exhausted they’re frustrated or they’re just don’t they don’t they’ve lost faith in the future of their business.

00;28;56;24 – 00;29;17;19
Speaker 3
And it’s just because they don’t know a lot of issues. So there’s a lot of moving parts and so they end up selling and so they want to build and then upselling, say, 170 or even 150 at times. And they want that’s that’s anywhere from 75,000. That’s a lot of Yeah. I would encourage your listeners in this regard is don’t think you’re going to build that next they Twitter but I’ll say e-commerce business you’re not going to build the next Amazon it’s not going to happen.

00;29;17;19 – 00;29;46;14
Speaker 3
Don’t worry about it. I will tell you as I did this with our business, I’ve seen this out of the businesses that’s happening. You could still build the comet business and still sell it and have a nice healthy profit where you can actually go and buy a house. I’ve experienced it and once you know how to do that, once you get that business to that level, it’s so liberating to know how that works because now you know how it works and you can choose then to go and do it again if you want, because there’s not businesses out there that are not running sufficiently as you would think that stuff that I just described or

00;29;46;14 – 00;30;10;01
Speaker 3
the podcast here and there’s plenty out there, I knew why this business sponsor frustrated that burned out a lot of things they just don’t now. So I feel that in many aspects this Sid’s paint as well that they they don’t do some simple things. And one more point to the yeah getting your answer questions I’ve said this earlier about email and your lesson grade in that relationship thing that I come across time and time again it’s I’ll ask, okay how big is your last 10,000?

00;30;10;01 – 00;30;29;27
Speaker 3
20,000. Great. Okay. Every e-commerce business, this is something that you guys are aware this, but hopefully your listeners will take value wherever your list signs it. Even a thousand doesn’t your list sites should be generating you $1 your rabbit or mom or your business. So do the math. And if your is 10,000, that’s 120,000 revenue, not just math.

00;30;30;01 – 00;30;46;03
Speaker 3
Now, that tells me you don’t know that much or avatar and or you’re not email. They never not with products and services you say well I would easily have like work excuse okay fine. But you know all those things that your avatar that I described earlier, all those details, but there’s a whole bunch of other stuff you can sell them.

00;30;46;03 – 00;31;04;04
Speaker 3
You get rid of that, break your balance roughly products and there’s affiliate programs out there like Zhongshan. There’s a whole slew of things out there that are plenty of products. You can, you know, you can apply to these things of relationship like we were in fitness. So we applied to Reebok, for example. We were sending emails out, here’s something, here’s some shoes or here’s some fitness.

00;31;04;05 – 00;31;08;14
Speaker 3
HARRELL That we didn’t have go here by for a Reebok store. And they would and then we’d get a shot.

00;31;08;18 – 00;31;20;28
Speaker 2
You’ve mentioned affiliates a couple of times now. I’d like to dive into that just for our listeners who may not be familiar with that. So first, what exactly is that? And the second follow up question be How are you using that?

00;31;20;28 – 00;31;35;18
Speaker 3
Great question. Thanks for asking. As a lot of times like forget. So it’s second nature to me. So basically as an affiliate now you can run that, you can actually create a program for your business. But I would recommend people start out with that. There’s there’s a lot of work involved in that too. Together, maybe down the road you can do that.

00;31;35;18 – 00;31;56;15
Speaker 3
Basically, a business will only pay you a commission or a how were they designed the end goal, which in the e-commerce space it’s typically a purchase a lot of times on paper, which means use and traffic. Be your list, your website, you work on whatever that is, you send it to somebody else. If somebody takes action, they will pay you commission or that it’s all per forward space.

00;31;56;15 – 00;32;16;00
Speaker 3
So that advertise, I’ll choose Reebok and samples. I will promote some of their stock because, you know, just the easy thing that we did I applied to a guy is subject and I go, okay, great, let’s just do the circuit. Every once I would take our email list, we create some copy and because we knew a lot of our target and that we would say, Hey, if you’d like to get a discount on some of his other apparel, go here to the Reebok store.

00;32;16;00 – 00;32;46;05
Speaker 3
And by the way, those of those business owners will give you a discount code. 10% wipes at war. You get say, use this code where you go to check out, I’ve got a special deal with this big advertiser. I might give it to you, my customer. You can get a 20% discount to go your buy This uses coach announced that because like they go that store to get to the checkout and they put the code in that customer which would my customer but I’m now giving them away will get a discount 20% I’m going to example and yet now Reebok in that example has a new customer or maybe a current customer.

00;32;46;06 – 00;33;05;28
Speaker 3
They’ve got them as a new baby, a new purchase from me. They’re willing to pay me. And that’s how this works. It’s you’re getting paid a performance out of nature. And I can guarantee you there are plenty affiliate programs and services out there, whether it’s an e-commerce program or even a service birkhimer, a coaching offer or a variety of information products.

00;33;05;28 – 00;33;24;03
Speaker 3
Those are the ones that pay more is the information products and pretty much anything that you can find in information products. And those are much more then within you can do to take those orders. Once you start doing this, you like what, Not driving traffic or this. Let’s say it’s a product about so and let’s just use this as an example about a some kind of a weight loss stretch, whatever it is.

00;33;24;04 – 00;33;33;06
Speaker 3
Now, I may not be a strategy expert and go hire somebody to create a program. And then guess what? I can pull out, which is then good reason. I like top values that make my business more value.

00;33;33;07 – 00;33;36;25
Speaker 2
Very nice. Very nice. And can you add something you wanted to follow up with?

00;33;36;25 – 00;33;53;11
Speaker 4
So Steve, on the piece of the email size, so was it $1 per subscriber you have should be you should be generating $1 of revenue per subscriber. So if you have a 10,000 or more per month, you know, 10,000 emails on your list, you should be generating about $10,000 per month in revenue.

00;33;53;12 – 00;34;09;15
Speaker 3
That is great. But as a rule of thumb, if it’s less, then you’re like, okay, let’s hit $0.50. Okay, great. I got revenue coming in. But knowing that the average in the industry or people that know what they’re doing is about a dollar per dollar. So, okay, what else can I do to find gets that dollar? You know, man, that’s more I got to get to know them.

00;34;09;15 – 00;34;29;02
Speaker 3
I get to build a relationship with them. This is this is really when you think about this, you’re building an asset. A lot of people I have to get over the mindset of, well, I’m not I’m not Reebok. I kid, you’re not going to. Does matter. People still want to work with small mom and pop businesses. That’s one thing I’m not a Culbert is that people really want look at out and they still will do that if you know what their pain points are.

00;34;29;02 – 00;34;44;28
Speaker 3
If you can present, you can solve that for them. But you’re doing at a competitive price, people will take that risk. Now, not everybody does. That’s okay. The math at work, if that was a belief, I do. You know, I think how back am I going to start this and not buy this widget? There’s no way. And I once I started selling like weight, then it becomes in trouble.

00;34;45;01 – 00;35;00;05
Speaker 3
You start to realize, Oh, wait a second, This is just it doesn’t matter what product. It’s kind of a side story, but I think it’s related here. When we were growing our business, like back to a bit my story, as I said earlier, one of our top competitors was running television ads. My wife and I happened to go to Asia for a trade show.

00;35;00;05 – 00;35;15;29
Speaker 3
We go to Watkins trade show, and we saw this competitor actually, and they’re like, Oh, would you like British products? And we’re like, Wait, you guys do that? And I’m like, Yeah, we actually manufacture that product. Now. Our our client was a different manufacturer, but it’s the same product. All the difference was the box, the stuff had been the other day, it was the same.

00;35;16;00 – 00;35;28;26
Speaker 3
That was like, What goes gold? It’s all wild material, is there. I could get the exact same thing if I wanted to, and the box that was in there, huge revelation. So a little bit off tend to buy the high back to some. So yeah.

00;35;28;27 – 00;35;46;28
Speaker 4
Absolutely. Getting back to the exits and selling your business, you know David asked you earlier like what can what can we do to prep and you kind of went through some of that stuff. Now when you get close to it now do you recommend using a broker? Do you want you recommend selling it yourself? Like what does that look like and what is your advice?

00;35;47;03 – 00;36;03;06
Speaker 3
In the past would have said, don’t use broker, they’re terrible. Now, there are some rather savvy ones out there, but there are good ones. And now that I’m buying more of a service because I know how that stuff works, I look at it as try to source one out that’s going to help you and really be that advisor for you because there’s a lot of things you’re not known now.

00;36;03;06 – 00;36;18;28
Speaker 3
You don’t have to do that except that you can use. There’s various platforms out there that will help you to some degree. But I’ve also learned now being the tragedy that they’re going to provide models of service. They’re going to tell you they can do everything, but it’s going to be cursory. So them and I’m not going to try I don’t want to be certain of that because they do provide a great service.

00;36;19;01 – 00;36;35;13
Speaker 3
This guy’s sorry, me much bigger than outputs, right? So there’s like a it’s platform. Think about this is a human rights. I have some ideas I can go to a online cell commerce business and there’s more than one. When I first got bought, I had no idea. But then I met some guys afterwards and they were one of these companies and they told me like, Oh yeah.

00;36;35;15 – 00;36;50;24
Speaker 3
And they were they were smaller, much bigger companies. But if I said the name you guys are, the doesn’t matter because it wants out. But I had no idea this existed. I’ll get you in. So that became my goal with our business. Now that I’m doing this, it’s just I’ve had so much fun. It’s crazy to do this on your own.

00;36;50;24 – 00;37;08;22
Speaker 3
Just understand it and on things. You’re going to have to know how to do the thing along lines. Are you apt to sell your business? You have to sell it. You really have to be comfortable sales. And that’s one of the reasons why we’re calling now. We end up getting a lot of these business can work with us because they’re not salespeople at all, not really how to communicate with people.

00;37;08;22 – 00;37;30;04
Speaker 3
So that’s you one of your list. And I would strongly encourage you to use one of these or what this what happened with the people where they tried it out, but they’re still doing all the vacation and bumble things and they would drive buyers by because they represent their business, that sort of work and get all one that knows what they’re doing and position your business as an asset that can be sold, making all the negotiations.

00;37;30;05 – 00;37;47;00
Speaker 3
A lot of people that. How about your question does it feel uneasy about negotiating? I understand think about this. It’s their baby. They put all the sweat and effort into this thing and they’re going to get really defensive, starts to question them. And that’s the things that we see, our company that we work. We have to kind of calm them down to say, I get it.

00;37;47;00 – 00;38;01;19
Speaker 3
But the end of the day, your financials are the best. It’s I know you think it’s work best because you put all this money and effort into it. The business is only generating this company on the day. It’s a business that’s generating profit in cash and that’s what someone’s going to value the business. Not so you’re out to get role matters there.

00;38;01;20 – 00;38;22;05
Speaker 3
We have some really, you know, conversations. But then that kind of talk about reality and the reason they kill us, they try to lure on it, so then they come to us. And that’s where I think brokers can can provide a good value. And again, there’s different ones out there, but really a seed pocket, as you call them to use in a broker, you have to ask them why options and how long they’ve been doing this, what is their process, what are they will do to mark your business?

00;38;22;06 – 00;38;40;10
Speaker 3
Them day you want to sell your asset and it’s I will say this one more detail about that is it’s a lot of work to sell a business. People don’t realize that it becomes and that’s how we find out. As long as people try to sell the business, they’re like, I’m trying to run the business and our time to do all those these inquiries, all this sort of stuff going on, the natural beats, all that.

00;38;40;10 – 00;38;55;17
Speaker 3
All right is why stop? But it’s a lot of work. There’s a lot. And yeah, what like any business processes you’re going to get, let’s say let’s say 20 people are going to say knock the door in sales, have a conversation and 90 will go away and that your frustrations, you’re not losing time. Are you going to work?

00;38;55;17 – 00;39;13;02
Speaker 3
But then they you’re sort of motion timers because you want to seller and there’s a variety of reasons why you’re trying to sell. Hopefully you’re not running out of cash and work through it, but a lot of times I guarantee. Barbara Droga Well, no, it’s not. So I feel for some of these business owners, that’s just, that’s life and that’s business in general and doesn’t have to be an e-commerce business.

00;39;13;02 – 00;39;30;05
Speaker 3
We all look at the marketplace right now. There’s a lot that they’re doing that are struggling right now and that ties back to all this stuff together. But this is well, the little guy and gal, Jim, compete in the e-commerce business. It doesn’t matter where you sell out, but you can compete with the biggest brands that you’re going to see on TV or see on national advertising.

00;39;30;08 – 00;39;32;25
Speaker 3
It’s possible if you know something that would type.

00;39;32;25 – 00;39;40;00
Speaker 2
Well before we get into fire around. Can you share with us a little bit about escape media and what type of clients you guys like to work with?

00;39;40;00 – 00;39;58;10
Speaker 3
Yeah, so really we’re working with businesses, advising them on we talked about earlier about getting them ready to sell and or if they’re in a spot where they’re ready to sell, we’ll actually help them market the business and take that that you help them find a buyer or asset. And these are asset sales. First of all, these are we focus on this at sub10 minute per couple.

00;39;58;12 – 00;40;21;03
Speaker 3
One private equity does it doesn’t go up about ten. My dog is not worth their time because there’s a lot of solid business. At the same token, we pass the mesh. What I will do with e-commerce or any online digital business, we deal with digital business and so that’s what we focus on. But the one thing I encourage people to try it, it really should be come to us six months to a year out, you know, count a sell a lot of people come to us want to their show at that spot where it’s all over.

00;40;21;03 – 00;40;40;10
Speaker 3
They try to sell it. They just want to move on because they don’t they’re having trouble rolling back your question. And there’s all they see that they don’t know what I went into the numbers all this is, and that’s where they kind of got into a spot or however they got there. They, to their credit, is awesome, but they can’t grow and bounce and stop cheap over and over and over again because if they were growing, most people would want to continue on.

00;40;40;11 – 00;40;48;24
Speaker 3
And then that’s the shop that works on a business owners that are sub10, which is going to be most of your audience, and that either want to grow and scale to get ready to sell, right?

00;40;48;29 – 00;40;52;27
Speaker 4
Awesome. So, Steve, all of our guests, we put them to the fire round. Are you ready?

00;40;53;04 – 00;40;54;11
Speaker 3
Let’s go. It was. I love it.

00;40;54;12 – 00;40;55;14
Speaker 4
What is your favorite book?

00;40;55;17 – 00;41;12;20
Speaker 3
Oh, a book called Outwitting the Devil. I only know that’s great for all your listeners, because the number one thing in this game that you guys will test this. That’s right here. I had a mentor early on say to me this is not except mindset. 10% is my cancer, but I can learn nine and believe you’re crazy. There’s all this.

00;41;12;24 – 00;41;29;21
Speaker 3
There is no way. Once I get started on the road, it’s like he’s right. He was 1% right and now that I’m farther down the road not getting the business or trying to sell, it’s that is the number one thing is mindsets that book out. What is it that would take you to a story where it’s an older book, the Shockey So it was written in the 19 late 1930s.

00;41;29;23 – 00;41;45;07
Speaker 3
It’ll scare you how much what’s relevant today? What’s going on in the world today, let alone what talks about all the conversations you’re having in your head. That’s the biggest that’s the biggest challenge. We’re all up against myself. It’s the plots in our head and the right mindset escalate.

00;41;45;07 – 00;41;49;12
Speaker 4
Now. I’ve not read that one. I’m going to add it to my list. It sounds like it’s timeless. And so a classic.

00;41;49;12 – 00;41;51;26
Speaker 3
Very timeless. It’s great. It’s a great audio book.

00;41;51;29 – 00;41;54;15
Speaker 4
Yeah, I’m huge on Audible. What are your hobbies?

00;41;54;15 – 00;42;13;21
Speaker 3
Hobbies are my wife and I are both runners who loved to travel. We were actually traveling the world when this whole thing COVID happened and she age, etc. We’re having a really good year. They’re traveling quite a bit. So my wife and I love to travel. We just like we’re fitness and health conscious. So anything that’s that like it, that’s, that’s what we’re, that’s what our hobbies are these days and business because I love to learn.

00;42;13;26 – 00;42;18;02
Speaker 4
Okay, awesome. What is one thing that you do not miss about working for the man?

00;42;18;05 – 00;42;33;25
Speaker 3
One thing I don’t miss of the politics. We all can attest that everything makes our spring crawl. It’s that way everywhere. I chase shopping. Ultimately, my career that on your list has a lot of feel this that they’ve done this is obviously better over here I’m going to a new job. It’s over here and it’s going to be different.

00;42;34;02 – 00;42;50;29
Speaker 3
It’s just a different shade of green. Do you think the grass is greener? Yeah, yeah. It’s just a different shade. It’s all the same. It’s so that’s not saying companies are bad, but we’ve all been down that road where it just gets to a spot where you lose that passionate wire. It’s that’s just what it is, right? And so you I can remind about that forever.

00;42;51;01 – 00;42;58;11
Speaker 4
It sounds so spot on. So last one, what do you think sets apart successful ecommerce entrepreneurs from those who give up, fail or never get started?

00;42;58;11 – 00;43;12;15
Speaker 3
Go back to what I just said. It’s just mindset. It’s really that’s the guys, the number one thing as you’re realizing, okay, if you’ve done your research, you’ve done it ahead of time, you know that there’s one more thing to cut ties in this is that people come to me as well saying, I got this idea for product that no one is doing.

00;43;12;18 – 00;43;27;07
Speaker 3
And my first comment is that’s not good. Does that tells you, is there a real need in the marketplace? You want competition Now, again, if it’s fierce competition, it’s going to be harder still make it work, but make sure that there’s at least there’s at least some level of need and it’s really comes down to a need.

00;43;27;14 – 00;43;36;09
Speaker 2
All right. I want to thank you for being a guest on the Firing Man podcast. Steve, if people are interested in working with you and ask our media, what’s the best way of getting in touch.

00;43;36;09 – 00;43;54;00
Speaker 3
Yeah, they can go to ask AARP Media. And I got a special for your listeners I just ask our media dot com slash where they ask the man so why are the man fired ask that man and they’ll they’ll just answer a couple questions. I’ll give them a free consultation all this to kind of see where they’re at.

00;43;54;02 – 00;44;10;17
Speaker 3
A lot of times people will that I talked to in that capacity. They’re just stuck right now and just getting a fresh set of eyes from someone like myself. I’m farther down the road. I could pretty much spot whether they’re stuck right now. A lot of it’s what I talk about today, but I get my perspective, dig into the business because I know when I was at that spot early on.

00;44;10;21 – 00;44;24;16
Speaker 3
Hopefully your listeners will appreciate this and I’m sure a lot of them feel this way right now. I would get that spot and I would say I can only have somebody that just listen, just get one person behind my covers, because a lot of these coaching programs are like all groups and I want to show them, but I’m in a group environment.

00;44;24;16 – 00;44;38;20
Speaker 3
I don’t want to share. I don’t lift up a company and show them everything. So this is one of the reasons I’m doing this, just to let people know So a secure environment I’ll sign and they’re not don’t where I need to because I can ask questions that are top level now that I can find out stuff that’s so scrappy.

00;44;38;20 – 00;44;41;29
Speaker 3
Medium.com slash fired the gas man.

00;44;42;01 – 00;44;48;12
Speaker 2
Awesome. And we’ll post links to that in the show notes. Steve, I want to thank you for being a guest on the podcast and looking forward to staying in touch.

00;44;48;12 – 00;44;51;18
Speaker 3
Thanks guys. I really appreciate the opportunity. Hopefully your listeners bounce back.