But before we begin, I want to give a quick shout out to Klaviyo who is a sponsor of the show. Klaviyo is the tool that I use to build real quality customer relationships with my e-commerce store. And because all my transactions and email correspondence is tracked in Klaviyo, I can easily build meaningful customer relationships by listening, understanding, and taking cues from my customers and deliver personalized marketing messages. So for example, with one click of a button, I can easily send a specific and targeted email to all customers with a lifetime value of over $100 who purchased red handkerchiefs in the past year. And it is for this reason why over 10,000 brands have switched over to Klaviyo.

Right now they have this cool docu series called Beyond Black Friday where they discuss successful marketing strategies that their customers are using that you can emulate with your business. So, if you’re interested in watching this series, head on over to Klaviyo.com/beyondbf, once again that’s K-L-A-V-I-Y-O.com/beyondbf .

I also want to give a shout out to Privy who is also a sponsor of the show. Privy is the tool that I use to build my email list for both my blog and my online store. Now what does Privy do? Well, Privy is an email list growth platform and they manage all of my email capture forms. And I use Privy hand-in-hand with my email marketing provider. Right now I’m using Privy to display a cool wheel of fortune pop up. Basically a user gives their email for a chance to win valuable prices in our store. And customers love the gamification aspect of this. And when I implemented this form email signups increased by 131%.

I’m also using their new cart saver pop up feature to recover abandoned carts as well. And bottom line, Privy allows me to turn visitors into email subscribers, which I then feed to my email provider to close the sale. So head on over to Privy.com/Steve and try it for free. And if you decide you need some of the more advanced features, use coupon code MWQHJ for 15% off. Once again, that’s P-R-I-V-Y.com/Steve. Now onto the show.

Intro: Welcome to the My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast. We will teach you how to create a business that suits your lifestyle, so you can spend more time with your family and focus on doing the things that you love. Here is your host, Steve Chou.

Steve: Welcome to the My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast. Today I’m thrilled to have Allen Walton on the show. Now, Allen is actually someone who I met at Ecommerce Fuel Live a long, long time ago, but we actually didn’t really get a chance to know each other until we hung out at Billy Murphy’s Mancation earlier this year. Anyway, Allen runs SpyGuy.com, which is an e-commerce store that sells spy equipment online, and his store has been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, CNBC, Fastcompany, and he’s actually recently on the Tropical MBA podcast. Anyway, Allen bootstrapped his company from the ground up and turned it into a solid seven figure business. And with that, welcome the show, how are you doing today Allen?

Allen: Hey I’m doing well, thanks for having me.

Steve: So Allen, I was actually on your site shopping last night, and then I realized that I was going to get retargeted on Facebook with Spy Guy ads which made me kind of preemptively tell my wife that I was interviewing today just in case, call me a little paranoid. So Allen…

Allen: Now, we do get customers that – sorry to interrupt you but we do to get customers that get really frustrated with us when they see retargeting ad because they’re really concerned about somebody on their computer that sees an ad for Spy Guy, they get really upset. Even if we just email an order confirmation, they get infuriated.

Steve: Just curious though, I actually didn’t end up getting any ads so my my worries weren’t real but are you running retargeting ads on Facebook?

Allen: Not right this second we aren’t, but we’ve been kind of testing it over like the last month or so just to see if we can make it profitable because it’s actually been kind of difficult.

Steve: Okay. And we’ll get into that a little bit because we did chat about it earlier. So Allen, before we get started with the guts of the interview, why spy equipment? And how did you actually get into this business? It seems a little random to me.

Allen: Yeah. It’s super random, actually. So I live in Dallas, have my whole life. And when I was growing up, there was this spy shop here in Dallas that was called Spy Supply. It’s no longer in business but I used to go there with my family, like on Sunday afternoons or whatever after church. We’d go to the pancake house that was next door and I’d always be really curious about the spy shop that looked sketchy as hell. So wait, am I fast, is that okay?

Steve: Yeah, that’s cool.

Allen: Okay. So it’s a really sketchy looking spy shop. I didn’t want to go in, I just kind of like wanted pear in through the windows. And so grew up still eating at that pancake house that was next door, and one day they had a help wanted sign out front. At the time I was like 21 years old, I was living at home, my parents really wanted me to get a job. And so my mom made me apply. It’s really kind of that, but I applied for the job and I ended up getting it. And so that’s kind of how I got into it. So selling CCTV systems to like big businesses and people with homes that wanted security cameras, but they also did sell a lot of spy related gear, so like hidden cameras, GPS trackers and whatnot.

And they worked with like police departments and private investigators and plus it was kind of like a novelty store, so sometimes we’d get celebrities that came in and just want to poke around so that was always really fun. And that’s how I got started I guess.

Steve: Why is it such a covert industry?

Allen: I don’t know. It’s very frustrating. There’s no brand names on any of the products that we really sell. You can’t get any of these items in big box retailers or anything like that. You pretty much have to get them all online. Or if you live in a big city, there might be a small small spy shopp or security store in your town, but there’s no mass manufacturing going on. The big brands that are out there probably don’t want to have their brand name on a hidden camera, might just ruin their brand image kind of. Yeah, and possible a lot of the people that get in this industry, they’re just sketchy people as well. So like it’s sketchy industry run by sketchy people selling sketchy products and a lot of paranoid people going on. So yeah.

Steve: Wait, so these items don’t have brands, so how does it work? How do you source your products?

Allen: So when I started, working in that brick and mortar spy shop, that’s why I learned where they were getting some of the items from. A lot of it is coming from Asia, obviously and then there’s US distributors, so that’s how I started. The brand though, how do you even look it up?

Steve: Like if someone wanted to get into this, it’d be difficult, right?

Allen: It would be really difficult. I mean, you can see some — if you go to Alibaba or whatever, and you type in some keywords, then you can find some of the products that are on there.

But the thing is there’s a lot of factories in China that are all making the same stuff. It’s like they’re using a public mold or something like that, or maybe it’s just a bunch of trading companies that are sourcing it from some factory that I can’t find on my own. So, it’s just very confusing. And I’ve made the trip over there trying to figure it all out, contacted as many people as I can. It’s just really bizarre. Like, you have no idea who’s the actual brains behind making some of these items, who’s the actual factory that’s making it, it’s really odd.

Steve: Interesting. So do you actually carry inventory of your products then or do you drop ship them?

Allen: Yeah, we carry inventory on all of the items that we sell. Sometimes we are running low or just completely out, then we can talk to the supplier that we’re getting stuff from into drop shipping it for us. If it’s an item that’s made in the US, if it’s an item that’s been made here, we just make sure that we have it in stock at all times.

Steve: So what do you think that — you mentioned they don’t have brands, so are you allowed towhite label these? Like, can you slap your own brand on these items or no?

Allen: Yeah, people do it all the time. If you go to Amazon or you just look around the spy shops that are online it’s pretty much all white labeled. Most people just keep it in the same crappy gift box or whatever that the Chinese supplier is giving them. They don’t even bother changing out the instruction manual. But yeah, if you look at Amazon, you’ll see the same item that’s being sold — excuse me, you’ll see the same item being sold by like 20 different suppliers under 20 different names. They’re all terrible brand names. It’s like somebody just did alphabet soup or whatever and just threw it on the Amazon product title. So yeah, it’s just very odd.

Steve: Interesting. So you carry your own inventory, so how do how much to carry and what to carry? Because you have a lot of products in your site, I was just shopping on there the other day?

Allen: Yeah, experience I guess. So, I’ve been doing this for almost a decade now, about five years on my own I suppose. So, just kind of seeing what customers are drawn to, what works, what gets returned often. So like, I actually take a lot of pride in our product selection on the website because we only carry the items that customers actually really like and items that we like and are low stress and don’t require a ton of tech support. We just want to avoid all of the headaches of dealing with returns and customers who are happy and saying that stuff about us online. We just eliminate that entirely by not carrying products that we don’t like.

Steve: Yeah, that makes sense. I was actually shopping for some stuff on your site just kind of comparing on Amazon. And as you mentioned earlier, there’s a lot of stuff that looks very similar but because it’s not really branded, it’s really easy to get things confused. So, how do you make your stuff kind of stand out among your competitors?

Allen: That’s a good question. I suppose we make it stand out because we’re offering more information. So, we have better product photos and we actually have a studio here where we take our own product photos, we have videos for most of the products that are on our website. Whereas if you’re looking on Amazon, or some of our competitors, they don’t have any videos at all. We have product descriptions that share all the details. So, we tell them exactly what is this case made out of on this hidden camera. So for example, there’s a really popular generic, it’s the type of product that’s just a free for all on Alibaba.

You can source it from a million different suppliers. But the thing is, I’ve been selling that product for like eight years, and I’ve seen all the different iterations of this product. It might be in a plastic enclosure, but somebody else is selling it in an aluminum enclosure. The aluminum one feels much more higher quality than the plastic one, there’s some weight to it, it feels higher quality. But then you also have the internal components. So I might be offering a camera that’s 10 ADP, and it’s higher priced than the one that you see on Amazon, even though they look the exact same. But what that Amazon seller isn’t saying is that the camera side is actually like four ADP or 7 ADP.

So even though the stuff looks the same, it really kind of is different. And we get customers all the time that call us asking why our price is higher or asking what the difference is. And that’s another value proposition we have is that we actually have a phone number where you can call and we’re happy to answer questions and match you with the right product.

Steve: Interesting, so you actually provide tech support on all of the products that you sell?

Allen: Right. So we offer expert advice. So if you haven’t bought anything from us, and you’re looking around, you’re trying to figure stuff out because people aren’t just buying this stuff like just because, they’re buying it because they have a need for it. And so they have questions, they have a lot of concerns, they’re trying to be discreet a lot of time, and so we’ll offer that up front advice and then we do lifetime tech support on all the products that we sell. We just do that on our own; we don’t have another company that does that for us.

Steve: Would you say then that you close a lot of your sales over the phone in person as opposed to just on the website?

Allen: Yeah, we did a test on it earlier this year. I’d love to find a way to make this like an ongoing test like we do it every month, but it’s really kind of annoying to run this test, but maybe 15 to 20% of the sales that we get are orders placed over the phone.

Steve: Wow. Okay. I guess that makes sense. So that implies then that the people that are answering phones at your company, they have to be very knowledgeable about the products.

Allen: Right. Yeah, we currently have four people doing sales and tech support, they do it all and we educate them on all the products that we sell. So we have everything in stock that we actually show them how to do everything. We have internal videos that we use for training. My most senior tech support person is actually the guy that trained me when I started at the spy shop here in Dallas like 10 years ago.

Steve: Oh, that’s funny.

Allen: He’s the guy that actually taught me all of the stuff that I know. And then when I went on to start my own business, maybe like a year later, I needed help. And I thought it was going to be so hard training my first employee, I just reached out to him and asked if he wanted to come work with me. And he said, yeah, so that was really nice. And he handles a lot of the training for my new employees.

Steve: Okay, that’s pretty sweet. So, was he still working at the Dallas shop at the time?

Allen: No, this is where it gets a little confusing. I worked at that store for about two years. And then five years ago, I started my own company. But there was a gap in there about three years. So like 2009, 2011, I was working in a brick and mortar spy shop for somebody else. And then in 2011, I actually got hired by a really bad TV show called cheaters.

Steve: Yeah, I actually vaguely remember that.

Allen: Okay. Yeah, they were a customer of mine and I was friends with the detective on the show. And the guy that created the TV show wanted to start his own brick and mortar spy shop. Long story short, I met with them, I convinced them to do an e-commerce website because I felt like that was the direction things were going in. And so they hired me to start an online spy shop for them, which they advertised in all of their TV show. They actually had like a 15 second commercial that ran in the TV show. And so when I went to work for them, I actually took the guy that trained me, my friend Vince, we went over to that venture. We worked there for about three years and then I went to start my own thing.

And then a year after I started Spuy Guy, I needed help. And so he was still working over there and I convinced him to come and work for me.

Steve: Interesting. So is that store still alive, the cheaters one?

Allen: No, that one died a couple of years ago. It was a big mess, and I’d be happy to talk about it with you in case you’re curious. I’m not sure you want to air it because the guy is very litigious.

Steve: Oh, that’s cool. Yeah, we’ll talk about it after after the recording. So, when I was going shopping for this, it was actually quite confusing, because there’s just so many different options and whatnot. And so one, like how do you get traffic to your store? And then how do you manage to close the sale once you do get someone there?

Allen: So when I started out, I realized that SEO was going to take absolutely forever, it was gonna be really hard because my niche is pretty competitive. So I learned paid ads, I learned how to do Google AdWords. I probably bought like three different books on the subject, a lot of YouTube videos. I don’t know if it’s still around but there was a really good blog called PPC Hero that talks about.

Steve: Yeah, it’s still there.

Allen: Okay, cool. Yeah, I learned a lot of stuff on their blog and through videos that they had posted on how to create campaigns, manage ad groups, create a list of keywords and optimizing for quality score. And right about the time that I started my business, I wasn’t making a whole lot of money. I was trying to do the four hour workweek thing and really trying to automate the business, but I needed to grow it and, it doesn’t take four hours a week or whatever to grow a business. And so, I actually took on an apprenticeship, some guy I found on Craigslist, he was just living in the suburbs of Dallas but he was solo managing some really big AdWords accounts for companies like SimpleHuman like they do…

Steve: Yeah, I know them [overlapping 00:16:56].

Allen: Yeah, exactly. So he was managing SimpleHuman and See’s Candy. They’re not big in Dallas, but I think…

Steve: They’re big out here in California. Yeah.

Allen: Yeah, he was managing their ad account in addition to a bunch of other ones, and he needed help. And I was like, all right, this sounds like a really good opportunity to learn PPC. And so I went to work with him for — I was only there like two or three months but I learned a lot about managing PPC campaigns. And that’s how I really scaled my business when I first started it, and it’s still a huge percentage of our sales today.

Steve: So when you say Google ads, are you talking about AdWords or Shopping, display ads?

Allen: Oh, yeah, so AdWords and then product listing ads, PLA it used to be called, I guess it’s just Google Shopping now. Yeah, so those two things. We tried the display thing, can’t really get it to stick.

Steve: That’s been my problem too although I just had someone who’s an expert on that on the podcast. I just haven’t gotten around to implementing what she’s taught yet, so I’ll do it. Okay so AdWords, were you running these ads by yourself first and not being successful until you took on this apprenticeship?

Allen: So my company launched in May and then I took the apprenticeship on in June. So just like a month later. I had been running my own campaigns for a month, and it was working, but it wasn’t enough to pay all the bills. And so the PPC apprenticeship was a good opportunity to earn a little extra cash. Not a whole lot, I was only getting like $1,000 a month, but it certainly helped and I learned a lot of info and I’m really glad I did it.

Steve: What were some of your key takeaways that you learned from the apprenticeship that you were not doing actually before you joined?

Allen: Oh, that’s a good question. I haven’t thought about this in a while, like over four years. So I learned a lot about spreadsheets. I never use spreadsheets before and I was learning about pivot tables and be look up and all this other stuff that I’m pretty sure is really basic for somebody that is in Excel all day but it was brand new to me and conditional formatting. So I was learning how to easily tell which ads were profitable. I was learning a lot about reporting and how long…

Steve: So the AdWords interface isn’t good enough to tell what’s going on, because you can actually do a whole bunch of filters and everything now within the AdWords interface.

Allen: Oh, it’s been a while since I’ve looked at it. I ran my ads for probably eight months. And then I met somebody at the very first Ecommerce Fuel event in Austin, his name is Travis.

Steve: Yeah Travis. Okay.

Allen: Yep. He’s been doing all of my PPC for the last several years. And so I haven’t been in the weeds in quite a while.

Steve: Okay, fair enough. So AdWords is like, or Google Ads I should say is a decent sized chunk of your revenue. What are some other ways that you’ve been able to get traffic to your site aside from that?

Allen: We do get organic traffic, not a whole lot; it’s like less than 10% of our overall sales. And something that I just been really neglecting for years even though I know a lot about SEO, I’ve been neglecting it because I largely just got complacent with my business. And I hadn’t set new goals. Money was my main motivator for a really long time. But once I was making a sizable amount of money per month on my e-commerce website, I just kind of like fell into a phone for like a one to two year period where I didn’t have to do anything all day and I was still making good profit. So, I just kind of like didn’t do anything.

And now I’m paying the price for it because I got Google like suspending my account for like weeks at a time because they don’t like what I’m selling.

Steve: Did you say Google suspending your account. Is that just for PLAs or just in general for AdWords as well?

Allen: Yeah, it was for Shopping.

Steve: Shopping, okay.

Allen: I got in trouble with text ads, but with Shopping they’ve been really…

Steve: They’ve been cracking down a lot of industries actually for that recently.

Allen: Yeah, I’ve been looking at that and when they do that, it’s so difficult because you have no idea what to do. It’s like all of a sudden, like your sales drop like a rock. And you can’t get ahold of anybody there. They won’t let you actually talk to the policy team directly. You have to go through and just some phone support person that’s totally unhelpful. And so you can’t find out exactly what’s going on. They’re not clear and their description of what problem they have with your ad or website or whatever. So it’s very frustrating to just suddenly wake up one morning and then see no sales coming from Google Shopping, and then you realize they shut down your account without telling you, and it takes like or two weeks to get it running. It’s beyond frustrating.

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I also use Ahrefs to spy my competitors’ sites to see what keywords they are ranking for, and then I write a more comprehensive post and eventually outrank them in search. Now those of you who know me know that I hate spending money on tools, but I actually pay for Ahrefs and that should say something in itself. Right now, I’m giving away nine three month Ahrefs memberships for free. To sign up, head on over to mywifequitherjob.com/giveaway, once again, that’s mywifequitherjob.com/giveaway to win a three month Ahrefs membership. Now back to the show.

Would you say then that a lot of your sales are just like word of mouth sales? I would imagine like once someone trusts your store, and because the whole industry is kind of sketchy, then I can imagine word of mouth being a huge factor.

Allen: It is. Yeah, especially after we started getting reviews on our website and stuff, getting reviews on the website really helps because it convinced people who are shopping to do business with us, and then I feel like I run a pretty good business. And so, they would order from us, they’d be satisfied and then maybe they have a friend of theirs that’s going through some issue, and it’s just a word of mouth referral. And so, we do get a lot of direct traffic. Actually, I’m glad you brought that up because we do get a lot of people that just are coming directly by typing Spuy Guy into the URL I’ve noticed.

Steve: How did you get your press mentions? Like I know in the beginning, you’ve been on CNBC, Entrepreneur, Forbes, Fast Company. Did you go out and try to get those? Do you have a PR person or did those just kind of fall in your lap?

Allen: So it all started when I got mentioned in Forbes and I’ll tell the story about how I got involved if you like.

Steve: Sure.

Allen: I’m a huge Tim Ferriss fan. So like 4-Hour Workweek was a huge influence on me years ago and one of the resources that he talks about in there is Haro, helpful a reporter out. And basically three times a day I get an email with reporters, bloggers, journalists, whatever you want to call them. They’re looking for sources for their stories. There’s another one that’s out there, it’s called PR Newswire or something like — I can’t remember off the top of my head. Profnet I think is what it’s called. But it’s a very similar service, a little bit higher quality, but it also costs a lot of money.

And so I was using those two services to find people who were asking questions about things that I knew about. It might be digital marketing, it might be entrepreneurship, sometimes they talk about spy related stuff I guess or security related issues. So I try to be as helpful as I can in those emails, so that they can quote me in an article. And one day I open up [Inaudible 00:25:08] and I see a request in there in the business section and it’s like looking for million dollars solopreneurs. And I was like, oh wow, nobody’s going to respond to this because there’s probably not a whole lot of people that are running a business by themselves and doing a million dollars in revenue.

And I noticed that it’s a Forbes next to it. I’m like, I have to respond to this. I have to do the best answer I can in this email so that maybe they’ll reach out for a phone conversation and I can get quoted in Forbes and so it worked essentially.

Steve: I’ve never had any good luck with Haro actually.

Allen: It’s been awful lately, like the last two years I haven’t gotten like anything. Fortunately, that Forbes mention — so this is a little tricky, I made sure to name drop Tim Ferriss a lot and the interview that I do with Forbes so that if you got mentioned in it, then I could like send it to him, and then he’d post it and share it with his audience. And long story short, that worked.

Steve: Clever.

Allen: That Forbes article went live, three days later it hadn’t had any clicks or anything like that. But they made Tim Ferriss like front and center on the article. They had an image of him that’s like the banner image. And so what I did was I set my phone, I installed Twitter on my phone, and I had set up to text me or whatever, whenever Tim Ferriss was posting on Twitter. And this was back when he wasn’t doing the podcast I think, so most of his tweets were authentic and he’s like typing it on there and asking questions of his audience and whatnot.

And so whenever it was an authentic post, I would send a link to the Forbes article saying that it mentioned him. It only took me like two tries, but then he retweeted it to his audience. He sent it out in his five bullet Friday, posted on Facebook, and then all of a sudden it went from like 1,000 views over three days to like 300,000 views in like June period or whatever. And so I think like Inc.com, they spun the article or whatever. So it was just a rehash of the original Forbes article. And then when I do other help a reporter out responses, I like be sure to say, hey look, I was mentioned on CNBC and Forbes, and I’ll link to those articles and stuff. So it gives me credibility with whoever is seeing that response and then they are more confident in featuring me.

Steve: That’s a very good strategy and that apparently works, yeah I can see how that would work.

Allen: Yeah. Another really great resource if you’re looking for PR is Ryan Holiday’s book, Trust me, I’m lying. I found it fascinating. And I’ve actually used a lot of the tactics and strategies that are in there to get press mentions.

Steve: Why don’t you just name one for people who haven’t read the book?

Allen: Oh, okay let me think about it.

Steve: Okay, we can come back to it.

Allen: Okay. Sure.

Steve: All right. So I would also imagine you mentioned earlier that you have businesses that buy from you, right? What is your strategy there on getting these b2b customers?

Allen: I guess it’s b2b, I never really considered it. We do have customers that are business owners, and they’re trying to combat employee theft. We have police departments and private investigators that are purchasing equipment from us. And I don’t really have a strategy there, they just find me. Maybe they’re looking for what I sell, and they’re doing some comparison shopping or whatever. And then they see our website, they see the phone number, and they call and ask us questions and whatnot.

Steve: Okay, so you don’t go through your customer list to see if anyone looks like they could be like a large customer?

Allen: We do. So, whenever we see a customer place an order and it says like private investigator or PI, or investigative services, or whatever, they have their business name and the title, we’ll make a note of it and realize that this is a customer that, okay, these types of customers and this police department, we can probably get multiple orders from them. Whereas with regular customers, they’re pretty much one and done. So, lifetime value for my customer is whatever they place on the first order.

Steve: Right. Yeah, that’s kind of what I was getting at. So just kind of curious what your strategy has been, because a lot of these people are one and done. Do you get a lot of repeat business in general?

Allen: No, not at all.

Steve: Oh, really? Okay.

Allen: It’s brutal. Yeah, if I can do it all over again.

Steve: See, you get a steady flow of customers, obviously. And so they’re just funding you have through search.

Allen: They’re finding us through search primarily, Google Shopping and AdWords. That makes up the majority of the traffic that we’re getting. We’ve played with Facebook, it’s so difficult to target people that need spy equipment. Like there’s no demographic in particular. I’ve looked at all this stuff on Google Analytics, they break it into four different age groups or whatever. And it shows you the percentage of people that are coming to your website and what age group they are in like 25, 25, 25, 25, male, female, slightly more female than male, which is shocking.

Steve: That’s interesting actually. Okay.

Allen: Yeah. So more male visitors, but more females convert. It’s weird. I loved another reason behind that. But there’s no common interest or trade or demographic or whatever you want to call it that a customer would need, a shopper would need to become a customer of ours.

Steve: I’m not sure how I would feel if I saw spy equipment ad in my feed too, like, as we talked about earlier, right? Like if my wife was just browsing my Facebook or using my computer and all of a sudden she saw like hidden camera stuff, she’d probably ask me about it.

Allen: Right. We haven’t had any luck with product ads or anything like that on Facebook, we’ve tried the retargeting thing. It’s just breaking even really. And I’ve had multiple people, not just my account manager, but I’ve had multiple people that do Facebook ads for living, look at my account and be like, oh, yeah, this is really difficult. Okay, I have some ideas for new strategies for Facebook. It just takes up a lot of like we need more ad creative and we need to make use of more videos and more content on our website. And just content production is expensive, it takes a long time. I think that we’re starting to figure out a strategy that might work with Facebook.

Steve: Okay, what is your email strategy? I actually didn’t notice any pop ups and offers when I landed on your site. So, I was just curious.

Allen: Yeah, I don’t have one. So, I mentioned earlier I went and started cheater spy shop, and I was there for like three years. And we did email marketing when we’re there and I know from that experience, we just weren’t making any money on it whatsoever. Why?

Steve: Interesting, okay.

Allen: There’s probably several reasons why, we don’t really get new products. There’s not a whole lot of people that are developing spy equipment at all. So, it’s largely the same stuff that’s been selling for a long amount of time and customers are not repeat purchasers. So, if they order something on the website, we get the email and we try to hit them up for more sales, it’s pretty much a no go there. I do think that we — I know for a fact we can make email a lot better than it currently is because we’re only sending a couple emails a year like Cyber Monday, Black Friday, we do a little bit of Valentine’s Day related stuff.

Steve: Valentine’s Day, hilarious. Okay.

Allen: Yeah. Well, so here’s how it goes is that if somebody is like having an affair or whatever, they’re going to have to celebrate Valentine’s Day twice, so one with their spouse and then the second person is on the side, and so they usually do that like on February 13 or whatever. And so what we’ll do an email series in the lead up to Valentine’s Day to be like, hey, this is a perfect time to catch an affair if you’ve been suspecting.

Steve: That’s too funny.

Allen: Yeah. But you’re right, I don’t have a pop up on the website, been looking around. I heard you’re Privy thing on the podcast recently, so I’m taking a look at it because I do know that we have a lot of customers that are people visiting our website that don’t buy the first time that they visit or the second time that they visit, and we really do need to be emailing them. It’s something that has been on my radar and I just haven’t gotten around to it for several reasons I guess.

Steve: I actually went ahead and did a bunch of shopping before this. I just looked around and I can say that I think what’s very attractive at your store and it’s probably why it’s so successful is the fact that you curate the products and then you explain them and you provide tech support, which is something that you’re not going to get at all on Amazon and these other sites. They are kind of sketchy too. And the fact that you’re willing to put your face in a video also really adds a lot to the credibility of the site.

Allen: Yeah. So I’ll tackle the last one first. Here is the thing, I hate being on camera, I’m just always hated it. I feel like, I look goofy. And more importantly, I just didn’t want to be associated with spy equipment at all. I was really hesitant to put my face on the website, because I don’t want this to be what I’m known for. This is just [overlapping 00:34:27] right. I’d rather be, I’d be happy to put my face on something if I was like, really super, if this was a product or industry where it’s very shareable. Right? Nobody is sharing spy stuff on Facebook and Instagram and whatnot. If I could be in a different industry, like selling music equipment, or if I were like a really hot model and I was selling like, bikinis or whatever, I’d be happy to put my face out there. But I didn’t grow up wanting to be associated with spy gear or anything like that.

And so for the first like two years that I did my company, my face wasn’t anywhere on there because I didn’t want people know that this is what I was doing. But I’ve just learned to embrace the fact that I’m in a really weird industry with a lot of people that are genuine and need help, and nobody out there is filling that need. And so I kind of put myself out there, I was like, hey, look, I’m the guy that you can trust. I have everything in stock. I’m not drop shipping everything, you can actually call us and ask questions and we’re happy to help you out. And that was radically different than what everybody else was offering when I hit the scene.

Steve: I think that works really well. Like as I was shopping, the video that you put out, it just looks — it was, the lighting and everything was great, but it was just very authentic. I think that’s the right word. And it made me want to trust you because you’re not like the sleazy guy trying to hawk spy equipment.

Allen: Right. Yeah, I don’t. I don’t think of myself as sleazy. I’m just trying to be an honest guy matching a product to a customer that really needs it, because some of these customers are going through like really frustrating situations. And not to bring the mood down or anything like that, but they might have a parent that’s in an Alzheimer home and they think they’re getting abused. So they want a hidden camera. Or maybe they have a kid who’s autistic and they think that something is going on and they’ll like put a recorder in the backpack and then find out that the teacher is like verbally harassing this kid, or they’re being harassed like a woman might be harassed at work, and she needs to prove it.

And so, they’re going through these situations, they’re going through divorces, it’s all really sad. And a lot of times, they they call us and they want to unload on us because it’s so frustrating for them. Unfortunately, we’re not licensed therapists or anything like that. And so we listen to their story, we try to match them with the best product that will help get rid of that issue that’s causing them some sort of emotional or financial distress. And so, by putting ourselves out there is like, hey look, we’re here to help you out. We’re not just trying to make a quick buck selling a crappy product, we really only sell the best stuff. I think you’re right. I think it does shine through.

Steve: I think so for sure especially among the stores that I was looking at comparing them to yours, actually.

Allen: Yeah. And one more thing I’ll mention about it is that we get so many people that call here and like straight up asked for me, or like maybe I’ll have an employee that’s sick or maybe I’m at the office and my employee’s phone rings for a sales call. And I’m like, hey, you know what, I want to take that call. I just kind of want to keep my finger on the pulse of the business. And so I’ll do the sales call. And I’ll say, hey, my name is Allen, thanks for calling. How can I help? And they’ll be like, oh, you’re the guy in the video because they recognize my voice.

Steve: Oh, yeah. Right.

Allen: Right in the video. And I’m like, yeah, and they’re like, oh, that’s awesome. Why am I talking to you? And I’m like, well, I own the business and sometimes I answer the phones just to find out what’s going on and talk to customers because I like it. And so they like that and then I’ll take an order over the phone.

Steve: Nice. So I know recently you’ve done some adjustments to your website, you did a redesign, I want to ask you, what are some of the key takeaways that you had from just kind of changing things around this past year? Like what are some of the mistakes that you tried to address, and and what did you try to emphasize about your store?

Allen: Yeah, so when I started my website like four and a half years ago, I used a default Shopify theme. The guys over at out of the sandbox, they are a development company that specializes in Shopify themes, they make really good themes. And so, I went ahead and bought one for like 150 bucks at the time I think that was good enough, and then I got into an argument on Reddit with some guy about logos and how they didn’t really matter all this other stuff. And I ended up hiring him to design a logo for me, it’s kind of funny.

Steve: It’s hilarious okay.

Allen: So, we made the website, it was very scrappy. I got the whole company started including like forming the LLC and all the legal stuff for under a grand. And so it was very bootstrapped effort. And we had the same website largely for like the next three and a half years where I just didn’t change anything at all. And then it finally got to the point where I was going to conferences, I was meeting people like you, I was meeting a lot of people who took a lot of pride in their businesses whereas when I looked at my business at the time, I was like, I could be doing a lot better, I could have a much better website and plus it’s how I make like 100% of my income. I really need to up the design of the website.

And so I had found somebody that was I thought did amazing work designing websites, I found another person that I thought did amazing work with branding, and so I worked with those two people to come up with the website that I have now. I kind of have a funny story your listeners might enjoy. I had the logo when I started this back in 2014, and it was just like this sketchy looking detective logo or whatever. It was a guy in a fedora. And a year later, I noticed that an extremely similar logo was being used for the Google incognito like the Google Chrome.

Steve: Yeah, incognito mode. Yeah.

Allen: Yeah. So they’ve had three different incognito logos since they launched Chrome. And the first one was like a dude in a trench coat. It looked really super scary looking. And then after my website was live for like a year, they changed the logo and it looks almost exactly like the logo that I had created a year prior. And then they modified it again like a couple of years later, and then it was even closer to my logo. And so I had a lot of customers that were like you just stole the Google incognito logo and put it on your website. And I’m like, no, I swear I was first. And it got to the point where I was like I got the sketchy looking detective dude as my logo. My color scheme is black and white. I could probably redo this to make it a little bit more trustworthy. And so that’s why I went through the whole brand redesign process.

Steve: Like your numbers were fine at the time, right before you did the design.

Allen: Oh, yeah, they were great. We were really hesitant to change anything at all. Again, like, for the first several years of the business, I was just interested in running a four hour workweek style business that was very hands off, and I achieved that goal. But eventually I was like, you know what, I really want to scale this thing to be bigger than it was before. I want to be proud of my website and my brand. I’ve got my face on this whole thing, it should really be the best thing that it can be. It’s time to put some money into this website.

And my marketing guy was very — he was like, dude, I don’t know, this is working really well. You don’t want to suddenly have a huge drop in sales. We know this thing converts. And so, I was like, yeah, we can always go back to it. It was an experiment, I learned a lot and I’m glad we did it.

Steve: What were some of your key takeaways from the whole experience?

Allen: Key takeaways. I would not work with two people again. When you’re small e-commerce business like I am, you should not have a whole bunch of projects going on at once, because everything moves slower. It becomes very difficult moving from one task to another. So I was looking at manufacturing my own products. I was looking at redoing the website, I was looking at filming new videos, I was looking at all sorts of different aspects of my business and putting on different hats and stuff was very frustrating.

So going back, I would have just made the new website like my only priority for like the next six months because it was very intensive. It was hard to go between all of these different projects, it’s just too much of your brain ram being taken up. And then also working with two different people that were not communicating with each other was so difficult.

Steve: Who were these two people? You had a designer and someone else or?

Allen: Yeah, so I had a branding expert, whatever you want to call it. And she was coming up with the art style for my website and the color scheme and the branding voice and the logo, of course, and all of this other stuff. And she was also really good at — she’s very conversion focused when it comes to like designing websites. The problem was that she didn’t do Shopify stores at all. So, she would come up with like have the wire framing of [Inaudible 00:43:43] like down to the pixel. But then I had to move all of that stuff over to a Shopify developer who’s very good at what they do, but the two of them were not communicating with each other in the process. Like I just couldn’t make that happen for whatever reason. And so I had to act like a middleman like…

Steve: Oh I see.

Allen: Yeah it was very frustrating.

Steve: Well, all that’s behind you. So Allen, looking forward, what are some of your plans and hopefully people don’t need spy equipment but where can they find you online if they need something, and will they get you on the phone actually if they do call?

Allen: Yeah, sometimes they’ll get me on the phone. The website is SpuyGuy.com. It used to be Spy Guy Security but I bought SpyGuy.com about a year ago which is like a whole another interesting story about negotiating a domain and stuff.

Steve: [Overlapping 00:44:40] what was your rationale for doing that if you already had Spuy Guy Security for so long?

Allen: Spuy Guy Security, I think it’s like 14 letter domain or whatever. Spyguy.com, it’s just six. It sounds like a Silicon Valley startup. Like it’s just very straightforward. It rhymes. It’s catchy, it’s memorable. We have a logo to go along with it. So it’s very memorable. Spy Guy Security is a lot more, I don’t know. It sounds more professional I guess you could say. But I think that the succinctness of SpyGuy.com, it’s kind of like an intangible thing I guess you could say. It’s very, yeah, I don’t know, I haven’t been thinking a lot of that.

Steve: Fair enough, man. All right, so SpyGuy.com. And if you need spy equipment, feel free to hit him up. And yeah, if you guys can’t tell from this interview, Allen is a very genuine guy. He just tells it like how it is, and he’ll help you out. So Allen, thanks a lot for coming on the show, man.

Allen: Yeah. Thanks for having me. It’s been fun.

Steve: All right, take care.

Hope you enjoyed that episode. Now, what I like about Allen is that he’s just a regular dude, and he’s a complete open book. And it’s always refreshing to hear a realistic account of all the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. For more information about this episode, go to mywifequitherjob.com/episode242.

And once again, I want to thank Privy for sponsoring this episode. Privy is the email capture provider that I personally use to turn visitors into email subscribers. They offer email capture, exit intent, and site targeting tools to make it super simple as well. And I like Privy because it’s so powerful and you can basically trigger custom pop-ups for any primer that is closely tied to your ecommerce store. If you want to give it a try, it is free. So, head on over to Privy.com/Steve, once again, that’s P-R-I-V-Y.com/Steve.

I also want to thank Klaviyo which is my email marketing platform of choice for ecommerce merchants. You can easily put together automated flows like an abandoned cart sequence, a post-purchase flow, a win-back campaign, basically all these sequences that will make you money on autopilot. Right now they have this cool docu series called Beyond Black Friday that I highly recommend that you check out and that can be found over at Klaviyo.com/beyondbf, once again that’s K-L-A-V-I-Y-O.com/beyondbf.

Now I talk about how I use both of these tools on my blog, and if you’re interested in starting your own e-commerce store, head on over to mywifequitherjob.com and sign up for my free six-day mini course. Just type in your email and I’ll send you the course right away. Thanks for listening.

Outro: Thanks for listening to the My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast where we’re giving the courage people need to start their own online business. For more information, visit Steve’s blog at www.Mywifequitherjob.com.

Intro: You’re listening to the My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast, the place where I bring on successful bootstrapped business owners and delve deeply into the strategies they use to grow their businesses. So I just got back from San Diego, California, where I spent three straight grueling days filming the 5 Minute Pitch, our new Shark Tank like show with Mike Jackness, Greg Mercer, Scott Voelker and a variety of awesome guest judges to be announced later.

And over the course of these three days, we filmed over 24 hours of footage. And the first night we were actually in front of the camera from 8:30am to 11pm. Now life as a poor man’s Z list movie star is very difficult, and the four of us recorded this podcast on the very last day of filming, to kind of reflect upon the 32 contestants that just pitched to us. And we basically discuss what it takes to succeed in ecommerce today.

But before we begin, I want to give a quick shout out to Klaviyo who is a sponsor of the show. Super excited to talk about Klaviyo because they are my email marketing platform that I use for my ecommerce store and I depend on them for over 30% of my revenues. Klaviyo is the only email platform out there that is specifically built for ecommerce stores, and here is why it is so powerful.

Klaviyo can track every single customer who has shopped in your store and exactly what they bought. So let’s say I want to send out an email to everyone who purchased a red handkerchief in the last week, easy. Let’s say I want to set up a special auto-responder sequence to my customers depending on what they purchased, piece of cake, and there is full revenue tracking on every single email sent. Klaviyo is the most powerful email platform that I’ve ever used and you could try them for free at mywifequitherjob.com/K-L-A-V-I-Y-O. Once again, that’s mywifequitherjob.com/K-L-A-V-I-Y-O.

I also want to give a shout out to Privy who is also a sponsor of the show. Privy is the tool that I use to build my email list for both my blog and my online store. Now, there are a bunch of companies out there that will manage your email capture forms, but I like Privy because they specialize in ecommerce. Right now I’m using Privy to display a cool wheel of fortune pop up. Basically a user gives their email for a chance to win valuable prices in our store. And customers love the gamification aspect of this. And when I implemented this form email signups increased by 131%.

I’m also using their new cart saver pop up feature to recover abandoned carts as well. Bottom line, Privy allows me to turn visitors into email subscribers, which I then feed to my email provider to close the sale. So head on over to Privy.com/Steve and try it for free. And if you decide you need some of the more advanced features, use coupon code MWQHJ for 15% off. Once again, that’s P-R-I-V-Y.com/Steve. Now onto the show.

Welcome to the My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast. We will teach you how to create a business that suits your lifestyle, so you can spend more time with your family and focus on doing the things that you love. Here is your host, Steve Chou.

Scott: All right. Here we go fellows, sitting now here in San Diego out on a patio, might be a little helicopter noise but we’ll get through it. Get that mic a little closer to you, Mike.

Mike: Okay, here we go.

Scott: Mike, get it closer to your face. So we have Mr. Steve Chou, Chou. It’s sexy Chou but someone [overlapping 00:03:09] this is inside joke. We have Mr. Mercer here. Mr. Greg Mercer. We have Mr. Steve Jackness. I mean, Mike Jackness…

Mike: That’s another inside joke.

Scott: In the house and of course, myself.

Mike: We all did it though. That was what’s funny.

Scott: It is, it is. Well, we had each other on each other’s podcasts. And we talked about this 5 Minute Pitch thing.

Mike: Now it’s a wrap.

Scott: It’s a wrap. We’re sitting here having a couple of cocktails and getting ready for dinner actually, we’re actually waiting for dinner; we’re going to go get dinner. But we wrapped up, and we had three days together and…

Mike: It was a lot of fun.

Scott: A lot of fun. But man, I’ll tell you what, it was a lot of words, a lot of work.

Mike: But they always say when you’re having fun, you’re not working.

Scott: That is true. That is true. What I want to do here though, is while it’s fresh in all of our heads; we got to spend some time with some really awesome bootstrapped businesses. A lot of them are bootstrapped. Some of them were pre revenue; some of them were already making some really great money. What I want to do is kind of talk about like this space, it’s changed since three years ago, probably a year and a half ago. What do we like about what we’ve seen? What do we feel like is the essentials to being successful with a bootstrapped business? Like can it still be done?

Mike: 100% can still be done. We just saw twenty something of the 32 companies that are crushing it. So that obviously can still be done. A lot of them are still young. The thing I think that’s really key to your question is, I think the most important thing now is uniqueness and defensibility. It cannot be in any way shape, or form a “me too” product. You have to have something with some intellectual property, something that’s defensible, because you’re really creator, or it’s really hard to knock off. I think those are probably the keys in my mind.

Scott: I agree with that. And it was fun seeing all these different businesses, right? A lot of different types of businesses, we saw software businesses, we saw marketplaces, people who invented their own products with patents, and similar we liked some me to businesses, right. I would say that Amazon is still a great place to get started. I think we saw that with a lot of our contestants when they were trying to get started. They were trying to make those first few dollars, Amazon’s by I think everyone would agree that it’s a great, easy place to get started, then you can pivot into something else. What are your thoughts Steve?

Steve: I was surprised at how swayed I was at someone’s personality. Like, I went into some of these pitches thinking well, without giving away the product, it was a commodity product, really saturated, and I was ready to write it off right away. But this guy’s personality and the fact that he just put so much passion into his presentation really swayed me. And so it just reminded me of the importance of really putting yourself out there as like a personal brand in front of your products, which will make everything a lot more successful.

Scott: That was definitely a common theme, wasn’t it? All of the ones that were doing well are around the tips to companies that maybe weren’t doing as well or need to improve was, it helps to have a face to a brand is someone that can get out there and that can be relatable, and someone who you want to purchase from.

Steve: It even overcame the numbers in a lot of cases, right? Sometimes the numbers didn’t really add up but the guy’s personality just put it through or gals.

Scott: Yeah, we had an equal number of guys and gals. We did which was really exciting. And there were some very successful women actually. And there’s one and I’m not going to give it away. If you guys want to follow along, you better go over to 5MinutePitch.com and sign up over there. You can’t obviously enter the contest anymore. But you can sign up to get notifications when we air new episodes, it’s going to be a full season, it’s going to be amazing. It’s going to be exciting. And you’re going to learn a lot through this process too, because as you hear us kind of give advice or even just feedback, you can kind of learn. There’s one business in particular came in with an idea.

Now, he didn’t make it through, almost made it through, he made it through the first round. But he didn’t move on because we almost gave him the advice to pivot and switch gears a little bit, which he took. And he did do that. But I think it’s also being someone that doesn’t marry to an idea. Or if you’re that early, can you rebrand or can you switch and pivot and I think you can. But I really just think that if you have not even just the face, but if you have the presence in the market, if you have a me to product, I still think you can sell that product, if you are the one that people are going to want to buy from.

Mike: Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, almost everything in some way shape or form is a “me too” product because like everything, almost everything has been invented. There’s still things that get invented but there’s very few people that really do that. It was definitely pervasive with the personalities. There was some awesome stories, there was one guy that was talking, again, I don’t want to give things away. But the story…

Scott: Go to 5 Minute Pitch to check out.

Mike: Go to 5 MinutePitch.com, sign up today to be notified. But this guy was talking about how he like went down to the pool [ph] and like put the inventory in the back of a U-Haul truck that he rented. And like you got to be willing to hustle and go all in, in your business. And it definitely that was a theme throughout the entire thing.

Greg: Another common thread that I really picked up on is people who create a brand or market their product that is very much like a powerful or even sometimes like one sided tight brands. I don’t know great words to describe this. But let me give an example. If you were selling soap, for example…

Steve: I was going to use the same example, go on.

Greg: And if you said that this soap is only for tough men or girly hands can’t take this soap or being very binary and like almost creating enemies in your branding but at the same time creating a like lawyer passionate following. So they feel like they fit inside of the area that you’re marketing to, I really like companies like that, especially in saturated or just very competitive niches.

Steve: One thing that really hit me, and I got affected a lot by the personality of the person presenting. One guy, he had a spotty internet connection and it was a wireless connection. So he actually went out in the middle, bought 150 feet of Cat 5 cable, wired his house for internet so that he can participate in the 5 Minute Pitch. And as soon as I heard that story, I was like, man, I love this guy. I know he’s going to succeed.

Scott: Yeah, again, we heard a lot of stories of people that could have just given up. There’s one in particular, made it on a very, very popular TV shopping show, I won’t mention the name, we won’t give it away, and had huge success, then had a huge like obstacle. And you could have given up on that, hasn’t given up and is going to be a pretty cool little story to follow here when they’re being sent through or not sent through, they are being censored, we’ll just say that right there.

Mike: There were several companies though that you could say that about. There was someone that got into a bad cash flow situation, there was someone that – I think it was actually same person who had cancer, which is an obstacle to overcome, there was just the people running out of inventory, and like the guy I was just talking about the guy going down to the pool and doing this. Entrepreneurs, like the successful entrepreneurs are going to face adverse, I felt I faced so much diversity that I could tell you.

We don’t have time to get into all that. There’s been some really crazy stories, but you have to be willing to deal with that. And my friend Grant, who I used to do the podcast with, would say that the reason I’m successful is because I learned how to fail forward. So when you fail, you take that as a way to go forward and learn from that and become a better entrepreneur. And I saw that theme here throughout almost all of the pitches, which was really neat.

Scott: Yeah, let me ask you guys this question. And maybe we can just hand the mic around here. Like, what do you think that something that stood out from just about everybody, what was one thing that stood out to you of why they’ve even gotten to where they are, and why they’re not even afraid to even share what they’re doing publicly, because they are going to be sharing it here on the show, right? So they feel so confident in what they’re doing, they’re willing to go out there and say, you know what, I’m going to do this, and I don’t care who knows.

Steve: I think it’s because a lot of the people who are successful were actually using the products that they were developing. They were experts in their field and they found deficiencies in the tools they were using, and decided to create a better product. And the fact that they’re actually using it, they have domain knowledge over the product they’re trying to sell.

Greg: Everyone that made it through the first round, I think it’s easy to say that they were all just like pure hustlers. They just made things happen or made it work. They hit all kinds of obstacles; they had to step outside their comfort zone. But it’s like everyone shared that same trait, that they were just like hustlers. And it didn’t matter what their background was, or their education, or if they hadn’t experienced it, or whatever else. They were just driven to make it happen.

Mike: I can speak to this for personal experience. And we have a podcast. I talk about pretty much everything we do completely openly. And the reason I can do that confidently is because I feel like what we do as a business adds tremendous value to the product and the community, and the people we serve. And if you’re just creating a me too product and trying to “hustle” like in the more bad sense of the word where you’re just trying to buy and resell something, and just make money in a short term experience, of course, you’re going to be more guarded on what you’re talking about. But we’re creating a brand and products that our fans and customers love.

And I think that’s why the people that came on the 5 Minute Pitch here, they all exude that, right? They all had a lot of passion; add a lot of value, either by creating something really original or even taking products that weren’t necessarily original and adding a lot to those products.

Scott: I got something for you though here, because this kind of — and I want your opinion, your opinion and I’m pointing Mike, Steve, because I agree with you, but I disagree with you. Here’s what I’m saying. Okay, for myself, right now, I started a brand with a partner 18 months ago. I feel like I wouldn’t have had as much of a head start if I would have let everyone know. And I think Greg can probably speak to this, if he wants to be honest. If you’re going to build a true brand, unless you just want to show the process. If I’m just going to show you the process, I don’t care if the brand gets hacked.

It’s kind of like the niche site duel that Pat Flynn did with Spencer or Spencer did with someone else. They’ve all told me it’s been hacked, backlinks and negative backlinks, they try to bring you down; someone else tries to rip it off. If you get a head start, I agree with you. But if you were going to do that right this second today and do that from day one, I think you’d be at a disadvantage. Now these people have all started. So that’s why they’re not worried about that. But if they started from scratch, it’s going to be harder. Would you agree or disagree that it would be harder to start with publicly going out there and sharing everything you’re doing even though you have the chops. Like with ColorIt, you kind of started before you started sharing everything, correct?

Mike: We actually pretty much shared it from day one.

Scott: Did you?

Mike: I threw caution to the wind with this. I’m going to — this is not advisable. First of all, I agree with you, but let’s start there. I agree that probably it puts us at a disadvantage with sooner talking about all the things that we’re doing. It gives you an opportunity to have more people copy though. Well, that’s a great idea. Like, I’m sure as soon as the first people talking about garlic presses, soon they’re all being copied. So I get that, I really do. But I’m also at a point where we’re financially independent and secure and I’m more confident in myself. And I don’t care about that as much.

And one other thing is I don’t ever profess to sell 100% of everything in that particular niche anyway. I’m not going to sell all the colored pencils in the world or all the gel pens, and we’re cutting out our own lane. And if I let someone else catch me, I always feel like that’s my fault for not working harder or doing a better job. So I’m a little bit weird when it comes to this. But I have to agree with you. I think you’re dead on it. It puts us on a spot that we don’t need to necessarily put ourselves into.

Scott: Right. And I’m looking at Steve; he created his brand before he really…

Steve: So I got my opinion on that. And when I started My Wife Quit Her Job, my wife was actually really scared that people were going to knock off Bumblebee Linen.

Scott: Oh, yeah.

Steve: Fundamentally, there’s nothing really — there’s no IP involved in that.

Scott: But you guys are doing personalization.

Steve: We do personalization but this is even before personalization. I started the blog before that, it was just me too products. And it’s still to a certain extent is me too products even though we have our own designs now. But I was confident in just my ability just to market and I just wasn’t worried. We actually had a whole bunch of knockoffs believe or not. We had like hummingbird linens and I think — I’m not even joking and Queen Bee linens.

Scott: Queen Bee.

Steve: And people clearly that were reading the blog and that sort of thing and they even used our photos to put up a mock shop. I don’t know if they were actually selling anything there. But over the years, those guys just slowly trailed off.

Greg: I think actually hearing you three guys, what comes to mind is an idea is worthless without execution. And it doesn’t matter if they also have the idea to start Bumblebee Linens or also had the idea to sell colored pencils are coloring books, that there’s a lot of execution involved, right. These are at the end of the day still businesses and businesses are a lot of work. You have to get up every day, you have to sometimes grind and do the stuff that’s not sexy that we often don’t maybe talk about or write about. And these are just like monotonous tasks that you kind of have to do every day to grow your business.

Mike: They hear about it on a 30 minute podcast, it sounds so sexy. And then they realize like when they go try to do this for a year, how much execution it does take. And it’s a lot more work than probably they realize.

Scott: Yeah, I’m going to speak to like I said, because I get that question every now and then. Like, why are you publicly doing it? For me personally, when I went in with this partner, it’s almost now I’m trying to protect the partner because they are depending on this business, more so than I would be. So because of that and also we have an exit strategy. We didn’t want to hurt that. But I agree with you. And I’ve often thought about doing that almost like Greg’s doing like a public case study. I even thought about doing that with niche sites to be honest with you. I thought about doing a public niche site to show people how to build content, how to build an email list, how to set it up properly, how it’s going to take time, it’s going to take 12 to 18 months before you see any traffic at all. I mean, Mike, you can speak to that. I know you can as well Steve.

Steve: You see this in blogging all the time, people will just outright copy your content or just slightly reward it. But those blogs are never successful. It’s all about the brand and the person behind it, the voice.

Scott: Yeah. And I kind of want to go on that a little bit. Like how important do you think it is right now for someone and like Greg said, I agree. And I advise people start on Amazon. But that’s not where you end, that’s where you start and so the launch pad. I look at that as a launch pad, it can be a significant channel. You can make a lot of money. We have one person that we’re sending through that is making 95% of money on there, over 500 skews like 35k net a month, like a beautiful brand. Most of it is on Amazon.

But they have a pretty good product that they don’t have to worry about someone just going and ripping them off. They still could though, they still could. But how important is that, Mike that you have something that you could either blog about, or you could create content around and bring people in versus it just being the product?

Mike: Can I answer the question about Amazon just real quick.

Scott: Yeah, yeah.

Mike: Because I’m really passionate about this. I started actually off Amazon. So I’m one of the crazy ones that started doing it all off Amazon and all of us have courses and podcasts and teach this stuff. I think you’re absolutely out of your mind if you don’t get started on Amazon.

Scott: Absolutely.

Mike: If you’re getting starting in ecommerce, learning how to pick, pack, and ship and deal with logistics and labeling and customer service, and all this different traffic and everything else is a massive undertaking. You have so much other stuff you can focus on, like getting the product right and photography and building a good listing and at some point, there’ll be this crossroads where you’re going to want to grow your off Amazon channel, because you don’t want all of your eggs in one basket. But you have to have a business that’s large enough to want to diversify first. I think you have to be well in the seven figures before you hit that crossroads.

So for me, I completely agree with you, like you would want to get started Amazon, let them take care of all those headaches. You don’t even realize what those headaches are, and you can learn about those later. Worry about taking baby steps in the beginning.

Scott: What’s your thought, Steve?

Steve: I think you got to be a little bit careful. I know for the students in my class, they start on Amazon, they have some success, but then they just kind of lose track of their brand. And it’s like a drug really, it’s like a drug. So you get used to it. And that’s where the money is coming in. And you may as well just put all your fuel to the fire there. So I encourage them to once they have some traction to work on their site in the side. Just kind of build it up. Don’t divert all of your resources. Definitely, like press the Amazon channel until you’re kind of saturated or done the best that you can. But you got to think about building that brand. And that can really only be done outside.

Mike: Running a website requires you to learn how to like take payments, to launch listings on your own site, to deal with sales tax collection, to do email marketing, Facebook ads. I mean, the list goes on and on. And you can eliminate all those things if you start with the Amazon thing. And I completely agree with Steve as I was saying, this Crossroads at some point you cross over to that makes sense for your business. But if you’re getting started as a solopreneur, it’s going to be an overwhelming amount of stuff if you try to start selling off Amazon as your first point of contact.

Scott: Let me ask you guys a question that is a question I struggle with every single week. How do you decide or know when to double down more on what’s working versus diversifying, you’re trying to do more things?

Greg: All right, but wait a minute, though. Let’s ask the question. Are we talking about just business in general, are we talking about — are you alluding to if Amazon is working why don’t you just double down on Amazon versus doubling down on maybe just building your business?

Scott: I’d like to hear just like your general thinking around it. And I think that can pertain to different areas. Amazon is a good example right? The Amazon stuff comes very easily to me, it’s very easy for me to double down on it and launch more products. And if I look back at like my history as an entrepreneur, I think actually most of the mistakes I’ve made are trying to diversify more or trying to do more things or start a new project or a new whatever else instead of really doubling down on like what I’m great at. I don’t have an answer here; this is why I’m asking you smart fellows. It’s something I struggle with every week.

Steve: It really comes to a gut feel for me, and I’m just kind of a paranoid person in general. So I’m like Jackness.

Scott: You are more projected, Jack is more paranoid.

Steve: Right why do you say?

Scott: I’m going to let you keep going here. But I just want to let people go to 5MinutePitch.com because you’re going to want to sign up for this because there’s a lot of smack talk going on here.

Steve: And what’s nice is we all got different personalities.

Scott: Yeah, so continue.

Steve: And they all conflict.

Scott: Mr. Chou.

Steve: Oh, we’re talking about what, risk tolerance

Scott: Yes.

Steve: So for me, I treat everything like a drug. If I get too addicted – and my income goals aren’t as lofty as Mr. Mercer’s for example, who wants to start like a nine figure company. I just, I’m satisfied with like a seven, probably just a seven figure business. So as soon as it gets to a certain point, I want to protect that income. So that’s why it’s important for me to diversify.

Scott: Yeah, I’m very similar to you. I think you and I are both very similar. I know what Greg is saying like, if something is really working, like just double down and put more gas on it. I get that but I also look at for me, like safety net. I’m building an asset that I know is stronger than just doubling down because if I double down and I’m collecting that money, what am I doing with that money? Am I just putting it into a bank account, am I taking that money and reinvesting it? And then if I am reinvesting it, is it still dependent on the thing that I’m doubling down on?

So those are the things that I think about. Lately, I’ve been talking about basically diversifying because I want to take advantage of the opportunity but I do not want to bank on that. And if it goes away, then I’m going to feel really, really like scared in a sense, right? It’s like, oh my gosh, I bet on this one horse, I should have been probably betting on more than just the one horse.

Mike: I have a lot to say about this subject. Yeah. Scott wants to tell me to stop talking so much. That was another thing that was up.

Scott: It was, you got really chatty.

Mike: I did.

Scott: At the later parts of the day. And maybe alcohol, I don’t know.

Mike: We’ve been out here drinking a beer.

Scott: You had about a third of a beer or three quarters of a beer. So maybe you’re going to chat a little bit more, we’ll see.

Mike: Well, I’m philosophical these days. I’m philosopher Jackness now. But so the current question that Greg asked was when do you double down? And Steve was just saying I’m paranoid. And these two things actually kind of go hand in hand in some ways because when you’ve been an entrepreneur for any length of time through multiple economic cycles and just business cycles and whatever else it might be, you’re going to experience a bunch of different things. And I’ve been through a lot as I’ve been on my own doing — I quit my job in 2004. I was an entrepreneur my whole life, but I have been doing this since 2004. And I think that there’s a lot of sound philosophy behind doubling down on something that’s working, just keep on doing what’s working until one day you get your toast, or your hand on the door or whatever…

Greg: Amazon shuts you account down.

Mike: Amazon shuts your account down, that hasn’t happened but like I mean that type of a thing.

Greg: A listing gets suspended.

Mike: We have.

Greg: How does that feel?

Mike: It’s not interesting, it does not feel good, thank you.

Scott: Hold on a minute. Let me just pour a little salt on that one. How does that feel my friend?

Mike: It does not feel good. Okay. So when that type of thing happens, you get rattled, you get paranoid. And when you’re younger, just like anything else, when you’re young, you feel indestructible, and you don’t think this will happen. But when you’ve had multiple things like that happen, you start to get more paranoid, more guarded. I don’t know what the right answer is here is the bottom line. At the end of the day, I think all of us struggle with this. Like, I definitely struggle with this, like almost on a daily basis.

And there isn’t necessarily a right answer. I can say — there’s a couple of sayings like, if you chase two rabbits both will get away. And I have a propensity of trying to do too many things. And if you are doing too many things, you’re not necessarily doing one thing at the highest level or selling. But at some point, what I would say here, just to wrap it up without talking too much more…

Scott: It’s getting chattery.

Mike: It’s getting chatty. I don’t think you should diversify until you have a business you need to, until you are past your risk profile. When your risk profile gets to a point where, like if you think every day like if my business got shut down, Greg is about to say something and make fun of it. I want to just stop talking. I already know I’m going to be made fun of, all right go make fun and go ahead.

Greg: I mentioned I’m not going to make fun of you Jackness. My advice or what I just want to say here is, I think for 99.9% of the people listening this podcast right now, actually, the answer is to double down on what’s working, whatever is making them money and to do a better job at it. Again, like I get the whole paranoia and that these different things happen and whatever else, but there’s also a certain level of just devoting your brain power and your time and mental energy to other projects that probably statistically speaking are not going to be successful as whatever you’re good at and can actually make money with. So yeah, that would be my advice for everyone listening.

Steve: Funny Greg, do you actually follow your own advice, because wasn’t there a period where you were on this acquisition spree and you had all this stuff going on?

Greg: Yeah and that’s what — I started this whole thing off with saying like if I look back in my entrepreneurial career that I would say like those are actually the biggest mistakes that I’ve made that are like trying to like do more or go to do like other things instead of like really just like double, tripling down on my core strengths and what actually works really well for me.

Steve: That’s assuming that money is your goal or success in that certain avenue. I like to diversify sometimes to just build a different skill set altogether.

Scott: Yeah well, and I want to again with Greg, are we talking about let’s use an example, Amazon is working really good. I’ve got someone right now in my inner circle okay, and his whole goal before he became part of our inner circle was just continue to launch products, stay ahead by launching more products. Then all of a sudden competition is going to come in, you’re going to lose those products, you’re just going to keep staying ahead that way. And to me, you’re always going to be behind because that inventory that you can no longer sell is going to then hurt you because you can’t get rid of it because you know that that’s coming, they’re coming for you.

But if you were to diversify or at least — and again doubling down could mean doubling down on your brand. It could be like building out your external channel, it could be building out your content, building out traffic to your own site. Like our website right now for the new brand started from zero. We have over 70,000 uniques every single month and that’s growing. We’re putting AdThrive on there now, we’re going to have stuff that’s not even linked to an Amazon product, not even our own physical product, maybe $5,000 a month comes in recurring revenue now. So is that worth doubling down on?

Steve: I just want to take a moment to thank Ahrefs for being a sponsor of the show. Now, I’m a huge fan of their tool and in my opinion Ahrefs is the best all in one SEO tool out there to rank in Google search. And recently, I completed a search engine site audit for mywifequitherjob.com and Bumblebeelinens.com and Ahrefs was indispensable. For example, I used Ahrefs to do a deep dive into all my posts to find the highest volume, lowest competition keywords to target in search. And in fact, recently, I used Ahrefs to rank a blog post in Google from position 20 to position five for a big time keyword in the span of just one month by switching around my title and H1 tags.

I also use Ahrefs to spy my competitors’ sites to see what keywords they are ranking for, and then I write a more comprehensive post and eventually outrank them in search. Now those of you who know me know that I hate spending money on tools, but I actually pay for Ahrefs and that should say something in itself. Right now, I’m giving away nine three month Ahrefs’s memberships for free. To sign up, head on over to mywifequitherjob.com/giveaway, once again, that’s mywifequitherjob.com/giveaway to win a three month a trust membership. Now back to the show.

Greg: There’s no right or wrong answer with these and that’s what makes it so hard. And that’s why I want to get the…

Scott: I love it.

Greg: Absolutely. And that’s why I want to get you guys is like thinking behind it or maybe just how you think about these different obstacles. Because I think this is actually fundamentally one of the most challenging questions or one of the most challenging things that entrepreneurs run into. And we saw all throughout the 5 Minute Pitch. We saw different people, for some people, I was like, don’t launch that second product. Like you haven’t even given the first product what it deserves yet. You need to still give that some more love and get it some more customers and whatever else. And then there were other people that I was like, man, that’s going really well, whatever else, it makes sense now, kind of try to do this other thing. And it’s a very, very challenging question. I’d like to start with that, I struggle with it every single week.

Mike: I think that a lot of entrepreneurs struggle from shiny object syndrome. And if there’s one thing that’s probably got me in trouble over all these years is that. So I’ve been like laser focused on ecommerce over the last like seven almost seven years, six years. And it’s really helped. I mean, like, just sticking with. Now, obviously, like, we’ve got multiple brands, we got a lot going on within ecommerce but at least I’m staying focused within ecommerce. And I have not allowed myself to get sucked into other things even though there’s been a lot of really interesting and cool opportunities; I’ve been trying to stay within one field at least. And even then, I’m not saying I’ve done everything right. But shiny object syndrome is definitely always…

Greg: I was just thinking though, I know about a podcast, a course…

Mike: It’s all ecommerce. I’m going to defend it; I’m not saying it’s going to be…

Steve: It’s like saying I’m doing all this stuff, but it’s still business. It’s just business, right.

Mike: I mean, it’s fine. I get it. I like the criticism, we can talk about more about this offline because…

Scott: Off line, let’s talk about it now.

Mike: We can talk about now, let’s talk about it now. You guys can grill me now if you want. But there’s a lot to be said. I mean I get more fulfillment from doing the podcast. The podcast has led to this. Like if it wasn’t for that…

Scott: I have a question for you because I get this question. So if that’s the case, and you enjoy like building businesses, why don’t you just build like more businesses? Why do the podcast? Why do ecommerce? Like courses and training? I get that a lot. Like, why don’t you just go build 10 businesses?

Mike: That’s not easy, building a business is not easy.

Scott: It’s not, and my answer always and I want your take on this and all of you really is like, and it sounds kind of cheesy, and all that. But when you can have an impact on someone else’s business that actually allows them to have, that’s pretty awesome. And I’ve got a guy in the inner circle as well, that he employs very similar to one of our contestants, employs stay at home moms. So the bigger we grow his business, the more stay at home moms he employs. Why wouldn’t I be proud of that? Like, why wouldn’t that feel good. But that can play into your mind too, because you get the haters and all that stuff. But what’s your thoughts on that? Why are you doing that? You want to just make money, don’t you, Mike?

Mike: Well, the problem is that I do, everybody wants money, but I can tell you that it’s become less and less of a factor because and this can go off on a huge tangent, but there’s like the money to happiness quotient, and you get diminishing returns very quickly. Like, the more you make, you just want more stuff. And eventually, things don’t make you happy. And I’ve been through…

Scott: I agree with that.

Mike: Yeah. So I can tell you the things that give me immense satisfaction are actually ripping at Steve Chou. That is my favorite thing to do. It really is, like of all the things and that’s the only reason I keep doing ecommerce is I can rip on Steve Chou.

Scott: Steve Chou.

Mike: Yeah, but you were just talking about this. First of all, how do I go sign up for the inner circle?

Scott: What’s that?

Mike: How do you sign up for the inner circle?

Scott: Oh, that’s great. I’m glad that you’re plugging in, thank you. It’s TASinnercircle.com, its application only. You have to be at a certain level.

Mike: To get to inner circle.

Scott: Yes, it’s a great group.

Mike: So, the thing that’s really actually bought a lot of satisfaction to me, and I’m sure all of us have experienced as we all have similar stuff going on, the comments that we get when you’ve changed someone’s life, we’ve let them quit their job. We’ve allowed them to get their business out of a hole, helped them when they’re struggling just like be someone that cry on their shoulder, that stuff brings me way more satisfaction than seeing one of my products sell better. And that’s really the honest truth. I know it sounds like BS, because like, that’s the stuff you’re supposed to say on a commercial. But I’m a weird, twisted person.

Greg: What do you got to stay there Mr. Chou?

Steve: I want to say that it was kind of rewarding, right. We were on the 5 Minute Pitch, and all of us — some of the contestants referenced all of us in changing their lives. And that was very rewarding. And when you get to Scott Voelker’s age, your priorities start to change.

Scott: I’m the oldest one in this group too.

Steve: Yes.

Scott: That’s pretty sad.

Steve: We call grandpa Volker.

Scott: Actually it’s going to be papa. I’ve already agreed on the name. I am, I got a daughter who’s 23, she’s probably ready, yeah.

Steve: When you get to Scott says he starts getting a little preachy.

Scott: It’s true, it’s true.

Steve: For me it’s all about the happiness quotient. So I’m taking on projects now that just make me happy like 5 Minute Pitch, podcast, the blog, focusing on…

Scott: There’s really no money being made here for us.

Steve: Oh yeah.

Scott: In 5 Minute Pitch.

Steve: We’re in debt actually in this project.

Scott: As of right now, actually if you want to be a sponsor of the 5 Minute Pitch, reach out to Steve Chou at My Wife Quit Her Job. Is that how they would get ahold of you?

Steve: There’s two…

Scott: Yeah but you’re going to take care of the sponsors. Yeah, just email support@theamazingseller.com if you’re interested in being a sponsor. We have not locked all of the sponsors in, but we do have some interest, so go ahead.

Mike: I was just saying that you know life’s taking a turn for the worst when you’re paying to be happy, like to hang out and have this happy to stay there. Steve was just talking of that’s pretty much what’s happened with the 5 Minute Pitch. We’re all like…

Scott: That’s pretty awesome.

Mike: Just write us checks so we can like hang out together be happy for three days.

Scott: This is good for our lives. I’m not going to lie, this has been pretty awesome, some really great guest judges I’m not going to give them away so you guys can go over and watch the 5 Minute Pitch when it airs. It’s really great judges, great conversations, great connections, and great people that we’re actually helping. And I think that even though they’re not going to win maybe most of them because we got like one winner, they’re all getting value, and the people watching this you’re going to get value.

Mike: I mean I love doing this stuff. I can’t wait to — we know who the finalists are as we record this but I’m going to get any of that away, but we got some finalists that are going to be coming to the…

Scott: How about the twist?

Mike: No, no.

Scott: No, no just tell them that there was a twist.

Mike: There’s a twist at the end, but I can’t tell you what the twist is. But the finalists are coming to Sellers Summit in Miami. If you want to be a part of that, is it sellerssummit.com Steve?

Steve: Sellerssummit.com.

Mike: Sellerssummit.com. Come get your ticket. There’s not many tickets left. So you guys have got to go do that soon because it’s a very small, tight knit conference. It’s one of my favorite ones that go to every year mostly because Steve allows me to speak and it gives me opportunity to feel good about myself for about three minutes until he tells me I did a horrible talk. But besides that, it’s a great conference. The thing I really love about it is it’s a smaller conference compared to some of these massive conferences out there. You get an opportunity to talk to other likeminded entrepreneurs, get away from the office for a few days, and really commiserate in some ways with other entrepreneurs, but also learn a lot and just get away from the office and think about something different for a few minutes.

Steve: What I like about my event is that I got the stage and I can make fun of anyone I want. And I got the mic and no one can…

Scott: I’m actually afraid this year. I am.

Steve: Oh, we got funny photos.

Scott: That’s right.

Steve: That I have to work with.

Scott: Yes, yes.

Steve: I need to tap into Liz’s archive there.

Scott: No, it’s a great event. I will be there again; thanks to Steve, he invited me back. It’s my fourth time being back. Yeah, this is this is pretty crazy. So I’m excited to be back. I know a lot of people, there’s a lot of people that are repeats that come back as well. So, it’s always a pretty nice group.

Mike: It seems, I mean, from an outside perspective, it seems like half the audience. I don’t know what the real stats are.

Steve: Yeah, actually, we sold over 50% of the tickets within a week of the ending of the last one.

Scott: And why don’t we talk about this real quick, you make a lot of money on the event, don’t you?

Steve: No. Man, for the amount of work involved.

Scott: And I’m starting to learn this right now.

Steve: Yes, that’s right with Brand Accelerator.

Scott: Brand Accelerator live. It’s…

Steve: You don’t realize what it takes.

Scott: It’s a lot of work. And I actually I questioned myself and you kind of warned me before I did it. I just wanted to do it because I wanted to bring the community together. And I wanted to have my own thing, and I’ve got something I’m going to reveal there that I’m working on, a little secret project. But yeah, man, it’s you don’t make any money really. You got to put a lot of money down first also. You’re taking a big risk, and it’s really to help the people. I mean, you could do so much more doing a workshop or a webinar or something like that, right. But it’s really about the people, the community, you, and Toni. We got to give Toni some credit here.

Steve: We do. We should give her a shout out. Well, yeah Toni, you are awesome. She’s the secret behind the success. She is, she really is.

Scott: But yeah, it’s really not a money play. It’s really bringing community. And you have a great community now that comes there, like every year.

Steve: And our events are going to be similar. We purpose to kind of keep it kind of small, so everyone can hang out and meet each other, develop their own masterminds, keep in touch.

Scott: And there’s been a lot of that, right. I’ve heard a lot of people say, I’ve met so and so at the event, we’ve kept in touch, we have our own little weekly mastermind or monthly mastermind. So because it’s lonely, man.

Greg: That’s why we got to put on 5 Minute Pitch just so we can hang out.

Scott: I know, I know. This has been a great three days. Actually, it’s tiring, though. I said this, my hips are sore just from crossing my legs in different ways.

Mike: And you’re looking different [inaudible 00:40:53].

Scott: But all right, let’s wrap this up. I think we have dinner plans that should be arriving here soon. Anything else you wanted to add about any takeaways. Like, give me one takeaway right now that’s just kind of like in your head from the 5 Minute Pitch.

Mike: I mean, this is going to sound so stupid. But I’m going to say I love my life. Seriously, man, like, it’s been great hanging out with you guys and the guest judges. I love doing this stuff. Like, it just — this is such a — it’s been so awesome. I really like – Thanksgiving is coming up as we’re recording this. And I’ve been thinking a lot about this type of stuff. I’m just thankful that I’ve been able to live such a cool life, I’ve been able to travel, do cool things, meet cool people, be an entrepreneur, and not have to live on someone else’s terms. This is the type of thing where you’re really realizing that’s really cool for me.

Scott: How about you Greg?

Greg: My biggest takeaway from this is, it was an excellent reminder that I just love working with entrepreneurs. It’s just like such a passionate group of individuals. I love hearing all their different stories. It’s really easy just to get stuck behind their computer week in and week out, and not really have those connections with other people. And hearing all these different individual pitch, all their very different businesses, all the different ways to create businesses and how they have really changed their lives, just like had a huge impact on their whole lives was pretty magical, special.

Steve: I agree with Mike. It’s funny, all my friends back home, they’re all — a lot of them are Asians and we’re all engineers, lawyers, and doctors. I just don’t get a whole lot of entrepreneurship love. So, I just realized that I just love hanging out with entrepreneurs. And the more I can do to build the community or have events like 5 Minute Pitch or Brand Accelerator, I’m there, man.

Scott: Yeah, I agree. I mean, I don’t know. Like, it’s funny, I want you guys just take on this one too, this is another one. I didn’t think about this one. Like, you get to a certain level though, right? And you think, oh once I get there, it’s kind of like, you’re done, or you made it. And then you get there and you’re like, oh, wait a minute, this is cool but what’s next, right? Like what’s going to energize you. But from here, I think what I really learned from the people that we were able to hang out with is just like Greg said, they’re hustlers. They want, a lot of them want the lifestyle, they want a lifestyle business. But they want to also create something that they can be proud of, and that they’re passionate about. And a lot of passion ran through this group, a lot of passion.

Steve: You got to have a higher purpose too. I know for me, we did it so we could stay at home and spend more time with the kids. But if you’re just doing it for the money, you’ll probably eventually feel a little bit empty and you’ll be looking for something else.

Scott: Yeah, and I mean, money is good, right? Money allows us to do really cool things, and travel and whatever, or just spend more time with your family or your friends or do this stuff. I basically flew here, five hour flight to get here to hang out with you guys and then also hang out with some cool entrepreneurs for three days, and run through this process. And that’s what I’m really finding is just like, I’m really being able to meet cool people like you guys, hanging out with you guys, building our relationship deeper and expanding our minds. And I mean, who knows where that’s going to go? But just these people that were able to help. This is really so just satisfying.

Mike: Yeah.

Scott: So, all right, let’s wrap this up. All right, let’s wrap it up. I know we kind of rambled a little bit there at the end. But that’s just because…

Mike: Is anybody still listening to this thing?

Scott: I don’t know, I think they are. All right, 5 Minute Pitch. I’m going to give you guys one more pitch on that. All right, head over to 5MinutePitch.com. Register over there, or sign up, you’ll get notifications. You can also probably go on Facebook and find it around there too. I know, Steve, you posted some stuff over there and I’m posting some stuff. But yeah, just follow along. It’s great to follow along, get some information from just listening to these people’s stories, how they got the ideas, how they kind of got to where they are, where they’re going, the advice that we’ve given them, some feedback, all that stuff. You’ll definitely learn through that process. So yeah, let’s, let’s wrap it up. Mike, what do you want to say man? You’re good; you want to wrap it up, you want to give some words of wisdom?

Mike: Words of wisdom. I think you got to be ready to come on Five Minute pitch Season Two. I’m announcing it right here. Are we going to do this or?

Scott: Yeah, I think so. I mean, we got to figure out everything else. But yeah, I think so. We’re going to say 95% yes.

Mike: Something like that.

Scott: All right.

Mike: All right. Serious words of wisdom.

Steve: Yeah, give me that.

Mike: You don’t have to plan everything in advance and like worry about everything in advance. I mean, I think that the 5 Minute Pitch is a perfect example of this. We had a general guideline of what we wanted to do here but we knew that we could create a good final product. And it’s interesting if you knew what was kind of happening behind the scenes, it was a little bit of a poop show in some [inaudible 00:45:59] cards. But I think that the final product is going to come out good because they were really good contestants, we’re all pretty confident that we can produce good content.

And I think it’s important because like if we had sat around and tried to plan every little detail, we never would have got this off the ground. We were just like, let’s do it. And we did it. And we figured it out. I think that we haven’t seen the finished product. We’re still figuring some of this stuff out but we got to this point. And I think when we see the final product; we’re going to all be really proud of it.

Steve: Mike. First of all, I think we’re giving ourselves a little bit too much credit here. This would not have happened whatsoever without Liz. She is the brains behind the project. If it was just us, I don’t even know if we would have made it out to California to be honest with you guys.

Scott: We wouldn’t be sitting here.

Steve: We wouldn’t be sitting here.

Scott: For sure.

Steve: Exactly. We were like, hey, did you guys book the contestants? No, man, I thought you were supposed to do that.

Scott: If you’re thinking about coming to the 5 Minute Pitch, because you do have a business, you’re an entrepreneur, but you’re scared, I’ll just let you that every single person that made it into the final around thought they absolutely had no idea and that they would have been the worst person pitching on it or whatever else. It just goes to show that I think everyone doesn’t realize how good they actually are, how good of a business they actually have. So if you’re on the fence or just thinking about a consider, I would recommend for you to apply.

Greg: Yeah, so head over to 5 Minute Pitch.com. And you can go ahead and register there, and then get more information about if you want to apply for maybe season two.

Mike: Is that it, Mike drop, Mike drop. All right, Mike, Mike, drop, drop.

I don’t know about you. But I am super excited for the 5 Minute Pitch which is going to air sometime in January of 2019. If you want to get updates about the show, head on over to 5MinutePitch.com. And we’re actually taking applications for next season already. So sign up now. For more information about this podcast episode, go to mywifequitherjob.com/episode235.

And once again, I want to thank Privy for sponsoring this episode. Privy is the email capture provider that I personally use to turn visitors into email subscribers. They offer email capture, exit intent, and site targeting tools to make it super simple as well. And I like Privy because it’s so powerful and you can basically trigger custom pop-ups for any primer that is closely tied to your ecommerce store. If you want to give it a try, it is free. So, head on over to Privy.com/Steve, once again, that’s P-R-I-V-Y.com/Steve.

I also want to thank Klaviyo which is my email marketing platform of choice for ecommerce merchants. You can easily put together automated flows like an abandoned cart sequence, a post-purchase flow, a win-back campaign, basically all these sequences that will make you money on autopilot. So, head on over to mywifequitherjob.com/K-L-A-V-I-Y-O, once again, that’s mywifequitherjob.com/K-L-A-V-I-Y-O.

Now I talk about how I use all these tools on my blog, and if you’re interested in starting your own e-commerce store, head on over to mywifequitherjob.com and sign up for my free six-day mini course. Just type in your email and I’ll send you the course right away. Thanks for listening.

Outro: Thanks for listening to the My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast where we’re giving the courage people need to start their own online business. For more information, visit Steve’s blog at www.Mywifequitherjob.com.

Steve: You’re listening to the My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast, the place where I bring on successful bootstrapped business owners and dig deep into what strategies they use to grow their businesses. Now today I’ve got a special guest with me on the show Ben Jabbawy who is the founder of Privy. Now, you’ve probably heard me talk about Privy on this podcast before because it’s one of the tools that I use in my ecommerce store. But today, we are going to go into great depth about cart abandonment. And to give you a heads up, there are actually two strategies mentioned in today’s episode that I’m actually not doing with my online store that I will definitely be implementing for the holidays.

But before we begin, I want to give a quick shout out to Privy once again. Privy is the tool that I use to build my email list for both my blog and my online store. And you know what’s funny is after talking to Ben today, it turns out that I’ve only been scratching the surface of what Privy can do. Right now I’m using privy to display a cool Wheel of Fortune pop up. Basically a user gives their email for a chance to win valuable prizes in our store. And customers love the gamification aspect of this and when I implemented this form email signups increased by 131%.

But you can also use Privy to reduce cart abandonment with cart saver pop ups and email as well at one super low price. So bottom line, Privy allows me to turn visitors into email subscribers and recover lost sales via pop up, and email as well. So, head on over to preview.com/Steve and try the tool for free. And if you decide you need some of the more advanced features, use coupon code MWQHJ For 15% off. Once again that’s P-R-I-V-Y.com/Steve.

I also want to give a quick shout out to Klaviyo who is also a sponsor of the show. Always blessed to have Klaviyo as a sponsor because they are the email marketing platform that I personally use for my e-commerce store, and I depend on them for over 30% of my revenues. Now Klaviyo is the only email platform out there that is specifically built for ecommerce stores, and here is why it is so powerful.

Klaviyo can track every single customer who has shopped in your store and exactly what they bought. So let’s say I want to send out an email to everyone who purchased a red handkerchief in the last week, easy. Let’s say I want to set up a special auto-responder sequence to my customers depending on what they bought, piece of cake, and there is full revenue tracking on every single email. Now, Klaviyo is the most powerful email platform that I’ve ever used and you could try them for free at mywifequitherjob.com/K-L-A-V-I-Y-O. Once again, that’s mywifequitherjob.com/K-L-A-V-I-Y-O, now on to the show.

Intro: Welcome to the My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast. We will teach you how to create a business that suits your lifestyle, so you can spend more time with your family and focus on doing the things that you love. Here is your host, Steve Chou.

Steve: Welcome to My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast. Today I’m excited to have Ben Jabbawy on the show. Now, Ben is the founder of Privy, the tool that I use to manage all my email capture forms. And I actually randomly met Ben at the Shopify Unite conference several years ago. I think Ed Hallen of Klaviyo introduced the two of us and at the time I had no idea who this guy was and what he did. And likewise, I’m sure he had never heard of the number one hanky vendor on the internet.

Well, we kept in touch and today I’m a loyal user of his tool. And he’s actually been a big help for me for anything email related. And looking back, it was just one of those chance relationships that turned into something more. Anyway, with the holidays right around the corner, Ben and I are going to talk about some advanced cart abandonment strategies. And with that, welcome to show Ben, how you doing today?

Ben: Hey, Steve, I’m doing great. Super excited to be here.

Steve: So we’ve chatted a lot. We got a chance to meet up at the Klaviyo conference a couple months ago, but I actually don’t even know the back-story of Privy, like when did you decide to start this company and why?

Ben: Woo, man. So when did I actually start the company or when did I launch the ecommerce?

Steve: When did you launch the ecommerce product and what were your motivations? Like how did all this stuff get started?

Ben: Yeah. So we launched the product that people know us for in 2016. We had been tinkering with this idea of direct to consumer was going to need a different set of tools, than what B2B marketers were using. B2B was using HubSpot and Marketo and those are great solutions. But if you’re marketing directly to consumers and selling transactionally online, it was just going to require a different set of brands and workflows that are built specifically for those vendors in mind. And at first, we actually we didn’t really start on ecommerce, we were in retail. But in 2016, we really found our footing when we entered the Shopify market.

Steve: So that’s actually when we met right? I think you just launched then when we just met.

Ben: Yeah, you and I met in 2016 at Unite. That’s right.

Steve: Right. Okay, and you probably just — wow, okay, I got you at the early stages, awesome.

Ben: Yeah.

Steve: So Ben, we all know that cart abandonment is a huge problem for ecommerce store owners. Let’s actually start with some stats, I know what the stats are for my store but in your experience with Privy, like what percentage of users have you seen abandon their cart?

Ben: Yeah, so we’re seeing upwards of 60, 70% of carts going abandoned. So you’re spending all that money driving the traffic to the store, getting the word out, you’re getting excited, they’re further down the funnel adding products to the cart, and then seven out of those 10 people will actually abandon the cart before completing purchase. So it’s a huge, huge opportunity.

Steve: And I don’t know if you know the answer to this question, but what are some of the primary reasons for that happening?

Ben: Yeah, so it’s not always price, right, especially it goes down on browsing. Certainly that’s a big part of it. People are just kind of tinkering, but price is definitely the number one reason that we hear, also…

Steve: Is it shipping price or because they should in theory, already know the price when they’re looking at the product and adding it to the cart.

Ben: Yep. So in many cases within price, we hear shipping price or tax like the all in price once that’s calculated and checked out, that is the number one reason that we hear. There’s also a ton of reasons that people leave around, they have questions about the product. So, thinking about guarantees, or reviews or whatever it is, how it actually is going to function, that that drives a ton of abandonment as well. And in some cases, there’s a small percentage that’s actually like the payment isn’t accepted, or errors at check out that cause a portion of abandonment as well.

Steve: Mm-huh. I’m just thinking that if one of these three things that you just named was actually the factor for not checking out, then would an abandonment strategy help because you’re not going to fix some of those things, right?

Ben: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think, look, part of it is just people get distracted on the web, right? So attention spans are short. And so, I think that’s why you hear so many people placing an emphasis on an abandonment strategy. Certainly price is something you could work on, answering questions is something that you could work on. But yeah, there’s going to be just like in any business, there’s a certain percentage of these abandoned carts that happen that you probably can’t address. But that’s a smaller percentage compared to the ones that are leaving for price or because they have questions etc.

Steve: Yeah, and then I know what my abandoned cart percentage is, it’s roughly 20 something percent, but what are some of the…

Ben: That’s not bad.

Steve: Oh, it’s not bad. I think I read on one of your posts that people are getting 30 to 60 and so that’s why I kind of wanted to ask what those people are doing differently.

Ben: Oh, you mean in terms of recovery?

Steve: Recovery yeah, recovery yeah.

Ben: So you’re saying if you send 20 abandoned cart emails or 100, 20 will actually…

Steve: That’s correct.

Ben: No, that’s pretty good. I mean, we actually are seeing a lot of people that are in the three and 4% in terms of recovery.

Steve: Really?

Ben: Yeah.

Steve: Are you talking about three or 4% off of a single email. I’m talking about across three emails cumulative.

Ben: Oh, okay. So then yeah, I would expect closer to 20 then that seems in line, yeah definitely.

Steve: I think I read one of your articles that people are getting between 30 and 60, though. How do you achieve that? Or maybe it wasn’t one of your posts; maybe it was someone else’s post. I was doing research last night.

Ben: Yeah, that doesn’t sound like it was ours, so that may have come from somewhere else. But you could imagine that if you’re combining a couple of different tactics and I’m happy to talk about them, but if you’re thinking about cart saving pop ups over check out but then look for cart value and the exit signal; I can talk about some of the numbers there. If you’re also sending multiple abandoned cart emails, and then if you’re also doing something like through Shoelace retargeting, you could definitely imagine how the numbers get up above 30%.

Steve: Okay, you just named a bunch of things there. And let’s kind of just start with all the different aspects and kind of break it down to the people listening. It’s harder on a podcast, because they’re just listening and it’s not visual. So let’s just start with the different strategies that you’ve implemented with your clients.

Ben: Sure. Yeah. So first things first, while someone is actually on the checkout in process, you can tie that with this widely used concept of exit intent, right? So if I know that someone’s on the checkout page, and they’re exiting and there’s still value in their cart, then I can actually predict before they ever leave the checkout that they’re about to abandon their cart. And so at Privy, we’ve developed this concept of what we call a cart saving display. It’s exactly what you’d imagine; you can target it just to those people as they’re leaving your checkout process with that money still in the cart, you can design and target a last minute offer.

Steve: What are some metrics that you use to predict that they’re actually going to leave?

Ben: So we’re looking for exit intent. So on desktop, that’s going to be their mouse accelerating towards closing down the browser tab, or moving their mouse to type in a different destination and the URL bar. And on mobile, if you’re thinking about exit intent, it’s either switching between browser tabs on mobile like you can think of just that double click or on the checkout exit intent, we would look for clicking the back button.

Steve: Okay, and so when you detect one of these factors, oh, you’re talking about like a pop up?

Ben: Yeah. Yeah. So you could choose how to display this. But it could be a fly out, it could be a pop up, it could be a spin to win wheel. That’s really up to the merchant. But what you would do is you would use those triggers in your campaign and marry that with a minimum cart value and the fact that they’re still on a URL that contains checkout.

Steve: Interesting and you would you — what are some offers that have worked? Is it usually like some sort of discount offer?

Ben: Yes. So what we see is that a very simple cart saver that targets exactly that people on checkout leaving with either a 5% offer free of shipping offer or maybe 10%, that’s going to help you prevent 10% of carts that would have otherwise gone abandoned before they even leave the site.

Steve: Interesting. I always have a conflict when it comes to just giving coupon codes this way, because you kind of train people, right?

Ben: Yeah.

Steve: So how do you prevent that from happening?

Ben: Yeah. So one of the interesting techniques that a lot of our marketers use is this concept of not just a generic cart saver but a tiered cart saver, right? And so maybe you know your average order value very specifically, right? And maybe if someone has less than average order value, let’s say it was 50 bucks, you know what, you don’t want to train bad behavior. So if they have less than that in their cart, you’re going to let them abandon, but if they have three times average order value, let’s say they had 150 in their cart, then you may want to get a little bit more aggressive and maybe you just target that segment of cart abandonment with a cart saver. So that’s one thing.

The other is just around loading like a fly out that’s asking for, hey, it looks like before you go, did you have any questions about this product? Let us know, we’ll get back to you. You can use a number of different kinds of mechanisms to just try to do everything you can before you let them leave your site. I think that’s like the number one takeaway that shocked us before we launched, the concept of a cart saving display was how comfortable we as merchants are letting everyone leave the site before we try to do anything.

Steve: Let me ask you this question. At least for my store, I know that people in check out they’ll go back and look to see what’s in their cart, and continue shopping. They’ll go to check out but then they might go back and add something extra. Is there a way to just flash this pop up when I know they’re going to leave the site to a different URL versus staying on the site?

Ben: Yeah. So, there’s a number of different kind of triggers you can think about, right. And so maybe exit intent on mobile is treated differently than exit intent on desktop. Certainly it’s something that a lot of our users do anyhow, that is segment different campaigns. So, in terms of this scenario that you’re talking about, there’s no way to necessarily like understand if the back button in this case is going to fire them back to like Facebook, versus back to your site. We don’t really have that level of detection, but that’s an awesome, awesome idea.

Steve: Okay. And so how do people set things up then? You talked about desktop versus Mobile. What are some examples of how you could set it up?

Ben: Yeah. So on desktop, a lot of people like to use our full screen overlay option. So this is a pop up maybe with a background image that literally takes up the entire page, you’ve probably experienced those. And that can be hugely powerful on desktop for a cart saving display. But on mobile, that’s not really anything we would recommend. So maybe on mobile instead of a pop up, you’re using a fly out, that’s kind of just takes the bottom third or the top third of the screen, right? So you may care about the design based on the device.

You may also look for different signals, right? So certainly on desktop, a mouse leaving is a good signal, but maybe on mobile, there’s just a time right? If someone’s on the checkout page with a certain amount of money in their cart for two minutes or a minute, maybe that’s a good signal to load a last minute kind of offer.

Steve: Interesting. Do you know how people mostly set that up with timers exit intent?

Ben: Yeah, so with cart savers, almost all of our users use exit intent for a cart saver looking for that signal, and they marry that with how much money is in the cart. So they may be presenting larger offers to people that have higher values of product in the cart.

Steve: Okay, and what does it exactly mean for exit intent on a desktop, is it when your mouse hovers away from the window or when it clicks the back button or?

Ben: On desktop, we look at mouse movement and acceleration. And so if your mouse is quickly accelerating to close the browser or to the URL bar at the very top, then those would be the two signals we use based on the mouse location and pace essentially.

Steve: Okay, and so if I were to move my mouse quickly, just outside the window to click on another window, it would not come up then?

Ben: No it shouldn’t.

Steve: Okay. I always wonder if the term exit intent, it seems like a lot of people have different implementations. I was just kind of curious how you guys did it.

Ben: Yeah, I mean there’s a number of different ways to handle that.

Steve: So we had the cart saver, what is another method to recover a cart?

Ben: Yeah. So historically, I think everyone talks about checkout abandonment emails. And so, what that means for those that are new is that like Shopify actually has a free tool that does this inside the Shopify admin. If someone gets far enough along in the checkout process to have included their email address, then if they leave before completing purchase, Shopify lets you send a checkout abandonment email and that is hugely powerful. I think MailChimp says that checkout abandonment emails drive 30 times the revenue of other emails that are sent. And there’s no doubt that that’s hugely powerful.

But the challenge that we’ve seen is a lot of your abandonment that happens on your site actually happens on the cart page with people who have added to cart or on the checkout with people who have added to cart, gone to check out, and have not gotten far enough along in the checkout to include their email address. And so it’s kind of like this dirty little secret of checkout abandonment emails where right now even all the ESPs that piggyback off of the checkout abandonments in Shopify actually aren’t able to recognize a large portion of who is abandoning their cart.

So, even though checkout abandonment emails work very well that can be very effective, Stephen your case it sounds like you’re recovering 20% of carts through that mechanism. That’s awesome. Imagine if you were able to send those same exact emails that are working so well to a larger percentage of the pie that was abandoning their cart.

Steve: Walk me through the process.

Ben: Yeah. So let’s say you’re already using something like Privy to convert first time visitors into email subscribers with a pop up, right? So that’s probably converting about 10% of traffic to your store, or somewhere around there. So some of those people, the moment they register there, they become known entities to your database. And then Privy continues to track those people when they browse and add, and let’s say we’ve done exactly that. We filled out a form in this visit and we added a red t-shirt to cart, but at that point, Privy knows who you are, and your abandonment email system or Shopify does not know who you are, right?

Steve: Right.

Ben: So at that point, if I leave the site with that red t-shirt in my cart, the only system that A, has proper opt in and B, has the ability to identify who that email address is that just left the site would be Privy in that case, right?

Steve: Okay.

Ben: So versus if that same person filled out the form, added to cart, moved to the checkout process and started filling out my email and check out, at that point your normal checkout abandonment system would be able to send that abandoned checkout email.

Steve: So for most people who are doing email capture, there’s really no way to communicate with your shopping cart that you have an address right?

Ben: That’s correct yeah. I mean you could certainly sync the email addresses to Shopify or MailChimp, but that’s not — that’s considered offline data. That’s just an email address. It’s not the email address tied to the visitor behavior.

Steve: Right. And so the piece that I’m missing here is traditionally, the way I’ve used Privy was as an email capture form. But if I’m going to do an abandoned cart with Privy, I would also want knowledge of what’s in the cart, right? Is all that information past as well?

Ben: Yes, yeah. So we know which products are in the cart. We know your previous browsing history, what products you looked at, all of that stuff we are storing alongside your form submissions inside Privy.

Steve: Okay. And so what are some of the rules then, in terms of sending this email and what would you contain in this email? Like, what does the email look like and when do you send it out exactly?

Ben: Yeah. So in the same way that we would recommend for your cart saver it’s thinking about that tiered approach, right? We would recommend something similar here for cart abandonment. So in the Privy cart abandonment solution, probably the first email should be set for an hour after abandonment. And at that point, we actually wouldn’t recommend including a coupon. I would recommend keeping that short and sweet and saying, hey so and so, I’m reaching out from Ben’s t-shirt store and we noticed you left some products in your cart. Did you have any questions about how that red t-shirt fits or the sizing or anything? If you have any questions whatsoever, let me know. If not, here’s a link to complete your checkout.

So just that soft reminder with the offer to kind of answer any lingering questions that they have preventing them from purchase can be hugely impactful. Then you might consider a second email that’s maybe six or 12 hours after abandonment and maybe at that point, there’s some more information about the product. This would be an appropriate time to think about a small coupon if the purchase is still incomplete, and then perhaps like you did in yours Steve, you actually have a third email in your series as well. So definitely keeping it to kind of two to three is where we’ve seen a lot of success for our merchants, and that’s where their kind of recovery rates climb from three to 4% to something much higher than that.

Steve: How do you determine how much time to wait before sending out each email?

Ben: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s kind of for starters; it’s a guessing game, right? We see every merchant just start with that one hour email or a 24 hour email. In my view, waiting 24 hours is a little bit too long just given the way that we engage as consumers on the web. So, definitely starting with one hour for the first not necessarily including an offer in that, and then I think it’s really a question on then the next two. And I would kind of decide on when to send the second and third based on anything else you may be doing like are you using retargeting ads. And if you are, then there’s a chance that that person will see a retargeting ad the same day, so maybe two emails in one day is too much. But if you’re not doing anything to supplement your checkout emails, then one at one hour and the second at six or 12 seems appropriate.

S; I know for mine, I think my third one actually converts higher than my second one. I think I had that set at 48 hours and the second was that at 24 hours. It’s weird. I can’t explain it though.

Ben: Yeah. And this is for the linen store, right?

Steve: That’s correct. Yes.

Ben: Okay, and [inaudible 00:24:58]. So, you have three emails, what is kind of the message of each? And is there an offer in each?

Steve: There is not an offer, I don’t because — after talking to you today, I think what I’m going to do is go back and create a separate abandoned cart that is only for high ticket item purchasers. Like if they have a cart that is over like 100 bucks or so, I’ll probably going to try to give them a coupon and keep my existing one for people with carts that are maybe like below 50 bucks or something like that.

Ben: Yeah.

Steve: But I’m not doing that right now. So what I do is the first one is just like a gentle reminder. The second one says something like, hey, we still have your cart saved for you. And the third one is your cart is going to expire soon.

Ben: Nice, that’s cool.

Steve: And so that’s how I have it set. I’m kind of against coupons in general, but I can see the value in giving that out to someone who’s going to be a big customer because we actually reach out to these big customers later and try to make them long term customers that buy over and over again. Because the larger customers at our store tend to be event planners with a lot of buying power. So that’s just a unique case obviously for our store.

Ben: Yeah but I look, I think like one of the reasons we’ve grown a lot is because people want to bring a level of specificity or relevance or personalization whatever buzzword you want to use to how they display messages on their site. And we feel that that’s exactly what they should be doing in their checkout abandonment emails and cart abandonment emails as well. So, I think your instinct around treating high value ticket abandoners and lower cart value abandoners differently is like that’s where you can start to chip away at each of these segments differently because they kind of are acting very different.

Steve: How do you make sure that your abandoned checkout emails don’t interfere with your just abandoned cart emails?

Ben: Yeah, so we’re actually rolling out integration. So basically, just to clarify how most people in the industry do this, if you use something like MailChimp, what they’ll do is they’ll actually piggyback off of the Shopify checkout abandonment API to understand which draft orders have been abandoned essentially. And if eligible, they’ll help you send that email. So it’s all based off of the Shopify checkout abandonment, and we do the same thing, right. So we’ll basically piggyback off of that and our recommendation is if people are going to adopt the Privy cart abandonment solution is that they just simply turn off that email from Shopify.

Steve: I just wanted to take a moment to tell you about my brand new service that will help you grow your email list for free through group giveaways. This service is called Gobrandwin.com, and we’ve had amazing results so far. In one of our last giveaways, we gathered almost 12,000 emails and grew the email lists of participating ecommerce stores by over 56% overnight. Now, does getting more customers and more emails for free sound interesting to you? Here’s how it works.
If you own your own e-commerce brand, and you have a following, you contribute a gift card from your store valued at $200 or more. We will then assemble gift cards from other participating brands with a similar customer demographic and turn it into one massive sweepstakes giveaway. Now, everyone is going to send this giveaway email to their entire customer base, and drive them to a special landing page on Gobrandwin.com. We will acquire email addresses. Now consumers enter their emails, we send them special offers from your store and select a grand prize winner.

And after the sweepstakes is over, you will receive the full list of entrants and instantly grow your email list. And because my co founder and I have a pretty big network, we will also send the giveaway entry form to related influencers within the same niche and instantly augment any sweepstakes that we run. So bottom line the concept is very simple, we all help each other promote each other’s businesses, get free promotion from bloggers, and share the customer base. Now, if you’re interested in growing your email list, then head on over to Gobrandwin.com. That’s G-O-B-R-A-N-D-W-I-N.com, that’s Gobrandwin.com, and it is 100% free. Now back to the show.

Okay and here’s just something that just popped into my head just now. Is there a way to send special pop ups or emails if I recognize that a certain person with a certain email address is hanging out in our store?

Ben: Yes, definitely possible. How would you want to do that based on how many orders they’ve made or?

Steve: Like if I know that there’s someone who’ve spent a lot of money in the past, and their cart might not meet my threshold right now but I want to give them special treatment.

Ben: Yes. Yeah. So we offer a whole slew of targeting rules, so we call them for displays on your site. And one of those is how many orders they’ve made, or how much money they’ve spent on your site.

Steve: Oh, so you keep track of that?

Ben: Yeah. So, that would be kind of how we recommend it. We don’t let you actually input a user’s email address to target but we do let you run all sorts of advanced targeting rules and pair those together so hitting a very specific segment with a specific message.

Steve: Yeah, I mean, obviously, that’s the better way to do it, right? Otherwise, you have to maintain this email list that you have to manually update.

Ben: Right. We want to take the heavy lifting off of you. So as long as you have an idea of what that message should be, then you can design that in Privy and add the proper targeting rules to hit that audience. Just keep in mind that the more advanced you get on the targeting rules, the smaller the audience becomes that matches all.

Steve: Sure. I mean, obviously these would be very specialized abandoned cart solutions specifically targeting a small subset of people that are maybe high ticket item people similar to what we already discussed right?

Ben: Right. Yeah.

Steve: Can you comment on email abandoned cart versus the cart saver pop up versus Facebook ads and push notifications as a means to recover abandoned carts?

Ben: Yeah. So and it’s good. It’s good, right. Like the holiday season is coming up. One of the things that we’ve seen in general and then I’ll dive into that is that over the holiday season, you should expect about 100% lift in traffic. That was what we saw across all our merchants’ stores last holiday season. So, all that means is if 70% of your carts go abandoned normally, and you’re going to double your traffic over the holiday months, then that 70% is going to reflect a much larger amount of carts that go abandoned.

So, if there’s two things that you can do that are incredibly low cost, one would be to set up a cart saving display, and if you’d like targeted just to the people that have a certain amount of money or higher in their cart, big spenders about to leave. That is incredibly low cost; you don’t need to pay to do that. The second thing is whether it’s just the free checkout abandonment email from Privy — sorry, from Shopify, or a solution like Privy, I absolutely recommend that you have some sort of abandonment email funnel set up before the holiday season.

And lastly, if you do have some budget to spend, I think for the holiday season, I would recommend focusing on driving the traffic to your site from your existing list, and then focusing any sort of paid marketing dollars you have around retargeting on Facebook or Instagram the people that are leaving your site without completing purchase. And a lot of the audience probably doesn’t have huge budgets to drive pay on social and that’s fine. So I would look at that as kind of like a third really important stat if you have some budget.

Steve: Okay, I mean traditionally Facebook retargeting of abandoned carts, the audience size for that is going to be large and I can’t imagine you’re going to be spending a whole lot of money on that. It’s not going to be that expensive, right?

Ben: Exactly, and those are the people that are such high value and so high intent that are literally at the bottom of your funnel, and perhaps if they didn’t leave because of an issue with your product or a question, then at least this is just another way to stay top of mind without having to send six abandoned cart emails let’s say.

Steve: Great, let me ask you this question and it just kind of popped into my mind again. When you’re using the cart saver during checkout, you probably want to deliver the coupon code right away, as opposed to having them leave the site and maybe check their email and then come back?

Ben: Yes, yes, definitely so 100% recommend in any case that you always reveal a coupon code on the site if that’s the point of what this person signing up for. So in a cart saver, if they’re on checkout, and leaving and you load something that says, hey, wait, complete your purchase now, join our email list and we’ll give you free shipping code, then you would want to reveal it right there on the confirmation of the pop up as opposed in an email.

Steve: Actually, now that I think about it, we already had their email because they’re in checkout right. So would you just want to display the coupon period?

Ben: Yeah, so there’s two camps here, and both can be incredibly effective. In some cases, if they’re on checkout, you actually don’t have their email yet, right? So we do see some of our users target a form that reveals the coupon code.

Steve: I see. That makes sense.

Ben: And then we have other users that that say, hey, I want to run the same exact campaign, but I want to target the people whose email addresses I actually already know. And I don’t want to ask for their email again, and I just want to reveal the code. So you can actually do both of those things inside of Privy. And we definitely like the more sophisticated the marketer, the more we see that branching. If we know the email address, obviously just reveal the code and if we don’t, we still want to try to capture the email just in case they still leave.

Steve: So when you reveal this coupon code, can you have it automatically entered?

Ben: Yes, so for Shopify we call it the magic coupon script. So whether it’s a master unique code but the same coupon code is what everyone gets. Or if it’s a unique coupon code, we can have it so that it automatically is entered into checkout, whether that’s on desktop or mobile. There’s huge value in that. We know how frustrating it can be. If you’re on a mobile device, you sign up, you get a coupon code and then you have to like remember this long thing. That’s not a really great experience. So we built the coupon script to do exactly that.

Steve: Nice. If we can move back to just email real quick, what are some subject lines in email copy that have worked the best in terms of conversions?

Ben: Yes. So you’re talking about like general email or…

Steve: I’m talking about abandoned cart emails in particular.

Ben: Yeah, so I think this is where own brand adds a lot of value, right? So if you have like a very human casual tone in your brand, weaving that into the subject lines is a great time to do that. I think with distractions and everything like that, a lot of times, just like a subject around, hey, don’t forget, you have this in your cart. That can actually be more effective than you might imagine, especially when you weave that kind of tone into it that they would expect. I think avoiding the offers in the beginning, in the subject line especially, is just going to help with deliverability and avoiding the promotional inbox. So I think we typically recommend that you stay away from that.

Steve: What about the second email assuming there’s no coupon?

Ben: Assuming there’s no coupon in terms of what we would recommend for subject.

Steve: Yeah.

Ben: So in this case, this might be a good opportunity to educate people, right? So, maybe the subject is still centered around like, you still have product in your cart or your cart is expiring soon, something to that effect. But the body of the email may just be pertinent to include a bit more information about your business. A, they may have forgotten about who you were in the last six or 24 hours and B, certainly they may have forgotten what’s in their cart. So, reminding them of those two things in that second email would be important.

Steve: Okay, so Ben, we’ve actually covered a lot of stuff. I was hoping that what you could do is if someone who’s running a store is actually not doing any of these things today, how would you recommend that they proceed, and what needs to be implemented before Black Friday?

Ben: Yeah, so A, we’re doing a free webinar about cart savers and abandonment over the holiday season. Our goal is to walk away with definitive steps you can take no matter how close to Black Friday. So, I highly recommend checking that out. Second, I would do two simple things. I would turn on a cart saving pop up from Privy that loads based on how much money is in someone’s cart and them being on the checkout experience with the exit intent trigger. I would also flip on…

Steve: So, this is only for checkout – sorry, the cart saver pop up is only for checkout?

Ben: Exactly.

Steve: Okay, got it.

Ben: Yeah, and that should help reduce about 10% of carts before they ever leave, a huge value right there. The second thing I would do is I would — whether it’s the Shopify free checkout abandonment email or the Privy $10 a month abandonment email, I would immediately get at least one email set up with or without an offer.

Steve: Okay. And then the advantage obviously with using a service like Privy is that once you have the email, you can show this send this email for any sort of abandonment whereas the Shopify only solution is there’s only standard checkout right?

Ben: That’s exactly right. Yeah, so we will help you send those abandonment emails to a larger percentage of people that are actually leaving products either in their cart or in checkout.

Steve: And on the cart saver pop up, the mobile should be a smaller portion of the screen real estate whereas do you recommend like the full screen takeover for desktop?

Ben: Yeah, for desktop cart savers we do recommend big involved, so full screen takeovers with messages, wait, before you go, reveal code now if there’s an offer, that has huge value. And for mobile definitely sticking with the fly out ideally positioned on the bottom is going to be best for the mobile experience.

Steve: Okay, that’s it, anything that I’m missing Ben, it seems pretty straightforward. Oh, so do you recommend using the timer in conjunction with the exit intent or just the exit intent?

Ben: I don’t know, the timer is kind of it seems to work really well. But as a consumer it feels a little bit kind of gimmicky. So, I think certainly feel free to experiment with it. But we found in a cart saving experience on the site, you don’t need a timer to really have a massive impact on reducing abandonment.

Steve: Okay. And then, of course, if you want to go the extra mile, you’ll have a separate abandon sequence for high ticket purchasers where you can actually give out a coupon and drastically improve your abandoned recovery rate.

Ben: That’s exactly right. So, if you’re just getting started, just make sure you have these concepts in place. And for those that are more advanced, definitely think about a tiered structure based on the value of someone’s cart that is leaving behind.

Steve: Well, Ben, if anyone has any questions for you about cart abandonment, you already mentioned your webinar. I apologize; I already forgot what it was, if you want to specify that again and where people can reach you online.

Ben: Yeah, so you just head to Privy.com, P-R-I-V-Y.com. We have very clear call to actions on when the webinars are and a checklist for preparing for Black Friday. That’s going to be up through the holiday season.

Steve: Cool. And if anyone needs any help implementing all this stuff, you guys have a support team that’ll help out right?

Ben: Oh, yeah, we have live chat support, we have customer success. We are staffing up quite a bit for the holiday season.

Steve: Cool. Well, I know that I am actually not doing many of the things that we discussed today. And so I’m going to put on my implementation hat and get this stuff done before the holidays for sure. But Ben thanks a lot for coming on the show. It’s really valuable.

Ben: Thanks Steve. Yeah, my pleasure, great to be here.

Steve: All right. Take care.

Hope you enjoyed that episode. Whenever I talk to anyone on this podcast, I always leave with yet another action item for my store. But the tips in today’s podcast are actually simple to implement and I’ll definitely have them ready by Black Friday. For more information about this episode, go to mywifequitherjob.com/episode233.

And once again I want to thank Klaviyo for sponsoring this episode. Klaviyo is my email marketing platform of choice for e-commerce merchants and you can easily put together automated flows like an abandoned cart sequence, a post-purchase flow, a win-back campaign, basically all these sequences that will make you money on autopilot. So, head on over to Mywifequitherjob.com/ K-L-A-V-I-Y-O. Once again that’s Mywifequitherjob.com/ K-L-A-V-I-Y-O.

I also want to thank Privy for sponsoring this episode. Privy is the email capture provider that I personally use to turn visitors into email subscribers. They offer email capture, exit intent, and site targeting tools to make it super simple as well. And I like Privy because it’s so powerful and you can basically trigger custom pop ups for any primer that is tied to your e-commerce store. If you want to give it a try, it is free. So head on over to Privy.com/Steve, once again that’s P-R-I-V-Y.com/Steve.

Now, I talk about how I use all these tools on my blog, and if you’re interested in starting your own ecommerce store, head on over to mywifequitherjob.com and sign up for my free six-day mini course. Just type in your email, and I’ll send you the course right away, thanks for listening.

Outro: Thanks for listening to the My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast, where we are giving the courage people need to start their own online business. For more information, visit Steve’s blog at www.mywifequitherjob.com.

Intro: You’re listening to the My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast, the place where I bring on successful bootstrapped business owners and delve deeply into what strategies are working and what strategies are not in business. Now, this week, I invited my buddy Nathan Resnick of Sourcify to give his expert opinion on the Trump tariffs. We talk about which products are affected and how to best avoid the brunt of the impact.

But before we begin, I want to give a quick shout out to Klaviyo who is a sponsor of the show. And I like Klaviyo because they are the email marketing platform that I personally use for my ecommerce store, and I depend on them for over 30% of my revenues. Now Klaviyo is the only email platform out there that is specifically built for ecommerce stores, and here is why it is so powerful.

Klaviyo can track every single customer who has shopped in your store and exactly what they bought. So let’s say I want to send out an email to everyone who purchased a red handkerchief in the last week, easy. Let’s say I want to set up a special auto-responder sequence to my customers depending on what they purchased, piece of cake, and there is full revenue tracking on every single email sent. Now, Klaviyo is the most powerful email platform that I’ve ever used and you could try them for free at mywifequitherjob.com/K-L-A-V-I-Y-O. Once again, that’s mywifequitherjob.com/K-L-A-V-I-Y-O.

I also want to give a shout out to Privy who is also a sponsor of the show. Privy is the tool that I use to build my email list for both my blog and my online store. Now what does Privy do? Well, Privy is an email list growth platform and they manage all of my email capture forms. And I use Privy hand-in-hand with my email marketing provider. Now they’re a bunch of companies out there that will manage email capture forms, but I like privy because they specialize in e-commerce.

Right now I’m using privy to display a cool wheel of fortune pop up. Basically a user gives their email for a chance to win valuable prices in our store. And customers love the gamification aspect of this. And when I implemented this form email signups increased by 131%. So bottom line, Privy allows me to turn visitors into email subscribers, which I then feed to my email provider to close the sale. So head on over to Privy.com/Steve and try it for free. And if you decide you need some of the more advanced features, use coupon code MWQHJ for 15% off. Once again, that’s P-R-I-V-Y.com/Steve. Now onto the show.

Welcome to the My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast. We will teach you how to create a business that suits your lifestyle, so you can spend more time with your family and focus on doing the things that you love. Here is your host, Steve Chou.

Steve: Welcome to the My Wife Quit her Job Podcast. Today, I’m really excited to have Nathan Resnick back on the show. And if you don’t remember Nathan, he is the founder of Sourcify, which is a company that helps you find manufacturers to produce your products. And prior to that, he owned two e-commerce companies, Yes Man Watches and Cork Supply Co., and recently actually, he spoke at my annual e-commerce conference, the Sellers Summit. Anyway, Nathan has actually been on TV multiple times in the past month to talk about the Trump tariffs. And since he’s an expert on the topic, I thought I’d have him on to discuss his thoughts. And with that, welcome back on the show Nathan, how are you doing today, man?

Nathan: What is up? I’m doing great. Thanks so much for having me.

Steve: So first off, can you just kind of summarize why Trump has issued these tariffs in the first place? And what kind of are his demands from China at the present time?

Nathan: It’s crazy. And I kind of want to start the conversation saying, I’m not political at all. But what I’ll say is, these tariffs are crazy. And I think he is trying to position himself with these tariffs thinking that these products are going to now be produced in America, which there are companies that we work with are rapidly diversifying their supply chain across Asia. And so for him, and I think the US government is just a way for them to make money. Really what Trump doesn’t even realize it and what he said actually, last week is that China is now paying us billions of dollars in tariffs, but really tariffs are paid for by American companies that are importing products from China.

And so it’s really in my mind just a bit ridiculous, but at end of the day tariffs are a way for the US government to make money or to balance out trade. And if you look at the trade between America and China, there’s a huge deficit. We’re importing way more than we are exporting to China.

Steve: I know, but realistically does the US have the infrastructure that China has to produce all these things at low costs?

Nathan: Oh, we don’t. I mean, that’s really the global economy. If you look at it from my more bird’s eye view, there’s a reason products are produced outside of America. And the reason being is it’s just the way that the currencies work. If our dollar equals 6.8 renminbi right now, then you know that our dollar is going to go further there. And really, I almost break it down to the ground floor. When you’re in Guangzhou or Shenzhen, let’s say you’re going to the Canton Fair coming up here in October, and you’re over there and you’re going out to dinner, you’re probably spending almost a fifth or a 10th less on dinner than you would here in America.

And that just shows the way the international economy work is that our dollar goes a lot farther. And you know what; you know the Chinese government is doing? And I’m not exactly sure if I should say this in this way. But they’re actually, they’re putting, they’re making the renminbi at almost their all time low a year low. So right now, the dollar is extremely valuable compared to the renminbi. And so our dollar is going to go a lot further than it would last year, a year before, and the reason being is the Chinese government, they’re trying to enable US corporations to have more buying power in China, even with these tariffs.

Steve: Hmm-mm interesting. Okay. But then, doesn’t the factory kind of get screwed over then?

Nathan: Well, in this case, the factories are really screaming. I’ll tell you, I was in China two weeks ago at our Guangzhou office. And you go to these, even the fabric markets there in Guangzhou and everyone’s screaming, they’re saying, hey, well buy fabric here, but can we send it to Vietnam? Can we send it to the Philippines? Can we send it off to Cambodia? And even at Sourcify, when we work with these companies to produce products across Asia, there’s probably been about a 30 to 40% increase in companies requesting to produce products outside of China, and I’m talking in India, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines.

And if you look at larger enterprises, if you look at the Nikes or Adidas of the world, these organizations have already been producing outside of China for a long time. And so really, what’s scary with these tariffs is that in my mind, they’re just starting. Trump just put a 10% tariff on $200 billion of Chinese products last week, and that tariff is going to be increased to 25%, starting January 1, 2019. Now, they’re still actively negotiating and trying to figure out really what’s going on with this trade war.

But if you’re an e-commerce company, and all of a sudden, you have to pay 25% more tariffs, you’re going to want to figure out, how can I avoid that tariff? And I’m happy to dive in the ways that you can avoid the tariff. Some, I will say will be legal, and some are a bit under the table. But I’m not recommending the under the table ways at all.

Steve: So before we get into that, can you just give us a quick update on kind of the current state of the tariffs and what products they are affecting, kind of give us a timeline and how it started out and where we are today?

Nathan: Yeah, a hundred percent. So it started out a few months ago. And really, originally, it was more so targeting industrial and agriculture products, where you’re talking about steel, you’re talking about soybeans, you’re talking about products that will probably not affect your general e-commerce entrepreneur that’s selling consumer products. And then all of a sudden last week, tariffs got put on electronics, cosmetics, clothing, home, and home furnishing products and TVs. I mean, these tariffs now are really actively affecting HTS codes that companies like you and I are importing under. And so it started to all of a sudden have an effect in the e-commerce world. And really, that’s scary.

I mean, if you’re an e-commerce entrepreneur, that’s just starting out running on thinner margins. These tariffs are going to have a direct effect on your business. And really probably the first question that comes to mind right there is, how do I find out, how do I know if these tariffs are affecting my product? And so what I do right now is really ask your freight forward. If you’re importing products, even just at a smaller scale, whether it be a pallet or just one container, so ask your freight forward and say, hey, do I have to pay a higher tariff?

And your freight forwarder should know, right off the bat if your HTS codes that you’re importing under are affected. And really, that’s the first way that you start, you can also definitely go on Google and do some research yourself. But I think at the end of the day, your freight forwarder should have the most knowledge in regards to all your products affected.

Steve: Okay and then what impact would you say the tariffs are going to have on larger businesses like we were talking about CVS earlier, versus smaller businesses?

Nathan: I mean, it’s crazy on the larger scale. They’re hurting; they’re trying to avoid them as fast as they can. I mean, there was this story, it must have been two months ago, where there was this company that was trying to import or it was they were actually exporting, because on the other hand, China has lifted tariffs on products that American companies are trying to sell into China. So it’s back and forth, these trade wars, but there was this company that was exporting soybeans from America to China, they literally missed the cutoff time by 30 minutes. And they started paying $12,000 a day just to have their container ship off the port waiting to figure out what’s going to happen with these tariffs. Because if they have brought those soybeans to port, they would have to pay $6 million in new tariffs just based off these new tariff increases.

And so from a larger scale from these larger enterprises, the effects are huge. And so what these companies are doing are diversifying their supply chains very fast, which means a lot of these production lines in Vietnam or India are a lot of times already booked their capacity for the next year. You really have to dive deep and figure out who is going to be a supplier that still has some capacity for your products outside of China, or you find ways to diversify or get around these tariffs in maybe not the most cleanest way.

Steve: So, what would you say is the short term impact versus the long term impact? Are you already starting to see prices increase?

Nathan: Yeah, I mean, I would say short term impact is that you as a company need to start negotiating right away with your factory to see how can I balance out these increased tariffs, because on the factory side of the table, you’re going to want to try to lower costs there and cut your unit costs on that end. On the consumer side of the table, we as American consumers are going to have to start paying more for these products. I mean, I actually wrote this down as estimated by students at the London School of Economics, that each American citizen is going to have to pay $127 more over the course of the year for average products that they’re buying, whether it be TVs, or clothing, and washing machines. I mean, you’re really going to see a direct effect.

And, at the larger enterprise level, you have toy companies like Hasbro that are saying during their earnings call last week that the company will move production outside of China immediately as fast as they can. And so, not only are you seeing the effect with just families here in America and having to spend more for products, but larger enterprises are having to figure out how they can really diversify their supply chain.

Steve: So, let’s say I needed to — let’s say I wanted to negotiate with my vendor, would you mention the Chinese renminbi against the US dollar? Like, does it all kind of balance out right now, when it’s only like a 10% tariff?

Nathan: Yeah, I would say 10% tariff. It depends how much you’re importing. But yeah, it definitely does balance out in some sense. I would say too, though, from the factory perspective, I know even our supply chain team, they’ve been getting a swap just with inbound requests from factories outside of China saying, hey, we can enable you to produce these products and avoid these China tariffs. And so even on the factory end of the table, you have factories, sales reps that are now hitting us up outside of China more activity using these tariffs as a sales pitch. And I would say inside China, the smarter factories are saying, hey, well, the renminbi is that almost a year low, we’re really trying to balance out our currency here. And so there’s not a huge effect.

I think it also just depends how you pay your supplier. I’ve heard of a lot of e-commerce entrepreneurs having great payment terms with their suppliers, not having to pay right up front, or 70/30, excuse me, 30/70 or maybe having 60 day payment terms. If you can flow some of your cash with production, then you might be able to have less of a direct effect right now with these tariffs.

Steve: So, I mean, is it just a really bad time to import from China?

Nathan: Yeah, I mean, well, especially right now with the holiday season coming in, even the freight lines are crazy, all industry is going nuts trying to ramp up for the holidays. And with these tariffs, it’s really, I think, become a bit of a mess. But I think the smarter companies are planning long term. If you’re a company doing business right now, you probably already got your holiday season planned out. You’ve got your POs in for the holiday season, and are already midway through production. And hopefully, especially if you’re producing in China with the Chinese New Year and the Spring Festival coming up there in February, that you’re going to have production in inventory ready to last yourself throughout that time period. Because otherwise you’ll probably run out of inventory or just probably take a trip to Vietnam or India, or Thailand or something.

Steve: I guess the reason why I’m asking that is I was wondering if you have any predictions on what will happen and whether this will get resolved, whether you should hold out on buying large amounts of inventory until this kind of blows over?

Nathan: That’s a great question. I mean, from what I’ve seen in the media, I’ve talked to reporters at CNN and CNBC, and Forbes. And it’s very interesting because from the news perspective, I mean, this is great press for the newscasters. I mean, they love talking about this, and I honestly think it’s going to become, it’s going to continue to rise. I think Trump really has it in his mind that by putting on these tariffs, he thinks that number one; he thinks that China is paying for these tariffs, which is not true. And number two, he thinks that we’re going to see a shift in production back to America, which I don’t believe is going to happen, just because it’s going to be way too expensive to produce most of these products here in America.

And so I think hopefully, he’ll come to a realization and the government will come to a realization that really what this is causing is just American consumers and companies are paying more for these products. And these companies are now just diversifying their supply chain outside of China, or making some tricks under the table to avoid these tariffs.

Steve: Okay, so let’s talk about that now. What are some ways to avoid these tariffs?

Nathan: Yeah, so we’ll divide by legal versus illegal. And I do not recommend the illegal.

Steve: Start with the illegal stuff first because I’m sure [overlapping 00:15:35].

Nathan: Yeah, I mean, so, right off the bat, you have transshipments. And transshipments are legal and transshipments, what they are, is when you’re sipping a container, let’s say from Guangzhou to Long Beach, and you have to ship the cargo, ship has to stop in Malaysia, or Thailand or whatever maybe. But what a lot of these freight foreigners are offering now is with these transshipments, they’re going to change the country of origin on your products. So they’re literally telling you, do not put those made in China labels on your products, we’ll change the country of origin during the transshipment when we stop over in Thailand, or Malaysia, or whatever may be, so your products are actually on paper imported from China.

And so that’s one way to avoid this. Trans shipments are legal, but the act of actually changing the country of origin on your products is illegal. On the other hand, this is something that’s probably a bit more common in general, with smaller scale e-commerce entrepreneurs, or companies that haven’t necessary gotten the scale, but just lowering the value of the actual Bill of Materials, saying that, instead of buying this product for $10 per unit, you’re buying it for $1 per unit. And so the actual tariffs that can be levied on your products is much lower. So instead of having a total dollar amount of 10,000, you have $1,000. And so, really at the end of the day when tariffs are applied to the import value of your products, the value of the products is much lower than they actually are. And so you kind of slide into the cracks that way.

Steve: Hold on Nathan real quick. I know some of my vendors had done that for me without even me asking.

Nathan: Well, yeah, I mean, it helps them too, because they also have to pay an export tax in China. So it is in some sense win-win, but is it actually legal?

Steve: What is the risk actually, is what, because I feel a little uncomfortable by it. I mean, this happened a lot early on. And so have you known people to get caught by this?

Nathan: Not on a small scale. There’s definitely been some fines at a larger scale, but the border patrol and just the organization that is really balancing out these tariffs and forcing them, they’re not going to have time to deal with companies that are importing $10,000, or even sometimes even $100,000. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not that much. And so, the risk of getting in trouble at that level is extremely low. At a larger level, if you have companies like Bass Pro, one of the biggest toy makers in the world, if they get caught doing this, there’s definitely some questions and media attention that will come their way.

So I would say, as a e-commerce entrepreneur, the risk is very low. And really, the other solution that I want to note on is actually doing fulfillment at or in China, for example. So, if you’re importing products, and they’re under $800 per parcel, you actually are exempt from customs duties all together. And so what we’ve seen actually is number one, a lot of fulfillment companies or a lot of factories start to offer fulfillment options in China. So you’re shipping products direct to consumer from Asian based fulfillment centers, whether they be in Hong Kong or in China, and shipping these products directly to consumers here in America. Your shipping rates are definitely going to be a bit higher; it depends on the shipping method you use.

And also, sometimes I think, just with international logistics, if you’re shipping product, just one by one from overseas, it’s got a higher risk of it getting lost or damaged in the mail. So I don’t know if that’s the best option.

Steve: But is that a realistic option?

Nathan: I mean, there’s companies like actual companies I know top of mind, one called Fulfillment and one called the Floship. They both have facilities in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, I think. And they’re doing D2C fulfillment out of China, and they’ve had success there. There are companies that work that way. I would say, a lot of times, though, you see more kind of drop shipping oriented type of companies shipping through this route, because just the customer experience doesn’t have that high of a level. I think, with today’s world with two day Amazon Prime shipments, consumers expect the product to come fast. And when you’re shipping from a fulfillment company in China, obviously, the products aren’t going to come as fast, probably a week at the fastest. And so it’s something to consider when you think about your customer experience. But at the end of the day is it an option to explore? Yes.

Steve: So in regards to relabeling the boxes to have a different country of origin that sounds kind of risky to me.

Nathan: Yeah, it definitely is. I mean, it’s not something that I am recommending by any means. But it’s a way that some companies are avoiding these tariffs. And I think that the end of the day, you got to sometimes explore all options. But I would say the best way to avoid these tariffs is to explore other options to produce in other countries. And I know, for example, we have companies that we work with right now that sell into large retailers like Wal-Mart and Target that are producing in India and Pakistan, and finding way better rates producing in those countries than China, because the labor rates, it’s crazy right now in China, with the growth of the economy and the infrastructure there, labor costs have definitely gone up.

And when you think of a product like arrow [ph], or clothing, or even any bag, like the main cost outside of the actual raw material is actually the labor. So when you’re having to spend let’s say half an hour to produce a bag or something, that’s labor cost. And so if you go to India or Pakistan, where the labor costs are even less, you’re going to be able to have better production rates. And so that’s something that I’d really look into. There are some great factories outside of China.

And, it’s crazy, like when I look at China, when I was first over there 10 years ago, and look at it today, 10 years ago, you go to a factory and they’re picking you up in a pretty rundown car, there’s not all these nicely paved roads and there’s not all this crazy traffic. And now you go to these factories, you getting picked up in Range Rovers and Mercedes Benz and you’re thinking to yourself, they must have made some money on some of the margins with their production runs.

Steve: So given that, like let’s for like the little guy, how would you find suppliers in countries outside of China? Like, there’s no Alibaba for like Pakistan or Vietnam?

Nathan: Yeah, it stems from network I think 100%. And even here at Sourcify, it stems from our network, when we go into these other countries. And I’ve done trips this year alone to Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines, and have one plan for India later this year. And it’s a different ecosystem. Number one, when I go to China, China is a great country, don’t get me wrong, but am I going there to enjoy the environment, no. When I was in the Philippines, I mean, we’re looking at this factory in the south in the city called Zamboanga and the beach was right across from the factory. I was like, wow, this is actually great environment, I wouldn’t mind hanging out here for a few days. Whereas, when we’re in a factory in China outside of Guangzhou or wherever may be, it’s not always the nicest area.

And so, I would say for a smaller buyer, like there’s definitely some different trade shows, you can exploit, there’s the gifts and premium show in India. I think it’s later this month, I think it actually coincides with the Canton Fair. I can double check, and I’ll send you the dates on that later. But, I mean, there’s definitely some other trade shows in other countries. And what I would do too, is you actually can Google some of the trade organizations that they have in these countries. There’s free economic zones, there’s the Clark free economic zone in the Philippines, there’s the Zamboanga free economic zone in the Philippines.

These organizations are actively looking to boost local trade. And it’s amazing, because these free economic zones; they have no import or export taxes for companies that are set up in these zone so a lot of factories go there. And there’s no taxes or very little taxes for these companies in these free economic zones. And so, if you’re working with a factory that’s in a free Economic Zone, you could literally be importing product into that free economic zone for free and exporting that finished product for free back to your home country. And there’s been talks I know with the Philippines and America to get into some sort of free trade agreement. And NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement just got resigned, which is awesome. So, you could explore options to produce in Mexico. And down just south of the border in San Diego, you have the Economic Development Council of Baja and the tier one or region there.

Steve: So I know that when I go to like the Canton Fair, I know it’s actually worth my time, because the trade show is just so large. But these ones that you mentioned, I think you mentioned one in India, is it a much smaller scale? Like, how can you be a lot more efficient with your time and finding these factories that are outside of China?

Nathan: Yeah, I mean, I would say it stems from network. So, feel free to ping me up to try to introduce you to some people outside of China. I would say, for any e-commerce entrepreneur going to some of these smaller shows, it’s probably not going to be worth your time. I mean, I think the beauty of the Canton Fair is that you have so many different factories at your fingertips there. But what you could explore is there’s some trade shows here in America. I was at a magic sourcing trade show and the sourcing direct show at ASD market week in Las Vegas.

And those aren’t big shows from a sourcing perspective, especially compared to the Canton Fair, but they actually diversify the amount of suppliers that they had there. There was a lot of booths there from Turkey, from India, from Vietnam, from Korea, it was pretty cool. I mean, honestly, and a flight to Vegas is usually pretty cheap. So it was pretty cool. I mean, that’s something that I would definitely recommend. I’ll send you the dates on when those trade shows are.

Steve: Okay. Yeah, it sounds good. What about from an online perspective, though? Like, is there like some sort of directory or some central location where I can get access to a lot more of these factors that are outside of China?

Nathan: None that comes to mind. And that’s probably a pretty big, good business opportunity right there, it’s creating some sort of international Alibaba. I mean, I think Alibaba does have some facilities and factories that are outside of China. And when you search, I mean, when you search Alibaba, you can specify the country, so you could try to just specify countries that are obviously not China and see what comes up. But as far as my knowledge, there is no go to online directory that’s focused outside of China.

Steve: Okay. And is that something that you guys do though?

Nathan: We definitely do diversify company supply chains at more of an enterprise level. At a smaller scale, I would recommend like the factory confirm Chrome extension that we have, I’ll send you the link for that. It’s pretty cool tool that enables you to analyze factories in real time. But I’m happy to help. For me, I’m a former e-commerce entrepreneur myself, and now just focus on the supply chain side of the business. And that’s what I love.

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Can you kind of describe generally I guess, what the infrastructure is like for China compared to some of the other third world countries like Pakistan, Indonesia?

Nathan: Yeah, 100%. I mean, I’ll describe the Philippines right off the bat, because I was just there last month. And it’s a lot different when you think of the infrastructure. And I would look at it from almost the freight forwarding world where in China you have FOB in Ningbo, you have Guangzhou, Hong Kong, you have all these different major ports along the coast and you can ship containers very readily out of these ports. When you look at the Philippines, pretty much every factory is shipping FOB Manila. And so what that means is that they’re transporting and they’re taking responsibility for your product because it’s FOB terms that they’re taking responsibility for your product to get it to Manila to get it to that container ship or whoever your freight forwarder there that’s picking up the container in Manila and putting it on the cargo ship or air freighting it back to your warehouse.

But there’s just not nearly as many ports that are shipping on FOB terms internationally in the Philippines or India or Thailand compared to China. And so from a logistical point perspective if you think about it from a factory side of the table, these factories are oftentimes spread out pretty far from these main ports and so they’re having to handle the transportation costs to get your product to wherever you have those FOB terms from. And I think also the other hand to if you ever get terms on DDP rates, then you’re going to have — it’s going to be harder. I remember in India most the production quotes that we get are all FOB or x works because DDP out of India, just with freight is a lot more complicated to calculate than out of China.

Steve: Can you kind of comment on the prices of some of these countries compared to try to China?

Nathan: Yeah, I mean, it’s pretty incredible. Really, especially for the cut and saw industry, like, let’s say you’re producing any sort of fashion item or bag or any kind of cut and saw oriented product, just because the labor rates outside of China, and India or Pakistan is much less. We’re talking about like t-shirts like a nice shirt that is literally you have like $2 and 20 cents for DDP like duty to the repaid delivered t-shirt that’s got a print on it and that’s got pretty good fabric. And so some of the rates are incredible but that’s at a much larger scale. I mean, that’s a really company that’s spending close to $10 million on production. And so their rates and the margins that these factories are making are much lower.

But even then, if you can try to fit your production run in with a factory that is producing for a larger buyer, and sees the growth of your product and really likes your brand, and there’s not too much that separates the production line that they’re doing for this larger enterprise and you’re small e-commerce company, there could be great synergies to explore. And I think that’s really like the — it’s like a double edged sword. Like, it’s great that the supply chain world is so relationship based. But on the other hand, you have very little transparency. If I asked you right now, what’s the name of your factory? Like, I wouldn’t expect you to tell me, it’s just like, not that – it’s not a question that you ask other e-commerce entrepreneurs, because that’s like a trade secret, that’s a trade secret of your business.

And so I think that’s like kind of the craziness of the supply chain world in the e-commerce arena, is that like, if you see a company that’s crushing it, and they’re selling socks, and you also want to start selling socks, well, you can’t just go up to that company say, hey, who’s your factory? I also want to start selling socks. They’d be like, well, why would we tell you and they’ll probably actually try to pitch themselves as a middleman that will produce socks for you.

Steve: So, would you say in these other third world countries, that they tend to work with larger guys, like are there opportunities for some of the smaller people, or even the people that are just starting out to look there?

Nathan: There is, I mean, it’s definitely smaller facilities. I would say, from a larger level, most of the facilities that we know, that we’re connected with are bigger, but there’s definitely a lot of growth in smaller facilities there. And I think the beauty of it too, is as a e-commerce entrepreneur that’s growing and looking to extend your product categories, it’s not going to make sense for you to go work with a factory that has 10,000 employees. If they can produce a million units a month, and you’re producing 10,000 units, it’s not going to make sense for them, or for you to work together. I mean, you’re going to be the smallest fish in their pond. And it’s very unlikely that they’re going to spend that much time or give you that much attention.

And so for you, especially if you’re starting out, or just kind of starting to see some growth, it’s going to make much more sense to work with a smaller midsize factory that you can start taking up maybe 20 or 30% of their capacity with rather than just getting a percent capacity here, 5% there. I mean, really, I think the key to finding a good factory for e-commerce Company is finding one that they can grow with, finding one that they can really scale with and build a relationship with.

Steve: I guess what I’m trying to get at is, what are the big disadvantages of going outside of China?

Nathan: I mean, the disadvantages are I would say just the visibility. You have really, in China, the infrastructure is very strong, you have a lot of options, there’s a lot of material sources there with different fabric markets or raw material sources. And outside of China, it’s just not as developed. You’re going to places where sometimes they don’t have good internet access; sometimes they don’t have access even to running water. I mean, it’s really sometimes a bit crazy. And you look at some photos or some of the infrastructure in countries like India or Bangladesh, I mean, there’s flooding, there’s even it was crazy, like when I was in China two weeks ago, that typhoon hit, and I was flying out of LA, and my plane was delayed three hours because the typhoon was supposed to basically hit Guangzhou and we were supposed to land.

And so you have especially outside of China, I think you are more prone to face more natural oriented disasters and more production problems. Whereas, in China, and especially if you’re working with a facility that has more inspection certificates, it’s more likely to be stable, it’s going to be a stable production environment. So you add more risks to the table. But that’s not to say you should be scared. I mean, I think it’s really important right now, especially with these tariffs in place that you are motivated and excited to explore other production opportunities.

Steve: What about the other way around? Are the Chinese tariffs on US products, is that going to affect anything?

Nathan: Yeah, I mean, it’s affecting companies that are exporting to China and China selling into China. Are many e-commerce entrepreneurs doing that right now? Not necessarily. Is that a huge opportunity? Yes. I mean, I know a lot of companies that have done pretty well in China, but it takes investment. You either got to go set up your own store on TMall or Taobao or find a distributor or really try to figure it out how to hit a molder niche in the Chinese market. And I think it’s much easier said than done. If you don’t have experience selling into China and don’t know how those consumers interact with your product, it’s going to be pretty challenging.

I mean, I always find it surprising when companies ask about selling into China or other Asian countries because the market is so big and seemingly so untapped, but if you’re struggling to sell products to consumers that you know so well here in America, it’s very questionable to me how you think you can do so much better selling products in China, if you don’t know that market at all.

Steve: Okay, I mean, we’ve been talking a lot about Philippines, Vietnam, Pakistan, but what are your thoughts on sourcing in the US at this point?

Nathan: I mean, sourcing the US is an option that should be explored. I think that the costs are definitely going to be higher; the experience can be hit or miss. You definitely have a lot of US facilities that are going to give you sometimes even a worse experience than you would get producing abroad, but I think at the end of the day, it comes down to cost and your margin. And if you’re spending 30% more to produce your products here in America, and your brand doesn’t revolve around that made in America aesthetic, it’s probably not going to make sense for you as an e-commerce entrepreneur because if you’re spending 30% more to produce these products than your competitors, well then you can’t have that cost per acquisition that these other companies can take in because their margin is 30% higher than yours.

Steve: I guess with the 25% tariffs coming down, that might even things out a little bit.

Nathan: Yeah, but I mean, well, here’s what I would say though too, is in the e-commerce world, I would say, outside of your brand, really what it comes down to is your margin. If I know that I can produce my products for let’s say, even 10% less than you can, then I can go spend 10% more to acquire a customer while staying profitable. Whereas, you can’t spend that 10% more because you’re spending 10% more to produce your product than I am.

Steve: Where are some places that you would go to find US manufacturers?

Nathan: There’s sites like Thomasnet, there’s Makers Row is American based manufacturing marketplace that it’s pretty cool. Those are the two main sites that come to mind, Makers Row and Thomasnet. And that’s definitely some options that I would look into. I mean, I think there’s definitely opportunity to potentially produce in America, but I would first explore outside of China and other countries in Asia.

Steve: Okay, so Nathan to kind of conclude this little talk that we’re having here, where do you see things going looking one year out just your own personal predictions?

Nathan: Yeah, I mean, one year out, I would say companies that are smart are going to diversify their supply chain outside of China. I think China in general has gotten more expensive. I mean, when we started exploring production outside of China almost two years ago for some of the companies we work with, there was so much just amazement, because it’s really ripe with opportunity. When I look outside of China, when I look at countries like India, or the Philippines or Thailand, it almost reminds me of China 10 years ago, when companies were really starting to scale up there, and the infrastructure was just starting to grow.

So I assume, and I think that companies are going to continue to transition production outside of China. I don’t, I honestly don’t think there’s going to be a huge shift of production back into America. And I do think these tariffs are going to affect a lot of consumers, a lot of American companies, and even Chinese factories.

Steve: Can you real quick comment on these other countries outside of China, and what kind of their specialties are? So you mentioned like cut and saw, and was that the Philippines or Pakistan? Do these countries have some sort of specialty?

Nathan: Yeah, so Pakistan, India can be great for leather, a lot of cut and saw fabrics, basically any textiles or bags, sometimes hats, shoes, you can produce across India, Pakistan, Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines. I would say more electronic oriented products; it’s going to be very hard to diversify your products outside of China. That area around Shenzhen, it’s just so good for producing electronics that I don’t really know anywhere else in the world that has that capability like that. But for other products, sun glasses I think are mostly in China, and even kind of all those little types of gadgets, those kind of small price products, it’s all done around Yiwu and it’s going to be pretty hard to diversify those outside of China. But there definitely are some hidden gems out there. And I really encourage people to look for production opportunities outside of China.

Steve: So it sounds like the primary opportunities outside of China are in the textile space.

Nathan: Yeah, textile, handbags, bags, backpacks, all that.

Steve: Okay. And if you sell electronics, China is probably going to be the place to be. What about plastics?

Nathan: Plastics, you can do some like injection molding in Vietnam, in India. China is definitely still really good for plastics, but there are opportunities to explore outside of China.

Steve: Okay, cool. Nathan, this is a very enlightening talk. Where can people find you if they have questions for you besides on TV and MSN?

Nathan: Yeah, I mean, they can find me on LinkedIn or Twitter, Nathan Resnick, and feel free to check out Sourcify. We’re the fastest growing B2B manufacturing platform that helps hundreds of companies produce products around the world. And I really appreciate you having me on today.

Steve: Cool. Thanks for coming on.

Hope you enjoyed that episode. And even if you don’t currently sell online, these latest rounds of tariffs will actually affect everyone. And if you do sell online, you better have an alternate sourcing plan going forward. For more information about this episode, go to mywifequitherjob.com/episode229.

And once again, I want to thank Privy.com for sponsoring this episode. Privy is the email capture provider that I personally use to turn visitors into email subscribers. They offer email capture, exit intent, and site targeting tools to make it super simple as well. And I like Privy because it’s so powerful and you can basically trigger custom pop-ups for any primer that is closely tied to your store. If you want to give it a try, it is free. So, head on over to Privy.com/Steve, once again, that’s P-R-I-V-Y.com/Steve.

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Now I talk about how I use these tools on my blog, and if you’re interested in starting your own e-commerce store, head on over to mywifequitherjob.com and sign up for my free six-day mini course. Just type in your email and I’ll send you the course right away. Thanks for listening.

Outro: Thanks for listening to the My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast where we’re giving the courage people need to start their own online business. For more information, visit Steve’s blog at www.Mywifequitherjob.com.