1. Starting An Ecommerce Business With A "Get Rich Quick" Mindset

This is the number one reason that almost all eCom business owners fail, fact is this, making money online can be quick and easy - YES. Below one of our store owners going from zero to over 500 per day in sales in a few short weeks of operation! The short term thinking and the “Get Rich Quick” mentality quickly gets in the way here.

Where the attention should be on building something of value for the end customer, increasing the product quality, focusing on long term growth strategies the focus slides on filling your own pockets and your business goes down the drain as quick as you launched it while you are left to deal with customer complaints, refund requests, shipping delays and on and on.

Shopify Store over a 7 day launch

In short - play long term, there's a simple way to remember it.

Think Macro - Work MicroA.K.A: Think Long Term - Work like tomorrow is your last day...

2. Shiny Object Syndrome‍

The KILLER of almost ALL startups eCom entrepreneurs, looking around at what you see on the internet being better, shiner, easier to make money, and quite simply taking your attention away from you and the work you need to do!

Doing or trying 100 different methods, programs, courses listening to 100 different people and quite simply doing 1% of all 100 of them will just get you there 1% of the way to success.

Cutting the distractions and focusing solely on the outcome, putting the blinders on and going deep into the work for the time you need to. ZERO distractions and full focus is what will see you win.

The grass is greener where you water it, I get it - eCommerce moves fast and you don't want to miss trends or mess up on something that might be a sure thing. But nothing will pay more than you going full focus on you, your business, your brand, your marketing and your own product research.

This is one of the best ways to ensure your eCommerce business explodes!

Take action based on what you know and believe in and focus on seeing results not focusing on someone else around you who might be making money on bitcoin…

3. Know Your Numbers

One thing I've seen more than anything else is failure to track and measure your numbers, understanding your margins, taking a good look into the cost of advertising, tracking NET NET profit each day. Down to the micro!

The better you can understand your business and know all of the moving parts the better the result will be.

It's easy to say and you probably hear it all the time - I made 1,000,000 last year… Yeah but how much did you keep, like after expenses, after taxes, after you pay everything… what are you left with NET, NET… Hmm yea maybe not as remarkable.

Knowing your numbers and especially when it comes to advertising, understanding what it costs you to acquire a customer, what it costs you to have your product shipped and “landed” to your customers address, what it costs you to generate a lead and on and on…

Then not just to track these things but also understand how to “pull the levers” and control the growth of the business through these mechanisms.

Numbers are predictable, numbers are repeatable - numbers don't lie!‍

Your numbers don't lie, they don't misconstrue your ideas of what is right and wrong, they give you an unbiased look into your business and give you straight up metrics of what you need to do to change.

Track all the numbers of your business and you will never fall out of control and have something happen to you that you didn't expect.

4. Failure To Understand That "It's Not About You"

It never is about you, your ideas, your concepts of what you think are right and wrong don't apply. Ultimately it is up to your market as to what they like and don't like.

Remove all of your attachment to the product itself and focus on the outcome that it solves the customer. People don't buy things for the “Thing” itself. They buy it for the outcome that it achieves...

I.e. I don't buy a coffee from the cafe and pay 5.60 for it because it's a “coffee” and it gives me a shot of energy. If that was the case I would pour some instant coffee from the bag and just have a shot at it would cost me .07 cents…

People buy outcomes, not products. Always think a layer deeper than just “is it the best product” it's about what does this product do for the end user and then deeper again, what does the end user FEEL like achieving the desired result?

Remember - It is NOT about you

Use the acronym WIMFM (What It Means For Me) when thinking about your product.

Remember - It is NOT about you.

5. Lack Of Direct Response Advertising Copy

Your marketplace (the internet) is simply a compilation of words and images (some still, some moving, aka video) that fills the minds of your consumers and has them scrolling from page to page, clicking from button to button.

If you and your business want to stand out - and REALLY stand out, you’ve got to learn to leverage the art of captivating attention and eyeballs and then directing them at your will towards an action of your choice. This is what’s known as “Direct Response Advertising”

Some books that will aid in your rapid upskilling of this skill are:

1. Breakthrough Advertising by Eugene Schwartz

2. Made To Stick by Dan and Chip Heat

3. How To Write A Good Advertisement by Vic Schwab

In essence practice these things, improve yourself and your ability to execute on the above, read these advertising books, really knuckle down on your desire and “Will to Win” and watch the results come.

Remember - it's not a Get Rich Quick - It's a long game, but there still are some awesome returns to be made along the way!

I hope you enjoyed this short read and upskilled yourself in some of the failures made by initial startup eCommerce Entrepreneurs.

HOW TO GROW IN ECOMMERCE

How To Grow Your ECom Store To A Million-Dollar Buyout

For some people, $10k in sales a month is enough—more financial freedom than they ever dreamed of. And if $10k per month sounds good, $30k per month can’t help but feel great.

But where do you go from there? Every niche has a ceiling. There are only so many people who want coffee grinders or CBD skin care products within your shipping range. What next?

The GROWTH phase of an eCommerce strategy is different from the START phase. It isn’t about finding a marketing message that works or a brand voice that resonates.

In other words, it’s not about the start—it’s about the endgame.

It’s about building that eCom store into an asset that will be worth millions of dollars to an investor.

And once the store sells for seven figures, you can … do whatever you like. Retire, invest, even start more eCom stores, repeating the process and building to another high six- or seven-figure buyout.

The True Purpose Of Marketing

“Marketing” sometimes gets discussed interchangeably with advertising—in this day in age, Google ads, Facebook ads, and other digital advertising platforms.

While digital ads are powerful tools, the point of marketing is often missed.

Marketing isn’t about making sales or driving traffic—although good marketing should result in more traffic and more sales.

Marketing is about achieving top-of-mind awareness within your niche. It’s why, if I were to say “Quick, name a fast-food chain!” most people would name “McDonalds.”

It’s why “Xerox” is still synonymous with copier machines, despite the fact that “Xerox” is a brand name. Other examples include “Velcro” and “Ziplock.”

It’s why we Google things, Facebook people, and Uber places. These are all brand names that achieved verb status, because the companies achieved top-of-mind awareness in their fields through marketing. Most users would never even think of using a different brand for that product or service.

Dominating Your Niche

When an eCom store passes $30k per month in sales, it’s time to stop thinking about marketing in terms of “buying growth.” Forget buying more and more Facebook and Google ads. It’s time to put dominance into our sights … to become the McDonalds of our niche.

Imagine prospective customers throughout your shipping area Google-searching your product, or topics related to your product … and your home page, your Facebook business page, and three of your blog posts are the top five organic search results.

Imagine building so much loyalty and enthusiasm for your brand that your past customers flock to webinars, gobble up emails, and buy every new product you release.

Maybe we won’t become McDonald’s, but in the GROWTH phase, it helps to dream big. The Ecom Capital GROWTH team has been trusted by the likes of Amazon, Apple, Walmart, Nike, eBay, and Shopify to envision and execute growth strategies.

Obviously, these brands are well past $10k/month in sales. “Good enough” isn’t good enough for them. Every day they strive to move the line of dominance a little further. That’s the kind of fire we bring to our GROWTH-phase clients.

Beyond Dropshipping

Few practices lowered the barrier-of-entry to e-com, more so than dropshipping. By dropshipping, entrepreneurs could build online stores without ever touching products. Customer’s orders go directly to the manufacturer, who packages and ships the product.

Since products are being purchased one at a time rather than in bulk, the margins are much smaller. However, the store-owner reduces their front-end risk by choosing dropshipping, as well as freeing themselves in terms of time and location.

The role of the store owner in a dropshipping operation is product development and brand-building, establishing product/market fit and economic customer acquisition while acting as a highly-visible middleman between the manufacturer and consumer.

Growing past $30k is a whole different ballgame. With that kind of volume, it’s time to start thinking about bulk purchases, fulfillment centers, or warehouses with in-house fulfillment. By cutting links out of the supply chain separating you from your customers, you add back margin, as well as customer service capacity.

The dropshipping START phase was to make a little money, but also to prove the concept. The GROWTH phase is the time to go all-in.

Your ECommerce Store Is An Asset

Most people understand that businesses are assets. They know that a business—for example, a gas station, a restaurant, an apartment building, a factory—can be bought and sold. By trading shares of stock, investors buy and sell portions of companies every day.

For some reason, many people don’t make the same connection for an eCommerce store. They don’t see them as assets that could be bought and sold like real estate or a brick-and-mortar business.

And yet, a robust eCom store is exactly the kind of business that gets bought and sold by investors. It has inventory and processes. It has intellectual property in the form of product blueprints and marketing collateral. If built correctly, it has brand trust. It even has “real estate” of a kind in the form of the domain URL. Through SEO, that URL real estate can appreciate in value.  

Clients of the Ecom Capital GROWTH program don’t even have to go hunting for a buyer. They know who the buyer of their business will be—us. The growth phase of Ecom Capital is all about building an online store into the kind of business we want to buy. Then we buy them, usually for prices in the millions, and sell the business to investors in our network.

Investment Into ECommerce

That is the third arm of Ecom Capital—INVEST. Part of what we do is get the word out about eCommerce stores as an asset—not just to aspiring entrepreneurs in search of financial freedom, but to high-ticket investors.

We want these investors to consider eCommerce stores alongside real estate, stocks, and brick-and-mortar companies. We aspire to build the reputation of eCommerce as the business investment of the future, with a place in the portfolio of every savvy investor.

We will execute high six or, high six or seven-figure buyouts of as many of our clients’ online stores as we have to in order to make that point—and to make that sale.

After the buyout, that’s it… endgame accomplished! Take the money and chill on an island paradise for a while … and then get back to work. Now that you have successfully groomed an eCom store for a high six or seven-figure buyout, it’s time to do it all again!

Thank you for reading this article.

If you would like to learn about our proven 7-step process that we have used time and time again to help eCommerce brand owners grow their business by 10X within 90-180 days or less, then take a look at the information on this page.