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Follow Along My Journey to Become Financially Free (17)

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Hi - I've been here for like 4 days and already got my $100 of value.

Time to squeeze even more value out of this forum.


Short intro:

25 years old, quit my tech job 2 months ago because I was very stressed / anxious working there. Never wanted to work for someone else.

I started my store, CONSCIOUS Health Store - to tackle these emotions everyone feels at times. Stress, anxiety, pain, everyone goes through these. So my store is focused on selling products that relieve those emotions. I want to make a difference in the world and this is my best idea to achieve that, so far.

The CONSCIOUS part comes from my practice of meditation. I felt like meditating has made a huge impact on my life and was a major factor to getting me to where I am today. So I wanted to incorporate that into my store. I plan to do this by providing mindful content that improves peoples lives.


Here is my website:

https://conscioushealthstore.com



So far, my store has been unprofitable. I have spent around ~$700 in advertising, and have made about $450 in revenue, $200 in profit.

Sept - Quit job and started the store. My first product - a massage gun. Costs $50, selling for $100.

Early Oct. - started running FB ads. I hired a guy from Fiverr to make my video. I spend $25 targeting fitness interests and FB account gets banned. My product page at this time is the Debut theme, a long block of text going down one side and white space on the other side (looks bad on desktop)

Mid Oct. - open another FB ad account - spent another $200 and made no sale. I was paying crazy CPMs and CPCs (cuz my ads sucked)
I messaged an influencer friend who was in the fitness niche. I gave him a massage gun at my supplier price and he promoted it to his followers - which generated me my first sale.

Late Oct. - open Google ads account. Started running single keyword ad groups for the massage gun. I spent $180 to make one sale (still with the shitty product page).
I bought a page builder and made my page look like what it looks like today. I spent $150 to make another sale.

I also started posting on Facebook eCom groups, and this guy who we'll call "A" reached out to me to help me with my Google ads. We got on a call and he helped me out a lot. I'll be mentioning him again later.

Early Nov. - after spending ~$500 to make 2 sales through paid advertising - my mind was like "this product is too saturated. F this" So I decided on selling my second product - a weighted blanket. This product also costs $50 and I was selling it at $100. I spent $100 to make 1 sale.

Mid Nov. - I raised the prices of my massage gun and weighted blanket to ~$150. I just couldn't see myself being profitable keeping it at $100. I also spent another $100 on SKAGs for the weighted blanket, but have not made a sale. "A" told me to focus on google shopping, so now I am trying to focus on that to get more insight on which search terms to target.

Late Nov. - I caught up with an old high school friend who got really successful because of STM. He recommends it to me. I take the plunge and start posting immediately. In summary what I have learned so far from here is that I should try out Native, try out advertorials, understand my customer better, create better angles, and that my product selection is actually not bad (surprised me).

"A" has been pushing me to change my angle on the massage gun to target old people (increase blood flow, etc.) "A" also proposed that we partner up (50/50). I said he could do the marketing side and I could focus on the product selection, brand building side. "A" has been really helpful to me thus far, and I really look up to him when it comes to marketing. He showed me he was spending $5k a day on FB ads for BFCM and I was just in awe. Lol.

So I guess the top of mind question is - should I partner up with "A"?


PS: Thanks for reading this far. I appreciate you

Campaign Data:

Google Keywords

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So happy to see that you've started a follow-along!

I'm thoroughly impressed by your tenacity! You have the makings of a true winner. In every business, mindset is everything. I can see you being in a VERY different place a year from now.

You remind me of @wakeboarder - btw I highly recommend checking out his posts if you get the chance.

I love meditating as well! Actually if you like the holistic wellness / new age niche, it's a multi-billion dollar industry that in my opinion is far from being saturated. I'm planning on entering this industry myself in the near future. Just an option to consider.

Trying to help people relax - that's a very noble goal! However, I would urge you to define your audience more specifically. Think: Can I target such an audience on FB? If not, then redefine your audience. It's only after you've defined an audience, that you would know how to create your site to cater to that audience.

(For example: Use their language/jargon, portray them in images. If you want to target seniors for instance, making the font size bigger and dumbing-down/spelling out every step of the purchase process can help.)

Actually I just wrote a post the other day about products in the new age niche:

https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...l=1#post408352


Looking forward to following your progress!



Amy



Sent from my iPhone using STM Forums

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Thanks for your replies over the last few days. They have been very insightful.

Do you think I should partner up with someone who is really good at marketing and split the business 50/50? Or would you recommend I just continue grinding and learning the marketing side for myself? Thanks in advance.

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I'm glad to hear that you're finding value in all the feedback from various members. This is what our forum is about!

As for whether you should partner up with someone who is good at marketing: Only you can answer that question.

But here are some questions to ask yourself, that may make the answer become more clear:

-What do you enjoy doing? Finding products and sourcing, or marketing? You can 100% master both skills yourself. The question is whether you'd be interested in learning and doing either/both.

-How quickly are you wanting to start making more money? If time is of essence, and you believe that your partner will do a better job than you can at marketing, then yes, partnering up can result in profits sooner.

-How good is your partner at marketing? Do they have a proven track record of past success?

-How much do you trust this person? Who will be supplying the costs of sourcing and storage and advertising? Are there measures you can put in place to protect yourself from the worst? (e.g. In case your partner disappears or wishes to exit, with or w/o the money.)

-How dispensable will you be in the partnership? e.g. How easy would it be for your partner to just go one step further and source the same product themself?


I know partners that have come together to make billions, and partners that took off with the money leaving the others holding the bag. So there are pros and cons and nobody can advise you to choose one way over the other.

The only piece of advice I'm comfortable in giving is this: If you DO decide to partner up with this person, however good your relationship with them may be, DO make everything official to protect the both of you. Go to a lawyer, get contracts drafted. Who pays what cost and gets what in return. If there are losses who will be responsible.

I've seen tragedies happen between friends or family that decided to go into business together, without having anything written in place. Everything is verbal and "oh we'll figure out something together - we're best friends so we don't need anything formal". Don't do that!

Cause when money is involved, it changes the relationship, or even the partners themselves. In the best scenario, when the biz is making profits, one party may feel they're doing too much work and getting too little reward. In the worst scenario, when the biz is losing money, both parties may dispute over who should pick up the tab.

Of course, another possibility would be to hire employees instead of seeking a partner. Again - pros and cons with that.

Whichever route you choose to go, I would urge you to at least learn marketing and stay on top of all your business's marketing efforts, even if it's being taken care of by your partner or employees. That way you're not completely at their mercy, or left helpless if they have to leave. Marketing will make or break your business, so it's 100% worth learning, even if you're not planning on doing it yourself directly. And that way, you can steer the direction of your business's marketing efforts, instead of being seen as a fool or be left in the dark by a partner or your employees.

Sorry for all the negativity - I'm all for trusting people and thinking positively. But it won't hurt to put all the protective measures in place to guard against the worst case scenario. Once those are in place, you'll be able to focus on nurturing your relationship with your partner/employees and growing the business together. It can only be good.

Hope that helps!



Amy


Sent from my iPhone using STM Forums

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I'm so so so appreciative of what you just said. Thank you. I'll be thinking about the questions you posed for me deeply. I do enjoy learning marketing, it's a skill I want to learn and I do feel like its only a matter of time before I get good at it.

<3 Thanks so much!

PS: I just started Cashvertising and I've already gotten tons of value from it. Thank you!!

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November 28, 2020

My third product - a moon lamp - seems very promising.

I only spent $5 on Google Shopping and made my first sale last night - for a profit of $25! This has been my first product that has been profitable in the testing phase. Excited to what will happen in the future.

I am also leaning towards just working by myself on the marketing side. I will find a way to tell "A" the news and hopefully be able to still keep in contact with him because he has been great to work with thus far.

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My pleasure! Likewise thanks for sharing all your experiences - other members can learn so much from your mindset, attitude, and what has worked and what hasn't.

And yup Cashvertising is pretty awesome!


Oooh moon lamp! I was tempted to get one, and only decided not to because I'm a minimalist and like to keep my home uncluttered. But they're pretty cool beans. Looking forward to seeing more progress!

I hope I haven't turned you off the idea of partnering with "A" with all the precautions I suggested! When you're closed to middle-aged and have seen enough tragedies happen you can get a little bit jaded and cynical (talking about myself here). But most people are kind with a good conscience, and synergies can be created when multiple people work together. Again - not trying to persuade one way or another - both have pros and cons. I'd be telling you the same thing if you were my brother.

And yes keeping in touch with "A" would be nice! Even if you don't partner up, you can be allies. You can teach him how to select products and source them, and he can teach you marketing. Help others generously and it can come back to you tenfold.



Amy

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Good work man!

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December 1, 2020 - This is me being honest + kind of a vent:

The last 2 days I have been kind of unfocused on building this. I also have been reselling random items (flipping) and make a lot more money there. (I made $1k yesterday!). In the back of my head though, I know I should be focusing on building this business because its scalable, unlike retail arbitrage. However I only make a couple of dollars a month on this business so far so its hard to pass up on making $1k in a day flipping. Just venting.


I've been going back and forth on whether or not to work with "A" and then I texted him yesterday to see if he has any experience partnering up with anyone else before. So far there has been no response.

Another random tidbit - I've been thinking about exploring the "sex toy" niche. I feel like it may be a good idea because it's taboo, meaning a lot of people wouldn't want to make a store, so less competition. Idk.

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Why hold yourself to something your heart isn't in at this very moment?

If I were you, I would focus 100% on flipping, and figuring out how to scale THAT. There's always a way!

Once you have that seed money, you can HIRE people to do what you're not eager and excited to do, e.g. setting up a more sustainable ecom business.

Or, focus on flipping, and dedicate a smaller part of your time towards setting up the long-term business.

I'm a big fan of Abraham Hicks, and one of the best advice I've gotten from them is that it's important to "follow your bliss."

When you follow what excites you, magic will happen. Don't hold yourself back from that!

I mean - just read over what you wrote! You made $1k yesterday and you're venting! Is that natural? You know the answer!

As for the sex toy niche - that's a very lucrative niche as well AFAIK, but I don't know about "a lot of people wouldn't want to make a store". Look at how many people are making money in the porn industry or the male enhancement industry for example.

Just know that the adult industry is a whole different beast. Your traffic channels will be different from what you're used to. FB, Google, Youtube - none of these allow adult stuff. So it would be good to figure out how to get traffic before setting up a store.



Amy

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Sounds good, did you ever consider website flipping?

Don´t misjudge it, in probably all adult related verticals there is lots of competition.

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Hi, Sorry for my ignorance, but what is Flipping?

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flipping

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For website flipping you buy websites and then resell them with profit.

There´s also domain flipping where you basically do the same just with domains.

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For posterity: https://empireflippers.com/

I know a few people who have made loads of money there. So yes, it is a thing.

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Another flipping site: https://flippa.com/

I was able to "borrow" quite a few great business ideas from there that have paid off big. Worth a look!



Amy

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A friend of mine even sold an Amazon Merch account for high 6 figures there

Yup, you can get some pretty good insights there sometimes about good working (in terms of revenue) websites.

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