Listen To This Before Starting An Online Business in 2025 (Episode 111)

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🗣 In this episode, Lewis Smith and James Eardley discuss the most common misconceptions and mistakes that hold people back from starting an online business this year. 

If you’re considering launching your own business but feel uncertain, this episode is for you. They’ll walk you through how to avoid the pitfalls and set yourself up for success.

👉 Prefer to watch this on YouTube? Check it out here ➡️https://youtu.be/IKPj-7vGctM

Topics Discussed:
★ Not Having Faith in Yourself: Why seeing others’ success shouldn’t make you doubt your own ability.
★ The Value of Mentorship: Why going it alone often leads to failure, and how following a proven path can speed up your progress.
★ Thinking It’s Not the Right Time: How to shift your mindset and understand why there’s no "perfect time" to start.
★ Shiny Object Syndrome: The dangers of jumping from one business model to another and why consistency is key.
★ Dabbling vs Full Commitment: Why half-hearted efforts won’t yield the success you’re after and the importance of committing fully to your chosen business model.
★ Aligning Your Business with Your Desired Lifestyle: Why it’s critical to choose a business model that supports your personal and financial goals.

Links and Resources Mentioned:
Pick up a copy of Lewis’ book: https://dropshipunlocked.com/book
Get Shopify for £1 a month for 3 months: https://dropshipunlocked.com/shopify
Get a free trial with a professional phone line: https://dropshipunlocked.com/circle

Key Takeaways:
★ Commit to One Business Model: If you want success, choose one business model and stick with it.
★ The Power of Mentorship: Seek out mentorship from those who have already succeeded. It’ll save you time and mistakes.
★ Timing Is a Myth: Stop waiting for the "perfect" moment to start your business. 

Learn More:
➡️ When people are ready to create time and financial freedom for themselves, they visit - https://dropshipunlocked.com/free?el=podcast-111-watch-this-before-starting-an-online-business 

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Transcript

0:00

Because we can explain this business model, and it is very simple when you have the steps to follow, but if you're going through it blind, I mean, good luck. Now, when they have quite a vague goal like that, I think choosing a business model that aligns with what they want to achieve is quite difficult, but I've gotta, like, I would be not doing my job if I was not fully upfront with you and told you that every person I've spoken to who has ever said that has never gone on to do it, to avoid the mistakes that we've talked about today, because any of those wrong mindsets or about going into things the wrong way can set you up for failure. You've got to go all in. I think it's worth six months of committing fully to something. And said, I am in. Let's do this to never have to work a day at a job in your life, ever again. You You welcome to the dropship unlocked Podcast. I'm Lewis Smith, the founder of dropship unlocked, and with me today is our client success coach, James Eardley, when we're not recording podcast episodes or running our own e commerce businesses, you'll find us helping aspiring entrepreneurs launch their own high ticket drop shipping stores. If you're ready to build your own six or even seven figure online business, head over to dropship unlocked.com forward slash accelerator and sign up for your 14 day trial. Inside the accelerator, you'll gain access to exclusive training, live coaching calls and a thriving community of like minded entrepreneurs. Plus, when you join today, you'll also get a free copy of my book, the home turf advantage. Now sit back, relax, and let's unlock your potential with the dropship unlocked podcast. So today we're putting together an episode that we know will be crucial if you're thinking about starting an online business this year coming The reason why is because there are common misconceptions that people have that leads to common mistakes and sometimes fatal errors. If you don't understand these things up front before starting an online business. So if you're feeling a bit uncertain about getting started with online business, we want to make sure you feel completely prepared after listening to today's episode. So Lewis, I'm gonna dive into your your brains, your knowledge and experience of guiding people through starting their own online business. What would you say is the first misconception that you often hear from aspiring entrepreneurs. Yeah, we hear a lot of misconceptions. I think people often convince themselves as to reasons why they shouldn't start a business, why society tells us that we shouldn't put our head above the parapet and go it alone and try out the adventure on our on our own. I think one of the biggest hurdles people people face actually comes from inside. It's an internal hurdle and a mental roadblock, and it's something that it's a belief in themselves. You know that I think people lack sometimes, that that belief in themselves, whether that's because of their upbringing or they have never created something and seen the results from something that they've created gives them evidence to believe that they could do this themselves. They see other people succeeding. Maybe they see like the members that we share stories of within dropship unlocked, and they watch it and they understand it, and they can rationalize it and say, Well, clearly, this person's making money. They have a business now, but they just don't there's a disconnect between seeing that and believing that it will work for them. They kind of their internal dialog. You know, the little person on their shoulder says, ah, but it won't work for you. And so I think that mindset can be extremely limiting, that self doubt, that sense of almost like imposter syndrome, I guess, where you think like, what? Why? I'm not a business owner. I haven't assigned myself that label. So how could I possibly succeed? And the reason that's such a damaging hurdle, I wouldn't call it a roadblock, a hurdle, because you can overcome hurdles. You can jump over them, which you can this one. But when you lack faith in your own ability to succeed, you're essentially creating you're setting yourself up for failure, because you will find the evidence that supports your existing belief as you go through it and you hit your first hurdle in business, which you will do. We all hit hurdles throughout business every day. I've hit about five this morning, and it's only 1035 but as soon as you hit that first hurdle, you'll say, Ah, yeah, I knew, you see, I knew I couldn't do it. I knew it wasn't right for me. I knew I wasn't going to be able to succeed at this. And you'll you'll start to take what you think is evidence to support that existing belief of it won't work for me. You'll apply it to that hypothesis, and that'll be it. You'll give up. And you might. I mean, if you're going to have that belief from the outset, you might as well throw in the. Howl on day one and just give up. Because you you have to reframe your belief system as an entrepreneur, believing it won't work for you, from for you can become a self fulfilling prophecy, because if you, if you don't believe it will work for you, you don't, then put yourself out there. You don't do the things. You don't seek, the support, the guidance, you don't have an open, porous mind to all of the information that's out there, and therefore you'll never know what's possible, and you'll never be able to tackle those challenges head on and think, how am I going to figure this out? You know, how am I going to sign my first supplier? How am I going to figure this piece of my website out that I want to set up in a certain way, but I just don't know how to do it yet. If we, if we fell at the first hurdle, and we all said, Oh, well, I knew I couldn't do it. There wouldn't be entrepreneurs. So I think it's about building that resilience. And the nice thing about this, in the age of the internet and this interconnected society that we live in, success leaves clues, doesn't it, you're not doing this on your own, trying to figure this out just through trial and error, instead of feeling defeated by others achievements. When you see these videos of people succeeding, consider their journey as just a blueprint. You know they overcame certain challenges along the way that you would probably face, but now you don't have to, because you can navigate through the challenges they faced and actually learn from their path and use it to empower your own path. So it's powerful, yeah, absolutely. I think it's so common. I think everyone has felt that lack of belief, and it would be natural, because you haven't yet achieved that level of success that you're going after, so you haven't got proof in your own mind that you can achieve it. So you have to kind of give yourself that and the way I gave myself that confidence was by seeing others succeed and all the clues that they leave behind. And instead of being beaten down by other success, instead you see it as a confirmation that you can also achieve the same success. Because if somebody else can achieve it, then you can as well. So you kind of create that as a mindset shift in your mind, that as long as long as somebody else can achieve something, then you can as well. Gives you the confidence to take action already take action. That's when things go in the right direction. But without that mindset shift at the very start, you can't go into business without having a complete belief in yourself that you will make a success in it. So it's a very powerful point. Now, another common issue that I like to talk about for people that fail in business because they haven't understood this before getting started, is something that I know all too well, and is wanting to go alone, wanting to have a big goal, big ambition, but you decide that the best way for you to achieve that is to go it alone and just start working and kind of underestimating the value of working with others. So what's your take on this? Yeah, I think if you want to go far, you've got to go together. You've got to you've got to use other people to lift you up, to lift them up, to support each other, and know that there will be hard times along the way. You know, I pay 10s of 1000s of pounds per year. I invest that money into my own mentorship, to join masterminds, to be around people who are, you know, where I'm in the room, where I know that I can grow the most. That's exactly what we've created with dropship unlocked. It's for people who who like the idea of building a business, but they don't want to, and they know that they don't need to go and try and figure it all out the time consuming and expensive way, trying to do it alone, on a desert island, all on their own in the day of the internet and how connected we all are, there's just no need to you're making life 10 times harder for yourself and to reach that same eventual result. The other thing is, I believe it comes from a place of scarcity. If you try, if you're trying to do it on your own, you're almost thinking like, oh, I need to protect this little piece of the market, because it's all mine, and if anyone else were to find out about it, then, you know, or this business model, if anyone else knew about it, just accept you're not the first person to ever discover this business. You're not the first person to probably sell the type of products that you're going to sell, and as soon as you can kind of come over that and surpass that, that hurdle, you'll open yourself up to collaboration, to working with others, learning from others, in a non competitive and collaborative way. So yeah, I think wanting to go alone often stems from just undervaluing that importance of mentorship and community. Usually what happens is you look for guidance along the way to help avoid making costly mistakes. It's like if I'm walking down the street through London, I've got terrible sense of direction. If I need to get from one side of London to another, and I'm walking and I need to get for a certain meeting, I'm going to use my GPS. I'm going to use Google Maps on my phone, right if I just guessed I might get there eventually, and use all the road signs and try and figure it out and ask people along the way. But if I just use a proven path that is going to take me the most direct route with the least obstacles, if I weigh we know that that's going to provide a much faster route to the. End destination. So when you can follow someone's path that's already achieved what you want. In business, it's the same thing. It's like having the kind of sat nav in business. You avoid those pitfalls, you get directly to the path. And one of the best ways of doing that is to build be part of a community. Is to be in a a group of people who can support each other, can help you, can lift you up when you're down, but you can add value. And it's like being part of a team where everyone lifts each other up, but when you're alone in entrepreneurship and you go out on your own, but you're used to maybe being in a company where you're a part of a big team can feel quite isolating. So a great way of maintaining that sense of community and growing together and not being on this journey on your own, on a lonely path, is to join a community like that. Yeah, I think a big reason for this kind of go it alone mindset that is so wrong is that you don't have anyone in your immediate friends or family that are pursuing the same goals, so you kind of already have that sense of you're doing this alone because you don't have immediate people around you in the physical space. So you kind of get into that mindset of wanting to do it alone. Maybe it's a generational thing. Maybe this won't be the case for generations beneath us there some people already immediately understand that although there's no one they know, physically and locally to them that are doing the same business model, they know instinctively that there will be others out there online. But certainly for me, I felt like I was on this journey alone because I had no one around me that was doing it, and so I kept myself to myself, watched a few YouTube videos and tried to do it myself. But I'll tell you one thing that's absolutely guaranteed when you do that is there will be a moment where you followed something to the letter. You went to went on it alone. But as soon as that breaks or doesn't look exactly how you expected it to be, you have got no one around you to help you, both emotionally and tactically, to tell you exactly the next steps to take to get over that hurdle. And it happens without without question. Whatever business model you go into, there'll be times where you're not quite sure how to progress. And that's the value of having great people around you, which kind of brings us on to another misconception that people have before they get started. But I wanted to chat to you about Lewis, and that's this concept of people thinking that now is not the perfect time to start a business, whether that's now, whether that was four years ago, whether that's in a few years time, I'm sure would be the same. People have this ongoing thought in their mind that now's not the right time to start. So how would you respond to that? How can you kind of guide people to shift that mindset that now isn't the perfect time? Yeah, it's right James, the the fear that is so prevalent that it's just not the right time to start a business is very, very common, but it is crucial to see past that if you're ever going to get traction and get moving and build momentum. You know that fear, that illusion of, oh, it's not the right time, has been around since before the many years I've been in business, and will be around for the many years after I've been in business and I'm gone, right? So it's not going to change, because it's something that is a misconception that's baked into many people's psyche. But if we can, I mean, if you think about it this way, I try and go for a run most mornings, right? I get up if I said I'm going to wait until the sky is clear and it's the most blue sky, beautiful, sunny day before I go running. Sometimes, with the British weather in the winter, I'd be waiting a long time before that day came, right? But it but some. But you also know that you'll feel better after that exercise, after that run, after that morning walk. So sometimes they just get up and go when it's dark, raining, pouring. I almost treat it as like, Bring on the challenge. Like, let's go. You know, the bit of rain is not going to hurt me. Let's just, let's just get out there. And I all get out there. And I always feel better after it. And it's kind of the same, it's like, you know, the weather, in that case, is the market conditions. You might think, Oh, let me just wait until after Christmas. Or let me, let me wait till after I've got through this project at work. Or let me wait until. Like, these are kind of saying I'm going to wait until that clear day before I go for a walk or a run, I think you have to sometimes just say, come rain or shine. I'm doing this, and I'm doing it now, and I'm getting started, because the best time to start was five years ago. The second best time is right now. Get it done. So businesses have thrived in all kinds of economic conditions. Look at some of the most successful businesses in history. They were, many of them started in recessions, and so whatever the market climate is at the moment, people are going to want to buy products online. That's just the nature of E commerce. It kind of it's this train that keeps chugging through despite the market condition. You're either on the train or you're not, and if you just wait, watching it, waiting for it to go by and thinking, Oh, I'll wait for some point eventually you're going to miss it and it's going to be gone and you're going to be standing there regretting that fact in five years time that you never took action and did anything about it. So if you feel those voices of, oh, maybe you should delay, maybe you should wait. Maybe you should wait till you're back off holiday, maybe wait till you know this stuff at work irons out. There's redundancies happening at work, and let me see where it lands. Like, I think, if you wait until something like that happens, it adds so much pressure if you then decide to launch, because then you're thinking, Well, I have to make this work now. Like it's I absolutely have to. My whole career depends on it. There's a lot of pressure to put on yourself, versus just starting it on the site initially, getting it up and running, making a few extra 1000 pounds per month, and then eventually starting to ease back from the day to day work. Stop trading your time for money and go all in on your business once it's proven. But you've got to get that. You've got to get out for a run in the rain. You've got to get out for a walk in the rain. You can't wait for that, that Clear Sky Day, because it may be a long time, if ever exactly, especially in the UK, if you were waiting for a perfect sunny day, you would be waiting forever. And it seems to happen in the same way with business, where people are waiting for this mirage of a perfect day, and it doesn't seem to come either. Now, I started my E commerce business in 2021 which I'm sure many people would have told you at that time and were telling me that it wasn't a great time to start a business, whether that was a global pandemic, whether that was the issues with Suez Canal and products not being able to get into the UK, lorry driving, shortages, all of these different things going on at the time. There were just reasons why starting an E commerce business, selling physical products, wouldn't be the right time. But regardless, I pushed on Otherwise, otherwise I never would have done it. And there will be millions of reasons, no matter when you're listening to this podcast or watching us. Now, I'm sure you could probably pick out something that's not perfect about why now the time to start, but that's exactly the point, because there'll always be something so if you focus on external factors, then there'll always be something that you can find. So instead, the shift that you talked about, Lewis is, is actually focusing on personal circumstances and making sure that you're ready, ready to get started now, rather than just waiting for external factors that you have no control over otherwise you'll be waiting forever. So I glad you agree with me on that point Lewis and I wonder if you do on this misconception that I've come across a lot myself as well, is that when people go into a business model, there'll be difficulty that normally arises not too long after you get started. And what I see very often is that as soon as that difficulty arises, there's another shiny object on the horizon that they can go into instead, and at that moment when it's more difficult to to proceed with the current business and it looks nicer to start with a new one, a lot of people jump and kind of hop around between different business models, and that's obviously a huge mistake. Why, you know, do you think, have you seen that for a start, and why do you think it's so common, and why is it so dangerous, this shiny object syndrome. Yeah, there are two parts to this, or two common scenarios that I see play out. So sometimes it's when I'm speaking to a prospective member who's thinking about, you know, jumping in, joining the dropship unlocked master class. And it's kind of like, I think I want to do it, but and then sometimes you'll hear them say, I think, do you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna have a go on my own for a little bit, and I'll come back to you, and I'm like, I genuinely, I really do wish you the best of luck, and I really, really hope that your woman 10,000 that do figure it out on your own. But I've gotta, like, I would be not doing my job if I was not fully upfront with you and told you that every person I've spoken to who has ever said that has never gone on to do it, and most of the time, the people who do eventually succeed, who said that, come back to us later and say, Do you know what I messed up? I've wasted a few 1000 pounds. It's not as easy as I thought. There was, you know, the devil was in the detail. I didn't realize it. I thought it was a lot simpler than before, but I missed some crucial stuff that was under the surface that maybe you know, because we can explain this business model, and it is very simple when you have the steps to follow, but if you're going through it blind, I mean, good luck. It's, it's a treacherous path, and there are some pitfalls that you can't recover from if you, if you get it wrong, you know, and we don't get it wrong when we go through the process that we use because we've learned from our own expensive mistakes, the mentorship that we've each taken on board throughout our journeys as well. And obviously you've got a community of other people there to help too. So that's the first thing. I think it's that it's not even so much the shiny object. It's more like, No, I like the object, but let me just try and figure it out on my own. So that one is quite a kind of an insidious one that so many people get wrong, and they say, I'm gonna just give it a crack on my own. And, you know, see how I go, and I'm like, it's almost like, I'm really sorry to hear that, because it's basically what I hear from that is like, I'm gonna waste six months of my time pour loads of money down the drain, and probably get disheartened and defeated and think that the whole model didn't work, but it's because they didn't have a strategy to follow step by step along the way. So that's the first one that really I find it hard to watch. The second one is, like you said, if they come into this, but they're kind of looking over their shoulder as well at like, a different model that's caught their eye over there. And they're like, I mean, I could, I could do e commerce, but this AI things really, um, fascinating over there. And like a lot of people starting these AI, you know, businesses, and helping local businesses with AI chat bots and AI agencies and stuff. Or they're like, I mean, friend of mine does Amazon FBA. I feel like maybe that could be the route, or print on demand. Seems like it could be good. And this funny, these models have have like, come and go. They've they've become, you know, flavor of the month, and then they've kind of disappeared into insignificance. Throughout the whole time, we've just been gradually helping members build e commerce businesses using good old fashioned, physical products that arrive at customers doors. You know, it's very difficult for something like AI to create a physical product in someone's house. I don't think we're quite there yet with the technology of, like, transporting products, um, teleporting products through AI. But the the thing is, like that, it's very tempting. You're in a world of marketeers. You're seeing different ads. You're seeing, um, people you know, dangle these shiny objects in front of you and suggest why they are. The answer to all the things that that you've maybe been up I've been wondering, but using AI as an example, because that is the, you know, the topic at the moment, everyone's everyone's talking about, look how quickly it's progressed. The people who started businesses with AI as their differentiator a few months ago, many of them are out of business now because the AI that's publicly available to people has up leveled so much that now everyone and their grandma can do the things that these specialist agencies before were saying that was their unique differentiator. And so suddenly it's like, oh no. You need to have a prompt engineer, and you need to have, like, a, you know, a specialist agency to help you do this stuff. Now, you just type in a basic prompt to some of these models, and it's like, wow, the results you're getting out are as good as you would have had to pay a lot of money to an agency help to help you with before or a piece of specialist software. So I think that margin, that kind of differentiation, margin is closing. That gap is closing. That's why I like physical products, because it's like, well, the you know, I don't, I don't see what is going to come along and change this. We Amazon has existed for a long time. We know that is not profitable enough or feasible for them to have their warehouses stacked to the ceiling with the type of products that we market through the home turf advantage, the bigger products, the more expensive products. It doesn't fit the economics, which is amazing, because we can use that to our advantage. So the long winded way of kind of talking about that is, I see it. I see it where people get distracted, where they see that, they think, I'll just go it alone, see if I can figure it out. 99% of the time they don't, and the 1% of the time that they do is where they've come back to us later and said, I've wasted a lot of money here. I'm pretty deflated and disheartened by this whole thing. Can we just get this done now? And then they come in, and by that point there, you know, their energy is like on empty, because they they've just spent so long trying to figure it out. So, yeah, I think that's those are the things that I see. Mastery takes time. You've got to stick with one model. So pick a model that you can see lasting into the future. Don't pick a model where your differentiation window is closing by the day. Jumping around means you never truly learn the ins and outs of an industry. You're just kind of like jumping from one to another and print on demand. Oh no, that that dried up and got saturated. Oh, Amazon. No, Amazon. Amazon have closed everyone's margin and negating categories and stopping people from selling in there and concentrate on one business model. Pick something you believe in, pick something you think will be around for years to come. Because it's easier to refine and improve upon a single model and skill set than it is to spread your energy thinly across multiple and succeed in none of them exactly. I mean, your energy is very precious when you've got that ambition up front to get started in the business, and you don't want to waste that on a not profitable campaign or not profitable business from the start, from my store in my journey, Lewis, I started with traditional drop shipping, where I was trying to spin the wheel all the time and find trending products and creating new stores, new marketing campaigns, new videos to sell products every few weeks that I thought were trending, but there was always time and a waste of money. Crucially, I thought I could do it alone, and I thought that going into a business model that like this was going to be the most profitable for me. But exactly as you said, Lewis, when you go alone, you make these mistakes. And I was trying to go after a business model, that would mean I'd have to constantly spin plates to find new winning products. Whereas if you go with an E commerce business, or a business that's more sustainable, something that's more long term, selling products that are in demand, that aren't going to lose demand, then you don't have to continually build new businesses. You can build one and receive income for it for years to come, after the initial stage of getting it set up, which is what we're doing it for in the first place. And something you alluded to there, Lewis, is that idea of dabbling that you made very clear to me not to do when I first started with the dropship unlocked master class, because if you. Dabble. You never commit fully to one business model and you just see if it works, or you just try. But, I mean, the results we see when people dabble is that it doesn't go well, because trying is not enough. You've got to go all in. I mean, what do you think, Louis, I know you're very strong on this. What do you think about people that that are just going into a business model and they're just going to try and see if it works. I'm probably a bit harsh on this one. We had people at our live event that we do with our members come up to me last time, and they're like, I'm really trying. I'm progressing through the program. I hope I'm not being a dabbler, almost like this kind of guilty feeling that I might accuse them of being a dabbler publicly and shame them. I think there's a differentiation here. There's dabbling, and then there's procrastination. Now dabbling, I would define as you come in and you dip your toe in the water and you're like, Nah, I don't know if this will really work, so I'm just, I'll give it a go. Now, unfortunately, no one has ever dabbled their way to a eight figure a year business, right? It just doesn't it just doesn't happen. You know, you unless you're starting with 10s of millions and that that business is a fraction of your net worth. If that's not the case for you, then dabbling is not going to cut it to get the results that you want. And what happens is, because you only dabble, you only half heartedly put any effort in, therefore you only get half hearted results. Therefore the cycle continues, and you're like, Oh, see, I knew it wouldn't be that good. And then you only dabble again, and it fizzles out, and then you give up, right? So that's kind of why, you know, it's not because I don't want you to dabble. It's because I know that only dabbling into it gives you under performance and underwhelming results, results that you're not proud of and wouldn't be happy with. You know, you could probably still make a few 1000 pounds per month, but you're not going to make 10s of 1000s of pounds per month, or hundreds of 1000s per month. And if that's what excites you, you've got to go all in. I think it's worth six months of committing fully to something and said, I am in, let's do this to never have to work a day at a job in your life ever again. To me, that trade off feels like a complete no brainer, like I would bite your hand off, to take that, that opportunity, right? So that, and that's exactly what I did, that is, you know, when I first said I'm in, I was all in. I just did it, and I hit all kinds of roadblocks along the way. But because I was all in, those roadblocks weren't roadblocks. They were hurdles. And I just figured out what, I just need to work around them. I need to ask the community. I need to, you know, get that support. Now we've created that for the UK market, for people who are in my position, who wanted that kind of home grown knowledge that home turf advantage, and that's why we've created this. So just remember, if you treat your business like a hobby, don't expect it to pay you any better than a hobby would pay you. Those are the results you'll get, you know, and if you only give something a try, you're never going to be blown away by the results. You have to have that intention, that commitment, to be able to discover what's really possible. And as soon as you do, you realize, oh, wow, this is more than I realized. Now I'm really going all in, and then your commitment level can can keep increasing as you see those incredible results start to come in, and it's life changing. Amounts of money, you start hiring other team members, start thinking much bigger, expanding. But it all happens from that initial sense of belief in the model and that that is what you have to have to make it work. Unfortunately, that's the that's the secret. That's the trade off you make. It's having the full belief. It's having the full commitment consistency over relatively a short amount of time, when we talk about six months, but obviously you have to put that sacrifice in, and then it's years worth of proper payments that that pay you properly because of the actual work that you put in to get a business to that level. So it has to be, has to be all in it's all in all nothing. Otherwise, you know, if you're, if you're half in, half hour, you're not going to get the result. It's that brilliant Spanish War tale that they say about the Spanish leader who went to invade the country, and when they got all the boats to the shore, he turned around and told them all to burn the boats because they knew there was no way going back. They're all in and the amount of commitment you get when you burn the boat to make it your single path to freedom, or the goals that you've got, you can guarantee a much higher level of success with that level of commitment. So I had to do the exact same with my story as well. Lewis, now final thing I think we can talk about today is another misconception, or it's another mistake people make that I've seen. I want to get your take on it as well. Lewis, it's people who have a big goal, but they're not really specific about what their goal actually is, and they're not really specific on the dream lifestyle that they have. They just know it's sort of freedom and to be rich and successful. And now, when they have quite a vague goal like that, I think choosing a business model that aligns with what they want to achieve is quite difficult because you haven't clarified what it is you actually want your life to look like in the future. So how can somebody make sure that the business that they go into actually aligns with their target lifestyle? Yeah, it's being very intentional about the business model that you choose from the outset. Because not all business models are created equal, and not all. Outcomes from running a business model are equal. So you want to make sure that the event, you know, the ladder that you're climbing is lent up against the right building. As they say, don't get to the top of the ladder by working really hard on, you know, a print on demand on Amazon business only to realize later that you've got huge cash flow problems or a brand that you can't defend against. You know, saturated competition, and realize you were up against the wrong building the whole time. So making sure you identify your values, know what you want from your lifestyle before choosing a model. For me, it was security for my family. It was freedom and autonomy and control over my time. I wanted to be able to say I'm going to Mexico tomorrow for six weeks, and no one could tell me otherwise I would boss to answer to. I had the ability to still run my business and earn as much, if not more, whilst being there than I could, you know, buy in my old job, and just making sure that whatever business I chose, it aligned with that. So I didn't want one where I had to be there all hours of the day, you know, and that's why e commerce works perfectly for me. High Ticket drop shipping, I can have virtual assistants answering the phone or doing their live chat and emails while I'm asleep on a different time zone, like it doesn't need me to be present. I'll check in a couple of times a week, maybe a couple of times a day throughout the week, check in, maybe occasionally, pay a supplier, and that's it. I can get back to doing what I enjoy, spending my time with the people that are important to me in the places where I want to be doing the things I want to do. That for me was the definition of success. It might be different for you. Whatever it is for you, you might say I want to run a really big team and be super um, stimulated, busy boss sitting in a corporate office, corner office, you know, like, um, something of suits or something like that, in which case, maybe this lifestyle type of business isn't the right business for you to pursue. But if you think I want that freedom over my time, I don't want to trade my time for money anymore. I want autonomy. I want control, and I want stability and to build a legacy for my family. In my opinion, there is no better model than this. It's it's just set up for that, you know, it's been reverse engineered to provide that. So, yeah, you got to be really clear. Only you, the listener right now, knows the answer to this for you. You know what your future ideally looks like. So visualize that. Write it down. Picture what success looks like for you, and then just make sure you choose a model that supports that vision and will ultimately get you to that vision. Yeah, it's a reverse engineering process, isn't it? Lewis, it's about going to the end first and then working your way back to see what do I need to put in place to actually get to that end lifestyle goal, and not just jumping into a business because it's trending, um, actually making a decision on which business you're going to enter based on the end goal from the very start. And yeah, we filmed this this podcast today with my background of the balcony here, because I wanted to hopefully get that across to people that this business model does allow you to build that dream lifestyle that you've got in mind, but as long as you make sure that you avoid the misconceptions, avoid the mistakes that we've talked about today, because any of those wrong mindsets or about going into things the wrong way can set you up for failure rather than success and getting that ideal lifestyle. So Louis, practical steps that we like to give people to take away from every episode. What should somebody listening to this episode right now do with all the information that we've provided so they can actually act on the lessons today and get started? Yeah, well, first advice would be to think very carefully about what you want as your outcome. What's important to you? What kind of lifestyle do you want to create? This is lifestyle design in action. So design your lifestyle and then select the business model that gets you there. Select the business model that helps you achieve that. Now, if it's the home turf advantage model that you like the sound of the one that we run, then I would encourage you don't just dabble, stick with it, see it through. Decide to go all in, because once you commit the results you then see will inspire you, will show you and expand your belief, and you'll realize, wow, I've achieved more here than I thought I would ever be able to. Then your belief starts to grow more. And it's a self perpetuating, self fulfilling cycle. So it's really, it's a positive spiral, but you've got to start with that belief and be all in the second piece of advice would be, learn from those who've already achieved the results you want. Be open to learning. Remove your ego from the equation. You know just, just know you're not the first person starting a business. You're not the first person probably selling the products that you're going to sell. But that's okay, because people still make millions of pounds per year by selling products that are in busy markets where other people are there. So that's okay. You don't need to be the unicorn, the the, you know, the only pioneering company out there selling what you want to sell. We want a proven market. And I think if you're ready to take action and start your E commerce journey, the best thing you can probably do is head over to the drop ship unlocked accelerator. We'll link that below this episode, and you can gain access to some really valuable resources in there, coaching, supportive community, expert sessions, member store review calls, all kinds of great stuff to help you succeed on your journey towards the lifestyle that you want. Are you enjoying the podcast? We'd love to hear from you leave a comment or a review, and we might feature it in an upcoming episode. And for detailed show notes and resources, visit dropship, unlock.com forward slash podcast. If you found value in any episode of this podcast, please. Could you take just 10 seconds to leave us a quick five star review on your favorite podcast app? It helps us more than you can imagine. And who knows, you might just hear your comments read out on the show. Thanks for being a part of our community. Your support helps us keep delivering new episodes to you every week. Now it's that part of the episode where we answer a question that's coming from a listener. So thank you for getting your questions in and if you do have a question that you'd like to be answered potentially on an upcoming episode, then simply comment beneath the YouTube video version of this episode. So that's exactly what Wu Tang has done. Wu Tang two, double, 361, so I'm going to ask his question across to you now, Lewis. And he asked this question after watching Sue rajes podcast episode, which is on the drop ship unlocked podcast, and on the YouTube channel. And he was talking about how he's made 100k with his first two stores that he's built so far. And Wu Tang has obviously been inspired. But he's asked a question, is this stuff from China? Yeah, it's a great question. Well, I'm glad, firstly, that you enjoyed the episode. It was a great episode with Suraj. So anyone that hasn't watched that, I'd highly recommend, um, checking that one out. That was a great episode. We had them on recently, and for the second time, actually, I believe, on the dropship unlock podcast. And so the short answer to your question, is this stuff from China. No is the answer. And the business model that we talk about and have kind of alluded to in this episode, is all about building strong relationships with high quality, UK based suppliers. So unlike the traditional drop shipping model that you might have heard about on YouTube, where people often rely on products from China and AliExpress and temu and you know, like cheap, low quality, low value products where there's very thin profit margins, we prioritize local partnerships. So what that means is, when you work with domestic suppliers, so suppliers who are in the country that your customers are in as well. So for us in the UK, what that means is a significantly reduced delivery time, so you can get items out to customers, usually within a day, 24 hours, 48 hours. So because customers receive their orders so much faster, it enhances their overall experience, and then that leads to more positive reviews for your brand. That leads to other people coming to your brand, and it just really starts to build and snowball. Now, by relying on UK suppliers, your business then becomes more dependable, because faster shipping and quality products lead to happier customers, which leads to more business. So it's a really nice cycle, a really nice business model. It's called the home turf advantage. And for more details on how to find these types of high quality local suppliers. Can check out the episode that we recently did called how to sign UK drop shipping suppliers, which is episode 22 the dropship unlocked podcast. Perfect. Yes. Thank you for your question. Quite a common one, and we are unlike the majority of drop shippers out there, where we won't use products from AliExpress, which might be what you expected when you came across the channel for the first time. But no, the HomeServe advantage is completely different. We've tried traditional drop shipping. We've obviously implemented the home serve advantage, which I did after learning from you Lewis, and the differences are huge. So definitely check out how exactly we find those suppliers. Okay, we're now going to highlight a review that we've added for the podcast as well. So we do this because we want to give you a shout out if you do leave us a review for the podcast, because we really appreciate it. And somebody who has left a review for us is Vincent. So Vincent Inman, 5124, he shared his thoughts, and I know that he's also a member of the master glass, and Vincent said, great viewing. Learned a lot to help with my drop shipping. Amazing. Thank you so much for your review. Vincent, really glad to hear that you've been enjoying the podcast, and thank you for listening to you as well. Our listener, if you enjoyed today's episode, maybe you'd think about sharing it with a friend or a colleague. It's a great way to spread knowledge and help someone else on their e commerce journey, and we really appreciate every bit of support you can give us. Thank you for joining us on this episode of the dropship unlocked podcast. We hope you are leaving with new insights and inspiration to fuel your entrepreneurial journey. Now, if you're looking to kick start or even ex. Accelerate your E commerce business, head over to dropship, unlocked.com forward slash accelerator and sign up for your 14 day trial of the drop ship. Unlocked accelerator, not only will you receive a free copy of my book The home turf advantage, but you'll also get access to exclusive training, live coaching calls, and our supportive and amazing community of entrepreneurs who are all building successful businesses just like you don't forget to hit that subscribe button for more episodes, packed with strategies, tips and success stories, plus, if you enjoyed this episode today, a five star review would mean the world to us, and you might even get a shout out on the next episode. Thank you for choosing to spend your time with us today. We can't wait to bring you more insights on the next episode of the dropship unlocked podcast. You.