The Dropship Unlocked Podcast

What’s a Day in the Life of a Successful E-Commerce Entrepreneur? (Episode 112)

• Lewis Smith & James Eardley • Season 1 • Episode 112

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🗣 In this episode, Lewis Smith and James Eardley share an insider look at what a typical day in the life of a successful e-commerce entrepreneur looks like. 

From morning routines and time management tips to how they deal with challenges and delegate tasks, they give you a peek behind the curtain of what it really takes to run an e-commerce business.

👉 Prefer to watch this on YouTube? Check it out here ➡️https://youtu.be/d83PeMqpXWA

Topics Discussed:

★ Morning Routines & Time Management: How to set yourself up for success by prioritising mental clarity, exercise, and time-blocking.
★ Managing E-Commerce Operations: Allocating time to evaluate marketing performance and overseeing operations.
★ Dealing with Challenges & Problem-Solving: Staying calm, breaking down problems, and consulting with experts.
★ Delegating Tasks & Team Management: The importance of hiring the right people, setting clear expectations, and empowering your team.

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

★ Check out "The Anti-Burnout Business: Why Dropshipping Is An Escape Plan" (Episode 91) for more on creating a business that works for you without burning out.

Key Takeaways:

★ Mental Clarity & Time Management: Start your day with mental clarity and set clear priorities for your tasks.
★ Problem-Solving & Delegation: Break down problems, delegate tasks, and trust your team.
★ Continuous Learning & Community: Surround yourself with like-minded entrepreneurs to stay motivated and accountable.

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★★★ Dropship Unlocked - Lewis Smith ★★★
🌏 Want to create location, time, and financial freedom? Watch Our Free Training ➽ https://dropshipunlocked.com/free?el=podcast-112-day-in-life-of-successful-entrepreneur 

Yeah, you might think you know what a day looks like for a successful e commerce entrepreneur, but the truth is, there's actually a lot more to it than meets the eye. I found the key to long term success might surprise you, because it's not about working harder. It's more about when I look back on my own journey, I realize how there's a certain skill that has been key to my results. It's not about doing everything yourself. It's more about, I think I might actually surprise you with exactly how a typical day in the life looks. Welcome. To the dropship unlocked Podcast. I'm Louis Smith, the founder of dropship unlocked and with me is our Client Success Coach James Eardley. Now 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. So if you're ready to build your own six or even seven figure online business, then head over to dropship unlocked.com. Forward slash, start now, sit back, relax, and let's unlock your potential with the dropship unlocked podcast. So today, Lewis and I are going to be diving into a conversation that I know is on the mind and is a question that a lot of people have when they want to become entrepreneurs. They want to know, what does a typical day in the life actually look like for a successful e commerce entrepreneur. So Lewis, with your over 5 million pounds now in E commerce sales, firstly, what does your morning routine look like, and how do you set yourself up for success for the rest of the day? Yeah, it's evolved over time. It's, I mean, I'm at the perfect place to tell you that, because I'm recording this podcast, or we're recording this just after I've been through my morning routine. So yeah, I think setting the tone for your day is crucial. I certainly feel it both kind of mentally and physically. If I haven't been through my daily routine, I feel like I'm operating for the rest of the of the day in a bit of a fog, you know, like a haze, and I'm not quite sure, like, I know I'm not making the most effective decisions. I know I'm not getting the best out of myself, and I'm not. I'm also just not. I don't enjoy the process as much. So I think that having those things set up right from the beginning is crucial. And there's a three things that I'm I focus on. So the first is, I start my morning with going down to get some exercise done. So either that's at the gym, or I'll go out for a run or do a peloton class, or I do, sometimes I do vr Virtual Reality box it, which don't knock it until you've tried it. It's actually really, really effective. If you want a really good workout, it's, it's one of the best things you can do. Do these, like hit classes. There's an app on there called body Les Mills, body combat, you know, the Les Mills kind of fitness brand. A 30 minute session on that, on advanced mode, will have you pouring sweat and then to get in the ring with a, you know, heavyweight champion, and be surrounded in a stadium by 1000s of people, and have to hold your own. It's, it's really, really good, and you can literally switch it on like that. Like you don't have to go down to a boxing gym and get all the equipment on, like you can do it. What I did find, though, is that I went too hard and ended up punching a wall accidentally in my garage and broke my finger. So yeah, health and safety warning comes with that one, but I do now do it outside, so that's a really good one to kind of mix things up. But the point of all of that is that for me, physical activity really has a noticeable effect on boosting my energy levels, just makes me more productive. And yeah, I just think if I don't do that at the beginning of the day, then I'm not going to be 100% for the rest of the day, so I have to get through that. You know, I don't always wake up and really want to go for a run in the pouring rain, freezing cold, but I know that on the other side of that, I feel so much better if I do. So that's that's my view on it might be different for you, if you're listening. You might be someone who works out in the evenings, but I know that I can give myself a huge advantage just by getting it done at the beginning of the day. And other than that, it's things like, for example, this morning, I went and did a sauna after working out at the gym, and then a cold plunge. Like, I'm not spending hours doing this stuff, maybe 30 minutes in the sauna, and then probably two and a half three minutes in the ice cold plunge. And from there, I can just feel those endorphins, and they'll last me through the rest of the day, you know, maybe until about after lunch, where I might then get a bit of a lull, and then I'll go out for a walk and kind of try and pick up those energy levels again. But from the physical side, that's probably the big one. And then the other is just time planning, you know, making sure I live by my calendar, so if it's not in the calendar, it's not going to happen. So if there are any really big goals that I want to achieve the next day, I don't just think, Oh, I hope I remember to do that tomorrow. I go into Google Calendar, I log it, I block out a two hour window, for example, and I just say that time is dedicated just to that one thing. And I think those two things combined for me, work really well. It might not be the answer for everybody or for yourself, but for. Me, that's a that's a morning routine that works for me, fantastic. It's sort of prioritizing mental clarity at the first and foremost. Obviously, it's physical exercise there as well, but it sounds like you do that physical exercise a lot of the reason is for that mental clarity that you'll gain then over the rest of the day, especially with running businesses. You want to be on top of your game. You want to be fast, you want to be sharp, you want to feel full of focus and energy. So doing that first thing in the morning is a great way to start my morning routine is similar. It's less so about VR boxing in the garden, although I'd love to see a clip of that one day Lewis, that would be great to great to see. It's more so about sort of just mental clarity again, waking myself up for the day on the right tone, on the right note, so I like to spend some time, um, sort of doing a little bit of meditation, which for me is only a few minutes worth of focusing on my breathing and getting better at avoiding the distractive, distracting thoughts that come into your mind. And I find that's been a very helpful routine for the rest of my day to go a lot more smoothly. Also, something really important for me in the mornings is that I avoid my phone or anything reactive from like your phone, so that's social media or even listening to or watching YouTube videos, or anything that puts you into reactive mode. I find the longer I leave that in the day, the more focused I will be throughout the rest of the day. And so that's been an important lesson for me again, these things, it works for me. Works for you, Lewis, I think it's a case of working out what works best for you. So you get the most mental clarity throughout the rest of the day. Now, what you've been through that morning routine, Lewis, in terms of managing the operations of your E commerce business, I'd be interested to see how you manage the rest of your day to make sure that your E commerce business is running. So for anyone kind of visualizing their future after they built a successful e commerce business, it'd be interesting to know what a typical day looks like. So with regards then to managing that E commerce business, how do you allocate time to things like evaluating marketing performance or overseeing daily operations? Yeah, I can dive into the specifics of how I compartmentalize and achieve those things. But I think what you said just then is really important about not letting the inputs from another platform like YouTube, in this case, probably ironic, if you're watching us on YouTube right now, the irony of this, but to not let that dictate your day and your mood, and you know, it's like, it's it's funny. YouTube's recommendation algorithm is so powerful, and not to mention platforms like Tiktok, where it's like, dangerously powerful, where it just, you can just tell that they've just nailed the human psyche, and they know exactly what you'll want to watch next. So it's fascinating to watch that as a marketer. It's fascinating as a consumer. I'd argue that's pretty manipulative and dangerous. But with the YouTube recommendation algorithm, they just get it spot on. If you watch a lot of videos of YouTube, and you go to your home page, you're going to see 10 thumbnails that are like, yes, I want to watch that. Yes, I want to watch that. So you're just opening your mind to marketing and enter someone else telling you what to do and what to watch. And so that can be dangerous when you're trying to achieve big things. So talking of achieving big things and how you actually do that day to day again, I have my own strategies for that, and I try and take a zoomed out view, you know, I set up systems and automations of day to day tasks in my business, things like fulfilling orders, basic customer service, stuff like that. You know, there's teams with SOPs and things that they know the path, but we've pretty much been through every eventuality with our team now, and you know, over the years of doing this, we don't really get questions that we've never had before. Once your team have been with you for long enough you can have all of that stuff documented. So it used to be that they could solve 50% of problems, but half the time they'd have to escalate it to me, so it would just be a message on Slack. And whenever I got a message like that, I'd say, Okay, well, I don't just want to give you the answer. I want to give you the reason behind the answer and the process, so that if ever any version of this question appears again, you'll never have to bring it to me, because you know how to answer it, and I'll empower you to do so. And that actually helps the business owner, but it really helps the employee as well. So, yeah, I think I spend my time. I kind of view it like I'm in a helicopter, like, flying around the different parts of my business. And I'm, you know, I'm looking at, like, okay, sales, marketing, Google ads, email marketing, stats, sales stats, finances, accounting, stuff like that. And I'll, I'll try and like, identify maybe I'll kind of keep a good overview of, like, what's going on, and there are, you know, key metrics in each part. So I'll dive into the email sorry, the Google ad campaigns. Check our ROAs, check our cost per sale, make sure it's all within KPI over a long enough time range. I'm not looking at, like, a single day stats and being like, ah, you know, cost per sales too high through that turn the account off, like you can't act on such small ranges of data. But the same with email marketing. I'll look at, like the monthly stats, sales stats, how we're doing, how we track investors last year, last month, support tickets. And if there's something in my business that I think I kind of want to get into the weeds on that and understand. And again, I view it like, you know, the helicopter hovers above that part of the business, and I like, lower myself down on a rope, go in, get involved, tinker around with things, and just do it and learn by being part of it. Again, if that means answering a few support tickets or tweaking a few things in Google ads, then trying to put in place like processes so that the tweaks I've made are everlasting and evergreen, so they don't happen again the problems. And then I can go back up the road, back in the helicopter, to another part of the business, and you're constantly on the move, but you have to have that 30,000 foot view of the business, because otherwise you become if you've got a favorite department, if you're like, a real Google Ads person or a real email person, or you're like, just all about the customer service. It's very easy to take your eye off those other parts of the business, and that can be dangerous. So I make sure my team's on the same page as me. We have regular check in meetings, and I'm trying to just kind of keep abreast of all the different parts of the business and make sure everything's running within the key performance indicators that I'm happy with. Yeah, it's a great view there. I've learned a lot from you, Lewis, about zooming out and implementing processes and strategies. That means that you don't have to be constantly on call with your business. And I think there is definitely a transition isn't there with an E commerce business, when initially you do wear a lot of the hats when you when you start up a business and you have to set up your marketing campaign, you'll also be building your store, if you're that way inclined, you want to do it yourself, and you'll be signing your own suppliers, and then you'll even be looking after your own customers initially, before you bring on virtual assistants. But then it's like a gradual pulling back the reins of control on the business and being able to look at it from a bigger, wider vantage point. The the joys of that is that you get to just focus on the things that truly matter to the business. And I think, as well emotionally, it's a lot easier to manage a business when you're viewing things on a 30 day basis, rather than day in, day out, so you don't feel the constant fluctuations. It's best just to have a, I prefer, like a vantage point of at least 30 days. And then over time, once you've been in business for years, you can start to look at quarters and how you're performing. Then even you can look at year on year growth, rather than just week on week growth, which is a gradual process, but in terms of the day to day and how it looks to actually do that, you don't have to be so involved in every single operation. It's more about setting strategies. It's more about checking the performance over a 30 day time period. And that doesn't even need to be done every day, because you don't need to see need to see those constant fluctuations. It's about seeing the growth over a longer time period. So yeah, interesting. How you do that? Similar to me, now we've got virtual assistants on board as well, because they make your life an absolute, not a breeze, but so much easier than having to run the business day to day yourself, and you've got a solid routine to manage the business. There something that's really important with your routine is it's clearly designed so that you're not going to burn out with this type of business model. Because you're looking at the strategically, looking at where you can improve. You're not getting embroiled in the day to day. You're certainly not doing 1214, hour days working on the business. And that's important. Today, we did a podcast episode about how to avoid burnout, because it's on the rise, and it's so common nowadays, and we know that e commerce businesses can actually be a real escape plan from that kind of life of the grind, the grind of the nine to five and burning out. So that's episode 91 for anyone that wants to check out how drop shipping and our lifestyle can avoid burnout. Now, entrepreneurs, no doubt, when you build a business, are going to face challenges. Lewis, so on a day to day basis, how do you deal with challenges and problem solving when you're running and growing your E commerce businesses? Yeah, well, I think challenges are just part of business and life in general, aren't they? You know, challenges will always come up. But I think the difference is it's how you handle them that defines your success or failure with business and life in general. And there's a framework that I have that helps with managing challenges and how to overcome them. First thing is try and stay calm and break down the problem. I always approach challenges by trying to figure out what are the break down the problem into the small component parts. It's like, if you know to put it into an everyday life example, you go into your kitchen and there's water all over the kitchen floor, and you realize, like, the taps leaking, the sinks overflowing. You don't just focus on the water everywhere. You kind of break it down and you're like, Where's the water coming from? Oh, it's dripping off the side. What's happening? Okay? Oh, the tap, right? I need to turn off the source of the water. You kind of hone in and identify the problem. That's the 30,000 foot emotional detachment view of the broken tap. Analogy. You're you walk in, you don't get overwhelmed by the symptom of the problem, puddles all over the floor. Instead, you focus on, where's the cause, where's the source, and what do I need to do immediately to leverage it and change it? What's, what's the lever? And it's probably a physical usually a blue lever, isn't it attached to a pipe called your water stop. So that's that's definitely something I try and do in terms of business, try and figure out the source, break it down, figure out what. Rational steps I can take to get towards the desired outcome. It's not always that easy as switching off a tap, but sometimes, if I need advice, I'll lean on my team. I'll get perspectives from my team. I'll ask them for their advice, their input, and sometimes they won't have it because, you know, sometimes it will be something that is out of their remit. It's a problem we haven't encountered as a business before. And so I have a lot of experts in a lot of different fields in my phone book, on my phone, you know, I keep very close contact with a lot of people who are specialist areas in areas of expertise that I'm not so that I can pick up the phone, pick their brains and skip years of trying to, you know, learn that area myself, to figure things out. It's a bit like, if, if, yeah, if there was a problem with the tap and I can't turn it off, I'm not going to be like, let me go and study plumbing for three years and figure out if I can figure, you know, you just call the plumber, don't you just immediately call the specialist, and you skip that expensive, the damage that's going to cause, the problems, the time, the pain, the frustration, and you just go straight to the source, and they come around. They fix it. Like one of the things I find, find beneficial with challenges and the constant onslaught of challenges you will face as an entrepreneur is, firstly, you're going to face challenges anyway in any area of life. You know, if you stay in a nine to five job that you hate and you hate your boss and you hate all the colleagues, and you're just so dumb with it, the challenge is going to be like, how do I get myself out of bed to go to that job if I don't want to do to stand outside in the cold, to cram myself into a commuter train or get stuck in traffic again, to go and do something that I can't See as my future. And you know that, to me, is a worse challenge to have to constantly overcome than, like, Oh, why did my profitability dip by 5% this month in my business? Or, No, I wonder why? You know this conversion rate of this product dipped or whatever, like, those are things that I could jump in control, tweak, change there, like micro problems in an environment that I know I'm working towards something I want to be taking on as a challenge. So I try and view every challenge as a learning opportunity. As I mentioned, often, the challenges will stop appearing new, because you'll see the patterns and after a while, once you've solved pretty much all of the challenges you face a few times over, you start to see the same problems reappear, just in different outfits. But when they do, it's so much less overwhelming, because you know the drill, or you at least know the person to ask. You know, I've got, I'm like, Oh, the last time this happened, I went to so and so for advice that they're really good, you know, like a mastermind group, I'll put the question out there to them and get their feedback from from trusted peers who are running similar kinds of businesses that are, you know, also experts in different areas to what I'm an expert in. So I think that's, that's one of the the secrets, really, is accepting challenges will come, viewing them as learning opportunities, and not being afraid to ask for help when you need it. Yeah, I think it's all about staying level headed in business and learning for each experience that you go through day to day, being able to take a step back approach. And, yeah, I mean, these challenges are much better to face, rather than the day to day challenges where, when I was in my nine to five job, I was viewing those challenges as very short term, you know, I was having to deal with the challenge and it would come back around again, and I didn't see that end point of what I was working towards. Whereas when you come across a challenge for your own business, it's your own business, and you're overcoming that challenge more so for yourself and for your future benefit. And it's a very different way of approaching a challenge, knowing that when you overcome that challenge, it's for your own future, rather than just spinning the wheel every every few days. And you can overcome a lot of challenges by putting processes in place, putting strategies in place, that that mean you overcome it once and you never have to do it again, because it can be automated. Or can, you know, outsource completed by a virtual assistant in the future. So what about delegating tasks? Lewis, and then that's a big part of your day to day, to make sure that you can still continue to focus on the most important tasks. You've obviously got a team to support you on that. How do you make sure that you delegate certain tasks to make sure that things go smoothly? Yeah, this is one of the big blockers that I see for our members that are getting initial traction. Maybe they hit their first 50 100,000 pounds in sales with their store, and I can see the thing that's capping them from getting beyond that, and it's the inability to relinquish control and delegate. They're stuck in the mindset of, I want the job done to 100% effectiveness, because that's what I would do as the business owner. And this is a really limiting place to be, because I totally understand that, but it's just, Is that realistic? Are you going to, you know, if you're an employee in a job, are you going to do that job to the same standard and level of care as the person who owns the company? Probably not, but there are ways of improving that and incentivizing that right kind of buy in and. Avia and and it often it does come down to working and hiring with the right people, people who are genuine experts in their respective areas, and choosing the right specialists for your team. You know you want to make sure that, for example, I try and set very clear expectations for every task to my team, and make sure everyone knows their role. Make sure that they have autonomy to make decisions. I'm not saying like, go and do this, but, but consult me every time you need to make a decision about it. Instead, I give them ownership of the outcome. So I'm like, this is where we need to get to. This is what we need. I trust you to help us find a path there, because you're trained in this, you're an expert in this, like you can, of course, consult me if you want to, but I I'm giving you ownership of the outcome. So if you go and do it and make no decisions, and then we don't get the outcome, and it's a flop, don't, don't come to me saying that you're waiting for permission, because I'm giving you permission, right? That's a very different conversation to like, go and do this, but if you get it wrong, you know I'm like, You better have asked me along the way for permission at certain stages. So it's it's kind of difficult to to explain. You almost have to live it. You have to experience it and realize that, you know, it's very easy as a business owner, to almost underestimate the ability of other humans, because you you kind of feel like it's all locked up in your head. And the only way this knowledge could be implemented, or, like, the only you know the way you talk to customers is just different, because it's your own business, and it you feel it. And that might be true, but that, but by saying that, you're basically saying no cus, no customer service department in any company can exist unless it's the owner talking to them, which you'd know is false. So it's like, rationally, it's there's a conflict, and you realize, Ah, okay, maybe it is a self limiting belief this one. So I think making sure that, yeah, you're giving people ownership of outcome also, just like hiring a good culture fit for your business, you know, you can train team members who are the right culture fit and show the right attributes and buy into your your company's vision and mission, and like they, buy into you as a business owner, you can train them on the specifics. You know, I've brought many people into my team who are not who didn't come in on day one as experts in the field that I hired them to be in, but I knew that I was good enough to bring them up to speed, help them grow and then continue to develop, pay for training courses, things that can help them grow to a different level. Sometimes you do need specialist skills, though, and I think that's almost the second plateau that I see members get to. It's like where they've brought everyone in and they've risen, they've tried to kind of rise them up to the level that they can get them to, but then again, they're capped. And a great example of this is like with ads, for example. You know, I I know how to run ads, on how to scale ads and how to do things, but when you get to the point of running as many ads as we do, it becomes a full time media buying job. Like that is someone's full time job to be in their split testing, testing different landing pages, testing hooks, testing different angles and like, Yes, I could probably do it if I set my entire, like, 12 hour a day schedule to just doing that. But is that the most? Is that the 30,000 foot view? Or have I got lost in the weeds by doing that? Instead, what if I bring in a world class media buyer, someone who's so effective at running ads, who can work on that stuff for us, and I can relinquish control, if they're that much of a specialist, the job will probably get done to 200% of what I could have done. It not just to 80% because that person came in with skills I never had in the first place. So I think that's the second almost plateau that people get to. And we see these happen, and sometimes it's difficult to read your own label on the jar when it's you in that position. And that's why, you know, it's helpful to have external sources like us in the dropship unlocked community to kind of point that out and ask that out and ask that question and say, Do you think it might be the case that you're worried about relinquishing control, or do you think you might have hit your skill limit in terms of what your team can do here? Do you want to bring in some external help? If so, we've got a black book of specialists and experts in all different areas. We can point you to put you in touch with, help you. Yeah, and that's so valuable. That's why community and networking can be so valuable, because it gives you that shortcut to find somebody to delegate to, because otherwise it is a plateau. You can only get a business to your level of skill. Obviously, you can increase your skill level, but as soon as the business reaches that level, you'll notice a plateau, almost a time, where you've taken it as far as you can. You bring on virtual assistants, but they again, they're going to do the processes and the sort of strategies that you teach them, plus they'll provide better customer service, if that's their specialty. And then beyond that, I found that the next hiring decisions were hiring people that were much more advanced in things like conversion rate optimization or Google ads or could advise me on on my store audit, and, yeah, it's about finding the right people to optimize your your business in certain areas. And it's, again, it's all a step back approach. It's, it's a case of not getting too involved in the day to day business, so that you're able to just pull the pull the right levers to keep growing your business. And there's obviously a balance. Response to the amount that you outsource. You know, if you if you outsource everything and relinquish all responsibility as a business owner, obviously that's too much. You've got to have a an idea of where the business is going and keep an eye on the most important numbers. Then the other side of that balance is still trying to do everything yourself, even after months or even years of running that business. I think the majority of people are closer towards that end of the scale where they're still taking on too much and unable to relinquish control. So I think that the biggest skill, and one of the best skills I've seen people develop over time is their ability to step back, allow people to manage parts of the business. And so not only do they grow the business much more, but they actually enjoy the process a lot more as well, because they're not so embroiled and so relied upon every single day and becoming a bottleneck for that business. So it's a crucial skill now, a big skill as well, for any business owner. I'm sure people will agree, is learning and developing yourself. And so even though you've grown, you know, large e commerce business, Louis, you've obviously building dropship are not as well. There's still got to be some time for you to find to keep growing and developing yourself as a business owner. So how do you see learning play play a role in your sort of day to day life as a business owner? Yeah, I try and factor it into my schedule, a bit like I said about the Google Calendar thing, like, if it's not in the calendar, it's not happening. And so that if that means I need to set aside an hour in the afternoon to go through the next module of a course that I'm taking at the moment to upskill in a certain area, then that's in the calendar like that. I treat that as part of my working day because it is. It's going to make me a more effective person at that skill that I'm learning. So yeah, learning is a key part of the success of the business, and the like you said, the cap on the skill of the business owner will often be a limitation, and so I don't want to let that be the bottleneck of any of my businesses. So I try and stay informed about the latest trends in in digital marketing and E commerce and business, latest tools, technology, marketing strategies. Of course, I can't be across everything, and I don't want to get shiny object syndrome by having my head turned constantly to like, oh, try this, try this. Like, different things. But I do want to be aware of them, and I want to see the big picture of like, where's the market moving? Where's it shifting? What's happening? What are people talking about, what are the trends? What are the fads? What are the things that I see that are becoming popular, that have no substance? And then also, what are the things that are legitimate evolutions in the industry? So another way I try and do that is I read a lot in terms of, like, self development. So, you know, depending on what area of my business or myself that I'm focusing on. If there's an area of the business I want to improve, there's always an expert out there with, you know, well documented knowledge on that area that I can glean actionable insights from, if I just find the right book and strategy. And often, what happens is I'll end up reading that book, going through the process realizing this person really has the skills, then they usually have a program that I'll end up buying as well, taking it to the next level. And then it might be like, I want to bring them in and work with them, because I've got so much value from it. And yes, I understand what needs to be done now, but do I have time and resources to do it myself, or do I want the experts to come in and do it? And so it's kind of, you know, I'm going through that process, which is clearly the way they've designed it, but that's fine, like, you know, sometimes you have to prove that you can help someone by actually helping them in the form of the book in the first place. And then they see it, and they're like, Okay, fine, I get it. I now realize, and now that what I looked at before was just the tip of the iceberg of the problem. There's a lot more to it, and I don't want to risk getting it wrong. So that's a big one, seeking out experts, the other one's community for me, you know, I'm obviously an active member, as we both are in our own communities here at dropship unlocked, but I also participate actively in other communities myself. So in mastermind groups and events, I need to be stretched out of my comfort zone, because, you know, like I went to the gym this morning. It's being in a mastermind is like going to the gym for your brain. You know, you're surrounding yourself with like minded people who are maybe at a higher level than you are in certain areas, so it just helps you level up faster, and it normalizes that process of being at that level. And it's one of the most effective ways I've seen of leveling up. And it's why we created the dropship unlocked community, because I saw how powerful that being in a community was, and I realized this is a huge advantage to people who do it and a massive disadvantage to those who don't have it. So it felt only right to create it. Yeah, it's natural for helping people create businesses. It's natural to have a community around that because of how important it is to ask advice from other people and learn from each other and bring each other up. A lot of us start businesses, and we go on this path alone, and it's only when I really got more active and involved in the community, I started to benefit from all of that learnings from other people and mistakes that other people have made, I could immediately jump on the back of and make sure I did make that same. Mistake. I mean, they say that men learn from mistakes, and wise men learn from other people's mistakes. That the only way you can learn from other people's mistakes is if you're open to learning, if you're around people, learning from others, and so implementing that into your own business. So it's just so interesting to hear from you. Lewis, obviously get yourself to a certain position in business, but the learning continues. Just a continuous learning mindset that you have and an approach that you have to business and life is that it's a continual learning process and community. You mentioned there was a big part of that. Why do you think that that community is so often overlooked? And also, how do you think that being part of communities has impacted your growth in business. Oh, it's huge. Yeah, communities are just an absolute game changer. If you're looking to level up, being a part of a community, it lets you learn from others success, but also others mistakes as well, something that's really important. You know, we often share our mistakes in the community, and therefore other people can avoid those pitfalls and traps as well. One thing that a community gives you that I think most people underestimate when they first come in, because they assume that it will just be the supportive element that will help, but it's actually the accountability to yourself, to that group. When you're part of a community, you feel more accountable, you know, if you're there, and you've said, like, by next week, I'm going to have my first five suppliers signed, 50 products uploaded, and be making sales. It's like, you better get to work then, because we're all waiting. You know, we're there now, they might not be actually waiting, because they're probably building their own businesses, but the feeling that they are, and the fact that you kind of held yourself to that and updating that process to a group of serious people who've invested them in themselves as well. It just creates such a high level of intent and accountability that, again, that's one of the secrets why this works. Because you could say, oh, well, I'll just go and I don't know, post on a blog or something, that I'm going to be accountable. But then who's who's holding you accountable to that just other people that are kind of window shopping and having a look. No one's coming back to it. Back to it. There's no you might not ever that that reader might never come back to that blog. But if you're in a community, and those people are coming back every day, sharing their wins, their successes, and you're the one that suddenly gone quiet, how come? Where did you get stuck? What happened? You said you were going to do it? Let's, let's get you moving. You know, it's not a guilt form of accountability. It's a well, you're here now serious like, let's, let's make it happen. Like, this is the the time for growth and taking action, so let's actually do it. The other thing that it gives you in a community is just daily subliminal inspiration and motivation. By surrounding yourself with motivated, successful people. It just helps fuel you. You know, if you're logging in every day to a community like ours, and you open it up on your phone, you open it up on your computer, and the first thing you see, you know, instead of, like you said, the the YouTube homepage or Instagram or Tiktok, instead you're logging into our community, like ours, and the things you see are people's wins, people's questions, people's accountability goals like That's inspiring. And our members inside our dropship unlocked community do this every day, and the members tell us it's like having a fire lit under you that just keeps you moving forward, because it's there, it the public eye, and it's, well, not the public eye, but like the private public eye. You know, within that that collective, supportive community, and it's such an advantage over those who are just hoping that they'll be able to achieve it through absorbing content. You know, we talked about the hypocrisy of saying like, YouTube won't get you there, YouTube will get you so far. And I hope that you're getting value from this podcast, and that you're watching and that you're watching and you can absolutely get some fantastic content out there on YouTube, don't get me wrong, but to actually act on it, be held accountable for it, bring it to life and see results. You know, nothing beats being part of a community of other people who are serious, who've invested in themselves and are on the same track as you there's just nothing like it. Otherwise, the comment section on every YouTube video that was valuable would be filled with millionaires saying that they've succeeded in life and smashed it. And you just know that's not the case, right? So I think you have to know, yes, you can take value from everywhere, but if you need a an ability to cut out the noise, be surrounded by supportive peers and held accountable. There's nothing like a community. So, yeah, it's extremely powerful. It is, yeah, I mean, it's a very powerful point. Really, the whole community aspect, and how that plays a part in our day to day lives as E commerce business owners, is knowing that we're on this together with a community of people, and we share our wins with those community members, but we also learn from each other, and it makes such a pleasure different and it's so much more enjoyable. We've made some great friends through the community, not just from the online aspect, but also from the in person event that we do as well. And something that I think is interesting and insight into why community really matters is quite often I have on Q and A calls inside the community, men. Members are asking about holding them accountable. So they're saying, you know, make sure I'm here next week. You know, I'm telling you now I'll be here next week, so make sure I am. And of course, they were there. They're waiting for them to be on the call the next week. Accountability, making sure we help you to do the thing that you want to do, even if, you know, when things get tough, it's, you know, you're looking the other way and you're looking at distractions. So yeah, it's a very powerful point. And the calendar that we have inside the community, it's a constant reminder that this is for the long term, because there's calls in every week, at least two calls in every single week, and community collaboration calls coming up, member store review call that we had yesterday. There's lots of things for members to look forward to in the future, so that we realize that we're on this mission and we're not going to stop until we're all successful e commerce business owners, where we can leave nine to five jobs and live the lifestyle that we're dreaming of. And yeah, I just think it's such a powerful point. And having our community in its own separate app, rather than being in the same place as Facebook or in the same place as YouTube or Instagram, etc, etc. It means, especially in the morning, if you're going to start and interact with the community, you're not being pulled in various directions and turning into reactive mode where you can't then push on with the goals that you have. So lots of points for people to take away in terms of how you live your day to day life. Louis, you know, once you are successful, and also how people can really adapt their day to day lives to make sure that they can also reach that goal of being a successful e commerce business owner. What would you summarize to give to people, to take away from this episode as actions to really start implementing from from this episode today? Yeah, we covered a few actions throughout the course of this conversation, I think the first major take home point was not to try to do everything yourself, setting clear priorities and delegating tasks that don't need your direct involvement. Eventually. Can take some time. You have to build up processes. You have to bring in a team eventually, or certainly contractors, you know, agency partners that you can trust. But also remember, surround yourself with experts, with like minded people, like minded entrepreneurs, if that's the path that you're on, who are a few steps ahead of you already, you know what might take you three years of isolated, lonely osmosis, style learning, where you're trying to absorb everything from YouTube and podcasts, and you end up getting lost along the way and conflicting information and hitting a roadblock, and you're like, I just don't have the answer to this specific problem. I don't have the context. I don't know how to get past it. What do people do in this situation who are on this same path as me? You end up wasting 1000s of pounds, you end up getting disheartened, and it's really long, time, consuming, frustrating journey that same three years could be done in six weeks, if the path was just laid out step by step in front of you, and you had a trusted group of people there to ask guide you at every turn. There's just so much money that you would save by doing it, and not to mention the amount of time that you would save as well, it's a much more direct route to getting that same result. You know, the end result that you get might be the same. It's just it might take you 10 times less time to get there. And the other thing that's nice is that you have much more certainty about it, and actually reaching your target right from the beginning, because you know the path you're on, you know the route, you know the steps to take if you get stuck. So you just have that level of certainty that I think makes so many entrepreneurs nervous anxious when they are going it alone, because they're thinking, Well, okay, I think I know the first few steps, but what about steps seven and eight? Like when I get there, who will I ask? And that's hard. It's a lonely journey if you're on your own. So if you're ready to take action and start your own successful e commerce business, then today's the day. Head over to dropship, unlocked.com, forward, slash, start. It's the perfect place to get you started with that first step on your own e commerce journey. Right now. 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. Okay, now let's answer a question that we've had in from a listener of the podcast. So a big thank you to Ian G for getting your question in, and if you want to ask a question that you'd like to be potentially answered on an upcoming episode, then simply leave a comment beneath the YouTube video version of this episode. And that's exactly what Ian has done. So I'll ask his question across to you now, Lewis, so he's asked thanks for this, guys. I have a call tomorrow, and I was wondering if drop shipping one. Was still viable. Thanks for your question. Ian, yeah, great to hear that you had your call booked in with us to discuss joining the dropship unlocked mentorship program. And as we are now recording this in the future, from when your comment was first left, I have the insider knowledge that you then did go on to join our dropship unlocked mentorship program. So we love having you aboard and part of our community now, but yeah, to go back in time to when you were asking, is drop shipping a still, still a viable model? It is a very common question that we hear from people who are in the position you were before you joined us, where they're kind of thinking like, do I do it? Do I not? Is it still viable? Is it not? There's a lot of noise out there about whether the drop shipping business model still works, and that's a big question, because there's various types of drop shipping, and some of them definitely don't work as well as they used to, and so common a question it is, in fact, that we've actually decided to dedicate an entire episode of the podcast to this one. So I'll firstly say that it's worth remembering that both James and I still have active drop shipping stores to this day, and members of our dropship unlocked masterclass are making high ticket sales every day. You just look inside the community that you're now part of, Ian, you can filter on celebrating success, and you'll just see those posts coming in from people celebrating huge sales, upwards of like seven 8000 pounds. We had a sale the other day for someone who closed the deal of, was it 185 189,000 pounds of a single order? Yes. So yes, absolutely. It still works. However, it is important to note that there are specific models of drop shipping that are going to be more viable going into today's world than others. So to check out the full episode that we did, it's Episode 106 and it's called, is drop shipping still worth it? Yeah, great question there. Ian, great to see you on board inside the master class program. So I'm sure we'll be speaking soon in the community and on the Q and A calls and a great question. So yeah, let's, let's highlight a recent review that we've had in for the podcast as well. And we'd love to do this to make sure that we give you a shout out when you do leave your reviews for the podcast, because we love seeing those come in so big. Thank you to Mubarak, who has shared your thoughts on a recent episode. So Mubarak said, so helpful. Can't wait to join your mentorship program. Thank you so much for your review. Mubarak means a lot, and really glad to hear that you've been enjoying the podcast, and we also look forward to helping you and working with you, and probably meeting you in person at one of our live meetups when you are part of our mentorship program. So really, really looking forward to working with you. So that's it for today. Thank you very much for listening. If you've enjoyed today's episode of the podcast, what about this? Open up your phone and share it with a friend or a colleague on WhatsApp. It's a great way to spread knowledge and help someone else who you know, who might be considering starting their own e commerce journey. 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. To kick start your E commerce business, head over to dropship unlocked.com. Forward, slash start. It's the perfect place to start and get access to resources that will help you build your business from the ground up. 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.