How Fast Can You Succeed with Dropshipping? (Real Examples) Episode 157

👉 Ready to start your own online store? Start here: https://dropshipunlocked.com/online-event?el=podcast-157-how-fast-can-you-succeed 

🗣In this episode, Lewis Smith and James Eardley answer one of the most common questions they get asked: How long will it actually take to succeed with dropshipping? 

We share real-life examples from members who’ve built successful stores and reveal the key factors that determine how quickly you’ll see results.

👉 Prefer to watch this on YouTube? Check it out here ➡️https://youtu.be/q7CBO-rA85w

Topics Discussed:
 ★ Real Member Results: Jarred (£300,000 in 6 months), Kit (£879,000 in 18 months), Mason (£70,000 in 6 months), Sally (£24,000 alongside night shifts), and Neil (£95,000 in 5 months).
 ★ Why Speed Isn’t Everything: The importance of strong foundations and building a brand that lasts for years.
 ★ The Ratio of Setup vs Payoff: Why a few months of effort can lead to years of financial freedom.
 ★ Key Success Factors: Following a proven plan, staying consistent, avoiding shiny object syndrome, and having a strong “why.”
 ★ Long-Term Mindset: How viewing dropshipping as a real business (not a quick cash grab) changes your results.

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:
 ★ Success Can Happen Fast: With the right plan, members have achieved six-figure results within months.
 ★ Build for Longevity: Focus on creating a sustainable brand that pays you for years, not weeks.
 ★ Proven Process Matters: Following a structured system prevents wasted time and money.
 ★ Consistency Beats Speed: Small, daily progress compounds into big results over time.

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Website: https://www.dropshipunlocked.com/

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★★★Dropship Unlocked - Lewis Smith★★★
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Transcript

0:00

So how fast can you actually succeed with dropshipping? Well, the truth today is, in today's. Landscape, the incredible level of success that people are achieving happens so quickly when they. And this is the biggest factor that then determines how long it will take you to succeed. And it actually surprises me just how fast people are hitting these big numbers when they actually do just that. We've had members hit 300,000 pounds in six months, but the reason they reached that milestone so fast is because. Welcome to the Dropship Unlocked podcast. I'm Lewis 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 dropshipping 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/start. Now sit back, relax and let's unlock your potential with the Dropship Unlocked podcast. It is Dropship Unlocked tradition to give you an up to date picture of what it's like to start an e commerce business today. So today we're not going to veer away from that at all. We're going to be answering probably the number one question that we get asked by people considering starting an e commerce business and that is how long will it actually take to succeed? So, Louis, let's lay out the examples of real world people that have been doing it recently because I think that's the best way to get a handle on how long it takes right now. So what kind of results are people achieving and crucially, how fast is it taking them? Yeah, let's do this. So we've seen some incredible results recently and we love to try and feature them when we can on the podcast. We've had some great guests on recently as members of the Dropship Unlocked programme and we always ask about their progress and also how long it took them to achieve that progress. For example, we had Jared on a while back who'd initially hit £300,000 in his first six months. Obviously he's gone on to do millions and millions in sales since then, but in terms of like timeline, from starting to getting up and running 300,000 in six months. And then Kit. Now, Kit was someone that we had on the podcast recently as well. So another Dropship Unlocked member and his milestone was that he reached £879,000 in sales in 18 months. So he's now on track to break seven figures. He'll break that million pound mark. Another one we had was a very different story, different journey and it was Mason now mason and hits £70,000 in revenue in his first six months. We spoke to Sally, I think just a couple of episodes ago, Sally hit £24,000 in the same time frame. So in that kind of first six months window. And Neil, someone else we had on a few months back hit, I believe it was £95,000 in about five months. So that kind of gives you an idea of the scale of what's possible and what you can reach within a certain space of time, like 6 months, 12 months, 18 months. Now that's not to say that it's definitely going to happen that way every time. Those people all took risks, they put in effort, they put in hard work and they overcame the obstacles that they came across along the way. But it is possible and it's not a fluke like this is happening again and again and it is repeatable. So yeah, that is hopefully a bit of an idea and a taster and some inspiration as to what's possible in what kind of timeframe. Super important to hear about what people have achieved. And it's important to remember that those people started with no shortcut, no head start. They didn't have an E commerce background. And so they were starting from the position that you might be in today, thinking about starting and wondering how long it's going to take. And the best thing about this model is that we can pull these examples of people that have achieved these success and we're talking about how much they've made over the course of months and years because it's a long term business model that will pay you for years. And something I want to address, Luis, I think the question that people have when they ask, how long is it going to take to succeed? Is kind of over indexing the speed at which you make the first sale or the speed at which you get set up. And it's forgetting about how important it is to actually set something up. That might take longer, but it pays you for longer in the long run. So rather than just thinking about the actual time it takes you to get up and running, let's think about the ratio of time it takes to get up and running compared to the amount of time that that business pays for you for the long run. And to put some numbers to that, let's say it took you only two weeks to find a niche, sign suppliers and make your first sale. But then because you rush that process, you're then bankrupt. Within another two weeks because you've been putting ads towards products that aren't in demand. And so your business was alive for four weeks and only. And yet you got up and running with two weeks. And so 50% of that business's life was the setup phase, which is massive. Compare it to maybe some in my situation, it took me about six weeks to get up and running and make my first sale. And it's now been paying me for five years since, or just under five years since growing that business. And so the ratio of time to set up versus how long it's been paying me for is like 0.5% of the life of the business was actually the setup time. So when you think about it that way, Lewis, I think it's better to think about the ratio versus the actual time that it's going to take to get up and running and start making sales. Yeah, it's a nice way of viewing it, I think, zooming out, looking at the big picture and how this factors into your life and your future career and your income. And people always say to me like, oh yeah, but you know, won't it be really difficult to do this? And I always think, well, it's probably difficult what you're doing currently in your day job. And if you don't like that, what's more difficult? Spending a little bit of extra time and putting in some hours for like you say six weeks now, maybe even up to several months, six months now to get something off the ground so that you never have to do the thing that is difficult every day, I. E. The job that you don't like again. And so it kind of, you know, when the scales are made that clear, I think the decision becomes obvious that of course I would sacrifice some short term pain now to get a business up and running that lasts for for many years and pays me that income. So yeah, absolutely. I think people who are trying to rush to that first sale as if like that's the milestone that really matters sometimes. Yeah, you're. You've got the blinders on and you're missing more important things. And actually I'd rather take double as long to reach the first sale but have a really strong foundation for my business so that I know it's going to last for a long time. So yeah, absolutely, 100% the perspective is important. And viewing this as a long term business rather than just viewing this as quick cash, if you view it that way, it will only ever be quick cash if you just view it in a way that you're rushing all the time. And I know it's difficult because when I went through the Dropship unlock masterclass programme myself, when I first was introduced to you, Louis, I was very keen to rush through the programme because I wanted to get to that first sale. But you have to resist that urge because you know you need to choose the products that you're going to sell with time, with data backed on actual evidence that it's going to sell and then it pays dividends for years beyond that. So I know I've been going for just under five years. Jared has been going for over five years. Yourself, Lewis, you've been set up for now eight years doing E commerce. And so clearly it, it is worth some initial investment in getting set up for the long term payoff. Now not everyone gets results like that. So why don't we dive into how we can make the most of this opportunity of E commerce today. So what would you say are the main factors that affect how quickly someone will see success? There are probably a few different factors that play into this. I think the first is do you have a plan? Are you following a proven plan? If you're trying to figure this out alone, it can be very slow and very tedious and very frustrating and very expensive. So I think that's one of the first parts of kind of making sure that you are not rushing towards success but like certainly that you have a predictable path towards revenue and getting profitable and making sales. So that's one of the big factors that affects that, the consistency of that path, the reliability of that path and removes a lot of the unknowns. It's just follow a proven plan to get there. The other part though is more internal and it's how badly do you want it? It's what's your why? There's a big reason why we begin the programme which with some foundational entrepreneurial mindset stuff because we revisit that throughout the process of building this business. And I think people who find the time, even with busy jobs, even with children, even with very busy lives, they move faster because they prioritise it. And it is, it's worth finding that time and carving out that time in what might may be an already very busy life for them because it matters and it comes down to how badly they want it. And the other thing then I think on top of both of those is obviously having a proven path, making sure that you have your strong reason why and you want this badly enough to get past the dark days at the beginning where you're kind of Uncertain and not sure and a bit scared about the whole entrepreneur thing. But then do you stay consistent with it? If you're just bouncing between shiny objects and one week you're in this niche, the next week you're in this, and then you're doing some Amazon and then you think, oh, I'll give drop shipping a try. And you know, it just resets your progress every single time that you're doing that. So it's just you're taking yourself back to zero. You're making it harder for yourself than it needs to be without just focusing in on what really matters to you and making sure that you have a proven model. We've proven it time and time again that this works. It wasn't a flash in the pan. It's something that's working nearly a decade later using the same model. It's very, very consistent. But you have to work the model consistently as well. So I think those are the main factors that dictate how quickly someone can see success with this kind of e commerce. So good. And I noticed that everything you mentioned there, Lewis, it's not a shortcut. It's not somebody can move faster because they had experience or they've got a certain situation in life. It's. It's about the attitude that they show up with, like, how badly do they want it, how big are their goals and how much do they care about achieving those goals? Can they stay consistent and not get shiny object syndrome and stick with the goal that they've set from the very start? All things that we can adopt straight away and from your own story, Louis, just thinking back to a few years ago now, but do you remember why you were able to succeed and relatively quickly in comparison to how long the business has been paying you now? What was really important for you when you were building your business to make sure that you succeeded as fast as possible? I think initially it was that desire for autonomy, freedom, for location, independence, for being able to run the business from anywhere on the planet and not really have to answer to anyone and just be my own boss, I think was the initial one. But also I've talked about this. I didn't yet have children at the time, but I always saw myself in the future as the kind of dad that could, you know, on a Friday morning, take my toddlers to the local coffee shop and, you know, just spend time with them and be there. And actually, just before this podcast, lo and behold, I took my toddler to the co shop in the high street and spend time with him because I can do that. And I want to make sure that I'm exercising that, that right and that kind of privilege that I've earned and worked hard for and made a lot of sacrifices and taken a lot of risks for. So I think for me it was those deep drivers of like autonomy, control, freedom, being a role model, being present. I mean, you don't get much stronger emotive, I don't think. And it, for me it was very much a pull towards that rather than a kind of a push from something that was like horrific. It wasn't some set of horrific circumstances where I despised the job and had to get out. So I had to make that my driver. And I had to continually remind myself why I wanted to achieve that. For other people, they might have a fire lit under them because of like redundancy or because of a job they hate, or because, you know, a contract's coming to an end and their motives might be very different. The nice thing is it doesn't really matter. Whatever your motives are, as long as they're strong enough and you remind yourself enough about them, eventually you will put in the work and find the time and take the steps needed to get this business up and running. So good. It's so important about that drive. Whatever it is, whether it's a fire underneath you or if it's a really strong goal that you're pushing towards every day, whatever it is, it is, it needs to be strong enough to make sure that you stay consistent on something so similar to yourself, Louis. I had a very strong goal. I was very keen to get out of a 9 to 5 job that I was working in at the time. I wanted to have autonomy over my time and be able to travel while still generating an income and grow myself personally. So ambitious, but wanted control. And so I use that as my, my goal. And the way I turn that into a very tangible day to day actions was I realised that to get to that goal, I need to follow a set of proven systems and repeat the process that other people have done without reinventing the wheel and just do something every day, even if it was just an hour, half an hour, whatever, I could make up that day. So I did one thing every single day and stay consistent. Then I knew that I'd get to that success. And the way I stayed consistent was like yourself, Louis, having that very strong goal that pulled me out of bed to do something and to get myself out of the situation I was in at the time. So yeah, awesome. And it really does make a difference and I Love the fact that it's. Anyone could do it. It's very, you know, anyone can get into this. You don't have to have a shortcut at all. So we've also dived into this subject about why most people fail and how you can avoid it as someone that wants to get started. And that was episode 141 to queue up after this one if you're interested into the mindset of what actually leads to success. So Louis, what would you say then to somebody who's going to get started right now and they're wondering whether they're going to be able to do it and go full time and how long that's going to take them? Yeah, it's a great question and it's different for everybody and everybody's situation. But there are a few things that I would focus on regardless. So first is don't obsess over the timeline like we've talked about today. If you're going to obsess over it, obsess over progress, consistent progress. Like you said, taking half an hour a day, making sure that you are moving the needle forward in some way in terms of like your development or your E commerce business, like by just taking small marginal gains. You've got to just look back at the overall week, when you get to the end of it and think, did I move things forward this week or did I just stagnate? That's the first thing. And the other thing is building with long term freedom in mind is key because that was, for me, that was the goal. And this is not a quick flip. This is not like just a flash in the palm that you do something today, tomorrow you're making sales and then it burns out by Friday. This is very much a long term, real sustainable business. You're building a brand, you're building something that has value, you're building something you could even sell in years to come. And so you've got to be able to zoom out and think of it in that context, in that longer time horizon. And it does require some patience and some delayed gratification. But, but that, that's where the rewards are on the other side of that. So it's just making sure that you can exercise that patience. The other part, I guess is when you're doing it, trust the process, go through the process and just take it step by step. Of course, ask if you're not sure. Like don't just blindly follow something that if you're not understanding the reasons why, but if you take the right actions, eventually success is inevitable. There will be obstacles, but if you're willing to overcome them, if you're willing to ask questions, seek support, guidance, and you have a proven process in front of you that many people have followed and got the outcome that you're looking for, then it's just a matter of when it happens, not if it happens. And so it's one of the reasons that people inside Dropship Unlocked actually get results is because they follow the proven process, they stay consistent, they see it as a long term business and they just stop chasing shortcuts and shiny objects and they just focus in on, okay, I'm building this brand and then we guide them through the process of how to do it and start right up to the point where they're fully removed from the business and it's set up ready for them to enjoy the fruits of their labour. So if you want the same roadmap and the support to move at your own pace, head over to dropship unlocked.com forward/start. 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 dropshipunlocked.com 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 favourite 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 we're going to answer a question that we've had in from a listener and we love to highlight your questions because if anything comes to mind, you can put them straight to us which might get featured on an upcoming episode. So that's exactly what Freddie has done. He just commented beneath a previous YouTube video version of an episode. So Freddie said, when you guys start to sell, do you use Google Ads smart campaigns or do you recommend using negative keyword lists and doing it all more manually? Yeah, it's a great question, Freddie. So with this type of business, this specific type of E commerce, we start now and this may change in the future as new ad platforms emerge and new campaign types come out. But as of now we leverage Google's AI through their performance max or P max campaign type. So it's a really powerful way to tap into search intent so people who are looking for on Google or through Google's AI tools for products, for solutions and then it allows Google to kind of serve our ads to the people that it believes are most likely to convert. Now, once what you do as well is you can feed your Shopify feed into that PMAX campaign, so it then displays your ads across search text ads. So the ads at the top of the Google search results, but also shopping ads and the display network, etc. And there's a retargeting even baked into it. So it's a really powerful kind of campaign type that actually encompasses a lot of different, what used to be very complex campaign types to set up into just one. Now, once your PMAX campaign identifies the top performing products and brands and collections, because there will be some that are statistically just much better sellers than others in your business, we then start to build out some manual search text ad campaigns around those specific products or brands or collections because we've seen that they're proven to sell. And so to now allocate more spend and more to get more of a return on investment from our ads, we can create some specific campaign types around those popular brands, products and collections. And then it allows us to scale up further with a bit more control without just giving Google the reins and saying, okay, run some search text ad campaigns. And then it creates all kinds of weird and wonderful things. So PMAX is a nice way of getting kind of 80% of the results initially because it does a lot of that heavy lifting and that kind of research upfront. And then you go in there and refine it and maybe there's certain brands that never sell for you and they're just unpopular and therefore you can't force those unpopular brands on a market who are just not buying them. You just waste your ad spend. So you switch those brands off and then you can create other asset groups and things like that inside your BMAX campaign. And it's kind of like using data to find where the fire is already burning inside your campaigns and then just pouring more fuel onto it because the pmax allows you to really hone in on that. And sometimes it's not the stuff that you may have been expecting as well. So I hope that answer helps, Freddie. And good luck with the campaigns. Good luck, Freddie. Yeah, great question. And performance. Max ties in so nicely with our business model, making sure that we're going for search intent buyers. People are already raising their hand and showing us that they're interested in purchasing the products that we are selling. Okay, now it's time to highlight a recent review that we've had for the podcast as well. Because we'd love to give you a shout out if you enjoyed the video or the podcast episode today. Do let us know. So this review we had recently is in from Diana who is a very popular member inside the Masterclass and Diana said thank you guys. Love your mindset videos. Thanks so much for your review Diana. We really appreciate it as always and thank you very much for listening to this episode today. If you've enjoyed today's episode, why not share it with a friend or a colleague? It's a great way to spread knowledge and also help someone else on their own e commerce journey. We appreciate every bit of support. 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 kickstart your e commerce business. Head over to dropshipping membershipunlocked.com start. It's the perfect place to start and get access to resources that will help you build your business from the ground up. And 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.