Avoiding Ecommerce Beginner Mistakes

In this episode, Steven Pemberton discusses the myths and misconceptions surrounding e-commerce. He addresses the common belief that starting an e-commerce business requires little to no investment and can lead to instant success. Steven debunks the myth of dropshipping as a get-rich-quick scheme and highlights the challenges and complexities involved in building a successful e-commerce business. He emphasizes the importance of acquiring the necessary skills and knowledge, as well as having a clear vision and understanding of the commitment required. Steven also provides practical advice on reaching out to experts, mitigating risk, and overcoming the fear of getting started.

Takeaways

• Starting e-commerce with zero dollars is a myth, and drop shipping is not as easy as it seems.
• E-commerce success requires skills in website building, finding profitable products, and building a following.
• Research and learn from credible online teachers who have a track record of success.
• Mitigate risks by hiring experts or mentors to guide you and avoid costly mistakes.
• Don't quit, keep improving, and think like a successful person to make progress.

Chapters

00:00
Introduction

00:29
The Myth of Starting E-commerce with Zero Dollars

01:24
The Reality of Drop Shipping

03:16
The Skills and Effort Required for E-commerce Success

04:41
Determining Your Big Reason Why

05:10
Step One: Research and Learn

06:33
Navigating YouTube University

07:02
Finding Credible and Successful Online Teachers

08:53
Investing Time and Money in Learning

09:22
Mitigating Risks and Avoiding Costly Mistakes

12:14
Overcoming the Fear of Reaching Out to Experts

13:39
Preparing for a Call with an Expert

15:05
Mitigating Risks by Hiring Experts or Mentors

Transcript

Steven Pemberton: 0:00

Welcome to Voice Like a Lion podcast. I'm your host, Stephen Pemberton, and today I'm doing my first solo pod and sneak peek behind the scenes. I've got my own facilitator here with me today, Brittany Pemberton.

Brittany Pemberton: 0:13

Yes, so the general premise of this podcast is to talk about e-commerce myth, but Myth but.

Steven Pemberton: 0:21

Thing.

Brittany Pemberton: 0:22

Say it.

Steven Pemberton: 0:22

Mythbusting. Mythbusting.

Brittany Pemberton: 0:26

Myth busting.

Steven Pemberton: 0:27

Mine wasn't much different.

Brittany Pemberton: 0:29

So we just want to hop right into it, and my first question is on what people ask us is why do you feel like people who are looking to start e-commerce want to come in at basically zero dollars? And many people have seen YouTube videos about dropshipping online.

Steven Pemberton: 0:54

So when it comes to that that's actually why I'm coming out with some shorts around that topic is when it talks about dropshipping. Especially dropshipping is the one that there's like this biggest myth, that's like the big myth, that's like the minotaur, that's like the Hydra or whatever it is from Greek mythology. When you think about it, it just sounds almost too good to be true, right, where if I make something, I put a product on a, I'll put my product on Amazon. Let's say, I'll put my product on Amazon, somebody buys that product. I don't even have to have that product, so it actually comes from someone else and it immediately gets sent to this person. It sounds almost too good to be true and to a certain degree, it is. And that is coming from someone where, in 2021, we made a million dollars in top line sales doing dropshipping.

Steven Pemberton: 1:45

So I want you to have an understanding that it's so much harder than what you actually see and you hear from the gurus online, because it's not that simple. If you're doing it on Amazon, you got to be very careful on how you do it, because if you don't do it right, you end up getting shut down and being tens of thousands of dollars, maybe even worse in the whole. And if you're doing it on a Shopify store, then pretty much everyone in their mama have seen those same videos you have. So how are they going to be different? I actually saw an ad where someone was saying that they were going to give you a free Shopify store with 20 money, making highly profitable products, and I thought, wow. So if I see this, how many other people are also seeing this ad? Let's say that I got my free shop with those 20 products and then you got that shop with those same 20 products.

Steven Pemberton: 2:30

Now you and I are in competition. Now imagine times a thousand people, times 10,000 people that is a super saturated market for the same exact template at our store for the same exact products. It's going to be very, very difficult for any of us to make money. So I just want to give you an understanding that is it possible to make millions and millions of dollars online and drive the Lambo and have the house doing dropshipping? Yes, absolutely, but do not be fooled by just the. Everything that shimmers and shines is not gold. There is so much more that goes into the behind the scenes of actually learning the skills and how to build a website, how to build a following, how to get people to the thing, how to find the right supplier, how to find profitable products. There's a lot behind the scenes.

Brittany Pemberton: 3:16

From the people that we have mentored, our clients. A lot of people who come to us, even friends and family they want us to help them. Yeah, but they don't have this understanding of what it actually takes.

Steven Pemberton: 3:38

Yeah, I think what's interesting with that is people, because just going back to my last answer even is people will be working a full-time job and they'll reach out to us and they'll say hey, I want to make extra money. That's fantastic. I usually tell them that's great. Here's some ways you can do that with the skills you already have. They'll tell me no, I just want to list a product up, somebody buy it, somebody else send it. But there are so many skills, like I just talked about, that you need to have to actually make this thing, not just a flash in the pan.

Steven Pemberton: 4:07

Yes, you can absolutely go and make money right now, today. If you run ads to something, you can get some sales now, but it's not sustainable. You're not building a brand. So I think it's just important to get context and have a vision for what you're even doing. Are you trying to make an extra $500? Maybe drop shipping is not your best idea. Maybe e-commerce in general probably not the thing. You can probably go make an extra $500 doing something much easier without the skill gap. So just take inventory of what your big reason why is?

Brittany Pemberton: 4:41

So let's say I am that person, I'm in the job that I hate. I want to start selling online, like what's step one? Like where do you send?

Steven Pemberton: 4:52

me. If you're working like a buddy who was on the podcast and you're in Nike and you're helping them with their online store, you can learn every skill that you need for e-commerce right there in doing your job. Now, if you're a sheet metal cutter, then you're going to need some other things to be able to actually figure out what the skills are to go online First and foremost. If you are, honestly, that's your dream, that's your vision, that's what you want to do and nothing's going to stop you and nothing's going to redirect you to anything else, I would take the time just to go look up videos. Go look up other people. Go look at these gurus, go look at the people who are online teaching this stuff. Just go watch their actual videos.

Steven Pemberton: 5:33

I would not start with the ones that they're showing all the glitzing glamour. Go as far back as you can, because if you can go as far back as you can and look at their videos from when they started, perhaps, and see, well, how did they actually get started oh, they were driving a 96 Honda Civic and this is where they started in their mom's basement. Now you can see the progression and understand the pains and the difficulties before you learn the skills. Honestly, if you're looking to learn skills, there's people that are in the industry that they recorded their whole process. Go and watch those things too, just to get an understanding of what a shop is. If you want to do a Shopify, you want to get an understanding of how to do a listing on Amazon, on what does it mean to be gated and ungated, what does it mean to have vetted suppliers and to do all these things? Go learn terminology, go learn terms first. So when you go and listen to these people online, you'll be able to have an understanding of what they're saying. So that would be step one.

Brittany Pemberton: 6:26

Yeah, and I think that many people will get into the learning process and sometimes it can lead down a lot of different paths, especially if you get on YouTube and you just type in e-commerce. There's so many different opportunities even within e-commerce. So what is your viewpoint on what people should do whenever they go into that YouTube university space to learn?

Steven Pemberton: 6:57

That's a great question For me. What I look for when I look for somebody online that I'm watching and I'm wanting to gain value from their content is I want to see their track record. So what I want to see is if they're teaching people online how to do this, where do they get the credibility? If I go backwards in time, can I go look at their testimonials? Do they actually have some? Have they actually had people be successful? Are they successful for real? Are they showing you screenshots of the success that they've had? If so, and if that's on a consistent basis, where it's like hey, this just happened, instead of it being motivational and really high quality. Where they're standing over the ledge of their multimillion dollar condo looking out over the beach, where it's actually them on the computer. It's them working with clients, it's them going to events, it's them speaking on stages Now they have credibility.

Steven Pemberton: 7:45

So that would be someone that I would look at and look for. That's for me A lot of times. With the fancy cars, that's great, but I just want to hear and not just for me being a little bit further down the road I'm able to listen to the content and know all that person's for real, that person not for real. Same way where if you're in the sheet metal industry and you're transitioning online. If I came in, I said I knew everything about sheet metal and I started trying to tell you different terms and terminologies and you're sitting there laughing at me because none of those things exist and none of those things sound like anything in that industry. It's the same thing when you transition online, there's going to be people who they're not good actors.

Brittany Pemberton: 8:22

I feel like many people will get online and they'll get into the YouTube university kind of space or they'll buy a course or something like that. And what is that point in time where you really start to put in investment, like time investment into actually doing the thing, or financial investment into starting to create the business?

Steven Pemberton: 8:52

So this is a real story. So there's a gentleman who I was a guest on this podcast and I was talking to him about our successes in e-commerce and he said that he had his son had actually just started an Amazon store and he was not having a good go of it and he was wondering if I would just sit down and talk to him. So of course, I said yes and I sat down and I talked to this gentleman and he had invested. So he was pretty much exactly what we were talking about. This guy was full time in a warehouse, he was in his mid 20s and he had invested his entire life savings in the product and he had sold one. So five grand in one sold and that was to his mom. So that's not me bringing that up to okay, point fingers, laugh at this guy, but I'm bringing it up to say that he told me that he had researched and learned for three years before he bought this stuff, but somehow he had made a $5,000 mistake. What happened so it's what had happened, and this is my personal opinion is a he got absorbed with that one business model. So I think it's really important to look at e-commerce as a whole if you're going into it and get an understanding of not only oh, this looks really good, I could do this, but what? What has long term sustainability and growth? What can you find that has that to is if you do decide, like this gentleman did, to do one vertical, see who you can find. Go on LinkedIn, see who you can find. Go on Instagram, see who you can find in that same vertical doing that same thing you wanna do, but they've already done it. They're further down the road and just hit them up and say, hey, I'm actually about to invest my whole life savings into doing the same thing that you're doing. Would you mind just hopping on a 15 minute call just to look at this thing and tell me that I'm not making a huge mistake, because you not only wanna have the know-how by going and spending three years to know the stuff.

Steven Pemberton: 10:51

Knowing and doing are two different things. So you may know everything about the subject matter, but until you apply it, you don't know if it's actually gonna work for you. So if you can have somebody who it's worked for them come into your life for even 15 minutes, even if you had to pay them Like, this is when you're talking about making investments. If you hit somebody up and they say, yeah, I'll spend 15 minutes with you, but it's gonna cost you 150 bucks, what if that 150 bucks saves you five grand? So what I want you to understand is that's the difference between investment and a cost. If you invest that 150, that person tells you, hey, this isn't great because of X, y and Z and here's a couple of things you can go look for. That five grand can either be saved or invested into an area where maybe now you make it 5,600. So you grew money. You actually put a multiple on it. So that's my opinion on that.

Brittany Pemberton: 11:38

I think that it can be kind of intimidating to reach out to someone that is, at a way, higher level in the thing that you're stepping into as a beginner, and it can kind of be intimidating to either think that they may not even give them the time of day or that they may be completely rude to them. What is your experience with reaching out to people at a higher level? Have you experienced anybody? You tell you no, get out of my face.

Steven Pemberton: 12:08

Oh yeah.

Brittany Pemberton: 12:10

Or what is the full scope of that. Do you feel like that fear is valid and how would you overcome it?

Steven Pemberton: 12:17

I mean, I think that that fear is 100% valid and it's also 100% invalid. So you may be saying, steven, that's not possible, that's 200%. But here's why it is 100% possible. It's a valid fear. There's plenty of people that have reached out to that. Either A they never responded. Actually, three things is either they never responded, they saw it, never responded. Or three, they told me to get out of their face. So what I learned from those three things was one if they never responded, they never saw it.

Steven Pemberton: 12:47

I just kept following up, like, keep following up, keep following up, keep following up, because if they're big, they may be really busy, they might not see it. And then, honestly, if this is someone that you've been consuming their content on the daily or on the weekly and they're not responding to you on this channel, figure out what other channels they have and reach out to them in different ways, because eventually they'll see it, eventually they'll give you some kind of correspondence or their assistant will. Two, if they see it and don't respond and go back to what I said with this one just follow up, keep following up and just explain to them this is who you are. And then what I would do for follow-ups instead of just like asking for help, is give them value, and what I mean by that it's like hey, steven, I just watched your newest piece of content where you're talking about e-commerce, and I just listened to the whole thing and this was my biggest takeaway that I got from it. Also, I have this one question when you said this, would you mind elaborating this piece for me? And now me as the content creator, I can say, oh, I needed to go a little bit more in depth when I'm talking to people, but you added value.

Steven Pemberton: 13:46

When you're adding value now, let's say, I still don't get back to you, but I see it. Just keep following up and you will eventually break through. And then three for the people who tell you to get out of their face. That's perfectly okay. For every person that tells you get out of my face, I promise you there's like five other ones who will give you their time. My experience has been that I've built a network in this past year of people that are multi-millionaires one dude who's got a billion dollars worth of real estate invested and these are people that I can just hit up. I can send them an email, I can call them, I can text them Like these are people that I've grew that community through doing the exact thing I'm telling you to do. Is that scary? Absolutely. When you're not making millions of dollars, when you're not a billionaire, it is very intimidating. And those people at the top of whatever their industry is, they're just excited that somebody's hungry enough to learn.

Brittany Pemberton: 14:34

When they reach out and they get that yes. I feel like many times you have gotten that yes, and People have been so gracious, no matter what level you're at, you're not telling them. You're at their level.

Steven Pemberton: 14:48

Oh no, you're not doing them.

Brittany Pemberton: 14:50

You're even close. You're just saying hi, I'm here to learn, basically with your, with your questions. So my question is is let's say they do get a yes, what do they do to prepare for a call like that, because that can be pretty intimidating.

Steven Pemberton: 15:05

Do your due diligence, like, actually take your time. Don't get on this call and ask them about their story, and the reason why I'm saying that is that's not helping you and that's not Helping them. And, yes, maybe you will get to learn about who they are and they'll be really exciting and you got to learn something, but it's nothing of real meat and real value. Go, if they have content. Go, look at their content. Go figure out who they are, what do they do, what do they stand for. Then, when you get on that call, if you know that they're in the real estate industry is I'll use that guy who you got a billion under Investment is. Go to this guy and say, hey, thank you so much for taking this call. I'm not gonna take a lot of your time, maybe 10, 15 minutes.

Steven Pemberton: 15:45

I've only got five questions, three, five questions. One of them is so you've got all this real estate under investment? How did you even get started doing that like, if you're talking to someone like me at zero dollars of real estate under investment? If you had to go back to the beginning, you know, whatever the variation of the question is, if you had to restart today, how would you get back to a billion dollars of real estate under investment. Now, all of a sudden, that's a real question. They go.

Steven Pemberton: 16:08

Well, if I had to completely restart, I do x, y and z and then it's like how would you get the capital to do that? Well, I would do this and I would do that or I'd go whatever it is. But taking the time to do your due diligence and learn the people you're getting on the call with, you're gonna get to ask really good questions, because the power of your question is gonna dictate the power of the answer. So just taking that time to get really good questions Will get you the value that you really need to actually move your life forward.

Brittany Pemberton: 16:34

Yeah, I think that's gonna be really helpful for people, because a lot of people believe that they have to be at a certain level before they can even be in the room.

Steven Pemberton: 16:47

Yeah, I mean, that's a. That's the way that I used to feel, but I Truly and I honestly mean this for anyone who's listening to this you could easily reach out to me and if you did it in the way that I just outlined and you gave me vision for who you are and where you're going, I'm more than willing to get on a phone call, because, if I can understand that, maybe you have nothing going for you right now. Maybe you just lost your job and you don't have any skills in the e-commerce industry. Maybe you don't have any skills in the B2B industry, but you're wanting to grow and you have a vision for your life that you're saying, steven, I've done all these things. I'm working on my mindset, I'm reading these books and I know that in the next five to ten years I'm gonna be a millionaire. But I need help right now and I just have three really easy questions for you. Would you mind getting on a quick ten to fifteen minute call? I'm gonna tell you yes, because I a I just want I'm excited that you're, that you want to talk to me.

Steven Pemberton: 17:41

B is I want to give value back. So you're taking the time out of your day. You've heard something that added value to your life. So now I get to add value back. So definitely do not be afraid to just reach out. And that that's one big thing too is being being willing to take those hits on the chin, because I can't tell you how many people you'll have to reach out to before you get your first. Yes, and we hear that when it comes to making a sale, but it's the same thing when you're selling yourself, when you're doing this networking. You may get a few knows at first, and they may not all be very nice, but, but the gold is on the other side of those.

Steven Pemberton: 18:21

Continue to push through and just learn had value. Actually take the time to say hey, stephen, this happened just the other day where guys send an email, a cold email, to me and he had taken the time to take a screenshot, draw your arrows and say, hey, this is your analytics on your YouTube. These are some things that are missing. This is what could be better here. Some other stuff. It was mine. I could see it now. Is he using some kind of software? Probably I hope he is, because it can make his life much easier, but it was personalized and since it was personalized. I was much more willing to get on and say, hey, man, let's schedule a call. I would love to talk to you. I.

Brittany Pemberton: 18:58

Would love to go into a little bit different part of e-commerce, and this is for the person who. They have the finances, they have the knowledge, they have everything, but they just haven't gotten started. Out of fear, what? What do you tell them in order to help them Just get started?

Steven Pemberton: 19:23

You got to mitigate your risk. So, like, one of two different things is either a you hire people to do the things. Let's say you do have knowledge but you don't have a way. You've never really applied it, you've been too afraid to like mess something up is going, and finding a team, a person, whoever it is, whatever it is there's software to be able to actually do that thing for you. Make that investment, do that. The other one is, if you have the skill sets and you're just afraid that you're gonna make the mistakes, you don't know how to grow. You don't want to be like the guy who lost five grand on his products. Hiring somebody to mentor you to help you move along the path. That's gonna be your best investment because those are gonna be the people that's gonna be able to speak to you and keep you on the path and help you avoid the major landmines on the road. So those are the two major ways that I would go about it, and my encouragement to everyone, if you do feel led to e-commerce, is Just don't quit after the first attempt, like if you're in the middle of it.

Steven Pemberton: 20:18

There's a gentleman I know that he's done e-commerce in the past. He sold on Shopify in the past and then he had to shut it down and he went and worked a job. And now he's trying to fire it back up and he's getting a few sales each day, or maybe one. Don't quit, like even in the valley season. Don't give up if it doesn't look like it's going well. Just continue to improve. And and improvement is not okay. I'm 400 pounds Today. By the end of the week I'm gonna be 250. Like that's not realistic improvement. Yes, maybe that is your goal to get down to 250, but set a time frame that seems realistic. So like a year. Let's say I want to get down to 250 in a year.

Steven Pemberton: 20:55

Then, word backwards, what would it take to actually get to that point? And the most important thing I've heard this a few times from really highly successful people is think, if I was somebody who was extremely healthy and they were just jacked, how would I think? What would I do? Well, I would probably not eat an entire pizza by myself. In terms of business, it's like well, maybe I wouldn't go buy a new pair of shoes. Maybe I would invest that in a mentor. I would not take that trip. I would invest it in a team to help me grow my business. So thinking about thinking about it in the standpoint of where you want to go, as if you are already there, looking backwards. How would you do it If you execute that plan, even if you don't hit the goal? You'll be sick, you'll be able to get to that plan, even if you don't hit the goal. You'll be significantly closer.