what's up guys today i want to do a
video talking about the benefits
of being a bad graphic designer and
trying to start a print on demand
business i'm going to focus the video
uh kind of on like the amazon merch
merch by amazon
program and speak to that perspective
and i'm gonna have a little bit of fun
with it so let's get started
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quick reminder i run a weekly
print-on-demand giveaway you can enter
for free
using the link in the description this
week sponsored by merch titans upload
automation merch ninja research tools
and all sunsets premium pre-made sunset
graphics
two winners are selected every sunday
the link is in the description it's
completely free to enter
also in the description a link to my
seven-day amazon merch mini course
delivered via email
and a link to my amazon merch community
on facebook if you'd like to join
all right let's get started with these
five benefits
of being a bad graphic designer that
wants to start a print on demand
business
benefit number one is that no one really
steals
my designs but does that mean that
nobody steals any of them of course not
as you guys are probably aware of on
websites like amazon
they assign a data point called bsr or
best seller rank which
is public facing to any product on the
catalog that's made a sale before
this allows people that want to steal
designs
to basically target designs that are
already validated that have sold
and even if your design sucks like in
this uh
example right here this is the this is
kind of like a st patrick's day meme i
don't know if you guys remember because
it's probably like over a decade old but
there was some
local news station that ran a report
everybody was saying there was a
leprechaun sighting
and somebody did a sketch and it was
like the sketch artist rendering of the
of the leprechaun description and this
is what it looked like and every year i
feel like this shirt
um not just this one i mean this has
been reposted a bunch of times on amazon
but
uh this this ends up selling a bunch
around st patrick's day because it is
kind of a funny meme
but as you can see here it's not a great
design still makes sales
and just you know keep in mind when it
comes to stealing designs i'm sure
the better the graphic design ability of
the artist
the more likely someone's going to try
to replicate it but we also do
live in a day and age now where there
are bots that can crawl the front end of
websites like amazon
you know and because amazon does that
zoom feature when you hover over the
product
it gives the ability for somebody to
write a bot and we already know there's
a bunch of these bots out there i'm sure
you guys know what i'm talking about
that can literally strip your design
from the zoomed in version
peel off the background and then
re-upload it
via seller central i've seen that done
before i've done a video on it somebody
that i was mentoring
had uploaded one of their original
artwork designs that they spent like a
month designing
they're like a really good artist and
within a day it made its first sale
and was stolen and re-uploaded 13 times
to seller central so
no one really steals my bad designs but
does that mean that i'm
uh safe as far as the pixel for pixel
thieves
of course not and that reminds me part
of what inspired this video was my
friend juna at detour shirts
shared a story on his channel i'll link
to it right here in the youtube cards
where he found two of his original
designs for sale
at box lunch which is like a big t-shirt
retailer
and he wasn't sure if they had ripped
him off and i don't want to ruin the
story but
um you can go find the full details on
his video on his channel and i'll put it
in the youtube cards as well but
i remember telling him man i don't have
to worry about that
because i don't think any of my designs
are good enough for any big store
to want to rip off but the i'll say this
box lunch did not rip him off they were
able to get the designs
legally all right benefit number two
of not being a great graphic designer
but wanting to start a print on demand
business is that
my approach to design favors simplicity
and that's good because the simpler
design is
the i don't know less effort you have to
put in the more designs you can get
created
the more time you have left over for
uploading and doing keyword research
and all the like niche research etc
so it favors simplicity which shouldn't
be overlooked i mean
you kind of have to figure like with
print on demand you now know how to turn
your time into money
your time is now money because you can
sit there 24 hours a day
niche research design keyword research
upload
and just repeat the process as many
times as you can but
who's to say which approach will make
you more money
some people it's going to be more simple
designs getting more designs or more
products posted with simple designs and
somebody who's a better graphic designer
like my friend juna at detour shirts he
may make more money
doing less designs less products posted
for sale
but better looking designs because
that's what his edge
is is that he can make designs that
people like me just can't execute we
don't have the ability yet
so it's something worth considering
all right benefit number three i can be
more agile and i
mentioned that i was going to do this
video in the amazon merch
context now amazon merch limits the
number of products we can sell at any
given time
when you first join amazon merch you
only get 10 upload slots
now this is a big point of contention
for many new sellers and a lot of people
never make it out of amazon
out of tier 10 in amazon merch because
they can't get the
four or five required sales to be tiered
up to tier 25 where you have 25 upload
slots
now if you're a weak graphic designer
and these two shirts on the slide behind
me are a poor example because they're
both really well executed designs but
what i was really trying to illustrate
there is that let's say i have limited
upload slots
and i didn't spend too long or too much
effort too much time
creating the designs that i'm posting
for sale
well then i'm not going to hesitate to
take off my
unicorn st patrick's day shirt and
replace it with a unicorn easter shirt
as we head to easter and st patrick's
day is behind us
so that's kind of the gist of what i
wanted to illustrate here is that i can
be more agile it doesn't really bother
me if i have to
remove a product that hasn't made a sale
and replace it with something new
benefit number four of being a weaker
graphic designer is that time really
isn't an issue for me
uh when i sit down and i'm going to have
a little design session
i know i'm not going to spend too much
time on those designs now
i think i learned that lesson early on
in my journey probably
in tier 25 tier 10 tier 25 i was
spending a lot of time
on the design aspect because i wanted to
get some foundation of what i'd consider
to be
t-shirt design fundamentals but outside
of tier 25 i really
focused more on being agile iterating
through the process efficiently
because you know you guys know i was
doing amazon fba at the same time
working a day job at the same time
working a second job teaching so it's
like
it i always think my brain works in a
binary way sometimes like
in this sense it was binary because if i
spent too long on
any one aspect of doing amazon merch
whether it was niche research
design upload keyword research except
whatever it was if i spent too long
i risk the binary nature being a zero
which is that i didn't get it done
and i'm always of the mindset that it's
better to do it
fifty percent but flip the binary switch
from zero to one and have have
accomplished something
as opposed to having done nothing but
having an excuse right
i mean think about it how many people in
life don't do whatever it is that they
maybe is important to them like the
binary nature of things i hate when
things are boiled down to
be overly simplistic and make them
binary zero or one did or didn't do it
etc because not everything is that
simple but in this case
when you're talking about actually
getting something done it typically is
that simple did you do it yes no
don't need an excuse did you get it done
and for me it's like
when time isn't an issue when it comes
to design it really helped me
favor getting things done and i've
shared the story before
i kind of made a point when i was early
on in amazon merch where i would not go
to sleep unless my daily upload slots
were filled
and i love my sleep so this also helped
help me sleep at night let's put it that
way
all right the last one number five of
five benefits of being a weak graphic
designer
there's room for improvement and i'm
addicted to learning
you know self-proclaimed learning addict
i like
that i i don't know i get excited about
that i can learn new ways to improve my
game
you know and it's not just the end
result like it's not just reaching the
you know if i had to rank these three
pineapple shirts i'd say the one on the
far left probably the weakest the one in
the middle is like second best and the
one behind me is the best right
i like the idea of being able to up my
game and it's not just about having the
best design but also can you crank out a
good design
efficiently i'm always thinking about
efficiency because i have to i'm spread
very thin but i like that too i like
being diversified
so there's always room for improvement
and that keeps me excited all right and
that's really all i wanted to talk about
i had some fun with this video guys if
you can think of any benefits of being a
bad graphic designer that i missed
let me know in the comments below also
just a quick reminder i did take the
time to write a full amazon merch course
i think it's like 70 or 80 lectures
it covers niche research design more of
a simplistic nature approach to design
also places you can get free graphic
design assets to improve your designs
without being a designer
much much more you know custom strategy
tailored to your tier for amazon merch
you can check out the course link in the
description and that's really it guys
thank you for watching
like subscribe and i'll see you tomorrow
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you