hey guys thanks for joining me for this
video i already recorded the main
content and this is gonna be a
really good really valuable video where
i basically explain the most important
things you can do
as a print-on-demand seller to be
successful over the long haul
so let's get started
[Music]
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all right now let me get to the main
video
hey guys so i was feeling inspired to
make this video today
after doing a consulting call i do take
one-on-one consultations i don't take
that many of them but i do put a link in
the description of the videos in case
you wanted to consider booking a call
with me to talk about
whatever um today i was talking with
somebody about
print on demand success it's a pretty
common topic for me to be talking about
with somebody
and i was also talking to one of the
students in my print on demand course
earlier this week about the same thing
and
it just inspired me to put a video out
there almost to serve as a reminder
of what i'm really talking about when i
do these videos
that focus on a minute aspect
of running a print-on-demand business
you know like if you guys subscribe to
my youtube channel you you know it's
like
i have my full courses where it's like
everything you need in the order you
need it structured perfectly
and then i have my youtube where it's
like i can just talk about whatever
whatever i'm feeling inspired to talk
about that day
and i talk about like little minut
puzzle pieces of the big puzzle
and in this video i just want to talk
about what
the big puzzle really is and i'm going
to talk about it at a high level
and this is just my interpretation
there's no right or wrong way of going
about well
there's a wrong way to go about it but
there's no i guess
single right way of going about running
a print on demand business and being
successful so what i just want to talk
about is
my interpretation of being successful as
a print-on-demand seller and like my
personal pursuits
and i'll give you a little insight into
the logic that i apply
to each of these decisions that i make
and
you know i was doing the consulting call
today and you know 30 minutes is not a
lot of time to get into the nitty-gritty
but i wanted to make sure i communicated
like what i think is really important
right if we have a limited amount of
time it makes
the communication of uh important like
really important things
it's like a priority you have to
communicate the most high priority
things first
and it helps put things in perspective
for me and i wanted to just kind of
communicate the same things to you guys
while it was fresh on my mind since i
talked about it a few times this week
already
now this is my high level
condensed basic definition of what i
like to call playing the game
if you want to be successful selling
print on demand and we say print on
demand but let's be honest
it's really about running an e-commerce
business um to me at least
so the first thing that you guys need to
do and if you want to take notes this is
going to be pretty concise
i don't want to say it's going to be a
short video because i have a tendency to
go off on tangents and talk pretty long
but i don't want this video to be too
long
the first thing you need to do is follow
the customers
right if you are not selling on a
platform
that customers when i say customers i
mean potential customers
if you're not on a platform that people
go to with the intention of buying
then your job is twice as hard as it
needs to be
because then you got to put your
marketing hat on and you have to go
convince people
on facebook or wherever to stop whatever
they were doing
which i know you guys that browse social
media um can relate that
that's basically what happens on social
media you go there to do one thing
five minutes later you're like what the
heck did i come here to do
and why am i looking at pictures of you
know dog memes or something right
but you know if you just follow
the customers meaning go to websites
like amazon
amazon gets qualified traffic right
people go there
often with the intention of buying
things they know what to expect when
they go to amazon
it's to purchase things they know things
are for sale they've got their credit
card on file
they've got a gift card balance they
probably pay annually for prime
like check check check okay the
uh barriers of convincing somebody to
buy your stuff on amazon are so much
lower
than taking somebody from facebook to
some other website that they're not
familiar with you know and i'm not
saying i'm not talking like you can't be
successful with
facebook ads and shopify and all that
i'm just saying that like your job
becomes a lot harder then
because you have to take on this entire
new burden new challenge right
so step one be where the customers are
follow the customers right it's not like
amazon's the only place but amazon is
the largest e-commerce destination in
the world
and that's a good place to start now the
person i was talking to earlier we were
talking about the print-on-demand
context
so i mentioned you should probably get
on amazon merch
and seller central so the call started
with
me auditing the redbubble shop but i
always make sure to mention like
don't gauge you being a successful
print-on-demand seller based on your
redbubble success cause guys what do i
always say about redbubble
lowest barrier of entry if it's the
lowest barrier of entry
what do you get you get more competition
so factor that in don't don't
decide that you're gonna make it or not
make it based on redbubble
um give yourself a shot at etsy at least
or
amazon you know if you can if you can
get into amazon merch that's awesome
so i recommended that they do amazon
merch and
amazon seller central because you guys
that subscribe to my channel you know i
publish the monthly income reports
and i make no less than i mean when i
say no less than i'm talking like the
bare bare minimum no less than a
thousand dollars a month profit
selling print on demand through seller
central that's in addition
to amazon merch okay and amazon merch
i've been averaging you know no less
than 2500 a month this year i
i might crack three i mean i'm not in my
computer but i'm pretty sure i'm gonna
crack three grand
this month uh knock on wood so it should
be another good month for me on amazon
merge so think about that that's four
grand a month
from print on demand that i'm doing
passively but did i get here overnight
of course not right it was a journey
and i'm doing a bad job of giving you
these things to write down
what i was recommending maybe write down
is like i'm going to give you kind of
like four bullet points i think
that are very high level and then i'm
going to talk about them and elaborate
in case there are questions and of
course hit me up in the comments below
too
if you have any questions or
recommendations or disagreements i'd
love to hear them
um it always makes for good discourse
too if you do have any suggestions or
disagreements it's no problem at all i
won't take it as being argumentative so
hit me up in the comments
but number two right so number one we
follow the customers
number two and this isn't meant to
insult anybody's intelligence because
it's gonna sound so basic but i promise
you i'm on this side of things and i'd
see people
not listening to what i'm about to say
sell things that people are buying
isn't that obvious you're gonna have
such an easier
time selling something that people are
already buying than trying to convince
somebody to buy something that they
don't know exists
like sometimes the simplest logic
if we just apply that i call that being
practical
can make a world of difference so we're
going to follow the customers and we're
going to sell things people are already
buying that we know
sells rather than try to be like
introducing new things to the market new
concepts
and what do i mean by this in short what
i mean is
validate your niches if we're talking
print on demand context
validate your niches i used this example
earlier
on the call if you want to sell a cat
t-shirt
you can make up the words on the design
right you can make them up
and if you're the first person and the
only person to ever think of them
then how is anybody going to find you
right most likely they're only going to
find you if you are indexed on
high level generic keywords like funny
cat shirt
or clever cat whatever you know what i
mean but like something generic like
x cat shirt by the way those keywords
are going to be incredibly
um diluted incredibly what's the word i
can't think of it saturated
you know what i mean so banking on that
working is not a good plan
you're much better off high level niche
sub niche sub niche sub niche
okay this sub niche has made sales and
it's only got 30 listings i'd be
competing with
okay if i'm one of 31 that's not bad
that's how you start to rack up the the
sales at a low level and with evergreens
that can sell at any time in the year
that aren't tied to a certain holiday or
period of time you know you start
building up your portfolio and all of a
sudden you're making repeated sales on
autopilot because remember everything
with print on demand
should be done autopilot if possible
unless there's a huge profit motive
that you want to do something manually
but i wouldn't recommend uh doing a lot
of manual stuff
unless you're just getting started in
which case you know doing stuff manually
is okay
like offering personalization on etsy um
separate
separate topic though subscribe to my
channel i'm gonna do an etsy series soon
i just made a bunch of thumbnails i was
feeling inspired today
it's gonna be good um so we're gonna
follow the customers we're gonna sell
things that are validated oh yeah last
thing
amazon releases a public data point
called bsr
seller rank if something has a bsr that
means it's made a sale
so that's validation the lower the bsr
and this this data points updated
throughout the day
at unknown intervals but constantly the
lower the bsr the more sales it has made
recently okay so we can get indicators
of what has sold and what is selling
right now
using that data point it's so valuable
it's awesome that amazon uh does that
for us
so now we've got those two things follow
the customers sell things that are
selling
now the next one is we need to play the
game when it comes to designing and this
one
i know that this is probably the one
thing that people might have opposition
in the comments if you guys want to see
people sorry you might have an
opposition
you might have an opposing view no
problem i invite it i welcome it
it feels weird me trying to tell you how
to do your designs right because isn't
designing subjective
it is we all like different things we
like different designs
um i'm not trying to tell you like how
to go about actually designing
what i mean is i like to boil things
down into simplicity so if you're gonna
write a little note here just write if
people can't read
or see what my graphic is from the
thumbnail in search results
i will not be successful and then vice
versa if they can read it
or can recognize what's going on in my
design
from the thumbnail meaning they didn't
click and go to the listing page and
see the zoomed in viewer the bigger view
from the thumbnail
in search results if you can't get
clicked in the search results because
people
can't read the text or don't know what
your design is
you're never i mean it's gonna be so
much harder to be successful guys
you know this is the game i don't break
the rules right so you're hearing it
from me please don't get mad at me i
didn't make the rules but this is just
these little optimizations can make a
world of difference and i mean trust me
there's way more to it than what i'm
going to give you in this video but
at the core these things matter so much
you can't skip them
all right we all need to be aware of
them all right so follow the customers
sell things that are selling make sure
our thumbnails
are good and i mean on amazon let's say
or amazon merch let's say
you can't customize your thumbnail but
you can make your designs bigger
right so you can't change the thumbnail
you only get the thumbnail that amazon
merch generates but you can change your
design so make your design as big as
possible
in that box right just play the game
it's got to be unique your strategy is
tailored to each platform
and amazon merch should be your top
priority because that's got the highest
profit potential
after that guys what's left it's really
just to
understand the algorithms the search
algorithms of the marketplaces you're
selling on
now that's like opening pandora's box do
i want to talk for another 30 minutes
about algorithms
and each marketplace not right now but
what i really mean
is you know if i had to boil this down
to
to a concise short short explanation
i'd say your title in almost
every search algorithm is weighted
heaviest
meaning if somebody searches for you
know
this is a bad example but like funny cat
shirt and the title of your design
is funny cat shirt that is an exact
match so as far as
a computer programmer writing an
algorithm to determine
what should show up based on what a
customer searched
and what a seller has uploaded when you
see an exact match in the heaviest
weighted um you know because title is is
variable right
but it's like the heaviest weighted
variable length keyword
relevant keyword containing database
field that is a title
that we control you're like okay when
we're writing this algorithmic score
that determines who ranks at the top
having an exact match in the title or a
phrase match like maybe it's
funny cat shirt comma insert
some sub niche in the cat cat niche
right so some additional text and maybe
the additional text is what's actually
in the design but you're assisting the
algorithm and understanding
what search queries that customers type
are relevant to your listing
so try to mimic what customers would
type into the search bar
and include it in your title where it's
weighted heaviest all right now there's
much more to it than that
like you can run ads you don't have to
run ads but you can run ads but if you
just start there
try to assist the algorithm in matching
what customers will search
you'll start to see more sales roll in
and it's gonna be hard to directly
attribute them just to your keyword
strategy
in just your title and again there's
more to it than the title there's
descriptions bullets
um back end tags you know what i mean
there's way more that we could talk
about but
at a high level this video i didn't want
to run on forever i'm not gonna let it i
think we just covered everything that i
think
needs to be stated as like a baseline
understanding that we all must have to
be successful
and oh yeah and then one last thing that
i can extrapolate out from everything
i've just told you is guys occupy as
much internet real estate as possible
occupy as much internet real estate as
possible
how hard are you making it for people to
give you money think about that for a
second how hard are you making it for
people to give you i mean
seriously though let that resonate if
you're only on one platform
and it's hard for people to like keyword
search and find you
it's gonna be hard for you to make sales
but if you
sell in a lot of different niches good
keywords
do your validation etc basically check
every box that we just talked about
you're going to be in good shape all
right so i think that's really it that's
all i want to talk about guys do me a
favor if you made it this far in the
video
let the youtube algorithm know that this
video provided some value
by hitting the like button and somehow
like 56 57
58 of you aren't subscribed on average
so if you want to hit that red button
that would be awesome as well like i
said i'm gonna drop a really good etsy
series soon
you're not gonna want to miss that so um
yeah that's pretty much it guys thanks
for watching i'll see you soon
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