Lex's Digital/Physical Product Group Accountability Thread

[NervesOfSteel]

I ran into this issue with my shirts. Even though I liked the designs, DALL-E wouldn't remove the background, and ignored my requests to fix text. Further, when I went to Canva to remove the background, their background removal tool couldn't do it either. I think DALL-E used shading that made it difficult to determine the actual background color.

As a workaround, I ended up re-creating the design in Canva as best as I could. It turned out well, but I'll need to adjust my process a bit going forward. It took several hours to get 1 shirt live on my site.

I have been using Photoshop for a long time and it is pretty easy to remove the background, add text, or change hue/colors with a few steps to generate pro-level results. I guess GIMP is equally powerful but a bit messy.

You can also use some help from fiver or alike for a few bucks.

UPDATE :

Progress as of 26-12-23:

1. Created a trial (free) website on WordPress, a sample product page on FB, created quick but intriguing 2 photo ads and learned how to run Facebook ads by running live ads for a day by targeting the selected audience.
2. 35 people landed on my page with $1.2 worth of FB ads. It is just a trial run and I am not trusting the visitors per dollar ratio at the moment as reality is often different from experimentation. No sale yet, as the page still says .."coming shortly"

Goals for this week:

1. Create a test page on Instagram.
2. Same on Twitter.
3. Run and test ads on both platforms.
4. Decide between WordPress and Shopify.
5. Plan and execute final website design.
6. Plan the ads.
7. Redesign the logo.

Let's see how much can be done!

 

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[NervesOfSteel]

I was wondering...do you think that im spending too much time creating a platform when instead i should be testing a variety of products thru an already established shop system such as etsy or shopify?

Great questions. I didn’t plan to start learning the programming, i actually was playing around with Wordpress and upon hitting some limitations i found out the control u can have by manually writing some snippets of code. However, the whole point is to bring some digital products to the consumer. I prefer having more control over the system, but i realize it’s not necessary especially when starting. I do have a product(s) and niche picked out. I think it’s that “how” that I’m working on. Thanks for asking!

I suggest you buy a domain name separately and then open your shop on Shopify or WordPress using your domain name. That way they might be able to take down your shop/web store/website from their servers and in that case you can rebuild your shop with another host, and use the same domain name, and now, all the traffic will start landing on your website instead of their server. That's the reason they offer the "free domain with XYZ pack" trap!

I am not sure 100% though, but it's supposed to work that way!

 

[NervesOfSteel]

Update:
Day 25

The product: I developed some doubts regarding the retention of customers for repeat orders and piracy of the digital product. It took me a whole week to resolve these issues.

I received the first lot of the physical product. I had some issues with the quality and finish. Re-ordered a second small batch of samples.

The System: The website is done except "About" and "Q&A" pages. The store is ready to accept orders!

I got way too carried away with the R&D with ad campaigns that I figured out a lot MORE OPPORTUNITIES IN digital marketing. Wasted a load of time developing something else rather than the product I was supposed to focus on.

Need to up my game.

 

[NervesOfSteel]

Update: Half past midnight, 4th Feb, 2024.

Send my free product demo to many clients for their feedback. The humblest comment was disappointing!

I was devastated because I had a Lambo expectation tied up with this product.

With $48 worth of ads on FB, and twice on Instagram, I was able to sell only USD 100 worth of my product.

It made no sense.

Meanwhile, I encountered a massive problem and spent countless hours ... smoothening out the issues.

So I converted the problems that I faced and its solutions into a product and developed an AI model around it.

@Lex DeVille inspired me to think out of the box. And I did it as an experiment.

Results:

Total investment to date = 18000 USD.
Old sales, Gain = -(Negative) 45USD, excluding 18000 USD investment.
New Product = Sales worth 9000 USD with 3 clients, 4500 USD as advance received in first 3 weeks. Only B2B model.

Let's see how it rolls out. I will update you later.

 

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[Lex DeVille]

Yesterday got weird.
In the morning, I went to work at my scheduled time. My supervisor wasn't in, so I slipped my resignation letter under the door to his office and left, expecting that he'd find it when he arrived. Unfortunately, the supervisor must have decided to telework... Later, the supervisor called my phone, but I didn't answer because I didn't want any awkward goodbye conversations. I've barely been there two months, and what's done is done.

The thing is, when I introduced myself in the office a few weeks ago, I made a joke about relocating with my ex-wife and that if I didn't show up one day, come looking for me just in case she off'd me lol. Well... since they hadn't seen the resignation letter, I guess they took my dark humor seriously and called the police. Then the police called me and I had to explain how I'm not dead and all is well.

Udemy
I researched a variety of topics and came up with a few to test as initial courses. I created a fresh Udemy account, set up the first course, created and uploaded a promo video, and got roughly half of the course scripted through ChatGPT. I'll begin narrating scripts later today. I think I can have the first course ready by this weekend.

The adventures of repo man would probably work well on TikTok or as YouTube shorts but not sure how you could monetize it.

I have a lot of ideas for directions this can go. There are a few repo channels on YouTube with 40k+ subscribers.

Something I learned about yesterday is called "Voluntary Surrender" (AKA Voluntary Repossession). Apparently, this is a thing where people schedule a repo person to pick up their vehicle at a designated time and place.

That got me curious if I might create a website that focuses on voluntary surrender that gets people to bring their vehicles to me and hand over the keys. I could pay for their ride home if needed and drive the vehicle to the lender without owning a tow truck. If nothing else, it's a service I'll add to my website if I make progress with repo as a business.

 

[Lex DeVille]

First Course
The first course is done. Tried to publish. Udemy required ID verification. Submitted that, but it takes 2-3 days to process. Can't submit my course until after they verify.

Sales
The passive site saw a sale of $78 this evening, bringing net sales to $225. Slowly recovering what I invested in ads. The customer was from an organic Google search. I'm starting to think I never needed ads for the site because it doesn't have any competition. Even with poor SEO I show up at the top of search results.

Forgot to mention, $29.97 of the $225 is recurring.

 

[Lex DeVille]

How come you stopped the original one? And good to see you’re moving forward with digital products still.

I’ll keep sharing progress! Things are “tough” because I am doing everything off an iphone but soon I will get my laptop from my mums house to my dads along with an iPad to make things faster.

I’m going to test products out on marketplace sites (like etsy) because I have little money. A couple proven sales and reviews for the product(s) I make will provide all the funds I need. I’m not the best at websites but I have a good connection with a website developer who I can hire affordably.

I let religion get in the way. Doesn't matter though. I could lose every dime I have, and I'd build it all again.

Once you have proven systems, then you can rebuild anytime you want. You just choose a system, start building it, and turn on the sales machine asap. If it's a dud, do another one and try again.

Etsy is good for starters. Get 30+ products live and turn on Etsy ads. There's a good chance you'll start earning sales. Once you have sales, increase your ad spend and get more targeted with the product you run ads for.

You don't need a website for now.

Some people build their entire business on Etsy. I don't recommend doing that in the long run, but it's a great way to test the waters in the beginning.

 

[Lex DeVille]

Subscribed to FOMO on the $25.00 plan. Made back most of it the same day with a $19 sale. Made a $78 sale overnight. The $19 sale came from someone I emailed after they failed to complete checkout.

I'm close to crossing $500 for the first month.

One of the sales came from a foreign country. I don't advertise in foreign countries normally, but might give it a shot since it's usually inexpensive.

Email Automation
Depending on how the next two days go, I'll probably go ahead and invest in an email marketing service for February. Right now, I'm considering MailerLite, ActiveCampaign, and GroundHogg.io.

ML is the cheapest of the three, but I don't know if it will integrate with all of my systems.

I have the most experience with AC, but don't like that it's $70/mo unless I pay annually.

GroundHogg.io is the best AC alternative, but requires an annual payment. The benefit of GroundHogg is it's an annual flat rate for unlimited subscribers. That's a big benefit considering AC goes from $49/mo to $99/mo if you cross 1,000 subscribers and goes up and up depending on how many subscribers you have. Personally, I think that's shit and it's one of the main reasons I ditched them to begin with.

I'll probably set up GroundHogg on a trial run this week. It's $600 annually, but if the trial goes well, it will be worth it.

 

[Lex DeVille]

Logo
Usually, I create my own, but I decided to let DALL-E have a go. It churned out several brilliant designs. I had to touch them up slightly in Canva, but overall, excellent turnout. I'll use DALL-E from now on instead of creating my own. Plus, it's faster.

Web Graphics
To keep the branding together, I also let DALL-E create background images for my website in the same style as my shirts and logo. Again, amazing turnout. You can even input size requirements. So I told DALL-E to create background images that were larger than 1920 x 1080 and it did it no problem.

Social Graphics
Again, same thing. DALL-E for all general social media imagery.

Printify
I got halfway set up on printify. I need to finish my first design. I'll finish it this evening. Then I need to get the other basic settings set up.

WooCommerce
I decided not to use Shopify. If someone were coming in brand new with no Wordpress experience, then Shopify would probably be the way to go. As it stands, I want more customization without a new learning curve, so I'll stick with Wordpress/WooCommerce for now.

Customization
Ultimately, I'm not building a t-shirt brand. I build cult followings. T-shirts are just the center piece, but the experience will run much deeper (in time). For now, I have to focus on the core items and getting them launched. Then can tinker with story, automation, and brand marketing and loyalty.

 

[Lex DeVille]

I'm thinking of a potential art angle in a niche I know to be very culty.

The issue I have found with dalle as well as midjourney is it has trouble with text.

If you plan to do this for a digital download you would need 300 dpi from what I understand otherwise the image won't scale to certain sizes well.

It's not as simple as just prompting the AI generator then selling it.

Surely there is a tool you can use to fix this though.

( just seen you touched on this in your first post sorry)

I was thinking candles, but that can be tricky.

I ran into this issue with my shirts. Even though I liked the designs, DALL-E wouldn't remove the background, and ignored my requests to fix text. Further, when I went to Canva to remove the background, their background removal tool couldn't do it either. I think DALL-E used shading that made it difficult to determine the actual background color.

As a workaround, I ended up re-creating the design in Canva as best as I could. It turned out well, but I'll need to adjust my process a bit going forward. It took several hours to get 1 shirt live on my site.

 

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[fastlane_dad]

@Lex DeVille Interesting premise, will be following to see where this goes. There is still definitely opportunity in apparel / tshirt business given the right marketplace and ad placement. I know several who have made fortunes recently through Tshirts.

Additionally, I'm sure you probably mentioned this somewhere - what happened to or are you still working on and promoting some of the courses you made in the past? Did you find challenges to grow and elevate that? I know you had some stuff out there ... so just curious where that all ended up.

Best of luck on this new endeavor and I think giving yourself 365 days to make something happen here is a reasonable goal.

 

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[Lex DeVille]

Update
I'm close to being *launchable* with my first 9 products. I have two or three pages to finish up. They should be ready by tomorrow. If all goes well, I'll run through pre-launch tests tomorrow and see if I can go live by Monday.

Security

- 2FA didn't work out with my setup. It messed up my checkout flow. I'll revisit this at some later point.

- Identity Verification: This process is important to defeat chargebacks where the user claims someone stole their identity and made a fraudulent purchase. Third-party verification services are expensive. One wanted nearly $200 per month plus $1.75 per verification. I settled on Stripe's identity verification option. It's $1.50 per verification. Stripe requires the user to take a selfie and upload a clear image of the front/back of their Government-issued photo ID.

- Digital Signature: Since my digital product is a PDF that gets created when the user submits info to my site, I added a digital signature block to the form. When the user submits the form, a PDF is generated with all of their details and with their digital signature. Next, I'll add additional tracking features to show they've opened and received the product to avoid the other common type of chargebacks (chargebacks for product not received).

Investment
So far, I've only purchased a couple of things to make this work. I purchased a Gamipress add-on to control pages, and a WooCommerce builder that works with my Wordpress theme. In total, I've spent approximately $120 on this.

Email
I don't have any email CRM, not even a free one right now. My only emails come from WooCommerce when a customer places an order. I may set up basic automations later on, but so far they aren't needed.

 

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[Lex DeVille]

My brand new laptop already died. Don't know what happened. Maybe a power surge or maybe something else. I returned it through Amazon and ordered a different laptop. It arrived today.

Progress
It's a holiday weekend. I'll take advantage. My top priorities are to get a G Ads campaign launched. I set up the account and conversion tracking. Just need to create the first campaign and run it.

When I created the ads account, it let me skip campaign creation. That might be helpful for those who don't want to enter CC info yet. That said, you need to spend between $10 and $100 before the keyword tool shows the good data for market research purposes.

Site Visitors
I know I'm receiving visitors to the site because one reached out through my contact form about making a purchase. He has yet to follow through, but I believe he will in time.

Subscription
I set up a WooCommerce subscription plugin to create an upsell. When a customer buys the digital product, they can opt into the subscription for $19.97/mo for additional benefits (such as ongoing access to the product instead of having to repurchase it once their time to use it runs out).

Video Content
My intent this weekend is to create my first pieces of video content. I'll have videos throughout the website to help establish a feeling of connection so visitors will feel more at ease until I have reviews. I'll also begin production on simple YT videos to increase exposure, and help with SEO in the long run.

 

[Ludachris]

I don't care about wealth, or about success or building an empire anymore.

It's all pointless, so I do what seems fun.

But I can't just do what's fun, because I have mouths to feed and bills to pay.

So, I try to leverage my eccentricities into ideas other people who are like me will be drawn to.

That's funny Lex, your answer to the question resonates heavily. I still think of success, wealth, and building an empire - not really as a self defining goal, it's turned into more of a subconscious mantra, wrapped with a little bit of acknowledged hyperbole. It's still just a quest of being financially free, and not being dependent upon an employer to live life the way I want to.

Like you, I too want to work on things I enjoy. It's not so much about pursuing passion, it's about enjoying the process and the journey, because who knows if the particular work I'm doing is going to get the results I'm hoping for... it's the journey I have to embrace and find joy in every day - the learning and growth, the progression, the execution. I find myself constantly trying to mesh the value I'm working to provide with something that I can enjoy focusing on day in and day out, and things I'm good at - as you say, leveraging my eccentricities.

I too have mouths to feed and people to be present for in my life, so I have to be mindful of my time usage, as there are other regrets that could be even more haunting down the road if I let myself be constantly consumed by it all (and sometimes I am). That grounds me to constantly question my focus and decisions. It's a matter of finding the right problems to solve and value to deliver to millions, without falling into the trap of chasing niches or naively pursuing a passion that doesn't bring value to a given market. There's a thin line between pursuing passion and applying your strengths and interests (and/or eccentricities) to a legitimate business opportunity. I just have to make sure I'm being honest with how I'm looking at it.

 

[Lex DeVille]

I'm struggling a bit. Balancing everything is getting tricky. School is back in. Work is consuming a lot of my brain power. Learning piano, German, etc. all takes time. So I'm going slower than I intended on this idea.

Sales
I spent $100 on G ads with nothing to show for it. My search terms have over 6,000 searches per month, and I'm getting clicks, but I think the offer isn't quite right for the searcher.

The Offer
I'm ditching the low-ticket offers for now. I'm pivoting to a single high-ticket offer for an experience closer to what people are searching for. I set up a sales page over the weekend. It's mostly finished. I still need to record a video for it. Once the page is ready, I'll run ads and see if anyone joins. The page leads to book a sales call where I'll offer a product over $3,000 on a live call.

The Product
Most of the product will remain digital and automated, but part of the product will include an item that is physically mailed to the customer. Later, I may build out some courses for my audience if it seems like they'll buy.

Next Steps
1. Record sales page video.
2. Set up call booking.

 

[jarvisdiego]

Launched first digital product last friday (Jan 19). Created website on Shopify. Created GA4 and Google Ads ($10/day) accounts (and set up conversion tracking). Created product in about 1-2 days.

Kept it super simple, as Lex mentioned: Google Ads -> Website -> $$$

Time to launch: ~ 7 days (and I was procrastinating, thinking if it was even worth trying this, so could've launched sooner).

Results: 74 clicks, $62 spent, 7 days, and no conversions.

I had it at a price of $47. Today, I lowered it to $7. I'll give it another 30-50 clicks and if it doesn't bring in any sales, I will kill it.

I already created 2nd product. This one is more specific to a niche. I need to create the website. I already have domain.

I'll keep you guys updated

 

[Lex DeVille]

awesome

your action-taking abilities are second to none! always enjoy seeing your tweaks and pivots - looking forward to seeing where this one goes. what's made you choose Udemy over other course platforms?

The main reason is because I already know Udemy works. I've built a passive income to the tune of about $5k/mo on their platform in the past with courses that continue to send cash into my bank account every month to this day. If I had chosen better course topics and put more effort into marketing, my profits would almost certainly have stayed higher longer, but I still enjoy cash deposits of around $400 to $500 every month.

Other reasons:

• It's free to create courses on Udemy
• Their platform works well
• They handle marketing and advertising
• The platform is well-known and trusted
• It's fast for me because I'm familiar with their platform
• Doesn't require a website or third-party accounts
• They handle video hosting
• They handle payments

 

[Andy Black]

I'm officially unemployed again!

Congrats, I think. Lol.


I just remembered @Timmy C mentioning recently he checked his PayPal and had money there from monthly Skillshare deposits he forgot he gets.

I've practially forgotten I make about $500/mth from my own courses hosted on my own domain too, and I haven't updated them in years.

 

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[Lex DeVille]

Been there too.

Later on when I had a stack of videos to do I didn't try to batch them. I'd outline, record, lightly edit, upload. Then do the next video. That way I'd catch mistakes earlier.

I did mine one at a time, but didn't check the sound with headphones until the end. Fixed them all this morning. I'm uploading now, then have to create PDFs, add quizzes, and publish. Should be done today.

I might put these under my name to leverage one of my secondary YT channels. Probably easier to build a following and market courses this way.

Since I'm always trying new things, I can build the channel around that concept. Then, each time I create a course, I make a video covering the subject that leads back to the course.

If a video goes viral, it will be attached to a course so there's always a path to profit and never a bunch of wasted views.

 

[Lex DeVille]

Site 1:
Made another $100 in sales from two customers. A potential customer reached out with questions, but hasn't completed their purchase yet. A 4th started into a $100 purchase but hasn't completed it yet.

The site recovered its initial ads investment, and is now passively profitable by $146 with $29 recurring.

It is doing much better than expected considering the lack of ads. I'll do some analysis this week to see how people are finding me, and how I can improve the results.

Site 3:
The site is built and the quiz function is mostly fleshed out. There are only 3 quizzes right now. I'm working slowly to make sure everything functions well. I added 3 relevant affiliate products just beneath the quiz results. I'm starting with Amazon affiliate products because that's what I'm already set up for, but later I'll move to better affiliate programs and mix in my own products/merch/courses etc. I'm not turning ads on for this one until I have 30 quizzes published so there's enough content to keep people engaged.

 

[Lex DeVille]

February Sales: $463.34
- Thrivecart: $119.85
- WooCommerce: $343.49

February Expenses: $68.31
- Google Ads: $43.31
- FOMO: $25.00

February Profit: $395.03

In total, I made slightly less in profit than all of my Udemy courses combined, so even though site 1 is moving kind of slow, it became a worthwhile source of income. Ads weren't particularly effective in generating traffic or sales early on, so I didn't spend much on them. Most of my traffic finds me organically on Google.

For March, I'll focus more on organic outreach and building my email list. I created a YouTube channel last month to share talking head videos on the website. All of the current videos are unlisted. Four people subscribed on YT, so they must have come from my site. This month, I'll add public videos to the channel and more long-form SEO blog articles. I'll start making YouTube shorts as well.

My financial goal for March is to get this site up over $1,000 in profit without significantly increasing expenses. I'll leverage Ebay as sales channel / funnel source. I'll also start building out the social media side of things on Facebook.

Overall, not bad for the first full month. It's not $2k in sales, but it's a good start.

Udemy Course
The course I published this month was a dud. Despite the 9k+ searches per month on Google, I haven't received even a single sale. The course has had 8 visitors total to the landing page, and only one of them got there by searching for the exact search term. All others were looking for courses on other subjects. I took a chance on a topic idea and it didn't pay off this time, oh well.

Site 1 Courses
I'm not sure how courses will do on this site, but I do have a few ideas for courses. I think they could even be audio-only courses rather than video (like listening to an audiobook). I'll probably add 1-3 of these to the site this month. I doubt I'll call them "courses." I'll probably frame them as "Audio Programs."

 

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[JUAREZ]

Update. Found a physical product to test (samples are on the way). On Monday I hope to receive them and to place the test order. Will try to sell them on my website and marketplaces.

 

[Lex DeVille]

Site 1
We're almost halfway through March and it was crickets until today. Today saw the first $20 sale. Hopefully things pick up later this month, but we'll see. I may need to adjust some of my systems.

I'm still on the fence about making YouTube videos for Site 1. They would probably work as a traffic source, but I'm not sure it's worth the effort. For now, I intend to let the site run a bit more and see how the month plays out.

Udemy Course
The course was a total dud. Not even one single sale. Barely any traffic on Udemy. It seems I picked a topic with a lot of searches, but basically nobody who is willing to pay for a course on it. Oh well.

 

[Lex DeVille]

Site 1
We're 2/3rds through the month, and it's been a bit of a dud. I made four sales at $19.97, but one immediately refunded as soon as they purchased. So I'm sitting right at $60 in revenue. Three of those sales happened in the last two days since I turned ads back on at $5/day.

Since sales are slow at the higher price point, I lowered my prices. Now all of my products that were $79 before are $19.97. If that works to move more sales, I'll take it, but I won't know for a few days.

I'm also starting to add some physical products. These are inexpensive items purchased from Temu that I think I can sell for a solid return. I intend to sell these at a higher price than the digital products (which is another reason why I'm dropping the price so low on the other items).

Hopefully, I'll have more news to report on this soon, but I haven't received my first shipment from Temu yet. One thing I like about Temu is I can test small quantities of physical items to figure out what people want, and then can purchase in volume once I have a better idea.

 

[Lex DeVille]

Sales
The 3 sales that brought me close to $600 in the last post were cancelled last minute, but sales have climbed back up to $650. I'm still running $10/day in ads.

Videos & Funnels
I've been busy this month and haven't made any videos. I built out a few funnel modifications but nothing major.

UPS Claim
After I filed the UPS claim, they went back and found my package and delivered it to my house. Now I've got a ton of inventory that needs to get listed.

Product Descriptions
I've modified my product descriptions slightly to make them more engaging, so hopefully I'll see more sales. The first sale from this batch covered the entire cost of the batch. My margins are pretty good. The product descriptions are mostly templated at this point. There's a paragraph of text that changes per product, and I let ChatGPT write it so I don't have to use mental energy.

Pricing
I increased the price of my main digital product by $10 and it's still making sales. My physical products are listed between $49 and $149.

Audience
Coming up on 200 email subscribers, 7 YouTube subscribers (no public videos).

 

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[Lex DeVille]

Wow...this thread is very motivational. Thanks!
Reading it had me thinking up some ideas but I have questions about some fundamentals..
@Lex DeVille you said that you have your custom websites sites selling physical products (as they are) you get from let's say Temu..

What I'm wondering is, when you succeed in getting people to visit you site, be it by ads, SEO, useful content, what stops a person from seeing a product they want and then ordering from Temu themselves? Or rather, what value the person gets from staying with you (other then product ofc). Or those lost sales are just part of the game like going from shop to shop in the "real" world..

I don't sell physical products, I sell stories. You can get the physical item on Temu, but without the story, you only get half the product. The people who shop my website aren't looking for the best deal. That's a completely different customer.

The story is both the story I tell in copywriting, and the one I lead people to tell themselves about what it means to own the product. To tell the right story, you have to answer two questions:

- Who does the customer wish they were?
- How does the product bring them closer to that?

 

[Lex DeVille]

Well, that's perhaps not the answer I was hoping for, but of course, you are absolutely right.

If we go back to the original question...

Do you maybe have any tips for sources to learn *that kind* of storytelling?

To answer it at face value, we have to define what "that kind" of storytelling is.

In this case, that kind of storytelling is the kind I've learned to tell over the past two decades via:
- Launching a children's book business, a romance writing business, and then a digital publishing company
- Studying lyrics, hypnotherapy, fiction, non-fiction, etc.
- Spending 10+ years as a freelance copywriter
- Earning nearly 4 degrees in psychology in addition to other certifications
- Reading hundreds of books on psychology, branding, writing, marketing, etc.
- Writing millions of words in different styles
- Writing for companies around the world selling thousands of products and noting what works and what doesn't
- Taking risks in writing, business, marketing, sales etc. that sometimes paid off and sometimes didn't

I failed English class twice in high school.

What quick tips could I possibly give you to manifest *that kind* of storytelling when it's literally a process built over a third of my lifetime?

The only tip that makes sense at all to simplify the process is to just start.

Do I understand correctly that the search for a product is a process of trial and error, where you try different products until you find a winner and move fast to put as many products in front of people as possible?

To find products, I mostly use Google ads keyword tool to look at the volume of people searching for the product on Google. I usually stick with products where I'm familiar with the audience and their needs. The only reason I'm telling stories is because it fits the audience I'm selling to.

The products I plan to launch later this year won't require much storytelling. Different market. Different needs. But there is a need, and I know how to fill it better than other people because I know the audience/industry well.

For these products, I just need to answer:

- Who does the customer wish they were?
- How does the product bring them closer to that?

 

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[Lex DeVille]

May surprised me. A last minute $300 sale elevated total sales over $2,000 for the first time. May is officially the top earning month for this income system.

May Sales: $2026.78 (+263.74)
- Thrivecart: $539.52 (+49.97)
- WooCommerce: $1487.26 (+213.41)

May Expenses: $588 (-$15)
- Google Ads: $438 (+$83)
- FOMO: $75.00
- ActiveCampaign: $75
- Physical Inventory: $0 (-$98)

May Profit: $1438.78 (+$278.74)

Overall, I felt I performed poorly for the month. There was a lot more I could have done, but I just didn't get around to it. The second half of the month was more profitable, but my output was lower.

In June, I'll be testing some new products and adding more of the current products. At this point, there's not a lot that needs to change. I can make minor improvements to systems, and work on increasing exposure.

Beyond that, I just want to continue an upward growth trend and start prepping for the holiday season. I'm reasonably confident that once we reach August, or maybe as late as October, sales will really pick up.

By November, I hope to be reaching $5k - $10k months, and hopefully those will continue through at least March. That said, I may need to simplify my product line to keep things moving and flowing without any inventory hiccups later in the year.

 

[Andy Black]

There's a reason Lex moves so fast.

good enough

I have to focus on the core items and getting them launched

 

[Lex DeVille]

@NervesOfSteel and anyone else reading this, you are welcome to post your progress in this thread if you want to for accountability purposes. Otherwise, I'll post my progress as it comes.