0 (3s):
Shake the room, Fire Nation JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs On Fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network with great shows like business infrastructure. Today, we'll be focusing on how Alex generates 16 million a year with Facebook ads without getting bands to drop these value bombs. I have brought Alex Fedotoff into EOFire studios. Alex has scaled multiple e-commerce businesses to seven to eight figures with drop shipping and no inventory model. He's using Facebook ads to scale products from the testing phase to a hundred thousand dollars a day in sales. So Fire Nation today, we'll be talking about how this drop ship business model works, product selection and validation.

0 (43s):
Of course, and you need to talk about funnel conversion principles to actually make a profitable and so much more. When we get back from thanking our sponsors, the HubSpot Podcast Network is the audio destination for business professionals who seek the best education and inspiration on how to grow a business. Whether you're looking for marketing sales, service, or operational guidance, the HubSpot Podcast Network hosts have your back, listen, learn and grow with the HubSpot Podcast Network at hubspot.com/podcastnetwork. Are you ready to launch your biz Fire Nation? Well, today's sponsor LaunchMyBiz.com wants to help you get there. LaunchMyBiz provides end to end e-commerce training and support. And if you're accepted into their partner program, your success is guaranteed apply today at LaunchMyBiz.com that's LaunchMyBiz.com.

0 (1m 33s):
Alex say what's up the fire nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1 (1m 41s):
What's up Fire Nation. So I think a lot of people disagree with that. You could be successful in any environment or in any country. For example, if you run like online business, I believe that you have to be in this specific environment, be surrounded by like sharp people in order to succeed

0 (2m 3s):
Fire Nation. You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. But guess what you have control of those five, you can say, you know what? I'm going to read a book. I'm listened to an audio book and listen to a podcast. It doesn't have to be people that are physically close to you. It can be, but it doesn't have to be. So remember you are the captain of your ship. You're the master of your destiny. And as you notes, they were talking about how Alex generates $16 million a year with Facebook ads and we're talking without getting banned. So let's just talk about drop shipping. I've teased a little bit of the bullet points. Alex, I've gone into a little bit about what we're going to be talking about, but how does drop shipping as a business model actually work.

0 (2m 49s):
Explain that to us.

1 (2m 51s):
We are drop shipping physical products. The way it works is let's say you want to sell a physical product, but we don't have the product on hand. So we don't inventory, you know, upfront, we don't spend any capital. We just have the product. We have our suppliers. And let's say, when I sell the product, we start selling it. And once we are getting an order, once we are getting paid, we're just fulfilling that order directly from the supplier. So that is basically how this model works. We don't have any upfront expenditures for the, for the stock, for the inventory. We're just fulfilling products directly from the, from the suppliers so

0 (3m 30s):
Far an issue. You can see why this is so appealing. I mean, there's just this opportunity where you're like, you're not having to have a manufacturing plant. You're not having to have all of this inventory. You're not having to have a warehouse. You are just able to identify the product and move forward from there. Now, Alex, what I want to move into next is the actual product selection. And then the validation framework within, can you break down how you actually choose the products that you decide to go forward with and when it comes to drop shipping and then the actual validation framework that you go through to make sure it's the right product.

1 (4m 7s):
Generally, we're tying to go after products that are already validated. We don't want to be pioneers, you know, with arrows in our backs. So we are going after the products that have been validated by other people that have, that are doing very good numbers. So we are doing test orders for example, on competitor stores. So we see the number of the order, let's say in Shopify, it would tell you like would say order number 10,000. Then let's say two days after we are making another order. And let's say the number of that order is like 12,000. Now we know that that particular store had generated 2000 orders in two days, approximately 1000 orders today. Then we see what type of products they're pushing.

1 (4m 47s):
Let's say they're pushing the product. That's like $50. So now we know they they're generating approximately 1000 orders per day was average order value. It's like $50. So they're doing $50,000 a day in sales. Now that's good concepts. So something that we can model. So what we are doing is we're looking for the differentiating points. So we're looking for maybe the new version of the product. Let's say they're selling the skincare device and we are reaching out to our suppliers and our suppliers can offer us like new version of that same device that does exactly the same thing, but it just looks differently. Maybe everyone's selling the white device.

1 (5m 27s):
So we would sell the black device or we will sell the purple device, we'll sell the pink device. And that would differentiate us from the, from the competition. And we are focusing on particular niches sink, you know, riches and niches. So we are focusing on skincare, beauty. So that's pretty much where most of our products are. Don't

0 (5m 49s):
Just copy Fire Nation innovates. Like I do love what Alex talks about, where, Hey, we're not trying to get arrows in our back. We're not trying to be pioneers. You don't need be like, you know what? This product needs to exist. And I know it doesn't exist right now, but I'm going to be the first person to make it exist because guess what? You might be wrong. So why not make sure you're right with a product that's already selling this already working. And then a great thing that I've seen people do in the past is where it's awesome is go in and read the reviews, especially the bad reviews of that product. Just like Alex was saying with like the different colors and different, unique things you can do. You can learn gold from that. You can be like, wow, this is what everybody's complaining about with this product, with this service. So guess what, I'm going to create it.

0 (6m 30s):
That just has this little tweak, this little modem, this little modification, and then boom. Now you've come out with a product that everybody's been complaining about, but you have the solution to, and maybe it's just one or two more tiny things. That's easy to add on like a color or a knick-knack or whatever it might be. Then all of a sudden you've got the same product that other people have that are selling really well. Plus you've solved one more tiny little problem, especially in a niche like Alex said and where there's not this like massive competition and saturation, and now you're going to stand out quick. So you can't, Alex, just rely on that though. And one thing that you've done incredibly well is funnels and you really understand conversion principles.

0 (7m 13s):
So you can make sure what you're doing is a profitable venture. Break this down for us. Talk to us about funnel and conversion principles to make this project profitable.

1 (7m 24s):
Over time, we have accumulated certain like final templates. And so by final template, I mean the certain conversion structure. So our conversion structure typically starts with Freelander, right? This is kind of like the advertorial format for the product that we are selling, where we, we might tell the story. We might tell people more information about the problem that they're experiencing and why our laws or solutions haven't worked for them. Because people at any given point, they're looking for shiny objects, right? Like, and you know, let's say, you know, last year they launched the iPhone. Everyone was buying them like this year, the lunch, you know, the same iPhone, they just improve your things in them and people will buy it again.

1 (8m 5s):
So we are looking to tell people more information about that product kind of pre-framed them. And so that's the first step into final. The second step is ISER the order form. So if price point of the product would say $50 or less would just lead them straight to the order for if product price is over $100, typically 100 to $200, then we have a nozzle pre-sale page. So we, we built even more value. We give people even more information about the product. We kind of like built even more anticipation about the product we show. Like for example, a before and after results, we show some monetary things that would kind of like help people make that decision.

1 (8m 47s):
Then after that we have the order form. So on the order form, we typically have also like a lot of social proof. We have the bump so we can increase the average order value, which helps a lot with the profitability. And after that, we have the series of upsells and down sells. So typically we would have like three upsells. The first app sell is typically the same product, just at a discounted price. So people can take advantage of the good price on the offer. The second up sell would be something that's relevant, something that would be complimentary for the product. And the third upsell would be also something that is, would help people to achieve the goal.

1 (9m 28s):
So if that's like, for example, skincare product, then the second app cell could be like a, like a gel or a cream that people can use was that skincare gadget. The third product would be as well, like certain like collagen, you know, like something that would be complimentary and helpful for people to achieve that goal. So this way we are structuring our final in a way where on one side it converts because, because it has to convert, especially if you're going after like cold traffic. And on the other side, we are looking for all of the possible ways to maximize the average order value because Zack to predicate the scalability of the offer, because if your average order value is not high enough, if you're not generating enough from each order, then it will make it really difficult for you to scale the specialty to big numbers.

1 (10m 19s):
What would be like an example of a down sell down sell could be something that gives like even bigger discount. So let's say we sell the product. Let's say the first stop soak would be like 40%. And people say no to that. So we give them even bigger discount, like 50 or 60% just to, you know, we make like, just a little bit on mine on that. Like, wouldn't make a lot, but we still get something right. Then it gets in the same package. So we didn't have a lot of the extra like shipping costs. And the other variation of the down sale could be also some something cheaper that people could take advantage of

0 (10m 55s):
Funnels, allow you to create nurture campaigns as well, because you're getting people into your database and guess what people aren't always ready to buy right now. But if they grow to know like, and trust you over time, because you're nurturing them with value around that product, around that service, you can build trust over time and then they will go to you when they're ready, because they will trust you because you've been nurturing them. And you've been continuously there in front of them. And then of course those upsells and down sells. I mean, those really help you even increase ad spend, which is huge. And then also complimentary products like think about, well, if somebody buys a, they're also gonna want B and C. That's why Amazon does so well. When you put something in your cart, they're like people who bought this also bought X, Y, and Z.

0 (11m 38s):
And you're like, oh yeah, that actually makes sense. I kind of need X, Y, and Z. So think about column Metairie products and fire nation. We're going to move into paid traffic. We're going to talk about issues with the ads right now. That's Facebook ads. And of course, when we talk about systemizing to scale, to leverage what you're doing, when we get back from thinking, our sponsors e-commerce is on fire and it isn't slowing down anytime soon. And I'm willing to bet you've at least considered e-commerce at one point on your entrepreneurial journey, but there's a lot that goes into it. The market research drop ship product and supplier sourcing, website design and development, marketing automation, advertising, campaign development. The list goes on, enter launch my biz.com with a launch, my biz partner program.

0 (12m 20s):
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0 (13m 2s):
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0 (13m 53s):
It's time to say goodbye to siloed systems and hello, to powerful analytics and custom reporting available to your entire team on a United system. Learn more about how you can scale your company without scaling complexity@hubspot.com. So Alex we're back and we want to talk about using paid traffic to scale. You know, before the break, we talked about how upsells and down sells can really help you increase your ad spend because you're making more for every sale that you're making. But how specifically are you using paid traffic to really scale today?

1 (14m 24s):
100% and missing by traffic at general dates, probably like my main expertise and I don't do like a lot of different traffic platforms. So what I see a lot of entrepreneurs do is that they try to do too many traffic platforms. The same time. They tried to figure out Facebook. We tried to figure out Google. They tried to figure out native advertising and all of these platforms like requires the time and effort to figure out and to really like master. So I've been specializing in Facebook. That's why, you know, we kind of like evolve and adapt to each stage of, of Facebook right now. Facebook is, you know, like since last like ISA update has gotten like, even more challenging for a lot of advertisers.

1 (15m 6s):
So Facebook is banning, you know, accounts sometimes for no reason. So what you need to survive and to do really Val like on Facebook right now is to have the system to have the infrastructure of the, of the ad accounts, to have the infrastructure of business managers, to have the infrastructure of pages in case you want to advertise for multiple pages. So even in case something happens with your main ad account, you don't want to put your business and make your business vulnerable. So what I mean by that is, for example, if you have one ad account one profile and you do everything by the policy, but then could be like, there could be like a random ban and you have, you can have your ad account shut down.

1 (15m 51s):
And then let's say, if that's your main advertising channel, that's how you generating customers. That's how you're getting customers to come back to your business. Then your business becomes very vulnerable. So that is like one of the things that would help you to, to make your business more sustainable and more consistent is just to develop that infrastructure of the ad accounts of the business managers of this sometimes even different profiles, because sometimes Facebook would flag your personal profile for advertising for no reason. And then you will, you're not able to advertise the factory or you are not able to advertise at all. Also what you have the opportunity to do is to even by the profiles, if you need to, and then advertise from totally different profiles, but still maintain, you know, that advertising channel and still being able to generate sales.

1 (16m 43s):
So one thing

0 (16m 44s):
That I know a lot of people who kind of had their finger on the pulse when it comes to ads in general, is that, you know, there's been some issues with Facebook ads recently. And, you know, there's kind of this like undertone battle with these different companies like apple, who's like allowing people to now not let themselves be tracked and doing all these things. So how are you specifically dealing with these Facebook ad issues? What can fire nation learn from your strategies?

1 (17m 8s):
You should use the conversion IPI copy. So if you just Google it, I mean, everything is on the internet and a lot of people, over-complicate it. So you just would Google like how to do the copy, this conversion API, they're like instructions, something they're not pretty much you can do it. Like in 10 30 minutes, you can have it all set up and that will solve majority of your tracking issues. You could also on top of that, use the Google analytics tracking. So you would have the UTM sources and thermometer. So you can S you can see which ad is delivering, what results, what is the most profitable campaigns for you? What is the most targeting the targeting options that work the best you, so you kind of like add extra layers of that targeting at the end of the day, what we have noticed since I iOS update, is that the importance of having a good funnel, having good understanding your numbers, really like understanding the conversion rate, how much each Glick on never generates you.

1 (18m 12s):
So even if it's not recording 100% accurately, because it will never record 100% accurately, there is like attribution. There are some people that see your ad. For example, they go to Google and the search for your brand that they buy from Google, right? So that there are many like attribution issues that arise, especially as you scale. And if you use multiple channels, but if you focused on fundamentals, like having a strong funnel, making sure that you're maximizing the average order value, making sure that the creative that you're using on Facebook is strong and is different from competitors. Because again, like everyone has access to Facebook, right? But somehow some people making, you know, very good sales, like grabbing your numbers, profit-wise from Facebook.

1 (18m 56s):
And some people simply cannot figure it out. So you want to be in that, you know, in that segment of people who just kind of like put that extra effort. And, and for example, if you're selling like coaching product, like information products, then that would come a lot to the angles, to the ad copy, right? You want to be different. You want to provide something to the, to the ads, you know, that other people don't, if you just like copy other people, ads and just make very slight changes that might not work, you want to be a bit more creative on that side to differentiate. And then on the other side, having like a strong funnel to actually convert that traffic and have high enough average order value, so you can afford to scale.

1 (19m 39s):
So

0 (19m 39s):
Fire Nation, I really hope you're understanding that Alex is an Facebook ads, strategist. I mean, as he shared earlier in the interview, this is something that like is really his area of expertise. Like this is something that he really became great at. And if you're going to do something like this, and you know that your main traffic source, your may lead generator is actually going to be ads in all likelihood, because maybe you're not going to be building this big organic following. Then this is an area that's become your area of expertise as well. Now, one thing that I really admired about you, Alex, and you've done is you've been able to systemize your business. You've been able to create tools and automation so that you can both scale and leverage because you're not always fire nation going to be making like a huge profit margin on every single sale.

0 (20m 27s):
But if you can make a couple bucks on tens of thousands of sales, now you're making real money because you're scaling, you're leveraging. So talk to us about your systemization. Talk to us about how you've been able to use that to scale.

1 (20m 43s):
How do you remove yourself from making decisions, for example, for our line of business, the way it works is so initially I was, you know, advertising Facebook. I was managing all of the ads myself. At this point. I didn't manage any of the ads myself. Our media buyers are managing the ads and they are given all of their resources to manage those ads successfully. So for example, they have access to all of the ad accounts that have access to our video editors. They have access to the creators who can send them, for example, fresh content goes to task with Facebook ads. So they have access to all of the moving parts that kind of like influence the profitability of the ads.

1 (21m 26s):
And they have access also to the technical teams. Let's say they want to make some changes to the funnel to make the funnel more efficient and more profitable. So they just share it with technical team and technical team gets it done. So they have leveraged all of the things so they don't have to, I don't have to be bottleneck in that process. So I think that's one of the major things that would help. A lot of entrepreneurs is giving your team all of the resources so they can actually do whatever they need to do. And I see, for example, even with this podcast, John, like you, you've done, like, you know, all of the information is so streamlined. You know, I've been, I've received all of these instructions like your, your team is so well-trained like I've received all the instructions.

1 (22m 9s):
I know exactly when to log in. I know exactly what to do. And so this is exactly how you want to structure your business. So then you don't have to be the bottleneck and making all of the small decisions. It takes a lot of trust. It's not easy for entrepreneurs, especially, you know, we are like control freaks sometimes, but that's one of the things that needs to be done. And another thing is, that's more kind of like on the systems is every process that we do, we document and every person on the team is creating their own processes, right? Like they're creating the processes and those processes are, the processes are being updated over time. So then as our team members can follow those processes and the people that we are looking to bring on our team, especially like the first hires that we brought in.

1 (22m 57s):
And I said, that's where the bleak would be applicable to any business. You want those people to, to grow as, as leaders of their own teams. So let's say for our business, so we have the customer support team. We have tremendous people on that side of business and those people have grown into leaders. So they can now, like they have trained other people. They provided, you know, people that work kind of like underneath them, all of their resources. So those people can function as well. So I don't have to spend my time training those new people that are coming on board because they do that. And the same is happening with our media buyers. So our senior media buyers are training junior media buyers. And this is how you build this.

0 (23m 38s):
So fire nation, we are not as entrepreneurs creating a job that we need to just sit down and do every single day until we quote unquote retire, we're creating a business. Any business has systems, has tools, has automation just like Alex shared. Yes. He had to go through a lot of systems that I've created for my team over the past 10 years in 3000 episodes because of the experience that I've acquired over that time. So that's when we logged on to Skype today, boom, I asked him a couple of quick questions. We did this, we did that. And then we were into the interview. And as you can hear, it's been a value packed interview, very flawless because of the systems that we have in place.

0 (24m 22s):
And just like Alex has been able to scale and leverage his business, you know, to $16 million a year with Facebook ads because of systems because of automation. So really be thinking about, Hey, am I the mission critical person for this actual task? If not, how do I potentially automate it or outsource it to somebody on my team? Now, obviously this is one of the things that I will never personally outsource as long as I'm the host of entrepreneurs on fire is actually interviewing the guests, but almost everything else that I do in my business, I can automate, I can outsource and I can make that happen. So Alex, we talked about a lot of awesome stuff today.

0 (25m 4s):
Give us one key takeaway from this audio masterclass that you really want to make sure that we walk away with.

1 (25m 12s):
You want to think about like all of the ways where you can get screwed with their business. So what I mean by that is, for example, you know, the same as was at accounts, how like my business can be impacted by the ad accounts being shut down. So you create an add more accounts to your business, how you can do that. The same thing was, you know, business managers or with other moving parts in your business. How, for example, if you have like one key person that works with you, if their job is not like streamlined, if you don't have like all of the SOP, so then other people can follow, then you need to have that.

1 (25m 53s):
So pretty much building the business instead of just the hobby. So making like a lot of money by itself, as you said, it's not an answer, right? Like, I mean, you can make a lot of money, but also you can just burn yourself to the ground because you're just working too much and everything just hangs on you being, you know, and, and doing everything. So you want to build it in a way where it's a sustainable and can run without you, because those that can truly scale.

0 (26m 23s):
Alex. I love that recap. And I want to know how fire nation can find out more about you. So give us a great way to connect with you. Any final call to action, you have, let us know, and then we'll say goodbye.

1 (26m 35s):
I have a YouTube channel. I put a lot of tutorials about Facebook ads about e-commerce about shipping because that's what I'm passionate about. So it's Alex spider dove on YouTube. We have also the, like there's a website. Alex started up that com that you can go to. And, and that's your website. If you run an eCommerce business, and if you want to your other business, you want to be in the environment in the community of top e-commerce entrepreneurs who have seven, eight figure e-commerce entrepreneurs, dropshippers in our community. If you want to scale your business just in the right community, as, as we talked at the beginning, you asked me like, what was the most important thing that I think a lot of people kind of like having mixes conception about, right?

1 (27m 17s):
I think it's community and the environment. And as you said, it's like, you're the average of five people you spend the most time with. So we have one of the best communities. I mean, obviously I'm prejudice about that, but it's, e-commerce scaling secrets that come and just go there and that we have all of the resources. And also we have, if you go to e-commerce scaling sixers.com/fire, we have this special gift for you guys. And the funnels that we have used to scale our funnels, we can just copy it. It's it's ClickFunnels so you can copy our funnels and you can sell your own products.

0 (27m 54s):
Fire Nation, I said at the beginning, Alex said it right there at the end. Cause you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And you've been hanging out with AF and JLD today. So please keep up that heat. And if you head over to eofire.com type, Alison the search bar, the show notes page will pop up with everything we've talked about today. Best show notes in the biz. And of course, check out his YouTube channel has a website, Alex Fedotoff, Fedotoff.com in your special gifts, fire nation, e-commerce scaling secrets.com/fire. He is literally giving you the keys and permission to duplicate, to copy his funnels and then to utilize them.

0 (28m 36s):
Because if you have ClickFunnels, you can just copy that fire nation and start using it in your business. Today. The upsells down sells. He's got it all there for you. E-commerce scaling secrets.com. Alex, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with fire nation today, for that we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thank

1 (28m 57s):
You very much. It's such an honor to, to, to share this with you and thank you for everything you do. So would fire nation,

0 (29m 4s):
Hey, Fire Nation today's value bound content was brought to you by Alex and Fire Nation, successful entrepreneurs. They accomplish big goals. That's why I created the freedom journal to guide you in accomplishing your number one goal in a hundred days, and we're talking step-by-step so visit the freedom journal.com use promo code podcast, free $15 discount. And thank you for listening to my podcast and I'll catch you there, or I'll catch you on the flip side. The HubSpot Podcast Network is the audio destination for business professionals who seek the best education and inspiration on how to grow a business. Whether you're looking for marketing sales, service, or operational guidance, the HubSpot podcast hosts have your back, listen, learn, and grow with the HubSpot Podcast Network at hubspot.com/podcastnetwork.

0 (29m 50s):
Are you ready to launch your biz via nation? Well, today's sponsor LaunchMyBiz.com wants to help you get there. LaunchMyBiz provides end to end e-commerce training and support. And if you're accepted into their partner program, your success is guaranteed. Apply today at LaunchMyBiz.com that's LaunchMyBiz.com.