[R] Zero To $750K In 9 Months With John Grant

Way back when I was thinking about starting a high ticket drop shipping business, the one thing I was looking for was someone to show me what one of these sites looks like. So John and I have done that for you at DropshipBreakthrough.com/go so head to dropshipbreakthrough.com/go and watch the free training. Welcome to the Dropship Podcast where you'll learn how to build and grow a high ticket drop shipping business and hear stories from successfully commerce entrepreneurs. Let's kick this thing off. Hey, welcome to the Dropship Podcast and today we're doing another Freedom Friday episode. We haven't done these in a while but I wanted to highlight one of the students in our course who is really doing pretty impressive things and he's a pretty impressive guy and so I just really want to have you on here. Welcome John Grant to the show. Thanks Ben. Thanks for having me on. I don't know what we're going to name this but you know we'd like to click baby so you've done over 700,000 in sales in your first nine months which is impressive right we could name it that we could name it you to 300k a lot of it around Black Friday in November we could name it something like that but really it's to me it's your journey of where you came from to where you are that is super super impressive and I hope in this show we can highlight you're just a regular dude man like literally a regular dude who somehow we have like we're ties to our past where we probably cross paths we were probably moshing in the same mosh bit and we had no idea that someday we would you know come do this again it's kind of cool man. Yeah shout out to with Dead Hands Rising a band we went on tour with who you almost played in a band with I guess way back 20 years ago or something so yeah so I'm playing a shout out Dan copy like the greatest number I've ever seen live I don't know where Dan copy is nowadays but he's going Apple music and fine with Dead Hands Rising you know the buyer beware here of what you're about to listen to it's pretty intense but the drummer man he's incredible so it's cool that you have to see him live like he was good to watch he was a good show too. Yeah super good drummer super super good dude all those guys are great guys I came home from tour with half a hot dog in my Tylenol container you know they just kind of would hide you hide little fun things redefine weeks later so it's fun stuff like that so people probably don't know right I've talked about my dreadlocks photo but I was in a band I might use it's called like discrow distro kid or something like that it's like 20 bucks a year to put your band up on Apple music and so I might put it up there just for like a place that to house it rather than you know just in my Apple music or on my hard drive but I'd love to just share it like whatever and are you is your old band which I what's the name of your old band? That time period it was Amora Savant we were walking is that on Apple music? It's unspodify you can find it there a bunch of the bands I played in our unspodify but yeah I don't play in any band collecting those pennies? Someone is collecting fractions fractions of a set somehow yeah because the hundreds of listens were getting so hundreds I mean we're like everybody important band like you know back in 2005 for like a year or two and then you know band breaks up and typical story that way so but it's it's interesting that like you know that's where I started when I so we're timing I went to our old DJs moms funeral yesterday I saw them haven't seen them in a long time last time I saw them was another funeral which is you know kind of what happens when you get older unfortunately but I saw them at the funeral and he's like hey what are you doing nowadays and I told them everything I've been doing and he was like oh that makes a ton of sense like what do you mean that makes a ton of sense he's like you were the one writing all the music booking all the shows handling the website you were doing and I was just like yeah well someone had to do it right and he's like yeah but you you wanted to do it you like craved doing that stuff you wanted to you always were thinking about how we got bigger and got bigger we were all just like it's cool we're playing these shows and let's let this music's awesome that's great and you were always like how do we do this and you went and bought like I bought the band band and we spray painted it black which was pretty lame but like he saw that in me and so like do you think you know looking back you being in a band had any like entrepreneurial tendencies what's so ever that's really interesting to think about because I wasn't the guy in the band who was like booking the shows and promoting it doing all the business type stuff like our singer of vocalist was doing that but looking back on it maybe it was a business like we had a band fun we played shows we used it to pay for gas to get to the next show we had merchandise we sold CDs all that stuff so we paid a pay for recording it was essentially you know a business even though at the time when we were in our early 20s we were really thinking of it that way early as I wasn't I was focused on playing guitar and just you know writing sick riffs but uh you know that was uh looking back at it that was kind of the first foray into entrepreneurship and then it does seem like somewhat logical you know to get where I am today yeah I don't think I could have put together the signs you know looking back I had a paper out of 10 like a paper out of 10 years old um and I I moat every lawn in the neighborhood I don't know soon everything I could flip in pogs do you remember pogs at all I do uh flipping pogs at school and like I had all these little signs that no one I was surrounded with would recognize including the band stuff did you did you have any side hustles back in the day I was selling marijuana back in high school town uh put a lot of weird stuff but like some of that yeah anything stayed out to you was there something where you were like had these little flashes of entrepreneurship you didn't know or is this all new to you it's all really new honestly I mean I would cut lawns you know I hustled through the neighborhood and and bring doorbells and see who wanted their lawns cut that kind of thing but I wasn't selling baseball cards I wasn't doing like Gary V type stuff or he was just like always a hustler from like a very young age so not really man um I brewed beer professionally for 12 years before I got into this and the reason I got into brewing beer was because I wanted to open a brewery so that was always something that was on my mind throughout the years and it just it just kept getting pushed back and pushed back and it kind of almost happened one time and that a really rich guy who wanted to do it and so on else and we trip a business plan and we were meeting every week for months and months and we almost got to the point where we almost started making it happen and then it all kind of fell apart and it's weird when I think back to that you know because working in a brewery is cool but it's really it's a lot of media labor you're waking up really early you're working really lazy crazy hours and when I started meeting with them and talking about starting a brewery it was the first time I really felt like alive and my brain just kind of felt like activated and I was like oh this feels different like this this feels like what I should be doing and then when it when that stopped happening and I went back to just you know brewing beer every day I was like oh like I missed it and I kind of put that out of my mind there's just so many barriers to entry with opening a brewery you need like at least a million dollars and there's so much it's so capital intensive you can't really make a ton of money there's there's so much competition um it just seems so unachievable and insurmountable and I just kind of gave up and I really had no idea how I would ever start a business and then until I got into this I realized oh you're a west coast now yeah the west coast now how much how much of a the beer stuff is like the Wisconsin in you is that still the the the was like you know we have more bars per capita Wisconsin anyone does you know back when I was a young degenerate I did ingested my fair share of beers uh like where did the love for like craft brewery cut like I quit drinking before that I exploded right it was just you know it was a mudwizer a mcgold and light which half the people listening is probably don't know what a mcgold night is that's very a midwest thing yeah that's all there was though right and so like how did how did that even spawn how did you is it the Wisconsin in you are like where where the beer low come from are you ready to finally take that next step finally start your business make 2024 the year that you take a step forward in your life well I'm gonna make it super easy on you we're running an end of the year sale and we're doing so for a few reasons one the price is going up next year we are changing our prices and two because we are adding a bunch more to the course so if you sign up now you will get all of the extra stuff in the course at a price you will never see again I could promise you that we are updating the GA 4 section the Google ad sections a whole new SEO section and a whole bunch new videos from latent from mindset coach Valentina and other people who are going to help us put content into this course so if you're looking to get an edge on 2024 get access to that new content at a much lower price and grab this course at a price you'll never see again make sure you check out our end of year sale dropshipbreakthrough.com/endofyear all one word dropshipbreakthrough.com/endofyear yeah definitely Wisconsin in me grew up in Milwaukee Wisconsin so Lakefront Brewery was there they're huge you know if you're a college kid in the Milwaukee area you definitely drink some Lakefront spotted cow is in every single bar you know there's a bar in every single block so you just see it around and you're like what is this like this isn't Miller High Life so we started drinking that and then I don't know what it was it just kind of got more and more and it was working at Trader Joe's at the time and started being the beer buyer in that beer section and just learning about the beers and talking to customers every day just started really getting into it so reading about it started home brewing and then eventually ended up working at Lakefront Brewery and became a brewer there and was working there for about a year until my girlfriend at the time really wanted to get out of Wisconsin so I started applying to other jobs in the country and got a job out here in California 12 years ago and about 11 years ago actually now so been out here ever since and continued to work in breweries until about a year ago so so how did you find high-tech adoption in that does this journey sounds all first of your rock star, then you work at Trader Joe's, then you moved to California, how on earth did you stumble into high ticket dropshipping? It's really, really strange when I think about it. So I decided I didn't want to brew beer anymore. I kind of lost the passion for that. Like I said, after the business potential kind of fizzled out, I just kind of was going through the motions and you know, was a head brewer at this place. It was a really good brewery last few years, but I just got burned out as long hours and I have two kids now. So brewing beer is really fun when you're in your late 20s, early 30s, but then when you're like, when you hit 40 and you got little kids at home, it's just bad idea. It's just not really what I wanted to do anymore. So I put in my two month notice and I got out and I had zero idea what I was going to do. I thought I was going to maybe get a job as a coffee roaster. It kind of seemed like a natural, you know, transition in the beverage industry, you know, I saw some parallels there. So I was thinking about that and then started talking to one of my best friends back home in Milwaukee, who is a tattoo artist and he owns a tattoo shop in Milwaukee. And we started talking and I always had idea of starting a, you know, like a tattoo based like clothing line. Like he's been putting out t-shirts with his tattoo designs on them. So he started talking and he told me what drop shipping was. And I was like, he's like, you know, you can print them yourself. You can do all that work and you ship them physically to the customer or you can drop ship it and you literally do nothing and you the person orders it, it gets automatically fulfilled and gets shipped to the customer. And that was literally the first time I'd ever heard of drop shipping. This is back in October of 2022. So I just went down that rabbit hole and we, I didn't know building a Shopify store. We started an LLC. We started a business me and him and you know, I built a Shopify store. We launched in like Thanksgiving 2022 and we started selling sweatshirts and t-shirts and you think printifies what gets automatically fulfilled and drop ship to the customer. Yeah, but it's like $25, $40, you know, items and you end up making like $5, $10. We weren't spending any money on ads. So it was actually somewhat a little bit profitable. And then I just, I don't know, I started researching more and into Apple podcast. I just searched dropship and the dropship podcast came up with you and John and I just started listening to that and you had an episode where you actually compared high ticket drop shipping to print on demand and you basically, you know, should I lower print on demand and it maybe realized like they got a point, you know, I'd much rather be selling $1,000 plus items than thousands of $15 t-shirts, you know. So kind of when started from there and learned what SEO was and learned all these other terms that had zero idea about previously to that. It's funny. I've got my own itch with print on demand one just like, I'm a big guy. I'm six four three hundred pounds like that print on demand stuff never fits, right? So I can order the biggest shirt in the world, but it'll come like just over my belly button, especially after I wash it, right? It's too short. I have to find a tall shirt. It's very hard to find print on demand tall. And so you end up getting these like low quality things that don't fit super well, but they're all like cheeky, right? And so I know you can make cash doing this, right? Like if you have something that goes viral and like think back to when the office was hot, the first person to put that's what and then dashy underneath it, right? Like that, I guarantee tons of people bought that shirt, right? And there's probably loads and loads of these. I think there's plenty of people, you know, maybe crossing the line of legal and not legal, stealing IP and putting things on shirts and things like that that make a lot of sense. You've seen me on this podcast wearing a Rady Savage shirt. That is definitely a print on demand shirt. But it's hard to, again, it's hard for me to find one that's high enough quality, fits the way I wanted to fit. And then, you know, thinking through a business model, like you kind of have to find a hit and then find another hit and then find, you know what I mean? Even if you have your own proprietary thing, you better have an audience to which you can sell that proprietary thing, right? And so it can be frustrating. Look, I just pulled you up over here in our back and I didn't realize that you you didn't come a course member until April of this year. Like I don't think I even knew that. That's insane, man. When it's actually like start the business that you and I have worked on together. So I started back as I did DSL, dropship, like so back in, you know, December started there. But yeah, I mean, I really got started. I had to get just finding your, you know, your podcast probably back in November, but for whatever reason I went for DSL and then, you know, started this, launched the store February of 2023 and then immediately got my Google ads suspended and then was still making sales and Bing and doing all that and eventually I kind of realized that, you know, I needed more help and you guys were providing a ton of value and just like the three tier shopping campaigns like that was my blowing because I was doing the alpha beta at the time and like that is such a better way to do it and that that was a really good indication that there was more information that I wanted access to. So I started really revisiting the podcast and going back into what you guys were doing and I realized like I need that course. So it's signed up. It's interesting. I saw the lower price on your thing and I was like, "oh, did we run a sale?" No, that's the half price, right? So anyone who's taken another course and believe me, we have lots of people in Dropship Breakthrough who started somewhere else and that's fine. I'm just glad people are getting started but it's crazy the amount of people who come here from Dropship lifestyle or, you know, there's a few other, you know, air quote gurus out there that teach a half-assed version and then the people end up coming over here because they find more value and so it's crazy how many members of our community have done that. I think we have a comparison podcast we put on this feed before if you're in one of those other courses listening to this and you're like, "I kind of want to come over there too." Just reach out to us. We literally have a code where you can get the course half price because you've already spent enough money. Come over here, learn some stuff, build a business, join our community and so that's my little pitch. John, thank you for bringing that up. It's an interesting feeling, right? To say you started somewhere else and you came here and I too took Dropship lifestyle way back in 2015, right? And so it's interesting coming from there and building something that is much much bigger and like bigger better and like everything I've had to learn over the years, that's what's in Dropship, right? Through John too, right? So kind of crazy to hear your story coming from there. Actually, I don't think I remembered that if I'm honest with you. Yeah, yeah, I said that course. You guys gave me the, the, the, Dropship breakthrough half price and immediately saw results. I mean, you know, I bought it in April and then my ads came on back on track for Google in June, but it was just the conversion into optimization stuff, the way to do Google ads, all the email mark. There's just so much in the grow phase of it that the other course didn't have and it just, it's really exploded the business. It's been really awesome to see. Well, I hope to dive into something because that's exactly what I was trying to reference, right? We've had to learn a lot of stuff that's in the course that really will help you grow your business, whether you're Dropshiping or not. If I'm honest with you, it's just good marketing and so I do want to ask actually I kind of want, I wish I had some theme music to hop in here because I kind of want to play like a little bit of good, good niche bad niche. I'm sure if you listen to the show, you've heard of it, John, do you have you heard of the good niche bad niche before? Oh, yeah. Yeah. All right. You're a former brewer. I've seen brewing kits come across in niche selection calls. We do a verification if you're a member of our course. We'll verify the one that you chose and kind of give you advice on this. Again, in other place, we see actually other courses saying, yeah, this is a good one. And then we have to tell people maybe go a different direction. I want to play that here with home brewing kits because there's that's not what you sell. Logically, that had to be one of the first places your mind went to was brewing, cagerate, beer stuff, right? Let's play that game. Walk me through how you thought about it and why you're not selling that stuff. So that was on my list. DSL has you come up with like 50 ideas and you whittle them down to the two or three and you end up deciding your your market over. So there's on the list, you run it through all the sets of criteria. I'm sure it's very similar to what breakthrough does. And there wasn't a lot of drop shipping stores for brewing kits. And I mean, brewing kits in and of themselves are very inexpensive. Maybe 50 to $100. So that right there, that price point just getting started with the basic home brew kits. Not that interesting. What was interesting to me was you can do like brewing pilot systems. You can do fermenters that are two, three, four, $10,000. You know, small pilot brewing systems, $10,000, $20,000. There's there's a company in Milwaukee called SS Brutek and they make all that stuff. So it's definitely considering it. And then yeah, because I would it could have been a brewing pilot consultant and then also sold the brewing equipment. So the reason I didn't want it, there were what is as many stores doing it. They're very maybe two or three, which you wanted at least five or 10 to see if there's enough people doing it to make it viable. I mean, less competition seems like it'd be better in a lot of ways, but that kind of skirm you off. And then it just didn't seem very drop ship friendly. There'd be a lot of installation, a lot of questions, a lot of follow up that these systems are pretty complicated. It's not like a kayak or something, you know, it's never a self-explanatory. So, which I would be able to help them with having used these things, but it just and also I just didn't want to be in that industry anymore. It would have been 12 years. I just wanted to do something completely different. And that was probably the main reason I didn't really go forward with it. Correct me if I'm wrong. And I don't know if this is the case anymore, but I feel like I'm a lot of other people teaching a similar business model to this. Want you to go find someone already doing it? Look at the brands they already sell. They must be drop shipping based on their address. And so let's just copy them and run with it. And like to me, that is such a shitty, I'll put it what it is, it's a shitty way to start a bit. Like what are you doing? You're just chasing cash the same way. Low tick of drop shipping is chasing cash, the same way print them on demand is chasing cash. And look, there's a time and place to chase them cash. But you should want to build a real business and copying someone is not going to build you a real business. It's going to build you something that you're not in love with. And you have no drive to own the market, own your business, delight your customers. It's just not a good way to do business. So it's interesting that you went there that you were like, I didn't see anyone else doing it. So there was no one to obviously copy kind of thing. And look, I've looked into this industry before. There are some products like you said that fit the bill. I think you would have to somewhat give a crap or at least want to learn how to give a crap to who these people are, what are their concerns are, why they're starting a brewery, because they probably are doing a little mini brewery if they're buying some of these higher ticket products and how do they work with them? What does installation look like? A lot of the knowledge you had. So even the fact that you had this and you didn't want to do it is telling to me, I'm not sure whether I would give it a good thumbs up or a good thumbs down on Gooditch Badmitch. What would you give it? If someone came to you, similar skill set to you and thought about doing it, would you say, "Hell yeah, or hell no?" It depends, but I would say probably, it's worth pursuing. I just don't think there's enough producers either. You would probably only have two or three brands, maybe five tops that I'm aware of that are really doing it on that level, but there could be more, there could be more players, but I mean, it'd be more B to B as well, which is fine, but there are also people who want to have, - Just get it right. - Yeah, right. And they're doing this smaller kits and stuff, but I mean, there are plenty of people that will spend thousands of dollars to have a fully automated, tricked out brewery in their garage and they're just doing it for fun on the weekends. So I think there's definitely something there, for sure. - Yeah, just think it would be a little lower ticket. You'd have to warehouse some of it in order to make it anywhere near profitable, some of the starter stuff, but some of that stuff you're gonna sell over and over and over again too. So, I don't know, it's a solid maybe, probably leading towards no for me, but it's interesting that you didn't go there. I just wanted to touch on it. I thought that was kind of a cool little homage to a different podcast that we could kind of show in the middle here and just see what you were thinking. Look, I want to know, you found high tech dropshipping somewhere else. You came to us based on the podcast, which that's a common theme that we hear people hear are podcasts, they appreciate the value, they assume, hey, if there's this much value in the podcast, there must be more in the course. Sounds like you found that, which is great. Talk to me a little bit about your before state. Like, it's obviously a big leap for you to want to invest in a course in the first place. You just said you didn't even have a job at the time. So, like, you know, that's a big investment. Talk to me what was going through your head before you started. Do you remember, can you go back, you know, at whatever year and remember like, what were some of the doubts you had, what were some of the fears you had leading into you actually taking a plunge here? - Yeah, I mean, I was low key freaking out. I mean, I knew for months that I was leaving my job, but I just, I really didn't have time to think about what I wanted to do. I mean, if anything, I could just go back to Trader Joe's or something like that, you know, but, which is a great place to work, by the way. I was really just on a journey to find something different. I was considering giving software, you know, just doing a bootcamp thing at UC Berkeley and just learning a new skill and, you know, like, seven, 40 now. So, I'm gonna start over that would have been kind of the time to do it. So, I was ready to really do anything, but when I stumbled on the idea of being my own boss and coming in entrepreneur kind of like, how I always wanted to, this was just kind of a new brainer for me. And luckily we had some money saved up. So, it wasn't like I was having to bring home money the next month kind of thing. So, I was in a fortunate spot that way. And I was able to use that to just go all in and just work as hard as I could to make this work. 'Cause for me, it like it had to work. Otherwise, I had to go back to doing something I really didn't wanna do. So, that was a huge motivator for me, you know. - What did your wife think, right? Like, that's a, I remember going through the conversation with my wife, I was working at the time, but we were 40k in debt, $1,000 credit limit credit card showed up, which is all I had. And the course was $6.97, he insisted he was raising the price and he did. And, you know, I spent a thousand bucks we didn't have as we were already 40k in debt on this. And it was a conversation of like, hey, just trust me here, I have to take this leap. If it doesn't, I'll go back to, whatever, I'll do whatever we need to do to be what I need to be for this family, but this feels right right now. What did that conversation look like for you with your wife? And what was your reaction? - Very, very similar. She was very supportive. I mean, I was staying home with our one year old daughter at the time, so that was, while she was working, so I was like, stay at home dad, so we didn't have to pay for childcare. So that was helpful for her. And then, you know, when I wasn't with her, I was working in the business and just going hard, but my wife's been very supportive. I've been very lucky that way. You know, without her support, I don't think this would have been able to happen. So, very grateful for that. - You need her support to buy one course. Then you stumble on our course, you need her support to buy another course, right? And somewhere in there, you said, I'm gonna buy some consulting from BK, which I don't offer a cheap price here, 'cause I don't, I wanna do it as sparingly as possible. I wanna get more people where I can group coach them. And you invested there too. So like, how did that go over? How did the, you know, each step along the way, you wanted to invest even more into your business that go over just as well with your sponsor? Was there a challenge there? - No, I mean, it was okay. We had some money, so it wasn't as dire as it could have been. But I was planning on spending maybe 10 or 12 K on a launch course to get into the software development or something like that anyway. So instead of investing it there, I was kinda investing it with this where I felt like, I just didn't wanna do, I wasn't sure about investing that in anything else, but this I just, I felt like it was the right thing to do. I just, I didn't, I think she did too. For some reason we both just kinda knew that, like this is what I needed to do. And there wasn't a lot of friction around it. So it really was a very casual friction in your business then, 'cause certainly people listening, someone's thinking, I don't know if my wife would be as receptive as John's wife was, but there's gonna be a struggle somewhere, right? And for you, I think it came right away in the form of Google. Can you touch on how you struggled early on? And there's gonna be many ways that you will struggle early on or be scared to call suppliers or whatever it may be. We're a lot of people quit. That's the reality of it, like a lot of people quit. And so can you talk about some of your struggles and really why you kept pushing on? - Yeah, I mean looking back, it was a huge struggle. I'm pretty surprised that I stuck it out as long to get here. I'm really grateful that I did, but I mean within two or three days of running ads, I was suspended and ended up getting unsuspended six weeks later, but immediately after my merchant center was unsuspended, my ads were suspended and it was saying, because my GMC was, so there's a weird bug and that took months and months for it to finally get rectified. But all the while I was running ads and being and making a sale a week, getting maybe four or five Ks sales a month. And that was enough to kind of keep me going. You get that one sale a week and you're like so stoked. It was such an endorphin rush that I was like, I know there's something there. And of course my first sale was one of the highest margin items that I have. So I made like $400 profit on that first one. So I was like, okay, like this actually works. I barely spent any money in ads. I think I made my first sale within four days of running ads on Bing. So that was a huge encouragement. And just listening to the podcast and going through the course and just trying to make the business better every single day, I just I knew that there was potential there. And once I got Google back on board, you know, I was going to finally see what the real potential of the business would be. Because at that point it just felt like I was doing it with both hands behind my back and just totally handicapped. So there's a lot of struggle just days and weeks without any sales. I think the first week month of July, the first 11 days of July, it's zero sales. So like going into the live event, which I went to end of July, I was like, not sure about this, but the business started getting really taking off around the end of July, beginning of August. So it's just wild for me to think about like going 11 days without a sale, where now it's like, you know, if I go one day without a sale, I'm like, what's going on? So a very different, like already booked the ticket to Minneapolis to come hang out with us. And you're probably having some doubts in your head. Somewhere along the line you purchase some consulting for me, right? And we stumbled into what I thought was a really big opportunity for SEO. And you stumble. I told you to do something. And you didn't do it for a month. Even though you pay me a large amount of money, you didn't do it for a month. Can you talk to me about like that struggle? And where else maybe that has shown up in your journey along the way of like the real battles in between your ears, right? There's no shortage of tactical information, especially in our course. There's hundreds of videos. And so it's not like you don't know what to do. Let alone you paid me thousands of dollars to tell you what to do. Exactly tell you what to do. And you still didn't do it for 30 days. Can you talk through some of that mental battle? Well, to be fair, I think we did stumble on that. And you were like, oh, like this is potentially really huge. Like you should definitely do that. And then we were kind of went in some other things. And then I didn't-- It wasn't really firmly planted in my mind. And then I think that maybe the next coaching call we had, you were like, the only thing you should be focused on are these new, these keywords, these new products that are coming out, you know? So you just always have a lot to work on. And it's hard to really like identify the opportunities until someone's like grabbing your shoulders and being like, dude, this is super important. You need to focus on this, you know? 'Cause there's just so many different things that you're emails and your ads and your other blogs to write. And yeah, it's hard to hone in on what can really drive the most results and like which levers are most important to pull like in those moments. So with you being there and telling me like, don't worry about XYZ, like just all I did was write blogs for three, four weeks, you know? Crane out like two or three a week. It's been like 12 hours a day, just like writing and editing and getting him uploaded. And I'm really glad I did that because I was the only one writing about any of these keywords. And it took months for my competition to catch up and I have multiple articles that are number one in Google now that are driving sales. And like, you know, I can, I see conversions happening because of having those articles up. So super, super grateful that A, my supplier came up with all these new products and B, I took the initiative to actually do what you finally told me to do and get this going, you know? Look, I'd seen it before. And that's the only reason it like clicked in my head. I saw a pattern and that's what humans are, right? We see patterns, we connect dots. And so I'd seen this before. So to give references to someone listening, John had a huge brand, right? Huge huge brand who had everything named A, B, C, D, E, F, G. We'll call it that, right? And they were going to move everything to now naming it one, two, three, four, five. And so when you have these huge brands, you've heard me on the show say, versus keywords are your best friends in the beginning. Most people aren't hitting these bottom level keywords. When you have big brands, everyone's hitting those keywords, right? So we could go to Google and find A, B, B, B, D, A, C. They were all there. Everything was done kind of discouraging, if I'm honest with you, because I could tell you to write those. But you know, you have to go flight all over the other people you're competing against who have already done all of this work, which happens a lot in huge brands or big industries. And then you just said, hey, they're going to, it's going to actually be named this in a month. And I went, the pattern went off in my head. I'm like, oh, see this pattern before with a different brand. And we went and searched one, verse three, right? Two, verse seven. And none of them were there. And so I apologize if I didn't iterate it fast enough for you. But like, if you needed, you have to go do this today. So I'm so glad that you took action, because it really changed your business, right? You were doing like 10 K a month at that point in revenue. And a couple months later, you know, here we are in November with a 300 K month. And a lot of that is due to those articles being number one for these bottom of the funnel terms that I've preached over and over and over again on this podcast to go after. And you know, you just happen to be the right place at the right time and, you know, do the work. Like you, if you didn't do the work, we wouldn't be talking to you. I can give, I can give you the advice all day long, but you did the work. And so I'm sure there were some struggles along the way. Like, can you talk a little bit about like any of the mental struggles that you went through, like, what, you know, calling suppliers, it's selection, building the website, dealing with brands, heck, I think you even like our, like, friends with a competitor at this point, you guys kind of bounce ideas that you call him your mentor, even though he's like one of your competitors, which is strange. Can you talk through any of the struggles that you went through? So someone listening to this can, you know, hopefully you understand that you're a real dude who struggles with real things. It's not just like the world gifted you with this amazing business and you have all of this amazing talent, because that's no offense, but that's not true. Just like, no, you did there. Yeah, I mean, I literally didn't know what SEO was a year ago, like a little over a year ago. I had to learn what that was and research it. I had to just really dive head first into this entire market and like I would go weeks without even using a laptop working as a brewer, you know, like I would do all the inventory and ordering and stuff, but like I was not sitting in front of a computer day and day out. So like the struggle was just like learning how to efficiently use a computer and like we'll struggle with it on a Zoom call occasionally. Like I don't know how to share my screen or something like that. You know, so like I am just like a regular dude with a below average aptitude for computer technology stuff, but like what I am able to do is I have a writing and I went to school for journalism, you know, so I have a writing background. So like I think writing blogs comes really easily to me. I actually kind of enjoy it. And then, you know, using that, whatever other skills I have to my advantage, like customer service, isn't my most favorite thing in the world, but like I do have a lot of experience, just like working at Trader Joe's and like dealing with hundreds of customers every single day and learning how to talk to people, you know, like most of it, a lot of your day, if you're lucky, is you're on the phone talking to people all day. So you need to learn how to do the customer service aspect of it. Like at first I thought, oh, this would be hiding behind a laptop and making a bunch of money from home, but it's really like, you're out there, whether you're in person or not, like you're on the phone, you're emailing, you're talking constantly to people, you know, whether it's supplier or a customer or a potential supplier or something like that. So you really need to put yourself out there and get outside your comfort zone, and that's what I've been doing. I kind of feel totally overwhelmed some days and other days, you know, it's, you can kind of, you can do, go about your business and your business is kind of just working in the background. So calling suppliers wasn't too bad for me. And most of them were, yes, as I was pretty fortunate there, you know, I didn't struggle as much in that department. It was really the Google thing, it was just such a bummer to be suspended three times in a row, you know, so once we got through that, it's still a fear in the background that any moment that can always get taken away. And so far so good. - Speaking of it can all go away tomorrow, that is a fear that a lot of people have, and one resource we brought to this community is my coach, Elliot Rowe, hands down the greatest mindset coach in the world has now brought his team to us. So Valentina, a member of his coaching tree, is gonna be in our course in 2024 again. If you're listening to this, when this comes out, this is your last chance to get in at a severely discounted price, the end of the year sales running right now, we're raising our prices in New York because, part of John and I putting a bunch of new content in there and late in tail, they're putting content in there, Valentina's gonna put some content in there, and you're fortunate enough to work with her directly. Can you speak to Valentina and how she's helped you work with, work through some of these, it's all going away tomorrow, type stories that we tell ourselves, even most of them are true, right? It's just like some fears and are subconscious, trying to keep us safe. What is working with Valentina been able to help you with? - Yeah, I mean, she's been incredible, I actually have a call of third in an hour. We go into everything, like all the different fears, all the different emotions and anxieties that you might have about your business and just really in life and like, what is holding you back from feeling good about what you're doing and what's keeping you from taking action on things that you have all these irrational fears around that when you really think about it and take a step back from a different perspective, you can understand that these are just objective emotions and ideas that aren't real and are, you might feel like you're in danger almost at times, but it's really just all in your head. It's not a real physical threat to you, you know, it's just this, taking those negative emotions and putting them somewhere else and being able to look at them and identify that them that they're not you, there's something separate to you, and not letting it consume you to the point where you can't go about your day and work in a perform on a higher level or somewhere that you're capable of functioning on, like opening up those opportunities and those, just the capability of being able to do more than what you're doing. I think it's what I'm really focused on with her. It's been awesome. Working with Elliott is hands down the biggest lever I've ever pulled in any part of my life. It has changed who I am. It's the reason I'm talking to you on this podcast right now. It's life changing, right? So I shout out to Valentina, tell her, when you talk to her shortly here to say, she'll be on the screen here soon. I hope to get her on the podcast. She'll definitely be in the course in 2024. She's amazing. And if you're in the course or when you join the course, you'll see her, her and Elliott's talk at our Minneapolis and that will be in the course probably in the next few weeks as well. Look, I want to ask you a couple more questions. We'll wrap this up. Like, how do you feel like you think differently? So I know you're only whatever, a year into this, less than a year into this. But how do you feel you think differently today compared to like when you first started dropshipping? So something that stands out. I think the main thing is education and investing in yourself and realizing that you're your own best asset. I mean, I have a college degree, but I never honestly really thought about it the way I do now, like investing yourself and really being targeted about the kind of information that you're ingesting and how to use that in your day-to-day life to better yourself. And like how you don't just have to be a worker drone. You can build something that will support you and your family and give you independence. That's really been huge. It's just open at my world. My idea is to so many different things that I wasn't really aware of. I was just kind of mired in the day-to-day miniature of working, which is super hard to get out of. And I've been fortunate to be able to take a step out of that and just focus on this 100%. But when I went from working at Trader Joe's to brewing, I was-- I'm going through all the information on there to try to desperately get out of Trader Joe's so they want to work in a very cool or working a cash register anymore. So I put myself 100% into that and I was working in the brewery and at Trader Joe's at the same time, working 50, 60 hour weeks and did that for months at a time before I was able to actually transition out of Trader Joe's into brewing. It's the same thing with this. You just got to put in the work and educate yourself and then eventually you can transition out of what you're doing and get into the, you know, the business full time or whatever it is you want to do. So there's having that mindset and that awareness that there's there is something better out there than what you're currently doing, you know. Take the take the plunge. Thank you for selling the course. It is interesting when you step out and you look back and it's like in my mind's eye it's like a box. I'm stepping out and I can see my old life and like the limiting beliefs that held me in this place that I couldn't do better. I shouldn't like I didn't know anyone who did better. People that did do better were just these mythical figures right and they were up on a pedestal for me. They must be different than me and now I'm out and I'm kind of looking back at like where I was and it's it's it's mind blowing to realize number one. You you were your own limit right it was just the actions you weren't taking in the knowledge you weren't seeking but also just. It's crazy to be a different person and kind of look back and and you're. You're only like a sliver into this journey and I can't wait to watch you blossom. Thanks man. Just watch you you know step into whatever version of you is going to be you know five years from now like you're going to be a different person. Entrepreneurship is the greatest self development program there is there's a lot of work that you're going to do in yourself in this process to be fun to watch. Last question for you what would you say to someone just starting today. There's a lot of people listening and I mean a lot we are in a top 100 in the entrepreneurship category and certainly we don't see the same numbers coming in the course. So there's a lot of people lurking right now who are thinking about starting. What would you say to them? I would just say you get what you put into it you know so if you're thinking about doing it you you really got to look at it as like a long term play it's not a quick get rich quick thing you know there's a lot of work but the words are real you know like I was doing 5000 sales a month like six months ago and then I just had a 300 thousand dollar month like it's pretty incredible to see if you put in the time the effort. And maybe a little luck there too but you know there's the potential for sure is there like hearing John I'm talking about how we did 300 thousand is first year business and me being at like 15 20,000 total with the first six months I had no idea how that would even be possible you know and now being where I am now and seeing where I was just six months ago it's it was always there you know the potential is always there and you just have to do the effort and and make it work and it's if it doesn't work out right away just start something else and learn from those mistakes and just keep pushing you know because this does work I mean Ben's not paying me to be here like this is seriously just I just did what they told me to do in the course and did some consulting and stuff and got some a little faster on the track doing that but I mean if you just listen to the podcast even you know it's you get a lot of value from just doing that so Well I'm excited to have you back next December when you're like I did three million last year to 300 thousand like I'm positive you're in you're going in that direction you're in a very fun industry for me that I feel like is on ready to explode and so I'm excited for you but I can't wait to have you on here again if you get if you're watching a video John is about as white as I have ever seen him I think he's just he's struggling to even be on camera right now so good host you for up and on here they thank you so much buddy and I can't wait to see that problem and thanks so much for having me on this episode. Thanks for listening to the Drop Ship podcast you can find all the show notes for this episode at Drop Ship Podcast dot com and if you're ready to take the next step in your drop shipping journey we invite you to join us inside Drop Ship Breakthrough where John and I will walk you through step by step in starting your own high ticket drop shipping e-commerce business but that's not all drop ship breakthrough will also teach you everything you need to know to grow your business and take it to the next level so head over to drop ship breakthrough dot com and sign up for our free training that will help you take the first steps towards building and growing your own profitable high ticket drop shipping business. John and I both love business think about it all the time can turn it off and don't know why anyone would want to and because of that we started a podcast where we can talk about everything we've ever wanted to talk about in business not just drop shipping we like talking about all things business so if you want to hear John and I talk about all sorts of stuff from camel meat drop shipping businesses to PDF drop shipping to a guy gambling $100 every single day on YouTube shorts to how only fans taught us lessons in business we're all over the place over there but it's a really fun podcast so if you're a podcast listener you love John and I head over to your podcast player of choice and look for the low bar podcast you'll see a blue image and you'll see a cartoon version of John and myself and go back and start an episode one I promise you will not regret this is one of the more fun projects that I have done recently I know John's having fun too so we'd love it if you joined us check out the low bar podcast on YouTube or wherever you prefer to listen to podcasts.