5 Lessons I Learned Growing Two eCommerce Brands To Their First Million Dollars In Sales!

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5 Lessons I Learned Growing Two eCommerce Brands To Their First Million Dollars In Sales!

(Extremely Important note: You are definitely in, for a very special treat. It’s not too often these days, my expert Internet marketing coach, mentor and friend. The one and only James McAllister, is able to temporarily breakaway from his proven seven figure processes!

So he can impart some of his real world, in the trenches wisdom, small business and proven entrepreneurial know how with us.

And while it definitely took some patience and a little creative arm twisting on my part.But he’s finally agreed, to periodically stop by, and share his steadily growing wealth of business and entrepreneurial knowledge with us from time to time!

Thanks so much coach! You have and continue to guide and teach me so much and on so many levels, all at the same time! And on that note! Here’s my expert Internet marketing coach, mentor and friend! The one and only, serial entrepreneur James McAllister!)

They say your first million dollars in sales is the hardest, and in the last 3 years, I’ve learned that it’s absolutely true.

It’s early on when things are rough. You don’t have the money to scale, and you wouldn’t even know what to do if you did.

You don’t have processes and systems in place to operate effectively, nor the tools to make your job easier. Worst of all, you don’t have the experience necessary to avoid mistakes that looking back, always seem obvious.

In this article, I’d like to share with you some of the mistakes I’ve made these past 3 years while building my brands, and how I would’ve avoided them if I could do things over.

1. Delaying Revenue For Too Long

One of the biggest mistakes a new company can make is waiting too long to start bringing in sales.

Having something out there in the marketplace is more important than perfecting the product. If you wait too long to start bringing in meaningful revenue, your company will bleed dry before you ever perfect your product in the first place.

It’s a far better idea to put something out quickly, and utilize customer feedback to improve the product over time, as you get a better understanding of the needs and wants of your customer.

I spent too much time worrying about the brand taking a hit, despite the fact that I didn’t even have a brand to harm yet. Nobody knew my company, which meant the stakes were low – the perfect time to do something less than optimally.

2. Not Utilizing Pay-Per-Click Advertising Quickly Enough

If you have a system in which you put $1 back in and receive more than that back out, you’re going to put every cent you have into that system.

It’s pretty valuable right?

Early on, I was afraid to spend money on PPC ads because they often weren’t profitable from the get-go. I didn’t have a lot of money to lose, so taking a risk like that wasn’t something I was comfortable with.

However, because that system is so valuable, I needed to find a way to do it.

I adjusted my frame of mind and convinced myself it was worth it to lose money, for 2 reasons:

1. I was figuring out what sort of worked, and what didn’t. In other words, which one lost less money.

2. I was learning more about what was stopping customers from buying, and used this data to improve my sales pages.

With over 5,000 products for sale, I have to admit that not all of them are profitable. However, we do have some products that are earning 2x, 5x, even up to 20x per dollar spent on PPC, all while giving exposure to the brands.

3. Not Protecting Our Intellectual Property

In early 2018, my company became the victim of trademark squatting in China.

Trademark squatting is when another person registers your trademark, and attempts to sell it back to you for a ridiculous fee.

This wouldn’t have been a problem, but trademark holders in China can block export of the products to other countries. Because all of our factories were located in China, this became a real issue.

Unfortunately, it forced us to change our brand’s name, something that we are still recovering from today.

If you are manufacturing products in other countries, register for trademarks in that country! This is especially true if the trademark system in that country is first-to-file (like China), meaning that it’s whoever files with the government first that owns the trademark, not whoever actually uses the name first.

4. Investing Too Much In Individual Projects

Our first major product order was roughly $12,000 from China. Not a huge amount by any means, but a large amount to spend on a single product that may or may not succeed.

While our data all seemed solid, the product only ended up breaking even. While we learned a lot in the process, unfortunately that meant we went a long time before getting that $12,000 back to reinvest into more profitable projects.

Our second product actually did worse – while initially quite profitable, a new competitor copied our product down to the packaging, undercut us, and killed our profitability (I later found out this may have been the factory we were sourcing from ourselves!)

Eventually, we actually bought a bunch of machinery and started manufacturing products ourselves – meaning we could come out with new products to test for a few dollars, rather than thousands of dollars at a time. This is the only reason we were able to come out with 5,000 products so quickly (and how we will be releasing 25,000 more this year!)

5. Letting Business Get In The Way Of Family

I began my company with my grandmother, as I wanted to limit my financial risk early on into the venture, and jump start it with a nice injection of capital.

The company started primarily as a side hustle, and I wasn’t sure how far it’d go, to be perfectly honest.

A few short years later, my grandmother had passed away to cancer – at a relatively young age.

I deeply regret the arguments that business had caused between us. Our business philosophies were total opposites, and honestly, we probably should have never been partners in the first place. While I’m grateful for the opportunity to have spent so much time with her before she passed away, I wished that things would have been more positive overall.

Be very careful when you get into business with family members – it can be very rewarding, but it can also test the limits of your relations.

Conclusion

In business, mistakes are inevitable – regardless of how well we’re doing, we’ll still experience them.

It’s hard to know how far ahead I’d be if I had avoided these mistakes, but I know I’d certainly be better off.

While this list certainly isn’t complete, if you’re able to avoid even one of the mistakes mentioned in this article, you’ll do much better because of it.And earn your first million dollars a whole lot sooner!

James Mcallister- Entrepreneur,author, coach and mentor.

“James McAllister is the owner of JamesMcAllisterOnline.com.

Where he freely shares his proven
 tips and advice.

Which has helped his companies sell hundreds of 
thousands of units online.

He is also the creator of several best-selling training programs for aspiring entrepreneurs.

Covering extremely popular topics such as blogging, email marketing, and building a mindset for long term success.

With over 6,000 totally satisfied students,(and steadily growing!)

James hopes to help you build more money in your business faster, (and relatively risk free),and find more fulfillment in your life as well.”