The Dropship Unlocked Podcast

How Suraj Made £100k with High-Ticket Dropshipping (Episode 99)

• Lewis Smith & James Eardley • Season 1 • Episode 99

Share episode

📞 Ready to Take the Next Step? https://dropshipunlocked.com/training-watch-apply?el=podcast-99-suraj-episode-2

🗣Hosts Lewis Smith and James Eardley reconnect with Suraj, a Dropship Unlocked Masterclass member who has made incredible strides in his ecommerce journey. 

Suraj first joined the podcast eight months ago when he had just crossed £12,000 in sales after two months. Now, he returns to share the remarkable growth he's experienced since then. 

👉 Prefer to watch this on Youtube? Check it out here  ➡️ https://youtu.be/i5o6Qa5Ld4U

---------------------------------------------------------

Topics Discussed:

★ Initial Motivation and Challenges: Suraj discusses his initial motivations for joining Dropship Unlocked and the key challenges he sought to solve through the program.

★ Growth and Turning Points: The biggest “aha” moments that accelerated Suraj’s growth, including key strategies and advice from the program that made a difference.

★ Impact on Life and Mindset: Beyond revenue, Suraj shares how the success of his business has impacted his personal life, including the freedom and flexibility he’s gained.

---------------------------------------------------------

Links and Resources Mentioned:

Pick up a copy of Lewis’ book: https://htabook.com 

Get Shopify for £1 a month for 3 months: https://www.dropshipunlocked.com/shopify 

Get a free trial with a professional phone line: https://www.dropshipunlocked.com/circle 

---------------------------------------------------------

Key Takeaways:

★ Persistence and Adaptability: Suraj’s journey illustrates the power of persistence and adaptability when building an e-commerce business. He overcame multiple challenges by staying committed to the process and leveraging the support of the Dropship Unlocked community.

★ Growth Through Mentorship: Mentorship has played a crucial role in Suraj’s success, providing guidance and support every step of the way. His experience highlights the value of having a strong support system as you navigate the ups and downs of entrepreneurship.

★ Mindset Shifts: Suraj’s story showcases the importance of mindset in achieving success. Breaking through mental barriers and embracing a growth mindset helped him move from uncertainty to confidence as a business owner.

★ Long-Term Vision: Success in e-commerce is not just about immediate results but about building a business that can provide long-term freedom and flexibility.

---------------------------------------------------------

FOLLOW:

Thank you for listening to the Dropship Unlocked Podcast! Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review on your favourite podcast platform.

---------------------------------------------------------

★★★Dropship Unlocked - Lewis Smith★★★

🌏Watch Our Free Training ➽ https://www.dropshipunlocked.com/training?el=podcast-99-suraj-episode-2

Suraj, one of our very own dropship unlocked masterclass members, who has made incredible progress since we last spoke, doing better than my first that was doing better than my first tour now only two months in consistently doing 10, 11,000 within the first two months, your floor is now where your ceiling was previously. You previously looking up to those two 300 pound sales, and now you're like, well, that's just baseline. It's consistently hit the five to 7000 pound revenue a month mark since then. That's admirable. I think people can take a lot away because you've achieved so much so far, and I know you're going to go on to achieve even more. I was striving to build a real business, not just an anonymous online facade of a business. So if you've ever doubted whether dropshipping can lead to real, tangible change in your life, this episode will eliminate those doubts. Wow. Wow. Welcome to the dropship unlocked Podcast. I'm Lewis Smith, the founder of dropship unlocked, and with me is our Client Success Coach James earthley. Now, when we're not recording the podcast episodes, we're running our own e commerce businesses and helping aspiring entrepreneurs launch their own high ticket dropshipping businesses. Keen to build your own six or even seven figure business, my book, the home turf advantage is your blueprint for launching a profitable online store. Grab your copy@htabook.com today, and let's get you started. Now, sit back, relax, and let's unlock your potential with the dropship unlocked podcast. Welcome back to another inspiring episode of the dropship unlocked Podcast. Today, we're excited to share a truly remarkable success story that showcases the life changing potential of high ticket dropshipping. We're thrilled to be welcoming back Suraj, one of our very own dropship unlocked masterclass members, who has made incredible progress since we last spoke, his journey is a testament to what's possible when you combine the right strategy with dedication and perseverance. So if you've ever doubted whether dropshipping can lead to real, tangible change in your life, this episode will eliminate those doubts. Suraj story proves that with the right guidance and commitment, anyone can build a thriving e commerce business. That's right. It is a pleasure to reconnect with Suraj in today's episode, and people like Suraj, members like Suraj are fantastic to catch up with because they've achieved such remarkable success with the dropship unlocked masterclass program. So this is a second follow up episode with Suraj, because we've already done one episode and that went down very well, so we wanted to bring him back and find out the success that he's seen since the first episode, and his journey over the last eight months since we first spoke is truly inspiring, and it does showcase the power of the home turf advantage model that you teach Lewis so urges experience demonstrates what happens, crucially, when you trust the process, put in the work and leverage a proven business model. Think his his actual success over the last eight months and before that as well, is an example of how following step by step guidance, but also putting in the work can lead to real world success. What's particularly exciting about Suraj story that we're going to hear in today's interview is how we overcame some challenges and reached new heights since the last time that we spoke to him. This is a powerful reminder of what's possible when you push through those initial doubts that you feel before you start a business and stay committed to your goals. Yeah, as you listen to Suraj interview today, pay close attention to the key turning points in his journey from finding his footing with suppliers to scaling up his business. These insights offer valuable lessons for anyone looking to build a thriving e commerce business. So whether you're starting out at the moment or contemplating taking the leap into dropshipping, Suraj experience provides actionable advice and inspiration. His story shows that success is achievable regardless of your background or your technical skills. Suraj journey also highlights the power of community and mentorship in our dropship unlocked masterclass, members like Suraj have access to ongoing support, live coaching calls, live member meetups and a network of like minded entrepreneurs. So let's dive into Suraj story and discover how he transformed his life through high ticket, drop shipping, his journey could be the motivation you need to start your own success story. So Suraj, welcome to the podcast. Great to have you back. Thanks, Lewis, it's great to be back. And James, you know I remember fondly speaking with you last time. And yeah, really looking forward to jumping back on to follow up from that. I think it's been eight, nine months or so. Yeah, I know last time we spoke, you'd just crossed that elusive 12. Whole 1000 pound in sales milestone, and that was pretty early in your journey, if I remember, that was after two months since launching your store. So off to a flying start, and before we get into your progress, maybe just for anyone who didn't hear our first interview, and we'll make sure we link that below, so that anyone who wants to go back and get that context and hear the earlier story in your journey. And can can do so, but kind of where were you before joining dropship unlocked? What was life like back at the point before you joined? And paint a bit of a picture for it, if you can. Suraj, yeah. So I was a dropship dabbler, if you will. I was always interested in E commerce and a product based business. So my background, this is not my first business, or this wasn't my first business. I already own and run another business, but it's not E commerce. It's very service based business, very, very different mindset, different model, difference in our day to day operations. And I've always wanted to try my hand at a product based business, and E commerce obviously made, made the most sense, and over the years, I had dabbled in the more, let's say, well known or traditional dropship model, which is plug into Aliexpress with a with a very, very simple Shopify website and run some cold traffic, Facebook ads and hope for The best. There wasn't really much of a a business strategy behind it. It was very much, well, try and make as many sales as you can before your site gets shut down, or your ads get shut down because of the low quality products, or before Shopify says, you know, we're banning you from Shopify because the products aren't high quality enough, or your business just pieces out because it takes three weeks for something to get delivered from from China or from somewhere else in Asia, and customers in the UK and in the US as well, where I was selling had just just not used to that anymore. We and you could say, on one hand, it's because we're all becoming more and more impatient with quick access to things on the internet. But actually, I don't think it's an impatient I don't think it's a bad quality. We've just become used to our way of life in Europe, in all of Europe, I guess, and the US, where we expect deliveries within the day, or within two days, or I think we can probably be comfortable with three days. And I know, certainly for me, if something hasn't arrived in three or four days, I'm putting in a claim to say something's lost in the post that the post, he's stolen it, or someone's someone's nicked it from my front door. And you know, if the nor the norm, which used to be you've got to wait two weeks or three weeks for delivery, is so long gone now, when you're trying to sell that as a value proposition with the dropship business, even though the product is low cost. And you think, Well, yeah, I'm only paying a few pounds or a few dollars for this, and so I'm happy to wait three weeks. I don't think that works anymore. So that was what I was doing before I joined DSC or dropship unlock, which was dabbling in this sort of long delivery time Chinese product, drop, shipping, model, and I don't want to say too much bad stuff about it, because I did make some money. I made some sales from it, but very, very quickly you learn it's just not sustainable, because you're selling things for 20, $30 if that, and your refund rate is quite high, because, like I said, Someone's waiting three weeks and two weeks in, they're like, Well, no, I'm not waiting any longer. And you're, you know, you're really stuck there, because the product is on its way, so the customer will get it in a few days time, but they're now asking for a refund. So you're trying to battle with a customer constantly saying, Well, can you give it another week? And they're like, Well, no, I can now just go and get it from my local store or whatever. So constantly end up in this vicious cycle of sale, refund, sale, refund, and then the worst thing is, if they get the product it's faulty, you have to refund it anyway, because there's just no point in getting it sent back to China, where it comes from, because it's just going to cost you more money. So you end up in this perpetual loop of refunds and bad customer service, not intentional, bad customer service, but it just ends up being bad customer service. And I did that probably on two or three websites. I thought every time I launched a new dropship website, I was like, Well, this one's going to be better. This one's going to be better. Of course, it's always the same same old story. You know, I was, I was always interested in in doing it better. And that's when I came across DSU and home turf advantage and the business model, which seemed more like a real business and not just like a bit of a get rich quick scheme or a hobby. Yeah, it's actually a very similar story that we both share Suraj in. So that's the dropshipping model that you sort of first get presented with. But there are some difficulties. And long term, it's a difficult business to run because we are reliant on our supplier quality and the product quality, and if they're not there, we're often left to pick up the pieces. So But anyway, I want to get into like, the challenges that you are facing on a day. Today, because you've got your other business that's up and running. So I wonder why, what was it in your mind that really pushed you towards wanting an E commerce business in the first place? What were the sort of challenges you were facing, and what was leading you to be inspired to build another online business? Yeah, it's a great question, James. I think one of the driving forces was, as an entrepreneur, you always want to try and explore more revenue streams, and you're kind of never satisfied, right? You always want more. And that's not coming from a place of greed. It's coming from a place and I really like this, this phrase, this is a quote I think I'm going to credit to the right person. It was a Mahatma Gandhi quote from way back, you know, long before I knew us around, and he said, you should live your life with a healthy amount of discontent, and that's a really fine line between living a greedy life and always wanting more more more, but having a healthy level of discontent. And I think I really resonated with that, or at least I convinced myself that I wasn't greedy. I was just healthily discontent with what I had, and I always wanted to improve. I always wanted to test myself and want that little bit more and take the next step in my business. And for me, from a personal challenge, it was, Can I do what I did with my service business, with an E commerce business, and it was something that always piqued my interest. It was something that always I was sort of fascinated by, but had eluded me. I was really keen to kind of test myself, create a new revenue stream for myself and for my business, and kind of prove just to myself. I didn't really I was at a stage in life. I didn't really need to prove it to anyone else. Just wanted to prove to myself. Could I do this? Was it a fluke with my service business, or can I can I do this again and do the principles of business apply in both models? And of course, you have the lifestyle side of things as well, right? You always want to hedge your bets against something not working out. So if my current business started to not work anymore, or to drop, or if something were to happen there, I always wanted, almost like an insurance policy or a backup revenue stream to fall back on. And that was always my motivation. It was never coming from a place of, I just want more money. I want more recognition. It was nothing like that at all. Was very much a I just want to challenge myself, keep my mind active and not get complacent with what I was currently doing from a more relatable perspective. I guess I also wanted ways to explore not having to work as much anymore or have the ability to make different types of decisions. And you know, that's always been in my as a business owner, as an entrepreneur. It's always been sort of the core of my My why is that flexibility, that freedom, being able to make decisions, not based on your finances, or your nine to five or your, you know, other sort of day to day life, things that are going on in everyone's lives. So yeah, it wasn't so much like a challenge where I was, you know, desperate for some money or anything like that, to to start a new business or desperate to quit my job. It was very much challenge myself and see, see what happens. Yeah, I love that. I can relate to that on so many different levels. Because I think the quote about seeking discontent, a healthy level of discontent, is fantastic, because you I mean that is us as entrepreneurs. We're always striving. We're always unless we are, certainly, for me, unless I'm making progress in some direction, I feel that I'm going backwards. I feel like I'm stagnating, whether that's professionally or, you know, developmentally, like whatever, if I'm not learning, if I'm not kind of growing something in some way, I feel like, what am I doing? I'm just standing still. And actually, I think it kind of points to this misconception in society that a lot of people strive to, you know, work their entire careers and then retire and do nothing. And they kind of paint this as if, like, the nothingness is the the end goal. But you only need to speak to a few people that are kind of fresh into retirement. And sometimes they're like, it's not what I thought it was. I'm really, like, bored. I need a hobby. I need some and you realize it's because there, there's no progress happening. So it feels like for you, maybe it wasn't so much a move of, like desperation, like I need money, like you said right now, but it was a kind of a rumbling deep down, of like, there's, there's something there, entrepreneurial that's not satisfied yet, and I need to continue growing towards that. So I imagine a lot of our listeners hearing that are in a very similar situation and that you were in back then. Siraj, so feeling Stark or lacking freedom. I think autonomy is the keyword that comes up very frequently people lacking that autonomy, that control, as you put it, to make decisions. And so what was it then that if you weren't in kind of a dire situation, you know, it wasn't like make or. Break I've got to do something. It was like, actually, there's a that, there's something I need to fulfill here by doing this. What was it that ultimately pushed you to seek something different and end up joining us at the job ship unlocked masterclass, like, what was your dream for the future? Maybe we talked about kind of the pains and the struggles, but maybe you can paint a bit of a picture around what were you striving for? Yes, I was striving to build a real business, not just an anonymous online facade of a business, which I think a lot of these Fly By Night dropship sites are, because there's no real custom service. You don't really know where the product's coming from. There's no warranty, guarantees, none of those real things that in this part of the world we expect when we buy products, there's a certain level of quality, certain level of customer care before and after you buy something. And the business that I was running was a real UK business with real UK customers, with real customer service and real people behind it, and I was striving to build that type of realness with a dropship business. I think maybe it was a misconception of mine that a dropship business wasn't really a real, sustainable growth type of business. It was kind of a side hustle. I think I'd always seen that, and my perception of drop shipping was always that it was, it was a side hustle. You could never make drop shipping or E commerce your main business unless you know your Amazon or Etsy or not on the high street or one of the major brands, Wayfair or whatever. And that's where I was kind of really intrigued. I was like, how, how are people doing this for real and not treating it like a side hustle? And and there was a time in my in my sort of entrepreneurial career, where I really related to the whole side hustle culture and all the hustle culture in general, and as I matured and grew up, I was like, actually, I don't want a side hustle. I don't want something to be temporary, where I'm building it for a little bit of time and working on it, but it's not going to last. It's just there for now. And who knows what's going to happen in six months or 12 months time? I wanted to build something sustainable, something brandable, potentially something sellable, and that's really what I was looking for. So when I started seeing information about about dropship unlocked and building a real, sustainable business, real company, real service, real products. That's really what appealed to me. And I was like, yes, that speaks to me and my experience, and also what I would expect as a consumer when I'm buying something online. I don't want to buy something from a fly by night website that if something goes wrong, I next time I go to their website, the website's gone or I don't get a reply from the inquiry form, or the the customer service team, or the, if there is a customer service team, most times there's not. So that's really the concept I was striving for, and I was, I was really glad to see that how you were, were positioning DSU as a real UK based, sustainable business that you could grow that wasn't one of these sort of side hustle type businesses. Now, of course, you can still treat this as a quote, unquote side hustle, and you don't have to have it take over your life and take over your job and do everything. You can still have it both. There's no, no problems with that at all. But for me personally, I didn't want another side hustle that takes energy and you're just constantly spinning and you're in that vicious cycle all over again. So I was striving to build something that was meaningful that could be seen as a as an authority in in the industry, or the niche that I was going into, and that's really what I was trying to go for, is, is, is longevity in a business, not something that would come and go within six months. Yeah, there's a bit of a branding issue, sometimes around dropshipping, and thinking or assuming that it's going to be a fly by night business, that you can get rich quick and then you don't have to worry about customer service. You just take the money, take the orders. There's no people behind it. But as you found out by dabbling, you realize that if you are going to make serious money, you'll have to build a serious business that can look after customers, because ultimately we get rewarded for the value that we provide. So we've been on a similar path there. Suraj and I joined dropship or not, for very similar reasons. So we painted the picture of your values and your your value system behind why you wanted to build a sustainable e commerce business. Let's dive into the those initial few months that got you off the ground. What work were you putting in, and what was the reason why you think you were able to get up to 12,000 pounds in sales within the first couple of months. I'm a stickler for process. I'm a very much a process guy. I like rules. I like structure. I'm not like a freestyler, if that makes any sense, if there's any sort of if that definition makes sense in this context. I like doing things step by step by process, and that's what really appealed to me with the masterclass. So I the first few months, James, to answer your question, was just follow the process, unlearn what you think you know or think you you've learned before. And kind of put that to one side, don't be biasing yourself with things that you think should work, and you have to be really honest with yourself to say, well, all these things that I've tried before, like there's a reason I'm trying this now because those things didn't work. So you kind of have to let go of some of that ego and some of that pride to say, maybe I don't know everything. Maybe I don't know, or didn't know what I was doing, and I had some some luck along the way, but it wasn't enough to say that this is the right way of doing things. It was kind of just hobbling along and figuring out as you go along. So first few months of joining I just followed the process step by step. And like I said, that really speaks to me, and that appeals to me as a like my personality type, it just made sense for me. I didn't have to think. It took a lot of the decision fatigue out. For me. Took a lot of the thinking out. It was like, Okay, step one, just do that. Step two, just do that. Step three, and so on. And kind of trust the process. I know it's a really obvious cliche, like, just trust the system, trust the process, but I did do that. Kind of gave myself in I gave into the process. And I said, Okay, well, let's, let's go, go down this route. And, you know, on a day to day basis, it was just about speaking with suppliers research, a lot of lot of the upfront hard work research, which most people probably skip and they want to jump to the exciting stuff, which is, set up a website, get your ads running because you get excited. You get a bit of a dopamine hit when you see your own ad on your feed and you're like, oh, that's me. That's my ad. I put that thing together. I wrote that caption. Very cool. And then you see, you know, all the likes on it, and you see the stats on the back end, like, wow, I made that happen. I think that that process has to slow down a little bit if you want to do this properly. The first few months, it wasn't a matter of days or weeks. It was a number of months that I just did the groundwork all behind the scenes. Nothing overly exciting about running ads or building website. It was just research. It was spreadsheets, putting in ideas, running the numbers on Google search volume, on brand search volume, on looking at competitor websites, looking at all the brands, to see, well, who's selling directly, who's not selling directly, trying to rebuild more of a plan. And that's something I never really had done in the past. I just sort of thought of something and then jump straight to the website and adds pot without the research. It kind of hoped for the best. So the first few months of putting in the legwork, putting in that groundwork, whilst probably wasn't my most I wasn't the most excited at that stage, it's probably the most important, because everything that came afterwards kind of just fell into place more seamlessly. It made sense why you were building the website the way you were building it, or what you were putting on it. You weren't kind of making it up as you go along. You were just executing the plan and the research that you had done in the months before. So it was just about the idea generation, the data collection, the research, and then narrowing things down. At that point, I had to continually force myself not to skip over steps and skip over process, and that, I think, was just my just instinct to say, yep, that's fine. I don't need to do that. Well, I'll come back to that later, and I'm so glad I didn't do that, because there's a there is somewhat of a science behind following the process, and even though it may not feel like it at the time, that is the most important part, and it's and I'm just going to be super honest here, probably not the most fun or the exciting part, certainly for for me or someone like my personality, there might be other People who really love the research side of things and don't like the building website. I was the opposite, but the first few months were, were groundwork, and I don't want to pull the wool over anyone's eyes. You could have got to do the work. Got to put in the work at that stage for it to pay dividends afterwards. Don't do what I did, which was skip over that process, like I used to do previously, follow the process and, and you should be okay, yeah, you definitely did a fantastic job at that. And I think it's like, you know, if you're building this exciting new house that you want to focus on, like, the superficial stuff, the wall, what kind of the walls? What staircase am I going to put in? Like, what lighting fixtures? The foundations are just like the boring bit, aren't they, but ultimately, the rest of it doesn't stand a chance of surviving for the long term if you don't focus that time on kind of the initial boring grunt work like you You did initially to get it really working. So it's, um, yeah, I think it's interesting that you you started out as quickly as you did, because we had that conversation. Conversation early, and obviously you were, you know, straight to the races. You followed the process. It sounds like you really benefit from a step by step, process driven approach. Now, one of the big questions that people often have is, okay, you had some initial success, but did that then turn into a long term business? You know, do you have a sustainable business now? And so tell us sure what happened after that initial success? Did you continue your business? And what have the last I guess it would be like eight months now. What have they looked like in terms of growth and progress for you? Yeah. So in short, yes, and we've just launched my second website as well, just over a month ago, actually, well, coming up just two months ago, first of July, where we are right now, and loads of lessons along the way, so many lessons that you just can't anticipate, you can't predict, and things that kind of a bit of a curveball along the way as well, in terms of the decisions you made in that planning stage, in how you built your website and how you're running your ads, and the niche or the industry that you chose to go into. So lessons, weekly, daily, like all the time. So with that first business, like you said, I launched the website and the ads. Within the first two months, it hit just over 12,000 pounds in top line revenue, which is amazing. It was towards the end of the year last year, and that trend continued without doing too much else on that website, because the website is still the same website as it was last year. I haven't touched the theme, the look and the feel or anything like that. I just focused on small, smaller tweaks to the website, rather than like an overhaul or anything like that, and it's consistently hit the five to 7000 pound revenue a month mark since then, without too much extra effort. Now, at the time, I was hoping to scale that up to a lot more than five to 7000 regular a month, and I learned along the way, came across so many, so many more competitors, so many more brands that were I was then directly competing with in that industry, where the scalability at the budgets I was willing to put into the ads and into this project was kind of at that five to Seven, probably some months I had, I did a 10k month, and I realized that at the level of investment I was putting into my ads and the amount of competition and the level of the niche that I was in, there was a little bit of a ceiling there, unless I pivoted something in that niche, whether it was going a layer up or later down. And that was something like, very consciously decided to kind of let it be. I was very happy with team of one I have a VA basically does all the stock updates every week, the price updates, and the supplier sends through new products or products to take down. I just forward it on to her, and then she takes care of it for me. So it's it's hands off. And I think even then, a hands off business, generating between five to seven, sometimes 10k a month is pretty decent from a standing start. Eight months ago, all of those lessons that I learned from there, I then applied into a second store, and I was seeking out niches to explore and learned all the lessons that I did with the first website about which level of niche to be at, what type of product value to be at, what type of suppliers to find, how to look for competitors in a different way, with the different lens. The first time around, I was looking for my direct competitors, and you're almost looking at them without knowing what you're looking for. It turns out some of my direct competitors are like industry titans in in this first niche, and it's really hard to compete with them. A lot of the products I sell are sold at sort of major high street stores, and that's not a blocker at all. That shouldn't be a blocker to going into that niche. But I found that started to like I was struggling to compete with with that nevertheless still making a decent amount of sales every month. Let's not sort of brush aside five, 7k a month in revenue at a 30 35% margin is still a healthy little business there. But I thought, okay, rather than spending more time competing with people at a lower price point and trying to scale in an industry where there's already a lot of competition. Let me take what I've learned and try and find another niche and end up being somewhat related, not quite a direct up or down, but but related with far less competition, with at least double the average order value of of of the products. And that was me, sort of coming out of my limiting belief about the type and the value of the product that I think I could sell online. So that was a big lesson there. And also seeing people in the community, in the. Option community and not community having massive sales. And I was like, wow, I was happy with two to 300 pound average order value sales, and this folks doing 1000 pound average orders. So what's the difference? It was just about a mindset shift. So I also learned that at that level, there's far less competition. And the competition that was out there, for some reason just wasn't that their websites weren't great. It seemed like a much easier market to go into, and it seemed like the lower priced products had lots more competition. And again, saying that out loud, it's not surprising at all, right, because most people probably fall into that similar mindset to say, I can probably sell a 200 pound product or a 300 pound product, but as soon as you start getting into 1000 pound plus, you pound plus people's limiting beliefs kick in, and sort of, I kind of think I took a bit of advantage of that. That said this, in this new niche, there's just not as much competition. And that niche is is doing better than my first that store is doing better than my first one. Now only two months in consistently doing 10, 11,000 in the first two months, and it's got a lower budget on ads, but a higher average order value, a higher conversion rate on the website, all the metrics are like higher than the first store. So the reason I'm going into this in detail is I don't want to say that the first store was a failure or I wasn't able to scale it because then it was the wrong decision. It was the best decision to launch in that niche, and also the best decision, intentional decision, to kind of keep it at a certain level and not try to overextend myself to scale that one. Now what I'm learning with the second store, I can probably now start applying in that first store and go backwards a little bit and correct, course correct where I where I can there. So, long story short, the businesses continue. The business continues to grow. Now I have two websites running concurrently, one doing in the first two months, at least 10,000 in the first two months each. That's so if I'm looking at all my other screenings, 21,000 and we're not even finished on the on the second month yet. And the other stories, I'm kind of hands off. I'm not doing anything. The ads are not touching. I'm just leaving it as it is, and that's ticking along as well. So the scaling opportunity, I think, is now where I've got two stores. There is some crossover between them, but there are two very distinct brands, two different audiences. There are ways I can cross promote and potentially list products across both websites. So yeah, really exciting. And it's, you know, a year into my DSU journey, and I'm on my second store. So yeah, really excited for for the rest of this year, and now in going into next year as well. I love this. It's there's so many golden nuggets there to unpack, and I just want to make sure that we really like hammer home some of those, those lessons, because they're so valuable to anyone who's listening, or maybe a little bit earlier in their journey than you are now. Suraj, so I think the first thing that stands out to me from what you just said, was there's less competition at the top. You you had, like many of us do, when we first start, a limiting belief over the value of products that someone on the internet would buy from you. And ultimately, it almost comes down to, like a self belief issue. If you think about it like we can take all the metrics and the E commerce stuff, it's almost like, do I believe that I can I'm worthy enough to sell something of that high value on the internet. And as soon as you crush through that limiting belief barrier, you realize so many people didn't ever bother to get past it. That's why, if you go further down, and then you extrapolate down that graph, you get to, like, the 10 pound phone cases. How much competition is there in that market? Because everybody believes that they're worth so that, you know, a 10 pound or a $10 phone case. So the further you go up the chain, we start getting nervous, and we start thinking, why would someone buy a 4k or an 8k but we see it every day now in the dropship unlocked community, screenshots of people being like, I just closed a 10k order, and that was for one product with one email to one customer. So I love the fact that that you've broken through that limiting belief. And also, the other thing I think that's so important from what you just said, is you took action, even though it was maybe an imperfect action on that first store because of all the lessons you've learned from it, and to your own admission, you've said that, you know, it wasn't perfect set up, but you've applied those learnings to the next one, and actually the first one hasn't shut down. You've got that running as a nice, profitable little business, and so therefore, it became a stepping stone in your journey, right? Yeah, it doesn't need to be perfect. You know, you're absolutely right. There's so a lot of a lot of times, we want that perfection, and won't launch a website until it's perfect. But you really have to get into your head that it's progress over perfection, and it has to be progress over perfection if it means having a 7k a month income on an imperfect website, I will bite your hand off every day of the week. And I'm sure lots of people will say, hey, all right, we won't be perfect. It'll be rough around the edges for a couple of years. It'll still generate you best part of 10k a month. Um, like you wouldn't say no, and you shouldn't say no to that. So massive lesson there, for sure. And speaking of bigger sales, you're absolutely right. Louis, now, two months into this new store, when I see the Shopify notification ping up on my phone or my email and it said, you know, New Order, 999, or 850, or 1200 it's normal. And the shift in mindset on my first store, when I see a ping bar notification for my first store saying, new sale, 273 pounds, I'm like, Oh, it's a small one. And it's such a shift. Because six months ago I was like, Yes, 250 pound sale result get in, and now it's like, oh, it's only 250 pounds. This is a small one. So you really change the way you look at this, this business model, and and I can feel myself now, and that's not quite again. I that three sounds horrible saying it out loud sounds ungrateful, like I'm super grateful for all these sales. But this is the the unlocking of of that mindset that if you can do it for 200 pounds and get excited, you can do it for 800 pounds, you can do it for 800 pounds, you can do it for for 2000 pounds. And as we speak, as we record this, I am literally just waiting on a call to close a a 10,000 pound sale for for my second store. And that will double this month's revenue. And that was, I shared this in the community a few days ago. It was an abandoned checkout, and I'm just doing a bit of manual follow up with that customer, because it's a custom, custom product, and it's a big custom it's a it's a high profile celebrity customer whose agent has reached out through the website. And so this website, the ads, launched two months ago. The time frame in which you can get success once you've applied all those lessons is so much shorter as well. And as I'm going off on a tangent here, but just to build and emphasize on what you said, Liz, about the mindset, it's so normal now to see 1000 pound sale, and dare I say anything less is like doesn't feel as it just feels different. Just feels different. I don't want to put it. I don't want to say that it's, it's bad or it's not bad at all. There's something about it hard to sort of put it into words, but the mindset shift is, is phenomenal, and it's, it's powerful when you recognize that as well. I think it's the healthy discontent coming in again, isn't it? You've now your your ceiling is now previously. You know what your floor is now where your ceiling was previously. You You're previously looking up to those two, 300 pound sales, and now you're like, well, that's just baseline. You know that's that's normalized, that this is always seeking the next level, the progress, the discontent and so good luck on that 10,000 pound sale. Or if your phone rings right now and you just suddenly disconnect from the podcast, I won't be offended you go ahead. People like to hear numbers Suraj to hear about what's possible. So in terms of overall revenue on both stores that you've generated so far, where are we sitting at now? Yeah, so we're sitting at just shy of the 80k about across two stores and the first store since launched, about 60 odd 1000, give or take. So on average, five to 7000 a month. We've had some better months to top it up. And the new store from like, just day.it did 11 and a half in the first month so far. I'm looking at it right now, just here on my other other screen, and yeah, we're on we're on 21,110 pounds. We're not through the second month yet, so still a week or so to go with the time recording. So I would expect that one now, based on the current conversion rate, based on all my metrics here, I would anticipate, or project that to hit the 25k mark, which is 12 and a half an average per month in the first two months, going into a busy q4 shopping season. So who knows where this will end up, but overall, between two sides 100 and I can definitely see where I want to now, put more investment, put more effort in the second store, which has already outdone my first store by a considerable amount, and not just on the financials, but just looking at it over here, I'm comparing side by side things like the online store conversion rate, the bounce rate, the average order value. So I'm looking at it right now. The average order value is 55% more on my second store than it is on my first store. My conversion rate is 12 cents higher on my second store than it is on my first store. My total sales in the last two months are 458% higher on my second store than my first store, the checkout conversion, the returning customer rate, all of the key metrics that you look at will success or that define the success on a store all pointing in the right direction. So now that gives me a real roadmap for the rest of the year. Say, where am I putting more investment, more time, more effort, more attention? Because I now know where, where those the results are going to come from. Yeah, the trajectory of. Second store sounds exciting, and I think that's going to very quickly sail past your first store and become your primary ecommerce generating store, exactly. And that's really okay, I don't I guess, being honest and transparent with you, the first couple of months I was building up this new store and then researching it, I kind of felt a bit like a traitor to my first store. I felt a bit bad for the first Yes, first one your baby, right? You're always so proud of it, even though it might not have been perfect, like a little bit of an ugly child, but you still love it. You still be still proud of it. So I did feel a bit bad for that first store. But actually, you kind of break through that when you start seeing the second store outperform. Yeah, exactly. And with the profits from the first store, as long as it's kind of sustainable, you can hire somebody to manage it and give it the tender love and care that it deserves, whilst you focus your efforts on where the real revenue is going to start to come from. It's the 8020 and every time that 8020 starts to shift in the favor of like, actually, there's even more leverage in this area. So throughout your journey. I mean, there's so many great lessons here. Are there any real, like, Aha, moments that were the kind of pivotal points, whether they're learnings from the community or the program or just from your own you know, lessons and mistakes along the way that accelerated you to help you break through to those next levels. Because I can see a clear staircase happening here in that you've leveled up several times and will continue to do so anything that you can pinpoint that that happened along the way, so many things Lewis from supply conversations to add strategies to shiny wall syndrome with Shopify apps and Shopify plugins to enhance Your store, which ultimately ended up doing more harm than good, and just that something that really I had to learn to be better at, is to stop poking around and kind of just let things be. I always wanted to try and tweak something and see a new Shopify app that will, you know, help you do this on your store, or improve this, this and improve that. So I'd install it, and of course, that would then potentially the click through rate of product or an Add to Cart. And I was constantly experimenting. And whilst that is a a good principle to constantly be experimenting, I found that I was maybe doing it too soon on that store with too little traffic or not enough scale there to to be able to experiment without hurting things. And perhaps the lesson there is that you're going to experiment, do it on a on an AB test or a subset, don't go and just change everything on your store every week. And again, all these lessons are potentially the reasons why that first straw kind of plateaued a little bit. You know, I would change the ads very regularly. I would change the color of the buttons very regularly. And I'll get, kind of get sucked into conversion rate optimization and wanting to in the name, in the spirit of scaling, but kind of doing myself a disservice in the process. So what the big aha moment I had over the last eight months? You know, running the stores is very much like, give it some time. Be patient and patience, I guess, if we're to sum it up in a word, is, is patience. I don't see myself as a patient person. I I like speed. I like efficiency. I like doing things quickly. There is a time and place for that. And I think as you mature and as you, as you grow and learn more lessons in this, this type of business, you learn the lesson very, very quickly when you, when you experiment too much and it hurts you. And I think that's something that I wasn't experienced in in my service business, which is very different. You can experiment. You can change things around. It doesn't really impact it, like the next day, you know, with ads, with business search, because I think it's an interesting observation, because we're almost rewarded when we first start a business to by changing the actions that we've taken. So instead of the the nine to five job, suddenly, if we change the way we do everything, suddenly we've got a business in place. And then we we sort of teach ourselves that taking those actions was the right thing to do. But I certainly learned that if I was just to keep things simple and focus on the priorities that made the biggest difference. But what would you say then, from your learning so fast, Suraj, were the the absolute priorities. So to avoid the distractions, what would you just focus on to maintain the growth that you've seen so far in terms of the day to day running of the websites for the Google ads, it would be set it and forget it, at least for a little while. Don't tinker with it. After 48 hours, if nothing's happened, I still get the urge if something, if I haven't had a sale every day now at least, I'm panicking. And I'm like, haven't heard the ding today. I bet you my account's been suspended. So you get into a bit of panic. Let me go in and change the ads. Let me go in, up the budget, and you go in and, of course, nothing's wrong. It's just the flow of things. I think that the biggest priority there. Is, is let in, certainly in terms of Google ads, let the algorithm do its work, let it figure itself out, and keep it simple. I can't stress that enough, and that's something that is hard for me to also get my head around, or was hard to get my head around with my first store, lots of different types of Pmax campaigns. I was trying to do this, trying to do that, trying to do this. My second store. I have 1p max campaign on a small budget, and I know what the best seller is, and I'm just doubling down on that. So it's, it's just about simplicity, or keeping it consistently simple. I think if I had to boil it down to one thing is success comes down to simple consistency. Don't don't change things regularly. Don't change things often. You're right, James, we get sometimes sucked into this take action like do something reward based model, and you if you're not taking action, you're not doing anything. I've actually found at us, once you get to a certain level, it's the opposite. And you don't want to be taking action for the sake of taking action. You want to do it very intentionally, very purposefully, and be mindful of the type of action you're taking. And sure, take action, but take the right action. Yeah, I think that has an impact on us as entrepreneurs, emotionally as well, doesn't it? In that it creates stability, and we're not going to bed thinking, oh god, I've got so many things I need to tinker with and change tomorrow, and then, like, my business will be up, and then it's down. Actually, you want that stability, and you you want that kind of certainty, and that actually don't need to touch anything. And like you say, don't panic if the numbers are a little bit down, because the chances are next week, they'll be disproportionately high, and everything kind of just averages out eventually. So beyond numbers specifically, I want to zoom out a little bit if we can Suraj and just talk about your life outside of business. How has the success of your early 2e commerce businesses impacted your life personally, and has that freedom and the flexibility that you've gained, because I know that was something that you were searching for, and when looking to launch a business like this. What's that allowed you to do in my life? I'm loving working on these two stores right now, and I'm doing it. I'm working on it as much as I can. I don't feel the need right now to be so hands off that I just want to go and sit on a beach somewhere, like I'm in that excited phase of this journey again, where I want to be really hands on. I want to learn everything there is, to learn about this new industry and position this website as a real authority or expert in this space, and make it more of a resource for consumers, rather than just an e commerce website. But in terms of, you know, the opportunities that this brings, I can now invest in more things, in more branding, in more ads, in different types of marketing, and you very quickly learn that the ads are great and the ads are a surefire way of making sales. There are other opportunities to sponsor an event, or to do some more traditional, offline marketing, where you know your audience is going to be and they're a hungry audience. They're a captive audience. So looking at opportunities there, and those are the type of thing in business I've always wanted to do like, and I say I get like, sponsor an event that's related to my industry. I always used to when I, when I run my my Spartan Races and compete at events, I always look at the sponsors, and I was like, wow. Like, they, they must have made it, because they're at this event, and they, you know, giving away free samples of something where they've got their product on display, and you can see people just buying these things. Like, constantly, always wanted to do something like that, and have a business that is not just online, but has an offline presence in a way as well. And that doesn't mean like a high street shop or anything, but events or you can sponsor things where you've got your brand constantly in people's faces who are your target audience, and that's the kind of thing that these two businesses have allowed me now to explore. Now from a lifestyle perspective, it never gets old when you are driving and you get out the car and you see two sales that come through, or, you know, you just popped out to get a coffee, or you've just woken up, or you're doing something totally unrelated to your work, and you see a sale come in. Happens all the time, and the best time it happens is on the weekend, when you're completely disconnected. You're kind of switched off from from work mindset, and you know you're out with your family, or you're doing something fun with friends, and the ding goes off on your phone, or the ping goes hovering your bone, and you see that you've made a big sale, that dopamine here, and that that part of the lifestyle never gets old. I've still been I've always been quite good at being able to just disconnect a little bit from work and live a bit of the lifestyle. So that hasn't stopped. But. What this allows me to do is just amplify that and continue that going forward. So with this new store, the way it's going, I would expect me to be able to hire more people, and that's part of the dream that that I have when I started a business, hire more staff, be able to be a bit more hands off, which is ironic, because I genuinely love being hands on. Genuinely love doing a lot of the work. I remember Lewis when we met earlier this year. He said, you know, is your VA now doing everything for you, the orders and the suppliers so well, no, intentionally, I want to still do some of those things myself, not necessarily because I should or because it's the best use of my time, but because I genuinely enjoy it, and that keeps me in tune with with what's going on, and that's how I can keep my finger on the pulse in the business. A lot of the lower value tasks, updating prices and product stock and things like that, sure, I outsource that. But a lot of the business type of things that I genuinely enjoy doing, and I'd like to think I'm really good at, that's where I'm still involved, and that's also the lifestyle that I wanted out of these businesses, is to be involved, but in the bits that I want to be involved in, and again, have that freedom of choice of what type of work that you do in your business, not just all the work, because you have to do it. It's interesting that the reward that you get from your businesses now that you're running it is tied to the kind of the reason you started in the first place, which you mentioned, was around running a serious business that's, you know, got some real credibility, and in developing yourself personally, because you've got that entrepreneurial mindset of constantly wanting to grow. And the reward comes from just developing and growing as a person. So no doubt your mindset will have shifted and grown over the last year since you very got started with this new type of E commerce. I want to dive into how your mindset has evolved, and so people listening can understand what where their mindset would need to shift in order to get to the same level of success. What would you say the biggest shifts that you've seen in your mindset, from being before you started this business to where you are today? A lot of it, like we spoke about earlier, is about that belief of what you can sell online and what it takes to sell that online. I mean, I think you have to let go of maybe the thought that you potentially or perhaps wouldn't buy this product online, or you wouldn't spend this money online, that's okay. No one's asking you to be your own customer, and I know that helps to be able to empathize and connect with your audience, if you can put yourself in the shoes of your customer, but you don't have to be the customer the products I sell. I'm not in the market for these products myself, and that's okay. You don't have to be just because you're selling something or you're building something, doesn't mean you have to be the customer, as long as you can empathize with that customer and know their pain points and know what problems that they need solving with your product, and it might not be a problem, per se. Might be a hobby, it might be a leisure activity, so not necessarily a problem, by like, a definition of a real problem, as long as you can get your mindset across that hurdle, that there is someone out there who will buy this product, that's, I think, the biggest hurdle I was able to overcome my first store. It was a very or it is a very obvious product that, you know, people buy the second one, it's a lot more niche, not more expensive, and that's where I really had to push through that boundary of my own mindset, say, or limitation, where I wouldn't potentially buy this product online. And I know that's a really bold statement to say, but doesn't mean someone else wouldn't. Yeah, I think that's important to remember you're not always your target market, and that's okay. If we can disconnect from that, we can still run a successful business and not have to be the end consumer ourselves. And that's fantastic, liberating realization, isn't it? I know that from from this conversation, you've clearly grown, not just as a business financially, but also as an entrepreneur, Sir, actually, since we've last even spoken, what would you say is the biggest change in yourself that you recognize as a business owner over the last eight months? Like, how's your confidence evolved? And what are you maybe doing differently now as a result of that, compared to when you first started? Yeah, covid is definitely a big thing. I mean, like, like I said, I've always had a business for the last 1210, 12 years or so, so I've known what it takes to run a business and manage a small team, that this is like, I've treated this as if I'm starting from scratch, as if I knew nothing, and of course, applying some of the lessons and the principles that I built my first business with, but With with this, the confidence has grown over the last year of being able to be in the product business, which I've always wanted to experiment with, and always wanted to try, the confidence in the knowledge that I know I now understand the business model better. I understand what people are looking for online, a bit, a bit about. Human psychology as well. So really important to understand how and why people buy on the internet and the behavior, the patterns to look out for. I've also developed a really keen eye for look how I look at other websites. It's almost like you have this kind of X ray vision when I see an ad on on my feed or on Google, and if I'm in, if I'm in wearing my consumer hat or something, I can't switch off that X ray vision anymore, which is a blessing and a curse at the same time, because sometimes I just want to buy something, but then I'm looking at all of the things to say, Well, are they doing this? Are they doing that? Are they doing that? My mom was like, overly critical of the random website where I just want to buy the product. And I'm kind of, you know, looking at all the elements of the website. They have the right trust signals. Do they have this? What? How are they doing this? And learning as I'm as I'm going through to say, Oh, that's really cool. I'm going to try and look into that for my store, because it's helping me to make a purchase as a consumer from this other website. I think that's the the thing I've noticed in myself the most is having a really keen eye for great websites, for great customer user experience on a website, and the aftercare as well. So when I buy something now, if I bought something three months ago, and I said it to my wife just the other day, I was like, that's really smart. I bought something that was it was like a subscription for something, and it was a three month supply of this product. And about two months in, I got an email from that company saying, Hey, Sarah, you've used our product for two months now. You've got one month more to go. You should start thinking about a month four to six. And to help you out, here's a discount code. If you buy now in your third month, you can get 5% off or 10% off whatever it was for the next three month batch of this thing that I'm buying. And I looked at it and I would never have seen like behind the curtain of that email before. And now I looked at it from a totally different lens, and I was like, I know exactly what they're doing. And I know someone decided at some point to say, Yeah, let's send a filter. Let's put a filter in our email system to say, if someone buys a three month product up to 60 days, send them an email with an offer for them to re repurchase, and it's getting that customer to come back again and repeat, repeat purchases. So I'm looking at everything through a different lens, and that's it's amazing to see, because I then thought about that and I was like, which products on my site can I do that with to get repeat purchases? So, yeah, amazing. It's funny, everything becomes a lesson, doesn't it? There's like, I used to tell this to myself that, like, once you realize everything is a teacher, everyone around you is a teacher, and you're obviously on this path of continual learning, Suraj, which comes across really strongly, and you're able to put ego to one side, because you've learned a hell of a lot, even up the last last year, 12 years in your previous business, but you're still able to just look at something for the first time and take it on board, learn from it, and move again. So yeah, I mean, that's admirable. I think people can take a lot away because you've achieved so much so far, and I know you're going to go going to go on to achieve even more moving forward. Something that I want to dive into for people to take away is how they can also adopt that mindset of continually learning, and whether support plays a part in that, to know you're very active in our community and at the in person events, and so yeah, how do you adopt that mindset of continual learning? And does support play a role in that? Yeah, so the concept of this continual learning and always being a student, always being always recognizing that you don't know everything, it's a process. You can't learn everything in a week or in a month, and being really comfortable that you will likely never know everything, like everything is a teacher. I really like that. Every experience you learn something from and not wanting to speed up or expedite that process, being very comfortable that it's a you're a lifelong student, and that won't ever stop. And if you think there's a time and place where you think, right now today, I know everything, it's a wild goose chase. It's never going to come. That day will never come. And you really have to just be so comfortable knowing that tomorrow I might learn something I'd never even heard of today. And that's okay, because it's never too late to then apply that one. It's never too late to learn something new or course correct if you did something wrong previously. And that's that's a really profound thing that I've learned, is there's no end to this. It's constant. And that's not an overwhelming way. That's not in a way to fear monger or. Scare people off, but it's there is always more to learn in this business, in any any business, so don't expect to learn everything overnight. The support that comes with with the dropship unlocked masterclass, of course, is a massive element to all of that. That's where a lot of the learning and the lessons and the the changes in mindset come from learning from others. I would also encourage everyone to go and do your own research as well. You know, you should be reading blogs, reading articles. You should be following other people as well, getting different perspectives. And I think that's really what I've done a lot this last year, is, you know, whilst being a really active member of of the DSU community and really taking that as my model for the business, watching YouTube videos, watching reading articles and blogs from other marketing agencies, from other people, running ads, and very quickly, you start to learn what is good information, what is potentially not very good information, and experiment a bit yourself. So, yeah, that's been a that's something I would say is the biggest mindset shift is be comfortable with constantly learning different sources, different types of education as well. It's not just about one, one source of of truth. Look around, look around you, there's lessons everywhere, and we're on the internet for crying out loud. You can't escape content. You can't escape information. I guess the hard part is filtering that from the good to the bad, that's the skill, isn't it? Filtering. And I love that you've adopted that ethos of continual learning and also recognizing that there are different sources of information and that it's a bit of a choose your own adventure. Choose your own journey. You know, business, there are multiple routes and paths through to the same end result of a successful business. And so think what people value coming into a program like dropship unlocked that we found initially, is they want certainty and they want a clear path, because there is so much noise out there. So actually, at the beginning of the journey, the kind of mentorship that we've learned benefits our members the most is to actually be quite direct and say, Well, this is a proven path. Now, there are many other paths, but this is a proven one, and you can follow this, and you'll get to the point where you're up and running, making sales, but you're, you're now in a position, Suraj, where I've almost seen the evolution, where you're, you're often giving a lot back to the community as well, like you have become both the mentee and the mentor in this right? You're, you know, you're helping drop down the ladder for the people who are just beginning, but you yourself are also absorbing information, not just from us, but from all sources. You know, we bring in, like expert guests every month now, into the dropship unlocked community on SEO or email marketing or ad strategy, because we know we can't stagnate like this. Industry is evolving. It's fast moving, so we want to be at the forefront. So what role would you say continued mentorship has played in your journey, from how it was at the beginning, but probably evolved quite a bit to what you seek in terms of mentorship now. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I have to always remind myself to consume education and consume information intentionally, not just passively scrolling or or, you know, reading an email that I get, but seeking it out. And you have to remind I have to keep reminding myself I still don't know everything, and I'm still a novice at this right? Like, yes, I'm doing some good numbers, but it still pales in comparison to what the opportunity is and where we can take this thing. So I'm constantly seeking out education through the podcast. I typically plug my phone, and even if it's a quick 30 minute journey, I'll just listen to one of your podcasts at 1.7 speed or something on Spotify, and it sounds like you're just flying through that conversation, but it makes sense that you're still completely understandable. But that's how I listen to a lot of content. Is in short space of time. Rather than saying, Well, I've only got 20 minutes I can start, I've already finished, you know, 40 minute episode, if I'm watching that, if I'm listening to that at 2x speed. So I still consume the content, and it is still kind of sinks in, even though it sounds like in fast forward mode. But in terms of the support of the community, yeah, really consciously being there and bookmarking things that I want to read, and carving out some time every week to go and listen to one of these expert series if I can't make it on on the live call. And I listen to a few of those, I really love some of the latest episodes of the podcast that you guys have done. And I look forward to when I'm in the car, because I know I can get in a sneaky little episode or two, at least, or wherever, wherever I'm going, and I have a some dedicated time every week to go in and look at some questions and learn from them, because chances are, I've also had either the same experience or I will. To learn from the answers for that question. I spend time watching videos every week, so I have a folder in my inbox to say, you know, like education, and I try and fly through those emails which are either newsletters or YouTube videos that I've saved and bookmarked for later. And I don't always have to implement something I learned from them. It's just about soaking it in and understanding things from a different perspective. And what I'm finding is, even though I may not implement everything I learn, I can talk the talk, and I can understand what's going on, and I can, when I'm interpreting my own data, I'm able to interpret it much better, yeah, because you've got that filter mechanism so you're constantly learning from the right sources, and then you can implement that. You probably feel like Lewis and I are speaking really slowly now, because you're used to it being on two time speed. When I listen to your podcast at regular speed, it does, yeah, it feels kind of slow. So I'm like, I mean, even if I'm not in a rush, I have to listen to things at least 1.5x now, because it's like the the norm voice that I'm hearing when I'm listening to you both Exactly. It's now that, it's now the norm, so I'll try and speed things up for you, sir, so you can stay with me. But no, it's, it's great to hear that you're listening in and learning a lot. You know, even a year in, it's just a continual learning process, which is what Lewis and I are still going on our own journeys as well, learning as well. So it's a, it's a continual process. But now that you've hit this this new level of success, and you've got 100k mark now across both stores. And what are your next goals now in mind for like, the next six to 12 months, where do you see your business heading? Yes, I think this second store is very clearly a multi, six figure store. I've just got started the budget, and I'll happy to share this. My p max is literally on like eight pounds a day. It's a tiny little budget, and it's made. I'm getting double digit ROAs on GADS. I'm getting from organic sales as well. So it's, it's almost scary to say, Well, what will what would a 20 pound budget do to this website and the next six months? I would very, very comfortably expect this store to continue in its same trajectory. I think I would be able to apply some of the lessons and successes from the second store backwards to the first store to see where the gaps were, which may have explained some of the plateauing there, and really just looking at at ways to continue building the authority of this website. I know I said eight months ago I had no new plans to start a second store. Even today, I have no plans to start a third store. I really want to build on this one as much as I can. And that's really where I see the opportunity, if something, if an opportunity comes along, then sure we'll explore it. But for now, for the next six months and the rest of this year, certainly, it's to maximize the second store and keep things ticking along and streamline the business a bit a bit more as well. Yeah, it sounds like you're well on track to do that. Suraj, I wanted to ask outside of this the two businesses now, which you, I expect there to be significant growth with both businesses, but what excites you, personally, as a as a person outside of the businesses, about your own future that these businesses could enable into the future, like has your vision for what you want from Life changed? And if so, what does it what does it look like in the future, like? What would an ideal scenario be over the next few years, if these businesses really start to scale up as they very well can do with your within your control? Great question, and the answer actually hasn't changed. And that's, I think, the really key, that the why is still the same as it was 12 years ago, same as it was eight months ago, same as it was 25 years ago, when I first realized I didn't really want a nine to five job for me, it was all about and then this might sound really naive, but I was 11. I was naive. I was a kid. I just I didn't want to have to ask permission to somebody else if I can go on holiday with my family. And that was a situation I was in as a level kid. My parents had to ask permission. And I'm saying that in a really horrible way, right? Most people in a nine to five have to put in some some, you know, leave application, or whatever it is like, and you leave in the calendar to make sure it doesn't clash. I remember there was that situation when I was, when I was a kid, and I just didn't understand it. And I remember thinking at that time, what do you mean? Someone else said, you can't have the time off to go on holiday. Like, I just didn't understand it. And there was a kid like, I don't think any kid would really understand that concept. I remember thinking to my head. I remember saying it out loud to my parents, well, I'm really clever. I just want to get a job when I'm older. I don't have it. I don't have to ask anyone. And it's that naivety that kind of stuck. And I was like, Well, I don't I fundamentally don't believe that we should need some stranger's permission. Yes, they might be your boss. They don't know your family. They don't care for your family the way you do. What? Gives them the right to say, yes, Lewis, you can take five days and spend some time with your family. Well, what come off? It surely that's not a real thing. So 11 year old me was like that. Just that's alien, that you're doing something like my parents must be doing something wrong. Like, how has someone else got that control over your life? And I'm not saying everyone should go and quit their job and tell their boss to, you know, to do one because they didn't approve their annual leave or anything. But for me, fundamentally, that was my why. I didn't want to have to get permission from someone else. So the answer is, no, it doesn't change my vision, my fabric, that's still very much the ambition, and to maintain that ambition, I was able to achieve that to a degree with my business previously, and now it's just about maintaining that and not having to fall back or to go backwards. So it's more about building on that and being able to have more experiences, more fulfilling experiences, but largely, as might be a really boring answer, is to maintain the lifestyle that I've I've currently got. Don't need, you know, anything more than I currently have. I like experiences. I if I can go to some Formula One, races around the world, then that's me, me made. And that's my sort of lifestyle vision for this. And this business does allow me to do that. Just went to the Silverstone again this year, and it's little things like that. It's not some grand lifestyle plans. Don't, don't need to be living a life that is so slashy or anything like that. But being able to do the experiences that I want to do my family, and that's, that's me, mate. Yeah, you've learned how to enjoy the process. It's not all about the destination of where you're going. Actually enjoy that process of building the businesses and then, yeah, developing yourself in, you know, in the process. So for those that will be listening and will be considering getting started on their own drop shipping journey, moving away from that lovely, naive 11 year old realization of there's a perfect something perfect about that, not understanding the reason why you'd need to ask for leave, and not just conforming to where everyone else believes that that's normal, and still keeping hold of that. It is lovely that you've kept that, but say that somebody else is still having those similar thoughts, and they don't want to be told what to do for the rest of their life, and they like the idea of starting a business. What would your advice be to them before they get started? Don't do what I did and just quit your job without a backup plan. I I would encourage everyone to to replace your salary first, or at least a portion of your salary. You know, try and have, obviously, can't really give financial advice, but try and have six months worth of of buffer in your bank account. So in case you do have enough, get to the point where you've had enough and you just want to to walk away from a nine to five to pursue your dream of building a business you're not then having to deal with the added pressure of the money side of things. If you can take away that stress, then it's a huge burden off your shoulder, then you can focus, then on building a business, rather than having to scramble or hustle for a bit of cash that you don't want to be in that position, I would say start on the side, unless you work nights, if you do work nights, build your business in the daytime. If you work a regular nine to five, build your business in the evening. If you work 24 hours a day, manage Friday. Put a couple of hours in the weekend. Like there's no excuse, right? There's always a way around it if you if you really want it bad enough. And that's really what I would tell people who want it but haven't quite taken that first step is the first step doesn't have to be a leap of faith. It can be a small step. And even that's what I found when I did quit my job. I thought it was this major leap of faith, huge decision, and actually it just feels right. So it's not really a leap of faith. It's, it's a small step into something that you feel comfortable and confident in already. It's just, it's just the the difference of the decision. But, yeah, you know, being practical and pragmatic, I wouldn't advise people to say, right, everyone go and quit your job tomorrow morning. Build something on the side, if you can replace some of your income that you can live off, and then you'll be free to focus on the really important parts of building your own business. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's no I think I completely agree with the advice that you're given. Suraj, I think it's spot on. It's the journey I follow, and would recommend to anyone else. It's, you know, it's a case of getting yourself in the right mindset, learning initially, and then you can you can replace your business, your your income down the line. So now that you're in a position where you can look back on everything you've achieved so far, what would you say has been the most rewarding part of this entire journey? So perhaps there's been something that keeps you motivated all the time to continue growing your business. What's been the most rewarding part of it since you first started? I think just meeting so many new people in a who are building a different type of business that I used than I used to kind of network with in the past, like everyone I in my circles before was in the service business, but now, being surrounded by product based entrepreneurs and people who want to build e commerce businesses has been really, really rewarding because it's a whole new perspective on running a business. I also really do get satisfaction and reward from just being part of a community and sharing and giving back to that community as much as I can as well, but I genuinely am getting thrills out of learning something new and being being a novice and being a beginner again. I really, really enjoy it. And you kind of forget that feeling of newness when you've been doing something for 10 to 12 years. You kind of feel that you know everything there is to know about it. And it's very difficult to find things that you don't know about your old industry or your business here, I'm constantly like feeling, oh, wow, that's cool. I didn't know that. That's really cool. I feel like a student again, which is a really refreshing way to feel otherwise. I think that's why people get stuck in their in their careers. After 2030, years, there's no excitement. There's nothing new to learn, and that's where people start to get really bored. But I'm feeling that this is a really satisfying. Part of this journey is learning new things. And like you said, there is this industry is changing week by week, so there's always something new to learn, which is, it was great, keeps us on our toes. It's exciting, isn't it? We wouldn't want to be in a in a stagnant industry where nothing was changing and it was all going backwards, like at least, you know, all of these new technological advancements are things that we can adopt, embrace. And excites me every day we wake up, there's something new. You can do, some new challenge. And I think it, it ticks the box deep down, that entrepreneurial urge for seeking, like you said, constant discontent. I think that's really a an important point. So it this has been a fascinating conversation. Sarah, so much for our listeners to learn. And as we wrap up this conversation, I'm sure it won't be our last, we'd love to check back in with you. You know, further down the line is there anything else that you'd like to share with someone else who's maybe in the car or at the gym or out for a walk or, you know, walking the dog, listening to us right now, and has heard this conversation. But they might be just on the fence, you know, about starting, or they have that feeling of overwhelm around actually do anything you can think of, that you've learned that might just help them take that first leap to start their own journey to freedom, like you did. Yeah, and this, this is probably going to come across really direct, but I feel qualified enough to be direct. It's a phrase that one of my old bosses told me long time ago, and it's stuck. Talk less, do more. That's it. Talk less, do more. Try and get out of your own way of procrastinating and making things more complex for yourself and talking about it too much now that I get it that that advice comes with a caveat to say, learn enough to a certain threshold where you can feel comfortable enough to just start doing and taking that that action, as everyone says, But there comes a point where you can't learn any more, that will change what what action you can take. A lot of the learning comes with the doing. And I think that's a big, a big difference that you see with people who are having success in this business is they realize that there comes a point, a certain threshold, where they have to stop talking and just do I see that every I say in every community that I'm a part of, I see that in every business I set, every networking event that I'm there, a lot of people want to talk. A lot of people want to convince themselves that they are still learning through talking and procrastinating. But ultimately, that's what they're doing. They are procrastinating, and I would like everyone listening to hold up a mirror to themselves. And if, if it helps, let this be the mirror that I'm holding up to you. Stop talking. Get back to your desk. Drive safe if you're driving right now. But get back and just do minimize all the forums, the Facebook, Instagram, whatever else you're doing, it's not helping you any more than you think it is. Open up a new tab, sign up to Shopify trial and build something, and I promise you that will exponentially teach you more than reading 17 more blogs or listening to nine more podcasts this week, like there's only so much you can learn from learning, and the theory everything that you've learned listened to read will make 1000 times more sense when you actually put it into practice, very wise words, and you are testament to that advice of doing, taking imperfect action. Because look at what you learn. Learned just from creating your first store, the lessons you've learned. That's Golden Nugget advice that's come out of today's interview. I mean, it's it's been a really, really enjoyable chat again, sir, I know you're going to do fantastically with the second store. We hope that 10k order lands for you soon. We can't wait to see it inside the dropship unlocked community. And I just wanted to say personally, thank you again for not only joining us today, but sharing your journey, being so open, transparent, so wise, and sharing your the wisdom that you've you've learned along the way, but also giving that, you know, dropping down the ladder, helping other people on their journey, it doesn't go unnoticed. You're a really valued member of our community, and love to chatting with you today. So thank you. Appreciate it. Lewis and James, I appreciate you both for what you guys do in the community always, and I love being part of it. So thank you for creating this amazing space. What an incredible interview with Suraj. He speaks so well, and it's great to catch up with him and see how much success you've achieved over the last eight months, since our first podcast. His journey from those initial tentative steps into dropshipping to scaling his business in just eight months since our last conversation really illustrates the power of persistence and following a proven framework, he started where many of you are now, and with the right guidance and obviously a lot of persistence, he built a thriving business. So it's also testament to the ongoing support, which I like that. He mentioned that he really enjoys the dropship unlocked masterclass program. He's an active member, I think. He mentioned the coaching calls the community support really being a real, solid and incredibly valued member of the community has made a big difference in Suraj success? Yeah, absolutely. Suraj story just shows what's possible when you not only stick to the plan, but also embrace the challenges along the way, of which he had many I'm sure, is a perfect example of how our home turf advantage model can work for anyone who's willing to put in the effort. That's the crucial part. So if you've been listening today, and Suraj story resonates with you, a great place to start is by picking up my book, the home turf advantage, where you'll find a detailed guide on building your high ticket dropshipping business. You can grab your copy today@htabook.com enjoying the podcast, we'd love to hear from you leave a comment or a review, and we might just feature it on an upcoming episode, also for detailed show notes and resources. Head to dropship unlocked.com forward slash podcast. If you found value from any episode of this podcast, please take just 10 seconds to leave us a quick five star review on your podcast app of choice. It helps us more than you could imagine. And who knows, you might just hear your comments on the show. Thanks for being part of our community. Your support helps us keep delivering a new episode every week. Now it's that part of the podcast where we'll answer a question that's coming from a listener. So remember, if you want your question answered on an upcoming podcast episode, all you need to do is comment beneath the YouTube video version of this episode. So as well as getting your question answered in the comments, it may just be answered as well on an upcoming episode. So this week, the question has come in from rod, and rod has actually emailed us this question, and he said, I've been following the podcast for a while, but I'm still on the fence about starting my own business. What if I don't have a lot of technical skills or prior business experience, can I still succeed in high ticket dropshipping? Thanks for your question, Rod, and this is a concern we hear often, so I completely understand the hesitation that you might have. The truth is, high ticket dropshipping, especially through our program, is designed to be accessible to anyone who's willing to learn and take action. Take Suraj, for example, who we just interviewed in today's episode, he didn't have extensive technical experience when he first started. And look how far he's come. Now at dropship unlocked, we've developed a system that breaks everything down into simple, manageable steps, from choosing your niche to setting up your store to running ads and contacting suppliers. We guide you through it all. One of the biggest advantages of our program is that you're not doing this alone. You'll have access to our community, our twice weekly live coaching calls and ongoing mentorship. This support system is crucial for overcoming challenges and accelerating your progress. Many of our successful members started with little to no technical skills, so don't worry about that side of things. What they did have, though, was the willingness to learn and to take action. That's really the most important factor for success in this business. So if you're ready to take the plunge but still feel unsure, remember that our system is designed for people just like you trust the process. Take that first step, and you might be surprised at how quickly you can build a successful e commerce business. That's right, it's all about the attitude. So you don't need to have loads of skills. I started with no background in E commerce, but by following the step by step guidance, it shortcuts all of that learning, so you're able to get started with an E commerce business. So it's a great question, a common one as well, that we've. That we hear. So thank you, Rod. And it's now time to highlight a recent review for the podcast. So if you leave us a review, you might get a shout out on an upcoming episode. So we're going to highlight a review that's coming from an anonymous reviewer. They shared their thoughts in an apple podcast review, and they said, incredible podcast full of great information about the reality of starting your own business. I've listened to lots of these kind of podcasts, and this one is the best I found. Lewis and James are both relatable and interesting hosts, and I can't wait to listen to more episodes. Thank you so much for your review. Really glad to hear that you've been enjoying the podcast. If this episode resonated with you, consider sharing it with someone who might benefit from it. Your recommendations help us grow our community and continue delivering valuable content. So a quick share could make a big difference to someone you know. Thanks for joining us on this episode of the dropship unlocked podcast. We hope you're walking away with insights and inspiration to kickstart your E commerce journey. Grab a copy of my book, the home of turf advantage@htabook.com it's a distilled guide based on real experience to help you build your E commerce venture. Don't forget to hit the subscribe button for more strategies and success stories. And if you like what you heard, a five star review would mean the world to us, and you might just get a shout out on an upcoming episode. And finally, thank you for deciding to spend your time with us today. We can't wait to bring you more insights on the next episode of the dropship unlocked podcast. You.