The Dropship Unlocked Podcast

What We’d Do First if Starting Dropshipping Today (Episode 131)

• Lewis Smith & James Eardley • Season 1 • Episode 131

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🗣In this episode, Lewis Smith and James Eardley answer a great question from one of our listeners, Harvey: “If you could go back in time, how would you get started with the knowledge you know now?”

We break down the key first steps to launch your high-ticket dropshipping business with confidence. From validating your niche to building supplier relationships, this episode is packed with foundational advice to get you started on the right foot.

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Topics Discussed:

  • Validating Your Niche with Confidence: Why you should rely on data, not just gut feelings, when validating a product niche before launching your business.
  • Building Strong Supplier Relationships: The importance of securing at least 4 suppliers with strong margins to ensure you’re ready for success before running ads.
  • Adapting to Change in E-Commerce: Why it’s essential to stay open to learning and adapting to the ever-evolving e-commerce market.

Links and Resources Mentioned:

Key Takeaways:

  • Validate Before You Launch: Ensure there’s demand and proven interest in your niche using tools like Google Trends and competitor research.
  • Secure Strong Supplier Relationships: Having at least 4 suppliers with strong margins sets you up for success and keeps your business flexible.
  • Stay Open to Adapting: E-commerce is ever-evolving, so embrace change, keep learning, and adapt your strategies accordingly.

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★★★ Dropship Unlocked - Lewis Smith ★★★
How to Launch a UK Dropshipping Business Offering Next-Day Delivery...
...Even If You Don't Yet Know Which Products To Sell

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James Eardley:

Well, if I was starting dropshipping over again now, I would definitely, if I have my time again, I would be able to scale so much quicker, because I would that is so often overlooked when people start dropshipping, those two specific things are the first steps that determine your success or failure. If you're not willing to adapt, you're just going to end up getting left behind, and that's why you have to welcome to the dropship unlocked Podcast. I'm Louis Smith, the founder of dropship unlocked, and with me is our Client Success Coach James Eardley. Now when we're not recording podcast episodes or running our own e commerce businesses, you'll find us helping aspiring entrepreneurs launch their own high ticket drop shipping stores. So if you're ready to build your own six or even seven figure online business. Then head over to dropship unlocked.com forward slash, start now. Sit back, relax, and let's unlock your potential with the dropship unlocked podcast. Welcome back Today, we're going to be diving into a question that we've received from one of our listeners, Harvey. So Harvey commented on a recent YouTube video, and he said, If you could go back in time, how would you get started with the knowledge you know now and now? Because this is such a great question, we thought not just to answer it in the comment section, but also to dedicate an entire podcast episode, because we'd like to go back in time and travel back to the time before we'd start e commerce businesses, before we were doing anything other than being in a nine to five job, so we can break down those first steps that we would take. So we can make sure we're launching our high ticket drop shipping business on the best possible platform. So Lewis, let's start with the first thing you would do if starting over again. So if I was starting out again and assuming that I'd got my mindset straight, because I think that's the fundamental part that the rest of this will then be built upon. I realized that entrepreneurship is not a straightforward path. There will be bumps in the road ahead, and that I will have to take some kind of risk and put myself out there to have a go at creating a business. The first thing I'd want to do is try to stack the cards in my favor to maximize my chances of getting it right first time, whilst also being okay with the fact that I know there will probably be failure. There'll definitely be failures along the way. So anyone who tells you that it's just going to be smooth sailing and that you start a business, and that's the answer, is somewhat delusional, because you really have to know that you are going to make mistakes and there are going to be bumps along the way. But there are things we could do to stack the odds in our favor, and the first of which I would say are with this model of drop shipping, what I call the home turf advantage, I would validate the products that I'm thinking about selling. So the niche that I'm going to start going into and selling before I go and launch the business. So a lot of people make the mistake of assuming that the products that they're thinking of selling will sell. Well, they go off and they spent months building the business, they put everything together, they launch it, they run ads, and then nothing really happens. No one buys any products, and it's a bit of a failure. There are ways of mitigating against that from the beginning, and one of the ways is using data. We have access to so much data so we don't have to rely on gut feelings and instincts and word of mouth as to what we think will sell. Instead, you can research your niche, research the product using tools like Google Trends and doing competitor analysis, looking at other retailers out there to ensure that there's already demand for people before you commit to it. You know, you want to make sure that, if you're thinking when a coffee shop opens up in the High Street, one of these big brands like Starbucks or Costa or cafe near or pret or whatever, they usually open up where there's an existing coffee shop or more in the area, the town that I used to live in, I think, had like, four of them down the high street by the end of what, by the time I moved out of that area. And it's funny, it started with one who kind of took the initial risk that, like, I think there's demand there, and obviously they'll get rewarded for that, if there is because they'll get majority market share. But then after that, each of those stores set up, and they didn't set up, and then everybody, you know, the other one, then closed down because they stole all the share. Instead, they all had share of an existing and probably growing market demand, because more and more people were coming to the area because there was one of those coffee shops, and therefore they had selection. So this is how it works. It you grow the demand grows. You all benefit from that growing demand. And you can validate this stuff ahead of time, so that when you launch, you can be confident that there's a market and that there are already suppliers there who are willing to drop ship in your niche, and that it's not a. Case of the first person to get there, gets everything, because you can benefit from a growing market together. We don't to make 100,000 pound a year business. We only need a very small slither of a very big market. And so just determine that there's demand already in the market from the outset, and you hugely stack the odds in your favor, rule out the risk, or, very much minimize the risk of failure on your first attempt, but still be aware that you might not get it quite right first time. And that's okay. That's part of entrepreneurship, so a part of it's been open to failing when you when you get into it. So I wish I had known that before I first started, because the first few products I ever started, drop shipping, were almost based on a bit of a hunch or just a feeling, or a gut feeling that I had about the products that I was trying to sell, and I thought that there was going to be a market for them, because they had something innovative about the product that was just purely from my own opinion, not based on any data. And so inevitably, those drop shipping, the low ticket, Aliexpress style drop shipping that I tried initially, were complete failures, and had I been able to start now? I think Lois, those two things that you've you've touched on their mindset and niche validation are the two things that will determine your success or failure moving forward. So you have to do the research up front, just touching back on the mindset that you talked about, because that's so crucial. If you could go back to yourself before, how would you make sure that you instilled the right mindset into yourself to get started? Or do you feel like it was natural? Or do you think you'd be able to speak to that person and make sure they were approaching it in the right way? Yeah, I know we've talked about this before, and it's it's difficult as someone, I guess who you would class as an entrepreneur, to see the world through someone's eyes. That isn't now, because I feel like there's a jump you have to make. And I don't think people are born entrepreneurs or born not entrepreneurs. I do think that there's a transition you can make. You know, the way I think of it is like getting closer to the money. And it's is this concept that I don't I struggle to articulate. But like when I worked in my old profession, my job, I used to get a salary every month, and regardless of you know whether I did a great job at the role, or whether I wasn't that good that month, I'd still get a salary, and it just got sent to my bank account, not by any particular person, by some payroll department, a head office that was run by people who don't, you know, own the company. It was by people who were employees of the company. So it's all very faceless and very kind of anonymous. The the transfer of money down, and it's almost like there's an expectation that every month I'll just get that those funds, I think, to answer your point about the mindset shift into becoming an entrepreneur, the way I see it is almost getting closer to where the actual transaction of money happens. And I don't mean getting close to, like the, you know, the transfer. I mean like literally having it so that someone hands you money is about as close as you can get to, I believe being in entrepreneurship because you're there's a transfer of value. So it's funny when you contrast that to, okay, now I run an E commerce business. Now when a customer calls me up, I answer the phone, or I'm on the website, they transfer money to me, and then we send them out goods. Is it? It's a heavier weight to bear, because there's a responsibility that comes with that, because someone now is giving you their hard earned money out of their wallet or their bank account to you, whereas before, remember, it came from an anonymous payroll department who I didn't know anyone in, and it just appeared like by magic in my bank account. Now it's like, oh, no, I know that money came from, you know, Joe blogs, and he wants his item. So there's a there's a responsibility there and a burden. But because of the fact that you're closer to the money now you you are rewarded as such, because now you are the business, the money's coming into your account and you then send out. So I think there's a roundabout way of answering that. I think you have to go through a kind of a transitionary period where you you realize that you can be much closer to the value exchange, and you have, you will have to take more responsibility for doing so, and you have to be okay with things, not always working out and being okay at the start, but eventually on the other side of that, you can be rewarded significantly more so than if you remain in that salaried position where there's a pay check being sent to you from an anonymous payroll department every month. So that's just one perspective and one experience, but it's something that keeps cropping up in my mind, like the closer you are to the exchange of money and the exchange of value, the more you will be rewarded for doing so don't know what your thoughts on that are, James, if you've experienced the same kind of thing, I can definitely resonate with that. So my previous nine to five role before I got into entrepreneurship, was as part of a non not for profit Housing Association, and I was just a very small. A cog in a massive machine similar to the large corporate company you were working for as well. And when we're in those positions, we're not near the value exchange, because we make up a small part of value of the overall amount of value that the business provides to its shareholders and its customers. And so when you when you're at that point in a nine to five job, you're not very entrepreneurial minded, because I guess that the further away you are from a value exchange and giving the value and seeing the money come in exactly for what the the exact actions you've taken, there's a larger expectation that the money will come in regardless of how much value you provide, the further away you are from the value exchange. And that's my best way of summing up the different mindset that you have to adopt if you're going to go into entrepreneurship. Is there's nowhere to hide. You have to be accountable for the amount of amount of value that you provide, whereas in a very large company that a lot of us will start in, it is a lot easier to hide. So you have to be okay with being valued by the market on how much value you provide, not just the value that your boss, your boss, will account to you on being a very small part of a wider machine. So I guess that's what we're both getting at there is, is the fact that there's a different mindset shift. You have to start to become a lot more accountable for yourself than perhaps you have been in the past. Yeah, exactly. My first taste of this, which was almost like another rung up the ladder from where I was, where it was, just like the standard salary every month was when I went into a sales role in that big corporate company, and it was in, like, medical device sales. And I was, I was pretty close to the action then. Now, of course, you know, the doctors and nurses and people buying the equipment from me weren't giving me 20 pound notes and saying, like, thanks very much. It wasn't that close. They were signing a purchase order, and then it was going through a procurement department and it would go to head office. But I was then on commission as a salesperson, and the feeling and the reward mechanism was like significantly higher, because the if you look at like, the salary structure in these companies, often sales people will earn more than people who are way more senior than them in the company. They can earn hundreds and hundreds of 1000s of pounds per year if they're smashing their sales targets, and that's because they're close to the action, they're close to the value exchange, and they are rewarded as a result of the money that they bring into the company, because that money is then used to fund the other people's salaries in the company, so everyone benefits from the sales people doing their role in selling, because if they weren't, no one would get paid and the company would collapse. So it's, um, it's funny. It's like, that's almost one step towards it, and I think that probably gave me a a taste of like, Oh, interesting. So I'm not running my own business here, but I'm definitely creating value now, because the more effort I put in, and the more people I speak to who want to buy the products, the more I get rewarded. So the logical next step of that would be to just create my own business, and from there, I would just get rewarded even more so as a result of it, because there would be less mouths to feed as a result of me being the only person in the business. It's just my business at that point. And but then also I can kind of transfer those those skills, and transfer those in person sales skills into a digital format whereby we just run ads to the products, and the products are the value, and then we take a cut of that, you know, whatever the profit margin that the supplier gives us, and as a result of that, we we get our share of it. That's right, you can't be any closer to the money than being a sole director of a limited company that so you are the only person that's going to basically have your salary tied to the business profits completely. And so rather than being a small cog that's not going to be anywhere near the action, unless you rise up the chain dramatically, you'd actually need to, yeah, being an entrepreneur and having your own business, every action that you take can make a huge impact to the bottom line of that business. And so the bottom line that business becomes your salary when you're a sole director. So if you're the type of person that enjoys the potential benefits that can come from being the person in charge of being able to call the shots and having your income tied to the profits of a business, then you'll thrive in that kind of environment, when you could become an entrepreneur and can adapt every day and improve the value that you provide to customers, so that your income can dramatically rise in line with the value that you provide. But it's definitely not for those people that are a bit more reliant or feel entitled each day to get a pay package regardless of the value that they provide. So I think that you have to have that shift to accept that you're going to be that the buck stops with you as an entrepreneur. Yeah, I think there's a shift that needs to happen. Because I felt that urge initially where I started, and perhaps something went wrong, and I was like, All right, who do I blame here? Who do I report to? HR, who do I complain to about this thing not working? And you realize you're on your own, you know you're you're there, you're like, floating through space now, and it's just you and your little spaceship. It's your business, and you call the shots in which direction it moves. And at first that can become frustrating. Thing, because you're just looking for someone to blame. But once you accept it, and like you say, you rise up to the level where you realize you're now accountable for it, and you take on that accountability, it's so empowering, because then you realize, oh, I do get to call the shots, and it's, it's on me, and that's, that's actually quite liberating. I think it's not some manager setting arbitrary targets for you or something like that. It's like you get to call the shots completely on how you do it, where you do it, how much you earn from it. And to me, once I'd had a taste of that, there was no going back. It's like you've seen the other side. As soon as you can tie your income to the profits, you're never going to go back to a position where your promotions are going to be one, two, 3% every year, in line with inflation, if you just keep doing the same thing every day, whereas the way we both see things Lewis is that we like to be able to be in control of our own destinies. And the way that we give ourselves that power is by the belief system that we have, which means that we fully accept that we are going to be accountable to ourselves, but it also means that we have the power to dictate where we're gonna go based on the amount of work or the amount of value we can provide. And I think it's a lot more empowering to have that perspective that you know and you believe in yourself, that you can get to wherever you want to get to, as long as you put the work in and you provide the value that would then with a result in the amount of income that you want to accept, rather than the other side of the argument, potentially, which is saying that you don't have the power and other people or external factors will decide where you go in life. And for me, it's a big no go. I really don't want to adopt that belief system, because it's so disempowering. So with that in mind, those thoughts burning a hole in your mind as you're listening to this podcast, we want to keep moving forward is in terms of the steps we'd take with the right mindset adopted if we were going to start our drop shipping business from scratch, with the knowledge and the mindset that we've got now. So we've talked about making sure you're going to sell products based on the data that you can validate they're going to be successful. So what would you do next to make sure you're setting yourself up for success? So the next thing I'd do, and there'd be a few micro steps leading up to this point. Once I'd validated an issue, for example, I would put together a minimum viable store or an MVS. I call it to showcase and take two potential suppliers, but ultimately, the next big needle mover, the next thing that's going to move you closer to the money, if we continue that analogy, is signing suppliers because you need products that are valued that the market, ie customers out there would want to buy. That's effectively what you're doing with drop shipping. You're benefiting from the popularity and the demand that exists from the market already that you validated to purchase certain products, and now you need to get those products available to sell. And one of the nice things about having validated this niche ahead of time is that we know those suppliers are going to be willing to work with this, because we know they're already drop shipping with other retailers in the first place. So there won't be a big kind of persuasion exercise needed to try to convince them to work with you, because you know that you can just slot in as another retailer of theirs. So yeah, I would make sure that before I was running any ads or anything like that, or paying for any traffic to the site, I'd make sure I've got at least four or five suppliers signed. Having multiple suppliers ensures that you've got options, but it also ensures that you're not forcing a certain brand that might have not even be that popular onto a market, the market will tell you what it wants. You can't really affect that, and it becomes very expensive if you try to, because you're just pouring ads towards getting eyeballs on a brand that's not popular. And at the moment, we don't know what's popular, so we just sign several doesn't cost us any money in terms of like, product storage, because we're not buying the products. We're not storing them. We haven't got warehouses. It's like digital real estate on our website, and we can have multiple brands, and when you speak to those suppliers, maybe don't settle for the first pricing that they give you. Negotiate with your suppliers. Make sure that you know they're not fobbing you off with a terrible profit margin. Make sure you've got at least a 25 35% margin so that you can work with them, explain to them that the margin that you get equates to the ad spend that you can spend on their brand to market their products and still make a profit. So the less they give you, the less sales they can expect from you. And they should understand that. Okay, it's a different model to a bricks and mortar store. Who might say we need a margin so we can pay for our rent and pay for our staff and pay for, you know, all of the things that keep the lights on in the in the building for us, the building and the staff, are our website and the ads. So if we're going to attract as many sales and customers to our website as a brick and mortar store would, if not, way more, then we need some margin to be able to work with to do that. And so it becomes a win, win. They'll get more sales, you'll get more profit, and you'll be able to both grow together. Yeah. So looking back on my journey, I think an issue I made was not signing enough suppliers early on, and that meant that I didn't have enough. Uh, quality suppliers signed early on. So it took me a bit of time to get more suppliers on board before I was able to really push on. So looking back, I would to reduce my risk. I would just get more suppliers signed. And obviously there's, there's a threshold to reach, because if you say that as a rule, the more suppliers the better. Then you could carry on signing suppliers until you've got, like, 30 or 40 suppliers, and just hold yourself back from running ads. So there has to be there has to be a limit, which I know that we set at four suppliers, and at that point you can run ads. But as a rule, if you want quicker results, and especially if you've got a lower budget, I think the more suppliers you sign up front, the quicker you can expect to see results on the whole but at the same time, Lewis, I think you agreed you can easily hold yourself back if you set your goal post too, too wise. You gotta, gotta pull the trigger at some point. Definitely. Yeah, you'll see people that are procrastinating, that are like, I've got my 10th supplier signed. Now, do you think I can run ads? And it's like, well, yes, I think you're safe to run ads now. But also you'll see people who are super eager to get started, and they're like, just sign my first supply. Now, how do I set ads up? And it's like, well, hold your horses, like you don't want to be pouring ad spend into a into a brand that might not even be that popular. And the way you it's very difficult to know this ahead of time, but once you can look back with hindsight, you'll realize, Oh yeah, my sales were, like, really sporadic with my first two brands, and as soon as I signed that third or that fourth brand. Suddenly it was like, well, three sales a day, and you just didn't know that supplier number three or supplier number four was going to be the one that caused that. So rather than you having to guess and gamble that supplier number one might be your popular one, just sign five, four or five of them, and then run ads. And let the ads tell you what's popular, the ads work by what is being searched for out there. So once you have all of those products live and they're serving on the Google Display Network and the Google Shopping Network, well, as soon as customers are then searching for those products, and if there's a product market fit and they like the product, and you're able to do the things we talk about, like offer a free gift with it, and offer free delivery if you can, and match what other retailers are offering in terms of that, that pricing offer, and the Yeah, the value offer, then yeah, you're going to start to see a certain brands generating a lot more of your revenue. And that Pareto principle of 20% of your products and brands will generate 80% of your revenue, tends to average out over time certainly did for me. Yeah, I think it was supplier number five that was my big winner. And it wasn't until, like I got that number five over the line that I could suddenly see the first four suppliers I've signed just weren't anywhere near as popular as supplier number five. And I'm still working with that supplier to this day, but I'll always be grateful for them, you know, and working together with them for such a long period of time, and you can have really successful businesses off the back of a few great supplier relationships. So but in order to find those great supplier relationships, you often need to sign quite a lot, because there'll be the 20% within there that will be the great ones that really provide a fantastic business for you. So moving on. Then all about head starts. In this episode, Louis, what else do you think you'd do to give yourself a head start if you were starting again? Next thing I would do is get around other people who are on the same journey. Don't try and work in isolation. It can become incredibly frustrating, lonely, just boring. You want to make sure that you are around other people for a few different reasons. First is probably accountability, just making sure that you've got other people there that you're seeing move forwards and posting like, Oh, I've just launched my ad, or I've just signed brand number six, and you're sitting there kind of twisting your thumbs with one supplier signed, it's going to make you be like, oh, I need to be more accountable to this. And it's because remember, when this goes back to our earlier point in the conversation. We're now on our own. We're running our business on our own. So there's no performance plan that your manager is going to put you on that comes in and helps. There's no HR training where they're going to come in and say, like this is how to improve yourself and your skills at your role, like it's on you. So the best thing you can do is just surround yourself with other people who are flying their own spaceships and figure out the way that that you can increase your likelihood of success from the outset, you can also learn a lot from other people as well. Make sure that you're learning what's changing, avoiding mistakes pitfalls, like so many people in our community will post and be like I was struggling with this issue I had with my ad account or with my website or something for months, until I just figured out this morning. All I needed to do was this, this and this, and then they share that. It gets loads of likes in the community. People all implement the same thing because they they realize that they now can avoid that, that pitfall. And it's kind of this, like rising tide lifts all the boats effect. And then the next time someone who benefited from that figures something out, and they think, Oh, this would be an interesting share that would benefit other people in the community. They think the same way. And it's like, what can I add first? What value can I contribute to the collective pool of wisdom in this community? Everyone then benefits if you go in with that mindset. So we try and set that as like a an expectation coming into our communities is like. Like, don't come in with a take, take, take. Mindset. Come in with a What can I give first mindset, even if that's just, you know, encouragement, if you're not an expert in anything that's relevant to e commerce, just encouragement, you know, whatever that may be. And then later on, you'll benefit as a result of having done that. And I think it's just more fun, isn't it, building businesses together? Is that support that a community gives you, and it can feel pretty lonely if you're just building a business on your own, especially an online business, but if you're around other people, you get to celebrate wins with them and cheer them on when they succeed, and it's just more fun. You can meet up in real life. We do our in person meetups and things like that. So that would be my next move, join a community. Yeah, one of the best things, if not the one thing that I can look at as being the most influential on my success in E commerce is be having a community around me getting into the dropship or not master class, and being surrounded by other like minded people who are action takers and they want to help each other out. And it means that you're part of a pool of people that are not complaining or moaning, that they're people that are wanting the best from each other, the best from themselves. And so a rising tide lifts all boats, and you're part of that rising tide. When you're part of a community, they're all trying to better themselves and build a business that can sustain their lifestyles that they want to build in the future. So yeah, it's so electric. We've got some absolutely fantastic members, and if anyone's listening to any of the episodes that we've recorded with members of the podcast, you'll know the kind of characters we have inside the master class. Some seriously action taking dedicated people, and it's a pleasure to be part of that community and be around them. So the last point we wanted to cover today, what did you want to share? Or any final points that you'd like to get across to people to help them start on the right foot? I think, yeah, final thoughts would be just to loop it back to what we discussed earlier, and this all comes back to that initial conversation around coming into this with the right frame of mind, being open to learning, being open to adapting, being open to failing and moving forward in spite of that failure shifting, pivoting, knowing that you probably haven't got all the answers yet, but that's okay. No one did when they first started a business. Anyone who succeeded in business had to figure things out along the way. Now, if you can learn from other people to avoid 90% of those mistakes, yourself amazing, because then you will speed up your journey. You'll reduce the wasted expenses that you spend money on that are destined for failure, and you can just kind of simplify that path and maximize the odds in your favor, but yeah, you've got to be adaptable. E commerce is always evolving. You've got to be up to date. Have your finger on the pulse. That's why a community where we're always talking about what's changing, what's shifting is so valuable and so important. And then if something isn't working, don't be afraid to change it. Don't be afraid to test it, measure it. Ask for support. Ask what other people are doing. There's no shame in saying, I'm stuck. I I'm not sure where to turn here, because if you're part of a community like this, you have a supportive group of people who are all on that same path as you, and they will all probably get stuck at some point themselves, so they'll need your help, and many of them probably got stuck in the past. In the past, asked and benefited from that, so now they're kind of waiting to give back. There's like this feeling of reciprocation, this desire to reciprocate the value that they received, which works really well. So if you can keep learning, invest in yourself, in your knowledge, make sure you're up skilling, listening to podcasts like this one here, reading books, joining courses, continuous learning is going to be essential for you to stay ahead and follow a path with as few and pitfalls and potholes as you possibly can, as much as possible you can try and avoid as many as possible. When you're open to learning and open to adapting, when you've got the inevitable failures or mistakes that you make, you can just overcome them and keep pushing on to inevitable success. So no matter what your ideal lifestyle is that you you'd like to build for yourself, if you're open to learning, if you've got the right niche chosen in the first place, you've got good suppliers on board, and you've got the right mindset, then you'll be in the best possible position to get started and build a drop shipping business. And that's the exact way that we'd go about it if we were starting again today. And if you'd like to learn about what Lewis and I get up to on a day to day basis, we have actually recorded a video where, actually it's an episode of the podcast, episode 112 and we discussed what a day in their life looks like as a successful e commerce entrepreneur. So have a listen to that afterwards. If you want to get a bit more of an insight as to what happens after you start a drop shipping business in the right way. So let's wrap up then today. Lewis, if someone's just starting out, maybe they feel slightly overwhelmed by all the steps that they're going to take to build a business. Where should they begin? Yep, I think you all you can do is start small. Gotta. You gotta take that first micro step, if you look at the full journey through to the point of being a full time entrepreneur and having your own business and everything, it's almost too much to comprehend at one time, so you've got to start off with the first step we talked about that for us would be mindset. Then it would be validating your product ideas, your niche making sure you're stacking the cards in your favor, building strong relationships with at least four suppliers. Before I started running ads and then getting around other people in communities who are on the same journey as you. So you're not doing it alone. Now, that's very simple to say, but the first steps as to how you actually do it will be critical, because you want to make sure you're following that journey so that once you get momentum, you're able to the snowball effect kind of kicks in. You think, Okay, now we're rolling. Now we're moving, and I can start to play off the success that I've had previously in that use that to motivate myself. So if you're unsure where to start, if you head over to dropship, unlocked.com, forward slash, start. We've got everything you need to know there to take that first step with confidence. Are you enjoying the podcast? We'd love to hear from you leave a comment or a review, and we might feature it in an upcoming episode, and for detailed show notes and resources, visit dropship, unlock.com forward slash podcast. If you found value in any episode of this podcast, please. Could you take just 10 seconds to leave us a quick five star review on your favorite podcast app. It helps us more than you can imagine. And who knows, you might just hear your comments read out on the show. Thanks for being a part of our community. Your support helps us keep delivering new episodes to you every week. Now it's that part of the podcast where we're going to answer a question that we've received from a listener, so thanks for getting your questions in if a question's come up while you've been listening today, let us know by commenting beneath the YouTube video version of this episode. And that is exactly what I Abhishek official has done. So I Abhishek has asked a question, Lewis, I'm going to ask you now. They've said, Hey, Lewis and James. Great video. What strategies can we implement to stay ahead of the curve and avoid stress. Okay, thanks for your question. I Abhishek official, I think the first thing would be a willingness to learn and adapt to changes. If you want to stay ahead of the curve, you've got to be motivated to do so and be willing to be told that maybe you don't have all the answers yet, and that's okay. We talked a lot about this today, but challenges will be inevitable in your journey, so just be okay with that. But it's, it's how you approach them that matters. And remember, that's in your control. You can decide how you approach them and how you frame failures, whether they are framed as these kind of full stop events, or whether it's like, no, actually, we just we were expecting failures along the way. We just pivot, we tweak, and we keep moving ahead. The e Commerce Industry is continuing to move forward. It's continuing to evolve. Lots of stuff changing. So making sure that you're adaptable and you're keeping yourself up to date and finger on the pulse up skilling yourself as new trends emerge. And yeah, that's that's going to be crucial, making sure that you're you're learning, you're adapting. And then we talked about it, you know, in at the end of this episode, but being part of a community will help you do most of those things, because you get to stay up to date with the latest strategies, to get to engage with other people who are on the same journey as you, to keep you informed and motivated and share your success and celebrate other people's success, and then just making sure that, when you're running your business, making sure, in terms of avoiding the stress, I think you asked in your question, have clear processes and systems in place, because then things that happen don't stress you out, because every time something happens, you think, oh yeah, this happened before. Here's the process, here's the system, here's the template response. Email, here's the SOP, here's the you know, the system for that. And I think systems are really the answer to avoiding stress when running a business, because, because once you've been running your business for a while, everything that happens will likely have happened once before already. So you can have a system for it, you can then sit back and focus on the growth and focus your your efforts on the more exciting parts, rather than having to fight fires and react to problems constantly. So yeah, that would be my answer. There. Awesome nurse, yeah, got nothing to add to that spot on. Okay, we'll highlight a recent review then that we've had for the podcast as well. So thank you to Quincy 82 AAC for sharing your thoughts. So Quincy said, Excellent. Video, this business model does work because I also have an online e commerce drop shipping business, and I run it all from my mobile phone. There you go. Proof from Quincy there. Thank you so much for your comment, Quincy, we really appreciate it glad to hear that you've been enjoying the podcast, and glad to hear you're running your very own drop shipping business as well. Thank you so much for listening to this episode today. If you've enjoyed today's episode, maybe you could share it with a friend or a colleague, someone that you think might benefit from hearing this conversation. It's a great way to spread the knowledge, and it also might just help someone else on their own e commerce journey as well, and they'd have you to thank for it. We really appreciate every bit of support, so please leave us a like or subscribe to the channel if you haven't already, and we'll see in the next one. Thank you for joining us on this episode of the dropship unlocked podcast. We hope you are leaving with new insights and inspiration to fuel your entrepreneurial journey, to kickstart your E commerce business. Head over to dropship unlocked. Dot com, forward slash start. It's the perfect place to start and get access to resources that will help you build your business from the ground up. And don't forget to hit that subscribe button for more episodes packed with strategies, tips and success stories, plus, if you enjoyed this episode today, a five star review would mean the world to us, and you might even get a shout out on the next episode. Thank you for choosing 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.