From £0 to £100K in 6 Months: Real Dropshipping Success (Episode 139)

 👉 Ready to start your own online store? Start here: https://dropshipunlocked.com/online-event?el=podcast-139-from-0-to-100k

 🗣 In this episode, Lewis Smith and James Eardley dive deep into the real stories of dropshipping success. We talk to members who’ve gone from £0 to £100K in just 6 months and the lessons they learned along the way. From mindset to taking consistent action, we unpack the strategies that made these entrepreneurs successful.

 👉 Prefer to watch this on YouTube? Check it out here ➡️https://youtu.be/cGysihn9Ylw

Topics Discussed:
 ★ Real Success Stories: Hear from members like Neil, Adam, Mason, and Suraj who made it big in a short amount of time.
★ The Power of Consistency: Discover how showing up every day, even in the face of uncertainty, leads to massive breakthroughs.
★ Mindset and Commitment: Why having the right mindset and unwavering commitment is key to achieving success in dropshipping.
★ Overcoming Obstacles: Learn how our members overcame major hurdles, including payment processor issues and supplier challenges.
★ Learning From Mistakes: How learning from mistakes and taking action, even imperfectly, accelerated growth for these dropshipping businesses.
★ The Role of Mentorship and Community: Why being part of a supportive community with guidance can dramatically speed up your business growth.

Links and Resources Mentioned:
 Pick up a copy of Lewis’ book: https://dropshipunlocked.com/book
Get Shopify for £1 a month for 3 months: https://dropshipunlocked.com/shopify
Get a free trial with a professional phone line: https://dropshipunlocked.com/circle

Key Takeaways:
 ★ Commitment Is Key: Successful dropshippers commit fully to the process, no matter how tough it gets.
★ Mindset Matters: It’s not just about the business model but about maintaining a positive, solution-focused mindset.
★ Embrace the Journey: Success doesn’t happen overnight, but showing up every day and making incremental progress leads to long-term success.
★ Overcome the Hurdles: Every business faces challenges, but success lies in how you deal with them and keep pushing forward.
★ The Power of Action: Consistent action, even if it’s imperfect, is one of the most important factors in scaling quickly.

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Website: https://www.dropshipunlocked.com/

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★★★Dropship Unlocked - Lewis Smith★★★
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Transcript

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Our most successful drop shippers credit their ability to scale quickly to one thing, and that is. You might think it's all about working harder, but the thing that makes the biggest difference to your success is. So when it comes to achieving fast drop shipping success, a lot of people miss the fact and. By doing just that, it will lead to massive breakthroughs for you. One of the most overlooked factors in fast drop shipping success is. Welcome to the drop ship Unlocked podcast. I'm Lewis Smith, the founder of Drop ship 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 6 or even 7 figure online business, then head over to Drop shipunlocked.com/ Now sit back, relax, and let's unlock your potential with the Dropship Unlocked podcast. Today's episode is all about real life success stories. We're going to be diving into some of the incredible journeys that some of our dropship unlocked Master Class members have been on to go from zero to 6 figure revenues in a matter of months. So if you're considering drop shipping, we're going to share all of the advice that we've gained from these members. So I'm really looking forward to diving into this one today. Lewis. Absolutely. It should be a good one. There's definitely no one better to learn from than people who've actually achieved the exact success that you're trying to achieve as well. So we've spoken to members on this podcast in the past and they're always very, very open to providing insights and lessons. And obviously they themselves were just starting out. So they're the perfect people to learn from. So let's dive into it A. 100% yes. So one of our members who's had on a very popular member inside the community is Neil. And Neil jumped on the podcast. Now, I'm going to ask you, Lewis, for the best pieces of of advice that you remember from that conversation. And just to tee up for everyone listening today, Neil, he came on the podcast because he had achieved 95,000 lbs in sales in just five months. And he went on to get over that 100K mark, I think about a week after we spoke to him. But yeah, what would you say from the things that Neil taught us? What lessons would you give to people just dying out? Yeah, it was a great episode with Neil. He's very grounded and he is very, very committed. I think your full commitment is probably the thing that that comes through with the interview with Neil that we did, but also what I know of Neil and then how often we speak to him in the community. He's very, very committed to the process regardless of uncertainty. You know, he's aware that he doesn't know everything going into it and that, and that's fine. He's there, he's in the community, He's always active. He's always willing to participate and learn. He's open to taking advice on board and he takes consistent action. He just chips away at it. You know, I know that initially he was balancing it with a, a full time job and he's about to go full time into his business now. And even on some of those tough days, he just shows up. He just takes the next step. He just, he's not disheartened by the inevitable hurdles that you will face when running any kind of business. And he's optimised his business for scalability. He's always focused on building a business model that could scale. He's going out and meeting suppliers, signing contracts and working with different experts in different areas of e-commerce to really like take his business to the next level. So yeah, he's very committed, very focused and just chips away at it. So yeah, I don't know if you got any more from our conversation with Neil, but I'd say those are the big lessons I learnt from that, that chat we had with him. Yeah, Yeah, Neil's great. We had a great conversation with him and I completely agree with the point she pulled out there. He is interested Neil because he is coming up to 40 years in his company and he's just about to retire from that company now because he can go now all into his drop shipping business. And yeah, he's come from a position of doing this alongside a nine to five job, which is not that uncommon really. I started that way. You started that way as well. So I guess a question for you because a lot of people are in this situation as well, though it is when you're doing it alongside a nine to five job as Neil has done himself as well. What was it like for you to try and fit in building a drop shipping business on the side initially? Yeah. It's. It's funny, if you're working a job and say you're say you don't particularly like the job and your manager gives you another project on top of what you're already doing, you might be like, oh, I'm at full capacity. I can't find time for it. You know, I'm swamped already. I've got so much on my plate, but even if you're swamped in your your normal day-to-day job, if someone says to you, you can become a business owner, run your own business, create freedom to live anywhere on the planet, earn your income fully online. When that proposition was kind of put in front of me, I was like, well, even if I'm swamped with my day job, I will find the time to do this. Even if it means like working through the night.

Even if it means getting up at 5:00 AM and working through until 9:00 AM when my main job starts, and then working from 5:00 PM through to 8: 5:14

00 PM. And really like burning the candle at both ends at times because it meant something to me. And it was. I could see that it wasn't going to be like that forever. It was going to take a short spell of intense, focused effort and attention to get the business to the point where it could sustain me financially. And then I wouldn't need to work the nine to five job in between anyway. And suddenly I'd have all of my time freed up. So it was like it has to get harder before it gets better. But even during those hard times, I mean, I look back on those now and think of how excited I felt at the prospect of like I'm earning money online, I'm making sales.

I've earned more from my day job between more in income from my side business between 5:00 AM and 9: 5:58

00 AM. Then I earn, you know, getting on a train and going halfway across the country and doing the the job that I did for a A9 to 5 S Yeah, that was my experience. I think it is similar with Neil. Like he's just been chipping away at it, been very quiet. He's not, you know, publicly talking about it in, in his, in his job to his colleagues and stuff. But he's just chipping away at it. And it gets to the point eventually where it can sustain him financially and he can he can rely on it full time. Yeah, he's done an awesome job, always inspiring when people do it alongside their job, but complete the same for me. When you're doing this work for your own benefit because you've got your own long term future in mind, it's it's so different from sitting down to do work when you know it's for your nine to five job that you don't enjoy doing. So yeah, I'm sure people can take things away from that. Moving on to Adam. So we had a conversation with Adam and at the point of our podcast conversation with Adam, he had just generated 307,000 lbs within eight months since starting his ad campaign or getting started with with his store. So what was the turning point from him, if you can think back to the conversation that we had? Yeah. I, I think with Adam, it was funny, like one of the first times that I met Adam was actually at the, the ex, the Excel centre. I believe it was in London. I was speaking at an event there and Adam, Adam has come along because he's a member of Doctor Unlocks and has come along to, to kind of support and, and to chat. And I remember my wife Becky was chatting to somebody in the queue waiting to get into kind of the, the auditorium as she was chatting to this, this guy. And then later on, it turns out it was Adam. And he was explaining how, you know, the, the products that he sells and the niche he's in. And he was very, very early. I don't know if he'd even made a sale by that point, but he had like the business cards printed and was very, very committed. And from there, like just watching his trajectory, he's just been so committed. And, and as we talked about in the episode we did with Adam, he's it's not been a smooth ride. Like he's faced ups and downs, hurdles. I mean, that's the common theme with all of these, right? None of them are just like, oh, I just woke up one day and I was a millionaire. Like doesn't happen like that. There's the different hurdles that it's going to throw at you and it's your resolve, it's your character that will determine whether you give up or continue through a past those hurdles. So Adam's been a great example of someone who's just shown up consistently, been committed, been solution focused, overcoming these challenges, figuring out what he needs to do. And yeah, just going full time. I mean, he recently, I believe hired his first virtual assistant. Yeah, I know he's recently joined our inner circle, which is kind of like our private mastermind where we do regular meet ups in a very more focused groups so that James and I can actually help with in his business. And yeah, he just kind of brushes aside those fears and doubts so he doesn't let them hold him back and he just uses them to fuel his action. And I know we were speaking to him about some days he's processing like £20,000 worth of orders in a single day. So it's testament to like all of the hard work he took, all of the risks he took, all of the hours that he's put in and the obstacles that he's had to overcome to get there. And he's very, very positive. He's always upbeat. And I think it's just a yeah, no one deserves it more because his his positive attitude shines through and he's going to be OK regardless of what business he goes into with a mindset like that. That's my belief. And this business just allows him to now have his time back and be location independent. And I know he's using that to travel a lot. And, you know, he's kind of like tying in trips related to his niche in the industry that he's in to be able to go and travel to places and do cool things. And he's immersing himself. He's done things like, yeah, take out like different types of marketing and different types of adverts. That would ordinarily be something that we would do. But he's kind of pushing the boundaries and experimenting in his field. And it's, yeah, it's fantastic to see. And he's going to do very, very well. 100% yeah. I know he's about to reach that 100 KA month mark, so perhaps that would be the trigger for him to get back on the podcast and give everyone an update. So I'd love to speak to him on the podcast again. But yeah, something that really shines through with Adam is that positive attitude. So even when he was going through the difficult times, which is inevitable when you're going to build a business. Like for him, his payment processor was was playing up and held some funds for a while, but he posted on the community and it was just positive. I know I'm going to be able to find the solution quickly found a new payment processor, was able to process funds and he just got around it. He just understood it was all an obstacle that can be overcome. And he spoke about it so well on the podcast as well. Yeah. So adders, brilliant. Went from working in a hospital, I think quite a similar job. Well, maybe not a similar job role to you, but similar kind of environment, working long hours in a hospital. So he didn't come from any kind of background similar to yourself, Lewis? Yeah, I think he said, wasn't he cycling between hospital outbuildings or something from memory from the the episode that we did with him. And it was just that, that one moment of realisation. I asked him about whether there was like a turning point and a moment that he thought this is it, I'm not doing this anymore. I'm, I'm changing. And that that penny drop moment that I know I had. So yeah, he's, he's very solution focused, like you say, had struggles with his payment processor, overcame them, had, you know, I remember recently there was a question I think about like I've got customers that want to purchase products that are, you know, up in the 10s of thousands, but they, they want payment terms. How can we do it? And we were like, well, there's like financing partners and options and you click your fingers and Adam's implemented the suggestions from the the inner circle group and he's up and running with them. And it's like the next time we have a call, he updates us on the results he's got from implementing the last thing. Now that seems simple and obvious. It's like ask for advice, take the advice and do the thing. Not many people do that. And it's, it's almost like it's not difficult. It just takes persistence and determination and, and taking action and actually doing the thing. And Adam shows up day after day, puts in the effort and therefore deserves the type of days he's experiencing with 20,000 in sales and some days and like you said, yeah, hitting 100K or very near to, I think he said he'd hit 100,000 this month. And we're, we're nearing the end of the month now. So I imagine he's on track for that £100,000 per month, which is pretty cool. Pretty awesome, yeah. To a more deserving person as well. But yeah, lots of lessons we can take away from Adam. Moving on now to somebody who came from a very different background. So Mason, who we've also had on the podcast, was a professional footballer that launched his business at 21 when he came into the drop ship or not master class and he hit £70,000 in just five months after going all in on on building this business. So what lessons can we give to people that we've learnt from Mason? Well, Mason's a great character, a great story as well. He's doing very well. He is someone that you and I have both met now several times in person at our quarterly live meetups that we do at dropship unlocked in the master class. And he's always very, very positive. He's wise beyond his years. You know, he's extremely young, isn't he, relative to, to some of the members in the community, But the kind of maturity of his mindset just never fails to surprise me. He's very well read. He takes his personal development extremely seriously, obviously takes his like personal health extremely seriously, being a former professional footballer as well. And it's just having that, I guess it's the maturity of the of the delayed gratification and knowing that he's in it for the long haul. He's not there to just make a quick buck and disappear. He he knows that quick wins are not going to sustain his business. He wants sustainable growth. And so he's focused on some very, very big long term goals. And just again, like Adam, like Neil takes action to get to them. He doesn't just sit back and kind of hope that they'll manifest and you know, you can sit back and do nothing. He's, he's doing the mindset part better than most people, I would argue, because Mason's extremely committed to that side of things. But he also then just shows up, takes action and chips away at the business. It doesn't happen overnight. But like you said, within five months he'd hit £70,000 in sales from a cold standing start. And when he was 21 years old, I think he actually joined the programme even younger than that, didn't he? But he didn't do anything initially with that and then kind of jumped in a bit later on to actually taking the steps. But yeah, he's enjoying the journey as well. You can tell that he he's not rushing the process. Mason seems to be having fun. He's always positive, he's always happy, he's always smiling, and he's a great person to have a very deep conversation with. Our insights. I know there's chats at the bar, at our live meet ups with Mason that go late into the evening about all areas of life and personal development and yeah, things like that. But any other thoughts on the Mason conversation? Yeah, just just super enjoyable to to get to know Mason and yeah, a lot of the things he told us was was around the mindset. And it's been a bit of a theme actually of what members tell us when they come on the podcast, when we asked them about what do you think got you to this position? It's often the commitment going all in, enjoying the journey, not focusing on needing the result immediately. And it always pays off for these most successful members, which has gives me a question in my mind that I want to get your opinion on as well. Lewis, is all of these members have access to the same material. So when we think about the lessons we can learn from them, it's not necessarily the material that they followed or that the type of business that they set up. That's why it's it seems to be skewed towards the mindset side of things when they give us reasons as to why they think they were successful. Do you think there's something in that Lewis because they've all got access to the same programme material? But but obviously these guys are are super successful with it. Yeah, it's a great point. It's not like some of them come in with like loads of prior marketing experience and they're like, oh, I've run a, you know, a marketing agency for years or things like that. It's like the differentiator like you said is their ability to I guess yeah, the fundamental the foundation of it has to be the mindset because on a positive can do solution focused I'm going to figure this out style mindset. Then the next block is therefore I will take the actions required to achieve the result. So it's like the mindset has to be right for them to show up daily and take actions sometimes in the face of rejection and hurdles and problems and payment processor issues and in all the obstacles that business throws at you from time to time. So yeah, that is one of the biggest differentiators and it's showing up with a positive can do attitude knowing that you don't have all the answers at the beginning, but that's OK because none of these people did. But it's the ability to show up and learn and absorb like a sponge and then not just sit back, but actually implement the things and take imperfect action in the face of fear and uncertainty. And just know that you're around a supportive community that are there to help you. And I think that's the biggest advantage that you can possibly give yourself coming into this. So yeah, take a a leaf from their book and and model what they do because they there's a reason why they're successful. It's really empowering this message to to know that the advice that these guys give us is not the background that they've had, it's it's the way that they approached it, which is something that we can all adopt. Doesn't matter what background you've got when we come to these live events. We've got people from all walks of life, all different jobs. You know, he worked at a hospital, I worked at a housing association, Mason's a footballer and yeah, we had Adam worked in a hospital as well. Neil worked for a mapping company. It's like there's there's no one route for successful drop shippers where they've come from, which for me is just the most empowering thing to know that as long as you approach it with the right mindset and implement the actions that we give you in the master class, then you're on the way to success. Another great example of this is Suraj, who we've had on the podcast a couple of times and when he first came on the podcast, he had generated 13,000 lbs in just two months from running ads and he's now gone on to achieve over 100K in in drop shipping sales. So what lessons? What would you say we can? Learn from Suraj. Well, it's probably all of the above and and other things as well, right. So I think the consistencies and with all of the others that we've spoken about that Suraj also exhibits our persistence, positive attitude, showing up, willingness to learn, solution focused. But also for Suraj specifically, maybe it's don't wait for perfection. What I got from the interview we had with him was that one of his biggest advantages was that he didn't wait for everything to be perfect. He just took action. And then he learned as he went along And the ability to do that confidently and just say I'm going to follow the process, I know it's proven and I'm going to kind of course correct as I go was a huge advantage for him. Also his supplier relationships and he's built some really solid supplier relationships and early on in the process that will pay dividends for the long term for him. And Suraj is someone who you see in the community is always tweaking. He's always testing, he's always got an experiment running and it's like he's testing a new thing and he's open about it and he shares it and he show, he says, I ran a split test here recently or I implemented a new rule in my ads account and you know, here's here's what I suggest or here's the outcome from it. And so he's always kind of sharing those things because he knows that if he can put that good stuff out there into the community, other people reciprocate, other people help, and it makes for a more positive and rewarding community altogether. So yeah, Sewage is a great part of the Dropship Unlocked community. He embodies all of the values that we search for in our ideal members. And I'm sure, again, he's going to continue to do very, very well with it. But yeah, had a great chat with with Sewage on the episode. Any other takeaways from your side from the sewage episode? Yeah, a couple of things. Always super impressed when sewage comes onto the podcast. A couple of real tactical things he talked about is really strong and healthy supplier relationships. So when he works with a supplier, he's always building that relationship by checking in with him. And he said that that really paid off in the long term. And another one is focusing on the conversion of his store. So like you say, he's often testing things and he understands that when he brings customers onto his site, it's up to him then to convert as many of those as possible. And he's always sharing things very transparently, very openly in the community about what's worked for him. And yeah, that approach as well is something to learn from. It's he's constantly learning, even though he's done over his first six figures in sales, but he's always coming from a position of learning, which is another great attitude that that a lot of these successful members have is that willingness to learn. No matter what their background is, they're here to learn and here to implement the lessons that that have been learnt from from before. So yeah, awesome lessons from from the guys that we've spoken to on the podcast and looking forward to getting some new people on the podcast again soon to learn more lessons from those people as well. If you want to listen to a full episode where we spoke with one of these members, I'd recommend episode with Neil. Neil's a great one after speaking with him after he was set up for five months. That's episode #110 if you want to queue that up after listening to today's episode. But as we wrap up today, Lewis, what advice would you give to anyone who's listening right now who wants to follow in the footsteps of the successful drop shippers? Well, there's a. Few common consistent themes that come through from all of these conversations we've had with with these members that we've featured and many more members in the community that perhaps we haven't had the time today to talk about. But there's many success stories and you know who you are. You know, if we haven't covered your your story today, we apologise. But it's taking consistent action it and sometimes in the face of uncertainty and not being 100% sure on something, but doing it anyway, it's about doing something small everyday, even when it doesn't feel like it's making a difference. You're chipping away at the bigger picture and that's what's important. The other common theme I've seen from all the people we've spoken with is that they're willing to embrace the learning curve. They're not afraid to make mistakes, they see it as part of the journey and they're just a knowledge sponge. They're just absorbing all the knowledge they can, focusing on what they can do to move the needle in their business that day just slightly further. They focus on the process, not the outcome. They enjoy the process. They're not just thinking like the day that I have built this business, I'll finally be successful and happy. No, they're they're diving in and they're enjoying the process of the builds. They're enjoying the day-to-day stuff and they realise success doesn't happen overnight. But with focus and effort, eventually you'll get there. So if you're ready to start your journey and follow the inspiration left by the members that we've discussed today and many more, and you want to take your business to the next level, be sure to check out our resources at drop shipunlocked.com/start. We've laid everything out there for you 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 at the Detailed show notes and resources. Visit dropshipunlocked.com/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 favourite 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's been submitted by a listener to a previous episode. So if you have any questions that have come up while listening today, all we need to do is comment beneath the YouTube video version of this episode and we might just feature it in an upcoming episode. So this week, the question has come in from Roger Barrymore. So Roger has asked, how much money do I need to set aside to start high ticket drop shipping? Thanks for your question, Roger. And it is quite a common one. We hear this question quite a lot. So while high ticket drop shipping is often seen as this like low cost business model, there are still some essential costs that you have to consider initially. And so things like Shopify, these Google Workspace, a couple of other tools like, you know, company phone line, registering your company, things like that will probably set you up back at around £50 per month. You'll also want to budget say 10 to £30 per day for ADS initially. So this is crucial just for getting your first sales because you've got to get some some visitors, some idols to your store to make those first few sales so that you can then bank the profit from those sales to then be able to reinvest into covering your business overheads and your ad spend and things like that. But you will need a bit of a buffer initially because it's not a case of build it and they shall come. You can't just build a website and then hope that everyone just suddenly lands on it. They won't find you unless you run some ads to it. So having that budget set aside. But if you follow the right strategies, you should start to see a return on your investment within the first few weeks. And by the way, last week's episode was all about how to finance your e-commerce business. So if you'd like more an in depth advice on that, then go and check that one out. Perfect. Yeah, great question, Roger. And yeah, so much less than the traditional business model, but still some cost involved, which is good to be aware of before getting into it. OK, now on to highlight a recent review that we've had for the podcast. So big thank you to Michelle Bentham. And she shared her thoughts on YouTube. And it was actually some comments beneath the YouTube series that you've done Lewis, where you built a brand new Shopify score store from scratch, which is one of the most popular videos on the drop ship unlocked YouTube channel. And Michelle said Lewis has so much quality rich content. Looking forward to the next. Part Great. Well, thank you very much for your comment Michelle. Glad to hear that you enjoyed the the store Building 3 part series. Hopefully you managed to watch Part 2 and Part 3. And yeah, thank you very much for that, the comment and the kind words. Now, if this episode has resonated with you, all we ask is one small favour. Please share it with someone who you think might benefit from it. Your recommendations help us grow our community and continue to deliver valuable content. Plus, a quick share could make a big difference to the life of someone you know. Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Drop Ship Unlocked podcast. We hope you are leaving with new insights and inspiration to fuel your entrepreneurial journey. To kick start your e-commerce business, head over to drop shipunlocked.com/start. It's the perfect place to start and get access to resources that will help you build your business from the ground up. 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 Drop Ship Unlocked podcast.