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The lure of entrepreneurship proved especially strong in recent years as people spent more time at home as they worked remotely. 2021 saw approximately 5.4 million new businesses start. Of course, not everyone has the time, finances, or the mental bandwidth for starting a business that will become a full-time job. For many people, the goal isn't necessarily becoming an entrepreneur. The goal is additional income. For those people, a side hustle is an ideal solution. It's part-time by nature and there are several business models. The question most people face is how to start a side hustle. Since no general advice will really prepare you for launching every kind of side hustle, we'll cover four side hustle ideas and how to get started in those. 1. Blogging If you're looking for a low bar to entry, blogging is one of the best side hustles out there. You can launch a blog with a very minimal financial investment. Plus, you avoid many of the ongoing costs of other side hustles, such as payroll, inventory, and equipment costs. What You Need to Start All you really need to start is a website with blogging software installed on it. The WordPress content management system is a popular choice. You want your own website and hosting so that you can monetize the blog. How to Start? The how mostly boils down to finding a topic that you're passionate about, whether that's home gardening or custom cars. It takes time to build a following, so you need a topic that you won't get bored with after a few months. Even so, you must target your website around a few keyword phrases. Do some keyword research around your topic and look for one with decent traffic. Then, integrate that term on your site and in your content. Once you build up a following, you can monetize through sponsorships, affiliate marketing, and advertising. 2. Freelancing Getting started in freelancing isn't quite as easy as blogging, but it's still on the easier side. In most cases, you're leveraging a skill you already possess, so the learning curve isn't as steep. What You Need to Start You'll need a few things to launch your freelance business. The main things are: A website A way to accept payment Bookkeeping/Accounting software For the website, you need hosting and URL from a domain registrar. Some hosting services offer both. You need some kind of payment gateway, such as PayPal, Venmo, Payoneer, or Cash App, and preferably one that takes credit cards. You also want the bookkeeping or accounting software so you'll know how much to pay when estimated quarterly taxes roll around. How to Start? For freelancers, your website becomes much more important. You need it to detail the services you offer and, in many cases, your rates for the work. Many freelancers also include a portfolio of their work, which can range from an online gallery to a zipped file that contains writing samples. Beyond that, it's all marketing. You must convince clients to hire you, which can take cold emailing, online advertising, and serious networking to identify leads. 3. Information Products If you possess a lot of knowledge on a subject or specific skills, information products can prove a viable business model for you. In essence, you convert your knowledge or skills into content that helps educate others. What You Need to Start Again, you'll want a website that serves as the focal point for promoting your information products. Beyond that, needs will vary. At various points, you may need word processing software, a microphone, a video camera, and video screen capture software. How to Start? Information products must fill a need in the market. For example, coding is often a skill that people struggle to master early on. Sticking with it is often as much a mental challenge as a hard skills challenge. Yet, many information products about coding focus on the hard skills of programming. You could write or create information products about mentally surviving the first 90 days as a new coder. Some options include: An ebook An online course Webinars A podcast A subscription website The idea with information products is that you want to encourage repeat customers. Offering multiple kinds of products around the same topic and subscription options, in particular, can generate substantial revenue. 4. Print-on-Demand For the more artistically inclined, a print-on-demand side hustle is often a superior choice to information products, freelancing, and blogging. It lets you embrace your creativity and potentially turn a profit from it as well. What You Need to Start You'll need a few things to start. You'll likely want a website to help promote your products. You'll also need an account with a print-on-demand service that will do the actual printing when someone orders a product. You'll also need some kind of software to create your designs. Don't forget about logistics. Many print-on-demand creators work with print-on-demand services that offer shopping carts, payment processing, and shipping. How to Start? Much like blogging, you need some kind of focus for your designs. Maybe you design funny cat pictures or snarky sayings. You want something that unifies all your products so you become the go-to source for that kind of product. Once you decide on your focus, you'll want that reflected on your website. Many people also create social media profiles for their print-on-demand brand or projects. You will need some marketing hustle to get your designs out in front of customers. How to Start a Side Hustle? Plan First The real answer to the question of how to start a side hustle is that you should plan first. Investigate your options. See which ones align best with your interests, budget, and available time. Once you make your choice, line up essentials like hosting and a domain name. Get whatever secondary software you may need, such as design software or bookkeeping software. If your side hustle doesn't have a payment option baked in, set up a payment gateway. What side hustle will you start? Let me know in the comments below.

I prefer to hire agency experts instead of training an in-house expert. I lean this way because a conversion optimization consultant likely has more than one client. This gives them a unique perspective and focused expertise. There are so many CRO experts out there, but I prefer to work with a small agency or expert that only does that one thing. This singular focus and multi-client perspective typically mean a better CRO process and better results. If the e-commerce consultant offers conversion rate optimisation, Facebook Ads, Email, Search Engine Optimization, and website design. They probably aren't a true expert at any of those things. In my own e-commerce business, I have siloed out my agency experts in the following categories: My agency experts by category: 1 - Paid traffic (Facebook ads and Google ads) 2 - Email Marketing and SMS (Klaviyo and Postscript) 3 - Conversation Rate Optimization 4 - SEO 5 - Customer Service (After hours support) These are the agency experts that do continuous work in my business on a monthly basis. This siloed expertise model provides my online store with the best results possible and reduces my fixed overhead costs. How do you know if CRO specialists are actually experts? (test them!) There are so many expert CRO consultants out there that will promise great results. Because the barrier of entry to becoming a CRO "Expert" is so low, it is up to you to find the best one. I use a simple method for hiring any new expert. I have them show me. I know it's so simple it may work. If a conversion rate optimization agency is interested in earning business, I will test them. I will ask them to do a one-hour screen share to show me exactly what they will do. The ultimate goal here is to learn more about CRO myself and to vet if the expert is truly that. If feasible, I will ask the CRO agency to set up a test in that one hour and then see how the results are. I always try to do a learning session before signing a retainer or hiring them to do a bigger project. This method saves me time, energy, and a lot of frustration. Plus, I may learn something in the process. If I can learn more about CROs, I can also do a better job hiring and firing them. The best CRO consultants focus on one thing (Revenue per visitor) If your conversion process includes optimizing for button colors or for add-to carts you may not have the right expert. My CRO expert only focuses on revenue per visitor, nothing else. Any other metric for eCommerce sites is a distraction. This singular focus on revenue per visitor is what I found to be the best optimization strategy. Simple is usually better. A higher conversion rate may not mean higher revenue per visitor. The hard way to do CRO is to change button colors and design elements and hope for an increase in revenue per visitor. I get it, we all want our website to look great. It is your brand, you want it to look sleek, clean, and professional. The bigger levers come from answering questions that our customers have before they ask them. Copywriting and messaging can be extremely powerful for increasing revenue per visitor if you know what your customer wants. A great conversion rate optimization expert will ask your customers questions. Whether your website visitors come through Facebook ads, Google search,es or emails, they always have questions in their minds. Here is a list of questions your potential customers may have. “Is this brand legit?” “How is this better than what I have?” “Why is it so cheap?” “Why is it so expensive?” And on… These questions create friction! Every unanswered question is a reason for them NOT to buy. More unanswered questions = More friction. The better you can answer those questions on your homepage and product pages, the less friction there is. This is the part where most CROs works miss the mark. When you optimize your conversion rate, make sure you look at both the friction in your store and the friction in your customer’s mind. Here’s how to reduce friction in your customer’s mind. Step 1 - Find out what questions they have Before you can answer their questions, you need to know what their questions are! Dig deeper to find out the common objections your customers have BEFORE they buy. You can always find great insights by going through reviews. If you have a Facebook group, you can even ask them to see what other concerns they have. Step 2 - Find the best way to answer them Once you have an idea of what questions they have in mind, then it’s time to find the right message to answer them. Don’t just limit yourself to the FAQ section or product description! Be creative about how you get your message across. The store is yours! My CRO agency and I have tested so many ways that increase conversions, from adding messages in the buy box to adding an intro banner at the top of the product page. When should you hire a CRO expert and what Conversion rate optimization services should they provide? If you have low traffic to your online business, it will take so long to truly increase your website conversion rate. You need high traffic to make to see CRO results valid in a reasonable amount of time. I think once you are doing $100k a month for your eCommerce store, is a good time to start thinking about hiring a conversion rate optimization company. It may be difficult to see measurable improvements if your revenue per month is lower than that. At the end of the day, profit is the name of the game. Each agency needs to bring a ROI that makes it profitable and improves the business. Dial in your paid traffic and email marketing before jumping into hiring a CRO expert. The basic services a CRO agency may offer are: AB Testing Copywriting tests on product pages Copywriting tests on product pages Adding new pages to your navigation Home Page testing I don't have my CRO agency test new designs. How it looks should not be a CRO service. The copywriting, messaging and elements on the page are more important than design changes. I know how hard this is to resist! Just tweaking button colors is so fun. Ha. Ask your CRO expert the following questions: What is your optimization checklist? How do you view the customer experience? How do you define success? Is it only higher conversion rates? How many case studies do you have? What test results are you aiming for? Do you test home pages? What key questions do you want to ask me about my business? Bottom line, what will the ROI of your service be for my ecommerce store? Hiring a conversion consultant can be easy if you know what questions to ask and if they are willing to share their knowledge with you. I would be weary of hiring anyone that isn't willing to spend that time with you. I always offer to pay for that time (that is up to you though!) Do you focus on Conversion Rate Optimization with your online business? Let me know in the comments below. If you want to talk to the CRO agency I use in my own eCommerce store. Message me and I will introduce you.

I love email. I built my eCommerce brand on the backbone of sending email campaigns that drive engagement, high open rates, and most importantly revenue. My first employee Chris and I became so obsessed with marketing emails that we started a Klaviyo email marketing agency together. As a business owner, your email list is your greatest asset. Sending emails is still the best way to have one-to-one conversations at scale, drive revenue and build a brand. In this blog post, I want to show you some real-world examples from my own online store. I will also go over the email marketing strategy and mindest that went into the email. What is more important: To be a great email copywriter or a great graphic designer? Effective email doesn't need any design. I know, you're about to throw your computer out the window because I said you don't need an overly designed email newsletter. I am not saying you should have zero design elements or have some emails that are beautifully designed. I am saying that the best email marketers use great email copywriting to drive results. Great copy results in higher open rates, click-through rates, and revenue. Great copy should not be complicated. Less is more and being clear on what you want a subscriber to do is part of a successful email marketing campaign. 7 Email Marketing Campaign Examples (Plus the copywriting strategy for each!) Email Campaign: #1 Email type: Question Email Goal: Get replies and engage your email list. The strategy behind this email marketing campaign: Asking your email list to reply is a clear call to action that will invite your customers to engage and start a conversation. It also creates a highly targeted segment we can send to. Breakdown of the copywriting elements: Engagement: Asking your email list to reply is a clear call to action that will invite your customers to engage and start a conversation. It also creates a highly targeted segment we can send to. Empathy: This is the easiest way to have better results with your emails. Actually caring and thanking your customers who have ordered from you. Using the P.S. Makes it feel more personal. From the Founder: By attaching the founder to the email makes the brand more human. A real person started this company (it was me). Why not use my name in the email signature? It isn't required but it can be effective. Email Campaign #2 Email type: Back in Stock Hype Email Goal: Get replies and build excitement for the new product launch The strategy behind this email marketing campaign: The ultimate goal is to increase units sold when products are back in stock. Sending emails before they are back in stock gets your list ready. The elements that made this email successful are the following: Breakdown of the copywriting elements: Personalized Email: This is simple, but it is sent to YOU. Not sent to everyone, making it feel like it's on a more personal level Using their name and email makes it more special to them. Engagement: Asking your email list to reply is a clear call to action that will invite your customers to engage and start a conversation. It also creates a highly targeted segment we can send to. Urgency: Adding authentic scarcity can increase FOMO and the desire to make a purchase. My brand often sells out of products and our customer base knows this. If you DON'T sell out and have plenty of products to sell, don't fake it. Plain Text From Founder: By attaching the founder to the email makes the brand more human. When you send a personal email, you use plain text. Having a brand do the same makes it feel more natural and native to your inbox. It feels less promotional. Pro Tip: The most important thing with email is to be authentic and have one simple call to action in most emails. Exceptional email copy doesn't need to be complicated. Email Campaign #3 Email type: Launch Email Email Goal: These are fun emails to send. The goal is simple. Sell more clubs. The strategy behind this email marketing campaign: Product launch emails that do well are never single emails. It takes a series of emails to maximize revenue during the launch. You can see all the emails that went into a recent product launch that sold over $238k in 24 hours. Breakdown of the copywriting elements: Limited Supply: Telling your email list how many you have available quantities the supply risk and increases demand. To reiterate, only do this if it is authentic. Never try to use urgency and limited supply if it isn't authentic. Launch: This launch email has less copy than some of our other product launch examples. It was effective because we hyped it well in advance and used a simple image to let them know it is back in stock. One call to action: Get my 64! Simple copywriting and a direct call to action make this email work. Easy to read: Simple graphic design and a large photo make it easy to see what the email is about just by a quick glance. Email Campaign #4 Email Type: Almost sold out (sense of urgency works great for promotional emails) Email Goal: These are fun emails to send. The goal is simple. Sell more clubs. The strategy behind this email marketing campaign: Product launch emails that do well are never single emails. It takes a series of emails to maximize revenue during the launch. You can see all the emails that went into a recent product launch that sold over $238k in 24 hours. Breakdown of the copywriting elements Limited Supply: Telling your email list how many you have available quantities the supply risk and increases demand. To reiterate, only do this if it is authentic. Never try to use urgency and limited supply if it isn't authentic. Limited-time promotion: We don't use discount codes anymore, but when we did they could be used to offer a special price for a limited time. It can be effective to turn a new subscriber into a new customer. Clear CTA (call to action): Get my midnight shadow set, there is no doubt what this email is about. Easy to read: Simple graphic design and text on photos make it obvious why a customer needs to take action. Email Campaign #4 Email Type: Open-Ended Question Email Goal: Get replies and learn more about your target audience The strategy behind this email marketing campaign: This is more of an open-ended question type of email. You may be surprised by some of the replies you get. Read them, you will learn something! Breakdown of the copywriting elements Engagement: It is great to ask for emails that aren't only about the products you are selling. Asking genuine questions like this to your new customers can open them up for an authentic relationship with your internal team. This makes your customer service team much more valuable to you, your brand and your customers. Super simple CTA: HIt reply to let me know From the Founder: By attaching the founder to the email makes the brand more human. Email Campaign #5 Email Type: Single product feature Email Goal: Drive revenue with a singular product focus (No discount code used) The strategy behind this email marketing campaign: I like to send single product feature emails to show our email subscribers a product they may not have on their radar. By only showing one product, you can go into way more detail and address any concerns with that single product. Breakdown of the copywriting elements Personalized email: It's an easy task to use your customer's name in your emails. It will make it feel more personal and it is simple to execute. Value proposition: This email details specific situations in which you could use this club. This type of email can help prospective customer picture themselves using this club in that exact situation. The more specific the better. Know your customer: We know that some customers are concerned about how well they can hit a one iron. It is not a commonly used club. So we address their concern right out of the gate. Email Campaign #6 Email Type: Engagement (You're the CEO) Email Goal: Build engagement and market research at the same time. I love these emails. The strategy behind this email marketing campaign: It is so simple it works! A big part of our e-commerce success comes down to caring about our customers. I candidly want to know what they would make if they were the CEO. This mindset may not be teachable, but it can be really effective as a part of your overall email strategy. Breakdown of the copywriting elements Your customers are the boss: I truly believe my customers are my boss, because without them. We would not exist. Asking for their feedback and treating them like an owner creates a true brand connection. Build a relationship: Building a real relationship leads to amazing word of mouth and a unique experience they can't get from other companies. I hope the other brands just keep blasting email newsletters with 20 calls to action and 10 different codes. P.S. Link: Adding a plain text link gives your mailing list an opportunity to go to your store without having to type in your URL. Email Campaign #7 Email Type: Plain Text Thank You Email (My favorite email marketing copy by far!) Email Goal: Acknowledge your customers and product recap The strategy behind this email marketing campaign: True empathy is the best way to build a brand that can last. Doing this consistently can go a long way to growing your brand and word of mouth. The strategy is simple, thank our customers for being awesome and recap our products from the year. Breakdown of the copywriting elements Acknowledge your customers: It is so easy to thank your customers, but it is often overlooked. For me, I candidly want to thank them, because they are freaking awesome! Behind the scenes: We didn't have to tell them we had our best year ever, but it can be powerful when it is done with the right context. It is because of them! Explaining that we have been in business for 9 years also helps provide a new perspective on the brand. Product recap: A simple link list of products they may have missed this year or forgotten about. Great way to boost sales. Ask for a reply: By now you know how much I love engaging with customers and getting replies! Email copywriting recap If you made it this far, thank you for reading! Email copywriting can be amazingly powerful. Ask authentic questions and empower your customer service team to build real relationships that will last. Please let me know if you need help with your next email campaign. Have a question? Let me know in the comments and I will reply back. I promise.

I obsess over my customer's experience. How a customer feels about your brand comes down to a few key elements. Customer service, customer engagement, and operating with your customer's perspective. As a small business owner, it is so easy to think that you know what is best for your customers. It is your business, right? I mistakingly believed this as well, until one of the products I launched did not go well. I had been running my eCommerce brand for 4 years at that point and was quite frankly cocky. What went wrong? I did not take my customer's perspective in mind. I thought, well I know what my customer wants. This was a humbling moment in my business, that truly helped me let go of my ego and embrace my customer's perspective. Your business would not exist without your customers: Listen to them! My typical product launch strategy includes asking my email list what product they would like to see launched. I typically start with a simple plain text email asking customers which product should we launch first A or B. This simple conversational type email provides authentic feedback and builds a customer relationship and overall customer experience that goes far beyond, "where is my order?" This authentic ask email method is really effective when you have a long-term view of your business. If you don't want to customer service team to have these conversations with your customers, I would challenge you to change your perspective. Your customers want to be heard, let's listen to them and build a stronger relationship. Continuous improvement from customer feedback (product reviews to build a new product) The goal for any new product is to make it the best product for my customers. To do this, we use a continuous improvement methodology. When typically a product for 2-5 years depending on our market share. Since we sell 100% direct to consumers, we get direct feedback from our customers as product reviews. We can go through these reviews and see if there are any product performance improvements we can make. These trends can be really powerful for making micro improvements to an already great product. This takes our direct customers' needs into account for anything new. The goal is to continuously improve to make a higher quality product each time. This is easier said than done! Actionable daily tasks you can do for your customers (This will be your competitive advantage) Fast response time Solve a customer's request in your first reply back Do the unexpected to wow them Take customer feedback to improve product quality Use the customer's perspective in every meeting (from customer service, operations, and marketing) Measure your customer satisfaction with a happiness score and set a specific goal to hit Document customer needs and reviews them monthly Review customer objectives and try to solve them Have a customer strategy meeting that only talks about the customer and their point of view Thank new customers for their orders (I love to have my customer success team send custom welcome videos) The first step to better service is simple (have a tangible target to hit) Measure and improve. Every company has a baseline for customer service. By simply measuring that baseline, you have a starting point and target to beat it. Here is an example of an internal process perspective: Target: Happiness target score 92 or higher Action: If the happiness target score is below 92: We review all "NOT OK" replies and email them. This shows customers we actually care and will provide us with any issue trends. You can also review your internal customer service team to see if any specific employee needs help as well. Action: If the happiness target score is over 92: No action is needed. Align your incentive with your goals: A great way to improve this score is to align your team's incentive. We will occasionally assign an incentive to hit a higher happiness score like a 95. It is amazing the different ways your team members can wow customers when their incentives are aligned with outcomes. I recently wrote a blog post about going above and beyond for a customer. You may get some additional best practices to implement to wow your customers over and over again. Customer experience is a game of consistency. What is the best way to integrate your customer's perspective into your business? Let me know in the comment section below.

Running your own online business can be a lonely venture. A qualified and experienced eCommerce consultant can provide you with a new third-party perspective. As an online store owner myself, I know how easy it is too stuck in the weed with your own eCommerce store. An eCommerce consultant can help you see things differently and be a sounding board for your current challenges and goals. What type of eCommerce consulting services exist? There are many digital marketing agencies that offer done for your services but have no experience running an ecommerce store themselves. A great eCommerce consultant can act more like a coach and work with you to solve difficult challenges at the root cause. Ecommerce consulting services can include: 1- Introducing you to qualified digital marketing experts (Facebook ads, Google ads, Email Marketing, CRO, SEO, Web Development). 2 - Weekly or monthly coaching calls - Actively listen and act as a sounding board for your toughest challenges. An e-commerce consultant will give a potential eCommerce strategy or alternative marketing strategy to test. A great eCommerce consultant will challenge you to dig deeper to optimize your ecommerce store and your time. 3 - Offer specific strategies to increase repeat order rate, and build brand and community for your online store. 4 - Work with you to build hype and excitement for your next product launch. 5 - Build a thank you system that will improve customer satisfaction, lifetime value and word of mouth. 6 - Assist you in preparing your online store for sale. Selling your eCommerce store could be a life-changing event. This will hopefully be the biggest sale of your life! 7 - Offer different eCommerce solutions or apps that may improve your conversion rate, email opt-ins, and overall sales. 8- Provide a strategy for your marketing campaigns. 9 - Coach you on social media marketing. 10 - Conversion optimization. 11- Build systems to improve customer feedback. 12 - Discuss product ideas and new channels. 13 - Choose the best eCommerce platform 14- Search engine optimization strategy and organic traffic 15 - Increase average order value 16 - Review product pages and existing products 17 - Improve customer service and customer engagement 18 - Improve customer retention 19 - Boost sales Running an ecommerce business take focus One of the biggest challenges an eCommerce store owner can face is the dreaded shiny ball syndrome. I myself fell for shiny ball syndrome in 2016, I tried every marketing tactic, hack, and app on marketing. Top eCommerce consultants can keep you focused on big levers in your business that will actually help your business grow. Not only keep you focused, by top eCommerce consultants will save you time and energy by not focusing on things that don't have a real impact on your online business. What can you expect from an ecommerce consultant? Every eCommerce consultant is unique, but I would look for ecommerce consultants that can save me time, money and energy. The ultimate goal is business growth but also the freedom to run your business how you want to run it. It is so easy to get stuck in the day-to-day and a great eCommerce consultant or ecommerce coach can help get you unstuck and focused on things that really matter. Should you hire an ecommerce expert? In the ecommerce world, there are few ecommerce experts. There are however, many digital marketing agencies. These agencies are good at what they do but an ecommerce business consultant can help with operations and aspects of your business that agencies don't handle. If you feel stuck and want someone with experience to ask questions to, hiring an ecommerce expert can be a great addition for your business. What does an ecommerce consultant cost? This totally depends on how much experience the ecommerce consutlant has, the time involved and the relationship you are looking for. Many consultants charge a flat fee retainer per month with a defined set of deliverables such as phone calls or emails etc. In some situations an ecommerce consultant may charge hourly. Where can you find ecommerce consultants for your online business? A simple google search for ecommerce consultants can get you started in the right direction. I prefer referrals as well. Either way, the best thing to do is to vet working with them before hiring them. No matter who I hire, I ask them for a half hour paid consult. This makes it fair for both parties involved and will save you time from signing a longer agreement. You don't want to work with someone that isn't a good fit for your business. Test drive them first! I used this exact method to hire my Facebook ad expert. Building an online store and a solid digital strategy can take time, an ecommerce consultant can shorten that time and become a true partner in your success. Let me know in the comments below if you would hire an eCommerce consultant.

These terms are often confused as being the same thing. I want to talk about how I think of each and, more importantly, how you should. Great copywriting and content writing are insanely powerful and be one of the biggest levers in any successful marketing business. I hope to answer the question, do you need both? What is copywriting? (Revenue) The main goal of copywriting is to create action. This type of persuasive writing can be seen in ad copy, sales emails, landing pages, product page descriptions, sales letters, and even a sales page. Effective copywriting should have a clear call to action, outcome, and goals. Great copywriting can be used to drive revenue quickly, build a sense of urgency increase your conversion rate. What is content writing? (Brand Awareness) When I think of content writing I think of blog posts like this, white papers, case studies, and more informative content. The purpose of content writing is content is to provide valuable information for your target audience and rank in search engines. Writing great content is only powerful if your potential clients or customers can find it. Great content writing can be used to drive revenue over the long term, build trust as an authority and increase your organic traffic from google. As a business owner, do you need both? It truly depends on what type of business you operate and what your goals are. Bottom line: Both have their place in most businesses, but what should you focus on first? I am going to break down a few business models and how I think high-quality content is utilized to hit short-term goals as well as long-term brand building. Business Type: Ecommerce (Content writing vs. Copywriting) Monetization Method for your online store: Physical product sales via your online store (Shopify, Bigcommerce, WordPress, Wix, etc.) What do you need first Copywriting or Content Writing? Copywriting: You need persuasive copy to turn online store traffic into revenue and be profitable. Marketing copy is your biggest lever in growth and true scale. Where to focus your Copywriting: Facebook Ads Google Ads Email Marketing SMS Marketing Product Pages Pop Up Post Purchase Upsells Product Page Copywriting Example: Email Copywriting Example: Paid channels such as Facebook and Google can have tremendous scale if the copywriting is converting into sales. This is the biggest lever to start. Building a back-end email system with great copy that engages your audience will help build a profitable brand,. How to use Content Writing for an eCommerce brand Focus on low-target keywords that have commercial intent. The informational content may drive organic traffic but it may not turn into a conversion. SEO is a long-term play and can help reduce my MER (marketing efficiency ratio). Blog Example: Content for content's sake isn't valuable, use search engine optimization and be patient. This is a long game! Business Type: Digital Marketing Agency (Content writing vs. Copywriting) Monetization Method: Done for you marketing services that have a specific impact on a business. Facebook ads and Email Marketing an examples. What do you need first Copywriting or Content Writing? Copywriting: You need a persuasive copy to turn online potential clients into clients Where to focus your Copywriting: Cold Email Google Ads Press Releases Website Copy Client Proposals Service Packages Case Studies Website Example: Targeting larger potential clients for a higher ticket agency retainer is a far different challenge then selling physical products. There are far fewer potential customers and you need to be targeted to make advertising profitable. We focus on cold emails and drive them to our website. From here we use a value-based selling approach, but the most important thing is being clear in what we offer. How to use Content Writing: Focus on low target keywords that have are informative for your potential clients. This can be a more long term play and we use content to show that we are experts. Case studies such as the recent product launch can be effective in demonstrating that you are a true expert. Again, content writing and optimizing for google can help you drive inbound leads that are more targeted then general ads, since your target audience is so niche. Business Type: Blog (Content writing vs. Copywriting) Monetization Method: Display ads, sponsored posts, and affiliate offers What do you need first Copywriting or Content Writing? Content writing: Running a blog (I am still a rookie), but it is all about the content. The name of the game is writing and hitting publish. If you are monetizing via ads and sponsored posts, your copy doesn't need to persuade them to buy or become a client. You just need to show up on google. SEO Optimized Blog Example: Where to focus your Copywriting: I am new to blogging, but like any business, I think positioning is the most important thing. I am attempting to use my unique perspective and background to set my brand position. This is important in explaining why someone should read your blog and stick around. How to use Content Writing: Organic traffic, as a blogger you need to show up on Google. Writing great posts that provide valuable information is useless if you aren't able to drive organic traffic. I am currently writing as often as I can using a few SEO tools like RANKIQ, SurferSEO, and Ahrefs in the hopes that I can hit that first page of google ranking. The ultimate goal is to use your words to build brand loyalty, drive sales and scale your business. The best way to start is to have clearly defined marketing goals and work backward (Can you answer these questions?) Questions to ask yourself: How do you want to use content writing or copywriting to help you hit your unique goals? Do you want to become a great copywriter? (Do it yourself) Do you have the budget and want to hire an SEO content writer, content strategist, marketing team, or technical writer to follow your marketing strategy? (Outsource it, must know enough to hire the best content writers) Do you want to improve your writing skills or hire good content writers? How would you measure success? (More revenue, more leads - Be as specific as you can) Do you want to simply charge more for your service? Land more clients? Sell more products? Launch your e-commerce product There are literally thousands of different ways to use sales copy, SEO copywriting and all the different types of writing to have an impact. Finding the one that will have the biggest impact first takes a unique skill set and expertise in that field. Let me know in the comments below how you think of copywriting vs content marketing.

The first thing you need to do is to have the right perspective. How do you view your customer base? Do you think they actually are difficult customers? Or are you truly on their side and willing to figure out what happened and more importantly take action to wow them? Excellent customer service starts with empathy (Can you see your customer's perspective) This perspective should truly be a part of the company's DNA. Each department needs to have the customer's perspective in mind and have genuine empathy for their issues. A practical and easy way to implement this is to do 3 things well. 1 - Fast response time 2 - A complete solution from the first reply (Solve their problem, don't reply unless you have a solution) 3 - Do the unexpected (Customers have low expectations, do more than they expect and you will Wow them) The bar for great customer service is so low, that simply executing these three things will lead to an amazing customer service experience. Doing this consistently will lower your overall customer complaints. 1 - How exactly do you deal with an angry caller or angry email? (Listen to them and trust your team members) The best way to work with upset customers is to let them fully explain the issue and for you to really listen. Use the customer's name whenever you talk with them and build a real relationship. Letting a customer vent makes them feel heard because they are! From here, the best thing to do actually solve their problem. You know you are doing it right when your customers leave reviews with your employee's names! (Have real customer relationships) Do not send them to another department or transfer them. Most customer frustrations come from being passed around with no clear solution. Having a customer service representative that can take action and actually solve their problems is the most important part. Empower them! If your reps need to get approval from a customer success manager, you have failed. I hope team members that you trust enough to make decisions that are best for your customers. Trust them and let them solve the problems, this will shorten the time to solution and improve customer experience. 2 - How do you improve customer service before a customer becomes an unhappy customer? (Improve your customer experience on a regular basis ) Anytime a customer reaches out via a phone call, email, or social media it is truly a good opportunity to wow them. The best approach is to listen to the dissatisfied customer and document their problem. It's really important to document their exact issue to see if there are any trends across your customer service teams. For example: (Customer calls in with a shipment taking too long) You ship products worldwide but notice that there are 15 documented complaints from customers in Hawaii. Your customer service manager can then review the complaints with the intention of fixing the root cause problem. The manager did some research and found that their current shipping method is consistently delayed. Don't dispute the irate caller, but actually fix the core problem. Empowering your customer service reps to communicate and document issues is rare. Do this and you will already be a step ahead of your competition. Lastly, you need a way to easily see trends to fix these consistent problems. Fixing these problems is the true first line of defense because it will reduce your customer service demand and create more satisfied customers. You won't need to rely on the best customer service reps in the world but could offer a great experience with basic customer service skills. 3 - Measure the results (You can't hit your goals if you don't have one!) Let me be clear, I don't want to believe in micro-managing or looking over the shoulder of my customer service team. I want them to be empowered to run free and solve customer complaints however they like. I do, however, want a way to see customer trends and overall satisfaction at a glance. I use a customer service platform that provides a happiness score with each reply. The happiness score is a simple and clear way to see if customers are actually happy! I don't use this tool to manage employees unless there is a huge red flag, but I use it to see if those trends are significant enough to change something in the operations. Using a tool like this also allows you the unique ability to follow up on a low happiness score. You can also dive into some of the emails to see if it is an abusive customer or if it is a simple miscommunication. A simple follow-up can turn irate customers into truly happy customers. Just take a deep breath before you send that follow-up email or phone call! Your team members should act like business owners and feel like them too The most important thing is the mindset and empowerment of the support team. If you have team members that are paid well, have health care benefits, and are left alone to do what they are paid to do. You usually have a great customer experience. Remember, the bar is so low for a good customer experience. Specific skills I look for in a support member: Ability to understand how a customer feels Active listening (Listen and solve in any situation) Ability to answer open-ended questions and have real conversations with customers even frustrated customers Willingness to make a customer service video thanking customers for their order (this is super powerful) Understand basic human nature and customer's emotions in a tense situation The ultimate goal is simple: A customer service experience that does the unexpected. This turns a rude customer into a raving customer. This turns a customer's anger into excitement. Having reps that can express sympathy and are willing to ask follow-up questions is at the core of a successful support team. Check out specific examples of customer service teams killing it! Here are examples of going above and beyond for customers Let me know in the comments how you handle an Irate Customer.

1 - Shopify Affiliate Program (Affiliate Marketing) You can make a commission for each person that clicks on your affiliate link and then joins Shopify. This is a great way and one of the easiest ways to make money with Shopify. No need to worry about inventory or having someone buy your actual products, just get others to start their online business with your affiliate link. Here is how you sign up: Step 1 - Go to https://www.shopify.com/affiliates Step 2 - Click on Apply now Step 3 - Fill out your information and click Sign Up Then you will need to wait for the approval. After approval, you can start sharing your affiliate link. Affiliate marketing is an easier business model to start because you don't need your own product or software to make money. 2 - Shopify is an eCommerce platform: Use it for what it was intended to do, sell physical products online. Being successful in eCommerce requires a lot of skills. Here are the most important elements of a successful Shopify store: Unique brand position Great offer (this includes the product, perceived value, and overall impulse factor) Amazing products (A truly high-quality product that customers will show off to their friends) Direct response copywriting (Does your copy create excitement and most importantly action) User-generated content Authentic product reviews Using email to build your brand through a 2-way ongoing conversation Customer service that truly goes above and beyond A hungry audience that isn't being served Great product photos that stand out against competitors Product videos using your own products A trustworthy website (a basic theme can do this if the correct elements are shown from the list above) Shopify just makes it easier to do all those things well. 3- Become a Shopify expert and offer services to Shopify store owners The best thing about Shopify is how many customers actually use it. Since so many business owners use Shopify, you have a large audience to offer your services to. Here are 14 Shopify Services that have healthy profit margins. Facebook ads for Shopify Google ads for Shopify Email marketing for Shopify (My favorite) SMS Marketing for Shopify Search Engine Optimization Conversion Rate Optimization Outsourced Customer Support 3PL (Help store owners ship their products) Ecommerce coach Inventory Management (Arguably the most important thing to get right!) Website Design Shopify App Development Blog Posts Writing Book Keeping The easiest way to offer services to Shopify store owners is to increase revenue, save them time, or reduce their costs. No inventory is needed and can be great for cash flow. 4 - Dropshipping (Great way to learn) It is much easier to sell physical products that you don't need to stock or ship. Dropshipping makes selling products online feasible for those that don't have the capital to stock inventory. Plus you don't need to ship the products! What is the catch? Margins are typically tight Product quality could be a concern Shipping and handling times could be too long depending on the location Potential Trademarks and Copyright disputes Overall, I don't believe in dropshipping as a legit way to build an eCommerce brand. I do think it is an effective way to learn how to drive online sales. The best way to learn anything new is to do it, this lowers the barrier to entry and makes it possible for a lot of people. You don't need to be a Shopify expert to make money with Shopify (Document and Ask Method) Whenever I am launching something new I like to use a document and ask system. This system can be powerful for really any business model. I simply document what I am doing in the business before my product is ready to hit the market. I survey and ask my potential customers via social media and email. I ask them authentic questions I want to know the answer to. By having real conversations with my potential customers, I am building an audience. This audience is a part of my brand now and along for the ride as we bring our first product to market. Here are the basic steps I would take to launch a new Shopify store today Marketing Strategy: The goal is to start gathering emails from any traffic I get far in advance of having something to sell. Most new online store owners try to sell products first with no audience and email list. I want to flip the script and build my list and audience first. The money is in the email list and the hype not just the physical products themselves. 7 Steps to launching your Shopify store Step 1 -Sign up for a Shopify account Step 2 - Launch your Shopify store (Basic plan) Pro tip: Don't spend too much time designing your own eCommerce store During my first couple of years in business, I obsessed over all the wrong elements. Button colors, font types, and overall look and feel of the website. I even had a developer on contract. This was NOT necessary but made me feel busy. Luckily, the out-of-box themes on Shopify and some basic graphic design can get you up and running asap and focused on bigger lever money makers. Step 3 - Install a pop-up using Privy or another pop-up tool in the App Store Step 4 - Write copy for your pop-up. Here is an example from our recent product launch that sold $238,740 in 24 hours. Step 5 - Document on your social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok) Step 6 - Ask your audience on social what they are interested in and what would make your product perfect Step 7 - Use my product launch method detailed here Step 8 - Once your first product is ready, send it to various content creators (this will build credibility, drive traffic, and organic search) This method will help you build an audience even before you built a product. Bringing them along for the ride will provide you with great ideas as you slowly built up your online presence. Youtube channel reviews can be powerful Facebook ads will be a key piece of growing your front-end traffic. But, I like to get YouTube video reviews from other channels before I start spending money on ads. Typically this will start creating buzz around your brand. Plus, if you have a relationship with them you can ask to use their videos in your Facebook ads. This may work far better than making your own in-house videos. To continue building it for long-term growth: Write one blog post a week or MORE Writing one blog post a week around your target keywords will help search engines recognize your website before you launch. Doing this as early as possible will help build up your authority in the long run. It isn't as exciting as doing a big product launch fueled by paid traffic. But it is a good idea to get your domain ranking and authority higher from the start. I don't want to waste time just writing blog posts that won't rank. I like to target long tail and low competition keywords with commercial intent when writing blog posts. There is no guarantee of traffic, but writing high-quality and SEO-friendly content will boost your domain rank and organic traffic. How do you plan to make money with Shopify? Let me know in the comments below and good luck on your journey!

I will admit, that I am a new blogger. Although I am not new to running an online business and SEO, I have never started a pure content site like this one. My background is in eCommerce and running an Agency. When I sold my eCommerce brand in 2022, I wanted to take on a new challenge. Writing new blog posts was easy, but writing blog posts that could rank on the first page of google. Well, I had no idea how I could make that happen. I personally bought a course about blogging and joined a number of online communities. It was clear that you need to have a real strategy and target keywords that search engines will actually rank a new domain for. During this journey, I found Brandon Gaille, the host of the blogging millionaire podcast and I was instantly hooked I tried to find his course to buy. As I found out, he stopped offering the course but is now offering an SEO toolset called RANKIQ. My Rank IQ review as a new blogger I am writing this blog post inside the RANKIQ Content Optimizer. What I love about the content optimizer is how simple it is to use and understand. Anytime I write a new blog I want to make sure I am giving myself the best chance to be ranked on google. You can easily measure if your blog will have a chance of ranking by the GRADE (Suggested content grade) and your Word count. "All I need to focus on is writing authentic content using the keywords on the right side of the screen." Whenever I write one of the keywords such as Rankiq review. A green circle will appear next to that keyword, which candidly makes me feel like I am making progress. Any win at this point in my blogging journey is a big win! Rank IQ is a mix of hands on keyword curation and a SEO Tool When I signed up for Rank IQ, I assumed it would be like the other SEO tools that help you write blog posts around your target keywords. But the team at Rank IQ actually picks out low-competition keywords that you can ACTUALLY Rank for and tells you how fast or slow you can rank for them. This is what makes it unique in my opinion. My first blogs that I wrote were targeting keywords that seemed low competition in Ahrefs, but in reality, the SERP analysis would show they were extremely competitive. "Before I tried RankIQ I was wasting tons of time on writing blog posts that may never show up in google rankings." This is where RankIq comes in, the platform has keyword libraries full of low competition high traffic keywords that you can actually rank for. I would call these the right keywords to actually go after. They are hand-picked by a true Seo expert and founder of Rank IQ, Brandon. That is pretty awesome. Your Keyword research process is the biggest lever With any of the businesses I have started, I always try to look for the biggest lever. And as I have talked to numerous content publishers and a top blogger it is clear that finding a list of keywords in my blog niche that I can rank for is the biggest lever to get my page views up and ranking on google. I attempted to build my own keyword research library and put together keyword research strategies. It takes a lot of time and a lot of hard work to find keywords that can rank. Instead of doing this myself, I am going to use RankIq to find the lowest competition phrases in hopes of getting my website to rank faster. I will update with results soon! I want to run a blog as a business and not just as a hobby The point of blogging is to get your blogs seen, the best way to do this is to get your website into the coveted 1st page google ranking spot for your top keywords. I want to find the fastest way to go from a new blog to a website that shows up in google search results. I am fairly confident that this hands-on keyword selection in the Keyword Library will be the unlock for growing my personal blog business. How do I use RankIQ to find my target audience keywords? (8 Steps for new content) Step 1 - Find your keyword phrase Step 2 - Go to Content Optimizer (content optimization tool) Step 3 - Write high-quality content (that can take some time!) Step 4 - Include keywords from right-hand side Step 5 - Make the Grade on top bar go Green! Step 6 - Make the words counter go Green Step 7 - Post and publish on your blog Step 8 - Let google do its think and rank you on 1st page of google (at least that is the plan) My overview may be a simplified version, but Brandon made a 33-minute-long tutorial video and posted it on the homage page. This goes much more in-depth about the capabilities of Rank IQ. I am trying to use a simple strategy that I can actually execute and use daily. Bottom line, I needed a simple way to guide my content creation and be confident that I am writing content that will help my website rank. The customer support is AMAZING plus there is a Facebook Group for users Rank IQ is more than a keyword research tool, it's a community backed by insane customer service to help you write new posts that will rank. The social media component was not something that I was expecting but it helps to be in a group with people trying to accomplish the same goals. Lastly, the price point is so affordable for how hands-on the keyword research is. I even was able to submit a request for a different niche that wasn't listed. I believe you are allowed one request per month since it is crafted by hand. Here is how you can get started. Click here

Editing your website should be easy. The Wix editor makes editing after you hit the publish button, a true breeze. Your entire website can be edited using a simple drop editor. When you log in to your Wix website. You will see your Wix Dashboard (see below). You can edit your Wix site after publishing To clarify, you can edit your live site after you have published it. I love how easy the Wix website editor makes updating my own website. I often publish blogs that are not perfect, then will edit them later. I realize that not every blog post will be perfect and that's ok. As a blogger, it is important to keep hitting that publish button! Ready to edit your new website? To start editing your Wix site, click the Edit Site button The Wix Website editor will pop up showing you a dotted line grid pattern which is drag and drop. This allows you to truly update your live website in a few easy steps. The left-hand side of the editor includes the following options. The + allows you to Add To elements to your site Then the following Menu/pages Site Design Add Apps My Business Media Content Manager Ascend Business Tools You can edit your website on Desktop and Mobile Desktop Editor and Mobile editor - This makes designing my blog for desktop and mobile devices extremely easy. Wix also has a Wix Tutorial which candidly, I don't think is needed because the editing is the easiest I have seen from any website builder. Does that make it the best website builder? I would think yes for those that want to easily be able to get a website live and edit it after they have hit publish. Desktop Editor (Screenshot) Mobile Editor (Screenshot) Design your Website exactly how you want Under the site design tab, you can choose from a variety of color palettes to make your personal blog the way you envision it. The Wix templates are really solid right out of the box. I had a specific layout in mind for my blog and was able to make new changes using my own images to make it feel on brand for me. I tried to do something similar with a WordPress theme and I was overwhelmed. Wordpress is the gold standard, but I personally could not edit as easily as Wix. Although WordPress is the gold standard for blogging, it is harder to customize and get started. I can see that being a barrier to entry for those that just want to get a blog started. The only catch or concern I have with Wix as a blog comes down to your monetization method. My research shows that you can't use Ezoic or Mediavine ads with Wix, but you can only use Google Adsense. So if you are planning to monetize with those platforms, you would need to go with WordPress. Wix Monetization built-in - I haven't decided If I would use this feature yet, but Wix has built-in subscription plans that can help you monetize your blog by setting up a paywall. Right now my Wix account is on the paid plan and I am using my own Wix Domain as well. I literally was able to set up a new site without having to coordinate with any other websites, which is a true win. I personally don't love bogging down any of my websites with apps, but the Wix apps store seems truly robust and has tons of extra apps and extra features that make almost anything possible. Setting up new pages, web forms, and a contact information page was insanely easy using the editor. Most of my traffic comes from mobile, so having a mobile website that loads fast and could be easily edited was critical. The first time I used Wix I didn't realize that they had Live Chat, so I actually sent them a tweet on Twitter. To my surprise, they replied and sent me an easy step-by-step guide to solve my problem. The customer service and support gave me a ton of confidence. "Just getting started is the hardest part, Wix makes that part easy" The simplest way to start an online business is to make it easy to start. So if this is your first site, you will have no problem using the design elements, edit sections, and customization options to get your online business launched. Let me know in the comments how you will use Wix.

As a small business owner, you are nothing without your customers. This is why at my own company I truly do whatever it takes to show my customers that they are the most important thing in our business. And it always surprises me that many online store owners look at customer satisfaction as a cost center and necessary evil. When in reality excellent customer service will create loyal customers that will continue to buy from you. How do you measure customer experience? It seems like such a difficult thing to measure. I use these 4 metrics to help gauge how well our customer support team is executing our vision of "doing the unexpected" and "wowing customers at any cost." Help Scout Happiness Report is a great way to measure overall customer satisfaction as a company. You can also drill down further by the employee. We have a benchmark rating of 91% Great. Anything above this number means we are on track. Anything below means we have an angry customer or 2 and we need to diagnose it. Often times customers just want to be heard and are more than reasonable. I have trained my customer service team to reach out to anyone who has scored our replies as NOT GOOD. This simple follow-up is a great example of putting in a little extra effort that your customers will really appreciate. Any help desk tool like Help Scout is a great method to quantify your customer service experience. Product Reviews (Star method) is a great way to see how your customers like your actual products, but it can also shed light on if your customers are happy customers or not. We usually review these product reviews during a new product launch to see what the overall feedback is. Often we will see if our team left a good impression and had a positive attitude in these reviews. Product reviews are interesting because they are truly a mix of product and customer service. I really enjoy them because it provides some really cool insight into what we should launch next and how we can improve our products and provide exceptional service. Social media comments: This is not as tangible as a customer feedback score and it can be difficult to take every single comment on social media too seriously. But, I often can see an overall theme by reading the comment section on our social media posts and ads. We tend to Focus on Facebook comments and the comments in our owners-only group that we have. The owners-only group is a really important asset to the business because it's our actual customers and it's a great way to communicate with them on social media. In addition to reading the social media comments, we can also solve common questions easily in the group. We also like to review what our customers are posting in the group, not just what they are commenting on other posts. Often, we can see them posting examples of exceptional customer service in the group. This can be a great way to gauge how our actual customers are feeling about our customer service experience. Returning customer rate in Shopify: This is a quantifiable measurement, but doesn't directly correlate to your customer satisfaction. How often your customers repeat buy can also be a function of the products you are selling. But, you can be sure that if your customer service is poor that no matter what you are selling they will not be returning. For example, if you are selling a consumable product or a subscription service the likelihood that your customer buys again is far higher than someone who sells a hard good like a golf club. A golf club doesn't need to be replaced every month like a consumable. I think having a baseline customer repeat order rate for your specific online store niche is important. For my own online store, I can easily look at our returning customer rate especially when we launch a new product. If we aren't selling to many existing customers that can be an indicator that our customers aren't happy enough to buy again. Meeting your customer's needs is something that needs to happen every day, not just once in a while. And I would argue that going above and beyond for a customer needs to happen every day for it to have a meaningful impact on your business and your brand. You can't just be excellent at customer service once in a while. The best way to wow your customers is to do the unexpected (customer expectations are low already) When a customer service representative does this it turns a regular customer into a repeat customer. The unfortunate truth is that most customers have low expectations when it comes to customer service. So providing a stellar customer service experience just means doing the unexpected. Example: A customer emails and says they lost a golf club on the 7th hole and they want to buy a replacement. They are expecting to get a link to buy a new club and they will have to pay for their mistake of losing a golf club. My team has been trained to do the unexpected, so they will just ship the customer a new replacement club even before they reply back! So they solve the problem and do the unexpected which is shipping the club at no cost to the customer. This is a great example of outstanding customer service because you are doing the unexpected. This simple change in mindset, allows my team to provide the best customer service experience without having to talk to me. They never need to ask my permission to do a refund or send the free product they just operate with the mindset of wowing the customers and doing the unexpected. This can take some time to train new employees because it is not the norm. Key takeaways: Do the unexpected (expectations of the customers are already low - you can wow them!) Eat the cost to do the unexpected Do not debate it, just do the right thing before you even reply (this will wow them) Your customer service team will need the right attitude and actually care about them Employ team members who love your niche (Golfers should work at a golf company) Here are some examples of great customer service How do you actually go the extra mile consistently? I let the customer service department run itself. To make sure new customers and existing customers have an amazing experience means I need to trust my team. I better also make sure my employees are happy too! If I am micro-managing my employees they will do the same to our customers. Once you have found a good candidate and relevant work experience you should let them do their job freely. I use the 4 measurements I mentioned above to check in to make sure we are on track. I am fortunate that I no longer have to do that because my team members have been with my company for many years. This creates a true win-win situation for my customer service team and our customers. Example: A customer posted in the group that they had their golf clubs stolen from their trunk. Instead of commenting on the post, we will just take immediate action and send them replacement clubs. They had no expectations that we would do this, this unexpected action truly wows the customer and they will tell others about the positive experience. This example of great service doesn't take a lot of extra work either. It just takes the ability to see things differently and look at bad customer experiences as the best opportunity to show them how amazing our customer service team is and how seriously we take to make them happy. The best solutions come from just doing the right thing Here is another example of good customer service. Example: A customer calls in and says that their order still hasn't arrived. The shipping carrier has been delayed. Although we have no control over the shipping carrier getting the product there on time we can control how we handle it. Instead of doing the bare minimum which would be providing them with a tracking number and update. We often will just refund the shipping or offer to ship the products again. Both of these solutions are not expected by the customers, hence providing a great customer experience. What customer service skills do you need? Customer service is often the first thing outsourced, but for my eCommerce brand, it is our only in-house position. Although, I could outsource it and save a lot of money by doing that. I have chosen to spend more to keep this house and I have found that is the best way to truly create a service experience that people will talk about. They will treat a customer's problem as if it was their own. This is the best way to change your perspective on customer service and make sure customers are raving about your products to all their friends. It can be super powerful and have a compounding effect. Great customer service can go a long way and drive revenue from simple word of mouth if done properly for a sustained period of time. On the other hand, a bad customer experience can spread like wildfire. Invite your customers to talk with your team Talk with your customers and invite them to talk with you. Our email list is one of the most valuable assets we own in the business and we want to make sure it is extremely healthy and thriving. In order to do this, we ask our customers questions via email. These are real questions we want to know the answers to. When a customer replies, we reply back. It sounds so simple, but I have seen many emails that have a no-reply email. This is the exact opposite approach we take. We invite and encourage customers to reply to emails, this way we can build an authentic relationship with them. Many customers know my team members by name, this does not happen when you send no reply emails to your customer list! Having a strong work ethic and the ability to consistently wow customers isn't easy unless they love their job. Do you have a phone number? Customer call in's are a great opportunity to build a deeper relationship than just via email. This is another reason that I have my team members in the house who love golf, they can talk about the game my customers and employees love. We always encourage our customers to call us, even though many like to email us their issues we enjoy just talking and hearing about their round or that perfect golf shot they hit. You would be surprised how many good ideas we get for new products just by talking to our customers on the phone. Never give a customer a hard time or debate an issue The greatest accomplishment for any customer service rep or account manager is to have a customer post about their experience with a rep. Nothing makes me more proud of my team than seeing a customer rave about their experience with them. That is an easy way to know your reps are doing a great job. Lastly, you should make sure you are talking with your customers wherever they are. So if you are using Live Chat, you better have someone on it. If you are running Facebook ads, you better have someone on Facebook messenger and so on. Wherever you are having customers engage, you need to be ready to communicate. Do you have examples of good customer service? Let me know in the comments.

Step 1 - Go to Shopify.com and click Log in Step 2 - Enter your email and click Continue with Email Step 3- Enter your password and click Log in Step 4 - Enter your authentication code and click Log in Step 5 - Chose your account Step 6 - Your Shopify store URL will be shown, it will usually look like this test-1.myshopify.com Finding your Shopify store URL is easy when you know where to look. Book mark this page for the next time you google "How to find my Shopify URL"