6-Figure Ecommerce Dropshipping Without AliExpress or Facebook Ads

Before you make any assumptions, this presentation is not what you would expect from most drop shipping lessons; this is dropshipping without AliExpress. Or Facebook Ads.

What Earnest has done is built a modest 6-figure income based off a stable, long-term approach to ecommerce. We’re not talking about cheap items that take over a month to reach your customers’ doorstep. We’re talking about high price tag items, hyper-targeted niches and each of your distributors located within the US.

Focusing strictly on a more modest earning, while enjoying the benefits of stability, peace of mind and being able to set it and forget it.

He’s taught over 1100 coaching sessions on the fundamentals of dropshipping. From niche selection to setting your store on autopilot, Earnest will get you there.

Speech by Earnest Epps | CEO, Earnest Associates

 

Earnest Epps Speech Transcript

What is going on Affiliate World?

You guys excited or what? Whoo! Man, you guys are tired, like you guys are like, trying to like nap or something right now?

So, listen. Man, I’m here to talk to you guys about dropshipping and the unique element about what I’m gonna actually cover is, without using AliExpress or Facebook ads. That’s usually a shock without the Facebook ads right?

Built to Sell System

So let’s get into a little bit of my background, okay, so you know, what I’m going to cover is what I like to call my ability to sell a system.

It’s pretty much an e-commerce academy that I launched about two months ago and literally, it’s the system that allowed me to walk away from my full-time job and retire me and my fiance within a 90-day period.

After I’ve made the decision to be committed to creating success in the eCommerce arena so that’s actually the month that I decided to actually walk away from my full-time job.

I made $41,000 dollars in revenue with $17,000 dollars of net profit like that was absolutely amazing, and now I have consistent days like this.

So the unique element about what I’m gonna be covering with you guys, it’s how to be able to sell products that are a higher ticket like products, they have a higher price point tool, literally, I have consistent orders that come in like that day by day.

So the next question I always get from people is like “Man, that’s really awesome Earnest but what is the advertising costs look like? Like how much money are you spending in any given week in order to create success?”

So I did the liberty, they’ve actually taken some screenshots of this particular store from my AdWords account, so you guys can actually see how that looks right? So this week right here is November 12 to the 19th.

So What Does My Advertising Cost Look Like…

 

Now, mind you, this is actually before Black Friday right, well cause everybody knows everybody makes money on Black Friday.

So let’s look at how much advertising, so that’s my Google AdWords account.

That’s the screenshot from the mobile app. That’s about two hundred and seventy dollars from Google and then we spent about thirty-two dollars for me.

So let’s see roughly about three hundred dollars brought in about twenty-one thousand dollars in revenue but you guys say, that’s a pretty cool thing! Say yes, all right!

So take out the pen and paper because you guys are going to be super duper excited to take notes. Gonna show you guys literally the entire process and how am I able to put this stuff together.

But before I do that, I need you guys to make a commitment to something right. Like why are you guys even here? Like what brought you to Affiliate World?

I know some of you got to flying from all over the globe to get here and I know you came to learn how to make money or increase your revenue but like why is that? Like what brought you here?

I just want you guys to think about that and pause for a second.

And the reason why I want you to think about that is because if money is the only thing that brought you out here, you know, to this event for this entire week and I promise you that’s not gonna be the thing that’s gonna help you accelerate your success and hit your income goals that you have in mind.

Because as soon as you make the decision to really scale out everything, something’s gonna come along the way and life is gonna punch you.

And unless you know what that “why” is, unless you know what it is that’s deep inside, that’s gonna help you get to that next level like that’s what’s gonna really help you right.

So for me personally, like it’s my family now. I don’t have 12 kids.  I know some of you guys, like “Man, Ernest is busy with this dropshipping stuff”, right? No, I actually got four, they’re just kind of scattered all over the place, right.

What keeps Earnest Epps passionate

But guys, that’s what fires me up. That’s what keeps me passionate.

You know, that’s what makes me up every single day because when I was young and I was going through high school, my dad actually walked away from me and my family, when I was in my sophomore year right.

And so I put a lot of stress in my mom and I said that I never wanted to put my kids in that type of situation.

So for me, like that’s what fires me up every single day and along with that is being able to help people, like you guys.

People that were in my old shoes and help you guys create success. So my commitment is I’m gonna be pouring into you guys for the next 20 minutes.

And I’m asking you guys to do right now, it’s like, I want you to commit to what brought you out here this evening. Not just money but what really brought you out.

And this is one of my personal missions like I want to be able to create 12 e-commerce entrepreneurs and help them create and get a seven-figure check over the next 12 months.

So if you’re wondering like, “Hey what the heck is Ernest up to over this next year.”

My Mission: Create 12 Ecommerce Entrepreneurs in 12 months to get 7-Figure Checks

This is my personal mission that I’m focused on for the next 12 months. And my promise to you that, today I’m going to show you guys how simple it is to sell products that people want to buy.

That create sales for me that are over a thousand dollars a day, literally, without me having to log into my computer.

I mean as crazy as this sounds, I literally managed 90% of my business for my dropship and stores for my cell phone. Like it’s really crazy and I’m gonna be able to help you guys do it faster today right.

I always tell everybody, I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed okay, Literally like, I might say some stuff that sounds really cool but I know if you guys came out here, you guys flew from all over the globe that we got a lot of sharp people that’s out there.

So I know you guys are a lot sharper than me and wiser, so you’re gonna be able to rock this thing out, but here’s the process that I use.

Built To Sell 4 Step Process

So the first thing you’ll see is 1.) find a product selling right. I want to cover exactly what that means.

Next, 2.) we’re going to make sure that we’re targeting the right market and right customers that can actually forward our products and can actually purchase those.

Next, 3.) we want to make sure that we can find dropship friendly suppliers because obviously we’re drop shipping and the last thing we need to do is obviously, 4.) sell those products and get paid right.

So let’s hop into that. And you know like I said, once everything set up with the system like literally, you’re able to profit and not have to have an immense amount of marketing expenses.

So, who out there is gonna be the next dropship success story?

Say yes! Whoo! That’s what I’m talking about!

So let’s talk about a little disclaimer real quick, cause everything I’m about to share with you guys is not typical, okay.

Most people that are watching this will not literally come as anything that I’m about to cover. Like, you just won’t put in the effort and obviously, if you don’t put in the effort with the information I’m gonna cover with you, you can’t get any results right.

So here’s what’s on our agenda, I want to show you guys:

1. How to identify the hottest high ticket products to sell online;
2. Discover how to market those products to customers that are already looking for them; and
3. The secret is setting up your all 24/7 ATM.

And in the end, I’ve actually got a little special surprise for you. So if I get to forget, definitely make sure you remind me about that.

Earnest Epp’s Story

So some of you guys might be like, you know where did artists actually begin his journey?

So personally for me my freshman year, I went to Liberty University and I went there for one reason and one reason only, to play football, okay.

And in the process of playing football, I actually had to get my appendix removed. So that actually kind of messed me up with football right, so I had to figure out what the heck do I do next.

So I decided to move out and move back home to help out my mom, because again like I said my dad walked away. My sophomore year, mom needs help, I have an older sister, younger sister, she needs some support.

So I decided to go into the job marketplace, forget about school; started working my way up. I became a marketing director for a remodeling company and that led me to what I like to call my dream job.

I mean guys I thought I had the best job in the world. I thought I was gonna work them for the next 40 years. I thought it was gonna be amazing.

They were paying for my car. they were paying for my cell phone. Literally, they were paying for everything guys, and then, I got fired, all right.

I was hoping that the company creates an immense amount of success; I was literally managing at the age of 23, 24, some contracts for some multi-billion dollar companies and I wound up getting let go.

I don’t want to get into the whole story about that because it’s pretty crazy but ultimately, I had to figure out what the heck to do next right.

So you know pretty much I was sitting that break-even at this point.

In my life, I wasn’t succeeding I wasn’t really poor, but I just wasn’t really doing anything for myself and then I read across eCommerce right.

E-commerce Forecast projected to 2020

And I was like man, the growth of this thing is pretty awesome. Like six hundred billion dollars, they’re projected to do by 2020.

Now I know about you guys, I said looking at this, I don’t have to to get all the pot right I just got to get a little bit of it, like I don’t need 600 billion but I’ll take 10 million, 20 million.

Is anybody out there out there like me?

Anybody okay with 10 million? I’d like 600 billion all right.

So if you guys are unfamiliar with the dropship model because I know we got a lot of affiliate people here, but pretty much, this is the process right.

You set up a site people find it, someone purchases the product you forward, that over to the supplier, boom you get paid in the process.

But here’s what it meant for me, no inventory loads, no overhead. And I could trade money for money.

Like that’s what got me excited. And then afterward, after creating some success, I joined the Paycation.

Traveling with Paycation

Now some of you guys are like what the heck is a Paycation right?

So literally what that means is that because of drop shipping, I’m able to go places all over the globe, you know. I was able to go up to and run a workshop in Hawaii last year.

I just recently went to Paris, London, Spain, Rome. Rome was a dream for me. Like that was actually on my dream list, for years guys.

And I never thought that would have been possible prior, to be able to actually do dropshipping and create a lot of success with that.

And, this was the event that we recently did in Georgia with my bill to self and yes that is a real tank and yes that is a car and yes we crushed the car that really happened, okay.

We also shot machine guns that day, it was pretty cool.

So I’m excited to share with you guys. Now, let’s roll up our sleeves and let’s dive into the content, okay.

So we need to find a product that’s selling. “So Earnest, what do you mean by that?”

Phase 1: Find A Ecommerce Product Already Selling (Picking Phenomenal Products That Profit)

We’re going to cover the process on how to be able to pick phenomenal products that profit.

So here are the criteria that I like to cover right. I like to sell products again that have a minimum average price point of $200 and that’s going to be something that you’re really gonna want, to position yourself, to do.

Next is you want to make sure that you’re targeting the right market of people that are in the demographic of upper-middle-class. So I’ll cover that for you guys.

You want to make sure that you identify at least 15 suppliers that are dropship friendly.

Then lastly, we need to obviously sell their product and get paid right.

Why is Pricing so Important

So you might be asking yourself, “Earnest why is pricing so important, why do you focus on products to have a higher price point?”

Here’s how simple it is, I know a lot of people out there familiar with people selling stuff that is $10, $20, $40, whatever right, but let’s just use the example of an iPhone charger cord. That typically has an average price point of like 10 bucks, right?

Now let’s look at something that has a little bit higher value like an electric fireplace, about $600.

Now let’s say we drive the same a lot of traffic to that iPhone charger core website as we do to the fireplace website right. And we have a 1 percent conversion rate.

Anybody that’s familiar with anything, double an e-commerce the one percent conversion rate is actually pretty standard, it’s pretty common right.

And here’s how my brain works., I did the math and I said well 10 sales an iPhone charger cord at a 1% conversion rate is 100 bucks versus 10 sales on the fireplace website $6,000.

Like I’m not a complicated guy, right? Like I’m pretty decent; like with numbers and I can do the math, so I said, man, I need to focus on like finding products that have a higher price point to them, so I could make more money with less effort.

So here’s what we’re going to do as we start to develop a list of products that we want to do, research on,

Figuring Out The Price Point of the Product

How we can figure out the price point of those items?

All we need to do is go to google and are in the product idea click on the shopping section.

And then, what’s really awesome is Google on the left-hand column, they give us some information that gives us, tells us about the price point, we’re just gonna review what’s called the PLA. So I’m a cover exactly what that is.

And then lastly, we’re gonna write down what the average market value is, for the product. okay.

So, let’s take a look at that live. Let’s go to Google. We’re gonna put in the electric fireplace.

Next, what we’re going to do is we’re gonna click on the shopping section.

And lastly boom! Guess what Google does, they literally break down the price point of what people are spending in the marketplace for the products that you potentially want to sell, you see how cool that is, right.

Now if you want to get further verification of what the average price point is, you can obviously go through the products that are listed there in the shopping section.

And literally, like, you know, very simply just write down with it what the actual price of the products are and that’ll tell you what people are actively spending in the marketplace for which you want to actually sell alright.

So again why does the average price matter, personally for me because of the bullet point that you see there number two.

Like I said earlier, I’m a simple dude, here’s what I always tell people.

20% of a lot of it there’s a lot of it, 20% of a little bit a little bit.

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You guys agree with that say, yes say yes!

Okay cool, and then the last thing you’re able to attract better customers because, let’s face, it like if you’re selling something that has a higher price point and your advertising to those right to that right audience, you’re gonna be able to create success for yourself.

How To Come Up with these Product Ideas

So the next thing is people’s like, “Man Earnest, how do you come up with these product ideas? How do you figure out what the research is without research?”

Literally, like guys, it’s just as simple as just listing everything.

Like what’s in your home, what’s in your bedroom, your bathroom and your office, like, you know in your car, or in your car like, you know, what’s such a friend’s house, your family sounds like everywhere, our products.

Like in this room, there are amazing products that you could be researching right now, and drop shipping and creating success with.

And then, here’s a couple other ideas, you know, go to big-box retail stores go to mom-and-pop shops.

Literally look everywhere.

The store that I built that allowed me to walk away from my full-time job came as a result of an online magazine.

I knew nothing about the products, all I did, I did the research, looked like it fit the right audience. They had a good price point to him. I put up a website drove traffic, got paid alright.

It’s as simple as that.

So, how do we make sure that we target the right market?

Phase 1: Target Market (Picking the right buyers for your products)

So I’m not gonna be able to break down everything that you see here.

But specifically now, in the US because you know that’s why I like the dropship, we like to break things down from a demographic standpoint by income, all right.

Different Demographics Have Different Buying Behaviours.

Now, getting it to like my corporate background a little bit, each income bracket, you know, with the different classes of the lower, middle, upper middle class and wealthy, different people have different buying behaviors.

You know you had Alexander came up here earlier, the cycled data analysis gentleman, you know, he talked about the psychology of people right.

So you know the different classes of people have different buy behaviors somewhat from a mindset aspect.

So we’re going to jump into the exact income bracket that we want to target right, upper-middle class.

So this is the buying behavior of what people look like, that make this type of money, in these different income brackets right.

Target Market: Upper Middle Class

So people that in the upper-middle class are classified as people that have an average income household of $55,000 to $250,000 annually.

They’re our best prospect because they’ll pay in cash.

And the next thing is one of my favorites, if they see something, they like it, they buy it right. They are emotional shoppers, okay.

They also have a low risk of return. And this last thing too guys is super duper important is that they have an average monthly disposable income of $700 a month right.

Not an immense amount of money but again if we’re selling products, that have a higher price point., wouldn’t you rather sell to somebody that actually has some money at the end of the month?

And if you’re unfamiliar with disposable income means, that means how much money is left over at the end of the month after you spend your money on everything, right.

Like as far as like monthly expenses. Like what you’re spending on like your car, know your mortgage, you know food, all that good stuff. How much money is left over?

People that are in the upper-middle class actually have money left over at the end of the month. So they’re able to actually, for whatever it is that you’re trying to put in front of them.

So again we want to target these people because when they see something, they like it, they buy it.

So the next question you might be is like, “Well Earnest how do I know that the products that I want to sell are actually, you know, in a position to be for the right market?“

Using Facebook Audience Insights

Alright, this is as simple as it gets, we’re going to use Facebook audience insights, which is a free tool.

And all you’re going to do when you go to Facebook is, you’re gonna select the country that you want to target because again, this works like, you know, pretty much, I won’t say every country because there are obviously like, you know some countries that it won’t work in.

But you know, countries like Australia, Canada, you know, I got people that saying what’s you know South America, you know, whatever country it is that you want to target, you just put that country in, right.

Next, what you’re gonna do is you’re gonna put your product idea in the intersection. And then lastly you’re gonna click on household income.

So let’s take a look at what that looks like.

So on the left-hand side or my left your right, you’re gonna see where I put in the United States, obviously, that’s the country.

Next, you’re gonna put in the product interest right. That’s where you’re gonna put the product idea that you want to actually sell, because essentially, what you’re doing right now, if you don’t know and you’re saying, hey Facebook, you have two billion active users every single month that are interested in all different types of topics, tell me people that are interested in this topic and tell me how much money they make.

Literally as simple as that.

Next, we’re gonna click on the household. Then, Facebook is gonna say, hey people that are interested in this product make this type of money.

Wow, all right!

None of this crazy stuff, literally let these other tools do all the heavy lifting for you.

So pretty much what Facebook told us is that hey, people that are interested in fireplaces, make on average if you can’t really see the graph, they say 22% of people make between fifty thousand and seventy-five thousand dollars a month.

And then, 23 percent of people earn between $75,000 to $100,000. So, 55 percent of the people that say they like fireplaces aren’t interested in fireplaces, make between $50,000 and a $100,000 dollars in their household income.

That is amazing, right?

So again, why do we want to target that very market? Because we want to target people that have the power to actually buy something, without having to think about their bank account right?

Also, these people have low customer service and they have a low risk of returners.

So next, we need to make sure that we have supplies to support our product ideas.

Phase 3: Ecommerce Dropship Suppliers

So how do we do that?

Guys, this right here, if you haven’t taken a screenshot is worth the weight in gold. Literally. Okay?

This is all you have to do in order to find suppliers that it drops it friendly.

You just need to go out find competitor websites, so putting your product idea and start researching two different websites that sell what you want to sell right.

Next, you’re gonna go through that website and just seem like you know, are there online retailer or do they have a physical location?

So what I mean by physical location? Do they have a showroom, a warehouse or storefront?

If they do not have any of those three elements, that means that they only sell online. They don’t have an offline presence, meaning that all the suppliers and brands that they work with in order to fulfill those orders, drop ship them for the actual website that sells all right.

So let’s take a look at what that looks like.

So in the process of research in electric fireplaces, I came across this website here called Home Square Cymax.

And literally, they say Home Square Cymax is one of the online furniture retailers. And they have sales that are exceeding 100 million blah blah, all right.

Ok, so the only thing that matters here is the fact that they say they’re an online retailer. Meaning again, all the purchase orders that happen on their website go through brands that say, “Hey, we’re okay with drop shipping the products, so you don’t have any inventory or overhead and we’ll fulfill those for you.”.

So that’s huge, now, all we got to do is extract those suppliers off the website.

So let’s take a look at another example.

If we go to this website here, Electric Fireplaces Direct.com these guys, literally list out all the brands for us.

All we got to do is know those brands and contact those suppliers.

And the conversation is really simple guys.

It’s just “Hey, you know my name is Ernest and I’m looking to getting ready to launch electricfireplacesusa.com. We’re looking to expand our product catalog and we’d like to know how we set up a dropship account.”

Like literally, it’s that simple.

You might, “Earnest it’s really that simple?” Yes, you already know they drop ship, they already dropshipped for someone else right? He won’t be able to make money just like, you want to make money right?

So lastly, we got to sell and collect the cash, okay.

Phase 4: Sell and Collect the Cash

So how do you sell the products and you fulfill the orders?

There’s this really, really awesome section on Google called the shopping section right. The traditional term is actually called PLA (product listing ads).

So why is that section so important? If you guys are familiar with the sales funnel.

I’m not going to get into all the ins and outs of it but pretty much you got people that are in different stages of buying right.

And what the shopping section is on Google is what I equivalent to like an online mall now.

Again my background was in marketing and sales and stuff like that but here’s what happens, like those kiosks that are set up in the mall, they generally charge anywhere from like three thousand to ten thousand dollars a month.

You might be like, “Man, why would they charge a kiosk that much money?”

Well, the thing is that they charge those kiosks city mall so much money because the people that come to a mall are in the state of actually buying like they actually want to spend money.

So they know if you can get in front of people that already want to buy something, you have a high likelihood to convert those people.

That’s how the shopping section is on Google. You got people that are at the desired level and action level right.

Using Shopify

Then last thing once you get the order you know, what’s really awesome we had Shopify, come up here earlier. They’ll send you a notification and the email you just forward that over to your supplier. They process it for you ship it directly to the customer, all right.

So literally guys that’s it! That’s this process.

So you know, by following those four simple steps I’m able to build stores like this like clockwork right.

So do you guys see the power drop shipping, say yes, say yes all right!

So I got a special surprise for you, woo!

All right so my BTS family says hello, so that’s number one.

And you know I’ve never done this before but since you guys are such an amazing audience, I’ve actually prepared something for you that’s really really cool.

Bonus Content

How would you guys like to receive a list of high ticket products that you can be able to drop shipping niches right, would that be pretty cool today?

Say yes! Alright.

So all you have to do is three things:

1. Follow me on Instagram (@EarnestEpps);
2. Join my Facebook group, which is eCom Dropshipping For Entrepreneurs ; then lastly,
3. Complete this form on earnsteps.com/awecom

Alright, thank you, guys!