Q&A WITH LHS STUDENT PAUL L.

How did you get started making money online?

My first GIG was doing online retail arbitrage. After being introduced to LHS and on-demand production, I never looked back.

Did you see success quickly?

It depends on what your definition of success is? According to my current definition, success is building a BRAND for long-term, consistent income and maybe selling that BRAND one day. Yes, getting the first few sales to validate the idea. After getting sales, the next step is to optimize and automate as much as I can.

What are your top tips to keep your mindset up?

You have to clearly define your “WHY” before starting this. When things get challenging, my “WHY’s” keep me going.

Write every night your goal for the next 2-5 years. You would be surprised how your goals get modified or written off your list as you grow.

Listen to motivational speakers whenever I can — that could be on my way to grab lunch, walking from the parking lot to the office, or just waiting to checkout in the grocery store. Use every moment to your advantage.

Creating a positive environment around me, like by using a vision board, appreciation letters, positive reviews from customers, audio books of famous entrepreneurs, affirmations, self-talk, etc.

Try to help someone — it could be by buying food for a homeless person or by teaching someone to build a business, anything within my limits. This helps me to reinforce a lot of positive energy.

What had you tried before LHS?

I tried online/offline arbitrage.

How are you doing now?

I’m happy with my progress. I am still in the growth stage so there is still a lot to do.

What have you done to scale your business, and can you offer any advice for people struggling with this? (Again, scaling up is not needed to get started with LHS. Stick to the basics when you’re new.)

Delegating routine work offshore so you have more time to learn other aspects of your business.

Marketing on the various social media platforms. After testing various platforms, Pinterest seems to work best for my brand.

Suggest your product in Quora. This will help to increase your sales. Ask a friend to like your post so it ranks higher.

Post reply with a hyperlink in YouTube videos. This will also give you traffic.

If possible, make some videos and post to YouTube and other video platforms with backlinks and link initially to AMAZON, but once your product gets ranked, change your backlink to your Shopify store.

Make a GIF file of your product and post on giphy.com and on other similar sites. Tag something like “dancing cat video” for CAT Niche products; be creative.

Are there any practical tips you can give around succeeding with LHS?

LHS is a numbers’ game so try to put as many designs out as you can. Have 40-50 designs from Wordswag + Photoshop for the same slogan/ text. This gives me more sales, as different people have different taste.

For example, having “BEST DAD EVER” in 50 different designs has a higher probability of getting sales than 1 design for 50 different slogans.

After posting your product on any platform, run social signals. This will give natural ranking in search engines. You can get a social signal in Fiverr for 5 bucks. Social signals work on AMAZON, ETSY, and EBAY best because of high domain authority.

Match the beginning of the title of the product as Google’s auto search suggests.

(Social signal + Google’s auto-suggested word will give you a natural ranking in the search engines. This will give you an edge over your competitors, as NOT only you will rank inside AMAZON but you will rank also in search engines.)

Aside from Amazon, what other selling platforms (if any) do you use and can you offer any practical tips about getting started with / using those platforms?

I follow the 80/20 rule, and after trying many platforms, the platforms that work best are Amazon, then Shopify, and then Etsy. So I am now focusing my energy on only these 3 platforms.

As I’m more focused on brand than sales at this point, sticking to Shopify makes the most sense to me. I only use Amazon and Etsy as launching tools and product validation.

Ranking keywords in search engines.

Digital Marketing – You can have the best product in the world, but if you cannot market, you can never make money.

Tip: I can easily validate product designs using free AMAZON traffic. Analyzing Amazon business reports gives the winning product out of thousands of designs. Then, you can put those winning designs on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest ads and drive traffic to your Shopify/WordPress store. You can make this funnel more profitable by cross-selling or up-selling. During this process, you can also capture emails to promote other similar products or affiliate products.

Use Amazon to validate and promote your brand.

Listing the same product for a cheaper price on your website helps to increase sales. There is always a buyer who wants the same product for a cheaper price. This helps to get customers on your email list and also to beat hijacker prices. Google notices this keyword search and having actual sales on your website. Getting sales on your own website has long-term advantages.

Bing Ads are still cheap so use this in your arsenal to drive traffic.

Build your email list ASAP. It’s highly risky to depend only on third party platforms like Amazon, Etsy, and eBay.

Results are not typical. Ecommerce sellers’ results will vary based on effort and skill, etc.