Tona: 0:02

The we Pivot podcast is for you if you're a woman who has recently pivoted into entrepreneurship. You'll find digital marketing tips, trends and strategies to help grow your business in today's digital world. Join Tona and Al Haywood as we have fun breaking down all things digital marketing. So sit back, relax and enjoy the show.

Tona: 0:28

Hello everyone and welcome back to the we Pivot podcast. Today, I have a special treat for you. I will be interviewing Shimmy Morris, who is an entrepreneur with various e-commerce stores, with a main focus around creating helpful content on YouTube so others can build their own brands, and I am excited to have you here, Shumi. Thank you for being here.

Shimmy: 0:55

Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward this is going to be fun.

Tona: 0:59

Yes, it will be. So let me tell the audience first how I found out about you, because this is an interesting story. It's been years, I don't even know how long, maybe four or five years, I'm not sure but I was following a Christian influencer. Well, she's a Christian influencer, her name is Crystal Evans Hurst and basically she had told her audience about someone who had helped her with Facebook ads. And I guess at the time maybe you did a video about doing Facebook ads and this is the best way to do it. Now, can you tell me how long ago that was, because I really don't know.

Shimmy: 1:44

I think my Facebook ads video my first one came out eight years ago maybe, or seven years ago. Okay, I have made more recent ones, like four years ago. Yeah, there's a few.

Tona: 1:55

Okay, well, I know it's been a minute. I know that for a fact. So I found you from that video. And then, all of a sudden, since I was getting into print on demand back in probably 2015, 16, around in that area, the other videos that you were doing were starting to pique my interest. So I was like, well, let me just keep watching. And you had so many videos, such great videos, and you give so much information to your audience that it's amazing, especially since you're giving most of this all for free. So that's what I definitely liked about your content. So that is how I found out about you. Nice, that's cool, yeah. So I figured I would let you know that, if you could tell my audience.

Tona: 2:52

Have you always done print on demand or did you pivot into this? Were you doing something else before? Because this is the we Pivot podcast and most of our entrepreneurs are coming from somewhere else and coming into this space. I used to be a high school biology all kinds of science teacher and now I'm not only doing print-on-demand. Actually, my husband and I own a digital marketing company and the print-on-demand piece is actually it was one of our foundations, so that's kind of how that works For sure.

Shimmy: 3:26

Put on demand isn't my only thing. I was selling throughout school as a teacher. You probably know that kids do sell in school, despite not being allowed. Yes, I used to sell a lot in school and then during that phase I kind of got into selling in general. So I created an eBay store and started buying in bulk and selling on eBay. And then when I left school, I left school after A-levels at 18. And I did a six-month gap year I guess a six-month gap, it wasn't a year and I came back and I went straight into t-shirts. But I went into t-shirts from a focus of advertising, not Etsy, amazon design. It was more how could I find an audience that's really targeted that I could create a design for? And then I created a design for that audience, rather than create design and then try and find an audience. So I did that for a bit of time. For quite a bit of time it did really really well. And then I, as you say, pivoted to various other things. So I did a lot of freelance. I am also a photographer and a videographer. I created an Amazon FBA business with my brother which was very successful.

Shimmy: 4:32

I did a lot of coaching and training and teaching. It starts out in my local area where I live, with people who lived around here who wanted to leave their nine-to-five and it was a very in-person training. We'd go and get food or I'd go to their house and I'd actually help them one-on-one, and then one person basically said to me this is really good, why don't you try and do this more? And I was like I can't have the time. So he gave me the idea of creating a course and that whole saga. So I did that and then throughout that time, I started YouTube, which has always been great fun. And since starting YouTube, it's got me back into print-on-demand. I did a big six or seven-year break from print-on-demand and then YouTube got me back into it.

Tona: 5:15

Wow, and are you enjoying being in the print-on-demand space?

Shimmy: 5:20

Yeah and no. It has its ups and it has its downs. So I like print-on-demand because I'm very creative, I love art, I love designing, so I like that element of it. I hate the cutthroat element of it, where people are ripping people off and doing anything they can to get a sale, and it's one of those businesses where people don't want to help someone else because they're scared that it'll backfire. But no, in terms of just a print-on-demand business, I do like it. I mean, I started a new eCommerce brand in January 2024, which I've got big plans for to scale up in 2024. So that's a big, big focus of mine at the moment.

Tona: 5:57

Okay, now, before I go to the next question, I know that there was a time when you had a video and you told your audience that you were doing print-on-demand, but you were also working another job. Is that still?

Shimmy: 6:13

Yeah, so I got From YouTube. I actually got recruited by a company in Canada to work on PrettyMerch, which is the print-on-demand app. I haven't actually said anything, but as of January, I'm not really working there anymore. I'm working there a bit. I'm now a very, very, very short-time consultant for them, but it was full-time, it was full-on, it was doing various things and now it's very infrequent.

Tona: 6:43

I was just wondering, because I was like I knew I saw a video that said he was doing it and I was like, oh, are you going to be doing it? Because you said it was pretty flexible so you would be able to do that. You would still be able to do your videos and things like that. But then I saw you ramping up with your videos and I was like man, it must be nice to be able to do both. So I figured I would just ask to find it.

Shimmy: 7:11

So starting January, I've scaled back drastically with it, and then, starting February, I've just hired a video editor. So starting February, I'll hopefully be going to three videos a week. So ramping up YouTube, yeah, potentially starting a second channel, but we'll see.

Tona: 7:22

Okay, all right, sounds good. What do you feel are the key factors for success when it comes to print-on-demand? I know for myself 2020,. I had one print-on-demand company that I was working with and, based off of everything that was going on, I actually had to shut down my store. I had to just tell everybody hey, you know, we'll be back, hopefully soon. And then I had to research other print on demand companies for the items that I was trying to sell and it was. I mean, re-uploading all my things to another store was not fun, or redoing product descriptions wasn't the best, but actually branching out to another print-on-demand company that I actually got to know them because I think they were starting, it's been the best relationship since what?

Shimmy: 8:17

company do you use at the moment?

Tona: 8:19

I use Print Melon at the moment. Nice, I believe at the time when I was starting, I feel like they were starting too. They had kind of just got on the scene and I was able to talk to the owner. I actually have a podcast with the owner of the company, so it was a really great interview. It's been a really great working environment and to me now it seems like working with the smaller companies it might be a little bit better than always working with the big ones. But tell me your thoughts.

Shimmy: 8:53

I think it's down to two mainly your consistency and the quality of your design. And the reason why I say these two is okay. So you've got to start with consistency. If you're not consistent, you can't expect anything, not even put on demand. So you've got to start with consistency. If you're not consistent, you can't expect anything, not even put on demand, just anything. You want to get fitter and you're not consistently working out and eating healthy. Not going to happen. So it starts with consistency. But then I say to people because some people ask well, I've been consistent. Six straight months I've been doing this and I haven't got any sales. Shift to design, so to design. So if you're consistent and you tick that box, great. If you're still not getting sales, then chances are your designs are really bad.

Shimmy: 9:28

And lots of people skip this topic, avoid it. They don't want to hurt anyone's feelings and I don't know if you remember, but I used to do a segment on my channel called Are your Designs Any Good? And I literally had lots of people send in, hundreds, if not thousands of people sending designs and I would review them and make videos about them and 99% of those designs were absolutely atrocious. And the issue around designs is and the reason why I think it's such a big topic and I actually made a video about this today the reason why I think it's such a big topic is people will sit there and let's say they spend an hour creating a design.

Shimmy: 10:00

They've got an emotional connection with that design, they've spent time on it, they've been looking at it, they think it's good themselves. They haven't stepped back and actually thought is this good? They haven't sent it to other people and said is this good? So their whole thought process is completely warped because obviously they're going to like it. They made it, they spent hours on it, so why wouldn't they like it? Even if it's bad, they'll probably trick themselves into liking it. So what I found is for a lot of people struggling to get sales, as soon as I say send me five of your designs, I'm like, yeah, that's why you're struggling to get sales. These designs are just not very good. So the easiest thing that you can do with that is just send your design to a friend or family and just say be honest. If it's bad, just tell me I. To a friend or family and just say be honest, if it's bad, just tell me, I don't mind.

Tona: 10:47

Most of the times they'll get the honest truth. That's true. I think it's hard though, because, like you said, you spend so much time on it and you feel like, man, this is something I worked hard on and you just feel like everybody likes it. But for myself, I'm in the Christian space, so I do. A lot of the designs aren't necessarily designs. It's more words on a shirt. I've gotten a little bit into designing a little bit more with graphics and things like of that nature, but mostly people are just looking for the words. Man, I've done so many that I was like, oh my gosh, this is terrible, I don't like it. But other people do. So it's like, oh, okay, I guess. So I do ask people if they like the designs, but also I put it out. Sometimes I have to put it out scared, because you just don't know what's going to resonate sometimes with people or not.

Shimmy: 11:48

When we design, we're designing what we would wear, and we design for ourselves. Yeah, as soon as you realize, most of the designs I make, I'm never going to wear them, and as soon as.

Shimmy: 11:57

I flip that switch and I realize I'm not designing for me, I'm designing for my customer. Would they wear this? And then I'm like, no, they probably wouldn't wear this. And another huge thing when it comes to designs is the font that you use. Right, the font that you use is really important, and the size and the readability and the legibility and all of it People don't realize.

Shimmy: 12:16

When you are sitting there designing something you won't ever realize. If it's easy to read, because you would have been staring at it for an hour and the phrase will be in your mind over and over and over again, what you have to do is see from a completely fresh perspective. Can I quickly read what that design says in a split second? If you can't, then it's clearly not a good font, you know. So sometimes it's just a matter of fixing the font and making it more readable for people, which which you can't really do yourself.

Shimmy: 12:46

Regardless of the emotional connection that you've created with that design, which I don't think you should have, I think you should try and remove all emotions with the design. Regardless of that, I just think, because you're staring at the screen and the design for hours on end, you're never going to not be able to see what it says. But if you send it to someone else, they need to be able to see what it says. But if you send it to someone else, they need to be able to see it on a t-shirt from far away, and it needs to be able to be seen from a very small thumbnail because if someone's scrolling on their phone looking at your t-shirts, that's how they're going to be viewing it, and if they can't even read the design on their phone, how are they going to buy it if they don't even know?

Tona: 13:19

what they're. That's why it's a good idea to have other eyes on the design, because that will probably help you a lot more than you think in the end. And I agree with the consistency portion. Being consistent is very important. Also, I think, just knowing why you're doing this. If you're doing print on demand because you're like, oh, I want to make millions of dollars, well, that could be possible, but you're definitely going to have to be very consistent in trying to meet that goal. This is something you just like doing. This is something you want to provide for people. You're not necessarily trying to make a lot, a lot of money. You need to help use that to kind of guide you as well as how you are consistent, because sometimes, if that's all you're doing, you can definitely be consistent, but if you're doing other things, you have to try to figure out how to fit it in.

Shimmy: 14:27

A good trick there is to have people do vision boards and people do all sorts of things but if you write down your why, like you said what your why is why are you doing product on demand? Why do you want, let's say, if it's to make money, why do you want to make money? Do you want to buy a house? Do you want a car? Do you just want more income? If you write down what your why is and you put it in front of you and it's always visible to you, being consistent will be a lot easier because you'll constantly have that reminder of why you need to be consistent and why you need to do the work.

Shimmy: 14:55

I actually, for the first time, created a vision board. I've always talked about doing it, but I've never done it. But 2024, I just was like I'm going to do it and it's just a collection of things that I want to do or want to have, or ways of life that I want to be, and I can just look at it and be like, yeah, that's why I'm working. I've got to stop scrolling on TikTok or Instagram and just start working.

Tona: 15:15

Yeah, that's true, and I think, while also on the vision board, or when you're trying to make these goals, make them attainable for yourself. If you know you have two or three jobs, don't think that you're going to be posting every hour on the hour or just some ridiculous thing that you're trying to put on yourself. It's not going to work, it's not going to happen.

Shimmy: 15:40

And another thing to that is, when you are creating your goals, you want to make sure that they're, like like you said, achievable, but also you want to make sure you're in control of the outcome. So, for example, you never want a goal of like 100 sales a day because you have, or 10 sales a day, or one sale, it doesn't matter, because you never have control over that sale. That's the customer who needs to buy. You have control of is creating the designs or uploading to the website. So you can say I want to upload 10 designs to Etsy a day. You have full control over whether or not that happens and if it doesn't happen, you've only got yourself to blame. But if it's like I want 10 sales a day, that's my goal, you might never hit that, you might blow past that and it will be completely out of your control. So it's very important to set goals that are achievable and that you have control in.

Tona: 16:27

You know what. That makes a lot of sense, and I think that's probably where a lot of the discouragement comes in, because most times people are like, well, I didn't make any sales, therefore I'm not supposed to be doing this or I'm failing, I'm not doing good. Not supposed to be doing this or I'm failing, I'm not doing good, whereas if you're actually putting it as, oh, I'm just trying to put out a design a day or a certain amount of designs a day, I think that does bring it back to yourself and you can at least feel good about whatever those goals that you are attaining at the time.

Shimmy: 17:05

Yeah, 100%.

Tona: 17:07

What are the common challenges that entrepreneurs face in the print-on-demand space and how do you think they can be overcome?

Shimmy: 17:17

Yeah, there's a lot of discouragement of when you're not getting sales. It's a bit of an emotional rollercoaster at times, especially if you hit on a trend and you do really well and then for some reason, you just can't get sales again for six months. There's so many. It should never be painted in that it's easy and because print-on-demand is somewhat free, it's easy and quick and it's not. It has its challenges. People struggle with what platforms to use, people struggle with what printing partners to use, people struggle with marketing and SEO and so many things.

Tona: 17:49

Yes, how do you overcome them? Or do you feel like, just in overcoming them, it's just continuing to be consistent anyway?

Shimmy: 17:57

Well, I would say people don't put enough effort into Not enough effort, enough time into researching and learning.

Shimmy: 18:04

So if you want to go into print-on-demand, you research a niche, you try some designs, you go for it.

Shimmy: 18:09

Of the people I've spoken to, the one commonality between everyone is the amount of time, the months and months and months that they put in before even trying to upload a design, just to learn about business model, about the different niches, about the customers, about what they would want. So, for example, this brand that I built for 2024, I spent a really long time coming up with five potential brands and niches and then finding out, creating a case for each one, why it would work and then whittling it down and deciding on one of them and the amount of time and effort that went into that. Most people would have quit by then because that can be like three months and people are not lasting three months. They'll create a design on day one and three months down the line and they haven't got any sales, they'll stop. It's interesting because I'm talking about spending months before you even start uploading designs and just engulf yourself in as much information as you can really learn it.

Tona: 19:07

That's something that a lot of times, people don't want to put that time in because print on demand seems so easy. So therefore, I should just put a design on a shirt and then say, hey, I'm open. I'm open for business. So that is so true. Are there any current trends that you're observing in eCommerce when it comes to print-on-demand, any specific trends?

Shimmy: 19:33

Kind of missed the boat, but not really. But personalization, which was obviously very big for the last three months because of Christmas and whatnot. I think personalization is only getting more and more popular over a wide variety of products. So I would definitely recommend anyone and everyone gets into personalization on their own website on Etsy, and you've got platforms like MyDesigns now or Hello Custom these various platforms where it can all be automated and not so time consuming. That's going to be well, that is massive and it's only going to get bigger because people love buying personalized things. But in terms of things, I mean, 2024 will come with a whole bunch of trends. In April we've got the total solo eclipse. You'll have these little trends throughout the year, but terms of like big things, like personalization or life events I mean life events was huge in 2023 and I say this if you've ever made any life event designs in 2023, just go back and just change to 2024 and re-upload them. 100 more designs, I would say. Of everything, I think personalization is going to be one of the biggest and I mean, on top of that as well, scalable designs and scalable shops.

Shimmy: 20:47

The reason why I went for Shopify, for this brand, is because I'm going to be doing Facebook ads with it and I want to try and scale this to a seven-figure-per-on-demand business, which is a legitimate business, and I think to stand out, you have to separate yourself from other people. So with my own Shopify store I have no competition. My competition is me. If they don't like one design, they buy another. It's all mine, so it doesn't matter. And people need to get over. This concept of advertising is bad and we can't do advertising. It cuts into profits when advertising is one of the only ways to scale. So I'm very happy to spend, let's say, for every dollar I'm happy to spend on advertising. If it's making me $1.01 back. Yes, it's not very much, but it's profitable. As long as it's profitable, that's fine. All I have to do is scale up the ad. Spend $10, get $10.10. Obviously that's a really drastic example. It's nice if every dollar is $2, every dollar is $3. But advertising, if you don't use it in 2024, then I think you'll fall behind very fast.

Tona: 21:52

And do you suggest, since you're on the advertising, I think a lot of times with print-on-demand or anyone who's coming out that part, that piece, is very scary. I've done it before and it always felt like when you're just starting in business you don't have enough money to play, and a lot of times with Facebook that's exactly what it seems like. I'm just playing to see if this is going to work, and I know for myself in the space that I'm in, in the Christian space, they took all of those interest levels out. You used to be able to target certain things, people in that space and now it's gone. So you have to figure out other ways in order to get people to see your items and things like that. And what happens when you don't have a lot of disposable income to use on ads?

Shimmy: 22:49

Well now, firstly, with Facebook, they have removed certain targeting, but the algorithm and the AI that they've adopted is really good. If you made a general ad, it would know who to advertise to on Facebook. It's actually very, very good. But, yes, if you can't afford ads, that's a different story. It's where people are making sales and they say I still can't afford ads. Or let's say you have, forget Facebook ads for a minute.

Shimmy: 23:16

Let's say you sell on merch on demand with Amazon. You're getting good sales every month. Let's say you're making $500 a month and you have access to ads and people will say why would I spend money on ads? I'm making $500 a month. I don't want to cut into that, just cut into that. You can make $1,000. So obviously you need money to run ads.

Shimmy: 23:34

If you don't have any money to run any ads, then I would assume you're not getting any sales yet. If you're not getting any sales yet, then you've got to start at the beginning. If you've got money to run ads and to test let's say between $500 and $1,000, that can test hundreds of t-shirts, hundreds and hundreds of t-shirts, if not thousands of t-shirts. I've got a $10 a day budget on my ad. It's going to my store. It's a general ad. I've got 91 designs on my store and I've set up the pixel in a way that if a certain design is getting more traction or sales, the ad knows what to show and who to, and it does this all automatically. It's really really cool, but it basically allows you to spend a very small amount of money to test a lot of designs. So this idea of needing thousands of dollars for advertising, I don't think you do.

Tona: 24:28

And that's good. Because I think a lot of times when you're listening to the experts they're saying if you don't have a certain amount of money thousands of dollars then you might as well not do ads. And I guess for me I'm kind of looking at it as, even if you have a little bit of money doing ads to at least keep your store relevant in the people's eyes that want to see it, even if they see it and you get a subscriber, that's good enough because you can take it from there. Even if you don't get a sale right away, you can at least take it to the email.

Shimmy: 24:59

That's another whole thing. Ads is one point. If you can get 100 customers from ads and you've got 100 emails, any new product, any discount, anything, anything, you're slowly increasing the value of that customer. So, yeah, it makes a lot of sense.

Tona: 25:12

Yes, exactly Okay. This is the one that you've done so much research on that. I think this is what puts you ahead of a lot of other people, and that is how can entrepreneurs select the right platform for their print-on-demand business, because you've checked out a lot of print-on-demand businesses.

Shimmy: 25:37

Okay, so you've got your Printfuls, printify and Classics. I have tested a lot. It depends on what you care about. So for me I really care about quality and shipping more than price. I'll happily spend a bit more money if my customer is going to get a better quality item faster. So I've actually just switched all of my stores everything over to Printify. I've used a lot of different stores and it's very hard to For me. Anyways, it was hard to find one that ticked all the boxes. You had Gelato out there that had good prices, the largest range of products and shocking customer service. You had Awkward Styles who was also cheap prices and actually they ticked a lot of boxes, but they were only in America. You've got so many, so I've got on my podcast.

Shimmy: 26:24

I was speaking to I think I've spoken to like 15 or 20 people now and I was kind of getting the sense that everyone was using Printify Everyone and I was like I always dislike Printify because I don't like the way they work in terms of multiple printing partners and the consistency between quality might not be there. I was speaking to one person who swears by Printify and he's like look, just try it out. And I've always refrained from making a video and actually today was my shooting day, so actually I shot my Printify review, I did a full review of them and I just really liked what I saw. The prices were really really competitive, really good. The shipping was really good, really fast Two to five days shipping. It's pretty good, especially for on-demand. It's the most popular product on-demand company. It gets 10 million views a month. Their website is going to be good. So I'm not really worried about those kinds of things. The customer service I'm not worried about that at all. That's all fine.

Shimmy: 27:16

The thing that I was concerned about was the product quality throughout different suppliers. So I went to their store and I bought an item from various suppliers for the Bella 3001, the canvas, bella one, and I just bought with the same design on the back, tons of colors and tried to make it as colorful as possible. I've got literally one on my desk and I just compared them with each other and I did this on camera. But I compared them with each other, I put them in the wash, I've done all the tests and I was like, look, we're not talking like Gucci quality here, but it's really good, as good as the other really good suppliers, but it ticks the other boxes of either super cheap shipping that's quick and the amount of products that they've also got over 800 products. To me it was just like. This just makes sense. I can see why everyone's using them.

Shimmy: 28:12

I have actually emailed them and was like I'm going to switch over. Would you want to do something with me? To that I'm still waiting. Their customer service for those kinds of things isn't the best. But one thing is so actually it's very good that this happened.

Shimmy: 28:21

So, of the order that came, I ordered over Christmas time and one of the items got lost, which I'm not surprised, especially with Christmas. I went on the website and I picked the drop down. I said item never arrived, it got lost. And within that, literally that same day, they said oh my gosh, I can see it, yet it hasn't arrived. What would you like? Would you like a reprint or a refund? And I was like just give me a refund. And the same day, literally within like as if I'm having a conversation, they gave me a refund. And it's these kinds of things where, like, if something happens to a customer, it's nice to know that they're not on their own. So for me, I think I'm going to switch over everything, and one of my stores, this one that has 91 designs on it.

Tona: 29:04

I've already switched all over, like to printify. Well, I guess maybe that's confirmation for me, because I'm not switching over all of course not, but I do have items that I would like to try, and I wanted to try them because their profit margin is a little better and their shipping prices it's a little better as well, and I was like you know they do go through a lot of different printing partners.

Shimmy: 29:26

I don't know how that's gonna you pick the one that you want. So, like my store, I've picked swift pod. Everything goes to swift. Now if, if it turns out that swift pod doesn't have any stock, it will default to monitor digital. You know, those are my two go-tos. They're're the two that I reviewed. Those are the two that are pretty much identical. So that's what I'll do, but it's also, like you said, the range of products.

Shimmy: 29:49

During my video. I was like, let's just put in those random things, see what they have. And I put in shoes and they have 20 different types of shoes. Who's selling this many shoes? But it just seems like they've got such a weird and wide variety of products. It's quite nice just to have that kind of catalog.

Tona: 30:07

The other thing, because this just happened to me. Actually, I was on the big one, Printful, which was my first one, and I have a love, hate, love, whatever relationship with them and I was like you know, there are certain items that I have from them on my store. And I was like you know, I see these calendars, I want to make a calendar, let me go ahead and do that. And so I tell my husband I'm going to do these calendars and he's like, well, you should probably order a sample. And I was like why I should just go ahead and put it out, let the world buy or whatever, and tell my audience, no, you should do a sample.

Tona: 30:55

I was like, okay, so I bought a sample and I got it finally after two weeks and I looked at it and I was like the amount that I would have to sell this calendar for I wouldn't buy it myself. So if I'm not going to buy it, I know people who would buy it and get it. They might be upset at this calendar, so you might not want to do it. So the moral of the story is make sure you buy the sample, always buy the sample to find out what it's going to be like.

Shimmy: 31:22

Yeah, that's the thing. That's why, whenever anyone says, do you care if the product's a bit more expensive? I don't mind, because if the product is more expensive and it's a better quality product, I'll just charge more. I've sold t-shirts for $32. You can't do it $35 for that matter. It can be done. You just have to make sure what you are giving is superior quality. And I've bought t-shirts for $35. It's not unheard of, but with print-on-demand, typically quality and print-on-demand don't really go hand in hand. But if you are able to do that, then if you're not going to buy your own product, not necessarily because of the design that might not be your style then I wouldn't be happy with other people buying it either.

Tona: 32:05

No, I think it's mainly the quality. If you're trying to sell a calendar because the shipping alone costs $13, and you're trying to sell this calendar for $35, when you can get one for $9 or $10, and you're looking at it and you're like when you can get one for nine or 10, and you're looking at it and you're like this is it? No, nevermind, so scratch that off the list. At least that's for me how I kind of felt about it. But always buy the sample. How do you feel that AI has transformed print on demand? Industry.

Shimmy: 32:41

It depends. So, like AI for coming up with ideas I think is really cool Phrases and things like that, especially chat, gpt AI as well for helping with descriptions, helping with general research, like if you've got a niche that you want to do and you want to research it, ai is fantastic. Likewise, I am a big advocate for designs, you know. Like, if you are using ai to help you with designing, I don't see an issue with that. I am a designer myself and people say, you know, this argument is, oh, it's ripping off artists and and anyone who's an artist themselves will hate it. And I've done art. I've been in the creative space, whether it's photography, videography, drawing for, you know, 15 years.

Shimmy: 33:26

When AI came about, I didn't feel like, oh, I'm going to be replaced or anyone can do this. I just felt like, oh, my gosh, wow, this is going to be such a time saver. Instead of me having to spend three hours drawing a really good cartoon panda on the iPad, I could just learn how to create amazing prompts and use AI and then take that panda and put it into Illustrator or Figma or whatever. Make it how I would have originally made it, because obviously AI can't do exactly what you want, and I've just saved myself and that process takes me like five minutes, 10 minutes. I just saved myself hours and hours of work. So that's it for the artist's perspective. For someone who was never an artist and never able to design, I think it's even better because now they're able to compete in a market that's already so saturated, but they can create designs that are so good. So I really like AI.

Tona: 34:18

Okay, I agree, I like it too. I like it for descriptions. It's very good for descriptions. And then, because I think you've had a couple of videos on AI and I started trying to do things in different platforms with AI and for the most part, it's pretty good. Or even if I'm not good at giving the prompt, it can give me an idea of where I can go with this and it's like, okay, I could do this or I could take this, change it, and things of that nature. So I think that's a good thing. And when it comes to digital marketing, what are some of the main tools that you use in order to get the information out about your print on demand, your various companies that you have? What is your two or three of your favorite tools? I would guess YouTube may be one of them.

Shimmy: 35:13

You mean to advertise the product.

Tona: 35:14

Yeah, just to advertise your product.

Shimmy: 35:17

I don't use YouTube to advertise anything.

Tona: 35:19

No.

Shimmy: 35:19

Okay, like Facebook, okay, and then, funnily enough, with Amazon. Well, I will merge on demand. I'll do Amazon ads and then Etsy. I will sometimes do Etsy ads, but a lot of the time I'll leave Etsy to do its own thing. I don't do this, but I know I should, and that's like a lot more social media, organic stuff like TikTok and Instagram. You know TikTok.

Shimmy: 35:43

If I just bought my own design that I knew was getting sales anyway, let's say there's a design out there that's getting me 10 sales a day or something, if I would just buy it, make a whole bunch of TikToks wearing it not promoting it, but wearing it, doing something stupid or doing something that would get views. Let's say, a TikTok goes viral. People will say in the comments where is that t-shirt from? I want that t-shirt, especially if what I'm doing is on brand. So let's say I have a biking t-shirt, a mountain biking t-shirt, and I create a TikTok of me going to the bike park doing a couple of jumps or just riding my bike, falling over, doing something that people will be like whoa, that could get tons of views If I'm also wearing a funny bike t-shirt and the audience that are watching it are people who enjoy that content. There's a very, very, very good chance that they'll click through and find the item and buy the item.

Shimmy: 36:39

I should do it more and with this new store in 2024, I plan to do it a lot more, so, okay, so I'll answer this question a little bit better. With the store that I've just launched, I have three specific types. The three types of marketing that I will be doing will be Facebook ads, email marketing based on the people that sign up, and I'll do like a get 20% off, put your email in. And the third will be TikTok, and it will be this method of Well, I'm in a very relatable niche, but it will be creating content in that relatable niche whilst wearing your clothes. So not here's a t-shirt, buy my t-shirt, it will just, I'll be wearing the t-shirt and maybe in the caption I'll be like if you want the t-shirt, check out the link in the description or the link in my bio.

Tona: 37:28

That sounds like a good way to do it. Now you said 20% off to get the email. Do you feel like that's a better number than the 5% or 10% or 15%? Do you feel like that converts better? The 20%?

Shimmy: 37:35

I wouldn't know if it converts better because it's a brand new store. Based on my research, what I can see literally 20 or 30 other people doing into building this store, it seemed like 20% was the given. Everyone did 20% and even just general buying stuff online. I see a lot of 20%. That's not to say 10% won't work or 5%. I think 5% is a bit naff. The 10% or the 15% it very well could work At least we test with enough traffic. But at the end of the day, if it will still be profitable with the 20% off, then I don't mind doing the 20% off.

Tona: 38:10

That makes sense. So just a couple more questions. What's the most valuable lesson you've learned in your entrepreneurial journey?

Shimmy: 38:21

Not giving up is an easy one, trying to stick to some sort of routine, not listening to people when they tell you it will or won't one. Trying to stick to some sort of routine, not listening to people when they tell you it will or won't work. That's not to be confused with people commenting on your designs. If you ask a friend for feedback, then fine, but if you have friends saying this shop's not going to work, your YouTube channel is going to fail, you're not getting any views, or you only got 1000 views, haha. Those kind of things just got to block out the haters and, for that matter, block out your inner hater, which should be the person in the back of your head, always talking to you, telling you to stop or to give up and take note of what is and what isn't working Journal, because down the line A, it will be great for you to see what's happened or what hasn't happened. But also at the end of the year, if you feel like you haven't done anything that year, but you go through and you see, oh, actually I had all these different wins. That's very motivating. But I think also down the line, if you do ever build a personal brand, this content that could be used for that, and I think personal brands are huge and only going to get bigger.

Shimmy: 39:22

I used to do this a lot. I still do it a bit. What I would do is I would do what someone told me was called procrastinate working, where you have a list of things to do. So, for example, today my list was shoot five videos, this podcast, five products, various lists of things. But then there's other things that just happened the other day I need to call. There's two companies I have to call. My desk is a bit of a mess. My working area is not the best. I've got 2000 emails that I haven't bothered to go through in two weeks. There's all the other little things which don't actually make much difference and don't account for the major output that you want. If your goal is money, me cleaning my desk is not going to make me any more money. Me calling these companies is not going to make me more money. It's just admin and whatever. So I chalk those tasks down to procrastinate working. So when I can't be bothered working and I'm not scrolling on TikTok, I'm doing these other tasks and I'm filling my day with these tasks thinking I'm being really productive. Actually, I'm not being productive at all.

Shimmy: 40:23

What I would suggest is, if you have a routine in the morning or the night before, write down your to-do list and make sure one to two of those items is a high-level task, one that either makes money or has the potential to make money or is leading to something that will make money, and then the rest can be lower-level tasks. Or you can have three lower-level tasks and then a couple of just fully irrelevant tasks that you feel like you have to get done. I need to go to the post office and return an Amazon parcel, and I've refrained from doing that for so long because the refund is £15, which is like $20. I was like, do I want to spend 20 minutes of my time, 30 minutes of my time, going to do this refund? And I know I should, but it's a massive distraction. It will take away from my work and then when I come back, I've got to get back into the flow of things and all of that. So it's just important to schedule your day and make time for all the things at the right time.

Tona: 41:15

That actually makes a lot of sense. And last question if someone were starting a print-on-demand company today, what would you tell them?

Shimmy: 41:30

Great question. I mean, one of my videos today was what would I do if I started a print-on-demand business today? What would I tell them? Well, I would tell them to spend as much time as they can researching print-on-demand how it works, what customers think, what they spend all of that stuff.

Shimmy: 41:42

Then I would say sign up to Amazon and Etsy as your first platforms and I would say leave the other little platforms, because the amount of time and effort that you put into them for the output that you get is just not worth it. In my opinion, even the really big time sellers selling on Redbubble still only get like $1,000 a year, which to me is just like the amount of time you've put in, for that is not worth it. You can get paid more at your local grocery, so it doesn't make any sense. So I say start with Amazon and Etsy. I would then say pick a niche.

Shimmy: 42:12

Obviously, try and find scalable designs. They work really really well. Focus on those designs, make sure they're really really good and upload them, and then you can either wait and see if, organically, you get sales or you could run some ads. You can either wait and see if, organically, you get sales or you could run some ads. That's a lot more complicated than that, obviously, and I don't want to make it sound like it's really easy. I mean, it was a 20-minute video. I can read the script to you if you want.

Tona: 42:34

Right, well, actually I'm going to have everything in our description on where they can find you and your videos and all of that, so they'll be able to find that video where you talk about it.

Shimmy: 42:49

As long as it's out. It will be out in the next month or so.

Tona: 42:52

Okay, well, I'm pretty sure that people will subscribe and they'll definitely get that video, which is good, but you did say something that I didn't know Amazon. Did you say merch yeah, that I didn't know Amazon. Did you say merch, yeah. So does that mean that I can put items on there that are print-on-demand and they don't have to be housed in an Amazon warehouse? And work with print-on-demand companies, because I didn't know this.

Shimmy: 43:18

Yeah, so Amazon merch-on-demand it's their own platform. Items are listed on Amazon, but it's a print-on-demand company. So you apply. You don't get accepted straight away. You've got to wait. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't, various factors where you live, all these kinds of things. Once you get accepted, you start in tier 10. So that allows you to have 10 designs and then, as you upload designs and you get sales, you get ranked up to 25, like tier 4,000, tier 200,000, whatever. The larger the tier, the more designs you can have. Also, the higher the tier. That's when you get access to Amazon ads. You don't have access to ads at the beginning and they do everything. So you would upload a design that you normally would to any printing partner. If I find your design on Amazon, I can buy it and it's shipped with Prime so I could get it next day, and then Amazon have an entire printing fulfillment warehouse center where they'll do everything, just like any other print-on-demand company.

Tona: 44:17

Yeah, I had no idea.

Shimmy: 44:19

It's worth it just to chuck your designs on there and just see what happens.

Tona: 44:22

Yeah, I mean, I've been in this world where I still thought that the only way to get into Amazon was I needed to have a place to house my stuff and all of that. I had no idea they had that, so now I have to go and check that out. So is there anything else that you would like to add? And you could also just let people know the best way to find you, even though I'm going to put that information in, but twice is always good.

Shimmy: 44:53

Sure, you can check out my YouTube videos. You could subscribe to my email list. If you want to get a bit of extra help. Yeah, I would say, start there. And if you really like the content, you want to get in contact with me. I respond to all of my comments. So if you leave a comment being like, hey, let's get in touch, we could do that.

Shimmy: 45:10

And a bit of advice I'd say is don't give up, keep going. Basically, I don't want to sound cliche, but what I'll say is, if it's been three months and you've been doing print on demand, you haven't got any sales, then ask yourself are your designs good? Because that is what I have found for the majority of people is that after three months they're still not getting sales. There's something wrong with the designs, even if you're charging a ton of money or your marketing is not the best. If people are seeing it and you can see that on Etsy, you can see page views and stuff If people are seeing it, you're not getting sales. It's most likely your designs. So that's what I would say.

Tona: 45:45

Well, that sounds great. Thank you so much for being on the we Pivot podcast. There are so many gems in this podcast. I'm pretty sure people are going to have a lot to take away, especially for 2024. So thank you for being a guest on our podcast.

Al: 46:03

We're so excited that you tuned in to the latest episode of the we Pivot podcast. Thank you for joining us Now, whether this is your first time or not, please make sure to subscribe and share with a friend who can also use some digital marketing guidance as well. Until next time.