Whenever I meet a fellow entrepreneur, something strange comes over me. I can’t help myself… I need to ask them questions.

I want to hear their story and learn what’s working in their business, so that maybe I can use those same strategies in mine.

Because in ecommerce it pays to be a student — to constantly soak up any information you can — and I know from experience that networking leads to major leaps in your growth.

So you can probably imagine my excitement when Shopify introduced me to a few of their most successful store owners at their private mastermind.

I was able to interview these top experts of Amazon, Print-on-Demand, Facebook advertising and affiliate marketing, and they shared the tactics and strategies that are working for them.

In this blog post, a few of Shopify’s biggest success stories share their expert advice on how to launch new products and build an online business that people will love.

Below are some of my favorite highlights from our conversations — but if you really want to soak up all this valuable content, I recommend you watch the video. Enjoy!

Words of Wisdom from Shopify’s Ecommerce Experts

CHRIS RECORD on rising above the noise and building a community who knows, likes and trusts you:

“People want to do business with people they know, like, and trust, K-L-T. You have to find a way to be able to rise above… You have to be familiar to them… They want to know this person. Then if they know you, they get to like you, and that’s through charisma and communication. Then if they know you and like you… show them results in their life. Feed them value, constant and never-ending value, every single day.

Once somebody knows you, likes you, and trusts you, they’ll gladly do business with you, for years to come.”

NISHANT BHARDWAJ on finding successful ideas for print-on-demand products:

“With Print-On-Demand, it’s not just fashion. It’s more like a statement you’re trying to make… people want to spend money on things that they actually care about. >strong>It’s not just about buying basic products anymore, because they could just buy those on Amazon. So what would make someone buy from a small guy like me?… I have to be able to stand out in print-on-demand.

You know, it’s gonna sound so cliché, but I see a lot of people try to find these small hacks. Hey, you know, one thing here, one thing there. I always say that if you want to become successful — let’s say if you want to make a million dollars — you’re not gonna make a million dollars by one hack. You will make a million dollars by becoming a very good marketer.” 

ADAM MALTAIS on how to become an influencer and better networker by giving away your best resources:

“I think people don’t network and they don’t try and add value to people’s lives because they don’t think they know anything. But what everyone needs to understand is that you always know something that can help somebody out. You try and give value everywhere you can, little by little, and generally, [Ezra] would agree with me, that it’ll come back when you need help. When you need a favor, people will know you as a person that adds value, and so they’ll be more than happy to help you.

One of the biggest things is don’t hold onto your contacts. Don’t hold on. Everyone wants to keep, ‘Oh, this is my graphic designer. This is my friend, Ezra…’ Like, give that away. One of the most powerful things I learned from someone a long time ago is that connecting two people is one of the most powerful things you can do. It doesn’t take a lot of effort. It takes one email sometimes, and you’re connecting two people together. That blossoms into a relationship. They both look at you like the guy that created massive value for them, and it took you maybe one email.”

DIMITRIS SKIADAS on scaling your brands through customer data and location-based advertising campaigns.

“If someone’s starting out right now and feels like Google Analytics is overwhelming, I would say two quick things. The first things first, just install Google Analytics. Let the data roll, because you have to understand better your audience, you know, where they’re coming from, which products are converting, which are the devices, desktop, mobile, and all that kind of great stuff. It’s not really that you have to be a scientist.

The second thing is a single tracking sheet… As a business, as a business owner, you have so many expenses. So you have your revenue, daily sales, PayPal fees, Shopify fees, all the expenses that you have. You see, day to day, if you’re making money.”

“The basic mistake I see is most of the people target [the entire] United States. That’s it. You can see that if you go inside Analytics, and you can click on the United States, you can see all the different states…You see that, ‘Okay. I’m doing a decent job in California. But, man, I’m killing it in Colorado.’ So I would say create — if you’re running Facebook ads — create a different ad set for Colorado only. If you want to take it a step deeper, you can click on Colorado, for example, and you can have all specific cities.”

WILL MITCHELL on turning one Amazon product into a 5, 10, 15-product brand with a raving fan base:

“The main thing I look at with growing Amazon businesses is the scale-ability of the business. I think way too many people right now are focused on the get-rich-quick aspect of it. That’s important… We have to get that product selling. We have to get reviews on that product. That’s all important to get started. What I think people really miss the ball on though, in terms of the upside of these businesses, is if you just go out there, and you sell a bunch of random products, you end up just hustling. All of a sudden, you’re not running a business. You’re controlled again by your business. You’ve created the jail cell for yourself. 

So I think the big thing is really focusing on what is the long-term potential of this product. How can I turn this product into a brand with a raving fan base that are gonna buy additional products as I launch them? In that way, you roll out, you know, a >strong>5, 10, 15-product product line, that you can really go push out there, rather than just selling random things.”

“I love doing product inserts. What we have is what we call our beta tester club. So when we do product inserts, we’ll have this thing on there that basically says, “Hey. Join our beta tester club. Put your email address in on this website, and you’re gonna get first access, free product, discounted product, all sorts of stuff. You basically create a list of your early adopters. So now, as you launch more products on Amazon or on your own site or your Facebook profile or whatever you want to do now, you actually have an audience.” 

ADRIAN MORRISON on how to pick a winning Amazon product without reinventing the wheel:

“You know, most people try to market something that they think is cool, and, inevitably, it fails. So what I do to find products is I figure out what the world wants… I actually go for very generic-style products… Oftentimes, it’s things that I’m really not even interested in, but it’s stuff that sells.

I’m not a creative thinker, in terms of finding [products]. I’m in the same position as everybody else, but what I do is I look at what’s successful already. I think about what other people want, and then I just duplicate that.”

“One of the biggest things I’ve seen success with lately is print-on-demand connected into Shopify. There’s these great apps that connect into Shopify and have fulfillment services. I mean I’ve sold over $1 million worth of pillow cases…”

I always love talking to experts, hearing their stories first hand and really getting a sense for what they specialize in.

I hope this has helped you and given you ideas that you can use to grow your business. Stay tuned from more in-depth interviews from Shopify’s NYC Mastermind coming soon!



Video Highlights:

0:03 Networking can lead to major leaps in growth for your business

1:03 Interview with Chris Record

1:50 Communicate and Resinate with your audience

2:53 Once somebody knows you, likes you and trusts you, they will do business with you for years to come

2:56 Interview with Charles Ngo

3:20 Take advantage of Facebook video ads

4:09 Interview with Nishant Bhardwaj

6:07 Touching on someones life experience to sell physical product

6:42 People want to spend money on things they actually care about

7:50 Interview with Matt Schmitt

11:15 Pre-purchase upsell