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- [00:00]
George
And I'll create. I won't create just one ad. Just, you know, I create five ads for just one and see which one performs the best and then start sinking money in that. You don't need a lot of money to start. When I started, I did, you know, $5 per ad per day. So $25 a day just to test it out. And then whichever one started performing, then that one I sunk $25 into and got rid of the other four and continuously grew that way.
- [00:25]
Cody McGuffey
Welcome back to Built Online, the podcast where we dive into everything online business. Here we explore the minds of creators who are building online businesses to power their dream lives and ultimately transform economies. I'm your host, Cody McGuffey, and if you're new here, I'm the founder and CEO of Everbee, a creator commerce platform where we believe that everyone deserves the opportunity to pursue their passions and to live life on their own terms. We're on a mission to make creator commerce accessible to everyone throughout the world, no matter where they are, and to make a positive impact in our families and our communities. And we believe that everyone that truly commits to a vision and pursues it with an undeniable force of will, that they will ultimately succeed. I'm really excited about today's show. Thank you for sharing your time with us. Before we jump into today's episode, I'd like to ask a quick favor for anyone that's listened to the show before. If you haven't already, please let us know if these episodes and these conversations are helpful on not share your feedback in the comments and review it if you. If you would. It truly helps the podcast, it helps our team. It helps me personally understand what types of guests that we should have on the podcast that really just helps us improve the show to make it better. We need your feedback. We would not be able to operate without your feedback. So be sure to follow the podcast, subscribe to the channel wherever you're watching this. So you really never really miss out on that. That one nugget that can really change your business and change your life. Enough of that. Really excited to have you here. Let's jump into today's show.
- [01:54]
George, what's going on, man?
- [01:55]
George
Hey, how are you?
- [01:57]
Cody McGuffey
I'm great. We were already chatting a little bit before this, but I'm so grateful that having on to share your journey, share your struggles, share your wins, losses, all that stuff. So thank you.
- [02:08]
George
No, thank you for having me on here. I really appreciate it. You know, I appreciate you taking the time and letting me jump on A call with you.
- [02:16]
Cody McGuffey
Super fun. We have some super fun stuff to talk about. I'm looking at my notes over here and you have an interesting story. And I want today's topic to be how that story kind of was unveiled. You have quit your full time job. You have generated well over $1.2 million in online sales.
- [02:42]
George
Yeah, right now I'm, I'm closing in on four within the six years. Last year was my highest at 1.2 for just the one shot, so it was pretty impressive. This year I'm closing around the same, which I'm kind of upset about. You know, I'm going to be at about like 1.5 overall gross. But I don't really like that too much. I'd rather have had it double. However, you know, things happen.
- [03:07]
Cody McGuffey
Totally. Just to be clear, you said four, you're closing on four. Total sales.
- [03:11]
George
That's so, so total in the six. So. I started Etsy back in 2019, in the beginning of 2019. So since 2019, I've generated, depending on what this month does, it should be close to about 4 million in gross revenue.
- [03:27]
Cody McGuffey
Amazing. How do you feel about this? I'm just curious because there's so many people listening to this. Right.
- [03:33]
George
You know, it's, it's one of those dream come trues where you, you're like, you, you could see it, but you don't know it even exists until it actually happens. I mean, the reality didn't hit me until one day I, I hit over 80, 000 in one month. And I remember just staring at that and thinking, that can't be real money. And I was just, I was in complete shock. I didn't even like, you know, coming from my background of where I came from, it just. Things like that don't really normally happen to people. So when I saw that and I was like, this can't be real. No way I made this much money. It just all started setting in. So, I mean, still, even when I look back at it, everything I went through and everywhere I, everything I've accomplished, I mean, I still can't really sit back and say, wow, you know, it's just like I'm waiting to wake up, I guess.
- [04:27]
Cody McGuffey
You say what you're saying. Completely understand. It's hard for you to understand if you're listening to this and it hasn't happened to you yet. But it almost feels like when you start to pull in some bigger numbers like this, it almost seems illegal. Like the feeling, this can't be legal, this can't be Real. And this is like, I believe this is like our limiting beliefs trying to come in and trying to, like, basically tell us that we're not worth it, but in reality is there is a fully huge amount of abundance of online revenue and online sales people, online buyers that are out there. And it's just our job to position ourselves and create enough value for them. And you get rewarded for that in. In the market. I'm curious.
- [05:12]
George
True. I mean, the. The amount of money that's out there is unbelievable. And, you know, people may hear like, oh, wow, you know, he has this money coming in and he generated this amount of income. There's people out there doing 10 times, even a hundred times more than I have, which is just insane. I just never honestly thought that that would ever happen. So to see it, you know, is just one thing. But to know people out there that are making a hundred times that each and every single day, you know, a million dollars in a minute pretty much, you know, it's just like insane to me. To know that there's that much out there and even have a little taste of it is something like just. I'm grateful for.
- [05:50]
Cody McGuffey
I completely. I appreciate that so much. I feel absolutely the same. And that's why I hope that that's the point of this podcast, is to almost like, expand those possibilities in somebody's mind if they're listening, listening to this, and they're just like, I just want $1,000 a month to pay for my car payment.
- [06:07]
George
Cool.
- [06:08]
Cody McGuffey
Or house payment, whatever it is. But, like, you could have whatever you want. You can have as much as you want. And that's. That's the beautiful thing. And the idea is that through this conversation is to expand that the possibility in someone's mind that, like, look what George has done. Here's how he did it. Nowhere you will hear how easy it was for George.
- [06:29]
George
I wish it was easy. Yes.
- [06:31]
Cody McGuffey
But it's absolutely possible and it is life changing and it's absolutely probably worth it. I'm speaking for you here, but I believe it's worth it.
- [06:39]
George
And yeah, it's definitely worth it. And that's what a lot of people. You know, I. I wanted to make a video for a while, and I'm just going to throw it out there on here year. So this will be the first time somebody's ever hearing it. But I want to go on a video and just say to somebody, if I told you that it would take a year. Right to. You don't know if you're going to make money and Would you actually put that year in? They'll probably say no. But now if I say if you worked a year and then right after that year, one day later you have $100,000, would you do it? They'll say yes. The issue is, is the people won't put the work in and the time in that it's going to take because they're expecting that instant satisfaction. They don't know if it's going to happen, but you have to just keep on pushing. Now, if I gave you that guarantee that after one year, in just one day, you're making 100 grand, you're going to jump all over it. But unfortunately, entrepreneurship's not like that. You don't know if you're going to have success, and you don't know how long it's going to take. And that's an issue that so many people run into is they're expecting to have an exact date on when they're going to start making money.
- [07:43]
Cody McGuffey
It completely agree with all that. And I think it's so crazy going back to kind of what you're saying that how you felt about. I think you said $80,000 a month, right?
- [07:52]
George
Yeah. I would have to pull up the number, but it was a little over 82,000. It was the first time I actually ever paid myself. So I didn't pay myself for 15 months. And now to let everybody know that's listening, that doesn't mean that I didn't pay bills. Right. Because I obviously, I quit my 9 to 5. I just wasn't paying myself any extra for 15 months. So I didn't make any extra money. All the money went back into the company, and that's how I was able to scale it so quickly and everything. That was the first time that I was going to pay myself. I said, this is the month that I'm going to do it. And that was the month that I hit $82,000. I'd have to pull up the exact number. But it was just insane. And I was just staring in shock insane. And I actually only paid myself $3,000, so I didn't even pay myself a lot of money.
- [08:40]
Cody McGuffey
We're very similar in this way. I'd say I'm hearing a lot of commonalities with my story as well. Like the way that you. You're so thoughtful about how much to pay yourself versus keeping in the business. It's almost like you're almost. You're always pushing it back in. You're skimming some because you have to, like, make sure you're sustainable.
- [08:55]
George
I mean, every, every dollar went back in. And that was the most important thing that a lot of people don't, you know, they want to instantly take that money out. But that's not how you build a business. You have to be able to put it back in and keep on building it. So I mean, if, if money came in, say I made, you know, 20, 30, 40,000, I just instantly spent that money right back in the business. It was back down to $0 each and every single month.
- [09:18]
Cody McGuffey
Interesting.
- [09:18]
George
To a lot of people. They're going to say, well, that's crazy. Why didn't you just take any money? Well, if I did, then maybe I wouldn't be where I am now. You know, that's the key.
- [09:27]
Cody McGuffey
That's the key. I have a lot of friends too, actually. Some are very, very successful, by the way. They think differently than me and you on this. I've always believed that, like, hey, just keep on investing back into the business. It will continue to pay your dividends forever. So it's like delayed gratification type of thing where some people think that it should be about like, hey, the business is there to serve you. No, I don't think it is. It's actually there to serve customers and therefore I get rewarded. Part of that because it's serving customers on the performance of the serving customers.
- [09:58]
George
That's the way I. Yeah, I agree. 110. And that's actually how I started my business is, you know, I started from that point of view on how consumers are going to receive an item. Because I started with physical. Now I have some POD stores, but I. That was my physical business that made me so much money. And I started with how a consumer is going to see that, how the consumer is going to get that product, what they're going to get, are they going to be happy with it? I started on the back end first, like from that receiving point, and then that's how I built that company up. And the satisfaction from all of them is what made me grow at such a, you know, fast pace. And in addition to that, I mean, you know, that's, that's why I had so many reviews, so much success. All that because I was caring about the customer before anything else. And that's something Amazon has done, Walmart has done. You know, these massive companies, they start with the satisfaction of the customer, what the customer wants, what they receive, are they happy? And then from there work out the kinks.
- [10:53]
Cody McGuffey
Yeah, you are paid like money is a byproduct of the value that you create for others. And if you just focus on creating value for that customer, great experience, smooth experience, top notch, like you will be rewarded for it. And completely agree. I want to jump into kind of your, your businesses.
- [11:13]
George
Right.
- [11:13]
Cody McGuffey
It sounds a little bit. So you mentioned you have a couple POD shops. You mentioned you had a handmade shop. Can you give us like a landscape of your different income streams now online? Because now you're, you're a different level here. It's not just one store.
- [11:26]
George
So the, the physical one is just craft supplies. Right. So leather and things like that made me a ton of money. I actually had to split it off into two and somebody reached out to me because they actually want to purchase the leather company, but they don't want to purchase. This is the crazy part, they don't want to purchase the leather, they want to purchase my customers. So that's interesting. I'm not going to get into that. That's going to be way too confusing for anybody listening because that's a deal that I have to figure out on my own to see if that's even worth it. But anyway, when I did pod, I went after three things, which is really important how I see it. It's something I want consistently. And I was thinking what's consistent. And one is babies, birthdays and weddings. So I made sure to target those three niches and make, you know, continuously sell things for them because I knew that there would always be a baby, there's always be a wedding, and there would always be, you know, a birthday. And that makes sure that I stay level or at least increase each and every single year versus up and down. Roller coaster effect. So if one shop isn't performing well, then at least I have another shop that's going to. But I, you know, I want everybody to know that is listening. I didn't launch all these shops all at once. I waited. Because you need to understand your consumer. Understanding your consumer is the biggest thing. Once you understand who your consumer is, you can make unbelievable amounts of money. But if you do not understand and grasp who that consumer is that's purchasing your products, you, you're unfortunately not going to get anywhere. You make money, but you won't make unbelievable amounts of money.
- [12:57]
Cody McGuffey
So those are three different shops and can you share when you started each one of those? High level, by the way, doesn't need to be exact. And then.
- [13:03]
George
Yeah, so the POD was about two and a half years ago.
- [13:06]
Cody McGuffey
All three.
- [13:08]
George
Yeah, well, not all three. Each one was launched six months from. From itself.
- [13:13]
Cody McGuffey
Okay, cool. And Then how. How are those streams, income streams doing for you so far?
- [13:17]
George
So unfortunately, they're not bringing as much as, you know, the physical business. So I would say probably generating 5, 600 grand isn't too, you know, isn't too bad. I think last year it was like about 5, 600,000. But it's not terrible. It is multiple shops and it is a lower, you know, margin because it is pod. However, when you do calculate how much your physical business takes and how much, you know, you have to spend on employees and warehouses and things like that, it really does kind of equivalent out as long as you keep it over 20. I try to keep my physical business at at least 40%.
- [13:57]
Cody McGuffey
Okay, got it.
- [13:59]
George
That's a minimum for me on physical. And a minimum for a pod would be 20, 20.
- [14:04]
Cody McGuffey
And this is net after. Like after that would be net.
- [14:07]
George
Yes. Yeah. Cool.
- [14:10]
Cody McGuffey
Beautiful. And that's all. All three. So 5, 5 or 600, 000 per year in revenue across all three of your pod shops. Then you have a 1.5 coming from your. Your fiscal.
- [14:22]
George
I'm hoping that it hits. Well, it would be. Yeah, the 1.5 would hopefully hit that on the physical.
- [14:29]
Cody McGuffey
Sure. Cool.
- [14:31]
George
We'll see what happens. Because December is kind of up. A lot of people don't actually purchase craft supplies in December, which you would think that they would, but they really don't. They do it in January. So December kind of just like falls off for me a lot, and it picks back up January and February and all that. Whereas POD is kind of as long as you target correctly, you can consistently make money, especially in December. So we'll see how much I hit overall with everything, calculating the POD stores and the physical store and all that. But I'm hoping to break at least 4 million overall for six years. I think that'd be incredible. We'll see.
- [15:09]
Cody McGuffey
I love this, man. So many questions that I wanted to just hammer.
- [15:13]
George
I also do want to state that as crazy as this is, I have 50,000 photos in my phone. So if anybody ever wants to try to say anything, I got receipts. Like, I literally have every single waking moment that I built each business to the. From the struggle of making it to how much money I was making, even as little as it was, to how much I made at one point to even when I had to throw away tens of thousands of dollars of inventory. And that happened a lot with the physical business. That's why I'm so grateful that I found POD is because if I didn't, then I would still be Doing that on a daily basis, at least now, you know, I understand what sells and what doesn't after six years. But in those beginning stages, I really wish I would have had a print on demand first instead of physical.
- [16:01]
Cody McGuffey
I get that. I mean, for sure. Especially if you know how to figure it out. And I'm curious of like your process now comes to my mind first is you figured out a way to replicate your, your, your success multiple times. Now you, you have physical and then you move into pod and then you did another pod, another pod. So. And you've been successful, sounds like in pretty much everyone. After you figured out like what a success blueprint looks like for you, can you walk somebody through, for example, if you have a wedding, if you decided to go after, let's say weddings, let's say babies, let's play babies. What is, what do you do? How do you make sure that thing is going to be successful?
- [16:38]
George
So the big thing is that you want to first, you know, research. Research is important, you know, understand what the consumer is looking for. And you can use ever be. I use ever be a lot just for that, just to see what competitors are doing. Now I'm never going to take somebody's design and I never suggest you do that because that seller, and I want to tell everybody this. When, you know, I first started selling, people would always steal my designs. And it didn't matter that you tried to steal my designs. I'm already five steps ahead of you. So you going and using, you know, any sort of software to try to look at somebody, use it for inspiration. So I used it for inspiration to see what those top designers are, you know, those top sellers are doing. And then I looked at their reviews, figuring out what, where they're lacking, what are they not giving to that consumer. Then after I figure out that, then I create my own designs, put them out there and see what happens.
- [17:31]
Cody McGuffey
So are you looking at the listing level or are you mostly looking at shops that are successful, for example?
- [17:37]
George
I look at both. I go in depth with everything before I actually launch any sort of product or, you know, any sort of categories, I want to look at shops and the actual listings itself. Because you could have a listing that takes off in that shop, just dies out later on because they're not ready for it. So you want to be able to see, hey, how did that shop take off so quickly? And in addition to that, then you want to look at the successful shops that are consistently making money and how are they doing it and what kind.
- [18:05]
Cody McGuffey
Of revenue filters or what kind of filters are you using in ever be to understand which one is a winning listing that you should take inspiration from versus ones that you're like, no, I don't want to take inspiration from that. What are the things that you look for? Are you looking at like $2,000 a month or total sales or view counts or review rates? Like what do you, what kind of metrics are you looking for?
- [18:25]
George
So I look at something that's making money within the past. If they can make it in six months and it's making significant amount of money within six months, I know that that's a huge hit and that's something consumers are looking for. Something that's been around for, you know, 20 months or 36 months or whatever. You're, you're competing against somebody that's already there and has been in that, you know, market. And of course they're going to make money, they're continu going to make money with that. But something that took off so quickly is important to me because then I can understand it. And that shop normally is new and they don't even know what they did. And since I'm an older shop that understands that, I can look at their reviews, see what consumers are complaining about and try to make it better.
- [19:05]
Cody McGuffey
You confirmed that. So are you looking at the shop age in this case first?
- [19:10]
George
So in that, so what I first do is I'll just search up something, just a normal keyword, and then see what products are selling underneath that keyword. Then from there, you know, I'll search up like wedding. What's the top wedding selling item? And then I'll go down through there. All right, so say if, we'll say robes, right? I don't sell robes, by the way. Just. But say if robes is a top selling thing, I'll click on it and be like, all right, that's top selling. But now how many other shops are actually selling robes and how many of them are making profits? Is it just a one off scenario where this one shop ends up making all the money? And in that case, this is only one that's taking the market. I can easily take that market as well, you know, so that's something you don't want to get into. A market where there's a ton of sellers making a ton of money. It's going to be hard to carve your space in there, you know, so.
- [20:00]
Cody McGuffey
But baby and wedding and those, those are, those are huge spaces with lots of competitors. So how do you, how do you niche down further? Like what do you do?
- [20:09]
George
So, so with that is you're gonna have to first start with the product. I always start with a product. So you do the ca. Right. So like I said ropes, you do robes here and then you figure out what's going to go on it. You don't want to start with the actual I'm going to do just babies or I'm going to do this and that. You have to start with the category based on the product that you're going to be selling because you only want to sell just that one sort of product. So if you're selling apparel, you would want to sell T shirts and sweatshirts and that's about it. You don't want to go crazy and sell everything apparel because your SEO is completely different. The shopper that's buying yoga pants may not be the same person that's going to be buying T shirts. You know, vice versa, the same, you know, same thing. Everybody thinks like cup wise, if we're selling mugs then we should sell tumblers as well. And that's not always the case. The person that's buying coffee mugs usually isn't buying tumblers, you know. And so I always start with that aspect first. On niching down is figure out what category I want to go with and then from there putting it on there.
- [21:08]
Cody McGuffey
So, so you have, let's say you have, you decide, you go after baby niche and you decide you have a product and it's going to be.
- [21:15]
George
So like blankets for instance is huge. Right. But the margins aren't that great. So doing a blanket isn't going to give you a significant amount of money. Yeah, but if you search it up, I mean some of those stores for blankets and there's a lot of people in that space and specifically for babies. So if you look up baby names for blankets and you go into that, you have hundreds of thousands of sellers and they're making lots of money. Can I get into that niche? No, because I'll never, I'll, I'll never be seen. You know, how much money I'd have to spend in advertising would be just endlessly. So instead, how can I create something that they want? Okay, well they want blankets. Right. And they're purchasing blankets. So Everybody's selling a 30, 40 or 50, 60 or a 60, 80. But how about just a little tiny swaddle blanket? Not so many people are selling that. So then you would do that and just have that one. Now you look at a lower cost, you only have one size item and it's still the Same that they can add their name to it.
- [22:18]
Cody McGuffey
Got it. And so how about the design? Do you differentiate there? Would you recommend somebody differentiates there at all? Because there's a lot of people doing that.
- [22:27]
George
The design aspect is once you create your own design, this is the horrible thing is like you don't know what a construction consumer wants. Right. And when I created my designs, a lot of them did not sell. They just kind of flopped. However, when one did actually start selling, what I would do is I would go into it and say, okay, well this is the style that they want. And now I know this style sells. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to just replicate this with either a different name, different colors, different fonts and things like that. And then that's how I expanded it and then launched it as different listings. Then I would monitor it for the next 30 days to see, okay, did this one take off or did this one not take off? And whichever ones didn't take off, I archived immediately because it's just clouding up my store.
- [23:11]
Cody McGuffey
How long, how long do you wait?
- [23:13]
George
Once I have actual generated, you know, people coming in and you can do it within 30 days. But if you do not have a store that has, you know, a lot of traffic, then you're going to probably have to wait at least 60, 90 days.
- [23:26]
Cody McGuffey
Got it. And do you, do you create that traffic by just turning ads on for any new listing or do you just wait?
- [23:32]
George
So that's also the reason why I stick with those three is because I can do Facebook ads. With Facebook. Yeah, that's the key right there. And that's why I stick with those three. Because on Facebook you can actually select that a person is just having a baby, just had a baby, about to have a baby, just got married, is about to get married within six months, knows a friend that's going to get married, has a friend that just had a baby, you know, is going to a wedding, you know, has a long distance relationship. I mean, there's so many different aspects in the type of thing like that for Facebook, which is why I stick with those three. One, they happen all year round. A baby's always being born, birthday and wedding. But then in addition to that, Facebook I'm able to target, whereas I use Etsy ads, I kind of have to rely on them and the keywords that are being used and see if I could find something or not.
- [24:28]
Cody McGuffey
So I love this because as you know, we have every email, right, which is landing pages, then you have like email lists Email list, building all this stuff that always I feel like people should be building their email list as they're building this, their Etsy shop in their business. But I'm curious about what you do on Facebook. Tell me the flow. So you create an ad that's exciting on Facebook, on Facebook ads platform. And where are you driving this user to?
- [24:54]
George
Okay, so unfortunately with this, this is the worst part about Facebook and Etsy is you cannot add a pixel. So I could tell you what my click per, you know, cost per click is, but did that convert? I don't know if it was organic or if it was actually the Facebook ad. That's the only bad part. That's something, you know, you have to, you have to just judge on yourself based off your past sales.
- [25:20]
Cody McGuffey
You know, just understand there you are, you create a Facebook ad and you drive it. That link that you're putting in Facebook.
- [25:25]
George
It'Ll go right to the, it'll go right to Etsy product page.
- [25:29]
Cody McGuffey
The specific product.
- [25:30]
George
Yes, specific product. And I'll create, I won't create just one ad. Just, you know, I create five ads for just one and see which one performs the best and then start sinking money in that. You don't need a lot of money to start. When I started, I did, you know, $5 per ad per day. So $25 a day just to test it out. And then whichever one started performing, then that one I sunk $25 into and got rid of the other four and continuously grew that way.
- [25:57]
Cody McGuffey
I'm curious of like, how do you measure your success on that? Because you don't have the Pixel which if anybody listening to this, you can Google Pixel and what that means. But basically it's like we don't know what somebody, what, what they did, that Facebook person did after they clicked.
- [26:13]
George
That's the, you know, that's the worst part right there is because you don't know. And I can only base it off of my previous sales. So say if my previous sales were, you know, 100 and now I had 120 based off of last year, I'm going to assume that those 20 were on the ads. Now unfortunately, because the pixel, you don't have any option for that. That's the only downfall of Etsy. Whereas if I had Shopify Store, I can easily, you know, put everything in there with the Pixel and know exactly if they purchased it, if they didn't, if they added it to their cart, and so on. So that's the only downfall of Facebook ads for Etsy.
- [26:47]
Cody McGuffey
How do you know if you're winning or losing on your ad spend.
- [26:52]
George
If I'm not making money, I mean that's the 100 in a day. So. So I will say when I first started doing this I was spending well over a dollar per click. It was horrible. This is, you know, going back six years now my cost per click is anywhere from 15 to 20 cents. So it's like really nothing. But again, you cannot say how many of those people are converting because you don't have pixel.
- [27:17]
Cody McGuffey
But so you're watching your bottom line essentially.
- [27:19]
George
Yeah, but, but to talk about the point on email, on how important that is, I am huge in email marketing. I love email marketing and SMS marketing as well. I will grab your phone number because I want it and I can message you that way as well. So I always send something inside every single order. So with Pod, I use Printify, they do it for 10 cents and it's a little QR code. You just scan it, give me your phone number, your email address, I'm going to give you stuff. And same thing with my physical business in that aspect, I would just throw it in there with it. And that has allowed me to, you know, get so many users and emails. But not even just emails. You would think, all right, I'm asking for somebody's phone number, are they going to really give it? And 7 out of 10 people give their phone number, which is great because that's something that we're always on email we're looking at and we're continuously looking at it but we may miss emails here and there, text messages. We're always going to look at that and see that deal. And I mean I purchased some clothes the other day from Fashion Nova. Just to throw this out there, they have sent me probably a hundred text messages in the past day. So like that's how SMS can actually help you. And as well as email, I mean that, that's, and you know, that's the crazy part like I said, you know that company time trying to purchase the physical business from me, they don't want the products, they want how many consumers. I have all their emails.
- [28:52]
Cody McGuffey
I love that. Yeah. And we actually, we have SMS on our roadmap too for every email just.
- [28:57]
George
Because that will be amazing. Yeah, because that is a huge thing and people will read their text and then they just click on that link and you're instantly right there.
- [29:06]
Cody McGuffey
Can I suggest something to you? And I want to get your opinion on this. Actually like real, real opinion is instead of driving directly to Face to, to Etsy from Facebook ads. Why not create an Everbe landing page with the same copy, same everything, literally? Because we, we could have a pixel on our, on our landing page and get that, at least tracking that and then drive that conversion to Etsy after that. It's like, for example, capture the email on the landing page or something and.
- [29:35]
George
And then capture if, if the person. I could definitely try that and see how it goes.
- [29:39]
Cody McGuffey
Any reasons why? What, what are your thoughts there? Like, why not do that?
- [29:43]
George
I'm curious.
- [29:44]
Cody McGuffey
Because, like, for me, that's. You're gonna get the pixel, you're gonna have, you're gonna get the email address, you're gonna get everything. You're already spending the money anyway.
- [29:49]
George
No, yeah, I've just been doing it the other way for so long. It kind of like, you know, gets ingrained in you on the way you're doing it. So there, there is no excuse on adapting. I should have probably adapted a lot sooner working.
- [30:01]
Cody McGuffey
So it's like you're the one doing 500,000.
- [30:02]
George
Yeah, you just kind of launch them and you're just so used to launching things, you know, it's kind of like creating a listing. The first time you ever create a listing, it takes freaking forever. But now you can do it so fast, you just have a, have a sequence on which you do it.
- [30:15]
Cody McGuffey
It's so crazy, man. It's so awesome to see your success and the way you think about things. How much on the Facebook ads? I know this is a separate topic that we should probably go deep on one day, but how much? What's the most you've ever spent in a day or a month, however you measure this on Facebook ads.
- [30:30]
George
The most I ever spent. Well, so Etsy ads, the most I ever spent was, I think it was a little over like 800. And then that brought me back 4,000. Because you can actually monitor that. Great. Facebook, you cannot. And the most I ever spent on Facebook was 2000.
- [30:44]
Cody McGuffey
In a month or day?
- [30:45]
George
In a day. During the holiday? Yeah, during the holidays it's hard because you're kind of competing against a ton of people, so you have to spend more, you know, during normal days, I mean, you can get away with a hundred dollars a day and still have success with that. But when you are competing on a holiday scale and you want to try to drive as much traffic, you're competing against so many people that are pushing different ads, you're not going to be seen unless you start throwing up that amount of money.
- [31:11]
Cody McGuffey
I love this. And for anybody listening to this, what are you what do you think your revenue amount should be at for you to spend $2,000 and justify it in your head? Like what are you expecting to get for your business?
- [31:22]
George
Yeah, so it's, it's hard to know because there is no pixel. But I would hope for at least double. So four. But I wanna, I wanna try to like five times that. So at least 10, 000. That's what I aim for. But if I kind of break it out as like just a, you know, double it, I, I look at that as success. But I'm always trying to, you know, at least 5x that or even 10x that, you know, with the, with the Etsy ads, like I said, the most I ever spent was a little over 800. I have it set to a thousand. It's never hit a thousand, which is wild. You know, you have the, the little thing that you can do it as a. It's never hit a thousand. I want it to, but it never has. And then the most I've ever received from that was a little over 4,000.
- [32:04]
Cody McGuffey
I love it. Okay, I think it's the perfect time for me to go into our rapid fire questions. You ready?
- [32:11]
George
Okay, go for it.
- [32:14]
Cody McGuffey
All right. What's your favorite business book?
- [32:18]
George
Oh, oh, there's a lot. All right, keep, keep asking. Let me put up my audible. Go ahead, go ahead, ask the next one.
- [32:27]
Cody McGuffey
All right. What's the one thing that you wish that you knew before starting your business?
- [32:32]
George
That my design sucked. Nobody wants to tell you. You know, and you kind of, and you know, I drive this, I drive this a lot in my, my YouTube videos. It's talking about, you need to just create the designs and not put yourself in that ego of saying, hey, this is a winner, or asking a friend or family member because they don't want to hurt your feelings. And they're going to say it's winner too. And what happens is it actually hurts you to just create the designs that you want to purchase. You know, and how I would explain it to myself now in the future, I would say imagine that you, our minimum wage, you make $7 an hour, right. And say your item is $70. Would you work 10 hours to purchase your item? And that would make you start questioning, okay, well maybe my design isn't good enough because I wouldn't want to work 10 hours for that.
- [33:20]
Cody McGuffey
Have a business book.
- [33:22]
George
All right, so library wise, I have so many of these books because if.
- [33:27]
Cody McGuffey
You want, I mean, I know how audible is. I got a huge library too.
- [33:30]
George
Yeah, let's see so the number one book, I really love this book and it's, it's business, but it's also life. It'd be how to Win Friends and Influence People. Such a great book. Then obviously you have the 10x rule by Grant Cardone. I love that. Sam Walton was a great book with how he created Walmart. Then you have Sell It Like Sirhant, which is Ryan Serhant, the real estate agent. Okay. Shoe Dog, which is Phil Knight. Nike. Elon Musk. Great story right there. Shut up and Listen by Tillman. He's the one that owns the Rockets. And what is it? The Golden Nugget Got Relentless, Relentless by Tim Grover. He is the coach that actually, yeah. Taught Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. Great book as well. I mean, even just, even just Grinding it out by Ray Kroc. The, the stories, it's, it's not so. It's, you know, sometimes people look at it and be like, well, you're, you're looking at a book, but of a person's story. But their stories is actually what built it, you know, like Ray Kroc, how many failures he had. A lot of people go into business not understanding that you're going to fail. And anybody. Like, I've had success, but I started selling at such a young age. I literally, my first business was when I was in the third grade, right? I used to sell little trading cards and it was, it was great. But I mean, obviously I didn't know anything. And as I grew, I just started selling more and more. But all the failures I had, and I mean, I've lost, you know, tens of thousands of dollars with going bankrupt in certain businesses. And to see other people struggling, what they did, to overcome it, it's like you need to know you're just going to keep going. And people have asked me before, you know, if you start, if I start a business, what should I do? What should I be prepared for? And the first thing I say is failure. Expect to fail. But what happens is when you fail, you learn from those mistakes. You now know what not to do. And that makes you, you know, make more money faster and better. And because now I'm able to expand and if I didn't fail all those years when I had that physical business, would my pod stores be taking off the way that they are? No, because I wouldn't know really what to do. And the same would go for somebody that's always had success. Say if somebody's always had success after success after success, they're going to have a meltdown. When they finally have a failure because they don't know how to handle it.
- [36:03]
Cody McGuffey
Super wise. Completely agree. Third question. What's the worst business advice?
- [36:07]
George
You're going to be rich. Because no matter what, the more money, the more money you make, the more money you spend. So, I mean, you know, more what, what's that? More money, more problems? It's not really more problems. It's just bigger problems and more money. So, I mean, I would look at that as it's, it's bad advice that the more money you make, you're going to be successful, not have to worry about those little things. Oh, no, the little things happen. They're just at a bigger scale versus when you had a little mistake that only cost you a hundred dollars. Now that little mistake is, you know, $10,000.
- [36:45]
Cody McGuffey
You think it's still worth it?
- [36:47]
George
Yeah, it's still definitely worth it. I mean, I have to, you know, the crazy part is I have to, I, I need to be an entrepreneur for the rest of my life, no matter what. I always wanted to be, but the amount of money I spend on a monthly basis just to even live my life is too much that a normal job would even pay. So, I mean, it's worth it. There's struggles, there's things here, and, you know, some days you wake up and you just like, I hate it. But then you look at everything that you have and, you know, you're humbled by it and you want to just keep on going. And then the more money you make, the more money you can give back, you know, so that equivalent out there that I want to be able to do the things I do, like even just having a YouTube channel and be able to provide people with information, I wouldn't be able to have that if I didn't have income coming in and have employees working that can do this, where I can have time like this by myself, you know, and be able to give back and give things out for free. And I want to create a free course so that I can help people and show them point A to point B on how to make that extra income. Whereas, you know, if, if I didn't have that type of thing, then I don't know, I'd just be stuck chasing. You never want to chase money. That's the biggest thing too. So many people want to chase money, but if you chase money, the money just runs. You want the money to come to you.
- [38:03]
Cody McGuffey
Wise words. If your family and your friends and your customers all had to get together without you and had to write an Honest article or a book about you, about George. What are some of the characteristics and some of the things that they would say, both positive and negative?
- [38:22]
George
So my customers would love me, my family would hate me. So that's, that's the aspect of it. I mean, you know, my, my father, I love my father dearly, but he's never once said that, you know, he was like, proud of me or anything. I guess it's like maybe his nature of where, how he grew up, but maybe that's also what motivated me to keep on pushing. So my consumers themselves, I mean, I go far beyond anything I can. If they message me any hour of the night, I'll message them and I'll sit there and talk with them for a half hour to help them get a sale or anything like that. So I know that at least in that aspect, they would talk highly of me.
- [39:00]
Cody McGuffey
Do you think that everyone should be entrepreneur?
- [39:03]
George
I think if you. If you can handle it. That's actually a really hard question because, you know, you can't really wish that on anybody. The pain and suffering of being alone at times because people don't understand you is hard. If you can handle that, you can handle anything. Because everybody's going to sit there, especially friends and family, when you're going through these struggles. They're just going to go, well, why don't you just have a normal job? Or why don't you just do this? Or why don't you just do that? And they don't want to see you go through that pain of, well, when's my next paycheck going to come? Or am I going to make it? Or why am I failing? Or why is everybody, everything hitting me now all at once? And it does. It hits you hard. And it hits you when you're down and you think you're going to get up, and then, boom, you get hit back. So if you can handle that sort of pain and loneliness, then being an entrepreneur is the best thing in the world. But if you cannot, then I would advise you to be like an intrapreneur, which is somebody that just has a job and they can grow very quickly within that job with a skill set. You can make still a lot of money as long as you do that, where you still have that entrepreneurial background and understanding, but you don't have to have those struggles of, well, am I going to be able to eat this week or not?
- [40:21]
Cody McGuffey
Can you do both? Can you have a job and be successful in that career and be an entrepreneur and also have a side business that pays very well and gives you that autonomous and you get a little bit of taste of both worlds. Is that possible?
- [40:34]
George
I don't think it's a hundred percent possible. If you want to equivalent, if you want to just have just some extra money, sure, you can have a little side hustle here and there, but if you want to have two of them, you can't have both. And the only reason being is because of how much the entrepreneurship takes from you. You know, it takes everything it does. And you probably know, just building up ever be, I mean, how many struggles and how many things smacked you in the face, you know, brought you down and what did you have to do? You had to get back up and you're like, okay, here we go, full speed ahead. And then you get knocked right back down. And it's over and over and constant battle. So you, it would be hard to have both because you would be constantly being knocked down. And then that would also run into you having a job. Not, you know, and then that would bring down that and that aspect of it where you wouldn't be performing as well because you have this on your mind.
- [41:25]
Cody McGuffey
Completely agree with this. I mean, I, I think that you can start out by having both. I think that you should start out by having both. I think that should have side business if they're not full time. But. And I would say, like, you should lean into your side business but also be successful in your job if you have a job that, you know, gives you some fulfillment. But eventually.
- [41:49]
George
Exactly what you're saying is having that is really important because you need to have at least the stability while you're trying to build it.
- [41:55]
Cody McGuffey
Yeah, you need that free, like free cash flow or somehow maybe it's a stability in your mind of like, at least I have time to build this side business at the same time. But I appreciate what you were saying about like building Everbee and getting knocked down and man, we're three and a half years in and the amount of panic attacks, the amount of anxiety that you have, the amount of certainty, the amount of wondering if you're enough, the amount of conversations with your spouse, your partner, with my wife, you're talking about making sacrifices, you're seeing friends buy houses or way before you buy cars, way before you, like, you are literally front loading everything. And you're not taking much out of your business because you believe in a brighter future.
- [42:39]
George
Yeah, it's, it's definitely something crazy. I mean, and then like you just said, you see everybody around you creating success and you're like, well, when's mine going to happen? Or when's this? You know? And the funny thing is I remember once. So I literally, I made 50,000 in one month. And I spent 50,000 in one month. And I just started, I literally just got married when I started this business. So it was a brand new wife, brand new life, right? And never could really see her because I was building the business as well. But I had to call her up and ask her for gas money. And she's like, well, didn't you just get paid? And I'm like, yeah, but I spent it all. It's like, you know, So I need $5 to get home, if you don't mind. But it's, it's just crazy, like the things that hit you and then you have to just keep on pushing. And then you see everybody around you, like you said, have this success and you're like, well, when is mine gonna happen? But how you look at that is yours is going to be bigger because you're putting all the money back in. So they're taking the money off the top right now. And then all of a sudden, now you're building it up stronger, bigger, better. And next thing you know, now it's not like, oh, whose house is bigger? They're like, okay, well, we're going to be jumping on Cody's jet. You know.
- [43:51]
Cody McGuffey
Very interesting the way that you say that. I completely agree. For anybody listening to this, I completely agree. It's like belief in your future is the key. Like, believe that you're just very, very bright and just take time, like delay that gratification. Invest in yourself, invest in your business and you go, you'll have everything that you want, plus more. It'll be an abundance. And I truly believe this from my personal experience. It's like the. I remember having this conversation with my wife years ago and I remember just investing everything into the business. And I would see, we would see our friends from college and high school buying houses, buying cars, like, nothing crazy, but just they were just doing life, you know. And I remember having a conversation with my wife where it's like, I just feel like everyone is like doing better than us. And not that it's about that, but the point is, like, you feel that way. It's true healing. And all those same people, which I love by the way and hold dear to my heart. And actually a lot of, some of them are very good friends. They want my life. And I'm not talking about the money, I'm not talking about that. I'M talking about like the autonomy, the freedom, the confidence that you have when you build your own business. You feel like you are kind of unbreakable because you're so resilient. You know, you will adapt to any market changes that the market throws at you. And I'm curious what your opinion is on this, but that's, that was my experience.
- [45:11]
George
No, I agree with that. I mean, it is, you know, when. Because they'll see you as somebody that's just never going to give up. No matter how hard you get hit down, knocked down, you just keep on going. And it's something that a lot of people admire. It's, you know, they envy that because a lot of us, we don't have that, you know, So, I mean, you have that, I have that. And it's. Very few people do. They usually go into like a little fetal position and want to stay in their bed when everything hits them. But you can't, especially as an entrepreneur and you own your own business. I mean, that's just like, you know, and like I said earlier, I can't just, I can't have. I mean, my, my expenses are, you know, well over 15,000amonth just for me to live now. And it's crazy to think because of where I came from in my life, but I'm not gonna find a job that's gonna be paying any sort of amount of money like that just to live a normal life and be happy. And you know, you, like you said, you have people that are even have even more than that. And it's like that's something that is inside of us, drive us, that we want more. And I never want to get rid of that. I always want more. And when I have everything I think I have, I want to have more in me that I need to go. Because you don't want to ever stop. Sure. There is no ending, especially if you're a productive person.
- [46:29]
Cody McGuffey
And I would say, like, one last thing I'll leave us with is if you're listening to this and watching this wherever you are in the world, and you're wondering if you have that, like that thing that George was talking about of you have that inside of you to like have that resilience, the answer is yes. The answer is likely yes. Because you're watching this and you're listening to this to the end. By the way, it's a 46 minute video podcast recording. George was doing this. I was doing this too. I was watching videos like this. And you get to the end and you're if you're that type of person, very likely you're going to be very successful. And you just have to stay on the path, keep going, and never sell out. You will be successful for sure. And that's my final remarks there.
- [47:10]
George
I'm just gonna end that with one more thing on. On that, because that's a great way to end. But how I look at it is life doesn't happen, you know, to you. It happens for you. I want you to think about that every time something happens and you're like, why is this happening to me? No, it's happening for you. It's happening for you because you're learning from it. You're going to build off that. You're going to, you know, expand and build a successful business, but you want to have that successful business if it didn't happen. So stop looking at how life happens to you and start looking at how life happens for you.
- [47:50]
Cody McGuffey
Love that. George, thank you so much for coming on, man. I'm so grateful for you, and I'm excited to do this again. We'll have to get, like, a check in.
- [47:57]
George
No problem. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
- [48:00]
Cody McGuffey
You're awesome. Appreciate it. Talk to you soon.
- [48:02]
George
Talk to you later.