Breaking Barriers: My Journey from Warehouse Worker to Dropshipping Success

What's up, guys? Welcome to the Ecommerce Paradise channel. And today I'm going to talk to you about what's holding you back. So when I first started with high ticket dropshipping, I was, you know, in my early 20s. And I really wanted to start my own business. I was working a day job at a warehouse in Los Angeles, California. And my whole goal at that point in my life was just to have a job and be able to pay for my bills.

And so I could live in Los Angeles and go skate every single day because skateboarding is my passion. One of my favorite things to do every day. And so that's all I wanted to do. And I basically just combed Craigslist until I found a suitable job and I applied for it and I went in for a job interview and I got it. And I was super happy about that.

So, you know, basically at that point in my life, I was kind of struggling a lot and I had just gotten let go from a job and I had a girlfriend and her uncle had introduced me to a movie called The Secret.

And in that movie, they talk about the law of attraction and they talk about how you need good energy and you need the energy that you will have when you receive the thing that you're looking for already before you go and even look for the thing, because that's what will attract you to the thing. So kind of a abstract concept, but it actually really does work.

So basically, if you want to just like sit there and meditate and think about what you want and feel like you've already achieved it, you'll get a really good feeling. And that's that feeling that that's energy, that's a vibration. And that you can use that vibrational energy to attract what it is that you're looking for. And in that movie, they talk about how the universe will really much just bring it into your life. And that's the truth. Law of attraction is really amazing and that's how it

works. And that's pretty much what I did. I just meditated and closed my eyes and visualized myself driving a fast car, having a nice house, having a wife, just being able to do all these different things and having the life of my dreams. And at that point, it was mostly just just like finding a job and getting a job and getting paid.

So I visualized that. And then sure enough, within a week or so, I had actually gotten a job, gotten hired. So, but you know, I went through ups and downs. And through that journey, I basically realized that I didn't want to have to work jobs anymore. I wanted to be able to be a business owner and own my own business so that I could be my own boss, make my own schedule.

And, you know, so I started doing dropshipping because, you know, I was again doing the visualizations and stuff and started kind of just sharing the energy with others around me. And I realized that what I could do is I could actually, you know, share a business with somebody too. And so I started talking to potential prospects about business ideas. And one of them came to me and gave me an idea to start a skateboard brand. And we started it together.

I didn't really go anywhere because for whatever reason. And instead, we decided to go the route of dropshipping. And so what I learned through that whole thing is that you don't really need to always think like you're always going to be successful with the very first thing you do, that you're always going to probably need to pivot in business and try to figure out exactly what's going to work, what's profitable, and then try to figure out how that can fit into to your passions.

What I found is that at the time, a certain type of bicycle was really popular around Los Angeles. And my partner had noticed this and I did some research and verified it. And these types of bikes are called single speeds or fixie bikes. And they're really popular. And back then around 2010, 11, they were just starting to get really popular. And there were some big brands popping up and I decided, you know, why not try drop shipping these products.

So we found some suppliers, you know, went actually to their warehouse to talk to them in Los Angeles, us make those connections. And then we got an account with them that where they would actually drop ship the product to our customer for us. And that was a big thing. And then back then, you know, I had never like taken a course on drop shipping, I didn't have any mentors besides my partner. And he was a locksmith by trade. So he didn't know everything there was to know

about internet marketing and stuff. So we were kind of just figuring stuff out as we, But the cool thing about that whole process is that I was getting my feet wet and I was learning, you know, kind of like the ins and outs and how things work and having little successes here and there, which was really, really helpful because at the time, you know, I was just getting started out and a little success meant a really big thing for me.

So once we got the first account, we were able to figure out like a website to set up. And the first website we set up was really, really basic HTML and the buy now buttons were PayPal buy now buttons. And it was really simple. we didn't drive any ad traffic to it. We just hired an SEO agency to, you know, keyword optimize the website and put some backlinks on the web. And we ended up getting enough traffic about a year later to pay for those services.

But I realized that obviously that wasn't going to be scalable. What I needed to do was I needed to figure out how to do SEO myself and run ads myself and also scale the business by getting more suppliers, not just selling one supplier.

So, you know, the following year, 2013, I did all that work and I was able to scale the business up to $100,000 in revenue that year, you know, which is around 10,000 a month or whatever in sales. And, you know, after net profit of around 10% or so, you know, 20%, 10 to 20%, I'm looking at, you know, 1000 to 2000 a month in net profit. And that was almost enough to live on with a very meager living in LA.

So I decided at that point that I would quit my job and just work full time on the business. And that following year, I was able to scale it up to 500,000 a month in revenue or $500,000 that whole year in revenue, which is around $50,000 a month. And with $50,000 a month, I was making $5,000 to $7,000 maybe or so net profit. And that was plenty of money to live on. So at that point, I decided to sell the company, start becoming a digital nomad, traveling around a lot.

And I started a new company about a year later and then kind of did the same sort of process and then sold it again and then started a new company again because I kind of know how to do the dropshipping stuff now. And I signed up for some courses and got some real mentorship.

But all along the way, it was all about just like not letting things hold me back. I had a lot of people always asking me questions like, do you think this is a really good idea or not? And I was always trying to think like, what, you know, are they saying this to protect me or are they saying it because, you know, despite me? And I wasn't quite sure. So I wanted to share some ideas with you guys.

What you got to do to get past this obstacle of like the things that are holding you back from becoming successful is you got to take action. That's kind of the main thing. but you've got to identify the common obstacles. And the number one thing usually is the fear of failure. So that's the one thing that kind of always messes with my head whenever I'm thinking about doing something is, hey, what if I, what if this doesn't work? What if it's not worth pursuing? You know, that kind of thing.

Fear of failure, lack of knowledge, your expertise can also be, you know, hard, but these days you can find out anything you want online. For instance, I have a bunch of YouTube channels, podcasts, and online courses as well for you guys to learn. So you know, you can learn from other people's knowledge and experience. And also you might have some uncertainties about finding the right niche. And so there's a lot of good niches, but you might not really know which one is the right one to choose.

And so you've got to do a lot of research. You've got to learn how to research. And I have lots of training materials on that as well. Another thing is financial concerns and budget constraints. So understandably, a lot of people, you know, are just getting into business, but don't really have either full-time income yet, or, you know, they do have full-time income, but not much time. So it's either financial or time related budgets and constraints.

But either way, there's always ways to work around it. And it really just depends like how bad do you want it. And you got to be able to like manage that and budget the time, budget the money accordingly so that you can make things happen and make it work. So, as far as fear of risk goes, the number one thing really that you got to understand is that entrepreneurship, pretty much anything you're going to do is going to have some risk involved with it.

So to manage that risk, you just have to basically make like a pros and cons list. What's the best possible case scenario? What's the worst possible case scenario? And really, you know, at that point, you just make a decision, you know, like, is it worth it or not? You know, are you willing to risk $1,000 or $2,000 to get started with this business? Are you willing to risk a week or two of trying, you know, or a month or two of trying in order to get started with the business?

The next thing is, you know, just kind of diving deeper into the overcoming of the lack of knowledge. You know, there's so many resources online, okay? And the number one thing with knowledge is that once you learn something, you can't just learn it and then forget about it. You've got to learn it and then go to the next stage and actually implement it.

And then once you implement it, you've got to figure out kind of what worked and what didn't and then move from there forward and actually learn what worked and then repeat that. And then the next thing is finding the right niche. Niche selection is kind of a difficult process sometimes. There's market research tricks that you can do to actually make your market research better. And the main thing I would just look at is keyword research and just looking at volume.

Also looking at competitors' stores because you just want to model competition. That's kind of the main thing is modeling your competitors' success. So look at their suppliers that they have, look at their website, look at their marketing funnels, that kind of stuff. Stuff. And as far as financial constraints go, you might be financially constrained, but other people have money. So you need to learn how to leverage banks and other people that can loan you money to make things work.

As far as time constraints go, maybe you don't have much time. Well, maybe you can make time. Maybe you can get rid of the TV for an hour every day and spend that hour with high ticket drop shipping. It really just depends on what you have going on in your life. You've got to make some sacrifices and do what it takes to be able to set time aside, set money aside and make it happen and learn stuff. Okay. So in conclusion, I'd just like to talk about my offers and what I have for

you. So right now I have a free niches list for high ticket dropshipping. You just go to ecommerceparadise.com slash niches. You can get that free niches list and you also get a free mini course or just go to ecommerceparadise.com slash mini course and you get that free mini course. And it's all about high ticket dropshipping, what you need to get started, what you need to have before you get started and the kinds of things that you need to be prepared for in order to run this type of business.

I also have a full done with you over the shoulder course called the High Ticket Dropshipping Masterclass. And this is a course where basically I made training videos on how to do everything I know how to do to grow and scale these businesses. And I pass it off to my VAs. And then I also made it available to the public. So go check that out at ecommerceparadise.com slash masterclass.

And lastly, I have a done for you offer, which is a we build entire high ticket dropshipping store in business for you, hand it off to you when it's ready. It's called our Turnkey high ticket dropshipping done for you service. And you can go check it out at ecommerceparadise.com slash turnkey. Thanks so much for watching guys. Definitely hit subscribe, like, and I'll see you guys out there in the next video. Take care.