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I'm Mickie. Co-founder and CEO of One Strong Southern Girl. Our team is here for you. We want you to remember us because we helped changed your life.
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So, I normally review exercise products exclusively. This post is an exception.
Over the last year I’ve been asked how I’ve grown the One Strong Southern Girl brand into a profitable blog, Amazon brand and Ecommerce business so I thought I’d share my experience and one of the secrets to my success.
The single biggest factor that has helped my online business was to sign up for Steve Chou’s course at the My Wife Quit Her Job site (the course is called Create a Profitable Online Store).
In this post I’ll tell you exactly what you can expect to get from the Create a Profitable Online Store Course and why you’ll be glad you made the investment.
If you’ve read any of my 100’s of fitness reviews then you know I don’t give every product a glowing recommendation. My reviews are thorough and honest. My integrity is important to me. If I endorse a product you can trust that I’ve used and researched it completely and believe it might benefit you.
Thank you for your support. You can read my full disclosure policy here.
My online business started about two years ago.
I love writing and exercise. So, like half the population, in 2016 I started a blog.
My goal was (still is) to help women who are trying to get and stay fit but feel overwhelmed with all the exercise products and programs out there in the world. I test (try out) fitness stuff for women and then tell my readers exactly what they can expect from that product or program.
So, in between my day jobs as a medical professional (I’m a certified and licensed Physician Assistant), mom (of 5) and wife, I write reviews about exercise products.
At some point I realized that people were actually reading my articles and I was having a lot of fun so I decided to take a plunge and see if I could make some money with blogging and ecommerce.
I stumbled across My Wife Quit Her Job and watched the free mini-course and was sold.
Then I saw how much the full course cost. I remember sitting at the computer and saying, ‘Awe man…really?’ out loud.
I sat on the idea for over a week. I did some research on other courses and tried to find a good reason NOT to invest in Steve’s course.
Ultimately, I decided I had to spend money to make money. Steve’s course offered some things other courses didn’t (lifetime access, for instance) and he seemed pretty down-to-earth (a priority for me) so I typed in my credit card number and ‘added to cart’.
I’ve never regretted that decision.
And here’s why you won’t either…
The Create a Profitable Online Store Course is for anyone who wants to learn about how to create and run an ecommerce business using Amazon and/or their own store platform.
“…how to create a long-term sustainable business…not a get rich quick scheme…” Steve Chou, speaking about the Create a Profitable Online Store Course
Here are some of the topics covered in the Create a Profitable Online Store Course:
Finding a product to sell
Sourcing your product
Setting up your online store
Selling on Amazon
Search Engine Optimization
Marketing and paid ads
Legal aspects of ecommerce
Here’s an explanation of what the course is all about as well as a ‘tour’ of the backend of the course from the creator himself :
Steve believes that to be successful in ecommerce you need to diversify your income by offering your product on Amazon AND your own online shop. (This is golden advice that you should strongly consider following.)
However, if you’re only interested in selling on Amazon then you might want to invest in another course.
Yes! Absolutely. In fact, Steve’s expertise in ecommerce is the knowledge you’re paying for.
When you get advice or recommendations from the Create a Profitable Online Store Course you should listen.
Not only does Steve run his own ecommerce business and use all of the tools he recommends to you in his own business, he has connections with all of the pros in the industry (listen to his podcast) and passes on everything he learns to you as a student in his course.
There are SO MANY courses and tools out there for developing an ecommerce business. It’s impossible to know which ones are worth your time and money. Steve’s course will help you sort through all of it.
In the course he regularly uses live videos to walk you through popular ecommerce tools and programs available today and explains how they may (or may not) help your business.
The short answer is yes, absolutely.
For me, the video categories in the course that walk you through setting up your Amazon business and ecommerce store as well as the videos on advertising made the investment worth every penny it cost me. (There are a ton of additional video categories and topics but these are the golden nuggets.)
Can you find out all of this stuff on your own (for free)?
Probably.
Amazon has a ton of reference guides and terms of service documents on their site. It’s a little overwhelming and can be confusing. It’s easy to overlook the important stuff because there’s just so much to go through.
Setting up a Shopify (or other platform) e-commerce store is more complicated than you think.
Some (many) of the videos and posts you’ll find online are outdated or completely wrong and you really have no way of knowing if you’re getting bad information (until you find out the hard way and have to fix it).
The videos on the Create a Profitable Online Store Course are updated regularly so you know the information in the course is current. (And if you have a question you can ask it during the classroom hours held every week, or just send Steve an email. Yes, he does actually respond to them all.)
There’s no ONE (free) resource that will be this helpful on You Tube and you’d have to spend hours and hours looking for articles and videos to help you with all of the topics covered in the class (and wouldn’t have any way to know if your resources were current or reliable)
>>>Sign up for The Create a Profitable Online Store Course Now<<<
Or keep reading to learn more about the course…
I feel like I need to mention the video library in the Create a Profitable Online Store Course.
The videos in the course are arranged by category.
Once you click on any of the categories you’re taken to a list of available videos (and articles) about that category.
When you sign up for the course you’ll get the keys to the kingdom.
If you’re just getting started with ecommerce then the video library in the course will make you feel like someone just delivered your new log cabin to your yard in several hundred boxes. (A little overwhelming.)
It’s ok. Everyone feels like this when they see all the content.
Steve recommends a starting place based on where you are in your business (for most people it’s the Finding a Niche category). You paid him a lot of money for his advice so take it. Just start watching the videos one at a time and write down your questions so you can email them to Steve to answer during the live classroom hours.
Take a deep breath and ignore the comments in all those Amazon and Shopify forums from people who boast about their quick successes. That stuff won’t inspire you. But it will give you lots of anxiety.
Success is relative. You need to celebrate every step you take and realize that this journey is a marathon.
Deciding on a product, receiving your first samples, creating your first Amazon listing and publishing your first online store are all achievements you need to give yourself credit for, and realize that all this has to happen before you can make your first sale.
It’s going to take time to do it right. And remember, you’re creating a business that relies completely on techie stuff. Things will NEVER work exactly like you think or want them to.
And Sir Google doesn’t work quickly. SEO takes a while to kick in (months…and months).
It’s imperative that you set realistic goals and factor in all the missteps and unforeseen obstacles that will slow you down along the way.
Words of Wisdom…set mini goals for a week, and a month and for the year etc. You need to feel like you’re accomplishing something all the time.
Success will come but be patient.
Steve Chou will provide you with a TON of valuable information in his class.
He gives you all the tools to be successful in your ecommerce endeavor.
But he’s not going to do the work for you.
The money you pay for the Create a Profitable Online Store Course is for the tips, advice, guidance, tools and precise up-to-date knowledge about creating and running your own Ecommerce and Amazon business.
Your success will be directly related to how much effort you put into it.
When you hear people say that they started an ecommerce business with less than $500 you can bet that they did everything themselves.
You can hire someone else to take and edit your pictures, set up your ecommerce site, design a logo, handle all of your logistics, etc. But that’s going to take far more than $500.
You’ll be handed the resources to learn how to do this stuff yourself in the Create a Profitable Online Store Course, and I recommend you go in with the attitude that you’re going to learn how to do it all.
Yes, that means it could take a lot longer to get your product on the market (because some people will have a lot more to learn than others) but it’ll be worth it.
Not only will that mindset mean you start your business with more money in your pocket (that you can invest in your product), you’ll know how to tinker with all the nuts and bolts of your business forever.
Then when you start making enough money to hire out certain aspects of your business you’ll know if someone is doing it right.
One way to set mini-goals that are achievable is to pick one thing and tackle it hard.
The Create a Profitable Online Store Course has all the videos arranged by category so take advantage of that.
Watch the niche and sourcing videos until you understand what you’re doing and then move on to the next category (which might be different for everyone depending on where you are in your business).
There’s no reason to start watching the videos about running ads until you have a store set up, or your product listed on Amazon. That will just confuse you.
And don’t worry about conquering every ad type (Facebook Ads, Google Shopping Ads and Amazon pay-per-click ads) at the same time.
Pick ONE of those and when you understand it well enough to explain it to someone else then move on to the next one.
This will keep you sane and on a steady pace to get your business up and running asap.
If you don’t embrace this idea then you’ll feel like a failure when your first Facebook ad doesn’t result in any sales or your SEO optimization has only managed to get your store on page 50 of search results.
Remember every product will have its own audience.
You’ll have to find your customers and figure out what kinds of marketing works for your product and your customers.
Take the advice you’re paying for but remember your niche will be different. You’ll have to do some thinking for yourself.
But Steve will give you the foundation to build on so you’ll have a starting place.
If you’re like most people then you’re stepping out on this ecommerce adventure on your own (or with one other person).
There’s A LOT to do before your product is ready for the world.
And then once get your baby out the door you’ll realize that now there’s even more to do to get it in front of your customer.
*(Some people will use the term ‘autopilot’ to refer to their ecommerce business but that’s kind of misleading, in my opinion. There’s always going to be work to do in your business.)
Listen up. You’re only one person. And there’s only so much time in the day.
You cannot figure out every aspect of ecommerce by yourself. It’s impossible.
That’s why you’ll be glad you signed up for the Create a Profitable Online Store Course.
Not only can you email questions directly to Steve (or ask your questions live during class). You’ll also get access to the Facebook group which is a goldmine of normal people who are on the same journey as you.
I’ve been very happy with the amazing help and support I’ve been able to get from the course’s Facebook group. (I actually dropped out of the other Amazon and Ecommerce Facebook groups I was in after I realized how much better Steve’s Facebook group is.)
So, I felt like I needed to include at least one thing the Create a Profitable Online Store Course could improve on.
My only complaint about the entire course is that you can’t track which videos you’ve already watched.
If you’ve ever taken an online course before you’re most likely familiar with the format that allows you to mark each video after you’ve viewed it. Steve’s videos aren’t set up this way.
As I mentioned above, the course videos are links that populate in a list under each category.
When I signed up for the course, I couldn’t do any marathon viewing of an entire category of videos because I only had bits and pieces of time to fit them into my schedule so I’d often start playing a video and realize several minutes into it that I’d already watched it. (Sometimes I could tell I’d clicked the link before but I couldn’t remember if I’d actually had time to view the entire video.)
That’s not the end of the world, of course. But it still annoyed me.
Is the layout of the course videos a reason to NOT sign up for the Create a Profitable Online Store Course?
Absolutely not.
The benefits you’ll get from the Create a Profitable Online Store Course are monumental and my small annoyance at the layout of the videos is basically a tiny pebble that you may or may not even notice.
As I’ve said several times, Steve listens! And here’s proof of it!
As of today, underneath every video there’s now a way for you to indicate whether you’ve viewed it already or not. Yay!
So, what this means is that now I can’t think of a single thing Steve could do to improve this course! (I’ll update this post if I think of something.)
Continually updated information for creating and running an online store all in one place
Lifetime access to the Create a Profitable Online Store Course materials
Direct email and live access to a reputable source (Steve Chou) to answer your questions about creating /running an online store
Access to the Create a Profitable Online Store’s Facebook group
Priority Invitation to attend Seller’s Summit*
*Seller’s Summit is Steve’s annual ecommerce conference (which every renowned ecommerce guru speaks at). I’ve never been able to attend it but you’ll want to (and the students in Steve’s course get updates and priority access to the limited number of tickets for the conference).
SIGN UP FOR THE CREATE A PROFITABLE ONLINE STORE COURSE TODAY!
I wish you the very best of luck in your Ecommerce Adventure!