It’s Been a While…
Ya know… it’s been so long since I blogged here, I almost forgot my WordPress password. How’s your 2018 been going? Mine has been super busy but extremely productive and more profitable than I expected. So I thought I’d catch you up on lessons I’ve learned with my new site, struggles, personal growth, and other insights.
The Golden Ticket
The year started off on a fun note. I received a Golden Ticket and was invited, along with a few other high-volume sellers, to meet with Amazon about the Merch By Amazon (MBA) program! We had to sign NDAs, but I CAN say that it made me even more proud and excited to be a part of this amazing passive income opportunity. They even created a shirt design for us that we got to print ourselves!
The team was super cool and treated us to a nice dinner with some delicious desserts! We were all pretty vocal about the things we like/didn’t like, suggestions, etc. I can’t lie…
Before the meetup, certain things about Merch would really frustrate me. But after talking to the team, it made me realize how hard they’re working to improve on many different fronts. One thing’s for sure… these people LOVE THEIR COMPANY. You can see Amazon has a certain standard for the kind of people they hire. The Merch team is extremely passionate and dedicated to the program, and it was really cool to see their energy and positive outlook on the future of (MBA).
Detour Ahead
Merch By Amazon caused a COMPLETE detour with my business in late 2016. I saw the potential and knew I had to focus on it as soon as I got in. To date, I’ve sold nearly 10,000 shirts on Amazon alone, and never dreamed T-shirts would be a big part of my income stream. But I’m actually glad Merch distracted me because I was about to make a BIG MISTAKE by creating the site about selling online courses from your WordPress site.
I was trying to force myself into a niche that I wasn’t really passionate about JUST to have a more focused/niche site. Bad idea. I also felt some pressure to start a new site because I really wanted to see what it was like to begin TODAY so I could share more relevant lessons. I was definitely forcing ideas for that reason as well. Thank you, Amazon, for rescuing me from THAT inevitable failure!
The PSP Journey Begins
When I launched Passive Shirt Profits in June of last year, I knew that social media wasn’t going to be a big part of my marketing strategy. That may sound crazy to you in 2018, but if you know me, you already know that social media marketing has NEVER been a strength OR favorite of mine.
As a matter of fact, MARKETING IN GENERAL has never been a strength. All I knew was that I wasn’t going to stress myself out trying to grow another social media account I would probably abandon. So I decided to start with podcasting. I really wanted to see how much traction I could gain with doing nothing but focusing on that.
I also wanted to challenge the “Be Everywhere” strategy that a lot of newcomers feel they need to adhere to when starting a website. My goal was to commit to podcasting weekly to see if it would drive people into my courses. I launched my first show in May, 2017.
Sales Were Off To a Great Start!
You may remember that the initial launch for PSP was great. It was a good decision to offer a bundle package that was priced lower than the total price of all courses individually because most people bought the bundle. I made more in the first 3 days of launch than I typically made on Udemy in a month (WITHOUT Udemy discounts.)
But let’s be real… the sales were mostly from people who found out about PSP from THIS site. The REAL tell would be the results AFTER the…