Andrew Sabbatino 5:05
Yeah, it’s so I mean, you’re selling a preventative. It’s a cool preventative, which makes it a little bit easier. But and a lot of people do just need it for their job. Obviously, you have those, like prepper types of people that just want it or buy it. But like I would say, like 80, or 90% of the people that purchased it actually need it on a day to day basis for their work.
Joshua Chin 5:22
How do you deal with the liability of the product? Obviously, if it if it fails, you only know that it failed, after the fact, but is there insurance involved? What does that look like?
Andrew Sabbatino 5:35
Yeah, you need a hefty hefty insurance policy. I mean, at least down the line, I don’t remember what exactly we started with. But I mean, I think we had some crazy, huge policy by the time I left, like upwards of like, close to like $20 million, or something like that. It’s insane. Yeah, liability insurance is interesting on that brand. Obviously, like the product works, it goes through testing all the times that like the NJ certified lab, which is the like standard for testing of that type of product. And the company itself has actually had a couple saves as well as people who have actually been shot on, like while wearing it. And it’s a well, so yeah, those are pretty cool stories that was like, you know, the reason that you get into the industry.
Joshua Chin 6:19
Right, we’re gonna move back a little bit in your, in your, in your story here. You start out when you’re 11 selling physical products, what do you what did you sell? And how did that happen? Was it like in person? Or online?
Andrew Sabbatino 6:34
Yeah. So I online was tough, right, like, so I’m 32 years old. So at that state of the age that we live in, so the internet was still in its infancy. So I didn’t know how to make a website or anything like that back then. Nor did I really have any products I could have sold on our website at that time. But I needed money. I wanted things right. I’ve always wanted to have stuff and been able to spend my own money. So I use like the tools that I had at hand. And I started making these like craft arrows basically. And I would consign them to the gift shops. I was lucky because I lived in a kind of touristy area, near National Park. And so I was able to like maybe make like, you know, five or 600 bucks a month doing that. And I would just consign them with all the gift shops. It’s crazy. And 11 years old. The story helped, obviously, because it was like, you know, little kid trying to make some money. So I’m sure people bought a lot of times out of like, you know, like, Oh, that’s cool.
Joshua Chin 7:25
That’s interesting. Andrew, how did that happen? I don’t think well, most 11 years old, wouldn’t really think all that much about making money, let alone selling products. What what what gave you the inspiration, versus something a little bit more typical, like, mowing the lawn or doing chores.
Andrew Sabbatino 7:45
Like I couldn’t get job at that age, right. And I just knew I wanted some more money and wanted things and my family is all pretty much entrepreneurs on my dad’s side. Like my grandfather’s Edie honest, he’s 89 years old. He’s still working, and like a multimillion dollar business. So he’s taking a few steps back, my dad runs a lot of the day to day stuff. But he’s still you know, in the office quite often.
Joshua Chin 8:07
He’s credible, what kind of industry and
Andrew Sabbatino 8:11
that’s a aerospace like defense company. So wow, electrical systems on naval ships. So it’s a pretty cool business, great profit margins, because all government contracts.
Joshua Chin 8:22
Right? Very specific. And so from consuming products into gift shops, selling physical products to eBay was when that next leap happened was like your first taste of online money.
Andrew Sabbatino 8:40
Yeah, I think I’ve probably sold a couple of things on eBay, like my own things, like when I was in high school. But I worked at a restaurant at the time, and it was seasonal. And I went to college. So like, basically, like, half my college time, I didn’t have a job. And you can’t collect unemployment when you’re in school. So I was like, well, I need to make money somehow. So we started buying things from China and just listing them on eBay. And at one point, I think I had maybe like, think like 25 Different eBay stores running.
Joshua Chin 9:11
When the how, how does that work? Because I so here’s my story. I started on Ebay. I was alone was in school, lots of lots of free time, I came across a course on udemy.com and found out about eBay and what the whole deal was, and I was like, this cannot be true. So I gave it a shot made a bit of money. I was like, that’s cool. That’s that’s about it. I made about 1000 bucks. That was the most money I’ve ever seen in my life at a point in time. And I thought that was that was it. But the more kind of the more conversations I’ve come to have, the more I realize that people who are crushing it on eBay have crushed it on eBay. And that’s like a whole New world that I never got to taste when I was in that in that space. What What was that like from going from? Just testing things out on the eBay to scaling that to 20 plus eBay front storefront?
Andrew Sabbatino 10:16
Yeah, it’s a lot of work. Right.
Joshua Chin 10:20
And you were in college at that time?
Andrew Sabbatino 10:22
Yeah, yeah. And then like right after college to for like, two years, I did it after that. The problem, I mean, like problem with like that what I was selling and stuff, maybe like, some of you probably shouldn’t have been sold, let’s just say, right? Buying things from China. And there was certain restrictions on eBay, obviously, right, about how much of each item you could sell and things like that. So the reason we had so many stores is that we were like trying to keep the levels down on each one that we were selling. So we had like eBay stealth accounts, basically, they were called. And so we had like, 25 different bank accounts, it was kind of like a crazy scheme, I used to do a little bit of like, more like gray hat, black hat stuff, and my parents. So that was kind of like definitely more on the little bit black hat side.
Joshua Chin 11:05
That’s crazy. That’s crazy. And one of the things that I have kind of come to realize, and I think that’s a great segue into what you do today, is that the really big reason why I was never really massively successful I was I consider myself relatively successful, and in the fact that I actually made money and I didn’t lose money on eBay. But I was never really a massive success was because I kind of kept to myself, and I never really had a community of people that I could rely on and trust and learn from. And I was kind of just stuck to my own own ways. And going through that, that whole cycle. Oh, it wasn’t a long time was just about a month or two. But I felt that I really needed people that I could talk to network with and connect those to learn from and share experiences. And that was a really big learning for me when I sat down the store and moves on to my next thing. And today, you head up one of the divisions that PowerHouse Mastermind. And I personally think that’s an incredible opportunity for entrepreneurs in the ecommerce sector. In the internet tech sector, looking to scale find a community find a group of people that they can trust and learn really quickly from and have the skip steps and skill faster than then than they could alone. What is PowerHouse Mastermind, and how does one get involved?
Andrew Sabbatino 12:44
Yeah, well, I’m gonna actually preface this with me and Josh actually met at an event, right. So he’s definitely come out of his shoulder a bit and not having community he’s, he comes to Masterminds and events now, so Oh, yeah, she met big, big giant agency events. So and PowerHouse Mastermind PowerHouse Mastermind is actually a ecommerce focused mastermind. We have about 135 members right now. And we’re approaching over a billion dollars in sales inside between all of the brands that are actually in the membership right now. So we do four events a year, it’s a great place to like learn, basically, you can help people that are below you, depending on where you are as an ecommerce owner, and you can learn from people who’ve been where you want to go.
Joshua Chin 13:30
And you’ve got some big names. Los obviously, one of the he runs one of the fastest growing agencies, highly sought after speaker, consultant in some shape and form. And Josh, obviously, Ron Snow grew the business from basically nothing 200 million in sales in the first like, three, four years. Yeah. 150 Now, insane, incredible. I read somewhere that they’re one of the one of the Top 50 Top 30 Most Visited Shopify stores in the world.
Andrew Sabbatino 14:15
Yeah. There might be one of like the only bootstrapped companies still like they don’t have any venture capital or outside money in their company, as far as I know. And that’s incredible. They’re competing with you know, like smile, direct club, and like companies like that. They’re like huge and venture backed. And they’re still winning.
Joshua Chin 14:35
Is that so? Talk to me about the community that you have in PowerHouse. Are people generally bootstrapped? Do you have venture backed businesses in the crowd as well? What does it look like?
Andrew Sabbatino 14:48
There’s a couple of venture backed businesses, I would say, but the majority of the people that you’re going to encounter are going to be like, you’re kind of like solopreneur or someone who has maybe like five to 10 employees. There They’re just like growing their ecommerce business, right? They’ve probably been in business like three to four years, most of the time, everyone that’s in our group is doing at least a million dollars a year. And I want to say the average person is like doing around like, five to six now, when you actually average them out. So they’re all like a good spot. And they’re all really like ready to scale. So that’s like some, like when I was in that spot in the business, that’s like one of the toughest places to be, because like you’re writing between being able to hire top talent, and like having the money to hire top talent to really scale up. So like, you’re kind of like still in the mix of your business, like you’re not really working on the business, you’re still working in the business. So like, that’s one of the biggest things that I think people can learn by being in the mastermind. It’s just like, kind of how to scale their business and get to that next level. Because there’s a big difference between like a seven figure brand and an eight figure brand.
Joshua Chin 15:48
Huge. Sometimes it’s just about knowing what questions to ask and knowing what you don’t know. I can I can relate to that awkward middle, where you’re not exactly big enough, were really, really high quality talent, a players would want to work with you, but you’re not that small, where you can get everything done yourself with a tiny ass team. What are some of the most common problems and questions that you see people in the seven figure range? Trying to get to eight figures? Face?
Andrew Sabbatino 16:25
Yeah, a lot of them are going to be like operations wise, social is always going to be a question. But I think like the biggest thing that we help people with a lot of times is operations, right? Like knowing like who that next hire should be. And like how to actually utilize the people that you currently have. I will also seem like a lot of questions about social media, right? Leveraging influencers, obviously, Josh built his brand off the back of influencers. So that question comes up all the time, as well. And we have some pretty cool systems in place for that. We also have like all the contracts and stuff already pre made that we can just give our members so that they can go out and get their own influencers.
Joshua Chin 17:05
That’s a big, that’s first, first of all, that’s a big time saver. But second, with, with what’s happening in the social space paid social. What do you see as the next possible evolution? In ecommerce? We’ve, we’ve gone from just, well, many years back, launching an ad on Facebook and switching things on means that you’re making money. Yeah. And that’s the golden era of dropshipping. And then that that died. And we’re, we’ve kind of evolved into the kind of niche world of dropshipping and single product pages. And now that’s evolved beyond that. And now it’s becoming extremely difficult and competitive. To win on Facebook alone. What do you think is the next evolution of that space?
Andrew Sabbatino 17:57
Obviously, tick tock is gonna be the next big advertising platform, it already is becoming that way. Like, the more more you know about that platform, it’s still as great organic reach to they haven’t limited it as much as like, you know, an Instagram or Facebook, still kind of like the Wild Wild West, like how we were back in like 2016. So I think that’s like a great place to start if you’re just running ads, but having a community now is super important. And having email and SMS is extremely important, like starting from the beginning. Yeah, email and SMS, obviously, you guys know, you run an email and SMS agency, I run an email SMS agency, we know how much more value that can bring into the back end, you can turn to an unprofitable Ad into a profitable ad just by having the proper back end setup.
Joshua Chin 18:40
Absolutely. What’s the what’s your favorite story in, in, in that regard with, if any, if email and SMS, turning some business, that maybe losing money into something that’s profitable?
Andrew Sabbatino 18:54
I’ll tell also two stories where I’ll tell the story of our brand back like, this was quite a while we’re probably like 2019, or,
Joshua Chin 19:02
well, not too long ago, two years ago,
Andrew Sabbatino 19:06
that business scaled like crazy, from like 2020 to 2021 at the end of 2019. So that had to do with the social political climate, obviously. But a lot of it was just some of the stuff that we implemented, I think it was August of 2018. We finally like really went all in on email and SMS, we were using attentive and Klaviyo at the time. We took that brand from like $800,000 a month at the time to like 1.4 in one month. So we almost doubled our revenue just by implementing email and SMS. So and then there you go have another we have another member in our he’s actually in our mastermind, great guy. He kind of has a up a niche store. He sells like Western welding shirts. And he’s got a great business, super passionate customers, but he wasn’t doing any email or SMS and he’s been working with us now for over a year. And now 50% of his his revenue comes from email and SMS. Crazy. Yeah, crazy, like our biggest success story for sure. Like he’s killing it like just from what I met him like maybe like a year and a half ago to now he’s like, I think like, maybe four or 5x this store.
Joshua Chin 20:16
I love that. And what people don’t realize is that it’s not, it’s not 50% of one month’s revenue, it’s compounding because you’re using that extra profits to generate more revenue through ads and through acquisition channels. And you’re kind of cycling that trough and 50% of 800k may just be 400k. It’s still a lot of money. But 50% of 2 million, it’s a one it’s an additional million every single month. So that compounds, and you get to grow your business at a much faster rate than you otherwise would know what some what what does that look like for for business like? Safe Life Defense? Because I would imagine that you typically would just need one fast one body armor and you’re set and it’s not it’s not cheap, your average order value is going to be a couple of 100 bucks.
Andrew Sabbatino 21:15
Yes, it was like, you know, hosting 1000. It’s somewhere in between, right? I can’t give exact numbers, because you’re NDAs and things like that. But it’s it’s a pretty high LP. Give me like your average ecommerce store, like your average ecommerce store with maybe like 100 something it’s significantly higher than that.
Joshua Chin 21:32
So where does email and SMS play a part in in that, that space? Because typically people think about or even less mess, that’s those are retention channels and the channels to get people by again?
Andrew Sabbatino 21:44
Yeah. So like, I mean, if you read, what is it? Is it zero to one or it’s, I forget what the book is called. It’s Michael Masterson, both the guy from Quora, and he basically talks about like the ascension levels, right. And like, the first 2 million is usually like you have one product. And then from like, the first like, one to 10. And like x, it’s usually like, you create more products to create more money, right? Like it like you use like Intel as an example of first, like, you know, they start out with like processors, and they’ve expanded into other things. And basically, what we did is we would create, like accessories and things like that for our products. So although they only need one vest, maybe they want a different carrier, or they want to get like a belt with it, or they want to get like a mag holder, things like that. It’s just expanding out your product lines. So typically, yes, like they only need a vest every five years, because that’s when they expire. But that customer is passionate about other things, right? Like your avatar is not just gonna be passionate about whatever that one product is you sell so if you’re not producing the other products for them right now, like go out and get an affiliate deal for them so that you can resell them to them.
Joshua Chin 22:50
I love that. What are some resources that you recommend people looking to for finding good affiliate offers to promote?
Andrew Sabbatino 22:58
It totally depends on like, what you’re what you’re selling, right? Every niche is different like health and like tactical and stuff like that. They have great like affiliate networks out there that are like trying to establish affiliate networks. But so far has that that tool now called Karo, I believe, or there’s a tool now that lets you sell other people’s products on your actual Shopify store.
Joshua Chin 23:20
Oh, that’s interesting. Shopify when you just pull it up cross store partnerships. Yeah, you’re it’s get Cairo with two R’s.
Andrew Sabbatino 23:35
Yep. So that was awesome, right. I don’t know a ton about Shopify, cuz we were never on Shopify, just because the niche is a little weird with them. Because like it can get associated with guns. We never wanted to take that risk. But yeah, it’s a it’s a pretty cool tool, right? So you can actually sell other people’s products on your store. So like you have a subsection of like other people’s and then they offer you whatever they offer you as like an affiliate program.
Joshua Chin 24:00
Right, right. This is fantastic. It’s, it’s a it’s an up and coming space called, I think we call it collaborative commerce, or something along those lines, where you’re effectively affiliate marketing. But what this does, and I’m going to touch a little bit on this, because it’s just really interesting to me, one of the biggest challenges with cross promoting products is that because it doesn’t live on your store, you’re effectively directing traffic and your audience to a a target that you have no control over. Yeah, and a branding that’s obviously may not be coherent with yours, and that might change as well. But But now if you’re able to couse that on your storefront and have control over the conversations that you want to have with email and SMS as well. You have complete control over the The relationship from start to finish, which is really powerful. And from a technical point of view, with clay vue, specifically, they’re not big fans of affiliate marketing. No, you
Andrew Sabbatino 25:15
can’t do any on there actually. Exactly. So
Joshua Chin 25:17
that’s a big, big sticking point. With clay VO for people thinking about Alright, I want to run in the fluid offered for clay VO. That’s how you get warnings and bans. And it’s a it’s a whole nightmare. We’ve had so many conversations with our klavier rep with new prospects coming to us and saying, Hey, I run a $10 million a year business. And now I got Ben and klavier on my revenue fell by 20%. Like, alright, let me see what I can do. And it’s always always about either selling something that’s not on your storefront, or deliverability problems. It’s one of typically one of these two things, and often it’s related in some shape or form. What are some other ideas that you’ve come across recently that, that, that allowed you are made a big impact into brands that you’ve worked with?
Andrew Sabbatino 26:12
Yeah, kind of like acquisitions, right? That’s the one thing that no one ever really thinks about. Right now in this ecommerce space. Because we’re entrepreneurs, we want to want to build, we want to start, we want to start from the ground up, it’s like a brand new product, like we want to do all that stuff. But sometimes it might be cheaper just to acquire someone else, and then acquire all those assets that they might have to write. So you might get a hold of all of their, you know, email list, their whole SMS subscriber list, and then all their products as well. And they’ve done all the dirty work in the legwork for you knowing what works, what doesn’t work. And a lot of times be able to save so much time. So if your company’s like, you know, generating a decent amount of money, you’re better off just going out and buying. And then most the time, you can just do a down payment and then do seller financing. So like you’re not paying it fully for the price of the company. Because a lot of people in the space, right? They just get burned out and they want to get out, right? Yeah, like your typical like regular maybe like a seven figure brand doing like a million dollars a year, like their EBIT is not going to be like that crazy. In most cases, like maybe like 20% or something like that. Maybe they’re making like 200k a year. So like they basically like traded a job for a job in most cases, because one man show, a lot of times you can call in and like scoop that up on a seller finance deal. And then add it right into your brand.
Joshua Chin 27:30
What are some typical KPIs or success metrics that you look at before making that decision around? Alright, this is I could potentially acquire.
Andrew Sabbatino 27:40
So I haven’t done a ton of acquiring additional people that do them. So I don’t want to speak too much about this because I’m not the expert. Obviously, there’s better people at this, like, you know, Eddie Maloof, Tom Patterson, people like that. They’re like really going out and acquiring tons of brands.
Joshua Chin 27:53
Yep, shout out to Eddie had him on the show. Yeah, guy,
Andrew Sabbatino 27:57
I’ve we run with the same circles. I think we know all the same people basically. Absolutely. We met at Eddie’s events as well. Yep. So agency founders, that was a great event. So I would say like, you’re really just wanting to look at like, kind of like, our let’s look at like the lifetime value. Most of the time of brands, that’s like the big metric that I care about. And like any brand that we work with, is making sure that like you have customers that are coming back and buying from you. Because it’s just gonna get more and more expensive to keep acquiring customers like Facebook ads are not going to get cheaper tickets are gonna get more expensive, Google Ads can get more expensive. So like the more retention that you can have inside of your brand, the better. Because like, we’re probably going to get to the point where I know a lot of brands already doing this, like we’re gonna have to run negative on the front. And like really know your numbers, and be able to make it up on the back end.
Joshua Chin 28:46
Now, here’s one thing that comes to mind. We work with a lot of businesses that are that are just at the stage where to start thinking about, we talked about the going from zero to one one to 10 building new products, and introducing new new products and solutions to to their customers. And that’s a that’s a difficult leap because you’re you’ve been successful with one product, and you’ve been profitable and doing really well making good money. Now, what’s the next step? Like when you go from one product to multiple products that you can build lifetime value around? What’s the typical process that you’ve gone through with your previous company or with brands that you’ve worked with? That’s worked out well for you.
Andrew Sabbatino 29:37
So here’s here’s how I would do it. We would start with like an Ask funnel or an Ask campaign, right? Okay, email and SMS, like kind of like try to figure out like, maybe narrow it down to like some multiple choice of like some new products, we’re thinking about launching and kind of get a vote on it and see what people would actually want to buy first, right? Just because they say they’re gonna buy it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re going to buy it. It’s a lot easier. Just click and say, Hey, like I’m voting on this now. Want this depends like obviously when the money comes down to it. So then the next step that I like to do is do a pre release, where you actually going to take like deposits on the actual product before you even produce it. And if it doesn’t, like if you figure out like, oh, like maybe 10, people only want this thing, then you can just refund them. And you didn’t go through all the process of creating this crazy product and buying all this inventory without knowing it’s going to sell. We’ve never had that happen with any of our products, obviously, they all usually sell out. But that’s the way to test it. And then after that, it just becomes like a normal product for you. And you’ve basically made up the cost and the front with the deposits. Yeah, afford to manufacture it. So it’s not any money out of your pocket
Joshua Chin 30:41
is fantastic. And you’re giving people a great deal for doing that. And you’re validating the idea before spending any money on it. That’s fantastic. That’s a good. I’m a big fan of that the Lean metal thing that what, what are some pitfalls that you see, because building new products, it’s one thing to go with your existing customers and going through email and SMS lists and kind of going through the process but acquiring new customers and then expanding on those those, those those customer lifetime values. That’s gonna be a different game altogether. Now, what are some common pitfalls they’ve seen in the process of going from one mil to 10 mil in annual revenue,
Andrew Sabbatino 31:32
other than like the operational stuff, like we’re just gonna strictly talk products. Sure, I’ve never run a brand that wasn’t like niched down enough that the avatar wasn’t generally somewhat the same, right. So like the results that we would get from like our email and SMS and all those type of campaigns would be across the board once you start running advertising as well. So if you’re running like a general store, I really wouldn’t know how to do that. I don’t even recommend doing that anymore in this day and age, just because it’s so broad, right? Like, you’re basically just a commodity product at that point. And you’re competing with like the likes of Amazon at that point in which you’re not going to win you can’t ship like I could order Amazon right now and probably get it here in like two hours. No regular ecommerce brand and compete with that. So yeah.
Joshua Chin 32:19
That makes sense. Now, let’s let’s talk a little bit about your work with with Lux phony.
Andrew Sabbatino 32:31
Yeah, yeah, we’re taking that right. I’m wearing like more in the hat right now.
Joshua Chin 32:34
Perfect. Yeah, this is your business and you build funnels for creators, and worked with some really big names are amazing people. Jordan Belfort was a client of yours that Bret Baier, as well. Now, tell me a little bit about the decision. The ideas between that and what do you do it PowerHouse, and what you’ve done with Safe Life Defense? How does that all interlink? I know it’s all marketing? Sure, but it’s, it seems like they’re in relatively different worlds.
Andrew Sabbatino 33:14
Definitely, right. The marketing stuff helps, right when like you’re selling an agency. And granted like I’ve never run an agency before this one. And so I’m still kind of learning like how to run an agency. I’ve always run ecommerce brands. So I’m still getting the hang of running the agency stuff. We’re doing a really good job filling. Obviously, we don’t have as many clients as you guys do right now. I know you guys are crushing it. But thank you. It’s a very interesting game, right? And funnels come into that, that whole thing, right? Even in ecommerce brands. Now, a lot of people are running funnels to try to increase their AOP on the front end so that they can actually run profitable ads, because there’s only a 30 or $40 product. Like there’s no way you’re running profitable ads without getting more people to add things to their cart before they actually check out. So that business is interesting, just because we run off the success of Click Funnels as well, right? So click funnels grows, we grow as well, because people are wondering, like still, even to this day and age learning, okay, I want to get a funnel, I want to sort of business, I want to be a coach, I want to be a course creator. And everyone needs a funnel for that. And when you actually get into Click Funnels, unless you’re like really technical or know how to like design, well, it’s kind of hard. And so we offer that service as a done for you service, or who’s asked you a couple pretty easy questions. We have your client intake form, and then we do everything else from there. So we’re gonna write the copy for you.
Joshua Chin 34:34
That’s fantastic. In my in Well, from my point of view, and it’s a limited point of view. The sticking point is probably going to be in crossing the offer itself. That fits that makes sense that that’s a winning offer. What’s What’s your involvement in that process? And is there is there a Is there a shortcut to that? Or is there a service that one can employ?
Andrew Sabbatino 35:04
Yeah, I mean, obviously, like you want to learn about offers, I think the best book out there right now it’s Alex, Rosie’s book on, you know, what a Grand Slam offers, I think it’s called or $10 million offers or something like that. Yeah, I
Joshua Chin 35:14
think it’s $100 Million Dollar Offer.
Andrew Sabbatino 35:16
Yeah, yeah, that’s the best book on how to create like a Grand Slam offer. But we definitely help people when they come on board, we’re not going to create the whole offer for them. But generally, what I’ll do is I’ll look at what they have right now. And then I’ll like think, hey, like, what’s the best service that they offer? Right now that can be like their first to market that will actually get people through the door like a lead magnet that they can use or like something that they can sell on a phone call that can get them their first customers. And then from there, they can upsell into their other services. So like, for instance, like you realize, like a full stack, like, let’s see, you guys were a full stack agency right now. But you were really good at email and SMS, we would start with email and SMS as like your phone call funnel. And then once you prove yourself in that aspect, then you sell them the rest of the services. I think a lot of people like what their problem is they try to sell everything, everyone. Yeah, instead of niching, down, where when you niche down and you target like one particular group, and one particular offer, that’s where you’re going to win.
Joshua Chin 36:18
What does that look like for for an ecommerce brand? Because I’m curious about that. And how do you select and say no to a bunch of different things and just focus on one product, one funnel and one? Avatar?
Andrew Sabbatino 36:32
Generally, I mean, that ecommerce is a little different, right? Their avatar is kind of like their avatar, like we would just probably go after a product basis at that point, what’s their best selling product? Right? And then like, what are the best selling products that will complement that product as an upsell checkout pages? Because I mean, ecommerce is a little simpler of a game, right? It’s like a commoditized product. So like, people are actually getting something, there’s a physical real thing. So you don’t have to do as much selling on an ecommerce product as you would like, like a course or something once like a mindset coach, things like that. Things that are like more metaphysical.
Joshua Chin 37:11
Yeah, that makes sense. To make sense. Now, that’s, that’s a little bit about your experience as a whole, from eBay, to running an ecommerce brand is zero to running a mastermind right now. And a couple of agencies as well. If you had to restart, let’s let’s go back to college. Like just when you first started eBay, is there anything that you do differently? Knowing what you know, now?
Andrew Sabbatino 37:46
Yeah, choir start making content early on. Right, I’m still pretty bad at this right. One of the reasons I wanted to get on this podcast is so I can get some content out of it. But, like starting like to make content, personal brand is huge. No matter what kind of business that you run, right now, it’s only gonna get bigger and bigger. And it’s just free traffic for you down the line. So like really pushing out all your content on like, email, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, everywhere that you can, like everyone that you can know, be known as an authority, your presence, you’re just gonna make more sales, because even if it’s an ecommerce brand, people will know like, and trust you, and they’ll buy from you over another brand that doesn’t have a personal brand behind it. And obviously, building an email list. I wish I had done that kind of stuff back in the day. Yeah, because like, I spent a long time just doing like just being like, hey, like I do ecommerce, eBay, I do Amazon FBA, and do a lot of teaching ever or like coaching. And I wish I had in the past, right? Because when it’s nice, supplementary income until you can just like kind of help people. It’s a really good experience. I think I still had like that limited mindset, like, oh, I don’t want people to know about this kind of stuff that we’re doing. Yeah. And so I didn’t want like more people to be competition. But realistically, there’s enough money for everyone to eat. So
Joshua Chin 39:04
that makes sense. Exactly. And one of the things I love about our community, and in the ecommerce space is that people who are competing directly with one another could sit down in a room and share, like the most intimate secrets and ideas that typically when you go to any other industry, typically traditional industries, you wouldn’t be able to do that. Because the industry is growing and there’s enough for everybody to eat. And it’s it’s a fast moving space where you’re winning an execution and not ideas. Yep. So I love that.
Andrew Sabbatino 39:41
A great example of that with us when we started our agency, the first people I reached out to about client acquisition asked me how you were doing it was you and Lewis so
Joshua Chin 39:49
Exactly, exactly. And and vice versa, right. It’s, it’s, uh, you know, one of the things that I’ve come to realize in The very short time that I’ve been in business, we’ve only been around for about four or five years now. So is that if you’re starting out, and you’re thinking about choosing an industry to be in, if you have an option around choosing the industry that you want to build a career around, pick the one that’s growing the fastest, because that’s where typically, people are the most open to sharing, you’re typically in learn the fastest, you’re typically going to face a little bit less obstacles, and you would, that are out of your control. So that’s, that’s one of the things I’ve I’ve realized that I’ve made a good decision at the start of my career, picking ecommerce over anything else that I’ve done. Maybe not consciously, but still good decision overall. Has there been decisions that you’ve made Andrew, along your career that you felt has been pivotal in who you are today and the success that you have?
Andrew Sabbatino 41:05
Absolutely, and all components of basic one thing, and one thing I wish we had done sooner, and I’d done sooner with my own personal brands before, is joining masterminds. I built my whole entire network, basically off of war room, then joined a few other masterminds after that, but because of like joining ballroom, and like 20, I think 2018 I was able to like, that’s like really when we blew up, right? When you see what’s possible, because you meet people on like, their, you know, just people, normal people, right? Like people you might have put on a pedestal at one point, like, Oh, they’re to the running this crazy brand, right? How did they’re making so much money and then be like, but that’s just like a normal person, and they’re willing to get on the phone with me and help me. So I wish we had done that sooner to be honest, like the first time that you can get the money to invest in a mastermind, just do it. Because you’re going to exponentially make more money than that just for the connections that you make, just make sure that you, you’re talking to people, like you’re not just on an island, when you go to the things, make friends with people, and you’re gonna be able to grow like crazy because of that.
Joshua Chin 42:05
And it’s way more fun. It’s way more fun. It can be really boring. One of the one of the reasons I decided not to pursue eBay, interestingly, is because I didn’t have a community for first and foremost. But also I was kind of behind the computer all the time. And just clicking and clicking and typing and, and just, it was so boring. It was so it’s so mundane. And I couldn’t connect with anybody in the space that was doing the same things that I was doing and the struggles that I was facing. And that’s also a big reason why I love this podcast, like the conversations I’ve been able to have, going through the struggles and successes that other people have gone through, I get to learn from them. And I get to cut short my, my journey and, and skip steps that other people may have taken. So I love that for for people listening, interested in kind of learning a little bit more about PowerHouse Mastermind is to see the qualify, and if they if they’re a good fit. Where’s it? Where should he go to? And what’s the good next steps?
Andrew Sabbatino 43:17
Yeah, so our landing page right now is just going to be ecompowerhouse.com. That’s where you can actually check it out, apply for a call with someone, one of our salespeople to kind of talk about it. Basically, just the only requirement right now is that you’re doing at least seven figures a year with your business. And then we also offer monthly plans as well. So like if you just like want to sign up for like a minimum of three months and check it out, you can actually do that as well. Like you don’t have to make the full investment, you can actually check out one event, go to one event and see if it’s for you. In most cases, everyone signs up just because it’s a great crowd, you learn a lot, and it’s just super fun. When I was still actually in ecommerce, like in the actual trenches still working on our brand. Before I left. I was uh, I got rid of all my other masterminds and it was only in PowerHouse. So if I didn’t if I just became friends with them, like over time, and then like now working with them.
Joshua Chin 44:12
That’s fantastic. I love that. So you were a participant and you’re a member before you became a part of the business. So that’s that’s a that’s way stronger testimony millennial than than anything else. What’s, what’s the cost of being a part of the mastermind,
Andrew Sabbatino 44:32
like yet, so for the year, it’s 25,000. And if you want to sign up for monthly it’s 2750 a month.
Joshua Chin 44:39
Perfect. And for people listening if you’re if you budgeted that number, think about how much more you could be making from people who are way ahead of you. Just a couple steps ahead of you, or even people who are just right next to you. One of the things that I’ve come to realize is that with with mastermind, you typically looking for just one or two things that you can implement out of every session that you attend every event that you attend. And that can unlock a whole new world of difference in your business that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to access. Without that opportunity. It’s not about acquiring the most amount of content and insights that you can, it’s about understanding the right things to do. And that makes all the difference. Would you agree?
Andrew Sabbatino 45:27
Yeah, you’ll get shiny object syndrome, people are most successful at masterminds, if they’re gonna, they’re coming to like, learn a tactic or a skill is the ones that like pick that one thing. And as soon as they get done with a mastermind, they immediately start implementing it. So and then the other just like the big thing, I was never that type of mastermind. person, I used to go just to network specifically, like I don’t, even if I go to an event and stuff like that, I don’t even sit through the speakers most of the time anymore. I just like go to meet people. And you want to find either the person who’s been through what you’ve been through, and can help you with what you need to be helped with, or the expert in something that you’re looking for that you can just hire to do what you want to do. Because it’s just so much faster to like, pay someone than to try and like learn everything and do it yourself. That person spent years and years and years doing what they do. And for you to like think that like, oh, because I went to one event, I’m gonna like, be able to like beat them in most cases, right? It’s crazy. That’s why I just picked click the person like, hey, I want to work with you. And that gives you access to those types of people. That’s the great thing about it, people that you would normally would not have access to you get access to just because you know, their speakers or their actual members.
Joshua Chin 46:35
Fantastic. And one of the things I’ve come to realize is that with with people that are really successful, typically, most of the time, they’re not doing anything super innovative, super crazy. But what they do have is a different set of understanding and mindset around the problems that you might be facing. And they’re doing the basics really, really well. And
Andrew Sabbatino 47:01
they’re usually good at one thing, like one thing they’re really really good at, they’re a killer at that one thing. And they’re pretty bad at everything else. But they’ve filled those holes with people or like outsource outsource agencies and things like that.
Joshua Chin 47:17
And, yeah, one of the this just reminds me of what I’ve heard from one of Alex Hormozi’s, YouTube videos, go check out a shout out to Alex Hormozi. And this YouTube channel, he gets some killer content really, really good content that he’s been putting out for free. And I personally find it super helpful. And one of the things that stuck with me was that to get to the next level, you’re not looking at different things to do. You’re looking at doing the same things, but better and more. And that was a big mindset shift for me, because I’ve always been on the hunt for or what are these people that are way more successful than me doing that I’m
Andrew Sabbatino 48:04
not doing? And more often than not, the answer is there’s there’s nothing different that they’re doing that I’m not doing. They’re just doing it way better than I am. And more of it. And longer, probably a longer, way more readily over overnight successes, like people you hear about. They’ve been doing it for five to 10 years, the same thing, right? Instead of giving up and jumping to the next like cool thing. They sat and just did the same thing. Like Andy Frizzell a great example, right? Here’s a huge personal brand. I remember the first time I ever like listened to him on podcasting was 2016 or something. They had this little crappy warehouse like he was, I mean, he was doing well but like nothing to like what they’re doing now. Now, they have this like, massive building with like, they have cars that like people would dream of owning just as decorations inside of it. It’s and he has a huge personal brand, right? He’s He’s leveraged that it’s like having his own masterminds and things like that. But he just did the same thing for like, 15 years. He started out like having stores like just regular supplement stores. And he just ate shit. You know, you just have to be willing to eat if you’re starting out for a while. Tyler was like Lopez had a good saying about that. Like, whatever how long ever you think it’s going to take it just it’s going to take two more years probably.
Joshua Chin 49:26
That sucks to hear but it’s it’s what a lot of people need to hear including myself.
Andrew Sabbatino 49:30
Yeah, I mean, we’re all there Right? Like, no matter where you are at in life, you always want more. So like I always feel like I’m like two years away from that two years, right? But I just have to remember like, hey, like just keep doing the same thing and we’re just gonna keep getting more and more successful.
Joshua Chin 49:45
Andrew, you start really start really, really long ago really young. And having done what you’ve done, having all the success that you’ve you’ve had. Obviously there’s there are people there way more accessible and both of us are combined. I have done way more have made way more money. But if you look at the people that have not done that, and people who are you a couple steps behind us, we’re doing well. What keeps you going, versus just settling down and saying, I’ve had enough and great, I’ve done enough, I’ve, I have enough money, and I’m just gonna retire and relax and not do anything anymore.
Andrew Sabbatino 50:33
So like, I’ve always had this thing, I’m pretty competitive, right? So I’ve always had a saying that I just enjoy winning, I never really cared what kind of business I was in. Or like what I was doing, if I was doing well, and I was winning at that business. And so like, that’s kind of like, what drives me is I just always want to constantly be improving and doing better, I think I’d probably just lose my mind if I wasn’t doing anything like even like, you know, all of like, you know, like the really wealthy people that we know, they’re still playing the game of business, they’re just playing chess instead of checkers at this point. Whereas like, we might still be like playing more on like the tactical side. And like the building of the businesses, they’re buying businesses and just moving pieces around, and creating like bigger businesses out of it. So they’re not taking on a lot of the work, but they’re doing so much of the thinking. Whereas I feel like what kind of where we are at in our careers where like somewhere in between still, like we’re still doing the work. And we’re doing some of the thinking as well. Exactly. So I don’t think people like us ever stop, right? I know, my grandfather is still 89 He’s still he’s still working. So 89. Yeah, I don’t think that I’ll ever end up quitting probably, I don’t think retirements like a real word. I think that’s just like, if you work a nine to five, and you’ve hated it your whole life, you end up retiring, and then you just get super bored, like my mom retired. And now she wants to kind of like work again. And she volunteers at the park service just because she’s bored.
Joshua Chin 51:57
Yeah, yeah, I Yeah. 100%, I can relate to that. And I think this experience, kind of what I’m taking from this conversation was that, and I believe that a lot of people listening are probably going to feel the same way is that you’re probably never going to stop. So whatever I’m feeling right now. And the pains and struggles that I’m going through. It’s okay, it’s going to stay, it’s going to be there. And at the end of the day, looking at the people who have made it to a very, very mature and later stage in life, they would have, they would have chosen to go through the struggles than to not go through the struggles. Anyway. So whatever I’m feeling right now, through pains and struggles, they’re justified. And they’re, they’re worth it. That’s, that’s what I’m getting out of it. And it’s going to be there, regardless of what stage and the problems are never gonna go away. But the abilities are going to change, like the skills that I have will evolve and equip myself a little bit better to deal with the challenges that come.
Andrew Sabbatino 53:10
Yeah, and the image of people just start paying you for your time, right? When we saw Alex or like, Tai Lopez or like Roland Frasier gets paid $25,000 for a half day, you know, that’s exactly right. To start. Yeah. Like, like, your time is so valuable that it sells for like an exorbitant amount of money.
Joshua Chin 53:28
Precisely. And even then, they probably wouldn’t want to take your money.
Andrew Sabbatino 53:33
Yeah, it’s the only choice. Yeah, it really just comes down to like, like, without paying, like, I think life would just be kind of boring. You constantly like if you’re not, if you’re stagnant, like things are easy for you, obviously, like something’s wrong. And especially in business, like, you’re, you’re either going up or you’re going down. And it’s like, you’re at that point where like, you feel like stuff’s easy, and like, you’re just kind of just like coasting, it’s probably a good time to sell that business, because you’re probably not passionate about it and passionate about growing it anymore.
Joshua Chin 54:02
That makes sense, though. For people listening, Andrew, what’s your number one advice that you wish more people would go off?
Andrew Sabbatino 54:15
It’s a great question. Right? So there’s so many ways that you could put that but I would say like, Don’t compare yourself to other people, right? Because I think I spent a lot of my 20s doing that, like, oh, this person’s doing this, this person doing that. Like, why am I not there yet? You know, and like every journey is just your journey. You’re gonna get there eventually right? And like, maybe not everyone’s like deemed to be a DECA millionaire or something like that. But a few million dollars can really change your life and can like really make a big difference like on you and your family. So like, stop comparing yourself to others and just focus on like, what makes you happy, and like how you can create the most impact for the people around you. And like your community, like That’s kinda like what I live by, right? I never want to be a billionaire, or anything like that. But I do want to impact the people that are closest to me.
Joshua Chin 55:08
It’s great advice. Great advice for me as well. I think I’m 100% guilty of doing that. The whole comparing thing. I think that’s what keeps me on my toes, but it’s also unhealthy. And it’s really not productive to do that. It’s not meaningful at all.
Andrew Sabbatino 55:25
I mean, we go to like every mastermind, right? And we like look at it like, oh, like the speaker or something like something. Yeah, like and funny. I’ve spoken on stages, too. So it’s like, like, people probably have looked at me that way, too. But it’s like the Kobe look at someone like Nick Szabo for like, Oh, look how much their agency is doing, or like Tommy Patterson and stuff like that. But like, they’re just, they’ve been playing the game a little bit longer playing the game a little bit differently. It’s just, like, don’t take for granted, like, learn from what they’re doing. But like, Don’t compare yourself to them. Right? Because like, you don’t know the circumstances and like, like, a lot of times, you don’t even know what their net is. That’s the thing in this world, right? Especially in ecommerce, like, oh, we do $100 million a year. Oh, yeah. But you net 1 million. So big whoop, right? Like, that happens all the time in this space, right? Like these, even like, huge internet marketers, like course creators and people like that people you think are like insanely wealthy? Like if you actually look at their net. It’s kind of like, it’s it’s kind of pitiful. Yeah. So like, it’s all smoke and mirrors in the marketing game. It’s pretty much smoke and mirrors in the ecommerce game too. So like, just focus on what makes you happy, and just keep growing every day.
Joshua Chin 56:30
Since that fantastic advice. Andrew, what’s the best way for people to connect with you and learn more about what you do?
Andrew Sabbatino 56:36
Yeah, so Andrew@ecompowerhouse.com is my email and then I actually don’t mind giving out my personal cell phone number of people. So it’s 702-751-2366 If anyone wants to shoot me a text and ask me any questions,
Joshua Chin 56:52
crazy, I love that. Andrew, thank you so much for being on the show. I’ve had a lot of fun. And if people are listening and interested in learning a little bit more about PowerHouse Mastermind and to check out if you qualify not go to ecompowerhouse.com. That’s e c o m p o w e r h o u s e.com. And text Andrew. You have conversations and
Andrew Sabbatino 57:22
appreciate you Josh.
Joshua Chin 57:23
Thank you, Andrew. Appreciate it.
Outro 57:29
Thanks for listening to the eCommerce Profits Podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click Subscribe to get notified of future episodes.
