Intro
What is up everybody? Fred Lam here and welcome to our daily huddle episode number 48.
Today is Friday and we are going into the weekend as of tomorrow. I bet that the topic piqued some interest on why the heck would Fred not set up any ads over the weekend. Now, here’s the deal, not only do we not set up new ads over the weekend, we actually even set our ads to get on live usually on Mondays at 12AM midnight.
It really depends on what time zone you are in ad accounts but a lot of my stuff is in Pacific Time and I normally set up my ads the next day midnight or at the end of the day. If it’s a Friday, I would set it up only on Monday midnight before my ad start serving into the marketplace. There are obviously specific reasons why I’m actually doing this. That’s why I say I never do it and I recommend my students or anyone that’s watching right now not to set up ads over the weekend.
Here’s the reason why that I don’t do it. The first reason is because in weekend, the behavior of the audience acts very differently. So you may be taking data into consideration that may affect your overall data. Why am I saying that is because, let’s be honest over the weekend your habits, your behavior of using Facebook it’s going to be very, very different than you yourself that is actually at home or at work scrolling through a newsfeed or checking out an article. Because over the weekend. We’re always either on the go, we are out there doing something else.
People’s mindset isn’t really the same during the weekend time and also during the weekday. Now because of the weekend mentality, a lot of people just don’t work that often during weekends. I love working weekends especially on Saturday. That’s my time to get super productive only because there’s really no one in the office and I start to hustle and start working on my stuff on based on my term and I don’t have to get into meetings and all those other stuff.
So a lot of times that affect you at the same time because I can bet you that the time that you spent on your business it’s going to be a little bit less than during the weekday, because in weekend you might have to run some errands, you might have to go for a family dinner, you might have to take your kids out or you may have a date or whatsoever. Because of that time that is going to be gone from working and optimizing on your ads, then you may be spending a lot more than you obviously need.
For me and it is a thing in my office that we only set up ads during Monday to Thursday. We let the weekday run and we don’t run ads during the weekend and there are again reasons behind it and I just share with you guys on why that is. As a matter of fact sometimes during weekend, you see the reach decrease and also you may see a higher cost per click at the same time when it comes to click-through rate because people are not really into clicking as much towards your ads.
So if you guys are planning to set up an ad this weekend, what I encourage you to do is just to schedule the ad to go on live on Monday midnight, so that you are getting a full date data. Now in regards to why I set up ads to go on live at midnight, it’s because I’m following : so let’s say that I’m in Pacific time zone and my ad accounts are all in Pacific time at the same time. When I have my ad account running, you need to understand that Facebook allocates your budget over a 24-hour period. So let’s say that you’re putting a daily budget of $100. If you, let’s say 5AM, the [unclear 0:04:52] created an ad and you don’t schedule it to run starting of midnight, then what’s going to happen is that Facebook is literally going to take a hundred dollars and simply spend it all between the time that it got approved which it may be instant or it may take an hour. So let’s say, it takes an hour so it’s going to be a 6PM to midnight which is 11:59PM. Facebook’s going to spend your $100 because they have the inventory to do so and they have all the places for you to do so and they’re just going to spend the money right away.
So you’re not going to get the right precise data. You want to have your budget start right away to have a full 24-hour period so you know what time is doing the best for your business. So you’re not just wasting advertising dollars because if you have a budget, Facebook is going to use it all and spend it all at the same time. This goes towards any form of advertising when it comes to Google, when it comes to Bing, I always set things to go on live at midnight so that at the end of the day, I have a full 24-hour period. Since that we put in daily budgets, I want to make sure in 24 hours, how Facebook, Google or Bing allocate my dollars and see where the number money is going to be.
So again, it’s just a habit that my team and I have inside our company. I started using this for like quite some time when I start advertising is because weekend, it’s just giving you some really wonky data if you start right out the gate with that. So next time, when you set up an ad, consider it, think about it, again it’s something that I do. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to copy exactly, but again that’s what we do and we see good results with that and we know that we are not burning cash.
Moving on, if it’s your first time joining me in our daily huddle, make sure you put in a “one” into the comment box so I can actually see your name know who you are and hopefully you can come on live with us every single day. Our daily huddle is simply a section where I come on live and answer 5 questions. That’s what I do and I answer 5 specific questions in full detail. If you want your question to be featured, you simply go to www.fredlam.com and you will get the information from there.
[0:08:09] Question 1: Best Currency Converter App on Shopify
The first question is by Dean Williams – Dean asked,
Hi Fred, love your work and thanks for sharing your insights 🙂 My question is about currency. I have heard a lot of people say that U.S. currency should be used in my Shopify store because it’s a trusted currency. I’m from Australia and if I change my currency to U.S. currency I can’t use Shopify payments and I need to use STRIPE which has a 2% transaction fee as well as I can’t access the funds for 7-10 days. This would mean having enough capital to process orders before I get paid for the sales I have made. I currently use a currency converter app in my store so visitors see their own country’s currency displayed. Thanks for any advice you could give me.
Cheers
Dean
Great question! There are two options for you and you are leaning towards that first option which is having a currency converter. If you guys are looking for a free currency converter, that is I think by far the best currency converter app inside Shopify store. You want to look at Multi Currency. It’s called Multi Currency. They have a red logo and I love it. The reason why I love it it’s because if an international customer goes to my store, it will base on their IP address will change the dollar amount to their local currency. So that’s what I love about it. You can look at Multi Currency. If you have a Multi Currency in place, then technically you can easily Shopify payments because in Australia that is allowed – in Shopify payments, it allowed Australians to use it.
I would highly encourage you to do that. If you are given a second option which I tell a lot of international students of mine to do so, which is just purely a set PayPal. PayPal accounts for a lot of my sales in my store. At times I even have 60% of my sales that day or even 65% of my sales are going through PayPal. So just having PayPal, you can control the currency at the same time and people love to just pay with PayPal. They can either pay the credit card. They can create an account. It’s really up to the customer themselves. There are a lot of people that already have a PayPal account especially in North America. That’s what you want to look into and that’s what you want to do.
I know that it sucks that sometimes when you’re using Shopify payments, that you have to charge back that local currency. But if you have a Multi Currency app that I suggest you to download, that will already solve a lot of problem. I really hope that helps you out.
[0:11:13] Question 2: Will big photos scrolling across home page slow down my mobile website? What are the tips for making sure I end up with a fast website. Nothing worse than a slow one as people leave the site.
Moving on to the second question is by Jan McClymont –
Beginner. Setting up website with Shopify free theme Minimalist. Will big photos scrolling across home page slow down my mobile website? What are the tips for making sure I end up with a fast website. Nothing worse than a slow one as people leave the site.
Great question! In one of my daily huddle, I actually cover this. I remember that daily huddle, I forgot which episode but it was one of my daily huddle that set how to increase her site speed for your Shopify store. So I’m not going to go into full detail and but I’m sharing with you exactly what you need to do. So the first thing is go to – so the URL that you want to use is the following : it is testmysite.thinkwithgoogle.com. In there and it’s a free tool that Google has provided for any person that own a website to put in your website URL. Then what it will do, is that it will spit out a report and tell you across the industry if your site speed is slow fast or average.
The beauty is that if you put in their email address in there, it would email you a report on the things that you need to work on in order for you to get a much quicker loading speed for your site. I do have to agree with you is that loading speed is a critical factor when it comes to online businesses or any businesses that have a website, because nowadays we have a attention span that is less than a goldfish.
Goldfish has an attention span about eight seconds. We have like a much less seconds in attention span. So with that, you want to make sure that your site loads as quickly as possible. If your site don’t load, we are so spoiled that if the site doesn’t load in a second, we will get pissed off and leave the site. It is just so much of a common thing. I still remember back when I was starting a business, we had to use those landline and then we cannot use the phone anymore and it takes forever do to get internet connection, but now w thanks to LTE, 5G’s. Right now, if it doesn’t load within second is like screw this website, we’re leaving .
Again, it’s just that time change. So you’ve got to make sure that your site loads super, super fast. On top of using think with Google, there is a couple more tips that I can give you guys right now for you to increase the site speed of your store. Put in a value right into the comment box right now if you guys want me to give you additional tips on how you can optimize your website or your store to get a much quicker loading speed.
I want to see a lot people say “value” first before I even continue on. Here’s what you want to do: tip #1 – always use .JPEG file. So with images, there are all forms of images. There are basically .PNG, .gif, .tiff, .png. There are .jpeg. So all of these, it is just a different format of reading a photo. What you need to do is to make sure that you use a dot .jpg. It is still a JPEG, but it’s a web form. JPEG that loads the image a lot quicker. If you use Photoshop or almost other stuff and they export it for web, you see that . jpg has a much lower killer bite in the size of the image compared to anything else. The reason why is because this is built for mobile. It is built for websites and it could be the same image looks exactly the same but using a .jpg, you will get a much quicker loading speed because at the end of the day, what website does is that you use a browser and the browser goes and download all the information from another server. So the faster it downloads the information, the faster your website loads. If your image have a lower file size, then it will actually load right away. So that’s tip #1.
Tip #2 is to try not to have too much apps in your store because the more apps you have that means that there are more what we called the JavaScript tag in your website. When you look at the source code of your website, it will spit out a bunch of alien language. Those alien language tells the browser how to display the website. Now if you have a lot of apps inside your store and apps that is not even needed, what’s going to happen is that the source code, it will take us so much quick longer time to load because there are all these other complex scripts in place to have your website loaded. So, eliminate the things that you don’t need – very important, absolutely critical.
The last tip that I have for you is more technical and it’s not geared towards Shopify, it’s more of [unclear 0:17:53] is to use Google tag manager. The reason why you want to use Google tag manager is because snippet of code can already help you have all your Facebook code or Google tag or Bing tag and all those other tags in place instead of having a lot of the tags and a lot of script inside your source code on your website, you have this tiny piece of code that Google gives you which is called a Google tag manager and it will read it offsite. By doing so, then you’re not going to clog up your source code like I said earlier in tip #2.
Again, there are a lot more other tips that I can go on and on, but these are three quick tips for you guys if you want to optimize your website quickly and get your site speed up as quickly as possible. So put in a “wow” into the comment box if these three tips absolutely help you. If you’ve never thought of it, never knew about it and you guys got a lot of great stuff out of that.
[0:19:06] Question 3: I know you’ve mentioned to us to focus on building your brand through an ebook and digital products. Was wondering though if it’s possible for the 2 to effectively co-exist?...meaning could I have a collection with my digital products along with collections of dropshipping items? And I have a partnership with someone if that makes a difference.
While that comments coming in I’m going to the third question of today. So the third question of the day is by John Williams – John asked.
Hey Fred, I know you’ve mentioned to us to focus on building your brand through an ebook and digital products. Was wondering though if it’s possible for the 2 to effectively co-exist?…meaning could I have a collection with my digital products along with collections of dropshipping items? And I have a partnership with someone if that makes a difference. Thanks Fred!
Great question! So, basically you’re asking right now can you have a website that is branded for simply both digital publishing which is eBook, selling software and the other side is selling ecommerce product. The answer to your question is ‘yes’. Since that you have a partner in place, then that’s where I would say yes. But if you are a sole entrepreneur, so just working on by yourself, I would focus on one than the other.
Now in a scenario where you want to sell physical products and e-books and offer free e-book or reports or whatever, what you would want to do is to create the website and the website is more towards going after the digital aspect of things. Let’s say that your website is www.fredlam.com and then fredlam.com will have a lot of information. It’s going to be a WordPress website that talks about what Fred Lam does, who he is, what he has to offer. Now when you want to sell a physical product, you want to use Shopify. What I suggest you to do is maybe use like shop.fredlam.com. So that you now have a sub domain that is living in Shopify for your shop, so that way, you are basically can have both digital publishing and e-commerce coexisting at the same time. Because if you are trying to have digital affiliate marketing or digital publishing inside ecommerce store, it is a little bit hard because you’ve got to figure out how to put in a landing page, which you’ve got to figure out how to use their liquid language and you got to figure out how to add in the landing page and it was just some more restriction.
So that’s what I was suggesting to do. You can create like the overall brand and then you use the sub domain for the shop and you can feature a collection in there. So again you just want to be creative and figure out ways to do it and that’s what I would do, if I were you and that’s what I’ve done. So I really hope that helps you out.
Question 4: may i know is that ''ok'' to simply copy and paste the successful store, from the products, products description, theme, etc... Since it's a dropshipping site, will it cause any copyright infringement?
Moving on to question number four by Ong Pei Kong – he said
Hi Fred, may i know is that ”ok” to simply copy and paste the successful store, from the products, products description, theme, etc… Since it’s a dropshipping site, will it cause any copyright infringement?
That is an absolutely great question. The answer to the question is you should NOT. Now, do you want to play on the gray area? It is up to you. What I mean by gray area is that yeah go ahead and copy everything because what can they do about it, right? They didn’t patent the product. They didn’t patent the photos. They didn’t patent the description which you can’t. Again, I’d say that it’s more of a gray area, it’s really because you’re now like just being lazy and just copying other people’s work and I’m not a fan of that, just being flat-out honest with you.
Also at the same time, if you copied something by accident that you don’t know that it’s really true I’m not trademark but they have the first right of using it, then you may get in trouble. What I mean by that is #1 for example, if that person got a camera, did a full production video on a product that they wanted to sell even though if it’s a drop shipping product that pic that could be sourced on Aliexpress but you jacked it and use it for your own self then you may get in trouble because the content is being made by someone else and you’re taking the same content for commercial use. So that may get you affected or even the images, maybe images that they took themselves and they were to first do it, so they have the entitlement to it and you copied it you didn’t know about it you didn’t get it from Aliexpress he didn’t get from Aliexpress and you may run into trouble at the same time.
So again, I don’t I’m not a fan of it. You are playing a gray area but can you do it? The answer is YES, you can but the decision really rests on your hands more than mine. I hope that helps you out.
Question 5: What are your thoughts on purchasing a Shopify store from Flippa, Empire Flippers or Shopify Exchange?
So moving on to the last question of today is by Tracie Malesa.
What are your thoughts on purchasing a Shopify store from Flippa, Empire Flippers or Shopify Exchange?
The answer to question and I hate to say this because I tell people to sell it on exchanges. I would have you be the seller to the buyer and the reason why is even if you bought the website, if they don’t hand over the pixel data it is. I would say useless. If you found a Shopify store that you like and it may cost you like $100 or $200 and you are too lazy to build your own store which is so easy to do which I don’t know why people don’t do it. Then you can do it, you can buy the store and kickstart right away it’s really up to to you but my thoughts are the answer is no unless if there is an agreement that that person is going to give you their Facebook account with all the Facebook pixel data and be helping you run and showing you how they ran it to get the sales then that is something to look into.
Another thing that I really want to bring up, if you’re buying from like flip flop, flipper or Shopify exchange is to really get their financial numbers to see if they’re in profit or they’re just showing revenue. A lot of times people will just show revenue, they would not show profits they would not show how much their expense is for the apps and all this other stuff.
So, you have to do your due diligence so that you don’t get screwed over all right that is a very important point and that’s a matter of fact I would have to say like where these kind of like exchanges to sell, I would rather have you be the person to sell it rather than buying it because sitting with stores not that hard. It is not that hard and you get to cash out on it at the same time.
Run some sales to it then simply just cash out right from there. So I hope that this all helps you out.
Outro.
So here’s one thing that I wanted to get out and it’s ranking time. Our daily huddle is done but I want to rant about something and again I don’t care about this person. I don’t care if he is trying to do all these other stupid shit. The reason why I’m saying shit is because this guy is standing on my nerve but I’ll say you know what I don’t care. I’m going to attract haters and I love it. if I attract haters that means that I’m doing something right so and at the end of the day that’s what I would do.
I’m going to call this guy El. I’m not going to say his last name but I got this kid that’s called Christian that’s trying to do some videos about Shopify and then trying to post on my social media channel saying that my stuff are trash and I’m saying that I fake about my Porsche and all those other stuff. Buddy, get a freaking life. Focus on yourself and if you go to my Instagram, you’ll see me with my Porsche.
Here’s the deal, when you are running your business, you will get net negative comments like these and what I want to tell you is that you do not want these negative comments to affect you because there’s no point. You want to always stay positive in a positive energy and see how you can continue to grow and grow in a way where I shut the F up on that person that is trying to talk bad stuff about you. Again, it doesn’t really bother you but I want to talk about it because again in social media nowadays and that’s where a lot of bullying come in place. I actually feel a little bit sad about it because right now cyber bullying is such a big deal right now.
Kids nowadays, they’re so into how many followers do I have. Did that person like my photo? Why am I getting those comments? Yeah I know that it does affect you in a way but at the end of the day look at it from a different angle. Don’t say that well this guy is commenting. There’s a reason why is because you’re doing something right and he’s jealous about it. Or at the end of the day, that person just need to get a life.
Again, I’m just ranting about it because ultimately what I want to share with you guys is don’t waste your time on stupid stuff like these. Your time cannot be but every single person only have 24 hours in a day and how you invest your time is one of the most important part in your life and in your business. The more money that you make per hour even per minute shows how you are going to succeed. You don’t want to use your time to invest into like negative energy to invest in stupid stuff because and you are in that state of mind, you will continue and always continue to attract negativity inside you or inside your business or in yourself. That’s why people say and I know this looks basic but a lot of people say “always have a positive energy.” Look at Tony Robbins, if you everybody told me Robbins business mastery and then the environment is so different he builds that positive vibe, he creates that positive energy so every single person leaving the business mastery will go like “holy F”, that rule really changed my life because of where that your state of mind is actually at and ` think that while business and personal should be separate I would have to say it is all integrated together.
Your business it’s a direct reflection of yourself at the same time. So if you yourself are always in a negative energy zone, if you yourself are always worrying and caring about all these negative comments, then guess what your business are going to attract negativity and it will attract the things that you’ve always wanted and the things that you’ve always desired.
Again, it’s been three hours straight watching you that is some amazing so anyways at the end of day I want to rant about it so this guy Christian. I really want to ban you for my social media but I was like you know what there’s nothing to ban about, if you’re watching my videos and commenting, that means that at the end of the day, you need to get a life and focus on your own stuff and get and get to your business and it’s funny that you yourself are doing a Shopify business and trying to get a YouTube account.
So anyways just wanted to rant a little bit I find it just funny. I don’t know it doesn’t really affect me at the end of the day and I won’t be stupid enough to invest my time that should go shoot video with my car and all this other stuff if you want to know if I have my Porsche or not and follow my Instagram. Do your own due diligence before you say anything.
Anyways just some ranking and turning it into someone to share with you guys about positivity which is very, very important stay positive, I know that sometimes in life it gets upsetting sometimes, it’s depressing but if you always have a positive energy and positive buying towards it you will attract the success that you deserve. A lot of people say well I do Fred always smile is because I always go after positivity.
I don’t look at things for a negative angle and I made times have some like negative energy here and there but when I felt it I remind myself that hey Fred, it’s time to take a step back and look at this from a positive angle.
So anyways, just to share that with you guys. That’s it for today’s daily huddle. Have a wonderful weekend ahead, and please don’t be lazy. Weekend is the perfect time or you to start working on your business why it went out so other than that I look forward on seeing you guys on Monday at 6PM Pacific 9PM Eastern for our Daily Huddle. So see you guys soon.
