READ TIME: 5 MINUTES

Renaissance man 👋,

One of the most asked questions is, “How can you test and sell so many products daily, month by month, and enjoy your time and freedom?”

You’re probably in the same position, which is exactly why I’m writing today’s issue. I will show you exactly the secret sauce other dropshippers are afraid to share and never talk about online because they’re afraid to get value out there for free, but I’m not…

TODAY, AT A GLANCE

🤧 Challenge → Balancing the demands of running a dropshipping business with personal freedom and time management.

🤯 Solution → Implementing automation and systems within the dropshipping business to delegate operational tasks effectively.

🏆️ Key Insight → Success lies in working smart, not just hard; streamline processes implement workflows and hire people.

DON'T BE AN EMPLOYEE OF YOUR BUSINESS

Let’s be honest: the ones who quit their 9 to 5 are now working a 9 to 9 with their dropshipping business. How do I know? Because I’ve been in the same exact position as you. But once I figured It out. I understood that I had to do something differently.

Yes, working hard is important; yes, you should have discipline and goals, and striving for them is immensely important. But, in fact, you should not forget to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

I quickly understood that one thing is important in business: making decisions. You need to work smart, not hard.

The simple answer is automation and systems. You need to have different workflows in place. So let’s show the process of building something sustainable that will not take you hours and hours of work every single day, and you can live your life with freedom and enjoy not having a 9 to 9.

AUTOMATIONS AND SYSTEMS

The number one rule is always to delegate as much as possible and spend as little time as possible on your business's operational tasks.

To keep your dropshipping business running like an oiled machine, always work with your employees inside a co-working space such as Trello, ClickUp, or Notion (which we use ourselves). Softwares like this allows you to create workflows in a board overview, create cards, input information inside the cards, and move the cards to different phases of the workflow efficiently.

Let’s break the whole system and automation down into 4 phases. I will keep it as beginner-friendly as possible, as most of you are still just beginning dropshippers.

🔍️ PHASE #1 | PRODUCT RESEARCH

TBH, this is up to you; I know many 7+ figure dropshippers who are still doing product research themselves.

Whom to hire:

• A product researcher whom you will be training with the fundamentals of finding winning products in your category/niche.

Important to know:

• The product researcher will work from the co-working space workflow and create cards for each product in Phase 1.

• All the necessary URLs and details, such as COGS, selling price, creative links, competitor links, and Ali express links, should be mentioned inside the cards.

The cards should include all the information so uploading the products back to your Shopify store will be easy.

Our product researcher sends us a list of 50 products daily, and we pick the 10 best products.

🤖 PHASE #2 | PRODUCT LISTING

This is probably the most important aspect regarding time savings, and if you outsource this, you will already save a lot of time.

Whom to hire:

• A virtual assistant who can upload the approved products from your workflow board from Phase 1 back to your store.

Important to know:

• Cogs should be mentioned inside the card

• Selling price should be mentioned inside the card

• Competitors URLS should be mentioned inside the card

• Ali express link should be mentioned inside the card

This is all required to upload the approved products from Phase 1 back into your store.

🖼️ PHASE #3 | FACEBOOK CREATIVES

📹️ Video ads:

Sometimes, videos need editing. It’s nice to have a video editor on your team who can change hooks, create different angles, include subtitles, etc.

Whom to hire:

• A video editor who can change hooks, create different angles, include subtitles, remove watermarks, etc.

Important to know:

• FB creative links should have been saved already somewhere in your card in phase 1 when doing your product research.

📸 Image ads:

For image ads, it’s easy to give you an example: we primarily run fashion, so the only adjustment we need is collage ads, which can be created within seconds. But as I said, you want to delegate as much as possible and spend little time inside the operational stuff.

Whom to hire:

• A Graphic designer who can create stunning image ads and carousel ads based on your requirements.

Again, when the card enters Phase 4, you should have already mentioned in Phase 1 which adjustments should be made to the creatives you or your product researcher have found when entering Phase 4.

💰️ PHASE #4 | CAMPAIGN UPLOADING

This will also save you a lot of time; hire someone to upload your campaigns on FB, TikTok, or whatever platform you advertise on.

Whom to hire:

• A media buyer who has experience with uploading campaigns through different social channels.

Important to know:

• The freshly new creatives from phase 3 should have already been uploaded back inside the card before entering phase 4.

• If you decide to copy & paste the competitor's creatives, simply make sure to include the creatives already somewhere inside your card in phase 1.

• The competitor's FB ad creative link should also be mentioned inside the card.

If you run general stores, when testing products, let the media buyer copy & paste the creative copies from the competitor to work fast.

If you run fashion stores, when testing products, use a template that can be used for all fashion items regarding the creative copies to work fast.

This is pretty much simplified. Things can be way more complicated than this simple four-phase setup. In our “product launch” workflow, we have 11 different phases. However, just start from here, and you’re already 99% further ahead than the rest of the dropshippers.

DEADLINES, OPERATIONAL MANAGER, WORKLOAD

Deadlines:

Be aware that deadlines are critical to monitor. For example, product research has to be done within 24 hours; 10 products should be uploaded within 6 hours; after that, the same should be done for the creatives, and another 6 hours should be spent uploading the campaigns back into Facebook.

Operational manager:

In this case, it would be best to have an operational manager on your team who could oversee the process, look at it, fix any minor mistakes, and give you feedback on how things are going.

An operational manager could be anyone, TBH; dropshipping doesn’t require too much expertise; you can easily transform one of your VAs into an operational manager when he is well-known enough with all the processes in your business.

Workload:

You should decide for yourself in the beginning. This whole workflow can also be done with 1 virtual assistant who takes care of all the phases. This is how I started a few years ago.

I had 1 virtual assistant who basically did everything inside the process, from product listing to product launch. If you’re scaling and testing more and more products, hiring more people, each specialized in their own phase, would be best so that few mistakes can be made.

Eventually, you can transition this VA to your operational manager as well.

HIRING AND PAYING PEOPLE

Yes, hiring your first employee inside your business can be scary, but you should get out of your comfort zone if you want to grow in life. A common question I get is, “How much do you pay those people, and where do you hire from?”

Hiring:

Hiring freelancers for your dropshipping business has never been easier with platforms such as Upwork. You simply create a job post on Upwork, explain what you’re looking for, and within 24 hours, you will get applications from people all over the world.

Select some candidates for your desired position, do a job interview, and pick the best one based on your feelings.

Finding someone trustworthy with great output can be hard, but you can’t expect too much for someone you’re only paying $5/hour for. You need to explain to them exactly all the ins & outs of your system, what to do, what to look out for, etc.

Shadow them for a week, do a few calls, and after that, your guy is pretty much good to go to do things on themselves when a new card is moved into his phase.

Wages:

For the tasks that I’ve described in the simplified 4-phase system, the wages range between $4 and $8 / hour if you’re looking for people from the Philippines, India, Pakistan, etc.

That’s all you need to know to start building something great; use this as your starting point, and from there, just grow further as long as your cash flow allows.