If you’ve been following my podcast or my writings here on Medium, you may remember that I started a dropshipping business two years ago. The way I learned how to run that business was to set up a website for a general store — meaning I sold any and everything — with no niche, and try to sell everything to everyone. The importance of choosing a niche is a story for another day, but for the purposes of this dropshipping business, this method made sense.
I made my money in that business by finding trendy products, running ads for those products, and seeing what people responded to. If people who saw the ad bought the product, I’d keep selling it. If people who saw the ad didn’t buy the product, I’d stop the ad and move on to another product.
In the dropshipping world, that method is called “testing”, and in ecommerce I learned to test everything. I tested which products I sold, ad copy, ad photos, ad videos, product photos and descriptions on my website, the color of the buttons on my website, the layout of my website, the checkout page, payment options, and literally everything in between.
The goal in testing is to figure out what works so that you achieve the highest conversion rates and sell as many products as possible. Testing helps you use real results and data to figure out how to be most successful.
I love the idea of testing because it gives you permission to fail as much as necessary. You know going into the test, that if it fails, you’ll cut your losses quickly and move on to something else.
Testing works great in ecommerce, and I’m sure you can see why. I found so much value in that method of doing things in ecommerce that I began to look at just about everything I do as testing. In business and even in my personal life — I actually test all the time on my Tinder profile and on my diet — I test to see what works and what doesn’t. My goal is always to be as successful as possible, as efficiently as possible.
The fact of the matter is, in most aspects of life, I have an end goal that is rigid. How I get there is not. I’m open to trying different things until I find what works and what is efficient. My vision, all the while, remains in tact.
If you are looking for what it is that you should be doing in life, I want to encourage you to try testing. Be open to trying different things until you find what works for you. You may already have a general idea of what you love to do. What will it hurt for you to try different things related to that general idea?
For instance, if you’re passionate about fitness, dogs, and kite flying, you could try doing something related to each one. Get a personal training certification. Start a dog walking business. Organize a kite flying group. If you don’t like any of them, cut your losses and move on.
Side note: I’m not suggesting that you do all three at the same time or really any of these examples, but I just want to illustrate that you should try whatever you think you might like, no matter how wacky other people think you are for it.
Speaking of what other people think, the #1 rule of testing is, f*ck what they think. This exercise is for you and the betterment of your life.
If you already have a business or you already know what you want to do, implement testing in your business now or when you start it. Don’t be afraid to try different pricing strategies, different patterns of posting to social media, different layouts on your website, and anything else you can test. Just be sure to pay attention to the data. Watch what converts, or gets you to your end goal, more efficiently and stick with that.
Good is good, but there’s always better. Don’t get so complacent with the status quo, in your life, that you forget to always be improving. Once you find your sweet spot, it’s okay to relax, but just be sure that you’ve secured your own happiness first.
So forget about all the anxiety you felt in your high school and college days over that four letter “t” word and test, test, test. You’ll learn quickly what works and what doesn’t and your business and your life will be better for it.