Latest / Beyond Fulfillment Podcast / Simplify to Scale- Mastering Growth with Silvia Myers of Traffic Ninjas

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Simplify to Scale- Mastering Growth with Silvia Myers of Traffic Ninjas · Beyond Fulfillment Podcast

• 0:00
  Sylvia Myers is the co founder of Traffic Ninjas, a team of e commerce mentors and Shopify coaches.
• 0:08
  Sylvia brings a wealth of knowledge on the challenges entrepreneurs face when starting online stores and she shares actionable strategies to achieve long term success.
• 0:18
  In this episode, Sylvia discusses the struggles of transitioning from a corporate career to entrepreneurship, the pitfalls of overcomplicating online businesses, and the important mindset shifts needed for sustained growth.
• 0:32
  She offers advice on creating compelling customer offers, understanding conversion rates, and maintaining focus in a world full of distractions.
• 0:42
  Sylvia also opens up about her personal journey, from her initial struggles with Facebook ads to finding fulfillment in helping others succeed.
• 0:51
  Join us as we explore Sylvia's path to success and the powerful principles behind Traffic Ninjas, aiming to help entrepreneurs win on their business journey.
• 1:02
  As always, if you found value from this content, please like and subscribe.
• 1:07
  And now here's my conversation with Sylvia Myers.
• 1:10
  Enjoy.
• 1:11
  Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Beyond Fulfillment Podcast.
• 1:15
  I'm your host, Dave Goulis, and this week my guest is the co founder of the Traffic Ninjas, Sylvia Myers.
• 1:24
  Welcome, Sylvia.
• 1:26
  Thank you for having me.
• 1:27
  Thanks.
• 1:28
  It's so great to be here.
• 1:29
  Yeah, we appreciate you taking the time to be here.
• 1:33
  Sylvia, if you could, can you tell us in the audience what Traffic Ninjas is and how it got started?
• 1:39
  Yeah, sure.
• 1:40
  So essentially, Traffic Ninjas, what we do is we help shopify business owners get traffic and sales for their online businesses, help them grow their businesses from where they are to a whole new level.
• 1:54
  How we got started was actually about nine years ago.
• 1:59
  I came home one day and I was like telling my husband, kristen, hey, I did it.
• 2:05
  And he's like, you did what?
• 2:07
  And I said, I quit my job.
• 2:09
  And he's like, what?
• 2:10
  You quit your job?
• 2:12
  No way.
• 2:12
  What are you going to do?
• 2:13
  And I was like, I don't know, I don't know.
• 2:15
  He was like, no, you can't quit your job before you start something else.
• 2:18
  But anyway, I was just fed up.
• 2:19
  You know, both of us had cushy corporate careers.
• 2:23
  Like we, you know, there was a point where we loved our careers, we loved the steady paychecks, all of that stuff.
• 2:29
  But at some point we just needed more.
• 2:32
  We need to learn more, we need to give more, we need to share more.
• 2:36
  And essentially, you know, long story short, our background, both of us was in corporate management consulting.
• 2:43
  I was working with a lot of digital marketing companies and, and e commerce companies.
• 2:50
  My husband had a tech background and we just spent our days and careers helping all of these big companies.
• 2:58
  Get even bigger and make more money.
• 3:01
  And we were like, well, how about all of the small business owners that we actually were so passionate about?
• 3:08
  You know, you go to markets and you see somebody selling premium boutique products, yet they can't make living out of that because they just don't know how to sell it.
• 3:19
  They don't know how business works, or they don't know how to bring it online, or they might not have the marketing skills.
• 3:25
  And then, you know, you see, we've got so many friends who have.
• 3:30
  Their garage is full of product, and that product is amazing, but they don't know how to move it.
• 3:37
  And so it collects dust instead of dollars.
• 3:40
  And so we're like, okay, we've got to do something about that.
• 3:45
  Wow.
• 3:46
  Okay, so a couple things.
• 3:48
  Let's hit on.
• 3:49
  So when you started this originally, right, like, you clearly knew that you weren't happy with the corporate life, and one day you just fed up and said, I've had it.
• 3:59
  So something inside of you just, you weren't fulfilled.
• 4:02
  You knew you wanted more, and you just, rather than finding something else to do or starting a side hustle or whatever, you just said, I'm done, and you quit.
• 4:12
  Well, yeah, it was just like reaching the threshold where I just realized, okay, this is not the way.
• 4:18
  Because, you know, I don't know what's been your experience like, or other people who are listening, but I find that there is this point in your career where you think, oh, I just need a more challenging role.
• 4:33
  Then you get that challenging role.
• 4:34
  Then you are like, oh, I'm just not feeling appreciated.
• 4:37
  Maybe I just need a role that pays more money.
• 4:40
  So then you go to another company that pays you more money.
• 4:43
  Then you find yourself, you know, amongst people who are not your kind of people.
• 4:49
  And then you're like, well, I don't want to be pretending here anything, you know, so these are not my people.
• 4:57
  So then you think you going to have to go to another organization that has better culture, and it just continues and continues until you realize, like, actually, hang on a minute.
• 5:06
  This is.
• 5:07
  This is not for me.
• 5:08
  I think for both of us, my husband and I, the biggest thing was the growth.
• 5:14
  I think once you have your own business, you're an entrepreneur, you earn your own living, your own boss, but you also are 100 accountable for every single thing that you achieve and you produce.
• 5:29
  And I think in our corporate lives, that was missing.
• 5:32
  You know, the learning curve was missing.
• 5:33
  I always felt like you can only learn as much as the boss above you allows you to learn.
• 5:40
  And, and that is essentially the ceiling.
• 5:42
  You know, then you have to fight through that, and then there is the next ceiling.
• 5:45
  So I just feel like, you know, entrepreneurship is not easy, but it's a whole another level of growth that brings a lot of fulfillment.
• 6:00
  Okay.
• 6:01
  Yeah.
• 6:02
  And I'm sure a lot of people watching can resonate with that in terms of just not wanting to be kind of in a box or just limit the growth based on what the job demands, but wanting to continue
• 6:14
  to grow, expand, learn, and become more.
• 6:17
  Right?
• 6:18
  Yes.
• 6:19
  Yeah.
• 6:19
  And give more and share more.
• 6:21
  And obviously, um, you know, we are entrepreneurs, so we're also looking for ways to make money and we want to make a lot of it, but that allows us to give back more.
• 6:31
  Right.
• 6:32
  So, yeah, it's.
• 6:34
  It's kind of about creating your own destiny, I guess.
• 6:38
  Okay.
• 6:39
  And so pretty quickly, as you mentioned, you realize that you had experience working as a consultant and helping these larger brands increase their sales.
• 6:49
  Then you had a passion too, for small business.
• 6:51
  And you saw so many other small business owners that could benefit and had great products, but they were lacking in the sales department.
• 6:59
  So when you have this idea and this, you know, this impulse to really go after that market, what was it like in terms of launching the company and really starting to serve that section of customers?
• 7:15
  Yeah, that's a great question.
• 7:17
  To be honest with you, it wasn't really that easy.
• 7:21
  And the reason why it wasn't that easy is because I still had that corporate mindset of thinking that things have to be complicated to work well, and of thinking that, you know, there's an army of people who's going
• 7:37
  to help you with things.
• 7:39
  But it's, it's not really the case.
• 7:41
  Right.
• 7:41
  When you're studying a business, whether it's an E commerce store or any kind of service business, it's.
• 7:49
  The rule is the same, you know, simple scales, complex fails.
• 7:53
  What is it that your customer really wants?
• 7:55
  And how can you speak to the pain point of the customer rather than just fluff around and, you know, create all of these complicated offers?
• 8:06
  And I think that was really hard for us at the beginning.
• 8:10
  You know, to, to go from like, the thinking of, you know, everything needs to be complicated.
• 8:17
  Everything has these corporate processes and structures to kind of like, how do we just simplify it?
• 8:24
  And we find that this is really something that our customers who start their online stores go through as well, because a lot of them, or most of them really have their.
• 8:35
  Had their own careers before they started their online stores.
• 8:39
  And so we find people who have A mailing list of 500, 500 followers who bought their product before, yet they have six segments in their email list because they believe that that's what it needs to be.
• 8:53
  You know, and we send this message to these people and this message to these people, and it's like, no, like simple scales, complex fails.
• 9:00
  Like, how can we just simplify everything to the point that it's easy to take action every single day?
• 9:09
  Right.
• 9:10
  Because, I mean, Tony Robbins says this all the time.
• 9:13
  Like, complexity is the enemy of execution, you know, so the simpler it is, the easier it is to move forward.
• 9:22
  Yeah, I love that too.
• 9:24
  And especially if you're talking about serving people that are maybe starting as entrepreneurs or coming from a corporate background.
• 9:30
  Right.
• 9:31
  I have to imagine one of the biggest challenges or obstacles they have maybe is taking action, or like Tony likes to say, taking massive action.
• 9:39
  Right.
• 9:40
  So the more you can simplify that for your customers and get them to take the right action and make it simple enough where they know exactly what to do, I have to imagine that's.
• 9:48
  That helps a lot with making them successful.
• 9:52
  Yeah.
• 9:53
  Like, one of the things we really focus on is like, what is the system?
• 9:56
  Right.
• 9:57
  Because I'll just give you an example of somebody I spoke to yesterday, Jessica.
• 10:02
  And Jessica is.
• 10:06
  Has been doing something that a lot of entrepreneurs who started online store do.
• 10:10
  And, and by the way, she's like past the first half a million at this point.
• 10:15
  Right.
• 10:15
  So she's not like a complete newbie, but still relatively new in the journey.
• 10:20
  And she was like, well, I run ads and the ads come to my website, and then I watch all the people who come to my website, and then I see, like, there's only two add to carts.
• 10:28
  Why aren't they adding to card?
• 10:29
  Well, there is maybe something wrong with my, My, my product.
• 10:35
  So maybe I need to discount the product.
• 10:37
  So then they discount the product, they rerun the ads, still don't get the sales.
• 10:41
  So then they think, well, maybe I don't have good enough pictures.
• 10:45
  So then they go and hire a photographer, do a whole photo shoot, and then they maybe think, well, maybe something wrong with.
• 10:51
  Something's wrong with my store.
• 10:53
  So they, you know, rerun the theme and get some expensive plugins, and that still doesn't help.
• 10:59
  And then people get so frustrated and end up thinking, like, oh, maybe it's me.
• 11:04
  Maybe I'm the problem.
• 11:05
  Maybe I'm not cut out for this entrepreneurial journey.
• 11:09
  Maybe I don't have what it takes.
• 11:11
  Maybe I'm too old.
• 11:13
  Maybe I'm not techie enough.
• 11:15
  Whilst it's none of these things, all it is, it's like following a simple process path to success, like a simple system, right?
• 11:24
  So instead of, like focusing on all of these little things, which, sure, all of us could be like fixing our product pages to death, we could be doing that.
• 11:32
  We could be, you know, adding all of these plugins and, and discounting products and new images.
• 11:37
  We could be doing all of that.
• 11:38
  But what is actually the big domino?
• 11:40
  What is the big domino where the one thing that you knock down is going to knock down everything else?
• 11:45
  And that's the core thing that we do inside our program, and that's the core thing that we help our clients with, is just making that path super simple and super streamlined so that all of these things that they
• 12:00
  realize it's just a destruction.
• 12:04
  Yeah.
• 12:05
  Yeah, love that.
• 12:06
  Okay.
• 12:06
  And so with Shopify specifically, I mean, the growth over the past decade has been, you know, insane, right?
• 12:14
  Exponential growth.
• 12:15
  But then something I saw on your site where you said 90% of Shopify stores fail, right?
• 12:24
  And so, I mean, do you.
• 12:26
  Do you think the main reason is just people overcomplicating things like you just mentioned?
• 12:32
  Well, I think it's a couple of things.
• 12:34
  It's overcomplicating things, but it's also coming into it with the wrong mindset.
• 12:39
  So, you know, the statistics say it's that, like, there is, like, I don't know how many stores on Shopify opening every single day, right?
• 12:48
  But they're closing just as fast.
• 12:50
  And so some people come to this with the wrong mindset of, you know, I saw some dude on YouTube, you know, with his fake Ferrari, you know, he's 18, and he told me I can make a million dollars
• 13:08
  two weeks.
• 13:10
  And so I just did that.
• 13:13
  I did what he told me.
• 13:14
  He told me there are some winning products.
• 13:16
  And so I loaded those winning products into my store and nothing happened.
• 13:22
  You know, so what's going on?
• 13:26
  And that's when people started with the whole.
• 13:28
  With the whole mumbo jumbo.
• 13:30
  So, first of all, I think the reason why so many stores fail is the psychology of why, like, what is the expectations that you're coming into, into opening their business in the first place.
• 13:46
  And I find people who are not invested into their brand, it's very difficult for them to make it work.
• 13:57
  And when I say invest it, I mean being very conditional, you know, kind of like, I'm just only going to try this and I'm only going to stick to this if it's going to be easy.
• 14:09
  And if it's going to do this, this and this and that.
• 14:11
  But that's not the way to make a business really successful.
• 14:16
  The mindset that we find really works is okay, how it's asking a different question, like how do I make an asset out of this that is not just going to be selling products and it's not just going to
• 14:29
  give me two grand per month within the next three months, but how am I going to build an asset that long term is going to look after myself, my family, and then I can either resell it or pass
• 14:41
  down the second generation.
• 14:43
  So that's a whole different attitude to, you know, that short term thinking, like, hey, how, how am I going to beat up 60 grand out of this in three months time?
• 14:55
  And so I find that a lot of people fail in E commerce because you know, they come with the wrong attitude and then they just don't have a system.
• 15:06
  And when you don't have a system, you end up doing all of that mumbo jumbo around.
• 15:12
  Okay, so it sounds like you're saying so so many of the people that fail too, right?
• 15:16
  They're just looking for a quick buck.
• 15:18
  It may not like you said, they may not be invested or just understand, right, having that marathon mindset that it's a journey and you're not going to be an overnight success and just start killing it just because you
• 15:31
  put some product, what looks like a good product up on Shopify.
• 15:35
  There's so much more to it than that.
• 15:36
  There's so much more to it than that.
• 15:38
  But it doesn't have to take long.
• 15:42
  We've seen so many of our members have amazing results within, you know, four months, five months, six months, you know, some of them three to four months.
• 15:52
  But it's not an overnight thing.
• 15:55
  Like it does require, you know, focus, it does require energy, it does require following a system to do the right things, you know, not just kind of like sitting back and crying over spilled milk.
• 16:08
  You know, it does require taking action.
• 16:11
  Like one of the things we say inside our communities, action takers are money makers.
• 16:15
  You know, they've you mentioned previously that you like my signature on my email that it says let's go, but that's what it's about.
• 16:22
  Like let's effing go.
• 16:24
  Do you know what I mean?
• 16:24
  Like we love, like I can give you the keys, but if you're not gonna like put the key in the door and open the door, it's not gonna happen.
• 16:33
  You know, I'm not gonna do that for you.
• 16:37
  And I think that's that's the attitude, you know, that people need to have when they start starting their online stores.
• 16:43
  Like it's up to them to make it happen.
• 16:49
  Attention E commerce sellers.
• 16:51
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• 16:54
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• 17:01
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• 17:04
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• 17:10
  Get in touch today and find out how we can help you.
• 17:14
  Yeah, and I love that quote.
• 17:15
  Action takers are money makers for sure.
• 17:18
  Okay, so you started with Shopify, you started, you know, focusing on small business and helping them grow.
• 17:26
  And you said initially there were some challenges.
• 17:28
  When did you notice like an inflection point where, you know, all this consistency and this, these efforts really where you really started to turn the corner in your business?
• 17:41
  That's a great question.
• 17:42
  So it was about 18 months in.
• 17:47
  So the first 18 months were really, really hard.
• 17:51
  And you know, the hardest thing was that we were doing what we now see that so many of our clients do as well before they come to us.
• 18:02
  It's going after this shiny object syndrome, thinking that you know better, you know, all of us, people who, you know, are mature, you know, in the 40s, or 50s, like we think we know better.
• 18:17
  You know, we've had our careers, you know, what is it possibly that we need to learn?
• 18:22
  Like all of this stuff is already out there.
• 18:24
  And so one of the things that we were doing was what I now call gambling, you know, learning how to run Facebook ads, then running Facebook ads and, and you know, essentially not getting anything out of them back.
• 18:39
  And it wasn't until we actually end up hiring a, a coach who was at the time crazy expensive.
• 18:48
  And mind you, he was only 19 years old.
• 18:52
  And at the beginning I was like, I'm not going to pay 35 grand to an, a 19 year old dude.
• 18:57
  Like, what is he going to teach me?
• 19:00
  But he taught us so much and in hindsight, like that was the brilliant thing about him, that he was only 19 and he only knew one way that worked.
• 19:15
  But as a result he was really good at that one way, if that makes sense, you know, and that got us realized, like, okay, like doing all of these things at once, that is the destruction.
• 19:28
  And so one of the things that he taught us was, and this is now, you know, at the front and center that we teach our customers to is like, what does your customer really, really want?
• 19:44
  And how can you Give it to your customer.
• 19:47
  Because if your office sucks, then nobody cares how amazing your products are.
• 19:58
  Nobody's going to buy it.
• 19:59
  And when I say offer often, often people think that it's like, oh, I've got an offer.
• 20:05
  You know, buy one, get one free.
• 20:07
  Like I'm selling, you know, these cups and it's a Bogo offer.
• 20:11
  But that's, that's not an offer.
• 20:13
  That's a, that's a discount.
• 20:15
  Bogo is not an offer.
• 20:18
  So offer is so much more than that.
• 20:21
  You know, offer is more about what are the pains of your customers, what are the dreams, why they should buy your product versus the product of your competitors.
• 20:32
  Like, what makes you different.
• 20:34
  And these are the fundamental points where it was only when we realized that we have to do that that it really clicked.
• 20:48
  Okay, so, so what happened then?
• 20:51
  When you realized that and then it clicked, then, then what happened?
• 20:55
  Well, finally we had an offer that was sexy, right?
• 21:00
  Because at that point, that's when you see, and you know, for all of you guys who have online stores, that's when you see your conversion rates increasing, right?
• 21:08
  Once you have an offer that people love, that it's not just about, like, me, this is nice.
• 21:15
  It's not like I have to have it.
• 21:16
  I have to have it.
• 21:17
  When they see that, they click on it.
• 21:19
  When they click on it, they get to the product page, they're like, I have to have it.
• 21:24
  They add it to cart and they check out, right?
• 21:27
  So many, so many Shopify business owners don't realize that a good conversion rate is between 2 to 3%.
• 21:37
  And, okay, each conversion rate is, you know, just above 1%.
• 21:42
  So to have that good and great conversion rate, people have to take action right now.
• 21:50
  And we need to give them a reason for that because there is so much overwhelm out there.
• 21:55
  There's so many products out there that unless we give consumers a reason to check out now and to buy now, then they just, you know, they're just going to say, I'm going to do it tomorrow.
• 22:07
  But manana never comes because tomorrow I'll be busy with something else.
• 22:10
  Tomorrow I'll be hit with another ad.
• 22:12
  Tomorrow I'll see something else in my feet.
• 22:15
  You know, tomorrow my kid is going to, I don't know, scratch their knee or something, right?
• 22:20
  So the, the, the crucial points of increased conversion rate and the predictability of sales is really helping your customers check out right now.
• 22:37
  Okay?
• 22:37
  So if I'm, if I'm understanding that, right to a really good offer is one that creates the feeling in the customer.
• 22:44
  I have to have it right now.
• 22:46
  And they check out.
• 22:46
  Yes, that's the goal.
• 22:48
  First I have to have it.
• 22:50
  First I have to have it because they have to click on that, right?
• 22:53
  Whatever it is, if it's know, organic, if it's organic offer through social media, if, if it's something that comes up, comes up in Google search, you know, if, if it's something that they see in an email first, they
• 23:08
  need to be so curious and be like, I have to have it.
• 23:11
  And then they get on the product page and that's where they are making the decision.
• 23:15
  I have to have it now.
• 23:18
  Ah, okay.
• 23:20
  And so reading your bio too, you've helped over a thousand shopify store owners, is that right?
• 23:26
  Yes, yes, it's over a thousand now.
• 23:27
  I.
• 23:28
  We've lost count.
• 23:29
  Over a thousand.
• 23:29
  But yes, it's definitely over a thousand.
• 23:32
  Wow, okay.
• 23:34
  And you know, just another question I'm very curious about, because just hearing you talk about your journey, right.
• 23:40
  You've been very open about mistakes you made and how that helps you and kind of stumbles along the way.
• 23:46
  And I mean that's, that's one thing I notice with other people maybe that are, you know, newer in the journey or maybe they give up too soon.
• 23:55
  Is just that the attitude or the relationship maybe they have with mistakes.
• 23:59
  I mean, can you just talk about how important it is like failure, quote, unquote failure and making mistakes on the entrepreneurial journey.
• 24:08
  Yeah, it's interesting because fairly hurt, right?
• 24:15
  And when it's your own business and you've, you know, either burned the bridges and quit your job or you are going through your savings, it really, really, really hurts.
• 24:30
  But at the same time it points you in the right direction.
• 24:36
  And one of the things that I suggest people might want to think about is, and it's getting into a little bit more complicated topic, but it's like what we call CLV to CAG ratio.
• 24:52
  You know, what's your customer lifetime value and what is the cost of acquisition?
• 24:56
  And that ratio, it better be four to one or five to one, ideally.
• 25:07
  Sorry, the other way around.
• 25:08
  Clv.
• 25:09
  CLV being like, you know, five times as high as the cost of acquisition.
• 25:14
  And I think a lot of entrepreneurs don't realize this and they are going through mistakes over and over and over and then they feel like the whole world is against them.
• 25:31
  And it's so easy to get stuck in the victim attitude.
• 25:35
  And you know, I'm not gonna lie, like for me, and I just realized this, like in recent months that I used to be stuck in the victim attitude a lot in the past.
• 25:48
  You know, just before this, we, we had a conversation about my background.
• 25:54
  Like, I'm a first generation migrant, you know, grew up in Slovakia at the time where it was still a communist country.
• 26:01
  You know, I was the first generation that was able to leave and do whatever I want in my life.
• 26:06
  Yet whenever I went somewhere abroad and moved, I had that attitude of like, oh, I had it tougher than all of you guys, you know, because I had to learn English, I had to come up with my own
• 26:22
  money, I didn't have any generational wealth, I had to pay my rent, I had to pay all of my medical bills, I had to pay my school.
• 26:30
  And so that was producing so much victim attitude that wasn't helping me.
• 26:40
  And I think when people start their businesses, when they start failing, and this used to be my thing too in the past, was like feeling sorry for yourself for a little bit too long.
• 26:55
  You know, whilst it's really about like, okay, well, this is not working.
• 27:00
  How can I look at it for what it is rather than, you know, get stuck in some emotional roller coaster?
• 27:09
  It's like, it is what it is.
• 27:11
  It's feedback, it's data.
• 27:14
  And when I just look at it as data and step back, well, if this was somebody else, what, what could I do?
• 27:24
  And we often come up with a lot of empowering answers, but we don't always see those answers for ourselves.
• 27:37
  And that's a very interesting point too.
• 27:39
  Right.
• 27:39
  Because I'm, you know, I'm sure you've heard the framework too, about how easy it is to be objective about someone else's problems versus your own.
• 27:47
  Right.
• 27:48
  Because there's no emotional attachment.
• 27:50
  So exactly does it sounds like, right, you're saying the secret is to not be so whether it's failure, hard times, whatever you're going through, to kind of detach emotionally and just be objective about it.
• 28:04
  And like you said, you, many people feel sorry for way too long and that's, that's what creates that mindset.
• 28:10
  Yeah, it's kind of like, you know, I find that what helped me was like to create two lists.
• 28:16
  You know, even.
• 28:17
  Even at those points where you are feeling really, really sorry for yourself or you feel like, you know, you've just failed so much, then make a list of things that actually have worked.
• 28:29
  Because for each and every one of you, for each and everybody one of us, there are things that worked.
• 28:35
  But at that moment, we're not realizing that right in that moment, it's all doom and Gloom, and nothing has worked.
• 28:43
  But there are things that worked.
• 28:46
  And so I think starting with the things that worked just gives you that empowering attitude.
• 28:53
  And then you can start writing down the things that didn't work and just see them for what it is and be more specific.
• 29:01
  Right.
• 29:01
  Because I find that when we are reflecting on our failures, if we're not being specific enough and we just say, oh, everything sucks, or, you know, I didn't sell any products, or, you know, my products are collecting dust,
• 29:17
  then it creates a closed mindset rather than it's like, okay, what specifically did not work?
• 29:25
  Okay, what specifically didn't work is getting the right people to my store.
• 29:31
  What specifically didn't work is getting people hyped up about the product that I've got.
• 29:40
  And so then once we have those specific things, we can start thinking about solutions and the ideas are easier to come by.
• 29:51
  Ah, okay.
• 29:55
  Another question too, because, you know, you spoke.
• 29:58
  We spoke about this prior and you mentioned it too, where, you know, community, you run masterminds, you're part of some other masterminds.
• 30:07
  We met through a mutual friend that is in a mastermind with you.
• 30:11
  Right.
• 30:11
  It seems like so much of what you do is tied into kind of networking and being in these groups with other entrepreneurs and other people on the same journey.
• 30:22
  I mean, how important do you think that that has been to your success along the way?
• 30:28
  Yeah, that's a great question.
• 30:30
  I think crazy important.
• 30:33
  Like, really crazy important.
• 30:34
  Like, so much so that my husband and I moved two years ago.
• 30:40
  We moved from Australia to Mexico just so that we are in the same time zone as one of our masterminds in the US because it was easier for us as Australian citizens to get visa to Mexico than to
• 30:53
  us because we can only stay in the U.S.
• 30:57
  you know, six months at a time.
• 30:58
  So we would, like, move to Mexico so that we can fly over whenever we want it for the meetups and be in the same time zone.
• 31:07
  And I think that has shifted everything because you are suddenly thinking about solutions from a completely different perspective because you are surrounded by people who run similar business to you, and they might be working on something else that
• 31:30
  you have an answer to, and you might be working on something that they have an answer to.
• 31:35
  So, you know, getting into a peer group is extremely important, I think.
• 31:43
  Yeah, I'm so important to be around the right people, like you said, where the, you know, the idea that there's.
• 31:50
  There's always a way and there are options and you're working on the same type of problem and like you said.
• 31:54
  Right.
• 31:55
  Because you could come up with plenty of reasons that maybe that's not an option or why should you do that?
• 32:00
  But, you know, obviously it was important to you and it certainly made a big impact on your business.
• 32:06
  But just, even the right.
• 32:09
  The resourcefulness to do that.
• 32:12
  Right.
• 32:12
  Says a lot.
• 32:13
  And, you know, like you said, being around those same type of people, you know, influences you in ways that, you know, are profound.
• 32:22
  Yeah.
• 32:23
  And also not feeling alone.
• 32:24
  Right.
• 32:25
  Because I find that.
• 32:26
  And.
• 32:27
  And I see that inside our community as well, with our clients is that a lot of them start their businesses, but then they tell about the businesses to their friends and family, and friends and family think that they
• 32:40
  are crazy.
• 32:41
  And without wanting to do it to them, they kind of bring them down.
• 32:47
  Right.
• 32:47
  Because.
• 32:49
  Because it's kind of like you were somebody else.
• 32:53
  You transformed, became an entrepreneur.
• 32:55
  You are on this massive growth journey.
• 32:58
  But chances are that 95% of those people who are around you are not on the same growth journey.
• 33:05
  And so those people are fearing for you to change and be different.
• 33:12
  And they are also fearing for you to fail because they love you.
• 33:17
  But by having this fear around you, they are unknowingly bringing you down.
• 33:23
  You know, and this could be parents, this could be even partners we've seen, you know, this could be friends.
• 33:31
  And so for my husband and I, when we went on this entrepreneurial journey, massive transformation, massive growth, suddenly we found we couldn't relate to people around us anymore.
• 33:45
  We couldn't talk about business in front of our families or friends because they either thought we were crazy or they were just.
• 33:54
  We were so on so different pages that they just wouldn't get anything we were saying.
• 33:59
  And so, you know, for a while, that was really lonely.
• 34:03
  And now when you reflect and look back, it's like, wow.
• 34:05
  All of those decisions we were making was because we just weren't around the right people.
• 34:11
  And so it was only when we, you know, joined the masterminds, we realized, like, wow, like, these are our people.
• 34:21
  And it doesn't mean you have to physically be around them in the same community.
• 34:26
  Like, some of our, you know, best mastermind buddies, like some of them are in Denmark, some of them are in Costa Rica, some of them are in Colombia, some of them are in the US but once you have
• 34:37
  the network and it's so easy now to do online, it's just expands the ideas, expand your ambition, expands the can do ability of what's actually achievable, just completely transforms.
• 34:56
  Yeah, yeah, agreed, 100%.
• 35:01
  Okay.
• 35:01
  So you've been doing this for a little over 10 years, right.
• 35:05
  Like you said, you've helped over a thousand Shopify owners.
• 35:09
  You know, I was just looking at your YouTube channel.
• 35:11
  You've built a very nice YouTube channel.
• 35:13
  You do a lot of, a lot of videos there as well.
• 35:15
  So you've been on this journey for a while.
• 35:17
  What for you has been the best part about this whole, this whole business that you have?
• 35:23
  Yeah, great question.
• 35:24
  So for us, for me personally, the best part is seeing our clients do well.
• 35:35
  That's the best part.
• 35:38
  You know, once again, action takers are money makers.
• 35:40
  So what you put in is what you're going to get out.
• 35:43
  But you know, we've seen people go from doing thousand dollars per month to over 140,000 in a month as small entrepreneurs, you know, who start their own product line.
• 35:59
  We've seen people, you know, reach 20,000 per month within four months without, you know, without spending any money on ads.
• 36:10
  We've seen people do, you know, six grand per day.
• 36:14
  And that has been the most rewarding part because these are just ordinary people who didn't think they were able to do this ever with their stores, you know, and they either started a passion project and, you know, wanted
• 36:33
  to quit their job, have more freedom, or some of them are retired.
• 36:37
  They just wanted to do something as a side hustle.
• 36:40
  And it turned into this big thing we've seen even business owners who, you know, started, grew it and then sold it to spend more time with their kids.
• 36:52
  And that for me has been the most rewarding.
• 36:56
  Like seeing that, wow, that actually, you know, we can impact other people's lives in a way that I just never thought of before.
• 37:08
  All right, okay.
• 37:10
  And Sylvia, so if, if e commerce entrepreneurs are out there, Shopify sellers are watching this and they want to learn more about you, what you do.
• 37:18
  Get in touch.
• 37:19
  What's the best way people can reach out to you?
• 37:23
  Best way, just come to our website, the traffic ninjas.com.
• 37:29
  we've got plenty of resources for you in there.
• 37:33
  And otherwise we can leave a link in the notes so that you guys can attend our next masterclass.
• 37:41
  All right, and we'll link all that in the show notes for everyone.
• 37:45
  All right, well, Sylvia, thank you so much for being here and taking the time sharing these lessons about your journey and everything you've been through and you know, just hearing about how meaningful it is to have a business
• 37:56
  that helps so many other people and helps other people win and then helps you win as well.
• 38:00
  So love to hear that and really appreciate your time today.
• 38:04
  Thank you.
• 38:05
  It was great to be here.
• 38:07
  All right.
• 38:07
  And that's all the time we have for now.
• 38:09
  We will see you next time.