"This is the biggest [e-commerce] step that we've taken yet."

When Mark Zuckerberg says that about Facebook, it's worth paying attention to—I don't care what industry you're in.

The quote came during a livestream last month where Zuck announced the upcoming launch of Facebook Shops.

tl;dr: Think of them like Shopify stores but built directly into Facebook (and Instagram), so customers can shop and buy without even leaving the app.

 

You don't need to see a fancy chart to recognize this will be a HUGE potential opportunity.

Facebook has billions of users.

Ecommerce is only getting bigger.

Tons of businesses are struggling to get customers in their stores right now because of the pandemic.

Many are turning to ecommerce for the first time.

That's where you come in.

When these features go live, there will be a $10k/month business just waiting for someone to start it.

The "Early Expert" Business Idea:

Help brick-and-mortar retailers get their products on Facebook Shops and start generating revenue online.

I like to call this the "Early Expert" model:

  • Powerful new technology comes out
     
  • You create (one of) the first dedicated resources/services that makes utilizing this new technology WAY less of a headache
     
  • Your product/service becomes the standard companion to the technology

For example, when the writing software Scrivener was starting to pick up steam several years ago, Joseph Michael created an online course called Learn Scrivener Fast.

This quickly made him THE expert for all things Scrivener. Since then, he's sold 28,000+ copies for millions in total revenue.

Obviously, there will be more competition creating products/services related to Facebook Shops—but there's also a larger potential market.

With that in mind, let's brainstorm the product or service you could launch with these 4 questions:

  1. What online course could I create?
  2. What service could I provide?
  3. What resources could I create?
  4. What coaching service could I provide?

Here's what I came up with:

1. Create a $500 online course. ~20ish videos. They walk someone start to finish through getting set up. Writing amazing product descriptions. Making their Facebook Shop look pretty. The basics of fulfilling orders. A handful of effective traffic generation strategies.

2. Create a 1-time $5,000 service. You set up a business's Facebook Shop for them. All the dirty work. You make it look awesome. Write killer product descriptions. It's built to convert.

3. Create a $1,000/month recurring service. Ongoing management of a business's Facebook Shop. This is the perfect add-on to the $5,000 setup service above. Add new products and make updates as needed. Write social posts that promote their products. Help their shop be successful. Show the ROI.

It's easy to imagine any of these succeeding, but let's narrow it down to the best one with these 3 questions:

  1. Which one of these ideas is the most exciting to me?
     
  2. Which of these could I legit help people with?
     
  3. Which of these could I make good money on?

Me? I'm picking the $500 online course because it's the easiest to scale quickly.

Getting more customers doesn't require the kind of time investment you'd have to make with the service ideas.

Plus, you could always upsell services or coaching to people who buy the course.

Step #1: How to make the course

Sure, you could jump into Facebook Shops and piddle around on your own until you figure out how it works.

Or you can build your own shop from scratch. But creating actual products to sell would get tricky and time consuming.

Here's how I'd make the course:

  • Find 20 local brick-and-mortar businesses that are active on Facebook but don't sell products online
     
  • Offer to create a Facebook Shop for them for free
     
  • Put together a quick "dummy" version with their logo and a few products
     
  • One of them agrees
     
  • They are your guinea pig
     
  • You document everything as you do it
     
  • They are your example throughout the course
     
  • They become a built-in case study
     
  • You learn all the pain points of the process first hand

By the end, you know Facebook Shops inside and out. You have a testimonial and success story to showcase. And you understand your customer a heck of a lot better than you would otherwise.

Step #2: Get your first 10 customers and $5k

You did the hard work to make the course. Now what?

Here's your "First 5k" marketing plan:

  1. Create a webinar that sells your course.
     
  2. Show the opportunity a Facebook Shop offers.
     
  3. Agitate the pain points it solves — customers can't visit your store, foot traffic is slow, sales are down, selling online is confusing.
     
  4. Teach one or two simple strategies for getting started.
     
  5. Show how your course makes the process 10x simpler and faster.
     
  6. Remember the other businesses you pitched on being your guinea pig? Reach out to them again. Invite them to the webinar.
     
  7. Reach out to local biz orgs — people who will be familiar with the store you helped. Chamber of Commerce, for example. "Hey, I helped Tammy's Creations set up a Facebook Shop that's bringing in an extra $2k/month for them. Would love to show your members how we did it…"
     
  8. Get them to promote webinar. Or even co-host it.
     
  9. Send a link to everyone you know. Ask them to invite any business owners they know.
     
  10. Execute the webinar.

10 sales @ $500 = your first $5k.

If you hustle this, you could do it in 2 weeks or less.

Plus, it will set you up perfectly for the next step...

Step #3: Scale to 200 customers and 6 figures

Stop and think for a second about the thousands of ecommerce-related blogs, podcasts, YouTube channels, Facebook groups, and other communities out there.

ALL of them are going to have audiences interested in learning about Facebook Shops.

And guess what? Now you have a webinar you could easily tweak and adapt for each of those audiences.

So here's what I'd do to get it in front of them:

  1. Make a list of the top 100 ecommerce blogs, FB groups, podcasts, communities, etc.
     
  2. Start participating in the conversation, sharing their content, being active in the community.
     
  3. Reach out to the person who runs them.
     
  4. Give them free access to check out your course.
     
  5. Offer to partner with them and teach their audience about Facebook Shops.
     
  6. Tailor the approach to fit the partner.
     
  7. For example, if it's a podcast, pitch them on doing an interview before you pitch them on doing a webinar.
     
  8. A blog may be more interested in you writing a guest post than doing a webinar first.
     
  9. Use the pitch scripts I shared in this blog post.
     
  10. Stairstep your way to bigger and better partnerships with everyone who says yes.
     
  11. Someone said yes to a guest post? Sweet—pitch them on a partner webinar after you write the post.
     
  12. Rinse and repeat. Make it your goal to execute 1-2 new partnerships every month.

Let's do some quick math:

To hit $10k/month, you only need 20 sales/month.

To hit $100k in your first year, you only need 200 sales.

Make it your goal to hit 20 sales every month and you'll hit six figures in under a year.

--

Want someone to create a step-by-step plan like this for your business, and coach you through executing it?

We run a 1:1 coaching program that does exactly that—but imagine this plan with 10x the detail. :)

Book a Strategy Call with us here and we'll show you exactly how we'd grow your business.

- Bryan

P.S. These were our Top 10 (out of 108) client wins from the first week of June: