Welcome to this gripping podcast episode—' Fast Growth Fiasco: The Raw $80M Truth Behind Our DTC Success.' Today, strap in as we uncover the rollercoaster ride of our explosive journey, where we scaled to $80 million in record time. But it wasn't all smooth sailing; we teetered on the brink of disaster. From nail-biting market shifts to harrowing payment processor mishaps, learn how we navigated through the chaos and what it truly takes to thrive in the cutthroat world of direct-to-consumer sales. Stay tuned as we reveal our near-catastrophic success story's hard-earned secrets and close calls!

On this episode:

• Choose a business model that aligns with macro trends and has consistent market demand growth.
• Focus on markets with low competition to offer something new and build market loyalty.
• Play to your strengths and use them to create a competitive advantage.
• Diversify your channels to avoid reliance on one platform.
• Prepare for challenges and be cautious with resources when starting a business.
• Fast growth can lead to a period of intense challenges and problem-solving.
• Payment processor issues can arise for new businesses, causing cash flow problems.
• Stay persistent and communicate with payment processors to resolve issues. Cash flow is a major challenge for e-commerce businesses, and frozen funds can severely impact operations.
• Delays in production and fulfillment can lead to unhappy customers and damage the brand's reputation.
• Founder alignment is crucial for the success of a business, and open communication and vulnerability are key in resolving conflicts.
• Choosing the right third-party financial firm is important for maintaining clean books and preparing for future growth.
• Managing expenses and continuously optimizing costs is essential for sustainable growth.

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➤ Want us personally to help to grow your eCommerce business to 8 or even 9-figures? Book a call for a free audit https://www.adkings.agency/application-page

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Our Other Resources:

www.adkings.agency/memos - Our best case studies, real test results, and bi-weekly actionable insights on what is working RIGHT NOW for our clients in their journey to 8 & 9-figures. Curated for business owners, CEO's, CMO's and delivered straight to your inbox. Must join if you love our content on the podcast!

www.adkings.agency/careers - Are you living and breathing everything marketing & FB advertising? Extremely ambitious in driving tremendous results, love challenges, and want to help manage a portfolio of 7 & 8-figure eCommerce clients? Apply now.

Are networking events worth the effort? We’re discussing the benefits, our recent experiences, and the biggest takeaways we’ve gotten from our recently attended events in this episode. If you work in an agency or are an eCommerce business owner, you’ll want to know if you should or shouldn’t attend these types of events.

On this episode:

• Whether or not digital business owners should attend networking events.
• The short-term, positive effects of networking.
• When does it make the most sense to attend in-person events?
• Our recent mastermind and networking experiences.
• The biggest takeaways we’ve had from networking events this year.
• Why you should network with people at your level or higher.
• How smaller networking events facilitate better connections.
• The valuable insights you can gain from other attendees.
• Why self-improvement-oriented people will benefit from networking.
• How can these events help you find potential partners?
• Whether it’s beneficial or not to sponsor an event.
• The types of sponsors we see at networking events.

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Apply for a Discovery Call With Us:

➤ www.adkings.agency/intro - Want us personally to help to grow your eCommerce business to 8 or even 9-figures? Then check out our Boutique eCommerce Specialized Facebook Ads & Omni-channel Funnels Growth Agency - AdKings.

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Our Other Resources:

www.adkings.agency/memos - Exclusive AdKings Memos Newsletter. Our best case studies, real test results, and bi-weekly actionable insights on what is working RIGHT NOW for our clients in their journey to 8 & 9-figures. Curated for business owners, CEO's, CMO's and delivered straight to your inbox. Must join if you love our content on the podcast!

www.adkings.agency/community - Free eCommerce Community With 2000+ Members. Would love to chat, ask us some questions, or maybe even help us decide the next podcast topic? Join our free Facebook community of over 2000+ other eCom Entrepreneurs, CEO's, CMO's, and marketers.

www.adkings.agency/careers - Are you living and breathing everything marketing & FB advertising? Extremely ambitious in driving tremendous results, love challenges, and want to help manage a portfolio of 7 & 8-figure eCommerce clients? Apply now.

Ineffective meetings are a problem arising more often in our organization recently, so we’re implementing strategies to improve that. During this episode, we’re sharing how you can improve your own business by having better, more productive meetings.

On this episode:

• What makes a meeting ineffective.
• What people use meetings for versus what they should be used for.
• Why should all meetings be in one place?
• Why meeting preparation is essential.
• Where you should add more context in your meetings.
• The importance of a meeting agenda and when it should be reviewed.
• Strategies that can make meetings more streamlined and easy.
• The two defined roles in meetings.
• Why you should empower your team members to lead meetings.
• The benefit of implementing action steps to follow up a meeting.
• Why every meeting should follow up on those previous action steps.

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Apply for a Discovery Call With Us:

➤ www.adkings.agency/intro - Want us personally to help to grow your eCommerce business to 8 or even 9-figures? Then check out our Boutique eCommerce Specialized Facebook Ads & Omni-channel Funnels Growth Agency - AdKings.

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Our Other Resources:

www.adkings.agency/memos - Exclusive AdKings Memos Newsletter. Our best case studies, real test results, and bi-weekly actionable insights on what is working RIGHT NOW for our clients in their journey to 8 & 9-figures. Curated for business owners, CEO's, CMO's and delivered straight to your inbox. Must join if you love our content on the podcast!

www.adkings.agency/community - Free eCommerce Community With 2000+ Members. Would love to chat, ask us some questions, or maybe even help us decide the next podcast topic? Join our free Facebook community of over 2000+ other eCom Entrepreneurs, CEO's, CMO's, and marketers.

www.adkings.agency/careers - Are you living and breathing everything marketing & FB advertising? Extremely ambitious in driving tremendous results, love challenges, and want to help manage a portfolio of 7 & 8-figure eCommerce clients? Apply now.

An acquaintance of ours got to 16 million in revenue with only 4 people on their team. While this is a great situation to be in, there are also a lot of things that could go wrong. The growth stage is always exciting, but as quickly as a business can grow, it can also burn out. Today, we’re sharing tips on how business owners can avoid this crash and burn.

On this episode:

• A little background about the business owner in this situation.
• What we have seen happening in the industry with new competitors.
• Why it pays to think ahead.
• The next step this owner should take in his business.
• The biggest issue he is facing due to this growth.
• The benefit of having a bigger team.
• How skilled team members can help you avoid mistakes.
• How people can misrepresent themselves in the hiring process.
• Why you shouldn’t put too much on one person in your team.
• Why some businesses crash quickly.
• The benefit of putting a person or story behind your business.
• Ways you can increase your average order value.
• When you should outsource your work and utilize outside resources.
• What we’re always looking for in our agency and why.

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Apply for a Discovery Call With Us:

➤ www.adkings.agency/intro - Want us personally to help to grow your eCommerce business to 8 or even 9-figures? Then check out our Boutique eCommerce Specialized Facebook Ads & Omni-channel Funnels Growth Agency - AdKings.

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Our Other Resources:

www.adkings.agency/memos - Exclusive AdKings Memos Newsletter. Our best case studies, real test results, and bi-weekly actionable insights on what is working RIGHT NOW for our clients in their journey to 8 & 9-figures. Curated for business owners, CEO's, CMO's and delivered straight to your inbox. Must join if you love our content on the podcast!

www.adkings.agency/community - Free eCommerce Community With 2000+ Members. Would love to chat, ask us some questions, or maybe even help us decide the next podcast topic? Join our free Facebook community of over 2000+ other eCom Entrepreneurs, CEO's, CMO's, and marketers.

www.adkings.agency/careers - Are you living and breathing everything marketing & FB advertising? Extremely ambitious in driving tremendous results, love challenges, and want to help manage a portfolio of 7 & 8-figure eCommerce clients? Apply now.

In this episode we’re covering three takeaways that we’ve made in the past month at AdKings. Our perspectives on hiring have changed a lot recently, which is an aspect we’ll be focusing on heavily today.

There’s a project ongoing that we are aiming to build up to $100,000,000 a year, so you’ll hear the details on that too. Lastly, we’ll reveal why we’ve changed from being active investors in projects to being passive investors.

On this episode:

• The differing outlooks that the two of us have on projects.
• Why the approach we took to hiring our newest employee was different.
• Realizing that we shouldn’t always be pushing our personal preferences in the business.
• The reason why you need to give employees freedom.
• What do businesses that focus on sales often forget about?
• How to let go of things in your business, and how we have at AdKings.
• Letting go of your ego compared to letting go of your business.
• The decision we made regarding our new project that will cut down learning time.
• Why we’re able to work together efficiently at AdKings.
• A skill to look for in team members that is highly critical to long-term success.
• Why is it sometimes difficult to show people just how extensive marketing is?
• What will happen if you split your attention through non-passive investments.
• Why we’ve always been thinking about how to become passive investors.
• The breakthroughs we have made over the years and new ones we plan to make.
• Questions to ask business owners who are a few steps ahead of you.
• Why you need to be open to hearing solutions and implementing them.

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Apply for a Discovery Call With Us:

➤ www.adkings.agency/intro - Want us personally to help to grow your eCommerce business to 8 or even 9-figures? Then check out our Boutique eCommerce Specialized Facebook Ads & Omni-channel Funnels Growth Agency - AdKings.

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Our Other Resources:

www.adkings.agency/memos - Exclusive AdKings Memos Newsletter. Our best case studies, real test results, and bi-weekly actionable insights on what is working RIGHT NOW for our clients in their journey to 8 & 9-figures. Curated for business owners, CEO's, CMO's and delivered straight to your inbox. Must join if you love our content on the podcast!

www.adkings.agency/community - Free eCommerce Community With 2000+ Members. Would love to chat, ask us some questions, or maybe even help us decide the next podcast topic? Join our free Facebook community of over 2000+ other eCom Entrepreneurs, CEO's, CMO's, and marketers.

www.adkings.agency/careers - Are you living and breathing everything marketing & FB advertising? Extremely ambitious in driving tremendous results, love challenges, and want to help manage a portfolio of 7 & 8-figure eCommerce clients? Apply now.

We’ve got an interesting thought about how many direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands the world needs. This idea was sprouted from research I was doing as we worked to start our eCommerce brand.

Listen to the episode to learn what DTC means, what new brands need to do to see more tremendous success, and how we’re implementing some of these lessons in our own business.

On this episode:

• What is inspiring me to think outside the box?
• One of the most recent realizations about DTC brands.
• Why it can be challenging to build a successful business.
• What original direct-to-consumer brands did right.
• Examples of DTC brands that have been successful in their approach.
• How can companies get back to their direct-to-consumer roots?
• Why it’s essential to keep innovating in any industry.
• What one skincare brand is doing that’s innovative and new.
• The takeaway thought from this episode.
• How we’re implementing some of these methods at AdKings Agency.
• The results we see in the past few months of testing.

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Apply for a Discovery Call With Us:

➤ www.adkings.agency/intro - Want us personally to help to grow your eCommerce business to 8 or even 9-figures? Then check out our Boutique eCommerce Specialized Facebook Ads & Omni-channel Funnels Growth Agency - AdKings.

---

Our Other Resources:

www.adkings.agency/memos - Exclusive AdKings Memos Newsletter. Our best case studies, real test results, and bi-weekly actionable insights on what is working RIGHT NOW for our clients in their journey to 8 & 9-figures. Curated for business owners, CEO's, CMO's and delivered straight to your inbox. Must join if you love our content on the podcast!

www.adkings.agency/community - Free eCommerce Community With 2000+ Members. Would love to chat, ask us some questions, or maybe even help us decide the next podcast topic? Join our free Facebook community of over 2000+ other eCom Entrepreneurs, CEO's, CMO's, and marketers.

www.adkings.agency/careers - Are you living and breathing everything marketing & FB advertising? Extremely ambitious in driving tremendous results, love challenges, and want to help manage a portfolio of 7 & 8-figure eCommerce clients? Apply now.

We have been considering getting venture capital ourselves lately, so in this episode we’re sharing all of the different pros and cons that we have found. There’s a lot to think about when deciding if looking for funding makes sense for your business or not.

On this episode:

• The biggest benefit of venture capital.
• How hiring A-level players can support your business goals.
• How does venture capital influence your growth goals and milestones?
• What you can do to inflate your business evaluation.
• Why you shouldn’t rely on getting connections and support when you receive money.
• The impact that bureaucracy can have on your business.
• What should you keep in mind when considering venture capital funds?
• What businesses may expect to continue funding you.
• What to be thinking about if you want to get into the venture capital game.
• Why you need to have big ambitions to seek out venture capital.
• The type of product that entices other businesses to invest.
• Why you need to think about your exit if you’re considering raising money.

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Apply for a Discovery Call With Us:

➤ www.adkings.agency/intro - Want us personally to help to grow your eCommerce business to 8 or even 9-figures? Then check out our Boutique eCommerce Specialized Facebook Ads & Omni-channel Funnels Growth Agency - AdKings.

---

Our Other Resources:

www.adkings.agency/memos - Exclusive AdKings Memos Newsletter. Our best case studies, real test results, and bi-weekly actionable insights on what is working RIGHT NOW for our clients in their journey to 8 & 9-figures. Curated for business owners, CEO's, CMO's and delivered straight to your inbox. Must join if you love our content on the podcast!

www.adkings.agency/community - Free eCommerce Community With 2000+ Members. Would love to chat, ask us some questions, or maybe even help us decide the next podcast topic? Join our free Facebook community of over 2000+ other eCom Entrepreneurs, CEO's, CMO's, and marketers.

www.adkings.agency/careers - Are you living and breathing everything marketing & FB advertising? Extremely ambitious in driving tremendous results, love challenges, and want to help manage a portfolio of 7 & 8-figure eCommerce clients? Apply now.

When you’re growing a business, you inevitably reach a point where you hit a plateau or the business becomes stagnant. When this happens, you may be wondering why this is happening and what you can do about it. Having a mentor and knowing the right questions to ask is the solution. Their wisdom and support can help you to continue to grow your business.

On this episode:

• How hitting a bottleneck in your business is inevitable.
• Why you need mentors if you don’t already have them.
• How many mentors should you have?
• The number-one question you should ask your mentors.
• Why this question produces the most helpful answer.
• What your mentors have that you may not (but can benefit from).
• Commonalities you may see among your own mentors.
• Where we are in terms of growth right now at AdKings.
• The response we got when we asked our mentors this question.
• How this next level of thinking influenced our vision for the business.
• What we’re doing in our private coaching group.

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Apply for a Discovery Call With Us:

➤ www.adkings.agency/intro - Want us personally to help to grow your eCommerce business to 8 or even 9-figures? Then check out our Boutique eCommerce Specialized Facebook Ads & Omni-channel Funnels Growth Agency - AdKings.

---

Our Other Resources:

www.adkings.agency/memos - Exclusive AdKings Memos Newsletter. Our best case studies, real test results, and bi-weekly actionable insights on what is working RIGHT NOW for our clients in their journey to 8 & 9-figures. Curated for business owners, CEO's, CMO's and delivered straight to your inbox. Must join if you love our content on the podcast!

www.adkings.agency/community - Free eCommerce Community With 2000+ Members. Would love to chat, ask us some questions, or maybe even help us decide the next podcast topic? Join our free Facebook community of over 2000+ other eCom Entrepreneurs, CEO's, CMO's, and marketers.

www.adkings.agency/careers - Are you living and breathing everything marketing & FB advertising? Extremely ambitious in driving tremendous results, love challenges, and want to help manage a portfolio of 7 & 8-figure eCommerce clients? Apply now.