afternoon Christmas almost upon us and if you're looking for some last minute gifts when it comes to reading well let's find out what's popular for Christmas what's popular at this Christmas in the best-sellers list and in particular in bookmark which you'll find it at the Kenny shopping center because Mark Bonshu has joined me now in the studio. Mark thanks for coming in first of all. Good to see you. So popular books great idea for a gift of Christmas obviously because it's almost like a fragrance because you second guess what somebody might like and then you get them you know either a fragrance or in this case a book and with books you know there's so many different genres and and types and writers there is bound to be something to fit. There is and it's a very personal gift as well you know it's something that you have to think about before you yes you know to buy for somebody so absolutely it's a very very popular gift and you can even and make it more personally if you want to put a wee inscription on the inside yes absolutely okay so let's go straight to the popular ones for Christmas because and you know not everybody's aware of what's out there and then just sort of land in sometimes I find a land into a shop and I'm looking around at what's laid out there and you're looking at you know recommendations and stuff rather than having done the homework beforehand so hopefully we'll help to that end a bit so what's what's selling well what's popular this Christmas well Matthew Perry obviously he passed away recently yes his book is it's a really really good read both from a showbiz perspective people are friends friends friends but also he talks about his drug addiction quite a bit which was ultimately led to his demise he was always very open about it yeah nothing that's one of the reasons he was so popular yeah and he struggled he struggled all the way through his career with it you know so he didn't friends lovers and the big terrible thing yeah great title okay so that's that's obviously selling well and popular what else have we got yeah there's a book Katrina Sullivan it's called poor it's really really interesting one I've just started reading it there she was this girl was born to parents of they were both her own addicts born in Birmingham and then she moved to Ireland when she's older they're both Irish parents terrible tough upbringing incredibly tough incredibly tough and it's really well written so alcoholism in there there's drug abuse and she was pregnant herself when she was 15 yeah right yeah and but but she overcame yeah and she's now a professor of psychology at Manuthi University she got her degree in Trinity and she's moved over here now so it is an it's an incredible story of triumph really is it against the odds and well the sort of book sales I suppose well at any time of the year but a particularly a Christmas you know we love stories with a happy ending Katrina Sullivan is called to poor great courage and the life-changing value of self-belief and yeah it's been getting great reviews and it's selling well it says you're the number one bestseller so yeah it's so well written is the one part of it but the other side of it then is obviously she's got into you know what we need to do to try and fix this for future generations and so on so it's a it's quite uplifting in the end goes beyond her story yeah very much so very much okay brilliant want to look out for from Katrina Sullivan and then we've got Marie Cassidy so she's the former state pathologist and she wrote her memoirs a couple years ago and they sold very well this is her first thriller and it's about a pathologist so it's a work of fiction it's a work of fiction fast-paced thriller but it is it's rooted in her expertise so so it's very very accurate and how they solve crimes basically how their job is effectively to solve crimes which is able to dip into her own well wealth of knowledge she's the state pathologist for for years even though it is a work of fiction and body of truth can a great title yeah yeah and it's very well written I've been reading it there yesterday and today it's actually really well written it's I think it'll be I think it's a good book by line says in the hunt for a killer the scars of death that don't lie okay Marie Cassidy with their first and I would imagine won't be our last work of fiction yeah it'll be quite interesting because it's right up there in the bestseller charts so it'll be quite interesting to see how it's received overall this is one that it's it's my height my height life it's an incredible it's incredible that this is in the bestseller's a Christmas it normally a book like this would sell in the summer and would be a you know you just have a small following really for this sort of book but it's it's right up the top the bestseller charts it's written by Rosanna Purcell and influencer model but I suppose above all now a real outdoor enthusiast yeah yeah very much so so it goes through 50 hikes around Ireland and grading how easy they are how difficult they are how to prepare for them you know and there's one I was looking at you've Mokish and you've Mount Arigal and you've great all those ones here as well she hasn't forgotten Donnie Gull no no no she hasn't good good and it's really well illustrated as well this absolutely all the details you would want if you decide to go on one of the walks and she's beautifully illustrated in that there's some beautiful photographs as well and given that she's such a presence of social media you'd expect I suppose the photographs to be good because she's well used to them for the most part it seems like she's out doing these walks on her own and she outlines as well the benefits of just getting out into the outdoors for our mental and physical well-being yeah absolutely absolutely and it's a great family activity you know particularly this time there where everybody's indoors for yeah called a hike life my 50 favorite hikes in Ireland from Rosanna Purcell yeah and then we've got some biographies here Liam Brady born to be a footballer well sporting biographies always tend to do well this time of year they're always a great gift for us yeah yeah and and Liam Brady's well we had the we had the TV documentary which is on I think earlier in the year that's right and now the book yeah and it's again it's very well written book really about his personal stories through all effectively Irish football history I mean he's a he's been there all the way through for for our lifetimes really no he has is he was attached to the Republic of Ireland squad as a player and then I think maybe as a coach but also over at Arsenal as a coach as the Academy he was he was one of the I think maybe one of the founders of the Academy yeah he set up the Academy system yeah completely upgraded it he took it into the modern era yeah there you go so we're falling behind so it was a great story to tell and not just playing in in England with with Arsenal but also then I moved to Italy and played with the event isn't and had a great career in Italy and obviously it's time with the Republic of Ireland and for those remember Liam Brady it's just an incredible footballer yeah but it's a very accessible book as well it's very well written you know it's and it's very easy to read so well the cream always rises to the top so there's plenty of sporting books out but it's the ones that are well written despite what kind of a story they have to tell yeah and given and given their own personal experience as opposed to just you know the facts of you know which a lot of biographies tend to be that okay no we like to get you know the stuff behind the scenes yeah yeah absolutely that's Liam Brady born to be a footballer my autobiography yeah we got Billy Conley here rambling man great and that's it that's a great book for somebody who doesn't read much because it's all short anecdotes two or three pages each of all of his life's traveling around the world and all the experiences he had through the whole lot so it's it's a really good one that you can put down and pick up again it's not in chronological order you don't need to worry about remembering any of the facts it's something you can just pick up for 10 minutes and then put it down again for a month and pick it up again so it's a really nice one for somebody who doesn't read that much or would like to get into reading totally totally yeah but I like you know even I'm stuck into a fairly meaty book I like it when it's broken up into short chapters yeah yeah I think it's just you know it helps me anyhow to digest it I'm just looking some of the photographs here and his travels he was great traveler as well I don't know if he travels much anymore but it's just a great traveler yeah he's in his 80s now and he's actually written the book you know he's just written the book in his 80s so he's still there you go still delivering okay Billy Conley rambling man my life on the road and if anybody can tell a good story it's Billy yeah and then we've got Kami Chris Kamara who never really made it famous as a footballer but what is much much loved as a pundit and great font really really good fun that guy and sadly then was diagnosed with I'm just reading the back of the book here and apraxia this is a rare brain condition that affects speech and he found that he was struggling to speak when he was live on on TV yeah and he was tripping all the time as well yeah and he went public with the news and and as you know brought a lot of people and give him a lot of people an insight and comfort from the fact that he has gone has gone public with it but it says my unbelievable life and again it'll bring us behind the scenes very much so very much so and he's great fun he's he's you know he's great fun you tell that from his time and it's kind of interspersed with the you know the stories about how his illness has affected him as well but it's very much the lighthearted side of just having fun just to know how to have fun in your life I suppose yeah yeah and some of the report there's a very famous clip about ascending off that's right I didn't even know that it happened and then it's very very funny and yeah it's called a cami written by Chris Kimara yeah and then I brought in Britney Spears one because it's a book that usually popular absolutely it's right up the top the best sellers but it's a lot of people who never would never read any other book will read that one so if there's somebody that you want to give a gift to that might get into reading that's particularly for a daughter it's a it's a really interesting book and a good story as well you know again someone who's overcome a lot in her life and and you know you're right or off at your peril and we're chatting earlier about Katrina O'Sullivan entirely different sort of a background here and upbringing but but a woman who had overcome a lot in young life in particular yeah and then she was thrust into the spotlight at a very young age and was one of the most famous women in the world at that time absolutely and has outlined a lot of her well there are more recent problems as well in the book and the conservative house pronounce a conservatorship that she had to go through as well and she's at the other side now but it's called anyhow the woman in me from Britney Spears yeah and then the last two were if I came to you any year in the last five years these are the two David Williams and Diary Wimpy kid have been the most popular books for sort of eight to eight to twelve year olds I was the last for every single year I was looking through and kids books kids books again at Christmas very popular and these are the two that and it was a long list but these are the two that jumped out of those two and the Guinness Book of Records they're just number one two and three every single year for just it's incredible absolutely incredible it's an easy gift because it's got such broad appeal yeah yeah and I think parents who want their kids to get into reading it's a really again it's one the kid can open it up and close it again and you know that sort of thing it's it's a nice one to have around in the house yeah sitting in the bathroom and it's gone for it's gone for 60 years now at the stage wow wow but the Diary of a Wimpy kid no-brainer and David Williams latest one the blunders it's called and very accessible very very easy to read easy for kids to get into and enjoy and the great thing is if they get into that book then there's all the back catalog what happens to happen is they read one and then they start buying the other ones you know so they get into reading that way you know because they're very well written books absolutely absolutely well plenty to choose from there and that's and that's just in a way that's just the the tip of the iceberg because it's just when you're standing at the book shelves that you realize just the well the number of great Irish writers that we have a number of great books that are out there and as you mentioned earlier you know a book always makes a great gift of Christmas absolutely absolutely okay Mark and thank you very much for that and a very happy Christmas to you and thank you John happy Christmas to you around the North


Hey what's going on guys, welcome to a new video. So in this one then I want to share with you the seven biggest reasons why I see beginners failing at drop shipping. Since I started posting videos then about Shopify and drop shipping of Facebook ads, et cetera on YouTube, I get to talk to quite a lot of people on a daily basis about what they're currently doing. Usually people will reach out and send me a message when something's going wrong and it'll be a question on how to fix it or they'll ask me something like what am I doing wrong? Can you have a look at my store, et cetera? So what I wanted to do then was collate all the biggest reasons I see people failing, go through them in this video, how to solve them to ultimately help you guys out then so you don't make the same mistakes and you find a bit more success in 2020. As it says there on the screen then at the bottom, this keynote will be downloadable, it's 100% free then, it won't cost you any money. So if you do want to get your own copy to make your own notes or come back for reference, you can do so. Just check out, it'll be the first link in the description below. Before jumping to slide number one then, if you enjoyed the video at any point, please do make sure you hit that like button. I do upload four to five times per week as well. So for weekly training on this sort of thing, please do make sure you subscribe. And of course, I do read every single comment too. So if there is a question you want to ask me, leave it down in the comment section down below and I will answer it. With that being said then, thanks for tuning in and let's get into reason number one. So one of the biggest reasons I see people failing, one of the biggest reasons why people lose so much money in fact, is because they don't get any feedback on their store before they start running marketing campaigns. Whether it's Instagram, whether it's Facebook, whether it's Google, it doesn't matter. If you have a crappy store, a poor store that looks a bit dodgy or hasn't got the required information or there's spelling mistakes or Chinese references, whatever it is, it doesn't matter how many people you drive to your store, it could be 10,000 people, it could be 10 million. If your store doesn't come across as trustworthy then you're going to get zero fails. And this is the number one reason why I see people failing. The first thing I'll do when somebody sends me a message on Instagram saying that they're not very profitable or they're not getting any sales. And the first thing I'll ask them is to send me their store link because it doesn't matter. You could send 10 million people, 10,000 people, the number doesn't matter. If you haven't got a very decent store, if it's not trustworthy, it doesn't have the correct information, then you're going to get zero sales. So where do you get feedback on your store then? If you don't have many people to talk to or anybody that you're working with, there are a few places in which you can go. Number one is to certain Facebook groups. For example, I run a Shopify group on Facebook. It's free to join. There's a link in the description below. And I freely let people post their stores in that page. To get feedback on it. And it's a pretty decent bunch of people too. And you do usually get some pretty good, genuine feedback. So that's one place to go. Number two is to ask your friends and family.  So for example, then if you show your mom the chances are she's never gonna say a bad word about you and she'll say it's really good, even though it might look like rubbish. So just try and get some fair feedback on your actual store. Number three is you could just run some ads.  So they're the perfect people to get that feedback from. Kind of like a side tip off the back of what I've just said is that when you're running ads regardless, if you're trying to get purchases, et cetera, always be engaging with your customers and ask them what they think about the products, et cetera. There's no better feedback about anything than the people you're trying to sell it to. And then the fourth and final thing is forums. If you're part of certain forums, you might have space or you might have time to post it in there and ask people for their feedback. And then the fifth one against a shameless plug is you could join my Ecom Academy. Everybody who joins does get a free store review just as a way for me to check it over. Make sure everything looks good before you start spending money on ads. Like I said, you could spend 10 grand on ads but if your store doesn't look very good, you're not gonna make any sales. Moving on to number two then is no social proof. Now this is something you won't hear many people talk about, but it's really, really important. For the following reasons really, is your ads are essentially the first impression when you meet somebody. So when you meet a stranger, the first impression, they tend to make their mind up about you. Something like in the first four seconds and it's the same with your ads.  So it's really important then that you build that social proof if you have the budget to do it. Now it is optional, but the more social proof you'll have, the better your ads are gonna convert. It's a fact. So that's not just me saying that. People follow people at the end of the day. Just to give you an example, then there's two ads here for the exact same product. It's for this anxiety bed. Does your dog suffer from separation anxiety? And then these guys kind of word it in a different way, essentially it's the same thing. This ad over here has six reactions, five comments. This one over here has 40,000 reactions and nearly 10,000 comments. Which one do you think people are gonna trust more? It's gonna be the one with the most engagement because it comes across as trustworthy. If more people have seen it, more people are likely to trust it. So methods to build social proof then. How do you actually go about doing it? Number one is you can run page likes campaigns. That is an actual marketing campaign objective you can set up in Facebook. And a good kind of ad set then will be able to achieve page likes for about 10p, 10 cents. So if you just dedicate $100 for example, then you can get 1,000 likes if my maths is correct. Number two is engagement campaigns. You can get engagements for about penny, sometimes less depending on the ad obviously. So it's a really cheap way to build up engagement super quickly. Number three is just make sure you use the same post ID for every single ad. I've done a video on this topic before, but it's a way of just kind of collating and compounding all the engagement you get into one single ad. In the beginning with small budgets, it's an absolute must in my opinion. Number four is you can buy followers on Instagram. Again, if somebody goes onto your Instagram page and you've got like three followers versus say 10,000, 10,000 followers I believe will cost you about $50. But in my opinion, it will make a huge difference. So if you've got the budget to do it, then by all means I would recommend it. Finally then, if you haven't got the budget to do it, that's absolutely fine. Just make sure you explain it to your customers because they won't necessarily have, they won't put two and two together unless you tell them. So for example, then with this ad here, what the company or the page running this should do is the first comment should be, we are a new business. Any questions at all, please do let us know. And then at least that way people know they're a new business and won't expect to see the big numbers that they might see from another company. Moving on to point number three then is unrealistic expectations. Too many people are impatient. They try and go naught to, they try and do six figures in their first month which is just crazy unrealistic. Now I'm not saying it's not possible, it is. But what I'm saying then is that the majority of the people won't see those kind of results. Please, please, please don't be disheartened if you don't do say 10K in your first month. It's completely normal. If you try and do things too quickly, you're only gonna end up wasting a lot of money. It's gonna lead you to being disheartened and it's gonna lead you to giving up essentially. So my advice then would be to focus on learning and testing for the first three months and you don't have to spend very much just enough to kind of get to grips with things and just ease yourself in slowly. So these screenshots here then if you're wondering where they're from, these are the first four months of me being involved with dropshipping. My first month I did 360 pounds, 1200, three and a half grand and then that fourth month shot up all the way up to just under 20 grand. Now if I was like most people and because I weren't seeing very good results in the first three months I weren't very profitable, I might have given up say after the second month or even after the third month and then I wouldn't have been able to achieve that fourth month which is that essentially that one month sent me up to have enough money in my bank account to quit my job and start doing dropshipping full time. So you never know when you're gonna be on the brink of that one product that really can make all the difference. So be patient and don't have unrealistic expectations. And another side note on top of that is don't believe everything you see on social media. Moving on to the next one then is poor content on pages. So this is a really quick one but a really important one and the amount of people I see fail because of this or it's one of the things that contributes towards that failure. And as it says here then your pages add your first impression as well. So the amount of people who will go from your ad to your Facebook page to check you out, see what you're all about basically and see if they can actually trust you. It'll be a lot of people. So if you haven't got a good Facebook page or good Instagram page, it's gonna let you down tremendously. So what you wanna do then is just make sure the last few pieces of content, half a dozen pieces of content isn't a lot to come up with and post on your page but make sure it's valuable content that people will want to follow. People will want to like your page as a result and ultimately it'll make them trust you and more likely to buy from you. So essentially give people a reason to like your page and want to follow you. As it says here then kind of a side note, organic traffic is king. The only reason you have to run a Facebook ads is because your store wouldn't get any traffic otherwise. Whereas if you had a really good social media, Facebook page and Instagram page that had say 100,000 followers on each, a single organic post would bring in some customers. So give people a reason to want to follow you and stay with you. Don't just focus on that one sale per customer. So in terms of the content, you can post on your pages. Number one is memes. Memes are funny, they get people laughing, they get people smiling, they get people engaging, sharing with their friends and people will want to stick around to see the next one that you post. Number two, competitions. Again, everybody loves a freebie to give people the opportunity if you run and make it public that you're gonna do weekly competitions. Then again, it gives people a reason to stick with you and follow your page essentially. Number three is blog posts. So for example, then if you're in the kitchen niche, you could post links to some blog posts that go through certain recipes. And then within that recipe, you can have upsells that link to the products you're trying to sell. So it's a much softer way of selling and it's a good way of getting people wanting to follow you. Point number four is reviews. Again, it comes back to the whole social proof thing. If somebody comes onto your page and they see loads of different reviews from previous customers, that is a good sign because it will show that people can trust you because there's been preexisting customers. And then the final thing is discount codes and vouchers. Again, like I said, everybody loves a freebie given the reason to stick around on the chat so they can win some sort of discount or even free voucher is a good enough reason for them to want to stick around. As an example then of this screenshot as you can see here, these, this is not what you want. When people come onto your Facebook page, if the last two posts are you updated your profile or you update your cover photo, then that doesn't give a customer any reason whatsoever to want to stick around or for them to trust you either. So put some quality content on your social media platforms. Number five is borrowing and rubbish products. Again, another popular reason I see people failing is they just go for the most boring, bland and cheap pieces of rubbish that people just don't want to buy anymore. So to go through the notes then, Facebook survives on content. If Facebook didn't have content, if there was no content on Facebook, then nobody would use it. So what that means then is that you're not only in competition with other advertisers, advertising in the same space as you, but you're competing with meme pages because they're going to be on the same news feed. You're competing with their friends because their friends are going to be posting on their news feed, other apps, apps on their phone that might send them a notification that distracts them. So essentially you're competing for the customer's attention and boring, cheap, crappy products will not get that attention and you will not succeed. As an example then of a good, interesting product versus a boring, cheap, crappy one. And we have this rocket spaceship night lamp here, which is pretty cool in my opinion. In fact, I think I'm going to buy one of these myself from my office. And then we have this skipping rope here. Everybody's seen a skipping rope. They're really cheap. There's nothing really exciting or new about a skipping rope. So which one of these two products do you think is going to get the most attention or grab a customer's attention on Facebook? It's going to be this one here. As a couple of kind of side notes then, go for interesting, high quality products that you can sell for 30 pounds plus. Probably because Facebook ad CPAs are increasing. So the more room you have to account for that, then the better off you're going to be, the more profitable you're going to be, et cetera. Moving on to the next point then, the last couple now is not legit. The amount of shady people that I see running stores, it's the reason unfortunately, why Dropship has got a bad name, but if you stay legit, there's no reason why you can't run a consistent, profitable and sustainable business in the long term. So if you're not operating legit, if that makes sense, then your time will be limited. So IE, it's going to catch up to you in the end either Shopify going to ban you. That's usually like the last resort, but most likely then either your Facebook account is going to get banned or PayPal are going to hold your funds. You've seen it many times before. And the only times it happened is when people aren't being legit and aren't running a legitimate business essentially. So how to avoid getting banned then? Number one, register your business, do everything properly from the beginning. Number two, have a business address and telephone number. This will also help with social proof. The amount of stores I see that don't have an actual physical address or a phone number, a customer coming on that sees that, it looks shady. Like if they don't know where to go or they don't see somewhere having a premises or somebody they can ring with if in case they have a problem, then it looks shady and people aren't going to trust you. Number three is treat customers fairly. If something's going to take double the quoted delivery time or it arrives broken, whatever it is, treat customers fairly, treat them within the law, give them their money back because ultimately what's going to happen is they're going to report you to PayPal. They're going to report you to Facebook. And again, it's just going to result in you getting banned or they'll just go on all your social media pages and post that you're a scam and that will scare off any future potential customers as well. Don't sell trademarks or illegal products. Now you would think that that's pretty straightforward but the amount of people I see selling fake Yeezys or fake Gucci or fake Supreme. And then they send me a message saying my Facebook ad account's been banned. How do I get it unbanned? Just a bit of common sense I guess. Next point is stick to the Facebook ad policy. Just Google it, it will take you straight to it. And it's not a lot to read but once you have read it you'll know exactly what products you can and can't advertise. And then finally create your own content. Again, you can get away with it for a certain amount of time but if the original content creator finds out that what you're doing, they're going to report you to Facebook. You're going to receive a cease and desist. And both of those things are something you don't want to get involved in. Moving on to the seventh and final point guys if you're still watching with me, thank you very much. I really do appreciate all the people who watch the videos all the way through. Anyway, again, another biggie. This is something that I see honestly about 90% of people not doing. They have no budget or financial plan.   I'm for the following reasons really. Number one is so you know if you're actually operating on a profit or not. The amount of people I speak to that will switch ads off or they'll try and scale ads that they think are profitable or switch ads off that they think aren't profitable then it turns out they are. You're just losing money. You're literally just throwing money in the toilet and then flushing it down the drain. Point number two is so you don't end up committing more and more money to something that is a sinking ship. If you set yourself a budget of say a thousand pounds and you're testing a product and you're 300 pounds into that, that's 30% of your budget gone and it will force you to budget a bit more cautiously, spend your money a bit more wisely and ultimately it's gonna help you be more successful. And as it says there, as I've already mentioned it will force you to spend it conservatively. I've just given you an example then of how I used to do things. This is a screenshot from the profit and loss spreadsheet and that I used to use.  There's just so many advantages to truly knowing how much money you have to play with. With that being said then guys thanks very much for watching. I really do appreciate the support with the channel. I can't wait to see what we do in 2020. If you want more content then outside of YouTube please click the link if you do download this keynote or head over to my Instagram page. There are some free e-books as well in the video description below. So check those out, there's five different ones, each one on a different aspects of your business. And then if you do want a step by step video course that also includes the support of other members and myself, please do check out my e-com academy too. Again, there will be a link in the description down below. With that being said guys thanks again for watching. I hope you enjoyed the video and I'll see you in the next one.