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The LFG Show
How Brands And Creators Actually Sell On TikTok Shop With Carmen Muley
Ever wonder why some TikTok Lives feel like a party and a checkout line at the same time? That’s not luck, it’s engineered.
We sit down with Carmen Muley, CEO of Paragon Social Commerce, to unpack how creators and brands move from nice content to content that actually converts. Carmen’s path runs from China’s 2015 live streaming studios to today’s TikTok Shop surge across Spain, Germany, and the UK, and she brings an operator-level playbook for anyone who wants sales, not just views.
We get tactical on what’s working right now:
- How to write clear creator briefs that define the buyer, the angles that matter, and what actually sells
- Live formats that win, including fast demos, proof, price framing, and resetting the hook every few minutes for new viewers
- Marketplace mechanics like commissions, product showcases, and why a simple setup with consistency beats big-budget production
- How to start going live with products you already own, secure your first sales, and use that traction to earn samples and brand deals
Product selection gets its own spotlight. Carmen shares how tools like Kalodata and Fastmoss help spot trends early, plus surprising winners like olive oil, umbrellas, and seasonal Spanish ham alongside evergreen staples such as fashion, beauty, and small electronics.
We also dig into the biggest brand mistakes:
- Skipping strategy
- Expecting instant results
- Failing to brief creators or briefing them poorly
Carmen ties it together with how Paragon Social Commerce supports TikTok Shop end to end, including setup, catalog and pricing, live operations, affiliate management, ads, and team training, all built on constant testing, not theory.
If you’re ready to turn attention into revenue on TikTok Shop, this conversation gives you the blueprint: brief clearly, go live often, test angles, and let data train your growth.
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SPEAKER_02:Dave, don't worry, I got this. Bangkok, Thailand, affiliate world. I am with Carmen Moulet, CEO and founder of Paragon Social Commerce. Did I get that right? Yeah. Oh my gosh, what a ton twister. And we actually just met, so I found that out about you. All right. You said you were in Italy, then you said you were in China. I said, okay, so you're Italian? You said, no, I'm Spanish. And I figured that out because you said Carmen. Right? The R started rolling, right? Carmen, pleasure to have you on the show.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you very much for having me.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you for flying all the way to Thailand just to see us.
SPEAKER_00:I know, right?
SPEAKER_02:Actually, you spoke on stage today. Tell the people a little bit about what you spoke about, what you do, what does Paragon Social Commerce do? Let's get into it.
SPEAKER_00:All right. So, well, you already said it. I'm Carmen Moulet, founder and CEO of Paragon Social Commerce. And I own a social commerce agency that basically helps brands sell more through social media. And among those social media, we have TikTok and TikTok shop. And so we are TikTok Shop partners. And we're partners in Spain, in Germany, and in the UK. And basically, we help launch and scale brands on the platform as well. Today, I've been talking on stage about content, like what is the content that you need to create in order to make sales on TikTok Shop? Because obviously you can create lots of types of content, but not all types of content are going to convert. So we always need to think about how we're going to create content that actually is going to get us that sale. And that was it. That's that's what I shared today on stage, how you create those videos to get like the GMB like coming to your I imagine you have to know your audience, right?
SPEAKER_02:Like that's a big part of uh figuring out what you need to create, is knowing who you're creating for. And you talk about that a little bit.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. So when you are on TikTok shop, you're basically selling products. So you need to know who you're selling those products to. What are the problems that the people that you're selling the product to have? And so the product that you have is the solution. So you need to think of the different selling angles in order to sell those products. Does it make sense?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely. Um is this your first time speaking?
SPEAKER_00:No, this is my third time actually. The first time was at Affiliate World Europe in Barcelona in 2023. And then this um, like the last time was in Budapest also this year. And each and every time just talking about TikTok shop.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I mean, affiliate world, every time after the show, they're like, you know, scan the code if you like the speaker so we can bring them back. So obviously, people are getting some value out of it. What has the response been like when you get off stage? Are you rushed with people? Uh I know I know that happens to a lot of people. So is that is that overwhelming? Like, how talk about that response?
SPEAKER_00:Actually, I I do think people like my talks because they do come to me and they tell me that they enjoy what I shared, that they learned from me. Then they also follow me on social media. They share like some pictures and snippets of what I spoke. And um, yeah, I think it's really nice because I also get to like just connect with the people who came to see what I had to share. So I think that's really, really nice. And then the first time that I spoke, as I mentioned, was in Barcelona in 2023. And I got voted as one of the like best-rated speakers at the affiliate world that year. So yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So make sure you go on the affiliate world website and make sure you go and check 2023.
SPEAKER_00:2023, 2023.
SPEAKER_02:2023, Barcelona, right? And go check out that speech. So what did that do for your business? What did that do for your business in 2023? And did it did it take you to another level? Did it open up the doors, you know, that helped, you know?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. So at that point, TikTok shop was just starting out. So I was also a pioneer in the field and just being able to share a little bit of the platform and how it works and everything was really, I would say, interesting for everybody because at that time it wasn't even open in the US. It had just open in the UK. So yeah, it was really good to like connect with brands and also affiliates. They had lots of questions of like, okay, how do I actually create content? How do I sell the products for the brands? How does this whole thing work? And then from there with just been growing. Because as I mentioned, at that time, I was moment zero of TikTok shop. And now we've been like three years in.
SPEAKER_02:We talked briefly, you had some experience before. So although you were a pioneer and it was new and fresh to everybody else, you've kind of already done this before. Talk about some of the things that you've done and how did that help you transfer over to TikTok?
SPEAKER_00:So, as I mentioned before, I started in China back back in 2015.
SPEAKER_02:What brought you to China first? Why China? And I love I love Asia. 26 hours. I mean, this is great. I don't know if I'll be back, but you know, the why China?
SPEAKER_00:So actually, I was studying at university, and I so I had the chance to like go and exchange for a year, and I had the chance to go to China. That's how everything started. And I was like, okay, so I can choose many places to go to, but the most different one is actually China. And you know, like you can just go to Europe, pretty much everywhere is the same. Like we're all very similar. Countries are very similar, people are very dissimilar. So it's like, no, if I'm gonna go, I want to like try something different, something completely new. And then I was like, okay, China. And so I went there and then ended up staying for seven years.
SPEAKER_02:Oh wow. And then back into you got to China, what started to happen?
SPEAKER_00:So I got to China.
SPEAKER_02:What were you studying? What were you studying to?
SPEAKER_00:So I studied business and law. I have a double degree. And in China, I was I was doing my exchange on business. And so while I was doing my exchange, I met some Chinese people and I was doing like some part-time jobs. And I got to like, so I had this friend that told me, Hey Carmen, you know, like I've heard about this thing. What do you think? Come to the studios. And I was like, oh, what do you mean? Like the studio and like live streaming, what is that? It was so like strange, you know. Like the first time that that I actually went to the studio, I saw everything that was happening.
SPEAKER_02:And this is 2015. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I was like, okay, so you guys want me to go in front of the camera for four hours and just do whatever, like entertain people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, okay, could be interesting. I'm gonna do it. And so I was thinking to myself, I'm gonna do it. But like who's actually gonna care about this? Like just watching me do whatever thing. Well, there were lots of people tuning in every single day. And I was just there like four hours talking in Spanish, in English, not in Chinese, because at that time I was not able to speak Chinese, and I could see like the chat was mostly in Chinese as well, so it was a little bit confusing. It was a little bit also like um, so it was not live shopping how we know it today. It was just like donations. And um, yeah, then after that, I was in 2016 one of the hosts for the first ever live shopping show for AliExpress for Spain and Latin America. And that one already was still in China or yeah, that was in China, yeah. That was um live shopping, but not as we know it today, because right now, as as of today, the technology allows us to like interact and like to like see the comments, talk to people, and you know, like make the sale ourselves. But at that time, we had to act things out, and we had the coupons and everything we would mention, like, hey, you know, you can get this discount, this and that. But there was a whole other team taking care of everything that was happening during the live streaming, like the chat, the comments, and everything. So things have evolved a lot. And right now, like technology, as I mentioned, allows us to do so many other things. And so from there, like the next step for me was to create an e-commerce brand. I was doing live streaming on Instagram. On Instagram, you cannot purchase directly, you could like send a link. Yeah. But it would be just directly to your e-commer store, so it's not really live shopping. Then launch um live shopping marketplace as well. So I've seen like pretty much all the different angles. And then a little bit after that, I was a CEO of uh an agency in the UK that focused only on live shopping social commerce and TikTok shop. And that's the year when TikTok shop launched, and I was like, oh, this is perfect because I already had the knowledge about all this. This is already established in China. I have the knowledge, and now it's coming to Europe. So it's like, okay, let's just start implementing it. And that's how I I got into it, like the whole trajectory.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's as wild. Uh a lot of people I talked to um this weekend it's been a lot about angles. I keep hearing that that seems to be like the popular thing. But seeing something on the other side of the fence and then being able to connect dots here and there to bring some, you know, ultimately to make something, you know, bigger than what you'd imagine. I mean, TikTok shop now is, you know, everybody's doing it, people are getting more familiar with it, but you were in front of a camera selling nothing, making money. So if you can get in front of a camera selling nothing and make money, like you're, you know, you've already got you, why not? You keep going.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and the thing is, if you want to do live streaming, you need to like be good with the camera. Like you need to actually enjoy it. And, you know, that's I would say that's also not for everybody. There are many people that are camera shy. So if you're a camera shy, you're probably not gonna be able to connect that much with the audience. So yeah, I I have that thing and I enjoy like being in front of the camera selling. The other day with the agency, we did a 12-hour live stream non-stop, and it was fun. That's the method also that I use to train somebody that works with me. We made sales on TikTok shop as well.
SPEAKER_02:So what is the future you think of TikTok shop? What's something that's maybe coming out, or you see different things happening where you know people need to look out for?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so the first thing is that it's still very new. Like they're still opening many markets here in Europe. TikTok shop's been open in Spain for one year now, just one year. And then Germany, Italy, France Germany, yeah, Germany, Italy, France, it's been open for about seven months, and then the rest of Europe is not open yet. So it still needs to keep growing and developing. And I just see how, well, actually there's a big learning curve for consumers, for brands. They don't really get it. They don't really know how it works. But yeah, we're getting there.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I don't know how it works. I I get on my TikTok and all of a sudden it's like watch live now, and some like random person's there on my feed. I'm like, you know. And you see the product they Yeah, it's like, what are we doing here? Like a lot of the stuff. Okay, I'm swipe, swipe, swipe. But what what do you have to say, people besides lack of energy or just not being good in front of a camera? What are some other things or obstacles that people have where they're, you know, they're messing up and not being able to kind of crack TikTok live shop?
SPEAKER_00:In terms of like creators or brands?
SPEAKER_02:I start with creators.
SPEAKER_00:I would say creators, they don't know how to sell the product. Like at least what happens in Spain or in Europe in general is that all creators think that they just need to create beautiful content, but TikTok shop is another thing. You are advertising a product, so you need to create content that's like you want to sell. It's not about how beautiful your content is. You want to sell. So many creators don't know how to do that yet.
SPEAKER_02:So that's maybe they don't know the product enough. Like so maybe there's a gap there where they just really don't know what they're selling, right?
SPEAKER_00:So that's another issue, and it's that many brands still don't sell briefs. So if I if you send a product to a creator and the creator doesn't have a brief, how is the creator supposed to know what they're gonna say on the video to sell?
SPEAKER_02:Of course, they're gonna know like some like selling points or selling angles, but still they need some support and they need some So on the brand side then, besides besides that, like you know, brief your people, give them some type of package, some knowledge, some info. Um, what what else for brands? What are what are they missing?
SPEAKER_00:So many brands, like there are a few things here. Many brands don't go live because they think that they need too many things. And it's just like, guys, you don't need to make it so complicated. You can you just need like a good internet connection, like literally good internet connection. Your phone. And then you can add if you want a good microphone, good lighting. Like those are like the basic things that you need. You don't need like a massive production whatsoever. But many brands still don't understand that, so they are hesitant to try it. That's one thing. And um yeah, that I would say that that's the main thing. And then the second thing is that when they go live or they do things on TikTok shop, they don't have a strategy. So then they go like, okay, yeah, I've tried this anything. It just didn't work. And it's like, it did not work because you didn't have a strategy and because you didn't give the platform enough time to gather the data that you need so that you can actually sell to the people that you want to.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so back to the creator. Back to the creator, right? I'm a creator and I want to, you know, I I'm thinking, okay, I see other people doing it. How do how do I do it? How do I find product? How do I find maybe brands looking? What are some tips for creators, you know, looking to get into it? How can they get started?
SPEAKER_00:So if you are a new creator and you're unable to get samples, what we recommend is that you look in your house, what are the products that you have that are on TikTok shop and just start creating content with that. So once you start making sales with whatever you have, then you're gonna it's gonna be easier for you to get more samples.
SPEAKER_02:I I bought something off TikTok and I want to start selling that.
SPEAKER_00:You can.
SPEAKER_02:How?
SPEAKER_00:So you add the so you add the product to your showcase, but you need to to set up your account first to be able to sell.
SPEAKER_02:So once you set up an account, you have options to just select I mean, it's pretty open. I mean, they don't care. Why would they? Like go ahead and sell my product unless you're doing something type.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly, exactly. So the the brands upload into the marketplace all their products, and then there are some products that are eligible for commission. So the brand has already decided how much commission you're gonna get if you make sales. And so if you add the product to your showcase or if you create a video with that product that you added to your to your profile, then I'm about to get on TikTok and start selling some stuff, man. Yeah, like how come you're not doing it yet?
SPEAKER_02:I'm about to. I'm learning. I'm learning. I'm sure there's a lot of people out there now, like, what? Really? I can just go on there and start like and Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So you can start selling.
SPEAKER_02:That's a different side. Like, you know, I know affiliate marketing and I know content creation, and I know those things. No, it makes it bump. Yeah, like how do I, you know, monetize myself and how do I, you know, uh not keep all my eggs in one basket and you know, do so I have um I have a sports media company that's it's my baby for the past 10 years. So I work with high-end athletes. Um, I get kids in middle school to high school, I watch them go to college. Now I've got you know 20, 30 kids in the NFL and MBA and in the professional league. And so now I'm trying to monetize my traffic, right? And I'm trying to, uh, you know, I get probably 10 million views a month just organically. I've never run paid ads, it's just organic traffic. I'm like, what can how what can I sell? I I started, you know, with Dave and the LFG show and learning about paper call and owning your offer and all this stuff. And so now it's all starting to click and make sense for me. I'm like, okay, so my audience, they like sports. Neutra is huge, right? So everybody's trying to lose weight, supplements.
SPEAKER_00:Um, and then we need to be careful with uh supplements to lose weight on TikTok shelf.
SPEAKER_02:No, yeah, not on that. Even even mine, like I'm with kids. Like, I don't want kids to be taking the what is it, the G G P A uh Ozempic, like not selling Ozempic to my kids. But um, you know, like I'm on uh not uh what's what's the one uh that everybody you go on there and it spins a wheel and you always get a free gift. What's what's the shopping the shopping app where you can come on help me out here?
SPEAKER_00:I don't know like it's a shopping app.
SPEAKER_02:It could be Shane, it could be Temu. I don't know. Timu. All right, Timu. So I'm on Timu, right? Like these six, six, seven more. You don't have Timu? I don't use it. No, I don't I don't either anymore because I'm like, this is a scam. Every time I go on there, you spin the wheel, and it's like, oh, you want a free gift. Oh, and then you want another free gift. You never lose on Timu. You never lose. So I found a product. Um, I thought it'd be interesting for my kids. It was a silent basketball. Right? So I found this product on Timu. Silent basketball. I'm like, oh, this is something that I can start selling. I think my audience would like this. I got one, I ordered like 10 more, different colors, different sizes. I'm like, oh, this is this is nice. Nobody knew about them. Like, I'm showing them to my friends. They're like, oh, this is great. This is great. Today, you go in every store, Walmart, and they're there, and they're there. Well, I guess what I'm saying is how do you how do you find maybe a product that's not already? And I think that's one example is on on Timu, like just rand random things. But is there any other strategies of finding products?
SPEAKER_00:That's not maybe unreleased, or how do you get ahead of something that's not there are some tech platforms that allow you to research. So for example, Kalo Data or Fastmox, you can see like the trends, like what products are trending, what products may be trending, all those things. So you can see that like you can see that with the technology. And so that also is really interesting, especially for for affiliates, because they can they can see the trend and then they can select the right products from the marketplace on TikTok shop and start creating content for products that soon will be trending.
SPEAKER_02:Another angle, right, is your research and analytics.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, exactly. And that's if you want to make money, you want to make sure that you do that as well, because otherwise you're gonna be selecting just random products and that's gonna be harder as well to monetize. But you want to create content on the products that either are going to sell a lot sooner or that are trending and viral and that are already selling.
SPEAKER_02:Do you work with TikTok at all? Like you have a, I mean, they were here, they were here at the booth. Did you stop by? Like, what's that relationship like?
SPEAKER_00:Not here. Well, I was with the TikTok shop guys that are here as well. Okay. I'm just connected with them. If I have any issues, they help me out. Also with the brands as well. Within TikTok shop in Spain and Germany, I do have connections as well. And so if any of the brands that I work with have any issues or any of the creators that we have in the agency have any issues, we just message them. We're connected to the um account managers, and they just help us with whatever thing that may happen within the platform or you know, strategies or anything, pretty much.
SPEAKER_02:Are you guys helping uh create the content as well? Or like what all services does your company provide besides you know counsel?
SPEAKER_00:So we're doing like we're setting up the accounts, so uploading the catalog, doing the strategy, like product strategy, price strategy within the app. We are helping with live shopping. We are doing affiliates and we're doing ads. So that's basically full service within TikTok shop. And then we do trainings for for brands as well, because some brands just want to do it themselves. And um, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:What's some crazy products that you've come across or you've seen explode, or maybe you sold, you're like, yeah, I don't know if this is gonna work, and then it you know ended up being a thing.
SPEAKER_00:Olive oil, for example, it was selling like crazy. Toilet paper was selling like crazy as well. That was like at the beginning of TikTok. So I would say like 10 months ago.
SPEAKER_02:Toilet paper?
SPEAKER_00:Toilet paper.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, it's still hot. I mean, people are still using it to this day.
SPEAKER_00:Well, yeah, I I guess we all need it, but I mean buying on TikTok like these massive, fast toilet.
SPEAKER_02:Massive rolls. I seen that in uh Target the other day. It was like uh, it said like toilet paper roll that lasts you a month, and the roll was like this big, it came in a box and it came with a s a tripod. It came with a stand that you have, you know, it had his own custom stand. I'm like, I guess. I like I almost thought about grabbing it, you know. I guess like so you don't have to like that's how lazy we are. Yeah, so I don't have to take it off the thing and ridiculousness.
SPEAKER_00:And then what else? Like some umbrellas, like those, like those ones that you click and they open. Yeah. So those umbrellas were viral as well. Um now that Christmas' coming, for example, in Spain, we're having Spanish ham going viral.
SPEAKER_02:Spanish ham?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:They sell they sell food too on TV.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Ham.
SPEAKER_00:Ham.
SPEAKER_02:Ham and toilet paper. That's gonna be the thumbnail of our YouTube episode. Ham and toilet paper.
SPEAKER_00:But actually the biggest categories are fashion, cosmetics, and small electronics.
SPEAKER_02:Uh, that's funny you said that. I seen someone was starting a uh company Dave was talking about the other day. I can't talk about it too much, but because I don't know about it. But pretty much it was an app that helps your wife stop shopping as much. I guess like to break the habit of of shopping online. Yeah, so that's a that's a good something maybe you branch off to and be able, you know, maybe it's it's part of the niche. Are you still selling products yourself?
SPEAKER_00:Are you still doing the lives or I I'm doing it, but just to test things.
SPEAKER_02:So it's it's not that test product or test uh strategy and yeah, like pretty much everything.
SPEAKER_00:I have yeah, I have a creator account and I do tests there with live streaming, with videos, with products, with selling angles. And then I can use all that information, all that data to implement it into other strategies and also with creators that we're working with and all that.
SPEAKER_02:Wow. Well, it sounds like if you want to crush it in TikTok shop, this is who you would talk to right now. And that's this is the connect right here. Where can people find you? Is there anything else you want to get out to the people? They're right there.
SPEAKER_00:So, hello. You can find me on LinkedIn as Carmen Moulay, and then you'll see that there are two Chinese characters right behind my name. You can find me also on Instagram, Carmen slash down moolet, spelled at M-U-L-E-Y. And um you can also check my website, fargonsocialcommerce.com, see a little bit of we do. And that's that's it. I think those are the best methods for you to get in touch if you want to know anything about TikTok shop.
SPEAKER_02:Why TikTok shop? Why TikTok shop? Why?
SPEAKER_00:Because it's really good and it's gonna make you money and you want to be in it.
SPEAKER_02:Stay ahead of the curve. It's brand new. Uh I see people who are no good on there. You know, there's there's a lot of people that are no good on there. So I imagine if you have just a little bit of talent and the right product and the right counsel, you can crush it too.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Carmen, pleasure having you on the show.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you very much for having me.
SPEAKER_02:No money, no honey. Dave, I told you I'd make you proud, baby.
SPEAKER_01:Your network is your net worth. We got a fucking crazy network of people. I'm not talking about your average motherfucker. I'm talking about people doing$300,000,$400,000,$500,000 a day in ads. People have made billions of dollars in sales, people exit their companies for about a billion dollars. We hit a hundred episodes. Guess what? We're about to take shit to the next level. So you want to be part of it? Subscribe right now. Remember, no money, no money.