Scaling Your Brand With Funnels and Paid Traffic Systems With the Ecommerce King, Alex Fedotoff (E-Comm Mini Series (2/3) | TNE 069

Are you satisfied with where you’re at in life or are you dreaming of doing and getting more out of life? If you identify with the latter, you’ll definitely appreciate the story of how our guest this week went from rags to riches. This week, we’re joined by Alex Fedotoff, who rose from the bottom to the very top thanks to his passion, hustle, and willingness to never stop learning. Alex went from being a factory worker earning $2 an hour in Poland to generating over $100 million in sales through his own ecommerce empire that he built from the ground up. 

In this episode, Alex takes us on a walk through memory lane where he recounts the hard life he and his wife went through as immigrant workers. He also talks about his initial fears when he was starting out as a freelancer and how he conquered those insecurities and realized his true potential. Alex also discusses how living a location independent lifestyle can help you grow not just as an individual but also as an entrepreneur.  Most importantly, he shares with us some incredibly valuable lessons about Facebook advertising, funnels, and paid traffic systems that you can surely assimilate into your own business. With an inspiring rags to riches story and enriching ecommerce tips, episode two of our three-part series definitely offers a lot of valuable takeaways for you!

Timestamps:

[2:22]Alex’s Humble Beginning

[7:53]The Importance of Having A Good Partner

[11:06]How Alex Got His First Clients

[15:02]What Sets Alex Apart From The Rest

[24:39]Getting Fired Just Might Be The Best Thing To Happen To You

[30:56]Some Tactical Advice From Alex

Alex's Links:

Instagram: alexfedotofff
YouTube: Alex Fedotoff
LinkedIn: Alex Fedotoff

Omar's (Host) Social Media:

Instagram - @nomadables

TikTok - @nomadables

Facebook Group - NOMADABLES - Accountability & Growth Community for Remote Workers- Perfect to meet fellow online entrepreneurs, remote workers, and digital nomads.

YouTube - Omar Mo

LinkedIn - Omar Mo Nomads Cast

Twitter - @nomadables

Pintrest - @nomadables

Clubhouse - @pods

WEBSITE: https://www.nomadables.com/

Transcript

TNE 69 Scaling Your Brand With Funnels and Paid Traffic Systems With the Ecommerce King, Alex Fedotoff

Omar

This week, we're continuing on with our ECom and Facebook marketing segments of the podcast to help you build a profitable business with little or no capital in three months. This for your information, is Episode Two out of three in this series. If you want to listen to Episode One out of Three of the series, go back to the last episode with Jake Thoen. 

Now in this episode, we're joined by Alex Fedotoff. A true legend in the ecommerce space. He's generated over $100 million in sales for his clients and manages about 40 million a year in ad spend. We sit down with Alex and really break down how he went from rags to riches and the hustle and heart he put into his life's work. 

From there talked about applicable strategies you can take on for your own e-commerce store and really scale it to seven figures, eight figures and even beyond. Tune in to the Nomadic Executive.

All right, Alex Fedotoff. Welcome to the Nomadic Executive man. Glad to have you on today.

Alex Fedotoff  

Thank you, man. Thank you for having me.

Omar  

Absolutely. I found you through a Facebook group. And you have built up quite an empire, which made me incredibly curious and wanting to interview you. 

And not only that, I wanted you on both my podcast and Steve's podcast, and I'm incredibly stoked that you came on. So yeah, Alex, go ahead, get started. Give us a small and I know, this is a very, very vague question, but give us a small rundown about who you are and what you do.

Alex Fedotoff  

I mean, I'm an entrepreneur. So I'm from Ukraine. So I was born in Ukraine, and it's poor country, poor family. Good... You know, I had like, loving parents. But like, you know, couldn't teach me anything about business. So I studied it in the university. 

Then just realize it, like, you know, you... you study, study, study, and then I'd seen how much you know, the, everyone who's, you know, employed after the graduation, how much they're making, they're making, like 100 bucks a month. So I just realized that probably is not the good solution. So I basically dropped out. 

And, I mean, I didn't start any business at first, you know, I started like, different jobs. I was like a cookie salesman… Started, you know, selling cookies to grandmothers and little stores. Didn't - didn't do good at that job. I was making like, 100 bucks a month. Then, basically, I tried all sorts of things. I was, I was like, in a nightclub, I was a bouncer. I was, I was a waiter. I was, you know, tried all kinds of things. 

And then it was like, 2014 I just, I just got married, I had nothing. And with my wife, we just decided to, to move from, like, from, because in Ukraine, like the environment overall, like, you know, it's not the best. And so we decided to move to Poland. And so we moved to Poland. And I started, you know, we started working the factory, like making $2 per hour. 

And then we have, you know, I just like, I just got sick of it, like six months in. I just like, you know, you basically work in a factory all day long. And then you come outside and breathe the fresh air. And it’s like, . 

Does it like have to be like this, you know, it's like, you want that you want that fresh air? . Yeah, I'm thinking like, geez, lucky, he couldn't be like, a bad way to live? And, and then like, That evening, I just basically like, I took all of my clothing from that job, dirty clothes and just throw it away. And, and just  it, you know? I'll figure it out, I'll figure out a better way to earn a living. 

Omar

You just quit? 

Alex Fedotoff

Yeah, I just quit. I called the guy. I had some savings like that, you know, it would last me a few months. So I saw that I have that time to figure shit out. And my goal at that point was to make 1000 bucks, because, I mean, I was making like, 1000 bucks together with my wife, you know. We like, both working full hours today. Like, like, something like that. 1000 bucks.

And so that was my initial goal was how to make 1000 bucks. So I knew some friends and friends of friends who were doing like freelancing and stuff. So I was, you know, said like, probably that's the way to go. Like, I have to figure it out. I haven't spoken English at that point.

So it's like, okay, so I have to, I decided to just to go to for US market. Because it sounds like I don't want to be local, like local markets, like, you know, in the US markets are people that have money, like, you know, it's kind of even the proportion of what you can make is like, a lot higher. 

So, but I had to learn English and I had no skills. So I just went to like, it was Elance,  at that point there wasn't like Elance platform. I registered and I started looking what people are looking for. So people….

Omar

Elance? 

Alex Fedotoff

Yeah, Elance. Now it's Upwork. So they basically -  I don't know if they changed the name. I don't know what happened. But now, it’s Upwork. 

Omar  

Now they’re Upwork. Okay, that makes sense. 

Alex Fedotoff

So then I just started figuring stuff out like, Okay, what people are search engine optimization. What the  is search engine optimization? I type into Google like what is like search? SEO? Like, okay, so, SEO, I'm done. Like, okay, like, I see a lot of people looking for like, SEO. Okay, I'll be like, SEO expert  it. 

So, um, and so I just, like started consuming blog after blog,  like courses. Like, I mean, I just, I would just download them at that point, you know, like, because I didn't have money like to buy like proper courses, like find them somewhere on the internet.... YouTube videos. You know, like no one talks about this, but that how it is right? 

Omar

Specially from the pros, yeah.

Alex Fedotoff

Like you start. Yeah, so you start from something and so I harder to do that, you know, learning consuming, applying for some jobs, you know, you know, probably it's kind of like I think it's like, you know, I knew some terms, right. And then I knew some kind of like how to pronounce certain things. 

And then some people who probably were looking for some for like, let's say SEO, they didn't, they didn't know those things. So for them, I looked like an expert, you know, when I was communicating with them. And so that's kind of like how, how I started, right. And I promised and I worked very hard like to deliver. Sometimes it didn't get paid.

Omar  

Wait, really quick before you continue there. So at that point, your English there wasn't good? Like you barely knew any English?

Alex Fedotoff

Oh, man. Like, it's bad. It was garbage at that point. Like, it was bad. Very bad,

Omar  

So the clients that you were bringing on at that point, even though bad clients, you weren't getting paid that much. You knew something about SEO? Because you studied a lot about it. Those clients that you're bringing in, were they still American? Or are they still English?

Alex Fedotoff

American,American. 

Omar

So what did they think about you're, like, not having good English skills?

Alex Fedotoff

That's what that was. Like, that's one of those things. I was thinking like, initially, and I think my wife helped me a lot with this. Like, I was thinking, like, who would ing hire me? Like, I barely speak, you know? 

And my wife would tell me, Hey, you know, just ing do it. Like, you know, and I would do it. And the way I would do it.

Omar

Great wife.

Alex Fedotoff

Yeah, yeah. I think it's very important to have a good partner, you know, someone who supports you, even if it's like, even if it's something like, you know, cuz it's your life would go like two good points for bad points. 

Like, he's even like, ing Elon Musk has, you know, had bad ing points. He was at one point, like, almost like, you know, bankrupt, like, was, you know, was Tesla not doing very well? And like, with those rockets not going. So… So everyone has those points. So if you have someone who supports you, those points are saying that's ing crucial. That's ing crucial.

Omar  

So what happened? So they brought you on, you didn't speak English that well...how’d it go?

Alex Fedotoff

Yeah, I mean, I was. So I was like, the way I would like, because I just, I just created an awesome profile as an employer, and I would what I wanted to see the internal kind of like, how it looks from the, from the employer perspective.

Omar

Right.

Omar

To see all these applications. And then I noticed that a lot of people were just ing copy, paste, you know, the application. Like just ing copy, paste, copy, paste. And a lot of the times, you know, people would say they're like, they have the project. And they thank you.

For example, Jonathan, right? Thank you Omar, like on the bottom, right? So then I would just use their first name, a lot of people wouldn't even use the ing first name, they like just copy and paste, copy, and paste, you know, they're just, “Hello, sir.”, “Hello,” like, you know, whatever. And so I would just, I would... I use that to differentiate. And also I would shoot like short videos,

Omar  

You personalized in that short video, very nice.

Alex Fedotoff  

That's I use every ing edge, I could, you know, at that point in English, so I used everything I in could. And that actually, that actually landed me like few of the projects. One guy that I think had, like, very profound impact on me. Because he had like, he had like, online business, like software business, and he had like, remote team. 

He had made like, a few million, and at that point, the year end.  He taught me a lot, you know? It's like, I started working for him. And then also having some side gigs. So I think that was like, very, you know, very, like, transformational experience. But it's, it came from like the same just like trying hard to differentiate, finding, you know, trying to find that angle. 

And then also, over time, I realized that I was applying for different kinds of jobs. Like, for example, like search engine optimization, and I realized maybe I should do adverts. So I tried to figure out AdWords helping people with that. But then, like, some of the clients have been like, from an e-commerce space, and they started Hey, do you know like Facebook advertising? I think? Yeah, sure. Absolutely. I know Facebook advertising. And I ing Google it. What is ing Facebook advertising?

Omar  

Every agency owner ever in history.

Alex Fedotoff  

I think so man, yeah, that's -  that's it. And so. And so I Google it, but at that point was like, what, like 2015 or something? Right? It was - I think it was relatively easy because wasn't a lot of competition. And I just like watch the massive 3x 4x. was there an adspend? I mean, so it's, it was pretty good. So I started doing that and then I realized maybe I should ing do that, you know?

Omar  

So at that point, you were still freelancing, and people were hiring you, is that correct? 

Alex Fedotoff

Right. 

Omar

Okay. I just wanted to clarify.

Alex Fedotoff  

Yeah. But that... like, that's kind of what I think that moment like where I just like realize okay, so Facebook ads, e-commerce business maybe I should do just that. 

Omar

Right.

Alex Fedotoff

Instead of doing like in search engine you can know like, you cannot know everything, right? You have to find like one ing thing and specialize in it. You know, especially as a freelancer like then as you grow your might expand kind of like the range of services that you provide. But initially, that's how I started. So I started specializing that. 

And that's, I think, where it started to get, you know, momentum, I started just to get good clients, I mean better clients, right, because I was specialized in it, as, as I, as I did it, I also got better at it. And I think I was like, more responsible than, like, 99.9% of like people that were doing it. 

Because like, I would ing wake up at like, 3am, because I would work with American clients living in Europe. So like, six to nine hours difference. I wake up, monitor the ads, turn off the ads, turn on the ads, like, I would just work my ass off to just, you know, get them results.

Omar

Right.

Alex Fedotoff

That kind of like, over time that got better, better and better clients, because I had, you know, I had some track record that had some, you know, some results to show. And then, one, one of our - one of the clients that reached out. And at that point, you know, like, so he basically was running like dropshipping business, right? 

Omar  

Before you carry on there...I love this timeline that you're giving me here. I think that's - already the transition here is incredible. And I've got so many questions before that I didn’t even want to ask. But at that point there, you mentioned that you're getting clients for Facebook ads, and you've kind of built up your testimonials and your case studies and you know, you can do this better. How are you getting those initial clients, and I think this is going to give a lot of value to my audience that may be just starting out, and they want to get their first set of clients.

Alex Fedotoff  

I mean, at first, like it was Upwork, I mean,  Elance, and then Upwork. And that's, that's where like those initial clients, right, but again, like looking for the like angle to differentiate. How you differentiate from the other people who are applying for the same project. And then in like, 2017, I started my Facebook group. And I think that also helped a lot. 

Because if you publish something from the perspective of like, like authority. Like you publish something from the perspective of like, you know, person who, you know, like, admin in the community, or you own the community, um, I mean, you never only community because it's people, right, like, it's you just, you can manage it, you know, you, you you provide the value inside of community. 

But that's, that's what where I think was, like a big kind of like shift in terms of the quality of clients that I was, like, I was attracting, then I started to hire like help. I started hiring, you know, people who would help me with managing these accounts. 

So it wasn't only me at that point. Because, you know, I started to charge more, because I started attracting better clients. And that allowed, you know, that allowed the margin to hire other people. So that's where I think like it started to, to get momentum. 

Omar  

That makes a lot of sense. Okay, so Upwork and then the Facebook group itself is what kind of led your initial momentum on. So - you go back to your timeline there so... 

Alex Fedotoff  

Yeah, so then then basically, I met one of the clients, right? List of clients come in and like he's like, can you run ads? Like I have this ecommerce store? So yeah, sure. Absolutely. You know,  so we started basically advertising and it was a drop shipping store. 

So he was like, taking products from like AliExpress, shipping them directly to customer. And I was running the ads. Like everything else was pretty much automated because like virtual assistant was Oberlo. I don't know what apps were there like fulfilling the orders. 

Omar

Right.

Alex Fedotoff 

And and then like, I was trying the apps. And then like I look at it's like, you know, that's that's interesting, you know, I do pretty much everything here. I know where to find the product. I know how to sell it. So why don't I do it for myself? 

And so that's that you know, that was another like, pivotal point because we started running... we started running ads, you know for our group. We just like find a product, we sell ‘em. And I knew basically like within like nine months, I believe because it was profitable like from day one we already started… 

Omar

You already knew how to do it. 

Alex Fedotoff

We had… yeah, we've done like $4 million in sales. 

Omar

Sales? Very nice.

Alex Fedotoff

In that particular… with that particular… if I'm not mistaken, it was that particular store. And then we sold it. So we sold it also like, it was also good. I think good timing because store was like on the rise. We found a motivated buyer. Not very, you know, sophisticated buyer then we basically exited. 

Omar

Nice.

Alex Fedotoff

So that was I think like the first kind of like, success if you could say that.

Omar  

What was the exit price there then?

Alex Fedotoff  

It was seven figures. It was good multiple.

Omar  

Not bad at all, man. Very good. That's so there's a couple key things here right from 2014, 2015 all... from Ukraine guy, maybe getting paid 100 bucks a month, you go into an exit in two to three years, right? What differentiates you? 

What differentiates you from everyone else in the Ukraine and even in Poland, like where you were. Like, what gave you that edge to be able to go past and actually do what you did? And not only that, but you did something that not even most Americans do.

Alex Fedotoff

I think it's timing, man. I think it's timing. I think I got lucky, you know, probably, you know, because -

Omar  

I mean, no, no, I know, you can humble yourself in a way too. 

Alex Fedotoff

But actually, yeah, partially, I think part of that was timing, right? But I think just like, I didn't want to struggle anymore. You know what I mean? 

Omar

Like a chip on your shoulder? 

Alex Fedotoff

Yeah, it's like, you can’t buy the food, you know what I mean? Like, it's, it's kind of like, when you cannot buy the food, like, you know, and you go from that kind of... I mean, it's scarcity mentality, right. But I think that scarcity mentality also allowed us to run like, lean business. 

Like, save like, so when we started making money, we wouldn't like, spend it. We would just reinvest it, you know? And I think in the United States, in particular, the culture is like, consumption, right? Like, you make money, like you're in your lifestyle, just suddenly goes up. 

We moved to states like, one year ago, and, like, we haven't, I could buy like any car, like, I could buy like ing 20 cars, so I could buy like 100 cars, if I want to. But like, we haven't increased our like lifestyle. So you know, lifestyle, like standards, so we keep the expense, you know, the overhead as low as possible. 

And just focusing on you know, what we can like, reinvest in the business, how we can make make the business more efficient. So I think that was one of those things, because that initial capital that I haven't had a car like since like, so for all of that period. We never had a car. I bought a car only like,last November. And and that's only because of the kid, you know, because, you know, we go we want to, like, you know, want to go different places. That’s the only reason.

Omar  

Do you think that kid... And this is just a side note here before I go back, but do you think the kid also added some motivation?

Alex Fedotoff

Oh, man, for sure. For sure. Like when we had our baby, like, it was just, I mean, initially, it was like a lot of stress. Like, I think for every parent, like, it's like, different reality, right? Like you you have to someone to care about. Like you sleep less, you know? There are like, another layer of like, responsibilities that arise from that. 

But I think that the same like every, I think, like, I see, I think that your company is your kid. Like, in a way, right? Like, you also have to take care of it. And sometimes it doesn't. It doesn't do you wanted to do, right? Like, it doesn't behave as you ever want it to behave. 

Omar

That's right. I think entrepreneurs, we want that control. And it's...

Alex Fedotoff

Yeah for sure! It's like, for sure. Like, my wife tells me, “Hey, you know, like, our kids is like, you know, he's very, like, he's very energetic.” He's, he's big. He's muscular, like, for two years, like he's like, and so he's just, like, full of energy all the time seeking, oh, can you can? 

Can you slow down? And then I'm thinking, you know, like, that's how it is like in business, you know, sometimes business like growing too fast, right? So it's like, can’t slow it down. And so, yeah, I think a lot of those, a lot of those things, pretty much I think, like business is a family, right? 

Like as, like, having a business as a family, right? Like you have, if you know, the people who work with you like they're your family in a way. So I think there are a lot of like correlations, right and good relationships and, like, let's say you have good relationships in your family, then most likely to have good relationships in your company, right? And, you know, that healthy environment...

Omar  

I like going back to your actual the way that you were, what you went through, I think you have like this perfect mix of already having an entrepreneurial spirit. Having that chip on your shoulder from not having food on the table, to the timing, and to having the hustle and never wanting to like, you have that mentality of what is there left for me if I don't make it, you know? 

So the only way that I can possibly go is forward. And I know that feeling so well because for me, I - there was a certain point in my life to where I didn't know if I could even put food on the table? And before that point, I didn't have the hustle or the drive nearly as much until after that point. 

And after that point, I remember I was sitting there and I promised myself I'd never been in that position again. And anytime we're ever even the hint of wanting to this like  it all, you know? If that even comes up slowly think back and I just think you know what? There's - what else am I gonna do? There's no, there's no other choice. This is the only way, you know? 

And I think when you have that mentality, I can really, really relate to it. Because if you don't move forward, I mean, there's nothing else man, like... And now you've turned that into... into this empire and you're just getting started, right? 

Alex Fedotoff

Yeah, for sure. I'm like, I - he knows, like, at some point, like my goal, when I just started, wow, maybe like one, you know, maybe, if I make like $100,000 per year, like that will be it, you know? That will be like, you know. 

But then, you know, you just overgrow, like you grow like through those goals. And then you see other people, I think, environment. Because so we lived in Poland, right? Then we, we moved to Malta. Malta is an island in the Mediterranean. Quiet, I mean, there's a lot of like, well, so people, a lot of companies, I'm in Malta. And so, so we lived there. Then we moved back to Poland, because we were building the team. And so and then we moved to United States. 

So changing the environment, I sing in that, in that whole like, process was crucial. Because if you change your environment, and you surround yourself with you know, you see the abundance you for example, you know, so we leave, you know, we live in a good area, like in Miami, we live in Brickell. 

So everyone is like pretty, like affluent, I would say, you know, like, you have, you see, like nice cars around here. You see, kind of like overlay, generally, like wealthy environment, not not extremely wealthy, but you know, affluent environments. So that place is abundancy, which is, I think, is maybe for someone who hasn't been through that experience, like going from the bottom, like, it doesn't matter. But for me, it was, you know, it was like, very helpful to see that there's like opportunity, right? 

Like seeing, for example, that your neighbor has a yard for, like, you know, like $5 million, or like $10 million. That's kind of like, helps, you know, it's like, you know. It's like, I can do better than that, you know?

Omar

Competitive spirit comes through. I get it. 

Alex Fedotoff

Yeah, so I think that was also a big part of that. Because throughout all that process, we would reallocate, you know, who would be like, this country? You know, we'll move to this country, right? Like, we’ll move to another city. So getting attached to like, to some, you know, it's kind of like, like, some people. 

And that doesn't make sense to me, right? And that, I mean, there are six, but if you look at like, overall picture very, like successful businesses, they're congregated. Like, let's say like Los Angeles, like having taxes. You have in like New York, like Miami, like Florida, like they're pretty much like most of them, like 90% of them in those areas. 

There are, there are some outliers, like in, in other states, but it's mostly kind of like hungry. So I think it's mostly the environment has a big impact, like San Francisco. Like, all of the companies are in San Francisco. 

I had this conversation with Moiz Ali who exited Native. You know this like, deodorant company? We exited for like 100 million dollars. And so and so he was living in San Francisco, he exited like in two years. And so I asked him the same question like do you think -

Omar

Oh, that guy. The guy who went from zero to 100 million in two years.

Alex Fedotoff

Yeah, yeah, yeah! And then he basically exited. Yes. Sold it to Procter and Gamble for a hundred million dollars. 

Omar

I read about that guy.

Alex Fedotoff

Mmhmm. So…

Omar

What’d he say?

Alex Fedotoff

So that environment like I think if he wasn't like in in San Francisco, probably it would be probably, you know, it could have taken him like more time, you know? But seeing like everyone hustling around you, it's like, you feel like you know, you can do better you push yourself.You push yourself, you push yourself, right?

Omar

So you think environment’s a big factor of it, too?

Alex Fedotoff

Like why do you think like for example, like so everyone's like, like, oh, Mark Zuckerberg is a dropout. Yeah, but he is dropout for Harvard. You know what I mean? Like the type of people in Harvard like, just look at those people. 

It's like that's fire inside if you feel you have that competitive spirit inside of you. That just burns you from the inside. Like you can like, you want to compete, you want to dominate. I think that's what entrepreneurs have. 

And also my experience I think that was also helpful getting like, fired from the job.

Omar

Fired? 

Alex Fedotoff

Yeah, fired. So when they fire you and say, like… 

Omar

Who fired you? 

Alex Fedotoff

I mean, like, hooky job. Like, they fired me.

Omar  

Oh so they all fired you… okay.

Alex Fedotoff

They all fired me. I'm like, I’m unemployable. I only had a really good relationship. I mean, I mean, I stayed on mostly good terms with those, like, you know. Those, those haven't been like very good terms. But anyway, they fired... They fired me. And so I think that's also like, you know, it's like, I will get to the point, it's like, well, no one will fire me. You know, it's like that. I think also, I don’t know.

Omar  

I get it. You wanted to show them that, “Hey, like, I can do better than this.”

Alex Fedotoff 

Exactly. 

Omar

Who are you to fire me? I get that. Yeah, you know, trust me, I get that man. Even now like I can, I can look back, I've been fired from a few jobs myself. And I can look back and already know that I'm doing much better than anyone in the company was. Much better than the person that fired me, that's for sure.

Alex Fedotoff 

Or Chairman, for sure. And I was working one on one of my jobs was a software company. And I said, like, I'll be like, I'll be like a millionaire by 30. And they said, haha, you know? It's like people, you know. Like, yeah, I was like, broke at that point. And so hey, you know, you know, those people, right? And, you know, I did it.

Omar  

You said something there too, that stood out, right? And I think this is very valuable. You had in your mind already that you're going to be there. You just didn't know what the vehicle that you were going to take.

Alex Fedotoff

Oh yeah man. I knew for sure. I think like every person. Like, you know, the movies, like every ing movie. every movie starting, like, you know, getting started from the script, right? Like from the or whatever they call, like…

Omar

The script.

Alex Fedotoff

Script, right? So I think every person should write the script or their life. You know what I mean? Like, major ing points. For me. Like, I I know. Like, I know what I know what I'll do. Like, in five years. I know what I'll do in 10 years. It's very cocky to say right, but it's like, if you didn't have that in like, plan or that like, you know, laser like, this is, this is the ing direction I'm going to, like, hopefully give it to you like, like, I mean, you get a job and someone will give you the direction.

Omar  

And I mean, that's part of being an entrepreneur, right? You take life into your own hands instead of being in someone else's.

Alex Fedotoff

Yeah. And so, I always wanted to live in America. 

Omar

You made it happen.

Alex Fedotoff

Yeah, and so and it might it takes a lot of time and effort because, like, in my country, it's like to get like a visa to the United States. It's hell. 

Omar

Right. 

Alex Fedotoff

Hell like we have like 80 or 90% rejection rate. So you're an outlier if you get a visa to the United States.

Omar  

Same for my Egypt and Pakistan, all those places.

Alex Fedotoff

Yeah, man. Exactly. So it's like they have this, all of these so people who are here like from your country, from my country, they’re already outliers like and they typically like, you know? It's like they they hustling you know, those people are hungry.

Omar  

So you're in Miami now? Do you think you're just gonna say, like Malta or something else? Or Where do you think you're gonna go?

Alex Fedotoff  

Oh, I mean, we'll go Where are they? What's the best for the business? You know? And so once we once we exit the business, which we are currently working on, then I think we'll I mean eventually I think it will be like in New York or like some some places where like big accumulation of the capital. And who will operate our private equity firm like we'll be investing in companies.

I mean, Miami can be that spot like but it's it will be optimized around business. I don't give a  where to live. Like it's, it's like what's good for business? What's good for like, where to have the good school school for kids. So I'm very flexible. Like if we need to replicate like to like Colorado, like, I'll do it tomorrow. So it's everything optimized, like what's good for business. And we just do it.

Omar  

I get it. All right. That's, that's really good. I like that. I want to end the podcast with a few like, applicable pieces of advice, right? Being somebody that's been in the agency and Facebook ad space and all that for quite some time. So let's start. 

Let's talk just straight to Facebook ads, because this seems to be a question that I get a lot from my own community as well. In terms of Facebook ad spend, just to throw in  some context in there, how much are you guys currently spending on Facebook ads per month?

Alex Fedotoff  

Depends on demands. Typically, it's like one, two million.

Omar  

Okay, and with the Facebook - 

Alex Fedotoff  

On someone's last amount, someone's only like 500,000, like 300 or 500. Some, you know, depends on the monster q4 is typically the biggest, we spend the most.

Omar  

Make sense. So do you have any tactical piece of advice when it comes to like setting up your campaign?

Alex Fedotoff  

For sure. Um, so I'm not managing the ads myself. So we have media buyers, that, you know, that are doing that stuff. But from my overall like, you know, kind of the direction that I'm giving them. It's just like, simplifying the setup, right? 

For example, having, like, you know, so a lot of people that would like, overcomplicate how, like, very low budget to have like, hundreds of ad sets, right, so now you have the limitation of the ads that you can have in there cost 250. So, I mean, that that won't be feasible either way. But it's basically simplification, like, we try to have like as high budget per campaign or as high budgets, for acid as possible. And then we try also to have as big audiences as possible. So we just give it all the way to Facebook, right? 

So for me, like tactical kind of, like part of, of Facebook, and seems like pretty, pretty easy these days. Maybe just my observation, because I didn't manage it. But, most of the efforts where we where we, you know, was our projects were put in, it's in the creative part in the ABS part, you know, in the angles part. And then, so that's on the ad side of things. 

But then also on the, on the conversion side of things, we put a lot of effort into optimization of the average order value, you know, structuring the post purchase upsells, so we, we are as profitable as possible from every click, we look at it from the perspective of EPC you know, how affiliate marketers look at it, like earnings per click. So I'm like, okay, so if we buy and clicks on Facebook for like, $1, how much each of those clicks on average brings us.

Omar

Right. 

Alex Fedotoff

So that's how we look at it. And so I think everyone would benefit. And so for agency, I was, I was on both sides of it, I was an agency part, I wasn't on our own sidebar, you know, our own stuff. The The only like, was agencies, like, you know, sometimes you don't have the input, like, for example, bellcrank. 

Okay, so websites, website converting, like shit, like 1%, like, you know, let's do this, this and this, and there might be some kind of, like, you know, from their side, they might not want to do it, or they might not, you know, so you don't have the full control. That's why it also was part of the reason why we decided to do our own stuff. Because I would recommend something to clients, and then we'll just look at it, you know. We won't do it, or we don't have time for it, or, you know, but then you see the opportunity, right?

And so I think for the, for people, if you have if you have good relationships with your clients, if you can impact. And that's, I think, also part of the reason why I was getting better and better projects better and better clients, because, you know, I would help clients optimize not only the Facebook advertising part, like the tactical part of the thing, but also giving them kind of guidance on like, on the creative, okay? On this type of creative. when it you know, you can source it from these guys. Right? And so, and then also on the conversion part, how to optimize, right, like how to create value, how to increase the conversion.

Omar  

So what do you think are some, like just strategic ways that you can make creatives better?

Alex Fedotoff  

So I think, like, one of the ways I'm one of the easiest, probably ways, right, especially that that would apply for brands right? 

Omar  

Just to give my audience some context, the creative is basically the ad, copy, the picture, and the stuff that you put in the ad.

Alex Fedotoff  

Yeah, exactly. So a lot of that would come from the customers, right? Like, if business already has customers, let's say business has, like ten, twenty, fifty, one hundred thousand customers, then that creative can be sourced from customers, right? 

Especially if you have those customers that have purchased from you like, more than once. Let's say you have customers that have purchased from you like two times or more, those be like, no one buys like two times by accident, like or, you know, at least most of them don't buy by accident. 

Omar

They make the decision.

Alex Fedotoff

Yeah, yeah. So that's the decision, right. And so they had good experience with the brand. They had good experience with the product. So those people would be very open to, like, share their experience with others, right? At least some of them at least some percentage of them. 

So what I would do is, I would just, I would just like reach out to these customers who have purchased from you like two times or more, and ask them: “Hey, would you be able to shoot that short video of you like, with the product?” “Hey, yeah, I just bought this water. This was like, better than anything else I've ever tried.”

And you know, and that like that type of content is very like natural, very like organic, right? You can feel vertical can be, you know, the square one. 

Omar

I get it.

Alex Fedotoff

And then it can be like used, you know, as a content. And it also can be as a compilation, you know, so hey, you have like five of those, hey, you know, man, women, you know, basically compilation of those, and you would have the captions, that's less way to do the content.

Omar  

Very nice. So you think testimonials performed the best especially for like, lookalike slash retargeting?

Alex Fedotoff  

I mean, yeah, we also use like demo code. So for example, if we validate some like some testimonials perform very well on quote... On the retargeting that will just ask them on call sometimes would have like broad audiences, zero targeting, you know, whatsoever. And have would have testimonials on them running like, they're very good for us.

Omar  

Interesting. Those are the strategies that you hear in the industry are always using testimonials for retargeting or look alike, but never for, for cold. So that's good, that's refreshing to hear that.

Alex Fedotoff  

For us, there is no like... it, you know, before it used to be like, some boundaries. But now like, we don't care.

Omar

Now you test. 

Alex Fedotoff

Now we’ll just test, right? And sometimes, wow. Like, I have so many assumptions, like, oh, like I like this piece of content, oh, we just spent like $2,000 in this piece of crap. Oh it’s like… And then it fails, you know, and they're like something random, something like, customer just send you a... you know, like, for example, give you like, very, very, like, relevant example, one of our brands, like selling products for older people, right? 

So we sell products to older people. And then we have these, like, all, you know, everyone is using attractive young people in the ads, right? And we're just source just like to ask, you know, the piece of content like from older ladies, right? Like 60 plus, you know, wrinkles, but very organic, like very natural. Like those outperform, you know, for that particular brand, like everything else.

Omar  

Interesting. Is it because the target audience is also the older people?

Alex Fedotoff  

Yeah, exactly. I think that that has to do with it. Because it's like resonates with them, right? So you would, and it's also, you know, it's like, everyone wants to use attractive people. But what about like, not very attractive people? Right, like, you know, so… I mean not everyone is blessed to...

Omar  

It might even differentiate you, in a way, right? 

Alex Fedotoff

Yeah. 

Omar

You’re thinking strategically, not really saying, not putting people into buckets or anything, but you know…

Alex Fedotoff  

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm not putting that away. I don't really find that attractive. I mean, someone some person can say like, I'm not going to try. I'm oddly like, some person can say I'm okay. Like, I don't you know, it's all relative, right? 

Omar

Exactly, exactly. 

Alex Fedotoff

But like, also, one want another thing, let's say that's like five of these panels, these like people, like user generated content from your customers, let's say you will see that like two of them or like one of them, which is outperform other people. Like, whatever reason, like, people like their face, people resonate with them, I don't know. 

So then you can create this strategic relationship with that person, right? Hey, we like you know, we liked what you did for us. What about you know, we collaborate in this on this basis, like we send you like, let's say, five, five new products, if you launch or we send you like, our products, and you just create pieces of content. We give them example, you pay them, or they can just leave the product. So you find that the relationship with them, but this is how you do it, right. Like you basically find those like brand ambassadors on a scale.

Omar  

Very interesting. Cool, I think, yeah, that those are great pieces of advice. I think anybody who's in my audience that is very, very curious about Facebook ads can use that right away as well. So thank you for that, Alex. 

Alex Fedotoff

Yeah. 

Omar

Now I like to end my podcast with one final question that I asked everybody that comes on this show. And it's - if you ever listen to Tim Ferriss podcast, it's kind of like a variation of it, but a little bit different. And it's always interesting here in the answers. 

So Alex, if you had a billboard in space, and everyone on planet earth, all 7, 8 billion people could see that billboard from space and they could see when the sun rose and it goes away every single night. And it was in one universal language everyone on planet Earth could read it. What would it be?

Alex Fedotoff  

How many words is their limitation worse or no?

Omar  

I would keep it to a few sentences. I wouldn't make it like four paragraphs, okay?

Alex Fedotoff  

I mean, just go for it. You know, whatever you want to do, like just do it because you’ll live and then like you think about something you think about something and you don't go for it. And then you die anyway, so you know, what's the point? 

Omar

Good point though. 

Alex Fedotoff

It's like It's like we think we think that we live We will live like forever like subconsciously we don't want to think about that will  die You know, but like, I sang it. Because, you know, you feel well like you house you exercise. Everything is good, right? But then like one thing you know, it's like, bus can hit you. And so if you live that life and like you, you have something you have some project in mind you want to do something and you didn't like do it. It hurts.

Omar  

I get it. Yeah. You want to make sure that you lived. Or you you live doing what you wanted to do. No matter when you die, whether it's 20 or 200. With technology these days you don't know to be honest. But yeah, crazy. Awesome, man. Alex, it was great having you on. Thanks so much for coming on, man.

Alex Fedotoff  

Yeah, thank you very much. Thanks very much for having me. 

Omar

Absolutely.

We had a real legend on the show today. I hope you enjoyed the episode with Alex Fedatoff. Now to round up the series eCom series three out of three will be with none other than Noah Brewer. If you'd like, be sure to check him out because next week is an episode that you do not want to miss.