Today’s guest is Jason Termechi. He is a former TikTok employee as a live account manager. He was in the world of all things live selling on TikTok, and he helped generate over $14 million of revenue through those live strategies. Now, he’s working with other brands as a consultant to help them formulate their own live selling strategy and implement the playbook that he’s seen work.

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> Here’s a glimpse of what you would learn….

In this episode of the Ecomm Breakthrough podcast, host Josh Hadley speaks with Jason Termechi, a former TikTok live account manager who helped generate over $14 million in revenue. Jason shares his expertise on TikTok Shop live selling, covering key topics such as navigating the platform’s “cold start” period, selecting the right host, product assortment, pricing strategies, and scripting techniques. He also discusses driving traffic to live sessions, balancing auctions with traditional flash sales, and building sustainable brand growth through consistency and engagement.

Here are the 3 action items that Josh identified from this episode:

Timestamps:

00:01:03 Introduction to Jason Termechi
Host Josh Hadley introduces guest Jason Termechi, a former TikTok live account manager and now a consultant for live selling.

00:02:18 Why Brands Should Use TikTok Live
Jason explains that live selling is a great discovery tool for brands to reach new audiences and deepen customer relationships.

00:04:32 The “Cold Start” Period
A discussion on the initial period where brands must build momentum, regardless of their follower count, to succeed on live.

00:06:33 Brand vs. Creator Live Selling
Jason clarifies his focus is on helping brands go live on their own accounts, rather than using affiliate creator strategies.

00:08:55 Case Study: Noel Farha
Jason shares a success story of a shapewear brand that grew from $10k to over $400k per live session.

00:12:06 The TikTok Live Playbook
An overview of the essential components for a successful live selling strategy, starting with commitment and having the right resources.

00:14:15 Choosing the Right Host
The importance of the host, discussing the pros and cons of using a founder, employee, or a paid spokesperson.

00:18:28 Product Selection and Pricing
How to select products for your live, including best-sellers and new arrivals, and pricing strategies to attract initial buyers.

00:22:25 The Importance of Scripting
Jason details his eight-part scripting system designed to educate, build trust, and create urgency to drive sales during a live.

00:28:14 Gamifying Your Live Session
Strategies to make live sessions more engaging and entertaining through interaction, giveaways, and creating a fun, dynamic atmosphere.

00:30:06 Flash Sales vs. Auctions
A comparison between using flash sales and the current trend of auctions, and the potential pitfalls of gimmicky auction tactics.

00:34:15 Raising Awareness for Your Live
Tips on how to promote your live sessions using in-app scheduling, pre-promotion content, and TikTok’s CRM tool.

00:37:23 Final Advice and Getting Started
Jason’s final tips emphasize consistency, practice, and clearly communicating value to convince viewers to make a purchase.

00:39:36 Three Actionable Takeaways
The host summarizes the key action items: identify your host, perfect your script, and raise awareness for your live sessions.

00:42:53 Most Influential Book
Jason shares the story and lessons from a book by Bobby Hundreds, founder of the streetwear brand The Hundreds.

00:45:17 Favorite AI Tool
Jason explains how he uses ChatGPT for data analysis, client pitches, and improving his scripting for live sessions.

00:47:04 Who to Follow in E-commerce
Jason recommends following Alex Hormozi for his ability to simplify complex business challenges and provide clear, focused advice.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Tools and Websites
“TikTok Shop“: “00:01:44”
“CRM System”: “00:35:22”
“ChatGPT“: “00:45:17”
“Perplexity“: “00:46:42″Books
“How to Start a T-Shirt by Bobby Hundreds“: “00:42:57″People Mentioned
“Ezra Firestone“: “00:01:03”
“Kevin King“: “00:01:03”
“Michael Gerber“: “00:01:03”
“Brandon Young“: “00:01:03”
“Alex Hormozi“: “00:47:13″Case Studies
“Noel Farha (Shapewear Seller)”: “00:09:43″Key Concepts
“Three E’s of Live Selling: Entertainment, Engagement, Education”: “00:28:32”
“Cold Start Period”: “00:39:03”

Episode Sponsor:

This episode is brought to you by eComm Breakthrough Consulting where I help seven-figure e-commerce owners grow to eight figures.

I started my business in 2015 and grew it to an eight-figure brand in seven years.

I made mistakes along the way that made the path to eight figures longer. At times I doubted whether our business could even survive and become a real brand. I wish I would have had a guide to help me grow faster and avoid the stumbling blocks.

If you’ve hit a plateau and want to know the next steps to take your business to the next level, then email me at josh@ecommbreakthrough.com and in your subject line say “strategy audit” for the chance to win a $10,000 comprehensive business strategy audit at no cost!

Transcript Area:

Jason Termechi 00:00:00  Again. I think at the end of the day everyone wants to make sales, but I think at the top of the funnel it is great for brand awareness and product awareness. But as you get consistent, as you grow, as you really understand live and what really makes it tick and all the levers you can pull, eventually you will break through kind of that cold start period where you start to sell things that you might miss out on if you weren’t doing a lot.

Host 00:00:28  Welcome to the Ecomm Breakthrough podcast. Are you ready to unlock the full potential and growth in your business? You’ve already crossed seven figures in sales, but the challenge is knowing how to take your business to the next level.

Josh Hadley 00:00:42  Want to know the secrets of selling on TikTok live? Well, today’s guest has the answer and the playbook that is working across multiple brands, not just one brand. Welcome to the Ecomm Breakthrough podcast. I’m your host, Josh Hadley. I scaled my own brand from 0 to 8 figures in sales, and now my mission is to take it to over nine figures on my journey to nine figures.

Josh Hadley 00:01:03  I bring you the unfiltered conversations with the smartest minds in e-commerce. Past guests include Ezra Firestone, Kevin King, Michael Gerber, author of The Myth, and Brandon Young. Today, I’m excited to welcome a new guest to the show, Jason Termechi. He is a former TikTok employee as a live account manager. So he was in the world of all things live selling on TikTok, and he helped generate over $14 million of revenue through those live strategies. Now, he’s working with other brands as a consultant to help them formulate their own live selling strategy and implement the playbook that he’s seen work with that introduction. Welcome to the show, Jason.

Jason Termechi 00:01:44  Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Josh Hadley 00:01:47  Jason, I am very excited to dive into the world of TikTok shop live selling. We’ve been working with affiliates, doing short form videos for quite a while now, but live selling has always been one of those things that I’ve heard about. We haven’t personally gone live ourselves. Actually, we’ve done that one time with mild success, but I’m interested to hear what is the playbook that’s working, because I get a lot of creators that come to us and say, hey, can we go live? And I’m like, sure, but I don’t know really what to tell you to do other than go live.

Josh Hadley 00:02:18  So, Jason, I’m interested to dive into that. tell me more about, like, why you think brands should be focused on live selling to begin with?

Jason Termechi 00:02:28  I don’t think it’s a good fit for everyone. The way that I kind of, like, qualify, like leads that come through. I think there’s a few things, like a few pieces of criteria that they need to meet. I think if you’re a brand who has been selling on TikTok, let’s say 3 to 6 months, maybe six months plus, and you are finding success, you have a decent following, you have a strong track record of sales. You’re able to kind of bring more new products and you have clear hero items, and you’re working with affiliates and whatever else you’re using to kind of grow on TikTok. And if you reach a point where you’re like, hey, Liv might be a tool that I want to leverage. And one of the benefits of Liv is that the algorithm is going to continuously feed people into your life who never purchased anything from you, don’t follow you.

Jason Termechi 00:03:19  Maybe you’ve never heard of you. So it’s a great discovery tool. If you are a brand looking to kind of reach a new audience where you have the success through short form video, whether that is yourself, content or affiliate content, but you want to extend your reach on TikTok and offer a unique experience to your followers, your non followers, potential customers where they’re able to engage with your brand, get answers, questions or get questions answered, and eventually go through the entire funnel through the different tools that you have at your disposal for live. So I think it’s a way to, like, deepen the relationship with your existing followers by engaging with them, as well as building your following through the algorithm, pushing people into your life. So again, I think at the end of the day, everyone wants to make sales, but I think at the top of the funnel, it is great for brand awareness and product awareness. But as you get consistent, as you grow, as you really understand live and what really makes it tick and all the levers you can pull, eventually you will break through kind of that cold start period where you start to sell things that you might miss out on if you weren’t doing lot.

Josh Hadley 00:04:32  Interesting perspective. You just said like, hey, breaking through. Kind of like the cold start. Are you saying there’s kind of like a cold start that you have to break through when it comes to live selling, not not just TikTok, cold start in and of itself. Is there a separate TikTok live cold start that’s different and separate?

Jason Termechi 00:04:49  Yeah, because it doesn’t matter if you have 100,000 followers or a thousand followers. The algorithm yes, maybe will give more traffic to someone who has 100,000 followers, but there is no percentage of followers that contribute to your live viewership. I’ve seen success with smaller sellers and I’ve seen success with bigger sellers, but you can’t. I can’t use that as an indicator of their success. If it is large following or history of sales on TikTok, it’s really a unique opportunity that comes down to kind of your product assortment, your host, your scripting, your conversion throughout, your engagement strategy. All of these things make it a little bit of an even playing field based on kind of your following, where you are 1000 followers versus going up against a brand that has 100,000.

Jason Termechi 00:05:38  If you’re able to sell better, engage better, convert better, and do all of those things and feed the algorithm, I believe your traffic will be stronger than someone who has 100,000 followers that is not able to successfully convert people or engage with them, or retain users, so it makes it even in that regard. But we are in a weird time right now where auctions has dominated the platform. So all of that goes out the window. As long as you are selling quickly. You could be someone who started your TikTok yesterday, and if you’re selling through auctions, it is currently the fastest way to grow, unfortunately. And that’s what they’re prioritizing. So that makes anyone who’s doing lives with the flash sale even more competitive, and they have to be on their A-game.

Josh Hadley 00:06:20  I love what TikTok has done is kind of democratized, you know, being able to get attention or get awareness. And, you know, right now it sounds like the auction is is the way to go. But I think that’s why it’s so important.

Josh Hadley 00:06:33  I love that you said even if a brand has 1,100,000 followers, if you’re brand new, you could start doing the same amount of revenue, if not even more, if you just do this thing properly. So, Jason, as you work with other brands, are you teaching them or educating them on going live on their branded account? Or are you teaching them to work with their creators, to have their creators go live? Tell me about the distinction there and where your specialty lies.

Jason Termechi 00:07:03  I think it’s two different strategies for me specifically, and my experience has been on the brand side. That’s what I focused on at TikTok. That’s what I’m focusing on now. I really didn’t dip my toes into the affiliate side, and I will couple like short form video and live together. In terms of an affiliate strategy, I think brands should consider, I guess, ceding product to like top creators that are going live and seeing how that does, but it’s just not my kind of wheelhouse. And I feel like the best practices and foundations can transfer from brand live to creator life.

Jason Termechi 00:07:38  So I feel like a lot of the principles that I teach could apply to the creators. It’s just not a world that I’ve really experienced, maybe in the future. And I know creator creator auctions are going crazy right now, and don’t even get me started on that. But for me, it’s I’ve been strictly focused on brands, and it’s an exciting kind of outlet for me where I’m able to find small, medium sized businesses and turn them into some of the largest brands on TikTok like I did while I was there. And that’s what excites me, and that’s what gets me out of bed. Every day, is where I can find someone who has the potential to do well on live, based on the things that I’m seeing on their end and identify those opportunities, reach out to them and say, hey, let’s build and work together and really invest some time if they’re really up for it.

Josh Hadley 00:08:30  So before we dive into the playbook, because you’re going to share with us kind of like the step by step strategy that you would implement, why don’t you, you know, piggyback off of what you just said, which is give me the case studies of the brands that you’ve worked with.

Josh Hadley 00:08:45  You said, hey, this can become one of the best strategies you could deploy to become one of those top brands on TikTok shop. So give me some case studies and what you’ve seen work.

Jason Termechi 00:08:55  So I’ll be a little biased. And I guess I’ll share my case studies, because I feel like it’s best to speak from your own experience. So last March, when I was at TikTok, we were pretty much tasked with finding our own accounts, and I wanted to take matters into my own hands. I’m like, okay, which of these sellers are doing well on TikTok in terms of live without any support, no account managers? I don’t really care about their shop, but if I see some potential on live and I can see their raw talent, I’m going to reach out and try and cultivate that those relationships with them. And one of those sellers that I reached out to last March was Noel Farha. So they were a shapewear seller in McAllen, Texas, and I always used this example and they were doing pretty well.

Jason Termechi 00:09:43  They’re doing about like 8 to 10 grand a live session on their own. And they were very raw. And in a competitive space at the time, there was a lot of shapewear going on. And it’s even worse now. But I reached out to them and from March to about September we worked together. And in that time we did several mega lives over $100,000, with our biggest being 180, in a single session. And they’ve gone on to do over $400,000 in a single live, and one of the biggest live sellers on the platform in terms of fashion and especially in women’s wear. And they’re crushing it right now. So I think they had a lot of things going for them. It was Spanish speaking and a host with a lot of great talent. They just needed to kind of hone in on in a few things and make a few adjustments. And then they were off to the races and now they do 40 to 50 plus in a single session for our daily live. And their mega lives are crazy.

Jason Termechi 00:10:40  So I think finding those opportunities is something I just I continue to, to chase. It’s like, I want to find another unicorn like that, that I can just really wrap my hands around and take an opportunity like that and really help them.

Josh Hadley 00:10:56  So the money’s there is what you’re saying if you do it right?

Jason Termechi 00:11:00  Yes. Right now the money is in auctions. But again, I think it’s a short term. It’s a strategy and a tool or it’s a tool, not a strategy. Excuse me. So I think it’s for the short term. And we don’t know how long this is going to last. I think for certain categories it’s doing really, really well. But again those bids could dry up. The competition could increase. I think it’s still about building your own brand and really getting people to buy into what you’re doing. I think people will join your life and stay and eventually buy because they really like you, the host, or you, the brand owner. And I work with a lot of founder led brands at TikTok, and those are the those are the ones that I found the most success with.

Jason Termechi 00:11:42  Not the big name brands, not the brands with a huge team, literally a founder. And maybe it’s their husband or their wife as the operator, and maybe they have like a few employees helping them on the lives. But that’s kind of where I look for I want the raw talent that people who take live very seriously and will pour a lot of energy into it.

Josh Hadley 00:12:06  Well, let’s dive straight into that playbook, because it sounds like if you execute it properly, there’s a lot of revenue to be had. And it’s a great way to grow your brand. Great way to grow your audience and following. So, Jason, why don’t you let’s run down the playbook. Why don’t you start with like, number one? What’s the first thing that we need to understand if we want to dive into the world of being a brand, implementing live selling.

Jason Termechi 00:12:29  I think it’s really understanding, like, are you ready for this? Are you willing and ready to make a commitment to life? I don’t think people realize how.

Jason Termechi 00:12:38  It’s in the beginning stages. Maybe the first month it’s pretty passive. You could go live sporadically, do it here or there. But once you’re ready to commit, I usually suggest at least like 2 to 3 hours per session, 3 to 4 times a week. Are you willing to do that? Are you willing to offer attractive discounts in your live versus your shop? Are you willing to bring in new products, as we mentioned earlier? Do you have a strong shop score? Like getting your house in order? Getting all of these things ready. Then you can make that decision. Do you have a host? What kind of host do you have? How many hosts do you have? Do you have an operator? Do you have space? Do you have the equipment? I think that is probably first and foremost. Getting all of that out of the way. Then once you get to that point, what I normally do with my clients, I build out a playbook. And in that playbook, we have what their live set should look like.

Jason Termechi 00:13:35  We have what their scripting should sound like. We have what their product assortment should be. We have their conversion strategy, their engagement strategy, their traffic strategy, their pre promotion, like all of those things, literally make up that playbook and we can go into kind of each piece of it. But I think it’s really important to kind of have a game plan before you really start to take life seriously, or else you’re kind of just winging it.

Josh Hadley 00:14:02  Makes sense. Well, let’s dive into each of those, specifically everything that you put together in that strategy. Let’s talk about the reason why and and the way you think about it, from product selection to the live setup, etc..

Jason Termechi 00:14:15  So I think let’s start with the, the live set. actually let’s start with the host. So I think even before you go live, before you build out your set and all that, normally a live works when there’s a host and an operator, there’s sometimes people like the host will run their own live. I don’t like that as much as a setup.

Jason Termechi 00:14:34  And right now, one of the biggest pain points for brands is finding the right host. So I think if it’s either the owner or an employee or I guess at some point it might be someone on an hourly maybe plus commission basis. So finding kind of the right profile of host that aligns with your brand. If it’s not the owner, if it’s an employee, that’s kind of like the second next best thing because they can speak to the brand, they can speak to the products, they know it inside and out. They might not be as passionate about it as the live, whereas the owner. But then you have your your hourly plus commission host. Sometimes it’s just hourly, sometimes it’s hourly in commission. And then that takes a lot of finessing of like training them and making sure that they’re sticking to the script and doing all the things. And then you have your operator working back and forth with them. So I think the challenge for a lot of brands is finding the right person who is reliable, who can show up on time, who can, who they can retain, and there won’t be a lot of churn.

Jason Termechi 00:15:36  But yeah, I think having the right host in terms of like their energy. Can they juggle a lot of things? Can they work with the operator? Can they maintain the room? Can they engage? Can they also sell? So it’s like they have to be able to do a lot of things in multitask at once. And I think that’s the challenge of finding the right house.

Josh Hadley 00:15:55  How do you what have you seen? Is it better to have an employee or the actual founder or a paid spokesperson, let’s call it that is the, you know, just a live seller. They love it. They love that game. Have you seen better results from one or the other?

Jason Termechi 00:16:12  For me, I guess from a bias perspective it has been the founder. But again, not every founder wants to go live or should be going live, but from a scripting and kind of being able to speak to the product standpoint, it’s worked the best or even an employee. So I think that’s the main kind of difference between the founder or someone who works there versus a paid host.

Jason Termechi 00:16:35  And I guess we have to look even deeper at paid hosts as like different buckets. You have people who are just like hired talent, and then you actually have people who are experienced live hosts who’ve worked with different brands and agencies and like, this is like their job. So that’s where.

Josh Hadley 00:16:54  Yeah. Would you ever work with an agency? I’m just kind of curious. Like based on your experience, what do you think about the live selling agencies? Is it worth given stuff to them, or is that like, don’t even waste your time.

Jason Termechi 00:17:05  I’m working with a couple and there’s pros and cons. So the pro is I guess they they find the talent, they operate the lives, they run it, which is fine and dandy if they are actually doing a good job, if they’re being held accountable, if they have clear communication. But it is a lot of bandwidth being taken up by both sides. There’s still meetings. It’s not like you’re just handing it off and like telling them to do it.

Jason Termechi 00:17:31  There’s still a lot that goes on. The cons are it’s very expensive, anywhere from 10 to 20 grand a month, depending on the agency. So it fills the need, but it’s not as passive or as one stop shop as some people might expect. And for me, my ethos is like in the long run, I think like brands are going to build out live teams where they’re going to take this in-house. So I think it’s in their best interest to invest in it now versus handing it off to a live studio. I think for a mega live show like a one off live, you want to use a studio, great. But for me, my whole thing is like, just get started. My biggest lives were with a tripod and a phone, and if they can do it, that doesn’t mean anyone else can’t. You know what I mean? So it’s like, get started and then work up to kind of higher production at some point.

Josh Hadley 00:18:20  Great. So now that we’ve decided who the host is, what’s the next step?

Jason Termechi 00:18:26  So we have our host.

Jason Termechi 00:18:28  We want to think about our product assortment. What products are going to be in your live. So how big is your cart going to be? Mainly maybe 20 to 30 products because you don’t want to spread yourself too thin from a data perspective where people are just getting too overwhelmed by the amount of choices. Again, it might vary by different categories. Some brands might be like, oh, we only have five. Some brands might say we have 50 or 60. It’s like, okay, well how do we cut that down? What are we going to be looking at. And then deciding which of those products do we want to pin? So again, you want to have a mixture of like your best sellers, new arrivals, things you want to test. Maybe it’s things that we have on deeper discount that are like a clearance item. So putting together kind of what that product rotation looks like. And I usually aim for like five to maybe seven minutes per item. If we’re running a flash sale.

Jason Termechi 00:19:23  So keeping that window tight, moving through product quickly, creating that sense of urgency. So from a pacing and kind of structure perspective, we kind of have that down. We have our host again. Let’s just assume like we have the space and the this live set, and we can get to that in a second. But we have our product assortment. We know what products are going to be on on our live. We know their retail price. We know their flash sale price. We know their live flash sale price. We know the percentage off. So we have all of those things in place ready to go. And I guess if I jumped ahead for the live set, most people know it’s like it should look pretty clean. It should like mimic the brand. It should be eye catching. Have some music in there as well. But I figured that’s not as important until you really get into the data to see. Like if your tap through rate is looking good and making adjustments from there.

Josh Hadley 00:20:17  Yeah.

Josh Hadley 00:20:18  Are there types of products that tend to do better? You talked about that as part of like your criteria prior, but like tell me like what types of products do you see being better for live selling versus not. And then is there any like what’s your pricing recommendation? Should you be targeting products that are fairly expensive, or should you be trying to, you know, sell the cheaper stuff? Any rhyme or reason? Any patterns that you found?

Jason Termechi 00:20:44  I mean, my background is mainly working with fashion brands and jewelry accessories. Like that’s what’s worked. Recently I’ve expanded into food and beverage and dog food. So it’s like it’s really hard to say, like what won’t work. At this point, I think there’s a kind of good leader in case study for every category. But I think if we’re ranking kind of product that works best, like fashion, beauty, again, I’m taking this not including auctions, like you can auction anything at this point, but just fashion beauty. I would say personal care.

Jason Termechi 00:21:18  And now I guess food and beverage based on kind of what I’ve seen and and pets. So there’s opportunity in different categories. And I wouldn’t say if you’re in one or the other you should avoid it. But yeah. Does that answer your question.

Josh Hadley 00:21:32  Yeah. And are there particular price points that you see more effective on lives.

Jason Termechi 00:21:36  Yeah. So. And again I think most brands are going to be hovering in that 30 to 40. Like that’s going to be an easy sell. I think once you get people through the door they’re buying at 30 to 40. Then you can start to upsell them. Maybe it’s a gift with purchase. Maybe it’s a buy more, save more. But I think you just want to give them a taste of your brand. And then they will start to come and maybe buy a bundle or something more expensive at a higher price point. I think it’s better to kind of reach them at something more affordable and something that’s within range of kind of like their budget, and then work up to higher price point products.

Josh Hadley 00:22:11  Nice. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. So walk me through. So we’ve got our live set. We’ve got our products. We’ve got the host. Now what else goes into setting up the proper TikTok shop live selling strategy, scripting.

Jason Termechi 00:22:25  My kind of expertise and kind of where I focus. I feel like a host can make or break your life, so if they’re going off script or they’re not hitting their they’re talking points, it’s not going to be as effective. So usually kind of I have like an eight part system. And it’s really about following it as close as possible where you are introducing the brand. You are talking about why people need this product, you are giving them the selling points. Then you are giving a personal story and you’re creating the need. And there’s some there’s other, a bunch of other things that go into it and then a lot of it, it’s just really creating that urgency too. So not being as like relaxed, like, oh, you can buy it whenever it’s like, no, no, no, no, you need to click into this product.

Jason Termechi 00:23:15  You need to get this now before the timer expires on the flash sale. But I think what we overlook is like, why does someone even need this product? How does it connect to the brand? Like, why should I care about this brand? I think people jump straight into like the selling points and then the price. So I’m like. Wait, you kind of missed the whole story there. You. These are impulsive purchases. Why should I care? And we often miss that. We often miss the personal story of like, how does this product relate to the host? And like how do they use in their everyday? So I think there’s so many things that we overlook of like live can’t just be where I’m just selling, selling, selling. Like there needs to be some product education, there needs to be brand education because the algorithm is pushing so many people who don’t follow you. You’re going to be able to see in the dashboard what percentage of that is. So majority of your customers are going to be your followers, but the opportunity is mostly going to be converting all of those non followers and non customers into customers at some point.

Josh Hadley 00:24:16  Tell me more about that script because I do agree with you. I that script I think becomes vitally important. So walk me through kind of like maybe the eight different phases of your script and like especially like, how do you create that sense of urgency? And I think the challenge is from what I’ve seen with live selling, it’s like people are bouncing in and out of that room on a continuous basis. Some of them only stay for like five minutes at best, and then it’s almost like you’re just like repeating yourself for like two hours. It’s like I tell the same story, like on repeat 20 times. Like, is that the process? Tell me a little bit more about this. The script.

Jason Termechi 00:24:58  Okay. I just pulled it up, so I’ll read off the eight part. So the first part is your intro to product and details or product and deals. So you introduce the product. What is it. What’s kind of like the overarching kind of deal right now? It’s usually this. Now it’s on this for the next five minutes on the flash sale.

Jason Termechi 00:25:16  And if there’s a coupon make sure you use the coupon. Coupons are limited. So again it’s building urgency throughout. The next is the product story. So the brand awareness people don’t know your brand. They don’t know the product really introducing that. Maybe you have. Why is this brand exist and things like that. Creating the need. Like why does someone need this product? Do I even need another shirt? Do I need more dog food? Why do I buy it from this brand versus that brand? Do I need more sour candy? Like, what is kind of the. Why should I buy it right now? And do I need this in my daily life? And then you get into the selling points of it, the details, and then you demonstrate the product. Again, different buy by category, but the demo and then your personal story of like how this connects to you in your daily life. Then you build trust. Like what are the ratings like how many people bought it. What are they saying about this product.

Jason Termechi 00:26:11  And then you give them the call to action. So I think throughout that time you are calling out like, hey guys. Like we only got five minutes left on the flash sale. Four minutes, three minutes, two minutes. It’s about to end. Make sure you’re clicking. So we really want to drive people to the product and get them to click on the pinned item. Maybe there’s multiple colors of this sweater. Go check it out. See what those look like on the model. See what people are saying. So again it’s a funnel into the the pin product. That’s our click through rate. And then we want to educate them and convince them to purchase it. That is our click to order rate. So you have to see kind of where the drop off is. If a product has a lot of clicks, but it’s not getting added to cart, it’s not converting, then there might be something that there’s misalignment, maybe there’s something that the host isn’t saying during the scripting to get them over the line.

Jason Termechi 00:27:07  Maybe it’s too expensive and we should rethink our pricing strategy. But again, it’s really diving into the data of each product and understanding where is kind of where is the opportunity that we’re missing.

Josh Hadley 00:27:20  How much do you have to like repeat yourself over that 2 to 3 hours that your life.

Jason Termechi 00:27:25  Because people are coming in every 30s to like a minute. For most sellers, there’s going to be an opportunity to talk about the same things over and over again, finding ways to kind of reposition it. So you’re talking to new people so, so often, and you definitely want to like, highlight who the brand is as new people come in. So I think that’s really key, telling them to follow and engage with the live and do all the things. So it can be quite repetitive, especially if you’re only showing a select amount of products. But again, I think it’s finding ways to make it a little bit more dynamic through your giveaways. They’re asking questions and engaging with the audience so it can feel a little repetitive at times.

Jason Termechi 00:28:10  But I think that consistency is what really gets the job done.

Josh Hadley 00:28:14  So consistency you’re telling these stories. Do you have to try to gamify your live selling on TikTok, where you’re doing like a game show, or you always do X, Y and Z. Like what? What does that look like to gamify TikTok? Shop live selling?

Jason Termechi 00:28:32  I will speak only on the flash sale side because for auctions it’s the wild wild West and they’ve completely gamified it and it doesn’t look like it used to. So I won’t touch on. I can touch on that, but I.

Josh Hadley 00:28:48  Would love to hear your thoughts on auctions as well separately. So for sure.

Jason Termechi 00:28:52  I think it’s building that dialogue between you or you’re not like talking to a wall where you are making them feel a part of the live selling experience, where you are recognizing their questions, where you’re saying, hey, guys, like, let’s hit 10,000 likes will run the next giveaway or things like that. So again, it should still have that aspect. And my three E’s are entertainment, engagement and education.

Jason Termechi 00:29:17  So it’s like you got to hit all three of those where one without the other is not going to work, if you’re constantly selling and people will just get turned off from it. If you’re constantly just trying to put on a show that people will see through it and you’re not going to be selling, it’s like, okay, great, that’s great for brand awareness and clicks. But you’re not you’re not driving. You’re not creating urgency. So I some people turn into a game show and it feels like that at times. And I think there should be like a level of mystery and things where like unexpected, unexpected things are going to happen. And I think it’s fun with like mega lives where you can, like celebrate those milestones of whether it’s sales or likes or things like that, where you don’t know what’s going to come next, where you’re going to have music playing, you’re going to have confetti popping, you’re going to have people dancing or singing or whatever. Like I think in that regard, it can become fun and exciting.

Jason Termechi 00:30:06  But for your daily lives, I guess it’s to each their own and how they want to approach. I don’t want to make it boring and I think that has to be there has to be something there. And I think that’s where the host, you can rely on the host for that energy and to, like, make things fun and exciting and crack jokes, but not get too off script for auctions. They’ve gamified it a lot in terms of like you have like people with like a, like a claw machine or it’s like a surprise sets. It’s like one out of every certain purchases gets a special gift. But like, we’re a brand selling dog treats or whatever. And you’re like, wait, why are you giving away, like a travel mug from a different brand? But most people are going to end up with something, but they’re bidding higher in hopes to getting a higher value item. So it’s like you’re watering down your product in a sense where you’re like, you have to rely on these gimmicks of like, oh, I have to give away this, or I have to give away that, and I have to create this mystery.

Jason Termechi 00:31:12  Like, I don’t know, it’s fun and exciting for like, the customer, but it doesn’t feel like you’re really building anything. And TikTok might throw out violations and change things where, oh, you can’t do this. You can’t do that. So I think if you can really blend the two and like, I’m very much in favor of running flash sales and auctions together. I think auctions work when you have, let’s say, aged inventory, or you want to increase your average order value through bundles or like a mystery box or whatever tactic you want. And I love auctions, but once it gets a little too gimmicky where the viewer loses control, that becomes a little tricky. Or it’s like, oh, if you buy certain things, you get like entries to this game or that game, or you get to, I don’t know, like it’s a little much. And I think that’s what happened to whatnot and they really crack down on it. So if enough people complain and they have been about certain things, like we were seeing resellers put in like iPads or PS5’s or things like that, or if like one out of a thousand people will be able to get like a PS5 for like $10.

Jason Termechi 00:32:19  So it’s like that’s becomes a little tricky and there’s too much uncertainty around it. And I think we’ve lost sight of how lives and why lives are exist because of that.

Josh Hadley 00:32:30  So you’re seeing a lot of people just gravitate towards the auctions and just like throwing caution to the wind right now, whereas you’re kind of saying, hey, I think, like, you should really focus on telling the brand story and the why behind your products rather than just trying to gamify and get one sell, you know, out of the gate while, you know, really they purchased it for the PS5, they didn’t really purchase it because they like your brand.

Jason Termechi 00:32:57  It feels like that at times, and I don’t want it to I don’t want to teach consumers bad behaviors where it’s like, I don’t want them to get in the habit of like, oh, I’m not going to buy anything unless it’s on an auction, you know what I mean? Where it’s like, I’m going to jump from live to live where I want to kind of feed this instant dopamine hit where I am bidding on something and trying to get a good deal versus investing in the product and the brand.

Jason Termechi 00:33:25  Like, I’m all for, like clearing out like old inventory at a, at a, at a lower right and giving people a good deal and creating bigger bundles and some form of mystery involved. Like, I love that too. But when it’s all gimmicky and it feels like a circus where you’re playing these circus games, I don’t know. For me it’s not my cup of tea, but it works for some people. And like, sure, if they want to keep doing that, go for it. But I’m I guess I’m more old school when it comes to these things.

Josh Hadley 00:33:54  I love that. Tell me a little bit more about any other tips. I think you also talked about like how important like awareness is for lives. Tell me about that. How do you even get engagement out of the gate instead of just going live and be like, oh, I hope somebody finds me. Like, what does that look like to actually get people to come and watch your show.

Jason Termechi 00:34:15  Yeah. So this is something they preach very heavily at TikTok.

Jason Termechi 00:34:19  And when we talked about what brands should be doing, what they should be considering mistakes that they. I think they underestimate this portion. So for me, what I tell my clients to do is like one, you schedule the live in the app, whether it’s every live you go or it’s once a week. Make sure that we are scheduling the live, giving it a certain description. Why should people come in all of that jazz? So it’s like really being thought out of like okay, once a week or I guess it could be every live. Dedicate time and resources to promoting this live because we want people to know what’s happening, especially if it’s a mini mega live, a mega live new arrivals sale, whatever it is. So we schedule the live in the app. We post content a few days before, a week before tagging this live event, letting people know what’s coming up, why they should join, giving them a little teaser and getting them to register for the live. And then we use the CRM that TikTok and a lot of people overlook this.

Jason Termechi 00:35:22  And whether it works or it doesn’t, it’s free and you don’t have to pay for it. And you get like 3 to 5 depending on your shop score. So why not use that where you’re able to reach thousands upon thousands of people and you send them a message and say, hey, we have a live coming up this time, this day. Make sure you register and they can and you’re able to build custom segments. So when we talked about reaching maybe, maybe your issue is I only get the same repeat buyers in my life. It’s like, okay, great, let’s create a new segment for our CRM system where we target people who have not made a purchase in the last 90 days, re-engage with them, get them to join the live or it’s someone that’s never bought something. So I think there’s a tool that you can use like that that’s being overlooked. And then you can also like post before you go live saying, hey, we’re going to be live. We have the a flashing red icon.

Jason Termechi 00:36:13  If you see us live, click on that and then you get to like Live Highlights which clips your content, post to the post of your feed and then you can archive it after. So again, none of that costs any money at some point if you want to test ads. Sure. I’m not the biggest believer in it, but I really want to build an organic foundation and have all the metrics in a good place. So one of the ways to increase your traffic to that we were taught at TikTok is increase your click through rate, increase your follow rate, increase your watch duration. And this will feed the algorithm and it will help increase your views. But again, with auctions, all of the traffic is being diverted there because they’re generating the most amount of money the fastest way they can. So it’s made it even more competitive and difficult to scale and grow. That’s why it auctions can be a good tool in the short term, but maybe not in the long term.

Josh Hadley 00:37:07  Yeah, sounds like the world is ever evolving as it relates to live selling.

Josh Hadley 00:37:12  Jason, as we begin to wrap things up here, what else have we not addressed that you feel like the listeners need to know if they want to go execute, you know, selling live on TikTok shop?

Jason Termechi 00:37:23  I think we covered most of it. I think they should just try it out, get a good handle of it, continue to practice, have a clear plan of like what they want to do and what they want to accomplish based on some of the things we talked about here. But again, I think a lot of it is going to come down to scripting, get people to to click on the product, educate them on the product, tell them why they should buy this product, get them to order. I think that is very key and fundamental. Like we can’t just expect people to click on it. If you have a coupon, show them how to apply the coupon. Show them what the discount is like. Again, I think these are just simple practices and maybe you do it once or twice.

Jason Termechi 00:38:04  It’s just the consistency of it, you know, and having like understanding of TikTok scamming US coupons today. We don’t know how long they’re going to last, but make sure you use it. This is how you use it. Our product was normally $100. We sailed it down to 50 and if you use the coupon you get an extra $5 off. So bring it from 100 to $45 plus free shipping. And we have free returns. So it’s like all of those things, you really have to pile it on them, almost having to twist their arm and giving them a reason not to buy it. So it’s like, I don’t think people are willing to commit to that. I it’s very salesy, but especially in the beginning, you really have to convince them the value is there. And I think a lot of people are opposed to that.

Josh Hadley 00:38:44  How long does it take till the Amazon or TikTok algorithm knows and sends more people into your lives? Like, how long do you think that Cold Start method is? Where it’s like, yep, you got to just get through the first, I don’t know, four weeks, eight weeks of going live every week for 2 to 3 hours per day.

Jason Termechi 00:39:03  It used to be a month. We used to call like the cold start period, like, oh, break through the first month. And for some people it is. But with auctions it’s made things a lot slower. So it’s made it a lot trickier. And for auction sellers, they don’t have a cold start, period. But if you are a more traditional brand and not a reseller, it’s going to take a little bit of time. But I promise as you persevere and go live consistently and really focus on the fundamentals, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Josh Hadley 00:39:36  Good words. Well, Jason, I love to leave the audience with three action items from every episode. Here are the three action items that I listed you. Let me know if I’m missing something. Action item number one is you need to identify who your host is. You have an amazing tick tock shop live selling strategy, but if you have the wrong host, all the wheels fall off of that. And so if you are the founder, it is like I would also argue to that point, you said that that’s what you’ve seen the best success with.

Josh Hadley 00:40:08  Obviously, I think that that’s the person who knows the most. They’re the one who probably designed the product or created the product to begin with. They’re going to have the most knowledge and hopefully more passion about the product as well. But if you are not going to be the person going live, then you do need to go find somebody that has some really impressive like skills as it relates to selling and live. It’s kind of the QVC of, you know, the 2020 era right now, and you’ve got to find the right people that are going to do that and make the commitment. You touched on that. But like the host needs to be committed. This is not a I’m going to go dip my toe in the water and go do a live for 30 minutes. Oh, it didn’t work out and then move on, because what you’re saying is like, it’s probably going to take you a month or two just to even prove the model and get better and better. So that’s action item number one.

Josh Hadley 00:41:00  Action item number two is going to be all about the scripting. I love that you kind of have that eight step method. And there’s a reason behind why you say the things that you say, and you keep coming back and repeating things and maybe using a different angle, and then ultimately like having a call to action because far too often people are just like, well, why aren’t they buying? You’re not giving them a reason to buy. And having those live the flash sales, the, you know, buy this product, get another for free. Those are all the things that you can do that are exclusive to lives to make it give them a compelling reason to say yes on the spot. And then my third and final action item is you have to raise the awareness. I love that you listed some of the tools that Amazon or TikTok already gives you first and foremost, to say, hey, use this. You can reach out to people, let them know that your live is coming up. They can reserve RSVP for it and be notified.

Josh Hadley 00:41:57  So loved all of those. But you can’t just assume that hey, if I just go live randomly, people are going to show up, and that’s a big mistake I think a lot of people make. This is dedicated planning time awareness. Take it to the next level by sending that email out to your own email audience to say, hey, come join me on the live. We go live every day, every time, this day of the week. Jason, anything else you feel like I missed there?

Jason Termechi 00:42:25  No, I think you covered it well. And again, I think the email is a great call out. If they have an Instagram following, if they have a text blast. We can’t simply rely on the algorithm at this point. We really have to take some of it into our own control, and shift and funnel those people from your existing followings and other areas, and then give them a good reason to join those lives, like you mentioned.

Josh Hadley 00:42:48  Great. Well, Jason, as we wrap up today’s show, I’d love to ask every guest the following three questions.

Josh Hadley 00:42:53  So, number one, what’s been the most influential book that you’ve read and why?

Jason Termechi 00:42:57  I think it’s been a while since I read it, but it’s it’s stuck with me for a while for many reasons. So I believe, and I come from a streetwear background where again, that’s kind of like the world that I came from in terms of content and from a young age of just being involved there. The owner of a brand called The Hundreds and the hundreds was once the biggest streetwear brand at the time, or one of the biggest. The owner, known as Bobby Hundreds, wrote a book, believe it was How to sell a t shirt or something along those lines. And the one part that stuck out to me in that book when he was starting his brand and he he didn’t even really have a physical product. He would go into a lot of these stores and like, pitch the buyers at like some of the biggest retailers and try to get them to buy his stuff. And again, he was really young and new to it, and they were just looking at sketches and this and that.

Jason Termechi 00:43:49  What he would do is go to these brand or go these stores and say, hey, like, take these shirts on consignment and you don’t have to, like, you don’t have to pay us. Well, we’ll just take a percentage of the sales or you guys take a percentage and whatever recoup the cost. So what he would do is he would send these shirts or drop off these shirts, and then he would send his friends into the stores to buy it. And then the buyers would be like, oh, wow. Like, this brand has some traction. And little by little more, he sent more and more people. They’d sell out, and then they finally put in an order. And I think it just speaks to kind of like the creativity and resourcefulness of, I guess, business, not not letting things stand in your way. You know, people are going to tell, you know, a lot and it’s easy to get discouraged and you just have to get a little creative with it and find different avenues and different things.

Jason Termechi 00:44:38  And I think live has really challenged me that in that way, especially now of of really digging deep and not getting demotivated or discouraged when things go wrong. So I think that speaks to a lot of founders of like trying to get something off the ground. How do I get in touch with this investor? How do I do this? Or how do I like, break through kind of all the things that are going on right now. So thinking outside the box and not being afraid to take risks.

Josh Hadley 00:45:06  Love that recommendation. First time I’ve heard that book, but I love that story already. Very creative. Question number two what’s your favorite AI tool that you’ve been using and how have you been using it?

Jason Termechi 00:45:17  Okay, so I’m very far behind and I know a lot of people will say like Claude this and Claude that, or like have all of these AI tools and I guess I haven’t dug deep enough. I’m very much still on ChatGPT. I’ll get around to the other ones, but for now, it’s served its purpose for me.

Jason Termechi 00:45:38  When I use it for my clients, I am using it to analyze data in the sense of like if I’m pulling live data and product performance and comparing it to their shop performance. So trying to uncover opportunities of how is our live doing in terms of the products that are selling versus the ones that are selling in the in their store? Maybe there’s bestsellers that we’re overlooking that we should include in our lives. Maybe there’s things that are doing well on live that aren’t doing well on shop. Like what? Where is the interest lie. And really diving deep into the analysis of the of the products. And I think that’s helped me uncover a lot of things of opportunities. And I think I mentioned this before. It’s like what’s getting a lot of clicks and what’s not converting and for what reasons, and how can we potentially overcome that. And then I also use it and I don’t talk about this a lot, but I use it to if I’m pitching a client. So I am able to use ChatGPT and perplexity to one kind of give them an idea of what their life could look like.

Jason Termechi 00:46:42  And then I use perplexity to animate it, which is really cool and scary at the same time. But I guess from kind of a creative standpoint, I use those too. But from an analytical standpoint, from a productivity standpoint, from improving my scripting and just getting kind of a second set of eyes. I use Chacha B2 when I can.

Josh Hadley 00:47:04  Love those use cases. Very fun. Final question who is somebody you admire or respect the most in the e-commerce space that other people should be following and why?

Jason Termechi 00:47:13  It’s hard to say. And I was thinking about this the entire podcast and some come to mind. I think I’m someone who absorbs information and content passively, and I guess someone who’s been popping up and I’ve known the name for a while, and I guess he does podcasting this and that, Alex Hormozi. But I really like the one format that he does where I guess he hosts a lot of business founders and some do ecom. So not specifically e-commerce, but he gets them all in a room and they come up and say, like, this is my business, we’re doing X amount and we’re thinking about doing this or we do that.

Jason Termechi 00:47:48  And he really simplifies it and gets them to like focus on one thing and see business clearer. I don’t really know him for all the other things or know kind of who he is in terms of that and what he stands for. But from a content perspective of just like breaking that down and I enjoy it, I’ll watch it, I’ll follow it and engage with it. But yeah, just, just lately who’s been popping up on my feed?

Josh Hadley 00:48:12  Alex Hormozi is everywhere right now. It feels like so good recommendation. Well, Jason, I appreciate your time. If people want to learn more about you, reach out to you, hire your services. Where’s the best place they could reach out and find you?

Jason Termechi 00:48:25  They can reach out to me on LinkedIn, so just search my name, Jason. They can go to my website and see some of my work and my case studies. Or they can shoot me an email at Jason. At Jason.

Josh Hadley 00:48:35  Com easy enough. Well Jason, thanks again for your time today and for joining the show.

Jason Termechi 00:48:40  Of course I appreciate it. Thanks for the opportunity.

Host 00:48:42  Thank you for listening. Visit Ecomm breakthrough com for more information. If you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, the best way you can show your appreciation is by clicking the subscribe button and quickly leaving a review. See you again next time!