The #1 Mistake TikTok Shop Sellers Make When Launching a Product with Michelle Barnum Smith

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The #1 Mistake TikTok Shop Sellers Make When Launching a Product with Michelle Barnum Smith

Today on the Ecomm Breakthrough Podcast, let’s welcome a true expert in the world of social commerce, Michelle Barnum Smith. Michelle is the founder of TTShopSellers and one of the leading voices when it comes to helping e-commerce brands unlock the massive potential of TikTok Shop.

With years of marketing experience under her belt and a track record of guiding sellers through the ever-changing world of online retail, Michelle has become a go-to strategist for Ecom sellers looking to diversify their revenue, scale into new channels, and build sustainable growth strategies.

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> Here’s a glimpse of what you would learn….
  • The evolving role of TikTok Shop in e-commerce and its distinction from traditional marketplaces like Amazon.
  • Strategies for sellers to succeed on TikTok Shop, focusing on content creation and engagement.
  • The importance of treating TikTok Shop as a top-of-funnel, entertainment-first platform rather than a direct sales channel.
  • Common mistakes sellers make when onboarding to TikTok Shop, including listing entire catalogs without focus.
  • Criteria for selecting TikTok-friendly products, including demonstrability, unique features, and impulse-buy price points.
  • The strategic use of TikTok Shop for inventory liquidation and building momentum for products.
  • Listing optimization techniques specific to TikTok Shop, including title and description strategies.
  • Pricing strategies tailored for TikTok Shop, emphasizing impulse buying and promotional tactics.
  • The significance of creator collaboration and effective management in content production for TikTok.
  • Continuous optimization and testing as essential practices for long-term success on TikTok Shop.

In this episode of the Ecomm Breakthrough Podcast, host Josh Hadley interviews Michelle Barnum Smith, founder of TTShopSellers, TikTok Shop Strategist and TikTok Shop Expert. Michelle shares actionable strategies for e-commerce sellers looking to succeed on TikTok Shop, emphasizing the importance of focused product selection, engaging content, and leveraging affiliates. She explains how TikTok Shop differs from traditional marketplaces, offers tips on pricing, merchandising, and listing optimization, and discusses the necessity of continuous content creation and advertising. The episode concludes with personal insights from Michelle and an invitation for listeners to access free audits and further resources.

Here are the 3 action items that Josh identified from this episode:
  1. Focus on 1–3 High-Potential Products Using the Five TikTok Filters
    Apply the “Five Filters” (demonstrable, unique features, passionate niche, problem-solving, impulse price point) to select only 1–3 hero products per quarter. Building momentum around a few strong listings beats dumping your whole catalog.
  2. Commit to High-Volume Content: 5–10 Videos per Week per Listing
    TikTok Shop success = content volume × consistency. Produce 5–10 short videos per listing each week using a mix of brand content, UGC, affiliates, and in-house creators to maximize hooks and discovery.
  3. Create Impulse-Buy Offers with Free Shipping + Flash Sales + Coupons
    TikTok Shop is driven by urgency and value. Always offer free shipping, run frequent flash sales, and use coupons instead of permanent discounts to maintain your pricing power while boosting conversions.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Special Mention(s):
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Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by eComm Breakthrough Consulting where I help seven-figure e-commerce owners grow to eight figures.
I started Hadley Designs 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 go to www.EcommBreakthrough.com (that’s Ecomm with two M’s) to learn more.
Transcript Area
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:00:00  Kind of a secret little secret hack is that TikTok is a really great place to liquidate inventory. Now, I don’t like to liquidate for the sake of, you know, just blowing inventory out. I want to use that inventory to build momentum for an existing listing or something like that. But let’s say that I have, you know, a product that I invested heavily in for Q4 and it didn’t take on Amazon or DTC or any of my other platforms.
MC 00:00:33  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 00:00:47  What if your next seven figure product launch did not come from Amazon, but from TikTok shop? Today’s guest is going to show us how to make that happen. 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 in sales.
Josh Hadley 00:01:07  On my journey to nine figures, I bring you unfiltered conversations with some of the smartest minds in e-commerce. Past guests include Kevin King, Ezra Firestone, and Michael E Gerber, author of The Myth. Today, on the E-com Breakthrough podcast, I’m thrilled to welcome a true expert in the world of social commerce, Michelle Barnum Smith. Michelle is the founder of TTShop Sellers and one of the leading voices when it comes to helping ecommerce brands unlock the massive potential of TikTok shop. With years of marketing experience under her belt and a track record of guiding sellers through the ever changing world of online retail, Michelle has become a go to strategist for E-comm sellers looking to diversify their revenue scale to new channels and build sustainable growth strategies. With that introduction, Welcome to the show, Michelle.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:01:59  Hi. Thanks so much for having me. I’m happy. So excited to be here.
Josh Hadley 00:02:02  Michelle, it’s an honor to have you on the show. I know we cross paths at many, many events, and so you are well known in the e-commerce space as the go to TikTok shop expert.
Josh Hadley 00:02:15  And so I’m grateful to have you on the show today. And, I Michelle, I want to dive straight into this thing and say what is going on in the world of TikTok shop. We’re into a brand new year here. And TikTok shop has been evolving very quickly. It’s only been around for just a few short years, but man, it has changed dramatically over those short years. So, Michelle, I think the big question on everybody’s mind is like, what’s working on TikTok shop today? And if I’m an e-commerce seller, how do I actually have success there?
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:02:49  Yeah, absolutely. So obviously we’ve just had a massive Q4 and TikTok shop Proves yet again that they are a player in this space, not just another marketplace, but a definer of marketplaces and a beneficiary of all marketplaces. I don’t think that TikTok truly competes with anybody. I think that they complement everyone because they’re top of funnel. And from a marketing perspective, what can be better for sellers than to actually be able to have, a platform in which they can quickly build their brand and have multiple ways to benefit from, from that brand building, whether that’s Amazon, their own DTC, or of course, TikTok shop as well.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:03:33  So TikTok, you know, is a great equal opportunity platform no matter where a seller sells through.
Josh Hadley 00:03:40  I love it and I couldn’t agree more. I think it is very different. I don’t think it’s necessarily competing with Amazon. It’s not competing with Walmart like it is its own beast. And as you mentioned, I think it’s one of the best ways to just create brand awareness that has. There’s never been an arbitrage opportunity like there is now. maybe if you were to go back to the Facebook ad days of the early 2020 tens, that’s when Facebook ads were cheap and there was a good arbitrage opportunity there to, like, get a lot of exposure, relatively cheap cost. that’s back, but it’s in the form of TikTok shop right now. Michelle talked to me about there’s been a number of sellers that have experimented on the platform and they’re like, oh, I haven’t been able to figure it out for my brand. I think most sellers at this point have probably tried to dip their toe in the water.
Josh Hadley 00:04:35  They’ve either done it themselves or they’ve even gone with an agency and they’re like, yeah, the agency did nothing. I just lost a lot of money. I hear that story probably more often than I hear people say, oh, I’m just absolutely crushing it and making a crapload of money on TikTok shop. What’s been your experience? What are you hearing from sellers? Are they winning or are they losing and why?
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:04:58  Yeah, so there is a variety of results that people are getting right. And I think especially when sellers are approaching TikTok from an expansion standpoint, they’re treating it like any other expansion strategy, whether that’s, you know, cross cross channel in the form of like, you’re on Amazon.com and now you want to be on enka or UK or whatever it might be. or you’re thinking about it from an additional marketplace perspective, like you’re on Amazon, but now you’re expanding to Walmart or you’re expanding to, you know, Etsy or eBay or one of the other, platforms. It is not the same.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:05:36  It is not the same kind of marketplace expansion strategy that you apply to any other search based marketplace, right? That’s the difference is that, TikTok shop is not a bottom of funnel. Somebody’s already aware that they have a need and they’re searching for a solution. TikTok is a social platform. First, it’s an entertainment destination for people and sellers, that I see struggling with TikTok shop. What they’re struggling with is a combination of understanding how to sell on the platform. in a way that’s that’s efficient. so kind of the first thing that if I’m helping sellers diagnose a problem is sometimes the problem is your baby is ugly, guys. Like, sometimes your product is not right for the platform. Now, I know that there are some sellers that believe that that any product is right for TikTok shop, but I will tell you, that is not the case. That is not true just because of how the platform, functions straight out the gate. You know, because it’s a top of funnel platform and people are on the platform for entertainment.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:06:48  Not for purchasing. Not for buying the buy. When somebody opens TikTok and there’s all sorts of data to prove this, you know, the reason that they’re on the platform in the first place is because they have a moment in time that they are trying to fill. They are in line at the grocery store. They are in the waiting at a stoplight. They are, you know, checking out at their son’s soccer game. Like, whatever it means, whatever it looks like they’re they’re there to scroll. They’re not necessarily there to buy now, because once again, if they knew that they wanted to buy something, where would they be? Where would they be?
Josh Hadley 00:07:24  Josh they would be on Amazon, right?
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:07:27  Right, exactly. So.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:07:29  so we have to stay connected to the reason why people are on the platform in the first place, which is that entertainment, you know, mentally taking a break purpose, right. And creating content and focusing on content creation, that is relevant and connects with the the why that somebody is on the platform.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:07:52  I’m not saying that you have to create a whole bunch of, like, crazy entertainment based content or anything like that, but you have to remember why somebody is on the platform in the first place, because it’s not to buy, it’s not to buy. And so what happens is that a lot of sellers, when they’re getting started on TikTok, they will bring over their entire product catalog. I will not tell you how many times I’ve talked to sellers of every shape and size and everything that they have to offer on Amazon or on DTC. They are selling on TikTok shop. And I think there’s a huge disconnect between, like the reality of how people actually shop on the platform and how somebody goes about actually buying something on the platform 90% of the time. I will say, even even up to 99% of the time somebody is buying because they have seen a video. That is the main discovery mechanism. And so when you have sellers who are bringing over their entire catalog, they’re basically like dispersing their energy.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:08:52  Right. Like if you want momentum for your listings and you’re recruiting affiliates and things like that, and you’re and you’re like the creepy watch salesman on the corner, that’s like what you want. I got I got everything for you. You know, and you’re telling, you know, affiliates or content creators or whatever to, you know, pick one of something up from our vast catalog. Like, you’re not creating focus for what customers need to be, and creators need to be focusing on every. Like when I tell sellers and I’m like, listen. Every listing that you have up here, no one’s going to buy anything unless you have minimum, minimum 500 pieces of content and you’re running ads for at least three months, minimum to get started. Are you going to do that for every single one of your listings? And you see, kind of like the the lights turn on. They’re like, Holy crap. No, right. I’m like, okay, let’s create some focus. What is what? What is the right product strategy to actually go to market with? And sometimes TikTok is like, hey, you know, when they’re when they are teaching sellers to onboard, they’re like, yeah, just bring over your whole catalog.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:10:04  But they’re doing a disservice to sellers by telling them that, hey, just connect your connect your Amazon account to TikTok or connect your Shopify account to TikTok. It’s a it’s a huge disservice because really, there needs to be product strategy first and foremost and making sure that you’re creating focus and that you have the right product that you’re focusing on in the first place.
Josh Hadley 00:10:26  I love it. So, Michelle, let’s say you’ve got an Amazon seller that has 100 different products in their catalog right now, and they’re hearing you and they’re like, okay, so how do I decide what are my top like? Is it just one? Are you saying focus on one? Would you bring over three? And then I love that you had kind of like, metrics of, like, are you willing to put ad spend behind this for three months, and how many samples should I allocate, etc.? Why don’t you walk me through kind of your recommendations for that seller?
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:10:59  Yeah. So I have these conversations all the time where like they do have 100 products, sometimes 1000 products and that, you know, that might include variations, right? So I had this conversation with the seller last week.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:11:10  And my recommendations, first and foremost is identifying your most TikTok products. Like what of your products here? Meet the best kind of TikTok ability requirements. in the case of this seller, they had some sheets. They had some bedding, like beds in the bag. They had kitchen, kitchen curtains and they had chair cushions like kitchen table chair cushions. And I’m like, no, no, no. Like nobody is on TikTok to buy kitchen fashion. We’ll say that, like the chair, the chair cushions are an absolute like, no, you know, like from a demonstrable standpoint. Yeah. Like okay okay. So my five filters of TikTok really number one is demonstrably can it easily be demonstrated. Yes. Can you, can you plop down kitchen cushions on a chair. Sure. Yes. Can you show the different designs and all of those things. Yeah, absolutely. So demonstrably, Chuck, does it have unique features? Sure. You can be talking about like, you know, the memory foam and the waterproofing and the different colors and different styles.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:12:17  number three, does it serve a passionate niche? no. So like somebody who’s really interested in kitchen cushions, probably not the case. number five, does it solve a problem? kitchen cushions? Possibly. Possibly. Possibly, Yes, but mostly it’s home fashion, right? And it’s a specific look and feel and specific design. And then the fifth filter is, impulse buying. Is it priced in that 30 to $50 range? You know, each one of these cushions I think was $30 in and of itself. So a whole set was, you know, upwards of over $100 depending on the, you know, size and style. So it’s it’s really kind of making sure that your products that there is that tick tock ability kind of nature. I would argue that people are not on the platform to buy kitchen cushions right now. They did have some really interesting, seasonal products that lent itself to kind of like, you know, like in the case of the sheets, they had some cooling sheets, but they also had some flannel sheets, which, you know, were in the winter months.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:13:28  There’s like it solves that strong need, that strong problem. Right now, people are cold and they go to sleep, you know, those types of things. but their price point on the sheets were. Was more premium. And once again, people are there to impulse buy. You get to a certain point where people are going to shop it, right? They’re like, well, I don’t do I need these final sheets or do I want to go to Amazon and see all the flannel sheets? Right. We don’t want that to happen. We do want that to happen because we love Halo effect, but we don’t want them to shop shop us in such like a, you know, competitive, super competitive categories. So the first thing is identifying the right product and the right product strategy to go to market with. At the end of the day, we selected their beds in a bag. You know, as like the most kind of TikTok product, had a good price point and had some unique designs that, you know, had some seasonality that we could capitalize on.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:14:18  I will say, Josh, though, kind of a secret little secret hack is that TikTok is a really great place to liquidate inventory. Now, I don’t like to liquidate for the sake of, you know, just blowing inventory out. I want to use that inventory to build momentum for an existing listing or something like that. But let’s say that I have, you know, a a product that I invested heavily in for Q4 and it didn’t take on Amazon or DTC or any of my other platforms. TikTok can be a great place to blow that inventory out and to use kind of liquidation strategies. And I we did this last Q1 for some of my sellers. And not only did it go crazy, absolutely nuts, because, you know, we’re we’re being aggressive in our pricing. It’s a low risk for us. You know, you know, we’re not trying to make this profitable. We’re just trying to, like, blow out some inventory, reduce storage fees, you know, all of those various kind of things.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:15:19  But because we had it as a variant for a longer lasting Ethan or listing, for lack of a better term, it was able to build momentum for the overall Role listing. And, we were able to like incrementally, incrementally raise the price and start running adds to it in such a way that, lo and behold, it became a TikTok only product, like it was selling so well that once we were able to kind of like bring down the storage fees on Amazon, we were able to get product into FPT. It became we flipped it, it became profitable product, and we were able to not only resurrect that product, but then build variants on top of it that also could, you know, benefit from that kind of long term use of the use of the content. It’s kind of a mad, mad world TikTok from that perspective.
Josh Hadley 00:16:14  Interesting, I love that, I love the inventory liquidation opportunity there. So walk me through that. Like, so what does that mean? You had this stale product that had been sitting on the shelves of Amazon for a long time.
Josh Hadley 00:16:28  What was your gut? What was your strategy? Did you already have a lot of existing affiliates? You reached out to them. Hey, who wants this product? And then did you have just like a dirt bottom price on it where you were fine, even just like breaking even on the seller fees and whatnot on TikTok shop Walk Me through. Like, how did that actually work to where it gained enough momentum to where you’re like, actually, this can stay around.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:16:52  Yeah, we already.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:16:53  Had a bestselling listing on TikTok. And as you know, one of the easiest things to do is to give your affiliates something new to talk about. Right. And so if we’re rolling in and being like, hey, we have this really great product that we’re going to be do some really aggressive pricing on and let’s let’s go, let’s go. You know, and obviously got the product in their hands. and had just like a lot of content being created around that. at the same time TikTok usually in Q1 has some big liquidation style campaigns, I think this year.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:17:31  yeah. Like, there’s, there’s always something that’s going on in January that’s liquidation oriented. but there’s always seasonal events coming up that have liquidation campaign opportunities, as well. But so in conjunction with that liquidation campaign, we also had just like a ton of affiliates. We ran ads to that content. price point, the seller that we worked with, they determined the price. I think they were just like, hey, we just want to break even. We don’t want to, you know, we don’t necessarily want to lose money, but we don’t want to. We don’t care about making money. You know, that kind of thing, just covering the relative costs of both the product and the storage fees and the cost of it being, on TikTok. But they weren’t trying to make money off of it. And, and as you know, sometimes it’s just like one video, two videos, three videos, you know, and it kind of creates this affiliate snowball effect. So it also, If sellers aren’t aware what happens sometimes on TikTok.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:18:29  Sellers creators are quickly kind of figure out what’s selling on TikTok and if it’s relevant to who they are as a creator and and their audience because they they’re just marketing channels, right? They have their followers. They want to keep their followers engaged and happy and all of these things. And so if they have products, especially good deals, that are relevant to those, to their followers, they’re all about creating content for it. And so if you have a few videos start to pop off, you’re going to have what’s called this the affiliate snowball effect happen, where creators are going to see, hey, this product is starting to pop off, and all of a sudden you’ll get just like, crap, crap, ton of sample requests come in. so much so that you don’t have to be doing a lot of outreach. They’ll come to you. Right. That’s a that’s a really ideal kind of scenario. And then you can kind of pick the cream of the crop to, to work with and recruit to for future engagements, for future purposes.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:19:20  And then obviously that content, you can run ads to it in perpetuity. so that’s a beautiful, beautiful thing. A beautiful part of that whole kind of flywheel effect of TikTok. So, yeah, that was that was basically the process in a nutshell, was identifying, you know, there’s the hero product strategy and then there’s the anti-hero product strategy, i.e. you know, liquidation, liquidation. But what I don’t want sellers to do is liquidate a listing that doesn’t have long term opportunity on the platform. So sometimes what happens is people will have seasonal products. And we had had a brand this last Q4 that had tons of seasonal. There were candy seller and they had tons of seasonal like, you know, snowflakes and and Santa Clauses and reindeer and, you know, little marshmallows and chocolate candies and all those things. And it was like, if we’re going to sell those products, we are going to put it on a listing that has long term opportunity, where that like, this is just a variation of an existing product that has a long term potential, because what I don’t want to do is try to build momentum and build interest in a product that is just going to die, that we’re just going to kill that listing.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:20:33  You know, that we can’t resurrect later on in the year or whatever like that. This listing is just just a like a flush in the toilet listing. Like, we don’t want that. We want we want that energy that we build for that seasonal or for that liquidation product to be able to benefit a listing for the long term. So if you’re thinking about a liquidation event, how can that be combined? How can that product be combined with other relevant products that are in your catalog for long term benefit?
Josh Hadley 00:21:04  Yeah, I love that. I think that’s a really important fact to point out, because I know you and I talked earlier this year, and that was the feedback that you gave to me. Previously on it. Amazon. We we would set up a lot of our products to be like standalone products. Right. Because we want to occupy as much of that search page as possible, which means less variations. But on TikTok shop, it’s the exact opposite. You want kind of like more variations because like when the variations are together, a the sales accumulate to one another creates that social effect.
Josh Hadley 00:21:40  Right. And more affiliates. See. Oh, they’re doing well with this. And if you ever go out of stock with one of those variations, you have other variations. So like you’re never technically out of stock. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Those videos keep living on. Right.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:21:55  So that’s one of the number one mistakes that I see sellers make when they are onboarding. So if we can back up to your one of your questions was like, what are sellers doing wrong. Like, hey, they’re on the platform, but it’s not working for them. There’s so many reasons why it’s not working for them. And sometimes it comes down to how they set up their listing, right? Like I will look at somebody’s product catalog and they have they’re like, my father in law says this. They have their listings spread out from hell to breakfast. Like. Like. So back to the bed. And the bad guy. One of the first conversations we had was listing consolidation. I’m like, look at all these bed in the bag listings you have.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:22:29  Like, why? Why are those separated? Is there a reason why you have those separated? And like you said on Amazon, we are trying to maximize real estate. But on on TikTok shop, we’re trying to maximize attention while we have somebody’s attention for microseconds, they’ve they’ve seen a video. They’ve clicked through to the product detail page. What are their options? Right. How can we maximize that exposure so that we can, you know, capture that sale, but also maybe increase our average order value in the same in the same kind of breadth. So consolidation of listings is really critical. I will also say a secret hack here is to consolidate based on ICP. So ideal customer profile. What are your what are your products, the problems that your products are trying to solve. Right. I have a seller who sells phonics flashcards. He sells all sorts of like, educational products and and so when he’s doing his listing setup and his product development, he’s like, okay, well, here’s some of these other flashcards that we got ABC flashcards.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:23:33  And we’ve got one, two, three flashcards. And we got all these other flyers and I’m like, okay, cool. But let’s let’s remember our ICP. Who is ICP for the for these flashcards. Okay. It’s moms with like younger children or children that are just trying to teach to read write. That’s that that’s the pain point that we’re trying to solve. You know, this is this is a marketing problem, right? Well, he has other phonics products. They’re not flashcards. He has like a learning a learning game. He has, like a bingo type thing. He has like a learning, like learning pad, as well. And I’m like, what if you created the Ultimate Phonics bundle As a variant or bundles as a variant to the flashcards, because the problem that the mom is there to solve is teaching her kids to read. She doesn’t care if it’s just flashcards that help her to do that. And so if you lured her in with the flashcards, let’s show her also. Okay, well, you’re here for the flashcards, but look at all these other sexy phonics, toys.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:24:37  Can we say sexy phonics? But look at our The Ultimate Phonics bundle. and you can create varieties of bundles as it is, as it’s associated with that. And before you ask one of the questions that I ask sellers when they are talking about when we’re talking about product strategy is fulfillment, how are you fulfilling your products? Is it you’re just you’re doing an Amazon MCAT. You have a three PL, are you doing FPT? You know, are you in WD? I never knew there were so many three letter acronyms, related to fulfillment in this space. right? But how somebody fulfills absolutely can affect their product strategy, right? Because if you’re having to do, you know, these bundles and as we know on Amazon, like we can do virtual bundles TikTok we can do virtual bundles, but you can’t add them as variants yet. You know you can’t do combined. Like there’s just all these things that kind of like affect your ability to do to create some of these bundles in, in TikTok.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:25:35  I’ll say never fear though, if you’re using your Amazon inventory, you can create, you know, whatever tool you’re using, like whether it’s Web Shop dance, some of these tools that I love. are you can create essentially a SKU in TikTok shop that is for that bundle that you can then, essentially merge in the back end and say this skew over here are these, arsons from Amazon go, you know, kind of a thing and it will pull from and create the MC up orders, specifically for that. Now, you do need to just be aware of the fees associated with that, each one of those picks. So if you’re going to create a bundle. Just be aware of the cost in doing so. But that’s that’s where you get into pricing. And and you know just being aware. So product strategy is really critical. Josh and I think people get on the platform with TikTok shop and just start doing random acts of sampling and just dispersing their entire catalog all over the place when they really need to have that product focus and that listing optimization first.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:26:36  I mean, every time I speak in event, I ask sellers, I’m like, would you ever direct traffic to an unoptimized listing? How many of you like that’s your jam? No one. Crickets. Always right. That’s just like that’s like that’s basic. And yet they’re doing that on TikTok shop because they like they forget they’re they’re just like so disoriented. They’re like, well, I just I just brought over all my listings. Isn’t that what they said? That’s what I’m supposed to do. I’m like, no, no, no, you don’t listen to TikTok shop. Don’t listen to what they tell you and how how to do it. You need to think about how to maximize like create that that product strategy. And then you also need to optimize your pricing strategy for TikTok. Can we talk about that next? Can we.
Josh Hadley 00:27:21  Talk? Let’s talk about that. I want to talk about all things listing optimization on TikTok shop, because there’s very few kind of like details about that, right? We all know like the title on Amazon, the bullet points, the description.
Josh Hadley 00:27:35  But I’d be curious to hear from you, Michelle. Like what? Like what should my title be on TikTok? Are there any is there any magic of actually follow this type of process? For your title on TikTok shop? Follow this type of process for your description. What do you see working that way? And then obviously pricing is a big component.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:27:56  Yes, absolutely. So I attended a training recently where TikTok was saying that, search is increasing on the platform, in fact, 40% of users on the platform type into the search bar within 30s of getting on the platform. Like, what does that tell us? What does that tell us? What is what is coming? What is happening? There’s a generation that’s rising up where they’re going. Either they’re hearing about something out there that’s trending. You know, it might be content related. It might be creator related, you know, those types of things. But but like, there’s no doubt about it that TikTok is all they’re smart. They’re like, hey, yeah, we want to, you know, we want to monetize views in those types of things.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:28:47  But we’re here to sell product and sell advertising space. And that’s where they make their money. Right. In fact, let me bring up let me bring up the stat. So 3 in 5 TikTok shop users use search and 1 in 40 you search within the first 30s. So listing optimization, all those kind of practices, principles that we learned on Amazon were really critical. Now, what’s really important, though is that we don’t become we don’t just bring over our Amazon listings like we do on Amazon. And Amazon’s gotten better about this. And sellers have also gotten better about this in not creating titles that are just like a bunch of keyword stuff illegible, unreadable garbage. because you can’t do that on TikTok shop. Like like any kind of repetitive keywords will get scraped, from your title and, and those kinds of things and and also your, the quality, your quality. Like TikTok has a product quality, a product listing score for listings. So if your title is keyword, stuff like that, you’ll get a poor rating on your on your listing, those types of things.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:30:00  So product details you know, your title. Those are all really critical things to have. Kind of locked in but readable, readable at the end of the day. So kind of the key things nobody really cares about the brand name. I would just leave your brand name out of it and, and just focus on what are those key kind of selling points about your product, what are those key features, those key differentiators, those those key words themselves. And there’s tools that are available in the platform there in the analytics area, but that are all about kind of search terms. Now there are no helium ten. There are no Jungle Scout. You know, there, you know, the tools themselves relating to search terms on the platform are really kind of crappy. there are tools. If you go to TikTok for inspiration that will take you, to create or search insights, and you can kind of get a feel for what people are searching for on TikTok. And if there’s stuff that is relevant to your product, I would definitely bring those in.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:31:10  Something that’s like, really misunderstood about TikTok. Shop is it’s high level because it’s high level in the funnel. People aren’t aware of the needs that they have, right? So let’s talk about magnesium supplements, for example on TikTok or excuse me, on Amazon. Somebody’s already aware that they’re like, maybe they’re stressed, maybe they’re constipated, maybe they’re having sleepless nights. Right? And they’ve already done the research. Maybe they’ve talked to their doctor, maybe they’ve gone somewhere to chat with a friend and now they’re on Amazon. Searching for magnesium supplement might help with whatever it might be on TikTok. That’s not the case. They just know that they have the symptoms. Right. And so they’re going to TikTok to find out. Like their search terms on TikTok are stress relief. Are gut health. Are, you know, sleeplessness. Like, what are my sleep strategies? What are stress relief strategies? Those kinds of things. So content and keywords there are more top of funnel. So instead of just being magnesium, magnesium magnesium oriented from a keyword perspective, it’s more like what are those search terms that the the user is using to help solve their problem.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:32:33  Right.
Josh Hadley 00:32:35  I love that. Yeah, I think it’s it’s very different what the, the, the search intent is. And I do believe that TikTok is becoming like a search based platform, just like Amazon is, but for different reasons. Like, I know the way I use TikTok right now is like, if I’m in charge of date night, I’m going to look up like fun date night ideas in Dallas, right? Like and and it’s going to serve me and I love I’m very visual. So I love doing that and seeing like oh that looks like a fun activity. Right. And so I think that that’s the way people need to approach this is like, oh, so if, if it’s about, you know, if my product is all about sleep, right, and better sleep, that means people are typing in like insomnia, how to deal with insomnia or how to fall asleep faster or things like that. And then they’re going to be looking for like different like tips or ideas that are walking people through those types of things.
Josh Hadley 00:33:33  So yeah, I love that aspect of it. Are there any like, software tools that you would recommend for, like optimizing listings with the right keywords at all that you found or anything?
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:33:45  There’s nothing that’s there’s nothing that’s that is seasoned to that point. And TikTok from an API perspective isn’t making that readily available. but that’s why I like TikTok. Com slash Inspiration. anybody can access it. And you can start to type in some of your search terms that, like, you feel like are relevant. It’s it’s formally the other way you could get to it is on the app itself. just going to the search bar and typing in, creator search insights. That’s another place that you can go. I like it because it can show you like, example videos. It can show you also other relevant keywords, and it can show you kind of like what’s trending right now that’s relevant, to, to that kind of topic. but I wouldn’t be overly like Nietzsche. Nietzsche. I would probably start broad and then kind of work your way down as opposed to the opposite direction and being too specific upfront.
Josh Hadley 00:34:43  So would you, in your title, would you do something like best? Best product for insomnia type of thing on TikTok? Like because I.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:34:53  Can’t make claims either.
Josh Hadley 00:34:55  Okay.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:34:55  We still got to be careful with claim making of any kind. So like supports. Support. Insomnia support. You know, it’s all in how you spin it. Right. But like so so like non habit forming. You know those those types of things. So still like in the top. Like I probably wouldn’t put that in the title. I would probably put it in the bullet point in product descriptions. you know if you’re, if you’re doing like a lot of, searchable terms once again though, like, these are also terms and things that you want to put into your content primarily. So like from a, from a listing optimization standpoint, like, like be sure to put relevant keywords. Don’t make claims of any kind. But what’s most critical about listing optimization? Josh it’s not it’s not what you’re saying. It’s what you’re showing so and specifically around pricing.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:35:57  So because this is an impulse buying platform, there has to be visual cues to the buyer that they’re getting the best possible deal. And they’re getting it right now. And it might be going away. Right. And what’s different about that than on Amazon where on Amazon everybody is seeing you’re seeing that grid. You’re seeing you know, you’re scrolling through all of your different price points and all the different products that are available. what’s different is you have somebody on your product detail page and there’s all sorts of visual cues to, to convince them to, to make that purchase right now. And I tell people the three kind of keys to to 15 second conversions. That’s what we call. That’s what I kind of like coined it as is. And the number one is free shipping. You cannot charge for shipping. You can’t. Like Amazon has made it thus like buyers expect to, 80% of buyers expect it. At this point, nobody wants to have to pay for shipping, and if they are paying for shipping, gosh, you better like really make it better.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:37:02  Be worth it. You know, like such a cool product. Like out of their minds. Cool, right? so free shipping is really requisite. the second thing is flash sales. I’m a fan of flash sells back to back to back schedule and back to back to back. Not this like oh, we do them sometimes. And sometimes I run into sellers who are like, oh, we never run sales on our product. And I’m like, you do on TikTok, you do on TikTok. You have to like, you can’t. You can’t roll in without running sales, or they build the sales into the retail person, like, well, don’t do that because we don’t have the visual mechanism that really is the best sale, the best deal, the best price. You know, we need. The flash sale has like these countdown timers. It has these like flames. It has these, like, badges, you know, all these things that make people feel like this is I got to get this.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:37:57  This is this is happening right now, and I’m going to miss it if I don’t take action right the second. So baseline promotion is free shipping. Second is slash deals. And obviously flash deals change the retail price of the product directly okay. And then which is no different than a lightning deal like on Amazon. Right. These things are not this is not rocket science. And yet people are not doing it. You would do that on Amazon. Why are you not doing that on TikTok. Right. and then the third thing are customer coupons. Now I will tell you this, just like on Amazon, where when you run a product discount of any kind, that changes the lowest price in the last 30 days, right? So if we’re going to get aggressive on pricing, you do so in a coupon, not in your discounts because you don’t want to be locked in. And that includes any kind of TikTok campaigns, because TikTok campaigns are going to have their own requirements, like the lowest price in the last X number of days, those kinds of things.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:38:59  So it’s really critical that if I had a seller the other day who he’s like, oh, well, I just want to blow out some inventory. And so I put it on sale for 45% off and I’m like, you did not do that. Now you’re stuck, man. You’re stuck for probably a 60 day period where you can’t run any discounts because you’re stuck at 45% off. So thankfully we cancelled that before they got any sales. But I was just like, don’t, don’t do that, guys. Don’t do that unless you’re trying to kill a product.
Josh Hadley 00:39:30  So the best thing is to like run coupons on there, because I think that’s the challenge with the flash sales is like, if you run back to back flash sales like it always wants the lowest price in the last 30 days, right? So if you’re always running a flash sale, are you not just like perpetually. Like just spiral.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:39:47  So you can have the same discount for 30 days. So the lowest discount that you can do on a flash sale is 11% off.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:39:54  So you use. So you do that, you do the 11% off for 30 days. And then the next 30 days you have to do 12% off. And then the next three days you have to do 13% off. You know, like it kind of builds itself. You can take a break, you can take a breather. But this is during this is especially during like if we’re trying to build momentum. That’s what that’s what we want to do. But I have sellers that that’s all they do. Like they’ve been selling for two years and they always have flash sales running. They always, you know, do things once you build up. But this is where we get a little bit into the opportunities that are on TikTok shop right now that sellers have available to them that they will probably not have in the future. So once you get to be a big enough seller, you get an account manager, and there’s things that you can do with account managers, that you cannot do on your own. And one of those is, is, is getting your pricing reset for your periods of time.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:40:52  So especially if it’s campaign oriented where they’re like, hey, we want the lowest price in the last 60 days or whatever it is, you can get your pricing reset the price that you want to, but it’s a manual process the account manager has to go through.
Josh Hadley 00:41:07  So if you have an account manager and you’re facing that issue, you’re like I can’t participate in this deal because of XYZ. Yeah. And they’re asking for too much of a discount. You’re saying go to your account manager. They can reset it and get it to the price you need it to be at.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:41:23  Yeah. Yeah.
Josh Hadley 00:41:24  Nice.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:41:25  Yeah. So there’s ways around it. If you’re, if you’re doing a good job and selling on, on TikTok. They’ll, they’ll bend over backwards for you to help help you succeed.
Josh Hadley 00:41:36  I love that. anything else as it relates to pricing?
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:41:42  yes. So the coupon. so the coupon itself, once again, like it is on Amazon if people are used to selling on Amazon, it’s why I love it.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:41:54  Is that sometimes like you get that visual element. but sometimes customers forget to click on it and like, of course we want them to get the deal, but sometimes they just don’t choose it. And that’s not your fault, right? So there you go. even coupons give your creators something to talk about. So if you have, like, big coupons coming up, those are things that you need to be communicating to your creators and being like, hey, there’s a really big deal that we are running or that’s coming up or discount things like that. That’s what we call kind of bottom of funnel style content that is pricing oriented, that’s limited time oriented, like that’s like, hey, I don’t know if this deal is going to continue to be available. Check the check the orange shopping cart over here. Check the click through to see if you get if the deal is still alive. Like oh my gosh, you missed it. You know, like I’m sure people have seen the content was like, oh gosh, I feel sorry for all those people who bought it when it was this price, because now it’s this price and it’s so much better now, right? Like that kind of style.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:43:04  You know, content is very bottom of funnel, very scarcity, very like, oh my gosh, I got to get it now because the price is going to go back up. You know those types of things. It’s real. It’s a real strategy.
Josh Hadley 00:43:15  Yeah I love it. Good. Any other.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:43:19  You do any of those things on.
Josh Hadley 00:43:20  Your. Do I do any of those. We do flash sales. We’re always on discount. Good listing score. Yeah. Those are, sort of like the basics, right?
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:43:32  We we consider.
Josh Hadley 00:43:33  That. I would like to think so.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:43:34  Right. But people, people forget, like, especially if they’re coming from Amazon. I’m like, you’re already doing these on Amazon. Why? Why wouldn’t you be doing these on on TikTok? And I think a lot of the question comes down to profit. And people are like, well, where’s my what? Like where’s the money? You know, like am I I’m not going to have any money left.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:43:53  Michelle. And and my response to that is like, build it in to the retail price. Like you do not have to match your Amazon price on TikTok shop. You don’t you don’t have to match your DTC price on TikTok. Shop like it can be higher. TikTok doesn’t want it to be higher. That’s why they have retail price and list price. Now I would just make I would just have your list price and your retail price match. I wouldn’t do your product discounts that way. and I would just get some sales at the higher price point to lock that in. So TikTok is like, all right, this is the lowest price. So it’s you know, those are those are some of the the functionality that’s available now in TikTok that may eventually go away. But if profit is concerned, build it in upfront. If you’re going to have a standard 15% off, 20% off running, then raise your price 15 to 20%, right? If it costs, you know what your fulfillment costs are with MCF, contact the MCF sales team and negotiate lower, lower rates on your MCF that you can do that.
Josh Hadley 00:44:56  Yes you can. That is true.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:44:58  Absolutely.
Josh Hadley 00:45:00  Michelle, now, one of the key things that actually drives sales here is working with creators. So what is your recommendation when it comes to finding the right creators? I mean, that’s what we’ve seen. That’s that’s probably like our biggest challenge now is we have an unlimited amount of sample requests that come through, every week for us. But like, not all of those creators create very good content.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:45:26  Yeah.
Josh Hadley 00:45:26  So what are you finding, like, especially if somebody starting new, how do you get like, people that will actually create good hooks and get your product out there and actually create a decent video that can generate sales.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:45:41  So there are so many answers to that one question. So let’s back it up just a second and talk about content as a whole. So like what’s needed to succeed on TikTok is content not creators. The content right videos. We have to have videos to promote our products. How we get those videos can include working with TikTok shop affiliates, i.e. TikTok creators.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:46:11  that’s not the only strategy. There are other strategies for creating content. The brand can create content just, you know, somebody at the brand can be the face of the brand and create content. I have lots of sellers who are the face of their brand, who create content. there’s for a limited time, we have a very short window where AI is AI. Videos are actually allowed on the platform. TikTok is very quickly trying to put together an AI, AI video, policy. There’s already content guidelines around AI videos and what’s allowed and what’s not allowed. there’s UGC content that you can go to the likes of joint brands and other kind of UGC matchmaking services, where you’re hiring creators to, to create like probably, a number of pieces of content that you can either post on the brand page or you can, have the creators themselves post. And then there’s obviously TikTok shop affiliates. lots of ways to kind of accomplish that goal of creating content. But having building and creating a content engine really is critical for TikTok shop, and having a commitment to content creation is really critical.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:47:22  for every video, for every listing that you are focusing on, and generally I recommend only between 1 and 3 listings per per quarter that you are really focusing on. you’re going to probably have to create minimum of, like 5 to 10 pieces of content per week per product listing. Right. So and that’s minimum like there are some people that are saying ten pieces of content per day. I was just on a webinar with, with, another big expert in the space, and he was like, you know, just post ten videos per day. And I was like, you just you just, like, sent a wave of panic through the room.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:48:06  You know.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:48:07  That the sellers are just like, Holy crap, how are we supposed to create that much content? And like, well, that’s where creators come in. And that’s why TikTok has, you know, millions and millions of creators who want to create content for you. Now to your point, Josh, how do we find the right ones? How do we find the best ones, those types of things.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:48:25  So it’s important to remember that creators are just a channel for you to use to access your ICP, right? Your ideal customer profile. So understanding who your ideal customer is is the first step. Because TikTok once again is just a marketing channel. But what happens so often is sellers roll into the platform and just start like spray and pray. Recruiting affiliates like crazy. Not really basing it off of anything. You know who they’re working with, why they’re working with those people, those kinds of things. So let’s go back to the phonics flashcards guy. So his mom, her ICP, you know, her reason is trying to teach her kids to read, right? So as he’s looking at his creators to recruit, he has a couple of different strategies to utilize. You know, he can, you know, go and search for people, creators who are in his selling category. He’s in the toys. like toys and hobbies category. So TikTok is going to be saying, hey, these these creators are relevant to you because they are also in your category.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:49:39  Yeah. Maybe so like that that that is a strategy is doing category to category like this. They’re in my category. I’ll work with them. I would always click through to see do these are these people mothers are their children in their videos. Now we cannot use minors to sell products like minors can appear in videos, but they cannot be talking about or selling. Be the primary seller of the product, right? They can demonstrate that they can’t pitch right. TikTok doesn’t want children pitching products, minors of any kind, 18 or younger. Okay. So that’s really critical to understand. So you could do category category click through, see if this see if this, you know person is a parent of any kind. You know, that’s kind of primary. Then we want to look at their audience like, are they, you know, is it primarily women of a certain age? You know, we can’t click through and and see, like here are your followers mothers. You know, like there’s probably not.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:50:45  But if they are good at selling toys, they probably have quite a few moms, you know, that are following them, looking for toys for their kids. Right. So that’s that’s kind of what we’re looking for. That’s that’s a strategy. But it’s kind of taking responsibility as a seller and making sure that the creators you are recruiting are a channel for you to reach your ICP. You know, if you’re just doing a spray and pray method of being like, okay, well, their minimum GMV has to be this and, go. And, you know, I work with so many creators and their inboxes are a spam fest of just random crap. Right. And so you are going to have a really hard time of finding and working with anybody of quality, when you’re employing similar kind of ideals and messages, you know, and having that same kind of strategy, another strategy you can do and you you shared this before. This is something that, like I discovered early on, is that you can identify your competitors, creators, and you can recruit your competitors creators.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:51:53  Now, I will say that the best creators for those competitors are probably going to be loyal to the brand that help them to be successful. Right? And so recruiting them is not necessarily like it feels like a shortcut, but is it, you know, are you going to have to create more work for yourself in the long term? You know, try to convince them to work with you. They’ll probably just ignore you and I’ll give you the time of the day in the first place. So what I like to do is once again thinking about my ICP. And what they’re trying to accomplish Us is doing category adjacent or product adjacent ICP adjacent, you know, products. So instead of searching for other phonics flashcards I’m searching for. Okay. Well, the motivation of this mom is to educate her children. So what are some other products that she might be buying that help her do so? Maybe it’s Montessori toys, maybe it’s sensory toys, maybe it’s, you know, other types of products that, you know, meet those needs in some way.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:52:55  And then I’m recruiting those creators because they already they’ve already had maybe some they’ve already had some success in selling some Montessori toys to moms who want to help their educate their young children. Great, awesome. Here’s some phonics flashcards. It’s a it’s a really complementary fit. Right. So that’s that’s kind of like a secret hack for, you know, not just stealing your competition, but look for complementary products, not competing products right from recruiting creators. And then we really can’t just trust creators to be creative. Truly, honestly, like I am a huge fan of doing the heavy lifting for them on how to sell our products. So you mentioned like, how do I find creators who are going to come up with good hooks? And I’m like, you don’t actually, you don’t you as the seller come up with the good hooks? Well, Michelle, I’m not creative. I don’t know how to do that. Okay, cool. Well there’s chat. There’s lots of tools to help you do that. ChatGPT is a great one to start with, but take your competitor’s products, take products that are out there, take, you know, trending, you know, trending hooks that are going on out there.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:54:04  And that’s what you build into. Your creative brief is how best to show and demonstrate your product. Right. How are your competitors showing and demonstrating your products? We just did this in event a few weeks ago where, we looked up somebody’s somebody competition live. We used Yuka to do it and we looked at their top performing videos, and Yuka pulls the script and it identifies the hooks and all those great things I love that makes makes life really easy. from a creative creation standpoint, I said, have you ever tried these hooks in any of your videos? And and this was like, no. And I’m like, well, these are the top selling products for your top selling hooks for your competition. You should probably try it, you know, like educate and put this into your, your creator, your your creative briefs. You know, both that you’re maybe trying as a brand as well as that. You know, you’re you’re empowering those creators. And too many people are like, well, aren’t the creators creative? Why can’t they come up with these things? And I’m like, sometimes, sometimes they are, and sometimes they’ll go rogue.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:55:05  But more often than not, these creators have stacks and stacks of samples that they need to get through because TikTok is holding them accountable. They have a like a timer, you know, for every single sample that they have. They have 12 to 14 days to create a video for each of those samples. And a lot of these people, you know, this is a side hustle for them. So they might have a Saturday afternoon where they’re creating all of their content, you know, and you expect them to do a deep dive on your product. No, no. They’re just unboxing and going right. If they’re a creator worth their crap, then maybe they’ll think about it a little bit. But most of the time they’re just going to go. So you want to make it really easy for them to do a good job, and that’s you giving them a creative brief with some ideas. I’m not talking about like some long thing, very short seeing to the point. Here’s some hooks. Here’s the key features to call out.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:55:57  The key benefits to call out. Say this. Don’t say that, especially if you’re in a supplement space or anything that’s very sensitive to claim making like be really, be really careful there and then give them example videos to mirror, right? Show them the videos that are converting for other people and and use those. And you really empower them to create that content and not to rely on them to be creative.
Josh Hadley 00:56:21  I love it. I think those are good words of wisdom. All right. Michelle, as we’re wrapping things up here today, final question I want to ask you here is this is I have I’m very opinionated on this, but would love to get your take on it. Would you recommend a new seller uses an agency or just does it themself?
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:56:43  Oh well, I have an opinion here because I well, I have both an agency and I have educational programs, so I’m very like, I actually really think it’s critical that sellers business owners understand strategy. This is a new platform. There’s tedious things like creator outreach and follow up and fulfillment and all of those types of things that can be can be outsourced.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:57:15  I really think it’s critical that you, as the owner, understand the core strategy as it relates to your business, because this is very different than selling on any other platform. And so if you’re going to roll in and just like pick some agency out of the air to, you know, help you launch. It’s really easy to blame them. When, when and if things don’t happen the way that you have expectation that it will happen. But the reality is, is that as with any scenario, whether it’s your team members that are doing this or an agency that’s doing it, strategy is key to success. And if you’re getting garbage results, it’s likely because you have a garbage strategy in the first place and you don’t know what you don’t know. as a seller, and there’s so much information that’s thrown at you by TikTok and TikTok shop like it’s second you sign up on TikTok shop. The inundation of emails begins as Is very difficult to sort through what is actually actionable in that content, that’s sent to you.
Michelle Barnum Smith 00:58:17  So I feel like as sellers, it’s really critical that you learn the strategies and the core, things that actually move the needle, and then you can outsource the stuff that is the very kind of tactical, what I call the core workflows of Tick Tock Shop, understand the strategies of those core workflows and then outsource them as to experts in each of those kind of core areas.
Josh Hadley 00:58:41  Yeah, no, I agree, I think the biggest mistake people make is they just try to go with an agency because like, I don’t want to figure this out. Somebody else will figure this out. And then when it doesn’t happen, like you don’t understand why it’s not working. Right. And sometimes a lot of those agencies, at least my opinion, is like most agencies out there, I would say, are not going to do yourself the justice because they’re trying. They’re they’re picking up everybody. Right. Maybe if you have like an a very targeted agency that knows your space. Maybe I would have a little bit more confidence in that, but I see people or agencies are like, yeah, I’ll pick up a beauty brand and I’ll pick up a supplement brand, then a toy brand, and then we’re all sharing creators.
Josh Hadley 00:59:23  And I look at that and I’m like, that’s the biggest mistake ever. Because like those ISPs as you talked about, like they’re so different. They’re like, you can’t really be double dipping on those same creators. TikTok is also trying to like silo in creators into certain categories now as well. So I think like all of that’s blowing up. But I love what you recommended, which is like, you’ve got to come in with a strategy and just like it might. My favorite analogy is this to those that got started on Amazon. Did you first hire an agency to get success on Amazon? I think 100% of you would say no, right? But then now you look at TikTok shop and you’re saying, hey, well, maybe on TikTok shop that I’ll just hire an agency. They’ll help me get to $1 million in sales. Then I’ll take it over. Right. And I’d say, like, it’s all backwards. You’ve got to go figure out that marketplace. You’ve got to figure out your unique strategy.
Josh Hadley 01:00:22  How were you’re going to angle yourself into that market. And again, I loved your checklist, your five step checklist of like, hey, do you actually have a product that works here for this marketplace to even begin with? Right. And so I think, like business owners truly do need to like take the time to go in and actually understand what is going to be my strategy for TikTok shop. There’s enough content out there. There’s experts like you that are putting out a lot of education. Go pay to have a consultant just like Michelle give you the strategy for your brand. Go pay your for it and then go implement it. so that’s my that’s my $0.02.
Michelle Barnum Smith 01:01:04  But I like your $0.02, Josh. I will also say I am. I am so anti FOMO and there’s so much FOMO around TikTok shop, right? Everybody’s just like, oh my gosh, I gotta get on the platform and I will be the first one to tell a seller know from a place of honesty where I’m like, no, your product is not right for the platform.
Michelle Barnum Smith 01:01:23  I’m sorry, your product is not right for the platform like you are. I like, and they’ll fight me and they’ll still do it and they’ll learn for themselves. but like the future. And I will say this. I’ll just plant a seed because we’re gonna we’re gonna come back and have another conversation about product launching and product development just for TikTok shop, because that really is the future of product launching. because there’s just so much opportunity for like, quickness to market, quickness for testing opportunity. And, you know, gosh, if you can create demand on TikTok, you that halo effect for just using Amazon as a checkout mechanism, using your desk just as a as a net to capture the rest of those sales. Like, like all day long, you know? So that’s really kind of the future of product launching. And product development is TikTok first. And, you know, other channels, other channels to capture sales, afterwards. So anyway, I’ll leave it at that. We will tease it for future opportunities.
Josh Hadley 01:02:24  Future part two, part two coming soon. All right. Michelle, as we leave the audience, I love to leave them with three actionable takeaways from every episode. So here are the three actionable takeaways that I noted. You let me know if I’m missing something. Number one, as you get onto TikTok shop, you need to make sure that you first have a product or product category that is TikTok able, so to speak. Michelle gave five little five point checklist. So number one is it demonstrable. Does it have unique features. Number two. Number three does it have a passionate niche behind it? Number four does it actually solve a problem. And then number five, is it within that impulse buy purchase range which is 30 to $50 or even below that. so those are your five quick checklist items to say, like, hey, can I go through and say check, check, check, check, check if you can. All right. Now now we’re in the game. We can say, hey, maybe it does make sense for me to be on TikTok shop, but that’s action.
Josh Hadley 01:03:26  Item number one is to first make sure that your product meets that actual market demand. So action item number two, I would recommend going in with a tailored strategy just for your brand. And what’s been fascinating is we’ve had multiple experts on the podcast, and I myself have talked to many people that are on TikTok shop. What’s very interesting is everybody has a different strategy. There are there are brands that are doing really, really well with their own content and they don’t use a lot of affiliates. There are brands that are doing really well with live videos and don’t use a lot of affiliates. There are brands that have affiliates that just push live videos and that’s it. There are brands that just exclusively use affiliates, and that’s all. And so there’s no one size fits all. However, it is important to a understand the game on TikTok shop. So my recommendation for strategy or for action item number two is to actually create your strategy and approach to the market. Now, the good news is you’re probably going to be wrong on the outset, but you are going to be able to quickly pivot and just follow where the money leads you because you’re going to see like, oh, it seems like these affiliates are starting to do well, or hey, my own content is starting to do well.
Josh Hadley 01:04:53  So the first and foremost, go in with an actual strategy and then pivot as you go.
Michelle Barnum Smith 01:04:59  And then test. That’s what marketing is truly. Marketing is just like an art based science in the sense that we are. We’re making our best educated guess at the beginning, and then we’re testing and then we’re iterating, right? That’s all marketing is, is an iterative process. And and I know that you’ve experienced this, Josh, I’ve experienced this where the product we thought was going to be the winner is not it’s something else that starts to catch fire and build momentum. And sometimes it’s coming from over and over again videos that you would probably not expect that you had. No. If you were to create videos from scratch, that you’d be like, I would not have done it that way, but and yet here we are and I will not argue with money, I will not. You know, so sometimes we have these ideals, and especially if we’re coming from an Instagram style aspirational content that does not work on TikTok, that does not work on TikTok.
Michelle Barnum Smith 01:05:58  So that high like that, like high production style, you know, content. Sometimes somebody that looks like they just fell out of bed, that is your best performing affiliate. That’s really.
Josh Hadley 01:06:10  Yeah, I love that. Well. Well said. They’re my third and final action item is definitely on the merchandising aspect right. So as Michelle pointed out, once you have your strategy set up, make sure that you’re not just like copying and pasting your Amazon listings over to TikTok shop and being like, well, this is good enough, right? But actually go in with only a few dedicated SKUs that you’re going to be pushing. Make sure that you have variations set up so that they’re they’re sharing reviews. They’re sharing sales with each other. Make sure that you have flash sales that are scheduled. Make sure that you have coupons the free shipping enabled. Make sure that your merchandising is set up first and foremost, so that it is as easy to convert when your affiliates start creating videos. So if people follow these kind of like three action items to just get going.
Josh Hadley 01:07:01  This will give you a decent foundation to start with. And you know, we’ll have a part two where we’ll get into some, some product launch and scaling features here on TikTok shop.
Michelle Barnum Smith 01:07:13  Yeah, more money, more problems, that’s for sure, on the platform. But the core workflows of optimizing your listings, playing around with your pricing, running, you know, running promotions, running campaigns, running coupons, those things never stop. Right? And you know that content engine you guys can’t be rolling in and being like, oh, I sent out, you know, a handful of samples and why isn’t it working for me? It’s like, oh, we need we need to have a chat, right? About creating content and then running ads to that content. Ads never stop either. It used to be that we just ran ads on top performing content. Now it’s like the Facebook ads style of like, know your business. This is a business. You know this. This is a business piece of content and tick tock.
Michelle Barnum Smith 01:07:58  You know, organic reach just isn’t what it used to be. And you have to put dollars behind every single, every single shoppable post for sure. So these things never, never stop.
Josh Hadley 01:08:10  Love it. Well said. Michelle. Final three questions that I ask every guest. So, number one, what’s been the most influential book that you’ve read and why?
Michelle Barnum Smith 01:08:22  I am at my core a a person that believes that, like, like integrity is really critical and really important to me, having values. I’m a person of faith, and I’m a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. And so for me, having a relationship with my Savior, Jesus Christ is the most important thing. It’s my foundation. It’s who I am as a person. It’s what I’ve built my life in and around anything that I do professionally, I do so from a place of service. you know, my my goal isn’t sometimes to make money. My goal is to serve, you know, my Heavenly Father’s children.
Michelle Barnum Smith 01:09:03  And so the book that has helped me come, closer to my Savior is the Book of Mormon. And, I’ll add to that the Bible as well, because they both testify at Christ.
Josh Hadley 01:09:15  I love it. Well said. And I would agree with the your recommendation there. That’s definitely one of the most influential books that’s influenced me and would agree that, for me, like if you can get your your spiritual standing in your foundation there, I think everything else just dominoes from that. So I love that. All right. Question number two. What has been the most influential, or I guess your favorite AI tool that you’ve been using and how have you been using it?
Michelle Barnum Smith 01:09:43  So I like I.
Michelle Barnum Smith 01:09:45  Kind of like the core, the core AI tools. I use ChatGPT a lot. you know, I’m trying to understand, like, whether I’m building creative briefs, building content, analyzing content. I like the GPT options that are built into those. There’s also a lot of AI tools. Sora is, you know, a growing AI video platform.
Michelle Barnum Smith 01:10:10  We need to be very careful in how we use AI content for TikTok shop. but it is, you know, from from a content development standpoint, it’s a little wild. As a mother, I’m terrified of it. As a marketer, I love it. Right. Like, these are these are the world my children are, are walking into. And I’m a little like, oh my gosh, they don’t stand a chance. What’s real? What’s not real? but from a content creation for marketing purposes, it’s a great place to, to use and develop content test hooks, and see what’s converting. What’s not converting.
Josh Hadley 01:10:43  Love it. Great ideas. All right. Third and final question. Who is somebody that you admire or respect the most in the e-commerce space that other people could be following and why?
Michelle Barnum Smith 01:10:52  Oh my goodness. I love so many people in this space. They’re they’re so knowledgeable. They, you know, they’re heart driven in in the amount of content that they either, collate and, and send out for other people.
Michelle Barnum Smith 01:11:07  I love Kevin King for those reasons. He’s a great he, he brings so many just experts to the table and helps to, share and summit that information. one of my besties, two of my besties, Vanessa hung, Janelle Paige. Like, they’re just chef’s kiss. They’re brilliant. Brilliant, brilliant. but they’re also super. They they helped translate really complex, things into actionable content. And, and I just I love I love those ladies so much.
Josh Hadley 01:11:41  Awesome. Fantastic recommendations as well. Well, Michelle, if people do want to reach out to you, they want to, get some consulting from you. They want your agency help. How can people find you?
Michelle Barnum Smith 01:11:53  Yeah, absolutely. So, we offer free opportunity audits, and we will tell you to your face if your baby is ugly. but, no. Truly, like, it’s my goal to help release sellers from the FOMO as quickly as possible. So I highly recommend that, you, go to our website, TT Shop Sellers Co and sign up for a free opportunity audit.
Michelle Barnum Smith 01:12:16  And you can hear about our services, both our educational offers as well as if you’re, you know, if you’re a good fit for any of our agency solutions as well.
Josh Hadley 01:12:24  Awesome. Well, Michelle, it’s been a pleasure having you on the show and looking forward to part two.
Michelle Barnum Smith 01:12:29  Awesome. Thanks so much for having me.
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