Why 99% of TikTok Sellers Will FAIL (Hard Truth) with Rafay & Graeme

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Why 99% of TikTok Sellers Will FAIL (Hard Truth) with Rafay & Graeme

Rafay and Graeme are the founders of The UpTik, an education and mentorship platform that helps eCommerce brands and entrepreneurs scale through TikTok. With over a decade of experience in eCommerce and short-form video, they’ve helped thousands of businesses grow on platforms like TikTok, Shopify, and Amazon using proven frameworks that drive real results. Their approach bridges the gap between traditional eCommerce and the creator economy—turning social media attention into anti-fragile revenue. They’ve worked with everyone from early-stage founders to billion-dollar brands, and their new book, Scroll to Sold, breaks down exactly how to turn TikTok attention into sales.

Highlight Bullets
> Here’s a glimpse of what you would learn….
  • Importance of understanding TikTok Shop fundamentals for e-commerce success.
  • Common mistakes brands make when entering TikTok Shop.
  • Strategies for analyzing competitors and historical data to inform TikTok strategies.
  • The significance of content volume and consistency in driving engagement and sales.
  • Building strong relationships with creators and treating them as integral team members.
  • The role of creator training and support in enhancing content quality and brand representation.
  • The impact of TikTok’s algorithm on content virality and engagement metrics.
  • The necessity of viewing TikTok as a top-of-funnel awareness tool rather than just a direct sales channel.
  • The importance of long-term commitment and strategic investment in TikTok Shop for sustainable growth.
  • Examples of successful brands leveraging TikTok for awareness and sales, including their approaches to creator partnerships.

In this episode of the Ecomm Breakthrough Podcast, host Josh Hadley interviews Rafay and Graeme, founders of Uptik and authors of From Scroll to Sold. They share expert strategies for e-commerce brands to succeed on TikTok Shop, emphasizing the importance of benchmarking competitors, producing high volumes of content, and building strong, supportive relationships with creators. The discussion covers actionable tips, common pitfalls, and the evolving role of social commerce, offering listeners a roadmap to drive sales and brand growth through TikTok’s unique ecosystem.

Here are the 3 action items that Josh identified from this episode:
  1. Benchmark Like a Pro
    Reverse-engineer the early moves of brands that recently won on TikTok Shop. Use tools like Killer Data to study their creator volume, posting cadence, and offers—then outperform their output.
  2. Out-Create Everyone
    Commit to a relentless content engine: 30–100+ posts per week across brand and creator channels. Test formats fast, double down on what gets full watches, and treat content as your primary growth lever.
  3. Build a Creator Sales Force
    Onboard creators personally, support them with weekly check-ins, and gamify performance. A trained, motivated affiliate army will drive scalable GMV far beyond what your brand channel alone can do.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Special Mention(s):
Related Episode(s):
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 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
Rafay 00:00:00  They drastically underestimate the volume required to break through the noise on a platform like TikTok. And so if they don’t do this, this is not. It’s not necessarily a rule to hit this metric. It is a guideline, and more often than not, you are going to have to do more in formats that are different to what the formats your competitors did, but let you know, okay, if I’m not at least above this line, then I’m not even doing the equivalent of volume that’s required.
MC 00:00:31  Welcome to the Econ 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 00:00:46  Do you want to know how to make money on TikTok? Imagine turning TikTok from a distraction into your highest ROI sales channel. That’s exactly what today’s guests help brands do every single day. Welcome to the Ecom Econ 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 00:01:09  On my journey to nine figures, I bring you unfiltered conversations with the smartest minds in eCommerce. Past guests include Kevin King, Ezra Firestone, and Michael E Gerber, author of The Myth. Today, I’m excited to welcome onto the show Rafay and Graeme. They are the founders of the Uptik in education and mentorship platform that helps ecommerce brands and entrepreneurs scale through TikTok. With over a decade of experience in e-commerce and short form video. They’ve helped thousands of businesses grow on platforms like TikTok, Shopify and Amazon using proven frameworks that drive real results. Their approach bridges the gap between traditional e-commerce and the creator economy, turning social media attention into antifragile revenue. They’ve worked with everyone from early stage founders to billion dollar brands, and their new book, Scroll to Sold, breaks down exactly how to turn TikTok attention into sales. With that introduction, welcome to the show, Raffi and Graeme.
Rafay 00:02:14  Thanks for having us, man.
Graeme 00:02:16  Hi. Good to be here.
Josh Hadley 00:02:17  Excited to have you both on here. Because now I’ve got like two powerhouses on here.
Josh Hadley 00:02:22  So we’re gonna have, usually it’s it’s hard enough just to have one person, you know, dive in deep. Now we’re going to have two people. There’s going to be a lot of competing for the mic. I feel like in today’s episode. So this is going to be awesome. But first, tell me about your guys’s new book that you just came out with.
Rafay 00:02:42  Yeah. I mean, what I noticed in this space is that a lot of people didn’t understand the fundamentals and the sort of content that you’re getting out there is either behind a paywall or stuff that you just get off ChatGPT. And because we’ve had so many experiences with so many brands and spoken to so many who’ve been so successful in the social commerce TikTok shop space. We wanted there to be a field guide for brands who just dipping their toes in or who’ve already, you know, delved deep into TikTok shop to see are we doing the fundamentals and are we applying these more advanced tactics to be able to scale on the platform? That was kind of the idea behind creating the book.
Graeme 00:03:13  And also the creators as well. So the book covers both brand owners wanting to embrace TikTok and monetize in a systematic and a repeatable way. But also so many creators out there are obviously with TikTok shop and things moving so fast, and they’re seeing things that are happening, and maybe they were just there for entertainment and education and they’re like, no, I’d like to make some money too. But like anything, can I just get some basic frameworks to get started? So like anything in a, in a book, you can’t give them all the secrets. But what you can get them is getting moving, getting them success. And then they can build out from there. So it serves both the creators and the brands, because both sides are so important in this social space.
Josh Hadley 00:03:52  Well, I love it. I know I’m going to be diving into that book myself and, getting getting the sneak peek behind it. But. And then what we’ll hopefully do today is even try to dive even deeper. Maybe there’s some untold secrets not in the book that we.
Rafay 00:04:07  Need.
Josh Hadley 00:04:08  To disclose. So I love it, but I love what you guys are doing. And I think here’s the advantage that that I think to all the listeners listening to this, is that you have some experts that have worked with from startups to billion dollar brands, like they know how things work on social commerce, and they’re not just like a one trick pony, like, hey, we had success on TikTok shop, and now that’s the only thing we do, right? Like their experience covers like Shopify and Amazon as well. So like, you guys have a holistic view of like what’s going on in the e-commerce platforms. And that’s what I love. So I want to dive deep right now because Graeme and Raph, I hear this over and over again. And I would argue that like more than 75% of the people that I think try to get on TikTok shop and try to have success, end up losing money, and then they say, yeah, I tried it. I did it for like 3 to 6 months and I just lost a lot of money.
Josh Hadley 00:05:10  A lot of money. They either worked with an agency or they did it themselves. Like that’s what I hear. And then it’s it’s a small 10% of people that are like, I’m crushing it on TikTok shop and I’m making money. So if that’s the case, like, what do you guys see working or in in your experience, what’s the separation between the people that are having success and the people that have struggled on TikTok?
Rafay 00:05:39  Great question. I think the way I would get the listener to answer this phone question is you wouldn’t jump on Amazon for the very first time without researching your competition and looking at listings and figuring out the pattern recognition of what’s working. You wouldn’t launch a Shopify store without looking at competitors in your niche to see how you can create converting listing. What we’re finding with a lot of brands is they’ve got a ton of budget. They see it as a new challenge not to throw money in it, but they don’t understand what’s actually working on the platform from a content perspective. They don’t understand how the listing works, and they don’t know what brands that they look up to did when they first launched.
Rafay 00:06:11  And Graeme has this really great piece about benchmarking, and this is something we tell every single brand to do to benchmark in the beginning. And I’ll let him double click on that. But that’s an essential first piece.
Graeme 00:06:21  I think it’s just understanding the rules of the game, like getting involved in anything. We, a lot of work brands that we work with. As you’ve mentioned, Josh, you sort of tried and sort of going around in circles with the TikTok platform and then as we sort of deep dive into where they’re at, there’s a lot of a friend of mine told me this, and I saw that brand doing that. So I tried this and I watched this the other day. But there’s no sort of systematic approach. And brands that we’re working with now is and understandably, it would make sense that they’re like they’re looking at other brands in their niche. We’re doing really well and they’re trying to implement exactly what they’re doing right now. But the truth of the matter is you need to look at what that brand did.
Graeme 00:06:56  Six 1218, 24 months ago, when the platform first started or when they first got on there and started getting traction, how many creators did they reach out to? How do you shop? All the videos? Did they do? Because when you can see their success, but not what they’re doing right now, but what they did in month one, month to month three, it gives you those rules of the game. And we ask our members to do that with multiple brands in the same or even adjacent lanes. Maybe they sell different products, but maybe they’re speaking to the same kind of audience, because with that, then that gives you right? I know what I need to do to actually get to a stage where I can actually start making some judgments, because if you’ve put up 50, 150 or 250 shoppable videos in the first month, how do we know without the research that if that’s actually what’s necessary to break through the noise? So product market fit is a real thing, and that’s why many people are stuck in what we call the cold start, these little TikTok JL and they think, you know what, I’m doing all the right things.
Graeme 00:07:48  Well maybe you are about maybe you’re not. So I understand the rules of the game is a big piece that we can all be able to move forward with.
Josh Hadley 00:07:55  I love it, so I mean, the biggest question then is like, how do I get those benchmark data points, right? If I’m to look at, you know, some of the maybe some adjacent competitors and be like, okay, I can see what they’re doing now, but I have no idea what they did in order to, to start their brand. Right. and how they got some initial success. How do you walk people through that to set realistic benchmarks? And I also loved your thought of like, hey, 250 pieces of content. I don’t know, sounds like a lot, but is it is it not? How do I measure that? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rafay 00:08:36  I think it’s it’s really three buckets. But the very first one is like, okay, knowing who your competition actually is. A lot of people fall into the gap of or the fallacy of the empty room problem.
Rafay 00:08:48  So their product or their particular niche is not blowing up on TikTok shop yet. So they’ll think, oh, you know, somebody must have tried this and there’s just no success on this thing, so there’s no point in me actually trying. Or they’ll see a bunch of competitors and they’ll be like, oh, it’s too late. I’ve missed the boat and it’s saturated, so you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t. The truth is, TikTok shop is a very new platform, so you’re still early. It’s just it’s just maturing a little bit. And so step one of that process is first identify who either your competitors are or the ones that are adjacent that are serving the same problem space. Then using tools like killer data, fast models, there’s a ton out there that allow you to go back historically to see, okay, when did this brand actually launch on TikTok shop? And then what you’re looking at out of those 4 or 5 competitors is, okay. How many shuffle videos did they have? How many affiliates did they work with? How many products did they launch? Because a lot of the times some of these brands are launching 20 SKUs and like, let’s see what works.
Rafay 00:09:39  But it takes 5.4 times for a consumer on TikTok to see your product, to make a purchasing decision. And if you’re spreading that 250 videos across 20 videos. Sorry, 250 videos across 20 products. It’s just going to take you so much longer and you’re you’ve lost enthusiasm. You’ve lost, obviously money and samples and you’ve gone really nowhere. And so once you have that, then finding that average month one month two month three, and then you’re like, okay, this is the recipe that these brands used to create demand. We’re not watching on Amazon that fulfills demand. We’re trying to create demand okay. So in month one if we don’t hit this average then we’re off track. If we hit it cool, we’re on track. Then we can optimize. Right. the third and final piece is like, we want to achieve product market fit. Yes, but if you’ve never done any sort of video ad content or short form content, you also need to achieve product content market fit. So it’s like, how can your product effectively show the benefits of it in a video format that is replicable and that actually gets people from awareness, consideration to conversion.
Rafay 00:10:41  And without those pieces, without doing that in the very beginning before you launch, it’s really hard to know, like, is my money actually going to get an ROI, you know?
Graeme 00:10:49  And it’s also that and I understand like, business owners in general, they just want the revenue ASAP. But you have to understand, you’ve got a date before you get married. With TikTok. You just can’t just jump in and be like, hey, here I am. Buy this stuff right now. So, so much needs to be around the awareness consideration in regards to the content. Wrath always talks about speak to the problem space your product lives in like features and benefits are lovely, but at the same time to what is the problem space your product lives in and how can we expand that problem space in the in somebodys mind to not only be like, well, actually, not only do you have a problem that you can solve for me, but I didn’t even know the problem existed. So this is a creating demand side of things.
Graeme 00:11:30  And this is so much of the content, especially early days, that you need to do to build that know like trust to expand that problem space. So when you start building out content with the CTA, with the creators, this is something where like, you know what? They realize that hang on a second, I’ve seen this everywhere. And yes, this is something I need to solve so everything is much smoother rather than trying to. Not a hard sell. But you know what?
Josh Hadley 00:11:53  Yeah, I love that. So what you’re saying though, is if somebody new onto TikTok shop and you want to maybe reverse engineer how competitor or somebody else had success, go to use two tools like Kayla Data Fast Mohs go back in time, which you can see. See how many creators they were working with, how many shoppable videos were there during this month or this week? and kind of reverse engineer it from there. But I would also say, I mean, let me know what you guys are, what your guys’s thoughts are.
Josh Hadley 00:12:27  Now, I would almost say, all right, if it’s cute, if you saw what they did back in 2024. But like I would say, there’s probably more videos being put out on TikTok now than there are two years ago in 2024 at this point. Right. So yeah, like, do you almost have to take those metrics and be like, okay, well, they only had 100 shoppable videos back then. So like times it by three now and that’s what you need to be doing. Or how do you how do you take that into consideration.
Rafay 00:12:57  Really good question. I think the exercise does a few things. The first thing it does is it resets the water line for brands, especially if they’ve only been an Amazon seller or only been a Shopify seller. They they drastically underestimate the volume required to break through the noise on a platform like TikTok. And so if they don’t do this, this is not it’s not necessarily a rule to hit this metric. It is a guideline. And more often not you are going to have to do more in formats that are different to what the formats your competitors did, but let you know, okay, if I’m not at least above this line, then I’m not even doing the equivalent of volume that’s required.
Rafay 00:13:33  And most of these brands come into a completely blind thinking, like I’ve given out 100 samples or 200 samples. Why am I not successful? It’s like, well, I mean, who did you give the creators to? How many products did you give samples out to? How did you support the creators? What was your communication with them? What was your offer? Like, you know, there’s all these things, but if you don’t know the first step, you’re kind of doomed to fail, you know? Or you get lucky. Yeah.
Josh Hadley 00:13:53  Yeah, yeah, I love I think that’s a really good, benchmark to just say, like, this is the minimum of what worked, even if it were two years ago. And I think you’re right. I think that this game on TikTok shop gets more like the bar just keeps getting set higher and higher every month that goes by. Like, that’s that much more like content that needs to be produced in order for you to, like, break through.
Josh Hadley 00:14:20  So I do think like there’s definitely some first mover advantages here. And, you know, my favorite analogy is like Alex Ramsey talks about this where when he wanted to grow his personal brand. Right. And I can’t remember who it was that he paid, but he paid like a large six figure, like consulting sum to somebody to say like, hey, how do I get my personal following to as big as yours. Like I want millions of followers. And they simply told him like, hey, how many times are you posting a day? And he patted himself on the back saying like three. And they were like, yeah, try 400 pieces of content a day, then see? And he was like, that’s it. That’s all I needed to that’s that’s it. I know what I need to do at this point. And I think that that’s honestly going to be the answer for most people like TikTok. I think it is going to require whatever you think your initial investment is going to be like almost like probably ten exit.
Josh Hadley 00:15:17  yeah. To say, like, do you really want to succeed? It’s volume.
Rafay 00:15:21  Yeah. And the investment doesn’t necessarily have to come in like money, like it’s investment in time, investment in building your own content. I think in the beginning, those early mover advantages, it’s like, okay, if I just posted any type of video with any affiliate, it would pop off because obviously TikTok was leaning towards it. But you know how many brands I see that like go to 100, 150 K now they’re only at 20 and 30 K’s because they haven’t invested in creating a presence on the account, like on TikTok itself. So their stellar operating revenue is up absolutely zero. Their, their paid strategy is just like, oh, I’m just going to put some money in GMV max and see what happens. Like there’s no strategy behind any of that. And one thing with the benchmarking that I think is important for listeners to hear, like we’re not going back to competitors or adjacent brands that started 24 months ago.
Rafay 00:16:04  We want to see the ones that are within the last 12 months or so, because that will give us a more realistic. So that’s just the one caveat that I’ll add to that, because like if I look back at nutrition, we started like very first greens powder. It’s like unoptimized listening to everything. But they were first, you know, so they crushed it. And so that wouldn’t make sense for another green powder who’s launching like right now you know. Yeah.
Josh Hadley 00:16:23  Great. Great. Side note. okay. So talk to me about the brands that are actually succeeding and doing well on TikTok shop. What do you guys notice is the difference? what those brands and the ones that aren’t succeeding. And I think you’ve you’ve had insights into like some of the top brands like goalie. Like what’s unique about them and why do they have so many creators. And it seems like they just stay at the top. Perpetuate. tell me what you guys are seeing from that standpoint.
Rafay 00:16:57  I think what’s important to remember is in the beginning, when you’re creating demand, you are going outbound.
Rafay 00:17:01  You’re trying to convince creators to want to work with you. But eventually when you start selling, it comes down to opportunity costs for creators. So they’re looking at your brand and then looking at your product and versus somebody else. And you already got sales are like, okay, well, if I create content for you, the likelihood of me as a creator making money is going to be higher. And so the reason they keep winning and all the affiliates are working for them and all these shuffle videos, because they had a really great launch strategy for outbound to make it inbound. And so what Goldie’s done, and I’ve spoken to the team, is that the amount of time and effort that they invest in these affiliates is like, it reset my waterline. And I already had a really high water line for investing in affiliates, like the amount of training and time they’re not only making a ton of money through Goliath’s affiliates, which is amazing, but the training that they give them is actual like creator skill set that they can apply for to literally any other brand.
Rafay 00:17:47  And they’re totally cool with it, but they treat them like a partner in the business, not just a not just a transactional relationship for, you know, fair weather sales. Right. and, you know, beast bites are the same thing, you know, vital sauce, a better brand. They all do the same thing. And that was the thread across all those brands and many others, the amount of time and effort that they put into these affiliates and treat them like, you know, we’re partners in the game.
Josh Hadley 00:18:12  So, like, what type of content are they sharing though? Like, how are they training their creators? Like walk me through. Like what does that look like? You said it’s an inordinate amount of time. Like, what does that what does that mean?
Rafay 00:18:24  Well, I mean, every single one of these brands have a direct line of communication with their creators. So they’re not just trying to follow up on Affiliate Center. They’re either in discord groups, WhatsApp. Some are even slack, and they do weekly calls with all these creators, they go through training them on the content that they’ve done.
Rafay 00:18:41  They gamified the system and they show them frameworks that are working. But at least the first 100 or 150 creators join the discord. They jump on like ten, 15 minute calls to them, understand what they want, what they want out of this opportunity, and give them bespoke training to help them in their particular situation. So, Josh, if you’re an affiliate and you jump on, I’m like, hey, Josh, okay, you’ve been creating. I’m so glad that you’re part of our brand. Tell me, how’s your creative journey been so far? How many pieces of content will you create for this? What do you need to succeed? What do I need to give you? And then they actually compile that for them. And that trains them on being like, okay, I want Josh is crushing it. I want 100 Josh’s. So I know what he, that type of person needs. And so whenever those creators come in, they’ve got this bank of content and training to give to those people, and they have the weekly calls to build that community and trust with all those, that army of creators.
Graeme 00:19:31  I think I, I think another thing, just looking at the top level of your question around, you know, brands brains who are really doing well. Embracing the platform is they see TikTok and TikTok shop as like potentially the sphere or the top of the pyramid for the whole e-com journey. So what I mean by that specifically is like, if we think about the brands that we work with who are really putting their foot down, is they’re not looking at TikTok as a pure profit channel only by itself, because they’re understanding that it’s giving them the opportunity about how many people would buy my product or service if they actually knew we existed. So if we look at Amazon, which is the ultimate search, find by the bottom of funnel, people who go there already have a personal decision. Even when you look at Google SEO, keywords, things like that, you’re working with a clientele or looking for a consumer that’s like, I already have a problem I need to solve with TikTok. No one actually goes in there to buy anything.
Graeme 00:20:23  I don’t believe, I believe they’re there for education, entertainment. Your craft is to take them on a journey to be like, that’s amazing. That solves a problem I didn’t know I had. And yes, maybe I might go buy a TikTok shop, but maybe I’ll just go buy it off Amazon because over there I get next day delivery. You’re not going to be a drop ship. Who doesn’t return it to me? There’s some really interesting stats where it’s just near 200 million users now in the US. The average time spent today is two hours and ten minutes of that 200 million users. But of that 200 million users, there’s only about 60 or 65 million who have actually bought from TikTok shop, which means I have 143 million people who are on their an average two hours a day who are getting awareness for my product, but they’re not buying it from the shop. So where are they actually buying it from? Are they going to retail? Amazon, Shopify? So the brands that we’re working with who are doing well on TikTok shop as a standalone channel, they might not be the most profitable, but even at break, even their free marketing.
Graeme 00:21:15  And then on Amazon, we hear that with three hour sales over their organically ten hour sales, we’ve got a brand who sells a book journal, whose 62 sales went from 15 sales a day to doing 1000 sales a day, every day, or from TikTok. So the bigger brands are understanding this and also for the fact that retailers is a really interesting conversation I had within the last week, chatting with some networks who are direct links to retailers like target, TJ Max, Nordstrom, all the big ones, and they’re like their biggest focus right now. Graeme is bringing brands on who have got awareness on TikTok and what’s really interesting in the contract. So I know this specifically because, in a TJ Max contract, one of our members got is based on how many views they have on a monthly basis on their own. TikTok channel also is in direct correlation with their contract about what the wholesale price will be for their product. How interesting. So TJ Maxx were like right, well, if you can get more views or they’ve got certain benchmarks on your own channel about your brand that yes, we are available in TJ Max when they come in here to buy your product or brand, what else do they buy when they’re in here? So I find it amazing now that retailers are actually understanding this leader, using it as a main focus points of brands they want to work with, and at the same time to putting benchmarks in place for certain goals.
Graeme 00:22:33  So understanding that, yes, TikTok is the ultimate. I didn’t even know you existed and understanding that 100% you want to monetize TikTok shop, but it’s the bigger game that actually makes the difference with your overall revenue and exert a multiplier and all that sort of stuff.
Josh Hadley 00:22:48  Yeah, I love that, I think, and I love to see how TikTok is already impacting, like the retail aspect. And that’s what I think like for a lot of brands that maybe got started on Amazon, that shift to TikTok shop can actually begin to make you into a real brand, to where you actually can go get some eyeballs on retail store shelves, because it’s not it’s not that just you’re an Amazon bestseller. It’s like, no, people actually want your stuff. And when people actually want your stuff, that’s when you can get into those retail conversations. So I love that you touched on that, Graeme. okay. So talk to me a little bit more about like partnering with these creators And I think as TikToks matured like.
Josh Hadley 00:23:35  Seems like a lot of the top creators are working with very, very few brands. It seems like at this point, and in fact, some of them are even starting to charge, like, oh, you want me to record a video for you a thousand bucks? And it’s like, oh yeah, okay, this game is changing. It’s no longer like, hey, here’s my 15% affiliate commission right there. Like not even doing that. So what do you guys see as like the best approach right now to work with affiliates. If you’re let’s say you’re new, are you still saying, hey, just go try to find some new affiliates. Is it just really niching down with the type of affiliates that you’re working with? There’s a lot of freebie suckers out there that record really crappy content and get lots of free samples. So, like, how do you take this balance? There’s millions of these creators. How do you hone in and actually get ones that will actually produce content that’s that’s going to drive sales.
Rafay 00:24:33  Good question. I think there’s three main ways of doing this. I think if you’re starting on TikTok. Shop, as you reach out to creators, you also need to think about creating a presence on your own brand channel, because you get to post as much content as you want, and you can quickly achieve product content market fit because you’re you’re not limited. You can keep posting and keep posting until you get it. And so when you’re working with creators, if you have frameworks that have worked for your brand and the messaging has actually hit, even if it’s just organic engagement, it’s not shuffle videos specifically. At least you’re arming those creators with content that works specifically for your brand with an angle that works. So that’s one thing. So definitely do that. But also noticing that, okay, yeah, these bigger brands, these bigger creators want, you know, you to pay them. Sure. Fair enough. They’re the bigger you get on TikTok shop those brands, those creators are going to come with you and come to you, and they’re not going to say, hey, give me $1,000, because they know that if they create a piece of content, they’re going to actually get sales.
Rafay 00:25:26  So it’s a lot easier. So your goal is to be successful enough for those creators to want to work with you, hopefully just for a commission. So how do you do that? Like how do you what are the frameworks? What are the metrics of the creators that you reach out with? The mistake I see is a lot of people get on a bot and then they just reach out and they’re like, okay, anyone above a thousand, you know, GMV and, you know, above a 60% or 70% post rate. Sweet. Let’s go. Maybe they’ll niche down into a particular category. You can do that. But everyone’s getting inundated doing it that way. Instead, I would recommend the lowest hanging fruit for these brands, provided that they’re having a presence on the platform and testing content themselves is essential. Is looking at your competitors, and you’ve got to do this in a particular way. And this is very tactical, and we can zoom out of the tactics in a second. But I think it’s important for listeners.
Rafay 00:26:06  So there’s all these tools like I mentioned, fast loss and killer data. It lets you have this amazing x ray cross section of the affiliates that are working, but most people go to 30 days, 90 days, or 180 days and look at, okay, who are those top affiliates? And then get that list and reach out to them instead. What I want you to do is find your closest competitors, adjacent competitors, people who talk in the way you think resonates with your brand and I want you to go to their shop. Go to your competitor’s shop to find those affiliates and change the date for the last 14 days, and then just pull those creators and creators who’ve done above 500 GMV and build a list for each brand. So if there’s ten competitor adjacent brands, you have a list for the last 14 days for those creators. And the reason I say 14 days is because a creator who has a recent win is way more responsive in their communication, and so they’re going to respond to you.
Rafay 00:26:56  And so your first line of defense is reaching out to those creators that are already serving your problem space. So they will actually respond. And then the third and final piece is go into it knowing that, okay, I have a retainer budget for some of those higher creators that I want them to post a few, few more times. Know what your budget is. If your budget is 5000 in a month and one creator for one post takes a thousand, that’s probably not a good use of your budget because you’re just starting. So instead finding a creator who will post five or 6 or 7 videos for $1,000. And so you have to make that. Make that decision as you’re reaching out and then deciding to give out these retainers.
Josh Hadley 00:27:33  I love that. How do you bring people in into like, having a personal relationship with them? Because again, as you said, like they’re getting spammed all over the place and tick tock shops. So like just relying on like, hey, here’s the sample I approved you in Tick Tock Shop.
Josh Hadley 00:27:49  I would argue, like, if you do that, like you might as well like kiss that sample goodbye and that creator goodbye. Good luck. Even if they do. Well, I’ve seen this. Where, like, somebody’s gone viral and I still can’t get them to reply to me, even in, like, the what? The TikTok messages. So what’s your guys’s strategies to, like, bring people internally? Like interacting with the brand you have their phone number, even their email if possible. What? What’s working?
Rafay 00:28:17  Yeah. I mean, so firstly in that situation where somebody has gone viral and you can’t get a hold on to the affiliate center, like just be a bit of a sleuth, like, see what their Instagram is? Maybe they’re getting a ton of DMs there. See what the TikTok is in their DM. They’re not responding to that. How many people are reaching out to LinkedIn and asking, you know, reaching out to them on there? How many of them are going to their YouTube channel that has maybe 100 subscribers? Nothing.
Rafay 00:28:37  But you can find their email and reach out to them. Very few people are doing that. So you have to just be a little bit more, resourceful in that situation. But let’s say that doesn’t happen. You’re just starting no viral videos, like, how do you get them to respond? What I like doing is once you started getting, you know, 5 to 10 K, maybe 15 K in revenue, I switch out my messaging so that once some creators start asking for samples from me because they’re like, okay, I like this product, there’s some sales, maybe I can make a sale for it. I’d be like, fantastic, I love that. Here’s our like little brief. But to be able to get samples, only the creators that actually join our discord get samples. And we found that the creators that get the most results and the ones that make the most money and that can scale with us, actually join the discord. So jump in there. Once you’re there, we’ll approve you, and then we’ll jump on a ten minute call.
Rafay 00:29:23  Like that alone is like, okay, cool. And if those creators don’t do that, that’s what the creator you want. If they’re not willing to jump through that little bit of friction, it’s just not worth it. Like, we tried this with a brand a couple, couple of weeks ago, and they had like, they literally had zero. They just created a new one. And within a week, they had 250 creators that joined the discord within one week. Like, that’s that’s just by changing a simple message, you know, a simple text in there if you want to jump in here, mate.
Graeme 00:29:48  Yeah. I think, there’s a couple to, like, encourage creators want to work with you, but also to retain them is you talk a lot about gaming, buying things. Right. So there’s a lot that done there in like obviously Goldy leading the way and Lamborghinis and you know, places in Miami. Maybe that’s not realistic for a brand just starting out, but on a much, much smaller scale.
Graeme 00:30:10  If you think about what does creator want? Well, yes, they want reliability and they love the idea of retainers and they want to make more money, but they want recognition. Like if all the creators could be in Hollywood, they probably would, Right. So how can you incentivize and gamify things, with things, knowing that what the creator was is recognition. So one thing that we’ve only just implemented recently, but having good success with is if we said with, with our creators, with our briefs talking to these, why would you come and work with our brand rather than just this is the commission once benchmarking the retainers you might get. We’d also like to put you on a billboard in New York City and Times Square. Now, when you talk to a creator about that, the first thing they’re thinking is you’re you’re going to put me having a billboard in Times Square to gamify things for a creator to potentially reach. But as a lot of brand owners, we know a lot of other brand owners, creators, they have their own little network as well as other creators.
Graeme 00:31:09  And the biggest key is I want soldiers that are going to go out there and find a tribe for me rather than me, just keep outreaching all the time. But what we call it like a barbecue conversation. Why would a creator Data at, you know, gathering. We want to talk about who they’re working with. So my my biggest thing is how do I actually get creators to want to work with me, but not only want to work with me, want to tell all the other creators in their community that, like, guys, this is who I’m working with and they’re going to not talk as much about the commission or the potential retainers about, listen, here’s an example of a creator they had on the billboard in Times Square. That’s what I’m going for. We have to make five grand month GMV this month. It all has to be right. So this is something where again, it’s how can you pull on the strings for what you know, what creators want? Which in my eyes is recognition.
Josh Hadley 00:31:55  I love that I think in Graeme, you previously shared that with me and I was like, yes, that is a genius hack. because I think that’s number one. I think in the eyes of the creator, that thing might as well cost like half $1 million to get an ad spot. Right. And so it’s this intangible, like I think when you throw out, like, just monetary rewards, right? It’s like, oh, it’s a thousand bucks right now. That could be in very incentivizing for certain people. And then like it’s like, it’s a thousand bucks for others. but when you have something that like, they don’t know how much this thing actually is. Right. And I think when you can create those types of incentives, it makes it appear a lot more valuable. And it’s like, oh, this is very exclusive. The only way I’m getting access to this is with this brand. that’s where I think there’s there’s some real magic there. Are there any other things that you guys have seen as, like, really good.
Josh Hadley 00:32:53  Like whether it be contests or incentives that have really driven results from creators?
Rafay 00:32:59  Oh, yeah. There’s a ton. I mean, there’s so many. I’ll just give you, like, cliff notes really quickly, like we had we have a brand in our community. And as she was doing like our top tier was like 2000, I guess reward if you hit a certain GNP threshold, all she did was change it to a math book, which cost the exact same amount, and so many more people started gunning for it. It’s the perceived value in what they can actually use. I’ve seen bigger brands say, okay, here’s a trip to, you know, Hawaii, that you can get the exact same amount, but then they share it, right? If if you can give a reward. No one’s sharing that they won $10,000. I mean, they might a little bit, but they’re not going to tell their fans. They’re not going. It’s not going to be on Instagram. They’re not going to they’re not going to tag you.
Rafay 00:33:39  But if you take get them to Hawaii, it’s like, oh, wow, you know, this brand did this for me. And like I did this, I’m super proud. They’re going to share it with everyone. Their entire friends, all their creative friends are going to know this. And that’s a great hack that I’ve totally stolen and shared as if it’s my own. But that’s definitely Graeme’s brainchild. He’s got like, so many of these hacks. another one is like just gamified the system. So like, Gully does this inside their discord. They have particular coaches, and you get to choose which coach you want to work with. And then the each coach has a bunch of affiliates and they, work against each other to win the prize for each team. And so they gamify the whole thing all the way down. And so there’s so many mechanisms for gamification that you can put within your business. So it’s not necessarily all GMV driven. It could be views driven. It could be like the amount of shuffle videos driven.
Rafay 00:34:25  It could be the amount of storytelling content that you find on TikTok that you share with the rest of the community because, you know, that helps drive the whole wheel. And so there’s so many things that you can do. But those are those are my cliff notes. And hopefully the listeners can like, extract that and start applying a few of those things.
Graeme 00:34:39  And this is what keeps creators in good creators in your discord. But they’re not just joining yours, they’re joining lots. But why? When they’re jumping on every day, would they actually want to spend time in yours versus others? How do you keep their attention? And again, it’s around well, look, you know what? There’s more in here for me than just getting what the latest is or trying to get their latest training update if they’re actually doing that at all. There’s a lot of brands that we noticed. Like I said, they’ve got these discord. They just put them in there and they don’t talk to them. Let’s do it.
Graeme 00:35:05  Nothing.
Rafay 00:35:06  Okay.
Graeme 00:35:07  How often do we see that rapid eye anyways?
Rafay 00:35:09  Every time. Yeah.
Graeme 00:35:11  They they keep you engaged with your brand. And that way if you’re top of mind like anything Obviously when they usually go make their content every day. Most likely you’re going to get more of the bigger share of the pie.
Josh Hadley 00:35:22  I love that. So what you guys just talked about there just kind of like triggered this in my mind, which is if we were to boil down what TikTok shop is and social commerce, this is nothing more than the old kind of like Mary Kay, MLM model, but in the digital ecosystem. Right? Because all of these principles that you were just talking about, like with Mary Kay, what is it that you want? Oh, if if you get that pink Cadillac from Mary Kay, you have crushed it. You have made it as a rep from Mary Kay, right? All of that was just an incentive where it’s like, this is a non-monetary like amount. Like you can’t even go buy this car even if you wanted to, even if you had $1 million.
Josh Hadley 00:36:11  Like the only person that gets it is if you have met this certain sales threshold. So again Mary Kay’s debt like these MLM business has been around forever. Right? Think about the old like parties that people used to just throw. Where, what was it called? The, It’s like the Tupperware parties, right?
Rafay 00:36:31  That, yes.
Josh Hadley 00:36:32  People were throwing and inviting their friends over. So I think that like, if if sellers flip their mindset to say, okay, this is the new door to door sales, this is the new MLM sales model. And maybe these are these creators. When they find their friends, maybe they make a percent on their friends. And as they invite more friends, they coach their friends. And then those teams are competing against other internal teams that you have. And again, they’re they’re all trying to make more money and then you as the brand you’re growing overall. But I think that there’s so much like everybody looks at TikTok shop and it’s like this mystic like, oh, I don’t know, how do you create a magic video that’s going to go viral? And I think it’s less about the mystery behind it.
Josh Hadley 00:37:21  And it’s all about like, volume and it’s all about looking at your creators is like they’re independent sales reps. That’s exactly what they are. So imagine if you are the owner of Mary Kay and you’re like, hey, we’re just going to give out a bunch of samples. Like, we’re just going to drop them from a helicopter at a football game, and then we’re just going to be like, I hope people do well with this. Like, honestly, I think that’s the approach that like a lot of sellers are taking right now, they get on to yoga and they put on these bots thousand GMV or higher. Anybody gets a free sample and then they look back, even if it was like a thousand samples, which that’s a good volume. Even if they give out a thousand samples and they’re like, oh, it sucks. Nobody did it. And it’s like, well, did you do what goalie’s doing? Which is like, did you bring them into a discord? Like, look at these people as like they are new team members trying to sell your product.
Josh Hadley 00:38:15  Did you train them? Did you onboard them? Did you get them in love with your brand? Did you encourage them? Did you motivate them? because if you’re not doing I think that’s exactly where TikTok shop is going. And I think that’s exactly where the best brands are going to be. Like, they’re just the new MLMs. yeah. Today. What are your thoughts?
Graeme 00:38:35  Is that guidance without, is that guidance without sort of like micromanagement? Because we have so many conversations and like, it’s just I feel most brands think creators understand their own genius and they don’t like. We spoke with so many credits that are amazing on TikTok and we’re like, you know, give us a secret sauce. They can’t because like some people, the great players are maybe not great coaches. So I think what’s really important and I guess this is your role as a business owner, this is to understand well, Raph talks about frameworks or sandboxes. So when we’re working with creators, you never want to take their creativity away.
Graeme 00:39:12  Because then even with all the gamification, why would they want to work with you? If you’re just like, lift your eyebrow here, don’t put this dimple. Smile like that. Get the camera. They’re like, they’ve lost their creativity. However, you can give them the sandbox based on the research that you’ve done prior to that. You understand these certain frameworks will connect best with your audience. So, Josh, I would just like love you to say these three things and show the product in these three ways, but otherwise do your thing. But then a consistency in a through subconscious. When we have multiple creators with your brand and again it’s double clicking on just the one brand, not scattering attention with 20 or 30. But then they’ll see all different creators in all different light, showing the different product in their own frameworks, in their own way. Great. But they’re all saying the same three things, and they’re all showing the product in the same three ways. So my top to bottom, a photo from I had no idea to I know like trust I want to make a purchase decision happens much quicker.
Graeme 00:40:04  But the creators love this too, because they still have their creativity. But they want to make some money too, right? So how can we help them help themselves? He’s given them that framework without taking away all that creativity. That’s. That’s a piece I see missing a lot as well. Where? You’re right. They just send all these samples because they have this belief structure, the brands that. Well, you’re the creator. You know what you’re doing. No, I would challenge that.
Rafay 00:40:28  Yeah. The the only thing I’d add to that is like, unlike the MLM like analogy, we’re creating a win win win situation across the board. We’re helping these creators find the skill set that they can monetize, not just for your brand, but for any other brand that they want to work with. And there’s so many creators that I’ve spoken to that they’ve built this engine of like, okay, I know how to make money through TikTok videos, and I can I’m making, you know, 100, 200 grand in commissions a month, and they can see what the brands are making, because obviously they’re making just a part of that.
Rafay 00:40:58  And then they transition into, okay, I’ll still do my creative thing here, but I might even want to build a brand. So it’s an amazing road for those creators if they want to also build something that has enterprise value as well. So I just think if you just see it as a partnership, as something we’re going on this journey together as opposed to I’m trying to extract as much value out of you, then I’m going to discard you. I think just that change is like something that I’m so surprised a lot of brands don’t even have. Like just shifting that mindset is is going to night and day with how the creators respond to and and what amazing stuff you can get them to create for you.
Josh Hadley 00:41:32  Yeah, I love that. And I think you guys tie that up really, really well, with which it just comes down to like, can you create a really good relationship with these creators? Right. Just as you would whether it’s a new team member joining your team or whatever. Like create an actual relationship with people.
Josh Hadley 00:41:50  And I would also say, you know, Rafa, I loved your your strategy of like, hey, pull up Carlo data, who’s driving sales for your competitors within the last 14 days? Great. Go steal them. All right. So then as the flip side, I’m like, all right, how do I prevent Rafa from stealing my creators? So I think it comes down to the relationship, period. Yeah, because I do think that what we are talking about, this is ridiculously hard work, right? Building a a training program and hiring staff that’s going to meet and greet every creator for 10 to 15 minutes, that’s going to provide weekly coaching calls to them. That’s going to be engaging with them on WhatsApp or discord or whatever it is, and it’s actually paying attention to them. Like I would argue, 90% of brands will not ever do that. And especially here’s my favorite thing. I think the overseas brands will have a really hard time doing that, because a lot of the US based creators, they’re not going to want to jump on a call with some Chinese brand.
Josh Hadley 00:42:57  They’re not. Yeah. And there’s going to be no emotional pull to them. So the only thing that overseas brands will be able to do is just drop prices and flood the ecosystem with samples and just cross their fingers and pray that somebody goes viral with it. That’s the only thing. And that’s actually a very easy strategy to beat. If you’re building something that’s more sustainable, relationship based, based around an actual like brand, mission and vision that you’re communicating. I know that with comfort. with Hudson, what they’re building, they’re it’s all about they’re connected to Hudson and his journey and like the depression, anxiety and like he’s helping them. Right. And so these creators love and they associate themselves with that brand. And then they’re sharing that with the rest of the world. So I think like do the things that 90% of people won’t do because it’s frankly speaking a lot of hard work.
Rafay 00:43:53  Yeah. And for those listeners who are listening to this thinking like, oh, dang, like, I wish I’d started TikTok shop two years ago, I was on the fence or with this band thing, I wasn’t sure what to do.
Rafay 00:44:02  It’s like it’s too hard now or like, that’s a lot of work. If I said, if you did this work, you have a chance of 60 axing your Amazon sales. That’s not to mention all the sales you’re making on Amazon. That’s not to mention all the halo effect in Shopify and retail stores. Would it be worth it? Right. And the higher and the more effort, the barrier of entry, the better it is because most people are just not going to do it. And so you have this crazy advantage. And to the flip side of what you said with these Chinese brands, they have found a countermeasure, just FYI, because AI content is like absolutely taking off on the TikTok side. We can definitely double click on that down the road, but I think there is definitely competition in the space. But it’s, you know, it’s such a small pool. There actually isn’t that much compared to Amazon. The amount of sellers on Amazon is way more, you know, the amount of sellers that are using Meta and Shopify way more.
Rafay 00:44:48  So it’s just if you can understand the game and get in, you’re still like before the main majority, if you look at the adoption curve has gone in, you’re still prior to that, believe it or not, even right now. So like jump in.
Josh Hadley 00:45:00  Okay, I love it. All right. So two things as we kind of wrap up what this episode could probably go on for hours if we let it. so Rafay would love for you to double click into what do you see happening on the overseas competitors, especially Chinese brands, where TikTok is a very like live shopping, very big thing in China? They kind of know TikTok. So how are they how are they trying to approach this? And what’s the best counter defense here in the US. And then Graeme, there’s something that you and I discussed separately, which was about like the point system and helping like teaching our creators how like, hey, like the hooks are important and there’s some, like, simple tactics and tips that you could do to your videos to try to get them to, like, do what better.
Josh Hadley 00:45:51  Right. And actually hit that like viral mechanism within TikTok shop. But Rafael, take us off, on the overseas competitor landscape.
Rafay 00:46:01  Yeah, for sure. I think a lot of these, Chinese brands that come from the doyen, which is the TikTok equivalent in China. And obviously live streaming is so common the content doesn’t go over like it just it’s it’s an apples to orange game. But the way they’re countering that is that there’s so many AI tools that allow you to create such realistic avatars, and they’re literally taking content that’s working for the direct competitors, running it through AI with an avatar, and basically taking the exact same script but using it for their content, and they’re just posting it on hundreds of accounts. So that’s what they’re doing, which some of them are succeeding really well. Obviously American brands are using this too, but some of them are succeeding super duper well. I think you also, you already touched on it. One of the pieces is like having a relationship with real life creators, because to use AI effectively, you need to achieve product content market fit.
Rafay 00:46:48  You need to know how to effectively communicate your product to someone who’s not even problem aware. And that only comes from reps. You can take as much from adjacent or dark competitors, but for your specific product, you still need to kind of crack that. You need to still do that. And so I think American brands have that because they understand the humor. They understand language. They understand the trends specifically in TikTok. But I would also say that Chinese brands are spraying and playing with the types of products that they’re launching. And the benefit that American brands have is that they’re not just launching products or launching brands or launching movements like comfort that you mentioned. And so you’re able to create a halo effect of products around a problem space that your brand lives in. That a lot of these Chinese brands don’t even look at, like, brands like that, right? They just have a product and they’re trying to sell it and run those sales up for whatever SKU that they’re running. And so think of your business and your product and the products that you launch on TikTok shop, and how they run in concentric circles help the same type of customer.
Rafay 00:47:46  So if a customer bought a fountain pen, maybe the next product you’re going to sell would be a journal that you know is 300 GSM. So it doesn’t leak. Right. It’s just a very simple example. But like that is in line with the problem space you’re trying to get affiliates for. You’re trying to get customers before you’re trying to get into the algorithm for. So those would be the pieces that I would start with. But all of this is irrelevant if you’re not on the platform. Like this is what we’re talking about is when you get to 100 K plus, this is the problem you got to think about. Let’s just get to 100 K plus per month and then take it from there. You know what I mean?
Josh Hadley 00:48:15  Yeah love it. Well said.
Graeme 00:48:17  There’s a lot of pieces to the algorithm for potential virality. But we do know a core component from TikTok is understanding the point structure and the bucket system. So as easy as it can be said is most people realize that it’s got nothing to do with followers or hashtags.
Graeme 00:48:32  But then how does actually TikTok measure each piece of content that gets delivered to the platform for potential virality? And it’s done in a bucket system. So literally every piece of content doesn’t matter. It comes from your brand. Channel creators goes to a test audience of 300 people. That test audience has variance based on your own channel, your audience, and things like that. But if we just stay in the test audience for now, that 300 test audience needs to get 50 points. So 50 points is made up of like shares, comments, three watches, full watches and something else in there too. But the thing that they reward the most is full watches and watches of content. So you win for content, you win for likes, you win for shares. But one of the biggest pieces is how can you curate your content that has a higher chance of a full watch or a rewatch? Potentially, because once you get 50 points in that first 300, you get out of that bucket and then you go to the next bucket is between 700 to 1000 people.
Graeme 00:49:31  In that bucket, you need to get 100 points. And then once you get out of that bucket, then it goes to 5000 and it just keeps going from there. So if people look at their content, even their own channel, they’re like, I’ve got a heap of videos, I’ve got like two, 300 views, but I’ve got these other ones that I’ve got a few thousand. Then I can see from there that, well, actually I’ve, I’ve broken out of those buckets, but I haven’t got to the next one. One of the big things that Ralph talks about as well at the moment is series is something always really good. So if we were on your own channel, for argument’s sake, can we go back to what we said earlier about what is the problem space your product lives in? Could you run a series about this is the problem space that my product lives in? And you can answer the direct question to people asking on TikTok. And there’s all strategies around that. But if you start at each piece of content with part one, part two, part three, part four, I would be curious that if part for your piece of content talking about the problem space your product lives in is engaging enough.
Graeme 00:50:26  Would I be curious enough to be like, you know what I missed out on part one, two, and three? So what would I do? I would go into your channel. I would rewatch part one, part two, and part three, which means the algorithm is like, I love these food. Watch the videos. I love the rewatch. I’m going to give you the points to get out to the other buckets. So there’s all different things that you can do in your content. A a funny story, an Amazon gentleman. I won’t mention his name, but really cool dude because he might not he might not appreciate the story on here, but we’re over in Portugal and he came running up. First time I met the gentleman, he was like, oh, you’re the tick tock guy. I’m like, yeah. He goes, I went viral. I’m like, amazing. I’m like, show me. Because I’m always learning. Like, what did you do? And he goes, yeah, yeah.
Graeme 00:51:05  So he, he’s an Amazon coach, but he also has his own brand on TikTok. He sells gym products. I’m not a gym guy, but there’s like there’s like these wraps for weightlifting and things like that. So he’s showing me this video. They go like seven and a half, 8 million views on like this is pretty cool and I want to learn. So as I’m watching the bit of content and I’m seeing a guy walk in the gym and he puts these gloves on and he’s going to work, I’m like, it’s okay. I don’t see it. I don’t I don’t really see anything here. And I’m like, I’m not, I’m not, I’m not. I want to give some feedback. I don’t know what’s going on. But then I see the comments and it’s lit up thousands and thousands of comments. And then he looks at me. He’s like, right. So as a, in the Amazon background, might not know the points metrics, but understands engagement is a real thing and hopefully get virality.
Graeme 00:51:51  So it’s like I thought I’d try this. So it’s like I said, I’m having like a 12 month celebration. He goes. It’s not even 12 months, but whatever. No worries. So he’s like I said in the comments, we want to give anybody a free set of these straps from TikTok shop from TikTok. They were like 15, $20. All you have to do is comment down below. I want one for free and as long as nobody likes your comment in the next 24 hours, I’ll reach out to you. I’m like, can you? Can you say that again? He goes, yeah, yeah. So I put in there. I want one for free. That’s all you have to say. And as long as nobody likes your comment in the next 24 hours, I’ll send one out for free. He goes, because my thinking was, I don’t want to give out too many of them, but what I’ll do at the end, I’ll just go and like a heap and that few up the top, I’ll just reach out, send him a free one.
Graeme 00:52:41  But what he didn’t account for is human nature like to ruin other people’s day? So he had thousands of people going on there being like, I want one for free. But then people like Raphael or Josh might hop on who have no interest whatsoever and be like, listen. I think it could be your unlucky day today because you’re not getting a free one. Like, like, like. And he goes, then people jump back in free like thousands and thousands of comments. I’m like, so how much, how much money did you make and how much do you give out? At the end he goes, I didn’t make any money, actually. He was like, actually, the Google reviews are pretty bad. I got to sort that out, but I went viral. I’m like, cool story, bro. But that’s a clear example that you can’t make up around enticing the algorithm to get people involved that they wouldn’t. The algorithm. See, look at all these comments. Look at all these likes.
Graeme 00:53:29  It’s virality made zero money. But again, it’s just a story about one. You can’t make that up, but also things that you could potentially do to try and invite people more to actually want to engage with your piece of content, to get those points, to get out of those buckets.
Josh Hadley 00:53:44  Yeah, I love that story that that is fantastic. And one thing that is interesting, right, is when you do those gimmicky hacks and stuff to try to like game the algorithm like it can work, right? Like very self-evident. But what’s interesting is like the sales that come from that, it’s like, well.
Graeme 00:54:01  You.
Josh Hadley 00:54:01  May not like, like bad sales, right?
Graeme 00:54:04  That’s that is not what you should do. But that’s just an example about how the algorithm is not discriminating. It’s just liking the engagement. And we’ll show you the more audience. But showing you more people could be good or bad. Right.
Josh Hadley 00:54:15  So yeah. Yeah. No I love it though. Love it. All right, gentlemen, as we wrap things up, is there anything that we have not talked about that you feel like you need to share with our audience before we leave them today?
Rafay 00:54:27  I think if you’ve launched a TikTok shop and you’re not getting success, be intellectually honest with yourself to see if you’ve actually approached it as a if you’re starting a business and your TikTok shop is going to be your first channel that you gave it the attention it deserves to actually be successful.
Rafay 00:54:43  And I think a lot of people would say no. And so if you want to potentially 60 x your sales on a different platform like Amazon because of the halo effect or have a full on like understand social commerce is going to be here and want to be in the game early now to be able to capitalize on it for the next decade to come. I mean, you can either get out of the game or like if you’re in the game already, your feet is already wet. There’s no point in slowly getting into the water, dive in and actually do it, because I think your business will thank you for it. And you’ll you’ll thank yourself for it 100%.
Graeme 00:55:12  And just keep keep in mind playing the long game, because tick tock in a sense is short attention span. But also we want instant gratification. But then also we jump on that platform. We want that as a business as well, and it’s just not the game. It is the ultimate top of funnel awareness that you’ve got to date before you get married.
Graeme 00:55:29  You’ve got to prove to the algorithm that you’re educating, entertaining before you just jump on and try and sell to the audience. So for us it’s understanding realistic expectations that right, I’m going to get in here and I might be at break even after 6 or 8 months, but that’s okay because these apprenticeship that you need to move through, but also look at it as a holistic view, like our bigger brands who are doing really well, Understanding that break evens a fantastic result. That’s free marketing, but look at the leverage. As Raff said on getting on the other channels now, people actually know I existed, and I also showed them the problem that they need to solve. Play the long game.
Josh Hadley 00:56:03  Love it. Really well said. This has been awesome. you guys are, you guys definitely know your stuff. So as we wrap things up for today, I love to leave the audience with three actionable takeaways from every episode. Here are the three actionable takeaways that I know two gentlemen. Let me know if you think I’m missing something.
Josh Hadley 00:56:21  Action item number one. If you want to have success on TikTok shop, one of the first things that you should do is to go benchmark yourself against a competitor or a similar. Maybe there isn’t a competitor, but maybe there’s a tangential product where it’s it’s similar, similar space, right? But go and look at their sales history on Kayla data face masks and only look back in the last 12 months and see how many Any, like, videos. Where are they getting produced on a monthly basis? How many sales were being produced? How many creators were actually generating those sales at that time? That will give you a really good benchmark to understand the amount of volume that is going to be needed in order for you to try to tap into that market and just know that that benchmark that’s kind of like that’s your lowest common denominator at this point. Like if that’s what worked 12 months ago, know that that game is probably doubled at least at this point. And so you’re going to have to really push things to to get to the next level.
Josh Hadley 00:57:26  So that’s action item number one. Action item number two is all about volume. And I think this is the thing, you know, going back to the Alex Ramsey analogy that I shared. But I think many people pat themselves on the back for giving out a hundred samples. Right. And then they’re like, I did my due diligence and I gave out 100 and it did not work. And I think that what it takes. And you guys said this, well it’s yes, you will have to send out samples. Is there a monetary cost with that? There certainly is. Right. But above that there’s also the the time side. Right. If you don’t have the amount of capital to invest into a bunch of samples, then what if you’re the one going live on your TikTok shop channel and you just keep going live until you figure it out? Or you create a bunch of shop videos and tell you can figure it out yourself. use all these strategies that we’ve shared today, but like it takes dedicated time.
Josh Hadley 00:58:27  And the fruit, there is gold at the end of this rainbow, as you said, like it’s a 60 x, because if like you truly take your brand today and you fast forward it, I would argue like five years from now, see your brand, your sales on Amazon are up ten x because you’re also in retail stores. And you also have a massive halo effect coming over from, TikTok. And for the first time ever, you’ve been able to actually unlock Shopify because, like, you’ve got this massive brand awareness coming over. Like, that’s what this arbitrage opportunity on TikTok shop is all about. And so it is definitely not not something to just be like, hey, I tried a good two months worth and I’m out. Like, I’m just going to go back to Amazon. I think the game has changed for ecommerce brands, and if you want to have the success that you once had on Amazon, the easy days of Amazon, you’ve got to come back and you’ve got to figure out and unlock TikTok shop.
Josh Hadley 00:59:29  My third and final action item is to treat your creators as though they are actual internal employees of your team. They’re not technically employees, but like, see them as independent contractors. They’re brand new sales reps. That said, yeah, I’ll go knock some doors for you. But if you’re not equipping them with training, with sharing your culture, your brand mission, your vision with them, and enabling them with a basic creative brief to say, hey, here are the talking points. Here’s the angles that have worked well for other sales reps. Go at it. Do you think those door to door sales reps are going to do well for you? Obviously not. But if you do invest that time into them and you train them and you know that you’re going to be there to help support them like they can succeed. I listen to Hudson from comfort talk about how one of his top performing creators right now made $0 in sales for nine months, but was continuing to post over and over and over and over again.
Josh Hadley 01:00:32  But he kept showing up every week, teaching his creators. And now he has over 500,000 creators. So that’s that’s a massive flywheel they’ve created. But can you create a creator that’s willing to stick it out with you for nine months and then have the success. That’s like, that’s a level of dedication to a brand that if you can get that, you can have success on TikTok shot. Gentlemen, anything you think I missed from these action items? That was.
Rafay 01:01:02  Awesome. That’s pretty.
Graeme 01:01:04  Pretty good. Yeah.
Josh Hadley 01:01:06  Love it. All right. As we wrap it up, we’ve got two of you on here. So we’re going to go through these three final questions for every guest. And we’ll bounce back and forth between you two. So number one, what’s been the most influential book that you’ve read and why?
Rafay 01:01:20  Lifetime would probably be The Alchemist, the last 24 to 36 months. It’s this book called Clear Thinking by Shane Parrish. Very valuable.
Graeme 01:01:30  For me. Most recent. I’ve got lots of favorites.
Graeme 01:01:34  Probably too many. But the one that’s probably had the most impact is Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell. scaling is a real thing. our business is scaling dramatically. So through that, like anything, it’s about foundations and but also just not just hiring more staff. where you should be hiring to buy back your time. I think it’s a fantastic board.
Josh Hadley 01:01:54  Great recommendations. All right. Question number two. What is your favorite AI tool that you’ve been using and how have you been using it?
Graeme 01:02:01  Well there’s probably AI involved in it and it’s probably quite simple. But again, if I think about what’s really made, the biggest impact is whisper flow. So for me, I, I love voice notes, but at the same time, like, I’ve got 1000 emails a day I’ve got to try and get back to and keep on top of things. But Whisper Flow is anything where it’s like emails. I just click the button, I read the email, I just start talking away. It’s pretty close.
Graeme 01:02:25  Can I just move on with my life? So efficiency wise, it’s been like the best thing by far for recently.
Rafay 01:02:33  my ones is a recent one. So I’ve been playing around obviously with a lot of AI avatar stuff. So I’ve used Art Arcade’s Top View point AI, but I’ve started using leaner AI, so that’s their avatars and your ability to be able to create avatars based on screenshots of different people in different settings. I haven’t seen a technology like that, so I’ve been playing around a lot with that. So that’s my favorite at the moment. But who knows, maybe in 2 or 3 weeks might be another one, but at the moment it’s that one.
Josh Hadley 01:02:59  All right, you said LeenaAI.
Rafay 01:03:01  Yeah, yeah. LeenaAI.
Josh Hadley 01:03:06  All right. Arch. AI. All right. That’s a good one. All right. AI driven platform for brands, creators. Affiliates. I love it. Okay. Love to learn new tools. All right. And, Grant, I love the, whisper flow.
Josh Hadley 01:03:22  I actually learned about that last week as well. And, that’s a good tool.
Graeme 01:03:26  Game changer.
Josh Hadley 01:03:28  Yeah. Love it. All right, final question, gentlemen. Who is somebody that you admire or respect the most in the e-commerce space that other people should be following and why?
Rafay 01:03:36  There’s this guy named Oren Meets World, and he talks a lot about brand building and content and content frameworks. And just every time it drops a YouTube video, I use Instagram Reels. I just pull something out that I’m like, oh, I didn’t think about it this way or this is this is interesting. Just a lot of high density and high fidelity information that any brand who’s interested in social commerce, I think it’s worthwhile following that guy.
Graeme 01:03:58  There’s a guy and there’s a guy in Australia who had a big retail background to start off with that’s moving to e-commerce, social commerce, now named Simon Beard. So he had a company called Culture King sold out for $600 million. But I believe that he is very much on the forefront.
Graeme 01:04:12  I like the way he thinks about things. at the moment, he’s just built out a training program for content creators because he believes so many more businesses could do so much better if they could just hire a full time content creator that was trained to get certain things and actually just shadow them within their business to get, as you mentioned, like, how do I pump out more than three videos a day? Well, if I hired a full time content creator, but specific to socials. So we actually build out a whole training module on that. And he said that was one of the key pieces that boost is retail when E-com wasn’t even a thing years ago. I really like the message that he’s giving me across, which is yes, I’m in bed in Australia.
Josh Hadley 01:04:48  Love it. Great recommendations. All right. Rafay Graeme, thank you so much for your time today. If people want to learn more about the Uptik and want to get your insights, maybe you want to hire you, your agency, help them scale on TikTok, shop or at least get some consulting mentoring advice.
Josh Hadley 01:05:05  Where can they find you at.
Rafay 01:05:07  The Uptik dotcom? Or just shoot us an email like graeme@theuptik.com or rafay@theuptik.com? probably that’s the easiest way.
Graeme 01:05:15  And I’ll reply in Wisprflow. Just let you know.
Rafay 01:05:17  Yeah.
Josh Hadley 01:05:19  Love it. Well, hey, thank you both for your time today. It’s been a pleasure.
Rafay 01:05:23  Thanks for having.
Graeme 01:05:24  Us, Josh.
MC 01:05:25  Thank you for listening. Visit ecom 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!