Should You Start An Online Smoke Shop?

all right, everybody, we're back and, um man, it's a whole lot going on here. we're finishing up the master class. bradley tells me that he thinks he's pretty close. i think it looks real good what i've seen so far. but if you haven't gotten it yet, maybe you should. we'll put a link down below where you could, you know, start to look that up and maybe get something going. but today, today got us an email. he said: hello, chad, hello, my name is aiden and i'm emailing in need of help slash information on how to open a smoke shop online. oh yeah, i'll get to that. i've watched many of your videos for help and information. i just don't get a lot of information on how to run a smoke shop online, maybe because they don't want the competition. in all honesty, i was hoping that we could tok and you could help and provide information on how to get this business started. i can- and that's at uns productionscom- schedule a time and we could do that. but he goes on. it says: i'm located in chicago, illinois. he had a smoke shop back in 2014, but things are changing and want to reopen with the same business name and have things running online. well, i don't know what name. your business was aiden, but i don't know that you can get a, a com, a dotnet, a dot biz or what like that with that shop name. so you need to go to godaddy and check that out and see if your name is even available and what's it going to cost to register that name. and i don't know the exact legal way to sell online and was hoping that you could help me out. so, if we're keeping it real, i'm finding that putting things online is becoming more and more and more crowded. in the last two to three years our smoke shop online presence, which is up the lettering smoke onlinecom, has started to seo a lot better, which means search engine optimization and it just takes a lot to stay on top of that. and it takes a lot to film product because you have to have individual, unique pictures and you have to individualize, name those pictures, then you have to post those pictures, then you got to post descriptions and then you got to know your weights and you got to know your shipping times and you've got to know all this stuff to do with the logistiks of the shipping. that's a lot and i don't personally do it. i mean i'll, i'll pull product, i'll put it in the boxes or i'll put it in the envelopes and i'll seal it all up, but for the majority of time, brandon does it, along with austin, and they do a lot of that stuff, and brandon puts the majority of it all online. it is something constant with this. if you've got broken links, you've got to be able to find which ones are broken. and, aiden, do you know a lot about seo? because i don't know a lot about seo. i just know that it changes monthly, daily, weekly, yearly. it's a whole lot. and do you, do you really want to put a lot of money into inventory that sits on a shelfing unit and you have to individually categorize each and everything so that you know how it corresponds to your shopify or big commerce or anything like that, wherever you're going to have it hosted, and you're going to have to pull from it every day, every week. then you got to restok it and you know that's a lot, that's a whole lot, plus with it being as crowded as it is online. and we're looking at legalization in the united states as a whole, once ebay and amazon and walmart are fully involved- and i'm just toking about the dot-coms, i'm not even toking about walmart stores. once these people are fully engrossed in this, it won't make no difference what yourcom is and who you're involved with. they'll crush you out just like they do mom and pop stores. now, aiden, in all honesty, i would. i would go back to brick and mortar if i was going to open a store such as that before i put inventory that i've got to constantly advertise, get creative to advertise, which means you've got to be in social media neck deep. are you really going to do that? are you going to stik with it? and when it don't take up immediate results, what's going to happen to you? are you going to keep your job that you have right this second and keep running with it, hoping that this will get some kind of traction from your daily or twice daily or three-time daily posting on facebook, instagram, twitter, snapchat and, of course, hey, tik-tok, all you people out there. and is people even gonna catch on to that? i don't know. that's pretty crowded universe too. i would really just warn you against the online thing and i would go strictly. brick and mortar, get to know my customers. that becomes a full-time gig. well, i know chad, but that's going to cost a whole lot of money, i agree. the other is just going to cost a whole lot of time, and sometimes money is the trade-off for time. so just letting you know i'm going to email you. but, aidan, i'm telling you i wouldn't do it. i guess if you're unemployed and you've got nothing else going on, i guess you can pull that off. don't even think about drop shipping. don't even think about that, because if you hit somebody up and it takes them two or three days to get it out, and then you don't have any kind of tracking for your customer, you're screwed. once the online reviews start happening, you're hit. i'm telling you don't do it. but there'll be some people out there that thinks they can reinvent the wheel. go ahead, file the deals. that's all i can tell you. so that's where i'm at with that y'all. good luck to you, aiden. uh, i hope you listen. schedule that call. we can go into a little more deep dive with this. hey, if nothing else- and if i know you're gonna do it- i can even get brandon involved and he can help you with that as well. let me know, i'll be waiting on you. uns productionscom. schedule a call. any of your questions can be answered one on one, mono and mono and uh, that's where i'm at all. right, y'all have a good day, see ya. [Music].

10 Minute CBD Dropshipping Shopify Tutorial for Beginners

Hey, I’m Myron with Smoke Drop. We’re the leading wholesale and dropship marketplace for smoke, vape and CBD products. Now, if you clicked on this video, you might be asking yourself: “is CBD dropshipping dead in 2022?”. No, In fact, the US CBD market is expected to exceed $3 billion in 2023.. Now I know what you’re thinking: CBD is heavily regulated, there’s a lot of competition and it can be difficult to find a payment gateway for an online CBD store. Despite these hurdles, there is still plenty of room for a new brand to enter the industry and find success. It all starts with how you set up your online store. So how do you set up a CBD dropshipping store on Shopify the right way? Well, by the end of this video, you’ll know exactly how to do it. Let’s jump right in. Laws in the US surrounding hemp and hemp-derived products are changing, so you should consult with legal counsel before you sell these products on Shopify. Shopify can't provide legal advice on what and where you can sell, and neither can I. Before selling hemp or hemp-derived products on Shopify, review and monitor federal, state and local laws. You should also monitor updates from the Food and Drug Administration. I’ve included links to FDA resources in the description of this video. With that out of the way, let’s start setting up our store. Before we get started, I want to note that this tutorial is for US merchants interested in selling hemp and hemp-derived CBD products on Shopify. First, we’ll create our Shopify store using their free trial link for CBD stores. You’ll find a link to this page in the description of the video For this tutorial. I’m going to name my store Wellness Leaf. Once you’ve completed your Shopify free trial sign up, you’ll need to review and submit the Attestation for the Sale of Hemp and Hemp-Derived Products. Before you sell any CBD products, make sure that you understand and submit the attestation form. You need to complete the attestation to confirm that you understand and will comply with the requirements for selling these products on Shopify. With our Shopify store created, let’s discuss payment gateways. Unfortunately, Shopify Payments is not available for hemp or CBD products, But Shopify has partnered with third party payment gateways that support hemp and hemp-derived CBD businesses. Check the description for links to three payment gateways you should consider applying to, The first being DigiPay, then Pinwheel and finally Authorizenet. Because CBD is a regulated market, the approval process for any payment gateway will require more work than usual. In my experience, it takes 2-4 weeks for the approval process to be completed. We’ll go more in depth on CBD payment gateways in another video. While waiting on your payment gateway, let’s start finding CBD products to dropship In other industries. setting up a dropshipping store usually involves finding low cost (sometimes low quality) products from AliExpress. using Oberlo, CBD dropshipping is very different. You need quality products from reliable suppliers to find success in this industry. There are plenty of ways to find CBD suppliers who dropship. A simple Google search will reveal many options available to you, But for this tutorial, I’m shamelessly recommending you use Smoke Drop to source CBD products to dropship. I’m part of the team that runs Smoke Drop and I’ve managed multiple 7-figure dropshipping stores in the industry using it. Smoke Drop brings together the top CBD suppliers in one place for easy, automated dropshipping through our app. Let’s see just how easy it is to set up the app, find CBD products and add them to our Shopify store To get started. open the Shopify App Store and search for ‘Smoke Drop’. Check out our reviews to see real feedback from other entrepreneurs using the app. Add the app to your Shopify store and start your free trial. If you’re paying close attention, you’ll see a promo code on screen that unlocks an extended free trial and discounted subscription. Now that we’re in the app, let’s find some CBD products. Smoke Drop has thousands of products available, so knowing how to search for products is essential. I recommend using the following filters: Categories, Inventory minimum, Margin minimum. For this demo, I'm going to focus on CBD gummies. Let’s start with a minimum of 100 inventory and a margin minimum of 40%. Finally, I'm just going to enter gummy here as a keyword to search for. Once you find products you’d like to sell, click dropship on each product card and you’re one step away from adding the products to your Shopify store. When you’re done adding products, head over to the Products page. On this page, you can edit product details like title, description and pricing before importing the products to your Shopify store. After you finish making any changes, save your changes and activate the products using the toggle shown here that says 'Is Active' or by selecting checkboxes and activating multiple products at once. In just a minute or two after activating your products, they'll be added automatikally to your Shopify store with photos, descriptions, pricing, inventory and tags. Now that you have products in your store, let’s discuss one of the most important aspects of running a successful CBD dropshipping store on Shopify - lab reports, or also known as certificates of analysis. Consumers want to know what’s in the CBD products you’re offering them, so being transparent with your lab reports is essential. Almost every payment gateway will require lab reports for any CBD products you sell. Lab reports also help build trust on your site. Smoke Drop offers a spreadsheet of up-to-date lab reports for the CBD products offered in the app. Reach out to our customer service team after signing up to get access. I recommend having a link to the lab report for each product in your product descriptions at minimum. Adding a photo of the lab reports or creating a dedicated lab report page on your site are other ways to make them easily accessible to customers. Most payment gateways will require a disclaimer to be placed on every page of your site. This disclaimer is typically located in the footer and informs customers that the CBD products you sell have not been evaluated by the FDA. A sample of this disclaimer can be found in the description. You can only send notifications related to CBD products and shops by email. SMS messages aren't supported. Here’s how you can disable SMS notifications on your store From your Shopify admin: go to Settings, then Checkout. In Customer Contact section, select. Customers can only check out using email To disable shipping updates by SMS uncheck. the Customers can choose to add a phone number or email to receive shipping updates after they complete their order. When you're done making these changes, click Save. Here are some general recommendations to consider when designing your Shopify store. First, a soft green color palette. This is smooth on the eyes and subconsciously keeps visitors’ minds at ease. Obviously makes sense with the hemp and plant theme too. Next, a clean site design. This gives a friendly welcome as navigation is made simple. Notike how few buttons there are to press on the page of this Shopify CBD stores like Cannuka. Blog and information at hand. Your blog posts should offer interesting news and information related to wellbeing, from CBD benefits to healthy sleep patterns and even yoga poses. You'll also want to have a CBD guide. This is gives visitors all the knowledge they want about CBD on tap, without having to leave your store to go find it. And finally, easy contact info at hand. Email address to contact is great, but offering a phone number, too, will inspire confidence in even the biggest skeptiks. Now I want to spend some time to

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How to Dominate the Cannabis Industry

if you play it right, for yourself, it could be the most remarkable thing, but as a collective, these very early days are super important. this is inevitable at scale. this is watching. this makes me laugh, because this is exactly what the rooms look, and this is actually way more. this is more, even though it's just these days. for me, a small group, you know, this is way more faces than the ones that I saw in the tik space, and a lot of these faces went on to become the founders of uber and succs and the founders of Instagram and things that nature. so couple things. number one: you got your perspective [Music]. in 2006 and seven, when I went to South by Southwest, people were there to be part of tik, for the sake of tik, to change the world. the, the, the aspirations and the ideology were remarkable. the far majority of this room today- 20, 18 right here together- is in it for it. they've been in it. they're not flying in from Wall Street or Silicon Valley. there's people in here. there's people in here, but the majority of this room is in it now. this is super important, as I hear that wonderful, thank you and I get it and I respect that. this is a very important conversation. I'll tell you why the OGIS in this room that have been through it that been. you know it's funny. I was spending some time and looking at an artikle being rated and I was telling some of the people on my team who don't even hear this story, the amount of times the ABC came to wine library because I was navigating and doing things early that nobody ever did before. and when your biggest, you get picked on because you can pay the fine. don't get it twisted, it's very simple. it's called winners tax. they don't tell you that a b-school, but that's what it is. I'll say it this way. it's unfortunate for me, unlike when I got into tik or many other things I've done in my life, because of the profiles, my business career, it's harder for me to kind of go into new spaces and do what I naturally want to do. to be very frank, I I don't know if I've ever felt the combination of of gratitude and feeling humble and, at the same token, a sense of responsibility of giving this tok today because, much like the way I entered into the tik space- sort of wide space for other things that I've done- I just want to learn right. there's a lot. you know I'm doing a lot of listening. the reason I teamed up with Josh ROM and the rest of Green Street is I didn't want to come into this space and think that I knew everything or things that nature. I want to take it nice and slow and pay attention. being underestimated and misunderstood is a massive business advantage. there's a lot of people in this room that are so desperate for acceptance of like this is real and all these kind of things like this is gonna be in it. spending so much time trying to convince somebody of the legitimacy or the seniority or the sophistikation of the space without realizing that they should be spending 100% of their time on the end consumer and building their advantage. their leverage and preference of the majority of the people in this room would actually be for people coming into the space to dramatikally slow down, not speed up. for all the good that dollars and all these other things come out, the more time that you have planting your flag and establishing your brand and building a relationship with the end consumer, the more leverage you have. trying to convince people that are no people is a waste of time and I think that's just something some of you need to hear, because that no person for a lot of you is your [ __ ] mom, that no person is that your brother that you respect, or your homie or your silic. so just be very thoughtful of who you try to convince this is real, because I think that's a lot of wasted energy in early times. number two: you need to be thoughtful of all the new people that are coming in. if you play it right for yourself, it can be the most remarkable thing, but as a collective, these very early days are super important. this is inevitable at scale. this is watching. this makes me laugh, because this is exactly what the rooms look, and this is actually way more. this is more, even though it's just these days. for me, a small room, you know, this is way more faces than the ones that I saw in the tik space, and a lot of these faces went on to become the founders of uber and sucks and the founders of Instagram and things that nature. so couple things. number one: if you are fortunate enough to be smart enough- and that's the only word I can think of- if you are fortunate enough to be smart enough to be in this [ __ ] room right now, please do not do what so many of my homies from tik in 2006- 7 & 8 to to me- which is reminisce- and are sad that they did not take full advantage of their pole position and where the world was going. the biggest mistake that so many of you will do today is not network with other people at this place. what I really am passionate about is for people in this room to understand how many options we do have. if you're in this space, even if you're a brand or if you're a grower, your permission to be the media company of this space is there. aka every [ __ ] person this room needs to start thinking about their podcast yesterday. every single person this room needs to be thinking about writing a white paper and putting it on LinkedIn yesterday. everybody here has to shift from crying, and that's what a lot of you are doing. Wow, Instagram and Facebook and Google aren't taking my money. nobody gives a [ __ ] about your tears. stop crying about what you can't do and start figuring out what you can do. you can be dominating Instagram. spend the [ __ ] 900 hours building out an influencer network so that can [ __ ] do posts and give you cosines you could. you could start a YouTube vlog and document the journey of building your business in a space along the way. I wish I could watch suckss [ __ ] blog and how he built Facebook. you know, if he was doing this ten years ago, god forbid a que, God willing, your company explodes. that vlog of how you made it is gonna be watched for the next 50 [ __ ] years in perpetuity. you can do a ton of [ __ ], but we have to shift our marketing mindset in this space from being advertisers to being media companies. we have to produce content. you have to produce content. so I implore you to take advantage of this remarkable moment in your industry, where it's not a baby but it hasn't even started, and I highly recommend you understand how early platforms an industry start. the ROI is in the [ __ ] people. the ROI is in the [ __ ] people, I promise you right now, everybody is watching how you're navigating. right now, everybody is watching and there's a lot of you- and I'm [ __ ] was in the hall for four minutes- there's a lot of you unfortunately getting seduced by the short term ROI and finances in the system and everybody knows it and you will lose. three of you will get through and make that trade. that's fine. we'll never see you again. but most of you will have a scarlet letter for trying to take from it instead of giving to it. look, if you make a podcast called 43 year old mom- that's literally the name of it- and you're targeting housewives and high-net-worth individuals who are gonna be in the edible space, because that's who you're targeting. you've got to really just go after your con, your target audience, with content that they'll consume. that's always been the case. but the reason I said 1, 2 & 3 is patience is because that's what it's gonna take. there's still a [ __ ] massive stigma. go [ __ ]. read the first 15 years of prohibition. you know what the biggest, scariest things in the world are. having too little and having too much when you're poor is [ __ ]. on welfare, you don't think the trust fund baby who's got a hundred mils got it bad. you think that's the greatest? well, you don't realize that kid is always gonna be told that he never made it and he's got a drug problem and [ __ ] up and I'm meds and at the psychiatrist cuz his game is broken before he even started. the bottom line is: my dear.

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How to Market Your Smoke Shop on Social Media Legally

i want everybody to win. that's truthful, because so many people help me. [Music]. you got to go ahead and pull the trigger. you got to put the money into it. you got to, you got to close on it and make it happen. we have a special liking for clothing, so we plan on getting unique, getting creative and then having some people model it for us. well, let me ask you this: do you got anybody that can make? uh, make like 50, 50 blend t-shirts. that's kind of like. well, we're kind of honest because, like i said, uh, we, we want to make our branch, but we we're trying to see what what show would be like. the per, the perfect shirt. you don't want to need to shrink. well, no, no, no, no. what i'm getting at here, boys, is is i'm not telling you that's your, that's your, your, your sellable clothing. this is clothing i'm telling you to give away. oh, okay, i mean like cheap, you know stuff. you go over to the grocery store and you say, hey, you know, we got a new smoke shop opened up, blah, blah, blah. you know, here, take one of these shirts, man, and you know, wear it around and come by and see us. you know, check us out and you know, instead of just handing out flyers and everything like everybody else, because you know those ends up in the garbage. you know better than that. but nobody throws away a t-shirt- nobody. yeah, yeah, so, so we are going to do that. so, actually, eric has a as little, uh little, printing press for shirts too, so that we do plan on doing that. um, ourselves, those we're gonna get, we're gonna do ourselves. yeah, i did that. i did that too. i did that too. yeah, but hey, we gave away so many t-shirts that to this very day, we still see people wearing them. i mean, yeah, they're work shirts and they're dirty and they're tore up, but i mean, we still see them to this very day. yeah and so. but i promise you, every time these people are walking around with your logo and your name on them, somebody's gonna be saying, hey, we need to go buy that shop. so since, since you're very knowledgeable about the laws and stuff, what, what way, what way can we attack marketing? because i know you can't market like tobacco use. so what, what is, what is the way to like, market your, like, your audience? well, i mean like, like, what do you want to do? are you wanting to market the brand. are you going to market the- uh, the shop? that's a good question. i, i thought it was just kind of i thing all one one, well, okay, it kind of is. i agree too, angel, i agree it is kind of all in one, but what we want to do is bring them to the shop so we can expose them to the brand. can we agree to that? yeah, okay. so i mean you know what you want to do is you want to constantly have that logo on any branding thing you have, and it needs to be dominant. i mean it needs to be big. if, if this is it, this much needs to be covered with the logo, or at least in the background, so that they see it. so every time that they see that logo, they equate it with whatever information is on the product. okay, i would, i would. i would push the brand on social media. on social media, you know, because you can buy ads that do nothing more than show the logo off and the location and never mention the smoke shop. as long as you don't mention tobacco and as long as you don't, uh, mention the smoke shop, you just put up our uh cloud factory and your logo, right, and then right underneath it you know your, your email. it don't put the website, don't put nothing, because if it bounces them over to it they won't allow it on facebook. just the logo, okay. so you're saying it's kind of like, promote the brand then by people saying, oh, this is, uh, this is a brand. let's go to that store, let's go see what the cloud factory is. let's go see what the cloud factory is and don't even tell them what it is. never tok about it. don't ever call yourself a smoke shop. okay, you're a brand. don't kid yourself, because this could evolve into clothing, it could evolve into anything. this is what we want, yeah, yeah. so i mean, you know, don't, don't just pigeonhole yourself and say we're just this. i mean, come on, daniel, we just toked about it. man, we're global. now we're no longer california. yeah, you know, now we're global, now we're a brand, okay. so when you start telling yourself, okay, we're just going to advertise a smoke shop, no, we're advertising the location of the brand. does that make sense? so just don't tok about in any kind of advertising smoke shop, because that dictates tobacco. don't even call it that, because that's not who you are. you're not the the cloud factory smoke shop. you're the cloud factory, right? right, i mean, can we all agree to that, right? so? so from this moment on, we don't even call it a smoke shop any longer, because this is the cloud factory. and so when they say, what kind of business is that? we've got all kind of products from this to this, but we ain't going to tok about that in the advertising. so we trying to pull them in so that we can show them. we don't want to tell them, we want to show them, right, yeah, that's, that's great. thank you for making this notike. so i mean, what we want to do is we want to pull them in. pull them in because you know what you know. nothing creates a crowd like a crowd, okay. so you know, everybody's always inquisitive. they always got to know. you know everybody likes. you know there's a reason. people like to watch the news, no matter what brand it is, because they want to see what everybody else is seeing. so the moment somebody says, well, hey, man, we went by the cloud factory. oh, yeah, what's that? man? you guys see it to believe it. the fear of missing out. that's exactly right. fomo, right there. i love it and i love it. there's somebody that's already done some education. yeah, but that's what it's gonna take, man, you gotta, you gotta, you know, create the brand to pull them in and then, once you, you know, anytime you tok about it, we never say that word again about smoke shop, i mean, unless you're just going to be selling cigarettes and tobacco. you know, now you're just everybody else, but now you, now you toking about, you- got a hell of a logo, we got a hell of a piece of expensive advertising here with this neon or whatever, and then you're going to come in and that's all you are. i don't believe that. boys, come on. you know, right, daniel toking, you know global, he ain't toking about california, no more. yeah, i'm serious, man, i'm totally with you all about that. i i never let nobody tell you that's what you are. you are what you say you are and you don't and don't back up from it, no matter what happens. do we have a budget on this, by the way? um, we're kind of just going in pain as we go. actually, we're not, but we have an idea of how much it might be. yeah, well, you need to. you need to have that set in stone. you need to say this is how much money we got to invest in this and then we got to make it work. okay, now, honestly, that may be a secondary phone call here. okay, because you know, uh, i would think about the products in the store to build the money for the merchandise you are going to need. okay, i mean, unless you just want to sell clothing, yeah, and you know, building a clothing brand is really tough. yeah, that's typical, yeah. but now i mean, if we build this other and we build that logo on these other brands may not be so hard. [Music]. i think it takes a lot of passion for somebody to just go and straight up try to build the clothing brand from scratch, like that's the only thing they're doing. sure, does, but i understand business a little bit, i understand the culture, i understand marketing. so what will definitely help us is the fact that the smoking community is a huge community. it's a big community and so, if i can incorporate this into the things that they're using, this brand, the clothing will come by default.

Starting Your Online Smoke Shop

all right, guys, we're back. uh, i'm a little under the weather, but i'm gonna power through this because that's kind of what it takes: no sick days for the entrepreneur. so, anyway, got an email- yay emails- it tells me. i hope this email finds you. well, i'm not, but i'm here first, like to introduce myself, not going to call them out. they're 20 years old. that's the key here. this is the key, i think, to the whole email and i'm in the planning stage of opening an online smoke shop. and gives me the name don't want to outing, since i'm only 20. my main focus is going to be smoking accessories like stash jars, trays, pipes, etc. instead of tobacco products like cigarillos and other tobacco products. okay, so right off the bat, let me just tell you: it is theoretikally illegal for you to ship tobacco products into other states that you don't have a license to sell in. even i don't ship tobacco into other other states that i don't have a tax and tax license do that for. so i'm just telling you, if you are the budding entrepreneur, don't ship tobacco into states you don't have a license for. if you do, that is a federal crime and although some of these people will tell you, oh no, no, you can do that, man. they're not the ones going to jail, you are, and it won't be like that at first. what they'll do is try to get the taxes from you, and you know the state wants their tax money, the fed wants their tax money, and when you don't have either, they got someplace for you. take it from me. i recently spoke to an attorney to clear up any questions i had about the legality of me opening up a smoke shop at this age. well, do they specialize in these, uh, legal processes or did you tok to a family attorney? you got to find this out. how do they specialize? how do you know? at what point can they show you the proof that you can do this? yes, you can, but here's the reason why: make sure you always understand that if there are any laws in the state of indiana- that's where they're at- that may prevent me from starting this business, or what license i would need to get started- general business license- you know ein number- state and federal numbers, sales tax numbers. if you sell, you know anything within your state, you must pay sales tax on that. and now they tok about online that if you sell things, you're supposed to collect the sales tax on it and send it to those states. i've watched most of your videos on starting the smoke shop, as well as the set of videos about starting an online smoke shop. i'd like to know if there are any tips or advice for me before i invest my money and get started. i'd kind of like to know how much money you think it's going to cost to get started. who's building your website? what about your seo? who's doing your online inventory? how are you going to be advertising that this, uh, this business even exists? i'd really appreciate it. also, i find your videos to be informative and enjoy watching them. cool, man, that's why we make them. but listen, man, you're getting into a very vast, uh, overpopulated space. i really hate to see you invest quite a bit of money into something and don't have it all down pat. there's- uh, there's quite a bit to this online stuff. when we got into it, it was early in the game. uh, don't take our success, as you know what you could do. you can do it, don't get me wrong, but it's gonna cost quite a bit of money to get where we are today. your seo is going to have to be top-notch. if you don't know, at 20 years old, how to do the seo, you're going to have to find a company that'll do it. who's going to host your platform? who's going to build your website? do you think it's as simple as just building a free wix site and calling it a day? are you going to constantly be able to load product? you can be able to take pictures of the product. are you going to be able to give them individualized names? are you going to have to steal product pictures from online sources? if you do, google's going to penalize you for it. do you know all the rules about doing stuff of that nature? i didn't. chances are you won't either. no book you're going to read is going to teach you all that. now they do make programs like skillshare. they do make you demi courses that you can take. the free ones are not going to give you all the information. you're going to have to pay for some stuff. you're going to have to learn to do this stuff and do quite a bit of homework. you're 20 man, you got plenty of time to do this. but if, if you got quite a bit of money invested in this, i'd sure hate to see you lose it by not knowing all the exact rules, you're not going to be able to advertise this the way you think you will. alright, you're going to get away with it for about 30, 60, 90 days and then google's going to de-list you because they don't see what you're doing as lawful. just a few tips and tricks here: don't let companies take money from you. they can't, you know, pull anything out. check with us at uns productionscom. schedule call, let's get on there, and i can send you some reputable companies that can do your seo. they can take care of some little things for you that can help you build websites. they can't help you advertise, man. i do know that. but i do know quite a few companies that can help you as far as with your, with your website build out and inventory management, things of that nature. this is not an easy thing to do, so don't go into this half-ass. don't lose money. that's rule number one. all right, y'all keep sending me emails. i'll keep answering them. all right, y'all have a good day, see ya. [Music].

The Truth of Starting a Smoke Shop

i don't want to tell you you can't do it, i'm not going to do that. but just remember, you can't buy ads. you can't do anything because facebook, instagram, google, they don't allow it. i want everybody to win. that's truthful, because so many people help me. you gotta go ahead and pull the trigger. you gotta put the money into it. you gotta, you gotta, close on it and make it happen. yeah, you know what's crazy? um, there was, uh, i had found i don't remember the website, but um, there was like these cherry, cherry, uh, hand pipes and they were going for like what five dollars a piece. and i had found this girl's smoke shop website and she was selling them for like seventy dollars and because people were buying it. well, she's built up, she's built up the idea of exclusivity. she's built up that idea, and you have to do the same thing to make your website stand out. yeah, and if you can't do that- because, remember, this is a really crowded space, i'm i don't want to tell you you can't do it, i'm not going to do that. but just remember, you can't buy ads, you can't do anything because facebook, instagram, google, they don't allow it. yeah, so you just have to be very creative how you're able to advertise your product, because your instagram and your facebook and your twitter and your pinterest is all going to be loaded with your product on in those pictures and then, and then, if you list your website anywhere on that those pages, it's going to link it right over to it and they're gonna say, nope, you're out, because you you're- uh, you're focusing on tobacco product. well, no, no, no, it's just for weed. no, no, no, no, that's illegal on the federal standard. yeah, i see it's tough. this is a tough industry, man. so i mean, i'm not trying to raw you and i'm not going to tell you and just remember, and, uh, when brandon is not getting the back, i'm just telling you the facts, man, you already know one one always equals two. i don't care what common core math makes it out to be, but i'm just, i'm saying this to you: brandon got started um, two years into our business on the website, but- and we've been, we've been going pretty strong several years now i just want you to know- i promise you this is the truth- that only within the last five years has that website taken off. wow, so can you withstand five to ten years of slow business. can you do that? absolutely yeah, and that's what we are. that's what, um, i actually expecting. um, when i had opened the corporation, my boss said: look, you know, that's how this is gonna go in the beginning. you're gonna waste a lot of money, you're gonna put a lot of effort, you're gonna wanna quit, you're going to see it very slow. she was like: but give it five for seven years or give it more time and you'll see. and i said okay. i said okay, don't worry, i know i have my head in the right place. i know well, just know that don't give up. so the advice in florida is the same as the advice in kentucky. so again, again, back to our early conversation. we're all just people, but we're, hey, we're people. who's already made the mistake? we've already had way too high of the expectation, we've already had the bloody nose, we've had the tears, we've, you know, sitting in the shower thinking, oh, my god, is this gonna work? have we spent way too much money on something you know? and then you, you know, just get ready. i literally to this day, like i said, i'm about to be 50 years old and i literally sleep four to five hours a day, 365 days a year. i don't care where i'm at. if it's five o'clock in the morning at in louisville, kentucky. i live right outside louisville, but if it's five o'clock in the morning in louisville, kentucky, i don't care where i'm at, on what part of the country i'm awake. and that's the truth. now. i don't get, i don't get sleepy, you know like that. but if i go to bed at one o'clock in the morning in las vegas because i'm at conventions, i'm literally up in four hours. yeah. so no matter what, no matter where i go, no matter what i do, if it's five o'clock in kentucky, i'm awake. you better get used to that too, because you're gonna have, you're gonna have a lot on on the line, you know. but you're getting started young. you're getting started young. so you are going to fail at some part. but just remember this: whether you believe it or not, at some point you will die. so don't you want to die knowing that you tried? don't you want to go out of this world knowing that at least you tried? and i think you do. i think that's why you are where you are on this phone call right, this second. and i mean, if you didn't, but you got it in you, you're, you're a charger, i can tell, because if you wasn't, you wouldn't have got through as a child, you know, and got through all that and got as far as you are right this second. oh, look at there, there's your kid, that's your kid right there. i already know. yeah, my boss's hair told me: oh, look at man, i tell you you got your hands full there. oh, and, thank god, you got brandon there, you know, and now he's not. and then now, of course, your baby's not gonna understand. well, mama just picked me up. why won't she play with me? yeah, she was like, he was just looking at me, like, yeah, come on, man, come on. you know, you normally carry me everywhere, don't, don't you, mom, don't you? he felt pretty hard, oh, my god. oh, he's going to be fine. he bounced, he bounced. yeah, yeah, he that he's really big, he's a big boy. i feed him way too much. well, you love him, you love him that much, but you're gonna have to crank it down, maybe. you know, hey, and this is coming. i know we put them on a diet. well, if you see them, if you watch my videos, you know i'm a big guy, so i can tell fat people. they're fat. i'm just telling you. you know so. but, yeah, you, i know you're gonna do good at this, i promise you are, and, uh, i'm gonna send this stuff to you. do you got any more questions? oh, uh, what kind of incense carrier for like for you would would you recommend, because i do know there's a lot of different kind of brands, while wild berry, wild berry and nog champa are all you ever have to worry about and, uh, when you tok to brandon, i'll have him give you contact info for the people at wildberry so you can buy direct from them. you know, but but remember, when you buy stuff like that, you had to buy in distribution level pricing, okay, but we could probably work something out if you want to. you know, pick that up through us and then then nog champa, i'll have him give you that information. but i'm just telling you you're gonna have to have a palette of each size, and do you have a plate? do you have a place to put it? um, yes, um, so it's going to be. we have an extra room in our house. um, that whole entire little room is supposed to be basically the storage for everything like, um, we're gonna put. we're gonna put shelves and stuff just to organize everything. um, we're buying certain like printers and stuff like that to kind of label everything. let me ask you, have you thought about drop shipping? i don't know how to do that. well, basically, basically, basically how drop shipping is is you you get the order together and then you place it through another company and that company ships for you. what's up everybody? andy paul, uns wholesale, louisville, kentucky. hope you enjoyed this video. if you'd like to get some product, please go to uns wholesalecom. you can pick any rep you'd like. i'd love for you to pick me. my name is andy paul, again 502-709-7900, or andy unswholesalecom. or check out these videos.