The Ecommerce Roadmap

Does social media feel harder than it used to? You're not imagining it. Reach is shrinking, the rules keep changing, and a lot of store owners are ready to walk away entirely. Before you do, listen to this. I sat down with Melissa Davies, our Inner Circle social media coach and founder of Bike Pretty, and asked her to share exactly what's working right now. She sells a niche, high-ticket product,...

Your customers are already asking ChatGPT which products to buy. Right now, either you're the answer or your competitor is. Today, Inner Circle coach and AEO expert Matt Demers breaks down exactly how to get your store recommended by AI. It's the same strategy he uses for his private clients, whose AI traffic converts at about double their organic search rate. This is one of the fastest, cheapest...

Think SEO doesn't matter if nobody's searching for your product? I used to think that too. Then I sat down with Matt Demers, SEO expert and our very first male coach in the Inner Circle, and he changed my mind. Matt has spent years growing e-commerce stores through SEO, including helping one brand 10X its traffic in just six months with a single collection page. In this episode, he breaks SEO down...

If you only had two hours a day to work on your business…what would you do with them? Shae Miller runs Nobly, a handmade timber decor brand for kids' rooms, around homeschooling three kids and a part-time nursing job. She gets about two hours a day to work, mostly during nap time. In the year since joining the Inner Circle, she has grown her sales by 40% over the previous year without spending a d...

Lisa Simone went from 20 years in PR to selling out her very first inventory order of the Female Founders Journal. She funded it with a Kickstarter, grew it through community, and did it with just one product. In this episode, she shares exactly how she got there and what she's doing to sell out again. In this episode, you'll learn: The absolute WORST way to spend your ad money How (and why) to bu...

Jessica Stark of Stark Skincare almost walked away from her 15-year-old business after burnout and an injury sent her sales into a 20% decline. In this episode we break down exactly what turned it around and added up to a 27% sales increase and a 59% jump in new customer acquisition.  Listen in and learn: The one number to track every week, even when it's ugly The sneaky way you might be destroyin...

There's no better feeling than hitting your stride with Meta ads. Until one day they stop working, and you're left wondering why. That's what happened to Sam Gilhooly. Her new customer acquisition fell off a cliff overnight, and she wasted a fortune chasing it. She panicked, tried a different ads training program, and forgot about the one thing that actually worked to grow her sales before she wen...

Stop, collaborate, and listen….Today I'm talking to someone with a small store who grew her email list by more than 1,600 names (and landed 34 brand new customers) using a strategy any one of us can and should use. Listen in and find out how Tina collaborated with other Shopify stores to get big results. You'll learn: How she got her customer acquisition cost down to $3-4 Why she almost gave up on...

A year ago, Kristin didn't think she could ever replace her dentist's income with her art. Now she can see exactly how to get there. In this episode you'll hear about the one pivot that changed everything for this retired-dentist-turned-artist. You'll also hear how she went from "this isn't attainable" to actually mapping out the path to full-time income from her art. You'll learn: Why your curren...

What if 80 out of every 100 customers come back and buy again. Sounds like a dream come true, right? But not so fast. Today I'm following up with Jen O'Rourke, owner of Bear and Roo, a made-to-order clothing business. A year ago, Jen had a returning customer rate so high it meant she had a serious  problem: in order to make her sales she had to sell more to the same pile of existing customers. She...

If you're like most people, nobody ever taught you how to money. And if you're a store owner, it's even  worse — no 401k, no automatic deductions, no HR department setting things up for you. So you keep telling yourself you'll deal with it "once the business is making more."  Sound familiar? I talked this week with Chloe Daniels, who's a Money Coach. Chloe teaches people like us how to invest for...

Ever look at your Meta ads dashboard and think, "My ROAS is great…so why is my Shopify data telling a different story?" Here's the problem: Meta wants you to believe every sale is because of your ad. But that's not the whole story. Today I'm talking with Cathy Hayhurst, our marketing director and ads coach, about our brand new Traffic Bootcamp training. It's all about creating a solid system for g...

"It's only the first quarter, and I have already sold as much as last year."  One of our Inner Circle members left this comment recently and when I read it, I knew that you would want to know how she did it. Jennifer of Homestyle Fabrics and Furnishings sat down with me in this episode and I want you to listen up. She's going to tell you what she did, and it's so simple. You'll learn: The ONE thin...

If you've ever found yourself having thoughts like "I'm wasting my time" or worse…"I'm draining money from my family", this episode is for you. Laura Kleber spent years juggling too many products, carrying business debt, and questioning whether to shut it all down. Today she's pulling in 475 orders a month and loving every minute she works in her business. What made all the difference was a few ho...

You hit six figures. The orders are coming in. And yet, somehow you still can't pay yourself. If that sounds familiar, this episode is for you. I'm sitting down with Chantal, founder of Oh Color Me,  a fast-growing coloring book business that doubled its first-year revenue, and she's pulling back the curtain on the cash flow problem nobody talks about when your business takes off.  Listen in and l...

If you've ever felt like you're working yourself into the ground and still going backwards, this episode is going to hit home. Andrea York runs Catch the Fire Worship Flags — a completely handmade, hyper-niche business — and just one year ago she was having her lowest revenue quarter ever, emotionally done, and seriously questioning her life choices. By the end of that same year, she had her highe...

What if the key to earning a paycheck from your online store isn't working more hours, but selling smarter? Amanda Whisman did exactly that, growing her sales month over month until she could walk away from her full-time teaching job. Today she's breaking down the strategies that made it possible. Listen in and learn: Why doing the scary thing (and narrowing your focus) allows you to market clearl...

If you've ever had a sneaky suspicion that your conversion rate could be better—you're probably right. In this episode, we're sharing two things you can do today to start turning more of your traffic into paying customers. Plus, we reveal the ONE conversion killer we see on nearly every ecommerce homepage. What You'll Learn in This Episode: ✔️ The little detail most stores skip—but that can double...

You could be sending the right people to your store and still losing them in the first 10 seconds…and not even know it.  In this episode, our Conversion Coach Kate Tilbury breaks down exactly why your homepage might be costing you sales, and what a few simple fixes can actually do for your revenue. Kate will walk us through these 3 simple fixes (that we'll be making together in the upcoming Browse...

What if you woke up one morning, checked your stats, and realized your sales were up 521%...without running a single ad?  That's exactly what happened to Wendy Mitchell, a botanical artist who went from relying on festival sales to pay her bills, to building real online sales from her studio in Colorado. Today she's walking us through exactly what she did — and trust me, you can do this too. Here'...

"What's wrong with my website?" If we had a nickel for every time we heard this question… And it's heartbreaking, because even without seeing your website I can tell you, that's not the reason folks aren't buying. It's something a lot simpler, and a lot more fixable.  In this episode I'm talking with Inner Circle coach Melissa about why there is more to your conversion rate that meets the eye, and...

Running a business can feel a bit like Groundhog Day. On the first of every month you find yourself staring at your sales goal as if it's looming over you from the top of a very, very steep hill. AGAIN. But what if 75% of your revenue hit your bank account…before a single bill came due? That's what's possible when you build a subscription model. My friend Sarah Williams has been selling physical p...

If you've ever run an ad campaign on Facebook or Instagram, and walked away feeling like it would have been more productive to just light that money on fire…I have really, really good news for you. You're wrong! This week on the blog and podcast I'm chatting with our social media coach Melissa Davies to talk about all things Meta ads.  Listen in and learn: Why "purchase" ads are wrong for most sto...

If you've figured out how to get sales using just your grit, determination, and possibly sheer force of will…you may be in or approaching a state of burnout.  The messy middle can feel draining and endless, but this week I've got some inspiration for you. Becky Youngberry started her quilting subscription box with two subscribers, $4,000 from savings, and a really bad day at her day job. By year t...

There's a point many store owners reach where they've been working so hard for so long, that they begin to suspect that the light at the end of the tunnel is just…never going to appear. It's a terrible feeling. In this episode I'm talking with Inner Circle coach Melissa  about the thing nobody says out loud: that if you really want to grow (sustainably) you have to slow down and build some systems...