Earnest Epps Interview

Editor:

This time we are talking with a US eCommerce and drop-shipping expert, but Earnest Epps is also a sought after trainer who has spoken at countless events around the world. He's helped thousands of entrepreneurs to scale their businesses. So Earnest, welcome. It's great to meet you.

Earnest Epps:

Yes, indeed. Excited to be here.

Editor:

Well, maybe we could start with a quick overview of how you got started.

Earnest Epps:

Yeah. So the thing was that I got started... It was a not so nice or sexy start in a sense, because ultimately what ended up happening was I got fired from my corporate job. The cute version to say is, I got let go, right? But at the end of the day, you got fired, right? It's just like saying, let go just sounds better, right? So when that happened, man, it crushed my soul at that point. Because personally for me, I had the dream job. Meaning that I was in my early mid-20s and so I was making almost a six-figure a year income. The company was paying for my car, they paying for my cellphone, they were paying for my gas. They were flying me all over the us. I was managing projects for billion dollar brands. I mean, I just thought this was it. I made it. This is where I'm at, man. I thought I was going to be the CEO of that company. I was going to work there for 40 years. I mean, had you talked to me at that particular time, you couldn't have told me nothing different. So I was all in. I was sold in the company. And then I just got a phone call one day that the company was restructuring and they were restructuring me out of the restructure. Man, it did something terrible to me personally, and it just broke me mentally and spiritually. I mean, I tell people I cried like a baby. I mean, not like that really sad cry, I mean that ugly cry. Snot, tears. I couldn't breathe. I almost had a panic attack. It was terrible. And it was mainly because at the time I didn't realise it, but the job was also my identity and I was tied to that. I didn't realise mentally and spiritually I was wrapped up in all that. So when that happened, I was just like, "I'm never going to work for anyone else again. I got to figure out how to do something in my life."

Editor:

And how old were you at that point, Earnest?

Earnest Epps:

So I was roughly probably about 24, 25-ish at that point.

Editor:

Right. Okay. Because I mean, I guess you're right, your job can become your identity and it's only when that's taken away that sometimes you realise that the two things have actually overlapped so much with each other. So that was when you were 24 and then what happened next?

Earnest Epps:

Yeah. So after that happened, I ultimately went on the path of trying to figure something out. I mean, no joke. Shortly after that happened I ended up going to Barnes & Noble. Most people probably don't go to bookstores anymore, but I literally walked in the bookstore and I was like, "I'm going to start a business. And then I went to the business section and I said, "I got to find me a business," because I was just like, "I got to find out what to do." So I went to Barnes & Noble and just started searching around. And then honestly, the first thing it led me to was social media marketing. I kid you not. I mean I tell people all the time, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I just learned how to do fundamental things really, really well. They make it just look like I'm a rockstar, but I just do the fundamentals with just so much tenacity and consistency and persistence that it just makes this massive success. But I bought Social Media Marketing For Dummies. That's where I started. I bought the four Dummies book because I mean I was like, "Shoot, I'm a dummy. I don't know anything about this. Let me go that direction." So from there, it just led me to just getting educated in just the space. Because what ultimately happened was I ran across a quote from Warren Buffett where he said, "If you don't learn how to make money while you sleep, you're going to work until you die." And I said, "Well, Warren, sign me up for that sleeping money, buddy, but how do I get it?" So that led me to bucketing what I felt were the best vehicles for entrepreneurship, which it boil down to three things. It boil down to the stock market, obviously, because that's Warren's lane and then real estate and then e-commerce, right? Because all of those vehicles will allow you in some way, shape or form to make money while you sleep. As well as those are also vehicles that have allowed people to create massive amount of success. We look at the Bezos and the owners of Wayfair and the Jet.com. Again for the e-commerce side, then we look at stock market. Obviously, you got the Warren Buffetts, the Ray Dalios. And then in the real estate, I mean they say... I can't remember the exact number off the top of my head, but it's like 80 or 90% of millionaires have real estate or became millionaires as a result of real estate. So it's like, "Okay, cool, we got all three." So it was like stock market. So I started dissecting and learning a little bit more about the stock market when I was just like, "Well, I ain't got no money for a stock market." So I'm like 20% of a little bit. Even if I did get 20, which is way past the norm, it's still a little bit. 20% of $200 is 40 bucks. I can't pay any bills for $40. So that was like, "All right, let's check out the real estate stuff." Now, at the time I didn't understand that there were strategies in real estate that would allow you to get started with a lower barrier of entry, but still you do have to bring some money to the table. So I was like, "Well, real estate mean to really make some... Again, to make the type of income I was making for my corporate job, you have to bring a lot of money to the table. So now it's like, "Okay, this e-commerce thing." And then I was just like, "Well, I could really get started with a couple hundred dollars." And then more importantly, e-commerce especially when you're running an online retail store, leveraging the power of drop-shipping, there's no other vehicle in my opinion that anyone's ever showed me where you could have the amount of leverage that you can with the online store, meaning that you can have millions of dollars of inventory. So when I was working in the corporate space, I was managing a contract for... I'll let you guys do the research. It's the number one revenue generating company in the world. Okay? So you guys go do some homework. Their name starts with a W. I'll even give you a hint. So I was managing 77 of those stores from a staffing perspective, from South Carolina to Massachusetts. So basically, the East Coast of the United States. So I was just like, "So you're telling me I could have millions of dollars in inventory that I don't have to pay for upfront?" And then when a transaction happens, I get to the profit of the transaction first, then pay for the purchase order after the fact. I was like, "Holy crap." Imagine you had a whole portfolio of real estate that you didn't have to put any money out of your pocket legitimately and then you could collect all the benefits of all the transactions that occur, whether it's like cash flow or an exit, or if you're doing a fix and flip project. It just doesn't exist in real estate. So it's just like, "Sign me up for that." Because also at the end of the day, the internet doesn't shut off. It's on 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It just doesn't turn off. So I was like that's the vehicle and direction that I need to go.

Editor:

I think one of the interesting things as well, Earnest, is that you are right, the internet is on 24/7, but also one of the biggest shopping days of the year is Christmas day when lots of physical stores actually close. So it means that you can, as you say, make money while you sleep. I know a lot of people who, they make money by not sleeping, they sleep the least amount because they want to make as much money as they can so they stay awake as long as they can. For anybody who perhaps hasn't discovered what e-commerce is or drop-shipping, maybe you could just tell us a little bit about what it is.

Earnest Epps:

So specifically e-commerce is just like it sounds, it's commerce on the internet. I always like breaking down the root words of everything, because most people have the wrong misconceptions. Honestly, because we have marketers on the internet both through Facebook ads and YouTube and all that stuff, and they strive to make things sound more attractive than what they naturally are in a sense of just trying to convince you to purchase something where I like to empower people with the real insight and information, so then you can just make an educated decision. Right? So getting back to e-commerce, again, it is commerce on the internet. If you look up the actual true definition of e-commerce. Now specifically with e-commerce, you have different forms of e-commerce. Obviously, you have the fact of having a blog website. You have starting a service based business. You have running an agency. Those are all businesses that can exist on the internet. Now, within that sub-sector of e-commerce specifically, I chose to go to route of having an online retail store, meaning have a store on the internet, just like what Jeff Bezos did back in 1990, wherever. He launched Amazon. And that's how he started. He started off with e-commerce, with the online retail. So why do I say online retail? Because you are still a retail store, but just on the internet, again online. Because then now, once you're able to develop the right type of relationships with brands, you can now leverage the concept of drop-shipping, which the funny thing is, if you actually... And I just recently did this. I had no idea either. If you start doing research on drop-shipping, most people think it's something new, it's a new fad, it's a new concept. It's like this whole mythological thing that just took the internet by storm and it's going to disappear. Number one, when you actually research what drop-shipping is, the exact definition of drop-shipping is when a transaction happens, you forward the purchase order. Listen to the language, you forward the purchase order over to either a retailer, a supplier, a wholesaler or manufacturer who then processes that and ships the good directly to the customer. That is the real definition of drop-shipping, literally. Right? Again, getting to the root of everything. And I say that because I was just so appalled when I researched this. The first notion of drop-shipping in and of itself actually is dated all the way back to the 1800s.

Editor:

Wow.

Earnest Epps:

Really. You research that. People said, "I'm drop-shipping". There is documentation all the way back to the 1800s because again, it is a fulfilment mechanism. Again, I was fortunate enough to just come from the retail space, from my offline perspective. So I understood a little bit of what was going on, but I wasn't in operations of the retail stores themselves. I was more so helping on the staffing and inventory management. So when I started learning about these different things, I'm like, "Oh, wow." And so along with that, what ended up happening specifically online was the fact that you were able to tap in potentially to oversee suppliers and vendors and things of that nature. But that is the absolute wrong way, terrible way to actually run a real online business because the lead time is longer, product quality, damage control, returns. Your whole operations is completely shot. So it doesn't matter how much sales that you're doing, if you're back in an operations and fulfilment process is ran by a company that you can't even barely have a conversation with, that's going to be a problem for long-term success. So what I did was I started, again, just looking at... We've all heard... Potentially, you may not have heard this, but quite a few people that have gained some success for themselves understand this notion. Success leaves clues. I'm going to say it again. Success leaves clues. So what I decided to do almost 10 years ago was that I said, let me look at the top online retail businesses in the world and let me see how they run business. Not this, no offence if you're this age, but your early 20s, mid-20s. Again, even though I was at that place when I was going that direction, I was like, "I need to go study adults, not some YouTuber that barely has any facial hair that looks like he hasn't even sprouted in the armpit hair or anything like that yet. He's barely getting to get to life and I'm just like, "I need to go study real corporate people that do this for real." So I looked at the top hundred retail companies. Again, looking at the Amazon, looking at the Walmarts. Again, even though Target and Walmart and them all have offline physical retail stores, I said, "Let me look at their business operations." And I was like, "Okay. The number one thing that can be seen symbiotically is that they're not working with fly by nights random companies that no one knows who the heck they are." When you walk into a Target, you're going to see branded products. When you go on Amazon, you're going to see branded products. So the thing in retail is actually developing relationships with real brands. I was like, "Okay cool." So do they still allow for the concept of drop-shipping even if you're a small, newer company? And the answer is yes. A lot of them are super open to the concept of working with new businesses because the main thing that most of the bigger brands... Because, again, I work with Samsung, Panasonic, LG. I mean I got contracts with them when I was brand, brand new. And the main thing that they're looking for is just that you're a legit business, that you're a registered entity, that you have a real business phone number. You have a business email. You have a business website. So it's just very, very simple things that you just have to do that again online on the internet, you go to YouTube and everybody in that grand model was like, "Oh yeah, don't got to register business. You can just put up website of loads of products. [inaudible 00:14:23] You just start getting paid." I was was smart enough in order to understand that, "Hey, there's a better way to do that. And also that doesn't make any sense because these big brands, why would these companies want to work with me if they can't even take a look at who I am?" So I started diving into that segment and realising that there's a lot of brands out here that are open to the concept of leveraging the.... And that's why I always say leveraging the power of drop-shipping, because drop-shipping is not a thing. It's not a noun. It is an adjective, more so like a verb describing a process of what your fulfilment mechanisms are, meaning that it just goes directly from the manufacturers warehouse direct to consumer. That's it. Most people don't know this because you're just so inundated in just going to a particular business's website and just ordering your transaction or purchasing your product or whatever the case is. But when you go to, for example, to a Home Depot or even a Walmart or something of that nature, getting to regular retail, if you cannot pick the product up in store or ship to site, that is a 100% indicated, that, that brand that you're... For the product that you're getting ready to purchase is actually being dropped ships from the manufacturer's facility. That's how you know.

Editor:

Makes sense. Absolutely, makes sense. Credibility, as you say, is one of the key aspects to your business. When you first got going, Earnest, I mean, when did you know that you were onto something with this? When did you have your earliest success?

Earnest Epps:

Oh, so after I built the store, turned on ads, I got my first sale in the first, it was 40 hours or something like that. So it was crazy because I was driving home from church. I was pulling into the neighbourhood and then we heard that infamous chi-ching. And I was just like, "Oh, what is that?" I was like, "I don't got a notification for a cash register on my phone." So I looked and I was just like, "Holy crap. Somebody bought something." And I was just like, "Man, that's probably a scam.: So when I got home because I was pulling in the neighbourhood, I was just like, "All right, let me call this person. Let me see what's going on." And then I called and I was just like... I don't remember what the customer name is. Let's just say Bob. "Hey, is this Bob?" And he's just like, "Yeah." It's just like, "Well, this is Earnest from electricfireplacedirectusa.com. Did you order this product?" He's like, "Yeah. Is everything okay?" I was just like, "Yeah. Everything is fine. We're just checking up on the order, making sure everything is good, making sure you're good. We're going to get this process here pretty soon for you and it'll be at your doorstep very quickly." He was just like, "Okay". Then we just hung up and I was just like, "Oh my god, this is crazy. A complete stranger just purchased something from me." It was just out of control. I was like, "Okay, this is pretty awesome."

Editor:

That's mad, but a great story as well. And then from there it just snowballed. It just kind of...

Earnest Epps:

Yeah. So one of the things we didn't touch base on yet is the fact that I developed the concept, which I didn't know was going to be a new industry format of how to do everything, which is called high ticket e-comm. So all high ticket e-comm is specifically focused on higher price products. Because the funny thing is most people don't realise this is that there's a lot of people that go online and shop to purchase higher price products. And most likely you've probably done that in some way, shape, or form too, but you didn't realise that you were maybe purchasing from an online store. You maybe thought you were just ordering from a site that's just been around for years and years and years if they're optimised effectively, right? But the short version was is that I questioned the narrative of... Because when you go look up... Especially, if you put in drop-ship going YouTube or Facebook or wherever your resource is, you're going to see a lot of people pushing the narrative like small trinket products, winning products, finding little gadgets or widgets or out of the box type things and looking to scale and sell those. I just sat down and I was just like, "Well, in order to get to my goal of my first initial big talking, I think quite a few people is like, "Hey, if I want to get to a million dollars a year, what would that look like?" So I'm disciplined enough to be realistic and humble enough to understand that when I don't know something or something could potentially be better, I'm willing to do it better. And so I was like, "All right, if I wanted to get to a million dollars, if I was selling $10 products like everybody else is talking about, I would have to sell a hundred thousand units." Now, I don't even know how to do advertising yet, but that sounds like a lot. And then I was like, "All right, if I focused on a hundred dollars products, I have to sell still 10,000 units." But I was like, "If I focused still on a thousand dollars products, I would only have to sell a thousand of those." I was like, "Man, that's only a couple a week". I was like, "That sounds more than thousands a week." I was like, "Sign me up for the thousand." And the great thing is that there's a lot of tools and resources that are out here that'll publicly tell you that information. You just have to know the tools and know that they exist and also know how to actually read the data for you to be able to get the insight. So I started using different tools to give me that, and then I was just like, "Wow, holy smokes." There are people that are literally... There's like 200,000 people out here looking for an electric fireplace and those have an average price point of 800 to a thousand dollars. And then there's even other bottles when you get to the 60, 72-inch that would be more a commercial building or something like that. Those can range up to four to $5,000. I mean, if I sold four those a month, I'd be pretty good. Right?

Editor:

Yeah.

Earnest Epps:

Again, the math is just simple math. Again, in order to get to the goal, it's like if I could do... Because the funny thing is when you look at all the work, and I've said this on stage in front of the biggest people in the world. I've spoken beside Gary Vaynerchuk. I've spoken beside the CEO of Shopify. I've spoken beside the Ezra Firestone, people with the eight figure, nine figure billion dollar companies. And no one's ever came back and said, "Nope, he's wrong. That's incorrect." It's because it's real simple. It takes literally the same energy, time and effort to sell a $20 product as it does a $2,000 product, literally. So you break down the workload. You have to do the same thing for both products to get sold. You have to build a brand. You got to build a website. You got to optimise the website. You got to learn a little bit about marketing. I learned about advertising. I learned a little bit about branding. You have to do and acquire those skill sets and do those things no matter what. The only difference is you're going to make more money per transaction when you decide to focus on $2,000 products than $20 products. It's just what it is.

Editor:

I think a lot of people as well maybe think that drop-shipping or e-commerce is either too risky or too difficult. Is that right or wrong?

Earnest Epps:

So I would say it's right only when you don't know anything. People could say going to college is risky because there's no guarantee that you can even get a job at the college. When you pay your hundred thousand, 50,000, whatever it is, tuition, they don't give you a guarantee at the end of the duration of your schooling. They say you have the education, now you got to go to the marketplace and put it to work. You've got to go find yourself. They don't even set you up with a job. You don't get a package. You're not sold a package when you go to school. You are sold an information bundle. This is the first time I've ever even said this way. So this is kind of cool, right? Because You literally are. You're sold a bundle of information. "Hey, we're going to teach you a little about this. We're going to teach you a little bit about that." Even though you have nothing to do with art and you're going for a law degree, you got to learn some art. It's going to be stuff that don't even make sense. And so you're not guaranteed anything over there. So in that regards, yeah, it could sound like it's challenging. Yeah, it could sound like it's risky or things of that nature, but there's a risk in anything that you do in life. Similar to my situation, being a super high type performer, there is no guarantee that I was even going to be able to stay at that company. Even in a government type job, you're not guaranteed to keep that. The agency could downsize. The agency could go on a hiring freeze. The agency could potentially demote you. You're not guaranteed to keep that job just because you got it. So when you look at it from that lens, there's no guarantees with anything. But the uniqueness, especially from the standpoint where I've come from, is that there's systematic processes that you can follow in systems that will allow you to be able to get closer to actually achieving that goal as well as the risk mitigation. So when you talk about risk, what's the risk? Well, when done right, and essentially let's say for example from a ordering process, you got to order from your site $2,000. Well what's the risk on the other side of that? Well, because you actually, and this is the only process, methodology and strategies that I teach is having relationships with real brands because you're going to have contractual agreements. Unfortunately that fly by night overseas company that you talk to, they ain't got no honour system in place. So you can send that purchase order in and they can ghost you, they can disappear. The product could potentially get lost in transit. And in that regards, you are 100% liable in that situation because you took that person's money. But if you have a domestic relationship with the brand and they don't fulfil on that, at least there's going to be some legal loss. And again, whether you're over in the Philippines, whether you're over in the UK, Germany, doesn't matter. When you have that domestic relationship, there is a legal honouring process that is in place for you to escalate that if needed.

Editor:

If anybody who's thinking maybe of starting a drop-shipping business, what advice would you give them?

Earnest Epps:

So the number one advice is the riches are in the niches. And that is symbiotic across the internet market world in general. But genuinely, it's extremely true just in business. It's much more simpler to attract the customer when you're focused in on the ideal person or prospect that you're looking to serve. I don't need the whole trillion, billions. I don't need that. If I could just get 0.00001% of that, I'll be doing all right. So I'm cool with the smooth like 3 million, 5 million working myself to 10 million. 10 million, that's okay. Even still that's so small in the margin of what exists. So don't think that there's just an overwhelming process of getting this whole thing started. If you thinking like man... For me it was like out of the 200,000 people for electric fireplace, for example, I was like, "I'm pretty sure I could sell 10." I don't need all 200,000 transactions per month, but if I just sold 10 per month and the AOV, average order value is $1,000 per transaction, that's 10 grand a month. That that's pretty decent, right? Add the fulfilment costs, acquisition costs, wholesale, shipping, all that stuff, average margin is like 30%. So I was like, okay, so I could be making $3,000 a month. Again, those transactions are happening without me. So I'm like, "I'm pretty sure I could sell three a week." Two and a half a week. Just two, then three, two more then three. So when you look at it like that, the average... I can't remember the exact number of a single person, the average single person I think in the US is roughly around $35,000 per year. So it's just like I could make a full time income just on my laptop, just having three transactions a week.

Editor:

And you can do this from anywhere in the world and it's scalable, and so on?

Earnest Epps:

Yeah. It's completely scalable. You can do it anywhere in the world. I've travelled globally around the world. Business never skipped a beat. Transactions will be happening 2:00 in the morning, 7:00 in the morning. You're rolling over, looking at the phone. Sales just came through the other day for $2,000. It was like $400 profit that we made on that transaction. It came in at 6:00 in the morning. I'm sleeping kids about to get ready to go to school at 7:00 and we got people buying $2,000 products. So it's really truly a business that you could set up and systematise to really make money while you sleep, truly. Because again, the internet doesn't turn off and you don't have to... When you learn how to do the advertising piece, your ads are up all the time, constantly all day. So you're not trading your time to generate that revenue. And then when you start really getting good at your business specifically, you can start to hire people to run that. So legitimately... And I'm the type of person... To be honest, I'm not trying to say, "Oh, you're going to be on the beach sipping margaritas and just hanging out all over the world," stuff like that. No, there's work involved, mainly because you have to develop new skill sets. Because you don't have the skill sets, you can't necessarily just jump into it. For example, you're someone that's really good at advertising, you ain't got no business skill sets yet. You don't know about operations. You don't know about fulfilment. You don't know about purchase orders and things of that capacity. You know about advertising, but you got other business skill sets that you have to acquire. So the ultimate thing though is that once you start to build a team and you start hiring a few, let's say virtual assistants, you could then have them run the day to day operations. So genuinely, I work maybe an hour in the business, and the only reason I say maybe is because I now have a team managing the team. So I don't do any of the payroll or anything of that nature at this point. So that was the only reason I used to check in a year or two ago. But then now I have someone handling all that stuff like human resources. I don't even have to do that now. So it's just checking on the team, "Hey, is everything all good?" So forth and so on. But my main business, I launched again almost 10 years ago, that business is doing a half million dollars a year consistently without me, without me being involved in any of the day to day operations. It's just humming along. And once again, being clear about it is because there's a team. There's systems and processes that's in place that allows the business to operate. And it's no different than when you go to any type of business that's, again, has more of a bigger presence. It's like if you go to an Apple here in the USA and you go to an Apple that's over in Barcelona, it's going to be the same exact products. They're probably going to ask you the same exact questions. They're going to guide you the same exact way. And it's like, "Well, why is that?" Because Apple has a system. They have a retail system that works. They have a retail system of attracting traffic to their location to then generate sales. Success is a system. And so when you start to develop your own systems and process and put those in place, that is what allows the business to be successful and to be sustainable is because of those different mechanisms. Right? Now, again, also because we have the other mechanisms in place with our fulfilment process that also is what leads and allows for the sustainability even during a global pandemic, even during a recession because we have systems and process in place.

Editor:

Congratulations, Earnest, on all your amazing success with this. My question next is going to be, when can we expect you to be blasting off into space?

Earnest Epps:

I'm not sure, man. It's on the to-do list at some point, but man, I'm excited. I'm just really excited just to see more people go out here, be able to get more of the piece of the pie that's out here and change their trajectory of what they're looking to do in life. Because I mean, literally, we're at a stage of so much opportunity being available on hand. Again, you don't have to look at like, "Oh my gosh, there's so much going on." It's like, "Oh my gosh, there's so much opportunity." You just have to figure out which of the markets and niches and stuff it is that you want to serve and just serve it at the highest velocity possible.

Editor:

And if we rewind right to the very beginning of our conversation, you mentioned that just before you were 24, you had your dream job. You were really climbing up that corporate ladder. That was who you were at that time, Earnest. Would you go back to that now?

Earnest Epps:

Oh, absolutely not. I mean, it is more of the freedom because it was like I really, at that particular time, I sold myself to the job, right?

Editor:

Yeah.

Earnest Epps:

Meaning that every single day... I mean seven days a week. It wasn't five, it was seven days a week because it's like, "Why do you get so much growth and success in the corporate world if you're 23 years old?" Well, it's because I'm working a hundred hours a week and I'm literally legitimately flat out working everyone. Everyone in the company. If you're thinking about giving somebody a raise, it'd be like, "Man, that dude Earnest. He's on it. I mean, we got to promote him, right?" I mean, it got to the point where when the company was seeing growth. It was like, "Who's the most qualified person to take on this project or fly to this area to improve it, or fix it, or launch this new product for one of our partners that we have. It's like, well, I mean Earnest is the only one that's got the numbers that he's got. Even in the corporate side, I learned a little bit about building systems. I didn't realise that they were systems at the time, but I was building systems specifically to help improve my roles as I was going to these different markets and things of that nature and I didn't even realise it because I was just trying to figure out ways to just do my job better, but I didn't realise that I was creating systems because the stuff that worked in Boston, Massachusetts also worked in Indian Land, South Carolina. It also worked in Tysons Corner Virginia. So it was just like, "Oh, those are the systems that I was doing back there. I didn't realise that." So it was-

Editor:

And you were going flat out that time. So I guess everything else in your life kind of took a backseat, but of course-

Earnest Epps:

Oh, yeah. I mean, straight to the point, everything took a backseat. I mean, to give you the clearest example of how bad it was is that when my first two kids were born, I was in the hospital on conference calls. She's delivering babies, giving birth and I'm just like, "Hey, y'all, send that P&L in. Did we get that inventory order for that store on Main Street?" And I'm sitting there, "Hey, oh the baby." It was bad. I mean, no one should be doing that, right?

Editor:

Yeah.

Earnest Epps:

That was just stupid. If I could go back and smack that Earnest, it'd be like, "Hey dummy, focus on the family and what's going on in life. This whole job isn't worth it in a sense of slaving away at that level. They should be able to give you some peace of mind when your kids are born. So yeah man, I would definitely not go back to that state. And also, I'm able to make just much greater of an impact. I mean, literally personally document it. I've helped over 25 people become millionaires through e-commerce, right? I've helped over 100 people generate over a hundred thousand dollars with their e-commerce stores like documented. So to be able to really make impacts on families and change people's lives and trajectories of where they were going as a result of me helping them build something, a true value. I mean, I was just on a training last week, and I had one of my clients, she was on there just sharing her experience and stuff and she's like, "Oh yeah, by the way, I just sold one of my e-comm stores." Because that's the difference about how we structure e-comm. When you build the business, it also starts to develop evaluation that you can sell at the important time. But we ain't got enough time to cover that. But short version is she's like, "Yeah, I just sold my business. I just quit my job." And I'm just like, "Wait, what?" We're on a call live. I'm just like, "Man, I had no idea you quit your job. You didn't even tell me." So we got people retiring. I'm getting updates and retirements and stuff like that randomly from people that's gone through our coaching programmes and stuff. So it's just really amazing to know every single day that someone's life is being better as a result of me being the best version of me.

Editor:

Anybody who wants a slice of this pie, as you said earlier, how do they find out more about you? Where should they go to learn more about this?

Earnest Epps:

Yeah. The easiest place to get connected with me is just going to my personal site, which is earnestepps.com, which is E-A-R-N-E-S-T-E-P-P-S.com. So earnestepps.com. And then it's Earnest Epps on any major social media platform. So whether it's like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, wherever your place is to be social, Earnest is out there being social with you.

Editor:

Hey, listen, thank you so much for the chat today. Really, really enjoyed it and congratulations again on your huge success. Earnest Epps, thank you.

Earnest Epps:

No problem.