You probably already know 2020 was a disastrous year for most dropshippers.
Constant Facebook business manager ban…
Insane shipping delays due to the pandemic…
Shopify shutting down stores…
And PayPal holding funds because of the slow shipping…
Because of this, most smaller scale dropshippers were forced to end their dropshipping career…
While 7 figure dropshippers are diversifying their risks by opening branded stores or new niche/one product stores alongside their main store.
(And if you wish to scale to 7 figures this 2021, diversifying your risk is what you should be doing.)
Now, I know what you’re thinking…
“Ain’t nobody got time for that!”
Or
“How can I open more stores, let alone start a brand if I’m already spending all my time on my one store.”
The good news is, it’s actually possible to automate your dropshipping business just by using these 3 methods that we use in our operations agency to automate our ecom clients businesses and scale them to the moon.
3 Ways To Automate Your Dropshipping Business, And Scale to 6-7 Figures This 2021
Now, when I say “automate your dropshipping business”, I don’t mean using apps or bots to run the entire store for you.
That would be impossible.
Sure, there are apps that can help you to automatically fulfill your orders or sync tracking numbers into PayPal.
But there’s no app that can fully automate the entire business from product research, to copywriting, to fulfillment.
The only way left to automate?
It’s to create systems, processes and get the best people to execute the tasks for you.
(Which is why top dropshippers focus a lot on building teams and systems to carry out their tasks for them while they create new brands, and attend high level masterminds to level up their skills and network)
And here’s how you can do so:
Step 1️: Optimize, Simplify & Streamline Your Systems
The very first step to automating your dropshipping business is to first optimize and simplify your systems.
Meaning, your systems have to be:
1. Easy to implement
2. Takes minimal resources (like time, money, effort, manpower) to carry out
Why so?
This is so that it’s much easier for any new hire or team member to carry out the tasks effectively and efficiently.
Pro Tip: You want them to carry out their tasks at at least 80% of your own capacity.
Meaning, if you are able to find 10 high quality products a week, they must be finding at least 8 high quality products a week. Anything lower means that they’re having trouble with the system.
Remember, More complex systems = Less efficiency in the team = Less productivity = Less results
A common mistake that dropshippers make is that they have way too many unnecessary steps in the entire process.
This not only wastes a lot of time and effort, but it can also be more complicated especially to new hires and it’ll take a lot of your own time and effort to train them.
(Time that could be better spent elsewhere like strategizing on how to scale your business.)
So how do you know if your process should be streamlined and how can you do it?
In our agency, we do this:
First, map out the entire process in the form of steps.
For example, the product research process.
(A) Research for products on adspy
(B) Upload product details on product research sheet
(C) Check if there are any duplicates of this product on the sheet. (If there is, restart from step 1.)
(D) Inform project manager at the end of the day after confirming that there are no duplicates
Next, identify the bottle-necks or unnecessary steps in the system.
From the product research process example above, we can identify that step (c) is a bottleneck for most product researchers.
They have to spend the time to double check the google sheet to see if there are any duplicates.
Because of this, they can waste up to 90mins a day just by checking for duplicates.
Lastly, remove bottle-necks / unnecessary steps and see if the process still works. (Even when you scale it)
At our agency, we’re always focusing on helping our clients to remove bottlenecks and improve their workflow.
For one of our clients, we developed a unique product research method that only required 3 steps in total…
Allowing our clients to go from testing 2 products a day, to over 6 high quality products a day.
Here’s what we did:
Step 1: Conduct product research (either on AdSpy or any other methods you prefer).
Step 2: Upload product details on a google form that’s integrated to the product research google sheet. If a product is a duplicated product (via keywords), or if it didn’t meet the criterias set. The product will automatically be marked as red.
If they meet the criterias and are not a duplicated product, it’ll automatically be marked as green.
Step 3: Project manager just needs to go into the product research sheet and pull all the products that are marked in green.
By doing this, we not only reduced the amount of time to find a qualified product, and significantly reduced the chance of any mistakes happening.
Now that you have a well optimized system for your team to effectively carry out…
It’s time to focus on getting them to carry out their tasks WITHOUT coming to you and constantly asking you questions.
Which brings us to step 2.
Step 2: Create Delegation Systems
For most dropshippers, we started our journey by doing everything by ourselves.
From product research all the way to media buying.
And we believe that we’re the best people for the job at everything.
Which eventually leads to burnout, exhaustion and brain fog…
Ugh… brain fogs are the worst.
And when it comes to automating your dropshipping business, it’s crucial to delegate the execution to your team members.
But for most people, they’re afraid of delegating their work.
They’re afraid that their team can’t do a good job without them.
They’re afraid that they’ll lose control of their business.
They’re afraid that their team will not uphold the quality that they usually have, which will lead to a dip in revenue.
But after working with 6 & 7 figure dropshippers in my agency, it’s possible to delegate without having to fear about losing your business.
All you need is a delegation system.
I wrote a post about the “3PDS delegation system” that we use in our agency to automate our client’s businesses.
You can check it out here.
Step 3️: Hire & Train A+ players
Without capable team members in your team (A+ players), it’s extremely difficult to successfully automate your business.
Which is why 8 figure dropshippers have HR teams sourcing for the best people out there.
But for those who don’t have the luxury to afford HR teams, it’s still possible to hire A+ players and train them to become superstars to run your business without you, ESPECIALLY if they’re VAs.
I wrote 2 posts talking about this.
First post talking about “How you can hire A+ players using our S.A.R.V. Hiring framework.” You can read it here.
Second post talking about” How you can create an Automated training system using 7D Training system.” You can check it out here.
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Hope you found this post valuable.
Atomatic Agency specializes in streamlining, optimizing and automating systems and processes for eCommerce businesses (including dropshippers) to scale to their highest potential, as well as build and train our client’s team into a team of A+ players.
By doing so, our clients are able to achieve consistent revenue, and turn their business into a consistent cash cow with less effort, and in a short timer period.
Ready To Automate And Scale Your Business?
If you’re a 6 figure/month dropshipper that is serious about automating your business and scaling consistently, click on the button below to schedule a call with us.