August 2019

Blake Mycoskie Exclusive: The Brand that Launched a Thousand Impact Businesses

Listen to the exclusive interview with Blake Mycoskie:

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In 2006, America’s top-earning CEOs were making $240 million a year while a fifth of the world lived on $1.9 a day. It was in the absurdly vast space inside the wealth gap that Blake Mycoskie found out that shoelessness meant more than the comforting warmth of concrete beneath your feet on swimming-pool-days. For the world’s poorest, it meant parasitic infections, frostbite, and sometimes, even death. Blake wanted to fix the problem, but a constant flow of shoes would require a constant flow of money. He would have to hack a pathway to the top of a new kind of mountain, and a for-profit business model seemed a natural solution.

So began a social enterprise called TOMS: the brand that launched a thousand impact businesses. His concept was tidy and potent: to donate a pair of shoes for every pair sold. He hoped to sell a thousand pairs a year. He didn’t. An LA Times feature sparked 1, 200 sales in just a day. Then came Vogue, then Time, People, and Elle. As the 2008 recession crawled nearer, TOMS’ sales figures rose… and rose. Blake covered 10, 000 pairs of bare feet that season, but the brand did more than just change lives. It woke the world’s change creators up to the returns a for-profit model could generate.

Waking Up to Authenticity

The era of TOMS was also the era of the ultimate marketing machine and all the dishonest billions it attracted. Mycoskie was one of the first entrepreneurs to encourage startups to use their story as the thrust of their marketing efforts, but he says countless brands have used his lesson as yet another plastic vehicle for marketing lies. Today’s buyers have a fatal allergy to dishonest tactics. Their skins crawl when they hear sales spin, and they trust their spam blocking APIs and AdBlock more than they do their local charities.

In an internet era, a secret discovered is a secret spread from a grand stage playing to millions. Transparency is no longer optional because, in an increasingly-connected world, your brand’s story will be told with or without your permission. Today’s impact businesses must live in a way that creates a strong digital story. “I don’t think every business has to have a giving component,” he says, “but I do think every business needs to answer the questions, ‘What is your purpose? What harm are you doing? What are you improving in the world?’ “

This is more than a call for startups to wake up to the marketing knowledge of their buyers, though. The authenticity he requests creeps into everything, from your branding and corporate culture to your hiring practices.

The Problem with HR Superstars

As TOMS grew, Mycoskie let his HR director handle much of his head-hunting. They hired C-suite rock stars who’d learned their tricks at other companies. It turns out that you can’t teach an old executives new tricks. They were attached to their bad habits, which were firmly packaged in an unchangeable shell. His corporate culture was borne of magic, and every entrenched C-suite habit absorbed some of that sparkle.

These days, he doesn’t require a “kumbaya” culture of every company; only clarity and intent. If you want to sharpen your Wolf-of-Wall-Street claws and establish a cutthroat culture, celebrate that, but don’t pretend you’re a Sheep of Wall Street. Corporate culture is best served neat, not shaken or stirred. James Bond might be a fair shot, but magic was never his strong suit.

Magic requires new perspectives and a wealth of different data sets, so Blake thinks some of your company’s most important assets are hidden away inside your employees. If he could travel back in time and recreated TOMS from scratch, he would have hired his staff himself, keeping his focus on mindsets instead of corporate experience.

Dealing with Pressure

For the first eight years of TOMS’ life, Mycoskie held his startup on his shoulders alone. He paid for every new shoe design, factory overhead, and employee. “I think that’s a great way to run a business,” he admits because it made him more conscious of how he spent his money, but even the most powerful entrepreneur can bend under daily pressure. “I had no investors so every single dollar was like a personal check.”

The media’s early interest had forced the fledgling company to grow into adulthood overnight. That’s challenging work for any entrepreneur. Being the sole source of funding is a simple form of pressure, but when the world expects greatness of you, you need a shinier brand of mettle. Then there were the people, every one of them growing and changing and needing more.

Once TOMS had grown to $400 million in sales, he brought in a partner, keeping his position as chairman of the board and hiring a CEO to relieve the pressure of solitary leadership. That gave him the space to see a new path forward–one that didn’t require TOMS to represent his whole identity.

Beyond TOMS

Social enterprises have changed enormously in the 12 years since Blake sold his first pair of shoes. The social impact space has been normalized, and globalization has raised rich and poor enterprises onto the same high stage. Any business can grow, whether it’s founded in a dusty shack in Punjab or on a bustling New York City street corner. Marketing has evolved beyond Ogilvyesque tradition, and corporate culture has become a core part of every brand. You can no longer grow a business without considering all the stakeholders. You’re too visible, too connected, too vulnerable to public opinion to operate thoughtlessly.

Blake sees the planet and its people as the biggest stakeholders of any company, and that has knock-on effects that aren’t immediately apparent. Enterprises need to place ethics ahead of every path they choose, but the way you define business must change, too.

The Industrial Revolution ended in the 19th century, yet today’s companies are still focusing on producing to the same scale and in the same way as they did a hundred years ago. Mycoskie isn’t sure the purpose of the human experience is to be productive and to achieve financial success.

His first goal was to simply build a for-profit social impact company. He’s since discovered a passion for sharing lessons instead of products. He hopes to give others the courage to turn their own stories into real-world dreams, so he’s just founded a self-development company called Made For, which takes members on a 10-month journey into the center of their own souls. Two hundred people are already moving through the program.

Some might say this change of pace is his stepping back, but he calls it stepping forward.

“[Stepping forward] is a lot scarier because you’re looking into the abyss and you don’t know what you’ll see. I’ve enjoyed life as an entrepreneur but I don’t know if I’m going to evolve or if I’m going to just keep starting businesses. Because all I’m going to do is prove to myself and the world that I can do it again and again.”

The Power of Mentorship

Mycoskie wasn’t born this woke. He was mentored into his irrevocable success. Richard Branson taught him through the pages of “Losing My Virginity.” Howard Schultz and Yvonne Chouinard’s lessons were also delivered through text. Blake only met his heroes long after they’d showed him how to make his first million. Some of the best lessons are available to anyone with an Amazon account and an appetite for reading, and now, they’re also available through Blake’s burgeoning program, Made For.

A New Definition of Success

Any ordinary social impact business is launched for the change it can create and the viability it can achieve with its products. Blake thinks that misses an important ingredient: the authenticity of the creation process. For him, founding a business is a process of self-development. You can’t prepare a feather-light sponge if you’re not immersed in the baking process, no matter how perfect your recipe is, and the enterprise creation process must be just as meaningful and authentic. A leader must become the business, or the story the world will tell about it will be barren.

“Success is somewhat empty, no matter if you do it in a somewhat honorable way like I did with TOMS or in a Wolf of Wall Street way. The human condition needs far more than what our culture is asking.”

The Industrial machine is dying, and founders must find a new way forward. That way should do more than just spread happiness to others. It must also incite it in every philanthropist. “We’re all designed to be happy,” he says, “and the happiest people I’ve seen are the ones who are able to be in touch with the inevitable truth that all we have is this moment. And this moment is [our] entire existence. That’s how I’m defining success these days.”

Blake is one of a rare few thought leaders who are reinventing society, but his ideas are only new because the enterprise has been a Promethean fire wielded, not for human pursuits, but industrial ones. Yesterday’s thought leaders asked, “How profitable? How huge? How fast?” Blake asks, “How authentic? How challenging? How true?

Key Takeaways

-1) “If you have a really incredible, authentic story that you can back up at every touch-point in your organization, lead with it. If not, lead with your product and your product attributes.”

-2) Be directly involved in your hiring. Look for shared mindsets in your staff, and not necessarily experience.

-3) Make the most of the fresh perspectives of your staff. They’re important data sets that you might never otherwise explore.

-4) Make sure your philanthropy is designed to be meaningful to your own growth. Your happiness matters and social enterprise should never be used to shift your focus away from your own pain.

-5) Find mentorship through the writing of your heroes.

-6) Don’t let old ideas of success limit you. Think beyond profits and products.

-7) Don’t try to create a brand or corporate culture that’s inconsistent with your authentic intentions. Be true to your intent, or you will lose the trust you might never regain.

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article interview

Supermetrics Review: The Good, the Bad and Everything in Between

Gone are the days when marketers struggled with reporting, analyzing and monitoring data. There was a time when, moving the data from marketing platforms to wherever they wanted to use it, was overwhelming. Supermetrics solved all these issues by bringing all your marketing metrics in one place and making analysis easy.

When Mikael Thuneberg was still working as a web analyst in 2009, he entered an online competition to connect the newly released Google Analytics API to Excel. The grand prize for the 1st successful contestant? A Google t-shirt. Motivated by his own struggle with manually copying and pasting data from Google Analytics to Excel, he worked through many nights to solve this puzzle. He won.

Mikael then founded Supermetrics as a way to help not only Google Analytics users, but other marketers around the globe. The Supermetrics mission is to help marketers report, analyze and monitor their data better by connecting the marketing platforms to wherever they want to use the data.

Why Consider Supermetrics?

The process of gathering data from various sources and bringing it together to create reports for clients is exhausting. So, what makes Supermetrics helpful to online marketers and other businesses with managing their challenges?

PPC Reporting

The connection Supermetrics has with various ad platforms makes it a breeze to automate reports for Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Bing, and others.

Social Media Reporting

Supermetrics can collect social media data from Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Reddit, Pinterest, Tumblr, and other platforms. With these metrics, you can create a personalized social media report that includes engagement statistics and follower growth.

SEO Reporting

Create your own SEO report with Supermetrics. SEO reporting connects with Searchmetrics, Google Search Console, Moz, and other SEO tools. Supermetrics combines the results over time which sorts out the search console problem of limiting reports to 90 days.

Analytics Reporting

You can automate analytics reporting with Supermetrics. It connects with Adobe Analytics and Google Analytics. With Supermetrics, you’re able to create more customized reports than with just Google Analytics.

Analysis and Optimization

The majority of businesses use Supermetrics for report automation. However, it provides powerful optimization and analysis too. For instance, you can obtain deep insights from Analytics and Adwords than from the usual Google reports.

Other Benefits of Supermetrics

No More Importing CSV Files or Manual Copy/Paste

Some marketers spend too much time logging into each platform to collect data. The more channels you adopt, the more time you’ll spend. Instead, you should spend this time adding value to clients and their businesses.

Supermetrics solves this problem with a flexible sidebar which makes it easy to obtain metrics for several sites within a few seconds. All you need to do is enter the necessary information and Supermetrics will automatically generate your data. Not only does this shorten the time you use, but it also provides good quality presentation of the data.

Integration with Several Marketing Platforms

Supermetrics can be integrated with almost 50 platforms. This allows you to connect to your data no matter where it is. Some of these platforms include; Google Analytics, Google Ads, Google Search Console, MailChimp, LinkedIn Ads, Twitter Ads, and YouTube.

Integration makes analysis easier for marketers. You can collect data from various sources into a single view. For comparison purposes, you can also collect data from various accounts related to the same source. This is quite useful when one client (business) has several accounts for various locations. They can easily track performance for each location based on particular metrics.

Supermetrics is so committed to helping you easily connect to your data that in case your data source is not available, they can build it for you. You simply have to fill in a request form with your email address and the data source you’re voting for.

Monitor Daily Ad Spend

Monitoring the daily ad spend for clients is important, but it can be a pain. Online advertisers can easily track ad spends with this dynamic platform. When Supermetrics has collected all the required data on a spreadsheet, you can simply use ‘data validation’ to create drop-down menus. At this point, it’s easy to see each client’s ad spend and compare it with the expected daily spend.

By selecting the client account from the drop-down menu, you can easily and quickly monitor all the clients’ accounts.

Reduce PPC Reporting Time

The expansion of your client base and marketing channels can make data reporting and visualization daunting and timewasting. Collecting and updating data from various advertising sources into one excel sheet, then comparing the findings is tiring.

For instance, you may have several accounts for Google Ads and also use other platforms like LinkedIn Ads and Facebook Ads. The difficulty and time spent in creating daily reports can make your head spin. Supermetrics sorts this issue out by using its Google Data Studio Integration and Google Sheets Add-On feature.

It builds an excel report with all comparisons, charts and PPC channel information in the same place. Advertising data comparison and analysis made easy.

Monitor Performance with Automated Dashboards

It’s your job to ensure that your clients earn a high return on investment. You can do this with Supermetrics by setting dashboards and automating alerts that notify you when performance declines below the expected level. This eliminates human error while satisfying your clients. The alerts allow you to take the necessary action as soon as possible.

Supermetrics Products and Features

Supermetrics provides a variety of products to automate reporting for SEO, PPC, social media and web analytics. The platform features the following products.

Supermetrics for Google Sheets

This product is the most popular on the platform. You can automate reports by collecting data from various sources like Twitter, Google Adwords, Facebook Ads, Bing Ads, etc. using your preferred metrics onto one single spreadsheet.

The visualization, data-crunching and sharing abilities of Google Sheets, combined with the data fetching power of Supermetrics will take your marketing game to the next level.

The Hobby (Free) version is simply for you to test the product and only connects with one data source, Google Analytics. The Pro Version connects with a number of data sources and costs $69 per month.

The Super Pro version (which is the most popular) connects with all data sources on the platform and goes for $149 per month. It allows integration with all data sources and provides an hourly scheduled refresh. The Enterprise version is customizable to your particular requirements.

You can test the product to determine how well it will work by taking advantage of the 14 days free trial including all features. If you make annual payments for whichever version, a 22% discount applies.

Google Data Studio

This product is great for data visualization and creating reports. In the past, to visualize data and create reports, you had to first organize data from non-Google sources in Google Sheets and then import to Data Studio.

Supermetrics makes this easy with connectors like Twitter Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Bing Ads, MailChimp, and others. It becomes a breeze to collect data and visualize it on Google Data Studio. The connectors collect data from various accounts from the same source into one report. When creating a data source on Google Data Studio, simply select all accounts.

To test drive this product, you can use the 14 days free trial (no credit card required). After that, you can choose a plan depending on your desired features and choice of connectors.

The Individual Connector plan costs $19 per month. For the popular Pro plan, you’ll part with $99 per month. The Super Pro plan goes for $299 per month.

Supermetrics API

This product provides a hassle-free way to analyze, report and store your online marketing data in data warehouse and BI tools. This is how it works:

Connect to a Supermetrics data source with a seamless interface.
Feed any marketing data into BI tools or data warehouse.
Just like that, your data is ready to use.

Supermetrics Uploader

This product helps you measure advertising ROI by combining your ad cost data with Google Analytics Ecommerce and goal conversion metrics. It also saves you time because you no longer need to log in to various platforms to check the figures.

The cost of the Supermetrics Uploader starts at $39 per month for each advertising channel for 5 daily uploads.

Supermetrics Functions

This product provides the easiest way to collect your marketing metrics into Google Sheets and Excel. It is used by skilled spreadsheet users. You don’t need any programming skills. You can easily type a custom function into the spreadsheet cells, for example, ‘SUM’ or ‘COUNT’.

Supermetrics Data Grabber for Excel

With this tool, you can import data from various sources into an Excel Spreadsheet and still access all features. You’ll be able to create reliable reports efficiently. You can use it with Mac Excel 2011 or Windows Excel 2003 and subsequent versions.

How does it work?

Download the trial version and open it in Excel.
Log in to any data source.
Run your first report in three steps.

Pick an account from your list.
Choose metrics under ‘split by’.
Click ‘Run the report’.

Each data source integration comes with a different price tag, most of them costing $39 per month and others costing $29 per month.

Supermetrics for BigQuery

This is a new tool on the platform that showcases the processing power of the Google Cloud. You can link advertising data with CRM data or web analytics. You can also compare paid campaigns across all networks. This product includes an exclusive Data Studio Connector.

For one data source and one account, the price is $199 per month. For one data source and five accounts, you’ll pay $499 per month. If you need multiple accounts or data sources, volume discounts are available. You can try it out for free for 14 days before you decide or book a demo.

The Upside of Supermetrics

Usability

Supermetrics features a seamless interface with handy features. It’s easier to use for marketers that enjoy data analysis. It provides several drop down menus that give you several options to choose from. You don’t have to remember their names.

Speed

You can’t argue with Supermetrics’ speed. Marketers can quickly and easily collect the data they need at that exact time. You can easily access any field from a particular data source.

Cost

Entry level costs are low and a 14-day free trial is available. For more data sources, however, you’ll have to pay more.

Ownership of Historical Data

Previously, Supermetrics did not store data. It was easy to determine recent events on the platform. However, it did not provide you with sufficient data to determine long-term trends. Marketers had to buy, set up and maintain the required warehouse which will be more costly. With the new product BigQuery, you can store all your data.

The Downside of Supermetrics

Not Newbie-Friendly

Beginners on this platform can get a little bit lost. Their tools are easier to use for slightly experienced data nerds.

No Depth or Scalability

Supermetrics is speedy, no doubt. However, if you want to analyze minute details, you may have to go slower especially if your project contains millions of rows of data. For better efficiency, it might be better to use a data warehouse where your data already structure.

Is Supermetrics the Right Fit For Your Business?

Supermetrics definitely saves precious time with automation and makes data analysis a breeze for online marketers. However, it is not the best choice for complete newbies. It helps if you have experience with using spreadsheets. But even with experience, be careful not to put data in the wrong columns.

The benefits of Supermetrics definitely outweigh the downsides. What makes it a must-have tool for marketers is the seamless integration with various data sources, real-time data analysis, and easy data visualization.

The frequent updates and flexibility of Supermetrics give you the edge required to take your organization to the next level. If you spend a lot of time getting your hands dirty with data and creating reports, this platform will make your work easy.

If you’re still undecided, it won’t cost you anything to start with the 14-day free trial and familiarize yourself with the platform before spending on a paid plan.

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6 Ethical Strategies to Increase Sales and Manage Your Sales Teams

Sales is a naturally competitive domain and therefore attracts people who are results-oriented. Friendly competitiveness is generally encouraged as it increases motivation and drives productivity. However, when the goals are set too high, people might be tempted to engage in unethical sales practices. Such practices seemingly produce short term results but are not sustainable in the long run and are counterproductive to both the salesperson and the entire company.

Managers need to be aware of this dynamic and strive to create a competitive but fair environment within their sales teams. This is by no means an easy task but there are ways to keep people motivated and productive while following a code of ethics. This only works if the code of ethics is well defined and enforced.

Here are 6 ethical strategies that will increase your sales results and create long-lasting profitable relationships both within the company and with outside clients:

1. Define the company’s goals.

How do you get your employees to put customers’ needs above their own? Finding the answer to this question could increase ethical sales activities, but that is only seemingly so. This question is, in fact, irrelevant and the true question should be:

“How do you show your employees that their needs are interconnected with the needs of customers?”

As a manager, you need to set clear business goals and show how those goals are directly correlated to the happiness of your customers. You might be able to scam a customer into a bad deal, but as soon as he realizes that, he will cut his relationship with your company. A satisfied customer, on the other hand, will come back and continue using your product and in this way, provide long-lasting revenue for your business.

All goals need to be measurable in order to be effective. If a company sets customer satisfaction as a clear and measurable target, it will be easier to evaluate its efforts towards those goals.

2. Set up satisfaction-based rewards.

Salary and bonuses within the sales team are usually defined by the number of successfully closed deals. This drives your employees to produce results but gives no indication that those results need to be long-lasting. Setting a system which rewards sales employees for creating long-lasting client relationships can change the way they approach business interactions.

For example, you could pay out bonuses not only when a new client is brought on board but each time that client renews his contract. If the goals you set are well-defined, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, then setting up a reward system which incorporates those goals should be relatively straightforward. Employees need to be both morally and financially motivated towards the longevity of customer relationships and the best way to do that is by making it part of your company culture.

3. Outsourcing as an ethical solution.

Outsourcing is the process of hiring an outside company or individual to perform contracted work. Businesses use this method to reduce operational costs and oftentimes as a means of gaining an outside perspective on the task at hand.

There are certain ethical implications when it comes to outsourcing as certain people question its morality. The arguments are that companies should make local employment rates a priority rather than focus on cost-effective measures. However, the economic implications of outsourcing are far more complex than that. Establishing a free market where companies have more diverse options drives competitiveness and raises productivity.

A company might want to hire an outsourced sales team in order to lower operational costs and make it easier to continue operations. An argument can be made that local jobs would be lost without the option to hire more cost-effective outside help. Therefore, outsourcing is an excellent way to stimulate the local economy and create additional jobs, even if part of the company relies on outside help.

4. Lead by example.

Enforcing actions and attitudes only makes sense if you are following them as well. A leader needs to be a personal and professional example to other employees. But just acting the right way is not enough. You need to truly believe in the values that you represent and that you are willing to put on your business cards for everyone to see.

People have a natural way of differentiating between honest and disingenuous behavior and will only follow leaders who also act according to the moral standards they expect from others. Therefore, the best leaders are those that lead by example.

5. Organize coaching sessions for your sales team.

Many companies will put together a sales training to ensure that their employees are well-educated and skilled in their day to day sales activities. Sadly, ethical implications are most of the time not mentioned during such educational sessions even though they provide the right opportunity to educate the sales team on the best practices that are used for building long-lasting relationships.

A company should use every opportunity to promote its values and remind employees about the influence that those values have on the success of the company. One on one coaching sessions is also a good way to produce quick results among individual employees. Try to talk to them about the way they build trust with their clients and what the areas are where they feel like there is room for improvement. Work together with your employees to build a stronger and ethically conscious team.

6. Organize external seminars.

If you want to raise awareness about ethical strategies amongst your team, you could organize external seminars where you invite people from outside the company to participate. Have your employees prepare presentations where they teach others various skills that they learned about the sales business.

This will have multiple positive effects on your company. Firstly, it will get your sales team to interact with other people, making them more aware of their problems and desires. And secondly, it will promote your company as socially responsible and open to communication with the community.

Use the tips above to lay the foundation for a sales team that is more ethically aware. In time, you will notice the rise of trust-based customer relationships within your company. Such an approach will make dealing with customers easy and significantly increase sales results.

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2 of the Best Shopify Alternatives for Your Online Store (We’ve Narrowed it Down for You!)

The challenging and evolving economic environment has spurred on what is known as the gig economy. Today, people are approaching work differently. The purchase of goods and services is also transforming and thriving with the great strides in technology circles.

There are well-known large businesses behind this trend. Shopify, in contrast, is not as famed but the once tiny Canadian company has done its share in uplifting the e-commerce environment. Based in Ontario, Canada, the highly successful startup has seen its shares climb by 136% in 2019.

Its overall market cap now stands at the $36.6 billion mark. The business started out as an online store for Snowdevil, its founder’s snowboarding equipment shop. Tobias Lütke, its founder and CEO, utilized his computer programming skills to cobble up what today is a force to reckon with in e-commerce.

The platform is now a darling of venture capitalist investments, netting over $122 million in such funding. By 2014, it had over 100,000 retailers selling on it from over 150 countries. In 2017, Shopify set up an Amazon Sales Channel. This avenue would assist its merchants to list their products on Amazon.com simultaneously. Today, Shopify has over 800,000 stores on it and over a million active users.

What is Shopify?

It is a cloud-based e-commerce platform, with various channels. On it, you can monitor your online shop, as well as mobile, social media and brick and mortar sales as well. You can also access your product inventory, process all your orders, and ship them out. Shopify also makes it very easy for its users to build relationships with their customers.

To guide its merchants and help them improve, innovate, and grow, the platform also has a robust data analytics feature. Through it, you can access data and reporting functions. Should you be in need of financing, Shopify features will also hold your hand.

In June 2019, the platform added 11 new languages and a fulfillment network. Amongst its other updates, is enhanced customer-facing software features. There are also easier to use software developer kits that will help users to build and embed deployable apps.

On Shopify, you will find a wide range of templates that are easy to customize. The platform has a low learning curve. Consequently, you do not need enhanced coding or design skills to build a stellar store. A little knowledge of CSS and HTML will, however, be very handy for ease of control.

As mentioned, it is a cloud-based platform and therefore, a hosted solution. This means that you will not need to pay for web hosting or software installations elsewhere. All you need to start out happens ‘out of the box.’

A platform is a software as a service (‘Saas’) tool. It has a monthly subscription, which ranges from lows of $9 to highs of $2000 for Shopify Plus.

Shopify Pricing Plans

Plan	Cost per month	Staff accounts
Shopify Lite	$9
Basic Shopify	$29	2
Shopify	$79	5
Advanced Shopify	$299	15
Shopify Plus	$2000

Shopify Lite, the cheapest of the Shopify plans do not come with a functional store. It allows you to market products through a Facebook page. Additionally, you can use it to manage inventory in a brick and mortar store. You can alternatively use Shopify’s ‘Buy Button’ to sell products on your blog.

Key Differentiators Between the Shopify Plans:

Reporting: only accessible from the $79 and above plans.
Advanced report builder: only available on the $299 and $2000 plans.
Gift cards: can be accessed on the $79 and above plans.
Real-time carrier shipping: only on $299 plan.
Point of sale functionality: available on $79 and higher plans.

Shopify Pros

1. Ease of use

Users love this platform because they do not have to worry about anything else but their sales. You do not have to spend your precious time fussing over technology or other time-wasting administrative tasks. The platform has a clean, easy to use interface and offers excellent assistance well in-store management.

Your customers, for instance, can access your store from various platforms with a simple click. A self-hosted online shop would require a lot of coding to give the same ease of access. On Shopify, your products are accessible from Facebook, WordPress, Pinterest, Tumblr, or Instagram.

2. Customer support

Most Shopify diehards love its quality customer care features. If you start your online store on WooCommerce or WordPress, you will have no one holding your hands, should you encounter a technical hitch. You can access developers, but they do not come cheap.

At times, your query in the forums could go unnoticed, leaving you high and dry. Shopify has a ton of FAQs, as well as phone, email and chats support. The safety net of knowing that you have help on your side at all times is worth the plan’s price alone.

3. Security

A fast and attractive website is excellent, but all that effort does not amount to much if there is little or no protection from malware and hacks. This is especially true if you have a credit card using the clientele. Shopify websites are not only fast but also very secure.

The security of the platform deters hackers and enforces compliance. The platform also has enhanced caching, which is excellent for online stores. To ensure that their security features are constantly tested, Shopify pays experts to hack-proof their features.

4. Storefront Themes

The platform has built a name for itself due to its professional and modern themes. The websites they create have a dash of elegance, which not only attracts but retains customers as well. There are templates for all types of themes for businesses.These include; art and photography, jewelry and accessories, Food and beverage, furniture and technology. Each theme is designed with the end customer in mind.

5. The Shopify app store

If you love access to tons of features, you are more for a Shopify person. You, nevertheless, need to know how to use them, because some do come at a cost. Various plugins can assist you in building a personalized store that caters to your business’s unique needs. Some of Shopify’s most popular features include:

OptinMaster that increases sales and generates leads.
Referral Candy, which is a marketing application with top-notch sales tools.
Plugin SEO, for search engine, optimized online stores.
Printfful for designing store merchandise on the go.
Chimpify for business marketing.

Shopify Cons

1. They have a unique PHP language

Shopify uses Liquid as a coding language for its themes. This could make it hard for you to customize the themes if you are not versed with the programming language.

2. High price for advanced features

The basic plans are very bare of features. There are no reports, gift cards, or fraud analysis features.

3. Costly apps

Most useful apps on the Shopify app store come at a price.

Nevertheless, there are other e-commerce platforms that have become Shopify rivals in terms of performance and use. The best Shopify alternative so far is BigCommerce. Here are two Shopify alternatives for you, starting with my first pick, BigCommerce

Below is an in-depth review of this fantastic platform.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is Shopify’s closest competitor. The Texas-based startup claims that it has more than 95,000 businesses running on it. The platform is excellent for high volume businesses and has fantastic features. It has great retailers on it as well, such as Travelpro, Toyota and Gibson guitars.

The Saas product has a monthly charge, and in matters pricing, it does lie in the same range as Shopify. It is also a hosted solution, meaning that you do not have to pay for further web hosting fees.

You can build an online store on BigCommerce using its various customizable templates or use it for your physical store. The platform also has marketing tools for your store. The software is easy to use, so you do not need to be tech-savvy to build a stellar store.

However, with some CSS and HTML, you can tweak your online store for some much-needed personality. If you are not up to the hassle of running your very own website, then BigCommerce is a good way to go.

BigCommerce Plans: What Do They Cost?

Plan	Cost per month	Staff accounts	Sales limit
BigCommerce Standard	$29.95	unlimited	$50,000
BigCommerce Plus	$79.95	unlimited	$150,000
BigCommerce Pro	$249.95	unlimited	$400,000
BigCommerce Enterprise	Varies on business requirements	unlimited	Negotiable

Users that pay for the plus and pro packages annually receive a 10% discount.

The Main Differences Between the BigCommerce Plans

Bigcommerce Standard

This is the cheapest of the platform’s plans, and it goes for $29.95. Its price equals that of Basic Shopify plan, the comprehensive starter kit in the Shopify platform. The plan is pretty much the bang for your buck offer with all key ingredients needed to get you started.

It, however, does not have an abandoned cart saving feature, which notifies you when shoppers leave their purchases midway through the process. It is this feature that also sends them a reminder encouraging them to complete the purchase process. The basic Shopify plan has this feature.

The plan’s other features include:

A functional e-commerce store.
Unlimited storage for files as well as bandwidth.
Gift cards.
Reporting.
Reviews and rating functionality.
Automated image optimization.

BigCommerce Plus

This plan has some significant perks that include:

Abandoned cart saver feature.
Credit cards storage.
Persistent cart feature that saves carts irrespective of devices used to shop.
Shopper segmentation and grouping, to assist in the design of reward or loyalty programs.

BigCommerce Pro

The significant difference between the Pro and Plus packages is their online sales limits. While it has a $400,000 threshold, you can increase it by $200,000 for an extra $150 per month. It also has a Google Customer Reviews feature that collects and displays user feedback on your e-commerce store.

Other additional features include:

Advanced product filters.
Third-party custom SSL.
BigCommerce Enterprise.

There is no designated charge for this plan. The costs will reflect the needs and size of your business. This plan is designed for large companies with a high turnover of over $1,000,000. It has features unique to it, which includes:

Advanced product filters that work through custom field searches.
Varied price lists for different customer groups.
API support and priority management support.
Limitless API calls.

BigCommerce core features common to all its plans:

A minimum of 10 free design templates.
Paypal integration and other payment gateways.
SEO and full CMS functionality.
Akamai Image Manger’s automatic image optimization for improved rankings.
Integration with various email marketing solutions such as MailChimp, iContact, and Constant Contact.
Gift vouchers and discount coupons.
HTML and CSS tweaking.
Ability to do product reviews.
Professional data reporting.

Notable BigCommerce features

Availability of a payment gateway. Third-party payment gateways integrated on a website can add additional charges that will eat into your bottom-line. Some take a percentage of your payments or charge a monthly fee. Some apply both charges. Other payment gateways are not also easy to integrate. They can take some effort when it comes to configurations.

BigCommerce, fortunately, has a working Paypal and Braintree powered payment gateway integrated. This feature also gives you a preferential rate for card transactions from Paypal. Nevertheless, the platform can work with 40 other payment gateways. Shopify, in contrast, integrates with over 100 different payment gateways.

Templates

The platform has ten free templates and 130 other paid themes, with variant features. The price range for paid themes ranges from $145 to $235. The major complaint there is about BigCommerce’s free themes is that they are quite alike in design. Their major differentiator is their colors. Shopify also has ten free that have the advantage of having two or three variants each. Some other platforms, like Squarespace, provide up to 100 free themes.

Abandoned cart feature

BigCommerce’s abandoned cart feature is awe-inspiring. With it, you can design three emails that automatically go to visitors who leave the purchase funnel midway. The feature, unlike that of other e-commerce platforms, allows three autoresponders, while Shopify limits theirs to one. It, however, is not available on BigCommerce’s cheapest plan while it is available on Basic Shopify.

Product categories

Shopify allows you to present your shoppers with three product variants. You will need third-party apps or workarounds to have a wider product presentation choice. BigCommerce, on the other hand, allows up to 250 product options. This makes the platform perfect for merchants with products that have a wide range of formats. The platform, however, does not automatically categorize products as Shopify does. Nevertheless, it has a bulk edit feature that speeds the manual product categorization.

Interface

BigCommerce has a reasonably easy to use and intuitive interface. It is in many ways similar to Shopify’s. All the critical features required to build your online store are placed on a vertical menu on your left-hand side. These features will help you to edit the store once selected.

BigCommerce SEO

Their SEO game is also solid, and the necessary tools are very easy to edit. The platform also allows you to easily edit product-specific URLs, unlike Shopify. You can build short URLs, which are great for SEO. The platform’s mobile website is very fast on Google, which gives it a Google indexing advantage.

BigCommerce also leads in Accelerated Mobile Pages features, which increase your SEO advantage. With this feature, fewer users will leave your mobile site due to slow loading pages. The search engines algorithms could reward a low drop off rate.

Automatic image optimization

Appropriately, sized images do load faster, which increases page speeds. Google will, therefore, accord these pages five-star treatments. BigCommerce uses the Akamai Image Manager. The feature will optimize all images, and as per BigCommerce data, the image optimization could increase load times by up to 70%. The useful tool is available in all of the platform’s plans, unlike other e-commerce builders that require a third-party app for this feature.

App integrations

BigCommerce offers integrations with over 650 apps, which is less than what Shopify has. However, the combinations required for significant uses such as marketing shipping, accounting, or CRM are available. They’re also useful Saas apps you can pay for such as Zendesk, Salesforce, or MailChimp. If you have to use MailChimp, you will need to work with BigCommerce instead of Shopify. Shopify has had a fallout with MailChimp over data protection problems.

Android and iOS apps

Many e-commerce platforms today have mobile apps that assist merchants with in-store management. BigCommerce seems to be missing this functionality; however, you can acquire third-party apps if you wish to. These, nonetheless, are not supported by the platform perchance there is a technical hitch. Shopify, on the other hand, does have this functionality.

Support

The platform does have a lot of useful handholding for all its plans. It is, therefore, easy to set up an online store. There is a 24 hour, live agent customer support for plans, though they are not clear if that support involves phone calls.

Analytics

You will have access to a wide range of standard reports such as marketing, customer, search data, abandoned carts, and finance reports. If you want further insights, you will need to pay an additional charge.

However, it is noteworthy that the reporting bulk comes free with all plans. What you might need to pay for is detailed data on products, customers, and abandoned carts. In contrast, Shopify avails these reports to its $79 plan and above users.

BigCommerce Pros

Lack of transaction fees:
BigCommerce has an integrated, Paypal powered payment gateway. The platform also does not charge any extra costs for transactions. You can, nevertheless, integrate third party payment gateways from 65 other providers. These gateways will, however, charge a premium for their services.
Unlimited staff accounts:
BigCommerce is very generous with its staff accounts. It allows for unlimited staff accounts on all its plans while Shopify for two on its cheaper package and a maximum of 15 on its most expensive plan.
Reporting and gift cards:
If you want to access professional reports and the gift card features affordably, you will need to use BigCommerce. With Shopify, you will need to pay for its higher tire plans to access these tools. BigCommerce has these feature integrated free in all its plans.
Easy checkout:
A single page checkout feature is excellent at hindering cart abandonment. BigCommerce has this feature in all its packages. To enjoy this feature on Shopify, you will need to acquire an add-on.

BigCommerce Cons

Abandoned cart saver:
Unlike Shopify, the platform does not have this recovery tool in its more affordable plans. Shopify has inbuilt it in every package.
Sales limits:
BigCommerce and 3dcart have set sales limits for their plans. Shopify does not have this limit, meaning that it is easy to scale your online shop on their platform without much worry.
Integration options:
There is a wide range of apps available in their app store. Shopify, however, has a more extensive selection in comparison.

Shopify vs. BigCommerce

Costs

The price range of the plans for the two platforms does not have much of a difference. The cheapest Shopify plan with a fully functional CMS costs $29, which equals the BigCommerce Standard plan.

Shopify and BigCommerce plan price comparison:

BigCommerce Plan	Cost per month	Shopify Plan	Cost per month
BigCommerce Standard	$29.95	Shopify Lite	$9
BigCommerce Plus	$79.95	Basic Shopify	$29
BigCommerce Pro	$249.95	Shopify	$79
BigCommerce Enterprise	Varies on business requirements	Advanced Shopify	$299
		Shopify Plus	$2000

Ease of use

Shopify has been made very easy to use and is perfect for all beginner merchants. BigCommerce has features that have a steeper learning curve.

Features

Bigcommerce has free reporting features in all its plans. These tools are however available in Shopify’s more expensive plans. Shopify nonetheless has the abandoned cart retriever tool in all its plans, unlike BigCommerce. Shopify also has a more extensive app store, which is a useful feature to advanced sellers.

Design

Shopify has over a large selection of paid themes as well as ten free themes. Their design is professional and modern and allow for a great deal of customization. They are also responsive and look great in every device. BigCommerce has seven free layouts and a large selection of paid themes. They, nonetheless, look a bit dated unlike that of Shopify.

3dcart: Another Shopify Alternative

Founded in 1997, the well-known online shop builder had more than 17,500 merchants globally by 2014. 3dcart has very competitive packages segmented according to an online shop’s traffic. The platform is not optimized for merchants with high traffic, but it is a fantastic solution for startups.

It has enough functionality and features to get you moving, especially with your mobile shoppers. 3dcart’s features, however, are not as comprehensive as those of Shopify or BigCommerce. It is also an affordable hosted Saas platform, which does not charge transaction fees for its features and services.

The platform offers access to newsletters, a blog, email, and its CRM and has social media selling tools. Its backend is not complicated, and its dashboard is responsive, making it easy to update your online shop on the go. Of greater value is the robust API that makes it very easy to integrate third-party tools and apps onto your online shop. You can also connect your store to Shopzilla, Amazon, or eBay quite easily.

3dcart Platform Plans at a Glance

Plan	Cost per month	Annual costs per month	Staff accounts	Sales limit
Startup Store	$19.00	$17.10	1	$50,000
Basic Store	$29.00	$26.10	2	$100,000
Plus Store	$79.00	$71.10	5	$500,000
Pro Store	$229.00	$206.10	15	$1,000,000

The platform has a 15-day free trial if you would like to test drive it. All its plans enjoy features such as:

Zero transaction fees.
A shopping cart.
24/7 technical support.
Access to a Facebook store.
Unlimited bandwidth.
Zero transaction fees.
Built-in blog.
Over 100 payment gateways.
Unlimited orders.
Product reviews.
API access.
POS support.
Over 50 responsive themes.

Key Differences Between the 3dcart Plans

The significant differences in the 3dcart plan’s features are most significant at the $79.99 and the $229.00 plans. The lower packages, for instance, do not have an abandoned cart saver feature or access to the reward loyalty tool or a gift registry.

You also cannot send email-marketing newsletters on the package. The Plus Store package also allows for customer groups and segmentation as well as leads generation. The Pro Store package at $229.00 has additional features such as 3dcart’s email marketing autoresponder feature. This tool sends personalized emails to shoppers that place orders.

These emails can also be customized to, for instance, thank the shopper or to ask them to review their shopping experience with you. The package also has a back in stock and waiting list notification feature. The sales rep commission tracker available on this package will keep you up to date with your reps earnings.

With it, you can create a list of your sales reps that shows their commissions. You can also use the feature to assign orders to a specific salesperson in your shop. At the end of the sales period, you can also use the feature to create reports that highlight sales from an individual sales rep or a comprehensive report for all sales done.

3dcart Features Review

Templates

3dcart has over 100 free optimized templates available that look good on mobile devices. Unlike Shopify’s or BigCommerce’s, the 3dcart’s templates vary in design and color pallets. They also have specific models for different industries.

Marketing and SEO

3dcart has all its tools placed in its marketing tab for ease of access. The SEO settings will, however, be a bit daunting for the uninitiated. Yet, the platform has most of the required checkboxes checked off. You therefore only need to change the settings you are most sure about. To learn more on what’s most needful for your online shop, research on shopping cart SEO software dos and don’ts.

Payments

The 3dcart payment systems accept split payments, money orders, credit cards, checks, or cash. You can also integrate the system into your brick and mortar store. You, still, have access to over 160 other payment gateways if you wish to pay for them. The platform is Paypal payments integrated.

3dcart Pros

Unlimited storage:
No matter the size of your online shop’s catalog, 3dcart will not charge you extra storage fees. With unlimited storage space, you can scale as necessary, which is perfect for small startups with exponential growth patterns.
Access to multiple payment gateways:
You can give your users flexibility during checkout by availing different payment options.
Fantastic support:
If you are frustrated with 3dcart’s somewhat steep learning curve, you can access their support features easily. All 3dcart plans have access to 24/7 online support, while all but the Start-Up Store have 24×7 phone support.

3dcart Cons

Steep learning curve for merchants:
The 3dcart back-office interface is clunkier and not as intuitive as Shopify’s or BigCommerce’s. The front end, however, is easy to use for the shopper, which should increase your sales and conversions.
CSS/ HTML editing:
With 3dcart, you might need to learn a few basic HTML or CSS moves to edit the themes. This could keep away merchants who are less tech-savvy or those with no extra money to pay to developers.
Theme designs:
While they have a wide range of themes, they are not as modern or as professional as those on Shopify.
Advanced features and Add-ons:
While 3dcart has one of the most robust feature sets, it also puts its abandoned cart, email newsletters, and loyalty programs from its more affordable package plans. It also does not have as many integration options as Shopify.

Shopify vs. 3DCart

Pricing

Both platforms have very similar pricing plans. However, the more affordable Start Up Store $19 plan is more affordable than the Basic Shopify equivalent as $29. The other more expensive packages are on the same price range.

Shopify plans	Cost per month	3dcart plans	Cost per month
Shopify Lite	$9	Start up Store	$19.00
Basic Shopify	$29	Basic Store	$29.00
Shopify	$79	Plus Store	$79.00
Advanced Shopify	$299	Pro Store	$229.00
Shopify Plus	$2000

Inventory management

3dcart will allow you to sell more products on its Start up Store plan while the Basic Shopify plan limits your inventory to 25 products.

Coupons and discount codes

3dcart will allow you to create and calculate promo/discount codes, on all its packages. In contrast, Shopify does not have this option on its cheaper Lite package.

Payment gateways

3dcart has over 200 payment gateways while Shopify is limited to 70.

Templates and themes

Shopify has fewer free themes but hundreds of paid themes. 3dcart has lots of free themes, but they are not as modern looking as Shopify’s.

SEO capabilities

Both 3dcart and Shopify have a robust arsenal of SEO tools. These will go a long way in directing traffic to your store. Shopify’s tools are, nonetheless, vouched as the best of all its alternatives.

Transaction fees

3dcart does not charge any transaction fees on any of its packages. If you go for other payment gateways, you will pay them their charges as required. Shopify also does not have a transaction charge, but it has a transparent fee structure for third party payment gateway charges.

The Final Word: Which Shopify Alternative is for You?

Shopify is awesome and you can use it as it is. It has some fantastic pros. Not everyone is okay with the cons, though. And that’s why you’re reading this. You’re looking for reputable alternatives.

3dcart and BigCommerce are amazing alternatives. Each platform has its strong points as well as drawbacks. And that’s the good thing with options, you can easily spot which one works for your unique situation. Use the in-depth research in this post to make an informed choice.

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How to Differentiate Your Value Propositions

They’re the most direct route to both more money and more impact (and the best sales tool out there from what I’ve seen), yet value propositions are often misconstrued or borderline ignored in the strategy of social enterprises and nonprofits.

Yes, most social impact organizations absolutely give their best to serve many different stakeholders, but giving their best isn’t always as strategic or deliberate as it can be.

This totally baffles me sometimes, as we in the social impact sector exist to solve huge ****ing problems, yet we often don’t really know as much as we could with some intellectual elbow grease about the problems we’re trying to solve!

And because our problems involve people, we need to know people! And value propositions is how we do that.

Think of that nonprofit you once sat on the board of that seemed to be pulling teeth with fundraising, or a social enterprise that’s employing local artisans but can’t seem to sell many products. Or, just as bad, one that sells plenty of products but isn’t sure of the impact it’s making with its local artisans.

For whom do you need to create value propositions?

First off, your entire job as a social entrepreneur is to create value. That’s really any organization’s job, right?

Yet in organizations that need to both make money and deliver impact, the value gets trickier. Often, it’s imperative to your organization’s success that you create value for at least two very different sets of people: those who pay for your work and those you ultimately serve.

If you’re getting grants or donations, you need value propositions for your funders.
If you’re earning income, you need value propositions for your buyers.
if you do work with a certain population or community and they’re not the buyers, you need a value proposition for them.
Finally, you need a value proposition for whomever influences all the above.

When I break these down for my clients, I use the four following customer segments (these aren’t from any existing framework out there; I created them for my work in this sector):

Who financially supports your work? Your Most Valuable Financial Supporters who financially support your products or services including investors, funders, donors, in-kind suppliers, and volunteers.
Who pays for your work directly? Your Most Valuable Paying Customers who directly pay for your products or services.
Who directly uses your work? Your Best Fit End Users who benefit most from your products or services.
Who influences all the above? Your Most Valuable Influencers who positively affect purchase, funding, and use of your products or services, including partners and your team.

How to maximize revenue and social impact potential.

In figuring out how to maximize both revenue and social impact potential, social entrepreneurs and leaders of nonprofits and social enterprises need to intimately understand the needs and wants of these four customer segments that they are uniquely positioned to meet.

Once you’ve figured this out, challenge yourself to use it as a tool, not a roadblock. This tool can do one or both of these two things: it can (re)chisel away at your product or service, or it can shape your marketing and messaging.

Here’s an illustration of what I mean by that. I’ve worked with umpteen ed-tech companies at this point, and – no offense to IT managers and CTOs of school districts out there – but the tech peeps in a school or district are generally noted as a huge barrier to sales of these ed-tech products.

The reasons are generally pretty much the same; the tech managers don’t want to manage more tech. Makes sense.

And here’s what I always say to these clients:

“Amazing! You just identified your Most Valuable Influencers! Your product is obviously not going to have long term revenue potential or impact if you’re constantly pissing CTOS and IT managers off. So let’s figure out if it’s really going to piss them off and if so let’s think about redesign so it can make their lives easier. Or maybe your product actually does make their lives easier but your messaging is all about student achievement or whole child, and those things are the principal and superintendents’ priorities, not theirs. So let’s create a second set of messaging that focuses on them.”

Now, instead of CTOs and IT managers being a huge door shutter to many prospective sales, they’re banging on their superintendent or principal’ doors saying “you’ve GOT to buy this thing.”

Conclusion

That’s it. That’s a value proposition. There are thousands of templates and methodologies and frameworks out there that help with value propositions, but they all essentially get to the same thing: understand Customer Segment X, make their life easier, and figure out how to articulate that for them in your messaging. And I challenge you if you’re in the position to do so, to start rejiggering your value propositions for the four customer segments above today!

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Transform Your Life as a Highly-Sensitive Entrepreneur with Heather Dominick

Interview with entrepreneur and mentor, Heather Dominick

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

This is such a great conversation. Heather is full of energy and great insights. She been an entrepreneur for over 16 years and helps thousands of others transform their lives. Find out what it means to be a highly-sensitive entrepreneur and how to overcome common challenges so you can grow your business too.

Heather Dominick is a woman who is impressively successful, and highly sensitive. A former high school drama teacher who collaborated with none other than Bette Midler. A graduate of NYU where she received her first coach training. Heather is the winner of the 2015 Best of Manhattan Coaching Award and creator of the 2014 Stevie Award-winning virtual event A Course In Business Miracles®: 21-Day Discovery Series that attracted close to 6,000 official registrants from all around the world including: Iceland, Nigeria, Russia, Asia, South America, Australia, Europe and the U.S.

She has appeared on Lifetime Television and has been published in numerous books including Stepping Stones to Success alongside Deepak Chopra.

Heather is an amazing teacher known for creating a safe, sacred community for true transformation. She has helped thousands of highly-sensitive entrepreneurs release life-long limiting beliefs, overcome fears and learn how to build their business in a way that actually feels so good that they can’t help but create solid, sustainable, high-level financial success.

Are you a highly sensitive entrepreneur? You can take her quiz here to find out >> https://www.businessmiracles.com

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