Good Morning!

I wonder if anyone actually reads my blog. Probably not. It is good therapy for me though. Every since I won that poetry contest in a high school poetry class (which was full of gals) I loved writing. For some reason the hottest girl in the class decided she liked me, and boy that was a good poem!

Our Football team was 0-13 that year, and I wrote this poem talking about how the record did not matter. What mattered was the effort, comradery, entertaining our classmates. Maybe I should write a poem about this blog!

I dreamed about having this website for years. I have created over 200 T-shirts, Shower Curtains, and all kinds of other stuff. we have the best Partners. We have a page with the best knives I have ever seen.

Guess how many sales I have had since beginning the website, which has been 6 months. 0 sales. That is right. the big zero. It costs a pretty penny just to keep everything running. I guess I am like $1,500 in the mud.

And now I have this “invention” called the “Lapback.” I love it, and honestly think there is a potential. But to get it to market it will cost me around $16,000. What happens if the Lapback is a big loser like everything else I touch?

It all feeds right into my wife’s narrative. She is the best at killing with her tongue. And so I get cold feet. But then I just figured something else out! Put the Bluetooth speaker inside the box! It sounds awesome! and so now I am hot on the Lapback again! lol It really does sound nice.

Then there is the part of me that says just be patient. I saw this interview and a successful Lady that has ecommerce stores online. She gave two tips that really stood out. Number one was that it took her a couple years before her stores began to take off. She said, especially with social media, people do not go their social media to shop. But, if they happen to see something they like statically they will come back to buy the item at some point. It may be a month, three months, or even a year or more. Patience.

I have been almost to this point before, and either given up, or did something stupid that caused me to get in trouble with Facebook and Google. This is the first time I have my Facebook pages and group working properly. My Google my Business profile is verified and they are just begging me to advertise now we and I have never gotten a website to this point. As far as the website goes, I have to be more timely and interesting with the Blog. The blog is key. If I keep filling the store with quality Partners, cool T-Shirts and other merchandise, At some point one would think people would catch on.

And I keep forgetting the Marketplace. That is my bread and butter. I know I can do that well with results. I keep forgetting I am breaking from that getting all of this going. Right? Or am I just lazy? lol

I know this sounds crazy, but these Night Crawlers I am raising could fit into the equation at some point. I have been talking to fisherman in the neighborhood, They will buy them. I have to figure out at what point do I start knocking on bait shop doors, with a glob of 7 inch pissed off Night Crawlers slithering around in a cup. Someone with buy them i know. And that is when I could possibly ask to put up some displays showcasing AK Knives. They really are the best knives I have ever seen. And there is a cool story behind the knives. Coming from a generational knife making family in Pakistan. Give me a break. The fricken city they come from is a “cutlery” City for goodness sakes! And I have their finest in my website! Nobody even takes the time to read their story, I am sure. I have actual videos in my website of them making the knives. They make so much cool shit. And they do it the old fashioned way. Their knife handles are made from different animals bones. And from the wood of exotic trees.

Can you see how writing can help me put things into focus. Remind me of the why I am doing something.

Google is very difficult for me to work with, especially when it comes to advertising. Facebook is not much better. If everything is not set up exactly right, the advertisements will have no where near the effect they should.

Before I can advertise on Google let me explain what I must do. Don’t get me wrong. Google is trying to get me to advertise daily. But this time I refuse, Let me explain.

Google has its own way of doing things, as does Facebook and everyone else. Until I get ALL of my merchandise properly “checked in” to their standards a large portion of my merchandise will be considered obsolete. In other words just one shirt can have hundreds if not thousands of different variants. Size, Color, sexual orientation.

So, A couple nights a week I spend one or two hour, per item making sure that everything is up to Google Standards to the best of my ability. I hope this is making sense.

Both Facebook and Google have ways that you can monitor and track the sales of any one item. It is absolutely crucial that these sales tracking systems are set up properly, They are SUPPOSED to and SHOULD be tracking merchandise that is up to Google Standards. Rather Googles AI decided the optimal time to advertise my flagged merch was 2-5 AM when everyone was sleeping, Perhaps AI punished me for listening to the Google Ads salesman, thus putting out an expensive ad even though I had thousands of potential products not integrated into the Google System.

And please remember this, rather an item is listed into the Google or Facebook system properly has nothing to do with the quality of an item, how fast that item will be actually created and shipped once somebody orders that item, and then there is me, I have actually ordered many, many items from Printify. I have developed a good relationship with them. At times a tough relationship but in a healthy way. Our Partners are in the top of their class at what they do. I have ordered from most of our Partners and I can say although I am still learning them they have my full confidence.

It hurts not being right with Google and Facebook as far as advertising goes. When someone Googles anything having to do with Veteran, Veteran Support USA is buried deep where nobody looks. Even though many of those above us do nothing here locally.

Every night I chip away at the flagged items that are not even created yet! lol