Boosting Your Online Business Through Layered Marketing with Michelle Hougland

Many parents can relate to Michelle Houghland's story. A dentist and a new mother, she longed to redesign her life so that she could stay home with her baby. The path wasn't easy but Houghland never gave up. Sixteen years later she is a successful online entrepreneur and author of the book eBay Consignment "The Easy Way" as well as being the online course creator of  "Starting your own Successful eBay Business." Salim Omar chats to Houghland to learn more about her journey.

An ecommerce Money Map Podcast interview with Michelle Houghland, brought to you by Salim Omar, CPA.

What Was it Like Starting Your Own Online Business with no Experience?

Filled with passion and no experience, Houghland quickly learned how to succeed and thrive as an online entrepreneur. 

"It was nerve-wracking and exciting all at the same time. Ignorance is bliss. I didn't know what I didn't know. I was determined to be able to stay home with my little one. I had planned to go back to my dental career and I just was smitten by those beautiful blue eyes. I had to make a way."

According to Houghland, eBay was the vehicle that got her business off the ground. Despite facing many challenges, Houghland stuck to her guns. She began teaching herself through self education books. Back then there weren't many mentors in the industry—Amazon was still a bookstore and eBay was brand new.

What led you to eBay?

"During my maternity leave, I was desperately trying to find something to replace my income. I had been in my dental career for over 15 years at that point. So I needed to find something good, but I wanted something where I could stay home with my little girl and she could be with me while I'm taking care of the business. So I searched everywhere high and low for something, and I didn't find it. My maternity leave ended and I was going back to work. I had the TV on one morning, and a commercial came on about learning eBay. I bought the course and devoured it. This is what started me on my journey.

How can Businesses use YouTube to Build their Online Business? 

Google is the largest search engine in the world and YouTube is second to that—it's owned by Google. YouTube is a free platform for creators and business owners to tap into an immense amount of online traffic— if we do it right. According to Houghland there is an untapped resource that businesses are not using. "I've sold thousands of dollars of vehicles, commission-wise, through my YouTube channel and it's free."

YouTube automatically magnetizes people to your content, creates a funnel for them to your business—all for free.

How Much Resources Should a Business Dedicate to YouTube?

According to Houghland, this depends on your marketing goals.

• Post one video once a week. Even if it's a five-minute video, it is going to help raise your video as well in the search results.
• Production and editing– this depends on how much time the business owner has and how tech-savvy they are. 

Businesses can now hire video editors, and simply use their iPhones to save time.

• The sweet spot for a video is between 7 to 15 minutes. Studies advise capturing your viewers attention in the first 7 seconds. 
• Optimizing the keywords associated with the video. "Do things that can help to break through the noise, by choosing keywords and optimizing your video for the search engine results. "

Houghland suggests doing this by using YouTube's search bar. Start typing in the word "eBay" in the YouTube search bar and it will pull up all the suggested results that people are already looking for.  You can also use tools such as TubeBuddy and vidIQ that can go even deeper. 

How Does one Identify Broken Systems in their Online Business to Correct Them?

"As I matured and grew my business, I learned that growing too quickly is not advantageous." Streamline what you are already doing. You can do this by:

• Creating organizational and inventory systems for your type of business.
• Optimizing the space that you have. 
• Change the way you are doing things before building your business.

Why is eBay The Preferred Reselling Platform?

For Houghland, EBay is ideal because a lot of the inventory that she sells is used. 

"I continually find these fun flips online. eBay's a great platform for this because the buyers on eBay are looking for a specific type of item."

Marketing as a Layered Approach

" Like an onion, you want to first provide the most basic marketing strategies." These include:

• Customer service— taking care of your customers.
• Taking care of any issues that are slowing down marketing. 
• Creating fun marketing events

Layer upon layer, it will grow very quickly if you do your marketing correctly. 

Don't spread yourself too thin. Choose one or two platforms and stick to what works for you. 

Houghland highlights that serving your customer in the way it helps your business, has the most impact.

How and When does an Entrepreneur Scale their Business?

"Growing your business is fun." Houghland recommends that the best results are achieved when we make sure our foundations are solid. She recommends that businesses have a solid handle on their accounting, that they know all the stats and numbers. 

" Let the numbers tell you. Numbers never lie. Make sure you're doing everything on the backend to make sure your business is healthy before you build upon it."

Knowing your numbers adds  a lot of peace to your business, and gives you all the information you need on how to go forward.

What Type of Entrepreneur is eBay most Suitable for?

Anyone with a passion and some skill can be successful on eBay

"It's usually people that have too much month at the end of their money. They're trying to make some extra money to pay their bills."

Houghland also gets requests from people who are yearning to escape their full time jobs, so that they can spend more time with family. It depends on your life goals and your current situation. 

You can reach Michelle Houghland on Paladin Global Market. You can find her on her YouTube Channel or Instagram. 

Catch more interviews with successful entrepreneurs on the ecommerce Money Map Podcast. eSenshi.com is an accounting firm specializing in assisting eCommerce businesses. We provide a variety of services including virtual CFO services, accounting services, sales tax services and income tax planning and preparation for eCommerce businesses.