Businesses fail. Businesses learn. Businesses try again. Businesses prosper.
No business knows about its true north right from the start. It is all about trial and error, overcoming lots of obstacles, and taking new initiatives that help them get closer to success.
Some businesses are smart and learn from the examples of others about how to steer around corners and get ahead. But some businesses aren’t smart enough. They require consultants to help them find their true north.
Jakub Jablonsky, founder at Jablonsky Group, is one such person who literally picks up businesses off the ground and takes them to the sky. He has built many small businesses into large enterprises. Let’s learn about his endeavors; how he turns small businesses into multi-million ones and leads them to the horizon of ultimate success; and how he became an ecommerce influencer and a business consultant at such a young age.
Over to Jakub.
Q. Cloudways: Let’s start with a traditional question: How was your digital marketing learning curve? What made you start your own business?
Jakub: When I was 15, I started to look for ways about how to make money. I was always the type of person who wanted to be self-employed and have an impact on other people’s lives. I never wanted to work for someone else.
I was looking for a mentor who already did what I wanted, and I found one guy in Slovakia (country where I live). I decided to join his mastermind program and learn from him. It was free to join at that time because it was his first mastermind course. That’s what basically got me started.
“I started to look for ways about how to make money. I was always the type of person that wanted to be self-employed and never wanted to work for someone else.”
Q. Cloudways: Being an entrepreneur is a serious challenge. How do you tackle this and what are your three tips for aspiring entrepreneurs?
Jakub: It’s all about routines, habits, and systems. If you don’t plan your day, the night before then you wake up in a mess, not knowing what to do. So, I planned, made a routine and systemized everything. This helped me a lot.
My 3 Best Tips for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
1. Focus: Do a single thing at a time. Lock yourself in a room, turn all the notifications off, and put headphones. Now work on a single task. Don’t multitask.
2. Tolerance: You will earn what you tolerate. If you think $10k/month is the baseline of what is acceptable, you’ll get that as an average. You can not expect to make $100k/month if you’re cool with doing $10k/mo. It won’t happen. You’re touching the lowest standard of what you can achieve, and not your wildest dreams. Set your standards high and you will live an extraordinary life.
3. Be relentless: Take action towards your vision more than anything else. You must believe in your vision and never waver, even in the face of extreme failure, uncertainty, disbelief from the world and disbelief from your entire team. You are the leader. You MUST believe.
“Take action towards your vision more than anything else. You must believe in your vision and never waver.”
Q. Cloudways: What was the idea behind forming Jablonsky Group? What problem(s) does it solve?
Jakub: Our company’s mission is to transform lives of entrepreneurs everywhere, around the world, in any industry. From practicing a healthy work-life balance to outstanding business results, we’re all about supporting entrepreneurs’ life and business goals.
Q. Cloudways: What issues you faced (and are facing) during brand building? What are your go-to solutions?
Jakub: Getting people to know you and trust you. I think the best method nowadays, which works for our clients and us, is connecting with influencers in different industries and creating win-win partnerships with them.
Q. Cloudways: How do you see small, niche-based ecommerce businesses competing with giants like Amazon and AliExpress?
Jakub: Branding. People like brands. If you can create a brand that elevates a person’s status, you don’t have to care about the competition, you can price your products higher, and people will still buy from you. By elevating status quo, I mean something that makes them feel satisfied and above average, when they purchase from you. Exactly what Apple does with its products.
Q. Cloudways: What are your core focus areas in ecommerce? (Performance marketing, CRO, Search Ranking, or any other?)
Jakub: “Customer satisfaction.”
In the end, that’s the most important part of any business. If you can make your customers happy, they will get back to you over and over and do the “marketing” for you.
Obviously, we also focus on deeper metrics like Cost per acquisition and lifetime value of a customer and much more.
Q. Cloudways: How do you help businesses grow and turn profitable in a short time?
Jakub: I see many businesses focus on too many products and do a million things to promote themselves. When I get a new client, the first thing I do is to cut off 90 percent of the stuff they are doing and focus on just 1 or 2 core products or services.
Then, we create an irresistible offer for the particular product, so for the potential customer it’s hard to say “No”. Also, we add some upsells to increase order cart value and to remain profitable.
In the end, we make sure that if the customer buys from us, they have a great experience with the product and buy again, or refer us to their friends.
Q. Cloudways: All entrepreneurs fail. What were the dark times you faced during your journey to success? How did you beat those failures?
Jakub: I don’t take anything – that I have done and wasn’t successful – as a failure. I learned from everything I did and moved forward. Everything in life, whether success or failure, will teach you something.
“I don’t take anything that I have done and wasn’t successful as a failure. I learned from everything I did and moved forward.”
Q. Cloudways: Do you read often? What books do you recommend business owners should follow?
Jakub: I’m trying to read every day but it’s not always possible. But I definitely recommend these books:
- Ray Dalio – Principles
- Tim S. Grover – Relentless
- Gary Keller, Jay Papasan – One Thing
Q. Cloudways: Name five people who inspired you to be who you are today?
Jakub: Tony Robbins, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jay Abraham, Jeff Bezos, Sam Ovens
Q. Cloudways: What is your advice to young entrepreneurs who have just $500 in hand? How can they launch a successful business like you?
Jakub: Ask yourself “What do you want?”, “Why do you want it?”, “What happens if you don’t get what you want?” and write it on paper and paste it somewhere you can see every day.
Then, write down “power activities” that will take you closer to this goal and do them. Every single day. Money will come. Time not.
Cloudways: Now let’s have a quick rapid-fire round: (Just answer one.)
| CLOUDWAYS | JAKUB |
| Travelling or Party? | Traveling |
| Dropshipping or FBA? | FBA |
| Entrepreneur or Employment? | Entrepreneur |
| Movies or Games? | Movies |
| Shopify or WooCommerce? | Shopify |
Interested in learning more about Jakub Jablonsky? Get in touch with him on LinkedIn.
Sajjad Shahid
Sajjad is an Ecommerce Community Manager at Cloudways. He loves helping out Ecommerce store owners, merchants and marketers in establishing their businesses and startups. Sajjad enjoys playing table tennis and cricket over the weekend.
