[00:00:00] Kai: you obviously still have to employ like best practices when it comes to promotional stuff and what have you, but. All that all assuming that that you know, brands really know how to rock and roll on that. It's not their first rodeo when it comes to Black Friday, Cyber Monday.

This is a space where you can clean up 

[00:00:16] Tommie: That's why I was asking about the marketing side, right? Because I would imagine I got, I got an email list. I'm gonna get 100 percent of my money by giving them 50 percent off. I'm trying to send all my traffic to that. Hey guys, so, uh, have you guys seen the, the Forbes article that I put out? What was it a couple of days 

ago? I did and I got questions because I'm trying to make sure I'm seeing what you think I'm 

[00:01:39] Tieron: seeing. I'm seeing 50, I'm seeing a whopping 50 percent in one of these lines you 

[00:01:43] Tommie: wrote. No, no, 

[00:01:44] Kai: no, no. Yeah, you guys.

So. Yeah, this is, this is wild. a little bit confused as to why people aren't freaking out about this more. But maybe it's because people aren't that focused on Black Friday yet, which blows my mind. It's, it's late September as of the time of this recording, it's like we're, we're in the midst of not just like Black Friday planning season, we're in the midst of you should have already been planning for Black Friday.

And like you should be at least in the swing of finalizing your media planning for Black Friday, Cyber Monday for the holiday 

[00:02:21] Tommie: season. But hang on, because I think maybe people aren't freaking out because they don't understand the magnitude. Of why they should be freaking out because I'm damn near freaking out and I don't know if it's warranted because I'm trying to make sure I'm clear that they're saying product and I'm selling it on shop on TikTok and I do however many sales and I give a 50 up to 50 percent off of what I'm willing to offer.

They're gonna cover the difference of it. So if I'm selling, let's say I sell, you know, 100, 000 worth of products at 50 percent off the customers are gonna, I'm gonna get the 50, 000 from the customers and that 50 percent off that I gave them. TikTok is going to give me the other 50. That is correct.

That's 

[00:03:10] Kai: crazy. That's what's happening. That, that don't even seem real. Listen, I, I had to do a double take when my, Forbes editor, hit me up and was like, Hey, I write about this. I did a double take and I had to like, I did, I did the research. I was like, wait, this can't be, this can't be it. Like Bloomberg must be mistaken.

Somebody got something wrong. Let me take a look at, and there were only like a couple other resources or a couple other people talking about this, but lo and behold, burl, like, I mean, you know, Bloomberg Bloomberg's Bloomberg, they do their, their research and they do their due diligence and yeah, the, a representative has confirmed that TikTok has announced off the back of.

The essentially the launch of TikTok shops to U. S. sellers that during the holiday season, during Black Friday, Cyber Monday specifically, that it will subsidize discounts for sellers that are using TikTok shop, which is a big. Ass deal because that's obviously going to allow, it's obviously going to allow e commerce brands the the wherewithal and the leeway to be able to offer you know, heavily discounted deals that can really move the needle for them when it comes to revenue, especially obviously they've already got an established following and they, they already know theTikTok game.

Those are the brands that are going to win the most. There are some. Parameters, TikTok, I think is very I wouldn't say stringent, but there are a little bit more of a sticklers when it comes to just wanting to make sure that the companies that do sell on their platform or like, you know, are legit.

So, there are some requirements, like for example if you're going to be on TikTok shop, and this is just. Like Tiktok shop, generally, if you're going to be on Tiktok shop, you have to be able and willing to fulfill within three days of purchase. So that's going to knock a lot of people out of 

[00:05:07] Tommie: running.

There you go. 

[00:05:09] Kai: There you go. It'll knock a lot of people out of running, but I think it's good all in all that they have something like that in place because I think Tiktok fully understands that it's you know. A lot of volume can be achieved in terms of sales on TikTok, and they want people to have the best buying experience possible so that they don't get some of the negative some of the negative reputations, what have you, some of the other social media platforms have had when it comes to ads and when it comes to their shops and all that kind of stuff too.

So they're trying to avoid that. By making sure that, you know, if you are going to be on TikTok shop, that you can handle volume and that you do have like actual systems in place when it comes to fulfillment. So that everybody can have a really positive experience. 

[00:05:53] Tommie: Yeah. But how are they going to, like, how are they going to measure that? Cause the other, the other thing in my mind is like. is it like, can I sell, like, is it no matter how much I sell? Like I have no idea. I was to sell 10 million worth, you know, 

[00:06:10] Kai: that's, I do not know. I have no idea. I don't have and I haven't seen information to that end either.

I imagine that TikTok will you know, as we get closer and closer, they will announce some details, some additional details on this. But as of right now, They do have some like from a tech perspective, they do have systems in place to make sure that people are getting their orders in time.

It's off oftentimes there's, there's some, well, there's like reporting mechanisms in play as well. So like if a customer buys something from a Tik TOK shop or a particular brand they, and they don't receive, their, their order or a notification that has been shipped within a certain time frame, they can kind of quote unquote report that.

And so TikTok will keep track of that and it'll ding that, you know, all of these TikTok shops have a seller score. So that seller score will then get dinged. And I believe after a certain period of time, I think it's after five business days, if a customer hasn't received their their product.

The, you know, they're able to just ask for a refund. So, and, and TikTok we'll honor that. So there's, there's that kind of stuff at play too. So they have some things in place to to kind of track and provide accountability and and enforce and that sort of stuff. So 

[00:07:29] Tommie: the other thing I was wondering about this too, is like, are they going to be pushing, like, how is.

TikTok going to be pushing this. Like, how do people drive, tread? Like, are you going to have to drive your own traffic or is it, do, do they have to push it in order to get the, the subsidy or is it, you know, I have the shop, I can do things to drive my own traffic. And TikTok is okay with that, or is it TikTok is going to have like a marketplace type Prime Day Amazon?

Because again, I know the headline like, yeah, so they're going after Amazon. So I'm wondering if it's Amazon Prime ish. So 

[00:08:10] Kai: it's probably more Amazon Prime ish. They've got a Black Friday program. And so participants of this Black Friday program will be able to subsidize significantly. Those are the folks that will be able to get the subsidy.

However, I think that there are some other avenues where... You don't necessarily have to participate in that program, specifically if you just are ticked on TikTok shop between, you know, these days and these days and you have an offer, you'll be able to take advantage probably to a lesser degree, though, because mind you, they said up to 50%.

So, you know, in terms of like, in terms of. What it shakes out for each unique individual brand you know, that's, that's going to be up to TikTok and they're going to have a process in place to kind of determine that. But I think it's really it's not something I've seen on the other social media platforms.

That's for sure. This is all about TikTok, wanting to gain more of the market share market share 

[00:09:07] Tieron: in the U S 

[00:09:08] Tommie: hell of a play for that is this huge play for sure. 

[00:09:12] Kai: It's genius. No, I think, I think it's really smart and I think that I think that they probably will get a decent amount of share.

I really, really do. I think it was very well timed. They knew what they were doing when it came down to announcing making this announcement as well as on launching TikTok shop to US sellers I think it's a significant part of their goal. And I write about this in the Forbes article that I put together.

This is a spec, a very specific play towards their goal of hitting 20 billion globally this year. And I think they're, they're eyeing the US market and they're looking for billion opportunities. 20 billion. What are they in Revenue. 

[00:09:51] Tommie: Oh, so, so TikTok, just so I'm clear, TikTok wants to do $20 

[00:09:58] Kai: billion in product sales globally from, from like revenue, from product sales.

[00:10:03] Tommie: I'm just making sure I understand it. So not their revenue, but like they want to generate 20 billion in revenue through TikTok shop this year, 

[00:10:13] Kai: correct? But that's global. That's not just us. 

[00:10:16] Tommie: No, I understand. I understand. But it's just like, they're gonna, cause to me when I hear that, that's, I think GMV, right?

If I'm thinking like Silicon Valley marketplace, they talk about, you know, GMV gross. Merchandise volume, right? Or value either volume or value. I think it's volume. So essentially they're saying we want to do 20 billion in GMV through TikTok shop, meaning globally, all of the people who sell merchandise through TikTok shop, their target is to that total number globally to be 20.

In 20 in, you know, before this year is over. Yeah. 

[00:10:53] Kai: I mean, that's on the platform. On the platform, 

[00:10:56] Tommie: right. As a whole. Correct. Correct. Yeah. I'm just making sure I'm understanding that. Cause when you say a 20 billion, it sounded like no revenue. I was just trying to get clarity on 

[00:11:05] Kai: product 

[00:11:05] Tommie: sales, product sales.

Yeah. All 

[00:11:08] Tieron: right. 

[00:11:10] Kai: So, so yeah, I mean, I think listen, I think they'll, I think they'll, they'll definitely hit it. And honestly, like with. With how incredibly well they've designed the platform itself. Like forget about just TikTok shop for a minute, like just TikTok, right? how incredibly intentionally they've designed this platform to really be a space for nurturing, like nurturing relationships and creating those like very meaningful touch points.

It's, it makes it kind of a no brainer that they would introduce. Honestly, I'm, I am confused as to why they didn't do this sooner. But I think that they're going to Probably blow a couple of platforms out of the water. This year, that's my prediction for black Friday, cyber Monday, when it comes to the volume of merchandise that gets sold.

And this is definitely going to be something that helps that along. 

[00:12:08] Tommie: Yeah, I would imagine, you know, if we're talking, you know, we're galvanizing, you know, sellers. Why wouldn't you go crazy? Why wouldn't you go like super hard as a seller on the back? You know, when you, when you tie it into the back of 

[00:12:24] Kai: this.

Exactly. Like it's going to conversion rates are going to be, I mean, you obviously still have to employ like best practices when it comes to promotional stuff and what have you, but. All that all assuming that that you know, brands really know how to rock and roll on that. It's not their first rodeo when it comes to Black Friday, Cyber Monday.

This is a space where you can clean up 

[00:12:45] Tommie: That's why I was asking about the marketing side, right? Because I would imagine I got, I got an email list. I'm gonna get 100 percent of my money by giving them 50 percent off. I'm trying to send all my traffic to that.

[00:12:56] Kai: Right. Now, mind you, I always recommend, and I, I recommended this in the article that I wrote as well. I do recommend that people test right? So like, it's really about being prepared to adjust or reallocate spend wherever the data tells you that it makes sense. But that being said, I don't see a world in which, A savvy brand founder isn't going to be directing as many different sources of traffic to TikTok shop is now, of course, mind you, there are some some restrictions or some things to consider, right?

And again, it goes back to, can you actually fulfill. within a three business day period. Right. And if you cannot do that, then obviously, you know, you can feel free to like test, you know, smaller, smaller volumes of traffic nonetheless. Right. But, you know, expecting to be able to for example, you know, direct.

You know, I can see people even possibly directing email traffic to a TikTok shop. And especially because like the, the commission fees and all that stuff, or I think, I think they're actually nil right now with, with TikTok shop, just as an 

[00:14:11] Tommie: introductory. Up to be clear up to, but still, whatever that subsidy is, I'm gonna get a hundred percent of my money.

If I have that discount, that's going to drive conversion. Why wouldn't I send my email traffic there or social media traffic there, wherever I can galvanize eyeballs in my audience, I'm trying to send them over there because it's. I mean, 

[00:14:35] Kai: I mean, it's a no brainer. It's a no brainer. 

[00:14:38] Tommie: And if the experience is proper on the customer side of the house.

You're getting a great experience from the customer. They're getting a good deal and a good experience. You get all your money. It's just too many wins here. This is fucking crazy. 

[00:14:53] Kai: Absolutely. So from, from my perspective, as long as you're a brand that has a really strong operational game, right? You've got a strong fulfillment and you can handle volume.

That's like, you know, you, you have an understanding of the volumes of traffic that you'll be able to be driving and that you have the, the operational support to, to move that along in a three day window. It's definitely something that people should be thinking about and people should be talking more about it because this, this is crazy to me.

Like, 

[00:15:26] Tommie: I mean, even somebody who, even if you put parameters on it on your own end, right? I might say. I know that I could do, I don't know, a thousand units and deliver them in a three day span based on my current 

[00:15:39] Kai: scenario. And then back into those 

[00:15:43] Tommie: numbers. You should be getting your shit together right now to goddamn go get that.

Exactly. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. So it's really about evaluating your own infrastructure to see what you're capable of doing and then doing at least, at least doing that.

[00:16:03] Kai: You know what I'm saying? And being honest about your scenario, then doing nothing. Yeah. No, absolutely. But you'd have to, you just need to back into those numbers, which I don't know that people think to do often enough. Like you've got to, if, if you're, you know, based off of historical data, based off of, especially, I mean, it's a little bit, if you're with like the TikTok shop, right?

Cause we don't know what the conversion rates are. It's recently launched. Like there's some, there's still some question marks there, but you should still be able to back into just kind of making an. A standard assumption of what your conversion rate could look like based off of past performance for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, you should be able to back into, okay, this is the volume of traffic that I'm going to need to hit this number of orders.

And and, you know, create like a, you know, plus or minus. Let's say 10%, right? And then go from there. At least you'll have got something to, to rock and roll with. But no, I totally agree with you. I think that, that people need to at least seriously consider what can be what can be feasible what's feasible in terms of your fulfillment program and move from there.

Too easy. It's too easy. I mean, this is like Facebook would never. Facebook could never, right? Like, this would never be a thing. 

[00:17:15] Tommie: I don't think they will, but why couldn't 

[00:17:18] Kai: they? They couldn't. I think that, here's why I don't think Facebook could. I don't think that Facebook has the, like from an infrastructure perspective, I don't think Facebook is dynamic enough to be able to.

For me, it's like, it's the, it's the infrastructure tech side. It's not like they couldn't conceive of the offer, right. But I just don't think that they would be able to implement it very well. I think they're a gigantic whale that doesn't move very well at all. And I, I just don't see that I would be shocked.

I'd be floored if Facebook responded to this with some kind of a. You know, black Friday type program of their own. I know that their whole thing is like algorithmically. They're looking to they're constantly looking to move more of the spend towards Facebook shop and shop that kind of thing. And they do that through, you know, just algorithmic incentives that they don't even communicate to people.

It's just like media buyers find out after like, you know, we test and experiment. So no, but it's not even something that's really, publicly put out there like that. I just don't think that they have, like, the infrastructure to be able to pull something like that off. Mm. That's wild. Yeah, it's sad.

It's ridiculous. It's sad, yeah. But, you 

[00:18:33] Tommie: know, just Because, I mean, I know YouTube is, They claim that they're trying, you know, shoppable YouTube is a big opportunity for them. I think they even referred to that. You know, don't hold me to this, but if I recall correctly, They refer to this and one of the earnings calls in terms of like future, like when they're painting the picture of the future of YouTube, because you know what they doing in the earnings calls and shit, they trying to get the stock price to stay up, but they're, they're speaking to shoppable, with this kind of, shoppable platform sitting on top of it being kind of this big growth mechanism for them.

You know what I'm saying? Which then would mean if y'all really as serious as y'all claim to be about it, they should respond to this. They should. I mean, we'll see. But if they don't, then I guess that tells us a lot. It might tell us a lot. Because TikTok ruffling y'all feathers. We'll see. I mean, hell, it look like TikTok really going after Amazon no more than they going after going after these other platforms.

It's almost like an Amazon thing. Well, at least this Bloomberg thing that, that I clicked through on, you know, it's talking about Amazon in the, in the yeah, 

[00:19:43] Kai: I mean, I think that's just their perspective. Like, I think that's just the, you know, Bloomberg's perspective on it. And I agree.

I agree that that Tik TOK is definitely looking to. You know, come for Amazon's neck in a way, but it's not just, it's not just Amazon. And for me as a, media buyer, marketer, somebody scaling, you know, e com brands, I see much more well, not maybe more, but I definitely see implications for the other social media platforms in a way that's, I think, more palpable.

That's just my, that's just my perspective and my take on that. I think it's, it's, yeah, there's, you know, this is going to yield price war, across like, you know, for a number of e commerce platforms. But I think more importantly like I mentioned in the article, There's really like a battle for the brands here.

And it's like a battle for, for ad spend. I think that, you know, if, if I'm an e commerce brand founder and I've got presence on Facebook and IG and Twitter. And I'm trying to, finalize what the ad spend allocations look like through, my media planning process.

I'm looking at this and I'm thinking, okay, well, we should definitely be like, at least have something kind of. in the coffers or like an escrow, quote unquote escrow for TikTok to see like, you know, in case that this really blows up on TikTok, we have a readily available war chest to scale up on TikTok because there's no, there's no way that.

You know, I've got an offer that's 70% off on TikTok shop. Yeah. And it's only 20% off on the, on the, you know, Amazon. On Amazon or on, yeah. Yeah. It just, obviously people are gonna flock. Right. Obviously it's gonna be a different conversion. 

[00:21:37] Tommie: They're gonna share on, imagine the shareability of that. Right.

It's like, it's like, bruh, I just bought, I just got it for 70 percent off on Tik Tok shop. What? I just bought it for 30 percent off on Amazon. You might need to go get your money back on Amazon and go do it on, you know what I'm saying? 

[00:21:55] Kai: Like, right. I mean, but even like, even from a marketing perspective, I'm a, if I'm a brand, I'm directing TikTok.

[00:22:03] Tommie: That's my point. That's even why I brought it up in the first place. I was saying like. Is it, is it going to be a situation where they're going to be you know, wanting people to be pushing traffic? Cause it sounds to me that that's where I would push my traffic, you 

[00:22:19] Kai: know? So I think that, I mean, I think it's got multiple implications.

Yeah. I think that they're, they're going to. You know, like Bloomberg mentions that they're gonna, they're sparking a price war for the holiday season, but I think that there's something way deeper and way more long lasting as well just in terms of, because when you think about it, right, we're not just talking about the conversions, we're also talking about data.

And how, you know, a brand that, that allocates a massive chunk of ad spend on TikTok versus some of these other platforms, they're going to have a lot more TikTok data to play with as well. And the, just even from like beyond Black Friday, Cyber Monday, right? I think this has some very real implications for the way that those brands may be monetizing off the platform.

So, I think it was a really brilliant move. I think it's unheard of and unprecedented and, you know, I'm, I'm excited, excited to see what happens. We've already notified our clients. So 

[00:23:24] Tommie: we talked about this live shopping. Experience that's happening over in Asia where the one guy like what he did like one point something billion dollars or whatever it was and like a like 12 hours or something crazy, right?

So that that phenomenon is already happening in Asia. And it's only a matter of time before it becomes a thing over here. And essentially what this play is looking like now is a really, because again, I'm, this is fresh for me, right? This is, by the way, guys, that you guys are listening, this is a real time conversation that we're having.

You know, obviously Kai has more of the, the details on this, but this is, my brain is freshly working right now. I'm tying that into this and saying, 

[00:24:09] Kai: Oh, That's what TikTok shop is based off of. Oh my God. Yeah, that's what TikTok shop is based off of. So they, TikTok shop also has live stream capabilities.

Oh my god. Yeah, that's, that's the, that's literally the, the crux of TikTok shop and, and how they've operated in other parts of the world, right? TikTok shop is not new. It's just new to the U. S. so 

[00:24:32] Tommie: doing a video right now and clip this out, they will put the fucking, you know, exploding head emoji over my face right now.

[00:24:42] Kai: Holy shit, bro. Yeah. Yeah. This is nuts. Yeah. So you guys, if you haven't, if you haven't taken a look at or taken a listen, rather to that episode, we'll pop it into the show notes. So you get a sense for what we're talking about. We did an episode on on live streaming and essentially I'm selling off of live stream and how incredibly lucrative it's been for a myriad of brands.

So we'll, we'll drop that in the show notes. 

[00:25:07] Tommie: That is amazing. So now it is really ties into that. Yep. It literally just hit me like in this moment when I just tied it together. This is like, Oh yeah, this is like way deeper. Like I'm, I already know what's going to happen now. Cause I'm like extremely fascinated.

I'm about to go down the rabbit hole after this call over the next week or two. Cause there's a deeper thing at play. Like you said, this ain't just. This ain't just some surface level. It's not. 

[00:25:36] Kai: And that's what I'm trying to tell everybody. Like, you know, I get, you know, Bloomberg is going to report it the way Bloomberg reports it.

Especially because of their audience, right? Their audience is focused on enterprise level, but the implications that this has for small business is serious. And so people really do need to be paying attention and getting prepared to capitalize and take as much advantage of this as humanly possible.

Yeah, I don't, I 

[00:25:59] Tommie: don't know if we talked about it in another episode or not, but I know James Harden has a wine. He's James Harden, the NBA player, right? He was over in China with his wine and they did a live thing and he sold out in 10 seconds. like this phenomenon that's happening with this live streaming selling stuff in Asia is, is going crazy right now.

And it hasn't really taken hold over here in the US. This is what it look like with TikTok talking for it and saying, you know what, we're going to bring it. Since y'all don't want to do nothing, well, we're going to, we're going to 

bring 

[00:26:34] Kai: it over there. Yeah. And honestly, I mean, they've already brought it to the U S to a large 

[00:26:40] Tommie: degree.

[00:26:42] Kai: Well no. So there's there are tons of brands on TikTok that. Are using their own live streaming via TikTok to sell products. It's just not going through TikTok shop or just hasn't gone through TikTok shop in the past. But they've been able to make a killing doing live streams. I mean, you see, you know, whether they're private label, even like MLNs, like there are some, you know, MLM brands that are doing very real numbers through TikTok social because of TikTok's live stream capabilities.

So we're already seeing this crop up and I think TikTok is just, has just found a way to well, not just recently found a way because they've already had, again, TikTok shop has existed in other places, but they're now bringing this to the U. S. Because they are seeing the numbers, they're seeing the writing on the wall, they realize like people are already figuring this out.

We just need to, you know, give them a space to to really you know, knock it out of the park. So. Simplify 

[00:27:39] Tommie: it, right? 

[00:27:41] Tieron: on TikTok, but I've been in the TikTok ad account over the weekend and what I also see is you can set up ads to run ads to your live. So not only are you going live and getting your organic reach, but then you can turn around and turn ads on to that same live video. So now you, now you know exactly the audience that you're talking to.

You're driving traffic to your live. And then now you're directing people to either click on the. The shot button down below, or click on, I guess if you're taking people to your actual website, you can get people to click 

[00:28:18] Tommie: there, but that's crazy. So slow down for a second. Let's back up. So what you're telling me is that before I go live and while I'm live, I can have ads bringing people into my life.

Yes. Oh my God. 

[00:28:35] Tieron: Yep. And, and it's just like, when you actually look at the back end of the TikTok as manager. It works somewhat like Google PPC too. So you can use hashtags to build your campaign off of. You don't even have to use interest. Right. Which means you can use keywords. 

[00:28:53] Kai: Yeah, the thing is, in like, you know, people sleep, people kind of sleep on TikTok ads still.

You know, there are plenty of brands that are doing really quite well and that have scaled, like really scaled off of TikTok ads alone, like some of them are on clients. But I think that a lot of companies have still kind of considered TikTok advertising to be like the secondary or tertiary.

But the reality is that the features that TikTok is providing for e commerce brands is oftentimes more robust than some of the other platforms in terms of what they're offering feature wise. The capabilities are a lot more now mind you the analytics. I think, you know, Facebook's got TikTok beat on that.

There are some other elements where there are some platforms that, that you know, kind of rock and roll above and beyond what TikTok is offering. But when it comes to like core features and the, the things that TikTok will allow you to do or enable you to achieve in terms of being able to monetize from your audience is next level compared to what else is out there.

And those are just a couple of examples. Yeah, 

[00:30:06] Tieron: it's like they've taken the best parts of each one of the ad platforms, Google and Facebook, and then they combine them together and that's what they give you on the back end. Now, you're right. start trying to build out your own analytic dashboard with.

Setting up custom triggers or custom metrics that you want in your dashboard. You can't do that yet. However, you can take the data that you're getting from TikTok via their API. And then you can push that into your own analytics dashboard. You can definitely do that. 

[00:30:39] Kai: Yeah, so it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool, man.

I'm, I'm super excited for Black 

[00:30:44] Tommie: Friday. I'm doing mental gymnastics right now. This is a 

[00:30:49] Tieron: huge, this is a huge, I didn't, I didn't mention this earlier when you guys were talking, but we have to remember that now this is straight. This is straight up speculation, guys. This is straight up speculation. This is straight up my own opinion.

And I haven't done any research to, to, I haven't done any research at all. So this is out of the side of my neck, but I, but this is what I feel, I feel like TikTok is coming out there. Facebook, they coming at the Google, and I feel like they coming at the Amazon. And I also feel like the money that's being, that's funding this, and there's another, there's another piece to the workforce that's being the engineer, the engineering workforce, and basically the engineering workforce that's writing all the code is doing all of the dev and everything else.

The cost for that is a lot lower because you're competing with somebody out of China. Also, because of China's economy, because of the, you know, they talk about like the collapse of Chinese economy due to the real estate market and how the real estate market was decimated over in China. There's still money that needs to go somewhere.

So right now, you know, websites like a, like a TikTok is looking like a cash cow. Yeah. So now they have a, a workflow That's cost them a little bit of nothing to employ, then you have all of this extra money that's in the marketplace that needs to be deployed someplace. So TikTok is probably looking like a huge cash cow to an entire country.

That's different from Google and Facebook. It's like the United States government putting money into a social media platform to generate some revenue. I think that's how Tik TOK is probably moving. If we did the research, I think that's how Tik TOK is probably moving in their country. And I feel like a lot of money is being pumped their way.

And also the, their payroll doesn't look like a Facebook or Google's payroll in terms of where they're employing their people from. 

[00:32:43] Tommie: Dobrin wealth funds. They got so much freaking money. You can't even wrap your brain around it and they trying to park it. And guess what? Silicon Valley isn't as much the darling as it used to be anymore.

Oh, wow. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Which is why you'll see, like the Saudi Arabia sovereign wealth fund doing a lot more private equity type deals where historically they've done a lot of VC type stuff. Now that money isn't necessarily going toward VC, a lot of these, you know, pension funds and, and, and I'm talking about like long, long, long, long money are starting to reallocate.

Where they're putting their money because to your point, like you said, they're looking for these opportunities that, may not be, you know, maybe real estate, you know, obviously they all got real estate, right? But these more riskier if you want to call it, cause that's how they look at it, right?

You know, their risk tolerance, you know, VC and private equity is a higher risk. Category for them or, or what do they call it? The risk profile is higher. 

[00:33:55] Tieron: Huh? You're saying the risk profile is higher? 

[00:33:57] Tommie: Yeah, it is. It's just a, a asset class. It's a riskier asset class, you know, because like real estate and precious metals and, you know, all of that, that, that stuff is lower risk, which is why they, you know, a lot of 'em have that in their portfolios, right?

Mm-hmm. , when they start doing like this riskier stuff, they're looking for, you know, lower their risk. So if I'm saying I'm doing VC and there's a higher risk associated with that versus doing PE or versus doing whatever the case may be, these are kind of decisions that they make it. But if they're going to live in the VC thing, cause they got to put this money somewhere.

And a lot of these people got money. They got to put it somewhere. They got so much money. They trying to find somewhere to park it. Right. They're going to go in, go deeper into that and say, Oh, I can still do VC, but instead of me going to Silicon Valley, I'm gonna go to bite dance over here in China and I'm gonna get them this bread because I see what they got going on to your point.

It's, it's, it's the amount of money. I can't even imagine the amount of money that can be pumped into. TikTok. Cause it's the hottest shit in tech right now. And my kids call me a TikTok hater, by the way, I refuse to get a TikTok account and my kids, I'm a TikTok hater, but yeah, I guess I need to get off the soap box because it's wow.

[00:35:22] Kai: TikTok, the way TikTok is innovating I think is, is major, is, is major. And, and they're doing all of the things that you would expect an innovative company to do. They're taking a look at the landscape. They're looking at the competitive environment. They're saying, okay, well, what, what is this ads platform doing?

What is this one doing? What's this one doing? And furthermore, what's, what have people's experiences been like from a consumer? Perspective as well as from a seller perspective, and I think that they're, they're working in ways that other platforms have not been they are working towards making sure that you have kind of both sides of the equation happy because to the extent that you have both parties happy then the platform itself is going to benefit from that significantly.

And I think that's been a major issue for some of these other paid social platforms is. Oftentimes the policies or features or what have you tend to skew in one direction or the other and sometimes they don't adequately satisfy the needs of both of those parties and it's more geared towards okay well what's best for the actual ads platform and not so much what's best for Either the consumer or for the seller.

So, I think that take talk is is definitely at least being more cognizant of finding or providing. Sellers with ways to be able to monetize creatively while, keeping in line with creating and maintaining adequate customer experiences as well. 

[00:36:58] Tieron: Just to just to add some context to what Tommy was saying about sovereign wealth fund.

Sovereign wealth fund manages 11. trillion. 11. 5 trillion in assets and BlackRock manages 10 trillion. Yeah. And that 

[00:37:14] Tommie: says, and that's just two examples, by the way.

[00:37:23] Tieron: Potentially you could be pushing trillions of dollars behind a, a TikTok. 

[00:37:29] Tommie: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Things of that nature. Right. Exactly. Yes. Yeah. Sovereign wealth fund is a different level, bro. Like people don't even understand, but that's, but that's kind of what's. You know, what's, what's out there when you talk about money, when you talk about, you know, pumping money behind something, the amount that's available to do it, you can't even wrap your brain around it, right?

You just can't. You know what I'm saying? 

[00:37:52] Tieron: So, and just to add, just to add more context for our listeners to. When you start talking about the workforce, right? So like the coding workforce and the, you know, a lot of coding engineers that you need for a long time, the United States have not been able to supply that workforce.

Absolutely. So that's with everybody that's educated to work in that particular sector. So we've already been using Tommy, you may know that you may know the actual the the passport stamp that you need or the. Or the, the work qualifications that you need to get the visa. It's like the visa is like in something or eight something.

Yeah. So there's a, there's a certain type of visa that, that people need to get in order to come from an India to the United States to work, and I believe it's called the N one visa. You need an N one visa to come from a China or to come from a India to work in the United States. So you've seen companies like Facebook and Microsoft go to the Indias and go to the Chinas and now you can go to West Africa.

They in those places. 

[00:38:54] Tommie: They are already, they are in those places. They're not just going there, bringing it back. They're going there and setting up shop. That's what I was just getting ready to say. 

They ain't in China.

They ain't over there. They ain't setting up shop in China. China ain't having it. 

[00:39:07] Tieron: But see, so there you have it. So China's already put up a Chinese wall, if you, if you will. They already established a Chinese wall to where they're not even allowing the U. S. to penetrate into their market.

But they have a, they have a lot of this workforce. Over a billion 

[00:39:22] Tommie: people in China, bro. It's over a billion people in China. So 

[00:39:26] Tieron: that's the, so there's a huge competitive advantage that TikTok has in terms of like some of the basic back end things that you need to grow a company like this. So not only can they take in all of this capital, but then they can turn around and use the workforce as they are available to them to actually implement and deploy that capital.

[00:39:45] Tommie: Yeah. Real. 

[00:39:47] Tieron: Yeah. That's real. So yeah. TikTok. Yeah. TikTok about to be a major, major player in the market. I mean they already are. 

[00:39:54] Kai: They've been a major 

[00:39:54] Tieron: player. I'm just, I'm just talking about like, what I'm really saying, is it's like, if you look at like nation superpowers, right, the United States has continued to be.

The number one superpower, right? And you see China and you see, yeah, right now you see China and you see Russia, you kind of see their heads in the coming up as well, right? And China is. It is an emerging superpower. And then Russia is trying to be, you know, emerging superpower as well.

But right now the United States is it. But when you think about this from a advertising and e commerce marketplace standpoint, the superpowers are like Amazon, Google, and Facebook. Right. But now it's starting to look like you may of the guard, a changing of the guard to where that number one, number two spot is about to be a TikTok.

Well, I mean, that's what they're aiming for, right? That's what they've been aiming for. And I think that they'll, I think they'll pull it off. Frankly, 

[00:40:49] Tommie: this, the kind of play that made me have a lot more confidence in their ability to pull it off because this one of the ones right here, this right here is insane.

this is like, what? 

[00:41:00] Tieron: and the timing is perfect because people are so worried about the economy, worried about whether people, I was looking at this, I was projecting that this was going to be one of the worst black Fridays. For e commerce companies because of the economy and because of this that and the third, but now looking at something like this, 

[00:41:17] Kai: well, that doesn't hold on.

So that doesn't mean that it's not going to be a bit more of a slump than it has been over the years past, right? Right. What TikTok is doing is really just incentivizing e commerce sellers to sell on TikTok shop. There's still no. There's still there still isn't as much incentive on the buyer side.

Yes, will people be price sensitive abso fucking lutely, and they'll be more price sensitive this year than they were last year. But I think that and so this will help with that. But in terms of it moving the needle like on a, on a macro scale, I don't know that, that it's going to do that. But I do think that TikTok is going to take take quite a bit of the share from just in terms of like volume.

From a volume perspective of product sales. I think that they are definitely coming for people's necks, like I mentioned in the Forbes, in the Forbes article. So I think that, you know, there's, there's definitely going to be a reallocation of spend. I think you're going to see some some market shifts in terms of where people are, are, where that conversion gets completed.

And it'll be interesting to, to watch that's for sure. Especially as a media buyer. I mean, we, we've already, like I mentioned, we've already hit up our clients on this. And. A number of our media plans had already been finalized and now we're, we're revisiting some of those media plans. Right. As, as everybody should be doing.

So, but yeah, I think I'm really looking forward to seeing how it all shakes out. Obviously I think we should do another episode kind of post black Friday. And kind of get into get into how, how things panned out for TikTok and I'll probably wind up doing a, a followup Forbes article on this too.

But. Yeah, I think that there's, there's definitely you know, to talks, definitely they're ideating strong strategy. And so that's always that's always a positive indicator of a company that was really sincerely primed towards expansion and growth. Yeah, 

[00:43:16] Tommie: I don't, I don't, I'm not easily excited and impressed.

So I would say, you know, take the energy looking to this at the very least, that's going to be kind of my parting words. It's just like, if y'all listen to this episode and you ain't really going to take the time to go look in this, you know, you, you probably tripping, right? It's just like, you have to, you have not saying everybody should do it.

Cause you might not qualify whatever, but right. And it might not be right for you. Exactly. It might not be right. It could be a lot of things, right? But at the very least now we didn't put it out there. Do yourself a favor and at least go look into it, figure out, you know, what makes sense for you. That would, that would be my part of the worry 

[00:43:55] Kai: zone.

No, absolutely. I think that I think that's spot on. I think that there are a number of things that brands should really be considering in terms of understanding whether or not this is. The right course for them for this Black Friday Cyber Monday season. I have in the Forbes article, there's a whole list of stuff that you guys should be looking at around how to best prepare you know, what, what you should be thinking about.

All that great stuff. I recommend you check that out. We will pop it in the show notes. And you know, people who hit up the, the next level ambitions website, we'll be able to grab grab the link to the article. But yeah, I, I absolutely recommend people look into it. Have conversations with the teams, have conversations with your operation staff, with your fulfillment staff, and see what exactly you're able to Reasonably manage.

If you were to roll out some campaigns on Tik Tok, with Tik Tok shop. 

[00:44:53] Tieron: I would tell you to make sure that you have your 2, 000 followers. So that way you're able to go live you know, whether you're using desktop or whether you're using your phone, I would also tell you to make sure that, you know, over those, what is it through the 28th through the 30th.

I would also make sure that you have your post structured in a way so that if I'm scrolling through like your first 10 posts, they're just adding value to the product that you're talking about or the product that you're trying to sell. So I will make sure that you structure your posts in a way so that way people are getting value from those first 10 posts.

If they're going to check some of the posts that you posted on TikTok and then come to your shop and buy, I would just make sure that you have that in place. So that'll help with your conversion rate on TikTok. 

[00:45:37] Kai: Absolutely. And one thing to add to that too, just so that people are aware, in order to be eligible to use TikTok shop, you have to have at least a thousand followers.

So bear that in mind as well. They just want to make sure that you're actually serious about, you know, being on the platform. They want to make sure that, you know, that there aren't a bunch of kind of fake accounts and whatnot, trying to sell products and all of that. So it's really just a safety measure and I think it's a smart one.

Just make sure you've got the, you're meeting that follower threshold. 

[00:46:09] Tieron: Indeed. Cool. and this is a, this is a great transition too, to let people know that. We do have the Facebook group set up and if you're listening to this episode and if you show up in the discussion, we may drop something in a discussion group to show you how you can get those styles and followers, you know, for just by spending a couple of hours and by a couple of hours, I really mean like 50, 60.

You can get the, you can get your a thousand followers and then you can go on about your life. 

[00:46:35] Kai: So, yeah, if you'd like to dive deeper into any of the topics we've covered here today, yeah, definitely join us in that brand new podcast discussion lounge on Facebook. Um, You can search scaling uncensored podcast and it'll pop up, or you can just go to facebook.

com slash groups slash scaling uncensored podcast. Nice. All right. Cool. Thanks everybody for listening. All right, y'all. 

[00:46:55] Tommie: All right. Yup.