1159 – A New Way For More Revenue: Tom talks TikTok Shop

SUMMARY BY CHATGPT

Tom Antion explains how TikTok Shop can provide an additional revenue stream for entrepreneurs, either by selling their own physical products or earning commissions as an affiliate.
TikTok Shop is an e-commerce system built directly into TikTok. Unlike Amazon, where shoppers typically arrive already looking for something, TikTok can introduce users to products they weren't searching for. Someone can see a product demonstrated in a video or livestream and purchase it without leaving TikTok.
Tom emphasizes two important cautions. First, he doesn't recommend building an entire business around TikTok Shop because TikTok is essentially “rented property.” A business owner doesn't control the platform the way they control their own website or email list. Second, TikTok Shop is focused on physical products, whereas Tom generally teaches digital-product businesses because they carry less financial and inventory risk.
There are two primary ways to make money:
• As a seller: If you have your own physical product, you can sell it through TikTok Shop, demonstrate it in videos or livestreams, and potentially have other TikTok creators promote it as affiliates. Tom says sellers don't need an existing follower count to get started, although they must meet TikTok's identity verification and product requirements.
• As an affiliate: You can promote other people's physical products and earn commissions when your content generates sales. At the time of recording, Tom says affiliates generally need to be at least 18, verify their identity, and have at least 1,000 followers. He says additional restrictions are reduced after reaching approximately 5,000 followers and maintaining an account for at least 30 days. He cautions that TikTok's requirements can change.
One of TikTok Shop's biggest opportunities is TikTok's ability to give individual videos enormous exposure even when the creator doesn't have a massive following. Tom gives the example of one of his own videos receiving roughly 656,000 views. Although that particular video wasn't monetized, he believes that kind of exposure tied to a relevant physical product could have generated sales or affiliate commissions.
Key takeaway: Tom views TikTok Shop as an opportunity worth exploring, but not as the foundation of an online business. For people with physical products, it can provide access to both customers and affiliates. For people without products, becoming an affiliate offers a relatively low-barrier way to generate additional income by promoting other sellers' products through TikTok content.

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Episode 1159 – TikTok Shop
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.
[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode 1159 A Screw the Commute podcast. Today I'm going to tell you about TikTok Shop. You probably heard about that a lot of times and wondering what the heck is it and how could you use it? All right, let's see. I hope you didn't miss episode 1158. That was all about 360 degree cameras. You can do all kinds of cool stuff with them. I just got my Insta360 X5 and you'll be seeing some cool videos. I'll be using that for anytime you want to get to a back episode, you go to screwthecommute.com/episode number. 360 degree cameras was 1158. And also our new version of our automation book is out How to Automate Your Business Without Pulling Your Hair Out. Grab your copy at screwthecommute.com/automatefree and check out my mentor program, greatinternetmarketingtraining.com and IMTCVA.org, which is my school that's certified to operate by SCHEV.
[00:01:27] All right, let's talk about TikTok shop. Well, there's two warnings and they're not real bad warnings. But the first warning is, is I'm not suggesting that you build your entire business on TikTok shop. Now, if you just want to do some side hustle gigs and you're working a full time job, yeah, great, wonderful. But don't build your whole business there because like all social media, you're building it on rented property. It's not yours like an email list. So that's the first little warning, but still you can make some money on there.
[00:02:01] And number two is only physical products. That's not you know, I know I preach mostly digital products, but I'm happy that other people create physical products because I buy stuff all the time. I just don't teach that to my people because the risk is much greater when you're doing physical products. But you can be an affiliate on there or sell your own stuff. So what what is TikTok shop? Well, it's an e-commerce solution. Not really a shopping cart per se, like you would have on your website. It's an e-commerce solution where people can discover and buy stuff directly on TikTok. They don't have to leave, go anywhere, say they can watch a video about a product and buy it right there on TikTok. Now that's a little bit different. Like for instance, Amazon, Amazon, you're looking for a product and you go search it out, look through the ones they got and buy it right there. Okay. That's great. I mean, that's super great. I do it all the time. But with TikTok shop, you're shown products you didn't even know you needed or wanted, or maybe you don't need it, but if somebody promotes it so well, you go ahead and buy it anyway. And I have done that on things I don't need. But they were just so cool. I thought, that's a great gadget.
[00:03:28] I gotta have that. You know, those guys do that all the time, right? But you can, you can earn in two ways. And the first one is if you have physical products, so you can do live streams and demonstrate the product there, you can just create videos about it. And other people can promote your product as a, as an affiliate. So that, but that's only if you have a physical product. Now as an affiliate, you can promote other people's products. The same thing. However, to be an affiliate and now you don't need super big followings to do this right. But to be an affiliate all places, just about all places that are really big and popular want to make sure that you're not out spamming people because it puts a bad reputation on them. So they have a little tiny requirement. And these requirements, I might add, or as I'm recording this, because things change, of course, you just have to check their current requirements if you're listening to this later. But to be an affiliate, you've got to be at least 18 years old. You have to verify your identity and you have to have a thousand followers. Not very difficult to get on TikTok. Got to tell you now at that level, they still put some restrictions on you. They want to watch you closely to make sure you're not some idiot that's just made a fake account.
[00:05:08] And are blowing up all kinds of spam and things like that. Crazy stuff. Now, if you get up to 5000 followers and you've been on at least 30 days, then a lot of those restrictions go away. You still have to identify yourself and so forth. But you can make affiliate commissions by promoting other people's products via showing it on video. Or I think you can do live streams too. If. Yeah, I'm virtually certain that affiliates can do live streams. I'm not I haven't done it personally. But the thing is, is yeah, that would be a great way to promote stuff. Now, if you have a physical product, you can be a seller with no follower account. You know, you still got to identify yourself and so forth. And there's certain products that they wouldn't allow. Like every place that advertises, you know, you can't, you know, sell, sell things that are, um, I'm sure you can't sell guns and things like that, right. But this is and again, the warning is, is don't try to build your whole business on this, this, what I'm suggesting is this could be an additional revenue stream if you have a physical product, but even if you don't and you have 1000 followers or more, you can start making immediate money with commissions. So so that's a little bit about TikTok shop.
[00:06:39] It's a revenue stream. It's right there. Don't build your whole business on it, but you could grab money. Or if you do have a physical product, it could open you up to an enormous number of affiliates and selling stuff yourself. And the way TikTok works is that, I mean, any one video can go really big and viral. It's, you know, it's based on learning how to use TikTok, basically. Like I said, I have one that's 656,000 views or something. Now that one, I didn't make any money on that I could. You know, for sure. But if guaranteed, if it was promoting some other physical product out of those 656,000 people, somebody would have bought it. Okay. Or if, if that was promoting an affiliate, that particular thing, somebody would have bought stuff. So so that's TikTok shop. So check out my mentor program. If you want help with this and a million other things, you need to be successful online at greatinternetmarketingtraining.com and my school at IMTCVA.org, certified to operate by SCHEV. Well, what the heck is SCHEV? Is that some shovel company or what? No, that's the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia. But you don't have to be in Virginia because it's quality distance learning. All right. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. We'll catch you on the next episode. See you later.