I had the pleasure of interviewing young philanthropist, world traveler, and business coach, Maxim Trubitski. Despite, Max only being a teenager, he has developed an E-commerce formula, “Narrowing Methodology,” that generated over $400k in sales in 2018. With two years of coaching under his belt, and over a million in student sales, Max has set out to share his strategies for aspiring entrepreneurs all around the world.
Thank you so much for joining us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?From a VERY early age, I knew I had no choice but to hustle and attempt to make money. I was doing all I could’ve, just to make a couple hundred bucks. From creating my own clothing brand to starting my own modeling management. Speaking of the modeling management, I would schedule photoshoots in my own house, where I invested into a couple hundred dollar studio and would invite aspiring models from all around NYC. Although I was making some money, about 80% off scheduled models canceled last minute when I had my photographer and make-up artist ready. It was an awful feeling. And my clothing brand, which I was selling to kids in my school and neighborhood, it was no better! With storage and shipping problems keeping me restless at all times, I knew these baby businesses weren’t going to help me achieve my dreams. I needed something more passive and consistent. After searching for months, I finally found the business model that would change my life, Drop-shipping. A business where I’m only dependent on my marketing skills and nothing else.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your company?
From a very young age, I have always been fascinated in music. I even had a phase where I self-taught myself piano and guitar. But little did I know that my e-commerce achievements would allow me to connect and network with some of NYC’s most loved artists. All because I mastered one single skill- marketing. My business partner went from being fanboying the stars to doing actual business with them. By consistently talking to rappers like ASAP Rocky and ASAP Ferg on the phone and meeting up with ASAP members like ASAP 12vy and ASAP Illz, I continue to surprise my self. Think about it, I went from listening to their music one day, to doing business with them the next. Something hard for a music enthusiast like myself to grasp.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Not sure if this mistake is funny or straight up embarrassing, but when I launched my first store, I must’ve lost almost $1.5k. Being stubborn at the time, and refusing to seek help from mentors, I launched my first Drop-shipping Shopify store, attempting to learn on the go. Safe to say that didn’t work out. I had no strategy and was just guessing on the marketing. The first product doesn’t work, I try making money through guesses again. Second product loses me $250, I continue being stubborn. The third product, I get frustrated, and without supervision, begin running advertisements on my competitor’s store. Through some type of mental error, the call to action was linked to the wrong URL. After not looking at my advertisements for a day, and heartbroken that I didn’t get a single sale, I checked my website and didn’t even have a single visitor. On that awful day, I realized that I can’t take on the world of E-commerce by myself and lose time and money, I had to take the shortcut and learn from the coaches who’ve succeeded. That month, I got my first 2 mentors!
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
Everyone from my team shares one characteristic and one passion, we’re all young as sh** and we love to travel. After generating hundreds of thousands in sales, we only planned on using the money on two things, travel and investments. First off, we reinvested 25% off profits into the drop-shipping business and 25% off profits into sources of passive income, such as stocks and peer to peer lending. In my honest opinion, at age sixteen, I believe I’ve seen more off the world than 99% of wealthy others. My team and I traveled to Russia, Spain, Netherlands, Italy, France, Brazil, Argentina, Austria, Czech Republic, etc. Our desire and ability to travel I believe separates us from most other companies, maybe it’s just me. Nevertheless, one of my best students has always been bugging me to fly out to him in Brazil. At the time, I’ve never been there before and didn’t think it was a bad idea. I took one brother, and with my business partner and his girlfriend, we decided to visit Brazil for my birthday. On the day of our flight, as we got to the airport, we thought we were set to fly out to Rio De Janeiro, but boy was we wrong. Turns out you need to apply for a visa weeks before your departure. My team thought that our hopes of seeing Brazil were over, but I wasn’t planning on ditching my Brazilian student! I decided to switch our tickets to Buenos Aires, Argentina, obviously at a huge additional cost and vowed to get our visas there. We arrive in Argentina and were greeted with the pleasant news that we can get our visas in 2 weeks time. It’s not that we didn’t want to spend the extra money living in Argentina, I just didn’t think there’s enough stuff to do in Buenos Aires for 2 weeks. I had a better idea. Just as our opportunity to spend my birthday in Brazil was slipping past our fingertips, I stumbled upon an article. It read that it’s possible to get visas within one day at the border of Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil- Iguazu Falls. We were given hope once again. Luckily, Iguazu Falls aren’t just some border, it’s home to the second biggest waterfall system in the world. Another adventure awaited us. Moral of the story, after spending 3 unplanned nights in Buenos Aires and 2 in Iguazu falls, we finally got to the promised land, Brazil! I couldn’t believe what we had to go through, and any rational person would have just went home and gotten a full refund on the trip. But we aren’t an ordinary company, we seek adventure and love to meet our students. Despite spending thousands of extra dollars on hotels and travel, the trip is a memory I cherish forever because of the great time I had with my student and because of the obstacles we overcame.
Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?
Despite running several 6 figure stores in 2018, my marketing learning never stopped. Every single day I make sure to watch new courses and study different strategies and see how I can evolve my “Narrowing Methodology.” My learning never stops! Despite my company’s success and my own achievements, I still have mentors and role models that I continue to learn from daily! There is always room for improvement, and our ultimate goals should always be to become the best versions of ourselves- the most knowledgeable and kind. To all of my colleagues and even competitors, never stop with the self-education, whatever form it might be. I read for an hour every day, watch courses, talk with my millionaire mentor, learn from my student’s new insights, and even watch some youtube videos. Some of my most successful students are millionaires who switched over from other e-commerce platforms such as eBay, Amazon Fba, and trading. Their learning never stopped, and their consistent ambition led them to acquire another great source of passive income.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
I believe that I owe much of my success to my brother, Constantine. I’m not grateful towards him for knowledge in business or help in marketing. When I first started on my journey, no one supported me, except my twin brother of course. I was told that I would fail and that I should just stick to school. I was laughed at and ridiculed for being different, and not conforming. Who knows, I could’ve quit it all if it wasn’t for my brother, who believed in me from the first day I told him I want to make money. Not only was he motivating me, but he also made sure that I would hustle every day, I was accountable in front of him. My advice to everyone is to not give a damn about what people think, sometimes even if it’s criticism coming from your close ones. Most people are unmotivated and too lazy to pursue their dreams, and as a result, they don’t want to see you chasing your dreams either. Go out there and prove your doubters wrong, trust me, it’s one of the best feelings in the world.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
After living a couple of years in wealth, and despite all of my consistent travels, I only found true happiness in helping my students achieve their goals. Whether it meant getting a new car, dropping out of college, or even sending loved ones to college, I shared all of my student’s victories with them. My biggest satisfaction has always been seeing their goals and dreams become a reality. Many people believe that money doesn’t buy you happiness, I don’t exactly know how I feel about that question, but I have seen lives changed for the better, and thus, more happiness! In my opinion, however, I still have much more good to bring. In fact, I’m even in the progress of developing my own youth cancer charity organization. It’s time I use marketing for the good of mankind, and influencers use their followings to change the world forever! The charity will be launching in a couple months and will be one of the biggest charitable projects the world has ever seen.
Do you have a favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share a story of how that was relevant to you in your life?
“The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullshit story you keep telling yourself as to why you can’t achieve it.” I love this quote from Jordan Belfort, a marketing and sales genius ( a lot of you guys know him from the Wolf of Wall Street). Before I tried making any money at all, I had convinced myself so many excuses as to why I shouldn’t even try. I was “too young,” and out of all people, why did I deserve riches? Because of these hidden excuses, it took me two years to gather the courage to tell my family that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. If it wasn’t for my “bullshit story,” I could’ve been a millionaire by now, I would’ve been a millionaire by now. The new and improved business coach Jordan Belfort helped me finally take action. Whenever I can’t force myself to do something I read the quote, and know that my goal isn’t as far away as it seems.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me before I started my company” and why?
I wish that someone told me I shouldn’t learn from my mistakes but should learn from others- it’s much cheaper that way. In my opinion, we shouldn’t go into business believing that failure is okay and that we should learn as we go. I went into drop shipping with that mentality and paid dearly as you already know. Lost $1.5k due to horrible mistakes. If I could’ve learned from a mentor’s trial and error, and followed the same exact blueprint that worked for him, I would’ve saved a lot of time and money. Some failures cost very dearly and can wipe out all hope for success. That’s why it’s much more prudent to start drop shipping under the supervision of a business coach.
I wish someone had told me to read every single day. I believe that one of the most important entrepreneurial attribute, creativity, stems directly from reading. And I’m not talking about only reading business books, classical fictions are a must as well. Without reading, you lack the ability to think deeply, and our business consistently requires us to come up with different ideas. For example, once we’re targeting an audience, we must always come up with creative adverts, different offers, and forms of engagement. We must be able to sit down and in our imagination, come up with a creative idea that will make us money. A lot of people read books on business, but close to no one reads classics. I make it a rule to read a classic a week (some of my favorites are The Three Musketeers, War & Peace, and The Great Gatsby), and reading undoubtedly increases your IQ and ability to recollect deeply.
As soon as I started my company, I quickly learned that you can’t be dependent on anyone in business. People always find a way to let you down. Although I do have experts in email and SEO marketing and website developers running my stores with, if any of my team members decide to flake, I have skills to do as good of a job as them. Once you know the correct business strategy, there shouldn’t be a person in the world that can get in your way and riches. My advice is to master all aspects of drop shipping, from the product research to the advertisements, and you’ll never be dependent on people who don’t want success as badly as you.
Unfortunately, I only learned about setting daily and long term goals in my second year of running a business, and that following year, I made more than 10x the sales from 2017. Shoot for the stars and if you miss, at least you’ll hit the moon. At the beginning of 2018, I convinced myself that I would have $250k in my bank account by the end of the year. Every daily goal was set to help me achieve that mark. I wasn’t able to start 2019 with $250k in my bank account. In fact, I wasn’t even halfway there. But I was able to hit $100k+ in my assets! Entrepreneurs don’t fail because they set big goals and don’t achieve them. They fail because they set average goals and hit them. Set the biggest goals you can think of, to the point where people will even think you’re crazy, and convince yourself that you’re only a couple of small goals away from achieving them.
The last and most important thing I wish someone told me before I started my company was that I should get as many mentors as possible! To this today, I have gone through 5 millionaire mentors, teaching me real estate, stocks, ATMs, and obviously drop shipping as well. If it wasn’t for them, I would have no blueprint to follow and would’ve been at a complete loss as to what to do. I was shown the path, and I took all of the strategies from all of my mentors and created the business plan I use to this day. There is no lack of KNOWLEDGE out there… just a shortage of asking for help.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
I’m a huge advocate of anti-conformity. We were all born to stand out, but only desire to be like everyone else. It makes no sense. From an early age, we were taught to go through the same education system as everyone else, attempt to go to the same colleges as everyone else, and pursue the same occupations as everyone else. We’re subconsciously trapped in the rat race. We were taught to deride the black sheep in the pack and drag them down the path of averageness. Instead of following the typical traditional path, use your free time to build something special. Instead of wasting time on Netflix or Social Media feeds, use your free time wisely. Life is at its best when you’re striving for a goal. Don’t give a single damn about what people think, and escape the rat race! I would use my influence to reawaken the people from the autopilot of their daily schedules. There’s too much to see in this world to be a conformist.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
I can easily be reached on Instagram VIA direct message DM. I can also be reached through my business email: [email protected]
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!