SUMMARY BT CHATGPT

Tom Antion continues his three-part series on modern shopping carts, focusing on automation features that help entrepreneurs save time, increase efficiency, and boost profits. After extensive evaluation of 44 carts, he chose Kartra for its comprehensive features. In this episode, he breaks down the following key automation tools and concepts:
• Sequences & Autoresponders: Kartra's "sequences" go beyond traditional email autoresponders and can include texts, delays, and behavior-based responses.
• Automations: Triggered by user actions (e.g., filling out a form), automations can tag users, assign them to lists, or launch sequences.
• Tags & Lists: Tags are specific to user actions (e.g., buying a book), while lists are broader categories of interest (e.g., public speaking).
• Cart Abandonment: Users who abandon a purchase are tagged and followed up with automated emails to recover the sale.
• Recurring Billing: Automates installment plans and memberships, increasing sales by offering finance options.
• Upselling: Presenting relevant offers post-purchase significantly increases revenue (30–50% of buyers accept upsells).
• Split Testing: Automated A/B testing of headlines, pricing, and content to improve conversions.
• Help Desk Integration: Built-in support system reduces workload with FAQs and ticketing.
• Online Calendars: Integrated scheduling that auto-tags users and sends confirmations.
• AI Copywriting: Semi-automated tools within the cart help generate marketing emails and content.
Tom also promotes:
• His automation eBook (screwthecommute.com/automatefree),
• His mentor program (greatinternetmarketingtraining.com),
• His licensed digital marketing school (IMTCVA.org),
• A Kartra free trial with bonuses (screwthecommute.com/kartra).
Next Episode (987):
Will cover how a modern cart can save money by consolidating services and eliminating separate tools.

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Episode 986 – Modern Carts Part 2
[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 986 of Screw the Commute podcast. Today we're on part two of a three part series on modern shopping carts. I've chosen Kartra. After reviewing 44 other carts. Took me about 100 hours and I paid for some of their training just to evaluate them. Ended up with Kartra, but part one was on all the features you should have, so if you missed that, go back and listen to that. Anytime you want to get to a back episode, you go to screwthecommute.com, slash,then the episode number. Part one was 985. So screwthecommute.com/985. Today is 986. And we're going to talk about the automation features that you should have within a good shopping cart that does all kinds of stuff for you. Customer service, upselling, sales, testing, all kinds of stuff. So that's what we're going to talk about today. And also make sure you pick up a copy of my automation book at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. Check out the two major entities that I have that you can't get anywhere else. One is my mentor program, the longest running, most successful, most unique ever in the field of internet and digital marketing, and also my school. It's the only licensed and dedicated internet and digital marketing school in the country, probably the world. And that's at IMTCVA.org and the mentor program is greatinternetmarketingtraining.com. Okay. Oh, also, if you want a deeper treatise into all this stuff, I created a webinar that you can go to. We'll have that in the show notes for you, because the old shopping cart I'm coming from, I the first part of the training course, I teach people how to get their stuff out of it and then get into the new one. But anyway, this goes into great depth on all these kinds of things we're talking about today.

[00:02:31] Okay. We're into automation. And these are in no particular order, but they're all very powerful and can help you make more money, save time, and do stuff while you're while you're, uh, doing something else. Okay. One is auto responders. Now, in Kartra, they happen to be called sequences because auto responders pretty much traditionally have met emails. And yes, auto responders are sequences in Khatra have emails, but it does way more than that. It could be. It could be text messages that are going out over time where you put it in once. I mean, I had some that were running for years and years and years automatically, you know, taking care of people while I'm talking to you. So sequences and auto responders are extremely powerful. One of the most powerful things you could ever, ever use in your e-commerce world. Okay. Automations now sequences. And let me go back a little bit. Sequences and automations are both triggered by something else. Somebody else. Somebody did something that triggered the sequence. Now sequences are usually over time. So maybe you send them an email and then three days later you send them another one.

[00:03:48] And then depending on what they do with that email, if they don't open it, you send them something else, or you switch to a text, or if they click a link in it, you do something. So that's happening over time. Automations are usually very quick and behind the scenes. So let's say someone filled out a form to get a freebie from you. Well, an automation goes usually if then if they fill out the form, then put a tag on them and put them on a list. All right. And that leads right into my next automation things or tags and lists. So automations are usually quick instantaneous. Boom boom boom. But they still are triggered by somebody else. Okay. I just mentioned tagging and list. So tags in my not so humble opinion are usually very specific. So for instance, if someone buys my pro speaking book, I'm going to tag them with a tag that says purchased pro speaking book or e-book, whichever one it was. That's very specific. I know exactly what that person did. Now that same person, when they buy the pro speaking book, I'm going to put them on a list that's called public speaking interest. So by buying that book, that kind of proves they're interested in public speaking. You know, unless they were buying it for somebody else. But I mean, that's a tiny fraction. So now I know exactly that they bought the book because they're tagged.

[00:05:28] If I go into their profile, it says bought pro speaking book. Now I can pull up everybody that bought the pro speaking book and send them an email, or I don't even have to pull them up because I can make a sequence that says, hey, if they buy the pro speaking book, put them in this sequence of follow ups, say. So that's what we're talking about automation today, right? So you can do it. You could broadcast to them whenever you want, but you could also have a sequence going that automatically follows up with them. And that automation sequence could give them customer service, give them extra tips, and then eventually upsell them to another product. Which upselling is on my list. Here is automation. So the same thing with lists. So if I come out with a new public speaking product, I go to the list of people interested in public speaking. And that's not the list of people that buy a protection dog off of me, or that have bought my brutal self-defense course or my fatso tennis thing. Right? Because they don't care. They haven't shown interest in public speaking, and so they're going to unsubscribe and and complain and everything because I'm sending them stuff that doesn't apply to them. So I sent to the public speaking list and it kicks in again. So if they open the email they're going to get something else happen. If they don't open it, they're going to get something else happen.

[00:06:52] If they click a link in it and buy another product, they're going to get tagged that they bought that product. C and so so just all these things, if you set them up once, can be working for you for years. All right. There's another important tag. It's for cart abandonment. So if they put the pro speaking book in the cart but they don't check out, they're going to get tagged as abandoned pro speaking book purchase and then follow up with an email. Hey, did you forget to buy this pro speaking book? Hey, it's going to make you a fortune, blah blah blah. See, so an abandonment tag, it's still a tag, but it's a special one. That's that's critical because the last thing you want to do is get somebody almost to give you money, and then they they poop out on you. Okay. More automation is where you can have recurring billing where people collect money. I remember in the old days when I'd give finance options long before recurring billing was available, I'd forget to charge him next month for the. I had papers all over the place. Now, as soon as I got a good shopping cart, then it hounded him to death. You know. Hey, your credit card declined. Hey, it's your credit. Credit card expired. Hey, we're going to charge you again next month for your for your, uh, speaking system. And, you know, so it was all automated, and that money just came in boom boom boom automatically.

[00:08:22] So that's recurring billing. And that can be for memberships where it just goes on and on and on. Or it could be for an installment plan where they pay three payments instead of one payment over over the course of three months or something like that. So you can do all that, that's all automated. You set it up once and it just works for you. And I might add, given finance options for your more expensive products can make you a fortune, because maybe they can't afford to put it all in one credit card, but they could spread it out over three months and then you made the sale. So I'd rather have the money over three months than not get it at all. Right? Okay. Upsells. So this is another thing that's made me a fortune over the years. And I always have taught people the easiest person to sell is the one that has their wallet out. And so they make a purchase decision on one thing, and then you offer them another thing, and you can go on and on. As long as they keep saying yes, keep offering them stuff. I don't get obnoxious about it, but but if you do it correctly and I'm going to do a training on this, I have never done 1 in 20 years that 30 to 50% of the people went for the, the, the upsell, 30 to 50%.

[00:09:43] That's a lot of extra money saved from people that were already spending money. They spent more. Okay, testing, split testing can make you rich because a lot of people will write one email or one sales letter and pat themselves on the back and then forget it. Take whatever comes in. Well, that's not how you get rich. The people that taught me would test everything. The headlines, subject lines, colors, offers, guarantees, pricing. All of this stuff. So that's called split testing. And so it's all automatic once you set it up and then you get the results usually within a couple days where in the old days with direct mail where they'd mail you something in the, in the it would take months and months and months to get the the results of a test. Now, depending on how much traffic you have, you could get your answer within a matter of hours. Okay. And then you you quit. The ones that aren't performing. You do this on all kinds of things with with To advertising and Facebook and YouTube and everywhere else you track to see which performing, and then you keep that one, and then you cut off the ones that are losing you money, right? Okay. Another feature that never used to be on shopping cart systems is Help Desk. This is where you know, you've gone to help desks and put tickets in and things like that.

[00:11:06] Well, you can have that for you with a good shopping cart system where you can load it up with all your frequently asked questions, and people can get their answers 24 over seven without bugging you to death. All right. So you can have a smaller staff to take care of people because they can get their answers automatically online, but they can still put tickets in. And then you just you get notice a ticket came in and you can answer them, and then you can even create stock answers ahead of time. And so that you don't have to retype the same crap every, every day. You know, it's the answers are already in there for you. So those are help desk and then online calendars. Now I personally hate them. And I use a Mr. Big Shot guru here right. Still uses a calendar book and I write stuff in it. But online calendars are very popular and so a good shopping cart system will have that totally integrated. So if somebody makes an appointment with you, they get tagged a certain way and they get put on a list and then they get emails, confirmations, all this all in one place. Because when you get a lot of systems that are out side trying to run together from a long history of doing this, folks, I can tell you, you get you wish you didn't have it that way, right? So anyway, calendars, they can set appointments for you automatically and all that.

[00:12:34] Now there's one last one I'm going to give like an honorable mention. That's kind of funny with the way it's sweeping the world. But AI artificial intelligence is in a good shopping cart system, which semi-automated writing your emails for you, writing your promotional copy, and anything else you have to write. So usually you put a bunch of information in once about your company and customers and products and services, and then you only have to put a little prompt in of what you're trying to promote, and it'll write the copy for you. And of course, you can edit it to make sure it sounds like you. So that's kind of semi-automatic automations. All right. So that's all the kinds of stuff. If you put even part of that stuff into play, you're going to make way more money. You're going to have way less hassle. You're going to have way happier customers because they get taken care of instantly. They get followed up with with customer service and your sequences and your automations and all this stuff. So that's part two automations and part three, uh, 987. That's coming up this Friday. I think this will be on how you can save money, because you can get rid of a lot of other services that you're paying for separately. And I'll give you examples of the ones that man, I saved a fortune because a lot of this stuff is now combined and a good shopping cart system.

[00:14:02] Now, if you want to get a free trial, go over to screwthecommute.com/kartra. And you get a free trial and a discount on your first payment or something like that. And you can you can play with the thing. And if you get it, you have unlimited one on one training with me and my staff for either you or your staff or both. See, because that's how I became the biggest reseller for the other place I was representing for years until they they quit. And because we service you and we're a lot faster than any big company. So you need an answer quick. You come to us first. And if we can't answer it, then you go to the company. So that's how it works. And, um. And of course, if you're in my mentor program, you get all of this stuff unlimited one on one consultation, plus your visit to the retreat center, plus your visit to our our video studio, TV studio and all that crazy stuff that nobody else on earth provides. All right, check Kartra out at Kartra mentor program. Greatinternetmarketingtraining.com, which, if you're in it, you get a scholarship that you can gift to somebody, $19,000 scholarship that you can gift to somebody if you're in my mentor program. So check that out too. All right. We'll catch you on the next episode, which is about saving money with your shopping cart system.