Today we are going to get into an interview with CEO of Deepercalling Media Bill Goodyear. Bill has taken a small business and grown it into 500+ affiliate Christian bookstores. His clients range from housewives to some of the biggest Christian names in the world today.

The purpose of DeeperCalling Media is to supply stocked online Christian bookstores to anyone who can afford the small hosting fee every month. Every time a person signs up they are equipped with the bookstore,  a default template, 175,000 items pre stocked and everything else they need in order to get started. The only thing that needs to be done with these stores, is of course the marketing.

But Bill does not just run these networks he also likes to lead by example, thus he owns and operates his own christian bookstore off of his network. Over the last 3 years his Christian bookstore (DeeperShopping.com) has grown into one of the largest online christian bookstores in the world. If that isn’t encouragement I don’t know what is

So without further ado lets start the interview with bill, shall we?

When did you start The Deepercalling Media Network?

The retail network was launched in December of 2005. The vision was to create a platform where retailers could sell from pre-created catalogs of products. We know that most retailers are very busy and dont have a lot of time to devote to technology, so our idea was to create a turnkey pre-stocked website for various classes of retailer. We service retailers in the general book trade, and in the Christian book market.

What Made You Start DeeperCalling Media?

Same as what makes anyone start a company. Dreaming of using your skills and expertise in a way that will enable you to do something that is a passion. In our case we wanted to create a retail environment that would enable artisans to connect through retailers direct to shoppers.

What have been your key factors to success?

Hard work, hard work and more hard work. Dont let anyone tell you that its easy! We’ve worked very hard to have the best service, as the best price, and the best selection of products. I took over 20 years of technical knowledge, business analysis skills and project management skills and rolled it all into a single idea and a company with one employee. Over the last several years that has grown and we now employ a close-knit team of 5 people.

What is a normal day in the life of Bill Goodyear?

Up at 8, grab a latte on the way to work and start work at 10am. Work through until 6pm and head home. Then inevitably log on and do a few hours more work in the evening. If we are not patching the system or writing new features, then we are out hunting for some great suppliers or a must-have product.

What would you recommend someone getting an education in before stepping into your shoes?

Dont just rely on technology. Ultimately you will hire people to do that for you. Get a good grasp of business and continually weed out unprofitable customers, unprofitable services and unprofitable products. Dont be afraid to spin on a dime – as a small company its your competitive advantage that you can adapt faster than the fatter guys.

I happen to know that you also own DeeperShopping.com Which is part of the Deepercalling Media network of Christian Bookstores. I also know that DeeperShopping.com is slowly approaching being one of the most visited Online Christian Bookstores. Which leads me to my next question, what are some of your main sources of traffic for DeeperShopping.com?

Of course we do search engine marketing and organic link building. But beyond that we seek to rewrite our product information and create a more entertaining and valuable shopping experience. We are slowly transitioning from just a catalog of products to a better structured and higher value content environment where shopping and entertainment are mixing. Good content is key to getting eyeballs. We have found that product diversity is less of an interest to our customers – they are looking for good information that spoonfeeds them on how to apply the product to a need in their life.

How has DeeperShopping performed thus far? Has things gone according to plan or have there been bumps in the road?

Always speed bumps!! Generally – it has grown in line with expectations, but not as fast as our wildest dreams would like. Isnt that always the way. We want the success of 10 years of work after only putting in 5 years!! Still, we are very pleased with our results. Sales are up over 200% on same time last year, which is not bad at all. My goal for next year is to double again. At that point our business will be able to sustain some more interesting developments including starting up our own warehousing operations and launching an additional physical retail store.

Where do you see the network in 5 years?

Probably with less retailers – but higher quality. Most home based business people struggle to be “religious” in their marketing plans, and they struggle for capital to build their brands on the net. And a lot struggle to find time between kids and day jobs. We are refocusing our efforts on working with corporate retailers – and we expect to have fewer clients – but higher value ones. We also expect to continue developing our own online retail assets leveraging our own technology so that we can ensure our viability whether we have partner retailers or not.

What are the top 3 problems that you have run into during your time in business?

Low value clients that expect the earth and expect it for free.
Understanding how online marketing works and how to attract clients – that one held us back two years in our growth
Not enough time in the day. But at some point, you have to just concentrate on the utmost priorities and skip the rest. Or at least leave it until tomorrow. Oh how i wish we could expand our team and get more work done!!!

Any advice for new business owners?

Work hard, work together as a family, get the buy in of all family members and as much as possible have everyone contribute something to the business. Hey, even my kids have online stores based on our technology. And they are in the store adding stickers onto products in the warehouse, helping to clean up and generally doing whatever we ask. The family that builds a business together, gets to spend the fruits of their work together too!!!!

If You Enjoyed This Post Subscribe to Our RSS Feed!!!

Related Posts

• Happy Holiday’s From Graphic SEO