TikTok Live Streaming: Top Lessons from #1 F&B TikTok Shop With Dayne Hepner

Dayne Hepner is the Founder and CEO of Candeeze, a freeze-dried candy company. He is also an Advertisement Specialist at TikTok, where he works with over 4,000 companies and produces 120 weekly ads. Dayne began as a content creator on TikTok before launching Candeeze on TikTok Shop.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[2:09] How Dayne Hepner leveraged TikTok live stream to build and scale his brand
[6:09] Dayne talks about selling his YouTube channel
[9:11] The challenges Dayne faced starting Candeeze
[13:13] How TikTok damaged $75,000 worth of Candeeze’s products
[16:16] What makes a top-performing live stream?
[20:19] The key metrics for measuring live stream success — and how to boost enter-room and sell-through rates
[30:59] Tips for creating unique content to sell products
[36:50] The importance of promoting live streams
[44:04] Can you promote your live stream with ads?
[47:22] Why Dayne incorporates faith in his business
[52:32] Dayne’s experience growing up in Serbia, being expelled from school, and touring with bands

In this episode…

TikTok is the Wild West of e-commerce, with its selling platform still underway. Many brands have found success selling their products on live streams. How can you optimize TikTok Shop to build your brand?

At just 22 years old, Dayne Hepner has become the #1 food and beverage seller on TikTok, and it all began with a broken cell phone camera lens. He discovered that the keys to engaging, high-performing live streams are energy and storytelling. You can measure performance and engagement by analyzing your enter-room rate (ERR) and sell-through rates, which can be increased through creative set designs and offers like free giveaways and discounts. Dayne suggests promoting your live streams through video content to boost viewership, build your brand, and drive sales.

Tune in to this week’s episode of the Up Arrow Podcast as William Harris invites Dayne Hepner, the Founder and CEO of Candeeze, to talk about building a brand through TikTok live-stream sales. Dayne shares the importance of consistency, how to leverage ads to promote live streams, and how to create unique content to boost sales. He also delves into his personal life, including touring with faith-based bands, growing up in Serbia, and being expelled from school.

Resources mentioned in this episode

Quotable Moments

"It happened by just a crazy series of events."
"There's so much opportunity, it's still like the Wild West for live selling."
"The most billion-dollar ideas are in a graveyard because people never act on them."
"Every 45 minutes [on TikTok Shop], the algorithm has a cycle."
"Christ is king...nothing's gonna fill that void except Christ."

Action Steps

Dive into TikTok live selling without overthinking the setup: Dayne Hepner’s success began with simple equipment, showing that starting with what you have can lead to great results.
Harness the power of organic content on social media: Storytelling and engaging content is crucial for building brand connection and success.
Stay consistent with live streaming to build momentum: Consistency helps in building a loyal audience and overcoming the ebb and flow of sales.
Create “heating videos” to drive traffic to live streams: Posting short videos before going live can increase viewership and sales.
Prioritize relationships while pursuing business dreams: Dayne noted the importance of balancing work with personal relationships, a reminder that success isn't just about profit.

Sponsor for this episode

This episode is brought to you by Elumynt. Elumynt is a performance-driven e-commerce marketing agency focused on finding the best opportunities for you to grow and scale your business.

Our paid search, social, and programmatic services have proven to increase traffic and ROAS, allowing you to make more money efficiently.

To learn more, visit www.elumynt.com.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:00

Welcome to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris, featuring top business leaders, sharing strategies and resources to get to the next level. Now let's get started with the show. Hey everyone.

William Harris 0:14

I'm William Harris. I'm the founder and CEO of Elumynt and the host of the up arrow podcast, where I feature the best binds in e-commerce to help you scale from 10 million to 100 100 million and beyond as you up arrow your business and your personal life, I'm super excited about the guests that I have today. Dayne Hepner, Dayne is a passionate entrepreneur and follower of Jesus. He founded Candeeze, a thriving business specializing in freeze dried candy, and has been able to utilize TikTok and TikTok Shop to not only launch his brand, but also scale it into the millions. In fact, he's currently the number one food and beverage live seller on TikTok, which I can't wait to dig into. Dayne, welcome,

Dayne Hepner 0:50

yeah, excited to be a part of the podcast. Thank you, William for hosting me. I'd love to share some info on how we've gone from zero to hero utilizing TikTok. Shot. Yeah,

William Harris 1:00

man, it's gonna be good. I gotta give a shout out to Jordan Ericksen, though he's an incredible TikTok ad creator. He's trained many of the people in the ttcc, the TikTok creative challenge, made ads for like Fortnite, Alibaba. It's like some of the best ads that you'll see on TikTok, because he's the one who put us in touch and so Jordan. Thank you very much.

Dayne Hepner 1:20

Let's go. Jordan. Appreciate you.

William Harris 1:23

That's right. I'm going to give the quick announcement of our sponsor, and then I want to dig into the thing we're going to be talking about is just live selling in general, but especially on TikTok. Before I do this episode is brought to you by Elumynt. Elumynt is an award winning advertising agency optimizing e-commerce campaigns around profit. In fact, we've helped 13 of our customers get acquired, with the largest one selling for nearly 800,000,001 that ipoed recently. You can learn more on our website Elumynt.com which is spelled E, l, u, m, y, N, t.com, that said, I'm dying to hear a little bit more about this, because live selling is something that I don't consider myself to be very good at all going live on anything, but you're the number one food and beverage live seller on TikTok right now. How did this happen? Yeah,

Dayne Hepner 2:09

by the grace of God, honestly, man, it happened by like, just a crazy series of events. One of my best friends. His name's Chico. He founded a company on Shark king called Zoom, and he was like, Yo, bro, you gotta hop on this live shooting on TikTok. It's like QVC, but for Gen Z, you basically can sell products to literally anyone by just streaming. And I'm getting this crazy traffic. There's 1000s of people in here buying my electric skates. You gotta hop on. So it was like Black Friday of 2023 just about a year ago, and I hopped on, we decided to stream. It was just me, my wife was supporting me, and I went to a production space. I literally strapped a tripod around my neck and had my camera racing down like this, and I just went around and started packing people's orders. And that first stream, it got like, oh, like 100,000 viewers. Yeah, we did like $8,000 in GMV, and the next day was like 10, and then 12, and it just kept scaling. Eventually it plateaued, and we had to continue to figure out how to scale it. But I mean, my first intro to live selling was this crazy chaos of events, and kind of cool, because we were one of the first candy brands to ever live sell on TikTok Shop. And I think TikTok really like, liked that, really bought in, but that, and even now, like so many brands that are still joining, and there's so much opportunity, it's still like the wild west for live selling, especially in North America.

William Harris 3:36

So what the thing that I love about that is that you just there wasn't like this magic gear that you used, where you had the perfect setup. But in fairness, you did come into this with something, which was you came into this with knowledge of TikTok in general, so you were already doing very well on TikTok in a lot of other ways.

Dayne Hepner 3:55

Yeah. So my wife and I, we've been running ads, the creating ads UGC for years now, and we worked with over 2000 different brands, from Uber to Walmart to pretty much a lot of big name brands. And we learned so much about what it takes to create, like, high performing content, because we've done it so much. And so we were like, all right, all right. So we got to stop making videos for all these other brands, and we gotta do it for ourself. So we came up with like three, like, really good ideas that we thought would perform well on social media, ideas that we could just farm content off of, just continue to pump content out about and build a story around. I'll share one of them. One of them was, like, foreign snacks. I grew up overseas in Serbia, lived my whole life today. I moved to us when I was 18. I'm like, Dude, there's so many good snacks in Europe America to have them. I'm just gonna import them and sell them. And it was some issues we ran into with, like importing and taxes and all. It was complicated. Not a good margin business either. I have some friends that do it. They kill it, but not for us. We ended up looking into a few more. And settling in on a candy business, but specifically freeze dried candy. There was one company that was doing it pretty well on social media, and we're like, All right, we could, we could do this. We could probably do it better, and we could utilize our story to tell the story, build an emotional connection with the audience, and then just sell candy. It'll be a fun experience, and just tell our story about how we get the business started. So, long story short, I've done content pretty much my whole life. I had a YouTube channel that I was growing and growing and growing and growing. I was like, All right, I'm tired of this. Let me sell my YouTube channel. I took all that money and invested it into Candeeze. We bought our freeze dryer, we launched our business. So we made our video that that told the story of how we did it, and it hit like 30 million views. It was like crazy, since I gotta go back, wait

William Harris 5:47

a minute, so you had a YouTube channel that you sold. When? How old were you? He started YouTube like

Dayne Hepner 5:54

1212, or 30. Oh, so Okay, so I started it when I was 11. My dad got mad because I was underage to be doing it, delete it. And as soon as I turned 13, I made a new one and made a bunch of videos.

William Harris 6:06

What was your What was your YouTube channel about? Okay,

Dayne Hepner 6:09

so it started. It was called plugged in pointers. I was a gaming channel where I played agario and, like literally anything you could think of, I had series. I made videos every day, and then I turned it into a vlog channel. I made vlogs every day for two years. That was back when I Logan Paul, Jake, Paul, Roman Atwood, Casey Neistat. I was, like, inspired by all the moment, I'm gonna be a vlogger. I made videos, and then I was like, Okay, this is not working. Let me. Let me turn this into like a music channel, and not my music, but I made, like, a bunch of compilations of different music. And if you ever seen, if you ever seen Christmas music with a fireplace background with, like, the long video, I was one of the first people to ever do that, really, that's

William Harris 6:52

those videos, like the eight hour plus stuff, right? Yeah,

Dayne Hepner 6:55

exactly. So a lot of people had, like, single songs, but, like, not a lot of people had compilations. I just took all my favorite classic Christmas music, put it into one video, photoshopped a fireplace that I downloaded from YouTube on top of on top of a beautiful background that we took a picture of and uploaded it, and it got like that. Only got, like, a 40 or some million views, and then I just kept getting copyright strikes and copyright strikes and copyright strikes, and that's when, that's when I was like, okay, music is not it. I gotta keep going.

William Harris 7:27

For those who are watching the video, dang. Just triggered one of the apple reactions. I don't know if that's exactly what they're called, but you gave me the little heart sign. I don't know if I think I have mine turned off right now. Those things are so funny. Okay, but then you sold the channel. What's it like selling a YouTube channel? Because it wasn't necessarily a business in the traditional sense that a lot of people think about businesses. It was a content business. What were some of the things that they were looking for when they were asking to, you know, buy this? Yeah,

Dayne Hepner 7:57

so my gaming videos, they didn't care about my vlogs. They didn't care about they just really liked that they had huge videos that were playlists of music videos that had lots of views, because they were actually a and I don't know if they were an agency, but they basically had licensing to all this music. So essentially they could go back and re monetize all of it and make some good money off it. So that's, that's who I sold it to. And it worked out, they paid me about $8,000 for it. I was, I was happy to make some money off it, because I was demonetized. There's nothing I could have done. And I was like, they, like, approached me. I was like, Sure, you could buy my channel. How much were you offer? Like, 5000 like $5,000 yo, let's go. And I was like, okay, okay, I gotta negotiate. Though. I'm gonna go see 8000 they're like, Okay, we can do 8000 the

William Harris 8:49

first one. You're like, Oh, I didn't go high enough,

Dayne Hepner 8:50

yeah, but it's okay. That's all I needed to start Candeeze. That's that was in my head. I pay taxes, and then I need 6000 to start my company.

William Harris 8:59

I love that. So this, I mean, so you started Candeeze with next to nothing. What were some of the biggest challenges that you faced as you were getting this up and

Dayne Hepner 9:11

running? Oh, bro, the biggest challenge by far was my perfectionism. Like, I'm such a perfectionist. I'm like, Okay, this has to be perfect. This has to be perfect. This has to be good, and this has to be good, and this and this and this and this and this, this, everything has to be good in order to launch this company. And now looking back, I wish I could, like, smack myself in the back of the head and be like, just launch it. You'll figure it out. You'll learn because within the first week of launching the company, there was already like, five things that were all screwed up, like my bags when I first launched it. I don't have it right here with me, but I had these paper bags, and they would rehydrate. The candy would hydrate in like a week. So I didn't know I had a shelf life of, like a week. Ended up upgrading the bags, and now they're fresh for like 10 years. But so many things that we just kept covering into and that was the biggest like thing that I just had to get over is like, stop being a perfectionist, launch it. And when trials and and. Hit like crap, hits a fan. Figure it out him and keep going.

William Harris 10:03

I love that, because I talk about this often, where you don't actually know why your product is great, but you also don't know why your product sucks. And so the best way to figure that out is to get it into the hands of the people who are actually going to be buying it, using it, eating it, consuming it, whatever that might be. Without that you there's a there's an element of preparedness that needs to happen, right? But then we overthink it, and it's like you just have to get it into the hands of of consumers.

Dayne Hepner 10:30

I heard a quote. I heard a quote that says the most billion dollar ideas are in a graveyard because people never act on them. And it makes me sad. It's like so many people have these crazy, cool ideas, and they just don't launch it because they overthink it, or they don't feel like they're adequate enough, or they try to plan it out too much. Just do it. Just do it. That's my encouragement for you. I've done a lot of things and failed, but hey, it's worked out for the most part

William Harris 10:56

100% do you ever still feel that way? Because I know a lot of people talk about they're like, Oh, I still feel like, oh, you know, who am I? What am I doing here? Like this. Do you still feel that way?

Dayne Hepner 11:04

Yeah, for sure. I would say the biggest thing now is, like, when crap does hit the fan, just like, getting back up and continuing to figure out a solution to it, versus like, I'm not give up, but like, it's easy to just, like, get down and, like, I don't know, upset. Like, okay, the numbers are bad this week. The ads are not working, the organics not working, the lighting is not working. We're down bad. We're bleeding out cash because our payroll is going up. And it's like, all right, instead of like, soaking in it, like, all right, let me figure out how to fix it. I think that's more so the things that I'm experiencing now, yeah, because, I mean, I'm being 22 still figuring out how to run a business.

William Harris 11:43

Well, these are new things, right? Like, you were just talking about, like, PNLs and all this other stuff, you know, I from talking before with you, I'm under the impression you didn't necessarily go to business school. You were like, I'm gonna go get my MBA. Like, that's my thing. And so how have you learned the things that you didn't need and maybe you haven't learned, maybe it's by replacing or placing certain people around you who know these things.

Dayne Hepner 12:08

Yeah. I mean, I, I ended up, did graduating from an online school because my parents really wanted me to have an education, but I honestly learned nothing, probably my own fault. I'm like, highly add. I'm like, I could never focus like i The biggest thing I learned was my social skills and interacting with people. Because I was homeschooled in Serbia, I gotta, like, not be sure, I gotta be more extroverted. That was the biggest thing I learned in college. But I would say picking up on the skills. The biggest way I picked up the skills was by doing it. Before I launched Candeeze, I had no idea what a profit and loss statement was at PNL. I had no idea what a show and watch GPM is for TikTok Shop. I had no idea what any of this stuff was. But like, through growing in it, I mean, I'm learning every day. I didn't even know how to file taxes when I first launched it. Yeah, that's one

William Harris 12:58

of those things you almost wish you didn't know, right? Yeah, you have to. But what about you? Had talked to me about when Amazon damaged like $75,000 worth of product. What happened there?

Dayne Hepner 13:13

Oh TikTok damaged it not Oh TikTok. I love TikTok. It's a love, love relationship with a little frustration. They were using a new fulfillment center called FBT fulfillment by TikTok. Not going to talk too bad about them, but basically what they did was they rushed into this fulfillment by TikTok. I feel like, in my opinion, a little too quickly. They partnered with a company called chip Bob, and this was, this is like a three PL and so essentially, what they were doing is they were using them to they want to have faster shipping times like Amazon, Amazon two days, prime, quick, quick, quick, quick. TikTok Shop was, like a week a week and a half people would want their products fast. And it was big hurdle. So they introduced FBT. Problem is, I have a food and Bev product that cannot be super hot. And I shipped two shipments, one to Pennsylvania, one to California. The one in Pennsylvania got put in a warehouse that was about 85 to 90 degrees. And the one in California was declined. They would not let it into their facility because they did not want to sell food and Bev products, or did not want to ship food and Bev products. And I'm like, this is where you told me to ship it. And they're like, sorry, we can't take it. I'm like, Okay, what do we do? They literally put my seven pallets on the front lawn of their fulfillment center for like, two days and talking to figure out where to ship these. We put them back in the truck, ship them to another warehouse about a couple miles away in California. And even then, warehouse was not temperature controlled. Both of them were told, told me they'd be temperature controlled. They weren't. So there goes, like it was cost me about $75,000 in inventory that was just in that's not an inventory like. That's how much it cost me, not even what we could have generated. So yeah, bit of a sad vibe.

William Harris 15:06

Do you fulfill it yourself now, or do you still use fulfillment to take time?

Dayne Hepner 15:10

No, I have so burnt so many times I set rainbow crunch to a fulfillment center and a bunch of rainbow crunch, and it's fine. It's fine, but rainbow crunch is one of our best sellers. It's crispy, it's crunchy, it's it's our fan favorite. We sent a ton of them, and this was my, my take to I'm like, okay, they screwed it up once. Let's try it again. One more time. They said they fixed it, and they did. It wasn't it wasn't temperature control, but they started shipping them in poly mailers. So getting their package all crushed up. So, yeah, I'm done. I'm done with that. We do all our own fulfillment. We built out a system to fulfill all the orders. Yeah,

William Harris 15:50

in fairness, it is a very Logistics is a very hard thing. It took FBA a while Fulfillment by Amazon, a while before they were really what we know today, right? I'm sure TikTok will get it sorted out, but that is a that's it's just a big undertaking.

Dayne Hepner 16:04

They have a great team behind them. I talked to some wonderful people, and they're figuring it out. It should be about q4 they're going to introduce climate controlled facilities, so that'll be exciting. Maybe we can try a third time. Third time's a charm,

William Harris 16:17

sure. So what about you had hinted at some of the metrics that you're looking at to know if you're doing a great job on a live stream. Before we get too far down into the metrics, tell me about what makes a good live stream, like, how do you know if it's going to work or not?

Dayne Hepner 16:36

Uh huh, the biggest way you know it's going to work or not is by hit that go live button, I didn't have a fancy studio, I didn't have fancy camera or equipment. I literally had a phone with a broken camera, a broken lens, just a phone with a broken lens. And I was like, You know what? Let's just see how it goes. And I went live, and it did well. And I think the biggest reason it did well is because of the energy that they offered. I offered, I have a product that is, like, Candy exciting. Like, if I'm excited enough for this energy, you're excited too. I think the biggest aspects of, like, having a good stream is having good energy. If you just sitting there, like, yeah, you can buy this candy. It's good. Who cares, guys, this crispy, crunchy candy will blow you away. It's not only crispy, it's not only crunchy, but you get to experience your favorite candy in a whole new way, like basically, essentially having that energy and then also selling. Like, the whole goal is for you to sell. If you've ever watched a QVC stream or TikTok Shop stream, the goal is to sell, build trust with the viewer. But you're not a streamer like kaisa, not like speed, you're not trying to entertain everybody, you're trying to sell to them. And so like, that's the biggest thing that we had to realize early on, is like, entertain, but the main goal is to sell. And if we can sell candy and convince someone to buy it, then then the stream is just going to continue to grow, as long as we're doing it right.

William Harris 18:00

So did you have this energy naturally? Is this just you and it just happened to work? Or is this something that you learned from testing things and just like, Okay, this is what I gotta

Dayne Hepner 18:09

Yeah. I mean, to be honest, when I was a kid, like, until I was, like, until college, I was like, super outgoing, and then I kind of like, mellowed out a little and decided to be a little more introvert. And until I got like, one, I get warm as people, and then when I get warm to people, I'm, like, chill, but like me and my guys that I hired to help stream with me, like we're just all having a good time out there. Just energy, lots of energy, and that's just kind of who I am. I'm, like, a bubbly person that I don't know. I don't mind talking to random people, but at the same time, like, it just, it can be overwhelming, but it's just getting over that hump. And, like, making sure I get enough sleep so I can't offer that energy. Sure,

William Harris 18:48

what about training? Like, you mentioned QVC, how this is essential? Like, did you watch a lot of QVC to train to figure out how this was going? Or, like, how did you, how did you level up your own skills.

Dayne Hepner 19:01

I've actually never watched a single QVC stream. I've just seen QVC streamers enter into our space at that shop, and my mind is just blown with how good they are at selling. I'm like, Whoa, okay, there's a next level to like selling. These guys are professional QVC streamers and like, they actually know what they're doing. But I mean, when it comes to training, when I train my guys, it's in depth. We basically sit down and I run them through the do's and the don'ts of live streaming, what they need to tackle, what their scripts gonna look like, how they're going to pitch the product, what the deals are gonna be, what metrics to look at, what to improve on and then I throw them on an alternate account that's going to get bad traffic, but it's going to get enough traffic for me to be able to analyze the data to go ahead and tell them, Okay, your inner room rates bad. That means you might not have enough energy to attract them, or your sales are bad. Maybe you need to improve your sales tactics. And there's so many different aspects that we can analyze, but mainly I can. Pretty much tell after a first interview, if they have the like it energy for streaming, and if not, it's really hard to teach, because a lot of people like that, that don't, that aren't like, I mean, you're a salesman. So not everyone can sell, sell something. You know what? I mean, 100%

William Harris 20:16

what about what metrics then are you looking at?

Dayne Hepner 20:19

It depends on what we're analyzing. But like, Okay, so for anyone streaming and the more advanced level, like the metrics that I'm currently targeting, is a watch and a show GPM of six, and essentially what that means is based off impressions. So if you've ever been scrolling on TikTok, when you scroll, you're going to see a live stream. If you click in, you become a viewer. If you keep scrolling, you're you're an impression, and a lot of times, people will just keep scrolling. So essentially, based off 1000 impressions, how many dollars you can make? Now, there's a couple metrics that dive into how to have that good watch or show GPM. Show GPM is based off impressions. Watch GPM is based off of viewers. Now I don't want to get all analytical on you, but if you have a good, err, a good in a room rate, then your show and watch GPM are likely going to be higher because you have more people actually entering in the room to sell to. If you have good sales taxes, your show and watch GPM will be higher if you're good at what you're doing, and you're doing a fantastic job. These are the methods that dictate everything. These are the metrics the algorithm looks at, and are like, All right, let's boost him. If you average a show GPM of six, oh, you're gonna get pushed so hard. But there's very, very few sellers, including myself, I can consistently average that based off the product that we're selling somebody

William Harris 21:41

who's just doing it for the first time, what's a typical room rate that you're looking at? Then

Dayne Hepner 21:49

it honestly depends on the product they're selling. If they're selling a super low ticket item, they're gonna have to sell a lot of them. Versus a super high ticket item, they only have to sell a few of them. I would say, Look at look more so at when you're first starting off, or anyone first starting off, try to get an interim rate of above 4% if you're gonna have an interim rate of above 4% you're good to go. That means your set design is good. That means people like what you're doing. They like the product. And then after that, it's just about scaling the GMV, because once you have more viewers, you can get more GMV, because if you can get someone into the stream, you can sell to them. If you can't get them into the stream, there's no way you're going to sell to them. Yeah.

William Harris 22:27

So let's start there. What are some of the tips for having a better in a room rate? And you said that's err, right?

Dayne Hepner 22:34

Yeah. Er, so we'll just say in a room rate for the for the sake of it. But, um, okay, so for example, let's say I am standing behind this black wall right here. It's just me, and right now I'm selling you these three Pokemon cards. By the way, Pokemon are not caught, but just cards in general, are the highest GMV streamers on on TikTok right now. So like, let's say I'm selling you these three Pokemon cards, right and imagine me in front of just a backdrop. That's why, telling you about these three cards, that's kind of interesting. These are pretty rare cards. These are pretty good cards. If you're interested in Pokemon, you're clicking. Now think, How can we take this to a next level, to not just a normal, average Pokemon viewer that knows what these are, to like the general demographic of public how can we convince them to enter? Now think, okay, just simple and LED light that flashes could add a little bit an extra box of Pokemon cards, another set, a box of like, just think set design is a big way you can get someone to enter into the stream. If you could have a really cool set, a lot of people will enter. Another way is billboards. When you're streaming, you can have a billboard a whiteboard. If I have a whiteboard right there that says join to enter into the free giveaway. I mean, I'm gonna join. I want to get some free Pokemon cards. Is it? There's another idea. Another idea is $15 off. If I'm scrolling, I'd be like $15 off of the of the 151 set, yo, Heck, yeah. Let's hop in there. Let's see what they're about. And another way, another way is microphones. If you have a terrible microphone, why would someone watch you? Another thing is, is camera, if you're super blurry, why would someone watch you? Now, for the beginners, just do it and analyze your data and figure out how to improve. Don't overthink it. Don't think you need a professional camera. I The number one stream on food in bed by the grace of God, and I use an iPhone. Still, I don't use a DSLR, and I need to probably get a DSLR eventually, but I still use an iPhone with these little DJI microphones. But overall, I would say if you want to improve your inner room, right? You got to have a cool set good audio, and not to be frank, but I mean, your host has to not necessarily be attractive, but an attractant audience. Does that make sense? If your host is boring and just sitting there, it's not going to work. To be completely honest with the viewers, someone that is. Just like I have a lady that streams for me and she attracts more viewers than my guys are streaming for me. It's just kind of how it is and whatever. Just think, think, What would someone watch? Basically, if you can get them to watch, then you're good. If you're just sitting there in front of a blank white wall, then you're probably gonna have a bat in the room, right?

William Harris 25:19

Yeah. Okay, so I love that. Let's say we've got our ER up, our inner room rate. The next thing was, what sell through rate was that kind of what it was, or what's

Dayne Hepner 25:31

that called? Yeah. So, I mean, you have your click to order rate, sure. I would say, once you get them into a room, there's a bunch of different things you can tackle. I've noticed that to have the best C cells, this is, this is obvious, but the best sells is to make them feel like they're getting the best deal. Um, a method that works really well on TikTok Shop is strike through pricing. Um, sure. I know for a fact that strike through pricing works better than average. There's a normal price. So if you're selling your product at $30 price, it at 45 give them $15 off. Make it feel more special. It works every time. Works better. People will prefer it. They think they're getting a better deal. Coupons. Flash sales. Flash sales are a super good way to create a sense of FOMO fear of missing out if you don't get it right. Now, what a flash sale is is you have a certain time in the bottom corner, like, let's say five minutes. Five minutes, you have six units available. So that means I have six of these Pikachu cards available, and if you want one, that's only six. And once these six are gone, it's over, guys, there's only four minutes left. You have to tap in if you do want one of these cards, because you don't, you're gonna miss out. I don't want you to miss out. You got to grab it quick. So creating that sense of if they miss out, right now, if they miss out, they're not getting this card because there's only six available, and once this time was over, this sale is done, like you're going to miss out. So like, if you can create a sense of FOMO and buyer urgency works really well. And then great deals. I mean, if they feel like they're getting a great deal. I mean, why would you not buy if I'm selling? I'm so sad I ate the last bit of my candy. I don't have it right here with me, but this is my candy company, Candeeze. If they're buying some some candy, and they feel like they're getting a crazy pricing comparison, then they're most likely gonna buy. And one method that I've done to really make their feel that way is offering sample packs. So instead of selling just one bag of candy, they're gonna get seven bags of candy. Now the bags might be a little smaller, but they're gonna get seven bags, the ultimate variety pack. And so, like, that's another way is, is bundles. Bundles do really well. So if you have something you can bundle, like, for example, if I could sell you this Bulbasaur right here, or I can sell you the whole set of all three, which one would you prefer? Not only would you make more money off all three, but you have a higher you have a higher AOV, higher average order value, and they feel like they're getting a better deal, because you're not selling this one for $20 but you're selling all three of these for for $45 so, um, just, it's just sales, yeah, just, that's

William Harris 28:09

the stuff that we do all the time on the website anyways. Like we're constantly looking at, how do we increase our AOV, what kind of bundles can we do? Can we offer strike through pricing? Like all of these things that we're already doing on the website, you just have to make sure that you're taking this through to the live cell where it's like, you show it, but you have to say it too. And I that's just the difference here is there's that auditory component.

Dayne Hepner 28:29

Yeah, exactly. What about

William Harris 28:33

what are some things that you see people getting wrong, that you you see that, and you're like, Oh, if they just did this, they would probably be successful. Ah,

Dayne Hepner 28:43

a big thing for me is when I noticed someone streaming, and I'm like, Oh, if only they knew how to create a better I know I addressed this already, but a better sense of urgency, because I've seen, sense of urgency will always outperform no sense of urgency. So someone that's just telling them about the product and not creating that sense of urgency, I feel like, does it perform as well? And then another thing that I notice a lot is like, if you're just both of these, I kind of already addressed, but if you're just not into the product, who cares? Um, be into it. Be excited. Be hyped. Is these guys right now that are killing it. I've been watching and they launched their product two weeks ago. I don't know all their analytics. They launched their products two weeks ago, and they have a detergent called loaded detergent. I'm giving them a shout out right here. And I think right now, they're at 2000 sales in two weeks. What they've done is they've streamed every single day for four hours, and they've built a consistent fan base that's always there. So they average over 200 viewers. They're giving away product, they're selling product, and they're offering discounts, and they're staying consistent. And I think that's the biggest thing, is like, if you can admit to it, stay consistent, because a lot of people will. Have a bad day and be like, Oh yeah, I'm in TikTok jail. TikTok put me away. They don't like my content. Well, maybe you had a bad stream. Maybe your show or watch GPA was bad. Maybe you're not offering a good deal. Maybe people don't care, or maybe it was just a bad day for the algorithm. Stay consistent, adapt and continue on. Because, I mean, how it works with me is like my sales for my life selling would be like, whoo, and I'll have like, a 20k day, and it'll be like, a couple 1000, couple 1000 Whoa, and a couple 1000 Whoa. And it just like, that's just kind of how it is. It's not necessarily like we would want to be like, up top. It is up and down, and it's super. It's super. It varies a lot, so I would say stay consistent. Even makes the downs, because a lot of people will have a bad stream or two and they just give up.

William Harris 30:46

Staying consistent is good. How do you come up with unique content? Or is that even necessary? You mentioned like you're having a lot maybe, like, a lot of the same fan bases coming back, and it's like, Are you saying the same thing every single day, or is it something new? Well,

Dayne Hepner 30:59

think about it like this. Let's say you have 100,000 impressions over a two hour live stream. You have an inter room rate of 5% and so you have, what is that fifth I don't know. Excuse my math. Let's just say 20,000 people enter into the room, and you have that many viewers in a two hour live stream. So if we do the math 60 times to 120 minutes, so 120 minutes divided by um, let's say they all watch. Let's say all of them watch for 30 seconds. So 20,000 20,000 people, that join over 120 minutes. That's how many people are joining per minute, 166 people. So you have about 166 people that are flowing in and flowing out. And let's say your average view duration is 2030 seconds. That means you have 2030 seconds to convince them to buy or convince them to stay before they just keep on going. And that's people that enter, not just people that keep scrolling. So a lot of things, a lot of times, I have to tell my sellers to just be broken records, because in the grand scheme of things, unless you're like, doing something super entertaining, like, I don't know, I'm back to the cards, ripping packs and opening cards. If you're selling this water bottle right here, no one's gonna sit there and watch you for two hours. No one sure cares. But, um, you got to think for the your goal is to get the most GMV, and if you're having 666 people come in every minute, they stay for about 2030 seconds. And you got to make sure you sell to those people, because if you don't, they're just going to keep on going. So like almost broken record, having your scripts, the things you touch on every minute or so, and making sure you can keep looping that in a different way. So imagine one script, but five versions of it that you continue to loop over and tackling all the big selling points are

William Harris 32:59

you just selling? I mean, you, you kind of hinted at this that it's not always just selling. Just selling. You might be opening a pack of cards, but how much of that plays into this? I think a lot about what Gary V says, Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, one of the first books that I really remember reading of his that it's like, oh, this is I get it where it's like, you had a jab, then you got a jab in the jab, then you go for the right hook. Like, how much of the content, if you're going to estimate, is going towards other things besides directly asking for the sale.

Dayne Hepner 33:23

Yeah, that's all based off strategy. I had TikTok come to my studio last week to just kind of see what we were about, kind of give us tips. We had a couple employees analyze our data, kind of dive into what we could do better. And I have the mindset, this is my opinion. I have the mindset of, like, if they're gonna stop, I'm gonna sell to them. I make lots of videos. We've gained like 900,000 followers making videos if they want to be entertained. In my opinion, they can watch our videos. If they're gonna join our stream, I'm gonna try to sell to them. And occasionally we have, like, a good time and talk and just enjoy but I've experienced that from my product. It's better to sell hard. Now, TikTok came in and when they analyzed our account, they're like, Okay, you're really good at selling, but you're only selling. You're not building that trust with your audience. You're not diving in. You're not addressing things with them and telling them about why they need the candy not they need the candy. And I agree, and I should work on that. And I think there's a there's a healthy balance, but in my opinion, based off my experience, if you get too focused on entertaining or telling a story or building trust, then you're gonna go down on the sales. So it's like a healthy medium of like, build the trust, but sell. Don't slow down on selling, but do it in a way that builds trust. What

William Harris 34:46

about comments and questions that people ask? How do you manage those? Because sometimes you could end up with so many coming through that you don't have a chance to see it yourself. Do you have somebody else in the background helping answer questions for you, or at least making sure that you saw the question? Question

Dayne Hepner 35:00

for the most part, a TikTok Shop is, like, super quiet on comments for us, but when they do address it, I read it in my head. Um, we've had issues in the past where one of my streamers, um, read a comment out loud and their username was a troll name and inappropriate. So all of us just it got us, actually got us taken down for a little bit. So like, just read everything. Yeah, I'm not gonna say the name, but it in the back of your head and, like, address it. A lot of people will just come into hate. A lot of people will have genuine questions. And if I feel like it, can spur the stream on, I'll address it. If not, I run right over it. Because, like, sometimes I can get so derailed by reading a comment that I totally missed my pitch. And those 166 people don't get pitched to. And so, um, it's a healthy, healthy balance between both of them. But um, I would say if your viewership is super low, you can really have a good stream by just engaging the comments. Every time someone joins, you can be like, Hey, what's up? Hurt, Hey, what's up? Jenny, Hey, Carl, Paul, how you doing? I hope you're having a great day. Carl, have you ever tried freeze dried candy? If not, now's your chance. We have a crazy deal here at Candeeze like you can just build the comments. And Jenny's asking, Jenny's asking, What size are the bags? Or Jenny, the bags are two ounces, about the size of a soda can, and you get seven different kinds, perfect for putting in your lunchbox for your kids after headed off to school, perfect for throwing in your bag for a quick little sweet snack at work. So like, find ways to always be using the comments to sell to them, but also answering their questions. If you could find that a way to do that, you're a golden streamer. I

William Harris 36:39

love that. What else am I not asking that we should talk about when it comes to really doing live streaming and selling well on TikTok.

Dayne Hepner 36:50

Okay, so something that is a super important is consistent streams, but also if you can create videos and post them right before you stream, and they're good videos. It'll boost your stream. So they're called tick tock. This is, this is like tick tocks, confirmed internal information of like, I'm they share this with everyone, so it's fine, but, um, if you can create what they call heating videos to heat your live stream, it'll go super well. So for the most part, don't, don't promise it, but, um, I mean, for any live streams, basically, let's say, let's say, today I am selling a seven pack of bundle, and if you join a stream right now, you're gonna get a free gift with every purchase. I can make a quick video of being like guys. We're live streaming right now. And if you've ever wanted to try candy right now you can get a seven bag and a free gift. We're throwing in a free gift, just throwing a live stream right now to take advantage of this deal, you're not gonna want to miss out. And for me, this was so hard to do because I have a super a mindset of like, this has to be polished. I have to polish these videos. They have to look good. And now I just private them afterwards. And so I've noticed that has helped the stream a lot with getting an engagement, because if a viewer sees that video and enters your stream, they're already enticed to buy now here's the deal, that video is going to be pushed and people are going to see that video and choose to enter your live stream or not. In addition, your live stream is going to be pushed people are going to see that live stream and choose to enter or not. So almost you can, like double attack. Let's say your video gets 20,000 views and in a two hour duration of you going live. That means your live stream, or your video got pushed to 20,000 people. Let's say 100 people entered your live stream. That's 100 more eager buyers. And it's so simple to create those videos that heat your live streams, I'd recommend anyone doing that. This is internal teams always fussing at me because I don't do that enough. And definitely I could improve on one thing. That's one thing that I would be improving on, is making more videos to heat my live streams. And especially if you're offering a crazy deal, you could actually make multiple of them and tag the event. You could tag the event. If you do tag an event, yeah, if you do tag an event, here's something interesting. Don't tag the product. If you tag a product listing, it's not going to get pushed the same way if you tag an event for your live stream. So don't try to double whammy. Don't try to, like, get them to buy off that video and buy off your live stream, literally redirect them into the live stream. Don't even tag a product.

William Harris 39:19

Yeah, that's good. What about Shopify? You and I were talking about this, do you still run all of your sales directly through TikTok? Have you tested out sending product through Shopify? Does that end up just not working as well from a live streaming perspective?

Dayne Hepner 39:37

Yeah. So you can't, if you ever live stream, don't redirect your traffic. You'll get internal deboosting for that. And essentially, they'll just deboost your account. They're like, Oh, they're redirecting off the platform. Let's not boost them to more viewers. Don't ever do that. Don't ever say, like, click the link in my bio. That's a no, no word. So, so one way that we were we're boosting traffic to other. Platforms was before TikTok Shop was a thing. We were owning our website through TikTok and ever since TikTok Shop came, I think we've kind of shifted our focus. I love the guys at Shopify. They keep sending us PR packages of like, hey, you know what? Shopify is a great platform to sell on, and I agree it is. But right now, all of our focus is, like, on TikTok Shop, and we're super focused on, like, continuing to grow and be the number one TikTok Shop sellers, and I'll always sell on Shopify. I love Shopify, but I mean, if I found it so much easier to promote videos with an inbuilt system with TikTok Shop versus having to redirect the traffic, if I think Shopify, it'd be insane if they partnered up with meta and, like, they had their Shopify incorporated into Instagram shop or stuff like that. Like, I feel like Shopify needs some sort of way to get traffic, because the cool thing about TikTok Shop is, like, I don't got to pay for ads. All I got to do is make videos on live streams, and that's advertisement. It cost me my time, especially for new businesses. I understand, like, you have these huge corporations that are looking to scale. I mean, even outsourcing, that is a good thing to do is like, you can hire streamers. I mean, it's organic, is crazy powerful, especially live streaming. Okay, real quick. Think about China, biggest e-commerce market in the world, and they pay way more stuff off of E comm than America does by far. America still away retail. You have Walmart, you have all these big box retailers. Everyone grocery shops. Everyone goes to these big box retail stores. But like over there, you have a platform called doying. I'm pretty sure. I'm sorry if I'm pronouncing it wrong, if anyone's heard of it, you know what I mean? Doying Is this live streaming platform in China, and they just run it. It's like crazy. These live streamers were streamed for like, weeks and weeks out, in like, just changing out, though, they'll consistently pump out million dollar streams, like, over and over and over. It's like insane. And I think TikTok is taking, is taking a page out of their book and incorporating some of those things in America. And, like, honestly, I think TikTok Shop is just gonna continue to grow, and you can see what Doyin is doing in China. Why would a bytedance on company not be able to do the same thing in the US? And it's gonna be hard, because a lot of the consumer mindset in America still really used to retail and really used to going to stores, but I think, I think there's a huge, huge, huge, huge, huge opportunity that still has not been tapped in with a TikTok Shop.

William Harris 42:28

Yeah, and that's shifting, right? So when we look at this, I believe the typically, the amount of the percent that that e-commerce makes up of retail sales, is about 15% or so, and it's and it's growing pretty consistently, year over year over year, in America, whereas I think China is like 85% it's a significant amount. But we're seeing that we're going in that direction. And I think that to your point, if you could be the one who's mastering it now, that puts you an incredible advantage in the future.

Dayne Hepner 43:02

I mean, what is it gonna hurt? You know, like, like, let's say you set aside for all, for small businesses. If you're not on TikTok Shop, you should be for big corporations, big businesses that have huge budgets. What's the drawback to setting aside a budget to hire some kid to live stream for you. Just make sure they're trained, make sure they know what they're doing. And

William Harris 43:25

don't read the troll names.

Dayne Hepner 43:27

Yeah, don't read the troll names. It's it's really cool. It's been cool for me to see, like, We're number one food and bad. But then you have like, these other companies that are, like, hopping on that are like, big names, and I'm like, Okay, we're still number one right now. But, like, okay, they're there, they're getting close, and they have huge budgets and huge corporation. Like, it's cool to see everyone else hopping on and like, Lay's potato chips are selling their potato chips on live streams. Like, that's pretty cool.

William Harris 43:55

Yeah, it's okay. Budget. How would the budget change this? Can you promote your live stream with ads in order to get more people into your live stream?

Dayne Hepner 44:04

You can? You definitely can. I would say it's not worth it until you have a really good live streamer. If you have a really good live streamer, definitely worth it. But essentially, your roars is gonna come for how hard they can sell, how good they can sell. It's like a video. You can't test out a video like, for example, we can run, let's say we run ads five videos. We take five videos, we pump them. This one has a better row as we just pump more cash into it. Your streamer, if he's good or she's good, you could keep pumping and they can keep running. But it's hard to find really good streamers, and also you got to really know how to target. I personally haven't mastered the art of pushing ads on live TikTok pushes ads to me sometimes, and helps us out a little bit. And even then, I look at the ROAs in one day, it'll be like point five for their ad spend. In one day, it'll be like an eight for their ads. Sure. I'm like, what? How's that big of a difference? Like I did the same thing, and so I. I think it's the wild west for that as well.

William Harris 45:01

That's fair.

Dayne Hepner 45:02

I'm working on figuring that out. I'm testing it. I've been trying it out, but I don't have like concrete, like numbers to show you. Of like what ad spend can do to streams, but I know that if you can have good metrics, the algorithm can detect that and keep pushing you organically. So what ad spin can do is it can help redirect your traffic to have those good metrics, to keep getting pushed organically. That's the biggest thing I saw with the ad spend that was pushed by us, is like, let's say, say 7k ad spend must get pushed by us, but we had, like, a $25,000 stream, and like otherwise it would have been much lower. It's because those the that Aspen helped redirect the traffic help get our metrics up and the algorithm picked up and continue to push us. So I think the biggest thing that ad spend can be beneficial for is not necessarily seeking a good ROAs, but it can really help organic get targeted in the right way and pushed. Because, I mean, ultimately, when you're streaming, the algorithm is the one that dictates how much money you're gonna make if you can't sell, because I can go with 100% energy, sell the crap out of the candy one day and have a 15k stream, and the next day the algorithm just hates me and $1,000 stream. And so one thing that I think if you do want to look into ad spend, you're kind of the boss of that you do lots of ads running is like, figure out a way to, like, redirect that to the traffic of the organic knows where to push you, because every 45 minutes, it completes a cycle. Every 45 minutes you stream, the algorithm has a cycle. It analyzes that. It pushes up to a new demographic of people. So if you can master those 45 minutes, then you're going to keep growing. If you can have a good show, watch GPM. In the first five minutes, you're setting your stream up for success. And if not, you have 45 minutes to prove you can set your stream up for success. The ideal stream links is three hours at minimum. I do two hours because three hours is a lot. But I mean, don't go under two hours. If you go at least two hours, you should see good numbers. Two hours consistently. Stay at that if you can hit three hours, that's awesome. You're completing a complete 45 minute cycle multiple times. That's

William Harris 46:59

impressive. I had no idea about the 45 minute cycle. What about what I ordered from you in in your packaging, you had a Bible verse which I really appreciated. Candy is inherently not religious. But what made you decide that you wanted to include your faith into your business. I

Dayne Hepner 47:22

mean, man, Christ is king. I just for most part, I grew up over overseas and just around lots of lost people, and just at the young age, found like Christ. And ever since, I've just been pursuing a walk with Him, it's been crazy to see how he's been working and the things he's been doing. And like, I feel like without Christ, there's always a void. Like, like, we're gonna try to fill the void with by selling more candy, making more money, building a bigger business, sleeping. I don't know what it is that you're involved in, but nothing's gonna fill that void except Christ. And then I discovered at a young age. And I feel like everyone in I know that everyone in this world and without Christ will continue to have the void. And as a believer, my job is to go out and make disciples of the nation. So if a little Bible verse can encourage you, by all means, I pray out every stream like my goal is to ultimately surrender it to Christ. Because, I mean, if he can create the heavens and earth and create us, then he can definitely help my candy company when times get hard and so, like I just My goal is to continue to surrender it to him and make his name known through it all, versus, like my name or Candy's name, building a multi million diabetes I don't even know taller business. I thought it would ever be that big. I'm too niched for that, but just my goal ultimately is to honor Christ with it. It's been pretty fun, and he's provided an abundance, and all the glory goes to him,

William Harris 48:50

amen. And this is something that you and I share. I I'm also a born again believer, and I really appreciate your personal TikTok as well, because every day it shows up for me. And I, a lot of people talk about their TikTok feed being toxic or whatever. Mine is not. My TikTok feed ends up being you saying, hey, hold up. If you haven't spent some time with the Word of God or whatever, I've got you whatever. And I'm like, yes, thank you. But it's it goes from that, it goes to, like, other really great inspirational things and motivational things, and it's like, I actually my TikTok feed has been, let's say, I don't know, carefully crafted into something that's very inspirational, motivational to me. And so I appreciate everything you're doing by setting out those Bible verses, but even just your personal stuff, too.

Dayne Hepner 49:37

And then, yeah, on a side note for all the viewers listening, what he's talking about is I decided that I was gonna make videos about four and a half years ago, sharing the gospel. And so since those four and a half years ago, every single day I've posted a video of a short, one to one and a half minute long discernment about what the Lord's teaching me my walk with the Lord. And it's been cool, because. Lot of people have been able to hear the gospel through it, and again, all the glory goes to him. And I think, like, honestly, that's been a really good, a good thing to keep me continuously rooted and spending time with him. Because, I mean, it can get hard. All my business guys out there know it's busy. There's a lot of work in a day, and only so many hours in a day, and then when you're done, you're like, Okay, let's sleep, versus All right, let's just give 30 minutes to God, spend time with him. And it can get so chaotic and so busy. And I think that's been something that has really not only helped other people here the gospel, but help my walk with the Lord, because I gotta share something. I can't just pull something out of a hat and and talk about it. And so I think, I think daily dose is something that's not just for the viewers, but also for me, and it's not something that they make, like, money off of, or anything like that. It's just more so, like, I have post videos every day because I feel like the Lord called me to it. And for whatever it is that you feel like the Lord's called you guys to you too, William, hey, don't, don't be. Don't be. Don't be bashful in that, because ultimately, his plan is greater than anything we could imagine. Plans. Humans that plan their course. It's humans that plan their course, but it's the Lord that establishes their steps, Proverbs, 69 There you go. So make sure I didn't, I couldn't remember the reference. So make sure you're continuing to surrender your plans to Christ. I love

William Harris 51:24

It's one of my favorite verses is that one, like in a man's heart, he plants His paths, but the Lord directs his steps. And then the follow up one that I have to that is your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. And the reason why I really appreciate that one in that idea. So it's like, we're talking about the path, is that sometimes it specifically calls out. It's a light to my feet. It's like, feet, why feet? Why did it call that out? And sometimes all you can see is enough to take one more step. That's it. You see enough light there. It's like, I can see my feet. I can see life, enough of the path that I can step one foot in this direction, and that's it. That's all the more I need to see. If the rest of that was illuminated, I probably would be too scared to move forward.

Dayne Hepner 52:11

Yeah. That's good. That's cool, especially in like, dark, broken where we live into, yeah.

William Harris 52:18

So this is a good transition into, who who is Dayne Hepner, I love getting to know my guests. On a more personal note, you mentioned this already before. You didn't grow up in the United States. You grew up in Serbia,

Dayne Hepner 52:32

yeah. What was it like in Serbia? It was different, north of Greece, right behind the boot of Italy, not Siberia, not Syria, but Serbia. Serbia was awesome, bro. Um, I say this, I say this, like, so sad, with such sad vibes now, because like, Serbia is like, so people oriented. It's about the people and it's about the relationships, versus America is like, more hustle and bustle. I'm guilty. I'm the one that's involved in the hustle and bustle running a business. But I mean, I miss, I missed that aspect growing up. It was like a call my buddy. I want am Hey bro, let's go for let's go hang out. Let's go. Let's go for a walk. Let's go get into some trouble. Let's go have some fun. Just there's so many, so many things that are all people oriented. Like sports is a big deal over there. If you ever pay attention to sports, you're gonna notice a lot of big athletes are Serbian because they take it so seriously. Like you have Nova Djokovic, the number one tennis player. You have Nikola, jokic, Denver, Nagas. He has so many, I could go on, and I have so many sports players that are from Serbia, just because it's so serious over there. And like a lot of people love sports. So like, think of like, America before the Great Depression, very oriented around sports, very community oriented. And covid, they changed a lot. I left right before covid, but I mean, also, like, I mean over there, back before covid, it's changed a little now, like a loaf of bread was 2030, cents, and so it was like the way of life was just so much simpler, so easy, just a nice place, good vibe, good people. I loved it. I went to school there, growing up until fifth grade, and then I had to take school online so I could continue to pursue education in America, versus, like, getting an education in Serbia. But I met so many cool people along the way, and the Lord definitely, definitely blessed me with that experience. Been to Serbia, you'll know it's a lovely place. It's simple. You don't go there to see all the beautiful scenery. There is some beautiful things, but you go there for the people. That's cool.

William Harris 54:37

I like to always ask people one of the questions when I do when we're talking about this beforehand is, if you speak any other languages, because I speak about parts of 20 languages, I certainly do not speak them fluently. But then I just I like learning languages and learning the different sounds and the different letters and stuff i You mentioned survey. I don't speak any of it. So today I want you to. Give me a quick little lesson. I don't know what I want you to teach me how to say, maybe, like, how are you or something, but, like, what's something I can say in Serbian,

Dayne Hepner 55:07

I'm gonna say, I'm gonna tell you how to say your name. Just say yasum, villiam, YaSM, viljam. Yeah. And I just said something really bad about yourself. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. You said my name is William. I'm William. All right, yeah. So I could, I could speak Strava, yes, some Dayne , you go some Serbia's a son, escortina neprich himself, ski baslemodish is a bonavio. I just said, Hey, my name is Dayne . I lived in Serbia for 18 years. I forgot a lot of my cases in Serbian. So it's not, I don't sound super sharp. The thing is, about Serbian is, depending on where you're from, there's seven cases for each word. So you can say one word seven different ways. So it's actually one of the hardest languages to learn in the world. And hey, I never learned all cases I spoke in like, I spoke in like, broken Serbian every time like I was some, they would call him sadiax, some guy from the from the village, because I I couldn't learn the language fluently. It was too overwhelming for me. But I can communicate and understand any any, anything that anyone says. So

William Harris 56:14

I love that. You also talked about being in school. You talked a little bit about being online and not necessarily being the best student, and by not being the best student, you told me that you were expelled from school wise to bring that up.

Dayne Hepner 56:33

Oh, I hated the online school so much. I was sad to leave my friends and be online school was like, so isolating. All I had was, like sports and like a computer screen where I stared at a virtual teacher that was teaching me stuff, and like, I just kind of decided to not care anymore. I i Not the best. I wouldn't recommend it, but I did some. I would always make jokes and not do all my work as ethically as I should be doing, and eventually I made a joke that went a little too far and few things. It's online school, so there's nothing like terrible, but it was just things that just kept adding up, and they were like, You know what, you're out and expelled me. And I ended up having to go to a different online school to graduate, but went to college and did well in college, and then I, after a year of college, I dropped out because I was like, wow, for the school I was in. I was like, wow. A lot of these kids that I'm around, I think I just found the wrong group as well. Don't really care, like they just, all they care about is things that are like, just so pointless. And so I ended up dropping out, and I accepted a temporary job with an organization in Minnesota, in Minneapolis, and I worked with them for about almost a year, just planning and organizing like big events, like Christian events. So like a big event, like stadium wide event, where you have a bunch of people come in, hear the Gospel, listen Christian music was cool. I got to go on tour with, like, a music group with winter jam, we had to tour America, just like be on stage telling people about the events we hosting, and all of it was cool. But through that, I realized, like, okay, so I ended up, I ended up re enrolling school online. So during this job, I was taking school online. But through it all, I realized, like, this is my dream job. I love it. I have cool community. I have cool people. I get to do cool thing. I get to fly around and meet these awesome, dope people, and I get paid money while doing it. But I mean, through it all, I realized, like, I don't know if I really want to work for someone else. I kind of want to work for myself. So that's when I ended up, ended up, ended up leaving Minnesota, came to Greenville, South Carolina and sold my YouTube channel and started Candeeze. And if that wasn't work, I was going to make sure something did work. And by the grace of God, Candeeze worked. And since then, we've been we've been growing our free strike Candy Company.

William Harris 58:52

And see, the thing I love about that is I feel like there's a lot of people that can relate to that most entrepreneurs I talked to either struggled in school or struggled in some way, just simply saying that it's like the normal path is not for them, and that is because they think differently. And I think that's good to be able to recognize that if you're struggling in some way as well, that may be a sign that there is something different for you. That's okay, yeah, but I have to go back and ask Who, who, uh, who was the band that you toured with?

Dayne Hepner 59:27

Ah, there's a bunch of different bands. Um, okay, so love song. It was, it was Kevin Quinn. He was like a Disney Channel guy. It was, oh my goodness, I feel so bad you put me on the spot.

William Harris 59:46

The reason why I asked is because one of my best friends from high school, it was a small high school that we went to. It's actually the guy who taught me how to play guitar. His name's Brendan Shirley, but he was in 10th Avenue north, and I was like, I wonder if you were with them, but sounds like that wasn't. The group you were with? Yeah, I

Dayne Hepner 1:00:01

could pull them up. I'll pull them up real quick and tell you who it was so everyone doesn't think I'm just capping put on the spot. Now, turn wells, Colton, Dixon, Nissan, Bayside worship, Shane Pruitt, Abby Robinson, skillet and KB, those

William Harris 1:00:16

were everyone you're with. A whole bunch of, like, really amazing people. I

Dayne Hepner 1:00:20

didn't The thing is, I had to meet all of them, but, like, I didn't really build relationships with anyone but Colton Dixon. He was, in my daily doses, super cool guy, really down the earth and new song guys were super sweet. They're super kind. KB was I thought he would be, not the way he was, but he was nice. He was really cool. He had a really cool team around him too. I don't know what I was expecting, but I wasn't expecting them to be so sweet. All of them were super duper cool. I think the biggest relationships I built was with, was with just mainly the the other, not the music guys, but the team that worked with them, just because, I mean, they were there doing their thing, and I'm like, I don't know, I don't, I don't. I'm not the kind of guy to like, kind of like, they can, we can approach each other and talk, but I'm not gonna like, yeah, they're there doing their thing, that we're making sure that they can do their thing. But it was cool. It was a cool experience.

William Harris 1:01:15

That is cool. Yeah, KB, really appreciate a lot of his stuff right now too. He's got almost like, some like reggaeton, that I really appreciate that. I'm like, good. We're really starting to get some different stuff in the Christian music scene. So I like that

Dayne Hepner 1:01:27

they're doing some cool stuff. It's cool. It's cool to hear like, the Christian music isn't as bland as I remember it being. There's new stuff. It's like, I don't gotta if I want to listen to some vibey music, it can be Christian. It's not just all hymns and worship. And hey, I have nothing against hymns and worship. Hallelujah, praise the Lord. But sometimes I'm in the car, I want him to jam to some to some hip hop. You know what? I mean? Absolutely,

William Harris 1:01:51

you want something to hit the six fold of the trunk, right? Yeah, exactly, exactly. Um, okay, what about um? Is there something that you're trying to improve in your personal life, something that you're, you know, this could be relationships or health or something that you're, you're very much trying to up arrow in your own life. Yeah,

Dayne Hepner 1:02:09

yeah. Um, the biggest thing for me is like, I'm married. I'm married, I'm having a kid. November 20. Thanks. Y'all can be praying for me, my wife and I got married about three years ago. The biggest thing for me is like, time management and making sure I'm pursuing my wife, because so often I can get so consumed with work and busyness that I just just get home and I still have more work to do, and just like, not prioritize the things that really matter. Like tonight, I set time aside, as I'm done with this podcast, ready go get some dinner with some friends. But I mean, just, just actually making sure I'm pursuing my wife and my relationships, especially with my wife, in a way that's God honoring, because, I mean, he put her in my life, and he's given us a wonderful kiddo. But yeah, that's the biggest challenge for me, is making sure, making sure that I'm doing good job with that.

William Harris 1:03:03

I don't have that all figured out, but I think we just

Dayne Hepner 1:03:06

always I had, not I have, by no means have it figured out, just working.

William Harris 1:03:11

Yeah, I think we just celebrated 15, but I should double check that. I think it was 15 years or 15 years coming up. We may have just celebrated 14. I was either 14 or 15, but one of the things that I found helpful to me is, and I have to come back to every once in a while, is just intentionally bucketing that time, right? And it sounds so weird to be like, I'm gonna schedule a date night, but it's like, we go through, I've got three kids now, and it's like, we've got volleyball this night, we've got youth group this night. It's like, on top of all the work, and so it's like, literally having to go through our calendar and being like, this is a night that's free. I'm putting it in our calendar, in our phones, that way. It's like, date night, because otherwise it's so easy. No, for real.

Dayne Hepner 1:03:54

Yeah, no, I agree. We do the same thing. It's like, I have dinner on calendar today, and like, otherwise, I'm gonna overbook it. To be honest. I forgot we had dinner tonight, so I'm glad we scheduled our time when we did. There's always, there's always something that's popping out. I have a calendar. I gotta make sure I manage it all. Otherwise, I'm like, Oh no, I told my wife I take her out to dinner tonight. No, I'm a terrible husband. You know what? I mean,

William Harris 1:04:19

totally. So speaking of managing all of that, if people wanted to reach out to you, work with you, follow you. What is the best way for them to do that? Because I understand they have like, 2000 unread text messages, so we're not gonna have them text you, but what's the best way for them to follow you?

Dayne Hepner 1:04:36

It's bad. It's I take it. I took it down a few. We're at 1700 but bad, um, here you can take a screenshot of my, my my Candy's email. I might not check it, but my team will, and if you just put in there that you want to talk to Dayne , my name is Dayne , D, A, y, and. And e Dayne Hepner, then we will answer you. It's Candy's CO at Gmail dot I need to update my business card to be@Candeeze.com but Candeeze co@gmail.com

William Harris 1:05:14

Yeah. And more importantly, they could follow you on TikTok, which is, oh, yeah,

Dayne Hepner 1:05:19

that's true. Candeeze CO, yeah, yeah, you can check us out. See what kind of candy. Maybe grab some fruit candy for yourself. If you ever see me on stream, be like, Yo, I saw you in Williams podcast. Give me a special deal. And hey, I'll hook you up. I'll give you a special deal just for you.

William Harris 1:05:33

I love that. Let me know. And that's spelled for everybody who's listening and not watching, c, a, n, d, e, e, e, z, E, C, O.

Dayne Hepner 1:05:42

So the name real quick the name, I love combining things. So there's two reasons I named it like this. First is, it's candy and freeze. The second is, when you say Candeeze, you always think Candy's nuts. Well, you know what I mean. And so I'm like, okay, no one's gonna forget it, because my party's in the grass. Is young, young guys, young girls. I mean, they love candy. Most adults don't eat candy because they're trying to watch their weight. So hey, say here my name, they're not gonna forget it. And I think it worked, because I don't know we're out where we are.

William Harris 1:06:19

That's great. Well, Dayne , I really appreciate you jumping on, sharing your time, sharing your wisdom with us. It's been fun. Yeah, everybody else, thanks for listening. Hope you have a great rest of your day. Bye, bye.

Outro 1:06:33

Thanks for listening to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris. We'll see you again next time, and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.

‍