Podcasts about amazing selling machine

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Best podcasts about amazing selling machine

Latest podcast episodes about amazing selling machine

Ecomm Leaders with Aaron Cordovez
Matt Clark: Finding Modern Opportunity | The Aaron Cordovez Show #93

Ecomm Leaders with Aaron Cordovez

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 10, 2024 64:05


In this episode I host Matt Clark, cofounder of Amazing Selling Machine. ASM was one of those phenomenon you only see once in a lifetime--where rich opportunity, clever business, and a desire to help others comes together to make a cohesive and profitable venture,  benefitting all who come in contact with it. I was lucky enough to be put on to ASM back in 2015 by a friend of mine, and my life has never been the same since. I'm truly grateful for the work Matt has done, and honored to have him on the podcast to share his experience running the crazy selling machine he created. Make sure to check out The Matt Clark Show! Out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. Connect with Matt - Instagram: @mattclarktx - Tiktok: @mattaclark My Socials - Twitter: @Aaron_Cordovez - Instagram: @AaronCordovez - YouTube: @AaronCordovez - TikTok: @AaronCordovez - LinkedIn:  @AaronCordovez

Ecomm Breakthrough
You've been doing Shopify wrong—Matt Clark's top 1% strategy for Shopify a game-changer

Ecomm Breakthrough

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 23, 2024 66:45


Matt serves as executive chairman and is one of the co-founders of Amazing.com and the Amazing Selling Machine course that has taught tens of thousands of students how to run a successful Amazon business. With more than a decade of ecommerce experience and with multiple million-dollar companies, Matt loves sharing his success and strategies with other entrepreneurs.> Here's a glimpse of what you would learn…. The significance of joining a mastermind group and seizing opportunities for business growth and collaboration.Importance of diversifying beyond Amazon and building a valuable consumer brand for long-term success.Importance of driving traffic to Shopify store, leveraging influencer partnerships, and optimizing product pages.Steps to set up a Shopify store, including connecting fulfillment to Amazon, adding products, and optimizing the store design.Strategies for optimizing a product page on Shopify, including modeling after successful brands and using a copywriting framework.Benefits of subscription-based business models, increasing lifetime value, and strategies for increasing average order value.Approaches to testing offers, refining strategies, and prioritizing appeal in ad campaigns.In this episode of the Ecomm Breakthrough podcast, host Josh Hadley converses with Matt Clark, a seasoned e-commerce expert and executive chairman of Amazing.com. They discuss the challenges and strategies for Amazon sellers, emphasizing the need to diversify and create independent sales channels. Matt advises starting with a Shopify store, focusing on optimizing top-selling products, and leveraging Google ads using Amazon keyword data. He also suggests maximizing average order value and learning from successful competitors. Matt shares personal insights, including the influence of Jack Canfield's "Success Principles" and his admiration for Ezra Firestone's work in e-commerce.Here are the 3 action items that Josh identified from this episode:Action item #1: Expanding Beyond Amazon. Matt recommends starting with setting up a Shopify store. This serves as your brand's website, a crucial asset for capturing leads and customer information,Action item #2: Leveraging Advertising and Traffic Sources. Matt's strategy is to start with Google PPC ads, using keyword data from Amazon to target potential customers. He then prioritizes Facebook ads for their effectiveness and reach. Action item #3: Increasing Average Order Value.  focus on increasing average order value through complementary products, and subscriptions.Resources mentioned in this episode:Josh Hadley on LinkedIneComm Breakthrough ConsultingeComm Breakthrough PodcastEmail Josh Hadley: Josh@eCommBreakthrough.comAmazon Selling MachineMavericks Mastermind GroupRay Edwards P.A.S.T.O.R. FrameworkZipify One Click UpsellBlack Rifle CoffeeSuccess Principles by Jack CanfieldEzra FirestoneMatt Clark's Personal WebsiteSpecial Mention(s):Adam “Heist” Runquist on LinkedInKevin King on LinkedInMichael E. Gerber on LinkedInRelated Episode(s):“Cracking the Amazon Code: Learn From Adam Heist's Brand Scaling Secrets” on the eComm Breakthrough Podcast“Kevin King's Wicked-Smart Tips for Building an Audience of Raving Fans” on the eComm Breakthrough Podcast“Unlocking Entrepreneurial Greatness | Insider Secrets With E-myth Author Michael Gerber” on the eComm Breakthrough PodcastThis episode is brought to you by eComm Breakthrough Consulting where I help seven-figure e-commerce owners grow to eight figures. I started my business in 2015 and grew it to an eight-figure brand in seven years. I made mistakes along the way that made the path to eight figures longer. At times I doubted whether our business could even survive and become a real brand. I wish I would have had a guide to help me grow faster and avoid the stumbling blocks. If you've hit a plateau and want to know the next steps to take your business to the next level, then email me at josh@ecommbreakthrough.com and in your subject line say “strategy audit” for the chance to win a $10,000 comprehensive business strategy audit at no cost!Transcript AreaJosh (00:00:35)** ((-)) - - Welcome to the Ecomm Breakthrough Podcast. I'm your host, Josh Hadley, where I interview the top business leaders in e-commerce. Past guests include Kevin King, Michael Gerber, author of The E-myth, and Norm Ferrar How We're Ty and Steve Simonsson. Today I'm speaking with Matt Clark, the executive chairman of Amazing Dotcom and the creator of The Amazing Selling Machine. And we're going to be talking a lot about how you can make sure your brand is still relevant and thriving even ten years from now. This episode is brought to you by Ecomm Breakthrough Consulting, where I help seven figure companies grow to eight figures and beyond.Josh (00:01:10)** ((-)) - - Listen, Matt, I started my business back in 2015 and I grew it to an eight figure brand in seven years, but it took me a lot longer than I think it really needed to. I made a lot of mistakes along the way that made that path a little bit harder than it really needed to be. I had cash flow issues. There were times where I had to invest my own money back into the business in order to make payroll. There were bad hiring decisions that I made. There were bad advertising decisions that I made, and I wish I would have had a mentor along the way that would have been able to help me overcome those stumbling blocks and grow a lot faster. So to our listeners, those of you who have hit similar plateaus a...

Women on Amazon
Global Buying to Global Exploring - Embracing Transitions for a New Adventure with Sarah Dashfield

Women on Amazon

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 15, 2024 45:12


In this episode, we delve into the inspiring journey of Sarah Dashfield, a former corporate professional who took a leap of faith to create a life and business aligned with her passions. We explore Sarah's early influences, from her love for travel and fashion buying to her foray into the world of entrepreneurship and her involvement with the Amazing Selling Machine program. Despite encountering numerous obstacles, Sarah's determination and thirst for knowledge propelled her forward, ultimately leading to significant growth in her online business, which specialized in barbecue products, especially during the challenging times of the pandemic. Her unwavering dedication and strategic approach resulted in the successful sale of her business to an Amazon aggregator for a remarkable seven-figure sum. Throughout the discussion, Sarah emphasizes the importance of understanding one's strengths, the value of outsourcing tasks, and the significance of self-investment. She passionately advocates for individuals to embrace change, push their boundaries, and immerse themselves in new experiences to avoid stagnation, all while sharing her insights on avoiding a return to the corporate world. Join us as we unpack Sarah's journey, filled with valuable lessons on resilience, self-discovery, and the pursuit of a fulfilling life and business. You can find out more about Sarah's new venture at http://bit.ly/JoinSaharaCamino

Ecomm Breakthrough
Mike McClary Reveals the Conversion Bomb: Secrets to 10X Your Sales!

Ecomm Breakthrough

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 9, 2024 68:14


Mike McClary is Co-creator of Amazing.com's Amazing Selling Machine, which aids thousands of entrepreneurs in establishing lucrative businesses by selling products on Amazon. As an accomplished e-commerce seller, he's sold millions of dollars worth of products on Amazon via multiple established companies. Mike is dedicated to teaching entrepreneurs how to build successful e-commerce businesses using the tools available through ASM. In this episode… Higher conversion rates indicate more people are buying from your store, increasing sales and revenue. It also means that your product listing is well-optimized and can effectively compete in the marketplace. So what are some impactful strategies to escalate sales conversions? If you want to 10X your sales, Mike McClary shares his conversion bomb, a secret weapon he developed to optimize product listings. To do this, you must set up processes to manipulate Amazon's algorithm that suggests continuous sales. Mike advocates setting up strikethrough pricing, which is selling products at a higher list price by attaching a coupon or Prime-exclusive discount to the price. This is effective because the coupons do not factor into the original price. Another way to influence the algorithm is by adding numerous converting badges to the list price, such as coupons and money-off promotions. This conversion bomb will inflate your conversion rates, increase the number of units sold per transaction, and boost product rankings.  Join Josh Hadley in this episode of the eComm Breakthrough Podcast, where he sits down with Mike McClary, CEO of Amazing.com, to explore e-commerce diversification and Amazon advertising. Mike discusses the evolution of Amazon, shares seller-growth tactics to help entrepreneurs exceed seven figures, and details his conversion bomb strategy. Resources mentioned in this episode: Josh Hadley on LinkedIn eComm Breakthrough Consulting eComm Breakthrough Podcast Email Josh Hadley: Josh@eCommBreakthrough.com Hadley Designs Hadley Designs on Amazon Mike McClary on LinkedIn | Instagram Email Mike McClary: support@amazing.com Amazing.com Special Mention(s): Kevin King on LinkedIn Adam “Heist” Runquist on LinkedIn Matthew Clark on LinkedIn Alex Hormozi on LinkedIn Michael E. Gerber on LinkedIn The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber Three Simple Steps: A Map to Success in Business and Life by Trevor G. Blake SellerCon Google Keep Related Episode(s): “Kevin King's Wicked-Smart Tips for Building an Audience of Raving Fans” on the eComm Breakthrough Podcast “Cracking the Amazon Code: Learn From Adam Heist's Brand Scaling Secrets” on the eComm Breakthrough Podcast “Unlocking Entrepreneurial Greatness | Insider Secrets With E-myth Author Michael Gerber on the” eComm Breakthrough Podcast

Prime Talk - eCommerce Podcast
PT186 - Dan Ashburn - Co-Founder of Titan Network

Prime Talk - eCommerce Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 17, 2023 56:04


In this Prime Talk Podcast Sponsored by Getida – Dan Ashburn - Co-Founder of Titan Network - talks about how started as a computer whiz kid to a Titan of Amazon, and also more information about his life's journey. Getida YouTube Channel Subscribe: http://bit.ly/GETIDA-YouTube-Subscribe About Dan Ashburn of Titan Network - https://www.titannetwork.com/ Dan Ashburn is an industry-leading Amazon entrepreneur with a team that delivers 8-figures in annual sales. Having used his ambitious and entrepreneurial mindset to build countless brands, Dan has become a sought-after speaker, inspiring crowds with his leadership and depth of knowledge on stages across the world. Dan is the Head Mentor on China Magic, the co-creator of Amazing Selling Machine, and the co-founder of Titan Network. Getida: https://getida.com/ Please subscribe to our channel and share your thoughts and comments below.

CamBro Conversations
201) Dan Ashburn - Becoming an 8 Figure Amazon Business Titan

CamBro Conversations

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 20, 2023 66:23


Today's conversation is with Dan Ashburn. Dan is an Amazon Entrepreneur and the co-founder of the Titan Network. Dan has become a sought-after speaker, inspiring crowds with his leadership and depth of knowledge on stages across the world. Alongside his role at Titan, Dan is the Head Mentor on China Magic, and the co-creator of Amazing Selling Machine. With over a decade of experience in e-commerce and digital marketing, Dan is an expert in growing brands on Amazon, guiding them from zero to eight and even nine figures on the platform. Expect to learn Dan's first foray into making money online in his early teens, how his family life led to him having to grow up fast and join the RAF, the skills he built during his time in the military, and his early entry into the world of Amazon. Amazon has evolved over the years and Dan has grown and succeeded in this space throughout that time. For the next 60 minutes, we've get an insight into the mindset, advice, insights, lessons, and views of a thorough-bred entrepreneur. Connect with Dan: Insta - www.instagram.com/danashburnuk/ Website - https://www.titannetwork.com Connect with Col: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/col.cambro/ Email List - https://mailchi.mp/548e38ba5942/colincambro Support me: www.buymeacoffee.com/ColCamBro

amazon figure email lists ashburn amazon business amazing selling machine head mentor
Fearless Sellers - The Women of Amazon
#21 The Ultimate Amazon FBA Story - Stuck Inventory, Lawsuits & A BIG EXIT

Fearless Sellers - The Women of Amazon

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 11, 2023 40:26


Interested in building your own Amazon business in partnership with 7 and 8 figure Amazon Sellers? If so, apply for your free consultation with Joie Roberts and the AMZ Insiders' team of experts here => www.amzinsiders.org/apply?sl=fp   Selling on Amazon without safety standards or certifications? Looks like a slippery slope! Because one misstep, and you'll lose all you've built in a blink! Today, learn the importance of standards and certifications from a fellow seller who scaled their business remarkably high before eventually selling it to a bigger company. In this episode, we're featuring the inspiring story of an optometrist couple who quit their jobs to grow a successful online business selling eye care products on Amazon! So, how did it all happen? Jenna and Travis Zigler were in search of a more fulfilling career when they decided to quit their traditional jobs to open two optometry practices. While they enjoyed better fulfillment and peace of mind, they had so few patients coming that they started to get bored. Sometime later, Travis discovered the Amazing Selling Machine course, which the two of them took and used as the key to starting their own online business, Eye Love. At first, they sold polarized sunglasses, but a patient's complaint about the high price of a prescription medication for dry eyes led them to pivot into the dry eye market. They built a community around their brand, with 25,000 followers on Facebook, and expanded their product line, despite many problems along the way. Eventually, Eye Love made it into the hands of a larger brand, hence allowing Jenna and Travis to continue their passion for providing eye care to people in need! As they sit with Joie in today's episode, they describe their eventful journey selling and winning on Amazon, and through it teaching you theimportance of perseverance, innovation, and finding a mentor to succeed in business. Tune in to this episode, now or whenever you have time! But don't miss it Episode Highlights: The importance of finding a mentor and persevering through setbacks to succeed in business. The potential of taking courses to learn how to sell online and pivot into new markets. The importance of meeting safety standards and obtaining certifications for products sold in the US. The challenges of balancing business, personal life, and a medical practice. The potential for outsourcing and hiring to help grow a business. The possibility of selling a business to a bigger brand to reach more people and achieve greater impact. Meet Jenna Jenna Zigler is an optometrist and entrepreneur who, along with her husband, built, scaled, and sold a winning Amazon eye care business. Timestamps [0:04] Meet Dr. Jenna and learn about her optometrics background. [2:34] How Jenna and her husband started Eye Love. [7:12] The importance of having a mentor and how Jenna learned it through building her business. [9:48] How did you decide on the price point for your product on Amazon? [15:04] Certifications, regulations, compliance and why they matter on Amazon. [21:24] Jennifer Aniston and the lawsuit they faced with their brand's logo. [24:16] Customs regulations and what followed after facing a lawsuit from another brand. [28:20] Why customer service was the first thing they outsourced in their business. [30:38] The turning point when Jenna and Travis decided to sell the business. [35:38] Jenna and Travis' thoughts on giving back to the community. Interested in building your own Amazon business in partnership with 7 and 8 figure Amazon Sellers? If so, apply for your free consultation with Joie Roberts and the AMZ Insiders' team of experts here => www.amzinsiders.org/apply?sl=fp

Sold With Webinars Podcast
The Wacky World of Webinars with Jason Fladlien | SWW233

Sold With Webinars Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 16, 2022 57:36


I've got a newly acquired acquaintance and friend that I recently met at WebinarCon. He wrote the book “One to Many” and is at the forefront of our webinar industry. His name is Jason Fladlien, the master of words. Jason went from Iowa-based rapper to becoming known as the $100 million webinar man and set the record for internet marketing with $57.9 million. He developed a technique that became well-known in the world of webinars. In this episode, we go over this technique in-depth. Click here to check out Jason's webinar framework. You'll Discover Learn how to provide value on a webinar. [11:27] Live interaction is the most effective way to create a contribution to the world of webinars. [15:05] The best thing to do is to use a webinar to sell the series of webinars. [17:33] The Amazing Selling Machine. [27:31] A webinar is a tool that is one too many. [43:09] ...And much more! Helpful Resources For a full transcript of this episode, visit our blog. Join our free Facebook group, Million Dollar Course Marketers. Want to launch a High Ticket Course to grow your business without adding more work? Watch our brand new webinar. Interested in working with Joel one-on-one? We'll deliver a finished mini-webinar funnel to your OR will give you a detailed Game Plan you can go implement yourself – Apply here. Subscribe to the podcast: Youtube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher. Follow Joel on social media: Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin.

The Social Marketing Hour
Lifeboost Coffee Co-founder Matt Clark on E-comm Success Off Amazon - The Social Marketing Hour

The Social Marketing Hour

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 17, 2022 49:18


Amazon vs. Shopify, which is better? It's a common question among E-Commerce entrepreneurs, and we may finally have an answer. In this episode of The Social Marketing Hour, we talk with Matt Clark. Matt is a co-founder of LifeBoost Coffee and the Amazing Selling Machine course. Lifeboost coffee is the fastest-growing privately owned coffee company in the United States. According to the Inc. 500 list. The course- Amazing Selling Machine has taught over 35,000 people how to successfully sell on Amazon. And is responsible for 100s of millions of dollars in sales for its graduates. This is a great interview for both experienced and beginner E-Commerce entrepreneurs.

The Facebook Marketing Ninja
The Social Marketing Hour - Lifeboost Coffee Co-founder Matt Clark on Ecomm Success Off Amazon

The Facebook Marketing Ninja

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 14, 2022 49:13


Amazon vs. Shopify, which is better? It's a common question among eCommerce entrepreneurs and we may finally have an answer. In this episode of The Social Marketing Hour, we talk with Matt Clark. Matt is a co-founder of LifeBoost Coffee and the Amazing Selling Machine course. Lifeboost coffee is the fastest-growing privately owned coffee company in the United States. According to the Inc. 500 list. And Amazing Selling Machine has taught over 35,000 people how to successfully sell on Amazon. And is responsible for 100s of millions of dollars in sales for its graduates. This is a great interview for both experienced and beginner eCommerce entrepreneurs. If you're in need of a team, one that will go above and beyond for you and your brand, then please visit talktoaninja.com to get more information on how we can help you today. You can follow Manuel on: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrmanuelsuarez/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/theninjamarketer/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrmanuelsuarez/ Youtube: https://bit.ly/3GVPXVm Messenger Channel: www.m.me/theninjamarketer/ Contact AGM: site: talktoaninja.com email: contact@agmagency.com phone: 1.888.280.3339

eCommerce Marketing Podcast
YouTube Advertising for E-commerce Brands - with Shashwat Singh

eCommerce Marketing Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 1, 2022 31:58


Shashwat Singh runs Linx Digital Agency, an agency that has generated over $30 million in revenue for their clients with YouTube Advertising. Shashwat has worked with clients like Prodigy Game, Kinobody, Amazing Selling Machine and more. With multi-7 figures under ad spend management, Shashwat's agency is one of the leading YouTube ad agencies in the game. In this episode, you will learn What are the different ad options available on YouTube How does a brand get started with YouTube advertising and what are suggestions on well performing ad types What are some tools and resources that are needed to make all these things happen Examples of businesses that have successfully utilized YouTube ads and have achieved success For show transcript and past guests, please visit https://www.ecommercemarketingpodcast.com Or on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3PgT0NOGzpdPGQtBK0XLIQ Follow Arlen: Twitter: https://twitter.com/askarlen  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/arlen.robinson.7  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arlenyohance/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arlenrobinson/  Past guests on the ecommerce marketing podcast include Neil Patel, Nemo Chu, Luke Lintz, Luke Carthy, Amber Armstrong, Kris Ruby and many more. Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review.

Tech Pro Unicorn Podcast
Amazon FBA - Selling on Amazon - Titan Network - The Guru - Dan Ashburn

Tech Pro Unicorn Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 4, 2022 42:24


Dan Ashburn is an industry-leading Amazon entrepreneur with a team that delivers 8-figures in annual sales. Having used his ambitious and entrepreneurial mindset to build countless brands, he has become a sought-after speaker, inspiring crowds with his leadership and depth of knowledge on stages across the world. Dan is the Head Mentor on China Magic,  helped scale Amazing Selling Machine, and most recently, the co-founder of Titan Network, an exclusive membership organization for elite Amazon sellers. For more information on Dan and Titan Network, please visit: https://www.titannetwork.comMichael and Dan talk about the evolution of selling on Amazon and why a mentor can actually save you money. How did Dan build so many Amazon related businesses? **Correction to the intro - Dan didn't start Amazing Selling Machine - he did however help them scale to what they are today.#amazon #amazonFBA #FBA

Breakthrough Success
How to Use YouTube Ads to Grow Your Business with Shashwat Singh (Ep. 687)

Breakthrough Success

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 23, 2022 17:37


YouTube ads can ignite your brand's growth and introduce you to a steady stream of new prospects. These ads provide superior targeting capabilities and provide numerous data points to dissect. They can look complicated to beginners which is why we're talking about YouTube ads in the latest Breakthrough Success episode. About Our GuestShash Singh runs an Linx Digital, an agency that has generated their clients over 8 figures in revenue. Shash has worked with clients like Prodigy Game, Kinobody, Amazing Selling Machine and more. With multi-7 figures under ad spend management, Shash's agency is one of the leading YouTube ad agencies in the game. Key Links from the Episodehttps://linxyt.com/breakthrough (Free YouTube Ads Targeting Guide) https://www.youtube.com/c/ShashSinghLinxDigitalUniversity (Subscribe to Shashwat's channel) Want a business freelance writer to assist with your content creation? Send me an email marcguberti@gmail.com.

10 Million Journey
#214: John Cavendish - Tips On Closing Sales Calls, Scaling An Agency, And Seller Central Support

10 Million Journey

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 13, 2022 57:37


My guest today is John Cavendish. John is the CEO of Seller Candy, which is the Expert Amazon Operations arm of an Amazon business. They provide unlimited support and solutions inside Seller Central at an experienced level without the hassle of onboarding and training members onto their team. John is a successful Amazon seller himself. Today we are going to talk about all things operations.   Links from the episode:  Amazing Selling Machine - https://www.amazingsellingmachine.com Capitalism Conference - https://www.capitalism.com Dynamite Circle - https://www.tropicalmba.com/dynamite-circle-events Tropical Nomad - https://tropicalnomad.spaces.nexudus.com/en Investing.io - https://investing.io   Podcasts John Recommend: Freedom Fastlane by Ryan Daniel Moran - https://podcasts.apple.com/freedom-fast-lane My Wife Quit Her Job by Steve Chou -  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-wife-quit-her-job-podcast The Tim Ferriss Show - https://tim.blog/podcast Modern Wisdom by Chris Williamson - https://podcasts.apple.com/modern-wisdom   Books John Recommend: “The Surrender Experiment: My Journey Into Life's Perfection” by Michael Singer - https://www.amazon.com/The-Surrender-Experiment?tag=10mj-20 “The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, And Join The New Rich” by Timothy Ferriss - https://www.amazon.com/4-Hour-Workweek?tag=10mj-20 “New Sales Simplified: The Essential Handbook For Prospecting And New Business Development” by Mike Weinberg - https://www.amazon.com/New-Sales-Simplified?tag=10mj-20 “You Can't Teach A Kid To Ride A Bike At A Seminar: The Sandler Training's 7-Step System For Successful Selling” by John P. Hayes - https://www.amazon.com/You-Cant-Teach-A-Kid-To-Ride-A-Bike-At-A-Seminar?tag=10mj-20   Books Anatoly Recommend: “Awaken The Giant Within: How To Take Immediate Control Of Your Mental, Emotional, Physical and Financial Destiny!” by Tony Robbins - https://www.amazon.com/Awaken-Giant-Within?tag=10mj-20 “12 Months To $1 Million: How To Pick A Winning Product, Build A Real Business, And Become A Seven-Figure Entrepreneur” by Ryan Moran - https://www.amazon.com/12-Months-Million?tag=10mj-20   Youtube Channel Anatoly Recommends: Ryan Daniel Moran - https://www.youtube.com/c/RyanDanielMoran/videos   Connect with John: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejohncavendish Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jgcuk Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejohncavendish Twitter: https://twitter.com/johngcavendish Company Website and Social Media: Seller Candy - https://sellercandy.com  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sellercandy Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SellerCandyPro Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sellercandyamz YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/videos   Want to sit down with Anatoly 1 on 1 ? Even though I keep saying I AM NOT A GURU, many of you ask to sit down and pick my brain. I have decided to do a 1h HELP calls. There are 2 purposes: 1st to support you in your journey and second also to be able to break even on the production of this podcast (each episode editing, marketing, guest research etc takes about $60 - $150 to produce). Now you can schedule 1h with me, and we can talk about launching products, hiring, product research, keywords, mindset, how I did an Ironman or anything at all. Link is here - https://calendly.com/anatolyspektor/anatoly-connsulting-1h    ANATOLY's TOOLS:   Product Development: Helim10 - I use it for  Product Research, Keyword tracking and Listing Optimization .  SPECIAL DEAL: Get 50% your first month or 10% every month: http://bit.ly/CORNERSIIH10  Pickfu - I use it for split testing all of my products and for validation ideas .  SPECIAL DEAL: First split test 50% 0ff  https://www.pickfu.com/10mj   Trademarking: Trademark Angels - For all my trademarking needs.  SPECIAL: Mention Anatoly and 10MJ podcast and get 10% Off your trademark.   HR: Fiverr -  I hire my 3dMockup person and images label designer here on Fiverr - http://bit.ly/10mjFIVERR Upwork - I hire people long term on Upwork - upwork.com  Loom.com - for creating SOP's, I record everything on Loom and give to my VA's Keepa.com - to track historical data such as prices   ANATOLY's  3 Favorite  Business Books: DotCom Secrets by Russel Brunson - I think this is a must read for every online entrepreneurs - http://bit.ly/10MJDotCom 4 hours work week by Tim Ferriss  - This book changed my life and made me become an entrepreneur - http://bit.ly/10MJ4WW The Greatest Salesman In The World  by Og Mandino - Old book but it goes to the core of selling -  http://bit.ly/10MJGREATSM    DISCLAIMER: Some Links are affiliate, it costs you nothing, but helps to keep this podcast on the float   Have questions? Go to https://www.10millionjourney.com Follow us on Instagram: @10millionjourney

Seller Sessions
SellerPoll For Amazon Sellers

Seller Sessions

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 6, 2021 8:07


Today is the Second leaderboard show of the year. Where you get to see who is in the first 15 places over the usual 9 categories. SellerPoll 2021 is brought to you by Fortunet.... Voting closes on Nov 24 and the live show will take place Nov 25 2021 To see who is in the top 5, make sure you tune in to the show.... Outstanding Contribution 1//// 2//// 3//// 4//// 5//// 6 Meghla Bhardwaj 7 Athena Severi 8 Liran Hirschkorn 9 Kevin King 10 Steve Simonson 11 Steven Black 12 Eric Castellano 13 Casey Gauss 14 Scott Needham 15 Saad Aqeel Software Company 1 //// 2 //// 3 //// 4 //// 5 //// 6 Smartscout 7 Titan Tools 8 Datadive 9 Seller.tools 10 Sellerboard 11 Inventorylab 12 Ppc Ninja 13 Sostocked 14 Feedbackfive 15 Seller Seo Service Provider 1 //// 2 //// 3 //// 4 //// 5 //// 6 Getida 7 Ecom Attorneys 8 Unicargo 9 Rich Goldstein Patent Law 10 Urtasker 11 Incrementum Digital 12 Buyboxer Services 13 Online Merchants Guild 14 Multiplymii 15 Ecomxprt Amazon Consultant 1 //// 2 //// 3 //// 4 //// 5 //// 6 Liran Hirschkorn 7 Dan Ashburn 8 Amy Wees 9 Mohammad Jalil 10 Anthony Lee 11 Eric Castellano 12 Steven Black 13 Ashley Armstrong 14 Paul Harvey 15 Usama Shahid Facebook Group 1 //// 2 //// 3 //// 4 //// 5 //// 6 Amazon Fba High Rollers 7 Sourcing From India 8 Amazon Fba Heroes 9 Amazon Seller Tribe 10 Unstoppable Fba 11 Orange Hat Marketing 12 Amazon Fba Rockstars! 13 Amazon Fba Competitive Edge 14 Sourcing With Kian 15 Amazonlit Youtube Channel 1 //// 2 //// 3 //// 4 //// 5 //// 6 Jungle Scout 7 Amazonlit 8 Amazing.com 9 Full-time Fba 10 Sourcing With Kian 11 Samer Brax 12 Private Label Masters 13 Seth Kniep 14 Brock Johnson 15 Viral Launch Podcast 1 //// 2 //// 3 //// 4 //// 5 //// 6 The Amazon Seller Podcast 7 The Smartest Amazon Seller 8 Ecommerce Momentum Podcast 9 Ecom Crew 10 The Amazon Entrepreneur 11 The Amazon Fba Private Labeler Show 12 Awesomers.com 13 Keyword: The Amazon Insider Podcast 14 Crossover Commerce 15 Follow The Data Event Conference 1 //// 2 //// 3 //// 4 //// 5 //// 6 Orange Klik 7 Prosper Show 8 Titan Event Cancun 9 Amazon Accelerate 10 Canton Fair Online 11 Endgame Network Workshop 12 Asgtg 13 Global Sources Summit 14 Austin Seller Meetup 15 Billion Dollar Summit Amazon Training Course 1 //// 2 //// 3 //// 4 //// 5 //// 6 Amazing At Home 7 Esellersri 8 Endgame Access 9 Amazing Selling Machine 10 Fast Track 11 Amazon Ppc Ams Course 12 The Last Amazon Course 13 Private Label Mba 14 Marketplace Superheroes 15 Amazing Freedom If you want to ask your audience to vote in any of the categories please use the official promo material https://drive.google.com/.../1zIxU0mCcxXTXpxflnWX7sZBJ... Remember, there is a difference between begging and asking, you know where the line is. If people rate you, they will vote for you X

Seller Sessions
SellerPoll Leaderboard Results & Announcements

Seller Sessions

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 29, 2021 15:53


Today is the first leaderboard show of the year. Where you get to see who is in the first 15 places over the usual 9 categories. SellerPoll 2021 is brought to you by Fortunet.... Voting closes on Nov 24 and the live show will take place Nov 26 2021 To see who is in the top 5, make sure you tune in to the show.... Outstanding Contribution 1 ---- 2 ---- 3 ---- 4 ---- 5 ---- 6 Amy Wees 7 Liran Hirschkorn 8 Athena Severi 9 Steve Simonson 10 Kevin King 11 Steven Black 12 Scott Needham 13 Casey Gauss 14 Eric Castellano 15 Saad Aqeel Software Company 1 ----- 2 ----- 3 ----- 4 ----- 5 ----- 6 Smartscout 7 Inventorylab 8 Seller.tools 9 Titan Tools 10 Sellerboard 11 Ppc Ninja 12 Feedbackfive 13 Feedbackwhiz 14 Data Dive 15 Sellerise Service Provider 1 ----- 2 ----- 3 ----- 4 ----- 5 ----- 6 Getida 7 Ecom Attorneys 8 Rich Goldstein Patent Law 9 Unicargo 10 Online Merchants Guild 11 Buyboxer Services 12 Incrementum Digital 13 Urtasker 14 Ecomxprt 15 Bobsled Marketing Amazon Consultant 1 ----- 2 ----- 3 ----- 4 ----- 5 ----- 6 Liran Hirschkorn 7 Dan Ashburn 8 Amy Wees 9 Anthony Lee 10 Steven Black 11 Eric Castellano 12 Ashley Armstrong 13 Paul Harvey 14 Brad Moss 15 Usama Shahid Facebook Group 1 ----- 2 ----- 3 ----- 4 ----- 5 ----- 6 Sourcing From India 7 Amazon Fba Titans 8 Amazon Fba Heroes 9 Amazon Fba Sellers - Amazon Fba Titans 10 Amazon Seller Tribe 11 Unstoppable Fba 12 Amazon Fba Rockstars! 13 Orange Hat Marketing 14 Amazon Fba Competitive Edge 15 Sourcing With Kian Youtube Channel 1 ----- 2 ----- 3 ----- 4 ----- 5 ----- 6 Jungle Scout 7 Amazonlit 8 Amazing.com 9 Full-time Fba 10 Samer Brax 11 Private Label Masters 12 Sourcing With Kian 13 Brock Johnson 14 Seth Kniep 15 Viral Launch Podcast 1 ----- 2 ----- 3 ----- 4 ----- 5 ----- 6 The Amazon Seller Podcast 7 Lunch With Norm 8 Ecommerce Momentum Podcast 9 Ecom Crew 10 Awesomers.com 11 The Amazon Entrepreneur 12 The Amazon Fba Private Labeler Show 13 Crossover Commerce 14 Follow The Data 15 Keyword: The Amazon Insider Podcast Event Conference 1 ----- 2 ----- 3 ----- 4 ----- 5 ----- 6 Seller Summit 7 Titan Event Cancun 8 Amazon Accelerate 9 Prosper Show 10 Canton Fair Online 11 Global Sources Summit 12 Endgame Network Workshop 13 Asgtg 14 Austin Seller Meetup 15 Billion Dollar Summit Amazon Training Course 1 ----- 2 ----- 3 ----- 4 ----- 5 ----- 6 Amazing At Home 7 Esellersri 8 Amazing Selling Machine 9 Endgame Access 10 Fast Track 11 The Last Amazon Course 12 Marketplace Superheroes 13 Amazon Ppc Ams Course 14 Amazing Freedom 15 Private Label Mba If you want to ask your audience to vote in any of the categories please use the official promo material https://drive.google.com/.../1zIxU0mCcxXTXpxflnWX7sZBJ... Remember, there is a difference between begging and asking, you know where the line is. If people rate you, they will vote for you X

Thrive LOUD with Lou Diamond
677: Dan Ashburn - AMAZON TITAN

Thrive LOUD with Lou Diamond

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 12, 2021 22:12


Dan Ashburn and his industry-leading team are responsible for delivering 8-figures in annual sales on Amazon. Operating in online marketing for 17 years, he is an international speaker, advisor, co-founder of SellerEvents, co-founder of Titan Network, head mentor on China Magic and more recently the co-creator of Amazing Selling Machine. Dan comes on Thrive LOUD to chat with Lou about where things are headed in the space and what he's truly excited about moving forward.

Branded by Amazing
Episode 16 - Interview with the Founder of Private Label Profit Karyn Thomas

Branded by Amazing

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 8, 2021 25:49


Today, Mike interviews Karyn Thomas, the Founder of Private Label Profit. She is a member of the Amazing Selling Machine and an Amazon listing optimization expert. She's been an entrepreneur in the e-commerce space for over 7 years speaking at SellerCon as well as many other big events. Listen to Karyn's story and find out what she calls the most important thing in a good Amazon product listing and her secret sauce…'Your Why.' Branded by Amazing discusses everything Amazon and focuses on how to start your own ecommerce business and brand. Hosts Matt Clark and Mike McClary are successful entrepreneurs running million dollar businesses both on Amazon and off. They currently are also the CEO and CPO of Amazing.com respectively. Amazing.com helps people build successful businesses and achieve the financial freedom to do what they want, when they want, wherever in the world they want. All Amazing.com instructors are experts in their fields, and they reveal the principles, strategies, and technologies they've discovered that produce real, measurable results. Announcement Check out amazingsellingmachine.com/branded discover how to refresh your finances now and build REAL wealth by the holidays! Links www.privatelabelprofit.com Social media info Youtube youtube.com/c/Amazingacademy/featured Instagram instagram.com/amazing_dotcom/ Facebook facebook.com/amazingcom Podcast Website amazing.com/branded

Branded by Amazing
Episode 16 - Interview with the Founder of Private Label Profit Karyn Thomas

Branded by Amazing

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 8, 2021 25:49


Today, Mike interviews Karyn Thomas, the Founder of Private Label Profit. She is a member of the Amazing Selling Machine and an Amazon listing optimization expert. She's been an entrepreneur in the e-commerce space for over 7 years speaking at SellerCon as well as many other big events. Listen to Karyn's story and find out what she calls the most important thing in a good Amazon product listing and her secret sauce…'Your Why.' Branded by Amazing discusses everything Amazon and focuses on how to start your own ecommerce business and brand. Hosts Matt Clark and Mike McClary are successful entrepreneurs running million dollar businesses both on Amazon and off. They currently are also the CEO and CPO of Amazing.com respectively. Amazing.com helps people build successful businesses and achieve the financial freedom to do what they want, when they want, wherever in the world they want. All Amazing.com instructors are experts in their fields, and they reveal the principles, strategies, and technologies they've discovered that produce real, measurable results. Announcement Check out amazingsellingmachine.com/branded discover how to refresh your finances now and build REAL wealth by the holidays! Links www.privatelabelprofit.com Social media info Youtube youtube.com/c/Amazingacademy/featured Instagram instagram.com/amazing_dotcom/ Facebook facebook.com/amazingcom Podcast Website amazing.com/branded

Branded by Amazing
Episode 13 - Interview With Successful Amazon Seller - Ana Silva

Branded by Amazing

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 10, 2021 22:28


Today, Matt and Mike interview one of their students, Ana Silva, who went from just getting started selling on Amazon to selling her business for 7-figures in under three years. Ana takes us on her incredible journey building her business from scratch with the help of Matt, Mike, and the Amazing Selling Machine. Branded by Amazing discusses everything Amazon and focuses on how to start your own eCommerce business and brand. Hosts Matt Clark and Mike McClary are successful entrepreneurs running million-dollar businesses both on Amazon and off. They currently are also the CEO and CPO of Amazing.com respectively. Amazing.com helps people build successful businesses and achieve the financial freedom to do what they want when they want, wherever in the world they want. All Amazing.com instructors are experts in their fields, and they reveal the principles, strategies, and technologies they've discovered that produce real, measurable results. Announcement Check out amazingsellingmachine.com/branded to discover how to refresh your finances now and build REAL wealth by the holidays! Social media info Instagram instagram.com/amazing_dotcom/ Facebook facebook.com/amazingcom Youtube youtube.com/c/Amazingacademy/featured Podcast Website amazing.com/branded

Branded by Amazing
Episode 13 - Interview With Successful Amazon Seller - Ana Silva

Branded by Amazing

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 10, 2021 22:28


Today, Matt and Mike interview one of their students, Ana Silva, who went from just getting started selling on Amazon to selling her business for 7-figures in under three years. Ana takes us on her incredible journey building her business from scratch with the help of Matt, Mike, and the Amazing Selling Machine. Branded by Amazing discusses everything Amazon and focuses on how to start your own eCommerce business and brand. Hosts Matt Clark and Mike McClary are successful entrepreneurs running million-dollar businesses both on Amazon and off. They currently are also the CEO and CPO of Amazing.com respectively. Amazing.com helps people build successful businesses and achieve the financial freedom to do what they want when they want, wherever in the world they want. All Amazing.com instructors are experts in their fields, and they reveal the principles, strategies, and technologies they've discovered that produce real, measurable results. Announcement Check out amazingsellingmachine.com/branded to discover how to refresh your finances now and build REAL wealth by the holidays! Social media info Instagram instagram.com/amazing_dotcom/ Facebook facebook.com/amazingcom Youtube youtube.com/c/Amazingacademy/featured Podcast Website amazing.com/branded

The Project Life Mastery Podcast
PLM 877 : Millionaire Amazon FBA Success Story (How This Single Mom Makes 7-Figures)

The Project Life Mastery Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 14, 2021 42:57


Find out how this single mom went from broke with a baby on the way to a millionaire Amazon FBA success story thanks to her Amazon business! Anne is a real-life single mom Amazon FBA success story who went from financial struggles to a millionaire with some hard work and education. After years in the law industry and putting on a suit every day, was fed up and ready for a new opportunity. Selling on Amazon came knocking and she took advantage. Anne decided to fast-track her success by investing in the Amazing Selling Machine program and she's now making 7-figures a year. It has completely changed her life! In this episode, Anne shares the biggest things that have contributed to her success on Amazon and how her FBA business has performed during the pandemic. FREE AMAZON FBA TRAINING: https://projectlifemastery.com/fba/Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Command Your Brand
Shash Singh | How to Make a Huge Impact with YouTube Ads

Command Your Brand

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 7, 2021 22:11


About This Episode: Shash Singh runs Linx Digital, an agency that has generated over $30 million in revenue for clients. Shash has worked with clients like Prodigy Game, Kinobody, Amazing Selling Machine and more. With multi-seven figures under their ad spend management, over the last five years Shash's agency has become one of the leading YouTube ad agencies in the game. In addition to running his agency, Shash speaks 5 languages, likes to ride motorcycles and surf the Brazilian coast. Find out more about Shash at: Linx Digital - www.linxdigitalagency.com Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/c/ShashSinghLinxDigitalUniversity/ Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/shashwat.singh/ Check out our YouTube Channel: Command Your Brand - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfy2IETlyeKq62VHdcRN7aQ/

AMZ Seller Real Talk
Ep. 6 - Facebook Marketing Ninja - Manuel Suarez

AMZ Seller Real Talk

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 25, 2020 35:46


In this episode:Curtis Johnson - Amateur Amazon sellerManuel Suarez - Facebook marketing ninjaTopics of this podcast:In this podcast we hear from the FACEBOOK NINJA himself, Manuel Suarez!For anyone looking to expand your reach off of Amazon FBA, you don't want to miss it!For MBS Subscribers, catch your exclusive content in our Facebook User group. If you are a subscriber but haven't joined the group, Join the group and provide us the email you use to log into MBS. Here the link:https://www.facebook.com/groups/1034920283263625Interested in selling on Amazon? Check out Amazing Selling Machine:https://amazing.samcart.com/referral/21trillion/REMkWvl6EcGDAj1S

The Quiet Light Podcast
Starting and Scaling an Amazon Business for Exit With FBA Expert Kellianne Fedio

The Quiet Light Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 25, 2020 33:35


On this episode of our podcast, we speak with Kellianne Fedio, an Amazon consultant. She discusses selling her previous business for seven figures and the creation of her new podcast. Her journey is long and interesting, with a lot of twists and turns. Here, she shares her entire story and offers great advice to those who want to follow in her footsteps. Tune in to hear Kellianne's great insights. Topics: When she stumbled on Ecommerce, she realized it was a good fit. How Amazon has changed since she started. Why outside funding sources are necessary. The importance of Mastermind groups. Living through rocky periods. Explaining rebates. Kellianne's consulting methods.   Resources: Kellianne on LinkedIn Kellianne on Facebook Digital Shelf Strategy Quiet Light Podcast@quietlightbrokerage.com   Transcription: Mark: Joe, we know that first-hand experiences of people that have gone through the process of building a business, preparing it for sale, going through that exit, that tends to be some of the greatest stories and stories where we can get a lot of lessons back to us that we can apply and learn how to optimize our own businesses for a better exit. I know you had Kellianne on recently and she shared her story of building her business and going through that exit and now her current pivot where she's starting up a podcast on this very topic. Joe: Yeah, Kellianne is good friends with another good friend of ours, Paul Miller, who owns Cozy Phones and Kellianne had a seven-figure exit. Technically, I guess it would be early this year that she closed on the transaction; early 2020. And she's learned a lot through that process and now she's sharing that experience and the knowledge and the networking and the story of building a business on Amazon; all the resources and connections that you need to make in order to build it well and build it right with an eventual exit in mind. So she shares her entire story and gives real tips and advice from her own direct experience during the interview. Joe: Hey, folks, Joe Valley here from Quiet Light Brokerage and the Quiet Light Podcast, Today I've got Kellianne Fedio and I had to say that out loud several times to make sure I pronounced it right. Kelly is a former attorney, Amazon seller, seven-figure exit that she's had recently. And she's going to be moving into helping people build their Amazon businesses for a stronger exit down the road. Kelly, welcome to the Quiet Light Podcast. Kelly: Thank you so much for having me, Joe. I'm such a big fan of everything you guys are doing over at Quiet Light and have done for the past several years so it's a real honor to be here. Joe: I appreciate that. I did more of an intro just now than I normally do, but I didn't read from the script. But why don't you go ahead and tell us who you are and your story and where you came from and what you've done here? Kelly: Sure. So I started out as an attorney in a former life, and after having kids, getting married, I became very unhappy in that profession. That was just a lot of long hours, not enough pay at least for what I was doing, and I really wanted to be there for my kids. So I became a stay at home mom for a while and loved every minute of it. And then when my kids started elementary school, I was like, okay, what's my next chapter here? And I never would have guessed it would have been entrepreneurship. I was very traditional type-A personality in high school. I'm going to get all A's. I'm going to go to college. I'm going to go to law school. I'm going to be an attorney. And that was like my plan for the rest of my life. And so fast forward to several years later, after having practiced law for 10 years and now having kids and a husband and a wonderful family life, I was like what am I passionate about? What can I put out there into the world that not only is going to hopefully bring in income to our family but also that I could be excited about doing? And so I just knew it had to have something to do with online; being online and creating value online. And so, like a lot of other entrepreneurs getting involved in the online space, I tried a lot of different things, made tons of mistakes, had tons of failures, learned a lot, loved every minute of that experience, but sooner or later stumbled upon e-commerce and pretty quickly realized this is something that I really could see myself doing for the foreseeable future. And so around that time, Amazing Selling Machine had become pretty prominent in terms of the Amazon education space. So I was in ASM3 and of course… Joe: I got to ask, what number were you? The early ones were the good years. They're coming back around. They're doing good stuff again. I talked to them last week. Kelly: They are. They're always innovating, always doing new stuff so, I mean I always bring that out when I'm on podcasts or other interviews, because if it wasn't for that course my life would be a lot different. So I met an amazing group of entrepreneurs with the affiliate group that I joined. It was Ryan Moran and his tribe. I met a lot of amazing people. I'm still friends with them to this day, and really just dug in and had some pretty early success early on. So it was really, really exciting and I knew that this was what I was going to be focusing on, probably forever. Joe: How did you choose your first product? Kelly: I chose something that I thought I could build a brand around. So I'm very passionate about talking to other Amazon sellers about when they're thinking about how to start their business. You know, people always ask, well, how do you pick a product? First and foremost, you have to build a brand these days. When I started, you could throw up kind of anything and just with a little luck and… Joe: How many years ago was it that you started? Kelly: 2014. Joe: Okay. Kelly: Yeah, so it was a while ago. Things have drastically changed, right, in the Amazon space? Joe: A little bit, yeah. Kelly: Yeah, a little bit. And so even back then; and I had no branding experience or consumer product experience, but I knew that this first product, I could build a brand around it and actually wasn't a product that had a huge demand at the time, but it was a product that I knew that I would love and that I knew that other active women would love. So that's really what I built the brand around and just continued to develop products; not all winners, lots of failures… Joe: Additional products all within that brand, yes? Kelly: Exactly, that would serve a core audience and solve a problem or need. Joe: How many products did you launch initially, was it just one? Kelly: It was just one. Joe: And it was a success out of the gate? Kelly: Not right out of the gate. So I launched it in August but by that Q4, I had reached seven figures on top-line revenue so it was really, really exciting. Joe: Cool, very exciting. Kelly: Just with one product, one variation. Joe: And probably not working as many hours as you did as an attorney. Kelly: No, I mean, I definitely was working a lot because I was still in learning mode. I mean, the thing about Amazon and e-commerce is you're not only learning the platform itself, but you're learning how to source overseas, perhaps, and manufacturing and product design and advertising and marketing. So there's a lot of different skill sets you have to learn. So I definitely was really, really passionate about learning as much as I could. Joe: When you learn all of those things, do you think it's things you need to learn and then do yourself or do you think that there are certain experts that you can outsource certain things to like photography or listing creation or whatever it might be; importing from China, dealing with different things? Are there certain aspects to an Amazon business you feel that should be outsourced and things that you should do in-house as the entrepreneur that started the business? Kelly: Oh, absolutely. In the beginning, I think you should do everything with the exception of maybe photography. Super specific skill sets, like graphic design or photography certainly, you can outsource that early on. But everything else I would say you have to learn first and foremost yourself before you can effectively outsource it. And there are I mean, so many great service providers now that have obviously spawned in this Amazon industry not only software services but also other types of services, whether it's Amazon brand management or writing listings, things like that. So now it's all out there, but you should really learn the components and the strategy behind it first before outsourcing. Joe: How much money did you start with Kellianne? Kelly: I started with about $5,000. Joe: Okay, and did you have to borrow more to keep up with inventory? Because that's the story that I consistently hear. I started out with X and then when you dig deeper the business didn't fund the growth. Did yours fund the growth or did you have to go and borrow more? Kelly: In the beginning, it did. But yes, even if you reinvest all of your profits, there's no way you can grow initially without getting capital from outside sources. So about a year into it, I was able to get Amazon Lending so that was great. But before that, it was a lot of credit cards. And then early on, I actually was able to get a line of credit after the first year. But until then, it was really credit cards. And I wouldn't recommend people doing that but sometimes it's just a necessary evil to get where you need to go. Joe: Yeah, I was playing golf with a mentor years ago before I grab my head and one of the things he said to me was get a line of credit set up now; before you need it, get that line of credit set up because you never know when you're going to need it. And I see so many people that are struggling to keep up with purchasing more and more inventory for growth or developers if it's a SaaS business because they don't have the ability to stroke a check when it's necessary. They go hunting for that line of credit when they need it as opposed to getting it set up beforehand so I think it's great to get it set up beforehand. So you hit six figures you said by the end of Q4 your first year… Kelly: Seven figures, I was very lucky. Yeah. Joe: And did a million in revenue in 2004. Kelly: Mm-hmm. Joe: Don't you like how I could do the seven-figure translation to a million? That was really; okay, all right. Anyway was it all with one SKU or did you add additional SKUs as well? Kelly: By that next quarter of 2015 then I started adding more SKUs, but it was really just on one product. And so that talk about funding the inventory for that, I got to say it was just a lot of luck. I was able to forge a really strong relationship with my supplier very early on in China without ever having met him. And he gave me terms once he saw that this thing; and that normally doesn't happen that early on in the relationship. Joe: No. Yeah, I know. Kelly: He was able to give me terms. So that's another way that I was able to fund that growth so quickly that that first year. Joe: Yeah, if you can get to China, folks, we did a podcast with Athena Severi from China Magic and before that with Dan from Titan Network all about negotiating terms with your Chinese manufacturers, and it does exactly what Kellianne did, which was it gives you more cash flow for buying more inventory. And if you can get terms, it's a lot better than an Amazon Loan because the interest rate is very different. It's nonexistent in most cases. During that initial journey Kellianne if we summarize things so far, you took ASM3, you invested $5,000, you did a million dollars in revenue. Sounds easy, but I'm sure it wasn't, right? Kelly: It was and I know it sounds easy and like I said, there was a lot of luck in there too. I'm not going to like take credit that it was just all my superpower genius. But I did have tremendous tenacity because between the time that I launched the product in August, it was like pushing a boulder uphill; August, September, October, November. It wasn't really till November that it really took off. And I had the foresight and maybe just stupidity to order a bunch of inventory in anticipation of Q4 and early on recognize that I could market this product as a gift in addition to just the primary keywords that were related to the product. So that was something that I did very early on and that allowed me to scale too because I was able to secure top positioning for keywords such as gifts for women, top Christmas gifts for women, things like that, very early on. So all of that came from me putting in the hard work of learning and masterminding, I can't underestimate the power of masterminding as well. I found a small group of; there were all guys, actually, I was the only girl. They are all amazed… Joe: So you were in charge essentially, right? Kelly: Yeah, sort of but we just were kindred spirits and we became very close and we would meet once a week and we were all building Amazon businesses, others went on to build SaaS businesses and all other types of businesses. They're all super successful entrepreneurs and that really made a huge difference in making me feel like I could really do this because I had other people in my corner so that was all. Joe: There's nothing more valuable than that and it didn't cost you anything. It sounds like there are groups that can get together just to help share information or you can join more formal groups like eCommerceFuel or EcomCrew Premium things of that nature. Kelly: Exactly. Joe: I think it's incredible. So let's talk money; ASM3, launched million dollars in revenue within the first year, you must be rolling in cash flow, yes? Kelly: No, absolutely not. Joe: I knew the answer to that. Kelly: I wish. Joe: How much did you; other than distributions just to make you feel good to pay taxes that were going to be due, did you put yourself on payroll or take any money out of the business for you and your family? Kelly: No, not the first couple of years I did not. And I was again, lucky that I had a husband who had a full-time career and that's the money that we relied on to support our family. So starting this business, that wasn't the mindset that we were going to do this to support our family. This was hopefully something that we could build into something bigger and perhaps fuel some bigger investing goals and things like that. Joe: So you would not recommend someone listening quit their job and they've got $10,000 and they're going to do $5,000 to start the Amazon business and live off the rest until revenues start rolling; bad idea, right, because they're going to run out of money very fast? Kelly: Absolutely, I would never recommend somebody quit their day job. You really need to start any business, in my opinion, as a side hustle. I mean, even my husband and I to this day, like right now, I'm really getting into real estate investing and he's getting into day trading and we're going to wait until we become masters of that and really start making significant sums of money before he would ever consider quitting his job. Joe: Yeah, good advice. All right, so 2016 rolls around how do things go? Did you have any rocky periods where you thought this isn't for me or did revenue just continue to climb? Kelly: Oh, no. There was a lot of rocky periods. So back then there was no brand registry, there was no; just counterfeiters galore and the initial product that I had launched all of a sudden came on everybody's radar. I can't remember if by then there were tools such as Jungle Scout or things like that to look at what sales revenue these products were doing. But it definitely; people caught on and started copying my exact listings, the exact product. I mean, certainly, I didn't have any proprietary rights. The product was a private label product, but definitely, competition grew and revenue; I was able to maintain revenue because I diversified my keyword traffic and wasn't going with what everybody else is going for. Slowly but surely the market grew. But my market share also grew with it and then declined at some point because so many competitors came in. Joe: Did your margins tighten; did you have to drop the price too? Kelly: Yes, I did. I remember actually, so Q4 of my first year of selling, I think I sold that particular product at a price point of I think as high as $35. And now if you were to look at this product on Amazon it ranges between $10 and maybe $17 tops. Joe: Wow. Kelly: Yeah, and that happens. I mean you don't get to; that product was still a winning product by the time I sold my business but I knew that this couldn't sustain me forever. I needed to obviously continue rolling out products, right? Joe: And that's how you combatted it; you continued to roll out new SKUs? Kelly: Yes, absolutely. Joe: How did you determine what to do next in terms of SKU expansion? Kelly: I did make a lot of mistakes there. I launched a lot of products that failed. Joe: How many? Just out of curiosity. Kelly: How many failures? Joe: Yeah, after the initial launch out of the next 10, how many were successes, and how many were failures? Kelly: I would say I was probably at a 50:50 rate. Joe: That's good. Kelly: I would have liked it to be higher. And I think nowadays, with all of the tools that are available and with the mindset that you have to cut losers quickly; that was my biggest downfall, is it was so hard for me to give up on a product that I spent not only time but a lot of money on developing and then to just let it go. That was really hard for me. I was emotionally tied and that's one area that if I had cut those losers quicker, I would have freed up my cash flow and been able to expand and scale a lot quicker and more efficiently. Joe: Let's go into that a little bit further. Let's define a loser in terms of products. Is it one that is negative profit-wise or is it at 5% profit where the others are at 43% profit? How do you determine what a loser is and then what action do you take with it? Kelly: Well, it also depends on the time period. So when you're launching a product; everybody has their own time frame, but I kind of give it a three-month cycle of pushing it out, launching, ranking it, advertising, heavy on advertising so you're usually in the red. At least I was okay with being in the red at that point, but then it should start to pick up after that if it's going to be a winning product. If you've done everything right with your launch, and ranking strategy, it should just start to kind of take off on its own, really. Joe: A three month period is that what you're okay? Kelly: Yeah, about three months. Joe: Okay. Kelly: At least for me back then. I would say now it's probably a longer time window. I would say probably about six months. But there becomes this like intuitive sense of you're still continuously pushing a boulder uphill with your nose rather than it's starting to gain some traction and go downhill. And so you've got to know when is that point to cut it off and it definitely took me a lot of failed products and a lot of wasted money and time to finally realize. Even up until when I sold my business; I mean, the buyer who bought my business, there were quite a few SKUs that he was just like I don't want to continue with these because these are just not making enough profit. They were profitable but not making enough profit. So everybody has their own standards. Joe: So yeah, there's SKU balance that offsets risk. If you've got one SKU doing 60% or 70% of your revenue, some buyers will perceive it as more risk other buyers will perceive it as less work, and they like that. Kelly: Yeah. Joe: How do you; I mean, if you're at a six month period now in your assessment of really it takes that long to push that boulder uphill until it's profitable and then you determine whether or not you get to keep that SKU that you've worked so hard on or if it's not profitable enough and you move on. How often are you launching SKUs? It sounds like you're probably needing to launch them every couple of months just to keep up and stay ahead of the game. Is that the case or is that something you recommend? Kelly: Yeah, it definitely depends on your product mix and what your revenue goals are and what capital you have to work with and your cash flow; all those things. But ideally, if you could be launching a new product I would say at least every quarter but there are sellers out there that are launching products every week or every two weeks. It just depends. I did not have nor did I want to have some big, huge behemoth of a business where I had a million employees and I was doing all the product design in the beginning; myself, along with my manufacturers, maybe hiring some outside design people to create changes to existing products to make them better. That was always kind of my MO. And really, you have to have a certain amount of capital that is allocated to new product development and know where that line is because then you don't want to let your other product suffer either and that's what's bringing cash in and keeping the lights on, right? So there's a fine balance there and I really do think that comes down to cash flow management; knowing your cash flow. Joe: And that's something so many people fail at. I probably looked at 8,000 profit and loss statements over the last eight, almost nine years now, and I'll be honest with you, probably 70% of them are inaccurate; wrong cash accounting, not using Quick Books or Xero, but the audience knows that. I know that's my thorn in my side. Let's talk about favorite tools. I mean, you obviously have figured out the Amazon game. You must have used some tools along the way. Have there been any that have stood out that you kind of you think must have? I mean, you mentioned Jungle Scout a few minutes ago. What tools do you use in your Amazon business or recommend as you work with new Amazon owners now to help them fine-tune their business and get it ready to sell? Kelly: Well, I wouldn't say I would at this point in time recommend a specific tool because there's a lot of competitors in the Amazon SaaS space, right? But you want a good tool for first and foremost, keyword research and keyword tracking. So, for example, Helium10 is a great one for that. But there are many others out there that are very good. So I'm not going to say that Helium10 is the best. They are one of the best and I like that tool a lot. And then you're going to want to have a tool for launching and ranking. These days that's all about rebates and so I recommend Six Leaf. My good friend Joe Junfola created Six Leaf and he's got a very new and exciting rebate option in there now and I'm helping my friend Paul Miller with his business in using that. Joe: Really? He's my friend, too. Kelly: What's that? Yes, your friend too; our good friend. Joe: Our friend. Kelly: Yeah, and so if you don't have outside traffic that you can send to your listings and have like a system for that, you definitely are going to need to do some I would say giveaways but these days that means rebates. And so there are other platforms that can do that but that's the one I recommend for that. And then Helium10 basically has all the other components that I would recommend, such as product research and keyword tracking. There are so many different tools out there and they've all kind of evolved over time and they all kind of overlap and what was most frustrating to me by the time that I sold my company is I had so many different tools. And even though they did a lot of the same functions, one did one better than the other and so I felt like I just had a lot of bloat in there and a lot of things that I could cut out. And so I wish somebody would just like focus on one thing and just do it right. Joe: Yeah, because if you wasted a thousand dollars a month, that's going to cost you an awful lot in the sale of your business. Kelly: Yeah. Joe: Can we talk about rebates for just a second? I want you to educate me and educate the audience because a rebate to me; from a novice standpoint and I don't sell on Amazon, I did once upon a time but it'd be a conflict for me now as I see it. Plus, I don't ever want to import from China. Kelly: I don't blame you. Joe: Yeah, I don't want to; I was at Helium10 back when it was a man he had Illuminati Mastermind and I was at the event. It was in Cancún and somebody was up on stage and she was literally talking about importing from China, talking literally about the thickness of the corrugated box that your products have to be in. And I swear to God I felt sick three times and I thought never will I import from China. Rebates, you're giving something away. They're getting a discount back or they're doing a review and they're getting a discount. Explain how it worked because it sounds like it's definitely against terms of services depending upon how it's used. Kelly: Now, I don't think it's against terms of services. I mean there's a lot of rebate services out there now. Joe: What is a rebate? Kelly: A rebate is the purchaser gets to purchase the products and then they get reimbursed the full amount usually to be most effective or it could be some percentage of that amount. So traditional retailers have been doing rebates for years. I mean, it's a very common thing in marketing. Joe: So there's no hey, we'll give you 100% refund for review it's just buy it and we're giving you your money back and that improves the algorithm rankings; organic rankings. Kelly: It's a keyword ranking strategy. I would not use it as a review strategy; absolutely not. Joe: Yeah, okay the review strategy definitely gets against terms of services. Okay, thank you. I needed to hear that. Kelly: I mean, I wouldn't say it's necessarily against terms of service if you're asking for a review after the fact. But it just can be on that blurred line that you could potentially; and I haven't heard of anybody getting taken down for this but if you were to rebate a customer and then after the fact ask for a review then Amazon could potentially look at that as gaming the system. So you just want to be really careful and I would just recommend that sellers don't ask reviews for customers that they've given rebates to. Joe: What about is it cheaper or should it be a dual strategy of sending traffic from outside; buying traffic on Facebook that would drive directly using a keyword directly to the Amazon page, is that going to have a similar effect as rebates, cost less, cost more, or would you recommend a dual strategy of both of those or have you not sent traffic from outside sources like Facebook? Kelly: Well, that's a great question, Joe, but the rebate is just kind of like the end result of what the customer is getting but the traffic and the quality of the traffic is the most important thing. So a lot of these rebate services that are out there, they're just for using the same audience that they've built on Facebook over and over again. And Amazon now is so sophisticated they can tell that all that traffic is coming from the same source that's just this incestuous pool. So you really want to be careful of the services that you use. And ultimately, the best way is always to build your own list, to have your own audience whether that's a mini chat list or an email list or if you're a master of Facebook Marketing and you know how to target and you know what kind of audiences are really going to go and actually buy your product and if you have enough profit margin built into your product to do Facebook advertising. That's a whole another thing in and of itself. But for ranking purposes, you need to send high-quality traffic and a lot of these ranking or rebate services you just have to be careful of where they're getting their traffic from. Joe: Okay, so far we've established you as an Amazon expert; one that's been there, done that. I had to ask a couple of questions; dumb questions, if you will, to get us to where we are right now. Let's talk about digital shelf strategy, your business, where you're going to actually help Amazon sellers. If somebody out there in the audience is thinking that they want to exit their business someday in the future, or if they're just struggling and they're barely able to keep up with inventory demands, not taking any money out of the business and they're pulling their hair out, how are you going to be able to help them? Kelly: Great question. I started digital self-strategy when I was still a seller because I've over the years, I love Amazon. I live, breathe, eat, sleep, Amazon. I still do. And I would get questions from people anywhere from one-off questions to people wanting me to help them with their businesses. And so I have been very, very generous I feel like with my time wanting to help people. But sometimes if it needs to be a little bit more work or more time spent with somebody then I set up this agency just so I could have a way to work with sellers ongoing. And so between that and then another new business that I started with, Paul Miller, Amazing Exits, the consulting piece of that is really helping sellers with being able to look at their businesses holistically and help them figure out what are the strengths and weaknesses of that business. So kind of like a SWAT analysis and being able to help them with the things that are going to really move the needle and increasing the value of their business, whether or not they ever want to sell it because if you increase the value of your business, you're going to be spending out more cash flow. It's going to make you healthier in the long run. And then it'll certainly make it a lot more attractive to a potential buyer someday if you've got all your financials in order and you've got a really healthy profit margin and ROI and all the other things that go into having a valuable and sellable business. So it's a one-stop-shop, really, in terms of being able to look at a business, identify what are its strengths and weaknesses. For the weaknesses, we want to connect them with the resources that are going to help them fix those weaknesses and then ultimately be kind of their white-glove concierge along the way to a successful exit. Joe: And the Amazing Exits Podcast, that's where you're going to talk to people that have actually sold their businesses and have those resources, those experts on as well. Kelly: Yes, that's going to be both. I mean, we are looking for as many sellers as we can who have exited so we definitely want to have those as guests on. But we're also featuring top experts such as yourself to talk about exit planning. We're really trying to make exit planning sexy. This is what I say all the time and to really… Joe: Good luck. Kelly: Well, we're very passionate about it. And I think that if we couch it in terms of making your business more valuable now, like do you want more money now in your bank account and your pocket to feel your life, to feel your investments? Well, that's what it takes to build a successful business. And you might not ever want to sell it, but you should be building a sellable asset and realize why you're doing this. Joe: You're preaching to the choir. Making exit sexy again or sexy to begin with is; I had David Wood on the podcast and one of his visions was for people that are planning to eventually sell their business to imagine themselves on the beach doing whatever they want because they've got enough money in the bank to live off of and that's the sexy part of it. Or if you're building a better business, it's kicking off more cash flow. You are struggling less. You're able to do the things that you want because you've got the money and that part is sexy as well. Accounting makes most people's eyes bleed. It's the foundation of understanding cash flow and running your business successfully to get a strong exit. As you know, Kelly, anyone listening that owns any kind of online business at this time odds are that their business is their most valuable asset. Also, if it's an e-commerce business that's growing odds are that more than 50% of the money they'll ever make from that business will come the day that they sell it. All of that combined should kick start them into wanting to do more exit planning or coaching or training or things; whatever you want to call it, just getting in shape. As you want to work out and get your body in shape you should exercise your exit strategy muscles so that you're in better shape for your eventual exit because you will have a better path to it, a better exit as well, and be better off afterwards so that you can all go on to your next adventures, whether it be start another online business or do what Kelly is doing which is consulting and helping other people or where she was just a few years ago. Kelly: I couldn't agree more. That's so well said. And I would just add to that then, I truly believe, Joe, that one of the fastest ways to build wealth is to build a business and in this case an Amazon business and sell it. And that's the word that I want to get out to people, is that this is, like you said, your most valuable asset, most likely. And I didn't retire after I sold my business. I made a nice chunk of change and now I'm able to invest that into cash-producing assets but I will never stop being an entrepreneur. But I have so much freedom; clarity now that I didn't have when I was on that hamster wheel of running the business. So I want to just be able to express that to other sellers that there is another option to get off the hamster wheel and you can sell and do this again if you want so you'll have a lot more freedom and peace of mind. Joe: And cash in the bank throughout though. Kelly: Yes. Joe: Great. Kelly, thanks so much for joining the Quiet Light Podcast. I appreciate it. We'll put URLs up in the show notes for people who want to reach out. Kelly is there any other way that they can or should find you? Kelly: Yes, absolutely. They can connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm pretty active over there. @KellianneFedio on Facebook and then they can also go toAmazingExits.com and sign up for our email list for when we get ready to launch the podcast later in August most likely. Joe: All right, she rolled her eyes a little bit here folks for those not watching. She's got a hopeful goal of August. I think it's going to be great whenever you launch it. If it takes an extra few weeks is not a big deal. Kelly, thanks for being in the Quiet Light Podcast. I appreciate it. Kelly: Thank you so much, Joe.

The Project Life Mastery Podcast
PLM 788 : Getting Started Selling On Amazon? Follow Our Top 7 Tips For Beginners

The Project Life Mastery Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 22, 2020 35:29


Selling on Amazon has the power to change your entire life. Back in 2014, my fiancée Tatiana and I joined the Amazing Selling Machine. After finishing the course, I was able to build a six-figure brand selling supplements on Amazon. Tatiana went on to build a multi-million dollar brand called Luxx Curves. Today, we work with a lot of new Amazon sellers. Time and time again, we give them the same advice. If you want to know how you can leverage the power of Amazon, check out my FREE Amazon FBA Training: https://projectlifemastery.com/fba Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The Quiet Light Podcast
How Joe Cochran Sold His Car to Buy Inventory…Then Sold His Business For Seven Figures

The Quiet Light Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 19, 2020 47:55


Joe Cochran had a rough start in life, but eventually came out on top. Through perseverance and a hard struggle, he finally has a success story. Tune in to hear our chat with Joe and learn about his process, his early struggles, and why he finally decided to sell his company. Topics: The emotional rollercoaster of being an entrepreneur. His early struggles. Launching his business with $5000 in credit. Sacrifices Joe had to make to keep his business afloat. Siphoning vs. reinvesting. How he ran his initial campaign. Which accounting resources he used on a tight budget. His competitive nature and how it drives him. Making the decision to sell. Transcription: Mark: Joe, we've had the opportunity to work with some pretty amazing entrepreneurs over the years and I never get tired of hearing about these success stories, especially for people that have gone through some of the dark periods of life that come out through the end. And often we get to be a part of the process when that reclamation, that coming back from some difficult times in their life comes to a head and comes to that real big victory point of an incredible exit. Joe Cochran is one of these stories. Joe: Yeah, he had his first child two days after his 17th birthday. I think that changes somebody's life forever. He didn't quit. He stayed in high school and he says his girlfriend at the time does his homework, helped him cheat to graduate. Mark: His girlfriend helped him cheat? Joe: Doing his homework, yeah, she did his homework. He helped in graduate high school. Mark: True love, I love it. Joe: Yeah, he worked full time. He just got out and hustled and went through some dark times after that in terms of business with his father, major debts, substance abuse, and came out the other end of just fighting and launched an Amazon business in 2016 when he had about $40,000 in debt. He thought through it and came out the other side in January of 2020 with a seven-figure exit. And as he said at the beginning the podcast interview, he said he felt like an incredible burden was lifted off his shoulders. So it's a great story; great success story. A lot of golden nuggets in there throughout the whole interview that I did with him and just one of these inspiring people that you just got to listen to the whole thing. Joe V.: Hey, folks. Joe Valley, here from Quiet Light Brokerage, and today we've got another episode of Incredible Exits. This one is with Joe Cochran. Joe and I've been working together for I think I want to say, a couple of years Joe, in the process of planning your eventual exit or as I like to call it, training. You came to me as a referral from our good friend Mike Jackness in EcomCrew and I think you were living in one state when we first chatted and eventually moved to another. And then I think we closed the transaction in January of 2020 is that right? Joe C.: That's correct. Joe V.: All right. Well, welcome to the Quiet Light Podcast. The first question I have for you; normally, by the way, I ask people to introduce themselves and give a little background but I want to actually just know how you felt when you finally closed this transaction. I shouldn't say finally because you weren't under LOI by the time we listed it to the time we sold it was 45, 60 days something like that. How did it feel? I don't want to know about the money and that kind of zeroes and this is a seven-figure exit but how did it feel when you finally had the money hit your account and you knew that this was real and the transaction was closing and assets were transferred? Joe C.: Yeah. So, I mean, that was kind of a roller coaster, to be honest. I think since I started the business all through the business to selling the business and even shortly after selling the business, emotional roller coaster. I just think as an entrepreneur, it's probably one of the hardest things to do is manage your own feelings and emotions around your business and what's going on. I would say the second that I signed the paperwork, it felt like the weight of the world kind of lifted off my shoulders because a big part of my why was always to be able to provide for my family and kind of have a security if you will. That was something that is always very important to my wife and I as far as something that we strive for. It's just having financial security and things like that so it was definitely that life-changing feeling. But shortly after, other fears and worries crept in. It was short-lived, but it did feel great. Joe V.: Yeah, life of an entrepreneur, it's not necessarily just because you sold the business and you've got some money in the bank that you don't stressing about other things. It is what it is. So your big why was to be able to provide for your family; we didn't talk about this. You haven't given me permission and cut if we have to but your story is interesting. You ended up becoming a dad while in high school if I recall correctly. Is that right? Joe C.: Yeah, I got my high school sweetheart pregnant when I was 16 and had my son a couple of days after my 17th birthday. Joe V.: Wow. And you finished high school, kept working, provided for your newborn family at the age of 17. You were working and going high school at the same time, right? Joe C.: Yeah. I basically cheated my way through high school at that point because I was working 30 to 40 hours a week going to school as little as possible. My girlfriend at the time was doing my homework for me, helping me through. And it was important to my family that I finished school and it wasn't as important to me that I do, but just felt like I needed to finish that. That was my junior year when my son was born. Joe V.: How many years ago was that, Joe? Joe C.: Well, I was 17 when he was born. I'm 41 now. Joe V.: Okay. Joe C.: I don't try to do math in public. Joe V.: When I do I usually get around but I would say 23, 24 years-ish. Joe C.: Yeah. Joe V.: So you went from… Joe C.: It's a bit easier this way, how old is my son? He's 24. Joe V.: I was hoping you were going to just go there. Yeah. We're doing math instead. So you've gone from a situation that is the worst fear of parents that you're becoming a dad a couple of days after your 17th birthday to 23, 24 years later, you're having a seven-figure exit of your own business. The weight of the world lifted off your shoulders. You're able to provide for your family, which is very, very important; a great success story. Let's talk about your path to it. I'm going to shorten it a little bit because we just talked about that and I know that you went to work into sales and eventually with your dad in the hot tub parts business, pool parts business, and eventually exited that. But then you started this brand that you built primarily as an Amazon business. Talk about how you came up with the idea of selling on Amazon and building your brand and what that path was like a little bit. Joe C.: So when I was working for my dad, we started to get into the Amazon business model in his business probably around 2009, 2010. Somewhere in there we dabbled, didn't really jump into it seriously until closer to the end of that business cycle. But we had kind of been playing with ideas. We started our own brand at one point in the fireplace and arts niche. And so I had some experience there, but I just wasn't ever passionate about any of the products my dad and I were selling. I was passionate about business. I was just a student of business. I studied all the time at marketing, sales, e-commerce in general and so when I realized that he was going to sell the business and I was essentially going to be out of work and need to define and figure out an income, I started really focusing on what kind of business would be right for me? If I was going to start my own thing what would be the best model? How can I get into it inexpensive, because I didn't have much money, matter of fact I have a pile of debt. And it just ticked all the boxes for being I want to work from home, start small and scale and potentially exit in a large exit. So I wanted kind of all those things; I needed all of those things and it just ticked all the boxes for me. Joe V.: And you're 41 now, how old were you when you started the business? I'm going to make you do math again. Joe C.: So I started a business in 2016 so it's been like four years ago. Joe V.: Four years ago. Okay, and how much money did you have when you launched the business in terms of cash? I know that you had a pile of debt at the time, but how much money did you pull together to make your first order? Joe C.: So I had about $5,000 on credit card that was available. Joe V.: You did it with $5,000, you had a pile of debt and you took $5,000 on a credit card to launch this business and four years later, you got a seven-figure exit. Am I doing this right? Joe C.: Yeah. Joe V.: Wow, incredible. Joe C.: I've had about $40,000 in debt personally. We have just started making progress with paying off credit cards and stuff because we started doing Air B&B and kind of renting out bedrooms in a house that we were renting. And so by doing that, we had started to make some progress in paying off our debt and like any good entrepreneur person as soon as I saw the light at the end of the tunnel I decided I'd took on more debt and started our business. Joe V.: Was it a success out of the gate; did you immediately start selling and say oh boy now I've got an inventory problem, I've got to buy more and keep up? Joe C.: Yeah, so I have the; I don't know what to call it, good luck also good sense that I did develop a product that really spoke to my target market. That was kind of easy for me at the time because I was my target market. And so I simply created the solution that I thought was amazing. When I showed it to my friends and family, they all kind of agreed that it was amazing. And so it was kind of like I knew the product was great and I knew how to create the offer because, again, I was the target market. So I literally was able to craft a story that really hit home with my ideal customer. And so when I launched, it was hockey stick growth. I mean, in the first six months we broke a million dollars in revenue. Joe V.: In the first six months, incredible. For those listening on audio, we decided not to mention the brand or the buyer and things of this nature just for confidentiality purposes. But if you want a hint, go to YouTube and watch the video or go to I think it's Quiet Light Academy on YouTube or go to the Quiet Light website ant take a look at our podcast. There's a hint in the background; a big giant silver one way back there somewhere in the video at Joe's home office there. Let's talk about the how; okay, you had hockey puck growth, you said in the first six months you did a million dollars in revenue by creating a product that solves your own problem in a niche that you knew very, very well. How did you get to know and learn about Amazon; what resources did you utilize to become that person that knew how to create the right photos or videos or ads and things of that nature? Joe C.: I basically do what I've always done, which is tried to cheat. And at first, I bought several courses, which kind of worked. Yeah, so the first course I really bought was the Amazing Selling Machine. And then for a short time, I decided I was going to create an information product and I started thinking about doing uninvolved course on e-commerce because of course, that's what I had experience in for the previous 12 years. I came across guys like Andrew Youderian from eComFuel. I came across as Ezra Firestone from Smart Marketer, and somewhere in there, I think in eComFuel I was put in a Mastermind with Mike Jackness and a couple of other guys. And so that was sort of my network and I bought all their products and I just dug in and followed and studied everything I could. Joe V.: So for those listening a lot of times from the thousands of entrepreneurs I've talked to that sell physical products in e-commerce, they're part of a Mastermind group. And I think it's critically important that you connect with peers either on the free Facebook groups to start off with and understand that free means free and the quality of information that's shared there is not going to be as deep as a Mastermind group like eCommerceFuel or Ecom Crew or Smart Marketer or Ezra's Blue Ribbon Mastermind group but there's a lot of podcasts that you can listen to as well. Mike, at the time, did he have Ecom Crew podcast, or is that something new since you met him in 2016 and connected with him in ECF, which is eComFuel? Joe C.: Yeah, so that was new for him. He was starting to work on the project but didn't have the podcast yet and it was just kind of an idea in the background that they're working on. Mike was still very involved in his e-commerce business or businesses at the time. Joe V.: Okay, cash flow; what I see is when you've got a hockey puck growth, there's always a cash flow problem. How did you manage to keep up with the inventory needs, which is a cash flow drain on the business? Joe C.: Yeah. So my first order I think was $1,500. I placed that order. Well, when I received that order and launched the product, I did a really dumb thing and went on vacation to my parent's house here in Florida, which I now own and in right now. But so I came here and within the first couple of days of launch, I could see that I was going to run out of inventory very quickly. So I placed my second order for $1,500 now the vacation was five days and that happened on day one when I got here. So like I literally launched the product day two or day three after launch I came here. I stayed here for five days and by the end of that week I had to place a second; a third order. So like I was here on day one when I realized I was going to have to place another order and by day five I realized that wasn't going to cover it and I'm going to have to place another order and I didn't have any money. The first call to my wife for that first follow up order was like hey dear I know we just opened this new credit card for this business and we just spent 1,500 bucks but I think it's going to work. We need to place another order, send me another 1,500 bucks. And she was like yeah do whatever you think. Joe V.: Awesome. Joe C.: And I'm behind you, so cool. So then by Friday when it was time to come home and I realized this isn't going to be enough, I had to make that call again. And I said, hey, you know… Joe V.: Wait a minute; hold on, for all those people listening in the audience I want to just ask a question that they're asking. You're on vacation in Florida without your wife. Joe C.: Yeah. Joe V.: Why? Joe C.: Well, it was just to see my family. My mom and dad were here and we were both working and we've had this kind of Air B&B business at the house. We have two dogs and it's just difficult for us to both leave at the same time. She couldn't get the time off work. I wasn't working at the time. Essentially I have my own business so it was just yeah say hi to Mom and Dad, hangout for a few days, go fishing the whole time. Joe V.: Fair enough. Joe C.: She wasn't that into it anyway. Joe V.: All right so that third order, what did you do? Joe C.: That third order I was like, hey, the last order is not going to be enough. We've got to place another order and we're going to have to like triple down. We're going to need to spend like five grand on this next order and we don't have it. So can you call the credit card company and see if you can get our limit raised? And she did. And she got it raised to like 10,000 and so I was able to place that third order; so really having no money coming back in yet. I mean, we're starting to make sales. I don't think I ever got my first payout at this point, though because it's bi-weekly from Amazon. So I went from 1,500 to 7,000, $8,000 in and now I'm thinking, well, I don't know how I'm going to place the next order. And so by this point, I had been communicating a lot with my manufacturer. I placed three orders now and they could see that my orders were growing and so I just called them and I said, look I need to place bigger orders but I'm going to need some sort of terms. I can't operate without terms. You told me that I had to place a few orders before we could talk about that and I will say I planted that seed from day one. So I planned on the product being successful. I didn't just hold and not do anything. So from the very first interaction with the supplier, I asked for terms and they said no. And I said, okay, that's fair but what do I have to do to get terms? And they said, well, you need to place a few more orders, we need to be comfortable with each other and I said, perfect, fine, no problem. So it was a natural process at that point. I placed three orders. Yeah, it was a short period but I placed three orders. I showed that I was serious and so I said, look, I'm going to need new terms or I'm going to have to find another supplier and it really was kind of that. I don't want to be threatening but it was kind of like hey if you're not going to give me terms, I'm going to go somewhere else. And so they came back and gave me 30-day terms. Joe V.: So you were able to actually… Joe C.: Yeah, so it was kind of ridiculous, actually. What they are giving me was 30-day terms and I was able to renegotiate and say, yes, 30 days from the day I received the product. Joe V.: That solves a big cash flow problem right there. Joe C.: Huge. Because most places will give you 30-day terms, but it's from when they shipped the product. Joe V.: Right. Joe C.: So I wanted it from when I received it. And I wanted it from when I received the product in full. And I say that because I was doing air shipping so I would receive shipments in bunches. So I might place one big order and I might receive 10 shipments over two weeks before I get the complete order. So I kind of knew that I was working the system a little bit, but they were happy. I was paying on time and so we were able to kind of grow using that structure. But it was only about a month later before we got into another big cash crunch because the size of the orders were growing, the volume was growing, all the money was going back and inventory as you know and it was to a point where 30 days wasn't enough. I needed to buy more than 30 days' supply to cover everything and it was like round two of the next challenge as the business grew… Joe V.: How did you solve that? Was it just living off your wife's paycheck, doing Air B&B, and scraping dollars together and living a conservative financial life at home? How did you do it? Joe C.: Yeah so I have reached out to friends and family. I asked for money. Everybody told me no. I start reaching out to other investors, people that I knew that would maybe do hard money loans. All of them that agreed, which was I think, one or two said they'd do it but they wanted 50% of the business which I wasn't willing to give up any percentage of the business. And so I just kind of scrambled. I think at one point I sold my car and we just continued to scrounge and scrape. Joe V.: I love that. I love that you sold your car; that you got to do whatever you got to do to feed the business and feed that cash flow problem. That is brilliant. How long was it, Joe, before you were able to take any money out of the business for yourself or did you in that three or four year period? Joe C.: I did and probably looking back, it was one of the biggest mistakes I made. It was siphoning money from this company versus reinvesting. I think we could have been talking about a much larger exit had I reinvested versus taking the money but the bottom line is I needed the money. And my goal still was the hardest thing. So hindsight in 2020 that's fine but at the time my goal was financial security and not to get too far into the story but when my dad sold his business and when we had to basically move on from there, we sort of lost everything. We built our dream home. We had all the toys. Of course like good Americans we had overextended ourselves as well and gone into a bunch of debt to have all of that stuff. But when he said he was selling his business, there were no job opportunities in that area that we lived. We lived at a small northern Michigan town, there were no jobs, and I knew we were going to have to move. So we sold the house. We sold everything we had essentially. We packed up what was left into a moving van and we moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, without having any clue what was in Raleigh other than my wife had lined up a job with one of those suppliers that we had bought from the last business. So we were sort of starting over, but we had sort of lost everything and to be completely honest it wasn't the first time I lost everything. It was the second time that I completely lost everything and went into pretty significant debt so it was a big driver for me; it was to get financially free. And to me at that point, I was also following a guy named Dave Ramsey, I was following his debt snowball and so my number one focus was get out of debt. And so I was pulling money out of the business to pay off cars. I didn't buy myself another car until I could pay cash for one. I didn't buy a house until I could a big down payment down because we were renting at the time. When we bought a house, we bought a five-bedroom house for me and my wife and we rented out three bedrooms. And so we just kind of continued that path of doing whatever we have to do and it was super uncomfortable living with people really sucks and it's really tough on a marriage. And running a business is tough but you just keep working and finding your way through it. Joe V.: Now I understand why the feeling; and this is why I ask about how it felt when you sold the business when it's finally done and you said the weight of the world was lifted off your shoulder because you've gone into debt, the wrong way two times and you've got Air B&B to strangers coming to your house and taking up three bedrooms while trying to run a business and survive a marriage as well. So congratulations on fighting through it all and doing whatever it takes to succeed because that's the bottom line. You know I'm mentoring a couple of entrepreneurs from a local college now and they're 21 and 22 years old. And one of the conversations I had recently was that they need to file for a business and incorporate and one said it's $300 and they don't actually have the money for that and I'm like suck it up. Look around your run and sell something. You can scrape together $300. You're not going to ever become an entrepreneur if you can't do what you did, which is anything you have to do to survive and sell your car and credit card loans and whatever it takes to do it. And you did smart; you had a business that was already taking off so that's good. I want to talk about two things. I want to talk about the first few days of how you put together a launch and how you learned to do that and launched the business but I also want to talk about your goal. So let's talk about the launch first. What marketing techniques did you use or put together and what would you recommend to others in order to put that initial campaign together? Did you spend money on advertising, did you just do organic traffic, did you do outside traffic; what did you do? Joe C.: Yeah. So it wasn't what I would consider very sophisticated. I was, again, kind of fortunate that the market that I went into was not highly competitive. The listings that I was competing against were very poorly created in Amazon so my listing from day one just crushed everybody. And it was just before this particular market got a lot of competition. As a matter of fact, my product is what launched the competition in this category and now there are thousands of competitors that are highly optimized and it's very challenging to get in to. But when I first started it was very easy to beat all of the competitors in that space. And so all I really did was run ads. I ran some Facebook ads, but mostly it was just Amazon ads. Joe V.: Facebook ads to the Amazon store or to a specific keyword or something like that? Joe C.: Yeah, mostly Facebook ads went to my own website. I did have a Shopify store and I had some Google ads that were going directly to my Amazon page and I had the Amazon ad platform and Amazon ad platform was the big driver. The Google ads did a little bit. Number one, what they really did, though, is they helped the page get a ranking for the keywords that I was targeting. Joe V.: Get ranked on Amazon or in Google? Joe C.: In Google. So after we launched that product, it was maybe two months until our Amazon listing was the number one listing for our target keyword. Joe V.: I got you. Joe C.: So there were strategies like that that I learned so that was conscious. I didn't do anything super sophisticated with the launch, though. I didn't have an audience. I didn't build an audience beforehand. All things that I think are necessities now with the competition being so much higher than it was then. Joe V.: Yeah. Joe C.: But yeah, at the time it was not a super sophisticated launch. Essentially what drove the revenue was the Amazon ads in their network just going direct to my page. Joe V.: And in a not necessarily highly competitive space at the time; it is now because you created the niche or the better niche as you will. All right, let's talk about your goal. You and I, I want to say we first chatted in 2018 and you were living not in Raleigh at that time, but you were living on the coast of North Carolina. How important is it in your opinion for an entrepreneur to learn about again, get trained on what it takes to sell your business; that exit path, and to set goals? How important was it for you and how important is it on the priority list of things to do for entrepreneurs, in your opinion? Joe C.: Yeah, so I think the best time to think about when you're going to sell your business is the day you start planning to launch a business. And the second-best time to do that is right now if you haven't done that. So the earlier you can start the better. And a lot of people, in the beginning, it's difficult because you have so many other fears; fears that the business isn't going to be successful, I'm going to launch it, and I'm going to get traffic and so many other things in your mind that's taking up space. It's hard to think about how I am going to sell this business down the road but you don't have to put a lot of time in the beginning, you just have to know that eventually, that's where you want to go. And so when you know that and if you know how to structure that business for sale then you're just going to be starting off on a much better place. So I got the privilege of watching my dad go through a sale and I did get to listen to him complain about all the things that were going on with the sale like oh we had to clean up the books. And that took three months to get the books cleaned before they can even move forward with the due diligence properly. And there were so many aspects that were kind of snags for him to actually get that exit. So I kind of have the benefit of watching what he went through and realized day one, I need a CPA. I need somebody who's going to watch this money because I know I'm not organized enough to do it. So literally, I launched the business within the first couple of weeks when I saw I was going to be a successful product I hired a CPA. Could I afford to? Not really but I knew I had to do and I know I really couldn't afford much. Joe V.: What did the CPA do for you? Because I always say the bookkeeper manages your books on a monthly basis, the CPA files your taxes. In this situation what did the CPA do for you? Joe C.: Yes, so the CPA did a combination. My wife ended up eventually taking over the books when she was able to leave her job. Joe V.: Did you use QuickBooks or Xero? Joe C.: QuickBooks. Joe V.: Okay. Joe C.: Yeah, and we kept pretty simple. So it was the CPA was more important of just setting up QuickBooks for me so when they charged the fee it was ridiculously cheap, really. They charged a fee to just set up QuickBooks and then once it was set up, my wife could do the bookkeeping. So they weren't expensive in the beginning. I still couldn't afford them but it wasn't expensive. And so I remember like literally at that time I was like whoa they're going to charge me 50 bucks a month or something. I don't know if this is a good idea we can't afford that. We have to go elsewhere when I say we can't afford it. That was my mindset, my frame of mind. But I was happy I did it. It helped us get started on the right foot. The QuickBooks was really pretty clean from day one. The business was not complex anyways so it was I think a good move. But the more complex you are the more important that is. And just those small things like planning to be successful is hard when you're not successful yet. But it certainly, I think in my case, paid off to start that way. So a CPA or a bookkeeper or somebody that can help you if you're not good with it was important. If you're great with it, you can do it all yourself. That's fine. But you're going to be doing many other things you got to figure out where it makes sense to spend your time. Joe V.: Yeah, I think it's really important to do that bookkeeping part because like you say it snags at the end. If you wake up one day and decide, okay I'm ready I want to sell my business but you haven't done your bookkeeping, guess what? You're not ready to sell your business. You've got to do that bookkeeping and get it done right in order to exit the business. Joe C.: You might be ready to sell but your business isn't. Joe V.: Right. Yeah, so if you've got a seven-figure business, even if it's six figures, if it's only $100,000, there's someone out there in the world that has worked very hard to save $100,000 and they are going to buy your business. They're not simply going to look at your merchant processing account or your seller account and say okay, yeah, here's the money. You really need to have your financials together; vendor invoices, cost of goods sold, all of this stuff, cost of goods sold on an accrual basis people, really, really important stuff that has to be done in order to exit without those snags. You can always sell, but you're going to be able to sell for more if you do what you did which is 18, 24 months in advance we started having conversations. And each time the value kept going up that we had conversations. Let's talk about that for a minute because I always say let's reverse engineer your path to success. Set a financial goal and a happiness goal; happiness goals and setting financial goals. Thank you, David Wood, for the happiness goal. I think it's really important. Yours, Joe, was a huge burden off your back that made you happy and you go fishing now and enjoy it without thinking about the debt that you had because you don't have any. So happiness goal, financial goal, and then reverse engineer a path to that. Sometimes it's 12 months, sometimes it's 24. You can't do that successfully without knowing the value of your business today. You can't do that without having good financials. So it all is interwoven together. But your financial goal, if I recall, moved. You set that goal and then you moved that goalpost a little higher or further down the road. Can you talk about that path? Because you had I think you said $40,000 in debt when you started this business and then you took more debt out eventually. Did you pay off your debt while the business is growing and that's the money maybe you shouldn't have taken out because you followed Dave Ramsey's program, which I think is brilliant too, by the way, and then what was your mental process for setting that exit financial goal and once the value of the business was there did we list it or did you move that goalpost further down the road? I honestly don't recall the details. Joe C.: Yeah. So starting the business, the goal was man this would be cool if I could pay a car payment or something like that and we got to that part pretty quickly. And then, of course, again, you move the goalposts constantly, right? So, man, it'd be cool if we could make a house payment. And then it became, man, it'd be cool if we could pay these cars off and pay off our credit cards and boy it'd be really cool if we could pay off our mortgage and over that first two-year span, we accomplished that. And so when I started talking to you, I don't think we can quite pay off our mortgage yet but we were debt-free otherwise. We were just working on our mortgage and that is the money that I was pulling out of the business. And so when I started talking to you and started talking about exit, it was actually during the time that we had had a big hiccup in the business, a big stumbling point and I was frustrated and I just wanted to be done and I didn't know how I was going to do it. But after speaking with Mike first, he recommended I speak with you. And so that was kind of our first introduction and you stomped on my heart. You said you're not ready. Your business is in a very bad position right now. Joe V.: It must have been trending down at the time. Joe C.: It was trending way down. This was essentially right when the mass competition came on board. I went from having no competitors to one or two to hundreds. And I've come to find out a big part of the reason for that is that Amazing Selling Machine used my product as an example in their course. Joe V.: Oh wow. Joe C.: And I reached out to them and said, hey, what the hell, guys? You know I'm one of your students, right? And they were like, oh, we didn't have any idea you were a student of ours, sorry, we won't do that in future releases but what's done is done, you know. And so they're like the biggest Amazon selling training course out there. Joe V.: Yeah. Joe C.: Literally overnight we just had hundreds of people copy our product and hit Amazon. And the business started to tank as far as our revenues it really started to go down. I was burned out at this point. I was frustrated. And I was hopeful for whatever reason, I was going to be able to still sell for some big number. And you were like no, it's not going to happen. If you sell right now, you're going to give it to somebody. Joe V.: Yeah. Joe C.: What you told me was you'd be better running it into the ground then you're just not going to get what you want for yourself. Joe V.: That's right. Take as much money out as you can and let it inaudible[00:38:34.4] Yeah, those are hard conversations when I'm telling you that, being relentlessly honest as we say at Quiet Light and not tell you what you want to hear. Joe C.: But you know what if someone was my, I guess, drive that was what I needed to hear because I realized again if I wanted to hit my goals of having that financial security, I couldn't just give up. And so that turned me around. That turned me from being down and being depressed to being pissed off and realizing you know what, you've gotten this far, you can beat these guys that are just starting and you've got two years off. Figure it out, quit worrying about what everybody else is doing, and figure out how you can win. And so, I mean, it was literally I think we hung up the phone and that shift in my mindset happened and I just went right to work on how am I going to fix this, how am I going to beat these guys? I'm very competitive. I played hockey my whole life growing up. I'm just super competitive. So when that shift happened from kind of loser to, hey figure it out; yeah, we were able to turn it around. And so it took about six months to get back to that number one position and back to where the revenue was decent. That took about another six months before we were where I felt we should be in terms of the revenue. And to your credit, you reached out every quarter or so to check in on me and that was always super helpful because it just reminded me of the goal. And so sometimes it's just so easy to get caught up in everything that's going on in your business that it was great to feel like I had some people in my core. Mike was another one that I could reach out to at any time and he would jump on a call and talk me off a ledge or give me some input. So having those resources to be able to reach out to when things aren't going well is just; I don't know how else to put it, it's just super valuable. Yeah, so it took about a full year to really; it took six months to basically turn things around, it took another six months to gain back what we had lost in sales and get back to where it felt like we could potentially exit. Then we had another call and you said okay, good, now you need to run it for another year. Because I was like oh great, we're back, now we can sell it and you're like hey man, you need a trailing 12 months at this level if you really want to sell it. So you crushed my heart again. Joe V.: I am sorry about that. Joe C.: But the reality was; no, it's fine because things were good. And so I was up and I was just like oh yeah okay, fine. I can run it for another year. Maybe I can even grow it a little bit. So that's what we really focused on and pushed through. And so you started that question really with what kind of got you there and what made the decision to actually sell? And that was literally hitting like the 10 month part period where for 10 months nothing went well. That's literally what made me realize we need to list this in because you told me, hey, you need a trailing 12 months of solid numbers and then you're good. At 10 months I was like, holy crap we're two months away from that. There's nothing in the forefront that makes me believe that we won't hit that. Let's call Joe. So I reached out to you and boy, what an interesting time to make that decision, right? Because look what happened just a few months later. Joe V.: Yeah, we closed; we're recording today on April 13th, 2020 folks and we ended up listing the business in mid-November, headed under LOI within two or three weeks, chose to close in January for tax purposes. Good for you, Joe, because you had moved to Florida, partial tax year down there, no taxes on state level and then, a grace period of another 15 months before you had to pay your taxes for the sale. Yeah, and then COVID hit. So I think in your niche sales probably went up though but still, the world is incredibly unstable and maybe better of peace of mind that you sold versus holding on. There are a lot of folks that waited and now have to wait even longer to see relatives come back. It's a tough situation all around. Joe C.: And you know it doesn't matter that your business does well in these times because if you can't get inventory or you can't get inventory on Amazon, you're still not making sales so there are so many challenges. And the other challenge is that I lived with; lived and breathed every day, day and night I mean, so that decision to sell was based on a lot of things. But yeah, it was definitely the right time and it worked out well for me and it gave me the freedom to now look back and say okay, what did I do, what made that successful, how can I repeat that in my next business, and how can I do it even better maybe? For me better means a better lifestyle. I don't want to do it again and work the way that I worked and worry the way that I worried before. And surprisingly when you have some money in the bank, a lot of those worries do go away. A lot of things do get easier and so now the big thing is make sure you don't make a big, stupid mistake because you've got money to spend and go about it like a clean start up again and remember what it takes to do that and then start from that. Joe V.: Great advice all around, I love your story, Joe. What is your next adventure, any clues or hints that you can give us? Because if anybody out there is in the audience that might have an interest in it or can contribute to it in any way maybe they'll reach out. Joe C.: Yeah. So what I kind of took away from my last business is that being passionate about the products for me is important. Some people are just passionate about business and so they don't have to really be passionate about the product so much. In my last business, I was passionate about the business, but I was also passionate about the product. And even more importantly, and this is just through self-reflection that I kind of realized recently I was passionate about my customer and I was passionate about that customer getting success. And so for me, it was realizing that it's not just the business, it's not just the product, and it's not just the customer. It was kind of a combination of those three things that I think helped push me through the hard times. Because there were so many more ups and downs that we didn't even get into that if you're not passionate about something within that, you're going to struggle. And for me, if I wasn't passionate about all three of those things, I might have faltered. So as you said I'm a fisherman and I'm looking in that market and seeing where I can contribute my value. And so I just registered a new trademark last week and we're starting on working on those offers and seeing where we can beat the competition. Joe V.: Excellent. Well, I look forward to having you back on the podcast and telling that story of your next exit although you've just started; you've just begun. Thanks for sharing your story, Joe. It's amazing going from being a dad at the age of 17, 17 in two days, if you will, to a seven-figure exit 24 years later, supporting your family and getting a big burden off your back and living debt-free. Congratulations. It's been a privilege working with you and an honor to know you. I look forward to getting out of Florida and maybe go fishing with you someday personally. Joe C.: Absolutely. Well, I appreciate all your help as well and I look forward to being back. Joe V.: All right man, talk to you soon. Resources:Quiet Light Podcast@quietlightbrokerage.com

The Quiet Light Podcast
Negotiating Terms With Suppliers to Save Cash Flow with Dan Ashburn

The Quiet Light Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 12, 2020 41:45


On today's episode of Quiet Light, Dan Ashburn joins us to discuss negotiating terms with your suppliers. Dan is the co-founder of Titan Network, the Mastermind for Amazon sellers, the China Magic, the immersive Mastermind discussed in another episode. Tune in to pick up some awesome tips about how to save cash and boost the overall value of your business. Topics:  How he came up with this concept. Why face-to-face interaction is important. Forecasting sales, inventory requirements, and pay-out per unit. Using market data to help with forecasting. The formula/numbers Dan uses. Making sure your offer is win-win. Timing your requests. Having perseverance when it comes to your requests. Traveling to China. Transcription: Mark:       Shortly after you buy a business, you're obviously looking for any opportunities to increase your return on investment. Sometimes that's through growth, sometimes that's through different ways of cutting expenses. But oftentimes looking at your suppliers and the terms that you have with your suppliers can be an easy way to free up free cash flow or get better terms or be able to even get different rates. But how do you go about actually negotiating those terms? How do you approach the suppliers, especially when the relationship is new? If you're on the sell side, the same sort of questions applies; how do you approach suppliers in a way where you can increase your return on investment by negotiating better terms? Joe, I know you talked to someone about this and have some good tips here. Joe:          Yeah, Dan Ashburn from Titan Network. You know what? Just in the podcast, I'll just tell you right now, Dan goes through a step by step process to basically walk people through what to do, how to do it and get better terms with your supplier. And the ultimate result, whether you've got a straight-up e-commerce business, a Shopify store, or an Amazon business, or whatever it might be, even retailers that are out there importing from overseas. I hear it over and over again that when you make the right connection in the right way with your supplier, you can get better terms. The end result is more cash flow. More cash flow means you've got the ability to buy more inventory as you try to keep up with growth, which is often a good problem to have. But Dan talks about it quite a bit in there. And the piece that is forgotten and not all that talked about is people are always trying to drive top-line revenue. But if you can negotiate better terms with your supplier and then get a better reduction in the cost of goods sold, it's going to boost your overall value as well. Joe:          Hey, folks, Joe Valley here from Quiet Light Brokerage, and today, I've got Dan Ashburn on the line with me. Dan is the co-founder of Titan Network and I think China Magic as well amongst another a number of other pretty fancy titles and credits to your LinkedIn profile here that I'm looking at, Dan, but that's as far as I get with fancy introductions so why don't you tell the folks that are listening about yourself and about your background and what you do? Dan:         Yeah, sure. Thanks for having me, Joe. So, yeah, I'm the co-founder of Titan Network Mastermind for Amazon Sellers, co-founder, and co-organizer of China Magic, which is a trip where we take 100 people twice a year to source products over in China. We've taken over 500 people now and the co-creator more recently of Amazing Selling Machine. And then my team and I are responsible for delivering eight figures in sales on Amazon per year through my brand management agency. Joe:          That's an awful lot. How do you do all that and not lose all your hair? You got a nice head of hair there. So this is a prod for people to go to the YouTube channel as well. Dan:         Yeah, for sure. So I have a good team around me. I've got a good management team. I've got an executive assistant who makes me look really good. And then, yeah, I just got good people around me so it's pretty cool. Joe:          Okay. There are not a whole lot of Amazon sellers that we have on the podcast and that I deal with on a regular basis; I've been doing this for eight years that have a beautiful British accent. So tell me about that aspect of it. You've got; I don't know how many you said in terms of Amazon sellers, 1,600 that you work with or something like that. How many are typically US-based versus Europe based? Dan:         Yeah, it's a great question. I'd still say the majority of the market is in the US. I'd probably say it's a 70/30 split right now. However, Europe is growing and it's growing fast as markets like Germany, etcetera pick up. And if you combine the combined sales volume of Europe to the US, then it's a good opportunity. And Europe is definitely picking up. A lot of the Europeans are obviously using US as their main channel as the US seller are then coming out over into the European market to diversify. Joe:          Okay. So a quick side note before we get into the meat of this discussion is that Amazon has just made it a whole lot easier to transfer a European seller account. So that's real positive news. It doesn't necessarily have to be a stock sale anymore. It can be an asset sale and it's easy to transfer so positive stuff there. But today we're talking about a little bit of your China Magic experience and your China experience in general and negotiating terms with your suppliers to improve cash flow and to improve your bottom line and boost valuations, which is a breath of fresh air because you can't; you wrote that line when we talked about it because most people don't think about valuations when they're working with suppliers and things of that nature but you do. Dan:         Yes. So you've had Scott Dietz on a number of times now. Scott was very much a mentor of mine over the last few years and something Scott really instilled in me is what's good for selling your business is good for building and running your business. So installing that, combined with the challenges that I come across so many sellers have; there's one thing in this business that stops growth and that's cash flow, its cash on hand. We all know there are only three ways really to grow the business, sell more of the same products, sell additional products, or sell the same products in new marketplaces are really only the three ways. All three of those ways take cash and they take cash flow. So we very quickly; my team and I launched this, my team and I really set our minds over the last couple of years to how do we solve this problem for the accounts that we're involved in, the brands that we have stakes in, and the people that we're working with across Titan Network, China Magic, etcetera to really solve this problem. And that's where this working with a supplier to fund that growth, that whole concept really came from. And I'm really proud to say that the last year or so, the last 18 months, we've been getting some pretty impressive results where suppliers are letting us go north percent down, 10% on shipment, 90% two or three months thereafter so it's really positive. Joe:          One of the things I hear often is, yeah, I just got back from a trip from China. I was able to do this. I'm getting better terms here. I reduced my cost of goods sold here. I ate way too much and drank way too much and I feel like I'm a member of their family now. Is that what everybody has to do? Do they have to get on a plane and go to China to meet the manufacturer and supplier or is it just something that helps but there are other ways to do it? Dan:         Look, there are other ways; there are always other ways to do it. You can get this done over a Skype call or a Zoom chat like we're having now but if you're serious about growing the business and you want to go in and get the times that you want, then every time in every case, physically being there in China in the room, staring the person in the face, building a real relationship with that person gets the better result every time. And where we've had a good result virtually, it's always been as a result of following up physically with someone. So we've already been earlier in the year or we may be met them at the last Canton Fair but there's always been that physical interaction. And I think what people underestimate about China is the business culture out there is relationship-driven. It's all about building that relationship. It's all about going and having that male drink and some of the alcohol stuff that they put in front of you to really build up that relationship. And there's so many benefits to that relationship much further beyond payment terms and cost of goods sold even down to stuff like it's coming up to Chinese New Year that productions run is full. And because you have that relationship, they bump you to the front of the production line, which keeps you in stock. Joe:          So let's get to specifics for the audience then. For people that are; and talk to them as if maybe they're your clients, they may be somebody that just bought an Amazon business from Quiet Light Brokerage or they're somebody that listens and is getting expert advice from folks like you. What are the first few steps that somebody should take? And I know this is general information for general people, specific would be if you were talking to one. What do you advise somebody to do? Dan:         Okay, cool. So first off, we need to understand what terms do we need to achieve and what are we aiming for? What's our goal? So the first steps or so of executing this process before you got to China or before you attempt to do this virtually is we need to put together a sales forecast. We need to understand what am I expecting to sell over the next 12 months and include uplift for Q4 based on historical dates or if you're selling seasonal products, make sure you're including all of that uptick and then break down what you plan to order. So once you forecasted those sales, understand what inventory requirements you have and what your current order rate would look like with your supplier over the course of that year. Then figure out with that information what is the payout per unit on your sales? So you need to calculate the Amazon payout per unit after all fees and marketing costs. So within our brands, we work to operating 10% advertising contribution or true A-costs whatever you want to call it. And we factor all of that in and we figure out after storage fees and etcetera, what is our P&L per unit? Joe:          Did you say 10% advertising; is that what that was? Dan:         Yeah. So as a PPC contribution, margin, or a true A-cost; whatever you want to call it. Once we're out of the launch phase and we're in some maintenance we factor in a 10% margin for advertising. Joe:          It's great, we do key financial metrics anytime we list a business for sale and typically see the ad cost somewhere in that 8 to 12, 8 to 15% range so 10% is a good number. Before you go on too far, so you've talked about doing a sales forecast and of course, that leads into inventory need forecast. The question often comes up, what's the best software if there is such software for inventory management and sales forecasts? Do you use some or do you create it with Excel spreadsheets? Dan:         So we keep it simple. We do all of this in Google Sheets. We have adopted a new inventory management system and I'm pretty impressed with it if you wanted to talk about that. But we do all of this in a basic Google Sheet template. And if you want, Joe, I can have that template sent out to your subscribers. But yeah, we just use a Google template, we use a Google sheet and we just manually plotting in numbers, manually forecasting out. It's nothing fancy. If we want to work with someone at more advanced than we'll offset pull in an accountant or a bookkeeper; someone that's more savvy with the numbers. But we're just using historical data to forecast the future 12 months. Joe:          And you're pulling that data from Amazon or from QuickBooks; where are you pulling it from? Dan:         Yeah. Typically, depending on the account that we're working with or depending on whether it's an in-house brand or a joint venture type relationship, we will take the initial data from Amazon. So we'll take your initial sales data. And then if we can sanitize that data with actual validated bookkeeping records, then obviously we will do that. But for the sake of this exercise, it doesn't need to be 100% accurate. This is a forecast and everyone knows; I think what everyone gets is they get that analysis paralysis on forecasts. Because I think what if I don't meet the forecast or how do I know what it's going to sell? You've got to take the best guess and if you haven't got 12 months of trailing data, go use tools like Keeper to look at your number one like for like competitors trailing 12 months of data. Just use data in the market to be able to inform your own self forecast. Joe:          So doing a cash flow forecast or I'm sorry sales forecast leads into what your inventory needs are. You're doing that in Google Sheets and what's next from there? Dan:         So before we can move onto the next stage, we then have to figure out what our payout per unit is, because these three pieces of data, the sales forecast, and the inventory need forecast as you call it, and then the payout per unit factoring in a rough 10% advertising contribution. That gives us all the information that we need to be able to produce an accurate cash flow forecast. So what sellers I find out doing most that aren't taking on external cash or external funding, they're kind of running on this system of hope. They kind of think or hope they'll have the cash in the bank for the next inventory order, but they're not really forecasting enough ahead to say, will I have enough cash on hand to be able to fund my next inventory order to meet demand of growth and not run out our stock at the same time? But without those three data points, without knowing how many you're going to sell, what inventory you need to meet that demand, and what your cash payout per unit is, you can't put together a cash flow forecast. So once you've got those three data points, we then put together our cash flow forecast. So to give you sort of a demonstration of this, we base it on our current term. So let's say typical terms, 30% deposit, and 70% before shipping. That's pretty much most the market. Joe:          Pretty standard. Dan:         Yeah. So we will forecast our cash flow based on those terms for the products that we want to negotiate. So you might have one product with a supplier or you might have 10 but you just do it for the group of products that you're talking about with the supplier. So we'll have the sales forecast at the top of that cash flow forecast. Then we'll have a payout forecast which is based on sales. It's just that payout per unit multiplied by the number of units we expect to sell in that month. That gives us our total cash pile for that given month. We then factor in some fixed costs. So things like employees, software, training, salaries, costs that we know we're always going to have. And then we might factor in some ad-hoc costs like travel conferences, going to China Magic twice a year. God, I'm plugging that. So we factor in those hard costs and then that gives us a forecast month by month, January through December. If we go for the annual calendar year of what our cash on hand looks like. Then we just have to plugin based on what we know we have to order what cash output; what cash outlay do we need to factor in based on 30/70 payment terms. That then gives us an accurate view of where we're going to have a deficit on cash, where we're going to be up on cash, and what that looks like for the next twelve months. Does that make sense? Joe:          It does. You sound like a grown-up here, running a business with real numbers and doing some analysis. Dan:         I'm trying to. Joe:          Congratulations. And that's what you teach the folks at Titan Network as well. You're going through this with them Dan:         Yeah. Joe:          And do you produce video walkthroughs on how to do this with examples? Dan:         Yeah. So we've got like the whole step by step. Within Titan, we have something called masterclasses and we've got an entire master class on supply payment negotiation with all the templates, negotiation, soft scripts, ways of approaching; I'll give you some secret sauce in a minute but even like a presentation that we use to present this information to the supplier, all of that is all inside of Titan. And our Titan members; I mean, the results that we're getting, someone got a 50 grand credit line off the back of this. Joe:          Wow. Dan:         I can't count how many now; it's got to be 20, 30 members in the last few months alone that are getting terms, even just improved terms like 20% down because the raw material costs are quite high, but then they're not paying 40% until 30 days after shipping and the remaining 40% until 60 days after shipping, which means they've been selling the product likely for 30 days before that balance is due, which just opens up so much opportunity because you can afford to sell more product cause you can order more inventory. You can afford to expand into new markets because you can afford more inventories. Or you can afford to launch new products. And for anyone that's doing some serious money in this business, they know launching products is the fastest way to grow it. So, yeah, I mean, the results are quite stellar and we're doing some good things in time for sure. Joe:          It's all good stuff. Everybody listening certainly needs to do it if they're not doing it now. So once you've got all this information, the forecast and estimates and things of that nature what do you do with it? Dan:         So once we've created that cash flow forecast based on our current terms, so 30/70 we then produce a second forecast and we play around with those terms. So the example of I'm looking as a reference in front of me here is 20% deposit, 35% 60 days after shipping, 45% 90 days after shipping. And this is actually a live case study on one of the ASINs that we run. So we will adjust the cash flow to the new terms to then demonstrate what that does for our cash flow. And at this point, this is all internal. This is all internal reporting, preparation to support and enable the negotiation. So I know here, just look, I'll read us some numbers because obviously, I can't cast the screen. On our 30/70 our cash on hand column across the bottom January was in this example 5,000, February is 3,000, March goes into a 2,000 deficit, April goes into a 4,000 deficit because we've paid out that 30% deposit on this inventory order. Joe:          Can you just with those numbers do you have a ballpark total revenue figure as well? I'm just curious. Dan:         Yeah, we do. So down here we've got a total payout figure in this example because we haven't got the retail cost in here. We just track basically what cash flow we receive from Amazon so it's on the end of the column. But if it scales up; this was an example of a new product launch achieving 300 in the first month to a thousand units in the 12 months; very, very conservative forecast. Joe:          Okay, so what happens when you flip this to the new terms that you're trying to achieve? Dan:         So interestingly, the cash outcome; so at this point, we're not forecasting what additional inventory we can get so the cash outcome at the end is the same. So December, for instance, in the 30/70 on this example, the cash outcome for December, cash on hand sorry is 79,000. It started at 4,000. In the after states 20/35/45 again it's 79,000 at the end of the year in terms of cash on hand. But the difference is I don't have a single deficit in my 12-month run because I've been able to achieve better payment terms. So that's sort of step one of this process, cash flow forecasting existing terms and saying where your deficits are and then making sure that you can negotiate payment terms that mean you never run out of cash. You never need to go into any credit line, credit cards, any sort of equity or debt financing, because you're always going to have positive cash on hand to fund the growth of your business. Joe:          So what do you have to say to those people that are listening saying, okay, I got this, I'm just going to ask for these better terms and they don't do this work and they don't do a presentation the way that you want, what it is their supply going to say? Dan:         It's funny, actually, because one of the things we normally go to; this is a typical role play and if I ever talk about this on a stage and you lied and or anything like that, this is how it typically goes. You send an email that goes, hey, I need some better terms. Can I pay you the balance after shipping? The supplier email backs no. You sit there drinking FML like, what am I going to do? Yeah, most people just go give me better terms, a supplier goes no. And if you think about it, these factories; these suppliers, how many brands are asking them daily? How many of their customers because they're supplying hundreds if not thousands of customers. Joe:          Yeah. Dan:         I'm just saying give me better terms. I hope you sat there as a factory owner going well what's in it for me? Joe:          Right. Dan:         You have to answer that question of what's in it for me. It's got to be a win-win relationship. Joe:          Let's get to it then. The next stage is I mean, obviously, you're seeing so no deficits, which is great. The entrepreneur is sleeping better at night. They've got a little more cash for themselves, but also cash to probably buy more inventories which is what's in it for the vendor, right? Dan:         Absolutely. So with everything we do, we have to approach these relationships as a win-win deal. Having been to China more than a dozen times now, I've taken over 500 people. I have been involved in a number of these negotiations at lower levels and much higher levels. It is all about the relationship. It's all about the win-win. And you have to present what's in it for them. Why should they risk that workflow, their cash flow? Because I sense you're asking them to fund your business. Why should they risk that inaudible[00:20:16.2]. So the outcome for everyone has to be a benefit. So the way we do that is there's a five-step process to presenting a win-win. And this is what we break down into a presentation and we've got templates for etcetera. So Step 1 is the opportunity and the conversation that you're trying to get across is there's a big opportunity to make more sales. That's kind of the message you're trying to get across. And the reason it's better to do this in person as well is you can take; if you've got like a logistics manager or sourcing agent on the ground. All of our Titan members benefit from Titan sourcing, so we provide this to them on the fly. But yeah, if you've got that on the ground, you can then have that person translate but also be like an internal ambassador for this process. So step 1, the opportunity. There's a big opportunity to make more sales. Step 2, the challenge. The challenge is I can't order enough inventories to fund and meet the demand of my growth because of cash flow. And that's the challenge that you need to communicate. You can't fund your growth because of cash flow, and that's limiting your ability to grow because your sale is outgrowing your cash impact. I lose sales and as a result, the supplier, the factory that you're dealing with is going to get smaller orders. The solution is better terms so we can order more inventories. The whole objective here is better payment terms, more cash on hand, and allowing you to order more inventory just to grow faster; to compound that growth faster, the benefit, larger orders for the supplier, more sales for us. So that's kind of the five-step story that your supplier, your factory really needs to understand from this process. I'll read… Joe:          Read them off. Yeah, you were just going to do it. Yeah, read them off real quick one more time. Dan:         Opportunity, challenge, impact, solution, benefits. So they really need to understand each one of those points and then we're going to break down exactly how we do that. Joe:          Okay. So look, I haven't been to China before and I want to ask you about that a little bit, but I know that there are benefits for the manufacturer because you're going to be placing more orders. What's their recourse if you don't pay on those notes or is the risk so low because you've been there, you've met with them, didn't rush on building a relationship. Dan:         So you're not going to get this sort of payment terms on your first order. We have, however, had a number of success stories on their first order, even just slight movements like 20/80 on the payment terms or a slight reduction in COGS because we're guaranteeing more orders. We are getting some traction on first orders. This is more for sellers who are probably more your audience, Joe, who are sort of gearing towards exit. I've got an established relationship inaudible[00:22:54.8] the second to third order is kind of the sweet spot that you can start bringing this up. And if you bring it on early in the relationship, every time you place a bigger order, you can revisit these terms, you can revisit the relationship. So for the factory, yes, of course, there is risk involved, but they're weighing up the relationship with you and there are other insurances and stuff that you can bring up without getting too technical. You kept their eyes on ways of ensuring the order and stuff which can give a lot more confidence to the supplier but we don't do that most of the time. It's just purely based on the relationship and your order history. Joe:          Okay, so any more steps after the 5 that you talked about there? Dan:         Yeah there is. So that's the story we've got to present but when it comes to actually presenting that you've got to back that story with data. So they have to believe you and they need to see the numbers for themselves to tick that logical box. You've ticked the emotional box, you've got the relationship. They believed your story. Now you've got to present the data to back your story. So the six-step process to presenting the win-win, one is the growth potential, two is a product by product sales forecast. So that forecast to we produced in the beginning, we're just going to take the sales aspects of it and present that in a nice presentation. We're going to then present the order values to meet that demand and we're going to show them the before and after. We don't get into showing them the internal cash flow or the profit or anything like that. We just show them on the current payment terms this is what we can afford to order, on the new payment terms this is what we can afford to order. And what they're going to say is an order of say, 5,000, 10,000 units but with the new payment terms, I might be able to order 20,000, 25,000 units. So they're going to see a drastic change in the volume of units that you're able to order if they just work with you on the payment terms. Now, once we've done that, there's two other points. We always present what out of stock means. So most factories and suppliers don't really understand what it means when you're out stuck financially from a sales perspective. Sure they're being hammered; you're sort of getting on email, you're getting on Skype, you're doing you thing saying well I need this order, can you push it? Can you put it to the front of your production line and you're sort of pressuring them. But because you're pressuring them so much they're not really thinking about the impact on sales. So you can show the cost of being out of stock from a point of re-launching, lost sales velocity, lost growth. So maybe you've lost a couple of places in rank which has actually brought your growth percentage down, the momentum of growth. And for them, they're not going to be getting as frequent orders because that volume is down, meaning you're not placing as bigger orders. So you can still present the loss to them as well, which is a nice sort of stick to underpin the whole thing. And then finally you go right to solve this problem; this challenge, to order more from you and to recover was it, defend against that potential loss of being out of stock. These are the payment terms I need. And you just present the data to back the story. And it's quite easy, there's a whole template towards it in terms of how we do that. You can use screenshots out of your Amazon seller central accounts to back the data; you can use Keeper screenshots within the presentation as well as just sort of showing screenshots of that spreadsheet you really want to be showing the analytical graphs to back that data because it really gives that visual representation. Joe:          I'm sorry so let's just put in the; so for every 10 people that go through this process and try to renegotiate terms to go through the full process, they do it right. They do the projections. They do everything that you've talked about so far, which I think is eleven steps after they're doing the sales forecast, do 9 out of 10 of them get better terms or 10 out of 10 or 2 out of 10; what are the odds? Just put it into a realistic perspective for the audience. Dan:         So if you are already working with the supplier, you're already in communication. You're not just… Joe:          Yeah, let's assume that somebody has been placing two, three, four, five orders. A lot of people if they hadn't done this, they'd been placing the order for two or three years. Dan:         Yeah, so that person I would be as confident to say that eight in 10 people. I am yet to come across a relationship of that stature that's established with good communication where you won't end up better off. Now, you might not get the terms that you want straight out the gate, but I guarantee if they value your business, which they should do by that point you've got a relationship, you will end up off in a better place. So 90 to 100% of people will end up better off. 80% of people will execute to a point where it impacts customer for sure. Joe:          And this includes a trip to China because you're presenting it in person? Dan:         Yeah, this is like optimum. You've gone to China. Think about how many requests these factories and suppliers get from brands in the west as they say it asking. And then think about the percentage of people that actually get on a flight, fly to China, sit in the office, drink sake and do all that good stuff. That is going to be like 98 and 2%. So who are they going to prioritize? They're going to prioritize those showing real commitment. Business is about commitment. Business is about doing what you said you would do. And I think that's all this is. It's as simple as that. Joe:          Yeah, the 80% of people that have established brands can certainly get better terms with these vendors. Are you seeing; obviously they're ordering more and with higher volume orders comes lower cost of goods sold. How do you negotiate a lower cost of goods sold? Is it strictly volume based or do you make that part of this overall presentation that you're looking for terms and lower COGS at certain levels? Dan:         Yes. So what we do is we hold that conversation. So in any negotiation, you need the person you're negotiating with to say yes a few times. You need to get them to agree and we need to chip away at the yeses. So what we do is we hold that COGS conversation right until the end. So once we've gone through showing the growth potential, the product by product sales forecasts, showing the order values to meet the demand before and after if they give us these terms, the impacts of being out of stock, and then say this is the payment terms we want and always start higher, by the way. Always start higher than you actually need because there will always be a piece of negotiation. They will turn around and say, yes, hopefully. That's the goal. That's our amount in agreement. It might not be what you want, but they might say, well, on this one, we'll give you this and if you meet the demand, then on the next one we'll give you this. We might be a bit of an up curve. We then turn around and just say so now I'm placing a bigger order, I get a better price, right? And you'll find about half the time they'll smile and laugh at you and say, yes, the other half the time they'll say, let's talk about that in the next order. But yeah, you have to put a bit tongue-in-cheek in whether you have to build the relationship, play on the relationship. Joe:          Is this done over dinner or is it done over a desk; how do you see it most often done? Dan:         Typically, it would be done; in most cases, it's going to be over some sort of food environment, some suppliers and factories would like to get the business done and then go for dinner. Most likes to get the relationship piece in first. They want to sort of learn about you, your family. They want to give you some food, take you to lunch. And then during that process, we'll then bring it down to the conversation. Now, it's important to say it won't always happen there and then in the room. A lot of the time you'll present this, you'll throw in that thing at the end that says, so now I'm placing a bigger order do I get a better price and be a bit cheeky with it. And a lot of the time they're going to turn around and say well, look, we need to run our raw material costs. We need to look our production workflow. We need to speak to our internal production manager. We'll get back to you within a few days. So depending on how long you're in China, it could be back when you were in America or back in Europe. You'll jump on Skype and they'll go, okay, cool we've run the numbers. It makes sense. Yes, we can do that. So it kind of happens like a bit of a fluid conversation during the social aspects. Sometimes you'll sit in an office and just get it done. But most of the time it would be over some sort of lunch or something like that. Joe:          I got you. Okay, any other steps that you want to review? Dan:         No, we're good. So really just remember, it's a win-win. Do your internal prep; what they say is the success is in the preparation, success in the planning. Do your planning, and then make sure you're presenting it in a way that presents it as a win to them. And yes, you can achieve this virtually over the internet, but you're going to have 100% better results. And if it's okay, Joe, I've got some examples here, actually. Joe:          Yeah. Dan:         So Case Study 1, 30% deposit, 70% before shipping, after 0% deposit, 100% percent 60 days after shipping. Joe:          That's a beautiful outcome. I can't imagine anybody would be upset about that. Dan:         No, it's cool. That was actually inaudible[00:31:13.0] and my business partner and Sarah, who's head of Titan Sourcing that negotiated that one. The next one was 30% deposit, 70% before shipping after we got a 30% deposit because the raw material costs were quite high on this product, which you have to still work with them on, and then it was 20% percent before shipping. So we pay sort of 50% and then we got 50% percent 30 days after arrival at Amazon FBA, which meant we had 30 days of sales before having to pay the remaining 50%. Case Study 30% deposit, 70% on the approved inspection report. That was a bit of a quality assurance thing there. After we got a 20% deposit, 35% 60 days after shipping, 45% 90 days after shipping so that was a nice one. And then finally, the fourth one and I've got some bonus tips at the end if you want them, Joe, 20% deposit, 80% before shipping. That was the terms we had so it was a bit nicer on the frontend. After we got a 10% deposit, 40% on landing in the USA, and 50% 60 days after landing. Joe:          Wow. Dan:         And these are typical; I can stand there and say now these are just four cases that we've done we've got a whole Titan network full of members that are doing the same. Joe:          Yeah. No, I want to hear about the bonus tips. Also want to hear briefly about China Magic and maybe we can have Athena on to talk about it. Just let me ask; go ahead into the bonus tips and then then I want to talk briefly about China Magic. Dan:         Yeah, sure. Because there's loads of benefits above and beyond obviously COGS and terms. Joe:          Yeah. Dan:         Okay, so tips to success face to face always will produce a better result. They often pay for the trip and that's what you got. Think if you're looking at a cost offset, you'll often get to pay for the trip in the renegotiation. Always ask for more than you need; really important. You probably won't shake hands there and then as I said. Make sure if you come to see the boss, you don't want to be waiting on a middle person or a middle man so they then you have to go and sort of do the translation. You want to be in front doing the deal with the boss. Before you go into that environment, before you even head out to China, if you've got a representative from that factory or you've got a sourcing agent that handles that relationship for you, then get them onside. So run through the presentation with them first so that when they're in the room, they've already done the thinking, they're already standing there, and they can get the buy-in of the boss in the room. Consider consolidating your orders to one supplier. It gives you more buying power. And one thing we're a big fan of in Titan and in China Magic is leveraging an outside adviser. Because then you can play the whole good cop bad cop. If you want to maintain a good relationship you can bring in someone that's like an external advisor to crack the weight a little bit and you can call them your finance person. You can call them whatever you want to. That allows you to do that. And remember, every relationship and supplier cash flow is different so you have to really; don't just tell them what you want, understand what they need, and bring the two together. And this is counter-intuitive but it's often being willing to pay more to achieve the terms especially in the beginning. So one thing you can do is if they're not budging, you can afford to give them a dollar bum pull over here now on a product to get them to nudge on the payment terms which is still going to give you more cash on hand and then come back to renegotiating the COGS once you're up at the higher volume because you've been off to some of the growth. Joe:          I like it. Dan:         And also take gifts as well; take presents. It works. It depends; there are controversial views on this. So Kian Golzari for instance who is a sort of an expert on China Magic everything; he's doing sourcing and product development. Kian loves; he's from Scotland, he's from Edinburgh, he loves taking some Scotch whiskey with him. Other people take chocolate. There's the whole red envelope with some cash in it for the children but that one's a bit more controversial. But yeah, just my advice would be take something that's important; not important but personal to you, and then that creates a talking point and it creates more of a relationship and a bond. Joe:          Okay, that sounds great. I think one of the most important things I see people that are running great businesses and eventually sell them, they're great businesses, do great for buyers. They really have been to China and they always wind up with either better terms or better COGS. It sounds like a scary place to me, though. I've never been so is China a scary place? Dan:         It really isn't. So when I first got involved in the early days with China Magic I went out there as a guest speaker and then ended up becoming a co-organizer with Athena. I thought the same but when you land; if you think like Guangzhou where the Canton Fair is. That's where we go. It's the biggest product sourcing Fair in the world. I think they start setting up 5 million products on display during the Canton Fair. They're used to receiving hundreds of thousands, if not millions of westerners through that fair over the course of 12 months. The airlines are efficient. The flights are cheap. I mean from the US, the flights are $500 on a good day it's $400. Joe:          Wow. Dan:         Yes. I mean, it's really cheap. That's for obviously economy. I got a first-class ticket; I mean first-class pod for two grand. Joe:          Wow. Dan:         So yeah I mean it's cheap. We head out there and we're picked up by a nice comfortable bus and we stay in the Four Seasons Hotel which was rated Forbes Best Business Hotel in the world 2019; the one where we go. So they look after us. We've got five staff service and food, good internet. We then head over to the fair. This isn't a market; there are other markets like Ebru and stuff which are a bit more like rack markets, Canton Fair is a professional establishment. All of the suppliers there are paying serious money to have a booth at this fair. So if they don't speak English themselves, they'll employ English speaking representatives. So you can have a really good conversation there. Sometimes you have to work with a bit of culture and there are definitely cultural barriers that you have to learn, like receiving a business card with two hands and showing that respect. It goes much further and Ken covers all this in China Magic. We go into depth like we spend some of that four hours just going into how to have a conversation with a supplier so that they know you are educated. But yeah I mean, to cut a long story short, it really isn't. Like I walk around in my shorts and my t-shirt, I go down and they've got little smoothie bars now I'm on the streets by the hotel. It's quite a pleasant place. Joe:          Fantastic. How do people learn more about Titan Network and then China Magic and again I think we ought to probably have somebody on for China Magic and what that event is all about because it's; I don't know, it's the next step. I don't know if I would want to go on my own and I assume that you would not recommend that. You go with a group that does this on a regular basis. So tell us about how more people learn about Titan Network and in particular this cash flow management renegotiation, all of the different steps that you've talked about. Dan:         Yeah, sure. So if you want to know more about Titan Network, we're an invite-only membership organization for Amazon sellers. We're going from strength to strength. And the thing about Titan Network is it's created by sellers for sellers. So it's not about any one person's success. It's not like a guru led thing. You can learn it at TitanNetwork.com. That's where you go and learn about Titan Network. And if you feel like you want to find your tribe and your family, then take a look there and you can apply for Titan Network. If you want to learn more about China Magic go to ChinaMagicTrip.com. It's got the full trip details on it. I'm going to give you access to a little special link. If you go to ChinaMagicTrip.com/masterclass we go into a bit more depth on these payment terms upon negotiation stuff. And it's got off-screen shares. You can actually see some of the slides. And that's all out there free of charge so you can go and take a look at that. Yeah, I'd love to do a follow up about China Magic. I'll bring Kian on, I'll bring Athena on and go into the depths of like not just payment terms and cash flow, but how do you build these relationships and how do you find these factories that you're not going to find in Ali Baba, how do you improve the quality, how do you differentiate products in 2020; yeah, we could talk about a lot. Joe:          Well, I think it's a great service to the people that are Amazon sellers or even just not Amazon sellers, other people that sell-off of Amazon need better terms as well. Dan:         Yeah. We're seeing Shopify sellers. We're seeing a lot of these influencers on Instagram that are realizing they've got an audience. If they apply a physical product to that audience, they're going to make money. We're seeing all these guys come along now because it doesn't matter whether you're selling on Amazon or Shopify, physical products are physical products. And to your point about going alone, there are seasoned travelers out there that will have no issue in visiting China themselves. But for me, it's about return on my time, a return on investment on my time so if I can go with 75 like-minded sellers at a similar point the journey led by multiple seven and eight-figure sellers, get shown 30 years' worth of sourcing experience across Marcy, Kian, myself and the team in a couple of days; so condense that learning period, get the COGS on payment terms on it and every single evening mastermind for four hours a night on every single area of the business, that to me is a bigger return on my time than just going over to China myself. So that's kind of my view on it. Joe:          Yeah, if I was in the e-commerce world myself, I'd be in. I'd want to bring my son though so he enjoys the world travel. Maybe in another life, I'm out of the e-commerce business myself. I'm an entrepreneur at Quiet Light Brokerage only. So listen Dan, I appreciate all the time you spent here. I think its great advice and I know from experience that people that exit their business for the maximum value end up doing a lot of the things you've talked about so thank you. I appreciate it. Dan:         Yeah, no there's just a final closing point now. We should tie this back to valuation. So you'd go how does this make my business worth more? Well, I think I'll just spin-off three raises in my head to maybe cut this in. One is it's going to make you more attractive as you've got solid foundation relationships with your supply chain and you're not relying on Alibaba or some sourcing agent. Buyers want to know you've got the full foundation. Two if you've got more margin, you've got more profit, more profit, bigger valuation. And three, if you've got better cash flow and more cash flow on hand, you can compound that freight faster which means you achieve your valuation faster. So that's how they tie it back to valuation. Joe:          And again, I say it and I'll stop saying because Mark keeps correcting me there's no fifth pillar. All of the things that you're talking about make you a better business person; somebody that others will trust because you're instilling confidence in them that will bring you better value as well. People if they trust you they're willing to pay more for your business. So Dan, great stuff, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. Dan:         I appreciate it, Joe. Thanks for the time. Resources: Titan Network China Magic Masterclass China Magic Trip Quiet Light Podcast@quietlightbrokerage.com  

Capitalism.com with Ryan Daniel Moran
Matt Clark: How To Grow A Brand With Other People's Audiences

Capitalism.com with Ryan Daniel Moran

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 9, 2020 43:41


This week we're leaking a private talk we had from a Tribe event. Matt Clark is a co-founder and face of Amazing. And Amazing.com's flagship course, Amazing Selling Machine, shows people how to build successful physical product businesses. If you'd like to join The Tribe and build your own million dollar business & take part regular coaching calls, our community, and upcoming events visit: Capitalism.com/Tribe

The Project Life Mastery Podcast
PLM 730 : Beginner Amazon Seller Reveals How He Made $20K In 30 Days

The Project Life Mastery Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 29, 2019 32:01


This beginner Amazon seller made $20K in 30 days! This past year I attended SellerCon, which is the largest Amazon seller event. This event is hosted by my friends at the Amazing Selling Machine. While I was there, I had the opportunity to interview Chris Schreiber. Like so many people who go through the Amazing Selling Machine program, Chris has a very inspiring success story. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The Project Life Mastery Podcast
PLM 728 : $20,000 In Their First Month Selling On Amazon! Here's How They Did It...

The Project Life Mastery Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 21, 2019 27:35


This year I attended SellerCon, which is the largest Amazon seller event hosted by the Amazing Selling Machine. Over the last 6 years, nearly 15,000 Amazon sellers have come together from around the world to learn how to build successful Amazon businesses. While I was at the event, I had the opportunity to interview Andrei and Galya who have an incredible Amazon success story. They joined ASM8 in 2017 with zero online business experience. In two years, they have created a very successful Amazon business. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The Project Life Mastery Podcast
PLM 727 : From Video Game Addict To $300,000 In His 1st Year Selling On Amazon FBA

The Project Life Mastery Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 18, 2019 24:19


Earlier this year I attended the SellerCon event in Las Vegas. This is the #1 event for Amazon sellers which is hosted by the Amazing Selling Machine. While I was there, I had the opportunity to interview Norbert who is from Poland. He went from video game addict to $300,000 in his 1st year selling on Amazon FBA. His girlfriend shared one of my Amazon YouTube videos with him on how to get started on Amazon. My video inspired him to join ASM and the rest is history. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The Project Life Mastery Podcast
PLM 725 : My Ultimate Amazing Selling Machine 11 Bonus Package (ASM Fast-Track - a $15,000+ Value!)

The Project Life Mastery Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 17, 2019 35:29


In this podcast, I talk about my ultimate Amazing Selling Machine 11 bonus package! Are you interested in joining the Amazing Selling Machine 11 to build your own highly profitable Amazon FBA business? If the answer is YES, then make sure you take advantage of my irresistible Amazing Selling Machine bonus package, worth over $15,000+, which is yours for FREE when you join Amazing Selling Machine 11 through me. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The Project Life Mastery Podcast
PLM 691 : How To Sell On Amazon Without Ever Worrying About Saturation Again

The Project Life Mastery Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 21, 2019 14:52


In this podcast, Matt Clark and I talk about how to sell on Amazon without ever worrying about saturation again. Matt is the co-founder of Amazing.com and the Amazing Selling Machine. His program has helped thousands of people, including me, build profitable businesses selling products on Amazon. Is Amazon FBA too saturated? This is a question that Matt and I get asked all the time. As of the last reported period, Amazon has 310 million active customers. It's fair to say that more people are buying on Amazon than ever before. The trick is learning how to use Amazon's growth to your advantage. Ready to discover how to sell on Amazon without ever worrying about saturation again? Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The Project Life Mastery Podcast
PLM 621 : He Built A $15 Million Dollar Amazon FBA Empire At 29 Years Old

The Project Life Mastery Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 15, 2018 44:58


Mike Estey built a $15 million dollar Amazon FBA empire at 29 years old. His Amazon journey started with Amazing Selling Machine. Shortly afterward he started selling products on Amazon. Today, Mike has 15 Amazon accounts. He sells products internationally with 22 virtual assistants full-time, 24-person full-time staff. It's fair to say that he is a super successful Amazon seller. If you have dreams of building an Amazon FBA empire, this is an interview that you don't want to miss! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The Project Life Mastery Podcast
PLM 577 : $1,000,000 on Amazon in only 9 months? (Insanely Powerful Tools for Amazon Sellers)

The Project Life Mastery Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 4, 2018 15:55


How would it feel to make $1,000,000 on Amazon in only 9 months? That's exactly what Manny Coats did! While I was at the Amazing Selling Machine event this past year, I had the pleasure of interviewing Manny, who is the Founder of the AMPM Podcast. Manny is a super successful Amazon seller, who made $1,000,000 on Amazon in only 9 months. Since then, he has gone on to create a software company, called Helium 10. This software suite contains over a dozen insanely powerful Amazon SEO tools that are designed to help Amazon sellers grow their online businesses. If you have a desire to start selling on Amazon, Manny's story will inspire you to do so. This is an interview that you don't want to miss! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The Project Life Mastery Podcast
PLM 560 : My CRAZY Amazing Selling Machine 9 Bonuses

The Project Life Mastery Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 27, 2018 55:30


I've just put together the best Amazing Selling Machine bonus package for the new ASM9 worth $15,249 in value, that I want to give to you for FREE as a bonus when you join the Amazing Selling Machine through me. These Amazing Selling Machine bonuses include personal coaching with myself, Stefan James, as well as a done-for-you ecommerce website, funnel, and a lot more! Every bonus has a purpose in helping you build your own Amazon business from scratch. Everything compliments the Amazing Selling Machine training that you'll be going through. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

amazon selling bonuses opt out stefan james amazing selling machine
The Project Life Mastery Podcast
PLM 561 : Inspiring Couple From Romania Sells $100K Per Month On Amazon

The Project Life Mastery Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 27, 2018 32:20


In this podcast, I share how an inspiring couple from Romania sells $100k per month on Amazon. While I was at the SellerCon event in Orlando, Florida I had the pleasure of interviewing Peter and Adina, a husband and wife from Romania. I interviewed them one year ago when I attended the Amazing Selling Machine event in Las Vegas. During our conversation, they shared their journey to success, which started with the Amazing Selling Machine (ASM) course. Peter and Adina didn't even speak English when they started with ASM. They took a leap of faith and did what many people would consider impossible. Their story is proof that anybody has the power to change their life. Are you ready to learn how this inspiring couple from Romania sells $100k per month on Amazon? Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The Project Life Mastery Podcast
PLM 558 : The Amazing Selling Machine 9 (ASM9)

The Project Life Mastery Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 24, 2018 26:06


The Amazing Selling Machine 9 has officially opened its doors! While I was at the SellerCon event in Orlando, Florida I had the opportunity to interview Mike McClary. Mike is one of the co-creators of the Amazing Selling Machine and was the host of the Amazon seller event. The Amazing Selling Machine is a program designed by Matt Clark & Jason Katzenback that has helped thousands of entrepreneurs build highly profitable businesses selling physical products on Amazon. For those of you who are considering joining the Amazing Selling Machine 9 (ASM9) program, this is an information-packed interview that you don't want to miss! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

amazon selling opt out matt clark amazing selling machine
The Project Life Mastery Podcast
PLM 538 : How Matt Clark Built Amazing.com To A Multi-Million Dollar Online Business

The Project Life Mastery Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 7, 2018 22:20


Imagine having a multi-million dollar online business. How would that change your life? In this video, you will learn how you can create your entrepreneurial dream lifestyle. I had the pleasure of interviewing my friend, Matt Clark, who is the co-founder of Amazing.com and the Amazing Selling Machine. Matt is an award-winning entrepreneurial thought leader, turned investor, who built three multi-million dollar companies before he reached the age of 25. Together with co-founder, Jason Katzenback, he dedicates his work to teaching people how to build life-changing businesses, by leveraging the power of Amazon. If you have the desire to be an entrepreneur, or want to take your business to the next level, this is an interview that you don't want to miss! Are you ready to learn what it takes to build a multi-million dollar online business? Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The Project Life Mastery Podcast
PLM 522 : Amazon FBA Product Research Tips For Beginners

The Project Life Mastery Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 27, 2018 23:48


Do you have a desire to start an Amazon business but don't know how to find a profitable product? Look no further! In this video, I interview Matt Clark, the co-founder of Amazing Selling Machine, who shares his Amazon FBA product research tips for beginners. Matt has helped thousands of people build profitable businesses selling on Amazon. He will guide you through the Amazon FBA product research process so that you can find winning products to sell on Amazon. Are you ready to learn Amazon FBA product research tips from an Amazon expert? This is an interview that you don't want to miss! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The Project Life Mastery Podcast
PLM 519 : Is Amazon FBA Dead? (Watch This Before Starting Your Amazon Business)

The Project Life Mastery Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 18, 2018 16:21


Is Amazon FBA dead? In this interview, you will learn the answer to this question! I had the pleasure of interviewing my friend, Matt Clark, who is the co-founder of the Amazing Selling Machine. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The Project Life Mastery Podcast
PLM 490 : Ask Us Anything About Selling On Amazon (w/ Special Guest Matt Clark from Amazing Selling Machine)

The Project Life Mastery Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 25, 2017 75:42


Welcome to my live streaming event, w/ special guest Matt Clark from Amazing Selling Machine. This is your opportunity to ask us anything about selling on Amazon! Matt Clark is the co-founder of Amazing Selling Machine (ASM), is an 8-week training program that teaches people how to build successful businesses selling on Amazon. Matt Clark knows how to build Amazon businesses, having built and sold three multi-million dollar companies. He has years of experience in carrying out successful Amazon product launches. Selling on Amazon is his forte, so to speak. I'm a huge fan of ASM. It has transformed the lives of thousands of people, including myself. Are you ready to ask us anything about selling on Amazon? This is your chance to be armed with the knowledge that will inspire you to take the leap and create the life of your dreams. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The Project Life Mastery Podcast
PLM 483 : This Romanian Power Couple Makes $100,000 PER MONTH On Amazon

The Project Life Mastery Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 14, 2017 15:22


In this podcast I share how this Romanian power couple makes $100,000 PER MONTH on Amazon. While at the Amazing Selling Summit event this past year, I had the pleasure of interviewing a couple from Romania, named, Peter and Adina. Their journey to success started with the Amazing Selling Machine course, which then led them to build a successful Amazon business. Their experience has inspired so many people in their home country of Romania to take the leap of faith and start their own Amazon businesses. Are you ready to learn how this Romanian power couple makes $100,000 PER MONTH on Amazon? If they can do it, so can you! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The Project Life Mastery Podcast
PLM 482 : How To Start Selling On Amazon | Matt Clark of Amazing Selling Machine

The Project Life Mastery Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 10, 2017 25:56


In this podcast I share with you how to start selling on Amazon. Do you dream of launching an Amazon business, but don't know how to get started? I'm here to show you how. At the Amazing Selling Summit in Las Vegas this past year, I had the opportunity to interview Matt Clark, who is the co-founder of Amazing.com and the Amazing Selling Machine. Matt Clark is the definition of entrepreneurial success. He has built three multi-million dollar companies, and now dedicates his work to teaching entrepreneurs how to launch and grow online businesses. Amazon is now the world's third-largest retailer. The opportunities to make money on Amazon are monumental. Are you ready to learn from Matt Clark how to start selling on Amazon? Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The Project Life Mastery Podcast
PLM 425 : How to Make Money on Amazon in 2017 (Matt Clark of Amazing Selling Machine)

The Project Life Mastery Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 14, 2017 50:03


In this podcast, I share with you how to make money on Amazon in 2017. I had the pleasure of interviewing Matt Clark, the co-founder of Amazing.com and The Amazing Selling Machine (ASM). The ASM is a training program and live event that teaches entrepreneurs how to build real, fast-growth businesses selling physical products by leveraging the power of Amazon. I interviewed Matt back in 2013, when I was publishing eBooks on Amazon. Since then, Matt has built one of the most popular and successful business-oriented training programs ever created. He has impacted thousands of peoples' lives, who have now gone on to quit their jobs and create the financial freedom they have always dreamed of. Matt Clark continues to put out a high-quality product, year after year. His consistency and dedication to his customers and his product is amazing. His work has made a large impact in my life. Do you want to learn how to make money on Amazon in 2017? If so, there is no better person to learn from than Matt Clark. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The Project Life Mastery Podcast
PLM 423 : How Mike McClary Quit His Corporate Job In 2013 & Built A $3M Per Year Amazon Business

The Project Life Mastery Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 12, 2017 53:30


In this podcast, Stefan shares with you how Mike McClary quit his corporate job in 2013 & built a $3M per year Amazon business. Mike has sold millions of his own products on Amazon, and is one of the top sellers in the Amazon Vendor program. He has multiple successful Amazon businesses and is the co-creator of the latest course, Amazing Selling Machine 7, in the series of Amazing Selling Machine programs. This program has helped thousands of entrepreneurs build highly profitable businesses selling physical products on Amazon. Stefan is living proof that this program works. Amazon is an amazing platform for online business owners to broaden their customer based and boost their sales, but learning how to do it is both an art and a science. Anybody can start a business on Amazon, but it takes a lot of hard work, time, knowledge, and energy in order to sustain it over the long-term. Stefan is a big believer in investing in yourself and in your business. Who he is today and the success that he has achieved are all the result of the investments that he has made in himself. In the words of Warren Buffet, "The best investment that you can make is in yourself." If you want to grow and take your business to the next level, you have to learn from those who have achieved the success you are striving for. Are you ready to take charge of your future and gain the financial freedom that you desire? If so, there is no better place to start than to learn how Mike McClary quit his corporate job in 2013 & built a $3M per year Amazon business. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The Less Doing Podcast
199: Chip Franks - Joe Volunteer

The Less Doing Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 6, 2016 36:59


**Summary:** In Episode #199 Ari interviews [Chip Franks](http://www.joevolunteer.com/allaboutus/), a real estate entrepreneur who co-founded [Joe Volunteer](http://www.joevolunteer.com/), a project that aims to increase the number of volunteers helping anywhere in the world. Listen as Ari and Chip discuss how Joe Volunteer plans to better connect volunteers and charitable organizations. **Special Announcements:** ## [Leave Us a Review!](https://geo.itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/ari-meisel-less-doing/id605938952?mt=2&uo=6) Hey Less Doing Podcast Listeners, we want to hear from YOU! Visit us on iTunes and leave a review or subscribe to the podcast if you're not already a dedicated follower. **Time Stamped Show Notes:** - 16:16 – Frank joins the show. - 16:25 – Chip takes care of three children with his wife Laura and owns a real estate company. - 18:12 – Volunteering locations vary widely in the need for volunteers. - 19:23 – Joe Volunteer is an app on which organizations can ask for volunteers for their events. - 20:03 – Joe Volunteer is undergoing beta testing in the Austin, Texas area to work out bugs. - 21:26 – There's a crowdfunding campaign and IndieGogo fundraiser to further develop the app. - 22:26 – The idea for Joe Volunteer began when Joe Polish mentioned that such a service would be useful during one of his podcast episodes. - 24:33 – Chip heard the idea and decided to put it into action. - 25:34 – Chip talks about his daily routine which he begins at 5 am. - 28:14 – Chip uses the Headspace app and Anthony Robbins routines to meditate. - 29:27 – Ari and Chip talk about the advantages of waking up early in the morning. - 30:42 – Financial independence or a business that generates money by itself is a personal goal for Chip. - 32:12 – Chip's _Top 3 Tips to be More Effective_ - 32:14 – Think about your big ‘why.' To become great, find a way to serve the many. - 33:02 – Begin and continue a self-development project – one to act as a constant reminder to improve on oneself. - 35:02 – Develop your very own daily practice. Do something physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally for yourself every day. Chip tries to do one kind act for another human being once a day. - 35:32 – The best way to keep up with Chip's project, Joe Volunteer, is to sign up to be a volunteer on the website. **4 Key Points:** 1. The supply of volunteers varies widely for organizations – Joe Volunteer aims to provide potential volunteers with in-depth information about events happening around them. 2. Two sayings that Chip believes are the key to a focused life: “To be great, find a way to serve the many” and “Begin with the end in mind.” 3. Daily rituals set the tone for one's life. 4. Anyone with an idea can bring it to life, it's just a matter of being proactive. Resources Mentioned: - [Elevator](https://t.co/En6hSoWKoe) - Any team can be acquihired - [Omni](https://t.co/K4ZvtDNiai) - On-demand itemized physical storage - [Apifier](https://t.co/Wlzvh9YKYS) - Web scraper that works on every website - [Avocado Recipes](https://t.co/X8TM16xWtK) – Delicious and healthy - [Amazing Selling Machine](https://t.co/Z7EZmwvySE) – Successful business ownership - [Luma](https://t.co/RAHKkS4YIN) - WiFi System - [Portable Charger](https://t.co/Gxsz3Z4PsH) - Dark Energy Poseidon - [Knote](https://t.co/nTTYyWTJ84) - How to triple your blog traffic without lifting a finger - [Tech Crunch](https://t.co/nTTYyWTJ84) - Kickbooster Will Pay You For Sharing Your Favorite Crowdfunding Campaigns - [Make Use Of](https://t.co/4FlF29KNKQ) - 9 Easy IFTTT DO Button Tricks to Quickly Automate Your Life - [The Muse](https://t.co/9aQ49PMW9t) -The 4 Secrets Behind Teams That Work Together So Well That Everyone Else is Jealous - [Chronos](https://t.co/wN7PlvaNg5) - Smart Watch Disc - [Birdly](https://t.co/vlCmOsnMU3) - Business Cards - [Gliimpse](https://t.co/udQjxSrNyi) - MINT but for your health - [Weld](https://t.co/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/lessdoing/message

The Project Life Mastery Podcast
PLM 179 : From $0 To $16,000 In 4 Months Selling On Amazon FBA

The Project Life Mastery Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 10, 2015 29:10


In this inspiring video, you'll learn how Jason, a member of the Amazing Selling Machine and my coaching group, has built his Amazon business from $0 to $16,000 per month in sales within only 4 months. Since 2014, I've created an exclusive online mastermind group to help members of the Amazing Selling Machine get better and faster results. In this mastermind group, I host bi-weekly group coaching sessions where I help Amazon sellers build their online business. Jason signed up a previous version of the Amazing Selling Machine, which included one of my group coaching bonuses that I offer for FREE to those that join the Amazing Selling Machine through me. I've been very impressed with Jason's results within only 4 months, especially because of his amazing resourcefulness to start this business despite not having the money. Jason proves that with hard work and resourcefulness, applied with the right online training program, that anything is possible. Check out the interview with Jason below! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The Project Life Mastery Podcast
PLM 177 : From Newbie To $1.1 Million In Amazon Product Sales In Less Than 1 Year

The Project Life Mastery Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 7, 2015 41:27


In this video, Stefan interviews Zach, a successful Amazon seller that got started with the Amazing Selling Machine and launched his first product in February 2014. For the remainder of 2014, he ended up doing $1.1 million in gross Amazon product sales. Learn more about Zach's story, his experience going through the Amazing Selling Machine and selling on Amazon, as well as some of the most important pieces of advice and lessons that he has learned building his Amazon FBA business. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The Project Life Mastery Podcast
PLM 129 : Luke's Story: From $0 to $30,000 Per Month From Selling On Amazon In 18 Months

The Project Life Mastery Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 24, 2015 18:46


Luke is someone that purchased the Amazing Selling Machine back in 2014 and over the course of 18 months, was able to build it to generating $30,000 per month in sales from only two Amazon products. When Luke saw that I was again endorsing the Amazing Selling Machine, he contacted me because he wanted to share his success story with others and share his experience by going through the program. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

amazon opt out selling on amazon amazing selling machine
The Project Life Mastery Podcast
PLM 128 : My Irresistible Amazing Selling Machine Bonus ($5000+ Value)

The Project Life Mastery Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 22, 2015 14:34


I've decided that I am going to make available an exclusive Amazing Selling Machine bonus offer for those interested in joining, which will only be available for a limited number of people. Here's how it works… If you purchase the Amazing Selling Machine by clicking the link below and e-mail the receipt to my support team, then you will receive the following bonus. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

selling irresistible opt out amazing selling machine
The Project Life Mastery Podcast
PLM 117 : What I Learned From The Amazing Selling Machine Live Event

The Project Life Mastery Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 16, 2015 21:43


These are some of the biggest highlights and lessons I learned from the Amazing Selling Machine live event. The Amazing Selling Machine is an online program (that included a live event) hosted by Matt Clark and Jason Katzenback. It is aimed towards selling Amazon physical products online. This is my experience with the live event and what I learned. Make sure to check out the blog post for a lot more. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The Project Life Mastery Podcast
PLM 085 : A 100% Honest Review Of The Amazing Selling Machine ($4900 Bonus Offer)

The Project Life Mastery Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 15, 2014 16:39


A 100% Honest Review Of The Amazing Selling Machine ($4900 Bonus Offer) Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

selling offer honest opt out amazing selling machine
The Project Life Mastery Podcast
PLM 082 : How To Make Money Selling Amazon Physical Products

The Project Life Mastery Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 6, 2014 16:42


Discover how to make money selling Amazon physical products through private labelling and drop shipping. Most of what I've learned is based on my experience going through the Amazing Selling Machine with Matt Clark and Jason Katzenback, as well as my own experience with internet marketing and selling on Amazon. Make sure to view the blog post for more. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The Project Life Mastery Podcast
PLM 047 : Amazing Selling Machine: Matt Clark On Selling Products On Amazon & Kindle Publishing

The Project Life Mastery Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 18, 2014 34:41


Find out how Matt Clark has sold millions of dollars worth of physical products on Amazon with his Amazing Selling Machine. In this interview, I talk to Matt about everything Amazon, from Kindle Publishing to Amazon FBA (Fulfillment By Amazon), and Matt reveals many of his secrets to making money selling Amazon products. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy