Podcasts about it's amazon

With 54% of product searches taking place on Amazon, it is now the world's largest ecommerce platform. What types of brands is Amazon right for, and what do you need to know to succeed on the platform? This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, ROI Swift founder Carolyn Lowe shares her advice for brands considering selling products on Amazon. Carolyn has a long track record of success developing marketing and advertising strategies for companies selling on Amazon, both as an in-house marketer who helped 5X revenues for a baby brand, and now as the owner of an Amazon agency. In this conversation, she covers everything from who Amazon is right for, how to set up your product listings, and how to develop and manage your advertising strategy. Highlights from my conversation with Carolyn include: ROI Swift is a digital agency that focuses on three to $50 million companies. They are a Facebook agency partner, Google agency partner, Amazon advertising partner and Klaviyo email marketing partner. Amazon is a good place for brands that sell products beyond their website (ie. in stores), and are not direct to consumers. The exception to this is brands that sell things that are "heavy and cheap." Unless you have complete control over your product distribution channels, odds are that your product will end of up being sold on Amazon by someone else, whether you choose to list them there or not. So it's better to sell them there yourself and take control of the channel. One of the risks of selling on Amazon is that they can see all the data about how much product you're selling, and who is buying it. In some cases, this has led Amazon to create and sell its own private label versions of successful products. Another risk is that you become dependent upon Amazon for the bulk of your sales and something happens that causes Amazon to delist your product. Amazon isn't just for B2C brands. The platform has a growing number of B2B brands, particularly in the office products space, that are selling successfully on it. Due to the fees that Amazon charges and the cost of shipping, Amazon is not a great place to sell products that retail for under $15. You can either fulfill your products yourself and just pay Amazon a referral fee of eight to 17% depending on your category. Or you can pay the referral fee plus pay the FBA fee, fulfilled by Amazon. That will get you Prime shipping which in some cases, gets you same day or next day shipping if you have enough inventory with Amazon around the country. Amazon actually has a calculator that sellers can use to determine the profitability of their products based on their price and weight. Before you get started on Amazon, you should begin by doing keyword, market and competitive research, just as you would if you were advertising on Google.  69% of the searches that take place on Amazon are not branded, meaning people are searching for a product type, not a specific brand name. This offers brands a great opportunity to gain market share if they have a solid strategy. If you have a US PTO trademark for your product or brand, you can get access to Amazon Brand Registry, which unlocks a host of tools and analytics. When you list a product on Amazon, you get a 2,000 word description and 7 images, one of which can be a video. Carolyn advises brands to use that opportunity to include a 20 second product or unboxing video in their listing. Amazon's algorithm is based on the relevancy of your search and velocity of your product, which means that the more product you sell, the higher you will get listed. That's where Amazon advertising comes in. Amazon now earns more than $4 billion in advertising every year through on-Amazon and off-Amazon ads. Sponsoring your product can help ensure it gets seen when someone is searching by including it in the three sponsored product spots at the top of search results. Cost per click on Amazon can vary dramatically, from 30 cents to $11 depending upon the product category, but Carolyn generally sees ROI on Amazon at 5X what it is on Facebook. Sponsored brand, sponsored product and product targeting are three common ad formats on Amazon. Amazon DSP allows you to retarget customers off of the Amazon platform. Amazon is now launching local news podcasts which will provide advertisers with new options for geotargeted ads. The first 30 days of a product listing on Amazon are critical, and building momentum through sales is important, so advertisers should consider strategies like using Facebook ads to drive traffic to their listings, or sending out email blasts.  Reviews are also vital, and Amazon offers a variety of options for getting reviews in ways that comply with its terms of service. One of the biggest mistakes that companies make when they sell on Amazon is they structure their pricing in a way that is not profitable. Resources from this episode: Visit the ROI Swift website Contact Carolyn or the team at ROI Swift by emailing hello@roiswift.com.  Listen to the podcast to learn which business Amazon is right for, and how to create a marketing and advertising strategy that will drive results on the platform. Transcript Kathleen Booth (Host): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I'm your host Kathleen Booth and this week, my guest is Carolyn Lowe, who is the co founder and CEO of ROI Swift. Welcome Carolyn. Carolyn Lowe (Guest): Thanks for having me, Kathleen. Carolyn and Kathleen recording this episode. Kathleen: I’m excited to have you here for a couple of reasons, one of which is, we're going to talk about something that we really haven't covered on this podcast yet. And I'll tell you, in almost 150 episodes, it's hard to find those topics. So I'm really excited to talk about it, but also for the fact that, you know, you're someone who has been in marketing roles, but you've also been in roles where you've really grown companies. And I think that's such an awesome combination. About Carolyn Lowe and ROI Swift Kathleen: So really looking forward to picking your brain, but in the meantime could you please tell my audience a little bit about who you are and what ROI Swift is? Carolyn: Sure. Thanks Kathleen. Happy to. So I started my career in marketing many, many years ago, but I'll just go back 20 years to Dell computers. Dell technologies, in 1999, moved me down here from Boston to Austin to help run the consumer marketing division. People were buying their first computers and it was all done through direct mail and catalogs and phone, believe it or not. So I really loved that small and emerging part of Dell. We were last in market share. We were behind a company called Gateway that's now out of business. So going from virtually nothing to number one, I really enjoyed growing that part of the business. And then I went on to run other divisions. And after that I worked for a global market research company and then I had two kids, and it's hard to do global travel with little ones. So I took some time off and just consulted while my kids were young. And then I went back to work for a mom and baby company in 2014 and really loved helping them grow. I ran their e-commerce and their Amazon business. After a year of doing that, I decided I wanted to do that for more companies because it just felt so good. So I started ROI Swift about five years ago with a focus on three to $50 million companies really working on their Amazon. We're a Facebook agency partner, we're a Google agency partner, we're an Amazon advertising partner and we're Klaviyo email marketing partners. So that's what I've been doing for the past five years. And we've helped over 102 companies grow. Our goal is to help a thousand. So I have 898 to go until retirement. Kathleen: I love that and I think you have dramatically undersold yourself because when I read about you, the mom and baby company that you worked on, you grew that dramatically in just 18 months, correct? What was the actual revenue growth in that time? Carolyn: They are a private company and they did get acquired by Reckitt Benckiser so I don't know if that number is public, but I can say we were 5X from the time that I started until the time that I stopped working. It was considerable. Which businesses should sell on Amazon? Kathleen: I saw that and I sort of sat up and said, "Oh, I need to talk to her." So Amazon, that's really what drew me to having this conversation because we haven't talked about it much on the podcast. In fact, I think the only real conversation I've had with anyone in the past 150 episodes about Amazon has been about publishing content through Amazon direct publishing and Kindle eBooks and that sort of thing, which is awesome also, but really here, we're talking about marketing your products on Amazon. So to kind of lay the groundwork for this conversation, let's start by talking about who is right for Amazon, and who should be looking at selling on Amazon. Carolyn: That is a great question because Amazon isn't the right platform for everyone. It's definitely for brands that are sold beyond just their website. So if you're carried in Target or Walmart or REI or any of the other big retailers, someone's going to put your product on Amazon. I'm mentoring, pro bono, a beauty brand right now - an emerging beauty brand. And even though they don't sell on Amazon, they only sell on their website, their products have made it to Amazon. So we highly encourage folks to own that. And then the folks that shouldn't are the folks that are 100% DTC and control their channel and they can own that customer. There's no reason you need to give up margin or, or give up the customer to Amazon. So those are, I think, the two, and then the products that don't work well on Amazon are a lot of times what we call heavy and cheap. So, think about a case of sparkling water. It's harder to make money on than, say, a $40 blouse. Controlling your brand presence on Amazon Kathleen: Absolutely. Now I have a couple questions on that. You peaked my interest. One is, you mentioned companies finding their products on Amazon. I think for a lot of people, you know, who might be heavy Amazon consumers, but not experienced Amazon sellers, that might sound a little confusing. So how does your product wind up on Amazon if you're not selling it there? Carolyn: Good question. So Amazon, as you know, is a marketplace and their goal is to bring the best value to the customer. So as long as it's legally the same product, it has the same UPC code, Amazon doesn't care. They want the lowest price for you, the customer, because they are all about customer trust and customer value. So we see people all the time in like CVS or target with these little scanners, and they don't work for CVS or Target. They're scanning real time. They're called retail arbitrage. And they're trying to find what's the lowest price, or they'll find products on Target and they'll buy them all up and then resell them. So many times that I've worked with folks and asked, when I sent the seller an email as a representative of a brand and said, "how did you legally acquire our products? We have no record of selling to you" and they'll send me, nine times out of 10, a Target receipt that shows that they bought stuff on clearance at target and threw it up on Amazon. Kathleen: Wow. It reminds me so much of the early days of eBay. Carolyn: Yes! Is Amazon right for B2B brands? Kathleen: It's interesting. So the other thing that I wanted to ask you about this is, what about B2B? Because you said really anything where you have, let's say, over a $15 transaction value and that's not D2C I always think of Amazon as being a B2C play. Is it a good place for B2B companies who have products to sell? Carolyn: It is, especially in the office space. So about six years ago, I was invited to Amazon headquarters. There were 250 women. They invited the top 250 Amazon women's sellers in the country. And so it was a whole day with the leadership team at Amazon's headquarters. We met with the heads of global marketplace, the head of B2B, the head of launchpad for emerging brands. And so B2B was just getting going, and you used to have to have an invite. Like, six years ago, you needed an invite to be in the B2B part. And now, as you can imagine, I've worked for Dell as a public company. When you're as big as Amazon, finding new revenue streams, you've got to think big. And so obviously, now international expansion is big for them and the B2B side is big for them. You know, they want to overtake OfficeMax and Staples and all of those things. And so Amazon now does have a great B2B offering and a lot of folks can give discounts for bulk quantity. So I worked with a company that sold compostable coffee cups and they did a great B2B business on Amazon. What's the risk fo selling on Amazon? Kathleen: Interesting. Now the other thing I've heard from people who have sold on Amazon, or have thought about it, is that they get really nervous. It's like a double edged sword. They're like, I want to go and sell on Amazon because I can reach a huge audience and it's great exposure, but I kind of don't want to go and sell on Amazon because as soon as products are successful, Amazon starts to sell it. And you can't compete against the platform itself. So what's the story there? Carolyn: That is definitely a concern. Amazon has launched a whole bunch of private label brands in the supplement category. In the wellness category, they have Solimo, which is their own brand. They also have a competitive advantage because they know what everybody's buying and they know where the holes are. They know what everybody's searching for and what they're not finding. So they have the best product market research out there because they have all your data. And so that is a concern, but I also warn brands, don't just put all your eggs in the Amazon basket. Definitely build your brand outside of Amazon. There's plenty of folks that have built seven figure businesses on Amazon and just are on Amazon and that's fine. But then you're beholden to Amazon. We've had clients who do eight, 9 million a month on Amazon and they get a shutdown by mistake. Amazon makes a mistake and closes their listing and they're out millions of dollars. That's why Amazon is a double edged sword. It's a great place -- way, way cheaper than going out through radio and TV and digital and spending a bunch of money. But there are some risks if you are just on Amazon or more than 50% of your revenue is on Amazon. What to know if you plan to sell your product on Amazon Kathleen: Now I know we need to get into how to market on Amazon, but I do have one other question, and I don't even know if this is one that you can answer. I don't know if this is within your area of expertise, but I advise one company that made a product for children and families. It was like an actual hardware product that was geared towards positive parenting, and I learned a lot from the CEO and the founder of that company. He talked about how, when you're going to sell on Amazon, there are ways, if you want to make it super easy, you have to have your packaging a certain way so that it can be Prime shipped. Are there other things that companies who are saying, "Hey, I think I might want to sell on Amazon" should know that go beyond how you market, how you package or how you actually create your product to kind of optimize it for sale on Amazon? Does that make sense? Carolyn: Yes, that does make sense. So I had a very interesting and similar experience. I advised a friend who had a product for toddlers. And what we found was that he wanted to sell them and they were $5 each. And I said, "You're never going to make any money. So you have to do a three-pack, put them all in one package, do this packaging." There's all these different tiers of fulfilled by Amazon. So you can either fulfill it yourself and just pay Amazon a referral fee of eight to 17% depending on your category. Or you can pay the referral fee plus pay the FBA fee, fulfilled by Amazon. That gets you Prime shipping. In some cases, it gets you same day or next day shipping if you have enough inventory with Amazon around the country. And so I said, "Well, your products do need to be $15 at least to make money when you're done with all these fees. So let's do this." And then I've also worked with another company in the natural cleaning space where those fees are based on weight. So you want to get the highest price you can for the lowest weight. So we said, you know, you're paying more for a two pound something when, if it's four pounds, you're only paying 30 or 40 cents more for those extra two pounds. So there's that sort of sweet spot. And I always advise people, before they launch something, to go into the Amazon calculator and it'll spit out and tell you exactly what all your fees are. So before you launch, we like to have clients do a P&L and say, "Okay, can you make money based on your margins, based on all the Amazon fees? Does it make sense before you jump in?" Getting started on Amazon Kathleen: That makes a lot of sense. So it seems like there's some real homework to do on the front end before you make the decision to wade in. So assuming someone has done that and decides that Amazon is a really good platform for them, where do you start when it comes to thinking about how to market your product and how does that even work on Amazon? Carolyn: That is why we exist, because Amazon doesn't make it easy. Sometimes I think you doing your taxes yourself is easier than selling on Amazon. Kathleen: Oh, that sounds terrible. Carolyn: That's why we exist - to help them out. And so I think the first place to start is to do keyword research and marketplace research, just like you would if you were going to launch a product. You want to look at the competitive landscape. You want to look at how many people are even searching for this on Amazon. Do I have any searches for my brand? 69% of searches on Amazon are non-brand. So the good news is, only a third of the folks are looking for products by name. So that's really helpful. A lot of folks will just look for, like if you're pregnant, a pregnancy test or something like that, and they're not looking for branded ones. Kathleen: Is there a keyword research tool baked into Amazon? How do you know if somebody is searching for your brand? Is there a way to know that? Carolyn: There are some third party tools we use, and then we also have access as an Amazon agency partner to some beta tools that a lot of sellers don't have access to. So a lot of this, you can get if you have a brand registered. So Amazon is really helping brands now by this brand registry process. So if you have a US PTO trademark that's live, you can get access to some additional tools. And then we have access to third party tools and then some additional beta tools as a partner. So we'll do that keyword research. Just like you go on Google and you do keyword research, it's the same thing on Amazon. There's a couple of good tools. And so we'll do that. And then we'll also inspect the competitors. There's other third party tools where you can inspect what they are ranking for and what terms they are ranking for and how should I write my copy and how should I write my description? So that's usually the first thing we'll do is assess the market, and find out what people are searching for. We also will skim reviews to see what people like about competitive products or don't like about competitive products and really sort of weave that into the product description. You get seven images and those seven images are key, so use a killer image playbook for those seven images. There was someone who was a little too small for us to work with. They only had a few products, so I told her what to do with her listing and she came back two weeks later. She said "My conversion rate doubled from 15% to 30%." Kathleen: Wow. Carolyn: That is just so rewarding to hear that the actual data and science, and there's probably seven or eight other companies that we can easily point to and say, these are the changes we made on their listing, and their conversion rate went up 30, 50, a hundred percent. Kathleen: So let's get into this a little bit deeper. It sounds like, from what you're saying, the first thing that a company needs to do, if they want to sell on Amazon, as they start to take the steps of getting their brand presence set up, is register their brand. Is that right? Carolyn: Yes. Through Amazon brand registry. You don't have to do it first, but it's probably easier to set up your seller account first and then, go ahead and do your brand registry. After that, selling on Amazon, you can do a professional account for $40 a month. So you set up your seller account and then they have a separate tool that you just go in, you put in your information, you put in your trademark number and it's really great because it allows you to have more control over your listings. Carolyn: If you are the registered brand owner, Amazon gives you more leeway with who controls, since there's so many people that could sell your product. It used to be whoever the best seller is versus, as a brand owner, somebody else could be making changes to your listing. And it's really nice that over the last three to four years, Amazon has given brand owners more control. Kathleen: So when you set up that brand registry, what are the things that you need to have ready so that you can set up a really great presence on Amazon? Carolyn: So the brand registry itself is pretty easy. You just need to go out to US PTO and grab your serial number and your registration number and have all your information. Where do you sell your products? And usually then they go ahead and they'll send an email, like a verification code, to the lawyer on file with the trademark. So you just have to get that verification code from your trademark attorney and input that into Amazon and boom. All of a sudden you'll have brand registry, which means you can add much better content to your listings. So at the bottom, there's a description. And usually you just get 2,000 characters. That's it. Like, a paragraph. With a brand registry you can do enhanced brand content. So you can go in and it can be about the company, there can be more videos, there can be comparison charts. So you get a ton more access to that. You get access to sponsored brand videos and you get access to some of those tools where you can do market research. You can put in your product code and see all the competitors. And you could see click through rates and conversion rates on search terms. Best practices for building out your product listing Kathleen: Wow. That does sound useful. Now, in terms of videos and photos and things like that, how do you advise companies? When they're thinking about starting to create those assets, what should they be doing to optimize their presence? Carolyn: That is a terrific question. We see this all the time because people will come to us and they'll have maybe four or five photos, and they'll just be different shots of the product. And really, you want call outs, you know, you can have six, and then if you're a brand owner, your seventh image can be a video. So we highly suggest a 20 second product usage or unboxing video. The other great thing too, is that a lot of times people will be searching when they're in their office, so they have their sound off. And so we always advise folks, when you do video, make sure you have that text over so that when people do have their sound off, they can still watch the video and get the content. So those are some key things to winning on the images and the videos. Kathleen: So that's the brand listing itself, but what about for product listings? Are there any best practices or things that you see people trip up on when they set them up? Carolyn: Okay. Yes. I'm sorry. And I was talking about that for the product. Kathleen: I'm sorry. Carolyn: That's okay. It's videos across Amazon. Amazon has also launched video in search results. So instead of just having products in search results, you can now have a video and we've seen great success with that for some of our clients where it stops them and you get more than just a listing. It's a video. And we know that folks are clicking more and more on those videos. So we're seeing better return on ad spend on those videos. As you're scrolling down, say you're searching for a picture frame and you scroll down. And instead of just a bunch of listings, you see an actual video? And you can put a video and say why your picture frame is so much better? You know, it's white, it stands up on its own, the clips don't fall off, whatever, those things that drive people crazy about most picture frames - you can put all those in your listing. Developing your Amazon marketing strategy Kathleen: Great. So how does marketing work once you have your listings set up? Where do you go from there? Carolyn: It's a lot like Google, so you don't just put a listing up and show up on page one the first day, right? As you know, that organic listing takes time and the way Amazon's algorithm works is, it's based largely on relevancy of your search and velocity of your product. So it's a vicious cycle where you need to sell more to show up on page one, but you can't show up on page one until you sell more. Kathleen: So it's "the rich get richer." Carolyn: So that's where Amazon advertising comes in. Amazon has now surpassed Microsoft in terms of advertising revenue. They recently announced that they had over 4 billion in advertising revenue. So again, when you're a company as big as Amazon, you need to find big revenue streams and advertising is a big revenue stream. So there's on Amazon and off Amazon advertising. For folks that are selling on Amazon the best way, and the most efficient way, is to run those sponsored products. So when someone searches for picture frame, there's two to three results that show up first above the organic listings. And that's how you do it, just like Google paid search ads. Kathleen: And how do prices compare to Google ads for example? Carolyn: Well, it's interesting. We've seen cost per click as low as 30 cents, and we've seen it as high as $11, so it's really category dependent. What we know is that the return on ad spend is so much better. Typically, your return on ad spend on Amazon is four to five X for most products in a 40 or $50 price point. So that's really good. We usually see that advertising cost of sale around 20% is pretty good. So, you're paying 20% of the revenue to get the sale, but that also helps increase your organic because more people are finding you, more people are buying you. We've also seen the reverse happen where if you run really inefficient advertising, it actually hurts your organic results because you send a whole bunch of people through that don't buy. Amazon does not want to send anybody to a listing where the customer doesn't purchase, just like Google. Amazon advertising formats Kathleen: Yeah. So what are the different advertising formats on Amazon? You mentioned a sponsored product. Are there other ways that you can advertise on the platform itself or is it really just getting the product higher on the listings? Carolyn: So there are a few different ways. The first one at the very top is what we call a sponsored brand. So there's typically only one of those and it'll highlight two or three products depending on whether you're on mobile or desktop. And then that can send you through to your brand storefront. And that's where you can showcase all of your products. It's almost like your own mini website. There's some great ones out there. Prana sports product clothing has a terrific storefront. A couple of our clients have fabulous storefronts that we really love. So that's one. The other one is the sponsored products where you can buy search terms or you can run an auto campaign and Amazon will match and show your product in the search results when it looks relevant or it's in the same category as another one. Another one we really like is product targeting. So a lot of times we will find the competitors in the space that are rated below in terms of ratings and maybe priced at or higher. And so those are ones. So when you go to, say, the product page for your competitors' picture frame, yours will show up and you have maybe four stars. They have three and a half stars and yours is priced maybe two to $3 below. So we can do this really honed in targeting by individual product, which is really, really nice. Managing your Amazon advertising account Kathleen: That's so fascinating. So when you look at managing an Amazon advertising account, what percentage of your time is spent setting it up versus the ongoing tweaking? Because from everything you're saying, there could be an incredible amount of setup just to get those granular targeting options in place. But then it also sounds like when you set it up that way, it sets the stage for a lot of ongoing management. Carolyn: Yes, it is. It's not like a set and forget. It's like Google, right? You can't just throw a Google AdWords campaign up there and leave it and forget it. We've seen so many people do that, both with Google and Amazon. We actually just had a call yesterday with a client. We said, "You know, you wasted about 30% of your spend." On-Amazon vs. off-Amazon advertising Kathleen: Wow. So you mentioned that there's on Amazon advertising and off Amazon advertising. What is off Amazon advertising? I don't even know if I was aware of that. Carolyn: So Amazon has had it for a while. It's gone through many different names. It used to be Amazon marketing group, AMG, and now its Amazon DSP, so display. And so Amazon will help you do two things. If you want to retarget off of Amazon, you can do that as well. So someone goes to your product listing and they don't buy, and then Amazon will serve up your ad around other properties around the web and follow them around. So just like you would do retargeting on your own website, you can do that with Amazon as well. And then they also have display prospecting, so you can set up your product and they know everything about everybody who's bought your product. They know everything else. They know all of their interests. So you can also do display prospecting through Amazon. Those are typically not as profitable as on Amazon where the people are searching. But it's definitely better. We've had some clients do tests with off Amazon advertising through DSP, and then also through the trade desk. Amazon doesn't have quite the reach of trade desk, but the targeting is so much better because they know so much more about the person. Kathleen: Wow. It's just awesome. But also so creepy to think about how much they know about us. Carolyn: So scary. The latest is the Amazon podcast launch. Amazon is going to be launching local news type podcasts. And I think the really interesting thing about this is, as you know, Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post. And Amazon knows everything about you. So from an advertiser standpoint, when you buy podcast advertising, you may only know, here are the types of people that listen to Snacks Daily, which is one of the podcasts I listen to, and here are the people that listen to this podcast. But now Amazon knows who are the people that listen to this podcast and they buy children's snack food. So if you are a children's snack food brand, you can just advertise to those people on that podcast who are listening to, who buy children's snack foods. Kathleen: And if you're local to a certain geography, all of a sudden it opens up the possibility for brands that are geo-targeting to get even that much more specific. Carolyn: Geo-targeting is perfect because you might be a brand that's only sold in certain regions and your demographic might be different in the South versus the East, et cetera. So I just think that Amazon has probably so much data on you that you're going to start to see Amazon go beyond just a marketplace. Retargeting with Amazon Kathleen: Well, it's inevitable. They're going to take over the world. It's a good thing that you're an Amazon agency. You're well poised to ride that with them. Is there any way, like with Google, you can put pixels on your website and you can then retarget from your website off to Google? Is there any way, with Amazon, to link someone's visit to your website, to the way you advertise to them on Amazon? Carolyn: There's a couple of different ways. Amazon recently launched attribution and so you can tag outbound links and you can get reporting on that. Depending on your category, it's cheaper to actually run Facebook ads to Amazon than it is to run on Amazon advertising. It typically doesn't convert as well as sponsored products, where people are actively searching, but it is great to drive. And then those first 30 days are really critical for Amazon in terms of how your product ranks. So what we have found is that when we run Facebook ads, the nice thing is, we can tag them now and Amazon will report on that attribution. Gaining momentum in your first 30 days on Amazon Kathleen: Oh, that's nice. It sounds like, from what you're saying, in your first 30 days of listing a product, it's really important to think of your marketing slash advertising strategy holistically and not just as "what I'm doing on the Amazon platform." Like, so I'm here at a new site, you're driving traffic to it from Facebook. Are there other methods that you use to get that momentum going in the first 30 days? Carolyn: So for our brands that do have good sized email lists, we will suggest that they go ahead and send out an email campaign with maybe like a 20% off coupon for an introductory offer for their folks. A lot of our brands will do that. What role do reviews play in your Amazon marketing strategy? Kathleen: That's great. And then this is the other question I've been dying to ask you, which is, what role do reviews play in your Amazon marketing strategy? Carolyn: Well, that is a good question, Kathleen. So when was the last time you bought a two star product on Amazon? Kathleen: Never. Carolyn: Right. So I think you just answered your question. Reviews are critical. The magic number is between 21 and 26. That's about where people start to say, "Okay." When you only see a few reviews, you're like, "Is this a new product, or is it a lousy product, or is nobody buying this product?" Right? So if you only see a few reviews, you try to figure out why there's only a few reviews. So I think reviews are critical. One of the board members I know for a natural products company, she worked with one of the women from Oxo. They make everything for your home and they had a great mantra, which was, if your product is not four stars or above, take it off. Go make it four stars and bring it back. A lot of brands just don't do that. Reviews will kill you. You can live for so long at three, three and a half stars, but longterm, you're not going to make it because people are going to find out and do the research and say, "Oh, you know, this is a three and a half star product." I can make a better product and people will come out with a better product. So unfortunately, we've had a couple of brands who had product quality issues. And so they had a three and a half star product. And for years they never fixed them. And then, you know, competitors came on and made it better and cheaper. So reviews are critically important and there's legal ways to get reviews and there's illegal ways. So we want to warn people, do not mess with Amazon. When it comes to reviews, don't do fake reviews. Don't pay people for reviews. You will eventually get caught. You may not get caught today, but they will suspend you. Kathleen: So I feel like this is a chicken and egg situation though, because you need reviews. It's kind of like you were saying before with the rich get richer, your velocity of your product sales are going to drive getting seen more. If you have more reviews, you're going to sell more, but until you sell more, how do you get more reviews? So how do you advise sellers to get those reviews? And, hearkening back again to the company I advised, I recall there is a strategy for getting those reviews before you do your big push or your launch. How do you handle that? Carolyn: So there's a few legal ways to get reviews. One is Amazon's early reviewer program. So for each SKU, they charge you $60 and they will go out to the customers who have bought your product in the early days, like in the beginning, and solicit reviews. It's up to five reviews or up to a year, they will try to get five reviews for you. So that's always been helpful. Most of the reviews we've seen from early reviewers are four or five stars. They're legitimate reviewers or people who've tried the product and Amazon has vetted them. There's also Amazon Vine, where you can now only do 30. That used to only be available to people who sold directly to Amazon. But now you can do it through seller central and you can have up to 30 of your products sent out to Amazon's vetted product reviewers. So they will say, "Okay, great. We have this new product. It's a picture frame." People will sign up for it, they'll get a complimentary one. And you know, Amazon will just ship it from your fulfillment inventory at their warehouses. If you have a four or five star product, those reviews tend to be four or five stars. And then there's also some third party review services that plug into your Amazon where you're allowed to send one product review email. So, we like feedback. We like the HTML format where you can put a picture of the owner and the founder of the company in it. You have to ask as if you're asking as Amazon. So it has to be objective. You can't say, "If you didn't like the product, don't write a review," but we we've had a client get slapped for saying, "Just respond to this email instead of writing a review." And they got slapped on the wrist for that. So like I said, it's not worth it if you get caught, but those are the three legal ways that we use to get reviews. Nurturing your Amazon customers Kathleen: And then correct me if I'm wrong, but when you sell on Amazon, you have people who buy your product. What is your level of access to their information? Normally, if you're selling on your own site, you get people's contact information, and you can nurture them for follow on sales, for reviews, for all kinds of things. Are you able to email these people? Can you export their information? What are the rules around that? Carolyn: Legally, Amazon owns the customer. We've seen folks put stuff in the boxes. Not our clients, but I've ordered from Amazon. I got some energy gels for running, and I got a QR code in the box. And it said, if you'd like three free gels, sign up for email and you scan the QR code and sign up for their email list. So that's how they did it. Not quite within Amazon terms of service. You're not supposed to market to Amazon customers, but this was inside the box. And so there's sort of gray lines that people use to get some information or learn more about those customers. Kathleen: So if you don't have anything like that, are you then sort of making a deal with the devil, when you advertise on Amazon, that you're not going to be able to reach out to your customers at all? Or is there some limited ability through Amazon, or that's it? Carolyn: Yes. It's Amazon's customer. So yeah, they really don't like you to put marketing materials or anything that drives them off Amazon into the box. You can put it on the packaging though, you know? Top mistakes companies make when they sell on Amazon Kathleen: Yeah. Interesting. So, what would you say are the top three mistakes you see companies make when they sell on Amazon? Carolyn: The first one is definitely, people sell unprofitable products. So again, we worked with a natural cleaning company. We've grown them about 10x in two years on a month to month basis. And they were selling $8 products that were heavy, that didn't make money. So we went through and we said, okay, stop selling all these products. Let's bundle these together, make a profitable product, and go from there. So they're off to the races. So one of the first mistakes we see is that people sell unprofitable products. One of the other mistakes we see is that people don't get a hold of their advertising. So we'll do a free audit for any brand that's doing like 20,000 or more a month on Amazon. Usually there's enough there to audit. If they're doing less than 20,000, we can't really audit because there's not a lot of data, but if they're doing more than that, we'll do a complimentary audit. And more times than not, we'll see a whole bunch of wasted spend on Amazon, in advertising. So that's the other big mistake we see. And then the last one we see is just the listings themselves. We'll see people put good products with bad listings and they won't even know what numbers matter. So to us, the two things that really matter are sessions and conversions, how much traffic is coming to your page and how many of those people are buying. It's just like your website, right? How much traffic and what's your conversion rate? And those are really the two levers that you can use on Amazon. Carolyn's advice for companies thinking of advertising on Amazon Kathleen: Interesting. So any advice to companies that are thinking about going forward with this, who don't have experience with Amazon advertising? Carolyn: I would say definitely talk to someone. Talk to someone like us, or like our agency, or an individual that knows what they're doing, and ask them those questions. Ask them how big is my market share? What are my competitors doing? If they can't answer those questions for you, you probably shouldn't be working with them. So if you're going to work with an agency or you're thinking about talking to an individual, ask them how many searches are there for my product a month? Are there any branded searches? What are my competitors doing? How competitive is the market? And, how big is this and how much do you think that I could potentially make? We don't have a crystal ball. We can't say "You're going to make X," but we can say "There's this many non-branded searches. And yes, this is a good category." If we see non-branded searches of less than 10,000 a month or less than 5,000 a month, it's a really small category and it probably doesn't make sense. You can do it, but you're not going to make a million dollars a month in this category. Brands that are successfully selling on Amazon Kathleen: Got it. Now, I feel like it's easy to go on Amazon and see examples of big brands with big budgets doing an amazing job. Are there any smaller brands that you can think of that are great examples of companies who have awesome Amazon strategies that somebody could go and search Amazon and see what they're doing? Carolyn: Yes. When I was with UpSpring as an employee and then as their agency they didn't have a big budget. And the nice thing about Amazon is, it's all pay to play. It's cost per click. It's not cost per thousand. So, you know, you could really scale. I mean, we were doing low, low, low five figures, barely five figures, and on Amazon, and now they're a seven figure Amazon store. I would go and look at what the folks in your space are doing, pull up some of those competitor listings and read their reviews and see what people like and don't like. But as a small brand, it's easy to get on. But it's also easy to make a bunch of mistakes. So a lot of times we'll see that people have set up their products all wrong or set up their account all wrong. And so, a lot of times it'll take two to three months to unwind the messages that were made. It's a little bit better now with brand registry, but that's why we like to work with brands from the onset or from the early days. So before things get too out of control. Kathleen's two questions Kathleen: Yeah. That makes sense. You don't have to clean up somebody else's mess. Shifting gears for a minute, on this podcast we're all about inbound marketing. Is there a particular company or individual that you think is really killing it with inbound marketing? Carolyn: Right now, there are a few that I can think of. And there's a few that I think are doing what you're doing, which is terrific, which is having podcasts. I think that a lot of folks that I've seen do it and do it well, are doing what you're doing with podcasts and really delivering value to folks. So I really love your podcast. And in terms of other companies, there's Austin Brawner who has an eCommerce podcast, which I think is pretty good too. And from what I hear, he does pretty good with inbound on that. Kathleen: Oh, well, I'll have to check that out. Now. The other question is, most marketers I know suffer from the same challenge, which is that digital changes so quickly and it's completely overwhelming and they often feel like they're drinking from a fire hose. So how do you personally keep yourself up to date and educated? Carolyn: Good question. We have a paid search team, paid social and Amazon team, and all of those folks listen to podcasts. You would be amazed what you can learn. And they follow Reddits. And then we also, because we're a Google and a Facebook and an Amazon agency partner, we get access to a lot more insights and what's going on and what's coming and betas and things like that. So I think it's, it's a little bit of a little bit of folks staying on top of the industry. And also, we're blessed and lucky that we have agency partner status with a lot of the partners, so we know what's going on from the inside. How to connect with Carolyn Kathleen: That's great. All right. Well, if somebody is listening and wants to get in touch with you and learn more about what ROI Swift does or ask you a question about something that you talked about today, what's the best way for them to connect with you online? Carolyn: Well, you can go to our website, and don't judge us because we are the cobbler with no shoes. The best way to get ahold of us is go to our website and fill out a form. We'd love to talk to you. You could just reach out to us at hello@roiswift.com.  You know what to do next... Kathleen: All right. I'll put that link in the show notes. So head over there if you want to check that out. And in the meantime, if you are listening and you did learn something new, which, I mean, I learned a ton, please consider heading to Apple Podcasts and leaving the podcast a five star review. Just like on Amazon, podcasts need reviews too. So I would love it if you would do that. And of course, if you know someone else who's doing amazing inbound marketing work, tweet me @workmommywork because I would love to make them my next guest. Thank you so much, Carolyn. This was a ton of fun. I learned a lot today. Carolyn: I enjoyed it immensely. Thanks Kathleen.  

This is the second episode of the Mind Your Noodles podcast. In this episode our guest is investment banker, keynote speaker and author of Pitch Anything, Oren Klaff. We discuss how to use neuroscience when interacting with others, the importance of narrative and emotion in communications and ways to build trust. Show Notes [00:00:05] Mind Your Noodles Podcast [00:00:20] Episode Two - Oren Klaff [00:01:01] Transparency - I'm a Student of Oren's Work [00:01:53] Pitchanything.com [00:02:42] New Book Coming - Flip the Script [00:06:10] Time Passes Differently for Speaker and Audience [00:07:56] How Do You Get Information Out of Your Brain and Over to Someone Else? [00:08:25] Oren Breaks Down the Brain [00:09:03] The Crocodile Brain [00:10:54] Mid-Brain  Function - Social [00:11:32] The Neo-Cortex Role [00:13:00] Does this Thinking Apply to the Masses? [00:15:00] Adjustments When Addressing the Audience [00:15:20] Emotional Needs of the Audience [00:16:39] Collateral Damage and Narrative [00:17:35] Narrative Arc [00:18:50] The Pre-wired Brain [00:20:08] Programmed Narratives [00:21:15] Conflict and Trust [00:22:12] Trust as Too High a Bar at the Beginning - and What to Do to Get There [00:26:32] Conflict Raises the Stake [00:28:53] Conflict = Stakes [00:29:55] The Big Idea and it's Role [00:31:45] Role of the Big Idea [00:36:19] Big Idea Applies to All - Even the Furniture Business [00:40:00] You are Valuable - Use It or Make It [00:43:51] How Might We Engage Employees [00:47:13] Closing Thoughts     Transcript Tripp: [00:00:05] Welcome to the Mind Your Noodles podcasts take care of the brains that take care of you using neuroscience research and methods for a brain friendly organization and healthy you.   Tripp: [00:00:20] In the second episode of Mind Your Noodles My guest is Oren Klaff. Investment banker, keynote speaker and author of Pitch Anything. We discuss how to use neuroscience when interacting with others, the importance of narrative and emotion in communication and ways to get trust quickly.   Tripp: [00:00:46] Hi I'm Tripp Babbitt host of The Mind Your Noodles podcast.   Tripp: [00:00:51] My guest today is investment banker speaker and author Oren Klaff. Welcome Oren.   Oren Klaff: [00:00:57] Hey thanks. TRIPP I appreciate it. Good to connect with you. Glad we could get on the same schedule.   Tripp: [00:01:01] Very good. Full disclosure to my audience I am a huge fan of what Oren does and I'm also a student of his Pitch Mastery online class that that he has and workshops and call ins and also Oren you probably won't meet with us but you are the inspiration actually for this podcast. So no pressure.   Oren Klaff: [00:01:25] Great. And I can't wait to get the checks.   Tripp: [00:01:28] There you go. And one of the things I do a little bit differently especially for folks like you is instead of talking about all your stuff that you do at the end. Kind of like to just where people can go so they can get back right to the beginning of the podcast episode and just know kind of a little bit about. So I knew they'd go to like pitchanything.com I would assume if they're going to learn about you.   Oren Klaff: [00:01:53] If you want to get started here you go to pitchanything.com. Putting your name and we will flood you with really information on that will transform the way you get in front of people the way you talk to people in the way that you close deals. That's what you care about. That's the right place to be pitchanything.com   Tripp: [00:02:11] Okay. And do you want to say a couple words because I know you're kind of doing preorders for your new book Flip the Script. I'm sure we'll talk about as we get into it. But.   Oren Klaff: [00:02:22] So I wrote a book. Second Book because they said you have to write a book. Another one. Your first book is like everyone on Earth bought it. There's no one else to sell it to. I didn't read the book so I wrote another book. I said Yeah I'll do it in a year. and then two years later I finished it because apparently I put everything I knew in the first row.   Oren Klaff: [00:02:42] But the book the new book is Flip the Script. It is. I love it like I'm reading it myself. Oh my God this is so good. I should write this down. Wait a second. I just wrote this. It's like this infinite loop of the Flip the Script is full of scripts of how to make somebody chase you instead of you chasing them out to put your ideas. In the mind of somebody else so they think it's their idea. It is it. It's completely next level. There's nothing like it in sales. It's just revised what sales is about. So Flip the Script is the new book. It's out of control. Now that I've said that you can't get it.   Tripp: [00:03:21] Well you can preorder it though.   Oren Klaff: [00:03:25] You can preorder it. That's OK. Because.   Tripp: [00:03:27] I see it here on Amazon right now.   Oren Klaff: [00:03:30] I'm looking at it and I'm going to get two hundred galleys. So you know if you're in the media a galley is you know the copy that the editors send you that isn't really a copy. It's sort of the secret copy print on cardboard and toilet paper. But if you want that copy I have 200 of them.   Tripp: [00:03:48] Oh OK. OK. All right. So. So where would they contact you to get that.   Oren Klaff: [00:03:52] E-mail you if you want that copy. Go to Tripp's house.   Tripp: [00:03:55] OK.   Oren Klaff: [00:03:56] Talk to his dog.   Tripp: [00:03:59] My dog will kill them. They don't want to do that. All right.   Tripp: [00:04:02] So where I'd like to start Oren is because you were the inspiration for my my podcast that I'm putting together here. I do a couple of other podcasts I'd do one for the Deming Institute. We have about 45-50000 listeners every every month.   Tripp: [00:04:18] And also do one with a gentleman by the name of Doug Hall does innovation types of things. But the the thing that struck me you know I love sales from way back. So you know did the Carnegie stuff I did the Ziglar and I did Tracey and I did the Sandler sales Institute and then on a fluke I I ran into a copy of Pitch Anything actually from another book that was actually meh not very good. But but but in their bibliography your book was mentioned in there and as I started to read it. The thing that that really stood out. I know this is part of your your pitch process and I would certainly want to talk about that is this whole concept of people whether it's neuroscience or brain science or ever you want to say it it's this concept of people are not communicating between a sales situation or a pitch situation because they're on really two different planes in the brain level.   Tripp: [00:05:24] And so I kind of like to start there and I know I've listened to some of your interviews that you've done over the past year on the Life of Charm I think it was one of them and and some other ones that you've done with like the Project Management Institute.   Tripp: [00:05:42] Yeah. And so there's going to be some some it's going to be boring for you. But for the audience I think level setting kind of that component and especially because it really fits in well with the purpose of this podcast kind of walk us through how you. First of all arrive there and then kind of the basics associated with the crocodile brain and the mid brain and all that.   Oren Klaff: [00:06:10] Yeah. So I think you know one way you can get there they've never talked about but we'll do some fresh stuff here. If you think about how differently time passes in different situations so if you're a speaker presenter write to an audience and nearly everybody listening here you know whether it was in grade school, high school, college or in a professional you know sits up and had to present something longer than five minutes when you pass five minutes time begins to pass differently for the speaker and the audience.   Oren Klaff: [00:06:45] You the speaker. Are talking you're all the sound that you get warmed up. Think about five six seven minutes to get warmed up. You got the sound of my voice is pretty good right.   Oren Klaff: [00:06:55] And now you're sort of getting going in your juices are flowing and you feel warmed up and now you're ready to say the things you have to say in explaining the features and the benefits and the ideas that you have and the business of it. And. At eight nine 10 12 minutes your just getting going and the audience is just about cooked right. And so now as you get into when this happens to me you know I a half an hour into a speech. I feel like wow I could do this for three or four hours and the audience is thinking I want you to do this for another minute maybe. OK. So so things happen differently. Experiences that are in the same room happen very differently to different people especially when you're you're teaching or giving information or selling. So. So there's different parts of the mind that are engaged when you're the seller and you're the buyer. And then we follow that through and we sort of think of it like this that where. Do you. What part of the brain do you disgorge information from.   Oren Klaff: [00:07:56] How do you get information out of your brain over to someone else. And what part of the brain do they receive then when you start to look at that from a neuro standpoint you and you ask. Cognitive psychologists. You know what's happening in the brain by the way if you never hire cognitive psychologists to help you out with your relationship. Right. You don't give a fuck about relationships.   Oren Klaff: [00:08:18] They care about your feelings they care about how information moves in and out of the brain and up and down and how you react to things and why.   Oren Klaff: [00:08:25] But if you think about where you receive information into the human mind well it's received as you alluded to do something. Call we call the crocodile brain. And it's the most ancient part of the brain the least sophisticated the most unable to handle nuance, detail, emotion. Right. It really just trims things down to the absolute basics.   Oren Klaff: [00:08:50] Right now the part of the brain that I'm using that you're reading now listen to the part of bringing you you used to get to work and get a buy a laptop and get a job and think that of course is the neocortex smart thinking linguistic capable math problem solving.   Oren Klaff: [00:09:03] Also relatively emotionless but but that part of the brain thinks about complex ideas and talks about them uses the language communicates them and it's sending all this information over to the other person who's just receiving that information through their crocodile brain. We call that because it acts like a crocodile. Huh. What is this. Something is moving. Noise is coming from it. I gotta deal with it because anything that's moving that creates noise in an animatronic way right. That isn't a rock a tree or an insect. Anything is moving and making noise I gotta pay attention to and decide how to process it. And so the other person is. You're coming up with all your great ideas and that person thinking you know as I wrote is it's just something I should eat. There's something I should mate with. Is this a danger. Should I kill it. There's sort of some of the base angry hungry and horny. Right. That's so nature. That part of the brain is trying to process the thing you're saying. So unless you give that part of the brain the information it needs at the beginning to get it calm down and end to allow it to move information up higher into the brain. You never get past. Really the initial. Interest you don't get the attention because you go hey this is not something I should eat. There's not something I should mate with. This isn't something I should kill am I. I'll just ignore it and worry about other problems. So. So that part of the brain is very concerned about survival and self interest and if you don't placate it give it the information it need. Truncate you know your story so it calms down and is willing to pass information up to the higher order of the brain. You can't get anywhere. And that's why you go there eyes roll back in the head. We never got their attention you know and all these things. So. So you got.   Oren Klaff: [00:10:54] So that's a first part of the brain its gotta deal with then it moves up to the mid brain and the mid brain doesn't care about ROI IOR and you know these things that you know you've heard me talk about before you know with the benefits of the SAS software or how the insurance is going to know save you money or this car's better than that I didn't care about and sort of cares about social situations.   Oren Klaff: [00:11:15] So until it's safe. And it sounds and there's some things to be intrigued by by the crocodile brain. And then there is a sense of social order that you're a high status individual that can provide some valuable information.   Oren Klaff: [00:11:32] The neocortex won't engage so I really just start talking to neocortex with the details data story and the neocortex is not easy to access. So that's how I think about human-human communication. You got to give him the right information for the part of the brain that is actually paying attention. At that point in time you got it. If I could just simplify this by a million times when you go to merge on the freeway right.   Oren Klaff: [00:12:00] They give you an on ramp so you can build up speed to get up to you know by the time you get a freeway you're doing seventy five miles an hour. If you've ever been in a situation where somebody build a shitty road system somewhere in New Jersey or Pennsylvania.   Tripp: [00:12:13] The jug handles. Yeah.   Oren Klaff: [00:12:16] Yeah yeah what you sort of take aRight there's this right turn onto a five lane road where people are going 80 miles an hour and you go Damn how do I get up to that speed from a dead stop. Right. That's what most people are facing. How do we take a right turn onto this freeway and get up to speed without getting murdered. And most people's presentations get murdered on by by trying to do that incorrectly. You need to have an on ramp.   Tripp: [00:12:45] Okay. And so one of the things as far as this particular podcast you know my whole aim is applying neuroscience to organizations kind of how do I build a better system.   Tripp: [00:13:00] In that particular company now ours obviously you know a sales component to it. There's a pitch component to it when you're reaching out to even the masses. These things hold true right.   Oren Klaff: [00:13:13] When you're sending this devout to the masses it's even more true and I'll give you an example if you've ever gone to see a can a comedian right in a club.   Tripp: [00:13:22] Yes.   Oren Klaff: [00:13:24] They don't actually have to be that funny right cause you face to face people are having a couple of drinks you want them to do well you don't want them to fail you know the joke. If you're watching that same comedian on TV they have to be you know three 4 times funnier the jokes have to be amazing the content has to be you know that's why that's why people you know when they do these HBO comedy specials you know they can practice for a year to do that because when you're watching it on TV in an in-person way that the jokes have to be incredibly on point and funny versus being there in a club that you know just everyone's having a good time and and almost anything is funny. The comedians on stage you know these high status with your friends you want to have a good time. So it's the same thing right. When you go into the masses you're not there.   Oren Klaff: [00:14:14] To affect them in a emotional way. One to one or one to a few. And so the structure of the information has to be incredibly well organized and precise and feed these parts and respect neuroscience and feed these parts of the brain in the way that the brain is willing to accept information right. We're not talking about feelings or emotions or or wants and desires.   Oren Klaff: [00:14:40] We're talking about how the brain is actually willing to accept information from you. Another human in what order they need the information and what amount of detail at what speed and what level of emotional color and depth those things have to be pre-programmed. If you want to meet the masses.   Tripp: [00:15:00] Okay. And I know you do a lot of public speaking and keynotes and things of that sort. Is there are there adjustments that you're making as you're doing a keynote versus doing a a pitch for capital. Or is it still pretty much the same blueprint. How do you approach that.   Oren Klaff: [00:15:20] Yeah my sense of it is that. It. If you're making midstream adjustments something is going wrong right. Because what you're doing is you're tuning yourself to the emotional needs of the audience at that moment. OK then they're not.   Oren Klaff: [00:15:43] Now you're on this slippery slope or going down to the circling the drain because their emotional needs will change. You know in a few minutes from now. Now you need to feed those emotional needs to keep them happy. The emotional needs of the audience aren't the same as their information needs so in my experience it is incredibly important not to have every word written but you've got to have the structure of a your narrative laid out. I mean think about a movie right halfway through the movie. They know all the actors tired well let's give them some easier lines and you know fuck it let's just having fall in love now instead of 20 minutes from now because the actors are tired right. So. So in no way do and those scripts go through infinite rewrites until the story is right and then you deliver the story. And yes do the actors have some variant variants you know during the turn the screenplay.   Oren Klaff: [00:16:39] I give a perfect example. Good friend of mine wrote a movie called Collateral Damage starring starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and this guy is a brilliant writer. You know he was a partner at Goldman Sachs and a very good friend of mine an excellent writer. You just just Mensa genius level guy.   Oren Klaff: [00:16:55] Love him David and I said you know the collateral damage not the greatest movie the plot. No no no no. The script is amazing. Right. Best script ever. The problem is Arnold Schwarzenegger goes I would not say my lines in this way. You know when he changes the lines change the lines and changing the narrative really affects the grand scheme so whenever we see somebody changing on the fly there tend to be feeding reacting to the emotional needs of the audience in that moment. And that usually leads to circling the drain.   Tripp: [00:17:35] Okay. And so you know it's interesting it's some of the people that I have lined up to talk to are on what you call the the narrative arc I believe is the words that you use. I just interviewed a gentleman by the name of Dr. Paul Zak and I know if no Paul at all but he does the dramatic arc and he wrote a book a book called The Trust Factor and where you do neuro finance. Zach does neuro economics which is basically measuring brain activity while people make decisions and one of the things that they found apparently is this in this whole narrative component that you guys talk about is that only are two areas of the brain are activated when you're talking about facts and figures and details and things of that sort and seven parts of the brain are activated when you're doing a narrative of some sort. And so how are you using that in your pitch in your whether it's a pitch to you know again for capital or whether you're pitching to a group of of you know employees in a company about the direction that the organization is going to go.   Oren Klaff: [00:18:50] Yeah. So I wrote about this a lot in my new book and I think you know I certainly had that same layer of thinking but I simplified it in this. That there are these pre wired pathways through the brain that are just acceptable narratives that people you know. Then there's you know seven or eight of them that that you know when they're getting that narrative all the parts of the brain are paying attention and somebody is riveted. Right. So man against man right you wants to snap somebodies attention you go. John and Mark are outside fighting over Susan. Boom. Everybody in the office drops what they're doing. Run to the fire exit to watch this parking lot incident you want to get so much attention you say two people are fighting. That is a pre wired part of the brain that has to pay attention to conflict. Right. And so we pay. We have to pay attention to movement right. Every single book on script writing or story writing or ply writing should drop people into rapidly unfolding action. Do not start. It was a dark and stormy night.   Oren Klaff: [00:20:08] Ok. You have a job even or under so. So man against nature man against himself man against man. Right. Ah ah are these ancient narratives that are pre-programmed the mind that you know people accept and follow and will pay attention to. So. So my my sense is in order to fully engage the brain it is not to find what engages the neocortex what engages the amygdala what engages the you know the mid brain what gauges the left temporal lobe. Trying in some complicated format. Get all of those fired up. Instead I say what. Pathways. Are available in the mind of this buyer that I can just feed into. What are they looking for. In what order and in what amount of detail. And then I just follow those pathways instead of trying to do something new and creative.   Tripp: [00:21:15] And I've heard you talk about this on numerous occasions as well as in your book. As far as conflict and things moving away and things moving. Are you manufacturing conflict. And if so. I know you also kind of go into this trust factor where you can't get to trust especially when you're doing a pitch real real quickly. Obviously if you're dealing with some employees that are out there a large group of employees you might have more time because they're employees but but as far as the conflict and getting to the autonomy associated with that can you can you kind of help me with the and help the audience too with the how you deal with bringing up conflict. How how are you gonna get that. You know Sally and Joe are out fighting in the parking lot type of type of situation.   Oren Klaff: [00:22:12] So. So a couple of things I think I'm less concerned about trust right. Because trust takes time to build and trust comes at the trust is not something you build upfront. It comes towards the end. Once you've done everything else correctly. Right. So I think it's a really high bar to try and build trust right. I think what is easier to accomplish is to build expertise and to build status and to provide information in the way that somebody can is interested. Continues to be intrigued and provides insight to move them past the information age when you can help somebody understand their business better than they currently know it. You've provided them insight when you establish your self as an expert.   Oren Klaff: [00:23:11] Then you've provided them the confidence to spend time with you. And believe in you when you've provided them that the enough sense that you're not going to beg for their business you're not going to chase them. Right. That you have got the status as a peer. Then all those things lead to trust. Right. So again I just want to put trust in its proper place and it is very hard to say as a marker hey we're going to try and develop trust. Trust comes automatically if you do everything else.   Tripp: [00:23:45] Okay. So. So. So what you're saying is there's kind of an on ramp to trust if you will. There are certain things that you need to have in place in order to build that. And certainly cycles of time that you talked about one of your friends in an interview recently you know that the trust has been developed over a longer period of time when you're trying to say if you're a new CEO walking into an organization you aren't going to have trust at the very beginning. But doing these other things you know the fact he has status he's been named the CEO of the company. You should be an expert in something you know before he even became CEO. But developing that intrigue and insight then would kind of be the the on ramp to getting to that trust component. Do I have that right?   Oren Klaff: [00:24:37] Yeah. So I think all those things are a proxy for trust or a replacement for trust. So what happened is somebody come to you and says hey listen trust me right. This is the best solution. This is the best water heater for your house that there is right there. That is sort of pressing to "do not trust me" Button. Right. When you ask for trust or go after it initially it has the exact opposite effect.   Oren Klaff: [00:25:04] Right. So what can we replace trust with that has the same impact expertise status insight. Social proof. The the just quality of presentation. Right. What I try and you may have heard me say Well but what would I try and develop very early on instead of trust with somebody you go Oh crap. This is awesome I'm in the hands of an expert. This guy knows how to pitch I can relax. This is not stressful. I don't got to be on alert that you know this information is true I don't have to you know think about every statement this guy seems to know what he's doing. I'm going to relax. Listen to this pitch 15 20 minutes whatever it is I'm in the hands of a professional. For me I try to achieve that feeling in a buyer rather than hey you should trust me.   Tripp: [00:25:59] OK.   Oren Klaff: [00:26:00] And we can circle back around the conflict right. The job of conflict is really to manage attention. Right. People pay attention to human conflict. So. So there's no movies about rocks interacting with each other. Right. Nobody. But there's lots of movies with rocks in them. But they have to you know whatever the word is anthropomorphize them. Right. If I maybe put too few or too many syllables in the word.   Oren Klaff: [00:26:32] But you know they have to make inanimate objects animate in order to get kids or anybody to pay attention to it. OK. SpongeBob Square Pants or whatever. Right. So so everything has got to be put in human terms and we're only interested in humans. Interacting with each other in a way to solve a problem and that generally means conflict. Right. And so if you want to raise attention raise awareness raise the stakes. It always has got to lead with conflict. And then you can move on to. And so how would you do that right. I mean if you get on a conference call with me about a deal you know and be the CEO of 3M of Xerox of you know I don't care what it is you know I'll get on the call. And typically you know this always happened if the CEO of a large company they'll come three or four minutes late and I go Hey John you here for the 3 0 3 meeting you know writes Funny and boring we laughed at it I just doing it for so long and I'm sorry. So I got the CEO of a Fortune 500 company apologizing to me because I'm in conflict with him but in a fun. So. So it's not that you can't challenge him or accuse him or you're all that there's lots of wrong ways to do conflict right.   Oren Klaff: [00:27:48] But if it's if it's social and socially aware and fun but it makes the point you know makes the point you know sometimes they'll bring six or seven people to the call and we'll have two you know which is always a bad sign socially anyway and we'll say OK you know here we are and you know tribal council. Right and there's trouble of us here and only nine of us will advance the next phase or a boost in the three people to kick off this island call here in the next few minutes. And you know that's it's fun. But you know it's also true is like hey you brought too many people to the call and you know you're making them aware of it. So you've got to find your own forms of this. But if you want people to pay attention there's got to be some sense of conflict if you you know if you're uncomfortable with that it's just like when I go to speak in Texas. Yes conflicts. Right. Like you mean bring a gun great Crudup Hey man I'll bring it in. Go to that meeting right. And so. So that's what they think of.   Oren Klaff: [00:28:53] You know conflict in Texas when I go to Silicon Valley they're really uncomfortable with in Palo Alto. You know invariably some women will stand up and say you know this is and this feels very male centric. No you're just you're hearing my voice. Right. But but you know women can and should do this as well. And so I wouldn't feel comfortable but so. So a word you can replace conflict with IS stakes. Mm hmm. Is the stakes. That's good. It's an other way to do and say hey glad we could get together today. On this call notes introductory call. All right but there's something going to be decided and as much as you're evaluating us. I'm evaluating you.   Tripp: [00:29:41] And we're going to figure out A if our product and services are right for you. But we're also going to figure out on this call if I'd the interest in working for you and if you're right for us because we only work with the best.   Tripp: [00:29:55] Right now you're talking. You're lucky you've hit on several things associate with this one is your talking. And we haven't talked about it as the frame that you're coming in to a situation with or it's coming to you and then you kind of hit each of the pieces but just kind of bring it together and then I'd like to go back to frame is the narrative arc that you talk about. So you said the the thing that you talk about all the time is the big idea. You know a problem that something that's difficult to solve and then what our solution is. And so you've touch upon some components of the big idea. Can you kind of rather than me just kind of hitting around what the big idea is can you tell me how that fits into the broader narrative.   Oren Klaff: [00:30:44] When you start working with someone talking to someone get on a Skype meeting phone call you know sending out an email there minding their own business.   Oren Klaff: [00:30:54] Oh my god is my wife going to see this email from this woman I met at the conference. It's not really like that but if she's attractive and all the kids are graduating from grade school and you know we can send her private high school and you know I really want the promotion. I love the team I'm working with. And should we go on vacation here locally and grandma is sick but the kids got here before she dies. My diet is not going well. I can't believe I didn't get to the gym the last two days. I promised my trainer and is on and on and on. Right. And then you're like hey our SAS software can deliver three times more throughput you know on your Amazon S three server side compared to your current on prem systems and we do it at a you know per whatever. And those thoughts dreams are just incompatible.   Oren Klaff: [00:31:45] And so for me the big idea. Is about getting someone's internal dialogue. Whatever happened their last meeting wherever they were. It was going on for them over the last 50 minutes last hour the last day getting that thought string. Tamped down and tempered and getting your ideas stream introduced and sort of switching the amount of attention they're paying to their own thoughts from you know being internally and so focused to being focused on you. And for me there might be other ways to do it. So I know for example like you know the state police use a taser that gets people real focused away from what they were doing under what they want to you to focus on. And so other professions you do things in a different way. But for me I don't can't use Tasers in the conference rooms that I go to. So I used a big idea.   Tripp: [00:32:39] And that's your way of getting them to now.   Oren Klaff: [00:32:42] And yeah. And so the big idea. Right. And most people get this wrong. They hear me talk about the big idea and they think oh the big idea is our software can make you money. That's not a fucking idea. Right.   Oren Klaff: [00:32:53] That is about you. The big idea has nothing to do with you it's about them. And the greater world around all of you. Right. The big idea is all software has now moved to the cloud and is being rented. OK. And so if in fact you want to have a customer for software in today's world. Right. You need to you rent them the software everything's in the cloud. That's an idea right. We have software that's in the cloud that can make you money is a value proposition. There's a solution that come to way down the line. So ideas truly are ideas right. And so you know and typically as you know there to me there are a lot of things that are changing right.   Oren Klaff: [00:33:44] So fundamentally the the you know obviously politics we don't want to get into here because I just say the word politics and a divisive political discussion in the country and you know red versus blue and you know support of a Republican Party and sort of non Republican way. Yeah I was going to light up.   Tripp: [00:34:05] Right.   Oren Klaff: [00:34:06] Right. And pay attention because that is changing and those are those are important issues but you know what else is changing. I mean if you think about Samsung you know if you saw the release of this folding tablet thing right.   Tripp: [00:34:18] Oh yes.   Oren Klaff: [00:34:18] I mean I had you know in my company we might have 700 Apple devices. You know I mean maybe maybe 15 hundred I don't know. You know I've I've owned 60 iPhones and 20. You know i pads and 15 iMacs and you know just myself and I see that device and I'm like Oh man I'm I get a Samsung Android whatever that stuff is right so.   Oren Klaff: [00:34:41] So even you know technology is constantly changing the relationship with North Korea is confusing, the terrorists, with China. I mean everything's changing. You know all the time and so big ideas are around change.   Tripp: [00:34:55] You know it's interesting you know one of the things that that I really struggled with that that you helped me through coming up with with the big idea for for my consulting practice was you know I'm a long time follower of of a man by the name of W. Edwards Deming who you know went over to Japan and helped turn them around and do all that type of thing. But you know.   Oren Klaff: [00:35:18] Sure.   Tripp: [00:35:19] He died in the early 90s. But I mean and and I think the difficulty associated with his teachings it's more of a philosophy as opposed to a method per se. And one of the difficulties I have and I think it's important to kind of bring this out because I think people are gonna have a hard time going oh but I'm not in the investment banking business or not in this. But but what you do extrapolates a method for helping people even if they know you're talking about Samsung and all the new and exciting things associated with that. But I might be in an h vac business. You know what I mean. And and I. How do I you know get a big idea or make shots here or you know right.   Oren Klaff: [00:36:07] Yeah.   Tripp: [00:36:08] And I think it's an important thing right. Yeah.   Oren Klaff: [00:36:10] You have to take you know or even worse you're in the furniture business.   Tripp: [00:36:16] Yes. Yeah I.   Oren Klaff: [00:36:19] So if you're in the furniture business. You're fucked. That's we can't know.   Tripp: [00:36:26] If you're a furniture business skip this. No. Yeah.   Oren Klaff: [00:36:29] Okay listen on the phone for business. You know what I would tie that to without knowing too much about it is logistics right. Something about logistics. There's 18000 too few truck drivers in the United States right. And so what's hot and what's driving that. It's Amazon and these package delivery you order a toothbrush you know some dental floss and some throat lozenges. It comes in a box. You know the size of a small desk right. And so all these empty boxes moving everywhere back and forth to deliver a toothbrush is causing a huge Oh you know over demand on logistics. And so if you're in furniture logistics are are becoming a huge problem and you know a big cost of the you know of your final delivery product. And so that industry is changing a lot and it's tied directly to Amazon which everybody can relate to. So again I might say hey so you know if I'm a furniture company and I'm looking for example for an investor right or a partner I would say hey look today if you think about furniture the business has basically been the same for two hundred years you make the furniture you know you put it in a box you take a picture of it you put in a catalog it's shipped to the store.   Oren Klaff: [00:37:53] People browse the store. They they pick a model and they go to the warehouse and they deliver one to your house. Couple days later is basically how furniture has worked today. It's quite different because because of the difficulty with logistics there's there's 18000 truck drivers that need to be hired that aren't currently available and you cannot get the inventory to where the purchases are happening so the salespeople. Have to tell the buyer the furniture you're not going to get your delivery for three to six weeks. People want to finish that home tomorrow. So the salespeople. Are the key to revenue today in the furniture business. It never was that way that you had to hire you know for 50 60 70 thousand dollars base and get real salespeople used to be able to pay commission because the furniture sold itself. So I don't know. Right. A big idea in of your business. I know nothing about.   Tripp: [00:38:53] Yeah. No. And I think that's good I just want to point out especially to the audience that you know one of the things I found I find fascinating well know it took me six months to build up the courage to to to actually talk to you about my pitch.   Tripp: [00:39:07] But but as I listened to you talk to people in different businesses I mean everything from pharma of pharmaceuticals to health care to you know furniture you know that you have this mindset that that is associated with being able to come up with a big idea in whatever situation it is by kind of looking more broadly at the industry and what's going on or or trends of things that are happening within an industry. And I saw you more than once. Certainly probably 20 times where you pulled somebody out that hadn't thought in that particular you know with that particular mindset it's one of it's one of your redeeming qualities that you have associated with what you do is is there any hints that you might be able to give folks as how did they get that mindset.   Oren Klaff: [00:40:00] So for me then the number one thing to drive the mindset for all this stuff is you know you and you know I talked about it before it is. Internal understanding of our own value. Write that in the relationship. With a potential buyer investor partner whatever it is we don't have the product and the service or the company or the investment that's valuable. It's the relationship with us right. I know things about how to buy this product how to invest in this kind of company that will help you avoid losing your money or making them or making the wrong choice. I can help you if you go somewhere else. You're not going to get me you're gonna get some other very likely less connected less experienced less caring individual. So if your priority is to get a low price. Or some other value for yourself and you're willing to work with somebody who has less experience less value less caring than I do. You should go do that because I'm a unique person. I have experience and I'm only going to share that with people I'm connected with. So that has got to be your an internal set point until you feel that believe that and let somebody actually walk away that you could have sold. Otherwise because of that issue it'll be difficult to adopt the other mindsets that help you sell and clothes. So. So that's your entree point into this world is understanding your own importance to the deal not just the product or the service.   Tripp: [00:42:05] Ok. All right. I have two more questions. The first one is one of the things that when when I when I joined Pitch Mastery you had in there a bunch of articles under what you called Psychology in it. And this is one of the things that set me down the path of doing this podcast is there is something in there it was an acronym. It was called SCARF which is stands for Stand our status certainty autonomy relatedness fairness and it just because I respect your opinion so much. Well it's a good ticket a little bit out of your realm here but I know you have this kind of perspective that I am very curious about and that is when you look at organizations and the way that organizations are run today and you've heard all the numbers about you know to two thirds of people are not engaged in their work. Those types of things. What do you see as what needs to what needs to be happening within organizations in order to get people engaged and how you know from all the things you've learned about neuroscience all the things you learned about pitching you know those types of things. What would be your perspective on that. I know again I'm thinking a little bit out of your your comfort zone here but you are so you know you have a broad thinker.   Oren Klaff: [00:43:28] Yeah yeah. So when you say engage. Yeah just chased that down. Sure. And unpack that a bit.   Tripp: [00:43:36] Yeah. So peep peep. There was a Gallup survey in essence that was done publicly about five years ago. Now we're something like two thirds of all people are not engaged in their work.   Tripp: [00:43:51] They're checked out basically. Yeah. You know they're they're just you know I've got I need a pay check and you know I have obligations I'm there but I'm not innovating. I'm not excited about coming to work every day. Well what would be what's your perspective on all the stuff that you've learned about neuroscience everything you've learned about pitching. How do we move these people way. How do we in essence my business is designing organizations that are basically brain friendly if you will where people look forward to coming to work every day. What needs to change in these corporate cultures from your perspective that they need to be doing in order to do it. I think you've hit upon some of this. Bye bye by just talking about what you know coming up with an a narrative that in essence engages people you know making more money for the guys at the top is not always that exciting. So. Right. So so so what what what what's your view.   Oren Klaff: [00:44:46] I mean my view for an organization is is you know very much the same as yours. It's you know micro goals or Gamify. Right. So it's funny we ran the cabin this last weekend up in Big Bear and they had a Galaga machine right. The videogame Galaga.   Tripp: [00:45:04] Ok.   Oren Klaff: [00:45:06] And. The you know in essence your goal is to get on the leaderboard right so they've got the top 20 people and you only their initials. But that is a huge reward you know to play the game well get the points and get on the leaderboard right. And so for me engagement is about you know my organizations is these goals that are doable that are tangible. And I think a lot of organizations have that. But you know you move up the leaderboard you know for accomplishing something as you know as close to you know as close to the blueprint as possible. So that's my experience in the organizations we run is is you know hard to connect people to our goals which is to grow revenue you know sell the company make 20 million bucks distributed to three guys and buy another plane. You know people don't come into work to help you do that. They come into work to you know write a blog post put it up get the most amount of clicks on it you know log that and move up the leaderboard. So maybe over simplistic but you know I'm not a management you know expert as you are but that's what I feel. It drives our organization forward is these micro goals and the gamification or the moving up the leaderboard. I mean you look if you watch the show.   Oren Klaff: [00:46:31] Darn, the British car show or come to me as soon as we hang up right where they race cars on the track and if the celebrities in the car and then and then the celebrity gets on the leaderboard right to see what their time was and that's very exciting for them. And it's hard to get except you know celebrities excited about much.   Oren Klaff: [00:46:49] And so getting on the leaderboard to me for accomplishing something that is manageable but challenging I think is really drives organizations.   Tripp: [00:46:59] Ok. And then my last question is when I typically ask which is there anything that maybe we talked about that you'd like to provide more clarification on. Or is there any question that you wish I would've asked that that I didn't.   Oren Klaff: [00:47:13] Well yeah I think for me you know the clarification is if you really want to give a great pitch a great presentation captures people's attention have them listen. It's really about raising your status to one as a peer. And then so I think most of understand that. But then I think it's important to go further as being more than appear as an expert. So those to me are the goals raise the standards a peer and they go further. Be seen as an expert. Now somebody will listen to you for an hour.   Tripp: [00:47:50] Mm hmm. Look at that. That's good. So that's kind of you again you're on ramp. The trust that we get that we kind of talked about earlier to.   Oren Klaff: [00:47:59] Yeah absolutely. OK. So. So I think yeah all somebody has to do is do all of these things we've talked about here today and do'em by tomorrow morning and be way way ahead of the game.   Tripp: [00:48:12] Okay. All right. And just just for my audience as I said I. Full disclosure and transparency I am part of Oren's Pitch Mastery of a huge advocate of the program and not only that but as far as the personal time that Oren spends going through pitches and giving suggestions those types of things it's well worth the investment in joining the Pitch Mastery piece and think it's it's you know for what the value you get out of it it's it's of great value.   Oren Klaff: [00:48:48] So thank you Tripp. OK well great connecting with you today. You know again love to meet people over at pitchanything.com we're pretty accessible there and we'll take it from there. I can't wait for this to come out. I want to listen to it again. The I mean these these these topics are. You know as you know part of my experience but also we've research them heavily and even more so we've deployed them in thousands and thousands of business and those businesses come back and said that works. Right. And so that's why I'm talking about them here. because they really work.   Tripp: [00:49:19] Absolutely. All right. Thank you Oren.   Oren Klaff: [00:49:21] Thanks Tripp. I'll talk to you soon.   Tripp: [00:49:27] Thank you for being a listener. of the Mind Your Noodles podcast if you'd like to learn more or sign up for our newsletter or upcoming podcasts go to MindYourNoodles.com    

It's Amazon in space...no seriously it is...Tom and Ryan actually both dug this episode a lot and we get into why we did and of course talk about Amazon a lot. It's Kerblamtastic.