#091 - Growing an Amazon Business in College with Cameron Richard I The Amazon Wholesale Podcast

#091 - Growing an Amazon Business in College with Cameron Richard I The Amazon Wholesale Podcast Speaker 2: Cameron, welcome to the show, man. Excited to have you on, excited to talk wholesale for the next 30, 40 minutes or so. You've been in the community for a while. You've been crushing it and excited to hear about your journey and what you're up to, man. Speaker 1: Thanks for having me on, Corey. Speaker 2: Absolutely. So first and foremost, let's give the audience a rundown on you, you know, what you're up to. I know you're a student, right? And kind of how you got into this whole Amazon thing to begin with. So you want to give us the overview? Speaker 1: Yes, so my name is Cameron. I've been selling Amazon for about two and a half years now. So basically the way that I found Amazon was my first year at college. I lived in a dorm room and I actually met a buddy that was selling on Amazon already. And I've been entrepreneurial ever since I was about 17 or 18 years old. I got into trading stocks. So I was into swing trading for about a year. That was going well for about half a year until the market took a turn and I realized it wasn't for me. I lost basically everything I made and then some. And then I, like I said, I met this buddy that was selling on Amazon and I kind of was understanding his business model a little more. I understood that he was buying from retail companies and he was sending it to a company that was basically prepping for him and then that was getting sent to Amazon. So it was pretty fascinating, the idea that he was able to run this entire retail business without even touching any products. And so at the end of the year, When the summer break was starting, I actually messaged him and asked if he could mentor me if I paid him and he agreed to do that. And so basically that summer, that's when I got into Amazon. Speaker 2: So, basically, just from discovering it through a buddy at college, it sounds like, right? He was already doing it successfully. Is that guy still selling on Amazon today? Speaker 1: No, he actually is not. He's going into other ventures. I think one of the main reasons he's not is because his entire business model was selling Nike. And this year, with all the restrictions, it kind of shut his whole business down. So, definitely a lesson to be learned there though. Speaker 2: Absolutely. Lesson to be learned, right? And you know, it sucks, but we've, I feel like we've seen quite a bit of that really a lot around November and December, but even some of the last few weeks or so is. These people where their business is majority one brand or two brands. Well, you take that brand away. There goes half your business or some people that your entire business, right? So, uh, I know you've definitely taken a little bit of a different approach. I know that you're not that concentrated into a single brand. Like a lot of people are that start in arbitrage because then you started with arbitrage and now you're doing more on the wholesale side. So bring us up to speed with what your business looks like now. So you, You learned from this guy there in your dorm. You paid him to kind of, like, what did that, so you said you paid him to kind of mentor you. What did that look like? Was that just, hey, I'm going to pay you a hundred bucks a week and just kind of follow you around? Like, what did that look like? Speaker 1: Yes. It's sort of like a, I did an introductory mentorship on just how to get started with Amazon. It was just a few hundred dollars. Basically, it taught me how to get the Amazon account made, how to get all the different things set up because when you first start, you're going to have thousands of questions and it's going to be very, very difficult to do it on your own. I thought having a mentor would be a good idea with that. Basically, the way I got started was the same way that he basically got his business going, which was retail arbitrage. And so I was basically just going to the Nike outlet that was near my house and I would basically go to it every single day. Every time I went, I was able to make a few hundred dollars just getting products. It's by far the easiest way to get started. It's not on Amazon and I highly recommend it for anyone that's wanting to get into Amazon. You basically can just get the proof of concept down with little to no risk. The competition is also very, very low because you're only competing with people that are in your area. And a lot of times your city might not even have any competition. So definitely the best way to get started there. So I basically did that to get started, to start to get the cash flows going in the business. And then after about a month and a half of doing that, that's when I looked into OA. I saw that as a way to scale further past RA because RA is a little more challenging to scale. About a few months after RA, I got into OA and have been doing it ever since. So in 2023, I was able to scale the business up to just over half a million. And in 2024, I was able to get just past a million dollars in sales. Halfway through 2024, the summer of 2024 is when I started looking into wholesale, started consuming wholesale content on Instagram. That's when I found Corey. And that's when I, you know, I was looking for a way to kind of cut the learning curve and to kind of get to a higher level circle. And basically the wholesale network was exactly what that was. And so that's when I joined that network and it's been going great ever since. Speaker 2: Well, and you've been a fantastic member too, right? Cause you, you're not one of those people that joins and then consumes a lot of the content and ask questions, but doesn't give anything in return. Right? Like you're, you're a giver just as much as you are someone who's consumed. So you've been sharing your success. You've been asking great questions. You've been participating in some of the calls and I mean, you've got a, Like not even a seven-figure run rate, but like a legit seven-figure revenue business as a college kid who, what, you said you're a senior in college, is that right? Like you're what, 22? Yes. Speaker 1: Yep, I'm 22 in my last semester. Speaker 2: So do you have a team? Like is this just all you? Like what does the business look like today? Speaker 1: Yeah, so I have a pretty lean team. I've had a VA for, the same VA for about two years now. So, I probably did the business for eight to 10 months before I brought in a single employee. And basically what I did was I brought three VAs on at once for like a trial run. So, I had three at once for two weeks, I think it was. And then basically, it was like a tryout. So, I picked the best one out of the three. And the one that I picked, I've been using ever since, been about almost two years now. Speaker 2: And is that person doing sourcing for you? Speaker 1: Yep, so for OA, I haven't really done any sourcing for the past year and a half. So he basically takes the sourcing off my hands. So basically my job is just to replan the best products that we have and just a lot of the admin work. But as of lately, I've had a lot of the admin work taken off my plate. But yeah, so with OA, he's mostly doing a lot of the sourcing and basically getting it to a point where I don't have to do any sourcing on my own. Speaker 2: Right. And it's, it's funny, right? Because I'm sure you've heard me say before, Oh, sourcing is the last thing you should outsource, right? Outsource admin for like, if you're going to get a VA, have them do all your admin stuff first while you focus a hundred percent of your time on sourcing. And only once you're just drowning in leads, then you get a VA to focus on the sourcing. You kind of took the opposite approach where you said, Hey, I wanted to get sourcing off my plate. So I found three VAs who seem qualified. I kind of pit them head to head to head and let them duke it out. And whoever was, I guess, what the best, whoever found the best products over that, what, one to two week period is kind of who you decided to keep on. Is that right? Speaker 1: Yep. So that was my kind of strategy with OA on the wholesale side. It's a little different. I think there's a lot more admin work on the wholesale side. Whereas on the OA side, most of your time is going to be sourcing. So that's where I saw an opportunity to take a lot of time and buy a lot of my time back. But with wholesale, I think it's a little bit of a different approach because there's a lot more admin work, I would say. Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a really good point. And again, something that I just didn't even consider when I said what I just said, because I've just been so far out. I've been out of the OA space since like 2018, I think was the last time I did OA. But you're exactly right. OA is sourcing. That's the business. There's really no admin to it, except once you really start to scale, keeping all your orders on track, making sure that if stuff gets damaged, it gets returned, keeping track of your discounted gift cards you're buying. So there is an admin component as you really start to scale, but you're right. When it comes to wholesale, wholesale is way more admin heavy. You're constantly sending and receiving emails. You've got correspondence with suppliers. You're filling out applications. You're receiving price lists. There's so many different moving parts with wholesale that just aren't present in OA. Sounds like you did, like you said, you did retail arbitrage to start. Then you transition into a little bit of OA. Then about July of what? July of last year, 2024, you joined the Wholesale Network because you were really committed to taking the plunge into wholesale and adding that as a component to your business. It sounds like, correct me if I'm wrong, sounds like you still have the OA business up and running, but it's kind of just being run like that sourcing VA is just finding you OA leads. You buy them, but then you focus the majority of you, Cameron's time on wholesale. Is that correct? Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's basically the approach I've taken and I've actually even taken it a little even more on the wholesale side. So I've actually removed him from the OA work and I've actually moved him to full-time wholesale because one of my goals in 2025 is to become majority wholesale. So I've kind of taken that leap by kind of bringing him from the OA side and bring him to the wholesale side. So, on the OA side of things, we're not really looking for too many more opportunities. It's more of just replanning what we have, kind of just maintaining where the sales are there, continuing the cash flows, and then where the growth is going to happen is on the wholesale side. So, we're looking for opportunities on the wholesale side and then just using OA as kind of just a machine for the cash flows to keep that going. Speaker 2: Yeah, and I love that approach and I think that anybody that's doing arbitrage, anybody that's listening to this podcast that's doing OA or they're doing RA and they want to get into wholesale, I would do exactly what Cameron did. This is what I tell everybody. It's like, listen, there's no reason to burn the OA boats and to just completely drop arbitrage and then transition 100% into wholesale. Now, you can do that and I know people who have done that successfully. But it's like, why kill your golden goose if you don't have to? So you really wait. I mean, you got into wholesale about seven, eight months ago. So you really kind of rode the OA wave for seven or eight months as you were transitioning into wholesale. And now, like you said, it's like, hey, we're just replenishing our OA products, not really looking for anything new. You've got that sourcing guide dedicated to wholesale, which I think is a great Probably the best way to transition and all the people I know that have made that transition successfully, I'd say 80 to 90% of them, that's their approach. Very small percentage of people just, you know, cut away and then jump right into wholesale and do it well. So when it comes to that transition to wholesale, so if we rewind to let's say July of 2024, right, you get into the wholesale network, you start consuming wholesale content and you start We're going to talk a little bit about what you're putting in the effort to get that side of your business up and running. What did those early stages look like? So Cameron decides to get into wholesale. What are the actions that he takes? Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think something that I didn't really take into account when first starting was the learning curve. The learning curve is much bigger than the arbitrage side of things. So I think investing time, investing enough time into the knowledge part of it first before starting was something that I realized. And that's one of the main reasons why I joined the network, just because I can get access to information Different resources as well as a network that you get access to. You get access to, you know, a higher level or a higher circle. And the same way when you started, when I started OA and RA, you have thousands of different questions and you need someone that's done it before to kind of guide you through and help you through those things. Cause it's going to be a whole lot of small problems, but those small problems need to be fixed in order to kind of reach the next level. So I think that's definitely what I would say for that. Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you're spot on about the learning curve, right? With arbitrage, you can make money on day one. Like you could make, you might've never heard of, you didn't even know you could sell on Amazon, right? Much less heard about online arbitrage, but you could find like a Miles YouTube video or a Warner YouTube video and that day find a profitable product online and then even go pick it up in store, sell at FBM all same day, right? Like that's not impossible in the arbitrage world, but on the wholesale side, exactly like you said, there's, There's more research and more just planning that needs to go into it, right? Now, there are people that just jump right in, start calling suppliers and they figure it out. And I mean, salute to those people because they're taking action. But you took a more calculated approach. You're like, all right, I've got a serious business here. I don't want to blow it up, but I want to get my ducks in a row to make sure I do this wholesale thing right. And so that kind of like fact finding phase or that information gathering phase, what did that look like? Were you just, were you kind of going through the course content? I know you were asking a lot of good questions. And then what did that transition to action look like after you had kind of finished the information gathering phase? Speaker 1: Yeah, so I basically dedicated probably two weeks to just consuming content every day. Just kind of getting a plan of action ready. And then when I felt like I was comfortable and ready, everything was set up. I had an idea of what needed to be done. That's when I kind of started taking action, started making phone calls. And yeah, at that point, I just work through it and then when I have issues, I'm able to tap into the network, get those issues solved. And yeah, so it's really just a matter of figuring out what you have to do, which in the network, they kind of set it out step for step. And so it's just a matter of taking action on it. And I will say also another thing is it definitely takes a mindset shift with wholesale. Because like you said, with RA and OA, you're able to, you know, in just a few days, get a few orders in, make some money. So you kind of get that reassurance that you're doing something right. Whereas wholesale, you may even spend weeks without even getting a single order in and it can kind of be a little challenging mentally. It might make you feel like you're, you know, not productive. So I think it definitely took a big mental shift and kind of, you have to take it more of a long-term mindset with this business model. Speaker 2: And I'm so glad you brought that up because I've made that kind of comparison between arbitrage and wholesale many times before where arbitrage is a great way to make money, make a little money today, right? Wholesale is a great way to make a lot of money in 60 days or in 90 days, right? And again, the beauty of wholesale compared to arbitrage Well, I guess really the downside of wholesale compared to arbitrage is that upfront work. You've got to put in the reps for weeks and sometimes I hate to say it, but even a month or two at a time before some people get traction and you've got to really have that faith that, hey, This stuff works. I'm in a community of other people who are doing this successfully. I know that if I just hit my KPIs day in and day out, it's going to work for me too, right? And that's exactly what you did. And so it's more of that delayed gratification mindset that, Hey, if you can delay gratification for 30, 60 days, right? If you're doing the right things, it's not going to even take you that long to get a profitable account. But if you have that faith and delay gratification for that amount of time, then, The hard work is front loaded, right? Because then it starts to snowball in the back end. You place that one order with a supplier. Well, one order turns to two a lot easier than zero turned to one, right? So let's kind of talk about that next. So you were diving in, you're making the calls, you're trusting the process. Who, well, I guess I shouldn't ask who that first PO was with, but how did you come across that first profitable supplier where you're like, Hey, I'm going to place this order with these guys. This thing works. I have my proof of concept. What did that look like? Speaker 1: Yes, so it's actually my first PO is actually with a brand directly. And so basically what I did was I was making phone calls and I was taking a different approach with this. So instead of just calling and saying, hey, you know, I want to, I want to buy your products. I was calling and saying, Hey, I know exactly what ski I want to buy and I want to buy this quantity. Can I send over an RFQ? And that's exactly the strategy that I was taught. And that's, it worked for me. So yeah, I think it's, I've tried wholesale probably a year ago and it was, I was, you know, sending emails and I wasn't saying what I wanted, what brand I wanted, the quantity I wanted. And I think when you do that, they don't take you serious. And so in order for them to take you serious, you have to do your due diligence, figure out what brands you want to buy, what quantity you want to buy. And at that point they will take you serious because they know you're a serious buyer. Speaker 2: So you literally just did what we've been saying for two years and it worked, right? Shocker. So, but, but no, seriously, like let's unpack that. You, it sounds like about a year ago when you tried to get into wholesale, right? You took a more generic approach. It was, Hey, I'm Cameron. I'd like to open a wholesale account. That's it. Right. And you got crickets because of it, because they're like, okay, well, who's Cameron? What company is he with? I don't really know what he's looking for. Does he own a store? Is he an e-commerce guy? I don't really know. So I'm just going to ignore him. Right. But it sounds like this time around. You took a much more quality, much more focused approach where it's, Hey, I'm Cameron. I've worked for this company. I took a look at your product mix. I see that you carry these two products. I love those products. I have the exact quantities in front of me that I want to buy. Can I send that over to you guys? And you can have a look, right? Something along those lines. And it sounds like, I mean, obviously that was a much more successful approach. Now with this first brand that you landed, Did you place that order on the first call? Was this one that took a lot of follow-up to land? Kind of go deeper into that first brand. Speaker 1: Yes, so actually didn't take too much follow up. So with the approach with that phone call, I told him I could send over RFQ. So that night I actually got an RFQ sent over and within a day or two, he sent back basically a quote on the product. And, you know, after that I did a little negotiating to make sure that I could actually get the product profitably. And so basically I was able to get it profitably at a certain quantity. And then at that point, I wanted to go through with the order so then the process of opening up the account happened and that took about two weeks. So, you know, that process takes a while, a lot longer than I thought it would take. So that's just part of the learning experience there. But yeah, so it wasn't too much, it wasn't too much, you know, follow up that one. But so yeah, that one is a little more smooth than other ones that I've experienced. Speaker 2: But I bet that, I bet it took a little more follow up than you're leading on, right? Because so, you know, people have heard me say before, oh, well, if you get the wholesale account or if you call a brand and they let you have the account on the first call or, you know, the first quote they give you is profitable, it's probably not going to be good for long because a lot of other people are going to be able to get in there if it was that easy. But so even though you got in touch with them on the first call and you got that quote, you still had to negotiate a little bit, right? Because I guarantee you, 80% of sellers would get that quote back and be, oh, not profitable onto the next one, right? So there was a little bit of negotiation that went into it, which in and of itself is a moat because a lot of people aren't going to negotiate. So that was kind of the first barrier to entry that you overcame. Second barrier to entry that you overcame is it took two weeks to process your application. My guess is you probably checked in with them at least once during that two week period, right? Am I wrong to kind of check on the status of the application there? Speaker 1: Yeah, so I had to talk to another lady at the company a few times, but I do want to touch on something. So you make a good point about the account being a little too easy. And I actually felt that way too. Like it was one call and I got into the process. The process did take a while, but I think I got into this account pretty early. There was only like two sellers, three sellers. But six months later, which is today, I've actually noticed that the seller count is kind of just like going up and up and up and up. So at this point, and the price is going down, of course. So at this point, I have to either try to get exclusive or I have to drop the account. So that's actually a good point. It being too easy is actually, it was not a good thing in the long run. Speaker 2: But listen, you learned a really good lesson, right? Because I had so many of these accounts over the years where, and like just, By the nature of you calling brands every day, even if it's only 2, 3, 4, 5 brands a day, You're still going to find yourself in the right place at the right time. You put in enough reps, you're going to get lucky more than once, right? And this is one of those situations where, hey, I called him up, I opened the account, it was profitable on day one and I'm good to go, right? Like that doesn't happen a majority of the time, but when it does, again, you've got to kind of chalk it up to being in the right place at the right time. But at the same time, you can't get comfortable. You've got to recognize the fact that, okay, It was pretty easy for me to do this. That means it's going to be pretty easy for the next guy to do this. So now my goal, if I'm Cameron, is to get in really good with this brand, get a really good relationship with them, talk to my sales rep, you know, once a week, once every other week. And this is assuming you see like long-term potential, right? If this is just like a single SKU brand where maybe you're making 50 or a hundred bucks profit per month, probably not worth it. But assuming that they're worth the long-term If I'm you, I'm in there, I'm building a relationship and I'm constantly placing seeds in their mind. Hey, by the way, I know we just started doing business a couple of weeks ago, which is great, but how many new e-commerce guys do you plan on letting sell your product? Because in my experience, what I've seen is when it's that easy for somebody to come and work with you guys, it's great. You might make some quick sales, but what you'll find is that you're really hurting yourself long-term because the more people you allow to sell your brand, the lower that price is going to go on Amazon. And then you've got, you know, 30 different people, half of which you probably don't even know representing your brand. And they might be doing a really bad job of that. Is that something, is that what you guys want to have happen? Right? Like I'm just asking these questions constantly and A lot of brands are short-sighted and they're going to say, oh, I don't care. We just, we want to make sales. And if that's the case, then you milk it for every dime you can make. And then you move on. But if the brand has sense and if they get it, they're going to say, okay, yeah, Cameron, that makes sense. Well, you're the, you're the e-commerce expert. How do, what should we do? Right. When they're asking you what you think they should do, that's when you know, you've got them. And that's when you can really look to Angle for that exclusive or at the very least have them shut off the floodgates. So they're not letting 30 new sellers jump on the listing this year and then you've maintained some sort of pricing there. Does that kind of make sense? Speaker 1: Yep. So you're essentially saying you need to manufacture them a moat around the brand, the product, if they're not going to make that moat for you, essentially. Speaker 2: 100%. And that's a great way to like frame it, right? It's like if there wasn't, if I didn't have to build a moat, I have to manufacture one, right? Like if they didn't put one in my way that I had to overcome, I have to make one. And a lot of times you can't make one because the brand doesn't get it or they don't care or they're distributed through 30 different distributors and it would be damn near impossible for them to control that supply chain, right? But in the, you know, 30 to 50% of times the brand does get it. And maybe you're even have a relationship with the owner or like the vice president or somebody high up. And if you can get them to like you and to trust you, 100% you can manufacture that moat. And it might not happen on month one or even year one. But if you hang in there again, and you look to always serve them and provide value and see where you can genuinely help them and help them make a good decision for their business, you are going to be a really, really trusted long-term partner for them. Speaker 1: And I think a lot of these brands are also old school. They don't really pay attention to their e-commerce, so they may not even have any idea what's going on with their e-commerce side, on the e-commerce side of things. So it definitely is a lot of value to give them that information. Speaker 2: Exactly. And listen, that's where educating them really, really is going to serve you well, right? So in the case of the brand that you just mentioned, perfect opportunity to educate whoever your contact there is and say, Hey, I noticed since I started working with you guys about six months ago, I'm just kind of looking at this product on Amazon. And the number of people selling this product over the last six months, slowly but surely, has gone up pretty significantly. And, you know, you can even say this in a Loom video where you're sharing your screen and showing them the Keepa. It's like, look, the supply has gone up pretty rapidly and the price has dropped in direct correlation with the supply. So basically for every new person you allow to sell your product, your price is going to get further eroded on Amazon. I'm assuming that's not what you guys want to see. Is that fair to say? And like asking them those questions and getting them to see, oh yeah, he's right. Okay, now what do we do about it? So you're absolutely on the right track. And I think that that phrase like manufacture a moat, that I love that. Like I'm gonna steal that. We need to apply that to every distributor, every brand you work with. This is for the audience as well. Guys, any of your suppliers, manufacture whatever moat you can possibly create within those accounts. I think that's a good way to look at it. Speaker 1: 100% agree. Speaker 2: Now let's talk about, so that was the first brand, right? So that one, you've been riding that one for six or seven months. It's been good, but it looks like it's getting to be a little worse. So what have you done in the meantime? Have you reached out to other brands? Are you working with any distributors? What does the rest of the landscape look like for you right now? Speaker 1: Yeah, so in terms of brands directly, I kind of see it as more of a long-term game. Cause what I've noticed with calling a lot of these brands is a lot of times they'll say, you know, we have our e-commerce guys. And so then I'll say, okay, well, would it be okay if I follow up every, you know, three months, quarter, whatever they, whatever they say to do. So essentially it's almost like I'm building out a list and just getting in like a wait list almost. So it's more of a long-term game with that. And so in the meantime, I've kind of also wanted to incorporate some distributors into the mix because Distributors are a lot easier to get accounts with right off the bat and you can immediately start sourcing products. So it's a way for us to kind of get the wholesale cash flows going in the shorter term while also incorporating some brand direct in there for more of a long-term gain there. Speaker 2: And really, that's the best way to do it, right? And that's the way that we've been teaching for the last probably six months to a year. Because when I first started at least making content and like teaching this stuff, when it came to finding distributors, my advice is, oh, use the Google method, look at Google Maps around you, kind of look locally, right? And that still works, that 100% works. But it's like, you're almost trying to, it's like, okay, well, one, I got to find a qualified distributor. And then two, then I've got to open an account and then look for a needle in a haystack. Right. Which unfortunately turns off a lot of people who are new to wholesale. They just don't have the, they don't have the persistence to kind of hang in there long enough to do that exact method. What we teach now, which is exactly what you're doing is, well, hey, forget about that. Let's just focus on going directly to the brand every time. Big brand, small brand, medium brand, doesn't matter. And if they turn us down or if it's like a mega brand that we know we have no shot with, let's just ask them who their distributors are. And I mean, I'm sure in your experience, right, a lot of the times they tell you and a lot of the times they give you more than one. So now instead of Cameron having to look for some, you know, any distributor he can get his hands on in his area, he has a referral from a brand The brand says, Hey Cameron, you can't buy from us, but go call XYZ distributor. So when Cameron goes and calls XYZ distributor, he's literally saying, Hey, this brand told me to call you. I want to buy their products. I know the exact product from, and the quantity I want of their product. That's what I want to talk to you about. And I don't know about you, but my success rate in talking to distributors, taking that approach is like 80%. I mean, there's very few distributors that are going to hear that out of your mouth. And so, oh, this guy's not serious. Oh, he's not worth our time. Because a lot of times you just mentioning that you spoke with the brand is enough for them to take you seriously. Because like, oh, that's one of our big, that's one of our big lines. We should listen to this guy, right? He just got off the phone with so-and-so. So that's by far the best way to approach it in my opinion. Speaker 1: Yep. And that's the exact strategy I used actually last week. Basically calling up brands that have qualified ASINs. And we had about eight leads and of those eight, I think we opened up like seven of the eight. We only got on like one of them. Right. Speaker 2: And it was probably because they, what they required a brick and mortar or maybe they wanted somebody to be like specifically in their industry. Speaker 1: I think it was a regional problem. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: I think it was just cause we weren't, our prep center wasn't in their state. Speaker 2: Right. Speaker 1: But yeah, so I think this strategy is even especially important in 2024 or sorry, 2025. Because in 2024 of Section 3 stuff started coming out, the Google method is going to put your business at a massive risk because you don't know if those distributors are authorized. Whereas if you're going to the brand and asking for their suppliers, You know, chances are they're going to be authorized and Amazon's going to be accepting their invoices. Speaker 2: So yeah, I think that strategy is almost, you're almost happy to use this strategy now in 2025. Well, and looking at it from an account health perspective, I think is a great angle to take, right? And a perfect example of that was, I mean, 45 minutes ago, right before we jumped on this recording, one of the Wholesale Network members DMed me in Discord and he said, Hey man, can you take a quick look at this distributor? They claim that they're direct with the brands they carry, but you just kind of take a look and let me know. And so I looked at him and what he sent me was their Instagram profile. It wasn't even their website. So it was their Instagram profile where they have like 22,000 followers. Every one of which was bought by the way, because they only have like six posts with like two likes on their post, right? Like clearly just a complete sham of an account. And on their Instagram, they're marketing to Amazon sellers, huge red flag. And the brands that they have, they've got like Laura Mercier and then they've got like Thorn Research and then they've got Scrub Daddy. And it's like, No distributor is going to be in all three of those categories unless it's like a mega massive distributor, not some Instagram account that like bought 20,000 followers. And my advice to him was like, okay, they're telling you that they're direct with these brands. That means nothing to me because I think they're lying. I'm 99% sure that they're lying to you. But to confirm, because I could be wrong, I said, call Lar Mercier. Call Thorn Research and call Scrub Daddy, the manufacturers of those brands. Call them up. And so, hey, is this XYZ distributor, are they authorized by you guys? And I was like, I will bet you $10,000 they're not. Like everything about these guys screams like red flag. So, like in 2020, suppliers are just lying to people at this point, right? And I know for a fact, if you go through with some of these suppliers, which some people still will because they see profit and they're blinded by that. But then 30 days later, they're on Twitter complaining that they got a section three and now they don't know what to do. And it's like, you've got to be supply chain is above all the most important thing in 2025. Would you agree? Speaker 1: Yes, so I would say prioritizing your account health is by far the most important part. Because, you know, a lot of us, our goal is to scale these businesses to millions of dollars a year. And the last thing you want is to have, you know, millions of dollars stuck up in Amazon because you bought from some liquidator that's not authorized. So yeah, if you want to survive in this business, I think you absolutely have to ensure your supply chain is solid. Because at the end of the day, we're selling on Amazon's platform. It's not our own platform. So we have to abide by their rules. And by doing that, we have access to their massive customer base. Speaker 2: And I actually tweeted something similar recently where I was like, listen, do I agree with all of Amazon's rules? No. Are they unfair sometimes? Yes, absolutely. But at the end of the day, we're playing in their sandbox. They make the rules. We have to follow them. And if we want access to literally, I mean, billions of views per month on our products right across the board, Then that's the price we pay, right? If you want your own platform where you have no risk of section three and you can source from whoever you want to, then go set up a Shopify site and pay $50,000 a month in ads to get somebody to your store to buy products where your margin's already only 10%. Like it's just not gonna work, right? It's never ever gonna work. So agreed, account health is top priority. And just to kind of put a bow on the account health conversation, There's so much fear mongering that goes on on Twitter, on Instagram, everywhere. But I swear to God, I haven't yet met a seller who's gotten a Section 3. That had a good supply chain that had the documentation that has not beaten it. Like it just, that's just how it works. Like Amazon wants to know, are these products real or are they not? And if you can prove it, it might take a couple of attempts, but you're going to be fine, right? And it's not only having the proper documentation, but it's presenting it in a way to Amazon that the most brain dead employee at Amazon headquarters can look at your submission and say, yes, this looks good. Right. That is where a lot of sellers fall short is they're like, well, hey, I have receipts or I have invoices and everything's legit, but I can't like Amazon still, I'm still suspended. It's like, well, it's because you sent them 40 different attachments in an email. Like even if you have the best paperwork in the universe, that's never going to get approved. You've got to put it in a format, usually a single PDF with a table of contents with cover pages like it's a fucking school report. Like that's what it is. I hate to say it, but that's how you got to present it and then you'll be fine, right? Speaker 1: Yep, and that's the same way I even present counterfeit claims. Yeah, so I'll make like a Google Slides and just lay it out step by step. This is what you need. This is what you asked for and this is what, here you go, here's the information. If you just, you know, attach eight different PDFs, you know, it's going to be a lot more confusing and your odds of getting it accepted is going to be lower. Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you're spot on. And we actually had one of the folks inside the Wholesale Network Mastermind last, I think it was last week. He was going through a section three. And the, I guess like the, essentially the packet of documents that he submitted, because he shared just like the table of contents with us, the packet of documents that he submitted, it was like 52 pages long, right? But what I loved about his submission is his table of contents looked like it was like a professional, like dictionary, like it was, it was looked so good. So what I told him, and this is kind of a sneak peek for those in the audience who are Wholesale Network members, we're going to be putting together a section three template Using his exact style where. If one of our members goes through a section three, hey, here's the template. All you've got to do is plug in like your invoices or your screenshots, your information, and then it is already in the format that Amazon wants. You can upload it straight to Amazon and you should be good to go, right? So that's something we're working on in the background and it's the easy component, but it's the tedious component and it's the thing that a lot of people don't want to do. So we're like, oh, we'll just make it available to our community easy. So yeah, that's again, account health is always, Top of mind for a lot of people and the most important thing to consider protecting in 2025. So, I mean, we're only, we're not even through January yet, right? So we're a month in. What is your plan for 2025 and what is your goal for this year? Speaker 1: Yeah, so like I said, in 2024, I was able to do just over a million. Every year, basically, something on Amazon, I've been able to just over double the sales. But this year, I've set the goal at 1.8, so just under an 80% growth rate. And that's because I actually, this year, I want to kind of leverage less than I have before. So ever since I've been working with a bookkeeper, I've realized that, you know, I've been taking on a little too much risk and, you know, I've gotten lucky enough to not have any problems. But, you know, as you grow, you want to kind of take some of those risks away so that you can kind of ensure your health, your account health or your business health. So yeah, 1.8 in this year is my goal. Another goal that I have is to have my business be majority wholesale. So ideally over 50%. I think I could do even more than that. But like I said, there's no reason for me to kind of cut off the OA. I've been in it for two years and have pretty good systems down with that. So over 50% I would say with wholesale and then maybe in 2026, 100% wholesale. Speaker 2: And that's so very doable. And it's not even going to take you a whole year to do so, right? Because the part that takes people the most time is usually getting from zero to one with wholesale. It's going from Hey, I understand how it works to placing that first profitable order, getting that proof of concept. That's what takes people the longest time. You've already, you got that six months ago, right? So if anything, you know what works, you know exactly what you need to do. You know exactly how many suppliers you need to contact. You know exactly what to say. If anything, the bottleneck for you is just going to be really like sourcing time, right? I know you've got a VA on that, but As you know, some of these wholesale price lists are huge, right? They take a lot of time to go through. So your biggest bottleneck is going to be time spent sourcing either between you and or your VA and then eventually capital, right? At which point you're in the best possible position you could be as an Amazon seller where you're like, Hey, I've got way too many opportunities and not enough capital with which to buy them. At which point you're in a really strong position to take on a loan or get a line of credit or do things like that. So that's, I think, totally within the realm of possibility. I would even be more aggressive with your goal and say, let's have that done by the summer, right? I think you can be more than 50% wholesale by the summer, if not closer to 70 or 80%. And then by the end of this year, if you wanted to, you could be 100% wholesale. Speaker 1: So I've been spending a lot of time on building systems because like you said, recently I've gotten a catalog that has 50,000 products and we're obviously not going to sit there and look at all 50,000 products that would take way too long. So I think right now it's just a matter of trial and error, figuring out what works, what doesn't work, building systems around that and then eventually we'll get to a point where it's just rinse and repeat on the systems and it's just inevitable to grow consistently. Speaker 2: Exactly. And if you track your numbers along the way, which I think you are, and if you're not, I know you're going to build a system to do so. Once you accumulate enough data, then you know, down to the decimal point, what inputs are required to hit a certain output. So if your goal is Hey, I need to be spending 50K a month on inventory to hit my revenue goal. Well, it's so easy for you to work backwards if you had that data to say, okay, I've got to spend 50 grand a month, which means I got to spend, you know, what is that? 16K a week or something like that. In order to spend 16K a week, I've got to open on average, you know, one new account every other month. And in order to open one account, I've got to call five suppliers at my 25% open rate, right? Like you're going to have all that data. So you know exactly, How many calls you need to make in order to spend 50K a month. Like you'll be able to make that correlation with that data set. So that's the beauty of knowing your numbers, tracking your KPIs and doing that over time so that you can measure the changes as well. Speaker 1: And with OA, the main KPI really there is just spend. So I've been tracking my spend for quite some time, kind of figuring out what revenue I want to be at to make this profit. And then, you know, it's pretty easy to calculate that. You've got to spend about half What revenue you want? But on the wholesale side of things, there's a lot more KPIs that you can track like, you know, suppliers contacted, accounts opened, products quoted, products purchased. And so I've been, you know, focusing a lot more on those type of KPIs. And then trying to just eventually, like you said, when I have enough data, I'll be able to figure out, you know, how many Suppliers don't need to contact to get this many products purchased or this many products quoted. So that's kind of been my focus this year. Speaker 2: Yep. And that, again, that's something that might take you a few days or a week to kind of implement as far as what are we tracking and how do we track it. But once you have that in place, I mean, that's how you scale, right? Is knowing the exact inputs that you need to create in order to create certain outputs. And looking, and I mean, really some more value for the audience here, right? Looking at my whiteboard here, if you want just like a very high level funnel of KPIs that you should track in wholesale, When I was doing a lot of new outreach back in November and December, I was only tracking four KPIs from a very high level. One was suppliers contacted, which then led to how many applications did I submit, which then led to how many applications were approved, which then led to how many POs did I place, right? And looking at my numbers here, it doesn't take an astronomical number of inputs To end with POs, which is kind of your final KPI, I contacted 38 total suppliers. I submitted 10 applications. Of those 10 that I submitted, nine were approved. And of those nine that got approved, we placed five purchase orders. So that's five purchase orders for 38 suppliers contacted. I don't know exactly what that percentage is, but I know that, all right, if I want to place one PO, I can work backwards, right? Based on that math. I love it, man. I think you are absolutely killing it. And guys, for the audience here, you heard us talking about the Wholesale Network throughout this call. If you want to build more systems in your wholesale business, if you want direct one-on-one access to me, as well as our entire community and the content and the coaching that comes along with that, then I encourage you to apply at WholesaleNetwork.io. Cameron has been a member for, I guess, coming on seven months now. We are about to hit, I think, our one year anniversary of the network group this coming March, and we've got a really good community of people. So again, that is WholesaleNetwork.io if you want to apply. Now, Cameron, any parting words for the audience here before I let you go? Anything you want to share with us before we leave? Speaker 1: Yeah, so I would just say anyone that's kind of on the edge with you know Should should I join a network or should I spend money to get mentored? I would say you got to think about Some of the two things first thing being opportunity costs, right? So from my calculation for my estimation this is just kind of random, but With the network, I would probably say it took me three to four weeks to finally get things going, get the ball rolling with wholesale, whereas if I was doing it on my own, it could take four or five months, right? So where do you value that three to four months? And another thing is you also got to think about the mistakes that you, or the cost of the mistakes that you can make with not having the guidance. So yeah, so if you're on the edge, I would just say, think about those two things and kind of where you value those two things and yeah. Speaker 2: Appreciate it, man. And yeah, the opportunity cost is a very real consideration. For some people, it's not worth the investment because they're not that serious. And for others, it's going to save them a lot of time, a lot of money, and they're going to make a lot of really good connections along the way. So Cameron, thank you so much for the time, man. Where can people connect with you if they want to chat with you further? Speaker 1: Yes. So on Instagram, it's going to be cjr.sales. I don't post on it too often, but I do use it for networking. So definitely feel free to DM me if you want to connect. Speaker 2: Awesome. And we will have the link to his Instagram in the show notes below. Guys, if you've listened this far in, do us a favor, leave us a five-star rating. If you're listening on Apple or Spotify, if you're watching on YouTube, then give us a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel because we come out with these every single Wednesday. I think this is 90 or 91 weeks in a row and we are not stopping anytime soon. So thank you so much, Cameron. I appreciate the time. Speaker 1: Yeah. Thanks for having me on.