#109 - How to Grow and Manage Brands on Amazon with Jon Klein I The Corey Ganim Show

#109 - How to Grow and Manage Brands on Amazon with Jon Klein I The Corey Ganim Show Speaker 2: Welcome back to The Corey Ganim Show. So we've got a good guest with us this week. This is my buddy, Jon Klein. Now, I'll let Jon give his own background, but Jon and I actually met through Mastermind that is a large Mastermind of successful Amazon sellers, mainly geared towards private label. Jon and I connected really over the last couple of years and getting as he's now gotten more into the wholesale space. And I've obviously been doing wholesale the whole time. So Jon is someone that I want you guys to hear from because he does a lot on the brand management side. Now he's doing wholesale. He's doing brand management. We're going to talk about how those two things kind of play into each other. But bottom line, he's a really good resource for all things. Just growing brands on Amazon because he's got a lot of private label background as well. So Jon, welcome to the show, man. I'm looking forward to getting into a pretty in-depth conversation about what you guys are doing on the brand management side and the wholesale side, as well as some other fun things too. So welcome, man. Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks, Corey. I'm super excited to be here. Thanks for having me on. Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. So why don't you give the audience a background into how you got into the Amazon space and what got you here today? Speaker 1: Yeah, so I have been in the e-commerce space since around 2010. I actually started a little bit in the affiliate space in 2012-2013. I had the opportunity to partner with a world-renowned chemist who had a special technology that was patented that he had used as VP of various public companies in different fields and partnered up with this guy and my dad to launch a skincare brand which we're still operating today. It's called Neutralize and during the first couple years we actually were Trying to license the technology because we have a couple of patents on it. We were trying to do some direct-to-consumer Google testing, things of that nature. It really wasn't working, quite frankly. A lot of things just fell through the cracks. In 2015, we found Amazon and as soon as we put our hero product, which was a three-step acne treatment kit, onto Amazon, it was like immediate first year. I think in the first six months, we did like 150,000 or something like that, which was mind boggling to me at the time. And then the first full year, we're closer to half a million. And then by year, Three, technically, we were doing a million a year, which was great. Through that experience, first of all, you have to sit as the brand owner. You're responsible for a P&L. How do you work with agencies? How do you work with an in-house team? How do you navigate all these different things? Through that experience, you know, also found community, right? Like we said before, that's been such a big part of my journey. And then eventually people started reaching out to me to help grow their brands. We actually got in the newspaper in Long Island for our skincare brand. And that's kind of opened the floodgates of, you know, a couple people in my network reaching out to me. Did a couple of engagements that worked out really well. So that, you know, it started off like as consulting in the Amazon space and it wasn't really a full-fledged agency. But then, you know, fast forward to where we are today. We have a team of 13 of us now and managing 12 brands. 13 is coming on now, so it's the same number. And we are just, you know, we're just looking to grow like a real agency team now. And then more recently, you know, started reselling on an exclusive basis with some of our partners, which is what led me to join the Wholesale Network and kind of learn more about that side of the business. Speaker 2: Well, I love what you guys have going on, right? Because you're not just doing wholesale and you're not just doing brand management. You're doing a hybrid of the two. And one thing that I want to touch on that you mentioned that I think is interesting, you said that the skincare brand that you guys have, it got mentioned in the paper up in Long Island. So what did you guys do to get featured there? Speaker 1: I was at a shared workspace and basically got introduced to a Newsday reporter that was looking for stories around Amazon and I was actually the the piece was about. Amazon changing reviews and the way like reviews worked and they pulled a lot of our reviews out, right? So I think we went from, because in the early days of Amazon, you can basically like buy reviews, you know? So Amazon like caught on to that, pulled everything out. I think we went from a couple thousand reviews back down to like 500 reviews. It was like the challenge of navigating a changing landscape for Amazon type of thing. But yeah, like that, just the exposure there, like kind of, you know, I got called the next day by like a huge plastic surgeon in the area. A couple weeks later, a friend of mine who is like a VC type of guy, like brought me into what ended up to be like the biggest deal I've ever had in my life. So yeah, like getting that exposure just kind of like pulled me into the consulting agency world. Speaker 2: So I want to go deeper on that because that's I feel like one of those like butterfly effect moments or things that just leads to so many more good opportunities. So you're saying that you, what, were renting a desk at a co-working space and then you just happened to run into this What were they, a reporter? Is that kind of what they were? Speaker 1: Yeah, I was introduced. I became kind of known at the coworking space as like the Amazon guy, right? Because there really weren't a lot of Amazon sellers. So, you know, when I was introduced to that reporter, it was very much like, oh, here's the Amazon guy. You got to like talk to him type of thing. That didn't just come from me sitting there. It came from me participating in various events, community stuff that they had at the co-working space and helping people out and getting my name out there. Speaker 2: I think that's just such a good illustration of when you become the XYZ guy, basically the guy for your niche. That just leads to so many opportunities and you don't necessarily need to be the number one guy in your niche on social media online, right? What you're saying is you were the Amazon guy there in your little co-working space, right? That was maybe what, 15, 20, 30 people. So again, you don't need to be the go-to guy on Instagram, for example, but if you're the go-to guy there in your little pond, then that can still open up a ton of opportunities, right? And I think, I mean, that's even how you and I got, got further connected, right? You and I were, we knew each other when we were part of that, the other networking group, mastermind group. But because I kind of went off and formed the Wholesale Network, you kind of knew of me as the wholesale guy. And when that's something that you decided you wanted to learn more about, I was the first person that came to mind. You joined the Wholesale Network. And again, it's the same principle in play, becoming known for being like the go-to guy for that thing. So I love that. I think that That's such a good way to position yourself in any kind of circle that you're in. Now, so you said that led to some consulting opportunities, like a VC opportunity. It sounds like this is what more or less launched what eventually became the brand management business. Is that correct? Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exactly right. So that VC deal was like a rocket ship. Basically, it was a group of VCs who serendipitously met this guy, it was actually like on a soccer field for their daughter's soccer game, who had a brand that was on Shark Tank and they were in Bye Bye Baby, it was in the baby space and the company was struggling. So this group of VC-affiliated investors came together, they purchased controlling interest of the brand And then my contact, James, was like, okay, I see they're on Amazon. This could be the biggest channel. We're pulling in Jon, right? So yeah, so they pulled me in. We did a deal that had a lot of backend upside. If we can grow the business X, we earn X commissions. And I mean, this thing was just like a rocket ship. We definitely did a good job. I did all the listing optimization myself, all the market research myself. I outsourced the PPC at that point because it was just like consulting and I didn't have my own team. So I pointed to like third parties for stuff like that. But this brand just took off and actually during the 18 months that we managed the brand, they grew 30x the revenue. Like it's hard to believe the number. Yeah. So they went from the year prior to us taking over, they had done like I think it was about 150,000 in total revenue for the year and not profitably. And by the time that we were done, because they actually sold to one of the aggregators, they were at a run rate of like four and a half million or whatever it was. So it was just like a rocket ship. We ended up to get like a really tiny piece of the company at the end. So we participate a little bit in the exit, which was really cool to see that whole process. But it was just like a whirlwind of an experience. Since then, I have never had such good results. I've never had such a good payday. So sometimes you don't know what you have like while it's going on. But still, it could be a very good business to kind of take your skills and knowledge and latch on to something that's bigger than like what you have. And I think that was like the big aha moment, right? Just just, you know, hey, I can kind of scale my skills horizontally by just, you know, being a part of more big businesses, you know? Speaker 2: Yeah. And it sounds to me like that's one of those home run opportunities that really only comes around once every couple of years. Right. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: And so, you know, you you jumped on it, you took advantage of it. And again, it sounds like that's what kind of helped you bridge the gap between doing this one off consulting, because it sounds like up to that point, most of what you were doing on the consulting side was just Jon essentially selling his expertise for probably what, like a few grand at a time as far as like an implementation is concerned, to then, you know, doing this, getting this opportunity with the Shark Tank brand, blowing it out of the water. Now, Using that, I'm sure as a case study and as a springboard into Jon launching a legitimate agency that now does this for brands at scale. Was that kind of the progression there? Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And you know, through all this, I, you know, have, you know, my own brand that I'm kind of like growing as well. So it's been, you know, a two-sided coin of like, this can be a really good business in some ways, but you know, having my own, my own brand and the responsibilities there, So I think that's why I was a little like I didn't I didn't jump right into like scale it as quickly as maybe I should have. But, you know, years later in the trials and tribulations that are going on in the private label space, it's not as easy to do new stuff today as it was years ago. So now it's like, hmm, you know, maybe maybe this is kind of the direction to go and then just kind of like leaned into it. And a big unlock for me was also finding the right partner, Dan, who you met. Who's like our COO and like, When I was a consultant, I was, you know, just a one man show and sort of you have to respond to everybody and it could be like a little overwhelming, like having a lot of different things going on. And I think I had a limiting belief that if I had something even bigger, it was going to be even worse. But, you know, having the right partner and having a team now, like my day to day is just so much more enjoyable. I get to focus on the things I'm good at. Dan and the team focus on the things that they're good at. And so, you know, that was like an interesting unlock for me too, just like finding the right, the right partner and the right team. Speaker 2: Absolutely. I mean, having that right partner is key, especially if it sounds like you're more of maybe a visionary type and Dan's more of your integrator, which, you know, I think is critical to have. That's obviously the framework from the book Traction by Gino Wickman for those in the audience here. Highly recommend folks read that book, but I mean, I've seen the same growth within myself and my business, right? Specifically within the Wholesale Network. I'm more the visionary and you know, Kate, right? She's more of our integrator and she helps bring a lot of our ideas to life. And I just don't think that we would be doing the things that we're doing without her. And I think for the folks out there that are hearing this and they're like, oh, I'm definitely the visionary. Then they need to go and find that integrator and vice versa. Right? Speaker 1: Yep. Absolutely. One plus one equals three. Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. So let's talk a little bit about your business model. So your company, it's Online Brand Growth. Is that right? That's right. I think the website is onlinebrandgrowth.com. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: But one thing that, you know, again, that I like that you guys are doing is you're doing traditional brand direct wholesale where you're partnering with brands You're buying their products. You're essentially holding the inventory, but then you're also providing those value-added services in return. And then you're doing things on the other end of the spectrum where you're just managing their account. You're just managing They're sales, you're not necessarily holding inventory yourself. And then you're doing, I think, as I understand, a rev share with those brands. Are those kind of the two models, the wholesale versus the management? Speaker 1: Yes. And so the brand management has actually been our predominant model. Like that's what I did with, you know, that big baby brand that I mentioned. And about 90% of what we do is that. We're trying to do some more of the exclusive wholesale and have that option, which is why I came over the Wholesale Network to really learn more about that business. But let's just talk about the pros and the cons of each. So, you know, on the brand management side where you're just, you know, managing their account as an agency or consultant, whatever you want to call it, What's nice about that is the money's only flowing like in one direction, right? There's no risk, right? So, you know, from a cash flow point of view, you can, you know, the challenge is really scaling the service offering and doing like a really high quality job, but you're not encountering like as much of the cash flow issues to scaling, right? Typically, the margins for that type of business, even if you have a full team, can be upwards of 50% or something like that. Good margins, cash flows all flowing in one direction. The real downside is that when you're charging people for services, you work for them. You've got a lot of bosses now. If they write to you on Slack or send you an email or send you a text, you've got to get back to them same day. You know what I mean? So it's like, yeah, you kind of like you're selling your time to some extent, right? Speaker 2: Right. Speaker 1: But it's a good piece to have. On the other side, you know, all the inverse as it relates to exclusive wholesale, you know, obviously you have to invest, but you're a little more in control of your time, right? So as a partner, as an exclusive partner to somebody, It's like, yeah, they would, you know, you should still have good communication, you should still be sending them reports, they'll be sending them forecasts, like all these things. But it's not the expectation of like, get back to me the same day. You know, you work for me, all those things are not really there. You're a partner, you're, you're the money's flowing the other way, I'm paying you. So the expectations are less. And I quite like it. I like that part of it a lot. And like the way that we view it now is just to like meet brands and manufacturers where they're at. And I'll explain what I mean is in my experience it's hard To transition a brand who is used to selling direct through their own account to now, you know selling to you as an exclusive reseller, right? It's hard to kind of move from from one side of the world to the other and then inversely it's hard for a brand or manufacturer that's accustomed to just you know fulfilling wholesale orders and maybe they sell to retail and they make really good products and It's very hard to transition a brand like that that doesn't have that direct to consumer DNA and pedigree to, you know, to try to like transition them to doing that model, right? So just meet them where they're at. And there really is no right way to do the business. I mean, I think that, you know, in a pure sense, I'm a brand, right? Do I sell direct? Yeah, I sell direct. I happen to have the skill set and it's what makes sense for my business. But a lot of brands and manufacturers, it just doesn't make sense for them to be selling direct. It's like another muscle that they have to build and keep in shape. And it's like overhead that they have to have and knowledge that they have to have and resource that they need to have, where if they just stay in their lane and focus on making amazing products and fulfilling it, like they're going to be way more effective that way. So I'm not like a pure play, like you should do things one way or another. And that's kind of why I wanted to get more into this business model so that we have both things in our pocket. It actually happened by just, again, demand. Like one of our clients didn't want to do direct selling anymore. They wanted to get out and they're like, Jon, can we sell to you? And that was the first deal. And then we've been doing that for about a year, but then we just got our second and third. I'm in that bucket. So I'm like, Oh damn, I better join this wholesale network and get serious about this because like this is starting to be a bigger piece of our business. I mean, in fact, I'm like really excited about it because I think in many ways it's the better entry point to talk to brands rather than kind of being out there like, Hey, we, we do services come hire us. It's, it's, it's a little more effective potentially to say, Hey, we want to buy from you and then have the conversation go in either direction from there, you know? Speaker 2: Exactly. And I love what you said about meeting brands where they're at. So I think that's a huge benefit of having both of those tools in your tool belt. Those tools being one, being able to offer management and or two, being the retailer is that, like you said, you get to meet brands where they're at. So they've been selling on Amazon themselves for, let's say, a decade. You're not going to them and pitching, hey, I know you've been selling on your own account for 10 years, but let us take that over and let us start selling and let us own Amazon, right? There's gonna be a lot of friction there from that brand most likely, but if you come to them and you say, well, hey, keep doing exactly what you're doing, And now instead of you guys having to deal with it, we'll just handle all of it for you and we'll just take a small cut of the pie, right? That to me is a much easier pitch for a brand in that example to digest. And same thing goes for brands that maybe they've had a reseller forever or they've had resellers forever going and pitching them, hey, well, we'll just now be your only reseller. So it's the same thing you've been doing. It's just with us and we're going to make your life a lot easier as a result. And I was having this conversation with Kaj this week and we both agreed it makes so much sense that if you're going to be doing brand direct wholesale, which involves the skill set of We've been talking about optimizing listings and Amazon SEO and advertising and all these additional skills. If you're committing to mastering those skills and making that part of your service offerings as a wholesale seller, well, you might as well offer that same skill, those same skills, that same service as a service, right? As opposed to just as in an exclusive seller context. Would you agree there, Jon? Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, absolutely. Have flexibility and meet them where they're at and you could deliver value to them in a bunch of different ways. Even further, we say to brands and manufacturers sometimes, it's like, look, even if, just tell us your goals, right? Is your goal to suck everything out of my brain in nine months, right? And then you guys will take it on your own? Just be upfront with your intentions and we'll figure out a way to make that happen. You know what I mean? Or is your intention just to stay hands off forever and you just wanna know that someone's handling it? I think flexibility is key and you're right. Once you have those muscles, you might as well flex them wherever it makes sense to do so. Speaker 2: Well, and that's a great point that you made too about some brands, especially if they go and hire you as a service to just manage their account. A lot of them are thinking, well, hey, we'll just have this guy manage our thing for a year. We'll take everything he knows after a year and then we'll just cut them loose and then we'll do it ourselves. And I love how you, sounds like you bring that up upfront where it's like, Hey, let's just make an upfront contract. Right. For lack of a better term, if you want to just download my brain over the next 12 months and then kick me to the curb, that's fine. But let me know upfront so that we can plan for that. And so that I can set you guys up to succeed. And we'll just go into this knowing that that's the intention. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: It just makes life a lot easier on both parties. Speaker 1: Yup. And sometimes that happens with like one or two departments. So I'll explain like, If we're working with a brand that's just very well branded, big brand, and they have their own internal graphic design team and they have available time, I'm not going to demand that our graphic team work on something. It's like, all right, if you want your graphic designers to work on it, what we'll do in that scenario is we'll coach you through what we need and we'll work collaboratively with you there. Speaker 2: That's how it should be. Speaker 1: If you've got an in-house operations person that is already doing operations in your other channels, Why are we going to pull away just the Amazon? Would it be better for our operations person to just train your operations person and support them? You don't only do it on a global, it's like piece by piece, what do you want to take in-house and what do you want to let us handle? Speaker 2: And I think that's just a much more holistic approach because again, it meets brands where they're at exactly like you said earlier. And one other point that I'll make, and then we can kind of get into your actual business model, what you guys charge. I want to get into those details, but one last point I want to make about the brand management model versus just a regular wholesale model is that When you are selling a service, so if you're managing the brand, like we said a couple of minutes ago, it's much easier for the brand to justify kicking you to the curb. Because when they look at their P&L each month, they're like, damn, we're paying Jon five grand or 10 grand or whatever that number is. Eh, I think I can just do it myself and just save that 10 grand. Next thing you know, Jon's fired, even though that brand might now be in a much worse position. That regardless, right? If you are the exclusive seller, right, you're the exclusive wholesale seller for the brand and you're the one paying them every month. It's a lot harder for them to justify and we got to get rid of Jon, right? Well, it's like, well, why? He's cutting us a 50 grand PO every month. It's a lot harder for them to... To turn down 50k a month as opposed to, you know, cut off a 10k a month expense. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: So the moral is when you're the seller, it's a lot stickier because there's also a big transition cost, right? If they decide, hey, we're going to drop Jon as our exclusive seller. And even if they take that in-house or if they find a new exclusive seller, they've got to then wait for you to sell out of stock. They've got to sell a PO to the new person or send it in themselves. They've got to wait for it to check in. They've got to time that perfectly so that you don't stock out and they don't lose organic ranking by being out of stock, right? There's just a lot more that goes into We're talking about kicking off an exclusive seller versus kicking off a brand manager. To kick you off as a brand manager, all they got to do is terminate the contract and remove you from Seller Central. It takes 30 seconds. Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, I definitely agree with that. I mean, we've been fortunate as a service provider, like when you do a really good job and the other thing that I'll say is when there's a big gap in knowledge, right? That's something that really helps on the services side, the agency side for client stickiness. If you're working with people and your knowledge is, you know, to put it out of 10, your knowledge is a 9.5. But their knowledge is like an 8.5 and you're helping them whatever. You're not providing a huge gap in value and it might be short-lived. But if you're working with someone who's like their listings are terrible, they don't know anything about this world that we're in, you're providing generally like so much value that they couldn't picture the world without you. But we've definitely had some engagements where like the numbers got really high in terms of the commission and people come back around to us and like renegotiate. And I think what you said is definitely true. Like it's definitely stickier, the exclusive reselling, because especially in the event of, you know, when a brand is like going out to market for sale, I mean, you can't cut off your biggest, like, you know, one of your biggest like revenue sources, right? That will literally screw up your sale. So like, I do tend to agree with that, which is why we're trying to do a little more of this when we can. Speaker 2: That's such a good point. I never thought about that. Yeah. As if you're, if the brand, if you're an exclusive reseller for a brand and they're gearing up to sell the company, they cannot afford to lose you because that looks really bad to the buyer. It's like, well, Hey, what happened to your Amazon channel? You went from a hundred K a month to zero. Like, yeah. So that's never thought about that, but that's a great, great point. So let's talk about your actual business model, right? So within OBG, online brand growth, your agency, what is it that you guys charge to manage your brand? So let me actually give you maybe an example might be easier. So let's say I come to you and I own a seven figure, let's just say a skincare brand, right? Maybe one similar to yours. And I say, Jon, I don't want to deal with Amazon anymore. I don't want to touch it. I still have my account, right? I'm selling through my account, but I want somebody just to manage my account. What is it that you're going to charge me? Like what are the, and kind of what are the rules of engagement there? Speaker 1: Yeah. So for our full brand management offering, we take a minimum fee. Anywhere between $3,000 to $5,000. That is going to depend on SKU count, the size of the business. Speaker 2: Is that just like a startup fee or is that monthly? Speaker 1: A minimum monthly fee. I would caution anyone getting into services. Early in my career, I took one deal out of spec and worked on it for a while and made zero. Okay, so that's what you risk if you don't take a minimum fee. You could, you know, if you're really sure about something, you know, you could risk it and not take a minimum fee. But, you know, after learning those lessons, we take the minimum fee. So it'll be $3,000 to $5,000 minimum for the full brand management, depending on the size of the business, size of the catalog. And the other thing is the Compliance, right? Am I in a niche that is just littered with compliance issues? We're going to be dealing with ASINs going down left, right and center. That's another huge time suck on our team, right? Pretty much the characteristics. And then we do something that is like super idealistic that was in my mind ever, ever since, you know, early being a brand owner of what I would like from an ideal agency. So what we do is we take a baseline contribution margin for the past 12 months. Contribution margin is basically your gross profit, like what Sellerize says. Before overhead and your employees and your rent and all that stuff, right? So we take what Sellerize says is the net profit, which is really called contribution margin. Measure that for the last 12 months. If the brand doesn't have Sellerize or Seller Board, we help them set that up. And put in their cogs because even just showing them like their skew by skew profitability is a big value add. Like a lot of like brands don't even like, you know, they're using QuickBooks or something else and they're like, oh, wow, this is great. I can see like in real time, my skew by skew profitability. So we'll set them up if they don't already have Sellerize. We'll take a baseline profit of their last 12 months. Let's say it was like You know, 50,000 per month is like their average profit. And then we say, all right, if we can grow your sales by 20,000 per month, we take 25% of the growth, right? Or the minimum fee, whichever is greater. So what that means is let's say we were charging the brand 3,000 and then we did that deal where we had the baseline and then we grew them successfully by 20,000 in any given month, okay? We then charge, so if we did 25%, which is like kind of standard, We would take 5,000, would be the fee, right? Because we grew them by 20,000, we're entitled to a quarter. And so once they're at that level that we've grown them, the minimum fee like no longer applies, which is great. So the minimum fee is just like an on-ramp for us to like, you know, cover our costs, like, you know, while we're getting to, you know, the commission, right? We hope and expect to get to that commission in six months, give or take, right? So that's basically the model. And people really like that model because there's a concept of like, you know, brand owners have a pie that they bake themselves. And when you're a service provider, you're like asking for a piece of their pie. Like, I don't want to give you a piece of my pie, you know, but then it's like, all right, well, what if I baked you a bigger pie? If I baked you a bigger pie and took a piece of that extra, like, would that be, would I have earned it? Yeah, I would have earned it. You know what I mean? And so when you do it that way, it's just super sitting on the same side of the table. Like I said, it's a little idealistic. Other agency owners don't like what I've done because they want to just do something simple like percentage of revenue, which is just cleaner. But my way here is true alignment because if I'm making a recommendation about a level of PPC that you should be at or anything relating to the business, like where you're pricing your product, you know I'm doing it sitting on the exact side of the table as you. We're both in the interest of profit. And I've only worked with like, you know, SMBs, like, you know, some, you know, giant public companies might be like a lot more concerned with Top line and profit, but like all our clients are just aligned on profit. Speaker 2: Yeah, as they should be, right? Because most, you know, 97% of brands need to be focused on profitability. It's really the very vast minority of those huge public companies that are just out there to get, you know, to drive revenue and get impressions. So that makes a lot of sense to me. Now, one thing that, you know, that kind of stands out about the model there Like you said, the fact that incentives are aligned. That's one thing that I love about both the pricing structure that you have as well as the brand direct model, which is just the traditional wholesale. We grow and you grow because we make our money when we sell your product. I want to touch on one of the opportunities that you and I are in the middle of right now that you brought to me through a mutual friend of ours. To give the audience a background, basically, There's a contact of Jon's. He is the, I guess what, the exclusive US importer for a certain beverage brand. And this beverage brand is owned by a very large conglomerate out of Europe. And so Jon has this contact. This contact basically reaches out to Jon. He said, Hey, Jon, I've got the exclusive distribution rights for this brand. It's a great brand. It's doing good on Amazon. We've been selling it for a while, but I'm in a cashflow crunch. And I don't want to lose this deal, right? I got to show the conglomerate that I can keep moving product. So how about you step in and I basically give you the exclusive to sell on Amazon and I'm just the master distributor, right? And so you then came to me with that opportunity because I think it was a little, maybe a little more capital intensive than you were looking to bite off at the time because you have other opportunities too that are also going to be capital intensive that we can touch on. But you came to me and you said, Hey Corey, we've got this product. You know, obviously supply chain paperwork's legit. It's coming directly from the manufacturer, which is based overseas. We know the contact. We know the distributor. He's willing to give us a written agreement for that semi-exclusive, which we have. And go from there and what we put in our first PO, I think within the last week, it's shipping out to Amazon today or tomorrow, potentially. And this is an opportunity that we're again, there's going to be a win-win-win for all parties involved. We're winning, me and you as the retailers. Because, you know, we're able to get this product onto Amazon shelves that wouldn't normally be available because it's a hard to get product. Our supplier, the master distributor, the guy who has the relationship with the manufacturer, he wins because he was in a big cash flow crunch and we basically bailed him out of losing this deal that he's worked really hard to get and has been very lucrative for him. And the manufacturer wins because right now their Amazon listings do not look good, right? Like they are very subpar. And I know you and Dan have already and myself, we've already been in touch with the distributor about, hey, let's get on the same page with the manufacturer, get this stuff touched up. Get this stuff really going and then let's look to expand this to the other brands this manufacturer has. I love how you and Dan specifically, and I mean really me too, we were thinking, you know, three, four, five steps ahead. But this opportunity kind of fell into our lap just because again, we're talking to people in the community, we're showing up at events, you're meeting people. And you get brand management opportunities and wholesale opportunities from that as well. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, all well said and accurate. Like it speaks to what we said before about approaching things with flexibility and having, you know, different tools in your belt. Right. So, you know, without saying the name of the brand we were managing, you know, this contact was a longtime, you know, brand management client for us. And unfortunately got into a cash flow situation and had to file like chapter 11. So, you know, we got a an email one day, after there were some like overdue invoices. And it was like, you know, hey, bad news, we're filing chapter 11. You know, please wrap up the contract immediately. And I'm like, Oh, no, like bad, bad day, right? Like, this is not good. I just lost client. They owe me a bunch of money. And I don't think we're getting paid and I'm down a good client. This is bad. But then like, the next day, um, you know, I was like, I was like, hey, let me just set up a call with this guy and try to understand more about what happened because this is a good business. He has multiple businesses. Let me put clear lenses on and see what's going on. It really just was like a cash flow situation. He has all this amazing opportunity and all this amazing IP and stuff like that. It actually turned into something that I'm now even more excited about, quite frankly, than I was as a service provider. It was so much opportunity, I'm like, well, okay, I gotta call Corey because I need to make sure that we can fully satisfy this opportunity. If I'm issuing the POs that I'm willing to issue with the available cash that we have, That's not going to satisfy this whole opportunity. They need the whole opportunity satisfied. Let me bring in Corey and, you know, see what we could bite off and kind of go from there. But it's, yeah, it's that kind of like open mindedness and flexibility that turn like a really bad situation into something that's like really good now. Speaker 2: Yeah. And it's that collaboration mindset too, right? Like I love how you have, you have that abundance mentality and your first thought was, well, Hey, how do we turn this? What was a negative situation into a huge positive and Hey, not just for me, but how can I rope someone else in on this opportunity? We can all benefit from it because yeah, it's just everybody wins, right? It's, it's creating wins all around. So I love that. I love that you're in the Wholesale Network, that you're part of the mastermind. I think there's a lot that you guys bring to the table. One thing that, and you know this too, more so for the audience, one thing that I've been doing for a lot of our community members is they will get, because, you know, we have some folks in the Wholesale Network that are on the newer side. So they're out there going after brands, they're talking the talk, they're making the calls and they get these brands on the hook. They get these really good opportunities on the hook. And then they come to us and they say, well, hey guys, I don't know how to run the PPC or I don't know, you know, what to do from here if I actually get this deal. And that's where What I've been doing is I've been referring a lot of them to you and saying, well, hey, Jon will get on your sales calls with you and help you close these brands, right? Assuming you let him manage the brand after the fact. So almost letting people white label your service, people inside the Wholesale Network, letting them white label your service and you guys, you know, partnering on some potential opportunities that way. Do you see that as kind of a valid way for you guys to continue expanding your business? Almost like building up an army of affiliates who are, Basically out there bringing you guys opportunities and then you guys help them close them and then you guys obviously manage the relationship after the fact and collect the lion's share of the revenue. Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, it's been so great being a part of the Wholesale Network and feeling like we can, you know, help pull, you know, entrepreneurs up who have these like opportunities and who, you know, just kind of like bridge the gap between, you know, where they are and where they want to be. So there's really like two ways that we're partnering with You know, other sellers, basically. One way is if, you know, someone's really focused on their own direct to brand reselling and hasn't really built up the services side of it yet, they can just refer to us as an affiliate and we have like a robust 10% lifetime revenue share. And so the way that works is, you know, obviously the whole time that we have the given client that's referred, We pay out 10% and then if we can actually grow that client, which we did with the one that you referred to us, Corey, that referral fee goes up like just as we have success with the client. So that's one way we're partnering with people. Another way that we're partnering with people is just as their backend, just like hiring us. So we're, you know, really focused on brands and manufacturers and that's like 90% of what we do. But more recently we've partnered with, you know, let's sellers who can afford to invest in us as their backend team. So rather than like building your own team and hiring everybody and learning, you know, all this by yourself, you can just hire us as the backend team. Now, you know, that's not easy to get to, right? I mean, I explained my fees before, we're not cheap, right? But like if you have enough stuff going on, if you've got, you know, maybe a couple of exclusive deals, maybe you've got, you know, a whole bunch of non-exclusive reselling, maybe you have a brand you acquired, but you have like a little portfolio of stuff. Now, you know, it can make sense to have us as your backend, you know, not only for optimizing the stuff that you have, but for trying to like help grow that stuff, right? Like we are always like happy to, you know, like you said, I'll, you know, get on the phone and try to help someone close a brand. Even if we've just like, you know, met and had like a brief introductory phone call, but especially for our partners that are like sellers, We'll, you know, like like them expanding their business is like me expanding my business. So, you know, we've had a couple relationships where we will get on on a conference call with the Brand and our client, who's the exclusive seller, and they will introduce us as, hey, we have a strategic partnership with OBG. They do all our back end work. And so through our relationship has now just been enhanced totally by us having all these new muscles type of thing. And then sometimes the way that will work because that, you know, three to 5,000 minimum, like I said, is hard to bite off for most exclusive resellers. So sometimes we'll start off with like our PPC only, maybe throw in a listing or two just for free for their biggest client, just to like show them what they're capable of. What we're capable of is just so like, They can then upsell to that client and then they can afford us, right? Speaker 2: So it's like go charge it back. Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So yeah, super flexible and just, you know, if we see opportunity and we see somebody who, you know, has a legitimate opportunity in front of them, like we will absolutely help to like get that over the line because we know if you're just like a couple deals away from, you know, from being super legit, you know. Speaker 2: And that's the direction I've been pushing a lot of folks towards, both people within our community and just random people that I kind of talk to in the industry, is I tell people, you become a sales and marketing machine. You get really good at doing outbound. You get really good at posting content on LinkedIn and attracting brand owners to you, inbound leads. And then partner with somebody like a Jon or just somebody on the back end to handle the fulfillment, right? You master sales and marketing and then you partner with an agency like Jon to handle the back end. And really, I think that's the best way to go about it because then you as the seller, you really only need to focus on sales and marketing and you don't have to master fulfillment as well. You need to know enough to be dangerous, but you can learn enough to be dangerous in a weekend. And then having somebody to actually execute like yourself, that's to me, I think is a really good partnership. That's not like, hey, I need to go and give away 50% of the equity in my company to a partner who's going to handle that side. No, let's just partner with a service provider who we can pay a retainer to or who can just, or we could just charge their cost to the brand and then it's just free for us, right? There's a million different ways you can structure it. Yep. Speaker 1: And yeah, kind of conversely, like from our point of view, like I don't want to spend any time on sales and marketing. Like our whole business has grown by referral, by word of mouth, like literally a hundred percent. And now we're just adding this like really aggressive affiliate program because if I can focus all day on just like servicing clients and doing a good job for them and you know we got people coming in the door then you know I'm super happy to break off a piece of our pie for that. So I don't want to get good at sales and marketing personally and I'm happy to just stay good at fulfillment. So yeah it's like I totally agree with what you said. Speaker 2: Well, it's like you know your lane and you stay in it. It's a great way to be. And one of the reasons I know you guys are good is because the first brand that I referred you guys was almost two years ago now. It might even be over two years ago now and you guys have had them, they've been a client ever since, right? I get that affiliate payment every single month from Dan for that deal that you guys closed two years ago, which is great for me as an affiliate, right? It's monthly passive income. So for folks who are thinking to themselves, Hey, maybe I've got a lot of leads, but I don't really know where to send them. Or maybe what they need is kind of above my area of expertise. Send them over to Jon and Jon, I'll let you go ahead and drop your contact information or any, anywhere you want people to reach out to you. And we'll go ahead and wrap up from here. Speaker 1: Yeah, so you can reach out to me on our website, onlinebrandgrowth.com. Just book an intro call or if you just want to like chat more casually prior to then, send me a DM, Facebook. I'm on X. I'm on LinkedIn sort of. Shoot me an email. I could just maybe, Corey, just share all the information to put in the show notes and stuff. But yeah, just give me a holler. I'm happy to jam out with you even on, you know, just like helping you build your business. You know, happy to any of these related topics. Speaker 2: Well, there you go. And guys, we'll put all of Jon's information in the description and show notes below. And guys, if you enjoyed this episode and you haven't yet given us a rating, take two seconds, give us five stars. It really helps out. With that, we'll be back next week with a new episode. Jon, thanks for your time, man. Speaker 1: Thanks, Corey. This was awesome.