#303 – Seller Hacks From The Front Lines Of The Billion Dollar Seller Summit 2022

#303 - Seller Hacks From The Front Lines Of The Billion Dollar Seller Summit 2022 Speaker 1: Welcome to episode 303 of the AM PM podcast. This episode is being released on August 18th. And right now, as we speak, there's about 100 or so Amazon sellers on a party boat listening to music by two Amazon sellers who used to be DJs in their former life, Leo Scovio, And Danny McMillan. And you know, for the last four days, these guests have been at the Billion Dollar Seller Summit in Austin. That's my event that I put on twice a year, once in person and once virtually. The next virtual one's coming up in February of 2023. And the next live one is coming up in the summer of 2023 in Puerto Rico. So what I want to do in this episode is while all these great sellers were in town in Austin, I wanted to corner as many of them as I can and get some really cool nuggets of information from them. And I want to share those with you today. So I recorded as many of the guests as I could while they were checking in earlier this week for the event. And I asked them to share something with you that's pretty cool. So I've gathered the best ones here. So I hope you enjoy this collage of wisdom from some of the top sellers in the Amazon space. Enjoy it. Unknown Speaker: Welcome to the AM-PM Podcast. Welcome to the AM-PM Podcast, where we explore opportunities in e-commerce. We dream big and we discover what's working right now. Plus, this is the podcast where money never sleeps. Working around the clock in the AM and the PM. Are you ready for today's episode? I said, are you ready? Let's do this. Here's your host, Kevin King. Speaker 1: All right, I'm here with Sean and Seth from Post Purchase Pro. Sean is one of the speakers at the Billion Dollar Seller Summit. Sean, why did you decide to come and actually speak at this event? Speaker 2: Well, because you invited me, Kevin. I had to twist your arm a little bit, but I'll tell you, honestly, the virtual event was so much fun. I had so much great feedback that when you sent me an email with the subject line, Sean Hart spewing gold in Austin, I literally made my nipples hard, man, seriously. Speaker 1: Well, I know you got some good stuff to share. And you're here with your business partner, Seth, what do you guys actually do? Speaker 2: So what Seth and I discovered was that our ability to build a real customer list from our Amazon business allowed us to to grow a lot more quickly and a lot more profitably. And at the end, when we exit our businesses, which we've sold 17 now, we're able to command a higher multiple than our peers because we don't only have an Amazon business, but we actually have a brand and a customer list that we can easily tap into for ongoing sales. So when we sold our last brand, Kevin, we decided to make an effort to help other Amazon sellers build a customer list and show sellers how to tap into that list to create more sales and higher rankings and more reviews. Speaker 1: So what are you going to be talking about here? What did you talk about this week at the Billion Dollar Seller Summit? Speaker 2: I'm going to be talking about my strategy called the Amazon Launch Domination. Speaker 1: So what's something someone's going to miss? Someone that didn't come here. What is just one little quick thing? Share just one little small thing really quick of what they missed by not seeing your whole presentation. Speaker 2: Well, if they're not here, first of all, they're missing out on cash prizes because I plan on handing out a bunch of hundred dollar bills. That's okay with you. I get your buy-in on that. I'm going to show folks how they can eliminate all the risk associated with launching a new product on Amazon. And we do that by using fundamental old school marketing practices without giving away the farm there. Speaker 1: So Seth, what's something that in today's world and that Amazon sellers really need to be aware of? Whether you're new or you're experienced, what's a big mistake you see a lot of them making that if they just made this one little tweak or this one little change, it could make a big difference for them. Speaker 3: So Kevin, what I've seen over the years is like People spend so much time trying to like find the perfect product or launch the perfect product. And then once they find that product, what they do is they, they say, okay, let me go back to the drawing board. Let me go try to find a completely new product. And it's crazy. So what Sean and I have done over the years is when we find a good product, we do a process that we call creative cloning. We clone ourselves in that same market, Kevin, so we can take up more and more of that market share. So for instance, when we were selling bamboo pillows, we found that we could easily rank Um, our product and we started selling about $30,000 per month. Well, what we did, um, we started targeting like sub niches. So, um, we started targeting like side sleepers and back sleepers and stomach sleepers, and we created brand new separate listings for each one of those types of sleepers. So we had multiple listings on page one, all creating $30,000 a month in sales. Speaker 1: So it's the exact same product, exact same product, a lot of the same images. Maybe the main image is slightly different or something. Speaker 3: The main image is different because you want to attract a different customer. But imagine Kevin, you go to Amazon and you search bamboo pillow. And then on the page, you see, you know, all the listings look different, but eight of them are ours. So we're sucking in $30,000 per month from each one of those listings. And that business ended up doing about $300,000 a month and we sold it, but it never ever would have been nearly that big if we wouldn't have stuck with that one market. So my tip for sellers is once you find something that's working, expand into it and clone yourself into that market. And so Sean, I know we talk about like Tylenol does this by taking up more shelf space, right? So if you walk into any CVS, Kevin, you look at the shelf and you're like, Oh, I have a headache. Do I want Tylenol or do I want Tylenol headache or Tylenol migraine? Well, which one is it? Well, if you look at the ingredients, the ingredients are the same. They just have more shelf space. So they create a lot more sales because of that. Speaker 1: That's awesome. That's an awesome tip. So what about people? There's someone listening right now says, Oh, that's gotta be against the terms of service. You're selling the same product. You know, you're just tricking the system or something. What would How would you answer that? Speaker 3: Well, it's definitely not against terms of service because you as the brand owner get to decide. And the only thing that creates a new product in Amazon's eyes as from you as a brand owner is if it has a different UPC. So if you think about like Nike, for instance, if you bought a pair of shoes off of Nike from Amazon and then you got the shoes and you're like, oh man, these look similar to, you know, the old Air Force Ones or whatever. Well, when Amazon views that, they don't say these, these shoes are similar to what Nike already released. They say Nike released a new product. How do I know that? I scan the UPC and Nike says that they have a new shoe. So definitely not against TOS because you get to decide what's a different product in your catalog. Speaker 1: You guys have a webinar coming up in October or something about some sort of hack or something. Tell me, tell them a little bit about that. Speaker 2: Well, first of all, last June, it's, it's been taken out of the public eye now, but we did a 31 hacks webinar. So my goal is 49 hacks in October. I'm setting the bar high. I think even you, when you go out, you do what? 15 or 20 hacks? Speaker 1: I do 50, I do 100 sometimes. Speaker 2: You do 100 sometimes? Speaker 1: You got a ways to go. Speaker 2: So I'm only half as good as you. Okay. Speaker 1: You're not, you're not there yet. I've got a 99 hacks PDF that we. Speaker 2: Oh, okay. I like to get a copy of that without an NDA, if you don't mind. So we're going to, we're going to do it. It's all good. Speaker 1: We'll trade. We'll trade. Speaker 2: I'm going to put me in coach. That's what we're here for. So basically we're going to come on, Seth and I are going to, we're JV with a bunch of other agencies and service providers in our space. And we're going to do, we're shooting for 49 hacks. A lot of JV partners will be submitting hacks, but these are rapid fire three to five minutes max per hack. It's like, here's the hack. Here's how it works. Here's why you should pay attention. Here's how to implement it. And then onto the next one. Speaker 1: How do I get it? How do I find out about that? How do I follow you to find out about that? Speaker 2: pppro.co slash 49 hacks, number four, number nine. Speaker 1: Awesome, guys. I appreciate you being here, man, at the Billion Dollar Seller Summit. Looking forward to having some great times together. I'm here with Michelle and Isabella. Michelle and Isabella, welcome to the BDSS. How are you doing? Speaker 4: Thank you. Speaker 5: What's up? What's up, Kevin? Speaker 1: I'm so excited to have you here. Now, you've both been to one of these before, so why are you back? What is it about these that makes it different? Speaker 4: I think it's the quality of the speakers and it's different every single time. Also different networking settings and setups that make it really memorable. You do a great job with that. Speaker 1: I appreciate that. Speaker 5: For me, it's all about the fun. No, really, guys. Well, one, I come here because I get to see my family. It's my my friends, my my extended family, the way I see it in this Amazon space. You know, we have each other because it's a huge world out there and we have each other and it's like, ah. I know him and then I know him more and then I know him more. And next thing you know, you go to each other's wedding. But I'm here for the people. I'm here definitely for the knowledge that I think it's one of the best in the in our industry. And it's always up to date. And you always bring amazing faces and new energy and just, you know, always staying on top of what's current. And I think that's what I appreciate most about you. You always go and get it and you bring it to us. So how can I not be here? Where would I be? Speaker 1: So what is it about going to events? There's a lot of people that you know, they watch you. You Isabella on the podcast, the seller sessions that you do, they hear you speak on some virtual events. What's the difference in doing it, coming to an actual event where there's other like-minded people, other people that kind of get you and understand you? Speaker 5: Yeah, well, I think the answer is literally in your question is, you know, I think as we get older, we do find comfort in knowing other people who are similar to us and in our like-mindedness and, you know, Amazon is what attracted us together. However, Look how many friendships and relationships have been built outside just Amazon. I mean, how many people in the industry already have different careers and different connections and relationships with other people. So it's even beyond Amazon. So coming here is basically that. It's like you make friends, but friends that can turn into possible future relationships as well. Speaker 1: And sometimes it's just the things you like, like Norm, for example, and me and Norm have become good friends. He and I and our wives just went on an Alaskan cruise together. And, you know, and every night we're shooting the shit, shooting the shit, smoking a cigar. I smoked cigars nine nights in a row with Norm. Speaker 5: That's why your voice is so sexy. Extra sexy today, Kevin. I can see why now. Speaker 1: Stuff comes out of that like just like you know I've talked to him I've known him for years, but just last night We're sitting there talking about some some business idea, and he's like oh, I know this guy that can help you I'll enter make the introduction he would never thought of that that would never happened any other place But it happened just because we're just hanging out and just we happen to be talking about something like oh wait I know a guy from like 10 years ago that can help you with that. Yeah, let me make the introduction He sent the email. We're already talking. Speaker 4: I was just gonna comment on your point about that like Getting out of your bubble, you know, the opportunity to reflect on what you're doing and versus what other people are doing. You know, you can really reach out and see what's going right for other people and they can also see that for you and that helps. Speaker 1: A lot of people say it's expensive to go to events or this event's one of the most expensive out there and so people don't understand the ROI you can get if you really go to the right events and meet the right people and so I think that's something a lot of people have trouble with. It's like I can't afford $700 for a ticket, I mean this one costs a lot more than that, but for like a Helium 10 event and then the hotel and then the airfare and by the end of it I'm gonna spend two grand. I just don't know if it's worth that. Speaker 4: I think you have to be smart about it. I remember the first year I was in e-commerce, I went to every single event I heard about. It's like, then what's the next shiny event to go to? And after that year, I became really, really selective with the quality of the speakers, knowing that those people are going to be available at the networking sessions. I think you have to be really selective in how you spend your time when you go to these events, because there is a cost. But if you're in the right group that you can benefit from, which is BDSS, You can see a huge ROI, something you would never think with. Speaker 1: If I'm new to the space or maybe I'm just getting started, how do I know there's so many events? I'm getting so many stuff on Facebook. I'm getting emails. There's so many different virtual events and in-person events. How do I choose? Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that is true. You see a lot of ads pop up, you see a lot of advertising, and you have to dig in and see who's involved, who else is going, what did they contribute, what else have they been a part of, because that's going to tell their story, right? Speaker 1: So Michelle, tell the audience a little bit about what you do. Speaker 4: Oh, well, I am in a few different industries. E-commerce is one of them. I'm a seller on Amazon, and I have a promotional products business, AustinATXPromotionalProducts.com. And I just enjoy having a lot of diversity, being involved in a lot of industries, real estate I'm really passionate about as well. So, you know, e-commerce, the opportunities are endless. Your ability to scale that business is beyond nothing that's existed before. Speaker 1: Awesome. So Isabella, your company RankBell is one of the sponsors of the Billion Dollar Seller Summit. I really appreciate that. And you're also one of the speakers here. So you get a double whammy. You get to go on stage twice. Speaker 5: I know that meant double work for me. This is the most work I've ever done in the past eight years. Thanks, Kevin. Speaker 1: How do people get in touch with you or find you if they want to know more about what you're doing? Speaker 5: Rangbell.com, Facebook, Isabella Hamilton. You guys can Google me, find me on Helium 10. You know, they're my favorites. You can probably find some posts related to Kevin King, so you can find me probably on his page. But yeah, I'm just here trying to make people happy and give as much value as I have and hope to get more value from others who know more than me. So let's go. Speaker 1: You'll be at Sell and Scale, Helium 10's event next month in Vegas and you're speaking there as well. Speaker 5: I am. Speaker 1: Awesome. Thanks ladies. Appreciate you stopping by. All right, now I've got to Rob Stanley. Rob's from Gatita. Sometimes you might not recognize this guy if you saw him because a lot of times he's wearing like an outfit with all money on it. It's like a money suit when you see him at events. But he's not wearing that right now. He's just wearing a black shirt that says Gatita. You know, Gatita is one of these companies that's been a sponsor of the Billion Dollar Seller Summit since the very first one. They're one of the OGs. They've been there. They've even already signed up for next year to actually sponsor. Rob, I'm so happy to have Gatita and have you here at the Billion Dollar Seller Summit. Welcome, man. Speaker 6: Yeah. Unknown Speaker: Thanks, Kevin. It's great to be here. Absolutely amazing event. One of the top events, as you know, I go to a lot of events. I mean, I think I'm on event number 18 this year already and always recommend Billion Dollar Seller Summit. The content here, of course, I'm not allowed to give it away, but there's some amazing content that even though it's been several years since I've actually sold, It's just amazing to hear some of the information that people give here that stays right within the room. It's content that is not given anywhere else. It stays right here. And the tips are walk away type tips that you can put into action immediately. And that was one of the most amazing things I've seen at any events. A lot of times you see recycled content or you'll see things that are, I don't want to say generic, but they're things that are kind of already information already available. And here, the information here is not available anywhere else. Speaker 1: When you get, you see a lot at Katita, I mean, so if you're not familiar with Katita, it's G-E-T-I-D-A dot com. They help you recover money that's just kind of sitting on the floor at Amazon. You know, Amazon sometimes misplaces things, they lose things. Customers say they're going to return something, they don't return it. There's a whole litany of things that they damage stuff and don't reimburse you. So Katita comes in and they got a really good process of humans. This is not something like automated software, but humans that go in And actually find these problems and work it on your behalf. And then they get a little small piece of whatever they recover. But in the end, I know people that have recovered. Yeah, I remember a seller I was in New York and they said there's like over a million dollars There's a big seller over a million dollars that Amazon owed them that through all their previous efforts That was still left sitting on the table. You guys came in and you weren't able to recover all 1 million There's there's you know, sometimes there's little hiccups or little delays or you know There's it's out of the range of when you can file a claim or whatever, but you got them back like Some crazy amount like $700,000 or something like that and they were just tickle pink. So you see a lot of stuff that sellers are making mistakes on or maybe not taking advantage of. What would you give advice to the AM-PM Podcast audience here on something they need to really pay attention to that you just see it's over and over that a lot of them are just missing? Unknown Speaker: Yeah, the one we see the most is the weights and measurement issues. With the weight measurement type issue, we can only go back about 90 days from your sales that have incorrect weights or measurements. And we do have actually a tool in our dashboard that allows you to download the current weight measurements of your items in Amazon, what they say, what Amazon says the weights and measurements are. Speaker 1: So wait, wait, wait. So when I, when I fill out my listing, just so everybody understands, it asks you like, what, how much does your item weigh? And you'll say, I don't know, 17 ounces or whatever. It'll say, what are the measurements? And you put in, uh, you know, 20 centimeters by 10 centimeters or maybe by six centimeters or an inches or whatever. And, but that's not what Amazon actually always uses. Right? So you may think I'm good and you may not be paying attention, but when, when a product first comes in, Amazon remeasures it and reweighs it. And sometimes they make some pretty big mistakes. Speaker 6: Absolutely. Speaker 1: Sometimes even one centimeter or one ounce because of packaging or whatever can just shoot the cost up and so that's what you're talking about, right? Unknown Speaker: Yeah, because you know, the weight or the measurement could put you in the next category. So let's say maybe something shipping out at $10 from Amazon's FBA, when it really should be shipping out at $5 because somehow the weight or the measurement got incorrect. When it got to the warehouse, they use the cubic meter machine or whatever it's called to measure it and check the weight on it. So what you're allowed to do is kind of audit them, audit them on the weights and measurements. So What we usually recommend is keeping track of your products, weights and dimensions ahead of time before you ship them in and then check back probably once every couple months, download the current weight and measurements, take a look and see if you see a discrepancy, put the correct one in, hit submit, Katita takes over from there and we basically go back and try to get every item that was sold in the last 90 days If there's a discrepancy, so let's say we're shipping out $10 and it should have been shipping at five, there's a $5 discrepancy. Every single item that shipped out at that incorrect one, we'll try to get you that $5 back. Now, during Q4, that could be thousands of items. I mean, you're talking thousands of dollars. Now, if you don't take advantage of that and do that within that 90 day timeframe, Amazon keeps that money. So you only have 90 days worth of shipments that go out, or we can only go back 90 days basically to get you those. Speaker 1: Yeah, the exact problem happened last year. I have one of my business's calendars. I've talked about this before. They're flat. They're like 12 inches by 12 inches by, I don't know, a quarter of an inch thick or something. They're shrink-wrapped. I have four different titles that we send into Amazon as FBA. We sent them all in last year. All four of them had different, they're exactly same, same paper, same everything, just, you know, there's different artwork inside it, but they all had different measurements and all had different weights. And one of them was, It's a $20 item. They were charging me an $11 FBA fee on this one. It should be $2.48. Dang, that's a big discrepancy. It's a big one. I didn't catch it, you know, for about a month because I'm looking here and seeing the deposits come in. I'm like, man, our sales are up this year, but the amount of cash coming in is a little bit lower. What the heck's going on here? So I started diving deep. I was like, holy cow, look at this. And I was, thankfully it was in the 90 days. So I was able to file a claim myself and get them to fix it. But then it didn't fix everything. They only just corrected it going forward. And then so what I did is I went with Katita and Katita went back and actually got all those for like it was six weeks worth or something. But it was like $13,000, $15,000, something like that. It was a crazy amount of money that I just would have been burning in a fire if I didn't have someone like Katita. So I really appreciate you guys helping on that. Yeah, absolutely. Just one other note I want to make is that a lot of people listen to this, you know, you have access to Helium 10. Helium 10 has a tool within it that you can actually go and you can get some of this money back. It'll help create some of the forms and Katita will be the first to tell you, hey, go do that first. You know, go do that first because it's not going to cost you a dime. Go get what you can using Helium 10. Then once the Helium 10 has got you what they can, then let Katita come in and they'll pick up all the scraps. Sometimes those scraps are like really, really big. So using those two in conjunction with each other can be an extremely powerful thing. So if you haven't gone to the katita.com, make sure you do that. Go to Helium 10 first, get what you can using the tools if you have access to Helium 10 because it's not going to, you know, continue to charge you about a 25% recovery charge, but it's worth it. But go get what you can first for free basically on Helium 10, try it yourself and then let them come behind you and take care of all the ones that you can't get. Speaker 7: Yeah. Unknown Speaker: And we're actually partners with Helium 10, just so everybody knows. Refund Genie, we absolutely recommend you use that. Again, if you submit it yourself, we'll see that you submitted it. We won't resubmit it for you. But for some reason, if it gets kicked back from Amazon, We'll take a look at it. Maybe you filled it out incorrectly. Maybe we can help you with it and resubmit it. If we help you resubmit it, we will obviously charge a fee. But if you submit it yourself and we see you submit it, we will not touch that. You keep all that money from Refund Genie. We're on Helium 10's partnership page and everything. So we love Helium 10 and absolutely do it yourself. And if you don't, if you get too big, we're happy to take over and help you with that. Speaker 1: Rob, thanks so much, man, for your time. Speaker 3: Thanks, Kevin. Unknown Speaker: I appreciate it. Speaker 1: All right, we're back with our next guest here at the Billion Dollar Seller Summit. I've got Matt and Ryan. Ryan Kramer, how you doing, man? Speaker 5: I'm doing well, Kevin. Speaker 6: How are you? Speaker 1: Good. Ryan, is this your first Billion Dollar Seller Summit to come to? Unknown Speaker: First one in person. I've been to two or three virtually. So I've been to all the ones virtually, which is nice to see people not in the screen for the first time. Speaker 1: And you just recently made a change, I think, right? What are you doing these days? Unknown Speaker: I did. I'm now head of marketing and growth over at First Choice Shipping. Speaker 1: So First Choice is based in the New York area, right? Speaker 7: Correct. Speaker 1: Brooklyn. Speaker 6: Yeah. Speaker 1: In Brooklyn, they've been around a while and they really specialize in helping e-commerce sellers, not just in the US, but like you said, all over the world. What is it about First Choice that's different? Why should someone take a look at them? Unknown Speaker: Yeah, so Matt was just telling me before this, he said anytime goods or services are moving across border, no matter what level of business you're in, if you're a starter or if you're an international expert, And growing your business to nine figures. A lot of people have to have that headache of taxes, rebates, or any sort of like getting money back from the government if they're sending goods into a different country. But with that headache, why we're so important is because we put the customer first. I think having that hands-on approach, making it very simple for people to Get their goods into a different country. Actually, I learned about this. Half of the top 1,000 sellers aren't even selling in different countries worldwide. So they're selling in one market and that's it. So it's a big growth opportunity for sellers around the world. As long as there's no headache there. So they're trying to make it simple, straightforward. And I think that's what we're all here is trying to streamline processes, find where growth is in the world and go from there. Speaker 1: Awesome. And Matt, this is like your first Billion Dollar Seller Summit, right? Unknown Speaker: Yeah, first in person, second, I think in total. Speaker 1: Awesome. Well, I'm glad you're here. But what are you looking for out of an event like this? Unknown Speaker: You know, honestly, I think it's just the meeting of all the top people in the space. Like if you want to know what's going on, what's working for others and kind of sharing that knowledge, there's no better place to be. Speaker 1: You run some serious numbers in the Amazon space. Can you talk a little bit about that? Speaker 7: Yeah. Unknown Speaker: Um, so outside of my personal stuff, we, we also run an agency where we're pushing about 300 million a year in sales on Amazon across like 40, 45 brands. So a lot of volume, a lot of knowledge and work on just about every single category. Speaker 1: So, what's something that you're seeing out there? I mean, you're running $300 million on your agency side plus the stuff that you do personally. What's something that you see and that people really need to pay attention to right now that just a lot of sellers are just like overlooking or maybe it's something that's coming that, you know, that's going to catch everybody by surprise or I don't know. What's some good little nugget that you could share? Unknown Speaker: Yeah, no, I think the biggest thing is really brand building on the platform as a whole. I've been on Amazon now for 13 years and you used to be able to just throw whatever the heck you wanted up and sell it. And I mean, honestly, up until a few years ago, you could still do that very successfully. And now where we're actually seeing that growth, like we can get products to a million dollars a month, but like getting from a million to two is almost impossible without that brand behind it. And now we're launching sequential products under those brands and using that as kind of our leverage to scale out our width of customers that are coming in and also upselling them into our other products, which is Kind of like the case study I shared at, I think, Helium 10 and at Howard's where we took a single client from around $700,000 in revenue a month to about $4.5 million in six months with two new products. Speaker 1: What's the name of that agency? Speaker 6: Right Setup. Speaker 1: How do you spell that? Unknown Speaker: R-I-G-H-T space S-I-D-E space up. Speaker 1: Awesome. Speaker 2: Yep. Speaker 1: Well, gentlemen, I appreciate you coming on and I appreciate you being here. Speaker 6: Yeah, thanks, Kevin. Speaker 1: Norm Farrar is the next person sitting down here at the table on the AM PM podcast at the BDSS. Norm, how are you doing, man? Unknown Speaker: I am doing awesome. Speaker 1: I haven't seen you in what's been like two weeks, three weeks or something like that. Unknown Speaker: Yeah, we were freezing the last time I saw you. Speaker 1: So Norm is a, you know, I met Norm back in 2017 at the, the Illuminati event, which is a helium 10 event. It's now called helium 10 elite, but in Cancun and didn't really get to know him there. You know, I just saw this guy with a beard and I'm like, that guy looks interesting, but didn't really. Didn't really probably said five words to you or something the whole place there. But now that now as we've gone to a lot of events, found out he's a huge cigar aficionado. And so now we see each other all over the place, we hang out, we're doing a couple little projects together. In fact, he and Me and both of our wives just recently did an Alaskan cruise together where every night for nine nights in a row, I've never done this before, nine nights in a row it was cigars and Coke Zeros on the deck of this cruise ship in Alaska and you have to picture this. So this is a big cruise ship and we're cruising up in Alaska where it's bloody cold, you know, it's a summer but it's still pretty cold. And the smoking area is like the tail of the ship, it's like the back of the ship, you know, and the back of the ship is getting all this wind and it's like this one little area that you can go and it's like it's a very small area where you can go and it's dripping, drizzling, it's like icebergs. Exploding by and you know, we're out there shivering like our teeth are chattering, smoking our cigars and drinking some Coke Zeros and people like, why don't you drink a coffee or something? Well, we like Coke Zeros and shooting the shit, you know, just about business and life and everything. It was a ton of fun. It's always good to see you, Norm. Unknown Speaker: And you too, Kevin. Yeah, we did have a lot of fun. And some of those nights, I don't think you're counting the nights we had two cigars. Speaker 1: That's true. That's true. That's true. Sometimes we actually did a second one. But you know, that's one of my favorite things about these kind of events is you come out and you meet people like yourself. You know, I would never met you in real life somewhere else. But because we went to events, you know, you get to know people. And yeah, sometimes you make business partnerships. Sometimes you learn something from them. But other times, You're just hanging out and I was just telling the story earlier to Isabella and Michelle that last night we're sitting there talking, you know, you and I have seen each other for, I don't know how many times, spend a lot of time together. And last night we're sitting there talking about something and you're like, you know what, I've got a guy for that. You know, I said something, you're like, you know what, I got a guy for that, that I need to introduce you to. Something personal and something business, both. And you just don't get that if you don't come out to this type of stuff. You got to put yourself in the situations to create the opportunities. And that's what a lot of people, I think, forget in this space is they just stay at home. They just watch, you know, Lunch with Norm, your great podcast, which is an awesome podcast three times a week that he does at a noon Eastern time on Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays. So check that out if you haven't checked that out, but they just watch that. They don't get out to the event. So why is it important to come to things like this? Unknown Speaker: You know, education is one thing. Education, especially at BDSS, and I have to say, it is a premium, awesome event. Whenever I talk about great events, I do talk about BDSS. But beyond the education, it is the networking. It's getting to know people. You know what's the difference between Zoom and coming to a live event? It's breaking bread. You don't get the same experience sitting back and going into a networking room on Zoom. When you come here and you can sit across from somebody and you can, you know, just have dinner with them, see what they're like, see their personality. That's a whole other ballgame. And you build relationships and it's all about your network. Like you're nothing without a network. You might think you could do it all your own, but you won't. You need a network. And the more you come out to these, especially the advanced ones, you get to meet more advanced sellers. And, you know, that's what I see as part of my success is just getting to know people like yourself. Speaker 1: That's expensive. I mean, some events are cheap, you know, four or five hundred bucks. You know, Helium 10's got a big event coming up that's under a thousand dollars, which is going to be a great event. But this event cost a little bit more than a thousand dollars, quite a bit more, actually, not a little bit more, like six times more. Plus your airfare, plus your hotel, you know, plus your time commitment to come out. So what is it about something like this that makes it different than, you know, another event or should people just They're crazy for paying this kind of money. You know, I put stuff on Facebook. I always get some smart-ass comments like, yeah, billionaire's right. Yeah, you're scamming people. Quit scamming people. What is it about this type of event that costs this much? And there's a reason. It's a high-end event. There's a lot of costs that people don't realize, but it also is a barrier to make sure that the right people are here. So what do you think about that? Unknown Speaker: Well, I've always heard this and you have to believe in it. You have to invest in yourself. So a lot of the time, there's a lot of information that's out there in the marketplace. You can go to YouTube, you can go to social media channels if you want to do it for free, but you don't know how accurate it is. At least on our podcasts, we try to get experts in that know what it's all about. But you never know where you're getting that information from. When you pay for events, well, it's great for somebody starting out and getting to know people, you build your network there. But when you go to the next level, and then to the next level, I mean, we've gone to some $24,000 events together. There is quality people there, increase your network, and in fact, I was talking about this the other day, about taking the event, the Illuminati event, and saying, oh, who did I meet there, and where did that lead me? Go to the next event, Regalena Sarris, I met her there, I met Todd Snively there, of course, you and Manny. I mean, Manny, Guy, and your relationship really came from that event. And then you take a look at where did they get introduced to, who did we get introduced to, Man, it is worth the money, you know, it is just worth the money. But if you don't have it right up front, then just go out and seek, you know, like a meetup, go to meetups and meet people. There's other events out there. But if you can go when you get to that mid range, and you want to get to the next level, I highly recommend coming out to a more advanced event like this. Speaker 1: So you host the Lunch with Norm podcast, which is an awesome podcast. Check that out at Lunch. Look it up on YouTube. You can find it on all the podcast channels, on Facebook. You talk to a lot of people, you know, every week you're talking to a lot of people and you're from all walks of the e-commerce kind of field. What's something that you're seeing that's, hey, you know, that rang a bell with me. Sellers need to be paying attention to this now. If they're not paying attention to something or haven't been doing something, it could be a trend, it could be a tactic, it could be... What do you think that would be that people need to really sit up and pay attention to? Unknown Speaker: Well, there's two things. And one is just their listing optimization. Their listings, people think it's one and done. And it's constantly evolving. You have to go, you have to check out your competitors, you have to go and check out your competitors listings, go to Google, check it out everywhere. And then the second thing, so check out the Amazon internal tools, most of them are under the catalog. But the other thing is, Don't stick to just Amazon. There's all sorts of other platforms, retailers, but I'm going back to retail. I'm taking a look at the mom and pops. I'm going into the bricks and mortar. They can make up a ton of sales, much more than Amazon. Speaker 1: Those of you listening, if you haven't been to an event, get out to the Sale & Scale event, Helium 10's event that's happening in September in Las Vegas. You can check that out. I'll be out there. I think Norm's seeing if he can clear his schedule and maybe he'll be out there, but a lot of other, it's gonna be a great event. More than a thousand people, I believe, they're expecting and just get out and network. Rub elbows with other people that are like you and it can really help you in your business. Unknown Speaker: What I like about that one too is that it is more affordable. It's roughly around a thousand bucks and there are a ton of speakers. I don't know how many there are. Speaker 1: I'm not sure exactly what the 30, 40, something like that. Unknown Speaker: Something like that. So there's a lot of knowledge that you can get from going to an event like that. And if there's a thousand people or 1500 people in the crowd, start talking. Speaker 1: Exactly. You never know what's going to come out of the hallways. Speaker 2: Exactly. Speaker 1: Well, Norm, I really appreciate it, man. Looking forward. I know you're not speaking at this one. You spoke at previous Billion Dollar Seller Summits, but you're just here to absorb. Speaker 6: Exactly. Speaker 1: And just be a sponge. So it's great seeing you, man. And thanks for coming on. Speaker 2: All right. Speaker 6: And good luck this weekend. Speaker 1: Appreciate it. Ben Weber, thanks for sitting down here at the AM-PM Podcast table. Welcome to another BDSS for you. Speaker 7: Thank you. I'm happy to be here. Speaker 1: So you've come in the past as an attendee. How many times have you been as an attendee? Speaker 7: I've been to two in person and one or two virtuals. Speaker 1: And then this time you're actually speaking. Right? Speaker 7: Yeah. Apparently people want to hear something. Speaker 1: So how does that feel actually going from attendee to speaker? So is it like an extra pressure now or is it an extra like, okay, I can't just relax and yeah, it is definitely more pressure. Speaker 7: I just want to make sure that I'm actually bringing real actual information to people and make sure that it's good enough to live up to the reputation and the experiences I've had here so far. Speaker 1: Yeah, so there's like a standard, I guess that's it. Speaker 7: Absolutely. Speaker 1: There's like a bar here at this event. And so what are you talking about? Speaker 7: I'll be talking about hiring and building a team to scale. Speaker 1: And you've got some really interesting things that you do with your company. I took a look at your website for one of your companies and I was just laughing my ass off. I mean, I was just like the way you hire people and the tongue in cheek and the pictures. And I mean, it's really, really cool what you do. How did you come up with that system or that just evolved over time or? Speaker 7: It kind of evolved over time. We looked at what we didn't like and what we liked about what other companies had done and kind of decided we wanted to do something truly original because to build the culture that we wanted with the employees that we have, we needed to have a website and have a hiring process that matched the team and the culture that we wanted to build. Speaker 1: What's the hardest thing you think for like e-commerce sellers that are starting out, you know, with five, 10,000 bucks and they're doing it out of their house and then they're successful. And then they, they got a, like a holy cow, I got to hire somebody and then hire some more people. And then I got to go get aware of what's, what's that like, uh, for like, it's scary or is it challenging? Speaker 7: It is challenging. It's a lot of fun, but the, Until you realize you have to have systems you have to have processes in place. There's no way to train people there's no way to scale and I think that's the the hardest part like the a lot of the trainings that you can watch and listen to and see talk about how to sell but people don't really tell you how to Grow and manage like I'm about to stock out. What should I do and things like that? It's just not as that level of information or that type of information isn't shared at the same level as kind of the entry-level stuff. Speaker 1: It's not sexy I don't think. It's not the fun stuff. It's the get down in the weeds and dealing with people and hiring and firing and it's almost and sometimes people are afraid to make a mistake you know just like they're afraid to make they have paralysis by analysis when they're trying to pick their first product or their first couple products like am I making the right decision? I'm investing my life savings. It's kind of similar when you're hiring employment. Is this person gonna be able to do the job right? Are they gonna be able to So you actually, you know, do what I've been doing. I'm just gonna have to babysit them and fix all their mistakes all the time. I just do it myself. Speaker 7: Right. Speaker 1: How do you get over that mental block that a lot of people might have? Speaker 7: Same way you do with your first product. You kind of just have to treat it as a learning experience. Like the first hire may not go right. And if that's the case, you have to kind of get back on the horse and use it as a, like that cost me money, but it was a lesson learned. And I, from that I've learned, this is the type of person I want to hire versus what I hired that time. And what kind of traits and characteristics of the employee that you actually care about and that actually are going to make it so that they can do the job and can learn what you want them to do. Speaker 1: Awesome. Well, Ben, I'm so happy to have you here. I'm looking forward to your presentation. I've seen it. It's really good. I think people are going to really enjoy it. Speaker 7: Thank you. I appreciate it. Speaker 1: Look who it is. It's Bradley Sutton. Bradley, you're like, you're bouncing everywhere. One minute you're sending me pictures of eating pizza in Brooklyn. And then like two days later, you're sitting on a beach in Hawaii. And then like a few days later, you're in the Maldives doing Maldives version 22. Speaker 6: And now I'm here in Austin. Speaker 1: Now you're here in Austin at the Billion Dollar Seller Summit. What's up, man? Speaker 6: It's great to be here. I don't know how many virtuals and in person there's been, but I've been to all of them, I think so. Speaker 1: It's six. This is number six. This is the fourth in person and there's been two virtual. So, and I think you've been to or participated in all of them, I think. I think sometimes I remember the first one you were sleeping. We were out the F1 track. It's a part of what we do in this. It's not just presentations, but we have a networking day. We actually have a day and a half of networking stuff. Some pretty cool stuff happening on Tuesday that Bradley, that you're going to want to. Speaker 6: I have to stay awake for it. Speaker 1: It's pretty cool. It's like a little amazing race kind of meets Amazon kind of thing. Speaker 6: Okay. Speaker 1: It's pretty cool. Yeah. So, uh, I remember the first one, Bradley, he's bouncing all over the place and we're out at the F1 track and, and people were racing, you know, Manny is Guillermo and they're the back when they're still at helium 10 and everybody's racing cars and we have a lunch and everybody's chowing down on this lunch. And I look over and here's a Bradley, he found a little corner and was curled up on a couch. Just sleeping because he had been bouncing all over the place doing meetups and everything. But man, I'm happy to have you out here. You're here on behalf of Helium 10. Helium 10 is one of the sponsors of the Billion Dollar Seller Summit. What do you think is cool about coming to this? You said you've been to them all. What is it that you like about the Billion Dollar Seller Summit? Speaker 6: Well, first of all, you're probably one of the best event coordinators, you know, you and Mark out here, like the, you know, you, you mentioned the F1 thing and every year it's different things. This was my first ever time axelring. And now I do that all the time, like back home, like I never would have even known that there was a such thing as axelring if it wasn't, it wasn't for doing that here. And, um, And you always, uh, you know, put on a good show and, and that's, that's the first part because, you know, you can, you can go to a show with good people, but if everything's Mickey Mouse, the way it's operated and stuff, it's like, not, you're not going to have a good time, but, but this is on point. And then the, the caliber of people that come here, it's just amazing. You know? So I love coming here and meeting people. I've, I've met probably a good 10, 15 people that eventually were on the podcast, but where I met them was, was here at a, at one of the billion dollar seller summit. So just, just love it. Love coming out here. Speaker 1: I mean, this is an expensive event. You know, it's a pricey ticket. So what is it that someone's got to be thinking of? Like, why the heck would someone pay five or six grand plus their airfare plus their hotel to actually come to something like this? I mean, why? There's so much free stuff online. There's so much YouTube training. There's free summits. You know, why the heck would you actually even consider going to an event that's this expensive? Speaker 6: Yeah. The kind of stuff you get at an event like this is not what people say and podcasts. You're not going to get this on the serious sellers podcasts, you know, or others, because as a matter of fact, the stuff that people say here is under NDA. So literally by contract, they're not supposed to be, be, be mentioning these things, you know, outside. And, and it's just different when, when you're rubbing shoulders with like seven or eight figure sellers, you know, you can't do that on a free YouTube video when you're, you're about three, four drinks in with another seven figure seller, you They're a little bit more liberal with the kind of secrets they give out. And you just can't replace that, you know, with a virtual event or online, unless, you know, it was kind of cool, you know, during the pandemic, I know you started the virtual event and you actually had these like breakout rooms. It almost with virtual tables, round tables. So it kind of like duplicated that. But for the most part, you know, virtual events, you really can't duplicate the kind of networking that you can do at an event like this. Speaker 1: So what's something out there you're seeing right now in the Amazon space where people just, some mistake or some sort of thing that people are just really messing up, whether they're a new listener listening to this or they're an experienced seller, what's something that you're seeing that's maybe shifting in the industry or something that people need to pay attention to or something that you're seeing a lot of people goof on that they need to wake up? Speaker 6: Yeah, just just one interesting thing is I don't know if I want to say I use the word lazy, but I get that vibe nowadays. You know, like it seems like, you know, four or five years ago, people were just hustling, grinding and trying to figure stuff out and just asking questions nonstop. But like half the questions I see sometimes in the Facebook groups is, oh, you know, who can I hire to take care of this for me? And yeah, if you're an eight, nine figure seller, you can't be doing stuff on your own. But I'm seeing like brand new people From like almost day one, like wanting to hire out to do, you know, like their product or to even find them a product or to manage their PPC. And I'm like, yeah, you know, eventually you have to build a team. Very important. But I don't know what's going on where people, I don't know if they're scared or if it's laziness, but I think too many sellers are trying to like hire out and they don't even know what they're doing in the first place. So I don't even know how you're going to be able to judge who you are hiring when you don't know if they're doing a good or bad job since you've never done some of this stuff yourself. Speaker 1: And that's one of the things that we cover here, you know, at the Billion Dollar Seller Summit. We actually have someone speaking about hiring and the processes and how to hire properly because yeah, it's not sexy. It's not something that a lot, everybody always wants to know the latest hack or the latest trick or whatever, but that's when you get to the seven, eight, nine figure level, you got to know those things as well. And so that, that's something that is very important. And so the events like this, I cherry pick the people, you know, we have the heating where we have people come on every month. You and I both go to a lot of events and we know who can deliver. And because we put the pressure on here, I've seen all the presentations and it's not the same old stuff, like you said. And they're up in their game. Some of these people are like spending, someone told me they spent a hundred hours on their presentation. Just like another person told me they've run through it like 13 times and like tweaking it, tweaking it, tweaking it, tweaking it. And then, you know, sometimes me and you just get up there and wing it. It's important. And it's, it's, you know, I'm very selective in who I choose to speak. So the content is, is top notch. But speaking of top notch, I mean, Helium 10 is doing an event in just a few weeks in Las Vegas, sell and scale, or as you told me earlier, S3. What's S3? It's like, well, there's three S's in there. Speaker 6: I'm tired of writing sell and scale summit all together. So let's just shorten it. Speaker 1: Yeah, so that I'm looking really forward to that. You know, Helium 10 is really trying to make this not just another Prosper show or another convention, but there's nothing wrong with Prosper. It's a great show. But they're really trying to put a spin. I mean, you're going to be doing Zumba classes. Janelle's going to be there doing yoga. You know, you got Nelly. You got Gary Vanderchuck coming in. Who knows what the hell he's going to be talking about and how much cussing he's going to be doing. You think I cuss. You got Neil Patel, you got I don't know how many speakers, 30 or 40 of the top speakers that are out there in the space. And it's organized in a unique way. I know a lot of people already have their tickets, but if you don't have a ticket, you need to come out. If you've never been to an event or if it's been a while since you've been to an event, this is the place you need to go. I mean, it's going to be an amazing event and I'm really looking forward to it. What are some things that people may not know or something that like maybe some little insider thing like, hey, you know, we don't really publicize this, but on this day, this is cool things happening. Speaker 6: Well, uh, aside from just, you know, having these different speakers where, you know, you, you come to a billion dollar seller summit, some of the best speakers in the industry, you, you go to a, you know, a prosperous show, there's some great speakers there, but we want to do something a little bit different. We're going to have some speakers that are speaking here at billion dollar summit, you know, some prosperous speakers, but then, you know, like you said, Gary V, Neil Patel, people that you've never seen at an Amazon event, because we didn't want it just to be about Amazon. And, and, uh, one of the cool things is, is it's actually sponsored, you know, the, the, the principal sponsor as Walmart, you know, they're really pushing, you know, their marketplace. And so they, they want to meet in person. So it's, you know, think of like a Apple genius bar that Walmart's going to be there. And you can like, just go up there. Like maybe you haven't been able to get your Walmart account approved. They might be able to approve you on the spot. You know, you've got some questions about WFS. That's their version of FBA. You can ask that, that department on the spot. In addition to Walmart, even Amazon advertising, Is going to be there. They're going to have like a genius bar. You're going to have actual Amazon advertising employees and you can ask them, you know, uh, questions about, you know, what you want to know. And then we get a little bit of a different vibe too on the speakers. We'll have some time, probably a good half of these speakers, not you, you know, you're a solo act, but we actually have two competitors on the stage at the same time. Like people who are both like service providers or experts in one kind of genre. Like for example, we'll have two listing optimization experts. On this, you know, not taking turns, but like literally sharing the stage. So sometimes I think in these conferences, sometimes people like, okay, yeah, here, here's this person saying something, I respect them, but maybe there's a little bit of doubt, like, okay, well, who's, who's fact checking, you know, like they could just be talking stuff and I'm going to take it all in because they're smarter than me. But you know, is it really a hundred percent accurate? Now you're not going to have that kind of idea because you're going to have somebody who's a literal competitor of the other person. So if that person is BSing, The other person is going to call them right. Oh no, I'm sorry. That's not the way things work with A plus content, bro. You know, so you've never really seen that at like an Amazon event. So we're just trying to do a little bit, you know, different. Uh, I go to conferences a lot. Prosper show, like you said, is great. I've been a seller con. It's great. Billion dollar seller summit is great. I went to powwow a couple months ago. I love going to conferences, nothing against those. We just want to do something different and in a helium 10 way. Speaker 1: It's going to be like more than a thousand people are expected, right? Yeah. Speaker 6: You know, byron, knock on wood that there's no, no, no kind of, you know, Omicron theta version 75, you know, that comes, you know, now and then, but yeah, if everybody who says they're going to come, comes then, then it should be, it's going to be over a thousand. Yeah. Speaker 1: So, is there any kind of, if I'm on the edge and I'm thinking about coming, I go to saleandscalesummit.com, saleandscalesummit.com, and is there any kind of code I can use to get a little discount or anything? Speaker 6: Yeah, you can use S3BS, the BS for Bradley Sutton, not the other BS. S3BS100. That S3 is what you learned about the other day. So, I'll save you $100 off. Speaker 1: Awesome. Bradley, man, stoked to have you here. It's going to be some great times. Looking forward to seeing you again in Vegas in just a few short weeks. Speaker 6: Yep. All right. Thanks a lot for having me. Speaker 1: All right. We're back here with our next guest at the Billion Dollar Seller Summit here in Austin, Texas. We just wrapped up the speaker meeting and we're getting ready to do the first welcome cocktail hour. But I've got another guest here from Ampt. How are you doing, man? Introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what Ampt is. Doing well. Speaker 6: Thanks so much for having me, Kevin. My name is Tyler Gregg, head of operations at Amped. Amped is a Google ads to Amazon service. So we have a technology platform, first of its kind to ever be able to connect Google and Amazon together, allowing two systems that have never been able to communicate to each other, can now talk to each other through Amped, providing full attribution, full keyword level data and automation on your Google campaigns. Speaker 1: And that's spelled A-M-P-D. So no, not, not, not, you know, the traditional way, but A-M-P-D, if you want to look them up. But one of the cool things about Amped is that, you know, a lot of you know that there's a new attribution where you can get that extra 10% back for sending outside traffic to Amazon, where you can run ads on Google and it works on social media and some other places too. But What AMP specializes in is, you know, setting up Google ads sometimes can be a little daunting because it's a pretty sophisticated program and it can be very powerful. But for someone that's new to it, it can be a little bit overwhelming and it's easy to mess up something that can just burn some money really, really fast. So what AMP has done is they've actually just simplified that process and made it almost, you know, dummy proof to where you can just really go in there and you can Link straight to your Amazon account and start running your Google ads right away. You may get a credit, I believe, still with Google ads just for signing up with them. And then it tracks everything. So you can see exactly, you know, you get the backside because if you just post a link up, say on Facebook, you see the Amazon side of things, but you don't have the real data from the primary source. And so they link everything together and it's really, really powerful. I said that right, right? Speaker 7: Yeah, that's really well said. Speaker 6: The way I like to describe it is a one track path through Google ads. Google ads, obviously an incredible platform, but it's not built for Amazon sellers. It's built for traditional D to C stores. So what we've built is basically Google ads specifically for Amazon sellers, understanding the nuances of how to actually successfully send Google traffic to Amazon and actually see what's working so you can actually scale it up. Speaker 1: Awesome. What's something that you're seeing in the sellers that you're working with out there at Amps, specifically the Amazon sellers, that's something that they need to start really paying attention to or maybe something they've been doing wrong and they just make this little tweak, it can just make a huge difference. Can you share some actionable thing that the audience can actually take away from this, the people that aren't here at the Billion Dollar Seller Summit? Speaker 6: Definitely. One of the things that we've always loved about external traffic is the ability to send it to wherever you want. And we've always taught send it to your Amazon storefront. Speaker 3: Because you can build a page without competition. Speaker 6: When you think about your product listing page, there's a lot of competition on that page. But what's actually really cool is just happened this last week, August 10th. So I guess that was last Monday. We've been working with Amazon's ads team for about six months on this to where we said, hey, we're helping so many people and sellers bring in Google ads traffic. But the second they hit the product listing page, Amazon shows a widget with three competitive products at the top of the page. Like, that's not fair to the brand. You're trying to encourage external traffic. Why are you then immediately reselling that and trying to sell ads on that traffic? And so over six months of working with Amazon, the AMP team and Amazon together were able to get That widget removed for external traffic that is properly tagged with attribution. So now if you're a seller and you're thinking about, you know, how do you get more traffic to your page and traffic that converts? If you send traffic with an attribution tag on it to your product's listing page, there's less competition than if you send that from a sponsored ad. Now, don't get me wrong, Amazon ads, that's where $1 goes to, but now $2 can go to external traffic. And if you have attribution taking on there with the 10% brand referral bonus, you also get less competition on your product listing pages. Speaker 1: So what kind of difference are you seeing? Some of the people that have used your service, what are some results that you're seeing as far as a ROAS and things like that? Speaker 6: Sure, sure. So we see ROAS, ACOS, whatever you want to call it, all over the board. Sometimes 5% pre-brand referral bonus, which is a negative, a negative ACOS, which is pretty incredible. And sometimes we'll see it higher too. But what the biggest thing about external traffic is as Amazon's encouraging it and they're giving you the 10% on average brand referral bonus, it's additional sales that you wouldn't otherwise get. So when you're thinking about how do you continue growing your business, Or maybe we're coming out of the kind of pandemic era when so much went on to e-commerce and sales are slowing. You have to find new channels of growth and Google provides the next best product intense search engine right behind Amazon. So it's a great place to find new customers and new sales that maybe you've tapped out what you're able to get on Amazon. You got to keep growing. It's a great channel to do that. Speaker 1: I saw some statistic, correct me if I'm wrong, and it's something like 25% of all Amazon searches start on Google. Speaker 6: Last time I saw that stat, it was 34% and I just saw someone Google it last week on a call with me and they fact checked me and it was like 34, 33%. It's a tough number to actually measure, but the point of it is it's pretty high. It's like 25, 30, 35%. It's a lot of traffic is still coming from Google. Speaker 1: Awesome. Well, Tyler, I'm happy to have you guys here. Thanks, man. Awesome. Speaker 6: Thanks, Kevin. Speaker 1: Hey, Barack, thanks for sitting down here at the AM-PM Podcast table at the Billion Dollar Seller Summit. How are you doing, man? Speaker 3: I'm great. Speaker 6: So excited to be in Austin. Speaker 1: And you're one of the sponsors here at the event, and you're also sponsoring Helium 10's event, Sale & Scale. Your company ForceGit, kind of an unusual name there, but one that you can remember. Why don't you tell everybody what you do? Speaker 3: Absolutely. Speaker 6: You know, my background, I lived in China eight years. Speaker 1: I've done a lot of sourcing, a lot of trade shows, and. Speaker 6: All of my customers want me to help them with international shipments and seven years ago I started Forcecat Digital Freight Forwarder and we are the only Amazon FBA logistic company now with the MUCC license who offers real-time tracking on our platform. Speaker 1: Awesome, so shipping, that's an interesting space to be in right now with all the craziness that happened with COVID and some of that's settled down a little bit but has it really actually settled down or Is it still still just a very fluid, crazy place to be right now? Speaker 6: You know, last two years, most of the delays and most of the problems in the industry was like organic. It was more about like supply and demand issue. What we see now this year with the port congestions, with the strike with the truckers, all the prices increasing with the Inflation in the economy in the United States and the rest of the world, most of the craziness still continue in a different way. We see that, you know, the container prices are coming down, but the delays are keep going. And then, you know, what is going on, especially in the Far East, you know, politic issues between China and Taiwan started a new issues in the Chinese ports with the departures and arrivals, because there are a lot of like military activities happening right now. Speaker 1: So what's something that people can do right now if they're affected by you know what's happening with Taiwan or they're affected by high rates? What are some some good options that they can do? Unknown Speaker: I really think that you know planning their inventory and now Being the brand owner on Amazon or e-commerce, it requires a lot of planning, especially with the supply chain now. A couple of years ago, like door-to-door deliveries was taking include the production time, maybe up to 45 to 60 days. Now we see five months. So there are a lot of other facts that people need to be careful about, like such as cash flow, inventory management. Planning their inventory, especially fourth quarter is coming. You know, in August is a great time to place a new order right after the fourth quarter, right after the Christmas. Chinese New Year is going to start this year pretty early. We're expecting the 20th to 25th of January, most of the factories will be going to the vacation, holidays. So definitely place an order in advance, planning and adding at least two to four weeks additional time for their inventory. It's like a key for not running out of inventory and not run out of stock. Speaker 1: What's something people can do? You know, a lot of people that are in this business, they're new to shipping, they're new to maximizing a container. What's a common mistake you see where people do where they could just really Get their cost per unit for their freight down if they just did, maybe it's a slight change in the packaging or the way the cases are put together. Do a little bit of calculus on how something goes into a container to maximize that. That can really drive costs down. Can you tell us a little trick or something that people should be looking at on that? Absolutely. Speaker 3: The one of the thing I think if you're a small seller or like new starter, definitely try not to ship anything with the pallets. Speaker 6: Just try to lose cartons, otherwise you'll be losing at least 10 to 15% on the volume. If you're shipping a full container, if you're not oversize items, try to target ship to the West Coast instead of the East Coast if you're a seller in the United States. One of the hacks that actually I will be sharing in Billion Dollar Seller Summit is the ship from address. Speaker 1: Now, the force get you guys are kind of unique and where you have some pretty unique software where people can track and like they can see where the ship is, you know, it's 300 miles off the coast of Hawaii or whatever. Can you talk about that a little bit? Absolutely. Unknown Speaker: You know, the digitalization is something that every industry is highly affected. And, you know, there are great softwares in the world such as like Helium 10, like force get where you can maximize your profit, but more importantly, understanding your grand counts of Where your inventory is located as a 3PL, when your shipment is going to come in, and what we are working on, one of the key is the AI technology that we are planning to actually, you don't need to worry about anymore your inventory, when you're going to place an order, our platform is going to track how long it takes door-to-door delivery, how long it's going to take your manufacturing time, and basically our platform is start offering you Free of charge when you need to be placed in order according to the data that we are actually keeping in the background. And this is going to be, I think, really important in a couple of years where the aggregators are aggressive in the market. They want to acquire more brands. And I think managing your inventory, never run out of stock. It takes a lot of time and a lot of, you know, detail orientation. So a platform like ours is going to help you to track your shipments, track how long it's going to take, which port or which even vessel, which ship aligns the fastest, slowest, so that our platform will be automatically start giving you recommendations, when you should be shipping, where you should be shipping, and you might see the prediction how long it's going to take. But all those predictions is going to be very accurate because it's all about the data. Speaker 1: Awesome. Well, Barack, I hear the music starting. I think the party's about to start here at the Billion Dollar Seller Summit. So thanks for stopping by the table, man. I really appreciate it. It's great to have you here. Speaker 3: Thanks for having me. Speaker 1: When you get out to events like the Billion Dollar Seller Summit or the upcoming Sale & Scale in Las Vegas, Helium 10's event, you get to meet amazing people like what you just heard. It's one of the best things you can do for your business. Get out, listen to some of the presentations, but more importantly than that is mix and mingle with the people like you just heard that just shared an amazing amount of information with you on this podcast live from the Billion Dollar Seller Summit this week. I hope you got a lot of good value from this. Hopefully I'll see you at a future event, hopefully at sale and scale in Las Vegas next month, or maybe I'll see you at a future Billion Dollar Seller Summit next year. But anyway, enjoy the rest of your week or your weekend or wherever you may be. I'm looking forward to seeing you again next week. But before we leave, I've always got a little golden nugget of wisdom for you. So today I've got this one. The teacher learns more than the student. The author Learns more than the reader, but the speaker learns more than the attendee. The way to learn is by doing. Once again, the teacher almost always learns more than their student. The author always learns more than the person reading what they wrote. And the speaker at an event like Billion Dollar Seller Summit or Sale & Scale learns more than the attendees. The way to learn is by doing. See you next week.