#314 - Printing $$$ By Sourcing In The USA And Selling In Mexico With Jesus Diaz

#314 - Printing $$$ By Sourcing In The USA And Selling In Mexico With Jesus Diaz Speaker 1: This is episode 314 of the AM-PM Podcast. In this episode, I'm speaking with Jesus Diaz. Jesus is originally from Mexico, started selling on Amazon about eight years ago and is now living in the States. And he's got some interesting perspectives on the differences between selling in Latin America and selling in the US, as well as some of the big mistakes that he's seen six and seven figure sellers making. Enjoy this episode. 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 2: Jesus Diaz, how are you doing, man? Happy to have you here on the AM-PM Podcast. Speaker 1: How's it going? Speaker 3: Hey, Kevin. Thank you so much for the invite. I'm so excited to be here on the show. Speaker 2: I'm glad to have you here too. Originally, you're in Miami right now, correct? Speaker 3: Yes. I've been living here for the last five years, but I'm originally from Mexico. Speaker 2: Oh, what part of Mexico? Speaker 3: I was born in Veracruz, but then I lived in Mexico City and many other cities in Mexico. The last place I was living was Mexico City. Speaker 2: Awesome. So what brought you to the US five years ago? Speaker 3: Amazon. Yeah, I started selling back in 2014 and I had my corporate job at the time. And that was like my dream job. I was very proud of that job but also like I wanted to make money online. I was also always trying to find a way like I was looking into CPA offers and I was selling e-books back then on the Warrior Forum. All those things and it was then when I found a person that posted something on Facebook that he was making like 55 grand selling on Amazon. So that was like crazy to me, like crazy money. And so I started chatting with him, like, how is it possible? And so he started explaining the FBA model. And the first thing that came to my mind was like, this is not for me. I'm in Mexico. I'm not in the US. I don't know how to do it. But it's impossible. So I started asking more questions. And he told me, yeah, I got into this big course. It was very popular at the moment. And that's how I learned and now I'm selling knives on Amazon. I'm making 55k. That's how I started. Speaker 2: 55k a month in gross sales? Speaker 3: A month, yeah. That's what he told me. He actually posted the screenshots. Back then it was like everybody was posting the sales. Speaker 2: So you're in 2014, you're sitting in Mexico doing your other job and thinking about, hey, I want to be able to make some money while I sleep, do something online. And you see this course towards the big course back. They're the ones that actually kind of started this whole model of selling FBA. I mean, the company still exists, but they kind of pause for a little while. I think they're maybe planning on doing something next year. But they really are the ones that said, hey, this is how you do this. Go to Alibaba, throw your label on it, make sure it fits in a shoebox, weighs less than a pound, it's not electronics. They have this whole list of rules and put it up on Amazon, then go to the beach and just listen to your phone. Ding ding ding ding ding every time you make a sale and that's kind of the way it was in the very beginning. It was that easy. Now Amazon wasn't nearly as big of a business as it is now. Amazon was still growing but they're the ones that started that. So someone like you saw that in Mexico City. Did you take the course or did you just watch their little series of videos and do it yourself? Speaker 3: I actually took the course like it was an investment back then and I used five grand or something back then. I remember I was very nervous about it. I put my credit card in, I bought it and I knew I still had to buy the inventory. I think I was a person that making all the questions in the Facebook group like, okay, how much I need to invest and like I was trying to minimize my risk. So I started the course, I was very nervous, very afraid and also at the same time very excited. And to me that's like a good combination when I feel that, like I feel afraid of something but also I feel excited, that's a good indication that I need to keep going there. So, then I was like researching on Alibaba the first products and I found something that looked interesting and that's how I bought my very, very first product with the same credit card. Speaker 2: What product was that? Speaker 3: It was a mini pump for bikes. Speaker 2: Like to blow up the tires and stuff on a bike? Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. But very small. It was actually a very cool product. And the way I chose it back then, the method was very, very simple. It was just like, you look into page 1 and you see what's there. So then you go to page 2 and if in page 2 you see unrelated products, that means that the product is still not saturated and you can sell it. So that was pretty much all the product research back then. And that's how I chose it. I saw the different offers and nobody was offering nothing crazy. It was very simple packaging and everything. So I did something fancier back then. And with zero research, I didn't know anything, but I just did something that I liked. And it started to sell. It started to sell decently. But then they have all this. When I bought the course, I did it through like an affiliate and they had like a very I don't know, a very rudimentary tool where you could like give away a lot of coupons so you could rank for the product. So I started doing that stuff and soon enough I was selling like 20 grand a month with just this product. So I thought like, okay, this is something like I finally found something that works. So I'm just going to keep learning and keep growing here. Speaker 2: Did you have any experience with e-commerce as a consumer? Because it wasn't that big in Mexico. Now it's become bigger in Mexico, but 2014, it wasn't really huge in Mexico at that time, was it? Speaker 3: Yeah, no, not at all. But yeah, of course, I've always been buying things here and there. The biggest market down there is Mercado Libre. So yeah, I've been buying and selling video games and stuff there for sure. Speaker 2: So the bicycle pump, you got it up to $20,000 a month and how long were you able to run with that product before you kind of faded it out? Speaker 3: It was a sad story because It was working really well at some point. I think I was in my fourth or fifth shipment and then the factory sent me a totally bad batch. It was breaking. Overnight, I had 10 bad reviews. Overnight, people were posting the pictures with the pump split in half. So I was like super angry about it but that was probably my first lesson that I need to do some quality inspections. Speaker 2: So you weren't doing quality control at all? Speaker 3: No, at that time no. Speaker 2: So did you just launch that one product and just coast on it or did you launch a few more on its coattails? Speaker 3: No, well with that one, that was the very first one, but then I immediately realized that I need to keep launching products. So the whole Chinese method was too long. It took a while to get a product to Amazon. So I started researching companies in the US and I found one company that was importing a bunch of stuff from China and then you could just buy the stuff here in the US. So I ordered some samples from that company and I launched like three products from what they had, the things that I thought they were like the best. And I started getting more and more sales there, but then the quality was not that good because I also got a bunch of bad reviews. But at the time, that's like six months in, so I knew already that this was working and I was going to make it rain. So that's what I did. Speaker 2: And so how did it end up you coming, you said that Amazon brought you to the US five years ago, so that would have been three years or so into your journey. What was it that you said, hey, I need to actually move to the US, I'm going to keep doing this? Speaker 3: Well, I always had the idea of moving to the US. Since I was a kid, I wanted to live here. But now I have a good excuse. Like, okay, my business is there, my customers are there. I want to know how the consumer thinks there. I want to see how the consumer buys the stuff. Because it is different in Mexico. The lifestyle is just different. So I really wanted to do it and after I started, one year later, I was able to quit my job. And I remember my boss was really crazy about it. Like, how is it possible that you have a really good salary and everything? But then I remember I showed him my Amazon app, the Seller Central app. And it's like, this is what I'm making. So it doesn't make sense for me to just be here. And he was very impressed about it. I still talk to him sometimes. And then after I quit my job, I kept working on Amazon and at the end of 2016, I was like, yeah, this is the time to move to the US. So I started to apply for a business visa and all of that and it was granted at the end of 2016. And 2017 I was moving here to, I actually arrived to Fort Lauderdale. Speaker 2: So you were able to use, able to get a business visa with an Amazon business? Speaker 3: Yeah, that's correct. Speaker 2: Really? So you're able to actually get a visa with, but just by having, did you have to sell a certain amount of sales or so that you were hiring a certain number of people or something like that? Speaker 3: Yeah, they, they have some requirements. The main one is the investments. They say it's a hundred grand. But at the time, by 2016, I had a bunch of inventory purchases, so I was using that as a backup. And then I presented a very nice business plan with the people I was planning to hire and all that stuff. And that's how they granted it for five years. Speaker 2: Awesome. And so what do you have to do to actually be able to renew that? Speaker 3: I already renewed it. Hiring people, at least hiring two people and just show that your business is working and you're paying taxes. Speaker 2: So how often do you get back to Mexico now? Speaker 3: I try to go every three, four months. Speaker 2: Awesome. Are you selling in Mexico or are you selling in the US? Speaker 3: Yeah, of course. Like when Amazon launched, I started selling there. I've been pretty successful there as well. I think I have right now like 40 or 50 products down there in Mexico. To me, it was a bit easier because since I'm Mexican, I was able to To work directly with them, I have a Mexican company so I can import things and I do all the accounting and everything completely separate from what I have in the US. And I know the market so it's much easier to know if a product is going to work down there. But still the volume, it's nothing compared to what's here. Speaker 2: If someone is selling in the U.S. now and they're not Latino or they're not from Mexico and they don't understand that culture and the differences, what are some key points that they need to keep in mind if they want to expand to Mexico? Because you can have a unified account in the U.S. where you have a U.S., Canadian and Mexican. The Canadian is pretty much the same as U.S. It's a smaller market, like you said, but the mentality and the culture is very, very, very similar. But Mexico, at the higher level in Mexico, the upper echelon, there's a lot of similarities in some ways to the US, but there's not nearly as many people at that middle and upper class that have those similarities to the US. So what are some things that people need to be aware of and the cultural differences and the selling differences and the type of things they're looking for and what they expect? Speaker 3: Yeah, well, when I started, this was all a test for me. When I started, the first thing I did, I took all the best sellers in the US. And I launched them in Mexico. So the garlic press and the like oven mitts and all that stuff. I launched all of that in Mexico. Speaker 2: And you took these weren't products you were already selling in the US. These are just the traditional best selling things in the States. And it says, what the heck is it saturated in the US, but it's not really in Mexico right now. Let me just take these over there. And that's what you did. Speaker 3: Yeah, because when I like I started with the at the same time, the markets open. So, there was nothing. So, it was my listings were there. And they didn't sell very well. It's like nobody is buying garlic presses in Mexico, I guess. So then I started to analyze what's there. And I looked at Mercado Libre, which is, you know, this huge platform people use down there. And I saw there was a bunch of textiles, like clothing and things like that that were selling very well in Mexico. So I started launching those type of products and I'm still selling some of those in a very good volume. So yeah, I would say like Try to do some research in some of the other markets. Mercado Libre is probably one of the biggest. Right now, Amazon is big enough that you can do your own research on Amazon as well. So you can see what's selling already. And the other thing that it's important to know is that Chinese sellers are dominating the market place down there, probably here too. But you will see products super cheap, like they're offering like really, really cheap. But the key to me, and the same thing applies for the US, the thing is not to try to compete with them. You can actually sell the same thing for much more if you know how to market it, how to Create the listing, how to differentiate the product and if you know how to present it and trying to find the opportunity like if you see a gap like they're selling product A and product C but product B which is similar is still not there. Maybe try to launch that. If the demand is there, it's very likely that it can work for you. Speaker 2: What are some big things, like you said, if you know how to create the listing, a lot of people in the US may not know how to really do that properly in Spanish. And there's some idiosyncrasies and some little things that you got to make sure you do right. What are some tips that you might have around that? Speaker 3: E-commerce and Amazon, the main thing are the images. So the copy, I don't even worry about the copy. It's like, I know I can write copy in Spanish, but I don't think that's the decisive factor. It's really the images. So it applies the same things that apply for the US, applies in Mexico, just do it in Spanish. Whatever you're putting your images, make sure that you're answering questions to the most common questions that your audience will have. And make sure to present the product like it's something really, really valuable. Everything is about the perceived value. Speaker 2: So a lot of people may not know this, but Mexico is the largest Spanish-speaking country in the world and the United States is the second largest Spanish-speaking country in the world. There's over 60 million people in the US that speak Spanish at home or as their native language. You're living in the capital of Latin America, you know, Miami is basically, you know, you go to Miami, if you've never been to Miami, you go to Miami, it's Spanish first in a lot of places there, you know, even if me as a gringo walking into the supermarket, they're going to speak to me in Spanish first. That's just Miami is this big cultural melting pot of all these Spanish cultures. What are some things that people may be overlooking here in the States? Forget about The Spanish speakers in Mexico or Latin America, but what were some opportunities that you see from that side that people are missing that are selling on Amazon in the US that they could be doing that products tailored towards that Spanish speaking market here in the US? Speaker 3: Well, there are a few. Up here, I participate in a large group of sellers here in Miami. Most of them are Latin. So, some of them come with ideas like, yeah, in my country, like we use this tool to, you know, to like a barbecue for like something special for a barbecue they do there. So, like they were showing this Chinese barbecue box, which is very different from what's here in the US. So those type of products, I guess there is a market for that. But to be honest, I haven't really tapped into that. I'm not really saying anything regarding to that stuff. Speaker 2: Are you going to, Colombia is supposed to be the next big market, that Spanish-speaking market that opens up for Amazon. Is that something that you might be interested in moving over to that as well? Speaker 3: Not really. My mindset right now is like there is so much opportunity in the US that it's not even worth it at least for me to look into other markets until I'm at the At the level I want to be here because I made like a lot of mistakes during my career in Amazon. It's like I opened the seller central in Europe. I was selling in all countries in Europe back in 2017, 16 and 17, and it became a nightmare. With Brexit and with all the taxes and all that stuff. So I realized like if I just focus on what works, I will just be more successful. And so right now my focus is like keep growing here in the US. And also like I prefer to build something here in the US, but that doesn't rely only on Amazon, like taking my brands out to Shopify or something like that. The amount of money I can get in Colombia is nothing compared to what I can get with just one product here in the US. Speaker 2: That's true. That's a mistake I see a lot of people making is that they think they need to expand or they get these emails from Amazon saying, hey, we'll help you expand to Europe or to Australia or to wherever and that they go for it. But what they don't realize is that's basically like starting a new... Yes, it's the same system and you understand the Amazon selling process and that's a major advantage that you have. But it's like setting up a whole new business, new tax regulations, new setups, new additional round of inventory that you got to finance, you know, cash flow, logistics. It can be a pain. So a lot of people, that's why I tell a lot of people, go with what you know. If you're in the US, sell in the US. Or if you live in Germany, Go with Germany or maybe go to the US. But I agree with you, the US market is so huge that most people, they expand too quickly or they try to expand too quickly when they haven't even maximized what the opportunity is here. And the same thing goes for like Shopify and for other things. A lot of people will say, well, I got to have a Shopify store. I got to be on Walmart. I got to be on all these other platforms. And those are great. And it's great to get that leverage. But a lot of times people do that and they take their eye off the ball on Amazon and that extra 5 or 10% of your time that you're trying to devote to building a Shopify store, if you just spent that same 5 or 10% of your efforts on Amazon, you would have way more sales. And I think that's a mistake a lot of people tend to make. Do you agree with that? Speaker 3: Yeah, 100%. I did that mistake. Speaker 2: I mean, it's good to have a Shopify store just for credibility, you know, set something up because there will be people that go and look at it or if you need it for brand registry or something like that. But I would not put a lot of time and effort to it. Now, I noticed you've been to a Funnel Hacking Live, you know, Russell Brunson's show. So you must have been like at one point like, hey, I need to like get off of this Amazon and figure out how to do some funnels and some other type of marketing. Is that why you went to his events? Speaker 3: Yeah. That's been one of the reasons, I just like that community, there's a bunch of entrepreneurs there and the mindset is really cool and you meet a lot of nice people there. But just like in Amazon events too, you meet really cool people. So I like that stuff and definitely I've been trying many things, so Shopify, funnels, email marketing, a lot of stuff. But to be honest, it really boils down to what's working, keep doing that. Because Shopify, you can make a large business there as well, but it's a completely different set of skills that you need to master to be successful there. To be good at Facebook ads and then Google ads and TikTok ads or maybe work with influencers, all of that stuff is completely different from what the average Amazon seller does. So I would say like, yeah, if Amazon is working for you, keep doing that, but also like try to like have it in your mind, like you need to have something that will protect you in case that everything goes to hell with Amazon. Speaker 2: Yeah, I always tell people if you're going to, if you want to expand, if you just, you get an itch in your pants and you just, Hey, I just want to expand, go expand to Amazon Canada. If you're selling in the U S expand Amazon Canada first, cause it's, it's an easy transition. It's length. You don't have to worry about the language differences, very little cultural differences, and just add five or 10% to your bottom line there. And that's an easy, easy one to do if you're just having that itch. But I agree with you on what you just said about like funnel hacking live, you know, Russell Brunson's show. I've been to like four or five of those. And there's not very many Amazon sellers there. When you go to that show, I mean, there's a handful, but what I like about his shows is that it's a combination. You got a bunch of social media people, you got a bunch of funnel people, you got a bunch of just pure entrepreneur type of people. And I think that's something that's important for Amazon sellers, that they get caught up in this world, in this Amazon world, and that's all they know. But you can get some great ideas and some great insight by going to other shows, whether it be Traffic and Conversion, for example, or the Social Media Expo or Russell Brunson's shows. Funnel Hacking Live is what they're called. One just happened just recently. And those are great places to go to be around other entrepreneurs and just to kind of get more well-rounded. And some of that stuff you can bring back to your Amazon business. Is that what you've found as well? Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, of course. You're right. Most of them are people doing heavy stuff on social media and bunch of coaches and different strategies. And if you've been on the industry for a while, you can use some of that stuff to your own business. Or if you want to do some coaching or things like that, all that information is going to be relevant. But the networking you can do there, you're very right. It's different kind of people from the Amazon events. So yeah, the event is really good. Like if you have the opportunity to go, I totally recommend doing that. Speaker 2: So are there any other conventions that you go to or any other events that you've been to that you found really good and valuable just as an entrepreneur or just for mindset or anything like that? Speaker 3: Well, I try to go to whatever is available. Like I spend like At the beginning, I was going to everything. Then from 17 to, well, after the pandemic, I'm just resuming to start going to events again. But I've recently been to a search conference. It was good. Yeah, there is a bunch of things that people can use, like pretty much go to everything and try to network. When you go to this event, the key is to just be open. Like there is going to be a bunch of stuff that maybe doesn't apply to you and what you're doing. Just be open to What they're saying, what they're doing and talk to other people and you will find somebody that's doing something completely different from what you're doing and maybe try some of that or adjust something and see how it works. That's the way to grow. That's where I find most of my value from those conferences. Speaker 2: So it's not so much the presentations as it is just the networking and being around other like-minded people. Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the most valuable for me. And of course, like you, you get like, sometimes you get inspired from what you see on stage. You see somebody talking about, like recently I saw somebody talking about adding, you know, the inserts in your products and then collecting the emails, all that stuff that is like older than Hell, you know, like everybody knows about that stuff, but the way he presented it, he made it sound like it's new. So it's like, okay, maybe I need to look into that again. And because he's doing like really cool inserts, like when you touch it, it's amazing and some like foldable stuff that just jumps and stuff like that grabs people's attention and you offer something like he says, like the mafia offer. People cannot refuse, so they just go and just sign up and that's how you get the email. So there are so many things like that that you hear at the conference. And then if something clicks, try to apply it. Speaker 2: That sounds like Sean Hart's presentation. Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. Speaker 2: That's what that sounds like right there. He's a smart guy. He's an old school marketer and been doing this for a while. So he's a smart guy. So this can be like a kind of like a little it can be lonely at times being an entrepreneur selling online, can it? Speaker 3: Of course. Yes. When I started, it was kind of my dream. Like, OK, I'm going to work. From home and I don't have to meet anybody. I'm going to be behind my monitor. I'm going to be making a ton of money. And that was my mindset when I started. But then I quickly noticed that my life quality was going down because I was not interacting with so many other people. So I was like, OK, I need to start connecting more people going to these events. That's another reason for the event. And yeah, chatting with people and getting into the groups so you can network and keep your life balanced in any other area. Speaker 2: And one of the things you're doing too now besides, I see you playing the guitar, I see a guitar behind you, besides playing the guitar is you're helping brands grow. One of the things that you've started is something to actually what, I think, what's your slogan? We take 6-figure brands to 7-figures or something like that? Speaker 3: Yes, I just started with that and I believe this is part of my evolution, professional, also personal evolution. I want to start working with other sellers in a more professional way, not just over a Facebook chat, but really commit with somebody that's ready to grow. When I was starting, if I had somebody that I could work one-on-one and ask all those questions. And if he had all the experience and he could help me, pretty sure I wouldn't have made so many mistakes like I did. So that's what I'm offering right now. And the game for me is that I'm going to get to network and to know other people and to help other people and start to experience that part in my journey because pretty much all I've done so far in all these eight years I've been selling I'm very confident of my experience and of my results, but I've never really worked directly with people and that's the next thing I'm doing. Speaker 2: So what do you see is the problem? There's a lot of courses out there, a lot of YouTube videos, a lot of courses, how to start selling on Amazon. Speaker 1: Here's the basics. Speaker 2: But there's not very much, there's a very small amount of stuff where someone's already doing 50K or 100K or six figures a year and there's not a lot that's really aimed at those people. I mean, we have Helium 10 Elite and there's a couple others, but there's not a lot that's aimed at that, especially like you said on the one-on-one. So what are some of the pain points you think you can help address When they contact you to say, hey, I'm doing a 200K a year and I really want to grow my business to a million, what are some things you can specifically help them with, do you think? Speaker 3: The very first thing is mindset. When I started, the reason I did not grow as fast as I would like was my mindset. It was a lot of money what I was making back then for my reality. To me, like if I was able to think like, okay, I can actually make more than this. And what are the actions that I need to take in order to get there? Nobody really taught me that. So I was like just experimenting with everything. So... Speaker 2: What are some of those actions that are stumbling blocks for a lot of people? Speaker 3: Well, the main thing I would say is product development. I see like so many mistakes on the product development side. People are still launching Me Too products, just changing the packaging and something like that. I mean, that can make you some money for a few months, maybe one year, but you will be strolling, fighting with all the Chinese companies and raised to the bottom with the price and all that stuff. So, the way I do it right now is like I differentiate my products in a way that it doesn't have to be something crazy that's super expensive, no, but in a way that I'm hitting a space in the market that nobody's there or like fewer sellers are there and I present my product In a way that we'll talk exactly to the audience that I want to reach. So this way I'm seeing so much success than Me Too products. And I'm able to price my products sometimes even like twice the price that everybody's selling. If everybody's selling for $30, I have one product that sells for $60. So that's twice the price and my product sells really, really well. So things like that are very, very important. When you're trying to launch a product, you need to know where you're getting, you need to know the industry that you're getting at. And how will you make your money there. Speaker 2: So when people are growing, they're at this level 2, say the 2-300,000 and they're trying to get to 7 figures, where does money come into all this financing and making this work? What would be some of your advice on that? Speaker 3: Well, you have to work your way up. If you're selling 200, 300, you probably have some cash flow going to your bank account, so you would be able to keep launching products. So maybe you focus first on those products that will at least make you $10,000 a month. And you don't require like a lot of capital for that. And you can launch one, two, three of those. And maybe out of those, you will find one that's that jump to 20k. So you can start expanding on that. Maybe you launch the premium version of that or you keep expanding on that and you take that money that you're generating already. So that's why I like working with people that are already selling because it's very different when you're just starting. You have a bunch of things that you need to work on. If you're already selling, you're almost there. Like one product can take you to seven figures really quickly. Speaker 2: What do you think are some of the big differences? You started eight years ago selling, so you're old G on this. What are some of the major changes or big differences between 2014 and now? I mean, you talked about one of them earlier where you've just looked at the page one to see what was selling and go to page two and just find a bike pump and just throw it up there. But besides those little basic things, what are some big differences that you're seeing now for someone that's Approaching this as a true business and not just as some kind of get-rich-quick scheme. Speaker 3: This has had to be there like from the beginning, but back then the mentality was like, I'm just gonna make money. I'm gonna launch casual products. So if I see opportunity, I'm just gonna launch this and make my money there. And I don't, I mean, as long as it doesn't break, that's all right. Like that doesn't work like anymore. And so right now it's like you have to You have to design something. You have to offer something that is really, really good. And one thing I like to do is I like to test it myself. I like to really touch the product, feel it and think if it's something I would be using myself or I would be proud of selling. So that's very, very different now. Probably it was back then, but it was just not in my mindset. Like building your own brand and When you build it, you're able to take it somewhere else. You can take it to Shopify. You can even, well, now you can exit the business. Like many, many people are exiting businesses now. And back then that was not, I mean, I did not hear anything about that back then. Another big, big thing, of course, and this is more recent is PPC is like Amazon has a big focus now on making more money. And so the way the marketplace looks now, you just see sponsored products everywhere. So, this has become like a pay to sell type of game. So, the main difference right now is that you need to have enough margins to be able to endure that, to be able to pay 20% to Amazon for PPC. And still make money. So that's pretty much the biggest change around for me is like I'm looking for product that has at least 40% margin so I can give 20% to Amazon back and keep 20. And back then, the rule of thumb was very simple, was like one third goes to the supplier, one third goes to Amazon and you keep one third. But that doesn't apply anymore. Speaker 2: What's the lowest margin someone's bottom line on paper margin someone should be looking for not not just landing cost margin, but like Bottom-line profit margin. Do you think is is reasonable for an FBA business? Speaker 3: Well the lowest I wouldn't take anything below 15% like that's that's like the lowest I would take But I wouldn't plan to that because there is always there are things that can go wrong and then you can go lower than that So, usually my target is to be at 20% margin after everything, yeah. Speaker 2: That's 20% after everything. That's after ad spend, after everything. That's bottom line margin. Yeah, I would agree with that. 20% should be your baseline minimum that you're shooting for. If you can get it above that, great. Speaker 1: Now that's FBA. Speaker 2: Now if you're doing wholesale, that's going to be a little bit harder to do. For those of you listening and doing wholesale or some sort of drop shipping or something. But on FBA, that's definitely where you want to be. What do you think about what all this was happening out there right now in the aggregator space where there was a big boom and now it's kind of a bust and they've pulled back a little bit, a lot. What do you think about the opportunities for actually selling your businesses going forward? Speaker 3: Well, I think this is like the main goal for many sellers. This is when you get your big paycheck, when you exit the business and you get like a bunch of money at once. But if you have a business that's working and you enjoy working on it and it's providing the cash flow and you're confident that you keep expanding, I don't see a reason to sell. You can keep doing that. Unless you see a major change coming on Amazon that you're not going to be able to keep selling or something like that, I wouldn't sell. Sorry, I would sell in that case. But otherwise, I prefer to grow my businesses. Of course, now I'm planning, I have two accounts that I'm preparing to exit in the future, but now I'm doing everything right from the beginning because now I understand how to do it. But yeah, I was in contact with one of these aggregators last year and I have one account that has only a few products that are successful. So I was trying to sell that and they were willing to pay something for it but it was not what I wanted so I did not sell. But I think they're really, right now for them, they're in a bad place because they bought a bunch of these businesses that right now with all the PPC changes, it's like they're not even that profitable anymore and they gave away a lot of cash. So, yeah, it's very interesting what's happening. I guess if you plan for selling, do everything you can to have like a very lean structure and very lean numbers, so you might be able to sell for a good multiplier in one or two years. Speaker 2: So with all the changes, like you said, that are happening out there, what is your latest strategy for actually launching products? Speaker 3: Well, I'm using some tools. The main one, of course, is Helium 10, but I mainly use PPC to launch. I'm just willing to spend a bunch of money at the very beginning to rank for products. But I don't really worry that much about all that process because that's just a process that you follow. The most important part for me, again, is the product development. I know that if my product is really good and I validated it somehow, the whole process is going to be so much easier. And sometimes even if your PPC is not top-notch, you still are going to be successful. So I would say product development is the most important task for an Amazon seller. Speaker 2: Awesome, well Jesus, I really appreciate you coming on today and sharing with us. If people want to find out more about you or reach out, how would they do that? Speaker 3: I just started with this sellers mastery thing where I plan to offer some of this one-on-one coaching to some people. Not everybody, I just want to work with a few people that I feel comfortable with. And I've just launched like a website for that. It's sellersmastery.com. So feel free to check that. Speaker 2: Awesome. Muchos gracias for coming on today. I appreciate your time. Speaker 3: It's a pleasure, sir. Thank you very much. Speaker 2: You're welcome. Tom, what are you doing? Speaker 1: So I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Jesus. We'll be back again next week with another awesome episode of the AM-PM Podcast. And before I let you go today, I just want to share these words of wisdom with you. You know a lot of people in the Amazon space are afraid to share their product idea. They keep it really close to their chest and I just find that kind of humorous because you know sometimes people say, hey I got this idea but I need you to sign a non-disclosure agreement before I talk to you about it or I can't tell you what I'm selling because I just don't want to tell everybody what I'm selling. Those kind of things just give me a little laugh sometimes because You know, ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They're just a multiplier. Execution is worth the millions. Just remember that ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They're just a multiplier. Execution is where it's at. Execution is where you make your millions. Go out there and execute. And we'll see you again next week. Let's get started.