#377 – Inside the Secretive and Thriving Marketplace of Buying and Selling Amazon Accounts

#377A - BDSS 2023: Amazon Titans Share Their Top Secrets & Powerful Strategies – Part 1 Speaker 1: Welcome to episode 337 part A. Speaker 2: That's right. Speaker 1: This week we have two parts. Today we were releasing part A. And tomorrow, you don't have to wait another week, but tomorrow we're releasing part B. That's because we have 11 of the speakers that are gonna be at the Billion Dollar Seller Summit in June, June 11th to the 15th in Puerto Rico. More information's at BillionDollarSellerSummit.com. They're sharing some cool stuff, some of what they're gonna be talking about, and they're sharing some cool hacks and actionable stuff in this episode and the one being released tomorrow. You don't wanna miss this. And don't forget, there's also a webinar coming up. On the 18th of this month of April, if you're listening to this in 2023, April 18th, it's a totally free webinar where we're going to be doing a hackathon with cash prizes. You could participate or you could just sit back and listen. It's totally free. It's at BillionDollarSellerSummit.com forward slash webinar. BillionDollarSellerSummit.com forward slash webinar. Enjoy this episode and the one coming at you tomorrow as well. 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: First up, I've got my good buddy, Steve Simonson. Steve, how are you doing, man? Speaker 2: Oh, I'm doing so well. It is me. It's your old buddy, Steve Simonson. How about that? Speaker 1: That's right. And you still don't know nothing about nothing, right? Speaker 2: That is a fact. And unfortunately, I proved that again and again. Speaker 1: I don't know why the heck I'm having you come to Puerto Rico to speak at the Billion Dollar Seller Summit when you don't know nothing about nothing. Speaker 2: Well, that's a good question. We could ask our buddy Socrates who said, I'm paraphrasing here, but something like the only people who think they know everything are the fools and the best of us think that they or realize they know nothing in the big picture. So my know nothing about nothing really is a ripoff of Socrates. So if you want to talk philosophy, let's go to Puerto Rico. Speaker 1: There you go. So, but in fairness, you have a couple of championship belts from BDSS under your, under your shirts there. So, so to speak, because you actually lied at the last BDSS in August of this year, of last year, your team actually won the scavenger hunt competition because you know, at BDSS is, it's not just about listening to a bunch of presentations. We actually do a lot of cool networking and cool, like competitive things. Cause as you know, entrepreneurs are super competitive. And so your team actually, And a lot of this I think they attributed to you with your strategies of how to tackle everything won the entire event. Speaker 2: That was that was fortunate. They did give me probably more credit than I deserve. But the truth is, We definitely love the idea of scavenger hunt. I actually had to be talked into it a little bit because I'm like, oh, I don't want to be outside in the sun all day. But everybody said, yeah, let's do it. And it was turned out it was extraordinarily fun. And we are hyper competitive as entrepreneurs. So the moment I was like, yeah, I'm in. And then it's like I'm reading every line of code on that scavenger hunt sheet. And I'm like, how do I hack my way to number one? And we got lucky because we didn't win by much, but Well, yeah, we did prevail. Speaker 1: And in one of the previous events, I think it was like maybe 2021, you actually placed second in the speaker voting. There was at the end of each BDSS, we have the audience vote on who they thought made the best presentation. There's a cash prize for the for the first place and the second place. And your talk, which scared the bejesus of a lot of people, I think, into actually voting, you know, like, holy cow, that was really good information. We had never heard anywhere else. And you got second place. Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't threaten them if they didn't vote for me. I just happened to hopefully deliver something they said, wow, that's something. By the way, that's around 18 months ago. I think you're right about that timeline. And many of those predictions laid down have come true already. Speaker 1: They have. It's crazy. You're a fortune teller there, should have put the put the money on Steve, put the money on Steve. Speaker 2: Yeah, the crystal ball apparently is not first place material, but silver medal, I'll take it. Speaker 1: Exactly. So what's I mean, you recently, you did retirement 2.0, which I think that means instead of working 120 hours a week, it's like working 60 hours a week or something. But basically, you divested out of a few businesses and cut off a few things. But There's a few things that have taken your time, that have come up, that are just taking your time, besides spending time with entrepreneurs, which you love doing, you go to a lot of different things, and you love just hanging out and shooting the chum with entrepreneurs, but there's this AI thing that you messaged me last week and said, I said, hey, have you been checking this out? He said, oh boy, have I ever, you know, I just spent 10 hours today and You know, whatever it was the previous days, I'm really digging deep into this. What are you seeing out there? And I think this is something that you're going to be talking about at Billion Dollar Seller Summit is, is what are you seeing? How this is going to change everything? Speaker 2: Well, to be honest with you, I have been absolutely covered up in AI stuff. We've done machine learning stuff for a long time, where we've taken data sets and trained machines, you know, how to make some of the predictive patterns better and so forth. But AI transcends that. And it is the most significant thing that I've ever seen in my lifetime. I suspect it will be the most significant thing any of us see in our lifetimes. In terms of the world has changed like this was the point that the pivot was made between you know kind of machines being used as tools to the machines becoming the forefront of productivity and really you know if i summarize the title my talk would be something like. How to cut 50% of your staff and double productivity or keep the same staff and quadruple productivity. It is significantly better than anyone could imagine when used correctly, when done properly. There's plenty of downsides to it and problems, but it is the most exciting thing and we're piling every part of that into every piece of software that we create and it's It is a game changer of like an order of magnitude higher than anything I've ever seen in my life. Speaker 1: So how is this different than, you know, people, the buzz out there in the Amazon world and the e-commerce world is use this to analyze reviews, use this to help you with your PPC. Maybe you can write a better title, get different suggestions on your bullet points and stuff. What you're going to be talking about is not that stuff, right? It's going to be... Speaker 2: No, no. There are many tactical wins people can do, right? So if somebody says, yes, I can enhance my title or my listing or my bullet points, there are plenty of those tactical level things. By the way, I got bad news for everybody. China now is going to write things just as well as you, if not better, by literally typing in the prompts in Chinese and having it come out in English. The playing field just got leveled in the most terrifying way possible because one of our biggest advantages, over let's just say foreign competitors, is our native ability to speak English and to position a market. The better they get at it, anybody, whether they're from China or You know, Australia or anywhere else, in a foreign market, all bets are off. It's now even, at least in English. And that part is, I'm going to try to give strategies how to avoid ceding the territory any faster than necessary. Speaker 1: I mean, you told me like at a recent conference, I think it was at the Prosper Show, you said that this AI stuff is like the invention of fire, I think you said. It's that revolutionary and that people, there's a lot of people that aren't on the bandwagon yet. They just see the evil side of it or they just poo-poo in it or they played with it a little bit, but the power and where it's going and how fast it's moving is mind-boggling. Speaker 2: I just can't even imagine so if this is not like the industrial revolution going from steam to electricity which was. Transformative this is not the mention of the pc which has created business and and productivity and it's not like the cell phone or the advent of the internet this is like fire or the wheel like mankind will never be the same and i initially thought it was hype because like. How could there be that many headlines about this topic in such a short period of time but it turns out it's. It's not hype. If you use it correctly, there's plenty of ways to use it poorly, by the way. But if you use it correctly, it will change everything forever in just about any application I can think of. And some of them, it destroys the entire industry. Speaker 1: So for the people that are in Puerto Rico that hear your talk, and I know it's evolving and things are probably going to be added in the last second as this industry is like constantly changing, what are they going to walk away with at the end of that? What are they going to be like? How do you hope they feel or react? Speaker 2: Well, my number one takeaway aspiration is that they say to themselves, This is net good news. This is positive because now myself and my team are going to have a roadmap on how to utilize different techniques. So, it's not just chat GBT. It's not just mid-journey or stable diffusion. I could name a hundred other AI engines. It's the method and how you use it. I'm also going to give the formula that we've been developing in how you make AI work for you the right way. And it's it's i think of it in terms of mathematics but it's a input formula to generate a certain output. All of this is good news. Every entrepreneur that I know that I've met over these many, many years, they're smart, they're aggressive, they like change, they can cope with stuff, but they'll get on board very quickly. It's their teams that we have to help augment that transformation. And so I'm going to try to share all the techniques that I can that will say, here's why it's important, here's why it's transformational, and here's how you get your team on board and here's how you maximize it. It really is something else. Speaker 1: You already have me excited. I'm already looking forward to this talk because I know when you get into something, you get into something. I mean, you master it at the next level. So I'm super excited. So those that are maybe out there that have never been to a BDSS, what would you say to them? What's the experience like or how's this? There's tons of conferences, lots of stuff happening in June. Why should this be one that they, even though the price tag is a little bit higher than the average conference, why should this be one that they consider? Speaker 2: Well, from my perspective, first of all, it's always a highlight of my year. Every year going to BDSS, I come away with learnings, I come away with, you know, relationships and fun memories. And that will deliver enough ROI on its own. It's a 10x ROI for sure. But this year has the potential to be a hundred times ROI because I know myself, I know some of the other speakers, we are not just competitive. I don't really care if I win the money. In fact, I donated the money to Empowery, but I do like to win. And so my mission is to have everybody go, That was something I didn't expect. I've heard a lot of headlines. Now it's coalesced. And so not just myself, but I know every other speaker is on board with that same plan. So, you know, anybody who thinks about it, I would stop thinking and start, you know, booking and getting it done because I will be there and at your service, as they say. Speaker 1: Awesome, and you're also going to be on a webinar we're doing on April 18th. So I've got a bunch of the speakers that are going to be in Puerto Rico and we're doing like a hack contest. It's going to be really cool and you might actually share a little tease of what you're talking about, right? You mentioned you might have a few little slides or something that you can show people like they can walk away with something. Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going to give you a checklist on this webinar because they're very small amounts of time on that webinar, but basically a hack that trains chat GPT-4 to create superhuman level mid-journey prompts. So mid-journey is a diffusion image creation that's amazing, but it gets extraordinary. And I'm talking about superhuman level. If you make the prompts right, well, why should we make the prompts? I got a bot trained to make the prompts, and I'll show you exactly the steps to training your bot to do the same thing. And it again, it can absolutely transform the way you create images. Speaker 1: And that's on April 18th. It's totally free. So if you just go to BillionDollarSellerSummit.com forward slash webinar, you can sign up for that webinar. Hope to see you there. And Steve, I'll see you there in just a few days. Thanks, man. Speaker 2: I'm there. Speaker 1: My next guest on this episode is Leo Scovio. Leo, how are you doing, man? It's good to see you. Unknown Speaker: Kevin, how are you? It's good to see you again. Yes, I'm doing great, actually. You know, I'm now in Miami, no longer in Canada. So I've been enjoying the good weather, except for the past couple of days, it's been raining. But other than that, it did make a difference, definitely, in the way I live day by day. Speaker 1: And your whole mindset is probably different now, right? From going from the cold to the beach and the beautiful people and the beautiful scenery and everything. Absolutely. Unknown Speaker: I think, you know, it took me a while to, I think, for my body actually to get adjusted to the different type of weather. Because, you know, I was used to, you know, for the past 14 years to living in the wintertime in cold weather, right? And now it's been sunny every day. And so I think, you know, my body needs to adjust, but I'm loving it though. Speaker 1: So you're going to take it to the next level. I mean, you're on the coast, but now you're going to take it to an island for the Billion Dollar Seller Summit. You're going to go from the coast of Miami to the island of Puerto Rico, where you're going to be trying to defend your title. Because at the last in-person Billion Dollar Seller Summit in August, I think there's this Italian dude that was up on stage and walked away with the $5,000 cash prize as the best speaker. I think that guy might have been you. So you got you got a you got a little bit of a pressure on your back to defend that title, right? Unknown Speaker: That's right. That was me. And it's going to be hard this year because I see the lineup is obviously amazing, as expected. But I will definitely do my best, Kevin. I have a good presentation that I'm working on and so I'm excited for it. Speaker 1: How do you feel like, how is speaking at the Billion Dollar Seller Summit different than speaking at some other event? Is it the pressure because you're all competing or is it the level or what is it? How is it different? Unknown Speaker: It's the level, you know, the Billion Dollar Seller Summit, you're going to find sellers that, you know, have their skin in the game, right? Versus some other conferences maybe where you have people attending that don't really understand that they're just new to the game, right? So at the Billion Dollar Seller Summit, you know, the level is very high. And so you need to impress the attendee with high quality content, which is not easy, obviously, right? So if you do a good job at delivering that content, people will appreciate it. Speaker 1: So what are you, what are you, I know you don't want to let the whole cat out of the bag just yet, but what are you working on that you are hoping to share in June at the Billion Dollar Seller Summit in Puerto Rico? Unknown Speaker: Kevin, what I've been working on, you know, has been the new software, personally, like the ComboMath Connect, which is an influencer marketing platform. What I will share at Billion Dollar Seller Summit is obviously a mix of strategies and tips that obviously work well for me and my business. You know, I keep launching new products on Amazon. I think, you know, as a good speaker, as a good software provider, you have to also sell on Amazon. Otherwise, you don't really understand, you know, the pain that sellers go through. And so what I'm going to be sharing will cover some of, you know, stuff when it comes to influencer marketing. But I also touch, you know, multiple, I guess, parts of this Amazon journey from a seller perspective. Speaker 1: So what's something a little bit more specific that you might actually cover? Just to tease it a little bit. Unknown Speaker: So I have put together some like seven strategies and tips that I believe to be very important this year when it comes to not only launching, but also accelerating the growth of an Amazon business. Particularly, I've been doing a lot of research on the semantic relevance of a listing in a context, for example, in a category. I've been using a lot of the search query reports and the importance of the buyer persona. When searching a product, you know, in my opinion, that is really where someone should start when looking for a new product to launch, you know, not only the search volume or the conversion rate for a keyword, but who is going to buy your product. It's very important, but I don't want to spoil it. But in my opinion, the more by persona you can identify, the higher is the chance for you to succeed with a new product. And then, you know, lately we've seen a lot of badges, right, that Amazon is displaying for certain products. I have a product that is doing quite well. But then Amazon always recommends another one, for example, that has the climate climate pledge friendly. So leveraging those programs, obviously, is going to be very important. And overall, you know, you think understanding the data that Amazon is giving to us today to always stay relevant with your product. So these are the topics that I will touch on. And I'm pretty sure they'll be very valuable, whether you're a beginning or a beginner or an advanced seller. Speaker 1: You're big into the data stuff. I mean, you're, you're like a data ninja. I mean, you, you love, like with your brands, I know you have your beauty brand, a few other brands, you just like love pouring over that data and like looking for those anomalies or those patterns or those ways to actually analyze that data. Are you using any like AI stuff in combination with anything you're doing right now? Or, uh, yeah. See if he's nodding his head. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 2: Like everyone else. Right. Speaker 1: Like everyone. Yeah. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 3: Yeah. Unknown Speaker: Definitely, Kevin. I think this year is the year of AI, right? I've been seeing it for a while. It was going to be the year of data. And combined with AI, I think there is no reason why today we shouldn't be super sophisticated or still complain about not having an optimized listing, not targeting the right keywords. So definitely one thing I've done last week is implementing AI into the software. That I'm working on and the output is just outstanding. It's amazing. I feel like I have a team of 20 engineers and superhumans working for me at the moment. So I definitely will touch on that. But yeah, for example, what I was able to do ...is figuring out a way to make a seasonal product work all year around. And with AI and the search query performance report, I was able to figure out keywords. And now we've been selling under 150 units a day of a product that normally sells very well during Q4. Wow. You're going to be sharing that at BDSS? Speaker 2: I will. Speaker 4: I will. Speaker 1: Awesome, awesome. And you can also be on the webinar that we're doing, the little hack contest on April 18th, where we're going to have some of the Billion Dollar Seller Summit speakers sharing a few cool things as well as some people from the audience. That should be pretty cool. I don't think anybody's ever done a webinar like that where there's actually a cash prize on this totally free live webinar with a thousand plus people on it. You looking forward to that? Unknown Speaker: Kevin, how can I miss a hack contest? Of course I'll be there, yes. Speaker 1: Awesome. Well, Leo, I'm looking forward to seeing you on the 18th of April on the webinar. Looking forward to hanging out with you in Puerto Rico in June. But in the meantime, enjoy that good Miami weather and don't work too hard. Remember, go outside every once in a while. Unknown Speaker: Kevin, that's not a language I speak, but I appreciate it. Speaker 1: We'll see you soon, man. Appreciate it. Unknown Speaker: See you in Puerto Rico. Bye, Kevin. Speaker 1: Welcome Matt to the AM PM podcast. You're the next one in the hot seat here on this Billion Dollar Seller Summit podcast. How are you doing man? Unknown Speaker: Doing well, how about yourself? Speaker 1: Keeping busy like always, just getting ready for, got a couple new product lines, getting ready to launch and getting ready for the Billion Dollar Seller Summit, doing all the stuff that I do for Helium 10 Elites, recording all the next like three months worth of podcasts. It's crazy times. Unknown Speaker: Yeah, man, it sounds like a lot. Speaker 1: So I just saw you out in Vegas, you spoke at the MDS events and everybody out there was like, Matt, it was like for the MDS did this event where it was open to the public. They had like, I think they said 270 people or something at this event, right before prosper. And then they opened it up to people that aren't MDS members as well. So about half the audience or so was non MDS members, but they had a track that was only for MDS people. And you were one of those guys that was speaking and it's like super private, super secrets, like standing room only room. And I think you blew some people away. And I've heard you, you've spoken before different events and you spoke at like, you won Howard Ties Mastermind, like a $20,000 cash prize or something like that last year in Paris. So I'm super stoked to have you come into Puerto Rico. And a lot of people actually, you know, when I'm asking the other speakers, like, what's it going to be like? They're like, man, the competition this time. is serious. I see Matt's name up there. I see this person's name up there and they're like, this is going to be intense. What are you looking forward to? How do you think this is going to go? Unknown Speaker: I think it's going to be the best one yet. I mean the lineup is great so far. You've got some amazing people and I mean everyone always brings their best to Billion Dollar Summit just because it's kind of the main one that everyone wants to go to. It's where all the clout is in the space. Speaker 1: So when you say it's where all the clout is in the space, so is that because the speakers are not just presenting but they're competing for that audience? Is that what you mean by that? Unknown Speaker: A hundred percent. I think that's the big thing is like everyone wants to bring their kind of show stopping tricks to make sure they get voted best speaker. Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, when I did that, I, you know, there's a lot of conferences you go to and people just recycle the same presentations or they make a small little change and it's the same stuff. And a lot of it's not actionable. It's just like general kind of, I call them fluff presentations or corporate BS. But at the Billion Dollar Seller Summit, one of the things I've always stressed to all the speakers is it's got to be tactical. Like, do this, do this, do this. Don't just give me a bunch of fluff. Yeah, make your main image good. And it's important to find the right keywords. No, how do you do that? And show me some examples. And that's typically what wins. And that's what you do. Because you're managing, what is it, like, some ridiculous amounts of revenue, right, for different clients? Unknown Speaker: Yeah, so we're managing over about 150 brands on any given month. And we do anywhere from like $1 billion to like $2 billion in total sales on Amazon. So we've got some big fortune 500 companies, all the way down to small startups. Speaker 1: So you have an advantage over someone like me, who's just got three little measly seller accounts that I'm doing my own little thing. You see the whole gamut and you like, you're really deep in the weeds and you see truly what's working and what's moving the needle. Correct. Yeah. Unknown Speaker: So a lot of things that people present, I mean, they're showing stuff that they are doing on their accounts or maybe one or two accounts that they have. We're leveraging everything we're doing across all of these accounts. So no matter what, on any given month, we're launching between 30 to 40 new products. We're constantly keeping track of all the data and what needs to change to make our launches as successful as possible. Speaker 1: So what's a big mistake people are making right now when it comes to launches? What's something that a lot of people you see they're doing like man, why do people keep doing this or what's a big mistake? Unknown Speaker: I think honestly the biggest mistake I see is people overthink their listing and everything that kind of goes into it. We actually have the best success when we don't add A plus content to our listings. So we're very big on getting the product up as soon as possible if the product's ready to sell, even if we don't have the rest of the content built out, as long as we have the image stack and really your titles and bullets are written correctly. You'll have no issues ranking. I think a lot of that has to do with the majority of purchases are happening on mobile. And to actually get to A-plus content on mobile, you have to scroll literally all the way to the bottom of the product page. No one ever does that. At least, I don't. And everyone I've ever asked, no one scrolls all the way down there. It's only Amazon sellers that scroll down and look at it. So we really don't think it's a huge benefit to you. I know Amazon says like it increases conversion rate this much and blah, blah, blah, but we've never actually seen it happen in real life. Speaker 1: Yeah, I would tend to agree with you on that. That makes sense about the mobile side of things. If it's a very technical product, maybe people are looking down there, you know, to get some additional information or they're really trying to make that final decision, like should I choose this one, should I choose product A or choose product B. But in the most cases, if you're doing everything else right above that, they shouldn't need to even go that far. So that's basically what you're saying is. Unknown Speaker: Yeah, and we've gone through it too now because like, really, the big thing in A plus content is how do you keep it like the continuity between the different breaks that they have and how people break up their images between that to make it look like one uniform thing. Your image stack actually now shows and mobile has for a while before the A plus content straight up and down. So we've actually made all of our images now flow together where there's pieces of images that go into the next image so that when they're in that image stack, it looks like one congruent image all the way down. Speaker 1: Oh wow, that's interesting. So when they're scrolling down on their mobile phone, ah, that's a cool little tip right there. See, this is the type of stuff that Matt's just giving out for free right here on the podcast. Just imagine what if you were in Puerto Rico sitting across the table with him at lunch or whatever, what kind of stuff is just gonna come out of his mind, especially if you give him a drink or two. Sit around a campfire and put a couple logs on, you know, all kinds of stuff. I remember, you know, I think we talked about this before, but at Howard's event last year in Paris. The best part of that event was actually sitting around that campfire for like six hours one night just alternating putting people putting wood on the fire and just talking shop and stuff was amazing stuff was coming out. What are you going to be talking about at BDSS? I know you're speaking at several different events but you're saving like you told me you're saving like the good stuff for actually the BDSS. What's just a little hint of what you're going to be talking about? Unknown Speaker: So we've got a great one for Billion Dollar Seller Summit. What we're doing is we're going to walk through our entire process from step A to Z so that you can leave doing your launches exactly how we've been doing them for the last year. This is something actually we chatted a little bit about in France at Howard's thing because the SQR data was brand new right around that period. But now all of the other data sources that you can basically layer over that and how you can really optimize your launches down to an exact science. And what we've found is it costs a third to a quarter less than what traditionally launching a product on Amazon looked like. In the last four months, we've launched about 70 products. We've only had one fail and it was a product quality issue from the manufacturer. Other than that, we haven't had a problem getting a product to stick. Speaker 1: That's awesome. That's awesome. And you're going to be on the webinar too on the 18th of April. It's a totally free webinar for everybody. And we're going to have over a thousand folks probably on this webinar. It's going to be jam-packed where we're doing a live ninja hack contest. You got something pretty cool that you're going to share on that one as well? Unknown Speaker: Yeah, so we're gonna dive into, I did one for your virtual event here, what was that, like about a month ago? Speaker 1: In February, yeah. Unknown Speaker: And so I only had like a minute and I got cut off. Is it gonna be longer than a minute? Speaker 1: It's three, yeah, you get three minutes, yeah, three minutes. Unknown Speaker: Okay, so I've got a good one this time. We've discovered some things deeper on the one that I was talking about there, so we'll be able to go way into it and it actually now with the new way Amazon changed the brand And analytic search terms where it shows you like top search terms, how it shows what category everything defaults into for a search term and how much of a difference that makes if you aren't appearing in the right browse nodes. Even though many, many categories have like tools and home improvement for like LED flashlights, you can be in tools and home improvement, you can also be in health and personal care and you can be in sports and outdoors and still end in the LED flashlight. niche at the very bottom node. But depending on how Amazon classifies that search by category, you may not appear if you're in sports and outdoors, but the search defaults to tools. So there's a couple ways to make it so that you can appear in multiple of those categories and just maximize your placements across search. Speaker 1: Awesome. Awesome. That's going to be a tough one to beat. That was going to be good. Man, I appreciate you coming on, spend some time with us today and sharing. And like I said, looking forward to seeing you soon. Unknown Speaker: Yeah, no problem. Thanks for having me. Speaker 1: Awesome. Janelle Page is the next BDSS speaker that I have here on the podcast. How are you doing, Janelle? Speaker 4: So good. Good to see you again, Kevin. Speaker 1: So, hey, we got you here today. We've been talking to all the different, several of the different speakers from the Billion Dollar Seller Summit and you're going to be speaking at the Billion Dollar Seller Summit in San Juan, Puerto Rico as well. And this is not your first time. You've actually, you actually did really well on one of the virtual events, actually got one of the top speaker prizes. You've won the hack contest, I think, done well in that a time or two. So, what are you going to be bringing that's next level in Puerto Rico? Speaker 4: Gosh, you know, I have so many things I want to talk about. The problem with BDSS is that I only got 40 minutes and that's not a lot of time to cover everything I want to cover. When you ask me what I want to speak about, there's a couple things. I do a lot of high-level audits for aggregators when they're looking at acquisitions and also with brands. And I thought that might be kind of fun if I just let people kind of watch me as I work over my shoulder what I do for other people also with my own brands. I thought that might be really valuable also. I think one of the things that I feel like gives me a competitive edge on Amazon is my PPC or are my PPC strategies and skills. I thought that might be super valuable for people in attendance. I'm trying to narrow down which to focus on. I wish I could do both, but I think. Speaker 1: You charge a lot of money for those audits, right? You're going to be sharing some of the secrets for something you charge quite a bit of money for when you do that, right? Speaker 4: I know. That's why I was like, am I stupid to share this? But you know what? The thing about the group at BDSS, our Billion Dollar Seller Summit, they all bring value and everybody there is like top level sellers. So I get as much out of the event as I do, you know, in giving value. And honestly, the whole time, my whole career, I've just, I call it go giving. I feel like if I lead and give my best stuff first, everybody else will too. You know, it's like karma or something. I don't know how, it's like how the universe works. So I'm going to always bring my best because I want other people to do the same for me. Speaker 1: And you were at the one of the events in Austin. You've actually been to one of the events before too. How was that one for you? How was it any different or was it any different than other events? Because this is an expensive event to come to. Yeah. So how does it, how does it, is it worth it? Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, always, always worth it. I'm a big believer in masterminds and investing in, in years. What do you say you're the top result of the top five people you surround yourself with? I think that was a Jim Rohn quote long time ago, but that's the same thing with like these events. One of the very first events I went to was Manny Coats did an event. I think you were there that that one in Cancun long time ago. Speaker 1: Yeah, there's the old Illuminati before Helium 10 Elite. Speaker 4: Yeah, and I mean, I think about the guys and gals that I met there, we're still in mastermind in face group together, still throwing, and there was a Cabo mastermind as well. We still throw each other ideas and bounce ideas off each other. So, I mean, meeting people in person, I've had these relationships now since what, that's almost 10 years. of people, you know, and relationships from these original events. So being there in person, I just think you allowed you to connect on a much deeper level. I've had a lot of people from the virtual event, they'll email me, they'll reach out. And obviously, we can connect that way. But nothing beats like face to face interaction. Speaker 1: Awesome. So what's happening in your world right now? What's the hot thing going on in Janelle land? Speaker 4: Oh my gosh. I've got like two new product launches next month. I've got something I've been working on for these two, both been over a year that I'm really, really excited about. In fact, April 28th, we'll be dropping one of the larger, it's a big supplement that we've been working on. I wish I could tell you a little bit more, but give me April 28th and I'll post it on my LinkedIn. And then another one I've been working with, Developing a female tool line that's like Tiffany, beautiful and it's a very underserved market and so I'm kind of hoping that'll be a really big launch and maybe DeWalt will just buy us and it'll be a fast exit but I'm really really excited about those. Speaker 1: So it's like a Tiffany level hammer and screwdriver or something like that. Speaker 4: Power tool, let's put it that way. Speaker 1: So you're going to sell a $5 screwdriver for $295. Yes, we are. Tiffany does. Speaker 4: It is a good high margin product and it's beautiful. And I cannot wait to show the world. It's something that, um, like I said, it's almost been over a year. Um, three different molds. It's been very expensive. We were going to do a Kickstarter on it, but my hatred for Kickstarter, you know, The clunkiness of the platform, just gonna do it on Shopify, a pre-sell and the mold just, we just got the mold back. It's beautiful and it's time to move to mass production. It's probably the most I've ever spent on inventory ever. Speaker 1: Now is this an Amazon launch or is this a DDC launch or an all-platform launch? Speaker 4: Oh yeah, all-platform. We'll launch it, actually it'll go to Amazon after we launch on Shopify. So it'll be a Shopify launch and then we will list on Amazon. Speaker 1: What's the method that you're gonna launch this? Do you guys have a list that you've been building? Do you just gonna run a bunch of massive ads or what's the strategy to actually... Speaker 4: I've been building a list. My business partner is one of a larger DIYer on YouTube. I mean when I say large, she doesn't even have a million followers yet but what we've been working on the past year along with building the product is building our affiliate network. So we've been reaching out to other influencers, getting on board with their affiliate codes. Getting them product in hand so that they can use it. And then we're going to have a coordinated like press releases and a launch like live stream with her and her audience and then bringing on all the other celebrities as we launch the tool line. Speaker 1: Awesome. So it's primarily an influencer based launch just to get with a little bit of PR behind it. Speaker 4: Yep. And just truly a revolutionary product. Like it's just such a need. There's nobody servicing the female. Um, you know, we, we use our husband's tools and then they're like, you know, not cool. And if you go on Amazon, like they're pink, there's a pink drill. Like, like if, if that's the only thing a woman wants is the color pink, you know, and they're, they're cheap Chinese crap. So it's pretty exciting. Speaker 1: That sounds exciting. I can't wait to see what that is. I'm curious now you got me, you peaked and I'm, I'm looking forward to seeing, uh, What you're going to be sharing at BDSS, too, because, you know, that that audit thing where you're analyzing, I mean, just having just doing that on my own businesses will probably be tremendously insightful and probably will find a lot of waste and probably find a lot of things need to change or not doing right or opportunities. I'm sure it's going to be. I know you and you're always super thorough, so I know it's going to be eye opening. Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that right there, the cost of the BDSS ticket is less than I charge for an audit. And to learn how I do an audit, how I think about brands and how I think about and advise brands how to grow rapidly on Amazon, that right there, I mean, like I said, these audits I charge anywhere from $6,500 to $10,000. I've never had anyone object to the price. They pay it hand over fist. And usually, especially with aggregators, I'll start with one brand, they usually want to onboard and be like, hey, take all these 13 brands. And I'm always like, hey, let's just start with one, make sure you like it, you know, because I always feel like when I'm charging that kind of money, I mean, that you want to make sure someone's happy with it. And they are always like, oh, okay. And I've never not had someone sign up all their brands after receiving one of my audits back. Speaker 1: That's awesome. That's awesome. And you're going to be on the webinar too on the 18th of April, right? The little hack webinar. You're going to be one of the participants on that competing. We're going to have probably around 20 or so people. There'll be 10 BDSS speakers, I think. A couple can't make it to schedule conflicts, but it's going to be about 10. And then we're going to open it up to five or 10 of the audience too that will be able to submit something. So I think It's going to be really cool. It's a totally different type of webinar than I think anybody's ever done before. Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I would not miss that webinar. Anyone who's listening here, I would be marking your calendars because like if you couldn't come to BDSS, which I totally think you should, that webinar is going to be pretty awesome, full of free gems. So make sure you don't miss. Speaker 1: I agree. Awesome. Well, I'm looking forward to seeing you on the 18th and also in Puerto Rico. It's going to be great. Speaker 4: So excited. Bought my tickets last night. We're set. Speaker 1: All right. Awesome. We'll see you there. Speaker 4: Thanks, Kevin. Speaker 1: My next guest on this special episode is Norm Farrar. Norm, it's always a pleasure to see you, man. You and your beard are just world famous. Speaker 3: Not as famous as you, Mr. King. Speaker 1: I don't know. You're the beard guy. I'm just the king. You got the cool look. Speaker 3: Well, there's always a chance that you could be the king of the beards. Speaker 1: Oh, that's true. If I wanted to grow one, you know, when I was younger, um, I was actually, I've never had a beard, but, uh, you know, I've had the, you know, the five o'clock shadow where I didn't shave for a few days or something. But when I was a teenager, I actually was one of the few, like 17 year olds that could actually grow a mustache. So when I was 17 years old, I actually had a mustache. And back then, I think the drinking age was 18. You know, they raised it to 21 right around the time I, I turned 18, but I was the guy that all my buddies in high school said, Kevin, you look older. You got a mustache. So you go, you go buy the beer. And there's this one place with this, these, uh, you know, immigrants or whatever that ran this one, uh, liquor store where they didn't really check IDs. Uh, you just go in there, you know, and, and get it. So I would go in there and get it. And then I remember one time there was a cop that was just watching from afar. And we went and I think we got some what they call wine coolers or something like that at the time. This is like the 80s. And we drive around the corner, go over this bridge to turn around over the freeway and right behind us, cop comes up, made us, he said, we have pulled us out. He said, you have two choices. I can either call your parents right now. I can take three choices. I can call your parents right now. I can handcuff you and take you to jail for underage possession. Or you can go over here on the side of the road and pour all this out. And we poured that stuff out as fast as we could. So yeah, so sometimes facial hair can come in handy. Sometimes it can get you in trouble. So Norm, you're another one of the guys that's coming to Puerto Rico for the Billion Dollar Seller Summit. You're actually speaking. Speaker 3: Yes. Speaker 1: How many Billion Dollar Seller Summits will this make it that you've been to? I think you missed one, right? Speaker 3: I missed one. I was sick one year, but I've gone to every single one. Speaker 1: Why do you do that? Is it just because you like me so much and you just want to have a cigar with me? Speaker 3: Or why do you actually- That's one of the reasons, yeah. That's a tradition, by the way. But no, you always bring together great speakers. And so that's one reason. But the other thing is the reason to network. So I always, and I know a lot of the speakers, but there's always new speakers, but there's always people in the audience. And I've seen this over the year, and you don't talk about this enough. But the average seller that's in the audience has gone from, let's say, $100,000 a month, a couple hundred thousand dollars a month, like I'm talking about way back when. And now, I don't even know what the last one was, but you're talking millions of dollars, and this is on the average. And I get to rub shoulders with these people and get to know them. And breaking bread is probably one of the most important things that you do so incredibly well. We go out there, we network, and you take us out to some really great restaurants or bring in some really great food, but it's about networking. So it's a really great, it's a business trip, it's an event, but it's also just building this network of friends. Speaker 1: And you're going to be speaking in Puerto Rico. What's a little, tease us a little bit about what topic you have, because there's a really good lineup of speakers and I've had some of the others on the show here and they're like, man, this is going to be super competitive. A lot of them are like, this is, I'm going to have to pull out all the stops to try to win this thing. What are you thinking about sharing with everybody that's there? Speaker 3: I'm going to do something completely different. So There's a lot of people that talk about Amazon. There's a lot of people that are talking about some other really cool things over the last year or two. But this year, I'm going to go off on a different track and it's going to help online sellers become better online sellers, but just in a different way that they really never thought was out there. How's that? That's a teaser for you. Speaker 1: So this is for sellers of all levels or this is for just the guys doing a hundred million a year that are in the audience? Speaker 3: No, no, no. This could be, and these are going to be actionable steps that you can take, whether you're One of the advanced sellers or you're coming there and you're just got a couple SKUs or ASINs. So it's something that you can take that will help you with e-commerce or possibly even service industries. Speaker 1: Lately, you've been up to a whole bunch of little projects, some Amazon Live and some other stuff. What's the latest, since you were on the podcast, I think it was last year, we did an episode. If anybody wants to go back and listen to our episode, we talked about branding and packaging and how to perceive value and stuff. It was a really, really good episode. So check that out in the archives here on AMPM Podcast. But what have you been up to since then? What's going on in the life of Norm? Speaker 3: Well, if anybody's ever listened to my podcast, my son challenged me to this zero to 100,000 followers as a product influencer and I had zero followers. So this kind of threw me into understanding the life of an influencer. So going on to Amazon Live. Going and understanding the whole affiliate, influencer, this is all from Amazon side of things, the shoppable videos, going on and understanding how to sell it through social media. Because I look at things a different way, because I'm not a product influencer, I saw a lot of different things that people weren't doing, say the main influencer community might not have thought of. And trying to break that down and systemize it like we always talk about scalability, automation is really what grows a business. And how can you do that as an influencer or if you're trying to find influencers? So the main goal that I've been trying to do is track on a journal going forward is how to find influencers for your brand and not in a complicated way, in an affordable way, what to say to them. And then the second part to this is what happens if you wanna be your own brand ambassador, how to do it. And then what happens if you wanna do this as a side hustle? And I didn't tell you this, But one of the things I can tell you is that we've had struggles. We've had a lot of struggles doing this and I've got, you know, I've just built this studio and I've got my product thing over here. I mean, you know, I put a lot of time and energy into this and where I'm finding the biggest, um, uh, the biggest profit right now, every single day is with shoppable videos. Um, I really paid no attention to it and what I can tell you by doing this, if you're a brand and you don't have people doing these shoppable videos or hiring these influencers to get on your product listing, you're missing out. I can tell you two weeks ago, I put up an expresso maker and this is little old me, okay, with very few, very few followers and we've sold Probably now, 50 plus expresso makers. That's just one video. Speaker 1: We did a- Where does this video appear? Speaker 3: Well, a lot of sellers don't realize that when you're doing a video, so you can do your own videos, you can do a demo video, you can do three videos in your slide deck. But if you ever see there's a line and then it'll show other videos, those are from influencers. Those are from people that are doing shoppable videos for you. Speaker 1: So when you say shoppable for the people that don't know what that means, that means if as they're watching the video, they can just click on the video screen, like if they see something and they see the shoes or they see the shirt or whatever, is that correct? Speaker 3: Yeah, well, what happens is you can be on to the, let's say that you go over to here. Okay, you go over and you see me holding this up and talking about this perpetual calendar and people watch it, well then they go and buy the product, then you get the commission for that. And also you'll see this in related videos, so down below you'll see the shoppable video where it clicks on it and it'll take you over and you can buy the product. Speaker 1: So these are just products- So shoppable video doesn't mean like the whole video's got like hotspots on it that you click, it just means that the The video is like a, an infomercial with a link or something where you click it. Okay. Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 1: And it's, if you, so instead of it being just a demo or just talking about the product that ties into an, uh, there's a CTA. Speaker 3: Yeah. And you'll know, it's me. I, I had like, I, I kind of tried to figure out how to do this. And if you want to do this, or if you want to go and hire somebody, it's this easy. All I do is I take a shot from about here down. So I just show my beard and I hold up. The, you know, the product and I talked to it and I could be reading off of a script or the bullet points and I could be talking and then That information, maybe a 45 to a three minute script, it goes down, gets uploaded, and if it's relevant and it's not already filled up, so let's say there's three other shoppable videos in that relevant video slide deck, then you can go down to the related videos. If there's too many, you might not be found. If you're a new brand or if you're a brand that has a new ASIN, I would highly recommend going out and trying to find influencers to do shoppable videos and just getting them to upload them. And if you have no videos there, they'll probably likely fill up the deck and it does help. Especially if you've got a, like I said, I go over there cause I put an expresso machine beside my desk. You know, 50, 50. So for that brand, and they didn't send me the brand, I bought the brand, I just did it. So I went around the house, I did my Yeti mic, I did, you know, stream yard, I've got a stream deck here, just some technical stuff, my camera, but also if, you know, if a brand is sending me product, I can do it as well. And so there's two ways of doing it. You can promote your own stuff or you could just go around the house, anything. I've got a cigar humidor over there. It could be anything. I've got this mic here, the Shure mic, the stand for the Shure mic, the lights, all of these things I can go. And as long as I have an affiliate link and that I have been approved through the Creator Hub, Then, you're good to make money and we are making money every day. Speaker 1: I met someone at the internet marketing party in Austin a few weeks ago that was on stage talking about doing this kind of stuff and saying he's making about 17 grand a month in commissions just by walking around his house, like what you just said, walking around the house, finding Amazon products and shooting videos and putting them up. And getting them attached to other people's listings, you know, putting the ASIN in there and somehow they're getting attached and he's got his affiliate link in there and he's just, even without the brand's permissions in some case, he's just talking about it. Speaker 3: Never with the brand's permissions. Speaker 1: It's showing up. And he's, you know, this actually, we just gave this away for free, but this could have been your hack in the contest on April 20th. I'm sorry, April 18th. Well, guess what? Speaker 3: It still could be, right? I could refine this. Speaker 1: That's right, you could. On April 18th, on the webinar that we're doing for the hack contest, where we're going to have several of the Billion Dollar Seller Summit speakers competing for a cash prize, along with some people from the audience. And it's going to be a pretty cool Kick-ass webinar and you could have like shared this there and this would have been you know showing some actionable stuff and the three minutes that you have to share a tip and could have Could have done really well. That's a pretty good a pretty good one. So I'm sure you got something else up your sleeve. Speaker 3: Oh, I definitely do but See, one thing Amazon doesn't tell you how to do it, and it's very hard to do, is there's three things that have to come together. Unknown Speaker: So, how about that? How about that? Speaker 1: So, if you're on the webinar on the 18th, 2 o'clock Eastern Time, you just may see how Norm, I really appreciate you taking some time today to come on this special episode and share with us, man. I'm looking forward to seeing you on the 18th as well as in Puerto Rico in June. Speaker 3: I can't wait. Speaker 1: Awesome. My next guest on this special podcast is none other than Antonio Bindi coming to us all the way from Brazil. How are you doing, Antonio? Speaker 2: I'm doing well Kevin, thanks for having me. Speaker 1: Now you're always flying from, you must like, they must know you on the Brazil to Miami route because you're always coming from us, coming from Rio to Miami to come to some mastermind, some conference, a Prosper Show or something. You're like back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. I'm surprised you don't even have a house here in the U.S. by now. Unknown Speaker: I try to travel as much as I can. Being to these events is what has taught me what I know and made me the connections I have today. Speaker 1: Now you've been selling for how long now? Unknown Speaker: Five years now. Speaker 1: Five years now? And doing like seven, eight figures? Speaker 4: Eight figures. Speaker 1: Eight figures in the home? Unknown Speaker: No eight figures, but eight figures. Speaker 1: That's awesome. Well, I think people are going to really enjoy what you have to say in Puerto Rico because you're speaking in Puerto Rico at the upcoming Billion Dollar Seller Summit and that's one of the things that I always try to do with the Billion Dollar Seller Summit is you go to some of these events and it's the same speakers. You know, and sometimes they're just recycling the same presentations. But not at the Billion Dollar Seller Summit. Even if you've seen that speaker before, they're bringing a brand new content, a brand new game. And then I always try to bring in people like yourself. There's a lot of very successful sellers out there that just keep their head down and they're just selling. But they know a lot of cool stuff and some of them, like yourself, are willing to share, which is great. So in Puerto Rico, you're gonna be sharing something pretty cool. What are you gonna be talking about in Puerto Rico? Unknown Speaker: Well, the great thing about these events, I'll get you into it in a second. The great thing about these events is even when you're, even those sellers who are not on stage, they're there and you get all of the value by just by sitting on a table and having a drink with someone, having lunch. And these events are not only about having the sellers on stage or having people presenting, but about the connections you make and the answers you get from a quick lunch with someone. Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with that. The value is not necessary. I mean, you get good value and you're sitting there taking notes when you listen to somebody, but a lot of times the best golden nuggets or the best connections or the best things come out, like you said, at lunch or at dinner or having a drink or when you're on a bus going to an event or like in Austin when you're doing a race around with three other people in a car. Those type of things, that's what we build into the Billion Dollar Seller Summit that a lot of people may not realize is, they think of it, it's another conference, we're gonna go sit in the classroom all day and just listen to some stuff and maybe go to a dinner. But no, we build in a whole ton of stuff. Like in Puerto Rico, we're doing a family feud. We're actually having like, breaking everybody up into teams and doing like a family feud type of contest. We're also doing a survivor, the TV show survivor type of contest where you're gonna have to go out and You have a bunch of bamboo and rope and have to figure out how to make a raft and go out into the ocean and get something and then find it using a compass, find a treasure chest buried in the sand and things like that. It's cool interactive stuff because what we find is a lot of these sellers are competitive and they love this, but it's also good networking and good bonding. Unknown Speaker: It's where you get the shy sellers opportunity to speak to the shy sellers and have them tell you what they know. And sometimes it's something that they don't think it's teachable out there, but it's valuable. People make life-changing or business-changing information valid, given out in these situations. Speaker 1: So what are you going to be speaking about? I know we went down a different path there, but what are we going to be speaking about in Puerto Rico? Unknown Speaker: It's mostly a compilation of these things that I've given out in events and tables. I noticed that people really liked that information and applied those changes to their businesses. And it's very operational. I'm going to talk about the way I leverage my SKU variations. My products are all full of variations, anything from 10 to 20 variations each product line. And the way that I organize my products, the way that I display them, the care that I have with the images, the swatch images, and how, especially how I cross-promote my variations in a way that I dominate not only the product detail page by cross-selling and cross-promoting all of my products, but also how I leverage that in the search results. This is like one of the big things that people really like and there's a lot to it. I go very operational from how to name your variations into how to do PPC across and also I'll be talking about, if we have the time, I hope we do, I'm going to talk about my logistics techniques, how to save thousands of dollars in each container. I'm currently shipping out four containers a month from China to the States. And the way that I set them up and the way that I care about the packaging, the boxes, the cartons and the pallets, everything is thought from the factory, how each decision will impact my final cost of landed goods on Amazon. So it's also very actionable, things that you can change with the supplier right away that will save you thousands on the road. Speaker 1: And you're doing something now, I think, With variations where you're doing something with lifestyle images or something, can you talk about that a little bit or give the audience here a little take away, a little actionable take away? Unknown Speaker: We talked about that a while ago and I really like that one. One thing that I do because we have so many variations, so many products in the same product line, is that I'll create thousands, and I'm not kidding, I'll create thousands of different bundles between my products with each of my other products. And this way, I don't know if you've seen that, but under the buy box and the images, if you have virtual bundles for a product, Amazon will create a new section saying buy as a bundle with all of the products you created bundles for. And it's like an image carousel that you can have like tens and dozens of those, of bundles, but Amazon will right away show six of your bundles for the product. And the great thing about that is that if you use lifestyle images for the main bundle image, you now have six new images under your regular carousel that are clickable that will take you to other products. So not only you're pushing down all the PPC, all of the paid spaces on your listing, you're also highlighting more of your products And showing them as lifestyle images. So instead of six images that Amazon gives you, now you have 12. It works like a new A-plus section, but it's right under your main image and the buy box. It's not down under. Speaker 1: That's a really cool technique. I like that a lot. And you're also going to be on the webinar that's coming up next week on the 18th of April as well. You're going to be sharing some sort of cool little nugget on that. Unknown Speaker: On the webinar, what I'm going to bring to you is how I do my packaging and not only the product packaging, but the carton size and how I micro adjust those so that we have like the best possible optimization for your outbound shipments as well. So it's a great way to, and I have a few on that subject that I'll just save for the in-person event, but I'll give out some information that helps you save thousands of dollars in every shipment. Speaker 1: That's gonna be great. Antonio, I really appreciate you taking some time out today to actually come on and really looking forward to seeing what you have on the 18th of April and again at the Billion Dollar Seller Summit in Puerto Rico. Speaker 2: Absolutely, Kevin. Unknown Speaker: Once again, thanks for the invite. I'm super excited to be there. Speaker 1: Awesome. Thanks, man. Well, that was some awesome stuff. Just a serious lineup of some of the smartest minds in this industry. And you can meet them all and hear them all in person in Puerto Rico, June 11th to the 15th. It's not just presentations. We do a lot of other cool stuff, as you can see, as they talked about in this episode. I hope you can join us. If not, at least be sure to get on the webinar that's coming up next week on the 18th. BillionDollarSellerSummit.com forward slash webinar totally free to sign up. There will be a replay. So if you can't make it live and there'll be a replay available for a couple of days afterwards. So be sure to sign up there and enjoy this crazy. Hack contest that we're going to be doing is something that we do at the Billion Dollar Seller Summit. It's hugely popular. I think you'll like it too. And don't forget tomorrow, there's part B. So we have more of this, more different speakers from the Billion Dollar Seller Summit. They'll be sharing some more insights on what they're going to be talking about, as well as some actionable tips you can take away from the episode. So don't miss it. It's coming out tomorrow. And before we go today, I got your words of wisdom for you. Here you go. Mindset creates your reality. Your mindset creates your reality. See you again tomorrow for part B.