#386 – From Legal Expert to Influencer Icon: Michelle Platt’s Guide to Mastering the Digital Stage

#386 - From Legal Expert to Influencer Icon: Michelle Platt's Guide to Mastering the Digital Stage Speaker 1: Boom, we're back with episode 386 of the AM-PM Podcast. This week my guest is Michelle Platt. Michelle Platt's a former attorney turned influencer and she's crushing it when it comes to the influencer scene. We're gonna talk about all about being an influencer, about how influencers work, about how you can deal with influencers and some of the things that she likes to see and doesn't like to see when you as a seller are approaching her. I think you're gonna really enjoy this episode with Michelle. 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. Speaker 2: Let's do this. Unknown Speaker: Here's your host, Kevin King. Speaker 1: Michelle Platt, welcome to the AM PM podcast. How are you doing? Speaker 2: I'm good. Thanks for having me. Speaker 1: We just met recently, not too long ago on a cruise ship of all places, right? Speaker 2: I know. It was awesome. Speaker 1: We were actually on that cruise back in, I think it was in January. And we're both speaking there you're speaking on influencers and I was just doing my normal little hacks and whatever I normally do and it was it was a week-long adventure. Speaker 2: Yeah, I know I feel like a week felt like it was gonna be really long and then at the end I kind of was wishing I had a few more days. It was that kind of trip, right? Speaker 1: Yeah, so what's what's your what's your story? What's what's your background? What I mean you're doing we'll talk about the What you're doing on the influencer side of things and just a little bit, but what's your background before that? Have you been involved in e-commerce? Is this something relatively new? You've been doing this for a while or where'd you come from? Speaker 2: So yeah, no, I feel like my story is one of those like really ups and downs. So graduated college and went to law school, became an attorney and it, It was just not the right fit. I knew kind of even before I graduated law school, like I want to do something creative, but then I gave it a few years, worked as an attorney, and then I actually taught for a little bit. And then I started my website really to launch a freelance writing career. Like I figured I needed a space to send people. So I started a website and then it kind of took off. And so I've been doing that for eight years. Speaker 1: What kind of writing? What kind of writing is it? Speaker 2: So I just started, it's really like a health and wellness website. It didn't start like that. It started all about like apps and technology and kind of hacks. So you would like hacks. It was all just things like that. And I just kind of didn't expect it to do anything other than here's my portfolio. And then it really just kind of took off, started making money from a few months in with the affiliate program, mainly Amazon at the time. And then I slowly got into the influencer space. I was actually like invited into Amazon influencers program when it was beta, just based on my Amazon affiliate, like sales at the time, and didn't know a whole lot about it and kind of took a deeper dive the last two years when I feel like it's become more popular. Speaker 1: So you started writing a blog, it migrated into health and wellness and so you started plugging products on Amazon related to supplements or different types of exercise equipment or what kind of stuff? Speaker 2: So it was a lot of exercise equipment and it was from day one, I became an Amazon affiliate. Yeah, I was driving sales to expensive equipment. So from day one, I monetized my site with the Amazon affiliate program. Speaker 1: And so, yeah, a lot- And this was about eight years ago. So around 2015, 2016-ish? Speaker 2: It was March of 2016. So it's almost eight years. Speaker 1: How are you driving traffic to this site? What were you doing to actually, I mean, if you set it up right with affiliates from day one to monetize it, which a lot of people don't do, but how are you driving the traffic to the site? Speaker 2: It was Google. It was like 100% Google at the time. I didn't know about SEO, but I was SEOing my website. So, I was like writing for keywords. I was writing about trending topics. I was outranking like CNET and the New York Times. I was, I don't know. I just kind of, I just, it really was keyword, but I get it at the same time. I didn't really know what research was. I just knew what I wanted to write about and I thought it was kind of trending topics. And so at the time it really was Google. Then I had a newsletter. I didn't pay any attention to social media. Still, that's always been a weakness because I was really focused on Google. And then over the last seven years, I was like, oh, there's a whole thing called SEO. And that's what I was doing. But now let me actually learn about it. So I've been in masterminds and done courses and really focused mainly on that. Speaker 1: Has that made a big difference? I mean you kind of almost like lucked into it in the beginning there, just kind of naturally did something right and since you've actually learned the tips of the trade, has that made a difference and like using SEMrush or any of the SEO tools? Speaker 2: Yeah. So Ahrefs, I start every morning with that. There's been so many algorithm changes at the time. And even though it sounds like I went into it blindly and fell into it, I was listening. Actually, there were some really good podcasts at the time. There weren't a lot of Facebook groups or anything. So I was listening to podcasts like, what do I do? How do I start a site? How do I build a site? So I feel like I went in kind of knowledgeable and I think that's my attorney background. I'm going to not tiptoe in. Well, I am going to tiptoe in. I'm going to just spend some time researching what do I need to do. Now I feel like those groups and all those courses are helping because there's so many algorithm changes all the time. You have to stay on top of it and you can live in your little bubble and not even know what's going on. Speaker 1: How often were you putting fresh content on the blog? Speaker 2: In the beginning, not so often because again, I thought I was building it as like a portfolio. So I was like, I don't, I just need a few good pieces. And now I'm much more intentional about it. I also did like a rebrand this year and got rid of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of articles. And decided, you know what, I didn't, I didn't start as a health and wellness site. But I think that's what I've pivoted into. And that's like what people want from me. So I deleted anything, or put them in draft, anything that I thought like was not what I wanted to, you know, be known for. And it just kind of helped me like niche down and, and actually write more intentionally now. Speaker 1: Are you doing all the writing or do you have a team or ghostwriters or is it all you? Speaker 2: It's been all me. I've definitely gotten more into AI over the last year. I don't have it write everything for me, but it's definitely helping me with like outlines and keyword research and that sort of thing. Speaker 1: Where do you get your topics? Is it just stuff that you know or stuff that the way that you're living and you write about that or are you actually going out there and researching on topics or talking about people that are doing well or case studies or what's the general gist? Speaker 2: So my favorite way is probably like Google Search Console, like I look to see what are people like searching for on my site, and then have I covered it? Can I do more about that? In my newsletter, I sometimes ask people like, what do you want to know more about, you know, and sometimes people like respond to me. A lot of it is actually because I feel like this is what kind of got me in the right place in the beginning. A lot of it is just kind of having like my eyes and ears open being around people and a lot of it is like I'll do a lot of product reviews and different things. So people will mention something, even Facebook groups. I'm probably the only person who asked this. I have like a tab. I go into Facebook groups, like regular Facebook groups and people will ask questions about something and I have future blog posts and I have it tabbed and then I will like crowdsource from there and try to build blog posts because when people are asking questions and don't know much about it, I feel like that's the perfect time for me to like dive in and answer those questions. So that's one of my favorite ways and it has been from the beginning. Speaker 1: Do you ever use answer the public? Speaker 2: I do. Yeah, I do. I feel like, yeah, I use all those. I have another one that I've been using. It's a SEO keyword research tool. It's called Rank IQ, which I started using the last year. You'll put in a topic and then it'll generate You know, just just basically post that they think you can rank for like quickly, you know, it'll take a long time, like quick, you know, just and it gives you a general idea of how much you need to write and what are kind of some of the more shorter tail keywords even to write about. Speaker 1: How do you feel about the predictions that people are saying that in a year, maybe less of 80% of the content that's going to be online like on blogs and stuff is going to be AI written and it's going to lose a lot of its, it's just going to start all looking the same. What are your thoughts of the direction that how AI is influencing writing and blogging and newsletters and that kind of stuff and what do you think is going to happen when everything starts just being all AI and how do you get that human element back into it? Speaker 2: Yeah, so I that's why I feel like I held off a little bit in the you know, AI because I consider myself a writer and that's like the fun part out of everything I do writing is my favorite part. So I don't I don't want to, you know, I don't want BARD or chat GPT doing it. I want to do that part. And then I feel like if you say you're a writer, and then it's all AI, then it's like, really, what are you? But I can go into sometimes other, you know, I have competitors and even friends who are competitors and I can see their sites and I'm like, ooh, they're doing a lot of AI recently. Like I can see it in their writing, just there's certain like, you know, words. So I'm using it really for, let's say I'm writing a topic and I have like 10 ideas. I will say, how are these 10 ideas? Can you give me 10 more? And I'm like, oh, those are good. I didn't even think about it. So I feel like for me, like topic generation, it's really helpful. But I don't know. I think what stood out about my site in the beginning is I'm writing about my experience. And so I do believe like, AI can't do that. They want to hear the ridiculous things that are kind of happening or just how I went through something and it didn't work for me. And so that I feel like can't be replaced by AI. But what is being replaced is I feel like now you're searching and now all of a sudden it's like Reddit and Quora. And they're like, wait, I have more to say about this than the two sentences. And so now they're outranking your blog posts. That's like the newest algorithm change, like the helpful content update is that you're putting it in your blog is going underneath all these people having conversations. So I think it's hard because you have to kind of deal with AI and now you have to deal with Quora and Reddit. Speaker 1: Yeah, I think AI, I mean, I publish a newsletter as well, as you know, and I also enjoy the writing process, but I don't like the tedious part of some of it, but AI is great for brainstorming. So like you said, you know, if I'm looking for 10 different ideas on a headline, I'll write the headline and say, what are 10 other ways to say this? Or I will use it, we just recently, I'll use it to summarize a big long technical thing or something like that. But it's all about the prompting, how you type. If you just type in chatGT, please summarize this story, you're going to get something dramatically different than if you say, please summarize this as a Wall Street general reporter, emphasizing this and this and this and also talk about this, this and this and how does it affect this, this and this. And the output is dramatically different. And I also like it for like, we just, I have a course called the Freedom Ticket with Helium 10, which is how to sell on, on Amazon A to Z. And we just reshot the, we updated every, every couple of years. Totally. We like reshoot the entire thing from scratch from, from, from the ground up. And we just redid that. And the original, the last one, the third one version came out in 2021 was 50 some odd modules of me talking. And this time we decided that that was too much. People aren't going to make it through 53 modules. It just looks daunting when you get into a course. So we cut it down to 18. And what we did is we combined a few, and we eliminated a few, and we updated a few. But in order to do that, in order to read, I don't use a script. I just talk. So I don't have a script that I'm reading on Teleprompter. I just have notes, almost like bullet points, like note cards or something. And I just know what to say. I just, whatever comes out, comes out. But to do that work in the past, I would have to sit down or have someone pay someone to sit down and actually read everything and make basically notes, make an outline. This is what we talked about in the past. Okay, some of this is still good. We got to change these things. This time, AI did it. We just took the transcripts of 53 modules and said, Give us the key bullet points of each one of these and it spit out the key bullet points in seconds and then we use like that one's not relevant anymore. We need to add this, this one's missing and that became the new outline to shoot the whole thing and that was done in an hour or two instead of days or weeks. That's the beauty of AI. So you said you have the blog and you also have a newsletter. When did you start doing a newsletter? Speaker 2: So I think from the beginning, my newsletter was like an RSS feed, and I would write a post and it would get sent to my people. And then I only became really very consistent, I would say maybe like four years ago, where I'm like, all right, well, they get it whenever, but now I need to sit down and I need to do it every week. So, I called it the Friday Favorites. For some reason, I know Fridays doesn't seem like it would be a really good day for newsletters, but for me, I think people read it on Fridays because I think it's kind of like unwind, this is how my week was. I talk about like workouts I've done, these are the workouts I recommend, that sort of thing. I send it on Fridays. I don't recommend Fridays because it kind of kills your weekend. I feel like usually everyone's like, all right, are we going out like five o'clock? And I'm like, oh, I'm still working on this newsletter. Why did I call it Friday favorites? Why didn't I do like Wednesday? You know, it really is. It kind of kills me on Fridays. And even in the summer, sometimes I'll actually ask in my newsletter. Do you mind? Can I just send it every other Friday and I'll just send interesting things in between and just follow me here? Because when you set this up and you want to be consistent, you need to make sure that it actually does work for you. Speaker 1: So it's a weekly newsletter, except during the summer, sometimes it goes every other week. How are you finding it as far as the power or the influence that the newsletter has versus the blog? A blog is people have to be pulled to you, a newsletter you're going to them. It's a little bit more intimate relationship than a blog. What are you finding the differences in the two from a marketing perspective or an influence perspective? Speaker 2: I think because I've pivoted so much and I am writing for SEO, I think a lot of times my blog, even though I have my experience in there and things like that, it's missing a little bit of personality because I'm just trying to answer questions and I'm trying to make Google happy. I think my newsletter is kind of where I get back in and I get into like my, you know, just, it's just more of me. So I feel like I write it as if I'm talking to you and I'm sharing my newest things and some of those are blog posts. In a way, it's fun to do my newsletter because when I write it, I just said I went to Austin in my last newsletter and somebody just wrote to me like, give me some tips. I don't write about Austin. I just mentioned that in my newsletter. Things like that, I feel like it's more conversational. I do notice when I don't send it, I'm like, I really should have because I could see the traffic went down. I didn't send it. People are clicking through. It is tricky because I feel like sometimes people stumbled upon my newsletter generally because they found me on Google. Then sometimes if I talk about other things, I do have that actually when I do the Amazon thing. They're not really there for Amazon. They're there because they found me on Google. It's hard sometimes to figure out. I'm not really serving sometimes the same people. In my head, I go through how much do I do of each thing. Speaker 1: If you don't mind, what's your subscribers and click rate? Speaker 2: So again, I've pruned my list a lot. So I'm about 6,000. That's good. Speaker 1: That's good. Speaker 2: I just checked. It's generally, well, my open rate is, I don't know, between 52 and 55. Speaker 1: That's good. Speaker 2: And I have to check what my click through, but it's not bad. I know it's not bad because I did check after we had that conversation and you did your little thing and I was like, okay, I think I'm in the good space. Speaker 1: Yeah. I think any open rate above 40% is really good. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: And a click rate above 4%. Yeah. Speaker 2: Mine's around 5%. Speaker 1: That's good. That's good. Open rates can be a little deceiving because Apple devices show it open even though someone didn't really open it. But that's why click rate is the best that shows that there's engagement. But like what you said too, where people are writing you back saying, give me some tips about Austin, that's showing engagement and that's good too. So are you monetizing the blog still, I'm assuming with affiliate links? Are you doing a newsletter also with affiliate links? Speaker 2: So, yeah. Well, okay. So that was the beauty of the... I'm also monetizing my site with... I'm in an ad network. So that... Okay. So traffic... So even indirectly, if I'm sending people from my newsletter, I'm trying to build up traffic, right? That's the whole point. I'm an affiliate with lots of different companies, not just Amazon, but the reason why the Amazon Influencer Program appealed to me in the first place is because I kind of saw it as like a loophole because they reached out to me and they said, if you have an Amazon storefront, you can put that in a newsletter and you can't put affiliate links in there. So I was throwing in my newsletter, like here, here's an ideal list I created. That's kind of what I thought the Influencer Program was. I thought it was just create a list and do this. And then a couple of years ago, I was like, wait, people are making videos? People are live streaming? I didn't even know. And then when I went over to the influencer program, I had followers. So I obviously was getting people there from it. So that's the only way I've monetized it. I've never done selling ad space or doing anything like that on my newsletter. It's really just affiliate sales, trying to bring in my ad network, and then bringing people to my storefront. Speaker 1: So you started out doing the affiliate and then Amazon invited you and then now you're doing video. You're doing like UGC content and are you doing live streaming? What aspects of the influencer program are you doing? Are you creating videos and putting them on other people's listings? What are you doing? Speaker 2: Yeah. So in the beginning, I don't know why the live streaming sort of appealed to me, which is kind of funny because I haven't been like a video person, but I saw people doing that and I was like, I can do that because I can just like talk. And that's kind of what Amazon live streams are, or at least they were. They didn't feel so salesy. They didn't have to be like so perfect. They were just, I mean, literally not perfect. Like I had done live streams where I'm like drinking from a cup and then spill it all over me. And it's like, you just Going, you know, it's like nobody people like that. So live streams, though, so I started doing that a couple of years ago, and soon got approached by companies, you know, can we sponsor you to do a live stream, I was working with a like a aggregate company, and they were sending me products. And I was doing live streams for them, like once or twice a week. And it was great. And then I think Amazon changed, for everyone pretty much, they changed the live streaming where you used to get lots and lots of views and that led to lots of sales. And then they just don't show it as much anymore. They did a crackdown of people because I think the program was getting diluted by bad content. So they decided, you know what, we're just going to not shut this down, but we're going to make it like a little less appealing. And it got rid of all the bad players. But at the same time, it made it harder for everyone else, except if you were like a celebrity, you know, you go on now and there's like celebrities, you know, that are sponsored by Amazon, Amazon doing live streams. So I do them and there is still a benefit. And the benefit is on my Amazon storefront, on the very top on everyone's Amazon storefront, the very top piece is your most recent live stream, and that stays current for 30 days. So I do, you know, I still work with companies and I still do live streams, but the incentive is when somebody clicks over from my newsletter or someone clicks over anywhere and they go into my storefront, they will see that video, you know, not video. They will see the live stream and they will see the carousel of products. They'll see, you know, current prices, you know, they see everything. So that's really nice that that's on top. So I do it, but it's, it's not the same what it used to be, but it's still, I think a really good marketing tool. And one more benefit of live streams. is that if somebody's clicking on a product in the carousel, even if they don't buy it, I've always heard, and I do believe this to be the case, that it's sending a signal to Amazon, like, this product is, people are interested in this product, you know, even if it doesn't go to a sale, like people are clicking on it. And I've heard that changes the algorithm. Speaker 1: Yeah, it does. Yeah, just the Amazon pays attention to a lot of signals about 450 main ones and then probably a thousand plus additional ones. But some of those are actually either just add to carts, even don't go to a sale or just views and view time and they're watching mouse clicks with hot heat maps and everything. So that definitely all plays into it. So do you have a studio that you're doing this from or do you just do it naturally around the house or out in the backyard or in a park or whatever? Where are you creating your content? Speaker 2: I have an office, so I just do it from there. Again, I think the nice thing about Amazon is that even with the shoppable videos, the live streams, some people are super, super professional about it, but I think a lot of people just want to see regular people doing this. Even the videos, I have to be honest, when I first saw those videos and I saw people were making those, I thought to myself, Oh, I actually, I always thought those were just customers making videos. Like I didn't understand why people were like, I love this mug. And I was like, I guess they don't have much going on. I don't know. That's like fun for them to make a video. I didn't realize until later on, and even after I was live streaming and I was in some Facebook groups, I was like, oh, wait, that's part of the influencer program? I get deliveries every 20 seconds from Amazon. I can make some videos. People like to see just real people. Even with shoppable videos, I've played around with doing a thumbnail, doing no thumbnail, different things. Lately, I'm leaning towards less of a thumbnail because, again, I think people almost Shoppers, I think they almost feel like, oh, it's just a person who really liked that product. They don't always realize. I think authentic is just better. I'm actually using it. This is what it is. I'm not going to be in a fancy studio because I want you to think I'm in my house. I'm next to my dog. I'm in my closet, wherever I am. Speaker 1: Are you doing stuff on TikTok and Facebook and Instagram as well? Or are you just focused on the Amazon side when it comes to the influencer stuff? Speaker 2: So TikTok, I have to say, I was very inspired even by the seller's cruise and I was like, why am I not doing more on TikTok? So I am slowly getting more into TikTok. I've always had a Facebook group. Instagram, because I focused so heavily on social in the beginning and I was like, I'm not doing Instagram. I don't have time for that or I don't need to do that. I think I ignored it and I think that was to my detriment. I shouldn't, because now it's so hard to grow on Instagram. So same thing with YouTube. I mean, this is actually kind of funny. I made a video the very first time within a few months of writing my first blog post or second blog post. I made a video on YouTube. It did really well. And I know it was driving traffic to my site. I just know that Google and YouTube were working together. I think that's what pivoted my site. And then I was like, I don't really need to do YouTube. It's another thing to do. And so I ignored it. And so then I started throwing these shoppable videos on YouTube. And now I'm like, all right, well, now this is kind of a mess. So I'm restarting a real intentional YouTube channel. And again, I'm using AI to help me with that. I found some really good tools on ChatGPT to help me with blog posts, turning those into YouTube. So that's in the works. Speaker 1: Quite a few tools out there that will take a written word and turn it into a video, even. With screenshots and stuff, there's a ton of tools. The products that you're promoting are, you started out originally, back when the first blog, the blog started, the newsletter started, probably just stuff that you were buying or stuff that you recommended, but then it became People are paying you to do stuff so what's the mix now of like what you recommend that you truly believe in and what you recommend that someone's paying you to do even. Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't I don't I actually say no all the time. Like I feel like even even back then like I just Because I'm sending like even my newsletter. I'm sending people there. I don't want anyone seeing anything That's really like junk, you know and like so I'll always look if it's like a very new product usually launching and it has like zero reviews or I can see it's Sometimes the ASIN is the same ASIN, but I can see it was a different product. If I just get a weird vibe, I usually will say no or just throw out a number I know they won't pay, but I generally won't do those. I actually won't even say generally, I won't do those. I don't do those. So I'm looking for products. Lately, I'm really looking for products that I can kind of also incorporate into my website. Sometimes I'll say like, oh, that's kind of a cool product. And maybe I'll even charge a little bit less. But I'm like, I think I can write a whole blog post about that because there's actually really, you know, interest and I go into my Ahrefs and I'm trying to like cross promote in different ways. And so again, if you're paying me, I only want it to be, you know, like, even if it's clothing, like, I'm not going to pick out clothing that I don't like. I'm like reading through all the reviews. Is it going to look good on me? Is it not? Like, so I really do think I don't think everyone's like this. But I think if I'm putting something on my site or on my You know, storefront, it's something that I actually do like if I if there's things I don't like about it, then I'm definitely going to say that and and that's the other nice thing about Amazon shoppable videos. It's not all like great. Same thing on my website. I'm not I do the pros and I do the cons. So I might say, you know, while this is like less expensive, you know, it's definitely more flimsy than like some other products out there. You know, or I've had it for six months and I've already like how to change the batteries, you know, or whatever it is. So I feel like I definitely give pros and cons. So yeah. Speaker 1: The affiliate commissions that like, for example, that Amazon pay are pretty low. So you're taking an upfront fee plus a commission. Are you also negotiating these commissions? Like, you got to give me a bump on this, you know, I'll send you, I know some affiliates and stuff will send their, they have an agreement with the, the seller to send their reports every month and they double it or they triple, you know, if it showed Amazon showed you made, This 3% commission and you made $182 on their sales, they'll send you another $364 or something. They'll triple. Do you do anything like that? Speaker 2: Yeah. So I'll never... I can't think... There was one product I did because it was a really expensive piece of fitness equipment that I said, I'll do it for free because I want it. And my birthday was coming up and I was like... So I was looking to buy, it was just a rowing machine and I was like, all right, send me the rowing machine for free because I really want it and I want it. My birthday is coming up this week and I want it. So I did that. But even with them, they give me an extra commission. But I don't do free products. If I'm doing a paid product, I will try to do at least an extra 10% commission and if it does well, even more, and they'll pay me. But some might just do like the payment and I'm not getting extra commission. So I think it depends on the product, what it is. Speaker 1: What is it about a product that makes you really get excited about it? Is it something that you're passionate about? Is it the quality of it? Is it something unique and different? What is it that when you get something like, oh, this is pretty cool. What are the things that you're looking for that sellers on the flip side could be like, man, if you could just do this, or you could just make your product this, you're going to get a lot more influencers excited about it. Speaker 2: Yeah. So I think this goes even to what sellers say. I feel like the product I kind of get least excited about is clothing because there's returns all the time. And so when I get these clothing, it's like, I'll make it. I definitely will ask for payment because I just know probably, I don't know, a third to a half is going to get returns because even that's the way I operate. So to me, that's less exciting. I get really excited about just personally, like anything I can use that shows like a transformation, like home organization products are like my favorite thing. Because I'm constantly trying to like organize and get things and I feel like people really like befores and afters. I think it has to be a good product. You know, it needs to have, I think when you first launch and you have zero reviews, I don't know if that's the time to reach out to an influencer yet. Or maybe you're reaching out to the influencers who are going to not charge anything. But I just feel like at that point, there's nothing. There's nothing for me to work with. And so I kind of think sometimes you want to build up, have a little bit of reviews before you reach out to an influencer. But I think products that just, I always ask like a seller, tell me what makes you unique? How are you different from the competitor? I want to know that because I feel like that's important for like, also for a shoppable video. I want to say, this one's way better because it has this included and the others don't. Speaker 1: So when an influencer reaches out to you, do you have like a form that you've probably done enough of these, like you know what you need to actually create a video? Do you have a form, like a type form or something where they go through and they answer 10 questions about it or they just send you, here's my bullet points, here's what I want you to say? What's the mix of things that you get when dealing with sellers? Speaker 2: Yeah, honestly, I don't want this is what you should say. Because like you, I don't like working with scripts. I don't want you telling me what to say. I want to figure it out. But I do want to know, one thing I'll say is, especially if I get excited about a product, how are you different from the competition? That I want to know. Because that's, to me, again, a huge selling point. But when someone's giving me like, I want you to film this, and I want you to be in your car, and I want it to be between 5 and 8 o'clock at night, and I want... No, I'm not doing any of that. I really just want the product. I'll look at it myself. I'll figure it out. I want to know... I want to know enough that I can figure out how to work the product or use the product, but I don't want all those bullet points. Speaker 1: What are some of the, you probably get a ton of submissions of people, some wanted it free, some wanted to pay you coming in from the different Different sources to promote them. What's the process of going through those and just delete, delete, delete, delete. Okay, I'll look at this one, delete, delete, delete. Some of them probably don't even get two seconds of your time because you can just tell instantly this is a waste. And other ones, they pique your interest. From a seller's point of view, what do they need to do to really actually get an influencer's interest and to actually get them to pay attention and hopefully take their product? Speaker 2: Well, I think first thing is know who you're writing to because I'll get things all the time like baby products. I don't have a baby. I don't want to do a baby product. Some people will. Some people will say, I'll go to my friend. They have a baby. I'll do it. I just feel like I have so much time. I'm not seeking out babies in my life. So I think like know who you're working with or you want to work with. So for me, when people reach out like health and wellness products, workout equipment, then I get excited. Also sometimes when people will like, especially for clothing, I just feel like I got one this morning and it's like, we want to send you this pair of shoes. I have no idea if it's paid or not. It's like really not like anything I would ever wear. But then I go on their page and I'm like, they have so many of the cute styles. Why'd they send me this hideous one to promote? It has no reviews, but why don't you say this is us? So that one I wrote back because I feel like those shoes do get good reviews and they do have nice ones. I don't know why they chose this one to send to me, I guess because there's no reviews yet. Speaker 1: They're launching it probably, yeah. Speaker 2: But I just feel like, well, give me your... I had to seek it out to see that they had nice products. So I think you're better off also if you have many products and they're kind of grouped together. I would have... Like this shoe company, I would have rather they say, we're this shoe company. We have... These are some of our best sellers. We'd love to work with you. And then maybe throw in that hideous one. And I could say yes or no. And don't launch with a product which you know probably most people, I mean, that people don't necessarily maybe want. So I think kind of tell who you're about, but I'm deleting all the time. But a lot of times I'm deleting because it has nothing to do with me. I don't have a cat or just whatever it is, or they don't know who I am at all. Yeah. Speaker 1: So the key there is the seller should do a little bit of homework and figure out who you are and make sure there's a fit based on what you've been posting and doing in the past or what your bio says or whatever. Speaker 2: Right. And also just even know their platforms. Like sometimes I'll get something and I'm like, wait, is this, you want this for Amazon, right? Because you're talking about, you know, another platform that I'm not even really like super active on. Like, you know, know, know the influencer, like where are they, where do you find them also? Speaker 1: What's one of your products that's just gone crazy? Like you just like, holy cow, this, I made so much money off of this thing. Um, that's just like blown, blown the roof off either through your newsletter, through your blog or through the Amazon stuff that you've been doing. Speaker 2: So like, well, I have to say back in the day, so I used to link to a bunch of spin, like, you know, spin bikes, like indoor cycling bikes. That was like crazy time. I don't even know. And it's so crazy because back then I didn't have any... Not even back then, still to this day, I don't have a relationship with this seller. I've reached out to them. They've never been interested. I've gotten on the phone with them and just say, do you know how much I'm selling? I really did. And they're just not... They're like, that's great. But I... I know, I know for sure, and I'm not just saying this. I know I've sold more of their product than probably anyone did, at least on Amazon in the beginning, just because there was one company in particular. I was selling hundreds, thousands, like a month, thousands a month of this product. Speaker 1: Of spin bikes or something else? Speaker 2: Of spin bikes and it was this one particular brand was going crazy. And so and that was back in the day when Amazon, I don't know if you remember this, but for the affiliate side, Amazon had a different way of paying you. So if you sold 100 products, you were getting 8%. I always sold 100 products, so I was getting 8% and then one day, I'll never forget this day, I was at lunch with a friend and I got an email from Amazon saying, we are changing the commission structure and now you're getting, and it was like, four, three, two, one. It was like overnight, nothing had changed except that really hurt a lot of people. Yeah, so I would say like still to this day, like anything like fitness related exercise equipment is what I've sold the most of. Speaker 1: So where do you see this whole thing going? Where do you see this whole influencer slash newsletter slash blog? Because it's all influence in one way. Some it's written form of influence, some it's video form of influence or e-commerce related. Where do you see this going? It's exploded over the last several years and you have kids now that are 14 like what do you want to be when you grow up? It used to be I want to be a doctor or a nurse or a lawyer. Now it's I want to be an influencer. Where do you see this whole thing going? Speaker 2: Well, it's so funny you said that too because my son is a freshman in high school and now he's like starting all of a sudden to think of college. And so he said to me, I think it was on Friday, like, when did you decide like what you wanted to be? And I was like, are you kidding? I still don't know what I want to be. Like you're asking the wrong person. I had no idea at 18 what I wanted to be or 14 or 22. So I don't know. I have very mixed feelings about some of the influencer side because I see my daughter, my niece, these kids, little kids. That's their whole world. I'm in a store and I'm looking at a product and my daughter will say, that's trending. And I'm like, it is. And then she's like, let me just see, let's say it's a lip gloss. Let me just see which color I should get. And she's like, oh, I read it's not good and that color is not good. I'm like, who's saying it's not good? She's like, she is. I'm like, this influencer is telling you it's not good. And she's like, yeah, it's not a good color. And in the comments, everyone's agreeing with her. And I'll go into Amazon and I'm like, I don't know, it has 80,000 reviews. Everyone says it's good. I'm going with Amazon. Speaker 1: I'm not going with Amazon. Speaker 2: 19-year-old influencer who is probably being paid. And it's not even being paid. It's like trickling down, right? Because it's like this product was sent to like an A-list influencer, like a celebrity maybe. Who said, this is the color. Then like all these other influencers are like, oh, they said that's the color. This is the color. And so all of a sudden, that's what's happening. There's no like independent thinking. It's one influencer saying it, another influencer, and then all of a sudden these kids. Speaker 1: So I don't- Who can you believe? Who do you trust? Who do you believe? Speaker 2: Right. And I'm like, don't you realize somebody was getting paid in this? They didn't just discover this product. And I feel like that happens on Amazon too, where like, for example, there was like a suitcase, it has like... 20 reviews, if that, six reviews, let's say, six reviews. But Amazon has certain influencers. They were obviously sent this product because all of them are promoting this suitcase with six reviews. What are their chances? So they were being paid. And then someone like me is like, oh, that looks like it's a good suitcase. So I'm like, it looks like they're selling a lot. Then I'll start doing that. So it takes away, I think, it's kind of this giant Like masterminds, you know, like created project. I don't know. It's just, um, I don't know who to believe and, and sellers. I feel like it's, you have to play the game. I mean, you do, you have to play the game, like of influencers. Um, and so again, that's why I've really liked the Amazon influencer side. Cause I feel like for the most part, most people are doing it are really authentic, you know, and most people are doing products that they actually like bought and want to talk about and share. But where is it going? I don't know. I mean, TikTok, people say it's going away. I don't know. There's going to be something like TikTok around. Nobody has the attention span of a long video anymore. And even reading reviews, like I said, like Amazon reviews, that's something I'm doing, but that's not something kids are doing. They just want a quick fix. Do you like it or not? Speaker 1: I agree with what you're saying. I think it's a huge industry that I think a lot of people, especially the younger generation, they see, they follow or they see some of these bigger influencers like a Mr. Beast or like, I want to be the next Mr. Beast. And he did $700 million last year in advertising revenues, $3 million for a spot on one of his shows. So they see that or they see the Kim Kardashian, they want to be that, but the reality is that's like every high school player wants to play in the NFL and be in the Super Bowl. It's just not going to happen. The most influencers are making less than $50,000 a year and very few make over $100,000. I forget the exact number. I saw a statistic on it recently. It was a very small single digit percentage that actually make over $100,000 a year. I think it can be a nice side hustle and I hear stories about some of its luck and some of its on-camera personality and just right place, right time because some of it I hear people that they shot a hundred videos and they've made $117 off of an influencer program and then others, they shoot one or two and it just goes viral. So there is a luck, there is a science to it but I think the key is For any influencer, and this is I think where most of them are missing the boat, is they're not doing what you're doing. You're building a list of customers. You have a newsletter, so you have a blog, you're using free stuff like Google SEO to actually drive traffic to a blog post where you're delivering value and then you're capturing a certain number of those people into a newsletter list. You know who they are, you can market to them anytime you want. If Google changes their algorithm, all your customers then just go away. And you're doing the same thing on Facebook. I think more influencers need to be trying to figure out either through partnership with the people they're working with or through their own mechanisms to actually get people on a list. I'm just brainstorming here off the top of my head, but if I'm promoting a spin bike for a company, I'm going to say, you can go buy this on Amazon. Here's the link. I have a coupon code or whatever it may be. However you plug in it, but you know what, I'm actually giving one of these away and maybe you work a deal with the company or you just buy one yourself or maybe it's not a spin bike, maybe it's the shoes and the water bottle and the accessories or a couple of weights to hold while you're spinning or whatever it may be and I'm giving away it. Go enter my free drawing. Just enter your email address and SMS phone number or something because I notify the winners by phone. So that makes them give a valid phone number. Something to that effect and actually building a list because then if you have that list, you can then go back and you can charge more because someone comes to you as an influencer. You could say, oh, I have this health and wellness, this fitness Organizers, I have this organizers. Yeah, I'll put this out on my social media as I'm on my Tik Tok and Facebook and Amazon Pinterest and wherever, but also I'll hit I have a list of 6,213 people who have entered my drawing for free. A set of organizers. I know they all want organizers. Or maybe some of them just want something free. But there's ways to qualify them. And that's powerful. And then you become your own little media empire versus just depending on other people. And I think that's the next step that a lot of influencers haven't grasped yet. And if they can figure out that, how to mix the direct marketing and using that influence to create an asset for themselves, That you could do very, very well. But I think that the industry overall is not going away. Influencers are the new... The new media kings, they are the new newspapers, the new magazines, the new everything. You know, back when I was younger, you know, a woman, you know, 30 years ago was reading Vogue or Cosmo or something to find out what's the latest shades of color like your daughter. Now, and that's not the case. Now, it's some 17-year-old and her apartment in Mississippi is telling your daughter what to buy or not to buy. And so that's It's interesting to see where it's going. I think it's just going to continue to grow, but I think you're going to start seeing some weed out and some people are going to be able to, like Mr. Beast, actually grab this and do really well with it. Speaker 2: I think the other thing that's really important, I felt like even on the cruise you see this. I love Amazon. I love the affiliate program. I don't think Amazon's going anywhere. And I think it's definitely the place to be. But people like influencers, I'm an affiliate for many different companies, not just Amazon. And I'm not doing shoppable videos. That's part of what I do, but to go 100% in, again, that day when Amazon changed that payment structure, they can just get rid of the Amazon influencer program tomorrow. I think you have to diversify whatever you do. It's just your own products. Again, I have a giveaway coming up with a company that's not on Amazon. You don't want to be 100% into anything because that could literally blow up and be gone tomorrow. Speaker 1: Well, Michelle, this has been awesome. I really appreciate you sharing. This has been cool talking about this. How do people get on your newsletter or reach out to you if they want you to influence for them or to pitch their stuff? What's the best way for people to get a hold of you? Speaker 2: Yeah, well, so my newsletter is on Substack. I moved it there. I think we talked about that. I moved it there about a year ago and I love it there. So you can find me at MyPurseStrings at Substack. You can find me everywhere at MyPurseStrings and my actual site is MyPurseStrings.com. So the best way is reach out to me, Michelle, at MyPurseStrings.com. Speaker 1: There you go. Michelle, it's been great. I hope to see you again soon somewhere. Maybe on another cruise. You never know. Speaker 2: I hope so. I know. Speaker 1: I appreciate it. Thanks. Great chat there with Michelle. Influencers are super important in your marketing mix these days. Everything from the biggest brands in the world down to the smallest guys are using influencer marketing. It is the new hot thing and if you can master influencer marketing, you can really blow up your flywheel on generating sales and awareness for your brand and for your products. And don't forget, if you haven't signed up for my newsletter, BillionDollarSellers.com, BillionDollarSellers.com. It's totally free, twice a week, every Monday and Thursday. Make sure you sign up for that so you can learn more really cool tips and strategies on how to sell on Amazon and in e-commerce. We're going to be back again next week with another awesome episode of the AM PM podcast. Before we go, your words of wisdom this week kind of tie into what Michelle and I talk about. Influencers are the new celebrities. They are the new media moguls. We'll see you again next week. Unknown Speaker: Thank you.