#392 – Power Couple’s Blueprint to Amazon Success: From Book Flipping to Pet Brand Dominance

#392 - Power Couple's Blueprint to Amazon Success: From Book Flipping to Pet Brand Dominance Speaker 1: Welcome to episode 392 of the AM-PM Podcast. My guest this week is another power couple, Amanda and John Balcazar. Amanda and John have been selling on Amazon since around 2006. They were doing arbitrage with books and just crushing it, doing seven figures. Then around 2018, they decided to migrate over to The FBA model, create their own brand and they've been doing that with great success in the pet space ever since. They're also regulars at the BDSS, so we'll be talking a little bit about the Billion Dollar Seller Summit and their experiences at that. Talk about working together as a couple, talking about the transition and how they differentiate their products. A lot of great stuff in this talk with John and Amanda. I hope you enjoy it. Unknown Speaker: Welcome to the AM-PM Podcast. Welcome to the AM-PM Podcast, where we explore opportunities in e-commerce. We dream big and we discover what's working right now. Plus, this is the podcast where money never sleeps. Working around the clock in the AM and the PM. Are you ready for today's episode? I said, are you ready? Let's do this. Here's your host, Kevin King. Speaker 1: So last week we had a couple from Australia on the AM PM podcast that are crushing it in the RV space and now Look who we have. We have another power couple that are crushing it in Amazon. John and Amanda. How are you doing? Speaker 2: We are fantastic. How are you coming? Speaker 3: Rocking and rolling. Speaker 1: I'm alive and kicking, you know, that's all you can ask for. I stole that from Mark, actually. That was his old phrase that he used to always say. I'm like, no, that's a good phrase. I'm alive and kicking. So you guys, when did we first meet? It was like, I think at a BDSS. No, I met you, Amanda, before BDSS, didn't I? At like a capitalism or seller college? Speaker 2: I think it was at a licensing expo. So what had happened is we had not, when we started selling, we were just doing books and stuff like forever ago. And then we decided that we're going to do a private label around, I think it was like around 2017. And at that time, we had never been to any events. We weren't really involved with much of the community at the time. And John had just started kind of getting in the mix. And we were doing some Amazon merch as well. So that's why we went to the licensing expo. And I'm pretty sure because you were there, right? Was that, does that seem like it might be right? Speaker 1: I went to the licensing expo, the one in Vegas, right? Speaker 2: Correct, so I think that's it. I think it was either that or it was like one of the ASD or something but it was it was around that time and so I was probably about 2018 and John had messaged you. He's like, oh my gosh, Kevin King's there. You got to meet him and I'm like, okay. So we went and you were kind enough. You're like, I don't know who these people are. I don't know who she is but sure, let's go have lunch. So we just had some lunch in Vegas and that's how it started. Speaker 1: Ah, okay. I think I remember that now. There's a group of us, right? Speaker 2: No, actually, you and I, we just food, we food courted it up and we just had some food there at the, at Mandalay. Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm getting, I get so many events. I know. Speaker 2: It's hard. It's hard. We were just recollecting that with, I was doing that with Kate and I'm like, oh my gosh, they all blend together. So totally get it. Speaker 1: And since then I got you hooked. I guess I did the right thing. I bought you the right sandwich or something or whatever. Now you've been to like, you've been to every BDSS, right? Speaker 2: I think we, there was one, so one year you had like two, right? Or something, like something in person. It was, there was something that I, I was at the first one. I'm not sure on the second or third, but anyway, almost all of them. Speaker 1: Yeah. I remember you came by yourself the first time and then you told your husband, you're like, John, you got to come. You got to, you got to come. And now you guys haven't, you haven't missed a single one. Speaker 2: No. And that's a, That was the thing. I was like, we just wouldn't at this point. There's different events that we can divide and conquer and decide like you go, I go, whatever. But it was after the first BDSS, I'm like, I can't, I'm not coming on this for both things for the level of content. And we obviously have to divide and conquer the business, but for also the other elements of connecting with the amazing community that you attract. And then also just the event is totally different and fun and exciting. And I'm like, I don't want to do all of this awesome stuff, you know, without him. So that's the pact that I was like, you have got to come. Speaker 1: Everybody says their event is different. I mean, you hear that from everybody. But how is BDSS actually different? Speaker 3: One of the biggest things is the combination of the audience that you attract, and you combine that with how you break it up between the learning and the taking in of content, but then the opportunities to have fun and network and build relationships. I've never been to another event that does it at the level that you do, you know, between the scavenger hunts and just all the different activities and dinners and, you know, and breakout sessions. I mean, there's just so much going on that you never feel like, oh, I'm just going there to sit and learn. You know, it's so much more than that. And I think that's what really sets you apart from a lot of the other events that we've attended in the past and stopped going to because, quite frankly, we just weren't getting out of it what we do out of BDSS. Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think like the word that I'd like to use with that more than anything is experience because just like I just shared, I don't want to go to BDSS without John because it is a true experience. And when you share experiences with other people, it's one thing to go network and hang out in the evenings. And that's great. I mean, you want to do that. You want to do that at the events. But this is something when you share an experience with somebody, it really fortifies that relationship. And again, like I said, The level and quality of people that come to BDSS, like those are the people that you want to connect with and make bonds with over time. And it's just that to me is a thing that really, yeah, just just solidifies the relationships and the connections with everybody that's there. Speaker 1: Some people say, Kevin, why is it so expensive? I mean, part of that, the expense, I mean, it's an expensive event. As you guys know, you've been, it's an expensive event to put on. We don't cut any corners on anything. And you're going to see in Hawaii, of all the ones that you've been to, Hawaii is going to step it up even another notch because we're always, me and Mark, Mark is my producer on it. We've been partners in some businesses for a long time and he produces, he's not a partner in the business, but I pay him to produce it, a lot of money actually. But he, and he does a great job, but we always are like trying to make each one better. And it's not just like take a little feedback survey and like, okay, we got to change this around, but it's like, we're always trying to outdo ourself. And you're going to see in Hawaii, when you walk into the room, you're going to be like, holy shit. We're talking about experiences. When you walk into that room, you're going to see, you're going to be like, whoa, this is on a whole nother level of what we're doing. And it's not too late to come to the Billion Dollar Seller Summit. It's happening next month at the end of May, May 18th to the 23rd in Hawaii. You can go to BillionDollarSellerSummit.com and get all the information. Speaker 2: I think this is one of the things as well that like when we talk about like BDS or even level up and what you guys have been able to do over the years. I mean, it's not just like you said, like this is one of the, you know, higher cost events like in the space, but then also this is a time commitment and the fact that like John and I are really like focused on ensuring that we maximize and spend our time, you know, where we need to be spending it. And so this is to us is not even was not even a question, like we're going there. And obviously from BDSS is a pretty significant time commitment, especially when we're traveling to different places. And then you have the event and then you have now we're doing level up as well. But to us, like it, it's just a no brainer. And it's worth it. Again, we know what you guys have done in the past with BDSS. And we just know that this is just something that is Absolutely incredible. Besides the fact that, of course, you guys are doing it in, you know, Hawaii. So that's going to be amazing as well. But I just encourage when it comes to, again, the cost factor or even like the time commitment, it's just worth it. We found that what we'll do then is just eliminate some of the other events that, you know, we just might not be able to make it to. You know, there's some that we can't see you guys at all the time, but these are the ones we want to like focus on, like the highest quality ones. And this is definitely, definitely at the top. Speaker 1: So if you had to say of all the events you've been to, what's very specifically, what is the one thing that's moved the needle for you the most? Is it a specific technique and tell me what that technique was or was it a specific person you met that you ended up partnering with or ended up doing managing your PPC or whatever it may be? What is like one specific thing that really Just made a huge difference for you guys and your business from an event. Speaker 3: I know some of the stuff that you've that you and I have talked about is the importance of a knowing your numbers and truly knowing your numbers and the importance of digging in into having, you know, a good bookkeeper and a good accounting team and getting all that in place. And then obviously also tying that in with the importance of like being structured in your business and having SOPs and systems in place because You know, in the early days, you and I did a lot of just winging it. And, you know, the same task week after week would be done completely different, just because we had nothing in place. So starting to talk to, you know, sellers that were well beyond where we were, and seeing what they were doing and learning from them, I think that was, you know, a huge takeaway that we got from attending different events and seeing how How a true business is run and how a true brand is run, especially once you want to start scaling and going to that next level, eight figures, nine figures and beyond. Speaker 1: So John, you have a military background. Thank you for your service. I appreciate that. How long were you in the service? Speaker 3: From 1993 to 99, the Marine Corps. Speaker 1: And the Marine Corps, awesome. How do you see running a business similar to what, how did the military prepare you for running a business? Or how do you see the similarities? Speaker 3: You know, one of the biggest takeaways I think is that happens and things don't always go as planned and You can have one of two reactions. You can either say, oh, and, you know, lose your nerve and panic, or you can just deal with it and keep your nose down and figure out what the problem is and work through it. And I think that's one of the biggest takeaways that I have from the military is that very little phases me, very little stresses me out. You know, if we run into a problem, it is what it is. And I know that we have to figure out a solution and we get to work on that. And just, you know, the discipline aspect of it, you know, obviously, there's a lot of discipline, especially in the Marine Corps. And with what I did in it, you know, I have no problem being very systematic and following procedures and stuff once I know that they work and that they're in place. So I think those things really carry over well into into running a business and You know, running a big business, you know, something that we have now, thankfully, and continuing to grow. So I think that's just going to continue to help in this journey. Speaker 1: And you guys started out, you said, Amanda, you started out selling textbooks and books and stuff. Is that right? How long did you do that for before you actually, you said the FBA model, you switched around 2017, 2018. How long were you doing the resale model? Speaker 2: Too long. We did it until we had my daughter for about 11 years. So I had started that. Yeah, so I started that we hit a real it's just something we focused on and we did really well at it actually like we if we want to compare margins because it's totally different when you are scouting and selling books and we were going to Canada and importing books from Canada and that type of thing. Speaker 1: Are these textbooks or are these just any kind of books? Speaker 2: Anything that had value really, but we got really good at it. So like I said, I had started that after Very shortly after college. And then John was in finance and he was kind of helping me on the side because we had just gotten together. And then in 2008, so it was about a year and a half that we kind of, you know, we're doing that while he was still working. And it just got to the point where like, you know what, like, let's just do this full time. And so I was already doing it full-time, but I'm like, this is really... Speaker 1: After college, you never worked a normal job? You just went straight into this hustle? Speaker 2: Yeah, I did mortgages for about a year. That's how John and I met. And I did really well within mortgages. A really good amount of money, but I was allowed to do whatever I wanted, basically, because it was full commission. So I started doing this on the side as well before we had met. And so I was doing both. And then it just got to a point again that I was doing good enough. A couple of months in, I was like, all right, I got enough money here. I'm just going to jump. And I just bought my first house. But I'm like, I'm just going to jump and see if I can go all in on this. And it was early, early days. I mean, that's 2006. I think we I don't even know we started. We didn't even do FBA to start. Oh, my gosh. I can't believe how long ago it was. Speaker 1: So anyways, are you putting the listing up or are you jumping on something in existence that I have one to sell and you just hang on that? Speaker 2: I think we were jumping. No, we were jumping. So we used one of the first tools. It was called MediaScouter. One of the first tools to scout books was called MediaScouter. And our friend was a beta tester. So he knew the person that created it and nobody else had it. It wasn't open to the public. And so he had had this. I'm like, well, that looks pretty cool. I have extra time. Let me, you know, will you teach me how to do this? He's like, yeah. He's like, just stay on your side of the state because he was scouting on the other side of Michigan. And so I'm like, all right, cool. I'm going to start doing this. So, so yeah, it was in the super early days. And then once John came on board and we were doing it like full time together, we just had a lot of fun with it. We got to do whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted. The margins are totally different. So like we were netting as much as a, you know, a low ish low to mid seven figure private label business. Because of the margin. So ours were exponential, right? So like you're buying books for like nothing and they're selling for $50, $100. So it was a total. So when we switch to private label, that's a totally different mindset. Whatever. For the most part, anything that had a barcode because we were using, it would give us information and say like, okay, what are the prices? What is the BSR? And you decide if you're going to purchase these. Then we sent them all into Amazon FBA and Amazon at that time, up until like, I think it was 2018, only charged you for storage fees up to on the second SKU of the same item. So we had about at that time about 20,000. We built it up to about 20,000 unique SKUs for the most part. Anything that we had multiple SKUs of is stuff that would sell fast pretty quickly. So we never really got hit with those charges. So our storage fees were basically nothing. But in 2018, they made a huge, because this is what Amazon does, right? They made a huge change in fees, and it was going to go from like, I don't know how much we were spending a month, like a few hundred dollars or something. I'd have to look back. But it was going to go to $18,000 a month because they were including all of those products or all of those individual SKU books now at that time. So we had to extract all that and we knew we needed to kind of, we wanted to get out of it because we just knew we had my daughter and the best thing, we need to build a business that's not super reliant on us. We can't scale this, whatever. So we had to bring all those books back because we weren't paying $18,000 a month for them to be there. Sold off the quick stuff and we pivoted to focus on private label. So that's how we, we just started actually just selling in the pet space. We picked a product, started selling it and that just kind of became our main product of focus. And then in 2018, as well as when we started our, 2017 or 2018 is when we actually started our current brand. Speaker 1: So when you're doing these books, you had the software tool, what was it? Was it analyzing other sites or like half-price books or were you hitting garage sales and like rummaging through stuff? Speaker 2: Yeah, all of it. Speaker 1: With a scanner, with your phone? Unknown Speaker: Yeah, all of it. Speaker 3: It was one of those little HP scanners with like the little reader that you attach into it and we're just sitting there just scanning barcode after barcode and it would quickly tell you you know the used price, new prices, how many items, how many sellers, BSR and then we just make on-the-fly decisions so we're sitting there literally just going through thousands of books and You know, different university sales, garage sales, estate sales. I mean, we hit everything that we could find that had media products for sale. And, you know, after a while when you're doing this, you start to establish like a pattern because A lot of the universities have sales the same time of year or however, every other month, whatever. So we had like a whole calendar built out of this is our schedule for hitting all these different venues. And yeah, once we uncovered Canada, and we used to go there, I mean, they have all the like the University of Toronto's got all these like satellite colleges. And I mean, we were it was it was a goldmine, especially back in the days when we were doing it when, you know, not too many, there wasn't too much competition. I mean, like she said, We were buying books for $2, $3, these college textbooks that then were selling for $100, $200 and then we were one of the first ones to jump on FBA so it got to the point where we were sending these books in and all the merchants fulfilled would be at X price and then ours at FBA, we would just price it 75 to 100% above the highest merchant fulfilled price and we'd always get the sale and obviously that caught on after a while but it was a cool, fun wave to ride down while it lasted. Speaker 1: Were y'all dividing and conquering when you went to a garage sale or a sale or were y'all like hitting a town and like Amanda you go one way and John you went another way or were y'all like? Doing them together. Speaker 3: No, we always did it together. We very rarely split up. Like at the sales themselves, we would split up. You know, she'd be like, all right, I'm going to health and wellness. You go over here to science. Speaker 2: Sometimes we'd fight over. Sometimes we'd fight over the sections because it's just so much fun. It's like a go-man. And it's really fast. So you're going there. And at the time, like people started to catch on that. Oh, what are we doing? What are people doing? So other people, competition started to go. It could get pretty vicious. It's kind of like there was that show. It was kind of like that storage war show. I'm like, I swear to gosh, like, All the people that we, like, had involved that were, like, the main people that were all at the main sales, like, you could, like, have, like, different characters for all of them, like, you know, the personalities and what they did and, like, the competition was fierce, like, when you were going into it. It was, it was fun, but we would, yeah, we would always, that was kind of the thing of why we enjoyed it is because we, again, we got to do it together. So while we're in there and we were just, we, it was a lot of, it was a good time, so. Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember I did a garage sale probably 10 years ago or so. I did like three of them. I was getting rid of a lot of stuff and moving and to my first house that I bought and I remember these guys like three or four guys came to every one of them with their little scanners and they're just going through. I had CDs and DVDs and that's all they cared about. They're going straight to that thing and they're trying to, if one of them was there, they try to elbow the other guy out so he could get to the little table first or whatever and like just go through, scan, scan, scan, scan. So when you find one of those like It says 50 cents and you find it, you hit that scanner and it says, this is selling for $200. And your mind is going cha-ching, cha-ching. Speaker 2: And you know what's funny? Unknown Speaker: What's it paid for? The gas was paid for. Speaker 1: We're good. Speaker 2: Like, one book will pay for the entire trip. So it was, again, it was a great time and that was a lot of fun. But again, it was somewhat of a challenge, that mindset shift when you get into private label because that's a totally different ballgame. So it's interesting, people are like, oh, you guys, you know, OG Seller's been selling since 2006. I'm like, we've only started building our brand since 2017. We've only been private label and focusing on that model. It's a totally different model just because we're selling on Amazon. So there's just different things that you need to do. But yes, we had the experience, obviously, with understanding how, you know, challenging and different and navigating Amazon could be. But it is, it was funny. And they actually have like on the different software. Again, it's been so long since we've done anything. We literally like dropped it hardcore in 2018. I was like, we're not focusing on that. It's not going to be worth it. So we haven't really done any of that at all since then. But they would have like the little sound like you would do it and you put the sound on and be like, some people would actually leave it on. So like when somebody multiple times, it'd be like other people would flood over to there. Unknown Speaker: We're like, turn that off. Speaker 2: But we would actually have like, we got really good though, at like, we'd go to our section. And we'd be able to grab first. We didn't even have to scan. So the thing is we're just grabbing a bunch of the stuff that we knew for sure was going to like pay off. So it's like the things were there's there's things that have similarities in each area. And then and then you'd go through back and scan. But that was just the thing because it was so competitive. But yeah, after a while, we just got really good at that. I could I could totally go to a couple book sales, I think, and have a lot of fun still. Speaker 1: But. Speaker 3: Good luck. Unknown Speaker: I have zero desire. Speaker 1: I'm going to stay here in your house and pack some pallets. You go. Speaker 2: I'd probably be disappointed because of the way that, you know, everybody has had access and obviously the times change and you really have to not get afraid of it, but just find, I guess, continuously that edge to stay ahead of everything because as we were doing it throughout the time, I mean, libraries and charity sales started to then go through their stuff first, right? So like you would recognize the sales that were cherry picked because then they want to get the max out of it. So then some of the libraries, good for them, right? It's that they're trying to raise money for the library. They would then have Pull them and have a separate, like, you know, set up a separate system so that they were the seller for these books. So then when you would go to those sales, you would notice, eh, you're not going to get anything that is really of value. So we would just cut them from the list and again continue to focus on the other stuff, which I think Canada kept us in the game a lot longer because there wasn't a, there wasn't a FBA out there. And that was like, it was, you know, it definitely dragged out until, so that's when we were bringing them over. But now, obviously, it was, I don't know when it started, like a few years before we quit, but they actually did have some, you know, FBA started to pop up and more and more Canadian competitors that were book scouters started to come. Speaker 1: So the switch to private label, so you have, you're in the pet space, is that the only space or you're in multiple spaces or just pets? Speaker 2: We were in multiple. We had three different brands and it was about two years ago when I started recognizing we started focusing on like systems and processes and you know, Really essentialism and just trying to make sure that we had discipline and focus. We recognized and just basically did an audit of those other brands and we're like, okay, how much effort is it going to take us to hit our targets or what we want to accomplish with these other brands? And if we were to take all of that effort and put it into one brand, you know, what would we get out of it? And so the ROI was way better to focus. So we actually just cut Those other brands, we didn't sell them. There wasn't much, I mean, to actually like sell off. We still have the accounts and stuff, but we just phased out all the inventory and we said, you know what, I'm done with that. I mean, I even went to China in order to start, you know, one of the brands there. And it's not easy. It's not easy to cut that stuff out. But I mean, obviously, if you're going to play the long game, and we've been doing this for so long, we just had to realize that that's something that we needed to needed to do. Speaker 1: And you still have those old accounts that you don't use anymore? Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 2: We're holding on for the for the highest price. Speaker 1: You should sell those. You could sell those things for money, especially if they have the daily payouts. Speaker 2: I know, I know. Speaker 1: I just sold three old sellers. One of them only went for two grand because it's only a couple years old and didn't have very much feedback on it. It's an account we just kind of as a burner account in a way. But I got five grand for two other ones from like 2020 and my 2016 one they offered me 20 grand for but I decided to hold on to it. And then I had a 1P account, a vendor account that I'd never used. I don't know if you remember, maybe it was before you were doing Private Label, around 2016, maybe it was 2017, Mike McCleary from Amazing did this webinar and there used to be another PPC thing, it was called, I forget the name of it, it was managed by, Better, Amazon Marketing Services or something like that. It's kind of a middle ground between vendor and the current PPC that we know. They eventually eliminated it. But in order to get access to that, get some of the data, you had to have a 1P account. So Mike showed everybody how to sign up for a 1P account. I never shipped, I think I might have shipped one thing into it. I think you had to ship like 10 products into it to activate it. So I did that and that's all I ever did. And just sitting there and these guys, when I met them at the ASGTG, they're like, You have a 1P account? I said, yeah. So that's worth a lot of money. So they took a look at it. Because it didn't have any history on it, it would have been worth probably double, but I got 40 grand for that account. Wow. Speaker 2: That's amazing. I love it. Speaker 1: Yeah, it's crazy what that market is. So you're sitting on some assets there that... Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we got three or four accounts, seller central accounts that are aged and... Speaker 2: And good standing. And we've been aware, like, it just hasn't been something on the forefront, but definitely, yeah, aware that there'll be something that when John gets around to it, he can sell it. Speaker 1: What's up? Kevin King here. Have you heard about Helium 10 Elite? That's right. Helium 10 Elite is open to everybody right now for just an extra $99 a month. You can get access to me, get access to the monthly trainings that we do where I bring in guest speakers and we do the most cutting edge and advanced stuff for advanced sellers. Plus, I do seven ninja hacks every single month where I'm showing you the latest tips and tricks. On how to save money, sell more. It's just awesome. Plus, we also do every single week, we do a live mastermind call where a bunch of us get on a call, on a Zoom call. Sometimes it's led by a member of the Helium 10 team. And once a month, I come on those calls for a couple of hours and we just talk about whatever may be troubling you in your business, how we can help each other, what the latest things are that are going on in the industry. It's a really great mastermind. You get access to that. Plus you also get to go to the live events that happen four times a year. Every single quarter there's one in like Irvine or Las Vegas or New York or sometimes in Europe and you get to come to all those frees. And you get additional features with the Helium 10 software. Helium 10 Elite is something you should take a look at. Just $99 a month to add on. Go to h10.me forward slash elite. h10.me forward slash elite. I hope to see you there. So you focused, you doubled down and you focused on the one brand. So how many SKUs are you managing on this one pet brand right now? 39. 39. And how often are you launching? Some people say you always need to be launching. How often are you launching? Are you kind of like set? Are these variations? Are they 39 unique things or it's like 10 unique things and there's variations within them? Speaker 2: Now we have four apparent and so the rest are variations. I think that it depends on the space that you're in and it depends on the products that you're choosing. I think that that's one of the things that we had been very intentional about and I don't know if initially it was intentional but over time we've recognized And, you know, go back and forth as to what different products we would want to bring to market. When does it make sense to bring new products to market? We really try and focus on products that will continue on forever, for the most part. Like, we're not, you know, looking, we're not in the trends. You know, we try and figure out if we're going to launch a product, what can we do For the long haul, in order to protect and build a moat, for that to be something that we can continue to lead in a space, and if it takes a little while, it doesn't mean that we go into just new spaces, but we are committed to making that, if there's a way, if there's products that are being successful in that space, we're going to figure out a way to do it and Be better or have a different strategy in order to ensure that those are quote unquote winners. So we haven't really brought products to market that we need to kill off. I mean, we might change variations and stuff depending on what's going on, but for the most part, we're pretty intentional and methodical with that. Speaker 1: You do a lot of subscribe and save too, right? A lot. Speaker 2: We have 20% of our whole business is subscribe and save. Speaker 1: So I know one of your products, I think. I know it's something similar to what I used to sell, I believe. Yeah. I won't say what it was. And that product, it can be considered a commodity in a lot of ways. So how are you competing on that? What are you doing? I no longer sell in that category. I'll just leave it at that. I don't want to give too much away. Speaker 2: No worries. Speaker 1: So how do you Differentiate when you're selling a commodity. What are some of the, I know you can't give specifics on your specific product because I'd give it away, but what are some things that people need to think about as a seller when, if you're selling a commodity-based product that, other than just putting a different logo and a different name on it, how do you differentiate? People say, well, I'll make mine better quality, but people don't know that when they're first coming in to buy the product. What's important to differentiate that? Because one of your categories is super competitive, and y'all do well in that category. Speaker 2: We have a couple of them, and actually the category that you're speaking of, that's actually our lowest. We've given no love to that, truly, right now. That's our fourth one on the totem pole, but we will. So that's the thing. Once we get the other ones, we kind of pick and focus on getting one really going. And the other ones, we don't really do formal launches or whatever. We allow people, as long as it's great quality, We're going to get great reviews and we have great customer service and all of that kind of stuff. We really do care. I think trying to figure out and being hyper-focused on what matters most to the customer. That's it. That's what you serve up. And people say that all the time, but when you really want to have, we have a very small product line, and we really want to make sure to focus on those small, small things, incremental increases over time. We're kind of like that slow and steady. Speaker 3: So I think the biggest thing is the supplier relationships and working with the best people out there for each of the product lines. And that takes time, you know, very rarely are these folks going to just take a call from a stranger and be like, sure, I'm gonna start working with you. I mean, this has been a multi-year process. And that's one of the reasons that we've been able to keep a small catalog is because Our product lines have very high barriers of entry to get into them. And once you do, finding the best within those particular product lines is very difficult because it is a commodity item. Speaker 2: And then at scale too, that's the challenge as well. So all of that, and then when you actually want to scale, that's a huge challenge too. Speaker 3: Yeah, the biggest thing is not so much that you need to come up with something different, you know, from product A from us to product B from a competitor. It's just making sure that we can consistently provide the quality that customers are used to. And that's difficult. I mean, I'm sure you know, even with the product line that we shared, you know, having that consistency in quality is difficult when you're talking about a commodity item. And we were able to do that over time, you know, just through You know, maintaining and building these relationships with these different manufacturers and suppliers to the point now where, you know, we're their number one buyers for these different product categories. And we consistently get their A-plus premium stuff. And customers, that's why our subscriber save is so high and just because this continues to grow because they know with each order, month after month or whatever it is, that they're going to continue to get the very best. And there's not going to be a variation of, oh, well, one month, you know, I got an A-plus Chew and then the next month, you know, this thing was falling apart or whatever the case may be. So just really establishing that consistency with quality is probably the biggest thing that set us apart and allowed us to continue to grow at the pace that we've been growing. Speaker 1: Is this all U.S. based sourcing or are you sourcing from outside the U.S. as well? Speaker 2: It depends on the product. Speaker 3: Some of the products that we have, it's actually not a good idea to source from the U.S. because the U.S. makes very low quality. Speaker 2: It's like tequila. Unknown Speaker: You don't get U.S. Speaker 2: tequila. Speaker 3: Yeah, so we go to where the best source is and for some of the products, it is U.S. and we only get it from the U.S. and we only get it from certain suppliers and for others, it comes from other regions where they absolutely make the best, highest quality and that's where we get it from. Speaker 1: I think I just guessed one of your other products, but it's okay. Speaker 2: It's actually not super, it's not super duper hard to, you know, you'd be able to find it in a minute. Speaker 1: There might be a, well, yeah, there might, it's across an ocean. Yes. Unknown Speaker: Yes, you do. Speaker 1: Please leave it at that. I won't give any other geographic things away. So, Amanda, you said that knowing what the customers want is one of your keys to making this. How do you know what they want? What are some techniques, actually? What do you do? I know the common ones, oh, I read the reviews, of course, Kevin. But beyond just reading the reviews or other competitors' reviews, what they're complaining about, you know, the common thing of reading reviews, what they're complaining about, fix it, what they like, double down on that. What else do you guys do to actually get into the head of your customers, to get into that avatar that you're selling to and to know, do you interact with them directly? Do you get on the phone with them? Do you have a community somewhere where they're talking? When you're deciding to put out a new treat, do you run it by them or a new item or not necessarily a treat or toy or whatever it may be? Do you run it by them? How do you know what they want? Or are they just like, well, they're buying it, so they must want it. Speaker 2: I think the number one thing is that, like you said, I don't think we've rolled out anything new for a few years specifically. Once we establish something, we're going hard to build that. So, yes, you listen to them when customers have complaints. All of our lines are relatively challenging in a sense that what the customer is going to receive is going to be slightly different from what they are seeing, basically. Speaker 1: There's variations in the product. It's not uniform. Speaker 2: Exactly. So selling direct, it'd be different if you're selling it in person, but selling it, you know, direct consumer, you know, via e-commerce, that's already a challenge, which is why another thing, it's kind of another mode. It's such a pain in the product, you know, that expectation and making sure that we're meeting that expectation. And also, I mean, we are, So, we've been heavily involved in dog rescue for years. Really, you know, we can kind of go into it like what our main products are like really like tough chews for dogs. Like chews, not shoes. People get that all, like, but chews. So, and we have big dogs that like to chew stuff. And so, the thing is like we want to have things that are What's important to us for our dogs? We want them to be long-lasting. We want them to be a good value and we want them to make sure that we can trust the sourcing because that's really important. Once you stay consistent to that and continue to build up that trust and play the long game, we don't cut corners ever. We've worked with different suppliers and If there's anything that is not in the line, we're done. I don't even care the pricing that you're going to give us. We pay a premium for a lot of what we actually have because it's just not something that we're willing to do. And again, we want to be able to build that trust just like anything to us. That takes time, but it compounds over time. So that's kind of our focus there. But we do, like I said, I mean, We will look at if our refund rate is increasing disproportionately to our sales or if we're getting a lot more messages in customer service or there's different things. Our gal that's been handling our customer service for years, she's our happy tail ambassador is what we call her. But if she starts noticing that something's happening or she's getting different messages or an influx or whatever, we are on it because that's just something to us that we want to analyze and evaluate. And sure, we can ask our customers that, you know, when it comes to, you know, if it's confusing to us, but pretty much we can kind of nail it between myself and John, we think really differently about things. So a lot of times we can figure out like, oh, well, yeah, this would piss me off, too. Or, you know, what happens like we can kind of put ourselves into their shoes. Now, when it comes to the new products that we are going to be bringing out eventually, again, each year, we kind of Get a little excited, like new products and new stuff is always very exciting. But we try and again, decide, does it really make sense or do we go harder in the places or the channels? There's a million different things that we could do in order to sell our stuff, but what are we going to focus on? But every year we kind of evaluate like what different products we might want to get into. And for that, when we are going to do that, there's a couple of things that we would take into consideration. One, we'll go to different pet expos. One is, you know, Global Pet Expo is coming up. John's going to go to that. Sometimes we've attended SuperZoo in Las Vegas. Those are the only two that we've attended, but to kind of get potential ideas, connect with some suppliers there, you know, see if we want to bring something unique to market. So we always kind of have this discussion to see if it's something that we want to do. And then that next layer for sure. We actually would go to our customer base and get feedback. So we would implement that if and when, like when we do decide to go and bring on new products, definitely we would want to get feedback from them. Thankfully, we do have a decent sized list that we haven't really tapped into a ton, but we've been able to kind of build up. So we are going to be starting to be very intentional with that as well. Speaker 1: What are you doing to build that list? I'm assuming this is an email list or something. What are you doing? Is it product inserts? Is it something you're doing on social media? Are you doing lead magnets? What are you doing to build that? Speaker 3: Yeah, the big thing that's built probably 95% of our list is product inserts. We keep it very basic and simple. I mean, one side of our insert is basically like a thank you note with a picture of us, you know, the full family with the dogs. And then on the other side, we've experimented with different things involving QR codes. That's always evolving and changing, but something involving a QR code. That's always an ongoing test. But yeah, I mean, we've done quite well. I mean, I think at this point, we've got probably 7,000, 8,000 big email list of actual shoppers, you know, consumers of our products. So, you know, when the time does come to really tap into that list, you know, this is a great commodity that we have to use for down the road when we actually decide to start using it. Speaker 1: So, is the goal to sell the company, keep building and sell it or are you just having fun running it and that's the current plan or where do you guys see this going? Speaker 2: So eventually, right, all of us are going to exit our business in some way. So we do need to have that on the horizon and years ago I had, you know, read the book Built to Sell and so we definitely started taking it more seriously in a sense of that's how we would want to operate. However, with each phase of, you know, us aligning, and we do this seriously, at least each year, John and I will align on like, what is our vision for our business? And as we, you know, look at what we want to accomplish, and we take on different challenges. And then, you know, we're growing the business, then we're like, okay, well, you we could sell I mean, because we were there were people we were in talks, you know, a few years back, people were interested, obviously, when there was like the big Craze going on with all the aggregators and not heavy talks because we needed to ask ourselves like, is this the right time? Do we want to sell? And we're just really at this point, we've gotten to a stage that we are enjoying building the business. We're enjoying this next phase of building a brand and taking on the challenge of building systems and processes and more structure and running it as as a business and currently our vision is really aligned with that. Building a team of really incredible elite players but keeping it small and lean so that we can continue to be dynamic and evolve. I think it's important just to continue to check in with each other to make sure that vision is aligned. That's kind of right now where we are Building it to increase our valuation of the business, but there is not a hard, this is when we want to sell. So we don't have a complete exit point, but we have, hey, we want the valuation to be here in this year in order to give us the option to sell for XYZ. But by that time, who knows, what is that next phase of growth? But yeah, that's kind of how we are looking at it right now. Speaker 1: So you're about mid seven figures right now? Yeah. On gross. Are you doing just Amazon or are you doing anything off of Amazon? Do you have Shopify or do you have anything else? Speaker 2: Yeah, we have Shopify, but it's nothing that we drive traffic to at all. So it's more just like having a presence. Yes, we have sales there. Obviously, you want to have that. Again, just kind of we check ourselves and say, Where do we want to focus? We only have, and again, our team is super tiny and John's running the warehouse too and that's something that he's started to really like and enjoy and kind of take to a point to where we have workers in there that he is kind of working through to train up to continue to take that off his plate and him to be more in that supervisor role and really supply chain manager. So we haven't went into any of the marketplaces. We do know that those are potential options and when we do and we have everything like Set if we decide that we want to bring on something new because again anything new that you do is a level of complication. So like if we are going to focus on Shopify that's different than our skill sets and everything that we've you know built and systematized for Amazon. And so again running our own warehouse that also there's there's benefits to that but there's also things that we have to get into place. So while we do we you know run Shopify we do sell direct-to-consumer we do fulfill those orders directly at the warehouse but then For the most part, the activities are FBA focused in our warehouse. So yeah, we haven't, there's so much on the table for us to continue to tap into to grow and scale. But as you know, because you've talked about this in the past, when it comes to scaling a product, and what most people get into is the, you know, cash flow situation. So you got to be really, really good to make sure that your cash flow is on point for your targets. Because the last thing that you want to do is start, you know, ramping everything up and growing and then oh, We need to be able to figure out how to go to the mob and get money to get our inventory. We just try and really keep everything on point and make sure that we can kind of predict that and not add too many levels of complications because it can go haywire pretty quick. Speaker 1: So John, you're running the warehouse. If you're doing FBA, I just want to explain to people listening, why do you have a warehouse? Speaker 3: Because of the nature of our product, we buy completely in bulk as a raw product and then with our different variations and stuff, we have to touch it, meaning we have to package it based on the different sizes and quantities and whatnot. Speaker 1: So you're doing your own packaging? Speaker 3: Yes. Speaker 1: You're doing your own bundling or kitting or whatever you want to call it in your warehouse. So you're getting in bulk coming in and then you're actually doing your own QC in a way too there. So you're making sure that If you see bad pieces come out that your supplier or someone else or some guy working for 10 cents an hour somewhere might have thrown in, you're like, nope, that goes out. Speaker 3: That's exactly it. I didn't bring that up, but that partially answers one of your questions from earlier. The fact is that we're touching pretty much every single piece. So our QC is bar none, especially compared to some of our competitors that just take the product. And either take it already packaged from the supplier or just take it, pass it on to the warehouse workers, and they just package it without any kind of QC. We're very stringent on our QC. That's one of the things that we hear all the time from our customers is, wow, your quality is very consistent month after month, you know, because it is a consumable product. So we get a lot of those repeat buys, whether it's subscribed and saved or not. And our QC and quality is always on point because We have that extra step here at the warehouse of receiving it, reconciling and QCing it and then packaging it up and sending it out to Amazon FBA. Speaker 1: Do you emphasize that in your image stack? Because damn, I would. I would actually have a graphic like a split screen, even a cartoon or something that's with an American flag that's behind you right now and some guy in your warehouse like looking at the piece and he sees a little tiny one and a big one. He's like, it's an X through it. And then on the other side, it says our competition. And it's a bunch of kids sitting on the floor, just sticks, you know, dirty floor, just sticks stuff in a box. That right there, I mean you said your customers say it, but what about the ones that aren't your customers? That's a major, major, we were talking earlier about selling commodities and selling differentiating. That right there could, if you did something along those lines, maybe, are you already doing something like that in your image stack? If not... Speaker 2: Yeah, not specifically like that per se, but I mean, we do have like ours versus theirs, but I love that suggestion and we're definitely, I wrote a note, we're going to get that over to the creative team and have them work on that. Speaker 1: Quality or made in the USA, all those are important, you know, made in the USA or assembled in the USA, however you're saying it, better quality, quotes from the customer saying it, but if you illustrate that, people visually will understand that and I think that right there, could add 10% more to your sales. Speaker 2: I like it. See, these are the things. I don't need to start a new product to bring us in 10%. I just need to do this. So these are the things that we focus on to get really, really, really good on. So no, that's awesome. And I think that's one of the big things because we do, while it is a pain, we do things that are kind of, we happened into, So if somebody's going to come into this, they're going to have to commit in order to compete. And that's why we try and look at like, what are we really good at? What is what is the thing? And that's one of the things that we do bring in, we touch everything, you know, and we'll continue to do that. And then, especially Now, when we're talking about these, you know, the Amazon fees and such, I mean, I do think that because we are going to really, really, really focus on all of these new fees and making sure that the warehouse operations are incredibly efficient and do our best to minimize that as much as possible. We already went through and reworked And did an entire overhaul, which we've wanted to for a while, but entire overhaul on our packaging because of these new fees. We really needed to drill down and make sure that we were minimizing as much as possible. So we invested in some additional machinery and stuff like that to be able to do that and just hopefully not have as waste go into paying Amazon for some fees that we don't need to pay. Speaker 1: So just one last question. We've been talking here for a little while. I'm sure we could keep going for quite some time, but what people always want to know, what's it like working with your significant other? What are the advantages or disadvantages? What are some of the really good things and what are some of the things like, oh my gosh, I wish I just had a different partner on this. Tell me about working together in the business day in, day out as a couple and how do you separate business from personal life or do you? It's just one blur. Speaker 2: I would not be doing this. I wouldn't be in this or running a business or even from how we've done it before. The longevity and the commitment and all of that comes from running it and building something incredible with your partner and that is I think that's allowed us to have that stick and stay because when times get tough, it's tough together. We're both on the same team and we're both pushing forward and I think that the tremendous benefits that come along with that, I mean, we've been together, it'll be, like I said, married right around our 15-year anniversary. Actually, we're going to be in Hawaii for our 15-year anniversary, I think. You know, working together that entire time, it increases your the necessity for clear communication. And you'll never nail that. I don't think like it's always a constant change, but you learn so much about, you know, the your other person and you learn to respect the things that drive you crazy about them because you understand not only the benefits that they bring to like the business, the benefits they just bring to your life. It's like they talk about like opposites attract. And that's the thing. I think a lot of people look at that and like, oh, this drives me crazy about somebody. But truly, if you take a step back and look, it's like those are the things that probably there's a reason why they probably drive you crazy. And it's probably there could very well be good reasons, obviously, if you guys have a good relationship. And so when it comes to the business piece, I just think that there's that implicit trust. You know, we're both on the same page. Now, we've had seen a lot of our friends that have had, you know, different business partners and different things that have happened and whatever. And it really, that is really like a marriage in a sense anyways. So like with us, we're stuck together for good till death do us part. So like we're making this work, right? Like there's no exit plan from this situation. So I think there's a lot of benefits there. And so John, you can roll in a little bit on what you. Speaker 3: I think that was one of the biggest things that I was going to emphasize is that working together 24-7 for 15 plus years really enhances your communication skills because if you get into a fight, you really can't let it drag out for too long because we've got a business to run and we have to communicate. So it really forces you to become really good at just dealing with it and figuring out what the root cause is. And yeah, there might be a two, three-day period where we're bitter towards each other, but you know what? We still push through and make sure that what has to happen with the business gets done. And then, gosh, I'm trying to think. Speaker 1: It's that military training again, right? Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 2: Well, and I think one of the things too, because I can speak on this, we just make such good progress. Again, it's not perfect and it never will be. We'll always encounter different things. And then you just, you start building up your toolbox of ways to deal with stuff or recognizing when things are off. And when I talked about alignment, you really have to be in alignment regularly. And if there's any friction that happens, whether it's in business or between us personally, we recognize quickly that, oh, there's a reason we're not in alignment, whether it's who's doing what at what time and that type of stuff. So we have to have that, you know, weekly. Sometimes if things are really crazy, we could do it, you know, touch points daily. But for the most part, it's weekly. We might, you know, have have a couple couple things throughout the week. But You really need to make sure again that you have that long term vision, but then that short term like execution as well. And once you're both on, and I don't think this has to do necessarily with you, but with being just business partners, I think this goes for just like relationships in general, because I could see it, you know, if somebody, if you guys are working two different jobs or doing whatever, or if you have one person that's in the business and one person's not, you still have to be aligned. You're still a team. Holistically, you still have stuff to take care of outside of it. And I think that that's just not something that is recognized for the most part is like just think about it as a sports team and everybody has a different position to play and you need to cover those positions, but everybody needs to understand what the other person's doing and why and what is the true end goal. If you guys couldn't align on what that true end goal is, then it just makes it that much more smooth. And I do know like when it comes to a negative, typically, and I think this happens, we've talked to different people that are in, you know, Partnerships with their spouse and it is challenging when it comes to dividing the personal from the business for sure. I don't look at it like it's divided at all. My life is my life holistically with everything that I do. We've gotten to situations to where John is more so, hey, like he's at the warehouse and he's getting stuff done and it's tactical and all that kind of stuff and then he wants a little bit more of that separation and I think that's fair, which is why another thing when somebody says, you know, what would drive you crazy about somebody or whatever, like you need to take a step back and I need to take a step back and say, well, that's very a that's a valid thing to say, like I would really like to take off this business hat and put on our husband and wife hat. And if we're aligned and both of us are wearing the hats at the appropriate time, things go well. If I'm wearing, you know, a business hat, he's wearing, you know, the husband hat and like there's just conflict. We're communicating in different ways because we do have different positions. If we're talking business to each other, like face to face at home situation, that doesn't go as well. But one of the tricks and so this is something if you have found that you're working with your spouse and things have been it's a challenge with that is do limit your business communication to business communication meaning sometimes we'll have business meetings on Zoom in the same house because like that's that's kind of what we've shifted to. We'll go into separate areas of Zoom. It's a different way of communicating and the person feels it differently. If we're sitting right next to each other and talking about stuff and I'm just like point blank like going through You're supposed to be you're right next to each other. You know, you love each other. This is your spouse and da da da and like it's not it's a different feeling. So that is that's something that has also helped all and then also not just randomly bringing shit up to him at all times when we're at the house. I will send an email because I need to respect his time as hey like he is Off the clock, right? Like, of course, and he doesn't he doesn't have strict hours. He'll probably respond to me in the email within a couple hours. But even if we're right there and I recognize something, I don't just jump out and maybe like, hey, about The business, I'm not perfect. I'm sure it happens. He'll probably say, yeah, well, you just did it the other day. But it's been so much better. And so I've recognized that, hey, you know what, it's way more effective for me to communicate in those business methods if it's about business. And then if it's about life and everything that we want to do, and that has actually been a recent, I think, change in kind of the dynamic that's really been helpful. Speaker 1: That's awesome. That's really good advice. I appreciate that. Well, Amanda and John, I really appreciate you taking some time today to come on the AM-PM Podcast. It's been great to chat with you. And I'm looking forward to seeing you next month in Hawaii at both BDSS and Level Up. It's going to be an amazing experience. We have something you're not going to stop talking about in store. Awesome. Speaker 2: Thanks, Kevin. We appreciate it. Can't wait. Speaker 1: Appreciate it. I love speaking with Amanda and John, hanging out with them at BDSS and at other events. Great power couple, awesome people. Had several dinners together with them. It's nice steakhouses and everything. Just good genuine people. And so I hope you enjoyed this episode. We'll be back again next week with another amazing episode. Also, don't forget, if you missed an episode, you can go back at ampmpodcast.com and check out all the past episodes or here on Spotify or Apple or wherever you're listening to this podcast on. Be sure to check out all the past episodes too. There's some really good gems in there. Before I leave you today, I've got some words of wisdom for you. Go sign up for the Billion Dollar Sellers newsletter. BillionDollarSellers.com. It's totally free every Monday and Thursday. People say it's like a $25,000 a year mastermind. By email, totally free. BillionDollarSellers.com. And today's words of wisdom for this week are, life is not important except for the impact. It has on others. A life is not important except in the way it impacts the life of others. That's a famous quote by Jackie Robinson, and it's a good one. See you again next week.