#416 - Sports, Pets, and Masterminds: Gina Perez’s Playbook for Building a Successful Brand

#416 - Sports, Pets, and Masterminds: Gina Perez’s Playbook for Building a Successful Brand Kevin King: Welcome to episode 416 of the AM-PM Podcast. It's football season and today we've got a rabid sports fan, Gina Perez, on the show. She played sports competitively in college. She just came back this summer from the Olympics. She follows basketball, football, everything and she's a huge animal lover and she's got a pet brand that we're going to be talking about and how she's differentiating in a highly competitive space as well as the value of joining a little mastermind group like Helium 10 Elite. So this is going to be a great episode from someone that's a really good Helium 10 Elite member and someone who has started selling just a few years ago and is now doing very well and growing her business the right way. Enjoy this episode with Gina Perez. 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. Let's do this. Here's your host, Kevin King. Kevin King: you All I got to say for this week's amazing guest is gig'em. Speaker 2: Gig'em and howdy. Kevin King: That's right. A fellow Aggie on the podcast. Finally, I can get somebody whose blood is maroon, not red on the AM-PM Podcast. How are you doing, Gina? Speaker 2: I'm doing great. Just coming off a big vacation, so I'm ready to get back after it. Kevin King: That's what I hear. You went over to the Olympics, right? This last summer back in July, right? Speaker 2: We did. It was July and August and we spent about three weeks in France basically. We did eight days in Paris and then we did eight days in the south of France, visited and stayed with my old French professor, went to the French Riviera. It was about 18 days of a trip in France. It was great. Kevin King: What were your favorite games to watch? I mean you're an old, not old, you're not old. You're a previous Former, that's the word I'm looking for. You're never a former Aggie though. You're a previous Aggie alum. You're an Aggie softball player. You played softball competitively, I guess on scholarship in college. So you're a huge athletic fan of athletics. I can't speak today. A sports, you're a huge sports fan of all kinds of sports. So what was it that you enjoyed most seeing at the Olympics? What were some of the standouts that you're like, oh man, that was just so bad ass. Speaker 2: I am a sports fan in general, but I am an Olympic junkie. I've been that way since I was little, every four years. I'm watching every summer and winter so I don't discriminate with the sports or the seasons. I'm a big fan of gymnastics. I'm a big fan of track and field. Obviously softball. Softball's been in and out of the Olympics for the last couple of decades because of just politics and sports and facilities and things like that. Going there, we wanted to get gymnastics tickets. The process of getting Olympics tickets is super, super cumbersome. So you get on a waiting list, you put your email in, you wait for your lottery number to get picked, then you go online. And I needed like a murder board and a spreadsheet to just keep track of What city sports were going to be in? How far was it from other venues? Because, you know, like soccer, for example, was all over France. So it was in Paris, Lyon, Nice, Marseille. There was matches all over the place. And so I had to make sure if we were seeing a soccer match in the morning, that we weren't going to be in a different city. Basketball was the same way. It was in Lille, which is about an hour and a half north of Paris. Just trying to figure out which events we wanted to go to, which tickets were available because Olympic tickets don't release all at once. They do a first round of sessions. You can get a session that might have three events in it and then you can get a second session with three events and then almost none of those include gold medal matches or any medal matches. You have to wait for the second release of those tickets. We had our list of here's our favorite sports and then let's see if it's available when our number gets called. And so we ended up getting seven sets of tickets. So we got women's volleyball, beach volleyball, women's soccer, women's basketball, track and field, table tennis, and tennis. And so we were fortunate enough in some of those matches where we got USA matches, basketball, soccer, tennis, beach volleyball, both men's and women's, There was really only, and Track and Field obviously had some Americans in it, the only thing that we didn't see with Americans was women's indoor volleyball. And it was like Dominican Republic and somebody else. And they're so interactive in their venues that, you know, we ended up cheering for whoever, who was making a great play. So it was really a great... You know arena of everybody doing can claps and things like that. So my favorite when we went there was a toss-up between the women's basketball and then the women's soccer. So we were really close. We were almost we were front row for basketball which is a surprise to us because you don't get to pick your seats. You pick a section and a price range and then they assign you a seat. And so we were walking down the stairs and I kept walking outside and our ticket said because like two weeks before The Olympiad, they go to your app and then it says where you are. Sometimes there's seating charts, sometimes there's not because they're, you know, temporary venues. And we kept going down and I'm like, oh my God, I was like, I think we're front row. So the only thing in front of us was the scores table and like the stats keepers. And so we were right behind the USA women's bench. So, you know, like in football, they have that camera that's on the, the cables. So we saw the thing going back and forth and I was like, Oh my God, there's no way we're not on TV. So we had our phone started going off once the, Oh yeah. Like, oh my God, we see you guys on TV and you're like from the chest up because there was like a little half wall in front of us. And soccer, we were pretty close. We were behind and to the left of the USA Soccer Bench, about 10 rows up. But that stadium is much bigger that it was hard to see us. But I know if I went back and watched the replay that I'd recognize where we were. But those two matches were probably kind of the highlight, you know, because not only I'm a sports fan, I'm a big supporter of women's sports. So I actually made a T-shirt. So I don't know if you know in women's sports, the big Kind of push right now or the thing that is people are recognizing is the shirt that says everyone watches women's sports. So Dawn Staley from University of South Carolina wore that and it's become a thing. So everybody's wearing these everybody watches women's sports shirts. And it's just a black shirt with white letters. And so I created one a while back that wasn't for the Olympics. It just says my dog watches women's sports. And so I've been wearing that to Spurs games and soccer games and nine times out of ten, somebody will stop me and say, great shirt. I work home on the plane and somebody's like, oh my God, I love your shirt. So for the Olympics, I made that same one, but I made it with the American flag letters. So it was my dog watches women's sports, but it was red, white and blue. And it was a baby blue shirt. So I was like, I'm making one for the Olympics because I want to wear one. Out there with the, you know, USA something because I didn't want to be too American, but I still wanted to support our teams when I knew we were going to watch American athletes. So it was, I got so many compliments or just comments on it when, when I would wear it, either one of those shirts. Kevin King: Who is it, what's the basketball player, Caitlin? Caitlin Clark. Yeah, Caitlin Clark that's like now some of the women's basketball games are getting better viewership than some of the men's games which is like really cool that actually people are starting to tune in but she kind of set that in motion with her just crazy incredible play and it just kind of snowballed off of that. Speaker 2: It was kind of the right time, right place. Women's basketball, she isn't necessarily the best women's basketball player that there ever is or was, but it was right time, right place where she has been a catalyst for this past couple of years. There's great talent. She, by far, is not the best player in the WNBA right now, but she's got the microphone and she's got the people who are bringing, which is great for the entire sport. It's great for women's sports in general. There are people now tuning in and even we do. We just want to watch. We will always try to watch some sort of women's team anywhere we go. The Silver Stars used to be here, which now are the Las Vegas Aces. We bought season tickets the first year they came out. Speaking of sports fans, we're crazy where we have A&M football season tickets. We have Spurs. Game pack that we have. So there's season tickets but it's only 10 games and we try to go to soccer. There's a USA women's match that's coming here. We saw the Australians when they came here. So we try to support women's sports as much as we can. Like it's just kind of in our blood. Kevin King: I know you have those season tickets for A&M because about a month or two ago, I get this text in the mail, or text, text, not in the mail, text on the mail on your phone, a text message on your phone with a little picture on it. And this picture says it's from you. And all the picture is, it says it's tickets laying on a table or a counter or something. And it says, Texas A&M versus Texas, November 30th or whatever, 2024. And it's like, look what I got. Damn it. You had to rub that one in. So anybody that doesn't know, both of us went to school at Texas A&M University, which is about an hour and a half outside of Austin, kind of halfway between Austin and Houston, I guess, kind of is one way to describe it if you don't know the state. It's a big school. I think 70,000 undergrads now. When we were there, it was probably in the 50s. But it's basically in the state of Texas, the University of Texas in Austin, which is about 50-60,000 students and then the University of Texas A&M and College Station. And those are the two big state public schools and both are good schools. A&M is known for its engineering and veterinary science primarily. UT is known for its business school and law school and several things. They're both good schools, but they're very competitive in In a friendly way on the sports field and so they for a hundred plus years, they played each other all usually around Thanksgiving time in the US. And now for the last 11 years or 12 years or so, A&M went to the SEC, a different conference, a much better conference. And so they quit playing. And now Texas just joined that conference, which is one of the top conferences in professional college sports. And they are now going to play each other again. So I was at the last game in 2011 when Texas won with a walk-off field goal. I was at that freaking game. And so now they're rekindling the rivalry this year. So it's always fun since I live in Austin. Gina lives in San Antonio, which is about an hour south of Austin. So there's a lot of people from both schools. So I'm always telling people like, What happens when you graduate from UT? People say, I go and get a job or I do this or that. And I say, well, you know what happens when you graduate from A&M? They're like, oh, what? Uh, so, uh, they call you boss. So it's always, you know, it's always a little, little fun jiving, but, uh, what do you call an Aggie after graduation? Exactly. And speaking of boss, you're a boss. I mean, one of the reasons you can do, go to these games and buy these season tickets and go to the Olympics and spend this time is because you're doing e-commerce. I mean, you haven't always done e-commerce. Back to your shirt that you made, My Dog Watches, you're in the pet space with one of your brands at least. What actually got you into selling on Amazon? What's the Gina background story on that? Speaker 2: My corporate career, I was in e-commerce, internet for 22 years before I decided to launch my own brand. I worked for what is equivalent of the JCPenney catalog of sporting goods for baseball and softball equipment right out of college. It was called Baseball Express and then it changed to Team Express as we expanded sports. I started working there in the internet department before people were comfortable putting their credit card online. And I spent 17 years just growing that department learning and, and, you know, there was something new every, every year and 17 years of transitioning from people who were calling and ordering over the phone to people now ordering online from our catalog that was Basically catering to baseball and softball players and then we branched to basketball, volleyball, all the team sports, football, everything you can think of. We had relationships with all the major brands, Nike, Adidas, Rawlings, Easton, all of those types of sports had major brands that we had relationships with. We actually, at the very beginning of Amazon being Amazon, had a product feed. So we were reselling Online on our own website but also taking that feed and selling on Amazon. So that was kind of my first introduction into Amazon but it was as a reseller and there was less rules then like you uploaded your feed and we had daily inventory loads and all that and we had agreements with most of our brands because some of them didn't allow us to sell online. That's when Nike still didn't allow it. We had to pull everything out of our feed that was Nike because they wouldn't allow you to sell on Amazon but most of the other brands did. And so that was kind of my education. So I grew up, you know, at team express with everything e-commerce and we took all of our catalog knowledge and applied that to the web as well. So if we, we mailed whatever 6 million catalogs a year and you know, not every, no, we didn't, we didn't mail everybody every month. You know, we had some sort of modeling and some sort of, um, Data behind who we were mailing and when they were mailing. So using basic RFM, Recency, Frequency and Monetary stats, it told us who and when we were supposed to mail people. We took those same stats and did that with our email program. We had a huge database of email addresses, over 5 million emails. And by sport, three times a week, when catalogs dropped, we started with e-catalogs. We did QR codes before QR codes were what they are now. Didn't quite catch on the first time, but we did some things with it. It was more interactive type stuff, not necessarily like click here and you can order. It was more so additional if we had videos or things like that. But yeah, that was kind of my... My upbringing was in the e-commerce world and then unfortunately, so that company was privately held. Over my 17 years, we had five different ownerships and the last one kind of got a little overzealous and put us into chapter 11 and myself, I was like, you know, That's like two years of really hard work to get us out of Chapter 11 and we're going to lose resources. So I actually started looking for the first time. It was the hardest decision I had ever made in my professional career at that point. So I was there for four years and they were more of a B2B type business and helped a little bit of the internet marketing and so on. And the thing that I really learned was I had gotten some education and we did a lot of private label as Team Express. We went to Rawlings and said, hey, we want to More economical baseball pant that we can put, you know, pinstripes on the side and sell it as a economical price not to compete with yours, but you can manufacture it for us and then we'll put our label on it. And that was, little did I know I was getting a master class of private label back then. And then learning from the CPG brand side, they were doing a similar thing, having co-packers and manufacturers create their products for them and then putting their label on it, which they had established, you know, over a hundred years ago. You know, that's the model. And I was like, you know what? I feel like I can do that and if I work this hard, internet is 24-7, you know that. It's 24-7, 365. I was up at 3 a.m. launching code and doing backups and all kinds of stuff for my entire career. I had a laptop for almost my entire career where I'd bring it home every day and I would wake up in the middle of the night because something was wrong or whatever was happening or having a product launch, something like that. So I felt like, wow, if I could work this hard for somebody else, To have beach houses, well, imagine what I would do for myself. So I started researching and seeing, okay, well, what do I want to be in? What category of product do I want to be in? And in my research, I found, I basically boiled down to three things that there are either pets, babies or old people, the elderly that are recession tolerant. So in every industry, 2008, the big bust, everybody was still buying and I'm a provider for babies, pets, and old people. So I was like, well, I don't have any kids. That doesn't really resonate with me. Elderly is a different, I mean, you get into insurance and different things like that. And it's not really for me. Pets, ding, ding, ding. I'm a huge animal lover. I have been an animal of my entire life. And so I was like, let me do some more research on this. My first thing was like, well, I don't want to be nonprofit because in my head I'm like nonprofit don't make money, which is kind of a myth, but I was like, let me look into some treats and supplements and before I knew it, I was like, oh my god, I found, I think I found it. And so for six months, I basically worked two jobs. I would go to work, you know from 9 to 6 and then I'd come home, we'd have dinner and I'd work basically from like 9 to 2 or 3 in the morning establishing what brand did I want to have, my logo, building a website, LLC work, trademark, doing all the background work before I even I created a label. So once I did that, then I was like, okay, what's my product? And I had two products that I was creating. So I worked on the label. I found manufacturers, you know, searching the internet, calling places, trying to figure out who would actually do a low MOQ for somebody who was just starting basically a startup. I found somebody and I'm still with them to this day. They've been great partners for me. Then I launched my first product on Amazon and I got to the point where I was really not getting a lot of sleep. I talked to Charlie and I was like, now's the time that I really got to go all in, basically get off the pot. We were prepared. We had our funds in line. We knew that we would Be tight for, you know, maybe a year, maybe a year and a half and then things would open up. And we agreed and I quit my full-time job three weeks before the country shut down for COVID. And I was like, oh my God, did I make a mistake? Like, oh my God, what's going to happen? Like nobody knew what was going to happen. Well, as it turns out, with everybody staying home, they had to order online and then they started adopting pets. And so I grew a little bit faster than I anticipated, which is a great problem to have. But then I learned real quick about self-funding and resources. I didn't have the cash flow for the increased demand that I had. So I had to get creative. So I was like, OK, I've got a credit card that I can start to put inventory on. And this was before I would even qualify for loans because I didn't have two years of tax returns. I didn't show a loss in income. Because of COVID, because I was starting up. So I went from zero to something. So with all the loans and stuff you could get for COVID, I was showing an increase. So I didn't even qualify. And then small business SBA loans, you had to have two-year tax returns, which I didn't have yet. So all that was not an option. So I got on a credit card and my intent was, because I'd done this before for other things, was put a balance. Once I got all my startup stuff, I'm going to pay that. And then I'm going to transfer it to a zero APR for 18 months. Well, in COVID, all the banks did away with the zero APR transfers. So I was stuck for a little bit paying some interest and that probably is the only thing that really put a hiccup for me in the beginning had COVID not done that. I would have probably paid it off sooner, but I just had more interest than I wanted. But that was kind of a good lesson to learn of really setting up your business to have business credit because I didn't realize that I was establishing more personal credit than I was business credit. Once you do the business credit, then the loans come in. So now I'm able to go to a bank and say, hey, here's my business credit score, not my personal score, which they'll still look at, but it was easier just now banks are starting to work with me when I need some sort of funding. Kevin King: That's your Dun & Bradstreet score, basically? Speaker 2: Yeah, your paydex. I got all that set up. Kevin King: How much did you end up putting on a credit card when you had to do it? Was this like five grand? Was this like 50, 100 grand? Was this quite a bit? Speaker 2: It started small. So like, I would say like for one set of my inventory, it was like 10 grand, like to get through six months. And then I had, you know, All the operating expenses that you had to do, you know, CPA, bookkeeping, all the software, you know, Helium 10 is a good chunk of change every month. So, you know, any balance that I had was like probably 30 grand. And then I had a second card that probably had 10. So in total, it was probably about 50 grand that I was floating back and forth. And it goes up and down. Once I, it was, again, it was a good problem to have, but once I got my balance down, Enter Chewy.com. So Chewy reached out to me and said, Hey, we're interested in your product, you know, put an application, all that stuff. So I did that. The problem with Chewy is that they have 90 day net. And so I'll send inventory, but I don't get paid for 90 days. And it's, it's just, you have to float that money. And like right now I've got probably 14 POs. I've already sent the product, um, and I'm waiting to get paid on 14 POs and it's going to come, you know, once a month and, It's just, it's just, it's a harder. Kevin King: They'll pay you in 60 days with you give them a discount though, right? Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Kevin King: They want 2 or 3% discount. They'll actually pay you quicker. Speaker 2: Yeah and for me it's not that big of a... I did the math and it just wasn't big enough. And now they've gotten to the point where instead of ordering like the very first set of POs I got was like 10 POs and there was probably 20 cases. Now there are monthly POs so they're not doing a big I'm a big, you know, batch of POs all in one month. They're spreading in it now that they've got their, their forecasting and their inventory forecast so that they can send it to me monthly for, for fill in orders versus like, here's, we're going to get all your inventory and send it to our warehouses. And it's a big chunk in the, in the beginning. Now we're just filling in as inventory goes down. So it's a little bit better to manage now, but that the first, I'm a year into it now. Unknown Speaker: We're October. Speaker 2: Yeah, it's probably about a year and three months I'm into it and now I feel like I'm settled with them. But any big box store, if I go to something like Petco, I imagine there's going to be a similar setback for me where I'm going to have to float something to get inventory out there. When you're a small business, that's harder. It was easy to do when I was at a company. It was larger and we had the funds and we were in the red, you know, probably eight months out of the year and all of our cash flow came in the spring when baseball and softball was played and then all of a sudden we were profitable. So, you know, Revolvers and our whole accounting department was great about how we were funded up until all the money came in. So, it was not an unfamiliar situation that I was in, but it was different that I was funding it though. Kevin King: It's a little different when you talk to your partner and say, I'm going to go all in on this and quit my job. We've got some savings that we can live on. You're going to be supporting us. Give me about a year and a half. And then you get into it, and you're like, successful. And you're like, OK, this is selling. And now I just got Chewy. This is really cool. But you know what? I'm probably not going to have any money in a year and a half that I can take out. So things are good. Business is great, but I'm still Not able to pull any money out and a lot of people don't think about that or they don't realize as you're growing it can, it can, it's a Rob Peter pay Paul type of thing sometimes. I mean how much did you start with before the $50,000 you had to go on the credit card? What did you, what was your initial out-of-pocket investment from your savings or from your own money? Speaker 2: I would say it was probably in the $15,000 range. The first order of inventory being $10,000 and then any of the startup costs that I had was buying a website, domain address, all the LLC stuff, all that. I probably put it in the administrative in the $4,000 to $5,000 range. Kevin King: And this is supplements or this is pet products or what? Is it consumables? Speaker 2: Yes. I started with supplements. It's consumables mainly. I do have some accessories but mainly consumables. So I've got supplements and treats right now and just some small accessories like bandanas and tuxedos and things like that. Kevin King: Are you selling the dog shirts that say my dog watches the Olympics? Speaker 2: I actually have that on Amazon. So I have a Merch by Amazon account. So any shirt that I want or that I feel like can be created, I've just put that on my Merch account. And if it applies to dogs or cats, then I'll put it in my Amazon store. But yeah, those are, I don't have to buy inventory or do anything with that. If I come up with something, then I'll put it there. So I've got a couple of dog shirts. Kevin King: So when you were doing your research, you said you looked at three different categories and you settled on the pets one. Pets is super competitive on Amazon. It's one of the highest PPC costs per click. It's one of the most competitive spaces on Amazon. Did you know that going in and you're like, I don't care, I can conquer this or did you find that out after the fact and like, oh, wait a second, this is a little more challenging than I thought. Speaker 2: Yeah, so the short answer is both. So yes and no. Going into it, I knew it was a competitive space. However, knowing just how to create private label products and figuring out where the holes are in the demand of what people wanted and needed, I picked products that were not a me too. So an example would be like hip and joint. I started with the hip and joint knowing that that was a me too, but I had two other products that were very specific and had low competition. So that It's what helped me be successful. I had two products that had limited competitors. I would say at the time there was probably five and it grew to maybe 10, 15. The other answer where I say the yes and no part was fast forward three years later, competition from overseas has come into play. And so I went from 15 competitors to 50. And so that was a harder lesson on Amazon where Okay, I was successful and now I'm getting the competition where I wasn't experiencing that before. And kind of the other deal breaker is that I don't necessarily have the unique selling proposition of being made in the United States, which is one of my brand goals because overseas, a lot of the manufacturing for pet supplements is in the United States. And so you can be from overseas, create a brand and then manufacture here and you can say made in the United States. It's just that your company is not based in the US. So that was a little speed bump for me. I did recognize that I was not going to have the funds to compete with paid advertising in any way, shape or form. So I tried to stay away from the me too. So a hip and joint. The calming, things like that where I knew people like Zesty and Pet Honesty, they had that market and I could tell people from the get-go I was not looking to put anybody out of business. The pet space, the industry is ginormous and I just wanted like a little piece of pie. Like I didn't want to put anybody out of business. I wasn't trying to you know create another corporate brand because the last thing I wanted to do after coming from corporate America was go back to an office and With a bunch of people and create a corporate environment. I liked kind of having a small business and I don't want to say I'm a mom and pop but I'm definitely a small business and I just didn't want to go back to that. So I just want a piece of the pie that pays my bills, allows us to travel, you know, gives me the flexibility to come and go as I please while still being able to contribute because I don't know that I could never not either work or have a hobby because I just don't Sit still that well. So I imagine if I wasn't doing this I would still be doing something but it was a I want to say it was a lesson because I really felt like I planned for it because the other thing that I did right off the bat is I didn't go all in on just Amazon. My philosophy and a lot of people's philosophy is not putting all your eggs in one basket and I diversified my portfolio. At the beginning, I opened up my own website. I had Amazon. I had eBay. I had Etsy. So it was twofold. It was multiple channels of distribution and it was for search results. So if you search my product, My listing came up in all five of those channels and then Walmart came in later. So taking up the search results page was another way to help, you know, solidify my, my, my listing coming up. I may not have done a lot of sales. Like I don't do a lot of sales on Etsy and eBay and things like that, but I don't put a lot of effort into those either. I put the product up and if an order comes in, I'll fulfill it. But my big ones are my own website wholesale and, um, Now Chewy is another listing that'll come up. So it's diversifying the portfolio where Amazon sales were flat to down last year. My Walmart business has grown. My Chewy business has grown. So I didn't go under because I didn't put everything in Amazon. Like that was the first thing. That's like, you know, your 401k, your stock portfolio, like don't diversify. That's the biggest thing I can say is always diversify. Kevin King: How did you differentiate? I mean, even if you said you didn't do the Me Too, like the hip supplements and some of those, but still there's competition. Like you said, now there's 50 of them coming from China. So how do you actually differentiate when this supplement is made of the same ingredients as theirs? I mean, you said earlier, you know, sometimes you can say made in the USA, but that's not really an advantage because these guys from overseas are making it in the USA. Can you take a step further and say made in the USA by a woman owned business, American woman owned business or something that then some people will gravitate towards that or do you, how do you, for those listening that want to enter something that's competitive like this, what do you do? Is it just, I'm just going to take a piece of my share, I'm fine if I'm in spot 17 and that's deep enough volume for me that I can sell 20 a day? I'll just write it. What do you do? Are you giving back to charities? What's the differentiating thing? Speaker 2: It's a little bit of both. It's a little bit of all those things. I really had to figure out, can I start to change my messaging to be not just made in the United States, but owned and operated in the United States. And, you know, getting certified as a woman-owned business, as a minority-owned business and seeing if those things resonate with people. I have also, you know, we already donate to, we pick a charity every year that we donate money to or product. So those are things that are kind of community or goodwill things that help. It doesn't always translate to conversion, you know. When you're ordering on Amazon, a lot of times that's a price game or sometimes it is brand. You do get some loyalty if your product is good. So I really leaned on being a brand and not just a product. Like a competitor come in and just knock off the product, but they don't necessarily have a brand. I started from the get-go establishing my brand. Like I wanted to be a brand that could branch into other, you know, categories. So not just supplements but having treats or having accessories. I've got my eye on two products that I want to launch that are Not me twos, but they're a variation of something that might interest people and so innovation is the other answer is like if this product is got competition into it, how do I continue to grow? Well, that either comes from, you know, you go wide or you go tall, right? And so I'm not to the point where I can go tall anymore because of the competition. So I've got to go wide with a couple of new products that might complement what I already have, still consumable. So my goal is to not be a one and done, not like a You know a kitchen product where you buy it once and you never buy it again unless you're buying it as a gift. So with my products you buy every month to every two to three months depending on the size of your pet. So staying in that lifetime value mindset of a customer where you're going to buy my product, hopefully you love it and then you're going to continue to buy because it is something that you continue to buy for the life of your pet. And if you get new pets then you remember the brand and you still want to come back. Kevin King: Sometimes though a brand though, it's not just the logo or just the quality. It's the story that sets you apart and if you can tell a story with the brand. I had this German Shepherd and it was my best friend. We used to go to the park every day and she slept with me and never left my side and then all of a sudden she got this one day I don't know. Uh, she ate something in the, in the, in the river and it made her really sick. And, and then I, uh, I couldn't find anything out there. And so I was searching and searching and searching. And now I found this one ingredient that's something that comes out of this special tree that only grows in Nevada. Uh, and we made this supplement and now she's, she's back to wagging her tail. You know, she's not what she was, but I was able to get five more years out of her. I had to share this with the world and that's why I created Gina's Pets. Here it is. Those kinds of things is strong, strong. If you can convey that message, it can make people feel empathy and identify and want to be a part of this. Are you doing anything along those lines? I know you've told me a story in the past about a dog that you had that you had some special needs for a while and you all nursed along. Are you doing any of that kind of stuff to help. Speaker 2: We started out that way because, for example, my flea product is all natural. There is the two camps of thought on flea products where there's the topical and there's people where you take it as a treat or chewable. But there are side effects to a lot of the ones that are prescription. There are a group of people that are, I don't want to do anything like that for my animal. And so that's where I came in and initially that was the story is like here's an all-natural product. It doesn't kill, it prevents, it repels and that was the intro into this world and the same with my worm product like it is all-natural. You don't have to do an oil and all that. So that's really what my story of trying to sell the product on its own is like these are all-natural. Unless your product, your. Kevin King: All natural is not enough. Anybody can say they're all natural or it's not whatever. That is an important thing, you know, to put on the packaging or whatever. But sometimes in a competitive space, you got to take it a step beyond that. And that's what I'm asking. And I'm not trying to put you on the spot here or anything. But for those listening, it's just trying to educate a little bit, too, is that that's a way that you can take it, take it beyond That because a lot of people, they just stop at that. I'm just going to make it, you know, 5% better. It's got 10 grams of protein instead of seven grams of protein or whatever. But you take it that whole story and you emphasize that in all your A plus content and all your marketing, all your video content and everything. That's what can really help snowball something. Speaker 2: Basically what I did was I created a pros and cons chart for each product. The top bullets were what were the pros of the product and then what are the pros of the company. Here's all the pros of the product that are differentiators and then yes, made in the United States, own and operate in the United States, donates to charity. So if you can figure out how to tell the story with all of those things, something is going to resonate with somebody. So all of those may not resonate with one person, but one of those things might resonate with somebody. So you have to just kind of test, you know, the answer is always to test, right? Like make a ad that has, Made in the USA, own and operate in the USA, all natural. Take all your propositions and make ads that say those things and see which converts better. Double up on some of them and see which converts better. So the answer for me is always Let's let's put stuff out there because what what I think may not even be what other people think you know It's it's somebody's gonna ten people are gonna come and say you know what we don't care that it's all natural We love that. It's a woman-owned business. Oh, okay Well, let me make some ads for that because those converted better than all natural so it's it's it's learning like it No, there's no right answer for any one person like you've got a test like it's it's a If we had that magic eight ball Vision than everybody would be successful. But for me, the answer has always been we just got to test it and see what what converts well. Kevin King: When it comes to pets, too, people often buy what their own beliefs are. So it's it's you know, some people a dog is a farm animal and stays outside. But a lot of cases, a dog or a cat is part of the family. It's almost like a human. And a lot of people project themselves to their pets. So when you're marketing pet stuff, a lot of times you got to market to the psychology of the human or what their preferences are, not necessarily what the animal's preferences are, what may be best for the animal. It's appealing to that human who wants to pass that on and thinks they're doing the right thing for their animal. Speaker 2: Yeah. And you know, I would say I'm in that camp. Like we, our animals are our children. They sleep with us. We take them traveling with us. Um, they've been to a and M you know, like I've got rental properties up there and Airbnb where we take our pets up there, cat and dog and stay with us. And it's a, we make a lot of decisions based on them. You know, we, we, we, those are our children. Like we, we've chosen not to have kids and, and we, we choose to raise pets and, Treat them well, like I want to come back in another life as my own pet. Kevin King: That's a good, yeah. I tell my little dog, my little dog Zoe, sometimes like, you have no idea how spoiled you are. Speaker 2: Yeah. Kevin King: I would, I would, I would, I would get, I would, if I was born a dog, I would want to be you. She has her own shop. She lives in a penthouse. She has this and that and the other. She has a bed in every single room. The dog is just completely spoiled. The best of everything. I'm like, damn. So how did you learn? So you had the background. You were doing all this stuff for the sporting goods supply company and the other job you had right after that. But where did you Learned to sell on Amazon. Did you just watch some YouTube videos? Did you find a course? Where did you get the basics? Or did you just jump in like, okay, I'm just gonna go Amazon up. It says sell on Amazon. I click here and I'll just sign up and I'll just figure it out as I go or what was your process? Speaker 2: So I had a little bit of experience when I was selling it at Team Express. However, I had employees that were doing the dirty work. I was looking at reports and things like that. What I basically did is I did a test run. I signed up for an account. I did watch any free content that I could find online. Then I went and bought some stuff at the store and created a listing, put it online, went through the whole sales process to see how much it was to ship over there, when I sold it, how much money did I actually make. I did a little test run with some consumer goods that I arbitrage basically. Once I got the process down, then I was able to create a spreadsheet that helped me determine, you know, Profitability, like, okay, if I get this product, it's going to cost me whatever, five bucks. I'm going to sell it for this amount. Here's all the fees. Here's, you know, the advertising costs. I do kind of like a P&L percentage that I just do an average. This is what I'm going to make in the long run. Then that's how I started on Amazon. When I really started to get into it and, you know, after COVID hit and it was starting to really grow, That's when I kind of found Helium 10 and Jungle Scout for that matter. Like I really was evaluating both of them and the funny story is I actually signed up for Jungle Scout first and within two days I had probably seen some videos or something with Helium 10. I emailed Jungle Scout and canceled and I was like nope I want my money back. I'm gonna switch and so I've been with Helium 10 for God, so 2020, was that four years? And within the first year, I think 2021 is when I signed up for Elite because It seemed like the content was just a little bit better. It was resonating more with me and the people that I met and kind of in the Elite program when we meet every Friday. There's people that I've met that are now what I call them colleagues that we don't work together but we kind of do because we share information, we share problems, solutions that now I consider friends and that I feel I can call and say, hey, I'm having this problem. It doesn't necessarily have to be on a Friday or I can send somebody an email or message. That really was like the, I think what I was missing a little bit, even though I'm a natural introvert, I still was missing kind of the office people of problem solving and talking and talking about the industry and what's going on with you, what do you got in the pipeline, not looking to take advantage of anybody, but just bouncing ideas off of each other and really kind of being in a space where everybody can be successful and everybody can help each other in some way, shape or form. I don't have it in me to not help people. I think sometimes it's a blessing and a curse, but I'm willing to help anybody that calls in any way that I can and hopefully that they can return a favor if I ever get in a bind. That's really kind of my journey with Amazon, with Helium 10. That introduced me to Walmart. Carrie's been pretty instrumental. I could ask her any questions on launching on Walmart and we go back and forth. I'll tell her, hey, did you get this email? This thing was in beta. Did you get it? And kind of go back and forth and see what's the latest and greatest and can we both be successful and what is it going to take. So I really kind of enjoyed that camaraderie or colleagueship, whatever you want to call it, that Helium 10 brought to the table. And I will say, I did go through your original freedom course. I did the whole thing. I don't know how long it took me because I couldn't do it all in one shot. It was, even though I watched a ton of content online, YouTube or whatever it was, it was like this was like the main source of, I don't want to say it was the only truth, but it was a legitimate truth. Like I didn't feel like it was a guru that was trying to sell me something and only selling me something and really wasn't, didn't have my best interest in mind. I think with Helium 10, that information, They really want people to be successful, so if you watch it, it's like the 101 courses that you need to go through if you're planning on launching on Amazon. Had I done that first, probably, you know, I would have just been ahead of the curve, but it was very much a good It's a good place to run into it and figure out like, oh, okay, you are doing something right. Like here's some additional things. And of course, you know, on the internet, everything changes every week, every month. It seems like there's something new or changing. It's a good place to keep up to. Like I couldn't keep up on my own. Even with your newsletter, I can't keep up on my own. Like I got to run stuff by people, you know, just to sometimes get the cliff notes version coming off a vacation. I was like, oh my God, I need to catch up so much, but I got a couple of questions. I'm just gonna ask on Friday so I don't have to do the research and hopefully somebody knows that I don't have to spend an hour trying to figure it out. Kevin King: So, so where do I send the a hundred dollars? Speaker 2: I'll send you my Venmo. Kevin King: Now, so what Gina's talking about, for those of you that are listening that may not be familiar, if you're a Helium 10 member, there's different levels of Of joining Helium 10, you know, Helium 10 is keyword research. It's listing management. It's a whole variety of tools that are all built into it. It was originally going to be 10 tools, thus Helium 10, but now I think it's 17, 18, maybe 20 different little things in there. But if you sign up for the basic plan, I think it's $79 a month or maybe it's nine with a coupon or $99. You get free access to a course I created called the Freedom Ticket. I did the first one in 2017. And every two years, we completely overhaul it, completely shoot it from brand new from scratch all over again. And we keep it updated. And so version 4.0 just came out in 2024. And it's the latest one. And it'll take you through everything you need to know, like she said, a 101. On selling on Amazon and then Helium 10 has something called Elite which Gina is a member of. This one you pay, it's a little bit more expensive. It's close to $400 a month but you also get some additional software tools and some additional features. And then I host a training every month where I'll bring on two guests that will talk about something a little bit more advanced, not so basic and more current. It might be how to launch your brand on TikTok. It might be how to do your accounting better. It might be how to source better or whatever it may be. And then I do seven ninja hacks where I will share some tools and resources or some cool stuff. And then another feature of Helium 10 Elite is every single week, A group of people get on a live Zoom call and there's 20, 30, sometimes 50 people on these Zoom calls live. I host one a month where we go for two hours on the one that I host and then the other three weeks of the month, somebody else from Helium 10 like Shivali or Bradley or Carrie will host it and they go for an hour and you just get on and Gina's usually on these and you can just sit and listen or you can ask like she just said. She has a couple of questions queued up that she wants to ask on the next one and you just ask and either the person leading it might have the answer or can guide you or sometimes a lot or a lot of times, the other sellers on there are like, oh, I've dealt with that problem. Here's how you, here's who you contact to fix this shipping issue or here's how I dealt with it. And it's a, it's a very good, it's almost like a little live mastermind and it can be extremely, extremely valuable. What do you, what would you say? So making that leap, that's a, that's a commitment, you know, to spend that extra money every month, especially when you're, You're growing. Is there one specific thing like, oh my God, this one thing that Josh said has made me a hundred grand? Or is there something that stands out that you got out of there that just was life-saving? Or maybe a way to fix your account, ASIN was suspended and you're like, someone told you the exact way to unsuspend it or whatever it may be. Is there something that stands out that you've really gotten or that you've ran with? You know, you can't execute everything. You get a lot of good ideas and you're like, oh, that's good, but does it really apply to me or I'm not going to act and I'm going to act on this one? Speaker 2: I would say that there's probably not any one thing. So I would say that the reason why I'm always on there on the calls on every Friday and anything that comes up is even if I'm just listening, it's a way to keep up without a lot of Take dedicating a lot of time and if I'm listening to something, somebody's having an issue and one of the peers has a solution for it, now I have it in the back of my head like, okay, if I ever have that problem, I may now know the solution or I know somebody that I can talk to. And really being able to, it's a trustworthy group where you can ask questions where you don't feel like The first answer you're going to get is somebody who's trying to sell you agency something. It's not an agency wanting your business. It's truly somebody who knows the answer and how to do it. For example, Sasha is always willing to help with flat files. I've met with him offline, like, hey, I'm having a problem with this flat file. I'm trying to do this. I sent it to him. He did something, sent it back. And I'm like, OK, that worked. Appreciate it. Gonzalo, Adriana. I carry, there's just a ton of people that are willing to help each other because they've either been through it. So I really like that it's like having a cohort of people that are in the same boat as you that, you know, you're all trying to get somewhere and you're not necessarily in competition. Like, I mean, even somebody who's in the pet supplement space, Santiago, who I met recently in the last couple of months, We started to chitchat and I don't necessarily see him as a competitor and I don't want to do anything with him. We're starting to collaborate now and so to me that those are the little the little partnerships, the little ways that you can communicate with people in the industry and problem-solve no matter what the problem is has been super helpful. So even if somebody's listing got taken down, five people might have an idea to help you. Have you tried this? Have you tried this? Like to help you get it back up. So I think just the group, it's like crowdsourcing information when you have a problem. That group atmosphere is really, I guess, I can't get away from the team atmosphere, right? I grew up playing sports. I was on a team. This is my team. We're not all working on the same company, but we all have similar goals and so that aspect of it really is what I enjoy and if I can help somebody in some way, Yes, I'll speak up and say or you need a spreadsheet, let me send you something, whatever I have, you know, I'll help. Like we're, like I said, we're all in the same boat. If I can help somebody, then somebody helps me and it makes the world go round. It's karma, right? It's just helpful. How else to describe that? Kevin King: The team description is actually a good analogy. It's just like you said, you don't see them as competitors. In football, during the offseason, a lot of coaches, the Aggies coach, he'll go visit the Dallas Cowboys. He'll go visit Michigan if they're not playing on the next year. Usually, they don't go to somebody they're playing actually on the field the next year, but they'll go visit, spend a few days at the Michigan program with the Wolverines and just seeing how they do stuff, how their weight room is set up. Whatever our share tactics. Hey, we're trying to run this offense. You know, what are you guys having success with or whatever? And it's kind of the same thing. You got people that are doing something similar and you might compete on some level at some point. But a lot of times it's you're all trying to do the same, reach the same goal is be successful in business. And it's you don't have in the old world. You had the corporate office where you go down the hall and you can chit chat with somebody or ask somebody. Now you don't have that because you're working. You're working from your home with just a smaller team of people and now you have that and you don't have to pay them. They're not on your payroll but these are people that actually know what they're talking about or have a clue or can guide you. I think so many sellers just stay in their little lane. They don't get out. They don't go to conferences. They don't join masterminds like the Helium 10 Elite or whatever it may be. Maybe they participate a little bit on Facebook, but it's not the same. The face-to-face, whether it's in person or on Zoom, in person is the best by far, but next best is the Zoom calls. That's way better than posting something on a Facebook group or in a chat somewhere like, hey, I got this problem. Anybody know somebody? It's just different. It's always surprised me how many people don't participate in that that are trying to make a go at this business. Speaker 2: Yeah, it is truly like... The other part of it is that it's somewhat vetted. So a lot of people say, well, like you've made friends with these people now, like why do you pay Helium 10 to be part of it? Well, it is new people come in, people drop off and it's not free and it's not necessarily super expensive, but it's not cheap. So that vetting process, people that are serious about it and pay and want to come be a part of this, there's a little bit of legitimacy to it because you don't just have any elite or any Helium 10 person who's got a subscription coming in. Even people that are agencies or VA's or whatever, they might have a Helium 10 subscription and they're just looking for business. They're not necessarily trying to help you. They're trying to get your business and we don't get that in Elite. It's more so a vetted group of people that are really just trying to make things work. And I also feel like the people that you bring in are also a little bit vetted too of whatever the training is or the ninja hacks. It's something that is, okay, well, if Kevin has looked into this, that's like the first qualifier. Second thing is do it for yourself. Not everything is going to work for everybody. Something might work great for you, it's not going to work great for me. That's just part of it, but it sure beats the heck out of just searching on the internet and finding a site that might be a fraud site or a site that people don't trust. You got to find reviews and all that stuff. It's kind of a one-step vetting process that you're already into once you're there. Kevin King: So where do you hope to take this? What's the end goal with this pet brand? Speaker 2: You know, when I first started it, I didn't necessarily have any intention of selling it immediately and the first year or second year that I was in business, my My phone and my email is ringing off the hook of people trying to buy it. And I was like, I just spent a ton of work building this brand. Why do I want to sell it right now? But having said that, I can't be bought. So if the price was right, you know, I would be like, well... Kevin King: To all those people that called a couple of years ago, try again. Reach back out. If you're listening, reach back out. Speaker 2: I don't think anybody can pay me enough right now for it to be worth it. Now, you know, I feel like I can, I have a valuation and I can figure out like, yeah, this time to exit. So I think the end goal is probably if I can exit and quote-unquote retire and retire for me just means I take up other hobbies and have a steady income where I'm just paying bills. That to me is retire because I'm not just gonna sit on the couch and we're not gonna vacation, you know, because obviously Charlie still has to work. She's a therapist and so she's She's getting her PhD and she wants to help people in that. She's not going to quit that in two years unless we win the lottery. I still think she would work and help people as a therapist. But yeah, I feel like there's some timeline and I don't know if that's five years, if that's 10 years, that probably exiting what I'd love to still be part of it somehow, whether I'm on a board or I make the strategy where I'm still going to earn 5% and if you sell it, I earn 2% after that too, something where there's still something generating income from something that I built. The goal is probably to exit at some point, but I don't want to go back to, like I said, to a corporate. If I sell it to a corporate environment, then it really just becomes I'm going to probably have some sort of royalty somewhere, but I'll be hands off and it'll be the baby that I created and now here you go, somebody else is taking it and I'm going to go off and Do something else. I have, ever since the whole string of non-profit talk came out, came up and when people were more talking about it for ad, getting the ads grants, the more I looked into it, I'm like, oh, like, I feel like I could do that as my quote-unquote hobby from a charitable perspective, like whether that's helping animals on Charlie's side, the mental health aspect of it. Like there's, there's a lot to go around that can help people from a charity perspective. And I just got, you know, I need to have more hours in a day to figure out that part of it. And should I start it now? Should I wait? Should Charlie start it like it's it's a it's definitely on the to-do list but probably a little bit into the future. Yeah so exit and have a good retirement and let's let me figure out when we want to travel more. You know, France really did us in and now we're ready to go to Italy. We're ready to go to Spain. Kevin King: All right. Good. I love it. I love it. Oh, that's very noble and sounds like a good plan. Gina, I really appreciate you coming on the AM-PM Podcast today and sharing with us. It's been great to have you here and beyond just seeing you on the Elite calls and stuff. It's been awesome. Speaker 2: I appreciate you having me. Like I said, everybody wants to talk to Kevin and I'm one of those people too. You've been helpful to me whether in your ninja hacks or if I have a question on a call. You've always been very open and helpful and I appreciate that too. I feel like I'm returning the favor somehow for your endeavors. Kevin King: I appreciate it. Speaker 2: I have a pet space too, so one day we're going to do something together big. Kevin King: That's right. You never know. You never know. You never know. If someone wanted to reach out to you or anything, is there some way they can reach you on the socials or anything? Speaker 2: Yeah, probably the best way is my LinkedIn. I don't know what my handle is, but you can look at my name and I'll come up. I'm relatively active on LinkedIn, but that's probably the best way from a professional standpoint to get a hold of me. Kevin King: Awesome. Thanks, Gina. So as you can tell, Gina is a Helium 10 Elite member and is getting massive value from Helium 10 Elite. If that's something that you think you might be interested in, you can go to h10.me forward slash elite h10.me forward slash elite and you can find out all about the Helium 10 Elite program. And even if you don't decide to do Helium 10 Elite, get involved in some sort of group, some sort of little mastermind where you're getting together with some local people in your area or something online and not just on social media, but actually do it either live in person where you meet up at a bar or something or a meetup group even. It can be very, very valuable or join a group like Helium 10 Elite and get the best of the best. We'll be back with more best of the best next week here on the AM-PM Podcast. Before we go, I've got some words of wisdom for you. If you want to get the wrong advice, ask everyone. If you want to get the wrong advice, some bad advice, ask everyone. See you again next week.