#451 - Factory Hacks & Sourcing Gold: Real Tips From Inside the Production Line with Isaac Hetzroni

Expert Sourcing Strategies With Isaac Hetzroni 0:00 welcome to episode 451 of the AMM podcast you know sourcing is on 0:05 everybody's mind right now so and they can't get enough of what are the latest tips and strategies do should I move outside of China should I not move 0:11 outside of China what should I do to get better terms and make more money and uh make my quality better that's what we're 0:16 going to be talking about today with Isaac Hellman isaac is someone you probably haven't heard of uh he's not really well known in the Amazon world 0:23 but he's got a YouTube and Tik Tok and Instagram channels with over 250,000 0:28 followers where he goes around and actually talks to factories and shows the ins and outs of sourcing very very 0:34 uh famous in the social medias but not very well known to the Amazon world he's got some unique perspectives and uh some 0:40 great tips for you so I think you're going to really enjoy this episode here is Isaac 0:46 welcome to the AM podcast welcome to the AM PM podcast where we explore 0:52 opportunities in e-commerce covered we dream big and we discover what's working right now plus plus this is the podcast 0:59 for money never sleeps working around the clock in the A.M and the PM are you ready for today's episode i said are you 1:08 you ready ready let's do this let's do this here's your host Kevin King kevin 1:14 King [Music] 1:22 Mr isaac Herrerone how you doing man doing great happy to be here yeah we 1:28 just Yeah you're sitting in Bali Indonesia right now but we met what like two weeks ago or something in Austin 1:35 yeah so we met in Austin just got to Bali uh was just in China for the last 10 days as well so been on the road and 1:43 now we got introduced because someone told me like "Hey you got to meet this guy he's like one of the top sourcing 1:49 guys out there i mean he runs this company that's just amazing but nobody knows him really in the e-commerce or 1:55 Amazon space because that's never really been his focus so tell me a little bit about your background you grew up like 2:02 sourcing when you were two years old or something right?" Yeah I've been uh I've been sourcing my entire life um and so I 2:09 started in the manufacturing space uh we had a factory in Canada manufacturing clothes uh like 10 employees very small 2:16 uh factory a family business yeah we had a family business okay um so helped out with the family business from you know 2:22 when I was in diapers um and then eventually um my other side of my family went opened up a factory in China making 2:29 electronics so went from apparel manufacturing to electronics manufacturing um so you know really 2:35 lived it and breathed it and then started my own sourcing agency to help brands source products about eight years 2:42 ago uh so now I've been doing the whole agency side and we have a full team in China and um traveled all around the 2:48 world sourcing products and then about three years ago I started my personal brand which is just the sourcing guy on 2:54 social media where making content about manufacturing and sourcing because what I realized was that I had a very unique 3:00 upbringing but for a lot of people it's very hard to learn the fundamentals of sourcing and learn all the tips and 3:05 there's a lot of ways you know to mess up but if you have the right tips and tricks you typically can like reduce 3:11 your risk of screwing up in China I'd say by like 90 95% so I started making 3:18 content about it people really resonated with it and now we have like you know over 400,000 followers so it's been 3:23 great that's 400,000 followers on Instagram right or is it on Tik Tok yeah 3:29 Instagram and Tik Tok so the and this this channel is just you talking about sourcing like walking through factories Factory Tours & Sourcing Tips 3:35 and like giving tips and stuff or for those that haven't watched it what would they get from watching it yeah so it's a 3:41 lot of it's a lot of like tips and a lot of walking through factories a lot of interviewing factories talking about pricing and really just showcasing you 3:48 know the different intricacies of manufacturing as well as giving people a real insight like a very popular series 3:54 we do is like how much does it really cost so people can actually see like okay if I want to go and get into this specific kind of business how much does 4:01 it actually cost to manufacture that specific product what do the margins look like and that gives people a lot of ideas and then we also give away a lot 4:08 of factory information so people can follow and they're like "Oh shoot i you know saw this video for this really cool product isaac gave me the factory and I 4:14 can go work with them directly." What do you think of people that have watched some people are probably watching that that are seriously interested in 4:19 sourcing and are getting real tips but other people are probably watching that from the entertainment value going "Oh my god this uh purse I just bought at 4:26 Walmart costs $1.82 to make and I just paid $49.95 for it." Um or or something 4:32 in Walmart what do you does that do you think that causes and people don't understand all the other costs that get 4:39 layered on on top of that do you explain all that kind of stuff as well like look yeah that's what it costs from the factory but there's inspection costs 4:45 there's there's tariffs there's export fees there's taxes there's transportation there's margin there's 4:50 overhead there's all do you go into all that as well or do you just keep it on the uh the cool glamorous side 4:55 u some of my most popular videos are actually where I'm interviewing the factory they give me the FOB price and 5:01 then live there like on screen I'm then calculating like DDP rate right so calculating all the other pieces that go 5:07 into it and so some products you know it might increase by like might increase by like 80% because of the the tariff costs 5:14 or it's going to increase based off of like it being a really big product we need to ship it um so you know some of 5:21 the stuff is yeah we have to be kind of catchy and at the end of the day like we're creating entertainment as well if we don't make it if we don't make 5:27 sourcing entertainment relatively mainstream then I'm going to be talking to an audience of 500 people and that 5:33 that's fine you know and like look and I I I like the niche audience and all that kind of thing but at the end of the day 5:39 like to really get the eyeballs and get people talking about product sourcing you got to make it a little catchy too 5:45 which is why we we have to do a little bit of a mixed mixed content you know how often are you coming out with new uh 5:50 content on on that channel not not a ton maybe like every five days I'm going to 5:56 post a video um try to focus on like on like quality over quantity but we yeah we we really frontload so we were just 6:03 in China we shot um probably like 40 short form videos and 6:10 six long form for YouTube in 10 days so there's uh you know we can like because 6:16 most of my day goes running a sourcing agency um we have to really really like just like pack it in and then then we 6:23 have then we have content to distribute for like you know months after that so you have someone that travels with you 6:28 that that films it or like a buddy or like do you have an employee or you just hire someone local uh in China so both 6:34 so we have I have my like my producer who's also a videographer and so he has all the the editors underneath him he 6:40 comes to China or Vietnam or wherever with me wherever I go on my trips and so I just bring him and then we also hire 6:46 like local videographers so I also have my new content manager in China because we're going really heavy into posting 6:52 content on like Red Node and WeChat so we set all that up this week and then um and then he has he's from the production 6:59 world so like he had like an amazing videographer so like we were able so for like the really quick short form stuff 7:05 we just had my main guy and then we went into the factories we had like full production and lighting and everything oh wow so uh you you said that you 7:12 started this you never really planned to do to do this and then a couple years ago you were speaking with I think it was Kian you said he's like "Hey why 7:18 don't you shoot some video?" And you're like "I don't know." And and then you decided to do it and at first it was kind of a little awkward and not so many 7:25 people watched but it just started snowballing and you've told me that out of this you've gotten some major clients 7:31 uh have come through some big brands and stuff have seen you on there and uh it's actually actually working out as a really good um money-making tool as well 7:38 right yeah um it's the best thing I've ever done like making content producing 7:43 content building a personal brand um and you know at first it's really tricky to 7:49 like get it right and obviously you're nervous people are going to judge you you feel cringy right but then you just get better and better just like anything 7:55 right and you start to really enjoy it and now we just have a ton of fun uh producing the content and um and yeah 8:01 it's a fantastic lead source because people it's very especially with the handle the sourcing guide it's like okay 8:06 this guy sources products I can build sourcing okay let me hit him up does he offer as a service oh he does okay cool 8:12 that's cool so how old were you when you the first time you went to China i think I was 17 oh so you didn't go as a Misconceptions About Sourcing in China 8:20 younger child even though your family had stuff there you It was 17 when you first went yeah it was i I was trying 8:27 for the longest time to like get my dad to come and it was there was always something but then once once I finally 8:32 like was like graduating high school and stuff like that and I had more time to really dedicate to working on the 8:37 business uh that's when we we jumped in on it um and he started bringing me to China and stuff like that but but all 8:43 before that I was still like working I guess for the factory so now how have 8:48 you been to China probably 20 50 100 times been a lot especially because I was living I was living in Bali the last 8:54 three years um to specifically be close to China so the convenient part about that was I was able to go and take a 9:00 quick flight manage a production you know meet with an employee or whatever and then come right back so So what is 9:06 it that you think a lot of people misunderstand when it comes to sourcing in China i mean a lot of people you know 9:12 China has come a long ways um I just read the book uh just last week uh uh was it one one step China or something 9:18 like that and they talk about how China has like these six pillars of of like you know all the talk now with tariffs 9:24 and everything is people like oh you got to get out of China get out of China you got to go to Vietnam you got to go to Indonesia you got to go bring it to the 9:29 United States and what I think a lot of people don't understand is that that's not really possible in a lot of categories uh e either a pricing it's a 9:36 pricing issue or it's just fundamentally we're not set up for it here I read some stories that you know China's got the 9:43 massive population they've got the infrastructure they got all these pockets of areas where you know you go 9:48 to Shinszen and it specializes in electronics and this and this you go to uh another area and it specializes in 9:54 this and the whole infrastructure all the supply chain is all tightly integrated in there and then you have the the engineering i mean we can't get 10:01 engineers in the United States uh to to run stuff you got all the engineers you got a plethora of them you got you got 10:07 the all the internet that's changed everything you got the populations moving to these big cities you got all these big things that China it would 10:14 take the US or some other country 20 30 40 years to catch up to um what what's 10:19 your opinion on China as the world's factory and what people are saying and what you're seeing in your in your 10:24 business of people coming to you and saying "Hey we got to get out of here what are our options?" Yeah for sure i mean so what people 10:31 don't talk about enough is that like China does make some of the highest quality product in the entire world and 10:38 people talk a lot about oh China quality like you know it's all bad quality but that's just because like the average 10:45 product from China is lower quality because the average product on the marketplace is low quality like across 10:52 every product that's produced so when you go and you look at the average product and you see made in China or a product that breaks you see made in 10:57 China there's a negative you know view on okay China is low quality but then if you actually go to China or really look 11:03 into like where the top products are manufactured around the world like China is the leader because they have all the 11:10 engineers they have all the infrastructures they have their own materials they have the specialization they've been doing it for so long and do 11:15 anything for so long you start getting really really good at manufacturing certain products so moving that that 11:22 specialization and expertise to other countries like can be very difficult like you know we've been seeing success 11:28 in moving to other countries but a lot of times that still working with the Chinese factories that are setting up secondary operations like China plus one 11:35 strategies like outside of China so it's just Chinese owned factories in Vietnam and Cambodia and Myanmar and all these 11:41 places um now with that with that said there's still really really good 11:46 non-Chinese owned factories around the world and like we work with lots of amazing factories around the world like all I've been doing the last month since 11:52 Tariff started is like help people move out of China to these other places but you have to like for the everyday 11:58 entrepreneur that's going to be incredibly difficult to execute on because you know China's pretty easy to 12:04 manufacture and and which is again surprising a lot of people but like China has built all this infrastructure 12:10 to make it really seamless and quick with low cues to manufacture uh there's a lot of standardization between uh 12:17 inspections and certifications and logistics and stuff like that so when you start moving to um other countries 12:22 let's say like through Latam or through South Asia or Africa um you really have to know what you're doing to execute on 12:29 so to kind of wrap it wrap that that thought up it's really um a lot of 12:35 brands will have a bit of a a rude awakening when they try moving outside China when they know or when they 12:40 understand how uh how much more friction there is 12:47 [Music] thinking about selling on Tic Tac Shop or maybe you are already in it and you're ready to scale unlock all of 12:54 Helium 10's brand new Tik Tok shop tools with our diamond plan everything from bulk Amazon to Tik Tok listing 13:00 conversions to instant Amazon MCF fulfillment best of all you use the code 13:05 TT10 to get 10% off Diamond for 6 months even if you've used a coupon before so 13:12 go ahead and upgrade and let Helium 10 do all the heavy lifting for you so you can focus on what really matters for 13:19 more info on our new Tik Tok shop offerings visit h10.me/tik i'll see you there would you say are 13:27 there a few product categories that are almost impossible to move out of China and on the flip side of that are there a 13:33 couple maybe that just come to mind that are easier to move out of China i'm not saying totally easy but easier yeah yeah 13:38 well I mean the easiest is going to be uh like apparel products um because you 13:43 know every country has been producing apparel for a very long time for the most part for the domestic markets and 13:50 to train someone on a sewing machine just takes a few weeks so it's very easy for you know uh um third world countries 13:56 or like emerging countries to go and set up some level of infrastructure for clothing um and you know and a lot of 14:03 companies are building that infrastructure to take advantage of much lower labor costs which are a fraction of China because China's pretty 14:09 expensive nowadays from from a labor cost perspective you know it could be seven eight times more expensive than 14:14 than some other countries so um that's like a that's like the best category to 14:20 like easily move out and a lot of countries have a lot of big companies have already moved out of China for 14:25 those labor benefits um and you know especially if you can get the like raw 14:32 materials from those markets right so we're talking for example let's say we're going to produce hoodies or 14:38 t-shirts that are cottonbased right we can go and produce those in Pakistan because Pakistan produces tons of cotton 14:44 they're an export of cotton so you can actually produce and mill and then execute the whole product within that 14:50 region without needing Chinese infrastructure um and produce it way cheaper like 20 30% cheaper a lot of 14:57 times now if we're talking about products that have uh that still touch China that's that's the harder part 15:02 right how much of the raw materials how much of the components are still deriving from China even if we're able 15:08 to go and move the manufacturing out of China are we really moving manufacturing outside or are we moving final assembly 15:14 out you know that's the question how how much of the supply chain is still dependent on that and in a lot of cases 15:20 you know if we're talking let's say electronics yeah like it's it the component the let's say you're producing 15:25 an iPhone like that might have I don't know 100 components you know so those 15:31 components have to come from somewhere and you also need contingencies in your in your component supply chain because if you lose one supplier with within the 15:38 product right then then you can't finish your product so trying to go and and build that entire infrastructure out of 15:46 China um and and have all the component factories out of China is is going to 15:51 take a very long time before we do that and yes we're slowly seeing Vietnam is building more and more and more and 15:58 that's kind of becoming like the new manufacturing hub to an extent but like you don't have the size and the labor 16:03 pool um in Vietnam so it's tricky i I 16:08 saw some stat is just kind of a this is not solid but like as a kind of a rule of thumb it's a rule of fives and so if 16:15 you if it if someone is uh making in the US to do manufacturing jobs let's just 16:20 say the this is not exact but the average wage is 30 bucks divide that by five and you have China so the average 16:26 wage is six bucks divide that by five again and you have the the you know it's a$125 or whatever and you have the 16:31 average wage in one of these emerging third world countries um and that's kind of like where it's been China used to be 16:36 the emerging third world a$125 their society has moved way up and they have a 16:41 a pretty strong middle class now and like you said too a lot of when these factories move outside of China a lot of 16:46 people don't realize this hit home to me uh 5 years ago during the pandemic i remember hearing the stories about Wuhan 16:53 you know the the virus spreading through Wuhan labs and all this stuff and I remember that uh in a lot of the news 16:58 one of the biggest hit areas was a part of Italy northeast Italy um and there's this mass of these communities and 17:04 there's a documentary I think on Netflix or something about the hospitals and all these people dying left and right in Italy and I was like why why is this one 17:11 place in Italy this problem and then it hit me there's a ton of Chineseowned 17:16 manu factories in that area and there was a lot of people that had flown out of Wuhan before we knew exactly what was 17:22 happening with the with co you know when it was the early days back there you know back to visit uh uh and back for 17:28 Chinese New Year and stuff in in February or whatever that year and that's the cause of it and a lot of people don't realize you know that made 17:34 in Italy doesn't mean it was made in Italy by some Italian uh guy sitting on the floor banging a hammer it's probably 17:39 in a Chinese factory somewhere um so that global manufacturing has become so Global Manufacturing and Brain Drain 17:45 global uh that it it's uh it's it's and a lot of countries like the US that used 17:51 to manufacture a lot just aren't set up for it anymore um and and I saw some stat you know a lot of uh Chinese used 17:57 to come the the smarter Chinese used to come to Western universities they go to London or to the US or something to go 18:03 to school but and and then someone would end up staying here and then someone would end up going back but now about 18:09 half of them are not even leaving anymore they're just getting their education in China and staying there to work as an engineer or to do their thing 18:15 and so we're we're not capturing as many of the smartest people that used to be coming here and staying here and working 18:20 for Google or Apple or or whatever and so that's that's a competitive thing too that's that's changing that a lot of 18:26 people aren't talking about are you seeing any of that in the factories or the suppliers that you work with yeah 18:31 for sure i mean especially like the the suppliers you always see like their kids 18:38 their kids always go maybe they'll go to America they'll learn a bunch and then they come right back to the factory um 18:45 and the biggest trend I was just interviewing a factory owner's son um two days ago and they're like a huge 18:51 denim factory they produce for like Rag and Bone Calvin Klein Moschino like those kind of brands and you know he was 18:59 like he's like "Yeah like I went I went to America uh went to college there learned a ton and now I learned and now 19:07 I can't coming back to China and we're I'm implementing like an FTOC strategy right?" And I'm like I'm like FTOC he's 19:13 like "Yeah factory to consumer right so we're we're going back." Yeah so and so what a lot the whole idea here 19:21 is like okay let's learn everything in America let's not stay in America let's go back and let's figure out how we can go and sell to the American market even 19:28 better and in this scenario you know cut out cut out the middleman and obviously on the Amazon space is huge but now more 19:34 and more factories um are are talking about this right there more and more 19:40 factories are are really realizing like the way for them to be incredibly successful and to attack the US market 19:46 is to build their own brands and sell directly into those markets yeah i was talking with someone that deals with 19:51 Alibaba quite a bit and he said they're making a huge push right now into and he said that you know with AI it used to be 19:57 a language issue and it used to be uh um hard for them to write the listings or be in what people would call Chinglish 20:03 or or whatever and with AI and some of the tools now a lot of that's gone away and then you have a lot of the factories that have at least sales people or 20:08 front-end people that have been speaking English since they are young in China and and are are proficient in English 20:14 but he says the biggest issue is a cultural thing they still are having a hard time grasping the cultural 20:20 differences and you even kind of touched on it earlier when you said you know that's made in China sometimes people think that's a low quality well that's a 20:27 lot of times the quality in the West is acceptable quality for an American is 20:32 different than an acceptable quality for someone in China uh and and the I used to have I used to make crepe maker and I 20:39 remember the crepe maker I sent an inspection um and there's some scratches on on the side of the of the crepe it's 20:45 on the bottom so if it was sitting on the counter you'd never see it and my factory is like "What's the big deal here the thing works it heats up it 20:51 makes crepes it does makes pancakes does all the things what's the big deal?" I'm like "No if I if someone in the US gets that and and buys that and they're going 20:59 to return it and saying this is used or or whatever but in their mind there's nothing wrong." And selling that into the Chinese market might have been okay 21:05 but selling it to the West wasn't do you do you see that as well where there's almost like two different standards uh 21:10 you know people say go to uh uh 1688 you know it's a different pricing than you 21:16 get on Alibaba but it's almost like it's a different standard it's a different type of packaging or there's something some cost cut somewhere yeah I'm happy 21:23 you brought that up because obviously a lot of people like making content all that kind of stuff they're like don't 21:28 use Alibaba use 1688 and like you're going to get better pricing i think okay like yes but like there probably is a 21:35 catch that because there is very different understanding or like very different quality and expectations for 21:41 uh product for China market which is what 1688 is built for it's more mostly for domestic market and for a foreign 21:47 export um one of my biggest sourcing tips to that I recommend people do is like when you're going and sourcing uh 21:53 you're looking for manufacturers you're not looking for product so uh and when you're sourcing for the right 21:59 manufacturer look at their export countries if they're 80% domestic market Sourcing Tips for Manufacturers 22:04 right or are they 80% western market is a huge difference in their understanding of um the needs right of and the wants 22:15 of the foreign consumer the American consumer and you're going to have a lot more of these quality issues you're 22:20 going to have a lot more sizing issues you're going to have a lot more of these conversations of being like "What do you mean it's fine." You know there could be 22:26 scratches on the bottom because they don't have the experience it's just a very different culture it's the complete 22:32 you know it's as far as you can get in a lot of ways so um 100% but and so yeah for me like a 22:40 lot of times the best factories if you're talking about like you trying to produce premium product now I'm not saying some people are like I want the 22:46 cheapest possible product and like my that then that's my goal okay then yeah go8 talk to a factory focus on domestic 22:52 market and like help maybe that they get an export license just to work with you type of thing right but um I like if I'm 23:00 producing premium product I like to work with factories that speak good English that focus on Western markets and that 23:05 have a really strong understanding of like of what it takes to sell to you know let's 23:11 say American buyers what about people I'm sure you get this on your on your channel too people are like are afraid 23:17 to send money to China i I see this all the time and they're like they're ordering 500 units of something uh some smallq and you know it's 3,000 bucks or 23:24 something and they're just so scared that they're going to get ripped off um do you see a lot of uh that happening i 23:31 mean I in my experience it's it's very rare i mean there are yes there's some scammers here and there but I think a lot of people get are just because they 23:37 don't understand China it's the flip you know it's the opposite for this side they've never been there they don't understand China they only understand it 23:43 from the movies and they think of uh you know um Bruce Lee or something and that's their version of China or uh or 23:49 people in the in the rice fields uh leaning over and you know with a m uh big uh ox behind them um that's that's 23:55 their vision vision of China whereas China today is the big cities especially 24:00 are way more sophisticated than anything in the United States uh from a technological point of view from a how 24:06 nice they are that there's some amazing stuff in China that most people that have never been there don't realize 24:14 yeah i mean it's literally the coolest nicest cities in the world in all the ways um you look at the skylines and 24:21 your your jaw drops um and that's why like I love posting like stories of me going around China you know and there's 24:26 like 100 story hotels and like the craziest views and light shows uh because they really are show so advanced 24:32 it's not the auction or rice field um a as for sending money to China yeah like 24:38 again it's it's where I would say that you should be careful and I hear people getting scammed is sending money to 24:46 non-China like not China like sending money to like a lot of like these like developing countries or South Asian 24:52 countries um where there is more less standardization and infrastructure and stuff like that um and you you really 24:59 have to be careful and know your factory and and you know semi there but the China like it's you're pretty 25:04 consistently gonna get your stuff um and the other nice thing is that a lot of factories are are on Alibaba and if you 25:12 go and you transact through Alibaba uh you at least have protection there right where you're going to have Alibaba trade 25:18 insurance you know which is hit or miss like from an actual but you're at least going to like it's hit or miss in the 25:23 sense that like you are filing an appeal because there's scratches underneath your you know waffle maker um and 25:30 getting and trying to and people are like I want a full a full refund on this i was going to be like no maybe we'll give you a slight discount um but it 25:37 does give you the protection of being like hey I'm going to send $10,000 to this entity in China and I'm going to 25:43 receive some type of good right so Alibaba is kind of like this like fantastic intermediary body and in a 25:51 sense like state of law because because they have this whole process um where 25:56 you can put if you really like fill take the time to fill out all the fields and all the details within the actual order 26:02 listing of when the product's going to ship all the product specifications like you attach all the documentation to it 26:08 then you can always open up an appeal there and from a secondary process you can even transact through credit card for transactions over under like $25,000 26:16 on Alibaba and that's really good for the the new the new entrepreneur as well working with a new factory because now 26:22 you have a secondary layer of protection where you can always you know call up Chase Bank and be like "Hey I never got 26:27 my goods." There's also services like Plastique um that actually you can pay by credit card even if they don't take 26:33 credit card and the plastic will they charge a 3% fee roughly and then they'll turn around they'll actually wire the 26:38 money out and so you have a little bit of protection there so can you explain what Guanji is and the importance of it 26:45 in the Chinese culture yeah I mean it's it's really all about u building a 26:50 relationship um with your manufacturer and I think people don't realize that 26:56 like trust and relationship is is really the name of the game when it comes to manufacturing you really want to go and 27:03 build a friendship with your factory um and like people think it's very 27:08 transactional in China and sometimes it can be but I think that you know so 27:14 certain factors you've been working with for five plus years and the strength that you can build with them from a 27:21 long-term perspective uh because at the end of the day like they're your long-term partner like you're in business with them so if you're able to 27:28 go and build that strong that strong partnership you can have a lot of success so bas basically it's the importance of 27:34 actually visiting China at some point maybe not before your first order but at some point going and actually sitting 27:39 down having a meal uh going to the factory for a visit goes a long ways in their mind of giving you some priority 27:45 treatment and uh and respect exactly um and that's why like I even 27:52 say like if you can't get to China like hop on a video call like do a lot more face- tof face uh conversation have them 27:59 show you around the factory like talk to them about your day talk to them about like the things you like um cuz you're 28:06 just slowly like building that friendship and then when you go to China like if you're if you're if you're doing Purchasing in China 28:11 if you're purchasing over 100k a year like you know honestly like 28:17 I think that's probably the breaking point being like okay I should probably go and like talk to this factory because 28:23 you'll be able to go and at least save you know in what it cost you to get 28:28 there right you'll be able to save that in in cost but it's also going to give you so much more visibility understanding of the manufacturer and 28:33 it's going to really help you get to that next level within your business yeah I used to I used to when I was Building Strong Business Relationships in China 28:39 dealing with one of my fac I think it was at actually crepemaking factory i don't I don't deal with it anymore but the sales woman uh used to actually send 28:46 me pictures of like her on vacation during the Dragon Boat Festival and and stuff like that and I thought it was the 28:51 weirdest thing it's like and then she would ask me "Do you have any pictures from your recent thing?" And I thought it was so kind of weird it's like in in 28:58 the west where you usually keep you keep those relationships businessto business you know you don't really bring your personal life in but it in places like 29:05 China bringing that in can be is a major thing 100% yeah especially like when I 29:11 was I was running my company in college I would literally be like send it like facetiming my factories from like the 29:17 bar and just like having to meet my friends and stuff like that like cuz think about it like they love American 29:23 culture i actually just made a video about this i'm going to post it soon where it's like I'm showing like the MLB store in China so there's like if you 29:29 don't know what the MLB store is it's like the Major League Baseball store are there's 800 of them in China and they're literally stores as just like clothing 29:36 with just like New York Yankees like full step and repeat throughout the entire clothes and so I think people 29:42 think like within this trade war they're like oh my god China hates us all this stuff it's like no you talk to the average Chinese person and they're going 29:49 to talk your ear off about American basketball and they're going to love American culture and uh you know we saw 29:55 that with like eyes of Speed coming to China and all that kind of stuff so um they love any type of view into that so 30:03 you know if you can go and show them what it's like you know for me like living in a frat house uh in a college 30:10 town that like is like blows their mind and then it it changes things because then it's like okay let's say let's say 30:16 they could let's say they screw you over or like they you know you stop doing business so they can't give you the right pricing like they're not just 30:22 losing a customer at this point now they're losing their like cool American friend that they eventually want to hang 30:27 out with when they come to China do you ever see do you ever have a lot of your suppliers come to the US i I've 30:34 had that uh happen where they come over uh for like a show in Vegas and then they don't realize that the the people 30:40 live in Miami they think it's just like an hour drive away or something like that and they're like "Hey we're here uh you want to meet for dinner?" Uh you're 30:47 like "Well no that's like a five and a half hour flight and you know a few more things." like can't quite quite do that 30:53 um do you ever see that happen too where they just don't quite understand the the scope of the size of the US or or 30:59 something i think it's all good movies i mean bless them you know uh but they 31:05 uh yes a lot of times they'll be like like great I'll meet you soon i'll be in New York next week and it's like I'm not 31:12 in New York like I I live in Texas but but a lot of 31:18 time I mean I I've had like a really strong relationship factors like they'll make a trip out like they'll come out to 31:23 Texas or Florida or wherever it is to to see us um if we need to have that meeting but also that that's like the 31:29 benefit of going to the shows especially if there are shows in Las Vegas or whatever it is is at this point like 31:35 what we do is like you know we have a lot of the factors that we know we're going to work with and we have you know we have our supply chains built out 31:41 trying to meet with them as much as possible is is the way to go and uh a lot of times I go to these trade shows 31:47 just to see the suppliers like not necessarily to find new suppliers it's it's really just a way to do as much 31:53 face to face time with the factories uh and just you know catch up cuz I mean at 31:59 least for me like I'm going be sourcing for the next 50 years like this is this is all I'm going to be doing i I love it 32:05 um so my goal is like I want to be working with these factories for 50 years and just build these ridiculously 32:12 strong relationships where you know we're really like business partners and you know I just know that's going to 32:17 really pay off in the long run what is it that you love about it why why I mean when you said that I'm going be doing this for 50 years you had a little uh uh 32:24 get up in your step and a little smile on your face is it do you love the hunt do you love the challenge do you love uh 32:30 the the international business flavor what flare what what is it that uh that's really motivate drives you it's 32:36 it it's all of it um I I love I love being in factories that's one thing just 32:41 like you know it's the same reason why like people love Tik Tok is they love the behind the scenes of of how things 32:47 are made or how things are done so uh it's the same idea when you go inside the factory you know you're seeing how a 32:54 product is made uh from from a young age I always loved you know the arbitrage of 33:00 selling product and selling you know and being like I can get something for this price I can hunt for a lower price for 33:06 this and then sell it at you know it's it's a fundamental business but like it's it's to an extreme when you're working directly with a factory um so 33:14 and the international business is just very interesting to me you know you go to China like we were talking about you go to China for the first time you think 33:20 it's going to be oxes and rice fields and you go in and you see like you walk to Shanghai and you're like "Oh my god 33:26 this is like the most insane sky I've ever seen in my entire life." And so you know when you add all those 33:33 together you got a pretty pretty cool uh pretty cool job so when when it comes to 33:39 you're going into these factories and and showing you know some of the behind the scenes I would imagine some of these factories are like "No no no i I don't Sourcing the Best Suppliers Without Alibaba 33:45 want you be showing my factory floor and how how we do stuff because I know like at Canton Fair I don't if I go to Canton 33:52 Fair I've been a couple times I don't like sourcing at Canton Fair itself i like seeing what people can do but then 33:57 I always ask the guys what do you what do you have behind the counter there u because they they don't put up the good 34:02 stuff in the fair because all their competition is coming by scoping them out so the good stuff's either behind the the counter or it's like take a 34:08 visit out to their factory if it's nearby and actually see what they have to actually get get the good stuff and 34:14 the same goes for uh I hear a lot on Alibaba you know there's like you said earlier there's a ton of suppliers on Alibaba but a lot of times the best ones 34:21 are not on Alibaba because they don't need that work or they don't have an English- speakaking person and they're the ones that are they're deeper into 34:27 the uh into the woods so to speak but they they they have enough business they don't need to go out and strike that which means they're they're pretty good 34:33 at what they do so how from a from a seller's point of view how what are some strategies that you like to to use to Strategies for Finding the Best Suppliers 34:40 actually really dig out the best when it comes to products or suppliers yeah 34:45 you're completely right um the best factories are not on Alibaba uh because 34:50 if you think about it from like who is the average buyer on Alibaba is is kind of like a indiv they almost call them 34:56 like not even buyers they call them like consumers like it's like a retail buyer like the retail in the sense of like 35:02 people coming in and trying to buy one piece or buy 50 pieces of something and if you're producing for the the best 35:08 product for the biggest brands in the world you're going to be like pretty busy consistently with those really 35:13 really big customers you're not going to care for the smaller businesses starting out so when you're working with the big 35:19 factories you're actually almost like applying to work with them you're like giving like your case of like why they 35:24 should accept you as a customer um and that's a big part of like our agency i I think that's like one of the main things 35:30 we provide for our agency is the fact that we have the relationships with these factories that are on Alibaba that 35:35 will not answer their email that will never work with you but because we have group volume across our customers we can 35:41 like kind of slot you in to the production um and so to find these kind of factories 35:48 you know you have to typically like a place like Canton Fair they're not going to be cuz it's again it's it's such a 35:53 big show and there's such a low barrier to entry and there's so many people they don't want to deal with that kind of 35:58 stuff they're going to be at the more niche shows so what's a good strategy is 36:04 if you're within a specific niche um let's say you're doing like pet 36:10 products right or or even go more niche like pet clothing go and start doing research and see and talk to all your 36:16 supplier supporters you're talking to be like what trade shows do you guys go to right and then you might consistently see oh we don't go to the Canton fair we 36:22 all go to this one pet apparel show right in in Vegas or in Shanghai once a 36:29 year and then those niche shows are might might be where the good factories actually are um additionally you're 36:35 going to go through like import records right so you can use platforms like import Yeti and there's a lot of other ones out there like source ready uh.com 36:41 which is really great and you can actually go through the import records and see 36:48 where the top manu the top brands are manufacturing their products because all that's public right and then you can reach out to the factories that way um 36:55 and then you're you're also right with the the trade shows you go to the shows like canon fair they're not putting their newest stuff out there because all 37:01 their competitors are there they don't want you know that exposure into it so a lot of factories in the beginning were 37:08 very hesitant to go and let me film and show show it around but now that I have 37:13 like the following and they see that I can post a video like I've had videos 37:19 where I post one video and the factory gets 5,000 inquiries right now that's a lot it's it's a lot of small inquiries 37:25 but yeah like 5,000 people will then like go and like inquire to like reach out with them so they're seeing okay 37:31 this is the way now to go and a way for us to market and the negative implications of showing the factory is 37:38 outweighed by the opportunity that comes with it um so now we can actually like charge factories to go and film inside 37:44 and that helps pay for our production costs and it becomes more of like a a whole business side do they try to control a lot of what Creative Freedom in Factory Filming 37:50 you're shooting and like you know and like really try to kind of do your pre-edit or or the messaging for you or 37:57 you allowed us a lot of freedom uh to just kind of go in there and as long as you're not like slamming them or something do do what you want that's 38:04 where it's getting trickier where it's like if if we're getting paid right to to go and show a factory then they're 38:11 like oh you know we want to show this but we've been we've been sticking pretty strong of being like look if you want us to come we need that creative 38:16 freedom here um and the thing is we're also really trying to work with like good factories cuz like if you're 38:22 working with like a bad factory and and it's just not nice inside or whatever it is and like then you're going to run into issues they'll be like don't film 38:28 this area because it's like ugly and it's like but if we're working with the factories that produce for like the biggest brands in the world and like and 38:34 we're going there because they built such fantastic factories and fantastic infrastructure um those factories like 38:41 are very proud and they're like yeah throw them away like show off how amazing because we're proud of what we were able to build 38:48 talk about the value of uh inspections or having someone I just heard something the other day that you can actually pay 38:54 uh in a lot of Chinese factories or a lot of suppliers uh or manufacturers they will pay someone like $500 a week 39:00 or a month I forget what um I think it's a week to actually sit in the factory like it's like a representative of for 39:06 me it's a Chinese person that speaks a language but they actually literally like go with their lunch pail to the 39:11 factory every day and sit there on my behalf just kind of watching the production line is that true does that 39:17 really happen that much yeah i So I think my number one tip number one tip 39:22 for sourcing products and dealing with overseas manufacturers is hiring third party QC and quality control um it's not Effective Overseas Manufacturing Quality Control 39:30 expensive like yes it's different if you're hiring if you're hiring full-time and you have people coming like you have 39:36 to be doing a lot of volume with that factory to uh have the influence to be 39:41 like we're going to have our own private QC person that comes every day like you need to be doing production with them pretty much has to be going every day 39:46 right um but it's very standardized it's very expected if you are a professional company to hire QC agent third party to 39:54 go in uh and so like a lot of factories even have like separate Q third party QC 39:59 rooms so like for your QC people to go with their representative and go through 40:05 product and test so how it works is it costs about between $150 and $300 for a 40:11 man day and what that means it's like a day of work so this person's going to go they're typically going to you're going 40:17 to work with an agency typically a 2C agency then they're going to deploy someone who has expertise within your 40:23 specific niche of product that's within that geographical area and because manufacturing in China is focused around 40:29 geographical areas that typically lines up uh so if you're producing electronics 40:35 right the QC agent is from Shenzen so they can just easily get to that factory 40:40 uh work the day and they're going to go and they're going to follow your specifications on the product you can go 40:45 and give them all the details of these are the typical defects that we see this is our product specifications this is 40:51 the testing requirements all that kind of stuff and then they're going to go and start testing product and you can have them go and you can hire enough 40:57 people where they test every single product in the production floor or they're going to do you know maybe 5% or 41:02 10% of the goods and see if they're they're seeing defects across the manufacturing process you can have them 41:08 go at different times you can have them go um you know mid-production you can have them go pre-hipment you can have 41:13 them do a you can have them go in and do odds of the factory so you know most powerful thing you can ever do is is 41:19 hire a good QC agency um and and have them go and test the product and check 41:25 the product before it leaves China because once it goes and gets to Amazon or gets to your warehouse in the US it's 41:30 very difficult to then go and um fix the product or or get reparations for the 41:36 issue yeah usually on my POS I'll actually say there's going to be an inspection and it has to meet these these different requirements you know of 41:42 uh minor defects major defects and so on if it doesn't they have to fix the problems and then they rep they pay for 41:49 the second inspection for for it to pass and sometimes they'll fight back against that but usually a good factory is like "No we we'll stand by stand by our work 41:56 and then I put in something that if something does get by um because maybe uh you know this inspection wasn't as 42:03 random as it was supposed to be and they kind of influenced that this is the they knew some stuff coming first off the line wasn't so good so they kind of 42:09 moved that around and gave the inspector some boxes from the end uh and some stuff does make it through cuz it's 42:15 inevitable not everything's going to be exactly perfect and it makes it through to the US if I get returns in the US I put in my POS that you actually they 42:22 will replace those or give me a credit or replace those on a on a future order and usually a good factory will agree to 42:28 do that but what about what about I've used a factory for five six orders over 42:34 the last year never been a problem they've always passed inspection so I decide uh you know what i'm gonna save 42:39 my 300 bucks and I don't do an inspection uh on this uh sixth order how big of a mistake is that i think it's a 42:46 huge mistake especially if you see it all the time all the time you you you 42:52 always you know you think okay no it's all been good everything's going right but you never know like what can happen 42:59 within that last production and what changes can happen and you know who like especially if you don't if you don't 43:05 truly understand your bill of materials and like what goes into your product cuz sometimes the specific material that you 43:12 were ordering before is out of stock or whatever it is or gets more expensive and the factory is just like oh we're 43:18 just going to swap like so if you if you don't give the exact specifications of like this is the exact 43:24 compon every little Yeah it's like a zipper if you don't say this is is x% nickel and x% bronze or whatever they 43:31 might substitute something out cuz to them saving half a cent is major um 43:37 versus you look as like it's just half a scent but those little things add up and add up to the functionality and uh the 43:42 quality and everything else so you're completely right so if you if you don't lay it out like I need the YKK zipper Lean QC Solutions in Production 43:48 and all this kind of stuff and then they swap it out on the six production and then that can mess up the entire product like that's the issue of of not hiring 43:55 the QC and what we're seeing now is like more lean QC solutions as well for when you like don't need a full full 44:01 inspection so I've been seeing some QC agencies that do half half inspections so what what that means is like they'll 44:08 they'll do an inspection for like 125 bucks or 150 bucks and they they'll give 44:14 you a half manday and they'll line it up with other productions with other factories nearby um that's been kind of 44:20 interesting i I've been also seeing this trend of doing like virtual QC so uh instead of having a factory agent go 44:26 they're going to hop on like a WeChat video and go through product that way uh no I'm not I'm not vouching for for 44:32 these methods necessarily but like if you're really really tight on on cash there are different ways for you to go 44:37 and and still get some level of of checks and quality control um to you 44:42 know make sure the product's good but like if you can and I think you can always afford it you know people are 44:47 like "Oh it's such a big part." Like no like you have to factor this into your to your product cost uh because it's going to cost you way way more if you 44:53 don't so when people are looking to move outside of China are you seeing it Vietnam which is a lot of Chinese owned 45:00 factories are moving over there the same along the coast or not the coast the border of Mexico and Texas for example 45:05 there's a lot of Chinese own little industrial which Chinese factories and they send people over what are you seeing as probably you know if you had 45:12 to move it out I know it's product dependent but just as a general rule of thumb where are the next upand cominging 45:18 manufacturing centers is it Vietnam is it Indonesia is it Colombia is it Turkey 45:23 uh where or I think you might have mentioned something about Africa um there's there's a lot of stuff going on over there at one point what what what 45:30 uh what are you seeing what what are your thoughts on that um well I think that it depends if we're talking about 45:35 like smaller niche production or like large scale production I think if you're like in apparel easy places to start 45:42 moving production to if you're like a smaller brand are going to be places like uh like a Colombia like a Turkey 45:48 like a Portugal um where there's already been a lot of this like smaller manufacturing if we're talking about 45:54 like what places can like replace China to an extent it's going to be India based off the population and labor i 46:00 think they're still far they're still far away from like be having being at the same quality control and having the 46:06 same level of infrastructure and producing like that that level of product but India is growing like very 46:11 very very fast it might be like the the fastest growing country um so I'm 46:17 definitely looking heavily at India in the long term as being that that kind of replacement 46:22 and uh Africa is is very exciting as well uh we're starting to do a lot more Advantages of Diversifying Supply Chains 46:28 manufacturing uh in in places like Egypt uh places like Kenya and uh Morocco is 46:34 growing a lot as well and the benefits of Africa is that there's a lot of like free trade agreements now so you can 46:40 actually it's it's uh there's no duties on for majority of African countries into into the US now there's going to be 46:47 a 10% reciprocal tariff but uh saving on the duty cost sometimes your duty cost can be 30% just from there so you have 46:54 uh the low labor cost you have a lot of development you have a lot of trans infrastructure that's coming into that there as well and you have uh some level 47:00 of raw materials so and like and the low labor cost so look there there's always 47:05 opportunity to go and diversify your supply chain i think every brand should be thinking about diversification even 47:10 if it's not okay we're going to move manufacturing we're going to set up contingency supply chains we're going to start moving 5% 10% of our manufacturing 47:16 outside of China uh because you need to start doing this in advance it's just like getting money from the bank they 47:21 always say like get get money when you don't need it right like ask ask for like uh increased credit lines when when 47:27 your when business is good uh because then when business is bad they're not going to give it to you same thing with your supply chain like everyone that's 47:33 trying to move their manufacturing right now is having a hard time because you have to like build these relationships with these factories and because they're 47:38 not going to give you the capacity the good ones they're going to give it to their existing clients so building it 47:43 building your your global supply chain and your diversified supply chain when you don't need it is the way to have 47:48 success in the long term because when things do hit the fan like it just did it's very easy for you to go and take 47:54 that 10% of your production and ramp it up to 50 so how do I cut my production time i I call up my factory and I I say 48:01 I got to reorder here they already got the molds done they already got everything done maybe they got to get some raw materials in but maybe you know 48:07 that's nearby it's not too far away and they tell me "Okay it's five weeks production time." Well I know when they 48:13 actually put my stuff on the line it's two days of work so they they've got other stuff ahead they've got you know a 48:18 whole schedule ahead of me of other clients how can I jump the line what can I do relationship-wise financial wise 48:25 gifting wise uh in little red envelopes or whatever it is to actually so that I can jump the line and get my stuff done 48:31 in two weeks instead of uh six weeks is it just based or is there any little 48:37 trips there other than being the biggest guy at the fac you know the biggest client at the factory and or something 48:42 yeah it's a qu good question um so the first step is understanding your manufacturing process so if you're going 48:49 to break down the five weeks you should understand exactly what that fivee consists of how much of that time is 48:56 ordering or producing the raw materials how much of it going into actual assembly so like you know like you put 49:01 like a Gant chart how however you want to visualize it understand it so if you realize that majority of the time that 49:07 comes into your production is uh ordering and preparing the fabrics or the raw materials for your product then 49:14 an easy way to cut that down is saying hey let's I'm going to give you guys a deposit let's pre purchase four months 49:22 worth of the raw materials i want you guys to warehouse that for me so then we can go and easily go and like pull that 49:28 product and produce it as needed now the other comp part of that is also if we're 49:33 talking about let's say like apparel based products are you use are you doing custom manufacturing for your for your 49:39 fabrics or raw material or using stock because if they were able to order stock from a supplier versus having to go and 49:45 custom produce it for you pulling the stock fabrics is going to be a way faster process because it might take a 49:51 month to produce the the fabric from scratch versus just being able to order from a wholesaler so have that 49:57 conversation with with the factory the the next part is going to be um 50:03 giving them a good schedule of when you're going to be placing the orders so this is something I learned um when I 50:10 was actually managing production at our factory in China was that the most important part of managing production 50:15 within the factory is keeping production consistent because you have a lot of fixed costs when you're manufacturing 50:20 you have all your you have all your labor and so you need to keep it like very flat to an extent where every month 50:26 you're doing the same amount of production uh because that's how you stay profitable if you if you do too 50:32 much production you have to pay a lot of overtime and your your factors kind of in disarray and you're just like it's 50:38 just it's hectic yeah it's profitable but like again the overtime hurts versus if you're under that kind of threshold 50:44 now you have all your fixed costs and now you're losing money so a lot of times we would do projects with clients 50:51 at a break even because it meant that we're filling up a production schedule because that's how important it is to 50:56 keep production so if you are able to go and work with your factory and set up a proper plan of saying every single month 51:02 or every single two months I'm expecting to buy this amount of product this is what it looks like and you set up that 51:08 plan with them and you relatively stick to that plan yes there can be variations and saying look I told you I was going 51:13 to order this much but I need to cut it down whatever it is you give them ample time now they're able to properly have you on the schedule and slot you and so 51:19 they're able to then plan for that and then that and then they're going to have the raw materials ready and that's how you're going to go and cut your production time maybe from 5 weeks down 51:26 to two weeks um and then lastly yes money goes a long way so what that means Negotiating Production Priorities With Factories 51:33 is is think about like this you're going and you're working with your factory and you've been hounding them on price you 51:39 know you're you're just one of those you know guys who just every single time it's just push push push push push which 51:45 is fine you can negotiate so let's say they're making a 10% margin on your 51:50 production and then new guy comes onto the block 51:56 and they're like "Look I need the production i I need this done." Um and they they make a 40% margin or 50% 52:02 margin on this new guy's production but the guy's like "Look but I need it done ASAP i need it done in three weeks 52:08 voiding might happen well don't you think that maybe that they're going to go and push 52:15 your production back a little bit because you're the annoying customer they're making 10% on because they want 52:20 to get the project at on the 40% margin that has a tighter timeline yeah so 52:27 um offering well first off like having a relationship with the factories is important so they don't do that but then 52:33 offering hey look I'll pay you an extra x amount of dollars just get this done on time can go a long way because then 52:40 they're going to prioritize your project and they're going to somehow miraculously work these crazy shifts and 52:45 get it done yeah I've actually done stuff on my purchase orders whereas if it's not done by a certain date I get a 52:50 discount for every day it's late as well and that sometimes will motivate if they'll agree to that um that sometimes 52:56 will motivate them to to meet the the targets as well what What do you see happening with AI and sourcing i know I 53:02 don't know if you want to talk about or not but there's a new tool that uh you you you said uh you mentioned to me before that's coming out and there's 53:07 some other stuff that's happening in the AI how do you see that influencing uh sourcing and supply chain yeah for sure 53:13 so um AI I think from a sourcing perspective especially when I first 53:19 looked at like AI a few years ago I was like oh we're like physical product like that AI is for all the digital stuff 53:24 like you know it's not going to affect our industry that much but then we started uh seeing all the new tools and implementing all the new tools within 53:30 our sourcing process as an agency and it's been mind-blowing how effective it is so the benefit of AI within product 53:37 sourcing is the fact that what sourcing is it's research in a lot of ways right you're going and trying to do the 53:44 research into what factories are out there um across the entire world and 53:49 then doing the research and then reaching out to the right factories asking the right questions and then being able to go and spit out okay 53:56 here's pricing and details from 15 factories that we reached out to throughout the world and then deciding which ones are going to be the right fit 54:03 so right now we have like a full office of people that are just doing this process manually of going doing the 54:08 research going through the databases find the right ones inquiring all that kind of stuff with AI that's completely Advanced AI for Factory Sourcing 54:14 automated now uh because what AI is able to do is able to go and scrape every 54:20 single database out there um factories and it's able to go and build this 54:25 really really strong um yeah again uh index or database of all all these factories outside of just Alibaba 54:32 because Alibaba is a paytoplay alibaba makes it its money from uh suppliers paying to be on the platform so if 54:38 you're not paying then you're not going to be on the list so AI is able to scrape even more then you're it's able to go and search through millions of 54:45 factories within the database and then say okay these are the best factories potentially for you based off of the 54:51 parameters that you're giving and the parameters might be like I'm looking for this kind of product these kind of product images and I want this quality 54:58 level and I I want a factory that works with these brands etc that's able to go and then the kicker is that it's then 55:04 able to go and inquire for you um and this is where it's going to get better and better is then inquire with like an 55:10 AI agent um to then go and um reach out to the factories and get all the 55:16 information and so it could even talk in a localized language maybe it's going to talk in Vietnamese and to the Vietnamese supplier which might get you even better 55:22 pricing right and then uh negotiate with it and get all the details and be like well what's the MOQ and what certifications do you have and then the 55:29 agent can then go and give you a print out of like okay here's all the factories and here's all the pricing and here's all the specifications and all 55:35 this kind of stuff and so the entire process was automated with AI replacing like half our office um so I think it's 55:42 very exciting from a sourcing perspective um and there's a lot of really really great tools uh that are coming out and doing that one of them is 55:48 like source ready uh but there's a lot of really cool tools that u yeah is are using AI to to make this process just 55:56 super efficient never a dull moment in sourcing or logistics Is there you think you think 56:02 that there's a lot of dull moments right like sourcing is so unsexy but it's it's it's a crazy world maybe that's why I 56:08 like it you know that's why you like it that's why it brings a smile to your face um well Isaac this is uh this has 56:13 been fun i appreciate you uh taking some time out of your your beautiful little uh escape to Valley there and uh talking 56:21 to me back here in Austin uh but you'll be back in Austin uh later this year I think you said uh so uh uh but uh really 56:27 appreciate you coming on and sharing and how do people if they want to watch your channel or reach out to you if they they need some sourcing help i know you said 56:33 you don't deal with a lot of like brand new people it's more of the the bigger guys you prefer to deal with um but if they want to reach out learn more about 56:39 your company or maybe uh uh hook up with you guys or even just watch the channel what's what's the best ways to do that 56:45 yeah for sure um I'm just the sourcing guy on Instagram Tik Tok YouTube all 56:50 that kind of stuff so just uh shoot me a follow there and you can always just kind of inquire through that uh Imprint 56:56 Genius is our agency and the sourcing.com as well uh but ultimately you know happy to give as much guidance 57:02 as possible to everyone trying to get started with their sourcing journey or if you're already doing tens of millions 57:08 of dollars maybe we can help you as well awesome well thanks Isaac i appreciate you coming on man yeah thanks for having 57:14 me cheers man things I've been saying for years is the money is made in the sourcing not in the 57:19 selling and hopefully you understood a little bit of that from what Isaac was saying sourcing is I know it brings a 57:26 smile to his face but it's one of the the least glamorous spots or least sexy things to do when it comes to selling 57:32 products but it's one of the most important and there's a lot of ins and outs you got to understand there a lot of little uh nuances that can make a 57:38 huge huge difference hopefully you got a lot out of this episode something else you can get a lot out of if you subscribe to my newsletter Billiondoll 57:45 Sellers billiondollarellers.com it's free every Monday and Thursday a brand new edition comes out totally free lots 57:52 of tips and strategies and news about what's happening in the Amazon world i think you'll really like it so uh go to head to billiondollscellers.com 57:58 and sign up for that we'll be back again next Thursday with another brand new episode of the AM PM podcast and Kevin King’s Words of Wisdom 58:06 remember value is not what you think it is it's what your customers believe it is it's not what you think it is value 58:14 is what your customers believe it is see you again next week 58:19 heat heat [Music] 58:27 [Applause] [Music]