Kevin King: Conference Season, Networking & The State of Amazon Selling

Kevin King: Conference Season, Networking & The State of Amazon Selling Speaker 1: Hey guys. Welcome back to Seller Sessions. The King is back. It's been a while since we've had him on. I thought we'd get Kevin back as he's also a very busy man as we know. He does a lot of events and we're now moving into conference season. I think he will tell you that he's already done 17 flights this year already and we're only at the beginning of March. What are we now? 19th of March. So by the time this drops, We'll be working hard at Prosper. Working. Nothing else. We'll just be working at Prosper. Speaker 2: That's right. That's all we do at Prosper. It's just work. Speaker 1: That's all we do. Yeah. Speaker 2: That's all we do. It's like non-stop work. I see you, Danny. You always get your computer out. You're always like answering emails and like trying to do stuff. I always tell you like, dude, come have a beer. You're like, I can't. I'm here to work. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. That's the line we give Cheryl. That's the one that we tell my wife. But yeah, no, Prosper's, it's all right. You know, we have some fun. So welcome to the show, Kevin. It's been a while. Speaker 2: Appreciate it. Thanks for having me back. It's been a while. Speaker 1: It has. So let's have a chat about upcoming events. I'll throw some names out there because you do so many events and then you kind of help with the calendar for the rest of the year. For sellers for picking and choosing, you just got back, I've just got back from Prague, you just got back from the Titan event in Cancun. How was that? Speaker 2: I was good. They do a good job down there. They had a good little crowd, about 130, 150 people or so. Their group were there. I was at it last year and they really don't allow outside people, so it's not an open event. You got to be a tight member, but I'm friends with Athena and Dan and so they invited me down and last year was good, but this year was A noticeably higher level. They had a lot more seven and eight figure sellers there this year. It was really good. I mean, they do a good job at what they do. Speaker 1: Yeah. So let's roll into Prosper Week. By the time this goes out, people will be at Prosper, but there's some lead-in, so for people that obviously listen to podcasts, et cetera, around that time, and obviously you dropped the newsletter as well. We've got Inspires first. What have you got lined up? There's the Party Calendar and then there's the Prosper. Speaker 2: The thing that's happened with Prosper and it's starting to happen with Accelerate now at Amazon's event in Seattle, but you get all these satellite parties. So if you remember the days, I think you were there back in the heyday of the aggregators, they were just throwing crazy like half a million dollar, million dollar parties sometimes. We don't have to that level anymore, but usually every night there's two or three events that surround Prosper. Now MDS, the Million Dollar Sellers Group, Added on and kind of in partnership with Prosper, they do an event the couple days right before Prosper starts. So they take advantage of everybody flying in and it kind of makes it for some people worth more worthwhile. Like, yeah, I'll fly in for two events instead of just one. So they're doing their MDS Inspire event right before on Monday and Tuesday. Yeah, which is and they're usually closed to the public and they're opening that up to everybody. It's basically it's to recruit new members. You know, it's to share some stuff and hopefully What their goal is to expose their content and their members to other guys and hopefully get new members. So I'm having a booth at that event. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: And then I have a booth at Prosper as well. And then I'll be heading some of the parties, going to listen to you, DJ. I think you're DJing somewhere. Speaker 1: Yeah, for Rich Goldstein on the Tuesday. So yeah, me, Vinny and Shiv as well over from Helium 10. Yeah, that should be good. Speaker 2: Yeah, two parties, I think Tuesday and Thursday, because Thursday, Norm and I, you know, we have the AM PM podcast and Norm and I have another podcast called Marketing Misfits that's not Amazon focused. We've been doing that for about a year. So we're hosting a live podcast taping on Thursday at Resorts World and it's Norm and I and then we have drinks, adult beverages and appetizers and it's a We're taking everybody over there by the Tesla underground loop, the little tunnel that goes from the convention center straight to Resorts World. And then after that, we're doing a little cigar lounge activity for a couple of hours, and we have a party bus taking us to Rich's Thursday night party. So that's going to be a crazy day. Speaker 1: Yeah, I did the classic, right? So last time I was over was 2022. This is when we did the big thing at the top of the Delano. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: And because I've been over from 2022, I just got my agent to rebook. Yeah, it's fine. Just rebook. And then now who's doing some work with you on the boat? She contacted me. She said, Dan, what are you doing? I said, I'll get in Sunday and then I'm out Wednesday. Right. She went, it doesn't start Monday. So we're talking about. And she said, you're the other end of the strip. And then she sent me a picture. And I'm like, what? I didn't realize that Prosper had moved. So now I'm in, I go in Sunday and I'm out Thursday evening I had to do a load of shifting around and then move hotels from one end of the strip to another because I thought you know it's fine where I normally stay is right We've been walking like three minutes from my hotel room. I like to be close by so you get back to your room. So then, yeah, you know, it's like there is screaming heat. And then if you want to pop back to your room, it's like a 90 minute round trip when we have to shift that around. So that was really clever. But I'm glad she picked that up. She's a good kid. She's doing really well at the moment. She's just did. We were helping her prepare for Dragons Den. Speaker 2: Yes. I haven't talked to her since then to see how that went but hopefully that went well. She's coming out and doing my work in my booth at Prosper and then she was supposed to come to BDSS but something happened and I'm not sure. I have to ask Mark. I'm not sure but he told me that she's not going to be able to make it for BDSS. Speaker 1: I thought she's coming over in April last time I spoke. Speaker 2: Maybe I'm mistaken or maybe I've got my names got her mixed up with somebody but Yeah, there was. Yeah, I'm not sure. I know she's coming out for work in the BDSS booth at Prosper and at MDS event. Speaker 1: Yeah. So thanks for her is that I would have just got on the plane. Speaker 2: Yeah. Our tax go. Speaker 1: That's the other. So let's have a breakdown. So when officially Prosper starts Tuesday, doesn't it? Speaker 2: Well, Prosper starts officially Tuesday, really Wednesday and Thursday are the key days. Tuesday is just a workshop day. So there's no exhibit hall or anything like that. But the real action really kicks in the gear on Wednesday and Thursday. And then Tuesday night, of course, there's a bunch of parties, I think. Brandon's doing his golf thing, and there's quite a few things going on. Speaker 1: Yeah, so if we had to run through the week, we've got MDS Monday, right? Then Tuesday's pre-workshop, and I imagine... Speaker 2: MDS is Monday and Tuesday, and then Tuesday is pre-workshop, and then Wednesday and Thursday is the core prosper days. Speaker 1: Gotcha. And then how long are you in for, you going home Friday? Speaker 2: I come in Saturday because Rich, Mark, Norm and I are going to the Sphere to see the Grateful Dead show in the Sphere on Saturday night and Sunday is a set up day for us and then I'm out on Friday and then the following Monday I'm headed off to Iceland. Speaker 1: So your itinerary because you said you've got the podcast, you've got Are you doing a breakfast or something like that or is that not public? Speaker 2: No, just no breakfast. Speaker 1: Yeah, okay. And then what other parties are you heading to? So you've got Richie's Tuesday, Brandon's Tuesday. Speaker 2: I'll probably hit both of Richie's. I know I'm on the list for Sheen's party. I know I'm on the list for Scott Needham's deal. I know I'm on the list for I think Alibaba is doing something. I think Timu is doing something. I'm forgetting some stuff. Helium 10 is doing an affiliate dinner. Pattern is doing some warehouse tour or some new warehouse that they just opened or something. I'm not going to hit them all. I'm not a young chicken anymore. To be honest, a lot of these parties, I hate them. Because you can't talk. I mean, nothing against you as a DJ. I mean, listening to your music is good, but it's so freaking loud. You're either right up in someone's ear, and it's just... Speaker 1: There's a time and a place, isn't there? There's a set... I hate that. Speaker 2: Yeah, so... It's not good networking. Speaker 1: Well, exactly. And there's a time and place, right? So, whether that's later on in the evening, but in the early part, he's networking, so you can talk and stuff like that, or there are separate rooms. You know, people can do those things. Yes, you have to kind of account for those. But so that's Prosper. Where are you off to next after Prosper? Speaker 2: I'm back for a few days to unload and repack and then headed to Iceland for BDSS and Elevate 360 in Iceland. Speaker 1: Excellent. Do you want to run through these and then we'll start going through some of the other events that's coming up as well? Speaker 2: Sure, yeah. Well, BDSS, I mean, you'll be out there as one of the Dream 100, your Dream 100 BDSS. So you'll be out there for BDSS. I mean, this is my, this is the 11th one that counts virtuals. I think this is the 6th in person. So we started in 2019. This is the last one of this style. I'm changing it up next year. We're doing it April 8th to 12th next year. I'll be announcing the location at Prosper. But I'm changing up the model a little bit. We're going to do these Market Masters events now that are I'm going to become the new like higher level of that. But so BDSS is going to be good. We'll have about 120 people. Median last year in Hawaii was seven and a half million. Some people always like, well, I gotta be doing seven and a half million to come. No, as long as you're doing 500,000 or more, you'll get value from it. We have Pattern coming. Pattern is, they do a billion with a B. So they'll be there. As you know, a lot of it, you've spoken before, the speaker lineup is ridiculous. And some of the top people, we do an AI contest. We're doing a live Market Masters because people are like, what is this Market Masters thing? So we're going to show that one day. We're doing TED Talk. We have the national theater in Iceland where we're doing everything really nice called the Harpa. It's a really cool place, state of the art. We're doing that. For those of you listening, if you can't make it out to Iceland, maybe it's too short notice, probably for most of you, we are streaming it. So you'll be able to go to BillionDollarSellers.live, BillionDollarSellers.live, L-I-V-E, and you get a pay. It's not free, but you can pay to stream it, and we're doing it on live streaming, so it's Greenwich time, so basically similar to UK time, but it's also on DOD, because people are always complaining about webinars and stuff. It's three in the morning here in Australia, or it's whatever in Europe, or I gotta go to bed, or I can't, I pick up the kids so you can actually log in and we have a backup mechanism where you could start it in your time zone and stuff. So it's pretty cool. So you won't miss out on anything. And then right after BDSS, we have about 50 or so people staying. So about a third of the people are staying. And I do another event called Elevate 360. We switch to the Blue Lagoon. And this is not Amazon focused. I think As you said, I go to a lot of events and the best value I get is not from Amazon events. The best value I get is from non-Amazon events, YouTube or funnel hacking or go high level or some of those because it's general marketing. And I think there's a fundamental problem. I was just talking with Dan Ashburn. He agrees with me over at Titan. And us as Amazon sellers, we stay in this little fishbowl and we just go with our own little world, our own little groups, our own little conferences. But that fishbowl is small and the whole world of marketing is much bigger. And Perry Belcher, who started to help digital marketer traffic conversion, he has the Driven Mastermind, which I'm in. He was just talking last week on our call, on our mastermind call. He said, because he came to my Amazon Market Masters here in Austin a few weeks ago. And he was just flabbergasted at this guy that was doing $10 million in sales, one product, and was having all this trouble. He looks at his listing, looks at everything. He's like, this guy has no clue about marketing. He said us marketers could come in here and we could clean house on Amazon because we actually know what funnels are. We know how to drive traffic. We know how to do YouTube and all this. These Amazon people who are clueless and the people teaching it, there's nothing against the people that are teaching how to do TikTok, but they come from an Amazon base. So if you look at the top TikTok people out there that are teaching how to do TikTok shop for Amazon sellers, they come, they started in the Amazon world. There's nothing wrong with that. There's some smart people, but I believe it's even better to take people that aren't from the Amazon world. They're doing it a whole different way and bring them on top. So that's what I'm doing with Elevate 360 is I have Mr. Beast guy, Daryl Ives. Who is the guy behind Mr. Beast's Billions of Views. He knows how to work that algorithm. I got John Moran. It's $2,500 an hour for Google stuff. He knows backwards in Google. I have Rachel Miller's Facebook. Then I have stuff about taking care of yourself. As you know, you do a lot of this. You know, a lot of us entrepreneurs, we work, work, work and don't take care of ourselves. So I have someone on the psychology of eating talking. I have Jesse Elder talking, Katie Wells, I sit down with Peter Thiel all the time and has lunch with him. She's on that level. She's talking. So it's a get outside your comfort zone, get outside of this Amazon box, learn some new stuff and improve yourself, your mental and physical health as an entrepreneur. That's what it's about. Right now, I tag it on the back of BDSS, but next year it's spinning off. So it'll be separate at its own time. Unfortunately, a lot of Amazon sellers, there's two issues. One is they can't get away for that long. It's eight days is a long time to get away for two events or it's money. But mostly, it's what do I need that stuff for? I'm an Amazon seller. You couldn't be further from the truth. That's a mistake I'm trying to Lead the way on to get these Amazon people especially at the higher level to wake up and get outside of this freaking Little my little small world they're in We're in it. Speaker 1: We're in our own little pond. I've always said that and I think this is the other thing we've when you let's call it you have a culture with inside of your Ecosystem so people do things a certain way and that's the way to do it because of an echo chamber and the miss out on a lot of opportunities because You know, questioning and using critical thinking on everything is really important. You know, if someone says we're going to do that, why are you going to do it? It's just asking the why's of the same questions and I think this is why sellers get stuck as well because they'll go that person done this and they got X, Y and Z but it doesn't mean you're going to get that but there are frameworks there that will help you with doing certain things. So I agree with you and I think that because it's so tough for sellers now on Amazon It won't fix everything but you have to look at things from a different lens because if you don't you're in the same lens as everyone else. Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And like you said, in this Amazon world, there's little clicks, you know, you have the Titan click, you have the MDS click, you have the maybe the BDSS click, you have the Steve Chu click, you have the all these little clicks, and there's not a lot of crossover between them. So it's kind of like what you said, it's like you learn this way, and that's all you know. And there's not a lot of people that crossover between them. I'm probably one of the few people that It goes to MDS and Titan, for example. Speaker 1: Yeah, but like I always say, you're like the gatekeeper, right? So you're the central force of information. Well, no, look, you put out the number one newsletter twice a week, right? So you will need to be involved with everything because if you're going to produce something like this that's timely and you need content for that stuff, right, you haven't got time to get involved with anything other than I need that, the sellers need that, and it needs to all be cross-pollinated. And I think what happens is that, as I said, I've said this when we sat down in Australia, they're like, you move the ball. The only reason the science has got through is because of you and John Dirkens. That's it. Or we're still being, talking about the fucking honeymoon period that doesn't exist, it was only an observation. And then you've got the clowns on LinkedIn. There's some amazing people, but then there's the clown world just chasing page impressions for the sake of it, just for controversy. Do you understand? So it's like you can't even have a sensible conversation with some people sometimes. It's just like speaking in sign language to some people. But I think you do sit that unique position, like you're respected, people get along with you, so you're able to cross Through everything and you you hold down a central port where it's very important because your your newsletter is very important as well. Speaker 2: I appreciate that. Yeah, the newsletter is done done very well. I didn't expect it. Of all the things that I've done, 220,000 people have gone through Freedom Ticket for Helium 10. I've spoken on all kinds of stages, done all kinds of events and podcasts. They're all great, but nothing has moved the needle or given me more influence or authority or whatever you want to call it than the newsletter, for sure. Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's definitely because I mean, I remember you speaking about it as you were launching, you know, it's like newsletters are kind of difficult to maintain a level of quality and the volume of good content because you put out twice a week. So that's hard to maintain the level that you maintain because you're aggregating the very best. Speaker 2: Yeah, it's some work but I enjoy it and some people say it's too much but shoot, if I gave you what I think you need, I would be like drowning you. But yeah, I enjoy doing it and I haven't missed since I started August 14th of 2023 and I haven't missed a Monday or Thursday. A lot of people will start a newsletter or they'll I think in podcasting, I saw a stat, only something like 3% of all people who have a podcast make it to the seventh issue. Seventh episode. It's a very small percentage and the same thing happens to newsletters. People start them. I'm going to start a newsletter and they're like, shoot, this is actually work or they drop off or they're irregular or it just becomes like most in the industry, just a marketing thing. It's just like, here's our latest thing. Check out our new feature on our software or whatever. Or it's even there's some other pretty prominent people in the Amazon space, not John Dirk. He does a great job, but some others, their newsletters are garbage, pure garbage. Some service providers that think they have a great newsletter, it's a piece of shit, total piece of shit. I'll call them out on it. And then people have an idea of newsletters in their head of like, oh, that's just another email. But I get more people at events saying, Kevin, I love the newsletter than I do anything else that I do. And even, you know, it's maintained a really good open rate and good click rate. And it's a money, it's turned into, you know, it's going to make me half a million dollars in profit this year. Just on the newsletter. That's not counting how many people buy BDSS or come to Market Masters as a result of the newsletter. That's just within the newsletter type ecosystem of affiliate commissions and advertising and that kind of stuff. Speaker 1: Indeed. But yeah, no, it's between your newsletter and John's, I pretty much get everything. It goes back to the point, you know, I think one of the biggest things for sellers is their lack of time and attention and where they can afford to put it because they're drowning most of the time in what they're doing. And I think that's like that with everything. I have to filter and you have to filter. So they're the two newsletters I would read. I could be on every newsletter, read everyone, but I don't. It's the same. I always say to people, if this podcast is not for you, skip it. Don't waste your time. Only listen to what you need. Not, oh, I must listen to like 20 episodes. It's fucking crazy. Just pick the ones that are relevant and go and do some real work. Speaker 2: Exactly. While you're on the plane coming from across the pond, make sure you listen to Seller Sessions and catch up on some of those episodes while you're on that long plane ride from London to Vegas. It's a great time to catch up on some of them. Speaker 1: Yeah, no. Well, look, at the end of the day, I think also we've got to look at how content distributes now. Even when, you know, you go back five, six years, there was a period where, and I'm happy for it, the period changes, right? But then it segregates, meaning a few years ago people would go on podcasts, right? Because there wasn't really that many outlets. But now everyone's a content creator. Does that make sense? So there's a lot more volume and different pockets. And I support it, but you've got to handpick what's necessary for you. Let's go through some of the events. There's one coming up 24th, 25th of April in Warsaw. I actually spoke to Lady Maggie. She asked me to speak this year. But it's too close to Seller Sessions. But Bradley's over, Jana is over, George Moressa, Max Sinclair, just going through some of the names. Dorian Gorski and a few others. So that takes place coming up in the 24th. Speaker 2: You got I think Steve Chu's event in early May and then you got your event. Speaker 1: A good one, Top Dog, Tomer. Speaker 2: Yeah, Top Dog, Tomer's events. I'm not allowed to go because he doesn't allow gurus, even though he speaks with mine and comes to mine. We're good friends. I respect that. And so, but I hear nothing but really good things about Tomer's event. If I could go, I would absolutely go. Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the lineups is quite similar to a lot of your previous lineups as well. You've got Janelle Page, obviously Tomer, Leo's there, Josh Hadley. So a lot of the guys are former speakers at your events as well. And let's go down, yeah, Fort Lauderdale. Let's go down to Seller Summit 2025. That's it. Speaker 2: That's Steve Chu. Speaker 1: Steve Chu, yeah. Bernie Thompson, love Bernie. Athena, Brandon Young, who else is there? Ritu, love Ritu. I've got to say, she needs her flowers. She's so quiet. Speaker 2: Yeah, she's a little quiet assassin. Speaker 1: Yeah, amazing, amazing. Really, really, really great. Isabella Ritz is speaking there as well. We've got Neil Patel, so they've dipped outside of the Amazon space. Speaker 2: I'm paying a little bit of money. Speaker 1: You need to spend a few quid to get him on board. Have you ever done any work or know him? Speaker 2: I've seen him speak a couple times. He was at the Helium 10 event a few years ago. I've seen a couple others, but I don't know him. Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's May 6th to 8th. You might be a struggle to make that and Seller Sessions as well because you need to give yourself a bit of time to fly over. Nudge, nudge. I don't need to go through Seller Sessions because I've spoken enough about it on the podcast. But following week after that, back to Cancun. Brandon, year three, Camp EECOM? Speaker 2: Yeah, Camp EECOM and Cancun. It's for Brandon's event, which he's moved it out of Orlando. It used to be the last couple we've been in Orlando, so now he's got it in Cancun. Speaker 1: Yeah, again, hands-on style, isn't it? More so than... Speaker 2: It's a mix. Yeah, it's hands-on, and I don't know, he might change it up this year, but the past, it's been kind of three different tracks. It's a beginner, intermediate, and like a CEO level track. So I'm not sure if he's doing the same thing, but there's a mix of talks and workshop style. That's what he's done in the past. Speaker 1: Then after that, Ambizion in Tallinn. I've done that four times out of six events. I love Estonia. Yeah, so that's a great event. Make sure you take a look at popping over there after you've been to Seller Sessions, of course. Plug. Okay. Let's see what we got after this. Ah, here we go. Accelerate. So we're moving into... Oh, no, no. Let's not skip over this one. I like this one. August 19th. to the 21st. This is online. So this is this this guy called Kevin King does a billion dollar seller something or something. Brian Johnson, Chris Rawlings, yourself, Chad, Ruben, Anthony, Andrew Erickson, John Aspinall, Joe as well. She's great. Nia, talk to me about Nia. I haven't spoken to her before. She's pretty good when it comes to… She's really good. Speaker 2: I think Adam11 is her company. She worked for Amazon India for a while. She's from India. Really good on the PPC. I've had her on the AM, PM podcast. Really smart girl. I don't know if I have them on there yet. And Andrew, the guys that worked with you on the Rufus stuff, both of them I think are going to be speaking too. The website's not fully updated yet, but that's my virtual event. So for all of you that don't like to travel, you can do it. And we don't just do Zoom calls. It's not pre-recorded. Everything is 100% live. And we use this special software that kind of mimics a conference. You got breakout rooms and all. It's a totally different experience than one of these other little online events that you see people do. Speaker 1: Xcelerate. Actually, personally, I've never managed to get over. I might try and get over this year. Talk us through Xcelerate. Speaker 2: Xcelerate is the biggest. I think Prosper this year is expecting their biggest crowd of over 2,000. And part of that, you have ShopTalk going on at the exact same time, which is 10,000 people in Vegas. So you got some of those ShopTalk people are curious, so they're going to be poking their head in over at Prosper. But Amazon Accelerate is the biggest event. I think 3,500 sellers last year. And Amazon goes over the top. I mean, the content there sucks. You know, occasionally you have a good speaker like Destiny or someone. They'll come in and speak. But the Amazon stuff is all scripted, all corporate, just cheerleader bullshit. And they'll announce some new stuff. But the networking is pretty good. And it's starting to develop these satellite parties again. But the thing I like about that show is not one, it's Amazon goes over. I mean, it's free snacks, free food, free lunches, free. I mean, they're just pouring on the The stuff during the day to take care of you. But they also bring out a lot of people that don't go to these other events. So you see a lot of the same people. There's all these other events that we mentioned. You'll see a lot of the same faces, a lot of the same speakers, but at Accelerate, you get all these people that just sit in their underwear and they only log into Seller Central and they don't know, they never heard of your podcast. They never heard of Amazing.com. They never heard of Titan or BDSS and they go to that event. So you get to meet some new people and then Then Amazon has their Genius Bar, their equivalent of an Apple Genius Bar, where you can actually go in and actually talk to someone that has the power to hit a couple of buttons and fix your account right there on the spot, or at least get it in front of the right eyes immediately without having to go circles for weeks or months in some cases. We had a guy last year, a British guy, that came over for my Market Masters event in September And he was there and we did a little hot seat with him. He wasn't in the major hot seats. He was just there as kind of an attendee. And we did a little minor hot seat with him and his supplement account, multi-million dollar account had been down for eight months. And we told him, dude, you need to change your flight. Don't go back to London. You need to go up to Seattle and go to this Genius Bar thing. So he did. He went up there and I remember the next day after he went, that day when he went, he posted to the WhatsApp group for the Market Masters. He was crying on the phone. He's like, I can't believe if I had not come to your Market Masters and you guys hadn't told me I had to change my plane. I just came. This wouldn't have happened. I just came in here and I sat down with the people you told me to sit down with and my account is back up and live now. And for eight months I've been trying to get this going round and round and round. He solved it just like that. It's a multi-million dollar account. So that's one of the benefits of going to that event. Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say, I know it's Prosper's biggest crowd. Have they been giving away tickets? Because obviously they need the volume because of the trade. Because I see a lot, I'm not sure if they're free or anything. Speaker 2: They were giving away exhibit hall tickets. Speaker 1: Exhibit hall tickets. Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like $150 which gets you into the exhibit hall. It doesn't get you into the talks, I don't think. But I understand this year they're doing the talks differently. Instead of going down the hallway, They're doing them like kind of on the convention floor like over on the side. I went to a podcast event last year that they did this and so I'm not sure exactly how it said. I know I'm speaking, me and Josh Hadley are speaking. Doing some hacks on the Thursday right after lunch, so that should, you don't want to miss that. We got some really kick-ass shit that we're sharing. But yeah, so I'm not sure, but then you have also, I don't know, you're probably looking at Augustus thing there, Seller Summits or Amazon Summits or whatever. I don't know where, but so in September there's also Perry Belcher is doing the replacement for traffic and conversion in early September. It's in San Diego. He probably doesn't have that on his Growth Hacking Live. We'll be about a thousand people. So if you want to get out by the Amazon box, that would be a good one to take a look at. You also have Go High Level is in October. That's another one outside the Amazon box. It's really good. It's in Dallas. Unboxed is coming. I don't know if he has that on there, but that's more advertising. I would skip that. Most of the people listening here should skip that unless you're a PPC agency. And then I have my Market Masters number three. I haven't announced the date, but it's in November. So that'll be happening in November, which in that event, starting to get some legs and doing Everybody that goes to it says it's better than my BDSS events. Everybody, the exact experts, hopefully I can get you to participate in one of these times, Danny, get you to hop on a plane, call that agent that works that stuff for you, works the magic. But those events are life changing. We had someone come to the first one in September. She's doing a million and a half a year and she implemented everything she was told in her two and a half hour hot seat. And she came back in February, five months later, just as an audience member, not as a hot seat, but just as a, you know, just to hang out, which is like a reduced price ticket. And she said she's on track now for five million because of what she implemented. So that's the power of this thing. It's very focused. And I know you're kind of doing something a little bit similar with Seller Sessions this year, I think. Speaker 1: Yeah. So that's what I was going to ask you about is the I've completely changed the model because I get every year, it gets harder to do. You're under the cost to sell out because I've done... Speaker 2: Just look at how many events you just named off that you're competing against too. Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. But the key thing for me is for me to get up and want to do it, because if I do something, I have to go all in. If I go in half assed, then it's no good. And I'm like, do I want to do another one again in the same format or call it a day? Or do we just do something that's radically different? If it lands, it lands. If it fails, fuck it, it fails. But I can't keep getting up every year, Kevin, to do the grind of it. Because it is a grind. Because we're in a small market in the UK. So your work starts very early and it's a long lead-in and it does take a lot of time. And so, yeah, completely changed the model. And the way it works is that we've built it from the ground up. So we've all sat down. We all pull in everything in terms of what we would like to cover. And then if there's stuff that crosses over, it's like voted in. So let's say one person does it one way, one person does it another, but they get better results. Well, that version goes in. Do you see what I mean? So it's full on, hands on. It's developed notes like we do it all in ClickUp. So there's like resources, there's walkthroughs and stuff like that. Because a lot of time you go to a conference, you're scrambling to write notes. Right. And if you sit in there and you've got low lights, it's like slide after slide all day. And then that fatigue starts to kick in. Right. And with all the will in the world, you make some great notes, but there's going to be gaps. And then if you don't look at them notes for about four or five days and you time in, With the slides, it's very hard to implement that stuff, especially if it's more technical as well. And with the advent of AI, you can create custom bots that tie in with all the education as well. I did 10 years in the classroom like that. I haven't done any teaching in this industry until I did that workshop that Tim asked us to do with WANA. It's a lot of work. I did enjoy it. But teaching for me back then sucked the life out of me, being in the classroom six, seven days a week, right? And with this, it was like reintroduced the VARC model, Visual Auditory Reading Kinesthetic, so through doing. And it's working out a way that how do we maximize the retention, right? So people normally with teaching in the traditional sense, you're showing them with the end in mind, then you work back, you break it down and go through it. And people have different learning styles. Like some people prefer like they're a visual learner. Some people like to read documentation. A lot of coders do, right? And it's trying to blend. How do you blend all the learning styles together and keep the retention? Because normally what happens, you've got two types of retention. You've got short term memory and there's the long term. And if you start to combine the different learning styles, Then you have the ability to lock it all in. And so people are able to leave like with full fleshed out documents. So even though they get back and they want their team to do it, they haven't then got to turn it all into an SOP as well. So that's the plan and I've got, I've been building out some tools as well as part of it and it's a lot easier now. Obviously custom bots are great, right? But then there's having other little tools that you can have is that they do one or two things but you don't have to think about it. I call them grunt tools. You know it's like When you look at, you want to solve a problem and a lot of software we have in the space is like 300 or so plus software companies. You ask a seller if they want to learn a new software, like so you've got the learning curve, right? Then you've got to come up with a strategy and then you've got to find a way to measure it. But if you've got things where he goes, OK, if I put that report into there or if I do that, that's the outcome. And it tells me what to do. Then they've got less to think about. So they get less in terms of the. The Decision Fatigue. So it's building a few bits like that that goes part of the curriculum as well as part of these frameworks. And it just makes it easier and more pleasurable to do when it comes to implementation. Speaker 2: How's it going? Are people getting it? Are your core audience? Speaker 1: No. They thought it was a fucking speed dating event. It didn't matter that I dropped 16 carousels at the beginning. I brought in some guys, funnel architects. Actually, I've got to make a correction. I said that they worked on Alex Hormozy's funnel, but they didn't. They reversed engineered that for their podcast, but they did do the Joe Rogan experience and they do a lot of big people. And they came in and redone the landing page all the way through to the checkout to get clarity because your messaging's got to be right. So we've solved that and people are starting to get it now. But I didn't realize how much disconnect there was until people started feeding back and saying, Dan, I'm not quite sure. Do you know what I mean? And then I went back to the same group of people. This is the stuff you can't run on stuff like product opinion. They need to understand because Amazon is a super niche. Speaker 2: I had the same problem with my first think tank last September. It's a totally new concept, like what you're doing, and people are like, what is this? Is it a mastermind? Is it PowerPoint presentations? It's like, no. So I lost $70,000 on that event because I had to discount the tickets to get the people there, but then once people came, I proved it that it works because everybody is like raving, raving, raving. And I got testimonials and I did a second one five months later just to prove the concept, make sure that just wasn't a fluke and I was able to charge more and break even. So now the third one, now I got the model down and the second one was actually better than the first. So now people are like, the word is out. And so now people are like, all right, we get it. So I can actually make money on this. But to me, a lot of people say, Kevin, why do you produce? I do four events a year. You're doing the one, and each one is different. So you have the virtual event, which is a different audience than the in-person. It's a little bit of crossover, but a lot of different people. I do the in-person one. I do the Elevate 360, which is a non-Amazon one. And then now I have Market Masters. So there's four of those. And then next year, BDSS, like I was telling you, the model is changing. It's going to be a totally different thing that we're doing next year for BDSS. The reason I do those is a couple of those actually make real money. One of them loses money and the other one is maybe break even. But the reason I do them is because I want to give back. I mean like the girl that did a million and a half and now five, I've made a lot of money. I don't need to be a billionaire. It's not my goal. My goal is to like help other people and I enjoy We're creating experiences. When you come into Iceland in a couple of weeks and you've been to a BDSS before, we're making an experience. It's not just, let's go listen to a bunch of people go through PowerPoints. So we make a total, total experience out of it. And then we mix up some of the style too. So we have the talks, you know, the typical talks. We have where the audience participates and shares. We're doing 10 minute ones this year instead of little three minute hacks. People need real content. They just need a little hack that's going to last for a couple weeks. And then we do the AI contest, which is cool. We're doing the Market Masters. Then we have all the fun events around it, like we're going to a penis museum and things like that. So it's all, you know. Speaker 1: I imagine that's going down really well with the gentlemen. Speaker 2: You know, it's actually a pretty cool, interesting place. I mean, you think of it as like, don't think of it in sexual terms. I mean, it's actually, It's a fascinating place and it's only in Iceland, so it's pretty cool. And then we're doing some other cool stuff, you know, lava shows. And dinner with whales and all kinds. It's cool. Speaker 1: Yeah. I do think I'm good. I'm glad that you're doing that as well. And that's not, you know, I've used the same format. So I'm not going to throw rocks and say, oh, yeah, this year, you know, now you've got to do this kind of format just because I'm doing it. That's not proven. But I do think. We have got to the point where we have to look at other things to try. And if they work, they work. If they don't, they don't. But I think we can't keep doing just slides. I mean, mine and Juan's presentation in Prague, I was on a laptop, an iPad and iPhone as part of the presentation. So I'm demonstrating the back end of Seller Central. I've got the slides on the iPad. We're going through. Then I'm opening the slides and in writing on the slides as well as part of everything. And I'm using the phone to use voice in terms of calling up search results and stuff like that. So it's trying to make it a little bit more interactive, you know, so that when you are learning, it's not just on the slides because you've got the context of the person speaking. And depending on the slides, you're not going to want loads of text, nor do you want bullet points that is just the trigger for the speaker to prompt them to say what they need to say, you know, because afterwards, will they have the full context of it? So he's trying to try different things. It doesn't mean it's going to work, but it's worth it. Speaker 2: Let's talk about why, though. They listen to us talk about these presentations and this and that, but they're like, why do I need to spend all this money and go pay for a hotel and flight and actually go to Seller Sessions or go to Augustus of Anaconda, BDSS or whatever it is? There's something that you get when it's human to human. You can watch a Zoom call or you can watch one of these online summits and there's nothing you should, but Take that exact same information. Usually, it's not exactly the same, but even if it's exactly the same presentation, in person, there's just a different vibe to it. You do have less distractions because you're in the room. These are your people. When you go to these events, we work in this isolated world and there's not a lot of people that we can talk about ASINs and FBAs. And hijackers and all this, they just look at us funny. These are your people. They're entrepreneurs. They're risk takers. They're people that like to make money and like to play hard. And nowhere else are you going to get that. And sitting at your house, you're not going to get that. Plus, if you're doing your presentation, you're on the laptop and showing the phone, you're not going to catch everything. And so but afterwards, you can get lunch or a dinner or in the hallway, you can go, Hey, Danny, I really loved your presentation. Can you explain a little bit more about this? Can you show me that Rufus thing again on the phone? I didn't quite get it. Speaker 1: I was going to say, you're absolutely right, because when you're doing the demonstrations and stuff, things move fast. It's more interactive because you can speak to the crowd whilst you're doing it. So there's more communication two-way. So what I do now is, say for instance, all the prompts and everything, they're all in a ClickUp doc and there's some resources and information. They've got the slides, they see the presentation, but they've also got a document that they can go back, they can use the prompt or adapt them for their needs. So that's the other thing you're right, is that I should have mentioned, is that having that resource as well, like just a ClickUp, open ClickUp doc, it allows them to go back and run through it. And I've had a few people that contacted me and go, They got the slides but didn't get the ClickUp docs so I sent them and it's like because they asked me if I'd do some training. I said you should have the resources. You don't need me to train you. Everything's in there. All you got to do is follow these steps. Click on these links. It's job done. So it's supplying that as well. That is the other part. But I like it. I enjoy that format. Me and you have spoken at hundreds of events over the last decade, I'm sure, right? You more than me. But then there comes a time where you want to kind of freshen up what you do as well. Try different things instead of doing the same thing over and over again. And one of my main things is, what's important? What does people want to learn? And how do we get them the information in a way that they can absorb it and they don't have like missing gaps to it. So that was one of my criteria behind it. Speaker 2: Yeah, that's good. Speaker 1: So what else is happening for you in other areas? You do the four events a year. I don't know. You're fucking crazy. I mean, four events drive me mad. But you got Mark as well. He does a lot. Speaker 2: He does a lot of I mean, I my role is, you know, curate the speakers and sell the tickets and come with a general vision, overall schedule and general vision. And he takes care of all the little details. So I'm not I'm not on the phone with the hotel and dealing with all that kind of stuff. During the events, a lot of times after the event, we'll sit down and we usually stay an extra day. If we're doing the same nights, then he'll tell me what happened. He's like, oh, yeah, two days ago, someone so-and-so threw up in the bathroom and someone so-and-so over here slipped and hit their head or whatever. I'm like, really? So I'm completely oblivious to what's going on out there because he takes care of all that stuff. But which is good. He and I have worked together for over 30 years. So we have a good relationship and stay out of each other's way. Don't try to micromanage each other or anything like that. We just know it's going to get done well. But I mean, I got the newsletter. Obviously, you know, it's twice twice a week. I still sell. So I'm still a seller. I still do things with Helium 10. So I do the Freedom Ticket. I do a little mastermind once a month with them. I do the Helium 10 Elite Training. I'm with Helium 10. I've got the second podcast besides the AM-PM podcast, which I've been doing almost three years now. I've got the podcast with Norm, Marketing Misfits, which is every Tuesday. So we bring on non-Amazon people. It's all marketing stuff. It's pretty cool. We banter and we give each other a hard time on there. You know, tease each other and it's pretty good. And then Norman and I have a company coming out. We'll be launching it officially in a few months called Dragonfish. And it's doing a lot of work for sellers. It's not an agency. Agency would be the wrong way to describe it. But it's a total flywheel package. Of six different companies, six different elements for online Amazon, Shopify, Walmart, DTC sellers where we can do a whole range of things from all that kind of AI type of stuff. To newsletters, to press, to manage services, to advertising, to branding. It's a pretty big project we've been working on for about a year but we'll be formally announcing that pretty soon. Speaker 1: Yeah. Let's talk AI because I know that you're on the forefront of this and where are you seeing things at now? Obviously we've gone past custom bots and using ChatGPT and And Claude, where are you seeing it? Because obviously there's Make.com, there's N8N. Speaker 2: Those are stopgaps. N8N and Make are stopgaps before we get to real agentic AI. So what I believe right now There's a lot of sellers out there, guys doing $5 million a year that are going to be doing $500,000 a year two or three years from now because they're not freaking paying attention to AI or their version is the Amazon seller world version of AI. Let's use an AI chatbot to help write my bullet points or to analyze reviews or to do some sort of basic thing, which is great. That's something a human would have to do in the past and you can do that. But that is barely touching the surface of AI and most people don't understand what AI can do and they don't understand where this is going. I follow it extremely closely. I know you do and Juana and the people that you work with are on top of it from an Amazon point of view, but it's It's going to change the entire world, not just Amazon, but everything from product sourcing to selling, to the way we interact with each other, to the whole gamut. I'll talk about this at BDSS. I'm going to be doing my talk on the last day. I'm going to show how agents You have eight different agents potentially, maybe even more, that each one is doing a very individualized task and you're out of the loop. You're in the loop, but you're out of the day-to-day. These things are working on their own just like an employee would work on their own. One that specializes in sourcing, one that specializes in trends, one that specializes in Helium 10, one that specializes in PPC, one that specializes in Rufus. And they're all working together with each other, talking to each other without you. Speaker 1: What platform are you using for that? You know, you said... Speaker 2: Right now, you're using Make and N8N, but those are still using if-then-else statements. It's using old... It's a stopgap. It's a... They're great for right now, but you're going to get to the point where there is going to be no Make or N8N. You're going to have these agents that are just... They're going to have their own little API language that they talk between them. And I think there's actually a name for it. I think it's MHT or something. There's a, that's not the exact name. There's a name for this language in AI to allow us. It's kind of like the universal JavaScript of AI or something like that, where they, but people have to start implementing. So Alibaba has got to implement this system on top of their current database. And then all these other AI agents will be able to talk to it and get, it's a standardization of data, basically. There's a name for it. I think it starts with it. Yeah. I'm just drawing a blank. But once that becomes prevalent, and it will, then your makes and all these guys are going to be kids' cosplay to what's going to happen. So I think you're going to launch products with the speed of light. You're going to be able to test things with 3D printing. Um, it's good. It's not even just change the e-commerce where it's going to change our entire world. It's as Steve Simonson says, it's as important as the invention of fire. And you guys more Tony Robbins. I was just saw him at Funnel Hacking Live and he let off before he started doing all this motivational stuff with pay attention to what's going on in AI. A lot of you guys in the next five to 10 years, this world is not going to look anything like it does right now. It's going to be just like a space shuttle landing on a cowboy's ranch in 1850 amongst the cows. What the hell is this thing? That's how different it's going to be. Well, when AI combines with the next level of computing that's coming up where you don't have the bits, the ones and the zeros and you have parallel computing going on, quantum computing is the name of it. That's going to change. That's going to add on top of the AI, change it even again. And you still have, you know, the hot thing a few years ago was NFTs and Web3 and all this stuff that hasn't disappeared. So the blockchain and all that stuff that NFTs are built, NFTs were a novelty and that's gone away. But the technology, underlying technology behind it has not gone away. And it's actually going to combine with AI. And with quantum computing, you're going to see these three. I'm not talking about NFT combining. I'm talking about the underlying technology. It's going to combine and you're going to see massive shifts in the way things are done and the way things are tracked and the way everything. It's fascinating and it's hard to keep up with it because it's changing daily. I read 30 plus newsletters a day and some of those are AI newsletters. And so I keep track. I keep on top of this stuff. It's mind-boggling where some of this stuff is going and what's in the labs right now. Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's just that it goes back to the limitations of time that sellers have, right? And to go in depth and explore this stuff, it does take... Speaker 2: They need to pay attention. I mean, I'm doing this after BDSS. Exactly for this reason you said, I don't have time. I'm going to fly somewhere maybe before I come to Seller Sessions or after and actually That's why I'm looking at my schedule so I can make this work and go to, I don't know, freaking some island in the Indian Ocean for like four days and just sit overlooking a really pretty beach and sit on my computer and mess with AI and just chill and just like go deep for like 12 hours a day with no distractions and just play with some of this stuff so I can make sure I'm on the cutting edge because if I don't, I feel like I'm at a major disadvantage. Speaker 1: Yeah, no, totally agree. I mean, we could we could chat all day, but I think we've we've gone from we've got two podcasts here pretty much if you go from one shift to another. But it's been amazing to catch up. I look forward to seeing you in about three days. Speaker 2: I'll see you here this week in Vegas and I'll see you again halfway across the pond in Iceland. Speaker 1: Absolutely. Speaker 2: You gotta love this. You get to come to an event. You don't have to fly all the way to the US. You get to fly just three hours from London. You don't have to take an overnight flight and have a headache the next day. You don't have to do anything. You can just pop in, pop out. It's pretty amazing. Speaker 1: Indeed. What's the best way that people can reach you? Speaker 2: BillionDollarSellers.com. Just go to BillionDollarSellers.com, sign up for the newsletter and you'll be in the loop for everything I do. Speaker 1: Excellent guys. Thank you for joining us today. I'll be back here again next week. Take care of yourself and your family and I'll see you again soon.