The Core Drivers Behind Amazon Success - What is Titan Network | Athena Severi & Kevin King

The Core Drivers Behind Amazon Success - What is Titan Network | Athena Severi & Kevin King 00:00:00 Okay everyone, I'm here with the king, the one and only Kevin King, and I'm really excited about this live series-they're going to be short and sweet, very impactful. And I wanted to start off with the man himself, Kevin. For those who've been living under a rock, would you tell people a little bit about your background and what you have accomplished in the last several years in this industry? Thanks, Athena, for inviting me on. It's always a pleasure to speak to you. I always have a lot of fun when we talk. Always good stories come out. Definitely, definitely. For sure. So where have you been, Kevin? Tell us about you. I've been doing this selling gig for a day or two. I started selling online before Google existed. 00:00:47 So back when you were still in diapers, I guess, back in the 90s. I've been selling on Amazon since 2001 as an FBA seller since 2015. I have three different brands. I continue to sell on Amazon. I do stuff with Helium 10. I do their training, their beginning training and advanced training. I run the Billion Dollar Seller Summit. I have a new newsletter called Billion Dollar Sellers. I host AM and PM podcasts. I speak at events, and I hang out at cool parties with you. Hey, hey, that was the best part. That was the best part. Okay, I love it. That's right. So what I want to do during the next 20 minutes is I'm trying to get people the most edge they can have on the industry now, right? 00:01:31 So what I'm doing is I'm bringing through a lot of people with a lot of experience to talk to them about what they're seeing now in terms of patterns, in terms of ways that they can leverage different things. So just like from the pulse that you have, since you deal with so many sellers and you have so much experience. Where do you see the landscape of Amazon these days? And what are a few things that you predict can help people here now? Yeah, Amazon itself is, as you know, it used to be pretty easy. Just find a product on Alibaba, stick your logo on it and put it on Amazon and go to the beach and listen to the cash register ring. Those days are pretty much over. 00:02:09 It's very much a true business now, not a get rich quick thing. So you need to have a lot of hats. Either you've got to wear a lot of hats or you've got to have a lot of people on your team that understand logistics and sourcing and pricing and advertising and a ton of stuff. So it's gotten more complicated. The opportunity is still great. Some people say, has this jumped the shark? Is it over? I get those emails sometimes from people like, Amazon's dead. There's no chance. No, that's absolutely wrong. Amazon's still the best opportunity probably ever in business. It still is today, but it's a real business and it takes real money. If you're going to try to start this with a few hundred bucks and think you're going to be a millionaire, good luck. 00:02:46 It's probably not going to happen. But if for those that treat it like a real business, really learn it and don't just be a copycat, then it's awesome. But where it's changing the most is it's getting more competitive. So just getting visibility on Amazon is difficult right now. And so the ways to do that. A lot of the old hacks, the old simple little tricks are kind of going away. So now it's coming down to real business and real fundamentals of marketing. And that's what a lot of people struggle is they don't understand that or they don't have the money or they don't want to put the time into it. They want instant results overnight. And it just doesn't typically happen now. So there's a lot because of the cost of advertising is going up. 00:03:25 It's squeezing some people out, which makes it super important to refocus on sourcing because as the cost of ads go up. I always say the money is made in the sourcing, not in the selling. And so doing things like your China magic trip and some of the stuff that you guys are doing at Titan are crucial and understanding your numbers. So many people don't understand the numbers. They know what they see on the dashboard on some software tool, but that stuff is garbage for the most part. And most software tools, it's a nice snapshot and gives you a general idea, but you got to know your, you got to know your stuff. Like y'all do that CM one, two, and three. And you got to, You got to know that stuff really, really well. 00:04:06 And then driving traffic and awareness off Amazon is becoming super important. Amazon's rewarding that with the 10% brand bonus. But knowing how to deal with influencers, knowing how to drive traffic from SEO and blogs and TikTok and all the different places, it's becoming-you've got to put that into the mix now. And a lot of people either are struggling to do that or they're not doing it. At all absolutely thank you for that so talk to me a little bit more when it comes to product development and brands when it comes to Amazon, yeah brand is you know a lot of people think a brand is a logo or a name and that's not a brand, a brand is a feeling, it's what when you when you hear the word apple uh you have a it evokes a feeling either negative or positive and that that's what a brand does um it's it's not it's an avatar it represents something that people believe in, Louis Vuitton. 00:05:00 Why does someone buy a $6,000 Louis Vuitton bag instead of going to Walmart and getting a $100 bag that looks kind of nice and similar? It's because Louis Vuitton stands for something. It stands for, hey, I've made it. It's status. I'm cool. It's pretty. It's craftsmanship. I only like the best. That's why people are buying that, and that's what a brand is. And a lot of people don't understand that. They just think it's a name and a logo. And you've got to create an avatar. If you don’t know your avatar that you’re going after, then you’re going to fail. You might get lucky a time or two and have a hit product, but in the long run, you’re going to fail. 00:05:37 And that’s why a lot of sellers that started when we did in 2014, 2015, 2016, they’re failing now. They succeeded in the beginning because they were right place, right time. And they may have sold their business and did well and made millions of bucks and congratulations to them. But a lot of them, they try to do it again. And the vast majority, there’s some really good ones that understand, but the vast majority of them struggle and they can’t launch another product. And they just, it's because they don't know what the hell they're doing. And they don't have an avatar. And you have to know that now. And an avatar doesn't mean, if you're going after a certain market, it doesn't mean you have to be everything in that market. 00:06:15 So if you're selling, the example I like to give sometimes is. If you're selling a thing to put on your shoulder to hold your iPhone while you're taking a jog, does that mean you're just going to sell iPhone accessories and that's going to be your brand? Maybe, but probably not. Look at Yeti. That's a brand. They sell everything. They sell blankets. They sell everything for the camping. They know their avatar. This is an outdoorsy person that likes good stuff. They sell ice chests. They sell glasses. They sell tents. They sell anything that's not just drinking containers. It's going after that avatar. So you've got to look at things like that from a branding point of view. And that's super important. As far as product development, differentiation is key. 00:07:00 In business, there are two things that matter for all businesses, only two things. I mean, there's a lot of things, little things that add up. The two most crucial things are innovation and marketing. Those are the only two things that are going to drive the success, the true long-term success of a business is innovating and marketing. Look at Apple. That's another case study on Apple. It's innovation with the Mac, the iPhone, with all that stuff. And then the marketing, the Mac versus PC, the 1984 ad campaign they did for the Super Bowl. It's famous. And it's those two things is what put them on the map. And that's what keeps them on the map. And that's what you have to do when you're developing your products is don't be a me too. 00:07:37 Come up with a different angle. You know, I just posted in my newsletter yesterday about bully sticks. And I showed one of my products and I posted this on LinkedIn too, but I showed how to sell a $55 product in a $30 market and be the most expensive where everybody else is selling 30 sticks in a bag and I'm selling for 30 bucks and I'm selling three in a box for 55. And how did I compete? And that's where you got to look for. A lot of people just think it's all about getting on page one for the top keywords on Amazon if they're an Amazon seller. Sometimes that's the worst place to be because you're getting attacked. You're getting people driving up your cost. 00:08:17 In China now, there's entire agencies that are just devoted to driving up PPC costs for competitors. They've figured out how to bypass some of the Amazon fraud detection, and they're just driving up costs. And that's at the top of the pack. And Amazon's gotten so big that a lot of long-tail keywords, there's gold in those things. They might not be the ones that get 50,000 searches a month. They might get 2,000. But there's gold in those if you know how to how to use that. And so that's what you got to be focusing on. And you're doing your product development. Is that true differentiation and looking for those opportunities in niching down? I love that. So, Kevin, you've been to China Magic with us. And I know we had a whole. 00:08:56 By the way, guys, you have to listen to the podcast that we did. I've gotten some really amazing feedback. I think, you know, I went; we recorded that a few months ago. And, you know, when I'm when we're recording them, I'm just kind of. We're talking, and it's good, but sometimes you know in my mind I'm thinking of like what's the next question uh because I don't script them, it's um and so I'm not 100% paying attention, I'm like okay I'm paying attention but I'm not you know you know what I mean yeah of course. So then I went back and listened to it and I was like damn this is freaking awesome this 00:09:26 is like you killed it, I mean I remember at the end of it you're like how did I do, was it okay, I was like no, I think it was good but then I went back and listened to it, I think it's one of the best ones of the last year and I'm getting people out there messaging me and saying that was, That was awesome. Oh, my God. That means so much. And I think it's really good. If you haven't listened to that, go to ampmpodcast. com. It's the issue. Or you can go on Spotify or Apple Podcast or wherever you get it and look at the one with Athena. It just came out last Thursday. It's worth a listen. I mean, you can learn a lot. 00:09:58 I mean, I've had some of the top people in the industry reach out to me saying, hey, this was excellent. Thank you. Be sure to listen to that. But yeah, the China magic, I've been, what have you done? This is like your seventh or eighth one coming up, right? Yeah, I think this is our eighth one. And you've been on our trip and you were talking about- I've been on two of them. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you were talking about innovation and then you were talking about marketing, right? And so I wanted to talk about the fastest route to both. And you've been to China, you've seen how you can interact and you actually look at a product and design it right on the spot, innovate it. 00:10:32 Can you talk to people who might be skeptical or they don't realize the value of what it's like to actually be able to go and create these products? Because part of that as well is marketing. If you have an amazing product, I feel like marketing, PPC, everything's going to go so much better than if you're trying to drive a product that's just the same as everything else, right? So I feel like if we start with this sourcing thing, that just really makes the rest of it work. And then we've had people like yourself, and we've got some amazing people coming up on this trip. I really want to talk to the guy who doesn't understand the value of what it's like to sit in front of a supplier, build that partnership, innovate those products, and you've seen it firsthand. 00:11:15 Well, there's one thing before I go into answering your question that's even made your trip more important now than ever before is what Amazon's doing right now, testing. Well, I don't know if a lot of people, there's a lot of talk, I don't know if you've seen this, where they're testing with the way they show the review counts, the way they show the star ratings and different things. And I know like in my group, the Billion Dollar Sellers group, there was some discussion. The other day, a few people were upset, and they're like, 'this is BS.' I've worked my butt off for five years. I've gotten 10,000 reviews and done all this stuff, and now somebody with hardly any reviews can come in, and this is not right. 00:11:51 They should be showing that, and I disagree. It goes back to Casey Goss from Vinyl Launch years ago. He used to say, 'look, Amazon's got to change the way they're doing this review thing because it's not fair. You could have a product that was.' Launched in 2016 and has 50,000 reviews, it may be an okay product, but because it has 50,000 reviews and you just innovate it and do better marketing, and you try to launch on Amazon with zero reviews or you do some tactics, you know, with Vine and stuff like that to get, it's extremely difficult for you to compete because the social proof is not there. The guy with 50,000 and a four-and-a-half-star rating, and you with five reviews and a 4. 00:12:28 7-star rating, people are going to trust the other guy, even though your product may be far superior. You read all the reviews, you made all the fixes. It stifles innovation and new products from being able to rise to the top on Amazon. So I think that's one of the reasons they're doing this. It'll be interesting to see if it sticks, but it makes it even better now for people who are innovating and go to China to actually do this. That's a major, major time to be taking advantage of this shift if Amazon sticks with this. Because by going to China, number one, it's the relationship. Instead of dealing with somebody on Alibaba or by email or WeChat, it's face-to-face. And in our culture in the West, that's not as important. 00:13:07 But in Chinese culture, that's everything. I mean, that's like saving face in Guangxi and all that stuff is like crucial. And by just going there, that shows you're serious. You get relationships. Sometimes you eat with the guy, the factory owners or the reps. You're sharing photos of your family with them. It becomes something that they want to take care of you even more. And by going over there, you just cut out six months or ten months of time of going back and forth on samples and trying to explain things. You can go into their booth at the Canton Fair, and a lot of times the best stuff is they're not displaying it because they don't want their competition scouting out and looking at it. So they've got it under the table. 00:13:50 I remember one time. It wasn't Canton, but this happens at Canton. I was at EWU and we were in a booth and we're asking questions. It's me and Manny. And they're like, you know what? Come to our factory. We'll pick you up tomorrow in our, you know, I think they rented a Mercedes or something and picked us up in a Mercedes and drove us an hour outside of the Nimbo to their factory. You know, that factory, they had everything. The owner was there. The owner's son was there. They're showing us the back room. showing us everything, and we're able to walk around like, oh, wow, what is this? What's this? And we're getting brainstorming ideas just by walking around. We never, ever could have done that on email or any other way. 00:14:26 That's crucial to your success when it comes to innovation and getting better prices and everything else that goes into sourcing. And remember, a lot of times you can see the materials. You can hold it. Oh, what's this zipper like? Oh, this one's. Copper this one's metal, this one's something else, and you're like, 'Okay, I like the feel this one, this one looks better.' You're not sampling back and forth; it's just if you're serious about this business, you're a fool not to go to where the factoring factors is. I know it's some people are scared, oh, that's China-that's a scary place, you know what? If I can, I eat the food, is it safe? It's absolutely safe; China is more modern in a lot of ways than the United States or Europe-it's way ahead in a lot of aspects. 00:15:08 Is it communist or something? Yeah, but you're not going to feel that. Um, it's not like going to some of the old Russian countries where all the buildings are six foot tall roofs and, and all look the same. I mean, it, but, but it's, it's super modern place, super advanced. And the Chinese love; they love innovate. They love creating stuff, and they're good at that. They're not really good at the marketing side of things, but they're, they're really good at like coming up with ideas. And if you give them a plant, them a seed. They can often be like, they can run with that and take it to places you never even thought. But you're only going to get that by meeting and going in person. Yes, absolutely. 00:15:44 And just a comment regarding, you know, the travel aspect of things. You've been to the Four Seasons with us. We do our event at one of the nicest hotels in the entire world. We're familiar with the executive chef. He's actually Italian and an amazing person. And he feeds us like kings and queens. And so, you know, people, I remember. Yeah, this building is like that building, just to start to interrupt you there, but the Four Seasons that you do this at, what's it, 95 stories tall? It's like one of the 10 or 15 tallest buildings in the world, or something like that. It's like the hotel starts on floor 70 or 72 and goes up so you're up in the clouds, and it's; it is like you said this is like you take you take any of the whole resorts in the Maldives or Tahiti or anywhere in the Caribbean and plop it down on the top of a seven-or 90-story building and that's where you are. 00:16:38 It's it's it's an amazing place; the food, the comfort level, the everything there, it's it's incredible. Thank you, Kevin. You don't, you don't, you don't, you don't, you don't stick people in a Motel 6. You take care of your people. No, we take very good care. And I know you're quite the traveler. So that means a lot coming from you. And yeah, I mean, that's why we've designed China Magic the way that we have, because we want people to forward their progress. We want them to be around experts like yourself, like King Ozari, like Leiden. But I think the other thing is just. the quick ability, your ability to speed up the process of creating a product is so much better when you're alive. Like, I just can't even iterate that enough. 00:17:21 Like, for example, you know, here's a product. This is actually Aaron Cordova's product that he found in China with me on our first trip. And this is one of his best sellers. It's one of the top sellers in the kitchen category of Amazon still to this day, many years later. But if you're trying to innovate this product and you want to change where the logo is, or you want to fix something about this or you want to make it a different color or material, in 10 minutes you can do all of that. And, you know, even myself going back and forth, sometimes it would take months to be able to take this one product to that point. So, you know, if you want to start really launching products and doing it at a much quicker rate, I do agree with you. 00:17:59 Like just going there, talking to them, building that relationship, there's really nothing like it. It's great to be around other sellers who are successful, but more important than that, on your trip, you have Kian and Marty who have been doing this for decades. And so they know every little trick, every little thing to say, and they can go with you. I remember my ex-wife went over there one time and went out, and Kian just basically held her hand throughout the place and was asking questions and showing her how to talk to them and what to do. You're not going to get that even on your own or it would be, and this is someone that's been doing this like 35 years. He showed her how to play the game. 00:18:38 You know, first go to the back of the room where the newer people are in there and listen to just gather some information about something you don't know about, then take notes, and then go to the people that you really want to talk to. And now you actually know what you're talking about, so you can ask them the questions about the materials and this, and they're like, wow, this guy knows a lot! And he's like, you don't tell them that you just learned it an hour before. But, all the little things that, that you're not going to get any other way, uh, is like by going in person absolutely well, thank you so much 00:19:08 for that, Kevin, and I agree, and uh, really there isn't anything like China Magic, like I know there's a lot of trips out there which are great um but in terms of just the I don't know there's just some element between the the people and the the longevity of the trip like we this is our eighth trip now and I feel like we've really kind of created an environment that's so unique. I remember during COVID, every time the China Magic memories would pop up, all of us would be sending sad faces with tears and stuff just because it's such an experience to be able to go there and meet these amazing people and innovate, and also ask them about their lives and ideas that they have. 00:19:49 Because a lot of times as Westerners, we might think, oh, we know so much about our brand. Well, in reality, these guys have maybe had a certain factory for generations, generations, you know, and they know so about a type of material or a way that you can design something. So being there in person and really working with them and having them kind of input with you is really an amazing experience to join forces like that. So anyway, you've always knocked it out of the park. You're, I think, if not the top speaker at China Magic on our last one, we do like little voting and stuff. And so super appreciate you and how much you've impacted so many lives in this space. 00:20:27 And how much you've helped me with my guys, like just coming there and talking to them and being a part of the trip instead of having that, like I'm a speaker and you're an attendee vibe. One of the things that I love to do is just really connect people. We even had a lunch yesterday and there are eight-figure sellers there. And Melissa Vaughn was there. Who's like, you know, known worldwide. She's a 27-year-old who's, you know, sold three brands and is a partner in five more. And they were just having lunch together with, you know, a couple of sellers that are a bit newer and everyone was learning from each other. There's actually a guy who is a rock musician and he's not even doing that well on Amazon yet because he's just launching, but he has 20 years experience in marketing and he was just blowing people away who've been doing this forever. 00:21:10 So I really believe in that contribution, the collective contribution having masters like yourself and then also there's other attendees that you would never know, you know, could bring this element to the party that's just like wow and just really blows people away. So anyway, thank you again for everything that you do. I told everyone I'd make this short and sweet. So I just wanted to get any last thoughts from you to them, anything else. It doesn't have to just be about China, just anything else that from the brain of Kevin came to them, ways that they can scale, ways that they can improve, ways that they can just even change their mindset to kind of move forward in 20[23]. 00:21:46 Well, see, I can see you're already in the zone for China because in China, the colors are red and black and you already have your nails all black. You're like already like getting the vibes, like getting the vibes to like get ready for China. You're going to have little lions or something painted on the nails, a little artwork, a little something. Yeah, I mean, I would say just, you know, the best thing is just. Keep on keeping on. If you launch something and it fails, just chalk that up as a learning experience. You just got your undergraduate degree. Now you're going for your master's. And the opportunities here are endless. And so if you're struggling, step back, look at it from a different angle or a different way. 00:22:32 And if you're doing well, don't rest on your laurels because someone's always nipping at your heels. So always be innovating, always be thinking of how can you stay one step ahead of everybody else. And one of the ways to do that is go to China Magic. Thank you so much, Kevin. So you guys can find him, BillionDollarSellers . com. I think that can help them connect to all your things, right? Your events. That's the newsletter. That's the free newsletter that comes out. Yeah, that's the website where you can sign up for the free newsletter that comes out every Monday and Thursday. Totally free. Nothing to buy. I mean, yeah, there's nothing to buy. But it's really good news, a lot of fun. You were featured in the one yesterday. 00:23:16 So it's different than the other ones that are out there. It's a little different style. It's more like a magazine. Yeah, it's fantastic. And we're going to be having you, I finalized with Dan, San Diego, October 6th through 8th. I think we're going to be having you and Norm and a whole bunch of amazing guests. So you guys look out for that and we'll see you, I think in Seattle. Yeah. Yeah. I'll be in, I'll be at Alibaba's thing in Vegas. Then I'll be at an AI convention in Orlando and then Seattle. My gosh. I love that. Bouncing around in September. I love that. Okay. And we're going to do. Full-length, I'm gonna be launching something called Breakthrough with Athena, and I'm dying to interview Kevin and find out more of the history behind the man that is Kevin King, so we're gonna be doing Breakthrough with Athena. 00:24:04 But I just want to do these quick little lives and just really remind people and communicate to people because until you're actually there, it's very difficult to fully understand the magic of walking through this fair with people that really know what they're doing. And I really am so grateful that you came on here to kind of remind people about that and some other really amazing tips on how to have more success here and now and into the future. So we'll look forward to seeing you in person very soon, Kevin. And then also, we'll be having you on Breakthrough with Athena, which is something that no one even knows about yet, but it's coming and I want to announce it live so that I actually do it. Can't wait. 00:24:40 Oh, my God, Kevin, I have to tell you one thing and then I promise to let you go. So I've been struggling. I've been wanting to do a podcast for years and years and years, and I just have never gotten to it. I know other people that can relate. You know, it's like there's just something daunting about the tech for some reason for me, even though I'm like on Facebook Live and do a lot of other things. But for whatever reason, the podcast thing was kind of like, you know, something I haven't gone through. And so I hired a professional because I believe like the same thing I tell everyone, like: go to events, learn from experts, hire experts, go to masterminds, go to events, like all these things. 00:25:13 I was like, I need a professional. So I have this gentleman who actually is a very successful podcast himself. And I was like, okay, help me work through this. So instead of him doing that with me offline, I decided my very first podcast is going to be this guy walking me through how to do a podcast and finding my voice. That's cool. That's awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. That's authentic being real. Yeah, being real. And I think that that's something like I am known for, like kind of helping people break through their barriers and figuring, you know, learning from someone like yourself, because you've even had case studies on like the one point, I think it was the $1. 3 million fail, right? Yeah, $1. 3 million. 00:25:55 Yeah, fail that we did during COVID. Yeah. Exactly. So like everyone sees this guy, you know, in lights who, you know, travels around and on stages and super successful, but there's things that you've had to break through to get there. Right. And I think that if people understand that aspect of things a little more, like it's going to help them to be more inspired to keep going. And I'm really excited about that. So anyway, I'm going to have you back into the, to the magical brain that is Kevin King. But outside of that, if you guys want to go to China. MagTrip. com to learn more. You can also book a call there with us and we can talk more about it, but we'll see you on some next lives. 00:26:32 We're going to have King Ozari on, we're going to have Ann on. She's absolutely amazing. We're going to have Norm on, a good friend of Kevin's. And we actually have a whole lineup of amazing people who are going to bring through little aspects, little nuggets, and we'll take you through that. So anyway, thank you, Kevin. You're amazing. In real life in Seattle, it's very soon. Awesome. Take care of everybody. Thanks guys, oh my gosh, and I don't know how to turn it off. Oh, I think this is authentic, let's see if that works. Still here, let's see; still going like... oh, I leave.