| Jeff Allen: |
It takes steadfast commitment to success as a seller of private label goods using FBA services. And today’s guest is a prime example of that commitment. So what can we learn from him? We’re gonna find out. From the West Coast to the world, this is FBA Millionaires.
|
| [00:00:30] |
Welcome to FBA Millionaires. This is the program as you know by now that is geared toward helping you pursue your goal of earning a seven-figure income selling professionally on Amazon via fulfillment by Amazon, otherwise known as FBA, right?
|
|
[00:01:00]
|
Hi, my name is Jeff Allen, good to have you back into the fold, and we really do appreciate you. You are what powers this program. It’s not my big mouth, and it’s not the mouth of this other guy who really does make all the difference in the world because if it weren’t for him, quite frankly, there really would not be a show, and you wouldn’t have this program to listen to. He is our residence sales monster up in Northern California. Welcome in Mr. Will Moffett. Will, hello, sir.
|
| Will Moffett: |
Hey, everybody. Hey, Jeff. Jeff, you’re giving me way too much credit, man.
|
| Jeff Allen: |
No, no. Come on, man. I give you the credit that you’re due, and you’re going to accept it because you know how to accept a compliment the way a gentleman would. But anyway, man, how are you? How’s things going?
|
|
[00:01:30]
Will Moffett:
|
I’m wonderful. I ate a lot of food, I think I need to workout. Um, this Thanksgiving was beautiful, spent some good time with the family.
|
| Jeff Allen: |
I did, too. And, uh, for those people listening in, yeah, this is, uh, uh, being produced right after Thanksgiving of 2017. And man, always great memories and great to take a little time off. But you know, Will, it’s really great to be back in the saddle now and kind of back in the studio working with you a little bit. I’m in Southern California, you’re in Northern California, and you’ve lined up another great guest for us to talk to today.
|
| Will Moffett: |
Yeah, we have Jamie Harris here. Jamie, how’s it going?
|
|
[00:02:00]
Jamie Harris:
|
I’m doing awesome. Thank you guys for having me. I can tell it’s gonna be a lot of fun.
|
| Will Moffett: |
(laughs) Definitely. I’m glad all is well. How was your Thanksgiving?
|
| Jamie Harris: |
My Thanksgiving was great. Uh, ate too much food, of course.
|
| Will Moffett: |
(laughs)
|
| Jamie Harris: |
You know, the waistline expanding, you know? But hey, we have Black Friday and Cyber Monday going on now, so it’s all good. It’s, it’s good.
|
| Will Moffett: |
(laughs) There we go.
|
| Jeff Allen: |
And you could-
|
| Will Moffett: |
Nothing like money. They, they heal everything, right?
|
| Jamie Harris: |
(laughs) That’s right. Right. (laughs)
|
|
Jeff Allen:
[00:02:30]
|
I can hear those, uh, hear those cash registers in the background and, uh, ringing. And as, uh, Jamie said, he’s got us on one screen on Zoom, and then he’s got, uh, Seller Central probably opened up on the other side or something, uh, uh, that is telling him all about the business coming into his account today. And, uh, uh, Will, I’m gonna dish it off to you. I know you’ve got a few things you want to ask him just to kind of break the ice a little bit.
|
| Will Moffett: |
Yeah, Jamie. Let’s break the ice a bit. I guess we can start with talking about the scale of your Amazon business. How many products do you have in your store right now, and, and, uh, what’s your monthly sales looking like?
|
|
Jamie Harris:
[00:03:00]
|
So we have roughly, including variations and things like that, uh, we have roughly 25, 28 items that we currently sell. Um, of course, the vast majority of sales probably come from like three of those, just keep that in mind, guys. Uh, monthly sales, we, we kind of, we’re seasonal a little bit, but right now, we’re doing about 300,000 a month, and we, we get, uh, up to 450 or so, hoping to break 500,000, uh, for December.
|
| Will Moffett: |
Oh, Jamie is killing it Jeff.
|
|
Jeff Allen:
[00:03:30]
|
Man, I’ll say. My goodness. I’m just rubbing my hands here, and, uh, and quietly sobbing to myself thinking that that’s gonna be me one of these days.
|
| Jamie Harris: |
(laughs)
|
| Jeff Allen: |
(laughs) That’s gonna be me.
|
| Will Moffett: |
Oh, definitely.
|
| Jeff Allen: |
(laughs)
|
| Will Moffett: |
So, so what type of, uh, well, I don’t want to … if you want to don’t want to say, um, product …
|
| Jamie Harris: |
Sure.
|
| Will Moffett: |
… categories or anything, um, as far as wholesale, private label, um, what are you into?
|
|
Jamie Harris:
[00:04:00]
|
We are, so we’re a private label mainly. I mean, we do do some, some wholesaling. Uh, granted it’s been pretty small, although we’ve had success, you know, around Christmas time, so, uh, we’ll s-, we’ll see this year last year we had, had great wholesale. But anyways, we’re private label, we tend to be patio, lawn, and garden. It’s kind of our bread and butter, uh, but we’ve branched out into other categories as well. Recently, uh, probably about six weeks ago started a new brand, a new business, uh, going into the arts and crafts category. So that’s new for us and it’s exciting, it’s fun so seen the growth there as well.
|
|
Jeff Allen:
[00:04:30]
|
You know, I want to get into a little bit here in, in a while, uh, Jamie and Will about how Jamie really, uh, uh, you know, how he picks his products a little bit. And, and how his team works with him on that. But did you dec-, decide from the very beginning, Jamie, uh, in your Amazon career that selling private label products was really the way to go for you? Uh, and if you did, uh, what kind of help training or consultation did you receive to get started?
|
|
Jamie Harris:
[00:05:00]
[00:05:30]
|
Sure, yeah. So, I don’t know, I think it was back in like 2000, 2001. I read this newsletter about private labeling vitamins or, or something like that. And I thought, “Well, that’s just fantastic.” These guy were buying a bottle for a, a dollar, two dollars, and then selling it for $40 just blew my mind. So ever since about 2001, I got the idea that, um, you know, private label, uh, your brand is way to go. Of course, back then you, uh, get on Amazon and do that and, and honestly, I didn’t know you could private label on Amazon so probably 2014, in, in all honestly. Um, but, um, so that, that, that seed was planted in my mind, so basically for, for 10 years, 13 years, I kept trying to find a way to get into it. And then eventually, I stumbled across this obscure medical forum one night, it was 7 o’clock, and I was sitting in a lab. I used to be a chemist, so I’m sitting in a lab, um, working away, got a test experiment going, I can’t go home, it’s 7 p.m., not 7 a.m.
|
|
[00:06:00]
|
And all of a sudden, this medical journal pops up from a Google search, I look through it, and then heard about Amazing Selling Machine. Of course that program is closed, um, but, but the seed was planted, and, you know, I watched a lot of the free training, right away got my LLC and just, I, I just knew it was what I wanted. I mean, it’s been something I’d searched for, so it was, I was like finally there. Of course, I don’t do anything with vitamins, um, but never the less, the, the idea just, it was there, and I just knew it made sense.
|
| Jeff Allen: |
You had talked about, you know, going back to 2000, the ear-, early 2000s when you really started kind of pursuing this, have you been on Amazon that long selling?
|
|
[00:06:30]
Jamie Harris:
|
No. No, honestly, I didn’t know, I thought what you bought on Amazon was from Amazon, right?
|
| Jeff Allen: |
Right.
|
| Jamie Harris: |
I didn’t even know that there were third-party sellers honestly until May of 2014 when I, when I, when I tripped across that forum, and I was like, “Oh, my God. Uh, there’s third-pretty sellers on Amazon? Okay, that’s, that’s makes sense. That’s, that’s the way.” Uh, not mail order or something like that, but, um, but yeah, that’s, that’s where and when I obviously learned that I could sell on Amazon as a private seller.
|
| Will Moffett: |
Wow. And from chemist to Amazon seller …
|
| Jamie Harris: |
(laughs)
|
| Will Moffett: |
… do you still perform in that profession?
|
|
[00:07:00]
Jamie Harris:
|
Uh, no. Um, I, I left, I left the corporate world, so I worked at the, a billion dollar corporation, um, dealing with, with chemicals and going to paint, actually. And, uh, it was fun. Uh, I had a lot of fun, we made a lot of stuff, um, but I left that in 2015, actually. April 2015, so started selling in, heard about Amazon in, in May of 2014 and was out of my job, uh, at home bugging my wife in April 2015.
|
|
[00:07:30]
Jeff Allen:
|
That’s amazing. That’s the American dream.
|
| Jamie Harris: |
Yeah. It only took me, you know, since 2000, 2001 trying to find an opportunity and tripping, stumbling across tons of different things till I actually found, uh, something I truly believed in which was, uh, this model.
|
|
Jeff Allen:
[00:08:00]
|
Maybe so, but Jamie think about it. And will, too, because I mean, we’re, you know, we’ve had a chance to talk on this program so far with people who have been with Amazon, selling on Amazon since, uh, 1999, 2000 what have you, and then we’ve had also a number of people who really have only been selling Amazon FBA, uh, for a couple of years. And Will I know, you know, your name obviously pops into mind first and foremost but, I mean, to find that kind of success that you’re having right now in such a short space of time, to me, is pretty phenomenal.
|
|
Will Moffett:
[00:08:30]
|
Very phenomenal. It just takes so much for normal businesses, it takes so much time and, you know, sometimes we have to stumble across different ideas and opportunities to make that hit like Jamie did ’cause he’s, he’s been searching for a while and he found the right one.
|
|
Jamie Harris:
[00:09:00]
|
Yeah, I mean, it’s, you know, everyone’s like, “Oh, you got lucky,” Perhaps but, I mean, I struggled. I mean I, honestly, that whole year, I stayed up to three in the morning, got up, was at work at 9 a.m. every day, you know? So, um, I, I, made a lot of mistakes, I had failures, um, but I was just, you know, when you feel it in your bones, you just feel it and you just go for it. And, um, and I just wouldn’t let anything stop me. I mean, so it’s, I could have quit a hundred times but, um, but yeah. No, I, I just knew this is the way, so I, I pushed through.
|
| Will Moffett: |
Well done, Jamie. Well done, man.
|
| Jamie Harris: |
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
|
| Will Moffett: |
Um, so tell me this. Um, speaking about, you know, how you got in and, um, the different, um, of course there’s so many different products to choose, you know …
|
| Jamie Harris: |
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
|
| Will Moffett: |
… people get into the analysis paralysis and …
|
| Jamie Harris: |
Right.
|
| Will Moffett: |
How did you choose your products, um, for your brand or if you choose individual products or do you like the create niches? How do you work and how do you choose your products?
|
|
[00:09:30]
Jamie Harris:
|
That’s a, you know, it’s a, it’s a big question. So I’ll do my, uh, best to, uh, break it into …
|
| Will Moffett: |
(laughs)
|
|
Jamie Harris:
[00:10:00]
|
… a few parts. Um, first of all, you want to, in my mind, pick a product that you have some affinity for, okay? So I mean, if, if it’s something that you know nothing about and you don’t care to learn anything about it, uh, that’s probably not gonna be a good fit no matter what, what it is. Uh, so, yeah, maybe you don’t know what the product, you know, it is at this time but, you know, if you’re willing to learn, then, then it could a good product. So I don’t want to discount that. Um, but what I’m, I’m looking for where the customers are. So of course there’s always looking at the best sellers and, and all that, um, but I liked, I like to see … Do you want me to get, you want me to get in the details a little bit here? About, about what I’m doing? I pick a product. I, I can, I can dig in pretty deep here.
|
| Will Moffett: |
Dig in for us then. That, that sounds awesome. You don’t have to give up all your little special …
|
| Jamie Harris: |
No, no.
|
|
Will Moffett:
[00:10:30]
|
… [crosstalk 00:10:23], but, uh, well, you know, uh, I always say, you know, if anybody thinks they can copy or do what somebody else does, like, for example, if somebody has a garlic press, and they tell you they have a garlic press, you guys shouldn’t think you can go in and sell garlic presses. It’s not like that in 2017. Go ahead and get in-
|
|
Jamie Harris:
[00:11:00]
|
That’s, yeah. And that’s a great point. So I, you know, I looked through the best sellers, right? Of course, you know, there’s, there’s different tools out there. Um, jungle Scout’s one that I’m really liking now. But I really like, honestly, Amazon itself. So there’s a little trick, I don’t know, you guys might have heard about it, where if you, if you go into Amazon, you select a category. Um, I always set up, you know, in, in the search, you select a category. Then I do a dash and then just like six random letters, right? And then hit search.
|
|
[00:11:30]
|
So that dash and six random letters tends to give you a good, uh, view, so to speak of, of the good sellers, you know, beyond the top 100 of, of what’s selling on Amazon, like, in, in that category. So you want to have it in a specific category, then I go ahead and, and then dial it down into, um, you know, price range, so in, in my case, if, if anything’s less than 20 bucks, it gets really painful. Um, so you really, I, I see people jumping in all the time selling $10 product. And that just, it’s so painful, uh, to do that. I, I have a couple of $10 products and, and honestly, um, it’s just, I, they do well, they’re profitable, but I, if they were, you know, $20 products, $40 products, it’s just, it’s just so much easier. You get so much more money.
|
|
[00:12:00]
[00:12:30]
|
Um, but anyway, so, so after diving in, like I told you, that dash and the random num-, letters, searching it, getting my price range down so there’s that minimum/max button, uh, down there on the left hand side o-, of the Amazon screen. Um, search again, apply it, and, and then I just scroll through. And I just start looking and seeing what I see there. And, and a lot of times, you’ll see the generic grill or garlic press or whatever, and you’ll, you’ll look at that, and you just say, “Okay, maybe there’s an opportunity there but probably not.” If you can find a really unique garlic press that’s, um, that solves the problems that people are looking for with the current garlic press, uh, then you could have a hit.
|
|
[00:13:00]
|
But the key is you, you have to be different. I mean, you can’t just be the same as everybody else. A lot of people, they’ll, they’ll go to Alibaba, they’ll see the exact same product on, that they see on Amazon somebody else selling, doing well. They’ll launch it, they’ll put the exact same pictures and, and honestly they don’t, don’t do very well. You need to be a little bit better, you know? Whether, whether the product’s actually better or whether you can create an image showing a different view of the product that makes it seem better, you know, and then your title and bullet points should bring that out. Um, that’s where you can really start killing it with some really generic products. But, but you have to, uh, I, I can’t emphasis enough, you have to be, you have to unique, and you have to have, you have to have a strength that the other competitors don’t currently have.
|
|
[00:13:30]
|
So I kind of circled around a lot there kind of digging in and kind of coming out, but hopefully you catch the gist that I like to just kind of scan. And a lot of people just won’t take the time to scan, scan, scan. Um, and when you scan, that’s when your brain starts, you know, getting ideas, and then, and then you start seeing things. And, and, you know, you, you, you’ve been going to reviews, right? Okay, what’s, what’s the problem? What are everybody saying on the one and two-star and three-star reviews? Are they actually that same issue coming up that all of a sudden there’s a product available that can solve those problems?
|
| Jeff Allen: |
But there’s, it …
|
| Jamie Harris: |
Well, if you do, that’s when you got a winner.
|
|
[00:14:00]
Jeff Allen:
|
It’s very much, it’s very much like being on guard to finding that better mouse trap that’s out there. You find a, a great mouse trap, it catches mice, you know, what are, what are some of the issues that people have when they catch that mice? Then what? What after that? And then finding …
|
| Jamie Harris: |
Right.
|
| Jeff Allen: |
… that, uh, that mouse trap that does, it goes above and beyond, you know, it’s a, it’s a bit cliché, but the, the fact is you, your points are very well taken, Jamie.
|
|
[00:14:30]
|
Jamie Harris is joining us today on the program FBA Millionaires with Will Moffett and yours truly Jeff Allen. When we come back, what I want to do after the break is I want to kind of, uh, take a step back starting from a, a clean slate as it were, and we’re gonna do that when FBA Millionaires comes back right after this.
|
|
Speaker 4:
[00:15:00]
|
Getting the funding you need to grow your business can be challenging. But our friends at Up Fund make it super easy. See how much you qualify for in 30 seconds and have your inventory funded in just days. Check out Upfund.io to get started today. That’s UpFund.io.
|
|
Jeff Allen:
[00:15:30]
|
The first thing you need to do after listening to FBA Millionaires is to join the FBA Millionaires Club so you can stay connected with everything that’s going on here, what Will and I are thinking about, what we’re doing, the shows we’re planning. And some of the, uh, uh, uh, advice and, and guidance that we can pass along to you just by being a member, you don’t have to be a millionaire to join, that’s the really cool thing about it. All you need to do is stop by the website FBAMillonaires.com and look for information about the club, sign up, it’s just a short little form, send that in. And then we’ll keep you on top of everything that’s going on. Like I said, we’ve got some freebies, too, we’ll fling your way as well.
|
|
[00:16:00]
|
Jeff Allen, Will Moffett, along with special guest Jamie Harris here on FBA Millionaires today. Jamie, uh, let’s start from a, a kind of position of a, a blank slate. Some of us who might not be, uh, selling necessarily private label at this time and we’re looking at growing our business, maybe doing it in a big way, but we’re not exactly sure how to get started or what’s required or really what we have to do first.
|
|
Jamie Harris:
[00:16:30]
|
Sure. So, so the blank slate is the perfect spot to start from. Um, I’ve seen so many people that, that have net worth, network with, and they’ve came out with a product that they were either in love with or that they had a friend that was selling it or they had a good line for a product. Um, and that’s just the wrong way to go. You want to start with the product that’s, that actually h-, has an audience, customers, so if you’ve got something already in your mind before you start doing the search, uh, you can pretty much guarantee that either gonna be after the, the curve already happened and they’re coming late, or you’re just picking the wrong product, so it’s, it’s perfect to start from a blank slat in product selection.
|
|
Jeff Allen:
[00:17:00]
|
And Will, uh, just out of curiosity, uh, where would you go? Uh, uh, is there an online resource for example? I mean, you mentioned Alibaba which is, uh, one that, uh, comes up time and time again. Is there another, uh, uh, avenue or do you think that’s kind of a good place to go as far as getting some ideas for products, um, or should you really actually kind of, uh, you know, look to see what it is that you have in your, your checking account or what you’ve got on credit that you can use in terms of planning your budget first in order to do this? I mean, how much money, uh, are we talking about? Uh, uh, I mean, uh, should be thinking on th-, on those terms first before we even get, uh, started in the research phase?
|
|
Will Moffett:
[00:17:30]
[00:18:00]
|
So there’s a couple of things you want to look at. One if your budget. The goal is to not spend too much money because you’re gonna end up needing a lot of money to scale. So what you want to do is once you find a product, and it, it can be any product becau-, uh, nobody knows what product is gonna work or not. And so everybody’s pretty much taking a stab at it. Now, there’s different criterias that you can have to make things better like, you know, um, uh, you want to look at markets. And when you at that market, you want to look, make sure there’s a depth to the market. Um, meaning there’s enough money to spread around or some people have strategies to where they want to go and lower competition, and, uh, they want to collect many products with so many, um, sales per day.
|
|
[00:18:30]
[00:19:00]
|
There’s a lot of different strategies to go, um, uh, go with, but you, you know, you’re gonna have to make your, build your strategy based upon your budget. Um, I would definitely, you know, focus on something that you may have a expertise in. If you, if like, uh, not a passion product. Passion products generally don’t (laughs) sell well, but it depends. So I’m not saying don’t, um, go for a passion product, but you want to really do your research on the market and make sure there’s enough eyeballs, um, on that market. And, and the way you can see if there’s enough eyeballs is, um, first, you know, uh, test the product. You can, um, maybe say go to Alibaba and see if you can find somebody where you can get 50 units. Get 50 units of it or maybe go to the store. Go to the store and, and buy a few units, right? And maybe see if it works with wholesale or see if maybe you can bundle it. And what you want to do is turn on PPC …
|
| Jeff Allen: |
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
|
|
Will Moffett:
[00:19:30]
|
… and see how many eyeballs you’re getting, how, uh, you know, what are people searching for or how many impressions are you getting? Um, and if that thing sells right away, if that thing sells right away by just throwing a product on and turning on PPC, you may have a winner. So you want to first, you know, if you can order a few products, if that goes good, order another maybe 100, test it out. Then I wouldn’t go to 500 or a 1,000, I would probably order 300, test it out because sometimes, well, if you’re doing private label, quality and manufacturers might switch up on you.
|
| Jeff Allen: |
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
|
|
Will Moffett:
[00:20:00]
|
Or the reviews might turn bad on you and you just ordered 500, so gradually work your way up, and, uh, it’s process, so, um, you know, some people are lucky and they’re, they’re able to go to zero to 100 in three seconds but, you know, this is your money on the line, it is competitive out there, and you want to make sure you, um, dot all your i’s and cross all your t’s. That’s, um, I guess, um, I don’t know if I can add a little bit more to that, but that’s kind of like my insight.
|
| Jeff Allen: |
Well, I think-
|
| Jamie Harris: |
That’s awesome. Well, I, I agree. Sorry to cut in, guys. But that’s exactly how I started. Um, I always, I tend to start with 20 units or 80 units, and the products where I’ve started off with like 400 or 500 units, they actually don’t perform as well as the products that I started off with, with less than a 100.
|
| Jeff Allen: |
Is that, is that right?
|
|
[00:20:30]
Jamie Harris:
|
Yeah. All my best sellers I started off, my current best seller, which is just totally killing it, that product probably does about $200,000 a month, I started with 80 units of that one, so …
|
| Jeff Allen: |
Wow.
|
| Will Moffett: |
Yeah, my first product I started with 180 units, and it was a loan that I took out. Um, couldn’t, uh, (laughs) had bunny ears for pockets, um, and took out a loan, and my wife, didn’t tell my wife because she would kill me. And, uh, (laughs) I worked …
|
| Jeff Allen: |
(laughs)
|
|
Will Moffett:
[00:21:00]
|
… too hard at work, and I said, um, let’s do it. And it worked. So testing, if I would have said if I would have put $5,000 on a bad product and made a bad bet, my wife would have killed me.
|
| Jamie Harris: |
(laughs)
|
| Will Moffett: |
Guys, (laughs) make sure you test. Test, test, test.
|
| Jamie Harris: |
Yes.
|
|
Will Moffett:
[00:21:30]
|
And spend as least money as possible with your test because let’s say you, you, you could fail one time and just say, okay, you spent 200 bucks or 300 buck, and then you fail. The second time, you spent another 300 or say 400. Let’s say your, your budget is 2,000. Well, on that third product let’s say you hit. And it’s like, pow, okay. I just sold. Let, let me order a, a couple extra 100. You still got a little room in that budget to order a couple of hundred, uh, of that winner. And then that, then that works out, then boom, now it’s time to start with the bugger orders and try to find out how to get some money. And you can leverage that money or you might have to scale slowly, but you’re in there.
|
| Jamie Harris: |
[inaudible 00:21:47] reborn.
|
| Jeff Allen: |
Well …
|
| Will Moffett: |
Yup.
|
|
Jeff Allen:
[00:22:00]
|
… let, let me, let me jump in, Will, uh, real quick. What is the largest amount of money Jamie, if you don’t mind, you can even, uh, give us a range, that you’ve spent on a new product launch? From the time that you sourced it, maybe you, you bought those, you know, initial test items, test quantities, let’s call them that, and then, you know, you throw in your, your marketing budget and all the other things that go along with that. Um, uh, paper click, whatever you, you want to take and include on that. On, um, on, on a, a product that you have in your store.
|
|
Jamie Harris:
[00:22:30]
[00:23:00]
|
Well, rule of thumb I, uh, I tell people is, is hit $5,000 would be great to have, right? So if you’ve got $5,000, you can, you can do everything you need to do. But, but honestly, um, with half of that, uh, you, you can make great things happen, but my very first product, I literally started with, uh, with 20 units, and I, let me see, those cost me, uh, about $4 each or so plus shipping, so it was couple of hundred bucks there. Um, I spent a couple of hundred bucks to get an LLC going. I highly recommend getting, if you’re gonna do this as a business, treat it as a business from day one, and, and that’s what I did. I, I got the LLC the very first day. Um, so it was, you know, 200 bucks there.
|
|
[00:23:30]
|
Um, honestly I was slow doing PPC with that, but if you figure at least a few hundred bucks just, just for a we-, a week, uh, out 10 bucks a day or so, $10 to $20 a day for a week just to, just to run PPC and, and see the results, uh, would be good. So, so really with, if you got 800 bucks, you should be able to test a, a product depending on the price range, of course. Um, you know, if it’s a little bit more expensive product, maybe it’s, maybe it’s 1,500 bucks, but, um, somewhere in that range, you, you can, you can get going.
|
| Jeff Allen: |
What we’re gonna do right now, uh, Jamie, we’re gonna, uh, stop, uh, tape, uh, for just a brief moment. Boom, we’re starting again. And, uh, we are rolling.
|
|
[00:24:00]
[00:24:30]
|
Jamie, tell us a little bit. You know, uh, uh, uh, about an addition to finding a great product itself, what is it that we have to do to make our product really hit with the buying customers? Now, you have shared and Will has, uh, shared, um, a lot of, I think, really helpful information on testing and to, to kind of help us make sure that what it is that we want to sell is going to be something that we can market, something that is, uh, we’re gonna, uh, be able to attract buyers with. But once you get it up there and going, um, what is it that we can do to really take ourselves, our sales to the next level? For any particular item that we have that is a hit that we know, is there something in particular that maybe few Amazon sellers do right or maybe that you have used? Uh, this could be a strategy or a tactic now …
|
| Jamie Harris: |
Okay.
|
| Jeff Allen: |
… that really allows you to take and, and, and put your sales on hyper drive that allows you to, to, to really see some, some fantastic results and see them relatively quickly?
|
|
Jamie Harris:
[00:25:00]
|
Okay. Um … so first, I, I never want to be just a product business, right? ‘Cause those, those are just kind of cash cows that you come in, you make some money, and then the, you know, that’s it. It’s gone. Uh, I’d rather be a brand, right? So, so I come in with the idea of, okay, I’m launching a product, but ultimately I’m building a brand.
|
| Jeff Allen: |
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
|
| Jamie Harris: |
And what’s gonna be my second or third product that’ll help round out that, this existing product with that to further build this brand. I want a real business, I don’t want to just sell one-off products, you know, uh, on Amazon.
|
| Jeff Allen: |
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
|
|
Jamie Harris:
[00:25:30]
|
Um, so I start with that in mind. Um, but then once you got a product that you got going, uh, I can’t emphasize enough the images. Okay? So, uh, your main image is, is critical but, but what people don’t focus on is that it’s actually the thumbnail of your main image that’s critical, right? ‘Cause people don’t see your images as it’s huge, they just see a little thumbnail of it when they do the Amazon search. So your product, I mean, your image has to be beautiful as a thumbnail. You have to make it look really large, and, and one of the things I always say to, to my designers, um, is I want to look at this product as if I’m a mouse looking at, at it just like in, in total awe? You know, just …
|
| Jeff Allen: |
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
|
|
[00:26:00]
Jamie Harris:
|
… wow, this is beautiful, it’s amazing. That way, if I’m looking at it from that perspective of being a mouse in awe looking at the monolith there in 2001, whatever it is, um, that, that way, when it’s a thumbnail, it can really relay that same thing to the, the customers are searching, so, um, uh, your images are, are critical.
|
|
[00:26:30]
[00:27:00]
|
The other thing I see that is that people, lot of people don’t test, right? So I, I come from a, a science background, a chemist, and literally, um, you know, with, with that organization, we had billion dollar successes literally just changing one little thing, testing it, and seeing what happens. And it takes time, it’s, it can be uncomfortable trying to create new image and well, what, what, what? Can I change the bullet point here? But ultimately, that’s, that’s all it is. This, this whole Amazon game, it’s just an experiment. You just, just do one little change and see the result. If the result got better, leave it. If the result got worse, go back to how it was before and test again. And just keep testing and testing, keep making little changes till you, till you get it right where it needs to be.
|
|
[00:27:30]
|
Um, of course, that doesn’t do everything, right? You know, but that’ll get you where you have your, your listing optimized. Um, the other thing that comes in as you’re doing all this is the reviews. If you don’t have the reviews, it’s just, it’s, no matter what you do, it’s gonna be a struggle. Um, you can get sales going with, with low reviews. Um, I always tell people do whatever you have to do to get three reviews right out of the gate, okay? And then after that, try and work as hard as you can to get the 10 reviews. You know? Um, the, the review game is hard, you know? Amazon’s got, got really strict rules on that. Uh, and, and personally the best way that I’ve seen to ever get the, to get the reviews is a product insert.
|
|
[00:28:00]
[00:28:30]
|
Um, emails, emailing the customer through the, you know, automating systems is, is great, but people can opt out of that now. But, but if you don’t have a product insert, um, you’re gonna struggle. And, and honestly, like I said before, I’ve got 27, 25 products, and a lot of those products that are struggling, I don’t have a product insert in there. At least one that, uh, I haven’t optimized the product insert, let’s say, and that’s probably why that product is struggling. So, so having product inserts get reviews, having awesome images that are thumbnails, and, um, you know, just push, building an audience, building a brand. So building the brand and building an audience, whether it’s a Facebook audience, an email list, um, you’ve got to build, you’ve got to build raving fans. You know, you’ve probably all read that book, but, um, you, you, you have to have the thought in mind from day one that I’m building a brand, I’m gonna have fans that are looking for my brand for not only this product but for future products so …
|
|
Will Moffett:
[00:29:00]
|
I had a product in the past, um, it was a really, it was one of those products where, um, you know, um, the customer had to have pretty much some knowledge to use it or they would get frustrated. And so, you know, I found ways to create, like, really cool guides and tips and tricks and, you know, like, like you said, um, Jamie, adding the actually like a request, uh, not request for review but the insert inside the, the retail box, um, you ha-, you have to creative.
|
| Jamie Harris: |
Yeah.
|
|
Will Moffett:
[00:29:30]
|
Get creative, be different. It’s a user experience. Think about when you open a Apple, um, Apple iPhone case, right? You know they got that quality ba-, box. You can have a cheap product, but if you, if your perception and, and, and you give a [immaculant 00:29:28], um, uh, perception to your product, it can actually mean the world to a customer. Um, as long as the product is usable, (laughs) usable at least.
|
| Jamie Harris: |
Right.
|
|
Will Moffett:
[00:30:00]
|
Not look cheap, but, um, yeah, there’s a lot of cool things you can do. So you, you answered, uh, my next question, Jamie. Um, and so, uh, do you have any other type of advice or things that you’ve learned or what is it that other Amazon sellers can do whether they’re trying to take it to the next level on the smaller scale or bigger scale? Um, what can they do to 10x their business, uh, in 2018? And it can be anything that maybe you’ve learned that maybe you took a hit. And it’s like, “Oh, shoot, I just lost a little bit of money on this product, but I’ll never make that mistake again, and this, this mistake that I fixed just increased my business.”
|
|
Jamie Harris:
[00:30:30]
|
Yeah, so, first of all, know the rules, okay? So if you don’t know the rules, get in there and read the Amazon terms of service, read all that. Know, know the rules, okay? Uh, I had a big hit today, actually. Um, just not knowing the rules, right? The rules changed on me, and I wasn’t reading my emails, I missed it. Um, it turns out you can’t change the price on a lightning deal now, uh, on Cyber Mon-, if it’s Cyber Monday or Black Friday lightning deal, you can’t change the price 24 hours before. Um, I, I changed it 23 hours before and automatically I canceled, I probably lost out on about hundr-, $100,000 in sales today.
|
| Jeff Allen: |
Oh, boy.
|
|
Jamie Harris:
[00:31:00]
|
Uh, it’s, it’s, it’s mistake. I’ll still sell the inventory. It’s not like I have unlimited inventory. You know, I’ll still sell through everything I have, uh, over the Christmas holiday. But, but it would have been nice seeing that number for one day, you know? Uh, but I, I guarantee I’ll never make that mistake again, right? And the …
|
| Jeff Allen: |
Exactly.
|
| Jamie Harris: |
… same thing with million other things. Um, it’s the little, it’s the little details, honestly. A lot of people do, do the big stuff right, but then they just kind of glance over the details and that’s where it gets you. Uh I wish I could come up with more examples.
|
| Will Moffett: |
Well, uh, no, uh, I mean, but you’re, you’re right because a lot of people come to me and say, “Can you teach me Amazon?” And, and, you know, there’s no easy (laughs) way to say …
|
|
[00:31:30]
Jeff Allen:
|
Yeah.
|
| Will Moffett: |
… let me just teach you. Like, right? It, it’s like, it’s, it’s, it’s, oh, it’s the littlest detail …
|
| Jeff Allen: |
Well, I think it’s you …
|
| Will Moffett: |
… that count-
|
|
Jeff Allen:
[00:32:00]
|
I think, I think, Will, uh, uh, you know, you kind of bring up a good point. Anybody can sell on Amazon. Anybody really can do it. I mean, you know, all, all you have to do is you learn how to list a product, you put it up there, and, and boom. Away you go. You know, if you’ve got an account open, if you figure out how you can do that and maybe you don’t mind paying Amazon the $40 a month plus all the other fees it come along with, uh, FBA, uh, then it’s, it’s easy to do. But you’re right, though.
|
|
[00:32:30]
|
And you know, you’re talking about the, the, uh, some of the nitnoy details, and there’s a lot of stuff. There’s a lot more stuff, uh, than meets the eye that people need to see. A lot of that be- between the lines and behind the lines, uh, stuff that you need to understand and, uh, really, you know, you can go through that Seller University course that they give you. They’re on Amazon as a, I think, for starters, it kind of helps out, uh, answer a lot of your business questions. But I think some of it just kind of comes with a, comes with experience and making some mistakes I think at the end of the day.
|
| Will Moffett: |
Comes with losing some money.
|
| Jeff Allen: |
Yeah. That’s right.
|
| Will Moffett: |
(laughs)
|
| Jeff Allen: |
Yeah.
|
| Will Moffett: |
And we don’t want you to …
|
| Jamie Harris: |
Yeah.
|
| Will Moffett: |
… lose too much, though.
|
| Jamie Harris: |
Yeah, honestly, I mean, you have to, if you go in with the mindset that I’m gonna treat this as a real business,
|
| Jeff Allen: |
Yeah.
|
|
Jamie Harris:
[00:33:00]
|
… then, then you do all the right things, right? Starting off as an LLC right away. Okay, so I’m treating this as a real business, I’m doing that. Um, I, gonna have a professional seller account, I’m gonna, I’m gonna sell millions of dollars so I might as spend the 40 bucks. It’s not a waste. It’s almost a game of, of, you know, having that, that first month, uh, that first $40 actually will be paid for where you don’t actually have to pay for out of your own pocket, you know? Just, if, if you focus on this as a real business, all the details automatically is gonna fall in place. Have real awesome pictures, have it, have it sound right, have it look right. If you’re just treating this as a hobby or game, it’s, everybody’s gonna see it when they look at your listing.
|
| Jeff Allen: |
Yeah.
|
|
[00:33:30]
Jamie Harris:
|
Because professional, you know, um, there’s, there’s a million things that go along with that, but that’s, uh, the bottom line, I guess.
|
|
Jeff Allen:
[00:34:00]
|
Well, Jamie, this has been a great conversation, it’s been very enlightening, very helpful, and, uh, who better to learn from than someone who has had a lot of success doing this? I mean, you started out, uh, uh, you know, just a couple of years ago really a little bit more than that from the time that we are producing this program. And, uh, and you have, uh, you’ve learned, you’ve lived, you’ve made the, you’ve had a lot of successes, you’ve got some great products, uh, I’m sure in your store. We don’t know exactly what those are, but we know that you found success in a, in a, a couple of key categories that you really like. And we want to thank you so much for taking some time out of what is really a busy time for you. Uh, you’re, uh, in the fourth quarter and really during a holiday, uh, uh, selling season. For any, uh, anyone selling on Amazon, your participation in the program has been, uh, just fantastic. We want to thank you so much for joining us.
|
| Jamie Harris: |
You’re very welcome.
|
| Will Moffett: |
Thanks so much, Jamie.
|
| Jamie Harris: |
Thanks for having me here. You’re very welcome.
|
|
[00:34:30]
Jeff Allen:
|
Jamie Harris and, uh, Will, a great find on your part. Thanks again, man, for setting this up. It’s just a fantastic discussion.
|
| Will Moffett: |
Thank you, Jeff. You guys are awesome.
|
|
Jeff Allen:
[00:35:00]
|
Well, we appreciate you, Will, and that’s gonna put, uh, the brakes on this edition of FBA Millionaires. Thanks once again to our guest today, Jamie Harris, and, uh, don’t forget to, uh, show us a little love if you would over there on iTunes, give us a nice rating if you can, if you like the program. If there’s something that you think we could do a little bit better or if you’ve got some specific questions that you would like us to ask a future guest on this program, all you have to do is let us know there, uh, in your ratings or in the comment section on iTunes or you can simply send us a, a note there, uh, just hop on over to the website, FBAMillionaires.com. And, uh, there’s an information form, uh, that you can fill out, send us your, uh, comments, your suggestions, uh, show us any love that you think that we might be able to benefit from, give us any encouragement.
|
|
[00:35:30]
|
Just let us know your thoughts because this program really is geared toward helping you in your Amazon business, helping you become as successful as you possibly can be. Uh, once again, that’s FBAMillionaires.com we’re, by the way. You can also join the FBA Millionaire’s Club, so once again, my name is Jeff Allen along with my buddy, Will Moffett, up in Northern California. And we appreciate you listening to FBA Millionaires. Until next time, thanks again for listening.
|
| Will Moffett: |
Thanks, everybody.
|
