Transcript for:
Amazon Selling Strategies and Insights

I've sold an average of a product every 11 minutes is there something that you've done over the last kind of year or two that's that you feel has really helped out or is it like lots of little things it was just reinvest reinvest buy more stock buy more stock buy more stock and just building up that pot of money if you like to really get a good stable base your friends going to start Amazon before they start what's the one I'm probably go say a few things take some action and do it and don't live and regret and don't go in two years time oh maybe I should have done it two years ago oh you know if you haven't already started the times now if you enjoy what you do you know you never work another day in your life we're joined here with Paul uh Paul skulls he's been a member of Cell Pro Academy you're part of the furniture basically um but today we're going to be looking at the last kind of year or so of your your journey as a seller uh Breaking Down The Good the Bad and the Ugly and seeing you know how you can hopefully give some people some more information about what to look out for um but first of all give us a breakdown of who you are for people that don't know um and a brief history of your your kind of Amazon selling Journey yeah so as you said pul skulls so my history I guess is really within engineering and that's kind of what I've been doing for the last sort of 15 17 years professionally uh engineering and a bit of project management um so this was really apart from the odds of selling bits on eBay this was kind of the first kind of Step into the real sort of e-commerce world as kind of treating it as a real business I guess um so yes I joined the academy back in uh just at the end of 2020 um as a let's let's put my toe in the water let's see what it's about get some knowledge get some training to kind of get um to see what it's about and how to do it um and kind of get set up right from the start I guess um so it took about six months for me to find find my first product and to get that um get samples of that to get it launched and Amazon So within 6 months it was there live on Amazon which was quite surreal when you first see your first product there on Amazon which is just seems a bizarre concept to start with um and then obviously when you when you first get those sales that's even more of a a boost that you're doing something right or someone someone must like your product cuz someone's buying it so yeah that that's was really sort of that first Buzz um and it really just grew from there I think that the sales the sales were coming in well um the growth was there and it was really just you start to see the the side that how big this could become and how and I'll say how little work it requires but as in I wasn't directly putting in work to get money you know okay yeah you got to do work in the background but if you have a day off you still get some sales in and that was that was really when it started I suppose clicking for me um as to how this can become more of a lifestyle business and work around your life rather than it being you know fixed and then having to kind of fit your life in around your work so yeah that was that was probably the sort of the start of it for me yeah and that was um God go going back now that was like pre preco like year you know years and years ago now um but like the interesting thing I think You' just mentioned there is that feeling of oh it's on Amazon Amazon is this like big thing this is oh it's Amazon and you can get your thing that you made on there and yeah it is a weird surreal like oh cool like it's it's actually there and and then when you get that first sale it is super weird cuz you're like hang a minute I didn't any I didn't did I ask that person did they already buy it did no that's like a real person oh my pp's oh my God like someone's bought this and yeah it just like clicks and falls into place so I remember when I first started and I was checking my my phone uh in the toilet of my job because they wouldn't let me have my phone out you know in in the actual like area so I'd go to the toilet swiping to update such a weird weird feeling and like a lot of people say you know like the types of products you go into is like don't do this product don't do that product like go between these price barriers and price barriers and I think that the thing that I think is I really like about your um a journey is that you know you've gone for something and like the average price product is I don't know1 or something like that yeah just under £10 my main product and it was really for me it was really what was meant to be a bit of a starter product just to test the process out to say right well how do you talk to the suppliers how do you get the samples how do you tweak it um the packaging The Branding all that side I just wanted to do something um I guess low risk at the time and low value to you know my first order including shipping was sort of just over two grand which is peanuts really and do you know how many units you've done now of that product it's I think it's more like 100,000 of them something it's it's absolutely crazy um but it was just meant as a I'll just test the process out and then it's like well actually no I'll get some more of these I'll get some more and it just I think it was the right product at the right time in an area that then happened to just be growing as well and it still continues to grow and that's now my the cash cow if you like on the main product it's funny that you wouldn't you wouldn't have thought that at the beginning but ju I just want to come back to that like 100,000 right yeah and I think like we can throw out numbers like all day long like this many units this much revenue 100,000 is a lot of products and that's 100,000 customers yeah a lot of people man it is and it's nice that it is a product that uh can go on or is on the the Subscribe and save as well so you do get it's not as quite regular some of the you know products that you be know people buy every month but this is something that you know every six months or every year people we be buying it and the again it's the nice that people are coming back to buy the same product and again that helps with that average um the lifetime value of customers as well that you're knowing that actually you're paying a bit more maybe to acquire them but actually if they if they go onto the Subscribe system then yeah you got them there hopefully for many years to come exactly and that's and that's a good I think nowadays if if there's like sellers watching this one of the big I was speaking to a seller they um they actually their company is now public um so they're doing you know pretty well right and they say that they only really go into subscribe and save products or products that have uh a sale potential promotion Potential from one of their other subscrib and save products um because it's such a good area where yeah if you know your lifetime value of the customer you know your um average cost to acquire a customer and if you know those figures you can that really becomes powerful when for when you're running PPC right yeah do you when if you're looking for more product ideas in the future is that something that you're now thinking of like okay I want to make sure I try and find something that's cross promotion or something that's like subscri say so it's interesting so I did kind of Branch out with sort of two or three other brands um which were probably more oneof you get you're always going to get the occasional customer comes back and buys another for birthday present whatever they do so you always get a bit of the OD peat customers um but most of the products in those other brands were just pretty much just oneof purchases um and now kind of strategy wise I guess where I'm going is building out the original brand building on the original product and they are then products which fit I guess there's two parts to me fits within really building that brand building products and the awareness across um and going sort of deeper within variations Etc um but again all those products that go in there are ones that go on that subscribe and save system so yeah that's the bit where I've kind of you sort of throw out a little bit I guess kind of see what sticks and then you kind of see and then home in on those things and go actually this is the brand these are the products this is where I want to spend my my my time and my focus um so yeah so that is it's quite a and it is hard you know I wouldn't do it for a first product in terms of some of the real aggressive areas like um the the supplements and things like that cuz some of those you literally have unless you got Deep Pockets to do advertising to start with then yeah brilliant to get into but really hard to get into um so yeah there are watch outs that yeah just because it is a a monthly or a recurring one just watch out that there are some very competitive it doesn't have to be monthly doesn't it I think this is one of the key things if it's like I I always think to myself when I go to buy the same things on Amazon I'm like why don't I just set up a subscri I save 15% and I know that I buy one every 3 months or every six months why don't I just do that so I think the what I guess people need to understand is that just you don't need it doesn't need to be every two weeks or every month if there's a way to get a customer to buy more than one of your products then that's always going to be a good thing and and even if it's not subscribed and save and it's a product where you can buy multiple of them at the same time on your listing having buy two get x% off buy three get x% off buy four buy five buy Six buy seven and you can really like stack those to get some big discounts like incentivize people to buy more than and I do do that so I do there is the option where you can set up so you get you know 5% off two products 10% if you buy three products whatever the and so you can play about with those you can also play about um with business pric and so again there small percentage but there's percentage of my of the customers which are business customers so again if you make your business price just a penny lower than your normal price then that supposedly helps that show up when business Amazon customers are searching then your product should show up a little bit higher as well so yeah there's a there little weird little tricks right these are the little tricks that you like that are important for sellers like yeah actually if you're the person that's doing that and some of your competition aren't doing that then that gives you a slight Edge and you lose nothing because of it like no absolutely nothing and you actually in fact you could probably gain a lot because if you're running advertising to that customer that you know your cost per click might be less comparatively because you've got that badge right you've got that option you've got that pricing um and like badge hacking and like what what's your opinion on discounts and like badge hacking and lowest price in 30 days and all this sort of stuff is this something that you kind of activ actively look at or do a little bit I'll be honest I don't do I don't do massive amount with with coupons every now and again I I'll play about with them and do a know three pound off or 10% off whatever and kind of have a little play especially to be fair it's good on some of the products you go actually they do they just need that bit of a boost to get going again or actually that's a product I kind of want to clear out a little bit so that you can use them in terms of that sort of tactical way to to help sort of move some the product that you need to um but even for the high selling products I guess it's really playing with pricing is is quite a key I'm generally a little bit higher maybe than some of the competitors so it's nice every now and again I will sort of drop the price down just as like a sale and run it for sort of like a week um just to kind of get a little bit more momentum um what would you say then is the biggest so the like the the lowest hanging fruit for most like sellers so they've got their product they're doing you know they're doing okay they're doing well but they want to like build it to the point that where you've got you know you've got yours and they they can go right well this is working really well we can now look at more Brands we can reinvest into the company is there something that you've done over the last kind of year or two that's that you feel has really helped out or is it like lots of little things um so I'd say to start with so for anyone who's of starting out in those early days just reinvest I didn't take any money out the business for the first two years it was just reinvest reinvest buy more stock buy more stock buy more stock and just building up that pot of money if you like um to really get a good stable base um so yeah reinvest don't just say oh I've got some money right I'll take it out and walk away because then you're going to come to buy more stocking haven't got the money so it is quite Capital intense in the first stage um I think the but ongoing Wise It's just testing I think the amount of testing and we've talked about before in the academy but always be testing something whether that's your hero image whether that's your A+ content whether it's the order of your images whether it's um I don't know your title just constantly be tweaking and changing something and testing it and as much as you you do feel like oh I think that that new hero image is going to be better than that one I'd say a lot of time I'm right with my with the guesses but there's also quite a few occasions when I'm wrong and I think and go oh that new one didn't perform as well as the old one and therefore you stick with the old image but you've tested it and you know that through data not just through well I think that's better so I'm going to do it and ignore the data so that hero image if you can constantly uh change that hero image what else can you add in it how can you change the the size of the products the you know tweaks and the text maybe that's on your packaging or something that just really resonates with your customers as you find out more about your customers and how they buy in through PPC and find out what the key words that converting how do you then feed that back in and put that into your package and put that into your um your branding Etc um so yeah I think that's just there's always something you can do I think that's the hardest part now is I could think of 100 things to do each day and it's the actually what are the ones that are really going to you know the leverage that really going to make that you know turn the dial up some way um yeah a lot of the time you can get like you can become a busy idiot right yeah you're just like optimize my PPC again and do it again when in fact actually that time might be better on optimizing your hero image or your ti or your pricing or your or your whatever and I think I see a lot of people make make that mistake of like my PPC doesn't work my a cost is really high and they think that it's a a PPC problem I think what you're saying is that actually a lot of the focus is yeah test your PPC but test everything else as well because that's super super important and the good thing about this is about like your approach is that your competitors won't be doing it like the majority of people don't do it no and you see I think that's the other part for me I do quite regularly I will be searching on those key Search terms of the products and then just seeing again checking out the competition seeing all a sudden they different adverts pop up or you look at the some of the the listings you go oh what they've changed some of their images or they've done something else and so as much as yes what you can truly control you know internally with your own product and your own listing actually what else is going on in the marketplace what are other and you know not in the view to copying them but you know picking out the good bits and I think that's I guess another little tip is you know when you if for people either starting with their listings or want to revamp their listings look at the competition and I think the but the tip is booket their images ump group them so you know right this um these images look at you know how how do they um display the size of the product this one looks at the the different uses or the the benefits or this one looks at the you know I don't know how easy it is to use or whatever it might be and kind of booket all those images because and then almost pick out the best one from each of those booket and then ultimately you kind of got an optimized listing because you kind of got the best of it because it's very unlikely even on my listings obviously very unlikely that you're going to have the best five or seven images across the whole board when you compare to your competitors um but again you know take that as your because you can still even improve those ones so you know don't just blindly copy that's not what it's about it's how do you get something go oh that's a good idea but if you actually combine those two images then you get an even better image and that's how you then you know go to market with a real you know consistent flow of images that really help the customer make that buying decision because again personally having played around with some of the A+ content even going from that when you get the real basic text before your brand kicks in sometimes I'm not that convinced that many customers actually go down and look at read the description look at your A+ content further down I'll say probably I think just my good feel 80 to 90% of customers look at the images if it ticks their box SS their issue boom they're hitting that buy button they're buying it I you know the tweaks I've made in A+ and it's made pretty much no difference just just shows how how important those key images those six or seven images are or if you got a video as well that's also another bonus um because I think that that just that makes that decision for the customer definitely yeah and people can get bogged down in A+ content can't they and like yeah when you realize it's good for SEO like like absolutely like you've got a lot of SEO like juice you can get in there but yeah most PE if they don't like your images at the top of the page they're not going to scroll down to the bottom of the page it's just not going to happen and a lot of people will spread their attention across you know their Carousel of images and their A+ content but actually it's much better to put all of your attention above the fold you know above the scroll Mark get them right and yeah use your competitors look at what they do well and try and improve upon it because honest that's what they've probably done they probably looked at other people maybe even in a different Niche and I think actually that's something that that I always look at is what do people do in in different categories for similar types of products so if I was doing a health related product in one particular subcategory I would actually look in a different subcategory that has a similar maybe pain point a similar like reason why someone's buying it and go what are they doing how they communicating it maybe I can take something that's completely separate but is actually a very good idea um and also look up things that you have done well that I did a test I can't remember exactly when it was really good conversion rate on a listing and I was just like why is this listing converting so well like I knew the images were good but I was like but it shouldn't be this good right so I was then like right okay let's try maybe let's recreate this image but for a this different Asin different um like category let's just see if this style of photo concept can work in another area did that and it did increase the conversion rate I was like oh my god I've stumbled across like some magic here and then tried it on another product didn't work at all like at all it had zero impact whatsoever so whilst that image worked for for those products it didn't work for all products and I think that's where you have to take a pitch of salt right with just because it's working other places doesn't mean it's going to work for you that's why you need to test get that data and come back to it right so another I guess another tip that I've used is look outside your own Marketplace so if you're predominantly selling in the UK look on Amazon.com for the product okay it might have a slightly different search term but you'll find the product and then again look at the competitors in that Marketplace look at their images and say because then that just gives you that wider scope as to actually yeah those guys they've really got on something and you're not you're less trading on people's toes even then because it's just so it's different Marketplace um you got to be careful obviously because some things don't translate or what One Marketplace is important to them it's not as important to another place um but again just getting some ideas just getting some of those creative ideas as to oh yeah I hadn't thought about doing it in that way but actually I can do it even better in that way and again just yes so different marketplaces have a look what what else is going on um and just think again what is it the customers care about you know some products as I said earlier you know the size of the product you know if it's a bag or if it's something that needs to fit in something or be used for something you know size is important that needs to be on there if it's a general item you know like a mug or a cup or people don't care how you know they know the size of a cup you know they don't need to be shown the size of it so don't waste an image by putting dimensions on so yeah sometimes it's irrelevant sometimes it's not and just think about that though from the customer point of view know what is it that they want to find out what is it that they want to know and different products you know they'll have different requirements so yeah just bear that in mind it's not yeah know what they want and then just give them the answers to the questions that they have and then they should buy your product and obviously that just comes comes down to really just doing your research looking at the reviews looking at what other people are doing using a bit of common sense as well um what we're doing more at the moment now is like polling people and just getting you know getting information from people to say why do you like that like what oh I like this I like oh I didn't realize people like this element or maybe I should lean into that a little bit more than I did before test it see if it works come back look at the results and off we go again what um what does the what does the next kind of year or so look like for you so it's I guess its growth so just to add in so the part we haven't I don't think we mentioned so it was just over a year ago in April 23 that I I quit my full-time job and so since then and I always say Amazon is my full-time job as in It's my job that when I'm working that's what I'm working on but it's not going let say full time um so so last year has been adjusting I guess a little bit to to know being Your Own Boss you know making sure that you're doing the work when you need to do the work um and just but to start with really getting that consist some that consistency to know that you're getting those consistent sales in um to kind of take away some that stress and worry um going forward it's really growth so as I said earlier a little bit more really focusing in now on one brand and looking at different variations going deeper and really sort of owning and commanding that Niche um with the idea being that when people are searching for products um my products are going to be pepper dashed around all over all over that search page it's not just one product and then some variations are hiden within it there's going to be you know five or six different products that should be shown all over that search page you want you want to like you want to be be omnipresent that's it and then really pushing the bit of when they click on my listing trying to build up more um defense around the advertising so that yeah the other products that are on there that customers might click are going to be my products or again try and push as many of the competitors off there as possible um and obviously going after some of the other competitors to go and advertise a bit more harshly um on on some of their listings as well so try to really kind of dominate that um within that that Niche and that brand um but I'm still there's still another another brand that I've got that I'm actively expanding and and products in there um so yeah it's really just about expanding it's it is a bit of a balance I guess with look with the capital you've got and you know the timing of everything obviously so Amazon pay out every two weeks um typically you're paying for your stock up for typically on 70 uh 30 70 split typically with a lot of suppliers um so you actually it's very cash hungry at the front you're getting your cash out at the back end quite late and so it's really just managing that and looking to see you know how you plan out for that year to make sure that you've got the money available at the right time to buy stock to replenish stock um so yeah so expanding both product wise but also marketplaces I guess is the other my second strategy so I went into the um the US um right at the end of last year um and then aiming to go into Germany um just going through the B process at the moment so in the next two months hopefully two to three months I should be get get that sorted get some stock ordered and get that into Germany so it's really about expanding the products that I've got the you know all the products I've got will they just won't work in certain marketplaces and that's you know I'm not going to try and push that because I just know they're going to be a flop so the ones that are translatable into other marketplaces expand those out um so yeah it's still product expansion and Marketplace expansion are the two amazing so the I think the main thing that you're doing because a lot of people go well how do I expand I either release more products or I go deeper into the products I've already got and going deeper into products you've already got you got the supply relationships you know the product you know the advertising you know the conver you know everything at this point it's just a case of okay let's make it relevant to a different audience a US audience or a German audience or you know what you said earlier with going through and owning that Niche being like the the king of that category it's you know the customers you know what people are clicking you know what people want so it's not as much of a like the product research and development is isn't as as strenuous because you're not trying to find something new and trying to find a new angle and a new brand and new everything you're just going in deeper to what you've already got and I think generally speaking um that's like the easiest not sure if easy is the right word but it's the easiest um creating new brands take takes a long time it's you know it's a cost intensive process and I think you're right especially with the cash flow you know what we've seen over years is that that first 10 to 100K is you know your you're you're bootstrapping it you're still reinvesting as much as you can you're really waiting for that that money from Amazon to to get more stock and you're in and out of stock typically that's what you see but after that point you then have a business and go oh this is actually working now like like people are buying the product it's just the case of how can I make sure I always have enough money and you don't want to then do another product and put money into that to then 3 months later realize my main product that's bringing in most of my revenue is now delayed by a month because I didn't have my money in time that's really detrimental and that that's part of I think when you first started out you maybe don't you don't foresee those as as problems that you're going to have you see what product you know what's my product Market fit how am I going to stand out and actually make this profitable and then once you're profitable you realize oh there's a whole bunch of other problems that I've got now about actually running a business uh which is not the Glamorous part is it like really it's got to be done yeah um I think there's a couple of bits just to pick up on so you'd said um I forget what I was going to say one of them stock so I think that was one of the biggest things is going out of stock and I don't think people realize unfortunately how detrimental that is these days within Amazon if they see sellers going out of stock coming in going out you're just going to get pushed out and it's so hard to get back to where you were you think I was doing loads of sales and when my new stock comes in I'll just go back to doing those sales and it is so many people struggle because you're back to essentially launching a new product again you got to treat it as if you're relaunching and the time the effort and everything that goes into that so yeah that's that's one I think it's almost a non-negotiable almost now of you know don't get out of stock and my advice would be again maybe more for new sellers is if you're going to buy a th000 units well can you push that to, 1500 is there something you can just push a little bit okay A little bit more risk but actually that will give you longer before you then need to make that decision you know rather than going oh I've got two months of sales right I need to hit the button to re reorder firstly you haven't got as much money back in through the business and secondly you haven't got as much data where if you could get know 1,500 units gets you 3 months worth of data and 3 months of time you got more money back in you've got more data and go right I'm more confident now to order so I think you know as long as you're doing your initial due diligence then look to see how how big can you place that first order because actually that on your reorder that actually is a bigger help than going small in the first place it's really is really tricky and I think there's there's something that that we tried more recently is um that initial order to not do it quite to the level of what your full order would be but use it as a basically a throwaway as you get your barcode and all that sort of stuff you get it you launch it you don't Focus too massively on reviews um you just get the data from the PPC you get you test your hero images and you make sure it's working and basically use it as a testing platform you take that data away and then you go and do the larger stock order brand it now related to what you now know will work better on Amazon and you order more units at that point so that you're not going to you know go out stock and that first one you just kind of throw it away you know you just ditch the the listing at that point it served its purpose and you can now take all that information and put it into the actual product with a lot more confidence than you did you know 3 months earlier when you hadn't run that AC in before it takes longer but it it's kind of getting around that issue of Amazon of like if you go out of stock like we're going to we're going to penalize you for it basically and how do you then launch a product like you don't want to order 5,000 units in in on your first order because like what if there's a problem with those units so I think as time goes on like I think strategies like that will be used even more like typically in the past we got oh do a sample order 200 units 250 units but do it basically to the same standard as your what you're going to do you're going to then use that listing going forward I think the the new strategy will be is you use that and you ditch the Ace in after you've used it and then you do it again basically so you get that like honeymoon period yeah back again from scratch yeah and I think the part to for people to to to sort of remember is that yeah not every product you do will be a home run and I think that's the the part that yeah you know you can do due diligence your work do everything and you do but something just doesn't click doesn't work whatever it might be and I think the key there is you know just don't don't be dishearten cuz I probably got a little bit gho I guess with you know sort of first product and I sort of oh yeah almost got to oh yeah I'll just do a couple more products and probably didn't quite do as much work as I should have done and they've been all right but you know and even now there's a couple of products I've gotten in across the whole Brands um that I just won't be reordering you know it's like they've done all right I've made some money on but you know sales are slow that's various reasons you just I think that's not to be afraid of you know knocking a product on the head and just yeah okay for and just take the learnings you know what is it maybe I didn't know something a lot of it is probably just you know the pricing probably you know the cost was probably a little bit too high therefore you haven't got as much margin therefore you can't put as much into PPC you haven't got the profit um so some of it is around pricing I think with some of the products I've had um and others just been you know the marketplace has just probably being a bit too aggressive and I just haven't be able to really really you know really break through enough and get high enough rankings to sort of be seen um so it is so don't take that be honest and just look at the data I think it's easy to be like oh but next month it's going to be right no next month it'll be and kind of just fool you I think that's the biggest bit within this having a business let alone and and especially within the Amazon business is don't fool yourself you know with the day you know you get a lot of data access to a lot of data and just be honest you know if if you're not running running profitably or you're not turning around the stock whatever it is just be honest accept it you know PPC you know if you're spending more every month you spend a hell of a lot more money on PPC than you're getting sales in across the whole board to be hon next month's not going to be any about it basically yeah or do something about it and that's is you're right either look at the data and go what what do I need to change to turn this around and I don't know I'll do that quite often each month and end of each month I'll do quite a lot of analysis on each product and then it'll give those things to say right these are the three products and from each of these three product these are things I'm going to do to change it cuz actually I spent too much on PPC on that product or I just have those sales have been really low this mon like what can I do to increase those sales what the option what those levers I've got to do that but it's yeah looking at the data doing something with the data um and being honest if there's something if it's bad just be honest right if it's if it's down and out and it's just taking up a lot it's causing you a lot of stress you know you're having a lot of issues with it like say for example it was a product that was quite big it's like an oversized product and you're spending loads of money on storage fees right just plummet the price get rid of it and just move on to to something else maybe you can renegotiate a better deal with a supplier now that you know the the the price barrier which sells the product fast or you just move on you know you recoup as much money as you can and you move on and go right cool lesson learned but if I'm going to do a product of this size I need to make sure that I'm ordering you know enough stock so that I'm selling this this much so I'm not keeping this amount of storage or I have a secondary storage facility like th those are all things that you learn each time um but you have to I guess have that logical approach rather than the emotional oh no it's my baby I've created it I don't want to get rid of it I think I did hear a really good quote the other day I don't know where it came from but it was don't marry your product steal somebody else's girlfriend and I I thought that that was I read that I thought that is really good because as you said people get too emotional too attached to oh I've done all the product research on this one product and why it might not and again they fool themselves into oh they should be enough profit in there and it's just like and then they you know and if they go through with it and oh well maybe I I'll get reord maybe it be better than the next time it's just don't get married with those products you know steal someone else's girlfriend you know go and look at what else is selling go and do that and steal it don't so yeah that was that's a good I love that I love that cuz a lot of people like they send me you know profit calculations and stuff like that um like here's the product like here's the profit calculations and it's just it's just not high enough the profit margins you know they've they've worked out on the negotiation theyve done it's just not good enough and I have to say like it's not going to work right you you need to get higher profit margins or if you're negotiating on 200 units or 500 units cool but negotiate on 5,000 10,000 and like is this a short-term thing short-term problem or is this a long-term problem and yeah at that point you then know well can I actually afford this problem right now or is this something that is is not going to be resolvable in which case yeah don't do the product like don't go into it if the margins aren't there like it's not going to work I've I've launched a product a few weeks ago there's a 56% profit margin it's Madness it's crazy but everything works right everything works a lot smoother because there's just this ginormous margin to work with it is could I have done a product that had a lower margin that maybe sold more units or whatever possibly yeah or I I mean definitely but it doesn't necessarily mean it's the right decision business-wise like really you need to make sure especially for long-term growth that there's margin there like you you need the margin and if I look at you know people in the academy that have you know got into the the seven figure club right there's no there's no uh shock that all of their margins are good you know and they've been good from the almost the very beginning like they've just had products that have had good margins they've done a good job negotiating they've they've built a brand they've added value they they're not necessarily the cheapest problem the cheapest product they're not maybe the most expensive but they're certainly maybe over average yeah yeah and you're right and I think profit people underestimate I think sometimes the amount of PPC especially when you start and it and that's exactly that shortterm versus longterm that yeah shortterm those first three months hopefully you're going to be probably your most expensive PPC months um because you know that's where you need to pump the money in to get some visibility to get the sales to get going um but even then it's that you can you afford it how long can you afford afford to do that and actually when PPC then does drop down to a more acceptable or reasonable level does that then still leave you with 0% profit or have you still got profit after accountant and I've seen and I know other Setters have seen it PPC costs are just going up you know there's there's more competition the bids I'm bidding higher now for products that you know that I was selling you know a year ago or two years ago um which is fine for me because I guess I've got a good conversion rate on most of the products and you know that you can okay eats into your profit a bit more but you know you can handle it whereas if you're coming fresh in and you're going well I've got to pay that much to get a click it makes it really hard I think and that's why conversion rates are just like it's just so critical like especially now versus 2020 when you started of course they're important but there's there's definitely advertising is more expensive compar comparatively but also prices are more expensive as well like the cost of living everything's gone up it's so important to have your good conversion rate so la last thing um if you to sum up all of your experience right what is the just the one piece of advice that I mean I know this is sometimes quite hard but is there one thing where you go your friend's going to start Amazon before they start warning right what's the one ibly go say a few things so I think firstly if anyone's thinking or looking at doing it step in and do it like that's the biggest thing take some action and do it and don't live in regret and don't go in two years time oh maybe I should have done it two years ago oh you know if you haven't already started the best 's now um in terms of I think the key part here is you know despite what a lot of people might say or what you might see on various videos it's not quick it's not a get-rich quick screen I think we've had conversations about this before you know but it is a a a get-rich slow scheme it is you know potential big exits there's been you know if you can build up that brand uh and build up that story and build it to a point where somebody wants to know buy that as a business and look know that's the part you got look further down not just next month next year but look further down the line and look for that big exit you know I think that's the part that then you know you you still you start to see those dollar signs in your eyes as to oh right so if you know they work on mul typically work on multiples of your profit your turnover Etc various bits of how much more they think they can grow it but yeah you could get some potentially big paydays at the end of it that's the key that then gives you another lump sum of capital to then go right what's next what you what are the markets businesses Etc could you then do now you've now you set on that big pot of money so I think the other part I didn't say at the start but my initial part when I did when I first started was if I can just get an extra couple hundred quid a month and if that goes towards a car payment or go towards something else that's literally that was all I was thinking of oh it be nice if I just have a couple hundred quid profit a month extra and then it's just day and and that's it and now that's like a daily and it's just I think that how you grow and how you I think the other part is the mindset your mind has to be in the right place you know you might have a really good product you might have a really good but your your mindset is not there if your mindset if you got a scarcity mindset and not an abundant mindset it's going to it's going to change your decision it's going to change what you do how you do it and I think that positive mind and you I've done a h of a lot of reading the last few years on business and psychology and all the other things that go with it which has really again stepped up my game and just yeah makes you realize what's possible it just opens up so much more so many more doors and the opportunities are there um so yeah I know G I'm just giving a sing a single answer about starting it's important on that like what's possible you did a did a post the other day of how many on average how many units you sell is it a like was it so since so even just it's even from the start of this year 24 I've sold an average of a product every 11 minutes and that's that through that know you average it out through the whole day the whole night one every 11 minutes and it's just like I I had to do that calculation like three or four times go no that can't be right no hour and 10 minutes no 11 minutes you think I'm must my calculation right it can't be that and you know it's seven days a week it's not a you know most people you go to work or if you if you're self-employed you generally would go to work Monday to Friday you're not earning at the weekends okay you might do the odd Saturday job but generally you're not working earning at the weekends you know I'm earning Saturday Sunday I'm earning you know Christmas Day yeah I I I like to picture that as like imagine you had a shop and you had one person come in every 11 minutes 24 hours a day 365 days a year you'd be like oh my God like and it was a CH Ching y next person oh yeah same one again CH Ching 100 thousand times you know I that reiterates the part though that you couldn't run a business like that you couldn't have you know that amount you couldn't know like if I was packing these every day I wouldn't have the time in the day to be packing and that's that's the power of the Amazon they do the heavy lifting you know they're storing products they're picking them they're shipping them delivering to the customers and I say whether I you know if I sell you know a handful of products a day or hundreds of products a day I'm not doing any extra work it's not like oh wait there I can't I can't go out tonight cuz I've got to pack these extra 50 boxes and get them out to to The Courier I just love that you know if I have a massive spike in sales one day like cool yeah oh like in bed with your with your wine oh that's nice extra work I'll take that I'll just take the extra money and that's so yeah I think the the the part how much heavy lifting Amazon do for you compared to a lot of it when you look at another typical business you know whether that's physically having you know a lease or owning a property or renting a property having staff um business rates all the other things that go with it there is so much money that it costs just to be there and to have you have some presents whereas actually as an Amazon business you know okay you might have vas or you might have some Consultants or some know Freelancers Etc but very rarely do you have stuff you might do if you grow and do different bits but generally do you w you won't have your own direct staff that you're that you're managing um you haven't got shops and businesses buildings to look after and so that's even though you need money to put into the business to get it up and running compared to I'm not going to say a real business to compared to like bricks and mor type business it's a fraction of that money um real but but it doesn't feel real sometimes because it's not it's you're not doing anything it's like you just update your phone and then you've you've you've made more it's everything's in The Ether everything's like online from your perspective is on your computer but obviously if you go to an Amazon Warehouse it's very very very real to a very large scale um yeah I yeah incredible I think incredible progress and um that you've had over the past few years uh and it's going to be exciting to see how the next couple of years go as well yeah no it's uh yeah hopefully the start of things to K and to keep growing and yeah and I'm enjoying I think that's the biggest bit when I've talked to people um you know who have seen me you know over the last few years the general feedback is you're just so much happier and it is it's that I enjoy you know we have some jokes with people because it's like I actually enjoy doing doing coming to work if you're like you know when being we on holiday last week and you know I was like I am looking forward to I'm looking forward to you know being back home getting back and doing some work and it's when you when you're living like that you know you you got something right people you know and it I find it hard now when I see people and they're like oh yeah oh it's work on work on Monday or it's oh it's Friday oh I've got a couple days I can do actually enjoy myself oh and then it's about to work on Mond and it's just like I feel for it not frustrates me I just feel for them and it is it's hard you wish you could shake someone and go like come on it might not be Amant but come and do something that you enjoy and then you know there's I don't know if it's War some quote around you know if you enjoy what you do you know you never work another day in your life and it's just like yeah that's and I would work so much harder now to not have to go back to know a full-time employee job it's like I I think it's I think it' be surprising just how hard I would fight not to go back and do a nine to fight because the flexibility that's the other part we sort dit to a little bit with sort of Lifestyle business but the flexibility I've got you know Sports days or you know need to pop out to the whatever it is during the day yeah I'll just go and do that it's no problem and nothing going to bur down everything holidays the kids are around it's like yeah I'll pop in and I'll do I've got to work obviously I've got to do put in some hour still otherwise come September and they go back to school it might be I might be a bit behind the curve but I can have that flexibility we can have time off I can go and do St for them and that's the part that's really my challenge this summer is to get that balance right and make the most of the job I've got because that's what enables me to do and that's why I wanted to do this job or to have this business to give me that flexibility so now it's that bit of I've got to make make sure now I use it um otherwise I'm just being you know again being yeah at the end of the day you don't want to be a slave to your own business and it takes time because you know it's a money issue normally is right let's bring an account manager in now let's bring someone else in let's you know a graphic designer let's actually get them on retainer to do these you know these changes every single month and over time particularly I found when you go on holiday you realize how much you need these things and I've always found every year I'm like right I'm going on holiday how do I make sure I can do less when I'm actually away and if if at all nothing at all I'd rather do nothing like not even be a need to turn on my phone or anything like that and every year it gets better cuz you think well actually that one thing that I do which requires me logging on to this certain whatever I don't want to do that I don't want to check I don't you know if if there's a fire going on I don't even want to know about it so is there people that can actually manage that process um and I think that's when you it really becomes that lifestyle of my business is being ran I'm pushing it forward I'm the Visionary for my brand for my business but actually the donkey work is gradually going to other people so that you can do the sports day you can you know have lunch with the family when they're on summer holidays or go out to the cafe or go for a walk and you've don't you've not got someone breathing down your neck going oh I need I need this report I need this something or other or you know um and that's like quite liberating it takes time to get to so like if people are watching and they go oh yeah I'd love that it's not going to happen in 6 months like it's just it's just not going to happen unless you have really Deep Pockets at the very beginning it's just extremely unrealistic but at your stage you know once you've being able to replace your your income your you know job income and then you can make this your full-time thing that's when your productivity level can go from like here to just like like way up there and you realize it actually doesn't take that many hours to run the business it's just how much time do I want to spend growing it and that's the really cool place that you're in right now is like I want to do it I like doing it and then your results are going to follow that which is cool yeah dude uh we'll leave it there thank you so much uh if anyone's got any questions just you know put them down in the in the chat in the comments whatever platform this is in uh love it man I can't wait to to do another one of these in a year's time you good