I interviewed 20+ 7 Figure Ecommerce Sellers… Here’s What I Learned – with Gary Huang

We have another good treat for you in today’s show. We have Gary Huang who is the founder and host of the Seven Figure Seller Summit. He talks about the amazing value he learned from his different interviews of amazing people and summarize everything and tells us all about it here in our podcast. We are very lucky to have him today so let’s tune in.

√ Gary’s VIP Experts Page
√ Gary’s company
√ 7 Figure Seller Summit
√ GFA review of Jungle Scout
√ GFA review of Helium 10

Thanks a lot Gary for sharing some awesome insights. I appreciate you taking the time to share with us information with great value.

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[00:00:00] Global From Asia, Episode 306 learning from top Amazon sellers. We’re getting good, good little e-commerce mastermind kind of thing today. Let’s listen to it. Welcome to the Global From Asia podcast, where the daunting process of running an international business is broken down into straight up actionable advice.

[00:00:23] And now your host, Michael Michelini. Thank you everybody for choosing to download it and listen to Global From Asia. I was just checking iTunes, you know that I still try to see how I can read reviews. But would always appreciate some reviews. If you do enjoy this show, supposedly, you know these algorithms as you, Amazon sellers know reviews are, are good.

[00:00:49] I don’t know. I think I don’t get in trouble if I beg you for a review, like I would focus on the Amazon, but. If you could, it would help out. I don’t know. Somehow we got stuck in the investing category. I don’t know. I think, you know, I got delisted off an Apple for a little while. They said I was keyword stuffing the title and manipulating my keywords.

[00:01:10] Man. Is Apple or is it Amazon or all these big guys? Always. Getting in our ways. I am here in Shenyang. Actually I’m looking for apartments right now. My wife, cause you know, it’s kids, wife and parents in laws, aunts and uncle in laws and all random people coming in for acupuncture in my mother-in-law’s home studio.

[00:01:33] What is it? It’s a Traditional Chinese medicine center. Anyway, we are working hard here at Global community to keep these shows rolling. So I hope you enjoy these today. We got a really good treat for you, Gary Huang. He has the amazing Seven Figure Seller Summit, which I, I was on, I was the, one of our, one of his, presenters in his online summit and he takes some amazing value that he got from all the different interviews.

[00:02:06] From these amazing people, and he consolidates into an Epic, Epic podcast for us at Global From Asia. We’re really lucky to have him. I mean, I feel like he gives us so much value in this free podcast, so it just makes you think his seven figure seller summit must be that much better. Right? These are amazing experts, so he features different people he’s interviewed and had on his, his a seven figure seller summit.

[00:02:34] Over the years, and he gives us some really amazing takeaways. I was taking notes. He does a lot of the talking. I actually, I was, uh, I was really blown away by. He’s just giving and giving and giving. So let’s tune into Gary and listen to what he has to share about what he’s learned from all these top sellers in Amazon.

[00:02:53] Do you enjoy Global From Asia and other community events we do, and the content and all the things we’re putting out. Check out Loadpipe.com L O A D P, I P e.com. It’s our new community group buying site, so you can buy access goods from, of course, China, but we’re working on other parts around the world.

[00:03:12] We’re working with our community and system, an extension of our community group buys. We’re trying to do one a week. We have webinars. We have other things happening to buy products direct from. China or direct from factories in a community environments working with people in this community. Check it out.

[00:03:27] Loadpipe.com. Okay. Ready? Thank you for tuning in to another global from Asia podcast. It’s, it’s, it’s actually another guest, I feel like lately would probably get some guests that have been on the list for awhile and making it happen. Gary . He’s the founder of the seven figure seller summit, which I was actually a participant of this last one, and also do another amazing things in this business.

[00:03:55] As always, thanks for being here, here. Thanks for having me, Mike. It’s a pleasure to finally be on. I’m super excited. Yeah. I know. I mean, it’s, we’ve been talking about it. I know you check out some of the shows and everything, so that’s really great. Great to have you sharing with us. Do you want to introduce yourself for our listeners a little bit about what you’re definitely.

[00:04:15] Definitely. So my name is Gary Huang. I’m the founder of the seven figure sellers summit. Um, I also run a site called 80 20 sourcing, where I offer hot best practices with sourcing especially for e-commerce sellers. Just quick background about myself. I was born and raised in the U S I’m from LA originally.

[00:04:35] I like to say I was made in the USA and then I was exported to China. So I moved out to Shanghai in 2008. And I stumbled upon a job in a small consulting firm working in sourcing. So eventually I moved up the ladder and I became the director of the sourcing department there. So I handled, uh, multimillion dollar sourcing campaigns for clients.

[00:04:58] So I visited hundreds of Chinese factories. So I’ve seen the good, the bad, the ugly. And, um, I also, um, you know, after, I know. Know, one thing, led to another, started a family, got married, started a family, and then I decided the next step to do my own business. And then, that’s when I launched 80, 20 sourcing.

[00:05:20] And, I also have an eCommerce background. Um, this might be a little confusing cause the timing is out of order, but before I moved to Shanghai.  ‘05, I started out selling on eBay. This was back in the U S so at that time, eBay was like today’s Amazon, like they were, they were the 800-pound gorilla.

[00:05:41] You know, I went to like eBay conferences, like eBay live. Um, so basically that’s how I got my feet wet and eCommerce from four, five to eight Oh eight. But I stopped selling on e-commerce in a way because of the financial crisis and because I moved to China. But, um, after it. Uh, you know, my work in sourcing, I saw the, Hey, you know, this Amazon thing, it’s blowing up.

[00:06:01] You know, I, I did some of that before, so I started selling on Amazon. So I’m a Amazon seller myself as well, so I’ve got some skin in the game. Um, so seven figure sellers summit, um. Is basically, you know, I really love that quote by Jim Rowan. He said, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

[00:06:19] Right. So, the first summit that I launched in 2018, um, at that time, my wife was about seven months pregnant with our, with our first child, with our son. So I couldn’t go to Hong Kong to like, you know, do these in person events. So I figured, why not invite these experts, the seven figure sellers. To me and virtually online and everybody else to teach them how they did it.

[00:06:42] So that’s kind of the Genesis behind the seven figures sellers summit. It was pretty successful. I mean, I learned a lot personally. Uh, we had several thousand people view online and then we, um, we launched the second, second seven figure seller summit earlier this year in 2020 and then Mike was on it.

[00:07:00] He gave a great talk about, you know, best practices with selling, ECommerce businesses, how to maximize your selling price. So, uh, sorry for the long winded, but that’s kinda my story. Yeah. Well, it kind of intertwines into what we’re talking about today. You know, we’ve been preparing for the show and you gave us some great points.

[00:07:18] I’m sure listeners are gonna enjoy a lot. You know, the after interviewing and work, you know, you, these few seven bigger sellers, some as you’ve done and talking to these sellers, you’re going to share what some of your highlights, which I’m even excited to, to hear about. So that’s, that’s a, it fits together.

[00:07:36] It kind of flows right into our, our topic for today. So thanks for that, Gary. Oh, definitely. Yeah, I’m super excited. And then, um, I just prepared some, some talking points, um, because you know, I interviewed over 27 figure e-commerce sellers and experts, so I kind of noticed some common themes, um, you know, after talking to these guys.

[00:07:58] So I kind of wanted to, you know, share some of these with you guys today. So, you might just let me know. Yeah, maybe I, you know, you gave me a great list. Maybe I can kind of read it off. Maybe I can kind of. Modify it or add, you know, comments on it. You can have a conversation. So the first one, which I love actually, especially during his covert nightmare and other other, other, other global events, you know, successful entrepreneurs get around excuses.

[00:08:30] So definitely, yeah, I mean. Yeah, for sure. Um, this is like, you know, the seven figure sellers summit was a split up into five days with a different, themes for every day. So for day one was mindset. So I noticed that a lot of these successful seven figure sellers, you know, they got around excuses because I noticed that, you know, one of the shore things and running a business, it might, you know, and it’s like, you’re always going to face.

[00:09:00] You know, problems, challenges, you know, you’re going to run into the wall a hundred percent, no doubt about it. So I, I noticed that what sets these seven figure sellers apart is that when they’re faced with these trials and tribulations is that they found ways to get around these excuses so they didn’t throw in the towel.

[00:09:16] You know, that might have caused some people to fail and give up. So case in point, uh, seven figure seller, Chris Davey, and then he’s our mutual friends. He shared that one of the excuses and while I was like, he hit was dealing with European VAT or a value added tax. So he said it was a pain in the butt and, you know, with all the bureaucracy and all the administrative work and entails, and then,

[00:09:43] He said that he spends dozens of hours, if not more, you know, fulfilling all of these requirements so that he can legally sell on Amazon, European marketplaces. And then on the other hand, some people may have given up if they face these challenges, you know, make the excuse, Oh, it’s not worth it, or they don’t know what to do.

[00:10:00] But Chris was determined to get around these excuses and he found a way to get it done. And you know, because of that piece. He was able to scale his business, and he’s doing quite well in Amazon Europe. So the main takeaway is that, you know. Chris and his mindset. He sees these challenges as barriers that keep out his competitors.

[00:10:21] You know, he doesn’t see them as like potential, you know, things that stop him. These are barriers that keep all his competitors. And he shared, especially competitors from countries like China, where he feels that they probably aren’t willing to go through this process. So just the fact that he can go around use excuses.

[00:10:39] This means that it’s more business for him because a lot of his competitors, you know, they make up excuses and you know, they’re not willing to, uh, to do the work. And then, um, you know. Similarly, uh, another seven figure seller that I spoke with, Nick Katz, uh, he sells an Amazon, Japan and Europe. He revealed that you don’t even necessarily have to set foot in the country to sell there.

[00:11:04] So to learn about cultural differences in Japan, for example, Nick. Use an example of like Japanese kitchens, which are, you know, designed differently from like Western style kitchens. They’re smaller, they have different types of appliances, et cetera. So he shared that, you know, rather than having to fly to Japan to see these kids just in person, you can actually learn what a Japanese kitchen looks like by searching on YouTube.

[00:11:28] You know, you can search for videos of Japanese kitchen. I mean, that is, if you want to sell in Japan, I’m in the kitchen category, for example. So, you know. Don’t use that as an excuse. You know, you can use online tools like YouTube. I mean, we didn’t have these tools, you know, just like 10 years ago. So I feel that, um, you know, there’s a lot more examples that have room to talk about today here, but I find that one of the top takeaways is that, you know, successful entrepreneurs find ways around excuses and, you know, they’re always finding a way to get things done.

[00:12:01] And I think the opposite of that is, is people that don’t succeed always look for excuse, right? Like, um, um, so yeah, I mean, we can always find the negative or the problem or the barrier, but I think it’s similar. It’s another way of saying what you’re saying, but you know, barriers is opportunity, right?

[00:12:21] Because, right. Right. Opportunities. Cool, man. So getting off Amazon to find the products is your second one. Yeah. I noticed that, you know, what might’ve worked in 2016 to rank and sell on Amazon doesn’t work as well today. Um, you know, just like the old ways of relying only on research tools to come up with product ideas.

[00:12:43] You know, when the same, you know, thousands or hundreds of thousands of sellers are using the same tools in the same methodology. So, you know, it’s like that saying that goes, uh, if you start out from the same place as everyone else. You end up at the same place as everyone else, right? So, you know what? My look like?

[00:13:00] A profitable product opportunity today, it can be a flooded market three, four months down the line when, you know, hundreds of other competitors are using jungle scout, they’re using for the same criteria and you know, sourcing the same product and shipping them to Amazon’s warehouses. Please excuse the background noise.

[00:13:16] Uh, you know, our babies here, you know, we’re in, uh, we’re sheltering in place, so I’m not gonna. They use that as an excuse.

[00:13:30] So yeah, case in point, but going back to getting off of Amazon, I was talking to seven figure seller, Tim Jordan, and then he says that. Looking on Amazon alone can lead to saturated niches. So instead of, you know, looking only on Amazon, Tim uses external sites such as Pinterest, uh, such as crate joy to find profitable product ideas and keywords.

[00:13:57] And Tim shared that he really loves subscription sites. You know, like subscription monthly boxes. I like Cratejoy because they source new and trending products that can be months or even years ahead of mainstream dream demand found on Amazon. So they’re very early in the product life cycle. And if you get on this, you know very early, you’re able to capitalize on the demand before everyone else.

[00:14:22] So after coming up with these ideas from these external sites, Tim uses research tools such as helium, 10 to check the keyword search volume. To make his product decisions. So even though there is early demand for these products, the products are not there yet on Amazon. So, um, so you know, again, Keith does not start out on Amazon like everyone else because that means he will be stuck looking at saturated

[00:14:47] Niches, and then, um, put another off Amazon site that works very well is Etsy. And then, uh, Chris Davey says that he uses Etsy, um, in his project. Prognosis is to find out what customers are searching for, to gauge interest in product demand. And then not only that. Um, Chris Davey also uses Reddit. Like he goes deep into different subreddits related to his niche to get feedback on new product designs before he manufactures them.

[00:15:16] So this is kind of like the whole lean startup methodology. You know, like the MVP, the minimum viable product where you want to invest, invest like the minimum amount of time, the minimum amount of capital. In a, you know, kind of like a hypothetical product in order to test it. And then if you can validate it using, um, you know, substantial user feedback without community too, you know, thousands of dollars placing a purchase order from China and you know, the months to manufacture it and ship it, then you’re really shortcutting this process and, uh, taking a lot of risks out of the equation.

[00:15:48] So, you know, these are, these are a couple of ways, um, that I noticed that the successful subject figure sellers. You know, they’re getting off of Amazon to find product ideas. Yeah. Afterthat. Um, you know, I kind of, I noticed that another theme was, you know, the 80, 20 rule, right? And then, you know, especially with entrepreneurs, one of the biggest pains that we face is the lack of time.

[00:16:12] So I think, you know, Mike, you’re in the same boat as me. You know, we have families, we have our businesses, we’re traveling, but now we’re in lockdown. You know, we’re like, you know, pivoting. So, you know, lack of time is one of our biggest headaches, right? So, that’s why I was really shocked when I interviewed Jason Vandergriff.

[00:16:30] He’s a seven figure seller that we featured on summit. Uh, you know, ask them JC, I know you’re probably busy, you know, like, let’s set up a time. And he says, no, man, actually, I’m not busy. No, he, he actually, I mean, who says that? Right? He’s a one person, he’s a one person, million dollar business, you know, and then he shared that, um, you know, he applies the 80 20 rule to decide on what tasks to work on.

[00:16:57] And then more specifically, he follows, you know, Stephen Covey, um, who, who wrote that book, the seven habits of successful people. You know, there’s like that, um, the whole quadrant, right? Like the four, uh, the time management quadrant. And then he really focuses on the non urgent important tasks. So this way he doesn’t give them a chance to get bigger.

[00:17:21] And then this saves some time later. And then so he really focuses on like the non-urgent but important tasks. Okay. Another seven figure seller, Brandon Dupesky. He also built a $1 million one person business selling one product had then working one hour per day. By applying, what do you call the, the big profit for me.

[00:17:45] So Brandon really focuses on the smarts that make money, and then he outsources the tasks that are moving money. So he shared that the big profit formula is small work. Times. Big smart. Okay. So he really focuses on the smarts and the tasks that make money and outsource the tasks or moving money. So for example, she will focuses, she’ll focus on tasks such as creating videos featuring himself and his children, showing customers how to use their products.

[00:18:15] And then this helps boost his sales and his brand, and then he’ll outsource more of the administrative tasks, the more the bookkeeping tasks. Okay. And then, uh, I also, um, spoke with seven figure Amazon sellers, Alex and Jerry Mills, and they’re a husband and wife duo based in the us. And you know, they apply the 80, 20 rule.

[00:18:37] They focus on launching new products and optimizing their PPC campaigns and then outsourcing the rest of their work. So in other words, they outsource the other tasks that are moving money so they can focus on the smart tasks are making money and creating big profits. So, um. That’s the big profit formula.

[00:18:57] That sounds, that sounds good. So going back to the 80 20 and. Do you know if they, some people do it all themselves. So does the others in that you talk to, do they have teams? I mean, I can, are these people full time for this or I’m kind of curious myself. I mean, are they, um, they’re probably remote workers online.

[00:19:18] Yeah. I mean, virtually everybody that I spoke with, they, if they even, they call themselves one person, million dollar businesses, they have a team, right? So they usually, it’s a remote team. You know, they could be, you know, VA’s in the Philippines on, they could have, you know, programmers, um, you know, in India they’ll have other, um, you know, like, um, you know, like web developers in, uh, Eastern Europe for example.

[00:19:44] The reason they do that is because of the lower costs. And you know, nowadays, you know, there’s even like, you know, Google level engineers, um, you know, there are, you know, maybe they don’t want to work in Silicon Valley and they return to their home country, but they’re still working in a very high quality.

[00:20:01] And then they’re willing to work at a level that’s acceptable to them, but will be very cheap according to Western standards. Um, so that, that’s, um, that actually leads us to the next. Big takeaway that I, I learned, which is building a superstar team. Um, so when I was traveling in Thailand in Chiang Mai, I met up with Nate Ginsburg.

[00:20:23] Uh, he’s a seven figure seller, and then, you know, he’s a digital nomad. He spends a lot of time traveling in Southeast Asia. He sold his Amazon business for nearly a million dollars. So when I had asked Nate how he built his business to sell it for almost seven figures, he said it was because of his superstar team.

[00:20:40] He couldn’t have done it himself. So, um, you know, diving deeper, I, I found it not that he really hired for his weaknesses. So Nate is an ideas person, right? So he’s not so detail oriented. So he really hired people to kind of fill that gap, to build that team that was detail oriented, to make his business stronger.

[00:21:00] And then I also wanted to dig deeper into learning the benefits of working with a superstar team. And then I learned that, you know, your team not only supports you, but you can also learn valuable information from them. So for example, CJ Rosenbaum, he runs a successful law firm to help Amazon sellers protect their brands that get their account back from suspensions.

[00:21:24] So CJ, you know, based in New York. He meets with his team every day to learn what’s working and what’s not working, because his team is on the front line with their customers every day. So they’re interfacing with their customers, and then his team members know the customer’s key pain points and goals.

[00:21:43] So this information is like super valuable because it helps CJ tailor his services to meet their demands and to grow. And then, uh, I don’t know about you, but one of the flip sides of running a remote team is to, to motivate them to perform better. Because, you know, a lot of times, you know, we hear stories about, you know, BAS just go, you know, AWOL, they disappear.

[00:22:06] They’re not responsive. So. I spoke with Mike Jackness. He’s a seven figure seller and that he runs e-com crew, uh, about, you know, how he was able to build a relationship with his remote team, uh, in the Philippines. So, Mike shared that he visits his team of VAs in the Philippines every year and spends time with them.

[00:22:27] In person. So he, for about a week, he works with them in the same office. You know, he spends time socializing with them, you know, outside of the office, over meals, even karaoke and other team building activities. So obviously right now we’re in lockdown, but you know, assuming that things would return to semi normal, you know, this is one of the key ways that, um, you know, you can help.

[00:22:52] Motivate your team to do better. And then similarly, Jason banner grant, he visits his team in Europe and then he even went to celebrate the birth of their children. So, you know, one of the beauties of running an online business is that, you know, Jason’s able to make a trip out of it, you know, to travel and run his business at the same time, you know, being eCommerce entrepreneur.

[00:23:14] So I’m building a superstar team that’s, that’s critical. That does sound amazing. I mean, I totally agree with the seeing the team in person, although it happened right in the middle of lockdown for me this time, I always in the middle of three when the lockdown happened, but it’s for sure night and day when they meet the meet the people.

[00:23:34] Although I do have to admit, I don’t know if some people I talked to are afraid to meet their team because they’re afraid that they’re team will. Look at them differently, but I don’t, I think he’s just a shy, introverted person. I definitely think if you were able to meet the people you work with, it’s definitely makes working together so much easier and more comfortable for everybody.

[00:23:56] Yeah, for sure. And I think that that’s universal. I mean, whether your team members are in the Philippines or you know, in America, and especially in China, right? I mean, I feel like the factories that I source from, they’re part of my team. And then, you know, every time I visit them, you know, we, you have lunch, you know, we break bread.

[00:24:17] I feel like that just adds to the relationship. So you know, when something goes wrong. Yeah, I don’t do by jail, but you know, it’s very popular. But you know, that really enhances things when things go wrong. You know, they’ll remember, Oh, you know, that’s Mike, right? I mean, like he sat down with the boss, they did like the shots and you know, so maybe you’ll get, you’ll get better service and like that random guy that only, you know, email us them over.

[00:24:40] I’ll be Bob. So I think that just getting some face time, that’s really important in building your team. Totally agreed, man. All right. Um, but yeah, of course, if you can meet the people in person. And I was wondering, did people actually have. A physical office. I need, any of these people, I think, or I’d probably not.

[00:25:02] Right. I mean, I don’t know. I would say the minority. I remember talking to, uh, Dave Bryant. He’s based in, um, I think Vancouver, Canada, and he did have a physical office for his previous e-commerce. Business, but he realized that it was a huge expense. And then it was, um, it was more, um, you know, on the cost of goods sold, like on the expense side of the P and, L and then like, he cut that off and then he has a remote team now.

[00:25:32] And then by doing that, he really dropped his expenses. And then, um, that actually boosted. The selling price of his business because it increases profitability, you know, based on that multiplier. And then, you know, you’re probably more familiar with that than I am, you know, with your work, you know, with alpha rock.

[00:25:49] But, um, but I would say the minority of people have, um, you know, like a physical office in, you know, where they’re based. I mean, assuming they’re in like the, the more expensive countries like the States, cause you were up. Okay. Yeah, I would agree. I mean, dusty, uh, you know, even with this lockdown, I mean, actually, even as locked down makes it even more, more important to work online, right?

[00:26:12] I mean, if you had all these expensive offices and he can’t get to them right now, and it’s unfortunately wasted money that, uh, that you don’t have, it. Yeah, and I noticed that some of the, the seven figure sellers, you know, I spoke to them since know, after a Corona, like Jason Vander grant in Toronto. You know, he’s actually, his business is exploding right now because, you know, he’s more.

[00:26:36] He’s in a better position to work in this type of situation because he worked remotely since before. Whereas some of his competitors, you know, they have, you know, like brick and mortar, like offline, uh, offices and those guys are scrambling. But then, you know, on his website, you put up front and center, you know, open for business during Covid 19.

[00:26:56] Right. And then, so he’s actually capitalizing on this. Just the fact that, you know, he’s so experienced, you know, working from home where everyone else, like they’re trying to learn zoom and you know, all that kind of stuff. So know he can’t be in there learning. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Um, yeah, I mean, there’s so many great points here.

[00:27:16] Let’s start to get a few more. This is really, yeah, definitely. Yeah. And then the next thing that I, I found out, um, a common theme was building a brand. Okay. For your eCommerce business, this is more critical than ever to rank your products. You get reviews. Not only that, but also to sell your business for a higher multiple.

[00:27:39] Okay. So, you know, building a brand and it’s, it’s more and more important now, you know, given them increase competition. And then also I learned, um, that Amazon gives more weight to external traffic that drives sales. Okay. So, uh, Davis. He’s one of the speakers on the summit. He spent over $400,000 on Facebook ads for his own eCommerce businesses, and then he works with a number of seven and eight figure e-commerce sellers to rank their products on page one on Amazon.

[00:28:08] So in Dave’s experience, he shared that building an audience or a list on Facebook, it’s kind of like bringing a gun to a knife fight, right? Because you can launch to that list and you can rank new products on page one of Amazon. And then you can also use your list to get reviews, you know, white hat way that’s compliant with Amazon’s PLS.

[00:28:28] Okay. So, you know, bringing a knife to a gunfight. It kind of reminds me of that. You know, that old school Indiana Jones movie, you know, I’m dating myself, but you know what, the bad guy who’s brandishing like the swords and the Indy, he just looks at the guy, he pulls out his gun. Right? And what does he do.

[00:28:41] You just use the guy dead, right? So, you know, having a brand, you know, building an audience, building a list is more critical than ever. It’s almost like an unfair competition, you know, that you can bring, and then the fact that you drive external traffic onto Amazon, you, Amazon likes that because you’re.

[00:28:56] You’re bringing in new customers for them, and then, you know, Amazon can capture them as a prime customer. You know, they spend thousands of dollars on Amazon every year, so they actually, they place more weight when you drive external traffic. That drives sales. And then I’m going back to Chris Davey again.

[00:29:11] He shared that his branding is very important for him and his business because his brand is like a roadmap that helps him decide what products to launch to market. So he can really, he can actually map out his product portfolio. Based on what products will compliment his brand and what products to avoid.

[00:29:28] And then, also in terms of selling your business, I learned from Corrine Woodmass, the FDA broker. Um, having a tight brand of products helps you get a higher multiple if you decide to sell your business according to court. Okay. And then he says, on the other hand, um, if you only have like a hero product that generates the lion’s share of sales, and some of the.

[00:29:52] Other minor products that just like trickle in, that’s not very attractive to buyers. Um, so the takeaway from this was that building a brand to beat your competitors and sell for a higher multiple, that’s very critical. Uh, today, I don’t know if you have anything to add to that in terms of, you know, with your experience with M and a and stuff like, is branding right?

[00:30:11] Does it affect you selling your business at all? I guess it depends on the buyer and depends on what they’re going to try to do with it. Like if they’re just trying to buy a revenue and just maybe consolidate it with other revenue and it’s just purely Amazon, you know, brands might not be as sensitive about the brand, but I think those that are trying to really build maybe third party traffic, trying to grow.

[00:30:32] It also depends. Maybe if the buyer. There’s also looking for, the team is looking for, for that to be their main brands. Do they have other brands already? Is this something they’re trying to do longterm? So it, but most of the quiet, nobody’s to say it’s not good out the brand, but some people sometimes when we look at things within my alpha rock hat on is, or might be looking more for the ranking and the velocity, but of course the brand helps.

[00:30:58] As for surethe next big takeaway that I noticed is that, for keywords for PPC, right? For advertising, uh, paper click campaigns on Amazon, you really need to find a balance of data with common sense so you don’t have to pay the idiot tax. Okay. So when it comes to Amazon sponsored search, um, like many of the people out there, including myself, you know, we’re, sometimes we struggle to run profitable PPC campaigns, right?

[00:31:26] So I spoke with Stefano Starkel, he’s a seven figure Amazon seller and founder of his own tools. And then Stephano share that, you know, his strategy in the initial six to 12 months of running a PPC campaign, his aim is to only break even. And then his goal during this time is to mine the valuable keyword data from Amazon for search terms that can work.

[00:31:50] So the reason in terms of like profitability is, um, is the lack of market data. And you know. Amazon is a pay to play game. So the more you pay in PPC, he finds is the better the ranking of your product. And then only after this initial six to 12 month period, we’ll Stefan with decide whether to shift the aim from breakeven to profitability.

[00:32:10] And then also when it comes to keyword selection, he recommends that you use your brain. Okay. And not just relying on a formula based on number of clicks, conversion rate, cost, et cetera. He says that every week you got to download your search term report. You got to manually review keyword to decide if it’s relevant or not.

[00:32:30] So in other words, um, I’m not going to curse, but he says to focus down on fem keywords. That makes sense when people search for your product rather than, you know, diluting or budget across, like less relevant keywords with low conversion rates and then wasting your money and dragging down your conversion rate at the same time.

[00:32:48] And then you’ll be paying. The, the idiot. Okay. And, uh, another seven figure seller a day. Brian, he also, um, he shared a similar strategy when I interviewed him. You know, I asked him how does he increase his profitability or his business with, uh, PPC? And then he shared that he cuts out 80% of potential keywords and focuses only two to three keywords for his PPC campaigns to get a higher ROI or return on investment.

[00:33:17] So 80, 20 rule, and you’ll focus on the most relevant to FES search terms by using your brain to decide whether or not to relevant. Don’t just try to rely on some formula. And then, um, also I notice another big takeaway is when interviewing the seven figure sellers, like the number one quote. That was repeated over and over again was Peter Drucker’s quote, whatever gets measured gets managed.

[00:33:42] Okay. So, Chris Davies products have over 30% margin, and he says that you should ask yourself if your product has enough margin for PPC. If you do, then you can afford to outspend your competition. You can buy your way to the top. The key is though, is that Chris, he knows his numbers, okay? So whatever he gets measured gets managed, and then Chris Rawlings, a seven figure Amazon seller, he shared that.

[00:34:08] Now he gets super granular with launching a new product, so every day he, his team, they’re tracking all the metrics in a 35 day honeymoon. I’m curious, you know, how many rebates are given out, how many reviews are getting? They’re getting their sales numbers, you know, all of these nitty gritty, all of these numbers.

[00:34:25] He gets super granular. And then Robin Johnson also on a seven figure seller, she also tightly trashed her Amazon product conversion rates. And so every week she pulls her Amazon special reports and studies them to learn what’s working well and what’s not. And then I also noticed that you can automate this process by using tools such as seller board, to track your sales and century kit to track keyword ranking and monitoring your listings to save you tons of time.

[00:34:54] And, You know, John, Kevin, Daesh, you know, he shared hat when selling internationally, you have to keep an eye on your Amazon fees to bring your international sales revenue back to your home country and home currency. Uh, so John Calvin knishes at Southern figure seller selling you an Amazon. And in fact, when it comes to, um, when it comes to this, I, I made this mistake the first year when I sold internationally, when I use Amazon’s default currency exchange and money transfer service.

[00:35:24] Um, I mistakenly thought that, you know, they will be a good option. And then later I discovered at the end of the year when I was reviewing the books with my bookkeeper, you know, we had. Wasted thousands of dollars in exchange fees and money’s transfer fee, money transfer fees paid to Amazon because Amazon was charging almost 3.9% in fees.

[00:35:43] So if, yeah, they’re, they’re crazy. Right? So if I were to give myself advice when starting to sell internationally and you don’t bringing these revenues back home, you know, I would recommend to use a payment transfer service, you know, like ping pong, for example. To lower these fees from 3.9% to 1% or even lower.

[00:36:03] So, I mean, just by doing that alone, you can save thousands of dollars a year rather than using Amazon’s currency exchange and money wire services. Uh, but the key thing is, again, you know, Peter Drucker, whatever gets measured, gets managed. Yeah, totally agreed. We’re really given a lot of, I mean, here, we’re giving amazing value here.

[00:36:23] Yeah. Yeah. The audience, they’re welcome to check out the seven figure seller summit to check out the full sessions. But if, you know, because of time, if we just talk about one more, I really want to talk a little bit about selling a business, because I think that’s the end game. You know, that’s, you know, I’ve read, you know, coach saying that, you know, like half of the money that sellers make is actually from the Isaac.

[00:36:44] So, you know, nowadays, you know, you gotta be very smart selling a business to get a higher multiple. Um, and then, you know, back in like 2016, if you were to say that you went to sell an Amazon business, you know, people thought you were probably crazy, right? Who in their right mind will buy an Amazon business.

[00:37:01] But now the landscape has shifted significantly know more and more Amazon businesses are. Consider legitimate investment vehicles, even investors, they’re getting into my action, you know, from retirees to institutional investors, right? So, um, but you know, it’s not just roses, for example, because I learned from corn Woodmass they have to be a broker.

[00:37:24] There’s actually an abundance of Amazon businesses on the market today, and then there’s only a 23%. Sell through rate according to Corrine. So that means that less than one, and for Amazon businesses that go to market are actually sold. And in other words, there’s more sellers than buyers on the market today.

[00:37:43] So I asked, you know, what can you do to increase the chances of selling and get it at a higher multiple being, you know, one of those four, right? That’s 25%. So, um, you know, I actually, I asked you, Mike, I don’t even remember in your interview, you know, you weren’t on the buy side alpha, right? Um. You know, I asked you as well, you know, the same question and you know, my, maybe I’ll save your answer for the end, you know, so you can, I can hear it from you, but, um, before we get to you, uh, you know, I talked to a couple other, other, um, sellers, um, you know, Mike Jackness, Nate Ginsburg, you know, uh, each of these guys, they sold their Amazon business, this business for almost seven figures or more.

[00:38:21] Number one, you need a tightly focused brand portfolio of products. Again, not just the hero product and less scattered products. The products should be appealing to a common target audience and know they should complimenting each other. I’m also. Um, you know, net margins, um, according to them, buyers like to see net profit margins of 30% or higher.

[00:38:44] Uh, thin margins are not attractive to buyers and may cause your business to be skipped over. And, um, in addition, buyers like to see some. Diversification sales away from Mt is at least 30%. So it’s less risky for them. You know, you don’t have all your eggs in one basket, right? So this can be in the form of selling on different platforms, such as selling on your own website, Walmart, et cetera, or in different marketplaces such as you work such as Europe, but you can’t just be like, you know, like one product that’s amounting to like, you know, 1% of sales.

[00:39:15] It has to be at least 30% to be substantial. Um, and then. There were a couple other things as well. But um, Mike, why don’t you, you weigh in on that as well cause you, you gave some really great nuggets in your interview as well. A little bit different, different than some other buyers were like the strategy Alpha Rock.

[00:39:33] Cause I’m surely Amazon businesses. Yeah. It was on revenue. I don’t think we. Which is opposite of what maybe others. And I know other other people on the show said on your, uh, on your summit, said, but, um, we’re, we’re looking to get more, more revenue and we’re, we’re consolidating. And sometimes we even combined the accounts and things like that.

[00:39:49] But, well, I would say also having clean books, we also look for a little bit more than, you know, I think a lot of people selling our business do it less than a year. You know, I think you need at least a year of history. I don’t know if other people. Uh, in your summit says, so, but we, we want to live in more track history of possible, we don’t want too much seasonality.

[00:40:08] Usually, um, we don’t pick certain categories we don’t like, we don’t want, we want longterm evergreen products. Boring stuff is usually, sex is not sexy, but better. Like, I guess that goes into the profitability like you talked about. Um, the others. Highlights, I’d say. Yeah. Excellent. And then one other thing that I really liked that you shared, Mike, is that, you know, give them something that they can improve on, right?

[00:40:33] Just give them some upside to your business that the buyer can take action. And then, um, you know, this, this can increase your chances of selling your business and also increase. Yeah. Increase the multiple that came from you that came from you. I mean, because the buyer, if they see is totally perfect, they want to see something that they can fix, you know, I usually, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:40:53] And then, uh, I remember the example you gave is that, you know, you may be able to have like a few more bedded products. That you haven’t been able to develop, because, for example, that lack of cashflow, right? But the buyer, they can come in, they can get these products manufactured from your suppliers and sold immediately to boost sales, right?

[00:41:12] So, um, you know, that’s like a quick win for them. And then I really like that, that, um. That takeaway that you shared. So yeah, those would be some of the top tips. You know, knowing selling a business, but just like the mindset, um, you know, getting around excuses, building your] team, building a brand, um, you know, using our brain when it comes to PPC so you don’t pay the idiot tax.

[00:41:35] And, you know, also number one quote, whatever gets measured gets managed. Yeah. That on a high level, you know, that’s what I learned from the seven figure seller summit. I mean, this is only the tip of the iceberg. You know, we have probably 20 hours of interviews if you want to check that out. Yeah. You have so much value there.

[00:41:52] I mean, the names are amazing and have an experience and the people and, and uh, you know, we’ve been recommending it in our, in our newsletters and our, and our social media. So definitely if you guys haven’t checked out Gary’s, uh, some figure seller summit, definitely, definitely take a look and we’ll link to it in the show notes as well so people can find it right away.

[00:42:11] Yeah. Perfect. And then I think that, you know, especially right now, we’re recording this during the whole pandemic. Um, you know, a lot of people that are kind of stuck at home, um, you know, maybe they’re, they’re bingeing on Netflix and not being the most productive person. Now I’m guilty of that as well. Um, but I, I think that right now it’s a great.

[00:42:30] It’s a great opportunity to, to stop bingeing on Netflix and start, you know, surrounding yourself with successful entrepreneurs like Mike and all these other seven figure sellers and level up your business. So yeah, I recommend you check it out. Seven figure seller summit.com. Awesome. Thanks so much, Gary, for sharing that.

[00:42:48] It’s really, really appreciated that you really gave me some value just on this. So there’s obviously so much more if, uh, if everybody’s enjoying this one, there’s only that which says that much more with [00:43:00] what Gary has. All right, man. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you, Mike, for having me. It’s been a pleasure and I’m happy to help, however I can.

[00:43:09] No, I appreciate it, man. I hope we catch up with you soon. I mean, in, in real life. I don’t know when that’s going to be. Hopefully, but I mean, at least we can do this, you know?

[00:43:24] Excellent. We’ve been trying some new things at gfavip.com our online private membership. We, I’ve been kind of opening up the kimono. What have I learned from Tim Ferriss? He has some event called opening the kimono. So we’ve of course, got all of our courses, all of our forums, but we’ve been doing even more calls and they’re not just normal calls.

[00:43:45] They’re like business calls, you know, I’m just kinda lining up people like guests on this show. Different calls I have with like, you know, mentoring I’m doing, I’m just trying to make it. Everything’s so transparent and it’s been actually pretty freaking amazing cause it’s just kind of throw it into the GFA VIP forum and say, Hey guys, we’re gonna do a call with these people about this, like e-commerce.

[00:44:04] We’ll kind of drop ship things, kind of trading thing. If you want to jump in, you know, you can just jump in. And we got people popping in and out of these calls it’s, you know, everybody working online. So it’s kind of fun. So it’s like an extension of this. Uh. Private community. If you want to check it out and get an inside, it’s of course a paid membership.

[00:44:20] We just have a yearly fee, pretty reasonable. gfa a vip.com we support our show. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Gary. I know you’re out in Japan and, uh, with your wife and kids and, uh, it’s, uh, it’s been really crazy time for all of us. I, uh, I appreciate you taking the time to share with us here at the global from Asia podcasts.

[00:44:45] I, I mean, I hope people got something out of that. I mean, I think whether you’re Amazon and e-commerce seller or business owner in general, I think he could learn quite a bit from that amazing interview. Me, man. He was just dropping value bombs one after another. It was like a mass bombing here of value.

[00:45:01] So thank you, Gary. It definitely, I mean, I recommend you guys. If you want to chip in a little bit for what he’s doing, and you should check out the seven figure seller summit. We link it in the show notes and I think we’ll try and get an affiliate code there. I dunno, I try my best to get some affiliates income if possible, but if not, just go there.

[00:45:19] I mean, just go direct to his website, buy from him, support him, support what he’s doing, support these amazing people, creating amazing value for what we’re doing here. And I hope you guys are in. Girls are learning and making action. I, uh. I am really, really busy as is, as you can imagine with this PBE stuff.

[00:45:39] And, uh, there was some other insight news that a lot of Chinese, Amazon sellers got their accounts shut down because of the selling of PPE on Amazon. From what I understand, there was a, the song Zack Franklins Panda leap group, he was sharing videos of upset Chinese Amazon sellers getting kicked out because of, restrictions from,.

[00:46:03] Amazon on selling these masks and other PPE materials. So I actually have saved some of my friends or listeners here trying to buy and load pipe. They told me they were going to try to sell the masks on Amazon. I actually refunded it. One of our, uh, my friends, I mean, I call you guys my friends. So he was going to buy a quite a bit of masks on load pipe to sell into, um, Germany on Amazon, Germany.

[00:46:28] And then he was asking me for documentation and what tasks to do to get on Amazon for his masks. You know, don’t want to talk about my wife too much, but, uh, yeah. Sometimes. There’s more to life than just money. You know, I’m an artist. I’m a creator. I’m trying to create value, longterm business. So we refunded them.

[00:46:45] We’re just like, I’m like, sorry dude, I can’t take disorder. I’m afraid for your Amazon account. You sell normal stuff. You know? This is not what you normally sell. You know? Be careful. So, um, you know, I felt good to kind of re um, it was kinda mixed feeling cause it was a bank wire. So we had to wire it was wired in and I had to wire it back.

[00:47:04] But that’s what I’m trying to do, you know, with the, the Loadpipe is just another extension of this community. It’s just another part of what we’re doing here at Global From Asia. You know, uh, trying to help people get product, get access to things, get access to better pricing. So I hope you can, uh, can check it out.

[00:47:21] You know, we’re, we’re, every week we’re trying to do a group buy. And, uh, we, we got your back. You know, we, we got your back. I don’t want to just [00:47:30] do it any, it’s not about money always. It’s about making people have a better life for themselves and businesses. One way you can make a better life for yourself, right?

[00:47:38] So wherever you are in the world, I hope you’re taking action. And I know it might be hard right now. You might be, hopefully you’re a counselor not getting banned. Hopefully your sales are okay. Hopefully you’re doing okay with business and life. But a step by step and try to think long term, not short term.

[00:47:57] You know, of course, short term sounds good. You can get some money in your bank account, you could do something quick deal to make some cash. But it’s really about the longterm. So I hope you’re, I hope that makes you think about it. And then Amazon as well, you know, building a brand, nothing is overnight.

[00:48:11] Nothing is overnight. You know, all these overnight successes, their stories are about the 10 years to 20 years. So they were working their butts off, or maybe at least a few years, you know. That’s at least what I say, you know, you can not believe me and keep trying to go here and get rich quick scams and your courses that will promise you millions of dollars, but I’m not selling that.

[00:48:30] So with that, I think I’m gonna go see my kids again and, uh, discuss the wife, what apartment to move into in Shenyang. It’s a three hour drive to the North Korea border. But Google maps doesn’t show you that. I guess Google maps doesn’t cover North Korea. Unbelievable world. Unbelievable world. Thank you so much again.

[00:48:53] I hope you enjoy this. And again, I as I was begging for reviews, hopefully I don’t get banned on Apple iTunes for asking for reviews, but reviews do help. So let me know if you can do that. I appreciate it. Have a great rest of your week or day or night or morning or afternoon, wherever you are, whatever year you’re listening to this.

[00:49:15] Take care. Bye bye.

[00:49:21] To get more involved in running an international business. Please visit our website@wwwdotglobalfromasia.com that’s www.globalfromasia.com also, be sure to subscribe to our iTunes feed. Thanks for tuning in.