In today’s episode, we’re diving into the exciting world of e-commerce with Neil Twa, co-author of Almost Automated Income with FBA. Neil has spent over a decade helping businesses go from nothing to building scalable, profitable brands that thrive on platforms like Amazon, TikTok, and more. E-commerce is one of the fastest-growing opportunities in digital marketing, offering incredible potential for entrepreneurs who are ready to identify profitable niches, connect with their ideal customers, and leverage multiple sales channels. Whether you’re new to the game or want to scale your current business, this episode is packed with insights to help you grow your brand and even prepare for a lucrative exit. Get ready to learn how to turn your ideas into income!
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Speaker 1: Have you ever wondered how to build a thriving
00:00:03
e-commerce business from scratch, even without a product
00:00:07
or experience?
00:00:07
In this episode, we're joined by Neil Twa Now he spells his
00:00:11
name N-E-I-L, but I won't hold that against him.
00:00:14
He is the co-author of Almost Automated Income with FBA, and
00:00:19
he will break down the strategies to find profitable
00:00:22
products, scale a brand and even prepare for a multi-million
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dollar exit.
00:00:27
Whether you're just starting out or looking to take your
00:00:30
existing businesses to the next level, this episode is packed
00:00:33
with actionable insights.
00:00:35
Speaker 2: So stay tuned to this next episode of your Digital
00:00:38
Marketing Coach Podcast digital social media content, influencer
00:00:44
marketing, blogging, podcasting , vlogging, tick-tocking,
00:00:47
linkedin, twitter, facebook, instagram, youtube, seo, sem,
00:00:52
ppc, email marketing.
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There's a lot to cover.
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Whether you're a marketing professional, entrepreneur or
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business owner, you need someone you can rely on for expert
00:01:04
advice.
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Good thing you've got Neil on your side, because Neil Schaefer
00:01:10
is your digital marketing coach helping you grow your business
00:01:18
with digital.
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First marketing, one episode at a time.
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This is your digital marketing coach and this is Neil Schafer.
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Speaker 1: Hey everybody, this is your digital marketing coach,
00:01:32
neil Schafer.
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Welcome to episode number 395 of the your Digital Marketing
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Coach podcast.
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You know I cover a wide variety of industries in this podcast.
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I really try to serve any and every business, whether you are
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a nonprofit, a B2B, a consumer-focused brand or an
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e-commerce brand, and I know I have a lot of e-commerce
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marketers and e-commerce business owners that listen to
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this podcast.
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So today this is for you.
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But even if you're not in e-commerce, I think you're going
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to learn a lot, today at least, about brand building.
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So today we're diving deep into the world of e-commerce with
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Neil Twa.
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He is a seasoned entrepreneur and also co-author of Almost
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Automated Income with FBA.
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Neil, it sounds really weird to be saying my own name when I'm
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talking about my guests, but nevertheless, neil shares his
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blueprint for turning product ideas into profitable brands and
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scaling them to the point of a successful exit.
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Now he's going to give a lot of advice that I think, obviously
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if you're in e-commerce especially, but just a lot of
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advice that I think is going to make a lot of sense and that you
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are going to be able to apply to your business.
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So, whether you're a beginner or already in the e-commerce
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space.
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You'll learn how to identify opportunities, leverage
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platforms like Amazon and TikTok and optimize for growth.
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If you're serious about building a business that thrives
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in today's digital landscape, this interview is a must listen.
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So, without further ado, here's my interview with Neil Twa.
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Speaker 2: You're listening to your digital marketing coach.
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This is Neil Schaefer.
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Speaker 1: Hey, this is Neil Schaefer.
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Welcome to another exciting edition of the your Digital
00:03:14
Marketing Coach podcast.
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Today we are going to go deep into e-commerce and all the
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different ways and strategies and tactics that, even if you do
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not have a product today, how you can build a e-commerce
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powerhouse, find product, find profitability, build brand and
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even be able to exit.
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And, obviously, if you already are doing e-commerce or already
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have a product or service that you're thinking about doing
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e-commerce marketing for, you're going to get a lot out of
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today's episode.
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So today I have the author well , one of the co-authors of this
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book called Almost Automated Income with FBA Build a
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Profitable, lifestyle-driven Amazon Business Exit for
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Millions Even Without Any E-Commerce Experience.
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Neil is someone and we were just talking before we hit the
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record button but Neil is someone who has personally seen
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experienced brands that start with nothing, people that start
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with nothing, and have been able to build exitable businesses
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purely with the strategies that he's going to teach today.
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So, no matter where you are in your e-commerce journey, I think
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you're going to get a lot out of today's episode.
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So, with no further ado, neil, welcome to your Digital
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Marketing Coach podcast, my friend.
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Speaker 3: Well, thank you for having me on.
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I appreciate it.
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It's not very often I get to talk around with another.
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Neil, this is true.
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Speaker 1: I have to remind everybody I am the real Neil,
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because it's spelled with an A, but that's okay, the I spell is
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actually more popular.
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I get it.
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You got your phonetics right.
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I didn't All right, that's my mom's fault, nowhere.
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So, neil, you're over at Voltage and e-commerce is
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something, when we were born, might've been around, might not
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have been around, but obviously you become a real expert in
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really understanding how profitability, brand building,
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how all these things go together into creating a business that
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could be exitable should you want it to be.
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So my first question is how did you get started in the
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e-commerce world?
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Did you start with your own product?
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Were you an e-commerce consultant?
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Do you used to work at Amazon?
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Please do tell.
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Speaker 3: So I didn't work at Amazon.
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Although when I dropped out of college, I thought about going
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to work for Amazon, I thought about planting my butt outside
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their door just to try to get a job and get inside.
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I actually ended up going a different direction, but maybe
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it's fine where it ended up at.
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Long story short, I got into it through affiliate marketing
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after getting more online marketing as a part of my
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experience to build a management consulting firm that I had when
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I left IBM in 2007,.
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And I say I burned the boats and fired the man, but I didn't
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burn the bridges.
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I built a management consulting company ended up having 10
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consultings traveling the world underneath my brand and
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subcontracting the public and private sector, including IBM
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itself, and when that got going enough, I had some free time on
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my hands.
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I'm like, well, I need to market more of the business and make
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sure I do more of the online marketing.
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Got really good at it, actually enough that I was making more
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in marketing other people's products as I was learning the
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mechanism of online marketing than I was making in the
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management consulting firm.
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So I just shut that down and focused mostly on the online
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marketing side.
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That led me to doing really well with the direct response
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marketing side, but I didn't own the product, and so I'd run
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into constant problems with product and product owners who
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really weren't doing a great job with the product, although I
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was doing a great job with the marketing.
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So originally that occurred to me I need to own the entire
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thing, like I need to own the end to end.
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If I'm going to own the direct response, I need to own the
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product too.
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So as I got towards that understanding, I ran into a
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friend who said, hey, I'm selling some products on Amazon.
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I said, if it's anything like eBay, I don't want anything to
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do with it.
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He's like no, no, no, this is private label, this is branding.
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This is very different, you know, and I was like, well,
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explain it to me.
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So he showed me some of the and I saw that mechanism of traffic
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and direct response marketing and I thought, oh my gosh, this
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thing is going to be huge.
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Turns out, that little bit of epiphany was, of course, right.
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As you know, amazon today delivers it into the sixth
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largest logistics company in the world, and if you aren't
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ordering from Amazon then you probably don't exist in America.
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So it's become a juggernaut engine.
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But learned how to do the physical product backside of
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manufacturing creating the products, building the brands,
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trademarking it.
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I got in with a gentleman named Reed Larson who he and I hit it
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off right off the bat in a one-hour phone call 12 years ago
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.
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We've been doing business together ever since.
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He's a CFO, coo, mindset, very tactical, oriented in the
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details and the business operation side.
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I'm the direct response marketing CEO guy who kind of
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operates the front end of the business and the direction and
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overall vision of it, but together we make one entire
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brain.
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So owning the physical product and owning the direct response
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now is our business model.
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We own the end to end and from that it is not, by any
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definition, a side hustle or a hobby business.
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This is a full professional business of e-commerce, holistic
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channels.
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Amazon is just one of an omni-channel, multi-channel
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strategy.
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We deploy, and have gone on to do this for quite a long time 12
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years on the Amazon channel, because Amazon was a great place
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to start and prove and then move into multiple channels
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beyond it once we can capture that huge amount of demand that
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Amazon has and then move that into a full scale brand and then
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build it from growth to scale into an exit.
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So as we exit these companies, we go back and do it again and
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we're now actually into acquisitions as an incubator of
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products and brands, either brand new or those that are
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existing.
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We're now buying companies and adding them to our investment
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portfolio.
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Speaker 1: Very cool, Neil, and I totally sympathize with being
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the consultant and not having full control.
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So, no matter how well your marketing consulting is, if you
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don't execute on the product and the brand and everything else,
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then all of that works.
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So I totally get that and total respect.
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One thing I want to ask you about this is something we don't
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really talk about or I've never talked about in this podcast,
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which is the concept of direct response marketing, which maybe
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some people don't think goes hand in hand with e-commerce or
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omni-channel.
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Well, I guess it is obviously one channel, part of
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omni-channel, but think of direct response as more of like
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old school traditional marketing , traditional internet marketing
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.
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Sure, Can you educate us on direct response marketing, what
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it means and how it applies to everything you talked about?
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Speaker 3: Well, I will do my best.
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From my perspective, direct response is just an ability to
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talk to a consumer, meet the needs and the questions in their
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head and get them to come to a realization that whatever
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problem or solution or opportunity they're trying to
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attach a product to is going to be the one that we're selling
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them.
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So we call it problem reaction solution, which is a concept of
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direct response marketing.
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If I can build the problem, or they have a problem that's been
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built in their mind from an audience conversation or a
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conversation with their mom, dad , sister, uncle or somewhere
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with their friends, and there is a product that they believe
00:09:36
will fit that solution, then I want to create the reaction in
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their mind that says, oh, it's that brand that can solve this,
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it's that brand that has the answers to my problem, it's that
00:09:50
brand that has the product.
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Well, I want that product.
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That's the solution that I'm after.
00:09:52
And understanding how to speak to that right avatar, talk to
00:09:53
their language, is a direct response.
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Whether you're doing it through direct mailing, whether you're
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doing it through a newspaper, online advertising, is basically
00:10:00
the same thing, it's just a different media.
00:10:02
So how do I communicate in direct response?
00:10:05
Through creatives, video, language, graphics, et cetera,
00:10:09
just come down to a system by which online can be done
00:10:12
extremely fast much faster than pushing a lot of stuff out to
00:10:16
newspapers, simply faster than going to billboards and much
00:10:19
quicker than sending out, you know, just regular direct
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response.
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Now here's the thing I know about direct response because
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we've been testing it in the e-commerce world.
00:10:26
It actually works really well, much better for the 18 to
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24-year-old demographic, the ones who don't normally get mail
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, who have been really inundated their entire lives with
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communications devices and marketing online.
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They're actually buying in the fastest buying demographic for
00:10:42
direct mailing campaigns.
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So if you've got a product or service that's touching 18 to 24
00:10:47
year olds, you need to be direct response mailing.
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It's really easy this day and age to create a 16 by nine
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insert and upload all your data directly into the U S post
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office and have them ship all of that directly to your consumers
00:10:58
with your call to action to come check out your product or
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service.
00:11:01
If you're selling products and physical products in that space
00:11:04
18 to 24 year old range, you should definitely be hitting
00:11:06
them up with traditional old school direct response cards in
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the mail.
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I love it.
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They love to get mail.
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Speaker 1: What is?
00:11:13
Speaker 3: old is new again.
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It really has come cyclical right.
00:11:16
In the online response world the grow is the fastest growing
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market segment for us is 40 plus typically ladies, 40 plus in
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age.
00:11:21
40 plus typically ladies, 40 plus in age.
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They buy 80% of everything online.
00:11:24
When it comes to, you know, the physical product, the
00:11:27
consumable goods, home goods, you know, outdoor goods, et
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cetera, up from 50 to $200 in retail price point, they are
00:11:36
buying the most amount of stuff online.
00:11:37
So once we get into products that meet and match that demand
00:11:39
segment, we can distribute that into multiple products and brand
00:11:41
variations that can meet the demand and the need of that
00:11:44
customer and once they're bought into that brand, they're bought
00:11:49
into that brand.
00:11:50
You know, when my wife was picking out certain baby types
00:11:51
for our kids, she eventually came up with Carter's as the
00:11:52
right kind of clothes and material in the fabric and the
00:11:55
price point, and so all of our kids got outfitted in Carter's
00:11:59
clothes for quite a long time because it became her choice for
00:12:02
that kind of product.
00:12:05
Her kind of choice in strollers became the kind of.
00:12:06
We ended up with three or four strollers and while this was the
00:12:08
one that did the best for our kids, we have four daughters and
00:12:11
we had all of them in four and a half years, so we needed like
00:12:13
multiple strollers and multiple bags and multiples of everything
00:12:16
times four.
00:12:17
So she became, you know, really driven to you know, figure out
00:12:21
what was the best of those versions that worked for us but
00:12:24
also, you know, was cost effective and, and so she became
00:12:26
very driven into certain types of consumer brands and I watched
00:12:29
her as a as a segment of that emotional now that our daughters
00:12:32
are in their teens, and I see the way she does it.
00:12:34
She's just a perfect segment of , you know, a big demographic
00:12:37
buying group online that you know needs once and is attached
00:12:41
to the emotional connectivity of these brands and what it means
00:12:43
to their family.
00:12:44
You dial that in and you can sell millions of dollars in
00:12:47
products.
00:12:47
Obviously, you got to do great at it.
00:12:50
Speaker 1: And the brand loyalty that exists.
00:12:51
I mean I, you know, I've been using Speedstick for decades,
00:12:57
right, so you know if I asked you, you know what's your.
00:12:58
Speaker 3: You like Android or iPhone.
00:12:59
You're going to tell me which one you like and you going to be
00:13:01
passionate about it because you've always owned it.
00:13:03
You know I've always owned iPhones and this is the reason.
00:13:04
And blah, blah, blah.
00:13:18
Yeah, I prefer New Balance over Nike.
00:13:19
It's for dads, right?
00:13:20
You know I always buy Hondas and not, or I would buy a Toyota
00:13:23
, but I'll never buy a Ford.
00:13:24
Right?
00:13:24
You have your incubate that product in there to define the
00:13:28
need and demand of that brand and once I have that dialed in,
00:13:32
I can then take that first system and automate it into
00:13:36
other marketing channels because it's a giant fulfilled by
00:13:39
Amazon, is a giant system and logistics company that Amazon
00:13:42
actually purchased and rebranded .
00:13:44
I can take that, understand the demographics, build a seven
00:13:48
figure brand on Amazon and then go to like TikTok shop and have
00:13:52
Amazon fulfill all the product orders for TikTok shop and then
00:13:54
I can open my direct response website or whatever and I can
00:13:57
have all the orders fulfilled by Amazon.
00:13:59
I can do a wholesale.
00:14:00
I can put out ads on media and channels and television and I
00:14:04
can have Amazon fulfill those products.
00:14:05
So once I create that base structure so I liked about
00:14:08
Amazon, quite honestly, is that it creates this spindle effect
00:14:12
of being able to not you have to touch the product.
00:14:15
Set up third-party logistics, go beyond complicated, you know
00:14:19
things like warehousing and employees, and you'll be able to
00:14:22
run this operation very lean and mean.
00:14:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, so literally right before you said TikTok, we
00:14:27
already got this question.
00:14:28
Do you use TikTok we?
00:14:28
Speaker 3: do use TikTok.
00:14:29
Yeah, it's a demand creation platform.
00:14:31
Okay, Think of, in the demand response world, okay, or the
00:14:35
demand marketing and direct response world.
00:14:37
We have demand creation and demand capture.
00:14:39
Okay, TikTok is a demand creation platform.
00:14:43
Products that have not been heard of, people that you don't
00:14:46
really know about, are influencing them and influence
00:14:48
marketing.
00:14:48
Videos are being pushed out across that system into millions
00:14:52
of views.
00:14:52
Live streams now are breaking records for the fastest live
00:14:55
stream In the last three months.
00:14:56
We went to the first one million dollar live stream Not
00:14:59
sure if you saw this or not, Neil and then that record got
00:15:02
broke a couple of months later with a two and a half and $3
00:15:04
million live stream, and then a $5 million live stream broke
00:15:07
that record.
00:15:07
And so that is a demand creation platform in a nutshell,
00:15:11
and so you should get on there when you know your audience and
00:15:14
you have your products and you understand where you're after,
00:15:16
and get that influence marketing behind it.
00:15:17
Now, 30% of our TikTok traffic flows backwards to Amazon, right
00:15:23
?
00:15:23
30% of the TikTok traffic we get flows backwards to Amazon,
00:15:26
meaning they go to Amazon to buy that product.
00:15:28
They don't necessarily like or trust the product.
00:15:30
They're not really sure they're going to buy it on TikTok.
00:15:32
Maybe they bought something, Maybe they don't.
00:15:34
They go over to Amazon 30% of the time and go is that product
00:15:37
there to check whether or not it's legitimate.
00:15:38
If it's legitimate and they find it, they may buy it.
00:15:41
If they don't find it, they're going to buy another one, just
00:15:43
like it from somebody else.
00:15:44
Okay.
00:15:45
So when you have that demand capture platform, that's how we
00:15:49
see Amazon.
00:15:49
There's a SEO organic traffic flowing 24-7, 365 at 8 units
00:15:56
a minute.
00:15:57
Neil, 8 units a minute.
00:15:58
So that is a demand capture platform.
00:16:00
Okay, People are there.
00:16:02
They understand it.
00:16:02
They know how to buy something and return something If they
00:16:05
don't like it.
00:16:05
They know they can leave negative reviews or they can
00:16:07
leave positive reviews.
00:16:08
They understand that ecosystem.
00:16:09
Today they can subscribe and save and have things show up
00:16:11
every month or every quarter If they want certain things.
00:16:14
People really get it.
00:16:15
Now they're getting sophisticated.
00:16:17
So in yes for tick tock from a demand creation.
00:16:19
If I want somebody to know more about my product, if I want
00:16:22
more people to influence the product by videos they're in
00:16:25
marketing they're making, then I go to TikTok and I set that up,
00:16:28
I attach it to my Amazon system and then I let it go so as long
00:16:32
as I feed the Amazon system and warehousing system with my
00:16:35
product and I have multiple channels that I can focus on and
00:16:38
capture demand in two different places, and these two play
00:16:41
really well together.
00:16:41
So much so that in the last week Amazon has now made an
00:16:45
arrangement with TikTok to actually allow the ordering of
00:16:47
Amazon products through TikTok shop directly.
00:16:49
So this is going to become a very powerful unit here shortly.
00:16:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a lot you know.
00:16:53
Just to point out, I have a Gen Z daughter and she is
00:16:56
purchasing brands that I have absolutely never heard of and
00:16:59
she's on TikTok several hours a day.
00:17:01
So you know, if you are not on TikTok, it is a world that you
00:17:05
don't understand, but it really is.
00:17:07
Speaker 3: It's a different world, no doubt.
00:17:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's driving tremendous.
00:17:09
Speaker 3: But here's what's fascinating you mentioned Gen Z,
00:17:11
but you should also understand demographically.
00:17:13
The fastest growing demographic is 40 plus on TikTok.
00:17:15
Speaker 1: Right.
00:17:16
Speaker 3: And so the capitalization of those who are
00:17:18
also that same demographic on Amazon has now approached and
00:17:22
grown as the fastest demographic on TikTok.
00:17:23
So if you're selling to that demographic, you're now hitting
00:17:26
both spectrums.
00:17:27
Speaker 1: And with every day the demographic will age, like
00:17:30
it did for Facebook, for Instagram.
00:17:37
Speaker 3: And 100%, but it's aging like 10 times faster
00:17:39
through the TikTok shop mechanism than any other
00:17:40
mechanism yet, so its speed is huge.
00:17:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to take a step back and because already
00:17:43
we're getting a question, do niches matter?
00:17:45
And I want to get into that.
00:17:46
And obviously you're talking multi-channel, so Amazon is one
00:17:49
way of fulfillment and Shopify is another way of fulfillment
00:17:52
and there's other ways of fulfilling.
00:17:54
Speaker 3: They're all just omni-channels.
00:17:55
Speaker 1: It's all part of the strategy.
00:17:56
So getting to the niches matter , I think we need to begin with,
00:18:00
obviously, if you already have a business, it's one thing, and
00:18:08
if you want to leverage more of omni-channel e-commerce, direct
00:18:10
response marketing, everything you're talking about but if you
00:18:11
don't have a, you know, let's say, you're trying to think of a
00:18:13
new product or you see e-commerce is growing and
00:18:15
somehow you want your business to get into the action.
00:18:17
We talked before we hit the record button of this.
00:18:20
You know, from consumer driven to a product driven mindset,
00:18:24
that you can discover daily profits from products that you
00:18:28
buy on Amazon.
00:18:29
I'd like you to dig a little bit deeper into this, because I
00:18:31
think it does answer this sort of niche question.
00:18:33
Which is this product driven mindset?
00:18:35
What is it that we should be investing in to build brand
00:18:38
round?
00:18:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we call that .
00:18:40
What the heck do I sell right and who do I sell it to?
00:18:44
And there's a defined process and something you need to
00:18:46
understand that most people get backwards about this.
00:18:50
Ok, and this is not going to be radical, but for some people it
00:18:53
may sound kind of weird at first, but we don't actually
00:18:56
sell products to consumers.
00:18:57
All right, we sell product data to an AI engine as a direct
00:19:01
response marketer.
00:19:02
We're selling product data, the response, the images, the
00:19:06
graphics, the videos, and the realization of that digitally
00:19:08
consumed information is to create that problem, reaction
00:19:12
and solution in the mind of the consumer so that the product
00:19:15
that is received by them two days later or less fulfills the
00:19:19
transaction in the mind of the consumer and completes the loop
00:19:23
of credibility mind of the consumer and completes the loop
00:19:26
of credibility.
00:19:27
They're called the no like and trust relationship, right?
00:19:28
So that is simply a transaction old thing.
00:19:29
Now I'm going to create a great product.
00:19:30
That's number two.
00:19:31
To actually focus on is creating a great product.
00:19:33
Now we discussed a minute ago what we know great products are
00:19:36
from our own perspective.
00:19:36
We know, you know, certain shoe types or whatever aren't great.
00:19:39
They wear out.
00:19:39
We like certain burger joints versus other burger joints even
00:19:42
though there are 15, because we like their type of burger better
00:19:44
than the others, or maybe we like their price point.
00:19:46
You know we are consumer driven in that mindset.
00:19:48
But to turn that into a producer driven mindset is to
00:19:51
understand that there is a specific data set within each of
00:19:55
these niches.
00:19:56
That is an opportunity for me to jump in and, you know, create
00:20:01
a product that might initially be exactly like the other
00:20:04
product in the market, but I'm out there to prove can I sell
00:20:07
that product?
00:20:07
And this is a data-driven conditioning and analysis that
00:20:11
we go through to change that mind into a producer, to
00:20:13
discover those products, to validate the data and numbers
00:20:17
and profitability correctly what we call going by the numbers
00:20:20
and then to understand who I'm selling it to and ensuring I'm
00:20:23
dialing in and optimizing that language and conversion,
00:20:26
language, image graphics, et cetera to get them to buy my
00:20:29
product faster.
00:20:30
So we're just kind of tweaking the dial on that lock a little
00:20:33
bit, right.
00:20:33
So with that then I can innovate products we don't
00:20:36
invent.
00:20:36
We innovate in ideas and changes to those products, a
00:20:40
little bit of R&D in which we can take that and expand it into
00:20:42
greater profitability.
00:20:44
Okay, since it's already existing in the marketplace.
00:20:46
We don't have to question whether or not there's demand
00:20:48
for it.
00:20:48
We don't have to question whether or not someone wants
00:20:50
this product.
00:20:51
We can go in and find out that they want it 17 million searches
00:20:54
a year.
00:20:55
So the question is how do I take up a percentage of that?
00:20:58
And then how do I grow into the percentage of market share for
00:21:00
that product?
00:21:01
And then what we define as you've ever read good to great
00:21:04
by Jim Collins is going from good to great is actually
00:21:11
getting into a niche, staying in the niche and becoming a
00:21:12
hedgehog as you hedgehog down into that niche.
00:21:13
It goes something like this in the physical product, private
00:21:16
label world that we work in, not the product, wholesale product
00:21:20
flipping nonsense.
00:21:20
That's not what we do, not a side hustle, not a hobby
00:21:23
business.
00:21:24
This is full business, building with an exit in mind, a real
00:21:27
asset, and that is to define the data points by which these
00:21:31
products will be sellable and then understanding what makes
00:21:33
them great, so that we are able to speak in the terms of great
00:21:38
data, great product, great brand and simply sell more of that to
00:21:42
a consumer.
00:21:42
We go in and we hedgehog down.
00:21:44
So, for an example, if I were to say do you have an iWatch?
00:21:48
There's a good chance.
00:21:49
You probably have an iPhone, you have an iMac, you've got the
00:21:51
iPad.
00:21:52
You've got more of the same product in different packaging.
00:21:55
So we borrowed a trick from retail.
00:21:57
But on the consumer side it's not really that different.
00:22:00
It's just another transactional difference versus going down to
00:22:03
a store, versus buying one online, but the same
00:22:06
psychological output happens.
00:22:08
The same reaction occurs If I like the iPhone, I'm going to
00:22:11
get the iWatch.
00:22:12
If those become practical, usable, if I get certain status
00:22:15
or affinity or emotional response, I'm going to sell more
00:22:18
of those.
00:22:18
And that's a niche which means when we dial in a particular
00:22:21
product okay, like an air mattress that we sell on Amazon
00:22:25
then we're going to just sell more of the same product and
00:22:28
different packaging.
00:22:28
We're going to sell the big one , the large one, the extra one,
00:22:30
the black one, the gray one, the 18 inch one, the 24 inch one.
00:22:34
We're simply going to go deep into that niche.
00:22:35
So then we're going to end up with a brand that may have 12
00:22:38
SKUs doing 15 million a year in sales.
00:22:41
Right, because that's all that brand does.
00:22:42
Success is boring when you hedgehog Okay, it means I don't
00:22:47
have to go wonder can I sell outdoor gear?
00:22:48
Can I sell all this stuff?
00:22:49
It's I'm in that one brand, one niche, one, one variable and
00:22:52
I'm continuing to get deeper and deeper into that variable.
00:22:55
So I touch a consumer who's willing to buy two or three
00:22:57
versions of my product, tell their friends and family about
00:23:00
it, maybe leave me a positive review, and just keep digging,
00:23:03
digging, digging into that niche .
00:23:05
Speaker 1: So you know, taking a step back.
00:23:06
So this is a data-driven exercise in.
00:23:09
Is there actual, you know, using the tools, you know search
00:23:13
engine tools.
00:23:13
There's a number of Amazon tools to understand.
00:23:16
Speaker 3: We've built an entire system ourselves to do this.
00:23:19
We call it our green light dashboard system and it's based
00:23:21
on the metrics of selling tens of millions of dollars in 10
00:23:24
plus years of doing this.
00:23:25
We go by the data in that system green light, yellow light
00:23:28
, red light, competition analysis, what we call our
00:23:31
Amazon burden score, which is profitability above cost of
00:23:35
goods, sales, warehouse, manufacturing, marketing, et
00:23:38
cetera.
00:23:38
And that profitability number has to be at a certain point or
00:23:40
that score doesn't go green.
00:23:42
And when that data set goes green, competition is green.
00:23:45
There's no saturation or limited saturation we can
00:23:48
overcome and all the data set says go, then we're going to
00:23:51
test the market Right.
00:23:53
Speaker 1: Right, so that's like one step.
00:23:55
Then we have this like from good to great.
00:23:57
So are you reaching out to suppliers to add another feature
00:24:02
, or what does that look like in reality?
00:24:04
Speaker 3: So, once we do a market test and the market says,
00:24:06
hey, you got it right, we'll buy your units, we'll buy them
00:24:10
in volume.
00:24:11
We see that you like it.
00:24:12
Then I'm going to actually order a lot more units.
00:24:14
When I order a lot more units, that's when I actually innovate.
00:24:17
I don't innovate from the very beginning.
00:24:18
I simply go and say can I sell this?
00:24:21
Sales fixes everything first.
00:24:23
Now I know that I'm going to create a great product, so I'm
00:24:26
not abusing the market.
00:24:27
I actually want to provide for the market long-term with a
00:24:29
great product that is highly in demand and meets the solution
00:24:33
that the customer wants.
00:24:34
I am customer focused, value first.
00:24:36
By that equation, my purpose and value will equal profits.
00:24:41
If I do a great job, it'll be profitable and people will want
00:24:44
the product, like the product and it will be a good product.
00:24:46
So as they go to manufacturers and we say, okay, this product
00:24:50
is successful, I want a thousand units, I want a 40 foot
00:24:52
container, I'd like you to change these three to four
00:24:55
things of the product that make it unique, holistically mine,
00:24:59
and also increase the value of the product in the mind of the
00:25:02
consumer.
00:25:03
They could be things that they gave me feedback on.
00:25:05
They could be things in the process of walking through the
00:25:07
steps and method of getting it to market that I discovered
00:25:10
along the way they could be things that changed in trends
00:25:13
that are more real.
00:25:14
Time that says, oh, if I just do this one little thing to this
00:25:16
product, I'm matching up with the trend I see in the market
00:25:19
and it's going to be more in demand because of that, more
00:25:21
timely.
00:25:22
And so I'm going to make those small two or three or four
00:25:27
innovative changes to that product Again, make it uniquely
00:25:29
mine, make it market, make it trend, make it more valuable.
00:25:31
I can even increase the price point of the product when I do
00:25:34
that.
00:25:34
And then I'm going to make that product my full product launch.
00:25:37
I'm going to come back with known data, putting good money
00:25:40
after good product, knowing I can sell it.
00:25:42
And then I'm going to go to the market and say how profitable,
00:25:44
for how long can I make this product?
00:25:46
And my process is going to tell me, over 12 months, what's the
00:25:49
profitability of that single SKU if I'm moving X amount of units
00:25:53
every 90 days over a 12 month run rate.
00:25:56
So if I'm moving a thousand units every quarter and 4 a
00:25:59
year, I'm going to know what that total profitability for
00:26:02
that single SKU looks like and let's say it's 69 bucks
00:26:06
Great, that's what that product is going to do, at a minimum
00:26:09
with my data set knowing, in my process and system, it's what
00:26:12
it's going to be the outcome.
00:26:13
I'm going to go get 10 more of those, right, I'm going to go
00:26:16
and repeat 10 more of those.
00:26:17
I'm going to make a great brand .
00:26:19
Products have a life cycle they always do, but it's the brand
00:26:23
that lives on.
00:26:24
Do you understand that?
00:26:25
So if you're a direct response marketer, is the brand that
00:26:27
lives on, not the products.
00:26:29
That's why there's 10 burger joints and 15 pizza places and
00:26:32
your favorite soda pops have been around forever.
00:26:34
It's brand driven, right.
00:26:36
So I want to create that great brand, that intrinsic growth by
00:26:39
years three, four and five.
00:26:41
With that in mind, I have a saleable asset.
00:26:44
I have built a house that somebody wants.
00:26:46
It's worth a lot of value and I can take it to the market and I
00:26:49
can get multiples of EBITDA, multiples of profit for that
00:26:53
business and I can sell it for maybe a windfall.
00:26:56
Speaker 1: This is really amazing and you've sort of like
00:26:58
painted the picture of what this four step how to how to build
00:27:02
in an exit.
00:27:02
I want to get to that at the end, but in between I wanted to
00:27:05
ask you about understanding profitability.
00:27:08
So part of this was you mentioned sort of like test
00:27:11
marketing and then finding the product and then making
00:27:13
improvements.
00:27:14
Where do you take a step back and say is this going to be
00:27:19
profitable or not, and how do you assess that?
00:27:22
Speaker 3: From the very beginning.
00:27:23
I go by the numbers.
00:27:24
I'm going to have an 80% confidence that I know all the
00:27:27
costs of a single unit and then I know, after all of those costs
00:27:30
marketing, logistics, returns, warehousing, freight, taxation
00:27:34
and other things that I'm going to make a minimum of $12 in net
00:27:38
profit per unit.
00:27:38
If I can't make a minimum of $12 in net profit for one unit
00:27:42
sold, I'm not going to sell it.
00:27:43
So that means my retail price points have been 50 to 200 plus
00:27:48
in price point.
00:27:48
They average between 100 and $150 in retail price point.
00:27:51
For that reason I know when that product goes to market it
00:27:53
is going to have a profitable unit of sale From there.
00:27:56
My question is how many of those units can I sell profitably?
00:28:00
Now, if I sell 24 or 36 or $48 in profit per unit, I'm not
00:28:04
going to argue with that either.
00:28:06
Why?
00:28:06
Because if you're competing with me in the market and I'm
00:28:09
going to test market a product, I want to go see if I can do a
00:28:11
full launch into a full marketing engine behind this
00:28:14
product.
00:28:14
I want to know that I have more profit than you.
00:28:17
Why would I want to know that, neil?
00:28:18
What advantage would I have if I know that I've got more net
00:28:23
profit per unit than you do.
00:28:25
Speaker 1: Well, I'm assuming that you can outspend
00:28:27
out-advertise.
00:28:29
Speaker 3: He who acquires the most customers wins.
00:28:31
Yeah, thank you, dan Kennedy.
00:28:32
So the end result is I can acquire more people through my
00:28:39
paid marketing channel with a good return on that advertising
00:28:41
spend, a ROAS that allows me to acquire one both organically and
00:28:45
through pay-per-click mechanism on Amazon.
00:28:47
Okay, when I get a good what's called advertising cost of sale
00:28:52
and it is what it is Okay, a lot of people are like well, my
00:28:55
advertising cost of sale is 80%.
00:28:56
Well, that's fine.
00:28:57
What is your total advertising cost of sale?
00:29:00
That's the real metric to actually look at in terms of
00:29:03
physical product sales Amazon, tiktok, shop, any channel of
00:29:06
physical e-com product.
00:29:07
What's my total advertising cost of sale?
00:29:09
That means how many organic sales did I get and how many did
00:29:12
I acquire through pay-per-click marketing?
00:29:13
That total advertising cost of sale should be between eight to
00:29:16
15%.
00:29:17
When my total advertising cost of sale organic and paid is
00:29:21
eight to 15%, I blow my budgets up.
00:29:23
It means I can now acquire customers faster than you can,
00:29:27
okay, and as my total advertising cost of sale in this
00:29:30
first channel engine of Amazon, this happens in different ways
00:29:32
and I'll talk about that if you want to, but on Amazon it is an
00:29:35
organic return that occurs so, as I build in the data and
00:29:39
metrics, as my PPC gets better and comes down in, certain costs
00:29:43
and conversion rates go up, the organic side goes up.
00:29:47
My goal for every brand we launch, okay, is to get 60, 70,
00:29:51
and 80% of our sales through organic and 20 to 30% through
00:29:55
PPC.
00:29:55
When I have got those numbers correctly, okay, we call it the
00:29:59
10 click to one sale ratio.
00:30:00
That means for every 10 clicks I get one sale.
00:30:03
When I've got that dialed into, that organic engine and it's AI
00:30:07
system called the A9 engine, is going and turning on that data,
00:30:11
it is going to love me.
00:30:12
It's going to love me and it's going to have a new requirement
00:30:14
of me.
00:30:14
When I do that, it's going to require me to capitalize that
00:30:17
inventory.
00:30:18
If I feed that beast more inventory than you and I am also
00:30:22
acquiring more than you because I can Okay, I have $18 in
00:30:27
profit per unit and you have 10 and we're competing in the same
00:30:30
niche Well, I can use that extra $8 to acquire more customers
00:30:33
than you can.
00:30:33
You're going to lose, right?
00:30:35
So then I have to inventory above you.
00:30:37
If you've got a thousand units or 5 or 10 units, I have
00:30:41
to increase my inventory at or above you or the organic engine
00:30:45
of Amazon simply won't let me overtake your market share
00:30:47
because you're already meeting their customer demand.
00:30:49
So for me to take over their customer demand and prove that I
00:30:53
can meet the needs of that customer, I have to have enough
00:30:55
inventory to do it and once I do , I can start overtaking your
00:30:58
market share.
00:30:58
So once I'm dialed in, my direct response is good.
00:31:01
I'm acquiring more customers organically and profitably with
00:31:04
PPC than you are.
00:31:05
The organic engine is going to go like this.
00:31:07
It's going to go extremely fast , so fast that we have brands
00:31:11
that have been built.
00:31:11
Daniel Espy is a case study.
00:31:13
He's on my website.
00:31:14
He's on my podcast.
00:31:15
David LeBlanc, adam there's a number of podcast case studies
00:31:20
you can check out.
00:31:20
He's going to be 16 million by the end of this year, fourth
00:31:22
year in business.
00:31:23
Speaker 1: Wow.
00:31:24
So this leads to sort of the final question, which is
00:31:27
summarizing a lot of what you were just talking about, of how
00:31:30
we began from nothing and we built something.
00:31:31
How do we know if the product will grow into a brand?
00:31:37
And you mentioned like a four-step build grow scale exit.
00:31:40
So I'm assuming that not every product will develop into a
00:31:44
brand.
00:31:45
Maybe the potential's there and it probably has to do with how
00:31:48
you began doing this in the first place, but curious as to
00:31:52
your thoughts about that.
00:31:53
Speaker 3: So we've been at the product research stage with the
00:31:55
end in mind, meaning that when we look at products valuable
00:31:58
products in their market, we look at how many other types of
00:32:01
gear, accessory and product types revolve around a primary
00:32:05
product Okay, and then we're going to look at saying how many
00:32:08
of those other products can I put in the market to build a
00:32:10
more holistic brand?
00:32:11
If you think about it in just in terms of retail, because it's
00:32:14
easier sometimes for people to see in their mind, when I walk
00:32:16
into an Academy sports store, do I see a 25 square foot
00:32:20
building with two products in it ?
00:32:21
No, what does Academy mean as a brand?
00:32:23
It means when I go there, there's all the product, gear
00:32:26
and accessories I need if I'm going to play soccer.
00:32:28
The idea is to give you all the possible options for that brand
00:32:33
If I go in and decide I'm playing soccer and I want a
00:32:35
soccer ball and I want the mitts and I want the jersey and I
00:32:38
want the cleats and I want all the stuff that goes with it.
00:32:41
So in a brand we provide all of that additional gear and
00:32:44
accessories.
00:32:45
So as I think of these products , as I test these products in
00:32:49
the market, I'm looking at not only variations of the primary
00:32:51
products.
00:32:51
I'm looking at all the other gear, accessories and ancillary
00:32:54
products and even consumable products that will get people to
00:32:57
come back more often, that match with that brand and round
00:33:01
it out into an entire portfolio.
00:33:02
So that isn't just products.
00:33:04
It's brand driven, with products as the transactional
00:33:08
method of belief that if I start with this brand, I have all the
00:33:11
other options available to me too when I fall in love with it.
00:33:14
If I don't have all those other options, I'm simply just
00:33:16
selling products.
00:33:17
Brand moves into a direct response method, into not just
00:33:21
products but emotional connectivity to the entire brand
00:33:23
and everything that's available within it.
00:33:26
Speaker 1: So we've gone through and we've found our product.
00:33:30
We're beginning to build our brand.
00:33:32
We have a line of products.
00:33:33
Now we're building emotional attachment.
00:33:35
How do we go about scaling?
00:33:37
And maybe because we're adding multiple products, that's how
00:33:39
we're scaling.
00:33:40
How do we go about scaling and then exiting from all this?
00:33:43
Speaker 3: So it depends on channel.
00:33:44
So if we're starting with Amazon, we won't unless it's a
00:33:46
very large channel.
00:33:48
We won't buy an Amazon-only brand.
00:33:50
We require for our acquisitions for it to have multiple,
00:33:53
omni-channels, to be a holistic brand Amazon, shopify, tiktok,
00:33:57
wholesale, other revenue streams beyond just a single channel.
00:34:01
If it has only a single channel but is very large, say above 10
00:34:04
million, then we're going to say, well, that is right for a
00:34:07
TikTok shop, shopify, direct response, wholesale.
00:34:09
We now see exactly how we're going to take an omni-channel
00:34:12
scale that brand from growth into scale by opening up these
00:34:15
additional sales channels of direct response marketing,
00:34:19
whether it's again Shopify store website, tiktok, et cetera.
00:34:22
We know we're going to open up these additional channels and
00:34:24
create scale out of that by simply reaching a larger direct
00:34:27
to consumer marketing.
00:34:29
So with that it will be additional products but it will
00:34:32
also be additional marketing.
00:34:33
It'll be additional channels it could be Facebook, youtube,
00:34:36
meta, tiktok ads et cetera that are going to go out and acquire
00:34:40
that customer.
00:34:40
We've got the profitability to do it.
00:34:42
We know the market and demand.
00:34:44
We typically won't start a secondary channel until the
00:34:46
first channel of Amazon FBA reaches more than seven figures.
00:34:49
Once it does, we are really dialed in.
00:34:55
We're locked into growth.
00:34:56
Our systems and SOPs are now engaged, so we have time, energy
00:34:57
and attention and money to go over and open a secondary
00:34:59
channel, go create that creation .
00:35:00
So we'll go to TikTok usually first, because it's a simple
00:35:02
platform to set up very quickly and when we go through a
00:35:05
particular 90 day launch process , all the fulfillment will be
00:35:08
done by Amazon anyways.
00:35:09
So really we're just focused on who's the influencer, who's the
00:35:12
video, what are the first couple of videos that'll pop off in
00:35:15
virality?
00:35:16
Because once that happens the whole engine of TikTok will lift
00:35:19
you up.
00:35:19
More influencers want to get on .
00:35:21
It will be seen more.
00:35:22
You get traffic on millions of views on a video and all of a
00:35:25
sudden all these other people want to pile onto it and that
00:35:28
becomes kind of an avalanche that works backwards from there.
00:35:31
But you also have to be aware that it can move extremely fast.
00:35:33
So you have to be able to capitalize that.
00:35:35
So when you have that opportunity, that's where growth
00:35:37
and scale comes in.
00:35:38
It really gets down to capitalizing on the inventory
00:35:41
and the marketing to reach scale , and that will usually be an
00:35:44
inventory play.
00:35:46
It will also be a marketing play.
00:35:47
Can you reach eight figures on Amazon without any other
00:35:50
channels.
00:35:50
Absolutely Ask me how I know.
00:35:52
Speaker 1: Right, and then what about and I mean this has been
00:35:55
completely amazing, neil, by the way I mean I'll talk about that
00:35:58
at the very end, but what about the exit?
00:36:01
Now, I know that your company specializes in, in you know
00:36:03
buying, buying or incubating companies, but at what point do
00:36:07
you think a brand that has done everything you talk about is is
00:36:10
ready for exit?
00:36:10
Speaker 3: At what point do you think a brand that has done
00:36:11
everything you talk about is ready for exit.
00:36:12
Typically they're going to have two to three sales channels and
00:36:14
if they have a primary sales channel, let's say 80% of it is
00:36:16
on Amazon and the other 20% is made up by the two or three
00:36:20
other channels that are acquiring customers but don't
00:36:23
make up a majority of the percentage of profit.
00:36:26
That is going to be an opportunity for us.
00:36:28
We're going to see that they're open, they've already done the
00:36:29
legwork, they've started the process.
00:36:33
At this point it could be their skills are not strong enough in
00:36:35
the additional channel spaces because you know one, there's
00:36:37
not everybody's a unicorn who can market and manage every
00:36:39
channel.
00:36:40
I have different people with different skill sets and
00:36:42
different channels for that reason, because you can't be,
00:36:44
you know, an expert in every vertical platform, but there are
00:36:51
people who have become vertical experts or subject matter
00:36:52
experts in those and you bring them into those additional
00:36:52
channels and each of those could potentially blow up and maybe
00:36:55
even overtake the primary channel, right?
00:36:57
So it's gonna be that there's a percentage of revenue and
00:37:00
profits coming in, even if not terribly large.
00:37:02
There is multiple omni channels.
00:37:04
An Amazon only channel can get up to 3X if its profitability is
00:37:08
above 18% to 20% net profit.
00:37:11
That's EBITDA.
00:37:11
If that is occurring then they may get about a 3X return.
00:37:15
If they sell the single channel only, they may get a little bit
00:37:18
less because we may have to plow a lot more money and
00:37:20
capital inventory into opening additional channels.
00:37:23
So the offer might be a little bit less if it's a single only
00:37:25
channel.
00:37:26
If they have a multiple channel we're looking at if it's Shopify
00:37:29
, tiktok, if it's got additional profitability and revenue
00:37:31
streams up to 20%, even 10 to 20% of the additional sales
00:37:36
revenue channels, that multiple could go up as high as 5x to 7x
00:37:40
depending upon the profitability of the additional channels as
00:37:43
it ties to the bottom line completely.
00:37:46
If they're operating 18 to 20% bottom line on all the channels
00:37:50
and they have two other variables that play in and that
00:37:52
is a subscribe and save group on Amazon that are buying their
00:37:55
products every week, month, six months, one year continuously on
00:37:59
subscribe and save and have a good base built up Say three,
00:38:02
500, 600 or more people on subscribe and save and they've
00:38:06
gone over to some other channel and opened up more subscriptions
00:38:09
.
00:38:09
Say a Shopify store that has subscriptions that also build in
00:38:13
a monthly recurring revenue an MRR into that channel we see,
00:38:16
through customer acquisition, an average order value that's
00:38:19
growing, a number of subscriber base that's growing and it's all
00:38:22
picking up and growing momentum .
00:38:24
Those could potentially reach 10 to 15x on the multiples of
00:38:29
EBITDA.
00:38:29
So those are literally SaaS evaluation style businesses.
00:38:33
Now, when it comes and SaaS has been some of the highest
00:38:35
evaluations in the technical marketplace E-commerce companies
00:38:38
are now vying for that space in terms of multiples.
00:38:42
Speaker 1: So, neil, I mean just to summarize all this and I
00:38:44
work with both B2C and B2B companies as a fraction of CMO,
00:38:47
but I'm thinking of this e-commerce startups that I
00:38:49
worked with in the past and it almost sounds like you have a
00:38:52
lot of companies that are developing products without
00:38:55
going through this process that you just described and then
00:38:58
wondering there are too many who don't understand how the
00:39:03
fundamentals of business operations work and then how to
00:39:06
apply that to an e-commerce P&L of marketing and direct response
00:39:09
and physical products.
00:39:11
Speaker 3: They either haven't been trained, they're
00:39:13
knowledgeable or I wouldn't go as far as saying they're being
00:39:16
stupid.
00:39:16
A lot of times they just don't know what they don't know.
00:39:18
It's a vertical channel.
00:39:20
I had a $30 million company come to us on the direct
00:39:22
response side and we're doing $30 million in business on their
00:39:25
Shopify and direct response marketing Amazing.
00:39:27
They tried for an entire year to sell on Amazon and you know
00:39:30
how much they did in the entire year $16 in total sales.
00:39:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not surprised, yeah, I can see the
00:39:36
big difference.
00:39:36
And it's almost as if companies , they're not doing the research
00:39:39
, they don't have the data and they're not.
00:39:41
You know, your definition of direct response marketing is
00:39:44
really powerful because you're really locking in on that of
00:39:46
that person.
00:39:47
Speaker 3: Very much.
00:39:47
The consumer avatar is the most important part.
00:39:49
They will find you, no matter where you are.
00:39:51
When they get emotionally attached to your brand, they
00:39:53
will figure out how to reach you and come get that product on
00:39:55
whatever channel they could figure out how to get it on.
00:39:57
That is definitely a demand response activity when you do
00:40:01
this correctly.
00:40:02
But that you know the channels are different by nature.
00:40:04
Their channels are different by psychology of the buyer.
00:40:06
You can't just simply say, well , if it sells really well on the
00:40:09
DTC channel, I'll just throw it up on Amazon and then it'll
00:40:11
just sell really well because it sells on DTC.
00:40:13
What you're going to find is that does not happen because it
00:40:16
is a professional selling platform now.
00:40:18
The days of it being a little side hustle flipping were back
00:40:20
in 2012.
00:40:21
Now they're against those businesses.
00:40:24
They are shutting down the wholesale businesses and the
00:40:26
product flippers and the arbitrage people, et cetera.
00:40:29
If you are not a brand registered business, registered
00:40:31
in their system with viable means to the your warehousing
00:40:35
and product supply chain that you can verify, they're going to
00:40:37
shut you down.
00:40:38
It's just a matter of time and they're doing it faster and
00:40:41
faster.
00:40:41
If you are a brand playing within the right platform and
00:40:44
you are a registered business with trademarks, et cetera.
00:40:46
You, they open the doors to you and are like, hey, come on in,
00:40:55
let's do all these things together.
00:40:56
They really will.
00:40:56
Are they the perfect channel?
00:40:57
Absolutely not, and I'm not a fanboy.
00:40:57
They do some dumb stuff.
00:40:58
All the platforms do, and right now, tiktok is shutting down
00:40:59
mini videos and products out of their violations system because
00:41:02
it looks like the AI violation system of audit has gone just
00:41:05
haywire lately and seems to be flagging everything on every
00:41:08
video, every person in violation , violation, violation.
00:41:10
It's like what the heck are you guys doing over there?
00:41:12
So every platform has its challenges.
00:41:15
Right, shopify has had its challenges right now in the
00:41:17
marketplace.
00:41:18
Its business has gone down.
00:41:19
Its stock has dropped dramatically.
00:41:21
They were able to prop it up for a while on the drop shipping
00:41:23
platform and the AliExpress, but now that Teemu and Shine
00:41:26
came in, now that they're about ready to get rid of the 301
00:41:29
exemption for products that are being shipped in, aliexpress is
00:41:31
going to be killed.
00:41:32
So is Teemu and Shine.
00:41:34
So that whole model has been affected by the market.
00:41:36
Their stock has dropped.
00:41:37
There's a lot of problems going on with that platform.
00:41:39
So, again, every platform has its problem and its challenges
00:41:42
and its opportunities, its strengths and its weaknesses.
00:41:44
You just have to figure out which one you're going to play
00:41:46
the vertical in and then you play the game.
00:41:48
And you play the game as smart as you can.
00:41:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, or you want to work with an expert like Neil
00:41:52
and the folks over at or you get help.
00:41:53
Yeah.
00:41:54
So, Neil, this has been incredible.
00:41:55
I mean your enthusiasm, your passion, your experience clearly
00:42:00
comes out in your speak.
00:42:01
So thank you so much.
00:42:02
I think that a lot of people are going to get a lot of help
00:42:06
from this interview.
00:42:07
Speaker 3: That's wonderful.
00:42:11
Speaker 1: There might be people that want to engage with you
00:42:12
deeply.
00:42:12
Obviously you are the co-author of Almost Automated Income with
00:42:15
FBA, so that's a good starting point.
00:42:17
But maybe there's some companies that want to reach out
00:42:19
to you and say, hey, I could really use your help with this
00:42:21
Obviously over Voltage, but where can we send people your
00:42:24
way?
00:42:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, if they go to VoltageDMcom, that voltage dmcom
00:42:27
, that's voltage digital marketing, or dmcom, or you
00:42:30
simply google voltage or my last name.
00:42:32
It is twa and, as you can see if you're watching this on video
00:42:35
, I'm not a small asian dude.
00:42:36
A lot of people mistake that when they hear my voice on the
00:42:37
podcast and then they see me, they're like, oh, you're not
00:42:39
like, I expected you to be.
00:42:40
Um, but yeah, you can check that out.
00:42:42
There's a free training.
00:42:43
Myself and kevin go over the you know business presentation.
00:42:46
There's free trainings and seminars and virtual events that
00:42:49
we do.
00:42:49
There's the book, of course.
00:42:50
There and on Amazon, you're willing to check out and to
00:42:53
always just ask, as people do their due diligence.
00:42:54
Understand this is not a course.
00:42:56
I'm not a program maker, I'm a business builder, all right.
00:42:58
We're a business heads down operations incubated platform.
00:43:01
If someone wants to engage with us, there's a 12 month
00:43:04
agreement.
00:43:04
It is a done with us understanding of mentoring and
00:43:08
consulting.
00:43:08
We can help them with operations, if that's part of
00:43:11
the agreement.
00:43:11
We typically are going to consult and engage with them on
00:43:13
optimizations of growth and scale, giving them some of the
00:43:16
hard truths.
00:43:17
We act as a board of advisors for some of these companies who
00:43:20
just need an outside board of advisor and they pay us for that
00:43:22
reason, so that we can help guide them and their team on the
00:43:25
best actionable steps to do next.
00:43:26
And we are always focused on how to optimize the profits for
00:43:30
growth and scale so that it becomes an exitable business
00:43:33
model.
00:43:33
And so that's one of the major things we do for existing
00:43:35
companies is help them optimize for existing growth and scale
00:43:39
and then present their ability to be exited and help them with
00:43:41
the exit or potentially acquire them.
00:43:43
If it's a great deal, if they're brand new, we walk them
00:43:44
through the entire five-step process over a year period,
00:43:48
one-on-one heads down.
00:43:49
So it's all invitation only.
00:43:50
I'm not an agency, we are an incubator, all right, and in
00:43:58
that way I only take on those who I feel are serious and will
00:43:59
do the business and understand the value of getting in the
00:44:01
rowboat together.
00:44:01
What I don't want to do is go in circles together.
00:44:03
So you know, just understand you're not going to be paying
00:44:06
for a course.
00:44:07
This is a business.
00:44:08
If I'm going to spend time with you, understand it's going to
00:44:10
cost.
00:44:10
I don't mean that to be negative, but I just mean that
00:44:13
to you know, I have businesses to run.
00:44:14
We have six, seven operations ourselves that we're already
00:44:17
heads down in.
00:44:18
Speaker 1: So yeah, neil you're.
00:44:19
You're clearly locked in on what you're doing.
00:44:20
So if you're listening or watching, you want to get locked
00:44:23
in.
00:44:23
Neil is your guy.
00:44:25
His great first name helps, but but you know this has been
00:44:27
awesome.
00:44:28
Thank you so much for your time .
00:44:29
You know we went through the whole from beginning to the end
00:44:32
to exiting, but any you know additional tip of advice or any
00:44:35
you know mistake that.
00:44:36
You see, I think we covered some of those, just some parting
00:44:39
advice you want to give our listeners.
00:44:40
Speaker 3: Well, I think, in simple terms of I would just say
00:44:42
your opportunity with this business model begins at the end
00:44:45
of your excuses.
00:44:45
If your excuse is you don't like the platform, then you're
00:44:48
never going to do it, because every platform has its
00:44:50
challenges.
00:44:50
If your excuse is I don't have the resources, then be
00:44:52
resourceful.
00:44:53
If your excuse is I don't know, then invest in the knowing, and
00:44:56
if you don't know, then invest in what you do know.
00:44:59
The end result is every business opportunity is success
00:45:07
when people put their tenacity, perseverance and grit to the
00:45:09
test and they get in there and do the things that others are
00:45:10
not willing to do for three to five years, so they can live
00:45:11
like no one else can for three to five years.
00:45:12
If you're willing to do that, every business opportunity from
00:45:15
real estate to car flipping truss to e-commerce is going to
00:45:18
be something that you're ultimately successful in because
00:45:20
you're going to go farther and faster than those who give up.
00:45:23
And guys, ladies, gentlemen, people, the bar is really low
00:45:26
today.
00:45:27
The stuff we've dealt with, the systems we've had to deal with
00:45:29
and the things we've had to overcome to get to this point
00:45:32
there are automations, technology, ai and so many
00:45:35
things doing it now time, compressing and speeding and
00:45:37
giving us the data we need.
00:45:39
It's so much easier in many ways than it has ever been, but
00:45:42
it's, in some ways, is extremely difficult.
00:45:44
So I would always encourage you , no matter what you do, to look
00:45:48
at coaching and mentoring, even if it's going to be in the real
00:45:49
estate world.
00:45:50
Go out there, do it the right way, learn and educate yourself,
00:45:53
apply yourself, and your success is right at the end of
00:45:55
that.
00:45:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, amen, brother, and this is going to be one of
00:45:58
those episodes where I think you're going to have to listen
00:46:01
again, because there were so many amazing tidbits, knowledge
00:46:04
bombs.
00:46:05
So, neil, thank you so much for your time and, once again, that
00:46:07
is VoltageDMcom, if you want to reach out to Neil and the book
00:46:11
Almost Automated Income with FBA .
00:46:13
Neil, thanks again.
00:46:15
Speaker 3: Thank you, sir.
00:46:15
You're a wonderful host.
00:46:16
I appreciate you.
00:46:21
Speaker 1: All right, I hope you enjoyed that conversation and
00:46:23
learned a thing or two.
00:46:23
Hey, I know that you're listening to this podcast, but
00:46:24
do you know that I also have a weekly newsletter, in fact?
00:46:26
Well, I used to give a preview of that newsletter in this
00:46:31
podcast.
00:46:31
I've since stopped doing that to try to streamline things and
00:46:33
keep really to the point with these interviews and my solo
00:46:37
podcast recordings.
00:46:38
But you can actually go and not only subscribe to my weekly
00:46:41
newsletter.
00:46:41
You can actually check them out in advance to make sure if it's
00:46:44
something you want to subscribe to.
00:46:45
Go to newsletterneilschafercom and you can find all of my
00:46:51
previous editions over the past year or so, as well as a
00:46:54
subscribe button, should you wish to subscribe.
00:46:57
I generally send them out every Friday morning or so, so I'd
00:47:01
love to have you on board.
00:47:02
And, obviously, talking about subscriptions, if you haven't
00:47:05
subscribed to this podcast, well , I just want to let you know
00:47:08
that it is not just an e-commerce podcast.
00:47:10
It really is digital marketing in general.
00:47:13
We cover a wide variety of topics.
00:47:15
Half of the episodes are my solo recordings and the other
00:47:19
half are guests have a lot of great guests coming up.
00:47:22
We have Michelle Garrett.
00:47:23
We're going to be talking about PR for digital marketers.
00:47:25
We have Dave Charest, who is VP of marketing over at Constant
00:47:30
Contact.
00:47:30
We'll be talking about email marketing, digital marketing.
00:47:33
We now have John Gillum, who is the founder and CEO of
00:47:36
Originalityai, talking about AI.
00:47:39
So those are just a few of the many, many interviews I have
00:47:43
lined up, and I'll let you know that I almost have interviews
00:47:46
lined up to last the entirety of 2025.
00:47:49
Just, there's a lot of amazing people, a lot of amazing ideas
00:47:52
and information and insight that I know you're gonna love.
00:47:54
So make sure you hit that subscribe button and until next
00:47:57
week.
00:47:57
This is Neil Schaefer, your digital marketing coach, signing
00:48:01
off.
00:48:03
Speaker 2: You've been listening to your digital marketing coach
00:48:05
.
00:48:05
Questions, comments, requests, links go to
00:48:10
podcastneilschafercom.
00:48:12
Get the show notes to this and 200 plus podcast episodes at
00:48:17
neilschafercom to tap into the 400 plus blog posts that Neil
00:48:22
has published to support your business.
00:48:24
While you're there, check out Neil's digital first group
00:48:28
coaching membership community If you or your business needs a
00:48:31
little helping hand.
00:48:32
See you next time on your digital marketing coach.
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