Shownotes
Get ready to get emotional. Yes it is okay. What would happen t your world if your business was destroyed by a fire. EVERYTHING! See you build a business, then pivot to a long term model and then….. Fire. Is your plan ready for that? Will your insurance cover you? For everything? Will your homeowners insurance cover you for inventory for your business in your house? Are your receipts in your warehouse where the fire occurred? Do you have an offsite backup?Well learn about Daneen and her families (yes staff) and their adventure rebuilding after the fire. What you can expect and what you can not expect. Note: You need an emergency fund!
Mentioned:
Alex’s program: Amazon Listings Demystified
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Transcript: (note- this is a new tool I am trying out so it is not perfect- it does seem to be getting better)
Daneen & Alex: [00:00:00] You’re just waiting on a hazard that happen to ruin you completely. I had not only myself, but I had two employees at the time and their entire livelihood was based on their income. Therefore, I was able to actually continue their payroll during the time that we were down because of insurance.
Cool voice guy: [00:00:20] Welcome to the ECOMMERCE, but we focus on the people, the products, and the process of, here’s your host, Steven Peterson.
Stephen: [00:00:33] Want to jump in and talk about two sponsors today, seller lab scope. Uh, you’ve heard me say it, you know, and, and, you know, you’re probably sitting there saying, Steve, you say this every episode I do because I believe in the product. Um, yes. Uh, sellerlabs labs is a sponsor. Michelle, don’t get that wrong. However, it’s a sponsor of a product that I use, so I’m Kinda lucky they pay me and yet I pay to use the product. And the reason I pay to use the product is because it allows me to, um, get better listings, right? That’s what you need to do, right? If you’re selling on Amazon, you need to understand keywords and you need to figure out what are the right keywords and sometimes it’s confusing as heck. Why does a certain keyword work a certain way? Well, the beauty is in scope as you can pull up your competitor who’s really crushing it and see what keywords they’re using.
Stephen: [00:01:20] That’s the lesson. And then you can find a similar one and pull them up and you’re going to see a pattern and then you do that pattern for yourself and you can get those same results if you get lucky and figure out what the key word is for your product. So take some of the luck out of it and use scope. Um, again, go to seller labs.com, forward slash scope. Use the code momentum, say 50 bucks and try it and see if you can improve an existing listing. I think that’s the best thing you can do is take one of your listings that’s performing and then go in and try to enhance it and see if you see an improvement. Give it 30 days or what have you. And if you see an improvement, then there’s a clue that maybe you can see an improvement on all your listings.
Stephen: [00:02:00] That’s why I use a scope and I just think it’s such a great product because I don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Right? There are much smarter people than I that have done a lot of other cool things to figure out what the keyword is and what people are searching for and using a whole bunch of other techniques. And then you get to take advantage of it and is really inexpensive. And again, you’re going to say 50 bucks. So solar lamps.com, forward slash scope. Use the Kobo momentum, save 50 bucks. Second one is cameron locker and I talk about her a lot. Um, right now they’re reconciling a shipment and they’re sending my note. Steve, you have to send in receipts because that’s one of the big hassles. Now I’ve got to send receipts to prove that I bought this stuff so I can get my reimbursement and her team is all over me.
Stephen: [00:02:40] Like, see, this is your third request. That’s dishonest service. Sometimes I need. I’ve been traveling these last few weeks extensively. I kind of need somebody else. Yes, I could have somebody sitting in my office doing it, but that would be a fulltime employee and we don’t want any full time employees. I’m is my wife, my son and I. and so anyway, um, that’s why I have members of my team in different areas and I don’t want to have to manage them, you know, I know Karen uses some va’s but I don’t want to have to manage that team. And so she does that and her team does actually a team leaders and stuff and they’ve been doing it for me, for me, my wife for I don’t know, two or three years. And we’ve been very, very pleased because the money they save the refunds, they get me the reimbursements, they get me the fixes when I’m on the road and hey, this isn’t correct and they can fix it or I have a question.
Stephen: [00:03:27] That depth of knowledge that I get from Karen because of her experience is so worth the price. So it is, um, solutions four ecommerce. So the, the word solutions, the number four e-commerce dot com forward slash momentum. Okay, so use that code solutions four ecommerce.com, forward slash momentum. It’s going to save you $50 and $50 a month is a lot of money. And what’s really cool is she’s going to do that inventory health report that I talk about. If you’ve not done one, you should, you know, I mean you’re getting a clue every week when they tell you your inventory health report. But if you want to dig deeper, and again, if you don’t want to do the work, that’s the beauty. She’s going to send you a spreadsheet and then you can parse it and slice and dice and then send it back saying, hey, kill this stuff, refund this, donate this Blahblahblahblahblah.
Stephen: [00:04:16] That’s what I do and I don’t have to go through and do the work. And you know, it’s just important to have a person on your team you can trust. And again, I’ve been paying for the service for two and a half, three years. I have to ask her how long it’s been. And I’m very, very pleased. Would think of no one else to be on her team, but Karen and her team, because of what they’ve done, I look for consistency over time. You’ve heard me say that and I’ve gotten it from Karen, so solutions the number four e-commerce dot com, forward slash momentum saved the 50 bucks. Get your inventory health report, get 2019 in order and start this new year off, right? It’s going to be a great one. Welcome back to the ECOMMERCE momentum podcast. This is episode 371, deneen and Alex England, so it’s so cool to sit and talk with.
Stephen: [00:05:00] I’m a mom and her son who have built a very spectacular business and what’s cool for me, first off, his mom recognizes the value of what her son and her brother in law bring into their business. Right? Right there I pause and I’m like, Oh, I love that. I already gets a field of love. You could feel the love in the conversation, the respect from each of them because they. They know the value that they bring. Right? The hard work and everything. It’s just so cool. Second though, this is a story, um, you know, we’re gonna hear this phrase rising from the Phoenix rising from the ashes, the Phoenix rising from the ashes because this involves a real serious fire and lost everything and starting over and would you start over and when she blew my mind, when she fell, as she didn’t know something that could have happened and, but yet wouldn’t change her mind.
Stephen: [00:05:48] It’s very cool to hear that story and I just think there’s so much advice here that you absolutely need to take a look at because we’re doing in our business, how do you make sure that you’re protected for an awful emergency? And she talks about her dad who wasn’t and what happened in his world. So I just think this is a real powerful story of beginning of the year to set yourself up for success in 2019 real powerful advice farmer, really smart group of people. What’s going into. All right, welcome back to the ECOMMERCE momentum podcast. We’re excited about this guest. I’ve been chasing them for a long time. Um, and they’re busy. So you know, it’s, it’s, it’s literally, I’m very difficult to get very busy, very successful people because life happens and I’m in this case, I’m excited to talk about some of the bad things that happen in life and what can come from it and I think we have some great examples of rising from the Phoenix and they’ll.
Stephen: [00:06:48] I do remember that a Deneen and Alex England. Welcome guys. Thank you. You know how many years ago was when we met was it was in Vegas? What was it, three years ago? I believe so, yeah. Three years ago. Go to this party and I sit down at this table. I don’t know if my wife was with me, I don’t remember the story, but I remember going. It was. She was there, right? Yes. We sat down at this party and didn’t really know anybody there. I don’t remember who even invited us and we get there and man, we sat down. We conversed for so long because your story’s incredible. I was so inspired. I mean, it was just one of those things that stuck in my mind and the resilience that you guys have and the relationship. Mom and dad or mom and son, excuse me. And the resilience you guys have is phenomenal. It’s been with me for three plus years. Very cool. That’s awesome. Wonderful. So let’s talk story. So, um, who started the business, how long ago and what did you do prior to that kind of that lead you into it?
Daneen & Alex: [00:07:55] I started the business a little over 10 years ago. I was a computer programmer for about 25 years. I got laid off from my job and I took my severance package from that job and took my part time Amazon and Ebay business and built a nice little, a 1600 square foot warehouse on my property out here in Rockmart, Georgia. And we just started. I started off a retail arbitrage and just did a lot of shopping of course. And um, it was actually a lot of fun. I brought in my son to be my it director and then I was also able to bring in my brother as my warehouse manager a few years after building the warehouse on my property. Uh, unfortunately, uh, it did go up in flames. Uh, however, uh, the Phoenix did rise from the ashes. A, I do highly recommend good insurance. Uh, it has come in handy. Very, very, uh, helpful. We were able to buy a much larger facility in Breman. Jordan was actually able to get a 6,000 square foot warehouse out here and has been absolutely phenomenal. We changed it up a little bit from 100 percent Ra and oh, a. and about three years ago we’re, we transferred over to about 100 percent wholesale and it’s been going pretty well ever since.
Stephen: [00:09:23] Wow. That is a, a lot of activity that has gone on in your life, right? I mean, it’s not your, you know, you shortened the version of it, but each one of those things are, are pretty complicated and I want to unpack each one of them, if you don’t mind. I’m going to go back a little bit and dig into a little deeper when you were saying that. So you started the business a full time. When you went full time, you converted over, you’re doing mostly Ra, you brought your son in as an it manager. And that, that intrigues me because my son has been working with us for the last, uh, week and a half full time and he’s here until March until he finished his school. Um, love them to stay longer. We’ll see what he wants to do with his life. I don’t want them to live my dream. It’s his. What did, what was your vision about bringing an it manager into an APP? Pretty Much Amazon, Ebay business. What was, what were you thinking he was going to do for your business?
Daneen & Alex: [00:10:13] Now? I’m going to step in real quick. Original reason she hired me was to help out with our, a Ah, that she sat there and had not only her suv but a trailer hauling behind it as well. And we would get about 20 to 30 buggies per store that we would hit up all in our areas, in all the stores, and eventually it got to the point of where I’d like to dylan a bunch of the computer things and it went from there. Not Quite as glamorous.
Daneen & Alex: [00:10:47] The business was able to send him to school for Awhile and that eventually turned him into an it guru.
Stephen: [00:10:54] Yeah, he’s, he’s the nerd. I got that earlier. He helped us get the computers working. Um, so. Okay. So, so you do. Okay. So it’s not quite as glamorous as bringing in it because that, that blew me away. Right. So you started with, hey, you gotta roll up your sleeves, pushed some carts, load some boxes, hundreds boxes, pack some boxes, and build up the business to a certain scale. Um, to me that’s a smart move because if you’re doing it worked for the company. So even, even if it’s wholesale, it doesn’t matter. Understanding the flow, you know, it’s just so critical understanding the pain points because you had to live those pain points. Right, Alex? I mean, those are, that’s valuable in I’m in the education to apply technological shortcuts in this business. Make sense?
Daneen & Alex: [00:11:42] Oh yes. I’m very well aware of backward may have our warehouse on the actual land, the, the barn. We created a software. She allowed me to the time to create software that helped us do a shortcut with printing out all the labels that go on every single ups box and saved us hundreds of hours. Yes sir. If it...