Shownotes
Plain speak, plain truth and plain permission is what Robyn Johnson brings to this episode. You see Robyn has perspective and wants you also to have a focused set of goals with the tools necessary to achieve them. Great information with a real opportunity to start a side-hustle to compliment your current side-hustle.
Mentioned:
Brand training event in Tennessee– June 14 & 15th in Memphis TN
Sponsors
Gaye’s Million Dollar Arbitrage List
Transcript: (note- this is a new tool I am trying out so it is not perfect- it does seem to be getting better)
Stephen: [00:00:00] I’m excited to talk about my sponsors today, Gaye Lisbey’s million dollar arbitrage group. Amazing, amazing group. This is a teacher. This is Gaye who was a teacher. She is a teacher. Still. You need to learn. This is the type of environment you want to be in because she’s going to help you understand why, and I think that’s the hardest part of this business is understanding why. Why is the red one popular when the green one isn’t? Well, there’s usually a reason and what gay does is probably parsed that better than anybody and she’ll explain the reasons for those things. I think that’s really powerful. Yeah, she puts out a list. You’re going to get a good use of that list if you get in the group. Now here’s the deal. The group isn’t always open, right? So you get on the waiting list and you can join the waiting list through my link.
Stephen: [00:00:46] Doesn’t cost anything to get on a waiting list and if you like her service, which I find that most people do that, that’s why there’s not so many openings. Um, you’ll be with her for a long time. And so it’s amazing [inaudible], she’s part of Andy Slamon’s group, amazing freedom.com. Forward slash momentum. And you’re going to get in to the waiting list. That’s all I can get you on right now. You can use my name and see if that gets anywhere. But what I like about it, what I like about what they teach in that group or the things that are going on, you know the current things. I’ve seen a lot of stuff going on about stores going out of business. Well here’s where the opportunity is. Here’s why you want to do this. Hey, be cautious about this, you know, with toys r US coming out, you’ve got to think about this and that’s the learning that you need to do.
Stephen: [00:01:30] And Gay is better than anybody else I’ve seen. So amazing. Freedom Dot com. Forward slash momentum will get you to the waiting list. Then hopefully we can get you in the group and then you’re going to see me in there and we can chat anytime you’re ready. Karen lockers, group solutions, the number for ecommerce solutions for e-commerce dot com. Forward slash momentum. It’s going to save you 50 bucks. Karen’s our account manager. We recommend her to everyone because she’s done so well for us. I mean that’s quite frankly the reason we’ve been paying her for last few years, but she’s become an important part of our team. Her and her team are so involved in our account. I just see the emails coming back and forth, hey, we did this for you. I just saw two listings today. I’m like, wait a second. Why did they show up?
Stephen: [00:02:09] I didn’t put any listings up. They got a. They got a set off to the side by Amazon and they reactivate them for me. You know what I mean? That’s the stuff that just happens when you have a strong team and I can’t recommend Karen enough if you use my code momentum. Karen pays me. I don’t want to hide that. Of course we all know that, but you’re going to say $50 and it’s a great opportunity to really, really build out your team with somebody you can trust. That’s why I recommend them. So solutions for e-commerce solutions, the number for e-commerce dot com forward slash momentum is going to save you $50. Oh, and by the way, she’s going to do an inventory health report. Why is that important? Well, guess what fees are going up. Is your inventory health number declining like ours is?
Stephen: [00:02:57] Well, here’s why and what they can do. What I like is I get a spreadsheet from them and it says, Hey, here’s a bunch of inventory, here’s what we recommend. And I’m like, Yep, re refund. I mean a delete a return us blah blah blah, whatever it is and it’s or destroy and it just happens. That’s what I like. The other thing that I have Karen helped me with a lot is creating new listings. You know, we do a lot of the research ourselves, we upload our images and then boom, magically the listing goes live and I don’t have to worry about it. Those are the services that Canon offers. Can’t recommend her enough solutions for e-commerce dot com, forward slash momentum. Save 50 bucks, use my code. You save $50 a month every single month and it’s a great service. Plus you get that free inventory health report.
Stephen: [00:03:43] I think it’s a really powerful way, so I can’t. I’m so excited how many people have been joining air because I see it and I’m excited because the messages I get from people saying, hey, this is great. I finally feel like I can focus on something else because Karen and her team are watching this for me and you know, I highly recommend her. Next up is scout solar lamps and scope and almost get it wrong. It’s amazing. I mean, it really is amazing when you sit back and think about, hey, I want to get this product up and it’s similar to this product and that that product does well. Well, therefore, if that product does well, they have the right keywords, they’ve chosen things correctly, so guess what? You scope and you could see all that stuff and that’s what the most powerful thing in the world is to copy somebody who’s done it right.
Stephen: [00:04:28] That’s what you want to. You want to take advantage of that, right? I mean, it’s fair a to c and so therefore you can take and apply it to your listing and immediately get that same benefit. That’s what scope does for me. Seller labs.com, forward slash momentum. It’s going to save you $50 on service. Oh, by the way, it’s free to try, so sign up, try it and say, oh, this is how it’s done. Boom, and then you’re going just the light’s going to go on and you’re going to be like, man, I can get my products out there. I just can’t wait. Can’t wait. So we’re labs [inaudible] forward slash momentum. The other day I bought another domain. Yes, I bought another domain. It’s almost like A. I’m admitting guilt, but it’s because I had an idea and it was something that was a pretty good idea.
Stephen: [00:05:17] I think it’s going to go pretty far and so what do I do? I go to try go daddy.com forward slash momentum and save 30 percent. So domains aren’t very expensive. You get a few services. It adds up a little bit and I usually buy it three years. I usually buy privacy by the way, I recommend that to buy that, you know, it’s not that much money but when you can save 30 percent it makes it that much sweeter and it makes it easier when you’re buying domains and especially if you buy a bunch of domains. I am a domain collector and so I do tend to do that, but that 30 percent makes it a lot easier and I used to go down because what I like is I can pop in an address I’m thinking and it’ll say, nope, nope, try this version or try this extension and then boom, there it is.
Stephen: [00:05:58] Hey, you better hurry before it goes away. And the right, you know. And so try go daddy.com forward slash momentum. Say 30 percent. Also want to mention about grasshopper. Was that just talking to somebody the other day? And they were like, Oh yeah, use this company called grass. I’m like, dude, did you buy through my link and save 30 percent? Hello? Know they missed that. So save 30 percent, try grasshopper.com forward slash momentum. No surprise there, but you’re going to save 30 percent and what the. The real cool part about that is they’re using it for their private label business and it gives them virtually a second phone on their current phone without having to get another number. They can make up a vanity number. They don’t have to go and do all the grief and sign loan contracts. Pretty easy stuff, and so if you’re creating a brand that you want to identify, you want to look professional, you want to look like a real company. Grasshopper is a great tool. It’s an app you put on your existing phone and boom, you now have a customer service to. You now have a sales department, didn’t have a manufacturing division. You could forward it to somebody else. You can have it go to different voices.
Cool voice guy: [00:07:07] Welcome to the e-commerce momentum podcast where we focus on the people, the products, and the process of e-commerce selling. Today, here’s your host, Steven Peterson
Stephen: [00:07:21] connect to the e-commerce momentum podcast. This is episode three. Oh, four, Robyn Johnson. It will blow your mind at how long ago it’s been since I’ve had Robin Johnson on my show. It blew my mind. I absolutely, because I feel like I see her everywhere because she’s so involved. She touches so many people. Her tentacles go long and deep and she is involved in so many different things. The positivity that she brings this episode, I mean I’m pumped. I’m literally pumped as I sit here because I’m thinking I could do more things. I could be much more productive and very inspiring. Um, I tell her the story and this is not blowing smoke. This is the truth. This past weekend I was with a bunch of sellers and her name came up in three different groups on the consistency and the value that she continues to add, and yet she’s able to charge for those services because of that. And I think that that’s a very rewarding thing. That’s the best applause out there, getting rewarded financially for the hard work that you do because it’s valuable. And so there’s more to the story. Let’s get into the podcast and welcome back to the e-commerce momentum podcast. Very, very three varies. Excited to have back a guest who I cannot believe it’s been years since she’s been on. It blows my mind that this was February 11th of 2015. Robyn Johnson. Robin, can you believe it?
Stephen: [00:08:55] And you
Robyn: [00:08:56] know, I think that, you know, when you have a business that’s growing, it’s kind of like a child, you know, where the, where the moments seem long. But the, the real, the time it seems so short. It just seems like I started yesterday but also like I’ve been doing this forever.
Stephen: [00:09:14] Yeah. In some ways you have been doing it because it is dog ears, you know, three years in this world. I mean just think about in the last, well we’re in May think of how much has changed this year. Two thousand 18 and then backtrack it all the way to 2015. There’s probably been seriously, I don’t know, 50 to 60 serious changes on the Amazon platform. Is that fair?
Robyn: [00:09:42] At least, you know, and you know, sometimes people will say, oh, well, you know, I’m glad I got started when I did because now it’s so much harder than it is and now you know, but in reality, whenever you started it, that’s what you know and what you breathe. And yes, there are some things that are different than they were, you know, five, seven years ago, even a year ago. It was even six months ago. Um, but they’re, you know, the fundamentals of Amazon and the growth of Amazon. We’re still in its infancy and there’s still so much opportunity and so much room to play. It’s, it’s, I love getting to kind of work in this industry where, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s kind of like, you know, getting to watch a teenager become a young adult, you know, that you get to see this identity being informed and getting to be a part of it. It’s, it’s, you know, something I never would’ve pictured myself doing, but I can’t really imagine doing anything else now.
Stephen: [00:10:34] I bought this I when when something new comes out on Amazon were new changes or whatever, they generally don’t surprise me and it’s. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m not. It’s not like I’m in the know, but I’m like, oh yeah, that makes sense. You could see that kind of as a natural thing. At least that’s been like that for a while for me. How about you?
Robyn: [00:10:53] Yeah. You know, I think that if you understand the culture of Amazon, so if you haven’t, if you’re listening and you haven’t read, you know, Google, the 14 leadership principles of Amazon, they, if you’ve read those, you understand that the culture of the company and then you also understand you’re watching for signals like things that they’re saying, well, we’re having a storage crisis. All we’re going to have to. We’re seeing that this policy is trying to drive a certain results. I think sometimes people internalize it and take it personally and you know, Amazon’s out to get them. You know, Amazon has said that third party sellers are one of their pillars of their business. They want to help their party seller succeed, but you know, the way that a lot of us sell isn’t a use case that they completely understand. So when they’re making these policies, they’re making it with the best interest of the business because we have to make sure that we’re protecting the customer experience, protecting the brand of Amazon as they’re moving forward because that’s how we keep the platform viable and alive and vibrant. But you know, they’re, they’re going to be making these policies for who they imagine is the biggest sellers that their, you know, their target use cases of sellers, which for the most part, our wholesale or brands are you unit manufacturers. And so if you’re doing another kind of, uh, of, of sourcing, like if you’re doing, you’re doing use books, you’re doing Ra, you’re doing, you know, then sometimes those policies will feel like they’re directed at you. But it’s really that, you know, that your policy, that policy just kinda caught you in the crossfires.
Stephen: [00:12:28] It’s a, they’re not making decisions with you in mind in that other scenario. Those, those other models, they’re making a decision for the. And...