Shownotes
James is back and man is he on a mission. His mission is to continue with the education YOU (WE, ME) need in this fast-pace, ever-changing continuously-evolving world we have chosen. Think CPE’s for those in the Teaching, engineering, accounting, legal and other professions. Oh and Michael Gerber of eMyth fame will be there!
Mentioned:
The Prosper Show ticket information
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] Wanted to take a second and recognize my sponsors this week. You know Gaye Lisby million dollar arbitrage as Edge and list. That’s a mouthful. It is. But guess what. It’s a great opportunity. You know you can build a big Amazon business. You don’t need a lot of capital when you start. I mean we all started you know most of us started selling books and then move into retail arbitrage. That is the place that you can turn your money. The vastness and online arbitrage. And so by having that skill set by learning those skill sets you can get the best bang for your buck. And so Gase group will help you learn online arbitrage. It’s more than just a list service they’re going to give you a whole bunch of actionable inventory every single day. Right. Monday through Friday. However there’s also a mentor ship that goes on and that mentor ship is so important because sometimes it’s great to know what to buy but it’s more important to understand why to buy it. And it’s that you know learning to fish or just getting fed. You know you really want to learn because ultimately you want to strike it on your own. And this is a great way to do it. So how about seven days free trial how about a free trial. Right. Very very cool. So it’s amazing freedom to come forward slashes a mouthful the word momentum carries a hyphen. And you put in the word arbitrage. So it’s amazing freedom does come forward slash momentum dash arbitrage and you’re going to get a free trial in Gase group. You got to tell her I sent you right. I also have the link in the episode. But it’s such a great opportunity.
Stephen: [00:01:40] She is amazing amazing I’m in that group. So you’ll see me there an amazing amazing person who’s there to answer your questions who’s there to help lead you and help guide you and that’s what Kay does. She does it every single day. The testimonials are real. Go take a look.
Stephen: [00:01:55] You will be blown away. And again it’s a free trial. I have the link on this episode. Reachin you know Sellar labs Jeff Cohen and the team they have blown me away with this scope project. We use this all the time for our business. We do a lot of private label we also do a lot of wholesale and wholesale bundles you know or multi packs that kind of thing which a lot of people do but we use scope to help us figure out what are the key words. And so it’s really simple. You basically figure out where you’re going to sell what you’re going to sell what category find that like product. Find the top couple sellers and find their keywords. Boom magic. There you go. You copy the best because it’s working. And guess what. That’s a proof of concept and scope allows you to do that. So it’s Sellar Lapps dotcom forward slash scope Sellar labs dotcom buzzword slash scope use the code word momentum and you’re going to get a couple days free trial and you’re going to save a little bit of money and you get to get some free keywords. It’s worth every penny. I’m in that group. Come and check me out. Celebes dotcom forward slash scope again use the word momentum. Solutions for e-commerce. Karen Locher great great great group.
Stephen: [00:03:11] I’ve been using them for a long time and I guess over 2 years and I’m in there and pages like everybody else. Yes she’s a sponsor of my show but she makes me pay. And I get the same 50 dollar discount that you can get. Oh by the way you’re going to get that through my link and my link only. Oh and you’re also going to get the free inventory health analysis. Great way to start 2018 get your inventory in line and Karen will help you do that. We use it for everything. I mean basically you know long term storage fees coming up. Guess what she will evaluate. She’ll make some recommendations. And also check check check take these out this return blah blah blah blah blah. And magically it’s done. I love it. Love it. Love it. I love the fact that they take and get rid of stranded inventory for me. I see it in there.
Stephen: [00:03:56] And then next time I go in and it’s gone. Love it love it love it. Got an IP infringement. She’s going to help you work your way through that. This is the kind of service that you get from Karen Locher that solutions for the number for e-commerce solutions for e-commerce dot com forward slash momentum. Right. So you got it forward slash momentum and you’re going to save 50 dollars a month six bucks a year by just clicking that link. She pays me. I want to hide that I never do. I’m always upfront about that but it doesn’t cost you anything additional. And you’re going to get that inventory Health Report the only way you get that is through mine link solutions.
Stephen: [00:04:33] The number for e-commerce dotcom forward slash momentum 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 Stephen Peterson welcome back to the e-commerce momentum podcast.
Stephen: [00:04:54] This is episode 274 James Thompson. Now James runs the Prosper show. Mazing show. More amazing than ever been. Look at the agenda and I have a link to it. Be clear I don’t benefit in any way. However I’m blown away with the education that they’re going to give you. It’s funny we got talking about CPS being an accounting profession or if you’re a teacher or any of those kind of profession engineers you have to do those continual profession continue continuing professional education CPS. It’s almost like we need to do that now as e-commerce sellers as it evolves because the issues that we’re dealing with driving traffic right how to because you’re competing against major major companies and Jim talks about that click funnels now. Right. Who is dealing with click files and you see all the stuff out there and your heads probably spinning when you’ve got to go learn about this stuff. So again I don’t benefit in any way other than you having more success and really learning how to compete in this crazy world that’s evolving faster and faster and faster. And for the seven hundred ninety nine dollars it costs to go to this event for you to be able to sit there and get involved in this at that level I think is a great deal and just an amazing opportunity. So go look at the agenda. So it’s prosper show dot com it’ll blow you away because I’m blown away. I love the keynote speaker. I can’t wait. Very impressive. The other place that we got to in the conversation that really got me thinking differently. Maybe I’m a smaller seller so I think this way is like oh you know I’m sold on Amazon I want to sell on Wal-Mart or jet or whatever. He’s like well you want to think a little bit bigger than that. You know these are small. You know when it comes to the U.S. it’s Amazon pretty much and everybody else. But go look at some of these other countries. There are massive massive marketplaces that nobody’s even talking about. And he starts saying hey if you’re building a brand maybe that’s the place you ought to focus.
Stephen: [00:07:00] And I was her I think my jaw dropped when I was listening to him and I’m thinking. You’re right. You know that you got to think bigger and it all comes down to strategy and this is what James is focused on and that’s why he’s so successful. Let’s get into the podcast.
Stephen: [00:07:16] All right welcome back to the e-commerce podcast and I’m very excited about my guest who’s return guest and he’s kind of got he’s kind of busy. He’s been he’s been putting together kind of the biggest event in our little e-commerce world that I’m aware of. Maybe there’s some bigger ones but not that I’m aware of. Not that I get invited to James Thompson. Welcome James.
James: [00:07:39] Thanks for having me on again.
Stephen: [00:07:41] Well I appreciate you coming back on. So here’s James story you got to go back and listen because the dude’s got a pedigree he’s got knowledge he’s got he’s got a lot going on 147 which I’m now into. So it but half halfway. Wow. About double. November of 2016 was the last time we talked. That’s incredible. I just thought it was last year and I didn’t realize how long ago it was. You were busy because you have this little dinky conference called prosper coming up March 13th and 14th in Las Vegas. It’s just a little dinky thing right. There might be a couple of dozen people there you think.
James: [00:08:20] We are able to attract 13 4200 people to this event. And quite frankly you know if we had more room we would welcome more people than that because this is a continuing education event. It’s all about how do you bring knowledge and expertise to bear so that more people can learn how do you help people get authoritative content rather than having to waddle through Sellar Florham contacts and try to find information. So
James: [00:08:51] I’m a big believer that we can’t look to Amazon to find the information that’s needed to be successful solvers. It’s also important to have a method of vetting content and vetting speakers to find high quality content and high quality topics. That’s going to help all of us become better sellers more efficient more profitable sellers he said continuing.
Stephen: [00:09:12] It’s like a CPA. It really is a CPD continuing professional education. That’s what it seems to me because because it’s become sophisticated. I mean you’ve been in this world for a long time. It is night and day difference than a few years ago isn’t it.
James: [00:09:30] I was 10 nine years ago. I was Amazon’s first FBA account manager and that back in those days I was trying to tell people that hey Amazon has some extra warehouse space that you love for us to store your stuff and obviously you know look at where we are now with FBA look where we are now with sell it for full price. Look at our will we are now with no new categories that have come online and unified accounts overseas and all of exciting stuff that quite frankly is fabulous if you understand how it works and what it can do for you. But it’s scary as heck if you don’t know how it works it’s kind of like a doctor saying well you might be sick with one of these 50 new diseases.
James: [00:10:08] We’ve just noticed but the reality is until you know what’s going on and you can figure out does that match what I’m trying to do with my own business. You know all these new options aren’t necessarily bonus opportunities. So part of putting sense to all these potential opportunities and saying I’m ready for this. I’m not ready for this one. I’m ready for this one. You know I could be ready for this one but I need to get a partner to help me with this in this particular area. There’s no way I’m ever going to do that because I don’t have the right kind of products or the right kind of sourcing know making sense of all of that. Gone are the days of somebody saying Wow Amazon’s big I should try selling a bunch of stuff there because I’m sure I can make money. Now the reality is we’ve got to have a very specific strategy. What are we trying to do. What’s our point of differentiation. How flexible are we what kind of data do we have to support our decisions that that kind of sophistication is now pretty much paramount to being a successful seller. And I’m realistic that you know it’s very easy to fail on Amazon.
Stephen: [00:11:10] I had the opportunity to run Amazon services nobody says Jim by the way. Hold on. I don’t want to point you on that.
Stephen: [00:11:16] Nobody ever says that you’re one of the few that has ever said that that it’s easy to say I’m with you I agree with you. But nobody talks about that. You know let’s let’s be honest. I mean you know most people are like hey this is the best thing since sliced bread is his miracles. This is the place that miracles happen. You know this is your chance to be you know this is the Wild West the gold rush. That’s what people quite frankly say and generally they’re offering courses and stuff like that. So here you are saying hey that maybe that was the time there was a time because I’ve been at the since 2011 and it’s crazy back then. But to be fair it’s different today.
James: [00:12:01] Well I look at it as unless you understand that if you’re brand new Sellar and you’re looking at selling on Amazon. First of all there’s two million plus sellers already there. Some of them have super sophisticated software they’ve built to scrape huge amounts of data and essentially find the needle in the haystack. Some of them have incredible sourcing capabilities far beyond anything that you know some guy gets on a plane goes to China and says I got somebody to build something for me. No they it all. There’s all sorts of business strategies out there that I didn’t even fully appreciate until I left Amazon and had a chance to do have some very frank conversations with some sellers about how is it you’re actually making money here. When I realized what they were doing I thought wow this is amazing. This is this is stuff where you know if I was a business school student seeing this my head would spin because this is not traditional theory of how you make money and yet people have figured out unique ways to do this. The other stuff that’s going on that quite frankly you need to know if you’re going to be a seller on Amazon you’ve got a lot of irrational sellers out there sellers who don’t have the right kind of data to drive their business. And they’re losing money left right and center. They don’t even realize it and you’re competing against these guys.
James: [00:13:14] And so you know you buy something you put a little mark up on it you try to sell it and you’ve got a competitor who’s selling it for 20 percent less and you’re saying how is that possible. I thought I have the best sourcing price and yet these guys are selling it. They couldn’t possibly be making money. You’re right they’re not making money. And the worst problem is that they don’t realize that they’re not making money but because they don’t have unit economics on their Skewes they may conceal the fact that they’re not making money on certain products for a long time and continue to be they’re competing against you and you’re saying Gosh I put fifty thousand dollars of hard earned income into this new business of being an Amazon seller and I don’t know how to how to actually make profit in that scenario.
Stephen: [00:13:57] You’re not you’re not going against anything you’ve done everything right. You did the research you went and you did everything right. Like you’re saying and then all right.
James: [00:14:05] Except you didn’t understand what kind of competitive landscape you have. You don’t know what kind of companies you’re up against.
James: [00:14:12] And you assume that everybody you’re up against has a logic that somehow makes sense to you. And yet it doesn’t and you don’t necessarily think of all the overseas companies that you might also be competing against some of which may or may not be selling legitimate product.
James: [00:14:29] I mean how much time do you plan to spend selling product on Amazon where you’re spending hours a day filing tickets with Amazon just to level out the playing field and get rid of all the shenanigans that you may be having to deal with with your listings today. I mean that kind of stuff is not why people become entrepreneurs and yet to be successful Amazon seller you got to know where the landmines are and Amazon doesn’t have an incentive to tell you where the landmines are. People who sell you know silver bullet courses on make your millions on Amazon. They don’t necessarily want to slow you down from the reality of it’s hard work and you need slog everyday to make this work. I’m not trying to stop somebody from being a seller. What I’m trying to do is make sure their eyes are completely wide open. They know what...