Shownotes
Could you get through a major challenge with your business right now? How about two? three? Fred will explain how he has ..so far! He will tell you that knowing your numbers is the key to weather upcoming storms. Seeing the upcoming problems and adjusting to handle them will get you through, up and over walls. The other side can be so much better knowing you have a plan. The other key mention from Fred is about getting a business mentor. Sound, experienced advice from someone you trust can be the difference between emotional decisions and educated decisions.
Mentioned:
Jordan Harbinger’s Podcast Fail Forward
Sponsors
SPECIAL OFFER FOR MY LISTENERS ONLY
Gaye’s Million Dollar Arbitrage List
Tactical Arbitrage – Get an 10 day free trial with code: “Tactical”
Freeeup– Save 10% (forever) and get an instant $25.00 voucher for your first hire.
Transcript: (note- this is a new tool I am trying out so it is not perfect- it does seem to be getting better)
Fred: [00:00:00] The attorneys and, and just be frank, there were local attorneys who don’t specialize at all in this type of a transaction. They were having a very difficult time wrapping their heads around what the actual asset was. Um, you know, there’s no inventory. There’s no. Because I was not selling the private label. I was keeping that
Cool voice guy: [00:00:23] welcome to the ECOMMERCE momentum. Will we focus on the people, the products, and the process of incomers silimed today. Here’s your host, Steven Peters in.
Stephen: [00:00:37] So you’re looking for an advantage to help you woo a brand. Well, one of the tools that you can use this scope, you can check out their product and then check out their competitors and find the keywords that competitors were using and check out theirs and see that they’re not. And then say, okay, I’ve got an idea. Let me do this. Let me enhance your brand. That’s the thing you can bring to the marketplace. When you can enhance the brand, you’re going to win that account. So try it. You get a free trial, but seller labs.com, forward slash scope. Use the momentum and save 50 bucks. It’s a free trial, try it and see if you can enhance the brand. It’s time to get the listings right? So what should you do? You should get your images right, right? So amazing freedom has a program to help you do that and we’ve used them.
Stephen: [00:01:20] It’s phenomenal what they can do. You got to go look at this. So you go to amazing freedom.com, forward slash photos and take a look at the examples of what you can do with an image you take and you give them some sample images, some simple images, and then what they do is they take an insert them with lifestyle photos and so all of a sudden you’re going to see an example of what a plain image looks like and then what it can be enhanced to. Why is this a value to you while you’re in the wholesale business and guess what? You want to add value to the brand and this is just a simple way to do it. They offer all those kinds of services. Scroll down to the bottom. If you really want somebody to help really improve this service and you want to bring value to that brand because you want exclusivity, the services that they offer for a listing enhancement will blow your mind, so again, it’s amazing.
Stephen: [00:02:08] Freedom Dot com, forward slash photos. Take a look at what you can do for your brands that you’re trying to get. If you’re ready to learn about wholesale than I suggest best from the nest and Robin Johnson, her unstoppable Amazon Academy will help you learn from basically even open ending account. If you’re brand new to Amazon, but then all the way to brand building, how do you. How do you enhance the brain? How do you have that conversation? There’s 300 plus videos, probably more than that by now, so very simple, little as $49 a month best from the nest.com forward slash esm. That’s it. Best from the nest.com forward slash m checkout the services that they offer. Check out some of the events that she hosts. Do you want to go walk around and check it out best from the nest.com forward slash? Yeah. Add an important member to your Amazon teams’ solutions.
Stephen: [00:03:02] Four ecommerce. Yep. Solutions Four ecommerce. Karen Walker’s team helps manage our Amazon account. We pay full price just like everybody else. We’ve been using it for a couple of years and the reason is is because of the results. We modify a lot of listings, especially in wholesale because we’re trying to enhance that listing, right? We’re trying to help the brand and so guess what? That’s the type of service that we get from solutions for ECOMMERCE, so it’s solutions, the number four e-commerce dot com forward slash wholesale, and you can get $50 off her service. Go try it, give it a shot and say, hey, could you help me get this listing in line? And guess what? That allows you to go out and develop relationships with wholesalers and then the work gets done by Karen and her team. I can’t recommend it enough. We use it again.
Stephen: [00:03:47] We pay full price solutions, the number four e-commerce dot com, forward slash wholesale. Save 50 bucks. Get that important part of your team working for you. Welcome back to the ECOMMERCE momentum podcast. This is episode 375, Fred Mckinnon. Now this is a, a, a pretty serious story. I mean, it’s worth listening to probably more than once to hear what could happen to you all outside of your control. All you can do everything right and things happen. Life happens and life has happened to you and other things. So it guess what it could happen to here is as we both kind of talk about, you need an umbrella because it’s going to rain. And so Fred’s had the, as he describes it perfectly, the perfect storm in with his ecommerce business and a personal life. So I think it’s a great story, a great example of a guy who’s got clarity on what really defines him, not what used to be.
Stephen: [00:04:46] And he’s one of the guys who like me because we’re about the same age that are career use to define us, not anymore. And Man, it’s, it’s a shame. It took us both so long to learn that. But man, to see him come out on the other side, it’s amazing. He’s so inspiring. Um, by the way. And, and it really addressed this very much. He does consulting, he’s got some pretty big clients. He sold over $65 million on Amazon. So if you’re ever looking for somebody to help you scale, this is the guy to do that. Let’s get into the podcast.
Stephen: [00:05:23] All right. Welcome back to the ECOMMERCE momentum podcast. We’re excited about today’s guest to return guests and it’s been two years since I’ve had him on the show. His life has turned a over two or three times. His business has turned over two or three times and it’s very, very interesting on the reaction and I was fortunate just to see him a couple of weeks ago in Atlanta at the Atlanta mart and we got to spend some time talking about changes and then adapting to those changes outside of your control. Fred mckinney, welcome back, Fred. Hey Man. It’s great to be back on and it’s great to have you again. It was great to see you a couple of weeks ago. That was, that was an amazing experience because both of us were brand new to that market. Neither one of us had been there before. It is over and I only went in that one building. You and I were in. Did you make it to all three?
Fred: [00:06:12] Yeah, I went to all three buildings. I spent two days there. I think my fitbit says I’ll walked about 12 miles and I, I would guess that I saw 30 percent of the show.
Stephen: [00:06:26] It is, you know, you know, I am New York now, coming up in a couple weeks. Maybe. Maybe this will be out. Probably already been there by then. But um, massive. The javits center in New York. It’s huge. It’s a five room. I mean, you take it for a lot of trade shows there. I honestly believe that the Atlanta Martin was significantly bigger. I have to look to do the square footage because it just felt that way. I just kept going to floor after floor after I’m like, we’re. And then I just wonder down hallways and I never made it down. All of them. And I only stayed in that one building. Incredible.
Fred: [00:07:00] Yeah. It’s overwhelming to say the least. And I’ll tell you the lesson that I took away from it, and honestly I should have known this because, uh, I learned this at asd. Um, if you don’t go with a plan ahead of time, then you’re just basically lost. Yeah. So, uh, now, you know, an American smart has a great app on a iphone APP and website. So, uh, I had the APP and I really wish now in retrospect, I had spent a couple of days a glancing through all of the exhibitors doing a little research on them and making a, a plan that they have a really cool thing where you can build your whole plan and the APP and it’ll give you a floor plan of exactly where you need to go and you can type notes in for each exhibitor. Really an incredible thing that I didn’t really utilize. And now in retrospect, I wish I had utilized it board, but I’ll know better next time I go.
Stephen: [00:08:01] Yeah, I think it’s, there’s always a learning curve. I don’t, you know, every place. So like, asd, any one of them, there’s always a learning curve and I didn’t go with any intention of buying anything or seeing anything and really with zero expectations, I was there for another purpose in Atlanta. I had the next morning to kill, um, and other than to meet with you. Um, and I a breakfast I never made it to, by the way, I got lost in Atlanta, has a subway system. I literally, I went on for, I went south, I went north, I went south and went north and I finally said that guys, I’m not going to meet him for breakfast. I, there was no way. I don’t know what I was doing. I have no clue. Anyway, um, I had zero expectations, um, but I found wholesaler accounts there that I am going to do business with and it was very, very surprised by my cool stories is this, I’m walking down this aisle and I didn’t pick my head up at all.
Stephen: [00:08:51] I just looking at a product and it caught my eye and I’m reading it and it says something about a, made in a, something about Carlisle Pennsylvania. And I’m like, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, I’m like, that’s where I live. And I would look up and I recognize who the manufacturer is. And they’re like, well, I didn’t even recognize it first. I’m like, Carlisle. Pennsylvania goes, well, we’re really from a little place south of there. You would never hear it. I’m like, dude, here’s where I live. He goes, oh, it was so cool that there’s this local. I mean, local to me was there in a big way. And it really, I guess that that also showed the breadth of the products that were. They’re just phenomenal.
Fred: [00:09:30] Oh yeah. I had a very similar experience. I was walking by a booth and uh, the guy read my badge and saw St Simons Island, Georgia. He goes, Oh, you’re from St Simons? I said, yeah, you know, and he goes, well, no, but there’s another company from St Simon’s right there across the, across the aisle. And so sure enough, I think, well, I’m going to know who they are because this isn’t a large island. Right? I mean, I feel like after having lived here since 1995, you know, everybody, I know everybody not even be related to half of them. Right, right, right. Um, and they and they all know me more than I know from my former job where I was in front of 1500 people, you know, every week. So, uh, at any case, I’ll walk around the corner and I’m like, number one, I’ve never heard of this company in my life. Number two, I’ve never seen these individuals in my life. And sure enough company doing tons of business right here out of my own backyard. People I’d never met before. Of course we all knew the same people, so I was like, I can’t believe we haven’t met. So yeah, you really know. You never know what’s happening right behind you.
Stephen: [00:10:42] Did that opened an opportunity for you?
Fred: [00:10:45] It did. Not in the sense that they were not interested in being on Amazon at all. I did discuss it and, and it could open up opportunities in the future and really I probably wouldn’t have pursued them regardless. I, the product just didn’t seem to be the type of product that I felt would really do well. I’m online. It’s the kind of thing you really want to touch and feel.
Stephen: [00:11:12] Yeah. I might company the one that, what they sell. I’m just not interested in selling it. No, it was explaining to my son this morning we were having a conversation and I said to him, I said, I’m at that place in my life. I only want to sell things I’m interested in, um, I don’t want to sell things just to make money. I really want to be interested in a particular product or I’m just not interested in selling it. Um, it, it, there’s just too many other things that I think you have to build depth on whatever you’re selling. And if I’m not interested in a product, it’s going to be eh. Got It. Now you know, there’s no connection. Maybe that’s the better way to say it.
Fred: