Shownotes
There is a lot of mat in this title. But if you really want to get everyone on the same page. Start the week off right. Give everyone the chance for success. Hard work and effort will take you so far but a real team rows the same way. Working together takes effective communication.
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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)
Aaron: [00:00] First thing I would say is, um, you need to download, track and then rank a little bit. Just talk to you about what this means. So download these, take a look back over the last two weeks of what you’ve been doing, looking at your to do list, look at your, um, your calendars, look in your project management software which just open up a google sheet and download all the things that you’ve been doing, you know, as many as you can. And then when I say track is you’re going to track your time for the next 10 days to two weeks or every half an hour. Write down exactly what you’re spending your time on. This doesn’t sound sexy, but it is literally changed my life and it’s changed. You know, everybody that I work with, I put them through this exact process and they are absolutely blown away by.
Cool voice guy: [00:50] Welcome to the momentum podcast where we focused on the people, the products, and the process of ecommerce selling. Today, here’s your host, Steven Peterson.
Stephen: [01:04] Hey, before we jump in, I do want to talk about just two sponsors. Today I’m going to talk about. I’m trying to not hit you with so many of them and I turn away 90 percent of them, so, you know, the few I have, I believe 100 percent, so I just want to make sure that’s clear, but I’m talking about amazing freedom and they’re getting ready to launch their course. And um, if you have any interest in it, um, I’d like you to send me a private message. They pay me so, uh, dawn and hide anything won’t cost any more, but if you come through my link, what’s cool is I’m a, they pay me, but b, you’re going to get time with me. Any Andy, some personal time. Um, we’re going to do a group call for anybody who’s interested in a two hour deep dive and we can get, you know, give you kind of a bump little jump.
Stephen: [01:49] I’m in the business and you can get real personal and ask a bunch of questions. Um, in addition, I’m going to prep, be send it to me, your first shipment up to a thousand units a you pay for the supplies, but my wife, my son and I, we will prep your shipment, do a cursory inspection and you don’t know how important that is because when shipments come in and we get shipments in by the truckload container load air, whichever, and sometimes they’re damaged and so we take pictures of it, send it to you, do a cursory inspection to make sure the boxes aren’t crushed, give you some feedback on it because you’ve seen enough product overtime we can help you with that. Just to say, hey, you know, this is something you might be able to improve. Matter of fact, for example, I have a client that we’re doing, we have to put a sticker on their product and I’m like, why don’t they just print that on there now?
Stephen: [02:35] Because it’s expensive to buy stickers. It’s a lot of labor to put that sticker on. And it’s like, that’s a simple little tip that she probably didn’t think about when she did it. Just, you know, and next time she gets that stuff printed is like just get them printed and it’s two sided and well, which side gets a sticker, put the sticker on both sides, right? You know, just print it and make it look like a sticker. You can do that stuff. So that’s an example of something that we can help. But so if you’re interested in this course, 100 percent you should be, if you’re interested in doing private label, um, is by far the best group I’m in there with you. Um, reach out to me. Just send me a private message and I’ll add you to list and giving you some access.
Stephen: [03:11] And again you’ll get, we’re going to do a group call with two hours with Andy and I and the warehouse where we can help walk you through or talk about it, get specific and really help grow your business. The other one when we talk about is seller that I’m. So I just saw something about search terms, you know, and relevancy and all that kind of jazz. And you know, if you’re selling on Amazon, you’re spending money in that. We all are right. The best place to get a search is organically the best results to move up in those ranks. It seems that organic search is going to help you the most. Right, and so if you can put the words in so when the person puts in that they’re looking for your product, they actually see your product, not your competitor’s product. That’s a huge deal.
Stephen: [03:58] Well, seller labs has scope and that’s what it allows you to do. It actually allows you to put in the best, most proactive search terms that are out there and the brand. The way you do it is you look at your competitors, the ones that are doing well, and you could say, oh, this is what they’re using, therefore I should use the same thing. It makes sense, right? Because guess what? Somebody’s going to do that two years, so you might as well do it. Also, it’s a. it’s a big advantage to actually do the work. Very simple to use, very simple, very inexpensive, and if you go to seller labs.com, forward slash scope, use the code momentum. You’re going to save 50 bucks, you’re gonna save 50 bucks and they give you a couple free search terms, but the save the 50 bucks and go and try it and see if it’s worth it.
Stephen: [04:40] To me, you know, it’s, it’s important and we use it for not only for private label, Louisa, for wholesale and it’s really helped. Again, if you’re a wholesale seller and you can improve a wholesale listing, you win. Yes. Your competitors who also sell in that product when to, but it doesn’t matter. You went period. That seems common sense to me. It’s getting to the podcast. Welcome back to the ECOMMERCE momentum podcast. This is episode 366. Erin O’sullivan, I’m perfect example of the type of guest I want to have this time a year. Somebody who a was the seller, so they know the pain points that we all have, right? They’ve been through it, they’re just not talking and you know, you know, well, you know textbook stuff. This is real life stuff. Somebody who’s done it, and Aaron’s been a private label seller, sold millions of dollars, did lots of products, all that kind of jazz.
Stephen: [05:30] What I appreciate. A couple things. First off, a real key takeaway for me is if you have a team in the Philippines, go visit them. I’m Cynthia Science tells me the same thing, that one of the best things she does is she gets over to the Philippines a couple times a year to meet with her team to really invest time with them. You want to talk about feeling being part of something. I think it’s very powerful and that’s Aaron’s advice too. And he did it and it changed his life and I think that’s very cool. I’m part of the story part of his story to help it define its, helped define him. And, and I think that that’s really cool. Um, second thing is I loved the, the phrase he uses about an econ factory. I mean, if you think of your business in that way, you break it down into bite size pieces and you parse it and you pull it apart and you do your standard operating procedures.
Stephen: [06:15] Um, I, I pressured them to ask how many would accompany have and he’s like, sometimes it’s hundreds. Well, that’s overwhelming for me. It’s overwhelming, right? I mean, we’ve got some, but it’s overwhelming, but that’s what you hire a company like his steve doesn’t benefit other than you having success. And to me, if this is something that you’re in that six and seven figure and you’re looking, you’re struggling and you need to get some help, he’s going to give you a set of slps, they’ll fine tune them for your business. To me, that’s very, very exciting. Imagine hiring that person on staff to be just your sop person. How much would they cost? How much does that talent costs? While you’re going to get the best example? And the other thing is, remember they’ve done it for many, many businesses. So to me, you’re going to get the best practices. [inaudible]
Stephen: [06:58] going to say, Steve, why are you putting tape on left to right? You should be doing it right to left if we find it seven percent faster or something like that. A bad example, but, but you get my point is that you want to be with somebody who’s worked with a whole bunch of people because they’ve already seen what works and they’re going to help you take a look at your business and sometimes you’re not going to like what you see and it hurts, but you get to the end goal which is to improve and so very, very cool guy, very, very smart, very experienced, and just a great discussion. Let’s get into the podcast. Alright, welcome back to the ECOMMERCE momentum podcast. We’re excited about today’s guest, a guest from across the pond as they’d like to say, who’s here to help us improve our business. And the reason that I’m having them on this time of year is because 2019 is getting ready. I hopefully you’ve done some planning. Um, hopefully you’re still shipping like we are. We’re doing merchant fulfill all day to day, all day this week. Um, but we have a plan for next year, but executing the plan really takes a real strong strategy and I think Erin O’sullivan is here to help us figure that out. Welcome Erin.
Aaron: [08:04] Hey Stephen.
Stephen: [08:06] Well thank you. Um, you are an expert in this stuff. First off your seller so we can be clear about that. You understand what our business is you’ve done, you’ve developed private label, you’ve done all those things and I’m assuming that this program, this systems culture and impact, um, program that you’ve developed over time is related to the challenges you had.
Aaron: [08:30] That’s absolutely right. Know I started out in 2013 and start selling on Amazon. I was asking the west of Australia working in the mining regions out there and I was doing 12, 14 hours outside and it was just like, this is, this is not, this is not like long term. This is not something I was out there for my visa, get my green card, turn to ecommerce and starts to learn how to create physical products. And Yeah, Kim, a lot come across a lot of challenges along the way of course. Um, but we launched our first brand and made things took off and um, you know, I was kind of like a kid in a candy shop launching new products and so forth. And um, things started to take a bit of a plateau and it declined because I just had too much on my plate, so to speak. So, um, within that process, whenever the Philippines help build a team of 45 staff and it was my job to do all the systems and processes and team building there, um, and from that, um, experience and learn kind of what worked and what didn’t work and you know, through trial and error and failure, I’m a lot of failure. So I’ve been helping people with that more recently.
Stephen: [09:42] So let’s start back a little bit further because I’m interested to find out why you decided to get into physical products. What, I mean I get the physical outside work that you didn’t want to continue doing, but not everybody’s geared towards some people are computer people, some people were, you know, salespeople, what have you, what was interesting to you about physical products and did you have any experience with it prior life or with some family member?
Aaron: [10:06] So what was interesting to me was how we could create a product which would make a small but meaningful difference in somebody’s day and how scalable it was across the globe. That was really what really pulled me in and got me so excited about beginning of my entrepreneurial ecommerce journey. Um, at that point.
Stephen: [10:26] Well, what led you to believe you are an entrepreneur? I mean, what, what you know, because you’re working outside, you’re like, all right, this physical work at it. And for me, I get that. But what led you to believe that you are an entrepreneur?
Aaron: [10:36] Deep down always knew since I was young and I wasn’t the same as many, you know, most of the people that I grew up with. Um, I always knew that I had, um, you know, always had a big drive to contribute, um, to people and help people. And uh, you know, that really I always knew I was only in the minds and doing, doing that work to get it was a means to an end so I can get my Australian visa. And I always, it was just, I was just waiting really to finish that and uh, you know, create my own thing and not just at the perfect time, you know, I think Jim Roan taught and he says it best, you know, and the, um, the conditions are perfect. The united, it’s just enough rein you in the seats, Minnesota, there’s enough wind the...