Playbook For Amazon Success: Biggest Lessons Learned w/ Jeff Lieber #BrandBuilderPodcast

The worst case is that I don't make any profits or I lose money. That's like the worst worst case. And if that happened and I had no more money left in the bank account, I realized, you know what the worst thing is? I could go crash on a couple friends couches, I could go move back in with my parents. But then you look at the other side of it and say, well, what, what's kind of the best case scenario or even the average scenario, right? And the best case scenario was that it becomes a success. It becomes what I think it can become and becomes a profitable business. That's easy, easily paying my bills and allows me the freedom that I've always wanted, which was to be my own boss and to work from home or work from anywhere in the world. And that was really the end. All for me was like, okay, I'm going for it. I think I put in my two weeks the next day.

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Welcome to the Turnkey Playbook for Amazon Podcast. I'm your host Jeff Lieberman and the goal of this podcast is to share what's working today that's helping my company, Turnkey Product Management, sell over eight figures per year on Amazon for our clients. We will share with you the actionable steps, systems and playbook that you can plug into your business to boost your sales on Amazon. Let's go. In this episode I'm going to share the biggest lessons and failures that I experienced in the last five years of business, sharing some of the best advice I've ever been given from Priceline founder Jeff Hoffman as well as Ryan Moran. And I also share a life changing exercise from Tim Ferriss that helped me quit my day job. And you can use that same exercise for any Big decision in your life. Those are just a few of the lessons that I'll cover in this episode. Enjoy.

Hey. So today I'm going to be talking about some of the biggest lessons that I've learned over the last six years. Starting multiple businesses over the last few years. Some did well, some did not so well. There's been some big lessons learned and I wanted to share as many of those as I could today as well as just briefly cover, you know, my story for how I got started and how I got to where I am today. So today I own and founded a company called Turnkey Product Management where we help companies to scale their sales on Amazon and we sell over eight figures a year. So we do full service management and one on one coaching and group coaching and online trainings. And it's been awesome what we've been able to do and it's super fun. We have a great team, but it wasn't always that way. So I want to rewind the clock and to share short stories about myself and hopefully share some valuable lessons learned. So if you didn't already know, I'm from San Diego, California, grew up down here, beautiful place to live. And then I went for college to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, which is in central California. That was a great school to go to. Studied business and finance and, you know, got a good base knowledge there. Then I moved to San Francisco because I got a great job out of college at a healthcare consulting company. And so that was my first kind of exposure to the consulting world where we had clients and, you know, we were there to grow, you know, to help them grow and keep them happy. And that's where I kind of learned. So I learned a ton there. That was really awesome. And did that for a handful of years. So then what happened was I have ever since high school I've always been super interested in marketing, Internet marketing, sales. And so I've always been studying other online marketers, you know, people like Ryan Moran, people like Frank Kern and John Reese, and you know, all those guys that, that have been teaching it for years. And so I've always been studying that, but I didn't know exactly what model I would like to do for my own business. But I knew I wanted to start a business one day and so what I ended up doing was, you know, studying these different models. I was getting to a point at the healthcare company where I was like, you know, I'm still young, you know, I'm 20, 24, you know, if I wanted to start a business Like I need to do it now while I'm young. You know, I think it would be a lot easier now than it will be 10 years from now. Right. And so that was sort of my thought process there was just, you know, don't, don't live with any regrets. And you know, even if I fail at this gonna be okay, you know, I can always go, go back to my old job. So, so that was what I did. So I decided to study some different business models online. And then the one that really resonated me was launching physical products on Amazon, you know, because Amazon is the biggest online sales platform in the whole world. And so that made a lot of sense to me and so I went for it. So I studied how to do it. I looked at dozens of products and said, okay, which product should I start with? Right? And out of all the products in the world, and this is one of the lessons learned, I decided that the best idea to start would be to go with puppy training pee pads, which is hard to even admit. I thought that would be the best product because it had like a recurring repeat purchase, right. So that's where you can like train your dogs to go pee on. Right. So not the sexiest product in the world. And the other downside of that product though is that the minimum order quantity from China was to order a 20 foot container, full container of goods and it cost $15,000. And at the time that was basically, I think I had about $20,000 in, you know, in savings in my bank account. And so I basically used about 75% of my life savings and put it towards a container of puppy pads. And you know, when I, when I could have just chosen any other product in the world, I didn't realize until later that you can launch products or businesses and do a Test order of $500, right. Or do smaller products where you can air ship them from China, you know, with a couple of boxes. So that was the first mistake. So I just decided to go for it, go all in and order the whole container. So I wired the money to China, 15 grand. And honestly what was, wasn't even sure if they would ship me anything back. I was, you know, about 50% chance I would, I believe that they were just going to steal my money and I was being scammed out of it. But fortunately they did ship a container to Los Angeles and then we were in business and started selling, got our first sales. So that was really, really exciting. But lesson learned, there is, if you are getting into it or launching a new product Try to avoid starting with a whole 20 foot container and go smaller if possible to not take such a big financial risk. Okay, so next, then I started playing around with some different products and I even went outside of the pet niche as well, did some other not so cool products, just random stuff that was, you know, hot, hot products at the time had had great sales momentum. And so I tried to like get into these hot niches, you know, these new products that were like fads. And then like most fads, you know, they came and went. So I rode the wave for a little bit, you know, made a few thousand bucks and then it just crashed and I ended up losing money on some of those side products. And so the lesson learned there was, was to not just chase trends, not just to chase the hot new thing, the hot new shiny object. Because I wasn't actually building a brand, I wasn't actually building a company, I wasn't actually building a customer list. I was just simply trying to take advantage of the, of the niche on Amazon so, you know, and ride that wave while it lasted. So that was another lesson learned. And then people always ask, like, how did you decide to quit your job, your full time job? And so I was spending about 5 to 15 hours per week on the pet business, right? Because I was working 40 to 50 hours a week at my day job. And I did that for about nine months, just working, hustling, you know, at night and on the weekends is when I would work on the Amazon business. And we got a modest success. It didn't take off huge right away. We maybe sold 50 grand of revenue in the first six months or so. But I could see the trajectory. I could see, you know, we launched another product and it started doing more and then sales were growing and so I could just see that, okay, if I could get it to 50k, you know, in six months, then doing 10 hours a week, you know, what if I had 40 hours a week or 50 hours a week to put towards it, right? Then what would happen? And so that was the thought process there. And then another exercise that helped me, if you guys haven't heard of it, Tim Ferriss has an exercise, I think it's in, in one of his books called Fear Setting. And Fear Setting is an exercise where you basically, if you're making, if you're facing a big decision, right, that you, you have some fear over like quitting your day job to go sell puppy pads, right? If you're having a big decision like that and you're not sure what to do what really helps is fear setting. And that is the exercise of fully defining, like writing down on a piece of paper, what does your biggest fear look like? Like, what does it actually feel like to you? Like, what, what would that actually look like? So in that example, it was like, okay, maybe I. The worst possible thing that could happen is I quit my job where I'm making, you know, a decent paycheck and can easily pay the rent. And now I have no more income coming in from that and I'm solely relying on the business to provide my income. And the worst case is that I don't make any profits or I lose money. Let's say I buy a couple more containers and some reason, you know, Amazon shuts me down or whatever, or China scams me and I'm out, you know, 30, $40,000, right? That's like the worst, worst case. And if that happened and I had no more money left in the bank account, I realized, you know what the worst thing is? I could go crash on a couple friends, couches, I could go move back in with my parents. They would happily take me back in, I'm sure. Or I hoped, should have asked. No, they did actually, at one point. And so anyways, so that was like kind of the worst case scenario. But then you look at the other side of it and say, well, what, what's kind of the best case scenario or even the average scenario, right? And the best case scenario was that it becomes a success, it becomes what I think it can become and becomes a profitable business that's easily paying my bills and allows me the freedom that I've always wanted, which was to be my own boss and to work from home or work from anywhere in the world. And then, you know, eventually get to do things like travel around the world while working, right? Which I did. I got to circumvent the globe in 60 days, you know, going to China for a work trip and then Thailand and Europe and back to California. And so when I looked at that, I just said, you know what, it's worth the risk to take, I actually think there's a good chance I will survive and make it and make it a success. And even if it hits the fan and I gotta move back in with my parents and regroup and go get a new job, well, at least I will be able to say that I tried, right? I tried my best, I went for it and I'll never have a regret for trying, right? And that was really the end all for me was like, okay, I'm going for It I think I put in my two weeks the next day and went for it. My company was super supportive. When I told them what I was doing, they said, that's awesome. You should try that. The next point of the story, I guess I would cover is that as I started having some modest success on Amazon with my pet business, one of my good friends from Cal Poly, who had also started his own business with a few of his friends, they started a sunglasses company. And we have been, you know, keeping tabs on each other and, you know, catching up every couple of months on the phone. And then when he heard that I was having success on Amazon, he said, how are you doing that? Because they did a different model. They would launch sunglasses on Kickstarter or crowdfunding, and then they would sell it just on their website, on a Shopify site. And then they would drive traffic to the website in different ways. So that was their model, very different than mine. And so they said, how are you doing that? So I gave them some tips. And then they're like, they were trying to implement it, and they said, well, you know, we only have the bandwidth. Can you just do it for us? Like, can we pay you to do it? And I said, yeah, I guess. And so they said, okay, well, what do you charge? And I said, you know, I don't know, like, never done this before. What do you think I should charge? And so they gave me a number, and I said, yeah, that sounds great. I probably just would have done it for free at that time because I was just kind of hanging out with my friends and helping them. So that was really how Turnkey actually got started. I didn't even know that it was a business at the time. It was just kind of a hobby and something fun to do for my friends. So that's another cool lesson as well, that sometimes the best businesses don't start out with a business idea in mind. Don't start out with, oh, how can I make a bunch of money in this niche? You know, that was never my thought process. Right. It was actually just a natural need in the market that I identified that actually just stumbled upon. I didn't. I was. I can't even say I was that smart. And, like, asked them intentionally, like, hey, could I manage your Amazon? Right? It just came from opportunities and saying yes to helping and being of service to someone else and then realizing, hey, this is. There's a need in the market for this. So actually, that's how we got started in the consulting side, right? On the agency side. And then Funny enough, they're still a client today, which I'm really proud of. And we've worked with them for, gosh, I think about four years now. So that's been an incredible experience. And so then from there, I was still managing the pet business, but also managing their sunglasses. And then they started referring some of their friends to me, right? Because as you guys probably know, I mean, entrepreneurs tend to be friends with other entrepreneurs doing similar things. And so they had a lot of friends with other brands of products, and so they just referred them happily to me. And then, you know, I would try to help them if I could. And so then all of a sudden, we had three and four and then five clients, right? And so that was really how the business got started, how Turnkey got started. But I was never super focused on growing it. I wasn't trying to do marketing to get more clients. It was just word of mouth, purely because I was still managing the pet products business. So, anyway, so that's. That's one part of that story. The next part I'd like to talk about is I then started getting shiny object syndrome, because once you start having a little bit of success, then people will start contacting you and saying, hey, can you help me do this? Can you help me do that? You know, what do you think about this? You know, could we work together? And that's awesome, right? That's a great problem to have. But it is hard, you know, especially early on when you're not making a ton of money, it's hard to not say no to any opportunity. Like, oh, maybe I could make whatever, you know, a thousand bucks off of that, and maybe I could grow to something bigger, right? It's like trying to diversify my income is what my thought process was. So then I entered into another partnership with my friend's dad, launching another pet company, right? And so now I was managing, like three or four companies basically at one time. And I thought that was a great idea. And then. But the lesson learned there was that it was very, very difficult to manage. And so luckily, you know, I'm following Ryan Moran for years through his original podcast, Freedom Fast Lane. And I've just always learned so much just purely from listening to him. And. And then I believe I went to Freedom Fast Lane, or maybe it was capcon by that time, Capitalism Conference, and Jeff Hoffman was a speaker, and Ryan was interviewing him. So Jeff Hoffman is the founder of Priceline.com so Jeff Hoffman has also. I can't think of the other companies that he's done, but the story on him is that he's had, I think like three or four or more like hundred million dollar companies in his past, right. That he's started or helped really build. And so he's got an incredible track record, right. And so, you know, Ryan asked him, how did you do that? How did you build like four huge things like that that are like close to the size of like Priceline, Right. Like, that's incredible. And his answer was, ryan, I only did one thing at a time. At no point was I running any of those companies simultaneously. They were all done in sequence. And then he said, you know, he's like, I would compare it to, and I'm just going to paraphrase, I would compare it to don't try to get a gold medal in six different events, you know, at one Olympics, right. Just try to get a gold medal in one thing. It's hard enough to get a gold medal and be the best in the world at one thing, right. So don't try to do it in six things. And when I heard Ryan and Jeff talking about that, that really resonated with me because I was really, really stressed at the time. I was really, I was just working probably 60, 65 hour weeks. There was never a break. I could never truly go on a vacation because the other thing is when you're running for, you know, small businesses, none of which are truly independent of me, there's, there's a fire going on at any given time or at least I need to be checking something, right. So I could. Literally, for a few years, I never went on a true vacation where I couldn't work. Right. I think maybe I went on like a five day trip, but I still like checked email once a day and probably had to get on a call a couple times a week. It was a grind period. Right. And I'm glad that I did. I learned a lot. But what happened was when I was managing three or four businesses at once, thinking I'm being so smart by diversifying my revenue, right. And income. Well, what happened was, was all four of those businesses grew equally slowly. They grew at equally crappy rates. Right. None of them took off. Right. I couldn't give the proper due focus to either, to any of them. Right. That was really, really an important lesson for me. So then it was at that point, and again, I have to thank Ryan Rand for that was I said, you know, I need to get a gold medal in one thing. So I sat back and said, which, which one do I like the most? Which one do I want to spend my time doing. At the end of the day, I was not passionate about pet products, right. I kind of got into it just to be honest. Just kind of for the opportunity, right? Just because the numbers made sense on Amazon in my research. But I wasn't truly, like, passionate about the pet niche, right? I mean, I love dogs, but, like, I didn't wake up, like, you know, how can I grow? I didn't want to grow a, you know, $10 million pet company that wasn't, like, I wasn't passionate about that. And I was in two pet companies, right? So, yeah, kind of looking at that. Then I said, but I am really enjoying working with the companies that I'm working with, you know, at Turnkey. And I loved that. And that allowed us to focus on what we were really great at. People also ask, why, why did you start Turnkey? Why don't. Why are you helping other companies to grow their sales? Why don't you just do it yourself with your own brand? And actually, the reason was, is because when you're managing a whole business, you have to manage from A to Z, right? You have to manage not just Amazon, but you have to manage, you know, the supply chain, whether you're ordering from China or, or from the US or wherever you're ordering your products from, that's a whole thing. And that, you know, quality control, cash flow management, inventory management, building the audience off of Amazon and building the website and running social media and managing a team to manage all of that. And to be honest, I just, I could do it. I could do it all, but I wasn't super passionate about all those other aspects, the supply chain part, like ordering more products and sourcing new products. I wasn't great at that. And I wasn't. And I had a hard time hiring that out. I had a hard time delegating that. And so then I realized I am great. And my team, we've built systems for Amazon and we've got the Amazon marketing piece, like, down pat. So what if we found more companies like William Painter, where they're great at sourcing products, right? And they're great at launching products, say, using Kickstarter or they're good at their own stuff, but they need help in Amazon. They don't know Amazon. And so if we work together, right, Then all of a sudden their company is now much more stable and sound and growing a lot more, and we're able to be happy because we can help that company be happy and we can do our part on Amazon and then everyone wins. And so when I looked at that, I said, that's the business that I'm most passionate about, that I enjoy the most. And so that was my decision. So I said, how can I make that a reality and just only focus on that? So then I said, okay. So then I sold. I immediately went into the process of selling my original pet products business. So I sold it through a broker and did all the legwork to put it up for sale and vet buyers. And I don't have time to go into all the lessons learned on selling a business today, but I will 100% be covering that in the future as a future topic. I will probably just do a whole episode on lessons learned from selling my business because I made some mistakes that definitely could have cut the learning curve down, could have shortened the time frame that it took to sell, and could have increased the multiple. So I sold that company. And then I also decided to exit out of the partnership with my friend's dad just for similar type reasons. Wasn't super passionate about it, and it was kind of a situation where it made more sense for one or the other of us to manage it. And so I got out of that one and decided to go focus on turnkey. So I exited both. And then all of a sudden, we were only focused on turnkey. I was able to even keep my whole team intact from the pet business and keep my same team, which was incredible. So that, because they could help me, you know, as we grew turnkey. And that's what we did. That was two and a half years ago or so when we really made the switch that we're going all in on turnkey and finding ways to help as many companies as possible. And again, just the lesson learned there is that, you know, really try. I would highly recommend that you try to find one business that you are passionate about that you enjoy. Don't fall into the trap of chasing other shiny objects just to go make another. Oh, I can make 500 bucks a month doing that, and I could make a thousand bucks doing that. Because honestly, I would guess you'd follow a similar pattern as me where hardly any of them grew very much. And then it's actually really hard to manage all of them. So then the next phase was, as we were growing turnkey was we had to hire more people, right? We only had, I believe, like six people at the time. Now we've grown to have over 20 people on our team. I'll probably do a whole episode on hiring and managing people and the people that you need to manage Amazon, because that's just a giant topic. But that is an incredible. That's been a learning curve for sure. Just getting to that point and managing so many people. Definitely made some mistakes along the way. So I'll cover that in another episode as well. And so those are some of the biggest lessons that I've learned to date. It's been quite a journey owning your own businesses, starting businesses, working with other people. It comes with its challenges and you get to learn so much along the way and grow as a person and as a, a business person as well. And yeah, I really hope that a lot of those lessons were helpful. I'll be detailing a lot more of those in more detail as far as like, you know, really diving into certain topics down the road. I mean, that's why I'm doing this. Right. I want to share what's working, whether it's what's working on Amazon today, like a latest strategy, or whether it's, you know, more of a general business principle of hiring a team. Right. That's taken us to the next level or selling a business. You know, I'll be covering topics like that down the road as well. Yeah, hopefully that that's really helpful for you guys. And thank you so much for listening. It's been really fun.

Thanks for listening to that episode. Is there one thing that you can take away from this episode and take action on? Maybe it's recognizing what Jeff Hoffman told Ryan Random. Don't try to get a gold medal in six things at once. Or maybe you need to launch a new product, but you need to find a way to do a small test order that you can actually afford. Or maybe you need to make a big decision in your life that you've been meaning to make. And maybe Tim Ferriss fear setting exercise would give you some clarity on what you should decide. I really hope this episode was helpful for you. We will give you the actionable steps, systems and playbook that you can plug into your business to boost your skill sales on Amazon. Thanks for listening to this episode of Turnkey Playbook for Amazon podcast.

Hey capitalists. We hope you enjoyed the show. If you'd like to take the next step with your Amazon sales, visit capitalism.comamazonclass to register for Jeff Lieber's next class on growth strategies. That's capitalism.com Amazon class. Thanks for listening.