The Best Amazon Marketer Alive: How Travis Grew To $2m Per Month In 2 Years

And we ended up discovering that we have a mutual interest in business. Justin mentioned our company to his dad and his dad owned a huge logistics company and his dad said that he would provide us inventory financing. And they gave us the capital we needed to scale from seven to eight figures and beyond. And if we didn't randomly end up on that wrong booze cruise, we never would have adjusted.

You're listening to Freedom Fast lane presented by capitalism.com this is the show about building businesses and investing the profits so that you can live life on your terms. And now, your host, the future owner of the Cleveland Indians, Ryan Daniel Moran.

Fastlaners. Listen, you're gonna want to listen to this episode. So today I'm gonna be joined by by someone who might be. He is statistically one of the top 50Amazon sellers in the world and I'd be willing to bet that he is.

Maybe the smartest of the bunch. So today you're going to be joined by Travis Killing It Killian. He's one of our backroom members and Travis and I connected there. And Travis and I have been having some really exciting conversations about what's going on in the space and what we're going to do in order to do some really cool brands and businesses together. But Travis comes on today on Freedom Fast Lane to share how the heck he grew so quickly and it's not going to be how you think he did it. Travis comes on and tells what his superpowers are, which have nothing to do with tactics or strategy. It has everything to do with people. I have said very publicly that I think the answer to almost every question is who? And Travis iterates that. He states that a couple times throughout this interview. He talks about his business partner, he talks about his mentor, he talks about his investor. All of these pieces have factored into his hyperbolic growth. He also talks about the importance of having a product that you actually give a crap about. Having a product that is truly different and better than everybody else's or at least different enough to a core group of people to where you can get enough market share to be able to scale. So in this episode he talks about how he met those individuals, how he chooses his products. And there's this gold right about the 15 minute part where Travis talks about how he split tests different ideas in order to know what is going to get a ton of reviews, what's going to rank and what is going to grow as a result of doing this. He has built eight figure businesses and he is considering do I grow to 100 million or do I sell this thing for an eight or a nine figure payday and go on to the next thing and invest in other businesses? By the way, that is the goal, the plan, the question and the trajectory of the backroom Mastermind. We're working with entrepreneurs who have at least proven something in the marketplace. Most of the time they come in at about 100k a month and we help clear those bottlenecks so they can grow into the mid multi millions, closer to 10 million. And, and then they can decide do I want to grow this into a big empire or do I want to sell and invest my money for cash flow and wealth. That's what we're identifying in the back room. We're also working on bringing some businesses together for potential roll ups. And we have a board of advisors that exists to help clear bottlenecks, provide capital, have hiring resources, retail connections, branding expertise. You know, I was at Onnit headquarters a couple days ago with Aubrey Marcus and the videos on YouTube and on my Instagram, which is ryandaniel moran. And I'm just amazed at how quickly a brand can grow when those pieces are in place. We have a great product with distribution and you're following a solid plan and that's what we're up to@capitalism.com and, and why we've had so many successful entrepreneurs. So if you've got something that's working, you can go over to freedomfastlane.com backroom or you can email me at backroomapitalism.com a fair warning, Travis doesn't pull any punches, nor does he censor himself. So if you are listening with kids, we make a couple crass jokes and say a couple words that are four letters. So if you're listening with kids, maybe you wanna go listen to the episode with Jenna Ziegler or something. All right. But if you want to learn from the best in the world, you're going to enjoy this chat with Travis Killian.

Hey everybody, welcome to Freedom Fastlane. Today we're joined by Travis Killing It Killian. What's up, dude? Thanks for hanging out with us.

What's up, man? Thanks for having me.

Well, I'm stoked to have you. I know you don't do a lot of podcast interviews, but you might be, you might be the most underground physical products ninja in the world. And I'm just fascinated by your brain and I wanted to share it. So first of all, congrats on everything you've accomplished and I can't wait to dive into your brain power.

Hey, thanks, man. And by the way, this is my first podcast I've ever done.

So you're popping my podcast cherry, and no one else can take that away from me.

Glad to. I could come up with so many gross analogies that I won't go into, but I appreciate it. Well, Travis, I mean, I know your life was in a different spot a few years ago, and we were talking when you were at my house for brunch a few days ago, you were just talking about how every kind of couple years, you just doubled down on a new model and a new model. So I was hoping you could kind of recap that entrepreneurial story to start.

You know what? Like, I've been an entrepreneur probably for 13 years, since high school, and there's sort of been some milestones, like you said, like, every couple of years, something happens, and maybe we can call it like, a fuck this moment where I just shift from one mindset and then I'm, like, plateaued, and then when I change or discover something new or a new model or a new way of thinking, then it explodes to another level, and then I plateau and then go to another level. So you want me to sort of give you, like, a rundown of my history as an entrepreneur? I'd like to hear it.

Yeah. I'd like to hear the evolution of. Of each different kind of business model.

Well, when I was 16 years old, I was fired from my first job at Subway, and I had a Fuck this moment. I realized that I was not gonna be in a position where someone could just, like, fire me, so I didn't wanna ever have a job. Now, I wasn't really sure I was gonna do that, but I knew I was gonna dedicate my life to being an entrepreneur, or at least, like, financially independent from having a job.

I guess my advice for anyone who's starting out is if you're going to commit to the entrepreneur journey, commit. Don't quit after six months, a year, or even a few years, as you'll see. And I'm going to share with you sort of my growth as an entrepreneur. I didn't really have any breakthroughs until six years after I decided I was going to be an entrepreneur at 16. At 17, I had another sort of mental shift, and that came while I was missing prom because I dumped my date a week before, and I went down the personal development rabbit hole that I'm sure a lot of you can't relate to.

And I saw this podcast that was going over the concept of passive income and how you separate Your time from your money. And that's how you become financially independent. And that's. I went from like the 16 year old that didn't know how I was going to be a self sufficient entrepreneur or financially free to now like having like a concept or a goal, a model, the passive income model. And that was a huge shift for me. It was the difference between like, you know, being an entrepreneur that has a glorified job, which means you have to show up and work every day, you can't take any time off or the business would go down. So learning that, I wanted to start businesses that could be automated or made passive and scaled. And actually every entrepreneur has like a low point. And through those low points, I'm sure you know that you sort of discover something new. And for me it was like in college I reached a low point in my entrepreneurship journey because I realized I was chasing money through whatever affiliate income I could generate. And my low point was when I was mass posting to Craigslist to get people to sign up for affiliate offers like Acai Berry Free Trials. And I had another fuck this moment that happened when my college roommate Joe, who you met, and he ended up becoming my business partner. Best business partner ever and best friend. He said something along the lines of, congratulations, you're making money providing no value and getting people to sign up for things that they don't want so you can make a quick buck. And that hit me really hard. I really felt like shit. And that's when I decided that any business I did from that point after would provide real value and positively impact other people's lives.

Was Joe an entrepreneur at that point or is he just a sage source of wisdom?

Oh, he was an entrepreneur. He had been since high school. He had a car detailing company and he would like go around the neighborhood and detail people's cars. And people loved him because he went above and beyond and they love helping people out, like helping kids out, starting businesses. And so every summer in college he would go home and detail cars for a summer and make enough money to live a pretty good life through the rest of the college. He's always been an entrepreneur. I think he started when he was like 12 mowing yards for people.

And Travis, I got to know in that low point where you were spam and stuff on Craigslist, how did you feel about how you were making money, assuming that you were making some doing this?

I felt like I was avoiding my feelings attached to it. I was just focused on the one thing which is just money. I didn't care how I got it. It's that hustler mindset of like, oh, it's about me. Like, as long as I get fed, as long as I get money, then you know, fuck how I get it, right? Like, that's the mindset I was in. I didn't really think about it and no one had ever worded it or put it in perspective, especially someone I looked up to to really, like, tell me exactly what I was doing. And basically I was earning money dishonestly. Once I decided that I would provide value to help people, pieces really started to fall into place.

So let's talk about that. How did you make that shift from the taker mentality to starting to provide? And then what happened?

So I made the shift. Well, the first shift was I stopped it. Literally the next day or that day. I stopped pushing all those affiliate offers and I stepped back and browsed forums and realized I had some skills. I could actually do SEO. So I actually ranked. I built a website, ranked it number one for SEO in my town, Columbia, South Carolina, and started providing SEO services to companies after that. And that was good. That was an honest living. I was helping businesses get more customers by ranking them better for keywords. But I still felt a little uneasy because I was still at the mercy of clients and they could just decide, oh, now I'm ranked, okay, I don't need you anymore. And that happened a couple of times. Another sort of shift I had was when I read a book called the Millionaire Fast Lane by M.J. deMarco.

After reading that book, I decided that I was no longer going to do SEO for other people. I was going to do it for myself and my own websites. And that's when I started a lead generation company.

What does that exactly mean? I've heard you say that a few times, but what's a lead generation company? What value are you creating there?

Okay, so what I did is a person reached out to me and he had a dumpster rental company in Columbia, South Carolina. And he had this very horrible problem of people calling him from a town two hours away. Myrtle Beach, Charleston, places like that, and they wanted dumpsters and he didn't have dumpsters. So what he did, instead of just hanging up on these people is he just for shits and giggles, said, yeah, I could book you a dumpster, it'll be $500. And to his surprise, people paid him like 500 bucks for a dumpster. And so he went to the local guy and got it for like 350 and just brokered it. And then he saw in his mind that he could like start brokering dumpster rental. And he needed an SEO guy to generate him leads in the form of phone calls. So he reached out to me because I was, you know, I had my SEO website. And he said that he had been screwed over by SEO guys in the past. So I pitched an idea to him, like, hey, like, how about this? I'll make the website, front all the cost, get all the leads, and you just pay me when your phone rings. So then I started building websites, ranking them for cities across the US and saying if you are you looking for a dumpster in, you know, Austin, Texas, well, call this number to book a dumpster today. And it would call and it would go to his. He ended up having a 20 person call center from our lead. The leads I was giving him, wow.

You know, was the business primarily that.

One client then at this time? Yeah. So I realized, so this is like when I was 22 years old, six months before graduating college, I now have this lead generation business that was making me six figures. I actually debated dropping out six months before getting my degree because that's when I actually had the final piece of not being able to knew that I didn't have to go get a job after college.

So after I had this lead generation model that worked really well for dumpsters, I wanted to scale it to other niches, other verticals. That's when I called Joe and I was like, hey Joe. And keep in mind, Joe and I, we're best friends. But when he moved away, we didn't talk to each other for probably 11 months. And it wasn't because we didn't want to. It's just like he was doing his thing, I was doing my thing. I called him up on the phone, he picks up right away, tell him about this dumpster rental business. And we decided like a 10 minute phone call that he's going to pack his stuff up, move down to South Carolina that winter, which is the off season for his car detailing in Boston. And we would try to make another lead generation model in another niche. And within like three or four months, we were doing it in freight shipping. He found the buyer, he helped with the SEO and the business side of it. And we had another buyer who were making enough money where he could just like move down permanently. And then we built our lead generation business together.

And I know you built that to a pretty healthy income. Is that correct?

Yeah, I think probably when I was like 24 years old, that was a seven figure business for Joe and I.

That we still made for a 24 year old.

Yeah, and actually I still have it going today. Sort of made it very passive.

And I know a few years later you discovered Amazon through a mentor. Tell me about that pivot.

So that's actually probably one of my hacks in business. And in order to understand the way this mentor came into my life and wanted to share the Amazon opportunity, I really need to talk about one of my hacks to scale the SEO lead generation business.

One of those hacks was I hired an SEO firm to do SEO on one of my sites so that I could learn the strategy and apply it myself, combined with my strategies on all of my other sites. So I went to Google, searched for SEO services, clicked on the number one result, told them I wanted them to rank this dumpster rental site on Google for dumpster rental. And then he added me on Skype. His name is Adam, and I would hit him up like once a week or so just to ask him a couple questions. And eventually it became like, what are you doing in my site? To what do you envision is going on for the SEO landscape? What links are working, how is he building private network sites, et cetera. And see, he had hundreds of clients, so whenever there was a change in algorithms, he would see which clients went up, which ones went down, and then share his thoughts with me. We just eventually became friends because I would provide input with him and help him out. Then eventually, I guess six months later, we addressed the elephant in the room and he's like, hey, do you still need me to do SEO on your site? And I was like, to be honest, I never really wanted you to do SEO on my site to begin with. I just wanted to.

See how you did SEO and pick your mind, and I wanted you really to be my SEO consultant. So he was like, okay, I'm going to stop building links to your site and you keep paying me 1500amonth and I'll keep telling you all the strategies. So I was like, this is awesome.

So we became buddies and eventually algorithm changes started and he could no longer promise clients that he could rank them in three months. He had like a performance based guarantee where if you're not ranked in three months, then you don't pay me anything. He was losing clients, but he still had a lot of SEO resources. And by the way, I've been paying him 1500amonth since 2011 and I still pay him today.

Wow, that's a.

It's just like a running joke.

So I approached him with this JV venture. I said, if he lets me use his SEO resources, then I'll build out a huge amount of local lead generation websites. We can sell those leads to our clients and we can split the money generated from those leads. He was like, okay, I'm down. So that JV ended up producing both of us over 50k a month in income. And it helped save his dying SEO business and it obviously helped us grow even more. And during the time of this JV was going on, Adam and his business partner Rich started getting into Amazon to diversify away from Google SEO. And after they were doing a couple grand a day on Amazon and of course we talked on Skype like almost every day, so he would keep me filled in on what's going on and stuff. He eventually just said, hey guys. He told Joe and I that we need to start selling on Amazon. He said he would show us how to get started, how to rank products, how to source, how to get reviews. And that's when I think he shifted from being our SEO consultant to our Amazon consultant. And now we help each other succeed on Amazon. And ironically enough, we're both top 58 figure Amazon sellers according to our account manager reps at Amazon.

That's amazing. Congratulations. So what I'm hearing you say is that you basically did a JV with this mentor of yours, this consultant of yours, who you said, I'll come up with a revenue model. You come up with the traffic model. And you worked on this project together and then you took some of those skills or that at least that kind of same relationship and you brought that over to Amazon, which is just a search engine, not for leads, but for customers.

Exactly. That's exactly how it is. And we pushed each other. It was always my goal to, I was like, okay, he's got six months on us, let's try to catch him. You know, like, and it's just fun. Like it was, you know, it's a little competitive, but we, we have a mutual understanding. We don't compete with each other and we both share our knowledge and wisdom with each other. We want each other to do well. It's just like a friendly, you know, mental. Like we want to keep up with each other. When I look back on it, like, what if I never hired that SEO firm and what if I never was honest about why I, you know, originally wanted him to do SEO on our sites? What if I never pitch the JV opportunity? We probably wouldn't even be selling on Amazon today. And it's crazy how lucky we were to have a mutually prosperous relationship and we both, I think, pushed each other. And I think that that's sort of one of my hacks in business is just being able to meet cool people, nurture those relationships, be honest with people and help each other make money.

Hey guys, this is Ryan. We're going to take a quick, quick break and we'll return to the show in a second.

Hey guys. You know that my financial strategy is to build businesses and to invest the profits. And when it comes to investing the profits, I look for cash flow. I look for it to be backed by something real and I look for tax efficiency. It's why when I recently sold a business, I called the good folks over at Four Peaks Capital Partners and today's episode is brought to you by them. You've heard them on the podcast before when I interviewed Mauricio Rauld on the topic of Mailbox Money and why investment funds could be a source of passive cash flow for some entrepreneurs. I use investment funds like Four Peaks as part of my long term strategy. And I'd encourage you to go listen to the episode called How Rich People Generate Mailbox Money and you might want to check them out if you're looking for opportunities. Right now with asset prices as high as they are, I am mostly looking at cash flow opportunities, which is why I had them on the podcast. So make sure you check out that episode on Mailbox Money with Mauricio Rauld.

Well, there's another hack that you've brought up at some of our backroom meetings. And, and it's one of the ways that you say that you get reviews and I wanted to ask you about this hack and you've said over and over again the hack is you have a great frickin product. So I want you to talk about that side of the business, how much attention you put into that because it kind of reflects this idea that you said of you're either providing value or you're not. And if you're providing value, that's much easier to scale than just throwing crap into the marketplace.

Oh, for sure. And I'm very lucky to have Joe as my business partner because he is the best sourcer that I know. Like he, you know, some people just have like a gift at knowing what most people like. He just, he can look at a product that he's never broken it down before and he just knows like which one's a good one, which one's a bad one. And he knows how to improve them. Study like what customers are saying they don't like about the existing products out there that are this product and how he can improve them, address those issues and make it better. If you do not have a good product in this competitive landscape where you're dealing with guys like me and Adam and other successful Amazon sellers, like, if your product is lacking, you're not going to do well.

So you mentioned that Joe is really good at sourcing these. But what do you look for in terms of not just choosing products, but designing the product so that it has something unique or of more value. How is it that you're getting a product to stand out in a busy, noisy marketplace?

We listen to people. I mean, we execute so many split tests it's insane. We will mock up our product and say, which one do you like better, this one or top competitor? And we do that for multiple top competitors that we see that we think have the best product in that niche or the best pictures or the best listings. I remember one time when we were first starting out, we paid one of our friends to literally go to the mall here in Austin and she would have pictures of our products and other people's products and then do split tests and survey like 100, 150 people. And we'd come back and read those survey notes and then improve our product until we that tool customers prefer ours over everyone else's.

You're just doing that type of feedback in person with taking, not currently. So tell me about that. How are you soliciting that feedback?

Well, we pay for split tests online all the time and make sure that every respondent is giving us feedback on what they liked or didn't like, why they chose one result or they didn't. And we analyze that data and find trends and then we'll try to see if that's something we can address.

And is that once you release the product into the marketplace, then you're.

No, this is in the sourcing side. This is like I want to understand.

That piece of it. So share as much as you feel comfortable in that process of really dialing in what it is that people want.

Okay, so as an example, I know you use a French press and there's lots of different designs of French presses out there. There's some that are full stainless steel that are some that are stainless steel casing with glass and housing. There's some with more sleek looking curved designs and some that are just horizontal or vertical designs. So there's a lot of designs in that niche. And so what we would do is we would aggregate the best looking ones the top five or ten French press designs that we think are good, and then we would split test them against ones we're considering. And based on the split test, they literally decide which design we go with.

So this might be just a vernacular thing, Travis, but when you say split test, are you taking orders for something or are you just asking people?

No, sorry. Now I understand. So we'll take like a picture of ours, potential one that our designer mocks up, and a picture of the existing one on the market. And we're like. And then we pay people like a dollar a person to say, which one do you like better and why?

Got it. I mean, that's so stupidly simple. And so few people put in the time and the work to do that. And they just go grab random stuff and ship it on over to Amazon and hope for the best and.

Yeah, I would never do that.

I've learned this about you now, Travis. So when you've got your. Your product and you know you're going to go into that market, is there a way or a process? And I know strategies and tactics change all the time, but besides just getting it out and reiterating and making sure that the product is great, are you doing anything inside of a system to kickstart a product to get it moving so that you can get more customer feedback faster?

I mean, ultimately it's just getting sales. And as you launch a product, usually you do whatever you can to get sales early on. Right. So maybe that means losing money on sales and then over time you start making money on your sales. Whatever we can do to get as many sales early on as we can, that's what we do.

So what was the timetable? I don't know if you're comfortable sharing your numbers. If you are, go for it. But how long did it take you until you had gotten into the mid millions per year and then started to scale from there?

I think it was like four or five months, and we were doing over 100k a month. And then two years and a couple months. Probably two years and like one or two months and we were doing over 2 million a month.

Those are okay numbers, Travis. Well done. So.

Tell me a little bit about your process. Has been a little bit different than some other backroom members in which you're in a lot of different spaces. Like you look at things you're interested in and you go and you're very. You and Joe are product and marketing people rather than more brand focused. So, yeah. How is it that you manage so many different products and Dare I say businesses under the same set of operations?

Well, I think that we're really good at breaking down, like, what we had success with and why. And you know, when you talk about brand, I'm not a brand guy, but I am a numbers guy. I am a process guy. I'm an automation guy and a guy that can scale and simplify things and focus on some core things that are working really well and really stick on that. When I've been in the back room and I've heard members talk, a lot of them, they start jumping from one strategy to another strategy to another strategy, and they end up never really doing any single strategy very well. I double down on product launching and making great products, and I want to be the best at those two things. And that's what we've done. And we have simplified it and tried to systemize it as much as possible. We've hired an amazing team that's helped us execute our strategies very well and we really just, at the core, focus on that. And I think as I grow as an entrepreneur, I'll learn combining branding with strategies that really scale a distribution model, like selling on Amazon.

And I want to hear about that team piece because you've bragged on your people and your partnerships in the past and I know what the right partner or the right person can do to a business. So what has been the most important hire that you have made?

Oh, man. I mean, Joe's the most important human resource in our company to me. Like, me and Joe working together, like my partner, you know, a guy that is willing to, you know, he doesn't care if he pays himself, you know, two years down the road and puts and works full time in those two years to build an asset that's going to be really valuable. He doesn't care. He will sacrifice whatever needs to be done and that he's ultra talented and, like, has a lot of intangible skills that I can't even like. I just got so lucky having him. And with our team, you know, hiring logistics, a logistics person in house who also is an attorney, so she had a lot of legal advice and was able to manage, like, everything from the sourcing side to make sure we don't get in trouble, to trademarks and dealing with counterfeiters, business agreements and all that stuff. And logistics was definitely a necessary hire because inventory can get crazy when you expect to sell, you know, 150 a day and all of a sudden you're selling 250 or 300 a day, like, it can really be Chaotic. So really having someone who's super organized and on top of that, it's been an amazing hire. I haven't really hired a lot of people, but I feel really blessed and lucky that the team that we have is amazing. I think even hiring our marketing person, she's been so helpful. She's another me that I can just offload to and have her take weight off my shoulders so that I can focus on growing.

How big is your team now?

We have logistics and marketing, full time employees, customer support, full time employee, part time customer support, and a full time programmer in Russia.

So you've got basically six people doing an eight figure business. Yeah, those numbers are super solid, dude. High fives. High fives from in between. Skype. Okay, so Travis, I mean this is why we call you Travis. Killing it. Killian. And so I'm curious, you know, when you look at how far you have come, I'm curious, where do you see yourself and your team going next?

That's a tough question. I'm not ultra clear on it yet. Part of me is just there's basically two directions. It's do I think that Joe and I have what it takes to scale this business to let's say a nine figure company or do I think that requires another set of skills that maybe I'm not best suited for? And do I think that we grow this company a little bit more and maybe sell it and buy other businesses that are doing seven figures and scale them to eight figures? That's sort of what I'm torn between now. I think every entrepreneur hits plateaus along the way of their growth and maybe I have what it takes to keep going forward or maybe it's better or smarter for me to do what I've done 10 more times.

That was a very self aware statement what you just said. Maybe I'm better suited just staying where I'm strong. And I know in my career I've had a tendency to go, I'm going to go focus on something I'm terrible at. I would say that's a mistake that I've made and a lot of entrepreneurs make. What would you say in your interactions with other entrepreneurs is a mistake that you see other people making?

Let's see. I think one mistake is some people are greedy, man. I've always believed in fair deals or even like you know, providing a tremendous more value for someone else, helping someone else make a lot more money. As an example with Adam, I felt like that I really went above and beyond to make sure that he for giving me a shot and for helping me the way he did. Like, I wanted to provide a lot of value back to him. And then he reciprocated. Didn't have to. I mean, there was no obligation for him to share Amazon. But because I helped change his life, he helped change ours. I think that it's way better to have an abundance mindset and a giving mindset and helping others to help yourself than it is to think that by taking away from other people that you're going to get more to gain. I see entrepreneurs that, you know, talk about hiring and sometimes they don't. They, like, they don't want to pay a lot for a hire, but they want an all star. And I think that's like, greedy. You know, like, I feel more comfortable knowing that, like, I'm compensating very well and getting reciprocated by having the people that really want to work for our team. And, you know, I remember as an example, Vero, we used to have to kick her out of the office because she would stay too late.

And it's not because she was forced to stay there. She just really loved working with us and loved what she did. I think that it was just. She just went to her mind, gets on something, she just wants to do it.

So I learned that lesson. Don't be greedy for my dumpster rental client. Actually, he told me that most important rule of business is to not be greedy. And actually I probably sold him leads at a slightly lower rate than market rate, but I never went back to him and, like, wanted to adjust that. And hence he's stayed a client for eight years now.

Yeah, I feel like the universe is trying to tell me something today. You know, we recently had Jenna Ziegler on the podcast and she talked about how one of her superpowers was that she started a business because she truly wanted to make a very specific impact in the world. So she never burns out. The more her business grows, the more she feels like she's energized by what she is providing in the world. And just hearing you talk about how much intention you put behind the products that you're selling, the more you scale, the more value you're creating and the more energized you're going to be. So I just have to ask for clarity's sake, Travis, do you ever get burned out? Do you ever go through really stressful periods, and if so, what's the cause of them?

Yeah, I get burned out. It's hard to stay like full throttle all the time. I Get burned out when I find myself overwhelmed. Too much going on, and I don't really know what to be working on next. And one thing that helps with that is being aware of it and not being afraid to say, I need help with this. Can you help me? And that helps immensely. I know that if I ever, you know, if I'm overwhelmed and I have, like, so much on my plate, I can go to Joe, I can go to Veto, I can go to Camila, I can go to Valera, I can go to anyone on my team and, like, and they'll help me out. I know that I was overwhelmed a couple weeks ago, and Camila stayed out after hours to, you know, help me out with that. Help me out with, like, that task that was taking up a lot of my time. I knew I needed to get done. And, you know, I mean, no one can. I mean, maybe people can, but I can't, like, keep the throttle going over and over again, you know, pedal to the metal.

Hey, guys, this is Ryan. We're going to take a quick break, and we'll return to the show in a second.

I get a lot of questions about what I think of some of Tony Robbins investment strategies, especially the ones where he talks about assets that. That can go up in value over time, but don't participate in any downside. I don't agree with all of Tony's investment recommendations, but I do participate in investing in insurance, which is one of the things that he's describing in that strategy. Now, I want to give you a warning. When I went into that investment strategy, I got schmoozed over by a slick salesman, and I wish that I had used a sophisticated firm that was actually dedicated to that. That's why I had Wealth Point on the podcast recently. And I'd encourage you to go listen to that episode about infinite banking. Now, infinite banking isn't the proper term to describe what they do. They actually use a modified version, which is called capital warehousing. But what it basically allows you to do is park cash like you would put it into a bank, participate in the growth of the market without participating in any downside, and you still get access to that capital so that you can put it into other investments. So if you've got money sitting on the sidelines, you might want to use capital warehousing as part of your strategy. So you can go over to gowealthpoint.com freedom to learn how the strategy works, or you can just listen to the episode that we had with Sam Prentice from wealthpoint here on the podcast, it's called how the Rich Use Infinite Banking for Tax Free Wealth.

So for you, when you get into one of those, those modes, how do you kind of recome back to center? The reason behind this is I know when I'm in that stressful position I go into like the take mentality that we're talking about. And what you have said is that a don't be greedy, continue to provide value. That's hard to do when you're stressed and burnt out. So how do you come back to center so that you're operating from that space?

So sometimes I'll read or I'll write and just understand like what I'm going through. Why do I feel so stressed? Why do I feel like I can't focus on what I need to be focusing on? I see a therapist every week. That really helps understand how I'm feeling. Being aware is the first step and then the next step is objectively looking at actionable ways to offload. I'm more free and more productive when I don't need to be working 16 hour days. I can get way more done and way less time if I'm free to be creative and not stressed.

Amen. Totally agree. Okay, I want you to put on your psychic hat for a minute, Travis, because you are a top 50 seller. Your mentor is a top 50 seller. You're obviously killing it. That's why it's in your name. So what do you see coming down the pike? What do you think is going to happen in the physical product world and in the Amazon world over the next 12 to 18 months?

I honestly think that Amazon is going to continue to grow and I think that it's going to be harder for people to compete with the established guys like me and Adam. Eventually, like everyone on the first page is going to have like a thousand reviews and to compete with them is going to be very hard. So I think barriers to entry are going to get higher and I think that being able to generate reviews is going to be a lot harder. They've already been cracking down on it. So I think that it's even more valuable and more important than ever to have a lot of reviews. Yeah, I think that it's going to cost more money to succeed on Amazon than it costs like two years ago or even now. I don't think there's going to be a serious competitor that's going to take away e commerce sales from Amazon. I do think that Amazon will start treating their established sellers better over time.

To the person who heard that and just got all scared that all the opportunity is gone. What would you say to that person?

I would say there's still opportunity. I'm still growing. There's a lot of people still killing it. You just have to. I wouldn't commit to launching four or five products at once. I would do one really good product and make sure you have the access to cash to push that product because the ROI is still there. You might not see it for six months when you used to be able to see it in three.

I totally get it. Well, Travis, I feel like I'm speaking to the master today. So what do you feel the need to share with the world that I have not asked you yet?

Another thing that stands out, and that's because these backroom meetings that you host are awesome because I get to see and learn from other people. Another thing that stood out is a lot of people have the hiring problem. I know you're building your team and you are trying to quantify how to hire and have a really good team. And I think that.

A lot of people need to know the difference between hiring, like a good employee or a great employee. Right. So for me, I think a difference is a good employee versus a great. I think a great employee is someone who could pick up a good task and learn it and master it really quickly and can do it without you needing to check behind them. I think that trust is a huge part of it. I've probably done, like, the sin and business, which is hire friends, but it's been amazing. I've had a great experience with it because I know that if I've known you for a year and I know you're a trustworthy person, then if I hire you, you're going to still be a trustworthy person. And trust is something that's hard to know that you're hiring someone who can be trusted if you just met them and you're interviewing them for 15 minutes. Trust is a huge deal because we want to make sure that we can have them work on sensitive information or strategies and keep it to themselves. Or if they say they're going to do something, they do it. I don't like micromanaging, so I need people that can work without me needing to be over top of them. And also, I really think that for me, I interact with everyone we work with on pretty much a daily basis. So I need to make sure that I like them, that I get along with them as a person. And I'm so thankful that I love our team and we can go out and party and hang out outside of work or at work, and it's just seamless. We all just happen to be working on this, a common goal. So I would just remember that when you're hiring, you're hiring a person, not just an employee. And so there's certain traits that you. You want to have. And trust is huge. Ability to learn. Also being able to, like, help offload, sense that I'm being overwhelmed, and be like, hey, what's up? Like, can I help you out? I think that was really important. And a lot of people were asking questions about that in the back room. Yeah.

What I'm taking from that is you have just continued to say over and over how important that one connection was, that one relationship was that it was all about the people that you met along the way. And we so focused on the what and the how and the when. And I think the answer to almost every question is who? And you have answered that question by luck or talent. And that seems like it is part of your superpower.

Oh, it has to be. Like, I. You know, I used to think that I was an introverted person because I would lock myself in my room, my office, and just work and grind away, you know, and, you know, people would be like, oh, he's not very social. But I really think that I feed off of other people now. And I think I'm actually more of an extrovert and seeking a networking. Like another secret sauce that I've had that Joe and I have had in our business is with relationships and particularly, like, I'll share another story of another super valuable connection that we had and the blind luck that created this opportunity. So.

We met our friends Justin and Brad here in Austin. When we first moved to Austin, Joe and I, we would do meetups to meet new people. And on one Saturday, we bought tickets for a booze cruise. And fortunately, there was a lot of chaos around the boats and disorganization. We ended up getting confused and getting on the wrong boat. But thankfully, no one kicked us off that boat. They were like, oh, you look like rugby players. Come on and party with us. So apparently it was like a rugby boo, screws. And on that boat, we saw someone that was passing out this alcohol beverage that looked and tasted like spiked Gatorade. And I went up, and the guy that was hosting, his name is Justin, and he was promoting his alcohol beverage company, and he was a really cool guy. So we ended up hanging out and partying on that boat and then blacking out, ended up at Barbarella just had like an amazing night. And then I was like, oh, this guy's pretty cool. So we would hit each other up, party on the weekends, and as we hung out more, we discovered that.

Joe, Justin and I became like best friends. And. And we ended up discovering that we have a mutual interest in business. Justin mentioned our company to his dad, and his dad owned a huge logistics company, and his dad said that he would provide us inventory financing. And they gave us the capital we needed to scale from seven to eight figures and beyond. And if we didn't randomly end up on that wrong booze cruise, we never would have adjusted. And it's crazy how such a random event can have a butterfly effect in business, dude.

I mean, I knew about the inventory financing, but I did not know how that happened. That's an amazing story. Thank you for sharing that.

So I really think the hack and the secret sauce, as much as I would selfishly like to say that it's my strategizing and processes, which I think is a secret sauce in a way, but I think a lot even more so. It's people and just really having fun with people and having win win relationships with people and business and working together and. Yeah. And that all came down to Joe telling me in college that I needed to provide value to be a better entrepreneur.

Well, Travis, I'm proud to have you in the back room. I'm proud to call you a friend, I'm proud to live in Austin with you, and I'm proud to have you on Freedom Fast Lane. Thank you for popping your cherry here on your first podcast interview here in Freedom Fast Lane. Keep on changing the world, buddy.

Hey, thanks, man.

Fast Laners. I want to address one more thing that we did not talk about in this podcast. At least I didn't give my perspective. And I want to clarify something. Travis said that, you know, he thinks that Amazon is going to continue to consolidate. He believes that Amazon is going to be harder for entrepreneurs to break into. I think he's right, and I've been saying this for years, that if you are coming in and selling trinkets and spatulas without any sort of difference or audience, it's going to continue to be very, very hard to be able to break into marketplaces. It's why inside our training courses, this is why I don't call my training courses the make money on Amazon course. We call it the Brand Builder Bootcamp. The reason is because if you've got the audience and you're releasing three to five products to that audience, that gets you to the million and up. It's not by just selling a random thing and hustling your way to the top. I think that's been done and that is basically fully consolidated unless you're bringing a ton of money to the table. So if you are building a brand, a sellable brand, then there is always opportunity because there are are always new ways to build audiences and Amazon just becomes the place where you collect the order. So I just wanted to clarify that as a mentor of yours to those of you who are building businesses and using Amazon to collect the orders. If you have already done that, if you're already at that, you know you've got three to five products in the marketplace, but you're still stuck. We can help because there are people like Travis inside the back room. There's our board of advisors in the back room. There are some funding resources inside of the back room that all of the playbook to take you from 1 closer to 10 and then ultimately exit. And if that's you, then I would invite you to apply@freedomfastlane.com backroom. Hey, if you know an Amazon seller who would benefit from hearing Travis Killing It Killy talk about his success, send him this episode. You might want to send him into the back room as well. As always, I am so thankful for you. I consider it a privilege to speak to entrepreneurs like you because I think you create the change that we need in this world. Thanks for listening. I'll see you on the next episode.