We're Changing The E-Commerce Game

Hey, everybody, this is Ryan Daniel Moran. Welcome back to the show. In this episode, I'm joined by my friends Terry Williamson and Liron Hershakorn. The three of us got together to combine our resources on some things in order to change up the game in the E commerce universe. Now, right after we recorded this, the whole world melted and Coronavirus happened and the world has shut down. So I need to give you some context for this because we've changed our plan. After recording this podcast, the plan was Terry, Liron and myself were all getting ready to combine our resources to relaunch the Backroom. The Backroom has been my mastermind for.

The last several years.

We've had amazing success stories out of it. We've had people get to eight figures and sell. We've had amazing success stories from that. And we had decided that three of us were going to combine our resources and relaunch it. Because Liron is one of the go to guys on the ins and outs of Amazon management when it comes to people who are doing it themselves. I like the new tricks that people are doing. Terry is a nine figure guy. He's had nine figure exits and some eight figure exits. And I'm the build a business that you can sell for eight figures guy. And the three of us decided we were going to combine our resources to relaunch Backroom. Then the world melted and so we decided to put that on pause. So in this episode we talk about Backroom and where we're going and how you can join. It's $35,000, but now you can't join, you shouldn't join. That's not available right now. Instead, we decided to do something else. We decided to bring our resources together and help some people for free. And we've just put together a Facebook group and a new community. It's called the E Community, like E Comm. E Commerce community. And this is a network of people. We're going to be sharing content, bringing resources in. We're going to be bringing people from our Rolodexes in to share about the new opportunities that are happening right now. Because there are new opportunities. This is a new day. There's a new wide open west period happening right now. And the three of us are getting together to combine our resources to help pursue some of those new opportunities. And so if you're an E commerce entrepreneur, if you are struggling right now or you're killing it right now, we've launched a new community to help people get through this. And this is not going to be free forever. But it's free for now and you can join us over@capitalism.com.

All one word, e community. And that'll send you to a page with more information about how you can join for free. Or if you're killing it right now and you want to pay for it, you can. But you might just want to come test drive it for a while and hang out with us and get some content and meet some people, navigate through this hard time. And then at some point, we're going to bring back our plan to launch the backroom together and build seven and eight figure businesses that people can sell. So that's what our plan is in this episode. We talk a lot about the backroom and the resources we're bringing into it, but you can ignore that for now and you can join us over@capitalism.com ecommunity. I hope you enjoyed this episode. We are about to change the game of E commerce and there are new opportunities happening and I'm just so excited to be on this journey with you. I hope you decide to join us inside of the E Community and in the back room later. All right, enjoy.

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Boy, oh, boy, ladies and gentlemen, this is going to get wild. Leon, welcome back.

Thank you.

We're drinking some. This is an unofficial wine with Wyan episode over here with no video.

I'm excited to be here.

So Liron and I, well, we got some fun stuff to go through today. Liron and I hopped on a podcast inside the 1% a couple weeks ago.

We.

We called it the greatest wealth transfer in history.

Yes.

We were on with your partner, Terry.

Yep.

We were talking about the wealth transition that's happening from big brands to small brands. You were talking about what's working on Amazon right now. We had so much GD fun that you decided to fly to Austin and we were trying to find some ways to work together and we found some ways to work together today.

Yes, absolutely.

How are you feeling?

I'm feeling amazing and really excited about collaborating with you and what we can collectively do together.

We are about to f. Sh up. Yeah, we're about to. I'm just going to only curse in letters today. That's how. That's how this is going to go. It's going to be effing wild is what it's going to be.

Yes.

It's going to be. We're about to. I think we're about to change the E commerce game and we're going to do it by basically stacking the deck for entrepreneurs to build eight figure brands. How many seven figure brands do you have, Liron?

Terry and I are owners of eight brands and we, we fully expect to do well over eight figures collectively among those brands.

Year. Okay, so how many of those brands are currently doing over seven figures?

Five brands will. Will do. Well, our five brands are forecast to do seven figures.

Okay, all right. And we're talking about Terry like He's not sitting 10ft from us.

Yes.

Terry, you, you've got, you have two eight figure exits on your resume, right?

I know that's not true. That would be understating.

You'd be understanding it.

There's a nine figure in there.

Well, okay, nine figure. You received two eight figure checks, right?

I did receive two eight figure checks myself.

Okay, cool. So Terry and I have both done eight figure exits. I'm sorry, yours was a nine figure exit. Well, you own all of that, but you didn't own all of it.

Right.

We've each had our eight figure exits. Liron, you've built seven figure brands. So basically what we've decided to do is take the resources that we all have.

Yep.

And to make them available to create eight figure brands.

Yes.

And it basically stacks the deck in a way that makes it kind of nuts.

I think when you, you know, sometimes most people think you take one plus one and it equals two, but here I think we're taking one plus one plus one and it's like 100.

That's, that's the new math for you, ladies and gentlemen. So Leiron, would you share a little bit about kind of the tools that you've acquired or have built in your arsenal?

Yeah, absolutely. So Terry and I founded a company called Zahn Marketer. And Zahn Marketer is essentially, we kind of built it to be our own machine of running our own brands through and through that. We now have an Amazon ad agency. We have a service called Zenography, which is photography, video, copywriting. We have a company called Brand Rebel. Brand Rebel is our packaging, messaging.

Making your brand stand out on Amazon, which I think is becoming increasingly important. We just started running, literally just started running a YouTube, YouTube ads service.

And so that's. That's conversion. Yep. Traffic.

Yes.

Branding.

Yes.

There's a PPC agency in there as well.

Yep.

Which is sales.

Yep.

So you, you have these, Terry, you're. What do you.

We're just missing a couple.

There's a seller.

Software.

Yeah.

We're working on a reemergence of a well known company very quickly.

So we, we have basically this tool suite that allows if you have a product to plug into sales, traffic, conversion.

Yes.

And branding.

Yes. And Right. I mean, we know that the two most important things to get sales are traffic and conversions. Right. You need to have, you need to have great listings, you need to have traffic coming to those listings. And you need to have great listings are made up of content and photos and videos. And then taking that and pouring the gasoline of what we do on the Amazon ad side, which is the advertising, video ads, Amazon dsp, all the next level stuff. And then, and then going to what's next, which is, which is YouTube because YouTube ads are where Facebook was like five years ago.

Right.

Great opportunity to enter in there. And so what we're trying to do is really, as well as with the branding, we're trying to, we're trying to go with the vision of what's next. Right. And be ahead of that. And I think success in business is being able to have that vision of what's next and going there before everybody else is there. Right. And it's the same thing on the branding side. You see now more money coming into the Amazon space, more people. I think what's happened is the model has been proven right. The people who started in 2013 and 2014, 2015, with 5 or $10,000 proved that this works. And now bigger money is coming in and bigger money is going to do things where you have the capability to do it with branding and better listings and better advertising. And so if you're not, if you're not stepping up your game to do that, it's going to be hard to compete.

But the truth is most entrepreneurs don't want to do any of that.

Yes.

The truth is entrepreneurs want to come up with fun ideas.

Yes.

They want to create cool products.

Yes.

And then they wanted to get the H out of the way.

Yes.

And then they H is for heck. It's for Heckler. It's for Heckler. They want to get the heckler out of the way.

Yes.

So most entrepreneurs don't want to and shouldn't do most of those things.

Yes.

And so what they really want is to create products to start new ideas. And so I'm looking at what you're doing in this kind of collection of brands and I'm saying you basically have, I think I called it the Death Star. So you've basically set up the Death Star. I don't even know if That's a proper Star wars reference.

I think that is related to Star wars.

Related.

All right, so, so it's, I don't know, it's the right analogy. Some nerds like that is not the proper definition of what the Death Star was.

Right.

But, but here's the but you basically have this, you have this way to align all this energy to make a brand really pop.

Well, here, what we did, first of all, we have eight brands of our own growing very quickly. You know, we're very transparent. You'll be seeing a lot of our brands and what we're doing in the numbers and showing you guys that. But we were running into a problem. To compete in the space, you really have to be premium in all these areas. You can't settle for low budget photography and bad PPC strategies. So all we said is like, as sellers ourselves, let's just create the best suite of tools for ourselves. We can either go out and kind of partner with people, try to find the guy who does the best photography. But like, what if we just bought it all?

What if you just owned all the different.

Went out and bought all the pieces?

Right.

And then we were in control of making those companies what they needed to be to compete in the premium space. And we get the big benefit of that for our brands, but also we have extra capacity to help other sellers.

So that's, that's where we're going with this. When, when I kind of saw what you were doing, we decided, okay, there might be some areas where we could help entrepreneurs conspire to build eight figure brands.

Yes.

And so we looked at what we were each doing and for the, the way that you and I met, we met at the capitalism conference later on. You joined the Back Room. Yeah. And.

I've been running this group called the Back Room for four years, I think. And in that time we've had one member build a. He came Right, at $1 million and built and sold a company for $25 million. I had one company come in, they were at low seven figures. They just passed $40 million. We had one member come in at a million dollars.

How does that happen? How does that happen? From being part of a network of a mastermind.

So what's interesting, there's one person who came in when they were doing just over a million dollars and they grew to about $18 million a year. And I asked him what was the reason why he did that. And he was like, you know, honestly, it was because the other people in the group told me that it was possible.

And I gotta be honest with you, that's, that's great, but it's also like a hard sell. Be like it's nothing. It's just. I'm gonna tell you that it's possible. Right. But I, we've, we've had amazing, amazing.

Success stories, but it is a lot of success tied, aren't you? The component of the five closest people that you hang out with.

I mean like your thought patterns are 80% of it.

Right, right.

But so, so being in a room where that's normal is one thing. The thing I haven't had is this tool set.

Right.

And the thing I haven't had that we just made available in the back room is a big pile of money. A big pile of cheap, easy to access money that an E Commerce seller could tap into to fund their business.

Wow.

And so think about, so what we started to see was that we have these. Between Liron and myself, we basically cover every Amazon seller on the Internet.

Yes.

And some that are not on the Internet. That was a bad joke.

Anyway.

Terry, I'm glad I just got that. Terry, I'm glad you're here.

They're not on the Internet.

You got it, you got it, you got it. All right, so, so I'll warm up, I'll warm up on you. Don't worry. So what were we saying? So we cover basically every Amazon seller alive and we now have this pile of money that's available to back room members to fund the operations of their business. And then we have this entire tool suite of pay per click, branding, sales and traffic. And anybody who wants to build an eight figure brand that has a decent idea can basically walk in and plug into the money, the traffic, the sales, the conversion, the branding, the people and the advisory board. What a great way to be alive.

Any excuse for failure has been eliminated.

And you know, as much as I think all that is amazingly powerful, but the connections of the people that are in the room and the relationships that are built and the partnerships that happen and the referrals that get made, really, those are priceless for what that can do for your business. Because I think, you know, for me personally, my success in business has been through the relationships I've had along the way. There's no way that I would have been able to sit here with you and Terry if it wasn't through relationships.

Right.

If it wasn't doing something together. And I think, I think that's, that's a missed part for a lot of sellers who are just sitting behind their computer and getting all their information in Facebook groups and where nobody wants to tell you what their product is because like you're going to, you and a thousand Chinese people are going to rip it off.

But you haven't gone out from behind your computer and gone out and meet and talk people and build relationships where in five minutes you could build more trust and in three years of being in Facebook groups.

So what we have decided to do is Liron and Terry have decided to bring their resources into the back room. I'm bringing my funding relationships into the back room and we've decided to combine our resources to stack the deck in the favor of our members to create eight figure brands. And we're going to get together a few times a year. We're going to open up our suite of tools and our relationships. We're going to bring in our partners and advisors to show what is working right now and we're going to bring in some strategic contacts to up level the conversation. And the result is that seven figure brands are going to become eight figure brands. People with cool ideas are going to quickly become seven and eight figure brands and we're going to have some really cool exits. Terry, what are you thinking?

I'm thinking one, we're all seasoned Amazon sellers who have done it at a pretty high level. So I can tell you this with certainty. There is no other place on the planet where you have a greater opportunity for success than this. This is not a pitch. It's simply that through our collective, I don't know what we're talking, 12, 14 years of Amazon experience at high levels, we've created the ultimate solution.

So you called it the greatest wealth transfer in history. Yes, and here's why. This is the greatest wealth transfer in history.

We, between the two of us ate like 49 RX bars over the last two days. So the RX bar was founded by Peter Rahan. He founded it in his basement. He launched this business to his CrossFit buddies, built it up for four years, sold to RX, sold RXBar to Kellogg's for $600 million. Now why does that happen? It happens because he was able to enter it.

Wow.

This Gary Vee makes, he makes some strong wine over here.

He was able to innovate on the Internet faster than Kellogg's could keep up. So Kellogg's comes in and buys his company. Today that is happening on Amazon, Shopify and E Commerce. And there is money that wants to fund that, there's money that wants to support that. But never before has there been an opportunity. An opportunity for a one man or one woman show.

Yes.

To come in, create a good brand and have the traffic, the conversion, the sales and the funding to turn on an eight figure brand.

Yeah. So when you mentioned big successes, I look at those as anomalies. In other words, there was something special.

An RX bar was an anomaly is what I'm saying. Yes.

What I'm saying is that statistically your odds of hitting the success are still pretty small, but when you do, it's such a huge event that wow, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. And what we're doing is, we're saying is we're bringing the probability of success up dramatically and then the barrier to entry and reducing it. Because let's say you want unlimited capital to grow your brand and you don't know how or where to go get that. But that is a key fundamental part. It's there. Let's say you don't want to mess around with getting bad, overpriced photography. It's there. And the thing is, is that we all vet these things together. And the difference between a place like this is it's not a networking event where like I trade something I want for something you want inside the back room. It's a collective. We're all working for the greater good. So all we've done is bring in the jumbo premium vetted best toy chest ever together with you and the financing to. All you have to simply want to do is be there and commit to doing it. And the excuses for not are gone. That's all.

You know what I, what I really liked about when I was back, remember, was that there was that like everybody was just open about what their products were. You were at a level that you weren't gonna. First of all, what kind of person are you to go meet someone and 5 minutes later copy their product? Right? And if your business is, if your product is so fragile that if that happens to you, you already lost the game anyway. Right. But what I really liked about the back room was the fact that everybody was open about their products and you got to see inside somebody's business and learn, learn from that. Because it was an, it was an open book. And I think that's something that's very much missing in, in every, like this whole thing about I'm not gonna tell you my product because you're gonna go copy it. Like there's a million competitors and all the data, there's something called bestseller rank and like you could just do like research and Just find all the products that are selling well. Like is this like hidden thing nobody else is going to is going to find. But like when you actually open up to people and show them your products and they know a little bit of a brand, they actually want to help you. Right. It's the opposite effect that happens. They're not going to go copy you.

That's right.

You build a stronger relationship.

That's right.

And then say, you know what, I happen to know this like influencer that is in this niche that you should go talk to. Right. Or maybe, maybe that influencer is connected to somebody or is a relationship of yours. Right. That you, that you bring to them through the back room or. And it actually creates the opposite effect when you start actually telling somebody else about your business and sharing your numbers and you start to get insights that you wouldn't have where most people think it's the opposite. I'm gonna tell you too much about my business, you're gonna go copy it. And it's quite the opposite.

So here's what we've decided to do. We've combined our resources and we're combining our networks and we're combining our knowledge.

Terry, how long have you been an entrepreneur?

Just about 30 years.

30 years of experience. Liron is basically the Amazon guy. I am often credited as being the Amazon guy, but I have said from stage that Liron is the Amazon guy.

I would say between Liron and fellow backroom member Jeff Lieber who runs the agency Turnkey Product Management.

Between the two of you there's pretty much, you know everything about Amazon.

So. And then me, who is the business guy and brings in the network and brings in the relationships for funding and exits and all that. We basically have created an experience in which anyone who sells on the Internet can build an eight figure brand or at least is in the room where that is normal and where that this, the deck is stacked in your favor.

Yeah. And I think one big point is that this is not just the collection of resources and fancy Amazon tactics because you know there's places for that. It's that they're real entrepreneurs who have built real businesses. And especially when you're going from seven, I'm not saying anybody can get to seven figures on Amazon, but it's pretty common. It's that big step up after that. It requires a different business skill set. It requires.

That's exactly right.

Yeah.

If you want to get to seven figures, you need three, you need four products selling 25 sales a day at $30. That's a million dollar business. And there's a reason why we've had hundreds of people go through that process because it's a fairly simple process to go through that. So if you've done that, if you have crossed that hundred thousand dollar mark and you want to go a lot bigger, this is literally every resource you would need to be able to do that. Or if you just have a great ambition because you've been successful in other businesses and you are building a business that you want to exit and you want to have a big eight figure business, then this is all the resources that you need to make that happen. So here's what you need to do. If, if you're liking what we're saying here, you need to go to capitalism.combackroom and fill out the application to come join the party. And when you join the party, when you join the back room, you're getting access to this suite of tools, you're getting access to this big pile of money. You're getting access to our collective network, to our collective expertise and the rest of the group that is coming to the table. Liron.

Yes.

Between you and me, we cover pretty much every online seller that exists.

Yes.

We're kind of effing up right now.

Yes, definitely. I cannot be more, more excited about this because.

My deep passion, I get the most joy is when I see people's businesses doing well, thriving and I know that I helped contribute in some way to it. And I know that between not just me, right, I'm not going to be the game changer for your business, but me, the other people in the room, Terry, who's had eight and nine figure exes, Ryan Moran who's in the room, and the collective power of a group and mastermind is life changing. And you know, they say one idea can change your life, one decision can change the course of your life. And this is what I'm most, most passionate about. Sometimes, you know, people ask me, well, if you're so good at selling on Amazon, why don't you just sell on Amazon? And the answer is, because that's not what brings me the greatest joy of connecting with other human beings. I don't get to connect with other human beings sitting behind the screen, just selling products to somebody, to a faceless person. I don't know who got my product on Amazon.

I answer the question a little bit differently. I say we are.

You have an eight figure portfolio, I've had an eight figure exit. Yes, we are.

Yes. And I do this because I like the face to face Human connection. And I feel like my mission is to make an impact and be, be a change agent. And I feel like your mission is very much aligned and Terry's mission very much aligned. And we just came together and said, hey, we're gonna, we're gonna change the game in terms of Amazon. And I really like. The reason why I'm sitting here is because, because yes, you know, you call me the Amazon guy, but you're not the Amazon guy. Right. You're the guy who talks about audience and branding and using influencers and doing things outside Amazon and that, that's a part of the back room that I don't think you get in a lot of these other Facebook groups.

So, so if you have crossed that $100,000 a month mark or if you have big aspirations because you've been successful in some other area of business, go to capitalism.com backroom and you can apply to join this where we're, we're doing 100 entrepreneurs. 100 entrepreneurs who are going to have this access to this tool suite and is access to this funding, has access to this advice, access to this network.

Yes.

And being in that room basically gives you a strategic advantage over everybody else who's not in that room.

I would just say this even a little clearer.

The big success stories that happen amongst Amazon sellers, a very high percentage of them will be coming out of the back. So to, I mean they already odds dramatic. They already do.

I mean they already come from capitalism.com if I can say so myself.

Yes.

So when, when what entrepreneurs do to have fun is things like this. So if you guys want to know what our intention and our interests are, there are not a lot of other places where we get to hang out with other people like us climbing in the same direction. So in addition to massive success, the amount of energy and ideas and creativity and the success, the combined success of the people in the and heck, we'll probably even have people who don't want to be on Amazon try to join because there's very few places in the world where you get this collection of entrepreneurs who just are like making each other better. And for me, it's fun. I've been in high level masterminds, some good, some bad. And the ones that work great are the ones that have the exact same characteristics that we put together now. People who want to do it, know how to do it. The tools clear the roadblocks. That's why we're going to go kill this thing together with members.

I'm going to close this out with one story. So member of the backroom likes to tell the story that when they crossed the seven figure mark, they had one product that was doing pretty well and they were selling a million dollars worth of this one product. And they ran into challenges because at seven figures, you're making enough to basically be a full time entrepreneur but have most of your money tied up in the business and all of your friends think you're freaking killing it because you have a seven figure business. But the truth is you're like, what if it all goes away? And he met one person that totally changed his life and that was a person who was able to fund the inventory so that all of his cash could be freed up to grow the rest of the business. And over the next two years, that person went from $1 million to $40 million because he doesn't have all his money tied up in one product anymore. He's able to fund the growth.

All while putting the rest of his money into being able to roll out more products, invest in advertising, do the things you're supposed to be doing. He is now filthy rich.

Yes.

Because of that one connection. Now, if you think I'm about to make a pitch for, you're only one person away from being filthy rich. That's true. But not only are you one person away from being filthy rich, that funding source is now a resource in the back room.

Game changer.

That. Change that, that F up just a little bit.

Yes.

Yes. Bam, boom, diggity. Yes. Boom.

So.

We'Re going to be taking applications. Our next, I think our official, our official meetup is in July. We're going to get started before then with the resources and the opportunities that we're bringing to the table.

I've decided to make a hard pivot with the back room. We had kind of our, our year planned out and then this opportunity to work together and bring some resources to the table changed our schedule a little bit. But we have a meeting planned in July that we're going to hold to. We still have this list of opportunities and resources that we're bringing to the table and we're just going to roll out all the stops for these hundred entrepreneurs and we're going to stack the deck in their favor and do some really cool things. And it'll probably be the best ROI that some of those entrepreneurs ever spend in their entire lives.

Yes. The best ROI in your business is the relationships and access that you get through those relationships. And yeah, like you said, I think the funding, the tools and the other people in the room. Right. Are are going to make your business in 2020 and 2021.

Yep. All right, so if you want to be one of these hundred entrepreneurs that we roll out all the stops for, go to capitalism.com backroom. It's kind of weird that a random podcast interview that we did led to. Yes, it is amazing, this conversation of event.

Yeah, it actually, it actually shows you exactly what happens in the back room. Right. What happens in the back room is relationships. Is partnerships happen from relationships. Right.

I think this is a perfect case study.

Yes.

What has happened.

Is what will happen at scale in the back.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Partnerships from relationships. And that's. Those are the things that will really change the course of your business.

Well, team, I'm excited to be in business with you.

Yes.

Excited to f some sh up for 100 entrepreneurs or so on. And we're going to do some amazing things.

Yes. Looking forward to it.

All right, gang, capitalism.com backroom. We hope to see you inside and we'll see you on the next episode.

It truly is a special time to be an entrepreneur, especially an Internet entrepreneur. There are more opportunities, there are more resources, there are more relationships available to you than there's ever been. And what has not existed up to this point is one place to have all of those and to make them your network. Between the three of us, we have a network that allows e commerce entrepreneurs to grow in ways that didn't exist or were really hard to have access to. A couple of years ago, we decided.

To bring our resources together and help some people for free. And we've just put together a Facebook group and a new community. It's called the E community, like E Comm. E commerce community. And this is a network of people. We're going to be sharing content, bringing resources in. We're going to be bringing people from our Rolodexes in to share about. The new opportunities are happening right now because there are new opportunities. This is a new day. There's a new wide open west period happening right now. And the three of us are getting together to combine our resources to help pursue some of those new opportunities. And so if you're an e commerce entrepreneur, if you are struggling right now or you're killing it right now, we've launched a new community to help people get through this. And this is not going to be free forever, but it's free for now. And you can join us over@capitalism.com ecommunity all one word, e community. And that'll send you to a page with more information about how you can join for free or if you're killing it right now and you want to pay for it, you can. But you might just want to come test drive it for a while and hang out with us and get some content and meet some people, navigate through this hard time. And then at some point we're going to bring back our plan to launch the back room together and build seven and eight figure businesses that people can sell.

So hope you got some value out of this, seeing what the landscape of opportunity looks like moving forward. And I hope to see you on the next episode of the 1%.