He Makes $25K a Month With Just His Phone - Ep. #321

I'm making over $10,000 per month, but I work no more than 4 to 5 hours per week. My brother-in-law, when we got him first started, he did 700 in his first week.

Holy crap.

First week at 700 videos. He averages anywhere from $25,000 to $30,000 in profit per month.

Net commission.

That's straight to your bank account. There's no overhead. You're not buying inventory. You don't have fees. It's very difficult to not make money. As long as you can read and talk, you can make a video that's good enough for the platform. You only fail if you just don't upload. Yeah, but you can't really lose money. You will make money. Okay. It's very simple. It's very straightforward. And you don't even have to show your face if you don't want to. And there are people that— we're talking grandma, grandpa, 70, 75 years old. Yeah. Everywhere in between. And there are people that can barely even work technology. Another individual, he has about 1,100, and just last month he did $40,000.

Holy cow.

With 1,100 videos. Another mom of 4, she's up in Idaho. She's making $12,000 a month and she has 4 kids and she's doing it part-time. And now her husband is doing it. And why wouldn't he? You literally send the address in the first message and products just start showing up. We actually did 2 free garage sales, so we got so many products sent to us that we're like, I don't know what to do. It's honestly mind-blowing with how much stuff that we got.

Yeah. Trevin, thanks for having me.

Absolutely. Well, thanks for having me.

Yeah. I mean, we're in Utah. This is your home turf. But why don't you tell me in one sentence what your business does?

We film video reviews with your phone and you upload them to Amazon. If somebody watches that video, buys the product, you get a commission.

Okay. So you help enable that. That's the thing that Amazon offers and you, your business, your tool, whatever helps better optimize that.

In a nutshell, we help increase commissions. And help you save time.

OK.

Through automation and data.

OK. Do you help identify like winning products to review? Yes. OK. By the end of this video, do you think people will have enough tools, whether they use your tool or not, to make money reviewing things on Amazon? 100%. OK. Is there like a type of person that this is a good fit for?

You do have to be able to talk on camera. Now, A lot of people will be like, oh, I can't do that. But it's not the typical talking on camera that people think it is.

Yeah.

It's very simple. It's very straightforward. And you don't even have to show your face if you don't want to. You can do POV content.

Okay.

Where it's just showing your hands. And if you really want, you can—

You could use these like glasses or whatever. Absolutely.

And if you really want, you can script it. Go to ChatGPT, throw in, hey, we got product XYZ, write a script, and then you can do a voiceover. So you can really simplify it. Yeah. If you want to, but it is ideal if you can pull up your phone and do a simple non-scripted, just talking about the product as if you were talking to your mom or your brother.

Yeah. It's funny because I, you know, I've been posting selfie videos for 2 years now and people that don't really know me are surprised by it, by how naturally it comes because they know I'm introverted. But people that know me really well are not surprised by it because Ever since I've had an iPhone, every time I have a friend that has a birthday, I'll always take like an off-the-cuff selfie video for them that's just goofy and like stuff I would never want to post to the internet. And I just like send selfie videos to friends via text. I've been doing that since 2010, right? And so I think that like got me comfortable behind the camera because I knew that only one person would be seeing it, you know?

And what's cool with this is it's not being posted to social media. Mm. It's being posted to Amazon.

Yeah.

So the chances of anyone that you know seeing it is not very likely.

Yeah. Now, what are the chances chances of Amazon just burying it because you've got like one Tumblr that 1,000 people review?

And that is where a strategy kind of comes into play. And that's where you want to find and identify the best product. Okay. And so that's kind of one element. And then the second element is if you can make a good video that converts, then that's where your video will actually stay and Amazon won't bury it. So there are strategies that you can do. Like, for example, a longer video performs better than a shorter one.

It keeps people on Amazon.com longer.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And the watch time is better. And so Amazon's algorithm triggers that and they're like, hey, people are watching this more, so we're going to show it more.

Okay.

So there's little metrics that you can look at. But again, it's, it's, it's very simple. Like when you talk about like a YouTube algorithm or the Instagram algorithm, it is far less complicated and way more straightforward, which is really nice for the average person.

Well, I'm trying to— I'm thinking about this in the context of like, you know, contrasting with an Amazon or an Instagram algorithm, right? If anyone in the world posts a video to Instagram, It's competing with the millions of other videos posted to Instagram that day, that year. It's competing with videos posted years ago that are still going, right? But if there's like a pink 20-ounce Stanley tumbler, 4th of July edition, that algorithm, that video is only competing with the other people in the world that have decided to upload a video to that exact product, right? Yep. So it doesn't have to be as sophisticated.

No. So there's 30+ million products on Amazon. Okay. And I mean, millions are being launched basically every single month.

Yeah.

And there's hundreds of millions of shoppers on Amazon. And so, yeah, it's finding just those one-off products and finding those products where you can get your video onto the listing. And once you're on the listing, the customers are coming and they're going to watch it. They might look at someone else's video. There's 6 spots. It's called top carousel. There's 6 spots on a product listing. And if you can be in one of those 6, you have a chance of a customer watching it.

OK. How important is it to be early?

To a product?

Yes. Like, let's say that Stanley tumbler, Stanley releases it at 9:00 AM Mountain Standard Time today. What wins? An average video posted right then or an amazing video for that product posted a month from now?

So I would say if you can do a good video, it doesn't have to be amazing and be early, that would be obviously ideal.

Okay.

But if you come a little late to the game, which happens all the time—

I'm usually going to be late.

Exactly. If you just make a better video than what's on the carousel, then you can come in and take over. And also Amazon will constantly kind of rotate and they'll split test and they'll try, okay, we'll give you this spot for a couple days. Okay, we'll throw this into a couple days. Obviously you will stick if your video is just outperforming, but Amazon is constantly rotating. So that's what's nice is you will always have a chance at Mm.

Okay. So it kind of reminds me of the YouTube algorithm. There's this video on YouTube. It's like a 10-second video of this guy, like hiking in Antarctica. Okay. And he comes upon this puddle and it looks like a puddle. And he has like this 12-foot-long, like hiking pole that like, it's like extendable. And he retracts it out all the way. It's like twice as tall as he is. And he sticks it down in the puddle and it keeps going and it keeps going and it keeps going. And he never touches the bottom. And he's, he's basically showing people that like, you will die if you fall in this. That's like implied without being said. Now, that video has like 200 million views or something. It was posted like 5 or 10 years ago. And the way YouTube works is when he first posted it, YouTube showed it to people that like hiking in Antarctica. It's like 12 people. Yeah. And they loved it. And it's like, all right, let's show it to people that like hiking. Millions of people. And they loved it. It's like, all right, let's show people that live in states where there are hikers. Utah, Colorado, whatever. And they loved it. And YouTube's like, wow, this is pretty— this is a lot more broad than I thought. Like, let's show it to Americans. They loved it. And like, that's why it's still going. Going viral 5, 10 years later because it just keeps testing it with a wider and wider audience. So it sounds like Amazon is similar in that like the early bird gets the worm for a while and it sees like, all right, you know, 33-year-old women love this video, we're gonna keep showing it. And then the product keeps going. It's like, well, we really need 45-year-old men to like it too. And this video that was just posted a month late kind of resonates with both 32-year-old women and 45-year-old men. So it just keeps kind of testing and A/B testing until it finds like the winner. And even when it finds the winner, it's always going to be testing, right?

Well, there's new videos coming on and where I think hopefully the algorithm goes, it's not this sophisticated yet, but it will get to the point where it knows me as a creator. It knows my demographic. It knows where I'm from. It knows how I talk. And Amazon has data on every single customer.

Interesting.

OK. They know what they like, what they don't like. They know their age. They know their profile. They know where they live, the zip code, like everything. Yeah. And so they could literally cater. OK, this person talks like this. This person is shopping and connect it. And I think that could happen.

Yeah.

And then that opens up the door for even more opportunity because then your video is being shown to the perfect specific person. Right now it's a lot easier again, because if you can just find a product that is selling, that's what I love about the business model is you are not driving any external traffic. You're just leveraging the existing traffic that Amazon has. And if you can get your video there, customers are going to see it.

Yeah.

And if they just watch it, Boom, commission.

So, you said it was the carousel 6?

Yeah, there's, there's, there's a top carousel. Most top carousels. So, when you go to an Amazon listing, there is a little video icon. And if you click on that video icon, there is videos from the seller and then there's videos related to the product. That's where our Amazon Influencer videos show up. And then there's video reviews, if there are any, from like actual customers.

Okay.

And so there's normally like 6 spots available in that.

Okay. So I'm now I'm contrasting this to like Google Business Profile or Google Maps, right? If you owned a plumbing business in American Fork, Utah, you want to be in the map pack, right? In the top 3 or whatever. And that's pretty, pretty static for everyone in American Fork that's looking for a plumber, right? But for this, it sounds like it's more hyper-personalized, right? Like the sort of 6 videos or whatever might be different based on who you are searching for the product.

Yeah, I mean, they do rotate. And if you were to go to a listing today, the videos that you'll see tomorrow could be different.

OK, but what about—

They aren't quite yet specific to the individual yet, but that is my prediction.

Oh, it's going.

For sure.

100%. Because I'm thinking like if I use a VPN in Provo, Utah, and look up that Tumblr, I'm going to see these 6 videos. And then if I change my location on my VPN to Vietnam, I'm going to see 6 different videos. You're saying we're not quite there yet, but it's probably moving in that direction. To me, when we move in that direction, it gives even more hope to like just the super boring dude in Omaha, Nebraska with a cowboy hat that has no energy and he's monotone. You like, even he can win because other low energy dudes in the Midwest that like cowboy hats are going to love that guy. And so Amazon, like that guy might not have been successful 3 months ago,. But under this new system, Amazon is going to show that video to every dude like that searching for products like that.

And if you want hope to believe that this is actually something that you can do is just go to a product listing and go watch the videos. You will start laughing because you're like, this video is awful.

Yeah.

How are they making—

Why are they showing this to me?

Yeah. Like, this is terrible.

Yeah.

If he can do it, I can do it. Like, there are people that are fresh out of high school and there are people that We're talking grandma and grandpa, 70, 75 years old. Yeah. Everywhere in between. And there are people that can barely even work technology.

Yeah.

Like we have people that are like, I don't know how to even log in. Like they, they don't even know how to log in. But as long as you can make a video, yeah, you can throw it up there and potentially make money. So it's, it's way less intimidating and it's, it's a lot easier than what people think. Just again, just go watch the videos and your mind will be blown.

Yeah. And you're going to show us at the end of this, like, how to make a video. Like we're going to make a real video today and you're going to show us like best practices.

Yes, absolutely.

So you're saying for everyday household products like this or this mic, these Meta Ray-Bans glasses and this tripod, especially if people are already buying stuff like this, there's an opportunity to make thousands per month just taking videos with these? Absolutely. Okay. You have like a lot of insight into the earning potential. Of this, right? What, what is like, what's worst case, base case, and then like outlier best case scenario for earnings per month?

If you get approved and you start making videos, it's very difficult to not make money. As long as you're approved and you start making videos, you will make money. And I would say for a beginner coming in, you will easily make hundreds of dollars.

Okay.

Very, very like conservative.

A month?

A month. Okay. And this is just kind of on repeat where it jumps up to more of, I would say, the average of the people that come in. I would say $1K to $3K is very, very reasonable.

Per month?

Per month.

And that's profit? Profit. Net commission to you?

That's straight to your bank account. There's no overhead. You're not buying inventory. You don't have fees. So my background, I sell products on Amazon and I mean, there's fees on fees. Yeah, they kill you. And then there's shipping and then there's this and then there's ads and Then there's tariffs and it just, it just stacks up where this, as soon as you make a commission straight to your bank account. So yeah, $1K to $3K, I would say where people start kind of ramping up is like $5,000 to $10,000 is like, hey, you know what you're doing.

That's people that get good at it. Yeah.

And not even that good. They just have been consistent for long enough and they understand, okay, this is like how it works.

Yeah.

And then there's people like me where I'm making over $10,000 per month doing these video reviews. Yeah, I do have a little bit of experience when it comes to content, but I work no more than 4 to 5 hours per week doing these videos.

Yeah. On these videos, you say experience making content like you're not like a videography major.

No, no, no.

Like you post videos to Instagram. Exactly.

That's it. Yeah.

Millions of other people, which is— that's not nothing, right? But you're not like professionally trained. No.

Yeah, I, I mean, if you saw the setup I don't know how to set up a microphone or a soundboard.

Yeah.

Doing the proper lighting. I can pull out my phone and I can talk to the camera. Yeah. And that's about the extent of my experience.

If I were to like summarize like best practices for video, it's like talk like you're, you're excitedly telling a story to your best friend, right? Like it doesn't have to be that high energy, but just like talk like you're just talking with your friend.

And for sure, how I like to do it is if you can keep the customer watching longer. Yeah, that's kind of ideal. So there's what's called hook stacking.

Okay.

So like you, you don't need to go and go crazy like on TikTok or Instagram where you're trying to grab their attention in the first 3 seconds.

But wait until the end and then it's just like, dude, come on.

But you can throw in that element.

Yeah.

Not obviously to that extent, but it's like, okay, today we're going to be talking about this product. At the end, I'm going to show you how to set it up. But before, let's just show you the cool features. So they are kind of thinking, oh, at the end I'm going to get a demo, I'm going to get a how to set it up because maybe that person wants to see that. And that's going to get them to either fast forward to that point or they're like, okay, yes, this is the video that I want to watch. Okay. So there is that element of if you can get them to just be thinking of like, oh, I'm going to cover this, I'm going to cover that. And so then they're more likely to stick around.

Okay. What's like a good length of these videos?

So what's interesting is this has kind of changed over time. It kind of started early on. It was like, do super premium, super high quality production value. Then it got to the point where people were like, you don't need to do that. Just go throw up like 60 seconds, just honestly awful videos. And it got to the point where all these awful videos are just not that great. And so now it's kind of pivoted to— it doesn't need to be this high-end production value, but it needs to be a little bit longer than 60 seconds. So what I like to do is I would say at least like 2 minutes.

Okay.

And just talk about it as long as you have kind of good lighting, good sound, like a simple lav mic. But that really goes a long way for the videos. And yet talk about it like you're talking to a friend.

Yeah. I mean, I think there's like, there's like 4 thresholds of good mics. You've got like your iPhone mic, right? Which is like better than nothing. Yep. That shouldn't prevent— like if you haven't posted a video yet because you're waiting on your mic, like you're waiting too long.

And I started with just my iPhone. Yes. And there's still plenty of videos that I do just with my iPhone. Yeah. Especially in your— in a good space where the sound is not like, there's not a lot of background noise, dude, the mic is plenty.

Well, my, my most viral like Instagram videos are when I'm out with my family and I see something and I don't have my mic.

Yep.

And I take a video anyway and they'll get 10 million views. 'Cause it's a good, we were talking about this before we recorded, like the concept is way more important than the hardware. So like 4 different levels of mics. You've got your iPhone or your Android mic. Then second is like these $25 mics you get on Amazon, like the cheapest, loudest loud mic you can get. Third is probably like this.

Yeah. 100 bucks.

Which is 100 bucks. And you could actually post a review on this. Yeah. And then the fourth is like the DJI Mic 3, which is like 300 bucks. And that's about as good as you get. But the average person can't really tell much of a difference between any of those four. Okay. So, 2 minutes plus is like best practice, but there are a lot of successful videos that are 30 to 60 seconds, I imagine.

Yeah. Very short.

Okay. And is there like a type of person that this seems to work best for?

So what's really cool is I've done TikTok affiliates. It's a similar business model, but it requires a lot more skill. It requires being better on camera and it just is a little bit harder for the average person. So when I'm comparing these two models, they're very similar. You make videos talking about a product, you upload it to the platform, and then if someone watches it, you get a commission. So that's kind of the overall nutshell. If you compare the two, I always tell people, I'm like, I could take 100 people off the street and get them making their first dollar with the Amazon Influencer Program. Literally, I don't care their background.

Yeah.

TikTok affiliates, I can't say that same thing just because the videos are so simple. They're so straightforward. As long as you can literally, again, you can create a script and do a voiceover. As long as you can read. And talk, you can—

and you have a phone.

And you have a phone, you can make a video that's good enough for the platform.

Yeah. I mean, for most of my Shorts, I use like this $20 teleprompter app. $20 a year. A year. Yeah. A year. Yeah. And I just paste the script in it and I just, it's just a selfie video and I'm reading it scroll across the screen. Kind of the next threshold of that is a voiceover where you just like take video only and then you use like CapCut, edits. Yep. Any like free or close to free app to like use your voice memos app, just record you talking, overlay it with the video, right? Is there like a next threshold after that?

I mean, honestly, I use CapCut and edits because you can literally just splice it together and then they have a voiceover feature where you just click and then you just record with your, your mic. And as long as you're in a quiet studio or room, you can just film from your phone. Okay. So, and to be honest, beyond that, like there's even like the top of the top are not doing anything extra on that other than maybe they might have a better microphone.

Okay. Are the best of the best winning because of quantity or because of quality?

Right now, it's, it's a mix of both, but I would say it's because of the products that you're picking and then it's the video that you're making. So if you can pick a good product and then you can make a good video, you will win.

Okay. It's like that, you know, that meme of like the guy trying to choose which red button to press. Yeah. I showed this to my team. I made one. Have you seen the one where he has like both fingers? Yeah, I made it. My content team, I made one of those memes and one said quality, one said quantity, and he's pressing both. It's like, that's like the best of both worlds. What is like the, you know, most outlier earnings case that people should not expect? We're not saying it's realistic, but what have you seen in your world that's like the best of the best? What are they making per month?

So there's two people that come to my mind. Actually, there's three. So there's an individual that has 700 videos. Which is not—

that doesn't sound—

it's not that much. Like when 2,000 Instagram and when people think like, oh, 700, that seems like a lot. But it's again, low effort, non-scripted, non-edited videos. Like 700 is not that much. My brother-in-law, when we got him first started, he did 700 in his first week.

Holy crap.

First week. So 700 is not as much as what people think. So he at 700 videos, he averages anywhere from 25 to $30,000 in profit per month.

But he has to buy the products he's reviewing, right?

So that is where a unique strategy comes into play. And if you really want to get strategic, it is smart. But for the average person, I would say 95% of individuals are reviewing products that they already own. And then you can get to a certain point where brands actually send you products. Sure. And so—

They know you're good.

Exactly. And so there's ways to basically find the brand, find the product, and then you can automate outreach. And then the brands will just send you products showing up on your porch. And we've proven— I mean, we've done this so much to where we actually did 2 free garage sales. So we got so many products sent to us that we're like, I don't know what to do. It's honestly mind-blowing with how much stuff that we got. Yeah, but we're like, this is insane. Like, you send these messages and what's funny is there's not even any back and forth. You send the message of like, hey, I'm an Amazon influencer.

It's an asymmetric bet to them.

Here's my, here's my address. You literally send the address in the first message. And products just start showing up.

They're like, their cost on that product, like they might be selling it for $20 to $50. Their cost is like $3 to $10 and it's an asymmetric bet. Yep. Okay, so you got all this stuff to show up. Did you take videos on all of it?

Yeah.

And then you gave it away for free at a garage sale.

Yep.

You can also use that garage sale as like a lead gen.

Well, so, so for us, we, we didn't need to resell it, but I would say the average user, they're taking that and They're making commissions from Amazon, but then they also have the resale value of the products that they're getting for free. So there's multiple ways to make money. So you can get money from Amazon, from the commissions. You can resell the product. You can work out deals where the brand will actually pay you to post the video. So there's agencies and most of these sellers are from China and basically they'll pay you $20 to $40 per video. Wow.

Okay.

Upfront. Yeah. And so they'll pay you $20, $40 and then sometimes you can sell the video rights because they want to use the video on their site. Social media or on their website, and you can sell that for another $40, $50. But there's people that are charging $500, $1,000 for these pieces of content. It's kind of like UGC.

Yeah.

And so brands are like, yes, we want this, we want this piece of content, we want to be able to use it. And so there's multiple ways to monetize it, not just from the commission. So when I'm talking about the $25,000 to $30,000, that is just from Amazon's commissions.

Yeah.

That's not taking into consideration him potentially reselling the products, potentially landing deals where he's selling the video rights, brands paying him money. So that's— that individual, I would say, is probably the top of the top for— I mean, 700 videos is crazy. Another individual, he has about 1,100, and just last month he did $40,000.

Holy cow.

With 1,100 videos.

That's like 1,100 total. And so they compound over time. Yep. A lot of them never do much at all. That's just the 80/20 rule. Or like in this case, maybe the 95/5 rule. Yeah, it's 5% of them make 95% of the—

And I would say on this is probably the 80/20. I bet 20% make up the majority of it.

So you need volume.

You do need volume. And then there's another guy, good friend of mine. He has, I think, 4,000 videos, so significantly more, and he did $27,000. Interesting. So, so again, volume is important, but It's more about can you be strategic about the products that you're reviewing?

Yeah. Volume negates luck.

Yes.

OK, so you said your brother-in-law, his first week made 700 videos. What did he— Do you have any bearing on what he made just from those? I'm assuming he kept going, but like, how much fruit did that first week yield him?

I wish I knew the exact number, but what I can say is we introduced my sister and brother-in-law to the business model. This was July. And within 3 months, they had ramped up to making $15,000 per month, and she was able to quit her corporate job. Yeah, making 6 figures a year.

Wow.

So it's crazy.

So, all right, so let's just say someone has next to no money. Step 1 is to log into your Amazon account, look at your order history and go around your house, find stuff you already bought. How far back can you go?

So, I would say first, if you want to really go to step 1, it's getting the account approved.

Okay. How hard is that?

So that's where I would say 99% of people will go. They'll apply, they'll get rejected, and they're like, it's too good to be true. Yeah. And I, again, I wish that people could understand that. Just, you got to see it through. But basically you go to Google, type in Amazon Influencer Program, you click on the link, and then you hit sign up. You can use an existing Amazon account. So like your shopping account.

Is it better that you do?

So what's funny is my brother, he linked it and I didn't. I didn't, the advantage of linking it is when you go to tag a product, Amazon will show you like, oh, these are products that you've purchased.

Okay.

And it's just easier to tag, but it doesn't really matter.

It doesn't increase your likelihood of being approved. Okay.

So whatever you want to, if you want to create a new account, old account, it doesn't matter. And then from there, you have to link a social media account. And this is where it scares a lot of people because they hear the term influencer and they're like, well, I'm not an influencer.

Doesn't apply.

But again, if you go watch the videos, people making these reviews are not your typical influencer.

Yeah, yeah.

So you have to link a social media. It can be Facebook, it can be YouTube, it can be TikTok or Instagram. It has to be a public profile. So a lot of people are like, oh, I don't want to make my profile public.

I'm like, not going to be public, is it? Like, or is Amazon just using it to validate you?

Instagram is going to be public because Amazon, Amazon needs to verify it.

Sure.

So that profile does have to stay public.

But like, what does that actually look like on a regular basis?

So, like, if your account was public on Instagram, I would search your name and I couldn't see your posts.

OK.

But if it was public, I could go scroll and see your posts.

No, I— Sorry, I know what that means. But like, if someone connects their Instagram account to Amazon during the application process and they get approved, like, do they have less privacy moving forward? Like, what does that actually look like on Amazon's side?

No, nothing.

I thought Amazon was just— They want you to connect it to know that John Smith is actually John Smith.

So that's what it is.

It's not like you lose lose all your privacy.

No, no, no, no.

But it has to be a public profile.

That's what I'm saying.

Well, what if you, you like having a private Instagram profile, you make it public, apply, you get approved. Can you make it private? You have to leave it public.

You have to leave it. All right.

Yeah.

And that's what I say. I'm like, if that's your biggest gripe with this, like you either A, don't need money or—

Right.

Like it's just—

I would think 80% of profiles are public. By default.

And you would think that, but a lot of people have issues with it. They're like, I just— and I'm like, who's actually looking at your profile? No, like, no one, no one is really looking at you. They're like, well, I want my private. I'm like, let's be honest, if someone wants to find your address, your phone number, whatever, quick Google search, boom, I can find anyone's name, address. Yeah. And so for me, that's not that big of an issue.

But Instagram is just one of them, right?

Yeah, you could use Facebook, you use TikTok. TikTok is probably the easiest way Like there are people that will have like we're talking 10 followers and get approved. Yeah, but you have to again have it public and you want to have some post history.

Sure.

So if you open up a brand new account with no posts, you're not going to get approved.

Okay, so let's get— let's say worst case, I have an active Instagram account. I'm very, very opinionated that I need it to stay private. Right. Cool. I'm not on TikTok ever. Maybe I have an account, maybe I don't, but I never use it. I could create a new TikTok account called Chris Koerner. Ideally, it's like not some random username, like it's Chris Koerner. My username is Chris Koerner 4444 or whatever. And then I just take some videos just to show a history. I go follow some friends, they follow me back. I've got 10 followers, 100, somewhere in there. I've got 5 videos posted of like me just hanging out. Would that be a good option if I want to keep my Instagram private? I could start a new on TikTok and then use that to link it?

Yes. It's going to take a little bit more than 5 videos and it's going to take more than a couple of weeks. It might take a month. Month or two.

Okay.

Which again, there's zero risk, there's zero capital. It's completely free to just go throw up some videos. And so if you want to do that, then 100%, it's a great option to just start posting. And then you basically take that account, you'll link it to Amazon. And like you said, it's Amazon just verifying whether you're a legit person or not. And then that is the first approval.

Okay.

There's a second approval. And this is where a lot of people will kind of mess up because it's weird. Amazon doesn't tell you this, but in order to get what's called on-site placement, Or in other words, in order for your videos to show on product detail pages, in order for them to actually be seen by humans. Exactly. You have to get this special approval from Amazon. And the way that you get this approval is uploading 3 videos.

Okay.

And these 3 videos are verified by actual humans.

Okay.

So the first 3 videos that you post are going to need to be better than the videos after that. Once you get the 3 approved, you're in the clear. So those 3 videos are super important because you have 3 tries. And if you fail on the third attempt, You can't get on-site placement.

Yeah.

You'll have to restart from scratch and you can. And there's several people that will start from scratch and it's because they didn't know. Like for the 3 videos, for example, you can't have license plates, cars. There's trigger words. If you say free or buy now or BPA-free or eco-friendly or sexy or—

Claims that could get them sued.

Exactly. So like you want to avoid any type of claims. You want to make sure that there's no loud background noise.

Okay.

You want to make sure that there's no like houses or street signs in the back, like any personal information. So like if you're showing a box and there's a label on it, instantly flagged. And Amazon has like a, like that one, an AI bot like detects that one.

So the human never even looks at it. Yeah.

And so there's certain things that you can and can't say on those 3 videos. But once you get those 3 videos, then you're kind of in the clear.

Yeah. So that's, there's only 2 rounds of approvals. First is connecting something. They want to see that you are a real human. You're not a scammer.

Yep.

Second one, they want to see if you can take a decent video and they're going to tell you what those things are. You don't have to guess that I can't show a label. I imagine there's a checklist there.

There is like if you dig into their terms of service, there is a list. But I would say 99.9% of people don't.

That's why they're watching this. Exactly. Yeah. Okay.

So, I mean, I can just— yeah, real quick to give a rundown for the 3 videos. Horizontal, good lighting, good sound. Don't make any claims. Make sure that the product that you're talking about is important. So on the first 3 products, so the first 3 videos. Don't grab vitamins or products where you're going to have health claims. Don't do baby products because there's safety claims. Do simple products like a phone tripod, a backpack, a soccer ball, a sock. Yeah, something that you just can't mess up. Yeah, you can't say something wrong.

I mean, use ChatGPT. It's like, hey, based on best practices, like, would this be a good thing to promote? Now, do you have to like Do these 3 products have to be like real products that you bought from Amazon, or can they be anything around the house? Anything.

As long as they are sold on Amazon, you can make the video review.

Now, if it was like a literal soccer ball, would you have to go like find that exact one on Amazon and like tag it?

Yes. So that's a very important part is you don't want to tag incorrectly. That is also a big no-no. If you review a soccer ball and you tag a similar one, but it's a different color, that's no good. It needs to be the exact brand, the exact color, the exact product when you're tagging.

Okay. All right. So that's how you get approved. Okay. So first here is to go to your Amazon account. How far back can you go? Like, if I bought something 2 years ago, can I, like, make a video? Yes.

So as long as it's still selling on Amazon, you can make the video review.

So— But it might not be as good because there could be 100 other videos on that product already.

And that's where strategy does come into play. So like, there are tools where you can go scan your order history and it will go back to, again, 10, 15 years ago, as long as you had an Amazon account, you can go and grab that data. OK. And it will basically say, OK, this product has the most potential, this one doesn't. And if you can just find products that are still selling, those are the products that you want to review.

Now, is this a good reason to use the same Amazon account that you usually buy with to apply for this?

That is a use case for sure. Again, mine is not connected, but my brother's is. OK. And we both I actually make more than him, so it doesn't really matter.

Because Amazon needs to know for sure that that came from them. Yeah.

Well, not necessarily. Because I will go to my mom's house and I will scan her order history.

She might have bought it from HomeGoods, but if it's sold on Amazon, you could still do it.

Absolutely. And so I will actually go, but I will log into her Amazon account. OK. And I will scan her order history. OK. And I will go and be like, OK, these products are the ones that I want to review. Let's— Mom, I need these products. Go find them and then I'll review.

Yeah. And then you could still post them on your account even though your account has no order history of that item. Yep. Amazon just knows that, yeah, that item is sold, so that counts. Yep. And then do they mark it as like a verified purchase?

No, it's just—

Like the reviews, right? No. Like if I review a product, some of them say verified purchase, some of them don't. Nope. It's not like that? Nope.

People will go to Airbnbs and they're on vacation and they'll just grab products around the Airbnbs and review them. Again, as long as it's sold on Amazon, it's fair game. You do not have to buy the product on Amazon. So that's what's cool is, again, you can start this business with zero capital. You do not need to invest in anything.

Yeah. Like if you're, for whatever reason, you're not currently an Amazon shopper, you don't have to become one. No. You just need to find stuff, which is like 92% of stuff. Everything.

That's cool. If we looked in this room, I would say 95% of the stuff is on Amazon.

Yeah. And probably 80% of that came from Amazon. Yeah. All right. So let's talk percentages, like affiliate percentages. What's What are they paying on like a $100 mic versus a $20 tumbler versus a $5,000 couch?

So Amazon has their standard commission rates and it's anywhere from 0.5% up to 3%.

Depending on the category?

Depending on the category. And it kind of varies and Amazon is always tweaking this. But what's incredible is there is a way to get increased commissions because brands or sellers will create campaigns and say, "Hey, we have XYZ product. We want to incentivize you creating to create content. And if you do, we will give you a 10%, 20%, up to 50% commission.

And they just pass that on Amazon and Amazon passes it along. Yep.

Okay. And so from Amazon itself, those commissions are not going to be anything crazy. And so the people that are making the $20,000, $30,000, $40,000 per month, they're focused on— it's called Creator Connections. They're focused on the products that have the increased commission rates. Okay. And so, like, if you looked at my commission, so $12,000 in the last 30 days, $10,000 was from the increased commissions and $2,000 was from Amazon.

Standard stuff.

Standard commissions.

Like a—

they're like an 80/20 program.

Yeah. Okay.

So if you can focus on that, that's where you're going to have most of the success.

Okay. What are the lower paying categories and then what are the higher paying ones?

Outdoor is a higher paying category. So like your lawn mowers, your weed whackers, your trimmers.

And that's also a higher ticket, right? Because you have kind of two variables, the percentage and then the actual cost of the product.

Yeah. So those are going to be a little bit higher at like 3%. And then there's like beauty products, which are like half a percent. But there are some beauty products that are more. But for me, I don't even look at the Amazon commissions. I look at the increased commission rates.

OK.

So for me, I will not review a product unless it has that potential for an increased commission. Okay. And that is where you're going to see majority of your commissions come from.

Okay. Now, is that only available to like superstars on the program or to anyone?

So what's awesome is when you get approved and you start making videos, once you make like 20, 30 videos, you automatically get what's called the Bronze Program. And as soon as you're Bronze and above, you get access to it.

Regardless of how well those 20, 30—

They need to do decent. Okay. But not anything crazy. Okay. So as long as you are reviewing products that have sales, —yeah— that are performing decent, like that's where, like, the software tools that will help you identify those types of products. And if you can prioritize those first, yeah, then you will unlock that program a lot faster.

And I want to get to those tools, but it's kind of like Amazon, their bonus program. They don't want to waste these extra commissions on people that are flighty and like just testing it out. They just want to see that like, all right, Trevin is like, it looks like he's going to be doing this for a while. Yeah, he's not like a rock— like he could be a rock star, but like, He's kind of serious about this.

When they want sellers to work with legitimate creators. Yeah. Like they don't want—

It's a bad experience. Yeah. If you never answer your DM from them because you've only posted 2 videos and you flamed out, that's a bad experience for Amazon.

And the whole goal is for these, like Amazon makes more money if these sellers create campaigns because if the sellers are creating campaigns, it's incentivizing us creators to make content. And if our content drives sales and drives commissions while Amazon is making money. So at the end of the day, Amazon just wants their cut. Sure. And they're happy. Yeah.

Are there any products where you've seen like the perfect overlap of like a good percentage? Because now I'm thinking there's like 3 variables. It's just like, how hot is the product? Maybe 4. How hot is the product? How much competition on other videos are there on the product? The price of the product and the commission rate. So like, have you ever seen a scenario where like there was this random futon or something that was like hundreds of thousands of dollars where there was just wide open opportunity. It was a hot product. It was a good— and it was just like someone found lightning in a bottle on a product. And of course, it never lasts forever. But what kind of products or items or categories have you seen where that has been the case?

So it's— there's so many products on Amazon that there's not just one and there's what is selling for me. My brother's bestseller is going to be completely different. And that's what's awesome is there's so much opportunity. But one product that comes to my mind is I was at my, my mother-in-law's house. I looked at her Amazon shopping account and there was an umbrella base. So they have a pool base. Yeah, it's just where the, the umbrella goes into this base that's filled with water.

Rectangular. It's like plastic and it fills up with water.

You put the umbrella in there, you can kind of move it around. I did a video on that. It's been 2 and a half years ago. I'm making anywhere from like $500 like $300 to $500 a month. Holy crap. On that video that I posted almost 2.5 years ago.

And how much time did you invest in that?

I maybe 60— That was a video that's literally 60 seconds.

That's like $10,000 an hour. It's insane. It's insane.

And it was a free product. I didn't buy it. Yeah, it was. We were at the pool hanging out with the family and I'm like, I'm going to pull up my camera and film this. And it was a voiceover. So the splashing, the dogs were going crazy, kids were screaming. I just showed it, I just moved it horizontal, and then I did a voiceover, uploaded it, and boom, it's an amazing seller.

Did you just like kind of get lucky on that one? That was lucky for sure. Because you didn't really know what you were doing back then. Yeah, that was lucky. Now, if I were to go Google umbrella stands today, is that like one of the top that they're showing, or is your video just the killer on that product? And it's like the 9th that they're showing. That—

it's a, it's a well-known brand in that category. And so it is a good seller for sure. But there's also not as much competition. And also people like to see the product in action. Yeah. And so since it was in a good setting, it was at the pool. Okay. You could see the vibe, you could see it live and it looks really real and authentic. Sure. Yeah. That video has stuck and has performed well.

And how much does that product cost?

It's like $70.

So you're making like a buck each time or? No, it's—

A couple bucks? I got the— So it's 3% commission and then there's the increased commission rate of, I think that one is 15%. 15%. Oh, wow. So like just yesterday, that product made me $150. Just yesterday.

2.5 years later? Yes. Oh my gosh. Are other people like posting videos to that product? You know, I mean, you're probably not checking in on it.

I don't check. And that's where a lot of people will get too kind of into the weeds. And there are strategies. Like if I was going in strategically buying, then yes, I'm looking at, yeah, okay, how many influencer videos have created, have created a piece of content on this product? What are the monthly sales? What is the increased commission rate? But since that video has been up, I'm like, I honestly don't care. And I guess I'm going to share a little golden nugget for people watching. I knew that that product was selling so well. So what I ended up doing is I searched other umbrella stands on Amazon and I ended up buying 3 others because I'm like, okay, if this product is selling good, I'm sure other ones are going to sell good as well. Yeah. Yeah, and it proved to be—

those did well as well. Did you take a similar style video? Similar style video. Could we post that at the end of this? Yeah, like the one that did really, really well. Okay, we'll put that at the end of this video as like a trailer. Yeah, um, that's amazing. Have you ever been like out in public or out at dinner with your wife and seen something like, babe, hold on one sec, and just like seen something like this would crush?

Yes, we, we've done that at the dinner table, like the, the, the lighting, the napkin holders, in the bathrooms, like the soap dispensers, the paper towel holders. Yeah. One that comes to my mind, I was just in Vegas at a conference and I reviewed the showerhead. Hmm. It's a Kohler showerhead. Sells great, but no one does that because most people don't think to review that. Sure.

Because then you got to install the thing, right? Exactly. Who's going to use the showerhead at any given moment?

And that video again took me 60 seconds. And I bet that one's made me not near as much as like the thousands, but I bet it's made me a couple hundred dollars. So like the ROI and the time. Yeah. And if you're just kind of alert of like, oh, this could be good, like let's review it.

Yeah. It's like, I love the concept of asymmetric bets. Right. And that's why I love short-form videos. Cause it's like, it's like if the lottery were free, if the lottery were free, I don't play the lottery. You probably don't play the lottery. If it were free, I would, I would play it all day, every day.

Cause what do you have to lose? Well, people compare this to literally walking into a casino. And just giving them money and then giving it back. And like, it's free money. Like, everything around you is free. The products are getting for free. All you need to do is, yeah, just film the video and upload it and you have the chance to win.

Well, and your biggest competition is just your ego, like not wanting anyone in the world to hear your voice, not even your face, but your voice. And it's like, who cares? No one's even going to know or recognize it. But that's what's holding us up.

I mean, we have people that are Spanish speakers, they speak in Spanish and they will use an AI voice translator and convert it to English. Like, there's literally no excuse.

There's no excuse. I mean, like, just a few years ago, if we wanted to launch a business, like, I want to launch a restaurant. All right, it's going to be 12 months of approvals. It's health departments, training. It's $500,000. And if the restaurant goes well, you might make $5,000 to $10,000 a month. And you're going to be working 80-hour weeks and it might fail.

And you've worked holidays, working Sundays.

And it's like, now it's like, It's like, you know, like the meme of like the big strong guy and then like the little guy and it's like, you know what I'm saying? What is the meme where it's like, or it's like the pioneers? The pioneers are like, I just lost my third child. We must persist. And then this one's like, oh, my internet is down for an hour. It's like, it's like back then it's like, I must invest $500,000 to start my business. It may or may not work. There's a 90% chance of failure. And today it's like, I don't want anyone to hear my voice. It's like, dude, who cares?

And most businesses require a ton of capital to start or you have to have customers. If you don't have those two things, it's like a business is not going to succeed. This one, the customers are already there and you don't need any capital. It literally sounds almost too good to be true.

Every now and then I come across like a billboard business or a billboard idea. That's what I call it, where it's like, Chris, if you had a free billboard on the highway, what would you say? And it's like, what does the world need to know? Right? And it's like, this would be one of them where it's like, anyone can post videos to Amazon and make money. Money. Yeah. And if you suck at it, then you might only make $4. If you're great at it, you might make $40,000 a month. It's like, that's the world we live in today. There's so much opportunity. Is this available to like other countries?

Not just Americans? Yes. So there's a lot of users in Canada. A lot of people in the UK. It's mainly English-speaking countries because you do have an advantage when you do speak English. And then it's more developed countries because there's more Amazon activity.

Amazon. Yeah. Yeah. If I'm a German living in Germany, can I post videos in German? Yes.

So there's actually a German marketplace where you can upload your video reviews to Amazon Germany. Okay. And those videos will be displayed on those product detail pages. So that's a strategy that you can also use is you can take that piece of content and there's automations that you can basically take the video and it will upload to the US marketplace, Canada marketplace, UK marketplace. Germany, Singapore, Australia, YouTube, Pinterest. And you can basically, again, you don't have to do this, but this is basically taking that one piece of content and dispersing it to 10 other places to potentially earn you commissions. And that those videos will also live on those other platforms.

All right. So how, how long has this been a thing?

So they opened up the program as early 2020, 2021. Okay. And it was kind of gatekept for the longest time. Because nobody wanted to talk about it because it was so, again, too good to be true.

Did it just work really well right from the get-go? It works absolutely insane.

And early on, it was definitely easier because you could just review anything and there was no competition. Now people are earning more than what they did previously because there is the increased commission rate. So back when it first started, you were basically earning 1% to 3%. %. Okay. Where now the program has advanced, there's the increased commission rates and people are actually making more now than they were early on.

Because of the increased rates, even though there's more competition.

Exactly. And so if you understand the strategy, you can find the good products and make good videos. That's where you will excel and make way more. Yeah. Where again, early on, people were reviewing, it did not matter. They throw up a 30-second video. And you would make money on it. Yeah, you can still do that. Just throw up as much and see what sticks. Yeah, but you're going to waste a lot of time.

Yeah, you got to learn. Like MrBeast says, like, as long as every video you try to be better than the one before it, it's only a matter of time that you'll win. Yep. Right. And that's true with anything in life. I like— I hate the concept that people don't start or do things because they think they're late. Like, that is the most common cop out and it's just the most false cop out. I just have this theory in life that that we're always early, right? Like, we're never late. Like, oh, 2012, oh, Bitcoin's $4. It was 4 cents. I'm not buying. But, you know, 2016, Bitcoin's $400. Oh, I'm so late. So Bitcoin's $4,000. Oh, Bitcoin's $40,000. Like, or e-commerce, like Shopify came around in like 2007. It's like 2011, it's like, oh, I can't start an e-commerce store, I'm late. You know, 2016, I'm like, e-commerce is still 18 cents of every dollar sold. We're still early. Like Amazon is still early. Like you only know if you're early or late when the whole history of human life has played out. Like if the world ended tomorrow, we're late, right? If we're going to keep going, we're early and I think we're going to keep going.

I couldn't agree more with that. We're always early. It drives me nuts.

And like, if I'm wrong, I'm sorry that you wasted, you know, 2 hours of your life to maybe make hundreds or thousands a month. Like, I apologize. Yeah. Okay, so it's been 5 years. But you're seeing, and you have maybe—

No, so I've been doing this for 3 years.

But it's been around for 5 or 6. Oh, yes. You've been doing it for 3 and you probably have more insight into like how everyone's doing on this than almost anyone on the planet. And people are like still winning. Like it's still going great, still growing.

I'm in a unique situation because I do get to see a lot of the data. I get to talk to a lot of the people and I do get to see firsthand what is working and what's not. And the last few months. So Amazon, they slashed rates. Before you were making like 2 to 5%. Now you're making like a half percent to 3%. And everyone was like, oh, the program is going to die. It's dead, whatever. And in the last 3 months since doing that, people are making more money than they ever have. Yeah. And again, it's because the program has developed the increased commission opportunities of Creator Connections. The brands are starting to recognize this as well, and they're seeing so much growth from it. That they're wanting to participate in these campaigns. So just quick perspective, when I very first started doing— it's called Creator Connections, again, increased commission rates— there were about 100,000 campaigns. And inside each campaign, there's anywhere from a couple products to hundreds of products. So it was actually— no, it was like 30,000 campaigns. And, and over like the last year, it went from 40,000-50,000 campaigns to over 800,000 campaigns. Holy crap. And so brands are starting to become more aware. Yeah, they're starting to be like, okay, these videos, these creators are converting for us. Yeah, yeah, let's put more budget and spend behind it. That makes perfect sense. And so the program has just evolved and things are going to change, uh, I mean, Facebook and their Pixel and the Apple update and all these things, things Things change, things happen. But if you can just pivot and you find the other opportunity, like, it's unbelievable. There's so much potential.

It's— I mean, we talk about being early or late. That's overly— that's even an overly simplistic way of talking about this because this is a two-sided marketplace, right? 2021, we were so early, right? From the perspective of people like you posting videos. But we were insanely early from the perspective of brands knowing that this was actually a thing because there's millions of sellers on Amazon, right? Right? So, what you're saying is like 5 years, 6 years in, a lot of people know about, a lot of people like you know about this. But brands are still like becoming aware of this.

I've been selling on Amazon for the last 10 years. I did not know this program existed when it launched. Yeah, I'm sure. I had no idea. And then all of a sudden I started seeing videos. This is how I discovered the business model. I started seeing videos on my listing. I'm like, "Where are these videos?

This doesn't make sense." Because you were selling products on Amazon.

Yes. Right? And then I'm like, "Okay, these videos are crazy." Yeah, like, what is this coming out of my pocket? Like, what's happening? And I'm like, okay, this is the future.

Selling products on Amazon kind of sucks. There's so many fees and you're like, I want to do this.

And so I dove into that. And yeah, long story short, I haven't looked back. I still sell products on Amazon here and there. But yeah, the, the easiest and just most simple model out there is reviewing the products. No risk.

There's so much power that comes from being distracted. Like I'm the most distracted person ever. And that is like what I preach every day is like, as long as you keep moving, it doesn't matter what you're moving towards. Because my first real business was an iPhone repair shop, a retail iPhone repair shop where people would walk in and I personally would learn how to fix iPhones on their iPhone. And it was the worst because I would break their iPhones and it was low margin. And I'm an introvert and I had to talk to people. And then I get a call one day and it's like, hey, we want to buy your broken iPhone screens. I'm like, what? That's a thing? And I was just like, hmm, that's the future. Sold my business a month later, started selling wholesale iPhone screens, and we did like $2.4 million that first year. Wow. Right? So it's like, Chris, focus on this. This. And it was working like the retail business was working and I wasn't focused. And because I wasn't focused, like, I found something so much better, you know? So like, focus is overrated. Momentum is underrated. Just keep moving. Like, keep your shiny object syndrome. That's one analogy. The second analogy I'm thinking of is when you talked about Amazon cutting their rates from 3% to 1% or whatever. Amazon is going to keep doing that. For sure. They're, they're a trillion-dollar corporation. Like, they will keep doing that. They're in the business of doing that. But like, what happens when Amazon does that is the people that have already started and they're seeing not even like super successful, but they're seeing some traction, they're going to keep going because they're like, whatever. Like, I see where this is going. I'm going to keep going. But all the, you know, the vast majority of people that are looking at this are kind of in the stage where they're just kind of looking at this and they hear about that and they're like, that's their cop out. Out. Like, so it shakes out all the weak people. It's kind of like when you're a fan of a football or a basketball team and like they start the season 3-0 and then they lose 2 games. Like, it shakes out all the bandwagoners, you know? But all the diehards just keep going and they stick with the team. That's kind of what happens when they cut their rates. Like, it almost makes it better for the people that are already doing it.

And honestly, it was amazing because it weeded out the people that were in it for the wrong reason to begin with. Yeah. And that just means more opportunity for me. And I— it's so fascinating to see people get so scared of these little changes or these little things. And I'm like, first off, welcome to business. You're going to have changes. You're going to have to adapt. You're going to have to pivot. And so that's just like you said, it's going to happen no matter what.

OK, so can you show us actually how to sell? Before you do that, I am curious about the horizontal video because I would think that most people would be shopping on Amazon from their phone. Why horizontal?

So it's super interesting. The data just shows that horizontal videos perform better and your videos are more discoverable when it's on desktop. So people are shopping on computer, they're just easier to find. And so those perform better. But also just Amazon's algorithm favors it more.

Because like, honestly, I, I don't know, I'm probably 50/50 on my Amazon shopping on phone versus computer. So it sounds like there's so much more real estate on desktop. Yes. That there's more opportunity to see those 6 videos. Yep. Whereas there's less real estate on a phone. People just don't come across them as much.

And I would say a lot of people on the phone, it's really impulse. Like they're just going in, they'll be like, boom, I'm going to buy it. Like they don't really research. But for me as a shopper, like if there's something that I'm doing a little bit more digging, a little bit more research on, I go to my desktop naturally.

Yeah.

Because I can see more, I can read the reviews better. I can view things on a bigger screen.

Because sometimes I'm out and about and it's like, I need more Kiwi Guava Celsius, something I order all the time. It's like, poop. But if I'm like, if I need a pool umbrella holder, it's like, I'm going to do some digging here. And men love doing all that research.

Or comparing the best lav mic. Like we're talking about this mic right here. This actually has been a big moneymaker for me. I was one of the very first to review this.

And he's in his element right now.

People want to know, okay, does the sound work? What is it like compared to this mic? I can show— that's another great strategy is I have so many different lav mics and you do comparison videos. So you'll be like, okay, we've got the DJI here, we've got the Hollyland Lark M2 here. Let's compare and contrast and let's help you decide which one is going to be the best fit for you. And so that is another huge kind of strategy. And customers love to see that. They love to see the— they want to see real, reviews from real people. They don't want to see the videos from the brand. They're Photoshopped, they're AI generated. They're again, they're perfectly curated to get the customer to be like, oh, this is the best product. But from a person like me, it just gives the customer a little bit more assurance that the product that they're getting is what they actually are getting. Yeah.

What about like intellectual honesty? Like, do you ever like, you really want to review something and talk about how awesome it is and it just sucks?

There are products where that has happened.

You have to, like, choose between your, your ethics and your money.

And for the most part, I— all the products that I review are genuinely good. Yeah. And so for those particular products, I like— there has been a few times where I've messaged the brand. I'm like, I can't review this. Yeah, this sucks. It's awful. So if it's that bad, I won't even review it. But most products you can You could be optimistic about it. Yes.

You could be even if there's a bad feature, you're like, honestly, this seems a little flimsy. Yeah, not a fan of that. Sure. But the audio quality is insane. Yep. Happens all the time. Okay. I was going to say one more thing. What about— and I'm not suggesting people do this, but if you buy something, review it, are you able to return it then? And I'm not suggesting— I think that would be unethical. But do people do that?

I know people that do.

You should— Would your video stay up? It would.

Okay. I believe in karma and it's going to come back to bite you. So I personally don't do that. Right. But I do know people that do and they'll kind of separate it to where like they'll have their sister or their sibling or whoever buy it and return it. Yeah, it's not— I definitely would not recommend.

Well, I think, I mean, we are early.

Ethics aside, like Amazon's going to catch up to that. And I would agree. And I'm surprised they haven't. Yeah, because like there are people that like they're buying a lot of stuff and then they just return it. Yeah. And I'm like, that's just—

Well, even if they're not posting videos, Amazon will shut down accounts that have too many returns. Yeah. Period. I've like, I've heard of like, why wouldn't they? They're losing money on this customer. You're done. Yeah. Right? For sure. And something like this, like, let's say you didn't have much disposable income, but you really felt that this $100 product, this mic would do well. You're going to— You buy it brand new on Amazon. You're going to be able to sell it for $80 on Facebook Marketplace. Yeah. So it's like you really only cost you $20. To take that asymmetric bet.

And that's another thing that you can do is buy it, resell it, recoup majority of the money, and then you can sleep well at night. Yeah.

Yeah. Anyway, why don't you show us how to work your magic?

Yeah, I can. I can do this one. Let's see. Okay. I've been creating content for the last 5 years, and I'm going to help you understand why I absolutely love this tripod and also come into a few and talk about a few things that I dislike.. So make sure to stick around. So the first things first is look at how small and compact this is. It's like the size of my forearm. So super small, fits in my bag. I can carry it on the go. What I love about it is it's completely extendable and it opens up and then I can put it down and boom, super easy, super stable, and very, very nice. If I want to adjust the height, I can just by going up and down. And my favorite feature is I can put my phone into this phone stand and I can flip it from horizontal to filming vertical. And so you have the ability if you want to create vertical or horizontal content, super easy. And then you can adjust it. If I want to do a selfie video, I can. If I want to turn it, I can. I can do POV as well. So I can come right here, I can talk about it. And then when I'm done, I can take out my phone, I collapse the tripod, and just like that, I can put it away. So content creators are going to love this. Very easy to use. And I myself love it and use it every day as well.

Beautiful. That was probably what, 90 seconds? Yeah. Do you ever mention the price in it?

So the price, that's a no-no.

Yeah. Because this could be all over the place.

Well, no, Amazon will flag it. OK. So if you mention price, it will actually be no good. And you don't want to do call to actions of like, you need to go buy it now. Go buy this now. Like, that's going to flag. You want to avoid that. Yeah. Yeah. And so you kind of can discreetly do those things, but you don't want to call it out and be super aggressive.

Yeah, I feel like, like what you did was great, but it's like you're not an actor, you know what I'm saying? And I'm not trying to. Yeah, but it's like if, if we were just bros and we were hanging out and I was like, oh, I need a— dude, let me show you how it works. Like, that's what it would look like.

Yep. Super simple. And I mean, we could do one more. You want to do a water bottle? Yeah. Yeah. Today we're going to break down the HydroJug. This water bottle I've had for over 2 years. And I want to help you understand what are some things to look out for and why I love it. So the first thing, it's underrated. It's got a little silicone pad on the bottom, which makes it so that when you put it on the counter, it doesn't clink and it's not clunky. It fits in a nice cup holder and it has a nice handle. It has a little sip cup straw, which honestly, it's so satisfying to drink out of that. And then you have the lid that you can pop off and look at that. You got the ice in there. And what I love is it keeps the water super cold for a very, very long time. And so in the summer, the heat, having that is an absolute must. But then on the flip side, in the cold, you can put some coffee or hot chocolate or, or tea in here and it's going to keep it nice and warm. So it's a nice insulated flask that is going to be super versatile. Again, fits in the cup holder, nice silicone mat, handle on the side. Overall, this is one of my favorite water bottles and I would recommend. Beautiful. So yeah, super simple, straightforward.

Well, that was, that was beautiful. Like I could, I want to do this. It sounds kind of fun. Yeah. Do you, if you had to choose, is it better for someone else to hold the camera and to like zoom in or does it not matter?

It is easier if you do have somebody filming, but 99% of my videos I throw up a tripod and I just talk about it. But having somebody like what you were doing is like going into the features and and showing this angle and that angle, it does add that retention effect. It does make it so that you can see every angle. It's more dynamic. It's more dynamic. So it's not needed, but it can definitely help. Yeah. So what I like to do sometimes is I will film it and then I will do some B-roll footage. So I'll just film the product like on the desk or filling up the water bottle, and then I'll basically overlay that video on top of like the actual video. Again, very simple, straightforward editing. It's not anything complex, but that does just add that little retention element to it.

Do you know of anyone that has found themselves to be good at this and they're making money and then they thought, why not just post these same videos to other platforms?

Absolutely. So how does that go? I actually love to do this. Again, I don't care if my videos are seen by the public. Other people do. But I will take these same videos and I will cross-post them to mainly YouTube. It's an amazing market because the videos that you're making are kind of YouTube style and they're very search friendly.

Is that Marcus Brownlee? Marcus, what's that tech reviewer?

Marques? I know exactly who you're talking about. Does Tesla stuff.

Yeah, tech stuff. He's got like 30 million subscribers. Crushes it. But what you were doing reminded me of him. Like, this is Mike. It's like, It's good and he's engaging, but like, why not post them and then use your affiliate link in the description?

And so you can, yeah, you cross-post them. And I do this and I started doing this. It's been 6 months, 7 months ago. And just in the last, so in 7 months' time, my account in the last 30 days made $500 from just my YouTube content. Oh, really?

Your YouTube account? My YouTube account. Are these long form, like horizontal, or are they shorts?

No, they're all my long form, the vertical video.

So they're short videos, but they're long form on YouTube.

They're horizontal. Horizontal. And then you just put your affiliate link in the description and you ideally want to use what's called a deep link. Uh-huh. And you click on that link and it will take you out of YouTube and into the Amazon app. And then if somebody buys that product but then also buys other products, you get paid.

Because there's been a few things when I've posted something, I'm like, I might as well use an affiliate link. And I don't sell a lot of that thing, but I sell a lot of like Whole Foods, like celery. Yeah. Like, like all kinds of things from Whole Foods and all. Like, it's really interesting.

They're called Halo Sales. So basically, if you— Amazon has cookies, it's 24 hours. If you drive a link click and they end up not buying that specific product, but they buy another product, you get a commission.

Yeah. I posted this video of this 40-foot Santa that I bought from Amazon. It was $3,000.

Well, you probably saw my brother's video because he got that same product sent to him for free.

That was your— your brother posted a video of that? Yeah. Really? Yeah. Was it the 40-foot one? Yes. Massive.

Massive. Bigger than his freaking house. Yeah. Yeah. Did you see the video of it?

I don't think so.

Well, it's on Amazon. Was it like, I'm trying to think.

I saw one on Instagram. I don't know if it was on Amazon, but man, he got it for free.

I paid $3,000 for this. Got it for free. A brand sent it to him.

So I posted it to Twitter and it got like a million views. And I posted the affiliate link right in the top comment. And I made about $3,000. I got my money back basically. I made $3,000 in Amazon affiliate, but I didn't sell one Santa. Everything else. Because it was like November. It was like peak shopping season, but it was an asymmetric bet. That's crazy. I didn't know your brother did that. All right, so $500 from— is that just from YouTube, not from the Amazon affiliate that came from the link?

So it's not— I'm not yet monetized on my YouTube. Okay. Okay. Because I don't have the threshold, but it's just from my— it's called offsite.

Yeah.

Link clicks. Yeah. So there's two separate— there's your influencer earnings and then there's your Amazon associate, Amazon affiliate, which is the best that I use. Exactly. Okay. So when you post a link again to your social media and they click on it and they buy it, that is an affiliate earning. Okay. And again, it's a great model, but you have to drive the external traffic.

Yeah, it's harder.

Where the influencer model, you're taking the existing traffic, but if you're already making the content, you might as well post it on other platforms, which are going to lead to more commissions.

It's more asymmetric bets. Like, especially if it, if it ends up making you good money on Amazon, it's probably going to do well on YouTube. Yep. It's probably just a good video. Yeah. You know? All right. So, let's talk tools. What— How can people find— And I will say this is not a sponsored video. Amazon's not paying me. Trevin's not paying me. But you all obviously own a business in the space. Tell me about your tool and then about other tools that people can use to find success.

Yeah, it's a great question. So, when we very first started, my background is selling on Amazon and there's thousands of tools to sell on Amazon. But there weren't any tools for Amazon influencers. And I was like, our very first My very first idea was I wish I could go to my Amazon order history, click a button, pull all the products. Like Chrome extension. Yeah. Pull all the products and tell me which ones have the most potential. So that was the idea. I didn't think really anything of it, but I wanted it for myself. Yeah. So we built it and then little by little, it started getting traction and now we have like 50+ different features inside that tool. But essentially, the tool is going to help you find better products. It's going to— make sure that you're focusing on the increased commission rates of like those type of products. It's going to automate several elements of, for example, cross-posting. So when I upload to YouTube, I'm not, I'm not doing it. The automation is doing it. I upload once and it will post to 10 different places. There's deep linking like I talked about where this is. And again, there are tons of deep linking tools out there. And if you are posting any sort of links on Instagram, So even if you are posting a YouTube video, like highlighting a podcast episode, you want to use a deep link. Sure. Because what it will do is when you post the YouTube video, if you don't use a deep link, it's going to keep you within Instagram. Yeah. And people can't like, subscribe, and comment. Yeah. But a deep link will pull them out of Instagram. Out of that browser. Out of the Instagram app. The Instagram native browser. And it will put you into the YouTube native browser. Where you're already logged in and then you can comment, like, and subscribe. And it's the same thing with Amazon. It will pull you out of YouTube's app and into Amazon where you already have your credit card locked and loaded. You're signed in and you're ready to purchase. So it's going to increase commission rates. So there's definitely when it comes to strategy and the people that are making $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, it's impossible to do manually just because there are metrics, there are data points that you want to be aware of.

Mm-hmm. What's your tool?

So it's called ViralView. Spell it. So Viral and then V-U-E. Okay. And it's been— Yeah, ViralView.com. It's been 3 years. My brother and I started it and it's been, it's been a roller coaster. It's been super fun.

I mean, you hopped on a tidal wave. Yeah, right. It's smart.

And it's been so fun for me because again, I started doing the reviews first and I just was like, there's got to be a better way. There's got to be a better way to improve the videos, to find better products. And so we just kind of built it out of the pure need. For our family. So my entire family does this. We have like 10+ people that are— you're eating your own dog food. Yeah. So my sister, two sister-in-laws, I even got my mother-in-law approved. Yeah. My, my dad, he was doing videos. Both my brothers, cousins, aunts, uncles, all of them are doing it. And it's just kind of a— it was a family affair. And so I'm like, okay, let's do something and help improve it. And then it just slowly grew.

I imagine it's changed the dynamic of the family group chat a lot.

It has. Well, conversations at family dinner or For birthdays, we all are in the group chat and we're like, "Hey, do you guys want to do lunch?" And everyone is like, "Yeah, Tuesday at noon, we're all free." Because we all do video reviews and we have our own schedule. So we showing up and then we all bring products and like, we'll do video reviews, we'll talk about it. It's fun. That's cool.

"Mom, where'd you get the salad bowl?" "It's mine. It's mine. Don't touch it." Okay, so ViralView, DeepLynx. Any other tools out there? For, to me, what it sounds like is like Jungle Scout was like the tool forever for Amazon sellers, right? That way you could see roughly like, "All right, this tripod sells $130,000 a month." worth. That's how you know, like, I want to go import a tripod just like that to sell it. You're kind of like the Jungle Scout for people doing this.

Yep. And people can use Jungle Scout. That's the only thing. That's— it's more for selling. And so they don't have certain data points. So, for example, one of the most important data points that we actually have is the total influencer video count. So when you go to a product listing, our tool will tell you, okay, there's— Amazon is showing you 6 videos, but in reality there's 1,000 Yeah. And so even though Amazon isn't showing you that, our platform is able to tell you that true number. How much competition? Exactly. And so it's super important, like as a beginner, if you go and review those products that have 1,000 influencer videos, you're probably not going to compete with them. Yeah. Now I can compete with them because I've been in the program. I know how to make a video a little bit better than the average beginner. So beginners, they need to find products that are selling well but do have that low competition. And that total influencer video count does help with that.

Okay, so anything we, we should have covered? We'll link to ViralView.

Anything else? No, I just think it's, it's one of those cool, unique opportunities that doesn't come around super often. I am so passionate about it. I mean, just this morning I woke up and I was checking our community group and someone was like, I just made my first $100 day. Wow. And just showing that like people will show like their garage or like, hey, this is my garage of e-bikes, e-scooters, Power Wheels. Yeah. Getting it all for free. It truly can change someone's life in a very short period. So my mom's next door neighbor actually figured out about the program from us and she's been doing it for the last like 12 months, but she just bought a brand new car cash. Wow. That's awesome. Because of it. She's a stay-at-home mom. Her husband works and provides for the family, but she's like, I want a side gig. I want to do this.

She bought a brand new car. A few hours a week?

Yeah. I mean, and, and she's able to, to do that. There's another mom of 4, she's up in Idaho, she's making $12,000 a month and she has 4 kids. Kids and she's doing it part-time. That's amazing. And now her husband is doing it. And yeah, why wouldn't he? So it's just so fun to see how this program has changed the lives of so many people. Yeah. Because it's one of those unique opportunities where it doesn't require a ton of risk like a lot of businesses do. Yeah. Like starting a restaurant, starting a really— and it requires a lot of capital and if it fails, it stings. Yeah. This one, if again, you only fail if you just don't upload. Yeah. Yeah, but you can't really lose money.

So the playbook to scaling this business is just more videos. Like, can you— could you hire people to take videos for you?

Yes. So there's people that hire virtual assistants, so they will basically do all the videos. They'll send it to the virtual assistant, they'll edit, upload, do everything. And so basically they only need to do the video, the content. There are people that will hire other people. So like we have a user in Canada who will— he has like 10 people spread across the United States and he just sends— the brands will send products to this address, to this address, to this address. Yeah. They will do the video reviews. They send it to this guy and then he uploads them. So he's not even doing the video reviews. Wow. He's kind of outsourced it to have kind of a farm of creators that do the videos and then he uploads them. So there's a lot of different ways to scale the model if you really want. Yeah.

Yeah. Trevin, this is amazing. Thank you.

Thank you so much for having me.

All right. Hey guys, if you're still listening to this, it's probably because you haven't had a chance to take your AirPods out. You're still mowing the lawn, you're still driving, what have you. If you're still here with me, I would really, really love and appreciate a 5-star review on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcast. It would mean a lot. If you want to go the extra mile, share this episode with a friend that might have an interest in starting a business. It would mean a ton. Hope you have the best day of your life today.