0105: Profiting FROM Amazon using The Wholesale Formula with Author, Speaker, Trainer, & CEO of Ascension Consulting Dan Meadors

Ea interviews episode 105 inspiration transformation success stories and the imperfect action round. Seven days a week join Mario Ficcini.

For today's expert authority effect interview.

Amazon. It came around a while ago, but have you ever considered doing anything more than just having anything in the world you want shipped to you like overnight, same day, two day prime this. I mean now you can even get food delivered to you. There's so much and I remember when it first started out just as a, a book store basically. Like who's going to buy books, who even wants to read books? And now everything under the sun is on it. And I'm so excited to have Dan Metters today because he is a true E commerce success story. I was making light of it. They have everything under the sun now. But just think about the transformation in the last few years, let alone the last 20. He saw an opportunity early on and I'm not going to spoil it right now. It's not gonna be spoiling it. I mean I wanna share it with you, but I'll let him say it. That's what I should be saying. He is a true success story. He's built a multimillion dollar company. He's an author, speaker trainer. He's gonna be sharing with you how this all came to be. And the first thing I'm gonna ask him because I want to know the backstory so he's gonna be sharing it with you. And I'm excited to have Dan Meadders up right after we thank our sponsor. Winning with Google in 2020. Of course you want to. I'd advise Google search advertising and YouTube specialist Rosh Sillers winning with Google in 2020 guide@eainterviews.com RoshTips Here he is, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Dan Metters. Dan, I am so excited to have you here. How are you feeling today?

Fantastic, brother man. Thanks for having me on. Seriously.

It's my pleasure and I'm excited to learn myself as well as expert authority world.

Share the idea. Tell us literally how you started this because I know you have a successful multimillion dollar company now and you have the wholesale and all these great things and you can help people do what you've done. But take me back to how it started because I find this fascinating.

Yeah, I mean, absolutely. We got started in 2011. It's kind of funny because you'd mentioned that.

Amazon, you knew of Amazon as a bookstore, right? And it was kind of like the same thing for me where I didn't know that people sold stuff On Amazon. I had no idea. And then one day one of our buddies came into work and this guy, you know, he had a six figure job here in Kentucky. And it's kind of funny because like, we live in Corbin, Kentucky, which is like a super small town. There's more cows than there are people, I'm pretty sure. So this guy comes in and he's telling us about selling products on Amazon. And I was honestly flabbergast. It's like, I thought they sold books, man. And he was like, no, everything on Amazon. So it was really cool. And then like a few weeks later, he comes in and he gives his notice and he had a, you know, again, a six figure salary. And the guy's giving his notice and he was like, honestly man, I just make more sitting at home selling stuff on Amazon part time. And I was like, can you show me a little bit about this, like what you're doing and how you're, how you're, how you're selling stuff. And he was like, yeah, absolutely. Because in college, like I had an ebay store, but the problem for me was it just took so much time to run it, right. Like, you have to have a real amount of infrastructure. Like, I had a. I think, you know, in college I was probably doing six figures on eBay, selling video games. And it was just the amount of time that went into packing orders, answering customer questions. Like all that stuff was just a nightmare. So Andrew, he said, you know, that it was a much, much better system than ebay, which was really cool. And he goes out, we go. I remember the very first thing is he took us out to this store, out to a Walmart, and he like scans this item with his phone and he's like, you know, this item was $3 on the shelf. Mario, it was 3 bucks. Then he brings it up on its phone, it's like $15.87. And he was like, this is the kind of item I buy, man. Like, I just, I go around, I look for these items that are way cheaper in store than you can buy them online. And I was thinking, there's literally nobody on earth that will buy this thing for 15 bucks. Like, there's nobody. So me and my buddy Eric were talking about it and I was like, let's just give this thing a shot, man. Let's go. Let's see how many of these stupid Disney cars guys we can find. So like, we went out, we looked at a couple of the local Walmarts and found like 20 or 30 of these guys. And I Was honestly so skeptical. Like I really did just feel like I was throwing $50 in the trash. Like just throwing it in the trash. Because there's no way people are going to be buying these things, right? And we take them home, we set up our Amazon account, we send them in, and within the first hour of them getting to the Amazon fulfillment center, like we had orders going out. And I was like, oh my gosh, like, this is unbelievable. So from that point, like we spent literally every waking hour.

That we weren't at work or dealing with our families looking for profitable products to sell on Amazon. Because like it corrected a lot of those same problems that I had from ebay. Like I didn't have to pack and ship my orders. I was able to send everything into the Amazon warehouse. They dealt with the vast majority of customer service. So like it just let me kind of run, almost run like a passive business. Except it wasn't passive because I was going and hunting inventory at the time. But as far as the sales aspect, it was passive, right? Like I didn't have to do all the things that I hated. I love buying stuff and I think most people are like that. It's the thrill of the hunt that like gets you in there. So kind of fast forward. This was in June or July of 2011. In December of 2011 I actually got fired for my job. And it was, it was a, I mean honestly, it was a catastrophe. I had a brand new baby girl.

We had had a lot of problems. Like I'd had to replace the roof on my house, I'd had to replace my H Vac and like my savings was just in shame. Like I just depleted, I didn't have anything.

So we, you know, in December, that was like, I remember, I remember when that happened, Like, I'm sure a lot of people kind of went through something just absolutely crushing. Like I went back to this little 250 square foot office that we had rented, like keep the stuff that we were buying in. Because I like my wife would gripe when I would bring it home. You know, it's just a big giant mountain of stuff, like toys and all kinds of crazy stuff that whatever was profitable. Honestly, like we didn't discriminate against the products we were buying. We would just buy whatever it took. So you know, I went to that office and I cried. Like I sat there and cried and I was thinking like, what am I, what am I going to tell my wife? Like.

So I decided I was not going to tell her. This was terrible idea at the Time. But I decided I wasn't going to tell her that I got fired. And I was going to tell her. I was, like, really excited, motivated about this Amazon thing because I didn't want her to worry. And I quit my job. And so I go home. I was like, you know, I had the stone face on, like, completely serious. Like, not.

You know, not acting like I was worried. I was terrified. I was literally terrified. But I told her, I was like, yeah, you know, like, we've been doing so well on Amazon and particularly this past month. Like, I just turned to my notice today and like, I just want to go full time and do this and see how well I can do. And she was like, you should stop this immediately and go back and get your job again. Like, now you have a family to support. And little did she know that wasn't an option. Like, I didn't have the opportunity to get my job back. So.

I stayed the course. And ultimately Eric came over and joined me full time at about 30 days later. And that's kind of where our business really kicked off. So we were going out shopping just like, you know, the business model is called retail arbitrage, and that's just finding things in stores that you can sell online at a higher price. So we would go to all these stores and honestly, we didn't have the budget to do wholesale. We didn't have the budget to do.

Private label or another or one of the more passive models. Like, we had to literally grow our business with blood, sweat and tears. So for the next two years, we were out in stores shopping all the time. And I remember, like this, there was one time, like, specifically that sticks out to me and where I had to change, right? It's just like you.

Whenever you're, you just know that something's wrong and it's. It's never going to get better. And we were like, Black Friday, for us in retail, arbitrage was like the holy grail of shopping because there's discounts everywhere. Like, you can, you know, that's whenever you can get the best buys. And like, if you're willing to stock up on inventory and hold it for, you know, 10 days, 20 days, 30 days, like, you can see some massive profits from the stuff you buy on Black Friday. But this was the second year in a row that I had to get up and leave my kids on Thanksgiving because, you know, here, like, Black Friday really starts on Thursday. Like, it really starts on Thanksgiving.

Thursday, it feels like Monday sometimes.

Sometimes, right? Like, it's crazy how, like, it Seems like every. Every season, they push it back a few hours. And I remember my.

I used to work at Best Buy.

Oh, then you've experienced the madness like, you've experienced.

Well, I told them I'm not working it. They're like, well, you could get fired. I'm like, fine, I'm not coming in.

Do it. Fire me.

But. So I remember getting up and my daughter was like, dad, where are you going? I was like, I gotta go work. And she was like, really? You can't stay and eat with us? And I was like, gosh, it was just crushing. And, you know, we were. The entire time we were out, like the year before, we were super excited, super pumped. Like, yes, yes, yes. Just go, bye, bye, bye. And all I could think about was getting up and leaving the table and leave my kids there and not being able to spend the holidays with them. And I was talking to Eric and I was like, man, I just don't know if I can do this again. Like, honestly, I just. This is brutal.

And that was. That was kind of the point where we really, really started trying to find an alternative business model, find something that fit the lifestyle that we wanted. And I think that's where a lot of entrepreneurs get caught, right? Like, it gets easy to get comfortable because we were making great money at the time. Like, you know, we were probably. We'd done about $940,000 in sales that year, and our margins were probably, like. We probably had a net profit of about 250 or $300,000. Like, you know, it's healthy margins for us. And.

But it wasn't sustainable. Like, I wasn't able to spend time with my kids. I wasn't able to do all those things that people. Whenever you ask somebody, why are you going to get in? What? Like, why are you getting into business? Or, you know, why are you. Why are you not. Why are you an entrepreneur or whatever? Nobody ever says so I can just make piles of money to stack on top of each other. Like, they literally say, because of the freedom, because it gives me more time to spend with my kids, it gives me more time to travel or something. Right? They have their thing. And for us, you know, making money wasn't our thing. It wasn't what we. What we wanted in a business. So we tried some things from there. Like, we. We opened a physical brick and mortar store. Remember when I told you that I'm pretty sure we have more people than. Or more cows than people? Well, obviously, the retail store didn't do so well. Like, it's not what you would call a high traffic area. So our retail store ultimately failed. Then we tried. The next thing we tried was a My Little Pony website. This was because we had watched the documentary about Bronies. I don't know if you know what a Brony is. Maybe you are a Brony. Mario, what is a Brony? A Brony is a grown person that still enjoys and collects My Little Pony stuff. Mostly men. Okay, well, good to know. But there is a pop.

But I am familiar with My Little Pony. So when you said it, I was like, well, that's interesting. I knew Beanie Babies were a thing and pet rocks and all that, but, you know, people like to collect just whatever.

Yeah. And it was crazy. Like, whenever we were selling, you know, going around in stores and stuff, like, one of the most popular items we would always find was things related to My Little Pony. Like, you would. You could find like a little tiny toy. Right. And it would be $50 on Amazon.

Because it's limited edition. Collectors, whatever with the Sparkle days.

Exactly, exactly. So, you know, whenever we created the My Little Pony website, like, that was. That was kind of the logic is there's not a. There's no one serving that niche. We felt like we could probably have the product expertise to be able to do it. And ultimately we created a website and started driving traffic to it. And the website didn't do too bad. It just wasn't our thing. Again, it's like, you know, it was something I couldn't get passionate about. And we ended up selling that. And then we started private label next. I don't know if you know what private label is, but that's creating your own version of a product and then selling it retail. We actually launched a really successful private label product whenever we were first starting out. Like, one of them that generated about $200,000 in profit in the first three months of its existence. But it was unsustainable. Like, again, we didn't have the skills to replicate. The process was our problem. It's like we found a great product, but we didn't have the marketing skills to be able to do it. Like, I couldn't. I wasn't good enough with ads. I wasn't good enough with all those things to be able to make a. To be able to consistently make good products. So ultimately, that kind of failed for us. And then we fell into wholesale, which is where we're at now. And it was a rocky start there too. I mean, honestly, nothing has ever just came easy to us. Like, it's all, you know, we've always had to fight and claw and try to learn and learn through hardship. And I think that's a lot of things that entrepreneurs struggle with. Right. It's like particularly early entrepreneurs is they expect that everything's just going to go be easy. And it never is. Like, it really never is.

So we got started with wholesale. And for those of you guys who don't know what wholesale is, it is buying products from, in a business to business fashion. So buying products directly from a manufacturer or wholesaler and then selling those products at a markup retail. And that's what our model is. So now what we do is we find brands that we can work with and carry their products profitably and then ultimately sell those products on Amazon.

I like what you're doing because there's so many people that they have great skill sets, they're super creative. They have, they're the most artistic they have. I mean, even if it's not a traditional art, you know, I'm not talking drawings, but you might be a roofer, a carpenter, you might know how to do nails, detail cars. You're really good at what you do. But the business side alludes so many along with. Even if they have somewhat of an inkling for the business, most hate the sales and marketing. And I've always loved it because, I mean, shoot, they sold the pet rock.

It's like you can have the greatest thing in the world, but the other side of it is the finances. Most people never look at their profit margins. And I love that you've been sharing it this whole time because products are so cut and dry. When you were talking about buying it for $3 and selling it at 15.

That is a, that's a $12 profit. I don't know the exact math, but that is a pretty high profit margin also. And I never did the Amazon thing, but there was many times in high school and college I actually got in trouble with the principal because do you remember Blockbuster?

Oh, yeah.

Blockbuster was a fun little thing because everyone would give you gift cards for all the holidays and they had the bin for 3, 4, 5, $3 movies when the rentals were 4 and 5. And I was like, why am I going to pay more for a rental than the actual movie? And then I'd resell them.

So you were doing the Blockbuster Hustle?

Absolutely. And the other thing was in college, I paid for some of my courses by looking at the price of the books, finding the delta with it and going, okay, it's a $75 book. It's 65 on sale at the bookstore across the street, and it was 12 bucks on Amazon.

So I bought.

I looked at the kids in class, realized I'm not going to sell. Everyone took about 50, 60% invested in those, and I was making, what, $12 and selling them. I think I sold them, oh, half price for like 30 or 35, and I still make an over 100% profit on it. It's so simple to just go, Product A is 10, product B is 20 or 30.

It's so simple, and it's very profitable.

Sure. And that's. That's ultimately, you know, whenever that's. I think you have to have margin. Like, you have to be conscious about your margin to grow your business. Like, if you're not thinking about margin, if you're not trying to generate real profit, real profit, like, you will struggle. And that's one thing that, you know, luckily we've always had pretty healthy margins, and it's kind of given us more room to operate with and learn and grow, learn with our business.

But when we got started, I mean, honestly, when we got started with wholesale, it wasn't. Wasn't sunshine and rainbows like we. I can, I can remember a couple times, like, specifically that were just nightmares. Like, just actual nightmares. Like, the very first time, you know, we did what everybody else did. And I think that's, you know, that's. That's kind of how everybody finds a business, right? It's like you just Google around and you just try to learn what you can and you try to apply some stuff, and maybe it works, maybe it doesn't, and you learn from it. And that's what we did.

We.

We didn't really know how to do wholesale. Like, we, you know, I googled how to find wholesalers, and then, like, I would find these directories and I would contact all these people and they would send me back these humongous catalogs full of junk. And then I would sit there and painstakingly, line by line, just type in stuff and be like, oh, that. That one's no good. That one's no good. That one's no good. And this was hours and hours, Mario, like, just unbelievable. The amount of hours that you'll spend doing something like this to find one item where, you know, you're making almost nothing. And it was just unbelievable. And then, then it was like, maybe we need to go to shows. That was our. Next thing is maybe we should just go to shows. And we. That was our, you know, we went to ASD one Of the world's largest events for.

Wholesale. And we went through the event hall, we connected with a few vendors, but ultimately didn't find anything. Right? It's like. And then I remember on day two, we went back to the hotel at night. It's like, we can't just come out here and spend thousands of dollars to come to the event and not buy anything. Like, we have to. We have to pull the trigger on something. So ultimately, that was. You know, when. When you start thinking about it, Trying to force yourself into an action like that can't end well, right? Like this, you know, it can't end well. So we do. We go out, we find products. We ended up spending thousands of thousands of dollars. And then by the time the product gets to us, it's just. It's worth less than we paid. Like, you know, we're. We're in the red before we've even sold an item. And I was dejected. Just, like, everything is failed for us. You know, we. The only way we can make money is literally by grinding ourselves into the dirt, Just by working and working and working, Driving to these stores, and nothing else seems to work. And I remember looking at Eric, and I picked up some product on my desk, and I was like, why can't I just buy this product? Like, why do I have to go through all these crappy catalogs? Why do I have to run around this event hall? Why can't I just call this company and buy this one product? And Eric's like, shoot, let's try it. Like, we can try. So I called the company. I called them, and I was like, hey, you know, I would love to know which distributor carries your items. I'm a retailer. I'd love to set up an account with you guys. And they're like, well, I mean, I can tell you which distributors sell our product, or you can set up account directly with us, and you can. You're more than welcome to buy products from us. And I was like, what? Like, I can just buy product from you guys? And. Yeah, you know, and they said, you know, here's our. Here's our wholesale rates. Here's.

Our discount schedule. You know, if you order this much, you get a discount or whatever. And the products were just good. Like, I didn't have to fight. I didn't have to negotiate. Like, the prices on the sheet made sense. And I was like, holy crap. Like, it's really this easy. You just call up and they'll sell it to you. Like, and bear in mind that I had done Hundreds of hours of research. Hundreds. And not one person had said call the company. Not one. Everybody had their cockamamie go to this distributor, look through their thousand lines of stuff, go through this place and it's really. It was that simple.

Simple always wins. And sometimes it's so simple, we just don't believe it. Have you ever gone full circle with the ebay and used ebay as a source also?

Oh, yes, many, many times, my friend. Oh, yeah, we've definitely bought. I've actually, I've actually sourced products from Amazon to sell on Amazon, like within the same market. Just where they had had a discount. I knew it was good. I bought it came, comes in Amazon, sold out, then sell the product for a higher price at that. We've done that hundreds and hundreds of times. Like, you're so. Yeah, absolutely. But, but you're right, man. It like, simple. It's simple as what wins, right? And then so, so that day I was like, oh, my gosh, I just got to call more companies. Like, that's it. Now we're going to be rich. I figured out how to do it. We're just going to call more companies and. And by the end of the month, we will be retired in the Cayman Islands. Like, that was how I thought it's like this, you know, this is going to be easy. So it. Spoiler alert. It wasn't easy. Like, it. That was. While it worked out that first time really good, it wasn't that easy to replicate. Like, we would call these brands and they would be spitting. They would say, yeah, man. Like, we, we already have enough Amazon sellers. We're not looking for any other representation on Amazon. And it was like, what? Like, they don't want me to buy their products. Like, I'm literally trying to hand them money and they're saying no. But at the, you know, at the time it was, it was frustrating. But ultimately they were making the right decision. They didn't need more Amazon sellers, they just needed better Amazon sellers. So it was call after call where, you know, I'm just getting that answer. No, no, no, no. And I remember there was this one product. I actually used it, I actually used it and I love the product and I call that brand. And I was like, you know, I'd send them an email. They told me they. And they had responded with, you know, we are, we're not, we're not accepting any other Amazon sellers. And I was like, well, maybe I can make a difference with this brand. Like, I know them. Like, you know, I know the product I actually, I can give a lot of feedback here into their Amazon listing. So I call and, you know, I get the national, the national sales manager on the phone. His name is Bob. And I still remember the conversation. Bear in mind, this was like three or four years ago. And I can still remember it because it was so jarring and awkward at first, and then it transitioned into an awesome partnership with. So. But when I called, I was like, hey, you know, I'd reached out to you guys via email and you said you weren't looking for any other Amazon sellers. And he was like, yeah, and I meant it, man. Like, and I was like, wow, this is, you know, what do you say to that?

Thanks for sugarcoating it even a little.

Yeah, thanks for. Thanks for making me feel good about it, but. And I was like, no, I definitely get it, man. Like, I'm sure you probably get these calls all the time. And he was like, every single day, every single day I have some guy trying to call me, trying to carry my product. And he was like, I already have. You know, I have E Tails carrying my product. I have River Colony Trading, and those are two of the biggest Amazon sell, third party Amazon sellers in the marketplace. And I was like, no, man, that's awesome. Like, you know, those guys do a fantastic job and I'm sure in most ways you're probably super well served. But, like, here's the problems. Like, you know, for what it's worth, I actually use your product. Like, I understand your product. You know, I use it every single day. It was a supplement. And.

I was like, so, you know, when I go to your listing, it doesn't reflect, like, the quality of your product at all. Like, you know, your title's not very good, your pictures aren't very good. Like, all these things. And I was like, if you just want to humor me for just a minute, like, can you go to your, can you go to your Amazon page and check it out with me? And he's like, yeah, sure. So he goes and he looks at his page and bear in mind when he sees it, there's nothing wrong, right? Because he doesn't know what he's looking at. It's just a product page on Amazon. And I was like, all right, can you go to the search bar and type in like this word? And he was like, yeah, that's one of our competitors. Like, yeah, check out their page. So he goes to their page and he sees that they have amazing pictures. They have a full title, full description. Like, it's really vibrant and they're outselling them. And I was like, so let me guess. In the real world, you know that you outsell this brand probably 10 to 1, right? And he was like, yeah. And I was like, why are they beating you on Amazon? Like, how are they beating you on Amazon? And I was like, the difference is they have somebody. They have one person who really cares about their product, and they're making sure to handle all the sponsored ads. It's completely optimized. They have great pictures, literally everything, because it matters to them. And I was like, your sellers are amazing. They're probably the biggest and best sellers in the whole marketplace. But you're just a number to them, man. Like, you're just. You're just another account. Your account. 337 or 1,000. Like, to me, I don't have any accounts. Like, you're my most important person. You're the most important person in the whole wide world to me. And I'll make sure that every single thing like this gets done. If you'll work with me one time. That's all you have to do. One time. I don't do it. Never talk to me again. But if it does work out, I think you'll want to work with me going forward, man. And he was like, you know what? I'll give it a shot. Like, I would love to work with you. And that's, you know, that's ultimately how we got started into our real current model. Because our current model isn't just calling a distributor and saying, hey, man, I'd like to place an order. We develop real partnerships with brands where we offer them more than just our checkbook. Like, I don't. I offer them my Amazon expertise. I try to get their brand optimized so they can grow and make a difference in the world. And that's ultimately how we acquire customers now, is through value, rather than just trying to place a big giant order.

And that's a great way for client acquisition, is always adding the value.

Excuse me. I wanted to ask you, what's the biggest transformation you've been able to give someone? Whether it's someone you're helping as far as a client or someone you're helping replicate this. That was a pretty impressive story. Is that your biggest transformational story?

Oh, I mean, as far as, like, we've seen within our community, we've seen just crazy transformations. Not just, like, on every side. Like, I've worked with vendors. It was. It was funny. Like, one of the vendors that.

We work really, really closely with now, I remember he, he was trying to transition his brand online and it was really hard for him because he's, you know, he's a really passionate person. He's a really nice guy. And he had a lot of friends that were carrying his product that really weren't serving it, but they were, they were his friends. Like, he legitimately knew them from within the industry. And I remember having to walk him through that, that process of starting to fine tune his sellers to make sure that they're actually working for him, you know, starting to optimize his brand presence so he can grow. And, you know, it was, it was.

At times it felt like he was cutting off his children, like, you know what I mean, as he was cutting these sellers that weren't performing. And it was like two months into this process, whenever we had got everything smoothed out and we had started that optimization process and you start to see sales creeping up. And I remember he called our team and he was like, guys, you know what? This has been, this has been probably one of the hardest things I've had to go through, like, emotionally, because, you know, I've always been really, I've always been really invested in my brand. I've always been really invested in the people that sell it. And it's, you know, this has just been a tough experience for me, but I could, and I couldn't have done it without you guys. And he's like, I just want to tell you guys, I love you guys. And, you know, just saying just, just understanding that we made a difference for him was huge. Similarly, within our community, I mean, we've had so many crazy success stories. Like, I remember, you know, one that pops to mind immediately. Cheryl Brightman. And Cheryl is a, she said she's one of our TWF alumni that, that went through our course. And I'll be honest, like, she didn't have success when she first started. Like, it was, it was tough for her. Like, she would call and she would not, you know, not be able to convert on brands. And one time we went out to dinner and it was when we went out to Vegas to go to asd and we had a bunch of people that had taken our course that had been there. And this was the second time we went to asd. And bear in mind, I didn't even go in the show this time. Like, I didn't even go in. Like, I literally went out, hung out with people, talked to people, and went to dinners and cool stuff like that. But I didn't go for the show because it's not really my cup of tea, but at that. Whenever we went out to dinner with Cheryl, I was talking to her and I was like, cheryl, it's not your technical knowledge. Like, it's not. It's not things you don't know. Because that was what she was worried about, right? She's like, you know, it's hard for me to connect with these vendors because I'm worried that I can't live, you know, I can't live up to their expectations. And I was like, you have to give your. You have to give yourself the opportunity to live up to the expectation. Like, you never will if you don't try it. Like, you know, you. You have to. You just have to take action. You have to move forward and be willing to make a mistake. Like, that's what we do is we learn from mistakes, be transparent. That, you know, this is not. This is not a. An easy process. Like, it's just something where, you know, and that's. That's what we do with our vendors, is we don't hide things. We don't try to make it sound like it's completely easy. Like, we talked to them about the nuts and bolts of what. The changes we have to make and what they can expect. And I was like, you know, as long as you do that and you develop a partnership the right way, people will work with you. And she went back and, you know, I didn't. It was kind of crazy because I didn't really know much about her situation at the time. And so we were. We were speaking at an event a few months later, and Cheryl was there, and she came out and she was crying, and she gave me a big hug, and she was like, I just wanted. I just want you to know the difference you made in my life. Like, she said, whenever I saw you guys in Vegas, like, I was. I was. I was at my wits end. Like, I had. She. She had moved back in with her mother. She had been laid off from her job. Like, she had to go. She said, you know, for the first time in year, 20 years, she was out looking for a job. Like, trying to pay just. Just to pay her bills so she wouldn't have. So she wouldn't go bankrupt. And she said, you know, it wasn't easy for me. Like, I didn't just get it, but once I. Once I. Once I went through that process, once I decided I could try my best to offer that value, and no matter what, no matter what, I would get it done. That's what she resolved herself to do, is I don't care if I know how to do it. I will get it done no matter what. And she did it. She picked up an account, that account. She still works with that company today. That account generates her about $300,000 a year in profit. Like literally saved her business. Well, almost effectively created her business and really saved her, kind of saved her life from where it was headed. That one was a huge one. We had Emmerich. Emmerich's another one. Like this guy moved to the US in 2011, didn't speak any English, took our course in 2014 and was able to grow and scale a business. Like, bear in mind, this guy didn't speak English, he barely spoke English whenever he taking our course. And he, you know, he grew, he grew a business. He sold that business within 18 months and now I'm actually proud to say we've hired him. Like he's, you know, he's a, he's a CFO in our current business.

And has grown several other businesses beyond that. Like, it's just the transformation with him was he went from never having owned a business ever being, you know, an immigrant, that certainly esl and created a business, scaled, grew it, sold it and has went on to grow other businesses. Like that's, you know, that's, that's amazing. And it's kind of crazy because I remember talking to him then and just the things that we talk about then versus how we think about business now is just, it's worlds apart, right? Like the growth he's had. Amy Sherlock was another one. Gosh, her story is incredible. She had just one of the, she had a really rough home situation, like she had declared bankruptcy, had started foreclosing like on her home, was moving back in with her parents and.

She took, she went through our course and she was, her story was just so good because like she's, she'd had trouble getting pregnant, like lots and lots of trouble. Like she was passionate about being a mother and had had lots of trouble conceiving and had went so far as to get a degree in fertility, like in her own studies to try to learn how and eventually she did. And then right after that's when all these, everything in her life fell apart. So she was a brand new mom with nothing. And she went through our course and ultimately that was her thing is she, you know, one of the things she felt like she could serve in the Amazon marketplace were people selling fertility based products. She understood them, right? So she made an immediate connection with those brands. Like she would go out, she would talk to those brands because she could help them grow their presence. On Amazon, she knew everything about fertility because she had to study it for years and years and years. And since that point, like, you know, in the past three years, she's created a business that does over. I'm pretty sure she's doing over a quarter million dollars a month now in sales. Like, it's just, you know, and it's. It's from the power of creating partnerships. It's. Why do these companies work with her? Is it because she was the best, the foremost expert on amaz? No, it's because she was willing to actually help them. She knew their products and she wanted to make a difference. And that's what it really takes. It's just people wanting to take proactive measures to make the world or wherever they're at, a better place. And that's, you know, ultimately, I think partnership stems or business stems from partnership.

I tell my clients that.

Excuse me. I tell my clients that in authors, they go, well, what if they don't see me as the expert? What if they don't? It's like they have all the proof in the world, but when it comes to doing their book or a video, there's that imposter syndrome or whatever. I go, all you have to do is demonstrate it. You don't need to say anything crazy. You don't need to be anything crazy. You just need to demonstrate it. And it sounds like she definitely did that. And now you said she's doing quarter mil a month.

Yeah.

No, that's what people are looking for. They're looking to add value.

They're not looking for authority, they're looking for value.

When you're. When you're talking to these people in your community and you've talked about speaking, when you're addressing the audience, how good does that feel when you can help however many people are in the room.

Obviously amazing, for sure.

What made you want to start your course? Because you could have been totally fine just doing your thing and not helping anyone else and profiting yourself. What made you want to start the training?

It's actually kind of an interesting story, and I think it comes almost from a. From a.

Something a business is like, one of the guys that I know, he's a. He's a digital marketer. He's based here in Corbin. And it's funny, we play a game called Magic the Gathering. And one day he was over at our warehouse just. Just to play games. And he was walking around the operation, he was like, hey, man, like you should make a course about how to do this. And I was like, there is literally nobody in the world that wants to know how to sell products on Amazon. Like there's just no way.

Same way no one would buy it for 15 bucks.

Exactly, exactly. It's, you know, and this is where I was close behind it. And he was like, no, 100% man. Like this is super cool operation. It's super cool what you guys do. You should do it. And then I read a book called Launch because he hit the, you know, I'd never, honestly I'd never thought about it. I'd never ever considered selling a course, didn't have any interest in it and I, but he kind of opened, open my eyes to it a little bit. So I went out and I researched and I read a book called Launch by Jeff Walker. And.

So we followed through the book and ultimately I got really excited reading. I was like, wow, this is super cool and maybe we could make something that somebody would buy. And I remember I went through, I wrote the course, one of my partners, Dylan, it's like, hey, put this up and then let's try to launch it using whatever this book says. So we did exactly what Jeff Walker's book said, you know, and we did our first launch. And I remember we didn't even have a payment processor. We had to go partner with somebody who had a payment processor.

So they could receive our payments. We didn't have a mailing list, we didn't have anything. Like we actually didn't have a client, like not a single one. But we talked to a couple of people in the space and told them our story, let them review our content and it was really cool. Our content was a cut above because we were actually doing the stuff that we were teaching. It wasn't just theory based or anything like that. It was real life in the trenches content that helped people understand how to put a business together logically using our model. We got promoted by a couple of people in the space. And that first launch, I remember we were sitting there at Eric's house whenever the we getting ready to turn the cart on where we could take our first order. And we decided that we were going to drink a bottle of champagne if we sold one course and we were going to drink a bottle of expensive champagne if we sold five courses.

How many did you sell?

Well, so we turn it on and the website crashes, like immediately crashed. And I was like, oh my God, we're doomed. But ultimately it went crazy successful. Like we sold. I think we sold like 130 courses that first time.

And so what'd you do for the wine there?

Oh, we. We drunk both bottles. We had a blast. And, you know, it was. It was a fantastic time, but it was, it was fantastic and scary, right, because, like, once you, you know, once you've sold it, now you actually have to serve the people. Like, and it's. It's a different level of responsibility, in my opinion. Like, you know, once I have a paying customer, it's my job to help them actually create a business or reach their desired outcome. Right. So over the next few months, that's why that was our entire focus was literally just working with our community and. But it was crazy because, like, now we're talking to all these awesome people all the time, right? And it, like, it's just feedback for our business because they're encountering situations that we've not seen. They ask us about it that, like, kind of broadens our horizons. So it ultimately helped our business grow as well. Like that year we went from, you know, in our Amazon business, we went from 3.6 to over 7 million in sales. And it was because. It was because, like, instead of having, you know, a three or four man little beta team, like, as our little internal team, we now had hundreds of people that we could talk to about problems and come up with ideas and solutions. And it, you know, it didn't just help grow their business, but it helped grow our entire, like, everything. And, you know, that's ultimately what really has sold me on the whole idea of how valuable partnerships can be is I've seen it work time and time again and the impact that it can actually have on a business.

Well, I'm glad you did come up with the course because I'm familiar with the marketing world and I've read the book also. It's awesome. Jeff is awesome. But a lot of people, again, they don't realize how much they can really help just with their information and knowledge. The story you were telling about the. Your. Your new partner, your new client, for just telling him to tweak the title description, headlines, the thumbnails, the pictures, all of that plays a role. And, you know, nowadays your business is online. If you have bad images and text, that's all it is. The whole Internet is nothing more than images, video and text and.

Exactly right.

So many people. Oh, well, it's not a big deal. No, it's everything. So I'm glad you touched upon that. I got one last question for you before we go to the imperfect action Round and it's a little bit more of a, I don't know, I don't want to say a fun one because I love business and I think this is fun but it's a not necessarily business. But if you answer that way, totally fine. Who is someone you would love to have lunch or dinner with just meat that you haven't been able to to yet?

I think Jeff Bezos not close like and it's just his, his ability to understand how to grow a business in my opinion is unparalleled. And it's, you know, if you look at the principles, there's so many things that, that documentation out about Amazon now. Like if you read their book they, the Amazon Way like that is the principles that they use to guide their, guide their decisions. It's kind of like their creed and it's very aggressive. Like it's, it's one of those things. It's, they create an aggressive environment but it's, it's for, it's to promote, you know, new thought. That's, that's their whole thing is they love to create and Amazon is famous for that. They're famous for being loving failure. Like they, that's the, you know, that's one of the things that Jeff Bezos always talks about is how often Amazon fails into the magnitude they fail. Like they, if you look at the fire phone, fire phone was a disaster but it, they still did it like they just do and do and do and then when things stick it just, they're able to run wild with it but they're just not afraid to fail and they keep their business incredibly lean and agile in anotherwise just fat and bloated marketplace. Like if you look at, you know, your traditional retailers, why does Amazon destroy that? Why is Amazon growing so much faster than they are? And it's because Amazon's more agile and they move quicker. They're, they're, you know, they bring more ideas to market. So it would absolutely not close be Jeff Bezos. Like I'm, you know, I'm just fascinated by how the guy thinks, how he runs, how he runs his operation and how they continue to just be a market leader.

Is a great answer. I think he's fascinating also. And again you were, what I was hearing is touching on that profit mark margin. You know, it's hard to be creative and be like you're talking about the failure. Why are you going to be afraid of failure if you know you're just going to crank out nine other things and when one of them does stick you know, Richard Branson is one that comes to mind. I'd love to meet him. And he. There's this diagram I saw one time of all the businesses he's done. And there's, of course, dozens we know about, but there's dozens and dozens and dozens we don't necessarily know about. I was like, holy smokes. And it's like one out of three, one out of four, one out of five. They don't. They're not all good. But what you're doing 10, 10 every five years.

It's crazy. Like, actually, I actually had the pleasure of listening to Richard speak once, and he was talking about his failures and you'd mentioned it right there, that, like, there's an absurd amount of them. Like, the amount and magnitude to which he has failed is unbelievable. Like, I remember one story specifically about whenever he said he was launching Virgin Cola in the United States. Now, probably most people listening to this podcast probably have no idea what Virgin Cola is, and there's a reason for that. And he said it was doing incredibly well in the uk. He had positioned it well to come over to the us but he wanted to make, like, a big spectacle out of it, right? So he put a big display in Times Square, like a Pepsi display, and had a Virgin tank run over it. And like, apparently the guys, per his story, like, apparently the guys at Pepsi were not happy with this. Pepsi and Coke and, you know, the other manufacturers, and then they went and worked when worked in the UK to get them to remove Virgin Cola from the shelves. They bought more shelf space to take Virgin Cola out of the UK and ultimately ended. Yeah, so it was just, you know. But it's crazy stuff like that. It's like, you know, the guy, he just does awesome stuff all the time. And some of them works, but the vast majority actually fail. If you listen to his stories, the vast majority of his business ventures fail. It's just the ones that are successful are something that he can. He can continue to, you know, grow and scale and be passionate with.

I never even knew about the cola one, but that's crazy. That's why I tell people, like, with list building, always have your own email list. Because whether Facebook is around, Instagram, LinkedIn, any of them, you go all. They'll always be around. Yeah, but in what capacity? Maybe they won't disappear like MySpace, but it's not them that dictate it. It's the users. If the users get sick of one or the other, they jump to the next one. And it's the same Thing like with, with the cola, maybe, maybe they don't come and spray paint your thing in Times Square, but all they got to do is, you know, do some third party wraparound and it's like, okay, we're not going to, you know, you, you do that in the US we're just going to take you out of the only place you have a foothold.

Right. No, I'm glad you mentioned that. How important, you know, for businesses are mailing lists? Like, it is absolutely imperative. And you're right. You know, if at any point you can lose your Facebook audience, at any point Facebook can change the reach. And they've seen this, you've seen this, like over the past few years. Like used to when I would paste make a post on my, you know, on my business page, everybody that followed my business page saw it. Now it's just like this much. And if not, if you're not boosting your post, like your reach is just murdered. But whenever you have, whenever you have your email list, whenever you have, you know, a phone list and stuff like that, like phone numbers, like, that's power because it gives you the ability to always connect with your customer. So I agree with you 100%, man. Like, having them having a mailing list is absolutely critical if you want to succeed in digital marketing.

Yeah. And like you were saying earlier.

Actually serve the customer. You know, Facebook, LinkedIn, they're all well and good and everything, but you want to really grow business and have profit actually serve the customer. Call them, pick up the phone, send them a letter.

Utilize the digital, but take it off of that and you've been given great answers so far. Can't wait for what you have in the second half. We're going to thank, thank the sponsor and come back for the imperfect action round. Winning with Google in 2020. I have no doubt you want to for your business, but who do you trust and where do you start? I'd advise Rosh Sillers. Not only was he episode 22's featured VIP guest, but he's also a Google specialist with search advertising and YouTube. And I had him put together this free Winning with Google in 2020 guide for you to get started with. Right now, go to eainterviews.com rochtips to get your free download. Now once again, that's eainterviews.com rushtips all right, we are back with the imperfect action round. Dan, are you ready to take imperfect action?

I love taking imperfect action. It's my favorite kind of action to take Man.

All right, first question. What is the fastest path to the cash?

Fastest path to the cash.

I mean, for us, honestly, it's finding a. Finding a brand that is underrepresented on Amazon and being able to develop a connection with them every single time.

So what I'm hearing is relationships. Build relationships with the right people in your business.

Yep, 100%.

Number two, what is the biggest problem you see your prospects making in the fastest way? They can fix it.

They are typically, they are more concerned with making money than serving their client. Like, for me, it's always been if I do a great job serving my client, I make money because of that. And I end up with more with happier clients who refer me to other people or.

Talk about me to other prospects. That's the point. So for us, we've always been serve first, make money as a result of that. I think a lot of people have it backwards.

Excellent answer. Number three.

What is the best way to maximize customer lifetime value?

I mean, generically, it's by continuing to serve them, but honestly, it's by finding out what your customers need help with and then being able to give them that. Like, ultimately. So what we've done in, with, with the wholesale formula is we have laid out a part, you know, the perfect model for creating our business to that point. But there are other aspects where we, you know, where customers can be better served or they get to that point and it's like, how do I grow from here? And it's. Now it's our job to be able to find those things, find those tools, find those, Find that content or whatever it is that helps them get to the next step. And that's, for me, that's how I increase ltv, is by finding out what my customers need.

Excellent.

You mentioned one book. What is another one you'd recommend to Expert Authority World?

Oh, my gosh. I got a lot. Like, my favorite one, I think my favorite one of all time, and I talk about it a lot is From Good to Great by Jim Collins. And really it talks about staying in your lane and trying to be the best at what you do. So what I've kind of learned in life is there's an abundance of opportunity, right? Like, I, you know, if I wasn't going to make money this way, I would be making money some other way. Like, I'm a creative guy, I'm a smart guy. Like, I would always figure it out. But if I want to be amazing and if I want to create a lasting, A lasting impression, I have to, I have to focus and double down on the thing that allows me to continue to serve people the best. And that for us that's really is the wholesale formula. Like it's been life changing for so many people that you know, our goal is to just grow it like we want to continue to be able to change more lives. And that means making better content. That means always looking for holes and trying to make it the best best that it can possibly be.

Love your, love your vision and mission behind it. That, that's awesome.

Where can people learn more?

Oh awesome. Well actually we created a, just kind of a special download for people that follow you and it's go to thewholesaleformula.com Showtime and what this is. It's a walkthrough that goes over what our business model is and kind of gives you that top down 30,000 foot overview. Because I realize when most people say wholesale like it, you know it doesn't really mean anything, right? Like it's just business to business stuff. But it doesn't make, it doesn't mean anything. In that document we kind of walk you through that like how you buy from manufacturers, how you sell the product and then so you can understand the business model.

Well, thanks for making that available. It sounds good.

Absolutely man.

I have loved what you've shared. I've gotten a lot out of it myself and can't wait to connect with you even further.

Further.

Thank you for sharing with Expert Authority World and.

You'Ve been great.

Awesome Mario, thanks man for having me on. Like I said, you know, it's. It's a pleasure to speak to you. It's a pleasure to speak to your audience and hopefully something I said resonates with somebody out there somewhere, man.

Definitely did with me. Definitely did with me. So thank you again, Expert Authority World. We have another great episode. We'll see you on tomorrow's. Have a great day and God bless. Why every business needs a book including yours. Would you like to save five plus hours with every prospect? Generate more leads and profit in your business? Now visit businessbookchecklist.com and learn how you can implement this in your business today. Hey, thanks for listening to today's episode. I hope you got a lot out of it. I know I sure did. If you haven't done so already, I invite you to subscribe to the show and also be sure to check out eainterviews.com for complete show notes, the full interview video experience, links to the resources we mentioned, and more. Have a blessed day and I'll see you tomorrow.