4 Qualities All Successful Amazon Sellers Have

Hey, how's it going? It's Ollie here. So last week we talked about how you have to be in the top 1% of Amazon sellers if you want to be really successful, build a long term business and make this thing really work. We also talked about how that's not actually as bleak and depressing as it sounds because there's several things you can do to get into the top 1% of Amazon sellers. This week, as a part two to last week's video, we're going to talk about the specific things you have to do to get into the top 1%. So after careful consideration and looking at my results, and also looking at the results of my clients who do very, very, very well selling on Amazon, people who are in the top 1%, I've established that there are four things you need to get there to join the people in the top 1%. Now, the 99% of Amazon sellers out there really don't know what they're doing and they're certainly not where you want to be. And this is good news because all you have to do is just step your game up a little bit and you will leave the 99% and join the 1%. And if you do these four things, then your chances of success just instantly skyrocket, right? It's like a night and day difference. So thing number one, thing number one to do if you really want to be successful, join the 1% is have a goal, right? And be really, really, really, really serious about it. So this is actually something that I can't teach you how to do. I can't teach you how to be serious about your goal. This is something that has to come from you. I can teach you the tools, the techniques, the strategies, which software to use, all the little bits. But really being serious about this, taking it seriously, putting the effort in, that's really all on you. And you have to find a way to make this a number one priority in your life. If you really want to succeed, then this should be more important to you than your current job. Your job should just be a means to pay the bills, pay the rent, so you can eventually go on to do the Amazon stuff full time. That's how serious you have to be about this. So that means thinking about it every day. And what it really means as well is breaking the goal down into realistic steps to actually help you get there. So I'm going to give you an example. Right, let's take a look at an example. So let's say your goal was to make £5,000 per month in income from your Amazon business. I make 5k a month. So 5k in your pocket as like a wage or as profit in your Amazon business? Well, a lot of new Amazon sellers think, well, that's great, 5k per month, okay, well I could launch one product and you know, that'll do 5k a month in sales and there we go. I've got 5k a month in income. But very, very quickly, after you make all that money and you make those 5,000 pound sales, which this happens to so many sellers, you'll open up your Amazon account, you'll see the money that actually goes into your bank from Amazon and you'll be shocked and you'll realize that, yeah, you made £5,000 in sales, that the amount of profit you have after all of those sales is considerably smaller. So always remember, be conservative with your profit margins. And when you're putting together your goal, aim for 20% profit margins, right? This is my advice to you. Now, you've probably heard stories of Amazon sellers out there making 25% profit margins, 30%, maybe even 40%, maybe even 50%. And they do. I have clients who make 35, 40% profit margins, right? Some of my products do that. However, you can't expect your business to do that because you don't know what products you're going to sell. You don't know what the expenses are going to be like. You don't know how much the marketing is going to cost. So be conservative. So with that in mind, if you were going to aim for 5k per month in income or profit, we would need to make 25k per month in sales, right? To get 5k a month profit. And that works out about 300k per year. Okay? So annual revenue, annual sales would need to be £300,000 on Amazon if you want to make 5k per month profit. So that is now a serious goal because now you've actually got a very basic but very real business plan. You've broken down what you want to earn, you've worked backwards from that, and now you've got a figure. So the first thing to do is do these maths and figure out how much you want to earn and how much sales you need to bring in each year to make that happen. Now, to further simplify this, like £300,000 a year might seem like an absolutely crazy amount of sales to you right now, but I estimate if you're selling private label products in the UK and Europe, you could quite easily make £1,000 per month in Profit per product. So another way to look at this is if you want to make 5k a month, then I would launch 5 products. 5 products that perform quite well. Okay. And that will get you to your goal. Okay? So that's step number one. Have a goal. People who are in number 1% of all Amazon sellers, they had goals, very specific, clear goals and they had a vision and they were really serious and they went for it. And that's why they, their businesses are doing so well. Element number two is skills. There's really no way getting around it. Like if you want to be successful in anything, skills are just so important, right? You have to have the skills of a six figure Amazon seller if you want to have a six figure Amazon business. Right. In fact, if you bump into a really, really successful business person, especially nowadays in 2021, you probably wouldn't be able to tell if they make seven or eight figures a year or if they just have a steady job. A lot of people who have really successful businesses, you actually wouldn't know because it's not really to do with like social status. It's not really to do with how they dress. You would just think that they're just a normal person. The thing that makes them different is their skill set. That's what makes all the difference. It's nothing to do with, you know, any kind of mystical, like magical qualities. It's just that they've spent the time learning skills. So this is the thing, like when you join a course or a coaching program or whatever, you can't just expect that course or that coaching program to make you successful. That's really not how it works. In fact, what a course does, it teaches you the skills so you can make yourself successful. In fact, that's a very, very, very important distinction. A course won't make you successful. It will teach you the skills so you can become successful yourself. So what that means is don't just follow the steps of a program and then expect to be successful. Really try and internalize why you're doing these steps. Be prepared to do them again and again and again as the business grows. Like if you launch one product, but you can't just leave it. Now you have the skill of launching one product. So use that again and again and again to keep launching products to grow the business, right? That's really how you make this stuff work, by internalizing. Learning the skills. So the next question you may have is, well, what skills do you need to learn? Well, this is a great question. In fact, there are three main Skills in Amazon business. This is how I look at it anyway, and I'll break them down for you. So I always like to do this with people on the phone, actually. And I get people to draw a triangle and in the middle of the triangle we write your revenue goal. Okay, so let's say you wanted to make 5k a month profit. We'd need £300,000 a year in sales. If we can get you that, then you can do everything you want. You can quit your job, you can travel the world, you can save for your future, for retirement, you can invest more, you can have a better lifestyle. You can have financial security, financial freedom, you can spend more time with family. All this stuff you want to do, if you hit that sales goal, you will get it right. So what skills do you need to learn to hit that goal? Well, the first one is product research. Product research? Right. Now this is to be honest, where everybody gets stuck. They don't even learn this skill and then they can't learn the rest of the skills to get the business moving. That's the first mistake people make when they're starting selling on Amazon. They get stuck. But the second mistake they make is they think product research is everything. They think, you know, the whole business success depends on your ability to choose the perfect product. Which, as you'll find out in a second, is not true. So if it's not everything, then what is product research? Well, product research is knowing where the money is in the marketplace. That's what product research really is. So when we're using Jungle Scout, when we're analyzing niches, when we're looking for high demand, low competition, really we're just figuring out, is this product going to make us sales or is it going to lose us money? If you know that before you spend any money on stock, the chances of you succeeding and getting a good return on investment when you launch products is so much higher. This is how I've grown my business to such crazy levels. And how, you know, I've done over 100k in a month selling products on Amazon is because I know which products sell right before I even buy any stock. And that's the skill you need first. So product research skill number one. But it doesn't stop there because you could have maybe a list of all the best selling products on the whole of Amazon, but if you don't source anything, if you don't buy any stock or import anything, you don't have a business. You just have a bunch of theory. Product research is theory. So next we need the second skill, which is sourcing. Sourcing. So everyone knows what sourcing is, right? It's going to China or anywhere really. Finding manufacturers, suppliers, sourcing products and importing them to your country where you want to sell them. Uk, if you live in UK or maybe America or Europe, wherever, that's what sourcing is. But when people think of sourcing, they make a big, big, big mistake with this skill and they think the skill of sourcing is about logistics. Okay, so I've got to find the supplier who's reliable, make sure they're not going to scam me or rip me off, right? I've got to find a shipping company who can ship the products from China to the UK into the warehouse safely, I think, right? If I can do that, then I'm done. And you know I'm going to be successful because I found an amazing niche and I've got the products into Amazon safely. If this was true, then why would so many Amazon sellers, right in the 99% ship a load of stock into Amazon even though they've got an amazing niche and not make any sales or make a few sales but make no profit? Why would this happen all the time? Well, the answer is because sourcing is not just about logistics. Sourcing is about making profit. That's really what sourcing is about. Because remember, when we're sourcing products, we have control over two things. Number one, we have control over how cheap we get the stock. I mean, the less you pay for your product, the more profit you're going to make at the end of the day. And the second thing we have control of is the price we can charge for the product. Remember, the more you charge for your product, again, the more profit you make. So really the skill of sourcing is finding a product that customers love so much they're willing to pay more money for it. They than any of the other products on the marketplace. I've got products where I've charged 10, 15 pounds more than all the other sellers and they sell really, really well. And the reason why is because I've got something different, something better than all the other sellers in the marketplace, right? And that's why I'm able to make really decent profits because I've sourced specific designs of products that customers love. Remember, in a niche, I mean there's millions of different designs you could go for. Let's say the niche is spatula. Think of how many different spatulas there are out there, alright? The one you pick, the design you pick will determine how much profit you make. That's what sourcing is about. Then finally, the third skill is marketing. Okay, so you found a niche, right? And you've got some stock, reliable supplier shipped into the warehouse and it's good quality and you can charge a lot of money for it. If nobody can see your product on Amazon, you're not gonna make any sales, right? This whole thing is completely pointless. So marketing ties everything together and this is really how you make your money. So marketing is two things, okay? Number one, getting your products visible so everyone talks about, I need to get my product to page one so customers can see it. I need to run PPCs, monster dads. All we're doing here really is making our products visible so customers can see them. If your product's on page 400, then it's just not going to sell, right? Obviously that's the first thing with marketing. Second thing with marketing, which a lot of sellers neglect, is demonstrating the value of your product. So, okay, you may have found a great niche where you know there's loads of demand. There might also be some competition in the niche. There's always some, right? You sourced a product which you know is really good quality and you know is worth a lot of money. Let's say you're going to charge £29.99 or something, right? Which is more expensive than everybody else. The customer is going to be looking at your listing and asking themselves, why the hell should I pay 29.99 for this? Especially if you're more expensive than everyone else. So your job is to answer that question really, really well with amazing pictures, amazing headline, amazing bullets, description, all that stuff that really show them why your product is worth what you're charging and why they should pick your product rather than all the other hundreds of products on Amazon. If you do that right and your product is visible, then your products will sell like hotcakes. Alright, so skills super important. Most Amazon sellers, pretty rubbish at product research. They pick a niche which is either too competitive or there's not enough demand or something's wrong with it. Their sourcing is just about logistics. They get a load of stock in, but it's not a really interesting product, bad design, not that great, and their marketing sucks. And then they wonder why they're not making any money. Well, it's like you have to nail all three of these skills, otherwise you have no chance. But the good news is this is in your control. You really can learn these skills. They're not that hard. It's not like we're, you know, Going and doing some brain surgery, right? Product research is just looking at numbers on a spreadsheet and using some software. You know, these are learnable skills. So, again, this stuff is all in your control. A lot of people just don't bother to actually do this stuff. All right, onto point number three. You need to be in the top 1% of Amazon sellers, and that is capital, capital. At the end of the day, running a business costs money. It costs money, right? You know, my businesses, every month I'm spending out thousands to run my businesses. I think I've had months where I've spent like 50, 60, 70,000 pounds in expenses to keep my businesses running. Right? Now, obviously, I'm making a lot more sales than that, right? So I have a profit at the end of the day, but still, that's a lot of money to keep the businesses moving. Whether it's advertising or products or staff or whatever else, it all adds up. And other overheads, Amazon fees are obviously quite a big percentage of that, too. So to get a business moving, you need to have some capital, right? And to be honest, this is where people get a bit freaked out because they're like, well, I've got to spend this money and I don't want to lose it. So this is where they get stuck and they get worried. Well, the good news is you can really start with any amount of capital. Like I started with very small amount, like a little bit of money on a credit card, like a few hundred pounds. And I just built up and built up and built up from there. All right, you could do a test batch with a few hundred pounds. I recommend you do that. Start very small, 50 units, 20 units if you want, see if it sells and then decide what to do next when you order a proper launch and like I say, 500 units of stock, then you're going to have to spend thousands, a couple thousand, probably on stock. So the point is, like, you do need some money, right? There really is no way to do this 100% for free. However, if you have those two previous things, right, if you have a super serious goal and you're serious about it, and if you have the skills, then we're not just taking a couple grand and throwing it down the drain, right? We're taking a couple grand and it's an investment, there's gonna get a return. In fact, a lot of cases, like, really, if you have all this stuff down, but you might launch a ton of products, not every single product that you launch is gonna be a smash hit. Like, that's something to realize. But in a lot of cases, the worst case scenario ends up being you either break even and basically just let's say you spend 5k youk get it back and you break even, you just get your 5k back. Or in some cases you make a small loss. That's really how much control you have. And obviously the upside of the products that go well, you make massive profit and things really go your way. That's how you ensure you're not just throwing money down the drain. So you do have to spend money, but you don't have to be scared about it if you're taking things seriously. So onto point number four, you need to get some sort of help, right? I don't know any people who are successful in business who have done this 100% by themselves, right? It's always been that they've had maybe a family member that they know who's very successful in business, who's mentored them, or a friend, right? And they've just been lucky and had like a friend who they know. Or possibly they've got a coach, right? At some point, every successful business person hires a coach and gets the help they need or maybe a consultant to guide them. Because having a coach is kind of. I had it described like this the other day, which I think is just such a brilliant description. If I look out the window right now, I live on a main road, right? And on this main road here, here in Stockholm, there's very often accidents. In fact, there's a really bad accident involving four or five cars a few weeks ago out there. And there was loads of ambulances, police and stuff. If a policeman was to come to me and ask for my account of what happened with that accident, I would have one version of the story, right? From my specific perspective, looking out my window down the motorway, and it would be 100% true and 100% accurate because I saw it. If you were to ask a pedestrian bystander who was closer, maybe standing at the side of the road looking directly where the cars were, their story might be completely different. In fact, someone in the buildings across the road looking at their window, their story would be different again. So you have to ask yourself, like three different people saw the exact same thing with different stories. Are they all lying? No. Right. They just have different perspectives. And this is the thing, like when you're working on your business by yourself, you have one viewpoint of how things are going. What a coach does is they just come in with a slightly different view, usually with a bit more experience than you because they've been there and done everything already. And so they can tell you, hey, you just need to make this tweak and this tweak, and then you're already there and there's you thinking like, you know, it's all doom and gloom and everything's going to be, you know, falling apart, right? And the business is going really badly. And I've had this happen with clients before where they think, you know, oh, I've launched the worst product in the world. All my listing sucks. They send in 500 units into Amazon. It's not selling. And I'm like, look, man, you just need to tweak this one thing on the bid price of your PPC campaign. And they do that and they go from Nothing to like 5, 10, 15 sales a day instantly. And they were this close to maybe quitting or just being completely stuck and really frustrated. And that's what a coach can do. So find someone who's been there, done that, who can help you. And if you want some help from me, there's some links in the description where you can book a call with me and we can talk about this, talk about your goals, set your goals, figure out how to get there, come up with a plan, and I can actually help you implement the plan and coach you as well. All right, Hope today's video has been really helpful. I hope it gives you some clear and guidance for how to become one of the top 1% of Amazon sellers. And I really can't wait to see you implement these tips. So if you found it useful, hit like subscribe comment as well. Leave me a comment, let me know what you think. Let me know if you want any specific topics covered in future videos and we'll catch up very, very soon.