Stop Guessing What Customers in Amazon Want: The Data-Driven Approach That Generated $2 Billion

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Enjoy the show. Over the last decade, she has helped generate close to $2 billion in organic sales for her clients. Without any paid ads, I am so stoked to have inside the Speakeasy Mastermind, Isabella Hamilton, the CEO and founder of RankBell, which is the organic Amazon growth agency trusted by some of the fastest growing brands in the world. She is my go-to anytime I hear the word Amazon. Who do you know who can help me grow? And actually commerce. And even more than that, just an all-around amazing, one of my new best friends. I'm so excited to have you today. Isabella Hamilton, AKA Izzy. Welcome to Inside the Speakeasy Podcast.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That's a beautiful introduction, Eric. And I'm glad to know I'm one of your best friends because I've been telling everyone that you're one of my favorite humans. So this is very good. I like this. I like this. Keep doing intros for me, Eric.

Any day, all day. I mean, you're such an amazing soul and we're going to actually talk about that because you have such an infectious personality, such a great energy about you. And somebody who's done as well. You know, you are so humble and you're so willing and open and sharing. And you talk a lot about, you know, we're going to talk about something you call the dose of wealth, which is other cool stuff you're doing, which is helping people even rebuild their relationships with wealth and money. Some of the cool things you've done. I want to get to that in a little bit. And there's so much more we could dig into. Oh my gosh. I mean, your story, if you get everybody, if you can hear your accent, you have this beautiful Romanian accent. You're from Romania. Right?

That's right. That's right.

I love it. I love it. So, so, I mean, wow. Talk about the American dream, right? You come out here from Romania, you do some incredible things in commerce. Let's talk about, we're going to kind of jump around a little bit. I mean, first and foremost, anybody listening right now that's doing anything in the commerce world, either you or maybe you have somebody who you know is building out there. You have such an incredible ability to kind of get, I mean, like who the hell doesn't want to be in the top of the, of Amazon? That's the holy grail. Like, I want to get on page 1. Just reach out to Izzy and she's going to show you the way. Let's talk about RankBell. Like, what, how did you get here? What did you build? How did, what did you find out through this world?

Oh my God. I mean, we would have to go really, really far back, but the whole idea about RankBell is really how do we support brands that are, you know, not the only ones that are struggling because obviously those need most of the help, but brands in general, you know, we are so brainwashed by the culture that we live in right now, where everything is about ads, everything is about how do we do more, and is barely ever, Eric, about can we step back and actually understand what humans actually want? Like, we capitalize everything so much that we're like, how do we spend more in ads? How do we spend more to grab their attention? How do we hire the best influencer to, you know, show her beautiful self to sell more products, but do we ever stop and say, what do our actual buyers want? Because it's really just a simple mind shift going from what do I want as far as what can I get from people to what do people want? And when I realized that, I mean, my personality is, and you know me, I think pretty well by now, it's all about how do I make other people seen? So when you have that ability to make people seen, that, that came so easy to me when I stepped into this. Amazon expert role that it just took everything that I am and built a moat around it, built this ecosystem around it that I could honestly apply to anything besides just Amazon. And I really do. But when it came to Amazon, first of all, you know, I'm an entrepreneur.

For those listening, if you don't have something for Amazon, you know, what Izzy's going to talk about today can apply across multiple channels. So, you know, definitely keep listening. Don't tune out because, well, I have nothing to do with Amazon and we're going to learn that plus so many other things. So keep going. Sorry. Yeah, no, you're right. Thank you for mentioning that.

Mentioning that because it's not just Amazon. It can be in your life. It can be in your relationships. It can be in your, you know, partners, collaborations, ventures. It can be other platforms, Walmart, TikTok. How do we apply this one simple principle to create the lives of others better and in the process create yourself better, create a better version of yourself? So I built RankBell over 10 years ago, Eric, and How did Amazon come to me? It was more so, you know, as I said, I'm an entrepreneur at heart, always been, and I really wanted to see who's the biggest and the baddest. And honestly, I mean, is there anyone bigger than Amazon when it comes to, you know, such a powerful platform? So I said, if I were to put my energy into something, why not put it into something that's actually going to affect, you know, thousands and thousands of people? And Of course, even in my wildest imaginations, I couldn't have thought of, you know, creating $2 billion. Even sometimes for me, when I hear an introduction, you know, for a podcast or when I'm speaking on stage, I'm always like, who are they talking about? It takes me a second to like come back into myself. Thank you. And that's the power of actually, you know, making that decision, Eric, because a lot of people think, you know, how does one get successful at anything? I always say it's making that decision. I am ready to step into this role and then never quit because if you never quit, you will eventually get successful. And so for me, the formula was start something that I'm passionate about and not quitting. And it's been 12 years now. And, you know, with Amazon, you go up and down and there's so much stress and there's so much around it. And I just never quit. And the more I don't quit, the better I get because What else is there to do?

Love it. I love it. I love that. I mean, that's such a beautiful mindset for coming in again, somebody coming from overseas and just digging in with the right attitude. I want to circle back to that in a minute, but I want to get a little bit more into the tactics that if you're willing to share what you're able to share today about, obviously you don't want to give the entire secret formula away for what, you know, what you're doing, but just in a general sense, because it's definitely out of the box from sure, just put your product up on Amazon or commerce. And what are you doing that's a little bit special that taps into the mindset that you're talking about with the end customer?

Yeah. And so I'm not the kind of person to gatekeep ever anything. I'm an open book. You can come to me and I'll literally give you the whole formula. So when it comes to Amazon, it's again, just making sure that you see who your shoppers are instead of again, going in and spending more on sponsored ads, which is called PPC. If you are an Amazon brand, then you know what I'm talking about. And is how do I step back a little bit and try to first of all understand who my avatar is? This is number one. And even though I know for me and you, it's normal, right? You want to understand who your avatar is. But as I speak to more and more brands, Eric, I understand that this simple concept is actually not something many people understand, right? What they do is, you know, maybe they watch a YouTube video, maybe they see their favorite influencer and they get sold onto this idea of a laptop lifestyle, right? Well, I can, I can get a product from China. I can put it on Amazon and it's going to sell because my product is the best. Maybe your product is the best. However, if you don't have people that actually validate that for you, then you really don't know. So on Amazon, again, is just finding who your avatar is. And there's so many ways for you to do this. One, You can create a survey where you can actually give your product to 10, 20 of your friends and say, hey, I would love your actual real feedback, honest opinion about this product that I'm selling. And hopefully they'll be honest enough with you to say, okay, this is what works. This is what doesn't, right? And you want to do that across multiple channels. One way you can do it online. I mean, there's many different platforms out there that tell you like, put your product out there and you're going to get the specific feedback. Okay, this product works, it doesn't, like people that are not connected to you in a way that they will give you that specific feedback. Now, once you have that, take that information and especially with AI right now, thank God for AI, you can get this information and put it through an AI and that will tell you exactly what do I need to do to change my listing? What in my listing attracts shoppers? What in my listing deters shoppers from buying my product? And I mean, there's so many different questions you can ask yourself and you can ask again, those around you that it will now allow you to one, create the best image, your hero image on your listing. Now create the listing that actually pulls shoppers in because me and you, we, everyone listening to this, we all do this. We go to Amazon, we type in a certain keyword, and then usually within 10, 15 seconds, you already made up your mind what you're going to buy. That image pulled you in, you clicked on it, you read the description quickly, you scroll down to reviews, you're like, okay, 4.5, it works. Then you're going to buy the product. So it's essential, if not crucial, to grab that attention as soon as possible. Just because you saw a YouTube video that tells you, hey, this image converts, you have to test it yourself because there's hundreds, thousands of products that look similar to yours. What is that one specific thing out of your listing, out of your product that actually attracts somebody in? So that's what I do with Rankwell. We really nail down the human behavior, the human psychology. We have a network of thousands of shoppers throughout United States that I can tap in at any time that I need where one, I know what the avatar is for my brand. Now I know the brand needs about, let's say, 500 testers. I have them go in and do all these micro tasks that, and they're giving me all this juicy information, right? Oh, did you notice that this word is misspelled? No, I didn't, right? Because as a brand, you just, you go through the same things and you don't always see the smallest things. Hey, when your product arrived, did you know that the box, it's not really a box, it's like a bag, so your product comes smashed? No, I didn't know this, right? We think we have all the system down, but we really don't. We need this information. And that's really what the Rank Bell is all about, is like identifying this human behavior and relaying it to the brand in a way that they can use this information, therefore translating it into obviously more orders, obviously showing up in rank organically. So it's not all about sponsored ads, even though they're good too. Mm-hmm.

Okay. So you'd said a lot there and that's, that was amazing. So thank you for all that. Cause I think you had a lot of little nuggets baked in. I'm going to kind of pull back on one of them because when you and I have talked a couple of times, to me, it was one of the things that really stood out as far as what's a little bit, all this is great stuff, but you talked about this network you have. Yeah. And to me, there's, there's some magic sauce on what's taken you a while to get to where you're at is building this huge community of shoppers. Which is part of what helps get you ranked because yes, you could do the market research and yes, okay, people told us why our product is good and you get the right language down, but isn't there some magic sauce you have through this network you've built out?

Yes. I mean, once you have this information and you have these shoppers come onto the platform, again, they're the ones that are going to tell you exactly what works. Let's say you have a neck cream and 5 of your competitors are selling the same product. You can actually have these shoppers, these taskers go to every single one of your competitors and tell you exactly what they're doing different than is yours. And once you have this information, again, you can make your listing better. You can create different ways of attracting these shoppers. And also by having these orders coming in from Amazon, that will also help your rank go higher in search terms, right? So every single keyword is correlated to your product. So if you have in your listing neck cream, every time a shopper types this into Amazon, neck cream, now the algorithm starts understanding that your neck cream is tied to this specific keyword. So eventually, by doing this over and over again, these two rise out together. So now the algorithm understands that every time somebody types in neck cream, then Eric's brand will show up first.

Do you kind of give your network of shoppers the keywords you want them to all put in there? Is that sort of the idea here?

So yes, you can do that. There's so many different strategies. First of all, you want the shopper to tell you what they would do, right? Because again, there's so many things that you can hear online and a lot of them are good too, but you want the real shoppers to eventually come into your listing. So what I would do, I would say, this is the product. Tell me, what would you search for? Tell me, what color would you prefer this to be in? Tell me, what consistency do you expect when you hear the word neck cream, right? So there's all these different questions that we don't even think about. And once you have them, then you have them go through the actual process, Eric. Like, okay, well, type that in as if you were to buy this product yourself. And they go through the motions. They go through, you know, your competitors. They check how they're doing their listings, what their reviews say, and how does it compare to to yours. And once they go through this process, they come back and they fill out this massive document that tells us, okay, I found Eric's product on page 5. I think it should be green instead of white. This listing does not tell me how good this neck cream works. Maybe add that in, right? So you are taking all this data from your real shopper and again, optimizing everything about your brand and your listing. And that may require sometimes You know, pausing the listing completely while you redo all this work. Sometimes we had cases where a brand had to pull their whole inventory because every other bottle was broken. So you don't want to get to a point where you're going to start getting bad reviews in, because once you get 2, 3, 5 bad reviews, you're done. You're completely done.

So I'm a new, let's just say I'm a new brand and I'm going to launch and I want to work with you. How many people in this, like, it seems like an amazing sort of like I mean, I love what you're doing and we're going to talk about how I can apply this outside of Amazon because I totally get it. But like how many people are sort of my little shopper network? Do you like, is there like a minimum? Like obviously sending it to 2 people isn't going to do much. So like how many people are you sending out to, to get the feedback, the reviews that you're talking about?

So usually we notice that anywhere between 200 to let's say 500, usually that's a good sample size for a brand to truly get to the core of understanding everything there is to know about their product. Because we're not just targeting, let's say, California. We're really going all through all the states in the United States, right? So let's say if it's a winter product, you know, right now for California, it wouldn't really apply because it's 80 degrees this week, right? But for somebody in Chicago, we want that sample size of people from there. Like, why would they buy this? Scarf or why would they buy this? I don't know, sled oil. I don't know. I don't even want to think of all the snow products, but you see what I'm saying? So it's not only about, okay, I just need anybody to tell me anything about the product, but are we actually choosing the right avatar? Are we targeting those states specifically that can give me the best accurate information on this product? So nothing we do here is robot-like. Everything is organic. We speak to these shoppers personally, Eric. We have account executives that talk.

Is it the same shopper group that you have for various products, or do you go out there and kind of farm a new group of 200 to 500 for every new client?

We have thousands of people, so not everybody's going to be interested in, again, a neck cream. Not everybody's going to be interested in sled bells. Not everybody's going to be interested in keto supplements. Not everybody has a cat. Not everybody has a dog. So Again, first we identify who the avatar is, which even this, this simple thing helps brands because a lot of them, again, they don't know who their avatar is. They're like, well, I just launched this keto supplement because I just heard it makes a lot of money. And by the way, supplements are awesome on Amazon, but that's not enough. Who is my avatar? Okay. Women between the age of 30 to 50, let's say. Okay. Now. We're getting closer. Okay, who are they? Where do they work? Are they just moms sitting at home? Are they busy entrepreneurs? Once we narrow this down, that's when we tap into our network and say, okay, we would like to test this product with 200 entrepreneurs from this area of the country that can help us identify some issues and/or some benefits that this product gave them. So We don't just have them go through the first phase where, which is again, the listing, the reviews, how did this look, how was receiving the product, but the end of this process, about a month in, we go to the same sample of shoppers and we ask them specific information. Now you tested the neck cream. What have you seen in 4 weeks? Oh, I saw this. I didn't like it. It was too runny. It was melly. It was whatever the case may be. And again, this is not to be confused with Amazon reviews. We don't touch that. This is not part of what we offer. Everything we do is within Amazon's terms of service. So we want to make sure that we gather this information and we give it to the brand directly and say, hey, Sally from Chicago said that your cream did this, this person here did this. So you get like a huge document that gives you answers from 500 people that now you can, you can talk to them. There's nothing like, like it out there for sure.

I mean, it's, it's funny cuz you know, everything you're saying fundamentally just makes so such good sense, but I see why nobody really does it the right way. I mean, certainly it's not easy putting all these pieces together. You learned it the hard way.

I mean, A, of course.

Yeah, I could see a lot of people just shortcut or they just go off of instincts on what they think their avatar is and they're not doing a proper exercise. I mean, I see that a lot of time in my company. That's a given, but I love I think, you know, the big takeaway for me and others lovely listening here and is just whatever product, you know, whether you're an Amazon, I was going to ask you outside of Amazon too, if you do this, but I think, you know, any product you go to, I mean, it sounds like you have this amazing machinery to have this network of thousands of people. Obviously you pull from, you pull the right ones based on the ICP of what they are, the avatar. And then you're saying, okay, let's get the feedback on these, this granular micro, micro feedback. You know, done enough times is going to allow you to ultimately is part of the formula that works. And it's a lot of it is just little things that we're all so antsy to say, I just did it. Let's launch. Let's go. Let's run ads. I mean, cause that's the, that's the shortcut, right? Run an ad, see the test, refine, tweak. What you're saying is, yeah, let's refine, tweak without doing ads. Let's actually talk to the customers, get the feedback, and then it's going to, everything else will sort of work itself. You're going to naturally start to evolve. So I threw a question in there as I was recapping because That's brilliant. And by the way, I mean, I couldn't believe how, you know, and this is not a pitch for you, but I mean, just selfishly because I love you and I think what you do is amazing. I mean, I blew my mind on how affordable actually working with you really is for this. So again, if you're listening to this, you got to reach out to Izzy. But outside of Amazon, have you tested this out for just like, okay, we don't have an Amazon play. We have something else. We're just going direct to consumer. Does that same process work?

The same process works because we are a data collection agency. You know, we're not really, let's call it a ranking agency, even though a lot of people come to us because they need this extra boost. So we can do this. We've done this on Walmart. We've done this on Etsy. We've done it on TikTok. We've done it on Walmart Chewy, really any platform that brands sell because information is information, data is data, and Just like it is hard to invite 10 people to come to dinner to your house, 2 are going to forget what day it was, 3 are going to come at the wrong time, right? It's very hard to get a focus group to do a massive task, you know, at scale. So when you have this ability to have an army to do specific tasks for you, it's really powerful and everybody can do this. And I'm not here pitching you to use my service, even though I humbly thank you, Eric, for that shout-out, but to just to bring people awareness around the fact that if you're at your point with your brand where you're just so frustrated, where nothing is working, just step back and start from the beginning. Like, have I ever listened to my customers? Do I know what they want? Or am I just copying the other competitors' products? I'm just copying their image. And you'll see that a lot. And some of you listening are going to say, oh my God, it's true. You type in wooden spoon and then You have 50 brands that they all have the same exact image and we call those me too product. Consumers are smart. We are it. We are the consumers. Just like when you're in traffic and you're like, oh, it's traffic. No, we are the traffic. We are the consumers ourselves. So what do I want? Would I want here? Would I want a brand specifically speak to me? Because we all spend, like you don't have to tell us to spend. We spend the moment we wake up, we pay for something. So. Customers, they just want to be aligned with your vision and they want to feel seen and they want to feel listened to just like you and I do. And if you can deliver that and whether it's through that image that speaks beautifully to them, whether it's through that listing that speaks to their heart, like, oh my God, this is exactly what I'm looking for. Then if you want to go a step forward, maybe you package it nicely. Maybe you send a little note that says, thank you, I appreciate you. It's just those little tiny things that people have forgotten in this age of like everything is fast, AI, this, oh, we don't care about that person. We don't care about them. They just start caring because you are that person. We all are that person and we just want to be loved.

I love it. So, I mean, again, my takeaway is if I was bootstrapping or building my business, I mean, it's just like, again, fundamentals, you know, get our egos out of the way. We think we know what the hell everybody wants. We don't. Go talk to your customers. There's many ways right now you can go. Find tools to build up your own community of people to test things out and testers out there. I know there's probably lots of ways I could probably hop on GPT in 2 seconds and find tools.

I have email lists, Eric. They have email lists and they're not utilizing it the right way. They're just sending messages. Hey, buy my product.

Like, no, how about you're right. How about pull a group together and say, hey, would you like to be part of this group to do this? And we'll send you this in exchange for sending it out.

Can I help people with that? Like if, you know, anybody's listening to this and they're like, I have a list of 100,000 people, like help me figure it out. Like I don't mind. Like, I will help you figure it out.

I love it. That's a good transition to what I want to talk about next. And then I want to get back to your incredible story and journey. You know, you talked about, you know, this platform and YouTube channel where you're teaching entrepreneurs how to rebuild their relationship with money, expand their identity, and create wealth through power, mindset, and self-mastery. I mean, if anybody gets the privilege of meeting you, you have such a big heart. You know, there's no ego behind the wealth and what you've done, and you're such a giver. And, you know, how do we Let's dig a little bit into that. So I guess maybe what I want to take a step back is what have you seen out there as something that maybe entrepreneurs that start to attract a lot of wealth have some success? What is the thing that you're seeing that you felt kind of icky and said, I don't want to be that. I want to go in this way. This is where I want to start focusing on how to rebuild a relationship with money.

What do you mean by that?

And what are you different from? What were you frustrated with or maybe bothered by others that have achieved wealth that you're trying to now maybe teach people a better way.

Yeah. So this is a passion purpose project. You know, it hasn't evolved into anything beyond that. It's just me really giving back. I moved to US when I was 20 with $100. I had no money. I had, I didn't speak any English and really I had to learn how to walk again, Eric, really, truly in a new country, a new continent, a new culture. I mean, everything that you can possibly think of, I went through.

So you're sitting in Romania, you're 20 years old. First of all, how does this even happen? How do you all of a sudden say, hey, we're going to America? And like, are you bringing family? Like, what's going on here?

So because I grew up in communism and there were times where we had no food, we had no heat, we had no water, we had no— I mean, I lived through really extreme poverty and I know there's so many other people that had it worse than me and You know, this is not a competition in any way, but, you know, just growing up with that mindset and within those confines of this is what your life is. There's nothing better for you out there than this. So what I started doing, which was a simple thing that I started, it was almost a practice that I was doing, was envisioning a better future for myself, envisioning another reality that I didn't know if it was ever going to come true. So I'm going to like shorten this because I don't want to go too woo-woo on you. But by doing this every single day, Eric, I would just picture that I live in America. Why America? America was portrayed to us as this magical place that all your dreams come true, that everything is easy, people are friendly, or maybe it was my idea that I created into my head. So every single day I had this vision and then one day it came true. I was walking home from Eric, and, you know, it was snowing and it was cold. And I remember like the snow on my face, literally as it, like, it just happened. And I see this lamppost and there's a little note on it. And as I get closer to it, I start reading it and it says, do you want to go to America? Call this number.

No.

Yes. And I looked around, it was like one of those things like, am I being punked right now? And I took that number and I ran home. I ran home, Eric, and I show it to my dad. And I'm like, dad, my dream, my American dream. So he calls the number and it's a real company. It's a city away from us. So it's about an hour distance. We schedule an appointment. We go there. Everything is legit. The only problem was the program cost $1,000. Now that's a year's salary for somebody in Romania. There's no way to have that money. It's like, I got so excited and then all my dreams came crushing down because I'm like, how am I going to get $1,000? So My dad started borrowing money from like all the family, the friends, and got $100 extra so he can send me with that to US and basically to start a new life. And I just packed all the clothes that I had, which was, you know, a small bag and flew to another country. And it was the most painful, yet the most transformative time in my life because it, you know, stepping into that unknown and into all the fears and, you know, I never left my family. I was still sleeping in.

With my sister in one bed, you know, and this is where you brought your sister with you or how'd that work?

No, nobody, just me. So like my, everyone stayed home and it just, I wasn't used to ever leaving my family and now here I am.

Going, trying, leaving. I mean, I mean, first of all, the amazingness of your family to support you on that when it was just like, oh my gosh, my daughter sending her out like, like there. But I guess your dad knew in your heart he had to let you go and try it.

I can't imagine the pain that they felt, honestly. I mean, I have a child now. I don't, I could never.

I don't know. Can you imagine thinking about that? Like your kid wants to just leave the country. That's so scary. And then you said you went to a different country, but it wasn't America. Where'd you go first?

No, it was, it was America. It was a different country for me.

Oh, right, right. So what part of America was it? What was it?

So it was an au pair program, which is a nanny program. And they sent me to Lincoln, Massachusetts, and that lasted about 3 months and it didn't really work out. I mean, we would need way more than the time we have right now. Podcast. I wish I could tell you, but I had to learn some big lessons there, which I never had, like boundaries, like respecting my time. All again, when I say I had to learn how to walk and live again, I meant it with every single thing. You know, growing up in communism, you don't have the ability, and as a woman on top of that, to say, oh, I don't like this, or I don't want this. You keep your head down and you say yes and you go do the thing. And so I had to relearn all these things and all these people around me that were so free, but yet so different than me and the culture. And, you know, because you asked me about wealth and it's important to know that I didn't have wealth. I didn't even understand wealth. I didn't even know you could potentially have anything beyond what you go to work for, which is selling your time for money. You know, whatever that was, you know, in Romania, maybe it was 50 cents an hour, maybe in America it's $20, $30, $50 an hour, but The concept is the same. You are selling your time for money. So I had to go from no money to selling my time for money, which was $140 a week, which I thought I was rich, Eric. I thought I had made it, right? Going from, you know, $1,000 of salary in Romania per year to, you know, doing $400 or $500 a month. I was like, oh my God, this is heaven. So, but then to keep breaking the ceiling, Eric, of money, right? Seeing my best friend who lived across the street from me here once I moved to San Diego, she was making $2,000 a month. And I looked at her and I was like, "Jenny, what does it feel like to be so rich?" And she's like, "Girl, let me tell you, you can go to this store and you can buy any clothes you want." And you know, like girls, we're 20 years old, right? And I just started, you know, and I think maybe that is my secret, Eric, you know, the ability to put myself into that visionary mindset of like, I wonder what that would feel like for me. And I think that's what kind of broke all these barriers that I had. It was that curiosity of like, wow, if Gabby can do it, if Gabby can have $2,000, then I can do it. And I got it. And then it's like, oh my God, you know, all these people are walking with their little briefcases, walking into the tall buildings. What are they doing? Oh, they're doing, you know, $50,000 a year. Oh my God, that's amazing. I want to see what that's like. So, Which comes back to Speakeasy in a way, and, you know, to any other masterminds out there, it's like, when you put yourself in a room with others that are smarter than you, that have achieved more than you, it rubs off on you in a way that's so much more powerful than you could ever think, because it gives you that ability to one, dream bigger, like, oh my God, Eric did it, so can I, right? Because what you start understanding when you understand human behavior is that We all just want to be like, we all want to be the same and we all want to create. It's in our nature. And it's like, wow, Eric did it. That gives me the possibility that, oh, maybe I can do it. Right? So every single time I put myself in situations and environments that allow me to expand my mind and expand my potential. And when it comes to wealth, it's really all that. Like I look at all this, you know, I look at Nvidia founder and I look at Elon Musk and You know, maybe my mindset is not there yet, but I think, you know, just by observing what they're doing, I do wonder sometimes, like, how are they better than me? And again, not in a mean way. It's very important to understand the difference because you don't want to hate on these people. You want to really appreciate them. Like, I wonder, like, what makes me different than Elon Musk? Or more importantly, what makes me alike, right? When you understand that, again, it opens up a portal, let's call it a magical portal that now allows you to dream bigger. And if you dream bigger, then opportunities aligns when again, you find yourself in the right room and, you know, maybe Eric knows Elon Musk. I don't know. You have a huge contact list.

Well, I would say 1 or 2 degrees away from Elon, but that's a different conversation. Let me just kind of stop there because this is beautiful. But I think, you know, I need to give you some credit too. I think you're saying that and it takes a couple of things. Now that I understand where you came from. You know, you as that young 20-year-old self grabbing that note and having the courage, you know, I think there's a little bit of something inside of you is you have courage, you don't have fear, you dream big. And ultimately when you visualize and see the next level is possible, I think you have this unshakable confidence to say, well, they did it. There's no reason why at all why I can't do it. So what is it going to take for me to get there? And I think having that ability, like I was thinking of the analogy of the whole 4-minute mile that they all talk about, like, you know, Bannister, Rick and the, you know, you know, nobody thought it could be done and then he did it and everybody else did it. Right. So it's like, you know, how do you watch some people, you know, Gabby made $2,000 and all right, well, if she could do it, I could do it. Boom. I'm going to go do it. So I think there's a lot of that in there, but, you know, unfortunately a lot of people don't have their own confidence in themselves to go do those things and think, well, I can never go do that, or that's not in me. And I know. You're going to say, well, you know what, if a 20-year-old from Romania that's making no money and is sleeping without air conditioning and no food can make it, then honestly, we all have the ability to make it. It's just a mindset thing.

And this is the hardest part. It's not the making money part. And a lot of us have it reversed. We think, let me just get the money and then the confidence will come. It's really training your mindset, training. It's a self-development and I can't. Say this enough because that is what makes us get to that point. And it's like reading a book and then you're done. You're like, I understand every single word, but not until you integrate it within your body that you're like, oh, now it makes sense. And that's what takes long, Eric. That's what takes long. Not the actual making the money itself or creating the perfect brand, but really getting to a point where you understand yourself. And it's hard because, you know, it took me, you know, to turn the mirror around and say, okay, you grew up this way. Your culture is different and you have to let go of of every single thing that you learn about yourself, that you learn about how people work, you have to let go of that. And a lot of us, Eric, are tied so much to our identity that if I am no longer this sports fan, who am I? If I am no longer the RankBell owner, who am I? And that's a hard thing because now you have to show up in a way where everybody sees that, okay, Isabella is the RankBell founder, but Honestly, like at any moment I could let go of this because that does not dissolve who I have become. And that is the difference between me and some people that are still growing. And it's very important that we mention this because we have to learn how to let go of this identity surrounding whatever it is that we build. Because one day your business can go up and one day your business can go down. Specifically if you're an Amazon brand, Amazon can shut your account tomorrow. And then are you going to say, Who am I without this brand? No, you still are the same person. You can create 100 brands. And again, that comes from that self-discipline and practice and really starting to love yourself. It gets to the point where it's like, I love myself so much to reinvent myself over and over and over again. And that's where it's at.

But that's really profound. I love how you said that. And you're right. I mean, I think there's different identities. Was the identity that we have when we grow up, oh, I'm this poor, you know, kid from Romania. Would you had a shake? And then there's this identity tied to the work. And then you're saying, well, no, we don't need that. You got to have just the confidence, everything else. What do you want? Love yourself. You could be anything you want to be. And what I'm hearing you say is don't be influenced by others that want to all of a sudden put a label on your identity. Ultimately, for you to decide what you want your identity to be, and you have the ability to control that. Um, that's beautiful.

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. And I live my life this way. And again, I know it's So it's easy to say, and it takes a long time to actually master this, but you can start right now and you can start training yourself with discipline. And I used to look at this word discipline, Eric, as like the worst thing. Like, I don't want discipline. I want to be free. I escaped communism. I don't need anybody else to tell me what to do. But in this process, I realized that the more I gave myself discipline, the more I started loving myself and the more I learned this confidence came back into me that I can now do the things I tell myself that I can do. And nobody can give you that confidence. No plastic surgery can do that for you, you know? And it's just that easy. And if you take anything from this call today is this, you know, everything else is important, but not more important than you taking the time to know yourself. We're talking about understanding our shoppers and our avatar. Learn how to know your own avatar, because in the end, it's just a mask that we're all wearing. You know, we're all souls that came into this world that have a different mask. I have the Isabella mask. You have the Eric mask. And then on top of it, we put, oh, I'm a sports lover mask and I'm a car enthusiast mask. And you keep adding these on, but who am I at my core? And if you know who you are at your core, then you can be whoever you want to be. Whoever you want to be at any time. And that is the beautiful thing when you start understanding that. And, you know, and thank you for the beautiful compliments in the beginning when you said that I have this magnetism around me. I now know what that is because when I walk into a room, I walk in naked in a way, if you can say that word. But, you know, I'm just, I am who I am at my core. And whether you know it or not, we are attracted to that authenticity, to that glow that we each have. But most people don't see it because we have all these layers on us that it's like, I have so, I'm a Republican, I'm a Democrat, I'm a this, I'm a that. And it's like so many layers that it's hard for people to connect to that pure soul. Like, who am I? And I think this is what I bring to the table in every room that I walk in. Yeah.

Isn't that so true? I mean, you're right. As you say that, I mean, it's so tangible to me. You know, you look at that person who's so confident in who they are and they love themselves. They walk in that room, there's something special about them. They just have this aura about them. Like, they know who they are, they're confident, they don't care what— they're not going to let you put labels on them. They're just— it doesn't matter. You could say something, just pushes off of them.

And you have that, Eric, which is, I think, why, you know, when I met you, I just felt this connection with you. And, you know, I don't say it enough. I don't think I do, but you are one of my favorite humans because whatever work you have done on yourself, it's— you have shed layers off of you. And again, I don't know you well enough to pinpoint exactly what that was. But when you show up and I can see how literally you have a room of like 200 people at the Christmas party, like all loving you. And I can see that because I'm one of them. And I'm like, I love when I see that they recognize it. And some people might not even know. They're just like, there's something about Eric. And I know what it is because it's you as the essence of your beautiful being of who you are. And really that's all we have to do is just be ourselves as cliché as that sounds.

Well, thank you. Thank you. I guess being, uh, uh, the business partners of the amazing Brian Tracy for 20+ years and listening to his programs at the early age of 20-something was helpful, but thank you for that. I guess last question. So thank you for the compliments. I know, um, you have become a fan of Speakeasy. Really appreciate that. Tell me what you love about Speakeasy Mastermind Mastermind.

Oh gosh. Where do I even start? Okay. Let me prepare. Well, first of all, when I walked into Speakeasy for the first time and you were literally the first person to meet. Immediately, I felt this connection with you and every single person I talked to in that room was almost a reflection of you, Eric, right? It was like, it was your essence in all these different people, which, you know, lifted my spirit right away. I was like, oh my God, this is the room that I was looking for, for all this time. And, you know, I've been, you know, an entrepreneur for so long and I've been to masterminds and I've been to conferences and seminars and I love them all, but never have I ever had anything that That plus a family. Like, I feel like me and you are going to be friends for life. And I feel that with quite a few other members from Speakeasy Mastermind Mastermind. And, you know, you were able to do that. You brought that spirit into a room because I know you do that and you can do that. And you also do that because you have many different chapters, but it's so important when you walk into a room and you feel like you belong. And that's just That's the entrance. And now you layer on top of it all the knowledge, all the people that the members that you have in Speakeasy Mastermind Mastermind, how brilliant they are and how connected they are and how successful they are. It's like the holy grail of everything I ever wanted. So I'm going to say this to every single person. And I know we talked about it at the Christmas party a little bit. Like, I don't get paid to say this, but I love Speakeasy Mastermind Mastermind so much. And I think I do because of who you are, which attracts people like me. Which attracts people like you, which attracts people like my friends, which attracts people like Travis and everyone else that I met. And that's why I said, cut me off, because I can go on and on. And I'm just so grateful that you allowed me to be part of Speakeasy Mastermind.

Oh, well, thank you. And we are very lucky to have people like you in the community, and it makes us all together. We get to lift each other. And again, it's that the right vibe of people, we attract others like us. So I'm so glad, and it's so critical we continue to find the right people and you know, not let certain people in that are going to mess up with that vibe and culture and energy. And that's, that is part of the magic, people like you and others. Well, my gosh, thank you so much. I'm so glad we got a chance to do this and sit down and go deep. And you shared some great nuggets. I hope people, I mean, not only just obviously on the business side and the things we're doing with building up your, you know, Amazon or any other kind of commerce, but just even on the personal development side, hopefully everybody, I certainly took away a few things. I'm sure any of our listeners did. Thank you so much for your time. And I look forward to seeing you soon.

My pleasure. I love this conversation with you and I'm sending all my love to all your listeners.

And that's a wrap from the Speakeasy Podcast.

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