How To Create A Great Product And Build A Bigger Brand From The Amazon FBA Millionaires Podcast With Jeff Allen

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No two products are exactly alike. Right. And that can be a very good thing. Now, if yours, your product is better than the competition's. Are you interested in building a better mousetrap product design? Food for thought coming up today from the west coast of the world, this is FBA Millionaires.

Welcome to FBA Millionaires. This is the program that is geared toward helping you pursue your goal of earning a seven figure income, selling professionally on Amazon via fulfillment by Amazon. Hi there. My name is Jeff Allen. So good to check in with you. Really enjoyed doing this program along with my bud. And this program would not be what it is without him. He is in Northern California while I sit here in the Southland. His name is Mr. Will Moffatt. Will, how are you, sir?

Hey, everybody. I'm wonderful. Thanks so much. It's a beautiful day. We have a great, awesome guest for you guys. And I'm excited to be here again with Jeff.

Man, I appreciate that, Will. And our guest is somebody who's very easy to get excited about because she and her husband are involved in helping people bring their ideas to life in terms of the products that they sell or helping them improve one that maybe they're already selling. Tell us a little bit about who our guest is.

So we have Tracy here with us. FBA Millionaire. She's awesome. She's done a bunch of cool things with Amazon Sellers as far as designing. I mean, all the way up to getting sellers or just businesses in general into retail stores. I mean, they do a lot of cool things and I think it's best if Tracy kind of talk about all the different things that her company does and how she can help Amazon sellers. So Tracy, how's it going?

Oh, it's going great. Thank you guys so much for having me this morning.

Tracy Hazzard with her husband Tom Hazzard, co founded, has design@hasdesign.com and will, props to you, my friend, because you had a chance to meet Tracy at one of the recent events. You did. And Tracy, talk about one busy lady. I mean, just Some of the things you're involved in.

Well, we are involved in, yeah, way too many things. But it is partially because the business is exploding. And so that's a good problem to have. Right. So it's, it's because there's so many great brands coming up in the world that were busier than ever. Yeah. So has design. My partner Tom and I, we've been doing design for mass market retail, so for big box stores, clubs, office superstores. We've been doing that on and off for 25 years. And I say on and off because sometimes we were in house at companies and sometimes we were out. And I cut my teeth on Herman Miller and helping to build and launch the Aeron chair. If you've ever seen that iconic, you know, tech company chair with a mesh material, that's where I started my launching product world came from there.

That is my chair of choice here in my office. Tracy, I saw that on your website@hasdesign.com and I thought, you've gotta be kidding me. That's the chair I sit in. I'm in touch with greatness here. This chair has changed my life because now I, my, my butt doesn't get hot on a summer day sitting in this chair. It's fantastic.

That's why the designer designed it. Yep.

This is amazing. So tell me. So tell me, Tracy, so you and your husband, you've been consulting with big companies and these are big brands that you've been working with. How did you get involved with consulting with independent Amazon sellers? And, and how do you help Amazon sellers?

Well, you know, you have to look at the industry shift over time is that, you know, back when we started 25 plus years ago, right, there were only big brands because it was so costly to get into the marketplace. There wasn't an Amazon when we started. And so Amazon came about in 97ish, I think. And at that time we were on our own doing something that was totally not us designing for others, but actually doing our own product at that time. And so we started an E commerce store. We were what you would have called early developer community, like app developers today, but we were creating our own accessories and we were trying to sell them. And what I wouldn't have given to have had an Amazon to help me out through that process at that time. So, you know, we see Amazon and watched its growth over the years and saw this brilliance, that and logistical savings because to build that part of your company is extremely expensive. And so we saw that happening right under all these big brands. Noses. And they were ignoring it and they were discounting it. And we thought, there's really something here that these digital marketers have tapped into. Now if we could just shift that a little bit and make it something that American consumers really want to buy, now we've got something amazing. And so we started to just partner up with a couple of Amazon sellers. We saw who. Who would find me because I write articles and I'm on podcasts, and it just would happen. And they would find me and they would ask if we would do business with them. And, you know, they would assume that they were much too small for us in terms of our fees and all of that. And. And in reality, they technically were at the time. But I thought, we like to learn here. Let's do a couple of projects that seem fun and see what's there, see if we can really add value. And that's how it got going. And we added some tremendous value and help couple of companies get acquired. And so we realized that we were helping to grow bigger brands by applying the principles of what we did for the big brands, but at a smaller scale.

You know, Tracy, there are so many products out there to choose from for Amazon sellers of all stripes, no matter where they are in the world. And there are more and more of these companies that they can source from to get these products and sell them. And we've seen several of these products online that it seems like there are a number of people that are sharing several slices of the pie. The product may look the same that I have in my store, that maybe the guy down the street is selling, but we're making a lot of money and we're able to get these products cheaply. We just find them, we private label them, we slap our name on them, and we're able to get great quantities at a great price. And yet, I'm just kind of wondering, isn't it expensive to build that mousetrap, that better mousetrap, when we can just simply go to Alibaba or one of these other sourcing companies, get our products, order them, and sell them that way?

You know, that is a great question. And the reality is that it is a great. It's a great option, and you should do it. You should absolutely do it. But what you're not thinking about is the bigger picture of your brand and your product line when you do that. So when you've got something tracking, when you've done that and it's working, you've got access to a great audience, you've got a Buying pace, that's really working for you at that point. What usually happens to you guys? Trolls. Come on, you're listing right? You get other sellers on there, you get counterfeiters, you get all of this when you look at your investment in time and energy in marketing. And now your life cycle of your product is cut short. That's where the Amazon seller and that sort of digital marketing world is looking at it from a less big picture vision of building a bigger brand. And so it's right at that stage where that investment that you might need to make in an original product makes sense to have built in. And now you're doing what I call stacking S Curves, right? So you sort of built it and as it's about to decline a little bit, you've got your next product that's already just come up and grown and you're outpacing the competition every single time. And you're keeping your consumers that you've worked so hard to attract even more attracted and interested in you. And so that's how you're going to maximize the investment you've made. But at the same time, I think that those that could create original product, the inventors out there, I'm going to call them, okay, the inventors of the world may have a better mousetrap, they may have a better idea, but they don't have what you guys can do, which is attract an audience and confirm that it's right. And so they spend all their money up front, run out of it. On the marketing side, I love the model of spending it all up front to make sure and figure out that you've got a marketing now, you've got a revenue stream from that product that maybe is not that original, but it's working. And then by the time you get your competition in, you bring in that original product and now you've built a more valuable brand that's not going to go anywhere and that can't be easily competed with.

Got it. So let me ask you a question. Let's just say my name is Tim and right now I am killing it with one product. And I know you were saying that we need to be having the second product coming to keep us up to date and fresh. And so let's just say Tim is spending $100,000 every two months on inventory because he has a product that's killing it on Amazon and he has a great brand on Amazon. What should Tim do? Should Tim focus on building more products on Amazon? Should he focus on leveraging that one product and Maybe building a shopify store or should he focus on possibly pitching that to big brands? Should he consider selling it? There's so many options and I think that's what Amazon sellers, you know, they're focused on. The money is coming in from Amazon. Right. But they don't see the big, big picture of how their brand is really killing it and how to leverage this, this time of killing it to a bigger picture.

Yeah, there was this guy at, who was up on stage at the Prosper show where we both were and it was like a panel discussion and he's up there bragging about the fact that he has like, you know, 10,000 SKUs or something. And so I asked around because I wasn't really sure and he didn't state it and wouldn't state it about how big his company was. I started asking around and some people said, oh, I know how big he is, I know how many million he's under, $10 million. And so I started, you know, so I started doing the math on the average life cycle and looking at his product line and I go, you know, at the end of the day, his net profit margin is probably somewhere around $800 to $1,000 a SKU. When you look at having managed that many SKUs. Now, of course you've got some really great winners in there and you've got some really losers in there and that's downing your average. But the most of the Amazon sellers groups, when we do the, and we look at them, some of them are between 1 and 10% profit, net profit margin. And this is, you know, and some of them, it's gross profit margin, they haven't even paid themselves, right. And so when we look at that, we go, that's not a viable and sustainable business. So how are we going to get it to that stage of doing that? And so we have to look at the line in terms of what our goal is. If our goal is just to make extra pocket change every single month, great. That's the model to go on because it's a whole lot less work, a whole lot less investment and a whole lot less risk. So go on that model of finding stuff that churns. Keep doing that, keep doing what Tim's doing, right. If your goal is to build a bigger brand, if your goal is to get acquired, you've got to give them a reason to acquire you. You've got to give them a reason to come to you and not one of your other competitors because they're not buying out a single product. They're buying out a line, they're buying out someone who has access a particular market. So at that stage, Tim should really look at and say, do I have a market niche that's going to be valuable? Can I bring other products? Even if I don't do it yet, but can I bring other products? Build my Shopify store around a brand messaging and around a community that is going to care. Because we are in a content to commerce world, right? That's why you're podcasting, that's why all of this is going, right? The free stuff we give out in terms of content translates into more commerce, more business later. And so from that perspective, if you have to talk all over the place because you've got 10,000 SKUs and some of them are in pet, some of them are in juvenile, some of them are in housewares, they're all over the place. You don't have a clear picture of your consumer demographics don't count. It's psychographics that count, right? What does that consumer want? What do they like? What do they care about? What messaging can I bring them? What great content can I deliver to them? Whether it's in video or audio or blog form, Right. How can I get all of that to them so that they want to do more business with me, they want to transact more commerce with me, right? That's our goal. And so when you find that now that's what you grow, right? And that's the time where you at some point have to get to be the only game in town, I call it me only territory. So you have to get to be the only person who provides something special to them. Now sometimes it can be a service, so it can be, you know, there are subscription services or I've got a great juvenile company that does toys. And one of the things that they do is they do these great games you can play with the toys. So what they deliver on their site is not product, they deliver the product all through Amazon, but what they deliver through their site is a great add on to utilizing the toys that they're selling. And so it makes for an audience that is engaged. So whatever it is to get them to buy more, to get them to want to spend more time with you, that's what you do.

That makes total sense. So tell me this Tracy, as far as.

Dealing with clients and there's different type of Amazon clients out there, is there a checklist of attributes or requirements that you, that you require or maybe that you would like to see some type of, I guess stage that the Amazon seller is in before you will actually work with them. As far as seriously getting given the clients ideas and working with them to build their brand, which stage is it that you think would be best for you to work with them? And if you say, you know what, I think you have something or you may not have nothing, I can't work with you yet.

Yeah. You know, so Tom and I are in the hate to leave people behind, right? This is. I mean, this has been a.

Lifelong observation for me, but also real world. So because we're inventors, because we have patents, because we've had our own business before, we know what it's like to feel isolated and not get insider information. And that to me is a crime. And then to allow those same people to be preyed upon by someone who's selling a course in something that they only have, you know, six months of experience in, have done once, drives me absolutely insane. But at the same time, there's only two of us and there's only so much time in the day. And so we've had to really get creative and figure out ways at which we can make sure that we don't leave people behind. And that's why I produce so much content, right? I produce a ton of content. I write articles, we do over 36 blog posts a month and podcasts a month through all of our channels. Right. To sort of get this information out to people. And I don't want to leave anyone behind at any stage because you could be starting and you could be onto something that could be amazing and the world needs. But you're going to take a bunch of wrong turns on your way. The longer it takes you to go that full path, the less chance of success you have. So if I can guide them on the fastest path to success and that's all that I give them, and they follow it. And then at some point they go, oh, I'm ready for you. Great, then I've done my job and I feel great about the. That added value I put into the world. If it's really of. I am a growing business. I've got these employees here. I want to keep them employed. I want to grow this company, I want to grow this brand, I want to get it sold. I can help them too. And so I try not to be restrictive about how I help people. I just try to sort of say it's more of a state of mind. Are you building something bigger? Are you coachable? Because this is a problem if you're very. We have a lot of inventors who are very close minded. They're all about their thing and they don't want to hear about how much they need to experience the marketing. They say, oh, my family, my friends, they love my stuff. It's so great and that's good. But it's not an indicator of whether or not someone's going to plunk down a dollar for your thing. And so we need to find out as fast as possible in the process.

Do the dogs eat the dog food? Do women want to buy this? Whatever. Do kids want to play with it? Right. Whatever it might be, we've got to find where that transaction point is going to happen and are they going to do it. And the sooner we can do it before you spend a lot of time, money and energy, the better off we are. And so anyone who's open to that model of it, I am open to working with. Now. We have all kinds of different ways to work with people where.

You can literally consume the 12 people who I refer every single one of my clients to at some point in the process. You can consume content from them and every single month you can actually do live Q&As with them. We built that just because you couldn't, you can't retain these people. You couldn't spend the hundreds of thousands of dollars to retain these people. But if you don't ask them a question early on, like.

If I'm designing my package right now.

Should I put the barcode on it? Should I put these things on it even though I'm not using one right now, the answer might be, do you have a plan to be on the shelf? If you do, you only want to do this once because otherwise you're going to slow your time down and have to do it again. And it's going to cost you 100 bucks extra to do it right.

So these are the kinds of questions and things that you don't know the right order to, but these people do. I want to give you access to them. So that's what we built into our process. We built into our services to be able to make that happen. And then from there, if you really don't know what you want to make, you don't know what's next for you. You think you got a brand, but you're not sure that's the time for a strategy. And that's they use. I usually do those myself. And then if they're big enough, Tom and I do them together. And then from there it's a matter of, do you want to do these products, do you want to design them? Do you need them? And so that's the people we work with. We usually don't come to someone who says, I've got this gadget, will you draw it up for me? We don't work with people like that.

Got it. For FBA millionaires out there, you know, it's important to have a strategy. Let's just say, okay, I'm launching one product, that product to successful and now I'm going into, let's just say pets. Now I've created eight successful pet products through Amazon where I have recurring sales and then I built my website and then it may be time to go to big box stores. You know, the, the world is yours to create. But if you have that strategy, especially that exit strategy, you might say after that, okay, I want to sell for eight figures.

Nine. Yep.

Yeah. It's going to take getting you to nine to really make significant money. To really be so valuable that you have, you must get bought out. That's what happens. So we, you're going to hit a getting to a million. I'm not going to say it's easy because you know, you all know out there it's not right. But once you've tipped that million point, getting from 1 million to 10 million, you can do that through product, just line expansion. Right. If you, if you're smart about your choices. Right. And not just going anywhere, the wind blows you, you know, oh, I like that. Oh, I like that. Don't do that. But if you're strategic about it, you can get to 10. But getting from 10 to 50 to 100, that's where the growth challenge happens. But it's also where you hit the big box. You hit the big brands right where they notice you. So you're not going to sell to some little company that's going to buy you, pay you barely a variable on your sales. You're going to get a premium for your brand. When you hit 100 million, boy, that's.

Where the rubber meets the road. And Tracy, you have such a fresh approach and a fresh perspective. We're so pleased to have you as our guest on this program, Tracy Hazard with Tom Hazard. They are the co founders and co owners of Has Design. You're listening to our conversation here on FBA Millionaires. Will Moffatt with yours truly, Jeff Allen. We're going to take a short break and when we come back, we're going to continue our conversation conversation with Tracy Hazard right here on FBA Millionaires right after this.

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Once this show is done, after you finish listening to it, or heck, you can do it even you know you're a multitasker, right? Who isn't among us, right? Join the FBA Millionaires Club. And that allows you to stay connected with all that Will and I are doing on the show here. Plus you'll receive free expert tips and guidance and advice and really to help you take your Amazon business to the highest level possible. And we're not going to provide you with everything that we know how to do because we don't know it all. But we'll be able to probably provide you, I would imagine, with a couple of hints, tips and just some suggestions from some of our past FBA Millionaires guests as well. And once again also too with the FBA Millionaires Club, we'll be able to allow you to understand a little bit more about maybe upcoming special events, offers and other benefits. Join the FBA Millionaires Club. You don't have to be a millionaire to join. You just need to have the desire to be that FBA millionaire and you find out all about it at fbamillionaires.com welcome back Jeff Allen along with Will Moffatt and our guest today, Tracy Hazard.

And Tracy, you've sparked my interest here because you've caught me thinking small and when I said eight figures you replied to me no, nine figures. And I love it. You making me up my game and I think we, we all have to up our game. So this is my question for you. What does a nine figure acquisition look like? I mean, what does a business have to do to get acquired for nine figures? Is it's something that, that I think we all should know.

Yeah. You know this is what I was saying to you before is that going from a million to 10 million, you, you can pretty much do the same thing you're doing. You just have to be really great. You have to refine it and you have to have a really great core audience that you're transacting with. So it's a high value audience that is just doing more business with you. So if you get that whole dialed in and usually you're going to be having diversified up to that point to your Shopify shop, you're on Amazon, you've Got a funnel going, maybe you've got subscription services going. So you've got other things in the mix there. So you've diversified and done all the smart marketing things to do. Okay? But to get from 10 million to 100 million, your business has to get some significant systems in place. And this is simple in the sense of there are hundreds and thousands of companies that have done this before you. So this is not. You need to reinvent everything. This is not utilization of new technology. In a way.

It'S fairly straightforward and simple. Basically, you have to get systems in place for product management, for managing the whole development of something new. From the point you get an idea to vetting that idea, to doing market research on that idea. You have to systematize that and make it a process that you can rely on and use with indicators that you should move forward or you shouldn't move forward. And you just want to run through that and feel that it's a reliable indicator. And what you don't want to do is get caught up in the oh, but I really like it. And you push it through anyway, right? You want to treat it like a hard and fast go, no go because you don't have a lot of time to mess around with. So yes, you might be able to make something work, but it's way better to table it at that stage and come back to it when your systems are in better place. Or maybe the market shifted and you're seeing that there's a bigger indicator and you can recycle it, come back around, reevaluate it again. That's my big thing about it is a lot of people get hung up in their products instead of treating them a little more loosely. They're not your babies, not if you want to get to 100 million, because you're going to sell them. So they're really not your babies. You're going to sell them off. So you have to think. You don't want to treat them callously either. They need to be important to your audience, but that's where you're gauging. Are they importance to this audience I've built or do I have to like shift all of my marketing, switch my messaging, build a new market to grow here? Sometimes you do. We have helped companies who were a furniture company who did TV stands and things like that, and we helped them get into office and chairs, right? It's not. It's using the same materials, the same production side of things, right? That none of that changed for them. So they didn't reinvent everything. But it was a new marketplace, and so we were brought in to give them that expertise as quickly as possible. So if you do have to reinvent, get yourself someone who knows what they're doing. But to go from that 10 million to 100 million. So product development systems in place, ways to quickly get and scale up your designs and your new products, consistently get them through the process, evaluation processes along the way. To say, it's good or it's not good, let's keep it, let's not keep it. The biggest mistake most people make is that they keep their SKUs too long. You keep your inventory too long, and so get out of stuff faster is one of the rules of $100 million company. But the other rule of it is you must make a lot more samples than you think you will have to. So now you have to shift your mindset of I'm a sampling and product development company because I've got to go through lots of ideas and vet them, because I've got to hit on the ones that fit the formula of what I know I can sell. It doesn't mean you've taken it along and you keep going with it. That's why that is different. The other part is you do have to have logistics systems. Maybe you're building that in house delivery, you're shifting all of those things and all of those components have to start communicating. That's the difference. Normally you have just one person who wears a ton of hats. Now you have to get different departments, different divisions, different, maybe even systems in place for how you're delivering. You maybe have a system that does warehousing and logistics, and maybe you have a system that does product development. You got to get them communicating together. So from a system standpoint, that's where it gets complicated. And again, though, this is something that you can model, that you can bring people in who know what they're doing, who've done it again and again. And you want to bring someone who's done it for a bigger brand, not someone who's done it from an Amazon seller and happened to grow up. Because typically what happens is they went up, got sold, and they didn't experience that sort of integration pain. Because what happens if you have to keep going?

Exactly. Makes total sense. Wow. And so, and just quickly to add on to that, what, what, what does a. Say, like a big brand say? Like, oh, okay, you know, like it's a pet brand and yeah, they see you coming and it's like.

What makes them say, you know, what we have to take them, Is it? Is it? They're taking Amazon sales, is it? They're taking publicity, they're taking share off shelves.

It's none of those, actually.

None of them really.

So the big brands are pretty isolated and egotistical. There's no question about it. Right. They are in their ivory towers. They have big corporations and they certainly don't want to admit that they're not. That they're. That some little seller is beating them out. Right. Like they would never admit that internally as an organization. So that's not how they look at you. Right. But there is a practical side to many brands. Right. And the practical side is I need more and more things that my buyer, my big buyer at big box or mass market wants. Right? That's their whole job is geared around that. Because think about it this way. I can sell one of my office chair at Costco, sells for about $20 million a year. So now granted, it's not mine. I say that that way. I designed it. We designed it, but it's not mine. It belongs to the brand that I designed it for. But their chair does about $20 million at Mass, at mass market, at club. That chair is also like the older version of it is sold on Amazon. It'd be lucky to do $400,000 a year. So like, to them, it's chump change. Right. They don't see that as why would they buy a brand that only does, you know, 400,000, it means nothing to them.

Yep.

And so that's not going to hit them. However, if your brand is transacting at such a great pace and you're in the place where that Costco buyer or that mass market retail buyer is paying attention, and that's where you're getting publicity. They're going to sit up and go, why aren't you doing something this innovative? And so now they have to scramble to do it. And so it's way easier for them to go, oh, let's just buy them and bring it in house. And that's it.

The whole thing about people in the big brands knocking you off, there's too many legal systems in place for them to do it on purpose. Now sometimes it happens because you all are thinking the same things at the same time because the market trends are there. It's not like they have special access or you have special access. Right. There's no garnering the market on innovative thinking. Right. It happens to everybody. And it can happen simultaneously because market indicators are there, but they're not out there looking to Steal your idea, but they would just rather buy it. It's faster because you already have a market share, you've already got your things going. If you're doing everything right, it's a whole lot faster for them to just do that, bring you in and present you as a part of their brand to the buyer. They'll be ready in less than six months. That's way faster than they can move on their product development because remember, they have systems and process in place now you don't, you're a little more agile.

Tracy, this is eye opening stuff. I mean, it's really, really huge that we're here talking with you about this. I know that some of these concepts and ideas and the questions we're asking are probably a little bit more kind of down the road in terms of, you know, how we're looking. We're looking to our future. You know, we want to be big. We want to be able to have that nine figure organization that, you know, eventually. And I think we should all kind of keep our eyes on the prize that we want to build a business that we can sell. That's what we want to do. I think that's what I think ideally that's what we would all like to do. So that, that way we can enjoy the fruits of all of our labors somewhere down the line. But let's suppose, let's suppose we're just kind of starting out, okay? And so we're talking from that little guy or little gal's perspect and we've got, you know, we want to create our own new product and one of those products, product lines that have really caught fire the last five years or so. Diffusers, everybody knows what these things are and there's millions of them. But we want to create our own diffuser. It's something we're very passionate about. For example, how do we get started? I mean, what questions should we ask in order for a company like yours for has design to help us design and build that great diffuser that everybody is going to want?

That's a great question because you know, we have a mantra here that hope is not a plan. And so if you're going through this and you're like, oh, hope I'm going to make a big brand, right? You're just, I'm hoping it's going to be fantastic. I'm hoping someone's going to want to acquire me. It doesn't work like that. You have to plan that in. It's got to be embedded into everything you do Every reason you choose a product, every time you look at a product and go, I've got to add something extra to this that is going to make me me only and make me acquirable. How am I going to do that? So these are questions that you have to ask. It doesn't always work that every time I look at a product I go, yeah, there's a really good path there. Sometimes there's not. Sometimes you shouldn't do something. And so the difference is that Amazon sellers have come out of a world of analytics. So you come out of this analysis of do I think all the indicators are right that I could rank on this item? Do I think all the indicators are right that there's interest in it, that it's in a growth Mode? Are Google AdWords tracking, you're looking at and you have a lot of data, but what you don't have is a bigger picture of what's out on the market and how it works outside of Amazon. That's the difference to how we evaluate and look at something because we're always looking at it. If you're going to spend the time and money to make something original, it better work at mass market because you need it to last that long to recoup your investment. And so that's how we're always looking at it. Is, is it added value? So most people go into a startup like thinking about a new product and they go in what they call the mvp, Minimum viable product. You've heard this before, it's a very software term, right? A minimum viable product. That's what they want to make. Your minimum viable product is the existing product you bought on Alibaba and put your logo on. That's minimum viable. So what we need to move to is maximum valuable product. And it has to be maximum valuable with the audience you intend to grow and with the audience that you know will be there. If you get to nine figures, right? When you get to nine figures, it's going to be there because they're also selling at mass market or they're also buying at mass market, right? So you want to make sure that it's valuable for them and it's going to carry through so that it can't miss being on the shelf someday that they're going to demand it, they're going to want it. So looking at that, that's how we look at a product, is we look at it and we go, okay, is this really on a growth trend or are we in a short life cycle on a product? And it can be that it's a short life cycle we can see because we study what's in the stores, we study what's going in and out. And so when things aren't transacting in stores, they will not come back to it, even if it was just before its time. Buyers will not get burned. So something that's totally great won't get back in until it's like killed it in an E commerce somewhere and they can't disregard it anymore or a new buyer comes in. And they were totally naive to all the history of it. That's how it happens. So you can't sell them something that they already sold that they failed on. And so you got to look at that too. You've got to know what went out, what didn't do well, what got closed out. And so having that view of what's in the stores is very, very different. And this is where us, us consumers have an advantage over our. The factory directs from anywhere in the world. Why? Because we can walk into stores, we can survey them. We can use tools that are out on the marketplace with actual shoppers. My favorite tool, I cite it all the time. Field agent Love. Field agent because they make people be actually in the store in the region you care about. So if you care about the Southwest, they will make sure that their demographic is standing there in the store Geo located so that you do know they really are from there and you're not just getting some random people who joined a survey.

Tracy, let me jump in. You know, we've got just a little bit of time left here on the show and I, you know, everything you're talking about here is really, really important. But sometimes I think that, you know, I am a little bit too close to maybe my products or maybe the products that I like. I know why I like those products. I know why I buy something that maybe somebody else doesn't. And I keep going back to that product again and again. But for those of us Amazon sellers who are looking to get a leg up and to have a better understanding of what makes truly does make a great product and one that we should have in our own stores. With product design, what are the elements of a likable brand? It's something that I can take and keep in my head for future that I can refer to. What are those things that pop up and stand out to you and Tom and the people you work with that make brands truly things that we like and we need to have?

That's the, you know, multimillion dollar question. Always all the time. It's like, you know, and it's different every single time. But. But deciding whether or not you should do something is the number one criteria for us is does it transact with women? Because women buyer control 86% of the consumer market.

They certainly do in my household, 100% as a matter of fact.

Same here, right?

It doesn't matter whether it's automotive. I mean, like, you know, there isn't a single category that's immune to that statistic. There are very few things. Now, services are different, but consumer products, women buy or control the majority of the marketplace. And so when you look at that, if your item is not, if you do not have in your store over 70% women, if that's not your consumer base, then you actually are not as profitable or valuable as you should be. So that's the first thing is, is that going to transact there? Is it already transacting there? And can I do more with women with the products that are doing well with women? So that's a criteria right there. And so that's our number one place where we add a lot of value. Because there are honestly very few women designers in this world. And there are. If you've ever been in any of your factories that are producing things in China or in other places in the 2015-20 years that Tom and I have been going there, we've never seen a female designer in any one of those factories.

Oh, wow.

So it's a huge advantage to be to tap into something that you know is going to work with women and that women want. So that right there is just an easy play in terms of judgment call about whether or not you should move forward on something or grow an area of your program. So that's it. But on the design side of things, we want something that is self explanatory. And that's the thing. If I have to explain how it works, then it will never make it at mass market. No one is there at Best Buy to sell stuff. No one is there at Target helping you. If they do, they don't even know what to say. They barely know where things are. Right. You've been in the stores, you know what it's like, right? So if it doesn't sell itself off the shelf, if it requires you to do a fancy video and a funnel to get it to sell, it's probably not a growth brand idea. And so that's where great design comes in in terms of making sure that it's tapping into something that that's New and innovative, but not something that's so new that I don't know how to use it and I'm afraid to buy it or I don't want because if I have to learn how to do something, it's going to take me a lot longer to decide to buy it from you. And so anything that we can do that just has one foot in innovation and one foot in what I know today. Think of it like if you're developing a Shopify shop. Right. Shopify is great because the user interface isn't reinvented every time I know how to shop when I'm in your store. And so they didn't make it difficult for me. And so that's the same thing you want to do on the product design side of things. You're thinking about making it easy for the consumer to comprehend. So those are the basic things. Everything else is up to the brand messaging, the audience you're talking to and making sure that it resonates with them and checking it. There's always a check process in what we do. Just because you like it, because I like it, doesn't mean it's gonna sell.

Yep. Makes total sense. Wow. Well, okay. This is amazing. And we've had a lot of value come from you, Tracy. Um, I've learned a lot and I'm sure Jeff learned a lot. Millionaires out there, they've learned a lot to take their business to the next level, that nine figure level. And that's what we're shooting for. So I, I would like to just say thank you. And if you could share just how can FBA millionaires out there engage with you or reach out to you? And Tom, if they would like to collaborate or get your services, how can they reach you?

Well, you can of course reach us on our website. Has design and that's has with two Z's. And because Hazard has two Zs, we're like that name. But we also have a podcast out there called Product Launch Hazards, again with two Z's. And Product Launch Hazards, we have a free one and a premium one and the free one has over 50 episodes that talk in deep dive on a lot of these details and also introduce you to some of those experts I told you about. So it's amazing how just hearing what someone else has to say can reinforce the vision that you have. And all of them are very, very accessible@productlaunchhazards.com and so you can access them, you can ask some questions. That's exactly how you can reach me. You can book a time with me. I love to talk to people about their business brands and their growth plans and where they're going. So don't be afraid. Reach out. So and then I also have a coupon offer for your members. So it's FBAM18 and I'll send you over the details. But basically, if they join us members, it's a hundred dollars off.

Oh, that is really, really nice. Tremendous. Very, very good, Tracy. That's terrific. We hope that you'll be willing to join us again at some point and maybe even bring Tom. I know who's very, very busy at this point in time, is not able to join us today, but maybe we can have you both on the program the next time. Again, thanks so much for joining us on our program.

Thank you both. I enjoyed it.

Thanks so much, Tracy. You're awesome.

And that's going to put the wraps on another edition of FBA Millionaires. And once again, our thanks to Tracy Hazard and she and her husband Tom, of course, owners of Has Design. Do check it out at hasdesign.com and check out fbamillionaires.com to join the FBA millionaires club. Make sure that in addition to doing that, if you're able to to hop on over to itunes, if you're not already aware, our show does show up there, give us a rating, let us know what we're doing, let us know how much you enjoy the show or what it is that you'd like us to do maybe a better job of so that we can help you take that next giant step in your FBA Millionaire's career that is on your way to becoming the FBA Millionaire that we'd love you to be. For Will Moffatt in Northern California, I'm Jeff Allen here in Southern California. We're looking for Forward to talking to you again on our next edition of FBA Millionaires. Until then, let's kill it.