Meet Amazon Experts Jeff & Jenna Lieber

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Hey, product Launch Hazards community. I've got a couple of experts I can't wait to introduce you to today. I've got Jeff Lieber and Jenna Lieber of Turnkey Product Management. That'll be all right here and proper in their expert profile on Product Launch Hazards members and you can find them in the Experts listing. And you're going to find lots of future episodes with them and videos and they're here to help you. But today I want us to get to know them and how they ended up starting their company. You guys are a brother and sister team, right?

Cousins.

Cousins. Boy, I'm really messing everything up. Cousins.

My sister does work with us also. She's just not on the call.

Oh, I think they might have said that maybe. So that's how that got in my head. So your cousins. Oh, how fun. And so let's take your stories a little separately then because you probably each came to this idea that you would become Amazon experts separately. So Jeff, let's start with you. What made that happen for you?

Sure, I'll try to keep it. Long story short, so I got into Amazon over four years ago. So I'm the founder of Turnkey. But before Turnkey I started a company, a pet products company. So I would have been great for your program four years ago. So yeah, I took a course on how to sell on Amazon and I just lived and breathed it and tried to do that on the side as I had another full time job. But that quickly grew larger than my job and so I was able to quit my job. And then I built and grew that products business. And then my sister helped roll out a spin off baby product business and then ended up selling that company last year in 2017.

Now that's a harder category too, so we'll talk about that a little later.

Yes, it is. But then meanwhile, like I had a couple friends that were entreprene and had physical products like they sell sunglasses and a couple other different products. And so they said, hey Jeff, how are you selling so well on Amazon? So I looked at that and gave them some tips and they're like, hey, can you just do it for us? We don't want to do that. We Want to focus on Shopify and Facebook and what they like doing and new products. And so I helped them. And that was how Turnkey was born. I didn't even quite know it.

Some of our businesses start that way.

Yeah, exactly. So didn't realize what a skill set it could be. And then as we built the team over the years, then Jenna hops on board and my sister and we've got a whole team of over 12 people and now we're doing it. So that company like this is our only focus, which is helping other companies to sell on Amazon using the strategies that we've built over the years.

Well, I want to get back to that story on how you sold your company too. But let's go on. Jenna, tell us how you got kind of excited about the Amazon model of selling.

Yeah, definitely. So I actually graduated a year ago last May and Jeff was rolling out this company and it was actually just kind of perfect timing. Like I think the applications were being accepted like my graduation day. So it was just really cool. It was a good opportunity.

Is there any nepotism? Cuz he was like, no, you have to apply like everybody else.

No.

And I didn't. I took it incredibly serious and it was really cool. So yeah, it was just really good timing. And I mean I've seen Jeff through the whole process of creating het line and everything and the baby line. So I kind of saw it all and I saw the processes he went through and I kind of definitely was like, this is really cool. This Amazon thing is super cool. So that's kind of how I got involved with it and why I was so excited about Turnkey and why I'm still currently excited about Turnkey is truthfully, it's an incredible thing that Amazon's put together and I'm glad that we can be a part of it.

That's great. Now, so what is your role, Jenna? What is your title? I mean, obviously Jeff's the founder.

So yeah, so I am a client manager. So I just have a batch of clients that basically just manage their whole account. So I have clients in the supplement part, I have clients in the coffee part.

Fitness pager, crossing a broad range of categories. I love it.

Tons and tons. Yeah. So different things. And that's basically what I do.

Wonderful. Now one of my premises here, and I have a couple of, I call them the hazard rules of hiring. And this is about not just hiring people internally because that's a little bit different, but the hazards rules of hiring a consultant or hiring a service company. This is like an asterisk I put on it. So I hire people who have been there, done that again and again and again. And I am not a fan of hiring somebody new to things. However, the exception to that is that we can't find anyone who's not new to Amazon selling. You haven't been doing it for decades. Right. It's not going to happen. Right. And so my asterisk to that is that means all these different categories, that they don't just have one experience, they have multiples of experience. Because in social media, if we're hiring someone who's a Facebook expert, the algorithm's changing every day. And so that's why your guys are so valuable, because you have a broader category, look at things. And you also have a, this didn't work for this customer and this customer, but it worked for this one and that one. And so you have, like, those things to draw on that I think is so invaluable. And then the next thing is that this is your core business. You're not building a whole brand and selling products. So you have all these other things distracting you to deal with so that you forget to stay an expert in how Amazon is changing. So tell me a little bit about how you keep up on that, Jeff. How do you keep up on all the changes that are happening all the time?

Yeah, no, and you make a good point. Amazon, just like Facebook and just like Google and SEO. I mean, the algorithm and all the strategies and Amazon's policies, they change on a daily or monthly basis almost. And so you really do have to keep up on it. And one of the best ways is going to conferences. That's actually.

That's how we met. That's right.

So conferences is a great way to stay up on all latest strategies. But we're in a lot of masterminds and groups and paid courses. I mean, everything that provides great value and all the latest tips and strategies. Because we learn one strategy and, like, we can roll it out to dozens of clients all at once. And so it really is a cool thing. And sometimes our clients will teach us something that we didn't know, which is like, one of the coolest things ever, where they're like.

It's like a feedback loop.

They tell us. We tell them like, we think you should try this. They're like, well, why don't we do it this way? And we're like, yes, we should do it that way. Jenna, tell Kevin to do that for all of his clients. Right.

Well, that's interesting. Like, we own a Podcast production business as well. And that's exactly the same thing. So like we guinea pig things on ourselves, on our own part of the business and then if it works for us, then we say, hey, this client could benefit the most from the value we had. And then we start rolling it out through all the clients and then when it works through multiples, we go, oh, all of them. And so it's the same model. And that's really great that you come from the experience of having sold. So you have that model of this is the challenges you were facing, this is what you needed. So it's much more. Instead of saying, I have this company and now I've added Amazon listings to it, you come from the perspective of what's in the best benefit to the product and the brand who needs to sell or present this product.

Yep. No, exactly. Cumulatively, across our whole team and myself, we've seen a lot. I've even built and done Kickstarters before and sold good amounts on there and ticking. And a lot of our clients have come from Kickstarter, Indiegogo and those platforms. So we've helped dabble in a lot of different places and telling the business sometimes if they ask questions, then we want to help them and work with our clients in any way that they need.

So, Jenna, I expect that there's going to be a lot of questions on our platform for you because you're that kind of day to day person. And so they're like, what do I need? What kind of photographs? There's this, like, we get a little in the weeds on our products sometimes, especially us inventors. And so product focused people get very all in the details. And so I'm sure that is a big case for you. But how do you manage the flow and make it really easy? Because I think the value you add is being able to take the stuff off my plate so I can concentrate on launching my products and developing them and doing the marketing and not worrying about like, did I word this listing right? Am I going to get my, my listing shut down or you know what's going to happen?

Right. I think it's more just based on experience, taking what worked for that last client. What can I apply to this client? It's more, I'll just ask for all of your images and I'll say, this is why I picked this one. Or if I need images, I'll be incredibly specific. I need this image for this reason. Kind of give a reason because some people will just be like, why do you need that? I don't understand. But a lot of the times we'll run into that and I'll just like, well, this is why. So it's more to make it easy on them. I do explain basically every move, but a lot of the times it gets a little bit easier when you have so many clients because it worked for this client, it's going to work for this client, it's going to work for that client. So in a way, all kind of starts to connect, I think.

So you have a lot more confidence in the process. But it's a lot of hand holding to explain the process to someone who's totally new to it.

Yeah, no, it definitely is. And I mean, and it's kind of actually fun, like getting on Skype with them, like saying, can you show me your screen? And I'm like, oh, it's right there. It's totally okay. It's understanding. You know, to me, I'm on Amazon every single day, but someone else, they're not on it every single day. So it's kind of fun to teach people new things. And even like Jeff said, sometimes they'll show us, hey, we ran across this because we accidentally this.

So there's this hidden area.

Exactly.

Like they'll accidentally find something. And sometimes that works in our favor. So it is really cool to kind of have more hands on a listing. So yeah, it makes it exciting.

So let's talk a little bit, Jeff, about your early experience with your brand yourself. So you said you had a pet brand in dog product, if I'm not wrong about that. And wish pet products is one of my favorite areas to design for. And then my second favorite is Juvenile. So you've also done in that world. But baby products and Juvenile is a gated category for some products within it. Is that correct?

Subcategories on Amazon and they are making it a little bit more difficult. But oftentimes you just have to supply whatever. Like if you're putting anything that's going to be put in the baby's mouth or something like that. Yeah, you're going to probably need to show Amazon like the proof of the materials list and that it meets these certifications. And but once you do that and assuming you have a safe product, which you always should make sure that you're doing, then you should be able to get selling.

Yeah, it might take longer in some of those areas and so you just have to be a little more cautious. So tell me a little bit about how you built it up to get it sold because that is what a lot of people. I mean, this is why we're here. We're here to asset build here in product launch hazards. We're here building a bigger brand that gets acquired or gets on the shelf. One of those two things or licensed license is another option as well. So what was the value that you added along the way and why did it make it so easy to acquire or difficult to acquire?

It was hard, yeah, man. Selling the business was one of. Maybe I could just do a whole session on that one time, because I think you should a lot of time and a lot of money on the selling process. But as far as like building the value of the business, actually we had almost like 95% of our sales were on Amazon. So we were like primarily a one channel, one trick pony. And we were on Walmart.com and Shopify and Chewy.com and a couple of others, but very small stuff there. So I mean Amazon was really the what got it sold because it was 95% of the sales, 95% of the profits. And so that's the beautiful thing today. It wasn't possible 15 years ago, but now you can launch an E commerce physical product on Amazon alone, even 100%. It's obviously better if you can have more sales channels. But when you build up Amazon the right way, when you have a base of hundreds of reviews across your products, you've really built something. And then the other key thing is when you have systems in place and preferably a team in place as well, so that it's not reliant on you, the owner adding the value. Because whoever's buying your business, they want to buy a profitable business, they don't want to buy you. And you don't want them to buy you either because you don't want to stay on as an employee or be chained to them for years and years and hundreds of hours. And so if you can build systems and those profitable systems and operations in place so that the buyer can see that and the buyer feels comfortable that, okay, if I bought this business, it would only take me four weeks to be handed over the reins to the business and understand how it runs. And we build a lot of stuff in Asana project management software. That's our bread and butter. But any system works, doesn't need to be a sauna. But you can build your system so it's in Google Drive or whatever. That's a really valuable asset that's going to be attractive to a buyer. They don't want a messy business that's going to take forever to figure out.

I think it's asana.com, i'm typing it in the chat here because I want everybody to get used to where you can find that. So if you say some kind of website or something, I'm going to send it, I'm going to get it here so you can link to it. We use something called Basecamp, but Asana and Basecamp are fairly similar. Although Asana has a lot more notification details and process flow. You're right. Those things are so critically important to someone taking over. And there may be a lot of people who are really getting bought just for their product, just for their listing. And so there had to be value there because consumer product business is not highly valued by market standards. So you don't get multiples. It's like not an easy thing to sell a consumer product business because tomorrow you could be out of trend and your sales decline. Right. And so they don't look at that as high. So you had to have had some good value elsewhere. And that's one of the things you're talking about, is really good systems and other things. But I'd love for you to tell our group here, because we care a lot about the product is like, why do you feel your products were better too? Why did they sell so well? Why were you able to get 100 reviews and have them be so complicated?

Sure. So, and we would recommend this for all of our clients. Like, you'll see most of our clients, they have really great products. There's always at least one innovative tweak about it. Like if you're just selling another can opener off the shelf. Because can openers sell hundreds of thousands of dollars a month on Amazon. Like it's going to be really, really hard to be successful unless you can add some sort of value to that product. So making sure. So every product that I've ever sold, it always had some tweak. Either have an idea or I would. My sister had an idea and then we went and built it. Or I hired an engineer to build something. And so the more value you can add.

Original originality, we call it intentional invention here. That's kind of our bread and butter is how we do it. Sometimes it's IP and sometimes it's just really having something so much better than everybody else, style wise.

And you guys may already talk about provisional patents, but like that's a really cost effective way to for like 3 or 400 bucks. Again, I'm not a lawyer.

Jason and Rich are on our platform. They'll be Happy to talk to you about the legalities, but they all believe the same thing. And something that we do too is provisional patents. Exactly the same thing. Cost effective. Prove your market, prove your product is worth something, then spend money.

Exactly. Yeah. It buys you a year, whatever it does. So that's what we do.

Now, what about profitability? Like, there's a lot of people who complain about Amazon and that's like, if Amazon were to buy my products or I'm selling them as fba, like there's a whole kind of controversy over, oh, you shouldn't sell on Amazon. We hear that a lot from people who really, I think, aren't in the know about it. So demystify that a little bit. I mean, it's high fees, but building it yourself is higher.

And a lot of clients that we talk to, they have this concern as well. So yeah, Amazon will typically take a 15% cut is their fee just for accessing their platform. Now that seems expensive. But if you don't use Amazon and say you're just building a Shopify or e commerce WordPress site, where are those customers going to come from? You have to go out and pay for those customers somewhere on Facebook ads or Instagram ads or you got to get real creative and really find ways to get lots of free organic traffic. If you find those ways, let me know because it's very hard.

We're all looking for them, right? Yeah. I mean, no, this is so true. I mean, do you have any idea the current numbers? I have to look it up. But the current numbers on how many people are shopping on Amazon, I mean, the prime numbers, the significant amount of.

Yeah, 90 million just in the U.S.

You'Re bound to find, if you've got a good product, a portion of that 90 million user base to find you. Where else could you be that you could do that? You can't even do that in a mass market retail store. I can tell you that right now. You'll do a lot more volume because they're all over the country. But you can't do it simply and easily. And 15% is cheap to try to have access to that. Now remember, that's not conversion access, that's just access. But they deserve it. They worked hard to build up that 90 million base and that's where that 15% comes from.

And again, what you're paying for is that they're the biggest online store in the world. And we'll cover this in our next presentation. We've got some slides on all the stats. But basically, if you Think that, say you're selling dog toy right now. There's already millions of people, tens of millions of people that are searching for dog toys every single year in different variations, different keywords. Maybe they want a fetch toy, a long range fetch toy, a Frisbee dog toy. Whatever they're searching for, they're already searching for that with the intention that they want to buy something. Like right then, right? Like they're ready to buy, like, let me just show me the product, got enough reviews, I'm going to buy it right now. That's what you're paying for if you can get in front of them. That's your cost to acquire a customer oftentimes, Right. Versus you're going to have to pay that on another platform like Facebook, where they're not looking for a dog toy.

They'Re not looking to buy on Facebook. Right. They're looking to communicate with their friends. It's a big, big difference. And it's the same thing about Google, right? Someone searching into Google, they're looking for something. Which is why if you meet the criteria, you have a higher conversion rate, you have a higher opportunity to get the click. Right. It's the same thing on Amazon. And so yes, being in a place where the intention is to buy is a whole lot more valuable than having to find them out there and convince them it's time to buy. That's a lot harder. Ask. So worth it. Now, what about other costs like doing FBA and other things like that? It varies so much by category and by product type and size, I think. So is it still really less expensive than having your own warehouse and having your own staff?

Yes, that's a great question. And the cost will vary based on your size and all that, but there's a couple benefits of fba. So FBA is fulfillment by Amazon. That's the warehouses. So Amazon has warehouses all over the country and they are probably the biggest or the top two or three shipper in the entire world. So they ship using UPS, FedEx and USPS. So they're the biggest volume shipper probably in the world. And so they get the cheapest fulfillment rates and discounted rates. Then you could get on your own, fill in a shopify order. Right. So you might have to pay eight bucks to ship to New York, but Amazon might be able to get it for three or four bucks. Right. So actually the fulfillment rates can actually be cheaper with Amazon. And then the other benefit is once you're with fba, that's how you get that prime eligible tag where you get their world class free two day shipping, all that good stuff. They're starting to roll out the drone shipments and the one hour shipments.

I don't know if I'm ready for that yet. So this is my statistics. Like it's almost embarrassing how old I am that I have been shopping on Amazon since 1998 when I bought my very first book. And you can see that in the history of your account because I've had the same account that whole time. And so I can see the history of my purchases and it gradually grows and grows and grows and grows and grows to where I probably buy more on Amazon today than I buy at any other store except for maybe the grocery store. And even that's tipping because I use Amazon Fresh a lot or prime now a lot. So even that is starting to tip as well. So when you have a prime shopper, they're way more loyal. And so do you guys know the statistics on that? You're going to share that in one of your upcoming. I hope you do. Yeah. Okay, good. Because the statistics are really high in the loyalty level. And so that's what I think, that pattern of behavior tapping into as well. And you're getting the benefit of that.

Yeah. There's a lot of customers out there that those people who are paying the 60 or $70 a year for their prime membership, they will not enter their credit card on any website out there ever. They'll go look on Amazon, is it there? If it's not there, they're not going to go buy it@tracy's dogtoys.com right? Right. There's some people that won't do it. They'll be like, okay, I'm going to buy another dog toy on Amazon. Right. So you're really missing out on that pool of traffic. We're not trying to say you should not have a shopify store or you should not pursue retail. You absolutely should. And that's going to increase the value of your business, the sellable value. The more channels you can have is great. But Amazon should be in almost every business. The answer is yes. You should have Amazon channel your reputation. It's everything.

Right? And this is what I think. So for those of you out there who have never launched a product before, what you don't realize right now is that the cost of building a warehouse, having a team fulfill those and ship those, it's a sort of nickel and diming mindset that you're going to start with. And it starts with thinking, I don't have the money to do this, I don't want to give away my margin because I'm selling zero right now. Right. And so every sale seems to matter. But at the end of the day, if it's cutting down the volume of what you're able to do in your business and your ability to build your business, then you're not serving your future and your brand well in terms of making it acquirable, making it bigger, getting it growing fast enough, and speed matters in consumer product sales, because it could be out tomorrow, something could change. And so that's really why this kind of system and service is so valuable, to be able to take advantage of an Amazon and an FBA market and all those things. And that's why I've invited turnkey on here and Jeff and Jenna to participate in office hours as experts. Because I know these things worry you as you're launching products. And so they're here to like, hatch you, they're here to support you. They're here to just like, take it over for you. Because think about this. I would love to have a Jenna on my team, right? Wouldn't you love to have the person managing. I mean, that's what you would have to build. I have to have a person who's going to manage my Amazon listings and take care of all that and do that. So if I can't afford, or maybe it's not a great idea for me to be affording that in a time at which I'm building my brand and should be spending more money on marketing, then let me spend that money now and have a consulting firm take over that for me. And so that's the kind of reason why these resources are here for you members and here for you guys to be able to tap into both the brains. Because sometimes you're making decisions along the way. Like I think a great question and a great time for you to make a consult appointment with Jenna would be, hey, I'm thinking about using you guys. I'm pretty sure I'm going to. And I got to take my photographs right now and what should I do? And I bet you we're going to do an episode on that coming up, right? Because it matters, right? Because the last thing you'd want to do is then go ahead and have to have a second photo shoot if you do it in the wrong order. And so that's one of the key parts of what we have built here for you guys at product launch Hazards is the fact that you have access to Jenna and Jeff and all of our experts and be able to ask the questions when it matters to you or when you're concerned about it. When it raises a red flag is I gotta take pictures and I'm going to need them for Amazon. Are there requirements? Oh, let me get a list of those so that I'm ready and Jenna's not going to ask me to do them again. Right. So this is the fastest path for you to launch and it's also the least expensive way because you won't be doing a lot of redo and so utilize our resources. That's why they're here and that's why they're here to support you and take you to the next step. So Jenna and Jeff, you guys are going to do your next episode on sort of like a 101 on selling on Amazon and what it's going to take and what you guys, why. But is there anything else you want want our members to know about? You got that one?

Yeah. I think if you guys are at any phase, like yeah, we're a full, we can do full service for you and do all that but like there's a lot of people that aren't a great fit for us. Maybe you're not quite ready for like our full service yet, but we also have other resources available and other lower touch programs that we can help with you guys with the training. So if you guys don't have the budget but you want to do the photo shoot yourself and try listing the products yourself, that's fine too. You can still reach out to us. We'll give you the resources that you need. Bootstrap it in the beginning. So that's fine as well, so that.

They'Ll be ready for you later because. Yeah, exactly. Well, that's so great. And this is why you guys are here, because your interest is in the right place. You want to make these products sell because when they sell, we all win. There are better consumer products out there. Amazon's growing, which means there's more third party sellers who get attracted to it. Brands can win. And so I appreciate that. I also really think that there is a lot of our businesses, a lot of our product companies and brands on this membership group that are starting out that think that Amazon's not important, that all they want to do is get on the shelf. And so we're going to do a talk with Timothy Bush, our on the shelf expert in sales on mass market retail and he's going to tell you what I tell you every time I give a talk. You must also be on Amazon if You want to present to mass market retail because it gives you three things. It gives you credibility. You exist, you're a big enough brand and invested in your brand. Number two, that you can deliver because they can check it. They can see if you've like got a bad reviews, if you've shipped late, all that stuff shows up in your profile. And third, that they have confidence that there's a pretty good chance when you say, hey, we're selling really well on Amazon, they can check it and they can say, yeah, if that sells really well there, it's going to sell even better in Target, it's going to be sell even better at Bed Bath and Beyond. So they know that and they look for that. So that's though not a core business you want to build. Jeff and Jenna are here for you and I really want you to be aware of that because it's not a critical you're on that path to get on the shelf, but you must let this part be taken care of because it is a critical stepping stone to getting you on that shelf. And Tim's going to talk a lot more about that. So thank you guys today and be looking for their next office hours with that 101 and also be looking at you guys anytime you can send messages into the platform of topics you'd like Jenna and Jeff to talk about things that you have questions about. If you're unable to make the next office hours, but it's so important to you to get a question asked, make sure that you also send us an email in and we'll make sure that we put it into the chat and that we ask that question when they're doing their next talk. So make sure you guys know how to use the platform and if you have any questions, reach out to us. Thank you, Jeff and Jenna. I can't wait. And thank you so much for participating in Product Launch Hazards.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you. It's been awesome.

Thank you for joining us on this episode of Product Launch Hazards. To get the most out of your membership, visit productlaunchhazards.com to join the expert office hours live and ask us your burning questions. Check out the resource library for document templates and guides and get exclusive articles and shares each day. Don't forget, you can always book a private consult with any expert so you can out design, outsource and out profit your way to product launch success.