South American Sourcing Of Products with Tim Jordan

Protect your brand, product or invention from the hazards of consumer product launching and go from idea to product to big brand. With guidance from retail product design and development experts Tracy and Tom Hazard. Get the insider secrets to put the right things in the right order with the right resources so you can out design, outsource and out profit your way to retail success.

Hey, product launch hazards, this is Tracy Hazzard here and I am excited to bring to you somebody who was introduced to me by Michelle Barnum Smith, who you guys know, we love that Chatbot episode. She killed it. It was amazing and it's one of our top most recently listened to episodes. And she sent me someone, she sent me Tim Jordan of Hickory Flats. And Tim has private label Legion. Is that the name of it? Yep, that's the community Legion. And I love that it's a Legion. And he has been doing this. You built a seven figure business, Hickory Flats or the previous brand?

So I've had multiple brands, multiple businesses selling products, done a lot of things right, done a lot of things wrong. And then that kind of delved into the service based business which is Hickory Flats. We help other product sellers and in sourcing and development and also like platform management, that type of thing.

Right. Well, we're going to talk about that because Tim has some really alternative sourcing ideas for you guys. And I really want to dive deep into it because he's the first person I've heard of who offers these services. Small guys and girls out in the world where usually those kind of alternative sourcing groups are huge conglomerates and it's really hard to access them. My big brands can do it, but the smaller brands cannot. So that's really exciting. But I want to learn a little bit more about what got you started in the Amazon selling world because everybody's story is a little bit different about what excited them about it. So what excited you, Tim?

So I actually found Amazon selling by accident. I found E Commerce by accident. I was working for a company that was providing products to the State Department.

So that's definitely not normal.

Yeah. So government, overseas operations, everything non military. One of the things that we sold was a lot of automotive truck parts. Right. A lot of oil filters. And one day I'm looking at our wholesale cost sheet and I can buy this oil filter for $3. And I just happened to Google it, found it on Amazon for like 29. And I was like, wow, there's a big discrepancy here.

That's a big margin.

Yeah. And I had no idea that you could sell On Amazon. So I literally posted a Craigslist ad, and I said, if anybody knows how to sell on ebay, I'll hire you to show me. Because I'm thinking, I can sell these things on ebay, right? So this guy walks in, he looks at the catalog. He says, you need to sell on Amazon. And we're like, okay. So on the wholesale model, like, within the first 12 months, we sold well over seven figures. That was my first introduction to E commerce and kind of changed the game.

Yeah, I bet it did. So you mentioned it wouldn't be product launch hazards if we didn't talk about all the mistakes and misses. And usually I save it for the end, but because I want to talk about the sourcing as our primary conversation here, there's a lot of things that go wrong.

Yes.

Finding your second product was probably the number one thing, right?

Yeah. So I'd wake up every morning, I go, man, are we gonna lose our vendor? Is there gonna be another seller on our listings? So we needed something that was our own, right? We needed our own product. We needed our own brand. I knew that, but I didn't know how to do it. So the first thing I did is I went out and started listening to the Amazon selling gurus. So you want a mistake? There's one of your mistakes right there.

As you can see, my face, if you are on the video, I'm making the face like, oh, yeah, that mistake. It's not that they don't have the good hearts or they didn't start out, or they weren't really successful in their fakes. It's the information's a little old.

Things change. So I'll tell you, the first product that I found that was my golden ticket item was a emergency car hammer. It's this little orange plastic hammers that break out the windows of your car if you, like, get stuck or run into water. Right? So I didn't know anything about hijacking listings. I didn't know what that meant. So I looked, and there was a listing on Amazon that sold this hammer for $15. And I already had been sourcing in China. I had an office set up over there. I had sourcing agents. So I said, hey, guys, find me this hammer. And they said, here's your hammer. And it was the exact same hammer. And it was like, 60 cents. And I said, send me 300. And I got the 300, and I sent them into Amazon on that other listing, and they all sold in, like, seven hours. And I was like, holy crap. I figured it out I'm gonna be a millionaire. Right? What I didn't know is that other product that had a little brand sticker on it protected that listing. So my Amazon account got shut down. So we're doing like six figure revenue a month on Amazon. Boom, suspended. We went six weeks, had to get reinstated. It was a nightmare. And then I said, well, no problem, I'll just set up my own listing because now I've reordered. I've got like 6,000 of these hammers, right? So I got to set up my own listing. And it was tough because there's already 500 listings for the same product, Right. So I had that kind of happen to me a few times where I had a piece of software tell me, hey, this is a great product idea, launch it. And we invested a ton of money, time, energy and effort in launching this thing. And it was a me too product. There was no barrier to entry. There's nothing unique. Basically no way to break into this market. We were just following the leader, right? So I didn't give up. I started beating my head against the wall and figuring out there's got to be a way to create a unique product that we can sell, not just on Amazon, but to sell, like, to sell on any platform. So we went through a extremely lengthy process of trying to find products that were in demand before there was competition.

Wow. And it's a lengthy process. And it's manual, right? There's not a software shortcut? No, it's all manual. And I love that. So how did that lead you to kind of to looking for alternative sources? Is that how that happened?

Yeah, well, the first step was just finding products and alternative, like, idea sources. So most people don't know it, but Pinterest is one of the biggest search engines in the world.

Well, and here's the tip on Pinterest. So smiling, because this is like my secret weapon that I've been using for my clients. And you kind of keep in mind my big brand clients would never go on Pinterest. Like, they would never know to do that. So it's my secret weapon, is to go on Pinterest and find stuff. But most of the stuff that's what frustrates Pinterest users is that most of the stuff's not available for sale. It's like, old, right? It's out of stock already or it's.

Do it yourself stuff. So, like, a lot of home decor is diy. So what we started doing is figuring out, hey, what was trending up in Pinterest. What were we seeing a lot of? And we would just replicate it. So we would send pictures to China or somewhere and like make prototypes and we try to narrow it down. But. And that was going okay, but we were still not scaling the way that we wanted to. So parallel to all this time, like simultaneously, I was doing a lot of work down in Central America and down in the Caribbean, okay? So before I even got into the State Department job, I was a full time firefighter, paramedic, I was on a FEMA urban search and rescue team. Got deployed down to Haiti in 2010 of that big earthquake. I've done a lot of medical stuff, I've done a lot of home building stuff in Central America and I had a heart for it. And I met these folks, it was a husband and wife that moved down to Honduras years ago. They were down there doing philanthropic mission work type stuff. And they really felt for the extremely impoverished culture. Okay? Right now everybody in politics is talking about the migrant caravans coming from Central America to the Mexican border. Look, they're desperate, I get it. The gangs are awful, the unemployment 70%. The World Health Organization lists extreme poverty at living under a $60 a day per person. Like 65% of like Guatemala and Honduras is in that extreme poverty zone. So I understand it now, the answer is not to pack up everybody and walk 900 miles and try to enter the U.S. illegally.

They want to stay in their homes, right? Everybody wants to stay with us where they grew up. And yeah, I mean, we all do that.

So these friends that I had when they went down there, they started doing a lot of research and they found out that the way to change an entire civilization almost is to empower the women. Alright? And the reason that they determined empowering the women is so important is because the women spend all of their money, time, energy on their children, but doing two things, creating stability, so food, clothing and shelter, and creating education. And when you stabilize a culture and you educate a culture, then things start progressing through generations and things get better. So they set up this mission. And this mission was to empower women by educating them on trades, okay? So they set up and they were using just free funding, you know, they're raising funds for sewing classes and secretarial classes and jewelry making and even cooking. And what they would then do after this free course, these women that applied, they'd give them a micro loan. So they'd say, okay, here's $150, go out and do your thing. And these women would go out and buy an old sewing machine. And some silk thread and some fabric, and they go and check on them six months later, and they've got this, like, booming business out in the little village in their rent and their family is stable. So they said, wow, this is interesting. Like, let's double down on this. They started raising more and more funds. So about the same time that Mark and Laurie Connell, by the way, the name of that organization is called Mia Speranza. If you go to, I think it's the women of my hope.org you can find their website or just type me, am I Esperanza? Google that out and you'll find them in to Gusa Gapa, Honduras.

So we'll make sure that's in the show notes for this episode. So definitely you're driving. Don't write this down. Try to memorize it. Got you covered.

Marketing lawyer gonna look one day and have like 600 emails wonder it came from.

That's right.

So at the same time, so parallel to that going on, the Toms Shoes phenomenon happened.

Okay, buy one, get one. Yeah, yeah.

Tom Shoes is a $1 pair of shoes. It's canvas with a rubber sole. You can buy them at Walmart for seven bucks. But people pay 60 to $70 a pair of because of the story. Buy one, give one. Right? So if you go to their website right now, tomshoes, the first thing that shows up on their website is not a pair of shoes. It's a picture of a community in India or Africa or somewhere that's extremely impoverished. And they're telling the story of you, right? So what Tom Shoes figured out how to do was instead of creating a sales funnel, right? So you have a landing page and a website, and you filter all these people down in leads and try to get in a buy. They figured out to make a product where the people that hit the bottom of their funnel would flip that funnel up and turn it into a loudspeaker. And now they're blasting out about their brand. It's free advertising, right? So they made the consumer the hero. People are taking pictures and posting on Instagram. Hey, look what I did. I bought these shoes. I'm a hero, right? So they changed, like, everything. So I'm looking at Tom Shoes, I'm looking at me, Esperanza. But so were some big brands. So there's some big brands, like big subscription boxes. One of them is called Tribal Live. Okay? Tribalive. They do, like, a lot of women's jewelry and stuff. And Tribal. I was going, gosh, we need that story to sell our jewelry and they started Googling around, and they found this little nonprofit organization that teaches women how to make jewelry down Tegucigalpa, Honduras, called NE Esperanza. And they called me Esperanza. And they said, hey, do you do production? And they said, no, we teach. And then we do micro loans. And you're like, yeah, but how many women have been through your jewelry making academy? And they're like, 230 or whatever the number was. They said, looking for more work? And she said, maybe. So she called up a few, and they said, yeah, if you want to do, like, a private label production run, you know, we can all meet up at the workshop and do this. So Tribal Odd gave them a design, they replicated it, did a prototype, and gave them a quote. And I remember being down there, and Lori Connell, the lady who runs it, she's talking to a group of us, and she's like, yeah, it's so exciting. We might actually make somebody else's products now. And it won't be many, but it'll be something. So, like, a couple weeks later, she gets a call. Travelife says, we have a purchase order for you. We hope you can handle it. And Lori says, well, how many is it? And Travelife said, 82,000 bracelets. That's right.

I knew.

82,000.

Welcome to the world of real retail. Right?

I'm sure after Lori, like, picked her fainted body up off the floor, they figured out, like, holy cow, we can actually do this. Like, let's make production capabilities and let's set this up. And so I'm watching these big brands trying to reach out to them, and I'm going, oh, my goodness. Like, I'm over here beating myself up, trying to sell me, too. Products from China. The big corporations, the big brands are having a really hard time pivoting. But we're nimble. Like, we're quick. We can be responsive. We can do anything. So I decided there's got to be a way to help the problem with unemployment in Central America while building a business of great products around a story that makes the consumer the hero. Okay, So I went down. I had some contacts in Guatemala. Guatemala in Central America is kind of the hub, like, of commerce and logistics, right? So I go down there and I get these guys together and I say, and these are all entrepreneurs down there. I say, guys, I've got an amazing plan. I want to start sourcing products here to sell on Amazon. And they said, no, won't work. So what won't work? And they said, you're a gringo. I said, gringo, what's wrong with that? And they started explaining, they said the artisans and the workers here have been exploited for so long for cheap labor. And I started learning that it's not just the gringos. There are giant corporations in South Korea years ago that wanted cheaper labor and had a ton of capital. And they set up deals with the Central American governments to set up these giant manufacturing facilities in Central America to produce goods to come to the U.S. they produced them there because you can actually trade cross border from Central America or Mexico into the US tax free. Right?

So this is early nafta, right? A little bit different now, but it's early now, right?

Yeah. So essentially they'd been exploited and they said we don't want to do it. So long process went through and I said no, we're going to figure this out. So we started reaching out to individual artisans we had contacts to. And our first product that we sold was actually reverse engineered. Alright, so what we're doing is all of these products that are saturated on Amazon, the first seven pages of a highly ranking keyword are all ceramic, glass or stainless steel made in China. And I'm like holy crap, let's make one out of wood and let's make it handmade and let's make it beautiful and let's do it. So these items that are selling for like $1819 on page one of an Amazon result, I can get made for $3 without haggling their price and make sure that their employees are fair wage, fair trade, right? Certified. And that product now doesn't have to compete with that 17 or $18 price point because it's artisanal and handmade, I can sell it for 30. So we tested it and like with no promotional stuff, none of that black hat ranking stuff, like one day we woke up and we're on page one and we're like oh crap. We stocked out overnight and we've only been launched for a week and a half. And we're like, how do we ramp this up? So like now we're trying to figure out how to ramp up production. These artisans are going what? You ordered a hundred and now you want how many? And we're like 1500. And they're like holy crap. And they pick themselves up off the floor and they're like now what?

Like we need more laborers. So good, they're growing their cottage industry, massive unemployment.

So then we started looking into alright, now how do we start scaling this up? Because there are a lot of other sellers that want to be able to source these products. So we actually set up a forum down there and we set up a forum with the same guys that told me it can't be done. Brought them all in, said, guys, we're gonna do this, how do we do it? They said, alright, if you're going to do it one, you have to have local management, okay? I said, no problem. So we actually set up a company in Central America that is partially owned by Guatemalans, right. And they work for us and they're also part owners of this. And their entire job is to protect two people, the artisan and the buyer. Alright? Because what we can't do is break the trust of these artisans. So it took us a long time to start developing the trust, right. And developing the credibility down there. And when people started seeing the orders come back, come back, come back. Because what would happen, even the artisans is someone come in and say, oh, I need this order. If you sell me 200 units, I'll buy 2,000 next time. And I need it really at this beat down bottom of the basement price, right? So they would buy extra machinery and buy extra labor. And the second order never come in and they never made money on the first order, right. So we stick to our guns about pricing. We make sure that's price fair. We've had artisans give us a quote and we say, nope, that's too cheap. We know you can't do that cheap. Like you're saying $3, you should probably be charging 450 because we're going to sell that item for $30 on Amazon. There's enough, whatever site, there's enough margin for us. So we started building credibility and then we opened it up to our Hickory Flats clients, to our public clients, right. So then things got really interesting because we found out there's a massive flood of people that were looking for alternative sourcing and nothing was set up. So one of the first companies that really got involved with this is called Mayan To Call. Okay. Mind call. They just released their website. Mayan Takal M A Y A N T I K A L They're not even looking at selling E commerce, but they're looking at high end leather products in these retail stores. And Central America has some of the nicest leather you've ever seen.

Some of the most beautiful leather.

Amazing.

So I've sourced leather all over the world, mostly for office chairs and everything. Some of the most beautiful leather, yes.

So it took us nine months and at the end of nine months, we had over 40 prototypes in three different colors. We had a catalog built out and now sales reps are taking orders for the fall order in Q4 and working with these relationships and these artisans and producers and everything. We've got amazing stuff that nobody can replicate. The quality is amazing and they've got a story behind it, right? So where a normal company that says, oh, I want to sell a leather product, like, they're looking at somewhere really inexpensive like China, and they're trying to find something that's just the cheapest. But when you have a better product and a better story, it doesn't matter.

I think you've hit on something though, that is really unique. So because you have people on the ground whose job it is to protect the artisans, then you also have someone who also can bring the artisan ideas forward, which means that you have something people never seen before. So you have something fresh and a fresh new perspective. Because the thing that I find that my skill set has really helped with over time when I go to Asia and other places, is I show them things that they didn't imagine they could make before. And so. But you can also exploit, and I don't mean that in the nasty way, I mean you can also take advantage of, like what they do best. Like they have the most beautiful leather or they have an amazing stitch style that's never been seen before, isn't typically seen on purses and handbags and like that kind of thing. So you can make something that they can do extremely well, and you can utilize that in a way in which you really make a signature piece of and a signature product for your brand so that being able to have that conversation and that collaboration is essential to that process. And I see the Amazon sellers who buy from the distance or the E sellers who are buying from this distance, their email, their numbers, they've never been to the factories before. They don't understand what they can do. They don't understand the possibilities and the opportunities. And to be honest with you, they're setting themselves up so that there's this wall between you and the manufacturer and you've not done that. You've created this dialogue.

And it goes both ways because the manufacturers have limited themselves too. The manufacturers have no idea what people want because they're disconnected too.

Right. They want to hear that, they want feedback, right? Yes, because they'll make more of it.

Oh yeah, we do sourcing retreats. Okay. A sourcing retreat is we literally take people down and do like this week long immersive trip, we go down to Guatemala, five star accommodations. It's like an awesome thing. We do workshops and training, but mostly what we're doing is educating people on what can be made there. So people sign up for this thing. We've got one coming up in May and people are emailing me. They're coming out like, tim, what research should I be doing? I'm like, quit doing research. Let's get down there first. And we'll send them through workshops. We'll go to these artisans. Once they see the materials and the construction type, like, boom. It's mind blowing. So we are limited on the types of products. So we do leather, textiles, ceramics, woods. Really, really good coffee. So there's people that want to launch a product of coffee accessories. Well, it's saturated, right? But if you can come down, like on our trips, we take people to these co ops that are all organic co ops of local artisans. And it's all like coffee that's cupping out at 90, like, really, really, like some of the best coffee in the world. And they're like, holy cow, I figured it out. So instead of just selling on Amazon, like, let's set up a click funnel campaign and all those products that I want to sell from China, like the French presses and all that stuff, I'll start bundling it with this amazing coffee that tells a story about this organic co op that's run by these families. And I'll do Instagram pictures of the families and not even the coffee. And then I'm going to sell more French presses. So people's minds are getting blown. But on the other hand. So that's part of. It's like going down, experiencing. But then people do come in and they say, tim, I've got this product line of office accessories and everything that I sell is from China and I'm getting beat up on price. Or, Tim, I've looked at 20 products on Helium 10 or Jungle Scout and they're all saturated. And I'll say, do you want to sell those products? And I'll say, yeah. And I'll say, buy one. Buy one of each and put it in your suitcase. And we go down there and when we meet with these artisans and introduce our clients to the artisans, not only are we getting to see what they do and getting this like, immersive experience, but we're literally opening up suitcases and going, can you make this?

Can you make this better, please?

They're picking up this thing and they're going, yeah, this is garbage. I can make this better. So what we're doing is we're taking data and we're taking analytics of those saturated items, Right? So let's say there's a men's iPad sleeve made of cheap leather from China, Right? And it's selling for 1499, but it's got 500 of you. So you know they're selling a ton of them. And the size is perfect and the shape is perfect, and everybody loves it. Buy one of those things, let's take it down to two or three artisans and let them look at it and touch and feel the leather that you want. And let's literally just reverse engineer that thing. To me, it's not patented or something, but make it in a lot nicer leather. Let's tell the story of the artisans, the producers. You want something really cool to do, throw on some sort of tag. Hey, every one of these that you sell, we're actually going to give $30 a month to a family in the community where these artisans live to put their kids through school for a year, like, adding those stuff. And now you're not selling a product, you're selling a brand. Like, you're not worried about selling a product on an ad. When I speak at these conferences, I pull up a slide, and on one side is a woman weaving this really awesome back strap weaved cotton. And she's looking at the camera, smiling. And the other side of the slide is a purse. The purse is made by her of the same fabric. And I just pop the slide up, and I don't say anything. And I sit there for about 15 seconds, and I look at everybody in the crowd and I say, what have you been staring at for 15 seconds? And they're staring at her. They're staring at the woman smiling. That's making the stuff. So stop trying to sell just a generic product. Create a unique product with a unique story, and it sells itself. So that's when, like, everything went nuts for us. Like, we figured out there's an unlimited supply of product ideas. Okay.

Because there should be. I just want everybody to hear that. Thank you for saying that, because that's how I feel. People are like, I can't find anything. I'm like, you're not looking hard enough.

You're not looking hard enough. Let me pause. Or you're looking the wrong way. And maybe you're looking in a way that you've been taught that is not accurate. Maybe you're not stupid, but you're a little naive. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

And, hey, I've done it, too. Like, I have beat my head against the wall, and I'VE still got pallets of stupid car hammers stuck in a pallet somewhere. I get it. I understand it.

We got to figure out a way to get those moving for you. We're going to come up with a new way. Like, I'm going to think of something for you so that there's totally going to be some way to get rid of those.

Yeah. But when we figured out that one, we can access amazing products elsewhere. And there's still a little bit of a limited catalog. So, like, on our sourcing retreats, we take people down there. We take them down to the largest market in Central America. It's thousands of vendors, and a lot of them are honestly selling a lot of the same things. That's what tourists buy. So we go down there and there are a lot of ideas that are generated because there are some unique items down there. But most of what we do is we walk around and say, hey, do you see this product that's made of this fabric? Now go back to Amazon and find a woman's accessory that's selling well and let's put it in this fabric. And they're like, oh, my gosh, I get it. Like, now. The options become endless. And I don't know if we were talking about it on here before we started recording, but when you use data to back that up, you don't have to guess. Like, I understand that it's scary standing on a cliff, thinking about jumping into the water when you don't eat the water is right. I get that. So designing a new product and designing a new variation of a product and launching new product on a new platform is scary. If you don't know how deep the water is going to Central America, and having a unique product created that you've never sold before, no one's ever seen it before in this product, style and variation is scary. You don't know how deep that water is. But when you can take the data of other sales and other sellers and other products that are selling and reverse engineer that, like, now the water's clear and you can see the bottom. You can see it's deep enough. Right. You're not jumping into this really dangerous situation because people have walked that path before you, you're just going to do it better and you're going to do it differently.

Right. And you know what I really like about what you're talking about, Tim, is really this is you're already in an environment that doesn't have this high volume expectation to begin with. So it allows you to do this sort of test it, model it, grow it and they're expecting that because they need to scale as well. Like they need to like get their systems in place and start to turn it into a production line at that point for themselves. And so you're scaling with them and you're in cooperation and the sales process and the production process are lined and being aligned in that is very important because when the sellers came into China and like I was working there and as we mentioned this before, we were doing and sourcing products in 1999-2000, like we were early on sourcing our very first products over in China and that we didn't even like we could barely fact back and forth and my husband goes, went over on a trip we couldn't afford. The phone calls back and forth between us it was like you're gone for a week. If I got a fax I'm like okay, you're there. Like that was it. And so it was a different world. But when we were going there there was no negotiating first volume and everything. And now what's happened is yes, people will say oh yeah, I can do a thousand pieces. But in the back of their minds they're like, oh, those people are never going to make it to 10,000. So I'm going to amp up the price. And that's how this sort of bit adversarial in the process because the selling community is not aligned with the way the manufacturing facilities are set up in Asia. They're not set up for low volume. It's not easy and functional for them. And so it's, they want to be accommodating, they want to grow with you, but they also don't believe you're all going to make it.

So yeah, and I have to straighten up people's perception of China. And I had it too the first time went to China I thought I was gonna be walking to a second world country. Oh, it's not, I wasn't. I mean it's like they're smoking our tails and technology, infrastructure, everything. So people, when I say people, I'm going to say us product buyers to resell. Alright, so like Amazon sellers in my circles they think that the Chinese sellers need us more than we need them. Chinese manufacturers guys, they don't. I've rolled up in like the dirtiest, nastiest cities in China, this giant factory and there's Maserati's pulled up out front because they've got orders coming in from all over the world and they don't care about Your little order, they do not need you. They're filthy rich. They're rushing it right now. Right. And I'm not saying that we use people's desperation to exploit them, but because they don't have tens of thousands of units being ordered every week, they will do lower my queues, because that's actually what they want to do. So just today, like, actual case study, today, I'm sitting in the office with our products team. We're talking about these new products that we're launching and testing, and we're ordering, like, quantities of 30. Like, there's this kitchen item that we found that's really trending up. Not even on Amazon yet, but it's trending up on Pinterest and Google Trends and some places. So not only do we want to be the first that product to Amazon, but we're going to have something unique that nobody can copy. So we actually found, like, a handmade one on Etsy. Okay. We bought one off of Etsy. We shipped it down there to one of our favorite wood producers and artisans down there. And he's like, yeah, I can do this. He gives us a price that, like, made us freak out. It was so cheap. Make us 30. So now we'll get those 30, and then we'll run test campaigns, we'll run PPC ads to see if we have high impressions and low cost per click. So low competition. We'll put it out there on social media and see how many times people are liking this thing, what kind of interest we get with a Pinterest picture. And it's just 30 items. And what's amazing about that is you can go very wide but not deep. Yeah, right. Wide, but not deep. And it's so important because if you put all your eggs in one basket in one product that doesn't work, you're hosed. We've gotten pretty good, but we still screw up. We still have failures. Yeah. If 30% of our attempts work, holy cow, we are raking in the sales.

So this is what most people don't realize. It's a shotgun approach for big brands, too. So I designed the most popular office chair that was ever made and bought at Costco. And it was a $99 mesh office chair. I'm actually sitting in it, but I'm not going to tilt the camera and show you right now. But, yeah, it was a $99 mesh office chair. It sold there for seven years, and it did $20 million a year each one of those years, and it just came out of circulation this Past year, at the end of last year. And so products don't last like that at retail. But in order to make that chair, we made over the course of three years, 800 different designs and samples. Not just for that, but I mean, for the whole brand that the company was going after. We shared it with Sam's Club and Costco and Walmart and all of those places. We made 800 different office chairs, Sam. Like, that's how it works out there. And out of all of them, they get one platinum record, right? One that does that out of that whole grouping of that. So if you're not out there sampling and trying, you're not trying hard enough, really. And so 30% odds is actually really good. Like, if you're getting 30% success, that's actually really common. Now I have a flipped odds, so. So I have seven out of 10.

Well, we do too. I was saying 30% going to standard. We're about 70% good.

When you flip the odds like that, you're in a very elite percentage of people who can do that. Elite percentage of brands who are capable of that. And that's because your process, your manufacturing, and your products are all in line with what consumers actually want. And that product market fit is already there. So you're already more successful than most people. So you have a high likelihood. So keep doing that because that is just unheard of. So super amazing. So I'm going to have all the information for how people can get in touch with you. And keep in mind that you may be hearing this blog post and I mean, you may be hearing reading the blog post, hearing this episode, and may has passed. But I will make sure that we update so that you are up on the latest retreat that Tim is running. And you'll be able to contact him because he will have a profile on the product launch hazards resources section. So the right resources. Because right here we talk about the right things in the right order with the right resources. And that's what Tim has all lined up here for you. He's got resources, but he's got the right things in the right order. So you're doing it at the proper process. So I want to make sure that you have him available to you. So he will have a profile there. You can simply click the button and get an email sent off to him and his team and get in touch with them directly. Or you can go right into their website and go, hey, I want to come on your sourcing retreat. It sounds like a lot of fun.

It is a lot of Fun. I'm not gonna lie. We have. Oh man, it's amazing. We traveled a few different cities and there's this place, Lake Atitlan in Guatemala. Have you been there?

I've never been. I've always wanted to go to Guatemala, I have to tell you.

So Atitlan is this volcanic lake surrounded by volcanoes and it's gorgeous. And one of the workshop nights that we have, like a mastermind night that we have, we're literally sitting like beside this infinity hot tub, like looking at like the moon behind these volcanoes in this giant lake. And it's always like a perfect 68 degrees there.

Ye.

And like you forget that you're working and like, we're learning so much. We're meeting artists and we're looking at products, but it is phenomenal. We do sourcing retreats to China too. We take a lot of people to China and we teach in the ropes and help them find products. But you don't get that like sense of vacation. You get that sense of work. Guatemala is like, it's amazing. Like there's no way to describe it except amazing.

It's a very different ethic in China. So I first a few years here. I do like 10 trips a year to China. I don't do that now. I do about one or two maximum. But that's because I have team on the ground who represent me well and I can handle it. But there are very few places where you get to have that kind of time off because they're working seven days a week many times. And so it's like the culture is already in that working mode. So it's great that you're finding the locations and the places in which you can wind down and really think. Because that pace of a trip to China, for me, it's great. You get a lot of work done, you get a lot accomplished, but you don't get a lot of thinking and processing done because you're go, go, go.

I like that it's only a three hour flight and there's no jet lag too.

That sounds really awesome. Yeah, you're right. That sounds really good. It wouldn't be product launch hazards if we didn't ask you, like, what is the biggest hazard that has happened to you and your business? You talked about a little bit of the small mistakes and other things, but what's the biggest hazard that's happened to you in the Amazon business, which is like your cautionary tale. You're like, don't do this.

Being an Amazon seller, being having all.

Your Eggs in Amazon's basket.

And I tell people all the time, stop being an Amazon seller and start being a product seller. And, guys, I have close friends of mine that are doing six, seven, eight million dollars a year in sales on Amazon. And it's all online arbitrage or retail arbitrage. They're selling Nike shoes on Amazon and they can get shut down at any time. It's awful.

And they're selling thousands. See, this is one of the things. So I was at Prosper show last year, and someone was up there touting they had 8,000 SKUs.

My what?

And they're not profitable at all. I just know it.

No, there's no way they're profitable. Yeah. So biggest hazard is putting all your eggs in one basket. And I would say. Let me get a little philosophical here. Can I do that for a second, please?

Yeah.

One of the biggest hazards that people run into launching a product or identifying a product is thinking too small. Right? Here's the thing. For thousands and thousands and thousands of years, commerce was regulated to a geographical area. If I made bread, I sold to the people on my street. If I made shoes, I sold it to my community. It's only been like the last 15 years that we had the Internet, where somebody, anywhere in the world with a cell phone can sell nearly anything to anybody else in the world with a cell phone. Like, we are in a historic time. We're in the time of history when it is easiest to be an entrepreneur. Like, this is unprecedented. So you were talking about back in 2000, going to China and, like, having to do a fax machine. Guys, you can get on the Internet and access 70,000 Chinese suppliers right now in Alibaba. Now, I wouldn't necessarily trust them all, but theoretically speaking, you can do it. But also, there's more information, there's more tools, there's more resources, there's more community, there's more support, there's more free training. There's more amazing podcasts like this that just give you buttloads of great information. And it's all right here. Like, if you want to do it, stop thinking small. I have people that have been sitting on the fence, going to Amazon conferences for three years, and they're like, oh, next year I'll open up an Amazon account and launch my first product. Holy crap. Like, what are you doing? This is the time. So the biggest hazard, I really think, from a philosophical standpoint that people can make is thinking that they can't do it. Look, there's things I suck at. I'm terrible at it. But there's a million people out there that want to be in my tribe that want to help me because I can help them with things I'm good at. Find your tribe, find your people, find a community, find those free resources and just step out there using the tools, resources and testing that's available to you and get your feet wet and just go, wow.

Tim, you are speaking.

Sorry, I got in my soapbox a minute.

No, I'm so excited you said that. Because we believe the same thing here. We believe that time is of the essence too. There's a market timing for things and we so often sit back too long and miss our shot and it's risky. It's always going to be risky and we're going to have lessons, but it's those lessons learned, those hazards that we come across that teach us the important thing about how we're going to really make it work in the future. Those are hard earned things that don't happen unless you dive in. And I agree with you. I think thinking too small now, thinking too big on your volume size. That's not what Tim's saying here. I want to be really careful. I do not want you to have a garage full of striped shirts. And those of you who've listened to my show all the way through, you know what I'm talking about with striped shirts. And those of you who don't Google or YouTube Kickstopper Striped Shirt. And you'll know what I mean after this. Okay, I want you to go do that because that's what we don't want you to do here. We want you to have opportunities for success and having these low volume scale.

Up opportunities, high profitability, high demand, low competition. Like, gosh, there was.

I was at a checks all the boxes. That's what you're doing.

I was at a marketing conference last two weeks ago, Click funnels, right? I met funnel hackers.

Funnel hackers, yep.

There was a guy that was, I don't care if you've got a 2 comma Club X award. You've done $10 million of revenue. I want to know how much money is in your bank account right now. And I'm like, hallelujah. This man speaking my language. It doesn't matter how much money you move, it's how much money you have and how much you made, your profitability. I'd rather sell a half a million dollars a year of an extremely profitable item than a million dollars a year with the headaches and like 3% margins. I don't want to do that, right?

Absolutely. You are speaking our language here. I can tell. We're going to have you back again. Like there's no way we're not going to have you back again. And so. Yeah, definitely. So Private Label Legion and Legion Radio, you just started your own podcast. Want to make sure we give a shout out to that because I'm looking forward to listening to it now that I know that that's new and out there. So you guys got to check that out. You can find Tim Jordan on our podcast blog page, productlaunchhazards.com, you can click on the right resources, go to his profile, or you can just find him right there on the front page because when a new episode is posted, that's where it goes. So everyone here, thank you so much, Tim for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. And thank you to Michelle Barnum Smith for introducing us. I have really awesome ch. Really glad to be connected with her and everyone. Try and expand your product lines in really smart ways. Take some lessons here today from Tim. I really want you to take what he's saying to heart because he has your best interest at heart. So please listen and come back again to another Product Launch Hazards.

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