From Plumber to Amazon Success: Warrens Journey

Join your host Des Hamilton to find out exactly how to say goodbye to being poor and hello to being rich. Welcome, welcome, welcome back to the Goodbye Poor, Hello Rich show with me, Des Hamilton. Today I'm not the guy in the chair, I'm not the guy in the kitchen, I'm the guy in the car. Funnily enough, uh, I have got a very, very, very busy schedule and I need to show you in real life, in real time, that you can still get things done no matter what. Take a camera, take a microphone, and if you want to record a podcast in your car, go and record a podcast in your car, even if you are in the back end of Stammer Park in the woods where either a Blair Witch Project sort of thing could happen, or people might think that I'm a dogger. It isn't that kind of show. If I disappear, it's one of those two. At least one of them might be a bit more enjoyable, right? Anyway, let's get on with it. Thank you to our sponsors SellerAmp SaaS who continue to support us. Really grateful to have you on board. Continues to be the best bit of sourcing analysis software for Amazon sellers, right? Let's go into this week, shall we? Things are settling down finally. Finally, after a good 2 years, things are finally settling down. I've been doing this as a side hustle, if you want to call it that, as a second business, with working after work, lunch breaks, days off, weekends, evenings, all of that. Then I quit my job, we had the summer holidays, then we had this launch that was insane. We had problems left, right, and center, some of which I want to share, some of which I don't. Let's talk about the waitlist wasn't the best in terms of the platform that we used. Then the email client that we used let us down on the day of the launch. Then when we went live with our first Zoom, our account wasn't good enough that we didn't have more than 100 people capacity in there. Little, little issues like that. Now there were other issues which basically meant Luke and I were working 12-hour days for about a week. It was a slog. And then once you got launched, you You want the first week to be great as well, so we're throwing all of the hours at that as well. Now here I am settling down. I'm going out tonight, I'm up in London, I'm watching a concert. Ryan Adams, for anyone who's interested. Now this is Ryan Adams, this isn't Bryan Adams. Get that into your head. Bryan Adams is the Summer of '69 guy. Ryan Adams is an Americana singer-songwriter who's amazing, amazing. Look, I could go down a rabbit hole with music all day long. I love my country, I love my Americana. Ryan Adams is country, but he mostly does the usual sort of classic singer-songwriter stuff, but he's very, very, very good. I thoroughly recommend that you check him out. He covered Wonderwall in the late '90s, and it was such a good cover Noel himself started doing his version of it when he was playing it live. Anyway, now we're settling down, I'm seeing the benefits of everything that we've built. And I don't mean finances, right? I'm coming to terms with the fact that there will never be a massive spike in our finances. We're never gonna jump from 10 grand a month to 20 grand a month instantly. That's not gonna happen. Everything is an incremental growth, especially when you launch something as successful as our TikTok Shop Affiliate Mastery community. We have got just shy of 700 people in there in week 1. After a waitlist of over 2,000 people in there. This is the stuff dreams are made of, right? And you're thinking, oh, this is it. I remember going to bed on Monday when we launched on the Tuesday. I remember going to bed and saying to my wife, tomorrow's the one where everything changes. And don't get me wrong, it certainly has. The stepping stones are in place for this to be amazing, but we're not getting that bump where you go, right, that's it, book the holiday, finish the loft, come on. It's not the thing. It's not the thing, but it doesn't matter because incremental growth is better than sudden growth. I'm, I'm coming to terms with that. But now we have launched, now the community has found its feet, now we know what we're doing, we are much smoother. I've got my hours of the week that I need to be present on the community, that I need to be present for live calls. I've got my hours of the week that I need to be present for my Amazon community and for my Amazon live calls. I've got my hours of the week where I need to do my podcast. And then my team is fantastic. I want to say this out loud because I never actually give her the credit that she deserves. Sophia OpenSocials is my social media manager, and if it wasn't for her in these last few weeks, this whole thing would have fallen down. It's as simple as that. Did you notice that during this launch, during this manic time, we continued to produce content on social media? I did the filming and Sophie just took care of everything. But not even that. She takes care of everything. If I'm in a pickle and I need something doing, Sophie, could you just knock an email up for that? Sophie, could you just contact that person for me? Sophie, could you just cancel that for me? She's amazing. If you're doing something similar to me where you're selling on Amazon or you're doing TikTok Shop, and at the same point you're documenting your journey and you're scaling up to a speed where you think, you know what, I need help, go to Open Socials. I'm gonna tag 'em in the show notes because Sophie is out of this world. And if she doesn't do it, she'll know someone that does. And I can guarantee you every person that she vouches for is reliable and trustworthy and professional. That's all I'm going to say, and I know she won't like listening to this, but tough, deal with it. This week we're speaking with Warren. I love this story. Warren is the FBA product sourcer. It's funny, right? If you were to write down on paper who Warren is, what Warren does, and then write down on paper who I am and what I do, You would say we're competition. We're roughly in the same generation, give or take 5, 6 years. I won't say who's older. Warren and I represent the same demographic. We've got the same target audience. We produce an Amazon beginner's training program to our market. We do social media. We both spout out about the fact that this isn't a side hustle for the broken lazy, that you need to put in the graft, that you need to make things happen, you need to take action. And it doesn't matter about your age. All of that stuff, he and I have got the same ethos. We're competition to the point that when we went to book this chat, Warren said to me, are you sure you want me on? I realize that we're doing the same things, but this is where I want to emphasize here that we walk the walk, right? We're not just talking the talk. Warren and I understand there is room for everybody in this space, all right? We aren't threatened by each other. We're not intimidated by each other. We're secure enough in our business, in our message, that not only can we get on, but actually we lean on each other. This is a lonely game, and we get into this. This is a lonely game. Here I am in my 40s in a world where the most of the people are in their 20s or 30s, and I'm dealing with the internet in a way that I've never dealt with it before. There are very few people that I can speak to in this space, especially when it comes to this niche of helping Amazon beginners. I've got a lovely network of people, and I'm going to shout out to a few that are of my generation that have got the same responsibilities that I've got, that I know I can lean on. Robin Waite, what a guy. Chris Hill, Natalie Cromie, Steve Brady, Jason Hoy. That's not to say that the other people that I speak to aren't amazing, but these are the people that have got the same daily realities that I've got. If I've missed out anybody there, I am really sorry. These are people that are either on a similar stage of their journey to me, these are people that either are the similar generation as me or have the same dependencies that I've got. Warren is another one of those, but Warren is also a trainer of Amazon beginners. We also share this ethos, like I said, we know that you get out what you put in. We know that there's gatekeeping is ridiculous. But we also know that you need to pay for a service in order to get the education that will fast-track you to where you need to be. We are so similar, in fact, that a lot of the people in my program are also in Warren's program. We understand the power of networking. We understand the power of leaving a day job and coming into this world and making it a force for good. There's so much that we've got in common. We now treat each other as confidants. You know, I can say to him, I've got this and this and this coming down the track, and I know he'd keep it secret. He then says the same to me, and then we talk about how we can help each other. An example, Amazon selling at the moment, there's a wrath, there's a wave of Section 3s coming down the road. Section 3 is a policy within Amazon where effectively they can deactivate your account and freeze your stock, freeze your money and all that. More and more people are getting hit with this. Warren Henson messages me and says, right, what can we do about it? I've written this and it's branded. And I said, well, hang on a minute, because we're developing one as well and we're going to put it in the community. But if we can't develop it in time, I'll make sure we'll use yours and I want to promote yours. And he said, well, I don't want to tread on any toes, so if not, here's an unbranded version for you just to share. That's the guy, right? That's the mark of the guy. If you're looking for someone with honesty and integrity, my God, I can't say enough about him. And who cares if we're fighting for the same space in terms of our mentees? Who cares? This is a bigger issue. We're helping people escape, and it's something that he and I have got that's embedded in us where we won't care as long as people are getting help. It doesn't matter which one of us does it. But let's get into the chat, shall we? It's a fascinating story as well. Warren Henson is in his 50s. He has run his own businesses before, but I'll tell you what, let's get into it. See you after the jump. Roll it. Warren, lovely to have you on here, mate. It feels like this has been in the making for a few months, so we're finally good to get you here. How you doing?

Yeah, I'm doing good, Des. Yeah, thanks for having me on. It's really great to be here.

My pleasure, mate, my pleasure. I really want to get into this. Me and you, we're the old scalpers, aren't we?

Only just. Yeah, the old men.

There seems to be a growing gaggle of us, of the old men and women that are trying to turn a penny reselling, but I love it. I want to get into your story because what I love about people of our generation is that our story tends to be a weaved tapestry. So come on, mate, in your own words, how did you get from where you were to where you currently are?

So if I go back to maybe kind of briefly like my career, please. Yeah, so, so I started, I left school and was lucky enough to be to like to to become an apprentice plumber, uh, back in the days where you could just walk into a job. You can't kind of do that so much now. So I served 15 years for a local company, worked hard, aspired to be actually better than my boss. That was my dream, to be better than my boss was. And kind of the last couple of years into that service, it was— I actually don't like some of the things that he's doing with the customers and his service and the after-sales. I think I can do better. So I started my own company. That was— started my own company in 1999.

Oh, well done.

So full of gusto. And what I was good— I was good at fitting bathrooms and kitchens and doing all the multi-trade stuff. Well, as the years progressed, my learning curve wasn't in that. It was in the how to manage the orders, do the quotes, deal with the suppliers. So it was quite you know, I'd taken on something that I'd never really thought about, and I didn't have a plan, no plan at all. But we kind of muscled through, uh, done very well. VAT-registered staff, you know, it was going well. Yeah, but there was this thing in the back of my mind that if I was to lose a limb or not be able to physically work, or as a plumber, my knees give way—

yeah, that's the one—

so Even though I had my business in the kind of mid-2000s, I started to look at other things on the internet. I had a bit of a spell on network marketing, um, chain letters where you put a pound in, you send it off to different— all those kind of crazy things. But it's what— will this work? Can it work? Yeah, trying to create a dream. And they got to 2008, 2009, and of course the credit crisis hit. And, and literally our business dived because we were fitting bespoke bathrooms for your average kind of person that worked in the city, had disposable income.

Yeah.

And it just kind of dived. And I really lost— I thought, what am I doing? I'm doing 80-hour weeks. I'm not seeing my children in the evening. You go around to quote a job and the people saying, I didn't really— you know, we don't really want a bathroom, we just want to know how much it is these days. And I'm like, sorry, but I've just been here for 2 hours. Yeah. So I really lost the love and thought, I just can't do this anymore. So 2009, I went into commercial construction as a laborer. So I really stepped back and my money stepped back. In fact, if I remember right, it was £35 a day.

Wow.

So I stepped back into that and it was nice to have no responsibility, to get paid for bank holidays. You know, you miss that when you're self-employed.

Yes.

So over the course of a year, I scaled from, um, from a laborer to a site supervisor and then to a site manager. So I had 6 good years as a site manager for a construction company handling these big projects.

Good for you.

Which was great to be off the tools because the old body starts to creak, and I'm, you know, I'm in my 40s by that point.

Yeah.

So I'm, I'm working for this company and there's just a lot of politics. I really didn't realize stepping into this management area there's lots of politics. People are quite happy to throw you under the bus. And if I'm going to do something, I have to do it properly. And I was faced a couple of times with being told, there isn't the money to do that, Warren, just leave that. And I said, yeah, but it You know, I'm responsible on this site. It's— people could get injured because of it, you know, right? Yeah, but it was all about money, so I thought I can't do this, so I, so I just gave it up. Um, is one thing when you're physically doing the work and you're on the tools and you know where you stand, I enjoyed that. On the management side, it was great because you have a car and all the other bits and pieces and all the bells and whistles. But there's a different type of responsibility. And if someone's taking that responsibility away from you or making you do something else, it really goes against, like, the grain.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Especially when you know things like, say, safety is involved or quality of work that you've got to put your name to. It's a pride thing, isn't it?

Yeah, exactly. So I, I left that job and went to work for Dyno Plumbing.

Oh yeah.

So Dyno Plumbing, not the bit where they do the drains, they have another section where it's British Gas.

Yes.

And they do the contracts, you know, like the monthly contracts with where it's like fix a tap, your ball valve's overflowing in the loft, stuff like that. And so there I am, Warren Henson is back on the tools.

Yeah.

And I really enjoyed that. But because Dyno is such a large company, and then you've got like the Dyno police. Yeah. And then you have British Gas, and then you have Centrica. Everything was really convoluted. You'd have to go for these breakfast meetings and all sit there where they reprimanded you in front of everyone else. It wasn't, it wasn't very nice. Um, and my mate's a plumber, by the way.

He did a stint with Dino. Sorry, my mate's a plumber. He did a stint with Dino.

Yeah, well, I, I thought to myself, I'm going to stick with it. And I want— because you know what I like doing? I like serving people. Because they were small jobbing jobs, I would go into so many people's houses each day. And it was during COVID as well, right? So we were essential services. And it was just really nice to serve people and help them where they were struggling and leave there and know you'd resolved their problem that they were really worried about. But there was this nagging part— my manager, his manager, um, I just— it was like I was going against the grain, like I was trying to swim upstream.

Yeah.

And I think it was one day someone said, because I'm, I'm kind of outspoken Someone said to me, well, if you think you can do better, you go and do something yourself.

Did they say it as politely as that?

And I was— yeah, and I was like, okay, I think there's, you know, I need to do something. And, you know, I'm kind of like, I'm in my 50s, and I was just thinking, and that's when I started to think that about this being in— I'm in my final third, right? You know, it's when life catches up with you. You have all these chances, all these opportunities when you're younger, and you don't—

you—

I don't think I even saw them or didn't utilize them at all.

No.

And then I'm faced at this age, I think I need to do something. So that's the point where we obviously step into the, you know, to kind of like the partly into the Amazon journey. What I did do is I started Amazon kind of part-time and ran it for 3 months and thought—

but around this time, sorry, around this time, yeah.

So I started to do it while I was at Dyno. I started to do Amazon part-time, and then what would I thought? Well, I can only do it part-time at the moment. Let me test it out. Is it— can I prove the concept of it? So I'd done it for 3 months, it went kind of well. I really was surprised when you have your first sale, it's just fantastic, isn't it? Yeah. But I wasn't ready to go into it full-time. That's what I wanted to do. I wanted to leave this job and just go into it full-time.

Yeah.

So I, I toyed around with it for a few months, collected the data, and right, okay, so I'm ready to do that. As I moved on further, it just got unbearable. What— Dino, I started to, to really conflict with the managers there. I just, you know, this is what I'm seeing, this is logical, and you guys are asking us to do the total opposite. I just don't— I didn't kind of get it.

Especially with the experience you'd already had of running your own business and running a construction firm, you had been in their shoes, and when decisions are made that don't make sense, it's hard to live with, right?

Well, that's what they were saying. Like, in the beginning they said, Warren, you've been fitting bathrooms for like 30 years, we, you know, and doing your plumbing, and you're an older guy we really value your experience, your opinion. Come in and talk to us. I thought, oh, this is brilliant. You know, when you've got someone that wants a two-way conversation, that's all I wanted to do was work hard, serve people, and live and die for the company. That's what I wanted to do.

Yeah.

And then you begin to realize they didn't really want my opinion. No. And, and I felt that there was something there, there was an agenda, there was a hidden agenda, and I was just trying to do the right thing.

Yeah. Yeah, they say that to their staff just for lip service, don't they? They don't actually want that. Like, similar thing with my company. Yeah, yeah, really interesting, mate. The things that stand out in that story for me is the fact that you want to help people. There's an altruistic nature about you that wants to be of service to people. That's really good, especially in the quality of the work that you pump out. Then there's, yeah, the pride element. I know who I am, I know what objectives I'm working to, I know that I want to stand for good. Whether that's work in the physical space or just general service. And then there's this independence in you that probably developed when you were forced to run your own business. But, and it comes back to education, didn't it? No one teaches you how to be financially savvy until you need to be financially savvy.

Yeah, it's everything you kind of— I think, you know, the life experiences as you go along. Yeah, all the things you learn. And is this the type of person I want to be? And that, I think that was through all the different jobs I had and everything I do is, do I believe in this 100%? If I do, I'm picking up and running with it.

Yeah.

If I don't believe in it, it goes against the grain, I can't do it. It's just not the right thing to—

and mate, we've been told all our lives, haven't we? When you're older, you'll understand. When you're older, you'll figure out blah blah blah blah. And I'm saying myself, I'm finding myself saying things now going, Christ, my 20-year-old self would have hated this.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. So, so there I was. I'd done the Amazon business for a few months. It was really just like a pilot business, just, just to kind of collect some data for when I was ready. Yeah, it would work. So I got to the point where I just couldn't stand it anymore. I handed my notice in, and no one comes and talks to you. There's no— seems to be no surprise. Anything— was I really valued? It's really like— it's really bizarre. I think for a lot of people, you hand your notice in at somewhere you've worked for for years and you've apparently been valued and nothing is said. My manager didn't talk to me, but there you go anyway. So, so I left there. So this, we're now talking, um, 2022, kind of middle of the year, um, and right, I'm, I'm ready to look into Amazon. So I spent time with— I've got a chartered accountant friend So we looked at the data that I'd put together, the financials, the operational side of it, everything that I'd learned in that time and what I'd seen on the internet as well. How am I going to move that business forward? So we put together a business plan.

Love it, love it, love it. Good.

So there was 5 years financials, the operations, how the business would be run, even down to the type of product that I would source initially. Initially it was, if you have a shoebox, if I've got a shoebox, the product that I'm going to sell in, in the beginning has got to fit in that shoebox. Yeah, something small, something like something simple. So it gave me those parameters to work within, so I knew, you know, this is how I'm moving forward, this is what I'm doing. So we put together that business plan It took some time, but I've now got something where it's— and the financials are assumptions, but it's, it's how I can forward project. I can see where I'm going. So I've still got that today that I reference and change it because it has to— it's dynamic, isn't it?

It has to be. You have to have financial goals. You have to know what number you're working towards.

Yeah. So there I am, business plan. £1,000 only to work with. Luckily enough, no mortgage, children have flown the nest. So my girlfriend Nicola said, I'm behind you, you can start this, but you've got 6 months to make it work. And I'm like, that took me back. I'm like, sorry, 6 months? She said, 6 months to make it work, or else you're going to go back to employment. And I'm like, and that was the thing that put me up against— that was one of the first walls, put me up against the wall a bit. And I'm I've got to make this work.

Yeah, yeah, that's a fair, that's a fair, that's a fair proposition, isn't it?

It is. Yeah, yeah, that's right. I mean, you know, she, she, she was behind me, but yeah, I had to make it work. So I kind of set off, um, and, and as you know yourself and everyone listening, that with your Amazon business— I have £1,000 capital, I'm sourcing products and they're coming in, I'm sending them off— there's this cycle of that you have to source, you have to sell, you have to wait for Amazon to pay you out. So some of the times I was just sitting in my hands.

Yeah.

And I guess that's the point where I started to look at things. What am I going to do with my time? I'm— I've got no money to spend, I've got no money coming in, and yet Amazon have got to pay me. What am I going to do with my time? So I started to delve into the, the inner workings of Amazon listening to different people, whether they're content creators, other Amazon sellers, and looking at someone thinking, is that correct? So I kind of— I don't know if you've seen the film World War Z. Yeah, yeah, Brad Pitt. Well, there's a bit in where they're talking about the wall, um, and he— this guy that's telling the story is the 12th man. So if they all cast a vote on something and all 11 say yes, it's that, the 12th man must question it, right? No matter how obvious the answer is. And I think I'm kind of always think of myself as like the 12th man. Like, everyone can be saying don't go on to a listing where Amazon are selling, especially at the buy box, and I think, why? Let me look into that. And a lot of things I've looked into aren't really what the status quo are saying. And I guess that's where The mentorship that I developed, that's where that all spurs from, is being curious and questioning. Just because someone says that, is it true? Don't take their word. The thing about Amazon is the data is all open. We've got Keeper, we've got SAS, we've got other tools where you can go and find out what is actually happening. But you do have to learn how to read the data.

Oh, definitely, mate. Let's go back a little bit because I think— what's— I think that's such a valid point for anyone who's listening who's just getting started and their cash flow is tied up and they find themselves sitting on their hands. I did a post on this myself at the same thing. When you are jumping into something two feet first, you cannot afford to waste your time sitting on your hands. You've got to spend that time doing something else. So if you've got products going into Amazon, if you've got money sat at Amazon, if you're in the account reserve and you're waiting, you're waiting, you're waiting. That's when you learn, innit? That's what— that's when you figure out who it is you want to be, what it is you want to do. Get diving into other people's content, because there's people like me and Warren, there's people— there's other loads of good people out there that you can learn from for free. And I think that's vital, mate. So that little, that little spell there, when you found, hang on a minute, I'm seeing opportunities others aren't— did you see your results? Sort of reflect that.

Yes. Yeah, I mean, and it really— I was quite surprised because obviously everyone's saying no, that this doesn't work, when, you know, on some of the methods that I'd found and thought, let me dig deeper into these. It's, you know, it's always lovely when you make a sale, but when you make a sale that you believe you shouldn't be making because everyone else is saying one thing and you're doing it and you feel like you stumbled across something, you think, hold on, you I need to keep this a bit quiet. Let me look at this further. As you're making sales and see some of, some of the nuances and some of the things I'd found, you're not going to make thousands of sales off it, but if you can make regular sales and you're under the radar, because that's the bit everyone's worried about. Yeah, you know, you buy a product, you put it on a listing, the listing tanks, it drives price down. Well, it's where— it's what— it's the method that everyone else is looking at. Everyone else is using. You have to do something unique. Yeah, which requires you to pull back a layer or so when you're doing your product sourcing. If something's really easy to find, then lots of people are going to find it.

That's it, that's it. I think I stumbled across this— my first ever product, and people have heard me talk about this before, was the old Winnerlock dog food. What I haven't really told people is that when I did the analysis, Morrison's had the buy box. And they were selling this dog food for about a fiver. And for me to make a profit, I needed to sell it for about £13, for £12.99. But I looked closer, and if you had to use Morrison's Buy Box, you had to stick £40 in your basket to get Prime Delivery.

Yeah.

So I wasn't— I didn't have the Buy Box, Morrison's did. I went in as the second seller, nearly— well, over double the price and I was getting 10 to 15 sales a month, nothing massive, but it was my first product and it was a replan. It was a doddle. No one else was on the listing. I had the lot to myself. And I think I stumbled— stars must have aligned that day, mate. Yeah, but I stumbled into this thing and thought, right, that's something that no one else is doing. And it was a replan for the best part of 4 months. And it was just the cost of living shot the price of dog food up and it wiped out my profits. That was all.

Yeah, yeah, it's being, being prepared to dig where other people aren't, and you, you will, you find those gems. There's been a number of situations where I've, I've found a product that there's only 1 or 2 people on the listing. And, and why I call like sleeper listings, these are overlooked. Where there's a listing where it might sell only 5 or 10 a month, a lot of people, the software is designed to like, oh, don't look at that. Um, you know, there's estimated sales, there's got to be 25 or 50 estimated sales per month. Well, you know, If you've got a whole bunch and you go shallow and wide on, on listings where they're selling to 5 or 10, people overlook those. The software overlooks those.

Yeah, because the software is trained— if it only sells 5 or 10 times a month, it will only dip in and check it every hour.

Yeah.

So there's a bunch of sales that they might not even notice.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, I love it, I love it. That's really good, mate. That's really good. So at what point did then— I'm guessing people reach out to you because you were documenting your journey as well, right?

Yeah, so I, I was, um, I was documenting my journey. I was helping— how it was really kind of strange how it happened. I was helping friends at that time. People knew I was selling on Amazon, I was having a certain level of success, and obviously I would, I would, you know, I'd been doing it 6 months or so at that time. But I started to help out one or two of these friends get started and talk to them about Amazon. And although they really didn't take much action, I really, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the process of that. So I thought, well, and as the months passed and I got better with Amazon and what I was doing and finding more success, I kind of went online and I joined a Discord group just to see. I was invited to see what was kind of going on on a couple of methods that I spoke to people about. So I was on Discord, and that got me to understand a bit more how Discords work and about the bots and the products, you know, the product leads drop and what happens from there. And I could see that listings were getting kind of tanked and things. So, but like everything, that was the first part. I'd had this journey on my own, talking with a couple of friends, to now stepping into a space where I could talk to other Amazon sellers. So that's where my networking began.

Yeah, love it. What Discord was it? You don't— we don't have to put it in, but just out of curiosity. I've never heard of that one.

Haven't you? Huh? Discords?

Yeah, there are a lot of these. So I was the same, mate. I went into aftermarket arbitrage for like a month before I properly got going for the same reason. I wanted to see, because it's a lonely business, isn't it? It's a lonely—

yeah, on your own. Yeah. I mean, you need it, you know. I was, I was here at home, Nicola was at work, friends— and that's the thing, friends are all at work— is pretty lonely. Yeah, it was pretty lonely.

Yeah, but interesting, we did the same thing. And especially, mate, people of our generation, we're not meant for Discord. What a world, right?

Yeah, setting up and how to do this, how to do that, you have to ask, you know, kind of admin, how do I do this? Just as simple as things. But you know, you have, you have to be always open to learning.

Yeah.

As you progress through life or whatever business you're doing, if you stay static you become like a dinosaur and you just become extinct.

Yeah, I agree, I agree. But yeah, it's interesting. I like the similarities in our journeys as well. It is interesting.

Yeah. So yeah, so where I was in this Discord, I started talking to some people, and although the product leads were dropping, there was 90 or 100 people on there and there was no conversation. So there was probably 4 people talking out of that 90, 100 people. I got chatting with a guy called Jimmy, um, we become good friends and we have our private conversations. And I'm like, Jimmy, you know, this is good, but I think I want to do something myself. I think I can do better. I think I can build— people are coming on to here to be fed leads. What if I can help people find their own leads? What if I can— the methods I've found what about if I can teach other people and empower them? You know, it's the same old story, isn't it? Give a man a fish, he eats for the day. Teach him how to fish—

took the words out of my mouth.

Yeah, fantastic.

Give them a rod.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I guess that's where the point is, and you're thinking, because there's choice, isn't there? If I want to talk to other people and put my content out there and just share my journey and see where people need help and try and solve problem. Where do I go to? And that was when TikTok come up. Okay, so that was April of this year, March of this year.

Oh, that soon? I mean, I thought you've been going a bit longer than that. Hey, that's amazing.

Yeah, yeah. So I just, you know, I thought I'd go on to TikTok. And, and strangely, I have two accounts, so, and I was juggling between the two. I was trying to find who I was, and obviously it you know, it came to Amazon FBA products also in the end. Yeah, but one of the accounts I was doing a little bit of TikTok shop affiliate. Ah, okay, faceless, trying to find, you know, how to make it work. And it was very much the early stages because it was all blowing up in America, but there wasn't anyone really talking about it here in the UK.

No, no, no.

And then on the other— on the other account, I'm starting to put things together. I come up with the logo and thought, yeah, that's good. Of all the, the tasks you need to do with your Amazon business, product sourcing is the one that is the biggest problem. Because as I started talking to people on TikTok, product sourcing— I'm struggling with product sourcing. How do I read the data? Where do I— where's the source store? Can I use this store? Everything else you can is easy to do. Yeah, on Seller University and you can learn how to prep or do the other tasks you need to do. But product sourcing is that ongoing thing. If you don't, if you don't source product, get it, and, and then put it on there and sell it, you haven't got a business. You've not got a viable business, mate.

It is a niche that needs much more working. It's ridiculous because nearly every successful Amazon seller, the first thing they do is that they outsource, outsource their sourcing. Yeah, they're not hands deep in it anymore. So when people say to a guru, right, how can you help me with sourcing? They're coming out with methods that are too old and too generic.

Oh, definitely. Yeah, I call— yeah, vanilla, the vanilla methods.

Vanilla. Exactly right. It's incredible. I— we still source ourselves because we don't want to go down that road. Yeah, I mean, at a much smaller scale, we do have VAs doing stuff, but it's important that you keep your toe in. What Claire does on Keepa— and we'll go on to Keepa in a minute— is, I should imagine, similar to everything that you do as well. But that, I think it's vital, mate, because I completely agree. Every newcomer, usually around month 2 or 3 when their free trials on the sourcing software runs out, that's when they can come unstuck and they can quit. But they need to know that there is help out there for people that can teach them how to source.

It is that, yeah, definitely. I've kind of— all the, all the people I've spoken to on TikTok, what I've looked at myself, I'm trying to looking at this, this line, this Amazon journey and found that people were, you know, they can get started, they can muddle through and work out how Amazon works, yeah, how to prep, how to send stuff in. And like you say, that is that big— the big sticking part is, right, product sourcing. And, and as you say, you do the free trials, you use the different softwares that appear to be good, you join Discords, and it is after a few months that you realize there's no longevity, it's not sustainable, and the only way really is to learn how to product source yourself. And the thing is, if you can learn how to product source and you've got your product sourcing methods, if you want to go down a VA route, you've got something to pass them.

Exactly, exactly. We talk about this a lot privately as well, don't we? Yeah, you can't outsource until you've done it. You got—

you can't.

Exactly. Yeah, fascinating. And it's crazy, right? So our sourcing methods now, we still use Arbersource. We're big fans of Arbersource. We are big fans of Arbersource. And not only that, they're partnering up with SellerAmsaas, who sponsor the show. When we went to Nottingham, Callum, who runs Arbersource, was there. Great guy, really good guy. But again, we use Arbersource in a different way to everyone else. We set the filters down to zero. We don't want the good matches. We want the terrible matches because some of them will be things that no one's looking for.

Yeah, that's it. You've got, you've got to do what is everyone else doing and how can I use this to find the untapped stuff.

Exactly.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, interesting. But then even then you go into a listing and you do your due diligence in the listing itself anyway, don't you? But yeah, fascinating, mate. This is amazing. So, and how was the, how was the mentoring journey gone? Because I know a lot of people in my community, they're in yours, and you've got good people in yours, I know, I know.

I just honestly, when I look back to, to kind of April and earlier and thinking I'm not happy with what I'm seeing, I think I can do something myself, never in a million years did I expect to be sitting up where I am now.

Yeah.

And the level of success that I've seen. But not only that, more importantly, the people that have come through the mentorship, the people that I've helped out on TikTok for free there's a lot of free content that I give out that people have used that's helped them with problems. But yes, I mean, we're looking at— there's 77 at the moment, there's 77 5-star reviews on my PIN site. So you go— people go to my bio, they can go on there and they can—

they will put it in the show notes. There'll be a direct link in the show notes. We'll have it in there.

Brilliant. Yeah, they can read all the testimonials. And I'll tell you what, Des, like, when they come through to bring a lump to your throat. That's what they've done.

Yeah. Okay, we'll pause it there. That's the end of part 1. We'll come back next week, the day before Warren's new product launches, and we'll talk about the sorts of things that he does. But you can already get a mark of the man, right? You can already understand the fact that if someone's going left, he'll go right. If the world are telling you yes, this is the best way to source. He'll go, hang on a minute, there's another way, and he'll find one. And he has found one. But I do love the drive that guy's got. Did you notice throughout that, that money wasn't the issue? Happiness, contentment was the issue. The fact that he could go, I didn't like that job, I'm going to do that job, and take a massive cut in wages in what would have been a really key part of his life. I mean, how could you not admire that? Let's get to the tip of the week. Tip of the week. You can teach an old dog new tricks. Some of the comments I get that hit me the most is that I'm too old to do this. Who said that? Who decided that? Who determines you're too old? What does too old mean for you? Is it a number or is it a feeling? When did you think, you know what, I've reached my capacity for learning new tricks? What? When, when did we hit that capacity? I've reached my capacity for learning things on the internet.

Why? Why?

There are so many examples of successful entrepreneurs that started in their 40s, in their 50s, in their 60s. Why not you? Look, I've just done it. I was 42. I learned how to make money for the first time on the internet, for the first time, and went, you know what, I can do this. Warren Henson was a plumber and he went, nope, I'm gonna look into this Amazon thing. And now look at him in his 50s. There is room for you. The TikTok Shop Mastery course, the TikTok Shop affiliate thing that I'm doing, do you know how many people are in there in their 40s, 50s, 60s that are making money from this? You are not too old. Your mindset's wrong. It's as simple as that. Tip of the week. All right, that will do it for this week, everybody. Thank you very much. By the time you're listening to this, I would've had the concert, I would've come home, I would've be hungover, I would have shaken it off and I'll be back on the train. Come on, let's go. See you next week. Things are really kicking off. If you haven't joined our TikTok Shop community, I thoroughly recommend it. Look, it's less than £10 a week. People are making sales all of the time. And from a personal perspective, there is another mountain to climb. I want to see you guys get successful in this thing because those that do, I promise you, I'm going to promote you to the moon. We're going to get you on this show. We're gonna start doing TikTok shop success features. We're gonna get you on the socials. We're gonna let you show the world what's achievable because massive things are coming, massive. I think that will do it. Let's leave it optimistically, shall we? Have a lovely week. Take care, tada.