- Seth Kniep
- Co-Founder & CEO of Just One Dime
Sponsors:
- Drip – Get a free demo of Drip using this coupon code!
- Spark Shipping – Dropshipping Automation Software
Bio:
With 9.6 million views on YouTube and 226,000 subscribers, Seth Kniep and his company, Just One Dime, have been featured on Yahoo Finance and Chicago Weekly. Today, they have members in over 150 countries and manage over $100 million in annual revenue for Amazon stores.
Links:
- https://justonedime.com/
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethkniep/
- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8Sh9yuLqlpnQdBdcfwFErA/featured
- https://www.instagram.com/justonedime/
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/jod.amazon.warriors/
- https://twitter.com/justonedime/
Transcript:
Charles (00:00):
In this episode of the business. E-Commerce I talked with Seth Kenep about why would someone buy your product over the competition? This is a business be commerce episode 148. [inaudible] Welcome to the business. E-Commerce the show that helps e-commerce retailers start launch and grow their eCommerce business. I’m your host, Chelsea Leschi. And I’m here today with Tesco leap. Seth is a CEO and co-founder of just one dime where they help retailers launch and grow Amazon businesses. They have members in over 150 countries and they manage over a hundred million in annual revenue on Amazon stores set this clearly an Amazon expert. Very good at launching products, knows how to really kind of get into Amazon and promote not just a product, but grow a brand. So I asked him on the show today on how you can show off your product and differentiate it from the competition. And we, we go into why someone would buy your product versus a competing product that looks just like it on Amazon. And this is something that I think a lot of retailers struggle with. So this is super good show. If you’re thinking of getting to Amazon, you struggle on Amazon stuff has some great tips. So let’s get into the show. Hey Seth, how are you doing today? Good.
Seth (01:19):
Thanks for having me on Charles. I appreciate it. Yeah. Awesome
Charles (01:22):
To have you on. I love talking this kind of conversation about how to actually get people to buy your products. Right? This, we were talking before the show and you know, years ago you were the only game in town, right? Where if you were selling this online, it was kind of a unique thing and okay, I sell this type of coffee and I’ll this, whatever, right. Are you going to Amazon 10, you know, Shopify? And there’s a hundred of the folks on a very similar ish product. Very true. So to get into it. So you work with a lot of Amazon sellers, right? Through them, through the business. How do you make your listing? How do you recommend your clients listening to actually stand out from everyone else? That’s selling something like that online.
Seth (02:06):
I love how you cut straight to the heart of it. Cause it’s, it’s so good. Thank you. So what you do is your photos or 3d renders for your listing need to be showing the value of the product, not just, Oh, mine’s a great photo, but the differentiation you did with the product. In other words, if I am selling a microphone, but this microphone’s a wireless microphone, it has an internal battery. My battery lasts three times longer than the competition. What does the photo demonstrate that? Or if it’s a garden tool, does it demonstrate the photo that these handles on the gardens who are more comfortable? In other words, the photo needs to show what is better about my product. It can’t just be, we have the best photos it has to be. How did I differentiate my product from the competition? What is the problem?
Seth (02:55):
I in solving a lot of people, Charles, they get overwhelmed. They think, well, wait, Amazon saturated. Because if I go search garden rake, there’s 10 million garden rakes. Why would anyone buy a mine? Well, they’re looking at the competition the wrong way. Instead. They need to say, okay, let’s just take the top ranking 10 garden rakes and ask a simple question. When I read the critical reviews of customers who bought these, what is the most common complaint they make? Well, the most common complaint we discovered is that the handle on the rake causes blisters. It’s too hard of a rubber. It’s a cheap rubber, it’s hard. It’s not comfortable. So my photos in my listing have to demonstrate the most comfortable garden rake handle. Now it doesn’t matter if there’s 10 million competitors because I’m solving a problem better than anyone else. And I don’t have to solve all the problems. There could be five other problems I’m just saw. I picked the one that I felt is the most important, and I can still get a great profit on that product. If my photos demonstrate that it’s going to convert better. Even at the beginning, before I have reviews,
Charles (04:00):
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Charles (04:48):
Now onto the show. I think this is mental hangup. What people, what you just said is it’ll convert better for certain folks, right? So like, if you’re looking for, you know, if you’re the gardener and everyday you want to, like you were in gloves, you don’t care how it fails. Like maybe it’s not for that guy maybe, but it’s for the person who cares about, you know, how the rake, the handles, like you said, the grip, but I think people get hung up on thinking. Yeah. But I’m going to alienate this huge audience. And what about these folks? And what about beaten? Like what do you kind of, how do you get people over that mental hurdle?
Seth (05:18):
Yeah. So first of all, finding the problem, and then second, when I th there’s really two levels of conversion on Amazon or, or any website, the first level is they see your listing amongst a lot of other competitors. So if I go to Amazon, for example, again, I search garden rake. I’m going to see a whole bunch of listings pop up. So there has to be something that motivates me to click on one of those listings. So that’s the first hurdle. And there are three things that are gonna determine that there’s the price. Do I have a competitive price in sometimes Charles having the lowest price is actually not best, maybe when you launch, but we have found that sentenced by raising the price, the product, even better seconds, the photo they’re only going to see the featured photo. That’s why that first photo is so important.
Seth (06:03):
And third, the title, those are the three big ones. Once we’ve gotten over that hurdle. Now I’m looking at their listing. Now there’s no other competition distracting me as the customer. And now the only question is, does that listing remove all of the obstacles my mind is coming up with, for not buying that product. Like there’s a lot people literally when they go through a listing or even if they’re standing in target or Walmart, they’re going through a list of mental questions. What does it do this? Does it do this? What if this happens? And that the responsibility of the one selling the product is to know those objections and to answer them satisfactorily one by one, through the listing, starting with the most important ending with the least. So for example, you have bullet points on your listing. The first bullet point must address the most important factor and the second important bullet point, the second most important factor and so forth.
Seth (06:58):
So to go back to your question, to get over that mental hurdle, if I am focused on providing a solution that fixes a problem in a way, no one else is doing, I don’t have to worry about the competition. I’m focused on my future customer. I’m saying, look, I’m going to solve a problem for them that no one else is doing. And it’s true. There are other people here to jump in and try to copy and do the same thing. But the market, I forget the name of the book, the 20 some undeniable principles of marketing that book talks about he who is first to market is better than he is better to be first than best. And the point was, if you’re first in solving a solution, even if someone comes out and copies you and they do a better job at it, once you have a strong market share, you have reviews, you have ranking, they’re gonna have to spend a lot more money to reach the level that you’re at.
Charles (07:49):
Do you recommend folks which direction you recommend? They start, let’s go there. Let’s say someone, you should. They be sitting down thinking I want to sell God and rakes, or do they go the other direction saying I want to solve a problem for, you know, how his wives that are doing some gardening on the weekend? Like, do they start with the avatar? Do they start with the product and then find the avatar for that? Which direction do you?
Seth (08:12):
Excellent. Excellent question. I think that depends on the individual. So a lot of the people that we build Amazon stores for they’re already selling in brick and mortar, and they’re saying, Hey, Seth, I want you in just one dime to take our product, put it on Amazon and grow it. So they already know the product. They already understand that they already have the marketing material. Our job is to get them selling online. That’s one example. Another example would be someone who’s completely Virgin to this. They have no previous experience. And they’re like, well, yeah, I got my nine to five, but I’d really like to start generating income on the side. Can you show me how to do this?
Charles (08:45):
And they’re looking for something they’re like, I don’t even know I’m okay with a guide and a rake or whatever, like shoes. Like it doesn’t matter if they just want something. Yeah,
Seth (08:53):
Exactly. So for those people, we tell them two things. Number one, you’re going to sell a product well that you know already, but don’t become too emotionally attached to the product because that can cause you to not look, let the data guide you to make wise decisions. In other words, it, because I have an ex a lot of experience in the health and fitness industry, it is much easier for me to launch a fitness product than it is to launch a product in. Let’s say the gardening category. Ironically, we actually have a few products in the garden, but it’s much easier because I know exactly what other minute struggling with. I know it because I’m doing, I’m living it. However, here’s the danger. If I just let the fact that, Oh man, this is the product I want. I would love this product. I can’t let that be the final determiner. If I should launch this product. Because what if the data, the research data doesn’t match up and show there’s enough demand or there’s enough people who would be interested. And that’s what we teach is, well, how do I know if there’s demand? Because the scariest thing is becoming a new Amazon seller and not knowing after you’ve spent the money on having the product manufactured, how do I know it’s actually going to sell? So that’s what we specialize in is understanding the market in advance.
Charles (10:08):
Any kind of tips for that. That was my next question. Actually. Good, good lead in there. Cause that’s really the thing, right? You’ll go in there and that’s the scary part. You’re like, I’m convinced if I read all the books, I did the courses and, but you have most folks, if it’s your first time you have just like one shot, right? Like you kind of allocated the money. You have to make the purchase. And it, that has to sell before you can make purchase. Number two. There’s no like you don’t get like a second bullet in the chamber. It’s just, this is the one. And you have to sell, throw any kind of like, how do you kind of walk through that with folks?
Seth (10:37):
Yeah. So first I tell them, when you launch, your first product could fail and I
Charles (10:43):
Believe you would not fail
Seth (10:47):
Chances of it. Failing. If you’re, you’re going through what we teach are reduced greatly. And we have data to back that up, but it still could fail. Like it absolutely could fail. And people, when they become entrepreneurs, they have to accept the fact that failure is part of being an entrepreneur. And they may not have a second bullet in the chamber today, but because they’re still alive because they’re still breathing because they still have a job there always as a second bullet in the chamber, they just need to give themselves time and grace until they’re ready for that. But having said that, just to rewind, how do we reduce the chance of that? First of all, we find out what current customers are saying. So if I go to Facebook groups, there are tons of communities online where they, like, if you find these really these groups that nerd out on certain topics, and I listened to what they are saying, they’re telling me what they love or hate about a product I can already, I can already see it.
Seth (11:39):
So w how they feel emotionally about a product has a huge impact on the kind of product that I’m going to launch. The same is true of the critical reviews that I mentioned. Here’s, what’s amazing about the reviews on Amazon. When you go to a product and you see those reviews, they’re already automatically sorted based on which ones, which reviews rank the highest. And you would think that the most recent reviews would be the ones at the top, but you literally have to click a button to change it to a sort by most recent. And of course, most shoppers don’t even think about this. They don’t care. They just read the first five to 15 reviews, or at least skim over them. What makes those reviews rank is a couple of things. Number one, the reviewer is highly trusted by Amazon. Each reviewer has its own sort of like trust index, similar to Google.
Seth (12:28):
Amazon doesn’t release what that information is, but because they’ve done a good job because a lot of people have voted them helpful. There’s a lot of trust. Therefore, some reviewers are going to get more credibility. Second, the customers and shoppers who found that review help for interacted with that review. They’re going to write more. So all I have to do Charles is look at the first five to 15 reviews on a product. And that’s going to tell me what’s most important to the current customer, which greatly reduces my lack of confidence or my chance that it’s not going to launch well. In other words, I’m asking, I’m finding out what customers are saying about it today, before I ever send money to a manufacturer and say, okay, I’m ready build this for me. One more thought on this, Charles, because of COVID because of tariffs, because of all the things going on between China and the U S a lot of people are scared and nervous about it. This is actually worked in the favor of the Amazon seller.
Charles (13:25):
How so China,
Seth (13:27):
The actual suppliers, the manufacturers are more open to negotiating with us as Amazon sellers, because they understand the fear and the concern. Therefore, for example, I can order smaller minimum order quantities today than have ever been able to before, which means I can order 300 of a unit, send it in instead of spending money on 3000 units. Now this isn’t going to be the case across the board for every manufacturer. It’s all going to depend on who they are and your relationship with them. But as a general rule, what we are seeing Charles is actually working with us more. They’re like, Hey, I get it because of COVID, Hey, I get it because of tariffs, let’s make this work. And in some situations, the Chinese government has stepped in and is helping those factories give us better prices because they don’t want to lose their business. So the Terra four is actually making them want to do business with us more because there’s afraid of losing business with the U S
Charles (14:22):
Yeah. There’s minimums prices, payment terms. I’ve heard just flexibility across the board. And that was like this very unique time where before it might’ve been, you know, several thousand units, now that several
Seth (14:32):
You’re totally right. Cause they’re like, well, yeah, I’m going to get business. I get requests every day who don’t want to go into now, it’s that scarcity is actually helping us.
Charles (14:39):
Yeah. That’s interesting. Yeah. I think, I think now is an interesting time to get into it, right? Where all of a sudden you can try things you can experiment. And like, you’re talking with a bullet in the chamber, right? If you, if have more than one that’s the most powerful thing where you just know, okay, I’m doing this and I’ve always tried to approach it as this is an experiment, right? Like we’re going to learn from this. Maybe we’re going to spend some money, but it’s probably cheaper than, you know, some people go to a four year college and learn less there than it does launching a product and you launch it. And just the stuff you learn in that first few months, it’s literally, it’s the biggest education you’re going to get in business is that first time you watch that. And if you can just, okay, now I get a second. How about a third? Now? All of a sudden you’ve seen, you know, you’ve seen the show before, you know how it’s going to play out and you can just kind of run through. And it’s so much easier. The second, third, fourth time.
Seth (15:34):
Absolutely. And Charles, one of the, I want to mention too, is when I started theoretically or, or metaphorically, I didn’t have a bullet in the chamber. I had 10 cents. That’s all I had. Like, so for me, I had to like, okay, I’m not even starting with a gun. I have the gun, I got 10 cents. What am I going to do with that 10 cents? And I hope that all your listeners listening today, who are thinking about becoming an entrepreneur, you don’t need a wealthy parents, a big paycheck from the government, or some extra special opportunity in order to change your life. If you’re waiting for that, you’re probably, it’s probably never going to happen. You can start today. You just might have to start with what you got. Even if it’s as small, as doubling a dime. And I had to take on this mindset before I was ready to grow into multi-millions, it was not like, Oh, one day someone just said, here you go, Seth. And made it easy. I fell on my face so many times. It’s not even funny, but every time I got back up, it made me stronger as a person.
Charles (16:33):
I think some people just don’t realize they just work. And even like that, looking through the reviews, looking through that, it’s just, it’s laborious. There’s work to it. But even if you have a huge, you know, a huge amount of funding, you still don’t want to do that. That’s like, those are the steps that you can’t actually skip either way. And I, some people I thinking, well, if I just had this, if I just had that, and it’s like, you still need to do these like very basic steps. And if you do them, then you’re going to be more confident. You’re going to maybe find some with funding and say, Hey, I did the research here. You know, XYZ has a product. Here’s all my kind of report on us. And maybe we can do this together. Or somebody a little more experienced can help you. There’s so many different models, but just doing that work upfront makes you more apt to succeed. And actually any of these, finding it and just doing it that way, it makes it so much easier. And some people just want to skip over that. I feel like, yeah,
Seth (17:22):
I think you’re totally right. And I think it requires a change of perspective. It’s we have to move away from I’m depending on someone to write my paycheck. Now I have to go get customers to write my paycheck. And sometimes they’ll remind our staff here. Our headquarters are here in Austin for just one dime. I’ll remind them, Hey guys, remember at the end of the day, the customer is writing our paycheck. So let’s make sure we’re doing an amazing job for them. Whether it’s physical products or service products, it’s still the same concept. So in order to do that, we have to do the work. We literally have to become like the cook or the waiter or the waitress, and we’re serving you. And if we take delight in that and focus on that, the money then becomes sort of a by-product to that. And all of a sudden the money begins to come in and it’s not easy, but man, does it feel good when you obsess about that customer experience and people, they get scared to sell on Amazon because they think, well, I’m just going to be lost in the mix.
Seth (18:17):
People are going to Amazon more today than ever to find new brands. They can fall in love with where they can say, you know what? Because I’m a backpacker. I’m always going to go to this brand because I trust their products. So the opportunity today is like, it’s insane. On the sad side, COVID has caused many people to lose their jobs on the good side. For those who are selling an Amazon are starting to the advantage for them is like, it’s never been before. And Amazon continues to favor those who focus on building brands, not just selling products and trading products.
Charles (18:49):
When you say building brands, though, how do you differentiate between building a brand and you know, just getting slapped a logo on something and sell, like, how do you, like, what is that shift and how do you actually build a brand on Amazon?
Seth (19:01):
Yeah. I love that you used the example of slapping a logo on something, because back, I just interviewed someone who started selling on Amazon in 2003, I didn’t start. So 2014, Charles, late 2014. So this guy like way back call, it was a bookstore and people were like, why would I buy, you know, scotch tape? Or why would I buy a Yeti microphone when it’s a bookstore, like way back in the day. So a few years, like five to 10 years after that, that’s what it was like, you slap a logo on and you sell it and people buy it. And the competition was way less. And that’s why they called it private labeling or white labeling because they will put their own logo on a generic item. So here’s how it’s different today. When I go, I’m going to now speak from the perspective of a consumer.
Seth (19:47):
When I go to Amazon, I’m looking for a solution to a need. Let’s just say, I want an air filter for my bedroom. I want cleaner air. So I search air filter for house or interior air filter. And I see all these products. Now at this point, Charles, I could not tell you what brand to trust or what brand not to trust. I don’t know. So all I have is the listing. So the way to build a brand step number one is you build a listing that shoppers will absolutely love. That’s the first thing. So, because the listing is all I to go by what I can see. I can’t hear it. I can’t smell it. I can’t taste it. All I can do is see it with my eyes. So there’s got to be an absolutely incredible listing that grabs my attention. And how does it grab my attention?
Seth (20:29):
It’s showing me value. It’s going to solve my need. So then I click on that listing that’s step number one and amazing listing step number two, I buy the product. I receive it. The product has to deliver better than the listing promised. And this is hard because we already said the listings got to stand from the rest. Well, the product has to stand out from the listing through which they bought it. In other words, and this is something, even though I talk a lot about high left the richest company in the world, that time Apple to build my own businesses. And it sounds amazing. It was very hard. One great thing, many, but one of the many great things I learned from Apple is they called it surprise and delight. In other words, when I opened that package, Charles, and I said, hold this product in my hand, I need to be surprised how good it is compared to the listing from which I found it.
Seth (21:18):
It actually has to over deliver, having under promised and the under promising listing has to be better than the rest of the listings. Like, yeah, this is like, a lot of people are like, wait a minute. Are you serious? Like, yes, this is how you build a brand. So first listing that stands out second, a product that over-delivers and third follow-up that moves my love from the listing to the product now to the brand. Because if we stop there and assume that the transaction is over after the product has shipped, we are losing out on the biggest opportunity for building a brand. And this is where followup comes through. Now. Amazon has greatly restricted how many messages or if any messages can be sent out to customers anymore called messaging, or we would call it sequenced messaging on the seller central platform. But there is a way to connect with that customer outside of Amazon’s platform that does not break, or at least directly break Amazon’s terms of service.
Seth (22:20):
It is a gray area. I don’t want to use this. This is going to sound so lame, everyone. Who’s smart is doing it. And I’ve never seen Amazon even slap someone on the wrist for doing this, where you insert a card into the product packaging that incentivizes me as the consumer to go to that website. Usually by a QR code, I scan it. It takes me to a website to get something of more value than I even expected. But in order to get that, when I’m on that page, it’s going to ask for my first name and my email. Now I’m off of Amazon’s platform as a seller. Now I can ask you for review. Now I can Mark it to you. Now I can add you more con more content. And one more thought in this something we’ve done, Charles, that has allowed our students to see reviews organically.
Seth (23:06):
Not only do we provide value to that little card insert because obviously not. Everyone’s going to have the time or incentive to go do it. We also include something in the package that they didn’t expect that was not advertised on the listing. Now, some people, a small percentage will think, Oh, I just forgot it was on the listing. I didn’t see it. But most people realize it was a gift and we make it clear. It’s a gift. It might even be an accessory that costs 10 cents. But to the buyer, the value is huge because we over-delivered. So not only does the product do a great job, there’s some kind of accessory bumbled item in that package that makes me really grateful. And there are two reasons. People leave reviews either because they’re emotionally upset or they’re emotionally delighted. Well, I just gave the consumer the customer emotional delight moment. If that’s a word and that incentivizes them to go and leave me a very positive review. And the return review rate can go up. We’ve seen as high as 17%, which is like phenomenally. Unheard of
Charles (24:09):
That’s. I it’s funny you say this because just yesterday, I actually bought a Bluetooth bathroom scale on Amazon. And this is the first set and I saw this was really good. I went to set up, I’m like, I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m looking for a manual. There’s a little card in there, a QR code. And so to save paper, we’re making the manual electronic. I’m like, this is this, you scan it, you get the manual. They ask you to register during that. And I’m like, this is the idea right here. You can just put the manual online. And I actually needed to know how to do it. Cause I wasn’t sure how to like cook it up for the first time you scan the QR code and now you’re on their site. And like you’re saying now all of a sudden I’m looking at their logo.
Charles (24:45):
They can retarget me if they want I’ve, you know, I’m now interacting with their site, which is, and I just saw that the manual, like that was a great idea too, because you kind of want that. And it’s something I actually booked market. So now on top of going there for the first time, next time I need to set it up, you know, whatever, I’m going to go back to that site. So I’m going to keep remembering this brand. And it’s some bathroom scale that you’ve never heard of the brand, but now all of a sudden it’s becoming, Oh, when you sell these other products and I’m standing looking like, Oh, you sell a few different things. So you said that she brought us in their catalog on their site. And that’s w I thought that was a super good one. Just having that QR code. And like you said, I don’t know if it’s a gray area. I don’t know how Amazon feels about this, but you see this more right with manuals. It’s just like little value adds that you can scan, go to their site and they can give you things like that. So that’s a great tip.
Seth (25:34):
The fact that they said to save on paper, that’s going to motivate people who are sensitive about the environment who care about the environment. So now there’s a little bit of a value add. Now you think of that, that company, not just trying to say something, but they actually are trying to help the environment. And it’s convenient. Like we live in the world of iOS devices and mobile devices. So it makes total sense.
Charles (25:53):
Well, and it was happy because I have a drawer full of manuals that, you know, for whatever the dishwasher and you never actually want to go in that draw. You want to open your phone, so you just bookmark it. And Oh, now I get all the managers on my phone. This is fantastic. Right. But one thing you said, actually I wrote a note and I was like, I want to come back to, this is when we talk about someone going in there, their boss, right? They want to start a business because they want to be their own boss. That’s what a mindset. I’ve always kinda, you hear that and you don’t real. And then you kind of realize once you actually do it, that, okay, you’re basically substituting having one boss for actually having a hundred bosses are a thousand bucks. It’s not that you get to be your own boss.
Charles (26:30):
You actually just get more voices. And that mindset shift. I love hearing people talk about that. Cause it’s one of those like misconceptions on I’m going to leave and I’ll be, I’ll do whatever I want. And like, you will quite literally do exactly. It’s now to do what hundreds of thousands of people want. And they’re going to write, you’re not going to be getting this one demand it’s and you, at least you have one boss. It’s one person saying, this is what you’re going to do. And you’re like, great. Now you’re going to have a thousand people telling you a thousand different opinions. And now it’s up to you not to be your own boss, but to actually figure out how to satisfy most of them, most of the time in the best way possible. So you’re not, you know, you’re not getting this, like, you know, it is freedom and it’s things like that, but it’s this mindset thing that now you’re going to have to really figure out how to satisfy all these folks. And it’s a very, it’s a subtle shift in your perspective, which I found. Yeah, that’s good to hear.
Seth (27:19):
Yeah. That’s such a great point, Charles, because I think people forget that the first boss they’re going to have when they leave their nine to five is themself. And it’s really hard to be objective with oneself. When the alarm goes off at four 30 or five o’clock in the morning, I’m like, Hmm, I could use a few more hours. And so they roll out of bed at nine o’clock there’s four hours. They just lost whether competition is getting ahead. And all of a sudden the wondering man, why is my business suffering? And I’m not saying, if you don’t get a burner, your business won’t succeed. But I am saying that self-discipline required is harder than most people realize. I think we are taught in our schools today to say, yes, yes, yes. Obey, obey, obey, go to recess, go to class. Like even from elementary school.
Seth (28:07):
So shifting over to becoming a boss of oneself is really hard. And exactly like you said, then you have customers. How do you decide which ones to make happy? And which ones you have to say no to. And one technique that we teach is you niche down. As far as you can, to a sub sub sub sub category without sacrificing domain. If you niche down too far, you lose a demand. But if you’re too broad, you have too much competition. So the way we balance it is we still want great demand, but we’re going niche down as far as we can, without losing that demand, which reduces the competition. And now we know, okay, here’s my customer. This is what time they tend to get up. This is the kind of lifestyle they have. They either, are they single? Are they married? Do they have kids?
Seth (28:48):
Do they not want kids? Do they work in New York? Do they work in Wisconsin? Like we start creating this avatar, as you said, of who we’re trying to serve. And then it becomes a lot easier because we’re really obsessing at the end of the day, about one person, not many, because we know the customer, we want to help. And there’s always going to be someone who’s going to say, well, what about this? What about this? And as soon as you start saying yes to everything, just tears us in pieces. And that’s where we have to focus on that, that one customer avatar and make sure we’re doing everything we can to serve them. But you’re right. It is harder than most people realize. It sounds romantic. I fired my boss. Yeah. Great. But it comes with great responsibility and a lot of internal growth is required.
Charles (29:31):
I always tell people the best part about running your own businesses. You know, nobody tells me what to do, but also the worst part is nobody tells you what to do. So this is double side of, you know, then all of a sudden you’re like, well, what do I work on next? And you’re like, not really. There’s like a hundred things I could work on, but which one is the right thing? And you know, some could actually be bad for my business if I go too far down this path. And there’s all these little micro decisions that you don’t realize now, okay, you’re the one making a moment and you need to just get good at bash. And that’s a, it’s a skill that, like you said, you’re not taught in school. You’re not taught in the business world. You just have to do it. And there’s only one way to kind of just get used to that. I like that. So what do you guys actually, before I let you run, so it’s just one, just one dime, right? It’s a course for Amazon sellers. What do you guys teach? Like, is it somebody that’s a retailer now you’re saying, or is it somebody who is, you know, just getting into it? Like what do you kind of start people off? And what do you kind of get them to?
Seth (30:27):
Yeah. Yeah. So there’s two, two, really two arms to just one dime. One is we teach entrepreneurs how to build an Amazon business. The other arm is for people who have the capital, but not the time or want the hassle of learning, how to build an Amazon business. They are investors. We build the whole business for them. They own it. 100%. They invest in it and then we build it out. So those are really the two arms. So on, on the one side for where we train entrepreneurs, it is five courses. There’s a private community. There’s, one-to-one coaching, there’s group coaching. And when they’re in, they’re in for lifetime and we basically, as long as we exist, we continue to train them every week. And all the videos and trainings are updated every week because Amazon changes constantly. We even do some product research for them.
Seth (31:14):
We send them three market ideas with research. They still need to do their own research, but we show them. Here’s how we came to this conclusion that this product could potentially make a lot of money. So that’s the, what we call FBA mastery. The training side on the investor side, which is called done for you. They don’t lift a finger. They invest there’s an upfront fee. They have to pay for us to build out the store, find the products, differentiate, find the supplier, negotiate, manage the creation of the mold. If necessary all the product design, get it sent in, create the listing, do split testing of photos. The whole thing, all they do is have meetings with us as needed to stay updated on how we are growing their money. And then they have to give us the green light before we launch a product because it’s their money we’re investing. And then they own the business a hundred percent. So we build it as big as we can. If they one day say, Hey, I want to try and sell this. They can do that. Or if they send, they say, Hey, I’m going to take over. They can do that. So those are really the two sides to just one diamond, the services that we offer.
Charles (32:12):
Hmm. How about if somebody is looking to do the investment side, what’s kind of like, what does that look like? Money-Wise should someone expect, how much did they spend going into that?
Seth (32:22):
Absolutely. So someone shouldn’t even consider it. If they don’t have somewhere between 45 and $60,000 to invest. The reason for that is we launched three products and that includes everything I listed before. That’s $10,000 service fee per product and that everything that’s just one piece that’s for us doing the work. We have three different teams. We’re building these out. In addition, they still have to fund the products themselves. So you’re looking at a maximum of 60,000. That would be $10,000 service fee per product, lunch, 10,000 per product. Oftentimes it’s 45 or 50,000 because the product is not always cost 10,000 on the first batch. The way we build it is once they’ve invested the money, we have an agreement, they meet with us. They have to fill out an application. We have I’ll just to give you an example, Charles, we had a company who wanted to invest 20 million in this opportunity.
Seth (33:15):
And after a lot of back and forth discussion, we turned them down. And even though it was one of the hardest decisions I’ve made in my life, because 20 millions, it’s a lot of money to me. I may be a millionaire, but 20 months, that’s still a lot to me that the reason we did that is the values that that company had, did not match our core values. There were nice people, but it just, it, it wasn’t going to be a good fit. So we treat these almost like a marriage. These are people we want to grow with. Long-Term we’re not looking for people who are like, Hey, I just want to get in and out and flip. No, we’re looking for people who are like, let’s grow this together. Long-Term but it’s still their business. So they have ultimate control over it. They’re paying us to grow it.
Seth (33:54):
And then we get some of that revenue on a sliding scale. So that for every product that’s sold, we don’t make any money unless they make at least as much or more. So, for example, let’s say the profit was a microphone and you know, the, it was 10% profit. We don’t get anything. And then if it was, you know, 10, 11 to 20% profit, then we only get 5% of the revenue. It’s a sliding scale. And then it caps at 15% revenue, which guarantees. If we make $15 on a hundred dollars sale, they will at least make $15. Usually closer to 20 to 30 or 40 could be higher depending on that profit margin. So the idea that the done for you investment is longterm growth. People with capital who want to enter what today in my humble opinion is the fastest growing market sector on planet earth. Like in my mind, when I compare it to stocks, cryptocurrency, real estate, I don’t know anything that is giving an ROI like Amazon stores, but here’s the thing. Amazon stores with people who actually know how to do it and who have made all the mistakes. We know what pitfalls to watch out for because we’ve failed many times.
Charles (35:02):
Well, I liked the idea of when you say for the even small one, the private group as well. Yeah, I’ve always been in a few just industry, private groups, and it’s super helpful to kind of, I kind of recommend everyone should be, and I’m not talking like the general, like, like a public one, right? Like, you know, right. It that’s a little different, like that sort of thing, like the Reddit forums, but when you’re in a smaller private group and you start to get to know some of the folks in there and you just have, Hey, I’m trying to take product photos. And this, you know, this photographer is trying to charge me X amount per phone. Like, is that, is that make sense? Like, what do you guys think? How much did you pay? And you can just get 10 replies real quick of, and I don’t know if people do this Negro, but it’s always been super helpful to me to just like gut check some of my decisions or pricing, or just like, I’m thinking about this. And then I be in like off the wall right now. Like what do you guys think? You just, you get 10 replies real quick. And you’re like, all right, I’m not a crazy person. Check that. Yeah,
Seth (35:53):
Absolutely. Charles, just to give you a perspective, I love what you said about the private groups. If someone causes issues or uses sarcasm, passive aggressive statements are critical. We just kick them out. It’d be abandoned. Like you can’t be part of the group unless you’re going to help. And we, we set that expectation. And this is now not for the done for you part. This is for the FBA mastery training part where we’re teaching them, you, people posts they’ll get 20, 30, sometimes over a hundred replies of people saying, here’s what worked for me. And then there’s mentor coaches, mentoring that to make sure those replies are accurate as well.
Charles (36:25):
Yep. Yeah. That’s very cool. Yeah, definitely. It’s been helpful once you kind of start getting into, if you find a group you like, and I have a couple of them men, and just things like that, where you could just post a quick question, you have someone in there, they can check you. It really is it like I said, no one can tell you what to do, but it’s nice. At least having a group to tell you what you’re doing, isn’t completely wrong, right? Like what you’re doing, isn’t a terrible idea, at least, you know, all right, let’s keep pushing so awesome. If people want to, that’s a probably a good place to leave it. But super helpful. If folks want to kind of see the site, you sent a bunch of links. I’ll definitely link to that show note, but where are some of the best places to find you? Yeah.
Seth (37:06):
Easiest place is just go to J O d.com and it stands for just one dime J O d.com. You’re always welcome to send me an email. I respond to all my emails, SCTE, H seth@jod.com. If they go to jody.com, there’s a ton of free content. There it’s links to our YouTube channel or Instagram. We have a 90 minute free training workshop. I mean, basically for anyone who is saying, look, I would like to build a business that creates cashflow. That’s what we specialize in. We teach how to do that. Just go to JLD
Charles (37:39):
Awesome. I’ll link to the show notes. Thank you very much for coming on today, South. Appreciate it.
Seth (37:43):
Yeah, Charles, thanks for having me, man. And have an awesome rest of your day.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
[Inaudible].
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