October 18, 2025 • 34 mins
Jamie Davidson is one of the longest-standing Amazon operators to reach nine-figure revenue — co-founder of AMZ Insiders, mentor to top sellers, and builder of Clarity 6, an AI platform reshaping post-purchase automation.
In this Commerce Vanguard session, Jamie shares the systems and leadership frameworks that built $100M+ in sales and teams across the U.S. and Asia. He breaks down how to manage PPC at scale without agencies, build international teams, recover from Amazon account shutdowns, and use AI to cut costs and increase lifetime value.
Hosted by Nick Synov — founder of SYNOV Agency (industrial-grade ecommerce) and SMTTR (AI hardware / GPU distribution) — delivering contrarian strategies for brands scaling digital commerce.
Learn more or request an E-commerce Growth Audit → https://synov-systems.com
Subscribe for new episodes and exclusive insights → https://commercevanguard.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
Jimmy Davidson.
Uh, I have done some, uh, conferences
already with Jimmy before, like,
many years before.
And I can say that Jimmy is one of
the biggest million.
Uh, I have seen the longest, uh,
Amazon sellers on the market.
And, uh, he he's having a long
term success, not only just with his brand, but
(00:28):
he also has a huge mentorship.
And he helped.
I know a huge number of people to sell
their brands and do even roll
ups, like huge exit strategies to
actually, you know, cash out and build wealth, not
just, you know, doing some small cash flow
monthly with a huge stress of being blocked or
(00:48):
just lost your positions or anything like this.
So it's very wise person, and I'm
just happy to have him here to share his
knowledge and mindset.
Jimmy, hey, it's nice to meet you.
Oh, you.
Please, could you please unmute yourself first?
Yep.
(01:08):
Hey, Nick.
Great to be here.
Yeah, it's also great to meet you.
Another Amazon insider.
Insider as well as me.
Yes.
Yes, yes.
What are you guys?
We have a lot of questions for you.
Um, but maybe can you introduce a little bit
on what is working right now, what's your main
(01:30):
focus and a little bit about your community also?
Yeah, sure.
So, uh, yeah.
So again, Jamie Davidson, uh, co-founder for a
long time, a community called AMC insiders.
Uh, it's a coaching consulting.
Uh, we advise a lot of big brands or
big sellers.
Just what you said to help them grow.
(01:52):
And then, uh, I've worked a lot in the
last couple of years.
Just some of you guys may be familiar with,
like, Scott Dietz into the northbound group.
Um, so we've helped a lot of
people exit brands.
Um, so I work closely as part
of that team.
Um, and then, you know the answer.
Your last thing.
Most recently, the really the past 12 months, of
course, a lot of the stuff on the, the
(02:12):
AI front and the,
uh, the tools.
And so we've, we've been working on just tools
that kind of help, uh, automate some of the
process of, uh, of
re communicating with your customers and and
growing your brands as well too.
So, uh, and I can touch upon that.
It's called clarity.
We have a tool.
It's called clarity six.
(02:33):
Um, and uh, that's probably been our big focus,
along with all the people we support in the
AMG insiders community.
Oh, that's very nice.
Um, and probably we can we, uh, you
know, make a structure of two sections.
First, maybe some questions to you about, you know,
just the business itself and how you approach
your building companies.
And then it's very interesting subject.
(02:55):
We had very big founder of one AI tool,
uh, which is totally changed the game with,
uh, testing a lot of stuff on all the
sales process.
And I think it's one of the if you
use AI right now, you're like a pioneer on
the market, and maybe in a year everyone will
be using it.
But right now you can really, you know, have
(03:16):
a huge advantage of it.
So yeah, yeah, we can definitely do that.
And I guess I didn't mention, of course, a
long time seller on Amazon.
We, we, uh, it's a
couple thousand products.
We got a warehouse down the road here, but
we we broke the nine figure mark in
2018 was the first year we hit that mark.
So, um, you know, kind of
builds it from the ground up with a couple
(03:37):
other partners to, uh, you know, the
team now has about 40 people here in the
Atlanta, Georgia area.
We've got 200.
Members over in Shenzhen, China coordinating the
our brands still as well.
So it's one of those perfect.
I had my first office in Atlanta, um,
before BlackLivesMatter.
Uh, then I get it more often because, yeah,
(03:59):
it was a hard city for me, but,
uh, it's really nice.
And can you maybe, uh, it's just
what stripe 32 did, like, first, um,
hitting nine figure Mark, you, you know, you say
it so easily, but for real, most people don't
even imagine these numbers.
Can you somehow structure a
(04:20):
bit the thousands of products?
I understand it's a big infrastructure.
It's not possible to do it with one product
with ten product.
So it's the processes or R&D
departments, how you really
build the system, build the team and 40 people
and nine figures.
I think this is an insanely very good result,
(04:40):
you know, so I, I, I met
people who had around 12 people
doing 100 mil, but it's something, you
know, very, very rare and epic.
Rare.
I mean, so can you make the structure a
bit how how does it look, how this number
is collected through all this product together?
Yeah, sure.
Maybe that would be good.
(05:00):
I'll give kind of give you some of the
background, maybe the first part of this, to the
extent that's helpful and then happy to later
on share some of the stuff we're working on
kind of right now.
But, uh, yeah, I mean, the
background was, I was I was a military
officer went to West Point, uh,
and had been kind of a hired gun by
(05:21):
companies to, to run companies
by private equity firms.
So I was the chief operating officer and a
CEO of a couple of companies.
And one of the deals brought me to Atlanta
in my next door neighbor is a
native of China, but I've been here in a
long time.
So he was an IT guy
and we became buddies because we're next door neighbors
(05:43):
and kind of mutually respected each other.
And he started selling, uh, cell phone cases out
of the, I say, out of the garage.
He had them stored in the garage initially.
So, um, it's funny, way back
when that initially when he was first selling, because
I'd hear him off the back porch late at
night yelling in Mandarin to get things
shipped over and stuff.
And, uh, I used to think at the very
(06:04):
beginning, I used to think, oh, I can't do
this because, you know, I don't speak Mandarin or
I don't have that connection.
I thought that was like the reason why he
was doing it as a side hustle, because he
was an IT consultant for like, Microsoft and traveling
around in big companies for that.
Um, but yeah, the more we got into it
and looked at it and started running the
numbers like these cell phone cases,
(06:27):
they were super light.
And, uh, you know, we're charging, you
know, 40, $50 for them or we're paying, you
know, a few bucks for them.
And there wasn't a lot of competition.
But the advantages early on
was the, uh, the understanding of, like,
the IT background helped a lot because, uh, I
have, like, an engineering background.
He had kind of a computer science background, but,
(06:49):
um, not that it was like heavy in that
way, but it helped us just in terms of.
Whether it's that or now, it's just the ability
to build out systems was so critical for us.
So we built, uh, like
our whole logistic system.
And once we saw, you know, once we got
the, the brand and the product right, and started
growing, we just systematized a lot of the aspects
of the business.
(07:09):
So whether it's inventory, whether it's
PPC management, like all these things, we weren't really
using a lot of agencies to run our stuff.
We just kind of kept building internally trying to
figure it out, make some mistakes.
But we did once we figured out we had
like really good internal kind of standard
operating procedures and everything from,
uh, you know, like even we do
(07:30):
product selection.
There's a we have a team in China that
does our product selection.
They go through all these criteria to research it.
Then it comes over to our team here in
the US.
But it's like a very defined process that we
go through uh through everything which
doesn't guarantee success.
But it but it puts the odds in our
favor, uh, around there.
So, uh, like, like the PPC
(07:51):
management, we've got like, 30 plus
people in China that manage our PPC that are
looking at the accounts.
But, um, it's so yeah, we don't
outsource it to agencies.
So it's just a little,
um, I gotta say, I would always recommend
the certain things we do, like we run our
own warehouse here in Atlanta, but I don't necessarily
recommend that.
(08:12):
I'd probably do a three PL, but, um.
The high level points there are.
Just like for
us, there were inflection points because one.
Yes, the time in the market was
good back then.
Uh, you know, this is
2012 through 1518.
But we did get we did plateau at certain
points, like at around 50 million.
(08:32):
We were kind of stuck at 50 for a
couple of years.
And the way we finally broke through that next
level was when, uh, we built the
team overseas.
And, uh, because we
just couldn't get enough talent here in Atlanta and
have them stay and for what they
cost to build a really build and
grow the business.
(08:52):
So we had to become kind of an international,
uh, structured team.
But again, the key to all of that is
just the processes and systems that,
you know, I don't care if you're a one
person operation or, you know, 2 or 3 people
or, you know, 200, you want to make sure
that you're you're only as good as your
systems is kind of what's been, you know, one
(09:13):
of the keys to our success.
Yeah.
I always say, you know, people, uh, I see
people at conferences, they come to big guys, ask
questions and then interrupts them on the first
words and just starting say, oh, I've already done
this, done this.
It doesn't work.
But I'm pretty sure when the big guys are
saying this works.
And some people say, okay, it's only
(09:34):
for big guys.
You know, I won't do this like outsource and
have certain people in China doing PPC.
I won't do this.
I'm small, but I think this is a
thing you need to do.
Really?
Because this is how you became big.
You just do the things what big
guys are doing.
And it's like a lot of challenges
on the on this way, I'm pretty sure.
(09:55):
And you just told us about the plateau.
Some people also say not Plato, but that's really,
you know, when you all grow or die, how
many of those you
and your career.
And because last year, obviously if you don't count
maybe 2020, they were hard.
So do you had any this kind of
very challenging experience and how it
(10:17):
was how you managed it.
Yeah, sure.
So yeah, no doubt we've had plenty of,
of uh, you know, well, we've had a lot
of serious ups and downs, to say the least,
with the, uh, you know, it's not as we
talk about the numbers, like, oh, $100 million in
sales or now it's $120 million.
(10:37):
You get caught in that that number as
if, uh, but, you know, that speaks to the
the top line, the sales, the bottom line, obviously,
the operating income is is what, you know, ultimately
you want to achieve.
So we've had years where, you know, we've had
margins that, you know.
For 7%, you know, 5%.
So really low margin years.
We've had some years, you know, at scale.
(10:59):
You know, for us like 15% is is a
good number.
But, um, you know, there's a lot of factors.
There's like lawsuits.
We've had plenty of lawsuits of people, um,
I'd say for our screen protectors at times, uh,
you know, whether people say they have patents on
certain things.
We've definitely got with lawsuits we've dealt with,
um, major issues, even with our founders
as a team.
(11:19):
We had one of our one of the co-founders
died in his 40s a couple two years ago.
So, you know, that was that was
a major issue.
Uh, we've had our Amazon account shut down
ten plus times, probably.
And, and, uh, you know, over initially
it was kind of, you know, back in the,
I'd say before 2015, it was like there was
(11:41):
so much black hat that you kind of it
wasn't even black hat was just how you did
things back then because Amazon's
rules weren't up to speed with, you know, basically
how you could figure out how to, uh, you
know, have multiple computers buying your products and all
these type of things.
But over time, I mean, Amazon's gotten better,
smarter, and it's more brand focused.
But, you know, so for us to adapt to
(12:03):
all those those changes, it was uh,
it was rocky at the time.
So um, so yeah, I mean, in
our case, we just, you know, if something goes
wrong, we just, you know, you can you want
to make sure you don't take bigger
risk and make.
You know, lose more money.
We had a you know, we've had plenty of
products that have failed, but the product we don't
(12:25):
look for as 100% success that we're
going to succeed.
We just want to put again.
As I said earlier, we want to put the
odds in our favor.
And then if we do enough with the odds
in our favor, then, you know, it's like if
you're playing blackjack and you're going to win 70%
of the time, then, you know, just you play
enough, you're going to you're going to do well
and grow.
So that's uh, been our approach.
(12:45):
But I mean, you kind of name it, we've,
we've made mistakes with, uh, you know, social
media spend, like we're always testing things, but we
just try not to.
We just try not to do it.
So it's not fatal, right?
So we try not to do things that are
going to wipe us out.
And so they're, you know, bets that we can
afford to make.
Um, otherwise, you know, it's it's it's okay
to grow a little slower, you know?
(13:06):
Yeah.
So it's like a risk management course, and sometimes
you slow down and then you will
grow your challenges.
Maybe within time it's much more
reliable than just, you know, go, go all in
and rush it.
Maybe six months faster, but you can
die during these six months
because it's very.
Yeah.
Like, yeah.
(13:26):
In our case, like we only sold cell phone
cases and accessories for like
the first five years of our business, right?
Like, we got to beyond $50 million.
We did.
We did an acquisition.
And when we were like 15 million, we acquired,
like a $5 million, um,
cell phone case brand and brought them in and
(13:47):
then grew both of those brands to like 40
million and each.
But, you know, we never went into any other
category other than that for a long
period of time.
We could have, but we just like, want to
stay focused in that one area.
And then, you know, years later now we sell
a different brand in the fitness category, a different
brand in the pet supply category.
(14:09):
They're not nearly as big, but, um.
But we waited.
We were really patient to
understand, you know?
Hey, let's kind of nail this first opportunity and
keep going after it before we, you know,
went off into other crazy things.
Is this very interesting?
Um, you mentioned already that you acquired
(14:29):
several companies, and that's, uh, I'm not sure our
audience know how it works, but it's something
called rollups.
Usually when you just, you know, grow your revenue
by acquiring other companies, and you can just build
a holding company.
So this is already some kind of exit strategy,
how you really can cash out later on.
Do you build all your companies like this?
(14:50):
Is this like kind of philosophy already?
Or if you're just build it, grow and then
only you transform it for exit?
Yeah, I would say for us it's been more
the latter.
We haven't we haven't had a strategy like, hey,
we're going to roll up a lot.
Um, we did early on because we
saw an opportunity.
It was more just, you know, hey, this is
(15:10):
a brand.
Um, it was a guy who was pretty young
at the time.
We're like, hey, we could we could pull him
in and we can grow this together.
And we did that.
Well, um, we actually had the idea of the
roll up strategy.
I had it up on my whiteboard and.
20, maybe 1820 before the ratio
came along and we were going to buy a
(15:31):
brands because we were like, hey, we could buy
them at three.
But, you know, that was one that we did
not pull the trigger on.
So we didn't go out and just like start
acquiring brands.
Um, again, I've helped a lot of people exit
brands, but or prepare for exit, you know, and
grow and build.
But the, uh, it's interesting,
you know, I guess it's, you know, right now,
the aggregators, of course, you know, some of them
(15:52):
have struggled a lot going through that model.
So you have to be careful with it.
But, you know, I think it is, uh,
you know, I guess I just look at it
from a strategic perspective, uh, just like, hey, if
there's an opportunity to acquire someone's brand, that would
help us, then then we'll do so.
But it is not one,
you know, the aggregators have kind of placed big
(16:13):
bets on that.
And again, I think they've had some
failure with it and some success.
So it's it's kind of a mixed bag, but
there are sometimes opportunities to where someone's like really
struggling with a brand.
Maybe they want and it's kind of low risk
that maybe you can take it on if it,
you know, fits with what you're doing.
Um, you know, those that's more likely the stuff
we've done than necessarily go out and just buy
(16:33):
a bunch of brands and stick them together.
Yeah, that's something very interesting subject.
I think it's deep, you know, and some people
even say only thing you should do is roll
out just your laps and somehow
you can end with big money, and they sell
it sometimes even from the stage.
But, uh, yeah, it could look like
(16:54):
a nice numbers.
But I remember the, the fuck
ups is that we got in the first one
when we acquired it, and just from 11 people
in team, we got one when we left offices.
So it's a lot of hard parts behind this.
So I'm also pretty sure it's all about team.
And you cannot just grow all this
only on systems.
However I understand for your case systems
(17:15):
characters, uh, but also
um, team management leadership, I think
this is a big deal still, um, what kind
of, you know, direct team you manage right now?
And how do you approach building a team?
Yeah.
So yeah, that's a big that's one that's helped
me from before my Amazon days that I was
(17:37):
I mentioned I was, uh, CEO of the company
and, and uh, chief operating officer we had a
couple those companies had, you know, a couple hundred
employees each.
So I had some experience in from the military,
just from a leadership perspective.
Uh, no doubt that is a huge piece.
And it's different now than because, you know, most
of the time your teams are going
to be remote.
And so you got to figure out how do
(17:57):
you manage them, um,
incentivize your team.
What's your hiring process?
A lot of people in the e-com space, you
really aren't used to that.
They're just trying to find a good
product to sell.
They're not really vetting necessarily the people they hire.
And how do you go through it?
So if you're looking to grow even your team
to five people or ten people or more, then
(18:17):
yeah, it's that whole, you know, leadership and
people pieces is critical.
What we did is, um.
So, you know, I've got a few different companies.
We have the then the brands there, and then
I have my AMG insiders.
We have a team there of about 15 people,
so it's smaller.
But on the what we've
done with the e-commerce side is, is kind of
(18:40):
somewhat traditional in that we have like so our
US based team, we have a US based marketing
team, we have in here in Atlanta, we have
a finance and accounting team.
We've got a an inventory
warehouse team that manages the warehouse here, not just
for Amazon, but the other platforms that
we sell on.
Uh, we've got customer service team, because, again,
(19:01):
a lot of the platforms we deal on, uh,
we have a customer service team and then overseas
and I mentioned in Shenzhen, China, we
have 200 people.
Um, what we did there is we actually have,
uh, we have general managers over there
that oversee the different departments.
So we have a product development
vice president that oversees the designs
of our product.
(19:22):
We have a, uh, another guy
that oversees the, uh,
uh, well, really, he's the overall general manager oversees,
including the logistics team, the global logistics, etc..
So, um, you know, the key is you've got
to get you've got to get some good people
in place if you're going to grow that big,
if you want to grow that big.
Um, nowadays a lot of the people.
(19:44):
Don't want to do that or not as skilled
as that as entrepreneurs.
And so that's where it's like, hey, just build
it and then sell it, build it up to
that level.
Sell another one.
But if you want to, if you do want
to get past, let's say like that $5 million
mark an up probably like you definitely in
terms of systems and people like
they're almost kind of boring topics.
But you have to get.
(20:04):
You have to really get good at those things
to, uh, you know, again, if you want to
scale and grow beyond beyond those levels.
Yeah, that's for sure.
Very challenging.
Sometimes you, you you're just not
made up, you know, like this.
It's not your type of work sometimes for
some people to manage.
(20:25):
And, um, it still doesn't mean
you are, you know, done.
And you can have only this amount of revenue
or something.
Um, have you got these cases when you're
not like Plato of business, but you
felt yourself need to
change somehow to in
order to grow?
And what have you done?
(20:45):
So for for example, I just told the story
like, hey, I mean, I'm five years
running daily.
I do, you know, cold plunge and I stand
on nails daily just short times, you know, it
was so painful.
But I had ideas in my head that I
cannot solve and I don't know how
to solve them.
It helped me better
than some consulting.
(21:06):
But what works for you?
Maybe these words.
Yeah.
It's, uh.
Well, I haven't done the nails on.
You said you stand on nails.
Yeah, I stand on nails and, like,
daily and I.
I do it with my team on on zoom
calls usually.
Right.
Oh, that's pretty cool.
I gotta see that one.
That's a new one to me.
Uh, no.
That's cool.
You're gonna get to see it.
(21:26):
Maybe the, uh, the a
couple of things I do do, which,
you know, personally.
Uh.
Oh, I gotta see this thing.
Uh, cool, man, that's probably
good selling products.
Oh, yeah.
Ouch.
Looks painful.
I do do the cold plunge.
I do do that, uh, a lot.
So I probably do that.
I don't do it every day.
(21:47):
I do that, like, uh, probably
2 to 3 times a week.
I will do that.
Um, I do a lot of sauna
as well, too.
And then, uh, of course, just fitness.
The more you can do that as well too.
But as far as, uh, again, the cold
plunge is is something.
Yeah.
It's kind of like loving yourself or putting yourself.
(22:08):
It's kind of like standing on nails, like doing
something that, uh, maybe
feels uncomfortable.
Right.
But that will benefit you.
The the other one is, I do I try
to participate in, uh,
you know, masterminds.
I love I love being around things like, away
from Amazon to, like, things that just
like where people really don't necessarily understand
(22:30):
Amazon, but they're they they know some cool stuff.
So like we're going to a, a podcasting event
next week or I've been part of I was
the, uh, a big mastermind, like some of the
top digital marketers or, um, how to
raise capital and money.
Like, I love things getting around people that
have, uh.
(22:51):
Basically skill sets that you don't have and learning
from them.
Again, Amazon conferences are great like this.
It's good to pick up for people.
But then you know what?
I find?
There's a lot of commonality.
Like it.
Or things you can apply back to your Amazon
business from these things outside of the Amazon industry.
So that's probably, you know, some of those
things I'm part of, you know, I pay to
be, uh, you know, I paid probably 50 grand
(23:14):
a year to be part of other groups and
mentors because, again, things that we don't know.
So I'm I am a big believer
in lifelong learning.
And then, you know, as far as for each
person what they're into, you know, again, I try
to do fitness, some of the cool plunge stuff
I'm into.
But I think that differs, you know, a little
bit for everyone.
But mine's not overly complicated.
But those are you know, those are some of
(23:35):
the things I focus on.
Yeah.
This is it's very nice.
It's it's not something I haven't
heard before myself.
Also tried programs up to 100
K per year.
Of course with like monthly payments it's much
easier than it's usually, uh, fields and
I totally agree.
If you if you're just going to know how
to do something, but you just keep around the
(23:57):
people who has the skills already.
They could be even from like different world from
you, but with months, months you'll get the skills
you'll understand again.
And then it's like even as the numbers of
the bigger people, they will be just okay with
you more and more with each month.
So it's a very good strategy.
So thank you, Jamie.
Just, you know, and for me, it's a
(24:19):
huge amount of insights.
I mean, I think, uh, all the
people here are we have some small founders, maybe
around 1 million and people with already ten plus
million in revenue.
I think for them it will be very insightful.
I know some guys like for several years they
cannot, you know, outgrow the 10 million mark.
I'm not sure if it's this mindset or something
(24:39):
else, but you know, something happens like this.
Yeah different platforms but go ahead.
Sorry.
Yeah, yeah I just wanted to shift a little
bit to AI already.
But if you have something to it.
No, no, we can definitely do some AI stuff.
Yeah, yeah.
They told you have some your own platform and
(25:00):
you use all of the AIS right now.
And I know you're talking about AI at your
podcast all the time.
So do you think this is something that can
grow you more than holding on to like,
next level?
This is why you are focused at this point
right now.
Yeah, yeah.
Like it is.
Your AI is like there's two ways.
(25:20):
Like one is it can be like
a buzzword, right?
It can be.
It's kind of like when everyone was talking crypto
and NFTs, you know, a few years back
and or even when the internet first
game went crazy back in the late 1990s.
Right.
It was like the, you know, the dotcom companies,
everyone was getting hyped and a lot
of them crashed.
But you gotta look at the underlying like, what's
(25:41):
the real value to you and your business for
these things?
Like forget the hype.
Um, so it's not that, you know, AI is
is magic bullet.
I don't think anything's changing that there are no
magic bullets, but there are real things you can
implement and tools and processes.
So I just kind of I do view them
as basically kind of software tools, but
they're more powerful.
And, uh, I know a lot of people are
(26:04):
just, you know, the biggest issues.
A lot of people talk about plateaus and things
is, is, you know, we can
all be lazy at times.
We can all just not implement things.
The hardest thing is to execute.
And so, you know, tons of people
The whole world has access to ChatGPT.
But what percentage of people actually use ChatGPT or
use it in a meaningful way?
It's actually still a pretty small.
(26:24):
It's a tiny percentage, and obviously there's tools
much more targeted than just that or that
leverages that.
So to me it's about, you know, how do
you pick things that are really valuable.
And I'm sure you probably had some presentations on
here, but probably some cool things to do.
Um, there's things that, you know, there's other tools
that we've been using that we didn't build.
(26:44):
Uh, the stuff we've been done has kind of
just pulled stuff together in terms of, of,
uh, email automation and product
inserts and some of the AI tools
that like, uh, I think Joey was
on here yesterday.
She probably talked about, uh, she looks a little
bit like, I like I'm a fan
of those guys.
Um, why do you analyze everyone, you know, all
their listing reviews and there's.
(27:05):
I'm sure there's some other tools that
do that, too.
But, you know, those are, like, real problems you
can solve and you can figure out, like, or
real insights you can gain.
If you can analyze thousands of reviews in a
matter of minutes, you know, that's like,
you know, like you can use that to your
advantage, right?
And, and solve real problems.
So I try to use AI tools to bring
(27:26):
it back to like the fundamentals of business.
Like how do you solve a real problem?
How do you, um, you know, how do you
differentiate your products?
How can we do this, you know, at a
lower cost?
How can we do this faster?
Um, and there's there's certainly a lot of tools
that can do that, but, uh.
That's it.
That's how we think about it.
Not.
Not the hype of AI, but more
just like, um.
(27:48):
And I don't care about AI, you know,
cutting people's jobs or going to all over
the world and generative AI.
Like, I don't give a crap about it.
I care about my business and how I'm going
to implement certain tools to
just do it better, faster, cheaper and provide,
you know, a better, a better customer experience.
Yeah, people like Microsoft just laid off like
(28:10):
thousands of workers because of this, but I think
it's much harder for small business owners
just to replace.
I still have one partner.
They do like AI,
uh, AI workers.
And sometimes, for example, for uh,
customer assistance, they can replace it
because just they are 24 hours online.
You just create one worker.
(28:32):
Uh, it costs like six grand a year.
And, uh, he's on multiple lines in
the same moment.
You don't need to, you know, to have a
stacked, um, people calling, waiting on
the line or something like this.
And for these cases, I think it's good.
Of course, you need some supervisors.
On the other hand, if AI cannot help but
(28:52):
you can train it right now for some positions,
I think I can really replace people and it
could be at least very cost effective, you know?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so yeah.
And one of my points is that like all
of those things I think are real like people
losing jobs.
It's just like what I've seen as business
owners is don't allow that to be an excuse
(29:13):
for you not to focus on executing in your
business and figuring out how you can use it.
Because like, there are other things, those
are all distractions.
It's kind of like politics and what's going on
in the world.
And then, you know, there's like, I can sit
around all day and think about it, but if
you want to move your business, figure out, you
know, how can you solve specific problems
with your business?
If it's, you know, an AI
(29:34):
customer service agent that can go back and respond
back and forth, then.
Absolutely right.
So that's you can implement that.
If it's like we run a podcast, we automate
a lot of our stuff with our podcast, our
show notes.
Right.
Leveraging tools.
Let's implement that.
If we can do our product research not just
with AI, but combining with some other tools, you
know, etc., then.
So yeah, I would just encourage people that make
(29:56):
it specific to your business and problems that you're
trying to solve and the problems you do have,
even the stresses try.
Whenever you have a problem, try to think like,
wait a minute, can I help me
with this problem?
Um, and if nothing else, go for
an ass chat.
Just type into ChatGPT, you know, and start asking
it, you know, to help it and then build
and see if there's, you know, a niche tool
that you can that you can implement with your
(30:17):
business as well.
Yes, it's a great approach if you are not,
uh, if you don't have skill of critical
thinking, you just, you know, just work it on
WeChat deeply.
That's nice.
And, uh, you mentioned your tool clarity six.
Is it something new?
I never heard about this before.
Can you tell a little bit about this?
Yeah.
Cool.
Is it okay?
(30:37):
Can I just.
Am I able to pull up just like the
one slide on it?
Yeah.
Of course you can just click share
and do it.
Yeah.
I mean, should I just share the screen here?
Um, I think, uh.
I think I will have.
(31:02):
The entire screen.
Okay.
See if it will.
Let me hear.
It's going to be.
I'm going to share the entire screen for a
second because I'll just pull this up.
It's okay.
I can add it to the stage here.
I don't have it.
I'm just going to share.
Just like one.
Um, but yeah, you can see the
screen here, right?
(31:23):
Yeah.
That's great.
Yeah, yeah.
And I won't go into this in
depth here today.
And you guys are welcome.
Anyone come check this out.
Um.
Happy to or, you know, you can feel free
to reach out via Instagram or.
Uh, it's it's clarity six dot AI.
But yeah, essentially, like I said,
we we, um.
Partner with a lot of some of the other
(31:44):
AI tools, like Ian Schulich we're talking about, including
in here.
But, um, essentially
is a tool around,
um, how to connect.
Basically, it's basically an all encompassing system to include
once people buy, uh, products from Amazon, to
then link them back to your own
(32:04):
database and system and be able to email.
It's an email system.
It's a text messaging system.
Uh, we have like product insert templates and
email templates to tie that all together along with
some AI tools in terms of creating the content
to communicate, to drive more sales.
So um, again, it's called clarity six dot AI.
These are some of the features that email, social
(32:26):
media, kind of the, um,
everything that you do outside of Amazon itself,
uh, to be able to do more things back,
you know, to retarget your customers and to,
uh, to grow your sales using, uh,
email, text messaging.
I think Joey might have mentioned the voice drop
where we can voice message people and put it
(32:47):
directly into their, their voice
mailbox, um, etc..
So that is, uh, it's
called clarity six.
And again, if you guys want to check it
out and go to clarity 6.8, uh, but
feel free to, uh.
To reach out to me, you know, Instagram or
go to 36 and you and you can find
us there.
Yeah, sure.
We'll feature it in our community also as well,
(33:08):
because we had several AI founders with
really great tools.
And I'm pretty sure using this, you can just
grow faster and maybe even skip some challenges.
You know, like is this tool you can skip
some big part of the teams that maybe back
in the days you need it, but right now
you don't need you can just go there.
So exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah.
That's what we do.
We basically took those things.
(33:29):
We're paying like $500 for this email
system and a bunch for this stuff.
And so it's like, hey, can you do it
for like a hundred bucks, you know, a month?
Can we have a bunch of this stuff and
cut costs out?
So, um, just what we're talking about and,
and kind of evaluating certain things and,
and that's what we did.
That's kind of been our big focus of last
year to be able to, to run a lot
more on kind of do more with less.
(33:52):
Yeah.
That's perfect.
Okay.
Jimmy, thank you very much for your time.
It was a pleasure to hearing all the insights
and challenges you face.
Uh, next time you come to Orange County, to
any healing event, we will do nail standing
right here.
It will be great.
I can't wait, I can't, I can't wait.
I'm looking forward to it.
Okay.
(34:12):
Yeah.
That's how nice minds and girls.
Just crazy.
The speaker.
Uh, before you, he was like a week ago
in my house, and he tried
it like 30s.
It was very painful for me, but I'm pretty
sure he can deal with it.
It's like 100 million in revenue.
All right, all right, all right.
I feel I feel better about my cold plunges
now, too.
(34:32):
So it feels like those are a lot easier
hearing you.
You're actually on nails, so.
Yeah.
Awesome.
Yeah I appreciate it.
Yeah.
It's it's was pleasure to to do some of
this partnership call with you.
And I'm pretty sure we can collaborate a little
bit more later on.
Sounds great.
All right.
Thank you.
Nick, thank you very much.
Have a good
Jimmy Davidson.
Uh, I have done some, uh, conferences
already with Jimmy before, like,
many years before.
And I can say that Jimmy is one of
the biggest million.
Uh, I have seen the longest, uh,
Amazon sellers on the market.
And, uh, he he's having a long
term success, not only just with his brand, but
(00:28):
he also has a huge mentorship.
And he helped.
I know a huge number of people to sell
their brands and do even roll
ups, like huge exit strategies to
actually, you know, cash out and build wealth, not
just, you know, doing some small cash flow
monthly with a huge stress of being blocked or
(00:48):
just lost your positions or anything like this.
So it's very wise person, and I'm
just happy to have him here to share his
knowledge and mindset.
Jimmy, hey, it's nice to meet you.
Oh, you.
Please, could you please unmute yourself first?
Yep.
(01:08):
Hey, Nick.
Great to be here.
Yeah, it's also great to meet you.
Another Amazon insider.
Insider as well as me.
Yes.
Yes, yes.
What are you guys?
We have a lot of questions for you.
Um, but maybe can you introduce a little bit
on what is working right now, what's your main
(01:30):
focus and a little bit about your community also?
Yeah, sure.
So, uh, yeah.
So again, Jamie Davidson, uh, co-founder for a
long time, a community called AMC insiders.
Uh, it's a coaching consulting.
Uh, we advise a lot of big brands or
big sellers.
Just what you said to help them grow.
(01:52):
And then, uh, I've worked a lot in the
last couple of years.
Just some of you guys may be familiar with,
like, Scott Dietz into the northbound group.
Um, so we've helped a lot of
people exit brands.
Um, so I work closely as part
of that team.
Um, and then, you know the answer.
Your last thing.
Most recently, the really the past 12 months, of
course, a lot of the stuff on the, the
(02:12):
AI front and the,
uh, the tools.
And so we've, we've been working on just tools
that kind of help, uh, automate some of the
process of, uh, of
re communicating with your customers and and
growing your brands as well too.
So, uh, and I can touch upon that.
It's called clarity.
We have a tool.
It's called clarity six.
(02:33):
Um, and uh, that's probably been our big focus,
along with all the people we support in the
AMG insiders community.
Oh, that's very nice.
Um, and probably we can we, uh, you
know, make a structure of two sections.
First, maybe some questions to you about, you know,
just the business itself and how you approach
your building companies.
And then it's very interesting subject.
(02:55):
We had very big founder of one AI tool,
uh, which is totally changed the game with,
uh, testing a lot of stuff on all the
sales process.
And I think it's one of the if you
use AI right now, you're like a pioneer on
the market, and maybe in a year everyone will
be using it.
But right now you can really, you know, have
(03:16):
a huge advantage of it.
So yeah, yeah, we can definitely do that.
And I guess I didn't mention, of course, a
long time seller on Amazon.
We, we, uh, it's a
couple thousand products.
We got a warehouse down the road here, but
we we broke the nine figure mark in
2018 was the first year we hit that mark.
So, um, you know, kind of
builds it from the ground up with a couple
(03:37):
other partners to, uh, you know, the
team now has about 40 people here in the
Atlanta, Georgia area.
We've got 200.
Members over in Shenzhen, China coordinating the
our brands still as well.
So it's one of those perfect.
I had my first office in Atlanta, um,
before BlackLivesMatter.
Uh, then I get it more often because, yeah,
(03:59):
it was a hard city for me, but,
uh, it's really nice.
And can you maybe, uh, it's just
what stripe 32 did, like, first, um,
hitting nine figure Mark, you, you know, you say
it so easily, but for real, most people don't
even imagine these numbers.
Can you somehow structure a
(04:20):
bit the thousands of products?
I understand it's a big infrastructure.
It's not possible to do it with one product
with ten product.
So it's the processes or R&D
departments, how you really
build the system, build the team and 40 people
and nine figures.
I think this is an insanely very good result,
(04:40):
you know, so I, I, I met
people who had around 12 people
doing 100 mil, but it's something, you
know, very, very rare and epic.
Rare.
I mean, so can you make the structure a
bit how how does it look, how this number
is collected through all this product together?
Yeah, sure.
Maybe that would be good.
(05:00):
I'll give kind of give you some of the
background, maybe the first part of this, to the
extent that's helpful and then happy to later
on share some of the stuff we're working on
kind of right now.
But, uh, yeah, I mean, the
background was, I was I was a military
officer went to West Point, uh,
and had been kind of a hired gun by
(05:21):
companies to, to run companies
by private equity firms.
So I was the chief operating officer and a
CEO of a couple of companies.
And one of the deals brought me to Atlanta
in my next door neighbor is a
native of China, but I've been here in a
long time.
So he was an IT guy
and we became buddies because we're next door neighbors
(05:43):
and kind of mutually respected each other.
And he started selling, uh, cell phone cases out
of the, I say, out of the garage.
He had them stored in the garage initially.
So, um, it's funny, way back
when that initially when he was first selling, because
I'd hear him off the back porch late at
night yelling in Mandarin to get things
shipped over and stuff.
And, uh, I used to think at the very
(06:04):
beginning, I used to think, oh, I can't do
this because, you know, I don't speak Mandarin or
I don't have that connection.
I thought that was like the reason why he
was doing it as a side hustle, because he
was an IT consultant for like, Microsoft and traveling
around in big companies for that.
Um, but yeah, the more we got into it
and looked at it and started running the
numbers like these cell phone cases,
(06:27):
they were super light.
And, uh, you know, we're charging, you
know, 40, $50 for them or we're paying, you
know, a few bucks for them.
And there wasn't a lot of competition.
But the advantages early on
was the, uh, the understanding of, like,
the IT background helped a lot because, uh, I
have, like, an engineering background.
He had kind of a computer science background, but,
(06:49):
um, not that it was like heavy in that
way, but it helped us just in terms of.
Whether it's that or now, it's just the ability
to build out systems was so critical for us.
So we built, uh, like
our whole logistic system.
And once we saw, you know, once we got
the, the brand and the product right, and started
growing, we just systematized a lot of the aspects
of the business.
(07:09):
So whether it's inventory, whether it's
PPC management, like all these things, we weren't really
using a lot of agencies to run our stuff.
We just kind of kept building internally trying to
figure it out, make some mistakes.
But we did once we figured out we had
like really good internal kind of standard
operating procedures and everything from,
uh, you know, like even we do
(07:30):
product selection.
There's a we have a team in China that
does our product selection.
They go through all these criteria to research it.
Then it comes over to our team here in
the US.
But it's like a very defined process that we
go through uh through everything which
doesn't guarantee success.
But it but it puts the odds in our
favor, uh, around there.
So, uh, like, like the PPC
(07:51):
management, we've got like, 30 plus
people in China that manage our PPC that are
looking at the accounts.
But, um, it's so yeah, we don't
outsource it to agencies.
So it's just a little,
um, I gotta say, I would always recommend
the certain things we do, like we run our
own warehouse here in Atlanta, but I don't necessarily
recommend that.
(08:12):
I'd probably do a three PL, but, um.
The high level points there are.
Just like for
us, there were inflection points because one.
Yes, the time in the market was
good back then.
Uh, you know, this is
2012 through 1518.
But we did get we did plateau at certain
points, like at around 50 million.
(08:32):
We were kind of stuck at 50 for a
couple of years.
And the way we finally broke through that next
level was when, uh, we built the
team overseas.
And, uh, because we
just couldn't get enough talent here in Atlanta and
have them stay and for what they
cost to build a really build and
grow the business.
(08:52):
So we had to become kind of an international,
uh, structured team.
But again, the key to all of that is
just the processes and systems that,
you know, I don't care if you're a one
person operation or, you know, 2 or 3 people
or, you know, 200, you want to make sure
that you're you're only as good as your
systems is kind of what's been, you know, one
(09:13):
of the keys to our success.
Yeah.
I always say, you know, people, uh, I see
people at conferences, they come to big guys, ask
questions and then interrupts them on the first
words and just starting say, oh, I've already done
this, done this.
It doesn't work.
But I'm pretty sure when the big guys are
saying this works.
And some people say, okay, it's only
(09:34):
for big guys.
You know, I won't do this like outsource and
have certain people in China doing PPC.
I won't do this.
I'm small, but I think this is a
thing you need to do.
Really?
Because this is how you became big.
You just do the things what big
guys are doing.
And it's like a lot of challenges
on the on this way, I'm pretty sure.
(09:55):
And you just told us about the plateau.
Some people also say not Plato, but that's really,
you know, when you all grow or die, how
many of those you
and your career.
And because last year, obviously if you don't count
maybe 2020, they were hard.
So do you had any this kind of
very challenging experience and how it
(10:17):
was how you managed it.
Yeah, sure.
So yeah, no doubt we've had plenty of,
of uh, you know, well, we've had a lot
of serious ups and downs, to say the least,
with the, uh, you know, it's not as we
talk about the numbers, like, oh, $100 million in
sales or now it's $120 million.
(10:37):
You get caught in that that number as
if, uh, but, you know, that speaks to the
the top line, the sales, the bottom line, obviously,
the operating income is is what, you know, ultimately
you want to achieve.
So we've had years where, you know, we've had
margins that, you know.
For 7%, you know, 5%.
So really low margin years.
We've had some years, you know, at scale.
(10:59):
You know, for us like 15% is is a
good number.
But, um, you know, there's a lot of factors.
There's like lawsuits.
We've had plenty of lawsuits of people, um,
I'd say for our screen protectors at times, uh,
you know, whether people say they have patents on
certain things.
We've definitely got with lawsuits we've dealt with,
um, major issues, even with our founders
as a team.
(11:19):
We had one of our one of the co-founders
died in his 40s a couple two years ago.
So, you know, that was that was
a major issue.
Uh, we've had our Amazon account shut down
ten plus times, probably.
And, and, uh, you know, over initially
it was kind of, you know, back in the,
I'd say before 2015, it was like there was
(11:41):
so much black hat that you kind of it
wasn't even black hat was just how you did
things back then because Amazon's
rules weren't up to speed with, you know, basically
how you could figure out how to, uh, you
know, have multiple computers buying your products and all
these type of things.
But over time, I mean, Amazon's gotten better,
smarter, and it's more brand focused.
But, you know, so for us to adapt to
(12:03):
all those those changes, it was uh,
it was rocky at the time.
So um, so yeah, I mean, in
our case, we just, you know, if something goes
wrong, we just, you know, you can you want
to make sure you don't take bigger
risk and make.
You know, lose more money.
We had a you know, we've had plenty of
products that have failed, but the product we don't
(12:25):
look for as 100% success that we're
going to succeed.
We just want to put again.
As I said earlier, we want to put the
odds in our favor.
And then if we do enough with the odds
in our favor, then, you know, it's like if
you're playing blackjack and you're going to win 70%
of the time, then, you know, just you play
enough, you're going to you're going to do well
and grow.
So that's uh, been our approach.
(12:45):
But I mean, you kind of name it, we've,
we've made mistakes with, uh, you know, social
media spend, like we're always testing things, but we
just try not to.
We just try not to do it.
So it's not fatal, right?
So we try not to do things that are
going to wipe us out.
And so they're, you know, bets that we can
afford to make.
Um, otherwise, you know, it's it's it's okay
to grow a little slower, you know?
(13:06):
Yeah.
So it's like a risk management course, and sometimes
you slow down and then you will
grow your challenges.
Maybe within time it's much more
reliable than just, you know, go, go all in
and rush it.
Maybe six months faster, but you can
die during these six months
because it's very.
Yeah.
Like, yeah.
(13:26):
In our case, like we only sold cell phone
cases and accessories for like
the first five years of our business, right?
Like, we got to beyond $50 million.
We did.
We did an acquisition.
And when we were like 15 million, we acquired,
like a $5 million, um,
cell phone case brand and brought them in and
(13:47):
then grew both of those brands to like 40
million and each.
But, you know, we never went into any other
category other than that for a long
period of time.
We could have, but we just like, want to
stay focused in that one area.
And then, you know, years later now we sell
a different brand in the fitness category, a different
brand in the pet supply category.
(14:09):
They're not nearly as big, but, um.
But we waited.
We were really patient to
understand, you know?
Hey, let's kind of nail this first opportunity and
keep going after it before we, you know,
went off into other crazy things.
Is this very interesting?
Um, you mentioned already that you acquired
(14:29):
several companies, and that's, uh, I'm not sure our
audience know how it works, but it's something
called rollups.
Usually when you just, you know, grow your revenue
by acquiring other companies, and you can just build
a holding company.
So this is already some kind of exit strategy,
how you really can cash out later on.
Do you build all your companies like this?
(14:50):
Is this like kind of philosophy already?
Or if you're just build it, grow and then
only you transform it for exit?
Yeah, I would say for us it's been more
the latter.
We haven't we haven't had a strategy like, hey,
we're going to roll up a lot.
Um, we did early on because we
saw an opportunity.
It was more just, you know, hey, this is
(15:10):
a brand.
Um, it was a guy who was pretty young
at the time.
We're like, hey, we could we could pull him
in and we can grow this together.
And we did that.
Well, um, we actually had the idea of the
roll up strategy.
I had it up on my whiteboard and.
20, maybe 1820 before the ratio
came along and we were going to buy a
(15:31):
brands because we were like, hey, we could buy
them at three.
But, you know, that was one that we did
not pull the trigger on.
So we didn't go out and just like start
acquiring brands.
Um, again, I've helped a lot of people exit
brands, but or prepare for exit, you know, and
grow and build.
But the, uh, it's interesting,
you know, I guess it's, you know, right now,
the aggregators, of course, you know, some of them
(15:52):
have struggled a lot going through that model.
So you have to be careful with it.
But, you know, I think it is, uh,
you know, I guess I just look at it
from a strategic perspective, uh, just like, hey, if
there's an opportunity to acquire someone's brand, that would
help us, then then we'll do so.
But it is not one,
you know, the aggregators have kind of placed big
(16:13):
bets on that.
And again, I think they've had some
failure with it and some success.
So it's it's kind of a mixed bag, but
there are sometimes opportunities to where someone's like really
struggling with a brand.
Maybe they want and it's kind of low risk
that maybe you can take it on if it,
you know, fits with what you're doing.
Um, you know, those that's more likely the stuff
we've done than necessarily go out and just buy
(16:33):
a bunch of brands and stick them together.
Yeah, that's something very interesting subject.
I think it's deep, you know, and some people
even say only thing you should do is roll
out just your laps and somehow
you can end with big money, and they sell
it sometimes even from the stage.
But, uh, yeah, it could look like
(16:54):
a nice numbers.
But I remember the, the fuck
ups is that we got in the first one
when we acquired it, and just from 11 people
in team, we got one when we left offices.
So it's a lot of hard parts behind this.
So I'm also pretty sure it's all about team.
And you cannot just grow all this
only on systems.
However I understand for your case systems
(17:15):
characters, uh, but also
um, team management leadership, I think
this is a big deal still, um, what kind
of, you know, direct team you manage right now?
And how do you approach building a team?
Yeah.
So yeah, that's a big that's one that's helped
me from before my Amazon days that I was
(17:37):
I mentioned I was, uh, CEO of the company
and, and uh, chief operating officer we had a
couple those companies had, you know, a couple hundred
employees each.
So I had some experience in from the military,
just from a leadership perspective.
Uh, no doubt that is a huge piece.
And it's different now than because, you know, most
of the time your teams are going
to be remote.
And so you got to figure out how do
(17:57):
you manage them, um,
incentivize your team.
What's your hiring process?
A lot of people in the e-com space, you
really aren't used to that.
They're just trying to find a good
product to sell.
They're not really vetting necessarily the people they hire.
And how do you go through it?
So if you're looking to grow even your team
to five people or ten people or more, then
(18:17):
yeah, it's that whole, you know, leadership and
people pieces is critical.
What we did is, um.
So, you know, I've got a few different companies.
We have the then the brands there, and then
I have my AMG insiders.
We have a team there of about 15 people,
so it's smaller.
But on the what we've
done with the e-commerce side is, is kind of
(18:40):
somewhat traditional in that we have like so our
US based team, we have a US based marketing
team, we have in here in Atlanta, we have
a finance and accounting team.
We've got a an inventory
warehouse team that manages the warehouse here, not just
for Amazon, but the other platforms that
we sell on.
Uh, we've got customer service team, because, again,
(19:01):
a lot of the platforms we deal on, uh,
we have a customer service team and then overseas
and I mentioned in Shenzhen, China, we
have 200 people.
Um, what we did there is we actually have,
uh, we have general managers over there
that oversee the different departments.
So we have a product development
vice president that oversees the designs
of our product.
(19:22):
We have a, uh, another guy
that oversees the, uh,
uh, well, really, he's the overall general manager oversees,
including the logistics team, the global logistics, etc..
So, um, you know, the key is you've got
to get you've got to get some good people
in place if you're going to grow that big,
if you want to grow that big.
Um, nowadays a lot of the people.
(19:44):
Don't want to do that or not as skilled
as that as entrepreneurs.
And so that's where it's like, hey, just build
it and then sell it, build it up to
that level.
Sell another one.
But if you want to, if you do want
to get past, let's say like that $5 million
mark an up probably like you definitely in
terms of systems and people like
they're almost kind of boring topics.
But you have to get.
(20:04):
You have to really get good at those things
to, uh, you know, again, if you want to
scale and grow beyond beyond those levels.
Yeah, that's for sure.
Very challenging.
Sometimes you, you you're just not
made up, you know, like this.
It's not your type of work sometimes for
some people to manage.
(20:25):
And, um, it still doesn't mean
you are, you know, done.
And you can have only this amount of revenue
or something.
Um, have you got these cases when you're
not like Plato of business, but you
felt yourself need to
change somehow to in
order to grow?
And what have you done?
(20:45):
So for for example, I just told the story
like, hey, I mean, I'm five years
running daily.
I do, you know, cold plunge and I stand
on nails daily just short times, you know, it
was so painful.
But I had ideas in my head that I
cannot solve and I don't know how
to solve them.
It helped me better
than some consulting.
(21:06):
But what works for you?
Maybe these words.
Yeah.
It's, uh.
Well, I haven't done the nails on.
You said you stand on nails.
Yeah, I stand on nails and, like,
daily and I.
I do it with my team on on zoom
calls usually.
Right.
Oh, that's pretty cool.
I gotta see that one.
That's a new one to me.
Uh, no.
That's cool.
You're gonna get to see it.
(21:26):
Maybe the, uh, the a
couple of things I do do, which,
you know, personally.
Uh.
Oh, I gotta see this thing.
Uh, cool, man, that's probably
good selling products.
Oh, yeah.
Ouch.
Looks painful.
I do do the cold plunge.
I do do that, uh, a lot.
So I probably do that.
I don't do it every day.
(21:47):
I do that, like, uh, probably
2 to 3 times a week.
I will do that.
Um, I do a lot of sauna
as well, too.
And then, uh, of course, just fitness.
The more you can do that as well too.
But as far as, uh, again, the cold
plunge is is something.
Yeah.
It's kind of like loving yourself or putting yourself.
(22:08):
It's kind of like standing on nails, like doing
something that, uh, maybe
feels uncomfortable.
Right.
But that will benefit you.
The the other one is, I do I try
to participate in, uh,
you know, masterminds.
I love I love being around things like, away
from Amazon to, like, things that just
like where people really don't necessarily understand
(22:30):
Amazon, but they're they they know some cool stuff.
So like we're going to a, a podcasting event
next week or I've been part of I was
the, uh, a big mastermind, like some of the
top digital marketers or, um, how to
raise capital and money.
Like, I love things getting around people that
have, uh.
(22:51):
Basically skill sets that you don't have and learning
from them.
Again, Amazon conferences are great like this.
It's good to pick up for people.
But then you know what?
I find?
There's a lot of commonality.
Like it.
Or things you can apply back to your Amazon
business from these things outside of the Amazon industry.
So that's probably, you know, some of those
things I'm part of, you know, I pay to
be, uh, you know, I paid probably 50 grand
(23:14):
a year to be part of other groups and
mentors because, again, things that we don't know.
So I'm I am a big believer
in lifelong learning.
And then, you know, as far as for each
person what they're into, you know, again, I try
to do fitness, some of the cool plunge stuff
I'm into.
But I think that differs, you know, a little
bit for everyone.
But mine's not overly complicated.
But those are you know, those are some of
(23:35):
the things I focus on.
Yeah.
This is it's very nice.
It's it's not something I haven't
heard before myself.
Also tried programs up to 100
K per year.
Of course with like monthly payments it's much
easier than it's usually, uh, fields and
I totally agree.
If you if you're just going to know how
to do something, but you just keep around the
(23:57):
people who has the skills already.
They could be even from like different world from
you, but with months, months you'll get the skills
you'll understand again.
And then it's like even as the numbers of
the bigger people, they will be just okay with
you more and more with each month.
So it's a very good strategy.
So thank you, Jamie.
Just, you know, and for me, it's a
(24:19):
huge amount of insights.
I mean, I think, uh, all the
people here are we have some small founders, maybe
around 1 million and people with already ten plus
million in revenue.
I think for them it will be very insightful.
I know some guys like for several years they
cannot, you know, outgrow the 10 million mark.
I'm not sure if it's this mindset or something
(24:39):
else, but you know, something happens like this.
Yeah different platforms but go ahead.
Sorry.
Yeah, yeah I just wanted to shift a little
bit to AI already.
But if you have something to it.
No, no, we can definitely do some AI stuff.
Yeah, yeah.
They told you have some your own platform and
(25:00):
you use all of the AIS right now.
And I know you're talking about AI at your
podcast all the time.
So do you think this is something that can
grow you more than holding on to like,
next level?
This is why you are focused at this point
right now.
Yeah, yeah.
Like it is.
Your AI is like there's two ways.
(25:20):
Like one is it can be like
a buzzword, right?
It can be.
It's kind of like when everyone was talking crypto
and NFTs, you know, a few years back
and or even when the internet first
game went crazy back in the late 1990s.
Right.
It was like the, you know, the dotcom companies,
everyone was getting hyped and a lot
of them crashed.
But you gotta look at the underlying like, what's
(25:41):
the real value to you and your business for
these things?
Like forget the hype.
Um, so it's not that, you know, AI is
is magic bullet.
I don't think anything's changing that there are no
magic bullets, but there are real things you can
implement and tools and processes.
So I just kind of I do view them
as basically kind of software tools, but
they're more powerful.
And, uh, I know a lot of people are
(26:04):
just, you know, the biggest issues.
A lot of people talk about plateaus and things
is, is, you know, we can
all be lazy at times.
We can all just not implement things.
The hardest thing is to execute.
And so, you know, tons of people
The whole world has access to ChatGPT.
But what percentage of people actually use ChatGPT or
use it in a meaningful way?
It's actually still a pretty small.
(26:24):
It's a tiny percentage, and obviously there's tools
much more targeted than just that or that
leverages that.
So to me it's about, you know, how do
you pick things that are really valuable.
And I'm sure you probably had some presentations on
here, but probably some cool things to do.
Um, there's things that, you know, there's other tools
that we've been using that we didn't build.
(26:44):
Uh, the stuff we've been done has kind of
just pulled stuff together in terms of, of,
uh, email automation and product
inserts and some of the AI tools
that like, uh, I think Joey was
on here yesterday.
She probably talked about, uh, she looks a little
bit like, I like I'm a fan
of those guys.
Um, why do you analyze everyone, you know, all
their listing reviews and there's.
(27:05):
I'm sure there's some other tools that
do that, too.
But, you know, those are, like, real problems you
can solve and you can figure out, like, or
real insights you can gain.
If you can analyze thousands of reviews in a
matter of minutes, you know, that's like,
you know, like you can use that to your
advantage, right?
And, and solve real problems.
So I try to use AI tools to bring
(27:26):
it back to like the fundamentals of business.
Like how do you solve a real problem?
How do you, um, you know, how do you
differentiate your products?
How can we do this, you know, at a
lower cost?
How can we do this faster?
Um, and there's there's certainly a lot of tools
that can do that, but, uh.
That's it.
That's how we think about it.
Not.
Not the hype of AI, but more
just like, um.
(27:48):
And I don't care about AI, you know,
cutting people's jobs or going to all over
the world and generative AI.
Like, I don't give a crap about it.
I care about my business and how I'm going
to implement certain tools to
just do it better, faster, cheaper and provide,
you know, a better, a better customer experience.
Yeah, people like Microsoft just laid off like
(28:10):
thousands of workers because of this, but I think
it's much harder for small business owners
just to replace.
I still have one partner.
They do like AI,
uh, AI workers.
And sometimes, for example, for uh,
customer assistance, they can replace it
because just they are 24 hours online.
You just create one worker.
(28:32):
Uh, it costs like six grand a year.
And, uh, he's on multiple lines in
the same moment.
You don't need to, you know, to have a
stacked, um, people calling, waiting on
the line or something like this.
And for these cases, I think it's good.
Of course, you need some supervisors.
On the other hand, if AI cannot help but
(28:52):
you can train it right now for some positions,
I think I can really replace people and it
could be at least very cost effective, you know?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so yeah.
And one of my points is that like all
of those things I think are real like people
losing jobs.
It's just like what I've seen as business
owners is don't allow that to be an excuse
(29:13):
for you not to focus on executing in your
business and figuring out how you can use it.
Because like, there are other things, those
are all distractions.
It's kind of like politics and what's going on
in the world.
And then, you know, there's like, I can sit
around all day and think about it, but if
you want to move your business, figure out, you
know, how can you solve specific problems
with your business?
If it's, you know, an AI
(29:34):
customer service agent that can go back and respond
back and forth, then.
Absolutely right.
So that's you can implement that.
If it's like we run a podcast, we automate
a lot of our stuff with our podcast, our
show notes.
Right.
Leveraging tools.
Let's implement that.
If we can do our product research not just
with AI, but combining with some other tools, you
know, etc., then.
So yeah, I would just encourage people that make
(29:56):
it specific to your business and problems that you're
trying to solve and the problems you do have,
even the stresses try.
Whenever you have a problem, try to think like,
wait a minute, can I help me
with this problem?
Um, and if nothing else, go for
an ass chat.
Just type into ChatGPT, you know, and start asking
it, you know, to help it and then build
and see if there's, you know, a niche tool
that you can that you can implement with your
(30:17):
business as well.
Yes, it's a great approach if you are not,
uh, if you don't have skill of critical
thinking, you just, you know, just work it on
WeChat deeply.
That's nice.
And, uh, you mentioned your tool clarity six.
Is it something new?
I never heard about this before.
Can you tell a little bit about this?
Yeah.
Cool.
Is it okay?
(30:37):
Can I just.
Am I able to pull up just like the
one slide on it?
Yeah.
Of course you can just click share
and do it.
Yeah.
I mean, should I just share the screen here?
Um, I think, uh.
I think I will have.
(31:02):
The entire screen.
Okay.
See if it will.
Let me hear.
It's going to be.
I'm going to share the entire screen for a
second because I'll just pull this up.
It's okay.
I can add it to the stage here.
I don't have it.
I'm just going to share.
Just like one.
Um, but yeah, you can see the
screen here, right?
(31:23):
Yeah.
That's great.
Yeah, yeah.
And I won't go into this in
depth here today.
And you guys are welcome.
Anyone come check this out.
Um.
Happy to or, you know, you can feel free
to reach out via Instagram or.
Uh, it's it's clarity six dot AI.
But yeah, essentially, like I said,
we we, um.
Partner with a lot of some of the other
(31:44):
AI tools, like Ian Schulich we're talking about, including
in here.
But, um, essentially
is a tool around,
um, how to connect.
Basically, it's basically an all encompassing system to include
once people buy, uh, products from Amazon, to
then link them back to your own
(32:04):
database and system and be able to email.
It's an email system.
It's a text messaging system.
Uh, we have like product insert templates and
email templates to tie that all together along with
some AI tools in terms of creating the content
to communicate, to drive more sales.
So um, again, it's called clarity six dot AI.
These are some of the features that email, social
(32:26):
media, kind of the, um,
everything that you do outside of Amazon itself,
uh, to be able to do more things back,
you know, to retarget your customers and to,
uh, to grow your sales using, uh,
email, text messaging.
I think Joey might have mentioned the voice drop
where we can voice message people and put it
(32:47):
directly into their, their voice
mailbox, um, etc..
So that is, uh, it's
called clarity six.
And again, if you guys want to check it
out and go to clarity 6.8, uh, but
feel free to, uh.
To reach out to me, you know, Instagram or
go to 36 and you and you can find
us there.
Yeah, sure.
We'll feature it in our community also as well,
(33:08):
because we had several AI founders with
really great tools.
And I'm pretty sure using this, you can just
grow faster and maybe even skip some challenges.
You know, like is this tool you can skip
some big part of the teams that maybe back
in the days you need it, but right now
you don't need you can just go there.
So exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah.
That's what we do.
We basically took those things.
(33:29):
We're paying like $500 for this email
system and a bunch for this stuff.
And so it's like, hey, can you do it
for like a hundred bucks, you know, a month?
Can we have a bunch of this stuff and
cut costs out?
So, um, just what we're talking about and,
and kind of evaluating certain things and,
and that's what we did.
That's kind of been our big focus of last
year to be able to, to run a lot
more on kind of do more with less.
(33:52):
Yeah.
That's perfect.
Okay.
Jimmy, thank you very much for your time.
It was a pleasure to hearing all the insights
and challenges you face.
Uh, next time you come to Orange County, to
any healing event, we will do nail standing
right here.
It will be great.
I can't wait, I can't, I can't wait.
I'm looking forward to it.
Okay.
(34:12):
Yeah.
That's how nice minds and girls.
Just crazy.
The speaker.
Uh, before you, he was like a week ago
in my house, and he tried
it like 30s.
It was very painful for me, but I'm pretty
sure he can deal with it.
It's like 100 million in revenue.
All right, all right, all right.
I feel I feel better about my cold plunges
now, too.
(34:32):
So it feels like those are a lot easier
hearing you.
You're actually on nails, so.
Yeah.
Awesome.
Yeah I appreciate it.
Yeah.
It's it's was pleasure to to do some of
this partnership call with you.
And I'm pretty sure we can collaborate a little
bit more later on.
Sounds great.
All right.
Thank you.
Nick, thank you very much.
Have a good
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