August 19, 2025 • 48 mins
Ever wondered what separates wildly successful Amazon brands from those barely breaking even? Noah Wickman, VP of Sales and Marketing at My Amazon Guy, pulls back the curtain on the strategies driving $1.2 billion in annual revenue across 400+ brands.
Noah's journey from eBay reseller to e-commerce leader offers a fascinating backdrop to his practical insights. While many sellers feel discouraged by Amazon's increasing fees and competition, Noah brings a refreshingly optimistic perspective: "There are millionaires made on Amazon every single day." The difference? A willingness to invest in testing new approaches rather than operating from fear.
The conversation dives deep into advertising strategy, revealing that My Amazon Guy allocates approximately 89% of ad spend to Sponsored Products across their client base—challenging conventional wisdom about ad distribution. Noah also shares a startling finding: about 20% of most sellers' ad budgets are completely wasted, with zero sales resulting from those expenditures. His practical advice for auditing campaigns and identifying these inefficiencies could save listeners thousands.
Perhaps most valuable is Noah's framework for sustainable growth. He outlines the four unchanging pillars of Amazon success: catalog management, design, PPC, and SEO—with the latter being the consistent needle-mover for 90% of brands. "The more keywords you have, the more search volume you get. It's essentially just widening that funnel," he explains. Even brands doing $23+ million annually continue to optimize SEO monthly.
For those struggling with profitability, Noah offers an unexpected suggestion: test price increases. "You can usually raise prices about 15-20% before your conversion really takes a hit," he notes, provided your listing already ranks well. This single insight could transform margins for many sellers.
Ready to accelerate your Amazon business with strategies from someone who's seen what works across hundreds of brands? This episode delivers actionable tactics you can implement immediately. Subscribe now and join us as we continue to unlock the secrets of e-commerce success!
How to connect with Noah:
Website: https://www.myamazonguy.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/myamazonguy
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/my-amazon-guy/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stevenpopemag/
Twitter: https://x.com/myamazonguy
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/myamazonguy
Ready to scale your Amazon business? Click here to book a strategy call. https://calendly.com/firingtheman/amazon
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome everyone to the Firing the man podcast, a
show for anyone who wants to betheir own boss.
If you sit in a cubicle everyday and know you are capable of
more, then join us.
This show will help you build abusiness and grow your passive
income streams in just a fewshort hours per day.
And now your hosts, serialentrepreneurs David Shomer and
(00:22):
Ken Wilson.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Welcome everyone to the Firing the man podcast,
where we dig deep into thestrategies that drive e-commerce
success.
Today, I'm thrilled to haveNoah Wickman with us.
Noah serves as the VicePresident of Sales and Marketing
at my Amazon Guy, a powerhousefull-service Amazon agency that
manages over $1.2 billion inannual revenue and supports more
(00:48):
than 400 brands.
Noah's journey in e-commercebegan over a decade ago through
reselling on eBay and since thenhe's become a growth-centric
leader and client successadvocate At my Amazon Guy.
He's helped clients scaleacross Amazon, walmart and
Shopify by honing growthstrategies, improving SEO,
(01:10):
refining procurement andevaluating brand building.
When he's not shapinge-commerce success, you might
catch Noah cooking up somethingnew gaming, reading, playing
chess or doing what many of uslove exploring a new restaurant
or venue on a Saturday night.
Noah, very excited to have youas a guest on Firing the man.
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Absolutely.
Thank you for having me.
David Glad to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Absolutely so.
To start things off, can youshare with us a little bit about
your background in thee-commerce world and what led
you to being the vice presidentof sales and marketing at my
Amazon Guy?
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Yeah, absolutely.
I've always kind of looked tomyself pretty much like a you
know, a jack of many, you knowtrades and you know, not really
a master of any.
I think that's something thatkind of goes against the grain
compared to most people, becausemost people are like, oh, I'm
going to take this one thing,I'm going to master it.
But you know, that kind ofstarted with the aspect you know
(02:09):
as you mentioned.
You know, over a decade ago Ihad been at a garage sale and I
saw somebody had this giant,giant box of trading cards was
like Yu-Gi-Oh cards,no-transcript them back.
(02:34):
And I looked on eBay one daybecause there was a specific
card I was trying to buy and Ifound Interment Market for
Contraind cards on eBay.
I was like, oh cool, I'll putsome mine up here on this and
everything.
I actually almost got my eBayaccount when I first started
taking down because I got a fewnegative reviews, because I was
(02:54):
so new to the whole realm ofshipping things and all that
that I had just sent a couple ofcards in a little envelope and
I didn't think about the fact,oh, these are going to get bent
and that people want the cardsin a little envelope and I
didn't think about the fact, oh,these are going to get bent,
and that people want the cardsin like pristine condition,
because I was somebody I'm likeI never cared about that.
I never cared about thepristine condition, I just
wanted to play with the cards,right, I didn't care if they had
(03:16):
bends or anything Other peopledo.
And so I end up kind ofevolving that process and
getting that and eventually Istarted kind of think about I
was like, well, I'm starting to,you know, buy more stuff and
then resell it on eBay.
Why don't I try?
And, you know, do this and domy own brand.
I started to kind of learn alittle bit more, actually got
into dropshipping for quite along time and dropshipping was
(03:37):
kind of the thing that opened myeyes to, I think, ecommerce as
a whole.
And you know, back in the day,I think e-commerce as a whole
and you know, back in the day Ithink it was much, much sleazier
.
I think that is, you know, evennowadays, and it was also
getting more saturated, you know, nowadays compared to back then
.
But then I kind of pivoted thento my own brand, started on
(03:58):
Shopify, which is, I think, alot or very odd to many people
who might know me, because youknow I kind of obviously Expo is
the my Amazon guy nowadays, andso starting on Shopify is kind
of interesting for that.
But yeah, started on Shopify, Iactually didn't pivot into
Amazon until I had my secondbrand.
So my second ever brand is theone that I actually launched on
(04:21):
Amazon for the first time andthat was kind of my first step
into the Amazon realm back inthe day, before you could even
really advertise, and you knowyou took pictures with your cell
phone and just upload it andsomehow that would get you
organic traffic and views andsales.
And over the years, you knowI've done a lot of different
things.
I did a lot of consulting backin the day after a couple of my
(04:44):
brands kind of did really,really well.
So I started consulting forother people, just, you know,
people asking questions.
And eventually it got to thepoint where you get enough
people asking you a question.
You're like, well, I shouldprobably charge people for this,
you know.
And then eventually people seethat you help them answer those
questions, like, well, what elsecan you do?
Can you, you know, do designfor me?
(05:04):
Can you, you know, do uploading?
Can you just manage this for me?
And so I kind of pivoted thatinto a very small boutique kind
of consultancy slash agency fora few years.
And then from there I did thatfor a couple of years I ended up
working with another companythat was kind of a startup
company at the time and stilldid my own consulting stuff on
(05:26):
the side while I was doing that.
And then eventually I, you know,just had a colleague who worked
here at my Amazon and they werelike hey, we have an opening
here on our operations side andyou know, if you're open to some
stuff, I'd love to have you onboard.
So I was like, yeah, I didn'thave as many things going on.
My last brand I had pivoted outof in 2021.
(05:46):
And so this was 2023 at thetime.
And so I was like you know what, why not?
Let's give it a shot.
It was either that or startanother brand, to be honest.
And one thing led to another,and I remember about a year and
a half ago, at this point intime, I was talking to the
founder of my Amazon guys,stephen Pope.
At this point in time, I wastalking to the founder of my
Amazon guy, stephen Pope, and Itold him I hate sales and which
(06:07):
is funny because I was on theoperations side at the time and
he took that and he really ranwith it and then he kind of just
was like you know, I'm going tohand all of the sales side of
this agency and this businessover to you as a somewhat
impractical joke, I suppose.
Impractical joke, I suppose.
And sure enough, here we arenow growing and thriving on, you
know, the e-commerce landscapeas pretty much the largest
(06:29):
single person owned agency.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
So very nice, very nice.
Well, looking forward to divinginto this interview, and, as
many of the listeners of theshow know, I my primary sales
platform is Amazon as well, andso it's always good talking to
somebody who's familiar with theAmazon ecosystem.
And so, as we sit here, talkingin 2025, what is the state of
Amazon, whether it be forestablished brands or new brands
?
Speaker 3 (06:59):
I think that's such a difficult question to answer,
even though so many people wantto answer it, primarily because
(07:22):
I think the state of Amazon isit's tricky right now, right, so
there are Amazon is on kind ofa I almost want to say downhill
trend as far as quality goes.
Right, the number of complaintsabout things, like, you know,
chinese sellers is at an alltime high.
Amazon is removing serviceslike their prep services.
(07:42):
They're adding new fees, eventhough last year they said
they're not going to raise feesat all.
Well, technically they didn't,they just added entirely new
ones that never existed before,right, and so I think, in
general, the landscape forAmazon sellers, it's difficult,
right, it's not an easy one byany means.
Is all that say?
I don't think that people canstart on Amazon today and still
(08:05):
find massive success?
Absolutely not.
You know, 63% of all onlinesearches for products start on
Amazon at this point in time.
So it's just such a powerhousestill.
It's still growing.
It really comes down, in myopinion, to diversification and
just being a better fit forcustomers with your product than
(08:27):
the next best guy, right, andeven if you have a Chinese
seller competitor who's, youknow, 50% of the price of you.
That doesn't mean necessarilyyou can't still gain market
share.
I mean we have clients thatwe're seeing start from
literally nothing and become,you know, million-dollar brands
over the course of a year, right.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Yeah, no, I really like that, and it seems like
there is some pessimism going onright now in this space, and
understandably so.
However, I would also say thatthere are millionaires made on
Amazon every single day, and,and so it's not all doom and
gloom conversation, right and so, with what you know now, with
engaging with you know, onereally cool thing about my
(09:14):
Amazon guy is it manages over$1.2 billion in annual revenue
and so and that's across 400brands, and so with visibility
into 400 different brands, ifyou were to build a brand today,
what would be somecharacteristics of that brand
(09:35):
that you think would make itsuccessful on Amazon, whether it
be price point, whether it beniche, whether it be gated or
ungated of the people that areclients of my Amazon guy, who
seems to be crushing it?
Speaker 3 (09:51):
You know, I think that it's a complicated thing in
the sense that you can kind ofcrush it in almost any category.
In my opinion, right, at leastparent-level category, I think
the big thing to see for ourclients especially the people
who are crushing it you know farmore than others it really
(10:12):
comes down to those that arewilling to invest, especially if
you're just starting out right,invest early on and focus very
heavily on building brandidentity, especially early on.
It's one of those things wherethe brands that are going to
consistently still do well,consistently be profitable, are
(10:36):
those that have search volumeright.
If you look at any brand onAmazon whatsoever that is in the
top 100 of its category, it hassome form of search volume
right, even if it's minuscule.
Even if you only have 50 searchvolume a month, that's fine,
because that means that thereare at least 50 people who are
thinking about your brand everysingle month, right?
(10:56):
And so that's the type of thingwhere brand identity is
something that I think in thepast, historically, hasn't
really mattered on Amazon, and Ithink part of that is shown
with the idea of, like I said,chinese sellers, where you know
it's some Y-X-Z-I-W type brand,right?
You know I always keep a.
I keep this little like deskcleaner on my desk at all times.
(11:19):
I have no idea who the brand ofthis practice is Some Chinese
seller brand that was selling itfor $2 on Amazon, right, and
I'm never going to know thatbrand.
I'm never going to look them upfor another product again.
But at the same time I havealso products like you know,
this screen protector, which islike magic job screen protector.
This is the only screenprotector brands that I will
(11:40):
ever look up.
I don't look up the key termscreen protector when I need a
new one.
I just look up Magic John,because it's become so
synonymous in my mind with theproduct that they sell.
Right, and I think that's avery apparent thing that I see
both in products that Ipurchased but also in our brands
as well.
You know, I think of some ofthe brands we've launched in
(12:02):
like the last year, and the factof like, the reason they've
been able to take market share,is because they focused so
heavily on that brand identityboth on and off Amazon, to kind
of just build that audience.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
At the end of the day , For a company that is trying
to build that brand identity.
What are some specific actionsteps that they can take that
will help that search volume gofrom 50 to 100 to 200 month
after month?
Speaker 3 (12:30):
People don't really search for brands often.
They search for products, right,and so brand identity on Amazon
as a whole is just difficult toattain, just because Amazon
doesn't put a lot of stock andhistorically hasn't put a lot of
(12:51):
stock into branding, and so Ithink the easiest thing is
building off Amazon brandidentity right.
So starting to do things whereyou get your email marketing
going, starting to do thingswhere you have a social presence
of some kind, pushing out youknow both, you know sponsored
display campaigns, and alsopushing out something we have
(13:13):
launched in the last year that'sdone phenomenal for all of the
clients that we've kind ofpushed onto is DSP, demand Side,
programmatic, programmaticadvertising, right, and that's,
that's the big thing.
My opinion is pushing that offAmazon.
I guess power of your brandidentity and getting people
(13:34):
because, again, as I mentioned,63% of all sales or searches
start on Amazon anyhow right Forproducts, and so if people saw
your brand outside of Amazon,you can still assume they might
search for it on Amazon as well,and so it's one of the things
where that's, I think, a reallybig thing that people need to
focus on, and it's one of theonly things you can really still
(13:56):
if you're all in on Amazoncontrol.
Is that kind of off?
Amazon brand identity andpresence is that kind of off?
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Amazon brand identity and presence.
Okay, no, I really like that.
I really like that.
You had mentioned DSP, and thatwas one thing I definitely
wanted to talk to you about wasthe pay-per-click advertising on
Amazon, and so what I havepersonally experienced and seen
of a lot of different sellers is, after your cost of goods sold,
(14:26):
after your shipping expensesand after your PPC costs, you
are at or near break-even, andthat seems to be a pretty common
theme, and I think one of thethings that people will often
point to is Amazon has so manyfees you know they're taking
between 33 and 50 percent ofyour sale and whether that be
(14:50):
FBA fees, referral fees, longterm storage fees, inventory
management fees, they tend totake it a chunk.
Now, ppc is something that asan operator, as a brand operator
, you do have some control over,and so what would be some
general guidance for brands thatdo feel like they're at a
(15:11):
break-even point and are, youknow, are wanting to get into
profitability mode?
Speaker 3 (15:20):
You know, one of the things that I'll say first and
foremost with it is I thinkthere are a lot of brands on
Amazon that are deathly afraidof raising their prices and
thinking that it's going todestroy their product, destroy
their conversion, destroyeverything, and it's something
that in recent times we'veplayed around with.
(15:41):
I mean especially with thingslike, you know, all the tariffs
that are happening in the worldright now.
Right, and that's a huge costadjustment people need to make
(16:03):
that you can usually raiseusually about 15, 20% on your
product before your conversionreally takes a hit, as long as
you have already decentrankability, I should say so.
It's one thing I would alwaysencourage everyone to do is that
testing regularly, about once aquarter, of just raising your
product's price to see at whatpoint really does your
conversion actually take a hitfrom doing that.
That's an easy, easy way tokeep up with times, keep up with
(16:27):
inflation, make sure that yourproduct is both staying
competitive but also you'regetting that profitability.
Now, from the aspect of PPC,fully agree.
Some of the major things that Iwould say is I think people are
putting money into the wrongthings on advertising all the
time, typically speaking acrossall of our 400 plus brands that
(16:48):
we manage right now, about 89%of all ad spend that we manage
every single month is goingtowards sponsored products.
It's just the number one thing.
Right At the end of the day,you'll hear a lot of gurus, a
lot of different people be like,oh, you should have, you know,
a 60-30-10 split or a 60-20-20or a 70-20-10, right Split
(17:12):
within your ads from you know, asponsored product, sponsored
brand, sponsored displayperspective.
It's just not the case.
We've done tons of testing.
I mean, we're currentlymanaging about 415, 420 brands.
We work with a thousand peryear, right, very, we have so
much data on advertising and themost recent thing is about 89%
(17:36):
sponsored product, about 9%product, about 9% towards
sponsor brand and about 1% to 2%towards sponsor display.
Now, that's not includingbrands.
They're doing DSP, I should say.
But it's one thing I would sayto most people is, if you are
struggling right now and look atyour how you are kind of
(17:57):
separating all of your differentadvertising, how much
percentage are you putting insponsor product?
How much are you putting insponsor brand, sponsors, how
much are you putting in sponsorbrand, sponsor display?
Now, secondarily to that, thebig thing that I think I see the
most common is that peopledon't actually understand or
don't actually look through andknow how to like audit for
(18:18):
things like wasted spend right,the amount of counts that come
through to us at any given time.
I've, I mean, I've looked atprobably over 1000 counts in the
last year and 80% of them haveprobably 20% of their entire
budget just being wasted spentevery single month where they
are.
And I'm not even talking wastedspend in the sense where, like
(18:40):
the ads are above their a costlike threshold, right to where
it's no longer profitable.
I'm not even talking wastedspend in the sense where, like
the ads are above their ACOSlike threshold, right to where
it's no longer profitable.
I'm saying strictly from aspending money and not getting a
single sale in return.
If you add on to that theaspect of you know how many ads
they have that are, you know,over a certain ACOS threshold
for them, it's justexponentially worse when it
(19:01):
comes to waste spend costthreshold for them.
It's just exponentially worsewhen it comes to waste spend.
So knowing how to and lookingthrough and auditing your
advertising expenditure on aregular basis is just extremely
needed.
I typically say five to 8% isgood rule of thumb of like what
healthy wasted spend is, and Iinclude in that things that are
above your ACoS goal, becausethat point that means you're
likely testing new keywords,you're trying to expand your
(19:24):
overall advertising reach, andso it's some of the things where
I think a lot of times, whenwe're looking at people
struggling with cost per click,struggling with, like, customer
acquisition cost and thelifetime value of their you know
customers, a lot of it justcomes from a lack of retargeting
, remarketing.
A lot of it comes from a lackof expansion, a lack of just
(19:45):
regular checks and audits ofvery simple things that people
don't even think about checkingRight.
They see the stuff that's rightin front of their face.
They don't dig a level deeper.
(20:17):
Okay, okay, you had mentionedthat across your guys' clients
that 90% or 89% is sponsoredproducts, and I'd like to dive a
little bit deeper there.
So for people that areunfamiliar, Essentially a
sponsored product is as simpleas it sounds.
You are advertising a singularproduct, right?
Two different ways you canreally do it.
One is through a specifickeyword search.
The second is through doingeither a product or a category
search as well.
This will appear anytimesomeone searches within Amazon
(20:41):
for a specific keyword for aproduct.
If they click on a product,they'll see your ads, right.
Tons of different places thesecan pop up within Amazon.
It's also what I would say theeasiest advertising method to
control, right, and it's one ofthe things that I think has
allowed Amazon, as far asplatform, to be so easy for a
(21:04):
beginner to just get on but also, at the same time, so
complicated and competitive.
Right, Because you look atsomething like meta advertising,
where it has far morealgorithmic it's audience based.
You have to get really granularwith how you're targeting.
You have to get into lookalikeaudiences, things like that,
which don't get me wrong.
I do love those aspects of metaadvertising because it makes it
(21:27):
super niche in how you can kindof target people.
Amazon's just a different gamein the sense that the thing they
care about it almost operatesmore like Google for the same,
but the aspect with Google isyou're usually trying to get
just clicks.
Amazon is very conversion heavyin how it works for all of its
(21:50):
advertising.
So sponsor products is just a,in my opinion, kind of
conversion machine where you areputting dollars in, getting
dollars out.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Okay.
Okay, now, when I I andadmittedly I am outsourcing my
PPC management right now I'vedone stuff when I was running my
own.
The typical school of thoughtwould have been when you launch
(22:16):
a product, you set up aautomatic campaign that is going
to find keywords that convert,and then you take those they
called it keyword harvesting andyou put that into an exact
campaign and you would justcontinuously harvest keywords
(22:36):
into your exact campaigns.
And so, since I have beenmanaging, they have introduced
broad match, phrase match, andyou just have a lot more options
.
And so what would be?
You know, your recommendationfor people on a product launch.
(22:56):
You know, in terms of setting upcampaigns.
You know in terms of setting upcampaigns, and this is a
two-part question.
The second part is at whatpoint do you turn your autos off
or do you?
You know there are only so manywords that you can use to
describe a product, and you know, after a year or two years,
(23:19):
have you harvested all of them?
Are you?
And so what?
And so what would be youranswer to that?
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Yeah.
So I think your questions in ofthemselves are kind of actually
expanding on.
I'm probably the biggest haterof like AI, quote unquote AI
advertising, like softwares andwhatnot, and it's largely
because of exactly what you said.
They're in like what you'reasking.
And so when you're launchingright auto campaign yeah, always
(23:49):
, always, do an auto campaign.
We call them, you know, goldpanning campaigns.
We also do like auto catch allcampaigns which are like the
easiest campaign that anyone canever set up and get sales from.
Auto campaigns are great.
Should you ever turn them off?
No, not really.
There's not really a reason toright.
The only reason I ever see toturn off auto campaigns is if
(24:09):
you're bidding way too high andyou never negate anything on
them.
Right.
Outside of that, they're justgreat to have on all the time.
It's like why wouldn't you?
Now you talked a little bit.
I was on board with everythingyou were saying.
I'm like, yeah, it sounds right.
Until you said I put them intoexact campaigns, exact campaigns
only, and I was like, ah, welost the plot.
(24:33):
So, normally speaking, Iactually am a big fan abroad.
I think this is also what Iwould consider to be a
differentiating factor betweensomeone who understands Amazon's
algorithms and PPC reallyreally well, versus people who
just kind of understands thepurpose of them, right.
So exact campaigns, they'rereally really good because it's
(24:54):
going to obviously targetexactly what you are trying to
target.
That's the only thing youtarget.
You can control them supereasily, right?
And that is the, I guess, greatpart about exact campaigns.
Now, the bad part about exactcampaigns exactly what you were
kind of talking about of like,after two years, haven't you
found everything you can find?
(25:15):
No, probably not actually right.
There's always, I think, smallrelevancy.
I think that's where broadcampaign comes in the most,
right.
If you have, let's say, you'reselling I don't know deck of
cards, right, because I have iton my desk right here.
So, deck of cards, you'reselling deck of cards to people.
(25:35):
Broad campaigns open up a lotof opportunity where it's like,
yeah, you can target exactlyjust, you know card deck right,
playing cards, anything likethat.
That's great.
But what if someone says whitedeck of cards or someone says
black deck of cards?
What if someone says, you knowanything in between?
(25:57):
That's where broad and phrasereally come in and they shine
right between.
That's where broad and phrasereally come in and they shine
right, because they open up toall of these different minute
ways that customers look forthings.
And just because somethingisn't exactly what your product
is doesn't mean that it mightnot have interest to somebody
else.
And I find this especially truefor people who have more
(26:18):
generic products, right?
My favorite thing to talk aboutis this idea that people will
talk about, like you know, tellme and come to me like I'm
having such a hard time with youknow, ppc, I'm having such a
hard time with advertising.
I have, you know, this super,super relevant keyword that I'm
targeting for my product butit's just not getting any clicks
.
It's just not getting anyconversions.
(26:39):
Or it is getting clicks.
It's not getting anyconversions, getting a click
sense, just not getting anyconversions.
Or it is getting clicks.
It's not getting anyconversions but it's like super
relevant to my product.
My answer nine times out of 10,when someone tells me that you
know it is a keyword that issuper relevant to their product,
I'm like no, it's not, because,at the end of the day,
relevancy is not determined byyou thinking in your head that a
(27:01):
keyword makes sense and isrelevant to your product.
Right, relevancy is determinedby the customers and whether or
not they click on your product,whether or not they convert on
your product.
And for that keyword you canhave, you know, you can be
selling a coffee mug, right, youcan be selling a coffee mug.
(27:21):
You can be selling a coffee mug, right, you can be selling a
coffee mug.
You can go after the keywordcoffee mug.
But if you get no conversionsoff of the keyword coffee mug,
yeah, it's probably more thanlikely an issue with your
product detail page and withyour pricing.
But it also is just a relevancyissue.
You're not targeting the rightthing at the end of the day.
So, all that being said, to kindof circle back to your initial
(27:42):
question of, like you know, doyou keep auto campaigns on?
Is you know, after two years,can't you find everything?
Say no, I mean, we're stillfinding new stuff.
Now, is there a limit to howmuch you can really find and
optimize within advertising?
Yeah, of course there is, but Ithink there within that,
there's still always room tofind new things.
(28:02):
But kind of circling back to mypoint about AI, automated or
automated advertising stuff, alot of times that's basically
what they're doing.
They're just speeding up thatprocess of saying, hey, we found
, you know 40,000 keywords thatwe're going to advertise against
with your you know $1,000budget and see what actually
happens, and you know that'swhere I think you lose the
(28:22):
optimization effort of you know,three years down the line
finding a new keyword.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Yeah, I have had similar experiences to that.
I remember I don't want to callit the software by name because
I can't remember what it wascalled but I and this was about
two years ago had noticed thatthere needs to be a human
element, and and at least atthat point in time, the AI
(28:51):
systems weren't good enough tosuss out relevance, and so, no,
that's, that's, that's reallyreally helpful.
Next thing I want to talk aboutand I I'm a big fan of Jocko
Willink and I was actuallylistening to a podcast with him
this morning and he was talkingabout tier one operators- which
(29:14):
is just the best of the best,right, and I was just thinking
of tier one operators, right,that obviously has a military
meaning.
However, if we're talking aboutAmazon and we're talking about
the tier one operators withinAmazon, what are they doing that
(29:34):
some of the less experienced oramateur sellers are not doing?
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Yeah, that's a hard question.
You know what I know?
Actually, the perfect answer.
The number one thing that willset somebody who is trying to
scale a brand and believes intheir product and believes in
the aspect that their brand cangrow, aside from brand owners
(30:05):
who are fearful, I think, of theAmazon ecosystem, fearful of
competitors and things like that, is the willingness to invest
and test things.
And what I mean by that is theaspect of willingness to throw
(30:25):
never, never tried sponsor brandbefore, but willing to throw,
you know, $1,500 to get reallynice video put together and then
$1,000 at an ad campaign to seeif that video helps convert
sales and helps grow the brand.
Right.
Willingness to try new areas togather and I this doesn't even
(30:47):
have to be Amazon related right,it could be literally any
business in the world.
The biggest thing is beingwilling to test new things.
And don't get me wrong, after awhile you get a gut reaction,
like myself being our, you know,vp of sales and marketing.
Right, there are some.
I get a million, one differentcold outreach emails about
(31:09):
different software services andeverything that will do x, y and
z for us.
Right, and after a while youkind of have you know, uh, you
know, saw after enough of themand like, have seen enough and
test enough, they're like no, Ican tell a mile away that this
isn't going to work, right, um,but especially if you're newer
and you're not, you know, know,let's say like a seven figure
(31:31):
threshold, as like an Amazonseller or just e commerce brand
in general, right, or maybeyou're just barely at that seven
figure threshold.
You could be brand new.
You can be just barely at sevenfigures.
You still need to invest intrying new things, new
advertising, platforms, testing.
I mean, if there's an area ofe-commerce that you don't know
or you don't feel confident, Imean you're a great example,
(31:53):
david.
You're like look, I don't knowmy PPC, I need to invest in
hiring someone who can then goahead and run it for me.
Right, and that's exactly whatI mean in the sense that brands
that really, I think, thrive andgrow are those they're willing
to invest heavily into thatgrowth.
At the end of the day, that's,I think, the biggest thing.
(32:16):
The age old you can't have yourcake and eat it too.
You know, at all times.
You can't just be not willingto, you know, invest in things,
but also wanting to, you know,become an eight-figure brand or
a seven-figure brand, or even asix-figure brand, if you're not
that yet.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
I think that's a really, really good answer, and
I can say what my oldest tenuredbrand on Amazon is eight years
old and I still am testing andtrying new things.
And so, you know, speaking tothat audience with who you know
may be approaching seven figuresor is north of seven figures.
(32:55):
Many of them have VAs, and thisis something that I know I am
personally working through thismonth, and you know we have
really good listings, we havegood infographics and EBC, we
have good video and, you know,short of product launches, I,
(33:18):
you know I've hired these teammembers, I've trained them and I
want them to go to work on thehighest ROI activities, and you
know a couple of things thatcome to mind.
You know, having an A-B splittesting program would be one,
you know, auditing the categorylisting report and seeing if
there's any opportunities forimprovements.
(33:39):
There is one Requesting reviewsthese opportunities, then I
could plug them in on and I findmyself asking the question
what's going to move the needlethe most?
(33:59):
And just, you know, I havevisibility into a single brand
and and so I would be curious,like you know, for people in
that position, what would be andthis could also go for someone
who's outsourcing somebody?
Who's hiring my Amazon guy, forinstance?
What are going to be some ofthe first things that you guys
go to work on that tend to movethe needle, the?
Speaker 3 (34:18):
most.
I think it doesn't matter ifyou're my Amazon guy, and
actually I would say I know fora fact it's the same for most
agencies at this point, alsobecause we've taught a lot of
(34:39):
agencies right over the yearsand whatnot of how to do it.
And the big thing is there'sfour pillars to growth, always
on Amazon, and that has notchanged in the entire time
Amazon has existed.
Pretty much in the entire timethat Amazon has existed, pretty
much it is pretty much catalogmanagement, design, ppc, seo.
Those are like your big needlemovers.
Now, the thing is that thoseare very top level, there's a
(35:04):
lot of granular pieces underthem, and so no two brands are
100% identical.
But the big thing is that we'vekind of essentially just
developed a lot SOPs and a lotof processes that work for, you
know, I would say, 90% of brandsright, regardless of the size
of that brand right, and we workfrom everything, like said,
from startups all the way up to,you know, nine figure brands,
(35:26):
and so it's, you know, very vast, but there's always things to
work on.
The biggest, I think, needlemover, in my opinion, is always
going to be, I think, seo for amajority of people, and the
reason for that is that thebiggest thing that you can, or
biggest investment you can evermake on Amazon, especially with
(35:48):
how the algorithm works, isunderstanding how to get your
product ranked higher at for asmany keywords as possible.
The easiest thing there is justgetting more keywords right.
So the more keywords you have,the more search volume you have.
It's essentially just wideningthat funnel at the end of the
day, right, and the more overallimpressions you get, the more
(36:09):
search volume you get, the morepeople that click on your
listing.
It's just another chance at theeasiest needle mover in my
opinion, that so many peoplealso get wrong.
So I think people have a reallyhard time understanding how to
(36:36):
get past, like, let's say, 2000,3000 ranked keywords.
Like, once you get to like that2000 realm, I think a lot of
people struggle with like okay,well, I have 2000 keywords, like
you said, like, what do I doafter that?
And so it's really difficult,right, but it's it's the
granular improvements.
You know we have brands.
They're doing north of 23million a year, everything, and
(37:00):
one of the biggest things I seewith them is we're still every
single month updating SEO ontheir listings, right, and it's
because of the exact aspect thatit moves the needle, even if
it's by, you know point, onepercent over the course of you
know, a month and a half orsomething of increased
(37:21):
conversion.
That's more than you had before.
So that's, I think, alwaysgoing to be the number one first
thing.
Obviously you can dive into PPC, like I said, and all the
different things, but theeasiest uptick, in my opinion,
for majority, 90% of brands isalways just going to be SEO
optimization.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Okay, do you think with Rufus and do you think that
is going away, or do you thinkthat's here to stay?
Speaker 3 (37:47):
I think it's here to stay.
I think it's here to stay tosee how many Amazon shoppers
(38:08):
actually even know what Rufus isor use it, because I didn't
believe the numbers that Amazonhad put out, and so I polled
about 5,000 people.
13% of that 5,000 said thatthey had heard of Rufus before.
So only 13%, I should say, saidthat they knew what Rufus was,
(38:29):
and less than 5% total said thatthey use Rufus regularly.
So it's one of those big thingswhere I think, within the
Amazon ecosystem as like sellersand people, software providers,
service providers, everything Ithink we're all very in tune to
Rufus, thinking it's like thisreally big thing within Amazon.
I don't think Rufus matterswhatsoever to the customer.
(38:50):
My biggest thing always isfocus on what the customer wants
and what they are using andwhat they are doing.
At the end of the day, I don'tthink Rufus is that.
Now Amazon's going to changetheir algorithm here in the next
probably 612 months with Cosmo,their new targeting system that
is focused a little bit morearound AI and whatnot within how
(39:10):
it does it.
They're also going to bechanging things like how the
title operates, with doing twopart titles, where it's a 150
character top title and then 100characters you can utilize for
single word, bullet points,basically right, or
characteristics as they callthem.
And so, yeah, seo is going tochange.
You know, I think GEO is goingto be kind of a really, really
(39:34):
big thing, which is, you know,basically AI citations how often
are you showing up within allof this, and so I think all of
that will change, but I don'tthink the core principle and
idea of you need to optimize SEO, to show up in searches, is
ever going to change.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Yeah yeah, I also am a Rufus hater.
The currency I've dealt in forso long is keywords.
It's almost hard for my brainto wrap around how you know.
If you think of Amazon, itconnects shopper types in a
keyword, it connects them with aproduct.
And to abandon that and to sayI'm going on a camping trip and
(40:23):
this AI is going to suggest the30 items that I need and know
that I have expensive taste andI just I don't see, I don't see
it.
It's hard for me to like wrapmy head around and so that's no,
that's.
That's really, really helpful.
Um, before we get to the fireround, let's talk about my
Amazon guy.
Uh, who's your guys' typicalclients and, um, who would
benefit from getting in contactwith my Amazon guy?
Speaker 3 (40:45):
Yeah, absolutely so.
You know, like I said, we workwith everything from people just
launching on Amazon all the wayup to, you know, nine figure
brands, right, and so we're kindof all over the place and who
we can operate with.
Now, that being said, does thatnot mean that we don't have
like an ICP that we loveoperating with?
No, of course we do.
I would say, on average, thebrands that we typically love
(41:12):
working with the most are brandsthat are somewhere in the
ballpark of between 50 and 100Kmonthly revenue.
That's usually going to be kindof the sweet spot as far as,
like, a sales revenue area thatcan go up to about 250K in most
scenarios.
So usually, basically, brandsthat are doing 500 to 2.5
million a year.
That's kind of where I'm goingto say these are the best brands
(41:35):
we work with, right, it'speople who they are wanting to
hit that seven figure mark allthe way to.
You know the aspect of.
(41:56):
They have that investmentmindset, like I said right, and
are like, yeah, I know that Ineed to invest in things in
expertise, in area that I don'tknow right, and, the end of the
day, I look at us as, both youknow, an education company in
the sense of how much content weput out on, you know, youtube
(42:16):
and things like that but alsojust a growth accelerator for
brands.
You know, a place for brands ifthey're looking for either just
a tune-up you want, you know, alittle bit of help and a little
bit of guidance for a couple ofmonths Fantastic.
We also have brands we've beenworking with for seven years.
You know, and have seen go frommom and pop type brands all the
(42:37):
way to doing eight figures, andso I think my favorite thing is
just seeing brands grow at theend of the day, and so favorite
people work with are those thatare, like I said, willing to
know that they don't knoweverything but have enough
awareness of what their brand is, what their brand does, and can
work with people who haveworked with you know hundreds of
(43:01):
other brands to utilize sameprinciple strategies but just in
a different way you know to doit.
But yeah, that's kind of Iwould say kind of core ICP for
us at the end of the day.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Okay, very nice, very nice, and I will post
information or link to thewebsite in the show notes.
Before we end the interview, wehave something called the fire
round.
It's four questions we askevery person at the end of the
interview Are you ready?
Speaker 3 (43:27):
I'm ready, let's do it All right let's do it.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
What's your favorite book?
Speaker 3 (43:30):
Ooh, favorite book Happiness Advantage by Sean Aker
.
All right, what are yourhobbies?
I play video games, I go to thegym, I'm training for a
marathon right now.
Those are kind of the primaryones.
I like to go to restaurants,like I said, and oh, I do like
tracking for coffees and beers.
(43:52):
I love trying different coffeeshops and different beers, and
so I kind of like mix those twotogether, try and do like new
one ever so often.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Nice, nice.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
What is one thing that you do not miss about
working for the man?
Oh, I think the number onething I don't miss is the aspect
of not really being able to goand like go to an appointment,
go and do something you need todo.
Having, I guess, thatflexibility, I love the fact
that I can schedule a dentistappointment at, you know, 11 am
(44:31):
ona Tuesday and just go to it,be like that's fine and not be
penalized in some way, not haveto take out PTO or anything like
that, and yeah, that's alwaysbeen like.
I think the biggest aspect tome is the flexibility that you
get, where you're not just tiedto one area at all times.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Okay, Okay and final question what do you think sets
apart successful e-commerceentrepreneurs from those who
give up, fail or never getstarted?
Speaker 3 (45:07):
Speed.
It's the number one thing thatI always talk about.
I think that people who areperfectionists and need to have
it be perfect uh, you know, thefirst time are always going to
fail.
My favorite thing is uh, youknow, fail for, or fail often,
fail fast, right, uh, I wouldmuch rather try something and
(45:32):
come up with an idea forsomething, execute on that idea
within 24 hours and test it andsee if it fails very, very
quickly and then move on to thenext thing.
And again, because by the timethat you know, I've tested eight
different uh contract or eightdifferent, you know setups of've
tested eight different uhcontract or eight different, you
know setups of whatever it isI'm trying, someone else who is
(45:54):
a perfectionist hasn't eventried once, right, uh, and so
it's a big thing of.
Uh, fail fast.
Fail often is something that Isee so many entrepreneurs uh,
afraid to do.
Right, and again, I think itcomes into that investment
aspect be willing to try newthings and be willing to spend a
(46:15):
little bit of money to do it.
Because of that, at the end ofthe day, even if you fail or it
fails, it's knowledge for you,right To understand how you can
make a better decision in thefuture.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
Very nice, Very nice.
Well, Noah, this has been anoutstanding interview.
We've really got into the weedson some Amazon stuff and I
really enjoyed it, as will ouraudience.
Thank you for being a guest onthe Firing the man podcast and
looking forward to staying intouch.
Speaker 3 (46:39):
Absolutely.
Thank you, david, great beinghere.
Welcome everyone to the Firing the man podcast, a
show for anyone who wants to betheir own boss.
If you sit in a cubicle everyday and know you are capable of
more, then join us.
This show will help you build abusiness and grow your passive
income streams in just a fewshort hours per day.
And now your hosts, serialentrepreneurs David Shomer and
(00:22):
Ken Wilson.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Welcome everyone to the Firing the man podcast,
where we dig deep into thestrategies that drive e-commerce
success.
Today, I'm thrilled to haveNoah Wickman with us.
Noah serves as the VicePresident of Sales and Marketing
at my Amazon Guy, a powerhousefull-service Amazon agency that
manages over $1.2 billion inannual revenue and supports more
(00:48):
than 400 brands.
Noah's journey in e-commercebegan over a decade ago through
reselling on eBay and since thenhe's become a growth-centric
leader and client successadvocate At my Amazon Guy.
He's helped clients scaleacross Amazon, walmart and
Shopify by honing growthstrategies, improving SEO,
(01:10):
refining procurement andevaluating brand building.
When he's not shapinge-commerce success, you might
catch Noah cooking up somethingnew gaming, reading, playing
chess or doing what many of uslove exploring a new restaurant
or venue on a Saturday night.
Noah, very excited to have youas a guest on Firing the man.
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Absolutely.
Thank you for having me.
David Glad to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Absolutely so.
To start things off, can youshare with us a little bit about
your background in thee-commerce world and what led
you to being the vice presidentof sales and marketing at my
Amazon Guy?
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Yeah, absolutely.
I've always kind of looked tomyself pretty much like a you
know, a jack of many, you knowtrades and you know, not really
a master of any.
I think that's something thatkind of goes against the grain
compared to most people, becausemost people are like, oh, I'm
going to take this one thing,I'm going to master it.
But you know, that kind ofstarted with the aspect you know
(02:09):
as you mentioned.
You know, over a decade ago Ihad been at a garage sale and I
saw somebody had this giant,giant box of trading cards was
like Yu-Gi-Oh cards,no-transcript them back.
(02:34):
And I looked on eBay one daybecause there was a specific
card I was trying to buy and Ifound Interment Market for
Contraind cards on eBay.
I was like, oh cool, I'll putsome mine up here on this and
everything.
I actually almost got my eBayaccount when I first started
taking down because I got a fewnegative reviews, because I was
(02:54):
so new to the whole realm ofshipping things and all that
that I had just sent a couple ofcards in a little envelope and
I didn't think about the fact,oh, these are going to get bent
and that people want the cardsin a little envelope and I
didn't think about the fact, oh,these are going to get bent,
and that people want the cardsin like pristine condition,
because I was somebody I'm likeI never cared about that.
I never cared about thepristine condition, I just
wanted to play with the cards,right, I didn't care if they had
(03:16):
bends or anything Other peopledo.
And so I end up kind ofevolving that process and
getting that and eventually Istarted kind of think about I
was like, well, I'm starting to,you know, buy more stuff and
then resell it on eBay.
Why don't I try?
And, you know, do this and domy own brand.
I started to kind of learn alittle bit more, actually got
into dropshipping for quite along time and dropshipping was
(03:37):
kind of the thing that opened myeyes to, I think, ecommerce as
a whole.
And you know, back in the day,I think e-commerce as a whole
and you know, back in the day Ithink it was much, much sleazier
.
I think that is, you know, evennowadays, and it was also
getting more saturated, you know, nowadays compared to back then
.
But then I kind of pivoted thento my own brand, started on
(03:58):
Shopify, which is, I think, alot or very odd to many people
who might know me, because youknow I kind of obviously Expo is
the my Amazon guy nowadays, andso starting on Shopify is kind
of interesting for that.
But yeah, started on Shopify, Iactually didn't pivot into
Amazon until I had my secondbrand.
So my second ever brand is theone that I actually launched on
(04:21):
Amazon for the first time andthat was kind of my first step
into the Amazon realm back inthe day, before you could even
really advertise, and you knowyou took pictures with your cell
phone and just upload it andsomehow that would get you
organic traffic and views andsales.
And over the years, you knowI've done a lot of different
things.
I did a lot of consulting backin the day after a couple of my
(04:44):
brands kind of did really,really well.
So I started consulting forother people, just, you know,
people asking questions.
And eventually it got to thepoint where you get enough
people asking you a question.
You're like, well, I shouldprobably charge people for this,
you know.
And then eventually people seethat you help them answer those
questions, like, well, what elsecan you do?
Can you, you know, do designfor me?
(05:04):
Can you, you know, do uploading?
Can you just manage this for me?
And so I kind of pivoted thatinto a very small boutique kind
of consultancy slash agency fora few years.
And then from there I did thatfor a couple of years I ended up
working with another companythat was kind of a startup
company at the time and stilldid my own consulting stuff on
(05:26):
the side while I was doing that.
And then eventually I, you know,just had a colleague who worked
here at my Amazon and they werelike hey, we have an opening
here on our operations side andyou know, if you're open to some
stuff, I'd love to have you onboard.
So I was like, yeah, I didn'thave as many things going on.
My last brand I had pivoted outof in 2021.
(05:46):
And so this was 2023 at thetime.
And so I was like you know what, why not?
Let's give it a shot.
It was either that or startanother brand, to be honest.
And one thing led to another,and I remember about a year and
a half ago, at this point intime, I was talking to the
founder of my Amazon guys,stephen Pope.
At this point in time, I wastalking to the founder of my
Amazon guy, stephen Pope, and Itold him I hate sales and which
(06:07):
is funny because I was on theoperations side at the time and
he took that and he really ranwith it and then he kind of just
was like you know, I'm going tohand all of the sales side of
this agency and this businessover to you as a somewhat
impractical joke, I suppose.
Impractical joke, I suppose.
And sure enough, here we arenow growing and thriving on, you
know, the e-commerce landscapeas pretty much the largest
(06:29):
single person owned agency.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
So very nice, very nice.
Well, looking forward to divinginto this interview, and, as
many of the listeners of theshow know, I my primary sales
platform is Amazon as well, andso it's always good talking to
somebody who's familiar with theAmazon ecosystem.
And so, as we sit here, talkingin 2025, what is the state of
Amazon, whether it be forestablished brands or new brands
?
Speaker 3 (06:59):
I think that's such a difficult question to answer,
even though so many people wantto answer it, primarily because
(07:22):
I think the state of Amazon isit's tricky right now, right, so
there are Amazon is on kind ofa I almost want to say downhill
trend as far as quality goes.
Right, the number of complaintsabout things, like, you know,
chinese sellers is at an alltime high.
Amazon is removing serviceslike their prep services.
(07:42):
They're adding new fees, eventhough last year they said
they're not going to raise feesat all.
Well, technically they didn't,they just added entirely new
ones that never existed before,right, and so I think, in
general, the landscape forAmazon sellers, it's difficult,
right, it's not an easy one byany means.
Is all that say?
I don't think that people canstart on Amazon today and still
(08:05):
find massive success?
Absolutely not.
You know, 63% of all onlinesearches for products start on
Amazon at this point in time.
So it's just such a powerhousestill.
It's still growing.
It really comes down, in myopinion, to diversification and
just being a better fit forcustomers with your product than
(08:27):
the next best guy, right, andeven if you have a Chinese
seller competitor who's, youknow, 50% of the price of you.
That doesn't mean necessarilyyou can't still gain market
share.
I mean we have clients thatwe're seeing start from
literally nothing and become,you know, million-dollar brands
over the course of a year, right.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Yeah, no, I really like that, and it seems like
there is some pessimism going onright now in this space, and
understandably so.
However, I would also say thatthere are millionaires made on
Amazon every single day, and,and so it's not all doom and
gloom conversation, right and so, with what you know now, with
engaging with you know, onereally cool thing about my
(09:14):
Amazon guy is it manages over$1.2 billion in annual revenue
and so and that's across 400brands, and so with visibility
into 400 different brands, ifyou were to build a brand today,
what would be somecharacteristics of that brand
(09:35):
that you think would make itsuccessful on Amazon, whether it
be price point, whether it beniche, whether it be gated or
ungated of the people that areclients of my Amazon guy, who
seems to be crushing it?
Speaker 3 (09:51):
You know, I think that it's a complicated thing in
the sense that you can kind ofcrush it in almost any category.
In my opinion, right, at leastparent-level category, I think
the big thing to see for ourclients especially the people
who are crushing it you know farmore than others it really
(10:12):
comes down to those that arewilling to invest, especially if
you're just starting out right,invest early on and focus very
heavily on building brandidentity, especially early on.
It's one of those things wherethe brands that are going to
consistently still do well,consistently be profitable, are
(10:36):
those that have search volumeright.
If you look at any brand onAmazon whatsoever that is in the
top 100 of its category, it hassome form of search volume
right, even if it's minuscule.
Even if you only have 50 searchvolume a month, that's fine,
because that means that thereare at least 50 people who are
thinking about your brand everysingle month, right?
(10:56):
And so that's the type of thingwhere brand identity is
something that I think in thepast, historically, hasn't
really mattered on Amazon, and Ithink part of that is shown
with the idea of, like I said,chinese sellers, where you know
it's some Y-X-Z-I-W type brand,right?
You know I always keep a.
I keep this little like deskcleaner on my desk at all times.
(11:19):
I have no idea who the brand ofthis practice is Some Chinese
seller brand that was selling itfor $2 on Amazon, right, and
I'm never going to know thatbrand.
I'm never going to look them upfor another product again.
But at the same time I havealso products like you know,
this screen protector, which islike magic job screen protector.
This is the only screenprotector brands that I will
(11:40):
ever look up.
I don't look up the key termscreen protector when I need a
new one.
I just look up Magic John,because it's become so
synonymous in my mind with theproduct that they sell.
Right, and I think that's avery apparent thing that I see
both in products that Ipurchased but also in our brands
as well.
You know, I think of some ofthe brands we've launched in
(12:02):
like the last year, and the factof like, the reason they've
been able to take market share,is because they focused so
heavily on that brand identityboth on and off Amazon, to kind
of just build that audience.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
At the end of the day , For a company that is trying
to build that brand identity.
What are some specific actionsteps that they can take that
will help that search volume gofrom 50 to 100 to 200 month
after month?
Speaker 3 (12:30):
People don't really search for brands often.
They search for products, right,and so brand identity on Amazon
as a whole is just difficult toattain, just because Amazon
doesn't put a lot of stock andhistorically hasn't put a lot of
(12:51):
stock into branding, and so Ithink the easiest thing is
building off Amazon brandidentity right.
So starting to do things whereyou get your email marketing
going, starting to do thingswhere you have a social presence
of some kind, pushing out youknow both, you know sponsored
display campaigns, and alsopushing out something we have
(13:13):
launched in the last year that'sdone phenomenal for all of the
clients that we've kind ofpushed onto is DSP, demand Side,
programmatic, programmaticadvertising, right, and that's,
that's the big thing.
My opinion is pushing that offAmazon.
I guess power of your brandidentity and getting people
(13:34):
because, again, as I mentioned,63% of all sales or searches
start on Amazon anyhow right Forproducts, and so if people saw
your brand outside of Amazon,you can still assume they might
search for it on Amazon as well,and so it's one of the things
where that's, I think, a reallybig thing that people need to
focus on, and it's one of theonly things you can really still
(13:56):
if you're all in on Amazoncontrol.
Is that kind of off?
Amazon brand identity andpresence is that kind of off?
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Amazon brand identity and presence.
Okay, no, I really like that.
I really like that.
You had mentioned DSP, and thatwas one thing I definitely
wanted to talk to you about wasthe pay-per-click advertising on
Amazon, and so what I havepersonally experienced and seen
of a lot of different sellers is, after your cost of goods sold,
(14:26):
after your shipping expensesand after your PPC costs, you
are at or near break-even, andthat seems to be a pretty common
theme, and I think one of thethings that people will often
point to is Amazon has so manyfees you know they're taking
between 33 and 50 percent ofyour sale and whether that be
(14:50):
FBA fees, referral fees, longterm storage fees, inventory
management fees, they tend totake it a chunk.
Now, ppc is something that asan operator, as a brand operator
, you do have some control over,and so what would be some
general guidance for brands thatdo feel like they're at a
(15:11):
break-even point and are, youknow, are wanting to get into
profitability mode?
Speaker 3 (15:20):
You know, one of the things that I'll say first and
foremost with it is I thinkthere are a lot of brands on
Amazon that are deathly afraidof raising their prices and
thinking that it's going todestroy their product, destroy
their conversion, destroyeverything, and it's something
that in recent times we'veplayed around with.
(15:41):
I mean especially with thingslike, you know, all the tariffs
that are happening in the worldright now.
Right, and that's a huge costadjustment people need to make
(16:03):
that you can usually raiseusually about 15, 20% on your
product before your conversionreally takes a hit, as long as
you have already decentrankability, I should say so.
It's one thing I would alwaysencourage everyone to do is that
testing regularly, about once aquarter, of just raising your
product's price to see at whatpoint really does your
conversion actually take a hitfrom doing that.
That's an easy, easy way tokeep up with times, keep up with
(16:27):
inflation, make sure that yourproduct is both staying
competitive but also you'regetting that profitability.
Now, from the aspect of PPC,fully agree.
Some of the major things that Iwould say is I think people are
putting money into the wrongthings on advertising all the
time, typically speaking acrossall of our 400 plus brands that
(16:48):
we manage right now, about 89%of all ad spend that we manage
every single month is goingtowards sponsored products.
It's just the number one thing.
Right At the end of the day,you'll hear a lot of gurus, a
lot of different people be like,oh, you should have, you know,
a 60-30-10 split or a 60-20-20or a 70-20-10, right Split
(17:12):
within your ads from you know, asponsored product, sponsored
brand, sponsored displayperspective.
It's just not the case.
We've done tons of testing.
I mean, we're currentlymanaging about 415, 420 brands.
We work with a thousand peryear, right, very, we have so
much data on advertising and themost recent thing is about 89%
(17:36):
sponsored product, about 9%product, about 9% towards
sponsor brand and about 1% to 2%towards sponsor display.
Now, that's not includingbrands.
They're doing DSP, I should say.
But it's one thing I would sayto most people is, if you are
struggling right now and look atyour how you are kind of
(17:57):
separating all of your differentadvertising, how much
percentage are you putting insponsor product?
How much are you putting insponsor brand, sponsors, how
much are you putting in sponsorbrand, sponsor display?
Now, secondarily to that, thebig thing that I think I see the
most common is that peopledon't actually understand or
don't actually look through andknow how to like audit for
(18:18):
things like wasted spend right,the amount of counts that come
through to us at any given time.
I've, I mean, I've looked atprobably over 1000 counts in the
last year and 80% of them haveprobably 20% of their entire
budget just being wasted spentevery single month where they
are.
And I'm not even talking wastedspend in the sense where, like
(18:40):
the ads are above their a costlike threshold, right to where
it's no longer profitable.
I'm not even talking wastedspend in the sense where, like
the ads are above their ACOSlike threshold, right to where
it's no longer profitable.
I'm saying strictly from aspending money and not getting a
single sale in return.
If you add on to that theaspect of you know how many ads
they have that are, you know,over a certain ACOS threshold
for them, it's justexponentially worse when it
(19:01):
comes to waste spend costthreshold for them.
It's just exponentially worsewhen it comes to waste spend.
So knowing how to and lookingthrough and auditing your
advertising expenditure on aregular basis is just extremely
needed.
I typically say five to 8% isgood rule of thumb of like what
healthy wasted spend is, and Iinclude in that things that are
above your ACoS goal, becausethat point that means you're
likely testing new keywords,you're trying to expand your
(19:24):
overall advertising reach, andso it's some of the things where
I think a lot of times, whenwe're looking at people
struggling with cost per click,struggling with, like, customer
acquisition cost and thelifetime value of their you know
customers, a lot of it justcomes from a lack of retargeting
, remarketing.
A lot of it comes from a lackof expansion, a lack of just
(19:45):
regular checks and audits ofvery simple things that people
don't even think about checkingRight.
They see the stuff that's rightin front of their face.
They don't dig a level deeper.
(20:17):
Okay, okay, you had mentionedthat across your guys' clients
that 90% or 89% is sponsoredproducts, and I'd like to dive a
little bit deeper there.
So for people that areunfamiliar, Essentially a
sponsored product is as simpleas it sounds.
You are advertising a singularproduct, right?
Two different ways you canreally do it.
One is through a specifickeyword search.
The second is through doingeither a product or a category
search as well.
This will appear anytimesomeone searches within Amazon
(20:41):
for a specific keyword for aproduct.
If they click on a product,they'll see your ads, right.
Tons of different places thesecan pop up within Amazon.
It's also what I would say theeasiest advertising method to
control, right, and it's one ofthe things that I think has
allowed Amazon, as far asplatform, to be so easy for a
(21:04):
beginner to just get on but also, at the same time, so
complicated and competitive.
Right, Because you look atsomething like meta advertising,
where it has far morealgorithmic it's audience based.
You have to get really granularwith how you're targeting.
You have to get into lookalikeaudiences, things like that,
which don't get me wrong.
I do love those aspects of metaadvertising because it makes it
(21:27):
super niche in how you can kindof target people.
Amazon's just a different gamein the sense that the thing they
care about it almost operatesmore like Google for the same,
but the aspect with Google isyou're usually trying to get
just clicks.
Amazon is very conversion heavyin how it works for all of its
(21:50):
advertising.
So sponsor products is just a,in my opinion, kind of
conversion machine where you areputting dollars in, getting
dollars out.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Okay.
Okay, now, when I I andadmittedly I am outsourcing my
PPC management right now I'vedone stuff when I was running my
own.
The typical school of thoughtwould have been when you launch
(22:16):
a product, you set up aautomatic campaign that is going
to find keywords that convert,and then you take those they
called it keyword harvesting andyou put that into an exact
campaign and you would justcontinuously harvest keywords
(22:36):
into your exact campaigns.
And so, since I have beenmanaging, they have introduced
broad match, phrase match, andyou just have a lot more options
.
And so what would be?
You know, your recommendationfor people on a product launch.
(22:56):
You know, in terms of setting upcampaigns.
You know in terms of setting upcampaigns, and this is a
two-part question.
The second part is at whatpoint do you turn your autos off
or do you?
You know there are only so manywords that you can use to
describe a product, and you know, after a year or two years,
(23:19):
have you harvested all of them?
Are you?
And so what?
And so what would be youranswer to that?
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Yeah.
So I think your questions in ofthemselves are kind of actually
expanding on.
I'm probably the biggest haterof like AI, quote unquote AI
advertising, like softwares andwhatnot, and it's largely
because of exactly what you said.
They're in like what you'reasking.
And so when you're launchingright auto campaign yeah, always
(23:49):
, always, do an auto campaign.
We call them, you know, goldpanning campaigns.
We also do like auto catch allcampaigns which are like the
easiest campaign that anyone canever set up and get sales from.
Auto campaigns are great.
Should you ever turn them off?
No, not really.
There's not really a reason toright.
The only reason I ever see toturn off auto campaigns is if
(24:09):
you're bidding way too high andyou never negate anything on
them.
Right.
Outside of that, they're justgreat to have on all the time.
It's like why wouldn't you?
Now you talked a little bit.
I was on board with everythingyou were saying.
I'm like, yeah, it sounds right.
Until you said I put them intoexact campaigns, exact campaigns
only, and I was like, ah, welost the plot.
(24:33):
So, normally speaking, Iactually am a big fan abroad.
I think this is also what Iwould consider to be a
differentiating factor betweensomeone who understands Amazon's
algorithms and PPC reallyreally well, versus people who
just kind of understands thepurpose of them, right.
So exact campaigns, they'rereally really good because it's
(24:54):
going to obviously targetexactly what you are trying to
target.
That's the only thing youtarget.
You can control them supereasily, right?
And that is the, I guess, greatpart about exact campaigns.
Now, the bad part about exactcampaigns exactly what you were
kind of talking about of like,after two years, haven't you
found everything you can find?
(25:15):
No, probably not actually right.
There's always, I think, smallrelevancy.
I think that's where broadcampaign comes in the most,
right.
If you have, let's say, you'reselling I don't know deck of
cards, right, because I have iton my desk right here.
So, deck of cards, you'reselling deck of cards to people.
(25:35):
Broad campaigns open up a lotof opportunity where it's like,
yeah, you can target exactlyjust, you know card deck right,
playing cards, anything likethat.
That's great.
But what if someone says whitedeck of cards or someone says
black deck of cards?
What if someone says, you knowanything in between?
(25:57):
That's where broad and phrasereally come in and they shine
right between.
That's where broad and phrasereally come in and they shine
right, because they open up toall of these different minute
ways that customers look forthings.
And just because somethingisn't exactly what your product
is doesn't mean that it mightnot have interest to somebody
else.
And I find this especially truefor people who have more
(26:18):
generic products, right?
My favorite thing to talk aboutis this idea that people will
talk about, like you know, tellme and come to me like I'm
having such a hard time with youknow, ppc, I'm having such a
hard time with advertising.
I have, you know, this super,super relevant keyword that I'm
targeting for my product butit's just not getting any clicks
.
It's just not getting anyconversions.
(26:39):
Or it is getting clicks.
It's not getting anyconversions, getting a click
sense, just not getting anyconversions.
Or it is getting clicks.
It's not getting anyconversions but it's like super
relevant to my product.
My answer nine times out of 10,when someone tells me that you
know it is a keyword that issuper relevant to their product,
I'm like no, it's not, because,at the end of the day,
relevancy is not determined byyou thinking in your head that a
(27:01):
keyword makes sense and isrelevant to your product.
Right, relevancy is determinedby the customers and whether or
not they click on your product,whether or not they convert on
your product.
And for that keyword you canhave, you know, you can be
selling a coffee mug, right, youcan be selling a coffee mug.
(27:21):
You can be selling a coffee mug, right, you can be selling a
coffee mug.
You can go after the keywordcoffee mug.
But if you get no conversionsoff of the keyword coffee mug,
yeah, it's probably more thanlikely an issue with your
product detail page and withyour pricing.
But it also is just a relevancyissue.
You're not targeting the rightthing at the end of the day.
So, all that being said, to kindof circle back to your initial
(27:42):
question of, like you know, doyou keep auto campaigns on?
Is you know, after two years,can't you find everything?
Say no, I mean, we're stillfinding new stuff.
Now, is there a limit to howmuch you can really find and
optimize within advertising?
Yeah, of course there is, but Ithink there within that,
there's still always room tofind new things.
(28:02):
But kind of circling back to mypoint about AI, automated or
automated advertising stuff, alot of times that's basically
what they're doing.
They're just speeding up thatprocess of saying, hey, we found
, you know 40,000 keywords thatwe're going to advertise against
with your you know $1,000budget and see what actually
happens, and you know that'swhere I think you lose the
(28:22):
optimization effort of you know,three years down the line
finding a new keyword.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Yeah, I have had similar experiences to that.
I remember I don't want to callit the software by name because
I can't remember what it wascalled but I and this was about
two years ago had noticed thatthere needs to be a human
element, and and at least atthat point in time, the AI
(28:51):
systems weren't good enough tosuss out relevance, and so, no,
that's, that's, that's reallyreally helpful.
Next thing I want to talk aboutand I I'm a big fan of Jocko
Willink and I was actuallylistening to a podcast with him
this morning and he was talkingabout tier one operators- which
(29:14):
is just the best of the best,right, and I was just thinking
of tier one operators, right,that obviously has a military
meaning.
However, if we're talking aboutAmazon and we're talking about
the tier one operators withinAmazon, what are they doing that
(29:34):
some of the less experienced oramateur sellers are not doing?
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Yeah, that's a hard question.
You know what I know?
Actually, the perfect answer.
The number one thing that willset somebody who is trying to
scale a brand and believes intheir product and believes in
the aspect that their brand cangrow, aside from brand owners
(30:05):
who are fearful, I think, of theAmazon ecosystem, fearful of
competitors and things like that, is the willingness to invest
and test things.
And what I mean by that is theaspect of willingness to throw
(30:25):
never, never tried sponsor brandbefore, but willing to throw,
you know, $1,500 to get reallynice video put together and then
$1,000 at an ad campaign to seeif that video helps convert
sales and helps grow the brand.
Right.
Willingness to try new areas togather and I this doesn't even
(30:47):
have to be Amazon related right,it could be literally any
business in the world.
The biggest thing is beingwilling to test new things.
And don't get me wrong, after awhile you get a gut reaction,
like myself being our, you know,vp of sales and marketing.
Right, there are some.
I get a million, one differentcold outreach emails about
(31:09):
different software services andeverything that will do x, y and
z for us.
Right, and after a while youkind of have you know, uh, you
know, saw after enough of themand like, have seen enough and
test enough, they're like no, Ican tell a mile away that this
isn't going to work, right, um,but especially if you're newer
and you're not, you know, know,let's say like a seven figure
(31:31):
threshold, as like an Amazonseller or just e commerce brand
in general, right, or maybeyou're just barely at that seven
figure threshold.
You could be brand new.
You can be just barely at sevenfigures.
You still need to invest intrying new things, new
advertising, platforms, testing.
I mean, if there's an area ofe-commerce that you don't know
or you don't feel confident, Imean you're a great example,
(31:53):
david.
You're like look, I don't knowmy PPC, I need to invest in
hiring someone who can then goahead and run it for me.
Right, and that's exactly whatI mean in the sense that brands
that really, I think, thrive andgrow are those they're willing
to invest heavily into thatgrowth.
At the end of the day, that's,I think, the biggest thing.
(32:16):
The age old you can't have yourcake and eat it too.
You know, at all times.
You can't just be not willingto, you know, invest in things,
but also wanting to, you know,become an eight-figure brand or
a seven-figure brand, or even asix-figure brand, if you're not
that yet.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
I think that's a really, really good answer, and
I can say what my oldest tenuredbrand on Amazon is eight years
old and I still am testing andtrying new things.
And so, you know, speaking tothat audience with who you know
may be approaching seven figuresor is north of seven figures.
(32:55):
Many of them have VAs, and thisis something that I know I am
personally working through thismonth, and you know we have
really good listings, we havegood infographics and EBC, we
have good video and, you know,short of product launches, I,
(33:18):
you know I've hired these teammembers, I've trained them and I
want them to go to work on thehighest ROI activities, and you
know a couple of things thatcome to mind.
You know, having an A-B splittesting program would be one,
you know, auditing the categorylisting report and seeing if
there's any opportunities forimprovements.
(33:39):
There is one Requesting reviewsthese opportunities, then I
could plug them in on and I findmyself asking the question
what's going to move the needlethe most?
(33:59):
And just, you know, I havevisibility into a single brand
and and so I would be curious,like you know, for people in
that position, what would be andthis could also go for someone
who's outsourcing somebody?
Who's hiring my Amazon guy, forinstance?
What are going to be some ofthe first things that you guys
go to work on that tend to movethe needle, the?
Speaker 3 (34:18):
most.
I think it doesn't matter ifyou're my Amazon guy, and
actually I would say I know fora fact it's the same for most
agencies at this point, alsobecause we've taught a lot of
(34:39):
agencies right over the yearsand whatnot of how to do it.
And the big thing is there'sfour pillars to growth, always
on Amazon, and that has notchanged in the entire time
Amazon has existed.
Pretty much in the entire timethat Amazon has existed, pretty
much it is pretty much catalogmanagement, design, ppc, seo.
Those are like your big needlemovers.
Now, the thing is that thoseare very top level, there's a
(35:04):
lot of granular pieces underthem, and so no two brands are
100% identical.
But the big thing is that we'vekind of essentially just
developed a lot SOPs and a lotof processes that work for, you
know, I would say, 90% of brandsright, regardless of the size
of that brand right, and we workfrom everything, like said,
from startups all the way up to,you know, nine figure brands,
(35:26):
and so it's, you know, very vast, but there's always things to
work on.
The biggest, I think, needlemover, in my opinion, is always
going to be, I think, seo for amajority of people, and the
reason for that is that thebiggest thing that you can, or
biggest investment you can evermake on Amazon, especially with
(35:48):
how the algorithm works, isunderstanding how to get your
product ranked higher at for asmany keywords as possible.
The easiest thing there is justgetting more keywords right.
So the more keywords you have,the more search volume you have.
It's essentially just wideningthat funnel at the end of the
day, right, and the more overallimpressions you get, the more
(36:09):
search volume you get, the morepeople that click on your
listing.
It's just another chance at theeasiest needle mover in my
opinion, that so many peoplealso get wrong.
So I think people have a reallyhard time understanding how to
(36:36):
get past, like, let's say, 2000,3000 ranked keywords.
Like, once you get to like that2000 realm, I think a lot of
people struggle with like okay,well, I have 2000 keywords, like
you said, like, what do I doafter that?
And so it's really difficult,right, but it's it's the
granular improvements.
You know we have brands.
They're doing north of 23million a year, everything, and
(37:00):
one of the biggest things I seewith them is we're still every
single month updating SEO ontheir listings, right, and it's
because of the exact aspect thatit moves the needle, even if
it's by, you know point, onepercent over the course of you
know, a month and a half orsomething of increased
(37:21):
conversion.
That's more than you had before.
So that's, I think, alwaysgoing to be the number one first
thing.
Obviously you can dive into PPC, like I said, and all the
different things, but theeasiest uptick, in my opinion,
for majority, 90% of brands isalways just going to be SEO
optimization.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Okay, do you think with Rufus and do you think that
is going away, or do you thinkthat's here to stay?
Speaker 3 (37:47):
I think it's here to stay.
I think it's here to stay tosee how many Amazon shoppers
(38:08):
actually even know what Rufus isor use it, because I didn't
believe the numbers that Amazonhad put out, and so I polled
about 5,000 people.
13% of that 5,000 said thatthey had heard of Rufus before.
So only 13%, I should say, saidthat they knew what Rufus was,
(38:29):
and less than 5% total said thatthey use Rufus regularly.
So it's one of those big thingswhere I think, within the
Amazon ecosystem as like sellersand people, software providers,
service providers, everything Ithink we're all very in tune to
Rufus, thinking it's like thisreally big thing within Amazon.
I don't think Rufus matterswhatsoever to the customer.
(38:50):
My biggest thing always isfocus on what the customer wants
and what they are using andwhat they are doing.
At the end of the day, I don'tthink Rufus is that.
Now Amazon's going to changetheir algorithm here in the next
probably 612 months with Cosmo,their new targeting system that
is focused a little bit morearound AI and whatnot within how
(39:10):
it does it.
They're also going to bechanging things like how the
title operates, with doing twopart titles, where it's a 150
character top title and then 100characters you can utilize for
single word, bullet points,basically right, or
characteristics as they callthem.
And so, yeah, seo is going tochange.
You know, I think GEO is goingto be kind of a really, really
(39:34):
big thing, which is, you know,basically AI citations how often
are you showing up within allof this, and so I think all of
that will change, but I don'tthink the core principle and
idea of you need to optimize SEO, to show up in searches, is
ever going to change.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Yeah yeah, I also am a Rufus hater.
The currency I've dealt in forso long is keywords.
It's almost hard for my brainto wrap around how you know.
If you think of Amazon, itconnects shopper types in a
keyword, it connects them with aproduct.
And to abandon that and to sayI'm going on a camping trip and
(40:23):
this AI is going to suggest the30 items that I need and know
that I have expensive taste andI just I don't see, I don't see
it.
It's hard for me to like wrapmy head around and so that's no,
that's.
That's really, really helpful.
Um, before we get to the fireround, let's talk about my
Amazon guy.
Uh, who's your guys' typicalclients and, um, who would
benefit from getting in contactwith my Amazon guy?
Speaker 3 (40:45):
Yeah, absolutely so.
You know, like I said, we workwith everything from people just
launching on Amazon all the wayup to, you know, nine figure
brands, right, and so we're kindof all over the place and who
we can operate with.
Now, that being said, does thatnot mean that we don't have
like an ICP that we loveoperating with?
No, of course we do.
I would say, on average, thebrands that we typically love
(41:12):
working with the most are brandsthat are somewhere in the
ballpark of between 50 and 100Kmonthly revenue.
That's usually going to be kindof the sweet spot as far as,
like, a sales revenue area thatcan go up to about 250K in most
scenarios.
So usually, basically, brandsthat are doing 500 to 2.5
million a year.
That's kind of where I'm goingto say these are the best brands
(41:35):
we work with, right, it'speople who they are wanting to
hit that seven figure mark allthe way to.
You know the aspect of.
(41:56):
They have that investmentmindset, like I said right, and
are like, yeah, I know that Ineed to invest in things in
expertise, in area that I don'tknow right, and, the end of the
day, I look at us as, both youknow, an education company in
the sense of how much content weput out on, you know, youtube
(42:16):
and things like that but alsojust a growth accelerator for
brands.
You know, a place for brands ifthey're looking for either just
a tune-up you want, you know, alittle bit of help and a little
bit of guidance for a couple ofmonths Fantastic.
We also have brands we've beenworking with for seven years.
You know, and have seen go frommom and pop type brands all the
(42:37):
way to doing eight figures, andso I think my favorite thing is
just seeing brands grow at theend of the day, and so favorite
people work with are those thatare, like I said, willing to
know that they don't knoweverything but have enough
awareness of what their brand is, what their brand does, and can
work with people who haveworked with you know hundreds of
(43:01):
other brands to utilize sameprinciple strategies but just in
a different way you know to doit.
But yeah, that's kind of Iwould say kind of core ICP for
us at the end of the day.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Okay, very nice, very nice, and I will post
information or link to thewebsite in the show notes.
Before we end the interview, wehave something called the fire
round.
It's four questions we askevery person at the end of the
interview Are you ready?
Speaker 3 (43:27):
I'm ready, let's do it All right let's do it.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
What's your favorite book?
Speaker 3 (43:30):
Ooh, favorite book Happiness Advantage by Sean Aker
.
All right, what are yourhobbies?
I play video games, I go to thegym, I'm training for a
marathon right now.
Those are kind of the primaryones.
I like to go to restaurants,like I said, and oh, I do like
tracking for coffees and beers.
(43:52):
I love trying different coffeeshops and different beers, and
so I kind of like mix those twotogether, try and do like new
one ever so often.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Nice, nice.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
What is one thing that you do not miss about
working for the man?
Oh, I think the number onething I don't miss is the aspect
of not really being able to goand like go to an appointment,
go and do something you need todo.
Having, I guess, thatflexibility, I love the fact
that I can schedule a dentistappointment at, you know, 11 am
(44:31):
ona Tuesday and just go to it,be like that's fine and not be
penalized in some way, not haveto take out PTO or anything like
that, and yeah, that's alwaysbeen like.
I think the biggest aspect tome is the flexibility that you
get, where you're not just tiedto one area at all times.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Okay, Okay and final question what do you think sets
apart successful e-commerceentrepreneurs from those who
give up, fail or never getstarted?
Speaker 3 (45:07):
Speed.
It's the number one thing thatI always talk about.
I think that people who areperfectionists and need to have
it be perfect uh, you know, thefirst time are always going to
fail.
My favorite thing is uh, youknow, fail for, or fail often,
fail fast, right, uh, I wouldmuch rather try something and
(45:32):
come up with an idea forsomething, execute on that idea
within 24 hours and test it andsee if it fails very, very
quickly and then move on to thenext thing.
And again, because by the timethat you know, I've tested eight
different uh contract or eightdifferent, you know setups of've
tested eight different uhcontract or eight different, you
know setups of whatever it isI'm trying, someone else who is
(45:54):
a perfectionist hasn't eventried once, right, uh, and so
it's a big thing of.
Uh, fail fast.
Fail often is something that Isee so many entrepreneurs uh,
afraid to do.
Right, and again, I think itcomes into that investment
aspect be willing to try newthings and be willing to spend a
(46:15):
little bit of money to do it.
Because of that, at the end ofthe day, even if you fail or it
fails, it's knowledge for you,right To understand how you can
make a better decision in thefuture.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
Very nice, Very nice.
Well, Noah, this has been anoutstanding interview.
We've really got into the weedson some Amazon stuff and I
really enjoyed it, as will ouraudience.
Thank you for being a guest onthe Firing the man podcast and
looking forward to staying intouch.
Speaker 3 (46:39):
Absolutely.
Thank you, david, great beinghere.
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