038: Travis Zigler: Optometrist to Online Empire, Mastering Marketing & Philanthropy Integration

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Welcome everyone to the Brand Fortress HQ podcast.

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I'm your host, jon Stojan.

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Today.

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I have my two co-hosts, matt Atkins and Michael Kaufman, with me, and our guest today is Dr Travis Ziegler.

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Dr Ziegler is a recovering optometrist transformed into e-commerce as an entrepreneur.

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With his wife, jenna, they founded and later sold iLove, and that led into the establishment of Profitable Pineapple Ads Agency, and then they developed Profitable Pineapple Express Inventory Management System, where they offer a 14-day free trial.

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And then Travis also offers a free Amazon PPC Masterclass.

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So lots of different things involved at Amazon.

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He also all those profits from those ventures go into his foundation called the I Believe Foundation, where their mission is focused on clarity, aimed at reducing blindness caused by the lack of glasses that affects over a billion people worldwide.

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Travis, welcome to the podcast.

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John, mike and Matt.

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Thanks for having me on Excited to be here.

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Yeah, it's great Good to have you.

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So obviously you got your hands in a lot of different things and experience with a lot of different things.

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So folks that maybe aren't familiar with you tell us a little bit about yourself.

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I'll tell my 40 years on this earth in five minutes or less.

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So let's go here.

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I became an optometrist, thought I'd do that.

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My whole life Actually worked for my uncle right when I graduated and something just felt off working for someone else and anybody that's an entrepreneur knows that itch.

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When you're working for someone else, you just can't.

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You can't be a W2.

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It's just, it just doesn't work.

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It doesn't work mentally.

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So I did the three things you're not supposed to do.

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I quit my job with my uncle, I moved across the country from Ohio to South Carolina and I started two businesses of my own, two practices.

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So my wife and I had a practice each and I went from seeing six patients at my uncle's office to seeing one patient at my new office because it was a brand new practice.

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My uncle's practice was from 1950, so it's been around forever, and so we had a lot more patients, got bored and a course came across my inbox called Amazing Selling Machine back in 2015.

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I took that course, taught me how to sell on.

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Amazon started out as a sunglass company.

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We actually built the sunglass company up from zero to $3 million in about two and a half years, and I saw the writing on the wall of everybody being taught to sell plastic widgets from China.

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And it was only a matter of time before competition comes in and steals our lunch.

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So I pivoted into creating a brand and we released Hydrate the brand.

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Our first brand was called iLove and like an eyeball, and Hydrate was our second one.

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So Hydrate was H-E-Y-E like an eye Hydrate and that became a dry eye company.

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So we developed products around dry eye for that company.

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But we started serving an audience and we started serving a person that had dry eye and what we did is we were seeing so much dry eye in our practice we were essentially a dry eye practice and I looked up at my shelf one day and I said I want to come out with every product that's on that shelf that we're selling for dry eye.

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And it started out with one of the products.

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I was selling about 10 of these products a day in my office and one of my customers, or my patients, came up to me and they're just like hey, they just changed the price of this from $30 a month to $300 a month.

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Could you figure out how to manufacture this?

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So that was like sure, I'll figure that out.

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And contacted manufacturers, found one.

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We were in private label production.

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Within six days of that conversation, they were selling it for $300 a month.

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We came out with it for $15 a month.

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That's how cheap it was to make this product and they were just exploiting it big time because they were prescription medication.

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So that was our first product and that became our hero product.

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Because they were prescription medication, so that was our first product and that became our hero product.

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We got that up to about 200 sales a day and we built our audience to about 200,000 people over the course of the four years of that dry eye brand.

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And the main thing that we were serving was we were teaching people how to heal their dry eye naturally through functional medicine, through diet, through drinking more water, stressing less, sleeping better.

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And then our products are over here on the side that are more organic and healthier for you than prescription medications, and so we focused on serving the person and we grew that company and our best month we did about $500,000 Amazon and Shopify and then that's when we sold the company as well, so we ended up selling that in 2021.

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In 2021, I ended up staying on with the company for two years as president and I led them for about.

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It ended up being about 18 months.

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We still have equity in the brand, but I was, I.

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We split ways.

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After about 18 months they took it over.

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They're now running it and we're still equity owners, so we get another payout in 2026.

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So about five years after the initial payout.

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We're still equity owners, so we get another payout in 2026,.

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So about five years after the initial payout.

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And then in the meantime, back in 2019, people started asking me to help them manage their brands on Amazon, which led to Profitable Pineapple Ads.

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We are an ads agency.

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Right now we're actually shifting the whole model of the business and we're turning it more into a partnership and education platform business, and we're turning it more into a partnership and education platform, and so we're teaching people our SOP, and these are brands that are doing anywhere from six figures to seven figures.

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We teach them our advertising SOP and as they start to scale their company, if they want to work with us, they now have to give us equity into their brand and on top of the fee.

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So we want to become partners now.

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We're still an agency until the end of the year and at the time of this recording it will be the end of 2024.

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And so 2025, we're going to start this partnership equity play where, if you want to work with us, it's a partnership, because unfortunately and if you guys have ever been in the agency world we've taken brands from a hundred thousand to 500,000.

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All the way up, our biggest brand was doing 15 million and they leave us because we get too expensive.

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And so it's just like but why would you like I don't understand the opportunity shift there just to save a little money when you're doing 15 million, when this company helps you?

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But unfortunately that's happened, and it's happened like five times now.

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And so it's very sad to take somebody up to multi eight figures and then they leave you because you get too expensive.

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So we're shifting our whole model.

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And then we also have our inventory management software.

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That came out of a need from our I love business.

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We couldn't manage inventory effectively.

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We hired somebody to do it for us.

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He built this program for it back in 2018.

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And then we just released it to the public back in June.

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So that is my last 10 years of my life summed up in about five minutes.

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Okay, awesome.

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And a couple of things that really stand out there.

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For me, and especially for our listeners who are building brands, is looking at the brands that you built and thinking about not only solving that problem through a product which obviously is a big part of what we're doing selling brands that are selling products on Amazon but also serving customers, really helping them solve dry eyes with something that might be as simple as changing their diet or changing some of the other things that they use, realizing that you know, if they fix it through that problem or through that solution, they may not even be buying your product, but because there's so much value in that that it really just helped move your brand forward, I think to me really out compared to, I think, how a lot of some people think about building a brand versus actually serving their customer base.

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Yeah, I think you know it's interesting too.

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Like we just had a conversation about that, you know, just internally, and it was a short one, you know, with our team.

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But you know, we've had we've had a goal for this year of doubling last year's revenue and I actually kind of had a little bit of a shift in my perspective on that.

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You know that, just, it's not a shift in terms of how I think about our business, but it was a shift in terms of what the goal setting was and it was, instead of thinking about let's double our annual revenue, let's think about let's double the number of people that we serve this year.

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You know, and looking at it from that framework, that we're actually helping somebody trying to solve a problem.

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And what I like about, about what you were saying, travis, is that everything that you've done, you know, and I think, ultimately for businesses, this is the way it ought to be, but but everything that you've done is always about solving a problem, right?

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If you're not solving a problem, then you're really not.

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You're not accomplishing anything useful, you know, and it's all about marketing and it's really not about anything else.

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And everything that that you mentioned was solving a problem for someone, even in the case of you know some of the things that you created for your own business.

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You know, like the inventory software, you know that was solving a problem.

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And then, of course, the realization becomes well, if we solve that problem for us, there's probably a whole bunch of other Amazon sellers that have the exact same problem.

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Why don't we allow them to take advantage of that solution as well?

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You know, and it's a win-win for everybody.

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So yeah, exactly, and you said something key there when you focus on a problem, you're a true entrepreneur, because that's what entrepreneurs are is they're problem solvers, they're not opportunists.

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And a lot of what happened with like Amazing Selling Machine, where it was teaching, and every course out there now is teaching you how to find products and release them.

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You're taking advantage of an opportunity.

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You're not solving a real problem, and so if you're scouring Amazon for hours looking for that opportunity that's there, then that's what it is and it will be gone.

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It's an opportunity.

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Live it up for 12 to 18 months, but it will be gone in 12 to 18 months.

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But when you focus on solving a real problem, your brand isn't going to go away overnight.

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It's going to stay for a long time because people will support you for you.

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We we sold a product for $30 when our competitor was $6.

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We also sold a product for $20 when our competitor was 300, but we had other people come into the market at $10.

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So they cut us in half.

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Our sales were not affected, because we built this brain and we built this loyalty of customers that followed us to follow us, and they would support us because we were there for them as well.

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One of the things that I love about what you've said so far is that you, you chose a person and that person was the person that has has dry eyes.

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Now, that person that has dry eyes might buy products from all different categories, but when you focus on that person and you find a problem that that person has, in my opinion that's a much better way to look at this business opportunity.

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So, like when students come through and I've had so many conversations with them and they're just looking at Blackbox and Helium 10 and they have all these different filters that they're searching for and breaking them of that because of all the YouTube videos that they've watched, and instead of search for a product, why don't you first think of a person?

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Whether that person is someone that you know, whether it's you all the categories that I sell products in, I am that person and so it's easier for me to be able to speak that language and understand the issue, the problems that I can solve with a product.

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So when you, what I love about what you, how you've approached everything that you've said so far in the brands that you've built is finding a person and solving a problem or enhancing the life of that person with physical products, in my opinion, is the better way to look at this business, as opposed to finding a product amongst the sea of a whole bunch of other people that are just selling products.

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I actually don't know how to do product research.

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And you've made a lot of money without having to know that.

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So you know, I use Helio 10 every single day.

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I have no idea how to use black box, because it's just, in my opinion, and how we teach people to think about this business, it's that's's the.

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That is the last way that I would try to find a product is just by using a black box and putting in a whole bunch of filters, because I mean, like you said, like that, that you might find a flash in a pan and it might do well for a month or two, but you're going to have a lot of chinese competitors, mostly manufacturers, that are solving or selling that same product and then you're going to be in a race to the bottom.

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But when you have a person and you're solving a problem for a person with good products, that person will look past those Chinese competitors and they'll even pay a premium for your product because they know, like and trust you.

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You're speaking to them with all of your content and all of your product, their products, and they feel like they're a part of something bigger than just buying a product on Amazon.

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And I've proved it proven it in my categories like I can sell the same thing that Chinese manufacturers are selling, but because they come from my audience and they know who I am and they know that we're building a brand for them, they're fine paying a couple of extra bucks for a product because they know that we're going to take care of them.

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Yeah, and you can even differentiate the product just slightly as well, and just a slight tweak.

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So an example of this is warm compresses for your eyes.

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These are warm compresses.

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You throw in the microwave, you heat them up, you put them on your eyes.

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They help melt the oil in your eyelids, to help get the oil out onto your eye, so you have less dry eye.

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However, everybody has the same mask.

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All we did is we took that mask and we added a nice cover to it.

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That was it, so you could take the cover off and wash it and then put it back on.

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That little differentiation allowed us to charge double what everybody else was, and we still sold a hundred to 200 of those per day not the top of the category, but still sold quite a few the top of the category but still sold quite a few.

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Well, one of the other things that you talked about that I think a lot of brands are like they understand it in concept but maybe kind of do struggle in execution is, you know, the education and content piece of it.

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I feel like they kind of fall into two common traps.

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One is is that hey, I'm just going to put something in the chat GPT on top five tips for dry eyes, and it, you know, puts out the most generic information possible that you could find in a two second Google search.

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That isn't necessarily helpful.

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Or they go the other direction where they might be an expert on the topic and so they feel like they need to write, you know, a thousand page dissertation on it with every answer anybody could ever want about that topic.

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So when you think about content and really engaging that, that audience, how do you think about that?

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And like, what is your process look like for useful content to keep the audience engaged?

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Yeah, this is a great question, because I am obsessed with content and that's like how I've built all my businesses is through content.

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However, I didn't have chat GPT back in the day, so, and we didn't have a short form video, which are two huge advantages today.

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So what we used to do back when we started this in 2017, 2017 is when we started the dry eye brand we just started going live in a community on Facebook and a group, and absolutely nobody showed up, and all we did is we went live answering questions.

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Well, we made up the questions at the beginning just because you look up like most frequently asked questions around dry eye, and we just answered them like we would have patients sitting across in our chair, and that's all we did.

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And we did that every single week for an hour every single week.

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Nobody showed up for six months.

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Finally, people started showing up.

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We were cross promoting those videos onto like YouTube as well, but this is all long form.

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There were no softwares to stream across all the platforms at once.

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There was none of that.

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So it was literally like go live on Facebook, download it and then upload it to YouTube, and we did that for thousands and thousands of videos and what happened eventually after six to 12 months is we started gaining traction on all our videos and then, therefore, we now have thousands of videos and we start gaining followers and the Facebook group now is around 25,000 people and our YouTube subscribers were around 55,000.

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When we sold, we actually had to shut that down.

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But on top of that, we always discuss something at the beginning of every episode and then go into Q and a and the thing that we talked about at the beginning we'd write a blog post about.

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So the blog posts would be our talking notes, cause it'd be my wife and I doing this dialogue together and we wrote those because we were the doctors and we wrote every single blog forever.

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And then we started hiring people, but then that was crap too, because they didn't know what they were talking about.

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So it was hard to hire that out.

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But there's big main problems that your business should solve, big main problems that your business should solve, and when you just focus around those big main problems, you can focus your content around just a few great pieces around that.

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So Alex Hermosi talks about it all the time, like we take one day to come out with a product and then 10 years to market the product.

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But if we switch that around and spent 10 years on the actual product, you wouldn't have to market it at all because it would be so good.

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And so when you're creating a content plan, there's a problem that your product solves, and when you focus on that problem and make a piece of content that is so good, people will share it.

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People will share your videos, they'll share your blog posts, they'll share everything about it, because it's that good of a piece and you can test it very easily.

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So what I like to do is I will write a blog article.

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I just did one this morning.

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It was about Amazon inventory bundles.

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I think that was correct.

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Amazon inventory bundles Because a lot of sellers have trouble with managing inventory of their Amazon bundles Because you have five SKUs in one bundle and then you have to track each SKU separately.

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And so that's one thing that we did with our software is we made that functionality where you can create these bundles to then track each individual SKU that you need to order to keep the bundles in stock and to keep you in stock.

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And so we made this beautifully written blog post this morning, and I use the combination now of chat, gpt, but my own knowledge, and so I outlined it myself.

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I said this is what I want for point number one, two, three and then I want you to wrap it all up, following this format, into selling our inventory management software.

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So the goal of the content is to provide so much value that people will want to share it, but then at the end it's an advertorial to then get them to go buy your product.

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So another example of this in the Amazon space would be we'll talk about dry eyes.

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So blepharitis is an eyelid inflammation.

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A lot of people have it.

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It gets 300,000 searches a month on Google.

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We made an amazing blepharitis blog.

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It was like the five best ways to handle blepharitis naturally.

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Point number one is clean your eyelids.

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This is how we clean our eyelids.

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Point number two is make sure you remove all your makeup.

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This is how we remove our makeup and we wrote this article and then we just started driving tons of Google ads traffic to it.

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And when you focus on a problem versus a product-based keyword, your cost per click will be incredibly low I'm talking like under 10 cents low Whereas then, when you focus on a product-based keyword, you're competing with everybody else out there.

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So your cost is going to be more like a dollar to $ dollars per click.

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So we drive all this traffic to our blog, we pixel them, so then we have them in a remarketing campaign.

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But then on that blog we put amazon attribution links to then go over to buy on amazon.

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Now that brings me to another complaining point of being an old man is we had to use Amazon associates links back in the day that only paid 3% and now we get Amazon attribution paid 10%, and so we're actually creating blogs for clients now that we're getting paid to run, because we're spending $60.

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We're making $600.

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And then the credit from the attribution is 10%, so it's going back up.

00:19:46.910 --> 00:19:55.208
It's a credit to your Google ads, and so if you're making more in attribution than you are spending in Google ads, you're actually getting paid to run those ads.

00:19:55.208 --> 00:20:08.412
So we're starting to see that now too, which is amazing, and so this strategy that I just kind of briefly went over is blowing up some of our clients because we're now getting paid 10% to do these ads from Amazon, which is then negating the Google ads itself.

00:20:08.412 --> 00:20:10.154
So I hope that all made sense.

00:20:10.180 --> 00:20:19.612
That's like an entire SOP that I just said in five minutes, but Dude, honestly, that's amazing man, Like I mean, that's, that's, that's gold right there.

00:20:19.612 --> 00:20:24.896
If we only had that little section of this of this podcast, it's well worth everybody listening to.

00:20:24.896 --> 00:20:35.900
You know something else that I kind of want to touch on that that you were talking about was you know you were talking about doing those, those Facebook live videos and that you were recording forever.

00:20:35.900 --> 00:20:40.846
You know, like it just went on for like six months and nobody was listening and or showing up.

00:20:40.846 --> 00:20:52.230
And I think the interesting thing there is that you know, and you indicated, that once people did start showing up, then it became clear that the content was useful.

00:20:52.230 --> 00:20:57.355
Obviously because people started subscribing, more people started showing up, they started sharing the content and whatnot.

00:20:57.980 --> 00:21:09.731
And what I think a lot of people don't really take enough account of is, you know, especially on like a YouTube account, right, so you're posting all of these videos to YouTube and they're just sitting there initially Like there's nobody really watching them.

00:21:09.731 --> 00:21:30.098
But the fact that all of that content exists and is good content, as soon as you actually start getting people who are subscribing to your channel and starting to pay attention, then, like you said, all of that previous content now becomes food for that subscriber base to listen to, to share to, you know whatever.

00:21:30.098 --> 00:21:31.601
And all of a sudden it has.

00:21:31.601 --> 00:21:37.353
It has a much better foundation on which to conduct, kind of exponentially grow.

00:21:37.353 --> 00:21:38.642
You know, very quickly.

00:21:39.325 --> 00:21:44.801
But you had to record a lot of content over a long period of time, getting nothing out of it.

00:21:44.801 --> 00:21:51.226
You know, seemingly in the beginning for that to be true, and so I think it's one of those things where it's like, just don't give up on it.

00:21:51.226 --> 00:21:58.660
You know, like if you're producing good content and it's solving a problem, eventually you know it's going to take off and it's going to be useful.

00:21:58.660 --> 00:21:59.782
It's just a question of when.

00:21:59.782 --> 00:22:04.771
You don't know what that time horizon is, but when it comes, you know it's going to be a benefit.

00:22:05.313 --> 00:22:10.155
Yeah, and well, and that was my question too, and hearing that was I mean, obviously you're a busy guy.

00:22:10.155 --> 00:22:12.837
So when you were thinking about that and just getting started, were you?

00:22:12.837 --> 00:22:26.506
Did you just commit yourself to, hey, we're going to do this for six months to you know, six to 12 months to see what's going to happen, or were there some sort of kind of lead metric that you were looking at to say, hey, I know that this is eventually going to build up enough momentum.

00:22:28.449 --> 00:22:36.162
It's a great question and I'm going to try to my brain's going every which way right now.

00:22:36.162 --> 00:22:38.384
So I'm going to try to summarize this all up into one like little brief point here.

00:22:38.384 --> 00:22:39.307
There's a lot to that.

00:22:39.307 --> 00:22:49.230
So we're sold in this community that we can build a million dollar business in 12 months and turn around and sell it in no time.

00:22:49.230 --> 00:22:57.217
But that is not appealing to me because I don't believe in building something just to sell it.

00:22:57.217 --> 00:23:03.602
The only reason we sold our business is because it was a strategic sale to get our product into the hands of more people.

00:23:03.602 --> 00:23:07.731
Because that solved the why and the mission of what we were trying to build.

00:23:07.731 --> 00:23:14.105
That solved the why and the mission of what we were trying to build in this.

00:23:14.125 --> 00:23:16.893
In this realm of like get rich quick, sell your business for a lot of money and get out, I don't believe in that.

00:23:16.893 --> 00:23:26.529
So whenever I commit to doing something, I commit at least 12 months and if not three years, because I want to know what this is going to look like in three years from now.

00:23:26.529 --> 00:23:37.097
So if I started doing so in November November 12th last year, I committed to doing two shorts per day across all my social media channels.

00:23:37.097 --> 00:23:38.721
It's 90 videos a week.

00:23:38.721 --> 00:23:48.027
So I do two shorts a day across six channels, seven days a week, and then I do one long form on Monday, and that goes across all the channels as well.

00:23:48.027 --> 00:23:57.509
I committed on November 12th to do that, and not a lot has happened since then, because it's only been four to five months at the time of this recording.

00:23:57.509 --> 00:24:11.049
But I know, because I've seen it from so many different people that are doing it, that in 12 months from that November 12th date so we're still quite a few ways away I know it's going to completely change my business.

00:24:11.049 --> 00:24:12.784
It's going to completely change the game plan.

00:24:12.784 --> 00:24:24.045
It's going to change everything for me in my life as well as a result of that, and so whenever you're thinking about doing anything like this, you have to focus on long-term.

00:24:24.045 --> 00:24:25.688
What am I trying to do?

00:24:25.688 --> 00:24:26.951
What is my why?

00:24:26.951 --> 00:24:28.721
How long am I going to commit to this?

00:24:29.742 --> 00:24:37.549
We knew dry eye was the future, and we had a message that we needed to spread, and that message was pharmaceutical companies suck.

00:24:37.549 --> 00:24:42.846
They just want your money, they don't work, and what we teach does work.

00:24:42.846 --> 00:24:50.630
We actually put our natural system, which was drink a green smoothie in the morning for breakfast, drink 16 ounces of water before every meal.

00:24:50.630 --> 00:24:54.401
Sleep better by turning your phone off an hour before bed.

00:24:54.401 --> 00:24:57.107
Stress less by writing three gratitudes a night.

00:24:57.107 --> 00:24:57.930
That was it.

00:24:57.930 --> 00:24:59.142
That was the whole system.

00:24:59.142 --> 00:25:00.567
Very simple to do.

00:25:00.567 --> 00:25:05.221
It tested better for dry eye treatment than any prescription medication out there.

00:25:05.221 --> 00:25:17.554
We did official dry eye studies on this and that was the message we needed to get out to the world, and so we knew we would not stop until we hit a million dry eye sufferers.

00:25:17.554 --> 00:25:22.016
So by the time we sold our company, we had a following of about 200,000 people.

00:25:22.016 --> 00:25:29.151
We hadn't quite got to that million, but the buyer was an eye care company.

00:25:29.151 --> 00:25:31.194
They were in 6,000 doctor's offices.

00:25:31.194 --> 00:25:32.865
We were in 50.

00:25:32.865 --> 00:25:36.569
And so they did no direct to consumer and they had nine brands.

00:25:36.569 --> 00:25:39.348
So we took over their whole direct to consumer side.

00:25:39.348 --> 00:25:48.087
They took over our wholesale side, and so it was a win-win situation where we could spread the message of our message Number one but spread the product as well Number two.

00:25:48.920 --> 00:25:52.285
So when you're thinking about content, this is bringing it back.

00:25:52.285 --> 00:26:06.829
When you're thinking about content, I learned back in the SEO days at Google when I used to do like more SEO work you're in a sandbox for about six months Whenever you release a new website, it's going to be in a sandbox of Google.

00:26:06.829 --> 00:26:15.046
That sandbox is just essentially Google telling you I'm not going to rank you for shit until you prove to me that you're actually going to do stuff and you're actually going to do the work.

00:26:15.046 --> 00:26:18.910
And so if you come out with one blog article and expect it to rank, you're not going to show up anywhere.

00:26:18.910 --> 00:26:20.707
Same thing with video content.

00:26:20.707 --> 00:26:31.394
If you put out one video and you're like, well, this sucked, I guess I'm going to quit, then all the algorithms are the same YouTube, tiktok, facebook, instagram.

00:26:31.394 --> 00:26:40.451
They want to see you produce consistent content for four to six to 12 months before they're going to show you.

00:26:40.451 --> 00:26:42.900
And so I know that because I've seen my friends blow up and so I've seen it.

00:26:42.900 --> 00:26:46.788
It's happened to me, but it was all from long form video.

00:26:46.788 --> 00:26:49.615
But I know it will happen again.

00:26:49.615 --> 00:26:54.666
And so I'm committing November 12th two shorts a day for an entire year.

00:26:54.666 --> 00:26:56.550
And that's what I know.

00:26:56.550 --> 00:27:07.127
So one more quick example and story I actually have a phone call after this podcast and we're buying a business and this is like I think we're probably a week away from buying it.

00:27:07.749 --> 00:27:14.028
Game plan two shorts, two short form videos a day around the problem our product solves, which is acid reflux.

00:27:14.028 --> 00:27:16.828
So the same demographic that we were going after before.

00:27:16.828 --> 00:27:23.807
We're going to come out with blogs around the problem that our product solves around acid reflux, and we're going to serve that person.

00:27:23.807 --> 00:27:27.128
This brand that we're buying has seven different supplements.

00:27:27.128 --> 00:27:49.067
We're discontinuing all of them except for the acid reflux one, and we're going to focus all our efforts on that, and everything is going to be around talking to that person, and then our next product that we come out with is going to be around acid reflux, and so it's one of those things that and we're committing to that strategy for 12 months, by the way, at least to see the results.

00:27:50.039 --> 00:27:56.557
So, whenever all this being said, it's out there, the proof is out there.

00:27:56.557 --> 00:28:02.491
If you're going to start content, which is the best thing you can do to grow a brand right now is short form video content.

00:28:02.491 --> 00:28:05.766
Commit to 12 months period.

00:28:05.766 --> 00:28:07.450
Two videos a day is best.

00:28:07.450 --> 00:28:09.999
One video a day if that's all you can handle, that's fine, but commit to it for 12 months.

00:28:09.999 --> 00:28:10.097
You guys are.

00:28:10.097 --> 00:28:10.116
Day is best.

00:28:10.116 --> 00:28:12.403
One video a day if that's all you can handle, that's fine, but commit to it for 12 months.

00:28:12.403 --> 00:28:13.826
You guys are doing this podcast.

00:28:13.826 --> 00:28:18.363
I'm sure it wasn't like easy breezy, okay, and then final point.

00:28:18.363 --> 00:28:32.702
Final point on this Whenever somebody discovers you for the first time, they don't discover your first video, but if it's so good, it moves them and creates an emotion in them.

00:28:32.742 --> 00:28:34.247
And it evokes an emotion in them.

00:28:34.247 --> 00:28:35.349
Guess what they do?

00:28:35.349 --> 00:28:38.665
They go back and watch every single thing that you've put out.

00:28:38.665 --> 00:28:40.932
They go back and listen to everything you put out.

00:28:40.932 --> 00:28:44.308
Think about a TV show where you've come in on season five.

00:28:44.308 --> 00:28:44.990
You watch one episode.

00:28:44.990 --> 00:28:46.422
You're like, wow, that was really good.

00:28:46.422 --> 00:28:50.928
So then you go back, start it over at season one and watch the whole thing again.

00:28:50.928 --> 00:29:02.521
That is what you have to think about is create series, create engagement, create emotion to get people to follow you and stick with it long enough for people to follow you and find you.

00:29:06.686 --> 00:29:06.826
Yeah.

00:29:06.886 --> 00:29:34.240
I think that say, I love that framework of thinking about okay, well, first of all, how valuable content is, and when you pick kind of that channel of committing to it for 12 months because that is a pretty big commitment and I mean I think everybody's been guilty of it before, or at least I have where you put out three to five pieces of content, whether it was a blog post or video or whatever and you don't see anything happening and you know nobody reads it and you kind of give up.

00:29:34.240 --> 00:29:49.632
And so I think, having more of that long-term thought process behind it of hey, I'm going to do this for the next 12 months because I know that it's going to transform my business, I mean, you're proof that that process works.

00:29:58.079 --> 00:30:00.105
And he's proof that that process works, because he watched his friends do it and knows that it works.

00:30:00.105 --> 00:30:11.825
So, like that's the beauty of this whole thing, this whole cyclical cycle, is that he's seen it happen and now he knows that the 12 months that he's committed to this isn't going to be in vain, and that's his motivation to keep going.

00:30:11.825 --> 00:30:22.025
The other thing that I loved about what you said and it's so true is you have to have your why in mind, Because if your why isn't at the forefront of everything that you do, it's a lot easier to give up.

00:30:22.025 --> 00:30:29.645
When your why isn't bigger than any obstacles that you're going to face, and I mean that's true in a physical product brand.

00:30:29.645 --> 00:30:41.146
And if you don't have a why for your physical product brand, I mean the very first time you try to contact seller central support and you get nowhere I mean that's going to be an easy reason for you to give up because there's a lot of roadblocks.

00:30:41.146 --> 00:30:56.605
You know, as we all know, as entrepreneurs on Amazon, there's roadblocks every step of the way, and if you, if your why isn't bigger than the roadblocks that you're going to face, you're not going to outlast the competitors, and that's true in everything that we do.

00:30:56.625 --> 00:30:57.386
Our podcast is the same way.

00:30:57.386 --> 00:31:00.643
We just did an episode of the behind the scenes of what it was like to create this podcast.

00:31:00.643 --> 00:31:10.153
I mean, the three of us have been having these conversations for two years now and hitting the record button was revolutionary for all of us and we know that.

00:31:10.153 --> 00:31:13.669
You know, our podcast isn't going to do what we want it to do in the first month.

00:31:13.669 --> 00:31:21.301
We have to be committed to do it for so long and I love, I love your, your statement of the why has to be bigger and that it's so true.

00:31:22.324 --> 00:31:26.931
Well, and I think also, you know, I think it's important to point out that the why can't be money.

00:31:26.931 --> 00:31:41.721
Right, like, if the why is just money, then when you're not seeing the money come in because you're doing this content or whatever it is over and over and over again and not seeing that money come in, if that's the why, then you're going to quit.

00:31:41.721 --> 00:31:56.257
You know, if, on the other hand, the why is I want to help people with X, y, z, then even if you get one viewer or two viewers or three, like, you're still actually accomplishing the why.

00:31:56.257 --> 00:32:12.173
Like, if you're, if you're solving a difficult problem, something that really does cause people grief, you know, then at least, if that, if your why is to solve the problem, then fine, even with very small audience, you're actually impacting in some positive way.

00:32:12.173 --> 00:32:17.865
But if the money is the thing, money is never going to come, with one or two or three viewers, you know, like that's not going to happen.

00:32:18.660 --> 00:32:24.263
So you know, if the why is something other than that, you know that it really is solving a problem and helping somebody's life.

00:32:24.263 --> 00:32:27.231
You know, improve it only takes one viewer for that.

00:32:27.231 --> 00:32:43.483
You know, like that person walks away from that video and figures out that these are the things that I could do to fix my dry eye, or this is the SOP that I could use to you know, generate more traffic, you know, to my listing by, say, producing these you know blog posts and advertising them with Google.

00:32:43.483 --> 00:32:54.067
That's on a, you know, a problem based, you know key phrase, like those kinds of things help people and even if only one person watches this podcast, well, that one person is going to get some significant value out of it.

00:32:54.067 --> 00:32:55.506
So if that's the why, then you're good.

00:32:57.121 --> 00:32:58.426
I'll make a quick comment on that.

00:32:58.619 --> 00:33:00.708
So, travis, for those right out there, yeah, go ahead.

00:33:01.279 --> 00:33:18.180
So quick comment on that the very first time I ever spoke on stage and, mike, you've seen me speak on stage before, very first time I've ever done it two people were in the audience and one fell asleep.

00:33:18.180 --> 00:33:23.672
So the funny thing is like we look at all these viewer accounts and downloads and everything and, like Mike just said, one person.

00:33:23.672 --> 00:33:25.519
That's all it takes to get that emotional connection.

00:33:25.519 --> 00:33:30.734
Like our lifetime value of our customer and our agency now is $40,000 or, excuse me, $20,000.

00:33:30.734 --> 00:33:31.576
It's $20,000.

00:33:31.576 --> 00:33:32.660
It's $20,000.

00:33:32.660 --> 00:33:35.590
That's a big difference, but that's our lifetime value.

00:33:35.590 --> 00:33:42.509
And so like it just takes that one person to completely change something for you because you have to show up all the time.

00:33:42.509 --> 00:33:56.525
But now that I've been doing it for the four months and I've done long form, longer than that but we are getting 45,000 views a week right now and our goal is to hit 170,000 views a week by the end of the year.

00:33:56.525 --> 00:33:58.531
And just think about that.

00:33:58.531 --> 00:34:05.768
You're in an auditorium of 45,000 people watching you and so that is massive for your brand.

00:34:08.291 --> 00:34:19.210
I can give you a real world example, travis, of your content being shared against a lot of people, and I don't know how long it took you, but you have that free advertising masterclass that.

00:34:19.210 --> 00:34:20.512
I don't know if you've redone it.

00:34:20.512 --> 00:34:21.824
I think that you might have.

00:34:21.824 --> 00:34:24.530
Since I found it four years ago now.

00:34:24.530 --> 00:34:39.257
I've probably pointed four dozen students to that free Amazon masterclass that you created way back, however long it was, and who knows how many of them have forwarded that to other sellers that they've known.

00:34:39.257 --> 00:34:49.708
So, like that, one piece of content I think it was like six or seven YouTube videos that you did that you've arranged into a masterclass has been shared with at least four dozen people that I know of, because you created good content.

00:34:50.090 --> 00:34:50.793
It made sense.

00:34:50.793 --> 00:34:55.175
I was able to take action steps right after I watched a video and I've shared it with.

00:34:55.175 --> 00:34:58.927
You know a whole bunch of people because of that who I know have also shared it with a whole bunch of people.

00:34:58.927 --> 00:35:03.454
So there's a real world example of your content being shared because it was good content.

00:35:03.454 --> 00:35:05.380
It solves a problem, it speaks to a person.

00:35:06.161 --> 00:35:13.934
Yeah, so we just updated that in 2024 and that video we actually did it as we have broken it down into videos.

00:35:13.934 --> 00:35:16.889
But this is a YouTube studio hack right now.

00:35:16.889 --> 00:35:30.373
We made a three-hour version of it and uploaded it to YouTube and it's getting crazy views now because people are sitting on that video for two hours at a time.

00:35:30.373 --> 00:35:32.086
The average watch time for that video is 40 minutes, and so people are sitting on that video for two hours at a time.

00:35:32.086 --> 00:35:33.905
The average watch time for that video is 40 minutes, and so people are sitting on it.

00:35:33.905 --> 00:35:44.929
Youtube is then taking it and suggesting it to other people that are watching Amazon PPC related videos, and so it's getting really juiced by the algorithm because it's so long and YouTube loves that.

00:35:44.929 --> 00:35:47.929
So I wanted to say that just for a little YouTube hack.

00:35:47.929 --> 00:35:52.844
But, matt, also thank you for sharing that, but we have a brand new version of it in 2024.

00:35:54.949 --> 00:35:55.750
I can't wait to watch it.

00:35:55.750 --> 00:35:56.913
I'll be, I'll be part of that.

00:35:56.913 --> 00:36:00.702
40 minutes, yeah, for sure.

00:36:01.164 --> 00:36:04.987
So we've talked a lot about, you know, different platforms, which I think are great for visibility.

00:36:04.987 --> 00:36:08.722
You know, one of the other notes that you had in here was talking about building an email list.

00:36:08.722 --> 00:36:15.929
What suggestions you have for brands that are like, okay, I'm on board with doing this content or maybe I'm already doing it already?

00:36:15.929 --> 00:36:47.072
How do I transition that into an email list, which you know is powerful in the sense of if YouTube decides tomorrow that they don't like you or the algorithm changes to something else, you know there's less control there, but if you have an email list, I mean those are people that have raised their hand and said, hey, I'm willing to give my email address so you can send me a message and you can take that, you know, essentially anywhere, and you have a lot more ownership of that list versus a YouTube audience or some other social media platform.

00:36:48.280 --> 00:36:49.083
I love email.

00:36:49.083 --> 00:36:59.492
Email is just one of those things that it should be at the forefront of your mind as a brand owner, to figure out how to get somebody's email address.

00:36:59.492 --> 00:37:04.771
And the reason that is is because, like you just said, john, it's something that you own.

00:37:04.771 --> 00:37:06.652
It is a physical asset of your brand.

00:37:06.652 --> 00:37:17.179
It increases your multiple from a two to three X if you're an Amazon seller, to a three to six X if you're a brand owner, and so it's a big difference in your multiple from a two to three X if you're an Amazon seller to a three to six X if you're a brand owner, and so it's a big difference in your multiple.

00:37:17.199 --> 00:37:23.143
It's hard and people don't like it, so people that got into this Amazon selling game liked it because it's an easy opportunity.

00:37:23.143 --> 00:37:28.603
However, when you start to build that brain, it gets a little harder, so they go back to just selling on Amazon.

00:37:28.603 --> 00:37:39.206
There's not a right or wrong answer, but understand that you're in that opportunity space like we talked about, and it will go away eventually unless you build a real brand, and that's where email list comes in.

00:37:39.206 --> 00:37:54.742
Now, when you're focusing on email, oh, it makes me so mad how people get this so wrong and they say stuff like get 10% off, put your email address in, or here's your extended warranty.

00:37:54.762 --> 00:37:56.286
Sorry, you guys use extended warranty.

00:37:56.286 --> 00:37:58.012
Here's your extended warranty.

00:37:58.815 --> 00:38:00.380
Nobody cares about that.

00:38:00.380 --> 00:38:02.083
You have to.

00:38:02.083 --> 00:38:04.367
You have to create curiosity.

00:38:04.367 --> 00:38:09.405
You have to make them want something so bad that they're giving you their email address.

00:38:09.405 --> 00:38:13.164
That is nothing to you because you're a marketer, but to them it's personal.

00:38:13.164 --> 00:38:16.572
It's like giving them, it's like them giving you their address.

00:38:16.572 --> 00:38:18.125
It's that personal for them.

00:38:18.125 --> 00:38:27.856
And so what you have to do is you have to think about the problem that your product solves, or the problem that your business solves, and focus around that.

00:38:27.856 --> 00:38:31.646
So I'll give an example my free Amazon PPC masterclass.

00:38:32.650 --> 00:38:34.181
Shameless plug, profitablepineapplecom.

00:38:34.181 --> 00:38:51.306
You can get it there, but the page for the free Amazon PPC masterclass has just this past week we had a 50% opt-in rate good opt-in rates, anywhere from one to 5% ish, and if you get up in the thirties, that's really great.

00:38:51.306 --> 00:38:53.271
And then last week we had 50%.

00:38:53.271 --> 00:38:54.894
It usually hovers around 42%.

00:38:54.894 --> 00:38:59.445
It's because it's when you're targeting is matching up with the problem.

00:38:59.445 --> 00:39:20.112
So if you're targeting is exactly where it needs to be, focusing on the problem that your product solves, and you're getting people over to a landing page, that's like yes, I do want that free Amazon PPC masterclass because I'm struggling with PPC, which about 99% of sellers are, so it's a no brainer for them because it's free and Matt can attest to it is better than any paid courses out there.

00:39:20.112 --> 00:39:26.684
We have a paid version of the course that just introduces a lot of software automation to it and so it's very manual.

00:39:26.684 --> 00:39:33.454
But it's great for if you're just getting started out and then if you're ready to upgrade to the software side where you're starting to use automations.

00:39:33.454 --> 00:39:35.916
You have to know how to use automations for them to work.

00:39:35.916 --> 00:39:39.217
That's why most people will try software and they're like this sucks, it doesn't work.

00:39:39.217 --> 00:39:42.268
It's because they don't know how to use the software and use the automation.

00:39:42.268 --> 00:39:44.742
But once you know how to use the automation, it works.

00:39:45.844 --> 00:39:48.047
Let's go back to a brand on Amazon.

00:39:48.047 --> 00:39:53.394
You want to try to bring curiosity to the conversation to get them to opt in.

00:39:53.394 --> 00:40:06.818
So if I have people on my acid reflux blog we haven't started doing this yet, but I'm going to have a pop-up that says the five mistakes you're making with acid reflux People are going.

00:40:06.818 --> 00:40:16.260
If they're struggling with acid reflux, if they're in that pain right now, they're going to be like, well, what mistakes am I making?

00:40:16.260 --> 00:40:19.989
And they're going to put their their email address in to find that out or for the dry eye thing, five mistakes you're making with dry eye.

00:40:19.989 --> 00:40:22.902
Let's switch it completely to wealth management.

00:40:22.902 --> 00:40:27.822
Five mistakes you're making with your money, five mistakes that are keeping you poor.

00:40:27.822 --> 00:40:33.804
Those are all things that, like you as a human, you're just like well, why am I staying poor?

00:40:33.804 --> 00:40:35.809
What mistakes am I making?

00:40:35.809 --> 00:40:43.172
And so you want to try to evoke this curiosity and create this curiosity hook that makes them want to put their email address in.

00:40:43.900 --> 00:40:47.269
And then, once you get their email address in, you can market them with everything else.

00:40:47.269 --> 00:40:49.905
So our free Amazon PPC masterclass is there.

00:40:49.905 --> 00:40:53.041
You can take it and you can run with it and do your own thing with it.

00:40:53.041 --> 00:40:55.367
That's fine If you're ready to use automation.

00:40:55.367 --> 00:40:57.664
That's where our we call it the 10X linchpin.

00:40:57.664 --> 00:40:59.974
That's where we bring in a group of students.

00:40:59.974 --> 00:41:05.085
We bring in 10 to 15 students at a time every two months and we train them on the software.

00:41:05.085 --> 00:41:09.471
We actually do the work for them and then teach them how to use it, and then they're off on their own.

00:41:10.172 --> 00:41:27.960
And then we have our agency, which is so that's at a thousand dollars a month, and then our agency is $5,000 a month to start with us, and we're moving that into an equity model, and then the top tier is equity, and so we have this value ladder that we move them up, and you need to think about how you can do that with your brand as well.

00:41:28.521 --> 00:41:34.786
So you get them in with the curiosity hook and then you give them your story and then you try to sell them in the end.

00:41:34.786 --> 00:41:51.530
So what I like to do with my emails is I like to get replies instead of clicks, and so a lot of my emails will say reply back for X, y, z, reply back to let me know this, because that makes you safer in the eyes of Google, outlook, apple's email and everything.

00:41:51.530 --> 00:41:54.021
So get reply backs instead of clicks.

00:41:54.021 --> 00:41:58.840
So if you're offering them something, hey, reply back with your address and I'll send this to you.

00:41:58.840 --> 00:42:02.811
Reply back and I'll get it sent over to you right away or anything like that.

00:42:02.811 --> 00:42:04.701
So try to get reply backs for things.

00:42:08.523 --> 00:42:13.728
Okay, and then so I think, the second half of it and you addressed a little bit.

00:42:13.728 --> 00:42:18.050
But once you have that email, you know, however, you're building your email list.

00:42:18.050 --> 00:42:23.775
Let's say you've got a little bit of traction there for Amazon sellers that want to.

00:42:23.775 --> 00:42:36.780
They want to expand and become a brand like you talked about, liked you talked about in your from your perspective, or what advice do you have for them to, once they've got a few emails, to continue to engage that audience on a regular basis?

00:42:36.780 --> 00:42:39.416
And what does that kind of you know rhythm look like?

00:42:39.759 --> 00:42:45.742
Yeah, so we usually have like a welcome series where it the first email is all about giving them what they opted in for.

00:42:45.742 --> 00:42:57.963
But then we start, start our story a little bit and then after that story we then continue the story on the second and third email and we'll kind of let them know how we came about creating what we created and why we do what we do.

00:42:57.963 --> 00:43:03.262
Then that fourth email is going to be like these can have like epiphany moments in it.

00:43:03.262 --> 00:43:04.204
They can have.

00:43:04.204 --> 00:43:04.806
It's pretty much.

00:43:04.806 --> 00:43:34.090
If you guys have read the dot com secrets book, that's like this storyboarding of a hero's journey, of I'm struggling with this, I had this epiphany bridge and then here's the outcome that came about from it and that's like a typical copywriting journey and you want to do that with your email sequence and keep them tied in to get them to read the next thing, and then after that you can talk about your products a little bit more so you can ask for the sale after you've earned their trust because they've tied into your story.

00:43:34.090 --> 00:43:40.152
I like to also talk about where I learned, what I learned, how I came up with the products, things like that.

00:43:40.152 --> 00:43:44.329
And then after the welcome sequence we then go into a little bit of a drip sequence.

00:43:44.329 --> 00:43:45.813
That's all about blogs.

00:43:45.813 --> 00:43:51.907
So they came for a problem the five mistakes that you're making with dry eye so we drip to them blogs.

00:43:51.907 --> 00:43:52.943
What is dry eye?

00:43:52.943 --> 00:43:54.750
Five best treatments for dry eye.

00:43:54.750 --> 00:43:56.577
Are dry eye drops good for you?

00:43:56.998 --> 00:43:58.385
And you can find these questions anywhere.

00:43:58.385 --> 00:44:03.706
You can find them on like ask the public or answer the public, whatever it's called Ask Jeeves I think that's still around.

00:44:03.706 --> 00:44:16.248
I don't even know, but we use answer the public and you just get questions that are commonly asked around the problem that you solve and you can drip content out to them that they're going to be interested in reading because they initially opted into that curiosity hook.

00:44:16.248 --> 00:44:27.030
And then what else we do is dedicate one day, one hour, to write an email to your list about your life, just in general, about your life.

00:44:27.030 --> 00:44:29.248
So this week we write an email every day.

00:44:29.740 --> 00:44:33.891
I write usually one email a week and then I have a ghostwriter that writes for me the rest of the time.

00:44:33.891 --> 00:44:35.626
I wrote three emails this week.

00:44:35.626 --> 00:44:41.588
One was updating everybody on our content, our social media and how it's growing.

00:44:41.588 --> 00:44:50.492
So we grew by 1600 people in the month of February across email and social media, and so we talked about how we did that and how our numbers grew and what was working.

00:44:50.492 --> 00:44:56.541
What's not.

00:44:56.541 --> 00:44:59.369
The second one I did is I'm doing income reports monthly for our inventory management software.

00:44:59.369 --> 00:44:59.972
We are burning through cash.

00:44:59.972 --> 00:45:01.476
Right now we're at negative 31,000 a month.

00:45:01.677 --> 00:45:07.530
It's fantastic, and I just go over the challenges of that and what we're doing to correct it.

00:45:07.530 --> 00:45:22.943
Because people want to see that businesses aren't perfect, like I am choosing to burn cash in the inventory management software and I'm subsidizing it with my ads agency because I believe in the why, the long-term vision of that software and it's going to change lives, and it does change lives.

00:45:22.943 --> 00:45:27.340
We've got probably close to 50 clients on it now and the feedback is amazing.

00:45:27.340 --> 00:45:27.940
It's phenomenal.

00:45:27.940 --> 00:45:35.565
And then I wrote another email all around that we filled up our 10X linchpin, so we just enrolled.

00:45:35.565 --> 00:45:36.467
This is week one.

00:45:36.989 --> 00:45:38.681
I just wrote an email letting people know that we filled it up.

00:45:38.681 --> 00:46:02.336
So just letting people know what's going on with the business, letting people know what's going on with your life People are interested as long as you make it interesting and so as long as you're helping them get to their goal and always thinking top of mind of what is their ultimate goal getting rid of dry eye, getting rid of unprofitable ads, getting rid of acid reflux and having that in the forefront of everything that you're writing.

00:46:02.336 --> 00:46:04.126
And so make sure you keep that in mind.

00:46:04.126 --> 00:46:12.641
So don't be afraid to write that one email a week, and that one email a week can turn into a TikTok video and you can just repurpose that content.

00:46:12.641 --> 00:46:22.972
So when I write my emails, I'll actually make a video of the same thing I wrote, and then I get them to go from the email over to the video If they want to watch a video version of it.

00:46:22.972 --> 00:46:25.827
It's a lot, but keep it simple.

00:46:25.847 --> 00:46:30.065
This podcast this podcast episode.

00:46:30.065 --> 00:46:39.536
Actually you you being on this podcast episode as a guest actually came from one of those personal emails that you sent, talking about just what was going on in your life.

00:46:39.536 --> 00:46:44.382
I don't know if you remember that, but it was the email that you sent about your son's surgery that he had.

00:46:44.382 --> 00:46:45.143
Actually.

00:46:45.143 --> 00:46:47.409
It prompted me to respond to it.

00:46:47.409 --> 00:46:51.063
And here we are on this podcast episode, which that email that you wrote.

00:46:51.063 --> 00:46:58.447
Someone's going to hear you on this podcast and that's going to turn into someone going to your website profitable pineapple and then someone's going to find your content.

00:46:58.447 --> 00:47:05.443
And there you have it One email that you sent that sold a personal story that connected with someone turned into who knows how much more after that.

00:47:05.543 --> 00:47:10.628
So you never know the influence that your audience will have, and so you never know the influence that they are building.

00:47:10.628 --> 00:47:12.251
You never know the influence that your audience will have, and so you never know the influence that they are building.

00:47:12.251 --> 00:47:13.672
You never know the influence that they have.

00:47:13.672 --> 00:47:15.054
So you guys have built this podcast.

00:47:15.054 --> 00:47:19.126
Matt's been on my list and now we've just this.

00:47:19.126 --> 00:47:20.489
This came about like you just said, matt.

00:47:20.489 --> 00:47:23.804
I had somebody on my list in dry eye.

00:47:23.804 --> 00:47:31.123
That was she owned a hundred million dollar food company and she's like hey, I just want to get on the call with you and just talk.

00:47:31.123 --> 00:48:06.994
And so like I was like yes, and literally we talked for like three hours, we addressed all her dry eye issues and then she gave me tons of business advice and I was like this is fantastic, and you just don't know the influence that's in following you because you don't know every single one of your customers.

00:48:07.014 --> 00:48:14.719
Yeah, notes I have in here and it's the only thing that's in all caps which is running out of stock as being one of the biggest issues or biggest problems for brands.

00:48:14.719 --> 00:48:21.913
I'm talking to you a little bit about, like what drove you to start this software and what problem you're working.

00:48:21.913 --> 00:48:31.047
I mean, I think on the surface of it it's pretty obvious of like hey, you don't want to run out of stock, but why is this such a big problem that you want to solve for brands?

00:48:32.068 --> 00:48:34.813
This actually goes back to everything we've talked about in this episode.

00:48:34.813 --> 00:48:42.112
We've talked about algorithms a little bit, and when you understand the algorithm and what the algorithm wants, then you can win.

00:48:42.112 --> 00:48:46.429
Every single time, amazon wants two things.

00:48:46.429 --> 00:48:50.184
They want a high converting product that sells a shit ton.

00:48:50.184 --> 00:48:50.425
That's it.

00:48:50.425 --> 00:48:52.186
They want a high converting product that sells a shit ton that's it.

00:48:52.186 --> 00:49:04.461
So if you think about everything in regards to how can I get my product to sell more, so Amazon shows me more.

00:49:04.461 --> 00:49:08.096
Because if you have a higher sales velocity and you have a higher conversion rate, amazon is going to move you up in the organic ranking.

00:49:08.096 --> 00:49:17.090
So with inventory and the importance of never running out of stock, it's one side of the algorithm sales velocity.

00:49:17.090 --> 00:49:28.440
If you tank your sales velocity, you tank your organic rank and you may never recover again or you'll lose out on potentially millions.

00:49:28.541 --> 00:49:45.083
So quick story about this when we, when we sold our company, they didn't want to use our inventory management anymore, which is profitable pineapple express, and it wasn't called that then it was just used internally and I was like we've got our inventory systems pretty dialed in.

00:49:45.083 --> 00:49:49.382
So I don't know if I want you guys to touch them, cause you guys don't understand Amazon as much, they said.

00:49:49.382 --> 00:49:55.614
They said, oh, we've got better inventory management systems, we use net suite, and I was like, whatever, you guys take it over.

00:49:55.614 --> 00:50:02.621
And I started noticing like we were dwindling down more and they're like we don't want to pay storage fees.

00:50:02.621 --> 00:50:10.690
I was like I don't want you to run out of stock, because if you run out of stock, that's worse than paying storage fees, and if we're cycling through the inventory, turn fast enough, we don don't pay storage fees.

00:50:10.690 --> 00:50:12.034
They didn't listen to me.

00:50:12.762 --> 00:50:16.719
We stocked out of four of our five bestsellers, four out of our five bestsellers.

00:50:16.719 --> 00:50:24.507
These are products that sold a hundred to 200 units a day, and it costs us directly $250,000.

00:50:24.507 --> 00:50:30.469
While we were stocked out, however, one of the products never recovered.

00:50:30.469 --> 00:50:50.762
We could never get it back up to that 100 to 200 sales a day, and it got stuck at 30 to 50 sales a day, and so that one mistake of stocking out costs us millions of dollars as a result, because this is a $30 product selling 100 to 200 a day, down to 30 to 50 sales a day, we can never get it back.

00:50:50.762 --> 00:50:51.443
We're in the same boat.

00:50:51.443 --> 00:50:52.525
We have the same product.

00:50:52.545 --> 00:50:53.407
We can never get it done again.

00:50:53.407 --> 00:50:54.710
We're in the same boat, we're the same product.

00:50:54.710 --> 00:51:03.646
We have a hero product that it still sells well, but it doesn't sell nearly as well as it used to, and that's exactly the problem that we ran into.

00:51:03.646 --> 00:51:05.152
Now it realistically was unavoidable.

00:51:05.152 --> 00:51:06.697
We couldn't really have fixed it.

00:51:06.697 --> 00:51:08.362
It basically was COVID related.

00:51:08.922 --> 00:51:17.907
So we ended up in a situation that we couldn't have predicted that it was going to happen that way, and so we had ordered a massive amount of inventory to get ready for it.

00:51:17.907 --> 00:51:19.672
Because we're seasonal, we sell pool cleaning tools.

00:51:19.672 --> 00:51:22.847
So we had everything lined up for the season.

00:51:22.847 --> 00:51:38.210
We had all of our containers lined up, we knew exactly when they were going to ship, all the POs were set, and then COVID hit and they and we couldn't get them produced because of course, nobody could be in the you know, in the factories producing, and so then all of our inventory got backed up.

00:51:38.210 --> 00:51:41.309
So we and then everybody was home.

00:51:41.780 --> 00:51:43.567
So what happened was in the pool space.

00:51:43.567 --> 00:51:46.766
You know, everybody was home, bunch of people started putting in pools.

00:51:46.766 --> 00:51:49.748
People were using their pools more because they can't go anywhere.

00:51:49.748 --> 00:51:54.192
So we were selling through inventory like crazy on this product.

00:51:54.192 --> 00:51:55.864
But we couldn't get any more.

00:51:55.864 --> 00:51:59.583
We raised the price, we did all sorts of things to try to slow it down.

00:51:59.583 --> 00:52:00.688
We just couldn't slow it enough.

00:52:00.688 --> 00:52:02.536
So then we ran out of stock.

00:52:02.536 --> 00:52:08.641
We were literally out of stock for a month before we could get anything else in and then, unfortunately, everything came.

00:52:08.641 --> 00:52:10.322
You know like we had all these POs lined up.

00:52:10.322 --> 00:52:22.695
So then we had, you know, 30,000 units showed up right, but that product we have never gotten back to the ranking that we had, and there's probably all sorts of other variables that have come into play that are keeping us from being able to get back.

00:52:22.695 --> 00:52:27.231
But ultimately the beginning of it was the stock out.

00:52:27.231 --> 00:52:28.278
So you cannot afford it.

00:52:28.278 --> 00:52:31.409
If you're going to avoid a stock out, you have to, you absolutely have to.

00:52:35.800 --> 00:52:53.628
Yeah, and I think that's such an interesting cause, I mean such a good point for a lot of sellers out there, because I feel like you know it's been said before where they're like, well, if I go out of stock, well then I just, you know, I just have to put my product back in stock and then it'll be right back where it was, and sometimes that happens and sometimes it definitely doesn't.

00:52:53.628 --> 00:53:01.376
So, as we kind of wrap up here, you know we've covered a lot and you've given you know some great advice for brands out there.

00:53:01.396 --> 00:53:26.177
Travis, if there was you know kind of one action item that you'd have for brands, or is there kind of one action item I guess that you'd have for brands, based on our conversation today, I'll cheat and give you two 20% of your inputs are creating 80% of your results, and so figure out what that 20% is and focus only on that, and it's probably not what you're doing every single day.

00:53:26.177 --> 00:53:36.806
So once you start focusing on the 20% that produces 80% of the results and it's probably something that you actually enjoy doing your business will take off more than it ever has.

00:53:36.806 --> 00:53:44.570
So me, as the CEO of my agency and the inventory management software, my 20% is getting on shows like this.

00:53:44.570 --> 00:53:50.367
It's amplifying the message, getting the word out, getting up on stage, doing that.

00:53:50.367 --> 00:53:52.592
That's going to get our message out there.

00:53:52.592 --> 00:53:57.293
Get more followers, get more people on the inventories management software, get more people into my ecosystem.

00:53:57.293 --> 00:53:59.641
Take my free Amazon PPC masterclass.

00:53:59.641 --> 00:54:01.206
So that is my 20%.

00:54:01.206 --> 00:54:03.972
So I'm constantly looking to get on shows like this.

00:54:03.972 --> 00:54:05.802
So what is your 20%?

00:54:05.802 --> 00:54:21.023
Figure it out in your brand and it kind of leads into number two, which is get away from the numbers of your business and focus on the results that you're driving for people, because if you drive results, everything else will take care of itself.

00:54:21.023 --> 00:54:30.512
If you have such a good product that it brings the result that the person is looking for, people will share it like crazy and I will go into a personal one.

00:54:30.512 --> 00:54:30.853
Right now.

00:54:32.260 --> 00:54:51.030
I am losing my hair and two months ago I got to the point where I was like I need to find something and I looked at all the products on the market and the one I ended up going with I went with because of the story around it the guy that's the founder and he's the CEO of the company.

00:54:51.030 --> 00:54:58.710
His story was captivating and it was interesting and I was like it was marketed completely different than everybody else.

00:54:58.710 --> 00:55:01.246
Everybody else was focused around results.

00:55:01.246 --> 00:55:06.112
He was focused around the story and the results spoke for themselves.

00:55:06.112 --> 00:55:08.501
Everybody has the before and after photos, so I wasn't worried about that.

00:55:09.121 --> 00:55:18.835
His story sold me, so I bought it and two months later we just did like our two month photo Like this has been completely filled in almost after two months.

00:55:18.835 --> 00:55:24.750
That's very rare that it happens that fast and so I will tell everybody about his product.

00:55:24.750 --> 00:55:26.092
I have no affiliate for it.

00:55:26.092 --> 00:55:34.130
I will tell everybody about the product because he drove results that he promised and he focused on those results and he got his marketing out there with a story.

00:55:34.130 --> 00:55:41.800
So, with all that being said, focus on the results of your customer and everything else will take care of itself.

00:55:46.148 --> 00:55:47.851
Great pieces of advice for brands.

00:55:47.851 --> 00:56:02.231
You've talked mentioned them a little bit kind of the different projects that you're working on currently, but for folks that are interested in learning more about those and, you know, just kind of keeping up with what you're working on, where are the best places for them to connect with you?

00:56:02.659 --> 00:56:10.525
So on all the socials I'm Dr Travis Ziegler, so you can find me on TikTok, instagram, linkedin, facebook, youtube.

00:56:10.525 --> 00:56:11.387
Those are all there.

00:56:11.387 --> 00:56:13.672
Just search my name, travis Zvis sigler, and you should be able to find me.

00:56:13.672 --> 00:56:15.786
Look for a pineapple, that's the easiest way to find me.

00:56:15.786 --> 00:56:28.635
If you want our free amazon ppc masterclass, that's at profitablepineapplecom, and then our inventory management we do have a dollar 30-day trial for you to try it out, and that's at profitablepineappleexpresscom.

00:56:28.635 --> 00:56:31.684
So free amazon ppc masterclass profitablepineapplecom.

00:56:31.684 --> 00:56:34.291
Inventory profitablepineappleexpress.

00:56:34.291 --> 00:56:36.829
We didn't think about these things when we made the URLs.

00:56:36.829 --> 00:56:38.224
We just made them for fun.

00:56:40.402 --> 00:56:52.489
Well, we'll make sure it's down in the show notes, so anybody who's listening to these that want an easy reference, we'll make sure to put those links in the show notes, so they're only a click away, all right.

00:56:52.489 --> 00:56:52.710
All right.

00:56:52.710 --> 00:57:00.056
Well, travis, thank you so much again for being on the podcast and sharing all the different kind of strategies and tactics that you have today.

00:57:06.521 --> 00:57:06.943
Yeah, john, mike, matt.

00:57:06.963 --> 00:57:09.219
Thank you guys for having me on, I appreciate it and if I can be any service to you guys, let me know.

00:57:13.990 --> 00:57:14.711
Great, All right, Mike.

00:57:14.711 --> 00:57:16.563
So how do we want to do this?

00:57:16.563 --> 00:57:18.831
The intro piece of it.

00:57:20.302 --> 00:57:21.045
I have to get going.

00:57:21.286 --> 00:57:21.929
I have another meeting.

00:57:22.219 --> 00:57:23.222
Do you guys care if I jump off?

00:57:23.222 --> 00:57:23.563
Oh?

00:57:24.146 --> 00:57:24.807
yep, that's all.

00:57:24.807 --> 00:57:25.891
Good, you can jump off.

00:57:26.219 --> 00:57:29.851
Do ask that you keep the browser open for a couple of minutes to make sure everything uploads Yep.

00:57:29.851 --> 00:57:35.405
Other than that, thank you so much for being on the podcast, yep.

00:57:38.369 --> 00:57:59.003
So yeah, basically, I just know that the podcast that I was on, essentially once, once we had gotten through it, you know, my guess is he probably had been taking notes throughout for the things that he wanted to touch on for the intro, and so, you know, maybe we do it, maybe we don't this time, but when it was done, he left a little break, you know, and then he just said, hey, I want to record an intro.

00:57:59.003 --> 00:58:06.625
So I stayed on and he was like hey, you know, and I can't even remember exactly how he put it, but essentially he was just trying to give that hook.

00:58:06.625 --> 00:58:13.494
So maybe what we need to do, maybe we don't do it today, maybe we should have a little template, you know, for what that intro looks like.

00:58:13.494 --> 00:58:25.760
And then during the interview, you just kind of, you know, are thinking, okay, I'm going to need that intro, what are the notes that I want to put in there that I can use as hooks, you know, to to make sure that somebody wants to listen, and maybe that's the best way to do it.

00:58:26.682 --> 00:58:29.068
Okay, yeah, let's try that for for the next one.

00:58:29.068 --> 00:58:29.989
Okay.

00:58:30.190 --> 00:58:33.844
All right, sounds good, man, appreciate it Cool.