The side hustle that started with buying books for $1 and selling them at a big markup on eBay, morphed into a $5 million dollar brand on Amazon.

This happened through the skill and resilience of today’s guest, Annalisa DeMarta. She recently discovered that while there are 2.7 million sellers on Amazon, her company Ridgeline Insights is in the top 0.0005% of Amazon sellers. If anybody understands selling on Amazon, it’s Annalisa.

In our interview, Annalisa reveals what it really takes to be a successful seller on Amazon. She shares the sweet spot of how long you should give your product listing a chance, what are the most important aspects you need to pay attention to, and so much more.

It was difficult to choose which takeaways I’d feature at the end because not only does she share many gems for successful selling on Amazon, but the philosophy behind her advice applies to the majority of side hustle businesses. But I settled on these 3 things; why and when to jump into a new venture even if there’s the possibility of failure, how to improve your cash flow situation, and how to reframe the feeling of depriving yourself when you’re making those smarter cash flow choices.

You’ll definitely want to check out this episode!

What You’ll Hear:

03:30 Buying books for $1, selling them for $5, $10, $25…

06:16 A lightbulb moment: Shifting to a scalable and dependable model

07:33 BIG lesson learned: Minding cash flow

08:45 From just the two of them, to 25 employees

10:05 If we don’t try this, we’ll regret it

11:20 Set yourself up for success by being fiscally conservative in your spending

11:56 A shopping trip provides the seed for a winning business idea

14:00 So many things could have gone wrong - The first shipment of boots from China

15:05 Built Lone Cone to a $5 million brand

18:00 Where to start if you want to import products

21:45 Amazon aggregator picks up Lone Cone

24:14 Ridgeline Insights, an Amazon channel management company

26:55 3 Most common ways to sell on Amazon and pros & cons: arbitrage (a great way to learn Amazon), private labeling/black labeling, contract manufacturing

30:35 Incorrect assumptions people make about selling on Amazon

32:40 What it takes to do Amazon well!

33:58 Just like MSI’s (multiple sources of income), diversification of assets is smart

35:01 A lowball offer - nothing lost if they say “no”

35:56 What it REALLY takes to be successful selling on Amazon

39:00 The sweet spot for long you should give a SKU a chance before you give up

43:50 Fear of failure - get over it because you will fail

44:20 Risk a little, learn a lot

45:20 From side hustle to multi-millionaire…you can too!

Key Takeaways:

46:00 Don’t play the “what-if” game

47:04 Work towards the first tier of financial success - having your base expenses covered

48:00 You’re not losing, you’re trading for a future payoff

49:00 Act on what’s in your control

How to connect with Annalisa & Ridgeline Insights:

• Ridgeline Insights website
• LinkedIn: Annalisa
• Tiktok:Annalisa

Connect with Joan:

• Instagram
• Facebook
• Joan's Main Site
• Email

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