Are you in the low 7 figures, and a bit stuck? You might've become an Amazon channel manager. Ryan explains how to get off the hamster wheel and build up and past 7 figures.

Key takeaways

The three parts of business are pretty straightforward: 1. Sales channel, 2. Product and 3. Audience. Uniting these three aspects is the key to propelling your brand past 7 figures. Here's how.

BUSINESS PART 1 [6:13] Sales channel — where are your sales coming from? For most of the world, the answer is not Amazon…

You are a channel manager. On a hamster wheel. [9:52] Somewhere in the low seven figures lives the hamster wheel in which you can't grow as fast as you used to and you can't do all of the work alone. That's when you know you're an Amazon channel manager. It's humbling.

Tip: Don't fall into the trap of then becoming a — let's say — Shopify channel manager on top of an Amazon one…

Getting out of the wheel will suck [13:04] There was a time, when you just started your business when you sucked at it. But you got better. Now you're good, the only thing that threatens you is if Amazon makes a change… So you protect your investment and you enter defense mode.

The only way out of defense mode is to hire better people who do specific things better than you.

Tip: After 180 days if a new hiree is not out-earning you, they may be the wrong person for the job.

Now you can focus less on working in and more on working on your company...

BUSINESS PART 2 [15:25] Products! No one got big, got rich or got famous selling the same product as everybody else. This is the unhappy place where we're trying to outreview our competitors, over analyse our keywords and wage price wars.

Risky business [24:52] If you're over a million, it's time to take some risks on products: create a product people actually want, not what everyone else is white labelling from Alibaba.

More risk = more reward.

So, your sales channel is optimized and you have a unique product in the marketplace: you are ready to jump off the hamster wheel and into the big league.

BUSINESS PART 3 [26:38] Audience! Ryan's favorite audience builder is currently search engine optimization — what's old is new again — in fact all of his companies were built on search engine optimisation and email.

The hero's journey [31:35] Whatever you sell, you should always remember that it's about the people who buy your product and how it helps them in their journey: people don't care about you or your business, they care about themselves. They are the hero. They are Luke Skywalker.

You are not the hero, neither is your business. You are Yoda, you serve the hero.

Tip: Add an email insert into your packaging, start turning sales into CUSTOMERS.

There is a huge difference between a sale and a customer, and the latter is where real value is built…

Ryan's closing tip 1 [42:21] You are at a million or up and can't pinpoint what your business' purpose is — aside from more sales — you are in trouble. Figure out who you are.

Ryan's closing tip 2 [47:09] Where is you time and focus going? Outsource all outsourceable tasks and spearhead new initiatives — stop being the operator of all things and start being the leader of all things.

Thanks for listening!