Common Mistakes Podcast Season 2 Episode 17  

Andrew Forman, founder of Givz, meets with Laura and Todd to discuss the common mistakes he has seen and experienced throughout his entrepreneurial journey. Andrew discusses lessons learned while pivoting his business model, consequences of not trusting your gut and acting fast, how the Givz model works, and why brands are seeing higher AOV (average order value) and ROI (return on investment) with Givz.   

Topics Discussed:  

- Why discounts can be problematic for the long-term, and how Givz can help 

- How brands are embracing the consumer movement toward social good 

- How donation incentives truly work and the math behind the ROI 

- Short-term vs long-term effects of incentives  

Andrew Forman founded Givz, the first Purpose Driven Performance marketing platform. Prior to Givz, Andrew spent six years in finance (mergers and acquisitions investment banking), was the treasurer of a nonprofit with the mission of enhancing literacy in Africa, and loved playing any sport/game available. He now lives with his wife and two children, adapting sports and games to relay races and hide and seek. Andrew received his MBA from Harvard Business School and his BA in mathematics and economics from Hamilton College.  

Givz is the ecommerce marketing platform that grows sales, creates social impact, and reduces discount dependency. Check out Givz: https://www.givz.com/ https://www.instagram.com/getgivz/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/givz... 

Visit www.envisionhorizons.com for support selling on Amazon. myHorizons is automating Amazon brand management sign up today for your free 30 day trial with the code myHorizonsLITE: https://www.envisionhorizons.com/myhorizons

Common Mistakes Podcast Season 2 Episode 16  

Nathan Hirsch, CEO of EcomBalance and Outsource School, meets with Laura and Todd to discuss the common mistakes he has seen and experienced throughout his entrepreneurial journey. Nathan discusses lessons learned during the sale of his first business, bookkeeping mistakes many entrepreneurs are making, understanding your business financials, common hiring mistakes, and the difference between a follower, a doer and an expert.  

Nathan Hirsch is a lifelong entrepreneur and currently the CEO of EcomBalance and Outsource School. Nathan is best known for co-founding FreeUp.net in 2015 with an initial $5,000 investment, scaling it to $12 million in yearly revenue, and having it acquired in 2019. Today, he leads EcomBalance, an online bookkeeping service for eCommerce and digital businesses, and Outsource School, a membership teaching business owners how to hire effectively online. Nathan has appeared on 400+ podcasts, is a social media personality. Him and his wife live in Denver, Colorado with his two dogs where they are foster parents.  

Social Channels:  @Nathan Hirsch  https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanhirsch/ 

EcomBalance: https://ecombalance.com/

*mention the Common Mistakes podcast to get 2 months free  

Outsource School: https://www.outsourceschool.com/ 

Visit www.envisionhorizons.com for support selling on Amazon. 

myHorizons is automating Amazon brand management sign up today for your free 30 day trial: https://my.envisionhorizons.com/Auth/Register

Common Mistakes Podcast Season 2 Episode 15  

Natalie Mackey, co-founder of Winky Lux, meets with Laura and Todd to discuss the common mistakes she has seen and experienced throughout her journey as a brand founder. Natalie discusses lessons learned about hiring and building a strong team, her journey pivoting from an initial business idea to launching a brand, disrupting the industry through Winky Lux's wild collaboration with Applebee's, mistakes brands make working with manufacturers, why Winky Lux was able to stay nimble during the pandemic, and more!  

Natalie Mackey is a brand-builder + beauty entrepreneur. She began her career in finance, but soon became drawn to growing companies as an operator. In 2015, she launched Winky Lux, a fast-to-market brand of whimsical color cosmetics. A Francophile at heart, she’s always been inspired by ornate patterns and joyful messages. Her thesis is that beauty is rooted in play and interacting with products should be, first + foremost, a joyful experience.  

Connect with Natalie: 

Instagram: @natmack1 

Instagram: winky_lux 

TikTok: winkylux 

Twitter: @WinkyLux 

Facebook: @winkylux  

Winky Lux on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3NQxwGl 

Visit www.envisionhorizons.com for support selling on Amazon. myHorizons is automating Amazon brand management sign up today for your free 30 day trial: https://my.envisionhorizons.com/Auth/Register

Lesley Hensell, co-founder of Riverbend Consulting, meets with Laura and Todd to discuss the common mistakes she has seen in her 10+ years of  experience in the Amazon space. Lesley discusses mistakes when handling Amazon account suspension, the process of getting editorial recommendation placements, consequences of platform/review manipulation, how to protect your brand from bad actors on Amazon, mistakes with buying liquidation inventory, why you need to be keeping good invoices, and more!  

Lesley is the co-founder of Riverbend Consulting and has 10+ years in selling on Amazon and serving Amazon sellers. Lesley currently oversees Riverbend’s client services team. She has personally helped hundreds of third-party sellers get their suspended Amazon accounts and ASINs back up and running. Lesley leverages two decades as a small business consultant to solve the underlying business issues in online retail businesses, resulting in improved operations and profitability.  

Connect with Lesley at Riverbend Consulting...

Riverbend: https://riverbendconsulting.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesleyhensell/

Visit www.envisionhorizons.com for support selling on Amazon. myHorizons is automating Amazon brand management sign up today for your free 30 day trial: https://my.envisionhorizons.com/Auth/Register

Concepts Discussed in this Episode:  

Amazon Editorial Recommendations - Editorial Recommendations are distinct from organic and PPC product listings. They support consumer decision making and influence buyers to purchase certain products by providing opinions and product claims from independent publishers, not the product seller or Amazon.  

Amazon Review Manipulation - Any attempt to manipulate reviews, including by directly or indirectly contributing false, misleading or inauthentic content, is strictly prohibited by Amazon.   

Amazon Account Suspension - Account suspension revokes Amazon selling privileges. This occurs when a seller has violated Amazon's policies, terms, or conditions while carrying out selling activities. During this time, none of your amazon product listings will be visible to shoppers.

Common Mistakes podcast Season 2 Episode 13  

Scott Ohsman is an expert in the Amazon space with over 16 years of experience helping brands scale on the platform. Scott meets with Laura and Todd to discuss the common mistakes he has seen throughout his entrepreneurial journey. Scott discusses hiring the right people, mistakes made using Amazon Seller Central reporting, why brands should choose between focusing on profit or market share, the consequences of going out of stock, having too large of a catalog, Amazon DSP & OTT,  and why brands that have patience and plan for sustained growth thrive on Amazon's platform.   

Scott Ohsman is the VP of Digital Commerce for Quickfire LLC, a small full service digital agency for consumer goods. Scott is responsible for the company’s Amazon practice along with overall digital strategy across all platforms. Quickfire works with clients in many categories and also has its own brands. Scott’s been in retail for 27yrs in retail and has experience running his own agency for 13yrs before joining Quickfire. He has worked for the last 16yrs helping over 200 brands sell to and on Amazon. More specifically, Scott spent the first 10yrs on Vendor Central and has been deep into Seller Central since 2018.  

Connect with Scott... 

https://www.quickfirenow.com/ 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-ohsman-861196a6/ 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/always-off-brand/id1568133448  

Visit www.envisionhorizons.com for support selling on Amazon. myHorizons is automating Amazon brand management. Sign up today for 75% off your first 90 days with the code COMMONMISTAKES. https://www.envisionhorizons.com/myhorizons

Concepts Discussed in this Episode:  

Amazon DSP 

Amazon DSP stands for “demand-side platform”, and it allows advertisers to programmatically buy ad space on Amazon.com and other Amazon-owned websites. Amazon DSP provides access to exclusive inventory, including first-party data, and offers unique targeting capabilities that allow advertisers to reach their desired audience. Advertising on Amazon DSP can help you increase brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, and generate sales. Amazon DSP is unique in that it allows advertisers to expand their advertising reach beyond Ad Console and utilize both on-Amazon and offsite placements. This enables advertisers to drive traffic not only to their Amazon pages, but to their direct-to-consumer websites.  

Amazon OTT 

Amazon OTT is short for “over-the-top,” and refers to the delivery of streaming video content via the internet, without the need for a traditional cable or satellite TV subscription. Amazon offers its own streaming service, called Prime Video, which features a mix of original programming, movies, and TV shows. By distributing videos through Amazon OTT, sellers can take advantage of Amazon's massive customer base and reach viewers who may not be aware of their products or services. As more and more shoppers turn to streaming video for entertainment and information, Amazon OTT provides a unique opportunity for sellers to connect with customers.  

The Amazon Flywheel 

The Amazon Seller Flywheel is a positive feedback loop that begins when sellers receive an influx of new customers. This increased customer base then results in more sales, which leads to improved seller rankings and increased visibility on the Amazon marketplace. This, in turn, attracts even more customers and further improves seller rankings. The flywheel effect can be powerful for driving long-term growth on Amazon's platform.

Common Mistakes podcast Season 2 Episode 12  

John Cavendish, founder of Seller Candy, meets with Laura and Todd to discuss the common mistakes he has seen throughout his entrepreneurial journey. John discusses mistakes when communicating with Amazon seller support, how to resolve account issues without talking to Amazon, growing pains for an Amazon agency like Seller Candy, finding the right leadership coach, and more!  

John Cavendish is the founder of Seller Candy. Through his eCommerce journey John has owned and managed his own 7-figure brands on Amazon, leading him to start a full service Amazon agency. John quickly realized there was a gap in the market for what Seller Candy now offers. Seller Candy acts as the technical arm of your Amazon business, bridging the gap between you and Seller Support. No more templated responses, complicated POAs or being bounced between departments - we'll deal with all of that and free up your time and energy to focus on growth.  

Connect with John at Seller Candy: www.sellercandy.com 

https://www.facebook.com/SellerCandyPro/ 

https://www.instagram.com/sellercandyamz/ 

Visit www.envisionhorizons.com for support selling on Amazon. 

myHorizons is automating Amazon brand management. Sign up today for 75% off your first 90 days with the code COMMONMISTAKES. https://www.envisionhorizons.com/myhorizons 

Concepts Discussed in this Episode:  Amazon Seller Support is the main point of contact for sellers with problems or questions. However, many sellers have found that Amazon Seller Support is unresponsive or unhelpful, leading to frustration and lost sales. In some cases, Seller Support has even been known to give contradictory information to different sellers, making it difficult to resolve issues. If you are having trouble with Amazon Seller Support, there are a few things you can do to try to get the help you need.  

1. Make sure that you are using the correct support channel for your issue. Seller Support can be reached by phone, chat, or email. 

2. Try to be as specific and concise as possible when describing your problem. The clearer information you can provide, the easier it will be for Seller Support to understand and resolve your issue.  

3. Remember that Seller Support is not perfect. If you are not getting the help you need, consider reaching out to other resources, such as online forums or Amazon Seller Central. 

4. Work with an agency like Seller Candy for handling Seller Central issues, or an agency like Envision Horizons for full service Amazon account management.

Common Mistakes podcast Season 2 Episode 11  

Multi exit startup founder Brock Weatherup meets with Laura and Todd to discuss the common mistakes he has seen throughout his entrepreneurial journey. Brock discusses the ups and downs of nearly losing a $200M deal with PetSmart, learning to manage his ego earlier in his career, key qualities of a strong leader, celebrating business failures, focusing on star employees, discouraging back channeling, and much more!  

Brock Weatherup is a growth leader, c-suite executive, multi/3x exit startup founder, leader of high growth value creation opportunities in consumer businesses, active angel investor and passionate advocate about the consumer and their interactions with digital media & commerce.   

Connect with Brock: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brockweatherup/ 

Visit www.envisionhorizons.com for support selling on Amazon. myHorizons is automating Amazon brand management. Sign up today for 75% off your first 90 days with the code COMMONMISTAKES. https://www.envisionhorizons.com/myhorizons

Common Mistakes podcast Season 2 Episode 10  

Michelle Covey, VP of Commercialization at GS1 US, meets with Laura and Todd to discuss the common mistakes she has seen while assisting brands with product identification at GS1. Michelle discusses the importance of avoiding third party barcodes, the difference between UPC and GTIN, navigating common Amazon error messages, what should sellers do if their listings are “hijacked” on Amazon, and more! 

GS1 RESOURCES... 

Next Level Supply Chain Podcast: https://next-level-supply-chain-with-gs1us.podcastpage.io/

GS1 US: https://www.gs1us.org/

Education: https://www.gs1us.org/gs1-us-education-training/overview

GS1 Company Database: https://www.gs1us.org/tools/gs1-company-database-gepir

GS1 US  is part of one of the largest identification and standards organizations in the world. Best known as the administrator of the U.P.C. barcode, GS1 US maintains and advocates for the use of a host of other data standards that support the supply chain. As a global, not-for-profit organization, GS1 US helps companies uniquely identify products, locations, and other assets and share information about them with trading partners and consumers in a consistent way. Additionally, the organization collaborates with a variety of industries to develop best practices for developing efficient supply chains, effective business relationships, and providing consumers access to trustworthy information about the products they buy.  Concepts discussed in this episode of Common Mistakes:  GTIN stands for Global Trade Item Number. This is the number encoded into a barcode that uniquely identifies a product when it is listed online or is read by a barcode scanner. A U.P.C. (universal product code) is the most common type of barcode symbol—you see it on products every day and they are scanned at a store’s checkout counter.   It is a common misconception that a U.P.C. and GTIN are interchangeable and the same thing, however, the U.P.C. is a barcode symbol with black lines and the GTIN is the identification number.  

The three most common issues sellers find related to product identification are:   

1. Choosing the wrong type of product identification.  Although GTINs are encoded into U.P.C. and EAN symbols, the Amazon menu will ask a brand owner to select from EAN, U.P.C., or GTIN when listing products. Knowing which one to select is linked to the number of digits of a brand’s product identification number.   If the GTIN has 12 digits, the brand owner should select U.P.C., as GTIN-12s are encoded into U.P.C. barcodes. If the GTIN has 14 digits, this signifies an outer case identification number and should be used for when a case of six drinks are listed on Amazon, as well as the individual drink. Sellers in Europe will likely choose the EAN option, as their GTINs typically have 13 digits.   

2. Details do not match.  This message is usually seen when sellers are listing a product that has a different brand or registered seller information than the details that are associated to the number being listed.   

3. Product already exists.  Sometimes sellers will see an error message saying that the product you have listed may already be in the Amazon catalog. Sellers should check to see if the product already exists with the same details–this is what causes Amazon to flag this as an error. Their systems maintain one product page per product and remove duplicates, also in an effort to reduce the instances of product listing hijacking.

Common Mistakes podcast Season 2 Episode 9  

Kim Salzer, partner and CMO at Chief Outsiders, meets with Laura and Todd to discuss the common mistakes she has seen throughout her helping consumer brands navigate the worlds of omni-channel or DTC in today's "phygital" world. Kim discusses the importance of Martech (marketing tech) stacks, how to break down internal silos, the key to building a strong marketing team, why consumer brands are getting involved with NFTs and the metaverse, and much more!  

More About Our Guest: Kim Salzer is an outsourced, fractional Chief Marketing Officer who helps clients ignite their Growth Engines through Insight, Strategy and Execution. Kim loves to help consumer brands navigate the worlds of omni-channel or DTC in today's "phygital" world. Kim works with CEOs in consumer technology, e-commerce, consumer goods, ed tech, health and wellness, and interactive entertainment in building strong brands, focusing on demand creation to drive profit through great products, creating desire, acquiring users, building teams and driving innovation.  

Connect with Kim... 

LinkedIn: @kimberlysalzer, @chiefoutsiders 

Twitter: @kasalzer 

URL: www.chiefoutsiders.com  

Connect with Laura and Todd at Envision Horizons... Visit www.envisionhorizons.com for support selling on Amazon.  

myHorizons is automating Amazon brand management. Sign up today for 75% off your first 90 days with the code COMMONMISTAKES. https://www.envisionhorizons.com/myhorizons     

Concepts discussed in this episode of Common Mistakes:  

A Martech Stack (or Marketing Technology Stack) is essentially a cluster of technology-based tools that digital marketers use to efficiently perform marketing activities, across various digital channels. Martech stacks often vary from business to business depending on both the size of the business and their priorities.  

Phygital marketing is a blended customer experience where digital applications relate to the physical world and actual space of the customer journey. Most often, phygital experiences are immersive, interactive real-time experiences that offer immediate transactions and/or engagement.  

The metaverse refers to both current and future integrated digital platforms focused on virtual and augmented reality. It is widely hyped as the internet's next frontier and seen as a significant business and financial opportunity for the tech industry and other sectors.

This week on the Common Mistakes Podcast, we're speaking with Michael Erickson Facchin, CEO of Ad Badger. Todd Piechowski and Laura Meyer meet with Michael to discuss the common Amazon advertising mistakes he has experienced and seen. Michael discusses Amazon PPC management, advertising budgets, Sponsored Display vs DSP spend on branded vs non-branded keywords, and much more!  

Ad Badger Website: https://www.adbadger.com/

Connect with Michael on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-erickson-facchin-b7314866/

Follow Ad Badger on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/adbadger/ 

Envision Horizons Website: www.envisionhorizons.com 

Follow Envision Horizons on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/envision-horizons/

Connect with Laura on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauracatherinemeyer/

More About Our Guest:  Michael Erickson Facchin guides Amazon Marketers and Entrepreneurs with the tools, know-how, and feedback they need to scale Amazon PPC Advertising campaigns.  Michael and his team at Ad Badger are dedicated to creating the best Amazon PPC software and resources for Amazon sellers and PPC agencies. With Ad Badger, users save time, save money, and boost revenues and profits.   

Michael's weekly podcast, The PPC Den, focuses on the fundamentals of Amazon PPC, and includes commentary and insight on the evolving world of “What’s Working Now in Amazon Advertising”. https://www.adbadger.com/amazon-advertising-ppc-den-podcast/