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How do you buy or sell an Amazon business? Today we talk to an expert broker who will shed light on this question. Mark Daoust, Founder and CEO of Quiet Light Brokerage sits down with us to talk about strategy.

• How do you buy an Amazon business?
  • Type of car? Budget? 
• Buy business with weakness where you have strength
• Why buy a business instead of build one?
  • Buy then build - book.
• Most important thing to avoid or mistake to avoid when buying a business?
  • Product protection, intellectual property is super important. 
• Background of Quiet Light Brokerage.
  • 70-mil in transactions average about 1 mil per deal.
• Maturity phase - sophisticated sellers buying other businesses. 
• When selling business in next 12 months, what is the prep work?
  • 4 pillars of value
    • Risk
      • IP protection
      • Sku diversity
      • Marketplace diversity
    • Growth
      • How to go from 1 mil to 5 mil
      • Reasonable ways to growth.
    • Transfer-ability
      • Etsy hard to transfer
      • Vendors may not work with someone else. 
      • Licensing issues?
    • Documentation
      • Documentation is the largest impact. 
        • Financials - Recorded accrual highly valuable. 
          • Switches value of business hundreds of thousands of dollars. 
• Mistakes to avoid
• Reasons why you should sell
  • Feather in the cap - I sold a business
  • If selling just for financials, don’t do it.
    • Lower end of spectrum - want one payday.
• Build to hold
  • If you’re able to sell it, it’s because someone wants to buy it to hold.
• Get an evaluation - 2.5-3.5 close variation of EBITA
• What will buyers get excited about? Object to?
  • Are buyers excited about niche but too specific into a couple of skus vs diversified
• Prep
  • Get all information that buyers want. 
    • Answer buyers questions before they ask them.
    • Sell into the objections
• Average time on market: 90 days
• 200 inquiries per business. Several conference calls. Offers. 
• 30-60 days of due diligence. Hopefully then close.
• Broker adds value 
  • Prep
  • Navigate transaction
  • Stressful.
• If you have an offer just take it, don’t use a broker.

Find out more about Quiet Light Brokerage at https://www.quietlightbrokerage.com/

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Recovering Physical Therapist Mike Zagare, who likes to be introduced as the "Creative Guy" from PPC Entourage, talks PPC and Advertising strategy on Amazon. 

Margins
Margins impact profitability.
Scale good campaigns.

Why higher ACOS could be good.

How do you get a higher conversion rate on ppc?

Find keywords that are not converting.
6-7% conversion under performing
Drags down overall performance of overall account.

9-10% is good conversion rate.

Click fraud
CTR spikes. 10x rate spike. Coupled with low conversion rate.
Hurts organic placement. 
Open a case for investigation.
Can give you back money.

Data
More data you look at, 
Top of search converts higher. 
Search  detail pages.
Dynamic up and down or dynamic down or fixed.
Top of search bid modifier

Breakout campaign
Which keywords do we want at top of search.
ASIN Breakout campaigns
Competitive asin targeting, show up on their detail page. 
Need 10 or more orders.

Creative strategy
Display ads product targeting - under valued.
Some categories targeting working well, we didn’t predict this.
Placement of ad is amazing!
Shows coupon
High clicks - high conversion

Changes coming
Mike wants see more DSP options
Wish list - search term report on brand headline ads. Wealth of knowledge. 
Sponsored brand video ads are epic.
External traffic coming
Retargeting

Human Vs robots
Healthy combination of the 2.
Strategy and creative - humans
Rule based software - robots

True ACOS 10-12% target.

Tying in all advertising types into customer buyers.

Fine Mike at
https://ppcentourage.com/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/ppcentourage/


Get Amazon Consulting at https://myamazonguy.com/

#PPC #ads #AMS #amazonseller

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Starting a business is daunting. I speak with Dan Pope, a meteorologist, who has 40 years of Television weather experience (He's my dad) and we talk about how we started a business in less than 72 hours and soft launched it. 

Checklist on what to do to get your business up (These are my actual notes that we followed, create a Google sheet and put everything you do in one place.):
Registered business federal, write ein tab 2. recommend S Corp or LLC. do not put inc or LLC on official business name. use same name for state and federal filing.  

Buy Domain

Register business state, write registration info tab 2

Register business bank account.

Register for business credit card. Put all expenses here. Recommend capital one

Post digital contents of your weather book in return for email address on subscription page. (For you non-weather readers, put up your content that shows your expertise)

Create Updated BIO on google doc

Write social media post, linked/facebook with your business plan, ask for anyone who needs weather consulting.

Review weather consulting competition

Signup for zoom. 

Signup for calendly

Select 3 business services. 

Add contact form

Load videos of your cool weather stories

Build about me page with your TV background and past consulting

Homepage should be a video and top services and summarized credentials

Register PayPal
Connect PayPal to calendly
Add calendly page to 1 hour consulting call page.
Integrate calendly to your Gmail calendar

Put all logins tab 2

Get video testimonials from 3 people who can tout your weather experience. ideal if they hired your consulting.

Register your service on a dozen service sites and directories

Register Google analytics, add pixel to word press

Register Google web master

Open QuickBooks account. do not give to mom. do it yourself. connect credit card and bank. monthly sync expenses. create auto rules to categorize expenses 

Register DocuSign. use free version to sign stuff

Create one page draft agreement for consulting retainer. write hours expire if not used within 6 months. 

Sign up for jot form free version. use for your 2 service pages (not the consulting hour(

Signup buzzsprout. register podcast with Google apple etc. create daily podcast

Update your YouTube channel. switch name to business. link to business website. add 3 hashtags to all videos. Post daily video

Register Google voice number. put on website. forward to your phone during business hours.

Update all social media. LinkedIn. Twitter. Facebook. Instagram. pushing business. make daily posts.

After you get to $4000 monthly income hire assistant. Their job is to organize you

File Trademark https://myamazonguy.com/trademark-services/

Setup gsuite, make email

Build website

Create Google doc and write down a never ending note list of ideas. as they pop into head. 

Use QuickBooks for invoicing. or Harvest

Cold email 100 law firms offering your weather expertise for cases
personally call 20 lawyers you know pitch them your legal services
service page for in person weather testimony. 

Review onet

Review Ask the Public

Make it easy to understand what Dan Pope does, easy to know when you've done a good job, easy to refer. Simplify it to this level for business model.

Read Microfamous

How many clients do we need? 

Service page: Train other meteorologist Coaching

Service page wedding day forecast 

Created "Weatherman on Demand" for Instagram, Twitter and Facebook

---End checklist
Get Amazon Consulting at https://myamazonguy.com/

#Entrepreneur #startabusiness #howtostartabusiness

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How can you beat the competition through bundling or kitting. Kristin Ostrander, creator of MommyIncome.com and host of the Amazon Files podcast.

1. Why should we bundle?
   1. Race to the bottom is avoided. 
2. How do you bundle?
   1. Frequently bought together
3. How can you beat the competition through bundling?
   1. Bundling myth - have to lower price
   2. Hangry kits
4. Mommy Income kitting
   1. 200 skus
   2. 1 year product life cycle
   3. Created over 1000 bundles
5. Mistakes have you learned from?
   1. Just because you think it’s cute, doesn’t meant it will sell
   2. Research is everything
   3. Hands off inventory. Use 3PL doing kitting. Prep center.
   4. Can’t just duplicate another kit with different logo
6. Does bundling keep away hijackers?
   1. Only if branded
7. Virtual bundling
   1. Doesn’t have any cost savings.
   2. Customer experience - items shipped separately.
8. If you think about your customer and how to serve them, you will succeed.
9. What’s the last book you read. 
   1. Daily Devotional for Entrepreneurs: Your Season to Grow 
10. Big prediction
    1. Brand registry required

Learn more about Kristin Ostarnder at http://mommyincome.com/system 

Kristin Ostrander is an author as well: Big Dream Step Small 

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Have you ever wanted to write a book or sell books on Amazon? This is the podcast for you. Today we talk to a visionary who knows how to help you reach the coveted title of "#1 Best Seller on Amazon."

Ellen Violette is an award-winning book and business coach, multiple #1 bestselling author, podcast host, CEO of Create A Splash and a Grammy-nominated songwriter.

Her first piece of advice: Giving books away for free is NOT a mistake. Especially if you give away E-books.

You need to convey to the consumer what makes your book valuable. What does your book have to offer, what makes it unique? Include this somewhere in the title or subtitle.

Just getting started? What are the keywords that will bring people to find your book? This is what moves business forward. Do market research with your target market, a minimum of 10 people, to figure out the search terms that would connect them to your book. 

An E-book giveaway may work for your business model. People want value before they pay you, this can help you build your brand. E-books can be a low cost-high value proposition. You can give E-books away to reach #1 status. The general public is usually impressed by “#1 best seller." Those in the know may not care much about the title, but it can open the doors to amazing opportunities.

Can books make a profit on Amazon? Selling books on Amazon can help you accelerate success. Ellen's books have all reached top #1 best sellers. Books open doors for you and your personal brand. You are never too old to write a book. Things happen when you write books.

What mistakes did you learn on your journey? When Ellen first started, people were not exactly telling the truth about passive income; they claimed writers were going to be on the beach making an automated income which was misleading. The money is really in the coaching, teaching what’s in the book.

If there's something you don't know how to do, hire people to fill in the gaps. Know whether you are the creative person or the business person and what is going to work for you. If you don't listen to your inner guide, it can be a struggle. Also, sometimes things happen that are outside of your control like the recession of 2008.

Book to read: Traffic Secrets: The Underground Playbook for Filling Your Websites and Funnels with Your Dream Customers by Russell Brunson

Ellen Violette helps busy creative visionaries, leaders and changemakers, write, publish, launch to #1 bestseller, and market their book to get more clients, make more money, make a bigger impact, and leave a lasting legacy.

Contact info:
www.booksopendoors.com
www.booksbusinessabundance.com/podcast 

#BookSelling #Author #amazonselling #amazonseller #amazonfba  

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Amazon in person meetings tend to be a lot power points and hot air. After they show you some cool looking charts but meaningless fluff... They will likely put the onus on you to help yourselves and ask for lower prices. Spend more on ads. That kind of thing.

If you press them to ask what they will do for you I would be surprised to hear you come out of this meeting with anything substantive. They don't even have power to put you into an email promotion. 

All the ads we have access to now used to be gated and handed out sections like display. That's what they used to be able to give you for meeting up. These days I've not seen a single benefit. I hope you do come out with something though!

Get Amazon Consulting at https://myamazonguy.com/

#amazonselling #amazonseller #amazonfba

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You’re building a business. But why? Is it to flip it and sell it later? Or are you building to hold it forever? For some of you - you’re building an Amazon business to become an entrepreneur and not work for “The Man.” Whatever your reason, this will be an authentic reveal of my personal journey on this question as a Founder and sole owner of the My Amazon Guy agency. My name is Steven Pope and this is the My Amazon Guy podcast.

I’ve been approached by 3 organizations who were interested in buying my agency. None of these inquiries got serious. But it forced a major transformation in me personally. For starters If I was going to sell My Amazon Guy, how much would I sell it for? How much is my company currently worth? Do I want out or do I want to run my agency for the rest of my life? It turns out most of the organizations looking to buy me just wanted a cheap acquisition. They weren’t interested in what our team had built. They just wanted to acquire more clients, take our knowledge, but offer limited value in exchange for it. 

In the past month I’ve consumed dozens of hours of Gary Vee. I really respect this man. I love his message. I dislike his delivery - I wish he could stop with the F bombs so I can play his videos in front of my wife and kids without cringing. But he’s authentic. 

When Gary Vee was first starting his agency he got some advice. That his average tenured employee would work for him for 18-24 months. He was thinking to himself, maybe at YOUR agency they stay 18-24 months. But at MY agency they are going to stay 5 years. 10 years. Maybe even 15 years. This interaction blew me away. In 2 years of owning My Amazon Guy, I had never once considered that anyone was going to work for me this long. I’ll tell you why. No company I’ve ever worked for asked me to do it. No company I’ve ever worked for asked what it would take to get me to stay for 5 years let alone 2.

I worked for so many failed startups. 4 jobs in a row I worked for a company and my boss quit within the first 3 months. Like no joke guys, that’s how lucky I was. I turned that split suit 2/7 hand (Texas Hold’em reference) and I found two pair on the flop or by the river. 

I found my resolution recently. I am building my agency to hold it. And for the first time I’m trying to figure out how to truly invest in my people.

• I onboarded Wonderlic Won score to test candidates.
• Gave all employees a DISC profile test. And came up with a semi scientific profile of who I want to hire DISC wise.
• I took the Culture Index and just this week gave all my staff the same survey.

I have started to ask my employees for the first time. What would it take to get you to stay 5, 10, 15 years? They don’t have an answer yet. And nor do I. We don’t know what we don’t know. 

I can’t tell you how often I feel like I am “faking it until I make it.” I run a wildly successful agency. What we do works. We are literally helping 70+ clients grow sales on Amazon each month. And the feedback we get is overwhelmingly positive. Leads are coming in quickly. And I can honestly look them in the face and say “We grow sales. It works. Here’s how we do it. Here’s some free advice on our first 15 minute call to grow your sales whether you hire me or not. And I have 300 tutorial videos on YouTube explaining how to tackle hundreds of problems nobody else is even speaking about.” Can you find that anywhere else? No you can’t.

Fishy Fishy Fishy. My 1 year old daughter's first non parental word made me cry last night.

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The Good Better Best product strategy helps improve conversion rates, traffic, margins, and more. It's a core ecommerce strategy - Steven Pope.

How Marcus Lemonis Saved a Dying Business From Its Feuding FoundersHere's how the host of CNBC's The Profit, got failing drums company SJC back in the black
" Diversify the product line. Instead of making custom drums that only a certain group of consumers could afford, Lemonis implemented a good-better-best product line with three price points: $895, $1,700 and $6,000. "We know the product you make today is awesome, but we're leaving a segment of the market to fend for themselves," Lemonis said during the episode."
https://www.inc.com/graham-winfrey/how-marcus-lemonis-saved-a-dying-business-from-its-feuding-founders.html

"Capitalizing on G-B-B

G-B-B’s benefits come from three approaches: offensive plays aimed at generating new growth and revenue, defensive plays meant to counter or forestall moves by competitors, and behavioral plays that draw on principles of consumer psychology, whatever the competitive landscape.

Going on the offensive.

Offensive plays can help brands grow revenue in at least four ways. First, companies can dramatically lift margins by creating a high-end Best version that persuades existing customers to spend more or attracts a new cohort of high spenders. In my work with companies, managers consistently underestimate customers’ willingness to spend and the number of customers who might upgrade to Best, even at prices that were previously unthinkable. Across a range of industries, it’s not unusual to observe up to 40% of sales landing on the Best option."
https://hbr.org/2018/09/the-good-better-best-approach-to-pricing#:~:text=A%20multitiered%20offering%20can%20use,by%20customers%20who%20want%20more.

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There’s a battle between Digital native brands and national retailers with brick and mortar presence. And while there’s room for both to sell on the platform, today we will look at how both digital native brands and brick & mortar brands need to compete with each other, and where their weaknesses and strengths lie. 

I’m now joined by James Thomson, Buy Box Experts & PROSPER Show Founder, as well as author of The Amazon Marketplace Dilemma. It’s a pleasure to have you on the show, thanks for joining me.

• For my listeners today whether you’re a digital brand or brick and mortar, there’s going to be some good information. James - you have a Ph.D. in Marketing, so I’m excited to tap into your knowledge and skillset on our podcast today. 
• Let’s first define what a digital native brand is vs a brick and mortar, James how you would you define it?
  • Eating your lunch. Market place pressures 
• What do digital native brands need to do today to compete?
• B2B B2C
  • Costco vs Kroger
• What do brick and mortar brands struggle with?
  • UNFI for retail
  • Tight control over branding/distribution/pricing
    • Fallout - 
• What do digital native brands struggle with? 
  • Don’t setup proper infrastructure
    • Buy a batch of stuff.
  • Lay of the land
    • How deep is the lake, pollution?
  • No ™, no GS1, patent. Other countries ™. 
  • Sell a batch of widgets. 
• Nobody talks in business school about sourcing
  • Distributor could sell product list.
  • Agreement - 
  • Incentive to buying discount for larger quantities. 
  • How do you track. - Transparency program
• Product development
• ™ Resource - International IP attorney
• Online reseller policies 
  • MAP policy 
• Unauthorized resellers. 
• Are there areas private labelers have surpassed national retailers?
• Culture - top down
  • Sell sell sell to sell sell protect
  • Who is going to represent the brand?
  • Punish/fire the bad actors - even if known for 20 years. 
• How long does this shift take?
  • 6-12 months
• Source root problem solving, no bandaid.
  • First sale doctrine
  • ™ violation issues don’t work
  • Levels of chaos.
• Other than COVID What’s different today than say 12 months ago? 
  • States collecting sales tax across country.
  • 3% compliance a few years ago. Compliance at a all time high.
• Protect IP, brand.
• You made a recent comment about Amazon’s culture and it was quoted in the Washinton Business Journal, quote: “Part of Amazon’s culture is to beg, borrow and steal resources from other teams because you’ve not been allocated those yourself. You’ve got to have meetings to convince others to be involved with your project.” - I’ve personally always felt like Amazon was a silo’d organization running around with its head cut off. Can you weigh in further on Amazon’s culture and future as an organization?
  • Amazon hire Type A personality, responsible very specific things and go fast.
  • Test ideas. Prove they work. Then go the resources to scale.
  • Amazon corporate staff tripled since 2013.
  • Collection billion dollar companies under one company name.
  • Gaps occur. - Necessary evil. Growing so quickly so fast.

Get Amazon consulting at www.myamazonguy.com

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Selling internationally can feel overwhelming. Today we talk to an Amazon expert who will help you simplify the process to expand your business to other countries. Kevin Sanderson, host of the Maximizing Ecommerce podcast and a successful Amazon seller. Kevin is fresh off his PPC summit where he gathered some of the top PPC experts and if you didn’t participate in that I recommend my listeners check it out at maximizingecommerce.com/steven for PPC. There’s a special offer for $97 to get all the videos from the summit.

• So before we talk international, what’s on your mind this week?
• Is now a good time to go international?
  • Yes - Kevin UK sales surpassed the USA for short time.
• How big should you be in the USA before you go international?
  • Small - function of money in and money out.
  • Focus Canada first
• Going to our podcast topic today, how do sellers get started and scale international markets for Amazon?
  • Register with national government 
    • GST / HST
      • GST = VAT LIKE
    • Sales tax added on
    • Covers all provinces
    • File annually
• Stuck on Pesticides gating? Answer key here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRbsQvqV3t0
• NARF - remote fulfillment
  • Send FBA USA inventory to Canada/Mexico https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2GNJAl2XdA
• Taxes
• Customs
• VAT
  • VAT resources https://services.amazon.co.uk/services/vat-resources.html
• Which markets should be prioritized and why?
  • Canada
  • UK
  • Germany
  • Rest of Europe
  • Australia
  • Japan
  • Singapore
• Selling business - Seller Net Profit 3x
  • Example: 
    • 100k USA net profit
    • 10k Canada
  • The 3x goes to 3.1 multiple because of diversity
  • First year 6.5% 

Full guide for getting started on international http://maximizingecommerce.com/mag with a special offer from Kevin Sanderson.

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