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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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