Joe Zalta is the Co-founder of Riverbend Consulting. He runs a team of consultants who work with many of the top 1000 Amazon sellers as well as smaller sellers to help them prevent and resolve account suspensions and get ahead of potential issues. Their team is made up of ex-Amazon seller performance managers and other people who have worked at Amazon and they work hand in hand with sellers to find solutions to Amazon’s ever changing policies. 

Joe is an expert and has run successful businesses in multiple industries including e-commerce and wholesale/manufacturing. Prior to Riverbend Consulting, he was the President of Parish Kids and Parish Nation, and he was a National Sales Manager at Oved Apparel.

When Amazon sends a notification to sellers that their listings have been taken down, most of them don't know where to start in the appeal process. This tends to be a high level issue and for the sellers that try to resolve the problem on their own, they’re hit with roadblocks that make them realize that they need professional help to fix the problem.

Joe Zalta's team at Riverbend Consulting comes into the picture the moment the notification is received. They help resolve account suspension issues and work with Amazon sellers to ensure that such issues are resolved as fast as possible and how they can avoid encountering these issues in the future. 

In this episode of Buy Box Experts, Joe Zalta is interviewed by Eric Stopper about how the work Riverbend Consulting does for Amazon sellers. Tune in as he shares some of the best tips to avoid suspension issues, how to optimize product instructions and photos on Amazon, how to avoid variations abuse on the platform, and find out how to discover the next big thing to sell on Amazon for you to become the best entrepreneur you can be this 2020.

Bobby Figueroa is the Founder & CEO of Gradient.io, an intelligent insights platform for Amazon that helps brands understand and optimize their digital point of sale presence. Bobby has over 20 years of experience building technology for digital marketing and e-commerce platforms at Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo.

Prior to Gradient.io, Bobby led Amazon's Global Advertising Operations and Customer Success team, and he has also worked at P&G where he started his professional career as a brand manager. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Electronics and Telecommunications from Tecnologico de Monterrey and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Although there has been a steady growth in e-commerce over the last couple of years, sales attributed to e-commerce still represent less than 10% of total sales in the economy. This is mainly because many brands that have already grown their business offline look at e-commerce marketplaces as a very small portion of their business. Compare that with startup brands who have yet to develop their sales through traditional channels. Startups focus on ecommerce and they rake in 90% of their sales from online sales.

This difference in the approach and perspective on e-commerce and its scope highlights the need for companies, both established and startups, to bridge the gap between traditional sales and online marketplaces in order to maximize their reach and their business revenue.

Join James Thomson in this episode of Buy Box Experts as he interviews Bobby Figueroa of Gradient.io about the best practices for brands to utilize online advertising and data insights in order to grow their businesses. He also explains what 'point of purchase marketing' means and the impact of using paid search vs organic search; and find out what it’s like to be part of the early team that built the Amazon advertising platform. Stay tuned. 

Eric Kooymans is the Founder of Harnessing Strengths, a website design and e-commerce marketing agency that helps brands to get online. He has over 15 years of experience in helping brands with e-commerce development, search engine optimization, paid search marketing, inbound marketing, influencer marketing, email marketing, and lead generation for B2C, B2B, and B2M industries. 

Prior to founding Harnessing Strengths, Eric worked at various agencies and brands perfecting his perspective on what brands need to do to be successful online.

When brands are in the market for agencies to help them establish an online presence, many of them opt for the first one who promises them a website. They fail to look at how that agency will promote their brand and how this agency can create traffic that will help their sales grow. And according to Eric Kooymans, finding the agency who will take the time to get to know your target clients and build a roadmap for you, is the key to making your business grow.

In this episode of Buy Box Experts, James Thompson interviews Eric Kooymans about what scalability and efficiency means for businesses going online, the most common mistakes brands make when selecting marketing agencies to work with, how brick and mortar brands can use their knowledge in offline selling online, and the five things brands need to do in order to effectively grow their business. Stay tuned.

Caitlin Strandberg is a Principal at Lerer Hippeau, an early stage venture capital firm in New York City that invests in consumer products and service brands, as well as in B2B Enterprise market companies. Prior to Lerer Hippeau, Caitlin worked for a number of early stage companies as well as other venture capital firms that invested in brands at various stages of their entrepreneurial journey. 

In 2017, Caitlyn was included in the exclusive Forbes 30 Under 30 list for the venture capital industry. She is a graduate of Cornell University, where she majored in History, and she also holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. 

For early stage entrepreneurs, it is important for them to think carefully about the decisions they make when it comes to finding venture capital investors. They have to think about how much equity and control they're willing to hand over and whether their target market and projections are achievable; this also holds true once they start toying with the idea of joining Amazon. But the problem is, a majority of them have difficulty in evaluating these key areas in their business which is where companies like Lerer Hippeau come in -- to help them increase their success rate ten-fold.

Caitlin Strandberg of Lerer Hippeau is an expert in venture capital investing and she is interviewed by James Thomson from the Buy Box Experts team about how early stage brands should be thinking about opportunities to get investment while maintaining control of their company,the most common mistakes entrepreneurs make when looking for investors, things to consider before joining the Amazon marketplace, Caitlin's criteria for selecting the right brands to invest in, and more. Stay tuned.

Blake Modersitzki is the Managing Partner at Pelion Venture Partners, a venture capital firm based in Salt Lake City, Utah. The company has a very cool portfolio of tech companies including Cloudflare, Neighbor, Riverbed, and Owlet. Blake is a hardworking farm kid from Idaho who has been investing in early-stage tech startups since 1996. He joined Pelion in 2002 and has led investments in companies such as Redhat, Riverbed, Fusion.io, Integral Ad Science, DOMO, eCommerce, Soasta, and Metacloud.

Blake is an economist and a finance expert. He has a B.A. in Economics from Brigham Young University.

Is your tech product disruptive enough to shake the tech industry? Many entrepreneurs go through the process of designing, creating, and innovating new products but not many make it to a pitch, few get it to actually launch, and those that actually break the market come are considered as gems: rare and utterly irresistible.

The key is to find a product niche that actually serves a purpose and finding a venture capital firm who not only sees your vision but has the desire to see it come to fruition. According to Blake Moderitzki of Pelion Venture Partners, the best way to entice a VC firm into an investment is by walking through the process, embracing the company’s story in the pitch, and making sure you have a product that can truly stand out in the crowd.

Join Eric Stopper as he interviews Blake Modersitzki on this episode of Buy Box Experts about the companies his firm has invested in and how innovators can create disruptive software products that can wow a VC firm. They will also be discussing how to use data in the creative process of your product, the Amazon ecosystem’s capacity to create disruptive products, and the value of being able to justify your pitch. Stay tuned.

Spencer Arntsen is an entrepreneur and the Co-founder and Chief Growth Officer of BuyItLive, a social commerce platform that allows customers to buy directly from social media posts using only the comments section. He has an impressive background and was the Director of Product Strategy and Business Development at Craft. 

Spencer is currently working on a new project called Shopathon, a platform that allows service providers like massage therapists and chiropractors to monetize their product recommendations for their clientele. He holds a degree in Sociology and an MBA in Strategy and Entrepreneurship from Brigham Young University.

In this episode...

Many service providers would love to be able to recommend the best products to their clients because it adds value to the service providers’ businesses. Not only that, it also makes it easier for the clients to get what they need from a trusted source. An added bonus for the service provider is that referring products can generate extra income for their business, and for Spencer Arnsten, that’s a win-win no matter how you look at it and that’s why he created Shopathon.

Join Eric Stopper in this episode of The Buy Box Experts Podcast where he talks to Shopathon founder Spencer Arntsen about why he created this platform for service providers, what it does, why it’s beneficial for them, how it compares to Amazon’s affiliate partnership program, and how they can maximize the services that this platform provides. Stay tuned.

Elizabeth Grojean is the Founder and CEO of Baloo Living, a company that sells eco-friendly luxury weighted blankets. She started the company while living abroad in Bali and grew it to over six figures in under three months. She is an expert marketer and entrepreneur who has worked in some incredible businesses. 

Prior to founding Baloo Living, Elizabeth was the Project Manager of the Scholastic Reading Club and General Manager of Egg in the Hole Productions. She holds a degree in Marketing from The University of Texas.

Amazon is a great channel for e-commerce enthusiasts although some of them are not always immediately sure of what products to sell. They have a great desire to be entrepreneurs and set up an online store but have no idea where to start. In such cases, being innovative becomes crucial and one way is to recreate or add value to an existing product.

While vacationing in Bali, Elizabeth had a great business idea of selling weighted blankets. She flew to China to get stock & started selling on Amazon. Her marketing background helped her create stunning listings and she made over $20,000 in her first month. Thus Baloo Living was born.

Elizabeth Grojean runs a holistic wellness self-care company. She is interviewed by Eric Stopper about selling her flagship product, weighted blankets, her new products like the Sleep Stone Mask, her secret recipe for running a successful e-commerce business, and how she differentiates herself from her lower-priced competitors.

Adam Mirabella is the Founder of Mirabella Leadership Advisors. He is an 18-year music industry veteran, having led the digital revolution from inside formidable companies like Warner Music, Sony Music, Omnicom, and Nokia. 

Adam is an experienced leader and certified executive coach and trainer. He specializes in helping executive leaders galvanize their teams into focused consumer-minded, winning organizations that build the fan-artists relationship and grow market share revenue and profit.

Many large companies including Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook use executive coaches to work with their top leaders to help build and improve their leadership skills. Similarly, startups and growing brands looking to grow their businesses have come to see the importance of zeroing in on the right people to hold leadership roles within their company if they want to move their business forward.

So how do you determine if it’s the right time to bring in an executive coach to help bring your team together? And how exactly can this executive coach help not just bring the team together but help determine which individuals are ready to take on that leadership role?

Join Eric Stopper as he interviews Adam Mirabella of Mirabella Leadership Advisors about business coaching, the characteristics of a winning leader, what “building a connective tissue” within the organization means, and how getting the right people promoted can mean greater heights reached for your business. Stay tuned.

Jon Cheney is the Founder and CEO of Seek, a customer experience company with a flagship product that does web-based augmented reality product visualization. It is a tool that allows customers to view their products in the natural environment around them through their smartphones. 

In his early years, Jon ran his own DJ business, a kayaking school, and put in his time as a door-to-door salesman. He also served in several management positions over the past 12 years before starting Seek in 2016.

Advancements in technology have brought about many changes in how brands manage and operate their online stores as well as how consumers shop online. Augmented reality allows consumers to see the products they intend to buy in their homes through their phones before they actually buy them. This means they can view and test out the product’s features to find out if it truly meets their expectations and needs.

Jon Cheney, Founder of Seek, says that retail stores that have embraced this technology have reported increased conversion rates and reduced their return rates. In addition, smaller retail stores are better placed for competition with the giant retailers who are yet to adapt augmented reality. It’s a game-changer in retail and the sooner people get on board, the better it will be for everyone.

Join Eric Stopper in this episode of the Buy Box Experts as he talks to Jon about the benefits of augmented reality in both online and retail stores, and what the future of retail will look like in the future as more businesses adapt to this technology. They also talk about how Seek makes 3D models, their plans to integrate with Amazon in 2020, and what it can do for education and the environment in the future. Stay tuned.

Scott Petersen is the Executive Director for The Rollins Center of Entrepreneurship and Technology at Brigham Young University (BYU). The center has been ranked in the top five for entrepreneurship by the Princeton Review for the past 10 years, and this past year, they ranked number 3. 

The Rollins Center has helped hundreds of students launch products and scale innovative ventures. Although they have found success with dozens of huge software companies that have sold for billions of dollars, Scott and his team have helped brands like Fuse, Myostorm, Owlet, FiberFix and others, some of which have got to the point where they're selling thousands of units per week. Scott is also a published author, an award-winning mentor, and a friend. 

According to Scott Petersen, building a company requires an entrepreneur to look at so many factors in order to get to his desired end result which is to have an established brand in a rapidly growing market. You have to look at sales, marketing, branding, administration, finance, and a whole bunch of other things to make sure that things are going as planned. And the one thing that business owners should never miss doing is to highlight what sets their product apart from others.

Scott Petersen of The Rollins Center of Entrepreneurship and Technology at BYU says that for a business to thrive and survive, it actually needs to get to know its competition, its market, and the things that make customers tick. Because catching customer interest is one thing, keeping them hooked is quite another.

Join Eric Stopper in this episode of the Buy Box Experts as he talks to Scott about how to run a successful business both on and off of Amazon, the strategy he used to to make his company grow to over $35 million in less than five years, how he manages customer feedback on Amazon, and how he validates whether a new business or idea or product is good enough for launch. Stay tuned.