As entrepreneurs, we continually seek out ways to improve our operations to expand our brand and business. A large factor in making this achievable is to set up stable and trustworthy teams whose goal is to bridge to the overarching company goals. In this week's episode, we have an incredible guest, Yury Gurevich, COO at Elevate Brands. We have an insightful talk about the importance of having a solid operational team to maximize brands' post-acquisition potential. He also shares his obsession with data and the significance of being analytical when it comes to decision-making. Pay close attention to his leadership journey and what he brought along from his 10-year venture at Amazon. Listen and enjoy!

Yury is a senior executive who recently join Elevate Brands as their Chief Operating Officer with over 10 years of sr leadership experience in the 3P marketplace at Amazon where he built, scaled, and led several large organizations. He will oversee the global expansion of brands, leveraging a data and process-driven approach. His goal will be to execute on the company's vision, which is to exceed the expectations of our customers everywhere.

[00:01 - 10:57] Get into the Amazon Space

• Yury's journey getting to Amazon
• • Working on eCommerce 3PL
  • Recruiting businesses to sell on Amazon
  • Starting recruiting automotive sellers
  • • Beginning an inbound team
• Skills sets Yury has brought to Elevate from the 10-year venture at Amazon
• • Operational rigor is driven by orientation on data

[10:58 - 22:57] Make Integration Easier Through Organic Growth

• Elevate's obsession with brands and operations
• • Consider the five whys
• When brand managers are plugged into the acquisition process
• Yury's insights about SOPs
• • Make sure that we have a high investment in our tech and analytics organization
  • Make sure updates are incredibly data-driven
  • • Audit and track are key
• Processes sellers can put in place that will make integration easier
• • Ensure that your data and operations show organic growth

[22:58 - 37:11] How Teams Should Integrate and Work Together

• Learnings Yury credit to Amazon regarding brands and teams
• • Have goals be the forcing function of how teams are supposed to integrate
• How to communicate with the team staying on the macro level vs the micro level
• • Have weekly, monthly, and quarterly business reviews
  • • The way that analytics is structured is critical
• Yury's outlook on Amazon seeing the growth of sellers and private level brands
• • Go from bringing on existing businesses to people starting and growing their business on Amazon
• Amazon's perspective of the aggregator space

[37:12 - 39:13] Closing Segment

• Yury on the four rapid-fire questions
• Book a strategy session, drop your questions and comments on https://letstalkexits.com

Key Quotes:

"Standardization is the best way to either make something super great or have it failed miserably." - Yury Gurevich

"If [teams] goals don't bridge to the overarching company goal, there's a defect somewhere" - Yury Gurevich

"You can have all the data in the world, but if it's not visualized, and structured in the proper way, it's just noise." - Yury Gurevich

Connect with Yury

https://www.elevatebrands.com/

Yury Gurevich (LinkedIn)

Visit Let's Talk Exits and drop your questions and comments https://letstalkexits.com

Connect with Meny on LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/menyhoffman

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