Chris Keef from Expert University Presents Testimonials for Wholesale Product Mastery

Hello and welcome. My name is Chris Keef and I am the business partner of Todd Snively. I am the Chris in the often referred to Todd and Chris and if you're seeing this video, you are considering purchasing one of our training programs and for that I thank you.

Even the consideration of spending your hard earned dollars with us is a responsibility that we take very seriously. Now at this point you are probably asking a few questions. The right questions. Are these guys real people? Are these guys legitimate? Can they actually teach what they claim to be able to teach and have they successfully taught others how to become successful Amazon sellers? The answer is simple. Yes.

Your next logical question is probably okay, cool. Let's see some results. Let me talk to some of these people. So here's the issue with that idea. There are very specific rules governing testimonials and I can tell you that Todd and I are deeply bothered by most people in this space of make money online because virtually nobody follows these rules.

I believe that it is horribly disingenuous and paints the completely wrong picture for people. What you typically see is a number of screenshots of really big sales numbers. Those big numbers were, the charts are exciting. They fill you with hope. In one breath you'll see some guru next to his fancy car saying, this is absolutely not a get rich quick scheme hoping that you get the message that it kind of is. So just by the program and all of your wildest dreams will come true. Look, again, I've been there. I have spent far too much money on sketchy programs or training that was less than stellar. So what is the solution here? I'm not supposed to put a bunch of big numbers on a screen without providing some context. I absolutely understand the reason why someone shouldn't do that. One picture of our person that generated $1 million in revenue on Amazon last year tells me nothing.

All that does is trick the brain into thinking about how nice it would be to win a lottery. Kind of like that. Well, you don't get to ask as the tough questions, how long did it take to get there? What were the startup costs? What was the profit margin? Do they have other costs? Instead, I want to provide you with something more. I want to give you some assurance as well as an explanation and then a plan for you. So first, some assurance after my intro, you will see a few interviews with some of our members. They are going to tell you their whole story. They have created incredible Amazon businesses with the really big numbers, but these numbers are couched in the reality that the program we teach represents a real business that takes startup capital. It takes perseverance, it takes guts, and it takes time.

The entire idea of selling on Amazon is easy, right? You buy something $1 and you sell it for $2 you make some profit in between. At this point, there should be zero doubt about the success of Amazon as a company, nor should there be any question about the potential for becoming a third party seller on Amazon. Just do some quick research on your own. Look at the site market place, pulse independent researcher. Their research shows that over 200,000 sellers generated over $100,000 in annual revenue. 23,000 sellers have businesses over a million dollars. Those numbers speak for themselves, so the real question for you is who can show me the fastest and easiest way to get to this level? The how too is the key. What's the fastest way to get there? How can you shorten the time between being where you are now and where you want to go?

Is the person that I'm paying to train me actually well versed in the business, Todd and I believe that you align yourself with the best mentors and the best community possible to get where you want to go. We feel we've done exactly this after more than five years of refining and improving a training program that has helped thousands of people start and scale an Amazon business. We are extremely proud of the difference we've made in so many people's lives. I was able to finally leave the corporate grind by leveraging the power of Amazon. Todd has sold over $45 million in goods on Amazon since 2009 and has been selling online through other channels like eBay and eCommerce websites since 2002 we want nothing more than to help other people achieve that same goal. Now, what sets us apart from everyone else though, is the real talk.

This business model is simple, but it is not easy. It is you that needs to do the work and make that change. Our hope is that you trust us to lead you on that journey, so please enjoy the following videos. They are a bit long, but that is for good reason. These are not screenshots. They are a long form interview. It gives you context and background. We want you to achieve more, whatever more is time, money, independence, or even experience. Look, there's nothing wrong with paying money just to learn more, but also know that once you join us, the members area has over a dozen other interviews from members that tell their story of success, failure, and overcoming obstacles. The Facebook group has over a thousand members in. They're sharing information every day, asking questions, telling stories, motivating one another, commiserating and also shouting their success. So enjoy these testimonial videos. Thank you very much for your time and I really hope to see you on the inside.

All right, everybody welcome again, we're here talking to somebody new. Jeremiah Barnett. Jeremiah, thanks for joining us. Appreciate the time very much. Absolutely. Chris, you're a little, a little under the weather. Sorry about that. Yeah, it is what it is. It is January the yeah. Nature of the weather and, and uh, all of a scary viruses and things going around whenever you get a cold or a cough, everybody's, Oh no, that's terrible. So hopefully, hopefully you get well soon. Yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you. So I wanted to take a couple minutes and have a chat with you because I'm, as I mentioned, I'm the precursor here for the call prior to starting the recording. People ask the question, okay, I want to talk to somebody else or see someone that's gone through the program or hear their story. And that's always a hard one because I don't want to put that responsibility on someone to say, okay, Jeremiah, okay, got her.

Okay Josiah, whatever. Go, go talk to this person that that's unfair. So I wanted to do things where it's a recorded situation where someone can just share their story. You have a fantastic background, a fantastic back story that would resonate with a lot of people I think. And in situations that are very subjective, like, geez, would this work for me? Do I, would I like the idea of an Amazon business or I don't have that kind of background. That's so hard to answer. Right? So I'm trying to find that cross section of people that have come from different places and had good, a great success in the past, no success in the past, done purely nine to five thing and find that cross section. So if you don't mind, take a couple, take a couple of moment and share, share us with us, your, your background, kind of where you came from and then what you're, what you're doing now. Sure. So, um,

I have a bachelor's degree from the university of Tennessee and, uh, Spanish and world business. Um, but I spent most of my twenties taking care of my parents so I didn't get to take advantage of my degree. So I got into stuff where I thought I could make money. I sold insurance, was moderately successful at that $60,000. Um, high producer in Tennessee, uh, is about what I made at the time.

Mmm,

really good income for a single person who later got married in my later twenties. Um, but somewhere in there I invested in real estate and then my mid twenties was around 2008 and since 2008, I've just been struggling to make ends meet on top of adding a degree, which sounds really nice, but no experience in that. And insurance was going another direction and real estate was going in another direction. I had to find a way to make, um, additional money. Plus, my mindset has always been since my mid twenties. I need to get out of the rat race. Well, the rat race got even tougher because the wheel was spinning without me. Mmm. So I was looking for stuff how to make money online. I came across a, your program has various different names, but at the time came across it and it was, it seemed a little bit too easy and too good to be true.

Um, but it was explained really well in the, in the webinar that it's as simple as if you know how to find suppliers and you know where to look and you know, how to call suppliers. And if you're not good at that, you can hire somebody for cheap to go ahead and do that for you. And you can do some remedial math and no, what tools to use that you can create for yourself, a good income. And just for your listeners, you know, it's, it's not easy or it's not hard. It's not a lot of these things. It's more are you willing to put in what it takes even when life sucks. Um, cause I had a good job that I actually left at the time. I would, I got into software sales, which again, nothing my degree but trying to make ends meet and trying to make a big income. That's what I thought I would do. So, um, it does take a lot of money to run the Amazon uh, successfully. But if you get started and get going, eventually the money comes to you in a way that you're able to purchase the inventory and make more income. But the question is, is will people invest right now so that when the money does come, they have a system to uh, attract to run on. Cause first you got to build the infrastructure. It doesn't matter how much you have, whether it's 2000, 10,000 or a hundred thousand, you have to build the infrastructure.

So yeah, that's, I mean that's, that's Sage advice. So you're, I guess it's the hard part with anything with, with business ma, whether it's make money online. I, I don't, I get that expression and people ask that question. There's a lot of searches for that and YouTube and Google. But in the end it's, I think it's more in line with I want to start my own business or run my own business that nowadays I, I equate, I know the online business. Okay. I equate that though with whether you're running a subway sandwich franchise, whether you're starting a whatever business you're starting or in this case it's a business that's online. It sounds really big and [inaudible] and you know of this online business, an Amazon business really, and we joke about this, but it's buy something for a dollar and sell it for $2 in a retail kind of environment.

It's like back in the day, go back to the old wild West. You hang a shingle out there and you'd start a story. You start a a five and dime store, right? You buy stuff from a wholesaler, he put it on the shelf and you sell it to sell it to people and then they buy it. It's now just happens to be with Amazon. So that's the funny thing about, Oh, I want to start a business and makes it sound really crazy or difficult. Your point is, it's not difficult. It's not easy. It's, it is what it is, but it's a process to follow and you have to have a lot of mindset game like you did. I mean, you said yourself. Okay, you got to change your mindset a little bit. So let's roll this back somewhat. Let's, where are you at right now in your business? If you don't, if you don't mind sharing just just high level. Sure.

Um, here, I'll show you. Hold on. I am refreshing my screen. I don't know if you can see that.

Uh, can see that. Uh, yeah. Perfect. There you go. Right there is good. Holy smokes. 132. Okay, that's unbelievable.

That's payday on February 10th. Nicely done. We get paid every two weeks

are well, that's

awesome. That's really great. Now, Chris, it's not even about Amazon, you know, because you've also, uh, your program also promotes as soon as you can diversify e-commerce on Shopify, do, um, you know, whatever you want, do real estate, do stocks, doesn't really matter what Amazon is for me is a platform to springboard to the next thing. I'll never quit Amazon. Well, never say never. There are people, million dollar sellers who've done that, but it's, it's one very solid foundation that I can go and do the next thing so that God forbid Amazon ever fails. Now I've got something else to back up on.

Great advice. And, and I had mentioned that thing that compares to the wild West of five and dime store. You have to, before you can build an empire, before you can build 10 stores, you have to build the first store before you can make $1 million, you need to make a dollar. And Todd and I, Todd and I preach that constantly make your first dollar and to be clear your numbers, those numbers are staggering. And, and again, that's the story of, of one person. Just the fact that you know, uh, Jeremiah did it, does that mean everybody can do it? Well of course, we're not saying that that's not the case, but we're sharing a story of someone that was in a particular place where if you don't, I don't hate to, I hate to peel off scabs here, but w what was your situation you were trying to make ends meet since 2008? What was your situation five years ago, for example, versus [inaudible]?

Yeah. Um, August, 2016 I had a credit score of about 530 or something like that. My credit quote score improved by nature of just stuff falls off. And if you don't have money to pay your creditors, guess what? You just don't pay your creditors. That's, that's the sad reality of things. Mmm. So, um, I, I settled things through court. Um, some got dismissed and it was rough. I have four kids. Um, three years ago I had three kids, so, um, I got kids, um, for kids under the age of 10. The youngest one is two years old. Oldest one is line. Um, well, yeah, a lot. Yes. That's the understatement movie here. Yeah. Um, but, um, when my credit improved, I was like [inaudible] at the time I wasn't looking at Amazon. I started, by the way, the course started in January of 18. Um, I, um, burned all my bridges, uh, not bridges, but all my ships, um, in March and just went full bore.

Mmm. So, um, in 2018 but in 2016 I started developing my credit again, getting some credit cards, not knowing what I was going to do with them, but I, I, I've always had the mindset, you get credit not when you need it, but when you don't need it. No, at the time I was making ends meet so I didn't necessarily need it. Um, and when I started, I didn't start off with the greatest amount of success. I'd like to think that I did. I mean, I, I was making, there were dollars produced, but I was running in arrears. Um, it took me six or eight months to, um, get in debt, a $50,000 where I didn't really have debt.

Hmm.

Uh, cause it had all fallen off. Um, so the numbers that I showed you were, uh, whereas the result of less than two years worth of work and digging a deep hole for myself on top. So I still have debt, but the debt is under control and it's getting paid off at a really good clip. Um, I, I've, I believe in other people's resources and other people's money, so I don't know that I'll ever be out of debt. Uh, just I'm following Todd's advice and your advice with cashflow management. Um, it just needs to be under control.

Yeah, that made a conversation for another day. But I think that term debt gets thrown around a lot as being released. It's not a bad word. I mean, yeah, anyone that knows, knows it's kind of a business one-on-one thing. Leveraging other people's money is, there's nothing wrong with it. If you do it carefully, and if you do it smart, but back to the point of you were in a a, in 2016, you were in a particularly tough spot clearly, and you had to

that old cliche, you had to bootstrap it, but you realized no one's getting you out of the situation you're in. You have to figure that out. And you figured it out and it was one day at a time, one step at a time, make a dollar. So you came into it not with massive amounts of resources, not a massive amount of knowledge, just a willingness to say, okay, I'm going to push the I believe button and figure this out. And you did it. And right now you're, you're absolutely killing it. So congrats for that. And overcoming some pretty substantial, uh, obstacles they get out of a hole.

And, you know, it was my wife who told me she, uh, so I, I just, I was scared of losing my job or, you know, lots of different things. Um, they say that the German shepherd chasing you motivates you more than the gold medals ahead of you. Absolutely true. Two to one at least. Um, and I was telling her, you know, if I just had the time to study this, I think I could nail it. And she says, well, there, well, there's no time. Make time because I've got kids that I got to, I'm responsible for that I've got to watch out after. Make sure that they don't cut themselves or die, uh, when they're home. And then when I'm at work, I gotta work. So where is the time? I, so what I decided to do was to wake up at three in the morning and do my study.

Yeah. Okay. That's love that story. I mean, that's

probably not again, but yes, I did that for a few months.

Yeah. And, and I get it. I mean, if someone is not willing to put in the time and the work that, that, that's, I didn't know that. And thank you for sharing that because that's, that's a great example of, Oh, this is, this is magic and that's easy. That writ, and here's the struggle with that. Here's what my, you know, here, here's, here's Jeremiah screenshot, here's the money he's making. Isn't that awesome? That's that picture doesn't tell you. But I got up for a couple of months every morning at 3:00 AM and I had to grind and I was in a hole and I got the snot knocked out of me and I failed a lot. And even when you started from what you said, it wasn't a real win right out of that, right out of the Gates. And it also represents two years of doing it and figuring it out. But now you're at a point where you are absolutely killing it. I mean you've said yourself, you are way, way, way ahead of anywhere you kind of expected it to be and those numbers are still took work.

You know, I, I'm, I'm, I was way more excited on my first sale than I am on $136,000 if that's even possible to

to say it is. Just to that point, we talked to someone just yesterday had said to us, you know, one of our current members, actually brand new members said, I was really sort of skeptical. I don't know if this is gonna work, but I sent my first products down to Amazon and it's sold out within two days. And it was like, I found religion like, Oh my gosh. So to your point, that matters a lot. That's why we talk about make that first dollar, see that process from a to Z. Just get something, get it down there and see it happen. That's what you did. Now it's, it's, it's chasing that kind of rush, right? Like I want that. I did it and I did it. The first thing, it's really hard. We were like, okay, not to be flippant about it, but I get it. Like, okay, well, okay we broke 135 K we broke 200 K we broke. Those are fun and they're exciting. But now they're like, yeah, well now it's almost a foregone conclusion for you cause you're like, well, I know the process and know the system. Now I just grow it. So it's, it's harder to get that initial rush.

And I wanted to comment on what you said. You know, the Amazon game is easy when you've put in the time. For me now, Amazon is really, really easy and it is magic. But the thing is, I know how to make the magic trips. The rabbit was in the hat the entire time you're on the outside and you're not selling. You don't know what's going to happen with that magic hat. I mean, it is like magic. I don't even talk about what I do with many people anymore because they think it's so incredible and magical and fantastical. So if I talk about it, it seems like to them, then I'm either a bragging or I'm alright crazy or I don't know what it is. Um, but it is easy. I'm done with my day Monday through Friday at 11 o'clock, and the only reason that I work until three or four or five now it's cause I've got some other endeavors that I'm doing, like private label stuff and, uh, hiring on some more people to help the business. And, uh, to enrich their lives. Mmm. So yeah, as far as being easy, it is easy when you've put in the time

and be ready for some setbacks. Um, but if you're willing to put in the time and overcome the setbacks and succeed when, when you're making real money, whether it's extra money or fulltime income or wealth creation, Mmm. You'll never look back. It's, it's only easy after you've put in the time. So be willing to discover a lot and be frustrated at first, um, but also know in a very short period of time it's well worth it.

Yeah. And I think that that is again, really wise words and the challenge with doing anything in the world of we'd like to sell you a training course on how to do something. It's the words you really want to hear is magic button system easy. Just do this, put, you know, put in a dollar and 10 comes out that that's, I think you know, that you obviously know this at this point and I don't want to share with everybody. Todd and I preach quite the antithetical version of that. Yeah. It's really doable and it's amazing, but it takes work and it's hard and I'll kick you in the head and you'll lose a lot and it feels horrible. But nothing worth getting, nothing worth getting is easy or simple. Give us some great advice saying, here's where I am and it's unbelievably good. And that screenshot doesn't tell the whole story.

The whole story is it's hard and it's scary. And you had four kids under the age of 10 years old. You had to make ends meet with a crappy credit credit score, not a lot of money, a negative money. And yet somehow, okay, well I've got to figure this thing out. And you start slow and you put one foot in front of the other and you buy one thing and then you buy the next thing and you buy the next thing. And there's mistakes and failures in the process. But eventually you figure it out. And here we are now,

you know, that's um, really good advice. I got something just last week from somebody. If I could do this all over again, I would probably slow roll all my place instead of taking all my cash and just dumping it in. Um, cause I was of the mindset, he didn't teach it. I just thought it, this is really easy and it's just absolutely going to work. And I that's true. But you test something before you scale something. And I didn't do that. I just boom, scale it. And then I had to uh, recover. And that's never fun. But if, you know, I stuck with it and it's working out.

Yeah. And look, I, I respect that. I get that you're, you're clearly have an entrepreneurial spirit. You want more, you saw something that worked and you said, no, I'm all in. And I get that. And we tried desperately and, and I believe that's what Todd and I preached too. Follow the steps. Everything we say is not perfect for sure. It's not exactly the right thing. But after doing this for so long and after running businesses for so long and trying and failing and businesses have huge success, a success somehow just like driving them right in the dirt and some of them selling successfully and selling, you know, all the whole gamut and you realize, okay, it is one step at a time and they got to realize this works. Yes. But just because something works in the small scale as it stands right now, doesn't mean it's going to be perfect. You've got to go through the steps and you, you learned it and you're there going, okay, well I made that mistake of going too big too quickly. Find out what works, what does work, grow that a little bit and then find the next thing and grow that a little bit and find the next thing. So going really wide, not deep and slow rolling it and you've, you've, you've followed it to the tee and you've, you've learned as you went and in two years your, your, your million obviously and in the millions of dollars for your business.

Yeah.

Yeah. Great stuff. So you've dropped some unbelievably Sage wisdom and advice and I appreciate that immensely. I think other people watching this are going to appreciate that as well. Any, any thoughts or a specific advice? Someone just starting out? You've given some really, really good, good words of course. And I think the nuggets of information, they're unbelievable, but to a person going, geez, I don't, I don't know. Um, if this, you know, I don't know if it worked for me. You can't answer that question. I can't answer that question. But if someone says, okay, I'm in there, let me, let me get started the first month. What's, what's the focus somebody should be doing when they're kind of just getting started in an Amazon business?

You know? Um, I think that's a great question. And I know how our, I think I know how most people would answer it is just follow the steps, follow the system. And that's easy, just as easy said as done. But because there's so mindset, so much mindset involved, I'd say to somebody, number one, if you're doing this and doing your job at the same time, have dedicated hours that you're doing the business. Number two, if you're doing this full time, get out of your house as quickly as possible and meet other people ideally who are doing what you're doing. Or at least people have the same type of mindset. And then the third thing is, um, when you finally go full bore and you go, I like that phrase full bore. Uh, when you finally go and do that, now all of a sudden everybody wants your time.

Like you don't have a real job. They want your, your wife or your husband wants you to do all those honeydews or your friends want to meet up with you, especially the unemployed ones or have different hours. Um, and it's really important even more than treating it as a business to treat it as a job from eight to five. Unless it's an emergency. No, I'm unreachable. I know, honey, I cannot get, do the grocery shopping. I can't do this or that or the other. And you know, most people who are in this, they have a big heart like you and I, but the biggest heart that you have to have as for what's really important, which for both of us is our family. If I go and I go do those things and I don't go build my business, then it's never going to happen. And I'll always be of that mindset. So it's more of, um,

being around people because the worst thing to do when you're starting out is to go and do this. And most of us, especially good salespeople, ironically, we're afraid of the phone. Hmm. Um, be by yourself and then figuring out what you're going to say to the supplier, what went wrong on the last call instead of just call, call, call, call or hiring somebody to do it. Um, it's much easier if you have at least a level of accountability. So I'd probably summarize all this as I'm gathering my thoughts. Um, have a buddy that you can be accountable to and that's probably the number one thing that someone can do to guarantee themselves success in any business, especially this one.

That's great advice. I have not heard that from a lot of people. Thank you for that. I mean, that's really fantastic and you're, you're right. I think that the Pat answer is follow the steps in one step at a time. Things that we preach. But those are really great pieces of wisdom. And I, I'm, you know, me, I'm very much mindset oriented and I think, uh, we can accomplish great things, but I think it's very challenging in the face of pretty insurmountable odds of the average conversation. Like you're saying, you're doing what, that's crazy. And it's, it's the, and I've talked about it before, but it's that pre-programmed kind of tribal feeling we have in our, in our, in, in our inner brains. Gosh, don't go out there. It's too scary. That's too much risk. Don't do that. So you've got a whole subset of people, understandably, that are risk averse and they want the best for you.

They think it's of the best intentions, but that's not the person that's gonna say, I'm going to hold you accountable. You need to do these. You said you were doing this last week. Why didn't you do that? Uh, you got to get honest with yourself. So really good advice. I, that's not what I really consider it as a kind of top of the list, but I think you're spot on with that. That's a different conversation than following the steps is fine, but having somebody there that's in the space and that community that whether it's Facebook, you find somebody there, whether it's someone in your town, whether it's someone you just keep in contact with, email somewhere in the world, going through a similar journey. Hold each other accountable like that one a lot.

Yeah, it, you know the steps are really easy. You find if it's the world would really work like that, we wouldn't have this conversation. Sure. The conversation is, all right, you're going to make so many calls a day come hell or high water and that's it. And analyze what those results are improved. Do it again the next day. Do it again the next day. Do it again the next day. I'm in the mechanics. You can do a better job of telling me, telling people how to do the mechanics. Mechanics are really, really easy. Um, you know, having a daily checklist. Okay. That's more mechanics. I don't think that people do that. You must do set a certain, uh, things in a day, um, or you didn't go to work that day. Yep.

Right. Yeah. It's amazing. It's amazing. In our job, I think about this and talk about this often. It's amazing in our steps. That would be just,

well, so much easier. But yeah, there's a lot of between the ears.

Sorry to interrupt. No, no, no, no, no. You're good. You're good at that. That's, it's amazing what we find [inaudible] non negotiable. In our job, we have to do certain things, right? The boss says, do this. You've got to do it. The boss says, go here. You gotta do it. You've got to close this deal and go to this meeting. Yeah. For our own purposes, it's easy just to go, Al, I'll push that to the side. That's where an accountability partner helps [inaudible]. Yeah, well said. Well said. Um, alright. That's, that's [inaudible] time we've got, I don't want to take up more of your time. You're, you're a, you're not feeling great and B, you have, you have the other business to run. So you have given us an amazing amount of information. Thank you so much for the time. Um, any, any parting thoughts, um, before we, before we take off?

Um, don't think about it too much. Just jump in. Yeah. So breezy, I don't know if you'll fly or find a business that's easier for a less investment.

We're early this, this interview is early in the year. What do have a target revenue for

the year? Just curious what, what year

shot is. Mmm, yeah, I do. The way that I set goals, I, I don't, I don't like the word goal because goal is something that it's okay not to hit. It's just all right out there. Um, so I rephrase and I think vocabulary is important. I say, uh, have twos. Okay, so half to 2 million by the end of the year. Well, 5 million by the end of the year. So I give myself permission not to hit the 5 million, but it's so far out of reach for me and I don't know how I'm going to do it. That, um, I love those kinds of challenges. So. Well you went from a pretty, you went from a pretty rough spot and a pretty bad way to where you are today in a short, relatively short period of time. I have a lot of faith in yet. I know a little bit about what you're doing and what you're, where you're going and you have the formula clearly.

So there'll be setbacks, there'll be, you know, gut punches for sure, but I know you'll overcome. I know you'll persevere and uh, it's, it's, I'm proud to know you. I'm proud to see what you've done in the past couple of years and I'm really excited to see, you know, end of year we'd come back and go, yeah, I thought that was a stretch, but I crushed it. So congrats on where you are today and best of luck moving forward and I really appreciate the time. Thanks man. All right. Be well. All right. All right, everybody. A great opportunity to speak with a long time member of, uh, of our group. Um, we've known Scott for a number of years. This is Scott Radcliffe. And I want to in the vein of an interview in the vein of telling people some, some backstory. Uh, what, what I like to do is instead of having a simple, this is somebody with a screenshot of annual sales, I don't think that has the value as much as, Hey, how about some backstory of this person, where they came from, what they've done, their successes, their failures, some warnings.

If I'd known if I'd only known this and that can, that can only come with sort of a free form interview. So what I'm doing in these is the intention of that. If you have people backstory, yes, Scott will share with you what he did last year in revenue. It's a pretty staggering number, but he's like many people, he's that example of the overnight success that took years to do, right? I mean, that's where the problem of that million dollars comes in. Oh man, there's $1 million in sales. Great. Did, did that happen in a month? Does it happen in a year? It happened at 10 years. Right. So, Scott, thank you very much for taking the time. Welcome. Welcome to the interview. I'll thank you. Appreciate it. Chris, you are in a warehouse ish sort of place it looks like. Yeah, you have, I'm at my warehouse, actually we can say it's rainy and cold outside here in the fall or a winter day of Michigan.

So yeah, I'm, I'm feeling your pain and New Hampshire. A cold, a cold, nasty day in the winter. I'm, I'm shocked. Right. So anyways, come, can't come soon enough. So, uh, thanks for taking time out of your day. I didn't know. Thank you're in your warehouse doing work. So I'm taking time away from your work so I won't spend, I, I don't want to pull you away from revenue generating tasks, but um, let's do that top level thing first. Um, what was your revenue last year and then let's go into some backstories. Your last year. What was your, what was your sales on Amazon?

So I did a 1.8 million in 2019 and a 1.4 million of that was wholesale, which is the new model. I've been practicing for a little over two years.

Excellent. Fantastic. All right, so we got that out of the way. Perfect. Now I know in your journey it hasn't been like, Hey, look at that. I switched to the wholesale modeling bang million dollars. So if, if I, if I could, uh, uh, bother you to give us some backstory, we're kind of where you came from. Are you a business expert and e-commerce expert and online expert? Where's, you know, where's your training and where, where did he come from real quickly?

No, I came from a restaurant background. I was in the restaurant for 24 years before I was able to walk away from my full time six figure income career to do Amazon. Um, so I, uh, you know, managed people, managed budgets, P and L, you know, I did, uh, worked at a fine dining establishment, had over a hundred employees. So that was my background before I got into Amazon. So I had a little bit of history with, uh, you know, managing numbers and P and L and, um, I think most importantly, training people, you know, giving them the, uh, the adequate training that they need. So that's, those are some of the things that I brought with me over to Amazon.

Excellent. So you came from the restaurant industry and you were burned out. That seems to me outside. I love dining, love fine dining. So outside looking in though, that seems like a brutal lifestyle. What was the impetus for you to change to say, I mean, six figure salary in a high end establishment. That's a pretty dang good career. It seems kind of awesome. Food and drink and that kind of thing. What was the impetus that made you say, I can't, can't do this anymore?

Uh, really, to be honest, the, uh, the hours that I had worked every holiday, every weekend, every night, you know, for the last 20 plus years. Um, you know, when all my friends were enjoying their barbecues and boats and weekends with the family, I was, you know, slaving away at the restaurant.

Okay. Got it. That. That being said, if you were working a lot of hours, what is your, what, what are the hours you work now for reference? I am going to not, I don't want to junk cut, I don't want edits. I don't want anything to Scott later on says, Oh, take that out please. I'm going to drop the audio, but I don't want cuts because I want this unedited and Scott just his, his opinion on things, good, bad or otherwise. And I'm, I'm open to that again, that's the full disclosure part. Scott will FreeWheel and say what he wants to say but to protect his business if he's like, Oh, don't share that. You may see audio drop, but, but hopefully that's not the case. But in your past, how many hours a week were you working in the, in that restaurant industry?

So for the bulk of that time, um, I worked between 50 and 70 hours every week, um, closer to 70 most weeks, so. Okay.

All right. Yeah, similar. I mean in, in my corporate gig, it's all well and good, right? Six figures and every outside looking in, everyone says, man, you make money, right? And you've got a job and you've got some benefits and that kind of thing. But there's so much, so much more that goes past that. And to your point, lifestyle and otherwise what, Hey, what is your lifestyle now? How does it compare in roughly how many hours a week are you working in, in your, in your, on your business? Um, so I, I really, realistically, and I, and I've had a few people asking this recently, and I hate saying it, but I really only work 20 to 25 hours a week. Now I choice. Why do you, how do you hate saying that? Because people, I had my, I had some friends say hi, you know, that's, you're, you're lazy now. And I'm like, no, no. I worked my tail off

for many, many years. And one of the first things I told myself when I started this e-commerce journey was that I was not going to work weekends and that I was gonna travel the world with my family. And that's what I've been able to do the last five years.

Outstanding. I mean, I see you in Florida quite a bit. You're down at, you're a big, you're a big Disney fan. I know you're down there a whole bunch, you know what you call down there to see some family that is, that's great news. So your 2025 hours a week, it's kind of funny how, and I respect this, but you're almost apologetic about it and and like, Oh you're lazy now. I mean is that not, was that not an I an idea that was the impetus for you leaving your previous job? I want to make some money, but I want the time and freedom. We're around the planet for a certain period of time and I don't want to spend all of it in, in working for somebody else. So you're living that dream now if you will. So that's back to my earlier point. You're doing that now, 2025 hours a week in your business with 1.8 million in revenue. Do you have a target for next year? Do you have a plan roughly where you want to get to? We want to break the 2 million Mark. Yeah, but actually, um, my, my focus for 2020 is a hundred

set wholesale as it was in 2019, so, okay. I will only be doing the wholesale model. You know, I had some private label ventures. I did drop shipping for a while, even did some retail arbitrage in the beginning, but I don't that anymore. I just exclusively practice the wholesale model with one private label product.

Perfect. All right, so you're doing that 1.8 you're, you're targeting $2 million at only 2025 hours a week. That is the way it should be with business and that allows you to do one of a couple of things. Some people love to take this and say, I'm going to do, I'm going to buy another business. I was talking with another person. I interviewed a friend of friend of acquaintance a year. As you get together with, we'll talk about that in a bit, but Josiah for example, wants to buy another business. So you've got flexibility and freedom to do that. Now you're not stuck with a 70 hours where you've, that that's all you're doing. You can do another business, you can do side businesses. You can say, I'm just going to phone it in and say 20, 25 hours a week. I'm really happy with this lifestyle. I want to travel and do those kinds of things. But how long did it take you to get there? So you went from your restaurant business, restaurant, career to this. What was that journey like? Uh, you know, it was a, it was an awesome progression. You know, I just, I hit the ground running when

it came to my Amazon business did really well the first few years selling. Um, and, you know, time was one of the things that Todd taught me or I shouldn't say, taught me, shared with me when I first met him, was that, um, to chaptering back that most value to assets that we all have and that being our time. And that was something I was so proud to have accomplished that I promised to never let anything get in that way. So like I spent a lot of time with my family. I have a wife who's got some health challenges and requires some extra needed, uh, attention, uh, most days. But, um, if it was not for this career in Amazon, I wouldn't be able to do that. I would be working at a restaurant, you know, and probably not even married today. You know, it's, it's been a, it's been a real blessing, uh, for me for sure.

Excellent. That's outstanding. So you taken a couple of years to, you started out pretty pretty good. I mean, you started out, you said hit the ground running. So is there anything you attribute that, let me, let me take this a step back. After five years of doing this with thousands of people, there are those people that just get out of the Gates and they're just killing it. And like somehow you think how you have access to exactly the same information. Why is person a like, yeah, okay, no problem. I'm just, I'm just gonna go out there and do it. And why is person B with the same info, in your opinion, not able to kind of get that traction? Do you have, do you have an opinion on that?

You know, there's so many things in life that can distract people. Um, especially when you're starting out. I was guilty of them. Um, you know, I, I was not real organized with my time once you start working from home, um, I had started so many tasks and I wasn't finishing anything and I think it was one of the live events I went to where you kind of drove home that point of mindset and being scheduled, being regular. So now like I have my first six months of 2019 pretty much all scheduled out for uh, what I'm going to be doing work-wise. So the second half of 2019, I'll be buttoning up here in the next month. And that huge, hugely helped me being out, being organized. I'm always setting yourself tasks to do on a, not only on a daily basis but weekly basis and following through on those. And that's one of the things I think I mentioned to you earlier. I like talking with some of my contacts in the Amazon space. Obviously Josiah, uh, we kinda our big County countability partner that, uh, you know, I've, I really cherish and value. So,

so you've got a uh, and that, that leads to, to, to my point, I, I like that kind of stuff, right? We're talking about a situation where you have a community of people, you've got a, a likeminded individuals. I preached this, Todd and I preach this quite often. It's really hard, incredibly hard from a human behavior standpoint if you're all day, every day. In fact, you mentioned that with the, Oh, people are calling you kind of lazy. But if you're talking with people like, well, I'm making these decisions and I'm thinking about Amazon, I'm thinking about my own business. I'm thinking about this and you're talking to the 50, 60, 70 hour a week, folks, that's a different dialogue, right? Then a person like that's in this space and saying, man, I have, I have concerns. I have the dah, dah. They're going to give you a very different answer than those that are in the than where you came from. Is that right?

Right. Absolutely. And that's the thing, you know, you can work as much as you want in this business. And I could, if I wanted to work full time, 50 hours a week, but in the beginning I would, yes. You know, my restaurant job and doing Amazon at night on the weekends when I had time because I had the last year of my career in the restaurant business. I worked, well actually the last two years I worked in corporate dining. So I served just breakfast and lunch. Okay. At the bank of America headquarters here locally in Troy. And so I was a, I had a lot of time. I went from working 70 hours in the restaurant. Then I worked, you know like 50 hours for those last two years. And it was like all this time. So now I'm getting back to our subject of, of time that, you know, I'm intentionally and by design only work 25 30 hours a week. Perfect. Cause that's what I want to do, you know, and that's what I'll probably do for the rest of my life.

Excellent. Yeah. It's once you put on those, I've said it at live events before that we've had I, I left, I'm, I'm, I'm a late bloomer. A little similar to you in that it was later in life. I wasn't the 20 year old phenom that started the business and that kind of thing. I was 40 I have to figure out these numbers at the 40 41 2013 so better 42 so what I said, okay, I'm doing everything on my own. That sort of take the red pill, blue pill sort of thing. It was like putting on a pair of glasses and going, okay, I get it now I can do whatever I want. That's a really hard, it sounds like it was easier for you and correct me if I'm wrong, harder for me to understand that. Okay. Like you said, I want to work 2025 hours.

That's my goal. The $10 million business, a hundred million dollar business, whatever. Being able to say that unlike you have your job, you work your hours, you have the number you have to hit, you have the tasks you have to do. There's no variance there. You have to, you have to do it. And most of the time and jobs, you're doing more work for less money every year. In our case, we do what we want when we want. And you few, you're living that right now. Yep. Yep. And that's a, like I said, I feel blessed because of being, being in that position. So, um, I'm sorry, what was your question? I actually no, it's all right. No, it's fine. It was more of a statement than a question. Sorry about that. Just a commiserating as a, as a fellow entrepreneur, so that's kind of, I guess give people some vision and that kind of thing.

But back to kind of help, I taught an, I talk about things. We have program, we have training, we do live events, but we're two guys preaching something. We're infopreneurs as well as Amazon sellers. Infopreneurs we share information. We, we generate money from that. Fine. You're not doing that in this case, I'd like your [inaudible] fed it opinion, an idea of, okay, if I had to do it again or be, I'm talking to somebody that's brand new, what advice can you give somebody and the sea of information in the sea of gurus and trainers and info out there and what kind of things could you offer somebody that's just getting started that would, that would give them either some motivation, some directions. And

so there's a ton, a ton of knowledge out there and a ton of gurus. There's a ton of marketers and it's kind of hard to sift through the right ones. But um, yeah, I've come across a lot of lot of shady guys in the past, but I will tell you that meeting you and Todd was like, that was like the greatest thing ever for me personally, just because you guys were in the trenches doing it daily. You preach it daily. Um, you've gone through a lot of the similar struggles that I, uh, us, you know, Amazon sellers go through. So it's not like, um, you know, you're just marketing your training course or something and not actually doing the business. So, um, but I dunno, like there's so many, there's so many training courses that I did by in the past that were decent but outdated or I'm not, not exactly a good fit for me.

Um, and this wholesale model, like I said, I think is probably the best in my opinion. And your trends, I mean, it sounds like again, you're, you're back to transitioning to that. I mean, almost primarily you did 1.8, 1.4 million is only wholesale. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, to go back, I used to, you know, I did three, $4 million my second and third year in third year on Amazon, but that was in a different model, drop shipping. And, um, you know, I was saying I had to manage more cash flow and I had to, um, you know, I had to have access to more credit. You know, you're buying everything on cash back credit cards. So, um, when I switched to a wholesale model, it's a much simpler model, less returns, less anxiety. I had, you know, 67 VA's at one time. Now I have to, uh, I'll tell you what, when I was training, I, cause I did some training, some one on one coaching for awhile and managing other people's businesses.

I was right back to working 70 hours a week. So, um, this w you know, I Haven I had to refocus and change my mindset that you don't need to work that much. And, um, that's, you know, like I said, why by design now I work less than 30 hours a week. So you're by design and you're, you have two VA. So this is, I tell people the same thing and it's like, okay, I don't really understand that. But so you're, you outsource a fair bit of your business then? I mean, that allows you to [inaudible] running [inaudible] yeah, everything from the bookkeeping to the customer service, um, product research. Um, I don't have a ton of tasks right now. I mean, she's probably working 20 hours a week. My main girl and the other girls, um, by project that I pair. Um, so yeah, uh, my biggest secret or I shouldn't say secret, my niche you could say is trade shows. I love going to trade shows and talking to brands and manufacturers directly. In fact, I was looking, I did eight trade shows last year in 2019 three this year in 2020 and by design I'm taking my family, you know, to Puerto Rico, I'm going to do some trips with my boys. And um, those are, those are taking priority for me right now. But again, uh, finding new suppliers and having fresh products on your stores, you know, uh, an important component to the

excellent. So you've got the experience in the drop shipping, drop, shipping, obviously private label you, you do have a private label, um, product you have. Now a lot of people think things are mutually exclusive. It's either wholesale or it's either drop shipping or it's either their private label that that clearly is not the case with you. You move first, you moved away from the drop shipping. And what are some of the reasons you, you don't do that anymore or don't like that model?

Um, well a couple of reasons that it was more strenuous for me as a managing the, the VA's and the teams. I, you know, I had, uh, several teams, they were divided up into three departments and so I manage those departments for the most part, but there's so many moving parts and drop shipping and especially, uh, um, logistics wise you're relying on someone else to deliver it whereas you're not using Amazon, uh, shipping. And that's a [inaudible], you know, I just had to simplify. Um, okay. And the drop shipping, that model is still sustainable and it still works for a lot of people. But um, there's so many variables that it's just not sustainable

that dig in the numbers just to a little bit. There can, if, if you don't mind, and I don't need exact numbers or revenue or profitability, but the 3 million row, what roughly and a drop shipping model, what roughly was the profit margins on that all in?

See it was a little bit higher for me in the beginning, but then as the years went by on Amazon and change the terms of service and whatnot, um, the percentages were going down. So I was at one point making 30% when I first started. Wow. Okay. During the first two, three years, and then my final year, which was 2018 and I just completely stopped dropshipping.

I think I made

you give me like 10%. That was before overhead costs. I was only making

two, 3% to take. Okay. That's what I was going to say. And I didn't, I didn't know the breakdown of those numbers. I mean, a staff of 65 or 70 is enormous. Even if they're only outsourced and only making, you know, you're paying someone two to five, $7 an hour in another country. That's still a number when you're talking about 60, 70 people, seven, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. So in the drop shipping, what would, uh, currently wholesale, what do you target for, for profitability now?

Um, anywhere from 25 to 35 is my target. Uh, I, in fact I have one of my top selling products. I sell 30 times a day. Um, I take a lower margin on that. I actually only make like 13%,

but

you know, when you've got the velocity and the um, you know, the, the, the high amount of sales, I'll take a lesser amount, especially since I don't do any prep. It's just anF and SKU label that Amazon puts on for me too. So it's

no money in the bank. Perfect. And so much easier. Okay, so you're targeting, I guess the point of that story was hearing, hearing these numbers, your, your profitability at a $3 million business, although the headaches, heartache problems, all the employees staffing at about, call it on the nice side, 5% versus a wholesale model where you have two VA's, you work 25 hours a week, you're only doing 1.8 million, but your margins are upwards of 20 plus 25%.

Yeah. In fact, for the year we did the 2019, it was right around 22% was our profit and that was obviously before our overhead expenses. But

that's amazing. So that's a whole, I mean, that's a whole different, whole different conversation. Okay. So, and again, you're, you're clearly gearing this towards a lifestyle type of business and you're, you're still all in. I mean, again, we didn't talk about it, but you're, you're, you're planning out 20, 20 and beyond of maintaining and growing your Amazon wholesale business, do you see that being something that you're going to do for a number of a few years? I had no one can predict the future of course. But you, you, your business plan and your business model in a year, two, three, four, kind of continuing with that kind of model.

Yeah. I love what I do. I love doing this. I'm, I love talking to people and getting those new accounts. Um, Amazon does most of my prep. I do, you know, a little bit of prep still, but I only work one day a week prepping on, uh, so that today's the day you caught me working Fridays. Um, and like I said, I try to get everything shipped to Amazon, let them do the labeling. But anything that requires multi-packs or you know, and I could outsource that too. But um, I like keeping everything lean.

That's fair. I mean, well and, and having surveyed like do your friends say getting lazy. I mean keeping your fingers. There is something to be said for keeping your fingers in the business. At least, you know, one day a week allows you to see what's what's actually going on. I mean, and I respect that too. I mean that's, that's staying close to the business and understanding what's working and what's not. So not only you outsource in the business, you're the expression now he's used uses standing on the shoulders of giants and that is why don't we just leverage what someone else has done. You know, Mr. Jeff Bezos has figured a whole lot of things out and he's pretty smart about it. He's got systems in place. Why not leverage them? So you're with your mom. I say that because Oh man, Amazon takes a whole bunch of fees. Yup. Yeah. But you don't have to, in your case, you've got a warehouse. Can, in your opinion, can you do this or where are you doing this without a warehouse or without space? Can you do that from an apartment or a condo or something?

I don't know that you can do it from an apartment or condo. Um, yeah, I mean, I, I'm, we have a big, uh, three car garage, you know, it's 1800 square feet. And then I have an additional basement where I do some of the smaller prep. But um, and then I have, I do have access to Josiah's warehouse and um, and then I do have a loading dock right down the road where I get off a lot of my pallet deliveries, my semi truck deliveries.

Gotcha. So if you, if you want to be in that business of touching things and putting the labels on there, you're going to need a little bit of space. If you don't want to do that, you get Amazon to do that work or you get a third party fulfillment or a warehouse to do it. Your margins shrink a little bit, but you're not touching anything.

Right. Okay. And it's not that hard to do. I mean, I think I see a lot of people get kind of blinded by all the software is that are thrown out there. Oh, I need to get this, I need to get that. I mean there's a lot of things that Amazon has within their system to help that, that are free and I take advantage of a lot of those.

Fair enough. No, that's good. That's good advice. And I take it for granted too, being in the space and offering tools and training and things like this. The reality is Amazon's kind of figured that out. They want to make things easier for, I mean, they don't have the kind of revenue from third party sellers without making it drop dead easy to, to, to figure out. Excellent. Well I appreciate it. Appreciate the information. If there's a, you've given a few, few, few bits of information for sure. And thank you for that. And I think that your story resonates with a lot of people. A lot of where I was, where you were, that I had something, I worked a lot, I was tired of it. I wanted to do something different. And you've transitioned to an Amazon model. If there's any, any parting thoughts or if someone's, someone's just starting out, if you had, if you could give them, look, you're just starting out that, I don't know man, I'm not sure about this or where do I start? And any thoughts on how you get someone from that zero to that first sale and then scale it to a couple thousand bucks a month.

Um, you just have to be, you know, you have to be in your business daily. Um, you have to set yourself some goals. Like I said, when it comes like, especially with the training program that you guys offer, um, that's an invaluable,

Mmm.

Education that you're getting right there. I think because I never had the privilege of going to college and getting an education, but um, being educated in the eCommerce space by you too. Um, and the training that you offer is, has really been the key. So you just gotta be in it every day. Um, head down, don't be distracted with social media. That's a big uh,

yeah, that's Sage advice. [inaudible] someone, um, another person I'll be interviewing in a couple of days said, man, you know, uh, three years ago I was, I was flat broke, full on, flat upside down broke and now I'll put myself in the millionaire category. And it's because of you, that's a nice thing to say. But you did the work. That person did the work and again that we'll share that in the next interview. But the information is great. The training course is great, but I hear way too many people go, man, well I bought the course and I bought the training. I'm not rich yet. So what's the deal? I mean you're saying put the reps in and put the time and do the work. And I didn't take it.

My company the first year, the wholesale is, I just had dumping, you know, a profit into buying more products. And so now, like I have, I have $240,000 worth of inventory that's paid for, you know, there's no, Oh wow. Everything. It's all rocks. And so if I shut my business down today and Amazon just sold out what I had, I'd have over 350 grand that I made from doing this business. So I'm just trying to keep building that up.

Interesting. So you said for, for reference, again, everybody's journey is different. You decided to go the path of, you didn't take a dollar from your business, you reinvested all of that profitability back into the business to scale that.

Yup. Yup. I had other businesses that I was paying my expenses on my bills while I built this wholesale model. And that's one of the things I shared with several is if you can work your job and do this for the first six months or solely, maybe even a year until you learn it, cause it's gonna take a minute for you to stay compliant with Amazon's TLS and you're gonna by bad products and you're gonna, you know, you're gonna, you're gonna learn a lot too. And repricers now you don't need to

reprice run day when people get so blinded by those shiny object things. Just to start out, part of what Todd and I try to preach is that, and I, uh, and part of why we're changing our model a little bit and commuting it, communicating with people ahead of buying courses and training is expectation setting. And it is frustrating when someone says, look, I need to be take, I need to replicate my income and like 30 to 60 days. Is that doable? And it is regular that I say, no, I don't want, I don't want that expectation out there because it's being sold by a lot of people. And we joke about it, the Lamborghinis and all that kind of stuff. But the reality is this is a business. This requires capital. Could you take some money on your business? Of course. But what you're going to do is you're not going to be able to grow nearly as fast cause you don't have, you're not increasing that rate at which your money's working.

Right? So you're, you're not, everybody can do this. Not everybody can work in a job for a full year, not take money out. It's doable, but you just grow slower. So that's a matter of setting those expectations then of what the, the, the, the growing and shrinking of your business. Understand that if you're starting out and you're not taking money out like Scott did, well you're, you're rocking. If you are doing it in that way and you have to take a couple of dollars out, you're just going to grow slower. That's all. Yeah. And that's the key. I mean, this is a real business, so you have to treat it as such. And I know all the business owners and entrepreneurs that I've met over the years, many of them didn't make you. Most companies don't make money the first two years. Yeah. So I think that's the, that's the phenomena of the overnight success.

Here you are all of a sudden with a one point $8 million trending towards $2 million next to you with a very, very healthy margin, but it took you some time to learn it, to figure it out and understand it, but you're working 2025 hours a week. That's something to grow to and that's not something that's going to happen. Clearly it's not going to happen overnight. That takes time. Yeah. Good for you. Well, congrats man. I mean, I, again, I've followed a bit of your journey over over the years and it's, you know, we will, we run into each other every now and then. And that's the fun part about this community in eCommerce and Amazon, right? When you go to trade shows and events, you sort of bump into each other and it's fun to have that community. But I'm certainly extremely happy for what you're doing as as a, as a super family person, myself, knowing that you're out there and doing that in a built something to allow you to spend time with your wife, spend time with your kids and travel around and do that for him.

That means to me, that means everything that, that, that that was the impetus for me in my business. It sounds like it's very similar to yours. So thank you for the Sage advice as well. Think thanks. No problem. My pleasure. Best of luck in 2020 maybe um, people seeing interview might run into Scott at trade shows or some of our events or something like that. So if you do say, Hey, um, you know, he's, he's one of the, one of the, one of the, one of the good guys for sure. So I appreciate the time, Scott. Best of luck in your one day at the office today working and a hope. The hope. Hope the weather improves for you today. All right. Thanks, you too, Chris. Amen. Thanks. Bye. Bye.