Episode 60 – How to Leverage Group Power to Scale from Bootstrap Business to Success

Melissa Simonson tells the story of being down to her last $30, the power for her house having already been turned off. It doesn’t take much imagination to consider that she might have appreciated a group of supportive, entrepreneurial people to help her through a difficult time.  

In today’s episode of the Serious Seller’s Podcast, Helium 10’s Director of Training and Customer Success, Bradley Sutton speaks with Melissa about how she helped make possible a supportive network just like that with the founding of Empowery, a non-profit bootstrapped business, and the first co-op focused on eCommerce. 

It’s not an Amazon Facebook group, affiliate program or course, and according to Melissa it’s doesn’t even try to be the same thing to everyone.  Empowery was founded as a way to leverage the power of many so that the small seller could reap big benefits.

As Amazon sellers, many of you are familiar with the idea of a bootstrapped business. Starting an eCommerce business with little or no money and using sweat equity, careful spending and an intelligent software platform such as Helium 10 allow Amazon sellers to scale their businesses quickly and find success.  

Empowery members benefit from access to a network of successful eCommerce business owners on whose expertise they can rely to help them with business-related problems. In return, their knowledge and experience add valuable authority to the group.

As all of you know, a non-profit business model is the antithesis of life on Amazon. The way that we keep score and relate to one another has a great deal to do with money. We want profit, and lots of it.  How does this model work for her, for Empowery and ultimately for Amazon sellers?

As Melissa sees it, it’s reminiscent of the way an Amazon Mastermind group works. By removing money from the equation, it encourages the formation of trust and allows sellers to really begin to learn from each other. 

In addition to discounts, perks, and special offers exclusively available to the membership, 51% of the profits that are generated through strategic partnerships with eCommerce-centric service providers are redistributed to the co-op members in the form of a cash-back program.  

This allows the non-profit to remain economically viable and at the same time, offer great benefit to its members. 

But, let’s go back to Melissa’s beginnings.  

At what she refers to as her low point, newly pregnant and unable to get a job due to an employer’s reluctance to hire a pregnant employee with what they considered a “handicap”, she took her last 30 dollars, bought cleaning supplies and put an add up on Craigslist. 

This is bootstrapping on a cellular level.  

An enthusiastic on-line learner, Melissa says she simply couldn’t believe that all this great information was in large part, available for free on the internet.  She says she consumed it “like candy.” 

Now, as part of a family of Amazon sellers, she depends on Helium 10 for her keyword research and loves the tools.

As far as her secret to eCommerce success in the often crowded niches on Amazon she says, “come up with a great idea, do it better than those around you, and you’ll always find space.”

In episode 60 of the Serious Sellers Podcast Bradley and Melissa discuss:

• 01:07 – It’s not Facebook, What Exactly is Empowery?
• 02:00 – Non-Profit Benefits and Amazon’s Profit Oriented Business Model
• 03:40 – Keeping a Non-profit Economically Viable
• 04:58 – Guided by an Empathetic Nature  
• 06:22 – Snacking on On-Line Tutorials Like Candy
• 07:30 – No Power and $30 in the Bank, Melissa Rolls Up Her Sleeves  
• 09:35 – Words of Motivation for Fellow Female Entrepreneurs  
• 10:52 – Amazon Can’t Tell if a Seller is Male or Female  
• 12:20 – Melissa’s Takeaways from the Last Helium 10 Elite Workshop  
• 14:00 – She’s Now Part of a Company Selling on Amazon that’s Ready to Launch
• 14:50 – Job One is Keyword Research
• 16:47 – Innovate and Do It Well in Order to Succeed on Amazon  
• 18:05 – What can Empowery Offer an Amazon Seller?
• 20:00 – The Cash-Back Program Makes Co-Op Membership a Money-Maker
• 23:05 – Here’s How to Reach Out to Melissa

Enjoy this episode? Be sure to check out our previous episodes for even more content to propel you to Amazon FBA Seller success! And don’t forget to “Like” our Facebook page and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play or wherever you listen to our podcast.

Want to absolutely start crushing it on Amazon? Here are few carefully curated resources to get you started:

• Freedom Ticket: Taught by Amazon thought leader Kevin King, get A-Z Amazon strategies and techniques for establishing and solidifying your business.
• Ultimate Resource Guide: Discover the best tools and services to help you dominate on Amazon.
• Helium 10: 20+ software tools to boost your entire sales pipeline from product research to customer communication and Amazon refund automation. Make running a successful Amazon business easier with better data and insights. See what our customers have to say.
• Helium 10 Chrome Extension: Verify your Amazon product idea and validate how lucrative it can be with over a dozen data metrics and profitability estimation. 
• SellerTradmarks.com: Trademarks are vital for protecting your Amazon brand from hijackers, and sellertrademarks.com provides a streamlined process for helping you get one.

Transcript

Bradley Sutton: In today’s episode, we’ll talk to someone who bootstrapped business with just $30 left in the bank. We’ll also learn about a group that empowers sellers with the support of a co-op and how female entrepreneurs especially can benefit from it.

Bradley Sutton: How’s it going, everybody? Welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast. I’m your host, Bradley Sutton, and I am joined today here in the studio by Melissa Simonson. Melissa, how’s it going?

Melissa Simonson: Going very well. Thank you, Bradley.

Bradley Sutton: All right, just to start off, if that last name sounds familiar, this is actually the first time we have had siblings here on the podcast. We had your brother, Steve; how many brothers and sisters are you in your family?

Melissa Simonson: There are actually nine of us.

Bradley Sutton: Nine and Steve is the oldest, right?

Melissa Simonson: He is.

Bradley Sutton: And you’re the youngest?

Melissa Simonson: And I’m the youngest.

Bradley Sutton: Okay. All right. We had Steve on here and he talked about sourcing, and at the very, very end of the episode, when we’re asking, “Hey, how can we contact you?” He had mentioned “Empowery” and so that was something that was a little bit newer to me. But that’s actually your thing. That’s your day-to-day thing. Can you just quickly explain what “Empowery” is because that’s something that I think that’s kind of unique in this space. We’re used to Facebook, just Facebook groups, or courses, or affiliate programs, and this is like none of the above. It’s something different. Can you explain a little bit about that?

Melissa Simonson: Definitely, yeah. It’s a question that I get often, and it’s difficult to answer because I think “Empowery” is different for different people. At its very core, it is a nonprofit, member-owned co-op founded to help e-commerce entrepreneurs. And this is sort of a way to give back for the founders. But more than that, it is, as many co-ops go, a way to band together so that you’re sort of leveraging the power of many, and so that the little guy can get the big business benefits.

Bradley Sutton: Okay. All right. So nonprofit—those are words that you don’t really hear too much when talking about Amazon businesses. It’s like, “Hey, I’m not profitable. Oh, my goodness, I’m a failure.” Nonprofits, “How do I even make that work?” – “How can you do that?” I mean, I know you guys are nice. I know both you and your brother are very generous people, but to just go nonprofit, that’s kind of pretty crazy to me.

Melissa Simonson: Well, if you think about it, the idea of a mastermind is when you have a group of people who all trust each other; they’re all there to help each other succeed, and they’re learning from each other. This is sort of what the co-op’s foundation is as well. And making it nonprofit is sort of the same standpoint as Steve has for when he’s recommending somebody a service. If they ask, “What would you use for this particular problem?” And he gives an answer, “You can take that to the bank,” because he always says, “I don’t get paid an affiliate commission. I have no connection with this. They’re just good people. You’re good people, and this’ll work.” And that’s basically why we founded it as a nonprofit so that we had that same concept. You know that this is in your best interest, not in ours.

Bradley Sutton: Okay. Now when you guys say nonprofit, a lot of people call my initials BS on something like that. How do we know? Actually in the United States, to be classified as nonprofit, you’ve had to go through some kind of, I don’t know, verification or some laws about that. Right?

Melissa Simonson: Yeah. It’s very specific, the rules that we have to follow, and it’s also significant that it’s a co-op; that also changes things. And we were founded out of Minnesota, which has the best co-op laws as it turns out. But that’s a really good point. Nonprofits have to give 51% or more of everything that comes into the co-op back to their members. And so, by the way, to answer your question before, the way that we remain in business and cover our overhead is we make strategic partnerships with service providers that do things that our members might need, like Helium 10 software and China sourcing and freight forwarding through PLs; everything that you might need if you are in business on Amazon or in eCommerce in general. And when we negotiate on behalf of our members, we try and get an upfront discount. We negotiate to get them perks, and then we also have a cashback on the backend, and that cashback is called different things in different spaces. That’s a referral bonus or affiliate bonus, lots of different things it’s called, but it’s all basically the same thing. That cashback is how we are able to stay in business and do what we do. 51% or more of everything from that cashback that comes into the co-op, it goes then back to the members and is redistributed based on their spending.

Bradley Sutton: Okay, cool. That’s interesting. I’ve never heard of a set up like that here in this space. So it’s kind of refreshing to know that “hey, these are people who aren’t trying to make a buck.” You know, that’s probably why I haven’t seen you in some Lamborghini videos in my newsfeed. But anyways, speaking of you, let’s talk a little bit about your history. I know this is semi-new to you. What did you go to college for?

Melissa Simonson: I actually went to college. I was majoring in psychology, and I was going to get my doctorate and I was going to be a counselor.

Bradley Sutton: Wow. So did you actually graduate with it?

Melissa Simonson: I did not. I am a college dropout. I found in the end that I’m empathetic, and there’s an emotional cost to me to hear other people’s problems. I get too involved and I care too much, I think. And it hurts my heart.

Bradley Sutton: Growing up, was your family the kind where they’re like, “Hey, you’ve got to get a bachelor’s degree or else you’re kind of a failure.” You know, there’s a lot of people who grew up in households like that.

Melissa Simonson: Not necessarily. I mean, I did grow up in a very traditional area, and so, it’s sort of like you go to college after high school, you get married; you’re a woman, you stay home and you take care of the kids and stuff like that. And that’s sort of the expectation. But it wasn’t necessarily that you have to go; I think in my family, it wasn’t pushed directly, I guess.

Bradley Sutton: That’s good—a supportive family. So were you scared when you dropped out? Did you just start working just random jobs? What happened?

Melissa Simonson: Well, I mean, I never actually, I don’t know. I guess I never actually thought that I would stay away from college altogether. I thought I would go back eventually because I just love learning. All the tutorials and stuff that people post for free on the Internet, it’s like, “I can’t believe that people post anything for free that’s knowledge-based.” I eat it like candy. It’s amazing. I love to consume knowledge and books and stuff. I just love it. I wish my house had bookshelves for walls; so, I mean I guess when I dropped out, I didn’t have a specific plan in mind. I just sort of happened out of necessity I guess.

Bradley Sutton: Okay. Now, I know, things were going up and down for you for a while, but you kind of gave me a tease on this the other day, but you had said there was really a crazy low point that you had hit at one point. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Melissa Simonson: Yeah, I remember that very specifically. I got pregnant with my first son, and I couldn’t get hired. Everyone knows you’re going to take some time off very soon when you’re pregnant. I was married at the time, and we were in a very dire situation financially. And in the end, it came down to where our power had been turned off, and I had $30 in my account and I had to figure out a way to make some money on the double. And so I took the $30, and I bought some cleaning materials; I posted an ad on Craigslist. I started doing some cleaning, and I turned that into a business where I was cleaning residentially and commercially, and I negotiated contracts for that.

Bradley Sutton: Okay. So, wow. You were down to $30, and the power was turned off. This is in Idaho, right? I’m hoping this is not in the wintertime.

Melissa Simonson: No, actually though it was in the summer.

Bradley Sutton: I don’t think you can go without power in the winter-time in Idaho. Pretty cold, right?

Melissa Simonson: Yeah, I think either case, it’s not great. In the winter-time, it’s very, very cold in Idaho, but in the summertime, it gets very hot.

Bradley Sutton: The story you give right there obviously has nothing really to do with Amazon necessarily, but it has to do with the entrepreneurial spirit in my mind. You started a business, “Hey, let me buy some cleaning supplies, and start this business.” But it’s the kind of way that some people might be able to start an eCommerce. Down to $30, you go to a garage sale; you pick up some stuff that you know you can flip for $60 on eBay or something, and then leverage that to keep going more. So it’s a good story: people can really be down to their last dime as it were, the last 30 bucks and really turn things around. Now, you mentioned before that, where you grew up, people were traditional where they expect the woman to just stay at home and be a mother, which is again, hey, I’m not saying – my mother stayed at home her whole life after I was born. Nothing wrong with that. But I know there’s a lot of people with that entrepreneurial mindset—a lot of people, a lot of females, a lot of women with that mindset—but what do you have to say to them? If they do live in an area where maybe it’s not the norm or in another country? Actually it’s not just the United States, but in a lot of countries, the whole country is like, “Hey, this is not what a woman is expected to do.” What words of motivation do you have maybe for people like that?

Melissa Simonson: Honestly, I was in my certainly late twenties, at least, when I started my own business. But I was probably in my thirties before I realized I could even allow myself to dream as big as I wanted; that I had permission. I didn’t know why somebody needed to give me that permission. I would love to help other women, especially younger women, realize that they don’t have to limit their selves. They should be dreaming as big as they want, and if what they want is to stay home and raise their kids, that’s a beautiful dream too. But if they want something different, you shouldn’t go by somebody else’s expectations. You should go by what drives you, what you’re passionate about. That’s what you should spend all of your energy on.

Bradley Sutton: Okay. And you know, there’s, of course, a lot of political debate about equal pay and different things like that. But in my opinion, let’s see if you agree with me, I would think Amazon or online is a perfect way, even if in your country or your area, you feel that it is an absolute thing that inequality is happening as far as pay goes. How do you think that I’m thinking that Amazon is actually a place where you can kind of negate any of that?

Melissa Simonson: Yeah, I mean, because nobody cares. It’s the product that they’re buying, you know what I mean?

Bradley Sutton: Yeah, you’re on the same page as me.

Melissa Simonson: And so, yeah, they have no idea whether it’s a man or a woman selling the product. There’s no difference. But what I do think that we need to set a different precedent for is even in the ecommerce space, in many male-dominated spaces, if you walk up to a couple and you get introduced, I swear nine times—now I could be wrong, I’ll say that—but nine times out of 10, it feels like immediately the attention goes to the man as the presumed idea maker there. And I think that in many cases, that’s not true. So, I actually spoke to several people this weekend for the Helium 10 Elite workshop. And in several cases, it was sort of the wife’s idea. The wife was pushing it. The husband was supportive and played a significant role, but it was a team effort, and I think that’s missed sometimes. I think that it’s assumed that it’s the man who is wearing the pants.

Bradley Sutton: Yeah. People might just assume that just culturally, and they’re not even trying to be sexist or anything, but it’s just like, well, sometimes culturally it’s just how you subconsciously assume. That’s cool that you’re trying to fight some of those stereotypes. Now you mentioned the Helium 10 Elite workshop. That was the one with Kevin and Liran. Did you have one point that you picked up from there that you were like, “Whoa, that’s pretty cool.”

Melissa Simonson: Oh, man. There were a couple of really cool things. There was a site that I wrote down in my notes that I certainly will not be able to remember off the top of my head, but it was a site for finding influencers; that was very cool. And then, there was a couple of really amazing things the Kevin dropped; he drops these things that are super valuable that you have to put into action, and every few seconds, it’s something that will significantly change your business. He doesn’t even realize it’s life-changing. It’s great. And then Liran, oh my gosh. What I found amazing was that he was standing up there, and he was talking conversationally with the entire room for a very extended period of time. I think I get nervous to do that because I can do this where we’re back and forth, and we’re asking each other questions and talking as a conversation.

Bradley Sutton: And not right upon you face. We’re actually like, “Okay, we were on the same audio line here, so you need to be on the opposite end of this room.” So, even here sometimes, I still get like a little bit nervous when I have somebody right here. But then yeah, Liran had 50 people right in front of him.

Melissa Simonson: For sure. And that’s the thing; you have to be able to keep on talking. He just went fluidly from one topic to the next, and I thought it was amazing. He did a great job.

Bradley Sutton: Yeah. You know what Manny would say to that? How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Anyway, so yeah, we need to get you as an Elite member of Helium 10, but unless I’m mistaken, you probably don’t need that right now, because you yourself have never really sold on Amazon before. Right? It’s all your brothers? How many of your brothers—so obviously Steve does—but anybody else?

Melissa Simonson: Three of my brothers sell on Amazon.

Bradley Sutton: Three of your brothers. All right. Now are you looking to get started in that at all?

Melissa Simonson: Yes. Actually, I’m partners in Amazon business now with one of my brothers.

Bradley Sutton: Oh, is this new?

Melissa Simonson: Yes, this is new.

Bradley Sutton: Okay. So, you haven’t really dug in and launched a product on your own or anything like that though?

Melissa Simonson: I haven’t launched a product on my own, but I have been the customer relations person, I guess, for this account—for customer reviews and feedback and managing the seller central account and inventory even for this business since about 2015.

Bradley Sutton: Okay. Okay. That was kind of like similar to me. I was kind of involved with the Amazon business, but I really didn’t know what the heck was going on, because all I did was like logistics and stuff, sending inventory to Amazon and replying to the buyer’s seller messages each day and packaging stuff. I really didn’t learn, but now you’re saying that you’re actually going to start doing more in-depth.

Melissa Simonson: Yeah. Right now, instead of just kind of helping out, now I’m a full partner. And so, I’m actually going to be doing keyword research and making this thing…

Bradley Sutton: What are you going to use for doing keyword research?

Melissa Simonson: Well, Helium 10, of course!  

Bradley Sutton: Okay, you passed, you passed. Continue, continue; you just by yourself five more minutes on this. No, I’m just playing. You continue.

Melissa Simonson: Absolutely. I’m actually really excited about it. We’re going to roll out another product. So far, it’s just been the one that we’ve listed on Amazon. Now, we’re going to have another product, and so I’m really excited.

Bradley Sutton: What’s the overall category? Are we talking home and kitchen or health and household?

Melissa Simonson: Pets.

Bradley Sutton: Pets. When you researched the pet category, do you notice any trends, especially in this country? It’s like, when I started looking into some of the things in the pet category, I’m like, “These people in this country treat their pets better than they treat their kids,” better than I treat my kids, at least. I don’t know about them. I mean it’s crazy these kinds of things. Do you guys see pets still as a growing kind of opportunity?

Melissa Simonson: Oh yeah. Listen. My dog has an Instagram account, so I’m one of those people.

Bradley Sutton: You need to leave this room right now. I barely even let my kids have their own Instagram.

Melissa Simonson: My Gus-Gus is very, very important to me.

Bradley Sutton: Oh my goodness. You probably are sad that you have to leave your dog home.

Melissa Simonson: I am very sad. And of course, I am sad that I left my children also. I missed them terribly.

Bradley Sutton: That’s a secondary thing right there. So yeah, pets. But actually, coming back to a serious note, because this is the Serious Sellers Podcast, I guess. Some people might think that the pets category might be getting a little bit saturated. So how do your brothers or you find where there might be something that’s not very saturated? Like people always say, “oh yeah, cell phone accessories.” It’s completely saturated but still, there are probably still some pockets out there. Yeah, probably iPhone phone cases are not going to be something that you can make money in, but there are different ways to find profitable niches. Do you have any strategy that you guys use in order to find a profitable niche in a competitive category like pets?

Melissa Simonson: You know, honestly, I would just reiterate something that Kevin said at the Helium 10 Elite workshop, which is “You come up with a great idea. You make it better than the people around you and you will be able to succeed. You have to find some innovation and you have to do it well. You have to do it better than other people.” I think…

Bradley Sutton: Oh, I think Kevin did…Were you there when he was talking about a pet product?

Melissa Simonson: Yeah, yeah.

Bradley Sutton: I forgot what it was—dog chews or something like that. That was kind of like a crazy example.

Melissa Simonson: You set yourself apart in specific ways. And I think that when you are differentiating yourself, you’re targeting a specific market, especially to the ones who are like me, that love their dogs so much.

Bradley Sutton: Now that you’re starting to get more into the nitty gritty stuff of Amazon, are you planning to take a course? How are you planning to educate yourself in order to succeed?

Melissa Simonson: I’ve actually gone through the Amazing Selling Machine courses.

Bradley Sutton: Okay. Do you pretty much know what to do now or saw some gaps?

Melissa Simonson: Yeah, I mean, I think that they do a fantastic job of walking you through everything step by step. But I think what’s really going to show me what’s up is encountering some problems and having to navigate those. That’s I think where you really learn the most.

Bradley Sutton: Okay. Excellent. Excellent. Now let’s switch back to Empowery a little bit now. What kind of level of a seller – would it be completely irrelevant to a brand-new seller? Would it be completely irrelevant to a seven-figure seller? Educate me a little bit about this.

Melissa Simonson: There are actually three levels for Empowery. Beginners who would not qualify for our silver level, they would start as bronze. So, what we actually shoot for – our silver level; is what we created the co-op for. It’s people who get to the million dollars or more per year mark. And at that point, you have difficulty may be working on your business instead of working in your business; up to that point, you got to be in it and you got to do all this stuff and you’re kind of the one-man show up to that point.

Melissa Simonson: But at that point, you need to create systems and strategies and stuff so that you don’t have to be in your business every day. You can work on it, and you can hire people for the $10 an hour stuff instead of doing all of that yourself. That’s what we created it for. But we also do have the bronze levels so that we can help people get up to the silver level. And then once you have been in the silver level long enough and you get involved with the vendors and you’re earning more than $12,000 a year in cashback, then you are self-elevating to the gold level. You can’t buy into the gold level.

Bradley Sutton: Okay. Wait, wait. So a user itself or a member, they’re actually also getting cashback?

Melissa Simonson: Oh yes.

Bradley Sutton: Oh, I see. I didn’t realize that. I totally missed that the first time. You probably mentioned that, but I didn’t even get that part.

Melissa Simonson: A bronze-level member does not earn cashback, because they are not a shareholding member of the co-op. A silver level member does earn cashback and so that’s where the nonprofit 51% or more gets redistributed back. That’s where that whole concept comes in. It’s all coming together now.

Bradley Sutton: Ah! It’s all coming together. Oh, I get it. You “cooperate”. Okay. Okay. All right.

Melissa Simonson: Yeah, so that cashback, what’s significant about this and that it actually takes people a second to really let it sink in, is right now, currently, we have members who are getting $1,000 cash back from their spending on freight forwarding and secret shoppers and stuff like that—the services that they’re using. They’re getting $1,000 cashback and they’re only paying $250 a month to be part of the co-op. So they’re making a profit by having an entire team of people to work for them and help them out and put them in touch with the people that they need.

Bradley Sutton: Things are making so much more sense to me now. I’m glad we went over this, but that’s actually pretty cool. I almost did another “How cool is that?” moment right here. But one per episode is enough, but it actually is pretty cool.

Melissa Simonson: We deserve three at Empowery.

Bradley Sutton: That can be my other catchphrases: “Say what?”. Oh, but anyway, now I lost my train of thought here because I’m just so shocked that people are actually paying money, but they’re getting more money back. I mean, that’s just like a crazy concept to me, but that’s pretty cool. Now, I assume male or female can join, but coming from your background, I know you’re very passionate about what you were talking about before. There are some things that you actually have, especially for female sellers, right?

Melissa Simonson: Yeah. I’m going to be hosting a women’s conference in January. We’re going to have women speakers, women in attendance. There’s no rule against men coming, especially if it’s like a husband and wife or something like that and they want to come together. But there will be more women in attendance than men. And that is intentional.

Bradley Sutton: Can I go? I hope my wife didn’t listen to that. I’m sorry. I can do Zumba fitness for everybody.

Melissa Simonson: I feel like that’s really necessary.

Bradley Sutton: I do Zumba fitness. We are totally digressing, but I used to be a Zuma fitness instructor, as everybody knows. But then I would do bachelorette parties. Now, the first thing, of course, you’re laughing right now because you’re thinking the same thing as everybody else, like “What? You’re doing a bachelorette party?” But here’s the thing: when you’re preparing for a wedding, it’s very stressful, right? Me, I got married in a courthouse, so I can’t say there was any stress there, but I assume that it’s very stressful. So what would happen was that the bridal party would, the day before, hire me just to do a Zumba fitness class. kind of just get all the stress out.

Melissa Simonson: Ah, I love that.

Bradley Sutton: And so, if you have a three-day conference, whether it’s male or female, I would say either way Zumba would be a great break, right?

Melissa Simonson: I think so.

Bradley Sutton: Like, “Okay, I’ve just been sitting here for eight hours listening to people talk. You know, I’ve got numbers coming out of my ears and stuff. Let’s do an hour of physical fitness here.”

Melissa Simonson: I think you’re really on to something, honestly.

Bradley Sutton: There we go. Let’s talk a little bit later. We got about a few months to plan for this conference. We’re going to have the first-ever Zumba class at a conference. All right. And again, it has nothing to do with me knowing that these are mostly females at the conference. Absolutely nothing to do with that. But anyway, let us go ahead and give out the information though because just like with Steve, he had such a great episode, people, I’m sure, had more questions for him.

Bradley Sutton: People might have more questions for you about either Empowery or about how you started a cleaning business. Who knows? Maybe they want to know about the women’s conference because they’re interested in the Zumba. But if any of these apply, how can they find more information or reach you?

Melissa Simonson: You can go to empowery.com/contact. Sorry, I talk really fast. Let me say that one more time.

Bradley Sutton: Can you spell Empowery because I wouldn’t even know how to spell that.

Melissa Simonson: It’s just “empower” with a “y”; it’s e m p o w e r y dot com slash contact, and there’s a lot of information on empowery.com, but if you go to  empowery.org, that’s a really great way to find out more information. That’s where we post a lot of information.

Bradley Sutton: Okay. Well. Thank you very much, Melissa, for joining us, and if we do the Zumba class, I expect you to be in attendance.

Melissa Simonson: Hundred percent.

Bradley Sutton: 100% all right. Hopefully, I won’t have to wait until next year to see you again. I’ll see you at the next conference. I know we’ve been seeing each other lately at a lot of conferences, so I look forward to seeing you again.

Melissa Simonson: Okay, excellent. Thank you, Bradley.

Bradley Sutton: Thank you.