#317 – How Two Sellers Scaled From $1.7 to $6.4 Million On Amazon In One Year

The ladies from SSP #206 are back! The last time we heard from them, both Sharon and Elizabeth were nearing 7-figures in annual sales. They now have a total combined Amazon sales of $6,400,000 in 2021! How cool is that?!

Listen to the very end as they share their journey, the good, the bad, and their strategies that contributed to their success.

In episode 317 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley, Sharon, and Elizabeth discuss:

• 02:00 – Why Does Bradley Always Wear A Hat On?
• 03:00 – Biggest Mistakes Sharon Made In 2021
• 07:50 – Sharon’s Qualifications For Reordering A Product
• 11:00 – Elizabeth’s Biggest Challenges In 2021
• 14:30 – Her Advice To New Sellers To Prevent This Mistake
• 16:10 – Using The Amazon Transparency Program
• 17:20 – How To Apply To Amazon Transparency
• 22:10 – How Much Did Sharon’s Business Grow In 2021?
• 23:50 – Sharon’s Product Research Strategy
• 26:30 – Building Off-Amazon Audiences 
• 27:30 – Sharon’s Launch Plan For Her Next Product
• 29:00 – Sharing Ideas On Product Launch Techniques
• 33:00 – $4.8 Million In Gross Sales For 2021
• 34:00 – How Did Elizabeth Find Her Product?
• 41:00 – Keep An Eye On Your Niche For Opportunities
• 42:00 – More Hard-Hitting Tips From Sharon and Elizabeth

Transcript

Bradley Sutton:

Today, we’re gonna bring back two individuals who had a great story the last time there on the podcast of how they 30x the income that they used to make when they live in Nigeria. Now they’re back to talk about how in the last year, they were able to increase their total revenue from 1.75 million to almost 6 million dollars. How cool is that? Pretty cool I think.

Bradley Sutton:

Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I am your host Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that’s a completely BS-free unscripted, and unrehearsed, organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the Amazon, Walmart, or e-commerce world. Now, before we get started as you came on here Sharon, what did you tell me when you saw my video?

Sharon:

Oh, your hair. I like your hair. I love it.

Bradley Sutton:

If you are listening to this on the car, something, you have no idea what we’re talking about here, but if you guys are watching this on YouTube, you’ll see the reason why you always see me with a hat on is not for style, or I’m trying to make a statement, but it’s because this is my real hair and it’s just a big mess as you guys can see, but I was like, you know what I want to go without a hat for the first episode here. So anyways Sharon and Elizabeth, it’s great to have you back. We’re not gonna get too much into your are full backstories because guys they were already here on the podcast before. And we dove into very interesting history, how they were originally from Nigeria came here to the United States and just have 30xed what they were making, you know, before.

Bradley Sutton:

So it was, it was a great story. They came on in 2020. So if you guys want to go back to that episode or get that backstory before listening to this one, why don’t you pause this episode, go back and search for episode number 206, and you can get their backstory and then come back and listen to this. But anyways I had told you guys at the end of that episode, I wanted to kind of like bring you guys back and see how you’ve been expanding. You know, it’s kind of hard to improve on 30xing your income, but I wanted to see about that, but before we talk about your wins of 2021, let’s go the opposite. Let’s talk about the losses, the L’s that you might have taken. So we’ll go ahead and start with Sharon. So Sharon, what are like the top two or three, like mistakes you made or disasters or something that happened last year that you could share with the audience?

Sharon:

I don’t know if I would call it a mistake because honestly, I still, till this time cannot see what I did wrong, but I had launched a product last year, actually in January and it did real good and I had it in three colors and I sold out in no time. So naturally, I placed another order sold out again, and then the third time was gonna place my order and I placed way too many units, 18,000, I think. And by the time-

Bradley Sutton:

How many18,000?

Sharon:

8,000 units, not 18. I take that back. 8,000.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. But then I was about to say, wow,

Sharon:

No, no, 8,000. I take them back. So before then, I was doing just 3000 units, you know? And then I went up to 8,000 units, but with the whole shipping thing that happened at airport. So I was out of stock for longer than expected. And I came back and for some reason, I could never get my rank back. I was selling like 60 units a day. And when I launched back, I was barely selling 20 units. I literally so right now I’m selling 12 units.

Bradley Sutton:

So where are you storing all of those 8,000 units since you’re not going through them? Like you don’t have them all on Amazon or you do?

Sharon:

No, no, no, no. I do not have them all on Amazon. I kind of started noticing before it shipped after production. So I split some, I sent some to UK. I sent some to Canada, and I sent only about 300 boxes to the US. And I have them in my house. I use my garage as my private warehouse. It’s full. So I have some of them right here, some of them upstairs and it’s everywhere.

Bradley Sutton:

And you still have not figured out why you know, what was wrong? Like, did your conversion rate go down or is there a page view, or what’s going on?

Sharon:

Everything is good, but to be fair health wise, in 2021, I was not at the top for like the last six months of 2021. I was literally chair bound. I could not walk like walk, walk because of pain and I was pregnant and I was miserable. So I didn’t really do much of my Amazon work like I would normally. So of course that could be part of the reason why I dropped the ball. Finally had a baby getting back my health. And so maybe now I will be able to fix it. I don’t know. I really believe I will though. So I don’t know what happened or it could just be, again, you know, when you’re Amazon is fast paced and if you’re not looking, things will change. So I think that’s probably what happened.

Bradley Sutton:

So you said you launched that back at the beginning of 2021. So that was even already after we had spoken on the first podcast. So-

Sharon:

I can’t even remember.

Bradley Sutton:

It’s been that long. Can you believe it? What, so what about your other products? How have they been doing the ones that, you know, you’ve already been selling? Since 2021.

Sharon:

I actually just did something last week with all my products where I color coded them. And I listed out all my SKUs and I label them A to C in order of importance. Like these are the skills that you cannot go out of stock on. These are the one that hopefully you cannot go out of stock and this one. And then my C products actually are products are potentially, I’m not even gonna reorder so that I can focus more on my A and my B product. Usually, at the beginning of every year, I launch new products. The first six months of the year is when I launch. And then the last six months of the year I nurture. But because of my health last year, I do not have enough products ready to launch this year, you know what I mean? So I’m just not getting into product research and trying to get myself back together. So back to your questions, the products I had that when my staple, I said our last interview, thank God. Most of them are still doing good. Their life cycle is not over like we know Amazon’s life cycle is. Life cycle for them is, is not over. So I still have them, but they have fallen all, but one have fallen into my B product.

Bradley Sutton:

So, how many total products you have?

Sharon:

I have product but I cannot answer about SKUs. Active SKUs that I consider SKUs I have 37. When I did this. That was before I couldn’t answer that question. But after last week organizing this, I can answer, I have 37 SKUs and I am going to not reorder a lot of them. Eight of those, I will not be reordering. So I will be reordering 29.

Bradley Sutton:

What’s your qualifications? Is it just the speed or is it your profit profitability or what are the factors that-

Sharon:

Okay, so I have some products. Most of them, the first thing is, are you profitable? What are you bringing to the table? Then another criteria I use, I have four brands. And some of the products I did just for long term, I have a product that I launched because they were like only six of that products on the main page, but they really had high reviews. And I knew, and it was selling like crazy. I knew out of the bat, I would not compete with them. They had over a thousand reviews is not your average product. So you advice to get into, but I was trying to play the long game. I know that if I can just maintain this product for a beat and gather reviews, I know that with time, I will be part of, so that’s a criteria for keeping such a product also is a line.

Sharon:

I mean, I personally went for my brand. When I launch a new product into any new niche, I try to complete it into three products in that niche. It’s one of my, should I say, strategies to get that brand recognition within the niche? So some of the products, they may not be like I have one particular product that is not adding enough to the bottom line in terms of dollars and cents, because it’s selling literally selling maybe 40, 50 units a month, but it is adding to my brand recognition. It’s completing my three ASINs in that niche. I’m using the exact same suppliers I’m using for the other product, no extra work. And I just ordered it enough. So now my brand ads can be because I’m really focused on PPC right now. So I’m using that to complete my brand ads and that product is pushing the sales of the order too, and vice versa, right?

Sharon:

Also that’s one product. We are only like about four people on Amazon selling it. And the search, the search volume for the main keyword as Helium 10 is maybe 300. Like literally nobody would launch that product. But I have other reasons for launching that product because if the main product can get a 10,000 search volume, is it tells me enough poeople don’t know that you can use it for the C product. And when they know they would buy it, why would 18,000 people buy A and 300 people buy C? You know? So I looked into what was in the market and some Chinese sellers operating have figured it out and they put something outta the way to terrible. So I tried came and I did something. So even though I’m selling like 50 units a month, I’m the best seller of all of us, but I don’t care. That’s part of the thing,

Bradley Sutton:

Secondary. I like that

Sharon:

It might borrow the money for that one. So it just depends.

Bradley Sutton:

All right. Now before Elizabeth falls asleep over there, just waiting for her turn. Let’s go ahead and switch to Elizabeth Now.

Sharon:

Oh, she has fun things to see.

Bradley Sutton:

I know, I’ve heard a little bit of it. I purposely didn’t want hear every detail because I wanted to save for this episode. I like to hear things for the first time, just along with all you listeners out there. But Elizabeth, let’s talk about something we didn’t talk about before. And that was why I just talk about with Sharon. Like, what was some of your biggest struggles or biggest failures or biggest mistakes or, Ooh, I could do that one over again or just anything from 2021.

Elizabeth:

Okay. Transparency. I wish I would’ve done transparency earlier cause literally-

Bradley Sutton:

Oh, I thought you were talking about that you were gonna be transparent right now with us. You’re talking about Amazon transparency. Okay

Elizabeth:

Like this hit me right where it hurts. Cause I literally lost, or I’m losing over a million dollars because I did not get into transparency on time. So I have this product that was doing great. I had the trademark, I had everything else set up, you know, I was selling 400, 500 in day on this product.

Bradley Sutton:

$400 or units?

Elizabeth:

Units.

Bradley Sutton:

400 units a day of the product?

Elizabeth:

Yeah. For $40 per unit product. So you do the math. Yeah, that’s a lot, and of course, it’s natural for people to kind of jump on the listing. I want to, I “Jack” to listing, to get a piece of the cake where they never works for it, but that’s a story for another day. And because I have brand registry, I have a US trademark, was so easy for me to kind of kick them off, and with the I Jack a lot on Helium 10 when it gives me that a lot, Oh someone is on your listing. I go ahead and try, you know, kick them off in the meantime they’re off. And sometime in November I had about six people on the listing and I was trying to kick them off but Amazon is not letting, cause it’s not pulling out my brand.

Elizabeth:

I’m like, what’s going on? And then he said, brand not recognized. I’m like brand not recognize. This is the first time I’m hearing this, I’m seeing this arrow. And then I rushed to UPS to website and look and behold, my trademark was revoked. It was revoked. Like, how does that even happen? The trademark have been using for like two years that was registered for two years was revoked. Apparently, there was an issue whereby a bigger brand, a well known brand, disputed it. And I didn’t even know to contest it cuz I never got any notification, but anyways, it got revoked? So at that point, there was no legitimate way for me to stop those other people from selling on the listing. I was selling for $39.99 and all of a sudden I had almost 20 to 30 people on the listing kicking their self based on price.

Elizabeth:

Literally I, the product selling for $8.99 cents, where do I start from, and if they were selling the same quality of product, I would’ve, you know, not been as apprehensive as I was, but they were selling like literally inferior product. Like it was not in compare. So obviously sales tank it crushed, I wouldn’t say tank, it crashed and oh, it’s, it’s been a nightmare. So I would advise when you start selling a product, even if you have a registered brand, you never know what could happen. The only way to, you know, secure yourself on Amazon is to get transparency. Cuz with that, at least you have a hundred percent control of your brand and people that could hop on your listing to prevent what happened to me from happening to you. So yeah.

Bradley Sutton:

So do you have transparency on another, any of your other product now? Or no?

Elizabeth:

Yes, I do.

Bradley Sutton:

Now have you ever used it?

Elizabeth:

So I enrolled that ASIN that particular ASIN now in transparency, obviously it takes up to two months before it becomes active. But a lot of damage has been done, but I was so glad I had over 3000 4.6 star review. So all the negative reviews that are coming in right now, I have enough positive reviews to kind of, you know, hold it. So I don’t fall way below the, you know, for star. But I’m lucky now I think as that last week transparency kicked in, so all those sellers are off the listing. But now I could never do-

Bradley Sutton:

Hold on. Walk us through that process. Let’s walk through this process. All right. So you’ve got the product, you know, you had, you know, 10, 20 hijackers on there now last week or something, you get a notice that transparency is active. Now did your inventory that was already in Amazon. Did it already have the transparency, barcodes, or what process did you take to get these other sellers kicked off your list?

Elizabeth:

So, transparency usually take up to six to eight weeks get active. Right? So when I apply for transparency all the products that I have in my warehouse, I started relabeling them. I started putting the transparency codes on them. So by the time this waiting period, I think they call it OPR period is over, already had all my product labeled with the transparency code. So automatically all the people selling on that listing in they’re gonna get a notification out. This product is now enrolled in transparency. You have two weeks to provide the authentication code, to be able to continue selling this product. If you don’t have those code automatically, Amazon kicks you off the listing. So you have to provide the code where we could get right back on the listing. So yeah, a product I was doing and averages 400 a unit a day. Now I’m trying to build it back up. Yeah. I’m still doing like up to a hundred and stuff.

Bradley Sutton:

Oh yeah. That’s terrible. Only a hundred units a day. You’re like a newbie seller Elizabeth. Wow. I mean, that’s amazing when like, oh, my sales are terrible and it’s 100 a day. How many of us would like to have that.

Elizabeth:

You don’t wanna know how many thousand of units I have of this product, literally. Cause if you’re going through 500 a day, 15,000 a month, you know, and you have to ship it by sea and you know, you’re supposed to have like times three, the unit that you’re selling. So you can imagine 140,000 units. So you don’t wanna be me.

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah. What’s your cost in that product? Just outta curiosity.

Elizabeth:

My cost is actually $14. $14 a ship by air. But when I ship by sea it drops down to like $10.50.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. Oh, I mean that’s the price with, with shipping us. That’s pretty impressive actually. Now, what was the process like? I’ve never done this before, so that’s why I’m asking to apply for transparency. Like what questions were you asked? You already said how long it took, but you know, just walk us through that process.

Elizabeth:

So in the past, you have to, when you enroll with transparency, Amazon have like partners where you have to when you buy the code, you send it to them. They convert it to because it’s like it’s CSV file. They convert it to a code and they print it out. They have a printing partner, then you get the physical label, and then you send it to your manufacturer. And cuz I wanted to do that transparency earlier in the year, but because of the whole process, I was like, yeah, I don’t need it. I have a brand which was a big mistake that I should, I regretted ever not going through it anyways. So, but it’s pretty easier. So you request for them to contact you. So they’ll contact you, they send you like a questionnaire, you fill it out, you have a call with them, they explain the whole process to you.

Elizabeth:

But now you can request for you to print your code in-house, which is like amazing. So with that, you kind of just download the PDF form of your code, and then you have to have this thermal printer, it’s a zebra printer that you recommend. You buy that and then you be able to print it out yourself. So I’ve been printing down all my codes myself, because like I said, I have tens and thousands of units of this product sitting in my warehouse that I have to put the backward on the file, send it to Amazon. So once you print out, so they’re gonna give you like a three sample code for you to print out with your in-house printer, and then they’ll ask you to place it on your product, send a picture of that and send it to Amazon.

Elizabeth:

Just a picture of the labels. So they will have to scan it to see if it when it’s scannable and then they’ll give you a goal. Okay. Yeah. Now you can go ahead and print them in bulk, apply them to your product. So there’s a period that they call OPR. I think it’s operational review period. I think that that is so it’s a 30 day period. So you have to send, once you send in your product with the bar code, Amazon is going to just be watching out, make sure that all the codes are scannable because you know any code that is not scannable, they’re gonna sideline it and they’re not gonna process it. So that period, they wanted to have at least above 90% accuracy rate. So after the 30 days, period, then your transparency has been turned on. So at that point in time, all your product must have the bar code that is scannable. If it’s not scannable, even if it has a bar code, then it’s sidelined as a counterfeit product and it’s gonna be destroyed. So it’s a really-

Bradley Sutton:

Is this in addition to your FNSKU? So now you have two barcodes that are on every single unit?

Elizabeth:

And there’s an interesting thing that Amazon is trying to introduce with this transparency thing whereby you can scan the code in addition to confirming that the product is authentic. Cause when the customer scan the code, you say, oh, this product is authentic. Now you can put in your ad in there for other products. Yes. You could put a video ad, you could put codes, you could request for reviews, you know, stuff like that. The transparency guy was telling me that, you know, it’s something that I could potentially also add into the bar code. So it’s interesting. So definitely. Okay. You guys shout get it.

Bradley Sutton:

What was the cost of all that like, is there a application fee or are you charge per label, or what cost all of this?

Elizabeth:

In Label. So you just a 5 cents per label.

Bradley Sutton:

5 cents? Okay.

Elizabeth:

That’s it.

Bradley Sutton:

Wow. All right, let’s go back to Sharon really quick. Now, Sharon, I was looking at the transcript from the last podcast that we did and we had asked you, what was your 2020 sales? And it wasn’t at the end of the year, but you said you, Hey, we’re gonna end at probably around 800,000 dollars in gross sales for 2020. What about 2021? What was your gross sales for 2021 about?

Sharon:

USA only right?

Bradley Sutton:

No, overall.

Sharon:

Overall I think I ended up with a little less than a 1.5 million.

Bradley Sutton:

1.5 million. So even though you kind of, you know, due to health reasons and pregnancy and other things, you know, for five, six months, you weren’t doing much, you were able to almost double your overall sales. Again, I love the bad things because so Elizabeth’s like, ah, yeah, you know, this is so bad, you know, I’m down to 100 sales a day for this item. And then Sharon’s like, ah, you know, I have no time to work on anything. I only doubled my entire gross revenue to 1.5 million. So many people listening out there. like, man, I wish I had these kind of problem. And-

Sharon:

You know, what a good thing is with the doubling my revenue is that’s not just the exciting thing for me. The exciting thing for me was that I did not add additional capital for myself, I did not add additional capital. And instead, I was able to improve my margins and naturally spend,

Bradley Sutton:

That’s the important thing.

Sharon:

So I improved my margins and double my revenue, like, you know, and of course, greatly improved my PPC spend.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, let me talk about your number of excuses. I think you said you had between 30 and 40, so obviously you probably have a system of how you decide, Hey, what am I gonna launch? You know, you don’t just randomly, accidentally come across 37 products to launch. So can you talk us through a little bit, your process on how you discover new products in order to launch?

Sharon:

Okay. So two ways I can purposefully go searching for a product. So in that case, for example, I have a product, one of my product that is doing okay now, is that on my, A list product. And it is doing fine. And I need to expand on that niche because again, we know that life cycles exist and people are coming. So I need to be one step ahead of the pack. So for a product like that, I need to find a complimentary product. So that narrows down my product research because this product I’m looking for needs to be complementary to this one. I am selling because eventually they both gonna help each other, right. That’s one way I find products, or I can just be like, I need a new set of products, which I do because naturally by this time I would’ve had a lineup of products ready to launch for the year. And I don’t. So when I just need a new set of products this time, I am hopefully in this cross looking for three complementary products because I need three complimentary ASINs per brand. My goal is to there’s a book. I read a book at the beginning of last year that Steven did on his be on yourself challenge. And it was amazing. And that changed my mindset. So it is 12 Months to a Million. And that’s where-

Bradley Sutton:

Steven from Rainmakers

Sharon:

Yes. Rainmaker Stevens. So every January he does a bet on yourself. Challenge. I dunno if you know about it, which one is going upright, now. And it’s amazing. So he, the book we read last year was 12 Months to a Million. And in the book, part of the recommendation of how to make a million dollars in 12 months was don’t quote me, cuz I may not get this exactly right. But you get, the idea, is to get three to five products at 20, at least $25 per unit sell, I think 25 units a day or something like that each and you will. And that’s literally a million dollars in revenue. So rather than looking for that one product that will sell, I will sell 75 units a day on I’m looking for three products that will gimme 25 units each

Bradley Sutton:

Hold on really quick. Do you have your

Sharon:

Oh, my gods are hearing the beep.

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah. There’s a beep.

Sharon:

I apologize, my guys are awaken. Yeah. I didn’t know. You guys could hear a beep there go. I’m sorry. Yes. So that’s the

Bradley Sutton:

Sharon is multitasking here

Sharon:

I have two screens and the other screen goodness. I apologize

Bradley Sutton:

To my editor, Mhel. Normally we would edit this kind of thing out of the podcast, but let’s keep this in because I think this is.

Sharon:

Can you guys still hear it?

Bradley Sutton:

Yes, we can still do. I, you can

Sharon:

I dunno, I need to maybe close the, I still gonna show. I don’t know.

Bradley Sutton:

That’s how you double your revenue guys. You’re recording a podcast and you’re fighting with yourself. You’re fighting with your factories at the same time.

Sharon:

Actually, that’s a new supplier for a product- Oh my God. It’s still beeping. I’m sorry. I don’t know. Lemme tell him to stop message me. I close it. I don’t pin it from task, but I don’t know how else to do this. I apologize. I don’t know.

Bradley Sutton:

No worries. Take your time.

Sharon:

So I find complementary products, which of course I start with frequently both together. And then I just go on the tenure from there. And also I do the random, like I, right now I have a new brand with zero product but I have an idea what I want the brand to be. I can just do like a new beginner. I don’t have anything in mind and I just go and look for product and whatever works and I just get from there.

Bradley Sutton:

So your 37 SKUs over how many brands is that currently?

Sharon:

The 37 of them on three brands. I have one brand with zero products.

Bradley Sutton:

Have you been building any like off Amazon audiences or you know, website or-

Sharon:

Yes, I do have a website for two of the brands. I’m building it for now, I started building the four and in November I’ve not gone back to finish it. That was supposed to be ready for Christmas, by the way. So anyhow I have two websites for two of the brands and my social media, I’m trying here and there, I’ve not been really successful with that, but I have the social media, but also I am building a ManyChat audience and an email list.

Bradley Sutton:

Now that, you know, the terms of service have changed and technically you shouldn’t be doing like rebates and search find buy, and things like that. Since that happened. Have you launched any new products or your next one will be your first launch?

Sharon:

My next one will be my first launch.

Bradley Sutton:

So, what’s your plan for the launch then now that maybe some of these other, you know, things that you used to do, you’re not able to do anymore.

Sharon:

The broad plan is to do PPC and to divine,

Bradley Sutton:

Since you’re launching a lot of products on existing brands that you’ve built audiences are you gonna leverage that audience in order-

Sharon:

Yes, I am. And, I plan on doing it in a way that with terms of service compliant, for example, let’s if I’m launching a product that is complementary to an existing product line, my audience is tagged by what products brought them into the audience list, right? So I’m probably there something you spoke about, you or Manny Coats, actually, maybe it was many quotes. The very, very beginning of where we started, it was FBA High Rollers Facebook group. And where we talked about, you emailed these people for example, and say, Hey, this product is going live today. And for the first 24 hours, it’s gonna be $10 off. Just remember to click the button, the coupon, right? And for everybody, it’s gonna be 10 per $10 of, so I’m not going against Amazon terms of service.

Sharon:

It’s open to the general public. It’s not open to a specific few, but look at this on that day, I reduced it by maybe 10 bucks. And then I broadcast this message. Hey, for the next 24 hours, starting at 6:00 AM tomorrow morning, there’s gonna be $10 off. If you wanna take advantage, make sure you go there. I have EMX just X and X amount of product. So when it’s done, I’m gonna turn off the coupon and if it doesn’t get done, I’m gonna turn it off at midnight. Anyways, if I have enough people go take advantage of that using the mini chat, number one, I will get a new release badge, hopefully, but number two, I can send them a follow up message. Like, did you take advantage? How did you like it? You know, if I get responses back, I can be like, let me know what you think.

Bradley Sutton:

In episode 301 of this podcast, I talked about something, a test I did where it worked. Where I was like launch a product and then let me just hyper focus on these five main keywords per product, and then get top of the search PPC, and then have this big discount, you know, similar to what you were talking about. Having a big coupon, say same difference completely within terms of service. But then theoretically, if people, all the people who are searching these keywords in the first place, they see my product at the top of PPC, they’re gonna buy it. And that’s almost like search, find, buying it completely within terms of service. But when you have an audience, you have a little bit more you know, a little bit more flexibility, you know, I would almost like tell the audience, all right, Hey, search for the keywords that you think would describe this product or something, but then you might be.

Sharon:

Instead of doing that because my audience is diverse and I don’t want anything to come back and tell me you manipulated BSR. What I’ve always done. Even before the terms of service thing. I teach my student, I have a lunch PPC. I have PPC I don’t know if you know that it’s not a curse per se, but I teach people PPC. I help you optimize your campaigns. Right? And I have the launch campaign structure that I teach for my PPC. And it’s only to focus on six keywords in the beginning, we start with that exact match on just six of your Maldives keyword. And then we go from there and the goal of that, of those keywords, then we’re adding it, remember to search, find, buy the goal of getting those six keywords was just not just to get sales. Your sales would come from the search find, buy goods that will easily find you.

Sharon:

But also we would get clicks that would not lead into sale because we don’t have reviews and that’s okay. It makes the launch more versus just having search, find, buy where you are getting hundred percent conversion rates. But by the time we have this PPC with search fund buy, then will get a natural 40%, 30%, 50% conversion rate. And that will not only help your organic ranks is gonna help your PPC rank because your PPC is “converting”. And if your PPC ranks get better, it’s gonna help you with your relevancy on that keyword. And it’s gonna reduce your PPC B going forward because, you know, so I’ve always been doing that already. So naturally, I will add that to what I’m doing right now.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. Yeah. So, you know, we definitely don’t want to, you know, get in trouble with Amazon terms of service, but you know, the way that around it, in my opinion, would be with the audience. I almost would go to them first. And then, you know, cause if you have an audience that’s, you know, of your existing customers or at least one that’s completely focused on your, your brand or your niche, well, those are the kind of like the people that are your customer avatar. So I would like send out an email to them or put a poll on my Instagram, or if I have a Facebook group for them, you know, put a poll there and say, Hey, here’s a new product. You know, I wouldn’t name it or anything. I would show the pictures.

Bradley Sutton:

They would obviously have to be descriptive. You know, what would you search for in order to find this product? So to make sure, I mean, theoretically speaking, you should already have that information with helium 10. You could see what your competitors are converting for, but you never know. Sometimes people come up with keywords that other people don’t know. And then, you know, take a look at those top 10 keywords that people submit to you and then make sure I have those in my PPC. You know, as you say, and then I would just tell ’em, all right, guys, we’re going live, you know, find this product on Amazon. You don’t even have to say search for whatever keyword you don’t have to if you’re scared. If somebody’s scared about that, don’t even say just, Hey, find this product on Amazon. And theoretically speaking, they should be searching for it based on, you know, some of those main keywords.

Bradley Sutton:

And as long as you’re showing up first, you know, you’ll get those conversions and it’s not gonna be a hundred percent, you know?

Sharon:

Yeah. Because of the PPC.

Bradley Sutton:

Yep. Absolutely. All right. I like it. Let’s switch back to Elizabeth, so that, those same original questions I asked Sharon looking back at my notes here in 2020 you had done about $900,000 worth of sales. Now I have a strong feeling that somebody who had a new product selling 400 units a day, you probably surpassed that $900,000 in 2021. What did you end up with at the end of the year?

Elizabeth:

So I end up with 4.8 ish million.

Bradley Sutton:

There we go. We got some applause right there. Playing with my little sound deck. That is pretty impressive. So over 4 million. So you 4x your sales, but Sharon had a baby, so I’m not sure who won at the end of the year there she created life there. So I don’t know if she would’ve traded that, but Hey, that’s awesome,4 million. Now, so similar question, let’s just talk about that one product, first of all. And then we’ll just talk about in general, your product strategy, like, like Sharon was saying, but that product that started selling 400 a day, and now you’re only selling 100. How in the world did you find that product originally?

Elizabeth:

Believe it or not, it was on social media. So it was kind of almost like a viral product that went viral. But fortunately for me, it was a product that my manufacturer was producing. So they were the only one manufacturing that product, it was their product, but at that time they were only selling it for this brand off of Amazon that is doing like a Shopify. And when I saw it, I was like, oh, this is interesting product. You know, I just saw this on like, oh, Elizabeth, how do you always find a product off of Amazon? Like, well, I do my assignments, so yeah. So he was like yeah, this our product, but we have this agreement with, so and so-

Bradley Sutton:

Wait, so hold on. When you say my manufacturer, it’s a factory that was already producing some of your other products?

Elizabeth:

Correct. So, cause it was in the same niche, so I just forward it to them like, oh, this is something interesting. I know like, oh yeah, that’s how client, right. We have an agreement with them whenever we produce a new product, the first person to order has this three months head start, you know, so you can order it right now, but in the next month or so you could place an order for that. So I was basically the first person to sell it on Amazon.

Bradley Sutton:

It was viral on social media, but that client of your manufacturer who had that, you know, initial, exclusive, they were not selling it on Amazon.

Elizabeth:

They don’t sell on Amazon at all. Yeah. So they have a Shopify and she has this big brand on this Instagram page with almost a million followers. So I would say it’s a trickle effect from hop campaign, social media campaign that I got of, of on Amazon when I launched my, so I didn’t need to do anything from the beginning. You know, I started getting sales like right off the bat.

Bradley Sutton:

So since this is a brand new product though, how did you determine there was demand? Like, did you already see like in Helium 10 that for some of the main keywords there was search volume, but then obviously people were not finding that product or not?

Elizabeth:

So this keyword was a keyword that this other person coined yeah. For herself, for her niche, but it, the campaign was all over social media and I could see like comments, on the advertisement. People say, no, I want this. I like, I wanna try this. Interesting. You know, it was just something interesting to me. Then I set for them on Instagram and I saw, they always run out of stock whenever they came on stock. It, it doesn’t take them three days to run out in the next three days after, you know, having stock, they run out, they keep running out. So I know the demand is high. And then that particular keyword, when I went on Amazon, when I started typing it in, it gave me like an auto generated. Like I gotcha. Now I looking for it at Amazon because they couldn’t find it on this website when they ran out. And I’m like, okay. Yeah, this is a good one. So yeah. So that’s how I got it.

Bradley Sutton:

So how did you even find it in the first place? Was it just like a suggestion, Instagram or TikTok based on, you know, their algorithm, or it was somebody who you followed because that was an influencer in your niche or how did you even set yourself up in that position to even see that

Elizabeth:

I just stumbled on the ads, to be honest with you. I wasn’t looking for it, but I just stumbled on it. So it was just shared luck. I think its luck meets preparedness or whatever, but yeah, it just happened to be, you know, something that was in my niche. And I just recognized that, yeah, this is something that is also okay. Yeah, it was going viral at that point but has like a long term demand. We still have a long time demand because I looked at other products that were very similar to what this product was doing. And I looked at like their five year sales range and they were still doing good. Like, you know, even with the older version, because it’s like and more improved version of like older product, right. The highest seller was still selling up to three point something million a month, a month with that product for old product, we selling that good. Then I know that is a long term product. It’s not a product that oh, okay. Yeah. It’s going viral now. Then all of a sudden it’s because in the beginning of me selling the product believe me or not, I was selling with a lead time of two weeks, handling time rather of two weeks. So meaning

Bradley Sutton:

So because you were doing fulfilled by merchant.

Elizabeth:

Ah, yeah. I was fulfilling myself and even before the product leaves, China, I already sold it out. So it was crazy. So in the beginning I was selling it up to a thousand, 1,200 a day. Then when it leveled out was when I was doing 500. Yeah. It was a crazy product. So yeah, I was just lucky, to be honest, I’m not gonna take credit. Oh yeah. I researched it. I did that. I just felt like I was lucky enough to recognize it and then, you know, yeah. Put it on Amazon.

Bradley Sutton:

So, then, you know, like you said, you had tons of hijackers, so obviously, other factories started hopping on the bandwagon and I’m assuming that some have created their own listings. What, what has you’re listening to maintain? Is it because you were the first and then now have so many reviews and things like that that allows you to still dominate or what’s the-

Elizabeth:

So when other obviously manufacturers from China start seeing the way people were inquiring about the product and my manufacturer, they produced like the top notch, and it was a little bit more pricey than, you know, what other newbies we are trying to sell for or buy for, or sell for whatever. Other cheaper versions started popping up. So a product that I get for $14 with air shipping they could get it for $5 including shipping, but the quality was terrible. So they don’t have good reviews. I have great reviews because it, the same exact manufacturer as what they were seeing on social media that I had, others did not have it. And because I had like an exclusive deal with my manufacturer, from the Amazon beat of it, I was the only one that had that original version of it for three whole months before he could sell to any other person. So I would, you know, when I, from other people, they see my quality, obviously I get the sale. So that’s what made me, so, you know, I wasn’t able to maintain that sale.

Bradley Sutton:

All right, guys. So, you know, if we wanna a takeaway from Elizabeth’s story here is number one, you know, keep your eye open and your niche, you know, go on social media. You know, if Instagram and TikTok and other social media know what, you know, the kind of niche that you normally, the people you follow you’ll get ads, you know, sometimes based on that, and you never know what you might find. Number two is, you know, hop on it. As soon as you can see what kind of arrangement you could make with your manufacturer. And then the next one is, Hey, get, you know, protect yourself with some transparency. If you’re like super sure that this is gonna be a, a great one. So that’s good. All right. For now, let’s go back and forth a little bit just with our, with our “TST”, our TST 30-second tips. Maybe we, hopefully, we have enough time do maybe two each. So Sharon, let’s start with you you, that, you’re helping people with PPC and things. So maybe it can be a PPC related, but what’s a 30-second PPC tip that you can share with the audience.

Sharon:

Don’t create too many PPC campaigns at the same time, except you know what you’re doing. And the reason is that you’re gonna get too many clicks that would not lead into sales. And if you get too many clicks, it causes something. I call the negative domino effect. And what that means is too many clicks, not enough sales is gonna cost your organic rank to go down. If your organic rank starts going down, Amazon is gonna say, oh, maybe she’s not really relevant. So your relevance score is going down. And when that goes down, your PPC rank is going down. And because your PPC rank has gone down, your impression will go down. You have no choice, but to increase your bids. So now your PPC cost has gone up. If you have not fixed the original problem, you’re still getting irrelevant and wrong traffic. The cycle will just continue. You increase your PPC bids. So now you’ll start getting that wrong impression again, you will adding that too many clicks, again, not enough sales and the cycle continues, and all these will lead to your conversion rates, just tanking. And that is a slow death for your product.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. All right. That’s your first TST of the day. Let’s go to Elizabeth. Now it doesn’t have to be about PPC could be about anything. What’s your first 30-second tip of the day.

Elizabeth:

Okay. So now, because of this new product that I had a lot of success with, it kind of made me neglect the other products that was doing great for me prior to having that product. And that’s why this year, I decided not to launch any new product, but just kind of nurture the same way Sharon spoke about earlier. So even when you are having great product at a point just keep in mind that you still have a good product that was doing okay. Prior to that product arriving, cuz you never can tell what might happen to this new product cause you know, with Amazon. So do not neglect the other product have been doing good for you, nurture them. I make sure that they don’t run out of stock or you lose focus on those products.

Bradley Sutton:

All right. I like that. I like that. Let’s go back to Sharon, what’s your second 30-second tip of the day.

Sharon:

Okay. my next 30-second tip is about when you are looking for a product, do not look for a product, look for a keyword. If you’re looking for a product, it means the product already exists. Instead, look for a keyword. When you find a good keyword, then you figure out what product can I sell under this keyword or product does this keyword really describe? And when you find that product invest in packaging, and the reason is that, however, if let me just throw figures out there. So even if this product cost you $4 and the package cost you $2, that extra $2 could mean you being able to sell your product to an extra $10. So if you look at them it’s like selling two products in one, it’s like a bundle, you’re selling a product and you’re selling the packaging. The only difference is that you’re not paying FBA fees on the packaging because the FBA fees is on the product. So you just sold your $2 package for 10 bucks without FBA fees.

Bradley Sutton:

Love it, love it. All right, Elizabeth. You got another one for us who?

Elizabeth:

Oh, man. Sharon already took everything. Let me just give it to her

Sharon:

I’m a coach. So because I’ve done this so much.

Bradley Sutton:

But you all are best friends, so it just makes sense that you have a lot of the same ideas. I love it. Yeah.

Elizabeth:

Yeah. Well just find a way to differentiate yourself for sure. And I don’t know if for me I’ve always designed my own product. Actually, for my main brand, this other brand that I’m just talking about is not my main brand. It was a brand that I just recently started less than a year ago, but for my main brand, I designed all my product myself, and that’s something that’s always kept me relevance in my niche. So if it’s something that you could design if you can’t design, but you know, make sure to kind of, you know, put yourself in a different light other than what’s the other sellers are doing, even if you have the same product, but your packaging, like you said, your branding do a lot of difference, could set you apart from the other competitors in your niche. So,

Bradley Sutton:

All Right. Well, I really appreciate you coming on here now, but one real quick thing. I’m looking at your videos right now. Both of you just happened to drop something at the same time. Can you look behind you? You both drop something. Do you see it there? I don’t see you looking Elizabeth right behind you. See it’s your crowns because you both are queen.

Sharon:

Yes.

Bradley Sutton:

There we go. I love it. Look at that. I finally got to use my joke little noises here, but anyways queens of Amazon. Absolutely. You are, and you’re also Elite member. So, hopefully, I’ll be seeing both of you. We’re going to Vegas. We’re going to Vegas for the at Elite workshop. Right?

Sharon:

Finally, she leaves in Vegas and she’s coming last in two weeks. So finally I get through Vegas. Now we have an excuse.

Bradley Sutton:

Yes. Both of you. I hope to see you in March during the Prosper show there, and then we’re gonna have our Elite workshop. The prosper show is March 14th through the 16th, and then the Elite workshop is on Sunday, whatever day that is inside there. So hope to see it, I think it’s on the 13th. Yeah. The elite workshop will be on the 13th, so you can a little bit early there, Sharon. So I hope to see you there. Congratulations on the new baby. Congratulations on the sales for both of you. It’s very inspiring to see you know, your improvement. Now people want to reach out to you on social media or you know, get in touch with you outside of attending prosper show to meet you. Like how, how can they, how can they see you?

Sharon:

I have a website it’s coachsharonamazen.com and it’s pretty much coachsharonamazen.com. Now that’s like Amazon with an E.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. With an E as in Edward.

Sharon:

Amazen

Bradley Sutton:

Or what about you Elizabeth?

Elizabeth:

So, my Instagram is @ohsewa.

Bradley Sutton:

Got it, got it. All right. Well, I’ll be seeing you in a couple of months, and thank you so much for coming on here. And then sometime in-, what year is it? I don’t even know what year it is. 2023. Let’s invite y’all back again. Very inspiring story and we’ll love to see what you guys did the rest of this year. So we’ll see you later.

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• Freedom Ticket: Taught by Amazon thought leader Kevin King, get A-Z Amazon strategies and techniques for establishing and solidifying your business.
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