#198 – Facebook Marketplace Strategies and More from This Dynamic E-Commerce Teaching Couple
The Amazon selling ecosystem just continues to expand. Like any bustling big city, it also contains many smaller, interconnected communities. One of those is the community of stay-at-home parents.
Now, we have the COVID pandemic that’s forcing increasing numbers of families to stay closer to home. Because of that, this is a conversation that I’m sure a lot of you will want to listen to. Today on the Serious Sellers Podcast, Helium 10’s Director of Training and Chief Brand Evangelist, Bradley Sutton welcomes Chelsey and Stephen from the Rainmakers Academy.
Chelsey and Stephen have been helping online sellers build passive income businesses and say that their goal is, “helping create a side hustle without having to quit working, neglect families, or even leave the couch.”
After starting as Amazon sellers and quickly making over 600 dollars a day marketing “little toys,” they decided that it was too good to keep to themselves. They began teaching their techniques to others and the Rainmakers Academy was born.
In episode 198 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley, Chelsey, and Stephen discuss:
- 02:30 – Developing Mastery
- 04:30 – Early Life Choices Based on Security
- 06:30 – Learning to Delegate
- 10:00 – $600 a Day with “a Little Toy!”
- 12:00 – Photographing Weddings Filled in the Gaps
- 14:30 – Teaching Others
- 16:30 – Amazon is Paying the Mortgage
- 21:00 – Understanding Your ‘Why’
- 25:00 – Getting into Amazon on a Shoestring
- 28:30 – Selling Each-Other’s Amazon Products
- 32:00 – Strategically Trimming Back Your E-Commerce Business
- 34:00 – How to Connect with Chelsey and Stephen
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: On today’s episode, we’ve got a couple who through their community have helped thousands of other stay-at-home parents get started selling on Amazon. They’re here to share their story and have some cool strategies that include Facebook marketplace. 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’m 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 world. We’ve got a pair of serious sellers here, Stephen and Chelsey. How’s it going?
Chelsey Diaz: So good to be with you, Bradley. Thanks for having me.
Stephen Diaz: Yes, we are so excited. Bradley’s brought so much value to our life, just his training to community. So we’re just excited to give back today.
Bradley Sutton: Thank you. Thank you so much. And we’ve got a lot of listeners who I know can benefit from the insights you guys are going to share, but before we get into some strategies and different things, I always take it back to the beginning. You guys are in California right now, right? Is that where both of you were born and raised?
Chelsey Diaz: No. So, we live in Northern California in a small town called Chico. That’s where I’m born and raised. And Steven actually grew up in the Midwest in a suburb outside of Chicago. And then he moved to Chico when he was 15. And we met a few years later in high school.
Stephen Diaz: Yeah. There’s not much to do in Illinois. So I think that’s where I found my love of mastery. Just like finding little niches and just going really deep in them, hacky sack and skateboarding and all these things that I think I developed these skills of mastery in. And then that same thing when I found Amazon, I just got addicted and I was just like, I have to know everything about this.
Bradley Sutton: Cool, cool. Now, one quick completely off topic here, but I already forgot to say, I want to say it at the beginning, but I already forgot. So I’m not going to delay it anymore or else I’m going to forget again, but a very important question here is, one thing when people see me in person, the first thing they say is, wow, I didn’t know you were so tall because I’m just sitting down or whatever. And people just know me from YouTube or from the training videos. Now I saw– I haven’t met you guys in person. I saw a picture of you and I don’t know if it’s just a picture, but it looks like Steven you’re like seven foot tall and Chelsey’s like four foot tall. I don’t know what it was, but how tall are you, Steven?
Chelsey Diaz: That picture you saw was probably pretty accurate. Not quite extreme, but Steven is 6’4 or 6’5 depending on what kind of shoes he has on. And I am 5’3.
Bradley Sutton: Yes. Okay. So there is a big difference there.
Stephen Diaz: Yeah. We considered at our wedding, having someone bring up like a stool for Chelsey to get on for the first kiss, but I just– that it works out.
Bradley Sutton: Okay. Okay, cool. Yeah. As soon as I just barely saw that picture, like a few weeks ago, I was like, that’s been bothering me ever since I’m like, Whoa, like Stephen is like a giant like me, cause I’m about 6’3 myself. But maybe Chelsey is just like really, really short or maybe it’s a combination of the two. Anyways. All right. Back to the story here. So when you two were growing up, let me ask you first Chelsea. Growing up there in the booming town of Chico. Actually there’s like a college there.
Chelsey Diaz: There is. Yes. And that brings a lot of visitors and different people from all over for sure.
Bradley Sutton: Okay. So now growing up there in Chico, what did you like, eight, nine, 10 years old. What did you envision as far as where your life was going to go on the professional side? What did you want to be when you grew up?
Chelsey Diaz: Yeah, that’s a great question. Well, I’m very happy to say that my life now is way better than I could’ve ever hoped or dreamed as a little eight or nine-year-old. I definitely grew up in amazing family. I would say pretty typical, like middle class. I thought I would go to college, get the degree, be done in four years and just kind of work that nine to five. I never, I think I thought entrepreneurs or being an artist or anything like that was like that starving artist mentality. I feel like my world was really small as far as what is capable like on the internet and different things going on. So I wanted to be, I think a lot of different things from a fashion designer to a nurse or– I ended up going to school to become a speech therapist. And I think a lot of the choices that I made or of what I thought I wanted to be were all based in security, like financial security. So, what we’re doing now is great and we absolutely love it, but yeah, it’s nothing like I ever thought I would be doing as an eight or nine year old or high school student or anything like that. So, and a lot of that has to do with Steven and his mindset and just like going after big dreams and big goals. But yeah, I love that question.
Bradley Sutton: Well, what about you, Steven? How did you envision your future being?
Stephen Diaz: Yeah, now, it’s so interesting looking at, yeah, just those younger years. I feel like there’s a lot of signs in there for people about whatever you want to call it, their destiny or their future. And I think there’s a lot of voices that try and come against those things like with the four or five-year-old is dreaming about sometimes it could be what they could really be awesome at, but sometimes it’s those parental figures or teachers or someone that just kind of tears it down. I feel blessed that I didn’t really have those voices in my life. I did have a lot of crazy aspirations as a young person. And I definitely lean towards the entrepreneurial band. I was always hustling, and trying to make money to buy whatever toy or video game or things. But I really had that instilled that early age. You can do this, like you can go mow lawns, you can buy candy bars and sell them for twice the price at school. Whatever that entrepreneurial thing is. I tried a lot as a kid. And I actually, I think learn the power of outsourcing, which is something we do and teach a lot in our community at an early age because Tony Hawk pro skater just came out. This is like the best game as a junior high growing up. And I knew that I wanted to play this game like 24/7. So I decided I would pay my sister to do my chores. So I started paying my sister, whatever money I was generating, like mowing lawns or doing whatever odd jobs, watching the neighbor’s cat. I pay her $20 to do my chores so I could play more Tony Hawk’s pro skater growing up. So I think that that mindset of just like not having to do all this stuff myself, but learning to pay people, to do some of the work, to make it easier. So I can do the things I love. Some of that still resonates today. And it’s still what we, how we kind of run our businesses is do it yourself, learn it, but then find a way to find who’s for your to do’s so that you can live life and enjoy family and all those amazing things.
Bradley Sutton: Cool. Now, how did you guys get into e-commerce? Was it Amazon, your first entry into e-commerce?
Stephen Diaz: Yeah. It was actually Squarespace. So I use it. We were actually, so I studied videography, cinematography in college, so I was a filmmaker. And just being in that world, I just saw, I was making films for businesses and I kind of fell into the Kickstarter niche. So I was doing all these Kickstarter projects for these entrepreneurs. And I just was like, I always had all these ideas. I’m like, how do people actually make an idea? How do they take an idea and make a physical product? I thought it was like this big drawn out process. And so one year I just kind of vowed to myself. It was like you’re setting goals for the years. I was just like, I’m going to figure this out this year. And so that’s what got me into e-commerce and I found this little niche that I got really into, like I told you, I just geek out on things and I go all in. And so I found this little Japanese toy called a kendama. Have you heard of a kendama before?
Bradley Sutton: I have not.
Stephen Diaz: Okay, so kendama is you probably recognize one? It’s kind of like Japan’s yo-yo, and it’s got three.
Bradley Sutton: Oh yeah. Okay. I know exactly what that is.
Stephen Diaz: Try and catch the ball on the cups or the spike. And so I got one for Christmas, just like a funny gift, but also I found myself addicted to this wooden toy and I was like trying to learn all the tricks and master it. And so, that niche, I just kind of had this aha moment. I was like, this is the perfect low barrier entry kind of world to try and launch a product in because the people who are really into kendama like, they’re like fanatical about like the weights of the wood and the type of one. And so any new company or product that comes out, like, it’s very exciting to that community. Because it’s a small community. So I was like, man, I want to try and make a kendama product. So that’s what got me into like–
Bradley Sutton: What year are we talking about right now?
Stephen Diaz: This is probably 2015, 2016. So not too long ago. And so that’s where I started first experimented with Alibaba and just like launching products, but I didn’t know anything about Amazon. I just, I put it up on a Squarespace site and sold primarily through Instagram. And at the time we were running our videography business and photography business and it was a lot of work like packing boxes and shipping stuff all over the world, like to these kendama players. And that’s when I started exploring outsourcing, that outsourcing mindset of like, how could I not be packing boxes every day? And, we did think about hiring local people to do it, but that’s what got me into exploring Amazon. And that must have been early 2017 that I put some products up on Amazon and call it fate, call it divine intervention, thank God for the fidget spinners. Right. Do you remember the fidget spinner craziness in 2017? So I had a tiny little toy called a Kururin, it’s another Japanese kind of fidget toy that it’s a little stick, you push and it rolls on the table. And that toy just because the whole fidget spinner thing, it just blew up and we started selling $600 a day with this little toy and Amazon was fulfilling it all. And I was like, this is so amazing. I’m not packing a single box, we’re making amazing money. And so that’s where I caught the Amazon bug. I was like, we have to learn more about this. And I learned about product research and those kendama products aren’t really the hottest niche on Amazon. But that’s what took us on a journey of learning to produce more products specifically for the Amazon marketplace.
Bradley Sutton: Now, at this time, what was supporting you guys? I mean, was it the videography business was kind of like your main gig that was paying the bills.
Chelsey Diaz: Yeah. So we had like, see, you mentioned videography and photography. We did a lot of weddings. And thankfully we’ve always had a really great wedding business. We haven’t had to like go after clients or anything like that. So we were pretty booked solid, but during the summer months and spring and early fall, like we are really busy and the money was good and paychecks were coming in, but then on the winter side of things, things were a little bit more bare and felt a little scary as you’re heading into the next year. As well as being a wedding in the wedding industry, like, and just that trading dollars for hours, which there’s nothing wrong with that. Like, it’s a lot of work. And I think for me, when I truly became an Amazon enthusiast or Amazon believer, whatever you want to say is like knowing we would be at weddings and we’d be checking our phones and seeing like a hundred dollars come in, $500 come in, a thousand dollars coming in while we were at these other jobs. And for me, like that was that light bulb moment of like, Oh, we don’t have to struggle all the time.
Bradley Sutton: Yeah. So, then basically there was a point where the weddings almost go to zero and then you were just kind of relying on e-commerce income?
Chelsey Diaz: Not exactly. We still have had weddings this year, even with all the crazy shutdowns and stuff like that. So I would say like, Amazon definitely could replace like that income, but we’ve just chosen out of a love to continue doing photography.
Bradley Sutton: When you did get on these trendy things. Was it kind of a fluke or do you have some kind of method where you were able to logically go through a process and pick it, or was it just luck that, like, for example, that product that you started making like $600 a day on?
Stephen Diaz: It really was like– I’m trying to remember. It was like a black box type of thing. I’m trying to remember. When did Black Box come out for Helium 10? Do you know?
Bradley Sutton: That was a– it was probably 2017, 2018 around there.
Stephen Diaz: Probably, it was an early version of box then I’m guessing, because I remember just like Black Box is one of those things. It’s just it’s addicting. And so I would be like, we’d be like, after work, after the photography business hours, we’d be kind of watching Netflix and Black box.
Bradley Sutton: Fast-forward and you guys are probably, maybe the number one group that is coaching, I think, and helping the stay at home moms and dads out there. But I want to go back to like, how did that even come across? Whose brainchild was that? How did you guys decide like, Hmm, well, we’re successful and now we’re able to stay at home more, wait a minute, why don’t we help other state stay at home moms and dads like us to do this.
Chelsey Diaz: Yeah. Steven, all along as he was learning about Amazon, it kind of became this almost side hustle or side thing that he was doing. I think for Steven, like he’s a really good teacher and he has found that he learns really well when he teaches others. So he would literally find out all the information himself. And then he, I think you just started like a Facebook group of mostly family and friends. I think you had posted on a couple like wedding videography businesses, like, Hey, I’m going to teach about like what I’m learning and that’s just where it started. And as he began to learn and grow and grow that and teach others, like others started having like breakthrough. And then it was like, we need to like share again, becoming that Amazon evangelist, like, we need to share what we’re learning. This is too good to not share with people, especially from where we were coming from as wedding professionals where it’s seasonal and it’s a lot of work and you’re trading time for money for time and all of that, like we needed, we knew that we need to share this with other people. So that’s really where it started.
Stephen Diaz: It was just like free Facebook group. I kind of just– because the income was changing our lives, like just seeing like, we’d be going to dinner and be like, let’s check the app and be like, Oh wow, Amazon pay for dinner. And the parking tickets that we just got. So like, it was awesome to say, wow, this thing, it really was changing our lives. So, we created this free Facebook group, just like to see– so I could teach what I was learning and learn it even further. Because I feel like when people ask questions, you probably see this, like you learn so much even in just like digging out the answers for people. So, yeah, it was, I think it was when we had our first basically person in that group that free group have a massive breakthrough, something clicked in me. I was like, you know, it’s, it’s really awesome. It’s really fulfilling to deliver a wedding video to a bride and have her cry because this video is just like so impactful and it does like that video lives on and it has an impact. Right. But when I saw like one of our students, she moved to the US from Nigeria, she was a full-time nurse and she was going to have a baby. And so to see her actually replace her nurse’s income and then be able to cut back on hours so she could spend more time with her daughter like that, to me, just lit a fire where it was just like, Oh my gosh, it was fulfilling on a whole another level. And that’s when I knew that like we were made to help other people and our breakthrough wasn’t really just for us. It was for others.
Chelsey Diaz: We have a student who, again, like, they’re not trying to get the big mansion or the Lamborghini. They just like want to have enough. They want their Amazon money to be paying for their mortgage. And so their products specifically they’ve launched one product and every month it pays mortgage and they haven’t had a huge desire to like launch more. But I just think like, that’s so cool to know that their mortgage is just like covered for every single month. And that they’re satisfied with that. It doesn’t have to, like you said, be the next big thing, I guess.
Stephen Diaz: Yeah. We definitely attract kind of two different types of stay-at-home moms, stay home dad. It’s a lot of young families. There’s ones just like that, where they’re like one and done basically launch one product. And that’s all they really, I mean, it’s like amazing how an extra $1,500 or $3,000 can change someone’s life. So the launch one they’re like, all right, I’ll just keep it in stock. And I’m good. And then there’s others who catch the fire and they’re like, I need to scale. Right.
Bradley Sutton: All right. We’re going to take a quick break here for my BTS of the episode. And remember that can stand for anything you want. Behind the scenes. Bradley’s 30 seconds, best tantalizing secrets, whatever you want. But here is my BTS. We’ve talked about on Project X and other places, looking on Etsy sometimes for inspiration for products, or maybe you see a trend on there. There’s no like Xray for Etsy. Like Helium 10 has for Amazon, but sometimes there’s a way to actually estimate the number of sales, not even an estimate, but get the exact number of sales on popular products. If you click on the number of sales that is on the storefront page or the profile of the seller on Etsy, sometimes it actually takes you to a list of all of their most recent sales. And then you can just check which products they are selling and you can actually see how many they have sold recently.
Bradley Sutton: Cool. Now I think one of the things that just amazes me is the amount of people in your group who stay engaged. There’s so many people who– they’ll buy a course or they’ll buy a coaching program because they see an amazing webinar or something. And, I mean, that’s how webinars are meant to be. They’re supposed to get you like really excited. And then you pay $500, $1000. And then like, once the excitement dies down, you just kind of like forget about it and then you don’t do it. But like when I go in your groups, doing videos and stuff, it’s like, I’m seeing the same people that were packing the rooms, a couple hundred people in here. I’m like, man, how do these people stay so engaged? And so I was talking to Casey over here and he’s like, Oh yeah, Steven does these like challenges thing. So, obviously if somebody really wants to– for the people like me who have like attention issues, sometimes like when you do things in groups or with that coach, and there’s a challenge and there’s like you game-ify it. I know that that’s something that can keep people engaged. And obviously you guys can provide that. But what about just somebody who may be, they want to get started now, they’re not necessarily interested in joining your program or it’s not the right time or something, but what is some advice you can give on how somebody who’s trying to learn Amazon, at least on their own, how do they stay motivated? Like it seems everybody in your group is.
Stephen Diaz: Wow. Yeah. That’s really cool observation. And that’s definitely something that I think when we started doing this, like actually like, Hey, let’s help other people have a breakthrough. That’s something that I thought of. Because I mean, I’m totally with all the people who have ever bought a course and put it on the shelf and never done anything with it. I’ve done that. I was just actually going through the other day, all my course logins, I have a note for all of them. And I was like, wow, I’ve spent probably $50,000 on courses and trainings and yeah, all those things have helped so much, but some of them, I just honestly haven’t even logged into, so we were like, how can we actually get people breakthrough in a short amount of time? And that’s where this challenge idea came from. So we do this seven day challenge to really produce momentum in them. But also it’s like a qualifier for the business because like after seven days of doing probably an hour plus a day, they realized, wow, I didn’t think I had the time to run a business, but actually did, I spend an hour a day this week doing this. And we really hit in the challenge of a lot of objections that hold people back from even stepping into this business. But I think one of the most powerful days that really bonds the community is day one. Because we actually talk about the number one secret to success with Amazon, which isn’t what people think like, they’re like, yeah, give me the tips. Right? And then we tell them, it’s your why, it’s your why. And so, we learned this exercise from Dean Graziozi who I think learned it from someone else. I don’t know who to give credit for, but it’s called the seven levels deep why experience. And so we take people through this experience where you just ask, like, why do I want to make passive income? Or why do I want to launch an Amazon business? And whatever answer comes to your mind, you just, you write it down just like that impulse thought. And then you ask a why question on that thought. So like, Oh, because I want to be my own boss. And then you’re like, why do I want to be my own boss? And you go seven levels deep asking why seven times and about level four, it starts to get real. It starts to get really deep. And by the time people hit level seven, it’s like tears.
Bradley Sutton: I love that. I love that. That’s very powerful. Now, Chelsey, what advice would you give? Let’s say there’s a stay-at-home mom, stay-at-home dad out there who’s on the fence. They’re listening to this podcast just because, they found it in Google or talk about, they did some kind of keyword about work from home or something like that. What would be your like 60-second pitch or something to say, Hey, consider Amazon, and this is why.
Chelsey Diaz: Yeah. Well, I would say, go for it for sure. But beyond that Stephen and I really teach our rainmaker students all about this mindset. Not just your why and all of these things, but we want them to think about like, ‘how can I?” So, if you’re on the fence right now, you’re thinking about Amazon or wanting to create alternative sources of income. I just want to encourage them and encourage you to just think about how can I. I feel like we live in a world where there’s, there are obstacles that come up. And a lot of times people get in this victim mentality because of their past, or because of the circumstances that are right in front of them. And they start to get into this focus where it’s like, I can’t do this, I’m hitting these walls. I don’t understand how. And Steven and I really challenge our students to think, how can I, like, what is something that I need to make passive income for my family right now. I need something needs to shift. And so it’s where you take that mindset on of how can I, how can I make this happen? And we have seen tremendous, like breakthrough in our own personal lives, but in others’ lives too, just having that mindset shift of like, no, like I’m going to make this happen. I’m going to like find the YouTube videos. I’m going to deep into Helium 10. I’m going to gather all of these resources that are available to me, whether it’s free, or if it’s a paid like community, or course, like there are things out there to make it happen, and you can do it like you are powerful. There is something more for you. So I would just encourage them. And not only that, there are tons of amazing communities out there, like the group that you guys are running with Helium 10, all the incredible resources, or if it’s like a paid thing, but choosing into community and really leaning in. There is power in community. And I think you were asking earlier, like what draws people specifically into our group. And it’s because we created that community aspect where it’s uplifting and it’s encouraging. Right now, like people have been really isolated this last year. A lot of people have been, and we are made for community. We’re made for connection and people are craving that.
Bradley Sutton: All right. Now, let’s say one of your students, or just somebody out there who– they know they want to sell on Amazon. You convince them like you had me at hello kind of thing, and they know they want to get into private label eventually. But when they look at it, like, man, the kind of products I want, it’s about four or five, $6,000 investment, which not everybody just has an in their bank account. So what kind of methods do you guys teach your community or just that you just have some strategies on how somebody can build up, can work towards having the capital needed for that first kind of private label?
Stephen Diaz: Yeah. We have a crazy strategy that people are doing right now. So, this is just a reward for people who listen all the way to the end of the podcast. You get the goal at the end here. So, we in our community, we’ve been doing this crazy thing, which is drop shipping Amazon products on Facebook marketplace. So, Facebook marketplace is such a hot market right now that Facebook is actually really promoting, actually offering free shipping right now for a lot of products and really encouraging people to sell more than just the stuff around their house, on Facebook marketplace. So, we had a guy come into our mastermind group who trained us on this. And basically what we do is you find hot sellers on– actually, you can go on your Facebook marketplace like app, like the Facebook app. You can click on your profile and look at, they have this little insights tab. It’s not as advanced as Helium 10, but they will tell you categories that are hot sellers in your area. And so we look at those things and then we go to Amazon, find hot selling products there, and then just list them on Facebook marketplace for a slight markup. And the results of this have been crazy. We actually taught this two months ago and I just made a post in the group to say like, Hey, how much have you honestly made profit on Facebook marketplace in the last pretty much a month and a half. And the numbers like 1000, 2000, 3,000, 5,000 7,500. And the highest one we had was $8,500 in profit, which is insane. Just leveraging a resource of Amazon and Facebook marketplace. And so, we actually do have a video. We did this training, it was an hour and a half training. I took like the highlights of that. And you guys can find that on YouTube, if you want, just free value for you. It’s a three-part series to show you how to do this, but it’s just that how can I mindset. And a lot of times people see FBA and they go, Oh my gosh, it does take quite a bit of an investment to get into this thing. Right? I mean, you’ve definitely launched products. I love your case study about the 12 products under $5,000. So it is possible. But if you guys do want to build your FBA fund, this is what’s working right now for our community. And you can find that on YouTube. If you just search the Rainmaker family, there’s a three-part series. It’s called how to make money now on our channel. And, it’s impressive how much people are making with it.
Chelsey Diaz: Another way, if that feels a little bit too stretching is just going on Facebook. We’ve told people in our community to do this during that challenge week is posting on your Facebook and saying like, what would you pay somebody a hundred dollars to do right now today? Or $500 to do right now today. And you’d be surprised by people around you that are willing to pay you like a hundred dollars, whether it’s like, Oh, fold my laundry, paint my fence. Just be thinking of things. What are you already doing right now? So if you’re a stay-at-home mom and you do meal planning for your family, or you are really good at math and are able to tutor a couple of students extra over zoom, like going and putting that out there. And that I feel like is an easy way to build a little bit of cashflow or capital right now that can go towards your FBA fee. Another thing is like, look around your house. There are so many things probably that are sitting in people’s homes right now that could be sold to also build up that cashflow. So, those are just two other like random ways. They’re definitely not passive where you want to be, but you can get that cash a lot quicker than I think some people realize.
Bradley Sutton: That’s cool. That’s cool. Now we’re good. We’re going to get in a little bit into what we call in the show, the 30-second tip. But before we get into that, I want to get into one other strategy. Now, obviously you don’t want you guys giving away your top secrets and your community getting mad at you that you’re sharing this to the world or something, but what is something Amazon related, not necessarily about how to build the cattle, but maybe how to find your first product or how you guys do PPC or how you guys launch or anything in the Amazon journey that you think is fairly unique. It’s not like, Hey, start an auto campaign, but something that’s fairly unique that you guys teach that you can share with us.
Stephen Diaz: Yeah. One bonus tip for the Facebook marketplace strategy is if you are in a community of other people who are doing this, what our rainmakers have been doing is selling each other’s products. So basically they go list each other’s products on Facebook marketplace. So basically one person is selling an item on Amazon, but then like 20 people are selling it all over the country on Facebook marketplace and everyone’s helping everyone.
Bradley Sutton: Now, what is something– I’m going to put this one on a Chelsey now. So, these are all great strategies. And I think they can definitely help our audience. But what is a– this is the part of the show we called the TST, or the TST, 320-second tip. What is something that you could say in 30 seconds or less, that is also valuable, unique and something that’s very actionable.
Chelsey Diaz: I would just say, remember your why? Why do you want to create alternative sources of income for your family? Why do you want to be the mad scientist who thinks of this? Remembering back to your why, because that will keep you going when obstacles or roadblocks coming your way, like, because they will, that’s all a part of life and you can either choose to be a victim in your circumstances, or you can choose to be victorious. And I just really believe that they’re in the day and age that we live in there. So many resources there, so many things at our fingertips for us to like create wealth for our family and to be generous and to have these big dreams that are really possible. But it’s remembering back to your why and like why you want to do those in the first place.
Bradley Sutton: Any last words of wisdom for us, either Steven or Chelsey?
Stephen Diaz: Last words of wisdom. I think one of the, like Chelsey said, one of the best skills that you guys can learn is just being resourceful, just being resourceful, like in 2020, there are so many opportunities to shift your entire family’s financial future forever. That was a lot of Fs. But I’ll give you one more F. You have to focus, you have to focus because there’s so many opportunities out there. You have to focus. And I actually had a story where I had a dream. I actually, I feel like I learned a lot from dreams in our business. I get like little signs and little pictures and dreams that give us clues to what’s going on in our life. And I had this dream one year, we were actually running all these different businesses. When we had that kendama business, we actually had the photo, a photo booth business. We had all these different kinds of things, probably like six or seven income streams. I’m putting that into air quotes because they all didn’t really add up to be that much. And I had this dream where I saw this is such a weird dream and how I interpreted it, but I saw a pot of boiling noodles. And I felt like I was in this spaghetti season of throwing spaghetti against the wall and seeing what stock, right. I saw this pot of boiling noodles and I’ve heard this voice in the dream. And I said, if you just boil one noodle, it’ll boil a lot faster. And I just, I woke up and I just knew it was about our businesses. And so we went through this season of actually kind of trimming back. I love this analogy I’ve heard before of the vine, right? Like a vine, if it’s overextended, it will just grow sticks. It won’t grow any fruits. You actually have to trim it back to the fruit in your life. So we actually looked at our life, we looked at where’s the fruit, where’s the produce, where’s the good stuff. And we cut everything out. We actually like sold a business. We just let a business fizzle out. We really trimmed back to the fruit and that’s where our business started to really take off because we are actually able to focus. And I love the acronym follow one course until successful. FOCUS. That’s the last F there. And that was really the key for us in the last two years that just 10x our business and has been able to help other people breakthrough in their businesses as well, because there’s so many opportunities. There’s so many shiny objects out there. It’s so easy to get focused and be like, I’m all into Helium 10 and Amazon. And then like two weeks later, you’re like, Oh wow, look at this network marketing company. And then like two weeks later, Oh, I’m going to be thorough. And you won’t get anywhere if you’re all over the place. So just focus. Amazon is one of the fastest path to wealth right now in 2020. So, I’m just going to encourage you lean in, just give it, just give it nine months of focus and it can change your life.
Bradley Sutton: I like it. I like it. Now guys, I’m sure people might have more questions to ask you or maybe you’ve piqued their interest with the community. So, how can they find the Rainmakers community and basically how can they find you guys on the inter webs?
Chelsey Diaz: Yeah, I would say the best place to find us when we’re up uploading new content is on YouTube and that’s the Rainmaker family is what we’re called. We also have an Instagram, @therainmakerfamily too, where we’re posting, but I’d say those are the two best spots right now.
Bradley Sutton: Excellent. Excellent. Well, thank you guys for coming on the show and I’d love to reach out to you maybe end of 2021 and see where you guys are at with your community and also with your Amazon business and maybe even– might have to hit you guys up for some photography. We’ll see.
Stephen Diaz: Maybe we’ll see. We may have quit officially by that.
Bradley Sutton: All right. Well, hopefully you’ll make an exception for your good old buddy Bradley here.
Chelsey Diaz: Yes.
Bradley Sutton: All right. We’ll talk to you guys later.
Chelsey Diaz: Thank you so much, Bradley. Appreciate you guys.
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