Norman  0:02  

Hey everyone, it’s Norman Farrar, a.k.a the beard guy here and welcome to another Lunch with Norm, The Rise of the Micro Brands.

Norman  0:21  

You know it’s pretty bad when you almost miss your own podcast. I was running late, I got everybody here and anyways, I’m here. I was the cause of this running a little bit late today. Sorry, everybody. But today we got a really a great episode about mentorship and I’ve got a buddy of mine who’s also a partner of mine, Tim Jordan, who’s my partner at Private Label Legion Centurion group, but a lot of people know him as the host of AMPM podcast and with Tim, we’re going to be talking to a bunch of people, Tim or Tom and Cindy Norton, Mark Koncz, Josiah Greve, Andrea Checketts and Roz Cooper and we’re just going to be going through their experience, and what they found by networking and working with a mentor, what it meant to them and how they could scale their business. So Kelsey, where are you, sir?

Kelsey 1:19  

Welcome. Welcome, everyone. I know it’s a little strange being on Thursday. But yeah, we’re gonna make it work. It’s gonna be fun. I think it’s gonna be a great episode. So yes, if you’re new to the show, where you can find us all over YouTube, we got our highlights or full episodes, you can just go over to the Norman Farrar YouTube channel. That’s where everything is and of course, if you’re new, I really recommend joining the Facebook group Lunch with Norm Amazon FBA and eCommerce Collective. That’s where all the good stuff is. That’s where you have contact with me and Norm, you can ask questions. We have some fun over there, and you get to be a part of the community and one quick note, if you’re watching from Norm’s personal Facebook page, we are not able to use your comments. The software we use doesn’t let us use those comments. So we’re not ignoring you. Just head over to the Lunch with Norm Facebook page or the group or even the YouTube interview fun.

Norman  2:20  

All right, and like usual, Kelsey wasn’t doing his job. So remember to smash the likes, subscribe, follow us, do what he normally says that he forgot to do today. But you still get paid, right? Not very much. But, I’ll buy lunch or something with Norm or dad. You can call it dad. All right, everybody. Sit back. Enjoy the show. This is kind of not what we normally do. Special episode. Enjoy it. So sit back, grab a cup of coffee, enjoy the show. Welcome, everybody.

Norman  2:57  

They’re all here. Look at that. All right, man. Oh, man. Yeah, a motley crew.

Tim 3:06  

A big question. I thought we were supposed to bring lunch. So Chick fil a does not sponsor this show. But I’m like, sitting here smelling this lunch and feeling bad. The only one eating.

Norman  3:17  

No, no, no. Go ahead. Yeah, you go ahead.

Norman  3:23  

All right. So we got a bunch of people here and the reason why I wanted to do this. I wanted to bring Tim on and to talk a little bit about mentorship and then I wanted to talk with everybody about what mentorship meant to you, what you’re doing, how you’re using it to build your business. So why don’t we start off with Tim, sir.

Tim 3:48  

All right. So is there like a specific question you have for me? How does mentorship change? Like a business?

Norman  3:57  

Hey, does your voice get on your nerves too?

Tim 4:01  

Yes, it does. Sorry.

Norman  4:05  

All right. Let’s talk a little bit about mentorship. Why did you start the Private Label Legion, Centurion League?

Tim 4:11  

So when I got started with eCommerce, it was not something I was familiar with. I knew nothing about running a business and I quickly figured out that I suck at most of it. Right? Most everything I was trying to figure out how to do I didn’t know how to do. But I actually started this path of mentorship and community at a conference, the first eCommerce conference I went to, and that conference had a small Facebook group for the attendees and I had this crazy idea. I got to the hotel there in Orlando and I typed in the Facebook group. I said, Hey, the first 10 people to respond to this, I’ll buy you a steak dinner tonight and 10 strangers responded and I said okay, I’m gonna buy steak dinners for these guys and it was at a restaurant there at the Gaylord Opryland hotel. Not on Gaylord Orlando. You know what I mean. So, these 10 people all met, we all shook hands for the first time, some turned out to be amazing friends, some turned out to be business partners and the thing that I realized was, hey, these people are struggling with the same things, trying to learn the same things and instead of all of us trying to figure it out on our own, don’t I and why don’t we use wisdom of others and then I can share the things that I’ve learned to them. Right? So that kind of started me down this path of like, Hey, we’re better together, right and informed people who are smarter than I am and maybe I can pitch in a little bit here and there as a trade. So moving about three years down the road, we started an online community, the Private Label Legion, and with the theme of like, we’re all marching together kind of cheesy, and people like Andrea still make fun of me for my cheesiness and then I had these people telling me consistently, Hey, you need to start like a coaching program coaching program and I said, No, I don’t want to do a course and then I quickly realize, hey, there’s actually value in in consolidating people and putting together and having a small group kind of mastermind and we set things up later to become what’s known now as the Centurion League, which everybody here is a member of and what was amazing about it is even though it still really isn’t profitable at all, it’s so valuable for me, because I get to share a few of the things that I know, but I learned massively, right and not just learned, but like, I connect, like, I have people on this screen right now that like, I’m going on vacation with, literally. I have people on this screen right now that like, I’ve learned personal things about that encouraged me. I have people on the screen right now that are like doing amazing things that when I have a discouraging day, or if I have stress or anxiety, like I know, I could reach out to them and say, Hey, make me stop being an idiot and worried about this thing I shouldn’t be worried about or watching their story or watching their success and getting excited for them. Right? I think eCommerce people think it’s a lonely world, and it can be, but it’s full of amazing people, amazing entrepreneurs and I did this and unless you that are listening don’t do this and that is actively go out and find friends, mentors, communities, camaraderie, partnerships, I think you’re going to leave a lot on the table, when it comes to fun, when it comes to the speed in which you can grow and when it comes to the ultimate success that you’re gonna have in the long run.

Norman  7:36  

Thanks, Tim and one of the things I really want to stress is that we’re not pushing any one particular mentoring group or service. We think this is important. We think networking is important. We think masterminds are important and on I Know This Guy podcast, which some of you may know, every one of the successful business people, celebrities, musicians, anybody who’s been on, they all have one thing in common and that’s a mentor and I’m talking about people that are billionaires having mentors. All the way from the person just getting into business to that all the way up. It’s all about getting to have that. I call it a safety valve. , Like Tim was saying, saying that when you’re having one of those days, Amazon shuts down your account, Shopify is doing something to you, Walmart’s doing something to you. Who do you turn to or if you’re just having a crappy day up. But anyway, I thought that was important. This was happening the other day, and it was just like a crap day and just turning over and being able to talk to Tim or talk to whoever and all of a sudden it was okay, it’s not so bad of a day. I was able to solve the issue at hand, and kind of move on with the day at a very quick pace. Also, what I really liked, what Tim was talking about is, it’s not one person in a mentoring. It’s sort of in a group mentoring profile, or mastermind. It’s the group, everybody on this call right now you can learn from every single person and if you have a really active and engaged group, let’s say a Facebook group. Man, you wouldn’t believe the comments and the amount that you can learn and become an expert. It’s really important that if you’re going to get into a business that you become an expert in the business and if you don’t know where to turn, you at least know where to find the answers and that’s one of the benefits that I’ve always found and people know me, for that, people know me for my network, and that’s why I Know This Guy podcast, and then for this podcast, but why don’t we go around the room and So Tom and Cindy, so tell us a bit about yourself, like what you’re doing on your eCom journey, and what the mentoring has done for you.

Cindy 10:15  

So, we have been married 35 years, three kids, four grandbabies, we each had day jobs that we were out of the home, 8 to 10 hours a day, every day and when we looked into what are we going to do to maybe pull the plug on that and even though we don’t like to say we have an Amazon business, but we look to Amazon, to say, is this doable, and we went directly into private label when we started that journey, and the first year or so, I hated it. I was not, I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the group that we were with and I didn’t realize what was missing until we went to our very first ASD convention, and met people with you could talk to about this eCommerce platform, and they didn’t look at you with a glossed over eyes and I didn’t realize that it was like community that we were missing, like minded people that we could talk with and gain information from them that we could then share with other people as we grew.

Norman  11:47  

Tom?

Tom 11:49  

Well, yeah to that point, what Cindy kind of went off of when we started, we started with courses, a course and to work backwards, it’s been good and bad, that course wasn’t really very good. It kind of set us up for about a year and a half and we really didn’t get any traction, but to kind of just go off what Cindy said, as well. It’s the idea of having a community and having people you communicate with learning, we got to meet so many great people. Another one was a seller calling here, I think in 2019 was last time we had it, great, we got to meet a lot of people and we found that in meeting people, we’ve got a lot of people that we’ve been able to bounce things off of and learn from, and mentors. Kind of like you Norm, met you face to face finally, last, I think it was last February, in San Francisco.

Norman  12:41  

Was that the first time?

Tom 12:43  

I think we talked, we sat down and visited and it was great. It was just a chat and a wrap. But the idea is, is learning from people that have been there and for us, I always say we’re dated, but we’re motivated. But learning to be able to learn though, the ins and outs of this has been fantastic for mentorship for us from guys like you, Jordan, Tim Jordan, and a lot of folks in the Facebook group that are way more knowledgeable than us. So mentorship for us has been fantastic and continues to be even in the world we still need mentors, for sure.

Norman  13:21  

I started this whole mentor journey when I had hair and that’s a long time ago.

Norman  13:35  

So I kind of look at becoming an expert, as almost like in the martial arts. You take a course, you’re a white belt. You’re learning, you’re making mistakes, you’re kind of getting your positioning all set up, then you think you know it all by the time you become a green belt. So you’ve done some discovery, you’re listening to YouTube videos. Now you got some sales coming through, and you’re a black belt. But you realize at a black belt, that’s only your starting point to learn and you can get into mentoring or group coaching or whatever it is coaching directly but it’s so important that even if you think you know it all, you don’t. I learn all the time, I know, like Tim and I talk about it all the time and we fail and how do you fail to succeed and Tim and I had great conversations about this actually about a year ago and it’s like, Tim, what are your thoughts? Like, how much have you learned from this group?

Tim 14:43  

Oh, it’s like how much do I continue to learn from this group? It’s actually humbling and let me point out two things. One thing that Tom and Cindy said is they both said, Hey, where the game was changed for them was like actually going to a physical event. Right? I started off with Hey, things change from us going into a physical event. I know that we can’t go to physical events today. But later this year, we will and the point is that right now, there are so many opportunities digitally that you don’t have to go to a physical event, but you need to get involved in these communities and if you do that it’s like one handshake. It’s one person, it’s one connection that can change everything for you. For me Norm, what I’m learning is, instead of trying to be a jack of all trades, I can be an expert at a couple things and figure out the rest with other people. So for me, I don’t stress about how I figure it out, manage that flow? I don’t care. I don’t need to know. Because I have 10 people that are close friends of mine that will easily walk me through it in 10 minutes and set it up for, right? Understanding not just that a group can teach you things but that you can lean on a group, lean on a close knit group actually pulls up on courage. It’s a game changer.

Norman  16:00  

Hey, Tim, it sounds like your Wi Fi might be cutting out a little bit.

Tim 16:04  

Okay, just ignore me then.

Norman  16:07  

Yeah. Okay, like usual. Alright, so I’m gonna throw it over to Mark. Mark’s been on the podcast before, and just with some amazing value that you were able to give us an insight into what you do. But, Mark, what about you? Same question I gave Tom and Cindy.

Mark 16:26  

Yeah, I don’t know about how much insight I got. But I’ve been in it since I lost the first product in August and kind of started working my way in as a play to, I guess replace some income and yeah, things went pretty well. So I just last week actually launched my second ASIN and I’m on the right path. Let’s put it that way. So I’ve got a lot of value out of the group and Amazon is the biggest thing about Amazon is it’s like a moving target. Even in the last six, seven months, I’ve been in things, it’s almost that stuff I learned at the beginning is almost obsolete now. So the group is just as great. There’s always so many people kind of putting their two cents, Hey, this is what worked for me and you think the opposite. But it worked for one person to say, Hey, I’ll try it out and so, like the group is just really great and got a lot of great people. Tom, Cindy, Andrea, Roz, Josiah, a ton more than just have a lot of value and it’s just great. You learn from other people’s experiences and like I said, it’s just a very valuable group.

Norman  17:38  

Well, one of the things we forgot to do, because Kelsey didn’t do his job at the beginning, was to offer the giveaway and the giveaway this time is a three months subscription to the Centurion League. So anybody who wants the Centurion League, # mentor, that’s what it is and it’d be really awesome if you tag two people that are listening right now and that will give you an extra entry into the giveaway today. That giveaway is worth about $600. So anyways, just wanted to say, give it a shot, try it out, it’s gonna be worth it, you got nothing to lose and it’ll be amazing. You’ll meet some amazing people. So hashtag, what did I say, mentor? There we go. 

Tim 18:29  

Mark, I appreciate you talking about the value in our group. But I want to make sure everybody listening knows this is not a pitch fest for no Centurion League. There are people that have left the Centurion League because it wasn’t a fit for them. My point is, like, go find something, go find a community, go find a mentorship, like, we just have every all the guests on here are from Centurion League, myself included, just because that’s kind of our inner circle. Those are our peeps, so to speak. But I just want to make sure everybody understands like there are a million ways to get organized and get involved with various communities.

Norman  19:04  

Right and just one thing that pops up right now, Kevin King’s got a Billion Dollar Summit next week, that’s gonna be a really great virtual event, if you can go and check it out. It’s not free. I don’t have any bonus that I can give or any discount that I can give if I can, I will. But you know we don’t take any affiliate and I really want to make sure that it comes across that this is not a pitch fest. This is strictly what is networking, going to these events, and building a business from this. I can’t tell you how many businesses or how many sales have come through going and meeting somebody at an event or just through groups. So anyways, let’s move on to Andrea. Andrea, Hi. How are you? Okay, a little bit of a different question. Okay, mentoring what it means to you and also, what’s something that you got out of the group that was a real advantage. A success.

Andrea 20:18  

Man, I felt put on the spot.

Norman  20:20  

Yeah.

Andrea 20:24  

I hesitated even like coming on this podcast, I was like, are gonna let out the secret? Like, it literally is like the best kept secret to be part of your guys’s group and it’s one of the most like, I’ve been part of other masterminds. It’s the most testable, I got an insane amount of questions, and they’re actually answered. They’re accessible people that accelerate your growth. But as far as one thing specifically, that helped me, no, I can’t think of one thing I could give you.

Andrea 20:58  

I’m trying to think of it.

Norman  21:02  

When did you join? Was it at the very beginning of your journey or was it a bit later?

Andrea 21:07  

It was a few months into it. It was last April or May maybe, so long enough to know that it’s good.

Norman  21:17  

Okay, so one thing I just came in. Tim invited me to join the group. I don’t know it was about two months ago maybe, maybe it’s longer now. But you were just doing a launch and you blew it up. Yeah. You had incredible success and I mean, when I came in, and I heard what you did during that time period, and I believe it was over a holiday. It was Black Friday, wasn’t it?

Andrea 21:47  

It was right after that. Yeah.

Norman  21:48  

I would never have launched a product during and I’m listening to you doing this. I’m going wow. That’s incredible. So I thought that was really great when I heard you doing that and just being able to take some of the advice that you heard from the Facebook group or from the actual live calls. Sorry, go ahead.

Andrea 22:11  

I feel like the biggest thing, like individually from you guys, that I’ve gotten is like, Tim, it’s kind of just like, just do it already. Like just go out and do it and he’s really encouraged like, and not like one just like part of the group to say like, stop thinking about and just do it and I felt like Norm, with though you’ve been set. Like just shooting for the freaking moon. Like think way bigger, get stuff off your plate. Like, I don’t know, I feel like that’s been the biggest thing that I’ve gotten from you guys.

Norman  22:47  

Oh, great. Alright, Josiah. How are you, sir? 

Josiah 22:56

Doing fantastic.

Norman  22:56  

Great. So when I was talking to Tim, I’m still getting to know all the members in the group and you got to talk to Josiah. Oh, it’s okay. All right, well, we’re gonna put them on here and put them on the spot. So, same question I’m asking everybody else. When did you start your journey and what are you getting out of the group and what was your major success?

Josiah 23:23  

Okay, I’ll just go back to straight out of high school, I started a construction company and I was like, 18 years ago now. So through my journey of learning that I didn’t have a mentor, I didn’t have anybody to show me the ropes business wise, construction wise, when I came across the eCommerce and said, Okay, this is something that I would like to try, like to do so that I can make that my future, have that passive income in a sense. So, when I look back at how long it took me to get from point A to point Z with construction, and how long the growth took me, I’m like, I definitely want to have a mentor in my life, and have someone that’s going to be there to push me, to show me the ropes and help me not to make some mistakes and Tim was mentioning growth. So through the group, it’s been about a year now that I’ve joined but I just, I had complications when I tried to launch my first product, got shut down from a copyright infringement that really shouldn’t have happened, but it took like three months to get that figured out, unfortunately and so I launched my first product like November but I’ve been on the journey for about two years as far as doing construction but doing private label on the side, but I started out with RA, OA, retail arbitrage, online arbitrage. That kind of stuff, just for anybody who doesn’t know, those terms are. So through the group, I’ve had those things come with ropsten, like, for me, like Tom and Cindy have been just awesome. I don’t talk to them daily or weekly, but maybe like, once a month, I’ll have a problem or like I try to communicate with them and they’ve been just super great because they’ve been doing it for a while and that’s the thing about the group is, like Andrea was mentioning, it’s just having access to people that are like, become your friends, become your family, and they’re willing to spend some time and not charge you, not worrying about like charging you 15 an hour to do a Zoom call or something like that, but just have time like to help you out with some issues and that just comes with friendship, like, obviously, we all have to value our time and a lot of us still have in our day jobs. But having those people that you can connect with in the group, get over those obstacles, because you’re gonna have obstacles, even with mentor ship, like Amazon’s gonna throw stuff at you and because you have a mentor, there’s still going to be problems, but at least you’ll have someone there to help you not just implode, you can get past that and move to the next step and then hopefully launch a second product and the third product and then eventually find that one that works for you. If you’re lucky, like Andrea, you’re gonna launch like three in a row that are perfect and be good to go. But, it’s been a lot harder, I won’t lie, it’s been a lot harder than I thought it would be. Because I think in the beginning, you look through the internet, and you find all these people that say, Oh, do this, and you can make this kind of money and do this and you’re like, you kind of you can tend to buy into that. Like I say, you kind of tend to buy into that lie, essentially. So it’s very important for me to find someone like Tim, I actually found him through watching projects and like, I’m like, who is Tim Jordan guy, and like, started searching his name, and found this Centurion League and that’s kind of how I stalked him down and joined the league and I was like and so I just loved him, because he’s a down to earth guy.

Andrea 27:14  

The guy with the shorts.

Josiah 27:16  

Yeah, a lot of connections, and he’s willing to help anybody can, but obviously, like I said, everybody’s busy. So it’s not like you can get a 24/7 response from anybody. So don’t expect that when you join a group you still have to, like, be respectful of people, that kind of thing.

Norman  27:39  

So one of the things anybody can pipe I’m gonna get to you Roz in just two secs, but there is a difference I found with paid and free. You can go on and you can go to a Facebook group, and you can post your questions, and it’s going to be free, you can go and watch a few free YouTube videos. There’s a complete difference when you get into a paid service and Tim, I want you to talk a little bit about that.

Tim 28:09  

Yeah, well, and I’m gonna veer off a little bit from that, too. But I think that especially in any sort of money making strategy, right, any entrepreneurial thing, whether it’s investing in real estate, or selling on eCommerce or doing affiliate marketing, whatever, there’s a ton of content out there that is specifically designed to get you to buy their content, pay for their content and they have to make it sound easy, right? Hey, buy my course for $1,000 and you’ll 10x your money in two months, and it’s a bunch of bullcrap, right? It just doesn’t happen. So I think that people have been scared away from spending money on stuff, spending money on content, spending money on groups. So a lot of people have gone to these free groups but the problem is, there is no limit to who is in there. There’s no filter to what type of content is being shared. There’s no resources to actually monitor that and facilitate things. Right? So just to give everybody an example of like, one of the reasons that I was very apprehensive about starting a group coaching program, one is I didn’t think there’s value in it. I thought, no one’s gonna sign up for this. Like, it’s not one-on -one coaching and to be honest, guys like me and Norm, we  can’t do one-on -one coaching. He and I sat down and said, Hey, if we’re gonna do coaching per hour, what do we charge and I think Norm, the number you and I came up with to make it worth their time was $1500 an hour or 1200 an hour or something like that?

Norman  29:35  

Well, yeah, that’s right.

Tim 29:36  

Like, I would have to charge that because that’s the only thing that would get me excited enough to stop what I’m doing, right? So when I later figured out, hey, we can do a group coaching program where we have four hours of Zoom calls a week, right? But it’s scalable, we can add more people and the other thing that spawned off of that was we keep talking about mentors. Everybody who’s talked already, as mentioned the other members like so what we’ve done is we’ve facilitated this group of mentors. It’s not, Hey, everybody comes in and follows Tim and Norm. No, if you guys did that, you’d probably be lacking a lot. But the friendships, the camaraderie, the other information that all the members share with themselves. So we could not do that if it weren’t a paid group. Now, I said that this Centurion League itself is not profitable. It’s because we have so much staff and infrastructure putting it together. So when we have memberships, we have the budget to create groups, to create monitoring, to create moderation, to be able to spend time in the workflow and process to attract guest speakers to come in to be able to run our platforms where everything is recorded. Like right now, we probably have close to 450 hours of pre recorded content for members and it’s all searchable. Nobody understands how much work it takes to actually put that together. Like we have full time employees, that’s all they do is process data and information and make it accessible. Right? So if you’re not paying, one, it’s not filtered. It’s not moderated. But also I think you’re lacking a little bit. So I’m not saying you guys need to go out and hit me in Norm up for one hour of coaching for $1500. I’m saying don’t do that. What I’m saying is if you can find a mentorship group that’s a couple 100 bucks a month, as long as you’re 10xing that value, there’s no reason not to do it. But there’s definitely something there that free groups and free communities just don’t have.

Norman  31:35  

Great. Yeah. Now, Roz.

Tim 31:39  

Roslin.

Norman  31:41  

How are you?

Roz 31:43  

Hi. Yeah, I’m good. Good. Are you really here in the morning? So yeah, I’m Roz. I’m in Sydney, Australia and I guess my background before I came into this was, I’ve been an entrepreneur for probably nearly 30 years now. I was in the restaurant business, development and property development and I just decided a few years ago, it was just a lot of staffing and I wanted to find something that was a little bit more flexible and I did a couple of stints in the corporate world as well and the last one, finance and the last one I actually worked in was digital media and that sort of led me to find out a lot about eCommerce, which I hadn’t really looked into at all hadn’t discovered anyway, I soon realized it was a good vehicle to be able to build a business and actually have a business that flexible, doesn’t have all those staffing, dramas, you can sort of work it in with your lifestyle with the family and whatnot. So yeah, that was probably about two years ago, I started looking into that and really took the plunge and went to India. They do that extremely well and that’s where I met Tim and I actually joined the Private Label Legion quite a while after I got back from India. I was planning on going to one of the conferences in the US and then it all got shut down with COVID and it was Tim’s conference and I reached out to him and I said, Oh my god, I’m so upset. I can’t go to this conference. Like, I am a bit of a conference junkie, I love going to these things. I think it’s just the networking, like you’ve all said before just meeting people and learning from them. Anyway, Tim said to just join the Private Label Legion and I’m sure we’ll have another conference one of these days. At that point, we thought, oh, in a couple of months, we might be all getting together again and I think that was over a year or so ago now. So I’ve launched a few products already and I’ve got about five more ready to go in the next month or two. But yeah, I mean, mentoring for me has always been invaluable even in the corporate world, in the business world. I’ve always had mentors, I think all of us really do in all aspects of life. But for me, coming into this world, having a business background myself, had a lot of knowledge about certain aspects of business. But I mean, what a learning curve, it’s been for eCommerce, like I had no idea and I still have a lot to learn and like you guys said, I don’t think we’ll ever be finished learning. I mean, especially in the space because it’s just changing so rapidly, but for me, like coming into this group and all just other groups that I’ve, like those free type ones that Tim was mentioning, just the things I’ve learned about what’s actually available and like, the ManyChats and the advertising and this and that I didn’t even know those things were available. So it wasn’t just about getting on Amazon. But it’s also just been about the holistic approach to everything and I mean this group, especially, like, the guests that you guys have on, the information is invaluable. Every week, there’s someone with something that we need to know, and it just takes you down another rabbit hole, and you think, Oh, I shouldn’t be doing this, I should be doing that and you figure out eventually what you can do, what your limitations are. But basically I just think mentorship is invaluable in any walk of life and yeah, like we’ve all said, you can get a lot from networking with people. But I think you really need someone like I mean, I actually reached out to Norm I’d seen him on I think Danny McMillan’s podcast before I even met him and a lot of people I see on these different podcasts and things, and it’s always good just to send a little message and reach out and say I really enjoyed it. I mean, I got so much value from that day, and I started following Norm and mean the value that Norm brings to the group and you too, Tim. Sorry Tim, I don’t forget about you.

Tim 36:28  

I’m usually the afterthought, it’s okay.

Roz 36:31  

Just a gift that you guys have on like there’s just there is, like I said, so much to learn and yeah, just look forward to continuing to learn with you guys.

Norman  36:42  

Well, Roz, you bring up a good point about bringing on experts and when you go to a group, usually any paid group, or you could even see some freebies out there, but you’re gonna see a host of experts across the board, that you might not think of are part of the group. So that’s what I love about going in and checking out I’ve been involved with, maybe just going in and talking to a group here or there and all of a sudden, they’ve asked you to join, and you get questions that come in on Facebook, or wherever and you get to spread out your network, and you get to meet some really cool people and that’s what, again, like, I’m either paid or the either the paid or the free. But what I’ve seen more was with the paid service, where you’ve got the bigger names that come in, for the niche anyways, that can provide this information. If you just have hundreds of 1000s of people there and you join a group and free is what you pay for. That’s what I see and that’s what I see a lot of guests think as well. 

Roz 38:00  

Sorry Tim. I was just gonna say these people are the reasons that we can then go ahead and scale our businesses because, like I said, you might get to a certain point and you think like me, for me, I look back and think, Oh my God, I’m gonna have five products going in a couple of weeks. That’s amazing. Like a few, last year, I was struggling with getting my Amazon account open and really pulling my hair out with that. But now I’m at a point, I’ve got five products. I’m like, Oh wow, that’s awesome. How did it get here? But now, where do I go next and then someone will come in as a speaker and you think, Oh, well, I hadn’t thought of that. But I have to do that. Like, this is how I’m going to scale the business.

Norman  38:42  

One of the things I wanted to add to this is a shiny object syndrome. So a lot of people, I’ll tell people not to join, because you’ve all right, like during a conversation, they’ll come up and they’ll say, Oh, I belong to this group. I belong to this group, I belong to this group and it’s like, who do you listen to? You’ve got 10 different things coming at you. Everybody’s got a slightly different way of doing it. Your question everyone, so you’re never in a funnel to get the right answers and save your money. You don’t need it. If you want, you can go and listen to someone and it’s all about your personality, too, isn’t it? You got to fit the personality. If somebody got the wrong personality, and they see how our group interacts. There’s other groups out there too. So I would not recommend if you’re in two groups, three groups to go and waste money on another group, find a group. Listen to the group, if you like it, continue and a lot of groups do have some form of money back guarantee. Right? Because it might not fit. So I don’t know Tim, what do you think about that?

Tim 40:00  

Yeah, I think that fit matters and one thing that I think there’s a misconception that a group is a bunch of people listening to one person, a bunch people listening to a mentor, I already said it before, like, everyone on the screen is now a mentor of mine, like I learned something. I would like to ask a question that I want the honest answer here. So Andrea, I’m going to ask you, because you’re the most likely to be savage and rude and hurt my feelings and so on and then and then Tom, and Cindy, I want to ask you the same thing and we’ll use our group as an example, since we’re all members of it, and we all understand it. What is actually more valuable? Is it Norm and I kind of leading the charge and bringing in outside guests and doing this thing several hours a week? Or is the value actually the other members that you now have access to and communicate with and learn from and share with? Is it the members or is it the leadership?

Andrea 41:04  

I mean, I think it’s both. Leaders are coming in and kind of sparking interest in like, what was like different things we’ve never heard of, like, it’s fun. How to increase your profitability on each product, or something like that. But then there are members, like, actively doing it within our Facebook group of like, you’re like, Okay, I need to be doing more, I’ve kind of there is a lot and that any object syndrome is kind of a lot. So I’ve kind of made it my goal this year, and every time you guys do get something new that they’re learned in the group from cells or learn from someone on the third calls from these. Just like on people.

Norman  41:57  

Oh, it sounds like your Wifi is cut out, Andrea. You were freezing for a bit.

Andrea 42:02  

Oh, sorry.

Tim 42:04  

I think we heard most of it, though. 

Norman 42:05

Yeah, we do. I think we did. 

Tim 42:07

So. Okay, so. So continuing that question, Tom and Cindy, I’ll ask you the same thing and in the context of this is, no matter what group everybody’s looking at, do you think that they need to be looking at the membership, as well as the leadership because they’re equally important, or one is more important than the other?

Tom 42:23  

What would jumpstart to Tim obviously, the charisma comes from the leadership, which brings people in initially, but or if they connect with the leader or who they think is really good. I know but as you get involved in a group, like we’ve been involved here, we’ve got some great information from just interaction with folks, things we didn’t realize that’d be a better way to do PPC management, or looking, searching for different ways to source products, or different shipping methods that we didn’t even know about and you bring them up to Tim and we found out in the group on some things and I think what’s important for us is, as we kind of work together, it’s been great to have like, Norm and Tim, obviously, as who lead it. But Tim, the guests that you brought in, I mean, we’ve learned a plethora from those guys and I think maybe you and Norm as well, you bring guests in, you’re like, Wow, that’s great stuff I need to know about. So I think it’s a combination, for sure. But I think it’s also with you guys, we kind of created a family atmosphere, we’re all pulling for each other, we want to help each other and we want to see everybody succeed. That is truly invaluable. So to read to say that yes, it’s kind of like what Andrea said, it’s a full thing. Leadership is key. You guys have been able to bring on some excellent guests that have completely jumped started or help you double, triple, quadruple x our business just because of that. So it’s kind of all but that’s our point.

Cindy 44:07  

I think something that’s been really important for me is the transparency and the trust that we have in our group. Now like I trust Tim, I trust Norm. I met Norm at a women’s conference last.

Tim 44:31  

Say it again.

Cindy 44:33  

I met Norm at a women’s conference and I had a question for him. I had never met them before but I saw him as this guru in this space and I thought I’m not gonna leave this conference without going up, introducing myself and meeting him and he’s Norm. He’s like, there was no standoffish to or anything like that. It was great to meet him and so I feel that trust in your group is really valuable too. Like, there are people in our group that we trust, we can bounce things off of, we can share our next product idea with, and we know that they’re not running to a factory to beat us to the punch or whatnot. So I think in the group I value Tim and Norm, but I also do value the people in our group as well and I think trust is a huge part of that.

Tim 45:36  

It’s interesting, you’re talking about that, because today’s coaching call, we have two hours of diving into people’s personal products, which is not something I’ve ever seen. So we don’t require people to share their products. You definitely don’t have to. But there’s been so much value in people that have said, Hey, I want to share my research methods or I want to share my listings now everybody to brainstorm this. So today, we’re going to the schedule for two hours, it’ll probably be much longer than two hours on a Zoom call. But I have, I think, five people who sent me their listings, their product research, their potential products, and we’re all going to dive in, and like help each other and the people that have done that in the past, said it was completely invaluable to have all those brains looking at and the truth is, when you find the right research methods for products, it’s not competitive. Like, I know what Tom and Cindy sell, are they great products? Sure. Could I replicate them? If I wanted to, but I don’t need to, because once you figure out the methods that are correct, there’s an unending supply of opportunity, right? So I think that’s interesting talking about trust, especially considering today we’re going to be looking at like five people’s products, which is kind of cool.

Norman  46:45  

So I guess we should probably just mention the giveaway again. So #mentor, you’ll get a free three month membership over at Centurion League and all you need to enter twice is #mentor and tag two people in the group. The other thing is we’ve got a bunch of questions. I think Kels?

Kelsey 47:12  

Yes, the one just came in talking for the group with this mentorship is suitable for Canadian sellers selling in the USA and looking to sell in the Canadian market as well.

Tim 47:25  

Well, Norm you’re in Canada, you’re probably good to first answer that.

Norman  47:31  

I can’t see why not. There might be some slight differences if you’re going through if you have a Canadian business. But I know. I’ve talked to a lot of different Canadians that have businesses set up here. We had prior to the shutdown, a fairly large Amazon group in Toronto that met and yeah, everything that now we talk about, anyways, any Canadian selling in the US now there are differences in Canada. So there’s a few differences in Canada. But if you were to ask those questions, or if you’re talking about certain things, like shipping is crazy here in Canada, the additional cost up here, there’s advertising break down, what can you really expect, if you have a lower priced item, like for me a bar soap, that sucked, I learned my lesson. Who’s gonna pay $14 for a bar soap, which is $10 in the states and pay another 7.95 for shipping. I’ll take it all day long if somebody wants to pay me 20 bucks for a bar soap. But that was a learning curve here in Canada. So there are some things that we can talk about in the group and we have a lot of international people in the group, by the way and again, it’s not about the group. It’s in general.

Tim 49:00  

Yeah, I think that’s what’s cool about eCommerce is it’s kind of removed borders. Right? Aside from the timezone difference in Rosalyn having to wake up at 4am to get her hair as beautiful as it is right now. Like it doesn’t it doesn’t matter like it not even Centurion League but I have personal friends that are ecommerce sellers all over the world and when it comes to the basics of selling online, creating eCommerce business, it doesn’t matter where you are, how you research, how you run PPC, how you optimize how you brand, what other platforms use, what other traffic sources you find for marketing doesn’t really matter. Now some of the cool things about the group like talking about the members. I don’t know what’s required to set up a US entity if I’m not in the US. But like every day, there’s a discussion on our private Facebook group from one of our members who is outside the US who set up a US entity that’s advising that. So again, I get to learn stuff that I’d never come across if I wasn’t involved in some sort of community.

Norman  50:02  

Very good. Kels, are there any more?

Kelsey 50:07  

No specific questions. 

Norman  50:08  

Oh, okay. Well, I saw a lot of comments coming. I thought there were some questions tied into it.

Tim 50:13  

Mark, we haven’t picked on you at all. Kind of talk briefly about, like, where you see your business going now in 2021, because I know you’re a little more advanced than maybe some of the sellers I see in the eCommerce community, talk about just the opportunity this year, and where you see things going.

Mark 50:34  

Yeah, my biggest thing is I think inventory management is going to be kind of the big thing, kind of getting that under control and you kind of got to set up a foundation is kind of the way I look at it. I launched my first product, had some inventory issues. But I think I finally knocked on wood, got it under control, where I’m going to have good control over that. I lost my second product. Same thing, I made sure to be able to have the adequate inventory and make plans for it, warehousing and things like that here in the States. I think it might be a little big, but I have two products now by the year and I would like to have six ASINs and six products going and that’s my goal by the end of the year when I think it’s doable.

Tim 51:23  

That’s awesome.

Mark 51:25  

Thank you. I give you guys the credit for it like I said that you guys in the group. It’s been awesome. The scaling is the amazing part. It’s planning, scaling and like I said, it’s just been really great. 

Tim 51:42

Awesome, thanks.

Tim 51:44  

You’re muted, buddy.

Andrea 51:46  

I feel like this whole time we’ve been pitching you guys are not getting tangible.

Tim 51:52  

Well, I think that the tangible info because here’s the thing, me and Norm are normal dudes, right? Like, Norm is talking about the last time me and him got to hang out in person, we were in Vegas, sitting in a cigar bar with Kevin King and we were literally sitting there talking about our screw ups in life. Like, within our private group, like we’ve all seen Norm cry, like talking about experiences, and what’s interesting is the fact that we’re all normal, the fact that we all have the same struggles, the same problems, the same baggage in our lives, the same reasons why we shouldn’t succeed, like make us stronger together. So I think the tangible kind of content from this, Andrea, your point is like, it doesn’t matter what group you’re involved with. It doesn’t matter how many groups you’re involved with, like, but you have to be involved with the group because life is too short to try to figure it out on your own and sometimes building a business is too hard to do it on your own too and having someone that can support you in a group that’s important can support you and learn from and literally sometimes just cry with. sounds terrible. That sounds cheesy. But like, you have to have that and I’ll never forget that cigar lounge experience, Norm because me you and Kevin are sitting there and this guy walks up to us and he says Hey, I’m really sorry to interrupt you, can I have just a moment of your time and I thought it was like a staff member. He’s like I’ve been, you guys are like famous. We were like what? He said, My friend has to meet you, my friend is gonna die to meet you and he brings his friend over there and the whole time thinking how bizarre is this? Because I’m not smarter than these guys like Kevin is no more brilliant than these two strangers that walked up to us and we’re like, will sit down and talk to us and they’re like successful business owners in a different way and what I realized is like, we’re all on the same level playing field and you have to be reminded of that sometimes by being in a community and that community is gonna help you take advantage of the opportunities are out there. You just can’t do it on your own.

Norman  54:02  

Yeah, very good.

Mark 54:04  

Very well said.

Tim 54:07  

No, Andrea, I count on you to always call us.

Andrea 54:12  

I think it’s a no brainer. Like if you’re not in a mentorship something like this, and I’ve researched literally all of them, then you’re really missing out.

Norman  54:22  

The one thing I can tell people and I don’t slam any groups, but if you see somebody sitting on a Lamborghini going like this quick cash, run. You don’t want that, you want sincerity. You want I mean, this is an uphill battle. It’s not making a million dollars overnight. A lot of us are working, we have a full time job and we’re trying to make something on the side and some of us have left that full time job and are making it through Amazon because you become an expert. So just be careful. It’s very tempting, I can tell you just from 30 years of experience, it’s very tempting to go after the quick cash route, and it never works out. The person at the other end makes it, but it’s very hard for the actual member to make it. But anyways, Hey, we have gone through an hour. It’s almost time for Wheel of Kelsey. We’ll give one more shout out if anybody needs or has a question for the group, please ask it now and if not, we’re gonna go over to Wheel of Kelsey.

Tim 55:43  

Well, and while he’s pulling it up, I appreciate you guys letting me eat my chick fil a while I was eating my chick fil a sandwich, Tom Norton messaged me on my cell phone and said, Hey, buddy, you have mustaches or mustard in your moustache. Yeah. Chick fil a’s sandwiches don’t have mustard pal,  good try.

Norman  56:01  

Oh man, I wish.

Roz 56:06  

Hey Norm and before we go, can I just say one more thing I think we haven’t touched on and that is some, we talked a lot about what we get from the group and I think motivation as well is something that, like you said, if you’re doing it on your own, some days you’re having those bad days, and you could just walk away from things but it’s really great to get that motivation from other people, yourself. You and Tim, guest speakers, even if you don’t do all the things that they want that they offer. But it just keeps you motivated, keeps you on track with your goals and pushing forward and just sharing your success as well. Like we all share our successes, not just our problems.

Norman  56:54  

Very good. Yep. thank you.

Tim 56:56  

That last comment that came in, Tom and Cindy Norton are super cute. 35 years. At least at least half of that couple of cute. The other one’s name is Tom. Yeah.

Norman  57:12  

All right. Sorry. Go ahead, Kelsey.

Kelsey 57:13  

All right. So is it one correct? Okay. All right. So here we go.

Tim 57:20  

So this is, what’s the price here? It’s three months free of Century League?

Norman  57:26  

Yep.

Tim 57:29  

You guys are generous.

Norman  57:33  

All right, Kels hit that button. Wheel of Kelsey. Let’s get going or is it not working, too? 

Norman 57:43

Here we go.

Tim 57:44  

I love that logo in the middle.

Norman  57:48  

Oh, Nick.

Kelsey 57:50  

Nick is from YouTube.

Tim 57:54  

Nick from YouTube. Send an email to info@privatelabellegion.com and say, Hey, I just won the prize. Give me my free stuff.

Norman  58:04  

Yep. Exactly.

Tim 58:06  

info@privatelabellegion.com.

Norman  58:07  

Yeah and you can double up if you want to just give Kelsey the info as well. So we’ll get you that. Congratulations. So I think it’s the end of the podcast. Unless there’s anything else anybody else wants to say?

Mark 58:21  

Kelsey gave a great presentation, actually last week.

Tim 58:25  

There we go. 

Mark 58:27  

To spice it up a little bit. Bringing up stepping up your social media game, so just want to give a shout out to that too. 

Kelsey 58:35  

It was my very first presentation. 

Cindy 58:37  

You did great.

Norman  58:41  

Yes, okay. You did okay. No, you did great.

Norman  58:47  

All right. So hey, guys, I really appreciate everybody coming onto the podcast today and sharing your time with us. It’s great. Like I said, we couldn’t or Tim and I couldn’t do this without you guys and I’m just glad that we had the opportunity to share some of the things and the reasons why mentoring is so important.

Kelsey 59:08  

Before we leave, I think there’s one question. What is included in the mentorship program and how much does it cost?

Tim 59:18  

The list is huge. I would go to thecenturionleague.com. It’s a big list and it’s changing constantly. We haven’t even updated the website with all the new features we’ve put in. But I think without spending five minutes that’s the best way to check it out. So thecenturionleague.com

Norman  59:35  

Right. Now, the pricing and everything is there. Again, we don’t want to pitch the mentoring program on the show. So if you’re interested, you can check it out there.

Tim 59:46  

All of our guests have already done that for us.

Norman  59:48  

Yeah, there we go. All right, everybody. Thanks. We’ll see you tomorrow and the guest tomorrow is Kevin King. So he’s coming on for his monthly Talk about Amazon, what’s happening in the Amazon space right now and once again too about Kevin, check out his Billion Dollar Seller Summit news. I don’t know who the speakers are, but he always puts together a really great lineup. That’s it people. Thank you.

Andrea 1:00:19  

Thank you.