We dive into product development for Amazon and eCommerce Sellers! Are you trying to figure out if your idea is worth developing? Want to know how to launch a unique product in the marketplace? Tune into episode 57 of the Lunch with Norm Podcast and find out!
Date: October 30, 2020
Episode: 57
Title: Norman Farrar Introduces Amy Wees, CEO of Amazing at Home E-Commerce Consulting.
Subtitle: Know everything about your product
Final Show Link: https://lunchwithnorm.com/episodes/episode-57-product-development-101-w-amy-wees/
In this episode of Lunch With Norm…, Norman Farrar introduces Amy Wees, CEO of Amazing at Home Business Consulting.
Amy is a business coach and helps entrepreneurs in developing unique products. She discussed how to launch a unique product and the necessary steps in doing it.
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Norman 0:01
Hi 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
My God, yep, it’s a Halloween episode, I had no idea that was coming up. I heard Kelsey was gonna do something. But anyways, thank you for joining us today and we got a great episode. I’m going to be joined by Amazing at Home, Amy Wees and we’re going to be discussing everything you need to know about product development and specifically, we’re going to be talking about how to get started with development, how to find the right manufacturers, and how to make your product unique and stand out. But before we get there, I just wanted to let you know that we’re broadcasting to you live on Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn and if you’re watching a replay, skip ahead. Also, if you’re on my Facebook page, or on my Facebook profile, you can always head over to my Facebook page Norman Farrar a.k.a The Beard Guy and you can watch the whole episodes, their highlights and all sorts of other content. So at this point, where are you, son?
Kelsey 1:28
Hi, everyone.
Norman 1:29
Oh my God.
Kelsey 1:31
Happy Halloween.
Kelsey 1:34
Yes. Welcome to the show, everyone. I hope you enjoyed the intro. Yeah, I mean, Hayden, we plan that out. Oh, it looks like it’s Simon in here. Hello, Simon. Happy Friday.
Norman 1:49
Hey, Simon.
Kelsey 1:51
So yes, follow us on social media. We have Facebook, Instagram, YouTube. Just search Lunch With Norman or Norman Farrar, and you should be able to find us and we can find us on our podcast. So Apple, Spotify, anywhere you listen to your podcast, you can find us and let’s see we have a brand new Facebook group. You can search up Lunch With Norm Amazon FBA and eCommerce Collective and it’s brand new. It started about three weeks ago and we’re just starting to get members and get some discussions going. So it’s all very exciting. So please, you can head on over. I’ll put the link in the comment section here and yeah, so if you’re watching right now like and share this and also, let us know where you’re from. Oh, and smash that like button and ring that bell.
Norman 2:40
Ring that bell. That’s it. If you like it, ring the bell. Oh, I got that mixed up. Like button and ring that bell. That’s what you tell me to do all the time. Okay. All right. So we get that straight. If you have any other questions, or if you do have comments during the episode, just put them over in the comment section and we will definitely get to them. If we can’t get to them because of time, we will be answering them after the podcast. So sit back, relax, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy the show.
Kelsey 3:16
Simon, the pumpkin juices for after the show.
Norman 3:27
How are you Amy?
Amy 3:29
I’m good. It’s great to be here. I had lunch already. So I saw that picture in the back of your Lunch With Norm ad and it really inspired me. So I had orange chicken today for lunch.
Norman 3:47
Oh, there we go. Nice.
Amy 3:51
It looks so good.
Norman 3:54
That’s something I mean, that was really cool. Kelsey came up with the idea now of these templates, like if you go to the group, or if you go to YouTube, and you’ll see different lunch items, so I thought that was kind of a cool idea. So I don’t give him a lot of comments or compliments. But yeah, there’s one. There you go Kels.
Norman 4:18
But anyway, how are you?
Amy 4:21
I’m really good. I’m really good. It’s been a crazy 2020 but I wouldn’t change it. Well, I would change COVID because I haven’t been able to go to China like I normally do and do all the traveling and everything but other than that, there’ve been a lot of really cool things that have come out of COVID and that has happened in 2020. So yeah, I’m stoked about it. What about you Norm? How are you doing?
Norman 4:52
Oh, I’m doing I’m doing Yeah, I’m going crazy 2020. 2020 has been the absolute well, the best of times and the worst of times. So, not going to events has allowed me to concentrate on stuff like this a podcast and kind of concentrate more on social media. It’s also allowed me to have the family at home for three or four months, which was kind of cool. So it was great, but at the same time, COVID itself, and then just not being able to go out and what I love doing is just, meeting people and going to events, learning things, but also, increasing the network and networking. But yeah, that part kind of sucks, sitting here and watching my travel points dwindle. I hope I really do hope, like Delta or whoever honors the travel point. I can’t get out of Canada.
Amy 5:55
Really?
Norman 5:56
I can’t go to the US to do anything. I don’t know if I want to, but I’m an old guy. But yeah, I’m not traveling at all. So yeah, these travel points get just absorbed. But anyways, I hope I keep my status and I just don’t start over again. We’ll see. But hey, for people who don’t know you, can you give us a little bit of background?
Amy 6:23
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I am a wife, a mom, an inventor and entrepreneur. I’ve been selling on Amazon since 2007. So for a little while and that was just a hobby. When I was in the military, I just used to flip my textbooks and stuff like that and then in 2017, I came up with an idea to invent a new version of the litter box cleaner for cats and well for humans, not really for cats, because they sure don’t clean their own litter box and that’s a problem. But, I came up with a better solution for humans and even though I have a whole bunch of business degrees and stuff, I had no idea how to invent something from scratch. So I went on this journey and I shared along the way and started helping other people develop products and before I knew it, I had a couple of private label brands and Amazing at Home, my consulting firm for eCommerce businesses was born. So that’s kind of the story of it and long and short and I live in San Antonio, Texas.
Norman 7:37
Okay. Hey, I’m just looking at some of the comments that are coming in and Victor says that the pictures are pixelating. It’s looking perfect on my end and from your end, Amy. Can anybody else verify if they’re getting pixelated video?
Kelsey 7:54
Yeah, I think your video screen is pixelating. I’m not sure about mine. Yeah. Amy’s picture is good. But yeah, I’m not sure if your internet connection is over there.
Amy 8:08
His audio is clear, but his video is pixelated.
Norman 8:15
That’s so weird.
Amy 8:16
It might be a camera setting.
Kelsey 8:19
They were saying there is some echo but I’m not sure if that’s a mic issue or Amy are you using earphones?
Amy 8:30
Yeah, yeah.
Kelsey 8:31
Okay, so, yeah, I’m not sure.
Norman 8:35
I hear a little bit of an echo with Amy, nothing too bad. But anyways, I have no idea what’s happening with the pixelation because I’m looking at my screen and it looks perfect 100%. Not that I’m perfect, but the picture looks good. Anyways, let’s continue on and if it gets to be bothersome, let me know and I might just go on to audio. Okay. But also at this time, I’m looking at some, all of these people. Simon, thank you for joining us and Giz, you always get me with Giz. Victor, but welcome back to Victor and Golem. Nice to see you, hope everything is good with you. I haven’t seen you in a long time. He’s part of our ASM Toronto Group and we have Oh my gosh. Oksana, how are you? Anyways, all the way from Prague. Nice to see you and I hope we can meet. Actually, I hope we can meet everybody one of these days again. But anyways, going back to Amy. I hope we don’t get too pixelated here. Anyways, let’s talk about product development. That’s what everybody’s here for and I know your product and I know that one of the things for Amazon sellers is to try to differentiate themselves from anything else that your competitors have and a lot of people really don’t ask their manufacturers or they don’t go ahead and do it because they might think it’s too expensive. But what you’ve done, I really like to kind of go through that process and first of all, how do you know? Or how do you get to that point? So product research, what is your process of trying to find a product that’s worth digging into and creating the product development side?
Amy 10:40
Yeah, well, and this is really hard for people because, not only have I developed a few of my own products, I’m on three patents now, and many different products that I’ve developed. But I’ve also helped, hundreds of other sellers develop their own products take their products from conceptual legislation all the way into launch and the biggest thing is, I see it and even in inventors, in the inventor circles, people will move forward with patenting something that might not be marketable, or might not be competitive. So for example, maybe you come up with a really cool idea to improve a product, but maybe you have to over develop it too much, and the reasonable alternative. So if I add lights and a heating element to this coffee cup, or this water bottle here, the customer may not be willing to pay as much as I have to pay to develop that product and as much as I have to charge for it, there might not be enough perceived value. So even if you have a good idea, you need to make sure that it’s marketable and you need to make sure that the reasonable alternatives on the market are not that the customers aren’t going to choose those reasonable alternatives over yours and even if you come to market with a similar product, but you try to improve it, you want to come in at a very competitive price point and make it easy for customers to choose yours. So if I’m going to improve this water bottle here, and I’m going to maybe add a handle and maybe some lights or whatever, a mirror. We were checking our phones before the episode, whatever I’m going to do with this right? I’m going to want to make sure that I can offer it competitively and make it easy for the customer to decide like, Oh, this is $20 and this is $20. This one has a handle, this one doesn’t, which one am I going to choose right? Where I see people make big mistakes is they’ll over develop a product, you always want to go to market first with a minimum viable product, but they’ll over develop a product and then they say, Amy, I hope that I can sell this product for $60 and we look at everybody on page one, everyone on page one is, 15 to $20 and that’s really hard when your brand is not Nike, to charge that much that you’re just getting started. So that I would say is the first thing that you want to look at. You always have competition, even though for example, I created a new category in making a litter box cleaner and that requires education of the customer. People are still, I still have competition. Litter boxes are my competition. Scoops are my competition, so I still have competition. So you don’t want to think oh, I never have competition because there’s always something else that the customer can buy and so the key Norm, is knowing why people buy the products that they buy. So if I’m thinking about developing a certain type of product, a dog toy, or a consumer good, I need to ask myself, Why do people buy that? What problem is it solving for them and is my new offering, giving them something that they don’t already have?
Norman 14:13
Okay, I’m just seeing Victor came back with something you also have to be careful about. Oh, okay. I thought you’re gonna talk about my pixelation again, Victor. Okay, what’s that question?
Kelsey 14:25
You also have to be careful about crossing a price threshold. There’s a big percentage difference between 29.95 and 30.95.
Norman 14:35
Right. That’s a great point.
Kelsey 14:37
Oh, and just before we move on from that, Marina is asking how can I become a part of the ASM Drama Group?
Norman 14:48
Okay, so that’s real simple. Anybody who’s in the Ontario area, or in Toronto, you can just private message me and I’ll get you the information. There’s a private Facebook group called ASM Toronto. ASM Toronto Mastermind, and we’ve got a, there’s probably about 100 plus members there. We’re not meeting that often, but we’re doing some more virtual stuff. Usually we meet about, usually when it’s going, it’s every other month we get together. But anyways, yeah, anybody interested just let me know. I also see that Yelchin came on as well. I got a question for you, Amy.
Amy 15:30
Sure.
Norman 15:31
You talked about stages. So product development can be costly and we’ll get into that in a sec. But when you’re working with your team, you plan it out that this is where I want to be. This is where we’re starting off. So it doesn’t cost you $20,000 each time you create something?
Amy 15:54
Well, it depends, of course, on the product as far as how much it’s going to cost you. But, in terms of like, because if you have a large product, a mold might cost more if a mold is required, that kind of thing. Contracts, patents, all those things are considerations. But what I encourage people in my mastermind group and in my concept launch program to do is to always start with the simplest form of their product and we call this a minimum viable product and this MVP, right? Eric Ries wrote a book called The Lean Startup and he talks extensively about this and the idea is to get feedback, you don’t want to start with making this product so crazy, right? If you can just start with the simplest form of that product, and try and test the market, right? Even if it’s not the exact product, not exactly what you want to end up with, when you finish developing. If you can start with something small that leads in that direction, and cost you less to kind of test and get market feedback, that’s always a really great way to do it. Now another thing before you actually start developing the product, you can always make mock ups, you can get a 3d mockup done and you can do surveys. There’s so many great ways to get feedback on a product before you even start developing it and a lot of people get scared about that, because they’re like, well, if somebody’s gonna steal my idea. Well, you can always file a provisional patent on your idea that buys you a year in patent pending status and that can allow you then to kind of put it out there and share it and another thing that I love to do is just create a picture of the product. You could have somebody Photoshop it right? If I’m going to add lights and a heater to this water bottle, I could have someone Photoshop a water bottle with lights and heater in it right and make it look like that. Turn it into a little infographic and then I can go out there and ask for some opinions on it. Ask people, what do you think of it? How much would you pay for it? There’s so many ways to do that. You can use Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and reach out and get lots of opinions for pennies, Google search.
Norman 18:24
For people who don’t know about what you were just talking about, what is Amazon Turk?
Amy 18:33
Well, Mechanical Turk, Amazon’s Mechanical Turk is a platform where people can get small tasks done, right? They can have people look at their website, or there’s many different little tasks that can be done and there’s all these Turkers.
Norman 18:53
Not twerkers?
Amy 18:55
Not twerkers. But there’s all these people who are active members of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, and they enter their information and so if you need a pool of specific buyers, right. If you need a pool of people that are interested in certain things, interested in certain things, you’re developing a camping product, right? Well, you can sort by those profiles and say, these are the ones that are able to answer my survey or answer my questions. You can do similar things on platforms like Pickfu. They have lots of consumers that can answer questions. So you could put your competitor, your main competitors’ photo of their product up there, and then you could put your mock up next to it and say, What do you think about this? How much would you pay for it? Which one would you choose? That kind of thing and it can really help you make some informed decisions before you even get into, really expensive patents or developing a mold or something like that.
Norman 19:56
So three platforms that I know about is the one that you were just talking about. You just talked about Pickfu and the other one that I don’t know if you’ve ever used them, but Usability Hub. That’s also another great platform for split testing.
Amy 20:13
I haven’t used Usability Hub. I use Google Surveys and then Nielsen has a lot of really great product data as well, consumer data that you can pull from previous surveys and stuff that they’ve done, which is really helpful. But yeah, Usability Hub. I haven’t heard of that one. I’ll try it out.
Norman 20:34
On that, yeah, it’s great and what you can do is really narrow down the demographic. So, if I’m looking for somebody in Toronto, actually, but usually it goes by country, and you’re looking for a female at a certain age. I mean, it’ll just give you exactly what you’re looking for in about five minutes. So, yeah, it’s a great little platform, it can get a little costly, depending on what you’re doing. But they have lots of different options, but Pickfu is awesome. I love their platform as well. One of the other things I was wondering about, would you put a product. Kirsten Ross was on a little while ago and he’s talking about innovative products for Amazon and doing the whole Kickstarter, Crowdfunding. Is that something to see if people would be interested in going forward like with your product? For cat litter? Would that be something that you would do?
Amy 21:37
I did.
Amy 21:39
I did. Yeah, I had 60 pre orders before I launched, which is really nice. The thing that people don’t realize about Kickstarter or GoFundMe, or any of those platforms, though, it really does require marketing. You do need to plan for it and really spread the word. It’s not a lot of times people think, oh, wow, this company, they put this idea on Kickstarter, and they raised $2 million, and there might be a perception that you can just throw a product on Kickstarter and you’re going to get all these signups and it’s just going to be completely amazing, right? But Kickstarter, GoFundMe, whatever platform you use, and you go go, I think is the other one, you just need to make sure that you’re preparing for that, because you’re going to need to have a list of people, whether it starts with friends and family, and you’re asking them to share, but you’re going to need to have a list of people that you can reach out to, to get the buzz going and get some donations coming in on Kickstarter, if you don’t meet your fundraising goals. It’s a problem. So I love those platforms, I think they’re really great because people like to peruse them. People like to check out cool new innovative ideas and it’s a great way to get some feedback and some backing before you begin. But if you didn’t prepare, and you put your product out there and Kickstarter, and it didn’t do well, it doesn’t mean that it still couldn’t be a smash hit in the marketplace.
Norman 23:12
You brought up a good point about the marketing side. So if it’s an innovative product, probably the more innovative it is, the more marketing dollars you have to put aside, because you’ve got to convince people that this is going to solve some sort of pain point for them, or that they’ve got to buy this product and if it’s a cat litter box, and how is yours that much different and what problems is it going to solve? Sometimes, people don’t realize that they do have to put a little bit extra marketing dollars into it, and especially on Amazon. So let’s go through it. So you’ve got your demographic, you’ve done your research, you might have researched on Amazon or on Google.
Amy 23:55
Norm, I actually disagree with you about the marketing dollar.
Norman 23:58
Really?
Amy 23:59
Yeah.
Norman 24;00
Okay, sure.
Amy 24:01
Can I talk about that for a second?
Norman 24:03
Yeah, let’s go for it.
Amy 24:04
So the thing is, yes, of course, if you have a unique product, you are going to have to tell people, sometimes products require education, right? They require education especially if it’s completely new, never seen before. But by the time you bring that product to market, you should have already done the market research and know that you’re solving a problem that actually exists for people. Right? You don’t want to, I’ve seen people move through and develop products that don’t actually solve problems, and people would rather buy the reasonable alternative. So one example is the guy on Shark Tank who came in with the camera block, and he was like, I’ve solved this, it’s a cybersecurity problem and the shark is like, I use a piece of paper. Right? He’s still sold some of those and those became really popular swag gifts, so it doesn’t mean failure. But the bottom line is, for example, I developed a product that there’s no category for it. There’s no such thing as a litter box cleaner there is now but there wasn’t when I created this product. But guess what? What major keywords do people search for an Amazon? Litter box. It’s right in my title. So, all I did was put no more scooping litter box cleaner, reuse the litter over and over again, and so I’m already identifying their problems and the cool thing about unique products that solve problems is they just sell. There’s not a lot of advertising required, because when somebody searches for litter box, and or odor control or something like that, and I’m ranked for those keywords, they see my product, and they see all the reviews, and they’re like, oh, wow, okay, this is solving a problem for me and people spread the word about products that work great. So it doesn’t require a lot of marketing dollars. Because you get excited when you find a cool new product that nobody else has, and you want to tell other people about it. It can become so viral and so awesome. I spend almost no money on marketing. It’s really, really incredible. It’s a lot of word of mouth. So of the people that I’ve helped develop unique products, when we put them out there, they just sell. People are excited to leave reviews about them, you don’t have to like, do all these giveaways and everything like that. They’re excited to pay full price for something that solves a problem and the marketing dollars as I mentioned, they’re a lot lower than if you’re selling a product that’s just like everybody else’s and you have to do a lot more convincing. Where I have something nobody else has that solves a problem for people. Doesn’t require a lot of marketing other than getting them to the product page, which is easy to do, as long as you’re using a keyword that is highly searched for.
Norman 26:58
Yeah, I like your method of if people are going to be looking for a litter box, you’re already there. So that’s great and I think that works. I’m looking more at Facebook or YouTube or trying to get a lot more external traffic coming over. If people aren’t knowing what they’re looking for, or your competitors, like going over to a company that has cat products, maybe not even a cat litter box, building up, or working with their top engagers or, possibly people in the niche that’s interested in cats, and targeting litter box. When that comes into their mailbox, or if that comes as a video, if they’re searching that on YouTube, you’ve to show how yours is different because they don’t see it on Amazon. So I guess what you’re talking about is 100%. If you’re already ranking for keywords, and you’re different on Amazon, and you can show that even if you have a video on your listing, that’s great. But when you’re looking at the other, let’s say social media channels, and people don’t know about it on Amazon or are not looking for it. Maybe they’re used to a different brand. Cat litter box might not be exactly what I’m talking about.
Amy 28:28
It’s so much easier actually for external traffic as well. Because it’s easier to get an influencer excited about talking about a new different product. If you come to an influencer and you’re like, yeah, I’m selling these water bottles, will you back me? But if you come to an influencer and you came up with a new version of a fitness water bottle that specifically is after their target audience, they’re going to be excited to be the one to back that and it’s so much easier when it comes to external traffic, when it comes to on Amazon traffic to rank a product like this, for a product like this to go viral, for you to spread the word and for you to get in sales channels beyond Amazon. It’s really, really cool because you have something that nobody else has. I can sell my products for higher wholesale prices, then my partners and my competitors sell commodities and it’s a really cool thing because you have something that nobody else has and that people get excited about. It naturally goes viral, there’s a lot more organic potential, then, having to run ads for things and then when you do have a video or something like that, that shows how your product works. People get excited because you can use those call to action to say this is something that you’ve never seen before. It’s cool and it’s gonna solve your problem and people really tune into that. It’s just like the stuff that goes along with Kickstarter. That’s why we go on Kickstarter and check out new products because we want to see the new things we’ve never seen before.
Norman 30:01
So going back to Kickstarter for a second, you were talking about provisional patents. What kind of price range would somebody be looking at?
Amy 30:11
Well, it completely depends, right? You have an I’m not an attorney and I would really recommend people do that disclaimer, yeah, I’m not giving legal advice here. But I have helped a lot of people in this domain right with patents and stuff. I’m on my state and ventures board, I help inventors all the time. But the bottom line is, when it comes to patents, you want to decide how to protect your product, right? Whether it’s, you’re just going to trademark it, trademark your brand, right? Whether it’s a unique design that you put on something. We had a guy come and talk in our inventors group last month, and he is an inventor of puzzles with a unique digital designs on them and so his designs are going to be protected by copyrights, which is a little bit easier than having to do a full patent right and then you have design patents, you have utility patents. Utility patents protect the use of something, and they take a really long time to get and if your product is very novel, meaning it can very easily be created with two other products, right? It’s harder to get the utility patent for it. If it is really kind of complex or newer, never seen before, it’s easier because you can make more claims, it takes more parts and pieces of different products or different things to put together to make that patent. A design patent is something that protects the way something looks, the design of something and so a lot of people tend to do that, right? If you’re just making a design improvement on something like the water bowl, of course, this is always my example because it’s right here. But if you’re just doing something like that a design patent could be the way to go. Now, when we’re talking about cost, people always get scared about this, right? Remember, the key is negotiation. You can always negotiate with yours, everything in business is negotiable. So when I started with my utility patent, I knew it was going to be expensive. That really kind of terrified me, honestly. I put it into my business plan about what the cost of my molds were going to be. What my startup costs were going to be? The cost to start to trademark my brands and do all of that, right. But I also looked into legal costs and what I did is I went on upcounsel.com and I put in a job and I said like this is my budget, this is what I want and I interviewed three different attorneys and the attorney that I ended up hiring and he was willing to meet my budget for my product. He had worked in Pharmaceuticals for over 20 years. So he was so good at combing through everything and making sure that it was patentable and he did an excellent job. But anyway, long story short, I have spent about $3,000 on a utility patent. I’m getting it completely done.
Norman 33:10
That’s a great price.
Amy 33:12
Yeah, and because I negotiated and so and the other thing is the amount of work that you do, too. The more you know about your product, the more you have your drawings and everything like that done, the more research that you do on patents. The other cool thing, Norm is there are patent agents out there. A patent agent, the only difference between a patent agent and a patent attorney is one has not gone to law school. But they both have extensively studied the patent process. So you can use a patent agent for doing your patent for you and then you can use a lawyer or more expensive lawyer when you actually need to fight that patent in court or something like that. Right. So those are some different things you can do people always think, Oh, no, it’s $100,000. I don’t want to patent something and that’s just not the case. Remember, everything’s negotiable. There’s many different ways to do it and the USPTO actually has a self help inventors program that is quite good and you can call them up. I just filed a design patent last month on my new product that’s coming out soon and they sat down with me the whole step of the way and really like walked me through everything and made sure that everything was good. So there’s lots of programs and things that you can do. Don’t let that stop you from getting your idea to the market.
Norman 34:36
Okay, very good and I just saw something about what Victor was saying about whether it’s worth it or not and depending on what it is. Like for provisional patents, very, very inexpensive like for us, we’ve got a process that we’re doing and we just want to make sure that we can say patent pending legally say patent pending, it makes sense for us to do that. Sometimes it might not make sense for you to do it, we just want to protect ourselves as much as possible. But Amy, you got a great price for a utility patent.
Amy 35:14
I did.
Norman 35:13
Yeah, usually it’s a bit more expensive. What was the name of that website again? I know there’s others like it.
Amy 35:20
Upcounsel.
Norman 35:21
Upcounsel. I gotta check that out and we’ll post that in the notes as well. So the other scary part about doing something like having this great idea, are the molds. Okay, first of all, the mold price is like asking somebody, how long is a piece of screen? Right? It can be, it could be anything. But you want to protect yourself. Do you have any advice for people? How do you protect yourself against a manufacturer taking your item in China, and now you’re no longer the owner, you see it on Amazon come up and those are your molds, and people are absolutely scared. They’re scared about waking up one day, and that’s happening.
Amy 36:12
Yes. Okay. So before I get into that, I just want to remind you guys and I know, Norm would say the same thing. I’ve had him in my program talking about sourcing and protecting yourself and everything. But, I want to remind you guys that it is your job to know your product. In my course, I actually go in depth on manufacturing processes. Because if you don’t know your product, that manufacturer is going to know that you don’t know your product, and they’re going to take advantage of you. It’s your job to understand how your product could be made, the manufacturing processes, the materials that need to be used. You should have prototyped your product idea and get it to a pretty good place before you go and start talking to manufacturers, you should know how similar products like yours are made. There’s a ton of YouTube videos, how it’s made, all that kind of stuff. That’s always the homework in our manufacturing class. You really need to understand it, because how are you supposed to talk to a manufacturer about making your product if you don’t understand the components of your product, how it’s made, the manufacturing processes, your target price that you’re going after, what you can sell it for, what your margins are, you need to know all of that before you move into finding a manufacturer. So then we get into mold prices, right? So I actually my first time before I started taking trips to China, I had my molds made, I went to a US based liaison and they went to China and had my molds made for me and the price on my molds would scare most people. I paid $60,000 for my molds.
Amy 38:08
This is a rather large mold and then we put it on a ship and it came back from China and my product is actually made in the USA, at a facility in Dallas, Texas. So the thing is, you can have your products made in the USA in some cases, for me, I made my product, one of my products in the USA. The rest of them are made in China and I visited all my factories. I have relationships with my factories. So anyway, the bottom line is know your product, that’s step one. Know your specs, right? Know everything about your product, then go out and start researching manufacturers. Now, before you actually source that product, before you start talking to a manufacturer about your new water bottle with lights and a heater right? Before you start talking to them about it, I want you to do what’s called sourcing a decoy. I want you to talk to a manufacturer that makes similar water bottles, right and maybe they have something cool on one of them and I want you to pick something else. So for example, maybe you’re gonna pick, like, you’re going to talk to the coffee mug manufacturer that already has the heater built in, right and they don’t know that you want to add lights to that, that’s fine. But you’re going to talk to them about different things you could do. So basically, you’re not giving up any information about your idea yet you’re sourcing a decoy. The conversations you’re having with a supplier before you enter into any contracts with them are about a decoy and then when you know that they’re the supplier for you, you know that they can meet your pricing for a very similar product, that they can differentiate and that they’re the ones doing the manufacturing and you’ve asked them about moulds and all of that, and you have that information, that’s when you enter into your contract. So I have a Chinese attorney and he draws up my contracts for me. So he negotiates, I use an NNN Agreement, which is a non compete, non repudiation, non circumvention agreement, and it’s in English and Chinese and that’s what initially protects my idea before I send over those, my designs, right to talk about, Hey, can you make the mold for this, right? But initially, I have my Chinese attorney drop that agreement, and he delivers that to them. It’s drawn up by law in China. Anywhere you sourced from, whether it’s India, China, Vietnam, whatever the US, you should be following their legal protocols. You’re not going to protect yourself, if you just have like a contract that you made up in English, and they don’t even understand it, right and they can basically sign it any which way and that’s the other thing that I have my attorney check for me is when they sign it in China, it has to be signed, it has to be stamped with a red seal and that stamp is in Chinese, right? So if they’re stamping it with another company, like their Import Export company. I’ve had suppliers do that to me before and my attorney looked at us like that’s not the same, they didn’t stamp it with the same company that actually that you’re sourcing from. So again, I enter into those contracts first, before I release any designs or anything to them and before I enter into contracts, I have those conversations. I make sure they’re a good fit for me, right and make sure they’re the right supplier, they can grow with me. I have seven steps to vetting all my suppliers, and make sure they are who they say they are, and that they’re a good partner for me by sourcing a decoy, then I have contracts with them. I also trademark in China, because actually, this is interesting because your competitors, China’s a first to file countries, so if your competitors file your trademark in China before you, they can actually prevent your products from being exported, and you’ll need their permission to export your own products. So it’s not actually the Chinese that are doing so much of the trademark stealing. It’s a lot of competitors, which is really interesting to find out. There is some stuff going on in China with that as well where suppliers are filing for your trademark. So that’s why it’s important to build those relationships, that of your suppliers and make sure that you have the right kind of contracts from the start to protect yourself. Protect you and them.
Norman 42:49
Great information. Kelsey, do we have any questions, comments?
Kelsey 42:54
Yes, so there is a couple. We kind of touched on them a little bit already. But I’ll go through them again. From Doctor Koz, what actions do you undertake to prevent your manufacturer from selling your uniquely developed product?
Amy 43:12
Yeah. Talk about contracts. Yep.
Norman 43:14
The most important thing about that is English and Chinese too.
Amy 43:19
Yes.
Norman 43:20
Hey, do you have a course? I don’t have affiliate fees or anything like that. So. But in your course, do you have templates for any of these contracts?
Amy 43:33
Yeah, I actually just uploaded them today, because all my course members are like, Amy, can we just get some? I’m careful about that. Because I really want them to use an attorney. Because I’ve had suppliers sign it incorrectly, put the wrong companies’ names on there, all that stuff. So I don’t want them to just take a template and it’s good for them to be familiar with the template. But I don’t want them to just blank it, use a template and go oh, yeah, the supplier signed it and then it’s no good because it’s incorrect.
Kelsey 44:06
From Simon, a new product or invention can’t be in the public domain before your patent is. Is that why you are applying for patent pending?
Amy 44:14
Exactly, Simon.
Kelsey 44:15
Yeah. Okay and Simon says, it took me six years to get my trademark back. Okay, from Yelchin. What is the cost of filing a trademark in China generally?
Amy 44:30
It’s usually between 3 to $600 depending on who you use, and yeah, I think that’s right. Right Norm?
Norman 44:40
Yeah, it’s around there and it depends on how many classes that you’re doing.
Amy 44:46
Their class system is really different from ours. They have a lot more class. They have a lot more classes than we do. So it’s like, oh my gosh, why do I need 30 classes?
Norman 44:58
But that’s why you would go and use an attorney like you said. So you can do and some people like when you, if you’re really trying to protect your product, if they might come back and they might say there’s six classes or more, I would just spend the money and make sure that it happens and usually if you’re getting additional classes, it drives the price down too for the additional classes.
Amy 45:22
It also helps just in general. So in the beginning, before you’re ready, when you’ve got your patent in the US, you can also patent in China. There are a lot of US based inventors who are patenting in China, because our USPTO system is actually not as thorough and protectable as China’s patent system is. So a lot of US based inventors are patenting in China, which is really interesting. There’s a movie on Netflix called Invalidated, check it out. It’s the story of why people are doing this and what’s happening with the USPTO system. But anyway, that being said, just keep in mind that wherever you’re doing legal stuff, right? So wherever you’re importing and exporting, if you’re selling in the US, in the UK, you need to be trademarked in the US and in the UK and if you’re getting your products from China, to sell in the US and the UK, you need to trademark in China, the US and the UK. So wherever you’re exporting from an importing to, you need to be protected in those countries. So you should also patent wherever you’re selling, you should patent it, for example, I just filed my worldwide patent because I wanted to be able to reserve the time to be able to sell worldwide. I’m expanding now into other countries. So you want to look at all of those aspects and protect yourself wherever you’re exporting and importing to.
Norman 46:57
Perfect, and it makes perfect sense to spend the money if it’s going to protect you and make you money.
Amy 47:05
Exactly. Yeah and protect you from other people that could potentially patent that same thing and now like whoa, what the heck? I lost my ability to sell my own product in another country simply because I didn’t patent there.
Norman 47:22
Right. So Kelsey, anymore?
Kelsey 47:25
Yeah. One just came in. Do you have any recommended attorneys for trademarking in China and for the NNN agreement?
Amy 47:32
So I don’t give my attorney’s name. Just because I reserved that for folks that have been trained through me. Right. But what I can tell you Yelchin is to ask your attorney for a referral. That’s the best way to find an attorney in another country is to ask an attorney that you’re familiar with, for a referral for an attorney in another country.
Norman 47:57
Yeah, and you can also contact Afolabi over at Honu. Honu’s got some legal team over in China as well if you’re interested. So you can check that out.
Norman 48:12
Sorry, I can’t hear you.
Kelsey 48:14
If it’s patented in China, does it hold legal value everywhere else?
Amy 48:19
Nope. It holds legal value in China, right. So yeah, you definitely want to make sure that, again, that you’re patenting where you’re exporting from and where you’re importing to. Now, I understand that you might wait to patent in China until such time that you’ve made a little money and stuff like that. You might wait to patent other places, but at a minimum, at least trademark your brand so that you don’t have any exploiting problems.
Norman 48:52
Great. That’s the last question?
Kelsey 48:54
Yep. That’s it for now.
Norman 48:57
Okay. So now that we’ve got all that information, how do you go about what’s your process in finding a manufacturer?
Amy 49:09
Well, it’s, I mean, there’s a couple of different ways to find a manufacturer, of course, you can go on Alibaba. The hard part about Alibaba or 1688. But the hard part about Alibaba and 1688 is that you get a lot of third parties. You don’t always know that it’s really a factory. I have a friend in China who helps me with a lot of stuff and he has a friend that he says, Amy, he’s a 10 year gold supplier factory on Alibaba and it’s just a guy in his apartment sourcing. So the thing is, like you on Alibaba, you just really don’t know which is why it’s okay to search Alibaba for suppliers because there’s good suppliers in there as well. Right? But you just need to make sure that whenever you’re looking into a supplier that you actually vet that supplier, take time to do a factory audit, take time to find out, like do a domain search on who is and see, look at their business license, check it out, make sure that they’re registered where they’re supposed to be registered. I was on a negotiation call with a client last night with one of his factories in China and I kept asking for information. I always start the conversation with Okay, what are your primary export markets? Tell me more about your factory. How long have you been in business? Because these are things that I’m going to check up on and I kept asking to talk to the boss. I always negotiate with the boss, because a sales rep is not gonna be able to give you proper pricing and proper information, and they’re not going to be able to break anything down for you and for you to be able to figure out if that’s a good partner for you long term and so last night, we were on this call, and he had arranged this call with the sales rep that he was working with for a long time and so I get on the call and, of course, they can’t answer any of my questions really, other than just general information and they’re like, well, we have to ask the boss and I said, Okay, well, next time, I want to talk to the boss. Well, anyway, this morning, he got an email from them. That basically was them saying like, Oh, yeah, sorry, the company that you’re asking about, we actually, that’s our Hong Kong company. It’s not our China company and they went on this whole thing based on the questions that I was asking, because they knew I was going to go check them out. So this morning, he got basically a confession in his email box. So the bottom line is, no matter where you find your supplier, you always want to vet them. You always want to take the time to make sure that they are who they say they are. Even something as simple as having an inspection company go and do a factory audit. There are so many times when those inspection companies go to the address, and there’s nothing there. Again, remember the guy in his apartment sourcing stuff, right? So Alibaba is one way to find manufacturers. When you know your product, it’s very easy to look for similar products and similar things and have those initial conversations. Canton Fair is one of my favorite places to go to find manufacturers, to talk to manufacturers. You can hold the samples in your hand, you can cut down that sourcing time from months of going back and forth into like, weeks or less, right? You can go do factory visits while you’re there. So I love Canton Fair and then 1688 is great, just because there’s more suppliers there. Of course, sourcing companies, sourcing agents, people who are already in China can kind of help you with that. They can find factories that you might not find, because there’s a lot that are not at Canton Fair. There’s a lot that is not on Alibaba, there’s a lot of that kind of stuff. So you can use a combination of those things. But I generally like to source in person, if possible, and make sure that I’m vetting the factories, no matter where I find them.
Norman 53:12
Right. If you can go to Canton, that’s great. Even, and I know a lot of people go back and forth on E Woo, but Canton is probably your best bet and we had Meghla on, a couple of weeks ago, and she was talking about, even looking at sourcing in India and the fairs that they have there. So there’s so many other ways of just exploring. Now, don’t forget about Google. Google, you might be able to just like you’re doing Amy, you might be able to find some really great manufacturers in the good old US of A, and why not and I think I hope you agree with me on this one, it’s a selling feature. I don’t know about you. But if I see something made in Canada, made in the USA, I’m willing to pay a little bit more for it. Yep. I don’t know.
Amy 54:08
Yeah and I think there’s many times people just assume that it’s going to be more expensive in the US. But my product would have actually been more expensive in China because it’s large. So it makes more sense to do it in the US. So I think you should source from wherever import records. Norm, that’s the other one we forgot to mention. Import records are public so you can use sites like Panjiva to actually search your competitors’ suppliers’ names because import records are public. So that’s another way to find out what you could look at a major brand and see who their supplier is and then of course, Google is your friend after that and do some more research.
Norman 54:57
In Canada we have something called RN numbers. The government has a database. So if you look at a Canadian made, let’s say a T shirt, you see the RN number, you just go to the Canadian RN database and they’ll tell you exactly who it is. So, yeah, that’s another there’s so many different opportunities. One of the companies, or the sourcing platforms that I just want to talk about briefly, is that there’s a lot of hype about 1688 and 1688, is owned by Alibaba and for the average person, it’s great to source there. But sometimes you gotta be very careful. Because, first of all, you don’t speak Chinese. The 1688, it’s also set up for more of what was set up for the Chinese community and not the North American or European community. So what they publish, get this, I don’t know if you know this, I’m sure you do. But what they publish and what they show doesn’t have to meet the quality standards. So they might show you something and this also is reflected in the price. If you dig a little deeper into the site, you’ll notice that the site, the prices published on the site, are just a price. That’s it, they don’t have to stick by the price. It’s just a price. Also certification, you’re not going to get certification, because they won’t provide it and a lot of them, most of them don’t have export licenses. But if you want to go and check them out, check them out on Alibaba, if you can get the supplier name. So there’s a lot of different things in 1688. It’s great for ideas. But I just wanted to point that out, because so many people talk about it, you’re experienced. So you can go in there and kind of work through it and make sure that these people are real, like you said. But it really is a site for Chinese and I know I don’t know if Kim Chen is listening. But he always says, Oh, well, I use 1688. Well, you’re Chinese and you can read everything.
Amy 57:14
Yeah, you can use the same, if you find a supplier in 1688, Google Translate automatically translates it. I have a process right click inside of their kind of store in 1688 and then I’ll go and look at that supplier’s name, their history and then of course, I take that off of 1688 and go see where else I can find them and run it through my vetting process. So that yeah, I recently with this new product that I just developed. I sourced a product, a stock product from 1688, I had that sent over to my other factory that was going to manually make that product and was going to cost me a lot more money. So I found a stock product that’s similar in another category, and I was able to send that over to my supplier, order 2000 of them, send them over to my supplier, and then they were able to use those and they only developed the thing that they were really good at developing and I actually had that factory purchased those from that supplier in China so that I didn’t have to worry about paying twice for the taxes and everything else there and then they’re better at communicating their Chinese obviously. So they’re better at communicating with that other supplier. So that’s the thing, if you’re going to use multiple factories, multiple suppliers, make sure that you’re as much as possible, sticking with a lead supplier, right? Having one supplier put everything together, because when you think about the contracts that you are entering into with those suppliers, you really, you can’t. It’s like if you’re using a trading company to develop a unique product. A trading company is going out and just sourcing that from a factory. So they’re not going to be held accountable when that factory goes and sells your design to somebody else, right? Because they’re not the ones manufacturing the product. So it’s really important that you know who your supplier is. You know where your product is being manufactured. You know how it’s being manufactured, and that those contracts properly protect you. So just some things to think about there.
Norman 59:33
Right. So Kells, any more questions? I see a few things come down.
Kelsey 59:40
Just three. So I’ll just quickly run through them. First off from Simon, what is that import report website called?
Amy 59:47
There’s one called Panjiva. There’s a bunch of different ones you can like just Google like import records, search import records.
Norman 59:55
Yeah and also, I think, I know, I don’t subscribe to it. But Jungle Scout, I’m not sure.
Amy 1:00:04
Oh yeah, Jungle Scout has one.
Norman 1:00:05
Yeah and that’s fairly inexpensive. Panjiva you can kind of, I shouldn’t even say.
Amy 1:00:12
There’s a couple of free searches on it that you can get a little bit of information. But yeah, after that they want you to pay a lot. So you kind of just have to play around with different ones. But yeah, Jungle Scout has one. Condor has one as well, I think.
Norman 1:00:28
So it’s your firstborn child on Panjiva after that. But anyways, the one on Jungle Scout.
Kelsey 1:00:40
That’s not me.
Norman 1:00:43
But Jungle Scout’s fairly affordable for that and you might just ask your broker or your sourcing agent to dig into it and they can dig into it easily.
Kelsey 1:00:55
Okay, and Riya saying hi, Amy.
Amy 1:00:58
Hello, Riya.
Kelsey 1:01:00
We have let’s see, we have three more. Okay, first off, Yarrow. Any general suggestions on selling kids toys?
Amy 1:01:13
Well, that’s kind of a broad question.
Amy 1:01:16
General suggestions on selling kids toys? Know your market and know your competition. Those are my general suggestions.
Norman 1:01:23
Check out the cost of certification. That could be pretty costly, too.
Norman 1:01:31
I know just one of my clients, Amazon just nailed them on getting certified and it’s going to cost them, I think it was $20,000. So just make sure that when you enter into and I mean, toys are so general, but in this specific category of toys that they had to get a certain certification that was going to be about 20 grand.
Kelsey 1:02:01
Simon’s saying if you’re using more than one factory, make sure you chose a golden sample to ensure consistency.
Norman 1:02:08
Oh, yeah, sign off. Right, Amy? Get the production samples signed off.
Amy 1:02:14
Yeah.
Kelsey 1:02:15
We are about like, we’re over an hour actually.
Norman 1:02:19
Are we over an hour?
Kelsey 1:02:20
Yeah. So maybe after these two questions, then we can start closing it up. But, Victor, do you agree that a posted price in 1688 is in general closer to actual than one on Alibaba?
Amy 1:02:36
I never go off the prices on any of those websites. In a recent negotiation I did with a client, the posted price in Alibaba was $5 and we left the negotiation at $1.27 a unit. So yeah, again, know your manufacturing process. Know your supplier. Know your raw material costs. Be able to communicate those things and it’s okay to check prices just in general. But yeah, I don’t know what you think about that Norm.
Norman 1:03:17
It’s a guide.
Amy 1:03:21
It’s a guide. Yeah. It’s one data point. It’s like, you never want to use product research software as your only data point. You want to know why people are buying that product. If they’re buying a whole bunch of it, why are they buying it right? Where else does that confederate? It’s the same thing on pricing, like potential pricing, when you’re running your numbers before deciding on moving forward with a product. It’s just one data point. But the most important thing to know is what your target price is. Because that will determine whether or not you ultimately can move forward with the product and if it can be profitable for you.
Norman 1:03:57
Another thing to think about Victor, is if you’re using that as a base, and you can take that $5 and you can use like three or four times multiple, and still make it on Amazon. So if the average cost, let’s say is $20 or $24, then you’ve got a ton of room in there and if you get anything down to $3 or like Amy said, a buck something, man, you’re gonna kill it on Amazon. But if you use that as the base and you can still compete with that $5 base, knowing that you can even come 50% of that. Then, you’re just gonna have a, you’ll be very happy.
Amy 1:04:45
Yeah, I mean, ultimately you need to make money your factory needs to make, it’s a partnership. It’s not about killing your factory and Oh yeah, you need them to be happy as well and making money but a lot of people forget that they also need to make money. So, they don’t do that negotiation that kind of have that pen pal relationship with that. Marina had a question about how does she know if she’s dealing with a manufacturer or trading agent and again, Marina, that comes down to vetting your suppliers. So ask them for their business license. When you go to Canton Fair, their business license is proudly displayed. Like it’s not something that you should be shy about asking them. But ask them for their business license, check them out. Make sure they are who they say they are, because a lot of them will tell you that we’re both a trading company and a factory and sometimes it’s true, but a lot of times it’s not. So you can do a factory audit. You can use any inspection companies, they’ll do a factory audit for you to make sure they are who they say they are and those factory audits are really, really thorough.
Norman 1:05:58
A broker’s not a horrible thing. Depending on what, there’s so many layers of brokers, but a lot of the time, if you’ve got a company that is backwoods China, and they are producing a good product. They don’t speak English, they don’t have an export license. So they depend on a broker to do that for them. So it’s not awful to have a broker and probably the high majority of the time, when you see that there is a broker involved. Even though you’re dealing with the factory, the broker is working with you to deal with the factory in China, because most of them are Chinese. I’m talking about speaking Chinese, and they need that person and they need the export license.
Kelsey 1:06:51
We got one more question and if anyone else does have questions, if you can, please just post them in the Facebook group. I’m going to be making a thread of the past episodes, the three episodes this week. So any questions you’ve had from Shane Oglow, Darrell Patterson, or Amy today, you can post them there and anyone in the community or Norm. I know Amy, you’re part of the group. But if you ever see anything that you can answer, like, feel free to put in your comments. But Elchin’s last question is, when to find the target price, what is your minimum ROI generally?
Amy 1:07:32
Well, this is where I’m a little different than most courses and programs. I aim for a minimum seven x multiplier. That means that if I source it for $1, I need to be able to sell it for 10. If I source it for $10, I need to be able to sell it for 70. Now on Amazon, I like to have a minimum 10 x multiplier and a lot of people think this is impossible. It is impossible if you’re selling a commodity product that a bunch of other Amazon sellers are selling and all of you’re paying way too much from the supplier because you never negotiated or anything. The suppliers are not going to drop their price, because all of you are paying them way too much money. So it just and then you’re competing with factories on Amazon, right? But when it comes to developing a product and developing a relationship with the factory, Amazon’s fees are actually seven x is the gold standard in retail. To be able to sell your product at wholesale prices beyond Amazon, you need that margin, right, because you’re splitting it on both sides. Because you’re in general, you’re selling your product for half of retail at wholesale pricing, right? So you want to have the margin to grow your company and do that. But on Amazon, you’re paying advertising, when you’re doing direct to consumer, you’re paying for advertising, you’re paying for a lot more in terms of shipping and fulfillment fees and referral fees and everything else. So on Amazon, I like to have a 10 x multiplier. But a lot of people think it’s impossible, it is not impossible. Everybody in my program is getting those kinds of numbers and the only time they don’t get those kinds of numbers and this is when it’s okay to not get those kinds of numbers, is if you’re sourcing a minimum viable product, you’re testing it out, you’re gonna pay a little more to a manufacturer to give you 100 units. It’s not worth their time, you’re going to pay a little more, you’re going to be lucky if you break even. That’s okay, I want you to spend the time to negotiate ahead of time and make sure not if because you’re going to do all your market research, you’re going to make sure that this is going to be a great product for you to move forward with. But when you grow, there’s still a good partner for you. So I always negotiate at a full container at a time because I want to understand can you grow with me? When I’m ready to make larger orders with this product because I know where I’ve gone I’ve already done the research, right? When I’m ready for those larger orders, are you going to meet my target price? Are you going to be where I need to be and so I negotiate all of that upfront and then I come back and make sure that I’m at 100 units at that first test order of 1000 units or whatever, when I’m doing an MVP, I’m willing to pay a little surcharge there. Often, I can get that surcharge credited back to me on the next order.
Norman 1:10:27
You know what? We’ve never talked about that and that is exactly what I do. I’m looking for 10 times and I also credit back exactly what you just said. So we’re thinking along the hundred percent the same, if you can’t do 10 times, then you can rethink it. Now when I was talking about, like, the three to four times, and if you can get for three to four times you’ll make money on Amazon, if you can ten x it, Oh my gosh.
Amy 1:10:59
You’re gonna crush your competitors, too. Yep. Because you have margin, and they don’t. It’s just, it’s crazy and you’re gonna be able to turn over your inventory so much faster. Think about it you guys. When you have enough net profit leftover to buy three or four more units, you can turn your inventory so fast, and you can scale your business so fast. It’s really awesome.
Norman 1:11:22
Right and if you can’t quite get there, so let’s say that you’re at 7 times, you know what I’m gonna say. Perceived value packaging for pennies, you can turn that 7 times into 10 times. So that’s really important as well and where do you get your packaging from? You can get that in China as well. So yeah, and usually the manufacturer will kit for very little, if they’re not kitting for you already. But they’ll put the kitting and assembly together most of the time, pennies or free. They just want the business.
Amy 1:12:05
Yes, definitely. That’s awesome.
Norman 1:12:09
All right. So I think that’s probably wrapping it up for the questions here. Amy, before we came on, I said, Look, is there anything that we can do for anybody that’s listening live and you had a great idea. Can you share that? Not everybody, by the way. Not everybody. But what can you do for us?
Amy 1:12:33
Well, you guys, I do this thing. I don’t really publicize it very much. But if you have a product and you’re not sure how your listing looks, or why it’s not selling, or what advertising strategies you should use, you can actually submit it to me and I will create a video for you telling you exactly what I would do. I have hundreds of page one listings in every category across Amazon, not my own listings, but listings I’ve written for other people and brands that I’ve helped. So you can submit your listing to me at amazingathome.com/listing-review, and I will create a video for you and you can put in the form right there exactly what your problem is.Like, Amy, I don’t know, should I use a different PPC strategy? I’m not getting as many sales conversions. I don’t know what’s going on and I’ll take a good look at it for you and give you a review.
Norman 1:13:31
Okay, so one lucky listener is going to get that and all you have to do is type. Get ready, guys. Amy is awesome. There we go. First person in, gets it. So the other thing I want to talk about too, you’ve got an amazing course and again, no affiliates, nothing to do with it. Amy, if you want to talk a little bit about your course please do so.
Amy 1:13:58
Well, I was so excited Norm. My course won third place in the Seller Poll. I mean, I was absolutely blown away by that. I don’t really do any marketing. So, it’s all word of mouth. But I have a course called Concept to Launch and what we do is we take you all the way from concept to launch. We teach you how to negotiate, we teach you how to find suppliers, we give you all the worksheets along the way. I was an instructor in the military for 18 years so I have a really awesome capability to take hard concepts and break them down into easy to understand things. So we have four different modules, we teach you honestly from concept all the way to launching on Amazon and beyond. Getting your website set up, writing your listing, becoming a master of listing optimization, all of that but the really cool part is we cover product development, prototyping, finding manufacturers, sourcing, negotiations. All of that, that’s the stuff that is not covered in depth and that’s the stuff that’s going to help you beat your competitors, right? So that’s at amazingathome.com you guys can always check it out and it’s something that I just love to do. I love helping people bring cool products to the market.
Norman 1:15:18
Very good. So we do have a winner. We have a bunch of people, but Yarrow Slav, okay. So Yarrow, get your information over to Kelsey. So that’s k@lunchwithnorm. He’ll put it in the comment section and we’ll make sure that you get that all set up with Amy.
Amy 1:15:40
Thanks Yarrow. You being the first to say I’m awesome. I appreciate it.
Norman 1:15:47
Thank you everybody else that joined in. Darren, you were close. Elchin, let’s see. Golem. Thank you, Simon. Marina. Oh, Marina. Amy is awesome as well. Yes. Very good. Hey, thank you for building this community everybody. This is awesome. Amy, thank you. People, how do they reach you?
Amy 1:16:10
You guys can go to amazingathome.com. You can find me on Facebook and we have a Facebook community called Amazing at Home. So check us out. We’re around and thank you so much.
Norman 1:16:21
You’re a part of our community, too.
Amy 1:16:22
Yes, absolutely. If you guys have any follow up questions or anything like that I’m, yes. Who would not be part of like, this is all backwards, Norms Community.
Norman 1:16:34
We’re just happy to have you. Alright, so thank you so much for being on. I mean, you’re just a wealth of knowledge. We got to have you back on again and, yeah, just thank you. Appreciate your time and, look, everything that you’re doing with this side of the business is usually not talked about. So it’s so important that people know that they’re leaving so much money on the table, and how to be different in that so it really drives sales. So anyways, Amy, thank you for being on and we will talk to you soon, hopefully at an event.
Amy 1:17:15
Oh, I miss you Norm and I miss everybody else out there too. Thanks again for having me on.
Norman 1:17:21
You’re very welcome.
Norman 1:17:24
Okay, everybody, so I’m about to cough, just a sec. I knew it was gonna sneak up on me. Anyways, Fantastic. I really enjoyed the podcast and speaking with me today, learned a little bit myself. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the podcast and again, if you have any questions, just throw them into the comment section, we will get back to them. So Kelsey, where are you?
Kelsey 1:17:50
Instead of putting that in the comment section, put them in the Facebook group. I’ll put the discussion post. You can put them all in there. So it’s all in one place. It’ll take me maybe about like 10 minutes afterwards to put it together. But yeah, please next and Simon, thank you for noticing my vampire bites on my neck.
Norman 1:18:18
What? I didn’t see them. Where?.
Norman 1:18:22
Oh, there you go. All right. Very good.
Kelsey 1:18:26
But yes, If you haven’t already, please join the group. I know there’s already a bunch of you. I think we have. We’re definitely over 100 I think we’re around like 135 members. But yeah, it’s a growing community, started just three weeks ago. So it’s really awesome to see all the growth that’s happening and just in the discussions too. Let me see, we have Golem. Owe the best from you Norm. Thank you for coming on.
Norman 1:18:53
You are welcome, sir.
Kelsey 1:18:54
But yeah, follow us on social media. Our Facebook group is Lunch With Norm Amazon FBA and eCommerce Collective. If you want to listen to us on podcast, you can find us on Apple and Spotify, anywhere you find. You listen to your podcast, you can find Lunch With Norm and yeah, I think that’s about it. If you haven’t already, please like and share and I think that’s it for me and oh, yes, smash that like button. Ring that bell and it’s great to see you guys all joining us. Oh, who’s coming on next week?
Norman 1:19:34
So next week, Vinnie Fisher is going to. I think he’s the first person that’s going to be on and Vinnie is going to be discussing hybrid work models and how companies are adjusting with the new norms no pun intended of 2020. So that should be a great episode as well. The other thing is, we’ve got a newsletter. It does not suck all sorts of content. We’ve got videos, blog articles, curated articles, everything to help the online sellers sell. So if you want to check that out, you can find that on Lunch With Norm or you can go over to normanfarrar.com and just subscribe. It comes out every Monday and I think on that note, sir, I mean, we’re done.
Kelsey 1:20:23
Yeah, along with Vinnie, we also have a big week. We have Cassandra. She’s gonna be on to talk about some social media tips. About influencers and content creators. So I think that’s really important for Amazon and eCommerce sellers.
Norman 1:20:42
Kevin’s on too.
Kelsey 1:20:43
Kevin King is on, so our monthly talking shop q&a. So that’s on Friday. So the events are all there, you can sign up already on the Facebook page.
Norman 1:20:56
Okay. So thank you Kels. So everybody, tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at noon Eastern Standard Time and thank you again for watching and enjoy the rest of your day.
