Misfit Entrepreneur November 2023 - 379: Over 17 Brands and Counting, Building an Amazon Empire with Robb Green

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Dave Lukas Chats with Rob Green

379: Over 17 Brands and Counting, Building an Amazon Empire with Robb Green

This week’s Misfit Entrepreneur is Robb Green. Robb is an interesting entrepreneur. He was a successful executive, that gave up that career to create the life he wanted for him and his family. He found his niche in building brands on Amazon. In fact, he’s created, built, and owned 17 brands, doing hundreds of millions in revenue.

Robb has been featured in the New York Times and many other publications and is the host of the popular I’m the One Podcast providing practical guidance on building wealth, maintain healthy relationships, and achieving well-being.

If you’ve wanted to learn how to build your own brand and monetize it online, Robb is one the best teachers you could find. And I’m excited for him to share how to do it

www.Imtheone.com

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Show Notes

Robb started out the traditional way. He went to college, got a finance degree, got a job as a stockbroker at Charles Schwab. It wasn't a fit for him, so he went back to school, got his MBA, and worked for a Fortune 500. After a while, he realized that he just was not a fit for corporate America.

He found his niche starting as an entrepreneur in drop shipping e-commerce, in 2011. He then learned about private labeling and manufacturing his own brands. He focuses on Amazon as his main channel as well as a few other platforms.

A to Z, how does it work? How should somebody go about building a brand and selling through Amazon?

Amazon's got the most data-rich environment
With simple tools like a Jungle Scout or a Helium 10, you can understand everything about a product and how it is selling and the data around
But most people struggle as entrepreneurs because they build something that there's no demand. That’s the first big mistake, building something that doesn't have enough demand to sustain it. A
The other mistake is not properly accounting for the true costs of everything from manufacture all the way through sale as it has to have enough margin to profit when your account for Amazon costs and other things. Selling on Amazon, you've got to expect about 30 to 35% of every dollar you bring in on Amazon is gone to Amazon – that’s outside making the product, marketing, etc.

So how does somebody get demand correct? What are some of the key things they should be looking for or researching to ensure that there is the demand? And again, how do you find your niche? Because we're talking about niches of products here.

You have to look at the whole ecosystem of Amazon and look at all of the data that's accessible.
The one thing that Amazon does, is that they put a best seller rank on every product detail page
At the 10 min mark, Robb talks about how understanding this can help you in figuring out demand, product fit, and how much you can sell per day.
The key is don’t sell something nobody us want.
Step into the river of demand and let the river wash over you.
The key to ecommerce is understanding demand and positioning yourself to take advantage.

How do you position yourself to make sales and take advantage of demand?

The beauty of having a physical product is that there's almost always gaps in the manufacturing and the creation of these products.
Now with GPT and with AI, it is a lot easier. Rob pulls down all the reviews off of Amazon of every product that they want to enter against, and then they run sentiment analysis with AI. This tells them how people feel about a product and what the most common words and phrases they use about the product.
That helps to identify opportunities to improve a product. That is a big secret if you going to build your own brand. Take a product, look at the feedback and design it better.

At the 14 min mark, Rob gives a number of examples of how he has done this.

Talk about the actually getting a product made. Because you're going overseas, probably to China. How does someone navigate getting a product made?

There is no better way to get ideas than going to a trade show.
When you go, be humble and curious. Ask questions about the product. Ask about they can improve upon it and look at how you could break it down and make it better.
Even packaging is important when it comes to selling.
Find out suppliers so you can use the ones that are already making the product as it is easy to make the same product they are already making with a few improvements.

How does someone find a manufacturer? You find them at trade shows or do you go through Alibaba?

Alibaba is for the brand-new person who wants to find a supplier. It works, but it not as good as finding out suppliers that make products like you want to make.
There's a tool called importYeti.com. You can put in a supplier or a brand name either way, either direction, the supplier or the brand that buys in the U S or the LLC and find their supplier from China. Import Yeti's done a really good job of putting into an interface. By doing that, you can actually see their suppliers. Now you're way ahead of the game as opposed to just doing a shotgun approach.
You can then have a conversation with the supplier about the product they already make. Then you can ask them if they slightly modify it for innovation you want to do. That's the fastest and best way to finding great suppliers.
One other little trick is to try to find the 800 number if it's manufactured in the US and ask, “Can you please tell me where it's manufactured?" And a lot of times they'll tell you the supplier, where it's located, and where it's manufactured.

Once someone has a product, how do they market it? How does someone get sales going consistently and growing and obviously making money?

The starting point is figuring out what your distribution channel going to be?
You can't be great at everything. It's your skill set. Maybe you're an influencer or creator already. Maybe you're analytical and you're really great. Going to be great at a paper per click ads, Google ads, or Amazon ads.
Find that channel and lean into that channel.
Right now, TikTok shops are blowing up right now.
Amazon is digital real estate.
You need to be in the top five or you don't exist.
Everything comes back to visibility and conversion.
You write for the algorithm and create the images for the consumer to optimize your listing.

At the 26 min mark, Robb gives more examples of how to optimize your listings.

Is it better to try to create a recurring type product versus a one-time sale nowadays?

Always, it's always better. Many products don't allow themselves to be subscribed and saved and there is good opportunity there if you have a product that can be recurring.

Anything else we should know, any other best practices for selling on Amazon? And you mentioned Shopify too. Is there anything we should know about Shopify?

The biggest challenge for people is they want to do everything all at once.
Stay in one lane and go deeper into that lane and try to win at that.
To succeed, you will have to find others to fill your gaps. Invest in a team that has been there and done that.

Let's talk about the work you do at I'm the One. Through the work that you've done with I'm the One and your mastermind and others, what do you see are the biggest challenges that you’ve found that keep entrepreneurs from reaching their potential?

The number one thing, is mindset
We all have these limiting beliefs that get in our head and we stop ourselves. I see it all the time.
Get a “board of directors” – it can be informal. But you need a sounding board – a way to get feedback and perspective.
Challenge yourself to think bigger.
To think bigger you need to go find resources and people operating at higher levels to challenge and help you see potential. This can come from podcasts, YouTube, seeking out other successful people, etc.

What are some of your best tips on how to successfully manage your time between work and family that you put into place and helps you be there the way that you want to be there?

Rob travels for two months every summer. And he was able to structure his life and work to accommodate family and limiting work.
Structure is very important in helping you to be more successful and prioritize your life and business.
You need to make it a priority though. Put time and energy into it and don’t let yourself get derailed from what really matters. Time goes by too fast!

Best Quote

You write for the algorithm and create the images for the consumer to optimize your listing...

Invest in your health. We have an unlimited budget for health in our household.

Continuously invest in your education. Education doesn't stop after high school or college. 42% of people never read a full book after high school. Have an unlimited budget for education in your household.

Focus on what you're great at and don't get distracted by shiny objects.

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