Joshua Chin 5:52
Do you could you could you share who that was?
Brandon Young 5:56
I don’t think I can legally actually, maybe maybe statutes as I was so long ago. But yeah, it was it was tough. It was it was a tough night. Um, but you know, you learn, I think it was just I was young, I was definitely much younger, and I was definitely more full of confidence and marketing. And I had people around me that were telling me that it would be easier than it was and listening to the wrong advice. And it was, yeah. But there, you know, I’ve gone I’ve done everything from, you know, you know, I was in the music business. At the same time, I had a music studio, I was in management, I had a publishing, you know, company, and I was, I was managing artists, I had artists signed to major, major labels, but at the time, you know, that doesn’t mean you’re going to make money. Like we’d get an advance and it would, you know, I’m getting a small percentage as the manager, they’re touring and writing, but they’re not making money. They’re not, you know, like, it’s not profitable. It was fun. It was a lot of fun. But definitely not a business I should have, should have done something else at that time.
Joshua Chin 7:08
Talk to me about the photo you have framed up behind you think different dream, imagine innovate and create. And you have the kind of, I guess, the icons for each of those ideas. What does that mean to you?
Brandon Young 7:25
Yeah, I think that picture when I saw it resonated with me in a lot of different ways. Because, again, I’m on the creative side, I’m the visionary. And I relate to those four guys that have done amazing things. And
Joshua Chin 7:41
for people listening, it’s it’s it’s a photo that Brandon has framed up behind behind him on a wall. And it’s a
Brandon Young 7:52
panel, it’s, it’s, it’s MLK, Lenin, jobs. And Einstein say,
Joshua Chin 7:58
Yep. And it says dream, imagine, innovate and create, respectively underneath each of those.
Brandon Young 8:06
proposer basically, their what, what their mantra was right? I don’t think represent yet. But yeah, it was a, it just resonated with me on that end. I don’t like to be locked in a box. And I think that even though I’m very data driven, it’s very funny, because like, all the all the success we have on Amazon, is because we’re good at looking at data. But I still love the idea of product creation, product development, and trying new things. But I have to meet the data, data criteria to be able to pull the trigger on it. Right. Right. Interesting.
Joshua Chin 8:47
What, what guides your this? What are some of the major values that guides your decisions today as a business owner, as an as a really successful Amazon seller? And if you might, like from my point of view is if you’ve stopped working completely, you’d be you’d be fine. You’ll be well, well off well to do. What keeps you going and what drives that decision.
Brandon Young 9:14
Yeah, it’s really interesting. Yeah, we could sell our brands business tomorrow for like 20 million we could, I could sell my course and software company for a good amount for seven figures easily. So we could retire tomorrow if we wanted to. But I think it’s the I don’t feel like we’re done. So we we circle around like when when you learn certain types of management styles, like they’re all kind of the same. So if you’re talking about 40x, Four Disciplines of Execution, if you talk about which was famous from Google, you got Scaling Up is another one scaling for and harness Yeah, yeah. And Traction is another one, which is like us. Yeah. Yeah. So what’s funny is like you look at all of them, and they’re all objective driven, with like, with, with actions that lead to moving that objective or moving towards that objective, and then all about getting everyone on your team to roll in the right direction. But the purpose of that is that everything is objective driven, like you have to understand what are you trying to accomplish in your business or in your personal life every year. And, like, I think that our number in what we want to accomplish is just much higher than where we’re currently at. I still don’t feel like we’ve accomplished what we need to accomplish even within our own brands, like, we’re finally hitting that tipping point where we’re blowing past 10 million. And our goal is to do 25 Next year, followed by like, 75. And it’s like an acceleration, rather than a deceleration and feels like, we have all the momentum we know we’re doing, we’ve built the right team, we’ve got the right people finally. And now we just need to scale that versus like, that first couple years of figuring shit out. Which is the hard part, the learning curve is already climbed. Yeah, now we’re on that downward slide to really scale. So I feel like we would be getting into early, but that’s different than a lot for a lot of different people, right? Like what you’re saying, in the Amazon space, there’s this huge movement of these giant aggregators that are raising ungodly, ungodly amounts of money. Yeah, I think that there’s close to 200 of them that have raised a combined $9 billion to give you an idea. In the last like, 18, to 24 months, it’s all recent to one of the big, I consult with several of them, and I actually do some training for their teams, and they use my software and stuff. But they’re looking for brands that are doing seven figures in revenue, that are have a nice profit margin that have a winning product, or three or four, right and, and are ready to sell. And that’s great. And I think a lot of individuals solopreneurs entrepreneurs with very small team should take that deal and run. Yeah, and then do it again, and repeat the process. Because going from 3 million in revenue to 10, or 15, or 20 in revenue, is an entirely different experience and requires an entirely different approach. You’re not working in the business anymore, you’re working on it, you’re not you’re not running an operating, but you’re now an operator, and you need to hire management, and you need to get good at management. And you need to be able to drive objectives and key results. And you need to be able to drive actions. And whether you call them hots or rocks or whatever any of these management books call, call them you’re creating now at this point, a real company. Yeah, whereas before, we know between us, probably hundreds, if not 1000s of individuals that are doing really well for themselves, working by themselves and a couple VAs making million plus dollars in revenue. And they don’t have the capability to go that next level. If they try to, they’re going to be uncomfortable, they’re not going to be as happy, they’re not going to make as much money, right? And they’re going to lose that window to sell. So when you ask me what drives me, it’s like, I love that next that next phase, that 5070 $500 million phase, building a real company, a real legacy a real brand, like my toy brand, I want it to be you know, like something you see on the shelves and that you talk about and that you hit the the name recognition behind it. Whereas I think a lot of these people that have you know, a nice lifestyle business, a seven figure business and are doing really well by by everyday person go nine to five working Joe standards. Yep. I think that they’re doing great compared to that, but I just, you know, I want that next level.
Joshua Chin 14:22
What’s, what stage do you think? You know, Urata? How do you how do you make that? That decision as as someone who is who has a like to measure lifestyle business who’s doing really well. But perhaps not entirely satisfied with where they’re at? Kind of, to some degree boredom, right? Boredom is relatively common at that at that level. What’s that decision-making? kind of mindset and process between Alright, I’m going to continue scaling this push past the unknown to tree 10 million? Or do I take the deal and run with it and repeat the process? guided notes?
Brandon Young 15:10
It’s, it all comes down to one word and it’s going to sound cheesy to you. Happiness, it’s here, huh? What do you what drives you? What makes you happy? Are you happy working in your business putting in those hours and driving? Like, what what are you going to get out of working your ass off and going to that next level? Are you going to hate your life, it’s not for you. Or a lot of these people get stuck at that lifestyle size, because they’re making good income and they’re traveling and happiness is traveling happiness, freedom, they’ve achieved that. Right? sell that business, take a couple million dollars off the table, start a couple more, teach a couple other people how to do it, to build it and grow it with you work less travel more happy, right? That that is success for a lot of people. So whatever you define as happiness is going to be what you should do what that next step is, even if you want to go to that next level, like, you need to realize that you need to invest in yourself at that point, you’re going to need to make sure that you have the right amount of capital that you get the right people around you the right mentors, the right, the right coaching, and that you understand the risks involved, that you understand that you’re truly an expert in your field, too. Understand the chances of success for every product, you choose to launch at that point, and what is the up and downside of every decision before you make it. When I
Joshua Chin 16:48
when I when I hear that I’m thinking about the constant idea around happiness. And it’s really difficult to kind of wrap wrap up and wrap my mind around the idea of happiness. Because a lot of the times we’re with, we’re kind of, at least in my culture, we’re taught to be grateful and happy and find happiness in what we have. But the context that we we have as entrepreneurs, the privilege that we have on printers is the control and the ability to define what a lifestyle is like. And I think that breaks away from the mold of what it means to find happiness.
Brandon Young 17:32
The most I know, I know, I know, there are a lot of people in this world that barely have two cents to rub together, but are much happier than a lot of the millionaire’s we know. Yes. And that’s awesome. Yeah. And I see it. And I, I understood that a while ago, and it’s really helped me with relating to people and to students. And I will do as much to convince someone not to take my course and to not start an Amazon business as I will to tell them to do it. Because it doesn’t, it’s hard. It’s really, really hard. And it’s not for everybody. And I think that if you always try to frame from a reference of happiness, but then also you’re realistic about what success success it like, takes to achieve. Yep, then that’s a formula for you, like combined with never giving up. That that’ll, that’ll that’ll lead to success. Now,
Joshua Chin 18:40
entrepreneurship as a whole is a whole different beast from finding success and whatever success means or whatever happiness means. Is there like you coach a ton of people a lot, a lot of people and you speak to, like, unimaginable number of people. What are some of the common traits or or I don’t say credit criteria, I suppose that makes an entrepreneur successful or an aspiring entrepreneur to be successful versus one that is not any commonalities between.
Brandon Young 19:16
Yeah, yeah, tenacity was like the biggest one that I see constantly, right? Even at our sophistication level, we’re only right with our product selection 80% of the time. So 80% of the time, I choose a product, I optimize for it. I rank you know, I launch it, and I rank it. I’ll only make money 80% and 20% of time, I’m losing money. And the fact that one time that I’m not right out of you know, two times out of 10 that I’m not right, one time out of five. And I lose money even as I liquidate is enough. Yeah, for a lot of people who get it wrong. First who are not as good, who might only have a 60% chance, if they know a little bit to be dangerous? Yep. Then, you know, they’re four out of 10 times they’re wrong. And so what ends up happening is that one time that they’re wrong, they don’t learn from it. They just learned the wrong, they take the wrong thing from it. They say this business is bullshit, or it’s not for me, or I can’t afford to do that again. Yeah, they can’t handle the failure. And they don’t want to learn and understand what went wrong, and then get better. But without Without doubt. Without exaggeration, I know 567 107 and eight figure sellers on Amazon, I was one of the founding members of a mastermind for seven and eight figure sellers called Million Dollar sellers, called MD. And, and in within my own mastermind, my own inner circle, I have over 300. Okay, so I know, probably close to 1000. Personally, every single one of them without doubt, will have a story about a product that failed and why it failed. They didn’t give up. Almost all of them had to had had failures early on in their business, that they could have walked away from the business altogether. If they didn’t, and now they’re much further for it. And I still see it, I see it with my students that are just starting I have students. I mean, it’s been almost three years since we launched the course. So we have students that started from scratch that are now doing seven figures in profit a year, like nice, you know, and, and I see students who come in, they learn they launch a product, and it’s doing okay, it’s mediocre, and might even just be breaking, even not making a lot of money. And instead of learning and doing the next step, they move on to something else. So it’s shiny object syndrome, where they realize that entrepreneurship, it doesn’t drive them or they’re not as driven. Right? Yeah. Some are beholden to people around them and influences and other obligations, too. And, yeah, you know, it’s tough. If you’ve got a family, you’ve got children, you’ve got a job that pays your bills to walk away from that, like, you shouldn’t walk away from that to start this business, you should wait until it costs you money going to that job before you walk away from it.
Joshua Chin 22:17
Hmm. That’s a good framework, when it costs you money to walk away from your business to get a job. Now, let’s let’s talk a little bit about the the Amazon landscape versus so I’m in the Shopify ecosystem, most of the time a lot. And I see a lot of Shopify brands, established brands not really paying attention to Amazon, just because it’s a completely different beast, and takes a huge learning curve to to master and understand. What are the some of the things that established Shopify brands can do to capitalize on the growth of Amazon the space that’s, that’s within Amazon?
Brandon Young 23:06
There? Those brands are typically if they’re doing any type of volume on Shopify, they’re leaving so much money on the table. Yep. There are so many great software tools besides our own like that you can look at, you know, Helium 10, is a good one, we use helium 10 data within our own software, actually, yeah. And you can find your branded search terms like we were talking a little bit about that, that drive sales that people are looking for your product. And what we noticed is like when we start, like, it’s the opposite. We start on Amazon, and then and then we teach people to start growing a brand and looking at Shopify, and understanding how to do marketing in that direction, which is hard. requires the right type of product average order size to be profitable, traffic’s getting more expensive that iOS update sucks, like all these things, right? Yeah. So but what you learn is that the more marketing you’re doing off of Amazon, the more impact you will see on Amazon, because people don’t trust your Shopify store. They don’t trust shopping in certain environments. And so they will go to Amazon search for the product they want plus your brand name. Because they are looking for you, because they saw your ad. And they want to know if you’re legitimate. And if you’re on Amazon, and you’re on Shopify, the sale will probably happen on Amazon at that point, because they’re already there. And they trust Amazon. Yeah, if they go to Amazon and look for you, and they don’t you’re hurting your own Shopify sales, too, because you’re probably losing that conversion. They’re not going to go back. Yep, they’re like, Oh, I knew this guy was bullshit. He’s not even on Amazon. Yep. Yeah.
Joshua Chin 24:42
The whole legitimacy and credibility aspect is huge. I think the halo effect is something that people just don’t pay attention to. What What about Alright, so I came across. Brands are doing this really well. They have certain products that are only Available on Shopify. So this number of SKUs are available on Amazon or limited. What do you think about doing that so that people go back onto Shopify?
Brandon Young 25:12
I think I think I heard as we’re talking about doing that, right, like Ezra Firestone. Yeah, so
Joshua Chin 25:17
yeah, shout out to Ezra SmartMarketers.com, good. He’s
Brandon Young 25:21
brilliant. He’s one of the best, like marketers in the planet like that, dude. He’s idle a lot of my the way I structure my teaching after the way he has done it with Smart Marketer. It’s very active. I’m moving in a direction where I have other coaches, other content, things like that. But I love I love Ezra and his content. Um, what I would say is this, I think that the idea there, especially if you have replenishable is like he does, it’s very different for different niches, right? Yeah, his niche being and replenish bubbles and skincare is that he wants to offer an introductory product on Amazon and then bring people back in to sell them additional products and capture that reorder off of Amazon because Amazon can be expensive with their with what they’re taking from you. So people go and look for his brand name with it, like the type of product and a different one might pop up with the brand name pops up. And it gives validity it as that validity right? In, it allows them excuse me to explore that product they find on Amazon. But it’s enough to get them to order to go back. And that that insert card strategy that Subscribe and Save on our own website strategy is super impactful. I’ve got a buddy out of Southern California with an eight figure skincare brand as well. And he does two thirds of his business, if not more now at this point off of Amazon, but he started on Amazon. Incredible. Almost all of his effort from the very beginning was Amazon is greedy. Amazon is going to continue to try to screw us and copy us and do all these things to us these things to us, I want to capture as much of that business as I can in my own website. So his entire all of his funnels, were driving, he was using Amazon as his top of funnel, and then bringing people into his own website through through different insert cards and whatever else he could that were, you know, within Terms of Service, it’s, you know, it’s it’s there. And then. And then once they were engaged, and he had their information, he would just market the shout out on emails, he says Email still great. Yeah, he spending a million dollars a month on Facebook ads, you know, to this day. Ah, so imagine now he’s got such an amazing brand that’s growing, and he’s got that Subscribe and Save. And that’s a huge difference that I was talking about with like, I’m in the toy business. There are things I can do where I can grow with the child, I can have a birthday club, I can be market new toys, I know if it’s a three year old girl or six month old baby and I can I can then remarket new toys to them as they get older, right? I can have like a are can work on a subscription box. That’s a lot of work, right? Like that’s really hard, you know what’s easier, finding another product and launching it on Amazon and then and then and then get it into autopilot and then doing that again 20 times a month. That’s that’s going to generate so many more sales for me then then that other brand building piece. So here the way I frame it for my students is that you know, create your brand launch your product, get your cash flow coming in. And then focus on the brand building efforts and those other activities that will give you dividends long term that will you know, allow you to take advantage of that subscribe and savor that audience later.
Joshua Chin 28:54
What are some what are some brands that you are either personally a customer or a fan of that you feel does really well and straddling between the two realms of Amazon versus shop buy or understand the dynamic and have picked a side
Brandon Young 29:11
I think on it does a good job with that and they just sold for a shit ton of money. I don’t know if it’s millions or billion. But you know, but they did a great job. They were they were doing well on Amazon but they they had that huge endorsement with Joe Rogan. And the retargeting for ordering direct versus ordering on Amazon. Once they once you get into their funnels, they’re they’re really well well positioned and structured. And then their packaging comes with a free bottle, try another one of our products for free. And then they have multiple product lines. And it’s not the same bottle for review funnel which is against the rules and Amazon. Yeah, it’s literally try another one of our products for free. But in order to get that you have to come to our site, right, see. Yeah, and so that’s a great way to bring people Another Another great way is to insert Carter coupon within the product that brings people that’s kind of against Terms of Service. And you got to be careful the way you do it. But at the end of the day, like, you know, you got to you got to do what you can to scale, right? Yeah.
Joshua Chin 30:14
What do you think is the next the next five to 10 years? What do you think the world will look like from from the point of view of ecommerce, and Amazon and Shopify, the entire ecosystem?
Brandon Young 30:28
Is your take on that? Man, I always like to look at China, to see where ecommerce is going. They’re so far ahead of us, and they remain instead of us. Yeah. So individual product branded stores are tough and hard and marketing and stuff that’s gonna come down to so they call it I guess, social ecommerce, right? Like, the Instagram and Facebook. That’s cute. That’s nice. And that’s going to drive some sales. Tic tock is going to crush everybody. If reels can catch up, then the Instagrams gonna do okay. But real real is getting better. Um, they just need they need to do some some small things with their algorithm and some small things with the UI. And UX, but the main thing is like, TikTok is already proven the business model of life selling young China Taobao Tmall. I think that even just last week, I read the news that the lipstick King, Chinese seller who sells makeup, he’s a guy and he puts makeup on live, takes it off, puts it on, takes it off, puts it on shows women different shades. And he has a great personality. He did a billion dollars in revenue in one session. A billion billions in revenue in China. You know, Bill, I think it was a billion US. In you billing us. It may have been a billion yuan, but that would still be 300 million or 10
Joshua Chin 32:04
million either way. It’s It’s insane. It’s insane amount of
Brandon Young 32:07
money in one session. So the reality is that I think social influencers like influencer marketing, once they figure it out, there’s a huge disconnect right now with regards to influencers and then fulfillments and influencers and branding and brand creation and private label. And the first people that figure it out with regards to creating an agency that can that can put them together. And scale is going to be very rich. Um, because you’re going to be able to talk to influencers who are great at having conversations and selling live. And you’re going to better provide them with all the goods they can possibly sell. And they’re going to sell a lot of and yeah, and it’s not about like creating the next brand for that influencer. It’s about your brand. It’s about like you just you just letting them sell your stuff.
Joshua Chin 33:03
I think people don’t realize how big this this is like life selling is outside of the US. Even in Southeast Asia where I’m at in Malaysia and the Chinese community in Malaysia. It’s it’s huge. I have like with my mum is in relation, she would tell me that I want to buy this thing that I saw on on Facebook Live. Like, what are you talking about? How do you Well, she doesn’t even know how to operate a laptop minute. So that’s a whole new mobile first generation for like Gen Z and millennials but also for the older generation who’s picking up smartphones but don’t don’t necessarily know how,
Brandon Young 33:46
but that’s why they’re ahead of us with regards to ecommerce because they they skip straight from desktop to mobile. Right? Hmm, yep, in China. And so, ecommerce products, platforms like Taobao and Tmall and, you know, all the all those. There’s, there’s probably four or five major major ones that are bigger than anything here. And they they drive so much revenue that anyone here would would, wouldn’t believe the numbers.
Joshua Chin 34:17
And it sounds insane.
Brandon Young 34:18
We talk about we talk about Amazon being a huge beast and even Amazon’s trying to get into live and moving too slow for it probably. They’re going to struggle to compete with with TikTok I think, like the thought to be honest, TikTok just hit a billion users. Yeah, good luck. They’re gonna they’re gonna keep growing.
Joshua Chin 34:38
Oh, yeah. I’ve no doubt I know. I’m curious. What do you think would be the next best step for a brand that understands this? believes that this is the next big thing. How do you get on TikTok with a platform like that?
Brandon Young 34:56
So you can start by just working with influencers that are already in the space that are that are good at live. Or you can just create a studio in your own in your own office and, and hire someone to go live for you and display your product. Pride on. You got to understand that like clothing, makeup and accessories do the best. But you know what also does great snacks. It’s crazy to think. So if you go and study the metrics, and you’re just like, hey, and people just open up a bag of chips and eat it and taste it. They’re like, Yeah, that one wasn’t good, and they’re honest. And that gives validity, right? And then that gives them some credibility. And then they open the next one like, Oh my God, that’s the dye for Well, shit. Now I’m gonna buy that one that that other one I wasn’t gonna buy but now I need to try that one now. So, and then trying on the makeup, doing makeup tutorials live and saying, Oh, by the way, this foundation I’m putting on you can buy below. Yeah, it’s sold out in two minutes. Yeah, like, so there is there’s so much you can do then that most people in the United States and especially the US market, we’re not doing yet that we’re going to move in that direction. And people who build real brands are going to win in the long run. And I think that you know what we do from an Amazon SEO standpoint will have its place it’ll be great. It’s still great. We drive a ton of sales people are still gonna shop on Amazon and continue to grow that markets going to continue to grow. But I think that the fastest growing segment will be live for the next five years and it’s going to be the biggest thing in the next few years.
Joshua Chin 36:29
Credit incredible. Brandon thank you so much for your time. What is the best way for people connect with you and learn more about what you do?
Brandon Young 36:40
Oh, yeah, you can go to Seller-systems.com I have a free masterclass. I just got done shooting tonight. It’s probably four hours long. Yeah, it’s four hours and three. So I don’t know anything back about product selection. Everyone on here that listens to shop that is on Shopify. I’ll help you look at the data as to the competition. The keywords that drive sales, how your competitors are doing which products to choose to launch on to Amazon because you probably have a ton of skews and you’re needing to know what to prioritize that I show you all that in the frequent.
Joshua Chin 37:12
Perfect. Brandon, thank you so much for your time.
Brandon Young 37:15
Thank you.
Outro 37:20
Thanks for listening to the eCommerce Profits Podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click Subscribe to get notified of future episodes.
