Direct podcast MP3 download link
Like the show? Get new episodes on iTunes or Stitcher
Jacob has been selling on Amazon since 2014 and on today's episode he shares the steps he's taken to scale his business into the 7 figure range. He is currently selling on a variety of Amazon platforms.
Want to ask a question?
Get involved and ask a question about selling on Amazon and Chris may answer your question live on a future episode of Sellercast. Also, if you think you'd be a good guest for the Sellercast podcast feel free to tell us more about you and your company here.
Need more product reviews?
If you'd like to get more reviews for your products on Amazon check out Salesbacker.
Podcast Transcript
Intro: Hello, everyone. Chris Guthrie here, host of Sellercast. And today’s show is going to be a lot of fun because I have on a friend of mine that I’ve known for about two years now and he has a 7-figure business selling on Amazon.
He’s been doing very well. We talk about what he’s done to achieve his level of success, and what he’s done then to scale his business as well. He talks a little bit about expanding internationally and some of the other strategies that he has used to build his audience to help launch his products.
So, I’m sure you’re going to love this episode. Let’s start this show.
=====
Chris Guthrie: Hello, everyone. Chris Guthrie here. And today, I have on Jacob. Jacob, welcome to the show.
Jacob: Thanks for having me.
Chris Guthrie: Yes! I’m excited to talk to you. We’ve known each other for quite some time. I know you’ve been selling on Amazon for a while now and doing pretty well. Maybe you can start that off with where you’ve been at on your business in terms of when you started selling on Amazon.
Jacob: I started in May 2014 I think. Actually, the first sale was probably in July 2014 because it takes some time to get it up and running.
Chris Guthrie: That’s great! And what were you doing before you started selling on Amazon? Have you been doing an ecommerce business before or was this your first foray into the space?
Jacob: It is the first time I actually did something online as far as selling, but I’ve been in the retail, in selling basically, for quite some time—I’d say about 10 years or so, pretty much my whole adult life.
So yeah, that was pretty much it. I was doing retail, all kinds of different things, selling even products and services, all over the place pretty much.
Chris Guthrie: Oh, okay... What was your main motivation for selling on Amazon? Was it just the fact that you’ve been selling physical products already, you’ve been in other products and services, I guess, in other spaces and you wanted to do something online only type of thing?
Jacob: I was always trying to find a way to actually sell online the right way. For example, I live on a very congested area. I live in L.A. I actually have a job where trying to do something in a physical world here takes a lot of time away from the family.
So, my main motivation to do something online was I wouldn't have to travel miles and spend hours in a car. That was my main motivation, to spend more time with the family.
And I had a newborn right around the time that I started this business. And that was the sole purpose of it.
Chris Guthrie: That’s great. So you had a change in your family life coming up, and you thought, “Okay, let’s look for some other opportunities.” This was one that came along, and that’s where you went after it.
Jacob: Yes.
Chris Guthrie: That’s great. And so then, with your business, can you share where you’re at sales-wise now, or if not, then maybe just a rough range or something?
Jacob: It’s in the multiple million a year. It’s been quite a ride for sure. And it’s been a while. But technically, in the online space, even two years is a long time.
Chris Guthrie: Yeah, it’s like a decade.
Jacob: Yeah, that’s pretty much where it is. Again, we’re talking revenue, right? Most of your guests understand that doesn’t really cover the whole grasp of things. But basically, if we’re talking revenue, it’s in the multiple million.
Chris Guthrie: That’s great! So, seven figure business, ecommerce business. And I know—because we’ve known each other for a while—you sell on Amazon US, and then you also sell in other places as well.
Jacob: Yes. I sell in Europe in all derivation of the European markets—so UK, Germany, Italy, Spain and France.
Chris Guthrie: Okay, that’s great. You’ve mentioned before you’ve been selling for two years. That’s a long time in the life of an online business because so much can change. That’s frankly why I really enjoy the online space because you’re constantly doing new things and you need to try new strategies, and it’s just a lot of fun.
But what have you done along the way to grow your business? What would you say are some of the best things you found to really scale up and to get to the success level that you’ve reached so far?
Jacob: A big breakthrough, honestly, was to go to other markets. It basically doubled my business within six months.
If I’m thinking about things that’s like the biggest breakthrough, that I have decided to go to other markets, especially as the U.S. market was always getting more and more—I’m not saying it’s overcrowded, but you obviously have more and more sellers on Amazon.com. The competition either pressures you on margins or gives you less opportunities for new products.
So, looking around and going after those new opportunities in other marketplaces was the biggest, biggest hit for me.
Chris Guthrie: Nice! Yeah, I mean I talk to people and it’s weird. It’s almost category-dependent. And sometimes, it just depends on, also, especially, even just what you’re selling.
But I talk to people that are doing seven figures. They’ve only been in the U.S. and they’ve been there for a really long time; and then, some people that are only on other markets. And so it’s kind of an interesting mix. It just kind of depends on, a lot of case, what you’re selling.
So, that was great. That was a big win for you then.
And then, where are you at in terms of the number of products you’re selling? Can you share a rough range of how many products that you’re selling, the actual individual listings or something?
Jacob: The SKUs are in the 20s, somewhere between 20 and 30 as far as SKUs.
Chris Guthrie: That’s great. So then, 20 to 30 SKUs now. I’m assuming that you started with just one when you began or did you start with multiple…
Jacob: Yes, I have started with one. And I have attempted to launch multiple products at times, but it never ends up well.
It’s not that something just hangs or it doesn’t succeed, but it takes longer. It eventually takes longer to launch three products at the same time than if you launch three individual products, three individual launches.
Because you’re not focusing on the one thing, and the one thing only, you make a bunch of mistakes that you make only because of oversight. You just miss a couple of details and that changes the whole outcome.
So, I don’t do that anymore. I only launch one at a time.
And I never even start a product with variation at the same time either. I only add variations to the product that actually prove to be successful.
Chris Guthrie: That’s great, yeah. I really like that. You prove the concept first. And then, if it’s doing well, then you look at doing variations where there are color changes, sizes, et cetera.
And I think that even going back to your point about just focusing on one product to launch, I think of the book by Gary Keller, The One Thing. It’s a great book if people haven’t read it in terms of just really focusing in on the-well, the one thing…
Jacob: Right! I mean, especially in my book, multitasking is a bad word. I don’t ever do that because it doesn’t work. It only takes away your attention from those important things, and you end up making, like I said, not very smart decisions that cause you dearly.
Chris Guthrie: Yeah. So then, it sounds like you tried initially to do multiple products at once, and then now you just do them one at a time.
What are you doing now? Are you doing one product launch every single month type of thing or it just depend on—maybe it varies by season in terms of what you’re trying to do. Maybe you’re trying to get them out before the holidays or whatever?
Jacob: I do tend to chose not a seasonal product. I’ve had seasonal products in my retail businesses before, and I learned my lesson there. So I just try to stick to something that’s very boring, not a very exciting product but sells year round, doesn’t have any major ups and downs.
And so, I do try to launch every 30 days because with my products, it doesn’t matter whether it’s spring, summer or before the holidays. It doesn’t really make a big difference.
It does, I mean you know how it is with the pre-Christmas season on Amazon. But the rising tide lifts all boats, but it’s not as big in my case than it might be with other products.
So, every 30 days, to answer your question. Every 30 days, I try to launch a new product or I try to launch a product that’s already proven in one market in another market—especially when you have to divide your resources and everything else, both money-wise and time-wise in between two, three, four, different markets.
I treat the U.S. market as one market and the European market as another market as a whole. But as far as launching products, I don’t launch them in all markets at the same time.
Chris Guthrie: Yeah, that makes sense. I like that because you’re able to limit your exposure in terms of the amount of money you risk to buy inventory. You can do all your research that you want to see if something will do well, but until you actually get that product up online, you don’t know for sure if it’s going to really sell until you start to try and promote it and grow that.
Jacob: Exactly!
Chris Guthrie: And so then, let’s talk a little bit about just the overall business itself. If you’re in the seven figures in your business—which is already fantastic. A lot of people that are listening, they’re at varying stages. I talked to a lot of people that have said, “Hey, great podcast,” they’ve left a review and they’ve mentioned where they’re at in their business, and it’s a wide range.
But what are you doing at this point in terms of trying to manage that process? When you’re doing one launch, either it’s a new product or you’re going to a new marketplace every 30 days, do you have some team members in place helping you or are you just trying to keep your business lean and focused and you’re just doing it all yourself right now?
Jacob: I have people helping me to be honest with you. But when we’re talking a little later about the mistakes I’ve made, the mistake I made in the past (which I’m trying to rectify right now) is I’m trying to push tasks on—not the right people, but only the people that are actually available. So I use some family members and what-not.
And it works to a certain degree, but it’s never a hit in other words. If the person is not right for the task, it’s going to show some way.
Basically, my bottleneck right now, just like with everybody at this stage is that I’ve hit the glass ceiling as far as how much I can contribute to the business alone without others helping me.
And that’s why, like I said, I’m trying to solve it more systematically. But at this point in time, I’m using whoever is available to help me to do that.
Chris Guthrie: So, that’s what you’re doing right now. What do you think it will take for you to push through that glass ceiling, to just use your own example there? Do you think you need to go outside of your friends and family type network that you’ve maybe used before and start hiring in other ways?
Are you looking at doing local hires based in L.A.—it’s obviously a huge population center—or perhaps go global, maybe use Upwork or some other type of job-finding source.
Jacob: I do use Upwork and places like that right now just for tasks specifically, but not for either part-time or full-time employees. And that’s exactly what I’m intending to do.
It was always a struggle for me. And it’s, again, one of the other mistakes that I found out, that I have not started outsourcing earlier. I mean, it sounds counterproductive, but it actually isn’t. The more people you get involved and can use their time, it helps your business as well.
So, what I’m trying to do … I’m definitely going to hire somebody full-time to basically manage all my tasks. I mean, I heard one of your guests from a previous podcast saying to basically clone myself. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do because I need somebody to take my responsibilities, those day-to-day tasks from me, and actually hire out all the positions that he needs to manage his time eventually.
At this point, most of the time, I feel overwhelmed. Like I told you in the beginning, I went into this business to spend more time with my family. But I do feel more overwhelmed than I did when I was working in other businesses. And it’s just because of the sheer volume of orders and the customer service—not issues, but customer service and everything else that’s involved with this kind of volume.
I haven’t done it earlier because I have not anticipated the doubling of business going into Europe. I totally underestimated it, both order-wise, issue-wise, and everything else. Although technically, I’d say it’s about nine months or so since I started actually selling in Europe. But in within the nine months, I have definitely come to the realization that I have to do something about my time and outsourcing.
Chris Guthrie: Yeah, it’s tough because if I can come back with my earlier experiences with other businesses over the last half decade plus just doing online-only type businesses, for me, I always make the same mistake. I wait too long to hire. And then, once you finally do hire, it’s like, “Wow! This is amazing. Why didn’t I do that before?”
So, I guess that would be a good takeaway for people that feel like they’re on the cusp of that, of feeling like there’s too much. As soon as you think, “Hey, maybe I should hire someone,” it’s an indication that you should hire someone in the past already.
But that’s good that you’ve recognized that that’s the case. And now, it’s a matter of just trying to find the right person to put in place.
Jacob: But it’s actually mostly my mistake because it’s the way I am. I usually get involved in the business so much because I love what I do that I stop doing everything else.
I mean, if somebody asked me how many hours I work a week, I would say 30 to 35 of actually working in the business. But basically, I’m living it. I’m thinking about the business. I’m coming up with new ideas and everything else pretty much 24 hours a day unless I’m sleeping. And if I have a conversation with friends—Amazon businesses or online businesses as a whole usually overtakes that conversation. So I’m basically living the thing at this stage.
Chris Guthrie: Yeah, it is a tough thing. If you’re thinking about it so much, usually, that crosses over into your personal life and just talking to people that—
In most scenarios—at least from people I’ve talked to, and maybe it’s the same for you—often, the people that are selling on Amazon, they usually have really no personal friends from the past before they started selling in terms of people that can relate in terms of what you’re doing to your business.
And then, moving forward, you start to meet people that are also doing what you’re doing with having an ecommerce business. And those relationships really help with that. But it’s almost like it’s hard because your other friends just don’t really get it.
Jacob: Right, right. Totally!
Chris Guthrie: Yeah, okay. So, you’re doing about 30-35 hours a week. And then, obviously, just in general, thinking about it. You’re driving somewhere and you’re thinking about, “Oh, that would be an interesting product idea… let me try this new marketing strategy.”
Let’s talk about what comprises that 30-35 hours, especially since you’re kind of at the spot where you’ve acknowledged you want to get someone else in place. That’s something that you wanted to do before. What do you think are the 80/20 tasks where you’ve had really great success.
You mentioned one of them in terms of just expanding your business in general. But if you had to list out some of the 80/20 tasks that have resulted in 80% of your success with 20% of the time you spent onto them, do you have some of those that really come to mind that you can share with people in terms of what’s helped you getting to the seven figure plus business level?
Jacob: Yeah, yeah. I started before, but it’s really the most important thing I think in my business as far as I’m concerned. I went into a category or product specifically where I’m my own customer.
So, that helped tremendously because not only can I pick the right products, I guess, I have more success maybe than others because of that, but I never guess what my customer wants because I know it. Adding more products was easier for me therefore.
That I think would be the 80/20 to answer your question. Having your own products typically solves a lot of issues if you’re concerned about volume and everything else. It may bring some other issues like cashflow, and I don’t know what else, logistic issues and stuff like. But adding more products was definitely the 80 trend.
After that, if I had to take any of the marketing strategies, it’s probably going to be the Amazon ads or their derivatives because do use—I am part of their vendor program now, so I can use some other strategies that other FBA sellers may not be even aware of. That helped a lot.
And I think as far as the strategy goes, focusing on building a brand, not necessarily selling products. Always, when I think about new products, I’m thinking about what would suit the brand? What would be a good addition to the brand line? Therefore, it’s not something in electronics, something in baby, something in healthcare—I mean, health and personal care.
So, I’m trying to be very consistent, predictable, and making sure that it logically fits my customer base. We may talk about later about launch procedures and what-not, but basically, what changed over the years is that I do now have a customer base that I can launch any product to when I want to. And it usually becomes a very good seller just because of that, because most of my customers actually wanted the stuff that I’m selling.
Chris Guthrie: Yeah, yeah. I’ve talked about this in the past, in other episodes, just the general “plant the flag” strategy. You come in, you plant your flag, you’re trying to conquer that specific space. You’re spreading out your army or, I guess, your products into other spaces that are very, very closely related to what you’re already selling.
So, I like that that’s what’s helped you. And also, just in terms of thinking about how it helps the brand as a whole.
I want to come back to brand actually. Let’s talk specifically about the launch process. You mentioned it earlier. It sounds like you’ve done really well just by—because you’ve launched so many products now, you’ve been able to build your own audience that you launch to? Maybe you can talk about the particulars of what you did to launch your products now.
Chris Guthrie: I use the same avenues that, I guess, most the people are or that I was when I started in this business. I don’t use my friends and family anymore because it gets old when you ask them so often… But I do use some revenue services, launch services, but I mostly rely on my own customer base nowadays because it makes it easier, it’s more honest.
You shouldn't really run into any issues with Amazon and the launch process because they are your customers, they actually want your product. You don’t have to give it out for free. It could be just deeply discounted.
Since these customers actually expect some kind of a level of services and what-not from you because they bought from you before, there are no surprises. They know what they’re getting as far as customer service and product quality. And they are more forgiving if, God forbid, something happens with the product and it’s not the best. They’re more forgiving. They’re more inclined to write you an email as opposed to trashing your products in a review on Amazon. So, it helps tremendously.
One of the other mistakes that I’ve made in my business was—well, there were a lot of them, but rushing things too much. I mean, the idea that you can only be successful if you sell millions of dollars worth of stuff in a year kind of got me as well, but I think about it differently nowadays.
Yes, you have to focus and push and what-not else, but you also should be smarter about doing stuff.
So, a couple of my really, really expensive mistakes were by just rushing things. At the very beginning, actually, with my very first product, even though it was a hit, it got canned by Amazon three months into it or four months into it because there was a copyright violation. Eventually, I got to the bottom of this, and it was a picture on the packaging of my product.
And it wasn’t me who did the design. I did contract somebody to do the design. But ultimately, it was my responsibility and I took the hit on that thing. So, I had made sure that I spell out in my contracts now that I only need proprietary stuff in my packaging and what-not to make sure.
It’s not going to prevent them from making a mistake again, but at least it’s spelled out specifically and they understand that I don’t want any pictures downloaded somewhere from a website put on my packaging because somebody actually can just tag my product because of some stupid thing that doesn’t have anything to do with sales on Amazon.
Chris Guthrie: Yeah, I actually want to dig into that one a little bit. But let me go back to the launch process just briefly. You mention you use your own people. How are you actually getting those people onto something like an email list that you’ve built using Aweber, GetResponse, et cetera? Are you driving people to your own website and collecting email addresses that way? What are you doing to build that audience?
Jacob: I mean, I do a lot of different stuff—lead magnets, Facebook ads, discounts and packagings for repeat business and things of that nature. So, it’s all standard stuff, I don’t think is something that nobody has ever done before.
But again, I think my business can be boring at times, but it’s mostly about doing the same things over and over and the time just helps with everything.
So, I may not be collecting thousands of email addresses a month. But because I’ve been in the business for two years, even a couple of hundred a month makes a big list over two years.
Chris Guthrie: Yeah, that’s great. I do want to come back to that, that point you mentioned about mistakes. I know we can spend a little bit of time just in general talking about those. As I found, the longer people sell, the more things come up. And then, of course, the more that’s shared, the more that everyone else here can learn and learn from those mistakes as well.
So, it sounds like then you had someone that did the original design for a packaging of the product. They used a copyrighted image or some sort of element that they put on the packaging. And then, that led to a copyright claim. They took down one of your products.
Were you able to recover that product or was it kind of a loss, you had to move on and sell something?
Chris Guthrie: I was able to recover the product, but I had to do a new design and repackage everything. So basically, get a removal order, remove thousands of units.
And at that point, because it was doing well, I had thousands of units in the warehouse. We moved them into a storage facility. And then, we hired out somebody who was going to repackage the whole inventory.
It took three months to deal with that stuff, so it was a big blow to the business. But at that point, I could’ve just easily give up and say, “You know, this is not working. It was a loss,” whatever and just go do something else, but I like this kind of business.
I’m reasonably good at it. So, I just buckled down and did it. I spent three months making sure that everything is correct. I actually had to change the brand to separate myself from the mistake because whoever had that copyright claim was very vicious and was trying to do all kinds of things including suing me and everything else. So, I had to basically create a new company and a new brand.
Chris Guthrie: You created a new LLC and everything type of thing?
Jacob: New LLC, new brands, new everything. I had to launch the product and rank it. When it was taken down from Amazon originally, I already had hundreds of reviews on my product, and I basically had to start from scratch again.
But looking at it, it’s been more like 18 months. Looking back at it, it was actually a good experience because I now know what not to do and I try to make sure, I make sure that even if it takes an extra week to do it right, I don’t take a shortcut.
People may think that you can do whatever you want to on Amazon or online generally. But eventually, it catches up to you, and you will have to pay up.
Chris Guthrie: This is going to sound kind of lame, but people like to claim, in general, that the Internet is the wild, wild west. It is until the sheriff comes along. And that sheriff can come in many multiple forms as you found with that one.
Jacob: Exactly!
Chris Guthrie: It’s kind of the lamest example, but anyways… A lot of time, people don’t really share if they’ve had some sort of a legal thing come along. And so that’s why I wanted to dig into it.
Did you ever end up having to do some sort of a payment to get them to go away or was it just like you closing out a company and let them attack that company, it’s closed anyway.
Jacob: It’s not like I was actually trying to hide away from responsibility or anything like that. I changed it to basically separate it and just have a fresh start and deal with the issue if it ever came up again, and I would deal with it.
But they never actually started to sue me. They just threatened to sue me and named everybody in the business, the name, and everybody else in it. So, that’s why I needed to just make a clean cut just in case they ever decide to actually pursue the legal action.
So, that’s why I did that just out of precaution. Like I said, I’ve done some businesses before, and I’ve made some money during it, so I don’t want it to be just basically be erased by this one mistake over something I haven’t really done. But it was my mistake, nevertheless. So, that’s why I did that.
But like I said, the rushing things doesn’t really help very much. I had a different, much smaller issue later on where we brought to market a product that was really good—at least initially. But since we haven’t done proper testing—“proper” meaning like six months worth of testing—the product basically had issues coming around the 2-month mark and onwards.
I couldn't really have predicted it because when I got the product, installed it and did everything else with it, it worked just perfectly. It just started falling apart, I guess, a couple of months into it.
Again, I don’t know how I could’ve done it differently because it wasn’t something that I could predict happening. But when I try to come up with a new product that is distinctly different than whatever is the market, I do now do a longer testing, like more than a couple of months. I give it 90 days at least, so that I know that these things don’t happen.
Chris Guthrie: Yeah, I like that. And so then, in the case of that one product, did you have to just stop selling it eventually because the listing, I’m assuming, started getting hit by the people that would use it for a while, and then they go back and update their review and give you a bad review type of thing?
Jacob: They haven’t that much. So, the listing is still up and it’s not really trashed, but I’ve made significant improvements to the product.
Chris Guthrie: Okay, so you were able to solve it then.
Jacob: I was able to solve it. It was solvable because, like I said, most people won’t give you the review a couple of weeks into it and the product was fine. And as it goes on, they may come back, but it’s not a huge number.
So, instead of having a perfect five score, I can have 4.2 or 4.3. But it was something that I had to really change in order for the listing and the product to be viable long-term.
Chris Guthrie: Mm-hmmm… that makes sense. And so we’re getting close actually to wrapping up. It’s been a lot of fun actually. You did dug into a lot of different things. And most people don’t really talk about if there’s been a legal issue or something like, but you dove into that to give a really good sense of what to expect.
And obviously, if something happens to you (for anyone that’s listening) then your legal scenario can be entirely different, the outcome. But it’s always interesting to hear that.
Are there any other main things that were mistakes that you think that are very easy to make, that you can see, looking back, would be easy to make if someone else is just starting out? And that one, we could kind of wrap up with that I guess.
Jacob: I think there are a couple of different things. The differentiator I think for me mostly was how I treated my customers. It’s not only about customer service or follow-ups or what-not. But in my case, in my view, it starts with the product and the packaging.
It’s a different experience for the customer if they ordered something online, it comes in, they open the package, and it’s like, wow, a great packaging that looks like very luxurious and they feel like they really got a good deal. They will be more inclined to leave you reviews, they will be more inclined to sign up for your VIP review club or whatever it is that you have, and they will be more likely to come back because the next product, and the next product that you bring to the market, they will expect the same thing. And basically, their barrier or their issues with buying from you will be non-existent.
How I always look at it is the long-term value of the customer. The industry standard is about $200, I guess, lifetime value. And that’s what I look at. So, I don’t really skip out on anything when I prepare my products.
And I also look at it the same way when I look at it from my business standpoint. So, I’d much rather deal with just a few people in the business as far as logistics and everything else even if I’m paying more because that’s what I consider efficient.
I don’t consider it efficient if I’m doing everything myself and it’s costing me less. That’s not efficient in my book because I can always bring more products and open more markets, marketplaces, or start selling on my websites or whatever else. That’s going to be more efficient for my business.
Now, the mistakes, back to your question, I would start outsourcing early. I would start collecting customer data as quickly as I can. The things you can do, even with whatever Amazon gives you right now—and most people are not—what we do is we do mailers. We send out mailings, cards in the mail.
Because we do get the data from Amazon, we try to stay within the terms of service of Amazon and we’ve never had a problem with it, but it was a great success. People actually respond better to the mailers in the mail than they do to emails. And that was a big differentiating factor for us as well.
So, collecting data and looking for the right people rather than just use somebody who is available, like your relatives.
Chris Guthrie: Yeah, and I think going back to the customer data, because I’m one of the co-founders of Salesbacker, especially if people contact me direct or find me on Facebook, I always err on the side of complete caution. So, sending out something via mail to customers, I’m always like, “Well, it’s… you know.”
But certainly, there are a lot of different strategies you can employ. And it’s just a matter of whether or not you wanted to do that.
Sometimes, just in general, there are a lot of shades of gray when it comes to selling on Amazon in terms of what you can and can’t do, shouldn't do, should do, et cetera. But I’m glad that’s been working well for you as well.
You’ve been selling for two years roughly. Take us forward two more years. Where do you see you’ll be at with the business? Are you looking at launching in other ecommerce platforms? Are you thinking about a sale some time down the line? What are you trying to do?
Jacob: Given the experience that I’ve had over years with Amazon, I do recognize the value of having multiple, different platforms.
So, I do actively dabble with other platforms. Even if they are not more than 10% of the business, it’s still something that can hold you over until Amazon actually figures out what the issue was and why they took you down.
I had multiple instances where they just either put the account under review because of a competitor claiming something that wasn’t true or, related to the product, because somebody was complaining about the title or something else.
That’s just basically like a wake-up call. It tells you that you really need to do something else because if you have only Amazon business, it will basically take you out. If you have other platforms, you can hold off until those issues are sorted. And if you know that you did the right thing, you know that it’s going to come back.
At least, that was my experience so far. It always came back. It was just a matter of time.
As far as the business going forward, I do want to grow the business because I like what I do and I do feel like I’m providing value for the customers. So adding more products and starting to—
I’m not 100% sure. I do have an idea of what different line of products that I want to start. I just can’t do it right now because, like I’ve said, of the glass ceiling. I need to properly start the business first before I can go and basically open a new front gate like I did with Europe. Because of that experience, I know I had to start the business first.
But in two years, like you said the question was, I definitely see myself having multiple different lines of products, and hopefully, be in the tens of millions as far as revenue.
I’ve been to a couple of interesting conventions this year. I spoke to a couple of different business owners that are in the business of selling for 20 or 30 years, and they have opened my eyes to how big this thing actually can be if done properly. So, I definitely have enough of a reason to keep going and growing the business.
Chris Guthrie: Awesome! I love it. Jacob, thanks again so much for coming on and sharing your expertise. It’s always fun talking to sellers that have been on for a while. They’ve been at it for longer, so they just have, in general, more experiences along the way. So it’s been a lot of fun.
Thanks so much for coming on and sharing with us.
Jacob: Thank you, Chris.
Chris Guthrie: Have a great rest of your day.
Jacob: You too!
Chris Guthrie: Alright! That was the episode with Jacob. I want to thank him again for coming on to the show.
After we got done with the recording, he actually said, “Hey, if you want me to come back on the show and focus on a specific topic more in depth, I’d love to do that as well.”
So, if you think that would be fun and would like to hear more from Jacob, go to Sellercast.com/33. That’ll take you to the show notes link for this episode, and you can comment on that. And then say, “Hey, talk about this.” We can use that as a framework for if we bring him back on the show on what we can talk about when he comes back.
So, thank you again so much for listening to the show. You can go to Sellercast.com, and that will take you to a link that will show you all the different episodes that we’ve done so far.
We’ve had a lot of different guests on, various backgrounds and sizes of businesses, and varying stages in terms of when they started. So, it’s been a lot of fun so far doing this show. We’ll keep doing it as long as you keep listening and we keep finding great guests to bring to you.
So, thank you so much for tuning in. We’ll see you in the next episode.