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The world of Amazon offers countless opportunities for entrepreneurs to build successful businesses. However, not every journey is without its hurdles. If you’ve faced setbacks as an Amazon seller, you might be surprised to learn that these experiences can actually serve as a valuable diploma in the world of e-commerce. In this article, we’ll explore how failures and challenges in building an Amazon seller business can lead to lucrative 6-figure job opportunities within the Amazon ecosystem.
Embracing Failure as a Learning Experience
Danan Coleman, a seasoned Amazon seller, shares his unique journey and insights on transitioning from the seller side of the platform to excelling in various roles within the Amazon world. Coleman emphasizes that setbacks and failures are an integral part of growth, and each misstep is an opportunity to learn and improve. Just like a diploma signifies academic achievement, your journey in the Amazon space signifies practical experience that can be invaluable in a professional context.
The Value of Amazon Knowledge in the Job Market
As Todd Welch, an industry expert, points out, the knowledge gained from attempting to build an Amazon seller business holds immense value in the job market. Many employers recognize the skill set and resilience developed through navigating the complexities of selling on Amazon. This experience equips you with a unique perspective that can be immensely appealing to potential employers.
Transferable Skills: From Seller to Professional
What makes the Amazon journey particularly valuable is the array of transferable skills you acquire along the way. While the entrepreneurial endeavor may not have panned out as expected, the skills you’ve honed are highly relevant in a variety of roles within Amazon-based companies. Whether it’s understanding the intricacies of product listings, mastering advertising strategies, or navigating the ever-changing landscape of e-commerce, these skills can serve as a solid foundation for careers in strategic partnerships, sales, marketing, and more.
Turning Setbacks into Stepping Stones
Danan Coleman and Todd Welch stress the importance of viewing setbacks as stepping stones to success. Just like Edison’s famous quote about the light bulb, each failure brings you closer to discovering what works. In the context of Amazon, this means learning the nuances of the marketplace, understanding customer behavior, and adapting to evolving trends. Employers value candidates who can embrace challenges and turn them into growth opportunities.
Crafting a 6-Figure Career Path
While the path of an Amazon seller might have its ups and downs, it’s crucial to recognize that the journey doesn’t end with the closure of a business. The knowledge you’ve accumulated positions you for a promising career within the Amazon ecosystem. By leveraging your experience, you can secure roles that offer six-figure earning potential. Whether it’s building strategic partnerships, managing sales teams, or contributing to marketing efforts, your Amazon diploma serves as a testament to your dedication and resourcefulness.
Conclusion
In the ever-expanding world of e-commerce, opportunities are abundant for those who are willing to learn, adapt, and grow. Your experiences as an Amazon seller are not limited to the realm of entrepreneurship alone; they hold the power to propel you toward lucrative 6-figure job opportunities within the Amazon ecosystem. Embrace failures as lessons, and recognize that your journey is a valuable asset in the job market. Just like a diploma, your Amazon experience is a testament to your resilience and determination. So, whether you’re a novice seller or a seasoned entrepreneur, remember that every challenge you overcome is a stepping stone toward a successful career path within the Amazon world.
Transcript:
[00:00:00] Announcer: Welcome fellow entrepreneurs to the Amazon Sellers School podcast, where we talk about Amazon Wholesale and how you can use it to build an e-commerce empire, a side hustle, and anything in between. And now your host Todd Welch.
[00:00:21] Todd: Alright, everybody, welcome to another episode. Episode here today, we’ve got my friend Danon Coleman on the show.
[00:00:28] He is a Amazon seller, but has since moved into actually working for a company in the world of Amazon. He’s currently the director of Sales for Trace Fuse, which is a company that removes negative reviews. And I wanted to record this episode with Dayon to show you that the knowledge that you’re gaining from selling on Amazon, if for some reason you decide that I.
[00:00:58] I’m not interested in running a business or maybe it’s just not working out for you. All that knowledge that you collect can be used to potentially get a six figure job in the Amazon space. So Dana and I really appreciate you coming
[00:01:15] Danan: on the show. Thanks, Todd. I appreciate you inviting me and it’s, I’m, I’m so glad to be here.
[00:01:20] So, yeah, like Todd said, your every, every day that you spend on Amazon is, is you’re building value to somebody mostly yourself, right? That is ultimately why you’re doing this in the first place, you and your family. So Todd, should I go into like a bit of my history and how I, I crashed into Amazon and stuff like that?
[00:01:41] For
[00:01:41] Todd: sure. Let’s take, you know, five, 10 minutes and talk about your background. ’cause it is really interesting you gave the full story at our Tampa Bay Sellers Amazon meetup. So we can link to that video if people wanna check it out to see your full story. But just give us the five to 10 minutes kind of cliff notes because it is a really interesting story on how you got
[00:02:03] Danan: into Amazon.
[00:02:04] Yeah, cool. No problem. So I, I, I would say that. I have a pretty decent rags to riches story. So in 2010, I was a traveling salesman, I and consultant. I worked for a chiropractic consulting company and I onboarded new clients. And one morning I was on my way to work on my motorcycle and and a, a school bus.
[00:02:26] Pulled in front of me and I, I tell people I got hit by a school bus, but the, the truth of the matter is, is that the school bus turned in front of me as just as I was en entering the intersection and I slammed into the side of it. I broke an enormous amount of body parts and ruptured internals and stuff like that.
[00:02:43] It was it was a good, it was a good attempt at but anyhow, so. I that, that’s actually my impetus story into Amazon. So, as a salesman, I, you know, when I was in the hospital on morphine, I, I told my boss, Hey, I’ll be back to work next week. I was definitely on drugs. I was not making it back to work.
[00:03:03] It took me months before I could even walk properly again and stuff like that. But so what I did is I started. Outsourcing my sales skills because I had to work from home and I, I knew that the internet was the only way that I was going to make money. And so I, we started selling in order to make ends meet, we started selling absolutely everything that I didn’t have to have all the way down to our couch.
[00:03:32] Inside our house, and then that’s not a joke. We sold all my tools, what was left of my motorcycle, which was the, the lower three quarters. We sold our, we sold our couch. We sold tables that we didn’t have to have. And in that time, my wife started getting really good. At positioning products for people to stop and buy them.
[00:03:54] And right around that time, a buddy of mine who was running a vitamin company re just happened to mention to me, oh, hey, I just put my vitamin on Amazon. And I was like, dinging, wait. You don’t have to be an inventor. You don’t have to be GE or, or Biel or whoever. So I said, well, can I sell it to, he said, yeah, cool.
[00:04:15] No problem. I’ll sell it to you for this price. And I went, okay. So I didn’t have any money at this time, so I said, Hey, is it okay if I just buy it for from you after I sell it one bottle at a time? And, and luckily he was five minutes down the road from me, so I actually started selling on Amazon. This was 2010.
[00:04:33] So we, we started selling on Amazon early 2010. And I would drive down to him and pick up a few bottles after I sold them. And, you know, at that time, $500 a month in profit meant the, the difference between losing my house or losing my car or, or whatever, you know, it was, I was 500 bucks and I was able to make that in profit.
[00:05:02] Just literally, literally just so. And we were able to keep our house and because I, we were on the verge of medical bankruptcy I had 200 plus thousand dollars in medical bills. And when I thought I, I was, had insurance, I didn’t. So that’s, that’s a naive 20 something year old. Ooh, how old am I now?
[00:05:27] Anyhow, we won’t go into that.
[00:05:28] Todd: You didn’t have insurance. So how did you think you had insurance but you
[00:05:31] Danan: didn’t? So me not being trained, I called my insurance company when I, this was just a motorcycle that, that a friend couldn’t ride, and so I was riding it. So I didn’t actually own this motorcycle. Oh.
[00:05:45] And I just called him and I said, Hey, am I covered under any vehicle? I drive. And they’re like, yeah, absolutely. Any vehicle you drive. I said, okay, well then why would I get motor ser mo? Like, I don’t care about the motorcycle, I just care about my body. Right? Sure. So I, it didn’t matter to me. The, the motorcycle was inexpensive, you know, a few thousand dollars or something like that.
[00:06:08] So I thought that the, the insurance covered the motorcycle and that because I had car insurance that my, my body was covered. Now, After the fact when I, when I gave all my insurance information and we started putting in claims, they got denied. And I called them, I said, Hey, look, last June I called you and I specifically asked you the question, am I covered under any vehicle I drive?
[00:06:33] And their response was, oh, well a vehicle is anything with four or more wheels. I went, huh,
[00:06:40] Announcer: what a
[00:06:41] Danan: very convenience. Definition that applies only to you. Yeah. Ouch. So, yeah. So I learned a hard, hard lesson on that. Yeah. Never trust
[00:06:54] Announcer: the
[00:06:54] Danan: insurance company. No. They’re, they’re an insurance company is not looking out for their best, your best, best interest.
[00:07:01] They’re looking out for the best deal for themselves. Correct.
[00:07:04] Announcer: Yep. So,
[00:07:05] Todd: looking to make a profit.
[00:07:06] Danan: Exactly. So now I was not at fault in this situation. The, the bus driver actually entered the intersection when I had a green. So I got, here’s the next doozy, is that I only got a hundred thousand dollars from the school district because they had a cap on.
[00:07:26] You can only get a hundred thousand dollars per claim, right? Mm-hmm. Which makes sense for the city, but. I think it should be more along the lines of, Hey, look, if, if we’re at fault, we have this cap. But if your expenses, legitimate expenses go beyond that, then we’ll cover it. But the school board I, I just sent in a request once.
[00:07:49] I said, look, I am drowning here. I have to pay for all these medical bills at my hospital and my aftercare, and, and the school district just sent a letter saying, sorry, you signed a thing saying that you, that, that we don’t care. Yeah. Ouch. Yeah. Yeah. And, and what was I, yeah, what was I to do at the time?
[00:08:12] Like, yeah. So With that a hundred thousand. We hired a lawyer and he negotiated everything down and his expenses were significant, but he did lower everything down. And then I got like, I think 18,000 and I used that to negotiate the 30 or $40,000 that I had owed outside of the hospital. And I managed to, To clean up all of those medical bills with that a hundred thousand dollars so that, that did work out.
[00:08:40] Now, this is a long story to tell you. This is how it got onto Amazon. The silver lining to that whole thing is that that forced me into becoming an entrepreneur and having to figure out how to make money online. And it started with, at that time it was Craigslist. Right. Facebook Marketplace. I, I think maybe it just started or had not yet started.
[00:09:01] And even if it had, it was clunky at best. Still pretty clunky
[00:09:05] Announcer: actually. Yeah. It never keeps any improvement,
[00:09:08] Todd: but yeah. Craigslist was the beast back then. Mm-hmm. Where he sold everything.
[00:09:13] Danan: Yeah. So we sold. Enough to, to float by. My, you know, I was, my wife was basically my full-time nurse. Like I’m in a wheelchair at this time.
[00:09:26] You know, she has to help me just to get to the bathroom. I couldn’t walk. Very interesting the things that that happened to the body when it experiences so much damage. But anyhow, that’s, I think that’s enough for that. The point is, is that we got into Amazon, we started selling supplements. And then a year or two later after selling just this one supplement and we were only doing one a buddy of mine came to me like, Hey, can you sell this supplement for this brand I’m working for?
[00:09:52] I’m like, yeah, I can. And that one went like gangbusters and we 10 x star metrics in like two months.
[00:10:00] Todd: Now were these vitamins products that you listed brand new on Amazon or they were already selling on there and you sold on the listing?
[00:10:09] Danan: So both of them were already selling. One of them, I mean, one of them was a brand new listing.
[00:10:17] It was like a month old and when I started selling on it, so you can call that one new. But the other one had been selling, I think for, for a little while. It was like an amino acid and. These guys were the main distributor of, this was a doctor’s office that I partnered with on this amino acid, and they were the main distributor for this vitamin.
[00:10:39] And they wanted us to help capture the Amazon market because they themselves couldn’t sell on Amazon per their whatever agreement. Sure. But they could sell to me. Do a profit share. So in order to, and mind you, this is early days, this is 20 11, 20 12 or something like that. At, at this time. They wanted to capture the market.
[00:11:01] ’cause Amazon, on Amazon, the price was being driven down to below what, nearly below what their cost was. Right. So what I did is I started selling on the, on this listing, I went. Well, hell, let’s just make a whole bunch of other listings. And so rather than, this is before virtual bundles and all that stuff, and even before the, the software came out for virtual bundling, but which I don’t even remember what that is.
[00:11:27] But we started heat, heat ra shrink wrapping, two packs, three packs, singles with a sample. Two packs with a sample and three packs with a sample. And that, that meant that we took over the entire first page of Amazon for this supplement. And then eventually we had 90 plus percent of the buy box of, of the original listing as well.
[00:11:55] So that was how we kind of, and then we incrementally raised the price to where it should have been. So we were able to raise a price like 15 bucks or something like that. Very nice.
[00:12:07] Announcer: Yeah.
[00:12:07] Todd: Yeah. All right, so you got into the selling supplements and sounds like that went quite
[00:12:13] Announcer: well. So yeah. Over what
[00:12:15] Todd: period were you growing those vitamins?
[00:12:18] How long of a timeframe?
[00:12:20] Danan: So let’s see, five plus years on both of them consignment, one of them, the, the. My very first product, we just purchased that and shipped it in. So that one we just paid wholesale and shipped it in. But we had exclusivity to that product on Amazon at this time for, for about five, six years, something like that.
[00:12:44] The other one we got like, I was not going to pay them for. Inventory. So I told them, you just give it to me on consignment. It was a profit share. So that’s what I negotiated with them is consignment. And and that’s kind of how I’ve, that’s, that’s been my model since, is get the product, get exclusivity to the product from the manufacturer, get the product on consignment and just pay them once a month.
[00:13:08] Yep. Very good. Yeah, I mean,
[00:13:10] Todd: that’s a good model if you don’t have a ton of cash to output, or even if you just don’t wanna put all your cash out there. I mean, wholesale, super cash intensive if you’re buying all the
[00:13:21] Announcer: product. Yeah.
[00:13:22] Danan: Yeah. And I don’t like, I, I don’t, like when I got started, I had no cash. Like Yep.
[00:13:28] I, the only thing I had was sweat equity. You know, and that’s what I offered to people is like, look, I’m trustworthy and I’ve, I I’m stuck in a chair. I’ve got time, so I will help build your brand on Amazon.
[00:13:40] Todd: Yeah. And I think what’s important here too is before this, you had never sold on Amazon, so you’re learning all this stuff on the fly, right?
[00:13:48] Yeah, yeah. But these companies are still trusting you to sell your product because you just starting out. You still know a lot more than what they probably knew about selling on
[00:14:01] Danan: Amazon for sure. And you know, by, by the time that I started talking to brands to get exclusivity to them and stuff like that, I had several years experience.
[00:14:11] Well, my wife and I. Mm-hmm. I, I can’t actually, she’s the real brains behind the operation. I’m, I’m just a, a, a pretty face that can convince people of things.
[00:14:22] Todd: Yep. Very good. So you’re the, you’re the salesperson, she’s the operator. I. Yeah. Yeah, exactly
[00:14:27] Danan: right.
[00:14:27] Makes a good team. Yeah, it really does. So,
[00:14:31] Todd: alright, so you’re building up this Amazon wholesale business.
[00:14:35] Yep. And how, how big were you able to grow it, if you don’t mind sharing. And then where did the shift come into actually
[00:14:43] Announcer: working for some of these different companies? Yeah,
[00:14:46] Danan: so we, we ran super lean. I. I only had, realistically, I only had one. Advertising campaign. So when we started, there was no P P C, I think at that time it was an invite or a beta test.
[00:15:02] Mm-hmm. F B A was invite only. And by the time we got into doing other people’s products and getting exclusivity, I’ll tell you this, I’ve never hit seven figures in a year in terms of sales. However, I never scaled nearly to what our potential was, because what was important to me was my time. With my wife, you know, and that was, that was kind of a hard rule of mine.
[00:15:30] I wanted the least amount of work possible for the most amount of money I could get. So I’ve never been a seven figure a year seller. However, my profit margin was insane, especially to, to today’s standards. Like it was like 60, 60 plus percent across all of our products. So, Yeah, so you know, I was, as time went on, these relationships changed.
[00:16:00] I went direct to the factory on one of these thing, on, on the amino acid because the doctor’s office that was selling it created their own and didn’t want to sell through me. And so I went direct to the factory. That lowered my price significantly. Raised my margin. We brought on a beauty brand out of Slovakia.
[00:16:19] Our price on per unit landed was $12 and landed at Amazon was 12 bucks and we were selling ’em for 50, something like that, or 54, 9 99 or something like that. So, you know, it was. And, and then we spent years just traveling around the world, visiting, just staying with family, stuff like that. So I don’t wanna poo poo on anybody’s parade.
[00:16:51] Like there’s a lot of seven figure sellers out there, seven figure sellers out there. And, but there’s a lot of people that work really hard for those seven figures that never made as much money as I did. Yeah, and I didn’t make a lot, you know what I mean? Like a a a few hundred grand a year is, that’s a lot of money for, to do things.
[00:17:12] Todd: Yeah, for sure. That makes a big difference
[00:17:15] Announcer: in a
[00:17:15] Danan: lot of people’s lives. Yeah, absolutely. We could do anything we wanted, you know, and so I spent it on things that I got no, r o i on. Not recommended in the long run, but we had a great time. This is pre-kids, you know, we, we had a wonderful time. But yeah, so that, that that kind of brings us up to Me getting into the software side.
[00:17:40] Mm-hmm.
[00:17:41] Todd: Yeah. So you’re, so you’re built up this Amazon business. It’s making you a couple few hundred thousand in profit a year. Yeah. And now you shift into actually working in the Amazon world.
[00:17:57] Danan: Yeah. So here comes my next I went rags to riches, and then this is the rag Next rags part of the story. Okay.
[00:18:07] So originally I went to work, I, I, I, I went to Philip, who was the c e o and founder of Managed by Stats. I’ve known him many years. I beta tested, managed by stats. My dad works at, managed by stats. In fact, he still works there today. I went up to him, I went over to his house and I said, Hey, congratulations, you’re hiring me.
[00:18:27] And he was like, why the hell would I hire you? Like he knew my numbers right? Why the hell would I hire you? Like, look dude, I’m bored. I, I sleep until 11 o’clock every day. I’ve exhausted every cat video on YouTube. There are none left that I haven’t seen, and I need a team. I, I was, my wife was, you know, volunteering at a church for significant number of hours per day.
[00:18:54] And so I’d end up just like I. Working a few hours and, but, but not really. What I should have been doing is expanding my business because your business is either going up or going down, and if it’s flat, it’s on its way down unless you make a change and make it go up, right? So for all intents and purposes, these are all things that I learned along the way.
[00:19:15] For all intents and purposes, you’re either expanding or contracting right? At this time we were growing 20% a year. Until, yeah, so let me get actually back up. Sorry, I’m getting, getting ahead of myself. So I went to work for, managed by Stats for fun, right? I knew the software well. I, I, I’m a long-term seller at this point.
[00:19:39] I can help a lot of people and I truly enjoy helping people, especially Amazon sellers, but I help people. In many aspects of life, like disaster response. I, I used to be a high school teacher for automotive. I’m, I’m a, a master Jaguar technician, so I, I love to help kids work on cars because, yeah, anyhow, I, I think it’s important that you can change your oil and stuff like that.
[00:20:04] So, taught a bunch of high schoolers that, that was fun. Got in trouble for swearing all the time with the principal, but the kids loved it, you know? Yeah, absolutely. So I just went in because I needed a group. I needed a little more structure in, in my life and, and, and a schedule to be adhered to and stuff like that.
[00:20:23] But then I lost my two main brands. And
[00:20:26] Announcer: before we
[00:20:27] Todd: go any further though, what was your title at Managed by Stats? What kind of job did you do
[00:20:32] Danan: there? So I started in tech support and then moved over to being Once I got tired of that, I said, listen, that we need to use my capabilities a little bit more.
[00:20:44] And I went over and I, I helped build and run the studio. So the podcast the training videos, the live streams. So I did that. And then I was also strategic partnerships. Mm-hmm. And affiliates. And then took on a whole bunch of duties as the president. Okay. So I kind of held a lot of titles, you know, and
[00:21:06] Todd: you were able to, to do all this easily because you knew the software, right?
[00:21:12] You were using it in your Amazon
[00:21:13] Danan: business. Oh yeah. Yeah. I still have managed by stats to this day. So yeah, for
[00:21:19] Todd: anybody that doesn’t know Managed by Stats provides basically analytical dashboards and such
[00:21:24] Announcer: for your Amazon business. Yeah.
[00:21:27] Danan: Yeah. But yeah, so. Sorry, I’ve, I kind of went on a tirade about how I got started and stuff, and yeah, all of my knowledge up to this point made it so that I could get into the, the, the business sector that has, has spun into existence because of all these Amazon sellers and I’ve been able to help more Amazon sellers.
[00:21:53] So managed by Stats was, I was there for nearly five years. I loved it. I loved helping the people. I love meeting, I absolutely love meeting sellers and like everyone’s got a unique entry story and, and, and a unique, uniquely different problem in their own way to expanding. And I just, at this, at, you know, today I have such an enormous number of contacts into the Amazon area with.
[00:22:22] Influencers and softwares and, and service providers and stuff like that. I’m, I’m. In a conversation I can rattle off like, okay, you need to meet this person, this person, and this person. And and I’ll just do email intros. Like, Hey, go over here for your videography. Go over here for your P P C. Go see this person for this and that and the other.
[00:22:42] And you need money. Good. Here’s three plate. Places to check out. They all have different models for money. See what works for you. You know? And
[00:22:50] Todd: the, the managed by stance is where when we met as well. Because you started coming to the Tampa Bay Amazon Sellers Meetup group. Yeah, I became the co-organizer of, yeah.
[00:23:02] And so you were coming to these groups to learn information, but you are also working for Managed by stats and. Promoting their software and making connections and stuff like that as well.
[00:23:15] Danan: Yeah. So as, as you well remember, we eventually became a, I think we quickly became a sponsor of yours. Right, exactly.
[00:23:23] Yeah, so because I. But ultimately, like, I just, like going, and I, I still go to those meetups, right? Mm-hmm. As many as I can, as often as I can, and I’ll go to any meetup that I can just because like, it’s, it’s very fulfilling for me to be able to help people. You know? That’s, that’s really, I. At the end of the day is I really enjoy helping people.
[00:23:45] So yeah.
[00:23:47] Todd: Yeah, for sure. So the, the moral of that is that you took the knowledge you learned in building your business, which went up, you made a bunch of money, and then kind of went down you know, partly probably do it to the market, and then maybe you were getting bored, like you said you wanted to do other things, and so you took that knowledge.
[00:24:07] And apply that to getting a job in the Amazon industry.
[00:24:12] Danan: I kind of shouldered my way into the first job. I just informed the company that, that I was there and, and that was that. But, and, and just for the record, I still sell today, I’m still a successful seller and I have, I’ve been selling solid for the entire 13.
[00:24:27] Years except for the four months that Amazon shut down all of my accounts during Covid. We won’t go into that. Yeah, that’s always fun. Yeah. So
[00:24:37] Todd: what have you been doing then since managed by Stats? ’cause I know you’ve moved into some other
[00:24:41] Danan: positions. Yeah, so I. Managed by Stats was acquired by Carbon Six.
[00:24:47] During that acquisition phase, I, I transitioned over to Carbon Six as strategic partnerships and just had the opportunity to meet lots of other vendors and, and influencers and, and just people in the industry. And I brought them into Carbon Six and offered, we, we did. You know, co webinars and co-marketing and all that kind of stuff.
[00:25:09] And yeah, so I was there for just about a year and then transitioned outta there and now I’m at Trace Fuse, the director of sales at Trace Fuse. And and I’m starting up, I. For, well, we’re, we’re putting, so here’s a little, here’s a little side thing. As discussed, my wife was operations right. For our Amazon business.
[00:25:31] Well, in 2018, we also started having children. We now have three absolutely stunningly beautiful daughters who are not gonna be allowed out after their 12 years old and kind of lost my operations officer, you know? Sure. And so our, our Amazon’s been running on automatic just replenishing inventory and stuff like that.
[00:25:50] We’ve not been expanding. So for the last five years we’ve been contracting, but our last baby is almost a year old now, and we’re just getting back into it. We just opened up a whole new wholesale account with some partners. I might even open up another Amazon account with three other partners on a adventure outdoor four by four group that I’m a part of.
[00:26:12] And so we’re getting back into it. I’ve started buying inventory
[00:26:16] Todd: again, you’re not thinking to, you know, start a farm or something and go for the 10 kids, 15
[00:26:22] Danan: kids. So I asked my wife that and yeah, we’re done having children. I would, I
[00:26:29] Announcer: get it. I would agree
[00:26:30] Todd: is good. That’s a perfect number, I think. Yeah.
[00:26:33] Danan: Yeah. So we, we actually had planned. I would, I would have as many children as I was allowed to have. ’cause I think that the, the finest, most hilarious, most wonderful human beings on earth, children are just so amazing and so funny. But at the same time, they’re a lot of work. And my wife and I are no longer spring chickens.
[00:26:55] And she’s like, no baby. That this, that third pregnancy was a little tougher on her than it, than the first two. And she said, I, I’m done. So I. All right. Yes, dear. I may be the head of the house, but she’s the neck. She turns me. Whichever way I need to point, you know? Yeah.
[00:27:10] Announcer: That’s awesome though. Building your family for sure.
[00:27:14] That’s a
[00:27:14] Danan: good thing. For sure. But yeah, all that to say is we’re we are getting back in and ramping up our Amazon and on the software side of things and services, all this to say like even if you only had six months experience failing on Amazon, you still know enough. To be able to work at many different software or service companies, you just need that basic understanding.
[00:27:43] Those, those that core understanding of Amazon. And then once you learn a service or, or a software. That’s all you need. And this industry is literally just, I would wager there’s billions of dollars revolving around, well, there’s definitely billions of dollars revolving around the sellers, but on the software and service side, many, at least hundreds of millions of dollars, you know, in that area.
[00:28:09] In terms of jobs, in terms of, of services rendered and stuff like that. Lots and lots of money in this industry. Honestly, I, I wouldn’t even know where to point you to find a job except LinkedIn. Yeah, LinkedIn would be really
[00:28:23] Todd: good. I mean, even if you just search on Indeed, if you search for Amazon and on Indeed, you’ll start seeing a lot of like Amazon account managers and e-commerce managers and stuff like that, which is okay.
[00:28:37] Specific to running someone’s Amazon account and those I’ve seen 60, 80, a hundred thousand dollars or more paying for those positions. But yeah, you’re also right with the software side of things. Like we are onboarding with a new software for our business and there’s a guy that’s walking us through and showing us how to set up our account.
[00:28:58] Let’s say my business, you know, tanked tomorrow. Once I know a software like that, then you can easily just start working for those software companies as well.
[00:29:08] Danan: Yeah, for sure. And, and you don’t have to have success really to, to have the knowledge necessary to help others. It, if there’s a software that can do the most, the majority of the work, and then you can take that knowledge of that software yourself and, and implement it into your own life.
[00:29:25] I mean, that’s what I did with manage my stats, right? Yep. So, and there and there are lots of jobs. Lots of jobs available.
[00:29:34] Todd: Yeah. It’s, you know, it’s like you’re getting a college degree in the Amazon world, so all that work that you’re doing, whatever it is, or if you get to a point and you’re like, okay, I don’t really want to grow any bigger than this.
[00:29:49] I like this as my side hustle. It’s making me good income. I don’t have to do a lot of work on it. Now I’m gonna go work for someone else. I think I’d rather do that. There’s just so much opportunity out there with the knowledge that you learn, and I think a lot of people don’t think of that. You know, they’re just, they’re afraid if they fail, they’re gonna lose everything.
[00:30:11] And that’s not necessarily the case. You’re learning a
[00:30:14] Danan: skill. Yeah. Yeah. Let’s, let’s actually dive a little bit into that failure. I didn’t go into any of my failures and there have been a lot there. I, we have wasted just gobs of money completely.
[00:30:27] Announcer: Every successful seller, every successful
[00:30:29] Todd: entrepreneur has more failures than most people in the
[00:30:31] Danan: world.
[00:30:32] So, yeah, so our very first private label product, I literally put it in the dumpster. Oddly enough, I did sell enough to make some profit, but I still had hundreds and hundreds of units and it was, it was like the iPhone six case. Oh
[00:30:50] Announcer: geez.
[00:30:51] Danan: Okay. Yeah, and I. We still made some profit. I think it was like $90 profit on after everything.
[00:31:00] But yeah, I, I, I put that in the dumpster because then iPhone seven came out. That was kind of done, you know? Yeah.
[00:31:07] Todd: Yeah. The iPhone case is not an industry I would wanna
[00:31:10] Danan: go in myself. No, no. And since then I’ve, I’ve done handmade knives and camping blankets. Let’s see. Oh we had a three step beauty brand called Aquila, which actually I, I quite liked the branding on that and stuff like that, but I just do not, neither myself or my wife, we do not care about beauty stuff.
[00:31:32] Mm-hmm. And we had a partner on that and the partner decided, you know what, I’m, I’m kind of done with this. And this partner had a non, non non-compete that limited what? They could do, and we didn’t realize that that was going to be an issue when we started and ordered the inventory and got all the branding and stuff like that.
[00:31:52] And it went well for a while. But yeah, we’ve done quite a few different private label stuff, but honestly, I really enjoy the wholesale side of things. And Todd, I know that you are almost entirely wholesale. You’re like 90 plus percent wholesale, right? Correct. Yeah.
[00:32:09] Todd: Mostly wholesale. We’re really moving into the exclusive wholesale.
[00:32:14] Yeah. You have experience with, just to get that buy box all to yourself makes a lot of difference.
[00:32:20] Danan: Yeah. I know we’ve had quite a few conversations about that over the last couple years and, and I, I fully support that move and I, I have no doubt you are being, you are doing it in a much more sophisticated fashion than I did literally to this day.
[00:32:37] All the contracts that I have on the products that we sell, it’s a handshake with the c e o. Mm-hmm.
[00:32:43] Todd: Yeah. No, we have a, a written exclusive agreement that’s auto renews every year. If they don’t. Tell us 60 days ahead of time. So, yeah, it’s it’s important I think, to have that in place. Just even, I agree.
[00:32:57] If they decided to be done with me, it’s not like I’m gonna sue them or something like that, but Right. At least you have something in place, what each party is supposed to be doing, and it holds everyone a little more accountable.
[00:33:08] Danan: Absolutely. And I, I, I fully support that 100%. But, Honestly, I, I still like, I’m, I’m talking to a brand now.
[00:33:16] I’m still on a handshake with this brand that I’m talking to right now. You know, it’s yeah, it’s, but also you have a warehouse. You have staff you have expenses, you have all the things that I don’t want, right? Every brand that I’ve ever onboarded, We just send them a shipping label and say, please send this many units to Amazon.
[00:33:42] You know, I have no inventory, I have no overhead. All we, all we invest is a bit of sweat equity. And then we just take our profits out of that now and, and, and it’s all on a handshake. It’s a good old boy system and you know, that is not a good business model long term. If you want to build. Something like what you are building, Todd, if you want a business that does millions of dollars in revenue, and Todd, I think you have pretty good margins.
[00:34:16] You’re around 15, 15 to 30% margins on, on your sales. Correct. So our
[00:34:23] Todd: bottom line net is usually around 10%.
[00:34:27] Danan: Okay. Okay. That’s, yeah, that’s about where I’m at too now. But. No. Any, yeah, now I am. I didn’t used to be, but now I am. Yeah, so, but if you want, like, as you bring more brands on, oh, you’re also buying the inventory up front, aren’t you?
[00:34:45] Correct. Yeah.
[00:34:46] Announcer: So we’ve got about a million dollars in inventory.
[00:34:49] Danan: Yeah, so I have zero expense on my inventory. I get it on consignment. And I just pay it as it sells. So like, these are two models. I fully support your model. It is a much, a much more sustainable model, long-term. I have a friend who is one of the largest Amazon seller, one of the largest sellers on all of amazon.com.
[00:35:14] He’s, he goes between top 50 and top 100. Mm-hmm. And I know you know who I’m talking about. Yep. And he said that he has a 15% attrition rate on wholesale contracts. So, sounds about right. Yeah. So you, you, and that goes back to my, you’re either expanding or contracting. Methodology or ideology or whatev, whatever ology you want to call it you always have to be adding to your, to your business.
[00:35:43] Otherwise, you’re gonna lose 15% per year, plus 4% on, on inflation. And plus any 4%. Yeah, that’s right. What was it most recently last year? Eight. Eight or nine or 12%?
[00:35:58] Announcer: Officially
[00:35:59] Todd: unofficially. Probably more like
[00:36:00] Announcer: 16.
[00:36:01] Danan: Yeah. Yeah. My bills definitely went up. Mo some of ’em went up by double. Yeah, for sure.
[00:36:08] Yeah. Triple when you add, keep adding children. Oh yeah,
[00:36:13] Todd: yeah. Built in inflation right
[00:36:15] Announcer: there. Yeah, exactly. They eat more and more every
[00:36:18] Danan: year. They do. Yeah. And having all girls, they’re gonna require more and more each year too. Absolutely. But yeah, so you know, again, my, my, my ideal scenario is that I don’t have to touch anything.
[00:36:32] All we just have to do is manage the brand. But. It’s not sustainable long term and, and I have 13 years experience to, to prove that out to you. Like I have brought on and lost brands just over and over and over again, and I’m on my last brand right now that’s on a handshake deal that I’ve been, but I’ve been selling them for, shoot, nearly 10, probably close to 10 years.
[00:36:56] I’ve not been able to get ahold of the c e o since Covid started. Literally, I cannot get no text message, no emails, no phone calls, cannot get ahold of them.
[00:37:06] Todd: So I’ve, I’ve had that happen too with companies you’re working with. They just. Stop replying unless you send ’em a purchase order, they’ll reply to us.
[00:37:16] Danan: That’s about it. Yeah. But that’s, and and we do that, like we, we just say, Hey, send this many in. But it’s not, it’s just one of their staff members, you know? Yeah. So I don’t know what’s going on there and why they won’t get back to me, but like they have an additional 55 SKUs that I can be selling. I’m like, come on, let’s do this.
[00:37:36] So,
[00:37:36] Todd: yeah, we’re, we’re coming up on our time limit here. Yeah. But so you, the current position you have with Trace Fuse let’s dive into that a little bit more and then we can wrap it up. Sure. How did you move into that and what are you currently doing with them?
[00:37:51] Danan: Yeah, so when, when I transitioned out of Carbon six I, I really wanted to be either in sales or, or back doing strategic partnerships and This was, I, I, I had been talking to the c e o of Trace Fuse.
[00:38:07] His name is Shane. He’s an amazing guy. I, I really, really have a lot of respect for him. But I’ve been talking to him and, and he reached out to me to help him find someone to run strategic partnerships and then also find someone that could be a director of sales. I didn’t know that he was trying to get me at this time.
[00:38:29] And I’d just taken on a contract. I was like, yeah man, I just, just took on this contract. And he’s like, oh, great. Dang it. ’cause that call was where he was going to offer me a position and I had no idea. And once that contract was done, I just reached out to him like, Hey, are you still looking for.
[00:38:49] Director of of sales and, and, and someone to do strategic partnerships. He said, yeah, I am. I’m like, okay, hypothetically, if I were available, would you want me? He’s like, A thousand percent, yes, you’ve got the job. I’m like, okay. That was a fairly easy interview. So, yeah, the, the rest, the rest of course is, is details.
[00:39:11] But I am, I’m the director of sales, but given my network in the Amazon community, I’m also strategic partnerships. And, and I’m about to a, after this podcast, I gotta shoot him a text messages, Hey, listen, I need to take over affiliates as well. Because it really, strategic partnerships and affiliates, they go hand in hand, you know?
[00:39:33] Yeah,
[00:39:33] Todd: for sure. And, and I mean, we’ll have to probably get together again and maybe do a whole podcast on what Trace Views does, but let’s give us a high level overview of what
[00:39:43] Danan: they do. Yeah. So basically what we do is remove negative reviews from your products that violate Amazon’s terms of service.
[00:39:52] So, we’ll, we’ll download all your reviews We’ll, Look at how many critical reviews you have, which are one, two, and three stars. And as long as you’ve got 500 critical reviews, we can take you on as, as a customer and we’ll start filing cases for you and, and our, basically our AI’s gonna run through that and spit out all of the cases.
[00:40:14] All of the reviews that violate Amazon’s terms of service. So these would be things like pricing information, competitor information, shipping, F b A related foul language and stuff like that. And we’ll start filing cases on that through your seller central account. And I. Basically provide Amazon with all the information saying, Hey, look, Amazon, here’s this review.
[00:40:35] This is what it says. This is the section of of your to o s that it violates. Please remove this review. Right. It actually goes a little further than that. I. And where we do like these racketeering cases, we call like a RICO case, right? Where we will find these accounts, our, our AI’s looking for anomalies in the data where, let’s say Billy in Tucson and Beth and, and LA and George in New York all write exactly the same review with the exactly same punctuation.
[00:41:09] On the same day or within a couple of days of each other, we start making that connection and we’ll actually build an escalation case and send up to Amazon. And our, our craziest story yet is that we had 177 reviews removed in one escalation case. Oh, wow. You can imagine was leaving negative reviews.
[00:41:29] Yeah. You can imagine what like that seller’s b s r and, and daily sales went bonkers. Mm-hmm. Absolutely bonkers. But yeah, so that’s what we do. And, and for anyone that’s listening to, to this, if you want to know more, just reach out through Todd and, and you can get ahold of me. Yeah, absolutely.
[00:41:50] Todd: Where, what, what’s the best place where someone could reach out to you if they wanted to get ahold of you directly?
[00:41:56] Danan: So if they want, if you wanna get ahold of me directly, it’s dayon@tracefuse.ai. That’s my email. Although I do recommend that you just go to our website, trace fuse.ai, and right as soon as you get on there, there’s, you’re gonna be able to, to book an appointment. ’cause it may not be with me ’cause we’re actually building a the c e o and I are building a sales team right now.
[00:42:17] But yeah, so just book an appointment and we can go over your critical reviews and. And what we do and pricing information and, and, and all of that. Yeah.
[00:42:28] Todd: Sounds good. We’ll put a link to that in the show notes as well. But sure. This has been really good Dan. And I think you know, people are really gonna see that the knowledge that they’re learning on Amazon, even if they fail, you know, air quotes, right?
[00:42:42] ’cause every failure is a learning experience. They can take that knowledge. Get into all kinds of different types of jobs, if that’s the path that they choose. So nothing that they’re learning here is gonna go to waste if they, you know, work hard, learn the knowledge and put it into something
[00:43:01] Danan: productive.
[00:43:02] 100%. If I could just close out with a couple of couple of statements I’d like to make, if that’s okay. Okay, cool. Number one. It’s always the right time to get started now. Number two, there is room for you whether you want to be a seller or whether you want to be in on the service and, and in the, on a job side of things.
[00:43:25] Number three, this place is expanding, not just Amazon, but e-commerce in general. So, you know, if, if you think you can’t find a job, well, I’m afraid that you’re just not doing it right and you’re not looking hard enough because they’re out there. So I. Don’t be afraid to fail, use it as a learning experience.
[00:43:45] You know, like the light bulb wasn’t made perfect in one day. That I think, I think that he had hundreds of failures. Yep. And I’m paraphrasing here, but essentially what, what he said when he was making light bulb was, I didn’t fail. A hundred times I figure out a hundred ways not to do it again. Kind of sort of like that, right?
[00:44:04] Yep. Yep. And so your knowledge that you’re learning and have learned up to this point is valuable and usable in order to generate an income for yourself. So I urge you to just take action. ’cause you, you miss a hundred percent of the targets you don’t shoot for. Absolutely. I
[00:44:22] Todd: agree a hundred percent with everything you said there, so I think that’s a perfect place to wrap it up.
[00:44:28] I appreciate it, Dayon, for you coming on the show. My pleasure. Look
[00:44:32] Danan: forward to talking to you next time. Thanks buddy. Good to be here. Thank you so much. This has
[00:44:37] Announcer: been another episode of the Amazon Seller School podcast. Thanks for listening. Fellow Amazon seller, and always remember, success is yours if you take it.
