Motivating a Virtual Team and Ramping Up Amazon Business with Sean RK Artwork

Selling From The Beach

If you are ready to talk about all things selling on amazon and other online markets this is the show for you. Tune in as Rob and Marsha talk about online entrepreneurship and designing a lifestyle that you can create with the freedom that e-commerce allows. Since July 2016 these two Canadians moved and live full time in Costa Rica with their two young boys, to live out a designed lifestyle they started back in 2012. This show will give you strategies, tips, motivation and some inspiration to grow your online business. If you have not yet started, perhaps this will give you the push to start your first online business.

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Selling From The Beach

Motivating a Virtual Team and Ramping Up Amazon Business with Sean RK

September 24, 2020 • Rob Cosman • Season 1 • Episode 2

In this episode, I sit down with Sean RK to discuss his journey from starting out selling online all the way to now having a warehouse, virtual and domestic teams and turning down too many business opportunities. We chat about motivation, leading a virtual team, mistakes along the way including a common wholesale one, and so much more. Sean also reveals that he has purchased not one but five homes for his virtual team members so tune in and get ready for a masterclass with Sean RK.

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[00:00:00.690] - Rob
Let me ask you a question. Would your boss ever buy you a house? And this episode, I chat with Sean R.K., an online seller who just purchased not one but five houses for his virtual team in the Philippines. Stick around to hear more about building and motivating a virtual team on this episode. Cue the intro music.

[00:00:23.930] - Rob
Welcome to the selling from the Beach podcast, where we talk about selling online, making money and creating a lifestyle that you want recording from the white sandy beaches of Costa Rica. Here's your host, Rob Cosman. Today in Episode 002, I'm talking to Sean R.K., who's a wholesaler and private label seller on Amazon and Etsy. We talk about managing and motivating virtual assistants, tips for getting wholesale deals, expanding into a warehouse, and some mistakes he made along the way.

[00:01:02.140] - Rob
Listening to Sean's story and how he explains his business just so casually just amazes me what he's achieved in such a short time. He's a great friend and always willing to offer advice. And this episode is packed, some awesome nuggets and motivational discussion. Let's get right to the podcast.

[00:01:20.500] - Rob
Hi Sean, welcome to the show. So excited to have you on today. Thanks for being here. Can't wait to get into it.

[00:01:26.360] - Sean
Hey, man, thanks for having me. I'm actually quite excited to be here and hopefully I can give you know something valuable to to your listeners today.

[00:01:34.870] - Rob
Well, episode two, I don't know how many listeners we're going to have, but it will live for a very long time. So I'm sure other people will come back and listen to it once they find it. I've binge watching, so hopefully we will have some listeners but

[00:01:46.170] - Sean
Sure, awesome if it's just one it's fine. You know, if we just just touch one person out there and help them out. And I think, our, my mission at least will be done.

[00:01:55.630] - Rob
OK, so this is a podcast. We were also filming some video. And for those of you can't see it, Sean has a very nice background of A swang, tropical palm tree and the beach. And it's almost like he is at the beach like me. Except I think you're actually at the warehouse, right?

[00:02:11.860] - Sean
Hey, you know, it's a bit windy, but yes, I am at the warehouse right now, and I wanted to get in the vibe and in the heat of the beach. So I decided to put a green screen and put a nice beach background. And it feels, you know, it's a bit warm right now and

[00:02:28.150] - Rob
Beautiful.

[00:02:28.800] - Sean
I have a little fan next to me, so it does feel like I'm next to the beach

[00:02:32.500] - Rob
Tropical. OK, well, I don't even know. It was trying to think about this when I first started. OK, who am I going to talk to who's got a ton of knowledge and, you know, just fun to chat with and I'm always learning from and you immediately jump to the top of my list. It's very short list, but it jumped to the top. So

[00:02:50.080] - Sean
Awesome.Appreciate it.

[00:02:52.410] - Rob
You know, and I was trying to think, like, I don't even know how we ended up in the circle of friends. I'm not sure how is introduced to you. I think it might have been a couple of people in our network and

[00:03:02.410] - Sean
yeah, you put me on a spot here, I don't really know, but I think it's just through the different groups that we were part of. And then we kind of see each other's posts. And I could probably look back in our messenger. I probably read something about accounting and things like that. And we started exchanging on that. And I you know, and then with some people that you talk with, you kind of connect right away.

[00:03:23.110] - Sean
And I think me and you just kind of wanted that connection.

[00:03:26.620] - Rob
Yeah. So

[00:03:27.940] - Sean
I can't recall, like, honestly, I don't know.

[00:03:30.160] - Rob
Yeah.

[00:03:30.790] - Sean
And that's kind of cool, to be honest.

[00:03:33.340] - Rob
It is funny, right. I have no idea when we kind of but Sean actually has a little small group with some super elite people and somehow I seem to weasel my way. And you know, we're just a small group that talks. And again, as we always say, your network is your net worth. And Sean actually hosted a meet up. He rented a house in Toronto one time and had a bunch of people come over and told us some cool things about private label and walked us through some of his research strategies.

[00:04:00.220] - Rob
And I wasn't looking to do a private label. I've done a few, but I'm like, hey, half of the attendees are pretty smart. I should I should probably go. And, you know, I actually flew from Costa Rica and I went all the way back to Toronto and came to the event. But the good thing was a bunch of my clients were also in your group, so I saw them at the same time.But

[00:04:16.730] - Sean
Yeah, you were leveraging the meeting to meet with your customers

[00:04:20.140] - Rob
or to write that after business expense, that trip.

[00:04:22.390] - Sean
Yeah, exactly. The man I do miss that meeting.

[00:04:25.870] - Sean
You know, obviously with the current situation, we can't set it up right now. But the goal was to do at least yearly or twice a year. And then I set up where people are just very, very relaxed, comfortable and and just talk business, connect and just talk about life in general, because from the last feedback that I got was it was for most people was just man, it feels such they feel so good, are so nice to see other people that are either striving or struggling with some some problems that you're going through in your business and just sharing the problem or the issues with someone else.

[00:04:58.960] - Sean
You don't have to find a solution right away. But just sharing that, you feel you know, you feel relieved and you feel like, OK, well, there's there's a community there, people, friends I call business friends that becomes good friends, great friends that, you know, you can rely on in this realm, even digitally. And to be honest, most of my friends are from Amazon sellers, friends. Like it's so odd. Like

[00:05:21.460] - Rob
Your friends of all your friends evolve over the years, right?

[00:05:24.190] - Sean
Yeah, for sure.

[00:05:24.880] - Rob
Everybody, you know, your friends aren't necessarily the same friends you had from high school because you kind of you know, you go through multiple phase of evolution and you get new friends depending on where you are in your phase of life. And, you know, quite often a lot of people, their circle is their work friends. But for us, you know, we don't really go.

[00:05:41.630] - Rob
To an office, so, you know, trying to get work, friends, they all seem to be people on the Internet, which 10 years ago might sound really creepy, but now it's I have great connections with a lot of people online that I I mean, I don't know the last time I ever talk to you like like this, you're just talking as opposed to typing, right?

[00:05:59.240] - Sean
Yeah. I mean, it's odd right. I mean that you can feel someone's energy through Facebook Messenger chat and you kind of connect and trust that person. It's got odd, but kind of risky as well. But, you know, talking to you today, I don't feel like. Any stress, it feels like I'm just right next to you and we're just talking and and we have topics that we were both interested in and we can handle a conversation about business or anything in life. And that's that's the fun part of networking.

[00:06:26.810] - Rob
Totally. OK, so let's just go back to that, because obviously a lot of people don't know your background right now. How did you get into online selling? What did you do kind of before you got into it? So if you can just take a little bit. Well, the origin story,

[00:06:41.510] - Sean
I mean, business wise, I've always wanted the business like ever since I was 15 and 16. I always I remember just walking down the street and I still have that image. I'm like, one day I'm going to own my own business. So that was kind of the seed was planted in my head since I was 16. How how I would get to owning and running a business, I don't know. And to be honest, it kind of just hit me four years ago when I started selling on Amazon in 2016.

[00:07:08.690] - Sean
How I got started, it was I've I've reached a point. I was working for a online marketing company. They do offline and online marketing and I was a senior manager of operations in their digital department. But at one point I've reached a cap where I'm like, this is the maximum that this is the maximum that I can do in terms of my personal growth in the company, the corporate ladder, and not in terms of financially, but more like the motivation of reaching out for more and doing more.

[00:07:42.170] - Sean
That was kind of the cap. So once I reached that point, I started to think, OK, so what else can I do now? And I started looking online like what are the online selling trends? And I stumble across selling Amazon, Amazon FBA. I'm like, what is this? And then I just saw that Amazon manages all the logistics, all the customer service. And what I had to do was to find products in bulk and send and buy cheap and send it in and see if it sells and that at that moment it clicked.

[00:08:10.820] - Sean
That was my first big Aha moment. And yeah, I mean just from there everything grew on the Amazon FBA site, just I just started to learn about selling OA, RA I did thrifting to be honest. I started with RA and then I did thrifting and then I did OA Online Arbitrage and then, then I did wholesale and now I'm doing mostly partly what I would say. 95% would be private label today.

[00:08:38.430] - Rob
OK, so it was there's something at work in your job and you're just like the kind of collector hit and you're like I I can't do this anymore. I need to figure out with a side hustle is or I want to evolve or.

[00:08:51.020] - Sean
Yeah. I mean like honestly I wasn't one of the I guess the people that really hated their job or anything. I actually really enjoyed my job. Like I had projects that I my my my role was to bring in like innovative product product project into the business and kind of see how we can grow the business itself. I want to talk about business was my previous job, but at one point it stalled because of all the. Shift and change in the structural changes of the company, and at that point I felt like I was dying, like I had energy and I had things to give to the company.

[00:09:22.890] - Sean
And then it was just like a heart stop. And also at one point in a corporate ladder, you hit like a plateau very quickly. And I was at that plateau where it's not only a financial plateau, but also a knowledge and ambition plateau. So that's where I started to die, basically, because once you reach that plateau, you you don't move anymore. Like, OK, well, this is now routine, right. And routines are great.

[00:09:45.090] - Sean
But if it doesn't help you evolve and at that point, I really felt like it was just like, OK, well, this is no longer for me. And I stumble on Amazon and I just want to say I just got addicted in a way. Right to to to all the knowledge of online selling and specifically on Amazon. So, yeah, and that's that's my original drive. But what my I guess I felt for the trap of I think a lot of people do is overanalyzing it before jumping in.

[00:10:11.740] - Sean
I think it took me three to six months of just researching and trying to learn everything about Amazon and selling online before I just opened an account, which if I look back today, I'm like, man, you were freakin dumb. Like like you're you're you're the senior manager in a big corp. And the need took six months to actually figure out how to, you know, not figure out how to open an account. Actually, sending my first box to Amazon took me easily four hours.

[00:10:39.420] - Rob
But it's worth it and I listened, I list to people that want to jump in and they're like, I'm just going to outsource to a prep center everything right away. But I always tell them we do it yourself first. Yeah, just get a little bit of confidence by a few things at Wal-Mart like do RA do OA whatever you need to do the thrifting. Just learn and understand how to prep stuff, how Amazon works, how the shipments work.

[00:11:02.100] - Rob
And yeah, it will take a long time. Obviously, the first time you do something is always more challenging, but by learning it, then you can measure what others do and hold them accountable. Right.

[00:11:10.700] - Sean
Yeah. If you once you have something you need to try to figure out, like your brain will tell you, we need to figure out how to send in a shipment. We need to figure out how to open an account, how to open a corp, how to set up, I don't know, Quickbook and things like that. Right. Once you have that objective in front of you, I guess that's where you will take action and actually achieve that objective.

[00:11:30.540] - Sean
But if you're just overanalyzing all of it, it becomes like this overwhelming mountain that your brain will tell you, you know, what do this sounds like something impossible for us to do. Let's just put that aside and continue what we what we normally do. And that's just resistance to change. Basically, you know, we're all resistant to change somehow. And you just have to overcome that and then take it a step by step. Like a lot of people come to me and and like, hey, you know what?

[00:11:56.700] - Sean
Can you show me how to sell on Amazon I'll pay you for you to coach me? And to be honest, I just tell them, hey, you know what? You can actually learn to send in a box and things like that on your own on YouTube and send in the first box and see the traction get going and then you'll get the motivation. And if you do get that to that point, then we can talk again. And then maybe I can guide you into taking other steps for you to actually grow your business.

[00:12:21.060] - Sean
But I need to see or I'd like to see that there they can get through that first step first before I actually invest my time helping them in that sense, if I. You know what I mean, right?

[00:12:33.680] - Rob
Oh, 100%. I mean, the amount of people that have said, you know, oh, hey, what do you do, how does it work? I want to learn more. You're like, OK, well Google just start very simple.

[00:12:42.660] - Rob
There's lots of great free information. Obviously you've got you know, you've got a sift through a lot of junk to find good stuff or buy a course or whatnot. But the fact is there's information there enough to get you started and without going too crazy, right?

[00:12:55.640] - Sean
Yeah. I guess the first the first thing is that I develop even when I was working at my first job is Google and Google, that like the first reflex you need to develop as an entrepreneur and being resourceful is Google.

[00:13:10.410] - Sean
Whatever question you have, just ask Google first, try to figure it out first, and then go to your community on Facebook and things like that to ask for additional answers because you can't figure out on your own on Google. And that's fine. And sometimes I feel like I'm like this jerk that always tells people to go on Google and search. But some of the questions are just too basic that, yeah, you should at least Google, you'll find it a lot faster than waiting for someone in the community to answer you.

[00:13:36.570] - Rob
Oh, yeah, but especially abbreviations. I find those are the funniest when I see an abbreviation and somebody like what does that mean. I'm like literally highlight it, search Google. Chances are it's going to come up.

[00:13:46.030] - Sean
Yeah. Yeah. abbreviation is a you use it a lot in any, any sectors of any industry and and it does become confusing at one point. But yes, Google is there for for to answer those those questions too.

[00:13:58.020] - Rob
OK, so when did you decide you're going to quit your job, so you ramp it up, you're doing RA you doing some OA you're doing some thrifting. What was the tipping point? When was that day?

[00:14:07.560] - Sean
You know what? I've been lucky in a way. In 2018 they went through a reorg but before they went through a reorg I was planning to quit on August. Hopefully they're not listening to this today, but they went through a reorg and I was on a list of the people that they were going to let go and Yeah exactly.

[00:14:28.750] - Sean
In February and March. Yeah. Yeah. Because all the projects that I was working on and I told you that at one point I reached a point where my motivation was not there anymore. All the projects that I was working on are frozen because of corporate stuff and things like that. And in Feb, I think it was in February, I was let go and I was going to quit and in August and I was let go with a package that would take it until August.

[00:14:51.180] - Sean
Oddly, everything kind of timed it. And life did tempt me, to be honest. Like I left in February, about a month or two after I got a call from a friend I work and she offered me, Do you want to come work with me as a consult? Right. And, you know, we all know consultants do they make nice hourly pay. So I was very tempted. I think the offer was around. I don't know.

[00:15:17.010] - Sean
I can't remember maybe 150 to 200 an hour like a mandate for like a year or something. So that's that's coming from a God that's been doing nine to five being offered. That was kind of my dream. That was my dream when I was working at the corporate world. And then I was offered that and I said no. I said no. And I think it was around May or June. I said you know what no, I'm going to make this work, this is like a one in a lifetime kind of opportunity where I have a package that would take me up until August and I can focus 100% on my business.

[00:15:50.030] - Sean
And I think in 2018, that was a tipping point in my business, which is not too far ago. Feels like 10 years ago, but like just a year before, not till 2019 right and that was when I launched my first PL. That was the year that I launched my first PL. I didn't know what I was doing, and that PL today is my bread and butter. It's the number one bestseller that I have in my list of private label products.

[00:16:14.580] - Sean
So had I return to work and said yes as a consult, maybe my life would have been super different today. Maybe I would have missed out on that PL, maybe I would not believe in private label. And man, that was kind of the best decision that I made. And I'm I'm kind of really proud of myself because normally I'm very tempted by those offers. But I said, no,

[00:16:35.940] - Rob
It's super hard, right? I mean, you're given a great opportunity. And I did the same thing and my wife did the same you know to me it's like if you can get that package into the corporate world, that's your shot. I mean, it's so difficult to say, OK, I've got the full job, everything's good now and quit and you quit and you've got two weeks or one week or whatever, and you're done and then you got to make it. But to be given that, you know, a little bit of severance and a little bit of that runway, that's your chance.

[00:17:00.480] - Rob
That is such a good opportunity. Now, as you said, that's the best time to have a go at it. But also look at the temptation and say, oh, it makes a really good money. Is this going to work out or not? All that self-doubt starts to creep in. But I mean, you hit a grand slam on your first one, which, again, great, great job, but

[00:17:18.660] - Sean
A lot a lot of distraction, to be honest, for the first grand slam, because I was told that, you know, from from people that I consulted with that, hey, you know what?

[00:17:27.000] - Sean
This is not going to make a lot of money either. You should give it up or don't expect too much out of it. I don't have the right numbers right now, but it's you know, it's generating anywhere from eight hundred to a thousand USD in profit every day. So, you know, it's insane. Like, I look back and my goal was to make a PL that makes like 500 bucks of a thousand dollars a month. And it definitely overachieved that today.

[00:17:49.560] - Sean
But I was I was I was thinking about like, you know, if this one works, then let's let's continue to hit the nail and let's build on the momentum. Right. And talking about making jump to full time, because a lot of people, like a lot of people, are contemplating I mean, when you're at the tipping point, if you don't have the whole package and things like that, I used to believe that you don't need to be full time to be successful, but that's what I used to believe.

[00:18:13.560] - Sean
But it's not the time like full time or part time. I think it's the dedication. Like once you're fully, fully dedicated more to your business than the growth and everything else will come, because it's not just about spending time on your business, but it's everything that's around it. You'll build a network of people you do business with because you're full time. People will see you more. You're exposing yourself to more opportunities because you're full time and you don't miss out on.

[00:18:40.220] - Sean
Anything that could be exposed to you when you're doing it full time, whereas if you're doing a part time, then you might be missing out on those opportunities, that could be the trigger for you to actually excel in your business. And it could be business partners. It could be business ideas. It could be somebody who has something that you were looking for just just sometimes a trigger. Right. You know, we talk I talk a lot about aha.

[00:19:00.410] - Sean
Moments like those. A trigger for you to actually I don't know how how to explain it. Like light up a fire on an idea and you actually go and get that idea, make it work. It is scary at first because I had a mortgage and things to pay obviously. But you know what, at the end of the day, what I told myself was, hey, I can I can always find a job.

[00:19:22.410] - Rob
Right.

[00:19:23.300] - Sean
Like my knowledge is there, my background is there. My experience is there. I can always find a job. Right. But I cannot always find this moment in time to go ahead and launch my business at the right moment with the right energy. Right. I can't say that right now. I have the energy to do it, but I can't say the same for maybe next month, next year, like. You got you got to work on that momentum now if you feel that you have it right

[00:19:48.450] - Rob
And that mindset

[00:19:49.900] - Sean
and the mindset

[00:19:51.230] - Rob
Right. I mean, you know, you can read all kinds of stuff about the mindset and vision boards and all that stuff. And but the fact is, you know, you have this window, you have this opportunity, you know take it now and try it. And what's what's the worst case? If everything went absolutely terrible and you lost all your money you put in and you know your account got shut down and then what? OK, I still got a mortgage.

[00:20:12.640] - Rob
I got a couple of expenses, but I'm gonna find a job. I'll go back to the network. I'll clean up the LinkedIn profile and, you know, update the profile to Rob Cosman is a few opportunities to congratulate Rob. You know how sometimes people do that and look for a job now. But I mean, that's your worst case, right?

[00:20:31.070] - Sean
No regrets on my end. Like, really, really none. And I just wish everybody the same, you know?

[00:20:36.970] - Rob
But I will ask one thing.

[00:20:38.320] - Sean
Yeah sure.

[00:20:38.390] - Rob
It comes up a lot that now because I see all kinds of different sellers of different levels of success and make that jump to full time. You've also got to have in this business in selling online. So physical products, you've got to have enough capital. You've got to have that built up nest egg. So how did you get to that level? Was it just rolling all your profits over and reinvesting them and kind of building it up?

[00:21:00.460] - Sean
Yeah. So basically I started with thrifting OA and RA, which is less capital intensive at first. And you roll the capital and you build up your capital pretty fast. I started with a budget of four thousand dollars roughly in 2016, right at the end of that in capital in and you know, tools and things like that. I really went for it like I started my business, I incorporated. And I'm like, well, make it work. Right?

[00:21:28.240] - Sean
Just just I didn't go with OK, I'll do it on my own to see if it works like I've seen people succeeding. There's proof if these people can do it, I can somehow do it too. So I went ahead and just incorporated from the get go. But to answer your question, from a capital perspective, this is personally just me. I leveraged a lot. Like in my business, a lot of the money is either loans, investments from families and friends and personal investment who like I load up my credit cards.

[00:21:54.330] - Sean
Once I started to see that that the formula works and I'm like, well, you put in 10K, you get in 14 back. OK, well, let's put in 100K to get on in 140k back so that I would get closer to replacing my, my, my revenue at that point. Right at that time. So yeah, I'm still like the business has big loans today. Even all the projects that I have, even my, my advertising is all is all paid through money from other sources and I'm OK paying interest like I'm OK, paying high interest if I know how to spend the money and grow the business. Right.

[00:22:28.770] - Rob
Yeah.

[00:22:29.290] - Sean
Some sometimes you know, I make a mistake and you know what? The return on investment just paid off the loan and it didn't work out as much.

[00:22:35.370] - Rob
But it's measured, calculated risks right?

[00:22:37.550] - Sean
Yes, exactly

[00:22:38.580] - Rob
Know the tolerance then, you know, you're like, OK, this is an acceptable risk. And you're also you're building up the confidence as you go that you're making the right decisions and not going too deep. You know, you're diversifying, right?

[00:22:49.350] - Sean
Yeah, correct. So I am I am diversifying. And you mentioned, you know what? If your account gets suspended and things like that, I have my backup plans. You know, you built a great network. You built local network as well. And if you build it nice, partly brand, then you can redistribute that locally or to other sellers if anything happens to your own account. I am blessed with you know great friends locally and online that I can trust, and they trust me.

[00:23:12.450] - Sean
And we've already talked about this. And sometimes, yeah, we do like, you know, stress. What if my accounts get shut down now you have this much money invested in it, right? Well, if mine gets shut down then I have a plan. ABCDE, EFG and and Plan Z would be to go back to work like that would be like the last on my list man.

[00:23:30.390] - Sean
I would sell stuff on Kijiji, Posh, Facebook and whatever just, just to, to get by and not go back to a nine to five. Not that I hated it.

[00:23:40.470] - Sean
It's just I've seen better.

[00:23:42.540] - Rob
Dude. The amount of skills you've generated and you can read copywriting for people's listings and, you know, optimisations. And there's all kinds of things you do is a multitude.

[00:23:49.680] - Sean
Yeah, there's all different plans. Right. So I'm not worried about that. And I think it's a fear that's very, very imminent. And everybody's talking about it. And to be honest, not that I want to shut my like my eyes on it. I just don't want to give it more attention than it than it deserves.

[00:24:05.760] - Rob
Every business has risks.

[00:24:06.990] - Sean
Yeah

[00:24:07.080] - Rob
It doesn't matter if it's on Amazon, if you're selling anywhere. I mean, everything has a risk and it's just trying to mitigate those risks. And then when you face those hurdles, you know, diversifying, how do I get around it as opposed to, you know, OK, I'm done. Now, we've got to figure out the workaround. I mean, one of my businesses all of a sudden we were going to cross the border between Canada, US and Trump trading some rules and our products have reclassified and we couldn't sell it for like two or three weeks.

[00:24:32.370] - Rob
But we figured out a solution. We got around it had a back up and you move on. It makes it obviously you learn a lot more and then you kind of dive a little deeper into your business and you kind of do a bit of a gut check. But,

[00:24:45.160] - Sean
Yeah,

[00:24:45.480] - Rob
you know, if you plan for enough contingencies to a little to some degree, I mean, you can't plan for everything, but if you don't, you always kind of take calculated risk, measure your tolerance, OK, what's the worst case?

[00:24:56.100] - Rob
What's the best case and make, you know, calculated risks, right? Yeah.

[00:25:00.320] - Sean
I mean, when people come to me and like, I'm worried about my account getting shut down, my first question is, what's your plan B? Like and if you don't have one, yeah, it's normal that you're stressed out to think of a plan B, you know, you know, and people forget that they can still go back and get a job for some reason that's like, oh, my God, I can't, like I said, business.

[00:25:19.700] - Sean
And then I can't find a job after like, no, you can find a job, you can start again. I think the the fear or the stress that comes out of it is more like maybe fear, failure, feel fear of being judged by others because you fail because your account got shut down. Maybe, but that's like. I mean, that's another discussion.

[00:25:39.320] - Rob
I did judge you even just going into, you know, selling things online and, you know, even the basics, I'm sure when you were saying you were thrifting, are you doing RA or OA.

[00:25:49.490] - Rob
I mean, now people look down on them that I used to go to thrift stores. I used to buy, like, Guitar Hero. Sorry if you flip these, but you know, those guitars from the back of the deck, you buy them for like four bucks, something like 80, 90. It was great. But, you know, you're rooting through dirty toys like suck glamorous. But it's fun.

[00:26:05.490] - Sean
Yeah. To be honest, like when I started doing thrifting the first time I went into a valley village here in Quebec, Canada, I was I was really shy and like, I'm this guy, you know, working in the corporate world. And that made it, you know, as a nice position. And then I go through a thing after work and on weekends finding books and reselling online. And people were like, when I tell people, how do you why do you do it?

[00:26:32.840] - Sean
And first. At first I'm like, I'm not sure myself, but people do it at work. So I'll try. I then I sell books. I sold the calculators, you know, things that people were saying that it sells really well. So I did all of that. And then looking back, I'm like, man, that's that's not only like a life experience, it's like overcoming what whatever the heck people might think of you and just getting to the point of making money and running a business.

[00:26:58.970] - Sean
Right. And for me, that was kind of. It was almost like a like a hobby at one point I'm like, what am I doing now after eating all this is good good get some thrifting. Let's see where we can find. It's like treasure hunting like I look at it that way, and you know what, sometimes it's dirty, it's not nice and things like that, but you get over it. I try my my best my best find was $5 or $10 book in a random thrift store, and it sold for three ninety five $395.

[00:27:29.550] - Rob
Awesome.

[00:27:30.480] - Sean
Within a month or two or something like that. And I was in Vegas, I just, I lost a couple hundreds. I'm like, OK, I just need my money back.

[00:27:39.260] - Sean
Remember I was walking down to like, you know how I got the trains. When you land in Vegas to have the trains to get like Station B or or C or when you leave, I can't remember, but I don't like what is this like 395? Like $39.50? No. $395. And it was some I don't know some, some some medical book or something like that.

[00:28:02.130] - Rob
That's awesome. OK, yeah. Let's go. Where is your where's your business now. Can you describe what

[00:28:08.030] - Sean
you mean like physically or.

[00:28:10.050] - Rob
Yeah. Just describe where you're at now because like I said, you have a warehouse but like. Yes, the details. You've got some VA's. You've got you know, like how it is?

[00:28:16.890] - Sean
OK. Yeah. OK, so recently. Right. As you know recently, just two months ago, man, it feels like two years ago, two months ago, I randomly decided that I wanted a warehouse. So it came to me because my friend, we were just passing by our house and it's like, hey, you were looking for a house. And I was just looking to move my inventory from Lockers Warehouse like you were. You just like just residential lockers into like a warehouse that I could actually go whenever I want.

[00:28:45.480] - Sean
And that's heat and things like that. And so I'm located in South of Montreal right now. So that's where the warehouse is. The main reason why I got the warehouse first was to store inventory to better manage it because I'm very visual as well. And the second purpose was to grow the Canadian market, because I think the Canadian market is like this big gold mine that's just ready to be mined. And I think people are passing on the Canadian market, a lot of people, because everybody's talking about the U.S. market.

[00:29:17.490] - Sean
Right. So but my Canadian sales grew to a decent size. And my strategy with this warehouse was to I was actually not even planning to come to this warehouse that much. But now I'm like here every day, like, it's insane, it's it's like. That's my routine. I wake up eight, nine, sometimes 10, to be honest 8, 9, mostly 10,

[00:29:41.400] - Rob
you know, you don't have kids. You have a dog, right?

[00:29:43.600] - Sean
I have a couple of dogs. I don't have kids. But now I wake up, you know, around nine, 10. I have employees now here to the does, assemblies and bundlings, private label and wholesale and things like that. Right. So I have to be here as a boss manager and things. Not a regular schedule, but man, I love it. In a lot of people are like,

[00:30:04.610] - Rob
how big is the warehouse? How big the warehouse?

[00:30:06.420] - Sean
The warehouse is 2400 square foot.

[00:30:10.630] - Rob
And how many people do you have on site? Kind of working out

[00:30:14.190] - Sean
1, 2 like four or five at a time. Yeah. So my brother's here with me. I got on and off to three employees. They mostly work part time. So I'm like, it's very flexible. I just told them we need to do this. You know, this week we have this much to do and this clock in as many as you can clock out, because I have I have enough items to be assemble.

[00:30:34.500] - Sean
I'm not in a rush. So, like, I always have more inventories and than the sales. So I'm not in a rush. And since we're close, we're close to sending, you know, inventory to Canada and in the US and it takes a couple of days to send stuff, either Canada and US, sometimes US . It's actually faster. Another reason. But I'm not I'm not rushing them. It's mostly how I look at it. It is mostly like return on the investment, like how much I pay them every day.

[00:31:00.750] - Sean
And let's say I priced it in a dollar per unit, like as a labor cost into your unit and my head, just to just assemble 50 bundles in a day. Actually, I'm actually my return on investment is actually good already. So and 50 bundles in a day, it's less than two hours. So everything I do above two hours for me is kind of bonus. That's how I see it. So I don't want to stress them with performance and I don't want to stress myself with extracting every juice out of my employees because I don't want to do that.

[00:31:31.020] - Sean
I mean, I didn't want people to do that to me, so I don't want to do that to other people.

[00:31:34.290] - Rob
Are they friends and family or are these people that you actually get there?

[00:31:38.110] - Sean
Yes, they're friends of family. I mean, I have my nephew well, indirectly, nephew, my brother's here and the other one is like a brother of a very good friend. So it's people I trust, people I. I want to help them grow their knowledge if they want to. But, you know, for example, my nephew, he's he's he's OK with just doing what he does now.

[00:32:00.480] - Sean
But but I'm like, if you want to grow your knowledge in terms of selling or anything else, you know, just let me know. I can teach you the same thing for my friend's brother. I'm actually going to teach him how to be like product management. So, you know, doing the whole part of research, finding suppliers, you the whole part, they were processed basically from the product to manager, a line of product for me that I already have the supplier and everything.

[00:32:23.730] - Sean
I just don't have the time to extract all the potential from that supplier.

[00:32:28.470] - Rob
Yeah,

[00:32:28.950] - Sean
yeah, it it's such a nice environment. You come in and you have people here working throughout the day. You have people coming in, the delivery guy from the front and the back loading dock. I don't know, it's just very dynamic and it was super empty. And now we've renovated the front. The second floor is being renovated as well. And it's to be honest, it's just a fun project at this point.

[00:32:50.850] - Sean
It's grown beyond what I thought it would be, which was just storing pallets. And it's also opportunities just came in flying like we got people that want us to sell their products, we have wholesalers that I want us to be their exclusive partner, and they distribute a lot of brands. So right now, it's really just really overwhelming. And we also find. We found a local supplier for a product that is actually cheaper than importing from China. So, yeah, it's, you know, product made from wood locally and we're supporting the local business and their production times superfast.

[00:33:29.180] - Sean
Yeah, I don't know, it's. It's kind of branched out into not only one opportunity, but but know like so many and I guess that's why I make a lot of posts like that. Either I'm tired or either I'm busy like a cat, like I need to skip calls and things like that because I actually need to rest, you know, like, you know, when you get to that point, I'm like, OK, you know, tone down, take that.

[00:33:50.930] - Sean
You need to rest mentally and physically.

[00:33:52.940] - Rob
Yeah, that's a it's a big thing, I think with a lot of entrepreneurs, especially in the online space, there's so many opportunities that come up and, you know, it's easy to get distracted and chase everything. And you just want to do it all because you see so many opportunities. But trying to prioritize and say, OK, you know what, I pass on this. It's not totally the right fit. There's going to be another one coming right away.

[00:34:11.750] - Rob
Yeah, you'll find something else.OK,

[00:34:14.680] - Sean
So it's just like sometimes it's not the right fit at the right time. It may be later. Right. Because a lot of people for private label, it might just not be the right time. You still growing your capital and you don't you're not willing to take the risk now. So you're going against your your momentum. Let's say if you're building a wholesale momentum and you're in within that moment, everything works while you have these wholesale partners.

[00:34:34.520] - Sean
And and here comes like, oh, why don't you look into private label? Maybe it's just not the right time, but when you you've established good prices for your wholesale business and it doesn't take you much to maintain it, then yeah, you can maybe grow other ventures on the site, such as private label and things like that.

[00:34:52.190] - Rob
Yeah.Hey, I got a box of supplies in here for private label line that I've looked at and the other decent samples, but I'm not my priority.

[00:34:59.640] - Sean
Yeah,

[00:34:59.840] - Rob
I'll get to it if it's on the list. But OK, so that's your local team. What do you have for your kind of the cloud team, the virtual team, because I know you've done some really neat things there. So tell us,

[00:35:10.740] - Sean
yes, I have five virtual assistant in the Philippines, two in Manila and three on an island called I'm going to attempt to say Bacolod. It's an island in the Philippines. The first one, I found it through a referral and I train them. And then every second I phone him online. And then we did an interview and I just trained all of them. From there on, I have five of them, they are actually currently working on sourcing and finding private label products, I started to teach them, you know, OA and and things like that.

[00:35:49.940] - Sean
But I didn't shifted to like, OK, if I invest enough time to grow these guys is knowledge and skill set. You know, once you see the potential that they can actually do it. And I think you have to believe that they can they're not just data entry clerk like they they have ambitions. These are creative and and all that, too. So I give them any projects of private label. I assign a budget to each one of them and man every every day or every week to like.

[00:36:17.030] - Sean
Super happy, you know, I don't want to say like, oh, they're very great fun, things like that, but like I can sense the energy that they're like, oh, we're so blessed and, you know, and things like that. So I feel great to be able to give that opportunity to them. But I'm also, you know, I'm demanding I'm like, guys, you need to move on. Right? You need to get the ideas done.

[00:36:36.980] - Sean
Man, if you if I was able to, you know, just to show you some stuff that they've done, it's like phenomenal. Like like. I wouldn't be able to be able to think of that they come up with a product, ideas that we discuss that list to other product ideas, and I'm sure they're capable of more. But I want to train them the right way and give them time to actually absorb the fact that they have a boss that gives them freedom of creativity and also almost like a boss that trains them as an entrepreneur within the business.

[00:37:09.140] - Sean
I think they're still having a hard time grasping that, that I don't manage them from eight hours a day perspective. I manage them from a performance perspective, just that I think they're still trying to absorb that. And here I add another layer of like performance basis because I sign them a budget and we're going to launch the PL and we're going to do profit sharing.

[00:37:31.490] - Rob
Cool

[00:37:32.590] - Sean
You know, there will look like a trailing kind of commission that they'll get moving forward.

[00:37:36.890] - Rob
And how long how long they've been with you

[00:37:41.110] - Sean
To recently. Came on four months ago.

[00:37:43.990] - Rob
Oh, pretty new.

[00:37:45.070] - Sean
Yeah. Yeah. And we'll see. The first one is to a little bit over two years, the second on a year and a half, third one about a year and then the other two is for four or five months ago.

[00:37:56.520] - Rob
OK

[00:37:56.960] - Sean
But, but I think once you connect with them on a personal friendship level, you, you automatically know if it's going to work out or not. And I think if you're able to break that, I'm your boss, you're my employee mentality, give them more room to grow and actually monitor their growth, then you can actually see where the potential is and you can help them grow on that path. Hopefully they'll stay within your business if you treat them well and pay them well enough.

[00:38:27.150] - Sean
But at the end of the day, like you want them to be. To to have their own path and career and be happy, basically, essentially, right. So, yeah, I mean, oh, yeah, we also bought sorry, not bought, but we made a deposit for five houses in in in the Philippines because I do give them like a monthly allocation for rent once they've been with the company for over a year. When we start looking at like rental allocation and the rental allocation that I gave them was around, if I can say like one hundred, 150 years a month and they were able to find like land and houses to be built in a year or two for that amount of money.

[00:39:05.990] - Sean
So we got five.

[00:39:07.550] - Rob
That's awesome.

[00:39:08.420] - Sean
Yeah. One will be used as an office. Three will be owned by the three that was with me. It's been with me like that's been with me for over a year. And the extra one would probably be just an extra honestly I just like decided to get five just to get the land lot and probably I'll get more if it works out.

[00:39:28.270] - Rob
That's awesome. You're having your own satellite office compound kind of thing.

[00:39:32.920] - Sean
Yeah. Yeah. And and one of the VA's, she it was funny because she's like, well, my dad and all that doesn't believe it first. But then I showed him the message that you're going to buy five to ten lens and then he's like, oh, he's not kidding. And then her dad just her dad is I guess he's well known and or well known in the area. And, you know, he went to talk to the land, the real estate agents and things like he's working out on deals to be sure that we're going to get those five houses built ASAP.

[00:40:04.460] - Sean
Right. And. I probably will visit those lands eventually, but like in my head, it's just so fun, it's like it's like, wow, I mean, here's a path. Yeah,

[00:40:16.680] - Rob
but you can do it like it's not huge stack of money, but it can make a world of difference to staff to employees, to friends right

[00:40:25.820] - Sean
At them, they're like, this is like a dream come true a little bit too fast, right? So the way that I look at it is, yeah, it is an investment.

[00:40:35.400] - Sean
And for me, I know that they're loyal. They'll be with me for a while. So I'm going to nurture and train them so they can contribute to the business and they can grow on their own, too, and have the financial kind of freedom that I'm looking for as well. Right.

[00:40:51.000] - Sean
So at least sharing my happiness with my team as much as I can,

[00:40:54.910] - Rob
just as you said, a little bit of additional money or support or friendship. Can make I find the VA so loyal like I have one girl? She's she's fantastic. And I mean, she's been with me now for like three years she only works halfday because I'm not that organized enough to get a full time. But funnily enough, when I first got her, she was split with another seller.

[00:41:14.280] - Rob
We did it through this program. So I don't even know who the other seller is. But I have her for my mornings and she's been great. And I mean, she got married and I'm like, yeah, she was going on a holiday to Disney Land over there. I'm sure I'll pay for tickets, like, things like that. Right. I'm just like and she's like, oh my gosh, that's great. I had to write like a letter of employment achieved across the borders and things, but hugely loyal now.

[00:41:39.030]
So appreciative. And the funny thing, if she ever listens to this, I mean, I have a log into a screen capture. Right time doctor. And I've had that set up on day one and I think interactive like the first two weeks. And now I just get her to do a lot of different tasks and then stuff that if I don't sign or anything, she just defaults to. Here's a task you can do at any time.

[00:41:59.430] - Rob
She's sourcing, does accounting for me, whatever. And you talked about growing people. You know, I said, OK, do you want to do some accounting, do online, some of that? Like yeah, absolutely. Sure. And the funny thing is, I, I don't know how to log into time doctor. I haven't logged in and checked your screenshots in like three or four years. And every week I get the summary like, oh, here's the activity.

[00:42:17.850] - Rob
And I'm sure there's a whole lot of data in there, but I don't know, I just trust her. She gets it done and she keeps doing it.But, you know,

[00:42:24.360] - Sean
I think that's the level of trust that you want with all your employees.

[00:42:28.860] - Sean
If you can if you need to monitor an employee and making sure that they do their job, it's kind of you're in a path of maybe that employee fit with you or the business is not not there anymore. I really hate micromanaging. So I just make sure that the aura is there. So one of the VA, she actually managers are at his door and I wouldn't have launched it if somebody was not managing the Etsy store. Right. And I think just the Etsy store and profit pays for like three VA's.

[00:43:00.410] - Sean
So in my head. She's already covering for three VA salary than anything, any work that is extra that she's doing in terms of she's actually creating listings, I sent her like courses that we found on copywriting. She's also now taking classes on photography, doing like short videos and things like that. And she's super, super motivated. And yeah, if you continually train them and how do you lift them up. Right. Help them and lift them up and show them the path until they become like self-sufficient in terms of learning and things like that.

[00:43:34.050] - Sean
And they can achieve so much like things in greatness that you'd be so proud of. And it because beyond of like just an employee. It's almost like somebody you're mentoring within your business. But I think if anybody is listening to this right now, if the relationship with your employee is more of a draining energy than like lifting energy, then then you might you might start to look at, you know, disciplinary actions and things like that, and you might start thinking of letting go or, you know, things like that.

[00:44:03.920] - Sean
So perfect energy for it. It would be like somebody proactive wants to learn, wants to contribute motivate like positive. Sometimes they lift me up. Sometimes it's like, hey, Sean, you know, can can we get a team meeting, it's been a while. So I'm like, yeah, sure, let's talk. And then we just had a team meeting. Today is Wednesday is every time we have a team meeting. I try to do it every week now.

[00:44:27.750] - Sean
So we have like a face to face, like you and me today meeting and I it's all video cam and things like that. And I can see their reactions and I can tell if they're tired. I can tell if they don't understand. I don't know. It feels more and more like closer like there they are remote but it feels very close.

[00:44:46.160] - Rob
Yeah. Especially the face to face, like actually seeing people online and working with them for so long. It's just it's the norm. I mean, Zoom is the norm now.

[00:44:55.460] - Sean
Yeah, yeah

[00:44:55.840] - Rob
That's the new norm, finally. But we don't all need to go into an office and sit in the same conference room to achieve results. Right.

[00:45:04.260] - Sean
But they soon will like I bought a house just for that. So they didn't make an office. And, you know, we're going to I mean, I'm done a decorator with them, like virtually and things like that. And they'll send me photos. It's going to be a nice kind of teamwork environment over there. And they can use the backyard and things like that for their personal needs because it's actually five like five land. But they're all like connected.

[00:45:26.100] - Sean
So they all have like the back the backyard is all the same. So it's like two extra backyards for them to actually do whatever they want with the land, just helping me manage it. And it's just, you know what? It's just it's been a great experience for me and for them, I'm pretty sure, too.

[00:45:44.280] - Rob
Well, yeah. Especially if they're sticking around. I mean, that's that's pretty phenomenal. But, you know, it's funny when you get back to just not that $150 or $200 like. It still is a chunk of change. It's nothing,

[00:45:55.740] - Sean
yeah,

[00:45:57.330] - Rob
it can be such a massive difference. Right. And do people in different countries that are working on different wages and create that loyalty just the extra? It's super powerful, I think.

[00:46:08.360] - Sean
OK, I'm actually looking forward to for them to move in and take pictures of the new houses. And it's the new house. It's not like a rental like it. It's being built and it takes 12 months to build it. So

[00:46:19.640] - Rob
I can't wait till every house has a nice painting of you somewhere in it, you know, search on under it because they all call you Sir, right?

[00:46:27.460] - Sean
Oh men, yes, you're right. I took it takes me it took me about four, four months for the first ones to, like, stop calling me sir. And then they just started calling me Sean. And you know what? It feels more like family than than work. And you know what I would hang out with with them, like in real life, too.

[00:46:43.400] - Sean
Like, they're really nice people, so. I wish everybody that to find that connection with their employees.

[00:46:51.540] - Rob
All right, let's switch gears a little bit more. So you've got your warehouse where, you know, take us through a couple of things I always like to ask is take me through something that didn't work out. I don't know if it's a disaster or something that was pretty challenging. And because we tend to learn a lot from our failures or things that didn't work and then how you overcame it and how it actually resulted or maybe didn't overcome it.

[00:47:17.270] - Sean
I mean,

[00:47:17.690] - Rob
I asked Max the last one and he told it was something No, still stuck get twenty and hundred years you can't do anything with

[00:47:24.640] - Sean
Till the biggest. I guess the lessons learned or failure was when I started doing wholesale, I felt like. I felt like I had to buy stuff from the wholesaler to build the relationship. I still do feel like that today. Like I feel like, oh, you know what? If I buy stuff from this wholesaler, he's gonna to see I'm serious and he's going to start seeing that I'm building a relationship. It wasn't true for most cases at the beginning, they just wanted to sell.

[00:47:52.410] - Sean
So I would actually buy something knowing that it would not make a lot of profit just to get the account going, you know, even if it's just 10 percent or 15 percent return. So one of my first failure was to order 4000 or 5000 dollars worth of goods. And that was like in the first six month. So that was quite a big failure for for the first six month of like running a business, because six four thousand dollar was a lot at the beginning.

[00:48:18.630] - Sean
The product was delivered and shipped it into Amazon and Amazon was selling on it. Other distributors were selling on it to in the States. I mean, I managed to liquidate, but the lessons learned from me at that point was. You don't have to make an order just to build a relationship like you don't, you can you're the shopper like me a little bit more. I don't know how to say it a little bit more picky in the products that you're going to buy and resell so that you make money.

[00:48:46.420] - Sean
So I didn't I probably lost a couple thousand dollars on that order, just didn't like logistics and reshipping. But that would be like one of the lessons that I learned at the beginning that I can remember off top of my head. The second one was, and this is a hit or miss and private label. If you source product from China and you sell it, there's always a risk of Patent Infringement and design Patent Infringements and all that and I imported I did.

[00:49:13.600] - Sean
I can tell people what the product was is. I think it's commonly shared as well. It's a felt letter boards. Somebody you know, somebody I think somebody talked about that I don't source felt letter boards and the numbers are great and things like that it actually worked out for me, like the product that I sourced was actually pretty unique. The letter board was more of an old school type look, and I made a nice bundle and it started to sound like really well in the USA and even better in Canada.

[00:49:40.200] - Sean
The issue was when I started when sales started to pick up a competitor filed for a design patent. Just like a couple of months after I started selling to protect his frame, he painted a frame. Like, you know, picture frame,

[00:49:59.510] - Rob
yeah,

[00:50:00.100] - Sean
I'm like, there's no way he can patent in like a picture frame, right. But he managed to do it and then mine was too similar to his. I was able to actually get the patent, remove Patent Infringement removed, twice, three times.

[00:50:15.310] - Sean
And the fourth times, for some reason, it's stuck in an Amazon, just left it there and I wasn't able to sell the product anymore. Unfortunately, I had about eight thousand worth of inventory at that point. I was going to move them to Canada, but then I just decided to like, you know, don't put too much energy on it, just eat the loss. And I did the whole removal disposal order and just destroyed the inventory.

[00:50:40.450] - Sean
I could have like like, I don't know, like illegally. I think I could have fought back.

[00:50:44.890] - Rob
But those are like that's birthday presents. Christmas presents that presents everybody. Every friend you have should have one of those now for either Christmas or a birthday or an anniversary,

[00:50:54.130] - Sean
Yeah Yeah not a much.

[00:50:58.150] - Rob
So what do you what do you do now that to avoid that potential?

[00:51:01.690] - Sean
I do a lot of of like making sure my design is is not something that's available right now.

[00:51:07.900] - Rob
Did you actually use a lawyer or somebody to review things first or what do you do?

[00:51:12.520] - Sean
Not like not the tests orders? Like I just I just make sure that whatever I put online is not yet available on Amazon. So the odds are that I won't be infringing on anybody's design. And to be honest. His design was a bit different than mine. It's just similar, and I think legally it could have fought back.

[00:51:33.920] - Sean
But I'm like, you know what, for $10,000, I don't want to get more trouble in my account. I'll just move on to other products, lessons learned. And the product was heavy and the supply was I'm not even sure if supply was sustainable. So there was a lot of weak points at that point. So I'm like, you know what, let's just let it go and move on to other products. And I think that's.

[00:51:55.660] - Sean
Part of like being an entrepreneur is, you know, I talked about it today like it's nothing, but when it happened, it was like a big hit to me. I'm like, man, it's like a thousand dollars used here that you just flushed down the toilet. Right.

[00:52:09.670] - Rob
Right. But willing to say, OK, you know what? Take the loss. It sucks. But is this do I really want to throw more money into this? Where could it go again? I always measure things. What's the upside? What's the downside to the upside is you continue selling it. But the downside could be it's going to cost you another 10 grand, 15 grand, the legal fees. And every time you pick up the phone, call a lawyer.

[00:52:30.880] - Rob
You know Is it really worth it? Is that the fight that you want to go down?Right?

[00:52:33.250] - Sean
Like all the headaches that I would like generate and it would not have been worth it. And to be honest, maybe I needed that in my path to, like, really focus on developing things that are customized a little bit more. I want to say customized. It doesn't have to be like super, super customized, just just something that looks different than what's available right now.

[00:52:54.130] - Sean
And yeah, a lot of the stuff that I do spend a lot of time customizing, I do fault with design patents.

[00:52:59.950] - Rob
Let's go back. And the first thing you were talking about was wholesale. And I want to talk more about creating an order, taking a little bit of a loss and just kind of getting the money flowing. I, I still think that there is some value in obviously placed on first order, but a lot of people open up wholesale accounts and never actually place an order because they also just quickly look through it and they don't see anything really easy that's profitable and anything that they do.

[00:53:22.240] - Rob
Look at the listings, terrible or really high rank, they just pass on, which is some of the best stuff, in my opinion, to go after. So, you know, the test order or spending a little bit of money, I think your point is just don't spend a whole lot to kind of get some some things going. Right.

[00:53:37.830] - Sean
Right. Right. I mean, he was telling me you need to buy at least two pallets. And for him to be able to ship, he probably wasn't lying. It's just that his logistic was not supportive in the way that online sellers would operate, trying to test small orders. So I did say yes because I thought it would lead to other things, but it didn't. You know, that was my bet in terms of like networking and making sure that if I grew it or not, I still believe wholesale there's a lot a lot of untapped opportunity, like insanely a lot, especially when once you learn the the knowledge from private label and you're able to interconnect everything, because if you forget about wholesale, OA and private label in general, if you forget all of that, those are those are the labels that we put on selling on Amazon.

[00:54:24.880] - Sean
Right. That's the community. At the end of the day, you're trying to find a product and trying to sell on Amazon. You can use historical data and make sure that it sells or you can start off with the search data, the search volume, and actually take a wholesale product and ramp it up on Amazon, even if the whole if the wholesale products not even there yet. And you'll be first to market. Right. And then if you're first to market, then maybe you can start talking about maybe some exclusive with the supplier if it's not like Legos and things like that.

[00:54:54.110] - Rob
Yeah. Oh, totally. But again, it's the smaller brands and the more niche stuff or the little things that aren't there aren't good or you know, just there's no FBA offers that kind of thing. Right.

[00:55:04.880] - Sean
Yeah. I think from a wholesale perspective, like you remind me of when I was really, really, really into it, I did that. I open a whole set of like I had a list of wholesale accounts I had to tackle. Like it was almost like not cold calling, but kind of like I need to get through this list. These are the wholesalers. Let's get these accounts open. But I had the second set of okay, perfect. Today I need to make an order for each wholesale accounts that I open just to get it going, just to show them that I you know, that I want to move the inventory and things like that.

[00:55:33.460] - Sean
And even today, I have wholesale accounts that I haven't tapped into just because of lack of time. Oh, yeah, they have products in their catalog that are not fully optimized on Amazon and still selling their products in their catalog that are FPM by some random seller somewhere that is selling. So. So two things is doing wholesale is the first trap or the first mistake, I think. I did is only looking at products that exist and that are already selling.

[00:56:03.890] - Sean
Doing that, you like operating with one eye on the right, because you're not looking at the opportunities of the products that are not yet online or the products that are online not selling really well because they're not optimized and nobody's doing ads for them. The list thing sucks. So if they're online and they're already selling, you have something that you can go on and they're not not selling a lot. You can optimize the listing and make changes and things like that.

[00:56:28.490] - Sean
Given that you're no, you know how to do it. And if they're not online, then you look at the data in terms of search terms and things like that, and you leverage the brand to actually launch that product on Amazon, right? I mean, the whole the whole wholesale product, there's many other different ventures. But for me, that was like the kind of three three ways I would look at wholesale. It's like take the products that they're selling and sell it as is.

[00:56:52.820] - Sean
If you're making money, great. Take the products that. That is currently not selling really well, but it's already created, enlisted and see if you can do something with that, that will be your face to at the wholesaler phase you at the wholesaler. It would be take a products that don't exist on Amazon and but appears to be having a good sized market use tools like, you know, the different tools that are existing right now, like very large and helium 10, tend to look at the market and see if there's potential for you to take that product and and put it on Amazon and test it.

[00:57:21.660] - Sean
Right. The cool thing about wholesalers is you can test low quantities and

[00:57:25.480] - Sean
yeah

[00:57:25.550] - Sean
the orders, right?

[00:57:26.820] - Rob
Yeah, small, small, calculated risks. And it's also worth a little bit of investment because you can reorder. I do with online stuff to online arbitrage, but I have to do it on wholesale. I'll put in two or three others by two or three of an item. So have it hunts. If it does, since I sell one I'm already reordering.

[00:57:44.580] - Rob
That's a good indication. Right, because then, OK, we want to keep that momentum going even if it's not selling that often. But I know it will. Yeah. Keep going with it. But the other thing that I think too is people are scared to do it and more difficult the higher the reward usually. But you've got to pick up the phone. If you've got an account rep, you've got to try to bro it. I always say, bro, I can do whatever you want, but you've got to just get on the phone, just chat of it, make them laugh, crack a couple of jokes and then be like, what am I?

[00:58:12.490] - Rob
Golden things I love to do is like, dude, what do you got from last year's line.

[00:58:17.630] - Sean
Yeah,

[00:58:18.720] - Rob
right. Yeah. What's last year's model? Because your retail store is the brick and mortar stores are only during the current year because our Amazon selling the current year stuff and last year's model, especially for me, I do a lot of shoes I can tell which shoe you know usually is this last year's model this year model. I don't know

[00:58:36.880] - Sean
Yeah

[00:58:37.650] - Rob
Yeah. What do you got? Do you need to get rid of you can't sell to anybody. So cut me a deal on it. And I know the chances are all those retailers that might be selling on Amazon or Amazon selling it themselves, they're probably not there now and that guy needs to move it and you can squeeze them on it because he's not worried about channel conflict and you know matching the price or anything else. like dude, but he got you know,

[00:58:59.130] - Sean
and there's always a last year model, you know, I know what people are like, but then they run out.

[00:59:04.020] - Sean
Right. Know there's always a last year model. And one thing that people don't do it and I don't know if it's available like people know it or not, but I do. This is hey, you know, you have liquidation this. If you don't ask, they wont tell you and do you have any upcoming promotions for Halloween, Christmas, like sometimes they just don't send it , they only send it to people that ask them or selected number of customers that they're used to sending it out to.

[00:59:31.090] - Sean
But if you ask them about their upcoming promotions, what he got like bundles and deals for Christmas, for Black Friday and things like that, if they are and I guess if there are established most of the time, if they have a marketing team, they would follow all all the holidays and make sure that they move their inventory throughout these holidays and that you could get a lot of extra percentage off or deals in bundles like, hey, we made this bundle, all these products in this package because they want to liquidate it.

[00:59:57.370] - Sean
Right. I think that is something that's worth giving a shot. As I said, do you have a liquidation list, things you want to get rid of, similar to you. But I guess the question is kind of asked differently, because this is like the stuff that they want to liquidate either this year, last year. But I think your question is actually pretty cool, too, is like, do you have anything from last year? You're not selling

[01:00:15.340] - Rob
it's the same thing and then you put yourself as a hero. You're like, dude, you know, if you give me a good deal, I'll get it out of your warehouse. It's not selling. I'm helping you out. Suddenly you're doing them a favor. You owe me one, buddy.

[01:00:26.530] - Rob
I'm taking your breath. OK,

[01:00:30.280] - Sean
pick up the phone and call is. I don't know why people are so scared of it, like even me, like I like to talk in general, it's just like, oh, I have to call or he's calling me. I don't know. It's probably just something that we've as a society decided to feel like a call. This is such a hassle.

[01:00:48.540] - Rob
Well, especially when you're going to make some small chit chat. Sometimes you don't want to. I know like GoDaddy calls being the check in, everything's OK. Like I don't want to talk to you, man. Like it is. OK, but, you know, a wholesaler, if you've got the account rep, if you're lucky enough to get an account rep, you know, go with it, like and read things like I have a wholesale one of my wholesale accounts.

[01:01:08.520] - Sean
I emailed her and I got an office saying that she was in the warehouse in Jacksonville doing some stuff. And I was like, OK. Then she came back and she was sorry I was out and I said, Oh, yeah, how's Jacksonville? You know, and asked her a few questions. This was just on email. But the fact that I read what I read office said and it was details like, oh yeah, ha ha ha.

[01:01:26.340] - Rob
This that, you know, and actually I got what I wanted and we made some jokes and I also told it,

[01:01:32.280] - Sean
that's how you become memorable, right. Because you are able to pinpoint something personal and connect with that person on that. And it works all the time.

[01:01:41.370] - Rob
Simple little details. And even if they tell you something about, like their favorite sports team or the dog's name, like write that stuff down, we have a list here. You know, my wife and I have a shared memo. And when we were first moved to Costa Rica, we're meeting all these people and you get all their names and you try to remember that you meet someone. We wrote down their name and a little bit of notice who they're there, their neighbors here, the people that live here, they own this restaurant.

[01:02:03.040] - Rob
They're the waiter here. And then you walk back, we're like, oh, that person's there. And we call it up and you walk back in, you're like, Oh, hey, Bill, how's it going? You know, they don't remember your name, but you look like a superstar. So just taking those those notes from people and their names and just being sly enough to look it up and like, oh yeah, Bill, he's the guy in the red car.

[01:02:21.490] - Rob
Perfect. Just simple things like that that, as you said, creates that memorable experience.

[01:02:26.180] - Sean
Yeah Then you connect. Yeah.

[01:02:28.050] - Rob
OK, right away. Did I pick your brain on a ton of stuff and we've it even know how long it's been. But can I just one thing I always like to do because we talk about lifestyle too in the lifestyle that you've gotten out of selling online. But what are some of the lifestyle benefits you've got? What is I think you've told us you told us a lot of kind of current now, but I mean, you're working a lot hours, but it sounds but you message me and it's like I am just leaving the warehouse now.

[01:02:54.720] - Rob
It's ten or eleven. I mean, that's you're working late, but still tell me the good lifestyle stuff.

[01:03:00.570] - Sean
Oh, yeah, sure. I mean. So from like the freedom that it comes with it, right, I'm here until 10:00 because I choose to I have fun at the warehouse, like we have fun talking to you right now. I have fun coming in every day and dealing with issues and whatever. And something like for me, that's not work.

[01:03:18.910] - Sean
I think I made a post like define what you mean by work, like the number of hours and things like that. And if you go into a business that you enjoy doing or any work or anything that you enjoy doing, it's not work. Right. So I really have a blast every day. My time flies every day. Like I could be on a beach right now if I really wanted to, depending on the whole logistical covid and all that.

[01:03:42.790] - Sean
But I enjoy being here. So I think it's that's the number one thing that I was able to get is doing whatever I want, when I want with whoever I want. Right. If I wanted to, I can shut down the warehouse for a month and go on vacation and still pay my employees.

[01:03:57.160] - Rob
Come on down. I'll take you to the beach here. But, you know, you're always invited

[01:04:02.100] - Sean
For sure. I mean I mean, that's part of my plans, actually. Hopefully I can come and visit you. It'll be a surprise visit. I'll just say make sure you're there.

[01:04:09.760] - Rob
And what what's the next 90 days look like your business going on a Q4?

[01:04:16.480] - Sean
Q4 man, It's ramping up a lot because I got roughly 20 PL coming in. So for all the PL's I got to make listings pictures and like, I'm rushing a bit right now. So my time is very, very.

[01:04:28.480] - Rob
That's 20 different PL items not,

[01:04:32.030] - Sean
Yeah

[01:04:32.380] - Rob
That's 20 different variations .

[01:04:35.110] - Sean
And within that, there is a couple variations. I'm a big fan of variations. So once you hit a good big seller, then you add more variations, the easy way for you to add money on to your revenue stream. But the next 90 days looks like it's gonna be a little bit of a rush because I did over source like I like. That's how I work is I, I create a bottleneck like, OK, here's the volume, that's influx of volumes coming in.

[01:05:00.270] - Sean
They'll figure out how are you going to get rid of all of this inventory right? It's kind of like how I work as I create a lot of work and then I figure out if I need to hire people and things like that to get those products out. It looks like a lot of launching products. It looks like a lot of a sending products to Amazon, Canada and US. And it also looks like a lot of training for my employees.

[01:05:21.220] - Rob
Are you worried about the the limits imposed on Amazon right now with SKU's?

[01:05:26.350] - Sean
with the warehouse? No,

[01:05:28.180] - Rob
no. You're just going to drip feed to then?. Are you going to.

[01:05:30.190] - Sean
Actually, it's a good coincidence, to be honest. Like the warehouse, the whole limitation doesn't really scare me because, yes, I can drip ship to Amazon.ca and amazon.com. And I think that's an edge that I might have for Q4 is yeah, my warehouse will be jam packed, but I can drip ship as they sell and I'm OK. You know the limitation. I think I'm gonna bring it back a little bit. You know that the way that I do private label is no, it's not more than like a five hundred.

[01:05:57.750] - Sean
MOQ order at the beginning. Right. And Amazon's limits right now, it's two hundred units for any new SKU's, but you can create two shipments. At least that's what I was able to do, is that you can create a first shipment, 200 units and you can create a second shipment right away. Two hundred units. So if you launching products with 500 units. You can already send in 400 units. Yeah, so I don't think that's an issue with the way that I that I do private label right now, but it would be an issue for people that want to launch like a thousand 2,000 3,000 units first or the reorders.

[01:06:34.680] - Sean
My reorders are OK. Like, I'm able to send in a roughly six month worth of units of any existing SKUs. So for me, the limitation has no no impact. Your little impact. Yeah, yeah.

[01:06:48.900] - Rob
I'm somebody who is asking the group about prep companies, you know, going into Q4. And I think everybody is worried about the prep and they want to scale and the shipping time. But like, these prep companies just can't ramp up. It's not like they can add an extra 10 or 15 employees and everybody's going to get jammed up. I think, you know, I'm seeing the post now about it was a world craft. And, you know, like these guys are all they just can't get stuff in there and they're receiving times.

[01:07:13.140] - Rob
And, you know, it's already starting to back up. I mean,

[01:07:15.630] - Sean
It's everywhere. I think we saw it coming when the first time Amazon started to, like, check and stuff like three to four weeks after. And sales will just grow with Amazon in Q4 just because people are used to buying more Amazon now. And if Amazon back is backed up all the prep like. I think if you see the trend that everybody's going to prep companies, it means the prep companies are going to get overloaded, too, right? Maybe they'll be able to ramp up if they're very, very well established in the process, those like strict and golden, but ramp up in terms of space.

[01:07:51.960] - Sean
That would be a bottleneck for them. Right, unless they already had that space before. So, yeah, I do anticipate a lot of a panic for for like, hey, my items are not checked in my Amazon. I check them at the prep company and think about customs to customs delays. You know, if everybody is rushing during Q4. So you got the whole Q4 delays for logistics already, right? For every year you get it, you know, covid or not covid.

[01:08:20.190] - Sean
And are you going to get that? Plus the other delays with Amazon? And don't forget that there's also delays with UPS is going to be added to that delays from the other freight if you're sending in freight. So for sure, I would plan at least a good 30 days buffer. That would be minimum. You know,

[01:08:39.230] - Rob
you got to plan the cash flow and you've got a plan which sending in.

[01:08:41.490] - Rob
And I also think I talk about the Prep. I'm lucky enough. I have a lady who does my prep and that's all she does. So, you know, I've got a mini warehouse, not a Sean warehouse, got a mini warehouse.

[01:08:52.470] - Sean
And this is a mini warehouse right now,

[01:08:54.360] - Rob
I can handle I can handle that. So I'm not reliant and I'm not big enough to ever kind of go to a prep company. And, hey, I'm your biggest customer because, I mean, I'm running a prep company. I'm servicing my biggest customers and not the guy who sent me four pairs of shoes. And it's like, oh, I haven't received them yet. Know. I mean, you're not going to be on the top of the list.

[01:09:13.020] - Rob
But I think that you've got to be ready to do potentially merchant fulfill and ship the stuff out yourself.

[01:09:18.980] - Sean
That, too. Yeah. As a backup.

[01:09:21.240] - Rob
Unfortunately, a lot of items, you know, aren't economically feasible to do it. But if you have those or you know, you've got to plan what SKUs could be economically feasible to do the shipping myself and make the margins on it. Right.

[01:09:35.020] - Sean
But you don't have merchant fulfill it right? Right. Like third party merchant fulfillment that might that might work out, but that they are not doing the whole storage for FBA like they're just third party film for any company. So I think FedEx has it. UPS has it like they have a merchant fullfil type of network as well. So if you want as a backup plan, that could that could be a good, good, good backup plan for you to have that extra edge over your competition.

[01:09:58.860] - Sean
If ever they run out, guess what? The volume comes to you. And if you run out your you're part of that crew that ran out. Right. So it is something that's going to happen. And I've got my orders placed and like, that's fine if I overload a bit,

[01:10:13.070] - Rob
OK, this time next year, what's going to be different with you?

[01:10:16.230] - Rob
We're having the exact same conversation. It's 2021.

[01:10:20.480] - Sean
I'll probably tell. Yeah, I'll probably tell you that I'm not here as much. I'll probably tell you that I have somebody who manages the warehouse, probably tell you that my VA's are launching products with limited involvement for me, so that's my goal.

[01:10:37.800] - Rob
OK,

[01:10:38.790] - Sean
And. I may or may not be in this warehouse next year. I feel like I've outgrown this warehouse already in two months

[01:10:46.840] - Rob
and everybody says that they get a warehouse, I feel like

[01:10:49.410] - Sean
I know

[01:10:50.810] - Rob
I need another one. Are you just making a bigger death piles of stuff that you need to deal with. You don't want it just hides in the corner.

[01:10:56.870] - Sean
You know what, I had a lot of death piles, right? I mean, you remember the kind of pictures I'm like, oh, those are death pile, but they do aren't dead. I just didn't give them a chance to live. And then I saw them. They're like, oh, crap. I did I did sample these. I didn't have a pallet of these. Let me send them in. And then he started selling. And that's also something that I do is sometimes I overload myself and I feel like, oh, this product's not going to sell much.

[01:11:17.780] - Sean
I'm not let's not send it in just now. It's prioritized other products. And it ended up being, you know, in the first week it sold. I think I send in 300 units. It's sold 300 units within a week or two.

[01:11:29.430] - Rob
Awesome

[01:11:29.730] - Sean
and completely new products, you know, and yeah, I mean, this year and next time this year, same time, I hope I'll be telling you more like, you know what, everything's kind of on automatic mode and everybody's knowledgeable in my business.

[01:11:45.090] - Sean
And I'm just monitoring and making sure that that is gross.

[01:11:49.620] - Rob
And maybe we'll be doing a face to face down here in Costa Rica.

[01:11:52.770] - Sean
Yeah, man. Any anywhere. Actually, a face to face. I'm actually I'm actually looking forward to once all of this is done.

[01:12:00.240] - Rob
Well, I'm sure you're stacking credit card points like the rest of us, right?

[01:12:04.260] - Sean
I'm not. Because they don't do OA.

[01:12:06.190] - Rob
Oh, you still do some OA don't pretend like you're end of the game,

[01:12:08.650] - Sean
you know,OA I'm out of the game. OA

[01:12:11.270] - Rob
Really?

[01:12:11.320] - Sean
like, I decided to unplug. It is very tempting. It doesn't mean that I'm not going to do it if I find like a great deal. But I unplugged it and even wholesale, I'm limiting it to whatever I have now and really just want to focus and grow the whole private label product lines. And I'm gonna point Rob where I talk about launching product lines and not just products like once you find a supply, you know what?

[01:12:36.810] - Sean
The manufacturer, you know what they can do and you kind of go with, OK, well, we get first model. It says, well, let's develop a product line for that type of product and really dominate or not dominate, really become visible on Amazon and brand for that type of product.

[01:12:50.590] - Rob
Yeah. And a cohesive brand that you can sell multiple items to the same customer later on.

[01:12:55.150] - Sean
Yes, exactly so,

[01:12:56.740] - Rob
The lifetime value is so much more as opposed to just a bunch of 1C 2C's you know products here and there that have no cohesive.

[01:13:03.250] - Sean
Well, I wish I wish I could tell you that I've grown my sales externally. But right now what's working really well is Amazon. So I'm going to double down on that again for another year and probably I'll tell you again next year. I wish I saw so with more, but yeah, I want to grow my Etsy store. It's something that I think it's untapped and it's selling pretty well. I'd like to grow at least to double the sales.

[01:13:25.620] - Rob
Maybe next time we'll talk about Etsy because I want my business to get started on Etsy and then it's like dead to us now. But you're late and now you're doing great. So it could be an interesting conversation.

[01:13:36.180] - Sean
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I just started listing stuff on Etsy and it's also I kind of know now what people want to buy on Etsy it's just because of the type products I list there. And then I'm just going to develop a whole line of that type of products. Just specifically for Etsy.

[01:13:52.340] - Rob
Yeah, it's great because the product that I was selling, some people can make very similar just as a hobby. And then we found that those people don't value their time because it's just a hobby.

[01:14:02.040] - Rob
So you know why that might take them ten hours to do it and they work back. You know what they're selling it for, divided by the hours. It's like, well, great, you just got a dollar fifty on your time because, you know, it's so it's tough to compete against people that are significant, underpricing something.

[01:14:15.950] - Sean
Right.

[01:14:16.320] - Rob
Right. So that's that was our unique situation. And hey, I can't knock it because Etsy got our products discovered, got it on TV, got it in home depot.

[01:14:26.530] - Rob
And I'll give us a it was a catalyst so I can't knock it. But, you know, it's pretty much nonexistent for us now.

[01:14:32.570] - Sean
Yeah. There you go. You only needed it to that to trigger the rest, you know.

[01:14:37.170] - Rob
Right. Sean, it's been awesome. I, I really appreciate it. I think we've just gone through so many different things and there's so much more to talk about. But I take it up a ton of your time already. Thanks again for coming on. If there's any other questions people want to reach out or tag you probably just post to my group.

[01:14:56.790] - Sean
Yeah, I hang out in your group so you can just tag me Sean R.K. and I'll be happy to answer any questions people may have on any really any topics related to online business and selling on Amazon specifically.

[01:15:09.360] - Sean
And man we could talk a couple more hours if you want. But that's that's just that's just it's been fun. Exciting too. And hopefully, you know, we'll get to meet face to face.

[01:15:21.540] - Rob
Awesome man. Thank you so much.

[01:15:23.430] - Sean
All right. Thank you.

[01:15:24.150] - Rob
Take care Buddy.

[01:15:24.160] - Sean
Take care

[01:15:26.950] - Rob
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