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SNM247: Surviving a High Ticket Partnership with Stephen Somers

• Jonathan Green : Bestselling Author, Tropical Island Entrepreneur, 7-Figure Blogger

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Welcome to the Serve No Master Podcast! This podcast is aimed at helping you find ways to create new revenue streams or make money online without dealing with an underpaid or underappreciated job. Our host is best-selling author, Jonathan Green.

Today's guest is Stephen Somers an Expert in Helping Ambitious Individuals Add 5-7 Figures To Their Income Through Building Their Own Business Selling Simple Branded Products Globally On Amazon.

In this episode, Stephen shares How he started his partnership journey and ended up being a successful entrepreneur.

Notable Quotes

-       "It was business first. I would say friendship second." - [Stephen Somers]    

-       "We started educating because we wanted to see people be successful." - [Stephen Somers]

-       "It's nice to grow a business that you understand." - [Stephen Somers]

-       "But the question is just what's it doing for you in your life? Are you happy? Are you enjoying it?." - [Stephen Somers]

-       "There are ups and downs in every business." - [Jonathan Green]

-       “I haven't missed any of those moments that my dad missed in my life.” - [Jonathan Green]

Connect with Stephen Somers

●       Website: marketplacesuperheroes.com

●       YouTube:  @Marketplacesuperheroes

Connect with Jonathan Green

Jonathan Green: Surviving a high ticket partnership with very special guest, Stephen Somers. 

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Announcer: Are you tired of dealing with your boss? Do you feel underpaid and under appreciated? If you want to make it online, fire your boss and start living your retirement dreams now, then you've come to the right place. Welcome to Serve No Master Podcast, where you'll learn how to open new revenue streams and make money while you sleep.

Presented live from a tropical island in the South Pacific by best selling author Jonathan Green. Now here's your host, 

Jonathan Green: Stephen. I'm really excited to have you here today because especially in Entrepreneurship. And when it gets to high ticket, almost every partnership I know has exploded. My own partnership, huge issue my very first year in business.

And one of the struggles that a lot of people have is they think, oh, I don't have what it takes. And so they grab a partner maybe when they don't need to. So I'd love to know how your partnership journey started and as you work towards bigger and bigger success, we'll talk about kind of how you guys made it work.

Stephen Somers: Sure. Uh, yeah. Well, first of all, thanks man for having me. I'm delighted to be here as well. Uh, so my partnership with Robert Ricky, uh, I've got a partnership with a number of different people now, but Robert was my first business partner, still my What's Call main business partner to this day and the have that partnership started really, Jonathan was, uh, he was my mentor.

He taught me, uh, how to get started in business, how to do everything that we learned to do on, on Amazon. And, uh, we grew a company together because the relationship he had with an old business partner, , had actually imploded. So, uh, we got to know each other really well and me being his mentee, like I just showed him that I was prepared to do what was necessary to be successful in business, put in the hard yards, et cetera. And I think that he really respected that and that's where we became actually really good friends. So it was business first. I would say friendship second, and that's one of the big keys, I think to a great partnership, is that, you know, both people have to bring something very, very clear to the relationship. 

And nowadays, you know, with the different businesses we run, I kind of head up more of the growth and marketing end of things. Robert heads up a little bit more of the finance and structure end of things. So our roles are really, really quite defined and our areas of expertise are very defined.

But as people then I think we really respect each other. Cause we both can see that we care about one another, we care about what we're doing in the business. Uh, we have, we're looking out for each other. We have each other's best interests at heart. Whereas I think sometimes, uh, many business owners and partners, uh, not saying this to anybody in particular, but I've just seen it, they tend to think about themselves quite a lot.

And it can be a very selfish thing. And just like any marriage, cuz it's a marriage in business, just like if you're married to another person, right? There comes times when there's compromise needed. There are come times whenever, you know, both people can't get what they want and it's in those moments, then you really get to understand how well you're gonna operate together.

But we operate really well for the reasons I've outlined. Uh, we don't fall out. I can't think of any time we've ever had a massive falling out, but we've had other partnerships. That have imploded many times and they have come from people looking out for themselves a lot of time not putting the company first really, and looking at, well, what's gonna be best for the company and for the client base as well.

I also think that, uh, a lot of people, they, they just have a feeling like sometimes that someone's trying to get one over on them. But myself and Robert, we have no fear that whatsoever. You know exactly what we're both bringing. And it's, it's all pretty good. 

Jonathan Green: It's really interesting to hear that you have had other partnerships not work out, so at least we know that you're not like a magical partnership guy that you have like this magical skill set because Yeah.

When I think about partnerships that explode the Sinai, usually notice is when each partner both thinks they're working harder than the other one, and this often happens when there's crossover within their areas of responsibility. Like if both of 'em are partially responsible for the same thing, that's when you really start to see things happen.

The only, I only know one or two partnerships that have lasted the 12 years I've been doing this, and those are partnerships where they have really very separate roles. One person's the face and one person's the CTO or one person's COO, one person's kind of operations. They separate operations from presentation.

I think that's really important when a lot of people start out, the most common thing, this is what happened to me, we think I don't have what it takes to do on my own. I know how to do. Like one through five, and I think maybe someone else know how to do six through 10. And when you're in that phase, you don't know what you don't know.

So you pick a partner that mostly you're, you have 'em there because you are afraid. That's what happened to me. And I think that in a lot of people when they're starting out, and I see this in a lot of early phase partnerships where people really early on go, oh, I can't do this on my own. I think it's because of like a fear, maybe a fear of entrepreneurship.

Right? Or we're afraid to be on our own. Really, the thing about entrepreneurship, and I'm sure you know this in a long time, is that you are on your own, like entrepreneurs feel a different way. Like I, I've been on my own, you know, for, uh, 11 or 12 years now, since that one bad partnership my very first year in.

I don't think I could ever go back as much as I do, do partnerships on small projects. Have someone who gets 50% of every dollar I make or every Euro or pound or whatever currency you guys are using now in Ireland. Like that's the, that's such a huge thing to give away. Cause when you start out, you're thinking about what you get, and then later on you're thinking about what you're giving away.

Like, oh, I'm giving this person half of everything. Are they earning half? And I think that's the mindset where you start to have problem. 

Stephen Somers: Yeah. Yeah, that's really interesting. I think as well though, as you get more inexperience in business, like I, I, my understanding of even those things has changed like quite a lot.

Like, cause obviously like for a lot of people listening, they might think, okay, 50%, you get 50% of everything that I earned or whatever, but, you know, in different, um, Business situations, uh, you know, like equity versus, you know, profit shares can be, can be different and stuff like that. And, you know, definitely with us, like, you know, we have business partners where their equity ownership may be a lot smaller, but then their profit owner, their profit share could be a bigger percentage and stuff like that.

So there's that end of things too. But I think in general, yeah, like I, I, I think the sentiment you have is true for most people, but for me, I have to just say I work better with other people. I don't like working on my own that much, actually. I love being around people that are on the same journey as me.

So I think that's another side of things too really, Jonathan of like your your own strengths, and I learned this as well many years ago in business. It was like when you focus on your strengths and you really hone in on what they are, and then you ask yourself, am I, am I bringing that to the business all the time?

You know, like if I was involved in finance , that would be a, a bad idea. In my, in my business, I'm way more a marketing type, uh, individual, uh, create content, spreading the message, calling on to speak to lovely people like yourself. That that's what I really enjoy doing and I'm really good at doing that.

But so, so I think that's it too, of like, how big do you wanna go in a business too, right? Because if you want to have a, a more lifestyle business, Where you don't have this huge thing because, uh, we, we've been there. We, we swelled massively during, uh, during the pandemic in terms of staff size. And we made a lot of mistakes because the business grew at a rate that we weren't used to just because people were at home.

Now they all joined in and wanted to sell on Amazon, which is our, one of our company's marketplace Super HEROs, which we teach. So, you know, that was definitely a bit of a challenge for us, um, having too many people, having too much stuff going on. And so, yeah, I think that's another big thing of like what your strengths are and where you want your business actually to be.

And so for me now, I'm in a place where I really love just being able to focus, doing the things I'm really good at. Thinking strategically, bringing that to the business and then letting other people come in, not necessarily partners, and do those things that I'm not as good at. But I love knowing I have Robert in my corner, someone I really trust who can really focus on the parts that I'm not good at.

But I think in general, for me too, I would absolutely agree. Originally, I would've agreed that a business partner would've been great for me because I was afraid when I was starting out in a business as a business owner, I had no experience. Now I would say I choose to have a business partner, but I think it's a great point to make.

Cause there's definitely a lot of people just doing it cuz they're afraid there's people doing it because they think we'll get there faster if there's two of us doing it. But like you said, If someone's not bringing the value to it, and if you're both doing the same thing, I think that's a big point you made.

That's, that's the worst case scenario, is you're both marketers, you both wanna do content, you both wanna be doing this. That's a recipe for failure for sure. 

Jonathan Green: Yeah. I think that you brought up some really interesting things. One of the things about partnerships that you mentioned earlier is that it's like a marriage, and we often, when we're, especially in entrepreneurship, we take such a jump, right?

We know someone a couple weeks ago, let's be partners. We can do this. Like you have this high energy moment. It comes from that and it's like the same thing when you hear about someone, they're like, oh, I got married after someone I knew for two weeks. You don't expect it to last. You're like, uh oh. . You don't even know if they what the bad stuff yet right.

So it is that, um, I think it's underestimating how big of a deal it is and how much you're actually giving away. You know, I am working on a project now with some other people and they offered me a much higher equity and I say, guys, I'm not doing that. Cause I don't wanna be responsible for that percentage of what the work that gets done.

And I don't, and I know that if you take a high percentage, you know, I'm mentoring them very similar to your experience. And I say, guys, I want a lower percentage because in about a year when you're making seven figures, eight figures, I don't want you looking at me and thinking, golly, if Jonathan had some type of horrible accident, we'd double our income.

Like you don't wanna be, you know what I mean? Like, I don't wanna be the point where I have to do a ton of work, or they start thinking like, golly, we could double our income if something happened to 'em. That's what starts to happen. And I'm wondering if you, having been through good partnerships and bond partnerships, looking back now, what do you think are some of the red flags or questions you ask of someone to kind of get a feel if they're the right type of person to work with. 

And I'll give an example for me, my first partner, he was like, oh, I've had six partners and they all stole from me and, and I've had three divorces. And I ignored that . He basically said, I'm a nightmare partner. It's like six is a lot of bad partnerships.

That's so many to have. Just so many. I've had one and, but six is like, and they all sold for like what seems pretty unlikely. So. It's very that. I should have caught that. But what are some like more subtle signs that people can look for? 

Stephen Somers: Yeah, maybe this isn't exactly the same thing, but I think just experience and having some business, business experience.

You know, I think sometimes people get into these partnerships with people who talk a great game, but when you actually look at their track record of like what they've done in business, like they, they haven't really done a whole lot. Another thing to look at would be. Yeah, did they do everything on their own?

You know, was that all they've ever done? And what kind of, what kind of activities were they involved in at that time? Uh, do they, is that business still operating? Cause that's another thing, you know, you see people that wanna partner on something, but then their businesses kept failing all the time or whatever I right. Or like, you know, they stopped doing the business or whatever. And so that's another big question of like, well, why did that happen? Why did that business not work out? Like, you know, is this cause what I would say one of the biggest fallout reasons we've had with partners that didn't work was down to a lack of experience from their um, part.

Definitely. And then also, And then also from that lack of experience, just like, just a lack of like, knowledge of like how business is gonna operate, what the expectations should be of like profit shares, uh, what, how long it should take to, to get to profitability. Um, seeing that their businesses in the past didn't work out and kind of ignoring that definitely was another big red flag.

And here's another one. Do you like the person you know, do you really, do you like them? Do you, are there someone you can get on with? Because I've had people where it was kind of pushed in that this person that, yeah, look, just let's bring 'em in. And it's like, actually don't really like this person. This is not someone I would wanna spend time with, and you're gonna spend time with these people. So I think that's another, uh, we're, I'm in Ireland, so we might call it the pint test. PINT. Where would I go for a pint with this person or would I not want to? I think that's a, that's a big one. . 

Jonathan Green: So I think that's really interesting is that, um, one of the things that I've noticed is sometimes when you first meet someone, you really get along really well, and then the relationship only lasts a shorter window of time.

So I'd also be nervous, like if I meet someone and sometimes meet someone at a conference and we just click and we're like best friends for three or five days, six months later, we never talk to each other again. So sometimes it burns too hot and it's like you can never recapture that moment. And that's the same thing for me.

It's like, oh my gosh, we're such, we're like best friends. We're gonna be best friends forever. But that never lasts, right? That super high energy we've all had that once in, we've run into the person in the bar, the puppy, oh my gosh, this person's some. I should have been best friends with you my whole life.

But it's too intense. We can't maintain it. So it is very interesting that you trying to find that balance of, I don't like 'em too little and I don't like 'em too much. Also wears me cause I know it won't last. And then there's also a thing I think, where sometimes people think that just liking someone's enough, like, oh, we get along, the rest will work out.

One of the mistakes I made when I started to get really successful, I started hiring all my friends or bringing them on board, and that was all and all those, every single friendship ended from that, that I tried to work with people because that expectation, they go, oh, it doesn't like look like you're working that hard.

And um, and you know this, sometimes what you bring to the table is you're the rain maker. You find that perfect product to launch on Amazon, that's gonna be an eight figure product that matters. Where you have that phone call that you make with someone and they go, yeah, why don't you come and be on our TV show the 10 million people watch.

So sometimes what we do, especially with internet marketing, like I one time had someone who's like wanted to do a photojournalism report on a coach and he goes, I'm gonna follow you around for a week. And I was like, oh, these are gonna be some boring photos. Just a bunch of photos of a guy sitting in a computer.

Cuz it's hard to see like, if you're watching me from the other side of the room, you can't tell if I'm playing a game or working right. You can't tell how hard someone's working unless you really know what they're doing. And um, that's kind of one of the dangers when people come in, like you talk about business expertise.

If they can't tell the difference between hard workers, significant work, they go, well, I'm putting in eight hours a day. You're working four. And like, yeah, but I'm bringing in 90% of the revenue. With what I'm doing. One of my friends runs a huge podcast. He shifted. He used to be a lawyer and he's got one of the biggest podcasts in the world, and he goes, one of my friends who got was at the law firm was never at the office.

He was always playing golf. The guy goes, yeah, I make more money on the golf course than I do in the law firm. I'm a rainmaker. And that's really, he goes, well, that's what I should do. That sounds amazing, right? You bring in the big clients. That's a big part of it. So I think you're really right about it really is important for a person to understand.

Really our process of our business. Cuz a lot of people don't, a lot of people have no idea if they come in, especially they come in from like corporate and they wanna work for me and they, well, what do you do? Like whenever I try and work with like a corporate social media person and I go, well here's the difference.

I'm gonna track every metric. If you post something, I wanna see how many likes, how many follows. That stuff matters for a smaller business where if you're doing social media for McDonald's, they don't care if they lose or gain followers. Nobody following buys more McDonald's cuz they follow on Facebook.

So there's this mindset sometimes when people come from other worlds. So I think what you're saying is really, really interesting. What are some of the things? 

Stephen Somers: For me you say that too? Oh, sorry, sorry. 

Jonathan Green: No, no. 

Stephen Somers: I was gonna say, I took on a mentor this year. We did in the business, and, um, he runs a very big business, uh, you know, and, and was great to bring him in because one of the things he said to us, which I thought was really fascinating was, he's like, you can get to about 5 million a year, uh, revenue with, with fans. But if you wanna get to say 10 million a year in revenue in any business, pretty much you're, you're gonna need experts and you wanna get from 10 million to 40 million, 50 million a year, whatever the case may be. You need professionals. Now, I, I don't know where I want my business to ever end open people.

Oh, you have to know exactly the number. I'm not sure. We're just enjoying it where we help people. Be successful on Amazon in variety, different ways. We love what we do. It's great. Uh, that said though, that really hit me because as I said, during the pandemic, we hired a lot of people because we had more people than ever joined our coaching programs and stuff like that, for obvious reasons.

And, you know, we did hire fans. We hired a lot of people who were clients and who seemed like really good people, and they weren't partners now, but they seemed like really good people. Seemed like they should, you know? Yeah. They, they would do well. They're, they're a pretty cool person. But what's actually happened is that post pandemic, you know, we, we we're not, we're not at the same revenue level we were, and that's normal, right?

Because like people are gone back to work now. Things have changed a little bit. It's all good. It's absolutely fine. We're back growing kind of like where we were, which which is actually okay because it was a bit too explosive during covid. And, uh, and that what really hit me, it was like, you know, we literally saw when we got in the, in the training business, maybe five or 6 million a year, punitively, probably 12 million a year.

Uh, in that kinda services end and all that we have over in, in what we do. Like, we literally capped it and we just started going backwards a little bit because you can only go so far when you surround yourself with people like that who you are almost training more. So now, you know, with a much smaller team, we we're, we're way more on purpose as result.

We're wasting so, so much less time dealing with people and politics and all the nonsense that comes along with too many humans. And I just learned a big lesson, Jonathan. For me, I learned like, you know, that's not why I started educating. And, uh, we started educating because we wanted to see people be successful.

We wanted to teach 'em the things that we had learned, and we weren't doing that anymore. We were almost like just dealing with stuff that we didn't wanna deal with. And now I have to say, it's really nice to just be back focused on the education, focused on the clients, you know, putting on fun little stupid things that we do and, and, and growing.

So I think that's another side of it, like the internet marketing industry. Certainly there's a big like focus on how much revenue you produce and all that, but it's like, Show me your class. Show me how much time you are putting into the business. Right? Show me your levels of happiness. Show me your, your, your quality of lifestyle, your health, all those different things.

I think ultimately where I've come to now is, you know, it's nice to grow a business that you understand that's very simple and every single year it's growing and most importantly, you're doing good in the world. You're serving people in the right way. So I've really changed my tune. I was like, yeah, let's get it.

25 million a year, 30 million a year. But really what, why? Like your podcast serve no master. Like what? Why are you doing it? Cause believe me, when you start doing those kinds of numbers, you're serving a lot of masters, . It's not very fun, you know? 

Jonathan Green: Yeah. One of my friends, when his business went from two to 20 million dollars in revenue, he said, I didn't make any more money until we crossed 20 when we hit, we went corporate and kind of did that switch.

The cost. You know, you start bringing in people and the cost and team management is kind of the next phase. Like the first thing is dealing with whether or not you get to do a part. The second thing, team management is very hard, and one of the things I've noticed is that most, um, like wisdom in team management is no longer accurate.

You know, you read a lot of these corporate books and you don't see a lot of people, you don't see a lot of people keep the same job for 20 years anymore. That type of employee has kind of shifted away. Most employees, when I hire someone, I usually think of them as having a time. And within usually six months.

Doesn't matter what I'm paying, by the way, the salary range is irrelevant. I've known. Doesn't matter the salary, doesn't matter The job, after about six months, people move on. They're quit. They wanna try a new adventure even if it's all online. So a lot of what we've learned or a lot of these books that have these deep corporate wisdom, which has some useful nuggets, a lot of it's just so inaccurate because exactly.

People want to jump ship and team management is either your skill or not. It's very complicated and most information out. There's no longer accurate cuz of the way people move but learning to deal with team and making the right decision. I know that I went through a phase where what I know was like, well, how many employees do you have?

And that was how you'd measure your success and more employees do with more success and just was more stress. And it is figuring out, really it is what's the least employees I can have for the maximum revenue? That's really my calculus now, and a lot of it is lifestyle because we look at most of the really, really financially successful people.

Their lives are terrible. They're so unhappy. They go through these massive divorces. They're all setting a record for like the biggest financial divorce. Like, oh, I lost 50 million in a divorce. I lost 75 million in a divorce, or I lost 50 billion in a divorce. You very, very rarely see anyone who crosses the billion threshold, who's happy, never see that, right?

Or they always have some like dark, dark secret or whatever. And like there is this thrust, and one of the things I always say to people, I say, if you don't want my life, Don't follow me. If you don't wanna live on a tropical, if you don't wanna hear about my four kids, if you don't want that life, don't follow me.

Cuz whoever you follows who you're gonna end up like there's that saying, you know the six people you spend most time with is you become the average, but also who you follow. And a lot of people follow people who they would never wanna be like, there is this balance, I thought think you brought something really important of lifestyle and what you actually want from life and money doesn't solve. It solves a lot of problems, but it doesn't solve every problem. There's a point at which more money doesn't really make a difference. Like how many more pairs of pants are you gonna buy a year? How many more vacations are you gonna go on? Like, you're not gonna stop working cause you love working.

Right? That's why we do it. So I think what you're talking about is really, really powerful for people. Because a lot of people, they follow this trajectory, and maybe you've had this with some of your clients. This would be interesting if you've worked with people who decide to follow your business model because they know you're doing big numbers.

And then two or three years in they say, oh, I just did it because of the numbers, not because I like it. And now they're like trying to do an exit or they feel painted into a corner. What hap, what do you think happens with people like that where they make that decision early on and it's not about passion or enjoyment and they pick just the business model they think's the most money and they get to start.

Stephen Somers: Yeah. You know, it's funny you say that because I, um, I thought I had that problem for a little while. So I started out with Robert learning how to sell on Amazon Private label. Built that business up to, you know, a few million a year doing well. No, no team chilled. It was all very nice and, and good and, Then we started teaching it and that was really nice business.

And now we're at a point where, you know, we obviously have the teaching services business and all that. That's great. We love our clients. Um, and I'm like, I'm kind of getting back to, hey, I, I'd like to spend more time with products again and doing different things with physical items and stuff like that.

So, What's funny is though that I used to think I'll do the Amazon thing as my way into a career, let's say. Then I had been studying a lot of direct marketing, like you've obviously done as well in your life, and I was like, oh, I'd love to have a project where we could help people and then I could do some of this stuff, which is what we did with marketplace superheroes and I guess now kind of common full circle, you kind of, which when you get good at something, you tend to like it, but sometimes the grass can seem way greener on the other side. Always. So, you know, you're in the Amazon business, you're trying to grow that You get it to a place where it's growing. Oh, I bet, I bet. If I had a teaching business now, that'd be like, way better and way more amazing and yada yada, yada, yada.

Even though your, your business is pretty good and you get over and you do that, you enjoy it for a long time. Oh yeah. What, what about if we did like a software thing or this or that, or, And I think just like having done all this for 12 years now, Robert's a lot longer than me. Ultimately, I think it's like when you get good at something, you start to really enjoy it.

But the question is just what's it doing for you in your life? Are you happy? Are you enjoying it? But the big thing is like is the thing, is it working and is it giving you the things that you want from life? And so, I haven't seen too many people in our community really be at that. And really, and honestly, like, I mean, a lot of people in our community are not due 10, 20 million a year or whatever.

You know, they're, they're getting up and running. Got people doing it, maybe a couple of million a year, that type of thing. But you know, um, so a lot of people, we don't have that issue. But definitely we have people who maybe got into selling private label on Amazon and then thought, oh, I actually prefer doing a wholesale or whatever.

And some of those people have made a shift and that's cool and they're happy. But just for me in general, yeah, I think we do think the grass is green on the other side, but one guy said the grass is greener where you water it. I think that's really true. 

Jonathan Green: Yeah, I see these people who, like, they have a huge TikTok business.

They go, I just, I wish I had a YouTube then people would respect me. Then people on YouTube are like, oh, I wanna be on TV. And then they discover TV is hard. It's kind of like, you know, there's a lot of people, they start doing really well on Amazon and they go, I wanna get into retail. And they, you don't, don't know. Retail is hard. 

Stephen Somers: That's really's hard. That's really is. 

Jonathan Green: You make so the like the margins collapse and you have to do things like you have to pay for placement, you have to deal with so many more people and complications. Yeah. And you have a lot less control, right. When you're running on what your online store, you can buy the traffic and you control the cost and you're totally control of everything.

But if someone, you have your product, they go, oh no, we wanna sell it for less. Right. And there's nothing you can do, but it is that grass is greener thing. I see a lot with physical products. Same thing with people like, oh, I did something else. I'd be more respected. You know, a lot of people in my family don't know what I do, they don't understand what I do at all.

Right? When I used to work in traditional career, they, they could brag about and tell people, and even though now I make 10, 20 times more money, they can't define it. My sister called me recently and says, Hey, do you know what affiliate marketing is like? Yeah, that's most of my business. That's 90% of my revenue.

And she goes, oh, I had no idea for 10. You didn't 12 years I've been telling you that. But when people are unfamiliar, With our thing, like most people wouldn't know. No one, no one in my family would know the difference between private label and wholesaling. If you said, oh, I wholesaling Amazon, a private label, to them, it's the same thing.

Yeah. But we sometimes chase what other people want. I think that whether it's respect or description, whether it's employees or revenue number, like we, we always say the gross, like I see these companies that do 20 million a year and they're losing $500,000 a year, and it's like, 

Stephen Somers: absolutely. 

Jonathan Green: Blows my, 

Stephen Somers: And I'll, I'll tell you then just, just to be, again, just as trans, we're always transparent.

We just shoot from the hip and like we had this, um, not that long ago with our training and services company, so that's all kinda in a group. And we were sitting down in a, in a meeting and we were looking at it and like our margin overall, um, it's a while back now but I mean, not that long ago, I was shocked.

Her margin was like, 12% or something, which is like laughable. Whereas a few years ago, marriage was probably like 60% , you know, probably. Um, and, and again, yeah, you're right. It, it all taught me. So I've, I've learned so much over the last couple of years. You know, things are going well in the business, which is great.

But, you know, covid really, uh, humbled me a lot because we exploded during covid, like I said, made tons of mistakes. Kind of had like our freight company had a post covid uh, slap in the face cuz of the freight rates went really crazy outta control coming down now, thankfully. But there were, you know, 800% increase in our freight rates pretty much overnight.

So we've had a lot of these things and just learned like, you wanna know something when you go back to your core. Why did you get involved in the business? And I often think back to when I was working in a data processing job when I first kicked off, uh, just before I met Robert. And like that was the most boring job in the world.

And I remember sitting there one day, I was reading all these, do you remember the Rich Jerk, Jonathan? Remember that? I dunno if you remember the Rich Jerk. 

Jonathan Green: Oh yeah. I met him in person once, so I do know that story. 

Stephen Somers: Yeah. Yeah, Kelly. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I remember seeing all these things and I thought that was like, Then I, I started looking at it.

I went, you know, I don't think it's, for me, I was looking at all these things anyway, and I was sitting in that job and I was like trying on something though. When I do figure it out one day and I actually am making money doing something, it would be great to show other people how to do it so they don't have to sit here unhappy like I am.

And even today I wrote an email to where our, our clients and our non claims, I did some research before the email. I'm like, 85% of people say they're unhappy in, in what they do. And so when I bring myself back to that, I'm like, why are we doing what we do? We're helping people build a harder, full-time business, uh, on Amazon.

That's what we're best known for. That's, we're best at doing the marketplace Super Heroes. Things are good. The mini is started kind of moving away from that. You start looking at, oh, how can we get to this or that, or the no. So now it's like, how can we share that message with more people in that business?

Focus on. Really, you know, give a damn bit the people you're working with. That's the key. And I think a lot of us, we would realize we can achieve a lot and our business doesn't need to be doing 40 million year, a hundred million year. It can be doing 3 million year. But you can be really profitable and you can make a few, multiple, six figures a year yourself.

Like I am. I live in Ireland here. It's not that expensive. But you know, I don't, I don't, I own my home. I don't have any mortgage. I'm done on that front. That's nice. So I keep my expenses super low. I don't have a crazy lifestyle. I don't wear expensive clothes because again, it's that thing of I see people with huge mansions and huge super cars and all that, and it's like fine, but you're trapping yourself, you know? You're just trapping yourself further and further. And I think if we stop celebrating that stuff and we start celebrating, Hey, I get up in the morning and if I don't wanna work today, I don't have to work today. I think that is more interesting, certainly to me anyway.

Jonathan Green: Yeah. I think you brought up something that's really important because I see more and more of the younger generation of market. They all want the car with the doors. They go up and down. They're always, they always immediately move to UAE or Qatar or Abu Dhabi, like for so expensive, like the most expensive places to live.

Or they're like, they want to go straight to London and live in like the small, the most expensive neighborhoods. And then you basically start living off what you think you're gonna make. And as you know, there are ups and downs in every business, and they start to remove that buffer. That's why I tell a lot of people, like lifestyle has to be such a core factor in what your plan is because it's like, well, what are your costs?

Your overhead? Because you can really go big. Like you can get that big house and that huge mortgage and then if anything happens suddenly you're having to put in double hours. And I've seen that. I had a friend who had like an amazing four bedroom house, humer, wife driving $80,000 Lexus, and within a year they were living in a studio apartment and he was working a corporate job and got downsized.

There was nothing he could do. And it's like, Have this thing, and I don't know if it's as big in Ireland and England as in America. It's so big. Like you're not wealthy unless everyone knows you're wealthy. It's much America. That's a much bigger thing. When I lived in England, I know to some rich people don't need everyone to know.

But in America, everyone has to know. And you put yourself in that situation where you have to maintain a lifestyle and it becomes part of your brand. So now you have to spend stuff or rent a car, rent an airplane to do a photo shoot so you can maintain the perception of wealth. So you don't lose the customers you have left and you get caught in the cycle.

So I think you're really right that it is important to, whether you're forming a partnership or starting a business or starting a side hustle or whatever, really think about what's your real goal. Because a lot of people, it's not what they think it is. That's what I discover the most often when I kind of take down with some, when I take on my occasional coaching client, I'm like, what do you really want?

And it's so important cuz some people listen. They want that private jet money and I get it. That's cool. You wanna find a private jet all the time? No problem. But I tell you what, you guys spend a lot of money on maintenance for every hour planes in the air. It has for two to four hours of getting fixed. Well, as a, you gotta know that going in the, like my friend used to do airplane maintenance in the Air Force and he was like, yeah, for every hour in the air, 10 hours of repair.

And I was like, whoa, that's a huge cost. And you better know going in what you're dealing with. And a lot of times we have these aspirations that look flying private is probably cool. But it's not like frying business glasses, trash, you know what I mean? Like, it's not that different. Um, but it's important to really know, okay, what is this gonna cost me versus, I mean, I'm in a phase now where I think about mostly about my kids, about their education.

Most of our decisions are about giving my kids a better life. Like 90% of my income goes to the kids. I don't buy. I did that for a while. Like when you first start making money, you get the watch, you get the new clothes, and then nobody notices. I was, I wore a Rolex for a year. Nobody noticed. I was like, that's the worst investment I ever made.

Because you think that people will treat you differently and nobody notices and that's when you start to realize a lot of things you think matter don't matter so.

Stephen Somers: This has been really, really cool. 

Jonathan Green: I appreciate your time. This is awesome. 

Stephen Somers: There is there is one thing though that I do have that is something I like and something that actually did get noticed.

So. There you go. Here I bought a and I, I have a, I have a Tesla, but it's a model three. I don't have a model S, nothing like that. But I did it for tax reasons. It's just a really tax efficient way to drive here in Ireland, but also it's a really cool car. Uh, so I was happy to get it, but. Funnily enough, that's been the thing that actually people latch onto because it's something different.

It's, and there's a lot of Teslas coming in Ireland now, like, it's not like I'm the only Tesla now, but certainly, um, that's been the only thing I've ever bought that's actually been noticed ever. And for me, I actually feel really awkward when people notice things like that. And I would just say in general, In Ireland and in the UK and Ireland, we have a nice social system because if you get too far ahead of yourself over here, like people just have a way to crash you down quickly, which is not always nice actually.

It's can be nice sometimes to celebrate people's success, but I do think, yeah, like in, in the U, US I spend a little bit of time over there at events and things like that when I travel over there and it is, it's, it's definitely a big competition and. I learned this though from a Brian Tracy, uh, finance financial planning tape.

When I was making no money. I was listening to personal finance stuff and he said, look, the biggest thing you can do is drive a wedge between expenses and revenue. And the minute you can do that in your life as well, your life will just change. And so I always remembered that. And the thing that I always would say now is, look, it's nice to have the money, so if you wanna jump on, something, you can do it. That's what we really want, is the choice to be able to do something rather than, well, I can't do it. I can't afford it. Um, but again, if you, if you just go out there just, I don't know, throw money around the place all the time, I think you'll be surprised at how really unhappy it really makes you.

So for me, like you have, uh, four kids you mentioned are Jonathan, uh, I, I think you said I've, I've got one, another one on the way. And I think that's very true. You know, a lot of what I do now, I think about Harvey and I think about his sister that's coming up and it's like, yeah, I'm just thinking about them.

You know, like, and even like, I see my son all the time and I, I hear, I heard a story, a friend of ours, and this guy gets up in the morning, sees kids for a couple minutes, but gets home at like 9:00 PM kids are in bed at seven. So like, effectively Monday through Friday. Doesn't get to see his kids. And that to me is why I'm in business for myself.

And it's why I think a lot of my clients are learning the stuff that we teach and they're building something in the future that they can be at that spot. Cause at the end of the day, that's where there's value. I think when your kids are happy and you are happy and, and your and your other half too.

Jonathan Green: Yeah. I love that you brought that up at the end. That's such a great finish because it is important, like I said, to know what you want. And for me, I'm the one who potty trained my kids. I was there for my kids, press words, my fifth first steps. I haven't missed any of those moments that my dad missed in my life, right?

My dad had to work in the office, but I'm home more than my wife is. She's out doing errands all day while I'm always here, and that's really kind of what matters to me, and I think that's an important lesson for people, is to kind of factor in what do you really want? And there's something you can't buy.

You can't make enough money to go back in time and recapture those moments that you missed. So I think that's awesome. That's a really, really amazing interview. Where can people spend more time with you, Stephen, and see kind of what you're doing online to maybe learn about Amazon from you? 

Stephen Somers: Yeah, sure. So if you go to marketplacesuperheroes.com, H E R O E S, of course for Heroes.

It's a very long url I know, but you can Google it and you'll get the right link. Uh, if you go to YouTube as well, and check out marketplace superheroes. We have loads of content on there that's high quality, uh, full masterclass, stuff like that. And we're actually just joining YouTube mentorship to improve it again, which I'm really excited about.

They'll be the two main things I would say to go and check out and, uh, yeah, you can, we teach wholesale that model, if you know what that means. If you don't, you will assume, know we teach a private label model, but the biggest thing is we've been doing it now, teaching it since 2015. We've over 9,000 clients who've gone through our programs.

People are really happy. People all over the world building successful businesses on the platform and uh, yeah, we've got a great community. So yeah, it's been a real honor to meet You Do Johnson. I have to say, you're somebody who I know I'm going to, uh, wanna get to know better. Uh, you're similar to myself in many ways, so it's been a real pleasure to meet you today as well.

Jonathan Green: Oh, awesome. Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate. I know my audience is gonna love this episode. 

I hope you love today's episode. I appreciate you listening. When I started my online business, I thought I could go completely alone. Turns out connections is the name of the game, and the faster you build contacts, the faster your income grows.

Let me accelerate your success and help you earn that networking black belt absolutely free at servenomaster.com/blackbelt. 

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