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- Should you focus on one product

or try selling multiple
projects on Amazon FBA?

Stick with us for a minute
and we're gonna teach you

exactly why focusing on
more than one product

at a time could be
deadly for your business

and the three questions you
wanna ask yourself to know

if you can handle doing more
than one product at a time.

(chill music)

Hey, everyone, I'm Jason Katzenback,

along here with Shane Oglow,
and I've had the honor

of being able to teach
over 30,000 of my students

to be able to learn how to
leverage the insane power

of Amazon and start their
own business, and I've been

doing this for a long time
now, and with me, Shane Oglow,

he himself owns his own
Amazon business, as do I,

and he's also a coach, but he
works with us at Seller Pro

and does the monthly
updates where he provides

up to date information about
Amazon and does interviews

with other sellers and
experts in the industry.

So, Shane, thanks a lot
for doing this with me.

- Awesome, love to talk
about Amazon any time.

- Cool, so what we're
gonna talk about right now

are the three questions,
'cause you know, me and you,

we've been in this game
for quite a few years now,

and one of the things we've
known is that probably one

of the biggest questions is
how many products to start with

and we've seen a lot of people
make mistakes in this area.

Where, you know, people just
get gung go, they wanna start

a business, they think I'm
gonna go out there and create

this huge brand with [[https://www.superbrowser.com/|superbrowser multiple Amazon seller accounts]]
products and then, as you know

things don't go that well,
what's your opinion on that?

Just before we get into the
three answers, three questions.

- Yeah, you're right, it is a

very common question,
very common concern, too.

There is a lot of excitement
and people think, well, hey,

if I have a first product
and if it doesn't work out,

maybe I should start
with two or three or four

and see which, you know, which one sticks.

And there is some logic behind that,

but I've generally found
that's not the way to go.

There are methods out there
where people do launch

a lot of products at once,
but those people are usually

well financed and they're
usually experienced, so.

- Yeah, and that leads perfectly into

the three questions we ask,
because it really leads

to that kinda thing, really
experience and budget.

So that leads perfectly into
the first question I have is,

you know, are you a beginner

or are you an established seller?

Because if you're a beginner, you know,

your initial priority is
really to learn Amazon.

There's a lot of things
that really come when you're

learning the platform,
you're trying to understand

how Amazon works, all the
tools Amazon has, and you can

all of a sudden really find
that it's overwhelming at first

and you start missing things
and, you know, there's a lot

of terms of services with
Amazon as well that you have to

be on top of, so if you're
trying to learn this

as a beginner, starting
with more than one product?

That's a huge risk, you know?

Like, you need to understand
what it is you're learning,

and your first priority
is getting your product up

and selling, and once you get
it selling and start to get

it established, well, then
you get to another level.

But, you know, anything else
to add on that, for beginners

that are really wanting
to know, like, even though

I'm a beginner, why don't
I start with more products?

- Yeah, I think you nail on the head

because there is so much to learn.

I mean, it's a relatively
simple business model.

You know, especially with
Amazon FBA, they make things

so much easier, they take
a lot of the equation,

versus in the old days, pre
Amazon FBA, and you need to

give yourself the time to
learn these things and adjust

and learn the ropes, and
that's really why you start

with one product, to learn the ropes.

Once you start getting,
better, then you can do

all kinds of crazy stuff, but
until then keep it simple.

- But even for established
product owners, you know, like,

and, yeah, there's those
anomalies of people that are just,

you know, I almost wanna
say savants, they just have

such good focus and they
can do so many things,

but really, like, even
when you're established

do you recommend more than
one product at a time?

- No, and the reason why is
because once you get established

you start to develop your own technique.

So you've been around for a
few years, you start to find

ways of finding products, the
ways of launching products,

you end up getting a lot of moving parts,

which can be a good
thing, can be a bad thing,

things can get away with
you, so if you try and launch

three, four, five
products in the same time,

that's a lot of stuff going on.

It's better just to launch
one, do it right, bam.

Then next month, launch another one.

Like, you can line 'em up, bang
'em off, one after another.

It's easier to track,
too, because sometimes

something might go wrong, you know?

And you gotta, you know,
spend your resources

and time fixing that one problem.

If you've got other things
you're not paying attention to,

well, then you just failed
on your product launches,

or at least performed more poorly

than you would have expected to.

- Yeah, and I firmly believe
that if you lined up,

from all the experience I
have, from all the students

that I've taught, the people
that have tried doing too much

at one time always get overwhelmed,

they end up missing things and oftentimes

those things they miss are so critical,

even just, like, listing
optimization, you know?

So often I see people ask me
why aren't my products selling?

You look at them and their
listings are horrible.

And that means 'cause
they're not focusing,

or are you running sponsored ads?

Are you doing any of these certain things?

And they're like, no, I guess
there's just so much going on

and that's exactly the problem,
there's so much going on

that you've gotta learn the basics.

So, yeah, if you wanna start
with more than one product

'cause you're an established
seller I highly, you know,

we both advise against it,
do what you wanna do but

I would say don't, and according
to Shane, it's a no too.

Two nos?
- Two nos.

And, you know, there's another

interesting aspect to that too.

If you're doing one product at a time,

you're able to think
about that product more,

develop and make it a better product.

If you're trying to do six at
once you're just, you know,

whatever, you're just whipping 'em out,

and coming back to your
question about if your listing

isn't optimized correctly,
that's gonna affect your PPC,

'cause your conversion
rate's not gonna, it's kinda

gonna ruin everything, so
make sure you got everything

done one step at a time,
properly, starting with

that listing optimization,
make a better product,

and that will affect your
reviews, will affect everything

for your business, it's just
a good, smart way to go.

- Yeah, and Amazon really does
look at all those metrics.

And, you know, at the
end of the day, you know,

you can't sell crappy products to Amazon.

They're just, it's not gonna work.

And, you know, Amazon's
cutting back on hacks

and people are always
trying to do these hacks.

Amazon is focused on
the customer experience

and so that means you
have to have good products

and you always wanna be
improving those products.

And if you're focused and distracted

on multiple products you're right, like,

you're not gonna know which
products need improvement,

you're gonna be, you're
just gonna be overwhelmed.

So, yeah, no no.

All right, so second question we've got.

What is my budget and capital?

'Cause obviously you don't
wanna try everything up,

'cause then you have
no room for marketing,

and the other end of that is inventory,

'cause what happens if
you run out of inventory?

- Bad things happen, your
rankings plummet, and it's harder

to get back to where you
were, so you lose traction,

it's like one step forward,
two steps backward.

- I feel like it's also different now.

Like, a few years ago
running out of inventory

didn't seem to affect you
so much, but now, I mean,

I know personally in
my own business, like,

I've seen it dramatically hurt us.

- Yeah, I think inventory
management is key.

Now, I don't wanna freak
anybody out, too, and I think

we've had this happen many
times, where new sellers say

oh my gosh, I'm gonna
run out of inventory!

Yup, you probably are.

Not always, and it's okay at first.

You do have a bit of time when you first

launch a product and you're new.

Once you're established
and you're cooking with gas

you need to make sure you're

always in inventory whenever you can.

- Yeah, absolutely, you
know, capital management,

budgeting, all those kinda things,

I'd say one of the biggest
skills you could learn

to be successful in Amazon
is math and spreadsheets.

You know, there's tools out
there but at the end of the day

if you can, you know, just
learn a Google spreadsheet

and Excel and really understand
the math, your profit,

your return on investment, all
of those good kinda numbers

and really know where you
are so that you know, like,

when I sell out I can reorder inventory,

I'll make sure that, 'cause
you wanna minimize that.

Exactly right, like, when
you're first starting if you can

only afford a couple
hundred units of inventory,

you're gonna run out of
inventory, chances are.

Especially if you're ordering
from China, but the reality is

you wanna minimize that as much
as possible and why risk it?

'Cause if you have two
products and all of a sudden

you're like, all your
money's tied up in inventory,

not only you're not gonna
be able to do marketing,

which you have to do, you know.

That's the one thing,
don't think, Amazon is not

a magic platform, you can't
just put things up there.

Two years ago you could, you know.

We helped people that just put products

up on Amazon and boom, they just took off,

but that's not the case anymore,

especially since sponsored
ads, really critical,

and sending outside traffic
like press releases are huge.

But if you don't have the
budget to be able to do

those things, well, you're
just not gonna be able to grow.

So, you know, budget
for marketing and budget

for reinvestment of
inventory, and once you get

those things in control
you can start scaling

and adding more and more products.

Anything else to add to that?

- Yeah, another thing
to think about too is

if you're brand new
you're gonna do your best

to estimate things like shipping.

You're gonna do your best
to estimate packaging

and all those little things that go into

making your listing, photos, you name it.

So it's best to give yourselves
a little bit of padding.

You know, don't try to run
on razor thin, you can,

but you're gonna--
- Always worst case scenario.

Absolutely, always, like, and, you know,

always give yourself,
you know, a little bit

of a buffer there, don't
try, like, oh no, it's,

everything's gonna go perfectly
well, because you know

nine times out of 10 it's
not gonna go perfectly well.

Great advice, great advice.

All right, so the third
question we have here is

How much time do you truly
have to focus on this?

'Cause time is money, time
is a resource, you've got

the money resource and
you've got the time resource.

Some people have more time than money,

some people have more money than time.

At the end of the day, chances
are if you're starting out

on this business, you're probably
someone that has probably,

you know, a little bit
of time, you're probably

working a job trying
to get something going,

you know, and we all did that.

Like, I remember, what
I used to have to do is

I'd wait until my family was put to bed

and then I'd get back up out
of bed and work a couple hours.

And you try to get that time
in there, and you need to be

as focused during that time as possible.

You really wanna make sure
you shut off all distractions.

And if you're sitting there trying to

manage multiple products
while trying to learn

the new platform, trying
to set up marketing

for different products, trying
to do all of these things,

and it's divided over multiple products,

you're just not gonna be effective.

What else do you think?

- Yeah, no, absolutely,
that's a great reason to start

with just one product if you're,
you know, like most people,

you're starting off and you
probably got a regular job

and you're just squeezing
things in when you can.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

I mean, the vast majority
of people I knew,

successful or otherwise in this business,

that's how they started, you know?

They just did that, and we
all did it, until such time

when you could make those
circumstances change.

And you'll find, too, there's
little black holes of time.

So you'll start to get
into PPC, but you can

start to go pretty deep if you want to.

You can just run the basic
setup, no problem, and it's

easy to do, but if you wanna
really explore, you know,

you'll start, sit down at
seven o'clock in the evening,

look up and the next thing
you know it's 11 o'clock,

just gotta budget for those things.

- Yeah, you really do, I recommend working

in 50 minute intervals because
then that way, you know,

it's always good to stand
up, you don't wanna be

sitting there in one spot, but
you'll find those intervals

will go, like, so many
times my wife has left

and all of a sudden I've
looked up and she's back

and I'm like, did you leave, you know?

And she's like, yeah, I've been
back for two hours. (laughs)

And you just realize what's going on.

So if you're not focused
on that time, make sure you

always have priorities in front of you

of the biggest things to focus on.

So again, three questions.

Am I beginner or an established seller?

'Cause if you're a beginner,
absolutely without question

you want to do one at a time, and even as

an established seller, unless
you have, like, good systems,

good employees, and a good budget,

really recommend just
one product at a time.

What's your budget and capital?

Obviously the more budget
and capital you can have

the more resources, like
hiring employees, and actually

let's hit on that topic for a
sec, 'cause some people think

employees are the magic answer, you know?

(Shane sighs)
(Jason laughs)

- They can be, they can
be, but it takes time

to train someone, we like to
think that we learn something,

we just pass it off to somebody else.

Or, hey, watch this video
and you'll figure it out.

Mm, ain't gonna work that way, usually.

It takes time to really
get an employee dialed in,

and the more you can do for them

to set them up for success the better.

So when you establish your own
SOPs and you understand them

completely yourself, then
you can train someone else

on them and you know things
will be followed correctly.

Otherwise it's just a loose end that will

come back to bite you in the rear.

- Yeah, never hire with
the idea, I'm not sure what

they're gonna do I just know
I need help so I'm gonna hire.

'Cause you're gonna get frustrated,

you're gonna waste money,
they're gonna get frustrated.

You know, there's good
strategies for hiring and really

research and study on how
best practices for hiring,

'cause it'll make a huge difference.

- One another thing I'd
like to mention about that,

and we talk about inventory and
it's a question I get a lot.

Now the first question is
always what product do I sell?

And the second one is, you know,

how much I order, how
much do I need, you know?

There's a lot of different
ideas and theories

floating around out
there, and I think that

if you can just take your
first [[http://news.sky.com/search?term=inventory|inventory]] order,

it's gonna be small, 'cause
we don't wanna start big

in case, you know, we do
something wrong or we screw up

our product or our branding
and we don't wanna lose

all that money inventory
and be stuck with it.

So, and I think the
training at Amazing really

addresses that very
well, but I like to use,

maybe, two and a half times rule, roughly.

Like some people feel
they're more comfortable with

a little bit more but if
you got two and a half times

the amount it's going to take
to get into the business.

Let's say your first inventory
order costs you $1000.

You should have at least
two and a half times that

available to you, so that's
gonna take up any contingencies.

- I think that's great advice,
that's really good advice

for a budgeting
perspective, and, you know,

and the reality is, again,
with your budgeting,

if you're just starting out even looking

for products to go with, consider that.

You know, consider how much
inventory's gonna cost.

'Cause if you only have
a $2500 budget to spend,

you don't wanna expand that
all on inventory and have

nothing to spend on anything
else, so, cool, cool, good one.

And then the last question
was time, do you have

enough time to actually
spend on this business?

And the reality is you
gotta look at yourself.

If you have eight hours
a day well, then, yeah,

maybe you can do two products at a time.

Still don't really recommend
it, especially if you're

just starting out, because
as you grow, remember,

we're not saying you're only
gonna sell one product forever.

What we're saying is
one product at a time.

Eventually you wanna have
100 products if you can.

You wanna have a huge brand.

You know, the way you grow
on Amazon is first of all

you create a brand, you
get a product established,

you start creating a brand,
then you add more products

and then you expand that internationally.

Amazon's fantastic for their
international platform.

And then once you've got that covered,

then you wanna start looking at, like,

using other tools like
Volusion, Shopif, you know,

any of those other kinda
third party shopping carts.

But really I look at it
like start on Amazon,

start focused, start with one
product, then once you get

that product established add
another one, add another one.

Once you're making, you
know, I recommend, you know,

minimum of $25,000 a month revenue before

you start really focusing
on international,

because if you, that's another thing.

Just like adding more
products, if you try to

expand too much, if you
try to all of a sudden have

a Shopify store and going
international and everything else,

again, that all takes resources and time.

You're gonna have to order
more inventory, you're gonna

have more time development,
and really what we've found

is people selling on
Amazon are getting about

90% of their results on Amazon.

Yeah, you hear of people
that are on Shopify.

Good friends of ours like
Ezra Firestone and that

that are crushing it
with Shopify paid ads,

that's 'cause they have really
specific niche products,

like really good health
products and they have

real good experience with paid ads.

But for the average person
just getting started out,

focus on Amazon, leverage
it, start with more product,

build in a very sequential,
organized manner

and then go international
and I think you'll be gold.

Any other closing remarks you got?

- Yeah, I just wanna make
one more comment about time.

And I know a lot of people
get concerned about that,

we got everyone who's an Amazon seller.

Grandmas, single moms,
I mean, you name it,

everyone under the world
is there and can do this.

And I just wanna say when people
say I don't have the time,

I don't have the time, if it's something

that you really want you'll make the time.

You don't have to spend
eight hours a day doing this.

You know, a couple hours here,

a couple hours there, you can do this.

When I first started I was
working 12 hours shifts.

I'd come home, I'd work till one a.m.

You know, because I was so
focused on that, no, this is

such a fantastic role, I
know I can do it, and I just

kept at it, so don't convince
yourself you don't have

the time, because you can
make it if you really want to.

- Yeah, negative talk like
that, like if you're saying

you don't have the time
then the reality is

are you looking at this
as a hobby or a business?

Because the idea is this
business can be life changing

from the perspective of freedom.

I mean, here are you, living
in Andora, beautiful country,

and it's because you
have the freedom to live

wherever you want in the world.

That's the kind of freedom, it's not that

you don't work hard,
you work hard every day,

but it's a business that allows you

to be in control of so many elements.

So if you wanna learn more
about selling on Amazon,

we have a great course
for you, free training at

AmazingSellingMachine.com,
and if you love this video

I wanna request, just put
yes in the comment below,

let us know that you
appreciate this video,

just put the word yes and
we appreciate that so much.

Make sure you subscribe
to our channel and again,

check out the free training series we have

at AmazingSellingMachine.com
where we walk you through

pretty much most of what you need to know

to get started on Amazon, so, yeah.

Take care, everyone.
- Bye bye.

(chill music)