- 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 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 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)