Andrew Morgans is the founder of Marknology. A full service marketplace agency that since it was founded in 2014 has worked with over 400+ brands, and consists of 35 team members. He has scaled dozens of brands on Amazon to 7 and 8 figures, and has spoken as a thought leader in the ecommerce space all around the world. He currently has equity or ownership in 9 brands on Amazon, manages and operates a warehouse and 3PL in Kansas City, and still loves getting his hands dirty fixing or improving brands small and large alike.

> Here’s a glimpse of what you would learn….

In this episode of the Ecomm Breakthrough Podcast, host Josh Hadley engages with Andrew Morgans, founder of Marknology, to discuss advanced e-commerce strategies for scaling businesses on Amazon and TikTok Shop. Andrew emphasizes the importance of creative marketing and storytelling to differentiate brands in a competitive landscape. He shares actionable insights on content creation, leveraging influencer partnerships, and optimizing brand presence. The conversation highlights the necessity for brands to adapt and innovate, focusing on unique narratives and premium content to drive sales and build customer loyalty. This episode is a must-listen for business owners aiming to scale to eight figures and beyond.

Here are the 3 action items that Josh identified from this episode:

Action Item #1: Enhance Storytelling with Creative Marketing: Develop a compelling brand story that differentiates your product from competitors. Utilize premium A+ content on Amazon and incorporate user-generated content (UGC) to build trust and connect with customers.

Action Item #2: Leverage TikTok Shop: Use TikTok Shop strategically by creating engaging content and running ads behind high-performing videos. Gather valuable customer data through the platform for future marketing campaigns, improving your overall reach and ROI.

Action Item #3: Optimize and Diversify Sales Channels: Continuously optimize your Amazon listings by focusing on hero products and storytelling. Additionally, explore new platforms like Walmart and Chewy to diversify your sales channels and stay ahead of market trends.

Special Mention(s):

Related Episode(s):

This episode is brought to you by eComm Breakthrough Consulting where I help seven-figure e-commerce owners grow to eight figures.

I started my business in 2015 and grew it to an eight-figure brand in seven years.

I made mistakes along the way that made the path to eight figures longer. At times I doubted whether our business could even survive and become a real brand. I wish I would have had a guide to help me grow faster and avoid the stumbling blocks.

If you’ve hit a plateau and want to know the next steps to take your business to the next level, then email me at josh@ecommbreakthrough.com and in your subject line say “strategy audit” for the chance to win a $10,000 comprehensive business strategy audit at no cost!

Josh Hadley 00:00:00  Welcome to the Ecomm Breakthrough podcast. I’m your host, Josh Hadley, where I interview the top business leaders in e-commerce. Past guests include Kevin King, Michael Gerber, author of The E-myth, and Matt Clark from ASM. Today I’m speaking with Andrew Morgans of Marginality. We are going to be sharing the tactics, the strategies and the insights that he has implemented as he’s worked with over 400 brands and help scale many of them from 7 to 8 figures and beyond. This episode is brought to you by Ecomm Breakthrough, where I specialize in investing in and scaling seven figure e-commerce companies to eight figures and beyond. If you’re an ambitious e-commerce entrepreneur looking for a partner who can help take your business to the next level. My team and I bring hands on experience, strategic insights, and the resources needed to fuel your growth. So if you or someone you know is ready to scale or looking for an investment partner, reach out to me directly at Josh at Ecomm Breakthrough dot com. That’s e-comm with two M’s and let’s turn your dreams into reality.

Josh Hadley 00:00:48  But today I am super excited to introduce you all to Andrew Morgans. Andrew is the founder of Market Analogy, a full service marketplace agency that, since it was founded in 2014, has worked with over 400 brands and it consists of over 35 team members. He has scaled dozens of brands on Amazon from 7 to 8 figures, and has spoken as a thought leader in the e-commerce space all around the world. He currently has equity or ownership in nine brands on Amazon. He manages and operates a warehouse and a three PL in Kansas City, and he still loves getting his hands dirty, fixing or improving small brands and large alike. So with that introduction, welcome to the show, drew.

Andrew Morgans 00:01:20  Thank you Josh. It’s quite the intro. I’m super excited to be here. you know, we met at a couple of conferences back and this has been on the calendar for a while now, so it’s excited to get to chat with another Ecom Pro and really just share some value today with our listeners.

Josh Hadley 00:01:33  Yeah. You know, we met at Kevin King’s Billion Dollar Seller summit in Hawaii and saw you present on stage.

Josh Hadley 00:01:39  I absolutely loved your presentation, loved everything you were sharing. And you know, the success track record that you’ve been able to develop, over the years, I think is very impressive. And I think you’re going to be able to share a lot of tips and strategies with our listeners. That’s why I was so excited to, get you on the podcast here today. So let’s cut to the chase. And, you know, tell me kind of what you see working on Amazon right now as you’re managing, advising, consulting different brands. Where do you see the puck going right now? What you know, where’s your focus at?

Andrew Morgans 00:02:08  Well, that’s a good question. you know, definitely in the agency and the agency side, my focus is, is, you know, really working on our offer as an agency, really letting people, you know, doing a better job of showing our value and how we’re really helping brands. I think, the space has got commoditized. There’s a lot of noise. And so, you know, what are what are the best players really doing for their brands? And so on my level, I’m trying to figure out how to sell that.

Andrew Morgans 00:02:28  Right. spending a lot of time doing that. but I think, you know, as e-commerce experts or industry experts, like at the end of the day, we are we’re operators, sure, but we’re sales, sales men and women through and through, whether we’re selling, through an Amazon page or a Chewie page or a TikTok shop or through a newsletter, right, or on a conference stage, like at the end of the day, whether we’re behind a computer or not, we’re salespeople. So I’m working on my sales skills. you know, personally. And for the brands out there, there’s a lot of stuff working. There’s honestly a lot of stuff working. There’s a lot of stuff against us, I think at this time, you know, inflation, the economy changes. you know, commoditization of, a lot of different things like on Amazon, the the product lifecycle can be short, you know, so having to switch things up as many opportunities. But, there’s a lot just work in TikTok Shop absolutely crushing it for us.

Andrew Morgans 00:03:10  We just had a had a brand go from 5K in sales in June to 30K sales in July. So we’re trying to push 50 or 60 in August. So that one’s really picking up. We’re excited about that one. You know, because not every not every shot you shoot goes in. Right. And so, we’re having to figure out as an Amazon agency how to create good content at scale. And but we’re excited about that because figured out once and it’s easier to repeat the second time or the third time or the fourth time. So tick tock shop anything off Amazon. That’s what I was speaking about. You know, in Hawaii I was I was running through, I think five k studies of just different brands, that I use off Amazon efforts to really leverage them, leverage those efforts to launching a good successful product on Amazon. things like Tick Tock Shop, things like Rumble Comm, things like YouTube, you know, different influencers that were that has some presence there that we’re leveraging that even on the rumble.com wasn’t even an influencer.

Andrew Morgans 00:03:56  They were just using paid ads there. Right? So you don’t even have to be a creator. And then on Amazon because Amazon’s my baby. Like I talk about off Amazon, I talk about some of these other things just because I think that’s where I can bring some value to the community. And the community could use some positivity, some wins in those areas. But, you know, Amazon’s my baby. I’ve been in the Amazon space for 15 years now as an individual, you know. Operator. And it’s really just, trying to get a fresh, a fresh pair of eyes on every single thing that I’m doing. And when I say I, I mean me and my team, but it’s looking at I’m breaking down the different areas of Amazon into buckets and saying, you know, is there an opportunity when I look at competition for maybe I’ve had these products going for five years, even, right, or six years. It’s not always like new launches or whatever. So we’re talking about seven figure brands going to eight figure brands.

Andrew Morgans 00:04:36  It’s really saying, yeah, I might have done that two years ago. Three years ago, maybe the content got a refresh. Maybe I looked at the SEO, I just did a deep dive on a, on a brand that I am part owner in, and we are number, five in the market as far as market share. Okay. So we’re fifth. so obviously not at the top, but like not bad either. We’re doing we’re doing strong. And I found just for context, they’re like felt leaderboards. Okay. that type of product, gifting products, wedding stuff, all that kind of thing. and the market has matured to a sense that the customer is actually using different words to describe what we’re selling now versus before. It used to be a smaller range of keywords that really drove the sales. There’s, words around sign and signage that are becoming really strong, that weren’t there before. And it’s really relevant to the product. Just no one ever described it that way. Now they are right.

Andrew Morgans 00:05:20  And so did a deep dive into that, which shows I want to get that into my content. I want to get that into my PPC. and so that was something that like, okay, just popped up, wasn’t like rocket science, but because I did the did the the work to dig in and evaluate my competition’s doing again, evaluate where my PPC is again, because my Taco’s numbers are hitting, my cost numbers are hitting, but I’m still looking for opportunity to grow. And my point is being assume nothing. I’m going department by department and really just seeing like, are we as tight as we want to be? And at the very least, it gives me peace of mind and validates for me or my brand or the partners we’re working with. Look, we in January of this year, In February of this year, in Q2, we dove deep as a team into our supply chain, our inventory, whatever closed, you know, marked opportunities that we could and then moved to the next department.

Andrew Morgans 00:06:00  So I know that’s a mouthful, but, you know, we’re I’m in the stage hardcore this year, just going through every part of my business and just evaluating it. Digging through with the fine tooth comb and saying, okay, opportunity, opportunity, opportunity. Validate that we’re doing good. Validate that we’re doing good. You know, where can we improve?

Josh Hadley 00:06:15  I love that. And drew, you shared a lot there. And I want to unpack literally everything that you just talked about there.

Andrew Morgans 00:06:21  So I’m excited to be here.

Josh Hadley 00:06:22  So well what I want to do let’s start at the top. You know, what have you been doing on TikTok shop? Because, you know, prior to hitting the record button, not every brand has succeeded on TikTok shop, but you’re seeing some brands succeed. So what’s the differentiating factor? Because I think TikTok shop like that’s the number one question that people have our brand personally, we’ve seen success on TikTok shop, but our focus is 100%, creator driven, 0% by ourselves.

Josh Hadley 00:06:48  Right? It’s not a viral video we created. so the strategies are numerous on TikTok shop. I’m curious to hear, drew, what do you see working on TikTok shop that you could, you know, pull back the curtains and give our audience some actionable ideas. Okay, guys.

Andrew Morgans 00:07:00  Get your pens out. Pens, pencils. This is good stuff. something about me is like, I was raised in a jungle. I’m a missionary kid. I was raised in Cameroon. Like, literally like flip flops in the jungle, you know, raising Congo, DRC. So I just approach things sometimes for the good, sometimes for the bad. Just I can approach things differently than other people, if that makes sense. And, just see things like from outside the box. And I do feel like this industry, especially at the top, is really ran by very technical, and good at operations professionals. Okay. I feel like the Amazon space in general was not pioneered by by marketing creatives, by advertising creatives.

Andrew Morgans 00:07:35  Okay. Does that make sense? Like, you follow me on that. That’s my assessment of it. But it’s how I feel. You’re great at sourcing, you’re good at logistics. You’re good at computers. Like, it’s like, generally speaking, I don’t feel like it’s just been pioneered by marketing and advertisers. So that being said, creative has generally sucked on Amazon. marketing ideas are basic in general, and I think a lot of times people don’t see themselves as creators. They’re family men and women. They’re they’re like trying to not work as much in their 9 to 5. This is not like the TikTok influencer that’s been pioneering Amazon. So keep that in mind. TikTok shop is now the Amazon of the past. Okay, in a lot of ways, but it’s it’s ran by not the operators. It’s ran by the creatives and the advertisers and people able to do that. So it makes a lot of sense for me in this industry at the beginning of it, with a lot of Amazon sellers giving feedback on TikTok and TikTok shop that they’re approaching it from a operationally scaling other creators versus being the creatives themselves.

Andrew Morgans 00:08:23  Okay. And so if that’s if you have no creative ability, maybe that’s the way for you to go, if that makes sense, right? If that’s not your passion, if you’re not, like, really passionate about creating content or any of those things, like I think that is the way to go. But in doing so, there’s going to be like like influencer marketing or affiliate marketing or any of those things. I used to be an affiliate marketing manager and I was an e-commerce manager. There can be over saturation. There can be like anytime there’s a good idea. It’s like, wow, now it’s it’s it’s it’s not a blue ocean anymore. It’s loud, it’s crowded. And I think some people are experiencing that even even now. so, you know, I’ve went at it a little bit different way. I have a creative team here at my analogy, I think we’re we’re one of the best teams in the Amazon space around creative and had some extra bandwidth with the team that I have now.

Andrew Morgans 00:09:01  And so I leaned into that. I leaned into that of having this creative team that’s permanently on retainer with me, not extra expenses to really dig into TikTok. And I want to share that with people so people understand why I approach things sometimes a certain way versus another way. And so, you know, there’s a certain level of if you’re just scaling through affiliates, affiliate creators or whatever, there’s a whole lot things you have to be good at. You have to be good at getting samples. You have to be good at giving them briefs. You have to be good at maybe approving or disapproving content. You have all these other things you have to you have to be good at. If you’re an agency, it’s even different approach because you have to get results and you have to speak to those results. and you have to get them in a timely manner if you’re paid on retainer or anything like that. It’s not just like, well, I’m gonna invest in my own brand for 12 months and finally get the snowball rolling.

Andrew Morgans 00:09:37  You need results much faster than that if you’re getting paid to do something right. And and so I think there’s like, if you’re owning your own brand, there’s this path that might be on TikTok shop. And if you’re like doing it for others, you’re trying to scale it faster, etc. there’s another path, and that’s what I’m about to share. But I think the reasoning, I feel like I’m talking to pros on this podcast or advanced people. So I want people to understand why I’m doing a certain thing, which is, for me, what I’ve been doing. Let’s say a brand approaches me, okay? And they approach us like, hey, I want to be on TikTok shop. We engage to get everything set up. So we’re a certified TikTok partner, TikTok shop, and now TikTok live. There’s like 3 or 4 different partnerships that we’ve gotten now through TikTok. They’re all kind of individual, kind of like on the Amazon side. And, what we’re doing is we’re doing we’re engaging in getting everything set up.

Andrew Morgans 00:10:15  So that’s like the store set up on Amazon. It’s like getting products in there, connecting with Shopify, your warehouse Throuple, making sure everything’s working smoothly. And then what we’re doing is we’re creating as an agency. We’re creating the first ten videos for a brand, okay, in-house meaning like my team technology is creating the first ten. And what we’re doing with that is we’re researching competition just like on Amazon or anything else. When you’re doing your research, we’re saying what’s what’s happening in the category, the niche, bringing our own ideas to the table. And those first ten videos we’re posting on the account organically as we get them. What it does is it sets the tone for that brand. If we do reach out to creators or affiliates, it’s setting the tone where if they come and look at our TikTok page, they’re seeing like kind of what content should look like or what we think is good and kind of creating like a feel, right? Otherwise you’re at zero and your first video is getting posted or other affiliates or other creators.

Andrew Morgans 00:10:56  So we do the first ten. It also allows us to see which of those videos do a little bit better organically. we run ads behind a couple of the better ones to kind of get to that first thousand follower count link in bio. Those kinds of things. Get some get some movement on the account. and then what we’ve been doing and it’s actually turning into a little bit more hybrid now is to get traction, to get movement early. We are. I’m from Kansas City, Missouri, Kansas City, Kansas. You know, it’s Twin Cities. I literally live like on the dividing line. But I’ve been doing entrepreneurship now for 11 years. I have several brands here locally that I’ve been involved with the community, and I have a pretty good base of creators and people I can reach influencers, fashion show people just I’ve been doing this, you know, I’ve been involved in the community. So, this is also an easier move for me than maybe some others. And so, you know, what I did was I reached out to five creators with a brand typically, and I’m paying them 100 a video.

Andrew Morgans 00:11:40  Okay, roughly. And I’m getting five creators to make five videos each with my first like, that’s $2,500. That’s like my investment into content. Okay, so it’s $2,500. They’re basically sending me like we send them some like, ideas, but we’re letting them be kind of free with their ideas because we already know that these people are creators. These are not randoms. These are like people that I know that create content. And so maybe I’m getting a guy, a girl or a family or whatever. I’m trying different, different mediums. they create five videos each in that first round. It also like my logistics of having to get samples out to people. And then all of this is like, that’s not a thing because it’s local to my city, to people that I know. So I’m not having to handle this. Did you get the package? Did you order? Here’s your code. Like, you know, all of that. And, at first it was like they create the videos and send them back to us.

Andrew Morgans 00:12:19  you know, and I had I’ve worked with some hundred million dollar brands on TikTok already. Like, like some really large players. Think Disney, think like, hello Kitty think, you know, some Gojo brands. People know Gojo, some large players where, needing to get permission on some of that, like licensed stuff was a nightmare, because when you’re in the content creative game, you need to be able to move fast and quick and try different things and iterate. And so it’s actually a lot easier if it’s your own brand or it’s a smaller brand, and you’re able to kind of create what you want without needing sign off on everything. So I’ve had to adjust that. But these five players create these five videos. They send the raws in to us and my team because I have the capabilities here. We’re not like a full production team or whatever, but we can definitely cut, splice, edit up, these videos. And we’re doing that because the creators, they take a little bit more chances when we don’t tell them that they have to do the editing.

Andrew Morgans 00:13:01  So they might be great creators. Editing and like creating to me is almost like two different roles. It’s almost like doing PPC and creative writing and logistics. And Amazon is like editing is the storytelling of a video. Filming and creating it is is different, right? And so I’m getting better ideas and better output when I tell them that we’ll do the editing. And it also allows us to cut the video up five different ways to Sunday. Right? So, you know, we’ve taken like with the brand, we just did the 30 K in July. With that I just mentioned, we we are now three and a half months in still using those first five, those first 25 videos, those first 25 videos that we use with those creators. So think about it like if you’re using the affiliate side, they’re posting videos. It’s an army of videos and content. this approach is a little bit different, but we’re we’re posting all those 25 organically okay, posting them, seeing what happens to them, making note of the ones that do well, pinning those you know, re-editing them, creating maybe a better call to action, doing all that kind of stuff too.

Andrew Morgans 00:13:46  So I’m skipping some of those details, but essentially grabbing the better ones. when we kind of figure out what’s working for that brand, is it demonstrable? Is it an unboxing? Is it a how to is it? you know, one of those approaches generally are the types of videos that are working interview style. and then we’re running ads behind it. And that has worked really, really well for us. one, we get the content in a timely manner. We’re in control of the content versus the affiliates. We’re in control of what the output of what that looks like. we’re running ads, you know, they come out with performance Max ads now, TikTok and Amazon just partnered another reason why the ad play is really strong. and we’re, it’s it’s not as, affordable, I guess, or as like, as pushing it and going long run and getting affiliates to create. And it’s really just like the samples you’re giving out in this path. You know, it’s ad dollars, but as an agency, it’s way faster to show results to the client and get them some trust and buy in.

Andrew Morgans 00:14:31  After we get that going and we get to a 2 to 1, a 3 to 1 row ads, I think, with the brand I just mentioned, we’re at a 5 to 1 row as now, that we’re scaling, then we can start adding in that affiliate creator approach. Like, you know, our goal is to get 5 or 10, a month on the like, you know, influencer side almost want to say influencer versus creator and add that into what we’re doing versus like relying on just that to do what we need for the brand as an agency, not because we’re not in control of that, not getting results and then being like, we’re sorry we tried. We can’t really get the right creators. It takes time. Like if you’ve been doing this several years, you might have a database of pet influencers, of apparel influencers of, you know, fashion or whatever the case is. But if you’re really getting started, you don’t just have this huge bucket of of all these creators. And so it takes a lot longer.

Andrew Morgans 00:15:09  It’s just like building relationships. You don’t just get a best friend overnight and getting influencers. In a lot of ways it’s like a relationship. So I know that this is I’m trying to be a little step by step. So I was a long answer. But like what we’re doing is essentially that we’re finding creators controlling the content, posting organically, not at the same speed as maybe some others using affiliates, but posting organically, taking the winners, running ads behind them. And you can get into the nuance of having a landing page in place to retarget them and, you know, all those kinds of things. But in general, that’s what we’re doing. And, you know, I think on the low side, we’re at like a two or 3 to 1. And on the higher side, you know, right now we’re at like a 5 to 1 on a row. And, in some cases, I’ve even turned off ads on Amazon just to see the effect. And, and my product’s running as a tick tock shop on a product, a private label product.

Andrew Morgans 00:15:47  My Amazon account is growing naturally because of that. even with PPC turned off. So some fun tests going on. can definitely try different things if it’s your brand versus you’re getting paid to do it for someone else. Of course. Like, you know, but that’s what’s working for us right now.

Josh Hadley 00:16:00  true. This this is amazing. So I’ve had some mental unlocks here that I want to share with everybody. Okay, so number one on TikTok shop, I think like the problem with, like, the creator first approach or influencer first approach is that it’s a spray and pray method. And it’s also it’s you’re only as good as your last viral video. And it’s very unpredictable when that’s coming in. So your sales go like this all of the time on TikTok it’s like super high then super low. Because once that viral video runs out of steam, you’re back to nothing. Yeah. so I love the strategy of ads that it’s like figuratively like, keep that ad on for forever. You know, and again, I think you always have to change things up in the advertising game.

Josh Hadley 00:16:38  But there’s more predictability. There’s a little bit more stability there, much easier for inventory planning for sure. So I like that aspect on it. And then the other aspect that I like is having that mindset shift of maybe could you dial back your ad strategy on Amazon and take that same amount of capital, leverage it on TikTok, and then, you know, you’re going to get some spillover onto Amazon, increasing more awareness, which I think personally, that spend is actually going to influence your organic rank better than any spend that you do on Amazon. I don’t I think the PPC stuff is a very small component of the Amazon ranking algorithm, and I think it’s more due to conversions, traffic, people, search, finding and buying your product. Right? It’s the tried and true like what’s your conversion rate? So drew, I’m curious like are you driving traffic to a DTC site? Are you driving traffic to just TikTok shop itself? Like people are checking out there on TikTok shop? Or are you driving traffic to Amazon?

Andrew Morgans 00:17:35  Well, when I first got into this, I was driving traffic straight from TikTok to Amazon because TikTok shop didn’t exist.

Andrew Morgans 00:17:41  And so that was definitely where I was like pioneering. And I had some amazing results. I took like a new product from, you know, like a 150 BSR to 11 or something like that, like it was ranked 11in a week with organic posting on TikTok. So like, that’s what got me so hype about this in the first place was I took this product with like no PPC or reviews behind it, pushed it to a landing page on Shopify. That Shopify page redirected to Amazon. Click to buy on Amazon. I was I was retargeting them if I wanted. I was filtering them out before they got there, because I do think that things change when you use to send traffic from like, Facebook to Amazon, it would punish you if there’s a lot of bounces, if there’s a lot of like coming to Amazon and leaving and Amazon couldn’t track the difference. And so it was like, wow, there’s a whole lot of people who don’t like this product. Let’s suppress it or whatever. And so I used to be super, OCD about making sure we weren’t sending bad traffic to Amazon.

Andrew Morgans 00:18:20  And now I’m like, you know, I think that’s changed. Honestly. I think that’s changed. Like, I can’t really prove that that’s the thing anymore. so I’m like, less concerned about filtering them out on that landing page. But that’s really for me to retarget because the traffic is so cheap on TikTok. If I get him to a landing page and then I can just if I’m using Meta and Instagram and whatever just to retarget, it’s actually pretty effective. versus using it as the primary advertising medium. And I miss the big Facebook push, like I was going all in on Amazon at the time that people were getting really good at Facebook. And so by the time I decided to try to use Facebook, you know, to drive traffic, it was expensive. It was hard to use. The pros are already there. The learning curve was tough. So when TikTok came back around, I’m like, I’m jumping on this, you know, a little bit of time and opportunity. And also the ads right now on TikTok are like, it’s like automatic ads on Amazon right now.

Andrew Morgans 00:18:58  It’s not rocket science. It’s really not rocket science. you know, so that’s that makes it easy to is like if you’re trying to learn it, you don’t have to be an absolute like demographic pro, you know, to be able to figure it out. so one before TikTok shop, I was pushing a ton of TikTok to Amazon. Now the news is out that you can go from TikTok straight, an app to click and buy on on Amazon. That’s absolutely huge. It makes me even think that maybe Amazon and TikTok are going to come in some kind of arrangement to keep TikTok in the US, and Amazon makes some kind of purchase of them or something. I don’t know. I know that sounds crazy, but when you understand that they have like the was the Amazon Advantage or Amazon TikTok already thing there. TikTok has to sell to someone to get to be able to stay here. Now all of a sudden they’re playing nice together. I’m just like, ooh, that’s kind of a little exciting.

Andrew Morgans 00:19:37  but TikTok shop, like, you know, they’ve I’m an agency partner with TikTok shops. I started getting reps like a rep to help us. I started getting, you know, more training, more insights. And before there was these partnerships with Meta and Amazon, you know, adding shop essentially the conversion rate went way up. Like, you know, if we’re just pushing to shop, it was just way, way, way up. so it’s hard to say. I wanted to take it away from shop and drive directly to Amazon at that point, or directly to the DTC. and a lot of brands I’ve been working with myself are not there. DTC sites are not super impressive. So it hasn’t been the play. You know, it hasn’t been the play. It’s been basically like, can we use this traffic to drive our growth on Amazon, or can we just use it as another channel? I love that with shop, you know, we’re getting email addresses. We’re getting you know, we’re getting customers in a different way.

Andrew Morgans 00:20:17  So as much as you’re getting the 3 to 1 or the 5 to 1 Roas, you’re also building out kind of your DTC play in the long run, which is email marketing and retargeting and all those other things.

Josh Hadley 00:20:25  Yes, 100% on that I would personally recommend driving the traffic to TikTok shop like for people to buy and check out on TikTok. Shop because you get the name, you get the address, you get their phone number like, and then you can do a lot more marketing. There it is. I think it TikTok shop is probably your best bridge to if you want to, you know, create your own DTC site.

Andrew Morgans 00:20:45  I agree right now it’s like it’s like having Facebook and you’re using Facebook to drive your DTC site. Now you have TikTok. You know, you can do TikTok, TikTok shop and you know, how much work or money do we spend trying to get emails back in the day as an Amazon operator? Right. We were doing email appends. We’re doing like inserts, all types of stuff, giveaways, trying to get, you know, by email lists, like, you know, basically like convince them, trick them into, like signing up for your email.

Andrew Morgans 00:21:06  and now there’s just TikTok shop here that can actually get a 3 to 1 or a 5 to 1 row and get the customer info. It’s like, how can you not be doing this? Honestly? Yep.

Josh Hadley 00:21:14  I love that. drew, this is amazing. All right. So love that. Let’s put a pin in the TikTok shop stuff. Let’s talk about what’s working on Amazon right now. or would you Or I think we could double down on the other marketplaces. Do you feel like with your clients, are you seeing more gains, like where if they if brand owners have limited amounts of time, where would you recommend they double down on their efforts? Go in and getting onto new sales channels that are more niche to your specific product, or doubling down on your conversion rate optimization and really juicing everything on Amazon. What? What are you seeing working best right now?

Andrew Morgans 00:21:50  I think it’s it’s, it’s dependent, you know, it’s very much dependent on the brand and what they’re selling and all that.

Andrew Morgans 00:21:56  Like, I think that some products just aren’t good in other places. So, you know, you need some kind of I think you need some kind of pro maybe to tell you where you should be or not. get that help, just like you get tax advice or anything else. Maybe you don’t need them to do everything but get some pro advice. that being said, because I’m not a doctor here, you know, I’m like, I don’t give people the wrong advice, but, I’m, you know, for the longest time, I didn’t see results on Walmart. Now we’re getting results on Walmart. We’ve got quite a few brands there that are doing well. Some of that was just products not being in the right category. They’re not the right price point. But there is potential on Walmart if you have the right products. Right. And now they we just released our first Walmart storefront as a team. that’s a new feature they released. So some of these marketplaces are getting better. Others I knew of because I started working with brands and saw how much volume they were doing there already.

Andrew Morgans 00:22:33  And that’s what woke me up to them. You know, as an agency owner and not just a brand owner, you get a lot more at bats, you get a lot more, you get to see a lot more because you’re working with other brands that are doing stuff that’s winning. Whether I was the one that took that shot or not, I’m now aware of that win, you know? And I think that’s something that as an agency owner has increased my, my learning speed, so to speak, is like I’m not just selling home, home and, home décor goods. And I know everything about home décor goods. I’m learning about pet and supplements and all these things. Right. So chewy.com a big player for us. if you have a pet brand, a lot of people can’t get into chewy, though. so, you know, in the international marketplaces, I it’s not another marketplace, but it’s kind of in that other category. I think that’s if you’re a really good Amazon. operator.

Andrew Morgans 00:23:07  Like thinking about those, those international marketplace, it might take you a year to get up, might take a year to get it up. but that next year after that, let’s start growing. Right. And you’re trying to find 10% growth somewhere. I really think you can find it on those other marketplaces. so I think it’s a little brand dependent on what we’re selling. Guys, is anyone listening? but as an Amazon agency, where I see, I still see so many brands falling short of doing things the right way, I’m obviously not talking to the people that have everything right. but I’m talking about, I think on Amazon, I really have to be a mindset shift. You have to have a mindset shift of saying, I know even if I’ve been doing this ten years, like myself right now, I’m going through a phase of, one as a brand owner, not just an agency owner. I’ve got two things I’m running right, two different simultaneous things. It’s, an unlearning and unlearning of what I knew in the past.

Andrew Morgans 00:23:48  That might not be the case today. And really approaching everything. Just, I don’t know what I don’t know. And how can I get better at what I’m doing? So, you know, the 8020 rule, if you have a hero product on Amazon, that’s absolutely crushing it. you know, maybe you invest in that one and see if there’s upside, you know? So I think it’s, it’s hard for me to give a yes or no answer where the upside is or not. If you have a super boring product, maybe TikTok’s not for you, you know, and we’re talking TikTok and TikTok shot, but you have, like, you know, an extender to a screwdriver or something. I’m not sure. Maybe that is the one, you know, I don’t know. but, for us, we’re definitely looking to those brands that want to double down on Amazon and saying like, hey, let’s just actually take this to the next level. Premium. A lot of people don’t have premium a plus in place or from the brand, the brand story stuff.

Andrew Morgans 00:24:27  They don’t have that in place. They’re not doing all those things. So if that’s you and you’re listening to this, I say, if you’re an Amazon seller, you have Amazon expertise. I say double down on Amazon. That’s that’s the answer. I’m going to go with Josh. And then once you’ve done that those auxiliary marketplaces.

Josh Hadley 00:24:39  Yeah I like that. And I think the other takeaway from that drew is like look you got to be willing to test different things out, right? And you always got to be at least I love having one of your strategies every year be like, I’m taking this shot. You know, that you’re like, for us this year it was TikTok shop. It was like, I don’t know if it will do very well, but let’s take the shot. Because if you never take, you’re going to miss 100% of the shots that you don’t take. Right. And so I think hearing from you that you are seeing, hey guys, people are having success, even though it might be a lot of work, but when they get on to chewy.com or when they get on to, you know, even Walmart, we’re seeing success there.

Josh Hadley 00:25:14  Now. It’s not to say, guys, this will work for every single one of you, but it’s to say people are winning in these spaces. It may be worth your time in consideration to venture out yourself. so, drew, maybe let’s let’s focus maybe our time and efforts now on the optimization that you see brand owners making on Amazon. Because I feel like this is this is an endless topic. There’s always endless amounts of tests and optimizations that you can be making. But as Amazon becomes more competitive and more commoditized, what do you see is like who’s going to win over the next five years? What types of brands do you think are going to win out?

Andrew Morgans 00:25:48  I think, you know, what’s changing is just like I talked about earlier about the the pioneers of Amazon kind of being operation pros, you know, being technical, being like, you know, they’re thinking about supply chain. They’re thinking about inventory management, sourcing new products. you know, I think that there’s a level of that that’s still like there’s still the juice to squeeze, so to speak, and being great at that, you know, and I’m in the chats, I’m in the, you know, the orange click chats.

Andrew Morgans 00:26:11  I’m in all the different chats of all the pros. Right. And everyone’s talking about supply chain and, and warehousing and trying to find those opportunities. And that’s great I get that. I think at the end of the day, branding and storytelling, and product is really going to win the day. I think that’s what’s going to win the day. And that’s why I, you know, I speak to creative, creative and content as being the game changer is what sets us apart from all the other countries in the world. you know, if you look at the US, it’s our music, our entertainment, our movies that run the world. Like that’s if we if America brings anything to the world, it’s culture. and so like with that in mind, I think that’s still our strength, even as, as people not involved in those industries. That is still the strength of the US. as far as, like an opportunity and so leaning into that, like, you know, just really leaning in to brand, really leaning into storytelling, really leaning into relationship, really leaning into presentation.

Andrew Morgans 00:26:57  those are the things that that stand out. And those are the things that like when, when things lean up and get harder, I think, it’s not that you can ignore the rest, right? I’m just, people don’t want to do hard things, even though it’s us pros that maybe did hard things five years ago, ten years ago. It’s still hard to do hard things. Like I have to tell myself every day. you know, I like to do hard things. I like to do hard things. Let’s go learn some more. Drew. Year on year 15. Let’s go learn some more. Let’s go learn some more. And I hope I’m speaking to some people that just understand what I’m talking about. She’s like, man, I’m tired of of learning. I don’t, you know, TikTok shop or learning email now or learning like whatever. but it’s what you got to do if you want to stay competitive and you want to win. And so I hope I’m talking to the winners here that want to do that.

Andrew Morgans 00:27:29  And, I would just say lean in to like, the things that aren’t your strong suit. Just because you don’t value it doesn’t mean others don’t. You know, advertising, marketing, storytelling has has existed way before any of these marketplaces come around. And I think if you lean into those things, it’s going to win the day. I do think it’s going to win the day.

Josh Hadley 00:27:44  Yeah. You know, I, I think your point is well taken in terms of like the creative and the storytelling for a brand. That brand story I think becomes ten times more important. And you’re right, like if you take a look at the media in the world, from music to movies, like it’s pretty rare to find, you know, some other, like a Latin film that’s going viral, viral around the world. Right? Like it’s it’s just rare. but you see, like the US culture is embedded everywhere that you go. and so I think that part is, is truly unique. So drew, with that being said, and we actually had a branding expert or like kind of like a storytelling expert on the podcast just a couple episodes ago, I would encourage people to go back and listen.

Josh Hadley 00:28:25  It was Jesse J. Wroblewski, and he talked about how the the best brands in the world, through their brand storytelling, are able to commoditize a commodity product. And so that at the end of the day, I think truly is going to be what sets people apart. So, drew, you’re an expert in that field, in creativity. So what? Give me some actionable items, things that brand owners should be leveraging on Amazon to tell that brand story to win out amongst the sea of overseas competition and everything else.

Andrew Morgans 00:28:54  Yeah. So I’m speaking from the heart here as someone that, as an agency owner in the Amazon space is getting harder. you know, it’s getting commoditized. Even what we do like, it’s catching up in that way. I’m having to think about storytelling with my analogy a little bit better, and how to change that and how to relook at that. So I’m not I’m not really giving advice on anything. I’m not working on myself. Truly, even as a creative pros process, you got to keep things fresh.

Andrew Morgans 00:29:14  You got to keep things new. And something that like a euphemism or a way I’ve been kind of sharing this a little bit is one you said something earlier, which is like you have to keep innovating and testing. And I had a thought on that, which is just like, look, it becomes even harder to do that when times are hard, when it’s getting leaner or your numbers are down, it becomes even harder to test and innovate and spend money on research or innovation. But it becomes even more important. So whatever you have to do in your business to restructure, I think when times are getting hard or leaner or, you know, it’s not like it used to be, that’s when you need to even research and test even more, even though it’s harder. So I wanted to say that because your tendency is to pull back and I don’t want to try that consultant. I don’t wanna try that agency. I don’t want to try that tick tock shop, experiment with my time. Like I need things that are driving money right now.

Andrew Morgans 00:29:50  And that’s just not really how it works. Right? So, you know, but back back to your question before, like, what are some of the things that you can do on Amazon to to really do a good job of that is, you know, I think of like an exit that we had was with Ballsy Brand. I don’t know if, you know, Ballsy Brand out of Austin. They’re like the manscaped competitor. Right. And that’s a commoditized product. Body wash. Okay. Deodorant, body wash. Like, let’s talk about, commoditized brand. Right. But that fun, tongue in cheek. This is for men. This is like they’ve got jokes along with their products that are like, you know, they’ve got a story that they’re telling that’s just like, you know, that was tailored to men. And it was that, that story that all of a sudden they’ve got a new body wash and a new deodorant. We haven’t smelled that smell before or like, you know, use that soap before, it’s a story.

Andrew Morgans 00:30:30  It’s a brand. It’s it’s it’s clever. It’s something we’re sharing. It’s it’s shareable. It’s like, did you see this funny thing or did you see this funny thing? And those are like, to me, that’s what’s winning at the end of the day is like that, that story brand there. And so everyone has a version of that, and some people are way better than others at telling that. And on Amazon, for a lot of people, they never really needed to create that story at the beginning. So now they’re trying to do it, like further down the road, when at first they just needed to like, get products up and have a good product that would review. Well, they didn’t need that brand, they didn’t need that brand story. And now they’re like, well, I got myself here. I got myself to seven figures or, you know, how do I get to the next stage? And it’s like, well, what got you here won’t get you there kind of thing.

Andrew Morgans 00:31:03  And so you might not even you might need to start even before it’s just what can you do on Amazon. And it might need to be that you bring in a pro to help you tell that story. What I can say is you don’t need to create a new product line or reinvent the brand or anything like that. You can truly create a story around any product. I do believe that, like if you’re if you’re good enough or if you really get creative with it. So one is like, maybe even before you’re on Amazon, you need to be thinking about that. If that resonated with you to the people on Amazon, is is taking advantage of of everything that Amazon’s giving us, right. Like premium a plus is something that I just did a presentation with orange. Click on YouTube and Daniela Bozeman for Mindful goods. you know, someone has been creating content for the Amazon committee for a long time. And she has a client that’s paying 500,000 a year for access to premium A-plus. and now it’s available for everybody right now, you know, so a lot of people aren’t taking advantage of that.

Andrew Morgans 00:31:47  you know, they they’re not wanting to invest in content or they don’t have video or they don’t have they don’t have, content like that to really take advantage of it. But you’re able to have, images like, you know, heat maps, not heat mapped images, but shoppable images. You’re able to have video in there. You’re able to do like a slide, a carousel in your A-plus. Like it’s just taking it to the next level. I think it’s having a mixture of UGC in your content and your videos and your Amazon reviews. It’s it’s really thinking about intentionally. If you were to go image one to image six and storytelling as if you’re sitting at a dining table, you’re seeing a demonstrable product at Costco or Sam’s Club, and you’re like going to tell someone like a landing page, walk them through your offer. and then if it’s still not clear, that’s where that A+ page comes in and you’re building trust or reputation or whatever. I was talking about the euphemism I’ve been using to bring it back, so I lost it for a second.

Andrew Morgans 00:32:30  It was, brands. This is like I’m in real estate, too. I do Airbnbs, short term rentals. Like, you know, that’s something that I’ve been investing in over the last 5 or 6 years to kind of diversify away from Amazon. Amazon and brand building is not that guys. It is not investing. It is not a brand is a living thing. It is alive. It communicates, it has a lifespan. It it has relationships are at the core of it. So just like you, you know, if you’re if you get married, you’ve been married ten years, you can’t stop dating your wife. You have to continue to pursue her. You have to continue to communicate. You have to continue to try to wow her. you know, all of those things. I think with the brand, we can get complacent, too. And being like, you wore the same outfit for five years now on every, you know, as a brand, you haven’t had a refresh, you’ve been wearing the same outfit.

Andrew Morgans 00:33:06  There’s nothing fresh about your messaging. There’s nothing fresh about your packaging. There’s nothing fresh about your your shirt, your tie, your haircut. There’s nothing even worth talking about at this point. It just becomes like, yeah, I know that that’s going to be there, like, you know, and you start taking it for granted. Why? Because it’s not it’s not putting effort into the relationship. And I know this isn’t like I was very technical on the TikTok side. On this side, I’m talking more about mindset because we’re talking about something that’s an emotional thing, a mindset thing about your brand. And I just see a lot of brands, you know, dropping the ball here. But I’m going to pause there. I’m going to go a different direction now with with what some other brands are doing on Amazon. But I just want to kind of leave that there, which is just like really being intentional about your storytelling, really being intentional about, you know, are my images conveying the keywords that matters in my brand, that people are finding my brand? Am I resonating with them? Have I used product, Pantene or pick food to get some feedback on my stuff? Am I using Amazon experiments to see like old copy versus new copy? When was the last time I tried on a new outfit on my brand? When was the last time I tried on anything new like that? so think think about that more than I think.

Andrew Morgans 00:33:59  Like a tactical, like, do this, do this, do this. But when was the last time, you know, you changed your outfit? When’s the last time you, you know, you took family photos, so to speak? When was the last time you had a refresh? Sometimes it’s not even that. What you have is bad. It’s just stale and old. Yeah.

Josh Hadley 00:34:09  How can you communicate? What do you think are, like, the best ways to communicate, like your brand differentiation on Amazon and to tell that story, like for example, like in the secondary images on Amazon. Would you even recommend like what if your you have your main image? But what about your number two image being like about your brand story? And it could be about like look more, you know, hear more about the artist behind this product or the designer behind this product or whatever it is, right? Learn more about the brand, like with ballsy to same thing. It’s like, this is who we are.

Josh Hadley 00:34:41  This is what we stand for. Do you like that? Is it a complaint on Amazon? Do you like that? Doubling down in telling, like that’s the differentiating factor between us and these other commodity brands. It’s like this is our story behind our product.

Andrew Morgans 00:34:52  Or I think I think it’s product specific to like, look, I’m a I’m a white male, you know, six three, pale as hell white male, you know, and I don’t I’m a mud. I’m American mud. Okay. My family’s been here since the Revolutionary War. I grew up in Africa. But, like, my culture is is wishy washy, right? I don’t have I’m not part of a minority. I’m not. There’s nothing I can really claim with my brand other than being like, I’m from a poor family and from a missionary family. I’m a family. I’m a bootstrapped entrepreneur. I come from the mud, paid my way through college. Like, you know, I’m that’s my story, right? other people have a much better thing that they can kind of like launch with, so to speak, like a female owned business or minority owned business or let’s just say made in the USA, or like certain certain things like that.

Andrew Morgans 00:35:31  Right. And if, if you can automatically find some level of success because the Vietnamese Americans in the country are going to support your brand because you’re Vietnamese American, lean into that and that might be where you hit that way early because they might not even care what the product is. They might be like. I’m just really about supporting other Vietnamese Americans and jumping on that. I think that’s okay. Like, I think that’s that’s 100% okay. And I think if that’s your brand, that’s like what you’re about, then go that angle, and you might hit that earlier on if you’re like me, where that’s not really a big play, you know, saying family owned business or bootstrapped or like, you know, any of that kind of stuff. I might keep my brand story later. I might have that later, maybe lower down like on the from the brand or the brand story part. Like do something about like me and my family and what I’m doing because I don’t think it’s enough that someone’s going to just intentionally just buy from me just because, but I do think, like, at least in Kansas City, I see them in person, like, very much.

Andrew Morgans 00:36:15  So people show up for their people and support it, simply because it’s their people and they want to support it. So I hope that that lands. I was like a little bit of a mouthful trying to get that out, but I think that I’m so like, I think as an expert, it’s so hard for me to say black and white, this is the way to go or not go. And I think the people that do on Amazon, I think they’re hogwash because I’m like, that’s not the case if you’ve done enough attempts, if you work with 400 brands, if you’ve seen different approaches, you’re going to know that there isn’t just one way to do anything right. So I think if that’s something really unique to you, lean into that. I think, some people story just sucks. They’ve lived in Kansas City their whole life. They’ve never traveled. They’ve never experienced other cultures. you know, their family never experienced other cultures. Like, they might be good people, good human beings.

Andrew Morgans 00:36:49  But like their story, their life story in that aspect is kind of boring. They haven’t done anything worth sharing. They haven’t done anything worth telling. Okay, if I can use that as an example. And the same thing can be the case on Amazon versus like, if you’re doing something, you’re living a life that’s exciting. You’re living a life where you’re learning things and traveling and meeting other cultures. I have stories to tell when I come back from my travels, right? Same thing with the brand. If your brain is actually like, got some cool stuff that it’s doing, maybe it’s giving back to the community. Maybe it’s made by, you know, refugees that are the seamstresses in your brand and like, you know, or like all that cool stuff like that is really cool. Put it up, put it early, like, you know, be proud. Be be proud. Right. If you don’t have that, don’t try to sell something that’s not there. Don’t try to make yourself exciting if you’re not exciting kind of thing.

Andrew Morgans 00:37:26  so that’s, you know, that’s just where I feel about, like the element. I still think there can even be a level of that, even if it’s not exciting. But like, don’t put that first and foremost. That’s not that might be like at the bottom of your landing page, making people, you know, they want to know about you. So they look into it, they’re like, oh, they’re American. Cool. Like that’s what I get, right? Oh, it’s an American cool. but not any of the other stuff. Right. So I think when you’re thinking about your brand story, if your product is like technical, if your product has enough to talk about, like enough selling points, use all those images on that, don’t even talk about the brand. And maybe in the A plus is where you’re getting into the brand. If you’re if your product alone has its own story, maybe you don’t need to lean into that brand stuff, but we’re doing a lot of like maybe one image number six being, like, ethically sourced and like, you know, that kind of stuff about from the brand and maybe another images like the other products in their lineup that we can like, expose them to and then like, you know, maybe 3 or 4 images really about the product.

Andrew Morgans 00:38:08  you know, early on, and we’ll use picture product painting to kind of be like, which of these photos are important? Or do they matter to you and kind of get some feedback on that, just get a little bit of feedback loop on like, do these things matter or not? but it’s a subjective thing. I think it’s a subjective thing based on what you’re selling.

Josh Hadley 00:38:22  Yeah. Andrew, we could go on for another hour here. We might have to do a part two here, but, I think you’ve shared a lot of deep strategies here with all of us today, so I’d love to leave the listeners with three actionable takeaways from every episode. Here are the three actionable takeaways that I noted. You let me know if I’m missing something. So action item number one is every single year when you do your annual planning or quarterly planning, you need to have a wild idea where you’re taking a shot. and I love the analogy that you shared, drew, you know, don’t wait until your backs up against the wall to say, oh, we should go diversify now.

Josh Hadley 00:38:55  Sales suck on this platform. Now for me, I need to go and figure it out, because you’re going to be coming from a state or of lack and minimalism and you’re like, I’m not making as much money as I am, so I’m not going to invest on giving hundreds of samples away for this new product endeavor, even though it may open up retail distribution channels that could double or triple your business overnight. Right. And so it reduces that mindset. So that means always be testing. So just like on Amazon, the rule of thumb has always been always be launching. Well likewise your second priority in the business should be like always be testing new platforms, new opportunities to grow your brand. So that’s action item number one. Action item number two is I think, leverage what’s working now. And TikTok shop is probably the hottest topic of what’s working for a lot of people right now. And so drew shared an immense deep dive in how they’re utilizing TikTok shop. And frankly speaking, it’s one of the first, like really creative ways that I’ve seen people using it, which I think has a lot of advantages compared to just going the traditional reach out to a bunch of influencers, affiliates send them a bunch of sample products.

Josh Hadley 00:39:57  See what sticks. Thank you. You’re much more in control, and you don’t have to pay the commission when you spark somebody else’s ad, because it’s your own video. So I think that’s worth noting. And then the third and final action item is to lean into your brand story and your creative content. You talked about premium A+ content. If you don’t have that, put that as an action item. If you don’t have a true brand story or message, you know, maybe it’s worth, you know, reaching out to a consultant, reaching out to an expert. If that’s not your area of specialty, and get something put together to sink your teeth into. Because I think the long gone are the days of just private label brands of hey, I slap my some random word brand name that I came up with, and I put it on this mug and that’s enough. You have to have a differentiating factor, and I think it’s going to be what sets you apart from the overseas competitors in the long term.

Josh Hadley 00:40:42  So those are my three actionable takeaways. Anything I missed.

Andrew Morgans 00:40:45  No, you killed it I, I wanted to leave something that’s just a little fun. I just found this out this weekend. I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but do you ever use, like, Postmates or Uber Eats or DoorDash? Ever? Like, okay, so, you know, if you’re busy, you got like, look, I can go take that our lunch break, or I can have food delivered and save myself some time, you know. So anyway, my friend showed me this weekend that there’s these ghost restaurants that I didn’t know about. Okay, think of this in regards to Amazon guys, because Postmates and UberEats is just like what they’ve created is a marketplace for restaurants, right? So it’s another marketplace. We just don’t operate in restaurants. Right. But what they’re doing is, is if you actually look at it, it might be like Mr. B, Mr. B sandwiches or like, you know, what’s the one that he, he tests all the pizza places.

Andrew Morgans 00:41:21  you know, these like these popular, like, influencers, on social media and they’re calling it like MrBeast subs. And you go in there, it’s like a steak and cheese. It’s like a salami, an Italian meatball. And, but if you go look at the address, they have these names. If you go look at the address, what I found was that Mr. Beast sandwich sub shop is coming from IHOP. Okay. So what’s happening is IHOP is like, I want to reach a different market. I want to tell a different story than the IHOP story. you know, I think we can, like, no one’s going to IHOP for a steak and cheese sub. I know I’m not. That’s not what comes to mind when I’m like, I want a steak and cheese sub. But I ordered that on on Postmates. It was pretty good, right? And so just a silly example of like how a reframing of the same product, really thinking about what’s a new opportunity and a way I can tell my story a little bit different about our restaurant because it’s not IHOP now, I’m all of a sudden like, oh, it’s got a new, new outfit on it, so to speak.

Andrew Morgans 00:42:08  Like, you know, it’s not wearing the same outfit and I’m willing to take a shot on it. So if that can like as just an example of like, you know, that’s, that’s an opportunity that IHOP is leaning into. And it was like a Denny’s and an IHOP. And just look up the addresses on some of these, these spots that you didn’t know of. And you see, wow, that’s that’s a thing. So think about that with the same context of your brand. and just you got to be trying you got to be innovating. You got to be, you know, keeping it fresh.

Josh Hadley 00:42:27  Good words of wisdom, Andrew. Love it. All right. My final three questions I’d love to ask each guest. So number one, what’s been the most influential book that you’ve read and why?

Andrew Morgans 00:42:34  Well, I’m a I’m an avid reader. I definitely go through spurts. you know, and I think the body keeps score is not related to business, but the Body Keeps score would be my number one book.

Andrew Morgans 00:42:44  Just at the time that I read it, what I was going through, you know, my past is pretty crazy in Africa. It was like I was in war zones and some stuff like that. So I’m not a soldier. I’m a missionary kid. But I definitely went through a lot of life at a young age. And that book just really, really opened my mind to a lot of things. And I want to have a secondary one that’s not so heavy as that one. For some people, it’s a book called Tribe by Sebastian Younger. Have you heard of it?

Josh Hadley 00:43:04  I think I’ve heard of it, but I haven’t read it.

Andrew Morgans 00:43:06  Okay. It’s a short read. Meaning it’s not a super big book. I recommend it to anyone. to the point where I’m like, if you read it, you don’t like it, send me a Venmo request. I’ll pay for it. Like it’s a good book. and it’s just about relationships. And, it’s following a reporter, a wartime reporter through battles and, just talking about friendship and relationship and kind of what matters and what drives soldiers together.

Andrew Morgans 00:43:25  What drives tribes together, what makes up a tribe. I think this Amazon community, definitely pre 2020 and even now, you know, it just changing a little bit. But, we’re a tribe in a lot of ways too. And I’ve really enjoyed being a part of the ecom community. So, tribe by Sebastian Junger. I recommend it to everyone. I really, really think you’d enjoy it.

Josh Hadley 00:43:41  Awesome recommendation. All right. Question number two. What’s your favorite AI tool that you’re using and why?

Andrew Morgans 00:43:47  that’s hard for me. I’m using a lot of different AI tools. I’m actually working on like an outbound Legion system. And so I’m like playing with a lot of them, but just as a standalone, that might help somebody else. beautiful. I, just for, like, when I’m throwing together, some quick pitches, I’ve got kind of decks and templates built out in there, so I can just kind of talk to it, but I can throw stuff together pretty quick. If anybody doesn’t know, it’s a presentation tool, the slideshow tool, you can export it to your to Google Slides or to PowerPoint to.

Andrew Morgans 00:44:09  So I can basically get like a framework really, really quickly. And then I pass it to my, my creative team. They kind of take the final ten yards or whatever. but beautiful AI great recommendation.

Josh Hadley 00:44:20  I’ve used that one as well in the past. All right. Final question. Who is somebody that you would respect or admire in the e-commerce space that you would recommend other people follow and why?

Andrew Morgans 00:44:27  Well, that’s a hard one. as well. I have so many friends, you know, and colleagues in this space, but I’m going to say, John Dirks, you know, he’s someone that recently, maybe the last couple of years, we’ve connected just on some different ecom deals. and so I started, like, just really had some 4 or 5 great conversations and was like, wow, this is like a really sharp guy that really knows his stuff. Follow him on LinkedIn. He’s always keeping it fresh and, you know, always giving some kind of insight that I haven’t put the time into find, so to speak.

Andrew Morgans 00:44:53  And so, yeah, I’m not a sponsored by John in any means, but, I would say he has a new newsletter, I believe, and I should give it a follow.

Josh Hadley 00:45:00  Yeah, we’ve had him on the podcast, and, he, he shared some super valuable tips. So he’s a great one to follow. Great one to follow. Well, drew, this has been awesome. If people want to learn more about you, learn about your services, maybe have, you manage their PPC and, content, where can people find you?

Andrew Morgans 00:45:16  Yeah. So, I’m on LinkedIn. Andrew Morgan’s with an S. I think there’s not that many Morgans. So pretty easy to find me. also, mark knowledge.com. you know, we’ve got some good content, portfolios, stuff to test, to find. I’m on YouTube and Instagram. I would say Instagram is my my more personal one where I’m talking about mindset and, traveling and family and just where my head’s at, what books I’m reading and stuff like that.

Andrew Morgans 00:45:35  So, business side is kind of LinkedIn personal side, entrepreneurship stuff. Less Amazon, less e-commerce focuses on Instagram. just just Andrew Morgan’s awesome.

Josh Hadley 00:45:44  Well, drew, thanks again for your time and joining the show today.

Andrew Morgans 00:45:46  Awesome. Josh, thanks for having me.