Josh Gibson is the CEO and President of Sojourn Group Consulting, an Amazon boutique marketing agency specializing in helping sellers grow their marketplace. Before starting Sojourn, Josh worked in the banking industry. Today, his busy schedule doesn’t allow for much downtime, but when he’s not in the office, Josh spends it with his wife of 15 years and their four kids.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Josh Gibson discusses how Sojourn Group Consulting got its start
- How Josh began selling on Amazon
- Tools needed to run an efficient business
- Why your company should use an agency to grow the business
- What is listing optimization?
- Other Amazon services to use besides FBA
- The best platforms suited for your agency
- Josh Gibson’s opinion of the “Get Support” button
- Josh Hadley’s three actionable takeaways from this episode
- Josh Gibson recommends his favorite productivity tools
In this episode…
Are you an Amazon seller who’s frustrated with how the platform eats your margin for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? With an estimated 6.3 million sellers on Amazon, there is plenty of competition for your product to stand out. Add to that compromised cash flow, strict inventory expectations, packaging restrictions, and high fees, and it’s easy for your bottom line to fall into the red. So what strategies are there for sellers to make a profit?
Josh Gibson, business leader and expert Amazon seller, suggests you prioritize tracking your weights and categories and the products you’re selling. Other tips for seller success are leveraging best-selling products, optimizing product listings, and experimenting with selling on other e-commerce channels.
Tune into this episode of the eComm Breakthrough Podcast with host Josh Hadley as he sits down with Josh Gibson, the CEO and President of Sojourn Group Consulting. The two discuss expanding seller distribution channels, the best tools to efficiently operate a business, why you should hire a marketing agency to help grow your brand, and more.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Josh Hadley on LinkedIn
- eComm Breakthrough Consulting
- eComm Breakthrough Podcast
- Hadley Designs
- Hadley Designs on Amazon
- Josh Gibson on LinkedIn
- Sojourn Group Consulting
Special mention(s):
Book(s):
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by Ecomm Breakthrough Consulting where I help seven figure ecommerce owners grow to eight figures. Of course…
I started Hadley Designs 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 go to www.EcommBreakthrough.com (that’s Ecomm with two M’s) to learn more.
As a special bonus to my podcast listeners, this month I’m giving away one $10,000 comprehensive business strategy audit session at no cost. Email me at josh@ecommbreakthrough.com with the subject line “Strategy Audit” and tell me why your business should win the free audit for the chance to win and don’t worry, if you don’t win the free strategy audit this month, you’ll automatically be entered for future months.
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:04
Welcome to the eComm Breakthrough Podcast. Are you ready to unlock the full potential and growth in your business? You’ve already crossed seven figures in sales, but the challenge is knowing how to take your business to the next level. Join Josh Hadley, an eight figure e-comm business owner and investor, as he interviews highly successful business owners. Get ready because you’re going to learn specific actions you can take today to help your business reach its full potential and leave a lasting impact on the world.
Josh Hadley 0:37
Welcome to the eComm Breakthrough Podcast. I’m your host Josh Hadley where I interview the top business leaders in e-commerce. Today I’m speaking with Josh Gibson, President and CEO of Sojourn Group Consulting. He will be talking a lot about operating a profitable e-commerce business on multiple marketplaces. This episode is brought to you by eComm Breakthrough Consulting where I help seven-figure companies grow to eight figures and beyond. Listen, Josh, I started Hadley Designs back in 2015. And I grew it to an eight-figure brand in seven years. But I made a lot of mistakes along the way that made getting to that eight figure mark take a lot longer than it needed to. And there were times where I doubted whether I could actually run a profitable business or survive or actually become a real brand. I wish I would have had a guide to help me grow faster and avoid a lot of those stumbling blocks. If you’ve hit similar plateaus and want to know the next steps to take your business to the next level. Then go to eCommBreakthrough.com. (That’s eComm with two M’s) to learn more. And as a special bonus to my podcast listeners. This month I’m giving away one $10,000 comprehensive business strategy audit session at no cost. All you need to do is email me at Josh at eCommBreakthrough.com with the subject line “strategy audit and tell me why I should choose you for the strategy audit” for your chance to win. And don’t worry if you don’t win this month, you’ll be entered for future months to come. But today I’m super excited to introduce you to Josh Gibson. Over the past 20 years, Josh has been leading Sojourn Group Consulting, a company with a strong e-commerce focus. Sojourn Group Consulting specializes in marketplace sales, and has evolved from being a third party seller into an agency that helps other sellers grow their marketplace presence without having to hire a full team. their years of experience and team make their bolt on solution very simple. For many companies outside of work, he is happily married for 15 years, and is the father of four children ages 8, 6, 4 and 2 that makes him very busy. At this stage in his life. He says there’s little time for anything except work and family. So welcome to the podcast. Josh.
Josh Gibson 2:47
Thank you so much for thanks for having me.
Josh Hadley 2:49
Well, with how busy you are with a young and growing family and the business. We’re excited to have you share some of your time with us. So thanks again for joining us. Josh, tell us how did Sojourn Consulting Group get started? Tell me when you got into this space. And you know what evolved? You know, you were selling, I assume? And then that kind of evolved into an agency, why don’t you rewind the tapes and tell us more.
Josh Gibson 3:14
We started back in 2002. As a seller on eBay, we’re doing custom built computers. And from there, we started to see a grow in the the size in the garage took up more and more space of custom build computers than we realized that each component itself also could sell for some money. And we started selling the components that were able to source cheaper because we were buying in volume. From there, we got into a couple of them lens and refurbished realizing that they’re very similar quality, if not the same quality of just being customer returns. And we’re able to dive into a few different brands with the with returns and refurbished product and put those into the computers where it will make the computers a little more profitable. But also realize that selling refurbished had a much larger lease back margin than they then were making on the new stuff. From there. We got into multiple different brands and then continued to grow. And in 2000, and we’re where we are in 2001 of our a few years ago, we ended up realizing that the desire for third party selling was becoming much less and more and more brands were moving their accounts and their selling from being in the distribution world to being a direct to consumer sales. So instead of b2b, they want to go b2c. And we realized with the the team and resources we had it made a lot of sense for us to start pivoting what we’re doing no longer being a third party seller, but being a consulting agency for these brands that are coming over. We specialize in helping bring brands from vendor central over to Seller Central, because we we’ve seen a lot of the heartache that goes along with being a vendor central seller, that dependence on Amazon, the chargebacks being able to hit multiple different troughs for for for revenue streams for Amazon not realizing how much it actually cost to be a vendor central seller cellar. And with that, we also were able to pick up other brands from from referrals or brands that we’ve been able to work with, to grow. So it started as a very small two person operation out of a garage. Now we’re running 39 people. And we have a little over $250 million under management, currently. So
