Howard Thai 3:41
We were actually doing really well. We’re doing eight figures before going to China doing Amazon? We did. Let’s see. We did eBay worldwide. We’re talking about worldwide. We’re the first person to do like eBay UK back then, you know, when no one was really going towards that? I’m not sure exactly when it was maybe 2006. Okay. And then we were going into like different countries, you know, first local marketplaces in the United States such as it was Jet back then you got jet.com You got like
kind of Rakuten.
Josh Hadley 4:20
Rakuten. Yeah,
Howard Thai 4:22
we got what was eBay and then I don’t remember exactly what other marketplaces but then we will expand it to other countries in ways other countries, local marketplaces, Prime Minister Lazada and Mobberley barber degree and so on. I remember there was a lot of other other countries have a really small little marketplace wn. So mainly we’re marketplace heavy as well as we understand we created our own website, the facility, some of you know orders and stuff like that coming in, not just marketplaces, but also websites. And then we from 2009. I was, I wanted to go to China, because I felt like we were doing wholesale back then, right? We’re doing all these like mp3 accessory, that focus has three cases. And when we say, you know, I’m shipping it from different, different factories, and we’re not consolidating it in enough, we weren’t able to put a lot of our stickers back, then your back then it was really everyone wasn’t into like, helping you label it a certain way that they didn’t know. So you have a basin in China to have everything consolidated. So we can actually push everything to the FDA or a warehouse in the US. We actually had a warehouse in the US at the time, as well. So we moved to China in 2009, Sanjay, and we started collecting a lot of talent, their employees back then when employees was about 1000, RMB. Person that okay, it was really crazy.
Josh Hadley 6:11
What is that in USD $50 $150 is like a month,
Howard Thai 6:17
then a month. Okay. So that’s where, and then it was really hard, because I was I had to like, my servers, I had to build it in us and kind of carry it over to China. Because, you know, because the, there wasn’t really a lot of talent in there back then for the similar stereotype. So and it costs a lot, like three or four times as much as the US. So we’re interested in carrying like laptops and servers back there, to set up the first operational company that we serve in China. So that’s where we, that’s how we started. Then we built about 150 people team through in China, maybe about like 100 of 100. And we have 50 people in the US for warehousing and local, like local marketplaces, so that we grew with. So that’s kind of how we became 150 130 people strong. I remember that we had like, 20 to 30,000 orders in one day, through our center that we built. So it was harder back then. Because there’s no like, there wasn’t like FDA. We weren’t until like maybe late, late 2013. Oh, I forgot exactly when it’s okay. But we had to do everything ourselves. So we’re learning curve was a lot harder. You need to be Proficient, Proficient in warehousing, automation, and streamline everything and hiring. It’s not it’s not like right now. So right now, it’s really pretty easy. Because you only have to worry about shipping your products from the manufacturer to FBA, as well as, as well as just being the marketing try. So
Josh Hadley 8:01
fascinating. So no, no, we’re doing
Howard Thai 8:04
that no, no customer service, and no warehousing. So that’s like half of the problems.
Josh Hadley 8:09
Oh, yeah. Well out of your 150 employee team at the time, how many of them were spent just focused on the manufacturing and fulfilling orders, then, like what percentage of your team was spent on that side of the business?
Howard Thai 8:23
Let’s say are one 1/5 of the people 161 Fifth 1/4 of the people, okay. We have a lot of people packing, and also looking after that side of
Josh Hadley 8:38
the business, awesome. What’s interesting, Howard about your experiences that you are basically doing FBA, but doing it yourself? Well, before FBA even became a thing, right, and so, obviously, I think all of your experience on different marketplaces, and you’re honestly in the early days of E commerce shopping, right, like you are out there, you know, really kind of pioneering a lot of what we see today. No wonder you had such great success once you moved over onto the Amazon platform. So Howard, why don’t you let’s pull back the curtains a little bit. And tell us more about how did you become a top 50 seller on all of Amazon? What were what were the things that you were doing in the hopes of being able to share some actionable advice with our audience and listeners that they could then implement in their own business? First,
Howard Thai 9:33
I would say that, you know, right now, in our environment, yes, back then was a lot easier to sell on Amazon. But right now, there’s a lot more resources than back then. Right. You have all these events. You have all these people who knows that things, you know, from from my side, I would probably say I was a little slower at the very beginning because we didn’t have any people who are experts and knowledgeable that would be Me Out to speak about things. So there’s a lot that there’s a lot of hope. So back then we would have to learn a lot of our things ourselves. There wasn’t no, not much help effective. So not even people that are within that realm of knowledge of sound international marketplaces, you know, there wasn’t really a system that was there that would hold you. So we had to build it out ourselves. So we kind of like, either in the very beginning without the resources have to kind of, you know, like, how do we put them labeled correctly, where it prints out international orders? You know, with those funny European symbols like German? Yeah. Yeah, I don’t even know what to call it. So we have to replace it a little more in place, certain characters and, and this and that feel, it’s kind of like, it’s a lot harder back then. But right now, it’s been like, it’s been easy for international selling. So that each person each company, they have, they’re going through their own problems. So we knew, right now, being able to, for me, at least, for me, I had to go through intensive like, from we starting to sell on single marketplaces to try and expand your multiple marketplaces, you need a system. So what system we use was like a channel advisor back then, before they even went public, was with a stock there as the CEO, and then, and then they went public. And then we went two or three, like, before, that was like, I’m delaying any video video or something that and then when we finally kind of answer as one of our main software that we use for multiple acquisition, and so on. And then after that, oh, we need to systemize the process. So how do we do that we had to implement like that. See? I think it was 2003 was probably 2012, or something that was pretty early back in the days where there wasn’t any other integration through like, how do we bring in all multiple servers into Betsy, Sydney ERP system? So I would say like people who are like eight, almost eight figures, maybe even five $8 million, and up should be using an ERP to grow to scale your business?
Josh Hadley 12:26
Yeah. And why? Why is that? I think that is important advice. Why should somebody that’s about 8 million and above be focused on an ERP system? Tell us more about that.
Howard Thai 12:39
As accounting, right, you have, you have a lot of products coming in you want, you know, no, no, the next you need to know your numbers, you need to know how to automate everything through workflows through so if you can do everything like that through automation, then you will probably need something like the ERP system, or warehouse management system, as well as you know, like your marketplace system. So there’s a lot of things that go along with trying to scale and be fast. So yes, it does cost money, but it’s going to get you there faster. Right. So, like, you know, like, this is how it is in businesses, like things cost money, but it will eventually be more lucrative or being able to scale faster, you have employees, you know, you get like cheap employees that say, you know, here, you will get like some one, like, maybe, I don’t know, it’s like, in the US is by like, $4,000 that’s the minimum wage rate, I think. So back then it was like or less, it was like $16, but in California, so, you know, like, you’re not gonna get someone to help be able to help you, you know, at that price, you need to really actually find people who actually has the talent has the knowledge on things and be able to hire them, and then be able to help them with their knowledge already come in and absorb their knowledge to into the, in the company and be able to help build out the building blocks within your company that
Josh Hadley 14:18
is, yeah, makes makes a lot of sense. So as a top 50 seller, on Amazon, what do you attribute a lot of your success to? Was it you know, you are really good at finding you know, trending products? Or was it you know, you guys had some amazing ways of like getting external traffic to your listings and just like your marketing was incredible. What do you attribute most of your success to to becoming a top 50 seller?
Howard Thai 14:48
Let’s say back then Right. There was not any much external traffic back then because they’re on Amazon was pretty easy. So within Amazon if you learn how Amazon works, what The algorithm wants to give the algorithm what they want. And it’s pretty easy to go up there on ranking. But on the signer, like, you need to be very, you know, be very, like ever changing, right? Think about new marketing tactics. Like we were one of the first people who tried to do bundles, right? On eBay. Do you see these products? Oh, why am I buying a Samsung cable when other people are selling a cell phone cable really cheap and selling it? But what should we do? How should we compete with them? Well, the one they want a cable, and you might want a case. So we do a tumble of a piece and the cable. But it went to like an out of proportion where we had to do like 15 Pack bundles. Yeah, ACL cable. Yeah, what’s been protected, you have, I don’t remember, like, other different items, you know. So that that is great for bucket, because you’re the only one that has that particular funnel. But the problem is, there’s a complexity in that pick, pack ship pile of how we’re gonna, how we’re gonna ship all this 15 products in a speed and a faster way, we’re not going to go through like, like, like linear going through the warehouse going and picking up picking pack caravan, tricking the products into a pops right, that’s a lot harder, where we had to invent the system where we go in and pick all the products first, put it in a certain section, and then go and getting them put into the box, that will be a lot faster than having to go either order going down to warehouse, ABC to one, four or 15 items. But when you go through the agency with a pick a lot more orders instead. So pick them up at front. And just like kinda like how to like, figure out how we’re going to be able to do this in a more efficient way.
Josh Hadley 16:54
Interesting. So what I’m hearing is that when you were looking at product opportunities on Amazon, you are looking at spaces you could compete in and then saying, How can we come up with a product that’s differentiated? Or what’s our product offering? That maybe is more valuable? Right? And so you brought a lot of creativity and innovation into, you know, kind of more boring markets, so to speak. Is that correct? Awesome. So how are you right now you do a lot of consulting, right? I think you no longer sell on Amazon? Is that correct?
Howard Thai 17:32
We do. We have a we have a wallet, we’re we’re focused. So we we do sell currently, we’re trying to build a brand out of it with multiple different style of wallet, and in different brands. So just so that we can showcase what kind of services we offer, and being able to scale a brand and being able to exit eventually. So that’s one of the things that we’re kind of doing as a study and showing showing it off to you follow me on Facebook, you probably see some of the things that we did to do blogs on it as well.
Josh Hadley 18:08
Awesome. So basically, you’re you’ve you’ve got this wallet, you’re showcasing and documenting your journey of how you’re going to kind of scale this brand up then, which is awesome, because I know Howard it one of the many things that you have your hands in, is that you actually do a lot of consulting for successful Amazon businesses and helping them scale to eight figures and beyond. So, Howard, why don’t you talk to us more about, you know, maybe do you have any case studies that you can share with us about maybe some of the brands that you’ve been able to consult with? What happened when they came to you? What strategies did you help them implement in their business? And where did it take them?
Howard Thai 18:48
Let’s say that there was one that I was in actually in Hong Kong and I was stuck in the box with where it was kind of like I got to get in China, trying to get to China. I was trying to I went to Hong Kong waiting around for a year inside to Hong Kong, I met a friend at the time was like a client and then come to a friend. Right now finds becomes friends. So we looked in in and did a partnership and we did like into the business about like 10 times and became bestseller within that niche. There was a lot of things that we had effects because they he was being attacked left and right. build out a team, making sure there’s SOP involved and then KPI for the employees. Make sure that we also know how to do the marketing correctly as well. So we did that we created it was like growth was by 100%. Within time maybe it was from 68 million to about like 15 to 16 million by the filming of that. So awesome. So it was a it was really a good day. A case study because it’s a lot faster, right? The hardest part is when you start up, you don’t have all the reviews, you don’t have all the things in place that you need. You know, you don’t have all the logistics Songdo manufactured so of the pictures that, you know, there’s a lot of things I probably like six months to kind of have everything in place. And then the other like, other time you were trying to rent at this point in time, back then was easy for you. Back then was like, a year ago, but it was it was a lot a little bit easier for Amazon changes every day.
Josh Hadley 20:37
Yeah, I, I completely relate with you. And what I heard from that kind of brief case study that you shared, is that you kind of had three things that you focused on with them, they were getting attacked, left and right. And what I want to do, Howard is actually dive into these a little bit deeper. Okay, so this brand was getting attacked left and right. What I want to dive into is like, Alright, so what did you do to help mitigate those attacks? Next, you also did you help them implement some SOPs, and an operating system kind of more creating efficiency within their actual business? And then last, but not least, you focused on some marketing with them. So I’d love to kind of get further into the weeds of those three subjects. Let’s start with number one there, they were getting attacked, what type of attacks were happening to them? And what were some of the things that you did to help mitigate some of those attacks,
Howard Thai 21:31
getting attacked, right? So meaning that there was like, I believe three things, one of them within his note change all the time, from that particular. Because in animals, or when you’re having a variation, and if some of the health reasons are not the thing, they kind of don’t share the reviews. So they’re breaking out all the reviews from, let’s say, you having 1000 reviews, if you if they kind of change your notes on your child, it becomes whatever that child, then you land on your show that reviews of that child. So it’s like down to like maybe from 10,000 to 200 orders, views for that, when you click into that, or shows, you know, on that particular product? So that’s one of them, and we had to go fix that part. And you want to go detail, or
Josh Hadley 22:26
is that? Yeah, keep keep going. So you had the Browse nodes. And I guess, and we’ve had similar experiences with the Browse nodes, that’s as easy as just making sure that you’re on top of it, and creating cases with Seller Support to get you back in the right browse nodes. Correct.
Howard Thai 22:42
So you need to make sure you have a system to know when you get alerts for ground rules change for fournissent. So that’s something that was there and having some system that would automatically send out, you know, like, files up onto Amazon to place any changes. First, things like that will mature and you have in place, as well as a team to be there 24/7, between US and US and China? How do you set up a team in order for you to make sure that there’s no like gap between, say, between key differences, so you won’t have any delays in having your product being
Josh Hadley 23:32
updated? Yeah. Now that that makes a lot of sense. Howard, what was some of the software that you implemented then to monitor, you know, these browse no changes and being able to automatically, you know, send in these bulk files to correct those issues?
Howard Thai 23:50
Were just great software.
Josh Hadley 23:53
It was custom. You custom made software’s what you’re saying there wasn’t like a specific tool, you custom built something yourself?
Howard Thai 24:01
Yeah, there’s no tool out there. last tool that we use that no one really has. So we built in house three, we having our employees going through. If you look at the face, though, some of the tools that like how we are able to see how customers sorry, other other sellers, other brands are doing, are they ranking the products, we’re going through all the history of all their pasts, the changes that he did within within the product to see how they rank it, what did they do? What was the exact strategies, so within that particular niche, because each niche is different, and the strategy for a seller is different. So you want to make sure that you go through a couple of sellers that are doing well because people within the hardtop the tundra BSR changes left and right within within like three months they might be 30% of the people has are though from VAs Last time, that payments are still there, you know, potentially within a year only 10% of the people from when you started a year ago is still in the top 100 vessels. So changes left and right. So you want to make sure you’re make sure that you are there and doing it correctly. So,
Josh Hadley 25:19
ya know, that makes a lot of sense. Howard, what other attacks, you know, did you see happening to that brand outside of browse nodes,
Howard Thai 25:27
browse nodes, and another one was changing to adults, you know, flagging, we had thought flagging, we had, treat your changing, things like that. So we go through it and make sure that there’s a system in place in order for you to end up and backup if someone is actually attacking you. We try to make it so that the whole thing does not this kind of more bulletproof list than if it wasn’t, if if you there’s a process where you have to document all your cases that you didn’t attack, so that Amazon would harden a coffin to listen. So they will like make it change it even to a gaining your asin you your brand.
Josh Hadley 26:15
Awesome, awesome. Yeah, and I think what I want to do is we’ll kind of, we’ll dive more back into, like some of the black hat tactics that you see going on today. And what sellers can do to kind of protect against them. But let’s keep going down this this case study here. Talk to us more about marketing, right? What, what additional types of marketing Did you help implement in this business that effectively helped them double
Howard Thai 26:41
the marketing? First, we went through their listing thing, which is, what kind of skills that we need to work on, and what kind of you know, product, detail page and optimization images, turning make it the best of the best, you know, the first thing I always thought of before you go to Marketing, first, make sure that you convert, you have a high CRO page on your listing. So we’re talking about CRO that’s mainly for, like TVC stops, usually, but Right, this is actually the same thing as Amazon, listing optimization, listing optimization is probably part of it. But CRO, encompass all of them. From images, videos to the when you the product speaks to themselves. And there are key things like that is like, you know, just like a core package. So how do we do the laminate? How do we make it so that people don’t go to see your competitors more? Now, when you’re putting your price more up there? Two bundles, you know, you have another carousel or a little widget that will block or having your real estate on your listing per listing page being 100%. That, are you gonna get more of that space, or having more going on more pixels here?
Josh Hadley 28:09
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And I think time and time again, as I’ve met with other sellers, and have them on the podcast, product optimization and conversion rate optimization is like one of the first things everybody goes to to say like, you’ve got to have your bases covered, right? Like, that’s one of the things I think a lot of people neglect, they they start with their product, it has some success, and then they never go back and visit the product. And I know that I’ve been guilty of that in the past as well. And we are now focusing a lot more heavily on to just product optimization in general. So Howard, I would love to hear from you do you kind of have like an order of importance in terms of, you know, when you are needing to optimize a product for conversion rate, right? What are you some of your go to items, or, you know, to do list that you’re going to look at to optimize a product
Howard Thai 29:04
for the company, we have an SOP on exactly for what we have the checkmark on things that we go through, like the example like the bundle widget, we talked about that portal that we talked about being Amazon choice, we have to go through and make sure that we have Elumynt choice on certain keywords that are impacting the sales most often. We want to make sure we have as much badges as we have. We have to make sure that our when you look at the page compared to competitive we stand out you know, so so it’s all about when you see a CRO right, we’re looking at CRO in the sense like how do I make sure that when someone looks at my page my my listing detail on search, how you know, how am I going to be standing out, first of all, so picture it’s basically the pictures, then it will see in the bill Be a different title than they go see and how many promotions you have, how many departments you have? Or do you have like a huge release? Or your bestseller? Are you What are you, and all those other little things like the small business and our other data, things that we go through and make sure that we have everything. So it means that now, and then when you miss that out, instructor currency, that’s one thing, and then we don’t even click on it. So we’re getting a high click through rate barrier veterans, like a funnel, and then through a part of this display page, how do we make it so that people are actually buying our products and not linking out to the rest of the competitors, you know, so that we call it each edge? We have a lot of literature on our page. So how do we do that, you know, if you look at an anchor, look at the product, you look at going through the product display page, you’ll see that all the products sponsored is all there’s no ball and canker and other other products, you see that you can band together or increase your products. You see, like a lot of videos, you see a lot of posts, you know, you’re all over the place, you’re not letting a competitor come in and squeezing out a good product defense strategies, things like that. It’s like so many so much stuff that you can do, that people are not able to do, most likely any sales figures aren’t doing it right. Because evaluate people out there that are doing it. percent, there’s, there’s a lot of things that you can optimize inside of the CRO wise, but that’s just another when you have a marketing strategy. So in my lifetime, when we talk about marketing channels, this is something that is a must.
Josh Hadley 31:44
Yeah, I love that.
Howard Thai 31:47
And then like, you know, no one even does deals, you know, no one knows how to do deals. And from what I can see, they don’t know how you can rank your deals onto onto the deal page, right? I don’t think anyone that I know knows how to do that. So there’s like so much stuff that is taking is not even new is that they’re doing and then trying to bring in external traffic, where they’re not even doing the basics principle. Oh,
Josh Hadley 32:14
so yeah, I, I completely agree with that thought process where people haven’t even optimized and squeezed everything out of their detail page and product optimization. But yet, they’re they’re chasing the new shiny object, which could be Google ads, or tick tock ads, and driving all this external traffic. And it’s like, whoa, bro, like, let’s go back to the basics here. And focus on our conversion rate optimization. You’re the second person that I’ve interviewed that has used anchor as kind of like the prime example as to like, here’s a brand you should go emulate in terms of how they’re doing their product, detail page optimization. And I love to hear like you even agree with their PPC strategy, where they do take, like, no competitors are even coming onto their page in those sponsored ad spots, because they’ve got their defensive campaigns set up and running very well there. So I think that’s a big takeaway for you know, even myself, and a lot of the listeners is like, go take a look at anchor on Amazon, and go follow the best practices, like if you want somebody to go look at that’s the brand to go watch and see how they are optimizing their detail pages. So Howard, you briefly touched on this deals you talked about, like creating deals on Amazon and then getting your product seen on the deal pages. I honestly haven’t heard anybody really talk about that in the industry. But you went straight to that as like, Hey, this is a big Miss for a lot of people. So why is that and tell us more about how you could actually get your deal found on the deals page.
Howard Thai 33:57
You know, like, I’m helping you right now. It’s it’s been I’ve been teaching this since 2018. You know, like it’s not something like that. Maybe it’s still not doing it for years. Maybe the people that are in my masterminds and the esse seller side, but a lot of people don’t really know what it is but for deals How are you going to so if you don’t click on the other top, left hand side you’ll see a deal self protection. You know, like a lot of people are doing that they don’t know what to buy. They’re just browsing and citrus oils and stuff like that like like going to like slick deals trying to find some kind of coffee or something similar to that. A lot of people aren’t doing that don’t inflate them. But you go there you are trying to rank a deal from from my when you having a deal like in deal. Still seven days to ATO. You’re able to be able to rank based on how there’s performance. There isn’t a performance indicator that Amazon knows and will To remember, so they will remember that there’s this thing. So the more that’s better the deal it performs, the more you rank compared to other.
Josh Hadley 35:09
Interesting, where do people get access to creating deals? Are these like lightning deals that you’re referring to then? Or are they different deals,
Howard Thai 35:17
deal? Best deals? Oh, know, the three or four fields out there that you can see.
Josh Hadley 35:23
Okay. And I know I think for obviously, I think the the Lightning Deals are self service, I think in order to get like the deal of the day, I think you have to reach out to an account manager or have an account manager on Amazon to do that, is that correct?
Howard Thai 35:37
So there is like the prerequisite of how much you have to have in stock from the sales, because to be able to January, before you go into the deal, because you don’t have to stop, just minimum, like you don’t have stopped Amazon push your gills to so many IPR websites out there, you know, PageRank, or Google a lot of sites out there, and maybe you’re not able to form your your inventory is gone, then they’re losing money, you know, awesome. So there’s a lot of things that you need to have. For us, we always get the best tools, tools, on our products, back in the days when we were selling and selling that he was going to build, build your out, build your rest in within Amazon and Amazon will come in and find you. So they’re the one that found us to be the hoverboard. So really wanting us to be vendor central for our hoverboards for a long time, if you’ve been facing call, he knew everything, and we’ve had to ignore them. But but you know, in also giving us all the details of support. So you just need to know how to do it in the correct way, like people out there, they don’t know, they think that SES is the only way that they can get account manager just a lot of other ways. Right? So there’s a lot of things that we’re people just need to be able to network outside people to talk to more people to hire event, you know, like, we say, like, your network is your net worth, how you’re gonna be moving a lot faster, if you don’t and mingle with big guns, right? So you’re only like, you’re only like, doing it yourself, like see this a lot, a lot of facilitate. Best, I’m the best, no one out there is better than me. And then you just sit there and then and then then do it themselves. But that’s what I probably did. Because there wasn’t at the time that these conferences and anything I’m just doing myself everything that you’re learning myself, I’m sure I could do a lot faster. If there was a lot of like minded people where you’re using your brain, right one, you only one person can only process that much stuff in the same time. But and then you only have heard that many me that much damage problems. But if you have like 100 people in the room, or let’s just say 51 people in the room, that is like using their brains and using an already done this kind of problem before and then you get out. How do I fix this? Well, you’ll probably take like three months to fix this problem. But they were done before user fixing in a couple days.
Josh Hadley 38:03
Yeah. So Howard, what you’re kind of alluding to is like the importance of joining mastermind groups and being surrounded by sellers that are doing even more than you that’s why I love you know, when I get the chance to speak with you, you know, you’ve got a wealth of knowledge and you’re at even a higher level than where I’m at. And so every time I kind of take away from you is like some actionable steps that I can take to implement things in my own brand. So I’m a big advocate as well, in terms of mastermind groups, and, you know, Howard, anything else you want to add there?
Howard Thai 38:37
You know, lot of different masterminds, right, you know, this kind of stuff. You know, you’re, you’re like one of the next level people that go see a lot of different masterminds. I got a lot of different masterminds, I see a lot of things, a lot of VC, a lot of partnerships involved. We see a lot of like, friends come out of it, you know, a lot of gates open when you go to like different events and Masterminds, especially the masterminds. I think the years a couple of them are three or four, how many customers is arguing?
Josh Hadley 39:08
I’m only in a couple I was previously in war room. And that’s not a specific Amazon group. I am part of, you know, if you want to call it a mastermind group, but Brandon Young’s inner circle, right. So kind of part of Brandon Young’s group and then going to be joined in a new mastermind is called the Brett breakthrough mastermind, ran by Scott Duffy. Again, this is not something that’s Amazon specific. But it is these are where I go and it just like it takes my level of learning and like what I think I can do, even in my own life and in my own business, like takes it to a next level. As I hear the amazing things other people are doing. I was listening to Alex for Mozi his podcast too recently and one of the things he talked about is like he went to a mastermind event here and somebody speaking on stage that was doing like, I don’t know, three or $400,000 a month doing something. And Alex wasn’t overly impressed by this gentleman. He was like, Wait, if this dude can generate three to $400,000 a month, I know for sure I could do that and more. And so I think like, you know, there’s different things that you’ll learn when you come to a mastermind group that networking is there. But it’s also just like, you’ll have some huge mindset shifts. So I’m a big advocate of those. Howard, I think this is a good time to kind of talk about your mastermind. You do something with the elite seller society, and you have a mastermind big, you know, kind of event that you do once a year, I believe, this is something that I’ve been very interested and I keep asking you about, I think every time I talk to you, I’m like, Hey, do you have the dates? And do you know where you’re going yet? So tell us more about that. And what is it all about? What content are you sharing?
Howard Thai 40:55
So the seller society is like, a mastermind that I have created. It’s everyone that’s been in our event, our mastermind events, that gets in gets added into, and we go in and help each other within our group, like how to solve problems, as well as if there’s like, something that we can offer our group through like other mentorships, or through like, special things, I’m working on getting our our membership members members, their own their own account rep. So that they don’t have to go through that SAS program where they say yes, program that really sucks. So they’re getting like really good quality. Employees, and Amazon is able to support that, the Amazon and that on how we can actually make that work for our members. So that’s something that I’m working with things that things that God was open when you’re in the mastermind, like you said, mind shift change, like, you never you’re in a box all the time it for most of the people that aren’t in these masterminds, I’m talking about like, even in these podcasts, or in Facebook groups, you’ll never get the same kind of, like information that you can get on those different platforms than if there wasn’t Basler. You probably know that Josh. So like, I’m just sitting there and learning, like, oh, there is this thing that out there to do this stuff. You know, I’m not ready yet for it. But I know what’s out there exists. So I need to do it. Like, for example, like, digital marketing, I mean, traditional marketing, but I went to, I went to see testing conversion. I went to a lot of Harry’s events, like the weird events, you know, really, and, and even I’m thinking about getting into those two masterminds, right, one from World War One site, and also from Hurni. site. So I’m trying to, I’m looking into that they’re not cheap. They’re like, maybe 25,000. A year from the World Bank. So
Josh Hadley 43:15
yeah, no, that’s great. And I agree with your statement there, Howard, in terms of, you know, the deeper tactics, if you want to go deep with stuff, you need to start reaching out and joining some of those mastermind groups. So I think it’s going to take your learning to the next level. Now, Howard, I would be remissed. If I don’t ask this question, as we kind of wrap things up with you. You’ve educated a lot of Chinese sellers, right. And I think there’s a negative stigma in the marketplace, where it’s like, oh, the Chinese sellers, they just want to implement Blackhat tactics. And that’s who’s always attacking me. Ya know, prior to this conversation, you and I disgust and you’re like, you see kind of the black hat, black hat tactics, kind of, you know, lessening to some extent or or another. But from your experience, you are so well versed on Amazon. I know, a lot of sellers are fearful when it comes to black hat tactics. But would you mind kind of educating our audience in regards to what are the active Blackhat tactics that you see being implemented right now? And what are ways that sellers can do to protect themselves in advance? As well as what do you do if you do have a Blackhat tactic that actually affects you and attacks your listing? People think
Howard Thai 44:33
that, you know, like, the stigma like, hey, you know, Blackhat, the new Blackhat, right. But the reality is, if a person has been in this industry for so long, they would need to know how to protect themselves. What kind of Blackhat techniques like what you’re asking, right? So like, a computer security guy, right? He does computer security needs to know how the health we’re coming in and attacking the system. So if you’re like a program Right, you’re trying to do like, become like virus scanners or something that you don’t know, what the other party they’re doing. There’s no way you can you can you can even braid a defense campaign, you know, or a defense project to help those pinpoints. So you have to know Blackhat stuff, you don’t know it. You don’t know, this guy or this the Chinese or the old black hats? Are those always black? I think you must be doing it. You know, that’s so like, that’s one of the things I really think that these people have some kind of not it’s not, it’s not, hasn’t written in mind more than half the new officer. So going back to your question is, what was it again? I’m sorry.
Josh Hadley 45:49
Let’s go, let’s go step by step here. Tell us what are some of the active Blackhat tactics that you see going on in the marketplace right now?
Howard Thai 45:57
Out there, people are changing images in sub nodes, they’re attacking you. They’re trying to get like an authentic things. They’re trying to say that this is defective in reviews. But these are getting less and less, because it’s getting harder and harder to do. Like the give me the reviews after a certain one of the Amazon scans or system and it’s all gone. But you know, they still try to do but yeah, so there’s a lot of things that that Amazon is doing a great job at, they’re actually helping protecting the salaries more and more. Maybe it’s not as fast as we want it to be, but if they aren’t doing it and reorder the company, but like, I really liked how they’re helping, helping helping the seller. So this isn’t something that like, because if you are Blackhat is only very, I will say something that you don’t want to do because it’s it doesn’t doesn’t help like overall like market you I want I like to do marketing where we can actually do it within all platforms, not just Amazon, but Shopify. So you know how to do your influencer marketing and media buying it’s, it goes all into like Facebook, from Facebook going coming to your website, or Shopify or to your Amazon to Walmart, they’re all the all the things. So you’re learning a trick that’s not just for Amazon, it’s for everything. So So for Blanca its own for Amazon. And also it comes and goes and the climate targeting thing. So I wouldn’t want anyone to try to visit because it’s not something that is scalable. It’s like you’re talking about how to steal plants.
Josh Hadley 47:41
Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And it’s encouraging to hear from your perspective that you do see, Amazon may, you know, taking some proactive steps to mitigate those, it’s by no means perfect, as everybody would know. But I do agree that, you know, a lot of those loopholes are now more closed than they were in the past. So Howard, kind of the next question on to that is, what should sellers be doing? And how do they proactively prepare, or, you know, put up walls to prevent these attacks from happening to them?
Howard Thai 48:13
Okay, so first of all, you have to go to seven figures is gonna have enough money, hopefully, because you’re having a profit margin, like 20%, hopefully, you will have able to have some kind of invest into building a great team to be able to look at this through through the some of the software out there that our team for kind of changes in no changes or thinks but be able to help someone that will be able to monitor that more often. Make sure that all your products are secured, meaning that you’re listed in all different countries of those with Amazon events so that no one can insert like keywords or insert some kind of image changes into your product. Make sure that you have all fields inserted. Also, maybe it doesn’t see all fields but a lot of the fields are searchable that you don’t like that. No, they’re searchable and viewable, you know, you should go into your category. If you are serious about expanding in Amazon, go into your category and make sure that all your fields are tested, is this searchable which field within this subcategory file which of these are able to be seen? I used to do like Howard 100 200 304 with no space and etc. And I see how 100 200 304 And then I see which one of these fields are open that are viewable or searchable after I see if any of these are seen on the page. Okay, I know these are marked down these are actually viewable and and then I go in and essentially on the search bar is like our 100 without doing a searchable database, insert more keywords in there, and you will make sure that you know, you have a highly, highly, highly searchable and viewable page. And things like that, like cleaning up will do. Yes, it’s a hassle. But you thought about a particular summer, it’s worth starting to work for me, there’s a lot of benefits coming out of it, even with more characters that were more characters that you could put into. So,
Josh Hadley 50:31
yeah, I think that that’s really interesting. So what you’re saying is like, on the back end of Amazon, when you’re creating your listing, right, there’s a ton of different fields in there, right. And I think, you know, sellers are like, well, these are the minimum requirements to like, I gotta get my bullets, my description, my search terms in there, right? Everything else, and it’s not worth the time, what you’re saying is like, Amazon is actually showing some of that content on the Detail page, it’s blank if you leave it blank, but it leaves room for hackers, so to speak, to implement their, their black hat tactics on your listing by uploading those bulk files or feed files, and, you know, manipulating some of that. So that’s what you’re saying is like, just make sure that all of those fields are filled out and seeing what is searchable on the actual detail page, right? Is that correct?
Howard Thai 51:22
Also, the things that you filled out on that page can reflect the search ability, not just the search bar, but also on your left hand side, you see the filters on when you’re searching for a product, the filters are there, like you’ll still see, if you put it in correctly, you’ll get more eyeballs, because when people they will be able to see your product.
Josh Hadley 51:46
Okay, so you’re also saying like when you’re in your browse category, right? Let’s say you’re you’re looking for a toilet, let’s say as the most recent example, because we had to replace some toilets in our house. So I went to Amazon, and I was filtering on different sizes of toilets, right? So is it a 22 inch toilet? Or is it elongated, right? Or is it kind of your standard round bowl, right? Those are your like, standard things. But on the left hand side, if you’re on desktop, there’s those like filters that you can filter by, right? And if you’re not adding that content in there, like hey, this is an elongated bowl, when a shopper like myself goes in and says, Hey, I’m looking for an elongated toilet bowl. Like you’re you’re not going to show up, right? Because Amazon like well, I have no idea you didn’t fill out this field. All right, Howard, this has been awesome. You’ve shared a lot of advice with us. And so I’ve got my final three questions that I like to ask everybody. But before we do get to those final questions, I love to leave the audience with three takeaways, actionable takeaways from each episode. So Howard, here are the three takeaways that I have noted. Let me know if you think there’s something that I’m missing. Number one, one of the things that differentiated you as a top 50 seller on Amazon, is that you were unique in terms of the product opportunities that you sought for, right, you were one of the first ones to create bundling opportunities. You didn’t just say, hey, look, this guy’s making a lot of money selling, you know, you know, cell phone cases, I’m just gonna create another me to product of cell phone cases. Instead, you’re like, hey, here’s the cell phone case. But I’m also seeing a lot of frequent purchases with this HDMI cable, let’s give it away as like this free add on. And now we’ve completely differentiated ourselves. So becoming creative and innovative with your new products that you’re bringing to the market. Don’t just look at Amazon and say, Hey, this is what the best sellers doing. So that’s what I should create. Instead, say, This is what the best seller is doing. What else can I do to beat that guy and make this an even more compelling offer and help the end consumer. If you’re serving the end consumer, you will always win action item number two, I would go back to listing optimization and Howard shared, he rattled off a lot of different things that you can be doing with your listing optimizations. The standard stuff we’ve already heard about is like alright, your images, your title, your bullets, your description, a plus content, that’s well and good, but how are they out? Also added on some additional information that I think are some easy wins for people to to add on today. If you have to introduce the bundles, virtual digital bundles for your product, it’s free and it takes up more space on your Amazon listing. Make sure that you got your virtual bundle set up. You can do editorials for your product right and their services that will create those editorials. There’s ways that you can run promotions right getting on the deals page, creating Lightning Deals, creating coupon codes, getting the strike through pricing. All of these are are great best practices. And you could spend a month focused on each one at a time. But it’s those 1%, you know, incremental improvements that you’re going to make, that’s going to make a huge difference. At the end of the day, and Anchor is probably one of the best brands to kind of look at on Amazon to set to today to say, hey, what does a really optimized product listing look like? And how do they make sure that they squeeze out competition to prevent leakage? What you mentioned earlier. And then last, but not least, I would say an actionable takeaway is that people need to understand the black hat tactics, go and understand what what are the black hat tactics and not for you to go implement them in your own business, but you need to be aware so that you’re not caught off guard, and you’re the one who is susceptible to getting attacked, because a lot of these black hat tactics can actually be prevented. If you’re just a little bit more proactive with your listings, right? I think the analogy was perfect. If you’re trying to prevent people from hacking into your website, right, and you’re a coder or data security specialist, you’re going to be spending your time in a lot of those hacking Facebook groups or hacking Reddit forums or wherever they hang out, because you got to know what they’re discussing, so that you can prepare yourself and make sure your defenses are up. So, Howard, is there anything else that I didn’t cover that you think we should kind of add to that summary there?
Howard Thai 56:29
They already said too much?
Josh Hadley 56:33
Well, you shared a lot of great content. Howard, last three questions to begin, what is the most influential book that you’ve read and why?
Howard Thai 56:42
So the book, I would say is a classic. This is called The Art of War by Sun Tzu. This is actually I’m always reading it over and over again, because it’s so deep, right? And the whole seal mining mindset shift, like crazy as the new Actually no, there’s more than just doing one thing, knowing what to look at the bigger picture from the outside from the outside. So not as within a box to sit there in a box and do your thing, but get to go look at from different angles. This is in theory, you know, there’s this is one of the best book and the book that I’ve still, after all these years, I’m still listening to it, listen to it down competitive, how long is it gonna take them down? Or towards the west? to something
Josh Hadley 57:35
that that is a great book, I’ve heard it before. And it is a very deep book. That’s one that it’s difficult to listen on 2x speed, because there’s so much content flying at you all at once. And you’re like, holy smokes, hold on, let me just take a step back. I’ve got to like, actually, like take dissect this thing apart. So I would echo your statement there, Howard. All right. Next question. What is your favorite productivity tool or resource
Howard Thai 58:02
productivity book? Okay, for we, I know, this might be silly. And now there’s all software. And so I, maybe I love you write everything down? Because then when I scratch it out, stuck it out? Because we don’t have to, or should I accomplished something, you know, and we’re doing better by Steph saying, Oh, I’m doing another one I didn’t even scratch after being even though you might have a lot more added to it. At least you have this feeling of when you stretch though how good it feels. But when you like delete stuff, I don’t have that sort of the same sense of fulfillment, or that same sense of dopamine coming in where you Oh, I finished one thing, because it doesn’t, maybe you’re as good as us. I’m kind of little I’m like 44. And I’ve been you know, in classes, we always like write stuff down and everything. So they’ll be scratching it off in the sense of silver. So that’s a productivity for the house, I want more of this dopamine, give me more.
Josh Hadley 59:03
You know, I agree with you. And I think it is like, it’s funny, like, you could be spouting off a lot of different software tools and things like that. But you know, you’re the second person I interviewed Ryan Deiss, earlier this week, and he said the same thing. His productivity tool is sticky notes. And he jots down his ideas and his action items, they’re on a sticky note, crosses it out once it’s done, and he’s got a big old stack of like, accomplished sticky notes there. There is something to like bringing a pen to paper that makes a difference. It actually you know, triggers some neurons in your brain that that open up, you know your mind to different thoughts and ideas. So, I like that productivity hack so to speak, powered. Alright, here’s my last question for you. Who is somebody that you admire or respect the most in the E commerce space that people should be following and why?
Howard Thai 59:55
So Ryan Deiss and or I wouldn’t say Roland Frasier One of the one the reason why is because you’ve created a first a really good community, right? That’s something that I’m always trying to achieve making my masterminds better. How do we make this not just a good Facebook group? How do we make this become a brotherhood? You know, like that connection? You know, how do we how do we put experience in connection into this? This, this mastermind, so that’s what I see that they’d be great. First, they have a great business. Second, they have a great money during the upgrade passively, you know, how they work, how they do their stuff. So
Josh Hadley 1:00:38
yeah, I definitely echo that as well. We’ve had Roland Frasier on the podcast. He’s one of the first podcast guests that I interviewed. So go scroll all the way back to his episode. It’s all about acquisition strategies of how you can grow your ecommerce brand, just by acquisitions. And there’s a lot of strategies not just acquiring another, you know, FBA business, but there’s media, there’s intellectual property that you could be acquiring, and he breaks it all down in that episode, and then Ryan Deiss just had an interview. So it’s going to be probably right before yours, Howard, they can just go back an episode or two, and listen to Ryan Deiss, about implementing operating systems in a business, just like you talked about how important it is to build out your team. And then creating SOPs and systems to run things. That’s one of your, I think, like wicked smart hacks that you would recommend to anybody, especially once they’ve crossed that seven figure mark to scale. Above and beyond, you’ve got to be good with your systems and processes. So great shout outs to those gentlemen, Howard last thing here, where should people go to find you that if they want to join your mastermind group, where should they go?
Howard Thai 1:01:48
So I would guess they want to try to get into the Signalytics user group. It’s a good bet for our company that I would I would always announce that there I would always be in there talking and stuff like that about stuff. So I would think that that’s the best way if you’re that one and also my page about how I page because my personal pages my personal profile already over the 5000 mark. So it’s it’s hard for me to add anyone I think that’s the best way to actually see what we have on the mastermind side. Contact me at Howard.Thai@Signalytics.
Josh Hadley 1:02:34
Power. Thank you so much for signal attics for everybody’s information. The way you spell it that Signalytics S I G N A L Y T I C S. Okay. And Howard’s also got his own, you know, website. It’s Howard Thai. It’s spelled T H A I dot com. So go check him out. I’m going to be continuing to follow you, Howard. Look forward to join in your mastermind events and groups there. And so thank you for your time today and looking forward to touching base again in the future with you.
Outro 1:03:10
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