Advanced On & Off Amazon Scaling Systems

Firstly… I want to dispel some of hyperbole that is uttered by a lot of popular “gurus” in this space. Although my fans and clients are all advanced sellers or established brands, I know many readers who stumble across this website will indeed be beginners, so this next bit is for you:

Running a successful Amazon business requires significant capital, time, expertise, and risk tolerance. Just like any other business…This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but I feel some folks are being totally mislead and coerced into buying a course or coaching program with delusions of grandeur.

I was one of these people when first starting out. It took multiple punches to the gut to realize that most of what I’ve been taught did not align with reality.

In fact, I believe that if you’re a beginner looking to start your entrepreneurship journey in the Amazon FBA arena with the mindset of an “Amazon seller” and not a business owner, you should look elsewhere. This game is rigged and controlled by the 1%. Just as every other game operates when the secret is out and the market has matured. I could go on for hours about this, but I think you get the point.

Now that we have that out of the way, I’d like to elaborate on my most impactful discovery from 7 years of selling my own Amazon products, and consulting with some of the largest Amazon brands you know of.

Fundamentals > Tricks

The most successful brands I know of on Amazon sell high quality products that offer disproportionate value in comparison to price, have incredible customer service, and strong branding. They simply do not care about strategies that only focus on the next month, rather than next 2 years. Unfortunately this doesn’t sound fun, sexy, easy, or fast. Therefore most people tune this out and focus on hacks and tricks to shortcut the process. This short-term mindset prevents many people from building truly meaningful businesses. Hence why very few can actually make Amazon a lucrative channel for the long haul.

Of course I say these things because I once again, was one of these people who believed I could “outsmart” everyone and skip the line. This MAY have been possible a few years back, but times have certainly changed on Amazon today. Which leads me to this…

If I know for a fact that tricks and hacks account for 5% of my success, why in the world would I focus 95% of my energy on this?

Not only is this dumb from a time management/focus standpoint, but it also keeps you on a perpetual hamster wheel always trying to find the next best thing like a drug addict, rather than dedicating your scarce mental bandwidth to longer-term strategies that yield compounding ROI over time.

Boring work is where the success happens. I’ve now seen this same trend apply to every single hyper-successful company I’ve worked with. I can’t deny this reality anymore. Embrace the boring, yet most meaningful work.

Systems systems systems…

The second area where I see the most successful brands focusing their time and attention is building systems. The moment you find something that works, or you see potential in, you must build a system and SOP’s for said thing so you can duplicate and scale. Test, fail, stumble across a gem, then build a system to hand off to an employee or assistant. It’s a team effort. You cannot do this alone. A controlled sense of urgency is required daily when we’re competing against mammoth brands, Chinese suppliers, 10+ year tenured sellers, and aggregators who have the resources to hire the best talent in every position.

My goal with this blog is to share as much as I can about the real world challenges that eCommerce sellers face. Then hopefully be able to offer solutions to these challenges that make your life 1-5% easier.