001. Thrifting Bins To 7 Figures on Amazon Max Sigurdson-Scott

[00:00:00.210] - Rob

Started in the bins and now he's on top. Today's show, we're going to talk to a seven figure seller who started out thrifting and now has a catalog of his own products on Amazon. If you want to know how to make better listings and what he bought, thrifting for only $325 and sold on eBay in only 8 hours for 11 grand. Stick around for this episode. Hit it DJ.

[00:00:25.320] - Rob

Welcome to the selling from the Beach podcast, where we talk about selling online, making money and creating a lifestyle that you want recording from the white sandy beaches of Costa Rica. Here's your host, Rob Cosman. Today on Episode 001, I chat with Max Sigurdson-Scott seven figure seller who started out thrifting books and within a few short years transition through online arbitrage, wholesale and private label. We dig into his journey and talk about some great listing tips that can help any Amazon seller.

[00:01:03.490] - Rob

Max, this story is a great example of how you can grow so quickly and actually enjoy what you do every day. Let's get into the podcast. Hi, Max, welcome to the show. So happy to have you here on episode number one of the Selling for the Beach podcast.

[00:01:20.680] - Max

Hi Rob, how are you? Nice to see you again.

[00:01:24.380] - Rob

Dude we never see each other? I mean, you're one of those close friends I have in my Amazon selling network here. And we talk almost daily, I feel, but it's always on Facebook Messenger and quick back and forth. I was like, oh, man, look at your hair. It's like long. And I would actually talk to you in real person. I don't know. It's been months, maybe years. I don't know.

[00:01:42.860] - Max

Probably imagine seen you on a webinar or something, but you look very good

[00:01:47.150] - Rob

Thanks. Bud carry out with that it's good thing in podcast and no one can see it so no one can see my covid haircuts.

[00:01:55.550] - Max

Yes, for sure.

[00:01:56.900] - Rob

All right. excited to hear then episode number one. This is the episode that's gonna live forever. It might be the what are the only ones, but I'm sure my kids will listen to it later on and be like, Dad, where's your microphone sucks so bad.

[00:02:09.060] - Max

I'm very honored. I'm sure your quality of guest will go up from here.

[00:02:14.450] - Rob

Well, if you're the first if you're the bar, then I'm pumped.

[00:02:17.930] - Max

So thank you very much.

[00:02:20.160] - Rob

All right. Let's just get some points that we'll go through it just kind of structure. Let's see where it goes. But I know yet again, when I was kind of brainstorming coming up with the concept of the show, what I want to talk about with gas, I mean, the first thing you do is you start with your network and who you know, and you came top of my mind. I'm like, oh, my God, great stories.

[00:02:39.290] - Rob

The way that your business evolved over the years. I mean, I don't even know how we first kind of came into the realm, but I'm sure we'll figure that out. But just how you've grown and evolved your business, it's awesome. It's inspiring. I love hearing about it. I love hearing about the winds. I hear about your losses, too. But let's just take people kind of through it. Let's start with the back story. Like, where do you live right now?

[00:03:00.470] - Rob

What did you do before you were an online seller? And then, you know that transition to selling online and what your motivation was to start there?

[00:03:07.380] - Max

Sure, yeah. I'm thirty three. I live in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Lived here my whole life before I was an online seller. I just worked in crappy jobs over at Costco for six years. I did house framing. That was the worst job I ever had. I learned there that I can not swing a hammer. That's a more of a keyboard warrior. That's more my thing. You know, I went to school, I got a degree in political science and history.

[00:03:35.630] - Max

And then I went back and got another degree in teaching, like my teacher and I worked at a law office for a couple of years. And it was just like. It wasn't so much that I knew what I wanted to do. It was just like I knew what I didn't want to do and what I didn't want to do is like everything I'd ever try.

[00:03:55.040] - Max

It was all terrible. And I don't know, I just started. My dad never go to garage sales. When I was a kid and we just started going again and again. And what really started it off for me was enabling my wife and I were going to garage sale and I found this like hand massager thing at a garage sale. And I knew how much it was worth because I bought her one for Christmas six months earlier and it was like 150 bucks for one of these massager called Thumper.

[00:04:23.690] - Max

And I asked the guy because didn't have a price on it. I said, how much you want for it? And he said, I don't know, five bucks. And I was like, all right. So so I bought it and I flipped it, like, right away. And after that, you know, it's like getting the bug of getting the bug. That was

[00:04:38.690] - Rob

Where did you flip it? We're just sell it and

[00:04:40.700] - Max

We just put it on eBay. eBay is where I started for sure. Yeah.

[00:04:44.910] - Rob

The head massager. OK, so that's a BOLO, clearly,

[00:04:48.490] - Max

yeah, looking for those Thumper's for a couple of years later, I still feel for like 20 bucks. Yeah, those things are amazing. So that's really what got me started selling online.

[00:04:58.570] - Rob

So you were still working your job and then you just started kind of hustling this on the side?

[00:05:04.060] - Max

Yes, I started selling in school in like 2015 when I was in school for my education degree. And by the time it was like an after degree.

[00:05:12.780] - Max

So like if you already have a degree that give you another degree for almost half the price, you can get it done in two years. It's just like you only have to do your third and your fourth year. As I had the idea that I was going to be a teacher because I just had to do stuff with my life, I was 30 or almost 30 and to figure it out. And by the end of my degree, after two years, I was making so much and having so much fun selling online that I didn't even want to teach.

[00:05:36.730] - Max

You know, it was like and teaching was OK, but it was stressful. It's hard. You know, no one's is teaching is easy. Right. But I enjoyed selling online much more.

[00:05:47.030] - Rob

Can't believe you used to be a teacher. Might actually get you to do some teaching. My kids in this homeschooling disaster now. Yeah, for sure.

[00:05:54.400] - Rob

OK, so you're working on and you're taking your degree and we just sell it on Amazon then just yard sale. And what are you doing.

[00:06:01.630] - Max

Yeah, pretty much just eBay. So it was just like I would, I would thrift I go to goodwill I go to garage sales. I would you know looking interesting things that I thought might sell. And, you know, at that time I wasn't doing any FBA at all. I didn't think I need scanning apps, really.

[00:06:16.990] - Max

It was just I was guessing on stuff that would be good. And then after a while I found books and then I pretty much started flipping books and some board games, too. I started watching podcasts and YouTube videos from people like Caleb Roth and Greg Murphy. And of course, Reezy Resells people like that who were gods. And I wanted to be like them. You know, these guys were selling like six figures a month on just books. And so I really got into books that was like my big thing for a long time.

[00:06:47.710] - Rob

Can we say a long time that literally that was like three years ago maybe.

[00:06:52.870] - Max

Yeah, like three. I think I did it for a couple of years for sure. I was big into books

[00:06:57.430] - Rob

And these were all books they resourcing all in Canada. And then you started selling on Amazon.

[00:07:02.920] - Max

Yeah, I would source almost exclusively in Canada books. So yeah. Like I would go to thrift stores and stuff like I would, I would drive to sales across the country. That's what I did, was I just drove around and filled my car with books all day, every day. It was it was insane. Like one day it was like a Wednesday. And I found there was a book sale in Winnipeg on a Friday morning. And I drove to Winnipeg and one day from Edmonton and it's like 1300 kilometres.

[00:07:30.640] - Max

It was bonkers. It took me all day, but I got there, filled my car with books, and then I drove back in one day I was out there.

[00:07:37.420] - Rob

And it was profitable.

[00:07:39.370] - Max

Yeah, yeah. I think it was,

[00:07:42.000] - Rob

I think it was OK. So obviously you weren't tracking your ROI as well as you probably do these days.

[00:07:48.370] - Max

Probably not, No. The thing with books is like you only ever buy one, right? So it's like it's harder to track one and done almost

[00:07:56.290] - Rob

That for sure. OK, so you're doing a box and then you started this was getting an Amazon on .ca and .com, right.

[00:08:04.760] - Max

Yeah. So sell books and then. Well, I mean, I kind of the reason that I got yeah, so that I spent selling the books on Amazon mostly and at the start I would sell only on .ca so eventually I went I would ship my books across the border to Amazon.com and sell them in the States just because the market's much bigger. But when I started selling books on Amazon.ca, there was no partner for shipping. So for people who don't know, Amazon has these great rates with the shippers like UPS and FedEx that encourages sellers to sell more stuff in because they have such good rates and there's no partner shipping.

[00:08:39.530] - Max

But somehow I figured it was worth it. So I would send like from my living room, I would pack up like a thousand pounds of books and I would basically put it in my car and take it to counterposed. And it would be like $800 for a thousand pounds. It was insane. And now it's, you know, it's like one hundred and fifty bucks or a hundred bucks for that much weight, you know.

[00:09:01.430] - Rob

Okay, So you just started doing this already. Were you married then or engaged?

[00:09:06.760] - Max

No, I got married in 2018 and this would have been like 2017, 2016. OK, but Emily would help but yes she she. Are you insinuating that she was.

[00:09:17.510] - Rob

No, I just, I always ask those questions. You know, I want to know because you know, this business can be lonely like someone online. It can be. And that's why you need your network.

[00:09:27.020] - Rob

And we'll talk about that later.

[00:09:28.630] - Max

Yeah.

[00:09:28.870] - Rob

It's always interesting to hear, you know, how the spouse takes in. And sometimes, you know, the spouses are like, are you really sure this is, I don't know, really sure about anything. I'll give it a try. So,

[00:09:37.080] - Max

yeah, a lot of that.

[00:09:38.880] - Rob

Right. But doubt yourself doubt from her your first kind of explain it to people what you're doing, like what you're going to go to Value Village, buy a used book and somebody on the interweb is going to buy it for a bunch more money. OK,

[00:09:53.230] - Max

yeah, there was probably a ton of reasons to quit, but I wasn't smart enough to do that, so I just kept going.

[00:09:58.990] - Rob

It's a good thing you did because I know how this story has turned out. OK, so yeah, you did books and I don't know you and I wrote a book. That's right was going with this you and I connected. And then you're like, yeah, I wrote a book for Canadians how to sell books on Amazon and it's on Amazon now, so I'll put a link to it in the show notes. It's all right.

[00:10:19.610] - Max

It's still up I think.Yeah. Yeah. I wrote a book specifically for people like me wanting to flip books and it didn't take that long to write, but it took a long time to edit and I don't think anybody bought it. I think like thirty people bought it, which is fine. It's a good fun exercise.

[00:10:36.620] - Rob

It's a good book. Yeah. I've read it because you gave it to me because I was telling you. You told me it. I was like Dude get that up there. Who cares. Oh I got edit the crap out of it. Now you don't just get it up the ass.

[00:10:45.530] - Max

If it was pretty good, I was happy with it. And now I don't call myself an author, but I am one though.

[00:10:51.500] - Rob

You're not a New York Times bestseller, but your best seller, My Ass.

[00:10:55.410] - Max

Oh, thank you.

[00:10:56.770] - Rob

OK, so books and then transitioned into online arbitrage. Retail arbitrage. What was kind of the next evolution

[00:11:04.760] - Max

yeah

[00:11:04.870] - Rob

And what what triggered that.

[00:11:07.370] - Max

So the reason that I stopped selling books. Well, there's a couple of reasons why it was like exhausting. You know you constantly have to go out and get your car and fight people in goodwill you know who are always looking at you. And, you know, it's dirty and dusty and and you're only as good as your last find. And eventually I just got sort of tired of it. And so I started looking more into OA online arbitrage and retail arbitrage RA. I mean, so I was still going to those good and stuff that I was increasingly trying to find things that I could buy more than one of them.

[00:11:40.550] - Max

So that's sort of how I got started in that. That was one reason why I stopped selling books. The other reason was Amazon had this thing called the one item exemption for storage fees. So what would happen is if you only had one item in Amazon's warehouses, they wouldn't charge you any storage fees on it, but they removed that. And so what that meant was that all of my books and I had ten thousand, like ten thousand SKU's on Amazon.

[00:12:08.090] - Max

They all started getting charged storage fees, which basically killed the business, because what it meant was that, you know, I couldn't just leave books up there for like two or three years you know waiting for the right buyer.

[00:12:22.280] - Rob

Right. Because you're buying stuff that's kind of the long tail. I'm not necessarily the most popular stuff, but a little more obscure. But the margin is so juicy, right. Because you're you're buying it you know used for for how much?And then what are you selling? Like a couple dollars is like,

[00:12:36.710] - Max

yeah, you buy for a dollar and you sell for a hundred. You know, that's the thing with books is the most insane ROI or anything. But yeah, that meant I couldn't exactly. Couldn't sell long tails anymore because the storage fees just kill you.

[00:12:48.410] - Rob

Right. But I will say I've got a few clients that you know do sell books. It's still OK,

[00:12:54.930] - Max

is it still doing OK?

[00:12:56.200] - Rob

Yeah, yeah

[00:12:57.060] - Max

Yeah, I know that some people are still crushing it,

[00:12:59.630] - Rob

But as you said, it's it takes a certain individual to get up and go out and every day, you know, check them out and doing it. It's not easy. But then again, I always find if it's more difficult, whatever it is you're selling or doing, more difficult, the less people that can do it. Less competition for money. Right. So, yes, I.

[00:13:18.140] - Max

Yeah. So it was like that one item exemption killed it for me and then just I got tired. So then I went to OA and RA and it was like I could buy like a hundred of the same thing or ten of the same thing and I would only have to buy it once you know and then I could just reorder it or whatever. And that was a bit better because I wasn't buying ones and twos and I wasn't constantly finding each individual one. One time I went to Goodwill. They have this goodwill outlet where I live. So it's kind of like where all the stuff goes after it goes to a regular goodwill, it goes here and then it has sort of one last chance and they sell it by weight versus by item. Anyway, one time I went there and they had this pallet of zipper printers and at that point that was kind of chummy with all of the employees because like I was there every day and this one girl said, hey, have you seen this pallet of zipper printers?

[00:14:04.160] - Max

And I looked to my right and sure enough, there's just big pallet and you know I don't know if I've seen the zipper printer, but they're just like this. There's like sixty on the pallet. And I looked at it and. Oh, interesting. And someone had priced them all five dollars each. And I quickly looked at my phone and they were like hundred fifty dollars each and I was like oh interesting can I buy them all? Trying to be as cool as I could not like freaking out.

[00:14:28.160] - Max

It's just like yeah.

[00:14:29.450] - Max

Fine she did'nt care like I mean she, she you know didn't matter to her so I bought them all and people are looking at me like oh my God, what is that. And I load them all into my car anyway. I get home, I throw them up on eBay like like oh my God, I'm going to make so much money. And some guy buys them in like it was eight hours. I think I had them on there. And whenever you sell something quick, you're always like irritated.

[00:14:52.280] - Max

You're always like my price to too low what did I do?

[00:14:55.660] - Rob

And it feels that right Oh right damn and I hit again fraud it up or I'm clearly missing something. What does someone else know that? I don't know. It's your first inclination. But wait, you sold them as a lot, though, right? You sold them all?

[00:15:06.050] - Max

Yeah, I sold them to some kind flipped them on Amazon, apparently. And at the time I wasn't really selling on Amazon to too much or else I would have done that myself. But I sold all sixty five or whatever it was for. I think it was eleven grand and I paid one hundred and fifty bucks or something insane. That was like my biggest, one of my biggest fines ever from just thrifting and that sort of kick started the OA and the RA for me because I had sort of this bit of capital that I could just you know go crazy.

[00:15:33.780] - Rob

Right, and now you've also got a taster like, well, it's a lot easier to sell. Sixty five of one thing.

[00:15:38.430] - Max

Oh my God. Yeah,

[00:15:39.860] - Rob

you know, one SKU, one last. Hey, that's great. It worked out. I mean, that was obviously a great find, but maybe that get you the bug, right. OK, so now you started to transition. Now you're doing more OA and just flipping stuff where you can get them wholesale online arbitrage and then you obviously get into private label.

[00:16:00.810] - Max

Yeah. So again, with OA I got tired of it as well and RA. I mean, I still do it a little bit, but I started to focus more on the private label because again, it was like you're only as good as your last find. And I kind of wanted something more sustainable and something that you could sell, like when you're doing OA and RA I don't really have a business you can sell. You just it's just fine, right? It's just bleeds and stuff like that.

[00:16:22.230] - Max

So, yes, they're looking on OA our private label. And I started with the Proven Amazon course, which was this like Time Course run by Jim Cockram at the time. That must have been, you know, 2018 or something like that. And they had a lot of good private label resources at that time. I know things are different now for them, but yeah, that was that was where I started with private label. So I just sort of was, you know, if things are good, you don't change.

[00:16:50.070] - Max

And for me. OA and books and RA it was like there was something not right. And so I had to you know move to a private label.

[00:16:58.620] - Rob

Sure but I mean, hey, I know you still buy a lot in OA and I know the American Express people know you still buy a lot in OA

[00:17:06.700] - Max

It's like, yeah, for sure. It's like you don't want to stop what's working either. So you want to do both. Like when I was when I wanted to switch from books to OA, I would still sell some books. But then you just transition slowly. Don't quit what's working, but expand to somewhere that you want to expand while doing what you're still doing.

[00:17:24.970] - Rob

Yeah, and the timelines to private label and creating your own product are definitely very different. So the skill sets. But you know there's no reason why you can't do both. Right. And I think you're showing that you're doing both.

[00:17:36.420] - Max

Well, yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're both still good.

[00:17:40.990] - Rob

So private label. You're still growing with that right now. I know. Like whenever I'm looking at listings and optimizing and brand content and all that stuff, I feel like the first guy in my Rolodex one because you seem to work pretty cheap because you usually work for exchange leads and things like that, but you've really jumped in and done a lot. And I know you've been doing it for some other brands, optimizing listings, things like that.

[00:18:05.520] - Rob

Can you just take it through? You don't just some some tips for OK, I'm going to create my first listing, obviously, like when you look back at your first listings that you did compared to when you want a new listing now, I mean, it's night and day. I mean, the level of videos and optimization and stuff you're doing now, but you just give us some tips kind of you know that progress.

[00:18:24.930] - Max

Sure. Well, anyone can make a listing on Amazon. I know nowadays I think you have to buy GS1 barcodes. But at the time I didn't. I just bought some UPC stuff amazon or eBay.

[00:18:36.760] - Rob

Don't do that. Get the GS1.

[00:18:38.340] - Max

Have anymore. At the time, that's what I did. But now what I did was just a it's called the GTIN Exemption and it basically it just lets you list things on Amazon without any kind of barcode. And you don't have to worry about any of that. Aren't you selling your stuff like in a retail store then.

[00:18:54.380] - Rob

So so even now when you launch, you don't get a GTIN exemption for each one.

[00:18:59.490] - Max

Yeah. Yeah.

[00:19:00.570] - Rob

Do you actually have a GS1 barcodes for your brand?

[00:19:05.520] - Max

No, if I should get some but I don't have any yet.

[00:19:08.580] - Rob

Yes you should, especially if you want to sell in other marketplaces like Walmart requires them and other online retailers, you are going to need them and that the prefix

[00:19:19.200] - Max

Will get there. Like I said, I'm still learning. I'm still learning.

[00:19:24.780] - Rob

Yeah Aren't we all? We're always learning every day I'm learning something new. But hey, I just learned that really you don't even have GS1 barcodes and your crushing it so.

[00:19:33.360] - Max

Yeah, I just exempt everything. But as far as building a listing, your photo is your most important thing for sure. It's the first thing that everybody sees. You want to have six or seven and you want it to be good like, you know, take. What I do personally is I always get a sample of any new product that I have. And I take a nice picture just with my phone, if you can. You can do it with any phone. And then what I do is I just send it to my graphic designer and then he enhances it.

[00:20:00.510] - Max

So the first image has to be on a white background, as you know, then the rest can be whatever you want. So just try to think about what your target market is. You can put little infographics on them or who might want to use the product or product features. You can write a lot on the images. A lot of people don't do that. So like you know it has, it's super absorbent. You know, it's it'll work anywhere, stuff like that.

[00:20:23.210] - Max

You can use that side, try to think about all the pain points you would have with each individual product and then include those in the images because the images are going to be the first thing that people look at.

[00:20:33.850] - Rob

Right, so you're you're saying putting the words on the image, obviously not the first image, but the other one's kind of explaining it. So if I went and I just looked at your seven images and on your listings, I'd probably get the story and the gist of all the main points of the product, correct?

[00:20:47.240] - Max

Yeah. You kind to reiterate what you're saying in the bullets in the description in the images just try to be initializing as possible in the images and really try to put people in.

[00:20:56.730] - Rob

OK? And one thing you said that that is awesome. So you just take a photo of it yourself and then you send that off to your graphic designer. So you're not actually sending a physical item to a photographer to get shot. Your you know you can take it off with your iPhone or Android or whatever you're doing and then send it off, correct?

[00:21:14.470] - Max

Yeah, I mean, you can do it both ways. It's just the way I do it, it's a little less cost intensive if you're launching something new. And I think a lot of probably your listeners are new to private label to just take a picture with your phone and just send it off to you can hire a graphic designer and fiber or on up work for free up or something like that. And, you know, just tell them what you want to happen with the image.

[00:21:36.790] - Max

It's super simple and easy, and it'll cost you a fraction of the price of a professional photographer if you are a professional photographer. No one in your neighborhood or whatever. Great, but for me, I did. So I just went this way.

[00:21:48.460] - Rob

There's probably some a lot of unfortunately, a lot of wedding photographers these days that are looking for work. So I'm sure you can find someone locally that can do it as well. But I mean, even the the Amazon seller app has that photography feature now where you take the photo and it does. It's actually pretty good. I was quite impressed sometimes, too. Sometimes you just need an extra image or something on an online retail arbitrage flip and not your own private label.

[00:22:14.610] - Rob

And you're just like, look, I just need to get something that works in a pinch I find.

[00:22:19.000] - Max

Another tip I heard a long time ago was you can actually take your product to IKEA and put it in the display and they have all the setups. If your product is like you know related to that, then you just put it in there and then, boom, you've got a nice photo. But I mean,

[00:22:35.200] - Rob

I'm not sure I'm going to take my hubcap and you know take it to the kitchen and

[00:22:39.080] - Max

That those won't work.

[00:22:41.380] - Rob

I think I think that's a great idea If saying guest is a really good lifestyle. Photos. And, you know, I mean, I don't know what your place is like. I got kids. So it's not really the perfect lifestyle host for photography. But OK, so that's the images then. Talk about the bullets and some of the other stuff.

[00:22:58.300] - Max

Sure. So probably the title is the second. I would say the second most important. The first six words are the most important. So whatever your keywords are for your product, make sure that the main keywords make sure they're in the first six. And a lot of what I tip, I tell a lot of people is Amazon technically in the terms of services your brand has to be first and sometimes I'll move it to the front. But when you're just starting out, I would say put your brand up at the end of the title because you're going to need to use those keywords to rank.

[00:23:29.170] - Max

So make sure that those six keywords are like your big voice. But then after that, you just continue on as you would. And then what I do usually is I would say like bye. And then the brand name at the end of the title, the most important six words. And then at the end, would you grab your title is going to be the thing that the second most important thing that drives people for sure. And then and then the bullets, what a lot of people do and what I do is we write the first few words and caps, all caps.

[00:23:56.510] - Max

So like, great for the house, you know, all in caps and then a period. And then you would write the description of the bullet point. What you want to do is a feature and a benefit. So you would say something like, this towel is extremely absorbent. So that's the future and then the benefit of that is you don't have to use multiple towels to clean up that spill or something like that, you know, like a pain point.

[00:24:22.640] - Max

Like what what is what is your product trying to solve? What problem is it trying to address? So the future of the product that you're selling and then the benefit of it afterwards and you do the four or five.

[00:24:35.040] - Rob

So now we're talking about private label here. But still, these are really good, important things. One strategy that I do quite a bit of is when I find listings that are junk and I've got something I'm buying either online arbitrage or wholesale, and I write some bullets just for stuff that isn't my brand. I could flip, right? I mean, finding those underutilized listings that are that are crappy and taking a shot, just buying a couple of units, testing it out.Right.

[00:24:59.000] - Max

Yeah. That's what a lot of people don't realize, is you can pretty much change any listing on Amazon that you want as long as you're selling it. Usually they don't like let you change the listing if you're not selling it. But yeah, if you've got an OA or RA product that is not doing too well, it doesn't have bullets or it just as bad bullets for sure, you can update those.

[00:25:17.540] - Rob

I've done really well for a few years when I used to do get an account you know buy a bunch of things I buy like two or three and that's a beach, send them in test them, look at those listings and put in the bullets. I wasn't nearly as smart as you and creating all this benefit, whatever. I just did your benefit. Now I just put in words to make it, you know, to fill it up and make it look a little bit better. And then you find out, yeah, one or two starts to hunt and actually sell and then you just keep buying more of that.

[00:25:42.050]

And then suddenly you're the only seller, because the majority of people who are running software you know like tactical arbitrage and things were going through didn't hit any of their rankings, so they just passed on it. Or if anybody else looked at it and started listing them like, oh, that sucks. And just passed over. So, you know, digging into those nuggets, I mean, that's that's a great strategy that I've used over the years and has served me well.

[00:26:02.870] - Rob

But then you build it up and it's awesome and then it starts appearing on everybody's radar.

[00:26:06.640] - Max

Yeah, that's the problem, is you make it too good and then everybody's like, oh, well, why is this listing so good I'm gonna sell it and then it's dead.

[00:26:13.290] - Rob

Yeah, yeah. That that does happen unfortunately. But you'd be surprised sometimes and then I'll stop selling it and then I'll come back after six months or eight months and you know because other people out of the race to the bottom that they all gave up the. It's good again.

[00:26:24.470] - Max

Yeah. For sure. So just going down the list thing, I don't know how much detail you need to do here, but but the description you kind of just want to reiterate what you're saying and the bullet points. I don't really have any good tips for the description except on mobile, it appears before the bullet points. So you might want to have some decent coffee in there, at least at the start, because it shows up actually before the bullets, which is very interesting.

[00:26:49.010] - Max

If you have enhanced brand content, which you get if you're a brand registered seller on Amazon, you get this extra sort of area to describe your products, have more pictures in it. It hides the description. So if you've EBC Enhanced Brand Content, your description is not even there. It's still ranked for keywords, but it disappears.

[00:27:09.200] - Rob

That's a good point. You mentioned, though, about how it looks on mobile, and I don't think about that at all. But so many people are just shopping on mobile now and on an iPhone, I think it's like 60 or 70 percent of all sales are mobile.

[00:27:21.800] - Max

So you really should be looking at mobile first. And I don't do it enough either.

[00:27:25.630] - Rob

Yeah, that's that's a great that's a great takeaway. OK, so done that. I know the other day I saw you, you put out one of your items in a very small private group that was to review. And it's one of those things. You put it up there and everybody beat you up and told you what they change. What was kind of a couple big takeaways.

[00:27:42.740] - Rob

I mean, obviously, your listings are great. They sell, but you know as we're always improving, what were a couple of the good takeaways that you got from that from that feedback? Yeah, well, first of all, I think that getting that kind of feedback is super important constantly. You constantly have to be hunting for people who know more than you, which is kind of like my life's mission is to be stupid. It's like, oh, I didn't know that.

[00:28:08.090] - Max

Oh, I didn't know that. Oh. And then and then after a while, you know, you have enough stuff that you're like, OK, I don't know a couple of things, you know. But yeah, that's why that's why I posted there. I was like, OK, I really want to people look at one thing that one person said was they really wanted to they didn't understand who the product was for. And in my own head, I kind of knew who it was for, obviously, because it's my product.

[00:28:29.330] - Max

But when I was reading it, it was like, you're right, I'm not speaking to someone like an avatar. That's what they say they do a lot is sort of to create an avatar of who your ideal customer would be, who's the person who would buy your product the most or who would appreciate the most and then write to them. So for mine, it was like I was almost doing two different people at once and like it didn't quite make a ton of it didn't make a ton of sense the way I had written it then.

[00:28:56.540] - Max

So I improved the key words and changed the copy, but it actually increased the sales. Another thing, too, and we didn't talk about the listing optimization that someone said was that the search terms and the back end. So you go into the back end of the listing, they need to be an exact phrase. So. Not just individual words, but a phrase for your words, so be like with our title examples would be like absorbent towel for the kitchen would be like a phrase, it wouldn't be absorbent, comma, towel, comma, kitchen, your search terms, they have to be exact phrase.

[00:29:31.420] - Max

And that was something that I didn't know either. And then your subject matter is the single words. So absorbent space towel space kitchen no commas.

[00:29:43.390] - Rob

And then when you get those four words, are you getting those usually from like just typing in the top of Amazon and see how people search it?

[00:29:50.980] - Max

Yes, there's a number of ways you can do listing research. But yeah, there's Amazon search expander is one that I use. So you just type in one word, the kitchen, and it'll give you words on the front end of it. So, like. White kitchen towel, and that gives you words on the other end, so it expands the search. That's one way you can search for keywords and you can just see what people are searching.

[00:30:14.370] - Max

And then you would put out the keywords to your product. The other thing you can do is use Helium 10 if you have a subscription to that and you can do tons of research that way. That's how I do it personally. It's really intense. But that's pretty much where I get on my keywords. And then in the subject matter, you don't want to repeat. So it's kind of weird because you don't want to put any keywords in that you have in your title, your bullets or your description.

[00:30:37.490] - Max

So you're really using some out there keywords that are just like. You know, barely related almost sometimes because you've used a ton of your big points in the title in the Bullets, so you might put misspellings in there. Well, t o l t o w e t o l e you know, you spell it wrong or you might put in a Spanish version something that you wouldn't want to have visible on Amazon, because people usually just translate it themselves into into Spanish.

[00:31:10.360] - Max

So you put the Spanish version in the back end and so it would be words that you don't have anywhere else

[00:31:17.010] - Rob

That's right about Spanish because obviously the Spanish is huge in the states and the French would probably get in Canada.

[00:31:23.650] - Max

Exactly.

[00:31:25.450] - Rob

And that's a good idea because I know I get messages sometimes in Canada and there in Spanish and French and then .com. I get people in Spanish and my dad, people feel totally comfortable talking in their language. They're probably search of the same type of thing. And I know for sure, back into the Amazon is figuring it out. OK, let's let's switch gears a bit now. We've talked about this. You were talking about you like to be stupid and find a bunch of people.

[00:31:49.300] - Rob

And let's talk about your network and mentors and collaborators. And, you know, obviously we found each other somehow. But I know that you seem to know all these people and you're always like that if you're in the year or you're just like sliding in their DM's or what it is. But your network seems to be pretty big and always growing. Can we just talk about that a bit, how you do it?

[00:32:09.460] - Max

Sure. Well, it seems like the biggest thing for to grow your network is Facebook. And that's just pretty much where everybody is, I think, on Amazon. And so just joining lots of groups, I would say is a big part and commenting on posts, asking lots of questions, constantly asking questions. I'm sure I know some people that the questions that I ask because I just am always asking questions. You can you know, if it wasn't a COVID times you could go to conferences.

[00:32:38.950] - Max

I've been to a couple of conferences and meeting people in person is there's no substitute for that. You know, assume call is good. And the Skype call and a Facebook message. But our phone call. But when you meet someone in person, you know there's that trust that it's built that way. But like joining webinars, there's tons of free webinars all the time. See if you can get into some courses that are too expensive. Helium 10 has some good ones that way, and I've met people through that.

[00:33:08.680] - Max

But, you know, just be friendly and, you know, I don't know. Don't be there. I guess is is what I would say, you know, just be cool and be interested in what people are up to and try to help them and and try to ask for help, too.

[00:33:26.050] - Rob

So that's that's kind of your bigger, grander network. But I know you've got people that like you go in your messager right now. There is probably how many people that you're talking to, you know, almost either daily and every other day, like, how did you get kinda those people and what's the benefit of having those people on your network?

[00:33:42.970] - Max

Yeah, I mean, I think I just got it through Facebook, honestly, most of them. But the benefit is that everybody thinks differently and everybody sees it differently. Like if you had fifty people look at a listing that give you 50 different ways to improve it. And so just constantly talking to other people and asking them what they think and how they would do something, I think that's really contributed to my success. Like, you know, they say your network is your net worth.

[00:34:09.160] - Max

And I mean, it's kind of cliche, but it really is true. Like the amount of money that and not just money, but just like, you know, friendships and just good feedback and useful criticisms that I've received from people in my network. You know, I wouldn't be where I was today without that.

[00:34:28.180] - Rob

No, I mean, you and I do that. And you know even just yesterday, it's funny, I send you something. I'm like, oh, this is a great flip.

[00:34:34.900] - Rob

And then if you're not super jazzed about it, I'm like, oh, crap, why, why is it not jazzed about it? I'm missing something a little yesterday. I say one thing you know postings not here and I'm thinking, you moron, it's like really simple. It's very easy to search. And it's right here that you're like, yeah, but it's in this one little thing and it doesn't totally match up on my uh. Yeah, that's

[00:34:57.760] - Max

For sure. But I mean, that's the power of the network.

[00:35:00.640] - Rob

Right. Right. And it's hey, I already ordered the most small, costly mistake. It's 250 bucks. I'll end up selling them somehow, but I'm not worried about it. But the flip side is, you know, the amount of if you've got a few people you can share with, I mean, you and I have made some pretty good money on a few BOLO's over the last couple of years.

[00:35:17.470] - Max

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Sharing with your friends is good. And the reason I noticed that is because, like, I've been burned by you know virtual systems and friends of mine who say, look at this awesome flip and I'll just buy it. And then later on, it's not the same item. Or like a couple of years ago I got an IP infringement or like a it was like someone said my product was counterfeit and it wasn't counterfeit. It was just like listed the wrong variation, because I pop the wrong variation and so I'm always like sort of hyper critical of everything, I make sure that it's the same product as if someone's buy something on Amazon, they're expecting to get that thing.

[00:35:55.570] - Rob

Totally. And that's what know, one thing I always tell people when I see new sellers sometimes and they're really excited and they've got the idea that they just want to outsource everything. And I'm all about that. I mean, you and I both outsource a lot.

[00:36:06.960] - Rob

I don't do it in my own prep. I have a wonderful woman who does all that for me, your prep centers. But when you're first starting out, I mean, you and I both did it. We got the stuff. We prepped it ourselves. We labeled it ourselves. We learned how to poly bag. We understood the standards. There's something. And that's how you make sure that things are matching up. And they're correct, because if you're ready to outsource that and hand that off to somebody, you need to hand it off to somebody you can trust.

[00:36:31.830] - Rob

But you also need to be able to measure their work and understand what goes into it and how long it should take and the complexities. And, you know, I'm always just saying do it yourself for a bit. Understand? Yes. Right. And then especially early on, you can't afford costly mistakes that I've seen sellers that you know do exactly that. The wrong variation, they got absolutely clobbered. And next thing you know, they're suspended before they've even started because they don't have any credibility.

[00:36:57.660] - Rob

So all of a sudden, you know, you've got ten out of ten mistakes in your first ten sales. Well, that's not good. But if you or I, for instance, now, after you've sold a lot, you know, OK, fine. You messed one thing up. You know, you get a little bit more leeway right?

[00:37:11.520] - Max

Now. Absolutely. And if you if you don't do it yourself at the start and you just outsource everything, then down the road, you never know what's wrong because you never did it yourself you know.

[00:37:22.200] - Max

Like, if someone's screwing up and you won't know why, because you never get it yourself. So for sure, when you're starting out, it's like any entrepreneur, right. You're going to be doing it. You're going to be doing the accounting and the bookkeeping, which is what I did for a while. And you can be prepping and you can be driving stuff to the store and you'll be sourcing. You do it all yourself first. Sure. I would agree with you.

[00:37:44.790] - Rob

And then as you start to grow and you figure out, OK, where it's like everything, you figure out where your time is best spent and what you're good at and what you want to do, then start to take things off your plate and get others to do it right?

[00:37:55.870] - Max

Yep. Yep. For sure. Start focusing on what you're good at.

[00:37:59.530] - Rob

I have a question. Just I thought of it and I was having a conversation with someone the other day. So if you've got a brand new we're backtracking. Brand new private label product, brand new supplier, you're going to sell it on Amazon. Do you get a ship to yourself first to inspect it, or do you send it straight in and trust them? Or what's your approach?

[00:38:17.610] - Max

I always get a sample, so. When you're ordering from a new supplier or even on old supplier, I always get a sample first.

[00:38:25.620] - Max

That's what I do, just so you can see it and feel it and touch it and then photograph it and see if that's what you want. And if it's not, you send it back and you tell them what's wrong and get an example for the big order, even if it's the first order. I usually don't get to show it to myself. You know, I got the sample. I know what it's going to be, I often just ship it directly into Amazon, which I know scares a lot of people, but.

[00:38:50.130] - Max

It has worked out for me, like when I first started, I would get a ship to a prep center to a guy that I trusted instead of going directly into Amazon. But, you know, now I just do pretty much with all of my suppliers. We have certain things that each product needs and we make sure that it's all correct. And we follow all of Amazon's guidelines, like, OK, we put if it's coming from China, we got to put it made in China sticker on it and a barcode label.

[00:39:18.950] - Max

OK, we're not putting the shipping labels over the scene with the box. None of the boxes are 50 pounds or more. Make sure that they know everything that we're supposed to know. Yeah, I'll ship it directing them. So I'm for sure at the start I didn't, but now I will.

[00:39:33.890] - Rob

Do you still get an inspection before it leaves China for your overseas stuff?

[00:39:38.860] - Max

Yes. If for new things, for sure I do. You should probably do it for everything.

[00:39:43.500] - Max

That would be my recommendation just because you never know. And there's the language barrier there. Now, they do speak English, most of them, but you just never know. Something weird could happen. Something could get lost in translation. I just had an order from an American supplier that if I had shifted into Amazon directly, it would have been very bad because it was a roll of stickers and he shifted on three inch course versus one point five inch course.

[00:40:12.260] - Max

And that makes it totally different and it doesn't fit in dispensers, and it was a big mistake, so I wasn't able to ship that one into my prep center. But if it bound directly into Amazon, it would have been a problem because it would have been a different product document than people.

[00:40:25.970] - Rob

But how did you figure that out? Because you were having to go into the prep center first?

[00:40:29.090] - Max

Yea. Well, how did I figure that out? I think I just got lucky with that one.

[00:40:33.960] - Rob

Yeah

[00:40:34.020] - Max

Didn't go directly, but it was a new product, which is why I was a little bit more cautious about it. If it's not a new product and something you've done multiple times, then you probably should feel more confident about sending it directly. But it was a new product, so I went to the customer first. So I guess I would say for new products, go to prep center or your home first and then once the factory gets it.

[00:40:57.580] - Max

Then you can go directly to the Amazon, but I mean, do it at your own risk.

[00:41:02.220] - Rob

Hey, that's me, and that's the recommendation I was telling someone who was a brand new seller, I had sold a private label yet and I was and hey get the inspection before it leaves and just take it on the chin, spend a little bit more on shipping the first time, get it yourself, double check it, inspect it. Brand new supplier, brand new product.

[00:41:20.340] - Rob

Just because you've agreed on what the sample looks like and you can't afford that mistake as an early seller later on, you've got one or two bumps in the road and you get a couple of returns on a new product. Find your account can handle that. But early on, it's almost a kiss of death.So.

[00:41:37.050] - Max

If you send in the product and it's the wrong product or something's wrong with it, it is a nightmare because it's going to be on Amazon and you're gonna have to take it out, because if you sell it, people are going to be like, what the heck? This is not what I ordered and Amazon is going to charge you. You know a lot, and then it's going to have to send it somewhere and get it relabel, so be careful for sure, like only send it to Amazon with suppose you trust or, you know are going to make that kind of mistake.

[00:42:05.390] - Rob

OK, let's talk about mistakes, because some of our best learning comes from mistakes we made. So I know I make them. I still make them. I made one yesterday. Tell me give me an example of you know a disaster, something that didn't go the way you wanted to do in your business and how you how you dealt with it and how you recovered.

[00:42:23.410] - Max

For sure. Well, I had a product that recently that I didn't read the terms of service close enough and it got marked as adult and I tried to get it out of that, but they were not budging at all.

[00:42:40.310] - Max

And for your listeners, if a product is worth the data, they hide it from search the only way you can find it. I don't know if to go through some, like, long chain. And then you eventually you can click out of somewhere and then you can see all the adult products. But I could not get it out of battle. And I had. Twenty eight hundred units, some at Amazon, some of the prep center, and the listing was just dead, like as soon as they got more cattle, a couple of sales trickled in here and there.

[00:43:06.460] - Max

But I think I saw one in a month know I still have some there and I can't get it out. So the whole product is dead. I just have to say goodbye to that money on Amazon, so now I can take it out and try to liquidate it or sell it on eBay or whatever. But, you know, people who sell on Amazon know it's like. That's the big game, if you can't sell it on Amazon, it's going to be tough,

[00:43:31.420] - Rob

But now, yeah, it's because it's buried in a dump and don't pretend like, oh, you've never browsed and found that category.Yeah, but yes, it does take a

[00:43:39.880] - Max

How do you find that category? I don't even know.

[00:43:42.310] - Rob

I'll show you real quick and I'll have you know, the adult category is still fine to sell. And if you're selling adult products, they do it quite well because people do shop for that, especially on Amazon, because people don't want to go into adult stores quite often just comes at a generic box. But nobody's going browsing. Looking for a non adult product misclassified in adults, correct?

[00:44:04.660] - Max

Right. Right.

[00:44:05.660] - Rob

And that's

[00:44:06.190] - Max

that one hurt.

[00:44:07.810] - Rob

And you're still dealing with it.

[00:44:09.730] - Max

Yeah still dealing with it.

[00:44:11.550] - Rob

And unfortunately, you know, it's beyond your control. Right. I was just kind of a bad luck by the sounds of it.

[00:44:17.440] - Max

It's one of those things. I had another product where I put some keywords in the description and it marked it as it was a cream. And for some reason, in in the description, in the keywords, at one point it it said lightning and then another pointed, that's a cream.

[00:44:36.160] - Max

And Amazon thought it was the skin lightening cream, which is against the terms of service. Apparently the light in your skin makes sense. But I just thought it's a skin lightening cream at all. It just those two keywords were in there and we had to get FDA certificates and factory certificates and like safety tests. And it was like months of trying to figure out how to get this ASIN from unblocked just because of those two words were in there. And then as soon as Amazon gets their teeth into you, it's really hard to to get it done because that was another huge screw up.

[00:45:12.190] - Rob

Did you have a lot of units?

[00:45:14.570] - Max

Not too many. No, I think we had, you know, like four or five thousand dollars worth of product that was just sitting there for a couple of months. But yeah, I think we're getting close to getting it fixed.

[00:45:27.770] - Rob

But I guess that's the diversification lesson, perhaps.

[00:45:33.110] - Max

Yes.

[00:45:33.950] - Rob

All your eggs in one basket. I mean,

[00:45:36.140] - Max

yes, absolutely. Yeah, I can talk about that, too, if you want.

[00:45:40.340] - Rob

I had another couple episodes of those.

[00:45:43.010] - Max

You know, just diversification is good because like, if you only have one product or if only focused on one nature, you only sell on one platform. It's going to it's going to hurt you when something goes wrong. And it will. It always does. It's just it's about resilience and getting back up. The thing is, and people say this a lot, it's like you've got to diversify and you've got to sell everywhere.

[00:46:04.490] - Max

But Amazon is the big game in town. And so try to sell there for sure because that's where the money is. But at the same time, you can like you don't just have to sell in one market place. You could sell Amazon.ca or Amazon.com if only someone you can sell on Amazon, Mexico. I'm getting into Amazon UK now and I know people who sell in Germany and Japan and all those things. And then there's software out there like listing there.

[00:46:31.850] - Max

You can cross list on eBay and Etsy and that all helps spread out the risk of it for sure.

[00:46:38.310] - Rob

Yeah, I mean, there's more opportunities to sell your products to get it out there, but as you said, Amazon is the big elephant and it's the largest marketplace and that's where the people are and that's where people trust it, you know, and it really hit me one day. I was talking to a good friend of mine who's down at Amazon.

[00:46:53.270] - Rob

So I was super bright guy. And he's like, yeah, I don't want to enter. I don't want to go to a new website because I'm so lazy. I don't want to enter my name and address and credit card number and set up a new account in your crappy website. I just don't know if that's why it shops on Amazon, even if you've got to pay more for it. You want it on Amazon because everything's all registered. A couple of clicks on its mobile phone.

[00:47:13.520] - Rob

So it's done versus setting up a do it at Shopify is kind of a unique situation where you can kind of create a Shopify account and it kind of repopulates on other websites that are know more independent. But you, Shopify is the back end, which I think is pretty smart on their part. But at the end of the day, I mean, I remember I first signed up with Walmart must be like when they first came out and it's a junk show.

[00:47:37.400] - Rob

I don't sell on there anymore. I, I think it's getting better.

[00:47:41.120] - Max

It's not quite good.

[00:47:42.710] - Rob

My issue is they didn't tell me when there was an order, so I'd have to log in to check to see there was an order. And if I'm not selling anything there, I'm not logging in. So then I totally get a message like, hey, where's my order? I'll be like, oh, I'd log in. Oh, you heard that five days ago.

[00:47:58.730] - Rob

Oops. That's how it triggered that. I had an order with a complaint, so that wasn't a good situation for me.

[00:48:04.810] - Max

Yeah, I heard it's kind of like the Wild West right now in that way, in that, you know, things are that aren't very good and they're kind of like like the whole the UI and stuff doesn't work very well. And you can do all kinds of crazy stuff that you can't do on Amazon, that you can offer products reviews and you can do all kinds of interesting things.

[00:48:24.350] - Max

But yeah, it's it's a different place for sure.

[00:48:26.510] - Rob

Well, maybe that's a bit of the opportunity that before they start cracking down on, actually, you know, everybody's going to be sending reviews and cards it's a five star review inside. Right back to that.

[00:48:35.660] - Max

You can do that. You can do that right now on Amazon. No.

[00:48:39.800] - Rob

Yeah, that's why we can't have nice things. OK, let's take it up a lot of your time.

[00:48:44.960] - Rob

I would like to find out. Let's talk about your lifestyle now and now. You move from you know, now you're full time online seller. That's all you do. No more. Eighteen different career paths that you're going down.

[00:48:55.820] - Max

Yeah

[00:48:56.030] - Rob

Just tell us a little bit about your lifestyle and what what your day kind of looks like with your week and how how things have changed.

[00:49:04.730] - Max

Yeah, for sure. What the boss anymore, except for myself, which is nice. I want to be anywhere every day. And I know I think that would probably be the thing that a lot of people would like that that trap, that nine to five trap that a lot of people are in. That would be what's enticing on Amazon FBA for people who don't know is fulfillment by Amazon. And basically what happens is you ship your stuff in to Amazon and then when it sells, they fulfill it.

[00:49:30.710] - Max

So they send it up to your customers for you should be freedom by Amazon, really, because it just frees you up to do anything you want. Like I can do a podcast until the day and I don't have to take time off work or, you know, if I'm not feeling well, I can just take the day off and watch Netflix or something like that. A couple of years ago, my mom got leukemia and she was in the hospital for forty seven days in intensive care and I was able to go every single day.

[00:49:59.180] - Max

And I don't mean that to say like I'm not bragging. It was just like it was sweet, like I got to be there for her, you know. And that's the nice thing about having a business like this is you can be there for the people that you love and your family and the people you care about pretty much at any time because you're not doing all that fulfillment. You're not doing all that shifting you know doing all those extra things. So, yeah, my lifestyle is vastly improved because I have control of my own time and everybody wants that.

[00:50:27.350] - Max

I think I think nobody well, maybe some people do, but I don't I don't want to be told what to do all day, every day. I want to go do what I want to do, what I want to do it. And if someone in my family needs my help, I want to be able to be there for them. And my mom beat cancer. I'm not saying I did anything, but I was there. So that was good.

[00:50:47.210] - Rob

Yeah, I mean, that's that's awesome. I mean, to be able to do that like and not have to worry about it like, you know, oh, everybody is going to let me go from work. They're going to complain about me behind my back, but they're going to support my face or any of those projects. Right. You know, like. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I'm sick. Meanwhile, they're all like, Max is different here.

[00:51:05.870] - Rob

Now we're going to pick up the slack. I remember that when people you know, when I was in the corporate world, these two kids get sick. I've got two kids now and kids do get sick. And guess what? And you know, you can't get a babysitter in like five minutes when your kids are sick and they're supposed to go to school. You know, people would be they'd say nice things to your face, like, oh, that's fine.

[00:51:26.390] - Rob

And then they turn around and I, oh, I can't work from home because I don't have kids. And that's for sure. The freedom is good. But OK, so that's great. But how do you keep your staff motivate? What do you know, like how do you decide what to do? Is there anything that you kind of like, you prep your week or projects or how you manage yourself?

[00:51:46.490] - Max

I don't really have a schedule so much, I don't get it, but I check my email every day and kind of I have a running to do list of things that I do.

[00:51:54.570] - Max

I try to do a little bit of physical activity every day to go for a bike ride or something like that. But really, it's it's just whatever I feel like doing that day, I think I stay motivated because it's something I like it. It's really easy to stay motivated when you enjoy what you do. Like I work at Costco for six years and it was hard to get me there every day and it was hard for me to be there and it was great to leave.

[00:52:18.390] - Max

But when you really like what you do and you're in charge of your own time, this is almost like motivation doesn't exists. It's just like you feel great all the time, you know, because, I mean, not all the time, but you know what I mean. Like, you just it's what you want to do.So.

[00:52:34.320] - Rob

It's powerful. It's just a totally amazing when you can just do whatever you want. And if you want to take this time off, you can and you need to take it off like in your mom's case you can.

[00:52:45.420] - Rob

But if you want to, you know what? I'm going to put in a late night session. I'm feeling really good. And I want to hammer out a new product. Are you going to stay up late to talk to China and your suppliers? You know, you're going to reap the benefits of that, right?

[00:52:57.600] - Max

Yeah, absolutely. For sure. And making money helps, too. I mean, all jokes aside, I mean, I can anybody could do whatever the hell they want all the time. But if you're not making money, you're going to be in trouble. So having the money roll in is a nice, nice motivator for sure. But when there's like almost almost a direct correlation to how hard you work, how much money you make, whereas like Costco or some other crappy job or a salary job or who knows, there's no correlation between how hard you work and how much money you make or how good you feel.

[00:53:28.620] - Max

Often you work harder at a job. They just give you more work, you know? So for me, it's pretty much a no brainer that this is something that I want to keep doing because it's just so much more rewarding for me.

[00:53:41.270] - Rob

And you plan to stay in Edmonton? Obviously some travel?

[00:53:44.960] - Max

That's the other thing, too. It's like, you know, Edmonton is OK. It's like a regular type city. But I don't have to stay here because of FBA and because of Amazon, because of being boss.

[00:53:58.430] - Max

I can go anywhere and sell from anywhere on Amazon. You don't have to live in the country. You're selling it. You just sell anywhere. It's amazing. So you can move to the coast or into Costa Rica. And seeing you the reason we went down is we're thinking about moving there. I'm not saying it's off the table, but we could do it.

[00:54:16.400] - Rob

Oh, you were thinking that he came down and met me and said, no, I'm not going to happen.

[00:54:22.940] - Max

But we could you know, I love to live in Hawaii, obviously.

[00:54:27.580] - Rob

Well, Hawaii is now in the new Aeroplan reward, so you can definitely go there, like, a lot more often. And you've seen that.

[00:54:34.470] - Max

Yep. I heard that they're starting flights there recently or something.

[00:54:38.990] - Rob

Hopefully everybody

[00:54:40.050] - Max

Canadians

[00:54:40.400] - Rob

All the Amazon sellers I know our stuck and so many credit card points.

[00:54:43.340] - Rob

And I'm sure you two just waiting to go again.

[00:54:47.000] - Max

Yeah,

[00:54:47.640] - Rob

OK.

[00:54:48.320] - Max

I did it it so I bought a barbecue with my credit card points and then they cancelled it. I don't know why I have to find out.

[00:54:56.960] - Rob

So I've taken up a bunch of time and I appreciate everything today. Max, just tell us what what is the next 90 days look like for your business? And what do you what do you want to be this time next year?

[00:55:09.290] - Rob

What does your business look like?

[00:55:11.000] - Max

Yeah, well, I mean, the private label mode right now. So I'd love to have more products, have more things in my portfolio that I can maybe down the road, sell, maybe sell my business down the road. I don't know. But I'd like to just continue to build the private label. Right now, it's quarter four or about to be a quarter four some kind of in that OA RA sourcing mode, because Christmas is coming up and people are going to be buying a lot of stuff.

[00:55:37.760] - Max

So I'm doing a lot of that right now. But yeah, just sort of continuing to build the private label business and building up the brand to be bigger and better and sell more and continue to. That's the beauty of private labels. You can really solve problems for people. You can find an area where someone needs help or a lot of someones need help. And you can improve their lives by offering a product that does that. I'm sure you and your listeners have found a product that you can't live without, but it's something that really improves the quality of life every day.

[00:56:13.100] - Max

And that's the beauty of the labels, is you can really find those things and really bring a lot of happiness to a lot of people. And there you know the money is a perfect tradeoff for them. Like the money is nowhere near worth as much as what they're getting from you, which is an extremely valuable product. I would like to you know bring that to more people for sure.

[00:56:33.020] - Rob

And I want to say, as you say, that you're talking about creating a great product, not just taking some crappy drone from Alibaba and putting your own label on it.

[00:56:43.580] - Rob

And I have seen so many people do this and it's just a recipe for disaster. And it gets back to when you say big a person, when you're talking online, make good stuff like, yeah, good product, sell good stuff, guess what, people will buy it and be happy. I see people complaining of my products getting terrible reviews and this that. Well, is it junk?

[00:57:03.950] - Max

Yeah, for sure. I would sell something that not that I wanted to buy necessarily always, but something that I believed in. It's a lot easier to sell stuff that you believe that or stuff that, you know, works and isn't going to rip people off rip people off is not fun. Yeah, I would sell stuff that I liked

[00:57:21.320] - Rob

Totally. And even when I do OA and RA, I look for stuff that same thing like stuff that interests me, stuff I like. And that's what I go. I mean, you can you can spend and buy so much stuff out there, way more than you have money to. But I would say, like if you have a little bit of passion in whatever it is or you're interested in it, then it just makes it easier. Back to your point with, hey, if you like, what you're doing doesn't really feel like work.

[00:57:44.360] - Rob

It's so much more rewarding. Right. So even still, you know, when you're looking at different products, like I see products that I think are kind of cool and interests me and, you know, I look at toys, I sell a bunch of toys and I'm interested in them. And it's kind of fun versus.

[00:57:59.230] - Max

Yeah,

[00:58:00.260] - Rob

boring stuff. I don't know, like stuff I wouldn't sell car parts maybe. Sorry if your car parts seller, but that's not really my bag.

[00:58:08.420] - Rob

OK, Max,

[00:58:10.250] - Max

I think I've dated an automotive

[00:58:12.910] - Rob

Well because you got to set up a fake weird little website and do it again, but because it takes time and effort, anything that takes more time and effort to get unjaded or get approved or get that wholesale account or whatever, I always say like there's more opportunity there because people like me, I gonna do it for you. We're not going to create this silly little website to get unjaded in automotive.

[00:58:35.300] - Rob

And so there'll be fewer competitors. Right.

[00:58:38.180] - Rob

OK, any last minute advice that to you want cover, and we didn't

[00:58:42.490] - Max

I guess I just I would just say, like, if you want to do this, just work hard and always be learning. I've been doing this for four and a half years now, and every day I wake up and I do things that I have no idea how to do and I'm constantly making mistakes. You're not failing you're winning or or you're learning, you know, so don't be afraid to make mistakes, take small risks, get into private label, start small and do everything.

[00:59:13.960] - Max

Try it all and just and see what sticks and what doesn't. And, you know, surround yourself with people who know more than you and just have fun. I guess I guess there was a lot of things, but just immerse yourself, I guess, in the whole thing. That's what I would say,

[00:59:29.050] - Rob

that you're right and I. I agree 100% good advice. OK, Max, thank you so much for coming on the show.

[00:59:34.810] - Rob

Episode number one, going down in the books. Hopefully there's going to be two or three and a lot more. Maybe we'll be back for a hundred one because I think there's a lot more you and I could have talked about. But I've taken up enough of your time today. So thank you so much for coming on the show, Max. I appreciate it.

[00:59:51.020] - Max

Yeah. And if anybody wants to message me on Facebook or any questions, it's my last name first.

[00:59:56.950] - Max

So my name is Max Sigurdson, so it's just Sigurdson Max S I G U R D S O N. So when you just message on Facebook, then be happy to answer questions or help you in any way I can. Thanks Rob for having me on. The podcast is a lot of fun and I am your first and best podcast guest. I'm sure. So. Thanks so much Man.

[01:00:17.740] - Rob

Awesome that thanks .

[01:00:20.110] - Rob

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