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Feb. 19, 2021

Launching Your eCommerce Fortune With Seth Kniep

Launching Your eCommerce Fortune With Seth Kniep

In this episode, Andy interviews Seth Kniep of Just One Dime (SOJ.com)

Listen as Seth explains how he has transformed his life from living paycheck to paycheck and being $24,000 in credit card debt to creating a full-time career selling on Amazon.

Within this episode, Seth explains how to find products to sell on Amazon including some of the mistakes to avoid. Discover how you can start a side business working to replace your existing income while learning to sell on the Amazon platform.

Episode Action Items:

You can learn more about Seth and Just One Dime by visiting www.soj.com

ABOUT THE HOST:

Andy Splichal is the World's Foremost Expert on Ecommerce Growth Strategies. He is the acclaimed author of the Make Each Click Count Book Series, the Founder & Managing Partner of True Online Presence and the Founder of Make Each Click Count University. Andy was named to The Best of Los Angeles Award's Most Fascinating 100 List in both 2020 and 2021.

New episodes of the Make Each Click Count Podcast, are released each Friday and can be found on Apple Podcast, iHeart Radio, iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts and www.makeeachclickcount.com.

Transcript

Andy Splichal  0:02  

Welcome to the Make Each Click Count Podcast. This is your host Andy Splichal. And today I'm being joined by a special guest with a very interesting story. This guest was living paycheck to paycheck and was $24,000 in debt. He set the goal to break away from the death by paycheck cycle and create freedom for himself and his family. He started with a single dime dead set on doubling it 20 times into over $100,000 to create freedom for him and his family. Today he manages over 100 million in annual revenue for name brands and silent investors on the Amazon platform. He is the co founder of  Just One Dime and has trained over 100,000 entrepreneurs in over 150 countries, many who are multimillionaires today. A big welcome to Seth Kniep. Hi, Seth. How are you?

 

Seth Kniep  1:50  

Good Andy. And I want to say right off the bat. Thank you for the nice intro. It's actually over 10,000 entrepreneurs, not 100. Although it was tempting. Yeah. 

 

Andy Splichal  2:00  

One day. That's next year, it'll be 100,000. 

 

Seth Kniep  2:03  

One day. Exactly. Yeah. 

 

Andy Splichal  2:06  

Well, great. Now before we jump into today's topic, which is launching your ecommerce fortune, let's hear a little of your backstory from you. And what ultimately led you to doing what you were doing now?

 

Seth Kniep  2:21  

Sure. So what drove me to making change was really more internal than external. What I mean by that is most people think, Well, you know, what drives someone to become an entrepreneur is they just want to make a lot of money. They're tired of not making more money, so they need to make more money. But for me, it was money was more representative of a deeper problem in my heart. I was not managing my finances. Well, I was undisciplined, the credit card debt was 100% my fault, not the economy's not my company, not my parents, not my wife's, it was 1,000% my fault. And it wasn't until I started take ownership, that my frustration, it wasn't like, oh, man, I need more money. It was I wanted margin. I wanted to be able to do the things I love the people I love. And so working for the richest company in the world, you would think I had the dream job. And from the outside, it really looks like I did. Like it look like this guy's great. Like he's moving up, I got offered two very prestigious positions from two different departments from Apple at the same time, like within the same week. So I had options I was doing well, I had great references, and you would think I was doing great. But the frustration building up inside of me was just incessant, it wouldn't stop. And that's because I felt like I wasn't doing what I was supposed to be doing what God created me to be doing. I didn't feel like my gifts and strengths were aligned with the work that I was doing. And also the fact that we were living very paycheck to paycheck, I didn't have enough to go out and try to invest in property invest in stocks. And so it just created this frustration. And to really top it off, Andy the most difficult part was I had a manager who did not listen to any suggestions was extremely, extremely controlling of everything, didn't give me responsibility to try and fail and test things. And it just it was it was very difficult. I'll never forget one time being put in a situation where I was blamed for doing something that I was supposed to do. And it was the right thing. And I was thrown under the bus in front of my subordinate, which was kind of embarrassing. And it got to a point where after that meeting, because I've worked from home, there's another reason you think I had the perfect job. I got to work from home. You know, I got to pick up my hours. I didn't have certain hours I had to work. It was just the environment in that particular team wasn't all about what was this one team was so toxic. We had multiple managers leaving. And I believe looking back I'm thankful because that drove me to turn into my wife one day and saying, I'm going to do something different. I'm going to build a business for our family that gives us margin. I don't care what it takes. I don't care how hard it is. I'm going to do it. So it was that negative of motion Andy, that drove me to make a decision. And that's what I learned about selling on Amazon.

 

Andy Splichal  5:05  

Okay, so here you are you you're not happy with their job and you decide you want to be your own boss. How did you decide the best way, what you're going to do is to start selling products on Amazon. How what road lead you there?

 

Seth Kniep  5:21  

At this point, I had no knowledge of what it meant to build a business. I had zero experience when it comes to selling online, the only thing I sold online was a guitar like over 10 years ago on this weird bidding online marketplace called eBay. So I didn't know anything, Andy I just didn't. I was used to the corporate life, and I couldn't stand it anymore. So what drove me to that was I just started to study, I just started to search, I just started to research online, I found a booklet How to sell on eBay. And I remember being at the school of one of my children while they were getting prepared for a song performance. And I had to wait like two hours, just sitting there by myself. So I pull out my iPad, and I started reading this booklet on how to sell on eBay. And then eBay introduced me to Amazon, not directly but sort of by osmosis, you know, the people who sold on eBay, so I'm sold on Amazon, and I heard about Amazon and that they actually fulfill the orders for you. And that's what really piqued my interest in the Amazon ecommerce system.

 

Andy Splichal  6:23  

Okay, and what was what did you start selling? What was the first product you started selling on Amazon?

 

Seth Kniep  6:29  

Little cremation urns. These are little tiny, in heart shaped urns that go on a necklace that you hang around your neck. And these urns were selling really well on eBay. So I thought, hey, I can sell on eBay, too. And I had sort of a metoo mentality. Well, if they're doing it, well, I can too. I didn't understand differentiation that your product needs to stand out from the competition at that time. So they did terrible on eBay. When I listed it on Amazon, first a sale, the sales just kind of trickled in. But slowly but surely began to pick up faster and faster and faster, until it was selling 10 times a day. And that's when I realized, wait a minute, I am now profiting around $100 A day my profit was right around $10 per sale. And I thought, Man, that's a lot of money. Like, to me, that was a lot of money. So 3000 a month, and I'm doing this on the side while I have a full time job with Amazon, you know, a 60 to 70 hours a week manager job on salary. And I'm sitting here making money on the side in way less the time.

 

Andy Splichal  7:32  

So little cremation urns now, are those those decorative? Or do you put the remains of a canary in there?

 

Seth Kniep  7:40  

So you hang them on a necklace around your neck. So like, you know, if you have a loved one, or a pet that was cremated, and allows people to take the ashes from the cremation, and pour them into the urn, and then wear it as a memory.

 

Andy Splichal  7:55  

Wow, okay, I would have never thought there was a market for them.

 

Seth Kniep  7:59  

But here's the funny thing at when I first was interested in selling online, I didn't think of selling a funeral cemetery type product, because that's what it is. It's in the category of cemetery on Ebay. I was looking for sports and fitness because I like fitness, I love outdoors. I love working out I like being fit. And so I thought, Well, that makes sense. I'll just do something like, but what I didn't realize is, well, there's a lot of competition in that department in that category. And with my lack of knowledge me winning in that area is going to be very difficult. And I'll never forget listening to a podcast from Pat Flynn. And he said the riches are in the niches and I thought, Okay, I'm gonna find a category eBay that is the most like unlikely category anyone would ever pick. And so I picked cemetery, but grudgingly.

 

Andy Splichal  8:44  

And did you did you expand in that category? Or where did you go from there?

 

Seth Kniep  8:50  

So from there, yes, so I started coming out with different designs of cremation urns. So one was the heart shape. Another one was the shape of a little dog. Another was the shape of a little cat. Obviously, for people who had pets, there was some masculine men type shapes, like one would be a hammer, one would be trying to remember not because I don't currently sell them a measuring tape. And I just started to expand the different designs. And that's when I started learning what differentiation is. And here's the thing. The reason they sold well, and Amazon right from the start, is because no one else was selling them. And there was a demand for people to buy them. But that was sort of by accident. They were selling an eBay that exact models, I just kind of assumed Well, if someone else is succeeding doing it, then I can too, but I was wrong.

 

Andy Splichal  9:41  

Now, how did you source your products into those different designs?

 

Seth Kniep  9:49  

So one, there were two websites that I was aware of, in my research, there was Alibaba and there was DHgate, but what I liked about DHgate it was smaller, it was more customer friendly. link, and you don't have to get shipping separate from the order that you do. In other words in Alibaba, you are finding so it's like a phonebook for suppliers and Advanced Business Network phonebook for suppliers. So you find a supplier. And then after you find the supplier, you still have to find a freight forwarding company. Now, you can ask the supplier to ship it for you. But it's still a separate invoice, a separate deal, a separate negotiation. With DHgate, they handle all of that for you. Now the fees are higher, you cannot get the massive number of quantities of products on DHgate that you can get an Alibaba, therefore your prices are higher, therefore your profits are slimmer. But because they handle shipping and it was much more customer centric as a business. That's why I went with DHgate.

 

Andy Splichal  10:49  

And you're having some good success on Amazon. Do you consider or did you start your own Shopify store your own website and sell outside of the Amazon platform?

 

Seth Kniep  11:03  

Yes, so we began to sell urns on our own Shopify website. And we took all the same models, and we put those on Shopify. And on the back end, you had a you have a system where you can have Amazon fulfill those orders for you when someone goes to Shopify, and they will ship them out for you.

 

Andy Splichal  11:29  

Okay, nice. And so did you even have her have to see the product? Or did you just ship them from your sourcing supply straight to Amazon fulfillment?

 

Seth Kniep  11:40  

So when I was working with DHgate, I had them always ship it to me directly. Because I did not understand the intricacies of sending it to Amazon fulfillment center when I first got them. And I when I started, it was FBM. It was not FBA. Then later when I learned about FBA, I thought, you know, I'm just going to send in a few as a test. Let's see how it goes. And so I went ahead and sent those in. And that's when they really started to pick up. But I never actually transferred when I was selling the urns I never transferred from when I ordered from DHgate, having them shipped from DHgate, directly to Amazon's fulfillment center. Later, when I started sourcing on Alibaba for other products. That's when we said you know what, we can actually have these shipped directly, because there's no need for me to be a middleman. I think one of my struggles, too, is I felt like I had to be in control of the process from beginning to end, which is a pretty common trait as an entrepreneur. I was afraid like, you know, okay, if I don't ever see the product and don't test it, and I can't touch it, how can I be sure it's going to be a great product? Well, that's when I learned about product inspection companies that they can actually handle this process for you.

 

Andy Splichal  12:57  

And just for people who might not know FBM is fulfilled by merchant while FBA is fulfilled by Amazon. And so you were doing FBM. So you were actually doing the shipping to start with and then you transferred to to have an Amazon ship it foreign? 

 

Seth Kniep  13:13  

Correct. 

 

Andy Splichal  13:15  

Now how, at what point did you decide I'm making enough money to quit your day job, so to speak?

 

Seth Kniep  13:23  

So I'll never forget, in December of one year, I went to my sales, and I looked at my revenue, and it was $10,000. And it was over 50% profit margin. And that was for a month. Now again, it was December, so it's higher, but I just remembered, like, wow, like, this is $10,000 in a month. This is This is amazing. And so that's when I started thinking, Okay, I think if I scale this up fast enough, I could leave the company that I'm working at within a few months, which at that time was apple, and I could start doing this on my own and the time that will give me back in my day to focus on my Amazon business, I can actually exponentially grow that. But at the same time, I was nervous because well that means I'm going to be now living off my business, which means it's extracting money from it kinda like, I mean, this might be a weird illustration any but it felt like taking food from a child that I was racing. Like, I've put so much time and heart into this and I'm going to take away I didn't do it until my Amazon profits were double what I was making at Apple and looking back I think God to this day that I did it that way. Because even though there was part of me this like, Man, this would be so cool. You know, I fire my boss, I leave it just feels so romantic. The other part of me the realist, the realist said, yeah, you have four children who depend on you. You have a wife, you have a house, you have a mortgage, you have a dog, you have cats you have like all of these risks. And that's the thing too for people starting later in life like I did. I was in my mid to late 30s at this time. If you have more to lose, and so for me, I had to make sure I was set up for more margin to be able to do that successfully. 

 

Andy Splichal  15:08  

Sure. Now, the big question, I'm sure listeners are wondering, are your results what you did, are they able to be replicated?

 

Seth Kniep  15:17  

1,000% 1,000%. Now, here, there's two, two things people can mean by that statement. And I think I know what you mean by it. But I want to I want to break those down. Because I've had people ask me a similar question with a different intention behind it. Can I sell what Seth is selling and be successful? If you're selling exactly what I'm selling, Probably not. Because I already have reviews, I already have traction. And if someone else says, Okay, I'm going to do the same thing. Let's just take the creation of I'll give you I'm not going to share with you, I'll give you another product. We're very successful at this cash cannons. So we got to over 20,000 a month, just from cash cannons alone. And this is back before many people knew about them. Similar situation. There were a couple listings in Amazon, but they were FBM. They weren't FBA, and they were very ugly listing. So we thought, hey, opportunity, and this is what I started learning about. You can differentiate. If someone wants to replicate the exact thing I'm doing, then they'll never be as good as I am. Because it has my own twist. It has my own style, my own understanding of the customer. But can someone do the same thing? Using the same principles? 1,000%, Yes. Now, here's the biggest objection to get on the sandy today. Well, Amazon saturated, Amazon has so many sellers, there's millions of sellers, literally, why would I even try? And my response to the question is, although as people say, Listen, just look at the 80 billion they did in the third quarter, the fourth quarter was way beyond that. I can't remember the exact number, which is why I'm not quoting it right now. But just look at the 80 billion was insane. How many of all retail sales in the last 12 months? And I'm not asking you this. Andy, I know you're interviewing me, but I'm sharing with you what I like ask people, What percentage of those retail sales? Do you believe were online? Versus brick and mortar retail? And most people will say 50 60 70. The most accurate answer is 14.3%. In other words, for all the retail sales, and I'm talking about the US only, by the way, not the rest of the world 14.3% of all retail sales in the last 12 months were online, and people go what seems so small. And then when you look at where the market is moving and how fast it is growing, to think where we're going to be just two or three or four years from now, I believe some of the wealthiest people in the world will be Amazon sellers.

 

Andy Splichal  17:52  

Yeah, no, that's great points. But you're selling on Amazon, I guess one of the big questions is, How do you deal with I mean, you're selling something great. Competitors swooping in, including Amazon. Right. Amazon decides to sell your cremation urns for necklaces, for example, right? How do you and then the buy box is going to be Amazon? How What's your level of worry about competition once you pick a niche?

 

Seth Kniep  18:28  

Sure. So if I have a trademark on my products, then Amazon cannot sell it on my listing, unless they're following the first res, the resale doctrine, the number one resale doctrine in the United States, which is they have to buy it at a disc at a retail level, and then resell it. So I have the free and this is arbitrage now I have the freedom to go buy a product from Walmart, resell it on Amazon. And as long as there's no brand restriction or category gating on Amazon, I'm free to do that and make a profit. However, if I go to China, and I sourced that product, and I copy that Nike shoe, or a copy that Colgate toothpaste for that Whirlpool washer, now I've crossed a line or I'm actually literally doing something illegal and fraudulent or I'm pretending to be the brand. Therefore if I sell on the same listing, then I can get in big trouble. And that's what you're referring to is you have Chinese sellers who will sell under your listing even though you have an approved trademark for that listing. In other words, they're claiming to have bought it at retail and they're reselling it because they no longer want it that's arbitrage. You can do that. But they can't if they go out and manufacture it now they've crossed the line and they they're breaking the law. This was the number one biggest complaint 6 7 8 months ago. Now the number one complaint in Amazon is opening an account and getting suspended within three minutes because whoever uploaded the documentation that Amazon Seller did not make sure it matched perfectly. Between the two programs have Project Zero brain transparency. There's another older one, it's slipping my mind at the moment with these programs, Amazon has reduced the amount of hijackers drastically. And here's the interesting thing, Andy, I don't even use these programs currently. Me personally, some of our stores do, I don't, not personally. And yet, we rarely get hijackers anymore. And the reason for that is Amazon has made it much harder for these bad actors to come in and undercut you so that you have multiple people selling on the same listing. Second, once you get brand registered, even though someone technically physically still could hijack you, the chances of them doing it successfully are much lower, because Amazon provides you with more tools and brain analytics to protect yourself against that and to report them and Amazon prioritizes. Those who are brand registered over those who are not, especially when you send them your copyright registration numbers, and your trademark number, as well as your patent number, if you have one, it gives you a huge advantage as well. And to answer the other part B of your question. And I mean, this is in respect to Amazon, Amazon sucks at selling, they're not good at it. If you look at their products, the vast majority of them, at least in my research have failed. And the ones that have succeeded are Amazon Basics, which is things like batteries, or pens, or sticky notes like stuff that you would use everyday type stuff that isn't very brandable. And again, this could change. But Amazon's success in launching a successful clothing brand, for example, doesn't even come close to their success when it comes to Amazon Basics, the kinds of products that I do not teach students to sell. In other words, and I might be giving you more than you asked for this. But I just want to say one more thing on his end, what we focus on is launching products that have a higher ticket sale value. In other words, instead of selling a product that sells for $12 or $8, we'll sell a product that sells for 30 40 5200 300 $400. And then the I don't care if it's as big as a house. I don't care how big I don't care how heavy it is. And there's a thing going around like Oh, make sure you don't sell if it's too heavy. Why would I care if the profit margins are a minimum 40%. Before PPC or even higher, on a higher on a higher ticket item, I can get better margins for two reasons. Number one, the PVC cost is lower why fewer people are selling second because the let's just say the item sells for $100. The PPC cost doesn't go up based on how much it sells for it goes up based on how many people are bidding on it. Therefore my margins are drastically higher. And the second reason I can do much better with a high ticket item is because the FBA fees are based on size and weight. So let's say it's a high ticket item. And obviously it has to be big, but let's just say it's the size of headphones. And these headphones are the same size and weight as a coffee mug. But the headphones sell for $100 and the coffee mug sells for $20. Well, if the FBA fees are based on size and weight, which they are, then the shipping costs at from China as well as the FBA costs are the same. Therefore my FBA and shipping costs for the coffee mug that sells for 20 bucks is taking maybe, you know 13 14 18% of my revenue, whereas with my headphones, maybe only four or 5% of my revenue, so proportionately, I can get better margins on a higher ticket item.

 

Andy Splichal  23:25  

Sure, yeah. No, that that makes complete sense. Now you put up your listings, you pick a product, or you teach students pick a product. The listings optimize you got some great pictures and description. Do you recommend using paid ads? Are you using sponsored product ads and sponsored brand ads to drive traffic? Or is it just purely organic?

 

Seth Kniep  23:53  

1000 and 100,000,000%? Yes. And the way I look at it is if you know your numbers and you know your margins, then you know how far you can go with PPC ads. In other words, I would rather spend more now for the first three to four weeks and lose money after launch at the beginning so that I have more data on the product. So I can download that keyword report and understand oh my goodness, when people search camera plus strap, it converts better than if they just search camera, huh? Or it gets more click throughs but doesn't convert better. That's even more interesting. Okay. And that tells me a lot of people are looking for camera was strapped. Wait, maybe my featured photo shouldn't be the camera. Maybe it should be with the camera and the strap see what I mean? In other words, I'm using that PPC data to optimize the listing so that it converts better. So the way I look at PPC is not to get sales. I look at it to increase organic ranking. And the way I get organic ranking is I collect data. It's kind of funny, but it's almost like you know Amazon was built on information, they collect information, and they repurpose that information. Everything in Amazon is a bunch of zeros and ones it's all data. Well, that's exactly what PPC is. It's allowing me to understand what my customer wants. And I can adjust my listing to change the perceived value and angle it in a way that they want. So that I don't just get the impression and the click through, but I also get the by. So 99% of the time, I will do that there have been times where I turn PPC off. And it's ranking so well organically, that there is no need to continue at this time. But if I wait three months, and that market changes and competition changes, I need PPC to keep that data because it will also allow me to find keywords that I didn't even know it was ranking for I'll just share a really cool tip that I think your audience might appreciate. For example, I'll have a manual campaign, an automatic campaign. And the automatic campaign will take all the words from the manual campaign and add them as negative exact match, which forces the automatic campaign now it can't use the words that the manual campaign is using, therefore it cannot eat itself, it can't cannibalize those ads. And it forces the automatic campaign to find new keywords that I would have known otherwise that people are searching, but no seller knows about. So it always gives me a leg up on the competition when I can find and put in these new keywords before they're even that well known. And the cool part is when they're not that well known, the bid on them is much lower, which means it costs me less, which means I'm now reducing my advertising cost of sale.

 

Andy Splichal  26:32  

That's a great tip on keyword harvesting and being able to use automatic campaigns that way. Now, I wanted to get more into what you're offering as far as teaching students, but before we do, I've been playing a game with my guest. Are you up for that?

 

Seth Kniep  26:49  

Absolutely. Let's do it. I like games. We have one.

 

Andy Splichal  26:53  

It goes like this. It's a word association game. So I'm going to say a word and you respond with the first word that pops into your head. 

 

Seth Kniep  27:01  

Okay. 

 

Andy Splichal  27:02  

Okay, now we start with some baseline words. Just to see where you're at. 

 

Seth Kniep  27:08  

Sure. 

 

Andy Splichal  27:08  

All right, Ron.

 

Seth Kniep  27:11  

I know the first word or just the just the first world.

 

Andy Splichal  27:13  

Pop in your head when I say run. 

 

Seth Kniep  27:15  

Okay, what pops in my head is I'm running down the street. I'm jogging. 

 

Andy Splichal  27:18  

Stop. 

 

Seth Kniep  27:20  

I'm in my car outside of the office, Anderson mill. There's a stop sign.

 

Andy Splichal  27:26  

 Fun 

 

Seth Kniep  27:28  

Going on a date with my wife.

 

Andy Splichal  27:29  

Now we're gonna go into a little bit more business terms ready? 

 

Seth Kniep  27:34  

Sure 

 

Andy Splichal  27:35  

Business

 

Seth Kniep  27:37  

It was an FBA 

 

Andy Splichal  27:39  

Success

 

Seth Kniep  27:41  

Freedom to do the things I love with the people I love.

 

Andy Splichal  27:44  

Family

 

Seth Kniep  27:46  

EJ, who is my son who's standing on the other end of a camera right now smiling at me. 

 

Andy Splichal  27:52  

Email 

 

Seth Kniep  27:55  

Oh, death.

 

Andy Splichal  27:58  

Promote

 

Seth Kniep  28:01  

It's funny you say that because just this morning, one of my staff members had said, Who would you like to promote on Instagram and immediately had a list. So the first thing that came to my mind was Renee Cody Christine, who you should have on this show. She's really good.

 

Andy Splichal  28:13  

Gratitude

 

Seth Kniep  28:15  

Grace 

 

Andy Splichal  28:16  

Wealth

 

Seth Kniep  28:18  

Freedom 

 

Andy Splichal  28:19  

Clarity

 

Seth Kniep  28:22  

Communicating in a way where you ask someone to repeat it back to you to make sure your calibrated.

 

Andy Splichal  28:27  

Growth

 

Seth Kniep  28:31  

My Dojo is the first thing that because it's not just a place where I workout but it's like my place where I can think and rejuvenate and just be by myself. And it prepares me for the day.

 

Andy Splichal  28:41  

Highperformance

 

Seth Kniep  28:45  

Strength is the first word that came to my mind be going beyond expectations.

 

Andy Splichal  28:50  

Great. Well, thank you. They always like to do that. It gives me a good look at the person where I'm interviewing. 

 

Seth Kniep  28:57  

Awesome. That was fun. 

 

Andy Splichal  28:59  

Now you train people to sell products on on Amazon, right? 

 

Seth Kniep  29:03  

Yes. 

 

Andy Splichal  29:05  

What is the ideal fit for your training program?

 

Seth Kniep  29:10  

Your ideal fit is someone who is tired of their nine to five. And oftentimes it's more than 95. And who wants freedom to do the things they love with the people they love and they are willing to fail along the way. And I think this is so key because in school we are taught not anti education but I am anti some things in education we are taught that if you don't score highly on a test and somehow that i You're a lesser of a person, you're a person, you're a sea person or you're an a person and people start grading their performance based on trying to avoid mistakes versus that's actually how I learned is through mistakes. So someone who's hungry, someone who's willing to work hard, someone who does not have a huge ego where it's always has to be this has to be this way, and I won't listen to it any other way, they're actually open to change. Because the biggest struggle for me and becoming an entrepreneur was not my bank account. It was not what's outside of me, it was what was inside of me. I had to learn to start taking ownership, not just from my successes, but also my failures along the way, that I think has helped me more than anything, Andy.

 

Andy Splichal  30:19  

That's interesting. You know, I'm reading a book called The Bezos letters by Steve Anderson right now. And actually, the feeling is what Amazon itself was built on, on a number of things, including third party selling. So that's interesting that you brought that up. 

 

Seth Kniep  30:36  

That's really cool. I need to check out that book. 

 

Andy Splichal  30:38  

Now, what does your training include? Are you showing people how to get brand registry, how to pick the items how to source I mean, what, what?

 

Seth Kniep  30:47  

Everything from A to Z, I'll just give you an example. We have a training on how to open a new Amazon store. It has 65 slides and without terrifying people buy that. The reason I say that this is very beautifully done. 65 slides of training. The reason it's so important is because it shows them what not to do, like do this, don't do this, do this, like takes him through every single step talks about all 19 Amazon marketplaces, and what they need to have in prep before they open their Amazon store. Because again, that is our common most common question is how do I get my account? unsuspended. Which is funny, because that's Amazon's effort of getting rid of the bad actors to stop the hijacking that you talked about earlier. Well, it's great for the hijacking. But it's frustrating for people who don't know how exactly documentation must be. So to answer your question, we teach from A to Z. everything people need to know how to build an Amazon store. And the teaching is as new as yesterday, like literally the last training we just completed in the slides, which we're about to do a new video for was from the day, but two days before, I should say the day before yesterday, two days before, when we open a new Amazon store screen record every single step. So what we're teaching comes from what we are doing what we are learning from our own experience. And the Amazon stores we are currently building, it also includes one to ones we find product ideas for them, but also teach them how to do it. It includes group coaching, it includes an Amazon expert to follow along at the end of each course. So they can check their work and see how they did. It includes quizzes, and I mentioned the training videos. But then there's also the group coaching every week. So like really hot topics, but that tend to be temporary and go and come really quick. They're always surprised to those. I could go on and on, Andy, our goal is that we are the premium coaching company to teach people how to build a business. We even talk about taxes, insurance, accounting, offshore companies, I mean, we talk about it all. So they fully it's not just how to sell on Amazon, people need to know how to start a business. How do you run a legitimate business that has cash flow, so that you're you're not losing money, but you're actually growing your money? How do you reinvest that money? What do you do when you're running out of money? Or you're running out of time, but you have a lot of money? We talked about that as well.

 

Andy Splichal  33:10  

All right. Well, if somebody says, you know, that sounds great. How do they find out more information about you and the trainings?

 

Seth Kniep  33:19  

Just go to jod.com/freedom. JOD stands for Just One Dime, because I built all of this off of a single dime with my business partner, Josiah jod.com/freedom. And what they would do is we actually they can just buy it, they actually would meet with a consultant who will talk to them and listen and understand what are they looking for. So they can put together a package uniquely built for them. Because a lot of people they have a full time job. So they're going to be doing this on the side. 

 

Andy Splichal  33:52  

Sure. Okay. Well, that sounds great. Is there anything I might have missed today that you you'd like to say? 

 

Seth Kniep  34:00  

I would just say to everyone listening right now, I started on a dime. I was $24,000 in debt, my marriage was suffering. I was really hurting like in multiple ways. What changed is I had to change I had to make decisions to change from the inside out. And I continue to need to change today. There's no way I would be here where I am today. Had I not decided I can do something even all broken and messed up on the inside. Maybe that's the turning point. Maybe that's the bottom of the barrel where the only direction to look is straight up. Maybe that's exactly where I needed to get. So I would actually become listen and become teachable say Okay, where is God leading me to take this to the next level. And looking back I hope that this is a message of hope to every single person listening no matter how down and out they feel they can make a difference if they start with just what they got, even if it's just 10 cents.

 

Andy Splichal  35:00  

Wow, well that's a powerful close. Well that's it for today. Remember if you like this episode, please go to Apple podcasts and leave an honest review. And if you're looking for more information regarding starting or growing your business with selling products on Amazon, you can contact Seth by going to jod.com/freedom. In addition, for those of you out there using Google ads I just released my newest book Make Each Click Count Using Retargeting. You can check it out at www.makeeachclickount.com to access all my books, and to check out my podcast library archive. In the meantime, remember to stay safe, keep healthy and happy marketing and I will talk to you in the next episode.