Having Amazon selling success has a massive failure rate when you really think about it. So many new sellers start each week but many won’t be here in the next 2-3 months.
Why? Mainly because it’s easy to get started but harder to actually succeed.
I’m not trying to scare you away but better help you understand how to play this game to win. Ultimately, it’s a perception shift that can completely change how much you make every single month from your Amazon business.
It’s All About Sales
It took me such a long time to realize all I was doing was sales. When you’re spending 90%+ of your time sourcing products and talking with suppliers, you’re doing sales.
Once I realized that’s all I was really doing I shifted my perspective from “I’m running a business” to doing sales. In the early days, you need inventory to have revenue each month and without that revenue you don’t actually have a business.
I’m currently rereading the E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber and he makes an incredible observation: every small business owner is one of three personalities – The Technician, The Manager and The Entrepreneur. Each personality wants control. Mr. Gerber realized early on that many “Entrepreneurs” are really just Technicians at first.
In other words, when starting your business most of your time will be spent doing the actual work – who else is going to do it? -, being the Technician.
When you understand how to manipulate those three personalities to where your business is, things get much easier.
In the early days, stop being the business owner – the Entrepreneur- and focus instead on being the Technician, doing the work each day. Once you have enough revenue coming in each month you can then shift more towards the Manager and the Entrepreneur.
Resetting Your Amazon Selling Success/“Winning” Meter
There’s a phrase thrown around heavily in the sales game – focus on how many No’s it will take.
The easiest way to break that phrase down is to help you understand why you should be happy hearing No instead of only Yes.
I started doing sales as a personal trainer. A young 19-20 year old kid asking someone to spend $5,000 with me upfront is pretty daunting. After hearing no so many times I got a bit depressed about the whole thing. My GM sat down with me and helped me shift my perspective from a losing one, to a winning one.
He helped me realize that I can’t control the outcome and even the best sellers don’t close 100% of their leads. Instead of focusing so heavily on the outcome, I needed to focus on getting better at the process.
I was expecting to have the same success in sales as someone who’d done it for years, without having the same amount of experience. So I shifted my mindset to getting really good at the process, building the skill set that would ultimately help me succeed even further.
I applied the same concept to my Wholesale Amazon business early on. Of course, I was going to get yelled at, told no and hung up on. So what….
With a filled pipeline of potential suppliers, it didn’t matter that I would only close 40% of them because I could still ensure my Amazon selling success.
Which brings me to my next point.
Focus On The Numbers and Work The Process
Let’s say you wanted to add 1 new supplier per week to your business. How would you do it?
Let me make it easier – let’s assume you currently close 10% of the suppliers you talk to and you contact 5 suppliers per week. Would you add one supplier per week?
Just based on the math, you wouldn’t.
To fix this simple puzzle, let’s have you reach out to 10 suppliers per week. Now you’re on track to add one supplier per week.
But Dillon, just because I added a supplier doesn’t mean it’s going to be profitable!
You’re right, let’s add another layer here.
You close 10% of the suppliers you talk to but only 25% of the suppliers you close will be profitable.
So you don’t want to just add 1 supplier each week, you want to add 1 profitable supplier each week.
Reaching out to ten suppliers per week isn’t going to cut it anymore, right?
Let’s work the math here – If we reach out to 40 suppliers per week (8 per day) and close 10% that’s 4 suppliers per week we could add. Only 25% will be profitable on average so 25% of 4 is 1, correct?
So based on the math, we need to contact 40 suppliers per week to land 1 profitable supplier each week. Sound daunting? It shouldn’t because it’s very easy to reach out to 8 suppliers per day with a large enough pipeline.
Working the math clears everything up for you. You know exactly how to ensure you add 1 profitable supplier per week without working 100+ hours per week.
Do you see why you should spend 90%+ of your time sourcing and talking with suppliers? It’s because it’s the only way to ensure Amazon selling success.
Each day you can now be the Technician – doing the work – with a clear plan of attack. Success is no longer adding the 1 supplier (that’s the outcome) but reaching out to 8 suppliers every single day is.
Do that and the line of dominos will start to fall in the direction you want. This becomes your One-Thing for your business as talked about in Gary Keller’s book of the same name.
This simple shift in perspective can change everything. It can mean the difference between succeeded as an Amazon seller or struggling until you ultimately stop all-together.
If you’re reading a Vendrive blog post, you’re already pretty amazing so this will simply be another success tool in your arsenal!
