How Many Profitable Wholesale Suppliers Will You Have Next Week?

How many profitable wholesale suppliers will you have next week or the week after that?

How many times have you sat down frustrated because things just don’t seem to be working? After weeks of work you have nothing to show for it and even worse, you feel like you’re missing something.

Like the puzzle to your success is missing that final piece to make a beautiful picture come to life.

You’re not alone. This is something we all go through when starting up. Entrepreneurship can be a lonely road, which is why we start our Facebook group to build a community of Amazon sellers at a similar level.

If you talk to enough sellers like we do you can eventually find commonalities between their most painful problem – “I just can’t seem to find suppliers that are actually profitable..”

Sellers within their first month or two are often going through a mental shift where the phantasy of selling on Amazon that was sold to them from some $2,000 course begins to fade and reality sets in.

“This is so hard” I often hear them say either over the phone or on one of our weekly live sourcing and Q&A sessions.

The truth is that it really isn’t hard, but because of our false expectations, we make it hard on ourselves. We expect to start making phone calls in week one and land incredible wholesale accounts.

Although that’s essentially the process, it’s a bit more in-depth than that. In-depth simply meaning you’ll need to kiss a few frogs to find Prince Charming (no idea what the female version of Prince Charming is, sorry guys).

We need to shift our expectations to fit reality and start working from there. Here’s how we’re going to do that.

 

Working the math and influencing the future to land more wholesale suppliers

Although you can’t control the future, you can absolutely influence it. Think about it, would you be healthier a month from now if you ate better and exercised over the next 30 days? Of course, you would.

 

Me trying to get people (including myself) to get out of their own way

 

Let’s apply this concept to our business. If you spent more time reaching out to suppliers each week, would you have more profitable suppliers in the next 30 days?

What if you dedicated the next 30 days to not just landing more profitable accounts, but simply getting better at the outreach itself? Do you think you would get 10% or even 50% better at opening accounts with suppliers?

What’s interesting is that we focus so heavily on the outcome, rather than perfecting the process and working the system we have laid out before us. It’s as if we see the math but expect a different outcome.

The math says that you’ll need to reach out to 10 suppliers to open 3-5 accounts. Out of the 3-5 accounts, only 1 will be profitable on average. Not wildly profitable, just profitable.

This is a major reason we highly suggest reaching out to 10 suppliers each day. The math just works in your favor.

You increase the probability that you’ll land at least one profitable account each day but more importantly, open at least 1-2 accounts each week that are very profitable.

Imagine turning away profitable inventory because it wasn’t profitable enough….. That’s our goal.

How do you influence the future success of your business? You use math!

 

Every problem has a solution

The first time I started a business I realized all I did was solve problems. Some problems were more painful than others.

So if you’re not good at talking with suppliers over the phone to land accounts, the solution is to practice. You need to actually do more of the thing you’re not good at – unless you can hire someone of course.

 

How bad we think our problems are vs. when we find a solution that works..

 

We often get pulled into the trap of hiring a virtual assistant to do everything we’re scared of doing. I’m a major supporter of outsourcing, but sometimes that can actually hurt us.

If we’re not willing to grow into the person we need to become to successfully run our businesses, no VA can help us.

What’s even more interesting is that we expect a silver-bullet from a VA we have to train, when we can’t even successfully do the task ourselves.

Problem – I’m not good at opening accounts

Solution – Make more phone calls and read a few sales books on cold calling

 

Problem – I can’t find enough profitable suppliers – assuming reaching out to < 10 per day

Solution – Increase the number of suppliers you’re reaching out to each week and tweak your sourcing requirements for higher quality suppliers

 

Problem – I work full-time and I don’t have enough time to do everything myself

Solution – Hire a virtual assistant to do the initial sourcing and research for you so you can focus 100% on making phone calls and landing accounts

Plug in any problem and really think of a solution you can begin testing. Sometimes it’s shifting perspective and seeing a gap in your skillset and other times it’s asking for help.

 

Just do the work

At the end of the day, what’s required to succeed as an Amazon seller can’t be changed. You still have to do the work. You may be able to do the work better than others, have more or less capital than the next seller but you’ll still have to put in the time and effort.

The biggest determining factor of success that we’ve seen in ourselves and with our users is a willingness to change. To adapt and become the person you need to be to succeed.

To realize the exact problem you’re facing and immediately look for or create a solution to overcome that problem.

You’re just as smart and capable as any other seller. More so because you’re reading this blog post. It shows you’re the kind of person who is looking for that missing puzzle piece to your success. What you may not realize is just how close to succeeding you really are.

Sometimes, you just need to get out of your own way.