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Kevin King – is a 7-figure Amazon seller
Hosts $5000 events – $1 billion summit in Austin, Texas
Not part of Helium10 but friends of them
Lead mentor in Helium 10 elite – used to be Illuminati
Has spoken at 30 different events
Background
Quick resumé/CV:
A lot of people try to get away from the corporate world but Kevin has always worked for himself as an entrepreneur.
- Direct marketing background – got into the internet – first sale mid-1990s.
- Started selling via “advantage on Amazon” in 2001 (direct to Amazon).
- FBA mid-2015 – several brands (Own company, wife, partners, etc. – and a new one about to kick off)
Sourcing China also Korea fo r20
Is it possible to start selling on Amazon in 2019?
It’s better than ever.
“It’s saturated” etc. – what’s the next thing?
Amazon is still the best biz app of last 100 years.
You can ride coattails of multi-billion dollar company.
Easy days are over – 2013, 14, 15 got lucky without knowing what they were doing – may have exited.
Some of them are successful but a lot are one or two hit wonders.
90-95% of people watch youtube, podcast, course
Reasons for failure
Reason 1 This is a real business!
If someone sold only $10K on Amazon, course sold.
It’s hard. It’s not easy. It’s something that takes skillsets
- Sourcing
- Product designs
- Graphics
- Marketing online
- Marketing on Amazon
Have them yourself or partner with the right people.
People come in with the idea that they will quit their corporate job- that doesn’t happen!
It’s not starting with $1000 – that’s a side hustle –
If you want to make a living at this, you have to have real capital and real effort.
Certain products you definitely need to stay away from.
Amazon is growing so fast – tremendous opportunity. Not necessarily with big selling products.
Using JS etc. – just analyzing what they should sell really wrong.
Reason 2 Problem“Brand building”
You should build a brand off Amazon!
Kevin King disagrees. That is a whole different thing. Building a brand takes a lot of time and effort.
Sell on Amazon first and let it grow.
Too many people get caught up in brand building.
Maximize amazon first and then figure our off amazon
Reserve 3 Problem Cashflow forecasting
$10k spent on inventory, PPC, software
So go OOS for 2 months – back in stock- like starting over
How much money do I need to sell on Amazon?
2 ½ times initially inventory
Look for a product that fits the budget
Base product selection on initial capital.
$10K budget – $4K landed cost!
The other $6K – buy 2nd round of inventory And PPC
Then people say “it doesn’t work
Is there a minimum viable amount for PL?
Side hustle $2-5k
If a real business, support the whole family $20-30K
The old starting with $5k thing – there is always something behind the scenes:
- if they got good terms from a supplier;
- Rich uncle put in $50k 3 months later!
- It doesn’t sell courses but it’s the truth!
At an event in Vancouver in March – European – had done spreadsheets to forecast
“If I can get to $168K in sales, I can quit my job”
Needed $40K a year to cover bills etc.
– you can’t do that!
168K – Amazon will take ⅓ of that- so $55K in commission
COGS will be around ⅓ including Vat etc. $55K
Now $58K left – if you hit the target
- Ad Costs
- Software
- Storage fees
- accounting
- Say $10K
- $40-45K
How are you going to buy inventory?
Where will the money come from?
A lot of people don’t understand the numbers and how to forecast it out.
A lot of successful people come from a financial background eg CPAs etc.
It’s a cashflow management business!
The reason it’s one of the best businesses ever:
There are over $1 Billion available from family offices etc. to invest in Amazon businesses!
There are 3 different co’s in the USA – they will come in and buy 20-30-100 businesses, put them together, sell as a batch.
They can make more money faster than in Stock market etc.
With blood sweat and tears we found a working product – they can take the pain out of the cash flow – never go OOS – make massive money.
The best opportunity is to sell an Amazon business – build for 2-3 years then sell. You’ll make more money selling the business than running it.
$1 million run rate – you should have a 20% profit bottom line.
You’re not putting that in your pocket!
You’ll have to keep buying new stuff!
If you do that for 3 years, on paper you made $600K.
In practice, you maybe put half in your pocket
But you can sell that for 2-5x bottom line.
You’ll have a non- compete but you can do it again in a new area.
This time start with $50-100K
It’s like property but even better – there is a huge opportunity there.
People ask Kevin “If you make so much money off consulting etc. why are you still doing Amazon?”
believes you should do what you teach
“Those you can -do; those you can’t -teach!”
You can’t sell a teaching business.
has 17 products active now and they do 7 figures.
They are people out there doing 8/9 figures
Having a big company brings a lot of headaches.
“It’s not how much you make; it’s how much you take. “
And also have a lifestyle.
A lot of the PE guys don’t buy companies, they do asset purchases
They will do an asset transfer of the ASINs – they don’t care that you have more than 30% off Amazon – they won’t buy a pure Amazon business.
What about Amazon “Shoots first and asks questions later”
If you diversify,
- You won’t have many eggs – 60% of commerce in USA is Amazon.
- If you get suspended, you’ll end up in trouble anyway.
You need to look at ROI – look at spend on FaceBook ads, Shopify store.
If you just put that on Amazon Canada – 5% of US –
You need to have multiple streams of income but it doesn’t have to be ecommerce
But you don’t want to get distracted.
Watch my full interview with Kevin King
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