The E-commerce Leader

[00:00:00] Jason: You’ve got to learn enough to know, what things are fads and what things are here to stay and what opportunities exist
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[00:00:57] Jason: Here’s the first question for you, buddy? You literally coined the phrase retail arbitrage. I think it’s fair to say. Back in the day when you started to teach. It’s true. It’s true. So absolutely
[00:01:08] Chris: true.
[00:01:09] Like I’m not, I try to be able to fully take credit for that
[00:01:13] Jason: is retail arbitrage dead.
[00:01:15] Chris: It is not dead. It has changed. Okay. Tell us about, oh my gosh. It used to be, when I got big and retail arbitrage was when stores had terrible inventory management systems, so they would have like way too much product for way too long, which would go on clearance.
[00:01:34] So incredibly discounted clearance. You almost don’t see anymore. Just to move stuff right. As companies were growing and then just dude, just clearance it out and get rid of it. So we’ve gotten better at that, which has changed the game. When I first started doing it, there was no iPhone, right?
[00:01:47] There’s no scam power app. There was no Amazon app. There was none of that stuff. You had eBay completed, auctions that you could write down. Notes then go home and look up and then go back to the store. If it turned out to be a good deal kind of thing. Now we’ve got Keepa and the amount of data that we have to make a buying decision is insane, which I think people don’t realize how good it is.
[00:02:06] But for retail, I’m trying to being dead. The only thing that would kill it is that people stop buying physical products. A hundred years from now when everything’s like metaverse and NFTs and all that stuff, but I’m not gonna be around. So I’m not really worried about it in the foreseeable future, which is where I think people should play.
[00:02:22] It’s not that people are still buying physical products. The pandemic showed that people love to shop and spend money, even if they don’t need the stuff they want to get that stuff delivered. Should’ve bought some stock in ups and FedEx. Cause they were certainly busy. And there’s inefficient markets and I blame, or I attribute the inefficient markets to.
[00:02:38] In the sense of, as time goes by, people are going to want to buy products, get into different things, learn new things. And the morbid side of it is like people pass away and all of a sudden, like all their stuff, where’s it going to go? Someone’s going to end up on eBay. So I’m just gonna end up in thrift stores.
[00:02:52] We could buy it and then you sell it on eBay. There’s always going to be this opportunity where products are in. Not the least efficient, but not the most efficient, location. And there’s an opportunity thanks to the internet and sites like eBay and Amazon and Facebook marketplace and all these sites where you can say, look, I have something here that should be in someone else’s hands.
[00:03:11] And they would evaluate a heck of a lot more than what it is doing here on the shelf. So you can use the internet to bring that value to them. And as the one who does that, you collect a little bit of profit on the way. Love it. What do you, you never really did retail arbitrage. But you get
[00:03:25] Jason: it.
[00:03:25] I did it one time. It was awesome. You didn’t know my retail arbitrage story. I bought items at office Depot for a penny, a piece. They were sticking. Metallic labels for like windows. You remember my story about 270 of those for $2 and 70 cents and sold them for $10 a piece for three years, when office Depot was clearing clearancing out, you know how they do, they have their penny deals in the basket, whatever, before they take them off the floor.
[00:03:52] But anyway, to your point, I didn’t do it much. And I do think it’s a fascinating model. I’ve always been mesmerized by it. I think there’s always going to be opportunity. In fact, last night I was just looking at the Ulan catalog and it was saying to myself, could you just take the stuff out of here?
[00:04:08] Built up business, reselling it. Like it would just come down to, are you a good marketer? And you could do set up a good click funnel or Shopify site. And could you take a few of those items for a niche audience or purpose and just mark, arbitraged out. So anyway, I love this. So
[00:04:25] Chris: it’s funny you say that I actually did that back in this is at least 14 years ago.
[00:04:31] And I remember I was still in Texas when I was doing I’ve had it. The log you line was local in Dallas, which was amazing. So like I took a trailer to pick up my orders, those, wow. There’s so many things and I didn’t want to pay the shipping. Give me a up. But I get everything next day and I was looking at the catalog and I was like, you know what?
[00:04:44] I could sell these bundles of eight by eight boxes, like a 25. But I made all these eBay listings. I probably still got them somewhere. Or I had the thumbnail image. This was back, what else I take credit for? I invented the border, thumbnail, EBA image. We put the border around it.
[00:04:57] That was me. I was the first one to do that. I actually made a list. For E-bay thumbnail, boarder service, right? Send me an image and I will put a border on it for you and I will send it back. And this is again, we use 14 years ago. But the utopian thing I’ve seen, and this is a a cool thing you can do if you have the Ulan catalog, which is cool the first time, except every single time, it’s pretty much the same catalog.
[00:05:17] But usually that new stuff. Exactly. I’ve seen things on Amazon and on eBay where you can actually see, they have a sales rank on Amazon. What sold or review, what sold or completed listings. You know what sold. That’s from you line, then you go look on your line and you’re like, oh, they’re making, $3 and 40 cents every time that this thing sells and they’re sold 47 on them.
[00:05:36] And they’re making over a hundred dollars a month on that one single product. And then you add 30 products like that. Now you’re making three. Like you can see that you can reverse engineer it, which to me is the cool part where there’s not this like mystery. And I think that my people like retail over.
[00:05:50] Yeah. There’s no barrier to entry. There’s no minimum orders. There’s no, like you don’t have any of these rules except you can’t always replenish the stuff right now. You get into Replens of course. But in general, if you’re buying clearance and these things, and because it’s, there’s no barrier to entry, anybody can do it.
[00:06:08] So someone says, you know what, I’ll flip those things for $3 each and I’ll do it for two 50 and then it says battle, unfortunately.
[00:06:14] Jason: Okay. I got another question. Yeah, next question. I saw you post on Facebook last night that you apparently, I know this about you because you’ve told me before, but you like to, buy expired domain names and do a little domain name reselling business, or is that arbitrage in your mind?
[00:06:30] So my question is what’s your favorite form of arbitrage online right now? Any marketplace, any stress?
[00:06:39] Chris: But my first reaction would be to say information arbitrage, because it’s scalable. I’m heavy on print, on demand, products like that, where you can turn information into products and sell them and market them, no costs to set up all these things.
[00:06:50] That’s a little more advanced. I don’t think everybody’s there yet mentally in the sense of understanding that they have something valuable to us. That’s step one and then turning that into a product step two, and then marketing the part. It’s a big kind of thing. It’s a big process, but big reward at the end.
[00:07:06] And that’s where my focus is about this coming out at this month. This month, not to plug my book, but it’s coming out this month. But the domain thing domains in my opinion are like the original NFTs. I don’t know if you had trouble explaining NFTs to somebody. My kids give me such heat about it.
[00:07:19] Cause they’re like NFTs are not gonna be big. They’re that’s stupid. I was like, y’all are old enough to get this, but apparently y’all, aren’t getting it NFTs are here to stay. And domains, I think are a great example of the original NFT. It doesn’t really exist. It’s a digital only, but it is unique.
[00:07:35] Jason: Okay. I had the same exact conversation with my kids last night. Are they a fat, are they beanie babies or are they not? And I use the example or, Corollary that isn’t a song, the original NFT isn’t music and NFT. It’s a digital asset. It’s a unique, no, but they didn’t like that.
[00:07:54] They didn’t like that example either. But, Yeah. Okay. But let’s talk about your arbitrage. Are you arbitraging and Ft? Are you in the NFU biz now or arbitrage?
[00:08:05] Chris: No, I’m not in NFTs, but I do, I technically own an NFT, but it was just like the supportive buddy kind of thing. I’m not flipping and investing in all that stuff.
[00:08:13] Jason: I don’t mean. So well in NBA, top shots, I thought like a year ago, NBA, top shots was the first NFT play. And I was like that if NFTs are real, this will go somewhere. I’ve totally lost a bunch of money, but yeah,
[00:08:28] Chris: I bought some pop shot and, even a few hundred bucks. So there you go. Let’s talk a little about NMT is cause I think people miss or misunderstanding, not just what they are, but the first like wave one series, one issue, one of NBA top shot.
[00:08:40] I haven’t looked in a long time, but I am guessing it is still premium because it’s early it’s first it’s original it’s oh, G. And that’s the part of it. It’s not the fact that it’s a LeBron NFT and there’s a different LeBron in F T it’s no, this is the first one. And I think some of the things that are important are to remember that humans are irrational.
[00:09:00] Humans put value on things that if you really stop and think about it, do we consider this NFT, this piece of the blockchain that represents a LeBron James, not why are we putting value on this? And there’s plenty of people who say I put no value on that and they are right for them. And there’s other people that say, no, we do put a lot of value on this and look at the high end art world.
[00:09:18] That’s not my world. I don’t ever see myself getting into. Ever, no matter how much money I make doing anything, it’s not for me. I just, I’m not interested in, but other people are, and they use it for different financial strategies and all of these things. But humans, here’s an example.
[00:09:31] I was just on vacation. And a lifeguard. We were in Jamaica, this lifeguard came up to me and he really likes color red. And I had a red hat on and my red sunglasses on him, red shorts on, he’s like I thought he was joking at first, but he wanted to buy my shorts and my visor and my. You’ve been in Jamaica a ton of time.
[00:09:44] This was never, I just didn’t think he was serious at first. And then he was, I could tell he was serious. And I was like, you know what, bro, like these shorts have a hole in them, but if you can have them, if you want them, I was trying to be like full disclosure. There’s like whole new shorts.
[00:09:55] And he really wanted, he really wanted them. I was like, you know what? I can do that. Like I can replace these shorts. I can replace this. It was a Tampa bay Buccaneers visor that I got off Amazon it’s replaceable. It’s fungible. My son got it. To me, we’re not, they were custom, red Ray-Ban sunglasses with a custom case, which had my name on it.
[00:10:13] My neighbor got them for me. They were special to me. Are they technically fungible? Yes. I could have bought a new pair. I got to give them to him that pair gone to three event store and bought an exact same pair. But to me it was like, no, these glasses to me are non fungible. Meaning these ones represent a gift that’s been given.
[00:10:32] Even though they can completely replace. And if you had a sunglass, you’d be like, I don’t care. I don’t know where this came from. I don’t care. To you they’re fungible. And that’s, you just have to understand that about humans. Like I know that’s gone. I know that doesn’t make any sense.
[00:10:41] I know my neighbor would actually be. Dude, I don’t care if you give those ones away and get a new pair. Like it doesn’t matter. But to me, and to all of us, like all the books that you have back there, things that we have in our house, like they’re passed down from generations or parents, or how much of your kids’ artwork did you save for way too long?
[00:10:58] Like over pizza, because I can take a picture of this, like potato that, you know, and throw it away. But no, we hold onto it. Cause my kid drew that. It’s non
[00:11:05] Jason: fungible. So your basic thesis is they’re here to. In some form in some mature they’ll the use cases will change contracts.
[00:11:15] Beanie babies are still here to stay. Beanie babies are here, but the price relative to what you own is, pennies compared to what they were at their peak of the market. So is it, is it here to stay, but the price is completely irrational and. Pop, is it a bubble it’s going to pop?
[00:11:32] Chris: No, cause it’s not the same thing.
[00:11:33] It’s not NFTs as a whole versus being babies as a whole NFTs like beanie babies compared to NFTs will be like the entire toy market, including all of plush and all this. They don’t end up, there’s contracts under NFTs, there’s artwork, there’s memberships, there’s books.
[00:11:48] I’m trying to figure out if I have time to launch my book as an NFT, if you almost end up T you can download the book and if you want to, you can sell it NLT. Now you won’t be able to download the book anymore, but you can sell it to someone else. And all of a sudden, Hey, there’s only a hundred. Right now, all of a sudden the market is built where like people read it and then they put it back out there.
[00:12:05] And guess what? I get a little bit of a cut every single time.
[00:12:07] Jason: You ever gotten this book? Breakthrough advertising, Eugene Schwartz. I’ve seen it. I’ve been told to read it. I think I bought it for, $89, something like that. And it’s one of those books that is hard to get a copy of. And it’s not in Kindle, not an audible.
[00:12:24] And, you have to get a hardback copy and, there’s some books like that. Some copywriting books do that sometimes where they get like cuckoo. You’re, you’ve structurally did that on purpose on Amazon. But a lot of times older books will be like that, to your point, that sort of an interesting twist.
[00:12:40] I don’t know. So let’s keep going on, but I don’t know, man, to me, the jury’s out on NFTs, but here’s what. In a foggy fog of war situation, the operator’s question is how do I proceed safely, but not proceed because the Luddites lose out. But the people who are on the bleeding edge maybe lose a lot of money.
[00:12:58] But the question is, how do you stay in the game? How do you learn? How do you see what’s happening in an ecosystem so that you understand if there is an opportunity, how to take it without being foolish or being duped or being a sucker. And that’s the place to me where it’s okay, I’m going to learn.
[00:13:13] I’m going to observe. I’m not going to call it rat poison. Which is Charlie. Munger’s famous phrase for crypto. I’m going to say maybe there’s something here. Maybe there’s not a. Time will tell and we’ll see how it plays out. And I’m going to be a part of it in the future. If it makes sense,
[00:13:26] Chris: yeah. It’s a piece of cake. There’s one simple piece of advice. I’ll give credit to Gary V cause he’s the one who said like you should only be playing in the crypto NFT space with money that you can afford to lose. If you can’t afford to lose it, you shouldn’t be playing cause we’re in that super early stage and there will be incredible rewards for the right people making the right moves.
[00:13:45] And some of those people are gonna make lucky. Yeah. And some people are gonna make unlucky moves. So you’ve got to remember that, like the FOMO, like I figured I feel the FOMO of oh, I should’ve got a board ape when they were on the do I saw crypto punks when they were like five grand.
[00:13:57] I saw Gary V friends. There were sitting there, nobody buying them for having. Right there. They’re not worth $80,000, right? Yeah. Like I have that fall, oh my gosh, I missed that. I missed out. And they’re like, now I need oh, credit cards out. And just do whatever I can to get in on these things.
[00:14:12] And oh, I saw a Bitcoin in 60,000. I’m gonna get in before it goes to a hundred that drops down to 30. Like people should only be playing with money. They can afford to lose. And depending on what your income levels are, You know that can be a hard decision, but the fact that we can join discord servers and Facebook groups and read books and publish the podcast and learn without having to have our money in the game.
[00:14:28] You can pretend to buy Bitcoin as if you put $5,000 with. Would that would, that have been a good decision a year from now? And you can look and be like, you know what it wasn’t or what it was and everything that I keep guessing on I’m right. You know what, maybe I should, maybe I do have the confidence to put some actual money in the game, but Hey, you might be wrong and be like, oh my gosh, I’m glad I played with pretend money and not real money.
[00:14:47] Jason: A pro tip just to. If you wanted to do that, if you wanted to take Chris up on his idea for doing, a Phantom set of, crypto accounts, you could use coin tracking.info app, use coin tracking.info. It’s a great little app. It’s very nice, but you can, obviously, if you own crypto, you enter your assets and then you keep, it keeps track for you in real time, you can just look, but if you can totally do that with just a fictitious set of, Phantom purchases just to see what would happen.
[00:15:15] What if I bought ship today or dos or whatever anyway. Okay. I’m going to ask you another question. Totally different topic, frustrated you the most about your own business and what you like the most about it. The both sides of that frustration and, enjoyment. You have
[00:15:31] Chris: to promise to answer it as well.
[00:15:32] Okay. Cause I feel like I’m doing too much time. I get frustrated at the. There are so many choices and so many opportunities out there. So for me to make a choice about something includes choosing not to do 99 other things. And I struggle with that. I get hung up on that. I waste a lot of time on that. I delay things unnecessarily for that.
[00:15:55] Because it’s not a, these are good ideas. These are bad ideas. It’s, they’re all good ideas and you can only choose which ones you’re going to do, and you might not pick the best right idea. And that, that constant oh, did I make the right choice? Or what if I did this? I have a little bit like ADHD, overthinking brain kind of thing.
[00:16:09] So it’s not torture, but I would like to turn it off sometimes and just commit to something. So I’ve been, trying to be a little bit better about that. We use an example on one of the previous shows about like, when you sign a five-year. Mentally you’re five years in that building and five years in that business in five years.
[00:16:23] And then you can reevaluate in five years with a lot of stuff that we do now, and we can reevaluate daily and be like, you know what, let’s do this, let’s change the new, this let’s flip around and do this. And it’s a blessing and a curse at the same time. Because there’s massive amounts of opportunity.
[00:16:36] There’s too much opportunity, which sounds weird to say there is so much opportunity. So it can be frustrating too, to have to choose which ones to do. And after doing this for 20 years publicly, I feel like I’m hitting that stride. Like I know where I fit in. I know what I, I know how I can provide the most value to people.
[00:16:50] I know how it can bring in an income level that. Very happy with and all these things, but it took time and I would always pass that information or that advice on everything that you want to do is going to take longer than you think. So be patient, trust the process. And remember if you, did you watch the Kanye documentary that.
[00:17:09] Jason: No,
[00:17:09] Chris: I’ve heard. It’s good though. It’s on Netflix. I think it’s really good. In the sense of, it shows his backstory and his 20 years of hustling and trying and failing and being told no, and using his own money to fund things like, and now he’s like this big star and people are like, oh, you must be like from a famous family, was like, He’s not, but being able to see it, we don’t see that behind the scenes for most people.
[00:17:32] We just see them when they’re making an Instagram ad with their Lamborghini and be like, oh, I want to do that. You don’t see the behind the scenes thing. The fact that what I like most is the fact that we can basically help people at scale and be rewarded financially for it. It’s the most marketable business on planet. Hey, what do you want to do? You need help? You all learn how to do this. Great. Let’s use the internet and the tools available so that I can help you get to where you want to go. It’s a great feeling of internal satisfaction and the fact that we get paid for it is even better.
[00:17:58] And you can certainly do it for free and pro bono. If you want a lot of my experience, helping people for free, the people who pay you to help them take more action and actually make more progress. I don’t know if you’ve had a similar experience with that.
[00:18:10] Jason: Yeah, totally agree. But it’s a mixed bag because, freemium model is one I’ve camped on for a long time and really so it depends on how you do it, yeah. Okay. So what do you like most about your online biz? And then I’ll answer these two.
[00:18:21] Chris: That was like that what I do, like the fact that we can do these things, being born when we were born is. Like dumb luck, no one chose to be born. So the fact that we’re in the web 2.0 and 3.0 stages, able to help people at scale where normally, you could help the people in your town.
[00:18:39] But you could not reach the other people. You couldn’t share information. And in fact that humans are able to share so much information is why we’ve been able to collaborate and build such amazing things lightly. So it’s, yeah. That’s why I liked them all. I would do this, if I made way too much money, I would still do this because I like doing this.
[00:18:53] Yeah, totally.
[00:18:55] Jason: Okay. Yeah.
[00:18:56] Chris: You’re just asking questions now you’re getting off the hook.
[00:18:58] Jason: I know, right? What frustrates me the most about, our online business is honestly very little, and it, cause I, I was in nine to five job for 20 years and we wanted to be entrepreneurs and got to the point where we started to figure it out.
[00:19:14] And the more we looked at the business model online. Selling and the online opportunities versus a nine to five career. The more I realized, I don’t want to be a part of the nine to five career, but there comes a point when you scale online that you turn yourself into what you were leaving. So now I’m, now we have a company and now we are the employer.
[00:19:34] Now we’re the ones who have, set up the system by which other people, work. And so it’s come full circle. And I think that’s the only. That’s the only shadow side of being an online business is you have to decide, do you want to be a kitchen table, entrepreneur, laptop, lifestyle, and just enjoy a good, opportunity online.
[00:19:55] Or do you want to build a company and have an operating business? And those are hard choices because you then can create what you wanted to not be a part of. And you have to think that through, But what I liked the most about it is, I’m an educator at heart. I like to write, I like to teach, I like to build frameworks and outlines.
[00:20:12] I like to, just read books and synthesize information and, it creates a perfect platform to be able to do that. Am I the best in the world at it? No, not even, not even C list, in terms of outline educators, maybe lists, I don’t even know, but it doesn’t matter to me because I enjoy it.
[00:20:30] It’s Every day, trying to help people learn, metabolize information and get better at their game. And that’s what I really enjoy. And, that’s what I think this, this opportunity exists for all of us, for anybody who wants to be an educator. If the opportunity is. Incredible.
[00:20:44] It’s just, it’s never been better. Dan Miller is somebody I like, and it was part of his mastermind for awhile, 48 days to the work. You love a author and he, when you go to his, offices, he shows you his. Course that you created for, whatever it was a Conan Doyle or whatever. The, Nightingale, sorry, publishing and it, it’s like an old fashioned cassette and book thing and educators of 30 years ago, that’s the option then?
[00:21:10] Make something like that. But educators today, you could literally create a course in the next couple of hours. Have it online on beautiful sites, you to me or your own site, teachable, Thinkific, a Kajabi site. There’s no barrier to doing it. It’s just understanding the process, learning it, and then getting better and better at it.
[00:21:28] And, sharpening. Saw or, sharpening your ax and getting better and better at the process. And that’s what I love about the great game of, online selling broadly information products also that applies to physical products and, digital items as well. But anyway, that’s my answer.
[00:21:46] Chris: No, that’s a good answer and say two things that you said where I fear. I feel people get hung up is one realizing they have something to offer. They suffer from imposter syndrome, which my favorite advice to give people like. It’s good to have imposter syndrome because imposters don’t get imposter syndrome.
[00:22:03] It’s good thing to have. So realize that, acknowledge it and then be willing to put yourself out there. I talked to a guy this morning who was like, you have there’s other people who are better at this than I am like, so fricking carrots, like that doesn’t matter. There’s always somebody who’s. And something, but they don’t end up offering a course.
[00:22:18] They may not be offering to help other people. They may not be writing a book. It doesn’t matter. You don’t have to know everything. And I don’t like the phrase. You just need to know more than your students. Like you just need to be one page ahead. And the textbook, I get it like as a phrase, but I’m not a fan of that as a actual practice, but I think you will need to read.
[00:22:35] That, if you’ve got information to help people who are new into something where, Hey, if you want to get into X and have questions, I could answer those because I’m like intermediate, I’m not a pro, but I’ve been where you are and you can help them along. And they’re gonna be like so happy and thankful, and they’re going to financial rewards, you and buy your books and join your mastermind and attend your seminar, whatever it might be.
[00:22:54] If you can just answer their questions about a topic that you probably think is easy because you actually enjoy it. So you’re like, I don’t know. How do you guys not know this? It’s they don’t
[00:23:04] Jason: help somebody. Somebody shared the framework with me long time ago. I read it somewhere and it was very helpful to me.
[00:23:09] And that was, there’s different types of content creators, and one can be a report. Where you go and you report on what’s happening. You don’t have to be the expert to say what’s happening on Shopify right now. You just have to, metabolize information and be a reporter about it. The other one is, you can be an interviewer, you can just go find the best people in the world and interview them.
[00:23:28] You don’t have to be an expert to do that. The other type is to be a practitioner where you say, I’ve sold 3 million things this year and here’s how you do it. But any one of those or a combination of all three. Creates a beautiful opportunity for sharing knowledge and educating people, and it’s basically you’re
[00:23:45] Chris: curating information because there’s way too much information. So if you can curate it for someone, and it’s basically a function or an equation of providing value to other people like, Hey, I get value out of reading the summary of everything that’s happening in the Amazon world these days.
[00:23:59] I’m on so many email lists about things that are like, oh, I wouldn’t have known that if I hadn’t. Know right up. They’re not written by sellers. They’re not written by none of this stuff by vendors and all this stuff. So think people need to figure out what they want to do and where they can plug themselves in and then get over themselves and realize that, wait a minute, I can do this.
[00:24:18] And I might as well try and first one’s going to be the worst one, but I’m gonna get it out of my
[00:24:22] Jason: system. Exactly. Yeah. Love it. Okay. Next question. What have you learned recently that really blew your mind about e-commerce online, selling the whole game? No,
[00:24:32] Chris: that’s a tough one, man. That’s that’s a tough on the spot question.
[00:24:34] That’s
[00:24:35] Jason: this is not,
[00:24:35] Chris: it’s not that it’s hard. We’re really blew my mind. I’m trying to, I’ve seen too many, like amazing opportunities that had short shelf lives, a short shelf. And didn’t act, right? Oh, I got into late or I saw an opportunity and I was like, okay, I’m gonna get to that someday.
[00:24:55] But it was such a good opportunities, almost like a loophole. They’re like, oh yeah, we’re going to shut that door. Like we can’t do that anymore. And I’ve got a few on the radar right now that I’m like, you know what? I ain’t sleeping on these. I am hustling and getting the. Done, in terms of like exposure and split marketing splash, and all of these things, which I’m not super fearful that they’re going to go away, but they could potentially go away.
[00:25:13] And I think people didn’t always keep that in mind. Amazon could shut down the FBA program. Amazon could shut down the KTB. But if they did and I’m not going to stop it, I have to pivot into something else. So when you see an opportunity, man, I got to go for it. And this is a lesson I’ve had to learn myself the hard way.
[00:25:30] Unfortunately like miss. But when you do a lot of misses and you’re like, you know what, I’m not gonna miss this next one and actually take action. So yeah, I’m trying to like, blow my own mind. You’re like,
[00:25:39] Jason: no, actually. It’s really interesting the way you’ve just described that because, I like to all in podcasts and recently they were talking about marketing tactics that burnout, where a Silicon valley company will learn a growth hacking strategy or whatever.
[00:25:51] And there’ll be like, amazing this 10 extra, a hundred X star outcomes. And then a year and a half later, somebody else tries it and fail. And the reality is there’s a season of life for some of these ideas and sometimes for opportunities online. And the worst thing you can do is hear about.
[00:26:08] A five-year-old opportunity thinking it’s still something that is rational, irrelevant, and there’s nuance there where you have to figure out, okay, is this a timeless opportunity? And it is just morphing or was it a season in time that you know, that the train has left the station? And there’s a little bit of a discernment got.
[00:26:26] You’ve got to learn enough to know, what things are fads and what things are here to stay and what opportunities exist. And I think that’s an interesting way to approach the whole topic of, new things that are coming out that might excite you or be an opportunity, do I,
[00:26:40] Chris: there needs to be more content about that, honestly, of like evergreen opportunity versus no, one’s go read a book about Google ad words from like 2007, right?
[00:26:49] Like it’s going to be completely irrelevant. But if people have a better idea of, or being able to discern and check for themselves again, is this evergreen, isn’t it, there’s a famous bayzos quote that I use all the time, re doing some presentations like what’s Amazon working on in the next 10 years.
[00:27:01] We’re going to try to offer lower prices and more selection and faster shipping speed because we know that’s what people are going to want in 10 years. There’s no possible scenario. You know what I wish Amazon’s prices were a little bit higher and the shipping was just a little slower.
[00:27:15] So you’d know these things, but if it’s like a, Hey, here’s how to hack the Kindle system and blast your book to number one, that might not work next year. And I think it’s a cautionary tale to people who like a company who does stumble onto a hack and get big built off of it.
[00:27:30] Then when that happened, it was away. Then they’re like, oh shoot, what now? What do we do? Because we don’t actually know how to get this big. Stumbling onto a loophole. The biggest loop hole that I’ve stumbled on to it. And not necessarily first but early. I was early on FBA was early on KDP is early on merchandise.
[00:27:44] Cause I enjoy it. Like I am, there’s plenty of things. I was early on that failed too. But nobody remembers those. But like I don’t mind trying new things and putting myself out there. And I think other people should as well and not get held up like, oh, what if someone doesn’t like my profile picture off?
[00:28:00] Jason: I think that’s a skillset that you and I both have found our way. Pinterest marketing was my early in, marketing topic in 2011 and I got the opportunity to write Pinterest power from McGraw-Hill. I learned in that process, it was a traditional book deal, as and I started with a blog and two weeks later I had a traditional book deal.
[00:28:17] And what I realized was early. And I didn’t even understand how big a deal it was the early in. And I learned through that process when you’re early in on, the subject matter, all the traditional publishers are looking for content. All the big news article by a blog article type sites are looking for content that big sites like you to me, or other course, platforms are looking for educators.
[00:28:40] And when you’re early in all of those things unlocked to you. If you have a model. Marketing skill and success has just put something out. And you did that with retail arbitrage, obviously in, in your leadership around that. My Pinterest power book did well for me. And then it turned into Instagram power book, which has been my best.
[00:28:56] My Shopify course on you to me is the same example. I was early in six years ago, I guess it was 2016. So yeah, that’s what I’ll go. And now I have almost 40,000 students because I was early in on teaching Shopify. And so if there is a. Yeah. Yeah, totally. That’s the difference? It’s not oh, oh, it wasn’t a gimmick.
[00:29:15] I was all in. I was like learning
[00:29:18] Chris: opportunity. And did anybody try to talk you out of it?
[00:29:21] Jason: The Pinterest thing to me was interesting in 2011, because people just didn’t care about Pinterest and even it’s never become, there was maybe a 12 month period or 18 month period where it was sorta trendy, but it’s never been the, darling of social media.
[00:29:38] And so people just didn’t really see value in what I was doing, but once they would read the book or see my trainings, they would be like, oh my gosh, there’s a huge opportunity. I think we’re similar in this way that we’re just, we look for new, they catch our eye and we see opportunity and we, put them in the Baptists.
[00:29:54] I think the people around me get, get used to me doing well. That’s just what he does. He does the next new thing that he finds okay, that’s what I do.
[00:30:03] Chris: I got good advice for people
[00:30:04] Jason: that are listening.
[00:30:05] Chris: What’s the best way to phrase it. So the punkers thing comes off and opportunity in it right now.
[00:30:11] I think people, when they see opportunity and something, I think too many of them think, there’s no opportunity for me there, right? Like I’m not going to build a big Pinterest board. And like that’s just not for me, instead of saying, you know what, there’s an opportunity here for some people, maybe not specifically for me, but just because I’m not into Pinterest, doesn’t mean Pinterest shouldn’t exist.
[00:30:28] It’s okay, Pinterest exists. I can see how a marketing company might use this. I can see how a product company that I can see how they should use it. You know what? I am going to share that information with them. I’m going to package up that information in a way that can benefit people who would, we’d be able to use the tools and the opportunity that the Pinterest represents or anything else.
[00:30:46] And I’ve got a Facebook group where did this for a while, where I just share stuff. If you say for me, but if you’re in this business and you want to do this would be. And people got it eventually because it used to be like, oh, cruise has been so amazing. Why aren’t you doing it?
[00:30:57] I was like, cause it has nothing to do with me, but it doesn’t mean it’s not a good opportunity for some people. And it’s the most amazing networking. I don’t know how many people I’ll message say, Hey, I saw this and I thought of you, and if I were you, this is how I would use it. You may have a better idea kind of thing.
[00:31:11] And people like, oh, thanks so much. I did not know this existed. That’s really cool. And I use my kind of curiosity and I, my enjoyment out of this, I like reading sites and new technology and all these things. But if something’s not for me, I’ll find out who it’s for and let them know. And you build this network by accident because I’m just sharing it because I’m interested.
[00:31:28] I think there’s a lot of people like. I haven’t put that second step in there to be like, you know what, I’m going to, I’m going to reach out and help them. I’m gonna spend 20 seconds and help somebody else with that. With expectation of nothing may happen. They may not even get the message. But it might turn into something.
[00:31:41] And if you do that enough times, you can be like, holy smokes. I’m going to write a book about this Pinterest thing, even though it’s not for me, but I’m going to write a book for marketers about how to use Pinterest and get out there being early to the market. Yeah, those opportunities aren’t everywhere daily.
[00:31:56] You just have to look for them and then decide and commit to do.
[00:32:01] Jason: I totally agree. Okay, man. Let’s let’s wrap it, but before we wrap up today, tell us more about your book launches coming out. What’s the deal I’m on your list. I’m ready to I’m ready. So w what’s coming our way. I’m one of the eager students.
[00:32:16] Chris: I’m not trying to flex on it, but I do believe it’s like it’s so legs. It’s a little in-depth it’s thorough. It’s my birthday this month. So I’m like, do I do it birthdays? So this is exactly what we talked about. The beginning of the show. I have so many options. Do I release a special edition as an NFT?
[00:32:28] Do I release an edition with private coaching included? Do I, blast it out at a low price offer and, or do I go full price or do I run a challenge at the same time as the launch? I had all of these things going on, but it’s close to being done. Just as a final kind of revision to make sure all the chapters line up and all that stuff.
[00:32:45] Yeah. But it helps people, or it shows people how against some of the things we’ve talked about here, helping them identify something that they’re good at, that can provide value to other people. And then how to package it up into a digital product format, which you can of course sell digitally or in my opinion, the best, most powerful way to do this is to take that digital information, convert it into a book where you get access to the information, not just turn it all into words, but it’s stuff that you get in the course.
[00:33:09] You now get access to by purchasing. Now it’s physical, it’s prime eligible it’s on demand does constantly thing. You marketing opportunities open up incredibly. It’s a bit of a process, which is why the book is long. So it helps people get, I’ve got a chapter about imposter syndrome.
[00:33:23] I’ve got a chapter about Dunning-Kruger effect. It includes launching, it includes marketing. It includes all of the hacks and. Good hacks, not bad acts, but all the amazing ways that nobody’s teaching about how to launch products through KDP and get instant exposure, possibly through bolts that disappear.
[00:33:40] That’s one of the things I’m like, I gotta get this out before this potentially disappear. I don’t think Amazon get rid of it, but. The fact that they couldn’t, it makes me want to rush and get it out. It’s really fun. And it’s something that I could spend a lot of time talking about as someone who has gone from retail arbitrage onto all of these things, to be like, you know what, this is where I could settle it.
[00:33:58] And really, I really enjoy it. And there’s such a massive opportunity for people. Yeah. And then it comes out this month, so I’ll definitely have some specials and some announcements and all that stuff, not trying to plug it too much on the, I love you buddy,
[00:34:10] Jason: plug it. I’m excited about ’em right.
[00:34:12] Are ready, willing, and able to hear the plug, but I’m also on the list already to, to, to learn from you. I just, as an outside observer, you pioneered a model. What was it? Probably six, seven years ago. Yeah. Everyone knows, worked well, but no one else has done that I’m aware of launching, launching, launching a big course as a book on KDP with the strategies swirled together with most people have done big launches.
[00:34:42] Kajabi or teachable or Thinkific with Facebook ads, supporting them. People have not done what you rigged up. And this book, I think if I’m understanding what you’re saying, is going to teach people how to take something. And I have mine ready. I. This is a, my profit habits workbook. I have not published, and I want to do it under your model.
[00:35:02] I’m going to be your student on this and learn how to do it in the way in which you’re describing, because it am I getting it right? You basically pioneered how to launch a book, a whole course using Kindle, and reap the massive rewards that can come from that. And I’m excited about it, man.
[00:35:18] That’s going to be very cool to
[00:35:19] Chris: Implement. It’s hard to believe it’s been seven or eight years since online arbitrage came out and that was an accident, right? Like I just, I was making this course and I’d already published the KDP. So I was like, what if I gave access? You know what, I can put QR codes and I’ll make them unlisted video.
[00:35:31] So you can only get through it to get the book. You know what? I conclude this and I did it. It was a massive, bigger project than I ever would have imagined if I knew how big it was. And it worked really well. And I’m a little. A surprise and not surprised that more people haven’t done it because it’s hard my points.
[00:35:47] Jason: Yeah. But once it’s also not, it’s also not. It’s not a hack, but it’s not a direct use case of KDP. And I think if people don’t understand how to use KDP for basic use case, they won’t understand how to use it for your, advanced use case. And I think that’s a piece that’s interesting to me.
[00:36:08] So I think it’s going to be really interesting to see how it plays out in how other people replicate your model there. So anyway, I’m pumped about it, man. I’m really excited about it. So
[00:36:18] Chris: yeah, I’m an open book for you. You know what? Let’s make some good stuff happening and everybody can listen along and join us at the same.
[00:36:26] Jason: Absolutely. All right. This has been great. Thanks for hanging out with us today. We broadcast this into our Omni rocket pro user community. So you can watch the replays there. And of course, on the call-in app, which is growing and growing, it’s an honor to be able to be, on the call and. And, to be in the top 20 in business as a podcast, and we’re in the top 20 in technology and we’re top 10 and education, which apparently is a weaker category than business or whatever.
[00:36:53] So it’s fun to be in the top, lists for the categories. And next week we’ll be back with Michael and Kyle, I would assume. Chris, thanks as always for hanging out. It’s been a fun time. See you soon, buddy
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