354 : Kyle Wright – Don’t let FOMO derail your success
Do you build risk into your decisions? Really? Don’t you expect to sell more this year versus last year? Doesn’t everyone? Doesn’t everything sell in Q4? Kyle will boldly admit, he and his partners stumbled. See they thought like above and guess what…the market changes outside of your control. There is a balance where you as the entrepreneur need to take risks, the challenge is to not to take risks that are fatal to you , your staff and your company. Great example of learning and moving forward.
Mentioned:
Kyle: [00:00:00] Focus on what you can do for the brand because you’re not bringing them any value just by buying six out of 100 products that sell well, now you gotta. Figure out what you can do to help them.
Cool voice guy: [00:00:10] Welcome to the ECOMMERCE, but we’ll focus on the people, the products, and the process of your host, Stephen Peterson.
Stephen: [00:00:23] He wanted to talk a few moments about some sponsors scope from seller labs. Um, when’s the last time you created a listing? Right? And when you create that listing, you’ve got to come up with the keywords, right? It’s all key word dependent. I don’t care if it’s a private label or wholesale. You’ve got to get it right. Well, what’s the best way to get it right? And if you’re selling a similar product that’s really successful, you go and you take and use their keywords and that’s what scope does for you. So phenomenal tool brought to you again by sellerlabs. The leaders in technology when it comes to Amazon, right now, they are just crushing it with all their products, but scope allows you to get that listing right. Get ranked for those key words as fast as possible, therefore you get the sales. So go to sellerlabs.com, forward slash scope.
Stephen: [00:01:12] Use the code word momentum. Save a little bit of money. Get some free key words to test, try it out and see if you see an improvement. If you don’t adjust, what’s cool about what I love about a seller labs is that you then message and say, Hey, I didn’t get this right tyler. Hey Jeff, this isn’t working right. What am I doing wrong? And Boom, you’re going to get the help you need and that’s what you’re going to get from seller Lamson. And it’s a very special group that had been very. I’ve been very fortunate to be connected with them. And again, I look over time they’ve delivered every single time, you know, same thing I can say for Karen from solutions for ecommerce. I mean, she’s been carrying my account for a couple of years now. Um, and our account, my wife and I, and she really does handle things for us.
Stephen: [00:01:53] Um, I mentioned, uh, just last week we created a new listing with, I forget how many variations, but again, all the flat files uploaded done as I needed. I pop in, so she’ll send me a template, I pop in some information and then boom, it’s handled, await. These pictures weren’t done right, blah, blah, blah. This upc to poom modified adjusted. And again, the communication has been phenomenal too. I get an email back saying, hey, this was done or this, you’re missing this, Steve. Hey, you gotta do this. So, you know, we have those challenges too and that’s why I like working with somebody who’s been doing it. I’ve been doing it for a long time to do, you know, Karen also does listings for Ebay. Yup. Lots of them. So if you want to build out that channel, which of course you should, it’s q four, you should be selling everywhere.
Stephen: [00:02:37] You can, um, Karen can help you with that too. So you gotTa tell her I’ve sent you. So you’re going to go to solutions four ecommerce forward slash momentum. You’re going to save 50 bucks every single month. You’ve got to save that $50, but more importantly, you’re going to get an inventory health report. Um, did you just get hit with monthly longterm storage fees? Well, guess what? If you haven’t, they’re coming. You want them to get that inventory right and she can help you with that. You gotta tell her I sent you again, solutions, the number for ecommerce forward slash momentum will get you into that. Save the 50 bucks. Get that inventory health report though. That’s really, really important. Get that going right away. And I don’t want to miss my coach when it comes to retail arbor online or when I have a question. And I do not that we don’t, we don’t really do much of it anymore, but when I do have a question, I go to Gaye Lisby because why?
Stephen: [00:03:23] Because she’s really, she is a coach. I mean, she’s really phenomenal, but she also puts out a daily list and you’re going to get that list five days a week. You’re going to get tons of leads. The number of, uh, agreed to amount that you’re supposed to get. She at least, she usually gets to those in the four days and then the fifth day seems to be a bonus most of the time. Phenomenal Group, small amount of buyers. Where this list is going to end. The best thing is the nuggets that you learn. Hey, why is the red one better than the blue? One? Gaye can help you with those questions. I saw. Hey, I got a. I got to the dreaded letter about a brand. Here’s the, here’s the way you approach it. Hey, receipts. How do you, what’s the best practice? I saw her leaving instructions, teaching me the accountant how to do a better job with it.
Stephen: [00:04:07] And it’s phenomenal. So it’s Lisby made a million dollars selling. Um, I’ll have the link in here. You’ve got to use the link and it does help me. I don’t want to say it that way, but um, it’s part of the amazing freedom with Andy Slamming Lee, Ron Hirsch, corn and nate’s lamins. So, you know, you can trust. Okay, so come out to the website, take a look at it, and you will get a savings and you can get two weeks free right now only through my link. You get two weeks free. Try it. You don’t like it? I get it back off, but right now is the time to make money. Get cashflow going right now. And so join you. Get two weeks free. The only way you’re gonna get the two weeks for if you use my link, it’s on this episode. Come on out and give it a try.
Stephen: [00:04:49] You will not be disappointed. Again. You’re going to see me in there. So reach out if I can help you too. Let’s get into the podcast. Welcome back to the ECOMMERCE momentum podcast. This is episode three, hundred and 50 for kyle. You know, Kyle lives up to his name. He is right about a bunch of things. Um, he’s right that he recognizes his abilities, but he also recognizes his limitations. He’s right when he recognizes that doing this by yourself can be a lonely, you know, not such a great place, but doing it with others that you love and care for ’em and that love and care for you equally, that you could trust implicitly makes this such a better business. He’s also right to recognize that he’s had some really strong mentors along the way. Um, and to me, those networks that developed through those, through those relationships are phenomenal and hence the reason he is so right.
Stephen: [00:05:48] Let’s get into the podcast. Alright, welcome back to the ECOMMERCE momentum podcast. Very excited about today’s guest because I think in some ways, um, there are some similarities. A though, first off, he’s like a third of my age, uh, probably, um, but you know, he’s really focused on his health, his mental health, and then building a business and he didn’t do it all right. He’s willing to admit that he’s willing to say, Hey, I’ve got to adjust. I’ve got a step step back. And sometimes she gets that back three or four times to move forward. And I think that that is, that’s the thing that not many people are talking about, and yet it’s, it’s just so important to realize that everybody, I don’t care who the most successful person has made, um, uh, not, not wrong choices because it’s based on the information you have, you just what I see as most people fail to put risk into the formula and then when the risk comes and you didn’t plan for it, then things you have to step back. And so that’s a cool place to get to. And I’m very, very excited about welcoming kyle. Right? Welcome Kyle.
Kyle: [00:06:50] That’s a fair statement. What I just said. Is that correct? Oh, absolutely. And I’m not really afraid to admit it either. You know, we all make mistakes and we learn from them. But, you know, at your age, how old are you? Twenty four.
Stephen: [00:07:01] Jesus, Dude. Oh my shoulders just sunk down when you said that. But, but, you know, here’s the thing to realize that at 24 that these are not fatal choices. These are not, you know, uh, you, you get your, I always say a pencil, it gets sharper because you learned from these things, right? And you adjust and that’s the key because that’s how a long life well lived is formed. So I think it’s very, very cool. The other thing I would say is that I was impressed, uh, you know, this is an early morning interview for both of us, but you were intentional about going to the gym this morning. How important is that? Because you got a lot of responsibility, dude. At 24 you got a lot of moving pieces. How important is your health to keeping things really steering right?
Kyle: [00:07:46] A very important. I think it’s important to make sure you stay healthy. I go to the gym, I play basketball every Monday, Wednesday and Friday I get up about five, 20 on were there by [6:00] and I also go to the gym other days to lift as well. So, well, I lifted this morning. I did my warehouse Wednesday this morning and uh, and then I go to a sauna every single day that I can. So you ought to look into that too. One of my things about the gym is the Sauna. Yeah. Twenty minutes in that sauna will take so much crap out of your body, but it also gives you a chance to think there’s a guy in there that rights while he’s in there. And I’m always like, dude, I love the fact that he’s getting up whatever’s in his head while he’s sitting there. I’ve ruined a few pairs of headphones in there. They come in there and listen to podcasts or books on audible and they get way too hot. I need to start taking like actual physical books in there. My, uh, my iphone shut down today. It said it was too hot and it’s like, oops, sorry. But I was texting, I was videoing, I was doing all these different. That’s probably a little, a little
Stephen: [00:08:48] overkill. Okay. So I’m kyle is a, and I’m going to call it a successful seller while he’s only 24. You’ve been, you’ve been doing this for a while, right? I mean, you’ve been, you’ve been, you know, in dog years, you know, you’ve got some, you got some long, you’re long in the tooth as they say when it comes to Amazon.
Kyle: [00:09:09] Yeah. This is the going to be the end of the fourth year selling online now. I started back in, I started researching back in December of 2014 and I did that for about a month at the time, not knowing I was really missing out on a lot of q four sales. Um, but my first sale was on January seventh, 2015.
Stephen: [00:09:29] So that’s a long time ago. Um, when, when, what was it that made it attractive to you? I mean, I understand you working at a pizza shop, you were doing different things. You were in college, but what was it that, that was like, you know, where Chris Green put something in your ear that like, oh, I see something here.
Kyle: [00:09:48] Yeah. So I would say it goes all the way back to high school. I knew about people selling on Ebay. I even bought a book back in high school about selling on Ebay and I never really did anything with it. I’m going to an auction once, but I just never took action on it. And then once I got into college and during my junior year at that time I started doing a little more research and that’s where I came across Chris Green, uh, his retail arbitrage book, online arbitrage book. I’d read those. Um, and that’s when I really decided to just take the plunge and go for it.
Stephen: [00:10:21] But what was it like, there’s usually something in somebody that just, you know, the thrill of the hunt, the instant reward. There’s usually something that that’s a very attractive to the real successful people I’ve talked to.
Kyle: [00:10:34] Oh yeah, absolutely. The thrill of the hunt I think is one of the biggest things in the beginning. Um, whenever I was doing my research, I’ve heard about people going out to stores and I started doing it and like during that first month of research I was shopping as well, but I just, I didn’t take the plunge actually sending it in. I don’t know why. I don’t know what, but like I had inventory at the time. It was during the um, uh, what would it be like winter break at our school and I think we had like five or six weeks. We had a really long winter break here and my, like, I probably ended up buying $1,500 or so and inventory before I even took a plunge. Descended it now I don’t like I kick myself every time for her not taking that plunge. Like the first shipment was the biggest fear for me, but when I got over that and send it all in January seventh, I sold probably 10 items right when they hit the warehouse. And ever since, I’ve never, never looked back. Like that’s when I knew that I could do something with this.
Stephen: [00:11:32] It’s like a floodgate, right? It’s that feeling. Um, yeah, that, that fear of getting started I think is a, uh, I don’t know if there’s a book out there called that that’s a good name for a book, fear of getting started because it’s just so hard. I mean, it’s just, you know, let’s face it, you know, you’ve listed a bunch of my shows, you, you’ve seen so many of these people. There are so many people that make this look so easy that they run into a problem and they can let me just write a line of code and I’ll blah blah, blah, blah, blah. I was watching a guy write a letter code yesterday. I’m like, holy smokes, how does this mind think like that? But you know, that doesn’t mean you have to do it at that level. It means you can send in, right? You can take a few months, send it in and sell 10 items and say whoa. Okay. Wash, rinse, repeat. Right. Figured this out. Um, okay. So you started selling, was it books or what were you, what were just starting in?
Kyle: [00:12:19] So like at that time I didn’t know much about Cuba graphs. I didn’t know about like camel camel, camel because I just started researching. So like it was kind of a lucky time for me because everything was crisis inflated in q four. So I could go out to like Kmart and go to the clearance section and without knowing how to research stuff properly, I did luck out with some Ra back then and um, you know, I didn’t lose money for on potential products that would have, you know, maybe today I wouldn’t buy because I know the price is going to go down or whatnot. Uh, but that first shipment was mainly Ra. But from there I transitioned into books for pretty much the first six, six to eight months maybe of selling. I did just books from goodwill and book sales.
Stephen: [00:13:06] One of the things that I think is very cool about your story is a, you’re doing with your friends. So it’s really enjoyable and entertaining and I’m sure I mean because it’s like when we traveled to always think about Andy and Lee, Ron and nate, when we traveled together. It’s crazy. There’s always craziness. It’s fun because it, you’re working, but it’s not, you know what I mean? It’s kind of that way. Um, the other thing that I really admire about you guys though is that you, there’s implicit trust, but then there’s the ability to expand into other things. You’re not just married to Amazon Fba or Ebay or merge, um, you’re into real estate and stuff like that to me at 24 to be able to get the breadth that you have means that, you know, there’s, the future is so bright, um, in so many ways because there’s so many similarities to what you’re doing in each business. Right. I mean, even rental units, there’s similarities to online, however, there’s real distinct differences and the opportunity to cross the to come across and you just don’t realize. And then it’s like, oh, I know what to do here and I know how to do that. So I think there’s, there’s some great lessons here from a 24 year old kid who’s 24 people. Okay. So you, uh, you were uh, uh, I’m working in. When did you decide to fulltime quit?
Kyle: [00:14:25] Okay. So I was going full time college, I was majoring in accounting. And you have an accounting major as well, correct? Yes, I do, um, but I was doing working 35 hours a week as well at a pizza shop delivering pizzas and that’s actually where I met my current business partners, um, which we can get into that story too. But they were, they were all
Stephen: [00:14:46] so hustling, delivered pizza.
Kyle: [00:14:48] Yeah. Yeah. They were delivering on. One of them was a manager there, but yeah, they were all, we were all basically doing the same thing. Um, and they, they started selling on Amazon as well shortly after I had one say and seeing like what I was doing and I told him about it. Uh, but anyway, so not until my senior year, um, after I had been selling for just over a year was when I was comfortable, you know what I mean? It was in college. I didn’t really need a ton of money, um, because my, my housing was paid for and whatnot. Uh, which I pay a lot in student loans out for. Yeah. So, uh, and I think it was like February or March of 2016, I decided to quit my pizza delivery job and go still full time college. But fulltime Fba, I was also starting in March, I had been selling emerge for a month or two at that point and it was actually doing pretty well in those early stages. And then in, I graduated in May and from right there, you know, I wasn’t ready full time into my Amazon business.
Stephen: [00:15:57] She’s supposed to be a couple of questions because what’s interesting to me is you expose these three guys, um, to Amazon and they all tried it were, were they equally as successful. Um, and because where I want to go is that, I’m assuming each of them have different skills and, and uh, my, I imagine over time you guys have identified those and figured out into this, I’m better at this than you are and you’re better at this than I am, you know, that kind of thing. But when you showed them, um, did they all just adapt to it or did some of them struggle?
Kyle: [00:16:30] Uh, I would say there was probably some struggles. Okay. But overall, you know, they, they, they, there’s three, my three business partners now they started a business together. So I had my own. And they had their, oh, okay. Two separate businesses. But yeah, like now, now we, we know our strengths, we know what everybody works well doing, what each person likes to do and we work to those strengths.
Stephen: [00:16:54] It’s where I was going to go with this point is that, you know, let’s just assume, oh, I’m Mr x, what are your partners he struggled with let’s say sourcing or whatever you guys or those other guys would push him through that make that piece smoother. And then he, his abilities would be the other. I think that that’s one of the reasons that I’ve seen people who have really who partnered with other people that have taken it to levels of success is because they’re mature enough at 22 back then I guess, or 20, 21, 22, 23, um, to be able to step back and say, you know what, Kyle’s better at this to me. He’s helping me and boom, I can help him with this. That’s a maturity, Kyle, not at 22. Nobody does that at your age. You’re supposed to do everything. Yeah. Hmm. Well, I just, I’m, I’m very encouraged by that because I think that again, that probably makes the, uh, the marriage of the four of you guys work so well. Why, why Merch by Amazon? You’re, you’re an accounting major. Kyle. You’re a nerd or you’re not supposed to be good at art. You’re not supposed to be.
Kyle: [00:17:58] I’ll be the first time you with merged. I’ve never even designed a shirt myself, so I’ve outsourced at all. I couldn’t even tell you how to use illustrator or photoshop. Um, but yeah, I’ve never designed like, it’s not the artistic aspect. It’s more of the business aspect of it. That has always intrigued me.
Stephen: [00:18:16] Hey, where does this business acumen come from? I mean, I understand the accounting degree and I tell everybody, don’t get a general business degree. It’s a waste of time. Get an accounting degree. You can cross platform, you know, you can understanding financial statements, all that kind of. This is awesome. It’s, it’s pretty key to any business. I don’t care what it is. However, they generally don’t teach you how to run a business.
Kyle: [00:18:37] Now where does that come from? I’ve always said that I learned more just by starting out this Amazon Fba business, I’m about taxes and you know many different aspects of it than I did from actually attending most of my classes. It’s not to put down on like the classes or anything because I did learn a lot, but I got like the hands on experience by doing this and actually teaching myself and learning how to do certain things that I didn’t learn in college.
Stephen: [00:19:04] One of the statements that you made to me is that the best decision you’ve made in your business so far was a partnering up with these three other guys. Now that’s rare. Most partnerships don’t work out, you know, how do you, how do you handle communication? Because it’s, it’s for moving. It’s for opinions, right? It’s for a different versions.
Kyle: [00:19:29] Yeah. I, there’s, there’s a huge level of trust in, in our partnership. We pretty much trust each other to make a decision, do whatever, you know, we talk and you’re buying situations. Everything we, you know, we discussed about and get everyone’s opinion, um, but that, but everybody has their ability to purchase, like we trust each other to make decisions like that, but we’re all there to help each other as well if needed.
Stephen: [00:19:56] When, when, um, when you’re thinking about going into a new venture with. I mean, how does that come up in discussion where you guys are saying, Hey, I’ve got another idea for us. Uh, how does that conversation go?
Kyle: [00:20:08] I don’t we throw ideas around daily, you know, we, I mean we’re constantly looking at new things, doing new things and we fail a lot and we succeeded some and I mean it’s just a normal everyday thing for us now.
Stephen: [00:20:24] So they just toss around an idea because is it, it’s got to be tainted. I don’t know if I want to use that word. I don’t think that’s the best word. It’s got to be adjusted because you guys expanded your role in everything’s great and then it wasn’t. Right. So how does that, how does that now get factored in when you’re making a decision that, whoa, we grew too. We’re not able to keep up with it, therefore we had to scale back, which is fair. I mean, I don’t think that’s unhealthy at all. But how now when you’re making decisions, does that play into it?
Kyle: [00:20:56] Uh, so are you talking more like big, big decision?
Stephen: [00:20:59] Well, you, you, you, you make this statement, you said we scaled up quickly when we merged the companies that year, we hired employees, expanded our business ventures into real estate and a few other small ventures, however you ran into roadblocks and had to scale down to scale it properly. And to me that’s the learning lesson and that’s what you describe it as. It’s like a pivotal point where you, you realized you and I’m assuming the other three guys all realized, Whoa, okay, let’s do this a little smarter. We got gotta we didn’t count. I always call it risk. We didn’t factor in these risk things or whatever and they affected us. Um, and so now though, does that affect, when you’re thinking about making a decision, I mean, how did, how did you adjust your decision making? Maybe that’s a better way to say it, a long way to say that.
Kyle: [00:21:42] Okay. So just to elaborate on that story. Um, and I think this is very important for everyone. Like you said in the beginning. I’m not, I’m not afraid to admit that we’ve failed at things or admit our mistakes. Um, but back after we had merged the company in the end of 2016, we started growing pretty quick to where we brought onto employees, you know, we, we started spending our time maybe where it wasn’t best spent. Um, you know, we were doing some real estate research, we were doing a lot of merge stuff and at our expense has got way ahead of us and when we finally realized it, like we caught it in time. Luckily we, we knew we had to make a decision. We had to, um, basically, uh, you know, get rid of our employees, which was tough for us because they were friends of ours.
Kyle: [00:22:32] Um, but they understood, you know, luckily, and this was in the beginning of 2017 when we had to make these decisions, we had to stop spending so much time researching our real estate ventures and, uh, doing so much march because Amazon was our bread and butter at that point, you know, it’s what brought us money, brought in the money to pay our bills, et cetera. Uh, we, we were also trying to like get on other platforms at the time, uh, like Walmart, jet, Ebay, and we were using like a cross listing a software and we spent a lot of money on that when we, it probably wasn’t the best time. Uh, but yeah, we let, we let everything get ahead of us and we had to cut back. We cut back on that cross listing software because really we didn’t have the inventory even as a time to, um, to make, make it make sense to even pay the fees for it. And also let the two employees go. Uh, and we just, we sat down and talked for a while. You know, there’s a couple of days and we knew we had to get laser focus on what we’re doing in our FBA business and buckle down and really concentrate on that
Stephen: [00:23:41] and that, that part was, you guys were ready to take fire regime right now. Now it’s different right now. It’s okay, let’s pull back. And so I think that’s a very healthy thing and it does temper things now. You know, I guess it can ebb and flow. Let me ask you this because this is an interesting point. Um, when you were looking at expanding into all these other things and it was at the fear of missing out, you know, the influence of others, seeing everybody else doing it. And again, making it look easy and it’s not. We only show the easy stuff, right? Everybody that makes everything look easy. Nobody says, wow, this is really, really hard. Is that, what do you think, looking back, would you say that’s part of it?
Kyle: [00:24:22] Yeah, all of the above. Everything what you said there is definitely a part of it. Uh, we were young too, you know, I think we’re still young and I didn’t, you know, I didn’t, we didn’t pay too close attention to our cash flow and we thought we could take on these expenses and continue to grow, but we just took on way too much. We bit off way more than we could chew and we corrected it. That’s the
Stephen: [00:24:47] no, I get it. And you learn from it. That’s the important part. Not even the correction as much as learning from it. Here’s the other thing though, and this is something that everybody should take away. A channels change outside of your, um, uh, outside of your plants, right? Amazon is going to change, right? These, these monthly storage fees, right now that I’m seeing people, all of a sudden we’re getting all these people coming into our warehouse because they’re all getting killed, right? Because of that. Well, guess what? That stuff’s going to continue to happen because they’re working on their business and they’re not calling up and saying, Kyle, Jeff Bezos here, I’m thinking about doing this. What do you think? Right? I mean, this isn’t the, the way the world works and so if you don’t factor that stuff in that these other places will affect you because they will affect you.
Stephen: [00:25:27] Therefore your business is gonna Change. And so having that, I call it risk again, having that risk factored in allows you to say, hey, I didn’t go all in. I lost a pallet of um, or you know, Kyle and I were talking about, um, because they were selling unrack attend and this is the God’s honest truth. I’m buying racketing I don’t even know if it’s liquidation at this point for like three cents on the dollar. There happens to be a warehouse and they, some people pay for their storage in that, in their warehouse with inventory. And then these guys liquidate these inventory through. I’m two or three layers down and I’m still getting it for three to eight cents on a dollar. And it’s like, how’s that possible? But it is. I don’t know. It is what it is. And so you can’t build that into your model or if you don’t build that into your model, it’s going to affect you.
Stephen: [00:26:13] And so the fact that you were able to correct it without an imploding is a big deal. That’s a big deal to now. How’d you get. How’d you get past that now? I mean, you know, because I think a whole bunch of people who have done that, what you described, and I think most people, if they were honest, would say they’ve done the same thing. How do you not look back at it and say, man, I’m a mess up. You know, we’d use a different term. But um, I don’t like that term, but it’s just because you must feel like that or at least at the time you did, how do you get past that and build yourself back up to say, no, no, no, no. It took, it was something special that we built this. Yes, we stumbled.
Kyle: [00:26:51] Everything we do is special. It’s not, not many people are doing what we’re doing. Not many people are able to do as much as we do. And I really think even if you’re selling on Amazon period and something happens like, you know, like the financial issues, we ran into it, it’s hard to live here, say self and say you’re a mess up. I mean, you’ve created something great just from nothing basically. Uh, you know, I said I don’t really like the fact that anyone would say that about themselves that they’re a mess out of because, you know, they didn’t pay too close attention to their financials or anything like that. Um, so yeah, I just, I just don’t really. I don’t think that way I guess.
Stephen: [00:27:31] Hmm. That’s a, that’s a big point. You’re looking at it, you’re grateful for what you have, not what you don’t have. And, and, you know, it is something special. So anybody who, you know, and you’ve read all the stories about everybody who has failed how many times and then they finally hit it, um, and to, to get most of it right is a big deal. And so I think that’s a perspective issue at 24. You have perspective, buddy. I’m loving it. All right, let’s talk about real estate. So you guys, I mean, whose idea was it to get into some rentals?
Kyle: [00:28:01] Um, my partner Dalton, his, he’s always really loved the real estate game. He was all, he does a ton of research and he bought a duplex. It was right around the time we were partnering on him and my partners, they, they bought a duplex on an Fha loan where they lived in half and rented the other half out on and as a business out of, um, so that’s one of our rentals. And then later that year we bought another rental seller financed and we actually ran our business out of the bottom of it because it was zoned commercial and it had a little storefront in the bottom. So while we were still a little smaller, we ran our business out of that, um, you know, it’s probably a thousand square feet at the time and that’s where, you know, of double dipped. We had tenants above us and the two, the two apartments and we were able to basically use that rental income for free, free a warehouse space. At the time
Stephen: [00:28:57] when I was thinking about this too, that being 22 or 21, you guys pile into a department together, you don’t mind all that, right? You’re willing to forego, I’ve got to have, I’ve got to have the right carpet in my office. You understand the paint color. I have to, you know, let my designers coming into, to design our warehouse had picked the pay. None of that applies.
Kyle: [00:29:20] Now. We’re not, especially my partner is there, you know, we’re not like flashy people. We don’t live way above our means or anything, you know, they always share an apartment. Uh, and once they moved once removed out of that warehouse and move closer to like where me and my girlfriend were living, uh, like we ran the business out of their apartment that they moved to down here. You know, we’re not really, we don’t focus on the, uh, the glamor
Stephen: [00:29:45] aspects, short term sacrifices for the long game that you’re playing a long game, you know, and a very encouraged to hear that you’re a apartment. Units are cash flowing. That’s a huge place to, again, how many people get to say that, right? And so, you know, uh, I’m sure it’s not easy and that, but so now you’re in 5,000 square feet, which is modest. But man, you guys move a lot of inventory through there. I mean, it’s, it’s pretty phenomenal. Um, why, why start a prep company?
Kyle: [00:30:16] Uh, yeah. So basically we started a prep company because we had the manpower, we had warehouse space, uh, and we decided, you know, we just, there was a few people who we could help and Bob Steel being one of them. Bob’s awesome. We give 100 percent credit develop, like we would not be aware.
Stephen: [00:30:36] Well, and let’s be fair, I want to make sure this statement, because I, and I, I’m, I may make this statement and is that you really have had two really strong mentors to very strong outliers and I mean an outlier in the extreme. Brianna molar green and Bob Steel, both of them have unbelievable skills in what they do. And in there, I mean they are, you know, brand is a foul word in, in, in front. Bob is so quiet behind the scenes, most people wouldn’t even know they look right past them in a crowd and they wouldn’t realize what an unbelievable guy he is, what a brilliant mind and how he just moves along. Not, not like a turtle because you know, it’s like the turtle and the hare. He’s not a turtle. He’s faster than that, but it’s, it’s just like a, like a bowl or something like that. Just charging slowly through and building and building quietly. Like nobody’s heard from him in a while. Right. Yet he’s built this incredible business. So those, that, that mentorship means a lot, doesn’t it? I mean, it really does shape you
Kyle: [00:31:38] between both of them. And also Jeremy.
Stephen: [00:31:40] Jeremy, I’m sorry. Johnny Wilson, yet another believable outlier.
Kyle: [00:31:44] Yeah, they all helped me get to where I am today. You know, I’d give them all credit for everything. Um, you know, Briana and I did a lot of merge stuff together in the beginning and she helped me get to, you know, build up as well as helping them.
Stephen: [00:31:58] It’s all process, right? Is that. And again, back to the being the accountant in the group and having that accounting skill set, that ability to break things down and parse them and pull them back together. That’s a skillset. And so you bring it together with somebody who’s got to push forward attitude. You can really, you can really scale with the prep. Are you doing prep for Bob’s still?
Kyle: [00:32:19] Yeah. Yeah. Bob, Bob, as we do so much with him, you know, we, we share buys with him. He, him and I worked together like every day I can tell you everything he sells, he can tell you everything. I. So, you know, I mean our businesses are open doors to each other. Um, and you know, we prep for him. He, he’d, we send some of our stuff to him if we’re doing any way and he preps it for us. Um, we also have a couple other clients with our prep company. We’re not, I wouldn’t call us like a, a typical prep company. We’re not looking to add a ton of clients. We’re not looking, um, you know, just to take on anyone that will. We have a few select people that we work closely. Yeah.
Stephen: [00:32:59] Well what are you looking for because you know, I mean, and, and this is a chance maybe somebody can get some help because we, we, we don’t prep here like we have storage for people. That’s what we do and mostly private label. We’ve got one wholesale or to wholesalers now, but we’re very specific in what we do. We just don’t want to do all that stuff because that’s just not us. There are some amazing prep companies and that’s what they do. Where, where is the sweet spot for you that you can offer value to people? What have you seen
Kyle: [00:33:23] those 100 bundles? We, we do a ton of them and we have, I couldn’t even tell you how many bundles we prep this year for us and for other people. Uh, and I feel that’s where most prep companies lack is they overcharged for bundles and it’s really hard to put a price on bundles and that’s why like we only want to work with a select few people that can give us some time or that we can basically give our time to and help them grow their business because, you know, when you do bundles you can’t really say okay, it’s a dollar 50 an item, but I have like say eight small jars of peanut butter jars of peanut butter. And if nobody could pay that, yeah, if I’m going to charge you $12 to put a Georgia peanut butter in a box. So I think it’s ridiculous. So we really work with each client individually and you know, come up with custom pricing based on the bundles and it, we, we know that’s not going to be something we can scale into a ton of clients, which is like I said, why we don’t want a ton of people but we, you know, we will be looking to take on some more people in 2019.
Stephen: [00:34:27] But it’s foundational and it’s funny, it’s, that’s what we do here. It’s a foundation for our business, right? It’s if you, if you build it right, I mean, again, if that’s your business, you want to be in the prep company business, have power more power to you. That’s not my model. That’s not something I’m interested in. The few clients that we have when we have very few clients, but again, they’re all relationship driven. They’re the ones who can message me from Jamaica this morning while I’m in the sauna saying, Hey, can you ship this thing for me, a Sean, um, and uh, and yet we can act on it and take care of it. That’s what I want, right? That’s where I’m in that same boat is that I just want to have those few. So again, if somebody is interested in a bundle, a long game, these are not people to come in and descend one shipment. This is a long play. Somebody who you’re looking to partner within your business that cares about your business than perhaps this is something that’s called exclusive inventory solutions. And Steve doesn’t benefit other than, again, if you find the right person to work with and you guys flow, I win. So that’s it. Okay. All right. So, so you’re also building that out for yourselves too. I mean, that’s another value. Now you’re still heavy into march, is that correct? And I don’t
Kyle: [00:35:37] spend as much time like growing my own merchant account. A lot of our focus has to be in our FBA business every day. Um, so, you know, I still have a huge, um, like group of assets and designs on merge and other print on demand companies that bring in a lot of money each year. But it’s not my primary focus.
Stephen: [00:35:59] You’re on 10 different platforms. I think I counted for merge, right? The other print on demand sites. Now think back to kyle at 21 where he expanded his business into all these other things. Is that a recommendation? You give new merge people. Hey, as soon as you get, as soon as you get approved for Amazon, you get, you know, you’re 25 or list up or whatever it is, 10, whatever it is now, um, put them immediately on all these other places. Or is it kyle? The much older and more refined kyle?
Kyle: [00:36:28] Amazon is obviously the biggest, you know, that’s where most of the sales coming from. But I can tell you a at cte public, um, red bubble, I, we do really well on spreadshirt as well. Those are our top four, I think outside of that.
Stephen: [00:36:44] So say that again. So all. Alright. So etsy,
Kyle: [00:36:49] t public redbubble and spreadshirt I think our top four outside of merge, that’s where I would focus. But you know, zazzle designed by humans, they, they come in, you know, close behind those for uh, for Ya.
Stephen: [00:37:05] And now there’s a, there’s software that can do most of this for you, right?
Kyle: [00:37:10] There might be some things that I’m doing the uploading night. He said, well, I really haven’t uploaded to these print on demands in probably over a year now. Uh, it to like the ones outside of marriage. I have done to our merchant accounts, but uh, the other ones, I haven’t really used any software myself
Stephen: [00:37:32] when I’m thinking about, you know, pulling back, you know, swallowing your pride, I’m just readjusting. I think that’s a better way readjusting, pulling back, reforming, adjusting, and now you’re moving forward. You guys made another pivotal decision this past year. Um, based on I guess, experience. I think that’s. Would you say that that’s the reason you made that choice to switch into the wholesale in that is that based on experience?
Kyle: [00:38:03] Uh, we can kind of see the way Amazon was going, it was beginning to be tougher and tougher for us to spend our capital doing ran away. So we really decided to pivot full, you know, full swing into wholesale, um, which has led to branding and other private label ventures as well this year.
Stephen: [00:38:24] How cool is that now? I mean, because you, you had the thrill of the hunt because you said this earlier and I don’t know if many people picked up on this, is that, you know, the thrill of the hunt is great in the beginning. I think what you said in the beginning, right, you’re pretty intentional when you said that it does get old, doesn’t it?
Kyle: [00:38:41] Yeah. You know, we don’t get much time nowadays to go out and do any era. Uh, we still enjoy it. If we do, um, you know, like this time of year we’ll probably do some, you know, it, it’s still fun, but we just, you know, it, it does get old after awhile. Like I don’t want to be out there five days a week, seven days a week, shopping at different stores, trying to find a product and when I can just sit there and order them from our suppliers. Now so much easier.
Stephen: [00:39:10] Let me ask you this because you talk about relationships with your wholesalers and some exclusive accounts, which is ultimately the most awesome way to go. What’s it take relationship? Why me? What do you have to invest in that relationship to get it to a level that a, it’s got to be win, win. You can’t win every deal, right? If you do, you’re not going to be with them because somebody will come along and offer him a bigger. I always say if somebody put a zero on the end of that, check on my check, they’ll put an extra zero on and they will get the business right. What do you invest in those relationships?
Kyle: [00:39:38] Uh, you know, I don’t do, we don’t just go for, go through all their catalogs and find the items that are profitable. Now, you know, we try to go air presence. Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, whoa,
Stephen: [00:39:49] pause on this because this is big. Okay, this is, this is something that hopefully somebody taking notes. So you’re going to a vendor and saying, hey, these six things are profitable. I can send these on Amazon. That’s the typical spin that most people do. You’re saying no,
Kyle: [00:40:04] correct. Yeah, we, I mean, you know, there are vendors that we just, we don’t have time to, you know, say create a bunch of listings for an add a ton of value, but we plan on it, you know what I mean? I, the big thing is adding value to your suppliers who are. We have one supplier that we have an exclusivity with. They allowed us to brand registered their trademark on Amazon and we can be the only sellers on them, uh, and we create listings daily and like that, that brand is growing exponentially for us. Um, so really you got to focus on what you can do for the brand because you’re not bringing them any value just by buying six out of 100 products that sell well, now you’ve got to figure out what you can do to help them.
Stephen: [00:40:47] Let’s take that though. So, so only six of 100 sell. Now you’re still helping them sell the other 90, probably [inaudible] 94, but a bunch of them where it makes sense. Are you not making money on them?
Kyle: [00:40:59] No, no, it’s not like, you know, you can do their whole catalog at first, you know, we gradually build up, you know, I don’t go and buy a 100, 100 of their products that aren’t selling well. Um, and like I told you, one of our biggest struggles right now is being, having enough time to get all these listings created, optimized, etc. For these companies that we’re working with. Um, you know, and you got to build up to it basically, you know, I’m not telling people to go out and buy every single product that they own or that company represents, but you build up to it. I’m bob steel, For example, has a company that she got, um, you know, rights to sell because he carried their whole line, even some of the items that weren’t so profitable, um, because he’s working on representing them on amazon. so what does that mean? Not so profitable because I think people have to understand he’s not losing money, he’s just not making the 20 or 30 percent that everybody says you must make. So he might make one or two percent on those. However, from a relationship point of view,
Stephen: [00:42:07] that brand is so well represented online. Therefore nobody else is going to come in and take their market position. Right? Because brands have to start thinking about that, right? They, they’ve got to sit back and say, hey, if I’m selling water bottles, I’m looking at my water bottle, right? If I’m the water bottle guy and I don’t get my giant presence on amazon with water bottles, somebody else who’s going to fill that in and guess what? If the market shifts to amazon and I’m not there with all my stuff, somebody else has it. So that’s smart. That is a probably one of the best descriptions of why I’m representing a brand in their entirety is so important and I can’t imagine now that, I mean because it’s almost like you become their in house team in some way, right?
Kyle: [00:42:54] Yeah. Oh yeah. That’s exactly what we are with some of these companies, yoU know, we get say a couple of one off products from them. Um, you know, we do the pictures, we created the west things and you know, we’re basically their amazon team. That’s kind of how we represent them to us. I feel we learned a lot about amazon and can really talk to these suppliers with competence that we can bring value to them rather than just trying to buy the products that are profitable and move onto the next supplier. Was sitting there thinking about this because I wrote this question
Stephen: [00:43:24] down do you were talking about with the four and the different skill sets and stuff like that and you were talking about the real estate guy and how he’s so good at researching it and it basically. It sounds like he mastered that so you didn’t have to write in your other guys didn’t have to. You learn through osmosis, right? Just being around him talking. you get, you get enough knowledge but you don’t have to become the experts because he is. Is that kind of the way? Is that one of the reasons that you guys are scaling so quickly in this, thIs branding world and these wholesale worlds because you’re able to split off responsibilities and then really get the best from each other.
Kyle: [00:44:02] The way you’re talking to her? I feel like you’re sitting in on our meeting, but that that’s exactly spot on and we don’t all try to become experts in everything. You know, we have people that, one of us or one or two of us are good at advertising one or two good at creating listings. You know, you’ve got the real estate, you got, you got it all. We all have our skill sets. Um, and I think that’s what’s helped us grow tremendously.
Stephen: [00:44:26] Um, when I look at the struggles that you’re having where, you know, you talk about just manpower and optimizing and all the of that. There’s another maturity statement in there though. There are way too many profitable items out there, an opportunity to pursue and it’s impossible to get it all done at 24. Realizing that, you know, you don’t have to do it all, you can do it smarter because you’ve already been down that road when you don’t. Right. You’ve already seen that. That’s a very cool place to get to at this point of your business. Yeah. Okay. So what’s the best advice you’ve received? Because I read it and I was like, oh, that’s cool.
Kyle: [00:45:04] The best advice that I have ever received. Um, I, I think it would go along the lines of not making or not being afraid to make connections. Uh, and like we were talking about briana, bob, jeremy, uh, you know, the connections you make with people in life are what’s going to take you to the next level. Um, you know, we, we made connections actually. Okay. The warehouse we’re in, I’m the guy that owns it, used to run a massive fishing lure company. I’m out of it. Okay. You know, they had 114 employees in it and some of the biggest name bates you’ve probably ever heard, like you’ve probably seen infomercials on them. Um, huge company. well, this guy had many connections over in China from his suppliers and things like that. So just by making connections with him, we now have connections in China with suppliers to get things private labeled. Um, like I said, bob steel, we worked so closely with him. Bob and I, we share purchases. We do, we do so much together and help each other grow. Um, my business partners, uh, obviously some of the best connections I’ve ever made. I think that goes without saying. I’m at the point where we were at a
Stephen: [00:46:17] see the best of you in the worst of you. Isn’t that important? Oh yeah. I mean because you know, you can’t be fake and you can’t be phony. You’ve got to be vulnerable. And to me that’s what makes a relationship when, when you, when I look at you, if you’re on 100 percent, then it makes me feel bad because I’m measuring myself against it. I’m like, shit, I’m, I’m a wreck. This guy has got it all together and then. But when you get to see each other in being vulnerable and, and that kind of thing, that’s how that relationship gets deeper. I think that that’s one of the coolest pieces of what you guys are doing is getting to see the good and the bad.
Kyle: [00:46:56] Yeah. We’re, we’re open books and actually they’re the ones I asked. I said, hey, what are my weaknesses and what are my strengths? Because they’re the ones that are going to know.
Stephen: [00:47:03] Yeah, they sent me a giant list. Oh my god, I can’t read it all. It’s just teasing. I’m just kidding. Um, okay. So when you think aBout, you know, what’s going right for you, right? Adjusting and, and you know, I’m going to put your biggeSt strength is self awareness and, and I’m assuming that didn’t come easy, but it’s still the fact that you’re so comfortable talking about it at your age again, is so cool because as you mature and you just get more and more comfortable because at some point you don’t give a crap. Most everybody else doesn’t give a crap. But to be able to get there now and realize, hey, you know, I’ve got some skills in that. What else would you say? I mean, if you ever, if you had to nail it down to what one or two things that men have just given you the ability to have this consistency of success.
Kyle: [00:47:51] Mmm man. At the top one, one or two things that are giving me the ability to have consistency. Okay.
Stephen: [00:47:56] It could be a habit, it could be a, um, a, a skillset. You know, for me, I’m a noticer, I noticed things right? And so that’s good and bad. I mean, you know, we’re, we’re, we’re in a horror thing. I notice everything. If you’re at a horror, one of those horror places, you know, I notice everything and that’s terrifying, right? That’s not a good time to notice it, but if you’re looking to buy stuff your notice or that’s good. What about you?
Kyle: [00:48:17] I’m managing projects and people, you know, putting people where they need to be to get everything done on time I think is one of my big, big strengths. Um, I, I know like we took on a huge project this past summer. Um, once again, not everything we did with bob and I pretty much managed the whole thing and made, made sure it worked, you know, flowing smoothly from start to finish I think took ownership. Yeah.
Stephen: [00:48:45] Well that’s a big deal. Do you ability to take ownership and see it through? That’s a, that’s a very strong skillset. Yeah. Hmm. Um, when I did ask you about internet tools, I mean there was one that you were like, this is 100 percent, well two of them, but do you mean this is, you know, we are letting the data decide for us, right? I mean if you have you taken out to human out of the formula or accepted that the human is the art piece and the data is the science piece. Yeah,
Kyle: [00:49:15] I think that’s actually a really good explanation. A software year or the toll we are referring to. I mean it’s pretty simple. Kipa kipa like involved in all of our buying decisions. I don’t think people really know how to properly read the grass. Not everyone but a, when you really start learning how to read the graphs and in particularly, particularly with slower selling items. Um, when you learned to read these keeper grass decisions that you originally wouldn’t buy, you may start buying and find out they’re actually really good. You know, one example was an item ranked, I think it was like three or $400,000 in grocery and we turned that around just by reading. And to keep a graph and knowing what’s going on, uh, we sell I think probably 50 or 60 of them a month now.
Stephen: [00:50:03] What, what happened to the ranks and now that you sell that many,
Kyle: [00:50:06] they went out now, um, and most people would have passed on that product like 100 percent. But now that product, you know, say it makes us 250 bucks or so each month
Stephen: [00:50:17] and it’s just a matter of what did you see in there because I’m not sure we gave enough value there. What did you see in there? What did, what, what did you look past?
Kyle: [00:50:25] Okay. So what I’m referring basically is kiva has a sales rank and number of sellers chart. What you really got to do is learn that their sales rank charged don’t reflect every single sale. Um, what we really do rely on looking at the number of sellers graph moving a lot and that still can’t even be relied on 100 percent. But when you see, say for example yesterday a product I bought, some of the number of sellers graph was going from say like eight down to five over the course of two weeks, but they do, it only had one spike in on the sales graph. Okay. So we, I know I can tell you just by looking at the number of sellers graph constantly moving on this product, I know this product is actually selling, but keep us not picking up the sales on the sales rank. So why wouldn’t they pick them up? Uh, I mean I think it’s a software thing. I don’t think it always tracks the higher ranked items as much as it tracks like the lower ranked items.
Stephen: [00:51:29] So it’s the frequency they update their data and when they do a sweep of data they, they aren’t capturing that data.
Kyle: [00:51:36] Maybe I can’t really speak. Um, in terms of the experiences, your experience using this saw this tool for three years now we’ve really learned on just by buying products we may not have bought. And we found out they were good. And then we went back and you look at those key paragraphs, uh, it teaches you, you know, you learn a lot by that, so, you know, don’t just base your decisions off sales rank chart going up or down, um, because there’s a lot more to it than that.
Stephen: [00:52:06] And again, you with the four of you, somebodies mastered that. Yes. But the other guys don’t have to master it. They can explain it well enough and know. And if they get down into the weeds, then the expert, the mastered person could, could pull them out that again, hence the reason you guys are having so much success.
Kyle: [00:52:27] Yeah. Alright, well we’ll take one buying decision and like say I’m looking at it up and I’ll send you the link to everyone and get their opinions on it. So, you know, having people to throw ideas off and bounce off, how many of these should we buy? How many of those should we buy, you know, is really, really helpful.
Stephen: [00:52:41] Well that’s interesting. And have you heard from one of the partners or even, you know, bob and his team there? Have you heard from somebody who’s changed your mind becAuse you were pretty certain in that and then like, huh? Oh yeah, prospectively. I mean that. But gaining that perspective, right? That’s a big deal.
Kyle: [00:53:01] Yeah. Yeah. And we sit down and we discussed like why, why are you wanting this many and I only want this many or something like that and you know, we’d talk it out and that, that would tell. That’s what helps us learn to use the tool even better, you know, okay, this is, keep us, keep us not the only thing we use them deciding. But you know, if one of the main things like, okay, this is what to keep the grass doing a, if you look at the sales back last year at this time, you know, that’s of the big things too. We look back at the previous year at this time because we’re big seasonal sellers, we rotate our season’s out very efficiently. Um, and so we’ve really learned to predict and evaluate seasonal products based on the category. So,
Stephen: [00:53:41] and, and then you have that history year over year, the experience with it. And then I guess, I’m guessing when you’re looking at wholesale accounts and you’re looking at bringing them on, you can look for those seasons, right? You’re connected to. So if you’re selling halloween, let’s just use that example. Um, so you’re looking for other halloween related items because you want to expand that. Um, I was thinking about this when you guys discuss things, I mean, do you guys have formal meetings? Like, I mean, do you get together or is it really informal because you’re together so much?
Kyle: [00:54:10] Uh, we, we meet every week.
Stephen: [00:54:12] Okay. So you really have an official meeting every week?
Kyle: [00:54:14] Yeah, monday mornings, right after I get done with basketball, we usually meet, um, let’s say like dunkin donuts or somewhere and get a coffee and sit there and go over some of our numbers and what we want to do for the week. We game plan every week out basically.
Stephen: [00:54:28] Hmm. Well I’m excited to talk about the value that we’re going to add to people because I’m very interested in what you’re doing. Um, okay. So if somebody is interested before I ask my final question, um, facebook, it can, like they can pm me on facebook, right? Um, but you also have an email and I’ll put that out there as support@exclusiveinventorysolutions.com. And again, they’re not taking clients right now, but again, if this is somebody you connect with, if this sounds like something, you know, I don’t benefit until you find the right person and it works with you, then I benefit because that’s just awesome to me. Right? That’s all I want.
Kyle: [00:55:05] If you’re interested in anything like that, but to get in contact with me directly, facebook is the best way.
Stephen: [00:55:10] Okay. All right. So you know, the goal of the podcast is to help people move forward and man, you’ve, you’ve put a lot of thought into this and I don’t want to. That’s why I’m leaving enough time because this is gonna be a little long, but it’s worth it because I think this is where, because a lot of people, you know, hey, put systems in place, sop steve, everybody’s got to have sop. Right? But that’s not easy. You know, when you start putting it down and you’re like, uh, oh, this is harder than I think it sounds like you guys have really found a way to master that. So let’s talk about that.
Kyle: [00:55:40] Yeah. So, um, that’s my suggestion is systemize what, you know, no matter where you’re at in business. Like I wiSh we would have started doing this much earlier because it would’ve been much easier. We don’t have a lot less to do, um, and we still have a lot of systems to put in place. Like it’s never ending. I feel, um, but you know, we get them in place and our team can start taking action on them. So we use software lucid chart that helps us create decision trees. Um, so say for replenishing suppliers we teach, we have a decision tree for our managers that can just go through it and use the other softwares. We use forecasts or I’m a seller board I think is the other one that my one partner uses a lot. Um, but basically, uh, a process to show them how to go through these two softwares and decide what we need to replenish, how many units down to like the exact number and um, and just, yeah, I mean many different things like that, like replens warehouse prepping for example, for whenever we hire new employees, we bring them on and you know, we have these diagrams for something as simple as how to bubble wrap an item, how
Stephen: [00:56:54] building bundles. That’s critical, right? I meaN, that’s a perfect example of something that if you don’t have a plan
Kyle: [00:57:01] you’re going to lose money. The way we tried to look at it is, okay, this is very simple for me to do, but like if I just bring some random joe off the street, are they going to know how to polybag an item and label it, you know, so we know the answer is no. Exactly, exactly. So
Stephen: [00:57:20] no to the standards that you require, let alone amazon requiring. Right? I mean that, that’s a, that’s an important thing to think about.
Kyle: [00:57:27] exactly. Um, so yeah, we use lucId chart to create these decision trees and then another software called sweetprocess, um, which basically allows us, we can input, I’m like, are decision trees into it, we can add videos to it and step by step processes, um, and it’s basically helps us create an employee handbook on how to do different tasks, uh, in our business and as we continue to grow it, it’s going to help us move further and further away from the little tasks that need done everyday to where, you know, our managers and other employees can do that and allow us to focus on bigger picture items.
Stephen: [00:58:02] Well, I think, let’s just say it this way too, you don’t want them getting mired down making these little silly decisions, right? Those, you want them adding value in the big decisions, right? I mean, I think that people think, you know, oh, the way I put that polybag on, there’s no art to it. He put a polybag on it, right? Big blip. However, you know, hey, if we put these in a different bundle and we do this and that, and now all of a sudden you could sell this color blue or whatever in those are valuable decisions and that’s where you want input from people. Um, that is it also make it easier again, and I’m going to go back to because you have such a large group of people that somebody is really good at this and, or they figure out something else, they can just go in and put it in place, move it right across your whole network and everybody starts doing it.
Kyle: [00:58:47] Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um, basically every. I mean, I wouldn’t call our processes the most smooth out there, you know, I will, I’ll never claim that. I always think we have places to improve and I’m always open to taking any suggestions as well. And I think that’s where my ability to say like, I’m wrong with this or that we talked about earlier, I’m really, really benefits us. Uh, so like for example, our, our managers, they, they actually used to be designers for us. Um, and they lived in bosnia. They here at the beginning of the year and we were able to give them full time work from the time they got here, which was really awesome. But for example, now they’re going to be going back to bosnia to visit their family for a month. Next year. We have these systems in place to be able to give them all the information and training they need to be able to do stuff like that for us rather than just managing the warehouse. Um. Does that kinda make sense?
Stephen: [00:59:45] yeah, no, it makes perfect sense. and again, I think you described it earlier. It’s a flowing documents that it’s alive and it’s going to move these things, but it’s again, it’s just not creating an sop. you’ve got real processes in. I took a look at this lucid charts really strong, super strong, um, and I can see the ability to, to use that sweet process to, to have it in one place consistently. And so it’s just like, hey, how do I do this? Oh, go look out there. my bed is it, you know, you’re not asking a, you know, everybody says there’s no such thing as a dumb question while I’m in the middle of something and you’re coming in and saying, hey, does a polybag face left or right or something stupid like that. That iS a dumb question at that point. And so the fact that they can go out, excuse me, date, you can go out and look at these things and then, you know, without having to ask. I think it’s so smart because it then I don’t feel so dumb asking the question, you know what I mean?
Kyle: [01:00:35] There’s documents in place to when we’re traveling, for example, is great when they can’t adjust to like, ask a simple question like that, you know, they can great points. So
Stephen: [01:00:45] that’s a great point dude. I’m very, very excited for what you’re doing. I’m very excited to see somebody again to see a group of guys at 24 figure it out. Let me tell you, as an old dude more than double your age. I wish I had that confidence and self awareness at your, uh, uh, my, you know, when I was back at that age, but the fact that you’re there, it’s just going to take you places that you just, you can’t, um, you can’t even imagine at this point. And tHen the relationships you’ve developed and the give and take and relationships, that’s the number one thing. It’s not all take, take, take, take, take. You’ve kind of give and I just think it’s so cool. I’m very excited for you receive. Yeah. I’m very excited for you buddy. I’m really am. And, and, uh, I’m really thankful you took the time. I have the contact information again. It’s going to be his facebook link or that email, which I’ll have that on this episode today. I wish you nothing but success. Thank you so much.
Kyle: [01:01:38] I appreciate you having me on
Stephen: [01:01:41] what a great guy. A what a cool story. And again, those friends doing it together and each one of them have a different skillset they bring to to the partnership and hopefully you hear this again, remember, you don’t have to master everything if somebody else’s mastering it, you just need to know enough and then if you’ve got a question, you go to the master. That’s a beautiful thing. Guess how much faster your business can move when everybody doesn’t have to be an expert in every single thing. It’s just such a great place to get to. These young guys have definitely figured it out, but again, they’re quick to remind us that they’ve had mentors along the way that have helped shaped that meant to me. That’s also very cool. Ecommerce momentum.com. Ecommerce momentum dotcom.
Cool voice guy: [01:02:25] Thanks for listening to the incomers momentum podcast. All the links mentioned today can be found at incomers. Make.com. Under this episode number, please remember to subscribe and like us on it.
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Transcript: (note- this is a new tool I am trying out so it is not perfect- it does seem to be getting better)
