393: Greg Fellows – Using Online Arbitrage for Mailbox Money selling on Amazon
Great story of perseverance pushing past a very big obstacle. Think you have the grit and determination to keep going? Think you would have given up? Greg is a great example of what it takes to be a winner. Can you follow his example? He says YES!
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Here is transcript- It is automated so it is not perfect but it does seem to get better over time.
Greg: [00:00] Three of Gaye’s lists. Now I think I’m about to do another one. Um, it’s really, if I had better her management skills and better skills and growing a team, um, I would have been able to scale it a lot bigger than it is now. So people that are just starting a hub with Amazon, if they have the WHO’s team building skills, you could, it’s amazing how fast you could scale.
Cool Voice Guy: [00:28] Welcome to the ecommerce momentum bud jazz, where we focus on the people, the products, and the process of ecommerce selling. Today. Here’s your host Steven Peterson.
Stephen: [00:42] Hey, wanted to take a second and talk about Gaye Lisby and Gary, Ray’s Amazon seller tribe and their daily lists that are put out an incredible stories that you can read if you go out and check out a amazing freedom.com, forward slash momentum hyphen arbitrage. I know that’s a lot to put in there. Amazing freedom.com, forward slash momentum dash Arbitron and you’re going to get 14 day free trial, no money risk, no, no challenges. You don’t want it when you’re done, you get out. But imagine getting lists. Um, as grateful as I like to call it, mailbox money. I love that term. Mailbox money. It’s where you can work from your house, buy things online, having them deliver it to you and then sell them on various marketplaces. But imagine you can have somebody else do that for you. So you want to buy time, you want to control, uh, what they’re buying.
Stephen: [01:38] Well, you take these lists and you can join multiple lists if you’re interested and then you can segregate them for the merchandise you want and send them to them. They can make purchases for you on your behalf. Have it delivered to you or delivered to them for prep. Boom, sent into these marketplaces and you could sell. How about that? Wouldn’t that be awesome? I spoke at their conference and there were so many million dollar sellers just using online arbitrage. It’s still available. And again, 14 days, the only way you’re going to get 14 day free trial. So if he come through my link, um, it is an affiliate link. Uh, they do pay me, so I don’t want to mislead you in any way. Um, I would appreciate it, but I’d like to see you try the 14 days. I’ve had so many people that have joined, have so much success.
Stephen: [02:21] It’s very exciting to me and you know, quite humbling to me, um, that they trust me to recommend this group and I hundred percent recommend this group. I’ve seen the results. These are great people that will also teach you to fish. This isn’t just a, hey, here’s the list. You’re on your own. No, this is, hey, here’s why that wasn’t a good deal over here. Hey, there’s another opportunity and you get to join their groups. And it’s just a phenomenal group of people. Um, just great, great, uh, leaders in that group and these lists are phenomenal. So again, it’s amazing. freedom.com, forward slash momentum, how you Finn arbitrage amazing freedom.com, forward slash momentum hyphen arbitrage. Use that get two weeks free. Try it. You don’t like it, drop out, but give it a shot if you want to add that to your business. Welcome back to the ECOMMERCE momentum podcast.
Stephen: [03:10] This is episode 393, Greg fellows. Um, don’t adjust your sound. Um, I’m trying to adjust the level. So we, we both speak at the same level and Greg will talk about his voice and so, um, don’t get thrown off. It’s, it a fascinating story, but it’s one of those things that, um, I’m trying to adjust for. So, um, you know, my voice isn’t too dominant. Um, and we can get through it. Um, great guy, great story of, and I said to him after the call, it’s like you could be in the corner sucking his thumb and earn it, earns the right, you know, to be, you know, woe is me. And it’s like, no, Whoa, look out for me because he’s crushing it and the optimism, his ability to say, no, I learned something new this weekend. I’m going to double my business even faster.
Stephen: [04:02] That’s the story right there. Um, he is not an eternal optimist. He’s just knows that he can do it. He’s done it. His ending, you know, at the end I always asked the same question now how did he push through it? How to, how did you get past it? This is some of the solid advice. He just knows it. Look back at the small successes and then just make them bigger, just replicate them. And so he was able to do that and he’s done it in such a big way. And I just hope you get as inspired as I am, um, because he’s the real deal and doing it and doing it. Um, and he’s not apologizing for doing it. It’s just a great story and it’s going until the podcast. Now, welcome back to the ECOMMERCE momentum podcast. We’re excited about today’s guest. Uh, none, no, no. Look quite long time actually, and it’s the first time we get a chance to chat. Um, and you know, we’re going to explain, um, about Greg’s voice. Um, and so when you listen to this, I’m going to adjust the volumes because I don’t want him to strain his voice, but you’ll understand he’s going to explain to us, um, that he does have, uh, some, uh, voice issues and we’re going to actually explain how he got there, but just want to make sure, um, welcome Greg fellows. Welcome Greg.
Greg: [05:10] Yeah. Are you doing?
Stephen: [05:12] I’m doing really well. Okay. So let’s, let’s get the elephant out of the room for first. Okay. So when people are listening to this, they’re gonna, they’re gonna be like, wait, that is, that’s, that’s his true voice. Correct. This is now the way you speak.
Greg: [05:28] Oh yeah. It’s, uh, it’s been about 10 years. Um, yeah, who’s about 10 years ago? I started to notice something was different with my voice. Um, and over the past, or I’m sorry, hold for the next year, it progressively got worse. I went to a bunch of doctors, nobody knew what it was, and then I finally went to one doctor who was seeing him for something completely different. And, uh, he looked at me and said, have spasmodic Dysphonia. And I said, what is that? He said, it’s basically whenever you speak your poco cords break open. So it sounds really preppy. Uh, certain syllables. And I did a bunch of research on it and realize that’s what it was. I went to a bunch of other doctors and uh, yeah, this, this is a bit, it’s gotten a little bit better over the past 10 years because I can manipulate certain words and I can manipulate my vocal chords into having sound when it normally wouldn’t.
Stephen: [06:32] So, so you’ve been able to improve it just by getting used to an adjusting and that kind of thing? Yes. Yeah. Well let’s, let’s go backwards. Um, it’s not getting worse. No, no. It’s been like this for her eight years. Okay. Well that’s good. Oh, that’s good. Well, let’s go back and talk about your story. You’ve got a fascinating story. Um, and some, you know, some would say you had a dream life in some ways. Um, Greg, I mean, is that, is that weird for me to say that? No, no, you could definitely say that. It’s definitely weird because it, for me, because it’s like, wow, you made it, you were actually doing something that you wanted to do that I think was like the love of your life thing. Oh,
Greg: [07:21] definitely. I mean, it was, I felt it was something that I was trained to do my whole life. I loved it. It was all I ever wanted to do.
Stephen: [07:30] Well, let’s explain to people what it is because I think they’re sitting here saying, hmm, is it selling on Amazon? I think that’s his new one. However, that wasn’t the thing that you were trained to do at the time. So let’s talk about that.
Greg: [07:41] I, uh, I was an actor. I was the youngest five children and my family and my brothers and sisters all acted. So whenever they needed a child, her little kid to be who one of their shows, I was always the one chosen. Um, you know, I used to joke my, my first play was when I was 18 months old and I never stopped after that. Um, yeah, I just grew up acting. I loved him. I was always, I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but I was always good at it. Well, let’s talk,
Stephen: [08:14] you had some success. I mean, you actually, I mean, I can go out and IMD be you. You actually are out there in the real. And I did, um, not recently, but I did when Andy told me this. I’m like, what? That’s cool. Um, you know, and this isn’t an ego thing, this is just to give perspective because to be candid, your life can change in a minute. And so I think this is really important, you know, to talk about. Um, so, okay. So let’s talk about some of the successes you had. You did, you did commercials stuff too, right?
Greg: [08:43] Yeah, yeah, I did commercials, a couple of small movies and I was a very, very small, a bit parts and some bigger movies. And in bigger movies I was just in the background, but that’s still fun. And, uh, yeah, I was making my living, living, acting her for about three years, uh, before my voice started to decline.
Stephen: [09:09] So I mean, Eh, uh, you’ll see Greg’s picture grades a good looking guy. Um, and this is many years later it was still good looking guy, but back then you were a cute kid and so you had that going for you and you were able to use it. Um, how’s that go? How do, what goes through your mind? I mean his life over for you at that moment. Is that, is that weird to ask?
Greg: [09:32] Um, no, it’s not because it’s John, you know, it’s like a, I, a dentist told me one day, he said, it’s like me losing my hands, you know, because I use, uh, this is me talking now. I used to be singer as well. All I ever wanted to do is just sing an act and I was actually doing it. And um, you know, we’re just kind of stopped. Um, I here I consider myself to be very level. I added, so I had to make a decision, am I going to be depressed about this? Um, am I gonna move back to my hometown and live in my parent’s house? I’m, you know, all these things were going through my head because, you know, not having a voice that, uh, I have, uh, a difficult time projecting, especially in the loud rooms. So I couldn’t be a waiter, you know, just for a job. I couldn’t tell Ya, you know, be on the phones. I couldn’t have a phone job. So there were all these things. I didn’t know what I was going to do, so I had to figure out how, basically my mindset first and you know, just say this is going to be part of my life now, so it’s not going to be all of my wife, but it’s just gonna be
Stephen: [10:50] part of me. So I better start living with it. When, when you think about, I mean, is it a perspective of things could be worse, right? Like you’re back to your dentist example with no arms, no hands. Right? I mean, so that’s the perspective. I know it’s, it’s not, it’s not easy for me to say. I mean it’s, I don’t want to be tried. I mean it’s, it’s really is you have to have some kind of perspective like that.
Greg: [11:12] Sure. And even with, uh, with the condition, I have spasmodic Dysphonia, there are some people that have it. They can’t even talk. So I do consider myself lucky to be one of the lucky ones that have this where I could still communicate and be heard.
Stephen: [11:30] You just gave me the chills. Oh my gosh, you’re giving me the chills. Um, okay, so, so you, you had to take a new evaluation of your life. Now you had skills, you had something you love, do, you had a future, you knew that was it for then. So then this happens. You probably cry your eyes out, you get through that and you start what was going to be the thing that you were thinking, okay, well let’s do this. What are the things that you thought that
Greg: [11:53] you could do that you didn’t do but you were thinking about? Um, Jeez, wait, the things that I thought that I had, did you know, did you, I mean you had to sit down and go through a list like, okay, auto mechanic, I’m just start at a, and then I worked my way through z. You know, that’s what I thought. I thought, um, I could be here construction worker again because I did that when I was a little bit younger and, um, I never wanted to do that again. Tough. Um, I just, I really have no idea. I’ve talked, PBI could be a busboy in a restaurant because you know, they don’t, uh, you don’t have to talk. I’m, I’m terrible at technology and computers, so I didn’t believe that I could get into the hat and try and make a living. So it was just a whole confusion and I had no idea.
Greg: [12:44] So how did you find selling online? I me who? Did somebody suggest that to you or did you just, you know, you’re googling and still trying to find meaning in your life at this point? Oh, I’ve always, I’ve always wanted to be an entrepreneur, but I’ve never had a lot of success at it before. But, uh, I was listening to business podcasts and, um, this was back in 2014 I was listening to a podcast, I believe who’s pat full, just handled over. Yeah, Yup, Yup, Yup. Heard her. And she’s had on buying these little scrubbies per $3 dollars and selling them for 40. And I thought, how she doing that? I wonder if it’s something that actually works. We worked for me. So, uh, it was funny. I actually bought her course. Um, I think it was per around $300. And, uh, she had a money back guarantee and I thought, all right, if I don’t make $300 within this money back guarantee that I’m going to return it and get my money back.
Greg: [13:52] And I was, luckily I made more than that, so I kept the course and uh, um, yeah, just tried to grow from there. After that, I took some time off until about 2016 and that’s when I got really serious with it. Now getting serious, um, were you thinking that it could be a fulltime living or a side hustle to help you find something a little better? I mean, what was that mindset when you are starting? They’re starting. For me, it was just on the side, but then I saw people having great success with it and I thought, there’s no way that I can’t do the same. Well, I think this is important. So He’s, uh, uh, you know, I don’t think Greg will be embarrassed if I say this. He’s a seven figure seller. You weren’t always, when you were looking, when you weren’t a seven figure somewhere, when you were looking at the seven figure sellers, how, how, I mean, did that inspire
Stephen: [14:52] you or was it them bragging because there’s two schools of thought. They’re right there like, you know, and maybe there are people that brag, but I mean there’s two schools of thought. Hey, celebrating a milestone today. Um, I celebrate those people. How about you? I mean, what were you thinking?
Greg: [15:06] Yeah, I definitely celebrate those people too. I’ve never seen it as bragging. Okay. Hold show bad. It was, it was sort of motivation, but I didn’t know where to go. Um, so I was trying to figure out maybe another coaching crew and just, I knew that those people knew something that I didn’t and I was trying to find that information,
Stephen: [15:30] but they weren’t smarter than you. And I think this is really important to figure this out for people. Did you think they were smarter than you or like you said, they had information you didn’t have?
Greg: [15:41] Yeah. When it comes to Ra in Oaa, I just knew that they didn’t have that. I didn’t have the information
Stephen: [15:48] period. Not the ability, the information. I love that. That’s so powerful because you get approached by people like tell me what you do again, Greg. Right? Like what, what? And I mean, as you’re coaching to them now, or when you talk with them like, Hey, uh, sorry, you know, this is a closed group. There’s no way. Or if I can do it, you could do it.
Greg: [16:09] Yeah. It’s if hiking do what you can do it. That’s I already approach. Yeah. Just give people the information that they’re looking for and hope that they do something with it.
Stephen: [16:19] Well, so let me ask this question and I don’t want to, I want to be delicate here because I don’t want to, I don’t want to offend you or anyone else. You’ve got challenges that I don’t have. Okay. And you know, it’s, you have a barrier to, like you said, that blocks out a whole bunch of stuff that you could do. Um, have you ever thought about the people were, if you meet people that have similar barriers or are there barriers like the dentist with no arms, right? He could technically sell online. Right. You just couldn’t pack those boxes. Right. Have you, have you thought about how great this Amazon or Ebay, whatever business is for someone with physical challenges?
Greg: [17:02] Oh, definitely. Especially with my online arbitrage, I’m 99% hands off of my own side. I’ve got a couple of great employees and they handle everything. I’ve trained him to handle everything and that’s just mailbox money for me.
Stephen: [17:23] Oh, I love that mailbox. Yeah, that’s a good phrase. I’ve never heard that. That’s such a great, that’s a great phrase. Mailbox money. Love it. Um, I, I just think that this could be a, this could be something really special. I knew, I heard Andy mentioned about talking about, you know, veterans and helping veterans when they come back and looking for something in that. And I just think that there’s so much potential in people, just a, they don’t know, like, like you’re saying, just don’t know. And so if you can help, uh, give me tingles again, Greg, you’re getting maybe a emotional here. Okay. So let’s talk about, um, scaling. Okay. So when did you hit your first milestone and you realize that this is really probably your future for the next x years?
Greg: [18:11] Um, well, you know, it’s funny, I remember a specific point when my girlfriend’s mother asked me how I was doing with my business and I remember telling her, well, last month I sold $1,800 and a in, in overall sales. And she said, wow, you’ve just been doing this for a little while. That’s pretty good. And I remember thinking, yeah, I guess that is pretty good. And then, uh, I just remember saying, I’m, I’m going to hit $5,000 in the next two months, you know, and then the next, you know, over the next three months, I think I got it up to g, I think I was around 30,000. Um, and so, you know, I’m not sure exactly when I believed, okay, this is something that’s actually viable. It was probably when I started selling around $10,000 a month because I wasn’t doing anything difficult. I was just buying things. And then when they sold, I bought them again and I bought two of them or three of them.
Stephen: [19:17] You made enough money at that point to live?
Greg: [19:20] Uh, yes. I, I got serious with the Amazon, uh, July of 2016 and then I went the whole time in January of 2017 so one, yeah, I started with $6,000 and six months later I was able to go full time with it.
Stephen: [19:38] That’s incredible. I made a, I mean, do you think about that? How about this question? Thinking about your acting friends, you know, I mean, I don’t know if you keep in touch with any of them, but there had to be these people that you knew, um, who are, like you said, and that I’m not putting this down, but there are waiting tables for an hourly wage. Right, right. I mean, would you go back to acting today? If he could?
Greg: [20:02] Yes. Um, because I know that I would still be able to continue to do Amazon.
Stephen: [20:07] Oh. Oh, okay. So, oh, that’s interesting. Because, so this is a, this is the rest of your life. As long as they allow you. Correct? Yes. Oh yeah. Yeah. Dude, that’s really cool. I remember Jeff Howard telling me the same thing that he just, you know, he keeps swinging and he just loved that this allowed him to keep swinging. I just think that’s so smart. Yeah. Very cool. All right, so it hasn’t been all UNICORNS and rainbows. You’ve had challenges. You’ve hit walls. Talk about, talk about an example where you thought about giving it up.
Greg: [20:42] How there wasn’t time. I don’t quite remember. It was, I believe he was early 2017 when things were just going great. Um, the business was just, you know, going amazing. I had a good amount of money in the bank that I was using for inventory and I came across an opportunity, have a wholesaler. Um, this guy was selling a bunch of products that he had been selling on Amazon and they were selling a lot and there were being really successful. Um, so I, um, I thought it was investing at $30,000 that I had, um, which was the bulk of the money that I had a used to buying. This company’s products and then, you know, just wholesaling them. It just, it was too good to be true. Easy. Well, what happened was this guy, he was something that I, I was too young in the business.
Greg: [21:47] I didn’t even think about he was selling these products to anyone who would buy them. So when he, when I heard about it, you know, there was this one item that was selling maybe a thousand a month and there was only five sellers. So I thought, great, I’ll sell 200 of these a month, I’ll make this amount of money. But he quickly, he started to sell them to 10 sellers and then it was 20 and then 30. And um, so fortunately I didn’t lose that money. Buddy took me almost a year to get it back. No kidding. Um, but that money, you know, I could have turned oh yeah, four or five times in that amount of time. So, you know, when I realized what was happening, I didn’t really have very much money left, but I knew I had done it once. So I just had to do the same thing that I did before and I was able to had to build it up again from there.
Stephen: [22:47] And so that really slowed down your momentum though. Right. And do you think it took you about a year to recover from that? Ah, yeah. I would say maybe a little less, but yeah, around there. So what’s the lesson there? I mean it too good to be true. Radar. I funny story, I was just telling this story. My accountant friend of mine from my Rotary Club messaged me, he borrowed my trailer last week or two weeks ago and so he’s been looking for one and he said, you know Steve, there’s one for sale on Ebay and it’s only like 900 bucks. And I’m like, okay, I’m going to say, I said to him, I said, look, I love you, but I’m going to tell you that. He said, that’s like half price. I’m like, there’s a problem then unless it’s an option, that’s probably a problem. And then he goes, here’s where it goes.
Stephen: [23:28] The only thing is it’s kind of odd. You have to pay for it with Amazon Gift Card. And I’m like, I’m like, scam dude. It’s a scam. I said, trust me, it’s a scam. I, and I was, I couldn’t get to it. I said, I’ll look at it later, or whatever. He sent me the link or whatever. Then he messaged me later on, he said, I called Ebay and they said it’s an absolute scam. And you know, it’s just so funny that you don’t know. Right. You put a little, you know, you, you put trust in people on that. So what’s the lesson here that you took away that others could learn? Yeah.
Greg: [24:03] Um, well that phrase too good to be true, I think. I think Amazon’s selling on Amazon itself is too good to be true. I that’s true. It’s too good to be true. You’re right. You know, the take away from me is just research, research, research. You know, anyone who has been selling on Amazon for less than a year or even maybe 18 months should never deviate from what they’re doing and just continue to do what’s by helping them to be successful. But you know, I could have asked, you know, I had that time, I knew a few, um, seven figure sellers. I could’ve talked with Todd about it with them. You know, I could’ve gotten opinions of other people and I didn’t, which was really stupid because I have these people who are masters at, you know, at Amazon, a place where I was trying to get, and I didn’t even ask her opinion on something that really put me back a long time.
Stephen: [25:06] Is that, is that ego creep that happens because it happens to me and I’m not judging you. I’m talking about Steve. I think ego creep happens to me. Is that happened to you?
Greg: [25:16] I don’t think it’s ego for me. I just hate bothering other people. Oh, okay. Oh, you know what? If someone asks me to do something for them, I’ll help if I can do what? I’m more than happy. But I hate putting p her, uh, you know, making people go out of their way to do something for me. And that’s actually something that I need to get over.
Stephen: [25:41] Yeah. Because if I called you and asked you, you beat you to help me in a second. Yeah. So why is it okay for you enough for her had, come on now you know, this is your girlfriend talking to you. I’m Greg. What’d you see exactly? She’s said that exactly before. She’s the voice of reason. My friend, I better if you tell him she’s the voice of reason. Okay. So you, you, you made that decision. It turned out to be just an okay decision. You’ve got away, you skated, right. You got away, um, and you really struggled there. What, what? So just knowing that you did it before, I mean, cause your advice about, look, stick to what you know for the first 18 months, don’t get distracted by all the shiny objects. Right. That’s solid advice. Yeah. What pushed you through there that to say you could do this again because I think most people would have given upgrade.
Greg: [26:35] Yeah. I just, I knew that it was successful. I mean, it’s easy as one one equals two. You buy these products, they sell you go buy two of them, please hug in you, go buy four of them. And it was just a matter of building up slowly again, because I knew that the time that it worked.
Stephen: [26:57] Is there anything that you learned in your acting career that allows, that you’re able to apply in your Amazon business? I was thinking, you know, like, because I assume this is Steve’s assumed assumptions when it comes to acting, is that there’s a lot of memorization studying a lot of thought. It’s gotta be, I mean, you just can’t, that just doesn’t happen naturally I think. Right. Um, is there a pen? Anything that has been one of those really good strengths that you’ve been able to bring over to Amazon?
Greg: [27:25] Wow. I’ve actually never thought about that before, but I’m sure there is. Um, yeah, I mean, just off the top of my head, I mean I’ve, when I was a lot younger, I was still lead in a play that was like a Shakespeare play. There was so many lines. It was actually not the best play for a, I think I was in ninth grade at the time, you know, for a ninth grader to memorize all these lines and I just buckled down and I had to do it. So I think, you know, the, the dedication and hard work, I’m just kidding the job done and that’s, that’s how I try and run my Amazon business. Now,
Stephen: [28:06] do you have any answer, question and reasonable question. You, when you started on Amazon or when you started scaling, you probably put a lot of hours, correct? Yes. What, what’s, what’s a week look like now for you?
Greg: [28:20] Um, well it depends on the week. Uh, I mean last week I was having a great time at an Amazon Conference for a, you know, for five days. And um, but you know, a regular week is hog who’s shopping one day, you know, drop off to my, uh, my preppers and then, um, you know, it’s, if I feel like the next day go shopping again or if I want to take a day off, I’ll do that. But typically if I see fit, there’s money in my business bank account. Um, I feel like I need to spend it, I need to get rid of it. So I’ll usually buy as much as I can in how we, he can maybe take a couple of days off.
Stephen: [29:10] Okay. So it’s and, and, and how, how heavy are you traveling?
Greg: [29:14] That’s good. Um, you don’t want to probably travel maybe an hour and a half in each direction. Okay, so not terrible. No. No, not at all.
Stephen: [29:24] And you’re back home every day generally? Yes. Yep. Now you move from Las Vegas to Florida? Yes. What fascinates me is your business moved with you? Yeah. Now you, I assume got tractor trailers to bring your warehouse and take down all the racks and write all that stuff. Right. And take down the sign. Is that ortunately I did not have to tell. You didn’t have to do that. When you think about, I mean, cause it, I move our warehouse and it’s the most painful thing I’ve ever gone through in my life. I just really still painful. I’m still moving and we’ve been in this building for a year and change. Somebody was asking me the other day, we’ve been in this building for more than a year and change and I’m still moving, not within the warehouse because it’s so big, but still I’m uncovering stuff. I mean, crazy stuff. How cool is it? I mean, have you thought about that, that you physically relocated to a completely nother, I mean, hours and hours and thousands of miles apart and just open and like didn’t skip a beat?
Greg: [30:28] Yeah, that’s actually something that led me to Florida because, um, when, when I felt like I had kind of,
Greg: [30:38] bought out Las Vegas and there wasn’t a lot of inventory for me to go by. I would travel around, I would go to San Diego and then I would just bring a suitcase with all of my supplies and then I’d work on the road and I’d ship out boxes from hotel rooms in airbnbs. And, uh, yeah, I’d go to San Diego, come back, I’d go to Phoenix, come back La Sacramento. And I even came to Florida three or four times. Um, just to source and that’s what brought me to Florida. That was my, my favorite place that I had gone and there were more than enough opportunities here, so I figured if I wanted to scale up as fast as possible, I needed to move to a place that would allow me to do that.
Stephen: [31:31] You know, it, it’s interesting, somebody asked me this question, has anybody ever asked you what your end Game Gregg, you know, do you have to have an end game at your age? I mean, you’re a lot younger than I am.
Greg: [31:42] Oh, I don’t have one. I know.
Stephen: [31:45] Good for you. I mean, I don’t think you have to cause you, you still love it?
Greg: [31:49] Oh yeah, definitely. They, I mean I just, I just want to keep building it and building it, which is something that I didn’t have any tension to do with the very, very beginning. I thought that all up, I just sold $50,000 a month. Then I’ll just keep it there and that’ll be amazing. But there’s something that gets inside of you, then it makes you want to go, okay, I want to hit 75,000 month. I want to hit up 100,000 I want to get over 100,000 and that’s where I am right now. I want to be like a pericarp than her, Dan Wentworth. And uh, that’s, you know, that’s something that I’m striving for is to have businesses like theirs.
Stephen: [32:30] Yeah. How hard is it for you to give up control because you have employees now and you have other people that you have to rely on. How hard is that for you? Very, very difficult
Greg: [32:40] in the very beginning. But then when I see that everything’s working fine and I can trust the people that I trained fan, it’s so much easier.
Stephen: [32:52] I think that making that transition mentally, making that mental transition is one of the more challenging things. But it’s so freeing, isn’t it?
Greg: [33:02] Oh, definitely. I mean it, it allows me to, you know, like I said, I was at the, uh, that Branson a gateless peace conference last week and I had a police here working while I was gone enjoying that. So it’s an incredible business that,
Stephen: [33:19] Nah, and you weren’t just there hanging out. I mean, you were there learning and working, right. You’re sharpening the pencil at the top end while they’re doing the work at the other end. I mean, that’s so smart. So smart. When you know, we already talked about some of your strengths. What are some of your weaknesses? What are the things that you’ve got to hire too? You know, because I think that’s another thing is nobody is great at everything. Nobody, I don’t care who they are. There are a few outliers. Lee. Ron Probably would be one that I would say is probably, uh, you know, one of those guys. But even he would say he doesn’t like to pack boxes. Um, so w what are the things that you either struggle with or you’re not great at that you’ve hired out or you still have to hire out?
Greg: [34:01] Oh my, I still have to hire out a buyer. That’s something that, you know, if there’s something that’s blocking, he, I guess it is controlled just because I’m dealing with, you know, thousands and thousands of dollars and it’s difficult to get that over to somebody who holds. Um, and when you make them,
Stephen: [34:24] you beat yourself up. Yeah. But what do you do when they make a mistake?
Greg: [34:28] Right. Yeah. And that’s something that I just have to learn, you know?
Stephen: [34:34] No, that’s a, that’s a good question. I mean, you know, what, what do you, what steps are you taking to learn that then maybe that’s a better way to ask it.
Greg: [34:40] Yeah. Um, training, you know, you have to train them in the right way and then if they make a mistake, be sure to train the next person to not make that same mistake. So it’s just a learning process.
Stephen: [34:55] Okay. And Dan went, worth always says, you know, go out together with somebody else. Right. And like you’re saying training and then eventually you see them because I agree, um, that having two people handle things and one will catch the other. And the other, I mean, I, I just think that’s so smart.
Greg: [35:12] Yeah. And right now my girlfriend has been living in Florida with me for the past two months and I love going out with her, um, because we, we pull, we have heart specific parts of the store that we go to and she does it better than me. I trained her to do a little bit and she’s completely expanded on that. And she in certain sections, yeah. Brings back more stuff than I ever have. So it’s very smart to go with somebody else.
Stephen: [35:45] How crushing is that to your soul for stuff? You’re the weaker sex. We all know that. I’m that way too. But I mean, how crushing is that to your soul? Because you thought, Hey, I’m pretty hot stuff and I’m doing really well. And then somebody else who you just give a little bit of a taste to comes back better than you.
Greg: [36:00] That’s not soul crushing your whole for me, because we’re on the same team. Yeah. Yeah. I guess if she was, your competitor may be, yeah. Yeah. You like better than it’d be a little different. But I would still try and learn, um, you know, if she was by competitor. But because she’s not, it’s, it’s everybody wins and makes her better. It makes us more money and it just makes us both a lot more successful.
Stephen: [36:26] Here’s something that I think people would find surprising. You still invest in training and coaches and things like that. Now, one would argue you already selling over seven figures. Why? Why spend money? Why, why keep, you know, don’t you know the business? Didn’t you just put your head down and do the work? At this point?
Greg: [36:43] No one will ever know everything about Amazon. Just from this past weekend at the conference, I have learned some things that will make me grow twice as fast as I thought I would. There’s never an end to education with Amazon.
Stephen: [37:04] It’s very mature. Again, it’s an ego thing. Um, you have to check your, you really do have to check your ego. I mean, I guess you have to have confidence because you’ve got to believe in what you’re doing. Sure. But man turned in off the ego is a challenge. So you don’t find that challenging?
Greg: [37:22] No, I don’t set, I love helping other people. I love a lot. Is You and when people help me, um, yeah, that’s you go, who is, fortunately, he just never been an issue for me.
Stephen: [37:38] When you think about like new sellers coming on now, you’re giving out advice, they’re coming to you because you, you, you’ve been very, very successful. As you say, you’re one of the larger sellers and certain groups. Um, when you think about the advice that you heard from others, what stands out for you that really helped you push to this level?
Greg: [37:59] You know, there’s, there’s actually two things and they’re both very, very basic. The, the first thing, first person I ever heard say this was Sam Colin and he just had, you’ve got to feed the beast. You’ve got to feed the babies. And that goes into what I love. I Gail Hizb, he says all the time out the door in 24. I mean, you just have to go, just keep going. The faster you go, the more you’ll sell, the more money you’ll get takes the velocity again. It really is a velocity, like you say.
Stephen: [38:36] Um, so you’re buying faster, you want it out in 24 so you get, hm. When, when you think about the things that you do to really get to the level of success, maybe their habits or what have you, what would you say are some of the absolutes for you now that are just like, hey, we do this every week, every day or whatever, no matter what,
Greg: [39:01] um, you know, when it comes? Well, yeah, like my own way. For example, I say you need to be spending $1,500 a day at least every day. Um, you know, consume, that’s going to be bumped up to 1700 or even $2,000 a day. Um, was that, did that answer that question? We did.
Stephen: [39:25] And, and I’m assuming these are coming from gays lists, is that correct? Okay. And you know, when people hear that and they’re like, what, wait, he’s spending 15 to $1,700 a day. Absolutely. And it’s funny, you know, she gives us, she gives me a great deal because you can get a like a 14 day link, a 14 day trial. And if somebody is interested, message me, I’ll give you a link and she pays me. So do I don’t want to say don’t, don’t get, you know, they do pay me. Um, so I don’t want to say that is an affiliate link, so I don’t want to hide that. I never have, I never would hide it, but it fascinates me when, when people really take advantage and really do the work, you’re looking at the same lists that maybe nine other people or something like that because there are limited the number of people on that list. They’re looking at it and buying and having success with it. When you think about, let me ask you this question, when you think about those lists, is that really the fastest growth that you’ve been able to do because you could scale it a yes versus physically going out there and scanning by yourself?
Greg: [40:25] Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Um, you know, I’m on three of gays less now. I think I’m about to do another one. Um, it’s really, if I had better her management skills and better skills and growing a team, um, I would have been able to scale it a lot bigger than it is now. So people that are just starting a huff with Amazon, if they have those team building skills, you could, it’s amazing how fast you get scale.
Stephen: [40:58] Yeah. I, I, and, and again, you might not have a voice to speak at all yet. You could put this information in. Correct. I mean, you know, any, right, there could be some physical limitations, but as long as you can operate a computer, you have the ability to have to do that. Correct.
Greg: [41:18] That’s all you need is, you know, be able to add one plus one and learn a couple things on the computer and you can have a successful Amazon business.
Stephen: [41:30] You positive attitude. Was that something always had? I mean, cause you know, like if she, lemons make lemonade, right? That kind of stuff. I mean, are you an optimist by nature?
Greg: [41:42] Um, I, I think so. Um, it’s something, I mean I, I grew up having a great family and done. They were always so supportive. So that helped. And then becoming more aware as I got older, hold her. How your attitude can completely change your life. It’s a decision that you have to make to be angry about something or to make it better or to use it to make yourself better. And so it’s definitely not something that I push was born with. It’s just, you know, I live a much better life when I have a better attitude.
Stephen: [42:21] And, and, and how do you sharpen that? I mean, do you, do you, is there anything that you do, I mean, do you, are you grateful? I mean, are there any tools that you could suggest for somebody? Because I’m a 100% agreeing with you. What you just said is so powerful is, and you have a right to sit back and say, woe is me and you’re not saying woe is me. You’re saying, Whoa, look out for me.
Greg: [42:42] Yeah. Yeah. Um, a big part of it is surrounding yourself with great people. Um, you know, especially within Amazon, there are a lot of groups and a lot of people that are just negative. And they like to make fun of other people that are maybe not as successful or doing things differently than them. But once you find a core group that you like, that you know can help you grow and you can help them grow, then you just stick with that and everybody grows.
Stephen: [43:16] I think it’s what you said, the follow up when you help them grow too, cause it’s not a one way. It shouldn’t be a one way. Yeah. How, how isn’t it so cool that so many people that we all know, you know, are doing so well. It’s just so encouraging to me because as you say, you know, um, if, if they could do it, you know, you could do it and you know, it’s just a process. How about this, let me ask you this. Are Your process, how much effort do you put working on your process at this point?
Greg: [43:48] Uh Huh. That’s, that’s an interesting question you guys. Um, for the past few months I’ve just been kind of, uh, trying to, to incur with it, to make it better. And then, uh, I was really taken aback with the Perry coffins. Huck is lean FBA. Yes. And that is something that I, I have to do if I want to grow, um, you know, of any type of education that he can give, I’m going to do, because I understand how powerful it is, how, you know, what did we say before? Kind of a tightening the screws.
Stephen: [44:33] Yeah. Tightening the screws. That was your description. I love that. I mean, that’s just such a visual thing for me. You’re just going back and adjusting and tweaking, making sure everything’s Nice and tight. It’s so smart. Crec yeah. Love it. I, uh, I too, I took away, um, stop carrying stuff out onto our loading dock for our ups guy. You know, that, that we don’t love them and we take care of them, but he’s right. Why am I paying us or me or my staff to do it when they’re already paid for it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re taken away his hours. Right. And so we stopped. We literally stopped and now it’s like, there it is. Come and get, you know, it’s so much easier. It really is. I mean it’s a few seconds here, but every time you touch something, there’s time lost on something else.
Stephen: [45:18] And I just think that was so powerful. Okay. So you know, you’ve had a, you’ve had a really good run, you know, like a, like a working actor rant. You know, you hear those stories about a working actor and you’re right, like that guy been in a ton of stuff. His whole career might not have been the, the superstar, you know, Tom Cruise level stuff. But man, he’s made a living. You’re, you’re now passing that in the Amazon world, making your living. You’re now, you know, when you hit that seven figures, you start to be kind of an outlier. You start to see you’re starting there. Um, when, when you’re looking at new sellers coming on, what’s the advice you give them to push that far? I mean, cause I was thinking about like an actor, right? When you get into acting, what’s the advice they give you to be either a working actor or a superstar? What’s the advice they would give you?
Greg: [46:14] It’s actually very compared, comparable. Um, you just have to not stop working. Just keep trying, don’t stay in your apartment, get out there, um, make, you know, make your face be seen. And then in the Amazon world, get into stores and start buying stuff. And then if you feel like you’re stuck and need a little bit more education than find that education and be open enough to accept it, knowing that it’s gonna make you more successful but
Stephen: [46:44] being open, that’s up. That’s a powerful statement right there because you know, you might join a group and 90% of it, you know, 99% of it, you know, that 1% is either worth it. You could sit there and say, man, I learned something this week or I knew everything. That’s, that’s your choice though, right?
Greg: [47:05] Yes. And that was, you know, very similar to the case with the Gary Raise coaching group that I just got done with. Um, there wasn’t, you know, I, I didn’t learn a lot, a ton, but the things that I did learn are going to make me so much more successful a lot faster than if I hadn’t have been open to that. Wow.
Stephen: [47:30] So that’s really powerful. So this stuff that you did learn was so meaningful. Do you think you could have learned it as a new seller? Some of the stuff we’re, would you, are you so caught up and just, you know, what tape to use and how to pack a box, that kind of stuff. Definitely. I definitely learned it as a new seller then. What, is it his fresh perspective or is it your now ability to learn? It’s,
Greg: [47:56] I think for me it was a wrong mind her about things that I needed it
Stephen: [48:00] do that I wasn’t doing. So it’s back to tightening the screws. Yup, exactly. Okay. I love that visual. I mean I that’s very powerful. Matter of fact, I’m probably going to use it that mailbox money. I love mailbox money. I mean that is such a good one. Um, I’m serious. If somebody is interested in joining gaze group and I, I probably have a commercial on the show or I know I have a link here, message me and I’ll uh, I’ll uh, cause I can give you a 14 days free and try it. And if you don’t like it then don’t buy it. I get it. I respect you.
Greg: [48:27] Let me say something about his group. The only reason why I ever found out about it, it was because of your podcast. I think it was in mid 2017 when I heard about it and up dad’s work on me to try that 14 day trial and I realized the value of it then. I’ve been a member since then.
Stephen: [48:47] Oh that’s awesome. Thank you. And that is awesome. And I’ll send her a note about that cause I, cause I know sometimes it, you know, you only hear when there are problems, you know, here when there are great things happening and you know, she’s such a special lady. Oh my gosh, I love her to death. I love her calling. They just, they just really, they’re real, they really have the heart. I was describing it to somebody, I’m like, that’s a real heart of a teacher earned Gary. They have teacher hearts. No doubt. Definitely not just by this, here’s why you buy this Greg, and here’s what you know. And then like what about this? Oh yeah, because you, again, you’re looking for this common thing and then boom, the light bulb goes on and very few people have that patience to stay because sometimes Steve’s not the fastest guy, not the smartest guy in the room clearly.
Stephen: [49:29] And uh, I take a little bit longer. And so that’s what I like about working with them. Okay. So if somebody has a followup question, um, would it be okay if I put your Facebook link there? Yeah, of course. Okay. I want to make sure I do that. I just, because I mean, I can, you know, I think somebody’s going to be listening to this and they’re going to sit back and say, here’s why I can’t do that. They’re going to give you a whole myriad of reasons. And you know, and again, this isn’t meant to sound offensive, but Greg, you know, you have a lot of reasons not to be successful, right? You have a lot, a lot of excuses you can make, you know, and everybody else would be like, oh yeah, you know? Yup, Yup. He can’t do that. Right? Or you can crush everyone else because you’re not going to use those excuses.
Stephen: [50:16] To me, I get the chills thinking about it. How, um, how powerful your story is. And I just, it’s very, very, uh, it’s just terrific. I mean, I’m just so proud of you and it’s just, it blows my mind. I mean, it really does. So the last question I ask everybody is pretty much the same, you know? Um, because, and I think this is a good one because you’ve been stuck. You spent that 30 gs, your whole, you know, everything you’ve gained and you had to almost give in. What, what’s the thing that you would say to somebody now who’s in a position to hit the $30,000 mark and making it a little bit of money, but you know, they’re afraid. We were talking about that. Were you in the circle of Gary Circle there? When Perry and I came over and we started talking about this subject a fear?
Greg: [51:04] No, I don’t think so.
Stephen: [51:05] Okay. So the basic subject was, so somebody, you know, Perry’s like, you know, having a pile of positive mindset, you know, that’s woo woo, you know, and, and um, it just doesn’t seem to be enough because he knows people that have money and they’re having a success, but yet they’re so afraid to move forward, but they’re just worried they’re going to get shut down in this and that. And Gary used the phrase, while it takes a positive belief, not a positive mindset and a, and I think that was really powerful and it really struck me that that positive belief means something. So what do you tell people when they hit that fear when they can’t get past stuck? When they’re just sitting there spinning their wheels? What, what’s your advice to push them past it?
Greg: [51:46] You see a small to moderate successes that you have. Give you proof that there doesn’t need to be any fear. You know, they should be able to push you to take that next step to be able to have the big successes as opposed to the small and moderate ones. That’s what pushed my fear away, you know, having not very much money to source to buy things. I was worried about what I should buy and if I would lose money on everything. So I bought a few things, like I said before they sold and I said, okay, that was a success. Now let’s buy three of them. They sold, okay, now let’s by six. So very slowly I was able to chop down to fear of spending money that there’s a slight chance I might get back. But tough fear went away because they always hold, I always made more money and education
Stephen: [52:42] going. When, when when something doesn’t sell or it doesn’t sell, what you think is that, do you see that as a failure or is that the learning and then you adjust and move on?
Greg: [52:53] Yeah, that’s just a learning. Um, you know, just do a couple clicks and then never think about it again.
Stephen: [52:59] Dude. Again, I sit back and I think about where you are from, where, where you came from, where you are. Um, you’re not supposed to get a second act here. Uh, Greg, you know, trying to get my acting coach references that, you know, you really aren’t, uh, you know, I mean, Hey, you’re not supposed to have this and there’s no way it’s going to stop you. Is there, there’s just no stopping you.
Greg: [53:22] No, no. I mean, even if you know, my cords completely shot down and I had no voice at all. I would learn sign language and get back on horse and just keep going.
Stephen: [53:33] Wow. Wow. I thank you so much. I wish you nothing but success. Can’t wait to see you again. Thank you. Thanks Steven. What did great guy, how inspiring. Again, how could you not be inspired and he would tell you he’s nothing special. And I would argue that he has somebody special of, especially for that attitude, that ability to, to do the hard work. But like you said, back in acting, that’s what he did, right? He put his head down to the work, push, push, push, and kept working. And now guess what? He takes that same, uh, uh, approach to selling on Amazon. And while he’s having incredible success, so there’s the answer. That’s the, everybody’s always asked me, what’s the one thing? This is it. Listen to this episode again and again and again. Copy him, do exactly what Greg’s doing. And you too, could be a successful, be pretty cool. ECOMMERCE, momentum.com ECOMMERCE, momentum.com take care.
Cool Voice Guy: [54:27] Thanks for listening to the ECOMMERCE momentum, funk, jazz. All the links mentioned today. Can we found that incomers momentum dotcom under this episode number, please remember to subscribe and like us on iTunes.
