everyone this is stefan from
projectlifemastery.com and today I'm
excited the interviewing Mike McCleary a
very successful Amazon and physical
products entrepreneur to give you guys a
bit of background Mike originally got
started selling on Amazon through the
program that I also went through that
got me started selling on Amazon known
as the amazing selling machine and Mike
Scott started I think back in 2013 my
guess is that back in 2013 was going to
share a little bit about his journey and
story but today Mike had built his
physical products businesses and brands
to around 3 million dollars a year and
so I'm excited to have you today Mike I
just want to pick your brain a little
bit and shared people this opportunity
that exists today with Amazon and a
little bit about the amusing selling
machine so thanks for joining me and
thanks that's when I'm really happy to
be here I always love talking about my
journey and sharing with people
fantastic well you want to maybe just
start start with that maybe sure people
a little bit about yourself I know that
you have a corporate background you had
the nine-to-five job and now you
transition to being a full-time
how you got started with Amazon and
where you're at today yeah sure so I was
a consultant for a long time actually
for a large accounting consulting firm
Ernst and Young did that for probably
you know five years then I decided to go
out on my own and do consulting as well
and I love this it was really cool
and I end up getting a long-term
contract with a telecom company and I
was literally consulting there for about
12 years so it's kind of dating you know
dating someone for 12 years and they
kept wondering hey ever going to come on
time you know come on full-time with us
and so back in 2012 I love the team I
was working with there I felt like an
employee and I just decided to make the
jump and say you know what let's do this
I become a team player I wanted to
really become a part of their their
company and their network there so I
became a full-time employee in early
2012 been doing the same job actually a
finance director there for many years
before that in a consoling you know kind
of temporary job that was almost
full-time but then I decided to you know
become the actual employee with my own
desk and you know two weeks vacation
thing and then the funny thing was
Stefan is that the moment that I I took
that full-time job even though the work
was the same it felt much differently
you know Here I am now I'm a company guy
and I'm you know working everyday for
the same you know same company making
them money luckily had some great people
around me I mean they kept me going I
love the team that I had working with me
but almost immediately in 2012 after
taking that new position with them the
full time line I started thinking about
where I was going with my life this
wasn't fulfilled you know I had a good
job my family was happy I was but I was
working a lot putting in two really long
hours I didn't have you know a ton of
vacation did have a lot of freedom
really a lot of responsibilities so it
was it was pretty interesting
I remember later in that year and I was
really starting to think heavily about
what it was I wanted to do with my life
you know it's kind of funny in my 40s
that point in time and trying to figure
out what I want to do when I grow up and
within I don't know a few weeks of that
a friend of mine afforded me an email
and in the email it had the name of the
course you know I both took the amazing
selling machine and I thought the name
was the cheesiest name I've ever heard
was afraid to show to my wife because
actually were just thinking soon so
something made up but I actually watched
the video for it and I got hooked
because the business model they talked
about made perfect sense it was yeah you
know why sell other people's products
want to start your own brand and then it
talked about the profit potential talk
to local freedom talked about pretty
much how you can automate the entire
business which that really appealed to
me being able to do something that freed
up my time and allowed me to do more
things so I ended up watching you know
all the videos and signing up for the
training and I have never looked back so
I literally signed up then in March of
2013 launched a very first product I
partnered up with my brother he's not my
business partner one of my best friends
and we worked great together we launched
our first product I think June 2nd of
2013 and made our first sale and by the
end of the year I was putting my notes
with my job so it was it was really cool
to be able to do that in such a short
amount of time so less than a year after
starting my own business
I was able to quit and do this full-time
Wow
that's amazing and we're you guys that
today I love to hear you know since you
started to launch that first product you
know that obviously was a success did
you from there launch a second product
at third I know you went into even if
they create your own e-commerce store as
well and we share what's big when I was
there yeah so that that first year we
had two main products so we launched two
separate brands as a matter of fact we
wanted to try things in two different
categories because we just didn't know
which one was going to work the best
then it both taken off you know there it
wasn't anything overnight wasn't like we
launched it made a hundred sales on a
day it was one of those things stuff and
we're we launched it and started making
a few sales here and there and then
every day you're making sales and every
week you're missing more and more it was
a really nice slow but rather fast for
any have a real business growth and we
had a million dollars in sales and
revenue for our very first full year
which you know any small business owner
I tell you that's been pretty incredible
to hit and then from there one of the
things we really tried to do in the past
year and at the two years because we
want to run things like a real business
we want to spread out our risk we want
to bring in multiple income streams we
started selling overseas last year now
so we're in Amazon Europe we're not
doing a ton over there right now let's
kind of test just throw things up and
see what happens
and it's amazing once you focus on
product quality and having a good
listening and good images how things can
take off organically by themselves and
we're seeing that so that shows me
potential for Europe it's now we're
actively moving to pursue more over
there we have multiple businesses now so
we have probably six different brands
that we sell and in order to do that you
know after the first couple years we
started launching separate businesses to
manage some of those brands because one
of things worth thinking about is the
end game and if you're ever looking to
cash out and sell one of those assets
it's much easier to have one brand under
one seller account so we sort of think
about that and again started launching
different brands and their different
seller accounts and businesses as well
with full open you know with Amazon's
approval because you need to do that
whenever you do that but we always start
a new corporation a new LLC and it makes
it
simple you know you're doing they're
totally fine with that so now we're
doing set just under three million and
it's spread across probably six to seven
different income streams you know we
have multiple seller central accounts
we're a vendor as well - and I forgot to
mention that that Anna's on came to us
in 2014 and one to buy wholesale so that
was really an eye-opening experience I
had no idea what I was doing you know
someone tells you you know give us your
catalog and I'm thinking my catalog at
this point in time is when three
products but you know it was a really
cool experience we got some good vendor
managers probably about three of them
we've kind of worked through the years
Amazon really does want to work with you
and want to make it a win-win situation
and I look at our vendor program as a
completely new revenue stream separate
from our seller accounts just like I
look at our e-commerce sites those are
separate income streams I look at our
European business as a separate income
stream we plan on launching in Canada
and maybe Mexico which I'll look at
separate at separate and concerns as
well and then another part of the
business that we started getting into
which I suggest anyone does they get a
chance selling directly that other
businesses and maybe even government
entities it's something a lot of people
overlook but we had companies reaching
out to us it was Mike with a company
last year in Illinois a large
corporation based here they had heard
about our products we just bought one of
our products you know online did like it
so much that they bought it as a gift
for all their employees so that was like
a huge you know I don't know how many
hundreds of products were sold on one
sales directly to the business know
Amazon fees you know no fulfillment fee
is there anything in that opened our
eyes to like well here's a whole
different additional business model so
as you can tell I love creating
different businesses and constraints all
based around our original brand but
couldn't do any of that if I didn't
focus on making these brands as good as
they are getting written fans and making
sure the quality is always there well
it's amazing
well congratulations man it's a tent
amazing story thank you for sharing that
and I think you know one thing you
mentioned is I think a lot of people did
is focus on Amazon as the potential but
as they're saying the potential so much
greater the potential is that you can
use Amazon but that you can also get
into retail you can all
we'll get into your own website and your
own brand that has multiple income
streams and potentially even selling it
and you know what you know what do you
see as a potential it obviously you've
been in this business for a few years
now and you know you see the potential
building it to a ten million dollar your
business and then selling it or you know
how big can it go and you know what is
the potential for some of this watching
this that is looking at this as a viable
opportunity for them yet my goal is to
take these businesses and sell them off
one at a time the way I want for me
during that and there's you know there's
no right or wrong way to do this I would
like to have something else kind of in
the hopper generating cash flow that
while I fell into the business which is
part of our whole business model of
creating these separate entities so we
can sell them off and so of other ones
that we're building and generating cash
flow at the same time I would think that
once you get a business that really is
producing anywhere between 500,000 and a
million a year in revenue you have a
business that's primed for sale that's
the perfect size to go out there a lot
of people that what one of the reasons
would be to get it too big I kind of
think that you may have like a little
bit of risk built up into one cash flow
stream and so I like to kind of chunk
them out smaller and at that point
there's still a lot of room to grow and
a buyer is going to see that potential
and revenue growth and that's why that's
kind of for me that's the perfect model
I'm looking at and then half a million 1
million sell that and move on to the
next one and that's we're looking at
starting to do the end of this year it's
amazing so I know for a lot of people
that might be watching this brand new it
got a 9 to 5 job I don't know for you
when you had your job these are envision
this or for you where you just like me
it like it often times when you say you
throw big numbers for a lot of people
just ordered a reality and they're more
of immediate short-term goal it says I
want to put my job right I don't make
enough to pay my bills so how did you
did you kind of dream this big when you
got into this when you saw you know SM
the email that you got or with you
we just primarily just focused on
getting to a certain point and then this
kind of expanded for you you know you
mentioned visualization and that was a
huge part of why I believe I was
successful to start off I remember the
moment that I made the decision that I
was going to create something myself and
I took that first step I felt like
I already had accomplished it you know I
actually imagined okay I'm getting up
this morning and I'm not going to my
corporate job I'm going to go down to my
office right here and work for myself
and when you do that it's amazing how
those things start you know happening
more cooking for you but on that note I
didn't imagine we get this vide did
probably because I was worried about it
I didn't need it to be this big you know
talk about what clinic successes we have
I don't always think of success as being
in like financial or dollar terms it's
more of lifestyle my success that I look
at if my number one was being able to
quit my job that's for more time family
and it's tied to the money but that's
not what I visualized first and when I
accomplished that that's when I started
thinking bigger
after I actually quit my job and realize
what what the potential is here then I
opened up my mind and there the
possibilities that are out there yeah so
for someone let's say that's watching
this and maybe they don't have the
aspiration to build it into a business
of the other size for someone that maybe
just wants to make a couple of extra
thousand bucks on the chat or if you
have to quit their job you feel that's a
pretty achievable goal for a lot of
people that may be that all they want
they just want to travel and go to
Thailand or whatever that is and just
have this business that supports a
certain lifestyle
it's absolutely achievable I think that
sometimes and you've been on this
journey along with this to Stefan I
think now we've seen all these like huge
success stories we sometimes forget
about what how it felt that first time
you made 5,000 dollars in sales one
month or even maybe 10,000 that was an
amazing milestone I remember it was the
fall of 2013 when we hit that and I was
ecstatic and we had you know with so
many people in our community supporting
one another and as other people are
hitting that we just realized that that
was a life-changing goal you know making
that much in revenue pulling in just an
extra couple thousand dollars in you
know extra income that you didn't have
before that's you know house payments
car payments vacations for your family
get you if your kids college education
you've put money aside for it absolutely
I know of people who are hitting numbers
like that and I use they're actually a
lot more relaxed than I am because you
know they're there that's their goal
that's what they want they hit their
numbers
it's much easy much easier to maintain
that if you really know exactly what you
want and you don't have to worry but you
don't got to play keeping up the Joneses
if you do you if you want to absolutely
go out there the potentials there but
for someone who just wanted to change
their life and maintain measurable
change in it that's something very
achievable in a very short amount of
time that's great
um I want to ask you know obviously it
was all changed since probably when you
started you know Amazon though is
changing they're always growing and
oftentimes it kind of brings up I get
this question all the time I want to
hear your answer to it where people say
well you know that's great for Mike but
Mike started you know back when it
wasn't as competitive as what it is
today or today there's no no more
opportunities on Amazon or it's too
saturated
I have usually my response to that which
I can even add but what's your response
to it my first initial smell is
absolutely not I mean I can see where
people are coming from when they think
that and they're probably hearing that
and you know and probably sang it in
their own mind they hear some little
faith and they're thinking it and
they're making that true it's absolutely
not too competitive there's lots of
reasons for that too if I look back to
maybe early 2016
yeah there were a lot of people out
there throwing all kinds of products up
on Amazon doing all kinds of shady
tactics we had you know counterfeit
cells and everything and it was a little
scary thing that happening but Amazon
immediately reacted I mean Amazon
themselves saw the potential for their
business to fail and they've taken steps
to do that they have you know pretty
much gotten rid of so many shady tactics
that are out there they're coming down
hard on counterfeiters they're making
sure that the review system is the most
trusted in the industry and all those
things are great for this business and I
mean you know it's sellers I've heard
some people complain about that but look
what Amazon's members are doing they're
hitting 135 billion dollars in revenue
last year and they're going to do more
next year and the next year those
changes are helping their business which
helps sell us like us
so they're helping get rid of that what
I like to think of as the shady
competition that we may have seen out
there they're cleaning house and that's
opening up opportunity for us the other
thing is that you know you just look at
the overall market potential
it's huge we having scratched the
surface
as far as denting retail sales I mean so
many people still go to brick-and-mortar
stores and buy products but that number
is on the decline and online sales is
going up and that is going to continue
now for the foreseeable future
so as long as it happened and as long as
you know what you're doing you focus on
building a good brand and having quality
products the market that everything's in
your favor that the opportunities out
there for you to grow thrive any
business regardless what we think the
competition's like yeah no I agree and I
have you been seeing you know Walmart's
starting to close down and Target in my
eight my areas because it's just way
more convenient to buy online and more
and more especially the under generation
or brought up buying stuff online and
it's you know Amazon's know innovating
in a lot of cool ways and the drone
system that they're doing it has just
amazing things but I think you know the
difference also and you kind of alluded
to this is one thing I like about
amazing cell machine is that we
literally emphasize building a brand and
that's what's going to give you a
long-term sustainable business and I
think that if someone's looking at this
as an opportunity just to get rich quick
I'm going to throw up a product and you
know to get some reviews in this way
that's not going to last and if you're
looking at it from that perspective and
yeah it probably is a little bit too
competitive or it is hard to do it that
way but if you're actually committed to
this you're actually committed to
creating a quality product and a quality
brand and adding value to people and and
improving your product and building a
customer base and actually marketing it
put in the work then potential of what
you've built in what many other people
built is definitely possible so I feel
that the opportunity is amazing and it
exists but you gotta understand this is
a business right it's not just a button
that you press that's going to make you
some money and oftentimes those ways of
making money they don't last that you
know that people make money for a little
while but it's not something you can
quit your job off of and it's not a
business that you're proud of it is
really adding value to the world so you
know let me share a quick example of
exactly you're you can hit on the head
and share example exactly we're talking
about one of our earlier brand
that took off really well in the
beginning and was doing great and then
we got slam of competition and it still
did well but we're like yeah you know
what maybe it's not the one we want to
focus on we're trying to grow into four
or five more brands let's kind of set
aside our focus at that point in time is
just my brother and I so we set it aside
and it said you know let's just you know
we've worked hard building a great
product for a packaging great email
context he consists for our customers we
thought it was great but it just didn't
make sense for us to folks on that
compared to everything else we set it
aside a year ago and said we'll just
kind of let it go on its own well lo and
behold you know in the past three or
four months that brand thought any focus
on us is taking off because we focus on
the fundamentals we just make sure we
have the best product best customer care
and communication and even thought focus
on if you get those core to that
foundation set up things like that can
easily happen if you follow exactly what
you're talking about Stefan yeah let me
hear your thoughts on this you know I I
for my experience I think a lot of
people they they focus on Amazon but
they just expect Amazon to do everything
for them so they Amazon great because
they're a search engine and they've got
Amazon PPC and you know there's already
a lot of people that are buying on
Amazon so they just focus that if I put
up the product get some reviews and
Amazon will do everything else right
believe what Amazon wants you to do is
they want you to utilize all the
internet you know Facebook and Instagram
and YouTube you know Google and SEO and
blogging and you know basically attract
people and then funnel that to your
product and when you do that you have
more of a competitive advantage because
they're not just competing with everyone
else that expects Amazon to do
everything for you but you're actually
getting traffic from all these other
places that are going to your product
page they're buying your product and you
end up ranking better on Amazon as
results and not having to worry about
competition so that's not know what I
try to encourage people to do because if
you just expect Amazon to do everything
for you they're great they will reward
you and rank you and you'll get a lot of
sales from them but also using the other
and I know ESM teaches all a number of
the ways to send traffic but doing that
stuff as well building an email list and
you know general internet marketing
because it can help your bills and
silver of your product you're absolutely
right and as a matter of fact we've seen
them Amazon does reward you for spending
more traffic to their site and I think
they were roared rewired you not just
for the quantity but for the diversity
of it as well one of our launch strategy
is involves getting just a little bit of
traffic from all different types of
sources Facebook Pinterest Google Bing
YouTube maybe Instagram it doesn't take
a lot from any one of those different
sources to really start seeing some big
changes in the way that Amazon search
ranking you if you think about it
Amazon's most valuable asset is their
part they have to value glasses I find
one to be their customer like getting a
customers in their own asset and then I
think their delivery service or
fulfillment centers in a second but when
it comes to getting a customer they
reward you anytime you bring a customer
to them and that's why I think that they
want they'll help if they see your
product is bringing a whole bunch of
people from let's say Pinterest well wow
that's great that's a whole new
potential source of customers for them
buying all different kinds of products
and they will start promoting your
product to help bring that into them
hundreds it agree okay um so for someone
um you know I know a lot of people
watching this I would love to get
started on Amazon I typically rec
recommend a course I've always
recommended amazing sell machine because
that's myself and my girlfriend's got
started with that oftentimes people want
to know what is the initial startup cost
in starting a business like this because
it does require you buying some
inventory sometimes depending on the
product and when you're sourcing from
overseas versus the United States it can
be costly or inexpensive so how much in
generally should someone expect a
stander and best to start a business
like this yeah so I'll give you three
different levels because everyone is
different you know you know resources
available to them if you truly don't
have any money at all
then it doesn't make sense to go out
there you know get a loan you know
$5,000 to try to start this business
because you'll be hamstrung but you can
get started in the Amazon or online
business for littles 50 bucks now maybe
not private leg one but you can eat you
can start practicing something called
retail arbitrage that is if you
literally no resources and you want to
see what this business life you can do
that as simple as going out and finding
unique products in your local area and
trying to sell them online and you will
make some money the way maybe build up
some experience and some resources to
ticular next level then above that after
there's two more levels so if you're
someone again who doesn't have a ton of
resources and you want to just try to do
this on your own I think you could start
off with about five hundred dollars in
inventory it's very very reasonable to
find a local domestic based supplier who
can give you that inventory for five
hundred dollars I know that may sound
like a lot of money to some people but
it's really not when you're talking
about building a brand and building a
business and as a matter of fact we're
going to have some free training coming
up where if you're able to you know get
that inventory for that amount we're
going to give you enough free training
where you can literally start a business
on your own with that amount now with
that said if you want to really
fast-track things and you want to make
sure that you have enough so that you're
not going out there buying you're buying
your inventory and then you can't spend
any money and advertisement like that I
would say five thousand it's probably
the sweet spot was and that would
include enough to get some you know
professional training and also get your
inventory and have money to spend on
doing some promotions I think that is a
spot that anyone you get that you can
definitely have a great start on
building a business I don't know of any
other businesses or franchises that can
get started for that amount of money
yeah and you know I know I know there's
definitely some products that you can
start really inexpensively with even
just to get your foot in the game
because sometimes you know like I know
for myself my first product it made a
little bit of money but it wasn't like
the big the big seller for me you know
that the first product that I launched I
kind of a little bit more conservative
with it and I just wanted to validate me
that this worked I can make some money
from make off of confidence from that
and then from there I took some of that
money I invested in a more expensive
product that had better margins I could
sell it at a higher price point but I've
seen people that have gotten started
selling products that you can get you
know a couple cents per unit from Ali
Baba and starting with a low inventory
if it's just a hundred units just to
kind of get started with it and then
go from there so I always believe
there's there's always a way to do it if
you're committed regardless of how much
money you have I think you know one
person they discussed or some of these
balloons
you know packages of balloons that they
got from China and it's pretty expensive
product and they're able to build it up
to a couple thousand bucks a month and
they didn't have much money to start
with so there's always people like that
and inside elopement you said so there's
different options regardless of the
budget and where you're at right now in
your business excellent great and don't
ask you know I've always believed in
training I always believed that if you
want to learn something don't try to
reinvent the wheel don't I see a lot of
people I think that try to pursue
building a business on Amazon and I get
a lot of them because they try to just
kind of piece together things and learn
from a blog post or a little video how
to do how to do everything and then sure
enough what happens is they make a lot
of mistakes along the way whether
they're not following a certain criteria
during the revenue search for the
product they're going to sell they end
up losing money they end up you know
getting scammed by a supplier or the
induct you know just logistical things
with Amazon Fulfillment and you know
inventory a lot of different things and
so that that's why personally for myself
I always believe having something that
can guide you from A to Z walk you
through the steps and address some of
the potential challenges and concerns
along the way and having the community
and I know that ASM provides that but I
guess my question for you is do you
think number one this is something that
you could have done on their own without
something like the amazing selling
machine and created a lot of success
that you'd be able to built in the time
frame and what you know why do you think
that a training program is important
like why what do you think is I know you
are part of training a lot of people now
and you've seen the people that have
done it with it without it like why do
you feel that it's important for other
people to learn from someone else that's
already done well I think there's
probably a couple of really good answers
there and I absolutely don't think that
I've gotten to the level that I'm at
with
any training I know that I would have
made a few mistakes a few costly
mistakes and it's amazing how if you
think about it just being able to you
know get to that next level a month
earlier can easily cover the cost of any
kind of training people forget to
realize that sometimes that it's not so
much that can you get there on your own
is can you get there quicker and look at
the potential that you'll be making by
getting there you know that much sooner
it's just like compounding interest the
sooner you get there then you are
exponentially increasing how big you can
get how quickly can get there so I don't
think I could have gotten there I
probably could have you know piece
together some things and made some money
on the side on my own I think I could
have meant but I don't think I could
have gotten to where I am without the
training but even more important than
the training I know I couldn't gotten
here without the networking in the
people the support you get is you know
from getting around the like-minded
group of entrepreneurs and people
wanting to better their lives
unbelievable
like I was telling you that first that
first fall 2013 when people really
starting to hit their groove and
starting to make some nice numbers
hitting like 5,000 a revenue month and
10,000 then you know someone hitting
25,000 it was inspiring and
inspirational and addictive just to see
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