What I Learned From The Amazing Selling Machine Live Event

I have created a new and improved version of K Money Mastery which is called, Mastering Book Publishing!

I recently got back from Las Vegas, where I attended the Amazing Selling Machine live event.

The Amazing Selling Machine is an online course that teaches you step-by-step how to make money selling Amazon physical products. It remains to be one of the best internet marketing courses I've ever come across thus far, and this “Live Event” was included in the online training.

There was over 3,000 inspiring entrepreneurs in attendance. I was there with my girlfriend (who is also selling an Amazon physical product), and a few friends also. I also had a small group of entrepreneurs attend that I've been coaching on the side, as part of a special bonus I did for those that joined the program during the last release of it.

The event was 3 days and included some remarkable speakers. The most notable were Robert Kiyosaki from Rich Dad, Poor Dad and Sir Richard Branson from Virgin.

The other speakers were experts on selling Amazon products and various forms of marketing your products online. There were even “panels” where brought up to stage were Amazon sellers that are making over $250,000 per month from their Amazon business! Pretty remarkable.

I created this video blog to share some of the highlights and lessons learned with you from the event. I always want to be open and transparent on this blog, sharing the best of what I learn. It also benefits me, as it's an opportunity for me to review my notes and help you in the process.

Watch the video below:

(Click here to watch on YouTube)

[smart_track_player url=”http://www.buzzsprout.com/9299/246758-plm-117-what-i-learned-from-the-amazing-selling-machine-live-event.mp3″ ]

Do you want to become a successful Amazon seller? CLICK HERE for access to my FREE Amazon training which will help you get started!

Top Highlights And Lessons From The Event

While it's impossible for me to share EVERYTHING that went on, I will do my best to share some of the “top” things that stood out for me.

While most of the event was geared towards selling Amazon physical products, keep in mind that much of this can be applied to ANY online business.

When I attended, I had a few different hats on. I had my “Amazon physical products” hat on, where I was thinking of how I can apply this to my own Amazon physical product that I've already launched and am making money from. I had my “Kindle publishing” hat on, thinking about how I could apply this for my Kindle publishing business. I also had my “Internet Business” hat on, as well as “How I Can Help Others With This” hat on too.

Having these different perspectives was very useful for me.

The Amazon Opportunity

One of the biggest things that really drove home with me was how big of an opportunity Amazon is right now.

Amazon is growing like crazy. Their revenue has been $20 billion per quarter in 2014. They're currently growing 20% every year!

They're growing rapidly in markets outside of the United States too. For example, Amazon.jp did $7.91 billion in 2014. Amazon.de did $12 billion. Amazon.co.uk did $8.24 billion. They also recently launched in India too and are aggressively re-investing their profits back into the business to acquire new customers.

What does this mean for someone like you and I?

It means that Amazon is a MASSIVE opportunity for a “regular person” to take advantage of their platform and piggyback off of their massive growth.

ANYONE can sell their own products on Amazon, or even “private label” their own products like what is taught in the Amazing Selling Machine. Heck, I've made a fortune just selling Kindle books on Amazon.

At the event, Robert Kiyosaki spoke about how he has his own employees now start going through the Amazing Selling Machine and launch their own Amazon physical products. Robert said, “This program teaches you how to run a business in 8 weeks, which is everything that took me 8 years to learn.”

As mentioned, at the event, there's many people that are making over $250,000 per month from their Amazon business.

The cool thing is, earlier in 2014 I promoted the program and had a few of my previous coaching clients sign up, and I got to meet them at the seminar also. I had a few of them share how they are now making $50,000 per month, others $25,000 per month, and are totally kicking ass with it!

My girlfriend and a few friends of mine even had lunch with a guy who did $10,000 in his first month selling on Amazon. Very cool!

The bottom line is, selling on Amazon is where it's at right now. There's no other opportunity like it.

Amazon Physical Products Vs. Kindle Publishing

I've had people ask me, “Where do you stand with selling Amazon products versus Kindle publishing?“

My opinion has always remained the same. Here's how the two compare.

Selling Amazon physical products is a MUCH BIGGER opportunity than Kindle publishing is. You can make A LOT more money, without a doubt. I don't know many people that are making $250,000 per month from Kindle books.

However, selling Amazon physical products is a lot more challenging. There's definitely more logistics involved. There's more cost and investment on your part involved (buying your inventory for example), and it takes people on average a few months to get their first product launched.

So there's more work and money involved to get started, but the upside is the potential is much greater for getting rich.

On the other hand, Kindle publishing is MUCH EASIER and FASTER than anything I've come across in terms of making money online. While you won't become a millionaire with Kindle books (who knows… I'm sure it could be done), you can definitely make a fantastic six-figure income.

I've been able to create a six-figure passive income from Kindle books in less than a year. My brother has done in a shorter time. And I have several members that have done the same, even a few people I interviewed recently that are making up to $14,000 per month, $10,000 per month, etc… in less than a year.

When people ask, I tell people this:

If you are limited on money, start with Kindle publishing. It's faster and easier. You can literally start making money in less than a month from now. Make it your goal to make enough so that you can quit your job, which is definitely achievable in 6 months to a year (depending how much money you need to earn). Your long-term goal is to get rich and make millions of dollars, but your short time goal is to have freedom. The freedom (having no job) will then allow you to put your energy and focus into getting rich. That's how I did it and I know many people that have successfully done the same with my program.

If you have money to invest and are willing to go through a steeper learning curve, do Amazon physical products (or both with Kindle publishing). You can definitely make a lot more money.

My girlfriend is a good example of this. She is in her early 20's and has a full-time job an also attends university. She doesn't have much money at all.

She started with Kindle publishing and quickly has been able to make a couple hundred bucks per month. This is a significant income stream for someone like her, where a couple extra hundred bucks per month can make a big difference to your lifestyle. Her goal right now is to make a couple thousand per month so she can quit her job and pursue this more full-time, travel the world and build her Amazon physical products business.

A little while later, she started with Amazon physical products (we started together at the same time). This is her long-term project, where she expects it to take awhile to build up, but knows it will have a much bigger payday. It took both of us a few months to get our product launched, but they are now selling successfully.

However, she is taking the profits and investing back into it as she wants to grow it to make A LOT more money down the road with it. The Kindle books on the other hand, are the more immediate stream of income for her that can support her lifestyle.

So if you have a chance to do both, do it!

For me, starting with Kindle publishing was beneficial. It allowed me to learn a lot about how Amazon works – finding niches/keywords, keyword optimizing my listing, getting Amazon reviews, ranking my product in Amazon search, etc… I learned all of this from Kindle publishing which gave me an advantage.

Selling Your Amazon Business

Ryan Moran, a friend of mine and successful internet marketer was one of the first speakers. By the way, Ryan has an awesome blog and podcast called Freedom Fastlane (he interviewed me here), which is worth checking out.

Ryan's talk was about how was able to build up his Amazon physical products business and sell it.

He said, “You want to focus on building an asset”. He really got me thinking about how you need to approach ANY business with an end in mind. Even if you have no desire to sell it, you still need to think of it that way.

Ryan walked through a few steps in this process, but what benefitted me the most from his talk was the “3 Stages To $1 Million”.

3 Stages To $1 Million

Ryan broke down the process to 3 stages:

1. The Grind

You're in the grind if you're making less than 20 sales per day and have less than 50 Amazon reviews.

Starting out, your goal is to get out of the grind – get to those 20 sales per day and 50 Amazon reviews as quickly as possible.

2. The Growth

At this stage (I think he said about 50-100 sales per day), you want to focus on releasing as many products as you can comfortably handle. You want to start to build out your brand of related products.

For example, if you have a supplement, you'd branch out to do other supplements to build your product line.

3. The Gold

At this stage, you want to focus on gathering customer data and expand to new traffic sources.

Most people are in “The Grind”… so Ryan shared a few tips on how to get out of the grind:

Amazon Ads (Pay Per Click)
Get at least 25 Amazon reviews
Do a product launch (spike your Amazon BSR to rank for keywords)
Systematize your reviews (follow up with customers until 50 reviews)

Also, one thing Ryan shared (which is an important distinction I've made with Kindle publishing), is that ranking for your primary keyword in Amazon comes down to one big thing:

The quantity of sales coming from a keyword.

This isn't the ONLY thing that affects your products ranking on Amazon, but it's one of the biggest.

Having people search for your product using your primary keyword, then buying it, will boost your products ranking for that keyword.

This tip is golden – applicable to anyone that's reading and sells Kindle books or ANYTHING on Amazon.

Don't Work For Money, Have Money Work For You

Robert Kiyosaki was next.

If you haven't read Rich Dad, Poor Dad – do yourself a favour and read it now. It's one of the best finance books out there.

A few things Robert said that I took notes on:

The difference between a slave and a poor man is a check. You want to be on the giving side of the pay check, not on the receiving side.
Don't work for money, have money work for you.
All entrepreneurs have to sell. Selling is the most important skill of entrepreneurship.
The next level of success presents the next problem. He said, “When I got successful, I got broke, because I could not fund my success. Never think that when you're successful that you are successful, because you have new problems.”

Robert talked about a lot more. The importance of a strong team and the right people around you was one big takeaway for me. He also spoke about real estate and his strategy to quickly turn his cash into assets.

Social Media Marketing

Using social media has been a powerful tool for many Amazon sellers to grow their business.

Kirsty, one of the success stories that was being interviewed, spoke about how she built a massive Facebook fan page following and used that to launch her product.

Facebook and Pinterest are two powerful tools. Especially Facebook's ad platform too (and now Pinterest has advertising available also).

Kirsty also spoke about building a strong relationship with her customers, following up with them – customer support was something talked a lot about. She is more interested in the relationship with her customers, than just making a sale.

Ezra Firestone, another one of the speakers, spoke about how he uses Facebook to launch his product.

He uses Leadpages and he drives traffic (or even through friends) to a squeeze page. On that squeeze page, he has a video to give away his product with a coupon code. He gets them to enter their e-mail address to get the coupon code, then directs them to the Amazon product. By getting them on an e-mail list, he is then able to follow-up for the Amazon review and boost his products rankings.

Really genius stuff. I'll be doing a similar launch for my product using this strategy soon.

Tips For More Amazon Sales

They had up a panel of successful Amazon sellers up on stage to share their top strategies for getting more sales.

One tip talked about a lot was good customer service. Following up with your customers is huge, as you can give them coupon codes and get them to buy again and again. You can also get reviews from them easily too.

Differentiating yourself from your competitors was an important lesson too. You need to add more value than your competitors. Make your Amazon listing and product stand out.

Split testing new things on your Amazon listing. One person said to test 1 new thing at a time, for 1 week. Try a different title, description, images, keywords, etc… See what converts the best and stick with it.

Having a “Discount Insert”, where you offer a discount in your product packaging for their next purchase was a strategy mentioned.

Also people talked about focusing on building a BRAND.

Any Product Is Better Than No Product

There's a lot of people that buy a course and do nothing with it.

They try to make sure everything is “just perfect” and as a result, put off launching a product.

Jason Fladlien says, “Any product is better than no product.”

Just get started. Get your foot in the door.

Don't worry about being perfect. Your first product is like training wheels anyways.

Jason also shared his strategy for beating competition:

Do what they do and do everything that they don't do.

He spoke about “Active Promotion and Passive Promotion”.

Passive Promotion is where you rank your product for your keyword and Amazon sends you traffic and sales.

Active Promotion is where you go outside of Amazon, through Facebook ads, YouTube, blogging, press releases, SEO, Google Adwords, etc… to promote and sell your product.

You want to do BOTH!

However, Jason shared a killer piece of advice:

Do what you can somewhat competently do.

Don't worry about doing everything. Just do what you can somewhat competently do and then move onto the next thing.

Another thing I liked that Jason said was, “Speed of implementation is more important than technique. We can fix technique, but we can't fix slow.”

Another good quote I liked: “Commit in advance to change, adapt and modify your approach. You can't be too rigid.”

And finally, with Amazon another good reminder he explained was making sure you add your products to Amazon Wishlist. Even if it's getting your virtual assistants to do it – Amazon likes this and will rank/reward you better.

Killing Sacred Cows

Garrett Gunderson, the author of Killing Sacred Cows, was also one of the speakers at the event. Garrett talked a lot about personal finance and success.

Here's some great lessons and quotes from Garrett:

“Wealth is not the man who has it – it's the man who lives it” – Benjamin Franklin
If you want to make a lot of money, you have to find a way to reach a lot of people.
Don't borrow to consume.
Make sure to have 6 months worth of income in savings.
Invest in yourself, first and always.
Know your credit score and make sure it's over 780.
You must have a corporation, as it saves you a lot of money in taxes.
Pay yourself a dividend from your corporation – you avoid self employment tax which is around 15%.
The greatest tax shelter is to earn another dollar.
Your health is part of your wealth – take care of it.
Invest in experiences.

Lots of killer advice. He also went a lot more into the mindset and strategies of personal finance.

Sir Richard Branson's Advice

Here's some great lessons from Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin.

Create a business that solves a problem and frustration.
Partying is part of business as well, so you need to have fun.
A good leader must be a good listener. You will learn a lot more by listening.
If you don't fail occasionally then you're not pushing your limits.
Always try to protect the downside.
Look at how other businesses are running and if you can do something they are doing, do it.

There was definitely much more that I didn't take notes on, but what he had to say was very inspirational. Especially a lot of his stories!

More Awesome Lessons

There was so many more awesome lessons, strategies, tips and gold nuggets of wisdom. So much that I can't list it all unfortunately. I'm not even sure where everything came from, as all my notes in my book is somewhat scattered. But here's a few more that I'll mention:

Use the Amazing Selling Machine email tool, make sure you're following up and get them ready.
Everyone should be running Amazon ads for their products.
The more you sell, the more Amazon will do to sell your product for you.
Use Facebook groups, give discounts and coupon codes to your units.
Comment on every review and comment. Engage with your customers.
When you send traffic to your Amazon listing, they reward you by ranking you better.
Leverage other bloggers to promote your product.
Play the long game and don't fall for push button things. This is a tortoise and the hare race.
The key to success is diversity. Don't be reliant on 1 strategy.
Use shopify to build your own platform.
Use Amazon Associates links to promote your own product.
Create an article that tells a story, gives info and pre-sells your product. Then use Facebook ads to drive traffic to it.
Start using Pinterest ads – join the waiting list now, takes awhile to get approved.
You're not spending nearly enough in your business – make sure to re-invest your profits back in.
Build an asset, not income.
Always make sure you measure your marketing and the results you're getting from it.
Eliminate, automate and delegate.
Find people that can execute things in your business.
Become a better receiver.
One of the biggest mistakes people make is failing to treat their business like a real business.
“Highly successful people say ‘no' to most opportunities and ‘yes' to only ones aligned with them.” – Warren Buffett
Buy help for your business. Start off by buying at least 10 hours per month of help.
Focus on strengths, outsource and delegate weaknesses.
Be more aggressive in building your business.
Anything you do consistently, delegate.
Find the #1 driver in your business to grow revenue, spend 70% of your time on that.
Find a way to differentiate your product from the competition.

Wow!

Okay, that was a lot. Glad I got most of it now out of my notebook and posted here.

I know it'll be a lot to go through, but again, these are the biggest lessons and notes that stood out for me.

I hope this was useful for you in your own online business, whether it's Amazon products, Kindle publishing, or whatever it is that you're doing.

If you ever get a chance to join Amazing Selling Machine (whenever they launch it again) and attend the live event, it's highly worth it. One of the best, most fun seminars I've attended. Matt and Jason made it a lot of fun and highly entertaining, too!