Firing The Man

Revolutionizing E-Commerce: Insights from Norm Farrar on Building a Standout Brand

• Firing The Man • Season 1 • Episode 248

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Episode Summary:
What if you could revolutionize your e-commerce journey and create a brand that stands out in a crowded marketplace? This episode, featuring the incredible Norm Farrar—better known as the Beard Guy—promises to inspire seasoned entrepreneurs and newcomers alike. With decades of experience under his belt, Norm shares his remarkable path from running a promotional goods company to becoming a trailblazer in the e-commerce industry during the internet's early days. His insights reveal how saying "yes" to challenges and leveraging technology allowed him to pioneer print-on-demand services and navigate outsourcing to China and India with finesse.

Listeners will learn the crucial tactics for launching a successful product on Amazon, as Norm breaks down the importance of starting small and learning from failures. He emphasizes the power of professional product presentation, from high-quality photography to optimizing listings, and the necessity of maintaining a strong brand identity. Norm's advice highlights the value of cohesive branding in building trust and credibility, aiming to guide aspiring sellers through common pitfalls with strategic foresight and attention to detail.

The episode doesn't stop there—it also explores strategies for scaling an e-commerce brand. Norm discusses the role of community building, leveraging micro-influencers, and the potential of TikTok and other platforms to strengthen a brand's presence. Through compelling case studies, he demonstrates how strategic branding and packaging can transform a product's market position. Finally, Norm shares his insights on entrepreneurial resilience, underscoring the freedom and creativity that come with being your own boss and the perseverance needed to succeed in the dynamic e-commerce landscape. Join us for a conversation that promises to enlighten and energize your e-commerce ventures.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome everyone to the Firing the man podcast, a show for anyone who wants to be their own boss. If you sit in a cubicle every day and know you are capable of more, then join us. This show will help you build a business and grow your passive income streams in just a few short hours per day. And now your hosts, serial entrepreneurs David Shomer and Ken Wilson entrepreneurs, david Shomer and Ken Wilson.

Speaker 2:

Welcome back to another episode of Firing the man. Today, we have a truly special guest, someone who is a major player in the e-commerce space and a well-respected authority in the industry. Norm Farrar, also known as the Beard Guy, is joining us. Norm has built an impressive career as an entrepreneur, mentor and e-commerce expert, and he's helped countless businesses scale to new heights with his wealth of knowledge. He's a go-to voice for e-commerce sellers and has a deep understanding of everything from Amazon selling to brand building and so much more. We're going to dive deep into Norm's journey, explore the strategies that have made him successful and learn from his vast experience in e-commerce. Get ready for a value-packed episode. Welcome to the show, norm. Hey, it's nice to be here, absolutely so. Your entrepreneurial journey is incredibly diverse. Can you tell us how you got started in the e-commerce industry and what drew you to this industry?

Speaker 3:

It was a total fluke, so I don't want to bore you with all the details, but if you want to know really how I got started, I used to be involved with the incentive game, you know the trinkets and trash game. So we had a fairly large promotional company, mostly dealing with Fortune 500 companies, and we had one model on time every time, exactly like you ordered it, and I got known for like just delivering high quality, high perceived value and getting people to pay more for a pen or a coffee mug because it was always on time, exactly like you ordered it. And one day I was in San Jose and I had about 20 offices for this one Fortune 5 that I had to visit once in a while. They were all in a bad mood and one of the things that happened out of this was the purchasing. The VP of purchasing asked me, or I asked him, what was going on and he said all these non-contracted suppliers are driving us nuts. I said what's happening? He goes oh, they're getting paid 280 days. Nobody's telling them upfront, so they're all ticked off. And so I was thinking about this during lunch and then after lunch I said I got a solution. How about I take on the burden of your contacted non-contracted suppliers. But I get paid in 30 days. You pay me in 30 days, that's our contract, and I'll hold them over to 90 days. You give me 5% and I make a little bit extra, having the cash in bank for those 90 days. So we agreed to it and while I was doing this I was paying for this Fortune 500, like going out to the Formula One races, to the Masters, all sorts of things. I got really well known and a lot of their tech guys really loved me.

Speaker 3:

So overnight, literally overnight, we became this Fortune 500's non-contracted suppliers. We were doling with them, we were their purchasing department. So they asked me one day to come in and they wanted to know if I could take their dealer's name, put it onto a coffee mug or, you know, into a pen or a key chain. But they wanted to do this on the, in the internet. This is back in 1995-ish 1997.

Speaker 3:

It was just it was new, right. So I said yes. I had no idea what the internet really was, but I said yes and I called one of the people, one of the suppliers that I was paying for this company. They did it for us at a fraction of the price of what we were charging. They loved it. Other Fortune 500s saw us and all of a sudden we were in the e-commerce game and so like. Right after that I created a website, creative Sparks, and it was a print on demand website which was probably one out of two or three back in the 90s that were out there, and we did all sorts of branding and corporate identity business cards, envelopes, letterhead, all that stuff.

Speaker 2:

So that's how I got into the game. Wow, that's an outstanding story. And talk about getting in at the beginning. Now were you. I guess setting up websites Was Amazon or eBay? Was that even around? No, okay.

Speaker 3:

Nothing was around. So I mean, we were dealing back in the day with bulletin boards. You know the old modems that you'd hear the phone going back and forth, you'd connect to a bulletin board, going back and forth, you connect to a bulletin board. Then I can remember, when it wasn't even what it was IDSN, ISDN that wasn't even around. It was way before that. And you're watching for this one picture and you got everybody in the office gathered around because you're seeing this picture, kind of, you know, download in about five minutes. Then, if you wanted a different picture like, like I say, you were traveling somewhere oh, I want another picture. And it was the wrong picture. You have to wait five minutes again. But yeah, I was in way at the beginning and, interesting enough, not only were we in at the beginning, but we were outsourcing because of the promo company. We were outsourcing into China, but all of our graphics for the corporate identity was done in India. So everything was done. We had a contract where we said we had a lineup of what you wanted. So if you wanted a logo, okay, we could get your logo done. You can have it in 48 hours or you can have it down to three weeks.

Speaker 3:

Well, the company that we chose had about 60 artists. They'd have it to us in 24 hours. If they wanted it in 48, they'd have to pay around 3000 bucks. This is. It was expensive back then. Then, all the way down to around I think it was like $295. If they wanted to wait three weeks, oh no, it was closer to $400. So most of the people most of the people chose the second option. And the second option was a week later, so that was around $1,500. And the second option was a week later, so that was around $1,500. And the strange thing was that and that included revisions, but those cost us $60 for any length because we got them in 48 hours. It was just a beautiful. You know, it was beautiful back then, but you have to think on a dime right, Because now more competition comes in, just like Amazon.

Speaker 3:

More competition comes in Is your game over? No, you just have to pivot and change with the times. There was new technology. There was all sorts of different things that we had to be on, new types of technology to run your business, and that's exactly like when I started at Amazon 2013,. Helium 10 wasn't around. There was no PPC. You can incentivize, and I was. That's what you did. You incentivized reviews, so $10 a review. I had one soap product that had 3,000 reviews and in 2019, I had 3,000 reviews. 2019, November 2019, they all got wiped out and that was like 30 grand down the drain, but you had to pivot, yeah. Now you say, oh, you did that, and people go, oh, yeah, yeah, it certainly has changed.

Speaker 2:

It was the Wild West there for a while. And yeah, dan, I think to be successful as an Amazon seller, you have got to learn how to pivot, and so you've been involved in everything from Amazon selling to brand building and marketing. What do you think are some key pillars to creating a successful e-commerce brand today? Creating?

Speaker 3:

a successful e-commerce brand today. Well, one of the things I still think people don't do first of all is they don't spend enough time. They want to get something out. Well, first of all, let's go back one further. They what if things to death? So they go through a course. Let's say it's our buddy, kevin King and he's got the Freedom Ticket and now they go through it. Then they sit on it and they try to find their product. They try to get their product research done and they get it done, but they don't know if it's good enough and so they never launch.

Speaker 3:

That's number one. Too much, you know. It's just not being decisive. Go do something small. If you launch something small, all you're doing is paying your Amazon tax. Anyways. Everybody does Like that first product that you shoot out there.

Speaker 3:

You're going to lose somewhere. You're going to be able to figure out ways that you could have saved money. So fail and fail quickly, and then get to your next product. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but chances are you're not going to have a perfect launch. And the other thing is that when you do put up your listing, that you try to do everything on the cheap. So you try to do like I remember back in the day when I 2013, I was putting up my product. I put up my product in the backyard, put a background and did my own photography. Can't do that anymore. You know it's not going to happen, but you know photography is important. Videos, you know videos are important for a listing. That's where you're going to get the engagement. That's where you're going to have longer time spent on your listing. Just aesthetically it's better.

Speaker 3:

The optimization you can't do still see people just trying to stuff whatever they can in their titles and it's not the way to do it. So there's a lot of things that you can do and what you're not doing. You're not doing a promo stack. You're not putting your digital coupons on. You're not doing price optimization. You're not putting your product, your documents up where you can do the product managed product document. You know, put those up. Put your compliance stuff up so people can see it. Like all of these things.

Speaker 3:

Get a few, you know, try to get a few reviews so you can join Vime and there's a lot of things you can do prior to the launch and then even the pre-launch of a product. On the first product can't really do this, but on a second product, if you've got brand registry, well, you can go in and anybody who's following you like if you have an Amazon post or anybody that's following you at all now you can blast out a promotion to them. Oh, you got a 10% off, or? Or it could be a pre-Prime Day 5% more off of your Prime Day special. These are things that a lot of people don't do and that's that pre-launch which you got to be an authority.

Speaker 3:

So if people are going to look at you Amazon if you're on Amazon, you are a micro brand. There's very few brands on there Household names, coca-cola, you know, no, you're not Coca-Cola. You can sell $100,000 a month and you are a micro brand. You're not a brand, and what that means is you're going to have heavy competition. People are going to look at you and it's just human nature. They're going to go out and they're going to see if they can find any red flags, either aesthetically or grammar mistakes, whatever's on your listing.

Speaker 3:

Then what's the first thing you do? You go to google. Okay, you know what does their website look like? Or their social media? If it's off brand or it looks kind of wonky, yeah, there's your red flags. Your trust is gone.

Speaker 3:

Now you go and you take a look at the competition. Now there's your red flags. Your trust is gone. Now you go and you take a look at the competition. Now there's this wonky and it's an. You're on the fence with wonky or you're solving problems because you're doing some research which a lot of people don't do. They look at you know their research is oh okay, let's go over to this ASIN. Oh, let's go over to this competitor. Oh yeah, go to the next. What kind of research is that? You got to dig into it and you know, using different tools nowadays you can easily do that and get better competitive analysis and solve these pain points that a lot of people are having with your competitors, and you can highlight them on your listing. So there's a bunch of different things, but branding is something that I think is something that needs to happen and that kind of ties in. So number one, if you're, what if-ing. Number two is your branding. Number three is just making sure everything on your listing lines up.

Speaker 2:

Very nice, Very nice. Now I took note of you talking about building a brand rather than just selling products. What are some common mistakes you see sellers make when it comes to brand development?

Speaker 3:

Either having their wife or spouse do it because they took an art class, or going to some cheap trying to do that on the cheap. Yes, and I like Fiverr. You could go out, you might be able to find a good designer. But the question you ask is do you know anything about corporate identity? You know? Do you know how to design? Are they like?

Speaker 3:

There's so many people that say that they can develop a logo. Okay, but what experience do you have? You know? Oh, well, you know, I, I do images on, um, uh, what is it? A mid journey, you know? Oh, I go to Leonardo Big deal. Uh, you know what is? Or what do you know about business? I want to know, like, uh, like, the whole concept behind the brand. It's not just the logo or the tagline, it's putting it all together and it's not a simple process, like, if you're going to go and you're going to charge, get $5 or $50 or $100 or $295. You're going to get what you paid for. If you're looking for this to be some sort of legacy, or if you're going to exit at some point, you probably want to think about spending a little bit of money on your brand. What does it mean? What are the colors, what's your brand story, and really put some thought into it, rather than thinking on the fly when you're building out your A-plus page.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. You know one thing that I am curious if you have any good examples of this. But I'm curious if you have any brands that you know do this really well. And the reason I ask is oftentimes when I'm working with a contractor, for instance on infographics, I'll often point them to Anchor. I think Anchor does an outstanding job with infographics and so I'll say you know, I want it to. You know kind of look like this, and so what would be if someone's looking for inspiration on a brand that does it really well? Do you have any brands to look to?

Speaker 3:

You know, you could probably go to one of the coffee companies like Rifle or Bulletproof. I know that they've done it really well in the past. I know that there's a non-alcoholic spirit, that their A-plus page in their store is fantastic. It's called Damrec and I think they do a great job with their colors, even the thought that they put into it. So if you take a look, there's a lot of oranges and blues, but they have.

Speaker 3:

What do people want with their mocktails? They want to stand out. They want to feel like they're having a drink. I don't drink, so I don't want to have a water at a party. I don't want to have just another Coke Zero or Diet Coke. I want to kind of have something different. So this was perfect. When I saw it, I went this is cool. They have recipes at the bottom and I tried out some of their recipes so I bought their product. Yeah, they got a sale because I bought the product, because they knew their customer, and that's the other thing.

Speaker 3:

If you don't know your demographic before you get into your brand, if you don't spend time with an avatar and some people just don't know how to put this together, but if you go to markdegrassecom, that's M-A-R-K-D-E-G-R-A-S-S-E, go under prompts. It's free. He's a branding specialist and he's got a free prompt to help people understand their avatar. This used to take me quite a long time to do and I can do this now with his very quickly. I might modify it, but I'm a branding guy.

Speaker 3:

But for anybody else, now you can start with your audience. Then, from your audience, you can even put in the chat GPT what kind of colors do you think that this audience would like? And you could start asking ChatGPT the questions. I would still try to get a branding specialist to do it and they might use ChatGPT, but their concept of using ChatGPT and what to ask is going to be different than the seller. And the other thing I can highly recommend is, if you're getting into the game and you're doing something on tennis or surfing or diving or whatever, join some groups, get the lingo down. People are going to know whether you know the subject or not, and if you know it better than the other 10 guys that haven't done the research, you'll get the sale.

Speaker 2:

Very nice, very nice. That's really good advice. You've helped many businesses scale quickly. What are some strategies or techniques that consistently prove effective for scaling in the e-commerce space?

Speaker 3:

Becoming the authority and doing the things that other people aren't doing. So, first of all, knowing the audience, understanding the optimization of the listing, not being afraid to do a pre-launch. So we're pre-launching, we're wetting the wheel, going out to influencers. You know we're content creators. That's a big thing. Right now. Content creators can really help and you don't have to spend. You know you don't have to go out to the Kardashians, you can go out. Get a lot of good micro-influencers to start spreading the word. If you have a website or a social media and you start to build that following and that community, this is probably the most important thing I'll say today and that is if you have a brand, build a community. And if you don't have that community, start building, try to get people to give you their email address, get them to, and there's nothing wrong and let me stress this there's nothing wrong with having an insert and having that drive over to a landing page. That drive over to a landing page. So many people are afraid of this. It's only if you break terms of service and by sending somebody over and either extending a warranty or having a contest or showing them a how-to video, nothing's wrong with that. And, in fact, if you use the same insert, if you're selling on Walmart retail, whatever, nothing's wrong with that, because the only time that it will be wrong is if you have a different insert for Amazon compared to the other two. Then you got a problem because that's probably asking for a review or asking to do something that is against Amazon's terms of service. But if that's something that you can, that insert can go out to all of those that I just mentioned, then it should be nothing wrong.

Speaker 3:

Now the other thing is and I love this if you were part of ASM, mike McCleary, I can remember him saying his blitz marketing. You know, when you're out there, blitz market, yeah, back then it was. You know, get onto Facebook and start, you know, throwing out a coupon. Well now, why don't you do it? On TikTok, you know, why don't you? You know TikTok shop, it's the best time, any time, to get on right now. It's been around, people are talking about it, but most Amazon sellers are completely avoiding it like the plague.

Speaker 3:

I don't understand, just like influencers. For years now we've been talking about influencers and not that many brands really use influencers, been talking about influencers and not that many brands really use influencers. But then the other thing you can do is I don't know if you know anything about this side of it or what I was preaching back in 2017 is press releases. I put out a press release Usually. I haven't done it in a while because we've got this new thing we were talking about. That's happening. But I put out a press release Usually. I haven't done it in a while because we've got this new thing we were talking about. That's happening. But I put out a press release every single day during some of my product launches and I've had to make press releases. So if you think, oh, I can't think of anything, I did this for two years for a toe fungus remover.

Speaker 3:

No press releases and writing blogs on toe fungus. I am an expert in toe fungus. Now we don't, you know, do that anymore, but uh, back back then you know we were doing that, so you can, you can figure it out, in fact, if, uh, your listeners are at all interested. I had a guide that was just for coming up with a few ideas, but 101 or 108 tips on press releases. Because if you put out a press release and it's not free, you don't want to go to those free services because they're only going to link to junk links. But if you go to a paid service that they have to pay to get onto maybe it's Reuters or Yahoo Finance or some of these outlet or content media platforms then you're going to get some notice, then you're going to get ranked on Google. Some notice. Then you're going to get ranked on Google. Now, if you go to these junk links and do it for free, small Town USA News is picking up, who cares? But if you go in your number one on Google News, people are going to notice. And in fact, this is funny.

Speaker 3:

I don't know if George wants me to tell this. I think it's okay because he gave us a testimonial, but there was a PPC company that we were working with and we had ranked them for their DSP service. It ended up ranking higher than Amazon. So if you typed in DSP even DSP, Amazon they were ranking on top of it all. White hat Amazon called them and said what are you doing? And stop. And then they gave him like free. Just hey, look, you got above us, you're doing something. This is all just press releasing content. Uh, we don't know how you did it, but we're going to enter you into our partners program because you're doing this and they they got them. He was one of the first partners Amazon ever had. So that's all through.

Speaker 3:

Press releases and content. That's what Google wants, not AI written. You can summarize it, get the information, but have a writer put together, either a press release who's a real press release writer, not a blog writer, or you could go and start writing blog articles, getting ideas from CatchyPT or wherever, but getting the final edits done with a human. Because I think what's going to happen I've talked to a couple of huge guys in the business. I think what's going to happen. I've talked to a couple of huge guys in the business and the human element. They know the algorithm knows the second you publish anything AI, the human element will be ranked or weighted better Content-wise. If it's apples to apples, the human element will be better.

Speaker 3:

So just something to think about, because I know there's a lot of companies that are just pumping out chat, gpt stuff and, by the way, I don't know if you've noticed this, you're a marketer about unlocking or unleashing, or I got you. These are all things that we have got spam filters for and just goes right into the bucket. There's just so much crap that's going out there right now and you're looking at it going okay, and all of a sudden, all these VAs that are speaking perfect English almost two, there's no more whilst or actuallys you know, which actually humanizes some of those emails that I used to get from VAs, but now they're perfect English and it's kind of going. Nope, it's just. This is just AI, it's a form letter into the trash.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, absolutely. Now I'd like to turn the corner a little bit and talk specifically Amazon. So Amazon continues to dominate the online marketplace, but many sellers are facing challenges such as competition and rising fees. How do you advise sellers to navigate these hurdles? Embrace, embrace.

Speaker 3:

No, you know what? This isn't anything different. It's more definitely more prevalent now. But and I tell this to so many people because they're worried about competition, and I tell this to so many people because they're worried about competition Well, I remember Kevin King and I.

Speaker 3:

We were in Hawaii and we were sitting on the beach this is the second time I met him and we just came from his event and he was coming to one of my events, and so we were sitting on the beach and we're talking. It turned out that we had the same product, not the Me Too product. I had a different way of selling it, he had a different way of selling it. They were both the same thing. They're bully sticks. So we sat there and we talked and we talked about all sorts of things. And this used to happen back in the day, when you'd go to a trade show and you'd go out with your friendly competitors and you'd joke and you'd drink, and you'd go out with your friendly competitors and you'd joke and you'd drink and you'd have a great time, and that was it. You're friendly competitors.

Speaker 3:

Amazon, people are so up to sleeve, can't talk about it. It's a. It's hilarious. It's the only industry that I've seen people hide, hide all their trades traits like nobody knows, everybody knows, and the more traffic, by the way. So this is what Kevin and I said okay, if I drive traffic over to bully sticks whatever bully sticks keyword you drive traffic over to bully stick keywords and we're driving a lot of traffic over, then may the best person win. You know, I embrace it.

Speaker 3:

But the other thing is that the only time you have to worry there's three levels. There's three tiers of pricing on everything that you see on Amazon. I use Dead Sea because I know this is for a fact, I've seen this. The first tier is product cannibalization. This is where new sellers go. They fall into this trap and it's mostly, I'll just say, chinese sellers. But for Dead Sea Mud it started at for 8 ounces to 16 ounces, not even $7 to $14. Then there was a few price gaps and went to the second tier. That second tier went from $24 to $44.

Speaker 3:

And these are a little bit better Aesthetically, they're better looking and most of the sales kind of fall into that. Then there's a few prices in between, but then there's the $75 to I think it was the $95 range. These are now the most expensive. The 95 is three ounces of Dead Sea Mud in a perfectly packaged product. In a perfectly packaged product, the 75 was in a better package or just a better container.

Speaker 3:

Everything about these listings were better and that's all you have to figure out is if you want to be in the tier one, two or three and then your launch strategy. And launch strategy is pretty simple. If you're in tier one and you want to get some extra sales, drop it for your initial offering. Just at the upper level of tier two. People are going to go, oh my God, because they see all these tier two pricing and they see a much better product at a much higher price, but it's on a sale. They'll start to buy that product. Or you could go in even into the mid tier. So you lose a little bit of money. But if you go, let's say, in between the 40, let's say you come out with 34 rather than 75, it's a big drop, but you think that people aren't going to look at that as value, just to get you launched, you know.

Speaker 3:

So these are all these little things that it's called perception between your logo, your name, the quality of your images, your videos, your A+, your related videos. Are you your A+, your related videos? Are you doing anything in that related video section? You can do a whole reel of educational videos, filling up the carousel, not letting your competitors fill it up. And you can have thumbnails the how-to thumbnail with your logo, the benefits of, and fill that all up and now it looks educational. It doesn't look like it's just all your competition filling up your space there and get your brand feed out there. There's all these things that you can do to have a much higher perceived value and people will hand you over If you want.

Speaker 3:

Like I know I've talked a lot about this. I can give you one quick case study. Yeah, give it. Yeah. So we had a guy come to us still one of my clients. He's a really great guy, great brand. When he gave me his product, I like put my finger in my throat. You know it was just. It was terrible.

Speaker 3:

He had this really beautiful Damascus knife and it was was in a cardboard-backed clamshell. That's just plastic. It looked like the knife. It was a $49 knife that he was selling it on Amazon for it was $16. He was making a spread, he was making a profit. But I looked at it and I went how would you like to double this? We'll lose traffic. Just let me do this, stand back, let me do my thing.

Speaker 3:

And so we gave him a new package. It was an outer package that kind of looked like an Amazon not Amazon Apple iPhone box. Then on the inside it was a rigid cardboard that had magnetic clasp. You open it up, there was a nice message. We didn't let the person see the knife. You had to unveil it, so you had to lift up the cover. And then there was this beautiful Damascus knife. Then we etched acid, etched on the knife blade with the name of the company, and we took them and we went up $10 a week to $59, $69, $79, $89, $99, $109, like all the price points, and sometimes it was more because the price point didn't make sense. We got up to $124. So now today it ranges from 99 up to 124 and it's still the same cost.

Speaker 3:

And so there's another thing to this story. We I went back, I went to the manufacturer and I went is there anything that we can do that won't bring up the cost of goods but makes it look like it's a higher perceived value? Manufacturer came back. He was yep, I have a hammered version of this knife and it's a different like. It's the different handle and we could use the logo in the rivets of the handle. And I said this looks good.

Speaker 3:

So we took pretty much the same type of container, reversed the colors, made this. It was the premium version, I forget what we called it. But now we didn't even play with the price $224. So we had the $124 and the $224, all $16 price point, wow, wow, and the $124, we didn't lose traffic. So when it was at $99 to $ 124, the traffic was roughly the same At 224,. Now you're talking about a whole different breed of seller. You know a higher end, more of a cook or a foodie that wants to buy it. And that's fine, you know. But all those were just extra sales. Now, another thing that you have to think about when you're building a brand how diversified, how wide can you go with this? And now we've got like a full set. There's 11 different knives, there's knife sharpeners, but he's got a full line of whatever he wants to sell and they're all at pretty much the high end of the second to the mid tier of the first.

Speaker 2:

Very nice, very nice. That's a really good example, great case study, and I'm definitely going to go back and re-listen to that because there was a lot of gems there. So at the beginning, before we hit record, you had some really exciting news that you shared with me. You and Kevin King two OGs in the industry, as I consider you to be are joining forces. Can you talk a little bit about that project?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, sure so the first project is another podcast called Marketing Misfits, and it's very simple. All we do is we find people who think outside of the box to succeed or somebody who's just failed and come back from that failure to succeed and what they did differently. So we got some really great people on the podcast. We've got about 20 in the can right now, so we're releasing them every Tuesday and it's just YouTube or on your favorite platform. But the other thing we got going and I can't get into all of it right now, but we just announced it in my WhatsApp group Kevin and I have a new company. We've been working on this for a year and a half. We really got down to it, I think, in July and it's this company.

Speaker 3:

The overall company has five different business silos, but one of the main silos it's the taking your brand, Like it doesn't matter if you're a smaller brand or if you're just a huge household name, but to optimize your sales.

Speaker 3:

But from A to Z, like white glove, concierge service, including, like SOPs, everything to prepare you for the exit and the other part of it. We call it a send and we go. We find industry not just Amazon, but e-commerce, social media, just entrepreneurs and we give them 10 minute video slots in a specific formula. They can do more. Like we've got one guy that's doing five right now and once we hit we're not sure exactly how many 50 or a hundred we'll start releasing them, but right now we're just putting exactly how many 50 or 100 we'll start releasing them, but right now we're just putting it in a repository and then we're going to be releasing that on youtube very cool, very cool and uh, if you have, uh, we will post links to all of that content in the show notes and should be ready to go uh by the time this releases.

Speaker 2:

Hopefully, so.

Speaker 3:

I got to also mention I got to be a little bit selfish Once with Norm podcast, you know, if you ever wanted to listen to that, it's Wednesdays at noon and I think I got a pretty good newsletter and I'm looking for subscribers. So LWNnews and you know, subscribe. It's a little bit different than most newsletters. It's about personal stories that I've gone through and then I twist it and turn it into a business lesson.

Speaker 2:

Very nice, Very nice. We will also post links to that in the show notes as we wrap up the episode. We have a section of the show called the fire round. It's four rapid fire questions that we ask every guest Are you ready for the fire round?

Speaker 3:

One sip of coffee, I will be All right. Oh God this. I hate this stuff, Okay.

Speaker 2:

What is your favorite book?

Speaker 3:

E -Myth that's. That is the book that changed my life.

Speaker 2:

Very nice. What are your hobbies?

Speaker 3:

Work. I pretty much do work. I oh, if anybody knows me, uh, I love cigars and I like travel.

Speaker 2:

Very nice. What is one thing you do not miss about working for the man?

Speaker 3:

I've only worked for the man a few months. I've always been my own boss, except when I was in the military. What did I? You know, making decisions. I'm very good at being creative and making decisions, and if people put blocks in my way and I know something's going to work or they're not willing to give me a second to try to prove that it's worth a good idea, that's something. And then I love being able to do my. If I want to get up at 10 o'clock and work till one in the morning, that's on me. I hate any form of time restrictions or don't tell me when to get up or when I have to be at my desk, only when I'm doing a podcast.

Speaker 2:

Very nice, very nice. And our last question what do you think sets apart successful e-commerce entrepreneurs from those who give up, fail or never get started?

Speaker 3:

There's one word Resilience. That's it. You have to be kicked between the legs and get up and just say more, please, you know.

Speaker 2:

I love it. I love it, norm. Thank you so much for being a guest on the Firing Demand podcast and looking forward to staying in touch. Hey, thank you, it's been my pleasure.

People on this episode

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David Schomer

Co-host
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Ken Wilson

Co-host