[00:00:00] Welcome to the Professor’s Podcast, where we discuss the best strategies to massively improve the reach and bottom line of your business in the current virtual and economic landscape. Your host, Howard Thai generates over $5 billion for his clients annually using innovative tactics, both on and off Amazon.

[00:00:21] Hey everyone, welcome to the Professors Podcast.  As usual, I'm your host, Hurricane Liz, and I'm really fired up about today and I've got Howie with me, who's the man, the myth, the legend. He really did his very best to get these two underground guys on this actual podcast. So you do not want to miss it. At the end of this, we will be talking about Howie’s second ever annual PPE Professor's Pandemic Event, where we cover all the top strategies, tactics, and things that the underground sellers are doing to succeed in an Amazon in 2020 and beyond.

[00:00:50] But Howie let's first talk about how did you manage to wrangle up this, right now, it's the dynamic duo, but there is a team of three that we actually have. You want to tell the audience a little bit more about who these guys are and what you had to do to actually get them to come on this? Because like I said, they were truly underground.

[00:01:05] One of them actually won our very first ever smartest marketer contest. He absolutely crushed the competition. He dominated on the voting and you were skillful enough to get them wrangled up, get them up at 8:00 AM where he's at and to be on this actual podcast. You want to tell everybody how you managed to do that?

[00:01:25] What did you actually bribe these guys to get on here? Actually, it was actually, I, it wasn't that easy to get them on. I've been asking them to get on for a while now, but there've been very busy doing their, you know, not side, but the main, main, main thing is Amazon selling. Right. So they're very busy and a lot of people like them when they're so busy, they don't really have time for sharing their secrets out to the public or to our members of the mastermind.

[00:01:55] So it was hard. And right now it's like at eight o'clock in the morning for them, I  believe. Right Jeremy? Yeah. 8:00 AM. I think, I think your bandwidth is low or something. I can't really see or. Yeah, we can go back and buy. We absolutely have to get Patrick's hair on this because for the audience out there, if you guys don't want man crush on Patrick's hair, you cannot talk to him,

[00:02:25] stop talking about his hair. And it is, it is very majestic. You guys gotta see this, so hopefully we can get a view. We'll see this much. This podcast is going to be a little bit more unconventional than the usual ones that we have. Because as I said, this is, I can't even believe myself that Howie got these two guys on here.

[00:02:41] So I'm pretty excited about it. Howie are you ready to get this started? That way we can let these guys get back to running their extremely successful Amazon businesses. Let's do it. Awesome. Alright. So I guess we can just the tag team this, and I know there's a lot of dirty bastards out there. They're going to be seeing like, Liz, what are you talking about?

[00:02:57] Tag team. This is a family show. So if it's not that kind of team, but Jeremy or Patrick, whichever one of you wants to answer whichever question, just, you know, take the question and roll with it. Obviously, this is the usual question that I asked most people. I feel like almost, I don't need to ask him for you.

[00:03:13] I should ask you a little bit more like what exactly did Howie promise you to get you on this actual podcast. But instead of that, let's just ask you the usual question. Pretend that you guys, the first time have met Howie, you're on an elevator and you have two minutes at your, you guys are pretty spectacular, which as I said already, you don't really need to explain that, but tell us a little bit more about.

[00:03:35] Well, who you guys are and what you've done that got you to this level where, Howie literally has to bribe you to get on his podcast. I think it's just, there is no trick. Yeah. Well, to be honest, it's like the work ethic we grew up in a Midwest. Like I grew up on a farm, so like, I had to work, get up at like 6:00 AM milk cows and I do it yeah.

[00:04:01] Twice a day. And I just, we're just kind of grinders and we just kind of figured it out and we don't really stop until we do figure it out or until like, we're the best. So we're both really competitive. We work our asses off and we, like, we just don't deal with, we just kind of like just get down to it and overcome hurdles.

[00:04:25] And that's all we've been doing since we started like eight years ago. It's pretty much just overcoming hurdles and figuring out, you know, like how to fix this or how to solve that problem or how to outsell, you know, the top people. And we just still, we still don't know, we still know what we're doing everyday, but we just kind of wake up and just, just work, you know, and it's kind of opposite and it's not right or wrong, but we like everyone else is out there trying to make their lives easier and automate everything.

[00:04:55] And we're just like, we just get down there and grind. And I think that's what it kind of separates us is. Which it kind of wears on us too, which is why we kinda ended up getting at each other's throat a lot. But, uh, we're not looking to make our lives easier. We kind of want to just, like I said, get to the bottom of everything, figure it out ourselves.

[00:05:16] I mean, eventually sell this puppy and ride off into the sunset. That's kind of our goal. I think the main thing is like, we're not even computer guys. I mean, I got a computer degree, but I didn't start using a period. So I was like 20 years old. So we just, like, we don't really know that much, you know, about coding or like doing PPC.

[00:05:37] I mean, I'm really good at PPC now, but like it was all self taught. So I think a lot of people just like to talk about what they're going to do and talk about what they're doing, but they don't do it. And we're just kind of doers. I think that's what separates us.

[00:05:56] So I mean, the reason why I really are  very, I feel like they're very different than any other one other people out there, because there are only three people that, uh, are in the company and they're actually, um, doing all the crazy marketing and all the logistics and all the counting, just those three.

[00:06:16] And they're going towards their $35 million mark. So it's kind of like a sense and if you divided by 35 million divided by three, that's like almost 12 million, each 50 million. Like, I mean, we better hit a hundred million next year. I mean, we had a lot of, so that's a low number, so maybe 50 million this year.

[00:06:39] And then, but I, I really do think, I really think that they're very. One of those few people that would grind, even though it was like a day and night, what were there at a certain category where it's kind of like a, you have to grind through it because it's very competitive. There's a lot of people that hate picking people down or, you know, like it's really ruthless in that category.

[00:07:04] So it's really impressive to me that they can still be grinding and still lasting and still increasing in sales. With all that side noise that's coming at them and I'm sure it's a, it takes a toll on you guys too, right? Oh yeah. Well, you remember, definitely remember what was it like a year and a half ago, Howie, when they had the hemp Wars or whatever?

[00:07:28] Like how many times, like we went down and like we said, and recovered from that, but yeah, I think most people would have packed it in, I mean, we thought about it a lot of times. But I still don't know how about every other month we still think about it. I don't know how we made it through that, to be honest.

[00:07:49] I mean, they're probably one of the top sellers and all the, a lot of the nichey stuff out there for a couple of months. So I also want to ask in Amazon. Okay. There's anything for both of you guys. So in on Amazon, what kind of, what do you feel like you're an expert in regarding Amazon? PPC. Jeremy, Jeremy is probably the best in the world at getting seller support to actually like do stuff for you and like fix stuff.

[00:08:22] So, I mean, cause it doesn't matter how much PPC and our like how to optimize listings, rank, whatever, if it goes down, you can't sell. So it's like. You know, it's basically dealing with seller support 24/7 at sometimes like during a launch or, you know, late at night, he's on the phone quite a bit, but he's figured out how to like, basically train those robots to do certain things.

[00:08:54] And I don't know how he does it, but yeah. I mean, that's like a huge asset and, uh, him doing that and me doing like PPC. I think that's pretty much what makes it tick like this whole business and then Lindsey in there, making sure we're profitable and basically side checking what Patrick does. Getting done his ass and then those two get into fights and that's kind of our daily routine.

[00:09:21] You know? How do you what are the, how do you guys like manage to still maintain a friendship? Cause I know I was talking to you Jeremy earlier, and you said you've been friends.  We’re not trying.

[00:09:34] Talk to me. No, it's actually a kind of difficult. I can let you finish the question, but I think I know where you're going with it. No. Yeah. I was exactly where it's going with. And you know, this is completely kind of off topic. We'll get off the topic of the friendship. You know, you guys, aren't friends, you know, it doesn't matter.

[00:09:52] It's working out, whatever you're doing is working, but coming up to the event, have you guys had any conversation with Howie whatsoever? Have you thought about what you can actually talk about? I know you guys are grinders and you just get in there and do work, but I thought about anything that you talk about to the audience that you feel would truly help them and their businesses.

[00:10:12] Not really, I don't really have anything that anyone want anymore. I mean, I can probably tell people how to, I mean, I don't have to do pretty much everything on Amazon, but it's just being organized and like I've known system, you know, but I guess what the ads, my PPC mainly I could talk about that all day long and.

[00:10:37] How I, you know, set up different groups, target certain words based off frequently bought together random like that. And I mean, how I manage it, I think it's probably way different than other people, like the day to day. And then we don't, like, I don't want to give is about how much we spend. So, I mean, I'll spend a hundred thousand dollars a day just to test stuff or figure something out.

[00:11:04] So I think that's pretty much what separates us. A lot of people are really concerned about margins and making sure that profit, like I'm more concerned about like the bigger picture now, what's it gonna take to get, you know, six figures a month on a product? So we'll go six steps backwards to go forward barrier.

[00:11:29] It's probably the gap gambling mentality we have, I guess. Yeah. That's definitely different than what most sellers do have, let me ask you guys this question. I know like Patrick, you said you could do pretty much anything on Amazon. You're that good? And Jeremy obviously has an incredible skillset. And then plus Lindsey, she kind of like handles you guys.

[00:11:46] She's like your handler, but what other platforms other than Amazon, have you focused on or have you just ignored that altogether? Actually just started going other avenues, which is crazy. Um, well we did Walmart a couple of years back. We did a website. Yeah. The website lost like a hundred thousand. I don't know.

[00:12:10] Like every time we try to do something else, it's just, I don't think we put enough time and energy into it or what it is, but it doesn't work out. So Amazon's always way more profitable and we can. No, it was pretty much a lunch, whatever we want. So you just kind of stick with Amazon. So with that being said, we are starting to go back to Walmart.

[00:12:32] We are going to start running some, some Google ads to our site, but nothing of any substance right now. So I'm like, Patrick is like, can you let me know, like for dude through going through the COVID. COVID what kind of problems do you see? A lot of the sellers are had during the day inventory is like the biggest problem, even though I say you can only send in certain, you know, amount of inventory.

[00:13:05] So you got to use like certain programs to get it on a system like packet, so to speak. I mean, there's a ton of the disease claims because of all these industries are going down because the disease claims getting around those. Yeah. Then I told you how, like I was getting, I got that code, that account to that, a program manager.

[00:13:25] And that's just spin up show. I mean, yeah, we can sell COVID products, but something's wrong with the account every day. So Amazon doesn't, they don't have it figured out. They're like, Flying by the seat of their pants, all of it. So that, that's another problem that they're trying to grow or capitalize on it, but they're not ready.

[00:13:47] So, I mean, they're just, they're making more problems than what there needs to be. I know during the covert time you kinda kinda did some things that actually created a  lot of opportunity on your side. Can you talk about the opportunities that you see the sellers have in 2020.

[00:14:10] Well, I mean, I basically didn't sleep for a bit. Jeremy and Lindsey are working like 20 hour days and all I did, like I would check Brand analytics, like once a day to see what keywords were like going off. And then we hit up our supplier and like go make 20,000 units. And we just did FBM and he was so quick

[00:14:35] And the turnaround, like we. We killed it. So I was just certain looking at brand analytics, looking at the top runner keywords, and then, you know, they're helping the supplier, but the orders in and like, that's all we did for 3 months. I mean, it was. That's that's pretty much why we were at each other's throats because of that time period, but we made a lot of money.

[00:14:57] So I guess we can't complain. I remember you said something about over a one day, what's the highest yeah, we get a million, we get a million, one day and it's crazy. Oh, well then yeah. And then we made a, we had like a six million dollar check and Amazon held it. So we had a. Start a blog on their forum and they get it ranked to the top.

[00:15:23] So like they would see that, you know, we were pissed or like basically it was bad publicity for them. So then they finally released our funds, but they don't want us to shut us down. Cause like connect before anything. I remember that I was like all of a sudden going into the forum and I saw your, uh, your name, the company name.

[00:15:41] Yeah. Hey guys. Yeah. I mean, so I have a tip, if you ever want Amazon to do something, get your, uh, your posts on the forum ranked to the top, like is their attention. Yeah. They held our check for velocity bike for, I think six weeks. And our burn rate was about a hundred thousand dollars a day. So that kind of went quick.

[00:16:05] And finally we got, I mean, within two hours of me posting and everyone chime in a moderator, reaches out and was like, Oh, we're going to go ahead and get this taken care of right away. And within five hours, our check was released to us. Yes. I don't remember. It's crazy that I remember what I would think of that day.

[00:16:22] I was like talking to you, like I said tomorrow, or you'll get your account back and all that. Yeah. I mean, that's when it took bear had bareheaded sit on a computer for like five hours and respond to everyone posting. Cause I, I guess that's like the trick. If you keep like commenting on everyone's posts or comments that keeps the popular, I already have it going.

[00:16:47] And that's like, that's, that was the momentum. Yeah, that's pretty crazy. I wasn't even aware of that if you did that, that would work out. But I mean, I think you guys covered quite a bit. I know time is extremely valuable. I'll before we get going, is there anything that you're looking forward to that's coming out with an Amazon, anything that you're looking forward to in terms of things that they're rolling out for sellers or anything of that nature before we say goodbye?

[00:17:11] They're rolling stuff up or sellers and things like that. Any, anything that you're looking forward to in the future? Like in 2021, maybe it's launching more products. I don't know. Maybe it's a, you said you were talking about merchant fulfilling before. Yeah. We're selling two of our accounts. We're pretty much getting out of the game. Are you guys good all together or just some of your accounts?

[00:17:40] I will have to see how it goes. We're I mean, just depends on how it goes when we try to sell and kind of play it by ear. Yeah. That's amazing. Well, hopefully all your hard work pays off. I'm pretty sure it will very near in the future. How are you any last words from you before we say goodbye to these guys?

[00:17:59] Not really, but I'm just very excited for them to come on and be able to speak on our event. Uh, I'm sure we're gonna, they're going to come up with some really good topics. Cause that's what they always do. Especially Patrick, from like last time, it was a pretty mind blowing on some of the stuff that we had for the smartest, smartest marketer in, I believe in Las Vegas, that one time.

[00:18:20] I got another ads trick for ya, buddy. Thanks so much, Patrick and Jeremy really appreciate you guys coming on here already. I'm looking forward to your ads trick Patrick. Like I told people, you blew them away with the winning the smartest marketer ever the first time. So that was a pretty amazing trick.

[00:18:36] I don't even know how you came up with that. That goes to show just how many hours you actually are putting an Amazon. But guys, if you want to hear Patrick's awesome tricks and what Jeremy does, and you definitely want to learn more about the Professor's Pandemic Event. It's the second ever one.

[00:18:50] And it might be the last one as Patrick and Jeremy mentioned, they both want to go to a live event, but to find out more about the Professor's Pandemic Event, go to howardthai.com/ppe2. The number two, other than that, Howie, any last words from you before we say goodbye here? Just wanted to say that if you guys want to really, to learn a lot more about the inner, inner inner struggles with Amazon, where people are like attacking you or if people are.

[00:19:19] And how do you talk to Amazon to get them to help you. These are the guys that would be able to help with your questions because they go through a lot of, because of how Amazon treats them, as well as the people that are competing with them, that treats them. So I really feel for them because that's something that I really, um, Deep inside.

[00:19:39] I think that they can actually benefit a lot of you guys out there that if you guys are in a competitive category and that you don't know what to do with Amazon, these are the guys that we're going to be able to help you overcome any problems. Yeah, absolutely. That could be unveiled the biggest problem that they, sometimes I was having this situation, which is Amazon, themselves.

[00:19:58] Like sometimes a lot of us complain about our competitors doing bad stuff to our actual products. But the reality is Amazon is ultimately one of the biggest evils that there is when you're doing Amazon. So it's kind of, it's kind of an interesting thing as you saw, they've had their money held by Amazon, but they just released a tactic that they used in order to get that money back, which I think is extremely beneficial.

[00:20:19] And this is just the free stuff guys and girls. So. I for one, I'm looking very forward to their talk. Again, if you want to find out more about that actual event, it's howardthai.com/pee. The number two, other than that. Thanks so much, Jeremy and Patrick, I know this was super early for you.

[00:20:35] Thank you for doing your hair, Patrick. Howard. It's very impressive. I actually liked your hair a lot too. Very, very sexy hair. Jeremy what's what's under your cap. I'm kind of curious. If bald, I got a full head, I got a forehead, your full head of hair, so awesome. But I know for one, Patrick's not get Howard's wife as all always had, when Howard tries to grow it out like yours, Patrick, she's like, Nope, that looks like he's got like a pineapple on the top of his head.

[00:21:08] He's got a cut it. Well, thank you for, I know it's early for you guys have fun in Arizona and everybody out there. Remember it's howardthai.com/ppe2. I always screw that. Not this time. It's right. You guys have a great day and thanks again, guys. All right. Thanks guys. Thank you.

[00:21:27] Thanks. Welcome to the professors podcast, where we discuss the best strategies to massively improve the reach and bottom line of your business in the current virtual and economic landscape. Your host Howard Thai generates over $5 billion for his clients annually using innovative tactics, both on and off Amazon.