[00:00:00] 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.

[00:00:21] Hey everyone, welcome again to the Professor’s Podcast. I'm as usual, your host. I'm Hurricane Liz and I'm an Amazon seller, longtime Amazon seller. Howie and I've been doing this for a very long time. And, we just came to meet one day and we got along really majestically. Right? Would you say that's about right, Howie, and what do you think?

[00:00:41] Well, yeah, we met a back, two years past, a while back actually, I knew that this is my girl. She could help me, help me out with what we were doing on masterminds and all the educational stuff that we're dealing with. And you know, a lot of people have asked how we met and why exactly I'm hosting your podcast and helping you do it.

[00:01:03] And well, truth be told Howie and I do host a usually four times a year. Virtual mastermind, actually, it's a live mastermind. And, this year we're going to actually have to do a virtual one thanks to Corona virus, and we typically get to talk, the elite sellers on Amazon. And I know in a previous podcast I said they make a combined 400 million

[00:01:26] A month. I actually meant a year, so I totally screwed up on that. I apologize. And sometimes you know, you just screw up on these things. There's half a billion, 500 million for that. Thank you so much. Howie saw, I see I missed a whole hundred million and let's face it. A hundred million is a lot of money.

[00:01:47] How he's acting like it's just a jump change here, but it is to the sellers in his actual mastermind. Remember, one of our speakers was doing a $650 million a year. That's insane. And that's the kind of things we do in the actual event that we had in China. We did visit that factory with that particular seller who had over 3000 employees, and one of the reasons that I'm bringing this up is because one of the differences in this online virtual mastermind as opposed to the live ones that we do hold as we're getting an elite number of underground sellers to come live for the very first time.

[00:02:24] It kind of reveal themselves and show us some of the tips and tricks and strategies that they're utilizing in their business, and we're taking it to a whole another level now. Usually when we get together, we just had one in Mexico. In Mexico, I will say the tequila came out and Howie was no stranger to that tequila.

[00:02:43] By the end of the actual mastermind, him and Don Julio were best friends. Is that correct?

[00:02:52] Yeah, the best of buds and all sorts of secrets come out when people are drinking, having a good time, and just get the chance to actually meet together and talk. However, this is going to be a little different, but I will say that zoom is still a fantastic platform and I think we're going to do a little combination of different things.

[00:03:09] But you'll still get to have one on one interaction with the actual speakers as well as the guests. So I think it's going to be a fantastic time. How about you? How it's going to be different? Because now we can reach a lot more people than what we normally do. Usually my mastermind that we do is for about 30 people in a closed room, but now a lot of people have been asking me to like, Hey Howard, why don't you do this online thing?

[00:03:36] I'm like. I’ve kind of wanted to make it more private for this occasion.

[00:03:49] Mastermind, virtual mastermind. Absolutely. And I will give you guys more details at the end of this actual podcast as to where exactly you can get more information. But today we have a completely underground guy, and in a minute here, I'm going to introduce him to you. But let me just say this, Howie has become world renowned for combing the globe and finding sellers in the dark crevices of the world that we don't even know exists, like they're really down there.

[00:04:19] The guy that we have today has been underground and he's just been crushing it with his strategies and kind of just working. In a tiny little corner in his own part of the world, minding his own business, but making a ton of money with Amazon. Howie would you want to tell us a little bit more backstory about how you met this gentleman before he, he tells us a little bit more about himself.

[00:04:40] I actually met him in another mastermind that I went to. He was actually in a corner or something like mind his own business.

[00:04:50] Someone mentioned him and then he said, Oh, you should meet this guy. You know, this guy is like the man, like he’s really big in Israel. He's from Israel, so I don't want to come, talk too much about him. I think he has a lot more to offer than what I want him to say more about what he does. Absolutely. So let me go in and introduce him a little bit more to you guys.

[00:05:16] And gals, the one or two gals that do listen to what Howard has to say. But this is none other than Shlomy Nidam. And as I said before, I become known as the butcher of Amazon for primarily butchering people's names. So Shlomy, in advance, I already apologize in case I've pronounced that incorrect, but tell me a little bit more about yourself.

[00:05:37] In fact, let's just pretend you met Howard for the very first time, and you obviously know that he's Howard Thai. He's a professor of all things he's becoming, but primarily he knows a great deal about Amazon, and you really want to impress him. You want to tell him what you're made out of, and you've got two minutes with him on an elevator.  You’re on an elevator with him in two minutes.

[00:05:59] You want to tell him who you are and why you're so special to talk at his mastermind. Great. So first, thank you very much well for having me here, and it's really a big pleasure to be with a professor, one of the biggest guy in the world in Amazon, the biggest mastermind that I know, and I know a lot of masterminds all over the world.

[00:06:21] This is definitely the first one that, the biggest one in the world. So it's really a pleasure and thank you for that, for having me here. So, I'm, I'm Shlomy, I'm living in Tel Aviv, in Israel. We have, I have a company called Nidam Communication with about 50 people with offices in Dallas, Texas and Bulgaria.

[00:06:45] Offices where it says logistics center, technical support. Every team in house, we are a team of 50 people and we are selling $40 million only on Amazon platform, $40 million a year. One year, $40 million. This is a great number, and we are growing every, every year in about 30%. That is huge number. And I think, well, I'm seeing that in the next two or three, three years.

[00:07:17] Well, more and more, and it will be more than 30% even, then year every year. And we can see that. You know, Amazon is almost 1.5 billion, billion dollar company, and I'm now a trillion dollar company, sorry. And in the next few years, I guess. They will pass the two, 2 trillion. So this is exactly the place to invest.

[00:07:48] This is the platform that people who are not selling on Amazon today. I think they're missing something. They're missing. They're missing all the technologies and how to make money in this, in this presence. So, so we are, we are doing that. This is our main business selling on Amazon. I’m going to tell you more details later on, but we are now spread in 15 shops or on 15 countries.

[00:08:18] This is almost all the countries that Amazon is selling on, except one or two countries. We are selling on all over where Amazon’s present. Of course it's America, Europe, Asia and Australia, Dubai and other. And well generating a huge, huge revenue today in very low, let's say overhead. So this is what I like in eCommerce business and particularly in Amazon.

[00:08:49] I want to tell everyone, because like right now, like Shlom says, it's a big opportunity for your being an Amazon seller. For those that are listening to us right now, I'm sure that they're already doing Amazon or they're growing or they're, or they're starting, but because a lot of people right now are actually.

[00:09:08] In America, they have less, like unemployment so high and they're getting used to working at home. Now, if you get used to working at home, you're going to be addicted to it as well as, you know, like Twitter, just all their employees will work, can work from home forever if they wanted to. So that's a very interesting, the culture and stuff.

[00:09:28] About how companies adapt to the pandemic. So another question I wanted to ask you, I know you said you're going to tell us later, but maybe I want to know what do you consider yourself the expert in, in all of Amazon regarding what's your expertise in the deep, deep trenches of Amazon. What do you think? Amazon's a lot of stuff. You could be an expert in a lot of field, PPC, ranking, funnels.

[00:10:00] You know, like we chats. So what are you really good at, or an expert at. Yeah. So, so actually I'm, I'm dealing with Amazon only compared to 2014 so it's six, six years about, but my businesses established in 2000 so it's about 20 years. So from 2000 to 2014 what we do is, let's say, resell business. We bought a lot of goods in bulk.

[00:10:30] Bulk, and sell it from country to country. So we trade in goods. We buy in China, we sell in Germany. We buy in Germany, we sell in the U S and so on. But in big, big business, like 200, 300, 500 K orders, and the customer with also resell business like Brokers,dealers, Stockers. In this year we, we, we get a lot, a lot of connections with distributors, vendors, with factories, with a lot of logistics companies.

[00:11:05] So we have very well, we will known the market, how it's work where you can source goods in good price. What is the, what is the categories that you can make more margin and what is the cutting fees that you have to invest more for PPC or marketing and, and like that. We built a lot, a lot of database that we use

[00:11:33] once we start on Amazon. So we took this niche reselling and we do a lot. We certainly, you know, in Amazon there is so many businesses, like private label, most of the people doing there is a, that most of the time small business. Because you buy some goods, you sell it from Amazon, you make some difference and it's nice.

[00:11:59] And there is a big business like drop shipping and Amazon don't like it.  So they lock a lot of accounts in drop shipping. You cannot prove you’re selling. If you prove yourself in that other retail, they just lock your account or inactive your listing. So it's not, it's not a stable business and there is a super brand. This is something we do and we call it super brands.

[00:12:24] We are selling a big brands over Amazon. We get branded. This is a process. It's not so easy, but we are. We know how to do the process. We get the brand approval, and then we are selling big brands. We know where to buy it. We have contracts with the vendors or with distributors. We know how to promote it.

[00:12:45] It's the PPC business strategy for advertising here. It's a, it's lower than private label. The investment is lower because you don't have to educate the market with big brands. Everybody knows what is a new products, Apple or Samsung products, and they are looking for that on Amazon. So if you have stock, you would sell. If someone else has stock they would sell, it's not a big deal.

[00:13:17] What you, what you need. You need approval from Amazon. You need to know where to buy the goods. You need to make sure you know how to prove to Amazon, where you buy the goods and of course, to buy in the right price. So when you have all these things, you can make a huge business with very low investment.

[00:13:40] So this is my main niche today. We are, we are selling in all over the, the categories like electronics, consumer electronics, shoes, clothes babies, jewelry and cosmetics and other products, kitchen and home, and we buy goods and sell goods mostly. There is a lot of challenges. It sounds like. It's very simple, but it's not simple.

[00:14:08] It's very, very challenging, but it's, it's when you know how to do deal with Amazon on that, so you can make a huge business for them. So this is one thing we're doing and yes, sir.

[00:14:27] Go ahead. Finish up. Yeah, so this, this is actually in our business, but in the macro, we, we are doing a business, not only for us. So we find out that there is many people, regular people, not Amazon sellers. They're regular people that want, that understand that this eCommerce business and Amazon business, it's something special.

[00:14:58] It's an opportunity that they want to be part of it. They see that Amazon is a huge company. They see that everyone buying online. In in the U S it's 52% 52% of the eCommerce business belong to Amazon. Every second sales on that, the US made on Amazon platform. This is, people see that, you know, just regular people, lawyers, accountants, government worker, people that just the simple people, they look at that and they say, wow, this is amazing.

[00:15:36] This is amazing business and I want to be part of it. Now, some of them become Amazon sellers. They take courses, sometimes they succeed, sometimes not. The statistics say that 90% fail. If we have 2 million, 2.5 million sellers account on Amazon, we have 250 thousands sellers, professionals, people that sell in more than a thousand dollar a year. Hey there, this is called professionalism, so only 10% success to do, to make some business.

[00:16:17] Well, the risks probably, they will lose the money or them just doing very small business. So these guys, they’re not professional, they don't know how to do that.  They do not take a company or advice or someone to help them with that. They’re probably the 90% in the statistics say they're going to fail. So 10% of them would make money, that would be good. So what we took, what we understand and took the opportunity is to help these people, not the Amazon sellers but the regular people to become Amazon sellers.

[00:16:55] to establish a business for them. So this is something we done was very unique model that we built worldwide. I talk with a lot of masterminds, the biggest sellers in the world, and people understand that this is very big opportunity. So when you took a regular person and want to explain him, the Amazon business.

[00:17:24] So what we do is we took the real estate market and we make it analog to a digital real estate business. What we built is a real estate business, businesses for the regular person. This is the main business for us today. This is what we do, and we have more than 250 Amazon accounts that we built from scratch. And of course, together with the professionals like we do with it.

[00:18:01] So, so like you said, we're talking, we're actually doing something together where we help can help these sellers and their brands to move up to the next level. Okay. So also regarding, I want to add it on to them about licensing for big brands. Right now, this is a new trend in China where people are actually trying to license a big brand items too, so that they could sell their products, maybe a second.

[00:18:28] tier brands not the first tier brands, because most likely two brands wouldn't want to work with them. So I'm trying to get the second tier of brands to go in and give them the licensing agreements to sell the products as well as, I think a lot of people in Israel, actually in Brooklyn, the Jewish community, they also do something similar like that.

[00:18:52] Uh, they're, they're really big. We have another guest that's going to talk about it. The Jewish community in New York and New Jersey side. So we'll wait for him to talk more about that, but stay tuned on that. So yeah, it's really interesting how your business model works, and I've heard some similar similar business models.

[00:19:14] Yeah, and you know, I was just going to say, Shlomy, you have such an unusual and unique approach to Amazon that a lot of people have actually thought of. I actually do a similar model. It's one of the many models I have. I do FBA. I dabble in a lot of things because at the end of the day, that's what I'm paid to do is test things out to see if I can simplify them for just regular

[00:19:34] Amazon sellers, not necessarily the gigantic Amazon sellers. So my question to you is, based on the actual wide area of expertise that you have, trying all these different business models, what three to five different topics have you thought about and prepare about the Professor's Pandemic Event, which is going to be held live

[00:19:56] online. And something that would wow people that maybe people haven't even  heard of or something that you just think hasn't been represented correctly and you kind of have a thing to say about it. So, yeah, so first, the first thing that don't, don't be afraid of brands, of big brands. This is something that I see that many Amazon sellers choosing in the past, private label only.

[00:20:22] So don't, don't worry, you can sell big brands and not only private labels. This is something that I think most of the sellers are afraid of. They are very worried about Amazon. How would they react to compliance, performance teams will block my accounts. What's going on if the brand will complain and I’m not going to get my money back, whatever.

[00:20:48] So I'm, I, so one thing I want to say, You can sell a ton of money in big brands with very, very big volume only. And don't forget that Amazon wants your money, wants you to invest in stock in inventory. This is something that people are very afraid of and I think it's not. Don't be afraid.

[00:21:16] This is a big opportunity. This is one thing. Second, I think that today every Amazon seller can grow his business can grow in business only if he can help other people to get into the Amazon business. Because at the moment everyone is focusing on finding products, their products, and that's all. I think if each one, the Amazon's sellers will have the opportunity to help his friends, his family to get into this business, he can grow his own business and help them to make money on this platform.

[00:21:59] I'm just saying that the opportunity of the internet give us opportunity here and I don't know, maybe 15 years. The internet gave us a lot of opportunity here. Amazon gave us the opportunity to help people make money on the internet. So go for it. You can make money on that. I know that you mentioned that you feel like Amazon is the go to place and you see it's the place to put your money in.

[00:22:30] The next couple of years. Let me ask you this question. Are there any other sites other than Amazon that you recommend people are on? Like have you tried Walmart, Walmart works, or any sites like that? Or do you just strictly recommend 100% right now? The next couple of years you should go all the way to Amazon.

[00:22:52] To be honest, it's in business. You always have to spread the investment. Yeah. You have to invest in new places, but for my experience, I'm looking at Amazon, you know? I see. Just one thing, one asset that's very interesting to me and I was, and this is why I make business with them. Only one thing. Only one asset is called prime member, prime membership.

[00:23:22] You know, they have like over 400 million people with prime membership. This is the essence of Amazon. I want to sell in Amazon only because they have 400 million members.

[00:23:35] I haven't, no, no one. You cannot find other other website or marketplace that have this amount of, of members, and these guys pay $99 a year and get free shipping and get cash back and get all kinds of benefits. They, you know, they, when you pay $99, You just want to return it. You want to get it back and how you get it back.

[00:24:02] You just buy goods. So you'll make five to 10 order a month. This is the average prime member, five to 10 hours. So we talk about billions of orders every month. So I recommend only Amazon.

[00:24:23] So I, I do, I kinda agree with what you have to say where on Amazon, it's so big itself and there's so many people that we should concentrate on conquering Amazon. I think I've said this before, Amazon itself has about 15 countries plus maybe before it was like 12 but now it's like 15 plus. So if you haven't already

[00:24:46] With your current product line, launch it to all the other countries Amazon has to offer. That we shouldn't really start on other countries yet because the learning curve to jump on each different countries. It's huge, but you already know how Amazon works. You already know how Amazon, let's just say you start in US.

[00:25:05] You already know how the structure, all the, all the systems, what Amazon is looking for, like health wise, you don't have to make sure that you won't get suspended. All the, all the research that you did, all the learning curve that you went through. So you can just copy this from one country to the next and know how to rank products.

[00:25:24] You know how to get rid of these so you just do that. So if you go to another place like eBay or Walmart, you might need to relearn your thing and it will slow you down a lot. So I would just you with resources, you know, of course, if you have the resource, you have the money to grow to other, other countries, that would be the best that already have the products already.

[00:25:45] You already have the products. So it's pretty, okay. So I have another question. What do you think is the problem that you see that a lot of these animals on the sellers are having right now in 2020 in particular?

[00:26:06] You start to be back to normal, start to back to normal. But the last one, one and a half months, it was really tough will it have to be Amazon seller. In one hand, we see the opportunity because you know more than 100 million people at home. This is a good opportunity because people buy online. In the other hand, people mostly buy unique, a unique product like, essentials, sorry.

[00:26:39] So they didn't buy luxury products and didn't buy, you know, clothes and things that they just want to buy. They bought mostly for that, that they need to buy. And this essential product took over on most of the business that's happened. So it was really challenging that kind of area, the product size. And the other hand was,

[00:27:04] A lot of factories shut down, the airplanes, they're not flying. So you cannot refill your, your stock when you are empty. And of course at the end, Amazon, the end, it was like after one month from the beginning of the epidemic, they shut down the FBA business. So you cannot ship goods or it was limited the stock, you can ship to FBA.

[00:27:33] So all this change the business a lot, and I guess that's all of us as Amazon seller feel it in our numbers. And that's, that's, it kind of months. But now it start to go back to normal. So we can see that Amazon opened the FBA, so we can see Amazon stop the limits. So we see, of course, China expects to produce. We still have a,

[00:28:10] logistics problems because the price is very high at the moment, but I think in the next two to three weeks it will be back to normal,

[00:28:20] at least in the US and Europe. Okay. So we just talked about the problems that that you see in 2020 so how about the opportunities? What do you  see as the opportunities of Amazon sellers now in 2020. Oh, so, so I don't. You know, the epidemic is also an opportunity because people understand, I mean, the end users, they understand that they can buy online very, very easily.

[00:28:48] A lot of countries that's not used to buy online, I'm not talking about the US yeah. Most of the people buying online, but other countries that's not used to buy online, the percentage of the eCommerce business was increased dramatically and these guys buying also from Amazon, it's going to be Amazon.com or other other platform.

[00:29:15] But they’re buying on Amazon. So as a seller, if we are ready to sell, as the Amazon sellers who are ready to sell internationally, sometimes you can sell from the US, from the amazon.com shop. You just have to go to the shipping setting and find out that you are, you're offering your product also to international centers, then you get more business.

[00:29:41] Because there is a lot, a lot of people that new people, new customers that find online after this epidemic. Alright? So this is a big opportunity for us and as Amazon sellers, if we are already, we can increase our sales. Definitely amazing on that topic Shlomy. I know that you have such experience in a broad number of categories.

[00:30:07] What categories do you see as opportunities for sellers in general? Like what categories do you see absolutely exploding in the next six to 18 months because of the pandemic. So first, I think all of the categories are good. If you make a good research or you have the rights and the right advice, how to find the partner, how to find the right SKU, you can, you can make money and good money and increase the business.

[00:30:39] But because of the epidemic, I think that most of us as an Amazon seller didn't sell essential for most of us. You know, I, I have like 80, 80 meetings a week with customers and half of them come in with me with a tent and all kinds of things. They think that on Amazon you have to sell something very, very special.

[00:31:03] And if it's not special, you cannot sell it. I think there weren't, I think this is not true. I think we have as Amazon sellers, we have in our portfolio also essential goods. Also, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm saying that, that if my granny buying that and my daughter would buy that this is a good, this is a good product.

[00:31:24] If it's something that I buy today and tomorrow, it's like, it's like trend, trendy products. I think it's not good to invest in. Maybe you can make money today and tomorrow. But what? Where is the future? So in Amazon, you need the future. You have to look to the future because you invest a lot of money in PPC, you are promoting your product.

[00:31:47] You want ranking your product. So you have to have a product that you can sell in one year, two years and in 10 years. And this is exactly the product I recommend to my customer to focus on. So, like you said, trendy products, I would always like tell people not to go into trendy products such as like fidget spinners, hoverboards or as well as face masks, well face masks are not trendy. But still like when there's like a lot of competition or people running through it, you shouldn't go towards it because.

[00:32:20] Stuff happens, you know, people like quality wise, you know, a lot of people have problems with and things like that. So if you're not a well established seller, I wouldn't go to trendy product because it's a hit and run kind of thing. Okay. So I want to wrap it up here. Do you have any final words that you want to tell our audience?

[00:32:43] Continue investing in Amazon. It's good that are an Amazon seller. You choose, right. This is exactly the future. This is exactly what you have to do. Amazon is the right place to invest and we are here to help you, and I'm sure that you can grow the business in few years and to be at least $1 million business. There is already 15, 15,000 shops that's over a million dollars.

[00:33:12] This is a lot of people that started slow and, and continually six years, five years, five, six years, and they have a million dollar business. And I think people that continue and not stopping in the middle can make very, very good business. So continue doing that. So I'll be like, this is this guy is like $40 million seller.

[00:33:34] You know, he's like a dinosaur hidden somewhere in the back. And a lot of these big sellers, they don't talk. They don't come out and talk because they feel like it's a waste of time or if they don't want to like tell people their secrets. But we have him here teaching us things, and also we're going to have a virtual mastermind in the end of June.

[00:33:53] I'm sure he has a lot of big topics like he was saying before of what he's going to talk about, so I can't wait for that.  Liz, any final say?

[00:34:03] It's exciting. It's very exciting. I know that he's doing some of the similar business models that I do as well, and you know. I've been selling essential products all through this entire thing, and my sales have just skyrocketed on multiple Amazon accounts. And I know that's a lot of people saying you can't have multiple accounts.

[00:34:22] Yes, I've done it. Obviously Shlomy is doing it and this is the kind of knowledge and information you get. I'm starting to sound like Thai, the knowledge we get by attending masterminds like underground, so this is the kind of information that you will be getting at the first ever Professor's Pandemic Event.

[00:34:41] Live virtually online at the end of June. We'll have a date very soon, but if you want to find out more information about how to attend that and listen to Shlomy and the several other speakers that we had thus far, as well as some surprises that we'll be slowly adding. I suggest you go to a9mastermind/ppe, which we should have all been, let me point it out.

[00:35:05] record sales. If you were selling any of that stuff, and I, for one, and this was a Shlomy was in, there's a lot of things out there that we really paid too much attention to. However they can make us money. So the focus of this event will be to put more money in your pocket. And I will see for one that the last actual.

[00:35:26] The event that we had before the pandemic, and this was down in Mexico. I took one tip from that actual event, and not only have I made myself a lot of money, made a lot of the actual attendees there because I got so good at using this tactic that I set it up for several people, including Howie. I even set it up for Howie.

[00:35:42] So it just goes to show you the things that you can learn at this. Just taking one single tactic, I was able to not only save tens of thousands of dollars in my business, but also pretty much rank for anything effortlessly. And I'm on page one for pretty much everything. So not, I'm just not a pretty face Howie, I'm actually putting these tactics that you guys show me out there and crushing it. Thanks to Shlomy and all the talented speakers that you managed to find in these dark crevices of the world.

[00:36:10] What do you think about that? Good. Israel is this like, it's very out there like no one really knows too much about. But I'm sure that when we have the mastermind we would ask so many to talk to us, tell us more about it, how their environment, the selling environment, what kind of skill sets they have, you know, so that'll be interesting.

[00:36:35] Very exciting. So again, thank you so much everybody for joining us. And again, if you want to find out more information about the Professor's Pandemic Event, go to a9mastermind.com/ppe and you'll get to find out more about the speakers like Shlomy and Howard and all the rest of the gang.

[00:36:52] So thanks so much for joining us and we'll see you next time with the next speaker. Thank you so much. 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.