[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, we're back right amidst the actual current pandemic. And the big question here that we have in today's actual episode is, what are the smartest marketers on Amazon actually doing through this crisis in order to enrich their businesses in the next 6 to 18 months. And that's a focus of today's talk.

[00:00:40] In case you don't know, my name is Hurricane Liz and I'm the host of this actual show. And alongside me, as usual, is my partner in crime, Mr. Howard Thai or The Professor. So Howie, are you excited about today's guest, which we'll announce here in a minute. I'm super excited. It's someone that I've known for a while now, like two or three years.

[00:01:00] Yeah, the word on the street is, I've never personally met him, but I've had a lot of conversations with people. We know the same people, and he's one of the brightest minds in all of Amazon. And, let's face it, he has to be, because Howard handpicked this guy to speak at his all new, brand new, Professor's pandemic event, which is going to be held at the end of June. And, Howard has gone and combed the entire world amidst the danger out there, like Howie, how did you do it?

[00:01:24] You've actually still traveled quite a bit when it's probably the most dangerous time in the history of America and the world to be traveling. How have you done that? Well, it's pretty, it's pretty funny. Like when I was like traveling around, the last event I had was like almost till like it was like, seems like it was a war zone where I didn't, I didn't evacuate the country before it was closing down.

[00:01:50] It was crazy. Then it was in Prague. Yeah, absolutely, and right before that, we were just actually in Mexico to go where we were live for the actual Professor of Amazon's event, the Innovators Hackathon, where we hosted 20 almost 30 of the world's top Amazon entrepreneurs making a combined $400 million a month.

[00:02:12] In revenue and there we pretty much took some of the best tactics and techniques. And, one of the specific things we actually talked about there, Howie, I know that you remember this, was this was back in December where we were already talking about the ramifications that the coronavirus was going to have on Amazon and all the opportunities that it actually brought

[00:02:33] Onto the Amazon sellers in the world. And, I know that a lot of them that actually attended that have absolutely been destroying it with sales on Amazon. You want to talk a little bit more about that actual conversation we had behind closed doors at this 12,000 per person event. Yeah. We, we talked about how our, what would happen if there was a pandemic where there's no, where there's no logistics from China to US and what would happen.

[00:03:00] So a lot of us were talking about, so how would we operate, how would we sell, who would be crushing it? That was one of the topics and we were talking about that. I believe it was, we're saying that a lot of the people who are doing supplements would do, would crush it and also like, because the reason why is because the supplements are usually made in Canada and US, so they would have no logistics problems.

[00:03:25] And at this point, I'm telling you, a lot of the immune system supplements are  killing it right now. Yeah, absolutely. I happen to know that one of the guys that had gone to one of the previous events is crushing it at about $300,000 a day and absolutely just destroying the supplement niche as we speak right now, and obviously since we're all stuck at home, I'm stuck here in Miami, my Miami apartment.

[00:03:48] I know how we stuck in a hotel. We've got to change shifts and change gears a little bit. And as we would always love to be hanging out and partying with the best and brightest on Amazon, obviously in a beautiful beach in Mexico, we're not going to be able to do that this time. Instead, we decided to stay at home and host the first ever online professor's pandemic event and one of the guests that's about to join me here.

[00:04:10] Today has been handpicked by Howard for several reasons, so I'm about to introduce him. I know he's done a tremendous amount of things. He's literally been on Amazon for almost decades. I want to say. It feels like decades. I've seen him since I started on Amazon. Almost a decade ago, and still to this day, he's still involved and he's always predicting and analyzing algorithms, and he's one of the smartest guys that I've actually been able to see last this long and truly become a seller, one of the big sellers on Amazon.

[00:04:40] So Howie, how do you feel about Mr. Anthony Lee, who we're about to talk with you today? Why Anthony? Why of all people would you want Anthony on this? He recently created two of our white pages. That was really over filled with nuggets, golden nuggets. It's really crazy. So then, so I decided, yeah, let's have him on.

[00:05:01] And a lot of people were talking about how well, how well does his white papers work. It was all spreading like wildfire. So I think that with that said that he would be a really good candidate for our professors, a pandemic event. So that's why we picked them. Absolutely. So Anthony, I already said what I do know about you, but you're obviously legendary in the Amazon space.

[00:05:25] You've been around. Like I said, I said it seems like a decade. I'm sure you can tell us a little bit more information, but I want to go ahead and start out how we are going to tag you here with questions like, as I said before, don't think like that guys. We're not going to tag team and like that. We're going to tag team in the good old fashioned clean American way.

[00:05:41] high five Howie. And what we're going to actually do is I'm going to first talk to Anthony and then Howard, we'll, we'll switch back and forth. So Anthony, I didn't want to spoil all the surprises that you have. I want you to pretend that we're in an elevator. It's you and Howard, and you're about to pitch your actual speech at the Professor's Pandemic Event to the man, the myth, the legend himself,

[00:06:02] Mr. Howard Thai. You've got two minutes. What would you say to him and what would you say to him that you've managed to accomplish and what makes you qualified to speak at his actual event? Alright. Well, first off, thank you so much for having me moving right into it. My elevator pitch. Wow, that's a good question.

[00:06:21] I would probably just mention, you know, first of all, I'm a humble servant to the e-commerce gods. I do not claim a guru or expert status. I just, I really like to learn as much as I can about what's going on. And in that vein, I have not actually been in the game for a full decade. I started in 2014 but that was right around the time that a lot of people started anyway.

[00:06:48] Since then I have not only been a seller, but I've also worked for some of the biggest software companies in the space and have taken on over a dozen clients ranging in  size from small to big. There were periods of my career where I was on the phone with Amazon, a different department every day for upwards of four hours at a time.

[00:07:12] I learned a lot from Amazon themselves. I learned a lot from the wonderful people that I've met in this industry who are so open and giving with their knowledge. I learned a lot from selling myself. I learned a lot from working behind the scenes and  developing software that actually analyzes all of the data that sellers generate, that we ourselves generate, that Amazon generates and, and turns it into something usable.

[00:07:42] So in that vein, probably seen more data, more information that I think could be actionable than almost anybody outside of people who actually work for Amazon. So for that reason, you know, I feel like I have a lot to share. Well, also, I really love, I don't think, his articles that he writes back in the day.

[00:08:03] I always compliment on the how well written his article is very deep in involved into the algorithms and how, how, how his theories on and why Amazon does certain things. So I really, I'm glad to have you on here today. And I have a question here. So do you consider yourself an expert in the area of Amazon with your expertise in Amazon?

[00:08:34] I've been pretty proficient at understanding basically what Amazon's moves will be. So far, I've had a really good track record in predicting what Amazon will do or why Amazon has done something. It's done with regard to specifically the ranking algorithm. So I think that would be where my expertise lies, because I dunno, I guess part of studying it as closely as I have, I've.

[00:09:03] Really kind of become in tune with why it would make sense for Amazon to make those decisions. Why? How does their customers benefit? How do they benefit? And as such, I've actually made some pretty accurate predictions. So, so that's it. I'm the Amazon algorithm soothsayer. That's my, that's my super power.

[00:09:27] That's a super power. Right. So how do you, do you think outside the box compared to other experts in your area? Well, I'm not afraid to run tests and see how external factors will impact Amazon. So I think a lot of people in this industry, they get a little tunnel vision. And to be fair, I was too for a while.

[00:09:51] Honestly, you get tunnel vision because it's like, there's so much money on Amazon and there's just so much opportunity and there's so much  going on and all of our peers are making most of their money on Amazon. Like it becomes almost like, you know, a bubble. And so after realizing that that was the case, I decided to step back from it.

[00:10:16] Start running experiments on other e-Commerce platforms, pay attention to what's going on in other countries with their e-Commerce platforms, and that, I think that helps inform my assessments of Amazon better because it gives us a broader view of e-commerce in general. And I think that that's probably the biggest way that I think outside of, you know, the confines of what most people in this industry do.

[00:10:44] Yeah. And you know, Anthony, you've got quite a lot of expertise, not just on Amazon, but in general, just outside, like you said, the scope of Amazon. What I know before this call we actually spoke a lot about the AI traffic that you've been kind of almost spearheading with Howard and how you're developing this hands off approach to Amazon pay per click.

[00:11:05] I know that's one of the areas that you did want to focus on, but there was a couple other things that you mentioned there. What three to five topics have you thought about when you think about speaking at Howard's event that you would want to actually focus on? That's a good question too. So unfortunately, one of the things that I have a bad habit of doing is, is winging it too much.

[00:11:28] So I know I need to be a  lot better prepared for this one since it's so high level. But I think that a couple of really good topics would be, one of my favorite topics usually revolves around ranking. So definitely want to discuss more about not just external traffic to Amazon, but how ranking is kind of impacted and affected in general across multiple mediums.

[00:11:57] And in that same vein, we might discuss, you know, how paid advertising impacts that, not just on Amazon, because I do a lot of tests with Facebook as well. I'm fascinated by their ad platform, and I just opened up tests on both Etsy and Snapchat, so there's a lot to talk about there. And then, moving more into the realm of PPC because you just discussed it,

[00:12:22] You mentioned the topic of AI, you know, that's definitely a good topic. I think if people show interest, I could touch on too, specifically the role that AI plays in business in general and how it's impacting people's business. Specifically on Amazon, and I know earlier you talked about being the Amazon suicide or, so tell me this.

[00:12:41] I know that you can't spill too many beans here, but as you look into your crystal ball. What are some nuggets you can tell people about what could be happening in the next 6 to 18 months on Amazon? Cool. Okay, so this, this is the stuff, the problem is, this is this, this is like the, the  stuff that I, that we typically like to keep close to the chest because it involves, you know, services that we can offer people.

[00:13:07] But since I am a glass door and completely transparent, I will answer that question. So one of the things that I constantly show people is different ways to maintain their listing keyword rank using a variety of strategies that you mix and match to kind of make the whole process seem more organic  and right now, one of the ways that's really impacting that in a positive way is running masked traffic.

[00:13:39] With share tags from various social platforms so essentially you run traffic and then ideally, sales to a URL that the referrer is masked. So it comes up on Amazon and is unknown, but it has a tag in it.  The tags that’s for social is a very awesome strategy. However, I predict that what's going to end up happening in probably the next 6 to 12 months is that it's going to start mattering more to Amazon who the referrer is, and so it'll be less effective to use unknown or masked traffic, and it's going to become more important to actually run traffic from an external.

[00:14:27] platform and then 6 to 12 months beyond that, it's going to start mattering to Amazon. Precisely who is doing the sharing and what authority that person in that platform has. So it won't just be okay that it's, this traffic came from Instagram. It'll be, well, whose account was it? Are they an influencer?

[00:14:48] How many followers do they have? Do you know, do they just have this account to run deals? Now again, we're talking about a window of probably closer to 24 months, but within that time, that's what we're going to see. And the reason I believe we're going to see that is because this is exactly the trajectory.

[00:15:06] The Google moved in. Google cares about this stuff now, and we know that Amazon's about, you know, 5, 10 years behind them. We're going to see that happen, in my humble opinion. Okay. Anthony, what problems are you seeing other Amazon sellers, are happening to other Amazon sellers in 2020 regarding the pandemic?

[00:15:29] I think the most obvious one is that while some niches, some categories are thriving very much so. First, there are others that aren't. I mean, gosh, can you imagine all of these poor sellers in the travel niche who are just like they have no idea what to do. And then aside from that, Amazon is imposing a strange and large amount of restrictions, not just on what types of products can be sold at all, but also on how much inventory they're taking in.

[00:16:02] How, I mean they're, they're even trying to control how many sales come to the platform at all. And that's, you know, you can see that in actions they've taken like slashing, affiliate referrals, et cetera. So across the board in every category, in some way, people are, are finding new hurdles that weren't there before, and it's, it's because of the tremendous dependence that everybody  in e-commerce currently has on Amazon.

[00:16:32] And right now we all are forced to play by their rules and their rules are heavily impacted by both political needs as well as actual human needs in the industry. So things are kind of mixed up right now, I think. I think that's what people are suffering from currently. Yeah, and I agree with you, Anthony.

[00:16:53] I think it's very chaotic over there. I talked a lot on my YouTube channel about the fact that I recently ordered three essential rubber chickens. Yeah, there was a lot of other actual products that I couldn't get to myself that I thought were more essential, but the rubber chickens made it here in two days flat.

[00:17:10] So I think the Amazon algorithm is completely just out of whack. And my question for you is just, I'm going back to the crystal ball. I can totally see you that I can see you like Cleo from the 1-900 lines and all that Amazon 1-900 Cleo line here. But my question for you is when do you see Amazon actually getting back to what we call or what we thought was normal back in the day, which is now, like I said, it's a chaotic, crazy environment.

[00:17:41] Well, here's a thing, and I don't know that you need a crystal ball to see this. I don't know that it will ever be quote, unquote normal, like it was. And the reason is because while this pandemic has actually been happening for a long time, so it's not like, you know, so it hasn't gotten to the point yet where everybody's just totally changed the way they do things.

[00:18:07] This is training people to behave differently. Now we're seeing people in the boomer generation, for example, who were, there were so many things that they were not comfortable with buying online, having to, so it's becoming part of what they do normally, right? People's actions are actually being trained to be different.

[00:18:30] And when everything opens back up and we see some level of normalcy with regard to the businesses that are open and you know, things being shipped in normally into fulfillment centers. Because of the fact that the general population is acting differently, the way that they approach e-commerce, that is going to have a lasting impact and the way that affects things like the algorithm, for example, is we know that about 6, 8 months ago, Amazon really tuned up the impact that

[00:19:03] Ranking had with regard to geo location of inventory and inventory availability, which was their intention the whole time when they, when they patented that algorithm. So because of that, availability is affecting the algorithm and availability will forever be changed due to the fact that buying behavior and patterns have changed.

[00:19:27] So what that's going to look like, I don't know. But we will see. In my opinion, certain niches, certain categories that were never considered essential before, and I'm not even talking about medical stuff. I mean, like. You know, office supplies, for example, suddenly will become staples. We'll see stuff like that.

[00:19:46] For example, we may see a continued manipulation on the side of Amazon with regard to the prioritization of placement of certain items, because it may be that certain medical supplies are considered essential forever. We may walk out of this and everywhere could require that we wear masks all the time.

[00:20:07] For example, which wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility or normalcy considering Asian countries walk. Everybody walks with a mask all the time anyway, right? So we could see ourselves adopting that and that would change, kind of the way that Amazon lays things out. So there's a bunch of different ways that we can see it play out.

[00:20:27] But with regard to how long it'll be I, before, you know, things kind of reach an equilibrium. I dunno. I, I feel like, I feel like we could, we could be seeing weirdness anyway for at least another 6 months. I mean, cause everybody, everybody's been locked inside, but they forget, you know, we've, we've only really been locked inside for like, what, 45 days in the US I mean, this is, this is

[00:20:55] Less than a droplet of water in the ocean at this point. So, so yeah, it's like, seems like it seems like forever though. But I guess I just had a question before. It was about the problems now that we have, but how about, what do you see on the opportunities that Amazon sellers have right now, 2020 and the pandemic. New,

[00:21:22] New buyers and with new buyers, we see new categories and subcategories that are just going to explode. For example, I was just reading a couple articles about how people are being surveyed and asked questions about, you know, their preferences, what, what it will take to get them to feel safe traveling again, what, what they're going to want to do when they're in public.

[00:21:49] And so we're going to see, you know, already people are taking advantage of this new trend to face mask, right? If you look on Etsy and you use a software called eRank to look at the biggest sellers, and you look at previous day's sales over the past, like two weeks. The number one seller selling to the tune of like, I think two to 4,000 units a day is a mask maker.

[00:22:13] If you look at their products, they didn't sell anything else before that. So that's a prime example of somebody taking advantage of a new trend, right? Like right now, and possibly into the future for the foreseeable future would be masks. And that's just one example. And then we see the, the, you know, rise in sanitation products, like a UV sanitation, right?

[00:22:37] Products that like attached to the toilet. Since, you know, toilet paper became a scarcity for a short period of time, even though that's no longer the case anymore. Front and center in people's minds about what happens if this happens again. So we're going to see just these innovative products and new subcategories just explode, and it's going to be opportunity for people to  jump in the same way that so many subcategories were back in 2013, 2014 when people first started getting into private label altogether, like, you know, we're going to see factories in China become

[00:23:15] So long as we're still able to freely trade, and if not shining, it will be somewhere else. But China's been really good about this. Factories jump on top of trends and go, okay, well if that's popular, then this will be even more popular. And we'll see all of these cool gadgets that are going to have their heyday, just like the fidget spinner did, and it might be short lived, but man, people are gonna make a ton of money jumping on those trends for a little while.

[00:23:40] Yeah. I know you mentioned Anthony. I, that's great insight. First of all, one of the actual niches that I've been just ranting and raving about is the actual mask category, but it's more specifically designer face masks for women because heaven forbid, I'm going to have to go out for the next 18  months wearing just a piece of cloth on my face.

[00:24:02] I've got to have some bling on it. So is there any, I know you mentioned UV sanitation and stuff like that and a couple other Sanitation niches, but in the next 6 to 18 months, do you see anything aside from product opportunities, other types of opportunities for Amazon sellers, or is that just like a pipe dream of mine to hope there's other opportunities other than just products?

[00:24:24] There's, there's always opportunity outside of products. In fact, I made a video not too long ago talking about this. As we see products and niches explode, what we're also going to see is a need for assistance in navigating e-commerce as a whole. So one of the, one of the opportunities that I see, for example, is actually more outside of Amazon.

[00:24:49] So you have all these Amazon sellers that are already killing it, right? But they don't know the first thing about Etsy. There's an opportunity, not just for them, but for people who can help them transition to that platform. Tons of people are looking at Shopify right now and they have no clue. They don't even begin to know where to find the Shopify developer.

[00:25:08] There are development opportunities, there are branding opportunities, there are, you know, software opportunities for cross platform integrations. I mean everywhere you look right now, I would think like it sucks. All the negative stuff that's happened because of Covid 19 but one of the positive things is that before now, e-commerce only represented what maybe 12% of total retail sales in America.

[00:25:38] We are going to see that number changed dramatically, and now's the time that that's happening. And as e-commerce as a whole grows more and more opportunities, a lot of them are the same ones, you know, a lot of them are the same opportunities. We've been looking at it and everybody's like, Oh, you know, that's old.

[00:25:52] No, it's not old. It was in his infancy and now it's blowing up. So, and then there'll be new opportunities too. But nonetheless, e-commerce as an industry is going to do nothing but explode in growth with more and more money, revenue generated money being infused in it than ever before. I mean, we even see that with major, major corporations.

[00:26:16] Who is it? NBC universal just came out with a new e-Commerce product. They're opening up shoppable TV because they know everybody's stuck at home. People aren't just going to use that through the pandemic and then toss it  aside. That's going to be a product that thrives and think about all the people attached to that who probably are going to make a fortune.

[00:26:38] And that's on the bigger scale. And then there's innovators, smaller companies that are going to do so much more. So, I mean in this, this is the industry where I think the most opportunity exists right now. I agree. If you think about it, if you look at it right now, like there's a lot of unemployment right now that are going on, so a lot of people are actually thinking or can, could consider of selling online as well as now a lot of people are stuck at home and who aren't used to buying stuff on Amazon or online.

[00:27:12] Now they're going to be able to actually, Oh, Hey, I actually like it. I actually liked selling, buying, buying online. So there's those opportunity there. So I agree. Okay. So let's wrap this up. Do you have any final words for the audience here? I think if, if I were to give parting words, I would say that I do believe, as I just discussed, there's tons of opportunity on Amazon, but I think it's also important for people to start looking at the whole landscape,

[00:27:42] E-commerce as a whole. I'm really excited about this new marketplace that Shopify is talking about releasing, social media platforms as well. I think YouTube is about to come out with a competitor for tiktok and all of these digital landscapes represent opportunities for brands to grow. So, look at them.

[00:28:02] Consider them. Don't pigeonhole yourself. Don't allow yourself to have golden handcuffs just because the opportunity is amazing right now on one platform because anything can change. So diversify. Keep your options open. Always be learning. That's amazing. Thank you so much, Anthony. I, for one, am super stoked to see the predictions from 1-900 Anthony Lee at the Professor's Pandemic event.

[00:28:28] I can't wait. I can't wait to hear about all this AI stuff going on as well as his predictions and a couple other surprises that he's certainly going to have by by that point in time. Anthony, who knows how much data you'll have collected since you are now like the human computer and all the data that you've seen on Amazon.

[00:28:44] So thanks again so much. And before we wrap it up, let me just say this. If you're looking to learn the events, tactics, and strategies of pretty much a combined nine figure in Amazon sales a month, a lot of the people that have actually attended the event before, like I said, have had sales as much as $300,000 in a single day.

[00:29:04] And I'm certainly not going to say that you're going to have those. But once again, it's usually an intimate one-on-one actual event that we host live. However, we're going to change things up and I still guarantee you there's going to be just as much as secrets as strategy shared there as there usually are in person, and there's no telling what kind of actual tactics.

[00:29:24] We'll be sure this time at the last actual event, I can say this much. It was pretty amazing. I got one tactic from that event that has literally doubled my business almost overnight, and that was shared by one of the speakers. So I look forward to seeing what kind of goodies they're going to share this time around, and I'm almost feel like a spoiled kid at a candy store.

[00:29:44] Being able to emcee these events and attend them. Because it's made me a lot smarter just getting to hang out with guys like Anthony Lee and of course the man, the myth, the legend. Mr. Howard Thai. So Howard, any parting words from you before we say goodbye and give people the actual URL to go to in order to register for this?

[00:30:02] Well, if you could, if you tell, if you could tell it like right now, Anthony's. We're just interviewing all him, but all the golden nuggets that he's just put out to us, it's already really, really, it's like a, it's a whole factor ready. So think about it. If you were to attend event, what other stuff, what other crazy stuff would you get out of it?

[00:30:23] So that's what I would say, like come and join us. Yeah, absolutely. So thank you again, Howard, for hosting this. And Anthony, thank you so much for joining us and sharing that knowledge that just, like I said, made me 10 times smarter, which is a very difficult thing to do, Anthony. So you did a heck of a job.

[00:30:42] Thanks so much. And if you're interested in coming to the Amazon, the Professor's Pandemic Event, which is going to be a lot of Amazon tactics. Yes, but as Anthony mentioned, there's a lot of other actual platforms to be paying attention to. If you'd like to attend, please visit  a9mastermind.com/PPE once again, that is a9mastermind.com/PPE.

[00:31:06] I will definitely be there hosting the event. I look forward to that and I look forward to seeing both Anthony and Howard live on that event. So thanks so much, guys. We'll see you next time on The Professors Podcast. Welcome to The Professors Podcast where we discuss the best strategies to massively improve the reach and bottom line of your business

[00:31:27] 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.