[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. Hey everyone, Hurricane Liz here, back for another Professor's Podcast.

[00:00:24] And with me as usual, the man, the myth, the legend, Howie Thai. Howie, we've got a fantastic interview today. And I got to say this, we usually have a sausage fest at almost all the events, but this is the second ever lady speaker. So Howie, I feel like you're almost turning over a new leaf? What is it

[00:00:41] that's so talented about this young lady that we have on today. That just pretty much made you say, like guys, sausage Fest, the hot dog buns, the hot dogs are done and over with. We're going to go with some ladies this year. Well, besides besides that, she's a good looking girl. It was very rare to see a young girl that's in, in the Amazon space and stuff.

[00:01:03] So, so that's one of the reasons and other reasons what I've been hearing her name around and some of the people that within the communities have been talking and I'm seeing that she's good at what she's doing. So just wanted to look, get her on and see what she got. Absolutely. So before I intro here, here in a second, I will say that the last time we did have a lady speaking at this event and Destaney, who is our guest today might not know this,

[00:01:27] she took everybody out to the club. I mean, she was like a total boss in general. So she, out of every event we'd been to was the first person that ever actually paid for all the bottle service, all the clubs, service, and pretty much made everybody have a hangover on their very first day of event. So as you can imagine, that made for some pretty awesome networking. Secrets got spilled before they were even meant to get started.

[00:01:51] And so this event is going to be a lot like that one. That one, we do have a bartender. That'll be on hand, on deck, not the whole day cause I've I know there are some of you guys out there at one of the other events in Las Vegas before the event even started guys and gals wiped out the bottles that were in the cabinets.

[00:02:09] So we'll make sure that that doesn't happen, but there will be a bartender on deck. So we've got a lot of fantastic festivities planned and a heck of a lot of fun. Now, just as a reminder to everyone before I do introduce Destaney and kind of give you some background on her. October 4th and 5th is the day that, that event's going to take place in the fabulous city of Las Vegas.

[00:02:28] And Howie tell me why you love to have these events so much in Vegas. Besides, it's so close to me, cause right now I live in Los Angeles, so it's just a three and a half hour drive over and back. That's why. That's the only reason why Howie? I can tell you a lot of reasons why I like Vegas. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, Howie. So guys and gals, the secrets that you do share on or at this event.

[00:02:56] I mean, people are going to hold it to their hearts, I'm telling you. this is a fantastic camaraderie, a fantastic brotherhood slash sisterhood. And we are definitely going to have a ton of fun. So let me go ahead and introduce Destaney. Destaney, I'm usually known as the butcher of Amazon and I hate to almost have to butcher your name.

[00:03:16] I hope I get this right. I butchered Maor’s yesterday. I just ended up giving him a nickname. Before I butcher his name any more, I just started to call him the Wolf. But I'm going to pronounce your name and then I'm going to do a little bit of background on you or get you to give us some background on you.

[00:03:29] And let's hope I don't butcher it. But this is Destaney Wishon. Did I get that right? A hundred percent right. But I will take a bad ass nickname. It's awesome. It's something as I speak to you, as I get to know you at the event, the more drinks I get in me, the more nicknames I might actually give you. So I think it's going to be a lot of fun.

[00:03:46] I'm looking forward to this. But for everybody that's out there, let's go jump in to Destaney with our standard first question. I know this is Howie's favorite thing. But let's just say, for example, Destaney. We'd like to get speakers kind of on the spot. Let's see, for example, you obviously know Howie’s the man, the myth, the legend, and you are in an elevator with him.

[00:04:04] And you've got just a quick elevator pitch to tell him who you are and why you are qualified to speak at his event, which is coming up October 4th and 5th. Tell us more about that. Yeah, of course. So my name's Destaney Wishon. I have been managing Amazon advertising campaigns for going on five years now. And I have worked with some of the largest brands selling on the platform.

[00:04:25] I have flown out to the number one largest 3P seller and had a lot of conversations and consulting with them. I've worked with the number one product in the baby category as a whole. And currently I think as a team we're managing around $70 million worth of ad spend a year. So that's kind of my quick background.

[00:04:43] That's amazing. And Howie, how did you actually come to meet Destaney? I'm curious. I know you said that you run in some of the same circles. Are you, you've heard a lot of buzz about her name. But where exactly did you really hear the buzz and where does she kind of come up on your radar? I know we traveled the globe constantly and you're always looking for the right type of speaker and the right type of fit for this particular mastermind, which is some of the most brilliant minds in all of Amazon.

[00:05:08] Well, let's go back. It was kind of where, apprentice, right. Or someone that I've been training and he's been saying, oh, I think you should ask Destaney to your mastermind. So I'm I said, okay. I did, I, wouldn't looking around researching a little bit more on her and see if she's a good fit or not. Then I saw it looks pretty good.

[00:05:29] Then I was actually at one of the meetup in Los Angeles, I think it was Laguna Hills, like some kind of a meetup before the Prosper Event. And that's where I saw her and met her. And then I actually asked her on the spot. There and then she said,

[00:05:49] Yeah. Amazing. So Destaney, do you, let me ask you this question. We obviously we had, I don't know if you're familiar, you know, Tim Jordan yesterday and there was another guy. Which guy was it, your drinking buddy Howie. It was Tim Jordan? How hard have you found it to get it out to some events? If there's any, like, I obviously have seen a few more

[00:06:08] bump up on the radar since COVID. But how difficult have you found it this past year and a half, just kind of networking and staying in tune with what's happening on Amazon since we've kind of all been almost secluded in our own homes. It's been pretty difficult. Thankfully, if you know a few of the right players in the space, a lot of opportunities open up for you, which is why small masterminds are so incredibly important. Because if you build those relationships, we all know each other some way or another. We're all connected.

[00:06:36] So that helped a lot, you know, knowing people like Tim was how I originally got invited to Laguna beach. That's just been amazing. So moving to a physical environment's going to be 10 X cause it's definitely been complex virtually. Yeah. And you know, Tim, the other day ago, when he was on this recording, he challenged me to figure out what was his drink of choice.

[00:06:58] He said he wouldn't tell. So obviously I told him, well, buddy, then you're going to have to just sample a heck of a bunch of them. So a random question there, what is your drink of choice? And then after that, I will tell you what, when you start to pour down Howie’s throat secrets really spill. The, the drink of choice that I'll have an issue with every single time is champagne.

[00:07:20] I'm good with other drinks. But if we start, you know, throwing back some champagne, mimosas at 8:00 AM, we'll have some issues. We're going to have to make sure that the bartender has some champagne on deck Howie. And obviously we're also going to have to make sure that the bartender has Howie's favorite, which is Don Julio. Howie and Don Julio are the best of buds.

[00:07:38] So obviously Detaney, a lot of being successful on Amazon is learning to have fun and kind of going out to some of these events, like you mentioned, you actually know who Tim was. So I'm surprised at that, but I'm not, since he did tell me that he pretty much lives and breathes these things, and he's always hanging out.

[00:07:56] And what are the biggest topics that you feel, coming to this mastermind you'll be able to talk about? And, or what ideas do you have so far of what you'd like to talk about at this event? Before saying that, before saying that, I just wanted to let you know that you want to do your best of the best because of the $7,000 grand prize.

[00:08:16] Right? The prize of the winner who gets voted as the best speaker will get, I believe you said we usually give a belt. We're still giving the belt? Howie we’re giving the belt no matter what. Like a world champion, like a world champion belt for best speaker. It was, it's pretty good. It looks, it looks like a real boxing belt and then you'll get like a $7,000.

[00:08:39] So we want to hear from you. And this masterminds that we hold is usually a really high end, so we want to make sure that the speeches right are something that no one heard before and, or that is not just any presentation that you kind of do out there. So go ahead, Destaney. Yeah. Yeah. So one of the biggest things that I think has been fun in the Amazon industry is how quickly advertising is changing

[00:09:09] right now. You can be a full-time manager, not keep up with all the new roll-outs. So I give a lot of feedback to the Amazon product teams because I’m very candid and real. So I kind of, you can say ,in touch with all the new rollouts and things like that. So what I'm really planning on speaking on is like the change of direction of Amazon.

[00:09:27] They're focused on brand, all the rollouts and opportunities. They're getting us to make your advertising more great marketing style platform. You know, we can add custom creatives. We have DSP, which allows us to see all the audience, consumer data. That people don't think Amazon has. So that's a lot of what I'm looking at talking about.

[00:09:45] That's pretty exciting Howie. How excited are you about that Howie and what do you have most to look forward to about what Destaney just said? Well, a lot of people that talk about DSP is very, very on the top surface. Not deep enough, not under like, like we wanted to hear the nitty gritty, the stuff that really works.

[00:10:05] So probably the ones that she's talking about, those high-end sellers that, that, what do they use? How do they use it? Where is it from top of the funnel DSP to middle funnel DSP to the bottom of funnel DSP. How do you make sure that we get the the orders from. I guess I would say like, take away from your competitors as well as how are we going to make sure that the orders come in and it's like, you know, the whole, whole funnel.

[00:10:37] Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, Destaney, you having so much experience, obviously working with really high level sellers and people that have a lot of money to spend, what's one trend that you've seen a lot of them moving towards. As we kind of close out the years, we kind of close out, it seems like COVID is closed out, but then it seems like it's starting again.

[00:10:56] It's kind of almost like just out there, but what trend do you see among the big money on Amazon? What are they doing right? I think one of the biggest things has been like the hotness with supply chain, the supply chains put a lot of pressure on brands and really made them realize how much they need to diversify and be more flexible.

[00:11:17] I think everyone got complacent how easy, easy Amazon was, you know, in the last couple of years, but now we have bigger money entering the space. We have different legal restrictions coming in and supply chain. So it's really forced brands to you know, be around the thought leaders that know exactly how to have that next competitive advantage.

[00:11:36] You start playing against, you know, Coke and Pepsi in these spaces and you need to be damn good at what you do. So we're seeing like more flexibility, more effort, like for thought leadership and things like that. Yeah. And you know, I think Destaney, he brings up a fantastic point Howie and something that we haven't actually really touched on. We have been focused a lot on external traffic and obviously external traffic is one of the big things to talk about.

[00:11:59] It's what everybody who's everybody on Amazon or everybody that wants to rank something on Amazon is talking about. But one of the things that kind of been in the background obviously plaguing the mid-level Amazon seller. And I'm talking about like maybe below $5 million is the supply chain. Like what kind of strategies and our tactics, or are any strategies and our tactics going to be discussed, Howie by you and or anybody else that you know of how to kind of help these mid-level sellers combat the rising prices of that and all the problems with it.

[00:12:32] I'm actually not sure about that question. We, we were mainly looking at ranking and external traffic, but I'll look into it and see if there's anything that we can actually help talk about regarding that topic. Yeah. We've actually had a couple people ask on some of the calls. That's why I was kind of curious, but it was just a random question thrown out there because Destaney kind of like mentioned it.

[00:12:53] So I thought it'd be a good point to ask Howie, you obviously have your ear to the wall. You know, all the things going on in China, you know, a lot of tricks, you know, a lot of tactics. So I thought I'd just toss it out there. See what you could figure out Howie. I was at a trance hub, one of the biggest in LA.

[00:13:13] So we're working on some kind of a project where, where our customers will be able to from, from China directly to LA being able to have a warehouse, to be able to pick pack ship, and as well to ship to the FBM. So we're trying to have a third party logistics warehouse right now, setting up right now.

[00:13:37] Yeah, I've still seen like a lot of these like Shopify drop shippers. A lot of them are still doing quite well, being able to ship out of China and stuff like that. So that is still working if you have a legitimate drop ship drop shipping supplier in China, but I was just curious that question. I've got one for you now, Destaney, these are just randomly popped into my head.

[00:13:55] What kind of opportunities do you see for the coming year for Amazon sellers that, uh, are out there there's still, they still managed to survive post COVID. And I know we said that it's a lot more challenging. It was easy back then. But what kind of opportunities do you see for those sellers that have still survived?

[00:14:13] Everything that's happened so far, one of the biggest opportunities is Amazon's rolling out a bunch of advertising assets. That allow us to really tell our brand story. So we now have custom imagery for sponsored display, custom imagery for sponsor brands, video on searches, expanding their advertising placements as well.

[00:14:31] And it's a big advantage because your large CPG companies typically do not want to move on these creative placements because they take a lot of time and effort to build them out for 5,000 SKUs. So I've literally consulted with brands for video and search, and I was like, Hey, you need to push these.

[00:14:47] It's amazing. And they came back with a, we can't afford a video budget for all our ASINs. Like that is such a huge opportunity for mid-level sellers because we can get on it immediately. We have the assets and the contacts to make sure we can bust out videos quick enough and take advantage of that inventory before anyone else does.

[00:15:05] So everything around creative is just such a huge opportunity because it takes time to manage. And a lot of big companies don't have time for all the minute details. Yeah. And you know, one question is like, I kind of always have the problem with, with my particular brands and what I work on the problem of creative, particularly video.

[00:15:23] Have you seen any kind of, what, what kind of creatives are you working with in terms of video that work, like is it testimonial type videos? Is it out of the box type things or what what's actually working for that type of advertising? We have a split test, quite a few different things. And the biggest takeaway we had is when we split tests, professional videography with, you know, Amazon's really terrible PowerPoint videos, the PowerPoint videos actually had a higher click-through rate.

[00:15:52] Now the reason being is I think customers don't want to see commercials all over the platform. They want to see something that looks native to Amazon. They don't want to be conned into clicking on a commercial. So that was huge for us because then we can recommend to all of our sellers to just get something done.

[00:16:07] That's what matters. And then within that, the biggest calls we've had is have a really strong opening scene. You know, pay-per-click model, you need to stop and grab their attention. So we've seen like just larger product sizes do really well. Unboxing can do well, but if it's a really slow entry, it's not because no one wants to stop and wait, like an influencer type of video.

[00:16:29] And then things that are really focused, zeroed in, on a product, less commercial, like you typically see on OTT or any type of TV format. Yeah. You know, interestingly enough, when you do advertise on YouTube, the same thing holds true. People tend to kind of glance over the commercial type thing. So I don't know how much, how many times I've seen that monday.com one, but I'm like, oh, it's Monday.com that you see a guy holding.

[00:16:53] Yeah. IPhone up to his own face and he's got an interesting background. You kind of tend to stop and want to figure out what is this guy talking about? So I guess the same goes along the same lines with Amazon. But some people would think like, oh, it's got to look very commercially. And I think I just made that word up commercially. Howie, you know, we haven't actually asked your opinion on that, Howie.

[00:17:16] So I think people would love out there. If you kind of give us your insight to what the opportunities are for coming up to the end of the year and into early next year. We have not had the heard the Howie input. Give us some Howie input here. Before I say anything, I wanted to just ask Destaney some questions. I wanted to ask you.

[00:17:34] So you do talk to all these big sellers or you do work with them. So can you tell me what are the big sellers doing right now that middle to small sellers aren't doing so that the audience can kind of get kind of an idea of where are they missing out on? One of the biggest things, and this is more house is focusing on their organic ranking and then making sure that they're pushing advertising presence.

[00:18:03] So anyone who type any search terms right now, the top of search is almost all ads. And then you have your top four ranking products, and then you have editorial recommendations and then you have more sponsored placements then you have a video search ad. Like it's absolutely insane. No one is seeing your products

[00:18:20] If you're on the bottom of search. Like you may drive some volume, but it's so oversaturated that you have to get in those top four organically placed placements, or you have to relook at how you spend your advertising dollars. It's not, it's no longer like easy money, you know? So getting to that top of searches is huge. And knowing how expensive things are a supply chain costs and ad costs a lot more brands and started to zoom out and look at the long-term level.

[00:18:47] Yes. I may lose money right now, but if I can get into organically ranked position, I know I'll probably hold there and, you know, drive a lot of incremental profitability over the long term. I see. The second question is we want to see, like, if you can like show us what you got and, you know, do you have any like real tricks or hacks that would help our audience here like that you can help them offer?

[00:19:13] Little tricks or hacks with Amazon advertising. That's a really broad question. One of the biggest things I would kind of recommend is like utilizing sources, like brand analytics to make sure you're doing more expansive keyword research. So when PPC is getting really expensive diving into some of the long tail things, looking into doing sponsored display.

[00:19:36] A lot of people are staying away from sponsored displays. It's pretty scary, overwhelming, but you have the ability to target Twitch streamers. You have the ability to target someone based on the fact that they love cats. A lot of that stuff is to opening up a window of ad inventory for people. I have like a lot of small things we can dive into, but I don't know how granular you want to get in terms of tricks.

[00:19:56] Whatever you can give. Let’s save that for the mastermind, Howie. We cannot throw in Destaney’s tricks right now. Back to the question you're asking me, what would I see in 2022 or and on? So right now it's more and more about external traffic, ads, you know, you're going to have a lot more people within right now, since there's so many aggregators out there, they have money.

[00:20:21] They're going to be able to hire a lot of talent. We're talking about Google ad words, Google shopping, Google display, video and display 360. We're going to talk about like, there's Bing, we're going to talk about there's all these different social ads network, but media buying things like from now, it's going to be the.

[00:20:42] The influence, in their marketing, the affiliates time to shine because they can do that. They know how to do that, bring in the traffic. So there's now it's going to be the bridge that I was always talking about from Amazon sellers to the affiliate internet marketing world combined kind of, that kind of coming together.

[00:21:03] So there's going to be, I see a lot of that and I think it's going to be a lot harder for small sellers to really sell because you have to really know a lot. And then with that, you probably would need to have a lot more of a bigger team and more money to spend. Yeah. And you know, which brings me to a question for Destaney.  Destaney,

[00:21:26] What, what platform do you see most of this big money investing in right now? What do you mean exactly? I mean, but that advertising platform, I should have been a little bit more specific. Is it more like Amazon advertising? Is it more still Facebook, is it TikTok or which platform do you see that most of the big money is really putting a lot of their resources into.

[00:21:52] Due to, you know, regulations with some of the apple rollouts and things like that, we did see a decent shift towards Amazon as well as retail being closed. So typically a lot of people invest in these top of the funnel strategies they would pay for in-store marketing capabilities and things like that.

[00:22:10] Last year was, you know, a little bit more complex because a lot of your large brands move that money over in Amazon. So I think Amazon is still going to be a huge player. I think TikTok’s also going to be big because it's more natural and it does bridge that social commerce gap like mentioned. And Walmart, I think, is really making some big moves investing in this space right now.

[00:22:31] And I think that's something that we're all kind of sleeping on because the platform is not ideal. But they're still the largest retailer. It'll, it'll get to the point of Walmart being a really strong player as well. Yeah. One more. It's still very glitchy. So I got

[00:22:48] on the back end, but Howie anything you have to add to Destaney before we say goodbye and I give details of how people can attend the event. I think I asked all my questions already. Howie you’re on a roll today, buddy? So obviously the event is October 4th and fifth in Las Vegas, Nevada. Destaney, that was amazing tidbits that you gave there.

[00:23:11] I can't wait till you divulge the real secrets and tactics, that Howie's trying to put the pressure on you. He’s trying to get them right now. So Howie was ready to go, but Howie remember, you got to make sure that there is champagne on deck for Destaney to spill stuff for these secrets, Howie?

[00:23:27] You gotta know how to do it the right way Howie. So do you like to drink. So what kind of I think Liz asked, what was your drink of choice? Champagne. Okay, so you get champagne and you’ll get a lot of it. And some orange juice. You can spill secrets.  We will spill everything.

[00:23:50] Amazing Howie we will get some champagne for Destaney. Obviously there's going to be a lot more drinks on deck. We've got a bar, an open bar at the end of each day, and a lot of special festivities planned. And on top of that, that's Howie mentioned earlier, we do have a grand prize of $7,000 to the top speaker as voted by the attendees and the smartest marketer, which will be one of you.

[00:24:12] Who will be in the house, revealing their best secrets and tactics. And that prize is $2,500 for the smartest marketers. So almost $10,000 in total cash money. Howie will be on deck. What do you got behind you today Howie, the San Francisco bridge. He's always changing the backdrop. Yesterday, he had his men in black backdrop, so he obviously will have a suitcase has shades and his little black.

[00:24:34] Suit, black tie to give out that prize cash money to the top speaker. So I'm super fired up for that event. I know a lot of people out there want to get more information on that event. Head on over to howardthai.com/elite2021, like the year. Again, that's howardthai.com/elite2021.

[00:24:54] And I think we've said pretty much everything. Anyone else have any last words before I give that website one more time and we get ready to rock and roll and get the champagne and Don Julio on deck? Oh, everybody's ready to go. Everybody's ready to be done. Fantastic Destaney. Thanks again Howie as usual.

[00:25:11] Thanks again. And again. It's howardthai.com/elite2021. I'll see you all there. I'm super fired up. I hope you are too. 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.