#321 – From Side Hustle To 7-Figures, Erin Graybill Tells Her Story
In episode 321 of the AM/PM Podcast, Kevin and Erin discuss:
- 01:30 – How A Kevin King Hack Helped Erin’s Hero Product
- 03:00 – Erin’s Backstory And When Did She Start Selling?
- 04:30 – Picking A Product And What It’s Like Selling In 2014
- 09:45 – Is She Still Selling Her First Product Today?
- 10:45 – Reaching Multi 7-Figure Seller Status
- 11:40 – The Difference Between Selling In Europe And US
- 13:50 – Competing In Europe With A Major Disadvantage
- 15:00 – Selling Make Up Brushes And Kits
- 17:15 – The Intuitive Bundling And Erin’s Overall Strategies
- 19:40 – Talking About Erin’s Failures And Plans For The Future
- 22:30 – Enjoying The Creative Process Of Building Her Brand
- 24:15 – Talking About Marketing And Customer Experience
- 29:00 – Teams, Systems, And Operations
- 30:45 – Entrepreneurs Are Visionary And Operational And Not Tactical
- 32:40 – Structure, Process, And Routine
- 36:40 – More Lessons For Amazon Entrepreneurs
- 40:20 – Top 3 Lesson To Achieve Success On Amazon
- 42:00 – How To Get In Touch With Erin
- 44:30 – This Week’s Golden Nugget Of Advice
Transcript
Kevin King:
Welcome to episode 321 of the AM/PM Podcast. My guest this week is Erin Graybill, a dual citizen of the UK and the US. She started selling in the UK back in 2014 and only recently has actually migrated over to North America. We talk about her story, about how she differentiates her product and how else she struggled to let go and actually build a team so that she could really grow her business. I think you’re gonna enjoy this episode. Here we go. Erin, welcome to the AM/PM Podcast. It’s an honor to have you here. How are you doing today?
Erin:
I am doing so well. It is actually a massive honor for me to be here talking to you, cuz I must say you were the first, the very first Amazon guru that I ever heard that I took advice from and used. So this has like been a dream, so.
Kevin King:
Oh, really? Oh wow.
Erin:
Yes, indeed.
Kevin King:
That’s awesome. When, when was that? When did you first hear me speak? Was it on stage somewhere or was it on a podcast or?
Erin:
No, I didn’t go to any conferences in the beginning. This was actually 2016. I was in my studio apartment and I found, I think it was Matt Ward’s podcast. I believe it was that one or early AM/PM, one or the other, I can’t remember. But it was a creative hack on how to get customers to convert feedback into reviews if you do it manually, successfully did it in the UK and then expanded into Europe and did it all over Europe. And that was the key to a hero product that we still sell today cuz we have so many reviews. So thank you for that, Kevin.
Kevin King:
Oh, you’re welcome. You probably can’t do that hack anymore.
Erin:
Well it was like a manual one just to be like, what I really liked about it was, it’s quite intuitive because customers don’t have time, right? So it’s like they write feedback, so you just send ’em a quick message and be like, thank you so much. basically explaining the difference between reviews and feedback and then copying and pasting. What they wrote is feedback. So all they have to do on their phone is a quick copy-paste. Then give an individual voucher code just as a thank you for supporting.
Kevin King:
Ah, okay. I remember that one now.
Erin:
Yeah, it was so good because it’s so true. Just imagine like I was living in the UK you’re at a bus stop, it’s raining, you’re not gonna rewrite a review, but I’m like, oh, that’s nice. You reached out, you gave me a voucher code. Like, oh, absolutely. More than happy to copy-paste, work the dream. Even across Europe too, which is usually harder to do. We still use it, but we don’t get as much feedback or we can’t.
Kevin King:
Yeah, I don’t think, I don’t think it works as well anymore. They
Erin:
Never get the emails, but anyways, I’m skipping into it. But yeah, so I was like, full circle moment for me. I was like, ah, now we’re talking. So this is fun.
Kevin King:
Awesome, awesome. And so how long have you been selling on Amazon?
Erin:
Technically 2014 was my first sale. December 2014. That was in the UK so really 2015.
Kevin King:
So you don’t have a British accent. So what, were you living in the UK or did you just decide to start selling at the UK?
Erin:
No, I was actually living there. I did kind of the backwards thing to most sellers. So I started, it was a side hustle. I lived in the UK rewinding back for almost 15 years. So I’m a dual citizen, but I’m a west coast American. Born and raised there, went over to the uk studied, was kind of complaining my scholarship wasn’t paying me well enough and one of my friends kind of called me out and was like, why don’t you make more money? Then I was like, oh, okay. And then heard about this Amazon FBA thing. So I was in the UK and I was like, what could I develop and sell? I was studying international trade economics and so yeah, I started sourcing in October and then had products already in December. Two different products I was obsessed with these from day one. So, yeah.
Kevin King:
So did you take a course or did you learn by watching online stuff or how did you do it?
Erin:
No. It’s actually my ex now is he had done ASM so I knew he was selling on Amazon. He’s always like, you should do it. And I was like, oh, I’m busy, whatever. But the day I decided so I kind of like almost, I got like the kind of a summary. I watched one module, but I was a bit impatient. But this was back in once I figured out you could look in browse notes, right. And I love it when I could talk to people That’s done, who’s done the 999, like the real OGs. So it’s like you could look in brow notes and when I realized you could do that and then start stocking volume and I could like, I could do better, I could do better. So, so that was how I did my product research. So I was kind of introduced to like how to look at browse nodes and assess volume. But in the UK there wasn’t Jungle Scout, there wasn’t, there wasn’t anything late 2014. So once I had my little spreadsheet going, then it was just self-taught podcasts asking questions, but yeah, failing a lot. But getting back up.
Kevin King:
Those that haven’t been doing this as long as you and I started FBA in 2015. I started selling on Amazon in 2001, but the FBA model in 2015, they don’t realize, like you just said, there wasn’t a Jungle Scout or Helium 10 of these tools. I think there was a precursor to managing by stats or something like that. There are a few little few little things. But tell us how the old days, how did you actually pick a product? And people are gonna be probably flabbergasted about this. How did you pick a product in 2014?
Erin:
I just literally went to the top, just like the top browse nodes I’m like, oh, beauty top hundred and beauty like what, what do I fancy selling there? What looks nice? And I was kinda like, okay, eliminate brands. And then I was like, what is, and then what I love doing to this day is I’m like, oh, jump on Alibaba. So kind of like what we do now, but a lot rougher where I was like if I’m not secretive about one of my I’ve got a few brands. One of the main ones is cosmetic accessories. We sell makeup brushes. I didn’t know how to use makeup brushes. I saw one, I ordered it cause I was like, that’s on Alibaba. And then I was like, “Ew, it just looks cheap. It looks horrible.” And then I was like, I can make it look better.
Erin:
So that’s how I found one was in the top 100 for beauty. I was like, not that many reviews ordered. It stunk. It was horrible. And I’m like, they were selling at a price that they, they shouldn’t have been. And then I did the same thing in men’s wallets, oddly enough. So they did the same, same for both, where you just like, I’m like, “ooh, top 100 in luggage.” And I had my little 999 sheet of, I do number one in the browse node and then 50 so you can get an idea of depth because I wasn’t looking at sub-browse nodes. This was 2014 in the uk you go right for the top one. So, so that was it was kind of a bit of order it and I’m like, I could absolutely do better because there weren’t many people doing good products. And of course I didn’t do these things, but launching was a little different as far as getting reviews and those crazy kids were doing some things where you could write your own reviews, et cetera, et cetera. Fiverr people. So it was potentially a little easier.
Kevin King:
You could actually get reviews for free back then, just as long as I put, I received this product in exchange for my opinion or something, that was the day where it was just easy.
Erin:
I heard you could spend $5 and write your own review and someone would, and someone would post it, pictures, everything. It wouldn’t say a thing. Nothing. It was
Kevin King:
Crazy. Yeah, that was in 2013, 2014. You could actually do that. Yeah, it’s.
Erin:
And in the UK it didn’t do those things, but it was just, it was just a lot different. But I guess where I felt I was like, I really tried to make the product better. And it was potentially what slowed the growth, in the beginning, is because I ordered little batches of these two things. Sold them all in December and then at that point realized, I just wanted to make sure the products were as good as I was saying they were. I was really, really obsessed with exceeding customer expectations. Even if I could sell, get away with less. So kind of missed that first Chinese New Year boat trying to make things better and kind of, it was a bit slow that first six months to a year, but I was also a PhD student first year. So it was a side hustle.
Kevin King:
So how much in sales did you do that first year in 2014? You said you ordered just a small amount.
Erin:
Yeah, 2014. Oh cuz that was only a month. I think. I actually, I remember I profited 5,000 pounds, so I can’t, I don’t, wow. Yeah, so that was the thing is my main thing is like, I wanna make more money, but then that’s when you’re an entrepreneur. When I’m like, but wait, if I put it back into the business, I can make even more money. So I didn’t realize I was gonna enter like, multiple years of being poorer than I’d ever paid before trying to make this money? But I feel like that’s when you have like, like the edge for it. So I don’t know what that would’ve been. I think I was selling, I mean any math wizards there, so if I made 5,000 profit and I was, it was between 25 and 30 pounds, so
Kevin King:
Probably, so probably about 15,000-20,000 pounds or something like that.
Erin:
And that’s when like, I was doing PPC where you just pressed auto. That was it. I was like, I should turn on PPC. Like, oh, that’s nice. Like turn on the nozzle. And then I think like two months later I checked and I was like, oh, a cost, so it’s low. Nice. I should do more of that. So it was easier to learn as you’re going when obviously things weren’t quite as sophisticated. So you get a handle on everything, your operations, your supply chain, kind of like incrementally bit by bit. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like going from, from zero now. I wouldn’t want to. Yeah,
Kevin King:
It’s a whole different game today. So are you still selling those same products today? Or have those long gone and been replaced?
Erin:
Well, gentlemen, I’m sorry to say the wallets have been discontinued. So I no longer have my men’s wallet brand, which was a shame. But yeah, the, a version of the very first product, I mean obviously it’s been many different, ASINs is the near a beauty artistry set. And that is basically what’s evolved from that first top 10 scan I did in 2014. It’s our top selling set. We’ve sold off Amazon B2B contracts across Europe now into Eastern Europe. It’s been, and actually this Christmas has been really great as well. So it’s been kind of what’s carried the brands across. Yeah, a bunch of, bunch of the bumps, but no, the wallets are gone, which is a shame. Still have the brand though well see if it’ll make a resurgence. You went, it’s got a lot of reviews on the ASIN, so anyway,
Kevin King:
There you go. So, so what have you grown it to now? So from those humble beginnings, is it a seven figure business, an eight-figure business? Where are you at today?
Erin:
Multi seven, not an eight yet, but somewhere between seven
Kevin King:
And eight and selling in the US and the UK and Europe still?
Erin:
Yes. So we just entered the US in March of 2021, which is crazy. So I did think definitely cross a seven figure mark maybe into, got into the multi early multi before coming to the US. Was it? Yeah, definitely was like, at least at one and a half, just in the UK in Europe before maybe two before we considered looking at other options as well. So yeah, that was, I was actually scared of the US I just thought the minute we started selling in the US we’d get hijacked and Black Hat attacks, which is not too untrue I will say now, but yeah, so I was actually hesitant and now it’s our biggest growth market just launched in Canada as well earlier this year.
Kevin King:
What do you find different when you, when did you take the exact same product and pour it over to the US or did you actually change it a little bit? Or what do you find different between selling in Europe and the US?
Erin:
Okay. It’s kind of like a nuanced question. So as far as like product-wise for the makeup brush brand, we took our winning variations that, that entered the US market with 6K reviews at 4.8 out of five at the time. So, so that’s how, that’s how we, we decided to choose one brand. And then I developed a brand new brand. I’ll talk first about the difference between the exact same product and the different markets. So I think actually to those sellers that started in the UK and the EU, it’s in a lot of ways if you can make it there, you can make it in the US if it’s a product fit, because it’s a lot harder. Every new launch we did in the beauty niche, it would be in five different languages launching on primarily short tail keywords against Chinese suppliers and paying VAT by the way.
Erin:
So everything had to be so tightly run and efficient. Like that was kind of how we grew up dealing with Italian bloggers, trying to drive some external traffic, but everything was, didn’t realize it was a lot more laborious where getting to the UK or in the US and I was like, what are all these keywords? I’m like, you kids are so spoiled, you have long tails. Like we knew what the long tails were in the UK, but like one person a month might buy something. But here it’s like we were able to launch some premium price beauty products just off the back of long tails. I was like, wow, you guys are so spoiled. There’s a lot more competition. But the fact you can build out like sub niches where imagine a short tail word keywords in beauty against Chinese suppliers that are like one-third your price across five countries. So we are still doing that. But as far as new launches and stuff, we’ve done quite a bit of export off of Amazon as well. So my heart is still with we’re very international team and I, I love the idea of Europe but profit wise as far as Amazon, the path of least resistance is to do more in the US right now
Kevin King:
In the UK up until just recently you were talking about competing against Chinese sellers. A lot of those, they weren’t even paying that. I mean, until recently Amazon’s cracked down that some of ’em may still be skirting it a little bit, but they cracked down on that. So for a long time there, for the first five, six years, you were competing at a major disadvantage?
Erin:
A hundred percent, yeah. Oh. Like, and I was just like a bitter Betty about it, but it’s like, what was I gonna do? I would take the risk as a British company with British employees and probably like go to jail to not pay that, to compete. You just couldn’t do that. So we were, especially with our B2B sales, we were that registered across all the European markets through Amazon, but also a couple Scandinavian countries as well.
Kevin King:
But now you’re back at living in the US is that correct?
Erin:
Yeah. So I was living in Northeastern England near kind of near Scotland. And now I live in Miami exactly the same. Forget where I am.
Kevin King:
So in the makeup brushes, that’s a highly competitive niche. I actually sold makeup brushes in 2015 and 2016. I actually, what I did is I did a set. So I was, I looked on on there and I was like, I don’t wanna sell these brushes for 4.99 or 5.99. I wanna actually do something where I can actually distinguish it. So I’ve dealt with, and one of my other businesses, we’ve dealt with models and photo shoots and fashion photo shoots and stuff for a long time. So I had a general sense of it. So I went out to a bunch of makeup artists that we were using and said, what would be the perfect makeup brush set for you? And they said, oh, it should have this one and this one and this one.
Kevin King:
And I ended up creating like a 21 brush set and put it in a nice, like, leather case, and the company was called Elite Beauty, and Illuminate was was the other brand name that we, we did, we did makeup brushes, we did mirrors, a little travel mirrors, all little desktop mirrors, all kinds of stuff. But when we came up with this brush set, I was selling it for 39.95, 21 brushes in a nice leather case. I just could not compete. I could not get that $39 price point to stick on page one because everybody else, and mostly Chinese base sellers were selling for a brush for 5.99. So the page one was just full of like 5.99, 1 or two set brushes. And so I would do a promotion, get to page one, sell a bunch, and then I’d just fall off to page two or page three. And it was a constant fight. So I ended up just creating like a two brush sample set just to get down that 5.99 price point and then putting a variation on it for the 39.95 one. And it still was very, very difficult to compete. So how did you compete? Or maybe in Europe, it wasn’t that difficult, but what did you do to differentiate to make your brushes stand out against the guys that are just all raced to the bottom on pricing?
Erin:
Yeah, absolutely. It was like that from the beginning. It’s interesting. We had, we had similar approaches, but in parallel sides of the pond is that like after that first December where I sold my batch, cuz it’s a set as well the top selling products within the Niré beauty brand. So it was the same, I kept 10 of them aside and I gave them to aestheticians and makeup artists. I was like, tell me what you don’t like. And they’re like, why would I do that? Cause British people are quite polite. I was like, no, if you tell me I’ll make it better. It’s quite a few iterations to make it better. So I think part of it was also intuitive bundling because I kind of looked at what would be nice to go next. So it comes in like a storage capsule, which is good for travel.
Erin:
Then I decided to add makeup, a silicone, like basically a brush cleaner, and put that in with our customer experience as well. So we’re like you should wash your brushes once a week and here’s something to actually do that with. Here’s a sponge in case you use that as well. So it was also just the way it was presented, the pictures were better. And then we got really, really good reviews, had some makeup artists actually contact me. We started sponsoring master classes as well. So we had a lot of really, really great content. And then part of it too was when once I had it down to kind of a science in the UK about this set, so this was early 2016, entered into Europe early and then went hard on trying to get reviews by doing the proactive customer service when people were still actually checking their email.
Erin:
So in part of it was superior product that we were always tweaking to do. I say we, I still didn’t have a team at that point. It was always tweaking to try to make it look nicer pictures, bullets, et cetera. And then getting those reviews. And then when they all started getting bundled together, then it was crazy. So we were actually the top converting product in the makeup brush set niche. I say like real techniques or we had all the cheap tat basically the really you get 32 brushes for $8. Like I literally still don’t know how those factories even make money. And then you’d have real techniques, which if you’re probably aware, it’s like a really popular brand and then you have us.
Erin:
So we always just kind of stuck until we had, now we have a few dupes. So we’re able to just build that momentum and keep making the set better, but not changing the brushes, it was just more the packaging or, and then we kept getting all those reviews because we did as much as we could with customer service while, while we were able to, and then by the time we entered the US because to be fair, if I would’ve tried with Niré years earlier, especially without all the reviews, I think it would’ve been the same thing. How do you get on page one? We’re around $50 now. And it’s because of the cluster of long tail keywords that match customer intent. The big guys on the top of page one are, are still absolutely selling massive volumes for breakeven, gotta be breakeven for some of these factories in the US. So I think it’s just now the market has more pockets of richer keywords, long tail keywords that are associated with enough revenue to make it worth your while.
Kevin King:
So were you doing anything along this way as you’re, you were a superior product kind of right place, right time and able to build that moat. Were you doing anything at the same time to actually build a list of any kind, like an SMS list, an email list? Were you giving away a free brush if they signed up for a makeup tutorial or something?
Erin:
This is where it’s like my biggest, like I do a whole podcast on failures. So this is before the US was just once I tried doing these things across five countries. I gave away so many lip brushes and I had this list of like 5,000 people across Europe that just wanted free stuff that I didn’t know what language to launch to. So like I did, I tried once with that. But it was also kind of cart before the horse with, with the beauty brand is that never got that far outside of brushes. So it’s kind of like, how about you buy more brushes? How about one for your friend without having that fully built out consumable also so we actually just had an annual meeting today, this morning. That’s a huge thing for next year is to finally really try to build out an audience.
Erin:
We have a QR code on our packaging that just goes to a joke right now kind of to make customers smile. It’s dynamic so we can change it it was like a good pun. But yeah, so, so that’s something where I tried and failed a lot, spent a whole year trying to work on the B2B side with professional makeup artists, got all the content. Kevin, I have videos of Niré brushes in Milan, in Paris, in London. The best makeup artists using them from, I’ve got all the evidence in the world that this is a top class maker brush, but it just wasn’t enough to, to actually even get the makeup artist niche because there are so many other more well-established brands. And since it was my bad to not find a way to pick the right consumables so, so yeah, this, the first brand’s kind of been my baby where I’ve made all the mistakes.
Erin:
And so now then we actually called a lot of the SKus two years ago and just focused on profitability. So we had other makeup brushes so we had two sets where like, if you have this one, here’s what’s missing. Like all the technical, it’s the best set of 24 brushes you’d ever need, having both of them. But the average customer on Amazon was like, they kind of look the same. I’ll take the one with more reviews. So had to go in really unemotionally and call a lot of the additional sets that were taking up, inventory profiting if only just a little without that bigger thing. So there’s still opportunity, but I work to in that department.
Kevin King:
So are you hoping to exit any of these brands or you just right now just enjoying the pro the creative process and building them?
Erin:
Yeah. the latter. Yeah. It was kind of like beginning of 2021, I started thinking like, oh, is there something wrong with me? Like, I, I should exit. Everybody’s exiting. And, and I think it’s the right choice for a lot of people, but at least right now across the three brands, there’s, I really enjoy what I do and part of my why is developing opportunities for, for my team, I’m very team focused as well. So I think we’re at a point now where we’re making some really good momentum where we can get more efficient. There’s a lot more we could be doing across the three brands before it would even be on my mind. I wanna say, no, I don’t ever want to, but you can’t ever, you can’t ever say that. But it’s just not really my motivation cuz it is the joy is creating these beautiful, stunning products.
Erin:
An additional joy has been creating a team that carries that passion as much and if not more so than me. That’s been so amazing cuz I just never thought anyone would be obsessed as me. And I was like, oh my gosh. That’s why we have headquarters, actual physical headquarters. We take all of our own pictures. I want everyone before our copywriter writes bullets, I want everyone in the office physically unboxing the competitor. I want you to know what the expectation is for the customers that’s gonna be buying from us and how you market and how you write and how you design products. It was like, how do you replicate what you did on your own? It was me in my studio apartment ordering the competitors being like, that’s crap. That’s crap. That’s crap. That’s good. I’ll do that too. You know? Cuz I just think you really miss a step. Not forgetting that on Amazon we sell stuff. So make your stuff better and then, then make it another step above better. Like think of what’s coming next because at the end of the day, I do like to tell myself marketing is of course extremely important, but make sure this stuff is
Kevin King:
Good. But marketing is also, it is also part of what you just said. That experience when that box comes, well those makeup brushes come it, that experience of opening it right there, that is super important. And most people, they skip that step because that’s what’s gonna help you get good reviews. That’s what’s gonna help you get the good word of mouth that’s gonna help you someone taking a picture and share it on their social media. Look what I just got from Amazon. And so many people forget about that experience. And it’s also, it reinforces that they made the right decision because sometimes people are like, Hey, I just spent $50 for these makeup brushes, man did, was that a mistake? But when they get a nice box and it’s a nice unboxing experience, they’re like, this is cool. This was worth it.
Erin:
Yeah, exactly. It’s like what I try, it’s like the art of making something look expensive. Like, you’re like, oh, what do you mean looks expensive? Like it’s not just the little things like does all the paper match? Do you have the same rose gold foil that starts, it doesn’t match the, the snap of the button. Does it match the feral? It’s all these little cues it gives your brain. Cuz a human brain is a bit greedy, right? You’re like, I spent 50, but I wanna feel like I spent 75 even better if I’m gifting it, I’ll look even better. I’ll look better if I gift you something expensive. And even better if it wasn’t. So it’s kind of like breaking down the science of make it look expensive, without being as expensive. So that’s kinda what we do. Make stuff look expensive.
Kevin King:
That’s what I do too. And then just, just last on last week’s episode Norm Farrar was on and he was talking about some knives that they sell and they, these knives, I think they cost him or maybe it’s a knife, I’m sorry. It cost him like three or $4. It was his, his landed cost and they were selling him for 20 or 25 bucks or something like that. Just by changing the packaging and the presentation, they were able to take that to as high as $200 and spend about three or $4, I think he said, on a really nice, cool packaging and changing it up. And they were able to completely change the perceived value on that and it’s so important. In today’s world, it’s just selling another commodity or another thing on Amazon. You’ve gotta start thinking about that. It’s like you’re saying building the brand and building that experience and that’s crucial. And you understand that, but unfortunately, most sellers don’t and they’re just looking for shortcuts and the cheapest way out, and they’re not gonna last.
Erin:
Yeah. I definitely agree, but it’s, it’s just kind of getting over myself too, when sometimes things we have to do things a bit cheaper too, but not lessen what we do but do, but I’m totally on the same page. Is that like, it’s all those little, the little things that people remember? And it’s funny actually because it makes a lot of things that wouldn’t, now we do everything that’s obviously giftable, but in the beginning with makeup brushes because of that premium packaging, you’d also in business that network events, you move a lot of emails and they’d be like, oh, you sell makeup brushes. Oh, that has nothing to do with me. I was like, actually in fourth quarter, 35% of our customers are men.
Kevin King:
Yep. It’s up.
Erin:
Yeah. I was like, because it looks expensive and it’s in a nice box and we put a picture of a happy girl and a boat, like we’re in your head. This is about you. so we’re making it easier for you. I’ve even thought I was like, I should just do a brand of just stuff for women marketed for men, but the women would have to like it as well. Which is kind of with that, that psychology of gifting. So I guess we all roads keep leading back to giftable things, but I think that just goes to the passion of, we just love everything from start to finish. Where it might be a little harder if we sold, like actually, who knows? I don’t know other niches besides what we’ve done. Everything’s always been a nice process
Kevin King:
Well, I mean like a makeup brush. If I’m a woman and I need to buy a makeup brush set, I might go and buy it. But when it comes in the nice packaging it, it’s not just giftable for, I’m buying this for my mother-in-law or for my, my daughter or something like that. But it’s a gift to you. And when it comes in a nice presentation Yeah. You’re like, I just treated myself I didn’t just buy some makeup brushes. Yeah. But I just treated myself and it makes you feel good.
Erin:
Yeah. And we like putting little affirmations kind of like, “hi beautiful,” “hi, pretty,” or like sneaking a pun there every once in a while you notice to kind of make people smile. So, so yeah. You talk about this all day.
Kevin King:
Well, it’s like a QR code. You said people scan a QR code. It’s just to make ’em smile. You said it’s like a little joke or something?
Erin:
It’s a pun joke. Yeah. About makeup brush. Oh no. Spoiler alert. Everyone has to go out and buy the set and find out on their own. But, but it’s dynamic. So yeah, we’re gonna try to put some links to some like helpful tutorials or just a bit, a bit more content for people. But yeah, lots in store for next year.
Kevin King:
I hope you’re at least pixeling ’em when they scan that QR code. Yeah,
Erin:
I need to look it’s on my notes like when you have an annual meeting and it’s just like, like there’s, it’s a lot of things I need, need to double check, but I was just kinda like, print them first you need to just get obsessed, like get the QR code on there, what are you gonna do with it? I don’t know. It’s dynamic. I’ll worry about it later. Just get it on there. I need to actually figure that out. So another note.
Kevin King:
Speaking of annual meetings, you’re big on, like you said on team and systems and stuff. Is that correct? I mean, you’re really big on, where does that come from?
Erin:
Yeah, definitely. It came off the back of pretty much total incomplete burnout. That’s, that’s when I kind of had my moment of realizing I needed to change things. So as I mentioned before, started in 2014 and then at the end of 2018 kind of crossed that line that you think now you should have made it when you listen to the podcast, cross the seven figure line I had a team of about eight people including placement students. And I realized at that point that I was so burnt out, physically, mentally was working ridiculous hours. And I had a team that were looking to me on how to act and how to be, cuz I worked with a lot of interns and graduate students and I just felt like I couldn’t as entrepreneurs we can do a lot, we can spin a lot of plates, you can burn yourself out, you can go and go and go, but at some point, it’s like something, something’s gotta give.
Erin:
So I ended up going to a conference CapCon actually Ryan Daniel’s conference in Dallas and met some other entrepreneurs and heard a particular teams person speaking Alex Charfen some of his ideas. Ended up studying all of his stuff, listened to all of his podcasts, worked with my team and then realized the biggest thing that I needed was a team to get out ahead of me. Cuz I think there’s, with entrepreneurs sometimes you’re more visionary or operational as far as how you work, right? And if you are a visionary entrepreneur, it’s like you have the ideas, you like strategy, but you often get bogged down in so much of the tactical that your team literally has no idea what’s, what’s next. The things that excite us as entrepreneurs. Like if I say, Kevin, I want a 5x next year, I’m like, we’re gonna go for it.
Erin:
It’s like we get excited and we’re like, yeah, think big. But if there’s not an actual plan, and if that doesn’t actually happen at the end of the year, your team loses faith in you and what’s going on. Goals mean nothing targets me, nothing. Which means they don’t know how to support you. It was a lot of like kind of training myself like I’m still me, I’m still the entrepreneur. I love the idea of a good new idea, like new revenue, et cetera. But it’s kind of structuring things basically to protect the team from me. So getting the team out ahead to get put, put my ideas into reality, but then also stopping me from going to like ClickFunnels and running back and being like, Hey guys, now we’re gonna do this because it’s a quote that I really, really like is, was “quitting the addiction to new is the commitment to mastery.”
Erin:
So as much as it sucks, but it’s like if I think that’s the main lesson as an entrepreneur once you get back is when you’re kind of starting to grow up a little bit. I am still new in my journey. I’m feral. I’ve never even worked in corporate before. I’ve figured this stuff out on my own, like not trying to say have it figured out, but really kind of getting that lesson is we are all wired to be shiny thing object addicts. But you can let that, that addiction keep you as a, like a, I got 10 different hustles versus a massive scale entrepreneur. Yeah. So you have to get your stuff together basically with team and with that is the stuff that we avoid more than anything else, which is structure, process and routine. It like gave me hives at first to actually think to have those types of things in advance.
Erin:
But that’s when you really start to to flow. You have a team that’s a lot more invested because as entrepreneurs we think people think like us and most people don’t. And the people you need working for, you shouldn’t think like you be a hot mess. You have a lot of people that think like you all together? So really it took about a year and a half of study and putting systems into place where I still have amazing operational talent within my team, thank God. So I think one of my strengths is realizing what I’m crap at, making sure I have that in there. But so part of it is forward planning. So that has been such a game changer is that, like I said, we just had our annual meeting, which means our revenue objectives are how many reviews we hope to get.
Erin:
It sounds crazy, but we actually forecast all of this now so we know the high level things we’re going to do, we’re not going to do. And then by the time first quarter starts, we have a meeting and we tell the whole team, here’s what we’re doing. First quarter, nothing’s a surprise. People know what they have ownership. And that goes down from annual down to meetings that we have daily. So without getting into the details of all the different ways we do things, it’s actually set us free because we’re all moving together with a similar like rhythm towards a common goal that’s actually achievable. We set our financial objective, like I said the kind of stuff like my secret entrepreneur objective is higher than what we said. I’m like, no, we’re gonna do more. I’m sure we’ll do more because I don’t care if we don’t, it excites me thinking maybe we can, right?
Erin:
But what we actually set is responsible. It’s like you kind of bring the target in closer so you could hit it. So then you what winning feels like and then setting that up for the team. The team wants a place to show up and win so they can be winning. You can still be casting your vision out ahead, but communicating it in a format that’s not gonna burn anybody out. So sometimes I’m kinda like, oh man, I’m boring now I don’t go run after this stuff. I used to, but it I think the truth is somewhere in the middle definitely. But that’s been the biggest I guess hack for me. So that’s why I know how we were introduced is that like I’ve shared, I don’t gain anything from it, just kind of like what I do with friends.
Erin:
You wanna know how we do stuff with team. Like, here’s my laptop, let me just, I’ll run you through how we do things. You can just see, maybe it’ll help you maybe it won’t, but it’s making sure we’re always like reaching out to see if people like at, at the end, for example, like one, one thing that people can take away. If you’ve got a team that you can’t talk to everyone, but you still kind of wanna know what’s going on, at the end of every week we have everybody do a weekly report, which you kind of report on what did you think was a win? What went well as metric based as possible. It’s great. And then we ask every single week, where do you need support? We’re actually asking people to complain, where do you need support?
Erin:
But a lot of times you might think, oh, they’re just gonna complain. It’s not, sometimes you get that, sometimes you get nothing, but sometimes you get people actually solving things. One time our comms person was like, where do I need support? She’s like what, I’m kind of annoyed because I feel like I shouldn’t be the one that is liaising with the translators when we’re doing European launches. I don’t think this as efficient. I think it’d be better if it was the designer, I’ve talked to him, he thinks it’s a good idea, can we do it? And I was like, yes, absolutely. So if they know it’s like a safe place all the time within a structure that is forward-looking repeatable and has a rhythm that doesn’t like stress them out. It’s amazing how much you as the visionary entrepreneur can be in a position where you’re like in a bird’s eye view of seeing what’s going on instead of before I started on this journey, I would show up at my desk.
Erin:
I had like three placement students. I didn’t know what they did. Like bless them. Thank you for the work that you did. I was just like bringing, getting funding where I could, like bringing all these people in. I was like a big hurricane. I’d check my email and I’d react that that’s what I would do and that that was my day. And then I would work until it was dark and then that’s what I would do. I’m not saying you don’t still have to roll up your sleeves, but having that structure and process as much as entrepreneurs would naturally resist it. It actually sets you so much more free.
Kevin King:
How hard was it for you to let go?
Erin:
So, oh, it was really hard. Absolutely. Yeah. It’s really, and it’s, you still struggle with that and that’s why I feel like entrepreneurship is like a spiritual journey.
Erin:
It’s like every time you think you’re stuff like you get poked and you get triggered with stuff. And I think there, there’s a huge problem I see with a lot of entrepreneurs and in myself but especially in the Amazon space is people don’t wanna let things go and they bottleneck it. And the thing is, okay, here’s the deal. Some people are not gonna like this. I think there’s two reasons. There’s two reasons why people don’t let things go. Number one is they think they’re special. like no one can do it like me. No one will be as good as me. I can’t hire anyone. Okay, fair. If you actually think that, then you’re right. And then you’re a bottleneck. like they might not do it exactly like you, but there could be a process put together where people could be at a template, be it whatever.
Erin:
So it’s really kind of getting over that ego part of it. It’s like with me, I’m still like, I’m really good at product development. Like I’m really good. It’s like, really? Or do you dislike what you do? Like you’re good, but like, can you make space? Because if you don’t, are you a product developer or are you a CEO? You gotta make that decision. So if you want to be in a strategic place, you gotta check your ego and it’s tough. And it’s kinda like, I’ve got all my little cliche terms. If there’s a need to complain, there’s a need to train. Well they’re crap at it. It’s like, okay, well maybe they are, but however, like how good was the process? Did you set them up for success? What does it look like? And you have to realize it’s not gonna be you, but are you a CEO or are you a doer of the things?
Erin:
And there is a lot of brilliantly, tactically talented people in the e-commerce space. So I’m challenged on this quite a bit. go to masterminds or people like, well no one’s better at PPC than me or whatever. I’m like, potentially, but at the end of the day, are you a PPC guy or are you, it depends on what kind of business you wanna run. Like if it’s like a packaged up Amazon business to sell versus like a, like a tructure based company. And the second reason this is like, like people don’t wanna let go is cuz they like, you like to feel, you also like to feel important. Like what if things are bottlenecking on you? That means people are asking you questions all the time. Like, Erin, what do you think of this? Do you need this?
Erin:
Like, will you look at this? Will you approve this? And sometimes yes, you need to do the final sign up on things, but other times people don’t really, people actually low-key like it when people are coming to you all day, which could be cool like I have an open door policy. It’s like, okay cool. But like at the end of the day, are you fully positioned to, to be strategic in your business at, at that point where, cuz you can structure things where you have the metrics you need and you have times where you meet with people from different departments. They’re always are fires to put out. So it’s not like, sorry, process says this, we’re under a Black Hat attack and you can’t talk to me. But I think it’s like kind of really looking at yourself and part of it is like, okay, fair.
Erin:
Like if you really enjoy doing some of the tactical things, it’s just like, are you able to like do that next level strategic role as well? Because doing both, sometimes you can’t if it takes that much time. So I think that’s like the main thing with Bottlenecking cuz that’s like, and I’m fully still guilty of a lot of these things on the annual meeting, I was basically like slating myself. I’m like, oh God, I didn’t hand this off because part of the same thing I like NPD, why do we have nothing launching before Chinese New Year? Why me? Because I’m like, oh, I really wanted to put the briefing together. Guess what? I didn’t, I’m mad at myself right now. It was a rough meeting today. That’s why cause I’m not even taking my own advice, but I’m aware of it. So that’s part of what I need to do is actually be like, who can help with like a pipeline of, of ideas? You’re not a unicorn. Okay. You might think you’re good at it, but give your team the chance to win, right? So yeah, anyways, I’m very emphatic because I just realized all the mistakes I’m making today again, cause it’s one thing to know it, but it’s like it’s like an ongoing practice.
Kevin King:
So someone that’s out there that’s selling now that’s doing everything themselves, what would you say it should be? Like the first three steps that they do to actually get to the point where you’re at right now?
Erin:
Yeah. Okay. So if you’re selling yourself, and I guess this goes at almost any phase is for you to know who to hire what you need to do is, there are templates online is make do a time study, not digitally, but actually print it out. Cause there’s something about writing things down with an alarm on your phone every 15 minutes for two weeks, what is it you’re doing? And I’ve got like, kind of like a breakdown like what is like survival, eating, sleeping self-care family. But then within work, what are the things you’re doing? And then what is strategic and what is tactical? And this right here is gonna be so telling because a lot of people think a lot of what they do is strategic cuz either they like to do it or they don’t trust other people to do it.
Erin:
But so once you have this two week time study, you can, okay, imagine picking it up and shaking loose. The easiest tactical tactics, what would be tactical is like customer service. And I’ve run into someone that’s like, no, I know the customer best. I know the product best, no one can do it. I was like, do you know that you can do FAQ based really like templates? Like I built a CRM on Google Docs. Like you literally can exactly what you would say in these situations. You can, you can build a template, right? So just if you shake loose what is low hanging fruit as far as tactical, then make a process that anybody can do. And yes, it’s not gonna be you and you can use Loom and there’s gonna be a little bit of iteration.
Erin:
Then from there, because you did the time study, you should know exactly how many hours this position should be and at what level. Cuz often what we end up doing at the end of that is being like, or like without doing that, we’re like, I need someone to do Amazon. I’m gonna get a VA full-time. Well, great, like, how long should it actually take? Because who loves not being fully busy? B Players, they love that. And you know who you’re gonna lose a players because they don’t wanna be bored without clearly defined objectives. So it’s like easy enough if you’re replacing what you’re doing, perfect, that’s actually the most straightforward place to start that people get the most overwhelmed. So start with the time study, put some stuff together and then you can put together what if you’re like, okay, it’s 15 hours a week, I’m gonna start with a VA experiment with some of these processes. See what it’s like, checking in with them once a week and then you can build it from there.
Kevin King:
That’s Awesome. Erin, I know we could probably sit here and talk for hours and hours or more, but we’ll have to have you back up on a future episode of AM/PM Podcast. But this has been awesome. Lots of great information and lots of good insights and thanks. It’s gonna really help lot of people aren’t listening.
Erin:
Oh, well, it’s such an honor, and thank you so much for the opportunity to be on your podcast. Yeah, I appreciate it. It’s been awesome.
Kevin King:
If anybody wanted to reach out, talk to you or find out more about you or anything is there some way they could do that? Can they follow you or whatever?
Erin:
Yeah, probably my personal Instagram that’s, it’s better than email for me. So it’s just @erin.graybill, I hang out there the most.
Kevin King:
Awesome. Well, thanks again for spending some time today. This has been great. Appreciate it.
Erin:
Of course, my pleasure.
Kevin King:
Erin and I could have spoken for another, probably several hours. As you can tell, she’s a passionate entrepreneur that really enjoys what she’s doing, really enjoys creating and providing value to her customers. That’s something that a lot of us could spend more time on, is really focusing on how do we provide that extra value? How do we, we make them smile? Just like that QR code that she said, it just goes to, to make them smile. They scan it and wonder what the heck are they get. And right now she hasn’t quite figured out exactly how she wants to leverage that, but it just goes to like a pun, she said, just to put a smile on their face. That’s something that you want to do in your products and in life is just try to put a smile on somebody’s face and just see where that takes you. We’ll be back again next week with another episode of the AM/PM Podcast. But before we go, just wanna leave you with these words of advice. The world rewards you for value provided not time spent. The world rewards you for value provided not time spent. See you again next week.
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