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Archives for September 2017

7 Tips for Purchasing Courses

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Should I buy (fill-in-the-blank course)?

If you are anything like me, you have asked yourself this question a few times. While we have created an incredibly successful course with The Wholesale Formula, we still personally invest in learning and take lots of courses we believe will help us in our own entrepreneurial journey. I personally don’t believe the need for learning ever goes away, particularly in evolving markets like Amazon.

The changes make it exciting, but also make it necessary to continue to learn. That being said, we have taken a lot of courses between myself and Eric, and have bought even more for our team members. Needless to say, we are huge proponents of learning.

So, how do you know if a course is right for you?

That I really can’t answer (as a lot of this depends on your personality), but I can tell you the process we use to determine if a course is right for us.

1) Will I use this course?

While this seems like a pretty easy question, I think it has the most bearing on your success. I believe the number one reason for failure in ANY course is due to not taking action. That applies to us as well. In the past, we have bought courses and not taken action on them.

As you would expect, we didn’t reach our desired results.

Is that the fault of the course? No. It was our fault for not taking action. So, now we ask ourselves this question. If I spend this money, will I take action? If the answer is yes, we will proceed with the following questions.

At the end of the day, buying a course doesn’t help you. Using the information in a course to shortcut your learning curve certainly can, we just have to make sure that we are prepared to do that.

2) Can I afford this course?

Simple enough, right?

I think this goes a bit deeper. It’s not just about the money for the course. The course has its fee, but enacting the business model also usually requires capital. Beyond the price of the course, do we have the appropriate amount of capital to make it work?

For example: with wholesale, we suggest people have a minimum of $2000-$4000 in available capital before starting a wholesale-based business.

If you can’t afford a course, it’s not going to be a good fit. No matter how hard you work, if you don’t have access to the required capital to make it work, you won’t see success with the program.

3) Who teaches the course? Are they active in the industry?

This matters a lot. If the person selling the course is active in their industry it says a couple of things:

  • They believe in what they are teaching.
  • Their strategies are more likely to be up-to-date and effective.

For example: in our case, the strategies we offer in The Wholesale Formula course are the exact same strategies we use in our business. This means our TWF folks are the beneficiaries of the awesome new and fresh strategies that we test live in our business.

4) Are these people getting the results that I want?

I believe that this is important. In general, we are positive people. When we do things, we assume that we will be successful. With that mindset, the most important question is, when I succeed is this what I want to be doing?

I think there is more to it than making money. Does this business model provide the lifestyle that you want?

Our goal in this step is simply to make sure the result actually aligns with what we want.

5) Does the course have a refund policy?

A refund policy serves multiple purposes!

  • It shows they have confidence that their product will work.
  • It gives people an easy exit strategy.

Let’s face it, some things just don’t fit. That happens to everyone on occasion.  With our course, we have a generous thirty-day no-questions-asked refund policy. This was important for us because we realized that our course and model isn’t for everyone. Our goal isn’t simply to get more clients, but to help as many clients as possible actually succeed, so we wanted a refund policy that shared that philosophy.

We have NEVER turned down a refund request inside of our 30-day period. Not once.

This is one of the things that I immediately check for when looking at a course for myself. The aspects that I care about are:

  • Is the refund policy clear?
  • Does the refund policy give me time to see if the product fits my goals?
  • Are there contingencies to the refund policy?

Those criteria are all important for an encompassing refund policy. I never want to feel like I am in a position where I might not get a refund if the product doesn’t align like I imagined. Instead, I want a clear policy that is easy and gives me a chance to see if I understand the model and it makes sense.

6) What type of testimonials do they have?

I believe it to be critically important you see that people are taking the class and are succeeding with the material. Testimonials show a lot about a course. You get to hear others’ experiences and, even more importantly, you get to see that people feel strongly enough to leave a testimonial.

The alternative is that you are looking at a new product. We have taken a few first-time products with great success, but they were advertised as such. If it is a course that has been established before, I certainly want to see some testimonials.

7) Does the course present the material in multiple ways?

I am generally a video person, but with complex concepts, I love to be able to read through the material or see some graphic examples. When we are considering a course, it’s important to us that the material is presented in multiple fashions to make sure that I am most likely to learn the material.

I realize that some of you may not care about all of the things mentioned here, and that is perfectly okay. My goal with this article is to help you learn to make the best decisions possible for your business, by sharing the methodology that we use in our own.

Ready to Get Ungated?

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Getting categories ungated could be the single most intimidating process Amazon sellers go through. The secret is, once you go through the first one, the rest of them really aren’t intimidating at all. In this article, I will spill the beans and help YOU have the necessary information, and hopefully help you gather the courage to push forward and go through this process.

Let’s first look at it from the perspective of WHY it really should not be intimidating. For what it is worth, this is likely the single most common question that we receive or at least a derivative of it.

“How do you get ungated?”

In reality, there are a couple of ways to navigate this process, but we have one that we suggest over ALL others.

  • Supply Amazon with Invoices from wholesale companies
  • Be a registered manufacturer with the FDA

I would highly advise against the latter choice (unless you already have those credentials.) If you register with the FDA you open yourself up to all forms of government inspection, etc. Then, imagine trying to explain to the FDA you simply were trying to get your Amazon account ungated in the Grocery category.

I’m sure that would not be “cool” with them. Don’t do it. The other way works just fine.

To really get a good idea of WHY Amazon requires this, let’s look at the policy in general. With Grocery, Health, and Beauty particularly, this is really self-explanatory. If you are selling in these categories, you are selling things that people either ingest or use topically. Either way, if you have suspect handling procedures, that could provide a risk to consumers. Amazon has realized businesses are much more likely to have “safety measures” than people and require this as a form of admittance to show that you are a “real” business.

Now, before I proceed, I want to make one thing abundantly clear…

In most cases, I am very pro-service. I LOVE services that save me time. As an entrepreneur, it is the one resource that I cannot “buy” more of.

However, in the instance of ungating, I would advise against using these services. The main reason is it is VERY hard for them to be TOS compliant. Effectively, to get through the gate, Amazon needs to see that you are buying products from approved vendors, and have the invoices to prove it.

Outside of signing you up for wholesale accounts and placing orders for you, there is nothing they can do!

So, if you get approved through these services, and they don’t sign you up for wholesale accounts and place the orders for you, they have given you inauthentic invoices that can get your account permanently banned. Or, even worse, they could have registered you as an FDA registered manufacturer.

Either way, bad news!

That being said, there really isn’t any reason to go that route and risk your Amazon account or, even worse, possible government fines (which are MASSIVE.)

The other way you often see people trying to get ungated is by going with the distributor ‘de jour’ that is working (at the time) and getting Amazon invoices that way. I know for a while the go-to was Pricemaster. Not sure if that is still the case, or if that one is even still accepted by Amazon. Either way, after you finish this article you won’t need it.

Before we jump into the “how-to”, I did want to point out that If you follow our instructions, you will get in. This is not a hack, or cheat, or short-cut. This is EXACTLY what Amazon wants. When you do things the right way, Amazon WANTS to work with you. They want to approve you to sell in categories.

Complete the following steps to be ungated in a category:

  1. Locate three brands, in the category that you would like to be ungated for. We suggest using the TWF methods to do this, and actually locating brands that you will want to work with in the future.If you are uncomfortable, find three products that you would use in your home, or would not mind using. This part will be unnecessary but may help to ease your fears.
    We prefer to be brand direct here.
  2. Purchase a product or two from each brand in commercial quantity. Commercial quantity is generally defined as 30+ units.Bear in mind, the most important aspect here is NOT being profitable (though if you can be great), the most important aspect is getting ungated. You can lose money on the order and still win.

    This product needs to perfectly match the Amazon detail page.

    Ask that you be given a paid invoice for your order (most will do this anyway).

    When you register your account with the company, make sure that it matches your Amazon Account Info that is on Seller Central.

  3. Annotate your invoice.On your invoice, you should write the ASIN the product corresponds with.

    You can similarly use a program like Snagit. For an awesome guide on annotating invoices, please read our good friend Nate McCallister’s article here:
    https://entreresource.com/amazon-not-accepting-invoices-brief-rundown-properly-validate-suppliers-amazon/

     

  4. Send Amazon the information, and if you are rejected don’t panic.If you are rejected for whatever reason, make sure your invoices have the required information and are generally acceptable.
  • Supplier Information (company name, phone number, address, website)
  • Buyer Information (company name, phone number, address, email)
  • Invoice Date (must be in previous 90 days and visible)
  • Item Name/Description
  • Item Quantity in Units

At that point, if your invoice is correct, you can annotate the various parts of the invoice, as that will help the Amazon rep make the correct decision. Similarly, you can also get a Letter of Authorization (use the brand gating template) to give along with your invoices.

The vast majority of the time this last step is NOT necessary. You should be approved without issue using your invoices alone if there aren’t HUGE problems with them. Also, it is important to say most vendors are flexible and will tailor the invoices to your needs.

So, there you have it. If you can do that, you can get ungated. I realize the concern here is that:

“What if Amazon doesn’t let me in?”

You have to understand that simply isn’t going to happen. Amazon rewards people who do things correctly, and this is the process that Amazon WANTS you to follow. This is their preferred approval process because it gives them the information they need from the most legitimate possible sources. Just realize that this is a low barrier of entry for the opportunity to carry lots of new products. Likewise, with Amazon, hurdles NEVER go down, they only get higher (so you should do this sooner than later).

Until next time!