by Jessica Dahlquist, Director of Operations | Coaching
We talk to sellers everyday who feel like their sales have plateaued or they are just getting started and they aren’t sure if they are even doing this whole Amazon thing the right way. But…they don’t know what to do about it. That’s why bringing in a coach at any stage of business is a wise choice, because then you can ensure you are moving the needle forward and focusing on the right things. If you haven’t already signed on with a coach, it might be because you feel pressed for time and can’t imagine adding one more to-do to your list. We totally understand the hesitancy, but trust us, this is one to-do that’s a must-do!
A Fresh Perspective
A coach can come in and help you see the things that you might not have noticed. You are so entrenched in your business, and if you’ve been staring at your product listing for years and know your product inside and out, you may benefit from having fresh eyes on your listing. It’s totally normal to maintain the status quo as an Amazon seller, but you can’t expect different results until you do things differently.
Cutting Edge Strategies
Part of an Amazon coach’s job is to understand the new strategies, systems and tools that are available to Amazon sellers. While you may only know a bit beyond what is working (or not working) for your personal business, a coach has experience in various niches and the time to stay up-to-date on what is working on Amazon right now! For example, while physically mailers may work great for some products, expanding social media might be a better choice for others. When you’re able to dial in new strategies that work well for your products, you can apply them across your entire product catalogue and replicate it week after week.
Prioritizing Your Time
I know your time is precious and you don’t want more to-dos, but a coach can help you select which tasks are the most important and what actions will yield the biggest bang for your buck. Don’t waste time on tasks that don’t give you a high ROI. Let your coach offer you the direct path to success as they tell you not only what to do but also how to do it. Think about how much time you’ll save when you aren’t handed a personalized roadmap instead of fumbling around in the dark trying to figure things out on your own. You’re welcome!
It’s a new year and we want the BEST for your business. We would love to help you supercharge your sales. To find out exactly what type of coaching your business needs, click here to apply. Be sure to let your client success team member know that you read this article and we’ll give you 20% off your first month! Good luck!
by Jessica Dahlquist, Director of Operations | Coaching, Full-Service, Special Events
Are you one of those last-minute shoppers who binge buys on Christmas Eve? Or do you have you had your shopping list all checked off since late August? The holiday season and end of Q4 are MAJOR opportunities for sellers to up their game and achieve their highest sales of the year (unless you sell boogie boards, then December is probably not your top month!). Increased sales don’t happen on accident, you need to properly plan in order to see maximum returns in Q4.
When should you start planning for the holidays?
Since you may need to apply for some of the promotions you’ll want to run, we recommend planning for the holidays and its coordinating promotions at least a month in advance. This ensures you won’t miss the window to apply for certain deals.
Once you know what promotions you want to run, you should immediately start applying for them. Opportunities disappear the closer you get the holidays. If you know you want to do a Black Friday deal or a coupon, look for the application window NOW so you can ensure you don’t miss out.
Beginning prep this early will also ensure you have enough time to order the inventory you’ll need to get you through the holidays. Don’t miss out on sales because you’ve run out of stock in Q4! Avoid this hazardous mistake by forecasting early and planning ahead.
What promotions are most effective?
The answer is that it varies for everyone. To start, look at which promotions have worked best for you in the past. Have lightning deals been successful? Does it work to offer a discount on multiple quantity purchases? Have coupons been effective?
TurnKey Pro Tip: We see coupons that offer a dollar amount discount convert better than the percentage off ones because customers don’t like doing the math!
If you take the time to run promotions and ads for the holidays, make sure you get the word out about your deals. In addition to reaching out to existing customers, now is the time to attract new customers into the fold. Running external ads work very well in order to share your deals. People tend to trust Amazon more than purchasing on individual random websites, so it’s worth pushing people over to your Amazon listing versus just advertising to your website.
So, take some time to prepare for the holidays and maximize your Q4 sales. If you want even more strategies, our Client Manager Jenna is over on our Playbook for Amazon podcast chatting with Jeff on Episode 18 all about what she’s doing to help clients prep for the end of Q4!
by Jessica Dahlquist, Director of Operations | Coaching, Full-Service
For most business owners, the end goal of building a thriving business is to sell it for a tremendous profit. It’s like investing in a home and then selling it once it has appreciated. Selling a business for top dollar doesn’t come easy, but if you’ve done your part to make the business attractive to a buyer, you can expect a pleasant return on your investment!
Jeff Lieber, the founder of Turnkey Product Management, started as an Amazon seller. He sold puppy and baby products for several years and eventually grew the business to the point where it became attractive to potential buyers and selling made sense. When he went to his accountant for the next steps, he was shocked by the response he got. He was told that his next step was to clean up his books, to the point where anyone could walk in and think that running his business looked doable.
Jeff thought his books were fine, but they were only fine because HE understood them and HE knew where to look for information. Someone else wouldn’t be able to make sense of them, and they certainly wouldn’t want to take them over in the state they were in. Just as you’d declutter a house and landscape the yard before you put it on the market, Jeff set out to give his business some “curb appeal”.
He hired someone to compile all the sales information from his years of selling, created legible spreadsheets, and was able to show a clear upward trajectory in his sales. It took a bit of doing, but once that was finished, he had a much cleaner business to present to buyers. More important, without changing a single system or increasing sales by a single dollar he increased the value of his business.
Our #1 tip for selling your business: Clean up your books. Think of it this way, if it wasn’t yours, would you want to “move into” your business? If not, what things need to be organized, systematized and dialed in to make that transition seem not only doable but sustainable and profitable for the buyer? Once you’ve answered those questions, you’re on the way towards selling your business for the big bucks. Good luck!
Hear the full story of the lessons Jeff learned while selling his Amazon business by listening to Episode 5 of the Playbook for Amazon Podcast.
by Jessica Dahlquist, Director of Operations | Coaching, Full-Service
A Quick Note From TurnKey:
In this article we briefly mention Amazon Giveaways. While the rest of the article is still up to date and valid, as of October 10, 2019, Amazon Giveaways is no longer a feature hosted by Amazon. We loved this strategy so much and are sad to see it go. That being said, the principles that made the giveaway effective still apply:
- Leverage social media, email lists, etc. in order to send people over to a landing page to collect even more customer email addresses.
- Use squeeze pages to share more information and connect with customers. Video is a fantastic medium to include on the landing page because it gives you the unique opportunity to talk to your customers and pitch to them as if you were in the same room.
- Offer a discount code to people who watch the video.
So don’t worry just because Amazon isn’t offering this feature anymore. You can still find ways to incorporate the aspects of this strategy in order to impress your customers and increase sales! If you need more support, we have lots of other strategies to help you grow your sales, so don’t hesitate to reach out.
If I asked you to show me your to-do list right now, my guess is that it’s a mile long? Business owners at every stage in the game suffer from the same issue: an overwhelming amount of work to do and an inability to take action on many of the tasks because they aren’t prioritized properly. I don’t want you to feel paralyzed by the length or complexity of your list. I want you to feel empowered that you can take action TODAY on some of those items and really make an impact on your sales numbers in the process!
How do you do that? At TurnKey, we call it our 90-Day plan. When it comes to optimization and strategy on Amazon, it might feel like you want to check every box all at one time. However, when you create an intentional plan for execution, you can gather much more effective data on what is working and not working in your Amazon strategy which allows you to stop wasting time on ineffective strategies and activities and invest it in more meaningful ones.
First, think about what your major pain points are on Amazon right now. Is it the number of reviews you have? Is it your images? Is it figuring out PPC and dialing in an effective ad budget and plan? We suggest you choose 3-5 pain points you want to tackle over the next 90-days. Next, you are going to create goals and a game plan that will help you succeed. Sound good? Let’s get started!
Let’s say, for example, you want to reach 100 customer reviews in the next three months. Our favorite way to make a goal actionable is to reverse engineer it and break it down into bite-sized pieces. Here’s an example:
- I want 100 customer reviews in 90-days.
- That means I need about 33 reviews per month.
- To do that I’m going to focus on one thing that can help me achieve this goal per month:
- Month 1: Improve my autoresponder to make it more engaging and lead people to want to leave genuine reviews
- Month 2: Implement a review funnel
- Month 3: Run an Amazon Giveaway to increase traffic, educate on the product, etc…
So now you have a plan of attack for what you’re going to do each month. Simple right? But what if you don’t know how to create a more engaging autoresponder? Well, you have two options: Either Google “compelling autoresponder sequence” and see what you come up with, or get TurnKey’s Growth Course (which is clearly the superior option in my humble opinion). The course has a module dedicated to improving your autoresponder sequence. We break down step-by-step exactly how we create an effective autoresponder sequence and how that leads to more reviews. Implementing those changes will really set you on the path to improving your sequence to get you more reviews.
Month two, you decided you wanted to implement a review funnel. What if you don’t know where to start with that? Again, break down this goal into 3-5 reasonable steps to get the information you need and take action on that information. Maybe your first step is to watch that webinar on reviews you signed up for a while back but haven’t gotten to. Take out your calendar and schedule a time to watch it. Then list out all the steps you need to take to really follow through on creating that funnel. This may sound tedious but trust me, once you get some momentum you’ll be plowing through these action items in no time.
Month three, thankfully you’ve already purchased the TurnKey Amazon Growth Course, which is now doing double duty because there is another module in that course telling you exactly how to run an Amazon Giveaway. This is such a great growth strategy because not only will it lead to reviews, but you’ll get increased traffic, sales, and fans! So make a plan to go through that module, plan out when you want to run the giveaway, how many units you want to give out, make a plan for your video and squeeze page, etc… Even though it may feel like your to-do list is getting longer, you’ll be checking boxes left and right and seeing the fruits of your labor.
Do you see how you started out overwhelmed by the impossibility of getting 100 more reviews, and now you have an actionable plan to achieve that goal? Plus, you’ll get tons of data by taking action on these strategies. You’ll learn what works for your product and what doesn’t, so you can improve and replicate these systems week over week. Be sure to circle back to your plan every 30-days to see what ground you’ve covered, do any of the goals need to be adjusted, and then continue on with the information you’ve gathered.
Unfortunately, not everyone who starts a 90-day plan finishes it. Many sellers fall prey to becoming too ambitious with their 90-day plan and then don’t follow through. Just like all the people that sign up for a gym membership at the beginning of January and then stop showing up by mid-February. We don’t want you to be part of that statistic; we want you to THRIVE on Amazon!
Here are three tips for following through with your 90-day plan:
- Sign up for TurnKey’s Inner Circle Coaching. Having an expert hold you accountable to your plan and to your progress will give you the kick in the pants you need to really see evident change on your sales. Plus, as you go through these 90-days, they can help guide you as you get more information about what’s working and what’s not, and help you adjust your plan as needed. We’ll even make your 90-day plan with you!
- Have a friend hold you accountable. Speaking your goals out loud to a trusted friend or colleague can also be a great form of accountability. While they may not be an expert on Amazon, ask them to check in with you every few weeks to see how things are going. If you know they’re going to be checking in, you’re much more likely to get some work done so you have something to report!
- Choose a goal related to a pain point that would really alleviate some stress in your life. If you know the changes you are making will make your life easier, your more likely to see them through to completion.
- Make sure the goal you set is reasonable. Expecting 1,000 reviews in 90-days will only leave you disappointed and less likely to follow through. Set a goal that you would be thrilled if you hit and delighted if you surpassed.
So it’s been 90 days. You’ve worked your way through your plan and, hopefully, accomplished your goal. What’s your next step? Make a new 90-day plan! Evaluate what you’ve learned over the past 90 days. If needed, you can choose to make new goals that relate to your previous ones, or if it makes more sense, take on a new pain point. You should always have new goals for your business so that it does not stagnate. Always continue innovating and making needed changes to your Amazon business in a systematic and reasonable fashion. You’ve got this!
by Jessica Dahlquist, Director of Operations | Accelerators, Coaching, Motivation Monday
A Quick Note From TurnKey:
As of October 10, 2019, Amazon Giveaways is no longer a feature hosted by Amazon. We loved this strategy so much and are sad to see it go. That being said, the principles that made the giveaway effective still apply:
- Leverage social media, email lists, etc. in order to send people over to a landing page to collect even more customer email addresses.
- Use squeeze pages to share more information and connect with customers. Video is a fantastic medium to include on the landing page because it gives you the unique opportunity to talk to your customers and pitch to them as if you were in the same room.
- Offer a discount code to people who watch the video.
So don’t worry just because Amazon isn’t offering this feature anymore. You can still find ways to incorporate the aspects of this strategy in order to impress your customers and increase sales! If you need more support, we have lots of other strategies to help you grow your sales, so don’t hesitate to reach out.
On a scale of 1-10, how nervous do you get when it comes to staying compliant while trying to get reviews? I know…it can literally leave you feeling helpless as your niche is getting more and more saturated and you don’t want to overstep with any shady strategies that will get you slapped on the wrist. The rules surrounding customer reviews and giving away products have definitely changed in the Amazon world over the years, so how do you know what’s okay and what is not?
While there’s a whole list of terms you must adhere to on Amazon’s website, at TurnKey we try to focus on what you CAN do to get results, and not just what you can’t do. One of our favorite strategies is utilizing Amazon Giveaways. The giveaway is literally hosted BY AMAZON, and as long as you follow their rules, you are good to go. Our clients have seen huge returns by running Amazon Giveaways. We are talking $1k in product for $10k in trackable revenue from a Giveaway.
So what’s the secret? Well, it’s important to first know HOW to set up an Amazon Giveaway. We walk you step-by-step through how to do that on Episode 2 of our Playbook for Amazon Podcast. Then once you understand the process, how do you actually make it result in massive returns?
Our #1 tip for running a successful Amazon Giveaway is to include a promotion for customers that don’t win the giveaway. By giving them a discount for entering, you’re much more likely to have an immediate customer or a customer down the road.
And if you want a bonus tip… we love adding educational videos to the squeeze page for the Giveaway. This is your chance to connect with your customers, appeal to their emotions, and get them to buy into the “why” behind your product. Make sure your video focuses on the benefits of the product and how they will feel after they use it. That’s exactly how we 10x’d our investment for the client I mentioned above.
If you haven’t already given Amazon Giveaway a try, we HIGHLY recommend this tool for getting more sales and in turn more reviews. If you want more information on Growth Strategies, we have a course designed specifically for the seller who is looking to GROW!
Need a bit more help generating the reviews you need to gain sales? Check out our Review Generation Accelerator for step-by-step strategies to increase your review numbers!
by Jessica Dahlquist, Director of Operations | Accelerators, Coaching, Full-Service, Motivation Monday
We hear from Amazon sellers every day who are intimidated and overwhelmed by their competition on Amazon. They feel like there’s no way that they can compete against the big brands who already have a following when they are just getting started. This type of thinking is something we like to call a scarcity mentality. It’s the idea that you have to either win everything or you get nothing.
Let me tell you a little secret about SCARCITY MENTALITY…it will not make you money! While you are spending so much energy worrying about someone else, you could use that energy to focus on improving your listings and growing your traffic. So promise me you’ll switch your energy to something that is worth your time, right now! Got it?
I guarantee your competitor is not doing everything right on Amazon and there’s plenty of room for opportunity for YOU to shine. Don’t worry about what they are doing, but instead let them educate you on what’s working and not working for customers, and take that information to improve your listing.
Here’s how to put this motivation into action: go to the listing of a competitor who intimidates you. Then, you’re going to make an old-fashioned list of pros and cons. First, write down all the things that you love about their page, their product, and their engagement. Do they have great images? Are they really personal when responding to questions? Are their bullet points engaging?
Next, put on your customer hat and write down all the things that you’d feel their listing is lacking if you were looking to purchase their product. Are there too many keywords stuffed into their description? Is their product missing any key components that your product offers? Are their images sterile? What are customers saying in the reviews about where this product fails to deliver?
Now take a look at your product. I guarantee that your product has a UVP or unique value proposition. What makes your product stand out? What problem does your product solve that your competitors’ product doesn’t?
Finally, go back to your listing and look at it from the perspective of a brand new customer. Do they fully understand the VALUE and BENEFITS of your products? Do they know how their life will change when they buy it? Are your bullet points highlighting not just the features, but the benefits? Once you ask yourself those honest questions, make the changes that create a clearer reflection of your brand. Once you do that, you can feel confident that you came to compete no matter who you are up against.
If you want more information about what you can learn from your competitors, check out a recent episode of our podcast, Playbook for Amazon. In Episode 9, we cover “How to Study Your Competitors to Beat Them”.
