Our guest on the 15th of April, 2019, on the sellerboard show, was Alex Huditan, an 8-figure Amazon seller from Romania.
Alex has been selling on Amazon for 4 years and is currently spending a few hours per month for work and it’s absolutely amazing. Alex talked, how he started the business on Amazon. He sold his first car to get some money for a business! Also, Alex shared the method of product research, which can help you to find a product that will bring a million dollars in earnings per year. As we said before, he works several hours a month, so he told about his team and shared what helped him not to lose motivation.
Watch the full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fhtXJms9Vw
Speaker 1: Hello my name is Michael, I am the co-founder of sellerboard, the most accurate analytics tools for Amazon sellers. Amazon shows you a lot of different information but doesn’t show you the main KPI of your business profit. sellerboard shows you profit in real-time. And of course, our sponsor today is sellerboard, you can find a link below, register today and get one month for free. And we are welcoming our great guest from Romania, Alex hello!
Speaker 0: Thank you for inviting me I was actually late for this podcast a little bit and I’m very sorry about that, I was having some adventures with some friends of mine here in Marbella. It’s in the south of Spain and we were a bit late, yes, I hope everything will run smoothly from now on.
Speaker 1: Be sure, be sure and I see that you understand that you know it so we are ready to answer any questions as for any questions always spreads all the tips and tricks. Okay so let’s start from the beginning the first question is how all this started so tell us about your business adventure how where and all the details you are ready to share with us.
Speaker 0: Right right well I found out about the Amazon about five and a half years ago from a friend of mine his name is Ciprian and he told me about this like us he was already in it he was making seven hundred dollars per month and for Romania and this was already kind of a big amount and he was like Alex you need to be my partner you know about marketing and things we should do this together and he was telling me I follow this course and it’s very good I paid five thousand dollars for this course. And I said I don’t know I am I’m doing other things right now I don’t know if I have time to put into this as well but it didn’t sound very good this idea so I went back home. And I checked a lot of websites and check all the sources that I could including torrents and all the torrents, you know torrents you know correct, right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure!
Speaker 0: On the torrents, I found this the course that my friend was telling me about so I looked at the first videos and it was impressive like what the guys what we’re talking about the course is ASM amazing selling machine and it was a very cool risk it was like yeah it was the third one actually third one okay yes and I got very excited and I was telling all my friends about this like man this is a great opportunity, this is a great opportunity my friend called me about this I told him we will form a mastermind and that we will not be partners we will each have our own business but we will help each other a lot. So three of my friends also joined me so we were five guys we were meeting twice a week in my one-bedroom apartment in Bucharest and we were having these masterminds we were helping each other a lot and this like in four months each of us had one product up on Amazon and it was 2014 when this happened in May June that’s when we started it started to like grow for us, my thing for this was that I sold my car for the first inventory I didn’t have a lot of money back then so I had to get money from somewhere and my last resort was the car that’s what I owned and I sold it I got some money and I got t I got it back somehow the money for it in a very short time and my thoughts for this was that in six months I should do about 3000 euros for Romania this is amazing like you can have a very good lifestyle with 3000 per month and I was thinking maybe somehow like if I could ever have 15000 euro per month that would be amazing like oh my god who spends that much money is incredible I can help everybody around me still have money for myself t’s going to be like a lot of money so actually from the 4th months that I started the business I was doing already 15,000 per month and yeah the business has been growing ever since and me after the six months after the the business, got started after I had the positive cash flow in the business after the business was okay.I was taking money out of the business and I started traveling around the world I put my favorite clothes in one big suitcase and I left Romania.
Speaker 1: So yeah a good finish will be I have never been in there man since then.
Speaker 1: So yeah a good finish will be I have never been in there man since then.
Speaker 0: You know I’d go back go back yes yes but maybe. One month to month or year yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay was it wasn’t a good car I mean you sold out for the first.
Speaker 0: I would be deeply. You have all all tell us more about it because.
Speaker 0: Like that two thousand and group or something like this like an old tired but it was my dream car.
Speaker 1: Okay but it shows that working as a marketing manager you felt yourself good, yes?
Speaker 1: Good, yes, the decision to change in all not a bad job but a good work which gives you a maybe not a lot of super a lot of money but gives you some good money to changes in the business are you haven’t seen this opportunity and tell me more about how you’ve done it have you all done it in one day or maybe you were working and also making them some business so tell me about the strong transformation from the working guy to the Amazon guy?
Speaker 0: Right well before this the I was on I was working in a corporation it’s called H. p. Hewlett Packard and I had the cubicle job like you know like very thanks this was my whole the date and I decided to quit that job I took a loan from the bank I took that and thousand euros and I thought I was going to be a businessman. I thought to hell with the corporate world I’m going to be very rich by being a businessman but the land was I didn’t have a real plan it wasn’t something good thanks so I tried a lot of business ideas I will I tried something with cars I wanted to have a magazine I was an agent or somebody that was in comedy I was doing business with all of my experiences like a website where you sell experiences my real presence something that gives somebody like a ride with a Ferrari or should we in a balloon. Should an arrow something like this but none of those things were bringing me any big numbers maybe it goes hundred three hundred euros per month and I wasn’t really making anything so in about one year I burned through all that and thousand dollars that I borrowed from the bank and the that’s when I had nothing and it’s about that time.
Speaker 1: When my friends told me about Amazon so I was in a very down. Slow going down and down and down and in my in my mind then it was I have to go all in on this Amazon thing and if it doesn’t work I’ll go back to being an employee somehow.
Speaker 1: Understood understood so it was not a big choice you know it was only one variant that time so.
Speaker 0: Yes.
Speaker 1: So I understand I understand tell me a little bit about your company now so how it looks right now how many people are working that so many groups products are selling and so on?
Speaker 0: Right on the right now we’re selling good nine products so with the forty nine variations. And though we have well. Well we’re way. Over to the seven figure marks so we’re making more than a million or year.
Speaker 0: This is mostly in on the US market we’re also selling in Europe but it’s an insignificant amount compared to what we’re doing in the U. S.. It’s also because we really haven’t focused on that, the market and it has been pretty steady and my company, I like to tell people that I work less than four hours for a month on my business because the team handles everything and I am very grateful cool there will be a part of this team I think other things for our per month pot so we’re a very small part of this team but the second question is so if I understood you correctly are not deeply involved because you know four hours a month it’s not a big deep so tell me how you managed to do this and tell me more about your team so who is working and what are their duties.
Speaker 0: Sure sure I started like giving away some of my responsibilities very very fast because I knew I I didn’t want to be always connected to the business so the first higher for me was customer service I need somebody to take care of the emails that were coming in and responding.
Speaker 0: The messages that were on Amazon and also emails that
t we get so that was the first hire somebody was. Helping me with that.
Speaker 0: And then I decided that I need the grow I was going to all these conferences and events and I joined the masterminds and people around me were growing their business. I was. With the city and I was like okay I should do this so I’m going to hire somebody that’s going to grow the business. And my first hire was manager with which I discussed what I want and how I see things and she’d been hired other people like us it was somebody who were in the finals was somebody for the financing buyer then we have somebody else or Facebook and the ads and the PPC so in the scheme right now there are four people and what they do but they’re kind of like changes from time to time. But still we start with the. Four. People pretty well and we did eight an offer from outside about two years ago we moved all the BBC outside so somebody else is handling the PPC outsourcing.
Speaker 0: How close in this side are using some software maybe outbidding or something like this?
Speaker 0: Right now the responder we’re using is feedback genius. For financial stuff we were using sellerboard. I think you know this one.
Speaker 1: I heard something maybe maybe I heard that they had the best but I’m not sure.
Speaker 0: Right it’s good.
Speaker 1: I recommend it.
Speaker 1: Don’t cut off when you say these.
Speaker 0: Yes so yeah that’s what we use and we use the seller tools. Yeah I think the I think that’s it for now.
Speaker 1: Okay okay so my next question is so before we talked about the other team we talked about how you started but he started in two thousand fourteen so what something is changing and now it’s two thousand nineteen and the beginners saying that everything is changed not so easy to stop now I. So. Tell us please maybe some tricks maybe it may be a step by step and device from the guru. How to start your Amazon business in two thousand nineteen or maybe you shouldn’t.
Speaker 0: Yeah I don’t consider myself a good rule while Amazon whenever I go into a new country you get a form where you need to write in your occupation and that’s the only place where I like to within as group just little alpaca.
Speaker 1: It’s fine.
Speaker 0: Yes. I think the scenery the landscape in Amazon has changed a lot since two thousand fourteen I was lucky enough to catch a train that was very good like us exactly yes very good opportunity was back then and I am I am also happy and fortunate and very grateful that I was able to continue on this path and keep my business flowing somehow you know like you know being around that early growing ever since. But what I see also now is that there’s another train in the station. And this train is also very very good it’s a different one it’s not so easy. You may need to work more but I see it in our community I see around me with other people that are starting out hundreds of cases of people that are doing well on Amazon starting last year or I don’t know this year but. In the last two years let’s say. There’s no real big difference going on.
Speaker 1: Now. To what it was last year for example. A lot of people don’t know I think they saying oh there’s all this competition a lot of people are joining. And it’s true in hours on end US three thousand. Sellers join Every day. Three thousand sellers so it’s it is a lot But what people don’t know is that only thirty-five percent all the salaries that are like registered with Amazon had leased one product. So there’s a lot of hype people get very excited. They make the account on Amazon but then not a lot of them go through actually including one product on. And we know that from those people. Not. All of them really take action on what it really means larger product people product. And. Who really treated as a business not as I think you go to family reunions and you say oh and I’m also a seller on Amazon no it’s really you treated with the respect yourselves so you put in the. Time.
Speaker 0: And the effort so it gives you the results one other thing that I can mention here is that two out of five people that sell on Amazon. Made over two hundred. And. Fifty thousand dollars read when you were here.
Speaker 0: Again two out of five so if you’re starting out if you’re thinking like a should I start should I go two out of five people make two hundred and fifty thousand this is the this is not and then another thing that people ask me if that isn’t so much competition like what am I going to sell it I think because of the Chinese and everybody that is selling now I won’t have any more profit margin what’s going on with my profit margin and again for two thousand eighteen the average profit margin was between twenty and twenty-five percent.
Speaker 1: It’s something your is a big amount.
Speaker 0: I think so it’s a very good amount compared to normal businesses I have friends that have like brick and mortar businesses which your average between one. And three percent annually profit. And when I tell them about twenty twenty-five percent they’re like oh my god this is amazing this is crazy last.
Speaker 0: I don’t have to worry about or the logistics and all the personnel problems that they face they have hundreds of employees at the Logies these crazy things going on and I’m with my laptop somewhere and I’m looking on the beach so it’s a very different approach to business and I think we still have a lot of room to grow. Amazon is right now forty-nine percent out of all of the sales in the U. S. forty-nine percent of all AECOM is Amazon.
Speaker 0: Two-thirds of those sales are third party sellers like meat.
Speaker 0: It is a big opportunity anyone thinks fifty percent is a lot but if you look at the whole. The detail in U. S.. Online is only five percent. So it still has a lot to grow and the kids and not only gets like the young generation is moving towards online that they’re ordering everything online so it’s it is I think it’s still a very good opportunity you weren’t there at the beginning but you can still be on the second. Right.
Speaker 1: So in the five years later they will say all two thousand nineteen that was the time. When even when I started I was looking at the product I was looking I was the last one to find my first product out of my friends and I was thinking. There are no one products on Amazon they’re not everybody took all the best I am I’m not left with any anybody that’s on.
Speaker 0: Before we got all the best ones there is nothing left but there’s always room for improvement they’re always room for something new so as the market and the market gold digger as I was on goes into other markets as well like they’re going to South America and different countries that they just. So it’s growing internationally as well not only in U. S. so it’s it is booming thank you what do you think about it like where is this going.
Speaker 1: So it’s a good opportunity to start on the growing markets so the potential is always so Kate is always here monster let’s talk a little bit more specific about launching a product and now in two thousand nineteen, not about there are watching but about the choosing so why are tell us more specific how to choose the right now what products should we choose.
Speaker 1: And how to launch maybe might maybe some tapes.
Speaker 0: Right right well in the course with doing remain at this takes about a month so I’ll try to sum it up in a few words we tried to go for the. Right now that are not very popular we say look be between. B S. R. one thousand and fifteen thousand and we like also not to have a lot of reviews for our competitors. There is one competitors that have over five hundred reviews we’d like to run maybe eight look at another product we will look at products that gold there even not sell out of the radar for anybody else you know what what the course that I did was telling me to look in the one hundred and the big winner from there and then that’s what I was about what I was going to sell.
Speaker 0: In two thousand nineteen with all the competition with everybody that wants to sell on Amazon I think it’s good to focus on something that is. Not so much you guys love everybody and we like to think about as. Thanks to the power of five this is our mindset and I can explain to you in a few words so five to the power of five means five times five times five times five times five by the first one is five dollars. This is how much profit we are looking to make with one sale. So we have the forty-five year then we have the second one which is a five units per day we sell one product. That makes five you five dollars profit we sell five units a day and then the third one is we won five there is a sense of this product it can be color it can be size it can be a bundled with different things we can decide what this HM it will be then we have five. Because we have. Variation but now we’re moving into five products we will extend our range of. Five products was vibrations.
Speaker 0: Exactly yes and then the last one is five market place’s. So you’re going to U. S. UK Germany Japan and maybe you will greatly recount only maybe Spain Italy SO on but you’re gonna have also your own Shopify or go in another country it doesn’t matter if it’s a distribution this is my.
Speaker 1: We’re talking about five channels and the channels on Amazon you can the channels out of Amazon but.
Speaker 0: She.
Speaker 0: Yes so now we have all these five five five five five which equals three thousand one hundred and twenty five this is our date you’re making three thousand one hundred and twenty five dollars per day times three hundred and sixty five days is more than one million dollars per year in profit we’re talking profits here.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah for sure for sure five dollar profits poor but the poor and.
Speaker 0: So now with the mindset is changed if you’re not looking for the big winner one product that is going to bring you. Twenty thousand dollars or fifty thousand or whatever you’re not looking for it for those products you’re looking at least sales or date you’re looking then bringing the variations then bring in more products and so it changes a lot how you speed up the game how you see how you’re going to grow because. When you get started it may be a bit difficult you know you’re looking at the whole thing you don’t know much. But when you get more experience you can launch three products at the time you can launch new products with Byberry Haitians so it gets easier in time when you when you do this and you can reach that point really fast we have people in in the community in Romania are on their way they’re very very fast.
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly I agree one hundred percent and if this is that one of the best advice is to take her last time. But I wanted to ask you one more question I heard you talking about the mindset and maybe you can give us on the device and all the listeners some resources so maybe some books which can give your these I give you possibility to here to change your mindset add to see the market and to seize opportunities we track here everywhere.
Speaker 0: Yes it’s a good question I’d like to focus on the mindset myself when I got started with this business I had just finished it’s gonna be awesome I retreat I went on a meditation retreat I was. Islands for ten days I think that I think that helped me a lot I also was kind of in a depression when I was. All that money and I didn’t know what to do so I was reading a lot of boys the regional books and I. Books about business about marketing and align so it’s hard for me to pinpoint one or you’ll I think one of one and now that I think about one that really influenced me a lot it’s called the science of getting rich you can find it easily even on your group. Wireless the wireless it’s called the the the the guy that wrote a book that is more than one hundred years old it’s very thin it has maybe sixty pages what if you were listening like all your book it’s like one hour and the bad I think it’s like the. Sums up a lot of personal development or what whatever else is going on it’s really like it what’s more focus on how you do things not what you do. Mindset yeah it’s very important how you look at your arm and ships how you treat your the people who collaborate with how you think about the customer that is going to buy the product from you is it something that you’ll be like oh yeah give me your money give me your money thank you buy something with with all this or you’re thinking I want to put something out there that is going to give joy whoever is receiving it and how do you design the whole experience hello how does the packaging look how does how do you deal with the customer service and all this are you think about that the business will be affected by this so by this shift in your. Mindset.And.: I actually and mom now visiting my friend the David. In my day out and. Again though we.
Speaker 0: We launched a program it’s called the inflight millionaires and though we we are focusing specifically on the mindset and the skills that you need to develop so you can become financially and that no matter what.
Speaker 0: Trajectory you choose so no matter the business that you go into it what goes inside you know that they are not game and then the external.
Speaker 1: Okay do you have a website which describes what you’re doing with your friend can we.
Speaker 0: Yeah we’re gonna put in and in the description or something it’s in light burn.
Speaker 0: Come hang millionaires dot com eleven million S. dot com.
Speaker 1: Okay so we will you can find and do all guys and let it you have the link to sellelrboard to our main sponsor of course and the last question for today for you on X. ease one drives you because say now day by day year by year one you are spending money when you’re traveling a lot I see yeah there are days when your thinking what for are closer maybe a it’s enough for you enough money not traveling and there are days when you’re asking about war and my question is how are you driving yourself you have energy to do more to work more and to find your ideas so that is the question.
Speaker 0: Yes it’s a good question I feel that it’s a goes in wait even for me so before I I think I was in a not so good ladies and I changed my mind sets first and then somehow the opportunities that were.
Speaker 1: Out.
Speaker 0: There I was able to grab them and do something about.
Speaker 0: For me it’s it was the money like us like that was in front of me like I need to get the I need to get it and after I had enough money I was also like what what else can I do I was so focused a lot on my cell like I was travelling around I was having a lot of experience I was eating a lot of things I was doing a lot of stuff or or myself but I wasn’t.
Speaker 0: Okay do much on on others so I started.
Speaker 0: Showing others how to do this business and I was getting some joy out of that and though when I was when I started putting more more energy into this I started feeling even better than I was before so it’s like it’s like a couple of water that when you put a lot of the weather any any overflows so that’s how I feel I like most of the times I mean very good state I feel very happy and the I am also very I I enjoyed very much sharing what I know and all my my role.
Speaker 0: If anybody wants to.
Speaker 0: Learn from my experience and not go through there is I’m very willing to share this is a big driver for me the idea of creating a better world for myself and for the people around me.
Speaker 0: This is this is it I work for myself and for people around.
Speaker 1: Sounds sounds at from heaven is for the whole world for my family for my friend so all of the people surrounding us thank you very much for your time thank you guys for listening don’t forget to subscribe legs don’t build these lights and bill worse CO and next court costs every week every Monday thank you very much Alex have a nice day or evening.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much thank you for having me.