0105: Profiting FROM Amazon using The Wholesale Formula with Author, Speaker, Trainer, & CEO of Ascension Consulting Dan Medors

Intro [0:00]

EA Interviews Episode 105. Inspiration, transformation, success stories, and the Imperfect Action Round seven days a week. Join Mario Fachini for today’s Expert Authority Effect Interview. 

Mario Fachini [0:13]

Amazon, it came around a while ago. But have you ever considered doing anything more than just having anything in the world you want shipped to you overnight, same day, two day, prime this. I mean, now you can even get food delivered to you. There’s so much. And I remember when it first started out just as a bookstore, basically. Like, who’s going to buy books? Who even wants to read books? And now everything under the sun is on it. And I’m so excited to have Dan Meadors today because he is a true eCommerce success story. I was making light of it. They have everything under the sun now. But just think about the transformation in the last few years, let alone, the last 20. He saw an opportunity early on. And I’m not going to spoil it right now. Well, I was not going to spoiling it. I mean, I want to share it with you. But I’ll let him say it. That’s what I should be saying. He is a true success story. He’s built a multimillion dollar company. He’s an author, speaker, trainer. He’s going to be sharing with you how this all came to be is the first thing I’m going to ask him because I want to know the backstory. So he’s going to be sharing it with you. And I’m excited to have Dan Meadors up right after we thank our sponsor. 

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Mario Fachini [1:37]

Here he is, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Dan Meadors. Dan, I’m so excited to have you here. How you feeling today? 

Dan Meadors [1:43]

Fantastic, brother. Man, thanks for having me on. Seriously. 

Mario Fachini [1:46]

It’s my pleasure. And I’m excited to learn myself as well as Expert Authority World. Share the idea, tell us literally how you started this. Because I know you have a successful multimillion dollar company now. And you have the wholesale formula and all these great things. And you can help people do what you’ve done. But take me back to how it started because I find this fascinating. 

Dan Meadors [2:10]

Yeah. I mean, absolutely. We got started in 2011. It’s kind of funny because you’d mentioned that Amazon — you knew of Amazon as a bookstore, right? And it was kind of like the same thing for me where I didn’t know that people sold stuff on Amazon. I had no idea. And then one day, one of our buddies came into work. And this guy, he had a six figure job here in Kentucky. And it’s kind of funny because like, we live in Corbin, Kentucky, which is like a super small town. There’s more cows than there are people, I’m pretty sure. So this guy comes in and he’s telling us about selling products on Amazon. And I was, honestly, flabbergasted. Like, “I thought they sold books, man.” And he was like, “No. Everything on Amazon.” So it was really cool. And then like a few weeks later, he comes in and he gives us notice. And he had, again, the six figure salary. And the guys giving us notice. And he was like, “Honestly, man. I just make more sitting at home selling stuff on Amazon part time.” And I was like, “So can you show me a little bit about this? Like what you’re doing and how you’re selling stuff?” And he was like, “Yeah. Absolutely.” Because in college, I had an eBay store. But the problem for me was, it just took so much time to run it. You have to have a real amount of infrastructure. In college, I was probably doing six figures on eBay selling video games. And it was just the amount of time that went into packing orders, answering customer questions, all that stuff was just a nightmare. So, Andrew, he said that it was a much, much better system than eBay, which was really cool. And he goes out. I remember the very first thing is he took us out to the store, out to a Walmart. And he scans this item with his phone and he’s like – you know, this item was $3 on the shelf, Mario. It was three bucks. And then he brings it up on his phone, it’s like $15.87. And he was like, “This is the kind out of my bag, man. I go around, I look for these items that are way cheaper in store than you can buy them online.” I was thinking, “There’s literally nobody on earth that will buy this thing for 15 bucks.” Like there’s nobody. So me my buddy, Eric, we’re talking about it. And I was like, “Let’s just give this thing a shot, man. Let’s see many of these stupid Disney cars guys we can find.” So we went out, we looked at a couple of the local Walmarts, and found like 20 or 30 of these guys. And I was honestly so skeptical. I really did just feel like I was throwing $50 in the trash. Just throwing it in the trash because there’s no way people are going to be buying these things. And we take them home. We set up our Amazon account. We send them in. And within the first hour of them getting to the Amazon fulfillment center, we had orders going out. And I was like, “Oh my gosh. This is unbelievable.” So from that point, we spent literally every waking hour that we weren’t at work or dealing with our families, looking for profitable products to sell on Amazon. Because it corrected a lot of those same problems that I had from eBay. I didn’t have to pack and ship on orders. I was able to send everything into the Amazon warehouse. They dealt with the vast majority of customer service. So it just let me kind of almost run like a passive business except it wasn’t passive because I was going and hunting inventory at the time. But as far as the sales aspect, it was passive. I didn’t have to do all the things that I hated. I love buying stuff. And I think most people are like that. It’s the thrill of the hunt that get you in there. So kind of fast forward, this was in June or July of 2011. And December of 2011, I actually got fired from my job. I mean, honestly, it was a catastrophe. I had a brand new baby girl. We’ve had a lot of problems. I’d had to replace the roof on my house. I’d had to replace my HVAC. And my savings was just it just depleted. I didn’t have anything. So in December, I remember when that happened. I’m sure a lot of people kind of went through something just absolutely crushing. I went back to this little 250 square foot office that we’ve rented to keep the stuff that we’re buying in. Because my wife would grab when I would bring it home. It’s just a big giant mountain of stuff, like toys and all kinds of crazy stuff, whatever was profitable. Honestly, we didn’t discriminate against the products we were buying. We would just buy whatever it took. So I went to that office and I cried. I sit there and cried. And I was thinking like, “What am I going to tell my wife?” So I decided I was not going to tell her. This was a terrible idea at the time. But I decided I wasn’t going to tell her that I got fired. And I was going to tell her I was really excited and motivated about this Amazon thing because I didn’t want her to worry and I quit my job. And so I go home. I had the stone face on. Completely serious. Not acting like I was worried. I was terrified. I was literally terrified. But I told her, I was like, “Yeah, you know, we’ve been doing so well on Amazon. And particularly this past month. I just turned in my notice today. And I just want to go full time and see how well I can do.” And she was like, “You should stop this immediately and go back and get your job again. Like, now. You have a family to support.” And little did she know that wasn’t an option. I didn’t have the opportunity to get my job back. So I stayed the course. And, ultimately, Eric came over and joined me full time about 30 days later. And that’s kind of where our business really kicked off. So we were going out shopping just like -the business model is called Retail Arbitrage. And that’s just finding things in stores that you can sell online at a higher price. So we would go to all these stores. And honestly, we didn’t have the budget to do wholesale. We didn’t have the budget to do private label or one of the more passive models. We had to literally grow our business with blood, sweat, and tears. So for the next two years, we were out in store shopping all the time. And I remember there was one time specifically that sticks out to me where I had the change. It’s just like whenever you’re – you just know that something’s wrong. And it’s never going to get better. Black Friday for us. And retail Arbitrage was like the holy grail of shopping. Because there’s discounts everywhere. That’s whenever you can get the best buys. And if you’re willing to stock up on inventory, and hold it for, you know, 10 days, 20 days, 30 days. You can see some massive profits from the stuff you buy on Black Friday. But this was the second year in a row that I had to get up and leave my kids on Thanksgiving.  Black Friday really starts on Thursday. Like, it really starts on Thanksgiving. 

Mario Fachini [8:58]

Thursday. It feels like Monday sometimes. 

Dan Meadors [9:01]

Sometimes. It’s crazy. It seems like every season they push it back a few hours. And I remember – 

Mario Fachini [9:08]

I used to work at BestBuy. 

Dan Meadors [9:10]

Then you’ve experienced the madness. Like, you’ve experienced – 

Mario Fachini [9:14]

Well, I told them I’m not working. They’re like, “Well, you could get fired.” I’m like, “Fine. I’m not coming in.” 

Dan Meadors [9:19]

Do it. Fire me. So I remember getting up and my daughter was like, “Dad, where are you going?” I was like, “I got to go work.” And she was like, “Really? You can’t stay and eat with us?” And I was like, “Gosh.” It was just crushing. And the entire time we were out, like the year before, we were super excited, super pumped. Like, “Yes, yes, yes. Go buy, buy, buy.” And all I could think about was getting up and leaving the table. And leaving my kids there and not being able to spend the holidays with them. And I was talking to Eric and I was like, “Man, I just don’t know if I can do this again. Honestly, it’s just, this is brutal.” And that was kind of the point where we really, really started trying to find an alternative business model. Find something that fit the lifestyle that we wanted. And I think that’s where a lot of entrepreneurs get caught. It gets easy to get comfortable because we were making great money at the time. We were probably – we’d done about $940,000 in sales that year. And our margins, we were probably having that profit of about $250,000 or $300,000. It was healthy margins for us. But it wasn’t sustainable. I wasn’t able to spend time with my kids. I wasn’t able to do all those things that people – whenever you ask somebody, “Why are you getting into business?” Or, “Why are you an entrepreneur or whatever?” Nobody ever says, “So I can just make piles of money to stack on top of each other.” They literally say because the freedom. Because it gives me more time to spend with my kids. It gives me more time to travel or something. They have their thing. And for us making money wasn’t our thing. It wasn’t what we wanted in a business. So we tried some things from there. We opened a physical brick and mortar store. Remember when I told you that I’m pretty sure we have more cows than people? Well, obviously, the retail store didn’t do so well. It’ not what you would call a high traffic area. So our retail store ultimately failed. Then we tried – the next thing we tried was a My Little Pony website. And this was because we’d watched the documentary about brownies. I don’t know if you know what a brownie is. Maybe you are a brownie, Mario. 

Mario Fachini [11:34]

What is a brownie? 

Dan Meadors [11:35]

A brownie is a grown person that still enjoys and collects My Little Pony stuff, particularly mostly men. 

Mario Fachini [11:42]

I am not. 

Dan Meadors [11:43]

Okay, well good to know. 

Mario Fachini [11:44]

I am not. 

Dan Meadors [11:45]

But there is – 

Mario Fachini [11:46]

But I am familiar with My Little Pony. So when you said, I was like, “Well, that’s interesting.” I knew beanie babies were a thing and pet rocks and all that. But people like to collect just whatever. 

Dan Meadors [11:57]

Yeah. And it was crazy. Whenever we were selling, you know, going around in stores and stuff, one of the most popular items we would always find was things related to My Little Pony. You could find like a little tiny toy and it would be $50 on Amazon. 

Mario Fachini [12:10]

Because it’s a limited edition collectors whatever with the sparkle days. 

Dan Meadors [12:14]

Exactly. Exactly. So whenever we created the My Little Pony website, that was kind of the logic is there’s no one serving that niche. We felt like we could probably add the product expertise to be able to do it. And ultimately, we created a website and started driving traffic to it. And the website didn’t do too bad. It just wasn’t our thing. Again, it was something I couldn’t get passionate about. And we ended up selling that. And then we started Private Label next. I don’t know if you know what Private Label is. But that’s creating your own version of a product and then selling it retail. We actually launched a really successful private label product whenever we were first starting out. One of them that generated about $200,000 in profit in the first three months of its existence. But it was unsustainable. Again, we didn’t have the skills to replicate the process was our problem. It’s like we found a great product but we didn’t have the marketing skills to be able to do it. I wasn’t good enough with ads. I wasn’t good enough with all those things to be able to consistently make good products. So ultimately, that kind of failed for us. And then we fell into wholesale which is where we’re at now. And it was a rocky start there too. I mean, honestly, nothing is ever just came easy to us. We’ve always had to fight and claw and try to learn and learn through hardship. And I think that’s a lot of things that entrepreneurs struggle with. Particularly early entrepreneurs, is they expect that everything’s just going to be easy. And it never is. It really never is. So we got started with wholesale. And for those of you guys who don’t know what wholesale is, it is buying products in a business to business fashion. So buying products directly from a manufacturer or wholesaler and then selling those products at a markup retail. And that’s what our model is. So now, what we do is we find brands that we can work with and carry their products profitably. And then ultimately sell those products on Amazon. 

Mario Fachini [14:14]

I like what you’re doing because there’s so many people that they have great skill sets. They’re super creative. They’re the most artistic. I mean, even if it’s not a traditional art. I’m not talking drawings. But you might be a roofer, a carpenter, you might know how to do nails, detail cars. You’re really good at what you do. But the business side allude so many along with, even if they have somewhat of an inkling for the business, most hate the sales and marketing. And I’ve always loved it. I mean, shoot, they sold the pet rock. It’s like you can have the greatest thing in the world. But the other side of it is the finances. Most people never look at their profit margins. And I love that you’ve been sharing it this whole time. Because products are so cut and dry. When you were talking about buying it for $3 and selling it at 15, that is a $12 profit. I don’t know the exact math. But that is a pretty high profit margin also. And I never did the Amazon thing. But there was many times in high school and college – I actually got in trouble with the principal because – do you remember Blockbuster? Blockbuster was a fun little thing because everyone would give you gift cards for all the holidays. And they had the bin for $3, $4, $5 – $3 movies when the rentals were 4 and 5. And I was like, “Why am I going to pay more for a rental than the actual movie?” And then I’d resell them. 

Dan Meadors [15:49]

So you’re doing the Blockbuster hustle? 

Mario Fachini [15:52]

Absolutely. And the other thing was, in college I paid for some of my courses by looking at the price of the books, finding the delta with it, and going, “Okay. It’s a $75 book. It’s $65 on sale at the bookstore across the street. And it was 12 bucks on Amazon.” So the kids in class realized I’m not going to sell everyone. It took about 50, 60 percent invested in those. And I was making what? $12 in selling them. I think I sold half price for like 30 or 35. And I was still making over 100 percent profit on it. It’s so simple to just go Product A is 10, Product B is 20 or 30. It’s so simple and it’s very profitable. 

Dan Meadors [16:36]

Sure. And that’s ultimately – I think you have to have margin. You have to be conscious about your margin to grow your business. If you’re not thinking about margin, if you’re not trying to generate real profit, you will struggle. And that’s one thing that, luckily, we’ve always had pretty healthy margins. And it’s kind of given us more room to operate with and learn and grow, learn with our business. But when we got started – I mean, honestly, when we got started with wholesale, it wasn’t sunshine and rainbows. I can remember a couple of times, specifically, that were just nightmares. They’re just actual nightmares. The very first time, we did what everybody else did. And I think that’s kind of how everybody finds a business. It’s like you just go around and you just try to learn what you can and you try to apply some stuff and maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t, and you learn from it. And that’s what we did. We didn’t really know how to do wholesale. I Googled how to find wholesalers. And then I would find these directories. And I would contact all these people. And they would send me back these humongous catalogs full junk. And then I would sit there and painstakingly line by line just type in stuff and be like, “Oh, that one’s no good. That ones no good. That ones no good.” And this was hours and hours, Mario. Just unbelievable the amount of hours that you’ll spend doing something like this to find one item where you’re making almost nothing. And it was just unbelievable. And then it’s like maybe we need to go to shows. So that was our next thing. Maybe we should just go to shows. And we went to ASD, one of the world’s largest events for wholesale. And we went through the Van Hall. We connected with a few vendors. But ultimately didn’t find anything. I remember on day two, we went back to the hotel and I was like, “We can’t just come out here and spend thousands of dollars to come to the event and not buy anything. We have to pull the trigger on something.” So when you start thinking about trying to force yourself into an action, that can’t end well. It can’t end well. So we do, we go out, we find products, we ended up spending thousands of thousands of dollars. And then by the time the product gets to us, it’s worth less than we paid. We’re in the red before we’ve even sold an item. And I was just dejected. Just like everything is [inaudible [00:19:05] for us. The only way we can make money is, literally, by grinding ourselves into the dirt just by working and working and working driving to the stores. Nothing else seems to work. And I remember looking at Eric and I picked up some product on my desk and I was like, “Why can’t I just buy this product? Why do I have to go through all these crappy catalogs? Why do I have to run around this event hall? Why can’t I just call this company and buy this one product?” And Eric is like, “Shoot. Let’s try that.” We can try. So I called the company. I called him and I was like, “Hey, I would love to know which distributor carries your items. I’m a retailer and I’d love to set up an account with you guys.” “Well, I mean, I can tell you which distributors sell our product or you can set up account directly with us and you’re more than welcome to buy products from us.” And I was like, “What? Like, I can just buy product from you guys?” And they said, “Here’s our here’s our wholesale rates. Here’s our discount schedule.” If you order this much, you get a discount or whatever. And the products were just good. I didn’t have to fight. I didn’t have to negotiate. The prices on the sheet made sense. And I was like, “Holy crap. It’s really this easy. You just call it and they’ll sell it to you.” And bear in mind that I had done hundreds of hours of research, hundreds. And not one person had said call the company. Not one. Everybody had their cockamamie, go to this distributor, look through their thousand lines of stuff, go through this place. It was that system – 

Mario Fachini [20:37]

Simple always wins. And sometimes it’s so simple, we just don’t believe it. Have you ever gone full circle with the eBay and used eBay as a source also? 

Dan Meadors [20:47]

Oh, yes. Many, many times, my friend. Oh, yeah. I’ve actually sourced products from Amazon to sell on Amazon within the same market. Just where they had a discount and I knew it was good. I bought it. It comes in. Amazon sold out. Then sell the product for a higher price. We’ve done that hundreds and hundreds of times. So yeah, absolutely. But you’re right, man. Simple is what wins. So that day I was like, “Oh my gosh, I just got to call more companies.” That’s it. Now, we’re going to be rich. I figured out how to do it. We’re just going to call more companies. And by the end of the month, we will be retired in the Cayman Islands. That was how I thought. This is going to be easy. Spoiler alert. it wasn’t easy. While it worked out that first time really good. It wasn’t that easy to replicate. We would call these brands and they would say, “Yeah. We already have enough Amazon sellers. We’re not looking for any other representation on Amazon.” It was like, “What? They don’t want me to buy their products? I’m literally trying to hand them money and they’re saying no.” At the time, it was frustrating. But ultimately, they were making the right decision. They didn’t need more Amazon sellers. They just needed better Amazon sellers. So it was call after call where I’m just getting that answer. No. No. No. No. And I remember there was this one product, I actually used it. I actually used it. And I love the product. And I called that brand and I was like – I’d send them an email and they had responded with, you know, “We’re not accepting any other Amazon sellers.” And I was like, “Well, maybe I can make a difference with this brand. I know them. I know the product actually. I can give a lot of feedback here into their Amazon listing.” So I call and I get the national the national sales manager on the phone. His name was Bob. And I still remember the conversation. Bear in mind, this was like three or four years ago. And I can still remember it because it was so jarring and awkward at first, and then it transitioned into an awesome partnership. But when I called, I was like, “Hey, I’ve reached out to you guys via email and you said you weren’t looking for any other Amazon sellers.” And he was like, “Yeah. And I mean it, man. And I was like, “Wow. This is -” what do you say to that? 

Mario Fachini [23:07]

Thanks for sugar coating it even a little. 

Dan Meadors [23:12]

Yeah. Thanks for making me feel good about it. And I was like, “No. I definitely get it, man. I’m sure you probably get these calls all the time.” And he’s like, “Every single day. Every single day I have some guy trying to call me trying to carry my product.” And he was like, “I have e-TALES carrying my product. I have River Colony Trading.” And those are two of the biggest third party Amazon sellers in the marketplace. And I was like, “No, man. That’s awesome. Those guys do a fantastic job. And I’m sure, in most ways, you’re probably super well served. But here’s the problems, for what it’s worth, I actually use your product. I understand your product. I use it every single day as a supplement. When I go to your listing, it doesn’t reflect the quality of your product at all. Your pedals not very good. Your pictures aren’t very good. If you just want to humor me for just a minute, can you go to your Amazon page and check it out with me?” And he’s like, “Yeah. Yeah, Sure.” So he goes and he looks at this page, and bear in mind, when he sees it there’s nothing wrong, right? Because he doesn’t know what he’s looking at. It’s just a product page on Amazon. And I was like, “All right. Can you go to the search bar and type in this word?” And he was like, “Yeah. That’s one of our competitors.” “Yeah. Check out their page.” So he goes to their page and he sees that they have amazing pictures. They have a full title, full description. It’s really vibrant. And they’re out selling them. And I was like, “So let me guess, in the real world, you know that you outsell this brand probably 10 to 1, right?” And he was like, “Yeah.” And I was like, “Why are they beating you on Amazon? How are they beating you on Amazon? The difference is they have somebody, they have one person who really cares about their product. And they’re making sure to handle all the sponsored ads. It’s completely optimized. They have great pictures. Literally, everything because it matters to them. Your sellers are amazing. They’re probably the biggest and best sellers in the whole marketplace. But you’re just the number to them, man. You’re just another account. Your account 337 or 1000. To me, I don’t have any accounts. You’re my most important person. You’re the most important person in the whole wide world to me. And I’ll make sure that every single thing like this gets done if you’ll work with me one time. That’s all you have to do, one time I don’t do it, never talk to me again. But if it does work out, I think you’ll want to work with me going forward, man.” And he was like, “You know what? I’ll give it a shot. I would love to work with you.” And that’s ultimately how we got started into our real current model. Because our current model isn’t just calling a distributor and saying, “Hey, man. I’d like to place an order.” We developed real partnerships with brands where we offer them more than just our checkbook. I offer them my Amazon expertise. I try to get their brand optimized so they can grow and make a difference in the world. And that’s ultimately how we acquire customers now is through value rather than just trying to place a big giant order. 

Mario Fachini [25:51]

And that’s a great way for client acquisition is always adding the value. I want wanted to ask you, what’s the biggest transformation you’ve been able to give someone? Whether it’s someone you’re helping as far as a client or someone you’re helping replicate this. That was a pretty impressive story. Is that your biggest transformational story? 

Dan Meadors [26:15]

Oh, I mean, as far as within our community, we’ve seen just crazy transformations. Not just – on every side. I’ve worked with vendors. It was funny, one of the vendors that we work really, really closely with now. I remember he was trying to transition his brand online and it was really hard for him because he’s a really passionate person. He’s a really nice guy. And he had a lot of friends that were carrying his products that really weren’t serving it. But they were his friends. He legitimately knew them from within the industry. And I remember having to walk him through that process of starting to fine tune his sellers to make sure that they’re actually working for him. Starting to optimize his brand presence so he can grow. At times it felt like he was cutting off his children. You know what I mean? He was cutting the sellers that weren’t performing. And it was like two months into this process, whenever we’ve got everything smooth out and we’ve started that optimization process and you start to see sales creeping up. And I remember he called our team and he was like, “Guys, you know what? This is probably the one of the hardest things I’ve had to go through, like, emotionally. Because I’ve always been really invested in my brand. I’ve always been really invested in the people that sell it. And this has just been a tough experience for me. But I couldn’t have done it without you guys. I just want to tell you guys I love you guys.” Just understanding that we made a difference for him was huge. Similarly within our community, I mean, we’ve had so many crazy success stories. I remember one that pops to mind immediately, Cheryl Breitman. Cheryl she’s one of our PWF alumni that went through our course. And I’ll be honest, she didn’t have success when she first started. It was tough for her. She would call and she would not be able to convert on brands. And one time we went out to dinner. We had went out to Vegas to go to ASD. And we had a bunch of people that had taken our course that had been there. And this was second time we went to ASD. And bear in mind, I didn’t even go into the show this time. I didn’t even go in. I literally went out, hung out with people, talk to people, and went to dinners, and cool stuff like that. I didn’t go for the show because it’s not really my cup of tea. But whenever we went out to dinner with Cheryl, I was talking to her and I was like, “Cheryl, it’s not your technical knowledge. It’s not things you don’t know.” Because that was what she was worried about. “It’s hard for me to connect with these vendors because I’m worried that I can’t live up to their expectations.” And I was like, “You have to give yourself the opportunity to live up to the expectation.” You never will if you don’t try it. You just have to take action. You have to move forward and be willing to make a mistake. That’s what we do is we learn from mistakes and be transparent. This is not an easy process. And that’s what we do with our vendors is we don’t hide things. We don’t try to make it sound like it’s completely easy. We talked to them about the nuts and bolts of what the changes we have to make and what they can expect. And I was like, “You know, as long as you do that and you develop a partnership the right way, people will work with you.” And she went back. It was kind of crazy because I didn’t really know much about her situation at the time. And so we were speaking at an event a few months later and Cheryl was there. And she came out and she was crying. She gave me a big hug. And she was like, “I just want you to know the difference you made in my life.” She said, “Whenever I saw you guys in Vegas, I was at my wit’s end.” She had moved back in with her mother. She had been laid off from her job. She said for the first time in 20 years she was out looking for a job just to pay her bills so she wouldn’t go bankrupt. And she said, “It wasn’t easy for me. I didn’t just get it. But once I went through that process and once I decided I could try my best to offer that value. And no matter what, no matter what, I would get it done.” That’s what she resolved herself to do is, “I don’t care if I know how to do it. I will get it done no matter what.” And she did it. She picked up an account. That account, she still works with that company today. That account generates her about $300,000 a year in profit. It literally saved her business – effectively created her business. And it really kind of saved her life from where it was headed. That one was a huge one. We had a Emmerich. Emmerich is another one. This guy moved to the US in 2011. He didn’t speak any English. He took our course in 2014 and was able to grow and scale a business. Bear in mind, this guy didn’t speak English. He barely spoke English whenever he was taking our course. And he grew a business. He sold that business within 18 months. And now I’m actually proud to say we’ve hired him. He’s a CFO in our current business. And it has grown several other businesses beyond that. The transformation with him was he went from never having owned a business ever, being an immigrant that certainly ESL, and created a business, scaled, grew it, sold it, and has went on to grow other businesses. That’s amazing. And it’s kind of crazy because I remember talking to him then. And just the things that we talked about then versus how we think about business now, it’s worlds apart like the growth he’s had. Amy Sherlock was another one. Her story is incredible. She had a really rough home situation. She had declared bankruptcy. Had started foreclosing on her home. Was moving back in with her parents. And she went through our course. Her story was just so good. Because she had trouble getting pregnant, like lots and lots of trouble. She was passionate about being a mother and had lots of trouble conceiving. And went so far as to get a degree in fertility in her own studies to try to learn how. And eventually she did. And then right after, that’s when everything in her life fell apart. So she was a brand new mom with nothing. And she went through our course and, ultimately, her thing is she – one of the things she felt like she could serve in the Amazon Marketplace were people selling fertility based products. She understood them, right? So she made an immediate connection with those brands. She would roll out. She would talk to those brands. Because she could help them grow their presence on Amazon. She knew everything about fertility because she had to study it for years and years and years. And since that point, like in the past three years, she’s created a business that does over – I’m pretty sure she’s doing over a quarter million dollars a month now in sales. It’s from the power of creating partnerships. Why do these companies work with her? Was it because she was the foremost expert on Amazon? No. Because she was willing to actually help them. She knew their products. And she wanted to make a difference. And that’s what it really takes, it’s just people wanting to take proactive measures to make the world or wherever they’re at a better place. And ultimately I think partnership stems – or business stems from partnership. 

Mario Fachini [33:52]

I tell my clients that. I tell my clients that and authors. They go, “Well, what if they don’t see me as the expert? What if they don’t -” it’s like they have all the proof in the world. But when it comes to doing their book or a video, there’s that imposter syndrome or whatever. I go, “All you have to do is demonstrate it.” You don’t need to say anything crazy. You don’t need to be anything crazy. You just need to demonstrate it. And it sounds like she definitely did that. And now you said she’s doing quarter mil a month. That what people are looking for, they’re looking to add value. 

Dan Meadors [34:34]

They’re not looking for authority, they’re looking for value. 

Mario Fachini [34:38]

When you’re talking to these people in your community and you’ve talked about speaking when you’re addressing the audience, how good does that feel when you can help however many people are in the room? 

Dan Meadors [34:51]

Obviously, amazing for sure. 

Mario Fachini [34:55]

What made you want to start your course? Because you could have been totally fine just doing your thing and not helping anyone else and profiting yourself. What made you want to start the training? 

Dan Meadors [35:05]

It’s actually kind of an interesting story. I think it comes almost from a business – one of the guys that I know, he’s a digital marketer. He’s based here in Corbin. And it’s funny, we play a game called Magic: The Gathering. And one day he was over at our warehouse just to play games. And he was walking around the operation and he was like, “Hey, man. You should make a course about how to do this.” And I was like, “There is literally nobody in the world that wants to know how to sell products on Amazon. Like, there’s just no way.” 

Mario Fachini [35:38]

The same way no one would buy it for 15 bucks. 

Dan Meadors [35:40]

Exactly. Exactly. This is where I was closed minded. And he was like, “No. 100%, man. This is a super cool operation. It’s super cool what you guys do. You should do it.” And then I read a book called, Launch. Because honestly, I’d never thought about. I’d never ever considered selling a course. I didn’t have any interest in it. But he kind of opened my eyes to it a little bit. So I went out and I researched. And I read a book called Launch by Jeff Walker. So we followed through the book. And ultimately, I got really excited. I was like, “Wow. This is super cool. And maybe we could make something that somebody would buy.” And I remember, I went through I wrote the course. One of my partners, Dylan, was like, “Hey, put this up. And then let’s try to launch it using whatever this book says.” So we did exactly what Jeff Walker’s book said. And we did our first launch. And I remember, we didn’t even have a payment processor. We had to go partner with somebody who had a payment processor. So they received our payments. We didn’t have a mailing list. We didn’t have anything. We actually didn’t have a client. Not a single one. But we talked to a couple of people in the space and tell them our story and let them review our content. And it was really cool. Our content was a cut above because we were actually doing the stuff that we were teaching. It wasn’t just theory based or anything like that. It was real life in the trenches content that help people understand how to put a business together logically using our model. And we got promoted by a couple of people in the space. And that first launch, I remember we were sitting there at Eric’s house getting ready to turn the cart on where we could take our first order. And we decided that we were going to drink a bottle of champagne if we sold one course. And we were going to drink a bottle of expensive champagne if we sold five courses. 

Mario Fachini [37:38]

How many did you sell? 

Dan Meadors [37:39]

Well, so we turn it on, and the website crashes. Like, immediately crashed.  Ad I was like, “Oh my God, we’re doomed.” But ultimately, it went crazy successful. I think we sold 130 courses that first time. 

Mario Fachini [37:55]

And what did you do for the wine there? 

Dan Meadors [37:58]

We drunk both bottles. We had a blast. And it was a fantastic time. But it was fantastic and scary. Because once you’ve sold it, now you actually have to serve the people. It’s a different level of responsibility, in my opinion. Once I have a paying customer, it’s my job to help them actually create a business or reach their desired outcome. So over the next few months that was our entire focus was literally just working with our community. But it was crazy because now we’re talking to all these awesome people all the time. And it’s just feedback for our business because they’re encountering situations that we’ve not seen. They asked us about it. And it kind of broadens our horizons. So it ultimately helped our business grow as well. Like that year, in our Amazon business, we went from 3.6 to over 7 million in sales. And it was because instead of having a three or four man little beta team as our little internal team, we now had hundreds of people that we can talk to about problems and come up with ideas and solutions. And it didn’t just help grow their business but it helped grow entirely everything. And that’s ultimately what really has sold me on the whole idea of how valuable partnerships can be as I’ve seen it work time and time again. And the impact that it can actually have on a business. 

Mario Fachini [39:24]

Well, I’m glad you did come up with the course because I’m familiar with the marketing world And I’ve read the book also. It’s awesome. Jeff is awesome. But a lot of people, again, they don’t realize how much they can really help just with their information and knowledge. The story you were telling about the your new partner, your new client, for just telling him to tweak the title, description, headlines, the thumbnails, the pictures, all of that plays a role. And you know, nowadays, your business is online. If you have bad images and text, that’s all it is. The whole internet is nothing more than images, video, and text. And so many people. “Oh, well, it’s not a big deal.” No. It’s everything. So I’m glad you touched upon that. I got one last question for you before we go to the Imperfect Action Round. And it’s a little bit more of a – I don’t know. I don’t want to say a fun one because I love business. And I think this is fun but it’s not necessarily business, but if you answer that way totally fine. Who is someone you would love to have lunch or dinner with just meet that you haven’t been able to yet? 

Dan Meadors [40:28]

Jeff Bezos. Not close. Just his ability to understand how to grow a business, in my opinion, is unparalleled. And if you look at the principles, there’s so many things – documentation out about Amazon now. If you read their book, the Amazon White. The principles that they use to guide their decisions. It’s kind of like their creed. It’s very aggressive. It’s one of those things, they created an aggressive environment but it’s to promote new thought. That’s their whole thing is they love to create. And Amazon is famous for that. They’re famous for loving failure. That’s one of the things that Jeff Bezos always talks about is how often Amazon fails into the magnitude they fail. If you look at the Fire Phone. Fire Phone was a disaster. But they still did it. Like, they just do and do and do. And then when things stick, they’re able to run wild with it. But they’re just not afraid to fail. And they keep their business incredibly lean and agile and otherwise just fat and blow the marketplace. If you look at your traditional retailers, why does Amazon destroy them? Why is Amazon growing so much faster than they are? And it’s because Amazon’s more agile and they move quicker. They bring more ideas to market. So absolutely not closely, Jeff Bezos. I’m just fascinated by how the guy thinks, how he runs his operation, and how they continue to just be a market leader. 

Mario Fachini [42:09]

That’s a great answer. I think he’s fascinating also. And again, what I was hearing is touching on that profit margin. You know, it’s hard to be creative and be – like you’re talking about the failure. Why are you going to be afraid of failure if you know you’re just going to crank out nine other things. And when one of them does stick. You know, Richard Branson is one that comes to mind, I’d love to meet him. And there is this diagram I saw one time of all the businesses he’s done. And there’s, of course, dozens we know about but there’s dozens and dozens and dozens we don’t necessarily know about. I was like, “Holy smokes.” And it’s like one out of three, one out of four, one out of five. They’re not all good but what do you do in ten every five years. 

Dan Meadors [42:54]

It’s crazy. I actually had the pleasure of listening to Richard speak once. And he was talking about his failures. And you had mentioned it right there, there’s an absurd amount of them. The amount and magnitude to which he has failed is unbelievable. I remember one story specifically about he said he was launching Virgin Cola in the United States. Probably most people listening to this podcast probably have no idea what Virgin Cola is. And there’s a reason for that. And he said, it was doing incredibly well in the UK. He positioned it well to come over to the US. But he wanted to make like a big spectacle out of it. So he put a big display in Times Square. Like a Pepsi display and had a Virgin tank run over it. And apparently the guy – it’s a perfect story. Apparently the guys at Pepsi were not happy with his Pepsi and Coke and the other manufacturers. And then they went and worked in the UK to get them to remove Virgin Cola from the shelves. They bought more shelf space to take Virgin Cola out of the UK and ultimately – but it’s crazy stuff like that. It’s like the guy, he just does awesome stuff all the time. And some of them works. But the vast majority actually fail. If you listen to the stories, the vast majority of his business ventures fail. It’s just the ones that are successful or something that he continue to grow and scale and be passionate with. 

Mario Fachini [44:31]

I never even knew about the cola one. But that’s crazy. That’s why I tell people, like, with list building, always have your own email list. Because whether Facebook is around, Instagram, LinkedIn, any of them, you go, “Oh, they’ll always be around.” Yeah, but in what capacity? Maybe they won’t disappear like My Space but it’s not them that dictate it. It’s the users. If the users get sick of one or the other, they jump to the next one. And it’s the same thing with the cola. Maybe they don’t come and spray paint your thing in Times Square. But all they got to do is, you know, do some third party wrap around. And it’s like, “Okay. We’re not going to -” you know, you do that in the US. We’re just going to take you out of the only place you have a foothold. 

Dan Meadors [45:17]

Right. I’m glad you mentioned that, how important for businesses are mailing list. It is. Absolutely imperative. And you’re right. At any point you can lose your Facebook audience. At any point, Facebook can change the reach. And we’ve seen this. You’ve seen this over the past few years. I used to when I would make a post on my business page, everybody that followed my business page saw it. Now, it’s just like this much. And if not, if you’re not boosting your posts, your reach is just murder. But whenever you have your email list, whenever you have a phone list, and stuff like that, like phone numbers, that’s power because it gives you the ability to always connect with your customer. So I agree 100%, man. Having a mailing list is absolutely critical if you want to succeed in digital marketing. 

Mario Fachini [46:08]

Yeah. And like you were saying earlier, actually serve the customer. Facebook, LinkedIn, they’re all well and good and everything. But you want to really grow business and have profit, actually serve the customer, call them, pick up the phone, send them a letter. Utilize the digital but take it off of that. And you’ve been giving great answers so far. I can’t wait for what you have in the second half. We’re going to thank the sponsor and come back for the Imperfect Action Round. 

SPONSOR We thank our sponsor, Rosh Sillars: Winning With Google In 2020 [46:36]

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Mario Fachini [46:50]

All right. We are back with the Imperfect Action Round. Dan, are you ready to take imperfect action? 

Dan Meadors [46:56]

I love taking imperfect action. It’s my favorite kind of action to take, man. 

Mario Fachini [47:01]

All right. First question, what is the fastest path to the cash? 

Dan Meadors [47:06]

Fastest path to the cash? I mean, for us, honestly, it’s finding a brand that is under represented on Amazon and being able to develop a connection with them every single time. 

Mario Fachini [47:22]

So what I’m hearing is relationships. Build relationships with the right people in your business. 

Dan Meadors [47:27]

Yep, 100%. 

Mario Fachini [47:29]

Number two, what is the biggest problem you see your prospects making and the fastest way that they can fix it? 

Dan Meadors [47:36]

Typically, they are more concerned with making money than serving their client. For me, it’s always been – if I do a great job serving my client, I make money because of that. And I end up with happier clients who refer me to other people or talk about me to other prospects. That’s the point. So for us, we’ve always been served first, make money as a result of that. I think a lot of people have it backwards. 

Mario Fachini [48:07]

Excellent answer. Number three, what is the best way to maximize customer lifetime value? 

Dan Meadors [48:20]

I mean, generically, it’s by continuing to serve them. But honestly, it’s by finding out what your customers need help with and then being able to give them that. Ultimately, so what we’ve done with the wholesale formula is we’ve laid out the perfect model for creating our business to that point. But there are other aspects where customers can be better served. So if they get to that point and it’s like, how do I grow from here? And now it’s our job to be able to find those things, find those tools, find that content, or whatever it is that helps them get to the next step. And for me, that’s how I increased LTV is by finding out what my customers need. 

Mario Fachini [48:59]

Excellent. You mentioned one book, what is another one you’d recommend the Expert Authority World? 

Dan Meadors [49:07]

Oh my gosh, I got a lot. I think my favorite one of all time and I talked about it a lot is, From Good To Great by Jim Collins. And really it talks about staying in your lane and trying to be the best at what you do. So what I’ve kind of learned in life is there’s an abundance of opportunity. If I wasn’t going to make money this way, I would be making money some other way. I’m a creative guy. I’m a smart guy. I would always figure it out. But if I want to be amazing, and if I want to create a lasting impression, I have to focus and double down on the thing that allows me to continue to serve people the best. And for us, that really is the wholesale formula. It’s been life changing for so many people that our goal is to just grow it. We want to continue to be able to change more lives. And that means making better content. That means always looking for holes and trying to make it the best that it can possibly be. 

Mario Fachini [50:08]

I love your vision and mission behind it. That’s awesome. Where can people learn more? 

Dan Meadors [50:19]

Awesome. Actually, we created just kind of a special download for people that follow you. And go to the WholesaleFormula.com/Showtime. And you know what this is, is they walk through that then it goes over what our business model is and kind of gives you that top down 30,000 overview. Because I realized when most people say wholesale, it doesn’t really mean anything, right? Like, it’s just business to business stuff but it doesn’t mean anything. In that document, we kind of walk you through that, how you buy from manufacturers, how you sell the product, so you can understand the business model. 

Mario Fachini [50:59]

Well, thanks for making that available. It sounds good. 

Dan Meadors [51:02]

Absolutely, man. 

Mario Fachini [51:04]

I have loved what you’ve shared. I’ve gotten a lot out of it myself. And I can’t wait to connect with you even further. Thank you for sharing with Expert Authority World. And you’ve been great. 

Dan Meadors [51:15]

Awesome. Mario, thanks, man, for having me on. Like I said, you know, it’s a pleasure to speak to you. It’s a pleasure to speak to your audience. And hopefully something I said resonates with somebody out there somewhere, man. 

Mario Fachini [51:26]

Definitely did with me. Definitely did with me. So thank you again. Expert Authority World, we have another great episode. We’ll see you on tomorrow’s. Have a great day. And God bless. 

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www.EAInterviews.com [51:53]

Hey, thanks for listening to today’s episode. I hope you got a lot out of it. I know I sure did. If you haven’t done so already, I invite you to subscribe to the show. And also be sure to check out EAInterviews.com for complete show notes, the full interview video experience, links to the resources we mentioned, and more. Have a blessed day and I’ll see you tomorrow.