Sellerlabs Data Dudes Podcast
Will: [00:00:00] Welcome everyone to this episode of Amazon Data Dudes. I'm your host, Will Christensen. Uh, we have Brandon Chekits here. Welcome. Hey, good to be here. Well, thanks. Brandon is the founder of Cellular Labs and a current owner there. Um, we also have Gilad from VAA, an agency that specializes specifically in VAs.
He's going to go in and describe that a little bit more, but welcome.
Gilad: Thank you very much for having me. And then you got it right.
Will: Hey, yeah, we were, we were practicing earlier and I was saying all sorts of the wrong way of how to say Gilad's name. You know, he said, it's okay. Every, you know, if I had a penny for every podcast that they, they've called me the wrong version of my name, you know, he'd be very
Gilad: rich on different podcasts.
And then they call me and they say, okay, how should I, because I listened to you over there, you're Gilad and then you're Gil and then you're, yeah, so it's okay. The actual name is Gilad. So you said it right.
Will: Awesome. Well, Gilad, tell us what does VAA do? I probably [00:01:00] slaughtered it. They probably do something totally different or somewhat different than what I just said, but you tell us what, what does VAA do?
And yeah, tell us a little bit more about that. Sure.
Gilad: So, I mean, uh, first of all, I'm, uh, yeah, I'm Gilad, I'm the founder and the CEO of VAA Philippines. What we do is we recruit virtual assistants from the Philippines and then we train them to work with Amazon sellers. We're an Amazon-focused company.
Everything we do is Amazon. Uh, and, uh, and, uh, all of our VAs are all Filipinos. We recruit them ourselves in our, in a very long process to find the best ones out there with the best motivation, the best skills, uh, the best capabilities of learning complicated things and applying them without mistakes, uh, eagerness to learn in advance and so on.
And, uh, usually after a process of, of two months, we're left with about 1 percent of the applicants and that for 1 percent is joined, uh, VAA. And goes to the next step, which is the training. At that point, we divide them between the different departments that any seller would [00:02:00] need VAs for. For example, we have VAs dedicated to PPC.
We have VAs dedicated to social media. And what we did together, which we'll talk about in a minute, is, is training our VAs specifically on Seller Central and on all the data that is relevant. to Amazon sellers. So that's exactly what we, uh, what we do. Uh, we continue to support our VAs also on every day on, on all the new updates on Amazon, new features, and new tools.
And so they always keep updated and progress with their knowledge on Amazon, which is always changing. So
Will: tell me how, I mean, I know a lot of people who are in, the VA. Uh, a world in the staffing space, what got you, I mean, why, why the Philippines? And how did you end up getting there? I think I asked you this when we were at the prosperous show.
And I was like, so you must be like somewhere close over there to the Philippines. And you're like, I'm in Israel. And I was like, wait, what? Okay. Hold on. How did this, how did this come together? So, tell us, how,
Gilad: how did you end up there? Yeah. So most people think that [00:03:00] when I'm talking to them on the phone, that I'm, I'm In the Philippines at the moment, I do go back and forth to the Philippines quite a lot.
Um, but, uh, I'm talking to you now from Israel, and, uh, it all started me being an Amazon seller. I mean, this is how it all started. I started selling on Amazon in 2015 and, uh, a private label created my own, uh, like, like, uh, you know, the good old days creating manufacturing in China, selling a campaign group, and, uh, for Amazon sellers in the U.S.
Uh, at that time, it was different than today. It grew, uh, very fast. The business, I needed VAs. I needed, I needed help because I found myself doing everything myself without being, having the time to do everything. And many things got neglected, neglected, sorry. And, and other things I was not even aware that somebody could do for me.
And, um, and little by little, I started hiring VAs to help me in my, uh, in my Amazon business. And, um, and, and I, I was horrible in, in doing it. I was [00:04:00] horrible in finding VAs. Every time that I thought that I found the right VA, she turned, he or she, they, they turned to disappear, give excuses why they cannot work anymore or why, you know, they, there is a typhoon or internet connection problem and, and, and so on.
And, um, and I discovered that I, I completely did not understand what it means to find good people in the Philippines, how to find good VAs. How to train them, how to make them stay with you for years, and be dedicated to your company. Eventually, we became good at that and people started to ask us, okay, can you help us find our VAs?
And then this is how VA developed. So from an Amazon seller, I became focused on Recruiting VAs and training them on Amazon for the things that I needed as a seller.
Brandon: Yeah, I think most, most business owners are very bad at hiring people. That's especially hiring people remotely in a different
Gilad: culture.
Definitely. And I think the reason is that we look. At least I did. And that was my biggest [00:05:00] problem. I look too much into what they say about themselves, you know, how they want to be, uh, viewed and, and, you know, you read their resumes, you post an ad on, on Facebook, on online jobs that don't matter where, and you get 300 people applying and they will all, you know, surprisingly claim to be experts on the field with 20 years experience, knowing everything about Amazon.
And then, um, you know, in the interview, even in the interview, or if you give them a test, they will pass the test. They will, they will look perfect in the interview because they will already know what to say and how to say it convinced, you know, to convince you. But then it doesn't tell you anything about their actual potential.
And it doesn't tell you that they're here to stay, that they're not going to disappear, that they're really like. Motivated and so on. And this is what we do now. We recruit them not based on what they say about their experience, not based on what they write over there, but more, I mean, they could be complete newbies, but we'll train them.
We'll give them the right training. We'll support them. And then when you have somebody who's like really, really like an A player, they [00:06:00] would pass. All the BC players like this and they will stay with you for years. So that's, that's the reason why
Will: it works well. So, I mean you solved your problem and then decided, Hey, you know what, enough people are asking me this question.
This sounds like a recurring theme. I, I, Brandon is a, uh, uh, a business owner on his own, right? A parallel entrepreneur. Brandon, have you, have you seen that pattern as well for you? You know, solving your problem and then
Brandon: my businesses tend to go from one thing to another, but it's a, it's a, I become my phone first, uh, my first customer for the next business.
So that's a very common thing, that I found. It's like, Oh, I've got a little, little need that I have here. A little something I developed here. That has a wider audience. Or so we turn that into another product or another business. We're
Will: going to pull this around. Um, we are Amazon data dudes here, uh, at Seller Labs.
And we love, um, Amazon data. Um, we, well, we love making sure that it looks right. Um, we don't always love [00:07:00] exactly how it comes out. Um, but, but today we're going to kind of talk about the intersection of people. And data, um, obviously, uh, glads here and he has an awesome look into like why it's important to have, you know, the same VA over and over and the turnover.
And, a lot of the reason why that turnover hurts you is because there's data that, you know, they have that they take with them. Right. And so we're going to talk a little bit about the intersection of people and data, especially on Amazon today. So I'm going to open the floor and just, I want to hear.
You know, from Brandon and from, uh, Gilad, when you think about the intersection of, uh, people and data and why it's important to, uh, consider data in the hiring process, why it's important to consider how people interact with data, what, what comes to mind, what, what thoughts or advice would you have for Amazon sellers as you [00:08:00] consider.
Um, you know, data and people and trying to mix them. Uh, well, I'll
Brandon: start with a little bit. So I think that one of the things that we've found is that people often have a mental model of how things are laid out, how things are categorized, what names are. Uh, and a lot of times, um, that's, doesn't sometimes Amazon's data is specifically complicated.
It doesn't line up the way that you think. So there's a lot of times that you have to sort of use the right words and the right terminology to mean the right things. Um, for example, the word category, has like. 18 different meanings, depending on what, and where you're talking about. Some of these things just need to be very specific about it, or the word review or feedback.
Like, these things mean different things, depending on which context you're talking about. So having a common understanding of what those dangerous words or complicated words are, and being able to describe those specifically and talk about them when you're communicating. So you're not confusing 1 with
Will: the other.
Like a company glossary, essentially, like, like if you're, if we're calling it a review, this is what [00:09:00] a review is. If we're calling it a category, it's the category of the child they sit in and, you know, like a common language, so to speak deeper than just, Hey, we all speak English or we all speak Spanish.
This is like. You know, when we speak English and we use this word, this is the data
Brandon: point. Yeah, it's like a dictionary that describes what meaning of that word that you have. And we try to, at Cellular Labs, we try to like to make those unambiguous so that it's more obvious what you're talking about when you're talking about one of them.
So, um, but there are, there's a lot of ways you can get, uh, and dangers there. And then the other thing is, is the sort of like the shape of the data that you get from Amazon is not always the shape that you kind of want it in. And so if you have data that's, you know. Especially when you're talking about summarizing data and grouping data by certain things like if you're talking about advertising data at data in the, in the, in the realm of advertising is usually a subset of the data in the realm of like the Amazon business reports or the order report.
So, um, knowing, like, at what level you're sort of talking about it in and in what context that around there is helps as well. So making sure that [00:10:00] you've got some clear understanding around those contacts when you're discussing them.
Gilad: Well, I think that, um. Data is something that, uh, very little, uh, sellers understand and the value of it.
I think it's one of the, probably the most important thing, the one that the cells that they have, you know, understanding of the, of the data and, and how to use it correctly. They're the ones that, uh, pass their competitors. And, uh, and, uh, the problem is that it's a lot of times it's in your way because if you look at the courses, I'm not going to name.
specific ones. But if you look at the courses that train people on how to become Amazon sellers, it will always focus on how to sell more, how to, you know, to do your PPC and how to do your, uh, uh, funnels and, and social media and, and influencers and all that. Very little will be spoken about how to get the right data and how to understand where you are and where you're going.
And, then once you start selling, you're always into. putting out fires, you know, you're trying to, you know, if there's a negative review, [00:11:00] you handle this. If there's a problem with your PPC, you handle that. But understanding data, understanding how to use it to understand how to make it better, how to improve for the long run is something that usually on the every day, you know, world, we don't have time for it.
And, um, and because of the nature of our activity, we're working a lot with big sellers, and they hire teams of VAs to help them on their Amazon business. And then we see that the bigger the seller is, the more they understand the value, of getting the right data. And they're, they're all, this is, we see that these are the tasks they're giving their VAs.
You know, they have VAs that are dedicated for that, you know, to gather the right information, to present it to them in the right report. So they could see, you know, how they can take it and move forward faster. Compared to just, you know, working and doing whatever they did again and again and again, and not having time to these complicated things that are is called data, and they don't have time to even learn how it works.
So [00:12:00] I would say that's that what distinguishes between the big sellers and the new ones that. Focus, on the everyday activity.
Will: So I want to ask this question to both of you, as you consider, you know, Brandon talked about, uh, a common dictionary or making sure that you understand the shape of the data.
And Galaad, you talked about using VAs or using your team to put importance on that data and bring it in and show it to you in the right way. Can you think, of a common mistake or pothole that you've seen Amazon sellers run into? Um, and, and how to get around it. A common thing that people are like, Oh my gosh, like everybody thought that this was named that, or, you know, in this situation, um, where, where we're talking about, you know, the under importance or over importance of data, are there, are there specific reports that come to mind that might be more or less important for an Amazon seller to, to, to be aware of that they may not already be aware of.
I
Brandon: mean, I can tell you, we've, we've [00:13:00] done a lot of deep analyses on some of these things because we have, you know, we built software that kind of pulls in all this data over and over again. 1 of the things we were surprised to learn is that, like Amazon, the child, everybody calls it the Amazon business reports, but it's essentially the child traffic by child ASIN report.
It's downloaded in Seller Central. Like, the numbers on that change every day for up to a couple of weeks, after a sale occurs. So. We see a lot of people that are a lot of agencies that use us and whatever they're downloading the reports and then generating, um, some, you know, the reporting off of that.
And then you'll go to the same report another day, and some of the net, some of the numbers are different. So that's a kind of a tricky thing to have to deal with is to figure out how to do that. And 1 of the great things about creating these repeatable processes that is we're able to identify what those were because we did the same thing every day.
And then when you've got this. With this sort of process in mind, your VAs or whoever you have doing that for you can just follow your steps. And that's the that's the great thing I'm thinking about. What's what VA does is they, they, they get us a, like a very step by-step procedure that it's pretty easy to follow and do the [00:14:00] same thing every day.
So it's, it makes it very, um, consistent and reliable
to
Will: do. What about you, Gladin? Any potholes that you've seen you've seen people deploy VAs or, or potholes around data gathering or, or people managing data. I, I, I
Gilad: can pretty much just focus on PPC for example. I mean, on PPC, you have those cells that they're doing everything by themselves.
And then usually they focus on the bids and the acres and uh, uh, and they would have very little time to go deeper into the history and, and understanding and, and, and really like seeing the, the, the change in the reports from, uh, you know, one time to the other. And then when you have a, a dedicated. VA to do it and we did a case study on this and we showed the difference between when a seller is managing his own PPC compared to when a VA is managing the PPC for him and the difference was not necessarily the knowledge.
Of the VA compared to the knowledge of the satellite was the fact that the VA, that's their job. They know that [00:15:00] this is, you know, they have a procedure like you said, an SOP. So they know that on Tuesday, this is what they do. And they, they go and they download this report. They go over it. And when you have somebody who's dedicated.
to do things according to specific procedures. Then suddenly you pick up a new search term. You see things that you never thought you would do because you never looked into all the reports. So we, we have this all the time coming from cells that are using our PPCBAs saying, okay, now I start to see a difference just because simply have somebody who's dedicated to downloading the reports, getting the information from there.
And this is why I think, uh, it was such a good, you know, cooperation that we did together, because it allowed the VAs to understand and how to get more and more information, uh, from Amazon, uh, which, as I said, sometimes it's very sneaky to get this information. But once you have it and how to use it correctly and, and, and improve
Brandon: the sales.
The other thing that, the other thing that I want to throw out there too, has to go right along with these processes is [00:16:00] there's some, I know a lot of sellers who are like, they're like the Amazon genius and they kind of understand all these things and too much is reliant on them. So I know some sellers are like once every.
Quarter once every year, they go in and make this spreadsheet and update all these values. And then they kind of run their business for the rest of the year on it. But it's very, it's very expensive in terms of their time to put together these complicated sheets. And they'd never really described how to do it to anybody else.
So it's always, it always falls back onto them. And one of the things you can do is once you understand how to get the data reliably and repeatably, and you can make a process around it, then you can have a VA like you're saying, do it every week rather than the process that used to be done once a month to optimize this.
You can now have somebody do it for 15 minutes or something once a week. And now, you get updated, reliable data every week, rather, rather than once a year. And we've seen that particularly, um, complicated with like Amazon changes fees four or five times a year. And if you don't pay attention to those fee updates, like.
You know, at one, one month, you're, you're profitable in the next month. You're not because of some fees that's changed somewhere or, you know, advertising getting out of control is another very common one [00:17:00] is like, we're hitting this ACOS goal, but we're not hitting the ROAS goal or the tacos goal or something like that.
When you've got these processes that are well defined that somebody who's dedicated to it can do, you know, on a usually pretty quick 15 minutes or something, you get, um, a lot better data, a lot better analysis more
Will: consistently. I think that I think that, sorry. Oh, I was just going to say, I have an Amazon seller friend who in her business, and this was literally over the last year, she was so focused on, actually, it was, so it was last year when, when there were some huge changes last year in fee, she missed the March feature and it cost her business over 10, 000 just because she didn't raise her prices, uh, to match some of what's there.
And so she didn't have somebody who's dedicated to watch and look at that. Just like, just like, just like a lot was saying. As you pick that apart, I used to work at an Amazon advertising agency and I was the guy who was in charge of managing, those campaigns. And I did a daily health check.
I called it the DHC and, and I [00:18:00] had a spreadsheet where I went down and I looked at the performance, the click-through rate for every single one of those campaigns every single day. And when, and it was crazy how often it was like, okay, yesterday's click-through rate was this. And today's click-through rate was, whoa, wait, half.
What happened, and I'd go in and I'd see that, you know, somebody, the, the keywords had changed or the, the placement had changed or something was different about the wording or, or invariably something shifted. And so you could see those trends, like you said, because there was someone dedicated and I eventually automated that, which is something that actually.
Cellular labs, uh, you know, we have a product called data hub that the VAs are training on. Galad mentioned a joint effort and I wanted to just give some color around that. The VAs at VAA are now, um, trained and certified on a product that, um, that is brand new at cellular labs called data hub.
And basically what this thing does is it automatically takes. Any data inside [00:19:00] Amazon and puts it into your dashboard of choice, whether that's a Google spreadsheet or an Excel spreadsheet or a power BI business intelligence tool, whatever your, wherever you're looking for that end destination, that's what it's available.
So SQL API, all of the above very, very fascinating to see those daily health checks get automated. Yeah, I,
Gilad: I love it. And, uh, and, uh, I wanted to say, uh, uh, uh, to complete what Brandon said that, uh, uh, before, I mean there is even a name for it. The, the, they call it the, the Superman syndrome. The Superman syndrome means that, and, and you see it like on, on e-commerce because, uh, if, if you see somebody like, uh, out there in, in the, in the action world, outside of, of the internet, you know, opening like a restaurant or something like that, they would never think that they could do everything by themselves.
You know, they would know from the. They want that they have to invest money into renting a place and decorating it and then hire a chef and waiters and so on. So it's all, you know, from day one that you have to invest into [00:20:00] delegating, you know, stuff to, to other people. However, the fact that everything is just in front of us on the computer, then we tend to forget this and we tend to think that we can do things.
By ourselves all the time, and what happens usually, especially when you start to grow and the business works well, is that eventually, you start to neglect because you see that you don't have time to do everything yourself. So, instead of doing, you know, the PPC, like, every, every second day or every day, even, or like, like you mentioned, going over exactly to check the CDR or everything, then.
And then you're doing it once in a week and then once in two weeks and once in a month and, and eventually you're really like focusing on the things that you know, that would cause pain to your business. And you forget that you know, you should have somebody delegated to do that, to sit every day for two hours a day.
And doing only that, working on the SOPs, working on that, on collating data, reporting to you, putting it into the right formats and [00:21:00] everything, and that's the way that business should work. That's the way that you know, you have advanced from one day to the other. Otherwise, you know, that Superman in the end, you know, get
Will: It's uh, it's kind of that Atlas shrugs thing where Atlas is holding the world, and eventually like you're just going to get crushed.
There's no way to, uh, to, to take all of that on forever. I want to shift the conversation here just a little bit. One of the key groups of people that the data hub tool is built for is Amazon agencies or service providers. So think, um, e-commerce, uh, accountants and, uh, e-commerce, you know, PPC agencies or full-service ad agencies.
I know a lot that there are, um, agencies. I'm aware of a couple, uh, that are using, um, VAA and getting involved in that. What. As you consider some of what that looks like, what, what advice would you have it, you know you know, as a seller versus an agency and, and kind of those [00:22:00] different pieces, do they, are they in need of help in the same way for VAs?
Gilad: Yeah. The difference I think is that they're already, in a stage where they understand the value of having, you know, other people helping you in your, in your business with, with sellers. We should either invest effort into, explaining to them why they should hire VAs, or why a VA is better than you doing everything yourself.
And, maybe in the beginning you think like, I don't know what I can give my VA to do. Don't worry, it'll come because you start to give things to your va, suddenly you have free time to do other things that are more important than your level, of pay. Uh, and, uh, and, uh, with agencies, they already know this.
They already know that they, uh, they know how to do it. They know that the, the more. VA is trained VA that they can have, uh, the better it is for them. And then what we see is they have dedicated personnel that are in a management level, and then these managers, they work with VA. So one VA could help, you know, even several accounts.
And working [00:23:00] under their procedures and getting the information and preparing things for the decision-makers. So the decision-makers, instead of doing the actual stuff every day themselves, the repeating things that take forever, even if it could be just, you know, calling Amazon and waiting half an hour on the phone, you know, to change something over there or to fix a problem, then you have these people dedicated to that and getting the information and working on that.
And then the managers can focus on it. Getting the data, getting the information, making the decisions, moving on to the next thing. So we see this. We work with a lot of agencies and aggregators. They are using RBAs, uh, to handle a lot of accounts and, uh, the more they know how to work with VAs, you can see that they, they handle more accounts and they get better results for their customers.
Will: Interesting. So key to that process sounds like finding the things only you can do. Whether you're an Amazon seller or an agency, and especially in the agency space. I mean, the whole point is that you've now grown to help multiple people. [00:24:00] And so when you're hoping multiple people, you're now no longer doing this for one business.
You're doing this for 10 businesses. So the number of repeated tasks like downloading data from Amazon is going to exponentially go up. Right? And so those are, those are those sorts of things that, that you can hand to that VA is what you're saying. Yeah.
Gilad: Yeah. And, and, you know, even for myself, I mean, I, and, and for my, uh, company, I always think about a certain task.
I mean, is this something that only me could handle, uh, with my knowledge, with my experience, with, uh, you know, my level of decision making or somebody else with the right training, with the right attitude, with the right, you know, a level that I can trust, but somebody else can do this task for me. If the answer is yes, somebody else could do it under the right, uh, circumstances, then I would do it.
Immediately delegate this to somebody else. I would ask myself, why am I doing it? I should be focusing on other things that only I as the owner of the company as the CEO can, you know, these decisions are mine to take. And then basically you're [00:25:00] starting to develop your business in your payroll, you know, in yours.
Pay level, I would say, instead of doing things that somebody else could do for 5
Brandon: an hour. Yeah, that's kind of the difference between having a job and having a business. If you have a job, you can just keep busy with stuff all day long. But when you have a business, I think a lot of parts of that business are developing those processes and developing the team that can do that for you so that you are not the bottleneck or the single point of failure for a lot of stuff.
So
Will: those Superman people, if you're listening and you're thinking, I'm not one of those guys. If you got hit by a car tomorrow, Would the whole business fail? If that's true, you're a Superman. I mean, I hate to tell it to you, but, but that's, that's what it means. Right. And honestly, I, I am very guilty of like my, my own, um, ego, um, used to enjoy.
I still enjoy it and I've. I've gotten better at letting go of being the center of attention for all of the things that go on there. And, and I had to stop and start asking myself, am I the best person to be doing this? But [00:26:00] honestly, it was so difficult to remember when to ask myself that question. So, as a seasoned parallel entrepreneur from Brandon and from.
A lot, you know, as an Amazon seller who has now, you know, shifted into running a delegation company to some degree or another. Right. What do you do? Any hacks that you are aware of for reminding yourself to ask that question? Am I the best person to be doing
Gilad: this? Yes, I think I think this is exactly the question that you should ask yourself.
You should make all the process and all the procedures. I think that the key is not to be afraid to delegate. I think the idea is that we tend to think that we are the ones that can get things perfect. And other people would not get things perfect. And that's correct. I mean, we would be doing things better than everybody else because it's our business.
However, if like we said, if we do everything ourselves, it will be perfect. And it will be small. If we want to grow, then we have to accept sometimes even [00:27:00] 80 percent of perfection. But having other people doing it. And then you'd always think, where is the bottleneck? Am I the bottleneck? Am I am I stopping it?
And then moving forward, we have we have a team of more than 550 VAs that we recruit and train and work and connect to sellers. And we always have to think about how they could help the sellers. Not to be their bottlenecks, and this is how we focus our training. We focus the training and this is how we started to work with you.
When we talked, it was immediately, okay, let's see how together we can help the sellers, you know, to get better results, but not doing things them by themselves. Because, if they keep doing this by themselves, then they will get nowhere. Because at the same time, they could be doing other things. So the idea.
Was always to think how you could not focus on, on the things that, you know, repeat themselves day after day and do not require, uh, you know, your special attention. Uh, and, and, [00:28:00] and focus on, on making the decisions, uh, and, and, and move forward. Couldn't
Will: agree more. Any hacks, Brandon, that you've seen others use or that, that you use to, to remember that, you know, when am I the wrong person to be doing this?
I mean,
Brandon: the simplest one is just to have a sticky note on your, laptop, or, on your wall somewhere. It's like, what can, what can I, how do I make this the last time I have to do this? Was one of the mantras I live by for low like, how do I, I don't, I don't need to be the one that does this again.
Like, how do I make it the last time I do this? And then basically you document it as you go through it and then hand it off to somebody else. Uh, make the videos are great at that. So it's very easy to make a video screen share nowadays. Yeah. A lot of that you can spend a three-minute video. Yeah.
Will: So, so we use a loom, um, a lot here at, uh, at Selle labs and it's just a software that lets you record. If you've not seen this yet, hopefully, it's a hack. It's it. It's, it's something that's becoming more and more common, but like screen sharing in a [00:29:00] meeting, you can share your screen.
But instead of being in a meeting, you're recording your voice. And so you're describing what's happening on the screen. Step by step. This is what I need you to do. This is the problem I'm having, and this is what I want you to do differently. Very, very powerful hack to get something off your plate. Um, and, and pick that apart.
I wanted to mention a book. There's a book called Buy Back Your Time. Um, and in this book, buy back your time, which is honestly, I mean, um, amazing book. Um, he describes 80 percent good, meaning if somebody does it 80 percent as good as you. So think like they, out of a hundred things, they missed 20 of them.
80 percent good is a hundred percent freaking awesome. That's what he says because it's not you who's having to do that work. So, so it's, it's really important to remember that like, it's okay to settle sometimes for 80%. Does 80 percent solve it for the business? And what are the things can you put in place to make sure the [00:30:00] business has what it needs, even though it's 80 percent as good as what you would have done?
Yeah.
Brandon: And a lot of times you follow that 80 percent with some sort of quality check too. That's a feedback mechanism, especially when somebody is new at it, if they get 80 percent good and you have some feedback on there, it gets up to 90 percent and then 95 percent good. And it's easy to get very good enough at that point.
Yeah.
Gilad: And by the way, you mentioned that uh, you know, that you can record your, uh, screen and then people. Should use it, you know, for the S. O. P. S. But remember that it should not be you doing the S. O. P. S. That's that. That's the entirety of having a V.A. The best way to do it is to, as you said, go over a procedure and record it while you explain how to do it or you do it together with the V.
A. And then, uh, after that, the VA will watch the video and will create the SOP for you. For you, it's, you get, you win-win because you get the SOP. So now you start to have procedures that other VAs could, uh, follow after. Uh, and also it's a great way for you to see that the VA fully understood everything, uh, you mentioned.
[00:31:00] Otherwise, what would a lot of time happen is that the VA would say to you, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And then They would be maybe a bit more intimidated to say, wait a minute. Stop. I did not understand this because they would feel like, okay, maybe I should, uh, not say that I didn't understand what, what would he think of me if I stopped and asked questions and so on, you have to understand that it's a different mentality and the best way to overcome these problems of mentalities is.
To record it, to have the VA create SOPs, and then you go together and see that everything is done the way it should.
Will: So, so, um, I have to throw an AI hack out there just because it's such a hot topic right now. If you've recorded, uh, an SOP recently, like you've gone in and maybe even this, so, so this Zoom recording, we're, we're recording this podcast on Zoom.
Um, If you upload that to YouTube or you upload that to loom or you upload that to most any, uh, you know, software where you're looking at it, or you just look at like assembly. io, that's an API tool [00:32:00] that transcribes, um, videos and everything. If you take that transcription and you literally raw copy-paste that into chat GPT four and say, write me an SOP based upon this transcript.
It is amazing how good that transcript gets. And. How fantastic that is as a starting place for your VA, when they go in, they, they can use that as the bones and then put in the screenshots and, you know, put it all up there and it's super referenceable. Amazing, amazing, amazing in terms of, um, how much faster, like, like the blog post for this article.
Like if you're reading the blog post right now, um, and you're wondering how it was generated, it was generated with AI. There are pieces of it that are going to be, that's just, how the world's going right now in terms of content generation and some amazing stuff that's out there.
That's not to say that you don't need good content writers who look at stuff and do that quality check, but another place you can [00:33:00] delegate.
Brandon: Yeah, I was going to say with the video too, it does, like you said, sir, like you might be able to explain it once to somebody, uh, and then that VA might watch that video 5 or 10 times or 20 times trying to get the, trying to get the, the, uh, SOP down.
Right. So, uh, and then I've had a lot of times where you make a video like that. And then you, I., I tend to speak quickly and use the wrong words sometimes. And so sometimes they're like, I like I watched this a whole bunch of times. I think you meant to say this here instead of that.
And, uh, you know, most of the time they're right. They, they've watched it enough times, they got the context and I said the wrong thing, and they're able to point that out.
Will: Alright. Final hack or final tip? Any, any, you know, on the topic of VAs or data? What's the, what's one, one thing, one final tip or trick?
Uh, that you would like to leave with, uh, the, the individuals listening. And, um, the last question I'd also want you to answer right after that is how can they get in touch if, if they'd like to. So, Galad, what, what would be your final tip, trick or hack, uh, that you'd like to share with, uh, [00:34:00] the listeners?
Gilad: So I think once, obviously, once you understood that VA is, and hopefully for the good of your business, you understood that the VA is something that could help you run your business and grow faster. Then the tip is, is to have patience on that because a lot of people think like, okay, I'm hiring a VA now on day one to be able to do everything for me.
And then it's, it's done. I'm out of the picture. And once that is not done. The way they expect them to because they're, they're used to doing things by themselves. So if the VA would do things, the 80%, uh, then they would, a lot of times they would not have the patience and they would say, Oh, you know what?
I'll do it myself. And then you fall back into where you were before. Uh, and, and, and you should have patience. You should understand that this is a process, but the idea would be to grow your business to the next level. And you should invest in the seeds. in the beginning, working with your VA and creating that structure in which that the VA will grow and take it from there.
So it doesn't happen all the day but once you understand that you [00:35:00] need to have this patience and you're working with your VA and obviously if you get a good VA that was already filtered and trained and all it will save a lot of time but you still need to have this understanding that this you're building something.
For the, for the long run and, and, and, uh, and you should, you know, uh, put the time into making that, that happened. Um, yeah, that's my tip. I mean, the thing
Brandon: that comes to mind is something I've just been in the middle of for a couple of months. One, of those things is I had a mental model of how stuff works.
And I'm talking specifically about some Amazon financial data we're downloading and I understood it and it made sense to me, but I tried explaining it to 10 or 15 or 20 other people and nobody ever got it. And so I had to listen to that feedback and say, like, it might make sense to me, but I got to put that in a different mental model that other people can understand.
And so sometimes if you find that you're trying to explain something to somebody and they don't get it and they don't get it and they don't get it, or multiple people don't quite understand what you're, it's just not catching on as you had, you know, you have to. Ask them for feedback, dig into really what that is, and, and you'll, you'll find that actually, [00:36:00] once you slow down and take the feedback in and figure out how to like, make it better, then everything speeds up after that.
So, now, something that you were struggling with and was kind of a challenge becomes a strength and a, and something you're good at. So, um, that's that goes back with what you said about patient says, listen to the feedback and if something's not working, uh, try to take a step back again, sort of be that business owner is the 1 that's.
Trying to build these processes and stuff and figure out what's going wrong with sometimes something that you're trying to explain or do isn't quite right. And I think if you can back it back that up a little bit and, and ingest that and figure out the right way to do it or a simpler way to do it, um, it'll make it so you can accelerate faster when you come out of that.
All right.
Will: So, uh, Brandon. Uh, Galad, if an individual wanted to get in touch with you, and had a question, what would be the best way to get in touch?
Gilad: So, uh, for us, uh, I mean, it's, uh, uh, going to, uh, va Philippines. com, uh, or just writing an email to a service at va Philippines. com. And, uh, we'll be happy to schedule a call, talk, understand your needs exactly [00:37:00] where you're stuck and how we can help you with, uh, with a trained VA.
Will: Brandon, what's the best way to reach out to the seller labs team or, to you, if they have a question? Yeah. I mean, if
Brandon: If you're interested in any of the automation stuff that Seller Labs has built, the Seller Labs data hub stuff, you can go to seller labs. com. Uh, the data hub link is on our page that describes that we've got a link to all the data that we collect in there and everything.
So it's a great resource. If you just. There's a contact form there. You can get in touch with our sales team and our support team and ask anything about that. So if you're interested in the product, certainly go there. If you're interested in me directly, I just say, email me, Brandon at sellerlabs. com or on LinkedIn.
I'm active pretty there, there pretty often. So find me on either one.
Will: Well, appreciate everybody's time. Um, same here. I'm on LinkedIn and, uh, will at sellerlabs. com. So, uh, looking forward to another episode and, uh, for today over and out. Thanks, everybody. Thank
Gilad: you very much for having me. Bye-bye, guys.
Sellerlabs Data Dudes Podcast
Will: [00:00:00] Welcome everyone to this episode of Amazon Data Dudes. I'm your host, Will Christensen. Uh, we have Brandon Chekits here. Welcome. Hey, good to be here. Well, thanks. Brandon is the founder of Cellular Labs and a current owner there. Um, we also have Gilad from VAA, an agency that specializes specifically in VAs.
He's going to go in and describe that a little bit more, but welcome.
Gilad: Thank you very much for having me. And then you got it right.
Will: Hey, yeah, we were, we were practicing earlier and I was saying all sorts of the wrong way of how to say Gilad's name. You know, he said, it's okay. Every, you know, if I had a penny for every podcast that they, they've called me the wrong version of my name, you know, he'd be very
Gilad: rich on different podcasts.
And then they call me and they say, okay, how should I, because I listened to you over there, you're Gilad and then you're Gil and then you're, yeah, so it's okay. The actual name is Gilad. So you said it right.
Will: Awesome. Well, Gilad, tell us what does VAA do? I probably [00:01:00] slaughtered it. They probably do something totally different or somewhat different than what I just said, but you tell us what, what does VAA do?
And yeah, tell us a little bit more about that. Sure.
Gilad: So, I mean, uh, first of all, I'm, uh, yeah, I'm Gilad, I'm the founder and the CEO of VAA Philippines. What we do is we recruit virtual assistants from the Philippines and then we train them to work with Amazon sellers. We're an Amazon-focused company.
Everything we do is Amazon. Uh, and, uh, and, uh, all of our VAs are all Filipinos. We recruit them ourselves in our, in a very long process to find the best ones out there with the best motivation, the best skills, uh, the best capabilities of learning complicated things and applying them without mistakes, uh, eagerness to learn in advance and so on.
And, uh, usually after a process of, of two months, we're left with about 1 percent of the applicants and that for 1 percent is joined, uh, VAA. And goes to the next step, which is the training. At that point, we divide them between the different departments that any seller would [00:02:00] need VAs for. For example, we have VAs dedicated to PPC.
We have VAs dedicated to social media. And what we did together, which we'll talk about in a minute, is, is training our VAs specifically on Seller Central and on all the data that is relevant. to Amazon sellers. So that's exactly what we, uh, what we do. Uh, we continue to support our VAs also on every day on, on all the new updates on Amazon, new features, and new tools.
And so they always keep updated and progress with their knowledge on Amazon, which is always changing. So
Will: tell me how, I mean, I know a lot of people who are in, the VA. Uh, a world in the staffing space, what got you, I mean, why, why the Philippines? And how did you end up getting there? I think I asked you this when we were at the prosperous show.
And I was like, so you must be like somewhere close over there to the Philippines. And you're like, I'm in Israel. And I was like, wait, what? Okay. Hold on. How did this, how did this come together? So, tell us, how,
Gilad: how did you end up there? Yeah. So most people think that [00:03:00] when I'm talking to them on the phone, that I'm, I'm In the Philippines at the moment, I do go back and forth to the Philippines quite a lot.
Um, but, uh, I'm talking to you now from Israel, and, uh, it all started me being an Amazon seller. I mean, this is how it all started. I started selling on Amazon in 2015 and, uh, a private label created my own, uh, like, like, uh, you know, the good old days creating manufacturing in China, selling a campaign group, and, uh, for Amazon sellers in the U.S.
Uh, at that time, it was different than today. It grew, uh, very fast. The business, I needed VAs. I needed, I needed help because I found myself doing everything myself without being, having the time to do everything. And many things got neglected, neglected, sorry. And, and other things I was not even aware that somebody could do for me.
And, um, and little by little, I started hiring VAs to help me in my, uh, in my Amazon business. And, um, and, and I, I was horrible in, in doing it. I was [00:04:00] horrible in finding VAs. Every time that I thought that I found the right VA, she turned, he or she, they, they turned to disappear, give excuses why they cannot work anymore or why, you know, they, there is a typhoon or internet connection problem and, and, and so on.
And, um, and I discovered that I, I completely did not understand what it means to find good people in the Philippines, how to find good VAs. How to train them, how to make them stay with you for years, and be dedicated to your company. Eventually, we became good at that and people started to ask us, okay, can you help us find our VAs?
And then this is how VA developed. So from an Amazon seller, I became focused on Recruiting VAs and training them on Amazon for the things that I needed as a seller.
Brandon: Yeah, I think most, most business owners are very bad at hiring people. That's especially hiring people remotely in a different
Gilad: culture.
Definitely. And I think the reason is that we look. At least I did. And that was my biggest [00:05:00] problem. I look too much into what they say about themselves, you know, how they want to be, uh, viewed and, and, you know, you read their resumes, you post an ad on, on Facebook, on online jobs that don't matter where, and you get 300 people applying and they will all, you know, surprisingly claim to be experts on the field with 20 years experience, knowing everything about Amazon.
And then, um, you know, in the interview, even in the interview, or if you give them a test, they will pass the test. They will, they will look perfect in the interview because they will already know what to say and how to say it convinced, you know, to convince you. But then it doesn't tell you anything about their actual potential.
And it doesn't tell you that they're here to stay, that they're not going to disappear, that they're really like. Motivated and so on. And this is what we do now. We recruit them not based on what they say about their experience, not based on what they write over there, but more, I mean, they could be complete newbies, but we'll train them.
We'll give them the right training. We'll support them. And then when you have somebody who's like really, really like an A player, they [00:06:00] would pass. All the BC players like this and they will stay with you for years. So that's, that's the reason why
Will: it works well. So, I mean you solved your problem and then decided, Hey, you know what, enough people are asking me this question.
This sounds like a recurring theme. I, I, Brandon is a, uh, uh, a business owner on his own, right? A parallel entrepreneur. Brandon, have you, have you seen that pattern as well for you? You know, solving your problem and then
Brandon: my businesses tend to go from one thing to another, but it's a, it's a, I become my phone first, uh, my first customer for the next business.
So that's a very common thing, that I found. It's like, Oh, I've got a little, little need that I have here. A little something I developed here. That has a wider audience. Or so we turn that into another product or another business. We're
Will: going to pull this around. Um, we are Amazon data dudes here, uh, at Seller Labs.
And we love, um, Amazon data. Um, we, well, we love making sure that it looks right. Um, we don't always love [00:07:00] exactly how it comes out. Um, but, but today we're going to kind of talk about the intersection of people. And data, um, obviously, uh, glads here and he has an awesome look into like why it's important to have, you know, the same VA over and over and the turnover.
And, a lot of the reason why that turnover hurts you is because there's data that, you know, they have that they take with them. Right. And so we're going to talk a little bit about the intersection of people and data, especially on Amazon today. So I'm going to open the floor and just, I want to hear.
You know, from Brandon and from, uh, Gilad, when you think about the intersection of, uh, people and data and why it's important to, uh, consider data in the hiring process, why it's important to consider how people interact with data, what, what comes to mind, what, what thoughts or advice would you have for Amazon sellers as you [00:08:00] consider.
Um, you know, data and people and trying to mix them. Uh, well, I'll
Brandon: start with a little bit. So I think that one of the things that we've found is that people often have a mental model of how things are laid out, how things are categorized, what names are. Uh, and a lot of times, um, that's, doesn't sometimes Amazon's data is specifically complicated.
It doesn't line up the way that you think. So there's a lot of times that you have to sort of use the right words and the right terminology to mean the right things. Um, for example, the word category, has like. 18 different meanings, depending on what, and where you're talking about. Some of these things just need to be very specific about it, or the word review or feedback.
Like, these things mean different things, depending on which context you're talking about. So having a common understanding of what those dangerous words or complicated words are, and being able to describe those specifically and talk about them when you're communicating. So you're not confusing 1 with
Will: the other.
Like a company glossary, essentially, like, like if you're, if we're calling it a review, this is what [00:09:00] a review is. If we're calling it a category, it's the category of the child they sit in and, you know, like a common language, so to speak deeper than just, Hey, we all speak English or we all speak Spanish.
This is like. You know, when we speak English and we use this word, this is the data
Brandon: point. Yeah, it's like a dictionary that describes what meaning of that word that you have. And we try to, at Cellular Labs, we try to like to make those unambiguous so that it's more obvious what you're talking about when you're talking about one of them.
So, um, but there are, there's a lot of ways you can get, uh, and dangers there. And then the other thing is, is the sort of like the shape of the data that you get from Amazon is not always the shape that you kind of want it in. And so if you have data that's, you know. Especially when you're talking about summarizing data and grouping data by certain things like if you're talking about advertising data at data in the, in the, in the realm of advertising is usually a subset of the data in the realm of like the Amazon business reports or the order report.
So, um, knowing, like, at what level you're sort of talking about it in and in what context that around there is helps as well. So making sure that [00:10:00] you've got some clear understanding around those contacts when you're discussing them.
Gilad: Well, I think that, um. Data is something that, uh, very little, uh, sellers understand and the value of it.
I think it's one of the, probably the most important thing, the one that the cells that they have, you know, understanding of the, of the data and, and how to use it correctly. They're the ones that, uh, pass their competitors. And, uh, and, uh, the problem is that it's a lot of times it's in your way because if you look at the courses, I'm not going to name.
specific ones. But if you look at the courses that train people on how to become Amazon sellers, it will always focus on how to sell more, how to, you know, to do your PPC and how to do your, uh, uh, funnels and, and social media and, and influencers and all that. Very little will be spoken about how to get the right data and how to understand where you are and where you're going.
And, then once you start selling, you're always into. putting out fires, you know, you're trying to, you know, if there's a negative review, [00:11:00] you handle this. If there's a problem with your PPC, you handle that. But understanding data, understanding how to use it to understand how to make it better, how to improve for the long run is something that usually on the every day, you know, world, we don't have time for it.
And, um, and because of the nature of our activity, we're working a lot with big sellers, and they hire teams of VAs to help them on their Amazon business. And then we see that the bigger the seller is, the more they understand the value, of getting the right data. And they're, they're all, this is, we see that these are the tasks they're giving their VAs.
You know, they have VAs that are dedicated for that, you know, to gather the right information, to present it to them in the right report. So they could see, you know, how they can take it and move forward faster. Compared to just, you know, working and doing whatever they did again and again and again, and not having time to these complicated things that are is called data, and they don't have time to even learn how it works.
So [00:12:00] I would say that's that what distinguishes between the big sellers and the new ones that. Focus, on the everyday activity.
Will: So I want to ask this question to both of you, as you consider, you know, Brandon talked about, uh, a common dictionary or making sure that you understand the shape of the data.
And Galaad, you talked about using VAs or using your team to put importance on that data and bring it in and show it to you in the right way. Can you think, of a common mistake or pothole that you've seen Amazon sellers run into? Um, and, and how to get around it. A common thing that people are like, Oh my gosh, like everybody thought that this was named that, or, you know, in this situation, um, where, where we're talking about, you know, the under importance or over importance of data, are there, are there specific reports that come to mind that might be more or less important for an Amazon seller to, to, to be aware of that they may not already be aware of.
I
Brandon: mean, I can tell you, we've, we've [00:13:00] done a lot of deep analyses on some of these things because we have, you know, we built software that kind of pulls in all this data over and over again. 1 of the things we were surprised to learn is that, like Amazon, the child, everybody calls it the Amazon business reports, but it's essentially the child traffic by child ASIN report.
It's downloaded in Seller Central. Like, the numbers on that change every day for up to a couple of weeks, after a sale occurs. So. We see a lot of people that are a lot of agencies that use us and whatever they're downloading the reports and then generating, um, some, you know, the reporting off of that.
And then you'll go to the same report another day, and some of the net, some of the numbers are different. So that's a kind of a tricky thing to have to deal with is to figure out how to do that. And 1 of the great things about creating these repeatable processes that is we're able to identify what those were because we did the same thing every day.
And then when you've got this. With this sort of process in mind, your VAs or whoever you have doing that for you can just follow your steps. And that's the that's the great thing I'm thinking about. What's what VA does is they, they, they get us a, like a very step by-step procedure that it's pretty easy to follow and do the [00:14:00] same thing every day.
So it's, it makes it very, um, consistent and reliable
to
Will: do. What about you, Gladin? Any potholes that you've seen you've seen people deploy VAs or, or potholes around data gathering or, or people managing data. I, I, I
Gilad: can pretty much just focus on PPC for example. I mean, on PPC, you have those cells that they're doing everything by themselves.
And then usually they focus on the bids and the acres and uh, uh, and they would have very little time to go deeper into the history and, and understanding and, and, and really like seeing the, the, the change in the reports from, uh, you know, one time to the other. And then when you have a, a dedicated. VA to do it and we did a case study on this and we showed the difference between when a seller is managing his own PPC compared to when a VA is managing the PPC for him and the difference was not necessarily the knowledge.
Of the VA compared to the knowledge of the satellite was the fact that the VA, that's their job. They know that [00:15:00] this is, you know, they have a procedure like you said, an SOP. So they know that on Tuesday, this is what they do. And they, they go and they download this report. They go over it. And when you have somebody who's dedicated.
to do things according to specific procedures. Then suddenly you pick up a new search term. You see things that you never thought you would do because you never looked into all the reports. So we, we have this all the time coming from cells that are using our PPCBAs saying, okay, now I start to see a difference just because simply have somebody who's dedicated to downloading the reports, getting the information from there.
And this is why I think, uh, it was such a good, you know, cooperation that we did together, because it allowed the VAs to understand and how to get more and more information, uh, from Amazon, uh, which, as I said, sometimes it's very sneaky to get this information. But once you have it and how to use it correctly and, and, and improve
Brandon: the sales.
The other thing that, the other thing that I want to throw out there too, has to go right along with these processes is [00:16:00] there's some, I know a lot of sellers who are like, they're like the Amazon genius and they kind of understand all these things and too much is reliant on them. So I know some sellers are like once every.
Quarter once every year, they go in and make this spreadsheet and update all these values. And then they kind of run their business for the rest of the year on it. But it's very, it's very expensive in terms of their time to put together these complicated sheets. And they'd never really described how to do it to anybody else.
So it's always, it always falls back onto them. And one of the things you can do is once you understand how to get the data reliably and repeatably, and you can make a process around it, then you can have a VA like you're saying, do it every week rather than the process that used to be done once a month to optimize this.
You can now have somebody do it for 15 minutes or something once a week. And now, you get updated, reliable data every week, rather, rather than once a year. And we've seen that particularly, um, complicated with like Amazon changes fees four or five times a year. And if you don't pay attention to those fee updates, like.
You know, at one, one month, you're, you're profitable in the next month. You're not because of some fees that's changed somewhere or, you know, advertising getting out of control is another very common one [00:17:00] is like, we're hitting this ACOS goal, but we're not hitting the ROAS goal or the tacos goal or something like that.
When you've got these processes that are well defined that somebody who's dedicated to it can do, you know, on a usually pretty quick 15 minutes or something, you get, um, a lot better data, a lot better analysis more
Will: consistently. I think that I think that, sorry. Oh, I was just going to say, I have an Amazon seller friend who in her business, and this was literally over the last year, she was so focused on, actually, it was, so it was last year when, when there were some huge changes last year in fee, she missed the March feature and it cost her business over 10, 000 just because she didn't raise her prices, uh, to match some of what's there.
And so she didn't have somebody who's dedicated to watch and look at that. Just like, just like, just like a lot was saying. As you pick that apart, I used to work at an Amazon advertising agency and I was the guy who was in charge of managing, those campaigns. And I did a daily health check.
I called it the DHC and, and I [00:18:00] had a spreadsheet where I went down and I looked at the performance, the click-through rate for every single one of those campaigns every single day. And when, and it was crazy how often it was like, okay, yesterday's click-through rate was this. And today's click-through rate was, whoa, wait, half.
What happened, and I'd go in and I'd see that, you know, somebody, the, the keywords had changed or the, the placement had changed or something was different about the wording or, or invariably something shifted. And so you could see those trends, like you said, because there was someone dedicated and I eventually automated that, which is something that actually.
Cellular labs, uh, you know, we have a product called data hub that the VAs are training on. Galad mentioned a joint effort and I wanted to just give some color around that. The VAs at VAA are now, um, trained and certified on a product that, um, that is brand new at cellular labs called data hub.
And basically what this thing does is it automatically takes. Any data inside [00:19:00] Amazon and puts it into your dashboard of choice, whether that's a Google spreadsheet or an Excel spreadsheet or a power BI business intelligence tool, whatever your, wherever you're looking for that end destination, that's what it's available.
So SQL API, all of the above very, very fascinating to see those daily health checks get automated. Yeah, I,
Gilad: I love it. And, uh, and, uh, I wanted to say, uh, uh, uh, to complete what Brandon said that, uh, uh, before, I mean there is even a name for it. The, the, they call it the, the Superman syndrome. The Superman syndrome means that, and, and you see it like on, on e-commerce because, uh, if, if you see somebody like, uh, out there in, in the, in the action world, outside of, of the internet, you know, opening like a restaurant or something like that, they would never think that they could do everything by themselves.
You know, they would know from the. They want that they have to invest money into renting a place and decorating it and then hire a chef and waiters and so on. So it's all, you know, from day one that you have to invest into [00:20:00] delegating, you know, stuff to, to other people. However, the fact that everything is just in front of us on the computer, then we tend to forget this and we tend to think that we can do things.
By ourselves all the time, and what happens usually, especially when you start to grow and the business works well, is that eventually, you start to neglect because you see that you don't have time to do everything yourself. So, instead of doing, you know, the PPC, like, every, every second day or every day, even, or like, like you mentioned, going over exactly to check the CDR or everything, then.
And then you're doing it once in a week and then once in two weeks and once in a month and, and eventually you're really like focusing on the things that you know, that would cause pain to your business. And you forget that you know, you should have somebody delegated to do that, to sit every day for two hours a day.
And doing only that, working on the SOPs, working on that, on collating data, reporting to you, putting it into the right formats and [00:21:00] everything, and that's the way that business should work. That's the way that you know, you have advanced from one day to the other. Otherwise, you know, that Superman in the end, you know, get
Will: It's uh, it's kind of that Atlas shrugs thing where Atlas is holding the world, and eventually like you're just going to get crushed.
There's no way to, uh, to, to take all of that on forever. I want to shift the conversation here just a little bit. One of the key groups of people that the data hub tool is built for is Amazon agencies or service providers. So think, um, e-commerce, uh, accountants and, uh, e-commerce, you know, PPC agencies or full-service ad agencies.
I know a lot that there are, um, agencies. I'm aware of a couple, uh, that are using, um, VAA and getting involved in that. What. As you consider some of what that looks like, what, what advice would you have it, you know you know, as a seller versus an agency and, and kind of those [00:22:00] different pieces, do they, are they in need of help in the same way for VAs?
Gilad: Yeah. The difference I think is that they're already, in a stage where they understand the value of having, you know, other people helping you in your, in your business with, with sellers. We should either invest effort into, explaining to them why they should hire VAs, or why a VA is better than you doing everything yourself.
And, maybe in the beginning you think like, I don't know what I can give my VA to do. Don't worry, it'll come because you start to give things to your va, suddenly you have free time to do other things that are more important than your level, of pay. Uh, and, uh, and, uh, with agencies, they already know this.
They already know that they, uh, they know how to do it. They know that the, the more. VA is trained VA that they can have, uh, the better it is for them. And then what we see is they have dedicated personnel that are in a management level, and then these managers, they work with VA. So one VA could help, you know, even several accounts.
And working [00:23:00] under their procedures and getting the information and preparing things for the decision-makers. So the decision-makers, instead of doing the actual stuff every day themselves, the repeating things that take forever, even if it could be just, you know, calling Amazon and waiting half an hour on the phone, you know, to change something over there or to fix a problem, then you have these people dedicated to that and getting the information and working on that.
And then the managers can focus on it. Getting the data, getting the information, making the decisions, moving on to the next thing. So we see this. We work with a lot of agencies and aggregators. They are using RBAs, uh, to handle a lot of accounts and, uh, the more they know how to work with VAs, you can see that they, they handle more accounts and they get better results for their customers.
Will: Interesting. So key to that process sounds like finding the things only you can do. Whether you're an Amazon seller or an agency, and especially in the agency space. I mean, the whole point is that you've now grown to help multiple people. [00:24:00] And so when you're hoping multiple people, you're now no longer doing this for one business.
You're doing this for 10 businesses. So the number of repeated tasks like downloading data from Amazon is going to exponentially go up. Right? And so those are, those are those sorts of things that, that you can hand to that VA is what you're saying. Yeah.
Gilad: Yeah. And, and, you know, even for myself, I mean, I, and, and for my, uh, company, I always think about a certain task.
I mean, is this something that only me could handle, uh, with my knowledge, with my experience, with, uh, you know, my level of decision making or somebody else with the right training, with the right attitude, with the right, you know, a level that I can trust, but somebody else can do this task for me. If the answer is yes, somebody else could do it under the right, uh, circumstances, then I would do it.
Immediately delegate this to somebody else. I would ask myself, why am I doing it? I should be focusing on other things that only I as the owner of the company as the CEO can, you know, these decisions are mine to take. And then basically you're [00:25:00] starting to develop your business in your payroll, you know, in yours.
Pay level, I would say, instead of doing things that somebody else could do for 5
Brandon: an hour. Yeah, that's kind of the difference between having a job and having a business. If you have a job, you can just keep busy with stuff all day long. But when you have a business, I think a lot of parts of that business are developing those processes and developing the team that can do that for you so that you are not the bottleneck or the single point of failure for a lot of stuff.
So
Will: those Superman people, if you're listening and you're thinking, I'm not one of those guys. If you got hit by a car tomorrow, Would the whole business fail? If that's true, you're a Superman. I mean, I hate to tell it to you, but, but that's, that's what it means. Right. And honestly, I, I am very guilty of like my, my own, um, ego, um, used to enjoy.
I still enjoy it and I've. I've gotten better at letting go of being the center of attention for all of the things that go on there. And, and I had to stop and start asking myself, am I the best person to be doing this? But [00:26:00] honestly, it was so difficult to remember when to ask myself that question. So, as a seasoned parallel entrepreneur from Brandon and from.
A lot, you know, as an Amazon seller who has now, you know, shifted into running a delegation company to some degree or another. Right. What do you do? Any hacks that you are aware of for reminding yourself to ask that question? Am I the best person to be doing
Gilad: this? Yes, I think I think this is exactly the question that you should ask yourself.
You should make all the process and all the procedures. I think that the key is not to be afraid to delegate. I think the idea is that we tend to think that we are the ones that can get things perfect. And other people would not get things perfect. And that's correct. I mean, we would be doing things better than everybody else because it's our business.
However, if like we said, if we do everything ourselves, it will be perfect. And it will be small. If we want to grow, then we have to accept sometimes even [00:27:00] 80 percent of perfection. But having other people doing it. And then you'd always think, where is the bottleneck? Am I the bottleneck? Am I am I stopping it?
And then moving forward, we have we have a team of more than 550 VAs that we recruit and train and work and connect to sellers. And we always have to think about how they could help the sellers. Not to be their bottlenecks, and this is how we focus our training. We focus the training and this is how we started to work with you.
When we talked, it was immediately, okay, let's see how together we can help the sellers, you know, to get better results, but not doing things them by themselves. Because, if they keep doing this by themselves, then they will get nowhere. Because at the same time, they could be doing other things. So the idea.
Was always to think how you could not focus on, on the things that, you know, repeat themselves day after day and do not require, uh, you know, your special attention. Uh, and, and, [00:28:00] and focus on, on making the decisions, uh, and, and, and move forward. Couldn't
Will: agree more. Any hacks, Brandon, that you've seen others use or that, that you use to, to remember that, you know, when am I the wrong person to be doing this?
I mean,
Brandon: the simplest one is just to have a sticky note on your, laptop, or, on your wall somewhere. It's like, what can, what can I, how do I make this the last time I have to do this? Was one of the mantras I live by for low like, how do I, I don't, I don't need to be the one that does this again.
Like, how do I make it the last time I do this? And then basically you document it as you go through it and then hand it off to somebody else. Uh, make the videos are great at that. So it's very easy to make a video screen share nowadays. Yeah. A lot of that you can spend a three-minute video. Yeah.
Will: So, so we use a loom, um, a lot here at, uh, at Selle labs and it's just a software that lets you record. If you've not seen this yet, hopefully, it's a hack. It's it. It's, it's something that's becoming more and more common, but like screen sharing in a [00:29:00] meeting, you can share your screen.
But instead of being in a meeting, you're recording your voice. And so you're describing what's happening on the screen. Step by step. This is what I need you to do. This is the problem I'm having, and this is what I want you to do differently. Very, very powerful hack to get something off your plate. Um, and, and pick that apart.
I wanted to mention a book. There's a book called Buy Back Your Time. Um, and in this book, buy back your time, which is honestly, I mean, um, amazing book. Um, he describes 80 percent good, meaning if somebody does it 80 percent as good as you. So think like they, out of a hundred things, they missed 20 of them.
80 percent good is a hundred percent freaking awesome. That's what he says because it's not you who's having to do that work. So, so it's, it's really important to remember that like, it's okay to settle sometimes for 80%. Does 80 percent solve it for the business? And what are the things can you put in place to make sure the [00:30:00] business has what it needs, even though it's 80 percent as good as what you would have done?
Yeah.
Brandon: And a lot of times you follow that 80 percent with some sort of quality check too. That's a feedback mechanism, especially when somebody is new at it, if they get 80 percent good and you have some feedback on there, it gets up to 90 percent and then 95 percent good. And it's easy to get very good enough at that point.
Yeah.
Gilad: And by the way, you mentioned that uh, you know, that you can record your, uh, screen and then people. Should use it, you know, for the S. O. P. S. But remember that it should not be you doing the S. O. P. S. That's that. That's the entirety of having a V.A. The best way to do it is to, as you said, go over a procedure and record it while you explain how to do it or you do it together with the V.
A. And then, uh, after that, the VA will watch the video and will create the SOP for you. For you, it's, you get, you win-win because you get the SOP. So now you start to have procedures that other VAs could, uh, follow after. Uh, and also it's a great way for you to see that the VA fully understood everything, uh, you mentioned.
[00:31:00] Otherwise, what would a lot of time happen is that the VA would say to you, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And then They would be maybe a bit more intimidated to say, wait a minute. Stop. I did not understand this because they would feel like, okay, maybe I should, uh, not say that I didn't understand what, what would he think of me if I stopped and asked questions and so on, you have to understand that it's a different mentality and the best way to overcome these problems of mentalities is.
To record it, to have the VA create SOPs, and then you go together and see that everything is done the way it should.
Will: So, so, um, I have to throw an AI hack out there just because it's such a hot topic right now. If you've recorded, uh, an SOP recently, like you've gone in and maybe even this, so, so this Zoom recording, we're, we're recording this podcast on Zoom.
Um, If you upload that to YouTube or you upload that to loom or you upload that to most any, uh, you know, software where you're looking at it, or you just look at like assembly. io, that's an API tool [00:32:00] that transcribes, um, videos and everything. If you take that transcription and you literally raw copy-paste that into chat GPT four and say, write me an SOP based upon this transcript.
It is amazing how good that transcript gets. And. How fantastic that is as a starting place for your VA, when they go in, they, they can use that as the bones and then put in the screenshots and, you know, put it all up there and it's super referenceable. Amazing, amazing, amazing in terms of, um, how much faster, like, like the blog post for this article.
Like if you're reading the blog post right now, um, and you're wondering how it was generated, it was generated with AI. There are pieces of it that are going to be, that's just, how the world's going right now in terms of content generation and some amazing stuff that's out there.
That's not to say that you don't need good content writers who look at stuff and do that quality check, but another place you can [00:33:00] delegate.
Brandon: Yeah, I was going to say with the video too, it does, like you said, sir, like you might be able to explain it once to somebody, uh, and then that VA might watch that video 5 or 10 times or 20 times trying to get the, trying to get the, the, uh, SOP down.
Right. So, uh, and then I've had a lot of times where you make a video like that. And then you, I., I tend to speak quickly and use the wrong words sometimes. And so sometimes they're like, I like I watched this a whole bunch of times. I think you meant to say this here instead of that.
And, uh, you know, most of the time they're right. They, they've watched it enough times, they got the context and I said the wrong thing, and they're able to point that out.
Will: Alright. Final hack or final tip? Any, any, you know, on the topic of VAs or data? What's the, what's one, one thing, one final tip or trick?
Uh, that you would like to leave with, uh, the, the individuals listening. And, um, the last question I'd also want you to answer right after that is how can they get in touch if, if they'd like to. So, Galad, what, what would be your final tip, trick or hack, uh, that you'd like to share with, uh, [00:34:00] the listeners?
Gilad: So I think once, obviously, once you understood that VA is, and hopefully for the good of your business, you understood that the VA is something that could help you run your business and grow faster. Then the tip is, is to have patience on that because a lot of people think like, okay, I'm hiring a VA now on day one to be able to do everything for me.
And then it's, it's done. I'm out of the picture. And once that is not done. The way they expect them to because they're, they're used to doing things by themselves. So if the VA would do things, the 80%, uh, then they would, a lot of times they would not have the patience and they would say, Oh, you know what?
I'll do it myself. And then you fall back into where you were before. Uh, and, and, and you should have patience. You should understand that this is a process, but the idea would be to grow your business to the next level. And you should invest in the seeds. in the beginning, working with your VA and creating that structure in which that the VA will grow and take it from there.
So it doesn't happen all the day but once you understand that you [00:35:00] need to have this patience and you're working with your VA and obviously if you get a good VA that was already filtered and trained and all it will save a lot of time but you still need to have this understanding that this you're building something.
For the, for the long run and, and, and, uh, and you should, you know, uh, put the time into making that, that happened. Um, yeah, that's my tip. I mean, the thing
Brandon: that comes to mind is something I've just been in the middle of for a couple of months. One, of those things is I had a mental model of how stuff works.
And I'm talking specifically about some Amazon financial data we're downloading and I understood it and it made sense to me, but I tried explaining it to 10 or 15 or 20 other people and nobody ever got it. And so I had to listen to that feedback and say, like, it might make sense to me, but I got to put that in a different mental model that other people can understand.
And so sometimes if you find that you're trying to explain something to somebody and they don't get it and they don't get it and they don't get it, or multiple people don't quite understand what you're, it's just not catching on as you had, you know, you have to. Ask them for feedback, dig into really what that is, and, and you'll, you'll find that actually, [00:36:00] once you slow down and take the feedback in and figure out how to like, make it better, then everything speeds up after that.
So, now, something that you were struggling with and was kind of a challenge becomes a strength and a, and something you're good at. So, um, that's that goes back with what you said about patient says, listen to the feedback and if something's not working, uh, try to take a step back again, sort of be that business owner is the 1 that's.
Trying to build these processes and stuff and figure out what's going wrong with sometimes something that you're trying to explain or do isn't quite right. And I think if you can back it back that up a little bit and, and ingest that and figure out the right way to do it or a simpler way to do it, um, it'll make it so you can accelerate faster when you come out of that.
All right.
Will: So, uh, Brandon. Uh, Galad, if an individual wanted to get in touch with you, and had a question, what would be the best way to get in touch?
Gilad: So, uh, for us, uh, I mean, it's, uh, uh, going to, uh, va Philippines. com, uh, or just writing an email to a service at va Philippines. com. And, uh, we'll be happy to schedule a call, talk, understand your needs exactly [00:37:00] where you're stuck and how we can help you with, uh, with a trained VA.
Will: Brandon, what's the best way to reach out to the seller labs team or, to you, if they have a question? Yeah. I mean, if
Brandon: If you're interested in any of the automation stuff that Seller Labs has built, the Seller Labs data hub stuff, you can go to seller labs. com. Uh, the data hub link is on our page that describes that we've got a link to all the data that we collect in there and everything.
So it's a great resource. If you just. There's a contact form there. You can get in touch with our sales team and our support team and ask anything about that. So if you're interested in the product, certainly go there. If you're interested in me directly, I just say, email me, Brandon at sellerlabs. com or on LinkedIn.
I'm active pretty there, there pretty often. So find me on either one.
Will: Well, appreciate everybody's time. Um, same here. I'm on LinkedIn and, uh, will at sellerlabs. com. So, uh, looking forward to another episode and, uh, for today over and out. Thanks, everybody. Thank
Gilad: you very much for having me. Bye-bye, guys.
Will: [00:00:00] Welcome everyone to this episode of Amazon Data Dudes. I'm your host, Will Christensen. Uh, we have Brandon Chekits here. Welcome. Hey, good to be here. Well, thanks. Brandon is the founder of Cellular Labs and a current owner there. Um, we also have Gilad from VAA, an agency that specializes specifically in VAs.
He's going to go in and describe that a little bit more, but welcome.
Gilad: Thank you very much for having me. And then you got it right.
Will: Hey, yeah, we were, we were practicing earlier and I was saying all sorts of the wrong way of how to say Gilad's name. You know, he said, it's okay. Every, you know, if I had a penny for every podcast that they, they've called me the wrong version of my name, you know, he'd be very
Gilad: rich on different podcasts.
And then they call me and they say, okay, how should I, because I listened to you over there, you're Gilad and then you're Gil and then you're, yeah, so it's okay. The actual name is Gilad. So you said it right.
Will: Awesome. Well, Gilad, tell us what does VAA do? I probably [00:01:00] slaughtered it. They probably do something totally different or somewhat different than what I just said, but you tell us what, what does VAA do?
And yeah, tell us a little bit more about that. Sure.
Gilad: So, I mean, uh, first of all, I'm, uh, yeah, I'm Gilad, I'm the founder and the CEO of VAA Philippines. What we do is we recruit virtual assistants from the Philippines and then we train them to work with Amazon sellers. We're an Amazon-focused company.
Everything we do is Amazon. Uh, and, uh, and, uh, all of our VAs are all Filipinos. We recruit them ourselves in our, in a very long process to find the best ones out there with the best motivation, the best skills, uh, the best capabilities of learning complicated things and applying them without mistakes, uh, eagerness to learn in advance and so on.
And, uh, usually after a process of, of two months, we're left with about 1 percent of the applicants and that for 1 percent is joined, uh, VAA. And goes to the next step, which is the training. At that point, we divide them between the different departments that any seller would [00:02:00] need VAs for. For example, we have VAs dedicated to PPC.
We have VAs dedicated to social media. And what we did together, which we'll talk about in a minute, is, is training our VAs specifically on Seller Central and on all the data that is relevant. to Amazon sellers. So that's exactly what we, uh, what we do. Uh, we continue to support our VAs also on every day on, on all the new updates on Amazon, new features, and new tools.
And so they always keep updated and progress with their knowledge on Amazon, which is always changing. So
Will: tell me how, I mean, I know a lot of people who are in, the VA. Uh, a world in the staffing space, what got you, I mean, why, why the Philippines? And how did you end up getting there? I think I asked you this when we were at the prosperous show.
And I was like, so you must be like somewhere close over there to the Philippines. And you're like, I'm in Israel. And I was like, wait, what? Okay. Hold on. How did this, how did this come together? So, tell us, how,
Gilad: how did you end up there? Yeah. So most people think that [00:03:00] when I'm talking to them on the phone, that I'm, I'm In the Philippines at the moment, I do go back and forth to the Philippines quite a lot.
Um, but, uh, I'm talking to you now from Israel, and, uh, it all started me being an Amazon seller. I mean, this is how it all started. I started selling on Amazon in 2015 and, uh, a private label created my own, uh, like, like, uh, you know, the good old days creating manufacturing in China, selling a campaign group, and, uh, for Amazon sellers in the U.S.
Uh, at that time, it was different than today. It grew, uh, very fast. The business, I needed VAs. I needed, I needed help because I found myself doing everything myself without being, having the time to do everything. And many things got neglected, neglected, sorry. And, and other things I was not even aware that somebody could do for me.
And, um, and little by little, I started hiring VAs to help me in my, uh, in my Amazon business. And, um, and, and I, I was horrible in, in doing it. I was [00:04:00] horrible in finding VAs. Every time that I thought that I found the right VA, she turned, he or she, they, they turned to disappear, give excuses why they cannot work anymore or why, you know, they, there is a typhoon or internet connection problem and, and, and so on.
And, um, and I discovered that I, I completely did not understand what it means to find good people in the Philippines, how to find good VAs. How to train them, how to make them stay with you for years, and be dedicated to your company. Eventually, we became good at that and people started to ask us, okay, can you help us find our VAs?
And then this is how VA developed. So from an Amazon seller, I became focused on Recruiting VAs and training them on Amazon for the things that I needed as a seller.
Brandon: Yeah, I think most, most business owners are very bad at hiring people. That's especially hiring people remotely in a different
Gilad: culture.
Definitely. And I think the reason is that we look. At least I did. And that was my biggest [00:05:00] problem. I look too much into what they say about themselves, you know, how they want to be, uh, viewed and, and, you know, you read their resumes, you post an ad on, on Facebook, on online jobs that don't matter where, and you get 300 people applying and they will all, you know, surprisingly claim to be experts on the field with 20 years experience, knowing everything about Amazon.
And then, um, you know, in the interview, even in the interview, or if you give them a test, they will pass the test. They will, they will look perfect in the interview because they will already know what to say and how to say it convinced, you know, to convince you. But then it doesn't tell you anything about their actual potential.
And it doesn't tell you that they're here to stay, that they're not going to disappear, that they're really like. Motivated and so on. And this is what we do now. We recruit them not based on what they say about their experience, not based on what they write over there, but more, I mean, they could be complete newbies, but we'll train them.
We'll give them the right training. We'll support them. And then when you have somebody who's like really, really like an A player, they [00:06:00] would pass. All the BC players like this and they will stay with you for years. So that's, that's the reason why
Will: it works well. So, I mean you solved your problem and then decided, Hey, you know what, enough people are asking me this question.
This sounds like a recurring theme. I, I, Brandon is a, uh, uh, a business owner on his own, right? A parallel entrepreneur. Brandon, have you, have you seen that pattern as well for you? You know, solving your problem and then
Brandon: my businesses tend to go from one thing to another, but it's a, it's a, I become my phone first, uh, my first customer for the next business.
So that's a very common thing, that I found. It's like, Oh, I've got a little, little need that I have here. A little something I developed here. That has a wider audience. Or so we turn that into another product or another business. We're
Will: going to pull this around. Um, we are Amazon data dudes here, uh, at Seller Labs.
And we love, um, Amazon data. Um, we, well, we love making sure that it looks right. Um, we don't always love [00:07:00] exactly how it comes out. Um, but, but today we're going to kind of talk about the intersection of people. And data, um, obviously, uh, glads here and he has an awesome look into like why it's important to have, you know, the same VA over and over and the turnover.
And, a lot of the reason why that turnover hurts you is because there's data that, you know, they have that they take with them. Right. And so we're going to talk a little bit about the intersection of people and data, especially on Amazon today. So I'm going to open the floor and just, I want to hear.
You know, from Brandon and from, uh, Gilad, when you think about the intersection of, uh, people and data and why it's important to, uh, consider data in the hiring process, why it's important to consider how people interact with data, what, what comes to mind, what, what thoughts or advice would you have for Amazon sellers as you [00:08:00] consider.
Um, you know, data and people and trying to mix them. Uh, well, I'll
Brandon: start with a little bit. So I think that one of the things that we've found is that people often have a mental model of how things are laid out, how things are categorized, what names are. Uh, and a lot of times, um, that's, doesn't sometimes Amazon's data is specifically complicated.
It doesn't line up the way that you think. So there's a lot of times that you have to sort of use the right words and the right terminology to mean the right things. Um, for example, the word category, has like. 18 different meanings, depending on what, and where you're talking about. Some of these things just need to be very specific about it, or the word review or feedback.
Like, these things mean different things, depending on which context you're talking about. So having a common understanding of what those dangerous words or complicated words are, and being able to describe those specifically and talk about them when you're communicating. So you're not confusing 1 with
Will: the other.
Like a company glossary, essentially, like, like if you're, if we're calling it a review, this is what [00:09:00] a review is. If we're calling it a category, it's the category of the child they sit in and, you know, like a common language, so to speak deeper than just, Hey, we all speak English or we all speak Spanish.
This is like. You know, when we speak English and we use this word, this is the data
Brandon: point. Yeah, it's like a dictionary that describes what meaning of that word that you have. And we try to, at Cellular Labs, we try to like to make those unambiguous so that it's more obvious what you're talking about when you're talking about one of them.
So, um, but there are, there's a lot of ways you can get, uh, and dangers there. And then the other thing is, is the sort of like the shape of the data that you get from Amazon is not always the shape that you kind of want it in. And so if you have data that's, you know. Especially when you're talking about summarizing data and grouping data by certain things like if you're talking about advertising data at data in the, in the, in the realm of advertising is usually a subset of the data in the realm of like the Amazon business reports or the order report.
So, um, knowing, like, at what level you're sort of talking about it in and in what context that around there is helps as well. So making sure that [00:10:00] you've got some clear understanding around those contacts when you're discussing them.
Gilad: Well, I think that, um. Data is something that, uh, very little, uh, sellers understand and the value of it.
I think it's one of the, probably the most important thing, the one that the cells that they have, you know, understanding of the, of the data and, and how to use it correctly. They're the ones that, uh, pass their competitors. And, uh, and, uh, the problem is that it's a lot of times it's in your way because if you look at the courses, I'm not going to name.
specific ones. But if you look at the courses that train people on how to become Amazon sellers, it will always focus on how to sell more, how to, you know, to do your PPC and how to do your, uh, uh, funnels and, and social media and, and influencers and all that. Very little will be spoken about how to get the right data and how to understand where you are and where you're going.
And, then once you start selling, you're always into. putting out fires, you know, you're trying to, you know, if there's a negative review, [00:11:00] you handle this. If there's a problem with your PPC, you handle that. But understanding data, understanding how to use it to understand how to make it better, how to improve for the long run is something that usually on the every day, you know, world, we don't have time for it.
And, um, and because of the nature of our activity, we're working a lot with big sellers, and they hire teams of VAs to help them on their Amazon business. And then we see that the bigger the seller is, the more they understand the value, of getting the right data. And they're, they're all, this is, we see that these are the tasks they're giving their VAs.
You know, they have VAs that are dedicated for that, you know, to gather the right information, to present it to them in the right report. So they could see, you know, how they can take it and move forward faster. Compared to just, you know, working and doing whatever they did again and again and again, and not having time to these complicated things that are is called data, and they don't have time to even learn how it works.
So [00:12:00] I would say that's that what distinguishes between the big sellers and the new ones that. Focus, on the everyday activity.
Will: So I want to ask this question to both of you, as you consider, you know, Brandon talked about, uh, a common dictionary or making sure that you understand the shape of the data.
And Galaad, you talked about using VAs or using your team to put importance on that data and bring it in and show it to you in the right way. Can you think, of a common mistake or pothole that you've seen Amazon sellers run into? Um, and, and how to get around it. A common thing that people are like, Oh my gosh, like everybody thought that this was named that, or, you know, in this situation, um, where, where we're talking about, you know, the under importance or over importance of data, are there, are there specific reports that come to mind that might be more or less important for an Amazon seller to, to, to be aware of that they may not already be aware of.
I
Brandon: mean, I can tell you, we've, we've [00:13:00] done a lot of deep analyses on some of these things because we have, you know, we built software that kind of pulls in all this data over and over again. 1 of the things we were surprised to learn is that, like Amazon, the child, everybody calls it the Amazon business reports, but it's essentially the child traffic by child ASIN report.
It's downloaded in Seller Central. Like, the numbers on that change every day for up to a couple of weeks, after a sale occurs. So. We see a lot of people that are a lot of agencies that use us and whatever they're downloading the reports and then generating, um, some, you know, the reporting off of that.
And then you'll go to the same report another day, and some of the net, some of the numbers are different. So that's a kind of a tricky thing to have to deal with is to figure out how to do that. And 1 of the great things about creating these repeatable processes that is we're able to identify what those were because we did the same thing every day.
And then when you've got this. With this sort of process in mind, your VAs or whoever you have doing that for you can just follow your steps. And that's the that's the great thing I'm thinking about. What's what VA does is they, they, they get us a, like a very step by-step procedure that it's pretty easy to follow and do the [00:14:00] same thing every day.
So it's, it makes it very, um, consistent and reliable
to
Will: do. What about you, Gladin? Any potholes that you've seen you've seen people deploy VAs or, or potholes around data gathering or, or people managing data. I, I, I
Gilad: can pretty much just focus on PPC for example. I mean, on PPC, you have those cells that they're doing everything by themselves.
And then usually they focus on the bids and the acres and uh, uh, and they would have very little time to go deeper into the history and, and understanding and, and, and really like seeing the, the, the change in the reports from, uh, you know, one time to the other. And then when you have a, a dedicated. VA to do it and we did a case study on this and we showed the difference between when a seller is managing his own PPC compared to when a VA is managing the PPC for him and the difference was not necessarily the knowledge.
Of the VA compared to the knowledge of the satellite was the fact that the VA, that's their job. They know that [00:15:00] this is, you know, they have a procedure like you said, an SOP. So they know that on Tuesday, this is what they do. And they, they go and they download this report. They go over it. And when you have somebody who's dedicated.
to do things according to specific procedures. Then suddenly you pick up a new search term. You see things that you never thought you would do because you never looked into all the reports. So we, we have this all the time coming from cells that are using our PPCBAs saying, okay, now I start to see a difference just because simply have somebody who's dedicated to downloading the reports, getting the information from there.
And this is why I think, uh, it was such a good, you know, cooperation that we did together, because it allowed the VAs to understand and how to get more and more information, uh, from Amazon, uh, which, as I said, sometimes it's very sneaky to get this information. But once you have it and how to use it correctly and, and, and improve
Brandon: the sales.
The other thing that, the other thing that I want to throw out there too, has to go right along with these processes is [00:16:00] there's some, I know a lot of sellers who are like, they're like the Amazon genius and they kind of understand all these things and too much is reliant on them. So I know some sellers are like once every.
Quarter once every year, they go in and make this spreadsheet and update all these values. And then they kind of run their business for the rest of the year on it. But it's very, it's very expensive in terms of their time to put together these complicated sheets. And they'd never really described how to do it to anybody else.
So it's always, it always falls back onto them. And one of the things you can do is once you understand how to get the data reliably and repeatably, and you can make a process around it, then you can have a VA like you're saying, do it every week rather than the process that used to be done once a month to optimize this.
You can now have somebody do it for 15 minutes or something once a week. And now, you get updated, reliable data every week, rather, rather than once a year. And we've seen that particularly, um, complicated with like Amazon changes fees four or five times a year. And if you don't pay attention to those fee updates, like.
You know, at one, one month, you're, you're profitable in the next month. You're not because of some fees that's changed somewhere or, you know, advertising getting out of control is another very common one [00:17:00] is like, we're hitting this ACOS goal, but we're not hitting the ROAS goal or the tacos goal or something like that.
When you've got these processes that are well defined that somebody who's dedicated to it can do, you know, on a usually pretty quick 15 minutes or something, you get, um, a lot better data, a lot better analysis more
Will: consistently. I think that I think that, sorry. Oh, I was just going to say, I have an Amazon seller friend who in her business, and this was literally over the last year, she was so focused on, actually, it was, so it was last year when, when there were some huge changes last year in fee, she missed the March feature and it cost her business over 10, 000 just because she didn't raise her prices, uh, to match some of what's there.
And so she didn't have somebody who's dedicated to watch and look at that. Just like, just like, just like a lot was saying. As you pick that apart, I used to work at an Amazon advertising agency and I was the guy who was in charge of managing, those campaigns. And I did a daily health check.
I called it the DHC and, and I [00:18:00] had a spreadsheet where I went down and I looked at the performance, the click-through rate for every single one of those campaigns every single day. And when, and it was crazy how often it was like, okay, yesterday's click-through rate was this. And today's click-through rate was, whoa, wait, half.
What happened, and I'd go in and I'd see that, you know, somebody, the, the keywords had changed or the, the placement had changed or something was different about the wording or, or invariably something shifted. And so you could see those trends, like you said, because there was someone dedicated and I eventually automated that, which is something that actually.
Cellular labs, uh, you know, we have a product called data hub that the VAs are training on. Galad mentioned a joint effort and I wanted to just give some color around that. The VAs at VAA are now, um, trained and certified on a product that, um, that is brand new at cellular labs called data hub.
And basically what this thing does is it automatically takes. Any data inside [00:19:00] Amazon and puts it into your dashboard of choice, whether that's a Google spreadsheet or an Excel spreadsheet or a power BI business intelligence tool, whatever your, wherever you're looking for that end destination, that's what it's available.
So SQL API, all of the above very, very fascinating to see those daily health checks get automated. Yeah, I,
Gilad: I love it. And, uh, and, uh, I wanted to say, uh, uh, uh, to complete what Brandon said that, uh, uh, before, I mean there is even a name for it. The, the, they call it the, the Superman syndrome. The Superman syndrome means that, and, and you see it like on, on e-commerce because, uh, if, if you see somebody like, uh, out there in, in the, in the action world, outside of, of the internet, you know, opening like a restaurant or something like that, they would never think that they could do everything by themselves.
You know, they would know from the. They want that they have to invest money into renting a place and decorating it and then hire a chef and waiters and so on. So it's all, you know, from day one that you have to invest into [00:20:00] delegating, you know, stuff to, to other people. However, the fact that everything is just in front of us on the computer, then we tend to forget this and we tend to think that we can do things.
By ourselves all the time, and what happens usually, especially when you start to grow and the business works well, is that eventually, you start to neglect because you see that you don't have time to do everything yourself. So, instead of doing, you know, the PPC, like, every, every second day or every day, even, or like, like you mentioned, going over exactly to check the CDR or everything, then.
And then you're doing it once in a week and then once in two weeks and once in a month and, and eventually you're really like focusing on the things that you know, that would cause pain to your business. And you forget that you know, you should have somebody delegated to do that, to sit every day for two hours a day.
And doing only that, working on the SOPs, working on that, on collating data, reporting to you, putting it into the right formats and [00:21:00] everything, and that's the way that business should work. That's the way that you know, you have advanced from one day to the other. Otherwise, you know, that Superman in the end, you know, get
Will: It's uh, it's kind of that Atlas shrugs thing where Atlas is holding the world, and eventually like you're just going to get crushed.
There's no way to, uh, to, to take all of that on forever. I want to shift the conversation here just a little bit. One of the key groups of people that the data hub tool is built for is Amazon agencies or service providers. So think, um, e-commerce, uh, accountants and, uh, e-commerce, you know, PPC agencies or full-service ad agencies.
I know a lot that there are, um, agencies. I'm aware of a couple, uh, that are using, um, VAA and getting involved in that. What. As you consider some of what that looks like, what, what advice would you have it, you know you know, as a seller versus an agency and, and kind of those [00:22:00] different pieces, do they, are they in need of help in the same way for VAs?
Gilad: Yeah. The difference I think is that they're already, in a stage where they understand the value of having, you know, other people helping you in your, in your business with, with sellers. We should either invest effort into, explaining to them why they should hire VAs, or why a VA is better than you doing everything yourself.
And, maybe in the beginning you think like, I don't know what I can give my VA to do. Don't worry, it'll come because you start to give things to your va, suddenly you have free time to do other things that are more important than your level, of pay. Uh, and, uh, and, uh, with agencies, they already know this.
They already know that they, uh, they know how to do it. They know that the, the more. VA is trained VA that they can have, uh, the better it is for them. And then what we see is they have dedicated personnel that are in a management level, and then these managers, they work with VA. So one VA could help, you know, even several accounts.
And working [00:23:00] under their procedures and getting the information and preparing things for the decision-makers. So the decision-makers, instead of doing the actual stuff every day themselves, the repeating things that take forever, even if it could be just, you know, calling Amazon and waiting half an hour on the phone, you know, to change something over there or to fix a problem, then you have these people dedicated to that and getting the information and working on that.
And then the managers can focus on it. Getting the data, getting the information, making the decisions, moving on to the next thing. So we see this. We work with a lot of agencies and aggregators. They are using RBAs, uh, to handle a lot of accounts and, uh, the more they know how to work with VAs, you can see that they, they handle more accounts and they get better results for their customers.
Will: Interesting. So key to that process sounds like finding the things only you can do. Whether you're an Amazon seller or an agency, and especially in the agency space. I mean, the whole point is that you've now grown to help multiple people. [00:24:00] And so when you're hoping multiple people, you're now no longer doing this for one business.
You're doing this for 10 businesses. So the number of repeated tasks like downloading data from Amazon is going to exponentially go up. Right? And so those are, those are those sorts of things that, that you can hand to that VA is what you're saying. Yeah.
Gilad: Yeah. And, and, you know, even for myself, I mean, I, and, and for my, uh, company, I always think about a certain task.
I mean, is this something that only me could handle, uh, with my knowledge, with my experience, with, uh, you know, my level of decision making or somebody else with the right training, with the right attitude, with the right, you know, a level that I can trust, but somebody else can do this task for me. If the answer is yes, somebody else could do it under the right, uh, circumstances, then I would do it.
Immediately delegate this to somebody else. I would ask myself, why am I doing it? I should be focusing on other things that only I as the owner of the company as the CEO can, you know, these decisions are mine to take. And then basically you're [00:25:00] starting to develop your business in your payroll, you know, in yours.
Pay level, I would say, instead of doing things that somebody else could do for 5
Brandon: an hour. Yeah, that's kind of the difference between having a job and having a business. If you have a job, you can just keep busy with stuff all day long. But when you have a business, I think a lot of parts of that business are developing those processes and developing the team that can do that for you so that you are not the bottleneck or the single point of failure for a lot of stuff.
So
Will: those Superman people, if you're listening and you're thinking, I'm not one of those guys. If you got hit by a car tomorrow, Would the whole business fail? If that's true, you're a Superman. I mean, I hate to tell it to you, but, but that's, that's what it means. Right. And honestly, I, I am very guilty of like my, my own, um, ego, um, used to enjoy.
I still enjoy it and I've. I've gotten better at letting go of being the center of attention for all of the things that go on there. And, and I had to stop and start asking myself, am I the best person to be doing this? But [00:26:00] honestly, it was so difficult to remember when to ask myself that question. So, as a seasoned parallel entrepreneur from Brandon and from.
A lot, you know, as an Amazon seller who has now, you know, shifted into running a delegation company to some degree or another. Right. What do you do? Any hacks that you are aware of for reminding yourself to ask that question? Am I the best person to be doing
Gilad: this? Yes, I think I think this is exactly the question that you should ask yourself.
You should make all the process and all the procedures. I think that the key is not to be afraid to delegate. I think the idea is that we tend to think that we are the ones that can get things perfect. And other people would not get things perfect. And that's correct. I mean, we would be doing things better than everybody else because it's our business.
However, if like we said, if we do everything ourselves, it will be perfect. And it will be small. If we want to grow, then we have to accept sometimes even [00:27:00] 80 percent of perfection. But having other people doing it. And then you'd always think, where is the bottleneck? Am I the bottleneck? Am I am I stopping it?
And then moving forward, we have we have a team of more than 550 VAs that we recruit and train and work and connect to sellers. And we always have to think about how they could help the sellers. Not to be their bottlenecks, and this is how we focus our training. We focus the training and this is how we started to work with you.
When we talked, it was immediately, okay, let's see how together we can help the sellers, you know, to get better results, but not doing things them by themselves. Because, if they keep doing this by themselves, then they will get nowhere. Because at the same time, they could be doing other things. So the idea.
Was always to think how you could not focus on, on the things that, you know, repeat themselves day after day and do not require, uh, you know, your special attention. Uh, and, and, [00:28:00] and focus on, on making the decisions, uh, and, and, and move forward. Couldn't
Will: agree more. Any hacks, Brandon, that you've seen others use or that, that you use to, to remember that, you know, when am I the wrong person to be doing this?
I mean,
Brandon: the simplest one is just to have a sticky note on your, laptop, or, on your wall somewhere. It's like, what can, what can I, how do I make this the last time I have to do this? Was one of the mantras I live by for low like, how do I, I don't, I don't need to be the one that does this again.
Like, how do I make it the last time I do this? And then basically you document it as you go through it and then hand it off to somebody else. Uh, make the videos are great at that. So it's very easy to make a video screen share nowadays. Yeah. A lot of that you can spend a three-minute video. Yeah.
Will: So, so we use a loom, um, a lot here at, uh, at Selle labs and it's just a software that lets you record. If you've not seen this yet, hopefully, it's a hack. It's it. It's, it's something that's becoming more and more common, but like screen sharing in a [00:29:00] meeting, you can share your screen.
But instead of being in a meeting, you're recording your voice. And so you're describing what's happening on the screen. Step by step. This is what I need you to do. This is the problem I'm having, and this is what I want you to do differently. Very, very powerful hack to get something off your plate. Um, and, and pick that apart.
I wanted to mention a book. There's a book called Buy Back Your Time. Um, and in this book, buy back your time, which is honestly, I mean, um, amazing book. Um, he describes 80 percent good, meaning if somebody does it 80 percent as good as you. So think like they, out of a hundred things, they missed 20 of them.
80 percent good is a hundred percent freaking awesome. That's what he says because it's not you who's having to do that work. So, so it's, it's really important to remember that like, it's okay to settle sometimes for 80%. Does 80 percent solve it for the business? And what are the things can you put in place to make sure the [00:30:00] business has what it needs, even though it's 80 percent as good as what you would have done?
Yeah.
Brandon: And a lot of times you follow that 80 percent with some sort of quality check too. That's a feedback mechanism, especially when somebody is new at it, if they get 80 percent good and you have some feedback on there, it gets up to 90 percent and then 95 percent good. And it's easy to get very good enough at that point.
Yeah.
Gilad: And by the way, you mentioned that uh, you know, that you can record your, uh, screen and then people. Should use it, you know, for the S. O. P. S. But remember that it should not be you doing the S. O. P. S. That's that. That's the entirety of having a V.A. The best way to do it is to, as you said, go over a procedure and record it while you explain how to do it or you do it together with the V.
A. And then, uh, after that, the VA will watch the video and will create the SOP for you. For you, it's, you get, you win-win because you get the SOP. So now you start to have procedures that other VAs could, uh, follow after. Uh, and also it's a great way for you to see that the VA fully understood everything, uh, you mentioned.
[00:31:00] Otherwise, what would a lot of time happen is that the VA would say to you, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And then They would be maybe a bit more intimidated to say, wait a minute. Stop. I did not understand this because they would feel like, okay, maybe I should, uh, not say that I didn't understand what, what would he think of me if I stopped and asked questions and so on, you have to understand that it's a different mentality and the best way to overcome these problems of mentalities is.
To record it, to have the VA create SOPs, and then you go together and see that everything is done the way it should.
Will: So, so, um, I have to throw an AI hack out there just because it's such a hot topic right now. If you've recorded, uh, an SOP recently, like you've gone in and maybe even this, so, so this Zoom recording, we're, we're recording this podcast on Zoom.
Um, If you upload that to YouTube or you upload that to loom or you upload that to most any, uh, you know, software where you're looking at it, or you just look at like assembly. io, that's an API tool [00:32:00] that transcribes, um, videos and everything. If you take that transcription and you literally raw copy-paste that into chat GPT four and say, write me an SOP based upon this transcript.
It is amazing how good that transcript gets. And. How fantastic that is as a starting place for your VA, when they go in, they, they can use that as the bones and then put in the screenshots and, you know, put it all up there and it's super referenceable. Amazing, amazing, amazing in terms of, um, how much faster, like, like the blog post for this article.
Like if you're reading the blog post right now, um, and you're wondering how it was generated, it was generated with AI. There are pieces of it that are going to be, that's just, how the world's going right now in terms of content generation and some amazing stuff that's out there.
That's not to say that you don't need good content writers who look at stuff and do that quality check, but another place you can [00:33:00] delegate.
Brandon: Yeah, I was going to say with the video too, it does, like you said, sir, like you might be able to explain it once to somebody, uh, and then that VA might watch that video 5 or 10 times or 20 times trying to get the, trying to get the, the, uh, SOP down.
Right. So, uh, and then I've had a lot of times where you make a video like that. And then you, I., I tend to speak quickly and use the wrong words sometimes. And so sometimes they're like, I like I watched this a whole bunch of times. I think you meant to say this here instead of that.
And, uh, you know, most of the time they're right. They, they've watched it enough times, they got the context and I said the wrong thing, and they're able to point that out.
Will: Alright. Final hack or final tip? Any, any, you know, on the topic of VAs or data? What's the, what's one, one thing, one final tip or trick?
Uh, that you would like to leave with, uh, the, the individuals listening. And, um, the last question I'd also want you to answer right after that is how can they get in touch if, if they'd like to. So, Galad, what, what would be your final tip, trick or hack, uh, that you'd like to share with, uh, [00:34:00] the listeners?
Gilad: So I think once, obviously, once you understood that VA is, and hopefully for the good of your business, you understood that the VA is something that could help you run your business and grow faster. Then the tip is, is to have patience on that because a lot of people think like, okay, I'm hiring a VA now on day one to be able to do everything for me.
And then it's, it's done. I'm out of the picture. And once that is not done. The way they expect them to because they're, they're used to doing things by themselves. So if the VA would do things, the 80%, uh, then they would, a lot of times they would not have the patience and they would say, Oh, you know what?
I'll do it myself. And then you fall back into where you were before. Uh, and, and, and you should have patience. You should understand that this is a process, but the idea would be to grow your business to the next level. And you should invest in the seeds. in the beginning, working with your VA and creating that structure in which that the VA will grow and take it from there.
So it doesn't happen all the day but once you understand that you [00:35:00] need to have this patience and you're working with your VA and obviously if you get a good VA that was already filtered and trained and all it will save a lot of time but you still need to have this understanding that this you're building something.
For the, for the long run and, and, and, uh, and you should, you know, uh, put the time into making that, that happened. Um, yeah, that's my tip. I mean, the thing
Brandon: that comes to mind is something I've just been in the middle of for a couple of months. One, of those things is I had a mental model of how stuff works.
And I'm talking specifically about some Amazon financial data we're downloading and I understood it and it made sense to me, but I tried explaining it to 10 or 15 or 20 other people and nobody ever got it. And so I had to listen to that feedback and say, like, it might make sense to me, but I got to put that in a different mental model that other people can understand.
And so sometimes if you find that you're trying to explain something to somebody and they don't get it and they don't get it and they don't get it, or multiple people don't quite understand what you're, it's just not catching on as you had, you know, you have to. Ask them for feedback, dig into really what that is, and, and you'll, you'll find that actually, [00:36:00] once you slow down and take the feedback in and figure out how to like, make it better, then everything speeds up after that.
So, now, something that you were struggling with and was kind of a challenge becomes a strength and a, and something you're good at. So, um, that's that goes back with what you said about patient says, listen to the feedback and if something's not working, uh, try to take a step back again, sort of be that business owner is the 1 that's.
Trying to build these processes and stuff and figure out what's going wrong with sometimes something that you're trying to explain or do isn't quite right. And I think if you can back it back that up a little bit and, and ingest that and figure out the right way to do it or a simpler way to do it, um, it'll make it so you can accelerate faster when you come out of that.
All right.
Will: So, uh, Brandon. Uh, Galad, if an individual wanted to get in touch with you, and had a question, what would be the best way to get in touch?
Gilad: So, uh, for us, uh, I mean, it's, uh, uh, going to, uh, va Philippines. com, uh, or just writing an email to a service at va Philippines. com. And, uh, we'll be happy to schedule a call, talk, understand your needs exactly [00:37:00] where you're stuck and how we can help you with, uh, with a trained VA.
Will: Brandon, what's the best way to reach out to the seller labs team or, to you, if they have a question? Yeah. I mean, if
Brandon: If you're interested in any of the automation stuff that Seller Labs has built, the Seller Labs data hub stuff, you can go to seller labs. com. Uh, the data hub link is on our page that describes that we've got a link to all the data that we collect in there and everything.
So it's a great resource. If you just. There's a contact form there. You can get in touch with our sales team and our support team and ask anything about that. So if you're interested in the product, certainly go there. If you're interested in me directly, I just say, email me, Brandon at sellerlabs. com or on LinkedIn.
I'm active pretty there, there pretty often. So find me on either one.
Will: Well, appreciate everybody's time. Um, same here. I'm on LinkedIn and, uh, will at sellerlabs. com. So, uh, looking forward to another episode and, uh, for today over and out. Thanks, everybody. Thank
Gilad: you very much for having me. Bye-bye, guys.
Sellerlabs Data Dudes Podcast
Will: [00:00:00] Welcome everyone to this episode of Amazon Data Dudes. I'm your host, Will Christensen. Uh, we have Brandon Chekits here. Welcome. Hey, good to be here. Well, thanks. Brandon is the founder of Cellular Labs and a current owner there. Um, we also have Gilad from VAA, an agency that specializes specifically in VAs.
He's going to go in and describe that a little bit more, but welcome.
Gilad: Thank you very much for having me. And then you got it right.
Will: Hey, yeah, we were, we were practicing earlier and I was saying all sorts of the wrong way of how to say Gilad's name. You know, he said, it's okay. Every, you know, if I had a penny for every podcast that they, they've called me the wrong version of my name, you know, he'd be very
Gilad: rich on different podcasts.
And then they call me and they say, okay, how should I, because I listened to you over there, you're Gilad and then you're Gil and then you're, yeah, so it's okay. The actual name is Gilad. So you said it right.
Will: Awesome. Well, Gilad, tell us what does VAA do? I probably [00:01:00] slaughtered it. They probably do something totally different or somewhat different than what I just said, but you tell us what, what does VAA do?
And yeah, tell us a little bit more about that. Sure.
Gilad: So, I mean, uh, first of all, I'm, uh, yeah, I'm Gilad, I'm the founder and the CEO of VAA Philippines. What we do is we recruit virtual assistants from the Philippines and then we train them to work with Amazon sellers. We're an Amazon-focused company.
Everything we do is Amazon. Uh, and, uh, and, uh, all of our VAs are all Filipinos. We recruit them ourselves in our, in a very long process to find the best ones out there with the best motivation, the best skills, uh, the best capabilities of learning complicated things and applying them without mistakes, uh, eagerness to learn in advance and so on.
And, uh, usually after a process of, of two months, we're left with about 1 percent of the applicants and that for 1 percent is joined, uh, VAA. And goes to the next step, which is the training. At that point, we divide them between the different departments that any seller would [00:02:00] need VAs for. For example, we have VAs dedicated to PPC.
We have VAs dedicated to social media. And what we did together, which we'll talk about in a minute, is, is training our VAs specifically on Seller Central and on all the data that is relevant. to Amazon sellers. So that's exactly what we, uh, what we do. Uh, we continue to support our VAs also on every day on, on all the new updates on Amazon, new features, and new tools.
And so they always keep updated and progress with their knowledge on Amazon, which is always changing. So
Will: tell me how, I mean, I know a lot of people who are in, the VA. Uh, a world in the staffing space, what got you, I mean, why, why the Philippines? And how did you end up getting there? I think I asked you this when we were at the prosperous show.
And I was like, so you must be like somewhere close over there to the Philippines. And you're like, I'm in Israel. And I was like, wait, what? Okay. Hold on. How did this, how did this come together? So, tell us, how,
Gilad: how did you end up there? Yeah. So most people think that [00:03:00] when I'm talking to them on the phone, that I'm, I'm In the Philippines at the moment, I do go back and forth to the Philippines quite a lot.
Um, but, uh, I'm talking to you now from Israel, and, uh, it all started me being an Amazon seller. I mean, this is how it all started. I started selling on Amazon in 2015 and, uh, a private label created my own, uh, like, like, uh, you know, the good old days creating manufacturing in China, selling a campaign group, and, uh, for Amazon sellers in the U.S.
Uh, at that time, it was different than today. It grew, uh, very fast. The business, I needed VAs. I needed, I needed help because I found myself doing everything myself without being, having the time to do everything. And many things got neglected, neglected, sorry. And, and other things I was not even aware that somebody could do for me.
And, um, and little by little, I started hiring VAs to help me in my, uh, in my Amazon business. And, um, and, and I, I was horrible in, in doing it. I was [00:04:00] horrible in finding VAs. Every time that I thought that I found the right VA, she turned, he or she, they, they turned to disappear, give excuses why they cannot work anymore or why, you know, they, there is a typhoon or internet connection problem and, and, and so on.
And, um, and I discovered that I, I completely did not understand what it means to find good people in the Philippines, how to find good VAs. How to train them, how to make them stay with you for years, and be dedicated to your company. Eventually, we became good at that and people started to ask us, okay, can you help us find our VAs?
And then this is how VA developed. So from an Amazon seller, I became focused on Recruiting VAs and training them on Amazon for the things that I needed as a seller.
Brandon: Yeah, I think most, most business owners are very bad at hiring people. That's especially hiring people remotely in a different
Gilad: culture.
Definitely. And I think the reason is that we look. At least I did. And that was my biggest [00:05:00] problem. I look too much into what they say about themselves, you know, how they want to be, uh, viewed and, and, you know, you read their resumes, you post an ad on, on Facebook, on online jobs that don't matter where, and you get 300 people applying and they will all, you know, surprisingly claim to be experts on the field with 20 years experience, knowing everything about Amazon.
And then, um, you know, in the interview, even in the interview, or if you give them a test, they will pass the test. They will, they will look perfect in the interview because they will already know what to say and how to say it convinced, you know, to convince you. But then it doesn't tell you anything about their actual potential.
And it doesn't tell you that they're here to stay, that they're not going to disappear, that they're really like. Motivated and so on. And this is what we do now. We recruit them not based on what they say about their experience, not based on what they write over there, but more, I mean, they could be complete newbies, but we'll train them.
We'll give them the right training. We'll support them. And then when you have somebody who's like really, really like an A player, they [00:06:00] would pass. All the BC players like this and they will stay with you for years. So that's, that's the reason why
Will: it works well. So, I mean you solved your problem and then decided, Hey, you know what, enough people are asking me this question.
This sounds like a recurring theme. I, I, Brandon is a, uh, uh, a business owner on his own, right? A parallel entrepreneur. Brandon, have you, have you seen that pattern as well for you? You know, solving your problem and then
Brandon: my businesses tend to go from one thing to another, but it's a, it's a, I become my phone first, uh, my first customer for the next business.
So that's a very common thing, that I found. It's like, Oh, I've got a little, little need that I have here. A little something I developed here. That has a wider audience. Or so we turn that into another product or another business. We're
Will: going to pull this around. Um, we are Amazon data dudes here, uh, at Seller Labs.
And we love, um, Amazon data. Um, we, well, we love making sure that it looks right. Um, we don't always love [00:07:00] exactly how it comes out. Um, but, but today we're going to kind of talk about the intersection of people. And data, um, obviously, uh, glads here and he has an awesome look into like why it's important to have, you know, the same VA over and over and the turnover.
And, a lot of the reason why that turnover hurts you is because there's data that, you know, they have that they take with them. Right. And so we're going to talk a little bit about the intersection of people and data, especially on Amazon today. So I'm going to open the floor and just, I want to hear.
You know, from Brandon and from, uh, Gilad, when you think about the intersection of, uh, people and data and why it's important to, uh, consider data in the hiring process, why it's important to consider how people interact with data, what, what comes to mind, what, what thoughts or advice would you have for Amazon sellers as you [00:08:00] consider.
Um, you know, data and people and trying to mix them. Uh, well, I'll
Brandon: start with a little bit. So I think that one of the things that we've found is that people often have a mental model of how things are laid out, how things are categorized, what names are. Uh, and a lot of times, um, that's, doesn't sometimes Amazon's data is specifically complicated.
It doesn't line up the way that you think. So there's a lot of times that you have to sort of use the right words and the right terminology to mean the right things. Um, for example, the word category, has like. 18 different meanings, depending on what, and where you're talking about. Some of these things just need to be very specific about it, or the word review or feedback.
Like, these things mean different things, depending on which context you're talking about. So having a common understanding of what those dangerous words or complicated words are, and being able to describe those specifically and talk about them when you're communicating. So you're not confusing 1 with
Will: the other.
Like a company glossary, essentially, like, like if you're, if we're calling it a review, this is what [00:09:00] a review is. If we're calling it a category, it's the category of the child they sit in and, you know, like a common language, so to speak deeper than just, Hey, we all speak English or we all speak Spanish.
This is like. You know, when we speak English and we use this word, this is the data
Brandon: point. Yeah, it's like a dictionary that describes what meaning of that word that you have. And we try to, at Cellular Labs, we try to like to make those unambiguous so that it's more obvious what you're talking about when you're talking about one of them.
So, um, but there are, there's a lot of ways you can get, uh, and dangers there. And then the other thing is, is the sort of like the shape of the data that you get from Amazon is not always the shape that you kind of want it in. And so if you have data that's, you know. Especially when you're talking about summarizing data and grouping data by certain things like if you're talking about advertising data at data in the, in the, in the realm of advertising is usually a subset of the data in the realm of like the Amazon business reports or the order report.
So, um, knowing, like, at what level you're sort of talking about it in and in what context that around there is helps as well. So making sure that [00:10:00] you've got some clear understanding around those contacts when you're discussing them.
Gilad: Well, I think that, um. Data is something that, uh, very little, uh, sellers understand and the value of it.
I think it's one of the, probably the most important thing, the one that the cells that they have, you know, understanding of the, of the data and, and how to use it correctly. They're the ones that, uh, pass their competitors. And, uh, and, uh, the problem is that it's a lot of times it's in your way because if you look at the courses, I'm not going to name.
specific ones. But if you look at the courses that train people on how to become Amazon sellers, it will always focus on how to sell more, how to, you know, to do your PPC and how to do your, uh, uh, funnels and, and social media and, and influencers and all that. Very little will be spoken about how to get the right data and how to understand where you are and where you're going.
And, then once you start selling, you're always into. putting out fires, you know, you're trying to, you know, if there's a negative review, [00:11:00] you handle this. If there's a problem with your PPC, you handle that. But understanding data, understanding how to use it to understand how to make it better, how to improve for the long run is something that usually on the every day, you know, world, we don't have time for it.
And, um, and because of the nature of our activity, we're working a lot with big sellers, and they hire teams of VAs to help them on their Amazon business. And then we see that the bigger the seller is, the more they understand the value, of getting the right data. And they're, they're all, this is, we see that these are the tasks they're giving their VAs.
You know, they have VAs that are dedicated for that, you know, to gather the right information, to present it to them in the right report. So they could see, you know, how they can take it and move forward faster. Compared to just, you know, working and doing whatever they did again and again and again, and not having time to these complicated things that are is called data, and they don't have time to even learn how it works.
So [00:12:00] I would say that's that what distinguishes between the big sellers and the new ones that. Focus, on the everyday activity.
Will: So I want to ask this question to both of you, as you consider, you know, Brandon talked about, uh, a common dictionary or making sure that you understand the shape of the data.
And Galaad, you talked about using VAs or using your team to put importance on that data and bring it in and show it to you in the right way. Can you think, of a common mistake or pothole that you've seen Amazon sellers run into? Um, and, and how to get around it. A common thing that people are like, Oh my gosh, like everybody thought that this was named that, or, you know, in this situation, um, where, where we're talking about, you know, the under importance or over importance of data, are there, are there specific reports that come to mind that might be more or less important for an Amazon seller to, to, to be aware of that they may not already be aware of.
I
Brandon: mean, I can tell you, we've, we've [00:13:00] done a lot of deep analyses on some of these things because we have, you know, we built software that kind of pulls in all this data over and over again. 1 of the things we were surprised to learn is that, like Amazon, the child, everybody calls it the Amazon business reports, but it's essentially the child traffic by child ASIN report.
It's downloaded in Seller Central. Like, the numbers on that change every day for up to a couple of weeks, after a sale occurs. So. We see a lot of people that are a lot of agencies that use us and whatever they're downloading the reports and then generating, um, some, you know, the reporting off of that.
And then you'll go to the same report another day, and some of the net, some of the numbers are different. So that's a kind of a tricky thing to have to deal with is to figure out how to do that. And 1 of the great things about creating these repeatable processes that is we're able to identify what those were because we did the same thing every day.
And then when you've got this. With this sort of process in mind, your VAs or whoever you have doing that for you can just follow your steps. And that's the that's the great thing I'm thinking about. What's what VA does is they, they, they get us a, like a very step by-step procedure that it's pretty easy to follow and do the [00:14:00] same thing every day.
So it's, it makes it very, um, consistent and reliable
to
Will: do. What about you, Gladin? Any potholes that you've seen you've seen people deploy VAs or, or potholes around data gathering or, or people managing data. I, I, I
Gilad: can pretty much just focus on PPC for example. I mean, on PPC, you have those cells that they're doing everything by themselves.
And then usually they focus on the bids and the acres and uh, uh, and they would have very little time to go deeper into the history and, and understanding and, and, and really like seeing the, the, the change in the reports from, uh, you know, one time to the other. And then when you have a, a dedicated. VA to do it and we did a case study on this and we showed the difference between when a seller is managing his own PPC compared to when a VA is managing the PPC for him and the difference was not necessarily the knowledge.
Of the VA compared to the knowledge of the satellite was the fact that the VA, that's their job. They know that [00:15:00] this is, you know, they have a procedure like you said, an SOP. So they know that on Tuesday, this is what they do. And they, they go and they download this report. They go over it. And when you have somebody who's dedicated.
to do things according to specific procedures. Then suddenly you pick up a new search term. You see things that you never thought you would do because you never looked into all the reports. So we, we have this all the time coming from cells that are using our PPCBAs saying, okay, now I start to see a difference just because simply have somebody who's dedicated to downloading the reports, getting the information from there.
And this is why I think, uh, it was such a good, you know, cooperation that we did together, because it allowed the VAs to understand and how to get more and more information, uh, from Amazon, uh, which, as I said, sometimes it's very sneaky to get this information. But once you have it and how to use it correctly and, and, and improve
Brandon: the sales.
The other thing that, the other thing that I want to throw out there too, has to go right along with these processes is [00:16:00] there's some, I know a lot of sellers who are like, they're like the Amazon genius and they kind of understand all these things and too much is reliant on them. So I know some sellers are like once every.
Quarter once every year, they go in and make this spreadsheet and update all these values. And then they kind of run their business for the rest of the year on it. But it's very, it's very expensive in terms of their time to put together these complicated sheets. And they'd never really described how to do it to anybody else.
So it's always, it always falls back onto them. And one of the things you can do is once you understand how to get the data reliably and repeatably, and you can make a process around it, then you can have a VA like you're saying, do it every week rather than the process that used to be done once a month to optimize this.
You can now have somebody do it for 15 minutes or something once a week. And now, you get updated, reliable data every week, rather, rather than once a year. And we've seen that particularly, um, complicated with like Amazon changes fees four or five times a year. And if you don't pay attention to those fee updates, like.
You know, at one, one month, you're, you're profitable in the next month. You're not because of some fees that's changed somewhere or, you know, advertising getting out of control is another very common one [00:17:00] is like, we're hitting this ACOS goal, but we're not hitting the ROAS goal or the tacos goal or something like that.
When you've got these processes that are well defined that somebody who's dedicated to it can do, you know, on a usually pretty quick 15 minutes or something, you get, um, a lot better data, a lot better analysis more
Will: consistently. I think that I think that, sorry. Oh, I was just going to say, I have an Amazon seller friend who in her business, and this was literally over the last year, she was so focused on, actually, it was, so it was last year when, when there were some huge changes last year in fee, she missed the March feature and it cost her business over 10, 000 just because she didn't raise her prices, uh, to match some of what's there.
And so she didn't have somebody who's dedicated to watch and look at that. Just like, just like, just like a lot was saying. As you pick that apart, I used to work at an Amazon advertising agency and I was the guy who was in charge of managing, those campaigns. And I did a daily health check.
I called it the DHC and, and I [00:18:00] had a spreadsheet where I went down and I looked at the performance, the click-through rate for every single one of those campaigns every single day. And when, and it was crazy how often it was like, okay, yesterday's click-through rate was this. And today's click-through rate was, whoa, wait, half.
What happened, and I'd go in and I'd see that, you know, somebody, the, the keywords had changed or the, the placement had changed or something was different about the wording or, or invariably something shifted. And so you could see those trends, like you said, because there was someone dedicated and I eventually automated that, which is something that actually.
Cellular labs, uh, you know, we have a product called data hub that the VAs are training on. Galad mentioned a joint effort and I wanted to just give some color around that. The VAs at VAA are now, um, trained and certified on a product that, um, that is brand new at cellular labs called data hub.
And basically what this thing does is it automatically takes. Any data inside [00:19:00] Amazon and puts it into your dashboard of choice, whether that's a Google spreadsheet or an Excel spreadsheet or a power BI business intelligence tool, whatever your, wherever you're looking for that end destination, that's what it's available.
So SQL API, all of the above very, very fascinating to see those daily health checks get automated. Yeah, I,
Gilad: I love it. And, uh, and, uh, I wanted to say, uh, uh, uh, to complete what Brandon said that, uh, uh, before, I mean there is even a name for it. The, the, they call it the, the Superman syndrome. The Superman syndrome means that, and, and you see it like on, on e-commerce because, uh, if, if you see somebody like, uh, out there in, in the, in the action world, outside of, of the internet, you know, opening like a restaurant or something like that, they would never think that they could do everything by themselves.
You know, they would know from the. They want that they have to invest money into renting a place and decorating it and then hire a chef and waiters and so on. So it's all, you know, from day one that you have to invest into [00:20:00] delegating, you know, stuff to, to other people. However, the fact that everything is just in front of us on the computer, then we tend to forget this and we tend to think that we can do things.
By ourselves all the time, and what happens usually, especially when you start to grow and the business works well, is that eventually, you start to neglect because you see that you don't have time to do everything yourself. So, instead of doing, you know, the PPC, like, every, every second day or every day, even, or like, like you mentioned, going over exactly to check the CDR or everything, then.
And then you're doing it once in a week and then once in two weeks and once in a month and, and eventually you're really like focusing on the things that you know, that would cause pain to your business. And you forget that you know, you should have somebody delegated to do that, to sit every day for two hours a day.
And doing only that, working on the SOPs, working on that, on collating data, reporting to you, putting it into the right formats and [00:21:00] everything, and that's the way that business should work. That's the way that you know, you have advanced from one day to the other. Otherwise, you know, that Superman in the end, you know, get
Will: It's uh, it's kind of that Atlas shrugs thing where Atlas is holding the world, and eventually like you're just going to get crushed.
There's no way to, uh, to, to take all of that on forever. I want to shift the conversation here just a little bit. One of the key groups of people that the data hub tool is built for is Amazon agencies or service providers. So think, um, e-commerce, uh, accountants and, uh, e-commerce, you know, PPC agencies or full-service ad agencies.
I know a lot that there are, um, agencies. I'm aware of a couple, uh, that are using, um, VAA and getting involved in that. What. As you consider some of what that looks like, what, what advice would you have it, you know you know, as a seller versus an agency and, and kind of those [00:22:00] different pieces, do they, are they in need of help in the same way for VAs?
Gilad: Yeah. The difference I think is that they're already, in a stage where they understand the value of having, you know, other people helping you in your, in your business with, with sellers. We should either invest effort into, explaining to them why they should hire VAs, or why a VA is better than you doing everything yourself.
And, maybe in the beginning you think like, I don't know what I can give my VA to do. Don't worry, it'll come because you start to give things to your va, suddenly you have free time to do other things that are more important than your level, of pay. Uh, and, uh, and, uh, with agencies, they already know this.
They already know that they, uh, they know how to do it. They know that the, the more. VA is trained VA that they can have, uh, the better it is for them. And then what we see is they have dedicated personnel that are in a management level, and then these managers, they work with VA. So one VA could help, you know, even several accounts.
And working [00:23:00] under their procedures and getting the information and preparing things for the decision-makers. So the decision-makers, instead of doing the actual stuff every day themselves, the repeating things that take forever, even if it could be just, you know, calling Amazon and waiting half an hour on the phone, you know, to change something over there or to fix a problem, then you have these people dedicated to that and getting the information and working on that.
And then the managers can focus on it. Getting the data, getting the information, making the decisions, moving on to the next thing. So we see this. We work with a lot of agencies and aggregators. They are using RBAs, uh, to handle a lot of accounts and, uh, the more they know how to work with VAs, you can see that they, they handle more accounts and they get better results for their customers.
Will: Interesting. So key to that process sounds like finding the things only you can do. Whether you're an Amazon seller or an agency, and especially in the agency space. I mean, the whole point is that you've now grown to help multiple people. [00:24:00] And so when you're hoping multiple people, you're now no longer doing this for one business.
You're doing this for 10 businesses. So the number of repeated tasks like downloading data from Amazon is going to exponentially go up. Right? And so those are, those are those sorts of things that, that you can hand to that VA is what you're saying. Yeah.
Gilad: Yeah. And, and, you know, even for myself, I mean, I, and, and for my, uh, company, I always think about a certain task.
I mean, is this something that only me could handle, uh, with my knowledge, with my experience, with, uh, you know, my level of decision making or somebody else with the right training, with the right attitude, with the right, you know, a level that I can trust, but somebody else can do this task for me. If the answer is yes, somebody else could do it under the right, uh, circumstances, then I would do it.
Immediately delegate this to somebody else. I would ask myself, why am I doing it? I should be focusing on other things that only I as the owner of the company as the CEO can, you know, these decisions are mine to take. And then basically you're [00:25:00] starting to develop your business in your payroll, you know, in yours.
Pay level, I would say, instead of doing things that somebody else could do for 5
Brandon: an hour. Yeah, that's kind of the difference between having a job and having a business. If you have a job, you can just keep busy with stuff all day long. But when you have a business, I think a lot of parts of that business are developing those processes and developing the team that can do that for you so that you are not the bottleneck or the single point of failure for a lot of stuff.
So
Will: those Superman people, if you're listening and you're thinking, I'm not one of those guys. If you got hit by a car tomorrow, Would the whole business fail? If that's true, you're a Superman. I mean, I hate to tell it to you, but, but that's, that's what it means. Right. And honestly, I, I am very guilty of like my, my own, um, ego, um, used to enjoy.
I still enjoy it and I've. I've gotten better at letting go of being the center of attention for all of the things that go on there. And, and I had to stop and start asking myself, am I the best person to be doing this? But [00:26:00] honestly, it was so difficult to remember when to ask myself that question. So, as a seasoned parallel entrepreneur from Brandon and from.
A lot, you know, as an Amazon seller who has now, you know, shifted into running a delegation company to some degree or another. Right. What do you do? Any hacks that you are aware of for reminding yourself to ask that question? Am I the best person to be doing
Gilad: this? Yes, I think I think this is exactly the question that you should ask yourself.
You should make all the process and all the procedures. I think that the key is not to be afraid to delegate. I think the idea is that we tend to think that we are the ones that can get things perfect. And other people would not get things perfect. And that's correct. I mean, we would be doing things better than everybody else because it's our business.
However, if like we said, if we do everything ourselves, it will be perfect. And it will be small. If we want to grow, then we have to accept sometimes even [00:27:00] 80 percent of perfection. But having other people doing it. And then you'd always think, where is the bottleneck? Am I the bottleneck? Am I am I stopping it?
And then moving forward, we have we have a team of more than 550 VAs that we recruit and train and work and connect to sellers. And we always have to think about how they could help the sellers. Not to be their bottlenecks, and this is how we focus our training. We focus the training and this is how we started to work with you.
When we talked, it was immediately, okay, let's see how together we can help the sellers, you know, to get better results, but not doing things them by themselves. Because, if they keep doing this by themselves, then they will get nowhere. Because at the same time, they could be doing other things. So the idea.
Was always to think how you could not focus on, on the things that, you know, repeat themselves day after day and do not require, uh, you know, your special attention. Uh, and, and, [00:28:00] and focus on, on making the decisions, uh, and, and, and move forward. Couldn't
Will: agree more. Any hacks, Brandon, that you've seen others use or that, that you use to, to remember that, you know, when am I the wrong person to be doing this?
I mean,
Brandon: the simplest one is just to have a sticky note on your, laptop, or, on your wall somewhere. It's like, what can, what can I, how do I make this the last time I have to do this? Was one of the mantras I live by for low like, how do I, I don't, I don't need to be the one that does this again.
Like, how do I make it the last time I do this? And then basically you document it as you go through it and then hand it off to somebody else. Uh, make the videos are great at that. So it's very easy to make a video screen share nowadays. Yeah. A lot of that you can spend a three-minute video. Yeah.
Will: So, so we use a loom, um, a lot here at, uh, at Selle labs and it's just a software that lets you record. If you've not seen this yet, hopefully, it's a hack. It's it. It's, it's something that's becoming more and more common, but like screen sharing in a [00:29:00] meeting, you can share your screen.
But instead of being in a meeting, you're recording your voice. And so you're describing what's happening on the screen. Step by step. This is what I need you to do. This is the problem I'm having, and this is what I want you to do differently. Very, very powerful hack to get something off your plate. Um, and, and pick that apart.
I wanted to mention a book. There's a book called Buy Back Your Time. Um, and in this book, buy back your time, which is honestly, I mean, um, amazing book. Um, he describes 80 percent good, meaning if somebody does it 80 percent as good as you. So think like they, out of a hundred things, they missed 20 of them.
80 percent good is a hundred percent freaking awesome. That's what he says because it's not you who's having to do that work. So, so it's, it's really important to remember that like, it's okay to settle sometimes for 80%. Does 80 percent solve it for the business? And what are the things can you put in place to make sure the [00:30:00] business has what it needs, even though it's 80 percent as good as what you would have done?
Yeah.
Brandon: And a lot of times you follow that 80 percent with some sort of quality check too. That's a feedback mechanism, especially when somebody is new at it, if they get 80 percent good and you have some feedback on there, it gets up to 90 percent and then 95 percent good. And it's easy to get very good enough at that point.
Yeah.
Gilad: And by the way, you mentioned that uh, you know, that you can record your, uh, screen and then people. Should use it, you know, for the S. O. P. S. But remember that it should not be you doing the S. O. P. S. That's that. That's the entirety of having a V.A. The best way to do it is to, as you said, go over a procedure and record it while you explain how to do it or you do it together with the V.
A. And then, uh, after that, the VA will watch the video and will create the SOP for you. For you, it's, you get, you win-win because you get the SOP. So now you start to have procedures that other VAs could, uh, follow after. Uh, and also it's a great way for you to see that the VA fully understood everything, uh, you mentioned.
[00:31:00] Otherwise, what would a lot of time happen is that the VA would say to you, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And then They would be maybe a bit more intimidated to say, wait a minute. Stop. I did not understand this because they would feel like, okay, maybe I should, uh, not say that I didn't understand what, what would he think of me if I stopped and asked questions and so on, you have to understand that it's a different mentality and the best way to overcome these problems of mentalities is.
To record it, to have the VA create SOPs, and then you go together and see that everything is done the way it should.
Will: So, so, um, I have to throw an AI hack out there just because it's such a hot topic right now. If you've recorded, uh, an SOP recently, like you've gone in and maybe even this, so, so this Zoom recording, we're, we're recording this podcast on Zoom.
Um, If you upload that to YouTube or you upload that to loom or you upload that to most any, uh, you know, software where you're looking at it, or you just look at like assembly. io, that's an API tool [00:32:00] that transcribes, um, videos and everything. If you take that transcription and you literally raw copy-paste that into chat GPT four and say, write me an SOP based upon this transcript.
It is amazing how good that transcript gets. And. How fantastic that is as a starting place for your VA, when they go in, they, they can use that as the bones and then put in the screenshots and, you know, put it all up there and it's super referenceable. Amazing, amazing, amazing in terms of, um, how much faster, like, like the blog post for this article.
Like if you're reading the blog post right now, um, and you're wondering how it was generated, it was generated with AI. There are pieces of it that are going to be, that's just, how the world's going right now in terms of content generation and some amazing stuff that's out there.
That's not to say that you don't need good content writers who look at stuff and do that quality check, but another place you can [00:33:00] delegate.
Brandon: Yeah, I was going to say with the video too, it does, like you said, sir, like you might be able to explain it once to somebody, uh, and then that VA might watch that video 5 or 10 times or 20 times trying to get the, trying to get the, the, uh, SOP down.
Right. So, uh, and then I've had a lot of times where you make a video like that. And then you, I., I tend to speak quickly and use the wrong words sometimes. And so sometimes they're like, I like I watched this a whole bunch of times. I think you meant to say this here instead of that.
And, uh, you know, most of the time they're right. They, they've watched it enough times, they got the context and I said the wrong thing, and they're able to point that out.
Will: Alright. Final hack or final tip? Any, any, you know, on the topic of VAs or data? What's the, what's one, one thing, one final tip or trick?
Uh, that you would like to leave with, uh, the, the individuals listening. And, um, the last question I'd also want you to answer right after that is how can they get in touch if, if they'd like to. So, Galad, what, what would be your final tip, trick or hack, uh, that you'd like to share with, uh, [00:34:00] the listeners?
Gilad: So I think once, obviously, once you understood that VA is, and hopefully for the good of your business, you understood that the VA is something that could help you run your business and grow faster. Then the tip is, is to have patience on that because a lot of people think like, okay, I'm hiring a VA now on day one to be able to do everything for me.
And then it's, it's done. I'm out of the picture. And once that is not done. The way they expect them to because they're, they're used to doing things by themselves. So if the VA would do things, the 80%, uh, then they would, a lot of times they would not have the patience and they would say, Oh, you know what?
I'll do it myself. And then you fall back into where you were before. Uh, and, and, and you should have patience. You should understand that this is a process, but the idea would be to grow your business to the next level. And you should invest in the seeds. in the beginning, working with your VA and creating that structure in which that the VA will grow and take it from there.
So it doesn't happen all the day but once you understand that you [00:35:00] need to have this patience and you're working with your VA and obviously if you get a good VA that was already filtered and trained and all it will save a lot of time but you still need to have this understanding that this you're building something.
For the, for the long run and, and, and, uh, and you should, you know, uh, put the time into making that, that happened. Um, yeah, that's my tip. I mean, the thing
Brandon: that comes to mind is something I've just been in the middle of for a couple of months. One, of those things is I had a mental model of how stuff works.
And I'm talking specifically about some Amazon financial data we're downloading and I understood it and it made sense to me, but I tried explaining it to 10 or 15 or 20 other people and nobody ever got it. And so I had to listen to that feedback and say, like, it might make sense to me, but I got to put that in a different mental model that other people can understand.
And so sometimes if you find that you're trying to explain something to somebody and they don't get it and they don't get it and they don't get it, or multiple people don't quite understand what you're, it's just not catching on as you had, you know, you have to. Ask them for feedback, dig into really what that is, and, and you'll, you'll find that actually, [00:36:00] once you slow down and take the feedback in and figure out how to like, make it better, then everything speeds up after that.
So, now, something that you were struggling with and was kind of a challenge becomes a strength and a, and something you're good at. So, um, that's that goes back with what you said about patient says, listen to the feedback and if something's not working, uh, try to take a step back again, sort of be that business owner is the 1 that's.
Trying to build these processes and stuff and figure out what's going wrong with sometimes something that you're trying to explain or do isn't quite right. And I think if you can back it back that up a little bit and, and ingest that and figure out the right way to do it or a simpler way to do it, um, it'll make it so you can accelerate faster when you come out of that.
All right.
Will: So, uh, Brandon. Uh, Galad, if an individual wanted to get in touch with you, and had a question, what would be the best way to get in touch?
Gilad: So, uh, for us, uh, I mean, it's, uh, uh, going to, uh, va Philippines. com, uh, or just writing an email to a service at va Philippines. com. And, uh, we'll be happy to schedule a call, talk, understand your needs exactly [00:37:00] where you're stuck and how we can help you with, uh, with a trained VA.
Will: Brandon, what's the best way to reach out to the seller labs team or, to you, if they have a question? Yeah. I mean, if
Brandon: If you're interested in any of the automation stuff that Seller Labs has built, the Seller Labs data hub stuff, you can go to seller labs. com. Uh, the data hub link is on our page that describes that we've got a link to all the data that we collect in there and everything.
So it's a great resource. If you just. There's a contact form there. You can get in touch with our sales team and our support team and ask anything about that. So if you're interested in the product, certainly go there. If you're interested in me directly, I just say, email me, Brandon at sellerlabs. com or on LinkedIn.
I'm active pretty there, there pretty often. So find me on either one.
Will: Well, appreciate everybody's time. Um, same here. I'm on LinkedIn and, uh, will at sellerlabs. com. So, uh, looking forward to another episode and, uh, for today over and out. Thanks, everybody. Thank
Gilad: you very much for having me. Bye-bye, guys.
