All right, welcome to this episode of Monetizing Your Mental Capital Season 2. I'm your host, well, Christianson. I have a returning guest today, Brandon Young. We are have you here, Brandon. I'm excited to be here, thanks.Well, so Brandon and I go way back in terms of the, it's funny because you think about Amazon in this world of, how long time is.And I'm like, way back, back to, 2018, that was only six years ago. But if you consider, it's like dog years, Amazon years. That feels like 50 years ago. Oh, 100%.Least, it's probably worse than dog gears. It's almost like 10 years per year that you're an e commerce, especially Amazon, constant changing.Why would an e commerce seller who's in this constantly changing world, Brandon, who just, constantly trying to dig in and see what's there.Why would they want to hear from Brandon Young around this idea of monetizing mental capital or scaling your business, growing that kind of thing.Man, you're gonna make me talk about myself to establish authority. I found that honestly, you often give the best answer to this question, and obviously, I could read a bio, and there's many out there of you.
But imagining that you were in a coffee shop with a friend who had just done a couple thousand.Let's say they stumbled across something on FBA, right, and they happened to have a manufacturing buddy in China who happens to have this product, and, they're doing a couple thousand a month right now.And they're like, crap, what the fetch did I just do when you're sitting down with lunch, and remember, this is a friend who had no idea that you had any experience in this, right, so you've got to help him understand, I actually do know what I'm talking about, so what would you tell him?So the high level punchy fun thing to say is I've sold over$75 million on Amazon. I own five brands that still do over$20 million a year and I've helped hundreds of people become millionaires by teaching them how to sell on Amazon.Oh, is that all? Love it. And I can tell. So that's one of the things I like about you, Brennan.
You're, there lots of guys in the space, so I feel like they're all about flaunting it and running around and, you know, you know, not the other.I can tell that like you got a little uncomfortable. You were like, dude, really, you're gonna make me talk about the smart things I've done.Okay, here's punchy version. So the humility is, is You know, fine line I have to walk between, you know, to say things to for the marketing side of it. And I'm always uncomfortable doing it.And then I've got a marketing director that I hired, and he's just like, no, you've gotta say those things because otherwise people don't know why they should be listening to you.And I just, want to help people. And we just happen to be one of the few people teaching it that actually do it between my wife and I and we've done a good job of figuring out a system based in data, like how look at data to make better decisions around products and optimization, SEO, ads, and ads management.So we just always used data as our north star for product selection, development, content, and then marketing. I love it and I hear you 100%.
I think many people who are out there teaching monetizing their mental capital, so to speak, are not currently still monetizing products.I think, many of them decided, you know what, I'm gonna shift away from that, or I sold a brand and they decided not to start another one, that kind of thing. And so they shifted their career into the monetization of knowledge or mental capital and moved away from the monetization. What would you say is the downside of that? Well, I mean, one is that Amazon's constantly changing the algorithm, changes, the way that you have to compete, what's allowed and not allowed, terms of service change on a regular basis. I mean, a lot easier back in the day when you could incentivize for reviews.It was a lot easier when you could do, you know, by and give rebates to buyers, and, you know, launch through ways that are no longer allowed, right?So a lot of times I find that those shortcuts once they're taken away from somebody, you know, fundamentals are lacking.
And it's the base fundamentals that are based in the core data that, that need in order to be successful now very interesting.So as you consider this idea of fundamentals, let's imagine you're back in that coffee shop sitting down with that friend.You've just told it, look, dude, I, it's sound weird because I know we've been friends since high school or whatever. But, like, I own six brands on Amazon. I've sold over$75 million worth of stuff, like, can you the warehouses that I could fill with that much crap?That, like, and some it, I'm not proud of it. I'm not proud of ice that I sold all of that random stuff to people. But, but, I it's, so yes, I know what I'm talking about.So you've gotten past that part of the conversation, and now he's like, well, I get, I pumped about this, right? I make it, about them starting this journey.I mean, it's, I get the, juices flowing, so to say, like, when I someone getting, you know, excited I, I did thing, I tried this thing and I made some money.And I'm like, they see the light at the, in of the tunnel and all of a sudden, like their eyes open. It's like they for the first time.That's what I feel like every time I talk to somebody who's not sure what Amazon is selling on Amazon.
And then all of a sudden, they, you know, it's like in 2015, and I, my wife I were dating and we decided to start a business.We found out what FBA was, and literally we just went to the store, we found something, and we sent, we created an account, we sent it in, and it sold the day it hit the warehouse, right?And I was like, okay, well, maybe there's something here, right? And then, and scramble of what else can we sell like let's go, all of sudden, you're like, it's a big world and you're just looking for things that you can potentially sell, and, you know, it down this path that potentially looking at wholesale or arbitrage or, you know, reselling. Lot of people get started.Yeah, and then we're like, well, what's better than constantly, you know, scrambling for the next deal? It's kind of like, well, how we own the listing?
How do we create a brand?How do we, do the marketing to make sure we're one of the best sellers of a category or niche? And, you know, that curve that we walked with hundreds of mistakes over years that allowed us to, you know, you So to say, man, I, it's interesting say that because I've got a cousin who were at our family reunion this last summer, like three months and actually a couple months before that.He was like, I heard you had something to do with Amazon or like different stuff that. And I was like, yeah, I've got, know, a years around the block doing integrations, so I'm the guy that make sure the orders go from one place to another. And he's like, yeah, like, I'm, think he said he was doing like 500 bucks month or something like that. Um, and I like, dude, that's so exciting though, that's pretty cool, Well the crazy party is three months later.
I saw him at the family reunion, so like, like we other at like a, yeah, dinner something like that.And then August rolls around, and I see him at the family thing. He goes, dude, I found product, and it is not what you would guess, and they're selling it to me for, like, a fraction what I can get on Amazon for it, and, like, I'm doing, $4,000 a right now. That was like, that's exciting nice work.Yeah, yeah, so jazz and juice, so there's a lot of people at that point that get comfortable.It's like, that's, wanted was a little bit of extra spending cash. And then there are the people that double down, and they're like, while we, you know, of those, right, like, there are people that are like, I need three more of those.And then there are the people that are like, us, which are like, okay, we need of those, right.
And it's like, you know, you the steps, so I always ask people, it's like, can a product even in private label?Can you find a product that makes you$75 a day in profit? Right? So you landed at$5, it sells at$20 and you net$6 every time it sells, and you sell 15 of them, right? Like can you that product? Of course, like there are million products like that on Amazon.The question is, can you design a better one? Can you land it at a profitable raid? Can you make a design that people will resonate with, that will get more clicks and convert better?Can you figure out all the learning curves of marketing and ads and ranking and SEO, and, and if can do all those things, right, like, which is there's hundreds of hours of content in our college level course, if you can do all those things one time, that's great, you're making$75 extra a day.Do that 10 times, right? And that might take you a year, year and half, right? 18 months to find and develop and maybe launch 20 products, of which 10 are successful and you're keeping. And now you've got$750 a day in profit, and now you're earning more than most Americans with high level degrees.So that's very interesting, cause I actually believe he is the kind that we'll double down. I'm actually gonna text him after this episode, be like, dude, how many, how have to do now, because I know a guy you need to meet.
Um, and, uh, be to see how far he's come.He, I know is the type who's doubling down. He and his wife, they've just recently gotten married in the last year, so they're both newlyweds, lots of time on their hands, well, as much time as you think they'd have because they're in college.And I remember being in college and not feeling like I had any time, and then I got kids and all of a sudden, it was like, oh yeah, really, you have any time. But it's amazing because they're pouring all their energy into this.They were like, you should see our front room, it is stacked like this high boxes because they're fulfilling themselves and they started shipping it off to FBA and figuring out all of that crap.But, but it just funny cause they were like, yeah, our weekends. Just, we our first person and it's like my, you know, friend or whatever, like a filling out of their apartment. So, yeah, I'll be I think he is the type who is doubling down on it. I'll be curious to hear where he's landed.Yeah, I mean, right?
Like entrepreneurship is for everyone. I mean, the to do is when you go out there and you like apostasize and like, hey, you know, what doing?You got to change your life, you know, I thing, like, why aren't doing it? And it's just like you have to realize people are just built different, right? Like, they, people things.They're, you know, defines happiness for them is different than what defines happiness for, for, you know, us. We have insatiable quest to constantly grow and build bigger and better things. And, and that's that's way most people are built. I don't think.Okay, so here's, the I would ask, and I'm kind of asking alongside my cousin here. Obviously, he went from zero dollars on Amazon within the last year to doing a couple thousand a month, and he did.So I think he found one of those arbitrage groups to kind of follow system to kind of connect And, I mean, there's of good groups out there that give you the fundamentals of that for sure, right?Yeah, so he, what dove in to do, and obviously it's paid off from a standpoint of, like, you know, some, some good out of there. Is that a fluke or does that prove that there's still, I mean, I, my LinkedIn newsfeed, it is post after, post these veterans being like Fu Amazon, like, I'm out, not, I'm for you anymore.And I don't know if that means they're actually walking away or oh, it's, it's so though, right?So yes, it's very possible. I mean, this Gary V talks about with his specials.
He's constantly, you know, out about. It's out there if you want it, right? Like people, people like their situation who are, are, you know, stuck paycheck to paycheck, are you doing about it, right?And so Gary V's message is very true. It's like go freaking yard sale. Go to 10, 20 yard sales on a weekend. Go to some thrift stores, find some things and flip them on eBay, learn how to do arbitrage, go scan a bunch of things and figure out how Amazon works. Like there are you can, un cannot sell. There are different categories that you need to get ungated for.There are, yeah, that you need to learn. You can't, it's not simple as just finding something and sending it in. You need to have a legitimate account. You should start probably a company so that you're not doing it under your personal name.Right? There are like fundamental things have to learn, but everything's available on YouTube, right?
Like everything's available these, these, like groups people that are charging 20 bucks a month or, you know, something literally nothing you to spend some extra time watching and learning and figuring out whether it's for you and then going out there and doing it knee base free. So go and buy things at a yard cell and make some money on the side.You can make hundreds of dollars, if not a couple thousand dollars a month, extra profit per month doing the flipping thing. So, okay, so I to act very, very different private label, but I totally hear you there.Yeah, I mean, know, done it similar to what my cousin's done, right, is that the right way to enter the game right now? Now the learning curves are so different, right, so the reality is you, it's completely different learning curves.So what ends up happening is all the things I just said you need to learn for arbitrage are true for private label. You need to create a company branding logo, you need to learn how to do keyword research. It becomes more of an SEO in data driven game versus can an analysis of finances.So I would say that if you're doing arbitrage, it's like, can an ROI on this check? Do it with private label, it goes much deeper.It's how many keywords are people using to find this similar product in this niche? How many of those keywords are my competitors ranked well for? Can I beat them? How do I make a better product? Right? Can I, can launch it, design it in a way that people want it more? Right? So there's a lot more data analysis.The biggest question that you have to answer in private label is you look at the top 10 to 15 sellers of a product and you have to be able to answer the question, how are they getting their sales?
If I can answer that question, and this is the foundation of what we used to do for years.We were teaching like downloading Helium and using Cerebro and then taking all of this massive amount of data that wasn't very usable and then making it usable through our own, you know, way the data.And then that's what became data dive which is, you know, the that process. So it's the aggregate of all of the keywords that all the competitors that you chose.So those 15 top sellers, it's the aggregate of all of their data combined that tell you the complete story of how people are searching, how different sellers experience their sales. And so now I can make an informed decision around how risky a product is, how much demand there really is, what can I truly expect to achieve if I enter this niche? So, okay, he's at pivotal moment here. Let's say we're talking to my cousin and you're, you're saying, man, like you can playing that game that you're playing right now, which is the arbitrary.And there's nothing wrong with it it's a good game it's not the game that I chose to play, right?You know, I first thing I sold on Amazon, you know, it in and it sold the same day.
And I was like, wait a second, maybe there's something here.And you eventually came to this conclusion, like, okay, the really build a business that is successful, a moat that actually grows to have something sustainable is more accessible and syllable.So like for the I gave earlier, right, if you're doing the$75 a day in profit and, and then do that 10 times, and you're doing$750 a day and profit across 10 products, you know, you've quarter million dollars and profit. You can sell that brand for three and a half to four times your profit.So you have a million dollar brand at that point. So I've seen literally hundreds of students do this where they start with almost nothing, maybe they've found some way that like this opportunity your cousin, or they found another guru, or they found some courses online or some YouTube videos and they tried to launch a product and they had some mediocre success and they eventually find me and then they joined my community and then they realized, you know, like data driven approach to do things and they end up after two years selling the business for millions of dollars. Right?Like this is, real outcome for private label that is not there for arbitrage.I would say arbitrage is more of a side hustle. It's more of interesting unless you can get some sort of exclusive deal with the manufacturer.
I've seen, I've couple of guys that's wholesale, so that would be more of a whole, right?True, true, not So you can sell a wholesale business if you've got those relationships and you've got that exclusivity and you're offering some form of value.But the reality is the best whole sailors on Amazon know how to do SEO and know some form of private label, some of the things we teach that go much deeper into the data interesting and optimization side of things because you control and own the listing.So what listeners here might not know is that if you're doing arbitrage, you're sharing that listing, that the catalog that, you know, might macaroni and cheese on it. It doesn't belong to craft, it belongs to Amazon and anyone.Typically for most skews, most brands, most products, uh, you, if some craft macaroni and cheese on the shelf at a discount or your whole cell relationship or you, you, you a two for one and you find a 30% off coupon and all of a sudden you got a margin on it.You go buy 50 boxes of craft Mac and cheese, you can send it in, but you're going to be one of 10 people selling on that listing. And so what happens is you have to rotate through every day when someone just clicks the buy it now, the seller that whose inventory it is rotates. And that's called rotating the buybox.And so if Craft Macaroni and cheese is selling 1,000 times a month and there are 10 sellers, you can only expect to realistically maybe sell hundred of those per month. So you have to understand your velocity. You have to understand how many can I buy? How much inventory am I, can I go deep in this? Right?There's some things there, but with private label it's very different, right? Or we'll go back to wholesale with an exclusive relationship, you can find a way to gate that listing, to control the supply chain, to create a relationship with Amazon through a transparency program to where only you can send into that listing and that gives you the ability now in the incentive to optimize that listing.But if you're one of 10 sellers, are you going to and you don't have access to maybe to back end to even edit, optimize, change content, change the listing, the images, rewrite it so that it's optimized more for SEO, that extra work and opportunity might not be there and usually isn't and isn't the juice, right?But if you with wholesale, it is you want to sell 50 units a day instead of 30 or 20, and you have the ability to control that listing through that relationship with that manufacturer.And so now from a wholesale perspective, it makes sense for you to go much deeper in that knowledge, but that extra velocity you can sell is now a value to the brand, right?So now that's your selling point.
You're like, hey, that's the thing you could sell to, like maybe the company would want to buy or the like the buy you, right?Well, 100% they might want to eventually, but they're going to be happy with you versus 10 random people finding their stuff and stores on liquidation. They're not making additional sales there.But if they have a relationship with you and now they're making additional sales because you've optimized that list and that's your sales pitch.So if you use data die, for example, and you're like, hey, there are, you're ranked on 70% of the search volume for ways people search for craft macaroni and cheese because believe it or not, they're looking for macaroni and cheese.
They're looking for all of these other generic keywords of, you know, and be a bad example because people love their brand names, but the, I'll give another example is like wooden puzzles, How many people are searching for Melissa and dogs wooden puzzles out of the total search volume? It might be 20,000 out of 300,000 searches a month specifically want Melissa and Doug. Now Melissa and dog is one of the bestsellers on Amazon.It's one of the bestsellers and toys in the world. There are hundreds of millions of dollars a year brand. But I can tell you that my wooden puzzles compete with Melissa and Doug. And I do a pretty good job of it because I'm ranked really well on those other keywords.Also that people are like, I just want Montessori wooden puzzles, I just want wooden puzzles for 2 year olds. If I want wooden puzzles, I want animal wooden puzzles for toddlers, for infants, for babies, for whatever.Right?
So all of these different words that can be mixed into together to make search terms are what people are using to search and they search them at different frequencies. You have to know all of that and know how to rank for it and analyze it.So Brandon, you're talking to this guy in that coffee shop, right? What's the weakest point for them? Product launches, reviews, listings, advertising or preparing for scaling? What would you say?Oh, it's all the above, man. Like, it's so, because, like, you're telling you're like, that's great, man. Like you're, you're thing, you know, 2% and you don't know what know.And the hardest part to do is sometimes convince someone of their own ignorance, because, and the students are the ones that just they know don't know, right? So they're the ones who are humble enough to actually, yeah, and this the different levels of knowledge, right?
And the worst, the lowest level of knowledge is they think they know, but they don't know, right, right. And so you find people like that and you're like, you can't teach someone like that, but I find people like that all the time.They're like, hey, you know, I this one tip, this one trick, this one hack, I'm one hack away, but they don't realize they're five textbooks away and like two college like degrees, right?So that's the difference in knowledge required to be successful versus what they think they know. And then, you know, the know they don't know, right? And then there's the next level which is they know, they And then the highest level of knowledge is you don't know, you know, right, interesting. Yeah, that mirror some of what I tell people about consulting. I tell people the best clients are those who have tried and failed and hired and failed.If, if my has tried and failed and hired and failed, they all of a sudden have a new level of respect for the knowledge I've gained and they're more willing to buy, they're more willing to pay my prices all across the board.And so it mirrors your knowledge journey that you're describing there in terms of where that goes. So which nugget would you share with this friend in that coffee shop? What would you tell him?Like, dude, you to, I would ask questions now man, I would find out with all of your titles, or, like, just imagine he shares with you some of the normal chatter you're hearing from new people.
I pump him up, I love it, I just want to know what their goals are, right, like their goals be to go find 10 more arbitrage products and then make 10,000 a month, right, and that's very possible, right. When I first started Seller Systems, I was in 2016 or so. We co founded MDS Million Dollar Sellers, so it's a huge organization now. It's grown 700 members. They were like 70 of when it first started. Wow, and, uh, you know, or two, yeah, and now, they've grown to 700 members.It's amazing, like, they, you be doing over a million dollars a year and so on. And so from there we decided, like, oh, I to teach beginners, right? Like, I love I want to move in that direction, and I started with two guys.The premise with Seller Systems was that it would be more of a university. I would teach private label and then Garland and Max, my two good friends, would teach arbitrage. And they were really, really good arbitrage. Like they were over$10 million a year in arbitrage.Wow.
Now, in order to do that, they had a warehouse, they had six warehouse employees, they had a bunch of shoppers working for them because they would identify products and then they would have people go around the country to go buy these things.And then they would have people that in the warehouse that would process them to send them in. So the amount of volume required to scale up an operation like that was, you know, pretty high, So it is to potentially scale arbitrage in a way, right? There are people that get warehouses and it's a grind. But so I would ask the guy, like I would just them, hey, what, what do you do? Like, what is your here? Like, are you, do a brand?Do you wanna start a business? Do you wanna, do your family free? Do you wanna live anywhere and work from anywhere? Do you wanna go to the storen shop every day? Do you want, you extra month or do you want, you know,$25,000 extra what are you?And the answer is always 25,000, but, it's like, what do you really, want like what is it, are you, what here for and then the best thing to do that I've always Learned, you know, that I've paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to executive coaches is to work backwards from that goal.
So you want to make$5,000 a month ex trip.Great, let's, let's work backwards $5,000 a month. Let's think about all the, what are levers that you can pull in your life to access an additional$5,000 a month. And there's probably 20, 30 different things you can potentially do. So what you do is you map out all of these.You call them value levers or actions or different things you can potentially do to get an extra$5,000 a month. And then you decide, well, what are the drivers and causes of each of those things? How much time and resources are going to take me to do all of those different things?And then you kind of, bubble them to the top to the best ones, and you're like, okay. Then you choose of those, and then you act on it, and then you have to measure it, and you have to do it, and you, you can create scorecard, and you can create a plan, and you can actually achieve it.Right, literally anything can be achieved if you just work backwards from a goal.So the whole point there is I can ask him, hey, what do you want? What do you, what Do you want to have brands and make, you know, sell a two years for$2 million? Sure, I can give you the roadmap to do it. Right?Like it's very feasible, but you want to just have some extra cash to help pay the mortgage and put some money away and go on vacations and, you know, help with the your car off, whatever it is great. We can work backwards and figure that out. That's probably gonna be more of an arbitrage thing.Interesting. So, I mean, it sounds like takeaway here is, if this is something you want to do, work backwards.Like like everything in life, to life is working backwards. The key to life, the Brandon Young's Bible is you should be working backwards against those goals. I mean, it's interesting because like basic goal setting, but I can tell you that in my life that hasn't come naturally to kind of look at those.That nugget. So searching for one more here for our listeners, what would you say if they said, let's go with that 5,000 dollar month thing, and they're looking to kind of move private label. You say is it reviews, is it launches listings, advertising? What, what would you, what to be like that?No, that's just products, that's just getting on the grind, so it's, it's literally just going scanning a million things, and it's a numbers game put in the work, right.So your number one lever, so working backwards from$5,000 a month, you're like, okay, what are the drivers $5,000 a month?And it's gonna be your main driver. There is going to be number of units sold, number main driver there is going to be number of products that you find that, that you can sell X amount of units per month on average.And then what is the driver, the leading action, everything always boils down from to a leading action.Your leading action to go find more products is to go scan products.
Like, and if you know for every hundred products you scan, you find one potential product, or for every 500 products you scan, you find one potential product.Now in order to get to$5,000 a month, let's say your average that you worked out was that you need 20 products that are replenishable or that, you know, okay, well in to 20 products, and, you know, you need to to get there, you need to go scan two 10,000 products. That's not, that's not impossible. Does it take to scan a product?How long does it take you to scan 1,000 products? Now you've got a timeline, and after you scan 1,000 products of the 10,000, you look back at your score card that you've created and you say, did I find my two products? And if you found three, you're like, great, I'm ahead of schedule. I only found one.Well, now I need to revise and I need to scan 20,000. Dude, I like you.
You said when you got on this call data is my North Star will, like, like, that's what we to be our North Star, because doing in any other way was just not gonna work.And what you just described was a combination of those two things. Look at the data and work backwards. If that's what you're looking to do, you've got 10,000 scans to do, right, like, you've, you've, you've do dig in.I love All right, so wrapping up our episode here, any tips, tricks, hacks or books you've come across that have helped you upscale your productivity.Just in general business, business across the board the last year that you've come across, you'd like to share with the audience man last year, so don't be afraid to pay for education, skip learning curves, higher experts, learn from people, be humble, be open, realize you don't know hardly anything, yeah, at all times. But would say Clifton strengths is great, so a few strengths.Go, take, go read strengths your Clifton strength, look at your top 34 strengths in order understand yourself, encourage your partner.
Like, I can encourage you do it with your partner, your wife, your spouse, your husband.Yeah, if you know each and you know each other strengths and weaknesses, it makes life so much easier to deal with each other, and to understand each other at a deeper level. Who that's some good life right there. Do that, have marriage, do that in partnership.I have to tell you two other tests that I would recommend you looking into as you're getting to know yourself. Um, the Colby test. Have taken the Colby test? I have not, Kolbe. Okay, I challenge you to tickets 55 bucks.I don't get a commission. I do an entrepreneur's apprentice program where I literally clone entrepreneurs, and I help them bring on young super hungry talent. That's like a lot of what focused on right now outside of seller Labs.And I do that for ecommerce sellers, I do that for, you know, sass individuals like use the Colby test to find people who are compatible and we call them partners or integrators in embryo.So if you've got like a side hustle project you're trying to get it, if you can't focus on it, you put this guy on it and they're hungry as I'll get out and they walk through brick walls.It's been awesome.
We use the Colby test like crazy just because it's so powerful at helping you understand what gives you energy and what drains energy. That's what the whole test is about. Do details drain you, or do they give you energy?Do systems drain you, or do they give you energy? Does risk taking drain you, or does it give you energy? Does organizing physical space drain you or give you energy? And there's an opposite side to each of those four spectrums, and they give you a score.And so just sneak peek my, my quick fuck quick that's risk adverseness. I'm a ten on that scale. I've never the only other 10.I know I can, I can get you yeah, the only other 10 know is Simon cynic. Like, like, I don't, like, his score they published it on the website. I mean, okay, I know he's a good dude.No, I don't, I don't know I but I've definitely on LinkedIn and said, dude, we have the same Colby Square. Like, let's chat. But anyway, highly recommend that one.The second test, and I have had my wife take both of these tests.The second test I would recommend is called The 6 Working Geniuses by Patrick Linsioni. It's a book comes with a test. Colby doesn't have a book that I'm aware of.
I would read that book. Maybe they have one and I need to go look it up. All of that's practical knowledge that I've gained over the years researching and using the Colby test for hiring, for firing, for of that kind of stuff.But six working geniuses that one talks about who you are in the project process, and so you talk about any sort of project or product or anything.It has an arc and the art goes define the problem, invent something or some things to solve the problem. Choose which of those some things to actually do, then push in and start the process of getting it up and going support it until it goes there, and then finish the freaking project, right. Like, every project goes that That's, that's exactly it.You only have two of the six working geniuses, and so for me, my to our invention and galvanizing IE, I love creating lots of ideas, and I love getting started on lots of ideas.
You'll notice that I'm missing the part, the discernment part actually choose which idea is the best one. So you can imagine the number of started. That's a really good exercise. That was one of the first calls I ever had with my CEO coach four years ago, and he, he had us list of our potential ideas, because, like, we're an idea of species, right, like, we just always have ideas, so we had six different things we could do.The best practice there was to lay out what success looks like. So you create a spreadsheet, and you're like, okay, if everything goes right, goes is this worth?And then you put a number in 12 months, and then you do in three years, and you do those two numbers, then you do that for every single idea, and then you mold, then you have a confidence level that you can actually achieve it. Like a likelihood of success, likely are you to achieve this?And then you come up with it, like, and then you move you just, you just multiplied so that becomes your value, nice.
Then you also make a columnist as what are the resources required to do each one nice time in an effort and capital.And so then you, once you have that laid out, it becomes glaringly obvious which one you should do and which ones you should kind of forget about.So I've done exercises like that before and it is amazing how often what my gut says in terms of which of those is the right one to focus on is totally wrong.And that's because for me, discernment, which is the DIS, like what you just described is like the, the through tell you what, I'd probably rather have a needle in my eye than then go look and like analyze like what you described.So painful for me to like stop and consider. I'm about start, let's get it good, new idea, this is so cool. And so I love what you're saying, they're like, do that exercise and then focus on partners who are good at the other side.So you can imagine my wives working genius discernment is one of her core ones.
And I have to remember that and be like, hey, these are the ideas I'm tossing out, honey, you're welcome to toss any of those out the window that you don't think are gonna work. And she enjoys analyzing and discerning which thing to do next. So, yeah, could not agree more. Yourself and know your partners, dude. I enjoyed the conversation today, man, thank you, love it.Well, that's it for our episode of Monetizing Your Mental Capital. I'm your hostable Christianson again, Brandon. How can our listeners get in touch, assuming they wanted to reach out, what's the best way to catch you?So there's a free master class I have, it's a few hours long, you can find it on seller systems com, there's multiple free master classes there, you can find me on YouTube, Linkton.If you watch a few hours of content, do some research, and you decide that the private label path is for you, then, you know, you can always and reach out and let me know. Love it, help it, love it.Brandon: appreciate your time. Appreciate the free resources you're offering to those individuals out there looking to monetize their mental capital. And that's it for this episode. Cheers, man. [...284.5s]
But imagining that you were in a coffee shop with a friend who had just done a couple thousand.Let's say they stumbled across something on FBA, right, and they happened to have a manufacturing buddy in China who happens to have this product, and, they're doing a couple thousand a month right now.And they're like, crap, what the fetch did I just do when you're sitting down with lunch, and remember, this is a friend who had no idea that you had any experience in this, right, so you've got to help him understand, I actually do know what I'm talking about, so what would you tell him?So the high level punchy fun thing to say is I've sold over$75 million on Amazon. I own five brands that still do over$20 million a year and I've helped hundreds of people become millionaires by teaching them how to sell on Amazon.Oh, is that all? Love it. And I can tell. So that's one of the things I like about you, Brennan.
You're, there lots of guys in the space, so I feel like they're all about flaunting it and running around and, you know, you know, not the other.I can tell that like you got a little uncomfortable. You were like, dude, really, you're gonna make me talk about the smart things I've done.Okay, here's punchy version. So the humility is, is You know, fine line I have to walk between, you know, to say things to for the marketing side of it. And I'm always uncomfortable doing it.And then I've got a marketing director that I hired, and he's just like, no, you've gotta say those things because otherwise people don't know why they should be listening to you.And I just, want to help people. And we just happen to be one of the few people teaching it that actually do it between my wife and I and we've done a good job of figuring out a system based in data, like how look at data to make better decisions around products and optimization, SEO, ads, and ads management.So we just always used data as our north star for product selection, development, content, and then marketing. I love it and I hear you 100%.
I think many people who are out there teaching monetizing their mental capital, so to speak, are not currently still monetizing products.I think, many of them decided, you know what, I'm gonna shift away from that, or I sold a brand and they decided not to start another one, that kind of thing. And so they shifted their career into the monetization of knowledge or mental capital and moved away from the monetization. What would you say is the downside of that? Well, I mean, one is that Amazon's constantly changing the algorithm, changes, the way that you have to compete, what's allowed and not allowed, terms of service change on a regular basis. I mean, a lot easier back in the day when you could incentivize for reviews.It was a lot easier when you could do, you know, by and give rebates to buyers, and, you know, launch through ways that are no longer allowed, right?So a lot of times I find that those shortcuts once they're taken away from somebody, you know, fundamentals are lacking.
And it's the base fundamentals that are based in the core data that, that need in order to be successful now very interesting.So as you consider this idea of fundamentals, let's imagine you're back in that coffee shop sitting down with that friend.You've just told it, look, dude, I, it's sound weird because I know we've been friends since high school or whatever. But, like, I own six brands on Amazon. I've sold over$75 million worth of stuff, like, can you the warehouses that I could fill with that much crap?That, like, and some it, I'm not proud of it. I'm not proud of ice that I sold all of that random stuff to people. But, but, I it's, so yes, I know what I'm talking about.So you've gotten past that part of the conversation, and now he's like, well, I get, I pumped about this, right? I make it, about them starting this journey.I mean, it's, I get the, juices flowing, so to say, like, when I someone getting, you know, excited I, I did thing, I tried this thing and I made some money.And I'm like, they see the light at the, in of the tunnel and all of a sudden, like their eyes open. It's like they for the first time.That's what I feel like every time I talk to somebody who's not sure what Amazon is selling on Amazon.
And then all of a sudden, they, you know, it's like in 2015, and I, my wife I were dating and we decided to start a business.We found out what FBA was, and literally we just went to the store, we found something, and we sent, we created an account, we sent it in, and it sold the day it hit the warehouse, right?And I was like, okay, well, maybe there's something here, right? And then, and scramble of what else can we sell like let's go, all of sudden, you're like, it's a big world and you're just looking for things that you can potentially sell, and, you know, it down this path that potentially looking at wholesale or arbitrage or, you know, reselling. Lot of people get started.Yeah, and then we're like, well, what's better than constantly, you know, scrambling for the next deal? It's kind of like, well, how we own the listing?
How do we create a brand?How do we, do the marketing to make sure we're one of the best sellers of a category or niche? And, you know, that curve that we walked with hundreds of mistakes over years that allowed us to, you know, you So to say, man, I, it's interesting say that because I've got a cousin who were at our family reunion this last summer, like three months and actually a couple months before that.He was like, I heard you had something to do with Amazon or like different stuff that. And I was like, yeah, I've got, know, a years around the block doing integrations, so I'm the guy that make sure the orders go from one place to another. And he's like, yeah, like, I'm, think he said he was doing like 500 bucks month or something like that. Um, and I like, dude, that's so exciting though, that's pretty cool, Well the crazy party is three months later.
I saw him at the family reunion, so like, like we other at like a, yeah, dinner something like that.And then August rolls around, and I see him at the family thing. He goes, dude, I found product, and it is not what you would guess, and they're selling it to me for, like, a fraction what I can get on Amazon for it, and, like, I'm doing, $4,000 a right now. That was like, that's exciting nice work.Yeah, yeah, so jazz and juice, so there's a lot of people at that point that get comfortable.It's like, that's, wanted was a little bit of extra spending cash. And then there are the people that double down, and they're like, while we, you know, of those, right, like, there are people that are like, I need three more of those.And then there are the people that are like, us, which are like, okay, we need of those, right.
And it's like, you know, you the steps, so I always ask people, it's like, can a product even in private label?Can you find a product that makes you$75 a day in profit? Right? So you landed at$5, it sells at$20 and you net$6 every time it sells, and you sell 15 of them, right? Like can you that product? Of course, like there are million products like that on Amazon.The question is, can you design a better one? Can you land it at a profitable raid? Can you make a design that people will resonate with, that will get more clicks and convert better?Can you figure out all the learning curves of marketing and ads and ranking and SEO, and, and if can do all those things, right, like, which is there's hundreds of hours of content in our college level course, if you can do all those things one time, that's great, you're making$75 extra a day.Do that 10 times, right? And that might take you a year, year and half, right? 18 months to find and develop and maybe launch 20 products, of which 10 are successful and you're keeping. And now you've got$750 a day in profit, and now you're earning more than most Americans with high level degrees.So that's very interesting, cause I actually believe he is the kind that we'll double down. I'm actually gonna text him after this episode, be like, dude, how many, how have to do now, because I know a guy you need to meet.
Um, and, uh, be to see how far he's come.He, I know is the type who's doubling down. He and his wife, they've just recently gotten married in the last year, so they're both newlyweds, lots of time on their hands, well, as much time as you think they'd have because they're in college.And I remember being in college and not feeling like I had any time, and then I got kids and all of a sudden, it was like, oh yeah, really, you have any time. But it's amazing because they're pouring all their energy into this.They were like, you should see our front room, it is stacked like this high boxes because they're fulfilling themselves and they started shipping it off to FBA and figuring out all of that crap.But, but it just funny cause they were like, yeah, our weekends. Just, we our first person and it's like my, you know, friend or whatever, like a filling out of their apartment. So, yeah, I'll be I think he is the type who is doubling down on it. I'll be curious to hear where he's landed.Yeah, I mean, right?
Like entrepreneurship is for everyone. I mean, the to do is when you go out there and you like apostasize and like, hey, you know, what doing?You got to change your life, you know, I thing, like, why aren't doing it? And it's just like you have to realize people are just built different, right? Like, they, people things.They're, you know, defines happiness for them is different than what defines happiness for, for, you know, us. We have insatiable quest to constantly grow and build bigger and better things. And, and that's that's way most people are built. I don't think.Okay, so here's, the I would ask, and I'm kind of asking alongside my cousin here. Obviously, he went from zero dollars on Amazon within the last year to doing a couple thousand a month, and he did.So I think he found one of those arbitrage groups to kind of follow system to kind of connect And, I mean, there's of good groups out there that give you the fundamentals of that for sure, right?Yeah, so he, what dove in to do, and obviously it's paid off from a standpoint of, like, you know, some, some good out of there. Is that a fluke or does that prove that there's still, I mean, I, my LinkedIn newsfeed, it is post after, post these veterans being like Fu Amazon, like, I'm out, not, I'm for you anymore.And I don't know if that means they're actually walking away or oh, it's, it's so though, right?So yes, it's very possible. I mean, this Gary V talks about with his specials.
He's constantly, you know, out about. It's out there if you want it, right? Like people, people like their situation who are, are, you know, stuck paycheck to paycheck, are you doing about it, right?And so Gary V's message is very true. It's like go freaking yard sale. Go to 10, 20 yard sales on a weekend. Go to some thrift stores, find some things and flip them on eBay, learn how to do arbitrage, go scan a bunch of things and figure out how Amazon works. Like there are you can, un cannot sell. There are different categories that you need to get ungated for.There are, yeah, that you need to learn. You can't, it's not simple as just finding something and sending it in. You need to have a legitimate account. You should start probably a company so that you're not doing it under your personal name.Right? There are like fundamental things have to learn, but everything's available on YouTube, right?
Like everything's available these, these, like groups people that are charging 20 bucks a month or, you know, something literally nothing you to spend some extra time watching and learning and figuring out whether it's for you and then going out there and doing it knee base free. So go and buy things at a yard cell and make some money on the side.You can make hundreds of dollars, if not a couple thousand dollars a month, extra profit per month doing the flipping thing. So, okay, so I to act very, very different private label, but I totally hear you there.Yeah, I mean, know, done it similar to what my cousin's done, right, is that the right way to enter the game right now? Now the learning curves are so different, right, so the reality is you, it's completely different learning curves.So what ends up happening is all the things I just said you need to learn for arbitrage are true for private label. You need to create a company branding logo, you need to learn how to do keyword research. It becomes more of an SEO in data driven game versus can an analysis of finances.So I would say that if you're doing arbitrage, it's like, can an ROI on this check? Do it with private label, it goes much deeper.It's how many keywords are people using to find this similar product in this niche? How many of those keywords are my competitors ranked well for? Can I beat them? How do I make a better product? Right? Can I, can launch it, design it in a way that people want it more? Right? So there's a lot more data analysis.The biggest question that you have to answer in private label is you look at the top 10 to 15 sellers of a product and you have to be able to answer the question, how are they getting their sales?
If I can answer that question, and this is the foundation of what we used to do for years.We were teaching like downloading Helium and using Cerebro and then taking all of this massive amount of data that wasn't very usable and then making it usable through our own, you know, way the data.And then that's what became data dive which is, you know, the that process. So it's the aggregate of all of the keywords that all the competitors that you chose.So those 15 top sellers, it's the aggregate of all of their data combined that tell you the complete story of how people are searching, how different sellers experience their sales. And so now I can make an informed decision around how risky a product is, how much demand there really is, what can I truly expect to achieve if I enter this niche? So, okay, he's at pivotal moment here. Let's say we're talking to my cousin and you're, you're saying, man, like you can playing that game that you're playing right now, which is the arbitrary.And there's nothing wrong with it it's a good game it's not the game that I chose to play, right?You know, I first thing I sold on Amazon, you know, it in and it sold the same day.
And I was like, wait a second, maybe there's something here.And you eventually came to this conclusion, like, okay, the really build a business that is successful, a moat that actually grows to have something sustainable is more accessible and syllable.So like for the I gave earlier, right, if you're doing the$75 a day in profit and, and then do that 10 times, and you're doing$750 a day and profit across 10 products, you know, you've quarter million dollars and profit. You can sell that brand for three and a half to four times your profit.So you have a million dollar brand at that point. So I've seen literally hundreds of students do this where they start with almost nothing, maybe they've found some way that like this opportunity your cousin, or they found another guru, or they found some courses online or some YouTube videos and they tried to launch a product and they had some mediocre success and they eventually find me and then they joined my community and then they realized, you know, like data driven approach to do things and they end up after two years selling the business for millions of dollars. Right?Like this is, real outcome for private label that is not there for arbitrage.I would say arbitrage is more of a side hustle. It's more of interesting unless you can get some sort of exclusive deal with the manufacturer.
I've seen, I've couple of guys that's wholesale, so that would be more of a whole, right?True, true, not So you can sell a wholesale business if you've got those relationships and you've got that exclusivity and you're offering some form of value.But the reality is the best whole sailors on Amazon know how to do SEO and know some form of private label, some of the things we teach that go much deeper into the data interesting and optimization side of things because you control and own the listing.So what listeners here might not know is that if you're doing arbitrage, you're sharing that listing, that the catalog that, you know, might macaroni and cheese on it. It doesn't belong to craft, it belongs to Amazon and anyone.Typically for most skews, most brands, most products, uh, you, if some craft macaroni and cheese on the shelf at a discount or your whole cell relationship or you, you, you a two for one and you find a 30% off coupon and all of a sudden you got a margin on it.You go buy 50 boxes of craft Mac and cheese, you can send it in, but you're going to be one of 10 people selling on that listing. And so what happens is you have to rotate through every day when someone just clicks the buy it now, the seller that whose inventory it is rotates. And that's called rotating the buybox.And so if Craft Macaroni and cheese is selling 1,000 times a month and there are 10 sellers, you can only expect to realistically maybe sell hundred of those per month. So you have to understand your velocity. You have to understand how many can I buy? How much inventory am I, can I go deep in this? Right?There's some things there, but with private label it's very different, right? Or we'll go back to wholesale with an exclusive relationship, you can find a way to gate that listing, to control the supply chain, to create a relationship with Amazon through a transparency program to where only you can send into that listing and that gives you the ability now in the incentive to optimize that listing.But if you're one of 10 sellers, are you going to and you don't have access to maybe to back end to even edit, optimize, change content, change the listing, the images, rewrite it so that it's optimized more for SEO, that extra work and opportunity might not be there and usually isn't and isn't the juice, right?But if you with wholesale, it is you want to sell 50 units a day instead of 30 or 20, and you have the ability to control that listing through that relationship with that manufacturer.And so now from a wholesale perspective, it makes sense for you to go much deeper in that knowledge, but that extra velocity you can sell is now a value to the brand, right?So now that's your selling point.
You're like, hey, that's the thing you could sell to, like maybe the company would want to buy or the like the buy you, right?Well, 100% they might want to eventually, but they're going to be happy with you versus 10 random people finding their stuff and stores on liquidation. They're not making additional sales there.But if they have a relationship with you and now they're making additional sales because you've optimized that list and that's your sales pitch.So if you use data die, for example, and you're like, hey, there are, you're ranked on 70% of the search volume for ways people search for craft macaroni and cheese because believe it or not, they're looking for macaroni and cheese.
They're looking for all of these other generic keywords of, you know, and be a bad example because people love their brand names, but the, I'll give another example is like wooden puzzles, How many people are searching for Melissa and dogs wooden puzzles out of the total search volume? It might be 20,000 out of 300,000 searches a month specifically want Melissa and Doug. Now Melissa and dog is one of the bestsellers on Amazon.It's one of the bestsellers and toys in the world. There are hundreds of millions of dollars a year brand. But I can tell you that my wooden puzzles compete with Melissa and Doug. And I do a pretty good job of it because I'm ranked really well on those other keywords.Also that people are like, I just want Montessori wooden puzzles, I just want wooden puzzles for 2 year olds. If I want wooden puzzles, I want animal wooden puzzles for toddlers, for infants, for babies, for whatever.Right?
So all of these different words that can be mixed into together to make search terms are what people are using to search and they search them at different frequencies. You have to know all of that and know how to rank for it and analyze it.So Brandon, you're talking to this guy in that coffee shop, right? What's the weakest point for them? Product launches, reviews, listings, advertising or preparing for scaling? What would you say?Oh, it's all the above, man. Like, it's so, because, like, you're telling you're like, that's great, man. Like you're, you're thing, you know, 2% and you don't know what know.And the hardest part to do is sometimes convince someone of their own ignorance, because, and the students are the ones that just they know don't know, right? So they're the ones who are humble enough to actually, yeah, and this the different levels of knowledge, right?
And the worst, the lowest level of knowledge is they think they know, but they don't know, right, right. And so you find people like that and you're like, you can't teach someone like that, but I find people like that all the time.They're like, hey, you know, I this one tip, this one trick, this one hack, I'm one hack away, but they don't realize they're five textbooks away and like two college like degrees, right?So that's the difference in knowledge required to be successful versus what they think they know. And then, you know, the know they don't know, right? And then there's the next level which is they know, they And then the highest level of knowledge is you don't know, you know, right, interesting. Yeah, that mirror some of what I tell people about consulting. I tell people the best clients are those who have tried and failed and hired and failed.If, if my has tried and failed and hired and failed, they all of a sudden have a new level of respect for the knowledge I've gained and they're more willing to buy, they're more willing to pay my prices all across the board.And so it mirrors your knowledge journey that you're describing there in terms of where that goes. So which nugget would you share with this friend in that coffee shop? What would you tell him?Like, dude, you to, I would ask questions now man, I would find out with all of your titles, or, like, just imagine he shares with you some of the normal chatter you're hearing from new people.
I pump him up, I love it, I just want to know what their goals are, right, like their goals be to go find 10 more arbitrage products and then make 10,000 a month, right, and that's very possible, right. When I first started Seller Systems, I was in 2016 or so. We co founded MDS Million Dollar Sellers, so it's a huge organization now. It's grown 700 members. They were like 70 of when it first started. Wow, and, uh, you know, or two, yeah, and now, they've grown to 700 members.It's amazing, like, they, you be doing over a million dollars a year and so on. And so from there we decided, like, oh, I to teach beginners, right? Like, I love I want to move in that direction, and I started with two guys.The premise with Seller Systems was that it would be more of a university. I would teach private label and then Garland and Max, my two good friends, would teach arbitrage. And they were really, really good arbitrage. Like they were over$10 million a year in arbitrage.Wow.
Now, in order to do that, they had a warehouse, they had six warehouse employees, they had a bunch of shoppers working for them because they would identify products and then they would have people go around the country to go buy these things.And then they would have people that in the warehouse that would process them to send them in. So the amount of volume required to scale up an operation like that was, you know, pretty high, So it is to potentially scale arbitrage in a way, right? There are people that get warehouses and it's a grind. But so I would ask the guy, like I would just them, hey, what, what do you do? Like, what is your here? Like, are you, do a brand?Do you wanna start a business? Do you wanna, do your family free? Do you wanna live anywhere and work from anywhere? Do you wanna go to the storen shop every day? Do you want, you extra month or do you want, you know,$25,000 extra what are you?And the answer is always 25,000, but, it's like, what do you really, want like what is it, are you, what here for and then the best thing to do that I've always Learned, you know, that I've paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to executive coaches is to work backwards from that goal.
So you want to make$5,000 a month ex trip.Great, let's, let's work backwards $5,000 a month. Let's think about all the, what are levers that you can pull in your life to access an additional$5,000 a month. And there's probably 20, 30 different things you can potentially do. So what you do is you map out all of these.You call them value levers or actions or different things you can potentially do to get an extra$5,000 a month. And then you decide, well, what are the drivers and causes of each of those things? How much time and resources are going to take me to do all of those different things?And then you kind of, bubble them to the top to the best ones, and you're like, okay. Then you choose of those, and then you act on it, and then you have to measure it, and you have to do it, and you, you can create scorecard, and you can create a plan, and you can actually achieve it.Right, literally anything can be achieved if you just work backwards from a goal.So the whole point there is I can ask him, hey, what do you want? What do you, what Do you want to have brands and make, you know, sell a two years for$2 million? Sure, I can give you the roadmap to do it. Right?Like it's very feasible, but you want to just have some extra cash to help pay the mortgage and put some money away and go on vacations and, you know, help with the your car off, whatever it is great. We can work backwards and figure that out. That's probably gonna be more of an arbitrage thing.Interesting. So, I mean, it sounds like takeaway here is, if this is something you want to do, work backwards.Like like everything in life, to life is working backwards. The key to life, the Brandon Young's Bible is you should be working backwards against those goals. I mean, it's interesting because like basic goal setting, but I can tell you that in my life that hasn't come naturally to kind of look at those.That nugget. So searching for one more here for our listeners, what would you say if they said, let's go with that 5,000 dollar month thing, and they're looking to kind of move private label. You say is it reviews, is it launches listings, advertising? What, what would you, what to be like that?No, that's just products, that's just getting on the grind, so it's, it's literally just going scanning a million things, and it's a numbers game put in the work, right.So your number one lever, so working backwards from$5,000 a month, you're like, okay, what are the drivers $5,000 a month?And it's gonna be your main driver. There is going to be number of units sold, number main driver there is going to be number of products that you find that, that you can sell X amount of units per month on average.And then what is the driver, the leading action, everything always boils down from to a leading action.Your leading action to go find more products is to go scan products.
Like, and if you know for every hundred products you scan, you find one potential product, or for every 500 products you scan, you find one potential product.Now in order to get to$5,000 a month, let's say your average that you worked out was that you need 20 products that are replenishable or that, you know, okay, well in to 20 products, and, you know, you need to to get there, you need to go scan two 10,000 products. That's not, that's not impossible. Does it take to scan a product?How long does it take you to scan 1,000 products? Now you've got a timeline, and after you scan 1,000 products of the 10,000, you look back at your score card that you've created and you say, did I find my two products? And if you found three, you're like, great, I'm ahead of schedule. I only found one.Well, now I need to revise and I need to scan 20,000. Dude, I like you.
You said when you got on this call data is my North Star will, like, like, that's what we to be our North Star, because doing in any other way was just not gonna work.And what you just described was a combination of those two things. Look at the data and work backwards. If that's what you're looking to do, you've got 10,000 scans to do, right, like, you've, you've, you've do dig in.I love All right, so wrapping up our episode here, any tips, tricks, hacks or books you've come across that have helped you upscale your productivity.Just in general business, business across the board the last year that you've come across, you'd like to share with the audience man last year, so don't be afraid to pay for education, skip learning curves, higher experts, learn from people, be humble, be open, realize you don't know hardly anything, yeah, at all times. But would say Clifton strengths is great, so a few strengths.Go, take, go read strengths your Clifton strength, look at your top 34 strengths in order understand yourself, encourage your partner.
Like, I can encourage you do it with your partner, your wife, your spouse, your husband.Yeah, if you know each and you know each other strengths and weaknesses, it makes life so much easier to deal with each other, and to understand each other at a deeper level. Who that's some good life right there. Do that, have marriage, do that in partnership.I have to tell you two other tests that I would recommend you looking into as you're getting to know yourself. Um, the Colby test. Have taken the Colby test? I have not, Kolbe. Okay, I challenge you to tickets 55 bucks.I don't get a commission. I do an entrepreneur's apprentice program where I literally clone entrepreneurs, and I help them bring on young super hungry talent. That's like a lot of what focused on right now outside of seller Labs.And I do that for ecommerce sellers, I do that for, you know, sass individuals like use the Colby test to find people who are compatible and we call them partners or integrators in embryo.So if you've got like a side hustle project you're trying to get it, if you can't focus on it, you put this guy on it and they're hungry as I'll get out and they walk through brick walls.It's been awesome.
We use the Colby test like crazy just because it's so powerful at helping you understand what gives you energy and what drains energy. That's what the whole test is about. Do details drain you, or do they give you energy?Do systems drain you, or do they give you energy? Does risk taking drain you, or does it give you energy? Does organizing physical space drain you or give you energy? And there's an opposite side to each of those four spectrums, and they give you a score.And so just sneak peek my, my quick fuck quick that's risk adverseness. I'm a ten on that scale. I've never the only other 10.I know I can, I can get you yeah, the only other 10 know is Simon cynic. Like, like, I don't, like, his score they published it on the website. I mean, okay, I know he's a good dude.No, I don't, I don't know I but I've definitely on LinkedIn and said, dude, we have the same Colby Square. Like, let's chat. But anyway, highly recommend that one.The second test, and I have had my wife take both of these tests.The second test I would recommend is called The 6 Working Geniuses by Patrick Linsioni. It's a book comes with a test. Colby doesn't have a book that I'm aware of.
I would read that book. Maybe they have one and I need to go look it up. All of that's practical knowledge that I've gained over the years researching and using the Colby test for hiring, for firing, for of that kind of stuff.But six working geniuses that one talks about who you are in the project process, and so you talk about any sort of project or product or anything.It has an arc and the art goes define the problem, invent something or some things to solve the problem. Choose which of those some things to actually do, then push in and start the process of getting it up and going support it until it goes there, and then finish the freaking project, right. Like, every project goes that That's, that's exactly it.You only have two of the six working geniuses, and so for me, my to our invention and galvanizing IE, I love creating lots of ideas, and I love getting started on lots of ideas.
You'll notice that I'm missing the part, the discernment part actually choose which idea is the best one. So you can imagine the number of started. That's a really good exercise. That was one of the first calls I ever had with my CEO coach four years ago, and he, he had us list of our potential ideas, because, like, we're an idea of species, right, like, we just always have ideas, so we had six different things we could do.The best practice there was to lay out what success looks like. So you create a spreadsheet, and you're like, okay, if everything goes right, goes is this worth?And then you put a number in 12 months, and then you do in three years, and you do those two numbers, then you do that for every single idea, and then you mold, then you have a confidence level that you can actually achieve it. Like a likelihood of success, likely are you to achieve this?And then you come up with it, like, and then you move you just, you just multiplied so that becomes your value, nice.
Then you also make a columnist as what are the resources required to do each one nice time in an effort and capital.And so then you, once you have that laid out, it becomes glaringly obvious which one you should do and which ones you should kind of forget about.So I've done exercises like that before and it is amazing how often what my gut says in terms of which of those is the right one to focus on is totally wrong.And that's because for me, discernment, which is the DIS, like what you just described is like the, the through tell you what, I'd probably rather have a needle in my eye than then go look and like analyze like what you described.So painful for me to like stop and consider. I'm about start, let's get it good, new idea, this is so cool. And so I love what you're saying, they're like, do that exercise and then focus on partners who are good at the other side.So you can imagine my wives working genius discernment is one of her core ones.
And I have to remember that and be like, hey, these are the ideas I'm tossing out, honey, you're welcome to toss any of those out the window that you don't think are gonna work. And she enjoys analyzing and discerning which thing to do next. So, yeah, could not agree more. Yourself and know your partners, dude. I enjoyed the conversation today, man, thank you, love it.Well, that's it for our episode of Monetizing Your Mental Capital. I'm your hostable Christianson again, Brandon. How can our listeners get in touch, assuming they wanted to reach out, what's the best way to catch you?So there's a free master class I have, it's a few hours long, you can find it on seller systems com, there's multiple free master classes there, you can find me on YouTube, Linkton.If you watch a few hours of content, do some research, and you decide that the private label path is for you, then, you know, you can always and reach out and let me know. Love it, help it, love it.Brandon: appreciate your time. Appreciate the free resources you're offering to those individuals out there looking to monetize their mental capital. And that's it for this episode. Cheers, man. [...284.5s]
