First, let me say that if you only plan on reading this post and not watching the video, then please, do me a favor…

At least watch the first minute. I made a parody of Goodfellas (called “GoodSellas”) and it’s a lot of fun and I think you’ll really enjoy it. Okay, moving on.

At SellerCon, I went behind the scenes to talk with two of my good friends, Athena Severi and Drew Sanocki, about things like:
How Athena started selling on Amazon and how it changed her life
Drew’s fast-track method to generating a lot of wealth as an entrepreneur
How you can start a business with little to no money

Here are the transcripts of our conversations — enjoy!

(NOTE: These conversations have been edited for clarity.)

Athena Severi

A: I discovered the Amazing Selling Machine course back in 2015. You were one of the first speakers I saw at ASM 4, and I was so impressed with you. I have an actual selfie from the first event with you and me. And one of the things that really inspired me was you said, “Serve the world unselfishly and profit.”

E: I believe that as a mantra, and as our business strategy, but I also think it’s a description of what happens. If you serve the world unselfishly, you can not help but profit. Because first of all, even if you don’t make any money, you profit from having helped, and also, that’s how you make money, too — actually serving people.

A: Exactly. I love it. So what happened for me was I started selling these yoga headbands on Amazon, and I started making enough money that I quit my job, which was huge for me, because I’m a mother of two, I have two small boys, and I didn’t have enough time for them. I couldn’t be there for them, and that was really rough for me.

I also had a huge mommy following — from just helping moms in general and having a mommy blog — so when that happened I let them know, “Hey guys, this Amazon game is amazing. Ecommerce is amazing!” So I had like 80 people join the ASM course.

E: Join ASM through you?

A: Yeah. And I made more money selling ASM, and I was like, “What?! This is way better than headbands.” But then what happened is that I felt responsible for these people

E: Because you got them in.

A: Yeah, I got them in, so I wanted to help lead them. So I would ask people like yourself, who really knew what they were doing, to come in and do some calls and do some things, and that led to me doing events, which led to me going to China on my own…

E: China, because that’s where people source products.

A: Right. And then realizing that a lot of people don’t understand how to source properly.

E: I think this is a good lesson. Through following your path, and experiencing the problems you had yourself, you noticed problems that other people were having, and you created solutions for them. That’s entrepreneurship.

A: Exactly. So when I went on someone else’s China trip, I realized there were a lot of things missing. So one of the things I love to do is network and connect people, so I developed something called ChinaMagicTrip.com, and what’s amazing is we bring about 65 entrepreneurs to China and we do 12 days of getting a lot of content, a lot of information, and they source directly and it’s amazing.

E: Wow. That’s super cool. And you also do something else cool which is supporting women in ecommerce. I’ve been in this industry as an influencer since 2012 and as a participant since 2005 or 2006, and from then, when you’d go to an event and there’d be like 3 women, til now, where it’s maybe 40% women. It’s really incredible. And maybe there are some women watching this who are looking for a good group of other women…

A: Absolutely. It isn’t easy to balance everything. That’s something I’ve struggled with — being a mom, having a family and a work life — it was hard for me to do my career and also be the mom I wanted to be. So there are two things here, 1. I think women need to fully own their femininity and lean on it. Believe in yourself, believe in your strength. So many people have superpowers and they just have the fear blocking them. So I think for me, the whole women thing, it’s just inspiring them to tap into what they already have.

E: Is there a Facebook group for that?

A: Just follow me! On Instagram, or join my Facebook group: Amazon Sellers Women’s Power Group. This one is really cool because we’ve got 500 women, they’re all in ecommerce, and they’re doing amazing things.

And one of the things I’d love to mention, my two boys have their own brands.

E: Wow. How old are they?

A: 11 and 8, but they started 3 years ago. I think as a mom, in the beginning I did the whole Amazon thing because I wanted to have more time, but now that I travel the world and speak and I put on these events, I have less time but I feel like I’m inspiring them. They’re involved, and I think them seeing that their mom can do anything, it really inspires them.

Drew Sanocki

E: You really changed my outlook on business, and inspired me to think a lot bigger as it relates to buying and selling assets. I was a “start from nothing, build it and operate it” kind of guy.

D: As was I.

E: Yeah. But then you found your way into the world of private equity and venture capital, selling businesses. And you’ve really inspired me to move in that direction. We’ve had conversations about that, you’ve spoken at my Blue Ribbon Mastermind about that…

So if you were to share just a little bit about why someone might want to consider that path as perhaps the greatest path toward resource generation, what would it be?

D: I think it’s about leverage. Everybody here is good at a handful of things in online marketing. Like when I think of you, I think of Facebook ads and content, right? And yeah you can apply that to your own business, but you get a ton of leverage if you were to apply it to multiple businesses that all lacked that one specific thing.

So at the end of the day, I think you want to spread your risk out among a portfolio of companies and apply that skill to each one, and then realize a better upside.

E: Let’s say someone has a business that does 500k a year and 100k in profit. They could sell that for 300–400k. Do you think that the model of taking the asset you’re operating, where maybe you’ve plateaued, and selling it for some amount of liquidity, and then deploying that into the market to purchase assets… Do you think that’s a good strategy?

D: I think that’s a great strategy, yeah. If I were sitting on a business that size — if it’s growing like a rocket ship, that’s one thing, but if it’s not, if it’s plateaued, take some money off the table. For 500k, you could buy 2 or 3 online businesses and one of them might hit.

E: You just bought a business for 50k yourself.

D: I did. The vitamin one was 20k, the software one was 50k.

E: Well what I want to point out is a guy like you — currently a CEO of a 100–150M a year company, you’ve bought and sold businesses, you’ve been in this game — you see a deal and you say, “That’s a good deal,” but other people feel like they don’t have the resource to play this game.

D: You can buy businesses without any capital, with zero. If you find the right business, you can convince the owner that you will pay them from the profits of the business for the next 5 years, say. That way you don’t have to pay any money up front.

E: Which is similar to what you did with the software company.

D: Yeah. I left him a piece of the company, and now he’s getting paid out over time and it’s all good.

E: Right on. So, this conference is mostly Amazon business owners who are really focusing on that channel. What do you think about that model vs. the direct response model? Do you think those folks should be putting some of their energy toward direct response?

D: Yeah. I think you’ll agree with me that, if we were starting something today, bootstrapping it, we’d get on Amazon. It’s easier to set up, the buyers are there…

E: Yes.

D: But long term, you’re not building an asset.

E: It’s cashflow.

D: Right. It’s cashflow. You don’t own the customer data. You can’t email those guys. It’s hard to send postcards to those people. So I think the sooner you can diversify off of Amazon and build your own brand, the better.

Want to learn how to expand your business beyond Amazon?

If you want to build a business doesn’t rely on just one platform (like Amazon) or just one traffic source (like Facebook), then you should definitely watch this free training:

How to Build a REAL Ecommerce Brand using Facebook, Instagram, Google & YouTube.

In this webinar, you’ll learn how to use my content marketing system to create a company that is profitable and sustainable because it truly adds value to the marketplace.

(This is perfect for Amazon business owners looking to build their own ecommerce store!)