I recently had the pleasure of talking with Brad DeGraw of AmazonSherpa.com.
Brad, as he bills himself on his website, is a “self-proclaimed Amazon nerd and E-Commerce Entrepreneur who started with $100 and a Wi-Fi connection and turned it into over $1 million Amazon sales.”
I first learned of Brad when I attended a webinar that he was a part of.
I attend a lot of webinars because I love hearing different people’s points of view on E-Commerce; especially when it pertains to being an Amazon seller.
The biggest thing I took away from listening to Brad during that webinar was the idea that E-Commerce sellers need to consider three big customer motivations.
These motivations are, “Problem, Fantasy, & Desire.” I liked the concept so much, I actually taped the words to my computer monitor!
When I learned that Brad was inviting people to have a free 30 minute coaching session with him, I was delighted to sign up.
I spoke with Brad early in August of 2017 and it was a great conversation. Aside from being knowledgeable, he is an incredibly friendly guy and easy to talk with.
The big challenge I wanted to discuss with Brad was the fact that I still haven’t found the product line that I am excited to sell in the e-commerce space.
I have had some success selling on Amazon, but it has mostly been arbitrage type deals where I am finding stuff on clearance and selling it for a markup.
While I do have a couple private label listings, they aren’t products that I really want to build a brand around.
The basic problem I have is that I need to find the inspiration for an audience I want to serve, a flag ship product to get started, and a product line to build out the business.
In our brief discussion he gave me two valuable tips that I would like to share with our JPCashFlow readers who might also may be trying to find their E-Commerce inspiration.
The first tip was to head over to the bookstore and peruse the magazine aisle.
Brad said that this was a great way to see different markets and what advertisers were serving to people.
If we are looking for “Problems, Fantasies, and Desire” then this definitely seems like a logical place to get started.
Needless to say, I will be visiting my local bookstore soon to engage in this exercise.
His second tip was to go to Amazon.com, go into a category, and look at the “Best Sellers” tab.
By going to this area you will see all the products that are performing best in that particular area of goods.
Brad’s rationale was that this can give inspiration to markets that need to be served and identify areas that have adequate demand.
One piece of advice I particularly resonated with was to, “Do this every day for 30 days. It sounds excessive, but it will train your mind to see the types of products that are selling and the prices at which they are being offered.”
He further explained that our subconscious mind needs to be trained to understand the e-commerce realm in this way.
Brad really hit a nerve when he explained the importance of training your subconscious mind.
It is very easy to get bogged down with day to day tasks without considering big picture market realities and the ways in which we might serve them.
In my case, I have spent so much time learning the tactical level mechanics of E-Commerce and marketing that I rarely give concentrated effort into considering what customers need and what brand level ideas I should explore.
This concept might be just the thing that is holding my business back from growing from arbitrage to a true scalable brand.
Our 30 minutes together really flew by and I would like to again thank Brad DeGraw for his insights.
He has really gotten me thinking about opening my subconscious mind to identifying different markets and audiences that can be served.
My goal is to find people who need physical products, information, and inspiration that I can provide to them in a valuable way.
Brad definitely did that for me during our brief telephone conversation.
If you are interested in learning more about Brad and his brand, visit AmazonSherpa.com.
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