Latest / Marci talks money (and life) / Selling Private Label Products on Amazon and Building E-Commerce Brands with Neil Twa

Transcript

Selling Private Label Products on Amazon and Building E-Commerce Brands with Neil Twa · Marci talks money (and life)

• Marci Grossman (00:16) Hello, I am Money Marci. Welcome. I am thrilled to welcome today's guest, Neil Twa. Neil is the CEO, co-founder of Voltage Holdings, a company that specializes in launching, consulting, selling, and acquiring brands with a focus on e-commerce. He has more than 15 years of experience selling private label products on Amazon. Welcome, Neil. Neil Twa (00:41) Hi, how are you doing today? Marci Grossman (00:43) I'm doing great. I'm thrilled to have you here. You are an interesting man with an incredible background and I'd like to kind of share that with people. Neil Twa (00:51) Thank you. Well, my pleasure. Thank you for saying that. Marci Grossman (00:54) So you are this entrepreneur, this coach who helps people with big monies, lots of zeros to do the sales, but that's not where you started. Neil Twa (01:06) No, started, the internet is a fascinating thing today, isn't it? It's kind of a standard, it's a known, but I actually knew the world before the internet existed. And in those days, there was information starting to move across AOL and chat boards and dial up internet and this kind of stuff, but it really hadn't hit its mass marketing until beyond '94, '95, '96. And of course, as we all know, into 97 to 2000 during the .com situations. When I was in college during that time frame, I discovered really that the opportunity that the internet was going to ⁓ provide, I believed it was going to provide, was kind of greater than where I was in my walk at that point. I had not had any entrepreneurial experience really other than hustling some lawn mowing and I was waiting a job to just earn some cash before I went to college. And then I had a work study at college and I went on a nearly full ride music scholarship to go to college because that's kind of a fallback plan I wanted to. Being the military, wanted to go into the Air Force and be a fighter pilot, but I did not fit into the cockpit of the F-16 at that point. They couldn't close it. I'm too tall. I'm 6'5", but my height is in my waist up and the helmet would come down and I just couldn't literally fit. So that was not gonna be something that worked. So I had to do that fallback, but no. I just always had a tenacity to keep pushing and finding out where the boundaries are of things and pushing in life. And my life has been nothing but a series of high peaks and low valleys because of that. and just learning the entrepreneurial journey through dropping out of college and getting into the corporate world because that's where money was. So I ended up in 2000 in Sprint a couple of years after they launched their mobile division. We were launching the first mobile phones into the marketplace. So that was a fascinating time. I still have the first phone number that I got that is still in my primary phone number on my mobile. Had it ever since the first ones were issued. I'm kind of dating myself, Marci, but so much has changed in such a short time frame, right? I'm not terribly old at 49, but I've seen a lot of life. Marci Grossman (03:02) I would have to agree with that. I'm a little bit older than you, and I was initially preparing tax returns by hand before we had all the computers doing virtually everything. I predate fax machines. I predate email. The world just changes faster and faster, and new opportunities come because of that. Neil Twa (03:11) There you go. There you go. Yeah, It is changing. That's right. That's right. I saw that and that's why I took advantage of it. I just wanted to be where it was happening. I thought about going and just sitting outside Amazon headquarters and seeing if they'd give me a job at college. you know, honestly, I didn't want to do the job route. I think it needs to be said. I know a lot of people are maybe in the job or someone listening to this is thinking about how do I apply finances? How do I create a business or build one or do something different? Or maybe they're just looking for financial advice on your podcast to some degree. But You know, the end result was I was just looking for ways to better myself in knowledge and education in the application of it for financial purposes. Obviously money makes the world go round. It's not everything. And if we're greedy, we can crash and burn if we're not careful. But the end result is, you know, profit in business is extremely important. And I kind of understood that to profit, I had to work. So I worked harder and sometimes 10 times harder than everybody else. When I got a job in doing that as a programmer, when I first got out into the corporate world, I didn't actually know how to program really well. I actually learned how to program between the hours about two and six in the morning. And then I would go back the next day and I would do what I learned until I became proficient at it. So I actually just out hustled a lot of people who weren't willing to work as hard as me. And I always knew that eventually I would stop doing that because I didn't, that's not really what I wanted to do. It was a means to an end. It was a way. to gain knowledge, be in the place where the money was flowing. And then I really wanted to be my own entrepreneur. I wanted to start my own business. I just wasn't sure when that time was gonna come, but I let it go. And you know, with enough time, eventually you find out where you should do things. And when you sometimes look in the rear view mirror and go, gosh, I should have done that years ago and didn't do it. That's where hindsight kicks in, right? And so I'm hoping that people listening to this today won't be in a hindsight situation. They'll be in a forward thinking situation for three to five years thinking, well, you how fast did the last three to five years go? Where could I be in three to five years? It's not that far away actually. And a lot of goals can be accomplished in that short amount of time. Marci Grossman (05:19) That is definitely true. Now you were lucky to get into these jobs without that college degree because at that point in time when you were doing they wanted to see the college degree to get in the front door. Now I think it's not quite as much. Neil Twa (05:31) It did. Yep. Marci Grossman (05:34) they really are. Neil Twa (05:34) They were actually willing to look past a lot of that back then because the thing that really got down to it at the end of the day, and this is the most difficult part for a lot of people to understand, I got into those positions because of the relationships I was willing to establish with those folks. So part of that aspect of getting forward was maybe an innate gift, something that I learned from my parents, something I maybe was given from God, but I have an ability to drive quickly into. conversations and relations with people and building like and trust relationship relatively fast. what I got down to really understanding was in that corporate world, of course there were just people and in any business there are people and any deal there are people and in any deal going forward of any kind of business you need to feel like you have a position in it and you need to know and feel like the other person is listening to you. And ironically, I think what people do with interviews and I did not do at that point was they did most of the talking. Now we're on a podcast, so I'm doing most of the talking. But in the interview, yeah, but in the interview, the strangest thing was I did less amount of talking and I was very specific with my answers. And what that was, was to give them a feeling that I was very interested in what they were doing, not just what was in it for me in that job. And that allowed me to quickly build those relationships. Then I was inside. Marci Grossman (06:27) Well, my listeners hear me all the time. ⁓ Neil Twa (06:49) that opportunity and was mine to lose. So I did everything possible to not lose it. And in that process of learning how to do it better, I simply out hustled those who had degrees. Let's just call it what it is. They felt like their degree would coast them farther. And since I had no degree, I had drive. I had initiative. I had willingness to gain and do things others were not willing to do. And we were just reading, because we're a homeschool family, we were reading about this this morning, It was the mice training experiment where they put all the mice in the perfect environment Universe 25 and They were all lazy and fat and eating and then eventually they all you know population grew and eventually the males became complacent and nobody wanted to procreate and eventually they all died off. He did that like 25 times I don't know if anybody knows that go check out you know universe 25. It's very fascinating But the end result of that was I was just not willing to just get fat and lazy on the things that were around me and we needed purpose and Drive and those mice needed purpose and Drive because they had all the food and information and things they needed to take care of themselves until they decided it was not worth doing anymore. And I just don't feel that way about life. I've never felt complacent. I've never felt like there can't be progress, there can't be learning, there can't be something new, there can't be pushing forward. And I just got to a place where I out hustled those who thought their doctorates or double doctorates would outpace me. And so by the time I got to IBM, I'm working with double doctorate degrees and MBAs and all this stuff. and I could keep up with them. Marci Grossman (08:08) book learning only gets you so far. It gets you in the door. It gets you a starting place to move forward, but you still have to do the work. Neil Twa (08:12) It can. You still have to do the work at the end of the day. Now that's the lesson of any life and business at the end of the day. And in finances or anything we have to do in business or our personal finances or whatever, we still have to do the work. There's no autopilot. You know, that's why I homeschool my children with my wife, because I don't feel like just putting them in the system is an autopilot where I can take off the throttle of learning and education and control of my children and giving them an opportunity for a worldview that doesn't limit them by other people's perceptions of it. right? And I can create that opportunity for them in an abundance thinking mindset and build in abundance into their thinking. Not the scarcity was built into my system when I was a kid growing up, because that's how we were built. That's we didn't say money in my house because it was a four letter word. You don't say it because you disrespect dad. Dad works, he provides, you want something else. You don't want more. You don't ask for more. You don't talk about more. Certainly don't talk about money because that can be seen as disrespectful. And that is not something that I've ingrained in my household. Marci Grossman (09:10) So you didn't talk about money growing up. Financial lessons you learned you picked up on your own as you were growing up outside. Neil Twa (09:12) No. Nope. As big and failed as I made them, absolutely yes. Yup, and I failed. Yup, and I've won. Marci Grossman (09:21) Okay. Well, You talked about the peaks and valleys and that's standard for a successful entrepreneur. You're going to have those big fails to have those big victories and theoretically as you get more experienced, as you get more knowledge, as you get more niched into what your skills and weaknesses are, theoretically your peaks get higher and your valleys get less high so that you're overall bringing your financial systems up. Neil Twa (09:55) You learn to learn. You don't learn what to think, you learn how to think. And that is one of the things that I've taught, again, my children and the people that are around me is I don't want you to necessarily think like me. I want you to think for yourself. I want you to be willing to think for yourself, grow for yourself, learn for yourself, find out what you're passionate and interested about, and then go after it because no one will stop you when it comes to learning about it. And that is something that I have taught my children. When you're interested and you want to do something and You don't necessarily need me to teach it to you as much as guide you through it. And then what I really want is if you're interested in it, I want you to be able to go out and learn anything about it. You want to learn about it on your own because you're interested in your passion about growing and doing it. And that comes with blind optimism. Let's call it what it is. Like if I look back at the last 18 years, there's some serious blind optimism going on, right? There has been forest and trees burned down and gone bankrupt in the process of this. There has been high peaks. where we've made great money, there's been famine in some of the steps in this process. But the thing about it is that I never went into it expecting to be guaranteed to get anything. I never expected to be entitled to anything I did. I never expected to be entitled to any opportunity that was presented. I always saw it as something I was presented to lose. It was for me to hang on to. It was not guaranteed that it would be successful. It was not guaranteed of the outcome. It was me. in there fighting to win or lose it at the end of the day. Accountability, right? So when I look out and I talk to people about business and their life and I talk about things, I ask them where their accountability is. Who are you accountable to? And if the language does not come back to I'm accountable, it's me, I take responsibilities, their a liability. You understand why? because they don't have the foundations of a successful mindset. They have a foundation of where they can address the bullet points of life. in which they objectively turn over responsibility but take no accountability for it. And that is not what a business owner does. A business owner takes accountability from the top end to the bottom, from every work, every flow, everything. You may not do it all, but no one will ever be attached to your business as much as you. So you will literally see top to bottom every aspect of it, even if you're not in every detail. So what you have to learn to do is to take those finances and be smart about how you deploy them, how you capitalize them, how you employ others or not employ others in contractual or W-2 ways to get those people into your business to help, bring that about in such a way as they take ownership of it and have accountabilities. And it really starts with hiring the right successful mindset people. This is something that I've both learned to fail at in my own walk and to become successful at in the process of failing forward through it. And I think, know, again, when I talk about this, I want people to understand that business is not for everybody. Those who succeed have a blind, optimistic success mindset that puts all accountability and failure at their doorstep and takes ownership of everything every day, every week, every month to ensure the ultimate success of that business with no guarantees that whoever they hire or whatever they do is going to work, but they're going to keep doing it for as long as it takes until it becomes successful. And that's what a key of that mindset kicks in. Marci Grossman (13:01) So with this mindset in mind and that you're homeschooling, how are you teaching financial literacy to your own children? I don't know what their ages are. Neil Twa (13:10) Yeah, we start by, yeah, money is always on the table in terms of conversations. I think we talk about it every day on some capacity. We talk about it in terms of their efforts and opportunities on a per hour, per project, per business basis. We talk about, you know, we've gone through the Financial Peace University with Dave Ramsey just to get them started on the fundamentals of a training and a course that teaches them the responsibility of saving and earning and, you know, using cash versus credit or when you use credit, when to use it as a purpose driven aspect, not as a lifestyle or gain. aspect in your personal life like I want a television or I have to go on this vacation. No, you need to sacrifice those things. If you want those things, build a line of business or a service that can then generate the income required to give you that opportunity, right? So use those lessons to treat. And then we, of course, we talk about it in the finances of our business, how we make money, how we produce products, how we support our customers, how our profit and loss works, how we have built these companies up and the different types of aspects in which they're grown and what money it took to actually do that and what time it took to do that. And of course in acquisitions and stuff, we talk about the kinds of companies, their outcome, what we're expecting to do, who's involved. We talk about all that freely and openly all the way down from gross profit to net profit and the finances of reaching a financial statement and what is a check? You know, my 17 year old is just about ready to start getting her own bank account and checks because she's employed in our company now and She's being paid to manage the creation of sponsor brand ads in Amazon with AI tool sets. She's working for, I don't know, six or seven of our clients now inside of our product partnerships, building those videos, learning how to use her creativity and ingenuity to be paid a pretty good amount of money to do that. But she's very good at it and she's an expert in becoming knowledgeable and she's gonna continue to do that. So as we go through, here's the money you have, here's the opportunities that are being created, here's. what you can do, you don't have to leave our house until you get married, but you're going to learn to start participating in the economy of our house, like any person would as they're growing and going. So we teach them the finances of it, but I'm not just going to kick her out at 18, make her get an apartment. She has gone to study college courses already since she was 16. And at the end of that, she's not really, we took her on a couple of campuses and she doesn't want to do that. She's like, I don't really want to go to college. So we don't have to. So what you can do is teach you into the business. of doing what you're doing at a larger scale until you bring more people in. And she's definitely more interested in doing that. So even my 15 year old and you know, I have a 13 year old who will be 14 in December and I got the 15 year old will be 16 in January and I got a 12 year old. So I have all four of them kind of working their way into different parts of the communication around the business. Marci Grossman (15:45) Let's talk about your business. You launch and consult and buy and sell brands. Are you actively managing them or are you kind of helping other people to buy them? What exactly does your business do? Neil Twa (15:59) Sure. So we do consult with individuals and companies based on their strategy, both Amazon or Omni-channel strategy, could be Shopify or TikTok or retail or combination of those. I do that on a very limited basis, usually very selective as to which kind of client we would support in that because we're very busy operating our own brands. We have 24 of them. 12 are directly owned in our product partnerships. The other 12 are directly managed by us, created, built and ran by our operations team. ⁓ And then we have ⁓ acquisitions, as you mentioned, we just acquired a brand last month. It's doing about 14 million a year. It's looking to grow relatively large through additional channels. That's primarily Amazon in retail. So we're now opening up Shopify and TikTok and direct to consumer channels for that brand as we grow it. And so we are at the operations level. We're tactical and we're strategic in the way that we do our business. Partly that is because my model, as I learned to grow a business with 12 employees, once upon a time. discovering that process was not really, not only not ingrained in my being as a manager or a person as a leader, but it was not really, it was a tough lesson in the management of people and operations within your own company, which is very different than a corporation, right? And with that, I realized that I needed a different way to do this and my partner and I agreed. And what we did is we set off to look for people that we could train who had. the components of the successful mindset, but not the roadmap, the one that we had been building for years and had done successfully. And I started inviting those people to come train with us for a year to mentor and disciple in the process of building a brand, to show them the path, the software, the technology, the capitalization, work with them one-on-one to get that off the ground. And so what that allowed was over three, five, 10 years, a group of people who have not only become successful in their own business through that mentoring and discipleship, but they are now operating companies that we have created and acquire. They're working with us in a product partnership level, so they own a percentage of the company. So instead of taking employees, I brought people into a profit sharing. And through that knowledge and training of their abilities now, management and goals, I have three operators that run 12 companies because they can see the systems and the processes and the automations, they run the tactical. and growth and optimization of each of those businesses. Because so much is now driven by AI systems and blinking dashboards and we move product all over the world without having to do it with our hands, there are so much economies of scale that we can build into that that each operator can run multiple brands and companies that we have separately created. So I went that route instead. And with that, then I just continue to look for those unicorns out there. who might wanna come along for 12 months and become one of those folks. They don't have to necessarily partner with us when we consult, they keep 100 % of the business. But my goal is to bring each of them into an exit within three to five to seven years. That's my plan to bring their company along with them to an exit. At that time, I look to acquire the percentage of ownership until then it's theirs. So as we build it and grow it with this scalable and saleable asset, we look to acquire it with the end under our first right of refusal. It is a no obligation to sell the company. their choice. They own the company. Should they choose to sell it, I'm the first person I would love for them to speak with about brokering an off-market deal for acquiring that. I know how they grew it. We helped them do all the processes of building it. We've seen them operate it. And I usually will say to them, if you want to have us acquire the company, stay as the operator. As we acquire a majority share, you can stay on for a double dip on the second exit. Let us bring in all the capitalization, additional resources and support you don't have. into the business to help you grow that up for another three to five years and take a second exit. And most of them were looking at saying yes to that. I've got two of those on the line right now. The other acquisition was an outside acquisition through a group that we put together called Patriot Growth Capital. It's a veteran backed, veteran funded, veteran initiative to hire veterans into the companies that we acquire, train them up at various levels of the business and give those veterans an opportunity to employ, grow and become proficient along with their families. in creating opportunities for the veteran community. Marci Grossman (19:58) you help people build their business so that you can buy it for more. Right. So everyone wins when they come and work with you. Neil Twa (20:03) Yep. Yep, so they have a good exit. That's the goal. Everyone wins when they come in. And how do they win? They stay involved. They stay in the fight. They don't quit. They overcome the objectives. They launch the products. They build a brand. With the brand comes the intrinsic value and the real saleable asset that we're talking about is that brand value. The amount of products they have is just a component of how that brand is powered. So a lot of people focus on the product side when I say it. But what they need to understand is it's the brand building and the value of that brand that becomes a saleable asset. Right. whether it's five products or 10 or 50 products, that's what wraps up into that brand. That's why we say don't marry your products because there are a lot of products out there that can flow in and out of a product based brand. They will have a certain life cycle. They may be there for two or three years or four years, but some will not stay there that long. So we continue to do our product research and development. But yeah, the goal is to build of sale. into an equitable brand that has a high multiple valuation at time of sale. to maximize the exit potential, a generational wealth opportunity if done correctly. Daniel, for example, launched in 2020 with us. Daniel was a kind of a stay at home dad, golf course manager, background, did some theology stuff and built his brand and is now in the final stages of selling that five years later for around $29 million. Marci Grossman (21:27) you're making me think of like Shark Tank, where these people compete to find someone who has the connections, the knowledge, the whatever to help them build their brand, whether they keep it or sell it. And someone coming to you would be saying, hey, this is what I'd be going on TV and hoping that five people might fight over, whereas I can just, if we connect, really work with you to have. Neil Twa (21:31) Very good. Very good. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much. You'll have the long term aspect. Yeah, we become the shark. And that's funny you mention that because Kevin Harrington is a friend of mine. I'm going to talk to him this week about another brand. He wrote the foreword for my book. I've known him since 2016. So I've been around the shark side, but not within the shark. So yeah, well, I'm not like sharking them on a deal. I'm really looking to help them actually acquire it into our private equity group for the maximum exit possible. Because it is a win-win as you pointed out. Yeah. And that is my goal for those people who get involved. So they need to think in three to five years, not three to five months or three to five minutes like a lot of Interweb people think about because we're building a real business, not a side hustle or hobby. We're building a real brand to take it into the market share and to get that market share opportunity to really exit a solid company. Marci Grossman (22:31) So many people, have a good idea, they get it started, and they just don't have the knowledge of how to build it, whether it's something they want to keep doing for the next 20, 30, whatever years, or whether they want to build it big enough for someone to buy them out so they can move on to their next project. Neil Twa (22:48) And like Daniel, they don't have to have the e-commerce experience. They have to have the fundamentals of a successful mindset, which I interview every person to find out where they are in that walk. And if it's not a good fit, I'll just say it's not the right time, come back maybe in a year. But I look to find those right people who have those foundations in place and could be trainable into the positions of getting that success to get themselves out of their own way and to see that success become a reality or I fail at my agenda, right? Which is a business that can become a acquirable, right? And so we look at that from the holistic aspect of the business and the person who could be trained into that because I don't want anybody starting and failing. I want them to follow the process. I want them to become successful. Otherwise, I failed at my five-year plan for the whole business, frankly. Marci Grossman (23:30) What do you think are the biggest mistakes that new sellers, people who are trying to create something make when they're going into e-commerce, whether it's Amazon or other sites? Neil Twa (23:39) They marry the products and thus marry the project and fall into the logical fallacy that if I serve this or I put so much time, energy and effort, I have to keep going no matter what it must serve me. And we say no, right? The sunk cost fallacy is when a product within your product lineup does not serve you and is not serving the business you have to get rid of it. That's why we say don't marry your products. Our five by five methodology is to overcome one of the biggest things, the what the heck do I sell component of this. to make people realize there are many, many product opportunities for you to sell. It's kind of like that naive thing that's like there's one person in the world, there's one soulmate. Well, that's not actually really true, is it? So the truth is that there are many, products that we can marry at some point down the line when they prove that they have the upside potential and growth required through the numbers and the business. And so really what it gets down to is I'm gonna say this very differently for those who are listening. So please huddle in for a second, because everybody gets this wrong. I don't sell products to customers. The AI engines, the marketing analytic engines of the large language models of every platform now today, sell products to the customer. I sell data to the AI engines. When I broker that data correctly with the right information, the right model of product, the right price point profitability and market potential, that I can penetrate from a test and a full product launch, I need to know that that engine understands that if I'm launching an ice cream maker, which I just did a month ago, by the way, called a Blizzee, B-L-I-Z-Z-E-E, you can check it out on Amazon, the Blizzee. People absolutely love it, because it creates ice cream in less than 30 minutes. You don't have to pre-freeze or wait for 24 hours. It literally put it together and 30 minutes later, out comes your soft serve. Super cool, innovative product. But the point was that when we launched that product, everything in the system told us that with 36 million people searching every year for that product, there were competitors at certain price points that we looked at profitability and said, well, we want our profitability to be as maximum as possible. So where is the competition we should go after? And how do we create a product data set, images, graphics, copy and presentation and narrative that matches that top product so that when people see us in the market, they think, do I like Coke or do I like Pepsi? Am I looking for a Nike or a Reebok? So they make these linguistic programming connections in their brain because we're all brand driven. As much as we don't like to think about it, we're brand driven, right? And with that, there's a pattern of continuous behavior, a psychology of pattern of buying behavior that ends up happening every time with every product. And that's where a lot of these models and engines and data sets are all now combining together to put audiences in between products and information, both in like... videos you upload on Instagram or products that you put listings on Amazon. The end result is that information then tells this engine, hey, I'm an ice cream maker that makes product in less than 30 minutes. And the engine goes, great, I got 36 million people I'm aware of that want a product like that. And so then it goes and markets it for me and says, hey, here's the 200 people, here's 2000 people. And as they start to buy and convert and make that data valid inside of that engine, it starts showing that product to more and more people pretty soon. It's 20,000 and it's 200,000 and it's 2 million. And if I've done a great job of marketing that data correctly to the engine, who's now looking to put all these people together and as fast as possible and get them to buy something in 30 seconds or less, then the data basically matures in the system. The product is simply delivered by the engine through the shipping planes, trains and automobiles down to your house. where you wanted to buy the ice cream for a night out with your grandchildren or whatever, and you're super happy about the product, so you leave a positive review. So you just told the engine, hey, I not only love the product, you got me right, I'm the right person, and all my billion data points you know about me means go find more of me. And every time that sale comes through, the engine gets smarter and smarter and smarter and more mature. And it's just a big engine, that's all it is. So what it's doing is trying to sell product to people in 30 seconds or less. It even handles the shipping, it handles the logistics, it handles the returns, it handles most of the customer support. So my job, and this is what I need people to hear, this didn't used to be this way 12 years ago. 12 years ago, I was a direct response marketer of a customer to product relationship, a business to consumer relationship. I am now a business to AI relationship. It's changed, and what does that mean? It means there is opportunities now that haven't been around since 2013. There is greater opportunity. to get into the market and see these successes than literally any time since I've been doing this. This is why I'm launching so many plans and products and deploying so much capital right now is to get as much information into those engines as possible before my competitors do. And there's only a fine window before that's gonna happen. And then it'll close down again, just like the internet originally did. It'll change. Marci Grossman (28:32) Well, and then there's going to be something next. The model that we have now will probably not be the same most efficient model in 10 years. Five to seven years. Neil Twa (28:39) NO IT'S- five to seven years, right? Why? Because the AI engines are learning at the speed and adaptability is now moving into the quantum realm, which don't even get me started on that. Cause I worked at IBM, as I mentioned, but I worked also in human machine, language learning, information, knowledge management, and systems that created the foundations of our large language models today, right? We were doing that at Armonk on the Watson computer. So what I can tell you based on the speed, we were doing that up until 2007 versus what we just saw three years ago up until today. means that the quantum side of this that is out now in the chips that control that information move at speeds that are at thought now, not limited by systems and gold patterns on circuit boards and all the other stuff that's holding them back, three to five years, it's going to be completely different again. What it's going to look like, we can theorize and I can pull my black ball open and tell you what I think it's gonna look like. But what I can tell you right now for the next three to five years, it is all about information. and data gathering and training these models on the data that matches your customer because pretty soon they are the most efficient and the fastest at moving that data between people faster than you and I can talk at this moment. Marci Grossman (29:51) That's incredible. Neil Twa (29:53) It's a whole new future of things I hadn't even considered in my lifetime, quite honestly. Marci Grossman (29:57) So people create something, they start marketing, they come to you, you help them improve the way that they market and get it to people and then... Neil Twa (30:07) Well, I even start with the concept of the product. I will tell them exactly what are the customer needs and driven from that data, how to structure that data and sell it correctly to the engine. And then what product to make sure they produce behind it from a manufacturer and supplier, both trademark, intellectual property, capital deployment, both operational capital and cap X, right? The expenditures for growth. And then show them how to cashflow that over 90 days and get that snowball rolling into a juggernaut in two, three years. through the creation of products and the economy of e-commerce brands and then let them literally learn how to run and operate it themselves free of us is really my goal until they need consultation and then we look for the exit. But yes, it's the systems, people, process and technology that I work one-on-one with my team and that individual to get them to that point. Even if they've had no experience and they don't need a product, I'll tell them exactly what to sell. Marci Grossman (31:00) Okay, and then you'll help them get to their eight figure exit. And what is that path? Is that a three to five year path? Is that a longer path? Neil Twa (31:04) That's the goal. It certainly can. Daniel's an example of that, right? He's a bit of a unicorn, but I have others that are between the one and 10 million range in five years, just to give you some scope. My goal is that every person in five years has an opportunity to generate a $5 million revenue business with a net profit of 20 % minimum. Okay, 20 % minimum net profit in the economy. So we will choose certain products that have ROI 50 to 60 % on them and have net profits 12 to $150 in net profit per unit. So when I mentioned the changes in the market, it is now a more professional, it's a slightly more complicated market to sell in than it was 12 years ago, but certain components of it are more simple, as I mentioned earlier, than they've ever been. But there are complexities now that make it more difficult to enter and know where to enter the market. So I make sure they understand their opportunity costs for entering a market above. the normal hassle people hear about when they search online for physical products and e-commerce and they end up with the idea that China owns all the e-commerce market and there's no opportunity, there's no products, there's no money to be made, there's no opportunity. So we have an opportunity cost that's changed, so we enter markets that are 50 to 500 in retail price point. We move out of that market segment, out of that mosh pit, so I show them where to target the products with the highest profitability and build that brand up into a juggernaut. by showing them the model of the products and the types of data they should be selling to these engines to align with those engines themselves. Like Amazon, for example, just one data point is a $69 average order value, not a $29, not a $12. So when people are thinking they need to sell $20 products on Amazon, you're absolutely wrong. You need to sell a product 50 to 100, and now you're in the largest average order value of a product within that system, okay? You can make your order values way higher on things like Shopify or whatever. I can do the same on Amazon. That's not the point. I just want people to know there's a $69 average order value on Amazon. If you're selling a $9 product, you missed. You are now in full revenue and vanity metrics talking about how many units you move, but you're actually just making Amazon a lot more money. And in many times you're working way harder for the system than you need to. So I want people to understand there's that sweet spot between the amount of time I dedicate to this business and how much profitability it makes, how much I keep and don't give to Amazon or any other platform, and then the ability to deploy that capital operationally to the growth of the business. So with Daniel, for people thinking about how did he get to a $29 million exit in five years, over that five years, he deployed and redeployed a million dollar credit line, okay? So he grew to the 250 and the 500 and eventually he got a creditor to give him a million dollar credit line and he revolves that credit line through his inventory turning over cashflow four times a year in his brand. Every 90 days he's turning over cashflow four times a year. That's cash on cash value growth with a 50 % ROI pushing him at about 200 % ROI over a 12 month period. That makes sense? Marci Grossman (34:02) For those who don't understand ROI is return on investment. It's an important metric you need to know if you're going to be creating a business. Neil Twa (34:07) Correct. You must know that. Yeah, and how it applies to whichever kind of business, real estate, e-com, or whatever you're doing. It's very important we understand if I'm deploying capital over a period of time, how fast is that capital returned to me plus profit? Okay, so this is where a lot of people are like, well, I don't wanna spend 3,000 to make 1,000. Well, come on now, let's stop and do the numbers here for a second. It actually makes sense if you increase the profit over vanity metrics. that just look good in terms of how much units or product or revenue I'm making when at the end that is vanity, right? What matters is what I keep, how I cashload is important and the profit is the sanity. So we have to make sure we understand the numbers. That's why I teach Marci, most everybody who comes with me gets a full, not only fundamental of business training, but a continued business training along the way that advances them through all the different levels of expertise necessary to run. a three, four, five, six, seven, eight figure business because you can't just run an eight figure business tomorrow. It's just not within your scope of business unless you've done it multiple times. It sounds really good, but you don't understand cashflow. You don't understand, well, that's a million and a half every quarter in inventory that I have to turn over and capitalize. Right. And how am I going to do that? How do I cashflow that? How do I make sure the products are running? That's a lot of risk, man. But if you're not smart and have never done it or not that you're not smart, but you've just never done it. you're ignorant to the process and inexperienced, you're going to fall over. And that's why I tell a lot of people you do not buy a company like this, an e-commerce otherwise until you've actually ran it from the window washer up to the exec floor or you will crash and burn that business. It sounds really good to buy a company until you have no idea how to run it, especially when there's problems. Marci Grossman (35:31) not experienced. So we all have problems. We all have, as you said, those valleys. How can someone reinvent their life and their income after they've had financial or career setbacks? Maybe they don't have the money to invest to create a business. Neil Twa (35:53) We do. Well, a business is something that is operated at every level of income to profit and loss on the business, really. So if I'm gonna side hustle some cash with the intent that I'd like to turn it or I plan to turn it into a business, you might do something outside of a primary job or gig like we had a guy who was a full-time pharmacist who was building his brand. while being a full-time pharmacist. I've got people who are dentists who have done this too. And I've got people who are, you know, average Joes and 19 year old high school dropouts. The intent is they're willing to find the time to do it. So limited cash and resources means if you don't have the money, then be resourceful. Be smart about how you do it, but get out there and do what's necessary to start the model and move the model. If it's an e-commerce based initiative, then you might look at just flipping some products on Facebook or eBay or something to get yourself going. so you understand the cost of goods, the marketing and the movement of it. My 13 year old runs a little eBay business. She makes anywhere between 30 to a hundred bucks a week in her pocket flipping products on eBay that she found at the local stores that she can go in and find out like shoes and clothes and know, holiday sweaters and things right now that she's listing on eBay that are selling and she ships them up and we take them and know, ship them so she can learn the model of the product movement and make some side hustle cash. You can make thousand, $2,000 a month just doing that. The process by which you do that is now learning the movement of pricing and cost of goods and the movement of a physical product until such time as you may decide you want to go to the next step, which is learning how to build a brand. At that point, you're going to have some confidence to leverage some risk to move that through the market however you want or take some of the capital you've created and some additional capital and move it out. Just know that the opportunity is out there. I think that's the most important thing people need to get. They aren't going to let it be handed to them and it isn't going to be extremely simple. If it was, everybody would do it. So don't fall into this Hopium guru mindset idea that if I just spend an hour a day, I can be a seven figure seller. Those are lies guys. Don't fall for that, okay? Those are cheap tricks getting you buying little courses and stuff like that where you don't plan or won't take any action. If you take action, you will then lead yourself to a path that says, hey, I actually need to learn this thing. And you will go find a course or a mentor who helps you do that thing because you need it to get done. And you know, you need to do it because it's the logical next step in making more money or growing your business. But what people need to do is start the process. They need to work the process and show that they're willing to learn how to make it go. I'll tell you, once you get your first little bit of sales, It's like a little dime bag of business crack. Like that point, once it starts to work, you like snort that down, I want more of that. Like you're gonna like, you know, want more of it. And the only way to grab it at larger volumes with lower economies of scale, meaning I don't need more employees in warehouses, is to utilize systems today like Amazon and others that have shipping and fulfillment methods that don't require you to flip products in your garage anymore. If you start that way, right? ⁓ They can ship the products and move them for you. So there are ways to grow your economies of scale. Marci Grossman (38:43) Hahaha! Neil Twa (39:08) in the business and the profitability, but not in the overhead. And that's what's so cool about so many of these systems that are online, setting right in front of you right now that you just need to start taking advantage of. Marci Grossman (39:18) Speaking of taking advantage, tell us about your book and the offer. Neil Twa (39:22) Yeah, in simple terms, the book is basically a continued strategy of some of the things we'd cover today. goes through a lot of the different points of building a successful company. It is not a tactical guide. So if you get a copy of it or whatever, have some copies, 10 free copies we're gonna give away today. That isn't really gonna tell you how to open your browser and push buttons. It is going to teach you the fundamentals of business, the fundamentals of... finance in these kinds of businesses, the research, the market research, there's chapter by chapter of information. It's in a conversational format because it was taken from my podcast and each person and myself that were talking about that in the chapter discuss in detail that particular area of growth in each part of the business from the research to the finance to the marketing, et cetera. And there are case studies and information worksheets and workshops that you can attend that are a part of that that go beyond the book, but teach you the strategy. of what we call our As Seen on TV strategy and how to use systems like Amazon's fulfilled by Amazon system, that big truck rolling, know, planes, trains, and automobile infrastructure that you probably use as a consumer today to actually leverage that system as a producer in your favor and be able to create a really great business that is a saleable asset. These businesses are assets that are worth more in the end than at any time during the business building phase. And that's the book. It's going to teach you the strategies of what you need to do to how to deploy that capital and time correctly. Marci Grossman (40:46) And the title of your book is... Neil Twa (40:48) Almost Automated Income with FBA. Marci Grossman (40:50) Okay, so, Neil has generously offered 10 free copies of the book to listeners of this podcast. I will have a link in the show notes. You have to use the code MONEYMARCI. And hopefully some of my listeners will check that out because I think there's a lot of great stuff to learn. Neil Twa (41:05) Absolutely. I will tell you just as a caveat, because some people catch this and are concerned, it will ask you for a credit card, but it will not charge you. That is just simply a verification we do to ensure that people don't steal the book. Marci Grossman (41:21) Fair enough. Neil, do you have anything else you want to mention before we wrap up that we didn't cover? Neil Twa (41:26) You, you're very gracious, thank you. I don't, I have spoken a lot of words today very fast. So I appreciate your listening and your questioning. I think the only thing I would just remind people again at the end here is ⁓ opportunities begin at the end of your excuses. So take some imperfect action today and something perfect will happen along the way. Just give it some time. Marci Grossman (41:46) I think I am going to steal that quote and use it. Opportunities begin at the end of your excuses. That's great. Neil Twa (41:52) Yes. Yes, they do. Anybody who's excusing the idea of time, energy, attention, or money today, you're going to miss the opportunity, but hopefully somebody else on this call will actually take that opportunity and run with it. Marci Grossman (42:01) Well, thank you, Neil. Thank you so much for being my guest today. We appreciate the time you took to join us here. Neil Twa (42:07) Thank you, it's been an honor. Thank you for having me on. Marci Grossman (42:10) And to my listeners, I will be sharing a link to Neil's information and of course about the book in the show notes. Please check him out. There is a lot of interesting information. And don't forget to subscribe, leave us a review and stay tuned. I will see you next time. And this has been MoneyMarci on Marci Talks Money (and Life). You got this.