Podcast Episode 210 – Five Amazon Coach Red Flags

Click here to subscribe to the
weekly Full-Time FBA Newsletter

Back to the main page for The Full-Time FBA Show

More Episodes from the Full-Time FBA Show podcast:

• • • Click here to see the full list of podcast episodes

Don’t miss an upcoming episode! Subscribe, download episodes, and review the Full-Time FBA Show:

• • • Subscribe on iTunes
    • Follow on Spotify
    • Follow on Amazon Music (or just ask Alexa to “play The Full-Time FBA Show podcast”)
    • Follow on iHeartRadio
    • Subscribe on Podbean
    • Subscribe on Podbay
    • Subscribe on Podchaser

Episode 210 Transcript:

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:01.8] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Full-Time FBA Show. In each episode, it’s our goal to help you turn part-time hours into a full-time income, selling almost anything on Amazon. Now, your hosts of the show, Stephen and Rebecca Smotherman.

[WELCOME]

[0:00:20] STEPHEN: Welcome to episode number 210 of The Full-Time FBA show. Today, Rebecca and I are going to talk about Five Amazon Coach Red Flags. If you’re curious about the potential of what an Amazon coach can do to help you grow your business. Well, if you’re wanting to hire one, we’ve got some red flags to look out for. To talk with me about that today is going to be the biggest green flag in my life, Rebecca, my wife and business partner and co-host.

[0:00:47] REBECCA: Hello, there. I’m glad that I am a green flag in your life. There aren’t any red flags, because we’ve been married for 10 years now, so it’s a little too late at this point.

[0:00:59] STEPHEN: Yes. What I just said just came to me at the moment and I did not plan it. So then sometimes, I’m like, “Oh, why do you have to be so, like silly or sappy all the time?” I just can’t help it. I’m sorry.

[0:01:09] REBECCA: This is true. This is what I live with non-stop 24-7, sappy –

[0:01:14] STEPHEN: To something that might be a red flag, but hopefully, to her it’s not. But let’s get in this episode of talking about Amazon coach red flags.

[0:01:25] REBECCA: For many Amazon sellers, there’s going to come a time in the course of your Amazon business when you realize that you might need some more help, some guidance, some assistance to help you meet your goals quicker and with fewer mistakes. Now, for some sellers, the best thing you can do is hire an Amazon coach. Today on the show, we’re going to discuss Amazon coaching and how to find a good business coach. More importantly, we’re going to look at the red flags that you should be looking for when you’re hiring a coach.

We’ve been helping people make a full-time income on Amazon for about a decade now. We’ve had our blog for 10-plus years. We have seen many Amazon coaches come and go during that time. We’ve also heard horror stories of Amazon coaches who have swindled tens of thousands of dollars away from well-meaning Amazon sellers who are just looking for some help in their business. As we share the red flags that we’ve seen over the course of that decade of looking at other Amazon coaches and building our own business, we’re also going to share corresponding green flags that go along with those red flags.

We’re going to not just say, don’t – watch out for this, don’t do this, but we’re also going to tell you things that you should be looking for instead. So, red flags mean, stop, practice some serious caution. Then green flags are going to mean go ahead, move forward, and this is the person that you can trust to coach you well. Let’s jump into things today. Stephen, kick us off with the first Amazon coaching red flag that you can think of.

[0:02:57] STEPHEN: The first red flag is that the coach provides a, “Done for you experience or service.” This first red flag is mainly for coaches that sell, maybe a private label selling strategy or coaching service. We’ve already covered in episode 96 of The Full-Time FBA Show, why we don’t even recommend the selling strategy of private label and why there’s a much better way to do it. You can hear that episode, fulltimefba.com/96. I will also put that link in our show notes, but there are some Amazon coaches that sell super high-priced services where they will do it all for you.

All you have to do is pay maybe at least, like $30,000 and then they’ll research the product or to the product, create the sales page on Amazon, get your product to Amazon, maybe even set it up with ads, but then crickets. After they get their money, you’re usually stuck with potentially thousands of products that are simply unsellable. That’s a huge red flag. If they’re telling you they will do it all for you, you just give them the money. They’re happy to receive the money, but that’s a red flag.
[0:03:59] REBECCA: Yeah. My question on those is, if it’s so easy, why don’t they just buy and sell that product themselves?

[0:04:04] STEPHEN: Yeah. I hear you.

[0:04:05] REBECCA: Instead of trying to sell it to you, so that you can sell it. Instead, look for the green flag of somebody who wants to show and teach you the how to, and the why, who is there to help you along every step of the path. There’s an old saying, “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime.” The Amazon coaches that are best for you are the ones who teach you and show you every step along the way. They’re teaching you to fish. They’re not just giving you fish. That’s why our Full-Time FBA Coaching Program is a 12-month program that shows you how to make a full-time income.

You’re not going to learn how to make a full-time income on Amazon in just a few sessions, just a few weeks, and without doing a lot of work. You need consistency and you need help along the way. That’s what we provide with our coaching program. We meet together at least twice a month to help you through your current issues, but also to prepare you for the issues that are going to be coming around the corner. Okay, Stephen, hit us with the next red flag.

[0:05:07] STEPHEN: Red flag number two, is if the coaching guru is saying, “It’s easy.” Nothing in this life that’s worth working at and selling on Amazon is 100% worth working at. Nothing in this life that’s worth doing is going to be easy. I mean, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it, right? Amazon coaches that tell you, “It’s easy” are just trying to sell you a service or they’re coaching. I mean, if it were this easy, would you need coaching? No, no, you need coaching, because it’s hard to overcome multiple hurdles and speed bumps along the way, especially when you’re just starting. If you hear someone say, “Oh, it’s easy. I’ll show you how.” Then run, run away. I keep thinking of the Monty Python. Run away. Run away.

[0:05:54] REBECCA: Oh, my. All right. The green flag that corresponds with that red flag is if you have a coach who admits that selling on Amazon is not easy and they don’t try to gloss over that fact. If they admit that it’s difficult. So, Stephen and I have been selling for over a decade and will be the first to admit that selling on Amazon is not a cakewalk. It’s not all rainbows and unicorns. It’s a lot of hard work. There’s all the restrictions that come as being a new seller. Even for us right now, we’re dealing with some potential restrictions. It’s hard. It’s annoying. I’m get frustrated with it.

Amazon changes their rules from time to time. That is also hard to deal with. Your competition on Amazon, sometimes we’ll tank the price of items that have been selling at a profitable price for a long time for you. That’s hard. So, while we admit that selling on Amazon can be hard, we also understand that there are so many ways to make it easier, ways to work around these things that come up that are difficult. Notice, I didn’t say that it’s going to be easy, but it can be easier than it is. Stephen often uses the illustration that selling on Amazon is the opposite of a video game. So, maybe this will resonate with any of you, gamers out there.

[0:07:12] STEPHEN: Yeah. So, video game, what happens with most video games? You have level one and it’s easy. Level one is easy. It’s teaching you the basics of the game, what to avoid, what to do with your tasks, your objectives, and giving you a basic understanding. It’s easy to get past the first level. So, you go to second level and it gets harder. As you continue to progress in the video game, it continues to get harder, but selling on Amazon is the opposite. It starts off at the hardest.

The hardest with all the restrictions, hardest with learning all the new processes and everything that’s going on. It’s harder at the beginning, but the longer you sell on Amazon, the easier it gets. Again, hear me not saying, it’s easy. It just gets easier, like with restrictions. Usually, after someone has been selling on Amazon for about six months, restrictions start to open up at a dramatic rate. So, just sticking with it for six months, it gets easier. Then after selling on a year, it gets easier and so forth. So, it’s the opposite of a video game when you’re selling on Amazon, it starts off at the hardest. Then it gets easier, which is why you might need a coach to help you through those beginning stages.

[0:08:25] REBECCA: We know and recognize that it’s not easy. That’s why you might need a coach to help you on the way. Also, to just show you what to avoid, what to prepare for, what to do, what not to do. That would be a green flag if you find a coach that does those things. I think we do those things.

[0:08:44] STEPHEN: Yes.

[0:08:45] REBECCA: That’s what we strive to do.

[0:08:46] STEPHEN: Right.

[0:08:47] REBECCA: All right, let’s get to red flag number three.

[0:08:50] STEPHEN: All right, red flag number three is that they advertise their coaching with photos of them in front of high-priced sports cars or mansions. Seriously, I thought people would see through this by now. I mean, we’re recording this in 2023. Really, this still works, but apparently, it’s still a profitable marketing strategy for some people, albeit a very misleading strategy. I mean, I’m sure you’ve seen these kinds of ads pop up on your social media feeds.

Usually, it’s the image of a guy standing by a sports car, or outside his mansion, or surrounded by attracted women. I mean, the person who wants this kind of coaching, thinks, “Oh, he’s rich enough to drive that car and live in that house. He must know all the secrets to success. Here’s my money teach me. I want that high-priced sports car. I want that 10-bedroom house with a pool and an ocean view.” I mean, little do you know that this guru might have rented that sports car or taken a pick with someone else’s car parked outside a country club he’s not even a member at or maybe he rented an Airbnb mansion for the weekend and did like a photo shoot.

I even heard of an Amazon guru who uses a helicopter to make it look like he’s successful. Now, I’m not saying that everyone who uses these strategies are being deceitful. Some of them might have actually purchased those things. But you know what? If it looks or sounds too good to be true, then it probably is too good to be true. It shocks me that this works on some people, but I guess it does, because I keep seeing it. So, that’s a big red flag for me.

[0:10:16] REBECCA: Yeah. We have a few questions that we ask in our Facebook group, whenever we’re letting in new members. Not long ago, we had a new member answer the question, why do you want to join this group with? Because your pictures do not show you standing in front of a Lambo.
[0:10:32] STEPHEN: Really, I haven’t seen that one.

[0:10:33] REBECCA: Yeah. I thought I told you about that. I was like, “Oh, good. You are definitely part of our group.” If you are not interested in the fact that we drive Kia minivans and stuff like that. We got a life to live and kids to haul around.

[0:10:47] STEPHEN: That’s right.

[0:10:48] REBECCA: Anyway, so speaking of the green flag that corresponds to with that red flag is that a coach would share just their regular life with you and not try to make it look any better, not try to make it look Instagram perfect or anything like that. If you want to learn how to sell from an Amazon coach who’s advertising from his yacht in the ocean and like put his yacht or her yacht, their yacht in quotes, because again, you don’t know that that’s theirs.

Well, that’s your choice. You could maybe benefit from them, but how long have you been following them? Do they always post from these grand locations with these high-priced items? Does this potential coach also post from the parking lot of a Walmart after a retail arbitrage trip? Do they post a quick video teaching you a realization that they had about their Amazon business while out on a walk? How about how things have not been good and their plan to overcome it?

[0:11:49] STEPHEN: That’s basically our YouTube channel from time to time. All those examples right there.

[0:11:54] REBECCA: Yeah. Do they tell you when they’re having an issue that they’re having to overcome or do they give you updates about things that are going on in Amazon that are affecting all of us? You really are looking for transparency in an Amazon coach. Recently, this year we posted a video when Stephen and I took a trip to Boston, Massachusetts with our niece to see a few baseball games at Historic Fenway Park. That was a really big deal for us to take a trip and post about it. But if you’ve been following us for a while, you know we’re big baseball fans and we’re thankful that our Amazon business gives us the flexibility to make trips like that a couple of times a year and that that’s not our normal lifestyle.
Our normal lifestyle is more picking up and dropping off at school, getting the groceries, working as much as we can, and just getting things done on a day-to-day basis. That’s really how we’re living out our dreams with the freedom that selling on Amazon gives us. A couple of big trips a year, we’ve got financial freedom with our home and our very low-key Kia cars. That’s just real life. That’s why we let you in on our lives to see both the ups and downs and how we enjoy those ups and how we respond to the downs. All right, so red flag number four, Stephen.

[0:13:09] STEPHEN: Red flag number four is that they don’t offer success testimonials of previous coaching students. If all you hear about from the possible Amazon coach is how they’re going to help you and you don’t hear from the previous clients. That’s a big red flag right there. Of course, all the guru is telling you, it sounds good when they’re just coming from one person. If it’s the person who is wanting you to hire them, of course, they’re going to speak high praises of themselves.

If they’re not sharing testimonials, either they don’t have them or the ones they do have are not good enough for you to really get a good picture of what the coach is like. So basically, you want to hear if the coaches coaching you have actually helped anybody. If they don’t have those testimonials, then that’s red flag.

[0:13:56] REBECCA: The opposite of that would be the green flag that they offer multiple success testimonials from previous coaching students. Like Stephen said, a guru can speak high praises for themselves, but some honest and descriptive student testimonials can really help you know if that coach is right for you or not. That’s why we put student testimonials on our sales pages of our courses in our coaching program. We want to make sure that you hear from multiple people from all walks of life who are singing the praises of a potential Amazon coach before you enroll in their coaching program yourself.

We actually decided to do a podcast interview of one of the Amazon sellers we helped go from being upside down on a mortgage to moving to a new state, buying a farm with cash that they made selling on Amazon. It’s an amazing and inspirational story. You can hear that full interview at fulltimefba.com/195. It’s stories like that, that can help you know that your Amazon coach will actually help you and not just take your money and give you a little bit of a push, but will actually help you and coach you to success. All right, one last red flag, Stephen.
[0:15:05] STEPHEN: The final red flag, number five, and this one’s going to be quick, is if an Amazon coach only shares the possibilities and the promises to, “Share all their secrets with you after you hire them, not before.” If the potential Amazon coach only tells you about what’s possible and all the success that they’ve had and the success that others have had, maybe, and not at least share some parts of the how, how they’ve been able to be successful, how that they’re a quality teacher, how that they have a really good and connecting teaching style. That’s something you really should be wary of. I mean, if they only sell the destination, but don’t talk about the journey to get there with actual how to steps and that’s a red flag.

[0:15:46] REBECCA: Yeah. That’s just a lot of hype. You can see through that hype sometimes to see that like there’s not a lot of substance. The opposite of that would be looking for the green flag of a coach that earns your trust and teaches you things to help you along your Amazon journey before they even invite you to be coached, before they even invite you to join any type of paying membership.

Just to put it right out there, and we’re assuming you probably already know this since we’ve been mentioning it along the way, and you’ve probably heard us talk about it before on previous episodes. We would love to help coach you on your Amazon journey. We recognize that in order to best coach you, we need to earn your trust. Before you can be coached effectively, you need to trust your coach. That’s why we have this podcast. We have over 200 episodes to date showing you tips and stories about things that have been successful for us, inspirational stories from other students from partners of ours. Just helpful interviews that are all focused on selling on Amazon.

We also have a YouTube channel with over 200 training videos. We have a blog with over 10 years of posts. Those are all resources that we’ve put together over many years. We’ve updated regularly, to make sure that we can show you that you can trust us. We have good content. We found the way to make a full-time income selling on Amazon. We would love to coach you and how we did that.

Another way we’re showing you that you can trust us to help you as your coach is it starting on October 23rd, we’re inviting you to a free five-day online workshop called the Amazon Q4 Income Accelerator Workshop, where it’s our goal for the free five-day workshop to be even better than the last paid Amazon training that you invested in. You can sign up at fulltimefba.com/workshop to experience the workshop live or to watch it via the replay. In the workshop, we’ll share some of our best Q4 profit-making strategies as well as the path to how you can make a full-time income selling on Amazon. That link again is fulltimefba.com/workshop.

[0:17:53] STEPHEN: There you have five red flags. Five green flags. You’re now equipped so that when you’re ready to hire an Amazon coach to help you reach or maybe even exceed your goals, that you’re now equipped with the knowledge of what to look out for to avoid those bad Amazon coaches and what to look for in a quality Amazon coach that can help you make a full-time income selling on Amazon.

[0:18:18] REBECCA: Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of the full-time FBA show. As always, the show notes in the transcript of this episode, as well as any links we have mentioned, can be found at fulltimefba.com/210. That’s episode number 210, if you’re keeping track. Also, while you’re there, make sure you’re signed up for our newsletter at fulltimefba.com.

[0:18:39] STEPHEN: Next week on the show, we’re going to answer a question that we get asked from time to time. If you’re so successful in Amazon, why do you sell courses? Why do you offer coaching if you’re so successful? We’re going to answer that question in depth next week on The Full-Time FBA Show.

[OUTRO]

[0:18:56] ANNOUNCER: That is all for this episode of The Full-Time FBA Show. Head over to fulltimefba.com/podcast, where you will find the show notes and links from this episode. While you’re there, subscribe to our newsletter where you’ll get several free downloads of our popular and helpful Amazon FBA resources. Now, take action on what you have learned today, so you can find success at turning part-time hours into a full-time income with Amazon FBA.

[END]