Are you letting any fears stand in your way of pursuing the dream of starting and succeeding with an Amazon FBA business? Even though you might have read all the books, listened to the podcasts, and signed up for every related newsletter, there are those who still struggle to find the courage to start selling on Amazon. While we get that it can seem daunting, remember that you can starts as small as you like. It’s all about building up your confidence gradually and testing different things to find what you feel comfortable with. Plus—we are here every step of the way.
Today we walk you through some of the most common fears and how to get past them. We’ll break down these fears, giving you loads of advice pertaining to inventory, money, and mindset. We also talk about selling restrictions, free versus paid tools, the fear of failure, and why you should embrace the learning curve. Join us for some encouragement and to learn about the course that will teach you everything you need to know!
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Key points from episode 37:
- Busting the myth that you have to know everything to start an Amazon FBA business.
- The importance of determining your next step and consulting good resources.
- What to do if you don’t have any inventory to start an Amazon FBA business.
- Advice about sourcing inventory and starting with small investments.
- Overcoming the problem of being gated in some brands as new seller.
- Starting an Amazon FBA business even when you think you don’t have enough money.
- A word of caution to newcomers about spending money on tools and other resources.
- The two things that will help you conquer the fear of failure.
- And more!
Links and resources mentioned in this episode:
JumpStart Amazon Course- Use the code PODCAST50 for $50 off the course (limited time)
- Episode 25 – Gain Confidence & Overcome Imposter Syndrome
- Episode 17 – How to Find Profitable Inventory to Sell on Amazon When You’re Broke
- Episode 18 – How to Earn More Sourcing Money to Buy Amazon Inventory
- Episode 19 – Find Profitable Inventory Even With Limited Funds
Newbie Nuggets Deal List(RETIRED)
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Save $50 Today With Code PODCAST50
By now you know that running a successful Amazon business takes hard work, but you also want to be sure you spend your time focusing on Amazon FBA strategies that are actually proven to provide the results you’re looking for. If you’re ready to finally get serious about your Amazon FBA business, then I invite you to check out JumpStart Amazon: Build a Successful Amazon FBA Business.
JumpStart Amazon is a combination video course and ebook. The ebook is over 220 pages filled with the content and graphics you need to start a successful Amazon business from scratch. The video course features 5 main sections, 19 content-packed modules, and over 40 videos adding up to over 10 and a half hours of video training. This training is set up to help you build a solid foundation and then know how to find growth and success on top of the basics. This course is packed with more results-focused knowledge than any other ebook out there centered around starting an Amazon business. Find out more about JumpStart Amazon today.
Right now, you can save BIG when you enroll in JumpStart Amazon! Use the coupon code PODCAST50 and you’ll save $50 off the cost of the course.
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Episode 37 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.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:00:21.3] STEPHEN: Welcome to episode number 37 of The Full Time FBA Show and I am looking forward today to talk to you with my wife Rebecca about overcoming your fears of starting to sell on Amazon, Rebecca, how’s it going?
[0:00:35.8] REBECCA: It’s going pretty good.
[0:00:38.4] STEPHEN: yes, there are people who actually listen to FBA podcasts, join FBA Facebook groups, watch FBA videos, read FBA blogs and have still never started and it’s actually probably a higher percentage than you think. I’ve done a webinar before where I actually poll the people and about 10% of the people on the webinar said they have not even started selling on Amazon yet. Yet they’re watching Amazon FBA webinar.
[0:01:00.9] REBECCA: If that is you, we want to say welcome, we’re glad you’re here, thanks for listening.
[0:01:05.2] STEPHEN: Absolutely. Also, if you’re thinking, well, I’ve already started, I can just skip this episode. No, there are lessons that you can learn during this episode that will help you grow your Amazon business and overcome some maybe potential setbacks that are headed your way sometime soon and we’ll help you overcome those and help you overcome your fears with starting to sell on Amazon.
[0:01:27.7] REBECCA: Okay Stephen, the format of this podcast is going to be like this. I’m going to name one of the fears that we commonly hear either through people on our Facebook group or people like you said in webinars and other places where we kind of interact with new sellers and people who haven’t even started yet.
I will name that fear and then after I tell you that I’m going to have you tell me what you think the truth is instead, why you should not actually be afraid of that and we’ll talk about that a little bit. That way.
[0:01:59.3] STEPHEN: Sounds good to me.
[0:01:59.4] REBECCA: All right. The first fear that we’re going to talk about today as we’re talking about overcoming your fears of starting to sell on Amazon, first fear. I don’t know enough to start my own Amazon FBA business. Just flat out, I don’t know enough.
[0:02:13.8] STEPHEN: Yeah, that totally makes sense. I mean, whenever you put your time and energy and money into something, you want to make sure that you don’t make mistakes and you know, basics are on getting things started. A lot of times it’s people learning about selling on Amazon, they see the potential, they start learning a little bit, they start making their plans, they envision what it would be like to work from home but they’re actually cared to start because of that fear of not knowing enough.
The truth that overcomes that fear is that you can always learn what you don’t know. I just want to say this upfront, you have permission not to know everything in order to start your business.
[0:02:50.8] REBECCA: Yes, that’s a good way to say it.
[0:02:52.0] STEPHEN: The only thing that you need to know is what your next step is and so, there are a lot of great things and resources out there that can help you when it comes to learning how to run on Amazon business, you know, there’s free blog post and free YouTube videos, there’s also fee based courses that you can purchase to be able to learn the things that you need to know, to take that next step and to understand what that next step is.
You can always learn and you can always grow.
[0:03:19.5] REBECCA: I would say kind of a corollary to this one too is it goes along with what we’ve talked about in the past about imposter syndrome. Not just I don’t know enough but I’m not the right type of person or I don’t have enough experience and those are things that definitely can be overcome by, just taking that first step and then learning as you go. Get some basic information and then just build your confidence as you move forward.
[0:03:45.2] STEPHEN: Yeah, if anyone is interested in listening to an entire podcast episode about overcoming imposter syndrome, you can check out episode 25 at fulltimefba.com/25 to check out the replay of that podcast episode.
[0:03:58.8] REBECCA: Okay, our second fear that I want to talk about is, I don’t have any inventory to start an Amazon FBA business. It’s hard to sell on Amazon if you don’t’ have inventory. What if you’re afraid of just not having any inventory?
[0:04:13.2] STEPHEN: Yeah, the truth is that helps us overcome this fear is that there’s inventory everywhere and in fact, you might even have inventory in your own home that could be sold on Amazon, sell some of the used books to start, getting your feet wet with selling on Amazon or other items that you have. In fact, we also have an entire podcast episode about that if you go to fulltimefba.com/17, it talks about how to source inventory with no money. If you have no money, how you can still get inventory and even episode number 19, fulltimefba.com/19 is a podcast episode about sourcing with little money.
If you have no money or little money and a couple of resources there to help you find inventory all around you. But there’s inventory in your home, garage sales, thrift stores, retail clearance sections, a lot of different places but the thing is to get out there, get the free Amazon sourcing app, start scanning bar codes and you can find inventory and then once you start getting comfortable with that, you can upgrade to a sourcing app like Scoutify which is a paid sourcing app and be able to find even more inventory and make even better sourcing decisions but inventory is everywhere.
[0:05:22.7] REBECCA: This is another one too I think where you just, at some point, you do your research and then you have to just take that step of faith and say, okay, I’m going to take a risk here and I’m going to put a little bit of money behind this item or this group of items and I’m going to just see how it works. You can’t sell anything if you don’t ever list anything. Take that chance, don’t invest just tons of money right upfront if you don’t’ know what you’re doing but at some point, you’re going to have to just try it and we think that if you make an educated decision and just try listing some inventory, you’ll be very pleased with the results.
All right, the third fear, let’s talk about is, we hear people saying that as a new seller, I’m not gated to so much of anything. What would you say, Stephen, if somebody, this is when we get quite frequently in our Facebook group? That I’m a new seller, I’m just gated and everything that’s profitable, I can’t find anything that I’m actually approved to sell. What would you say to them if that is their fear right now?
[0:06:22.0] STEPHEN: I would say that you know, it’s totally understandable to have that perception but that it’s just a perception. The truth is that there are millions of items that are out there to be sold on Amazon that you are approved and the items that you currently are not approved to sell just yet, you can gradually get approved to sell those items. I mean, just keep scanning items, keep looking for it, one of the keys of success with this business is patience and so if you just go out and you, you know, can’t find much the first time that you’re approved to sell, continue to press on and keep; going and then you’ll be able to find those items, find stuff in retail stores or online stores that you can continually reorder and order again as you sell out.
But there’s items that you can get approved, eventually as you grow your seller metrics but even off the bat, there’s millions of items that you can sell. You know, a resource that might be able to help you, there’s an online arbitrage sourcing list called Newbie Nuggets and it’s actually a list that helps new sellers with brands that are ungated for most new sellers.
Another tip for you is just whenever you find yourself restricted from selling an item, right there in that moment, apply for approval because a lot of times, you never know. It might just be restrictive for new sellers but people have to apply once and if they apply once and they have decent metrics from maybe the first month of their selling, they might get approved.
At least try to apply and then later you can go back and check your selling applications for brands or items that you’re trying to get approved to sell and you’ll already have them waiting for you if you don’t get approved the first time, you’ll still have those waiting where you can one click double check and apply again in the future.
That will help you be able to get approved to some more items on Amazon.
[0:08:10.9] REBECCA: Yeah, that’s the truth. There’s really nothing to be afraid of when it comes to feeling like you’re gated in everything. There are profitable items that new sellers are not gated for and just takes some time and effort to find them. And over time, you’ll become ungated in more items.
[0:08:27.0] STEPHEN: Yes.
REBECCA: All right, that brings us to fear number four which is I don’t have enough money to start an Amazon FBA business and this kind of ties back to number two, I don’t have any inventory to start but it’s also a little bit – it covers a little bit of different territory as well. I don’t have enough money to start an Amazon FBA business.
[0:08:43.8] STEPHEN: Yeah, there’ s a lot of people out there that you know, don’t have the funds, and they understand, it takes money to make money. You know, you just need to be able to pay for the inbound shipping for Amazon FBA inventory to be sent to a warehouse. Any further inventory, you need money for the monthly cost to sell on Amazon and so for those who feel that they don’t have enough money.
The truth that overcomes that fear is that you can get started with Amazon with a relatively small amount of capital. I mean, if you’re able to scrounge up 400, $500, that is a solid starting place, you can get started with even less than that but $500 would be a good starting place. Now, we have another podcast episode where we talk about ways that you can earn money to be able to use to grow your Amazon business.
Quick and easy ways that you can earn money that are also legal. You go to fulltimefba.com/18, that podcast episode helps you with that and you know, if it’s close to summer and there’s garage sales in your area. Fulltimefba.com/garagesaleprofits. It’s a webinar where I teach you how to source garage sale items which those are awesome places where you can buy something for next to nothing to sell for a lot on Amazon.
You know what? Getting a part time job for a short amount of time is possible. Do that and you can be able to earn some money to get started with your Amazon business but the one thing we definitely want to say, don’t go into debt to start Amazon business. Do what you can to give some capital other ways legal ways that do not involve debt and you can grow your Amazon business with relatively small amount of money.
[0:10:11.7] REBECCA: I just want to add to all of that too that in addition to being able to find money to buy inventory. I think it’s important to also focus on when you’re just getting started. There’s a lot of different tools out there that you’ll hear people talking about in Facebook groups and forums and what not about like you need to use this third party tool or if you’re not using this tool, you’re just missing opportunities.
There are all sorts of services and tools and paid groups that you can join and they’re good, there are plenty of them out there that will really help you streamline your business, it will save you a lot of time in the long run and it will help you find more inventory. But when you’re just getting started, don’t feel like you need to go out and subscribe to this monthly fee for this tool or join this Facebook group that cost this amount of money per month.
You don’t have to do that. If you have the capital to spend on that, that’s great but otherwise, find the free tools that are available to every seller and use those until you have enough money. It is that balance of time and money, if you have more time than money, spend the time that it takes to do the work yourself. When you get a little bit more money, you can start spending it on those tools that will streamline your business and save you time in order to make you more money.
[0:11:21.6] STEPHEN: Yeah definitely good thought process to work through when you are deciding what to spend your money on with your Amazon FBA business.
[0:11:29.1] REBECCA: All right, so our 5th and final fear that we are going to talk – 5th and final fear. I didn’t even mean to do that. 5th and final fear oh goodness, is the fear of failure. I did not even plan but I am looking at my notes here. So fear number five, fear of failure. I am just not sure I can do this business; do I have what it takes?
[0:11:50.3] STEPHEN: Yeah and again, that’s normal. If you feel that it is completely normal and the fear of failure it can be overcome and the two things that helped overcome the fear of failure is a proven plan and consistent action. There are a lot of people who’d say they want to quit selling on Amazon, it didn’t work and I asked them, “You know well, what was your plan? What were you trying to do?” and they were like, “Oh I was just trying to sell on Amazon.”
They didn’t have a plan and I ask them how much time and energy they put into it. They’re like, “Well, I was able to do weekend mornings and an occasional weekday evening.” Like no okay? That is not consistent enough. So having a proven plan and consistent action will help you overcome that fear of failure but here is a spoiler alert for you. You at some point with your Amazon business at the beginning, in the middle, anytime, you are going to fail.
There is going to be a failure, now I am not saying it is going to completely ruin your Amazon business but you’ll have failures along the way and that’s normal and so it is important for us to understand if failures are going to come that as Zig Ziglar says, “Failure is an event not a person” you don’t internalize that failure as being who you are but that failure is just that experience and as the great wise person, should I say even person?
Yoda says, “Failure the greatest teacher is” so yeah, Yoda says, “Failure the greatest teacher is” and that’s just very true and honestly what’s the worst that’s going to happen is growing your Amazon business and failing at it going to kill you? No, it is not going to and so we want to make sure that you learn from your mistakes and overcome those mistakes and turn those mistakes into lessons and education. Learn to be able to grow your business.
So, to wrap everything up, a lot of you know that I like acronyms and one of the acronyms for this episode is going to be the word START, schedule the action required today and one of the ways that you can do that is to have that proven plan and take that consistent action is to follow what is outlined in our brand new updated course Jumpstart Amazon. We have a course, it is our main beginner’s starter course for growing an Amazon FBA business into a successful income producing business.
And it is updated for 2020. It is outlining everything that you need to know to grow your Amazon business to have that strong foundation, to understand everything from, “Well do I do Escorp of do I do LLC, what do I do?” How do I handle all of those things to starting your Amazon business to creating your Amazon account, what inventory items should I do, how can I know what is the right thing to buy? Everything you can think of when it comes to getting your Amazon business up and running.
And starting to find that consistency and that growth with your Amazon business is outlined in the Jumpstart Amazon course. It is a combination eBook and video course with the content in both the videos and the eBook of the same. So you can decide how you want to learn it if you want to watch the videos, listen to the videos or read the book. We will even have close captioning, if you want to watch the videos with the text at the bottom of the screen.
And it helps you with anything that you need with your Amazon FBA business beginnings. So you can find out more information about the jumpstart Amazon course at fulltimefba.com/jumpstart and it’s got again, over 10 hours of video, we’re 200 pages of eBook and that might make you think, “Oh my gosh that is really overwhelming. That is a lot” but it is broken down into over 40 videos so that you can actually be like, “Okay, which is do I want to learn today?”
Take that video, apply it, learn it and master it and then watch the next video and so you can pick and choose what you want to learn as you go. We recommend you go from start to finish but I also know that it is possible that there is a certain need you might have. So you can find out through that with the jumpstart Amazon course.
[0:15:40.7] REBECCA: And be sure if you’re interested in getting this course that you check out the show notes for this episode of the podcast because you’ll find the good coupon code there and you can find those show notes at fulltimefba.com/37. That is the number 37 for this episode, number 37.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:15:59.5] REBECCA: All right, so that wraps up things for this week. Next week, we’re going to be talking to you about is there still room for new Amazon FBA sellers? That is going to be another one that you’ll want to be sure and listen to if you’re at all thinking about should I start my Amazon business anytime soon, what do I do to start, be sure and check that one out next week.
[0:16:19.4] STEPHEN: And before we go I just want to do a shout out to one of those listeners who has given us a review on the podcast. @Jaynunez83 gave us five stars and said, “All around honest guidance” in his review states:
“I recently have to change careers due to life circumstances and was at a loss but once I started looking into selling online through Amazon, I realize there was a major potential there. However, there is so much info out there on the subject and people are just trying to sell you some kind of get rich quick scheme. When I came upon Full-Time FBA, it was like a life raft in a sea of confusion. I love Stephen and Rebecca’s way of explaining the complex terms in an even simple manner that a complete beginner can understand. I purchased their Jumpstart Amazon course and looking forward to implementing everything I learned to get my business going. I’d recommend this podcast to anyone looking to get an extra income or maybe even start a whole new business.”
So thank you very much for leaving that review. If you are interested in leaving us a review, fulltimefba.com/leaveareview. We’ll give you instructions on how to do so and we’re just really thankful that you’ve taken the time out of your busy life to spend some time talking to us and listening to us, talking about selling on Amazon.
[0:17:25.1] REBECCA: All right then, we’ll be back with you next week for our next episode of the Full-Time FBA Show.
[OUTRO]
[0:17:33.2] ANNOUNCER: That is all for this episode of The Full-Time FBA Show. So 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 fulltime income with Amazon FBA.
[END]
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