Scott: I’m ready to blow this thing off John.

John: Yes! Scott is the founder and host of the amazing seller podcast, where he helps regular everyday people start selling products that make money on Amazon in their own websites. He generated over $300K in his first twelve months after starting his own Amazon business and has now taught and inspired thousands of new entrepreneurs through his take action approach.

Scott, take a minute and fill in some gaps from that intro and give us a little glimpse of our personal life.

Scott: Yeah, well. First off, I just wanna say thank you so much for having me on, but this is awesome, because I wanna be able to really let people know a little bit about me, but also to inspire people, and I think that’s what your show does really well. Myself, I’m a 44-year-old guy, I’ve been married for 22 years to my beautiful wife Lisa, I’ve got three beautiful children, ranging from 9, 18 and 21. Yes that’s right. All those different age gaps and I also have a dog, Brodie who we love as part of our family.

So, yeah. Family is first for me, that’s what I do everything for. That is my why. I know you’ve talked about that and a lot of people have talked about that, but I really believe in that. And, that’s what drives me to do what I do and then to serve other people. So, that is a little bit about me, in a nutshell.

John: Well, I’m excited to have you back on the show Scott, because Fire Nation if you’re recognizing this voice, he did grace us with his presence on Episode 1149, which seems like yesterday Scott, but it was actually 497 episodes ago.

Scott: Crazy.

John: So, that’s just you know the world that we live in, when you do a daily podcast. But, on that show Fire Nation, Scott talked a ton about how to crush Amazon, and we talked about this great free workshop that he has for his Amazon course, it was very Amazon focused. Which by the way, we’ll be talking a lot today about Amazon as well, for sure, because that’s what Scott does. But we’re really gonna be diving in to his story as well. Because, that’s the core, that’s the really synthesis of EOFire as unpacking inspiring, successful entrepreneurs. Find those commonalities in their journeys.

And, Scott, you within your journey have the ups, you have the downs. I remember talking about the worse moment; I remember talking about one of your greatest ideas to date. But first, just break down for Fire Nation, what would you consider your area of expertise?

Scott: I think my area of expertise, and it was hard for me, for the longest time to be able to figure out what that was. But, I think it is communicating, breaking down, distilling things that might seem complicated to others and really breaking it down and conveying that to regular everyday people, like myself. I think that a lot of people can over complicate it, with all of the tech language and mumbo jumbo, and it’s kinda like it gets confusing and I think that I’ve been able to do that.

I also feel as though I have a super power, which I think everyone has if they want to have it. And, that is the ability to take action and then receive those results and learn from those results. So, I think that is one of my strengths – one of my strengths is really being able to break down something that seems complicated, chunk it down and create a system to go through, and then just follow that. So, you can go ahead and get that result.

John: I’m glad you said that it took you a while to figure out what your area of expertise was. Because Fire Nation, it just doesn’t come overnight, and by the way it should be hard to get to that realization because your area of expertise is unique, it’s special, it’s you, you have to do the work to uncover that. You’re not going go in to your back yard and just put one shovel in and strike gold. You gotta dig and dig and dig, you have to work and work and work to get to that area of expertise. So, just realize you should be moving towards that.

Now, Scott you have found that now. What’s something that we don’t know about your area of expertise, that is entrepreneurs, it’d be pretty helpful to know?

Scott Well, I think the biggest thing right now, is people taking advantage of resources that are already out there versus reinventing the wheel. I watch Shark Tank; I think you’ve said that you’ve watched it in the past. It’s like the biggest thing there is that they always say, “Before you go all in, you have to prove the concept”. You have to understand that there’s other people out there that have probably already validated your idea, and then for you to either take advantage of that or build something better or more unique.

That’s why I love talking about Amazon, because that platform really does allow us to do that. It allows us to tap in to a market of buyers. People that are paying money for stuff and then we can learn about that market. Whether we want to sell digital products down the road, or if we just wanna sell physical products we can do that. And even if you’re not gonna ever sell on Amazon, I like it because I can do market research by digging through the reviews, seeing what people like, what they don’t like and then learning the language of your market.

John, think about going down years ago to your competitor down the road, and listening to what their customers were saying about their products and services. It just wasn’t possible, right. So, I see this as being a huge advantage that people and businesses are not taking advantage of. So, I like to look at this as, I’m using Amazon, you can go to eBay do a very similar thing. You look at all of the feedback that people are getting on those businesses. There’s so many, Etsy is another one. There are all these platforms that they built of buyers, not people searching for how to fix X, Y, and Z.

So, I like to really go out there and kind of let people know that, it’s all out there for you. They even have a platform that you can sell on. They take care of all the text stuff, you don’t even need a website, you don’t need traffic, you don’t need merchants account, any of that stuff. And, you can just go out there and really jump in and see what happens by looking at what the market is already buying and what they’re already saying what they want and what they don’t want.

John: Fire Nation’s successful entrepreneurs, we are all standing upon the shoulder of giants, it’s simply a reality. That phrase good artists copy and great artists steal. Let’s be honest, Scott and I are friends so we can kinda joke about this now, but listen, I learned from the greats like Lewis Howes before on how to build webinars and funnels and stuff. Scott found me, fell in love with what I was doing, and he just went ahead and applied everything that I was doing for Podcasters’ Paradise to his community. Same, landing page, same funnel, same flow, because he saw what was working. He didn.t want to spend his time recreating that wheel.

He would send me screenshots; he’d be like “I hope this is okay JLD?” I’m like “Of course, it is”. You know how many people that I’ve copied on my way. I’m not inventing everything either. And, to one of your earlier points Scott, that I wanted to hammer home. People have an idea all the time, and I’m talking about you [inaudible] [00:06:28] and you come to me and say “John, I had this great idea, then I googled it and, aww, somebody’s already doing it, back to the drawing board” and I say, “My friends, Fire Nation, this is proof of concept”.

The fact that somebody’s doing your idea that your zone of genius, your passion and is generating revenue. Now, just figure out a way to do it differently. Figure out a way that you can add your UVD, that unique value distinguisher. Find your way that you can add your personality in to it and do it, and go forth and conquer.

So, love that amazing. Now, Scott let’s dive in to your story, because again it’s been the ups, it’s been the downs. 44, you are right now, you haven’t lived this perfect life. So, take us to what you consider your worst entrepreneurial moment to date, and tell us that story.

Scott: Yeah, I loved this flow that I had to go through to, it actually let me do a little soul searching, John. I wanna just let you know that.

John: I love it.

Scott: Yeah, I loved it too. And there are a lot of different moments, and I think we’ve all heard that from everyone that’s been on your show pretty much. It’s like there have been tons of lessons learned, and those fears or dips in the journey. But, I’m gonna go back to when it all kinda started, as far as me breaking in to being an entrepreneur. Because I think that was one of the lowest points of my life.

I graduated high school, I never went to college, I actually started working for my father’s construction company. Just with three of us we built that in to a $2 million a year business, locally brick and mortar. Pretty good, but I was working 60+ hours a week, sometimes or more, and I was newly married. I was married at 21, we had our first child when I was 22. I told you guys, I have a 21-year-old daughter, so –

John: Do the math.

Scott: Yeah, do the math. So, I was 22 years old, and I’m working and my wife wanted to stay home with the kid. We wanted her to stay home with the kid. She had a really good job. She was actually; she still is, five years older than me. And, she had a great job, she was making back then, I think $40,000+ a year. So, I’m sitting here, a kid doing construction, making maybe $30-35,000 a year and we decided to let her stay home. But, the problem with that was that meant I had to work more hours. And I did, I was skilled at being a contractor.

We did really well, I was able to help my father build that company, but I was working myself in to the ground and I wasn’t able to see my new baby and enjoy my new child. And I got frustrated and I did that for just about seven years, and then at that point I remember saying to my wife, “I don’t know how much more we can do this”.

We’re just barely paying the bills on my salary. Even though I’m working 60+ hours a week. We had a credit card debt, but I had in the back of my head this thing saying “Scott, you never went to college”. You’ve got no degree, what else are you going to do? What’re you gonna do, you gonna go be someone else’s worker, or what’re you going to do that’s going to allow you to get to that next level, to where you could maybe make six figures a year.

And, I was really just kind of soul searching at that point, feeling really much like a failure. Walking around feeling like a failure, feeling sick to my stomach at times. Not being able to sleep some nights, and my wife was so supportive and she said, “You know, you’re smart, you just don’t realize what you have inside of you, you have to really just dig for it and it will emerge”. Well, after about, I think a month or two after that, she had come to me with an idea.

She’s like “What do you think about us starting a little part-time photography business?” I’m like “Well, hello I don’t know anything about photography; you don’t know anything about photography”. But, she did have a good eye with the camera, she was always told. And, we had gone and taken our kid at the time to a local photography studio, and we knew we could do a better job.

So, long story short, we ended up doing that. We started a part-time business. I knew nothing about computers. And a little side note, I used to make fun of my father, because he had a computer and I said I would never own a computer in my life. Never, I’m not gonna sit at a computer all day long, I don’t know who sits on a computer. Well, then I immersed myself in to Photoshop and learning it. There was no YouTube back then, none of that stuff. I learned it with a big old thick book, about a six-inch book, and I learned it.
Again, fast forward, we built that in to a business where I was able to leave my job. We built that in to a six-figure business, and at that point we did create our own hours, our own schedule, we were able to create our own revenue, if we wanted to have a raise we just had to do more promotion, and all of that stuff. And then, I won’t go in to that other story, but then from there that graduated me in to teaching Photoshop online, which I never thought I would ever be a teacher. So, that’s it in a nutshell, John.

John: And, just look at how that door can open Fire Nation. You didn’t know that when Scott was gonna open up that photography studio, that he was gonna start teaching Photoshop, that’s gonna kinda lead in to this online world, where he now sits today. That’s just taking that first step and going back to the take action approach that Scott’s now become very well known for. Now, Scott what’s one of your greatest ideas that you’ve had. Let’s move on to that next story, where you had this great idea, you took action, and you had success from that. But, take us to the moment that idea happened, walk us through that. How do you turn it in to success?

Scott: This is awesome, going back to thinking about the story. It’s really cool to go back. I think everyone should go back and look at those different doors that open because you did something that you were uncertain of.

John: And, prepare for your, you know Fire interview while you’re doing it, right?

Scott: Exactly. So, I basically started the photography business. We were doing really well with that. We ran that for, gosh, almost nine years, and then we started to hear about this online stuff, where you could sell products online. So, I started seeing on eBay people were selling things. You know, just random stuff, and I started to sell my digital templates for Photoshop on eBay. So, I was selling them for $19.95 on a CD. And, I started selling them and I’m like “Oh my gosh, these things are starting to sell”.

John: Now, about what year is this, Scott?

Scott: Probably, around seven years ago.

John: Because you said CD, I knew it had to be a little while.

Scott: Yeah, yeah, yeah. There wasn’t even DVD yet. DVDs came out and then we said “Oh, cool we can fit more on”, so we can give more templates. Yes, so we basically started to sell those CDs, they started to sell, and we started saying “Oh my gosh, this is crazy, this thing actually works”. It was again another “Aha”, because we’re like, wow, this can work, people do buy stuff online, and we started doing okay with that. Maybe an extra, I don’t know, couple thousand dollars a month in CDs and I’m like wow, this is crazy. So, then we started to also hear that people were starting to teach what they learned online.

And, again, fast forwarding a little bit, I built up a community of people, because I started following people online that were doing like, build an email list, build an audience. And, all I did John, was I created my first YouTube video. I put it up there telling my story about my wife and I starting up a photography business, and we started to build an email list. We built an email list of a 1,000 people in probably about, I’d say about three to four months. All organically, no paid traffic and I just kept giving – it was kinda like the Jeff Walker style where I was giving them value, and I wasn’t asking for anything. Then I started asking what they wanted, and then eventually I decided to create a little mini course.

And, I let people know about it, just like Jeff Walker had said and all that stuff. I let them know the day that it was gonna go live, and I’ll never forget the day. I was actually supposed to be, at the day I didn’t realize it at the time, with my kids, I had two kids at the time, my son, and my daughter. And, it was bowling after school, and I was the guy that was in charge of watching the kids and stuff. I didn’t realize at 3:00 pm my launch was supposed to happen, and I’m like “Oh my gosh”, freaking out, when I said to my wife, “I’ve got two pages, I need you to just change the URL on this one to this one, and all you gotta do is do that, and then just click refresh and it’ll be good”. And she’s all nervous.

Well, she calls me at 3:05 pm, it went live at 3:00 pm, she calls me at 3:05 pm, she’s like “Oh my gosh Scott, you’re never gonna believe this. There’s like $3,500 in our PayPal account”. And we were charging $127 for this course. I’m like “Holy Crap that’s awesome”. She goes “Hold on a minute”, she refreshed again, she goes “Wow, there’s $5,500 in there now”. It started coming in and I’m like “This is crazy, are you sure?” and she’s like “Yeah”, she refreshed it again and she’s like “There’s $7,200 in there now”. And, I’m just blown away, I can’t even think straight, I’m feeling weak, I’m feeling I’m in another world. This cannot be happening to us.

And it was, and that was the change of my life in this online space, and knowing that people out there, they want value and they will buy from people that they know, like and trust. And, that right there turned in to, I think we ended up at around $14,000.00 for a three-day launch. And we closed it and all that stuff. That was life changing, because I think it took us probably in our fourth quarter of photography, it would probably take us three months to make that amount of money at that time.

John: I’m gonna go in a little different direction here, but one thing that I pulled out from what you’ve been chatting about, both in these last two stories, Scott. Is, you were really weighed down with limiting beliefs, and it’s so common Fire Nation, Scott’s saying “What else can I do, I don’t have a college degree, who would ever buy this course from me? Who am I to create this do that?”

Limiting beliefs, and a lot of people are scared of failure, and they recognize they’re fearful of failure. But what they don’t realize that’s so true, and can even be a bigger killer, because often times a silent killer, is people are fearful of success. And a lot of times it’s subconscious, because you’re like “Oh my god”, what is this gonna change. What’s this gonna do? People are gonna look at me differently, and a great book by T. Harv Eker, who is also a past guest of mine Secrets of the Millionaire Mind.

If you start achieving some form of financial and just business and overall life success Fire Nation, you have to read that book. Because you’re going through this subconscious battle in your mind, whether you know it or not. Again, it’s subconscious, of this success. And, you’re gonna hit this wall, this ceiling if you don’t unpack that and really do this deep dive for yourself.

So, Scott fast forwarding to 2017, you and I have known each other for a number of years, you’ve supported both the Freedom Journal and the Mastery Journal launch. You’ve seen the things that we’ve done here at EO Fire. I’ve seen what you’ve done with everything with your business. What are you most excited about today going forward?

Scott: Right now, it’s about allowing people like me that didn’t believe in themselves, to be able to get some taste of, it can work. You know what I mean, like getting that first $1.00 or that first $1,000.00 and then making a believer out of themselves. Not because I said it worked, but because they see that it worked. And, right now, we actually just created this thing called the 1KFastTrack. And, really what it is. It’s to take people from zero to a $1,000.00, within six weeks or less. And, the way that we’re doing that is to really go out there and not even worry about, like finding your own unique product, or anything like that.

It’s like going out there and hustling a little bit. Maybe finding stuff that you already own and selling that on eBay. Or maybe going out and doing a little bit or retail arbitrage, which we call it. Which is going out buying product low, that you find at discounts and then selling high on Amazon. That’s what we’re doing and that’s what I’m so fired up with, we just did a baiter group, actually following exactly what I talk about, and that you’ve done in the past, and I’ve learned from you as well. It’s like test it out before you actually run through a full course. And, we did that with 50 people and we actually sold that out in six minutes, from when we opened that up.

We only had 50 people in, and already right now that group has already generated over $5,000.00.

John: Wow!

Scott: Which is just amazing. So, we’ve got some believers in that group now right. So, hopefully we can take those people and then graduate them in to maybe doing something a little bit more like your own physical product in the future. But, again, we have to get them from point a to point b, before we can bring them down the line. And, that’s what’s we’re really super super excited about, and that’s my mission for 2017 really, is to help 500 people generate a $1,000.00 pm to help pay their mortgage or their rent, or college loans, whatever it is. That’s my mission that’s our mission over at TAS. And, that’s what I’m really really fired up about.

John: I love that. And finally, one thing I wanna really just uncover here, and really kind of dive in to a little more. Is, you might be listening to Scott and saying “Well, yeah I understand the retail arbitrage, like buying something for less and then selling it for more, but how do I get on to Etsy? How do I get an account to be a seller on Amazon?” All this stuff. The key thing is that No. 1 recognize there is work that’s involved with setting this stuff up. But the beautiful thing is, and I experienced that a 100 times over with my most recent launch of the Mastery Journal. Once you’ve laid down the railroad tracks, everything becomes so much easier.

So, it was super super difficult for me creating my first physical product last year for the Freedom Journal, finding the printer, finding how to ship it over here, getting my distributors in the US. Getting the journals in to Amazon, on to Shopify, all this stuff. Fast forward a year during my second launch of the Mastery Journal, it was not even one tenth of the work, it was like one one hundredth of the work, because everything for the railroad tracks were just laid down.

I just put that puppy on those railroad tracks and then, boom, snap my fingers, my Shopify store is up, the book’s already in Amazon it’s available. My distributors just received the books that are already printed, and now they’re ready to go. It was just so much easier. So, yeah there’s upfront work, but realize you’re gonna be paying the dividends for decades to come, once you put in that work.

Now, Scott, obviously, you’re gonna be crushing the lightning rounds. But first, you’re gonna take a minute to thank our sponsors. Scott, are you ready to rock the lightning rounds?

Scott: I am fired up to do the lightning rounds, to be honest.

John: What was holding you back from becoming an entrepreneur?

Scott: I think it’s simple. Not believing in myself and feeling because I didn’t go to college, that I wasn’t going to be good enough. That I wasn’t going to be able to get a job that would pay me a more unless I did more.

John: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

Scott: Focus on helping people get what they want and the money will follow.

John: What’s a personal habit that contributes to your success?

Scott: Generally, working out first thing in the morning, getting it out of the way, and then eating right as best I can throughout the day. And, I think I’m gonna give you two on this one. Is to really continue to be inspired every day, whether that’s listening to podcasts, audiobooks, or people that you admire. Like me it’s Tony Robbins, maybe Eric Thomas, Michael Hyatt, those guys. Those would be, I guess my things that keep me moving.

John: Share an internet resource like Evernotes with Fire Nation.

Scott: This is gonna be a really really easy one here, and I know a lot of people have probably already said it. But, to me overall for all businesses that I run. Google Drive.

John: Google Drive is key. I mean just the ability to collaborate, to have everything in the cloud.

Scott: It’s amazing.

John: Move to different computers. I mean, here I’m on my desktop in my studio. I go down and pull out my laptop, it’s right there. Amazing. If you could recommend just one book, Scott, what would it be and why?

Scott: This one here, I know it’s been mentioned, but I have to say it, because it is my ultimate favorite and I go to it all the time. It’s The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy.

John: Love that. Past guest of EO Fire, Darren Hardy. And a trick question, I’m not gonna say a trick question. Surprise question, Scott. When is your book coming’ out?

Scott: I knew you were gonna ask that, because we talked a little bit about that. Well, actually I do have something in mind; I just don’t know what it is a 100 percent. Kinda like you had said in when it –

John: Totally.

Scott: Speaks to me, it will be written.

John: Yes, I love that mentality, and that’s why it’s gonna be a great book, for that exact reason. So, Scott, let’s end today on Fire with a parting piece of guidance, the best way we can connect with you, and then we’ll say, bye bye.

Scott: People need to believe in themselves, even when you feel like, you know what I’m not good enough, or I don’t have – I don’t have the right skill set. You can have the right skill set and you probably already do have things that other people don’t even know. Or that you don’t even know that are that valuable. So, really do a little bit of soul searching, look in to your life. Look at what you’ve done in the past that you would look back and go “Oh, wow, that helped me get from here to here”. And, you’re gonna start to see those strengths.

And, I really think that people need to spend time on really getting to know themselves, and then from there trusting in that and really understanding that you will have ups and you will have downs, but it’s a part of the journey.

If anyone wants to learn a little bit more. I know John, you and I did a workshop before and that link is still there.

John: Cool.

Scott: If people wanna go to that, we do upcoming ones. So that’s eofire.com/amazon and that’ll give you the five phases or it will also teach you about how to kind of go out there and discover products that’re already selling on Amazon. And, then the podcast is theamazingseller.com. And that’s it.

John: And, if we wanna maybe get on the waiting list for the 1KFastTrack. How do we do that?

Scott: Yeah, just head over to 1kfasttrack.com and yeah, we’ll be having a waiting list there. And, when we open it up it’s going to be always limited to probably 75 or 100 students at a time. It’ll be a five to six-week training.

John: Fire Nation you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with, and you have been hanging out with SV and JLD today, so keep up the heat and head over to eofire.com and just type Scott in the search bar and his show and face is gonna pop up for both of the episodes. The one we did back on 1149 and then of course today’s. So, get on over there, check it out for sure, these are the best show notes in the biz. Timestamps, links galore, you name it it’s there. And of course, eofire.com/amazon to get Scott’s free training, it’s incredible.

And Scott, I wanna thank you for sharing your journey with Fire Nation today, for that we salute you and we’ll catch you on the flip side.

Scott: Thanks a lot John.