Episode 87
We continue our interview with Kris Gramlich and Dustin Kane from Sellozo Kansas City to pick their brains in running a successful e-commerce business. This time, they talk about the importance of research in starting in e-commerce, some reminders e-commerce sellers should know about when scaling, and the characteristics that drive people to success. Also, don’t miss the exciting Fire Round in this episode, where we know more about Kris and Dustin outside their work.
Tune in now and learn from two experienced Amazon sellers and amazon advertising!
[00:01 – 04:33] Opening Segment
- We share our key takeaways from our interview with Kris and Dustin
- Listen to the Fire Round later!
[04:34 – 14:18] Why Product Research Is Crucial
- Is there an opportunity right now in selling on Amazon?
- Dustin shares his insights
- Kris explains why product research is so important
- Tips and tricks about inventory research you should know
[14:19 – 19:01] Reminders in Scaling Businesses
- Why invest in your own warehouse
- What you should be cautious about when scaling your business
- Want some Amazon refunds? Check out Getida
- Promo code: FTM400
[19:02 – 30:51] Why Try Sellozo Now
- The question that David wants to ask all Amazon business sellers
- Hear the answers of Kris and Dustin!
- They break down the services offered by Sellozo
- Learn more about Kris and Dustin in the Fire Round!
[30:52 – 33:03] Closing Segment
- Connect with Kris and Dustin. Links below
- Final words
Tweetable Quotes:
“If you’re gonna do [ecommerce], do this faster.” – Kris Gramlich
“I think you have to have an overarching optimistic attitude…that you’re confident, that you can accomplish anything and overcome setbacks .” – Dustin Kane
Resources mentioned:
- AliExpress
- Alibaba
- Recommended books
Email kgramlich@sellozo.com or check out Sellozo online and on their social media pages: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, and YouTube.
- Kris on LinkedIn
- Dustin on LinkedIn
- Listen to their podcast, Two Amazon Sellers and a Microphone
——————————————————————————————
Send us a voice message and let’s see how we can help you!
Email us –> support@firingtheman.com
David 0:00
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Dustin Kane 0:41
The issue for a lot of them is they go in and source their first product without having really any clue how much it’s going to actually cost them to launch that product. And if I was starting, and I had a small budget, I would tell everybody, you’ve got to go to the fringes a little bit. If you don’t have a lot of money, you’ve got to find a product that maybe has a less search volume, does do sales, is someplace that you can compete without maybe like, you know, $200 or $1,000 images without videos.
Kris Gramlich 1:17
So what advice would I give to somebody starting an e commerce, if you’re gonna do this, do it faster, like go find something on AliExpress and just learn the process of listing stuff on Amazon. We’ve talked about this on our show before, I’m sure you guys probably agree as we listened to podcasts for like a year and a half and watched videos for almost a year and a half before we even made the decision to launch a product. Looking back, I wish I would have just picked something, learned how to do it. And then just you know, figured it out moving forward. So if you’re thinking about launching an e commerce, just pick a product, small quantity, launch it on Amazon and go from there. There was asin to count level. So luckily, like I mentioned earlier, I have minimum orders 200 units, I can go 100 units if I really wanted to. So it’s not really affecting me yet as far as scalability goes, because I’m still just sending in a couple 100 units of a product. And I have a backorder ready for when I do my launch, I can just easily send in another 200 units. So I haven’t had really much restrictions there as far as how many units I can send in. I see it all over online, but an account restriction yet either like I haven’t had any, like you can’t send this in because your at max limit, it’s a small product. So that’s another bonus is I’m not taking up a lot of space. It’s really lightweight. So I’m not really affected yet on that for my account.
Dustin Kane 2:41
When I first started, I mean, I was telling friends and family I’m like hey, I’m making a lot of money with this ecommerce. They’re like, so what are you doing exactly? And I’d start to try to explain it and it’s like going straight over their heads. I mean, it was like, what? Are you reselling stuff? What’s going on? I’m like, no, I’m trying to create my own brand. So I’m like, I’ve got factories in China that make my products and I’ve got my design team, aka Fiverr, that’s, you know, creating packaging. And that’s like, that’s a brand you can go look me up, it’s on Amazon.
Intro 3:15
Welcome, everyone to the firing the man podcast. A show for anyone who wants to be their own boss. If you sit in a cubicle every day and know you are capable of more then join us. This show will help you build a business and grow your passive income streams in just a few short hours per day. And now your hosts, serial entrepreneurs David Schomer and Ken Wilson.
David 3:39
Welcome everyone to the firing the man podcast. On today’s episode, we are joined by Dustin Kane and Kris Gramlich. Now if you didn’t tune into last week’s episode, this is part one of our conversation. In part two, we get into some awesome topics, including one of my favorites, inventory restrictions in 2021. Ken, what was something that stood out to you in the second half of our conversation?
Ken 4:03
Yeah, you know, we talked with Dustin and Kris for a while and we had to break it up into two episodes, but so much content in there. Dustin and Kris have both been selling on Amazon for over seven years. And they just share so much wealth, their knowledge and value on lessons learned and what not to do. And then what to do. They share some of their biggest wins, as well as, one of my favorite parts of the end the fire round. Some of the book recommendations are you know, I hadn’t heard before and you’re not gonna want to miss this episode
David 4:32
on the show. So what advice would you guys give to someone just getting started in e commerce?
Dustin Kane 4:38
Okay, okay, I’ll go first on that one. The landscape is different than it was when we started. You know, I think Chris and I probably have a benefit to answer this question because we literally talk every day with sellers and a lot of them. It’s their first product that they’re talking about and the issue for a lot of them is they go in and source their first product without having really any clue how much it’s going to actually cost them to launch that product. And if I was starting, and I had a small budget, I would tell everybody, you’ve got to go to the fringes a little bit, if you don’t have a lot of money, you’ve got to find a product that maybe has a less search volume does do sales, is someplace that you can compete without maybe like, you know, $200 $1,000 images, without videos, you know, I’m experimenting with a lot of this stuff right now, like products that might sell like five or six units a day, that maybe they’re cheap, but there’s not a lot of competition there. And you can completely stand out, I think for someone starting, you’ve got to really know that the product you select impacts, what it’s going to cost, you cannot just come in and start selling something that’s super popular, right now has a lot of competition and say that your launch budget is $1,000. It’s not gonna work, you’re gonna spend $1,000, in your first two days of advertising. So you got to know that I think that’s the people we talked to, that’s usually the most difficult issue. There’s so much opportunity, I feel like, maybe more than ever to start on Amazon. But not if you’re gonna sell a dog leash, or dog brush, or something that’s got one key word, that’s the main driver, and there’s 1000s of commoditized products for it. That’s the mistake we see all the time and, you’re just so much better off. I mean, pick something that’s a little obscure. I mean, I was talking to someone the other day, I went on Amazon, and my dryer broke or stopped working. And I was digging into it. And the piece that I needed to fix was called a thermistor, or something like that. And I was like, What the hell is this, and I looked it up on Amazon. And it’s a little plastic piece is like 10 bucks, and the thing fit every unit every like dryer unit possible. So it’s like a generic piece. And I was like, that’s a perfect product. Like you can buy a bunch of those for cheap, there’s not a lot of competition, I looked at the search volume, there’s pretty decent search volume for it. And you wouldn’t think that but if I was starting again, I would start something like that if I didn’t have the money. And I would not make protein powder my first product. For sure. I think that’s the best advice you could give anybody because product selection is always the problem. Usually.
Kris Gramlich 7:31
I’m gonna piggyback on that. Product research is super important, right? Like product research, you’ve got to know what you’re launching. Because you could be selling six dog brushes, and not realize that you don’t need to be doing that. So what I would do is, I would suggest going to like aliexpress or finding something where you can buy like 30 units of a product, or 40 units of a product. Super super, doesn’t cost you a lot of money. Like you can get those and just test it out. Like learn the process, like learn how to make a listing, learn how to run ads, learn how to get images, learn how to list the product on Amazon and send it to Amazon FBA, like learn all that. And then while you’re doing all that you’ve already kind of like teaching yourself you’re teaching yourself the whole process. Keep your eye out, like find more products, you can always do product, I still do product research, Dustin still does product research. It’s just like fun to keep your finger on the pulse there on what’s changing the atmosphere. So what advice would I give to somebody starting e commerce, if you’re gonna do this, do it faster, like go find something on AliExpress and just learn the process of listing stuff on Amazon. We’ve talked about this on our show before I’m sure you guys probably agree is we listened to podcasts for like a year and a half and watched videos for almost a year and a half before we even made the decision to launch a product. Looking back, I wish I would have just picked something, learned how to do it. And then just, you know, figure it out moving forward. So if you’re thinking about launching an e commerce, just pick a product, small quantity, launch it on Amazon and go from there.
Dustin Kane 9:03
Yeah, because I think learning it is like, now i’m going to piggyback, is so important. I actually did retail arbitrage for like a month or so before I went to Walgreens and was buying stuff and flipping it and but doing FBA. That helped me learn everything about labeling and like the process of sending inventory in and just everything. And that really helps you do it. But this is what I’ve been experimenting with because it’s funny, I was looking at these fringe products, because it’s fun, I can throw like $200 towards a project and see if it’ll work or not. And you can go on Alibaba, and whatever you’re looking for, so if you find something that’s kind of random on Amazon, and you’re like, maybe I should try that nobody else is really doing a good job with their listings, go to Alibaba and then you can filter it by ready to ship. So and then if you got any of the manufacturers that have ready to ship, they’ve literally got this inventory sitting there and you just tell them hey, I want 10 units 20 units, and i’ll add shipping. I do this all the time and I’ll have 20 30 units of a product in my house like, five days later, and I maybe like spent 100 bucks. And then I can take pictures of it, make a listing, send it in, validate it don’t do any ads just to see, will this sucker sell? And if it does, I can grow it more. So it’s kind of a, I’ve been doing that a little bit as a testing on the side while I’m growing my main brands. But that’s such an easy way to learn the whole process be like, do you like doing this? Do you not like doing this? You know, run your first campaign, it’s not gonna cost you much if you got low volume product that does make sales, you can run a $10 day ad campaign and test it out. I think a lot of times the right now, a lot of these courses and stuff, they’re really designed for someone that’s got $15,000 ready to invest $20,000 ready to invest. And people are listening to this, and they don’t have that ready to invest. But they follow the same flow. That’s not the flow you go if you don’t have that much money, but you can get into this world for cheaper even now, even though everyone says high competition.
Kris Gramlich 11:01
You may find a product that just takes off that you didn’t realize it was gonna be good. And you can just, you validated it first before you committed to 1000s of units and 1000s of dollars.
Dustin Kane 11:11
Yeah, somebody look up thermistor. Dryer thermistor. Let me know how it goes.
Ken 11:17
Yeah, no that’s crazy. Yeah, you know, I’ve done it a couple of times. And you’re exactly right. It’s a way to validate with a little bit of money versus just, you know, clicking on that, give me that loan and go real deep. So yeah, great advice. Before we pivot and talk about Sellozo, because I definitely want to get into that one last question. And this could be, you know, from your guys’s personal experience, or maybe some sellers you’ve talked to, inventory restrictions, it seems like that’s been the talk of the last, you know, probably six months. So do you guys have any tips or tricks? Or have you heard of anybody out there? What is everybody doing to get around this or just to survive until these are gone?
Kris Gramlich 11:54
Yeah, so on new Asins, I’m getting it was asin out to count level. So luckily, like I mentioned earlier, I have minimum orders that I can 200 units, I can go 100 units if I really wanted to. So it’s not really affecting me yet, as far as scalability goes, because I’m still just sending in a couple 100 units of a product. And I have a backorder ready for when I do my launch, I can just easily send in another 200 units. So I haven’t had really much restrictions there. As far as how many units I can send in, I see it all over online, but account restriction yet either, like I haven’t had any, like you can’t send this in because your at max limit, it’s a small product. So that’s another bonus is I’m not taking up a lot of space. It’s really lightweight. So I’m not really affected yet on that for my account.
Dustin Kane 12:45
Yeah, I mean, a lot of things Chris is doing does help that. He stores domestically, minimum orders have a lead time where you can stay up to that, you know, I don’t know the difference between restrictions on like a brand new account, or like a seasoned account, like what we have, I know, I have very large limits on a lot of my stuff, you know, so and there’s sales volume, and so they keep it going. So a lot of my products are small as well. So I have a basement that is my warehouse. So I have stuff sitting here. And there’s a lot of stuff down there. But also I ship in that way. But that is sort of why I started experimenting with these, like maybe 5 10 units a day type products, and maybe low costs. Because in my mind if I went wide with low cost to entry type products, and you know, having 100 products that sell five units a day, is the same thing as having one product that sells 500 units a day. And it’s maybe a little bit more diversified. And as far as I can see, most people who started selling, they always go for the same type of products, whatever is hot, you know, go look up spurdles right now.
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Kris Gramlich 13:58
Or weighted hula hoops, remember weighted hula hoops?
Dustin Kane 14:00
Weighted hula hoops. it’s like, for whatever reason, when people are doing product research and you see an As Seen On TV commercial, it’s like you can’t get that product out of your head. It just keeps coming to the forefront when they’re like searching for what they’re going to source. And we see it all the time.
Kris Gramlich 14:00
What are you guys seeing on the inventory restrictions?
David 14:19
It’s been rough on us. We have some oversized products that it’s putting a squeeze on us. You know, one thing that we have done is we have a warehouse out in California that we’ve been shipping to. A lot of our products come in from China. And so we’ve been using that warehouse to kind of trickle in inventory. But to be totally honest with you, it’s had a negative impact on all three of our portfolio companies, which is why we wanted to know obviously this is for the benefit of our listeners as well. I know a lot of them are having issues with it, but it’s been something personally that has been one of the biggest challenges in 2021
Dustin Kane 14:56
Do you guys run fbm listings on the same product? So if you do go out of inventory you can, can you fulfill out of your 3 PL individual orders?
David 15:04
we have that situation set up on certain skews and on some skews we don’t. And so but i think you know long term that’s a good play, that’s a good play it’s just finding somebody reliable to do that fulfillment and the keyword there is reliable. And so you know, we are also constructing a warehouse as a crow flies about 200 yards away from my house where that’s going to be our manufacturing assembly kiding facility. And so that’s something that we’re just getting off the ground, and I think long term is going to be a good play.
Dustin Kane 15:37
Yeah, that’s what I would do. I’ve considered for the future having my own warehouse.
David 15:44
Yeah, Dustin, I was laughing when you were talking about your basement being your warehouse. That’s been my basement for the last four years, like literally wall to wall and it got to a point where it just drives my wife nuts. And you know, when it drives her nuts, guess what, I got to do something different.
Kris Gramlich 15:59
That’s when you take all your samples and just have a garage sale. Just put all your samples out there. People are like what do you do? I’m like, yeah, I don’t have time to explain.
Dustin Kane 16:07
I love when people ask what do you do. I’ll have, like a truck will pull up to my house and drop off pallets of stuff and the neighbor’s are like, what’s going on over there? What’s in those pallets?
Ken 16:22
Yeah, funny story. I had a removal order last year for a patent infringement. And I had to remove I don’t know, it’s like 15,000 units. And you know, I live on a cul de sac in the neighborhood a 52 foot truck drove down with a lift gate. My neighbors are like what is this? You know, here I am my two car garage, I opened it up and it’s like, 1000s of Amazon cartons. My neighbors, yeah, it’s hilarious. Everybody listening, probably, you know, we probably all use our basement as a warehouse at some point.
Dustin Kane 16:53
Oh, yeah. And you brought up the patent issue. I had, I ran into a patent issue, too. So that’s another thing. That’s another thing about starting small and validating because they’ll come after you. And you have no way really of knowing, I mean, you could do some research. But I was shocked by my patent issue, I was like, how can this possibly be patented? There’s 50,000 of them I’m looking at them right now for listings.
Ken 17:13
Right. Yeah, you’re absolutely right. Scaling rapidly is you got to be cautious about it, especially with, you know, if the patent has been submitted and not approved, you can’t really search for it right. So there could be a patent that’s in process, you launch and then you get hit. And that’s kind of what happened to me. But that’s a story for another podcast.
Dustin Kane 17:31
Oh, yeah. We got lots of stories.
Ken 17:34
We could jam all day.
Dustin Kane 17:36
Yeah.
David 17:37
Sorry to interrupt the episode, you may have heard Ken and I talking recently about a new tool that we’re using for Amazon refunds. Now I have used other refund tools like this. However, I can tell you in the first seven days, they scrubbed the back end of my Amazon account going back 18 months, and found $5,000 of refunds. And the nice thing about this is, it’s my money, Amazon made a mistake and they are just auditing my account. The other thing I really like about this tool is there is no monthly fee. They only charge a commission if they are successful in getting you your money. Go to getida.com GETIDA and enter promo code FTM for firing the man FTM 400. This is an awesome tool. I can’t say enough good things about it. Now back to the episode.
Ken 18:30
David, any last questions before we pivot into Sellozo?
David 18:34
Yes. And I like to ask all Amazon sellers this, and it’s because it’s something that I struggle with. When someone asks you what you do for a living, not speaking about Sellozo, but just the Amazon piece. It used to be easy. I’d say I’m an accountant. Everyone knows what that is. But my answers recently have ranged from like I sell stuff online. I’ve said ecommerce professional, which sounds kind of douchey, and so what do you guys say? When someone says like, what do you do for a living?
Kris Gramlich 19:02
I go straight to that I sell stuff on Amazon. And then I leave it just like that. Until they show interest. And if they show interest, then I’ll say okay, come here, let me tell you what this all about. But I’ll say I just sell stuff on Amazon. And then if they either get it, then I’m okay. But sometimes you’ll get like, what do you mean, you sell stuff on Amazon? I’m like, okay, I buy product and I put a label on it, and I sell it on Amazon. And then they start to say, you can do that? And I’m like, Okay, so then we start to go down a rabbit hole. But yeah, I keep it simple at first until they show interest.
Dustin Kane 19:37
Yeah, that’s always a struggle. When I first started, I mean, I was telling friends and family and I’m like, hey I’m making a lot of money with this e commerce they’re like, so what are you doing exactly? And I’d start to try to explain it and it’s like going straight over their heads. I mean, it was like, what? Are you reselling stuff? What’s going on? Like, no, I’m trying to create my own brand. So I’m like, I’ve got factories in China that make my products and I’ve got my design team, aka Fiverr, that’s, you know, creating packaging. And that’s like, it’s a brand you can go look me up, it’s on Amazon. You’ll see my picture. I’m holding the product in the second image. But it’s still it’s like, so how do you do that? Are you selling like, or is Amazon buying from you? I’m like, No, Amazon’s a third party marketplace. And they’re like what? And it’s like, it’s amazing. Even today, I still explain it, and get that a lot. So yeah, I do like Chris now you just got to be blunt, I sell on Amazon.
Kris Gramlich 20:35
I’ve had a few buddies that ask, and I used to like, coach, not coach, but like mentor. Now I give them there’s multiple ones out there. I give them like a master course that’s all online, like people that are launching products like those tools, software tools that they’re doing, like their product launches, that they record everything. I’m like, go watch these. And let me know if you have any questions. I never hear anything back, but like if you really want like, I always put myself in their position. Like, if I talk to somebody, they said they sell stuff on Amazon, I would be interested. If they sent me a link to like a free course that they want me to watch. I think I would watch it to learn it. And then if I had questions, I would go ask that person. I’m not going to spin my wheels and spend my time trying to tell you what it is and you have no interest in it at all. I’m kind of like giving you the playbook. Here’s what you do. Now it’s in your hands. If you want to do it, then you figure it out.
Dustin Kane 21:28
That’s a good point. I do that all the time. It’s like, we think differently. I feel like entrepreneurs think differently. Like if you hear somebody talking about cryptocurrencies, you’re like, Okay, I want to hear everything that you’re talking about about Tell me what are you doing? How are you doing this? Or you hear anything, like I do that. If I go to a party, and I meet somebody, I’m like, I just want to hear exactly what they do for a living. Like, what it all entails because I’m curious, but most people, you can stop at I sell on Amazon. They’re like, Okay, very good.
David 22:00
This is a conversation for another day, but you guys are in the presence of a cryptocurrency savant. And it’s not me.
Kris Gramlich 22:07
Oh, okay. Ken? Alright Ken.
Ken 22:12
Definitely, yes, definitely for another day.
Kris Gramlich 22:12
Uh huh. Ok, Ken, I’ve got questions.
Ken 22:13
It’s interesting, you know, David asked a lot of people that question like, what do you tell people you do? So, it’s interesting always to hear different, you know, we struggle, I struggle with the same thing. And it’s like, I like Chris’s, he, like, puts a carrot out there and dangles it. And if they bite it, then he goes, but if they don’t, then he walks. I’m gonna, you know, I might have to steal that one, borrow it.
Kris Gramlich 22:40
Yeah, do it, because you’ll really learn like if they’re really interested and then, you know, you and I could sit here and talk about it all day, because we have interest in it. But if they don’t have interest in it, you’re just talking to somebody who doesn’t really care so it’s like whatever.
Ken 22:52
Yeah, yeah, it took me a long time to figure that out. I lost a lot of wind doing that.
Kris Gramlich 22:59
Me too. Until my wife just said, my wife said just tell them you sell on Amazon. I’m like oh yeah, that makes sense. Tell them I sell on Amazon
Dustin Kane 23:06
And then you tell them that and then they’re like, Oh, I do the same thing. I sell some stuff on eBay, too. And you’re like, No, no, no, no, no, no, no. That’s not the same thing. Then you got to give them the full, then I give them the master course. If anybody pulls that one on me, I’m like, No, this is what I do step by step. How much time do you have?
Ken 23:24
Yeah. Very cool. So, Dustin and Kris, you guys are both account executives at Sellozo. So, can you guys break down, what is Sellozo? And how does Sellozo help Amazon sellers?
Dustin Kane 23:37
You want me to do it, Kris?
Kris Gramlich 23:38
Yeah, go ahead.
Dustin Kane 23:39
Alright, so Sellozo is a platform that can help you automate and optimize your advertising on Amazon. So PPC, on Amazon is complex. It was complex in 2014. And it’s really complex now. And so with Sellozo, it allows you to sort of set your goal if you’ve got a target acos that you’re looking to achieve for a certain campaign, you can set that and it’ll automate the bids on all your targets every day in those campaigns towards your target acos It can do so much more, we have a really proprietary tool it’s called our campaign studio, where you can build out the keyword transfer flows. So if you’re running like auto campaigns and campaigns with broad matches, exact matches phrase, however you’ve got your campaigns structured, and you’re doing things like pulling your search term report and moving, converting keywords into a manual campaign and then negating them out of the auto campaign. Inside our campaign studio, you can link up all of your campaigns and set the flow that you want. Like if it converts two times in the auto, make it a broad match in the manual campaign, and Sellozo will automate that entirely for you as well as adjust the bids towards a target acos at the account level. So it’s, I mean for us, for us as sellers, it takes a huge amount of the work off our table. It can work for any level, we have really like one click starts if you’re brand new, and you just want to start a basic campaign structure and have it optimized, we have the tool do it for you very easily inside Sellozo. And then we can work up to the most complex strategies, whether you’ve got defensive brand, and product targeting, and really complex campaign structures, that can all be automated through the platform. So it’s very neat. It’s unique in the space, what Sellozo does, because I do demos every day, you can just go to www.sellozo.com and book a demo with us, and we’ll walk you through it. And we can also talk about anything you want. We have fun having these conversations with sellers.
Kris Gramlich 25:37
Yeah, one thing to add, there is Dustin and I talk to everybody before they come on the platform. And we get to look at the listings, we get to talk about your business. And I think what’s unique is we’ll see your listing, and if you’re not ready yet, meaning you have one image of bad title, no bullets, and no reviews, or whatever the case may be if your listing is not taken care of, and you don’t have written reviews, or whatever the case, we’ll just have a conversation like, Hey, you got to do this stuff first, before you use a software like Sellozo. You can use us, and you can use tools and you can run advertising. But if you don’t take care of that listing, first, you’re gonna have a bad taste in your mouth, and you’re gonna be mad at Amazon and advertising, or you’re gonna say it doesn’t work. So that’s what I think is fun is like, we talk to everybody who comes on the platform, and we get to hear stories, we get to talk to them, like, Hey, don’t press the yes button on a loan, stuff like that. Like, it’s something that we didn’t have, when we were selling. And so we’re able to help other people that are in the same boat. So just like go book a call, like it doesn’t cost you anything it’s a free call. If you’re not ready yet, we’re going to tell you come back in six, eight months, whatever it is, you can use it then. Or if you just want to chat about Amazon, I could do this all day. So feel free to check it out.
Ken 26:51
That’s awesome. Yeah. So if you’re listening and you need automation, which you do, because every entrepreneur on Amazon wears 10 hats so you know, call Kris and Dustin go to www.sellozo.com, grab a demo. It’s really cool you guys audit the listings and make sure that you know they’re not wasting money and spending, that’s really cool. I haven’t seen that a lot. So very awesome. David, anything else we want to wrap up before we get into the fire round?
David 27:15
Let’s get into it.
Dustin Kane 27:16
Oooh, fire round.
Ken 27:17
Let’s do it. So yeah. Oh, wait, we forgot to say, Kris Dustin. We have a fire round.
Kris Gramlich 27:21
Right on. I’m ready.
Ken 27:23
Kris is ready. Let’s go with Kris first. Just a couple quick questions in this fire round. What is your favorite book?
Kris Gramlich 27:28
So I just finished atomic habits. That’s a good book. Each chapter is like a different story. And you can kind of get lost in one chapter. So like small changes lead to big results. So I would encourage anybody go read that one. Especially because I like the individual stories for each kind of chapter. Really good.
- Hardcover Book
- Clear, James (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
Ken 27:47
Awesome. I love that book. What are your hobbies?
Kris Gramlich 27:50
I love sports cards. I love watching crypto. I love anything e commerce. I’ve been playing around with Walmart. Yeah, like, I love going to the gym. But sports cards. I’ve been doing that a lot lately.
Ken 28:08
Awesome.
Kris Gramlich 28:08
Getting them graded and stuff. Yep. Pretty fun.
Ken 28:11
Very cool. Last one. What do you think sets apart successful e commerce entrepreneurs from those who give up, fail or never get started?
Kris Gramlich 28:19
Patience. Having patience, being able to reel it back a little bit, just from my personal experience.
Ken 28:28
Awesome. I like that. Dustin, you’re in the hot seat. What is your favorite book?
Dustin Kane 28:33
All right, I read a ton. So I mean, I read two or three books a week. I just love it. So it’s one of my hobbies as well. So I could talk about this forever. You can see subcategory how many books, my favorite book in each category. But in terms of like entrepreneurial I’m telling you four hour workweek that changes, a lot of the stuff in the books not super not a lot of it’s totally relevant now like tactics and stuff but the concept, that really changed my mind about where to go. In terms of like one of my all time favorite books is philosophy guys I love atlas shrugged, by Ayn Rand, that’s just a great book. Anybody who wants to read it’s amazing book. Those are two books that have probably changed like, my philosophical outlook on life and business. So those are good.
- fine, new copy of the centennial edition, 2005, later printing of Atlas Shrugged
- Hardcover Book
- Rand, Ayn (Author)
Ken 29:19
Okay, very cool. What are your hobbies? We know one of them is reading,
Dustin Kane 29:23
Reading. Tennis, obviously used to be a job, turn it into a hobby. That’s a nice way to do things, I think. And sports in general. Like, I will watch anything. I love competition in sports. And then anything around that. So like DraftKings, like daily fantasy sports is a huge hobby of mine. I do a lot of this. And I’m trying right now to figure out a way like a system where I’m trying to put together a system where I can dominate daily fantasy sports because it’s so fun.
Ken 29:58
That’s awesome for anybody listening and not watching on YouTube Dustin’s rockin the KC hat, KC shirt. KC is tough. He’s got, I see a quarterback on the wall back there. I mean, he’s all on top of it, for sure.
Dustin Kane 30:10
Yeah.
Ken 30:11
All right. Last one. What do you think sets apart successful ecommerce entrepreneurs from those who give up, fail or never get started?
Dustin Kane 30:17
Yeah, I think two things. I think you have to have an overarching optimistic and attitude that you’re confident that you can accomplish anything and overcome setbacks. I think you have to have that. It’s critical. And then I also think that persistence, to when something goes wrong, you’re like, I’m gonna figure this out. And just I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna do it. It’s critical. I think that takes sometimes that takes a while to learn and develop. You’ve got to hone that skill.
Ken 30:48
Yeah. Excellent. definitely agree. David, you want to wrap it up?
David 30:53
Absolutely. Just wanted to thank both Kris and Dustin for joining us. We’re gonna post a link in the show notes to Sellozo, and if you’re curious about the services they offer book a call with either of them. But, just wanted to say thank you for being a guest on our podcast. And for all of our listeners, go check out two sellers and a microphone. That is Kris and Dustin’s podcast, and it is absolutely excellent.
Dustin Kane 31:18
Yeah. Loved it. Thanks, guys so much.
Kris Gramlich 31:20
Thanks for having us. We enjoyed it.
Ken 31:22
Yeah, appreciate it, guys.
David 31:23
Thank you everyone for tuning in to today’s firing the man podcast. If you’ve liked this episode, head on over to firingtheman.com, and check out our resource library for exclusive firing the man discounts on popular e commerce subscription services that is www.firingtheman.com\resource. You can also find a comprehensive library of over 50 books that Ken and I have read in the last few years that have made a meaningful impact on our business, for that head on over to www.firingtheman.com/library. Lastly, check us out on social media at firing the man, and on YouTube at firing the man for exclusive content. This is David Schomer
Ken 32:04
and Ken Wilson. We’re out.
David 32:22
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Transcribed by https://otter.ai