How to Win Against Amazon as an Independent Seller or Vendor with Lesley Hensell

Kathryn Thompson  00:02

Hey, hey, I am super stoked to have Leslie on the show today. Without further ado, I'm just going to turn it straight over to you, Leslie, so you can let our listeners know who you are and what you do.

00:12

Well, thank you so much for having me on Katherine. So I'm Leslie Hensel, co founder of Riverbend consulting. maybe more importantly, in this context, I've been a seller on Amazon for almost 12 years. And so what my company does is when they run up against the wall with Amazon, so they get their account suspended, or their products taken down, and they're not able to sell a we help them to get things straight with Amazon and solve other challenging problems that we have. It's, it's a very difficult marketplace sometimes.

Kathryn Thompson  00:45

Yeah. So let's dive into the difficulty around Amazon. Like how difficult is it to become a seller.

00:53

So becoming a seller is actually pretty easy. You just have to prove who you are, and that you're a good actor. So they asked you for identifying information, like a driver's license or a passport, sometimes you have to show bank information. That's just to show that you're not some frati fraudster out there trying to trying to get people, but then putting products up and selling them is actually really easy. The larger you get in, the more you sell, the more difficult it becomes. Because the more opportunities there are for complaints from buyers and other challenges.

Kathryn Thompson  01:30

Interesting. Okay. So the larger you get the the more complaints or the more things that come through. So how does it work with Amazon, then like, do they do they listen to every consumer that's coming through and launching a complaint? Like, how does that work? Because I know that again, it could be totally subjective, or you just have people that are going to you always are going to have people that complain, regardless of what business that you have. So how does Amazon weigh complaints? Or how do they start to kind of maybe question your account or that sort of thing.

02:04

Amazon is extremely buyer centric, they want to be the most buyer friendly platform on the internet. And people who have prime memberships or who buy a lot on Amazon experience that if you want to return something, you can return it a lot of times you just keep the item, they make it very friendly and easy. So they tend to believe everything that the buyers say even when it is not necessarily realistic. So it does not take a whole lot of buyer complaints to have Amazon come to a seller and say, Hey, this particular product, we need to see your invoices, we need proof that you're selling it new, we need to know that it's not expired, whatever it is that the buyer say because sometimes by confusion, sometimes by bad shipping on Amazon's part, if they ship the items for you, you know, we've all gotten something that's a tiny product that comes in a giant box, you know, it's been shaken all around and things get broken. But a lot of that that is attributed to the seller as though the seller did it. So it Amazon is not super seller friendly, you really have to be prepared to answer their questions and provide the documentation that they want.

Kathryn Thompson  03:19

Interesting. And you touched on something about the the shipment. So Amazon ships, but can your own company handle the shipping as well? Like, can you choose that?

03:29

Yes. So for anything you can sell, you can ship it yourself. And or you can have Amazon ship it. So a lot of people choose to have Amazon ship just because they really do a great job at logistics. So you will send all your products to Amazon warehouses, they tell you which ones to send them to, they receive that inventory. And then as orders come through, they ship it out for you. And they can hit that one day two day delivery promise almost all the time. I know that I live in a large metro area, I actually get things same day that aren't even promised same day. It's crazy. Again, as a seller, I cannot make that happen. But I always tell sellers, it's really smart to have backup strategies in place. Amazon, sometimes they won't let you send the inventory that you need to the warehouse gets full they get overloaded. So you really have to either be able to ship yourself or have a three P logistics solution ready so that you've got backup. And again, the bigger you are, the more important it is to have backup plans.

Kathryn Thompson  04:37

Totally. So what do you sell on Amazon? Like when

04:43

I sell some health and beauty items. I'm a much smaller seller than I used to be because riverbed now has almost 100 employees and we have amazing, yeah, hundreds of active clients. So it's it's busy, busy all the time. So it's very much a side gig. And really the reason I've held on too it is that I want to teach my kids how to work. And so my kids have been involved in our Amazon business from day one. And so during Christmas as an example, they will pick, pack and ship all of the orders. And then they get a big cut of it. And we also pay their tuition out of our Amazon business. So they're learning that they contribute to the family by helping with that business. And that pays their tuition.

Kathryn Thompson  05:24

So cool. So how did you get started? Like so the beauty products that you ship? Are they your own beauty products that you've created? Or are they are you like drop shipping, kind of, you've got you you're buying inventory of a certain brand, and then you're selling it through Amazon? Is that correct?

05:40

Right. I'm a reseller, I don't have any private label products right now. I would love to develop some in the future. But that's it is time consuming. Okay, so at this point, I'm just a reseller. I started selling a long time ago, because at the time, I was a consultant, I had a really busy work schedule. And then it turned out one of my kiddos he's on the autism spectrum wasn't succeeding in school, we decided to homeschool him. And I had to figure out a way that I could have some income to pay for all the therapy that we're doing with him. So my husband was working full time. And then I was homeschooling full time and on the weekends, and at night, I would go source products, and we would ship it all out on Sundays. Get it all ready to go for the UPS store on Sundays. And it was a really great way for me to spend time with the family and still have an income there are so many people who still use Amazon the same way it's a side hustle, it's extra money for a need that they have. It's a stay at home mom, who wants that extra income. It's something she can grow later. So really, for me, it started as that little thing that a lot of entrepreneurs need that side revenue, and now has turned into something a lot bigger and better.

Kathryn Thompson  06:55

Yeah, so cool. And so if somebody's wanting to get started, and so the difference between a reseller like is a reseller route the sort of the fastest quickest way to go versus like putting your own product on there, for example.

07:11

Yes, and almost everyone who isn't a biggest established brand starts on Amazon as a resale seller of some sort. There are people who do retail arbitrage and online arbitrage meaning they go buy products at stores and flip them. There are people who go find wholesale relationships, or sell products from distributors. But I'll tell you my favorite method that can actually be more sustainable long term where you're not fighting with other people and lowering prices and race to the bottom, who's the cheapest. Wherever you live, there are business parks, we all see these business parks where it's like mixed use Office light industrial, the small businesses, and they're manufacturing their own products, any kind of metro area or a suburb, you've got a business park near you. There are companies in those business parks, that are manufacturing and selling products that are not on Amazon, and probably should be. And it does not matter if they're business and industrial products, those get sold on Amazon too. So if you go to local businesses that are not selling online, and they don't want to, because that's outside their wheelhouse, you go say, Hey, I'm going to create your listings, I'm going to manage some advertising, I'm going to get your brand established on Amazon, but I want exclusive relationship, you're not selling to anyone else to put on Amazon, it's just me. And a lot of them will say hey, this is great, I'm excited, they'll even let you do returns at a preferred rate if you have to, it's a great way to get established. I've talked to several sellers, who all they do is resell for five to 10 of the small businesses in their area and have a really great low stress business model.

Kathryn Thompson  08:58

Amazing. And I was gonna ask that about the exclusivity, right is like, because you can go on Amazon and search a product and like you'll get the list of products like how important is it to be exclusive.

09:10

So it's really hard to be exclusive. Because anyone can go to a retail store and buy a product and resell it on Amazon. So even if you have an exclusive relationship with someone, you will still see these sellers pop up on listings. That's why I like this particular strategy because they're smaller businesses that don't have like massive distribution. And you'd be amazed to at people who sell more industrial type products that you think oh, that's boring. I don't want to sell that on Amazon. I've talked to people who sell like specialized paints and coatings and chemicals and all kinds of things that don't seem like Amazon products, tools, specialized tools, scientific equipment. There are universities and other companies and they they buy tons of it And it's not something that some other person is going to go find in a retail store and flip.

Kathryn Thompson  10:05

Yeah. And so what's the difference then? Because it and that's the thing I think we've seen. We see like the fun things on Amazon, like beauty products or toys, or whatever. But I've now started to see a lot more exactly specialty items that, again, might not seem like the thing that you put on Amazon. But more and more people are buying things online and just going to Amazon and Google, like basically using the search function to find things right versus having to go maybe to a local store, or maybe they can't even get it where they are depending. What's the difference between, you know, Amazon, Canadian, and Amazon, us. I was talking to someone recently, and they have an amazing product in the States. But it can't actually get to Canada, but they're working on getting it to Canada, like what's the difference between the two in terms of putting your products on there as a reseller.

10:59

So almost anything you sell in one of the marketplaces, you can sell in the other. The only areas that are really challenging is supplements and other health related products. Because Canada Health is completely different. And they require a registration number, and other documentation for supplements that in the United States, you don't have to have just about anything else, it's really not. There's not a huge barrier, you just have to do it correctly, so you don't get nailed on taxes. I do warn my American friends that if they want to sell on Canada, it behooves them to actually ship their inventory to an Amazon FBA Canadian warehouse. Because when you try and ship products yourself to Canada, they're late.

Kathryn Thompson  11:50

Ah, okay. And,

11:52

and so a lot of Americans have given up on the Canadian marketplace. Because and you know, this, Kathryn, it's your country. If you're shipping to a metro area, that stuff gets there on time, you're shipping to a rural area, it goes on a train. Yeah, it can take weeks. And so you only have to have a few orders from people who are in far flung areas that your late shipment rate is bad. The people complain and say that it that you didn't actually fulfill the order. And you did. It's just a lot of train somewhere. And so a lot of a lot of American sellers got turned off to the Canadian marketplace for that reason. But there is still so much first mover advantage in Canada, there are so many categories that are not just brimming over with too many products like in the states, if you've got a good unique offering, and you will take the time and the steps to get it into Canada. Oh my goodness, there's so much room to sell up there.

Kathryn Thompson  12:57

Amazing. So what are some of the like the key things if someone is wanting to start a business selling on Amazon? What are some of the key things that you would tell them that they need to think about before even going down that pathway?

13:13

That is such a good question. And you know why? Because it's the boring stuff that no one likes to talk about. It's so important. So in our industry, there's a lot of gurus out there that pose in front of their Lamborghini and mansion. And they want to tell you, you know, in three weeks, I made a million dollars and all that and what what people don't focus on is the unsexy stuff that will keep you out of trouble in the long run, the very first thing you've got to do is actually set up appropriate bookkeeping. Because a lot of sellers get so excited by the thrill of the hunt. It's all about finding the great product. And it's an exciting product. And it's, you know, they've got a better margin than the other products that they thought they were going to sell in Wuhan advantage. And how many units can I flip, and they don't take into account all the shipping costs to the FBA warehouse, the fulfillment costs, their insurance, whatever other overhead they have, they could be losing money. There are people who show their screenshots of like, this is how much I sold. And they don't they don't realize that their margin was 2%. Yeah, so it's not very exciting. So you've got to set up your books early and invest in some software that will actually help you see your profitability by Asin. Because you might find out the thing you're selling the most of you're actually not making any money. So I'm I'm really big on you've got to set up and know the numbers, close your books every month. And look at the reports. Also, you've got to do the boring stuff of business licensing according to your jurisdiction. You know, the tax certificates according to your jurisdiction, whatever you need to do along those lines. Really boring. Gotta get had it in place just to not have headaches later. And then Amazon now requires, they've always required but now they're enforcing on having appropriate liability insurance. You want that anyway because you don't want your house taken. Totally. If someone misuses the product they bought from, you know, cars out there on or something, you've got to have the right the right insurance in place. So all of that is super boring, but so important, just that you have peace of mind, and you can sleep at night.

Kathryn Thompson  15:28

Yeah, and those are so great. And I love that whole thing about the Lamborghini. And like, look how much money I made. I see that a lot in the online coaching space, too. It's like, yeah, you're making that but like, what are your expenses? Like? What's your profit margin here? Are you actually making money? And in like you said, it's, it might not be the sexy things, but it's the things it's one going to keep you from losing everything, your house and all that sort of stuff, but also help you make money. Like that's ultimately what you're trying to do with this right is to create a business around it. So do you feel like those are the biggest mistakes people make when they enter into this is that they don't start with bookkeeping, they don't have the insurance in place. They're not registered, that sort of thing? Are those kind of the biggest mistakes you see people have? Are there any others,

16:13

so they don't track expenses? Well, like your mileage tracking mileage is so important, you're paying for that gas you're putting in your car. Yeah, and a lot of people put a lot of miles on there, especially retail arbitrage being the entry point for so many sellers. And you're driving hundreds of miles, sometimes going to all these stores, you're paying for all that gas, you've got to expense it, right. So it's little stuff. But also the race to the bottom. So this is a this is a common phrase in Amazon land. Which means let's say you think you've bought one of the hot toys for Christmas. And unfortunately, 200 other sellers who have also bought the hot toy for Christmas, and you have to make these decisions about when to drop your price. Do you drop your price? Do you hold out? Sometimes if you hold out too long, it's never going to move or you're going to lose money on it. You know, it's it's tough. So that decision of do I buy the hot item? Or do I really do a lot of research? Do I flip stuff from this? There are people who flip stuff from the store, like they are literally listing while they're standing in the Walmart. And it makes sense if there's limited inventory of an item. Yeah, but But if something is already looking pretty saturated, or if it's a really well distributed brand. That is a way you can lose your shirt really, really fast.

Kathryn Thompson  17:41

So how do you identify then products to sell? Like what's the best way to identify which products to to pick up and which ones not to?

17:51

So you really need to become one with a really good piece of software and everyone chooses which one they want to use. But there's there's products like helium 10, and there's Jungle Scout and other similar products like that. There's Keepa they have a great extension where you can see the history of pricing and the history of rank for a particular Asin. You You have to learn and memorize what is the ranking in a particular category that will actually sell? Okay, so that is changing all the time. But there are charts out there you can google and find that will tell you if it's this many 1000 and better in Home and Kitchen it's going to sell in this many months. You can't buy dogs if you buy dogs, they won't sell the only category that has long tail that's worth it is in books. Again, you know, it's so funny. This is another unsexy thing. Yeah, like people are like books don't sell anymore. Okay. You find weirdo religious books. Yeah. Like, like, like totally bizarre things you've never heard of. You'll find old cookbooks. Yeah. You know why cookbooks are big. So imagine grandma Sally passes away. And she had the, you know, the McCall's cookbook that everyone loved. Yeah, there's four granddaughters who gets it. So mom wants to make it all better. So she goes by and buys three copies and copies all grandma's notes in the book she bought. This is the thing you can you can resell old cookbooks for hundreds of the

Kathryn Thompson  19:31

why? Wow. Like actually used cookbooks.

19:34

Yes, old cookbooks from the 50s 60s. I recently moved my son into a new apartment with a great kitchen and he wants to be a chef. And so I was like, Oh, my favorite cookbook. Is this tree beards cookbook. I'm gonna go find him a copy and the cheapest one on Amazon was $121.

Kathryn Thompson  19:53

What? I was wondering that you know, because it's funny. I will look it'll it'll depend. I'll look at like Chapters Indigo. or McNally? Like I kind of look around locally for books, but I also go on Amazon a lot too for books. And some there was one book that I searched and it was like over $100. I was like, What is this? I don't even click on it right? Because I'm usually looking at the price first, especially for books. I'm like, I'm going to read it and then recycle it or bring it to, but now I can resell my books on Amazon.

20:22

Oh, yes. And especially when there are estates, you'll find that so some other categories of books that are exciting on Amazon, we sell anything about guns, homesteading, farming, like taking care of chickens or cattle. Things that are like self reliance books, old crafting techniques that no one knows how to do anymore old sewing books, things that are like Lost Art, those and then any kind of alternative healing alternative medicine and things about plants. Along those lines, those are really great, too. So all the things I just named I have sold a book for more than $100 that I found it some books so

Kathryn Thompson  21:04

amazing. So basically taking Yeah, obviously looking at sort of what's trending out there. And yeah, doing that. So you could go garage saleing can go to a garage sale and pick stuff up and resell it or have vintage shop or whatever.

21:21

Yeah, and libraries have book sales where they, they collect books and resell them. Again, this is a very non sexy way of making money on Amazon. But it's also extremely low risk and a lot of fun because it does have that treasure hunting vibe. And as you get good at it, you'll get where you pass over anything that you're not making at least 10 bucks, you get really good at picking out the single books that are good. And then if you get really good at it, you're only picking up the $50 and up profit.

Kathryn Thompson  21:51

Yeah, so cool. I never even really thought about that. You know, it's funny because Gary Vee always talks about garage saleing, right? He's always like, Oh, I you know, made started making money garage saleing. And then there was a video recently, he said, Just start selling things in your house, like go find things and sell them. But I've never ever thought of using Amazon to resell vintage things or you had in the treasure hunting thing. It could be it could be so fun. And you could make a really fun living out of it like side hustle or whatever right is like it's it's alongside maybe your nine to five or whatnot. So when people come to work with you at what stage of business are they in?

22:34

So our clients really run the gamut we have. We have Mom and Pop working out of the basement. And then we have some of the largest sellers on Amazon who do more than a billion dollars a year on Amazon. Wow,

Kathryn Thompson  22:49

okay, okay. So it doesn't matter. Like somebody could be newbie and want to work with your consulting company. And you would help them, like, set up, get going. Avoid things.

23:02

So we're mostly in the avoid thing, okay, fix your problems. And you can have problems really early on, even to at the verification step, you can have problems where Amazon won't verify your account, or you start selling. And then they say that you're linked to a bad actor. And you have to prove that there's no linkage to that bad actor. But as far as you know, ASINs. So an asin is an individual item sold on Amazon, think of it as like Amazon's UPC, yes, the asin the ASI n. And if you're even a small seller, and you have an important asin, that you've invested a lot in that inventory, and Amazon shuts it down. For an authenticity reason you sold as new, they can say it's expired, when it's not, they can say there's an intellectual property issue they can, can claim it's counterfeit, there are so many reasons that they can tell you, you can't sell this asin anymore. Whether you're a small seller or a big seller, it is a struggle to get them to turn that asin back on. And so they come to us and we help them fix that problem.

Kathryn Thompson  24:09

Gotcha. Okay, so in terms of like inventory, it's, you know, getting a product and I don't know if this is something that you like, support people on but it's like the the amount of inventory that you're getting in like what, you know, how do you know even how to manage that inventory? You're getting like 100 units in are you getting 50? To start? Are you getting to to start?

24:33

That's a great question. And it really differs by category and it differs by the rank of the product or similar products, how well you think it's going to do. A lot of times when I test something new with that I'm buying from a manufacturer or distributor, I'll test was something like 25 units. I want to see if I ship that in once it's available on amazon.com. How long am I holding that inventory is the rank the sales rank on the price? Correct. really true? Yeah. Because there are times that you look that someone just bought 10 units for, for no good reason. And it popped the sales rank up and makes it look a lot better than it is right? Yeah. So I like to test with about 25. Or case whatever a case is. So I can price that could be 16, it could be 36. And just see how quickly I sell through. So you watch it for a week or two, see how it's moving, and then place your next order based on that, I would never go in and buy some massive quantity unless there was a ton of proof that something was was really going to move. And that's where you can use a software tools like Keepa, where it's going to show you over time, yes, the rank has been consistent, or it hasn't. But I still like, Yeah, I'm old school. I still want to see it for myself with what I buy.

Kathryn Thompson  25:50

Yeah, totally. Totally. Yeah, it's such a it's such an interesting, like, avenue to go with business. Right? Again, like you said, you've built this so that you could be home with your your kiddos and Bill, that sort of thing. So it is an interesting avenue to take if you're a mom or whatnot. Like you don't have to be that billion dollar company or even strive to be the billion dollar seller on Amazon, you could make a really great living doing it. If you're managing things well inventory, your budgeting all of those sorts of things. If you're managing that well does does Amazon discount things without your permission? Like cannot a discount? Yeah.

26:33

There are times when that happens. But when they do they take it out of their pocket, not the seller. So anytime that there's a deal, that was not a seller initiated deal, and I have seen it happen. I've had it on some of my products where I was like, wait a minute, I didn't add a coupon to that. They it's for some reason, they're trying to move something or testing something. Excuse me. And they always they always refund the seller for that. Okay. Okay. And then it's scary when it happens though.

Kathryn Thompson  27:06

Yeah, cuz I've I've had somebody, somebody who was selling a book, they self published a book. And Amazon had like, added in this like discount, and I wasn't sure whether or not it was, who paid for that discount? Basically. Yeah. Do you build a community then like, do you have loyal customers that you've built like an email list or anything as a result of like selling on Amazon?

27:33

So yes, and most sellers do have some kind of a list that they tried to develop over time, you have to be really careful, Amazon technically owns these customers, you do not? Okay. But I do have customers because I sell certain product lines over time. Yeah, I do have some customers who come back over and over and over again. Okay. And so I have given coupon codes to people for you know, 15% off or something their next order, because I see that they order large quantities from me, multiple times. So you can see that pop up, when you're fulfilling the order, you can easily see if someone has ordered from you in the past.

Kathryn Thompson  28:13

Okay, amazing. Amazing. I know, we've covered so much today and so much amazing information. And I our listeners are gonna are gonna love this, is there anything else you'd like to touch on before we wrap up?

28:27

So if not, the other way we use Amazon is if you're an established brand, but you've never sold on Amazon are sold online, you've been selling to brick and mortar, you're doing distribution, whatever that might be. And in that case, I really encourage people to set up like a mini entrepreneurial business unit inside their brand, and say these folks are going to own Amazon, let's see what we can do with it. Amazon should be a part of anyone's strategy. And you can do that through partners who resell but you know what, you can have a lot better margins and control. If you do it yourself and set up your own third party selling account. And you own that brand on Amazon. You're controlling what's happening there, you're controlling those promotions in the advertising. And you know what's happening instead of letting other sellers change pricing even if you have map Pricing Agreements, we all know what happens with that. So yeah. I strongly encourage people who said oh, you know, Amazon's a big bad guy. There's there's a lot of negative but there's so much positive as well. And not least of which is you popping up earlier in search results on Google because of your presence on Amazon.

Kathryn Thompson  29:40

Totally and just another channel of of selling right like if if you are a local brand, let's just say brick and mortar or whatever. And you've got maybe an online store through your website, but I mean, Amazon Yes, we can have our opinions of of it or whatnot, but it's just another way to reach a ton more For people with your brand, then you likely would be able to reach locally or with your own website, unless you're pumping a ton of marketing into that, like Amazon kind of does will do the marketing for you in a lot of ways and that you're listing on a site that people are going to search. Like I use it as a search tool. Now I basically go and search for products and see what what comes up. So. So yeah, I never even I was we were talking so much about the reseller. But yeah, if you're a brand of yourself, like, definitely set up a shop there, for sure. Is there anything that that you would share differently to a brand itself that wants to get on Amazon versus the reseller.

30:39

So the smartest thing that a lot of brands do on Amazon is they have Amazon exclusive offers. So they will create skews with a unique UPC code that are a bundle or a certain way of presenting the product or unique packaging that cannot be found in retail stores. This matters because then you don't have resellers jumping on those listings that have your high quality content, where you're really controlling what's on the listing with your brand registry. So a lot of a lot of brands out there, they will have Amazon only officer offers Amazon only bundles. And it really keeps the resellers off their listings less than control the pricing, and control the experience for the customer. And it can be really profitable as well, because people do like that value add of a bundle, and then you build up. Here's the biggest reason to be a brand on Amazon, you build up enough sales, you can get on Subscribe and Save. And that's where someone says, Yes, deliver this product to me every 30 days, or every two weeks or every three months. So many people now take advantage of Subscribe and Save, you only have to give a tiny discount. And it can be kind of 79 cents or something. It's a little bit of a discount. But your your acquisition costs went way down. So yeah, you're netting out on the positive for that. I think it's worth it for brands to be on Amazon just for Subscribe and Save because how many other avenues Do you really have that happening?

Kathryn Thompson  32:12

Yeah, and I that was the other thing, I started to notice that with supplements or beauty products or whatever that that subscription model which again, is so amazing for brands to have that recurring income, or at least to know they have that recurring subscription coming in every month. So they have the predictability and consistency and exactly like Amazon, I mean, you can set that up in your own store for sure you can set it up with your own website. But the reach that Amazon has, is going to be far greater than then a lot of brands are able to reach. So that subscribe, I was wondering that when I saw that was as a consumer was like, What are these subscription models all about? It's cool, because yeah, we see the rise of subscription or membership models being rolled out in businesses for sure. So

32:59

yeah, you can get it on anything. Like you can get it on underwear on T shirts on interest fine pods on, you know, cleaning products, food, it can be and stuff. You mentioned supplements. That's an easy one, right? Yeah, all of these you can build such and think if you're a CPG company, yeah, how do you boost your market value, like if you want to be acquired, or you want to get a loan, or you need an investment. And you can say this percentage of our revenue comes from Subscribe and Save on Amazon, which you know, people in Amazon spray sticky is a very sticky platform, it's a lot more so than your own Shopify store. Sorry, it just is. Yeah. And like you said, this massive amount of subscribers on there as Amazon Prime. So if you can have that stickiness, and show we have this many 1000 subscribers, that will make your business more valuable with all of these venture oriented things you have to do to continue right now in a tough economic environment.

Kathryn Thompson  33:56

Yeah, such amazing advice there. Because that's what one I think, from a nervous system and, you know, not wanting to freak out, like, where's the cash flow coming from? Right? Nobody, no business wants that. Like, where's my next client coming from? They want that consistency, and predictability. But also, if you're needing loans, or you're needing financing, or you need to order more product, and you Yeah, need a loan to do it, to invest in capital or whatever. The banks are more likely to give you that if you have predictable revenue coming into your business. Yeah. Yeah,

34:32

absolutely. If you can say half these goods are going directly to subscribers. That's easy.

Kathryn Thompson  34:37

Yeah. They're paid for basically. Yeah, great. Totally, totally. Well, it's been such a pleasure having you on where can people find you if they want to reach out and connect and ask about your services?

34:50

We have a website Riverbend consulting.com. There's a phone number on it where we actually answer the phone you love it. Love it. I know this isn't common these days, but most of our clients have problems that are challenging. They need to know who can help them. We'd like to talk to you about that and see if we can. And then if you head on over to LinkedIn and put in Leslie Hensel, I post content about e commerce and Amazon almost every day.

Kathryn Thompson  35:18

Amazing, amazing. And we'll link all of that up in the show notes so people can access that super quickly and easily and again, it's been such a pleasure having you on I know our listeners are gonna love this episode.

35:29

Thank you so much. Thank you