Is Amazon Print on Demand Profitable?

August 30, 2023
The Amazon Strategist Show
Is Amazon Print-On-Demand Profitable?

Summary of the episode: 

Join e-commerce pioneer RJ Martinez on a journey to revolutionize the way you run your business. Martinez shares his experience as an Amazon seller and offers tested strategies, including constant reinvention and leveraging Amazon Merch. He reveals the secret to creating unique designs that consistently generate sales and emphasizes the importance of research to understand trends and create engaging content. Martinez also shares practical guidance for making a consistent income as a content creator on YouTube and generating revenue through the Amazon influencer platform. The episode concludes with a candid conversation about overcoming anxiety, staying motivated, and setting achievable goals. Tune in for a thrilling ride into the world of e-commerce with RJ Martinez.

06:40 - Retail Arbitrage to Print on Demand
13:27 - The Potential of Print-on-Demand
22:49 - Creating and Selling Custom Designs

List of resources, suggested materials, and social media handles:
Free eBook - From Operator to Business Owner - https://sellercandy.com/7steps

Guest Website & Socials
Website - https://stan.store/rjhustles
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/rjhustles
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/RJhustles
 
Shareable episode link  - https://bit.ly/44NxHsU
For content collaborations, please email us at: grei@sellercandy.com 

Episode Transcript Link

Ben Smith's Social Media
Instagram: https://instagram.com/skipwithben
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/skipwithben/

Business Social Media Links
Website: https://www.sellercandy.com
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/SellerCandyPro
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sellercandyamz
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sellercandy/
Website: https://sellercandy.com/

Never Talk to Seller Support Again.

Seller Candy is the expert operations arm of your Amazon business. We provide outcome-driven support for time-consuming and challenging Seller Central issues so you Never Have to Talk to Seller Support Again! With Agency-Level security practices and an experienced team who’s been through the thick of it, we give sellers bandwidth on demand without the hassle of hiring, training, or managing.

Never Talk to Seller Support Again.

Seller Candy is the expert operations arm of your Amazon business. We provide outcome-driven support for time-consuming and challenging Seller Central issues so you Never Have to Talk to Seller Support Again! With Agency-Level security practices and an experienced team who’s been through the thick of it, we give sellers bandwidth on demand without the hassle of hiring, training, or managing.

#amazonsellercentral #amazonsupport #ecommerce #amazonbusiness

Transcript

RJ Martinez: 0:00

Is this business still doable? Can I still make a profit?

Ben Smith: 0:08

All right. Hello, I am your host, ben, and welcome to season two of the Amazon Strategist show Show. That's all strategy no hacks, no silver bullets and no magic pills Just real, practical strategy for serious Amazon sellers. So today we have the pleasure of being joined by a seasoned e-commerce expert, rj Martinez. He's a trailblazing entrepreneur.

Ben Smith: 0:28

I've personally known and worked with RJ for a number of years and he has over a decade of experience in online selling. So RJ's got an impressive track record, with over a million dollars in sales from print on demand just over the last six years, and through his engaging YouTube channel, his blog, his Facebook community, he shares a ton of valuable insights, proven strategies and is one of the most trusted people in the print on demand and e-commerce space. Rj has generated an impressive $1 million plus in sales from print on demand over the last six years, and through his engaging YouTube channel, his blog, his Facebook community, he shares a ton of valuable insights, making him one of the most trusted people in the print on demand and e-commerce make money online space. So you can also join RJ on his journey by hitting the subscribe button on our channel and also following the link over to his channel. He's got a lot of great content on his YouTube channel, among other platforms as well. So, rj, thanks again and welcome to the show. We're happy to have you today.

RJ Martinez: 1:28

Yeah, man, thank you. Thank you, ben, for having me on. I'm excited to be on here to share some knowledge with you. That was a good introduction, by the way.

Ben Smith: 1:34

Thanks, thanks. I really practiced it so many times. So I know RJ. You and I have known each other for a while and I used to. I'll just say real quick how I kind of came across you and how I got to know you, which is I was just getting into the Merch by Amazon, print on demand space and you are like one of the number one influencers in that space. Like, if you do any search on YouTube for print on demand, merch by Amazon, now KDP, you know Amazon, really anything. You are going to pop up somewhere in that world, and so I started watching a lot of your videos and then, you know, over time you and I just became friends as well and it helped me a lot just on personal level with some of the Amazon stuff I was doing. So that's all I've known you. But I was wondering, maybe, if you could kind of tell us a little bit and take us back, like how did you actually get started in the whole e-commerce world?

RJ Martinez: 2:23

Yeah, so I had a, so I'm doing this full time now. By the way, for full time, for like about six years I started testing out on Amazon FBA back in I don't know, I want to say 10 years ago. Okay, I had a job at the time and I was like, okay, let me try to sell something online. And what I did was I went to like CVS on the corner right. So I was just doing like a RA Retail Abortrush and I was like, let me buy this product and let me see if I can sell it on Amazon. I was like, but I don't even care if I make a profit, I just want to see if I can sell it. And I think I sold it and I probably didn't even make a profit, but I just needed to test it out and I'm a big fan.

RJ Martinez: 2:59

You're probably going to hear a lot about this. Like if you just even even where you follow me, wherever, I'm all about testing at the end of the day, because it just you don't know if it's going to work unless you try it. Okay, and that's some of the stuff that I do to this day. That's makes this journey, this online business, fun, like learning about new things. It's like you're not going to know until you test it. And you, something new that comes out like a big thing right now is AI. I don't know if AI is it works or not. Unless I test it right, I could say hi, I don't want to test it, but yeah anyways.

RJ Martinez: 3:28

Well, going back to what I was talking about, I flipped something and I sold it. Boom, it sold, and I was like okay, it works, this it does. I don't even care if I made a profit. Like I said, let me go out and let me see what I can find. And then I've heard people talking about Alibaba. You know, you can buy all these products and do this and I was like you know what, let me, let me just start easy. Let me see if I can start flipping stuff, because I know there's stuff out there that you know. For example, right now Barbie is a big thing, right, and because it's in the movie theaters and they're bad. I haven't seen so many people in the movie theaters like this in like years. I'm like dude, this is pretty cool. Like some people are like oh no, that's too many people for me. Me, I'm like this is this is pretty cool, I like it. I like I can see what's going on.

RJ Martinez: 4:07

And I was like then I came across like, okay, the first thing I'm looking for is like, what can I sell, what can I flip? That's the first thing I'm thinking about. And there's like this makeup case, right, for example. This is an example. This is what I would do at the very beginning. If I see something that's in demand, right, and if this makeup case is sold in Target, right, but it's pretty much sold out everywhere. But it's like a $20 makeup case and you can sell it for $80 or $100 online and people are buying it like crazy.

RJ Martinez: 4:30

And I'm just like that's what I would do at the very beginning, just to see, like, you know, what can I, you know, buy at a lower cost? And it has a demand and you know, flip it for a profit, right. And then, next thing, you know, I started doing that. Then I started making all this content. That I was following was just trial and error and learning online from different people and people in the community that would actually like help me out with certain things or certain questions. And next thing, I'm shipping boxes into Amazon, different warehouses, and then I started selling shoes and I'm not sure if any of you guys are listening to this or, like you know, buying shoes at Marshall's or or just like a TJ Maxx or not flipping on eBay, just more on Amazon in general, and I know that people that have a lot of success on different platforms just selling shoes, buying shoes at Marshall's and flipping them or like what's it? Poshmark, something like that, right, and then there's like different marketplaces where you can sell like.

RJ Martinez: 5:20

so that's another thing. It's not just selling on Amazon. There's several different opportunities where you can possibly make money and flip it for, you know, for a higher margin, to make a profit. And that's what I was started off doing and I started flipping. Like I said, I started flipping all kinds of stuff that I started flipping shoes mainly, and then I started buying gift cards and going into Marshall's and flipping the shoes where I was shipping in, like you know, anywhere from like 100 to 500 pairs a week. I go to Marshall's cash register and I try to glitch it out sometimes because I'll try to buy like, at least as a first one time where I bought at least like $10,000 in shoes. Yeah, that's a big order.

Ben Smith: 5:56

They don't see that every day.

RJ Martinez: 5:58

Yeah, and they're like, they're like. The first thing they tell me is, like you, you're going to make our pizza party happen this month and I was like, well, I better get a couple slices because I'm helping out here and I just really cool with the ladies and just being friends with you know a lot of the people working at Marshall's and just different, different retail stores that I'll go to because they see me come in. They're like all that guys here that buys all the shoes here he comes, he's here, he's gonna.

RJ Martinez: 6:20

They love you, I'm sure yeah, so I just always friendly with people and just you know, because at the end of the day, it's like it doesn't do me no good to be mean to other people. If you know they're actually helping me ring up all these shoes like. You know what I mean. If anything, I should be providing them with something because they're helping me with this big transaction and they don't have to do it, but they're being nice to me too as well. And then, yeah, okay, well, I started flipping and stuff. And then next, you know, I came on to print on demand where I was like you know what, like, I'm doing this 12 hours, 14 hours a day, and it just really doesn't make any sense for me to be working this long, unless someone starts to hire people.

Ben Smith: 6:52

Were you already full time by that point? Yeah.

RJ Martinez: 6:54

I was full time.

Ben Smith: 6:55

Yeah, I was full time you were flipping full time so I was kind of like you were already full time.

RJ Martinez: 7:00

Yeah, I was literally started, you know, with the job. And then I was like you know what? I know I can do this full time, so I started doing it full time and then, as I started doing full time, I quit my job within like two or three years. I was like all right, so I started doing it full time and just kind of just our daily routine where I wake up in the morning, check sales, actually everything's good, you know, along the journey to just meeting other Amazon sellers and stuff like that. But I would have like a route where I'd go like, okay, when's the new shoes? I become friends with them that new shoes are coming in on our new shipments, coming in on like on Tuesday or Wednesday. I'm like all right, cool, and that's all be, I'll be coming in and I'm just imagining them, like shooting you a text like RJ meet.

Ben Smith: 7:38

At the back, like new deliveries arriving, you know but yeah, no, that's what I would do.

RJ Martinez: 7:46

And I was like kind of like my routine where, you know it was getting the suit, I get my Amazon payout, I would go in and use that money and just throw it back in or rents or more inventory.

RJ Martinez: 7:56

This is kind of like the thing. But then I was like you know what, like I feel like I could try something else out and like I said that's where print on demand came in Amazon March, where I was like you know, I can create, put a design on a t-shirt. And then it made it, literally did it, and I made a sale. Well, actually, you know, I went on Fiverr sorry, went on. Fiverr purchased some designs. I literally forgot about it. I uploaded them to Amazon, merch forgot about it and I came back to it and I've literally generated like probably close to 60 or 80 sales and I was just like what a dude, like what am I doing here? Like this is an opportunity for me to. You know, I kind of got the idea of it right and I was like this is the idea. Okay, I can put a design on a t-shirt and then I don't have to take care of no inventory, I don't have to talk to anybody. It's printing and shipping them. The Amazon's printing and shipping them out for me and I'm just collecting the royalty.

RJ Martinez: 8:47

So I was like you know what. I was like I don't know how to design, I don't know how to use the Photoshop, I don't know how to use none of these tools Like well, what can I do? So I was like you know what, let me go up on Upwork and that guy that you know he's well, he's my worker now, but that guy he's like he's been working with me ever since then and me and him are. He's talking to him today. I pretty much talked to him Monday through Monday through Friday or you know, whenever I'm working, doing stuff, but he's always working on the back end. We're working from a you know some a workflow like a spreadsheet, and he's he's been there since the very beginning. So he's watched it build all the way up and to where it's at now and he's he's been there with me, yeah, since the day one.

RJ Martinez: 9:24

And with a person like that that I've met, you know, obviously he gets paid and stuff, but with someone like that he's like always ready for the next challenge type of person. And that's cool because I'm that type of person too, so it goes back and forth. It goes head in hand, right. We understand like he has understand, he has to get this done, get this done. But yeah, I started taking it very seriously with you know putting the designs up on Amazon Merchant next to you know what it went from. You know making like 10, $20 a month to 500, to 2000, to 3000, to 4000,. You know 5000, 8000 a month and you know it's generated consistently every single month since then and it's literally helped me do everything else that I do now.

Ben Smith: 10:02

So it's yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm gonna back up for a second too. So you have, you know, what I don't want to say is a kind of it's a theme that I hear a lot, but a lot of people do say they kind of started maybe with they got into Amazon somehow, maybe they had their first sale from something else. Like I remember my very first sale was I sold my entire collection of Pokemon cards on eBay and that was my first sale. I'll never forget it. One because it was my first sale where I made money online. Two, because years later I instantly regretted that, now that Pokemon cards are worth so much more money.

Ben Smith: 10:31

But you have your first sale online, you know you got into retail arbitrage and then you kind of reinvested all that cash, eventually quit your job doing that, and then you found this saying Merch by Amazon. And for anyone who's watching this, I'm just gonna kind of explain Merch real quick and correct me if I miss anything. But Merch by Amazon essentially is a separate program Amazon has where you can you have to apply, so you do have to get approved for it, and once you're in, then you can essentially upload designs. You give it a title. I think it's two bullet points in the description still. And then Amazon will put that design on mockups of different products on their website. Right, that could be T-shirts, long sleeve shirts, popsockets, iphone cases, android cases. And when it sells, amazon takes care of everything. Right, it's a little bit different in terms of it's not through seller central, it's its own separate thing, but it can be really hands off if you want it to be at once you get to a certain point.

Ben Smith: 11:22

Now I know for you it's definitely not right, because the one thing I was just also gonna say is that I've known RJ for a long time and there's a lot of people who will test, test, test a lot of different things and it ends up being a ton of false starts where they don't really take it far enough to actually get the momentum or traction to know if it's gonna work. But what I really admire about RJ is he's tested all these different kinds of ways that you can make money with Amazon or content creation, but he actually sticks with them and actually builds them into significant revenue streams. So, like now, I know that you're doing Merch by Amazon, you're doing KDP, which we can get into too. You've got the YouTube channel. You've got the content creation all there. I know you're doing a ton now. Well, maybe you are, but with Amazon influencers, which we just talked to, liz, for influencer for yesterday or the other day.

Ben Smith: 12:07

So yeah, that's the one thing I would just say is a big takeaway for me. Just knowing you over the years is to actually go and run with these things and stick with them and build them up.

RJ Martinez: 12:15

The Amazon influencer stuff, that's something that's that's like the most current thing that I'm doing right now.

RJ Martinez: 12:20

And that's exactly what you just said. It just that's exactly what I do, like I'm just I'm not trying to create a hundred videos for the Amazon influencer, I'm trying to create a thousand, two thousand, three thousand, and then, as I go back and I'll obviously along the way, I have to see some type of increase, you know, for the business, and I've been seeing that and we can obviously touch on that. I don't want to skip all that stuff, but it just is exactly what you just said and that's something that's current, that I'm working on. I was, as of like right now, like I was doing it last night before bed. I was like, nope, I gotta knock out these five videos and then I go to bed.

Ben Smith: 12:53

Yeah, yeah, for sure, mom. So so let's kind of move into, I guess, what we call the Q&A session. So this is obviously the much awaited segment that we have, where we kind of address burning questions, and these are questions that you know we get from people that watch the show, or just comments on various social media channels that were we're trying our best to shed kind of some light on different strategies, topics, all that kind of stuff. So we've got a couple of questions which I think you've already kind of answered. The first one about your first sale, which was retail arbitrage. Right, do you still do retail arbitrage or did you actually stop doing that in favor of kind of the print on demand world?

RJ Martinez: 13:25

Yeah, and I took it a whole different way. More of my perspective is to be anywhere in the world and make money Like I don't have to be physically there. To a certain extent right, if you want to be a smarty pants I have to physically obviously create videos or content or credit design. Yes, but not like physically where I'm working like sourcing shoes and doing stuff like that physically having to be there to buy it at the store, tap or deal Like. I just try to stay away from that as much as possible. To where, if someone wants me to do a certain shout out like I'm not gonna say like a YouTube video, where I'm like okay, this is what I charge and this is what I'm expecting you.

Ben Smith: 14:03

You're on my demands? Yeah for sure. No, I mean that makes sense. I mean that is something you know with retail arbitrage or even your FBA business. But with retail arbitrage you have to be there to go source products, right, you could get into online arbitrage and that's definitely a kind of step above in some ways. But that totally makes sense. I hear a lot of people that kind of start with the arbitrage model and then their next thing is to get into, like private label. Right, you took it in. Instead of kind of going that route, you switched into the print on demand world, which I think is you know, it's unique. We don't normally have people, at least on our show, that are in that space, so love to kind of talk a little bit more about that and kind of just the various options that you have. So with Merch by Amazon, can people still like get into that? It's a I know it's application only, but is that still an available platform that people can get into?

RJ Martinez: 14:51

Yeah, it still is. So, like the last two people though that have applied for it, okay, they've been denied. I'm not sure exactly. I'm kind of going through like the whole messaging with them right now. I just I want to figure out exactly why they got denied and that's something like right, they obviously won't tell us, but I was like I want you to share everything that you shared with me when you applied for it so I can see maybe there's some type of like you probably put a website right. It says put website and you don't. You're not showing nothing, like there's nothing. You're showing that you're probably just showing a picture of a. You know looks like a big corporation type of ordeal with these fake pictures that you got online and it shows no type of design, work or nothing right. So there's certain people that I'm going over, but I've people like.

RJ Martinez: 15:30

It took me personally. It took me about close to three months 90 days to get approved, and when it comes to like that, I was like I barely missed that deadline at the very beginning was auto approval, and that's another thing with Amazon, just to get that out the way. Anytime you see that it's auto approval, just do it and you can come back to it later on. Just get it done, and if it even takes you 30 minutes to do it, do it and then get it done, and then you come back to it later on. But I'm barely best at that deadline. I wasn't even sure if I was going to get approved or not. And then, when I did it, I got approved and I was like, oh dude, I'm approved. I didn't even get the email I had to sign in. It's like I logged in. When I logged in I was like cool.

Ben Smith: 16:09

Yeah, yeah, so that's weird. I think that's like a common theme too.

Ben Smith: 16:12

I've noticed Is like anytime there's an available new Amazon program like we were talking about again Amazon influencers the other day but is always just sign up for it Cause like it's better to sign up and get into it and even if you don't use it then be on the waiting list like two years later. So I know you got like you got into the whole merge by Amazon world pretty early on and I think I probably was a couple of years after you.

Ben Smith: 16:34

But I know it's gotten quite a bit harder now. Where do you see, like the I'll just stick to merge by Amazon for a second, though Like, where do you see the kind of print on demand opportunity with both merge and I know you're also selling on other platforms, so, like, is it still a pretty big opportunity and do you use AI now, or are you still relying on people to do all your designs?

RJ Martinez: 16:55

That's a good question. Now, when it this like I think this varies from person to person, cause there's like no one size fit all, like it's depends like what you're good at, like I feel like, when I'm doing this type of stuff, I'm good at researching, understanding what's going on at the time of moment. So, like, if it's a trend, I understand why it's trending and why people are buying it. And then me leveraging that as I'm leveraging, you know, like a certain ideas or concepts, and understanding that, the inspiration behind it, why people are buying it now and how come it's selling right now. And that can just be a design, it can be a book, it can be a product right, it doesn't matter what it is.

RJ Martinez: 17:32

At the end of the day, it just understand, if you're good at designing and you can draw, get to work and start drawing and making stuff. You see stuff that's online selling, right, don't copy it. You know exact, right, you create your own concept of your design Of. I was sharing today my group was a corn dog running with an American flag, right, and he has mustard on them. And there are people who are like saying cause the, and then it has, he has legs, but he has a stick in the middle right. So people were like the concept of the corn dog with the stick between his legs kind of looks, kind of funny and I was just like okay.

RJ Martinez: 18:06

So am I supposed to put adult corn dog I guess I don't know, like I don't know what to just certain things like understanding what you're good at, and then whatever you're good at, just leveraging that as best as possible, it may be. You're good at research. You're good at putting like, funny puns together. You can, you know. You're good at jokes, you can, you know, you can tell a joke and make someone laugh. That's money, Any of that. Right, there is money because you can, you can do a lot with that. Maybe you're good at putting a workflow together, like systems in place, right. And then you can just hire a person to, you know, you can hire a designer. You can hire a person to keyword research, help you with keyword research. You just all that. Right, there are. There's certain things that you can leverage and outsource.

RJ Martinez: 18:49

And then, next thing, you know what you have a business that's making you a full-time income, right, and I know people that are okay with just making $500 a month, just with their Amazon Merch account, and they're just, they're happy as possible, right, Because everyone's goals are gonna be different when it comes to this. Maybe they don't, their goal is to you know what? I just need my car payment paid for and I'm happy at my job. And I don't like that's it, Like I just wanna work still full-time at my job and I just need a little side hustle because my job's not pay me enough. But if I do the side hustle it's gonna pay for my car payment.

Ben Smith: 19:20

Yeah, for sure. I feel like that's a big, that's actually really important points. You know, everyone glorifies, like the people who are like, oh, like started a unicorn SaaS company or like you know, have a multimillion dollar Amazon business, but the whole, like other side of the coin is like those.

Ben Smith: 19:35

You know there are a lot of situations and a lot of people that want just an extra $500 or $1,000. And that's a big win, too, is just having that. So you know, there's a lot of people just building the type of business that they really want. You don't have to build an Amazon private label brands to millions of dollars to sell it. Maybe you just want to like a good lifestyle brand or business. I think that's that is a really cool thing and it's not talked about enough really. So yeah, it's a awesome point on honestly.

RJ Martinez: 20:02

Yeah, no, and then just adding to that like this, just so many, and it is building on top of everything that we're talking is the knowledge and stuff and I've gained from you know, understanding how to do research and finding a top selling shirt and a niche and then creating it. Then it, it goes viral and then you know, then it makes you a good amount of money. Just awful one design, right? I have a few designs on my account of you know. They made over $40,000, $50,000, right, and which is really awesome. But then that, right there, that's content.

RJ Martinez: 20:27

I can turn that into content where then, next to you know what people are just, oh, I want you to help me out with this, and it just that's just the way it forms out to be, and I'm not even trying to, you know, sell none of that, nothing like that. It just, oh, can you get on a call with me to do this? Like, okay, well, if I'm going to be sharing my time with you and taking time for my business, that's, I'm going to have to charge you Like, see, that's what it turns into and I don't even, I didn't even mean it to turn into that. I was like you know, I'm just going to create YouTube content and just help people that way. But then people were like, no, I want to get on a 101 with you. I'm just like, okay, well, okay, whatever, but it just you know, like I said, I'm good at understanding the research and what's selling right now. What's currently selling that you can create, you know, on a t-shirt and then it will make sales right.

RJ Martinez: 21:07

I think one of the best feelings ever to is when it comes to you know doing that stuff and you apply it to the next thing, that you learn right and you go in. You start to learn new things and then new opportunities present themselves. You take that same concept and apply it to that, and then that's how you grow from. You go from zero to $500 a month or a thousand, whatever. Your goals are right and that's the best way possible. Just take what you've learned over the years and, as you start to like, input them to the next current thing that you're learning. Like, literally, you have a big advantage when it comes to understanding the whole research process. You know performing at the certain levels, editing certain types of videos, stuff like that. It just everything just adds up because you've learned so much over the years.

Ben Smith: 21:52

Yeah. So I was going to say that's one of the kind of really cool things I would say about, you know, print on a man and merge by Amazon is there's a big part of it is honestly a volume game, right. Like the more I always would chalk it up to, like the more designs you have. It's like a more online real estate, right. Just like a private brand. If you have more products, obviously now you have more products that take up space on Amazon and you can sell right.

Ben Smith: 22:14

But you do get really good at product research or niche research as you're doing it, because so I know you're a research monster, Like I know you were saying it earlier but you probably walk around and just see little things or something on a shirt while you're out and about and say, oh, I need to go make it, this design. You know what I mean and I think that becomes like a really powerful skill, and so I know kind of to your point and I'm going to kind of segue right into the next thing. But I know you then got into KDP next, right, so Merch by Amazon is still growing. But your next kind of thing, KDP, which is Kindle Direct Publishing how did you get into that world?

RJ Martinez: 22:49

So what I was doing was I had custom illustrations, right, and I'm just understanding the whole concept because, like, you have all these designs and you're like, ok, what else can I do with this? Like, they're making money here. Now, what else can I do with these illustrations? Like, if I'm covering one niche, I say it's the monkey niche right, I have over and I say I have a say, I have like 50, 60,. I'm building out that real estate in that niche with those certain types of designs and I'm trying to make sure they're the best in the niche.

RJ Martinez: 23:16

You literally you can turn that into any like there. But there's this is crazy, because with the AI stuff to technology, you can do that too as well. But that's what I did and I seen that, ok, I can turn this into a book. This can be either a storybook, it can be a coloring book, and a coloring book is a storybook in a way, if you actually produce a really good one at the next page. With the next page, the next page often makes sense and it all goes hand in hand.

RJ Martinez: 23:40

But just understanding what an individual or a person wants in that niche and just serving, giving it to them, and it's literally with every single niche, what I just said.

RJ Martinez: 23:52

If you apply that to any single, like any single business or business model or whatever it is that you're trying to do, just solving that problem and just like serving it to them, that's what at the end of the day, that's how you create a top selling book, like it's that simple.

RJ Martinez: 24:07

And if you're giving it to them and then, next to you know it starts to rank, starts to you know, people start to share it more and it starts to go, you know starts. You know certain holidays will start to go viral and just start to take over and it's just like, wow, ok, this is like this was just an idea, but then now it's turning into. It's like making it generate a good amount of money every single month and it's being consistent and it's number one in its nation. But then, ok, now it's another challenge with yourself. Well, can I do what? That first, that first one, I'm beating, the first one's winning. So how can I create a second one, and then a third and a fourth, and so if you have five bucks to in, $1,000 a month, right, that's a great income and now it gives you money to reinvest into either or or web off of or reinvest in either the next business or that same.

Ben Smith: 24:51

Yeah, do you. So I was just going to ask to. So now, with AI, is that a big part of how you're getting designs? I know you obviously have a designer and maybe a multiple, but can you tell us a little bit about kind of the design process? Like, once you've founded a topic or a theme that you want to go and create a t-shirt designer or a product design around, what's kind of being done in the back end? Like, are you just handing that idea off to your designer or are you actually using mid journey or some kind of AI for it?

RJ Martinez: 25:20

I personally haven't really. I've messed with mid journey to mess, like show my designers, but I haven't like I think I covered one each.

Ben Smith: 25:31

Yeah.

RJ Martinez: 25:31

And I even some of the stuff that was created. I'm just like I just just doesn't look right to me Like we have to edit this or something I have to give it to. Like you know, my illustrator, because I have right now I have two artists on the team and then I have like a third one. Third one's like a part time. They come here and there and just like If I need something, I can reach out to them and I need this, I need that. But for the most part, when it comes to any of this stuff, it's more of understanding it and kind of getting the inspiration for yourself and kind of just putting it into play. So if I understand the niche and I see something that we can definitely jump on, so if I do research and I find some low competition niches and I can see that we can create designs that will be better than the competition, we'll do it and we'll cover a whole niche. Like I can create anywhere between 20 to 30 designs in that one day, based off of the certain illustrations that we create.

RJ Martinez: 26:24

Sometimes we'll create two to three, three to four different illustrations, but then each artist keep in mind every artist is going to be different when it comes to producing a good design. The illustration has, let's say, for example, like a Rolly Polly. There's something as simple as like you probably wouldn't even think of a Rolly Polly If I wanted this person to. I wanted one artist to create that actual Rolly Polly, but then I wanted it to do like, you know, one that's actually like like all the way flat, and then maybe I want them to do one that's rolling right, and then, you know, there's a few ideas you probably can think of right there, but then I want that artist to create their version of it, and then I want the other artist to create another version of it. And then we have they're not competing with each other, they're on the same team, obviously, but we're competing with other people out there and we're trying to, you know, beat other people when it comes to that and we want to make sure that we're the best design.

RJ Martinez: 27:16

And that's what it comes down to at the end of the day. And you know, we're all in competition in certain ways. If we're selling on Amazon depending on the niche certain products, and if we're obviously doing Amazon merch, we are going to be in competition. But your advantage is you knowing like a niche and, understanding it, say it can be baseball, it can be softball, it can be whatever it is. But you know that there's certain funny words that are out trending right now because you're out playing the sport or you know what I mean, or you just watch the sport consistently. That's your advantage. And for like competition stuff, that's your advantage because you know what's going on. Like one funny saying that was said today. You know that you can create a really cool design and that's pretty much the process is understanding that.

Ben Smith: 27:57

And then you go lock the niche down too, right, like and that's I mean that can be. That's such a like applicable lesson for anything you're doing on Amazon is like, once you find something and you really know it and you see that it's working, you go and think about okay, what are 10 other designs I can create? Or what are like 10 other related variations of the product that I have? That's crushing it that I can now go and put into the market? Right, and I feel like that's a huge piece of it too With print on a man. It's easy in a sense. Well, not easy, but it is easy because your time to market, from idea to market, can literally be. You know, right now it can be. I think of an idea, go check that it's not trademarked or something, and then I literally go make the design and upload it within an hour. Can't really do that with a physical product, right, if you're after now, go get, like you know, your manufacturer to make it.

Ben Smith: 28:41

But still, the concept there works is that if you find something that's working, you go and own that right and if you know the persona of the shopper or the person on the other end and you can speak to them in a way that no one else can. So your competition that's trying to just fly by night, that's going to give you massive fanage, right? I know you always say in the Facebook or by your comments all the time stay out of my niche, stay on my niche, right? Yeah, that same thing. So I know you do this strategy.

RJ Martinez: 29:06

Yeah, no, but that's another thing too. Just stay out of my niche is just like. It's like it's a funny. You know we're having fun with the business and you know, at the end of the day, like, if I share something with you or I share a niche idea with you, sometimes it's I'm just having fun because I'm in that niche, right, I'm not saying, oh yeah, you can't beat me.

RJ Martinez: 29:22

Sometimes, at the very beginning, some of my designs were just horrible designs and they sucked and but you know, but that's not the point sometimes, because sometimes you'll see the most viral designs online on the internet making sales, and they're not, they're just text based words. And it's crazy to even think about that that way, because it's like anyone can do that. Right, just some common sense with you know you can use Canva or you can use any type of you know online free tool and you can create a text based design just with a funny word. And then next thing, you know it's a viral design, it's making you $1,000 a month. You know, just like that, you can do it, it's all doable, it's doable, but your timing has to be pretty good. You have to understand what's going on and that's the difficult part, right there.

Ben Smith: 30:06

Yeah, absolutely.

RJ Martinez: 30:07

I was going to ask too.

Ben Smith: 30:08

So I know you sell like on the Amazon platform, but you also sell, obviously, on kind of some of the other platforms too. Right, you've expanded, I don't know to which platforms, but where else are you selling your, your products, or repurposing your designs to sell elsewhere?

RJ Martinez: 30:21

Oh, okay, yeah, yeah, those are like. So like there's like Redbubble. That's a good question, there's a few other ones. There's Redbubble, there's a few other ones.

Ben Smith: 30:29

Zazzle, zazzle.

RJ Martinez: 30:30

Yeah, I think so.

Ben Smith: 30:32

And then I don't know.

RJ Martinez: 30:34

No, no, no, no. I actually have a few buddies that sell over there, but you know, I honestly felt like bringing back eBay to where. See? This is the thing. Sometimes I just like I was thinking about like, dude, this would be a dope show. Just the flip stuff, dude, just whenever on board or something, just go to like a thrift store real fast and just find something like a unique product and just flip it and just make a show about that. I flipped it, I sold this, I sold this, I sold this.

RJ Martinez: 30:59

And then at the same time, it's like, but then that's going against what I you know, like what I like trying to do, because then it's like, but then that's like going both like, but what's? An extra $500 to $1,000 a month was like you can reinvest it again, like. You know what I mean. So it just I've came across certain things like you said, like, like you said Pokemon cards, and you can, you know it's a big, it's just good content, like it could be a great video, like, and that's like something that I like to do. Like I want to create, like something that's really cool and really engaging type of piece of content, but then show them people how you can flip and do this and then inspire someone else to go. All right, I'm going to start doing this too, and you know right so.

Ben Smith: 31:36

So I want to come back to that. But I just want to know do you run ads as well, or are all, are all of your sales organic, like you're just? Selling everything organically.

RJ Martinez: 31:46

So I sell on the different platforms right, there's other platforms that I sell on, that which you know. It's crazy because you said different platforms. You know they'll end up selling like organically over there. But as far as running ads, yes, they're run ads on Amazon, merch. That's right. There is a people will get. It's a whole different ballgame. You know how many people that are scared to run ads.

Ben Smith: 32:05

Or I've talked to a lot of people like no, I was one of them back in the day. I was one of them.

RJ Martinez: 32:09

I was like I don't want to pay.

Ben Smith: 32:10

I don't want to pay to run ads, but my, yeah, I run. I still run like some auto campaigns on my Merch by Amazon account and they actually perform pretty well. I'm not going to lie. They perform quite well.

RJ Martinez: 32:21

Yeah, and it's like, I think it's, I feel like, when it comes to ads, probably one of the easiest platforms. It's so easy, it seems like, cause there's people online trying to shop there, compared to running like a Facebook ad, where people are not trying to shop on Facebook. They're more likely going to Amazon, to, you know, be credit card ready to spend money, right.

Ben Smith: 32:39

Yeah.

RJ Martinez: 32:39

And if you get their attention on there, then you know, obviously you can convert, you know, for that product or that design, right? Yeah, one thing too it just it ranges too with spending money on ads, but it's definitely over, you know, spending over, like you know, some months over 3000, some months over 5000. It all depends, right, sometimes, most of the time, you get closer and closer to Q4, yeah, I can spend money up there. It can be close to $8,000, $9,000. But it just at the end of the day, that's about getting that real estate with that certain design and where it's it's it's it's generating a good amount of money. I've created one design where I spend like two or three hundred dollars on that design but it's generated over ten thousand dollars that month, right?

Ben Smith: 33:21

Yeah, it's crazy.

RJ Martinez: 33:22

Just, yeah, it's not bad. Just one design and you're not even spending that much money because of it's, of course, the trend, right, and that design isn't a man and you can tell people they're sharing the heck out of that design because it's just going viral and it starts to make sales and it's it's crazy to even, you know, create something like that, but it's, that's a good feeling, because you created a t-shirt design right, and you know that people are trying to make a state, because that's another thing, people that are trying to make a statement with their design on their shirt. That's most of the time, those are the type of designs that go viral because they know it's like, you know, just that statement politics, all the politics.

Ben Smith: 33:55

I I'm curious. I actually want to know the answer to this question how many so roughly? How many? How many products have you sold on merch by Amazon, just like unit-wise? Do you have any idea?

RJ Martinez: 34:05

I think it's over. It's over a hundred thousand products for sure.

Ben Smith: 34:08

Yeah, so have you ever seen anyone wearing one of your t-shirts or anything like in real life?

RJ Martinez: 34:12

Hmm, I think I've seen a few people wear my t-shirts but like the ones I've personally created or the t-shirt design and it sells over and over and I sold a few. Like who the hell's wearing this design? I feel bad for you. There's designs that I'm really proud of, where I'm like this design's dope and I can see people wearing this, but for the most part, like going out in public, you'll know that they're Amazon merch shirts because you can tell by looking at. It's like that little square, boxy type of look Shirt and you can tell you're the print and you're print. You're like, okay, that's an Amazon merch shirt, but I've seen a few people wear my shirts.

Ben Smith: 34:52

Yeah, you probably know the brand of the shirt to you. Oh, that's that the premium, that's the premium, large Whatever it is. I don't know what brand the Amazon uses now printers.

RJ Martinez: 35:00

I forgot was, I think it's like Portland company, yeah, something like that, I think it is. I think that's the lady, yeah.

Ben Smith: 35:07

Yeah, nice. So I want to. I want to transition a little bit and talk. I know we've been kind of focusing on the print, on demand and all that stuff, but you've touched on a few times that you have a YouTube channel. I know you've recently been doing they Amazon influencer thing as well, but I'm curious if you kind of tell us, you know first, I guess, when you created your first YouTube video, and kind of why and just how that journey's been, because I think you're up to what? 3000 plus subscribers on YouTube, 40,000 maybe.

RJ Martinez: 35:33

Yeah, yeah, it's a good quote. I got the. I'm gonna go to my channel fast.

Ben Smith: 35:37

Oh, we're gonna get to live.

RJ Martinez: 35:39

Yeah, no, well, no, like the first video I created was, it was six years ago.

Ben Smith: 35:46

Okay six years ago.

RJ Martinez: 35:47

The idea was behind that was to just start to record my journey because I Seen it as a opportunity, you know, obviously to help other people. But it's there, it's like. It's like basically just recording the journey along the way and then if I can create content based off everything that I do and if it can help other people, that's the main you know idea behind it. It's crazy to even think about Like I didn't create a course right until like last year I believe it was, and I've wasn't. Just I wasn't a course guy. But then when I started creating content on tiktok, people are like hey, dude, we need your course. I'm like I'm not a course guy. I was like but I have all the content on YouTube but it's like it's kind of all over the place. I was like so I can put it together with all the links and it'll be all the course right there, and I'm just like you know what and you know it's to be another opportunity to Obviously make money online and it's there. And then you know, obviously I'm not gonna.

RJ Martinez: 36:42

Oh yeah, by the course and then see you later type of person I'm by the course. Do you have any questions? We can hop on a call real fast. Would do everything. Good, you know what I mean? I just buy my course, see you later, peace out type of person and obviously I'm gonna do some updates, but that's what it was. Man and I just started creating content Based on that is kind of just Document the whole journey, and it was like easy, kind of like the Gary V approach, and he's like you can just document your whole journey, like you don't even have your. That would be your creating your contents. The easiest content to create is documenting your journey.

Ben Smith: 37:12

Right, so, and now I mean so now are you also doing like, are you you're doing tiktok? Are you doing like YouTube shorts all that stuff to you? Yeah, just testing out a lot of that stuff.

RJ Martinez: 37:22

Yeah, I'm a. I'm like I'm a 708 videos in on YouTube.

Ben Smith: 37:28

A lot of content.

RJ Martinez: 37:32

Yeah, I've invested a lot of time into it and there's certain times I'm just sitting there. Yeah, exactly I like I'm taking a break.

Ben Smith: 37:40

Yeah, nice and so so what about the Amazon influencer world? I know that for you that's kind of a newer thing, but it's, I guess, kind of. I would think it would be natural for you, just because you're already someone who's comfortable in front of a camera or behind a camera, whatever you want to call it. Yeah, you're obviously already in the Amazon ecosystem. So what are you doing with the Amazon influencer space?

RJ Martinez: 37:59

Yeah, so I heard about that in June 222, so most last year, you're in two months ago and I Literally just I went to my Amazon cart and I was like, okay, so I signed up for it. First of all, I signed up for it, I got approved, what up? So I put the three. Well, I got approved and then I put the three videos up and then I got I started getting paid to create videos on there where they watch the video I think it's more than like 30 seconds, right and then you get paid if they make a purchase.

RJ Martinez: 38:28

And I was like you know what I was like let me be like very like Strategic with this. Like what can I do from go from zero to 500? So I didn't show my face from zero to five hundred dollars a month. And I was like, okay, cool. So I went on to my Amazon orders, reviewed everything, probably knocked out about 80 to 90 Products, and then I was like, okay, now how can I reinvest this back in to go from you know 500 to $1,000, right, and I was like my goal is to obviously make it, you know, consistently making that. Like if I didn't want to do no videos this month, like I want to be consistently, you know, making over, you know, $2,000, $3,000 a month, and so I just started going to town on it, you know, and then I'm just like, I'm averaging, like about anywhere between 50 to 100 videos a month, doing it, doing it, but all this whole researching does.

Ben Smith: 39:16

I mean, you have to buy that many products, like is, are you buying like 50 to 100 products a month and then doing a video on them? Is that how that works? Like that's my, my question. I.

RJ Martinez: 39:26

Last month I spent Probably I want to say like $600 on products. So I'm just reading, I'm reinvesting it back into it like I want to be on oh, I might spend a thousand dollars because I'm getting some cool new stuff. Dude, you know what I mean. And then I think I see it as Like, think about it, the bigger picture, this way if I'm making content, like if I can buy Like some new audio equipment to test it out, and like, cool, I'm gonna make some odd, I'm gonna make this video, I'm gonna test out this new microphone that I got, and I'm making I'm gonna wrap out like a hundred. I got ten pieces of content with it, not a hundred, but I said ten pieces content with it. I'm like, cool, I've wrapped out ten pieces of content with it, got my money's worth, and then I'm gonna review it and it's gonna pay for itself in three or four months.

Ben Smith: 40:06

And then you're gonna make a YouTube video about how you made money doing that, so you got it full circle.

RJ Martinez: 40:12

Yeah, it's a full circle. That's what I, that's what you, that's what I feel like it should be, because I Talked to a buddy early. He's like, dude, you just figure out, make money like just so many different ways. I'm like, dude it just if it applies to it, like if I can you know, plug it in and it makes sense to make money, like it's. If people are asking me, do I do a shout out my can you do a sponsorship video, I'm like, yeah, I can do it, it's easy. I'm just gonna give you this. You know this part of the space right here, but I'm gonna charge you this much, you know, I mean and then the same thing.

RJ Martinez: 40:37

Yeah, and same thing with the Same thing with Amazon video influencer. I have companies where they'll reach out to me and bill like a can you review this product for me? I'm like, yeah, but I'm gonna charge you this much, charge you this much. You know, I mean, I think last month, just alone with that probably make close to like $1,100, just with, along with the companies reaching out to me to review. Yeah, I'm like because it's.

RJ Martinez: 41:00

It comes to a point where I look at the product and, based off of my research and stuff, I'm like this is not a good product. This is not gonna do nothing for me. Yeah, and I just tell them that you know that's not gonna do nothing for me. I was like I'm gonna charge you this much if you want me to do a review. No, that's too much. I'm like, okay, cool, because that's too much to your wasting a bunch of my time where I can Review three or four more products that I know that are gonna rank in and make me money on that actual platform itself. So does it make sense to waste my time over here on this, this product, and and? Or does it make sense for me to review, like a higher quality product that I know that's gonna be selling over and over and every single day. Then it has a lot of traction and search volume.

Ben Smith: 41:38

Yeah, I mean, that's a big thing too. I know, I know people like. As for you, you've got so many different things you're doing and now your time, your times become increasingly scarce, and you know.

Ben Smith: 41:48

I that's one of the things like seller candy, like we talk to a lot of Amazon sellers and that's a big thing is. A lot of times I talked to sellers who are at that, like one person, two person team and they're like, well, I can do that on my own, I don't need to like, get anyone else to like I don't need to build a team. And they're thinking so short-sighted because it's like, yeah, you don't need to build a team and you can keep doing everything on your own. But what's the opportunity cost? Opportunity cost might be that you can't go and spend time. You know finding new products that are really going to help you scale your brand, because you just now spent five hours on the phone with seller support or you know whatever it may be for for you. It's like well, you know that that opportunity for me to create video, edit it, push it out to my, my socials, that's preventing you from doing all kinds of other things.

Ben Smith: 42:31

Right, so, that's definitely a yeah. It's a tricky balance, for sure.

RJ Martinez: 42:34

Like you said, there's product research, where design research or you know, just even just have a whole like. For as far as like I have like books, different book ideas, I have a ton of them so that we have a lot of. We have probably had like two years, three years of work to get done. But as far as like design research is like every single month I try to have new design research for my team so they can get it done. And then, as far as like new video stuff, video ideas, it's like I have like a whole list of you know, just for August alone, where I'm going to go back and look at my spreadsheet and like, okay, I have to do this, do this, do that, do that. And then the daily goals. I'm like, okay, this is my daily goals, I have to do this, do that.

RJ Martinez: 43:08

And I, you know some of the stuff is eat healthy. Because you know, like certain days I'm like I don't want to eat healthy today, like, nah, you got to eat healthy today. Like you're not eating, you're not eating bad. I'm like, okay, I guess I won't go out to eat today, but you know, just certain little things like that little you know today was go to Sam's club and get meat for the rest of the month.

Ben Smith: 43:28

I don't have to go.

RJ Martinez: 43:29

That's, that's a good, and I accomplished it. That's a goal that I accomplished today. That's a win. You know what I mean. So all those wins that you know I do throughout the day. You're even on here too. They call with you that's a win, I'm doing it right now. So it's just boom, boom, boom, boom. So the little things like that, they all add up, but at the same time, when you have, you got like, if you have like 10 or 15 goals in a day, you got some, you got. You need some help there, buddy.

Ben Smith: 43:54

Yeah, yeah, for sure that's tough, but when I also like, on the flip side, when you set up something reasonable for yourself, then you actually keep crushing, like, even if you don't do every single one, but you get through a significant amount. You also get that momentum right Because you're feeling good, you're making progress, and that's really valuable, unless it's working against you, like if you're like oh, my goals again, today, now that you wake up, and tomorrow it's already stressful. So that's definitely a big thing too, rj I want to switch it up to the.

Ben Smith: 44:22

oh wait, sorry, go ahead, Go ahead.

RJ Martinez: 44:24

I got to hear you just hear the anxiety right there. Man, like you can get like a lot of anxiety and stuff. You got to get that because you got to balance it up, because you know you need those breaks too as well. But to schedule out throughout the week, man, like just like we all do stuff right and there's multiple things that we all do differently and we're not obviously we don't have the same schedule, but you know scheduling out and just little things here, little things here done, it all adds up at the end of the week. You're like cool, I got like 50, 40 things done or 20 things done, but I got them done all correctly. Or 10 things done, they're all done correctly, you're good.

Ben Smith: 44:54

Absolutely man. So I want to. I want to kind of go and switch over to what we call our controversial take. I always say that this is kind of the does pineapple belong on pizza session of our show. So what is a controversial take? Or just something that you believe very strongly in in terms of, kind, of the Amazon space?

RJ Martinez: 45:15

I had a pineapple pizza, bacon, jalapeno of the day with bomb. There we go, okay.

Ben Smith: 45:21

So I'm two for two. I have at least two guests so far that are like yes, pineapple belongs on pizza, which I am also a pineapple guy. So let's get to know.

RJ Martinez: 45:30

It was fresh jalapenos too, so it was a hot pizza. Was bomb the question? So I think, just like a lot of things that I see inside of you know, like Facebook groups and certain things, like people even reach out to me like is this business still doable, like, doable, like, can I still do this? Oh yeah, I think there's this. You know, over time, with any business, there's going to be more and more competition, right, and that's just with anything. If it's easy and you see a lot of people making money, of course there's going to be competition.

RJ Martinez: 46:01

But I think, if you go into any type of business or any type of you know new idea or side hustle, whatever you want to call it, just having a good workflow, a good plan, good business plan, and that workflow is like a. They should make it like a day to day thing for the next three months, six months, and then, based off of the results that you're getting like you know what I mean you can kind of make a better decision, because the more data, the more knowledge that you have, the better right. And it's crazy because we're talking about this earlier too.

RJ Martinez: 46:35

Ben is just like some of the YouTube content or some of the videos that I personally create. I feel like they're good, but I feel like I can edit them a little bit more, make it more, a little entertaining. But that's not the point. The point is, is this video providing value and is it helping the person or the viewer watching? Okay, and it's just like you can make it as entertaining as you want, but if it's, if there's no, you know it's not helping someone do something.

Ben Smith: 47:00

Well, you never publish it too. It's like I have this problem. I'll admit I have this problem of being kind of a perfectionist a lot where it's like, well, I feel like I need to edit this and this and this, but then if you never publish the video or you never get that product live, it's not going to help anyone. So it doesn't matter, and often, yeah, it's at your point, like we were talking, and oftentimes it doesn't need to be as perfect as you think. You know, I've had so many like. I used to have my YouTube channel that I was super active on and I had a lot of my best videos were lowest production value. You know what I mean and that was a big surprise to me, and I think that's the important thing that you just said again is and this is truly, truly who you are from, from everything that you know I've seen over the last few years is you default to action, right?

Ben Smith: 47:45

And even if it's people and people say it all the time. Even five years ago, people were like Amazon's too saturated, like can't do it, blah, blah, blah. There's always going to be more and more people coming on to any opportunity, like real estate's been around for ever, you know, and real estate's always going to be saturated. But there's always opportunity there and it just depends how you look at it. And then obviously, there's certain strategies and things and systems you can build in your team. But yeah, that's 100% true man. Yeah, there's always opportunity. You just got to look at it in the right way.

RJ Martinez: 48:14

Actually had someone. He came from South Carolina and he visited. He went to Comic Con. He was like he's like I'll always you talked to me on the phone before we actually met each other in person. We actually went to go meet up Actually, my Uber wants to go pick him up and then we went in the same Uber to go eat together at his hotel and he was talking about his perfectionist when it comes to editing content and stuff like that, and I was like it's going to be your downfall because you're not going to be able to, you know, get the results you want with that type of you know mentality, because you just you have to test and get stuff out there.

RJ Martinez: 48:47

And it's okay if you don't think it performs good, because sometimes what we talked about too is like we didn't think the video was going to perform well but then all of a sudden it turns into like your top three, your top five, or just keeps on getting consistent. You know traffic to that video or whatever it is that your, whatever your goal is right. Obviously it turns out to be one of the best ones and you would have never known that if you didn't publish it and it just it's always. You can always do better, right, and also you can be. You're just as good as your last video, or you're just good as your last piece of content, or you're just as good as your last design. You're just as good as your last product. Okay, so what's next? Like, stop thinking backwards, think forward, and then you just keep going.

Ben Smith: 49:29

Thanks for sharing that. So I want to say I know, rj, you and I could talk for probably hours more, so we might have to have you come back on for another appearance here on the show, but we are kind of at that closing time For everyone who's watching this. I just wanted to say out loud on behalf of viewers, everyone, rj, thanks for being here. We really appreciate it. It's been awesome to kind of get your take, you know, on the merch by Amazon, print on demand, kdp space and also the YouTube space, right, youtube and Amazon influencers. So for everyone watching, I hope you guys got some kind of insight or information or maybe learned about these platforms for the first time. Not everyone knows about merch or KDP or some of these other things. So, rj, if people are interested in finding you, following you, knowing more about you, where can they actually connect with you?

RJ Martinez: 50:16

I'll share all my information with you, so you can share that too.

Ben Smith: 50:19

Thank you.

RJ Martinez: 50:20

Mainly YouTube, facebook, instagram. I'm pretty much on every single platform TikTok. I try to get back to all this. You know this too. It's a struggle to get back to everyone's. You know comments and stuff like that, but I try my best as possible when it comes to that, because I have stuff that I work on too. As myself, I do offer like I said, I do offer a course for Amazon. Merch on demand Okay, that's the new name for it. They changed it, they changed it, they changed it. But a lot of people I talk to they're like no, it's still merch by Amazon. I do have that too, but I'm pretty much active on all social media platforms.

Ben Smith: 50:56

Cool, I love it. So, youtube, we'll put all the links down below You've also got an awesome Facebook group. I'm in for print, the print on demand world. So no, that's great. So, RJ, again, that's going to kind of bring us to the end here. So thank you so much, RJ. From RJ Hussles. Is that so what you're called? Your YouTube channel is called RJ Hussles.

RJ Martinez: 51:16

Just RJ Martinez. Print on demand RJ Martinez, but.

Ben Smith: 51:19

RJ.

RJ Martinez: 51:19

Hussles on Instagram TikTok all that stuff Cool.

Ben Smith: 51:25

So, yeah, thanks again for everyone who is watching. We hope that you got some great insight, strategies and value out of this show and, as always, thank you for tuning into the Amazon Strategist show. You found this valuable, please. You know we ask that you kind of rate review on Apple Podcasts, spotify and, of course, subscribe to us. Leave us comments in the YouTube section if you're watching this on YouTube. All that stuff is amazing. It also helps us reach more and more people in the Amazon world.

Ben Smith: 51:52

So again, rj, thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate it today and, yeah, hopefully we'll have to have you back on very soon.

RJ Martinez: 51:59

Thank you.