Building an Amazon Wholesale Business w/ Eric Castellano

Imagine having the power to turn adversity into triumph, and achieving financial freedom through Amazon wholesaling. Sounds enticing, right? We've got just the episode for you! In this enlightening conversation with Eric Castellano, a successful Amazon seller with over $100 million in annual sales, we uncover the secrets of building a profitable Amazon store, pricing products competitively, and making informed inventory decisions. Eric's insights not only reveal his expertise in Amazon wholesaling but also the inspiring journey that led him to this success.

From a period of hardships in his mid to late 20s, Eric rose to become a nine-figure Amazon seller. He shares with us his incredible story of resilience and service to others, providing key lessons in turning adversity into success. His joy in providing for his family and financing his brother's wedding serves as a testament to his inspiring journey. Moreover, we learn about the practical aspects of Amazon wholesale, from using UPC scrapers for product research to leveraging Amazon's Best Seller Rank for making inventory decisions.

Lastly, Eric shares the invaluable lesson of investing in financial education. He challenges you, our listener, to commit to something you're passionate about and work on it for a year, a practical step towards your financial freedom. So, get ready to be inspired, learn from a successful Amazon seller, and take that first step towards your financial independence. Tune in and let Eric guide you on your journey to success in the Amazon wholesale world.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

So you upload the catalog to this UPC scraper and what it does is it scrapes the catalogs the UPC versus Amazon's catalog and spits out profitable results for you. So you could eliminate that 10,000 lied item catalog to maybe 500 items. And then you take those 500 items and now you start looking at the price changes and all products on Amazon have what's called the best sellers rank. So that rank literally tells you how many units a month itself.

Speaker 2: 0:31

Welcome to the Financial Freedom Fast Podcast, the show that teaches you how to buy back your time and live life on your terms. Learn how to confidently leave your nine to five from guests who've done it themselves. Whether you wanna lay on a beach, travel the world or focus on your passions, this show will give you the tools to do what you want when you want. Now here's your host, matt Ammabio.

Speaker 3: 1:03

What is up? Financial Freedom Fast Fam Today I've got on Eric Castellano gonna be such a great podcast today. He runs Amazon Wholesale Shops and he has tons and tons of students under him learning how to do the same thing. His students have sold over $500 million annually on Amazon and he himself is a nine figure Amazon seller AKA $100 million plus per year. He teaches you soup to nuts in this episode how to go about setting up your own Amazon store, finding the right products to bring on, how to price them competitively, building a brand and getting them sold. We go through everything. If you wanna learn how to build your own Amazon store, this is gonna be the podcast for you, baby. So without further ado, my babies, let's jump into the pod. Eric Castellano, welcome to the Financial Freedom Fast podcast. What is going on, my man?

Speaker 1: 2:15

Matt man, what's up, Everything is well over here. Excited to be here, excited to talk some shop for the next 40 minutes or so, but just grateful for the opportunity. Man, Life is beautiful.

Speaker 3: 2:26

Dude, life is beautiful, man, and you're about to leave for a nice little trip out to a conference Funnel Hockeyers Conference. Out there, man, it's gonna be a big day for you, dude. You got some exciting days coming up. So, with this conference that you're going to like, why are you going to that conference? What is it that you do right now that is bringing you out there?

Speaker 1: 2:50

Yeah, I've been operating in the Amazon FBA wholesale business for about a decade now and it's very successful, and I operate one of the largest third-party companies in the United States 50 employees, 60,000 square foot warehouse. So about four years ago, we realized that other people were doing this and they needed the proper guidance on how to do it. So I went to my first Funnel Knocking Live event back in, I think, 2018, and I just witnessed all these entrepreneurs networking and hanging out and building these educational programs and really changing their lives and the people around them and I was like I want a piece of that. I got hooked immediately to see the energy in the room, so I'm going down there to further educate myself on how to build the consulting side of my business, where I teach people how to Dude, that's awesome man.

Speaker 3: 3:44

So you're teaching people how to do what you do. You mentioned Amazon, wholesale, fba. What is it that you are doing on a day-to-day? What does your current business portfolio look like?

Speaker 1: 3:57

Yeah, so my main business is Amazon Wholesale. It's essentially where we buy products at discounted prices from wholesalers and distributors and we re-list them on Amazon for a markup. Now it's a little different than private label, where we're not creating the products and we're not shipping the products from overseas. We're sourcing the products right here in the United States, so they're shipped to us in a day or two and then we're sending them to Amazon FBA fulfillment centers and customers just like you and family members and friends are able to purchase the products that I sell with the click of a button.

Speaker 3: 4:32

That's amazing, man. And I saw on your Instagram profile, dude, you're a nine-figure Amazon seller. So nine figures just for our audience, that's hundreds of millions of dollars of products. You've sold over $100 million of products. Is that what you're saying?

Speaker 1: 4:53

Yeah, we actually sold a lot more than that. So in the next maybe four to six months we'll be crossing about a half billion dollars sold, so about $500 million sold on.

Speaker 3: 5:03

And that's over your 10-year career of doing this. That is correct, man. Wow, man, that is. It didn't happen overnight, man, and I imagine, as with a lot of business areas, it was pretty hockey stick. If you look at the revenue over your career, those first five years there probably wasn't Like there was probably incremental revenue increase, and then there was probably a point where you were like, damn, I get this stuff now. And then that hockey stick started to come up. Is that something that you experienced along the way?

Speaker 1: 5:38

100%. Year one we did a little less than a million dollars. Year two we did four or five million, and then year three we jumped to 10. And then year four and five, we clapped, toled right around 20. And after that I felt like we really got the hang of the game and you know how to be real efficient at it. And then we just started going up every year after year by $10 million a year. We did 40 million, 50 to 60. And this year we're probably gonna close the year right around $80 million in sales revenue. It was.

Speaker 3: 6:07

Let's go man. 80 million revenue. That's absolutely amazing and it's just gonna keep on growing and growing from there. I love to hear that. So what I wanna do here we're going to get into the nitty gritty about Amazon and wholesale how we can actually do this, how some of the listeners here can execute on this, but before we dive into that, I want to get an idea of your story before all of this. What is it that brought you to Amazon? What were you doing? Were you working a job? What was your life like and what brought you to this business model?

Speaker 1: 6:47

Yes, I'm actually 36 now. I just turned 36 on Saturday. Happy birthday, brother. Thank you, man. And I went to college. I went to NYU for engineering. That took me 12 years to finish and I actually went back after I started my Amazon business to finish the degree just for street credit really not to use it, but just because I invest a lot of money.

Speaker 1: 7:09

But my mid to late 20s were filled with a lot of hardships and pain, man. I come from a very struggled past of substance abuse and alcoholism, and that brought me to a rock bottom and that's actually how I started selling on Amazon. I was homeless at the time, living out of my car. My best friend, Sebastian, who's now my business partner in multiple companies that we own, he said, hey, come, stay on my couch for the night and he brought me into his basement and he had a basement full of products that he was getting from Sam's Club in Costco at BJ's and he was selling them on Amazon. And at the time I laughed. I was like, bro, you're a joke, man. What do you mean? You're selling products on the internet. This was maybe 2013. They all started then, man. But my early 20s, mid 20s, man, was filled with a lot of hardship and pain and I don't regret that. It really made me into the person I am today and allowed me to be very aware of my surroundings and empathetic for other people.

Speaker 3: 8:07

And have you found that? Does that drive you? Does it drive you to not want to be back in that position? Was it almost like that was a learning lesson that you had to have for this new you to come and be born? What from that original alcoholism and being a bit homeless there, what from that experience did you take into this new lifestyle that you've created for yourself?

Speaker 1: 8:35

Yeah, I would say some of the biggest things are understanding what it means to have absolutely nothing, to be completely broken and have not a hope in the world, and be able to look in the mirror and see a shell of a man, and I know what that feels like and I don't wish that upon everybody or anybody. So I now have the ability to serve people at a different level because I truly understand where served people are coming from and I integrate all those principles I learned in the process of getting sober over the past eight years on how to really be of maximum service to others and be as selfless as possible in the process.

Speaker 3: 9:13

Man. Thank you for sharing that story. Thanks for letting us know that past that you went through, and that's just the shell. You've been doing this right around 10 years now. So you're 36 now. So you started right around 26 years old. That's actually how old I am right now 26 years old, and it doesn't matter where and when you get started with any of this stuff in life. You could be 36 right now and you want to get started in this stuff and maybe you'll get to the point that you're at by 46, or maybe you don't even need to get to that point. You only need a certain amount of what you've created to live a great life. So why are you doing all of this? What drives you to go out there and build these businesses right now? Is it that idea of having nothing and being that shell of a man? Or what is keeping you going on the day to day right now?

Speaker 1: 10:09

Yeah, I think it definitely. What you just said plays a role in it. And also I want to be able to provide for my family. My parents made so many sacrifices early on for me, and being able to give back to them and provide to them Like I just put down 25% for a new home that they're getting next month, like this stuff, like that allows me to rest easier at night, knowing that I'm not only very successful and still gaining success as I age, but also that I'm able to give back and provide to the people who've always supported me. Yeah, man.

Speaker 3: 10:45

That is amazing and making money. One of the most fun things and rewarding things about it is being able to give out that money too, and not even give out, but to spend that money on the people that you care about. I just paid for my brother's wedding his wedding venue for August of next year, and that was the easiest large amount of money that I've ever had to spend, and I don't even see that it's such a good feeling to be able to do that. So it's amazing that you're creating these businesses to be able to continue to do that. Man, why is a cheat?

Speaker 1: 11:34

mat so good. That's not a map and weddings are not cheap, not cheap.

Speaker 3: 11:39

Not cheap. I just paid for the venue. They were paying for some other stuff involved, but, man, it just feels great to be able to do that. So I encourage all of our listeners to go out there and just build whatever dreams you have for yourself. Build whatever companies. Build it for yourself and also build it for other people around you. Have a bigger goal that you're pushing towards, man. So if now we're going to dive in, I love the story. I love the meaning behind it, I love the why. Let's dive into what actually goes into an Amazon wholesale business. If you had to compartmentalize this business into different sectors and areas that you have to execute on to make this business run, what would those main areas be? And then we'll dig into those areas a little bit further.

Speaker 1: 12:35

Yeah, I would say it really boils down to three or four main topics to really grow and scale and Amazon wholesale business. First, and really the hardest thing in the barrier of entry for most new people getting into the game is supplier relationships. Right, because if you don't have the supplier relationships, you can't buy the inventory that's going to generate the profit back into your bank account. So building those supplier relationships is the most challenging aspect. But in the easiest place to start would be Google. We're using keyword searches like grocery suppliers, miami beauty distributors, new York, right Wherever you're located, with some keywords and then you just start emailing and calling those suppliers and opening those accounts. So that's probably the hardest part of this whole game is establishing those relationships first.

Speaker 3: 13:28

So supplier, if we had to break this down. So we've got supplier relationships, and then what else? What are those other few big areas? You said three to four areas.

Speaker 1: 13:39

Yeah, so I would say. The second one is then buying right, because now that you've built the relationships, you have access to this inventory, but you have to understand how to research the products, analyze the competition and understand the price changes right. Make sure that the inventory that you're purchasing is actually going to sell to the end consumer so you can get a return on that investment.

Speaker 3: 14:06

That is one of the areas that I feel like the supplier side. You have to know what you're going to buy first before you go to the supplier and actually ask for it to buy. So is that step one? If you're going to go create your own business, do you have to sell on Amazon? You have to know what you're going to sell first. So is that buying part like the analysis, product analysis Is that step one or what is step one here?

Speaker 1: 14:39

No, I would say step one is really suppliers, because what I always encourage people to do is just buy what you have access to, because it's challenging to find the product first and then hunt down the company selling it, versus just finding a company that has a lot of products and using those to do the analysis because you already know you have access.

Speaker 3: 15:01

Oh, got it. So we want to find a supplier that has a ton of different products for whatever niche that we want to dive into, and then we can do market research on the products that they have available. So, almost yeah, go get the availability to the actual product before you even do all that research. See what they have and then see what does that analysis look like. So we go out, we Google, we do this keyword search, we find a supplier, we call them up, we email them, we get on the phone, we say we build this relationship and now we have access to the product. Let's say they have. I don't know how many products typically does a supplier have.

Speaker 3: 15:50

Yeah, 10,000 is a fair number, okay. 10,000 different types of products? Yeah, okay, and these are US based suppliers, typically the ones that you're dealing with.

Speaker 1: 16:02

Yeah, they're all brand name products. So think of what you'd see if you walked into a CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid, Revlon, Olds, Meist and, in Shoulders, just everyday branded products Interesting.

Speaker 3: 16:15

Okay, so we find one of these suppliers that has the 10,000 products and they are these name brand type of products. Now, what is that step? How do we do that analysis on these products to see if one of them would be a fit to go after and how do you decide yeah, that's a good one for me to go after.

Speaker 1: 16:36

Yeah. So 10,000 products could seem very overwhelming, especially for someone new in the game. But fortunately there's softwares that help sort through this data. They're called the UPC scrapers. So essentially you upload the catalog to this UPC scraper and what it does is it scrapes the catalogs the UPC versus Amazon's catalog and spits out profitable results for you. So you could eliminate that 10,000 line item catalog to maybe 500 items, which will make your life much easier. And then you take those 500 items and now you start looking at the Amazon listings and looking at the price changes and all products on Amazon have what's called a BSR best sellers rank. So that rank literally tells you how many units a month it sells Before you buy it. Hey, this listing selling 3 or 2 units a month, there's 5 sellers. I'll be seller number 6, so I'm going to purchase around 40 or 50 units of this item, as long as it's profitable.

Speaker 3: 17:35

Wow. So then you purchase the item and now you do mainly FBA for our listeners, since I've actually never done an Amazon podcast before, I do know what FBA is. I've sold coffee, I've sold different products on Amazon, but can you explain what FBA is? So once you buy those 40 units of the old it's deodorant, what are you doing with?

Speaker 1: 18:01

it. Yeah, so FBA is fulfilled by Amazon. So a lot of people don't know that 60% of the products that you purchase on Amazoncom come from regular people just like me and you and other third party sellers, right, so they're essentially reselling these brand name products. So our goal when we make that purchase order is to get it to Amazon. So when a customer purchases it, amazon boxes it and ships it to the end consumer, and I'm fully hands off in the fulfillment process. Now, in order to get it to Amazon, you have a few options. You can have your supplier ship it directly to Amazon and Amazon charges a small fee to package that item for you. You can ship it to a warehouse, if you have one, and you package it and ship it. Or you can use what's called a prep center, which is like an intermediate third party warehouse, where they package your inventory, charge you a fee and send it.

Speaker 3: 18:56

And which do you recommend mainly for the students? For the students that you're talking to, I know you yourself. You own warehouse. You've owned five warehouses throughout the time and you've got a 60,000 foot square foot warehouse right now, just starting off. Are you recommending to send these products to Amazon and just have them handle the whole thing, or what is?

Speaker 1: 19:20

Yeah, it's really one of the first two options and there's a third one as well. So if you're brand new, your goal would be, hopefully, communicate with your vendors and if they ship to Amazon, then that's a great route. But I don't advise it really, because Amazon takes a long time to prep your items. It might sit in their warehouse for three weeks and after three weeks the price could change and then you're no longer available. So the two main routes I recommend for newer sellers use a prep center, because they have fast turnaround time, or ship the products to your house and learn the game, and more ends on prepping it, packaging it, shipping yourself to get yourself understanding the fundamentals of business man.

Speaker 3: 19:59

that's amazing. What does the turnaround time look like from time of hey, I found this product that I wanna put on Amazon. Boom, I just clicked my order to get the supplier to send me 40 of these things. My plan is to package these up all by all the boxes and the tape and all this stuff. I'll package it up and I'll send it out and I'll learn the game. What is the lead time? Let's say that this product can get to me in 14 days, right? Or they'll get it to me in two weeks. How quick can I be up on Amazon if I've got nothing set up right now? What's the setup on Amazon look like?

Speaker 1: 20:42

Yeah, so it can be anywhere for seven or 14 days to get the product actually listed on Amazon. So if the product shipped to you in two weeks, you package that day, send it to Amazon takes a few days to get there, depending on what shipping service you use, and then Amazon starts receiving that inventory and making it available. So it could be seven days, it could be less, but the average I would say is seven or 14 days to get that in.

Speaker 3: 21:06

Seven or 14 days, and now, if you are the one who is packaging it and sending it out, can that product still be prime verified, or is that only if it's fulfilled by Amazon?

Speaker 1: 21:19

Yeah, so only if it's fulfilled by Amazon. So if you're gonna, the goal of packaging it yourself is to label it right, Because Amazon has what's called an FNSU, which is a separate label you put. It's basically like a license. It tells Amazon that, hey, this is what product it's for and this is the seller it's connected to. So the reason why I have a 60,000 square foot warehouse is because we ship all that inventory to our fulfillment center and we relabel it with our license plates, our FNSUs, right. But there is a second way of selling on Amazon, which is called FBM, fulfilled by merchant, where you ship the product to the customer, so you don't send anything to Amazon. When the order comes in, you put it in a poly bag or a bubble mail or a box, you put the UPS or FedEx label on it and you ship it to the customer directly.

Speaker 3: 22:10

Right. So that and that's what I was referring to it as in the beginning there, when we were just talking like I order 40, I'm gonna package it, label it and send it out Almost the old school like and I think eBay still rocks with it that way but like, almost like you're doing selling on eBay, is that correct? Yeah?

Speaker 1: 22:30

yeah, yeah. So there's two different ways to get the product to the customer. I prefer FBA because it's more hand-off. I don't have to deal with customer returns, customer complaints, packaging the inventory in individual boxes, shipping them out one by one. I just package the whole shipping in bulk, get it to Amazon and Amazon manages all that for.

Speaker 3: 22:51

Understood, understood, man, that is awesome. So what sets sellers apart on Amazon? If you've got this highly before, I ask that question actually what size, what price range products do you recommend that people start out with? Does it matter, or like small items? $100 items, $200? What do you recommend?

Speaker 1: 23:17

Yeah, so general wholesale will be products that have a selling price around $15 to $25. Like, my average sale price is right around $22.

Speaker 3: 23:28

Okay, so not too crazy. And if you're able, let's just say you're gonna do an order of 100 of these units, you've got 15, or if it's selling for 15 bucks, let's say you're buying it for $10. So you need about roughly like between $1,000 to $2,000 to invest in your first trial period here and you could try to fulfill this stuff yourself just as a proof of concept to see that these products do sell, and then start ramping it up. Do the fulfill by Amazon. But what actually sets a seller apart from? You've got the same product. One of them is selling and the other's not. What makes the difference there?

Speaker 1: 24:13

Yeah, so it's a few things. It's obviously your ability to understand the supply chain and negotiate discounts right, cause we might have the same supplier getting the same product when I'm spending a little more money harvesting the relationship, visiting them at trade shows, sending them gifts on their birthday, so I'm getting a 10% discount and someone else might only be getting a 4% 5% discount. So that margin in between makes a huge difference. The second thing is really your efficiency right. Like how quickly are you able to reprice these products and stay competitive? What's your cost to ship the inventory to Amazon? Is it taking you a long time to prep it, to process it, to send it? Or are you sending SPD versus LTL, which is less than truckload? So, like, doing all these things, being more efficient in your process, allow you to shave margin back into your pocket, which allows you to stay more competitive on the marketplace.

Speaker 3: 25:10

Love it. So it's like it's lead time and then your ability to negotiate your pricing on your end, which allows you to deliver better pricing to the end customer, which obviously everybody likes. It's the same product and it's side by side and it's gonna be and you're gonna get it quicker and cheaper. That's a no brainer in my mind. So we've talked about supplier relationships. That's number one. We wanna have access to these products. We wanna be able to have this big catalog that we could throw in. Then do our buying side, do our analysis, which products are we going to buy?

Speaker 3: 25:46

You could throw it in this little UPC scraper and have it run through the entire catalog and bring back 500 different products. That might be good. By the way, is there a specific UPC scraper that you are using that people should look into if they're gonna be going and doing this? Yeah, absolutely. The one we recommend is called Scan Unlimited Awesome. So after they do that, they bought the product. Now you said there's three to four different areas. So we've got supplier relationships, We've got buying, one or those one or two other areas that we need to watch out for while we're building up.

Speaker 1: 26:25

The third one would be logistics right Saving on shipping costs, prepping your items quickly and efficiently, because we at my facility we have the expenses broken down per second. Like I know, for me to keep an employee packaging inventory it costs me about 15 cents per second right. So what? I'm able to run those numbers Times a minute, times an hour, times an eight hour, shift, times a five day week plus overtime, like I know exactly what it cost me to get one product out the door. So getting a hold of your expenses early on is really so key. And understanding your logistics and the whole process to save Anywhere you can save, to be more efficient in your process.

Speaker 3: 27:09

Mmm, awesome. So know exactly, know your metrics, know how quick you're packing these items up, what's going into each, what exactly goes into each item to get it out the door, and then you can actually Measure and manage those and you cannot. What is the saying? You cannot improve what you do not measure Something, something like that it's really important to do there. What are the mistakes that people are making early on and when they first start up these businesses? Where do people get held up and what are those few bottleneck areas that they should watch out for?

Speaker 1: 27:49

Yeah, so it's really. I'd boil it down to two things. The first one is just a quit too soon. Amazon, against what all the YouTube advertisements say that you're gonna be driving a Lamborghini and next weekend there. It's not like that at all. It's a long-term business. It's challenging to build, but once you get that momentum nine months, 12 months, 18 months in it becomes much easier. So most people they just quit too soon but they don't really allocate the time, and what I advise to anybody considering doing this is give yourself one year, even if you're gonna work on it part time as a side of us. So give yourself a full 12 months, go all in, and if, after 12 months goes by, you're not seeing the profits, you could always go back to what you used. But if you don't give it at least 12 months, you will never really get to see the momentum build out in the business.

Speaker 3: 28:39

How is.

Speaker 1: 28:40

Oh good I was going to say. The second thing is variation listings huge mistake. I don't know if you've ever shopped on Amazon and you're buying like a Nike shoe and on the listing They'll have 40 different colors and 18 different sizes. So a lot of people they make a mistake when they buy, thinking that one of those products is going to sell well because. But because it has 80 different variations, they actually pick the wrong best-selling item in that variation. So they buy a thousand dollars worth inventory, sent Amazon and they don't get any sale. And then they're like what happened?

Speaker 3: 29:13

And if you read the data wrong, Love that, so that and that really comes important on your buying side too right doing that analysis, known exactly how much of what product. And if you have an 80 different variations of a product on a single listing, man, that just seems like it's one. It's not efficient too. Like the buyer, me, when I'm looking at a listing, I don't want to even look through 20 different variations. Like I want to be able to choose from three to five different things. Possibly having all that stock Built up might not be the best idea.

Speaker 3: 29:48

Now. You see a ton of this out there. Like you mentioned, man, become a millionaire tomorrow, do that. You're driving the Lambo, you're getting the mansion. You're doing all this and that has led a lot of people to dive into this business and maybe get caught up with the wrong type of mentors, which we'll talk about in a little bit your beliefs and ideas on that and the inner circle and everything that you're doing here. But what is Competitiveness like in the market right now? With so many people getting involved in this, how could someone just starting out even think that they might have a chance to do well on this?

Speaker 1: 30:31

Yeah, yeah, so a little bit of hope it's a determination is going to go a long way and any new business you start is challenging Most new businesses. I don't know the met the date on it, but I know that a majority of them fail within the first. So the majority of them are not profitable for 1824 months sometimes. But the cool thing about Amazon is you can be profitable pretty quick, right, but it takes a special type of person to navigate, understand the information and execute on what's going to drive Profit into your business. It's definitely challenging for a newer seller because Amazon doesn't trust you yet. You have no seller feedback, you have no reviews. But getting some product selling and moving and at the beginning, don't worry about making 10,000 bucks a month. Just worry about selling some inventory to learn the game the same way people invest. I spent 250,000 dollars on college use, so what's spending 250 or thousand bucks as some inventory that you're gonna break even on to learn the infrastructure of how Amazon works? It's nothing in the grand scheme.

Speaker 3: 31:36

Yeah, agreed, and the minimum that it could do for you is if you're thinking about starting this out right now, it's something that you've probably already thought about starting out in the past. So you're gonna spend your whole life wondering what if I just gave that a shot and tried that out? So take 250 bucks, take a thousand bucks and try it out. The worst thing that happens is you try it out. You say, yeah, this is not for me, and then you try it out. You won't regret not knowing what you've done. So put yourself out there, get out there and try that stuff out. Now, as far as your store goes, are you niching down? Is it like beauty? Do you recommend people to start off like I'm gonna be in beauty products or I'm gonna be in outdoor sports gear or something like that? Where do you people focus in at?

Speaker 1: 32:33

Yeah. So my three biggest categories are grocery, because it has no return ball or you can't return it. That's the policy on Amazon, so very low return rates. The other one is beauty and then health and personal care. So those are my three biggest categories, but I sell in every category baby, outdoor, sporting goods, industrial and scientific Anywhere I can make a margin. I wanna be a part of that. So I always encourage sellers don't limit yourself to a specific niche. Don't just start with toys, don't just start with groceries. Start with whatever you're ungated in, whatever Amazon allows you to sell. Start there and then build out your store. Like right now I have about 5,000 products in stock. Get for products in stock.

Speaker 3: 33:19

You're like a supplier yourself now. Yeah, one-thousand-shot Gonna be moving into the back end there. Man, I love that. Now we did talk a little bit, or at least I just mentioned it, with all these different gurus popping up. Man, make a million dollars tomorrow with Amazon, fba. Do all this stuff, man, how have you navigated? Investing in masterminds or gurus or inner circles or finding the right people? How do you underwrite the groups and people that you're going to pay the money to? And, as a second part of that question, have you ever had that pullback where you're like man, I don't wanna drop 20 grand to go be in this course, and how is that paid off for you? Could you share a little bit about that? Yeah?

Speaker 1: 34:08

so I would say, as far as vetting anybody that you're trying to be educated by, in any space, whether it's real estate, airbnb, stock trading, amazon, fba I suggest researching. Don't just you see it added. You see something that gets you excited, gets your door fence flowing and you immediately click buy. No, check out Google, see if they have reviews, find out if you can talk to someone who's actually a part of their program. But if you can get on a phone with the person running the community like I don't let anybody unless they talk to me first If you could talk to the person who runs the show, get on a phone call with them, ask them your questions, inquire right, because you're about to make an investment that could potentially change your life. You wanna make sure that investment is with somebody who actually lives that life. Right, it isn't just selling education because it's a for-profit business, but selling education because they're fully educated themselves.

Speaker 3: 35:05

Right and what do you see, as an instructor, as the difference between the students who succeed and make money with their businesses and the students that dwindle off?

Speaker 1: 35:20

Yeah, so really it's accountability. We've created a very healthy atmosphere for growth. It comes with guided course content, live weekly calls with myself so I can personally guide you, as well as private community access where you get to see and network with the other 1,000 members inside my program. So, like we have, I have these awards behind me here. So I literally know this is our $500,000 a month award. So I literally know how much everybody in my community is selling right, and it's proven that the people who show up to those calls, the people who ask questions in the Facebook group and when I go in to look at the course lots the people who watch the videos they accelerate so much faster than the people who don't participate. It's just proven man.

Speaker 3: 36:09

It is, and I think that's a little bit with every single thing that you do in life, whether you're trying to make it big in Amazon, whether you're trying to make it big in real estate, whether you're trying to go out and buy a business. Whatever you're doing, if you pay in-depth attention and put focus in that area that you're trying to succeed in, and you work on that a little bit every day and try and get 1% better and follow the people who are doing the things that you wanna do, ultimately you will get progress and you will get better and better at what you're doing and you will reach that level of success. You just gotta keep at it. Stay persistent, stay dedicated, like you said earlier. Eric man, it's been so awesome talking to you. I'm gonna dive into our final questions that we ask to every guest. What is one actionable step our listeners should take today to start on their path towards financial freedom?

Speaker 1: 37:12

Play. I would say the one actual task that you could take is make a commitment to yourself. Find something that you wanna get involved in, and I'm sure you already know what that is, especially if you're listening to this podcast. You know what that is. So, whatever that is, you make that commitment today to start it. But, like I said before, give yourself a year, go all in, go all in and if you don't like it, you can always go back to whatever you're doing now. And I'm sure whatever you're doing now, you're probably not enjoying it, because if you're listening to this podcast, you have this glimmer of hope that there's something out there that's better for you, and I can guarantee you that there is. But if you don't start, you'll never know. So take that action, move forward and get moving.

Speaker 3: 38:00

All right, man, you gotta make that commitment, pick that thing. And I love the year. I love the year because it gives you it's not too long of a time, but it's long enough for things to get going and for an engine to get moving. And if things aren't moving after a year, then all right, you tried, you fulfilled your commitment of one year to yourself. Now what's the next thing that you wanna go? Try, or maybe you're succeeding at that point and you keep on going. But a year gives you enough time to keep rocking. Like you said earlier, man, people quit too early. They quit at five months. They quit at two months. One month, man, dude. You gotta give yourself time to get this stuff rocking and going before you get results. That's life, dude. It's final question I've got for you. What is one question that you wish I would have asked, or a topic that you wish I would have covered, and how would you have answered that question or how would you have expanded on that topic?

Speaker 1: 39:01

I would probably say one question that you wish. I wish that you asked. That's a good one, man, you got me out of stumber here.

Speaker 3: 39:11

It's a tough one.

Speaker 1: 39:14

Maybe, if there's anything, I would have done different.

Speaker 3: 39:17

What would you have done different?

Speaker 1: 39:21

What would I have done different? I would have invested in education much, much sooner. But it's challenging because when you look in retrospect it's like everything that I did led me up to here. So would I really want to go back and change something? Probably not, but when I think deeper about it and I'm like man, if I had someone show me the way in year two or year three, I could have maybe been four or five times bigger than I am today if I just would have helpfuled myself and said you know what, hey, I need help, I need help, I need a hand, I need to figure this out faster and maybe started investing in education way sooner, because I didn't really start doing that for my own success until maybe two or three years, probably three years, and if I probably would have done it six years ago, it would have absolutely changed the trajectory of where I am today.

Speaker 3: 40:13

Yeah and you, just you don't have to pay. As my buddy, brian Lubin, says, you don't have to pay the stupid tax. When you pay other people to get to learn what they've done. If it's somebody who's in a position that you want to be in, they already know how to get there. You don't have to pay the stupid tax anymore because if you go and do it yourself, you're going to get hit with different issues here and there and you're going to have to pay that stupid tax. But if you're doing things, you pay someone. You might not run into that issue that before talking about Amazon FBA, like you might not buy that product and now you're holding five grand of inventory and you got nothing to do with it and maybe, like they would have told you don't even buy that product or you would have learned from that. So it really is valuable to invest in the people that are doing the things that you want to do.

Speaker 3: 41:05

Man, we have gone through a lot today. Man, just as a recap for all of our listeners, these main areas that we want to touch on when we're looking at building out our Amazon business. We've got supplier relationships, google and out those keywords, finding those people, building those relationships, finding a supplier with around 10,000 products and being able to actually pick from products. So then we go into our buying phase, where we analyze these products, see what is going to sell best, what do we want to go after and what do we want to bring on to our actual shop and then buy it. And then we've got to work out the logistics. How are we backing these things up? How are we getting them out? Is Amazon fulfilling our worshiping a straight to Amazon? These are all things that you can consider when you're looking to build out your business. Man, we have learned. I have learned a lot today and it's really been a pleasure having you on here, eric. Where can my listeners and watchers find you online, brother?

Speaker 1: 42:03

So two main places AmazonLidcom that's our website, with a ton of free resources, a beginner's guide to get started. Or Instagram. Amazon underscore, lit 70th DM. If you have any questions, I respond to 90% of them personally and I'd love to connect with you moving forward. It's been a pleasure, matt. Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 3: 42:22

Man, it's been amazing. And from the Financial Freedom Fast podcast, I'm your host, Matt Ammobile. Today we are on Eric Castellano and we are signing off. Thanks, Eric, Thank you.

Speaker 2: 42:36

Thanks for listening to the Financial Freedom Fast podcast, the show that teaches you to buy back your time and live life on your terms. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening, and follow us online at Matt Ammobile. That's Matt AMA B-I-L-E. Be sure to tune in Monday, Wednesday and Friday for our weekly podcast drops. Thanks for listening. Let's retire together.