The Lifeline Every Business Needs
The first thing I’m going to share with you is something personal. At one time, I was a ‘totalist’. Not in the political or musical sense of the word totalism, but as in I only felt profitable and successful when something had reached its totality or final form. I felt little to no satisfaction with myself for achieving partial goals or step goals developed to meet a specific end point. I focused on the total revenue and the culminating numbers alone. I learned that this does not work. It doesn’t create lasting success, and it only leads to frustration.
What does work? Listen up and I’ll explain.
Through therapy type coaching from mentors and other successful individuals in the insurance business, I learned that what works is defining a process and being consistent with that process. I became successful because I learned to stop setting number goals and start setting consistent process goals. Instead of focusing on total revenue with my insurance business, I focused on accomplishing processes. For example, to train my employees to sell more, I determined how many conferences and workshops I should host, and then I booked those and had my sales staff attend. Once processes like these were in place, the money followed. This was much more advantageous than just setting a numbers goal where each employee needed to hit X amount in sales. Don’t think about the end goal and final results until you have your processes in place.
Consider this piece of advice seriously, because this applies to your Amazon business too.
I’ll dive into my May numbers with this theme of developing consistent processes.
Let’s start by taking a look at my May numbers from last year, 2021:
Briefly summarizing, you’ll see our total product sales were $179,321.10 with approximately 1 unit per order and 4,931 units or pieces ordered. Why am I looking back at last year? I’d like to compare it to 2022 to strengthen my thematic point. Now let’s take a look at May 2022’s numbers. I had total product sales of $185,801.80 with approximately 1 unit per order and 5,223 units or pieces ordered.
The similarities in these two sets of numbers for May 2021 and May 2022 equate to ‘consistency’. Even with some major life events that happened this May, the numbers remained consistent because of the processes that had been set in place. The processes of working with my trained buyers and utilizing my shared google document to keep track of the specifics of every product I have listed for sale on Amazon is part of my consistent and ongoing process with my predominantly OA business. Take a look at my google tracking sheet. You can see at a glance the important info we need to keep track of our items, sales, and so forth.
This sheet tracks things like the credit card the products were purchased on, the retailer link (which I’ve blocked in red for privacy reasons), the ASIN, Amazon listing, ROI, Rank, and so on. These are some of the consistent processes we’ve put in place to run our business, and as a result, the money rolls in without fail. From 2021 to 2022 you will see consistency in numbers and a growth in total sales of about $6K, and that is consistency in growth with slight sales when you look at the end result. It follows the old adage, “If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.” Putting consistent processes in play in your Amazon business will provide you with lasting success.
I’ll end my May numbers with the story of the 2 farmers. In addition to the consistent processes theme that I’ve highlighted with my May numbers review, I’ll leave you with something to think about as you move forward and grow your Amazon business. You have the astounding opportunity to join our Amazon Seller Tribe and be coached by some of the most successful people in the business. But as you probably already know, our successes didn’t happen overnight. Read on, and you’ll understand my final point.
One farmer decided to enjoy a day of fishing and headed down the road to find the perfect spot. He saw a second farmer out working in his field. As the farmer with the fishing pole approached the immaculate farm, he noticed the beautifully manicured pastures, healthy cattle & horses, meticulous barn, quaint house, and the overall stunning look of the landscape. He even noticed the well-behaved children that played outside. When he reached the farmer out working in his field, the farmer with the fishing pole said,
“God has blessed you with a beautiful farm.”
The working farmer stopped and thought a moment. Then he replied,
“Yes, He has, and I’m grateful. But you should have seen this place when He had it all to Himself.”
The working farmer understood that he had been blessed with a fine farm; but he was also aware that it was his own love and labor that had brought it to its present state.
