Understand what you want to get out of a product and what you

want to sell on Amazon. How's my product going to help somebody?

Would you say that there is such a thing as work-life balance

Yes. If you don't do that, you can start making serious

I have a differing opinion. So I can't have all my eggs in this one basket of

Amazon. I'm now going to look to sell it elsewhere. And

that was like a light bulb moment for me as a brand new seller. Yeah.

So I then pivoted to Shopify and this is the takeaway

for people listening. Yeah. I'm Matthew Fraser,

and this is Amazon Ecom Secrets. I'll

be sharing with you the secrets that helped me go from millions in

debt to an eight-figure entrepreneur. If you're

ready to escape the nine-to-five and live life on your terms,

let me show you the way. In today's episode, I've got a very special guest.

She's a client of mine. Her name is Melissa Spooner, who is an

excellent speech pathologist in the local area, and she's making

the transition, a challenging transition, from

the healthcare profession and in the future, hopefully, into

Yeah, good. I really appreciate you coming in today. I think today's going to

be really interesting because I want to give people a sense of

what it's like, A, moving from, I guess, in

the future for you, the nine to five, and you're now self-employed

anyway. Yes. But also, You're

not doing millions of dollars on Amazon. Not yet.

So now you're in this incubation period where we

can dive deep into what is it like thinking

about doing this transition? What are some of the pitfalls? What

are some of the challenges that you're going through right in the very

beginning? Because I think by the time you get to your seven, eight figures like

I know you're going to, you'll forget. So

let's dive deep into what it's like. And I think the first question really is,

Melissa, is why Amazon, with all the types of different businesses

out there that you could do, like coffee store, like

Look, you know, when I started out, you know,

my working career, I was working the nine to five. And

at that point, I was an executive assistant at

that time in a big corporate company. And, you

know, we I had the opportunity to change

my life. My husband said to me, look, you know,

if you're going to do it, I want to give you this opportunity

to go off and do that. So I gave

speech pathology a crack at uni and in

the meantime having two children, juggling

two children and, you know, my husband travelling. And

then I thought, you know what, you know, I'll start you

know, working as speech pathology, working for somebody else. I

started doing that and I just realised, you know, this is not for me, working

for somebody else. And not in my wildest dreams

would I ever have thought while I was at uni

that I would ever set up my own clinic. And so I did

that and it's really given me the confidence to

Yeah. And so just on that though, Melissa, what was it like though, moving

from the 9 to 5, now going into your own speech pathology

I feel like I'm really in control of what I'm doing. I can,

you know, set my own hours and I can see the patients

that I want to see, which is such a

lovely thing that I have for myself and I can concentrate on

a particular area of speech pathology, which I

What would you say was the biggest, I guess, eye-opener, having

I think what it is, is that feeling, can I do this

on my own? Can I build a business? and

be successful at it. You know,

I always also thought that, you know, this is

something that I'm passionate about, you

know, but opening up a business, that's a huge deal. I

was always, like I said, I was always the one that was wanting to just

do nine to five. It's safe. It's a safe bet

for me. But, you know, and it was hard

initially to go out on my own. You know, I did feel

that anxiety and am I good enough? What if you weren't going

to get a client? What if I wasn't going to get a client, you know? And I didn't have

clients when I first started, but, you know, I had to, you know, get

on the bike and start pedalling. You do like door knocking? Yeah.

And ringing, ringing around, getting myself

out there. Yeah. So people knew who I

was and this is me, you know? And, but

initially doing that, that's out of my comfort zone. It was

I talk a lot about that, you know, obviously comfort zone. I

talk about the nine to five is actually like, it

traps you. Yeah. Yeah. Because it seems easy. Yeah.

It's like the, it's just sort of like, okay, I can keep doing this. But

then you've now switched, you've broken out of that now

into this self-employed entrepreneurial world. Yes.

Right. Having found success there,

now you're looking at doing this Amazon business. And

really, it's not really necessarily an Amazon business. We've spoken before about

we're learning Amazon, but it could be any type of online business, really.

So, this is back to

why Amazon as opposed to any other type of business.

Was there something that you said, oh yeah, that's the reason why, because

Yep. It's more the flexibility to

be able to work from anywhere, but then also the

financial growth that we

can have in Amazon. But then also, more

importantly, it's the growth the

entrepreneurial growth of you personally, of me

personally. And because now I've got that confidence

and you know what it is mindset initially was massive mindset

for me to have the acknowledgement

for myself that you know what I can do this, you know what and

But you got that though because you've done the transition

And that's given me the confidence and then also working on

my own and not relying on anybody else except

Yeah, but you talked about I think one day that you had a

coach for your speech pathology business, was that

Yeah, so we do, I do have and I still

have, you know, mentoring in

my speech pathology business, which

is crucial because you're always going to come up against clients

that are particularly difficult. You can't

know everything, so you're going to lean on your supervisors

to direct you in the right way

possible that's evidence-based. And

So what you're saying, though, is that you've had the success with

a mentor in this speech pathology space. Yeah. And now

you've sought out myself. Yes. In the Amazon

space. Yes. Or Amazon e-commerce space. That's right. And

so now that you've, now we've been working together now for a

few months. Few months, yeah. I want to touch on something though, because you

had started an Amazon training program some time ago

Yeah, so it's kind of been lingering in the background. It has been.

What do you think is was the reason what that prevented you from moving

forward in in that at that time with that training program to what you've

Because I didn't have the confidence back then to you

know go ahead with the with

the course in its entirety. And I

was setting up my clinic at the time as well because I just finished uni

at that time. And I just thought, you know what, I really need to get this off

the ground because I want to get it off the ground. And

that was really important to me because that allowed me to build

the confidence and build my own self-awareness

to be able to achieve such a massive thing

for me is to set up a new clinic. Yeah. And that

I don't think you're alone, though, because I remember going to that

EECOM Tribe Summit recently, which you went to as well. I did, yeah.

And when I walked into the room, I started talking to people. And,

you know, how are you going? What have you been up to? And I found that a

lot of people, surprisingly more than I had expected, I'd

said, what are you up to? And they're like, oh, I'm still thinking about

it. But I was like, hang on, when did you start doing your

training? Oh, 2019. And I was like,

No, I knew 2024 was going to be... But

So they were also in the same boat. Yeah, that's right. But I knew this year.

I said to my husband, this year is it for Amazon.

I'm ready now to really give it all that I've

got and juggle the clinic. And I

need to get with Matt Fraser. Definitely have

to get with Matt because I did see you, you

know, in the course that we're speaking about and

killing it. And I just thought, okay, this is the type of person that

I need to mentor me like I

do within speech. So and this is where

So having started in this Amazon journey, what is

what you now say is like the most challenging part

finding this product. The product is the hardest

thing to find because you've got all these elements that you're thinking about

in your brain, looking at certain things of a particular product

and thinking, you know, is this something that's going to be

acceptable to take to market? You know, is

Maybe we should change it though, because I think a lot of the time people who

come into this Amazon business, Particularly

I think when they see me and the results that I've got, obviously

they want similar, if not more. And

then they want obviously the lifestyle that comes from that. But

maybe it's not, they're putting a lot of pressure on themselves to

find the one. The one product that's gonna

make millions and millions and millions. But maybe it's, taking

that pressure away and finding like five,

five that each do like 500,000 a

Yeah. And combined they do millions.

Yes. You know? Yeah. And look, I'm looking for,

you know, products like that. However,

you still feel like you're going round in circles sometimes. And

but you know, that's just the nature of the game. You know, it is the nature of the

game. And it is total mindset for sure. And

just with, you know, your help, of course, and

leaning on your expertise, which is really important. It,

I think people should know though. to Melissa is that I

don't do the work for you. Definitely not. No.

My job as a mentor is to guide. Yes.

And more so, prevent people from making big

financial mistakes. Yes. And I'll tell

you this story about someone that I

And they had already invested $30,000 odd dollars

into a product that was just like a me too average

product. And I don't want to say what it is, because they'll

know. And I don't want to diss them. No. But if

I had met them sooner, then I would have said, don't

invest $30,000 into that product that's probably not

going to sell. How about if you really believe in that product,

let's start with like maybe $5,000. Yeah, something that's not

a huge chunk of money. And it's all

Yes, I do. And look, that's

definitely a great strategy to take on and a

very safe strategy, because this is

all very new and going to be new to a lot of people. So

taking it down

a path where it's financially viable

for yourself initially, just to test the

market out to see whether or not, but

you're also gaining a lot of experience doing that too, right? Because you

are, you know, getting this product, going through the motions of

putting it into Amazon, you know, dealing with Amazon

idiosyncrasies and becoming very familiar

with how the whole system works. If

you put in thousands of dollars without

even knowing what you're doing, because you haven't started

down just the hundred to get you started, you

could be in a lot of financial trouble and put yourself under a lot of

financial stress, which is, you don't want to do that. And

I know certainly for me, that's not what

I want to do myself. So, I think it's definitely

beneficial for me to go

down that 100 path first and still keep

that positive mindset, you know, you, I will find something, I

definitely will find, you know, one or five products. Initially,

you know, I set up the Amazon account. That

seems to be a breeze. I thought that was a breeze, you know, that's nothing

compared to finding a product. You

know, so it was just a bottle top, you know, that I, that

I just got, just even putting that in, getting the

packaging, getting the barcoding, setting

up all the forms in

Amazon, that just seemed to be really streamlined.

I thought, wow, this is not bad. This is completely fine.

I can understand that it can be overwhelming for some people.

I just do it. You know, I just, you know what, if something hard comes

up, okay, so yeah, this is just a blip in the, you know,

in the moments of time. So just keep on

going. So I didn't have that, you

know, difficulty of getting onto Amazon initially.

But some people do, Melissa. They

there's these two points where people quit that

I've seen. The first one is they might have done like an Amazon training

program, and they just can't navigate. Even

something like the legal entity. I know that

we spoke about it, because you've got a US legal entity. You've got all sorts of things. You've

got a property over in the US as well, an investment property.

So setting that up can be quite difficult. And it's just

like this. They go to set it up. They don't know what legal entity to set up.

And that means, oh, I'm going to have to talk to an accountant. Oh, that's going to be like

$500. Oh, that's more money. So automatically, they're

thinking, there's all this money that I'm going to have to start shelling out. And I haven't even

got to this dream of selling the product yet online and

But you know what? I think, Matt, as well, you've got

to keep thinking of that goal. What is your goal? Where

do you want to be? And I know my goal. And

I know where I want to be. And I will keep striving for

that. It's exactly what I did when I was at uni. You know, sure,

there was a few times when I was going to quit because it was hard. Yeah.

You know, getting a degree is hard, you know, but I

thought, no, you know, I know what I want and

I'm going to go and get it. Yeah. And I

know that, you know, during those

periods in time in your life when it does get hard, you just

throw it away. That's not my personality. That's

not what I'm like. But I do understand that there

are people out there that, you know, may

not have that same tenacity or

just think, you know, maybe this isn't for me. I'm just going to park it. Yeah.

I may pick it up later, but I

But this is for other people you're talking about. That's why it's so easy

It is very easy to quit. And it comes down to mindset, right,

as well. So having that ability to really

strive for your goal and think, no,

I'm going to do this. What do I need to do to

get myself in a position where I'm going to reach this goal? OK,

so maybe I do need to get a mentor. you

know, maybe I need a mat in my life to help me through these steps, which

is I would. highly recommend that

if you're going through this Amazon journey on your own, I think

you're going to stifle yourself, especially if there is no

one else that is in Amazon. Because

you're just not going to have anybody there to speak to. And it is a

lonely journey. It can be lonely, especially, you know,

with the product, trying to

find that product. Yeah. And you know, the struggles

and it has been difficult. But when you have a mentor, it

Yeah. What would you say then has been the most eye-opening

thing that, within our time together, that I've

given to you through advice or mentorship? Is

there something that has stood out the most that you thought, oh, that's interesting, I didn't know that?

Oh, there's been a few things. Tell

them all. So I think, you know, where to

actually start, where to actually look for a product

that niches. And I think you need to understand, you

know, what you want to get out of a product and

what you want to sell onto Amazon sort of

initially. what are the areas that people

are sort of looking for that are going to create some

type of, that you're going to help them? How

is my product going to help somebody? Never initially

thought of it like that. Okay, well, I

should be thinking about that because, you know, people buy products

because they're needing it to do something for them. Yeah.

So... And I like to choose products that have a need

Yeah, that solve a problem. Rather than just a t-shirt. Oh yeah, you

know, I want that. Yeah. Yeah, it needs to be able to

definitely solve a problem. That's been a big one. And it needs to

be maybe, you know, unique. as

well. How is it different from everything else that we see in

the market? How are people going to perceive this

particular product in the market? Is

it different from everything else? And when

I say uniqueness, we're thinking about maybe,

you know, wanting the product in their life. So

say, for example, you know, it's going to be, I don't

know, something to help someone breathe or something like that, or

Yeah, because you're already in the healthcare space,

so you know what it's like to help people. I do. And I've

got a product that's in the healthcare space, which helps people. Yes.

Yeah. But it could be anything. It'd be like someone we know has

a toilet business, but it solves a problem because it's in

It really solves a problem. Yeah. Can I ask you, who

would you say has been the most influential person

in your life, though, to help you get to where you are. Because I

talk about, you know, you could do this on your own, but if you're in

a family situation, if you don't have someone

who's also in your corner supporting you, it can make it very difficult.

Yeah, definitely my husband and my kids. You know, they're

there supporting me. They want me to do well. You

know, they're always pushing me to be the best that I can be. And I

think without them, you know, who knows, you

know, would I would I still be in the same position I am today? You

know, you know, pushing forward, you

know, with my clinic and and, you know, gaining

that confidence and with somebody in my corner. you've

Would you say that there is such

a thing as work-life balance when you're an entrepreneur? Yes.

Yeah, totally. Just recently, thank

goodness Easter came round, because I

just thought to myself, you know what, I'm just going to grab my family and

we're just going to shut the computer. I don't want to have a look at anything else

and just need to have some time out with them.

reflect on what's been happening for these last couple

of months with Amazon in my clinic and just refresh is

really important to really have that

in your life because I think if you don't do that you

can start making serious mistakes and

not reflecting on yourself you know, that's one

big point that I always

do within my clinic when I'm, you

know, providing therapy for my clients, but then also, you

know, even at home and now also in

Because I have a differing opinion. Stop the

video. I have a differing opinion. And that

in my case, I think the difference is that my

back was up against the wall financially. So I was

like just hammering tongs, just work, work, work, work, work, work, work. And

my wife, who's also my biggest supporter, basically

like you have to go and do whatever you got to do. Now

you've got a different sort of journey basically, right? You've got

money behind you. You've got a great career. So

it's a little bit different. You can kind of take your time in a way of

not having to be 24-7 just stuck in the computer like

researching and sort of keep that I guess The

balance that you're talking about is also a sanity balance, isn't it? Yeah.

Yeah. I definitely need to have that balance. If I don't have that balance,

I will go insane. And my family will go insane because

they'll have me around. Just go to

the beach, mum, will you? Yeah. Because that is my happy place and

that's where I find myself to

be able to relax and in nature and

just doing a bit of meditation, walking

along. And it gives me time to think about different

ideas for products. You know, I do that. I go down walking on

the beach and think about, you know, what niches would

Can I ask you though, when you're walking on the beach, uh, thinking

Do you ever have any self-doubt? Because this comes up

a lot, you know, that they've gone into this

Amazon business or they're thinking about doing it, they've started a

training program, and just that little bit of doubt comes in.

Yeah, no, it has. Even though I'm pushing hard, I still have that doubt

thinking, am I ever going to find this product? It just

seems so saturated on Amazon. Everyone's doing

everything it feels like, you know, so you just think, oh, well, maybe

there's nothing left. Yeah. It's like, well, no. Okay. I

just need to step back a bit here and really think

about, you know, why I'm

having these thoughts, you know? Yeah. And it is because it

is hard. It is. Yeah. We're not going to sugarcoat this, Matt.

Definitely not, because it is hard. But

I think if you, you know, keep at it and

it's resilience training, I reckon, this Amazon

pathway. That's so true. It's resilience training, you

know, so I reckon if you can get onto Amazon, you

Just from what you've done though in your life, just obviously doing the degree, you had two

kids, you got your business up and running, that

in itself has already built up your resilience level. So I think that's why

it's given you that little bit of advantage above most people who

are now going into this Amazon-based business. But I always say,

it's not really about Amazon. We're not married to Amazon.

Amazon is just something that we can learn now to

get us sort of some online foundations, online training

foundation. But I know that we've already spoken about, hey,

it could be e-commerce. It could be, we could eventually

Exactly. And I have looked at that as well. You know,

when I was having those self-doubt moments, you know, maybe I thought, oh,

maybe I could just buy business and be done with it. You know, but

even that, you know, you've really got to make sure when

you're going, if you're going to go down that pathway to really analyse

the business, you know, again, is it solving a problem for

somebody? You know, is this something that, you know, customers

could potentially buy? Do I have enough money to

buy this particular business? You know, because the

businesses on there, you know,

they're going for millions of dollars, you know. And you

see companies on there that may be, you know, just wanting

to just, you know, get rid of their business because they've just had enough

of it. And then you see that the, you know, financials are

See, you're still learning, right? And it could be an opportunity.

So they may have just let that business go for some unknown reason, maybe

personal reasons or for something else that's happened in their life.

And so maybe I could come in and swoop in and, you

know, take it off them and build it again. So

nothing's ever off the table, right? No. It's never off the table.

But the thing we've got to do, which you know about, is we've got to build

the foundation of knowledge and of

how to actually operate. an online business, starting off

with like Amazon, and then we level that up to maybe

we go into e-commerce, because

although people listening to this might think, oh brilliant, I'll just go buy an established online

business, and it could be in Amazon or e-commerce, there's a variety of

businesses available. If people want to check them out, they can go to places like Empire

Flippers, which they're all listed there for sale. Having,

if I went to you today and said, Melissa, what we should do is

buy an Amazon business, but you'd never even opened an Amazon account

or sold a single thing, you'd be totally freaking out.

I would be freaking out. I'd be thinking, what are you talking about, Matt?

So that's why we have to do it in stages. You can't

just jump straight to, I'm just going to buy this online business for

And that's, you know, when I started with you,

Matt, and I was looking at that bottle top, and

just going through those motions, even though I didn't have, you

know, a lot of difficulty through that, I thought to myself, imagine

if somebody had bought hundreds of thousands of

these, of a product that they were really passionate about, and

they haven't even done this process of- Happens all the time. Just one

product, just throw it in, and

see what that process is, that's what was daunting for

me. And I just thought, I am so glad I did not do that. Because,

you know, going through that process of finding a product and then just dumping something

into Amazon, that is definitely not the

So what I, for those who don't know what I, what I teach basically

is we send in a single item and we use a

bottle top opener as an example. We send it in, we buy it,

we send it into Amazon. And this is of course, just after

we've set up the Amazon platform with our legal entities and

all the ID checks and what have you, we send her this single

item. And most people don't even know Melissa, that you can send in one item.

people think you've got to send in like cartons and pallets and shipping

containers into Amazon. Well, we send in one single item

and this is why Amazon is so good from an e-com online

perspective, is that you can, the barriers to

entry are low. Yes, they are. Right? If you were going into

like bricks and mortar, for example, and you had a product they were selling

through retail, obviously you can't just send in one.

You've got to send in a lot to cover all the bases of the

retail chains. Yeah. Yeah. So by sending in this one

single item, what we're doing is we're pretending that it's 10,000 units,

right? We've just got one without all the zeros. And what

happens is we iron out all the wrinkles. Was there anything that

Not in that initial bottle top process. Yeah. Not

I know. I'm dealing with people right now where just,

I don't know, their ID check didn't get done properly. Now their

It goes through the roof. And yeah, I can see how people

would just, you know what, I've had enough. This is not for me. If

I'm having problems right now, can you imagine when I'm throwing in,

you know, hundreds of products there and then the

crap hits the fan and you just think, oh my gosh, and

then it's like, oh my gosh, this is definitely not for me.

Yeah. But like I said, you know, having that resilience

and to have that stamina. No, it's only a blip

in the moment. Yeah. Come on. Let's

just keep going. What is that problem that I've just had? Right.

Step back a minute. Reflect. You know, right.

That's what I can do with clients as well because I add perspective. Because

I've had those same issues where I've had

products go in and for whatever reason, I remember getting suspended

in Amazon and it was through, I

think I had a bad customer review. And so Amazon

just shut down the listing and I think at that stage I was doing about I

think it was over $100,000 a month, sort of in the early days. And

then just from one day to the next, it's like, bang, stopped. And

like, no more sales. And I'm like, what? And

so you get on, you start, you literally, your heart starts pumping. And

you're doing like, oh my god. Heart palpitations. Yeah, like what's going to, and

this is your first time. Yeah, of course. And so you don't have anyone that

you can call up and say, oh, what do I do now? It's like, it's all on

you. I'm thinking, I'm going

to have to dump. I had probably $20,000, $30,000 maybe

more of stock in Amazon. So you're thinking, oh

my God, I'm going to have to dump it. How am I going to sell

this now? And that's money. So all these things start going

through your head. And ultimately what ended up happening is I contacted Amazon

lawyers. There's actually lawyers in the US that

deal purely with Amazon sellers.

That's how obviously bad it is. There's

actually a dedicated team just for Amazon sellers

So I reach out to them, they come up with this sort of, what

they call a plan of action. Yes. And I send it through and

lo and behold, I think within a week it was sort of back up and running again.

And I was like, oh my God. But it was at that exact time,

I thought, oh my God, this is when people quit.

Yeah. Right? I know if I was by myself and that happened to me, it would

be really serious and I would be thinking

about, oh my God, I just got a bad review. Oh my God. Yeah.

You know, that's, it feels like, all right,

I'm never going to sell any more products again. Yeah. It's the

stress of it. It's the stress of it, seeing that

It's not even so much the

bad review on its own, it's what came

Because everyone's going to get Everyone gets bad reviews

generally. The bad reviews though can actually be

used, this is a bit of coaching now, the bad reviews can be used as

And you know what, when I am looking through these products

in my product research, I do look at the bad reviews and

think about, So if they're having bad reviews on

this particular product, I wonder how I can fix that. Yes. You

And this is a takeaway for people listening right now because they go, oh, actually, that's

a good way to find a way to improve a

product at the bad reviews. So you can bring in a

Yeah. You're actually getting information for free. Exactly. It's

for free, you know, so you're looking at this product and thinking, oh, okay,

so why is it so bad? What's the problem here? And

then think about, okay, well, if this is going to be a product that's going to help

somebody, yeah, sure, they're getting some bad reviews. Well, hang

on, what are these bad reviews? you know, what does that

mean for the customer? Maybe are they asking for

something to be improved in there? Oh wow, this could be a

I'll tell you how I was able to improve my own

product from bad reviews. What ended up happening

was all of a sudden we started seeing these negative, like

one-star reviews saying, I've received a used product.

And I was like, that can't be the case. That can't be right.

And at first I thought, oh no, what's happened is someone's returned the

product back to Amazon and then Amazon's reshipped it.

So then I'm sort of going through that process. What ultimately ended

up happening from a lot of investigating The

product I sell is plastic and it's in a box. And

through the shipping process, the product moves within

the box. And it's a kind of plastic that if it

gets scratches on it, you can easily see it. So that

was what was happening. It was just in the shipping process, the customer's opening

up the box and there's these scratches on

the side of the... It's like polycarbonate, I

think, like a clear polycarbonate. And so we

found a solution though, and what we ended up doing was we put that product

in a plastic bag, which then goes into the

sealed, which then goes into the box. And

then we also included safety

tabs on the box edge. So that obviously

if it's damaged, it's obviously clearly been opened. Now,

these are things that we just didn't initially think

of when we first launched that product. So it was only through

the negative reviews that we ended up putting those processes

Yeah. So we can say, you know, instead of negative reviews, we

can call them golden reviews, right? You don't need

too many of them though. I know. Let's just change the narrative a little bit.

And I'll tell you one thing too, Melissa, is that when I

first got shut down, it was obviously a big deal. Yeah,

of course. But it also made me think, oh my God, I

cannot have all my eggs in one basket as a

platform. I think when people are going into Amazon, like what

I did, I had my blinkers on. I thought, oh, I'm an

Amazon seller and I just have an Amazon business, full stop.

And then I get shut down, because they don't tell you this in the

Because I've always thought that. I've always thought, okay, so Amazon, okay,

this is it. And you do, you do get the blinkers on and that's when you

feel like the pressure's on. It's like, you know what? There

Yeah, there's other markets. Yeah. Um, there's other platforms,

like you can sell obviously different countries, different platforms. Yes. Selling

on Amazon, selling through e-commerce, which is your own, it's essentially your

own website, all these different things. Yes. But having that shut

down made me realize I can't have all my eggs in this one basket of

Amazon. Yeah. I'm now going to look to sell it elsewhere. Yes.

And that was like a light bulb moment for me as a brand new seller. What

I did is I then pivoted to what now has

become Shopify. So I thought, if

people are going to Amazon and buying the product, I

wonder if I put an ad on Facebook, if

they would also come to my website to buy the product. And lo and

behold, at that stage, I was doing, by the

time I got that up and running, I think I was doing half a million dollars a

month in Amazon, because it came back up again, right? So

it's sort of, we're down the track, things are going great. But then

start doing another like half a million bucks on Shopify. Yeah,

at that stage. And then it just grew from there. So ultimately I was doing like

millions of dollars a month across that

platform. So then I think, and this is the takeaway for people listening.

I then replicated that. So I took that model of

start on Amazon, go to Shopify, and then I went, okay, boom,

Australia, Amazon, Shopify, boom, UK,

Yeah, I just did rinse and repeat. And of course, each

So what ultimately do you think would be your goals

I think, you know, I think initially, you know, it's not

finding that, oh my goodness, the wow

product initially. It's just getting

that first 100 in there, getting those through to

Amazon, going through that, stepping through that process of,

you know, building that confidence of getting more

units in the system. you know, finding the

packaging and all of that sort of thing. And then

seeing how that goes and knowing how to, you

know, you had your PPC and all of that sort of things,

because that's a huge thing. So like we were just talking, imagine

throwing in hundreds of thousands of units

and not knowing how to do that stuff. That's money

sitting on the shelves in Amazon and you're not understanding that

I think that's why doing this in like baby steps, like

controlled baby steps, you know, it's not just sort of throw money

up against the wall and see what happens. But it's controlled because

it will give you ultimately the knowledge which then gives you the confidence Yeah,

and if an online business does come up for sale, that

you think, hey, I like this, you've now got

the knowledge and confidence to now step into

So baby steps first. Continue having

a good mindset. Reflecting is

Hey, and on that note, speaking to

your mentor, what should people look for? There was

obviously something that you saw in me at some

point, whether it's you saw me over a journey, whether

it was something that I just said and you were like, oh, that's why I want to go see

Yeah, so I think it was where you've come from and

your resilience, that's what sparked me. And

then also getting up on that stage and thinking,

wow, this guy's come from a

pretty bad place. has got that tenacity to,

you know, get from where he is and

keep pushing. I thought this is the type of person that

I want in my life who is strong in

resilience and who's actually been through that whole

process and, you know, has failed. you

know, some products on Amazon, or hasn't even put any products on

Amazon, but then did really well and has gone

through lots of processes to get to where you

Yeah. And you're talking about the product that I, I made up,

Yeah, exactly. But just seeing

you on stage and seeing the achievement,

I thought, yep, that's the, that's the person that I need to,

Yeah. So Melissa, when thinking about going into

the Amazon space, who would you say

that they need to or someone needs to look out for if they're looking

for a mentor, what are the key attributes that would stand out?

I think their own resilience as a person, and

someone who's actually gone through that process as

well, and stamina to get

through those rough patches and not give up.

That's the type of person that I strive to

be for myself, and that's what I want my mentor to

It's interesting you say that. And it was essentially the

failures that I had, but was able to overcome. Yeah.

Yes. Yep. It's the, the failures first and

then right, how's that person achieved and what have they

There's a saying in business is that you should never partner with someone who

Because if they haven't, you don't know what they're going to be like if they

do come about. And so if they've got the resiliency you

talk about and the tenacity, that's probably someone you want to work

Yeah. And I want that person to be, you know, strong-willed.

in their businesses and striving to look for other

things, other ways to increase what

they're doing in their own lives and in

their business. So that's, yeah,

that's what I would like to put out there

into someone's mind of where, how to

Yeah. So Melissa, you started the Amazon training program some

years ago. Yeah. But do you think now, looking

back, that you would have been able to get to where you are without actually taking on

No way. Why? No. The

Amazon platform has got a lot of idiosyncrasies

to it. And like we just touched

on, it's easy to give up. It's

easy to give up on. And like

I said, that's not me. And I needed to

Yeah, because people would say, well, you could just go on YouTube and

You could do that, but having access to somebody whenever

you need to, and that's what you provide, that's

what I need. I don't wanna be just going onto

YouTube. I can do that, yeah, sure, and get educated

on YouTube, and I'm not knocking YouTube at all. That's the best place to

go and learn whatever you need to learn, whether

that be Amazon or anything else that you wanna do. Yeah, great place

to, be knowledgeable, knowledge is power. But

I think that somebody who's actually been through that process and

you've got access to all the time, which is

I think my specialty now is that I'm

You're not an AI machine. Got that human factor.

Yeah. And that's a selling point these days. I'm a human. It's

a human factor. It's a

human factor. That's it. So, uh, you

know, yeah. So just, um, having

somebody there full time, whenever you need them, you

Was that something that attracted you? Because I was providing 24 seven

access as opposed to some other coaching programs that might be you

Yeah, no, I need that. If I've got something in

my mind, I can go, oh, hey, Matt, you know, what's that?

Oh, this is what I'm thinking about. And go

down that path. Get that feedback straight away. Get that feedback straight away. Or I can just

call you in the car on the way to a client. OK, this is what I'm thinking about.

Yeah. The reason why I do that is because I want that so that you

can have instant feedback. But also if you come across any challenges

or stumbling blocks, that we can tackle them immediately. So

you don't get that barrier. Overwhelmed. Yeah. Not overwhelmed. Yeah.

You don't get that, but also you just don't stop. And then you have

Yeah. And then also you don't want to be in a position where you're starting to

doubt. And then there's time, you know, if you don't

have that person there, you know, whenever you need them, then you're going to

have to wait. Then you've got too much time to

be thinking about it. Oh, you know, this is not good. I'm not good

enough now because I just haven't done being able to do this, that and the

other. Whereas no, you can stop that. Bang. Right, Matt, this is

I actually find a lot of the mentoring that I provide is

Which I didn't realize going into this type of program.

I thought it was going to be like, oh Matt, how do I start up the Amazon account?

How do I find a product? How do I make millions of dollars? And

most of it has actually been more on mindset, which I'm happy to talk

Yeah. And the thing is as well, you know, you're going

to have meltdowns. You just expect that, you know, and

it's just what you do after it is what's really important. You

know, go and have your meltdown if you need to go and have your meltdown, but know

that you've got somebody there to,

you know, step you through those next steps. It's

going to be okay. It's not the end of the world. Just

pick yourself up, dust yourself off and keep on going. Yeah, love

Thank you so much, Melissa, for coming in today and sharing the insights into

some of the mindset and things. And congratulations on where you're up to now. Yeah,

thank you. Wish you the very, very best for the future. Thanks, Matt. Thank you. All right,

guys. Thank you so much for joining me on Amazon Ecom Secrets. My name

is Matthew Fraser. Big thanks to Melissa Spooner. And I look forward

to seeing you on the next episode. Take care. Thanks

for tuning into Amazon Ecom Secrets. If

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