#320 – Amazon Product Differentiation, Branding, & Packaging Hacks With Norm Farrar

In episode 320 of the AM/PM Podcast, Kevin and Norm discuss:

• 01:00 – The Best Event Kevin And Norm Have Been To
• 02:00 – The Value Of Going To Networking Events
• 04:20 – Norm Farrar’s Backstory And Entrepreneurial Ventures
• 13:30 – “If An Opportunity Ever Comes Your Way…”
• 14:00 – Talking About Norm’s Failure And The Next Business
• 22:00 – Entrepreneurship Runs In The Family
• 26:30 – How Did Norm Get Started Into The Amazon And E-commerce Space?
• 29:00 – Meeting Steve Simonson
• 31:00 – How Aggregators Affected His Business
• 35:00 – An Expert In Differentiation And Packaging
• 41:00 – Case Studies From Norm’s Clients
• 44:00 – Talking About The Lunch And Norm Podcast
• 47:00 – How Did “The Beard Guy” Branding Start?
• 51:00 – What’s Next For Norm?
• 52:30 – The Golden Nugget Tip Of The Week

Transcript

Kevin King:

Welcome to episode 320 of the AM/PM Podcast. This week, I’m speaking with my good buddy, Norm Farrar. Norm and I have known each other for about six years now, almost in the Amazon space. We like to have cigars every time we meet up at an event. It’s like one of our traditions, and we just kick it and just share stories. So today, that’s what we’re gonna do. We’re just gonna be sharing some cool stories. You’re gonna find out a little bit more about Norm if you already know him that you didn’t know, and we’re gonna share a few cool little tactics on some things that can make a huge difference in your business, especially when it comes to packaging. So, enjoy this episode. Norm Farrar. Welcome to the podcast buddy. How you doing?

Norm:

Kevin King, glad to be here.

Kevin King:

You and I have known each other for a day or two, I guess. What was it in 2017 that we first crossed paths? I don’t think we really got to know each other, but we crossed past it.

Norm:

It was a head bob. What’s up?

Kevin King:

I think it was in Cancun at the Helium 10, back then it was called Illuminati, which it’s now called Helium 10 Elite. But back then it was called Helium 10 Illuminati. And it was the mastermind, the very first one that Manny Guillermo and I and Mark put together in Cancun. I think it was May of 2017.

Norm:

It was awesome. That event was one of the best events I’ve ever been to, but that’s where we met.

Kevin King:

You were like the last guy, I think, to buy a ticket. It was like a $10,000 price tag back then. It’s hard to get that kind of money these days, but back then, that’s what people were charging for these high-level events. But I think you were like over in Spain or somewhere at some other event, and someone told you about this one, and like last minute you Yep. Changed your plans and like flew over and bought the very last ticket or something like that. Is that, is that right?

Norm:

I was in Mallorca added an amazing event, and somebody told me about it. I got on my computer and I booked a ticket and you guys charged me full price,

Kevin King:

Oh, there’s a sucker born every day? So at that event, I think there are quite a few people at what we have about 60, 70 people, I think, at that event.

Norm:

Oh yeah. And really, it was solid. It was rock solid, like the people that we met there. We always talk about why we love going to events, Alina, Todd Snively, Joe Valley. Like everybody that I’m in contact with, I’m still in contact with probably at least 50% of the people that were there.

Kevin King:

Yeah. That’s true. There were a lot of business relationships and business deals and partnerships that actually came out of that. I think you even create a mastermind with someone that was there at that one or was it the next one in Hawaii where you met?

Norm:

No, I met Dave Ketner there and ended up in a mastermind with him for about two years.

Kevin King:

Yeah. You did the AMZ and Beyond I think it was or something. So that’s why these events are sometimes people are like, why man, it’s too expensive to go, but you get the right people in the right room that are at that same level. you don’t got the new people that are just starting out, or the people that aren’t so serious if you’re gonna spend that kind of money. Cuz it’s not just the ticket price, it’s the travel and the hotel. And I think actually we included the hotel in that one.

Norm:

Probably not my ticket.

Kevin King:

I think it was an all-inclusive, I think you actually got the hotel. I think we included that.

Norm:

Yeah, you did.

Kevin King:

And hotel and food. But yeah, so you meet people at that level that are serious. Anybody’s gonna spend that kind of money. It’s serious about their business, serious about expanding it. So there’s just so much value in that. But before we, we get into that let’s, let’s just tell the people that don’t know who you are, what’s your background in this. I mean, you’ve been I’ve sat around and had cigars with you and we, we’ve talked for hours at different events, just hanging out. That’s one of our favorite things to do is Norm and I will go to some event and we always find a way to sneak off. And, and either it’s just the two of us shooting or sometimes other people join us and we, we sit there sometimes till three, four in the morning just smoking cigars and having a Coke zero and just talking life and business and whatever comes up. And that’s one of my favorite things. Every time I see you is like, I know it’s gonna be a great night. it’s just good company.

Norm:

We always do have a good time, don’t we?

Kevin King:

So I know a lot of the story of it. You’ve been basically an entrepreneur since you could since you were in diapers. Yeah. And every time we sit there and talk about this stuff, there’s always like, oh, I know this guy, or I used to do this. I’m like, holy cow, you’ve had more life experiences and done more stuff than almost anybody out there when it comes to personal or business. So just give us a short backstory for everybody that may not know where did Norm come from and what’s his actual story to get to this point?

Norm:

Okay. So one of the things to get to this point was a little bit of business experience. So I got outta college, I dropped out and in my last semester, I dropped out my last semester. Really stupid. But I had a business idea. That’s how stupid I am. But anyways my buddy and I started a promotions business. This is gonna sound like it’s gonna be a long year.

Kevin King:

So you’re like 21-22 years old, something like that.

Norm:

Yeah. Maybe not even that. So we, well, actually to go through college, I started a business. It was a video business, and a government agency picked us up. So I paid most of my way through college, through this video production company. Then after that, I got into business with a really good guy, and we started this promotions company. And the typical, this is where research really helps, but the typical promotions company at the time was a two-person operation making $300,000, 23% gross margin. We figured out how to do this. We went to bigger companies. We figured out that people will pay more. Just it’s perceived value. I always talk about perceived value. So we package the products. We put a t-shirt and a poly bag. The poly bag would have our name on it. We’d remove the liner or we’d add our label inside. Everything costs a bit.

Kevin King:

Just to explain, just to stop you for a second, to explain what a promotions company is for the people. It’s just so they can follow. If a motions company is basically someone comes to you and says, we want a bunch of pens, or we want a bunch of hats, or a bunch of jackets, or a bunch of coffee mugs with our logo or our design or something. And you facilitate that process. Is that correct?

Norm:

Exactly. So we didn’t wanna be that two-person operation. So we ended up saying, what can we do to be better than everybody else? We didn’t wanna live with 23% gross margins. So we ended up starting with becoming vertically integrated. We bought a screening company, we bought an embroidery company, we bought a courier company, and we ended up going into a fulfillment business.

Kevin King:

How did you do that? How did you do that at such a young age? Did you have access to capital or did you work deals?

Norm:

Now, you know what happened? It was a deal. Our customers knew that we were customer service eccentric. Okay. We would do anything for our customers. So this started with Hershey’s. And if my buddy Dave, my partner at the time is listening, he got the ball rolling. We went over to Hershey’s and we got in, they liked us, we tag-teamed. So his personality, my personality we worked off of each other and they liked us. So they were gonna give us an order for some product, but it was 15 grand. We didn’t have it. So we got them to give us the payment in advance. So we got that we could pay for everything. We went to our next order into our next order. Anyways, we ended up getting a ton of Fortune 500 companies.

Norm:

But what we did is reinvested in boxes. Quality, like really nice corrugated boxes of tape that had our name on it. We had fragile things. So if it was popped that don’t, don’t open the box, anything came to us. Like if you receive my lunch with no mugs, right? You saw how they are packaged, it’s top quality. So we ended up spending a little bit extra, but because of that, we were one of the fastest-growing industries here in Canada at the time. And in six months we went from zero to two and a half million bucks, and we were at about 45% gross margins. Like we killed it. So things were going really great. And one of the bigger Fortune 500s here was my client. And we were trying to get deeper and deeper and deeper.

Norm:

And this is how this started. This is how this whole e-com started. Cuz e-com wasn’t really around back then.

Kevin King:

So when was this like the ’80s or something?

New Speaker:

This was in late no, this was in about 1995 ish. Okay. I think so I knew about the internet. It was BBB, Bulletin Boards, right? Copy server was around AOL. Yeah. So anyways, the world wide web wasn’t really a big thing. I ended up getting a contract for this one Fortune 500 company to sell products to 20 of their locations around North America. I flew into San Jose one day. This is crazy. So I flew into San Jose. Everybody was really in a pissy mood. And so it just happened that the VP of purchasing was in from Calgary. So we went out for lunch.

Norm:

I said, what the hell is going on with these people? Everybody’s so pissy. Usually, everybody’s pretty nice. He says, the bloody non-contracted suppliers, we can’t pay them for 180 to 240 days. And the problem is they’re thinking they’re gonna get paid 30, 60, 90 days. And well, I’d be off if you’re stringing me out for 240 days. I got paid 30 days. So during the conversation, this is at lunch, at the end of lunch, I said, how about if I take on those payments? And he looked and I said, I’ll be your purchasing department for non-contracted people. You pay me 30 days, you give me five points and I’ll pay them in 90 days, two weeks later for this huge Fortune 500 company, I became their purchasing department for the non-contracted suppliers.

Norm:

And I was buying, I remember for the masters, I bought $250,000 worth of tickets I bought. It was crazy. So anyways, how does this affect e-com? The same Fortune 500 company comes back to me and says, says, we wanna create this thing on the world wide web where our dealers can get our logo on a pen or a mug. Can you do something like that? I said, yeah, no problem. I had no idea. I didn’t have any idea about E-com, but I knew that the people I was paying in India did. So because they were happy with us turning around the payments in 90 days and not 240. Guess who became our allies? And we asked them if they could help us. We did this e-com site and it worked. And all of a sudden, other companies were hitting us up.

Norm:

Our company, ended up with probably one of the first five print-on-demand companies in the world. So people would want a, a logo. We would, we would say, all right, you can have a logo. You can have your logo in 48 hours up to three weeks. And we, again, because of these Indian contacts, we were outsourcing India for $60 for a logo to be turned around in 24. And we were turning around, it was $3,000 if you wanted it in a 48-hour time period. And then when it was down to 395 bucks if it was three weeks. So just leveraging this. So at the end of the day, one thing I learned, and this is Richard Branson, is if an opportunity ever comes your way, when if somebody says you can do something and you can’t just nod and say, you can and I’ll figure it out. That’s exactly it. And that’s, I, that’s not an exact quote, but that’s something I’ve lived with and I, I’ve been involved with a lot of different companies because of that. opportunities are always there. They’re always there.

Kevin King:

And so why did you exit that company and sell out? Or what ended up happening with that company?

Norm:

Oh, it’s a bad story. So I’ve had a lot of success. I’ve had a lot of failures. What ended up here, and one thing I’ll never do again, is because it was such a massive, massive company, right? We were with all these other Fortune 500, but nothing to this huge contract that we had with this one company. They went under, I don’t have to name mention the names. They went under leaving us out. Like I had to pay off all sorts of suppliers. Like we went under, we went from at the very top to the very bottom within a few months. It was horrible. Wow. I had just our staff like we had 23 salespeople that were involved with the company. you’re trying to make payroll, you’re trying to do everything. It was horrible. But I was 28. That’s how old I was when it finally ended up hitting the fan. So going from millions–

Kevin King:

28 with like a newborn at that time?

Norm:

Yeah, with a newborn and finding out the day coming out of the hospital that you have to declare bankruptcy, it was horrible. Yeah. something you, you don’t want. Yeah, it was horrible.

Kevin King:

Now, a lot of people would stop at that point a lot of people that are given there, trying to be an entrepreneur or trying to get their freedom, when something bad like that happens and you end up having to pay out your own pocket, they’re like, okay, forget this. I’m just gonna go back to a day job and, just make sure that I’m comfortable and safe and my family is protected. But, but not you. What happened next?

Norm:

Oh, okay. So let me see. There are a few things that have happened. So I got into business again. We started to finance the business with a buddy’s credit card cuz I couldn’t have credit for seven years. And that business went well. We continued to do business. It was cutting-edge business like this one, I told you this on the cruise, but we had this PDF file that came up. It was more of a tech incubator and it was a PDF that I think even to this day would protect music rights. And we had it where if you had a music, a song in there, it was digitally embedded where if you did forward it or if you did try to copy it you could trace it back. So it pretty much wiped out pirating, well, a little bit before it’s time.

Norm:

All the I, if you think of people walking onto screens like you see this all the time on the internet now. But we were creating we created this product where people would come on to scream like Shaq, like the Miami Heat before the season started Shaq and Dwayne Wade at the time would come on and they, if they won a game, would say something. If they lost a game, they would say something. We didn’t know what the outcome would be, but they would trash talk or they would do whatever. And entertainers would come on and they would talk about their music schedule, seeing you at a certain area at a certain time. We had all sorts of people using this new technology. And then my buddy in this other business net events we ended up creating this sidebar, we called it.

Norm:

And to this day, I’ve never seen anything like it. We worked, and we had a couple of Microsoft contracts. So we had three Microsoft Consulting contracts at the time. Now one of them was to work with Bill Gates and Steve Bomber directly when they were doing their keynotes. We were doing the audio-visual for them. We were also Microsoft’s educational arm when it came to like the internet was still not a big thing. So they’re off online products when we travel around Ontario or Canada with all these computers teaching people all the Microsoft products, like all of them. Then the last thing was this thing that we developed called the Sidebar. And you could use this with Internet Explorer, where all your information of whatever you were a fan. It was all fan-based.

Norm:

So one of the people that we were working with at the time was Allen Iverson, and there was another with it was Randy Moss. It was a test with Randy and then Friends. And what it did is, let’s say Allen Iverson at the time went to the Olympics and he wanted to communicate. There would be a streaming board that would come across talking about Iverson if it was Philadelphia was playing, if you couldn’t watch the game, it could flash the score up. We wanted it where could get the rights to do it on your TV or on your computer. But we would have all this information there that a true fan would want, including a merchandising arm. So with Randy Moss, like let’s say it was the, well, it was the Raiders and this was all, this was a test, but you’re watching the, during a game, you could click on Randy Moss’s jersey and it would take you to the merchandiser, the outlet, and you could buy it online.

Norm:

This is still in the ’90s. And so with Friends like that, we took that and we did the same thing there.

Kevin King:

TV show friends.

Norm:

Yeah. And so, like Chandler, if he was wearing a cardigan, you could go there. If there was a vase that was on the desk, we could click on that and you could buy it. you could go to LLBean and buy, it was all done. It was all you click and you purchase. This was all set to go, and nothing ever happened with it. So it was really cool. Lots of, we had at the time we had this incredible email that is still to this day, it was like a mini website that when you got your email, it was a graphic, it was a lightweight graphic that would open up and we did it for so many companies, but you would open up and like this, we couldn’t get this to go. But we were working with Ford and we were trying to see with the Mustang, they had a really great video and we were trying to work with it and embed it at the time, but we were having problems with delivery. But your name, like, there were so many companies that were working with this, and you got it, it would either be a thank you email or it would be a benefits email or a promo email. But it was beautifully laid out, lightweight and easy to deliver. Wow.

Kevin King:

I mean, so you’ve, you did a lot in technology. You did a lot around the internet and but you’ve also done several businesses that have nothing to do with the internet or technology. You owned a few retail type of things at one point. And you own a recovery center at one point in Hawaii as well?

Norm:

Yeah. So I did that before I got into that my dad saw what I was doing in India, and he approached me and he said, Hey, how would you like to get into some manufacturing, some contract manufacturing? We noticed that like nobody was going over to China or to Taiwan. We were in Taiwan, and we ended up selling to American companies. They would save about 30%, we would save about 70%. And it was really interesting how this all happened. But anyways, it was my mom trying to find some. I know your wife will know this. The EVA foam wedges that you use to put on wake makeup. my mom brought, brought them home. And she was saying, you guys should sell these things.

Norm:

What are you talking about? And she goes, they always turn yellow. Can they not just be white? I I don’t like yellow foam. And my dad he’s a super entrepreneur like he is a mega entrepreneur. And he looked at it and he researched it. He ended up creating this massive machine foam-like EVA machine in the US hiring a chemist. And I don’t know, within months, we had this patent, this white foam. We were also doing some other things, but it was a lot cheaper to do some of these other EVA products overseas. So we ended up with a factory. Now, technically, we didn’t own the factory. We had a husband and wife team that ran it, but we owned two factories. My brother did something it was brilliant. We were selling a really thin foam.

Norm:

And by the way, we owned 60% of the market when my dad was finished with this, with the EVA. So we were in Ecker, Walmart, you name it. And we were doing all the private labels for them. And then we, we got into this wood-handled stamp company, thin, EVA it was worth like half a penny. And my brother asked the guy, Hey can we do this rubber stamp for you? Like, can we do the rubber vulcanization or the wood wood-handled stamp? And the guy said, yeah, I mean, send me some prices. We saved this guy 30 points we set up to get the wood handle stamps done. All a variety, like back when stencils were being done, and like all these arts and crafts. Turns out that almost overnight we became the world’s largest wood-handled stamp manufacturer, because we found a wood in Taiwan that would match maple here.

Norm:

And we went from half a penny to packaging these wood-handled stamps. And then we ended up looking, because with a wood handle stamp, what makes sense the next move, it’s an ink pad. Yeah. So we ended up buying an ink pad or a plastic company over there. And they ended up, they had a contract with Eve St. Larche Chanel. So we were making all the makeup containers. So it was a byproduct. I mean, and because of the wood handle stamps, all of a sudden we were selling, I don’t even know how many of these ink pads, but they went hand in hand.

Kevin King:

And didn’t your father, something evolve outta that too, where you guys became one of the biggest manufacturers of wipes, like disinfecting wipes in the world?

Norm:

Well, we came up with a patent for cleaning. Like if you’ve got a New York City, the subway was using them, and hotels were using them. We had a contract for almost every gambling, like a slot machine where you had to clean, but to clean it effectively, it was a flat surface. These cards that were, people were using alcohol swabs, and he made this card called a waffle card, which caught more dirt. So if you’re using a swipe machine, like a Visa machine or any type of swipe, it gets dirty. So you have to clean it. Your hotel room, everything, you have to clean it. So, yeah, that was something that was, was very successful. And it was fun because we even had three slot machines in the back of the factory where you can go and play if you wanted. Didn’t win anything. It’s like my dad I almost got paid what came outta that slot machine is what my dad paid me. You mean squat.

Kevin King:

I mean, you’ve done a lot of different businesses. How did you pivot into this whole Amazon, Shopify, Walmart type of, of stuff? When, when, when was that? When, when did you discover that? And how did you get involved? Did you launch a couple of private label brands? You take a couple of things your family was doing and move them into that? Or how did that begin?

Norm:

Yeah. a friend of mine he’s a pretty smart guy. He was into SEO, and said, Hey, you want to check out this thing called ama? And so I looked at it and I thought, ah, I don’t wanna get involved with this. But he comes back and he says, look, they’re having this thing in Vegas. You gotta come with me. let’s just get a room together and see what they have to say.

Kevin King:

This is like 2012, or 2011?

Norm:

2013 I think. So we ended up going to this thing. And I’m going, wow, this could be cool. I know about marketing, and I know about packaging. I have me, like the fulfillment center. One of the things that came out of doing all the private label for other companies is we had specialty packaging machines back in Auburn, Maine. And so I had everything that I needed, including the knowledge for advertising. So I’m thinking, this is great. During this time I hear this guy talking about he’s a deer in headlights. And he wished he could just specialize in what he did. He was a doctor. So I overheard him say, if I could only beat the SMP, and I, I just said, I can do that. And I, I took a product. He didn’t know what it was.

Norm:

I went and sourced it because we were in China now, or we were in Taiwan, but we’ve sourced in China. I was sourcing in China back in the nineties with our promo company. But anyways I gave him 10 products to choose from, and he picked two completely different products. We went with both of them. And that’s how my Amazon optimization started. I started with their product first, got into my product, and my brands started to take off. I’m in a few different brands. I still have my brands. And yeah, so there was my Amazon business starting back around 2013 ish. Actually at that conference, is where I met your partner, Steve Simonson. We were outside at a taxi stand, Riz and I, and this guy comes up and goes, mind if I share a ride with you?

Norm:

And it’s, yeah, no problem. So anyways that’s where we met Steve and he blew us away. We thought we were pretty good with E-com. And he goes, yeah, I’m not really selling that much on Amazon right now. He goes but I do remember my first sale. I couldn’t wait. It was exciting. He goes, then I remember when we got to a thousand dollars a month, oh, $10,000 a month, a hundred thousand dollars a month. I go all right. He goes, but I was, was with my wife, I guess it was in Europe. And he goes, and I had my first million-dollar day. I went, what? I didn’t know who the heck he was. Now we’ve become good friends and your partner, yeah,

Kevin King:

He’s a partner of mine. And Product Savants, yep.

Norm:

Yeah, yeah. But you’d never know who you’re gonna meet.

Kevin King:

You never know. And he’s very unassuming. You’d never think you just oh shocks kind of guy. But when he speaks, and he’s definitely been around the block and got a lot of experience. Super smart guy and very good businessman. So that you, so you started selling some of your own stuff, which some of it was, you’re still selling today. But then you also, I remember you pivoted in there where you made some partnerships, and I think one of these actually came out of the Helium 10 Elite, well, back then Illuminati, the Hawaii event. There was a guy from India I believe that came up, that was at that event. And you guys ended up partnering, and you started doing stuff for other people basically account management.

Kevin King:

People would come to you and say, Hey, I don’t know what I’m doing here. Can you run my PPC? Can you help me with the inventory? Can you help me with the sourcing? And so you had quite a few clients and you guys developed some really cool systems and some really cool spreadsheets to manage these. And I think at one point you told me it was like six figures of profit a month or something like that. It was like crazy money. Just like printing money doing this and helping these people. And so you did that for a while, but then something happened where these aggregators started buying up the companies.

Norm:

Well yeah, but that partnership, it lasted about a year. Brandon Young was involved with that too. So it was the three of us but didn’t, didn’t last too long. It’s just one of those things that didn’t work out. But I went on doing my management service, and as you said, it went really well. There were some good times for a while. And the clients got it went both ways. It was a win-win. So we provided value and, and we enjoyed these clients, and we grew some of these clients, eight-figure clients. some of them came to us with nothing. And we grew them. The problem was the business model was flawed. I didn’t think about this. I think about it now. And that was aggregators.

Norm:

We had no bloody idea. And I say we, I had no bloody idea, and I couldn’t see that if we grew this, that all of a sudden our client base would be gone evaporated in a very short period of time. And I’m sitting there going, I’m watching my profit or like, my revenue just decreased. It was nothing. I ended up from like, I think out of six clients, I ended, I’m talking bigger clients. I ended up with one client, and now you have to scramble. So I know I took about two weeks to sit down and go, okay, how do I position the company so it can continue? And I still like working with companies. I really like growing companies. How could I do it? And figured out a way. And I also figured out a way that if I’m growing a company. I’ll tell you a story.

Norm:

I took a company that was losing money at $10 million, bringing them up to over 16 million in a year and a half. And at the end of the day when they sold, I thought, oh, I’m gonna get my piece. I’m gotta make some money. And I got like just pocket change. And it was almost like, oh, man, there was definitely kinks in the armor. So I went back, I went to an attorney, I tried to figure this out. I went to some friends that were fairly good businessmen, and I said, what can I do to protect myself? So there, now it’s there are the onboarding fees are still there. It’s performance-based, so everything’s cool. But if we’re building a brand, I’m talking about building a brand. Then we said, okay, we want a piece or percentage on exit. That’s all. We just wanna be treated fairly. And so we’re back. We’re doing that. We’re going down an omnichannel version of what I’m doing now. So it’s very good,

Kevin King:

Is the is this the soap company that you’re doing?

Norm:

No, the soap company’s one of my brands, but no, this is a company called Dragonfish. So I used to have a company called amz.club, but it was too Amazon centric. And the way things are going over the last year, I said, we gotta change the name because everybody thinks as soon as they talk about you, it’s Amazon. So we just took this generic name. And we tell people now if they contact us, that we’re not only Amazon. In fact, Amazon’s one of the things, but we are talking about Walmart and the Shopify experience, especially retail, people have forgotten about retail. And so we try to manage your brands, grow their brands through those, usually those four different channels.

Kevin King:

And one of the things, you mentioned it earlier, and I know it’s one of your hallmarks of what you do, and you’re similar to me in this way, but a lot of people, it’s just something that they just don’t understand or don’t wanna put the effort or the money into, but it’s differentiation with packaging. And you’re huge on that. And I think it was you that, that told me a story about some swords or something like that, where you did something and the sword was in one type of box, and I’m, I’m just making things up here. And it was selling for 10 bucks, but then you put it in some sort of another type of packaging, and you sold the exact same sword for like $50 or something crazy like that. Can you tell me?

Norm:

You’re almost there. It was a knife.

Kevin King:

Knife, okay. A knife.

Norm:

Casa Goods was 16 bucks. The client was selling it at 49. And I looked at it as an ugly clamshell package, said suggested that we could change this and have an outer box. So it kind of looks like an iPhone box, a really clear silhouette on the outside a full-color process, on the other side. So people see what they, when they got it, could see what the knife looked like. Really cool. Then you opened it up and it was a rigid box with a magnetic clasp. When they opened it up, it had all the features in benefits of this full four-color processed knife right there. You didn’t see the knife, you had to unveil the knife. So you opened it up, and then you saw the knife and really beautiful, like the logo was in the pivot or the rivet on the, and it was also on the blade changed that. And we were able to go from we tried different price points, but we went to from 99 to 1 24,

Kevin King:

Exact the same knife. Nothing changed

Norm:

Nothing. Nothing changed.

Kevin King:

And how much did that, the extra packaging cost you?

Norm:

$3 ish? Not even that. So I don’t even think it was close to that. But anyways even we put it into a high-density compression foam, like an EVA foam. So when you got the knife, it looked beautiful. And then you popped it open like there was a thumb groove. Everything went into this like the convenience and just psychological things. Oh, you don’t have to force your fingers in to get the knife. There was a way to pop it out. And then the insert went to an extended warranty. Now, this is where we cleaned up. I didn’t tell you this part. We created a 52-week meal plan, and we also created two cookbooks. So if people signed up for the extended warranty, they also got the meal plan. But we would email ’em. Now, this is if they’re registered, right?

Norm:

So we would have their email address if they wanted the weekly meal plan, and we’d send it to them. Now, how did we develop the weekly meal plan? We sent the knives to chefs, and we sent the knives to culinary schools, and we asked them for recipes. So they gave us all these recipes and they kept the knife, they took pictures with the knife, and we asked them to tag us on Instagram. We got tons of user-generated content. Thousands of user-generated content for people that were giving us 10 photos, a hundred photos, giving us photos with food. And we could use that over and over and over again. Plus videos, like some of the videos that we have. Beautiful. Really well done. Okay, this is now, we started that a few years back, but as of right now, that same culinary school, guess what, they’re doing. An Amazon live cooking show.

Norm:

Hmm. And they’re going on, they’re using all of the knives now, like there’s a full selection, and we’ve got it where they’ve agreed that they’re going to broadcast a cooking lesson on through Amazon Live. And during the live, we’re gonna be selling the the product. But just going back to that knife for a second. So then went back, and this is where talking to a manufacturer really helps out. So we went back and we said, what can we do differently that kind of keeps in the same price point? He said, hammer the knife. Okay. So they showed us these hammered knives and the exact same knife. It’s a Damascus steel, one’s hammered, and one is layered. And the same price point. Okay, let’s get a wood case and let’s get like the satin finish, and let’s make it look even better than the other one. Package it in a black box, etch it with like a premium, whatever the addition was. And it stood out. Gorgeous. All right. know this for a fact, it was $3 and 50 ish cents packaged with the wooden case. That $16 knife was introduced at 224 bucks. Wow.

Norm:

Yeah.

Kevin King:

That’s the power of branding and packaging that so many people just completely overlook. I know I’ve given stories about my bully sticks and about some of the stuff I’ve done in other, other podcasts and other presentations, but people eat with their eyes first. And not just, I’m not just saying that just cuz it’s a knife, but, and anything, and you can connotate value by ramping up your presentation and your packaging. And it also, good packaging makes people feel like they made the right decision. They get that knife in a blister pack. Like, okay, this is a cool knife, but they, it comes in this nice iPhone type of box with the little wedges, like you said to, for the fingers to pull it out. It just reconfirms in their mind when they get it.

Kevin King:

Like, I made the right decision. This is cool. Right. And they’re more likely to give you a good review. They’re more likely or less likely to give you a bad review, even if the knife was dull or, or whatever. It’s, so important to do that. And I know you like on, on your podcast, I mean, well it’s a podcast, but it’s also a live that you do three times a week. I don’t know how you do that. The Lunch with Norm is every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, if you haven’t, check that out. Just Google Lunch with Norm, or it’s got a YouTube channel and it turns into a podcast, but you bring in on guests every single day. I’ve been on it a few times, but you’ve got a wide range of guests talking about everything from branding to PPC, to doing Amazon lives, to getting Shopify to just set up systems. How did that come about during the Lunch with Norm? What made you decide to do that?

Norm:

Well, first of all, the diversity is because you don’t want to be a one-legged stool ever again, right? So, not just one thing, how that happened it’s gonna sound crazy, but Covid, this is a positive covid thing. Sitting on my balcony watching the water, my boys were out there, all three boys Quentin, Kelsey and Hayden were, except for Quentin having a cigar and sitting back shooting the breeze. And I got a phone call and one of the calls was just the person asking for some help. And I said, yeah, yeah, I know this guy. So next phone call came. Yeah, I can get back to you. I know this guy. The third one was, I know this guy. That’s how the other podcast happened. Like the Amazon or I Know This Guy Podcast, which it was short-lived, but my kids said, why don’t you get in?

Norm:

Why don’t you start a podcast? you have a network. This is how the whole podcast talk started. And it was like no, guys, I can’t do that. You know this, I get nervous. I have really bad nerves. I’m a lot of the times, like, now it’s easier because I, I kind of understand where I’m going. But those first days doing the podcast, something went wrong. I’d be in the fetal position, shaking like crazy. It was very hard to do, but it was the kids that said why don’t you do it? So we started that. I Know This Guy Podcast with Danny McMillan said we were doing a little bit of content. He said, why don’t you turn that into a podcast? So kids again, let’s do it. Let’s do it. So at one point, during Covid, we had two podcasts going on, and we stop the I Know This Guy Podcast. We stop, hopefully, bring that back. But the Amazon one lived on, and it was all because of the kids.

Kevin King:

So what would you say, you’ve been doing it a couple of years now. What are some of maybe two or three of the biggest aha moments from guests on that show that you could share with us that have someone that came on and just like, blew you away? Like, holy cow, everybody needs to know this.

Norm:

It’s constantly happening, Kevin, and you must get this too. Like, one of the benefits of being a podcast host, you don’t know everything. And people come on and they tell you things, and it’s like, what? And that’s happening like that happens all, all the time. Like, just something as simple as we had Mark Casey on, and he said, oh yeah you can put the display. So in your product page, in your product listing, it shows up that you have a newer product available in the display and it shows the product, and you can click on it and you can get extra sales. Like, more people will click on that than anything else.That’s just something recent that I, I found out about. On the influencer side and the live side, there are so many things I never knew how important it is to go live with a brand.

Norm:

And I learned that from Maya Gordon. I learned it from Gracey Ryback. I’ve learned that from all sorts of people about taking that post. I talked about posts quite a bit. Well, that’s important and people not doing it properly. And understanding now how to do it properly. Even when you start taking a look at what’s happening right now, sourcing, where do you go? Well, I know that most of my products right now are US based, if I’m trying to find a new product, and I have got two brands that over the next little while are gonna be launched, they’re in the US. So that’s something that I’ve been able to take a look at or at least look at the outside of China.

Norm:

What am I experiencing in China? I’ve heard a horror story, of somebody going into China and losing money because of the economy over there and Covid that they lost a ton of money. I heard a story just recently about products sitting and waiting to be shipped. Now, this goes back a few months, but their product got moldy. It was a $40,000 loss. And because of that the seller tried to go back to the manufacturer and the manufacturer wouldn’t give her the 40 grand back. So these are all things that you learn, and, okay, how do I prevent that? How do I prevent something like that from happening? Another thing is, and this is something that’s very near and dear to my heart, is cash flow and inventory management. My whole inventory strategy right now, so I never run out of stock, never is something that I learned on the podcast. So those are just a few things.

Kevin King:

So one of the things that, on the podcast, you call ’em, what is it? The Beard Nation or the Beardos or something?

Norm:

Beardos. Beard Nation.

Kevin King:

Yeah. So a lot of people know you by your beard. They’ve seen you at different events. They’ve seen you the animations or are you online? They’re like, ah, I know that guy. That’s the guy with the beard. But that was a very deliberate marketing choice, right? Because I’ve seen pictures of you before you got into this e-commerce game. There was no beard, there was no mustache. But did you sit down like in like 2014, 2015 when you decided, Hey, I’m gonna, I, I need to get my name out there. I need to establish a brand. And like, how can I stand out? What can I do? And then let me grow a, a big beard is there some truth to that?

Norm:

A hundred percent. And it happened. So I knew I wanted to grow a business and this was before I went to Mallorca and it was about three months before I went over to see you guys maybe a little bit longer. And I knew I wanted to do something in Amazon to grow a business. And I knew that, like, I’ve gone to some events and I started like I tried to, I was inquisitive. So I’m emailing some of the speakers saying, Hey, I just wanted to get some more information. You were talking about this. Nobody would remember me, nobody would remember my name. I was clean-shaven and I was sitting down with a buddy of mine, and in Canada, it’s November, but it’s also during the playoffs for hockey that the hockey players grow a bit of scruff.

Norm:

So that was one of the things that started this thing going, is that, okay I’m growing a bit of scruff because it was I believe it was the hockey season, but anyways, it might have been just straight November. But I kept it growing and I went over, I was meeting with my buddy and he was the one that said, that’d be a great brand. And I said you think so? Do you think a beard? And he said something like, Roy Orson only had sunglasses. And I said, maybe I could do that. I started growing it, and at the first event, Mallorca I’d reach out and people would know me. When I went to your event, it was like, oh, like the guy with the beard. And that’s what we did. We’re like, we’ve got logos made up, we got all this stuff. Any business that I’m involved with, like the podcast or other things, it is all about the beard. I have the beard guy. I’m known as the bearded guy.

Kevin King:

Now there’s another guy in this space. He was actually at an event that you and I just threw, back in October, the Collective Mind Society event where we, it’s more of an experiential mastermind type of thing that we do. We’re doing another one at F1 in 2023 in Austin in October. Well it’ll be announcing some stuff around that. But it ia a really cool event. And one of the attendees at this event is the other guy that has a beard in this space. And y’all were chatting and he is like, yeah, sometimes I I get mixed up for you or you guys get there are two Beard guys and his name is Abe, but he manages a lot of PPC accounts and, and stuff and does a really good job on that. So, but your beard is I think, a little more full and, and longer

Norm:

Yeah. Yeah. And if his ever gets starts to catch up, I’m gonna come up with one of the Clippers and just whoop

Kevin King:

Grow a Mohawk.

Norm:

Yeah, there we go.

Kevin King:

Be the Mohawk guy

Norm:

That happened. By the way, I was cooking the burgers, I had a mohawk in my beard, remember? The burgers came up, burnt it, and it was Yosemite Sam like

Kevin King:

So Norma, what, what’s, what’s next for you? What’s the next hot thing that you’re working on right now?

Norm:

Well, the money-making where I can live and I can maybe eat baloney once or twice a week is this brand company called Dragonfish, where we’re working, it’s omnichannel. That’s where things are going, not just Amazon, it’s omnichannel. So that’s one of the things that I’m working on. But got a challenge for my kids again about influencers. So one of the hard parts for Amazon sellers is trying to find influencers, what platforms, and how to approach them. Just to try to communicate and to see if you got getting ripped off or not. And the other side of it is a lot of sellers, or a lot of people are trying to become influencers. So it ended up, I took a challenge for my kids saying, because I’m not an influencer on the buyer side, I literally have zero followers.

Norm:

And created this challenge. I’m going on TikTok once a day, giving advice on what happened, like good, bad, and ugly during the day about getting influencers or being an influencer. And during this process, I’ve set up a system. I need products, and I just saying anybody who wants to listen, send me products. I’ll go on Amazon Live, I do shoppable videos, I do photography. It’s all free. I’m not asking a penny. And if something works out, you get a purchase. Well, that’s where I get 10 points I get 10%. It’s a straight 10%, but I’m also paying for all the ads. So I’m doing this really as an experiment. I could be doing some other things, but you said like, how are you gonna make money at it? I’m not gonna make money at it. People don’t know how competitive I am. And when they say I can’t do something, I just wanna say I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna get a hundred thousand followers by December 31st and it’s all gonna be organic. I’m not gonna buy anything next week or next, not this December 31st, next December 31st. And it’s gonna be called Lunch with Norm Deals. And that’s what I’m doing. And I know you think I’m crazy for doing this, but that’s what I’m doing.

Kevin King:

It’s gonna be interesting to see what happens. Yeah, I’ll be following that closely for sure.

Kevin King:

Well, Norm, I know we could sit here and talk forever, just like we do when we have a good cigar and our Coke zeroes. But I wanna say thanks for taking your time. I know you’re really busy. You got a lot of irons in the fire. I appreciate you coming on to the AM/PM podcast. And I’m sure we’ll have you back and see how this challenge goes. And there’s a lot more stories to tell because like I said earlier, every time I’m with you, I’m like, holy cow, this guy has, he knows this person. He is done this, he’s done this. Like I’ve told you to need to write a book and or write some little short little essay for your kids. That’s one of the best things.

Kevin King:

I think I told you this song one time when we were having cigars with my dad sat down my dad’s in his eighties and a few years ago he sat down and, and just typed up like these short little paragraphs about stories about his life. Well, how he met my mom, who his first girlfriend was, his teacher, and his experience in Vietnam. They’re all like two or three paragraphs, just like short, straight to the point. Little like, like little really short, short stories, but just little nuggets from his life. And it’s fascinating for me to actually go back and, and he gave it to me five years ago or so, and I read it then, and then I was cleaning some stuff about when I told you about, about six months or a year ago and found it again and read it again. And I’m like, this is just amazing to have. And you’ve got tons of those. And hopefully, we can share ’em on another podcast. But don’t forget to write some of those down because I know your three boys would love to have that.

Norm:

That is something When we were on the cruise, I came back and I said, I gotta do that. That’s some of the best advice I’ve received and I plan on doing it. I hope I can come back. I love talking with you Kevin, and really appreciate you having me on the podcast today.

Kevin King:

Thanks man, and we’ll talk to you soon.

Norm:

Alright.

Kevin King:

Norm and I could sit here and talk for hours upon hours and just tell stories, but I hope you enjoyed this episode and got something from it. Especially the little example we gave there on product packaging and how important that is can make a huge difference. I’m a big proponent of that as well, and something that everybody just seems to just skip over or not fully understand the true value of that extra little added cost and that true differentiation. And it’s, it’s something that can do wonders for, for your business if you really take it seriously. We’ll be back again next week with the next episode of the AM/PM podcast. I hope you’re having a great Q4 and a good holiday season. And before we go, I just wanna leave you with this week’s words of wisdom. Think about what you want today and you’ll be spending your time, think about what you want in five years and you’ll be investing your time. Again, if you think about what you want today, you’ll just be spending your time. But if you think about what you want in five years, you’ll be investing your time. Have a great rest of your week.

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