Throwback: From Side Hustle to Success - Unlocking E-Commerce Growth Secrets

What this episode covers

In this episode, Josh interviews Norm Lanier, CEO of a long-running Amazon private label business. Norm discusses his journey from side hustles to full-time e-commerce, the challenges of increased competition and inventory management, and insights gained from Josh’s business strategy audit. Key takeaways include focusing on the most profitable products, increasing strategic ad spend, and shifting from “base hit” to “home run” products. The conversation highlights the importance of data-driven decision-making and adapting business strategies to sustain growth and profitability in a rapidly evolving e-commerce landscape.Chapters:Introduction & Guest Background (00:00:00)Josh introduces Norm Lanier, outlines his Amazon business experience, and sets up the episode’s focus on the business audit.Norm’s E-commerce Journey (00:00:59)Norm shares how he started in e-commerce, his transition from HP, and his experience across multiple marketplaces.Challenges in E-commerce (00:02:24)Norm discusses recent challenges: increased competition, economic downturn, and feeling out of touch with business metrics.Importance of Data & Inventory Control (00:03:15)Norm explains the need for granular dashboards, product-level profitability, and efforts to clean up catalog and manage inventory.Purpose of the Strategy Audit (00:04:15)Norm describes his motivation for the audit: getting an expert’s perspective and actionable insights beyond what accountants provide.Key Audit Takeaways: Advertising & Levers (00:05:28)Norm highlights the realization that increasing advertising spend is a major growth lever, a unique insight from the audit.Profitability & SKU Management (00:06:00)Josh and Norm discuss the struggle with profit margins, managing 7000 SKUs, and the need to focus on high-value activities.Mindset Shift: From Base Hits to Home Runs (00:07:28)Norm reflects on shifting from launching many small products to focusing on bigger opportunities that can significantly grow the business.Action Items & 80/20 Focus (00:10:02)Josh summarizes three action items: prioritizing high-impact levers, simplifying by focusing on top-performing products, and strategic PPC investment.Keyword Strategy for PPC (00:13:19)Norm and Josh discuss the importance of identifying and categorizing keywords before increasing PPC spend for maximum impact.Audit Value & Closing Thoughts (00:14:05)Norm shares the value of the audit, the benefit of an expert’s perspective, and appreciation for the insights received.Wrap-up & Future Outlook (00:15:04)Josh and Norm conclude, expressing interest in a follow-up episode to track progress and encouraging listeners to seek similar audits.Links and Mentions:E-commerce Platforms  "Amazon": "00:01:06"  "Shopify": "00:01:06"  "Etsy": "00:01:06"  Business Tools and Evaluation  "Dashboards and Tools for Business Evaluation": "00:03:15"  "Comprehensive Business Strategy Audit": "00:00:00"  Marketing and PPC  "PPC (Pay-Per-Click) Management": "00:10:02"  "Keyword Strategy for PPC": "00:13:19"  Business Strategy and Mindset  "Mindset Shift for Entrepreneurs": "00:09:02"  "Identifying Levers for Business Impact": "00:11:03"  "20/80 Rule (Pareto Principle)": "00:12:16"  "Simplifying Business by Focusing on Top Products": "00:12:16"Transcript:Josh 00:00:00  Today I am speaking with Norm Lanier. He is the CEO of his own Amazon private label business that he's been running for over a decade now, and he has lots of experience. In fact, Norm is one of the lucky winners of my comprehensive business strategy audit sessions. And so today, I'm super excited that we're going to be diving into the conversation, the audit that we just performed on Norm's business, and he's going to be sharing his takeaways, the insights that he's gleaned. he is already doing millions of dollars in business, but he has aspirations to continue to grow his business and to hopefully one day be able to exit that business. And today, that's the conversation that we had and we talked about. So, Norm, with that introduction, I want you to kind of give us a quick intro about yourself, how you got started into the e-comm world and what you've been doing over the last decade.Norm 00:00:59  Yeah. Thanks, Josh. I appreciate the opportunity to talk with you and your listeners also.Norm 00:01:06  I've been doing, First. e-com business. I kind of, came in the back door and started that in 2004. I started building some side hustles while I was an employee at at HP. I got to the point where I was making more of my side hustles than my real job. So for my 50th anniversary, I 50th birthday, I turned in my resignation. And I've been doing Amazon and Shopify, Etsy, a lot of different marketplaces since then full time. And that's kind of where I'm at today.Josh 00:01:44  I love it, and Norm and I dance in the same space. Sometimes we might be considered competitors, but there's such a big marketplace out there that we were able to, you know, really kind of lift up, open the hood today and really dive into each other's businesses. He was able to ask me a lot of questions, and hopefully I was able to share some valuable insights with you, Norm. And that's what we'll talk about. Norm, we first started off by talking about, you know, what is your overall goal in in your business.Josh 00:02:15  Right. And what are the biggest obstacles that you're facing. So why don't you go ahead and kind of reiterate what we started our conversation off with.Norm 00:02:24  Yeah. So, you know, just taking a look, you know, I think I'm fall into the same category as most people are selling in the e-commerce space right now, dealing with more competition. things are constantly moving. you know, the economy is down to a degree. So I think in our space, we're, we're seeing, you know, some pullback on, on spend over the last couple of years. So that's created challenges, right. And you know, as we as we mentioned, I've been doing this for a long time, and I really had gotten to the point where, a couple of years ago and stuff. I really felt like I was out of touch that before. It was pretty easy for me. I really felt like I had it dialed in, and over the past few years, it really felt like I was kind of losing control.Norm 00:03:15  And a lot of that had to do with not having the proper dashboards and tools to be able to evaluate kind of where we're at on a very granular level. Right. Because it's one thing to see your big number and your paychecks and all of those things come in on a monthly basis. But, you know, on a product level, after shipping fees and advertising and all of those refunds and so forth, what is each product actually generating as far as income and what is really driving bottom line growth? And once I got the proper tools in place, really kind of opened my eyes that a lot of products that we had, it's like, why am I even bothering with this when it's all said and done? I'm not making any money. It's certainly not worth the effort on this. So we've really have gone in and cleaned up our catalog and eliminated a lot of stuff. A lot of exce...

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