Kevin has been an entrepreneur his entire life. It’s been 30 years since he last received a paycheck from someone else. He has created, developed and guided hundreds of products from inception to market. In 2015, he started five private label brands on Amazon. Together those brands have grossed more than $3,000,000.00. His goal is to reach $4,000,000.00 per year on Amazon alone by the end of 2017.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

How Kevin pulls 3 Million+ sales a year

• How Kevin picks his products


• Types of products Kevin has had success and failed with


• What most sellers do and what not to do


• How Kevin uses tools, strategies and knowledge to grow his business


• How he is expanding outside of Amazon


• Inner workings of his business, his execution and mindset


• Why he has 5 brands


• How he markets his products


• What he did before selling on Amazon and e-Commerce


• How he creates molds for products


• How much he started with

And much more! Stay tuned for transcript

Notable notes:

Link for how to add two products to cart:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aws/cart/add.html?ASIN.1=XXXXX&Quantity.1=1&ASIN.2=XXXXX&Quantity.2=1

DAVID ALADDIN: Great to have you on the show, Kevin!

KEVIN KING: Glad to be here, man!

DAVID ALADDIN: Can you take us to the beginning before your first million, before Amazon? Where did it all begin?

KEVIN KING: Well, like you said at intro there, I’ve been an entrepreneur my entire life. I think the last time I got a paycheck from someone I was like 17years old, and that was about thirty years ago. So, (inaudible) back when e-mail first started, so I’ve been involved in this for a long time running several different sites, e-commerce sites, fulfillment stuff. So, the Amazon stuff. I’ve been actually selling on Amazon for 12years. I was actually using Amazon almost like e-Bay in the beginning where I would just…I would be one of those high jackers.

If I had something, some old DVD player, or something laying around the house that I was like just throwing it up on e-Bay, sometimes I would throw it up on Amazon, just jump on somebody’s listing and sold it as used. And then I’ve been also doing some wholesale to Amazon through the Amazon Advantage Program which is their program for DVDs, books and that kind of thing, and so audio tapes and stuff, it’s like a special program. So, I’ve been doing wholesale with them for almost 20years on a line of calendars that I do, it’s seasonal product.

So, it’s almost like vendor central, but they issue purchase orders and then we ship them in. But then I started the private label stuff on Amazon in 2015 and like everybody else, I think I saw one of those AMS adds come across my e-mail. I was like “this looks interesting”. So, I took a look at it, but…and then I said: “you know, I don’t need to take the course, I already kind of have this background, let me just jump right into it and do it”. And I started listening podcast and researching everything I could, and that’s where it went from there.

DAVID ALADDIN: In 1997 you’ve started, kind of -ish?

KEVIN KING: Yeah, ’95 I think it’s when I when I’ve sent my first e-mail. And I started my first selling online, first e-commerce sight, I think ’96/’97. It was in fact before there was a PayPal even, you know, people had to like…I think I used plug n pay or something back then. It’s still around today, but there were the first guys to actually take credit cards online. So, yeah, I go back. And I think Amazon was…I haven’t looked. I have daily withdraws on my Amazon account, so I am one of the…so, it’s an old school account, so I think maybe ’99 or 2000 probably is when I did my first Amazon stuff.

DAVID ALADDIN: Do you know why they removed daily withdraws?

KEVIN KING: I have no idea. Someone told me they took it away in like 2011/2012, and so any accounts after that. But it probably had to do with…I mean, you know, just protect themselves against returns, I mean, against people taking their money every day and then them get left held with a, you know, a bunch or returns or a fake seller, or something, I sure they got burned a few times. So, I don’t know what the exact reason is, but I am happy to have it.

DAVID ALADDIN: Well, I know there’s like services that come out trying to give us our payment before the two weeks, and you don’t have to deal with this kind of nonsense.

KEVIN KING: No, I think there are a couple different services that take 1%-2% and do that, but they still hold some back. And yeah, it is every day I can login, 6 days a week, so I’ve got the time. It helps more on Christmas when you know, if you are doing 10.000-20.000-30.000 and $50.000 a day on Christmas and you need that cash flow instead of having to wait two weeks. I got it figured out that if you do it before 4 o’clock central time, you give it about 30minutes for it to go through the system, so  about 3:30 by central time, if I do that on Wednesday I’ll have the money Friday morning in my account. So, during busy times I’ll login like daily like clockwork, and just take daily withdraws. And it definitely helps as you are growing and as you are scaling.

DAVID ALADDIN: So, let’s go back a little bit. At 17 what were you doing? Like, what took you on this path?

KEVIN KING: Well, at 17 I think my first job was in a McDonald’s, working in a Mc Donald’s, and then I worked in a dally and then I delivered pizzas. So, those are the only three jobs I’ve ever received a W2. I’ve never worked in the corporate world, never done anything like that. And I’ve always been interested in direct marketing since I was a child I was selling stamps by mail as a, you know, 12year old. And I was always an entrepreneur, mulling people’s yards, painting numbers on street curves, everything I could do to make money. I made so much money as a kid, you know. I was making couple hundred dollars a week as a 12 or 13year old, and so my parents were like: look, this is too much money for 12 or 13year olds, so you have to save half of it, and they end up dumping that into a bank account and gave it back to me when I was in college as a, they said, as an allowance. So, that was my beer money.

DAVID ALADDIN: What did go to school for?

KEVIN KING: Marketing, Texas A&M University.

DAVID ALADDIN: And then you decided not to go toward the typical rout?

KEVIN KING: Yeah, I don’t think I can work for anybody else. I think I’d lasted a day or two if someone else is telling what to do or to, you know, look over my shoulder, or you are doing the hard work and someone else if getting the credit. It’s just not my thing. And so yeah, I came out of school and start selling t-shirts on campus during college, during football games, we’d get the license for the school and we’d do all kinds of stuff, and then I travelled around all the spring break spots with the back of my car with a buddy of mine selling, you know, “get drunk” shirts to spring break kids and stuff. And then I did that for a while, and then I started a couple other businesses and just went from there. So yeah, I’ve always been a “direct marketer”.

DAVID ALADDIN: You’ve literally direct like right to the customer!

KEVIN KING: Yeah!

DAVID ALADDIN: So, you’ve been hustling before like, you know, without the distribution.

KEVIN KING: Yeah, I am kind of antithesis or anti guy in this business. A lot of people, there are either attracted to this Amazon business and a lot of marketing out for all these people doing courses as “quit your day job” you know, “get your life back” “travel the World”. I’ve already done all that stuff. I organized one of my businesses so that in 2007 I could travel. So, I was actually, for seven years, I would spend like two weeks in the office and two weeks on the road, travelling all over the World. And so, I’ve already done that. And, you know, I had some money from the last business, I was doing pretty good and started to run out after about seven years of doing that, so I was like okay, I got to get serious again, and that’s where I jumped into the Amazon. I was like okay, this is perfect for my skill set of e-commerce, direct marketing, I know all the…I’ve been buying stuff in China and doing all that. So, none of that was new to me. Just had to learn how Amazon likes everything done from a third party point of view. And that’s how it started. So, I have five brands in five different categories on Amazon.

DAVID ALADDIN: So, just leading up to it, in 2007 what type of business allowed you to travel everywhere?

KEVIN KING: I had a television business; we were shooting TV shows all over the World, so… But we would go there and we would, you know, on some island in the Caribbean, and be working for a week and not really get to enjoy the place. I mean you are there, yeah, that definitely beats being in an office, but as I want to come back here and like spend a week and get to know this place really, so that’s kind of what led to it. And so I had my bucket list and I just made a list, and it was supposed to be one year of travel. And I wasn’t backpacking; I wasn’t staying in hostels, or… I was hiring a private guy wherever I went, you know, so that you almost have like a friend there, drive me around, show me everything, they’d take me to their house for dinner so I would get a real taste of the cultur