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- [00:02]
A
How to unlock 5-10x more money from Amazon. What's up, what's up? Nick Loper here. Welcome to the Side Hustle Show. It's the entrepreneurship podcast you can actually apply. And today we're talking about the easiest way that I've ever made money online, and that's the Amazon Influencer program. My guest is earning around 3,000 bucks a month from the program, but it's changed quite a bit over the last couple years. What worked before, namely the strategy of uploading a bunch of product review videos, kind of a volume game, and hoping they generate commissions. That has started to produce diminishing returns. But there's a new strategy that is giving creators a way forward, and I'm excited to share how it all works from 201creative.com and host of the Niche Pursuits podcast, Jared Bauman. Welcome back to the side Hustle Show.
- [00:52]
B
Hey, Nick, thanks for having me. I'm excited about what we're talking about today.
- [00:55]
A
School me on Creator Connections because I opened this up. It's inside your associates account. And to me, I open this up and there's like half a million potential campaigns. They call it like affiliate plus campaigns. And where do I even begin Here?
- [01:11]
B
You said it in the intro. Like the old way of doing Amazon Influencer, it still produces results, but because the program has gotten more saturated and, and because it's gotten more competitive, it's a lot easier to look at Creator Connections as your opportunity to make money. Now, most Amazon influencers, me included, are making more from Creator Connections and working with brands like you have up here in front of you than they are from the old method of making videos and just putting them on the page. So what you're looking at is if you're watching on screen over 500,000 brand campaigns called Creator Connections, campaigns that brands have offered to to Amazon influencers like us. And you can see right there, we've got a rug. That rug. If you accept the campaign, make a video for it. It'll give you 10% commission rather than the typical 2 or 3% commission.
- [01:58]
A
Shoot, I just accepted it. Was that a mistake? Now they're going to want me to make a video for it.
- [02:02]
B
You did just accept it. You can click in on it, though, if you want to see what you just accepted. But yeah, and so this is basically the way from a high level that you want to start using the Amazon Influencer program now going forward.
- [02:13]
A
Okay, so, okay, here's the campaign brief, okay, where you can offer your followers a special discount on this. And instead of your regular 2, 3, whatever percent commission rate. We're going to give you 10% on this rug. And some of them are even higher than that, like this little vegetable rotating serving tray. 18%. There's quite a range here. 15% for these. Looks like a pillow. Maybe 40%.
- [02:34]
B
Yep. I was going to say you'll see them as high as 30 or 40%.
- [02:37]
A
What is this? Hemorrhoid relief product, maybe? I don't know what this is.
- [02:41]
B
Yeah, it looks like that might be a part you'd want to have to offer higher commission on to get someone to make a video for.
- [02:46]
A
Okay. So one thing that I guess I could do is go through and search for the products that I either already own or already have videos about as a potential starting point here.
- [02:58]
B
And that is the best place to start. So, you know, if you have been in the program for a while and you already have a video library, then the easiest place to start is by making sure that you find and accept all the creator connection campaigns that are for those existing products, because you've already made the videos for them.
- [03:13]
A
Okay, and if nothing shows up in that, Because I did go through that exercise and I only have, like, probably less than 100 videos, but none of the products that I had were, were on here or they had an offer. And so what comes next?
- [03:26]
B
So the process that you want to start going through is getting in the habit of reaching out to the brands that have creator connection campaigns open and asking them, showcasing why you'd be a good. A good candidate to make a video for them and asking them to send you the product for free. And if you get in a cadence, I do it every day for 10 or 15 minutes. And if you get in a cadence and you can do it as much or as little as you want based on how much time you have, that's where you start building a pipeline of products that are coming. You're making videos for, you're publishing them, and when you publish them, you join their creator connection campaign. And then you start seeing those increased commissions.
- [04:05]
A
And so you can message brands directly through here. And sometimes I've noticed it says, no, we're not offering free product. Like, do you ignore that or say like, of course that's the default setting. But if you actually reach out proactively and explain and state your case, then what's the worst case? They're going to say no? Or they say, oh, sure, we'll give it a try.
- [04:24]
B
Most don't even respond. Just to be honest with you, most of these brands are Inundated with this. So it is like more of a. You speak to the volume game. The volume game now is turned into the messaging. I think it must be a default because a lot of them, it says they're not sending free products. I ask and a lot of them will respond and say, sure, let me send that to you. So I don't, I don't know why, but yeah, there's a lot of brands that will send them even if they have that box checked.
- [04:48]
A
Now, samples, will samples be provided by the brand? No, but there is a button here to message the brand. I found this is a post workout bath salt recovery product or something. It's like, okay, sure, that's fine. And so you would send them a message and say what, what do you include in that initial outreach, especially if you're earlier in the game. Maybe you don't have a ton of street cred where you have a thousand videos up.
- [05:14]
B
Yeah, if you have some street cred like I'm platinum status, which is the highest status.
- [05:18]
A
I didn't even know there was statuses.
- [05:20]
B
There's status now. Yeah, you're silver.
- [05:23]
C
Okay.
- [05:23]
B
So you know, could be worse. Bronze is, is worse than that.
- [05:27]
A
Okay. Okay.
- [05:28]
B
So yeah, there's bronze, there's silver, there's gold and there's platinum. I don't know who decided platinum was better than gold. But anyways, I'll include my status because that does indicate at least if they're familiar, it'll indicate that I've been doing this, you know, long enough to earn that status.
- [05:41]
A
Okay.
- [05:41]
B
I'll typically try to share something that helps validate. So if I share that, I have over 1500 videos live, I share that I'm platinum status. But you just want to try to find something so that the brand will, whatever it is, assume that you know what you're doing. Maybe you have an expertise in that specific area, maybe you're want to share about how you're exploring. But basically you want to give them some reason to want to send you the product. And I try to get all the information to them up front to avoid back and forth. So I will make sure I include the exact product ASIN I want because a lot of these brands have a lot of asins they're selling. And asins are the different individual product skus that Amazon uses.
- [06:19]
A
And you can find that like directly in the URL or in that like creator connections campaign invite thing.
- [06:25]
B
Yeah, it usually starts with a B, about eight letters or characters.
- [06:28]
A
Okay.
- [06:28]
B
Anyways, I'll include that. I will Tell them exactly what I'm going to do. So I'll say, hey, I want to make a video for you. I want to publish it to my Amazon storefront. I'll also put it on my YouTube channel and I'll do that within one to two weeks of you sending me the product. So I'm just really clear. And I give my address right there because I say, here, here's my address. If you just want to go ahead and ship it to me, then I finish with my links. So here's my Amazon storefront And here's my YouTube channel. You might want to make yours a little longer. You might want to make yours a little shorter. I like, I have found that for me, getting it all out there right away, it cuts down the back and forth and it's just easier.
- [07:03]
A
Are you doing any type of keyword search where you're like, well, I'm a podcaster, so I'm going to look for podcast equipment or stud. So are you just scrolling through what's new? Because I think the default was sorted by recommended or something like their proprietary algorithm.
- [07:19]
B
Yeah, they have that recommended. You're right. There's a couple different ways to go about it. First and foremost, I think a lot of people, I would call this a mistake, but it's still done enough that is worth mentioning. A lot of people will start going after stuff that they want. But the key here, the only way this all works, is if you go after products that are selling. It doesn't matter if the product is. The Creator Connection campaign is giving you 50% commission. If it doesn't sell, you don't earn a dime. And the vast majority of these products here in Creator Connections don't have a good sales history. Right. So the key is to find products that are selling and then reaching out basically to those products. That's where software helps out. There's tools out there, Chrome extensions that work within the Amazon Influencer program. There's Oink, there's Viral View, there's a couple of them. And they can kind of help make all that a little bit easier. The flip side is, to your point, even if it doesn't sell well, this can be a good strategy to just get stuff that you need and that you are going to buy, make a video about it, and then you can go ahead and at that point either keep it, you could resell it. So there are different strategies, but ultimately you want to be going after stuff that's selling well, right?
- [08:30]
A
Insert yourself into a cash flow that's already happening. Insert your, you know, skate where the puck is going, go where there's already demand. That makes a lot of sense because it was the same thing in, in clearance arbitrage, where it's like, well, it might have a tremendous ROI on paper, but if the sales rank is too low, like, it's just going to sit in inventory and like, never turn. So you make sure whatever the sales rank metrics, like, meets it in the top 1% of its category or something. So that that makes sense. Do they let you default? Like, is there a way to sort by velocity? Or like, everybody would already do that. So you have to use an extension.
- [09:03]
B
Yeah, you have to use an extension. I mean, here's a strategy for people who don't want to use a paid tool. They're not that expensive. Oink is 30 bucks a month or I think viral views more. A little bit more than that. They save you a lot of time, though. I mean, so much time they make. They make a lot of this a lot easier. I recommend them because, like, 30 bucks and if I can, you know, shave 90%, like, it shaves 80 to 90% of the product research time away. And then it makes it so that, you know, you can find products that are selling well pretty quickly. So you can make that back pretty quickly. But even if you don't want to use one of those tools, find a brand that is offering a decent amount of their products on creator connections. Go to their brand page or their brand store. Their Amazon store.
- [09:46]
A
Okay.
- [09:47]
B
And then you can see which products are selling well. And they'll tell you in the individual Amazon listing, like this sold 300 units last month. And so if you pull up any Amazon product page for a specific asin, if it's selling, Amazon will give you a range and then you can kind of start to go after those products. So let's say I find a brand and they're a brand that makes like a bunch of different electronics. I go to their Amazon page and I can see, see their top sellers. I go to the individual ASINs by clicking out of their Amazon storefront. And then I can go and I can see, oh, this one's selling 500amonth. That's great. If I could get this product for free and make a video, that's moving a lot of sales.
- [10:23]
A
Okay, so, oh, like this is like right under the review count, like, you know, 4.5 stars, 300 reviews, whatever it says, 200 plus bot in the last month. Like, that's the number that you're looking at.
- [10:33]
B
That's the number I'm looking at. Yeah.
- [10:35]
A
Okay. And that's just, I always thought it was on there for like social proof of like, hey, other people are buying it, you should too, kind of a thing. But it's like, oh, you could also use that for research.
- [10:43]
B
I doubt they have it there for us as influencers, but you're exactly right. Like you could. And this data is available, like again, these software tools, even Jungle Scout, like not for Amazon Influencer, but for FBA type stuff. Like the amount these products are selling is available. It's just not available if you're just browsing inside the navigational pages.
- [11:03]
A
Okay. So if you're, that's. So if you're seeing a brand that has a lot of products, you could go a lot of products inside the Creator Connections dashboard. You can go to their storefront and kind of get a sense for what their best sellers are and say, well, I don't necessarily want this thing, but would you consider sending me this? I can make a video about that instead.
- [11:19]
B
Exactly. Yep, yep. That's a great way to get started on it. It takes some time, takes some work. But if you can find a product that's selling well and has some availability in either the top or the bottom carousel, then that is really where you can unlock a product that could make you hundreds or even thousands of dollars in a month through Creator Connections.
- [11:39]
A
Okay. And so after that, the name of the game is still the same. Like make your, you know, one to two minute product review video pros.
- [11:46]
C
Cons.
- [11:46]
A
What we like, what we didn't like, would I buy it again, like just helping somebody make their decision and it still is going to show up in that review or like, I guess the video review carousel on the product page. You're not driving external traffic.
- [11:58]
B
Nope, no external traffic. Exactly. That's the name of the game. The Creator Connections allows you to get 10, 20, 30% commission instead of the 2, the 3, the 4%. So you don't need as many videos per se to go live as you used to in the olden days. The olden days. But the 2023, the 2024 methodology, you know, of just, hey, we need a lot of videos because we don't know which ones are going to end up in the carousels. We need a lot of videos because we're only making 2 or 3 or 4% per sale. So we need a lot of videos. Right. You still want to create a pipeline where you're making videos frequently, because those Creator Connection campaigns do expire. Right. A lot of times, the brands will renew them, but they aren't up in perpetuity. So we do still want that pipeline, but you're making so much more on every sale. It isn't as much of a volume game anymore.
- [12:45]
A
Okay. This is going to be a shift in my Amazon shopping, right. Instead of starting on the public storefront, I need to start here on the back end. Even if I end up buying the product myself, at least it's like, well, all else being equal, I'll go for the one that's paying 15% versus the one, like, if I'm going to make a video about it anyways. Okay, so this, that's a. That's a great little hack if you're already in the program.
- [13:09]
B
And one of the things I do just to share is like, I will go after a type of a product and I'll try to find every brand that has a creator connection campaign for that product type. As long as it's selling, I will reach out to all of those brands. So let's say like a coffee maker. You know, maybe I'm in the market for a coffee maker.
- [13:27]
A
Okay.
- [13:28]
B
I was last year, actually. And so I went after. I think I sent about 25 messages over the course of a week to different brands that had coffee makers on creator connections. I don't remember how many responded, but I ended up getting three. I got three coffee makers, and so I made three videos, but I got to make them the same week. And so it's nice because, you know, like, you kind of learn how to use that coffee maker, but the next one's pretty similar. And so you can kind of almost batch process some of this stuff. Once you start doing it, you can batch your outreach, you can batch your filming, and then, okay, I didn't need three coffee makers. We can talk a little bit later about what the heck you do with all this product that arrives now. But yeah, that's. That's another little tip to try to kind of streamline what you're doing.
- [14:08]
A
Okay. And then you mentioned, well, I am going to post this on my YouTube channel as well. So you have a dedicated Jared Reviews stuff type of channel.
- [14:15]
B
Yeah, yeah. I started that last summer when I started focusing on creator connections. I didn't start focusing on creator connections, for the record, until about August of last year.
- [14:24]
A
Okay.
- [14:25]
B
I was focusing on the old way, which is just everything I own, everything I buy, everything I get, I make a video for and I post. Didn't even look at creator connection, but I started experimenting with it last summer. And it's really massively outshot my earnings from the typical on site videos.
- [14:38]
A
Does the YouTube channel drive meaningful traffic and revenue or is it just kind of like you almost need it? As an added bonus, I'm going to post it on YouTube kind of a thing.
- [14:47]
B
It's definitely there as an added bonus because the brands love when your video can be put in multiple places. They're really obsessed with YouTube and Instagram, so Instagram's another great place. You know, a lot of them do ask about your numbers and metrics. I don't typically share. I just say, here's the channel you can see. I mean, I'm looking at it right now. The channel's been live for, what is that, six months? It's gotten 27,000 views in the last 30 days.
- [15:10]
A
Okay. It's not nothing.
- [15:11]
B
It does drive clicks over to my Amazon storefront. I can tell because you can look in Amazon at off site clicks. And I'm getting now daily sales, but I'm getting, I'm making like five, ten dollars a day from it. So not a lot, but I mean, I'm making more than $100 a month from, from the YouTube side of things. It's mainly there because the brands are more likely to send you product if it's going to go in, if your video will go in multiple places. But it is driving clicks and earnings.
- [15:37]
A
Got it, got it. And then they would just give you like a specific creator, connections, affiliate link basically to, to post in the YouTube description.
- [15:45]
B
Yeah, you can generate that when you hit accept. It actually gives you a spot to generate your, your own link right there.
- [15:50]
A
Okay, gotcha. Okay, so there's some Chrome extensions that can help you out with this filtering process, but otherwise, hey, just start your shopping process on the back end and see. Well, I'm going to go with this one or see if, see if they could send it to me for free. Yeah, something I've never asked for. That's kind of an interesting idea. What do you do with all the stuff that comes in? The front door is filmed and now is cluttering up the garage or the back room. Jared's answer plus his batch filming process and review video best practices are coming up right after this.
- [16:25]
C
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- [17:29]
A
O.
- [17:32]
C
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- [18:43]
B
At first I was so fascinated by just being able to get free product. Like it's just such a weird concept to me that I was just kind of getting stuff I could get for free without looking into the sales data and all that. So I ended up with a bunch of stuff that doesn't sell very well and isn't all that great. Then I got better at my messaging and my outreach and so I was able to start getting stuff that I needed, right? So I needed a coffee maker. I was better at my messaging. I was better at targeting and outreaching. I ended up with three coffee makers. Now I don't Care what it is, if it is selling well. And I think that my video will get into the carousel. I'm gonna go after it. So I end up with stuff that I have no interest in using. I make the video, and then I'm like, I don't want this product. I don't care about it. Like, I don't need a golf putting mat. I don't play golf. We gave a lot of it away. And I started recently selling on Facebook marketplace. That is not fun for me. I don't enjoy that personally. So for the expensive stuff, I can deal with Facebook marketplace, you know, like, I got a generator I was able to, you know, that's worth selling on Facebook marketplace.
- [19:43]
A
Somebody gave you a free generator?
- [19:44]
B
Somebody gave me a free generator, yeah.
- [19:46]
A
Wow.
- [19:47]
B
Yeah. So. But some of the smaller stuff, it's like, I don't want to mess around.
- [19:50]
A
With selling a nice $10 thing.
- [19:52]
B
Exactly. I'm like, I don't need $10 so badly. I'm going to deal with all that hassle. So I don't know. I mean, somebody. I have friends who are doing this. They'll do garage sales every couple months. You know, a lot of people will give it away for free. Take it to the salvation army or the goodwill. Some people don't mind, like, selling all that stuff because you can definitely earn some money. I interviewed somebody on the niche pursuits podcast that's part of their business plan. They're basically like, everything I get, I plan on selling. Because if I can get a product, even if I don't end up making very much on the commission, I can usually at least get my hourly rate back in what I sell it for. And I'm like, okay, that's actually a good point. You know, you get a knife, you sell it for 10 bucks. It probably only took you a couple minutes to make the video. And it probably only took a little while to deal with the facebook marketplace. You probably got your hourly rate right there. And so there are other strategies and approaches. I just don't love dealing with Facebook marketplace.
- [20:43]
A
Yeah. I met a guy who was almost like a triple dip. Like, got the thing for free in some cases, got paid to make the video because he was similar, like, platinum level, like, could command a rate of the brand to actually pay him to make the video and then was getting commissions on it and then could resell the thing afterwards. And this guy was doing whatnot sales, like, live selling. I was like, this is. I hope to get him on the show. Because it's really fascinating. The whole live Selling culture around that, but lots of different ways to go, but perhaps makes the most sense for products above $50 or something.
- [21:15]
B
Yeah. And to your point, I'm glad you brought that up. Actually, that's another reason to start that YouTube or that Instagram channel is because once you do build up a follower, once you have it around for a while, if you're really good at making those videos and getting that channel to have some, some traction, that is a reason why brands will pay you to make the video. And I have friends who get paid to make. I've gotten paid for a couple, by the way. So that's kind of cool. You get some money in your PayPal account. But yeah, once you have a decent following, then that's another way to take advantage of that.
- [21:42]
A
But that's not part of the typical template outreach pitch. Hey, pay me 50 bucks and I'll make you a video.
- [21:47]
B
Yeah, for those, that typically is going to happen when your YouTube account or your Instagram account is large enough that the brands actually start to pursue you. Which, yes, it does happen. I know I've heard a lot of people say that doesn't actually happen in real life. It totally does. Like, if you're a YouTube channel that's on a brand's radar, then they definitely will reach out to you when they have these sorts of campaigns.
- [22:09]
A
Yeah. Give me a walkthrough of one of these deals. Could be the coffee maker, could be this generator. That sounds like a high price thing. From outreach to product, to video, to disposal or to resale. Let's go through the journey and what it might earn. You.
- [22:25]
B
Let me look through here. What I have right now. I have a cutting board that has arrived. I have garbage disposal, deodorizer tablets. I have a, like an LED work light. I have an electric water filter and I have a ceramic Dutch oven. All right, so that is currently what is sitting out in my garage in the received not videoed section yet.
- [22:49]
A
Okay.
- [22:50]
B
I did the same thing that I'm telling you guys to do. I reached out to each of those brands individually because I found that they had the Creator Connection campaign live. All of those are selling pretty well. My threshold is they're selling at least 100amonth. That can change a bit, you know, because if it's like a really high price, like a generator, like I don't need it to sell as much as if it's like, you know, a Dutch oven little thing. But basically it's selling. And ideally it has some spots open in one of the carousels okay.
- [23:17]
A
And the product page will tell you that, or the browser extensions will tell you that.
- [23:21]
B
Exactly. Yep. And it's all. This is made really easy with these extensions. Again, you don't have to have them. I hope I've made that clear. It just. I'm an ROI guy. I want. This is a side hustle for me. I'm running an SEO agency every single day with. For my day job like this. I want this to be something that pays well.
- [23:37]
A
Yeah.
- [23:38]
B
But I want my time because I want to put as little time in as possible. So I do use the extensions for the outreach. I walk through exactly how I outreach. I use the same outreach message no matter what the brand is. So I don't, like, cater it. If it's a generator, I don't go like, you know, I'm really into camping, so I wanted this generator. I just use the same templated outreach message for all of them. Most brands don't respond. Some brands do. Most of the time, if they respond, they say something along the lines of, we took a look at your videos. Thank you for sharing. We'd love to work with you. Products in the mail.
- [24:08]
A
Okay.
- [24:09]
B
It arrives two to seven days later. Usually pretty quickly. It arrives at my doorstep. I have. I'm not the most organized guy, and I learned quick. I had to get really organized with this because it can get out of hand quickly. So I have my spreadsheet. I have my dropdown menu, product requested, product shipped, product received, filmed, and then posted live. And so I just continually update my spreadsheet as products come in. I film about once every other week.
- [24:35]
C
Okay.
- [24:36]
B
I do about 10 to 15 minutes of outreach every day. Like what I just walked through. But then I really only film about every other week. For some people, they film three times a week because they have so much volume.
- [24:47]
A
So you kind of like batch the filming in a way where it's like, I'm going to collect this stuff over the course of two weeks, then I'm going to film all the review videos. But you have to, I guess you have to, like, use the product in between two before you can get a good sense to, like, make the video about it.
- [25:00]
B
Exactly. Some products you get, you have to actually use them for a little while to see, you know, Know what you're talking about. Some are easy. It's like, this is a knife. I will show it cutting. But some products, you need to. Yeah, I got a Bluetooth speaker the other day, and I'm like, okay, I want to hook this up. I want to listen to it. I want to use the different features on, I want to see how long the battery life. So yeah, now you don't wait too long though. That's the flip side. You don't want to wait too long because remember this creator connection, these all have creator connection campaigns that do have an expiration date. And so every day that ticks by is a day that you're missing out again. I, this is my side hustle, so I have to do my agency every day. And so this is the system I've kind of established myself. But, you know, it'd be better if I could film a couple times a week. But anyways, once I film and I publish live, I wait for the video to be approved by Amazon. At that point, it's live in my storefront and I go back to the brand and I say, hey, your video is done here it is on Amazon. Would you like to work together again on another one of your products? And that's also where I get a lot of my pipeline is because a brand will see that I did a great job on their Bluetooth speaker and they're like, hey, we've got a shop light. You'd be surprised how many things these brands have. And that will also be where I get additional products. And then I'll go check that, make sure it's selling, see if it has a creator connection campaign. And round and round we go.
- [26:17]
A
Okay, so it becomes less cold outreach the more you do, because now you have an excuse to reach back out. Hey, the video that I said it was going to make, I made it and here it is. And what else do you got? You know, what else? What other products might be a good fit here?
- [26:31]
B
Exactly. And now I've only been doing creator connections since August, but with the holidays being over and it being a little slower in terms of brands and all that in Q1, I am gonna go back to a lot. All the brands I made videos for all of last year, all of 2025. And I'm gonna reach back out to them and say, hey, we did this video. Do you have any new campaigns that you've created for this year that you'd like me to make a video for? Because I already established, you know, a bit of a relationship with them and they've already seen the video and I do decent videos, so I assume they're gonna like that. So I also am going to continue not just right after following up with them, but I'm gonna go again maybe after, you know, that six month period has passed.
- [27:10]
A
Are There any video production best practices that you found in terms of content length, content format, or is it just kind of straight like in the ones that I've done is just holding up my phone and narrating, you know, maybe I try and put my hand in the thing, talk about what it is, what I like, what I don't like. Is it still like that level of production or is it more like it's gotta be all YouTube iFied?
- [27:31]
B
No, it's that level. I do edit some of my videos now, I mean, but quick editing, like just I merge two or three different kind of angles or takes together into one video. They're still pretty short. I'd say. Mine are one, two, maybe three or four minutes. Mine have always been in the two to three minute range and they're pretty much still right around there. You asked. Just best practices. I think it always helps to get in the mindset. I do see people. Sometimes people will send me their Influencer storefront. I'll look at a few of their videos and this is something I'll commonly see, which is where people are basically just kind of regurgitating all the bullet point listings that Amazon has for that product anyways. And so sometimes it helps to remember the mindset of what you're trying to do with the Amazon Influencer program. People are watching your video because there's something that is blocking them from making that purchase. And they want to see it, they want to hear you talk about it. And so I think the mindset helps, like what are the big reason or reasons that people would be hesitant about buying this? And can I help them overcome that hesitancy in my video? So I don't really talk about like the height of this bar stool or the weight of like, it's all there. They can read that and that's a waste of time. But what I do talk about is maybe how comfortable it is, or I show the material that you know that this is being made of, or I demonstrate exactly how well it pours. This is the type of stuff you want to make your videos about. Don't just make them kind of a regurgitation of what the product page already says.
- [29:05]
A
Okay. It was funny because I bought these LED light strips that are behind me now. And my specific question is like, well, I don't necessarily need 16ft of this. Can you cut it? How does that work? And the video that showed up was actually a side hustle show guest that we had on about the Influencer program was Tyler Christensen. And I was like, dude, I Hope he gets his 25 cents or whatever for this video. Because I was like, okay, I'll buy it after watching your thing. And he's like, yep, oh, yep. You can cut it to length, whatever you need. It's like he answered my question. So I like that. Get in the mind of the customer. Don't just read off the sell sheet.
- [29:39]
B
That's a perfect example. You don't need to tell them it's 16ft long. You don't need to like show them the LED lights. Hopefully show them set up somewhere so people can see it but really like answer some of those big questions that. And you can read those. They're all down like Amazon now with AI, it's called Rufus. It kind of summarizes the big questions people have down at the bottom in the review. So you can just go down there and be like, well, what, what are the main trending questions people have?
- [30:00]
A
You know, are you creating. Well, you're going to have to create a title and thumbnail for YouTube. Are you making it kind of a custom thumbnail for the Amazon upload?
- [30:10]
B
Most of the time I'll take. Because I have to do it now for YouTube. You don't have to do it for YouTube actually, just to be clear, you can let it auto select. So but most of the time I'm making thumbnails for YouTube and so then I'm just using those thumbnails for Amazon Influencer. I wasn' thumbnails before, but now that I'm making them anyways, I do use them on Amazon.
- [30:27]
A
Okay, any best practices that you found there to like if there's four videos in the carousel, I want to make sure somebody clicks on mine.
- [30:34]
B
Yeah, I mean if you're going to make a thumbnail, most products don't have thumbnails. So just making one alone will make your video kind of stand out. Words are good, you know, having words on the screen, whether it's, you know, see me demo, that's one I'll use before live demo. I see a lot of people do questions like, would I buy it? You know, that kind of stuff.
- [30:54]
A
I've used the phrase like worth it just because it's like super short and it fits on a thumbnail.
- [30:59]
B
Those are probably the two most common. Yeah. Worth it. Would I buy it? Yep, it's stuff like that. So either the question or like the straight up statement of what you're gonna do with it, like I'm gonna demo this. A lot of people like to see it demoed because you can't see that on the product page. Otherwise.
- [31:13]
A
Yeah. And a lot of times the brand video is just kind of this like cinematic 360F degree view with music. You're like, this doesn't tell me anything about the product.
- [31:23]
B
No, it doesn't tell me anything. It's got cheesy music. It's rarely being used. If it is being used, it's being used by a supermodel. You know, it's like just a lot of people just don't connect with that. Like, I still don't know how to use that ice maker.
- [31:35]
A
And then the other thing I've noticed is maybe the titles have gotten more, not necessarily Clickbaity, but more YouTubey where it's instead of, you know, product name plus review, which is like probably the first 50 that I uploaded, they're more like, is this worth it or don't buy it before you watch this. Or, you know, something like trying to trigger some kind of curiosity or intrigue.
- [31:57]
B
I see the don't buy before you watch this a lot. I don't do that because I think a lot of people are kind of onto that. Don't really love that. I think a more clean. Like, if I'm trying to help someone make a purchasing decision, I'm not doing top of the funnel, clickbaity stuff. What I try to do is tell them exactly what I did in the video. So I set up and demo this, this blah, blah, blah for you. That's my approach because if I'm hesitant about buying the product, like, I'm really close to making a purchase. I don't need all the fluff. I just, like you said, I just want to know if I can cut this LED strip. I'm ready to buy it.
- [32:31]
A
Yeah, I don't want to electrocute myself.
- [32:33]
B
Yeah, exactly. Am I going to ruin the product by cutting? Am I going to electrocute myself or can I do it? And so I find a much more transparent, direct approach in the title and even in the thumbnail. I think that helps because I think people typically have one or two questions. They're not there. They're not browsing just to learn more. It's not like YouTube or Facebook or Instagram where they're scrolling for enjoyment. They're trying to get a specific question answered. So that's just my personal approach.
- [32:58]
A
Have you seen any additional guidance or transparency from Amazon in terms of what it takes to get accepted into the program?
- [33:06]
B
No, not from them. Not at all. Transparency? No. I mean, I'll tell you that you have to have a qualifying social media account. That can be Instagram, that can be Facebook, that can be YouTube, that can be TikTok. Generally speaking, it's known that TikTok is the easiest and the reason is because their acceptance criteria. Again they don't share this, but it tends to be more tweaked on engagement than on straight follower subscriber count and so comments and likes and these sorts of things rather than straight number of followers or subscribers.
- [33:37]
A
Yeah, and my hunch is for Side Hustle show listeners who've been running content based businesses for any length of time, like you probably already have some level of baseline social following that that you can use to apply if you haven't already and just kind of layer this on as another income stream, as another side Hustle. Now I've got some homework to do as a result of this segment of the conversation. We've got more with Jared in just a moment. Before we do that, make sure to go to201creative.com aip for Jared's quick Start guide to the Amazon Influencer program. But we be right back with Jared for his business idea donation for Side Hustle show listeners coming up right after this.
- [34:20]
C
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- [35:24]
A
I was doing, but I did have.
- [35:26]
C
A lot of what ifs? What if nobody listens? What if I embarrass myself? What if no one cares? But what started as a little experiment in the corner of the living room has completely changed my life. When you're Ready to face down those fears and hesitations and what ifs and launch your thing. Whatever it is, it helps to have a partner like Shopify in your corner to help. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world. From household names to dozens of side Hustle show guests. With hundreds of ready to use templates, Shopify helps you build that eye catching high. Converting online store plus Shopify helps you find customers with easy to run email and social media campaigns. And if you get stuck, their award winning 24. 7 customer support is standing by. It's time to turn those what ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.comsidehustle go to shopify.comsidehustlE that's shopify.comsidehustLE all right, we're back with.
- [36:28]
A
Jared Bauman from 201creative.com and host of the Niche Pursuits podcast for round two. This is your business idea donation for side Hustle show listeners. Something that you might start yourself in your limited spare time or an opportunity that you see out there for listeners.
- [36:45]
B
Oh man. Well, it dovetails perfectly with what we were just talking about and I mean we ended up diving into it. So I'm glad we dove into it. I'm glad it makes so much sense now. And that is selling people's older used stuff for them on Facebook, Marketplace and Offerup in these kinds of places. I don't know of anybody who does that. I certainly don't know about it. If it exists in my area, it would be a location specific thing, I imagine. Although I could see a use case potentially for making it more than just single location. But I mean most people have, at least here in the United States a lot of people have garages full of stuff. They have storage sheds full of stuff and they have a problem getting rid of stuff. Certainly for me on the Amazon Influencer program, I have a lot of stuff. But most of us have the same reaction to selling on Facebook, Marketplace and these sorts of things. And if someone could come in, create a great process and do it for them and then maybe it's split the profits. Maybe it's, you know, you come in and you agree to buy their whole garage full of extra stuff for a flat small fee.
- [37:47]
A
Yeah, just like a local consignment service.
- [37:49]
B
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And there's obviously lots of different ways to do that. You could go take it somewhere, you could do a garage sale yourself. But most people just don't want to.
- [37:57]
A
Deal with all that hassle no, most people do not. And that's the reason it sits there and collects dust. So if you can come in there with a compelling offer, look, I'm going to take a 30% commission on whatever we sell. And again, we're not going to be wasting our time selling the $10 things. Like we've got to make sure you have some valuable inventory. That's probably the bottleneck here, but absolutely, I think a viable side hustle strategy.
- [38:17]
B
Yeah. I mean you could start in your local area. It would be easy to go door to door, to come up with a mailer to, you know, to drop a flyer off. I imagine just what I know about, you know, people in your local neighborhood. If you say I'm a local guy or gal and you know, here's what I'm doing, I imagine you could get people just from a day of door hanging.
- [38:34]
A
Yeah. Kind of canvas the area and I don't think it would take much before you start to build that reputation as the go to person. Like longtime listener coach Dom Costa in la, he's like, like got the reputation in town of being if you need some scrap metal, you need some appliance hauled away, like, hey, you know who to call, he's the guy, he'll come take it away and go to the scrapyard with it. And it's just built that reputation over years in the community. So probably the same situation here. We've had several consignment related stories and episodes on the show. One really interesting one, this was a woman who was specializing in like a specific collectible doll where she became kind of known in this community when you're ready to offload these things, like she was the person to do it. And I don't remember, but it's like, I'll take a 30% commission, you keep 70. And she was doing like hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of doll sales. It was, it was, she kind of had cornered the market. It was really interesting. But to go a little bit broader.
- [39:35]
B
That'S a very niche product.
- [39:36]
A
Wow. Yeah. The other consignment, even we had one doing clothing, which was a big like event. Both of these were event based. We had one doing clothing and one doing furniture. And it was, you know, we'll help you declutter your closet or we'll help you kind of get rid of this old furniture that you don't want anymore. But it was like months of buildup and marketing for this like, you know, weekend event or week long event. We're renting the warehouse space and In a. Because of that scarcity that there. That was the guest's theory. Like, that's why it worked. Because it was like once it's gone, it's either getting donated or it's gone back to these things. Like it might not happen again for another year or for another six months.
- [40:15]
B
I think a lot of efficiencies could be gained too. Like for example, if you go on Facebook Marketplace right now, I'm looking at it right now. Most of the products have terrible pictures. Most of the products have very unoptimized listings.
- [40:27]
A
Yeah, the marketing gears kind of start turning.
- [40:29]
B
Exactly. The marketing gears kind of start going. You could almost become the person that actually can get stuff sold that other people can't get sold left to their own devices.
- [40:37]
A
Yeah, I think there's something to that. And it's like sometimes I don't want to deal with it. If you come to my door or you have somehow come across a compelling thing and it's like you're just going to make this stuff disappear. It's cheaper than a junk hauling service. You're telling me you're going to pay me for this? Essentially. Especially for bigger, bulkier items. And you're just starting out. We're going to stage them and we're going to do the right lighting. You probably do it with AI now and we're going to make sure it has a great listing optimization picture and you're going to hold onto it until it sells and then maybe we have some kind of agreement. Well, if it doesn't move after a week, we slash the price to this and you have a stair step approach to it. But I do think there's something there and maybe even it's just like posting flyers at the community center or at the gym or the neighborhood Facebook group. I think there's something to it.
- [41:26]
B
Yeah, I agree. I don't think I'll get around to starting it. And as I've already shared, I really don't like dealing with kind of the Facebook marketplace. So I don't think it's my business. So I'm happy to share it with your listeners, but I'd love to hear if somebody ends up going on and doing it. I'd be fascinated because I really think there's something to it.
- [41:40]
A
Yeah, no upfront inventory risk. Because like the corollary would be like, if you find some really valuable stuff. Stuff, well, I'll just buy it from you and then I'll turn around and sell it or I'll turn around and put it on eBay or something. But it's almost like a community service type of model where, you know, we're gonna help you declutter. There was one going around on Facebook this week where it was like a woman charging a thousand bucks or twelve hundred bucks to like reorganize garages. And her sole marketing was before and after pictures. Just like, you know, there's so much anxiety over, like, where do we store all this stuff? And we can't park our car in here because there's too much clutter. Just straight up before and after. And it was like all of the moms on Facebook were like, I don't care what it costs. I need you to come to my house.
- [42:19]
B
One of my clients that we do SEO for is a local garage cleaning business. But, and I know this because we do their SEO, most of the inquiries are for junk removal. And again, garage cleaning organizing is not selling your stuff and it's not removing your junk. It's actually taking all the stuff you have in the garage and organizing it better. And so it really, like, it's not really their service to get rid of stuff as much as it is to help you organize stuff. So right there, why don't you go partner with that person? Why don't you go, you know, the person you just saw on Facebook, you could be the person that partners with that they organize. But hey, I'll sell all of it for you.
- [42:56]
A
Yeah, lots of different ways to go about it. That was the business idea donation a basically a consignment service for helping people declutter and kind of get light going into some spring cleaning there. So I like that. Round three is the triple threat. The first component is a marketing tactic that is working for you right now. This could be Amazon Influencer. This could be the agency, this could be the podcast. Anything you want to throw out here?
- [43:19]
B
Yeah, you know, it's a little bit. A lot of us who are in the content creation business know the power of short form video. You know, reels, YouTube shorts, these sorts of things. But what I have come to realize is that a lot of businesses are not taking advantage of short form video. If you're a plumber, you can, you know, kind of demonstrate yourself doing a job that day. If you're a, a veterinarian, you can show your clientele from that day. Like, my point is, is that short form video for business owners is a great way to get almost instantaneous eyeballs on your brand while also having a really compelling use case around what it is you do.
- [43:58]
A
Do you think that there's a hesitancy to create it because it's like, well, I don't know how. I'm like, I'm afraid of looking dumb. Like, TikTok is for the kids. What do you think is preventing people from getting started? Or are you saying maybe this is another business idea donation? You'd be the short form video person for those local businesses?
- [44:15]
B
Well, I think the big thing is a lot of people, first up and foremost, business owners, a lot of them don't think that video is a good medium for them. You know, again, you're a plumber. You're like, what am I gonna make a video on? The whole reason people call me is because they don't want to fix their toilets. So I'm not gonna make videos showing people how to fix toilets. So I get that. You'd be shocked though, how much people want to see video from a business. I think there's also a hesitancy because we have gotten accustomed to watching these heavily highly produced videos on YouTube. And short form kind of flips the narrative there. You don't need to be very scripted. You don't need to be high production value. And so I think that those are the two things that kind of block most business owners is they think that it's not very interesting or entertaining for their clientele and that it has to be a big production with lots of expense and lots of time. And it doesn't have to be that.
- [45:07]
A
Got it. How about a new or new to you tool that you're loving right now?
- [45:12]
B
I have been using a tool called Granola AI. It is a note taking tool. It records your call or your meeting, which I do a lot of those. And there's a lot of software out there, right, Like Firefly and there's a bunch of them. I've tested a bunch of them. What I like about Granola AI is that you take notes in the platform while you're on your call. And what it does is knows where you took the note with the transcript. And then when the call is over, it basically puts together this super summary that incorporates the transcript, what it heard in the transcript, and then what it has in your notes. And then you can copy the transcript, you can copy what the summary is. You can also format it for different types of meetings. So it will kind of go in with that bend, like I'm doing a new client call or I'm doing a monthly report. And so it templatizes a lot of that for you. And I find it. It's Doing a really good job succinctly covering my meetings and my calls in a way that incorporates my notes. Because that's the cool thing is if I can highlight certain things, it puts an emphasis on those in its recap me.
- [46:22]
A
Okay. And then you're using those in follow ups to the clients or guests or what's your use case?
- [46:27]
B
Yeah, so I'll do follow up emails and if it takes into consideration my notes along with the transcript, it basically makes it so it's the recap is done as soon as I end the meeting.
- [46:39]
A
Okay. Like here's the next. Like I don't have to type it out myself anymore. Like it's already okay.
- [46:43]
B
And you could take a recorded transcript and put it into like a chatgpt and ask it for a summary that you can send to a client. This just does it all for me. I don't have to do all that.
- [46:51]
A
Got it. Cool. Granola. AI that's a new one for me. We'll link that one up in the show notes as well. How about your favorite book from the last 12 months?
- [47:00]
B
Here's the last book I read. I did read this on vacation and it's the Culture Code by Claude Rapelli. So this guy at one point was on the payroll of like half of the Fortune 100 companies in the country. And he is a psychologist and he helps brands with their marketing. But he does it based on the way that the messages that the brand is using actually are interpreted by people and their consumers. And so he has all these case studies of him helping brands like Jeep and Nestle and all these really big brands, helping them usually recover or regrow a segment of their market that is completely failing. And it's all based on the psychology of, of cultures and how they feel about different words and different statements.
- [47:49]
A
Okay, yeah, I haven't heard of that one. I'll have to check that one out. The Culture Code.
- [47:53]
B
Yep. So I'll give you one soub from it, then I'll stop talking about it. But it's a very good book. When people hear quality in America, that translates to good enough. Yet so many brands out there go buy our high quality, you know, mats. And so when people hear that, what they really hear is buy our mats that are just good enough. And he has data to prove all this. And so he'll go in and he'll say like, hey, we've determined that when people hear high quality, they just hear, that's good enough. Let's not use that. We have to use something different. Let's understand what the different words that people feel about these. And then let's use these words. And anyways, it's a very fascinating book.
- [48:30]
A
So that's why you hear brands saying like bank level security or military grade or, you know, something else that's like, really tough instead of saying high quality.
- [48:40]
B
Yes, exactly. Exactly.
- [48:42]
A
Okay. Battle tested, you know. Okay, yeah. There's all like, military right now. But no, that's really interesting. There was another one. This was an older one. It was like Frank Lunt's like, Words that Work or something. Like, it's kind of like how you phrase certain things. It's like the little subtle shifts in what it makes people conjure up and believe. It was really interesting.
- [49:03]
B
And it's not just words. He has. The Jeep study was fascinating. He changed the way the Jeep's design looked to make it look like the way people envision a Jeep and all the characteristics that a Jeep car embodies in people's minds. And he helped them redesign the look of their newer Jeep lines, and that is what helped turn their sales around.
- [49:21]
A
Oh, okay. Yeah. Like, if I want to buy a Jeep, I want to make sure it looks like a Jeep.
- [49:25]
B
Yeah. So those little headlights, you know, they had gone away from those for a while. Their sales were declining. He brought those back. Their sales skyrocketed again.
- [49:32]
A
Interesting. I love kind of case studies like that. What's next for you this year? You're working on some AI SEO stuff, some GEO stuff. Any other side projects we should know about?
- [49:42]
B
No, I actually, I'm trying to do less, so I'm just focusing on 201 creative. And you're right, we have launched a whole new line of and updated all our services to make sure that they're state of the art, ready to go for both SEO and, you know, Geo AI LLMs, all that. That. So super excited about all that. And then when it comes to side hustles, it's just Amazon Influencer. And then the podcast is a side hustle for me. You know, I host the Niche Pursuits podcast once a week. And so those are my two side hustles this year. And I'm not doing any others. We'll see if I can stay committed to that, but that's where I'm at.
- [50:13]
A
Stay in your lane. Focus. All right, Very good. Well, again, 201creative.com, if you need some SEO or GEO help over there and201creative.com aip for that Amazon Influencer Quick Start guide, be sure to check out the Niche Pursuits podcast as well. Jared does an awesome job with that show. Big thanks to Jared for sharing his insight again today. Big thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone. Sidehustlenation.com deals is where to go to find all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place. That is it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you're finding value in the show, the greatest compliment is to share with a friend. Fire off that text message to that would be influencer in your life and let them know they can make some extra money from Amazon doing this. Until next time, let's go out there and make something happen and I'll catch you in the next edition of the side Hustle Show. Hustle on the.