Part of the difficulty in launching a private label product on Amazon is always the task of getting interested eyes on your product. You’ve got to be able to find out how to get your product in front of the people who are most likely to buy it. This episode is a chat with a TAS community member who took it on himself to find his own ways of doing that and he had some pretty significant successes. So sit back and relax, grab a cup of coffee and a pen and paper because you’ll want to take some notes about what Kent did to get attention for his products which in turn ramped up his sales and built an interested email list of customers right from the start. Are you selling a product or the story behind the product? One of the things today’s guest did masterfully to build enthusiasm for his product was to create a story (a true story) around the product and even the process of how it came to be. He highlighted the story of his own family and the need they felt for a particular type of product that didn’t exist - and followed up with a description of how they decided to create the product themselves. It’s a beautiful demonstration of what’s being called “story selling” and you get to hear the inside scoop on how Kent pulled it off, on this episode of the podcast. Using Facebook to enlist the help of friends, family, and associates. When Kent finally got his products ordered he wanted to start a pre-promotion phase to encourage interest in the product before he actually launched. He coupled the story behind the product’s creation with requests to friends and family (and others) to help him get a good start with ratings and reviews. He invited those interested in helping to join the mailing list to learn more about the product and get a discount when the product launched. He was able to build a list of 130 subscribers before he even had product in stock at Amazon. You can hear his creative solutions to product promotion on this episode. The up and down of a product launch’s initial stages. As Kent finally got his products listed on Amazon and began his launch he had an initial spurt of good sales and 25 reviews within the first week. But his sales began to slump fairly quickly once the first week launch was over. He was discouraged for a bit and quickly realized that the momentum of the launch was not something he could count on long term. But the fact that he’d already built a list of interested customers - and that his product was one that needed to be replenished over time - enabled him to stay encouraged and keep moving forward. That’s when he got the idea to do a different form of promotion that worked big time. You can hear him tell his entire story on this episode. Don’t forget to try promotions through traditional media outlets. After Kent’s initial launch week was over he started thinking outside the box to find additional ways to promote his products. One approach he thought of was to offer a “feature” story to the local newspaper. He sent a very simple email that briefly outlined the story in an appealing way and got a great response from the paper. His product and family’s story was featured in the Saturday edition and Kent got over 150 sales the day of publication. He’s excited to see where his product will - and you can hear all the details of the journey so far on this episode! OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF THE AMAZING SELLER [0:25] Scott’s introduction to this episode of the podcast! [1:02] The power of building an email launch list. [1:49] A shout out to a member of the TAS Facebook Community! [5:50] How Scott noticed what Kent was doing. [7:20] Kent’s story of going from retail arbitrage to private label. [10:50] How Kent chose his first product for private label. [12:43] Kent’s process for collecting email addresses. [16:40] The 6 part email sequence Kent used. [18:30] Getting purchases and reviews. [21:10] Asking people to purchase in the smartest way. [22:50] How Kent did this the smart way by building relationship