#432 – From Failure To A 7 Figure Amazon Exit

34 minute read

Published: March 11, 2023

Modified: March 13, 2023

In this episode of SSP, Lori Barzvi shares her inspiring journey in e-commerce with Bradley. After experiencing a tragedy, Lori found her way into entrepreneurship, which had its own set of challenges. However, she eventually found success by selling on Amazon and building a successful brand, which she eventually exited.

Lori’s experience led her to start a new brand. Let’s learn about her tips like using a unique PR strategy with roundups to feature her products. Lori’s story is an inspiring one for anyone looking to start their own Amazon and Walmart business or looking for ways to make their existing brand more successful. With her experience and expertise, Lori’s insights are sure to be essential to any E-commerce entrepreneur.

In episode 432 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Lori discuss:

01:40 – How Bradley Got Connected To Lori Barzvi
03:45 – Lori’s Background, A Tragic Story, And How She Got Started In E-commerce
07:00 – Entrepreneurship Did Not Go The Way She Wanted
10:10 – Started To Sell On Amazon, Found Success, And Exited Her Brand
11:10 – “It Took Me 12 Years To Become An Overnight Success”
11:25 – What Did Lori Do After Her 7-Figure Exit?
13:20 – “For This Brand, I’m Not Doing PPC And Doing Well”
15:20 – How Roundups Helped Build Her Online Presence
17:40 – How To Find Writers And Editors To Feature Your Products
20:00 – Best Ways To Find Your Public Relations Person
22:15 – Remember Your ABCs – Always Be Converting!
24:50 – Why She Doesn’t Always Use Attribution Links
26:25 – How To Know If Your Product Has Been Listed In Roundups
26:40 – Her New Brand Is Projected To Make $750K In Its First Year
27:50 – Talking About Bradley And Lori’s LinkedIn Pet Peeves
32:00 – Lori’s 60-Second Tips
35:24 – How To Get In Touch With Lori Barzvi

Transcript

Bradley Sutton:

Today we talked to a seller with a very crazy and actually pretty emotional backstory of how she got into e-commerce. But fast forward, she’s already had an exit of a brand for millions of dollars, and now she’s scaling her new brand up without even using PPC. How cool is that? Pretty cool I think.

Bradley Sutton:

Do you wanna see how your listing or maybe competitor’s listing rates as to best practices for listing optimization? Or maybe you wanna compare a group of ASINs or Amazon products to see how they compare to each other. Maybe you wanna see within seconds the top keywords for a single listing or a group of listings. You can do that and more with the Helium 10 Tool Listing Analyzer. For more information, go to h10.me/listinganalyzer. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I am your host, Bradley Sutton. And this is the show that’s a completely BS free, unscripted, and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. So we have that was the first time you guys got to saw that or see the outside of the podcast room, like maybe you guys thought I was in the Healing 10 Office. This is actually my house here where I built a room for the podcast. And so we’ve got a guest here on the show for the first time. Lori, how’s it going?

Lori:

Great. How are you Bradley?

Bradley Sutton:

I’m doing just dokey. Thank you. Now, this is a funny story about, like, I recently had an episode where I was like, I mentioned how how I found the people was just like random, like, Hey, I’m gonna pick the top two people who come in my LinkedIn feed for the guests. And it just happened to be two people. I actually know them, but they had never been on the podcast on. And so that one worked out pretty well. And it’s actually our story starts kind of like on LinkedIn. Like, I wasn’t connected to you before. You’re, you’re somewhat of a polarizing figure, let’s just say on, on LinkedIn. We’ll talk a little bit about that. But it was so funny how we first start. I think you might have like, sent me a message a long time ago, like you had said you hadn’t seen Healing Tempa.

Bradley Sutton:

I, I didn’t see the message, but then I did fall. We are connected somehow. And then you were in my feed, and then I remember like you made some posts where you have very similar views as me as far as like the nonsense that we see on LinkedIn. We can probably talk about that a little bit later. But you were doing like this sarcastic posts kind of like making fun of these, like fake people out there. And I was like totally digging it. And so I was like, alright, I’m gonna keep this sarcasm going and let me just make a random reply to, to show her I appreciate the sarcasm.

Lori:

Oh, that’s right.

Bradley Sutton:

And then you replied to me like all bent out of shape and like offend. I’m like, what is going on here? I’m like, was I not keeping the–

Lori:

I got it back.

Bradley Sutton:

Keeping the tone of your post, but you like DM me and all upset at me. And I’m like, what is happening? You remember that? How that started?

Bradley Sutton:

I’m calling you out. Hey

Lori:

Bradley, I’m trying you to look good. Not bad. Why did I agree to do this? Oh my goodness. Yes. I got it backwards. I didn’t realize you were being sarcastic. And I was like, what is this guy talking about?

Bradley Sutton:

Well, we worked it out and it worked out for the better because now–

Lori:

You’re on side

Bradley Sutton:

We connected and now I found out that you do actually have an interesting story and stuff. And so that’s what I usually do with the guests, especially the ones I’m meeting for the first time is I know almost nothing about your backstory other than use Helium 10, I think that was what your message was. But first of all, where in the world is Carmen San Diego? Well, like where are you right now? What part of the country?

Lori:

I am in New York City.

Bradley Sutton:

Is that where you were born and raised? You don’t sound like it. Your accent is not very strong.

Lori:

Get me around my friends from Queens that I grew up with, and it’s like, forget about it. What are you doing?

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. So then did you go stay local to go to like university or college or anything like that out there?

Lori:

Yes. I actually graduated from Queens College, which is the same college Jerry Seinfeld graduated from. And somebody else. There was a couple famous people.

Bradley Sutton:

What was your major over there?

Lori:

Major in communications minor in business. But I mean, to be completely honest with you, if I hadn’t gone to college, like there would’ve been no difference. Like, I didn’t learn anything.

Bradley Sutton:

Sure. Hey, that’s same. No difference five years ago when you graduated, what was like your gainful employment, your first

Lori:

So I worked in the World Trade Center. I worked for Morgan Stanley, Dean Whitter. So everybody knows Morgan Stanley the brokerage, but they were then also Dean Whitter. So I was a sales assistant. Okay. I worked on the 73rd floor in the second tower. And that was in 1999.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. That was like the year after I moved away from New York. Okay. And then the last 20 years, how did you get to e-commerce then? That’s kind of a jump from that kind of job to e-commerce.

Lori:

It’s a long story that I’ll try to make short. I did various jobs in corporate America until my, into my mid twenties. And then unfortunately on 9/11, my brother was in the World Trade Center working on the hundred third floor. He was four years older than I am, and he died in the attacks. So the story is that the night before he called me and we were talking about our future and he was talking about his job and how he wasn’t thrilled with it, even though he was working, even though he was making really good money, he was working long hours, et cetera. And he said he wanted to do something more with his life, more entrepreneurial. And the next day he passed away. So that kind of it’s not as if the next day I was like, okay.

Lori:

And now I know I have to be an entrepreneur. But yeah, as the years went by and I started to pull myself together actually I was I wanted to do something on my own. My father was in the restaurant business and I was in a marketing job and my father became ill terminally ill. And he, I was literally taking notes from his deathbed, like how to run a restaurant. And it wasn’t something I wanted to do, but that was my first venture into being an entrepreneur. I kind of didn’t have a choice. So I did that for about a year. I hated it. I left, I got into salsa dancing and then opened a salsa dance studio here in Manhattan, which was a total and complete disaster. I had this novel idea that I was gonna open a dance studio and just dance all day.

Lori:

Like not do marketing or anything. People were just gonna like show up somehow. And I was gonna get to dance also all day, every day and make money, which obviously that didn’t turn out to be the case. It was really a big disaster. But what came from that was, I was dancing so much during that time in my life that my feet were really dry and dirty because you wear dance shoes and they open in the back. And so I was always aiming to pay extra attention to my feet. And I ended up accidentally inventing a foot care product that is like a two in one soap and plum stone. And I had no idea how to get it made, but I had been in the direct marketing industry.

Bradley Sutton:

What year about are we talking about? Just, just so I can visualize this timeline.

Lori:

Like 2007.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay.

Lori:

So in my corporate career prior I had worked in direct marketing, which probably a lot of folks listening to this don’t even know what that is. But basically used to get offers in your credit card billing statements what they would call like trinkets and trash. Like a thank you gift for $2.99. Just send this voucher back in. And so I called my old boss and I said I have an idea for this product. I have no idea how to get it made. He directed me to a company who helped me develop it, get it manufactured. I had an infomercial, it bombed. I had another infomercial. It bombed. I had small successes with it. And like Good Morning America.

Bradley Sutton:

Did you have anything funny in the infomercial? I’m just picturing a bunch of stinky feet. Like why did it bomb? Or like, what did you have in there? Were you the star of your own info? Like, did you put yourself?

Lori:

No way. I would, I didn’t. Ok. I don’t even do podcasts. Hardly forget about being in a commercial that’s national. I can still hear it. Do you still have dry crack feet? And I can see it anyway. So that was a disaster. And I realized I had lost a lot of money and I was like, I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna shelve this. And I went back to corporate America. And this is like this happened in 2009. And so I sat around, I went into a mark another marketing job knowing, like I still wanted to be an entrepreneur. I wanted to do it like both for me and for my brother. But I didn’t know, again, how to get this product off the ground. Cause I wasn’t a marketing major.

Lori:

I had no idea how to bring something to market. And then, like so many people one day I was at work looking at Facebook and I saw somebody write something about selling stuff on Amazon. And this was in 2014. Okay. This is six years of failures later with this product. And as I said, this looks interesting. So I started like everybody else going to TJ Max and all the discount stores and scanning and buying a discount and sending stuff in. And after a while I realized I learned how to use the platform and I realized hey, I have a product that I invented, let me give it a try on Amazon. And I listed it in three weeks and became a top 10 best seller. And I built a private label brand around it. All sorts of foot care products. And I exited in 2020. So it took me 12 years to become an overnight success?

Bradley Sutton:

Six figure exit? Seven figure exit roughly?

Lori:

Seven

Bradley Sutton:

All right. Nice. Nice. And then since then, have you, you, you’re back on starting new brands on, on Amazon or just consultant or what do you do?

Lori:

So now I’m in the pet category. I’ve taken a year off after I, my exit and I didn’t know what I was gonna do with my life again. And then I was like, I really miss Seller Central cause they’re so efficient.

Bradley Sutton:

Oh. Says no one ever in the history of mankind. Yeah.

Lori:

Yeah. And I saw an opportunity in the pet category, and I have a dog and I love animals, and I thought this would be so much more.

Bradley Sutton:

How did you find the opportunity?

Lori:

Well, it was something that I needed and that’s how I came up with my last product. So I thought if I need it, probably other, I didn’t invent it, but I took something and I changed it and I made it better. And so I thought, why not try it again. And well, I launched, I had like a very soft launch in April, and then I really launched again in November. And it’s been going great, thank goodness. Amazon is a completely different game in 2023 than it was in 2014.

Bradley Sutton:

I mean, it’s different than even when you exited 2020. What’s been biggest culture shock or differences from like, I mean, obviously there’s a million things that are different between 2014, but thinking about the later years right before your exit 2019, 2020 what, what are some of the biggest differences that have affected how your running your business today compared to then?

Lori:

Well, the single biggest difference, and it’s actually something I’m becoming more and more passionate about and probably really what’s like the real stuff I talk about on LinkedIn, which is really Amazon based except for that one post is for me, I built my last brand off of PPC and nothing else. And with this brand, I’m not even using PPC and doing really well. And I know a lot of people, a lot of PPC managers aren’t gonna love this, but I’ve been talking about it a lot how much Amazon has changed how I feel. I mean if you don’t have any other strategy, you can do PPC and oral your money into it. And

Bradley Sutton:

So you say you never used PPC for this pet brand, or you did and you stopped or what?

Lori:

I did for a little while, but the conversion rate wasn’t where I needed it to be, and I felt that I could get a better, I could take that money and do other methods of advertising and get a better return. I mean, at the end–

Bradley Sutton:

The end. Wait, how did you get to that? What didn’t you say that probably paid, played a role though, to get your initial like keyword ranking? You know, obviously compared to the days where you were around, I’m not sure if you ever used those services, but in those days you could there’s nothing wrong with two-step URLs and search, find buy and stuff like that. You could get to any key page one that you wanted to within five days, you know? But now, like if you didn’t have PPC when you started, like how would you have gotten to page one in your main keywords?

Lori:

When I first started I did do some, I’d say light PPC,

Bradley Sutton:

So then that would help get the initial momentum and stuff. But then you were saying like, Hey, after that, after you’re there, you’ve actually found success dialing back. And then where have you taken that advertising spend? You said you’re investing it in other kinds of advertising. What are some of those other things

Lori:

The advertising spend is by spending money on a publicist, but not on the kind of publicist that you would think of where I’m spending $10,000 a month to hire a PR agency. So the reason why my last business ended up growing as much as it did, cuz the real growth was in like the last two years of the business. And that was because my products started coming out in what are called in the publishing industry roundups, so you’ve probably seen them and they’re articles online that have headlines, like the 20 coolest gadgets on Amazon or the 46 cheapest things for your home that look great on Amazon. So these publishers that are like Bustle, Buzzfeed Bustle Digital Group is a lifestyle publication. They have a hundred million subscribers or readers.

Lori:

And they kept picking up my product and it kind of just snowballed from there. Because I think a lot of the writers see what other people are writing and and they’re also looking at what’s getting good reviews on Amazon. They wanna see what the popular things are so they can easily go on Amazon to different categories and figure that out just like we all can. And so for this brand, I knew that was gonna be my strategy was I was gonna rely heavily on getting into those publications. So I started off I hit the ground running with reaching out to editors while I was doing my initial PPC to become discoverable. And then it got picked up in like two or three or four different roundups and it just has taken on a life of its own.

Lori:

So, and that I don’t even pay for. So now what I’ve done, because it is a lot of work to reach to find the right people to reach out to, to send them the email, to follow up with them, to send them a sample if they want one. It’s a grind. So I have taken this money that I would’ve put into PPC well, not even just like a fraction of it actually. And I pay somebody to send out these emails and follow up with these editors. And for me, I mean, the return, the ROI is exponentially paid.

Bradley Sutton:

How would somebody find that person? Or how did you find it? Or like maybe if you had contacts or.

Lori:

No, no, it’s not hard. You just have to be a little resourceful. You know, you have to be, you have to research a little bit and look for these articles that are in your category or that where they write about your category. I mean, even if you’re selling car parts, I mean, it doesn’t work for every single category. But for example, if you’re selling something car related, whether it’s car wax or car they’re called schmatta. I can’t think of the English word right now. Rags. Oh my god. English is my first language too, but it’s a Hebrew word. You know, you there are car publications. What like the main one? The mechanics, something.

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah, yeah. I know, I do.

Lori:

Haven’t even driven a car in like 20 years. They, I’m sure have even their own roundups like this and all the publications do. Why? Because they’re acting like as an Amazon associate, so they’re getting paid every time somebody buys a product through their website through the affiliate link.

Bradley Sutton:

But are you the one who’s looking for these, or you said like your agent or like the person who’s trying to contact them, you tell them what to look for or It’s a combination of both.

Lori:

So it’s a combination of both. So the girl that the woman that I’ve been working with is in pr and she has been in, she has a list of her own, I wouldn’t say there are contacts where she can call them up and be like, Hey, it’s Samantha, could you do me a favor and throw this in there? Like, no, she has a list of people in the industry. She reaches out, she’s gotta follow up. It’s not like she has 400 BFFs that are writing in these articles. But back to how somebody else could do it without using a PR person, which is how I started doing this is so auto mechanic, whatever it is, you go to their website, you’d look all over their website for any kind of article that is like that, like the 10 best car waxes to shine your car.

Lori:

And the editor’s name is always in the article. The editor gets credit for their article. So you find the editor’s name and you know, you try and track them down. You can track them down through LinkedIn. You can get a guy on Fiverr or a girl on Fiverr who has access to these databases. I forget the name, but they’re the Cision, I don’t know how to say it. That a lot of companies use, they’re very expensive. There’s thousands of dollars to buy, but you know, these five people, that’s how they make their living is by getting contacts for people.

Bradley Sutton:

Did you find your person from Fiverr or?

Lori:

I found my PR person on Upwork.

Bradley Sutton:

All right. Very interesting. Now that it’s part of your I dunno what I would call it, routine or or part of your s o p, like what would you say going forward for the rest of your year, what are you budgeting for that aspect of your promotion? I guess you could say, is this based on what you would pay her and other costs involved, is this something like, Hey, I’m setting aside a $3,000 a month for this $1,000 a month.

Lori:

Literally the only cost involved is the cost that I pay her. And that’s her monthly fee. She doesn’t get paid on a incentive basis. It’s just like, it’s a flat fee. And no matter how much or how little press I get for any given month is she gets the same amount and that’s it. And that’s kind of like, what’s insane. You know, my last brand, I would spend 20,000, 40,000, $30,000 a month on PPC, and now I’m spending not that much. And I’m ranking on first page for my keywords. I’m sustaining my, my bsr. And I’m doing when people read these articles, there’s also a lot more trust. Like they feel that it’s been reviewed by an editor. So they see it in these articles and they’re more likely to buy I feel. And as we all know, Amazon loves outside traffic. So I mean, but we have to remember A, B, C, right? Like always be converting, you can get into these articles and if it’s not converting, you’re not gonna do well just because you’re driving traffic to the platform. Okay. So if you have a crappy product, PPC is never gonna save you and neither is anything else.

Bradley Sutton:

Now how many SKUs do you have right now that you’re promoting in this way? So

Lori:

I actually have one product, but I have seven SKUs. My last brand had maybe–

Bradley Sutton:

Like variations then you’re saying.

Lori:

Sorry, yes, variations. My last business had four products, 10 SKUs in total. And that’s the kind of business I like to run. I cannot manage 150,000 SKUs

Bradley Sutton:

Sure.

Lori:

So my grand master plan really is just to take over the subcategory that I’m in and have one product with a lot of different variations. Cause it keeps my life very simple.

Bradley Sutton:

Well the reason I’m asking though is like since it’s only kind of one product, like after a few months, are you gonna run out of the potential like publications you can find you know, since they’re not gonna want to talk about the same exact thing again, or like, how does that even work? Like, do you have to come up with a new product or is there like every four months you can just go ahead to the same places again and they can do something different or what’s going on there?

Lori:

Here’s the thing is that I’m not even going back to the same people. Like one person writes about it and then a hundred other editors see it and they’ll write about it in their own column. If they like it, then they’ll write about it. So I understand the question that you’re asking. Is there, like, will it get tired after a while? Have that problem with my first brand and I’m not experiencing that now. But you also have to have a lot of different styles, you know? If I think if it was one product going over and over and over and over again it would tire out. But in that publication, you have to remember there’s like, yeah, so many publications with hundreds and millions of subscribers. So as long as you keep working at it and keep reaching out to different publications, I mean, the sky is the limit, really.

Bradley Sutton:

Are you using like attribution links at all or anything like that to try and get a brand referral a bonus and stuff?

Lori:

I would love to, but you can’t because they need to use their link on their end so they can get paid from Amazon.

Bradley Sutton:

Oh, duh. Yeah, that makes sense.

Lori:

Their incentive is, yeah.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. But I guess though, theoretically like, since that one’s more, and the problem with it’s a gentleman’s agreement there, like they have to trust you, but like, theoretically you could offer offer more than the affiliate commission since isn’t that only like 2%, but then like you could say, Hey, I’ll give you like 8% because you’re getting 10% back.

Lori:

I’m not sure what the actual publishers make. I don’t know if it’s the same percentage as like a person who’s just an affiliate. I think they may have some kind of something different with Amazon, the big, big publications, if I reach out to like, get a smaller publication that’s more independent. Yeah, I have given them my own attribution links, no doubt. Okay. But the bigger ones and they don’t always tell you that they’re gonna write about it. That’s the other thing. So it’s a little bit hard to track. I track it because I can see, first of all, I have a Google alert, a Google alert on my keywords so I can see when it comes out.

Bradley Sutton:

Good idea.

Lori:

Casey didn’t tell me that it’s coming out and because so many other editors just pick it up randomly, I would never know. You just all of a sudden like, wake up one day and you have this windfall of sales and you’re like, where the heck did that come from? And that, I’m sure that happens to a lot of Amazon sellers. They have no idea where these sales are coming from, and it’s probably coming from these round ups. So if whatever you’re selling out there, I would highly recommend you create Google alerts for all of your keywords to see.

Bradley Sutton:

It’s a great tip. I never thought about that.

Lori:

To see if your products are being listed in these places.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, obviously it’s early in 2023, but do you have any projections out this new brand, what it’s gonna do for you at the end of the year? Like total, what you’re gonna end up with, with gross sales at all?

Lori:

I mean I’m hoping to do around seven 50 in my first year. Awesome. that’s awesome. It took me many years to get to because my first brand, it took me many years to build up to that because I was very afraid and I was very much in my own way. And you know, it, I was scared to add another SKU. I was more risk averse, you know? Then, and now I’m just like, I know this product works and I’m ready to just go.

Bradley Sutton:

YOLO

Lori:

Yeah. So I’ll be able to grow faster.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, let’s get back into some strategies in a couple minutes here, but one thing I wanted to ask you about s you and I have very some similar views. Some different views, and that’s fine. But one thing we’re similar about is we complain a lot about the nonsense we see on LinkedIn, but one of them actually it is kind of like an Amazon strategy thing. But I know one thing that that irk you and, and I probably saw the same post, is there’s like, some people are like don’t forget about building a brand on Amazon if you’re a third party seller, because that’s useless. Like just Amazon is just just churn, churn products out and building a brand is like, I’ve seen like multiple people do that and just like, it’s like nails on a chalkboard. I mean, that’s one of the things you and I agree with, right?

Lori:

Ooh, it get me crazy. Cause you know, it’s, it’s so dangerous these days. It’s like anybody can call themselves anything they want guru life coach this or that. And these people have a ton of followers and it’s not that they don’t know some things, but gosh, you put out a statement like that, which is so bad and so wrong and people are gonna listen to that. And it’s just so bad for people’s businesses. I mean, building a brand is more important than ever. Not less important. Now it’s more important because everything is so commoditized, overly commoditized. So how are you gonna stand out? Then you’re just, it’s just price. You’re just going lower and lower and lower and lower and price cuz you’re competing. And then you have to keep coming up with a new product idea and a new product idea just for another race to the bottom. How is that a good business strategy, like in anyone’s world and how do you sell a business like that? So that kind of stuff, like the misinformation or disinformation or whatever you wanna call it, that stuff really bothers me cuz it’s like, feel like it’s an injustice to.

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah. Cause people people people say, oh wow, this person has 20,000 followers and they’re super popular, so whatever they say, this must be true. Yeah. That’s, I I feel the same way. It’s like so irritating when people who are kind of like known in the industry you know, say ridiculous things that could potentially harm, people in my opinion. What are some of your other LinkedIn pet peeves, whether it’s about Amazon or, or, or not?

Lori:

Oh gosh, the whole the whole title of Amazon Ninja expert. So I added into my title, it’s there now professional pole vaulter because it’s just so ridiculous.

Bradley Sutton:

I’m checking out what my profile is, lemme make sure I’m not saying, yeah. I just have my title in there, but yeah. Yeah. Like anybody who sends me a friend request and they have like, expert in their header, like, I’m just like don’t be a self-proclaimed

Lori:

I think I used expert in like 2015 for like five minutes and then I realized like, okay, this is not what I wanna associate myself with. So all this silly like, you know titles that people give themselves. Cause everybody can be, oh yeah. Another thing is I manage 18 billion Dollars for clients and like, that’s part of their title. Like, yeah. I mean, my dog could write that about himself. There’s no verification and they know people are just gonna like, believe them.

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah, it’s so weird. LinkedIn it’s so different than any other social media. It’s like stuff you see on there, you don’t see anywhere else. We could’ve probably done a whole episode. That’ll be your next episode when you come back next year about the pet peeves on LinkedIn because like, yeah, there’s just a bunch of stuff that irks me. So much misinformation out there and, and just people looking to make a name for themselves and then at the end of the day, the reason why it sucks fir first of all, just some stuff is just annoying, you know? But then the second thing is just that it’s like. But this is how I got my career. Like, like how I got on the radar of Heli 10 was I would just go off on people in Facebook groups.

Bradley Sutton:

Those were the thing back in the day, where people are putting misinformation, where I would just like start arguing with them nonstop and like, come on guys, like stop putting out misinformation. So guys, if you’re putting out misinformation on LinkedIn or, just being annoying the LinkedIn police, AKA me and Lori are gonna come after you. So look out. Anyways, before we close this episode I usually do something where we have the the the 60-second tip. So maybe if you could 30 to 60 second tips, if you have one or two of them, what worked for you before? You know, something you’re preparing, like are you preparing your business for exit? Like some something you’re doing or another strategy. You know, you talked about some, some pretty cool strategies about press and stuff that we haven’t talked about too much on this show, so that was cool. But what are some maybe faster strategies you can share with the audience about what you’re doing right now?

Lori:

Faster. I don’t have faster is PPC, but it’s not as profitable.

Bradley Sutton:

I mean faster as in it doesn’t take you like 10 minutes as to say it faster. Not, not that it’s a fast to do, sorry,

Lori:

Build out your socials. It takes a long time to get an audience, but build out your socials and build a brand.

Bradley Sutton:

Which ones should people focus on?

Lori:

It’s, I think it’s product dependent. I mean, TikTok skews younger, but I’m still using it. It’s not exactly my demographic, but if I’m posting on Instagram, it doesn’t hurt. I can just take the same thing and post it on TikTok. It takes two seconds. Sure. So I would really focus on doing that. And then I would also focus on Google ads like again, PPC is advertising. It’s advertising. So there’s other forms of advertising. Don’t just use PPC, use all the forms that are available to you.

Bradley Sutton:

All right. Anything else for us?

Lori:

Make sure you have a good lawyer when you exit and somebody who is on your side. I got very lucky, I almost got very screwed on my exit and enter stage–

Bradley Sutton:

They caught something that you had missed or what?

Lori:

No, I had missed, like, I didn’t understand my numbers well enough and I got a local offer and then this lawyer, am I allowed to say, I don’t know his name is Sure, go ahead. Paul Rafelson of Seller Basics.

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah.

Lori:

Found his way into my Facebook. He didn’t slide into my DMs, but, he reached out and oh my god, he turned it around for me. He literally got me a million dollars more than the offer had received because the first offer was a lowball.

Bradley Sutton:

A million dollars more?

Lori:

A million dollars more because he–

Bradley Sutton:

Oh wow. So he significant

Lori:

He understood my numbers better than I did. And he was just phenomenal. And I praise him all the time. And his company Seller Basics, which is, that’s another, that’s another tip. Like you have to have prevention for, you’re not getting suspended and prop 65 and all these things you wanna prevent thing bad things from happening to your business. So I use seller basics where it’s like, I don’t know, a hundred bucks a month or something and they like, fix your problems for you.

Bradley Sutton:

Cool. Yeah. For, for all of you guys who are Helium 10 Diamond members and above we have that newer course that Northbound did with us called Exit Ticket. So make sure to check that out guys because it’s not something that you’re, that you know, you should just completely jump in with you know, a blindfold on put your ducks in a row cuz it could mean a million dollars more on your payday you know, like it was for Lori. All right, well if people wanna find you out there on the interwebs at all and, and, and watch some of your interesting takes you put in LinkedIn and stuff, how, how can people find you out there?

Lori:

Just look up my name on LinkedIn. That’s all. That’s where I am. Lori Barzvi.

Bradley Sutton:

Awesome.

Lori:

Let’s Christ time’s roll.

Bradley Sutton:

All right. Well, Lori let’s connect next year and, and talk about the things that noise on LinkedIn and talk about how the pet brand is going in your press and all that. This is great stuff. It’d be great to have you back.

Lori:

Sounds great. Thanks for having.

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