Brand, Brand, Brand

Brands have to tell relevant stories to play #thelongergame today. We've been communicating through stories for millenia and they resonate so strongly with us because of our communal nature. If your brand isn't telling the right story or a relevant one, you're likely to be dead in the water. Get your brand's message on point and grow your brand successfully.

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Michael Maher  00:01

Welcome to The Longer Game podcast! I am here with my guest, Andrew Morgans’ of Marknology. No, his name is not Mark. He will tell you what his name means for his agency, but he runs a service agency that helps brands really accelerate their growth on Amazon. I think I killed that, by the way.

Andrew Morgans  00:19

That was beautiful

Michael Maher  00:20

Based on what your video on your site says. But yeah, introduce yourself and tell people about your agency.

Andrew Morgans  00:25

Yeah. What's up, everybody? My name is Andrew. Marknology. Just I was telling Michael earlier, it was just like a cheap URL back in the day, my agency just turned seven in August. So

Michael Maher  00:25

okay, that's -

Andrew Morgans  00:41

Thank you, it was a long time ago. And when I was coming up with the name at least, and it was just a mixture of marketing and technology, I felt like eCommerce is right in the middle. And so you know, you need a little bit of marketing, but you have to be technically smart as well to really implement a lot of what we do in eCommerce. And so we're just having fun with the word. And, you know, we are an agency here based in the Midwest in Kansas City. We work with over 300 brands since we started. So I've seen a lot, failed a lot, learned a lot, and are just trying to help brands like navigate the challenges of eCommerce in a changing landscape. And a lot of that has to do you know, we definitely got our start with Amazon. And we're very Amazon-focused. We do you know, some other things holistic eCommerce as well, like websites, and social and all that. But Amazon is our bread and butter. Yeah, having a lot of fun still doing it.

Michael Maher  01:34

One of the things that I've noticed, over the course of time and talking with prospects is they want someone to do it all. And I think that's very difficult. You brought up, you know, needing to have marketing and technology aspects for running on Amazon, which is very true. What a lot of people don't know is that eCommerce service providers that are, you know, building out websites, things like that. There's a whole other skill set that's behind that there's developers on Amazon, you don't need developers, Amazon does all the developing, they do the user interface stuff. So it's a very different skill set. I think if anything, it would be easier to go from Amazon to eCommerce and add in the developers. I don't know, though, as opposed to going the other way. But a lot of companies say Yeah, well, you like we do eCommerce. So we'll figure out Amazon for you. It's a lot more difficult than that. And one of the things that people don't know or realize is that there is a paid organic relationship because everything focuses on the listing. When you get a sale and advertising when you get a sale organically or just show up on the page without being paid due to Amazon's algorithm. It helps the listing get more visible creases, rank creases, sales, history, all that kind of stuff. So that I think is a common misconception. I don't know if that's something you run into a lot. I've talked with multiple prospects back to back saying we got burned by this agency, we got burned by this agency, they said they could do this, and they couldn't. What's your take on that?

Andrew Morgans  03:07

Well, I would say that Marknology is definitely the benefactor of the beneficiary, I guess of a lot of agencies messing it up. Yep. So over promising and under-delivering. You know, I think that Amazon is just harder than people think, to actually do it the right way. And so they take it on, or they add that as a branch to maybe their existing marketing agency that could have done great work. But everything just doesn't translate like you said, like even advertising and PPC like I've been doing it since it came out and 2015 I think, you came of it.

Michael Maher  03:42

Yeah, I remember the campaigns that when I was a seller before I launched into a service agency, the campaigns I was running were terrible, just like one word, things. I mean, maybe all broad match. I had no idea what it is

Andrew Morgans  03:53

I didn't know anything, right. Yeah. And now, you know, I guess for me if it came out in 15, it's been six years of obsession with PPC but someone doing Google PPC doing ads PPC, there's some similarity. Sure. Just like you're going on two dates with two different women. There are some similarities. They're both women.

Michael Maher  04:11

They're both women.

Andrew Morgans  04:12

Right, but like you can't compare

Michael Maher  04:14

your clothes on. 

Andrew Morgans  04:15

Yes. Okay. On the day, hopefully. So, you know, 

Michael Maher  04:19

we're not, I'm not gonna judge whatever

Andrew Morgans  04:21

as a metaphor to that. It's like, you can't compare. They're not the same, you know, so there's some similarities, but they're so different. Everybody's so different. And, um, you know, I think that the thing with Amazon is most people, I think, are used to doing business in their own way. And so you know, being flexible Oh my God, we do it this way because this, this, this. Amazon doesn't care about that. They have their own internal developers and stuff like we just have to operate the way that they want us to operate. On our website, it can be easier because you are custom. You can customize it down to your, your, your every little nuance that you want, you know and so Oh, we do ship this way. And we only do this and like, cool. You want to be an individual get a website, but you need to build a whole town in the middle of a field. Basically, that's the, to me the uphill battle of building a website versus going and opening a business in a busy city.

Michael Maher  05:15

Yeah, that I think that's a great analogy. Because people think, oh, Amazon takes 15%. That's for a referral fee. That's a lot. But when you look at the cost of building a site, so the development, the user interface, work, the advertising to get people to the website, there's a big cost there. And yes, you have to spend money on advertising on Amazon, but the audience's there, it's the difference between in the busy city writing a sign that says, I sell microphones versus being in a field saying I sell microphones is that is anybody? Anybody? No? There's nobody there the bros maybe I don't know, that are interested in that. But

Andrew Morgans  05:54

huge difference is like in what you're, what you're focused on is just completely different. You know, because you have all the learnings Yes. On the Amazon side, depending on if you get help or not. You have all the learnings on the website side. But you're spending money on ads, you don't know what's working, what's not landing pages, this, you know what customers are getting the right customers, there's your website, find we're getting the wrong customers, you don't know, on Amazon, at least. You know that there's customers, they're telling everyone right?

Michael Maher  06:21

Number one

Andrew Morgans  06:22

And you know, that they're there to buy? That's why they're on Amazon. It's like it's not an informational marketplace. Like it's people are there to buy. It's all particular.

Michael Maher  06:30

I would say it's becoming, there's more opportunities to be informational. But yes, it is very transactional

Andrew Morgans  06:36

True. within the confines of like what Amazon gives us, you know, but not like 

Michael Maher  06:40

because we don't get to control where we tell the story, we just get to how we double

Andrew Morgans  06:46

were given, right? No one's searching, like, how to set up my podcast studio. And like, you know, on Amazon, they did a book would come up. Yeah, probably write a book. But instead of searching,

Michael Maher  07:01

Or you start writing podcast and autocompletes to podcast equipment, or podcast microphone or something like that.

Andrew Morgans  07:06

Yeah it's no one having a blog there with like, 10 lists of 10 products, you know, and so people are searching instead for they've researched it on a blog somewhere, the 10 best podcast microphones and then what's the one you just got? This red one?

Michael Maher  07:18

This is a Telefunken

Andrew Morgans  07:20

A Telefunken? Okay, so Telefunken is number one on that 2021 podcast mic's, you click on that link, and maybe it takes you to Amazon, okay, maybe somewhere else, or then you go to Amazon, you search that mic, but you're looking for it, you know, it's very rare that you're doing your research on it, maybe your price research or whatever. So it's just a different, you're getting a customer and a different. I'm not struggling with words today. But you're getting a customer in a different path of the journey, a different part of the journey, you know, yeah, we're buying journey. And so it's like, I heard someone say recently, you get to like in Amazon, or whatever business model you choose, you get to choose what problems you want to have in your business. And so you can have margin problems if that's what we want to argue that 15% or whatever. Or you can have no customers in the store at all problems. You know,

Michael Maher  08:14

which one would you rather have? Which one do you want, pick, and choose?

Andrew Morgans  08:17

And so some people like I'm very impressed when people have built a website that's crushing it, you know, or I'm just like, wow, I know how hard that was to do

Michael Maher  08:26

The version rates on websites, people, two to 3%, you're doing great. On Amazon, I've seen conversion rates up 30%. Because people are there to purchase. And so I think Amazon is very transactional. And that leads me to wanting to talk about brands in general, Marknology helps brands accelerate their growth on Amazon. I know my agency is very focused on brands. And I say that I say there's three kinds of sellers on Amazon, the reseller, the private label person, and then brands. And we like working with brands because they have a very identical identifiable story. Thanks to Donald Miller and store brand, for impressing that upon me, that's been super huge. To better understand why brand is important, why people even care about that story. And I think you look back over history, people have been writing stories on cave walls since the beginning of time. And that's how we pass things on. So it makes sense that stories would show up in our marketing, and I think it's happened more and more the past decade or so. But why is having a brand important not just for eCommerce, but for retail in general?

Andrew Morgans  09:38

Well, it's a long game. That's why this is you know, this is a Longer Game podcast. 

Michael Maher  09:43

Yeah, that's right. 

Andrew Morgans  09:44

Branding is the long game for building something. And, you know, storytelling is at the core of that like, you know, our human ancestry goes to storytelling like that's how things were passed on. And you know, I grew up very religious growing up in church, missionary family, like stories, stories stories around. That's how we built faith. That's how we pass along things, you know. And so growing up in that some of it has just been wanting to lean into what I enjoyed, you know, and I'm not a minister or anything of the sort, but I still love telling stories. And kind of have some of that style, I'm sure and the way I deliver things and but like, as I started in this Amazon space, I guess it was just seeing further down the line to me the longer game and early on and being like, Amazon was releasing these features. You know, I saw where this is a skill that not everyone has, this is a way to stand out in a crowded space. It's like, Okay, what are all these other agencies doing that's made them successful? Some of them just do branding? Okay, so let me do that branding, which is a very successful thing and of itself, and bring that to Amazon, where they didn't have a lot of it. And I think there's a lot of reasons why it matters, you know, if you're exiting, having a brand and brand, brand Halo and a brand people know, makes you more valuable, it's an intangible thing. You know, it's top of mine, you know, I think an example of that would be when I was first growing kind of as an entrepreneur. I would get known around Kansas City as like the T-Shirt Guy, because I had an apparel company, I was advertising a lot is called landlocked, and people just be like, Oh, yeah, you're the shirt guy.

Michael Maher  11:22

 Yes, that's me. I'm the shirt guy.

Andrew Morgans  11:24

on the inside. Okay, on my cool you know, me, but also like, I'm not the T-Shirt guy. Yeah, kidding me another T-Shirt guy. I'm the Amazon guy. You know, 

Michael Maher  11:33

I love that the name landlocked. There was a coffee shop that was here in Cincinnati that also Yeah, I see that you're repping the hat right there. I wish I could wear hats. I just look like a big doofus.

Andrew Morgans  11:43

You have tried to so

Michael Maher  11:44

try to wear when I was 16. And I look like an idiot. None of my friends told me so.

Andrew Morgans  11:49

Well, mine was out of necessity. Actually. I've always had a hat on because growing up in Africa, I'm a ginger. 

Michael Maher  11:55

And yeah, that's tough.

Andrew Morgans  11:56

 And my mom was like it was glued to my head. Like this is how you protect your face and protect your skin and stuff. So I've just always had one on since

Michael Maher  12:04

If the sun gets any more intense, we are going to, us Irish people. Or I mean, you're a ginger. I'm very Irish. We're going to fry and anyone who has tan skin is gonna survive way better. I have a friend who's from Africa and lives here in the US roasts coffee here in Cincinnati. And we joke about that all the time. He's like, yeah, you guys are screwed. I'm like, totally man. I'm, I can't survive that then in afraid that go out. And they're like, Yeah, I don't need to put on sunscreen. And then they burn and I'm like, What are you doing?

Andrew Morgans  12:33

Imagine growing up in Africa with this. And I was like, more pale than I am now is like, 

Michael Maher  12:38

This is tan for you.

Andrew Morgans  12:40

Yeah, this is tan for me. This is aged. I'm age. I got freckles everywhere. Right? 

Michael Maher  12:44

Yeah. Okay, yeah, there's your protection.

Andrew Morgans  12:45

 Okay, but this back to this, like the Amazon guy t-shirt guy thing because this really is where I learned. I knew about it in theory and concept. You know, I'd read this. I had read books about branding. I'd read the storybook brand. And, but it just didn't resonate with me. And so I would be like, annoyed that someone's calling me the T-Shirt Guy or bothered by it. What am I doing wrong? You know, I'm like, this stuff I'm doing on Amazon's amazing. Like, how come anyone's like, no one's paying attention to that. You talked about 30% conversion rate. Like, I wanted to jump in there. I've had a listing, I launched from scratch for a brand 48% conversion rate two years running.

Michael Maher  13:23

Yeah. That's incredible.

Andrew Morgans  13:24

Incredible, right? I'm like, this is only on Amazon. Like, that should be a TED talk. Like this stuff we do on Amazon is amazing. Okay, and so I felt like it's amazing for a long time.

Michael Maher  13:32

Amazon talks.

Andrew Morgans  13:33

The world's catching up. But, uh, anyway, my point was, I took it on myself to be like, Okay, if these people see me as the shirt brand or this T-Shirt Guy, why is that? And what message am I conveying? What story am I telling what through my content through my social media through whatever and I made I'd made an intentional move to start splitting off my, my personal brand from my business brands and having their own identities and doing a better job of telling those stories on their own versus like, just what comes through my social media, because that's kind of how I started. And as I did that, I just started to learn like the power of that. And when I get when I started being in Kansas City, where if anyone was like Amazon, they merely thought of Andrew Morgans. I was like, okay, success. I'm brand, at least in my city, you know. And that was an internal lesson for me to learn about branding and just a silly story to share. But so many times we're like annoyed with someone else, that they're not getting the message and really, it's on us that we're sending the wrong message. There's something wrong with our messaging, our branding our storytelling that's not resonating with customers or people. And we need to hear

Michael Maher  14:44

you're having to adjust yourself because people are just perceiving things. And this is gonna be a strange analogy maybe. But I would love watching, I think was called Leader of the Pack or whatever with Cesar Millan the dog guy, and he would say, when we're training dogs, I'm actually training the humans. I'm not training the dogs, the dogs have it innate in them, the humans are giving off the wrong signals when the dogs growling, they're petting them. That means it's okay. They don't like that. So you have to retrain yourself and look at it from the other person's perspective.

Andrew Morgans  15:13

Yep, that's exactly well said. And I've got some posts on this as well, on my social media that's just about like, I think a big advantage was my dad showed me this at an early age, but how to see things from multiple angles and multiple perspectives and put yourself in the shoes of your customer, your adversary or your competitor. And it was some of that it was like, Okay if they're seeing me as a T-Shirt Guy, why is that I'm not talking enough about Amazon or it's not clear that this is what I do. And so, you know, just trying to help other brands. I learned through the band days branding, and all these different lessons you can table.

Michael Maher  15:52

You have a lot of similarities, by the way. Both grew up in a very conservative Christian household. My family was not missionary or not missionaries, but yeah, both are musicians and bands. Own Amazon service agencies, like kind of crazy and

Andrew Morgans  16:08

You're still playing music, right? 

Michael Maher  16:09

Yeah, right. Yep, I still am. Yep, I'm, it took me two years to finish the last song that I got done. But I just upgraded some stuff in my little studio in my basement. And I really love writing and playing.

Andrew Morgans  16:24

There's a band called four giants that I love, mind to check them out. It's two guys that are like engineers. I think they live in New York and Chicago or something like that. They don't look anywhere close. And it's just so different than when I was playing and you had to be in a basement. You had to be in the same room to Jean. Yeah, practice. And these guys write and play from two different cities in the world and write some awesome music.

Michael Maher  16:45

Our city guy, he did a whole first album, I think in logic just in his room. And

Andrew Morgans  16:51

That was what was so impressive about that. 

Michael Maher  16:53

So incredible. 

Andrew Morgans  16:54

A lot of people hammered him when I was like playing music because he was soft, and like, we were metal and yeah, but it was so impressive what he was doing. Before the technology even caught up, in my opinion, like technology is super dope now like, line, line six, I think, like has actually good digital equipment. It used to be crap. You know, when they first started coming out, and he knew that digital synthesizers and stuff, and now it's like, oh, my god sounds like you have to 8 by 10 Ampegs. Like, you know,

Michael Maher  17:22

yeah, or you can I mean, I'm a big synthesizer fan. And part actually, part of the reason how I got started in eCommerce was selling, I was selling used music gear, oftentimes used synthesizers that needed something fixed. And so I would like a solder in a new battery, or a mod wheel or something like that. And I knew how to sell on eBay. And I had a friend who just showed me more of the business side of it. And so I launched on eBay, did that for a year, was working another job full time and left that and then

Andrew Morgans  17:50

I remember that.

Michael Maher  17:51

got to get on Amazon and stuff like that. But that's how I got started with selling the synthesizers and you can, instead of spending, you know, $2,000 on a Juno 106, you can get a plugin for like, 30 bucks now and it sounds very, very, very similar. I would, I would be hard-pressed to believe that anybody could really tell the difference between those two.

Andrew Morgans  18:13

I know that if you're trying to live like I try to be minimalistic as possible. And I'm always on the go, I'm traveling a lot, why do I need all this stuff, I definitely don't have room for two, you know, an eight by 10am writing rack, like, you know, so as you're trying to figure out those things like it's really cool technology is I can basically have the nicest stuff ever right in his headphones. You know, and play. So, you know, in talking about like, I would say that, speaking of branding, right, just to tie it,

Michael Maher  18:42

Speaking of.

Andrew Morgans  18:42

but you know, musical instrument brands have done an amazing job of branding throughout the years and staying true to brand and you know, you can say Panasonic or you can say, Fender, you can say Ampeg some of these things, and these are brands that people immediately recognize

Michael Maher  18:59

Oh, yeah, he did I covet some of the products and I would say one of the and I think we're starting to see this in marketing in general, not just on Amazon, but across eCommerce in retail stores as well. You have brands that are pairing up with influencers, what music equipment companies like Fender, or D drum or whatever. Those companies have built-in influencers in the musicians and so they are they're sponsoring those people saying here's the gear you just play it make it sound good. Hey, Tony Royster Jr. Just play rolling drums Roland de drums and we'll have you, you know, we'll give you the $10,000 kit. And he goes out sell stuff because it's like, wow, check out this cool thing I can play in seven, eight times signature and I'm really awesome. Oh, I want that kit because then I'll sound like Tony racer genius. I mean, that is a lesson that we're starting to see now that it seems like music companies have ever really been doing all along.

Andrew Morgans  19:54

They've been doing it all along. They've been doing it well. And you know, I actually was hyped up this last week about some stuff on Amazon, we have a brand and I can't name who the influencer is. We have a couple of brands now we have Kevin Hart with one we 

Michael Maher  20:10

Oh, that's awesome.

Andrew Morgans  20:11

Yeah, we have some big guys like this is actually a female. But she posted our storefront like on her social media, like, oh, guys, look, we're on Amazon. And you know, we're essentially launching a brand with her as the face as an influencer. And it's the first time I've had an influencer behind a brand I'm working with on Amazon. 

Michael Maher  20:32

Okay. Yeah,

Andrew Morgans  20:33

had like, she had 10 million on Instagram 15 million on Tik Tok like, you know, big-time being,

Michael Maher  20:39

Not just trying it alongside the company, but actually being a part of the brand which will

Andrew Morgans  20:43

Seem like she's launching the brand. Yeah, a little bit different than even a musician playing the kit. But like, yeah, you know, and that's what's happening now. And 2021 is a brand that's looking to start even private label, let's say you're a private label seller on Amazon, and you're like, Okay, and you have a best, let's say, You're 21. And you're still in college, and you have a best girlfriend that has like 10 million followers on Tik Tok or something. Yeah, let's just talk, throw it out there. Like, maybe you should talk to her about giving her a couple points of everything you sell, and say, Hey, for the next two years, like, let's make this brand together and post about it all the time on your Tik Tok, and you're gonna have way more success than trying to do that without. And so that's a big thing that brands are doing is getting influencers, I guess, essentially, to tell their story, tell the story of the products in a different way than before.

Michael Maher  21:31

Part of the reason, and I love your input on this, but part of the reason why I think influencers work and why it's important to even have this, especially with Amazon, most people are going and searching for products, not on Google, not anywhere else, they're going directly to Amazon to look for it. So if someone sees an influencer with a product, you can bet that they're gonna go to Amazon to research that product. So two things, if you don't have a presence on Amazon, people could lose interest. And Amazon will recommend other things. Two, if your brain is represented poorly on there, and you've neglected it, like maybe big CPG companies who thought, oh, nine an extra $10 million in revenue, we've got, you know, a billion, so we're good. And then realize, oh, wow, we're actually losing brand credibility. People in the stores market going and look at Yeah, are going up and looking our brand, looking at our brand, they see one picture of this bottle of, you know, cleaner, and the reviews are not good, and they don't know anything about it. And then Okay, well, I'm gonna move on to the next thing.

Andrew Morgans  22:37

Yeah, you're right. And I, oh, my God, I get passionate about that, because I'm just like,

Michael Maher  22:41

Let's get fired up, man.

Andrew Morgans  22:43

Well, I am fired up, I built the company around it, you know, solving for like, it's a problem that I'm very passionate about, like, you know, and it's like, these brands have spent so much money through the years on their branding and being known and then just don't care on the biggest marketplace in the world. And to me, that's just like silliness. And you know, these big brands are confused, they're sitting in their boardrooms confused, like, I know this for a fact about how they're losing market share. How can they lose market share, they're the number one jewelry company than electronics company or whatever. It's because people like me, are getting behind brands like Gee Mama's cookies, for example, out of Arkansas, and wherever, and you know, three or four skews. And when you type in chocolate chip cookies on Amazon, I'm beating Nabisco and Oreo and Chips Ahoy. And every big brand that we all know and eat those foods growing up. Yeah, why am I ranking them because they don't care about the platform? And they're not embracing it. And they're not, they're not doing a good job of not just monetizing, but positioning their products on the digital shelf space,

Michael Maher  23:45

I think intentionally neglected not intentionally as in, we hate Amazon, but just intentionally neglected it because they didn't see it as important. It was tertiary to them as a tertiary market. And now they're realizing, oh, wow, smaller brands and I think small to medium-sized brands based on revenue out of the, you know, percent of revenue that at least the on Amazon, there's you know, that first-party side, the traditional vendor relationship, and then that third party side with, you know, any seller that can essentially access Amazon, that third party side is probably going to be more small to midsize brands. But you can still do a million, 5 million, 10 million on that third-party side, but they're generating more revenue than the one p brands because they've been putting more effort into it. They've leaned heavy into it, it's been more accessible to them. And so they're telling their story really well. They're getting on the same shelf space, they don't have to go into Kroger and say Hey, would you please put our product on the shelf next to Nabisco, Gee Mama's cookies, send me some free cookies if you feel like it, maybe Mark of Marknology we'll, we'll hook me up with whoever that guy is. But I think you're getting on the same shelf space. And there, you're beating them because 

Andrew Morgans  24:57

You know what you'd have to pay for that and then 500 groceries Like a Kroger or something, you know, you'd have to pay to be positioned in front of all those other companies, 

Michael Maher  25:05

You have to not only, you're not only gonna have to basically pay to get in, you're gonna have to do additional marketing, you got to pay for inventory, you got to even pay like a broker or someone to help you get into those stores. And so there's many, many layers that are keeping you apart from that on Amazon. It's getting more difficult for reasons like preventing fraud and stuff like that. But it's a great

Andrew Morgans  25:27

yeah, I heard that.

Michael Maher  25:28

I get that. Yeah, I would rather it be more difficult to set up an account than someone could just show up and fraudulently sell

Andrew Morgans  25:35

Probably want to deal with right a guy would rather deal with those than to deal with fraud and counterfeit and, and lose trust. Like, that's why Amazon is so powerful is because the customers trust the platform that we sell on. 

Michael Maher  25:45

That's what, that is what I try to convey to people is, you know, a lot of people hear about Amazon with private label brands and how they're ruining other companies. And I know there are some specific stories, but there's nothing new under the sun, we're talking about influencers and how musicians have that, you know, music companies have that built-in, there's nothing new, under the sun, Kroger, Target, Walmart, they have private label brands, too. That's not new people. But it's another offering. It's another level of consumer that they're trying to target. Your main brand is the main focus, they are just the distributor. And so Amazon is built. Really, they're a great example of marketing and technology, because they have great marketing, but their technology and the logistics side of things is ridiculous. I mean, I think you'd look at these maps and think like, these are neural highways in the brain. And this is, you know, the frontal lobe and all that stuff. Like looking at those networks. It's so crazy how technologically advanced they are, which is why they're able to say, Oh, you want something in a day, we'll do that

Andrew Morgans  26:48

data, data data. And like two things, I want to piggyback on that one

Michael Maher  26:52

That would be a good band name, by the way, Data, Data, Data, 

Andrew Morgans  26:54

Data, Data, Data, that's a Star Trek like Mario. 

Michael Maher  27:00

Data data, or could be a heavy metal band song, 

Andrew Morgans  27:03

Love that too, just scream it. 

Michael Maher  27:05

Yeah. *growl*

Andrew Morgans  27:08

Two things, one being big brands, early on Amazon were approached by account reps trying to get them to come on to Amazon. So they went on to one p it was very easy. They put them up, and then they've just left it. Yeah. And then all these branding features have come out and they just haven't done anything. And I think the smaller medium-sized businesses are hungrier, weren't approached by Amazon. But instead, we're like, we want to be on here. We want to be selling stuff. So they have taken in put the effort in to learn the platform to grow on it. And so that's been kind of the differences was like early on those big the small and medium-sized brands didn't get approached by Amazon to be there. Right. So Amazon Yeah, big ones.

Michael Maher  27:46

They were finding out about how do we, oh, we can do this. Now. Let's, let's do it.

Andrew Morgans  27:51

Like Yeah, so that they were just like pushing, you know, I know that private label guys like these were all people that are hungry for new business, that we’re just trying to embrace everything that Amazon had. You know, like push, push, push, push, push, what can we learn? What can we learn? What can we learn? I don't know, I think that's just important. And when you understand the evolution of what's happened and why. The second thing I would say is like we're talking about the grocery stores and shelf space. And this is probably happened three or four times now for me working with brands where they've got whole foods, relationships, or otherwise, or grocery store relationships after having grown sales on Amazon themselves, so they've grown digital sales, which then turned into a massive contract or brick and mortar sales.

Michael Maher  28:37

It's social proof even if you're not selling well on Amazon. There are now companies like Kroger or other companies that are looking at your product on Amazon and saying, Oh wow, you've got you know, 4.5 out of five stars and you got 100 reviews. That's Yeah, there's trust there and they believe that so it's not only helping your brand on Amazon but you're now helping being successful on Amazon helps your brand get into stores it's almost become reversed. 

Andrew Morgans  29:06

I think one of those was,

Michael Maher  29:08

It's going out to brands and saying oh we know your brand because you're in Target come sell on our brand and now Target's like oh wow, you're on Amazon. That's cool.

Andrew Morgans  29:15

Chewy chewy.com for example is a site I know of that basis they're ordering like how much do they order based on like how much volume are you doing on Amazon? So like these things all work together. Everyone's watching everybody to be like, you know who's the one leading the pace? You know, if you that's why Amazon should matter to you. It's not just salespeople are looking at it as a big brother as the forerunner. And popping in there and just making assessments based on those reviews and that trust like there is no need to like just take your word for it that these chips are good. If you have a 500 reviews and they're four and a half stars and like look I can talk to 500 customers right here and see what they thought about your product or the data.

Michael Maher  29:56

You can buy it with pretty much impunity. If you want to return or refund the product? Amazon has made it very trusted, where you go to a grocery store, you're like, man, these chips sucked. And they're like, great, we're, I'm helping customers in line right now. Because, again, they're the front line, they're not the bigger brand, whereas Amazon, you kind of, I mean, there's a whole ecosystem behind that. But essentially, Amazon is the face now. And so it's they and they're saying, we're going to take on that responsibility for every brand and make it easier for consumers so that you say, I bought some shop back, shop back bags, totally wrong shop back and they said, okay, you don't need to send it back, we refunded you and I'm like, but I don't want these. I don't need them. That would be great. If I if it was like a food and I could still eat it. But I don't even need these. And they make it so easy.

Andrew Morgans  30:45

Yeah, that you can return. Like I started seeing Amazon return stuff everywhere, like in Kohl's you can like walk into and just give it to them not in a box. And they'll like take it back. And like what is this

Michael Maher  30:56

Yeah, for free as opposed to you can go to the UPS Store, too. But yeah, we had a really easy,

Andrew Morgans  31:02

They've just made it super easy. You know, I was having a conversation, I owned another business called AKC Co. And we do like Airbnbs and property management where property management brokerage. And some of the guys are like I'm in the container, they're over at the house. And, you know, just before coming over here, we're talking about just patients and the difference in working with investors or working with founders that have built something themselves. You know, nothing wrong against any of those. But someone that's gone through the process of building their own business for five or six years versus let's say getting funding before they started. Yeah, year one, year two, year three, there's different learnings, because one got somewhere super fast and hadn't learned all the things that it takes five years to learn, for example, and just talking about the patience needed to build a brand, you know, we get hired all the time to help people build a brand manufacturers hire Marknology a lot. Which might be that fourth category we talked about of sellers on on Yeah, because manufacturers. When you're dealing with a brand, typically they have a brand, right? They have a story. They've got product packaging, like working with manufacturers now that want to go direct to consumers for the first time maybe in their company's history. You're helping them develop that. And branding and figuring out like it is something that takes time. You know, it wasn't until I came out with Marknology and Amazon brand accelerator that I remember when I said I'm a brand accelerator for brands on Amazon, like people got it. That didn't get it. Yeah, for like, I tried so many different like one-word phrases, or whatever to get people to understand what I did. And they were just like, Huh, but whenever I started getting that, like my storyline, right, or my like, you know, my branding, right where I was like, I helped brands, everyone knew what a brand was. And everyone knew what are ideally what a brand is, and, and what an accelerator is.

Michael Maher  32:45

And that is what good branding does. One of the things that I learned from story brand, and Donald Miller is if someone goes to your site, and they don't instantly know what you do or what problem you solve for it, they don't they're not you're not saying you have this, well, we do this, check this out. It's just the see the product, they know, okay, I'm looking for a suevey product, and this is the product that I need, it's going to be perfect, it's going to look great in my kitchen, you just need to be able to solve for that right away. So when you get your message right, brands when you get your message right, especially on Amazon, when 28% of people are making a purchase decision in three minutes or less. If you can get that right, that's going to give you brand credibility off Amazon, because we've talked about how people are looking in to that, that Amazon shelf space and saying, Oh, well, you're there. Well, then we trust you.

Andrew Morgans  33:33

Yep. And like exactly that what you're talking about coming to your website and someone knowing immediately what you sell or what you do. And if they don't, that's why they're calling you the T-Shirt Guy. 

Michael Maher  33:43

Yep. 

Andrew Morgans  33:44

Right? and to bring it home to Amazon, it's like, a lot of times this happens with photography with brands and they've got these photos, these beautiful lifestyle photos. Maybe it's a baby, it's a woman holding a baby or like, cool, great photo. But like if I'm a customer I'm like, What do you want me to get out of this? 

Michael Maher  34:00

You want me to pick up babies?

Andrew Morgans  34:01

Like I just Yeah, what do you want me to do? Am I looking at it? Am I saying great photo? Am I smiling? Because it's cute. Like what am I doing? You have to tell me what you want me to get? Like, what's the story you want me to get from this product? Like, so comfortable? Like you know, even a baby would wear or something like you know, put that call to action?

Michael Maher  34:17

Somebody who has a baby product hire this guy he wants he wants to help your baby wear it.

Andrew Morgans  34:22

You get what I'm saying? I get what you're saying? Like these photos. Like if you can immediately say like what do they want me to know? What are you selling? What do you want me to know from this photo? Or this video? You're doing it wrong.

Michael Maher  34:34

Yep. So branding is important, people. That's how we're going to wrap up this show. We keep it short and sweet because we want you to come back for more and I'm already song called Data Data Data. It's going to be premiering on Andrew SoundCloud’s page. We'll let you know when that goes up.

Andrew Morgans  34:49

If they look up me up on SoundCloud, there's some old stuff on there. 

Michael Maher  34:52

Okay, well I went through and put all my SoundCloud stuff new because it there was a lot of old stuff, but you could find that. So Andrew, tell people if they want to connect with you, how do they search it down? Do they look up your home address? Do they write you a postcard from Berlin? How do they, how do they do that?

Andrew Morgans  35:09

Yeah, I got a client in Berlin. So I would love to have one. 

Michael Maher  35:12

I knew that.

Andrew Morgans  35:13

they were cities and,

Michael Maher  35:14

I did not know that.

Andrew Morgans  35:15

it would be LinkedIn probably Andrew Morgans on LinkedIn with an S on my name. I'm also on Instagram, Andrew Morgans, love connecting on either one of those. LinkedIn is probably more for business, like Instagram I probably piss some people off. I just speak my mind and my heart there, 

Michael Maher  35:30

Yeah, whatever.

Andrew Morgans  35:32

But I would love that or at Marknology.com. We'd love to hear from anybody.

Michael Maher  35:36

You might, so from a personal branding perspective, you might piss people off, but you're very clear in what you're about. So there you go, people. This episode was brought to you by Everyman pens. It's not approved, but I do appreciate it. It's one of my clients. 

Andrew Morgans  35:53

Send it to them. Let's get a sponsor.

Michael Maher  35:55

There you go. Boom. A brass pen, baby. Alright, we're out. Thank you, Andrew, for coming on the show. We'll talk to you later.

Andrew Morgans  36:00

Thank you, Michael.