505: The Blueprint For Building The Largest Amazon Sellers Network With Athena Severi

You're listening to the MyWifeKitter.job podcast, the place where I bring on successful bootstrap business owners and delve deeply into what strategies are working and what strategies are not with their businesses. Then today I have my friend Athena Severi on the show, who started the Titan Network, one of the largest networks of Amazon sellers in the world. She also runs China Magic, where she takes people to the Canton Fair, which is something that many people have asked me about in the past. Now in this episode, you'll learn about her entrepreneurship journey and how she's hustled her way to the top. So before we begin, I want to let you know that tickets for the 2024 seller summit are now on sale over at sellersumid.com. The seller summit is the conference that I hold every year that specifically targets e-commerce entrepreneurs selling physical products online. And unlike other events that focus on inspirational stories and high level BS, mine is a curriculum based conference where you will leave with practical and actionable strategies specifically for an e-commerce business. Every speaker I invite is deep in the trenches of their business, entrepreneurs who are importing large quantities of physical goods, and not some high level guys who are overseeing their companies at 50,000 feet. Now I personally hate large events, so the seller summit is always small and intimate. Every year we cut off ticket sales around 200 people, so ticket sell out fast, and we sold out every single year for the past 8 years. Now if you're an e-commerce entrepreneur making over 250k or 1 million dollars per year, we also offer an exclusive mastermind experience with other top sellers. The seller summit is going to be held in Fort Lauderdale, Florida from May 14 to May 16, and right now this is the cheapest the tickets will ever be. Also, if you haven't picked out my Wall Street Journal bestselling book, The Family First Entrepreneur Yet, it's actually available on Amazon at 38% off right now. My book will teach you how to achieve financial freedom by starting a business that doesn't require you to work yourself to death. Plus, you can still grab my free bonus workshop on how to sell print on demand and how to make passive income with blogging, YouTube, and podcasting when you grab the book over at mywifequitterjob.com slash book. So go over to mywifequitterjob.com slash book, fill out the form, and I'll send you the bonuses right away. Now onto the show. Welcome to the My wife Quitterjob podcast. Today I am thrilled to have Athena Severy on the show. Now, Athena is someone who I met at my most recent seller summit, and it turns out that we have a lot of mutual friends. She is the founder and CEO of the Titan Network, an exclusive network of elite Amazon sellers, and she also runs a business called China Magic, which takes entrepreneurs on a tour of China, the Canton Fair, and she is known in the Amazon circles as the goddess of networking. Now if you look at my journey, I have chosen to hide behind a camera on YouTube and a microphone on this podcast to build my audience. But Athena is actually truly gifted when it comes to networking. So in this episode, we're going to learn about her entrepreneurship journey and how she created one of the largest Amazon seller networks in the world. And with that, welcome to the show. Oh my goodness, Steve, what an intro and what an honor to be on this show today. I'm super, super excited. So Athena, we haven't spoken at length about your background, but I know you have a pretty crazy story about how you got started with Amazon and how that led to the Titan Network, how that led to China Magic. How did you get started? Start from the beginning. Okay, sure. So, I worked for corporate America, I worked at a consulting firm, and when I had my first son, I remember them telling me to get back to work within six to eight weeks. And as a new mother, holding my six-week-old baby, I was like, there's no force on earth that you could get me away from this tiny, tiny newborn baby, right? So I really struggled. I kind of worked from home when that wasn't even a thing. And then they gave me a corner office, and I turned that into my little daycare because I just didn't want to give up my baby. And then when he's a little older, I turned him over, and I got back to the office. When I had my second son, I remember taking him to daycare and just sobbing. I wasn't ready. He wasn't ready. And I always knew that I wanted to be able to work from home and have flexibility and have freedom. And the other thing that was very frustrating was just living paycheck to paycheck. Even though I had a decent six-figure job, I lived in Los Angeles. And so it wasn't like I had that option to not work. Yeah, I didn't feel fulfilled in my work. I didn't fulfill the As of Mother. So it was just this kind of struggle. And I remember a friend of mine who was quitting his job, working at the same company as me, and I'm like, so, you know, what are you going to do? And he's like, well, I'm selling kitchen products on Amazon. And I literally laughed out loud because I didn't believe him. I was like, you're leaving your job to sell products on Amazon. And he's like, yeah, 100%. And what he did is he actually opened his seller's central account. And he showed me the money that was being deposited every two weeks. And his account, it was more money than we would make in six months of this hardcore job. The moment I saw that, I was like, give that to me. Whatever that is, I want it. And that's how I started my whole journey with Amazon. What was your day job, just curious? So I was in business development for a consulting firm that dealt with automotive. Before that, I used to work with artists and celebrities and put on fashion shows and concerts and amazing things. But when I became a mother, I couldn't really have that lifestyle. So then I started to work for more of like a mundane sort of consulting type company. Yeah. So telling about your first Amazon product, how did you find it? Presumably, this is a long time ago, right? Yeah, this was about eight or nine years ago. So I took a course on how to get started on Amazon. And my first product was a yoga headband. And so the top sellers at the time was a flea's headband, like a little ponytail. I pulled it back, but I knew that since I lived in Los Angeles, at the time, you can kind of get friends and family to buy your product. And like, nobody's going to want a winter product. And so I actually had the factory send me even to samples. And I found my yoga headband. And that was my very first product. And I did quite well with it. I was actually able to quit my full-time job after about three or four months of selling on Amazon. Wow. Okay. So this is back in the heyday when it was the Wild Wild West. Are you still selling that? Are you still selling that yoga headband today or have you? Yeah. I mean, it still sells and it's so funny because I can pay my mortgage off of this one headband still, which is insane because it's been, you know, so many years. But I launched that first headband and then I launched a second headband and that went really well. And then I thought I got really cocky, right? And I thought, you know what? I am so good at this Amazon thing and I decided I was Lulu Lemon, right? So I went and I got like probably about 80 variations of yoga attire thinking I was ready to go for this, right? And I spent like $30,000 on my original products from here. The quality wasn't great and I wasn't ready for this level of, you know, I didn't even know how to do a flat file to upload everything. So that was one of the first moments that I really realized how much I craved mentorship because if I would have had somebody in my life, then you, what they were doing, they would have said, you know, good job on your first and second product. No, you're not ready for being Lulu Lemon, it excuse, you know, you're not ready for that. And if you go ahead and maybe release a couple other products, like they would have just guided me a little bit. But because I didn't have that in my life, I actually ended up losing that $30K, you know what I mean? And a lot of tears and stuff. So how did you find that first manufacturer? Did you use Alibaba or? Yeah, so I used Alibaba and that was good, but when I later on, I started to feel like I needed to connect with the supplier more directly because a lot of what I was dealing with. And then I was able to actually release a couple more headbands and that sort of went really well. So, you know, stick to what you know, stick to the things that are going to make the most impact. And that was really a big lesson that I learned in that moment. So I got my first supplier off of Alibaba and then that changed later on when we went to China. But another really interesting thing happened through this, which was, as a mother, I used to have this like mommy group on Facebook. And when they saw me put my job, they got really, really excited about, you know, wanting to quit their job as well. And because of that, I found myself in a place of being kind of a mentor or a leader to these ladies. And I didn't have enough of my own background or understanding yet. So I ended up starting to pull in other people who were big sellers, who were sort of the who's who of the industry. And I started to put together like little dinners and seminars and events. And then, you know, other people would start to come because what I was doing is I was bringing through people who were extremely successful on Amazon and I was able to help them to learn directly from mentors and people who have been successful. So they didn't actually run into the issues that I did. Like none of those people did because they were able to kind of find the things that worked and they didn't have as much risk. And so we did, you know, seminars which led to a cruise, which then... All right, let's back up, Athena, because you're known as the goddess of networking. When you're a nobody in the beginning, how do you get some of these larger Amazon sellers to even one, even talk to you and two, get them to help? What are your strategies? What are your strategies? And I know from talking to you that, you know, you're quite convincing. I hope that you can put it into words though. That is kind of my magic sauce to you, but I will tell you that... When you treat people like human beings and you're not just looking to get from them and you're looking to see what mutual benefits you can provide from them as well. So as an example on my very first event when I went to an Amazon event, I hosted a dinner and I invited a lot of great people at that dinner. In the dinner, I said, you know, if there's anyone doing over some figures, please stand up and give your perspective of how you got there. And so what was great is that these guys were helping each other. So it wasn't about me and what I can offer. I could host the dinner. I could put them in a space with each other. And that's really kind of the magic that I would start to create. In that dinner, I also learned something very powerful, which is that you want to learn from people who are in the trenches doing the thing that you're looking to achieve. Because I had a lot of people come up to me after the dinner and say, you know, out of the three-day event, that dinner was more powerful because the people were really speaking to them on things that they were doing in those last 12 months to achieve what they achieved. Instead of it being some big old presentation, you know, maybe regurgitating information from a few years ago, like these were in the trenches, sellers really making moves. And they really benefited from that. So everyone has something to offer, you know, and I think that when you network or you connect with people, you need to think with how can I serve you, how can I help you, how can I impact you, and then that natural progression of the camaraderie, the front shape, the networking and all of that, I think it just naturally happens. So you would go to various Amazon events and then have these dinners. Is that how you established that initial network? I mean, I started with dinners and then I just made friends with people and stayed connected. And like, for example, there's a guy who's a nine-figure seller who, you know, I said if you're ever in LA, like, I'll take you out. So I went to pick him up from the airport. I took him to brunch at the ritz. We had a great conversation and that's where he told me like, you know, like that you have a gift with these events and things, like you really need to pursue it. And that one conversation was so powerful for me. So like, make real friends, go to events, like your event was brilliant. Like, I loved the networking. I loved that everyone was sitting at a table chatting with each other. Everyone felt very comfortable, very open. And in those moments, like, take that extra time to connect with each other, get each other's phone numbers, follow up on each other, see if there's a resource that you might have that might, you know, help the other person. It might be on a completely different topic. Maybe you're great at nutrition. Maybe you're fantastic at finance. Maybe you, whatever it is. Maybe you just like the type of product that that person, you know, sells that you can give your feedback on every human being has something to offer, you know? And if you're able to kind of find out from that person how you can help them, they are going to want to be in your life. If you go to one of those networking things and you're like, hi, can you help me? Can you help me? Can you help me? Like, you know, no one wants that. So I think it's really just about serving others first. So you, you established this network and you had this group of moms that you were personally helping. And I guess meanwhile, you were getting help from these other Amazon sellers that were larger than you that you met at events. What's right? You know, back then what you said eight or nine years ago, they actually weren't that many events, right? No. For Amazon sellers. Yeah. So I actually started to create my own and I think I just have a weird knack for it because for example, when we did a cruise, so I invited everyone on a cruise. I made no money from this, by the way, I paid for my own cruise, everyone paid for their own cruise. It was a seven day cruise to the Caribbean. And one of the things I did, as I said, okay, who is brilliant at PPC, right? And who is brilliant at choosing products? So I'd find the people that were most successful in certain topics. And then I have them sit at tables and actually do like the networking with the other people. And I have never seen anything like that since then I have like, there are events that do that. But I was able to just sort of like really connect the people with the ones that are supposed to be the speakers because when I would go to events, I would see the speaker speak and then they would literally run to the green room or the VIP room and try to avoid eye contact and not like try to talk to the people and serve them. And I was like, oh, hell no, like if I'm going to help people, I want the people on the stage to have big hearts and want to help. And so that's kind of how I would design everything is, yes, I find successful sellers, but they also have to be people who wanted to help others and lift each other up. So that was, that's really my secret formula, Steve, that you're pulling out of me right now. I'm just trying to remember, like, and my event, like you literally just pulled me aside and just started talking to me, I mean, that takes guts number one. And two, you just seem to have this natural knack for just keeping the conversation going. And is that something you've always been gifted with or did you take toastmasters? Did you do anything to develop those skills or? I think it's definitely part of who I am, but I have had to hone it, you know, I even remember as a child, I used to be at a park and look around at the kids and anyone that would intimidate me, I would force myself to go speak to them and try to make them my friends. So it's something that I've genuinely kind of, I used to work in in Hollywood and walk up to some of the biggest celebrities in the world, you know, like it's something that you have to kind of build within yourself and I'm telling you, it's not like it comes naturally. There are moments where I feel uncomfortable and it's just like one of those things. Have you ever gone skydiving Steve? I have. Okay, do you know that moment when the door opens and you like look outside and you're like, right, what am I doing here? And then you kind of push yourself off and you start this fall and it's magical. Do you know what I mean? You know what's funny about my skydiving experience? I was eager to jump out of the airplane because the airplane that I went up in was so like this cheap airplane that was smelling like smoke. And I was like worried I was going to die on the way up. And so I wanted to jump. I was like, Hey, let's get out of here. Okay. Maybe that doesn't work for me. Life and if you think about being an entrepreneur, the concept of being an entrepreneur is you're willing to take greater than average risk and business venture, right? Yeah. So I feel like when you're dealing with human beings, it is a risk. Like I could have walked up to you and you would have been like, I'm not sure who you are. This is my event. And it would have been very uncomfortable, right? That could have happened, right? But on the flip side, I could have made, you know, a friend in the industry that we now can be together on this podcast, inspire people, help each other. I've invited you to my events. You had me as a guest at yours like the upside potential of what would have happened for me, introducing myself was so much greater than the potential loss of being embarrassed, right? And as we overthink these moments. And if you just approach people with genuine, you know, affinity, like liking of that person, there's very few people that are going to be like, talk to the hand, like, worrying, talking to me. Yeah. Yeah. Not going to happen. I mean, that's happened to me though, but yes, it sometimes happens, depends on who the person is. It can happen. And if you get rejected, you say, okay, fine. And you go next the same way that I had two very successful products. My next thing wasn't so successful, but I got right back on the horse and I launched another couple of products and I currently own 14 brands on Amazon. So if I would have given up in that moment of uncomfortableness, you know, I wouldn't have moved forward to where I am today, and I feel the same way about networking. So if you ever feel uncomfortable with networking, I'll give you a couple tips. One is ask the person to tell you about themselves, right? So if I say, Steve, tell me about yourself, then you're going to immediately go to a couple of the things that are important to you. It might be your children. It might have some do with your business. It might be a hobby. It might be a trip that you went on. I'm not sure. But whatever that is, it's going to open the conversation and it's going to be about yourself, right? So my name's Athena, very lovely to meet you. Tell me about yourself. Super easy, right? Yeah. And then from there, you can start to kind of find points that you can relate to that person and just really open up that beautiful conversation from there. And I know this sounds silly, but I've been on stage helping people with networking and at the end, I'll bring people through that are uncomfortable. And sometimes it's even as simple as just having an easy line to open the conversation and tell me about yourself works every time from what I've seen. I just wanted to take a moment to tell you about a free resource that I offer on my website that you may not be aware of. If you are interested in starting your own online store, I put together a comprehensive six day mini course on how to get started in e-commerce that you should all check out. It contains both video and text-based tutorials that go over the entire process of finding practices sell all the way to getting your first sales online. Now this course is free and can be attained at mywifequitterjob.com slash free. Just sign up right there on the front page via email and I'll send you the course right away. And again, that's mywifequitterjob.com slash free. Now back to the show. Yeah. And whenever I meet someone, I always have an open mind if someone comes up to me because you never know when some random person that you meet is going to change your life. It's happened to me many times already. 100%. I love that. And then here's my little tip. What I like to do is I like to hang out with these people late at night. And then once people have a couple of drinks in them, that's when I start asking questions. I usually don't drink that much at the bar, but everyone else is and I'm buying drinks. And then once a little bit of alcohol gets in there, they reveal everything. And that's how I get to know a lot of people. That is probably the top tip of the day, Steve. You got it. Well, you don't need the alcohol, Steve. That's my tactic, but you do it naturally. Let's switch gears and just kind of talk back about that first e-commerce product. So you're getting help. And you mentioned your second batch where you spent 30k was a bad batch of product, but then you went to China. Going to China can be intimidating for the first time. So did you just hop on a plane and go by yourself? No. I actually went on somebody else's trip and it was a three day trip to a part of China called EU. Okay. It has its place and for some people, that's the right fit for them. For me, it wasn't because I was looking to build sustainable relationships with suppliers. EU has more sort of like cheaper products and things. It's kind of like more of like a ginormous market. And so when I was there, I was hoping to get mentorship. I was hoping to get a lot of things out of that trip that I didn't quite get. And because I have an events backroom, because I have a networking backroom, I actually decided to put on my own trip to China completely unique to itself. It's a 12 day trip called China Magic. And so I took 50 people on my very first trip there. And I brought some… We'll hold on to that. You took 50 people on your very first trip to China after you won? Yeah. After you won. I went to the EU. It wasn't quite what I was hoping. And then I decided to put on a trip to China and I brought 50 people with me. And what I did is I brought a whole panel of experts sellers. These were all seven, eight, I even had a nine figure seller on this panel. And then I brought a gentleman who had been sourcing in China for over 15 years and had a full network. And so the reason I wanted to create this trip to China is because I realize how much of what we do as Amazon sellers is in the product, in the sourcing of that product, in the quality, in the differentiation, and in the profitability of those products. And so much of that ties back to sourcing properly. And from what I've understood from meeting a lot of people, even very significant sellers, they do not understand the subject of sourcing to the level that they need to, to really be optimizing their business. And the other thing that was very fascinating to me was how important it is to understand the culture of China and how to do proper business. One of the things that happened on the first trip, which is what inspired me to do China magic, is that these people will come through with kind of like I'm a big business person and you need to, you know, bring down your prices for me and like, like just not a good vibe, right? And the more I understood about the culture of China, relationships are everything for them. I have a word called Wanshi, which is very unique to their like to teach the Chinese language. And I didn't understand that until I actually arrived and I realized that these guys who are at the canter on fair, and these are fantastic, good quality suppliers. They're sitting there in their booth and they're watching us. They're paying attention to the way that we communicate, the way we do business, the words that we're using if we understand their culture, if we know how to even accept a business card properly, they're really paying attention to the nuances. And people who come through with respect and appreciation are the ones that they want to do business with. And that's where you get magic. That's where you get cash terms, right? A lot of people are still paying 30% down on their products and 70% upon shipping. One of the things that we teach in China magic is how to get the cash terms negotiating down to sometimes 10% down and the rest 60 to even 90 days after landing, right? And so just how does it happen? This obviously doesn't happen on the first interaction, right? Not always, and that is not always the case, like not everything, but you would be surprised how many of these we were able to do even on the first relationship with suppliers when we're in China at the factory coming up with the full business plan and actually working through it the way that we have done now for the last seven years. So we have tremendous success. Again, that's not typical, not everyone is going to get those terms, but we've been able to help people get much better terms than normal. And that helps with cash flow because this is a very difficult cash flow, hungry business for a lot of people. And so even just switching the cash flow, another of the amazing benefits of going to China is being able to see products in person and change them on the spot and be able to alter things. And like what used to take me when I had my headbands back and forth two months, I could do in 20 minutes because I wanted my logo to be this size. I wanted it to be placed right here. I wanted it to be this size. And every time you switch the logo, even just a millis centimeter, like just so, so, small, it would take, you know, two weeks of back and forth just to switch it, you know. So I think that that was another big benefit was being around all these amazing products that you wouldn't normally find. And then where those relationships really shine is that what some people don't realize is that these suppliers sometimes they've had a type of product for generations, like they've owned a factory for generations. They know more about building, let's say watches or make-up brushes or things than we do, right? And so they might actually know what the trends look like and what's next and what materials could be really effective and how to alter things in an inexpensive way to be even a more premium product. Like they actually have a lot more understanding of our products than we may realize. So when you get into really beautiful communication with them, they'll show you things that are not on the market yet. They'll take a look at your products and show you how to make them less expensive, yet still decent quality. The magic that happens when you have good relationships. I think that like you, if you really want to look at like my entire last 20 minutes of this podcast, it's relationships, relationships, relationships, whether that's with, you know, each other, whether that's with a mentor, whether that's in China. And so I think going there directly is amazing. I 100% agree. I remember this one vendor we had early on. The first shipment was amazing and then the quality just started gradually degrading. And then we went to China, we actually met them. We had a couple drinks, had a meal, and then all of a sudden the quality has been fine ever since. That is my favorite, can we just take that clip? I want that clip. That was amazing. I mean, it matters. Like if you think about it this way, the people you do business with, you tend to be better with the people that you like, right? Yes. As opposed to just other customers who might not treat you that well. And so once we had like this report going, I think they just treated us differently as customers. 100%. And that saved a lot of us during like COVID because, you know, if you have slip supply, E, A, B, C, D, and, you know, you were one of the people that actually came and met them and went to the factory and met their team and really like have that beautiful relationship. And then you're having issues with, you know, supplier or shipping or something, who are you going to put at the front, you know, mean, like these dudes who really met over email or the one that's come and, you know, sometimes you meet their family, like they bring their children. Like it's, it's a thing. So, you know, going to China is really important. But also really understanding what you're doing because again, like I would sit back and watch people go through and they can immediately read if someone's like, you know, a professional or not a professional. And you really want to be a professional when it comes down to it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if they believe that you're going to be a long term customer and you're going to be reliable and a good customer, then they'll want to talk to you. Then they'll want to give you terms early on. So it's just a matter of coming across as someone who's serious and kind of knows what they're doing upfront. 100%. 100%. Yes. I was going to ask you about that first trip because I've been to China many times. I used to go to the Canton Fair prior to COVID every other year. And it can be a little intimidating if it's your first time. And to guide 50 people there where it's kind of unsafe to eat the street food and, you know, the laws are kind of different there. That sounds crazy to me. Right. I understand that. And we had in a little bit, but I will say I nailed it like we were in flight. Yeah. We got picked up by luxury bus to go directly to the four seasons. They provide the most beautiful breakfast brunch type thing, you know, in the sky. They're super gorgeous, you know, and then we would actually go in the fair. I brought enough people so that people would go into the fair with them and actually help them to do all the negotiations and things. And so if they weren't alone, they were actually with people. I mean, King Gelsari, for example, who you know, he sources for the NFL, the NBA, for Google, he's like top of the top, you know, so I have guys like that. And so we would go in the fair and then in the evenings, we would do masterminding. So we would talk about, we would do educational type things and content. We'd have people ask questions and then we'd troubleshoot, you know, people were running into trouble or they needed help. And so every night we would mastermind. And after that first trip, I mean, people got more done in those 10 days in China than they had gotten done in like a year or two, you know what I mean, just in terms of finding products. And then even just the masterminding, and that's really where Titan came from, was watching what happened when you had somebody with mentorship and how fast your business can grow when you actually have someone guiding you. And so that's really kind of where that magic happened. Yeah. And then you had those 50 people, did those 50 people just kind of, were they the charter members of the Titan network? I mean, some of them, I mean, some of these guys have already sold their brands. There's one guy who is a kitchen brand, who's probably valued at like 80, 90 million at this point, who was on my first trip to China. There was another person in the camping out door space that I know already had an exit for over 50 million. Another lady who is in the health space, she's, oh my gosh, this woman is absolutely killing it. So these are brands that if you go on Amazon, you're going to see quite consistently. So, you know, people from even my first trip just had ridiculous success. And then, yes, some of those guys became my mentors. The way that I find mentors within Titan, by the way, and within China magic is I would just observe the people that were always helping. You know, the ones that were like really smart and always like wanting to guide and wanting to help and jump in. And that's really where I found like my best mentors was within my own crew. So yeah. Well, how did you, I mean, it's really hard to start a network. So did you just, number one, were you charging in the beginning, or were you just kind of building up your own little core first? So to be fair, all of this in the beginning, like I throw Christmas parties all over the world, all this stuff was just out of joy and wanting to be around other people because I was lonely as an Amazon seller and I wanted mentorship, I wanted networking. So I kind of built a lot of this for me. I wanted a trip to China where like I actually had proper guidance. So a lot of this came out of like, I'm a seller, what, what would I like, right? In the beginning, I didn't charge for anything. My first China trip, I don't even know if we broke even because I just wanted to go, right? And then, yeah. But little by little, we started to get smarter about all that, which is great. And then actually on my second trip to China, a gentleman named Dan Ashburn, who is my business partner, he came along and he's really the other half of my brain, right? So I'm amazing at like networking and community. He's where that real strategy comes through. And so what we were able to do was take the brilliance of all of these top sellers. These guys are, you know, multi seven, if not eight, even nine figure sellers. And distill that into some strategy with a blueprint that actually is effective. And so in China, he was able to kind of take what I was doing, which was, which was good. And he stepped it up a few levels. And so at that point, I was like, wow, like you're the other half of my brain. And that's where Titan was born. Because it took the community and the trust and the culture and these amazing human beings that I was able to collect over the years. I mean, some of the most brilliant minds meet in entire industry. And then Dan was able to systemize it. And we realized that people needed help from the very beginning of their journey all the way through. And there wasn't really an organization that was helping them depending on what level they were on. And so that's a lot of, you know, what we created in that moment, but that all came from like our own pain points. Like I'll tell you in China, we had this big room full of sellers. And you've got the top sellers and then you've got the babies, right? And the babies needed certain handholding and they had certain questions. And then the big dogs like they really didn't want to talk about like the real basic things. So I think a lot of what happened with all of this, which is part of the journey and learning from my own mistakes of like wishing everyone together, that doesn't work. And then you just separate them kind of like in school, you don't put the high schoolers in with the preschoolers and think it's going to work, right? So like through all these years, I was able to find what worked and what didn't work. And with my little Hollywood background, a little red carpet here, a little fairy desk, voila. That's kind of how it all happened. What are, how are like the top sellers incentivized to be like mentors? I mean, are they just doing because they enjoy helping people or are they compensated? I mean, or is that part of your magic? Yeah. So in the beginning, I mean, what people would come to the trip, right? And I would comp their trip and they would help, but they also would benefit, you know what I mean? Because they would go see their suppliers and they would learn from each other. So a very clear example would be, I had a nine figures seller named Mosch. And he was meeting with Kim Goldzari. And you know, this guy's a genius business man from Brooklyn went just really smart guy. But Kim is much smarter than he is when it comes to specifically sourcing, right? So like he came his mentor, he was helping everyone talk about strategy and team and scaling, which he's an expert in. But my goodness, watching Kim talk to him about how to build a backpack and take it apart and how to make it a pre, I mean, that everyone has their genius. And I think that that something that's so special is figure out what, you know, your geniuses offer that to the world. And if you are now in an environment where other people bring through their genius, that is the power of everything I do. That is trying to magic. That is Titan. And so I think in the beginning, it was definitely like they wanted to be part of that energy. They wanted to impact people. They loved the vibe of what we're doing. Because we finally found each other. I mean, a lot of us are lonely. We're a bunch of quirky, archipinors, you know, working on on our own. And then finding this group of people who are ambitious and fun and want to make, you know, life amazing. It was probably the most magical thing to see and to be a part of. So when we created Titan, what happened? This is hilarious. And I believe how I did this. So all these guys wanted more. They wanted a mastermind. They wanted to connect with each other. So I was like, okay, and I wrote a letter with everything as a seller. I thought people would want. And we distributed it out to the whole crew. And I was like, okay, guys, so, you know, you're going to be my first ones. We don't have it all figured out, but we're going to make it happen. And over 80% of the people in China signed up for Titan. Wow. Because they knew our heart. They knew how good we were at what we did. They knew that we would stay up super late with them, helping them through, understanding their issues. You know, we just, we care. And so that's where Titan was born. And I think because that's where it was born, it kind of continued with the momentum. So then obviously we had to become more structured. My leadership is definitely compensated. In fact, they, they own a part of Titan as well. Because you can't have, you can't have people of that level dedicating this amount of their attention when they've already had themselves, some of them eight figure exits. And so, yes, they're compensated. But when you get to know them, you'll see that they just, they love it. They love our events. They love our masterminds. They love each other, you know, and Andrew, actually one of the gentlemen I want to introduce you to. He's a big fan of yours. I think you helped him get started with his Amazon journey. And now he's a mentor within our group and stuff. So like, it's just amazing to see the podcast that you've done, the book you've written, the events you've created, how much that's impacted people that also want to impact people, that want to impact people. So it's this beautiful circle of life. I call it. You know what I find amazing about your story is that you managed to do all of this without having like a podcast, YouTube channel blog. For me, I like to hide behind a computer because mainly I used to be an engineer. And that's just my personality where you've done this. I want to say all grassroots from just networking, going to events, talking to people. Harder to say. It's weird, right? Yeah. My opinion is a lot harder to do what you've done than what I've done. So I commend you for that. Thank you. We all have our talents right here. We all have our talent. I don't have your brain. That's for sure. So everyone in this network is Amazon sellers, right? So I and you have access to a large number of successful Amazon sellers. What is your view of Amazon today compared to like when you started and what do you think are like the opportunities moving forward in that space? You know, a lot of people talk about brand and they talk about it very surface levels. I mean, you do see the D to C brands coming through on Amazon and crushing it just because they have, you know, that power and that backup of the community that they've built behind them. So I think the days of the need to products are over, you know, it's overly saturated. It's just it's very difficult to compete. So a lot of what we talk about in Titan has to do with creating like a real brand and products, real IP. That's why we also believe in, you know, even if you don't go to China, just like we try to develop our own unique product line. And we like to niche down to really talk to a customer, not try to sell things to everyone, but get really deep. And we've been leveraging AI actually is doing some really geeky stuff on understanding our customer, how they think their language, everything because we need to be differentiated. We have to stand out, you know, and I really think Amazon has like so much potential. Anyone that tells you like, oh, this game is over. They're they're wrong. There's so much potential. There's so many people. There's so much buying power on that platform, but you have to be a pro. You have to approach it as a pro. You can't get $500 worth of product and think that you're going to somehow make a million dollars, like it just doesn't work. You need to be educated on you have to understand your paper click. You have to understand your margins. You have to source like a pro. You have to have good decent products. The days of having a three star product and maintaining a five star rating. That's also over, right? So you actually have to have a good product. Otherwise, you're going to be spending so much money just trying to keep it afloat that it's going to be a mess. So I think I mean, these are just some off the cuff little thoughts, but it's definitely on, you know, understanding your platform, understanding how to play the game and then playing it with, with strength, you know, being aggressive enough. I think another thing that people falter on is they, they might do a light launch, but they don't stay consistent or long enough with the launch. Sometimes they don't have enough product brand ways, so they go out and they do it with a bang. But then it starts, you know, like there's just so many different ways that we've been talking to our guys about. And it also really depends on what level of Amazon you're doing. You know, there's so much to it. I love this. I love this topic, as you can tell. And I'm a big. I mean, for a beginner, what you said sounds kind of intimidating, right? So how do you set expectations? And yeah, what what do you tell them? Someone's brand you want to do this. So we developed a course called Genesis and what we speak about in that course is actually. It's not it's not meant to be intimidating. Let's say you want to sell the kitchen product, right? There's many different types of customers that you could sell to you. You can sell to a college kid who needs a box full of 20 items really cheap because he's starting his first dorm and he needs just everything, right? You could sell bamboo sustainable products to like a very eco, you know, conscious person who wants, you know, beautiful, earthy tones and things like that, right? You could be selling a kitchen product to a guy who's got way too much money to spend at Surla tab and buys things like avocado slicers because he thinks he's a chef at home and he's really not. And he just has extra money to kill and finds things like that to be interesting, right? So what I mean by the days of just throwing the same spatula up and having it, you know, not stand out. It's not that you have to be a huge company. You don't have to have a massive budget. But what you should do is look at the competition and find a product that is something that you can speak to a specific audience using their language and understand where they're at and then make it stand out somehow. You know, that is going to be very helpful and that doesn't have to cost a million dollars. You can still start off with a few thousand dollars, you know what I mean? But you have to know what you're doing and you just can't try to sell like a cell phone case, like don't buy a cell phone case. There's like, you're going to have to compete too hard on that. You need to understand how to select products correctly. But yeah, I didn't mean to scare you and there's so much opportunity. But you just want to be a bit different is all I'm saying. Are there any trends that are worth noting that's happening on Amazon or that you foresee happening on Amazon in like the next couple of years? I mean, blonde nutrition is coming and dominated in the health space, right? So I've seen a lot of things like regarding health. There's certain categories that it just seems that there's a lot of things going on with a lot of influencer marketing. I think that's also a very good topic to understand. There's, I don't think I should speak to the trends particularly. That's more Dan, my business partner that would mash it when it comes to that. But I will say that what I was talking about with brands, you're seeing that more and more on Amazon. You're seeing it be much more brand oriented, even just now. I mean, as of I think this week, they just took off the number of reviews. Have you seen that? If you go on Amazon right now, you no longer are seeing the quantity uncertain categories. It's just showing the star rating, which is exciting news for new sellers because that can give you an opportunity to see. Yeah. I've only seen it in spotty. It's not everywhere because I see the ratings and then certain searches will have no ratings. I don't know exactly what the criteria is for that. This one is a garlic press, just to be funny. This one's a garlic press and it's not showing how many people bought in the last month. It's showing how many stars, but no longer how many reviews, which for a new seller that's incredible opportunity right there. So yeah, just to reiterate, I actually have a guy who started this last year with a single product. He sells a silk pillowcase. That silk pillowcase has done seven figures since the beginning of this year. There are a million pillowcases on Amazon, but what he did is he packaged it perfectly. He speaks to his audience. He knows his keywords. He did it 100% correctly. And the guy nailed it with just one product just in this last year. So Amazon is definitely a huge opportunity. You just need to know what you're doing. So here are my key takeaways from our conversation today. It seems like networking has been like 90% responsible for your success. And what I like, so I have a friend who does this too, I just can never get myself to get the courage to do this. But I have a friend who throws dinners at his place every week and every week he just invites just random people to come. And it sounds like there's something that you did early on to establish that network. And once you start knowing like a core of people, those people introduce you to their network and then it just kind of grows exponentially. Is that essentially what? I mean, that is what I've done and it's something I enjoy. But people don't need to go through the last eight or nine years of me traveling the entire world. To do that, right? Like it's actually really helpful to go to your event, right? Or come to my trips or, you know, be a part of Titan because we've done all that work for them. So yes, if they want a network, they should. If not, go to a meetup. You know, go to a local Amazon meetup, go to events. I think that's really important. You know, doesn't matter where you're at in your business, whether you're starting or you're a very successful seller, go out there meet people. I think that's really helpful. But then I think a lot of it is also, I want to inspire people to take that risk. I want to inspire people to move with their business and to realize that they do have talent and they have worth, right? I'm not techy. I don't have your brain. I wish I did. I don't, right? I don't have your networking. Right. We all have host goals. When it really comes down to it, we're stronger together as a community. And if you can learn from people who are 10 steps ahead of you, you don't need to make the mistakes that we all need. Right. So if you're just starting on Amazon, you can learn from all of us that has spent years and hundreds of thousands of dollars on testing things and trying things. And so the opportunity for a new person now who have people in their life that they can follow and they can sort of learn from, that's going to speed up their progress. Right. And I think one other thing that I really like to talk to people about is, you know, the most money you'll ever lose in life is the money that you never made. The most, you know, experiences that you won't experience because you didn't have the guts to go out there and do those things. I meet too many people that are stuck in their jobs. They're doing nine to five. They're not happy with it. When are you going to stop? Like, when are you going to change that? Are you going to wait until your retirement age to start living your life? And I think that that's really my passion behind Amazon is not, I mean, of course, I love the platform. I love the game. I love, you know, developing products and things like that. But what it really gave me was my freedom. And it gave me the chance that I was able to, I remember that day that I quit my job. And the next morning, I actually kept my son home from school because I had to because it was a moment. And I made him pancakes and I took him to the zoo. And it felt amazing, you know, and then I remember that next time that he was meant to be on spring vacation, I didn't have to find a sitter. I was able to actually be home with him or take him to the park. You know, these are not Lamborghini's and mansions. And a lot of the people that you see promoting entrepreneurship and all that are like, you know, get a Lambo. Let it get a Lambo. I don't care about Lambo. I care about the fact that when my grandma was sick, I was able to drop everything and go to her. You know, I care about the fact that I'm taking my entire family, including my parents to Hawaii. And my kids are going to remember that for the rest of their lives. Right. So it's like, for me, Amazon is a freedom, financially, time and location wise, that I don't know any other platform that you can do that with in this way. That can translate into the quality of your life. And that, to me, is where I'm so passionate and everything I do, it really kind of leads to that. And hoping I can inspire even just one person to just live. Well said, Athena, where can people find more about China Magic and the Titan Network? So ChinaMagicTrip.com, TitanNetwork.com. And you can always find me on any platform, Instagram, Facebook, AthenaCivari at gmail.com is my personal email. And I'm very open if people, you know, want to connect with me. I have a lot of women in my network. We're about 35% women. We have our own little chats. We've been through everything. You know, people who've lost their husbands, people who've, you know, got married, given birth, like we're in this journey together as a community. And it's such an honor, Steve, like when I say that it's an honor to have met you and to be on this podcast, it really is because you are a leader. You've inspired so many people to quit their jobs and to live their life. And so I really appreciate what you do for this industry. And, you know, if anyone can add for benefit from any of the things that I do, I'm here for them. Thank you so much for coming on the show with, you know, I appreciate you. I appreciate you. Okay, thank you. And, yeah. Hope you enjoyed that episode. And if you guys ever want to visit the Canton Fair in a tour group, go check out ChinaMagic. For more information about this episode, go to mywebquitterjob.com slash episode 505. And once again, tickets to the seller summit 2024 are now on sale over at sellersummit.com. If you want to hang out in person in a small intimate setting, develop real relationships with like-minded entrepreneurs and learn a ton, then come to my event. Go to sellersummit.com. And if you are interested in starting your own e-commerce store, head on over to mywebquitterjob.com and sign up for my free six day mini course. Just type in your email and ascending the course right away. Thanks for listening.