Monetizing Your Mental Capital Podcast with Daniel Tejada

Monetizing Your Mental Capital - Seller Labs Podcast

Summary

Daniel, an early Amazon seller, shares his journey from starting an e-commerce agency just before the COVID-19 pandemic to building a $10 million business. He discusses the challenges and risks he faced in the initial months and how he eventually found success.

Highlights

Early Amazon Seller: Daniel began selling on Amazon in 2017 and was an early user of Seller Labs. He launched his agency just before the pandemic, facing significant risks and uncertainties.

Impressive Growth: Despite initial struggles, his agency is now on a $10 million run rate with 38 employees.

Pandemic Impact: The pandemic drastically shifted consumer behavior, accelerating e-commerce growth.

Monetizing Mental Capital:: Daniel experienced moments of doubt but maintained a positive outlook, leading to eventual success. He emphasizes the importance of leveraging personal skills and social capital in business

Transcript

all right welcome to this episode of monetizing your mental Capital I'm your host will Christensen and this is sponsored by seller Labs the number one tool for early sellers to just get involved and Daniel is no exception to this Daniel you were an early seller using seller Labs right oh yeah it was literally the first Amazon tool I ever used back in I think 2017 first p tool that that existed too which was cool so we're we're we're pretty good at those early Amazon sellers that's why we'rehere Daniel I'm excited about this our our listeners already know the gauntlet I'm about to put you through in terms of you know tough questions why would a what an Amazon Seller or an e-commerce seller who's looking to monetize their mental Capital be interested in hearing from you that's a great question look I've sold over3 billion dollars worth of product on Amazon I started an agency a month before covid and now we have 38 employees you know we're on a $10 million track right now in terms of ofrun rate and so you know Bezos per Bezos that's all I have to say when it comes to uh to Amazon here I love that I think my favorite part about your entire story there is let me know would you would you give me a heads up when you go to invest in some big stock because your timing on on choosing like I'm going to start an e-commerce agency one month before the world has a literal pandemic that forces everyone inside and puts everyone's e-commerce operations to the test because we're now like now my80-year-old grandma is is buying crap online and she did before but now she's really buying it online because she can't go to the grocery store anymore so like well done on that timing sir yeah now I am a very high-risk High reward person and it it seems to have worked out look at my crypto portfolio it's it's the same thing I okay wait so hold on let's look at that risk for just a second you said one month before Co like 2020 we all remember 2020 if you ever read the New York Times Like year in review stuff orthe Wall Street Journal I can't even remember who does it now anyway I was reading one of those year in reviews and the the guy goes to all other years because the way he he does it he he actually addresses the year like as if it's a person to all other years we have ever complained about that we have ever discouraged or disparaged we apologize to you 2020 has shown us an entirely new level of low and we apologize for making you feel that you were anything less than amazing because 2020 has shown usand like then it then it goes on to show the insanity that was 2020 so it's burned into all of our memories so I got know what month did you actually start this Venture oh I quit my job officially at the last month of January or the end of January and then we started in February and I remember even that's when like it it was hitting the news that China was having some it was a cold right it was a cold back then was having a a a a a cold going on and lots of people were getting sick my grandma she comes to me and she says will this isgoing to spread and we got to get our crap in order and and and go like buy all the toilet paper like we it was like it was like this and and then like I was like Grandma that's not g to happen and then a month and a half later we were quarantined and she was like hold yourself see yeah so that happened so February I'm feeling really good that was the first conference me and my business partner I think we're gonna go to uh Prosper or something like that and he got cancelled yeah it was it yeah yeah it totally got I was going to speakthat year it totally just got right right on the on the on the money yep so that was when you know the day was that was like it's gonna it's gonna close it's not gonna close it's gonna close it's not gonna close like it wasn't until the week before that they were like dang it we're gonna have to cancel this yeah no it was the week up it was literally like a couple days before the event I remember because and then that's when the Panic started to set in a little bit you know I try to be apositive person I think that's something that helps me a lot from an entrepreneurial standpoint but there was days where I'm sweating need to sit in that seat with you for a second like you're you quit were you making six figures when you quit oh my gosh qu your six figure job you quit your sixf figure job J end of January like I am starting an agency for e-commerce businesses I'm On Top Of The World hey like like you're going in and and then like the world starts to turn upside down slowly and bythe mid the craziest thing is how fast that was 45 days and we were in total lockdown quarantine like essal only on Amazon even like we couldn't even sell non essentials so that cut out 80% of the sellers on Amazon I couldn't even like reach out or I I was talking to but it was like a well when your sales open up let's talk about it right inventory limits you know was like a perfect storm of everything that could possibly happen hit well and in this adversity I mean so I got to ask you're getting into themiddle of that panic mode of like what the shiz did I just do like how much did I because you probably put some away to like figure out okay if if I'm going to start this business you put some away before you did that but you're looking at your reserves like uh oh oh no it was getting dwindling dwindling dwindling before we landed our first client I remember that okay so so wait when did you land your first client our first client was during the summer I want to say you oh my gosh dude Daniel this isunreal so literally like March you're peeing your pants because you haven't landed a client yet you have you have four more months before you're gonna land a client and and oh my gosh so what I got to know is in that moment of University when you were like I'm going to monetize my mental capital I get why you jumped out of the brid like we're going to talk about that for a second because like you you you literally had the entrepreneurial seizure of like I'm gonna quit this and go go go do thisthing holy crap so so you're sitting there in that moment when you're in that moment of adversity did you stop and think this is going to be okay because now everybody's buying online or was it was it too dark to con would say it was it was too dark at the time I think what what did kick off is once we started closing deals we closed a lot very quickly right so a flood did hit and that was the overwhelming Sensation that definitely made me feel like this entire time was worth it but there was some I'dsay even like dark times during the the you know five months where I'm like one you start the doubt hits right and it's like should I have done this right am I even capable right and it was self-doubt where it's like I never had that self-doubt up until the point where like the time made it where I literally just couldn't play client right because because of Co physically right but I did doubt myself personally for a little bit oh my gosh I I can't even right now like like the just hearing youdescribe like I remember how hard it was for me and I was in the middle of a business and and it co hit we were okay like they came out with all the relief stuff and and we applied for a lot of and got like got so figured out I was running data automation which is a a boutique automation Service as a as a service and they they do all sorts of like tracking information and and inventory information syncing back and forth between different systems things zappier but more complicated I looked at it and eventually I think it was likeApril or May I was like wait a minute the e-commerce sellers because there were a couple of guys like some of my clients because I had I had a view into several different e-commerce businesses some of them went through the freaking roof like I got guy guess what he sells you ready for this he sells these yeah yeah that guy so so for those of you that are listening I'm holding up a pair of Jabra evolve 75 a headset this thing is the most amazing like I'll endorse it till my dying day I've got I I I owncurrently like five pairs of it because I buy a new one every year it's like a $380 headset but it's worth it dang good headset Rolando roses from Global Tech sells it and he his business like best month he'd ever had was was March of 2020 and I don't know if he's actually beat that even to this day because all of the sudden everyone was working from home and everyone needed to drown out the three-year-old and everyone need like like the need for a noise cancelling headset that you could soundprofessional on anywhere through the roof that homecook like any like people selling pots pants like there's all sorts of little categories that all of a anything associated with dogs like that nobody could travel anywhere so everybody went and got a dog like there are so many weird things that happened in that in that three-month period so so I remember mid April thinking oh we're going to be okay because we just need to focus on the people who are exploding and we'll be okay I remember like I didn't have three months of darkness todeal with or four months of dark how did you deal with that so I will say I have been entrepreneurial my whole life and I've always had like like I sold makeup door to door after college right I got a full ride to college went to pepperine thought I'd be good to go like you know I'm a smart kid okay hold on hold on when's the first time you can remember monetizing mental Capital back earlier than that like lemonade STS my my daughter sells Charisma on the corner she puts some Charisma and lemonadewatery lemonade in a bottle and then she sells it for for 20 bucks a piece I've seen her swell I've seen her sell a freaking cup of watery lemonade for 20 bucks and I'm like kid this is gonna be dangerous so if I really break it down I did three high schools in a year and a half so I was in New York then we moved to where I switched like from private school to public school for one semester okay and we moved to Arizona for one semester and then I moved to Santa Monica for for the rest of high schoolso I did three school was in a year and a half and I remember like not wanting to eat lunch alone like that was something that I did not [Music] like I think honestly if I'm thinking about it that was probably my first mental Capital where I wasn't selling a product I was selling myself right and I had to figure out how to be how to like make friends like honestly quickly get people to like me quickly dude I that's interesting yeah I thought about this a lot I ended up I left Sam as a transfer I was the homecoming King vice presidentof the school so I figured it out right and you were you were only there for one year I was there for two years or or two and a half but still it was kids and Santa Monica is an interesting place to grow out right it's a it's a cool town so it was I figure out how to be cool right but that was my first mental capital I had to figure out how to be cool I had to go sell my own personality my own and honestly that actually translates really so right now one of the things that I found is the guys who can figure out how to maintainsome of that like how I present myself present myself as someone who wants to be followed present myself as somebody who like you want to associate with me because I put myself out there in this way like that's that's a core skill so I think it's interesting that you identified that as your first time in monetizing Social in mental Capital that turn social like like that's like transferring you transferred mental Capital into Social Capital there and walked away very rich from a standpoint your Social Capital the interesting isthat Social Capital will eventually help me to actually monetize real fysical Capital as well right okay all right all right so so walk me down so where do where do you where did you go from there where you got all the social capital homecoming King then what I always knew like okay I wanna I want to run something at some point in time right but I moved to San Diego I'm selling makeup door to door right no company would even like respond to my job resumes because I didn't have digital marketing on my like an internship oranything right so I knew at one point like my when I moved here my path kind of got laid where I was like I need to get into digital because that's where I see every job posting is about digital marketing so now I want to be a digital marketer right I get a job at shitty shitty SEO company I get paid 1475 an hour but I know that this what year is this 2016 right so I'm a year out of schoolish and I know like everybody at that first company playing all the time right it's like oh the management like the wholepiece my thing is I'm like I am not here for this company I am here SK that I need I need a year of this company so that I can then go work somewhere else exactly right so I went I did that when I got that first job she's like oh you can get promoted like somebody just did it after a year and a half after four months the job opened up I applied I'm like why can't I do this you know pieace or whatever got that promotion and then now I had the title I needed to like re like get into an actual spot I couldlearn something right because I was learning a little bit but not as much as I needed to that's amazing my I I actually quit a sales job selling media I was selling newspaper advertising this is 200 so I graduated in 2010 went and tried to do the media thing did not work I actually I got the job three months later got fired from the job realized I did not want anything to do with sales went to go and same thing everything was digital marketing I could tell it was obvious the newspaper dying SL dead it'sall about digital and so I went to this digital advertising company that was looking for free interns and I was like I'm I'm ready to work for free and they're like you have a degree and I was like I know and and they were like are you sure you want I was like yes I'm sure and I was like no I will not sell okay cool and so I went in there and that's how I got my first job I turned mental Capital into social capital and then they ended up hiring me and we we went on the journey but so very similarto you like I just need ear my stripes you chase the learning right like not the money and that's the thing I tell especially young younger folks or like early days like how do you get here like like you'll always have a chance to make more money right especially once you have the skill set and the learnings right people can't take that away from you but once you're an expert and you're invaluable it's a lot easier to make money how like whether that's working in house for somebody whether that'sstarting your own thing there's a lot more flexibility that becomes once you're I call domain expertise right you're domain expert come at me baby let's go let's go let's go okay so you began to monetize that Social Capital by by Landing that job by getting some of these pieces stuff set up so then what happened so then like quiver University started so there was a job called or a company called quiver they're one of the first big authorized sellers right so oh okay yeah yeah yeah so I went in there Ididn't even know what Amazon was Amazon only had the sidebar advertising like that gross if you're OG enough you know what I'm talking about 5cent CPC thing I went into this Amazon job interview Clover and I actually had a job offer for double the amount of money like traditional advertising right but I went into this interview because I liked the way the the job description was written then I met with Ryan M the guy mark back in the day and they were like do you want to be one of the first people to doAmazon ads and I was like interesting didn't know that was a thing they had me watch like one video of some seller who was talking about how he did you know a million dollars out of his garage and like this guy looked like he didn't know anything and I literally I'm like yep that's it like if that guy I want to do that if that guy can make a million dollars out of his garage I am G to smoke him yep and so it was funny because early days of Amazon like I had a chance to go like account manager route which was at the time likemore operations I'd say like Amazon focus which was huge nobody knew how to set up listing or do anything back in the day right uh I stuck on the advertising path because they only did 550 million in ad the first year that I start right but I saw the writing on the wall and I'm like this is not going to be the case so I'm going to get as good as I possibly can at advertising so that when this is a $70 billion year business I'm the best you know I'm somebody that knows this way better than everybodyelse and so I just experimented my boss after three weeks literally said you can stop asking me questions you already know more than I do at this point like just go and like that's how I knew about you guys or seller Labs back in the day I was just content hungry like anybody that put any you already know more than I do that's like kind of terrifying it was scary it was the best thing he could have done for me because it he let me lose right he let me like gave me the autonomy I had a decent butd it was$30,000 a month in spend I had which doesn't seem like that much but cpcs were five cents a click so 30k was like having like you know 300 $400,000 in spend uh with no competition and like like I I figured out how to rank a product spending $300 I made it the number one product of the beauty cast category and I lost my mind I'm like no way I could do this like this is crazy now to try to do that would cost you thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars to test because cbcs are so expensive right and you don't know thatit's going to work and you have somebody to report into so yeah it was cool and then basically from there I remember after like four months I used to go on these walks because like everybody else was older and I was 21 like during lunch and one day I remember thinking to myself like this is it this is the business that will like like this is the industry that will tie in my skill sets into actually being able to make money right and so from there it's like most of what I was doing was just a path that I laid out right like I'm likeokay my goal here is to sharpen management skill sets right So eventually wanted to build a team actually brought my brother in from La I was like move to San Diego I don't even have a job for you but like we're going to need to know how to do this together later at some point in life and that was he's my uh my VP Ops and just smacks smacks around so it's good long okay so many questions as you as it becomes more apparent that this is going to to to like it's not only going to work but it's going to take off you'renow at 38 employees let's just touch briefly on that when you so so one of my favorite things and least favorite things about an agency is it doesn't scale on technology it scales on people and most so so I have found that many different mental Capital tools so SAS companies yeah they scale a lot more on technology info products yeah they they they scale on you know your distribution Channel and and how good the copy is and or good good good the content is but but service-based businesses vast majority scale on peopleand and I found I don't know about you but like if you're building a tower you know think back to when you were five and you were choosing which blocks to use people are like the oddest shaped block that you could like if you're if you're like oh technology this is a square block right oh info product this is a rectangle block right like no problem and then they were like okay now we want you to scale an agency and this is actually a sphere would you could you could you stack those for me oh my goshit was so hard so so you have two people you're diving in when did you decide uhoh we probably need another person here and how's this going to work yeah so it's a great question so obviously we went to no clients then they did our first they did a second like a week or two later right and so we had a say once we hit we started to grow quickly but reasonably from a pace perspective so I knew my first ad hire I wanted to make already was somebody i' had been working with for eight years right since myfirst went with me from my first company to my next company to this one right um so I knew he was going to come I knew my brother was going to come at some point there too but I started with like an intern and one thing that I was fortunate about enough during my pre before I started the company was I did take roles where I like train people up that were brand new had never touched Amazon in their life um and taught them to be experts at Amazon right so I knew that there was a training process or scaling process needed to be createdthere but I will say it's tough right we've been in business for four years we scaled really quick we hired probably a little too slow initially right uh got a lot of cash in lot of profitability coming in you're feeling great one of the issues that I personally had is that I'm really good at sales but I'm also really good at execution and so I was doing both right there was so we were founder I was a Founder Le like super stuck and everything for for a little while and then yeah there's that moment whereyou're like okay like you you literally cannot grow because there's not enough hours in the day if it's just me right like there so I need to scale the ability for the team to scale itself right was kind of the biggest thing so our second year we got very aggressive I hired like 15 people that year and so my idea was to basically get a critical mass of or or really by hiring enough people we could train everybody at the same time right um and so PE even people that are experienced sug has its ownsort of unique methodology that we leverage so I have to retrain people as well right so there's definitely like a like year two margin wise sucks absolutely horrible garbage right like but I made that investment knowing future growth was coming right so I'd rather take the hit on the short term now while we have cash flow coming in so that I have the team that's built for when I'm ready to release SC right and so year two was super fun ugly like we grew a lot but like I didn't pay myself for I knowmaybe eight months that year right like my Chris crypto naseg definitely helped you know support it but but now it's all worked out right like I call myself the chief learning officer for a reason right it's because my intention is to create an environment where our employees are really using our clients to train in more of it to get better right the other thing like I do a lot like I do a lot of like I know inspirational type stuff with the with the team like I have a meeting every other week and like my biggoal for them is to understand like this is not like sug is not their story right it's a chapter of their book right and we get to take part of their time but my goal is to if if an employee is here they should grow they should end up at a better position than when they started than when they started and I think that's why we've been sticky you know we've been able to you mentioned the Spheres like employees are like spheres right it's not always so black and white and so simple right and theother thing I think is important to think about they don't think the same way as you right you you are your own person you have your own goals and perspective and that was an important question for me too right because there's a point where I'm like oh everyone is want and see pick I want right but it's funny Daniel you you mentioned that like that's so so I have to mention this briefly because this is one of the things that I love doing I I actually as a as an entrepreneur I tried to clonemyself multiple times first by hiring seven different vas had to fire all of them cuz no one none of them thought like me I brought on this amazing more of a personal assistant through an agency and she was fantastic I promoted her to be the GM it didn't work out like there was too much stress there wasn't enough structure I hadn't created a great environment for her that didn't work out so I lost not only my PA but also her you know the the GM i' I'd been through this journey of trying to clonemyself so many times I couldn't see straight and I finally that's what I do now I I do an entrepreneurs Apprentice program where I've actually figured out how to find young entrepreneurial Talent who do think like me and I pair them together with solo PES and they like go off into the sunset because you're right like the average employee does not think like you it's amazing how different their mentality is yeah and I think the thing that you mentioned that's awesome it's like everybody has their strengthshow do you put the strengths together right that's really when I think of an agency and like you know this vental vental Capital piece I gain more vental capit by taking parts of my business and scaling them with other folks right one mistake that I see a lot of folks do especially like running their own business they want to do everything right it's like I want to do my own accounting and you know I want to like do these things and it's like yeah maybe you save a couple dollars on whatever like okay I've accounted I pay this muchbut what does that what is that worth what is your mental time wor right when you're working on something that you're not good at it's not something that like you know like you have to struggle to push through this piece like ultimately you should focus your time on the areas that like really flow right and you're strong at and you get really you know where you're where you're strong it allows other folks to take over those those weak parts for you right but I think that's huge like it's not weak tonot do everything right it's actually stronger to know where you should focus your efforts um that's going to benefit you a lot more in the long run I I love it okay so next question I like to ask at imagine that you could go back in time and you could talk to you and and we're going to go back to like the kid who just did the homecoming thing he just did the social capital thing he's the homecoming King we're also going to assume that he's mature enough to accept any advice you give him and he'llactually take it to heart so if you could make that phone call if I handed you a cell phone that could that could call that guy and tell him something that might help him monetize his mental Capital more quickly what' you tell him I would say concentrate on the learning I know back in the day when I was at that stage of my life I like I wanted to make six figures so bad that was it right I was like I need to make six figures that's you know I was concentrating on this 100,000 I didn't think about the path to get there once Ifigured out the path to get there that $100,000 was actually like a really small Target for what I want it right so I think that's the advice like because it almost blocks you sometimes from making the right decisions or doing the right actions because you're so overwhelmed with this end goal sometimes I think yeah like concentrate on the path to get there would have been my my advice to myself you know like I didn't chips when I was in college like if I knew I was going to do Amazon I would have g into like a digital thing rightor those sort of things well I think internships and like focusing Young on getting out there in the world like seeing what's going on outside of school seeing what's going on outside you know what are the trends what are the pieces experiencing them so that you know what you like I think pushing yourself to so so some of the youngest people most successful young people I've ever met are the ones who have either been invited by their parents or have gone themselves and had to face some of these different challenges so like I'm tryingto push my daughter like this like crazy we even did alone like she actually wanted to make some chapstick and sell it and so like we wrote out on a piece of paper the terms of the loan and she had to put her camera she has like a Polaroid camera down as collateral and I was like if you don't pay back the loan then you can earn it back and we gave her some chores that she could do to earn back that what's there but if you don't do the chores then I get your camera to cover this cover this thing and she was like whatdo you mean you get my camera and I was like I need collateral I'm not loaning you money without collateral and she would like so she's like nine so F I love that you did that dude well it it's I'm trying to think through like how can I push her to do that so I think we all have to challenge ourselves our younger selves those around us that are younger to get out there and experience no I would agree with that so how things roll my first job at of college in San Diego because no one would hire me I I didlike a I was in a multi-level marketing thing and I was selling makeup door to door like wearing a suit or whatever and I always talk about that with my team because while it was a silly job my job was to get 300 NOS a day right like that's what they would say so if you get 300 no a day you'll get your five yeses and so even though it was like you know hard it's embarrassing it's awkward when you walk out and do that like it did teach me a lot in the sense of like nothing bad is going to happen to youwhen you do sales you know the worst thing that somebody says is no or whatever and you're like cool smile walk away go to the next person you make your sales and so I find those kind of exper I think getting early experiences on those kind of things are are helpful for sure so I mean on the aspect of 300 NOS a day I have done so much cold calling I have done so much so I actually served a two-year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ the Latter Day Saints so you definitely got yeah you got some of those we got no we got told no thousandsand thousands of times because we were stopping people on the street right and left inviting them to hear more about the message and and and get in there man did we learn how how to receive some of those notes and it's actually funny because Summer sales like uh technology companies like the guys who are selling security systems or Pest Control they have major epicenters here in Utah because there are so many people who used sense yeah they're bill they know yeah they've got they've got someso if you're ever looking for like kick trash salesman and he says oh yeah I served a two-year Mission you know out preaching the gospel that guy knows how to sell because he's he's had to he's had to deal with that rejection I love that I love that okay final questions for the episode one you're going to step into an elevator in your mind with a guy and the guy next to you says I'm an Amazon Seller do eight figures on Amazon what do you do so you got 60 seconds to tell him about whatever you want to tellhim about okay and then right after that you're going to share with me any tips tricks hacks or books you've come across in the last year that have helped you monetize your mental Capital so first we're going to do the 60c pitch and then after that want to hear any tips tricks hacks or books you've come ACR across in the last year that have helped you monetize your mental Capital cool okay so 60-second elevator pitch run an agency called straightup growth we help Brands to grow on Amazon we'll do overclose to a billion dollars this year on the Amazon platform with the brands that we work with we leverage data analytics technology and forecasting abilities to create what we call predictable growth so for us we don't have a one-size pixel solution we basically create a custom tailored piece based on the goals that you want right we're also not just I'd say executors right we really come out from a strategic standpoint so what to sell when to sell it which item should be your top sellers what kind of kpishould you hit and when you need to get more money from your board we're the guys that actually go ahead and do those things for you guys yeah that's been a little pitchy I like it I like it I like it you're about out of time there so jump into mental capital sental capital so so tips tricks hacks are books you've come across in the last year that have helped you monetize your mental Capital so Rental Capital if there are skills that are anything that's a repeatable task that doesn't require your brainpower try to offload it uh there because it's not worth it for you I also like to say take a step back from things from time to time right when you are too tired or too overworked or too stressed and somebody who done 14 hour days that gets nothing think you are less efficient right and you actually don't get as many ideas that come through and I think that's one of the the magic pieces of mental capital is like that ability to improve and that doesn't happen if you don't have anything leftin the tank right um otherwise you're going to be doing the same thing but really the growth comes from Innovation and Innovation only have comes when you have the time or the energy to innovate love it any books you'd recommend honestly I have not read anything in a little bit here I am a podcast guy more than anything else there's a podcast I've been listening to from the Snapchat Mafia that I'm like obsessed with I got to figure out the day taking inventory I really really like it taking inventory from theSnapchat Mafia Snapchat Mafia love it love it Daniel thank you so much for joining us on this episode of monetizing your mental Capital it was a pleasure really fun time