We caught up with the brilliant and insightful JOSHUA BANNER a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
JOSHUA, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you recount a story of an unexpected problem you’ve faced along the way?
Entrepreneurship is never a smooth road. One of the biggest struggles I had to tackle in my first e-commerce business was the breakdown of the relationship with my business associate and friend, while simultaneously moving to another city.
After years of successfully working together and growing my business, my friend and associate began consistently missing deadlines and performing poorly. Soon enough, he was no longer responding to work emails in a timely manner either and the accounting work fell behind leading to payroll issues. Other staff had to step in to solve the problems (myself included) and eventually we returned to a point of stasis for several months in a row after creating a performance improvement plan for him that included financial incentives,
However, after wrapping up a busy and successful holiday sales season, I received an email in the middle of the night from him:
“As of this moment I quit and will not do anymore work.” –No warning, no notice, and the $8000 he owed to the company, unpaid.
Shocked and stressed, I reached out to my girlfriend, now my wife, and told her what had happened. Equally dismayed, she said: “what does mean about our plans to move?” Sadly, we both knew the answer, that our plans to move had just been de-railed and I had to spring into emergency management mode for the company.
After 6 months of hyper-retooling, hiring, restructuring, and moving to another city, the business went live again with a leaner, more efficient, and higher profit model that continued to succeed for years to come. Sadly, the friendship was never repaired but there are no grudges. Business with friends can be a tough road.
JOSHUA, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
After leaving medical school and completing my MBA in 2012, I founded my first business, a hyper-lean, entirely remote e-commerce operation. By 2016 we had grown to become a top 1000 Amazon store, grossing over $3,000,000/year and operating within in the top 1% of sellers. From the get-go the entire operation was designed with a hallmark lesson of my MBA in mind: efficiency in entrepreneurship. Every process and team was built from the ground up with efficiency in mind and every team member was 100% remote from the start.
The lessons learned and experience I acquired in tackling the wild west of e-commerce, led me to found my newest venture: Cultivate Profit. Utilizing 10 years of remote operations experience, and a creative, data-driven approach with a proven track record of customer acquisition and profit, Cultivate Profit helps small to medium sized online startups tackle the first major hurdles to scaling operations, optimizing processes and growing teams to drive revenue growth and increase profits.
How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.
Mainly we focus on marketplaces like Amazon and eBay as they allow quick scaling and have a built in audience.
Pros:
-They bring the buyers to you
-Quick scaling
-They provide warehousing, labeling, shipment, and customer service for you
Cons:
-They control refund and return policies
-Marketplace customer service is very buyer centric not seller centric
-Fees can be high and reduce profit margins
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
As a result of the COVID pandemic, the subsequent supply chain disruptions, and inventory control issues that came with it, in 2021 I pivoted from being an Amazon seller to launching the premier Amazon consulting firm: Cultivate Profit.
With over a decade of start-up experience and a focus on e-commerce, Cultivate Profit has helped generate millions of dollars in revenue for its clients. Through our creative, data-driven approach and proven track record of customer acquisition, Cultivate Profit helps small to medium sized online startups tackle the first major hurdles to scaling operations, optimizing processes and growing teams to drive revenue growth and increase profits.
Whether you are a new startup or a more established company looking to regain profit margins, drive scale, or strengthen supply chains, our clients hire us as an extension of their executive team. Industry agnostic, we’ve delivered countless value to firms with goods or services online by optimizing processes, building efficient teams, delivering top-notch marketing content, harnessing data analytics and much more.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.cultivateprofit.com/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-banner-mba-ab5100222/