We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Noah Wickham a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Noah, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Looking back at the decisions you made early in your career, particularly whether to join a firm or start your own, do you feel you made the right choice for that stage of your career?

I have both started my own agency and worked for others. Starting my own really came from just realizing I was expanded to areas beyond my own ability, especially with design. This happens when you are really good in certain areas, and clients would rather work with you than anywhere else.

Starting out on my own, was just consulting on different projects with companies. This slowly lead into me have a few clients I was working with regularly and managing the day to day of their eCommerce brands. Over time they asked me to do more for them, and especially tasks that started to go outside of my skillset, such as creative work. This is when I knew it would be time to start my own small agency. At the peak of this, I was working with 15-20 clients at any given time with a few employees. Dealing with client issues seemed tedious, but I enjoyed the ability to grow something from nothing.

I eventually got asked to join a new start up agency. Hindsight, I believe this was the wrong move at the time, but it gave me a lot of really helpful insight. This further grew my understanding of different areas of business that even my own hadn’t been handling.

When I joined my current agency, MyAmazonGuy, I came is as a Brand Director. I had been working for that previous agency that went under and had the choice of coming here or restarting my journey of my own agency. I eventually came here and could not be happier with the decision.

I was told within my first two weeks that outside hires rarely work out for this role. A year later, I have not only stayed around, but been able to foster growth in myself, the business, and the people around me. My role has changed from Brand Director to Sales Director on the executive team. My true goal is be as versatile and malleable as possible in situations so to always have an open mind.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I started out in eCommerce over a decade ago with how many people have; reselling items on eBay. I was reselling lots of items like trading cards, electronics, items from goodwill, etc.

This eventually lead into me starting my own shopify store(s) and even my own brands on the platform. I self taught through practice and YouTube how to do advertising, product research, and find different items to sell. In the middle of this, I had opened up a small social media advertising business on the side. I used this to gain connections in my local community and help build up other businesses.

Eventually, my eyes got set on to Amazon with one of my shopify brands. This was the moment that things changed as I quickly realized the potential when my product sold out in the first week and a half. As my brand grew, it dawned on me “I could help other people do this too.” Thus I opened up an account on a freelance site, Upwork. While on Upwork, I worked with dozens of different brands helping them grow, all while still scaling my own brand. I eventually landed a contract consulting gig for a wholesale business doing $50m online annually.

I ultimately made a difficult decision to sell my own brand and go full in on the consulting side of things. As I worked with more businesses, they eventually started asking for more services. This lead me to start to hire some people of my own to help and outsource some of the work as well. This first agency of my was called Idle Shopper and focused on consulting, strategic development, and technology approaches.

As time went on, the agency didn’t grow by much, but I was eventually approached to join a new start up agency that had huge potential at the time. I was to lead the Amazon division for this agency. I was hesitant at first, but decided to take them up on the offer and downsize my own business.

The agency flourished in the first year, but ultimately failed in year two after some poor business decision made by the owners of the company. At this point I was at a crossroads, but someone from MyAmazonGuy reached out offering me a role as a Brand Director. I now had the decision to either; restart my agency, start a new brand(i had already been working on this), or join MyAmazonGuy.

Joining MAG, I did not expect to stay for as long as I have, but am currently planning now to stay for a long time. I have had the pleasure of growing the business, being on the executive team, and fostering a positive work culture.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I consider myself a jack of all trades and master of none when it comes to eCommerce. There are many people in the eCom world who really hone in their skill set to one specific area. Instead, I like learning everything and being exceptionally good at them.

A big part of what helps me stand out is that you can ask me anything from a logistics issue to advertising and everything in between, and I can likely get you an answer.

Having both run a business, owned a brand, worked for companies, and worked for agencies – I have seen it all.

Mix this with my ability to fit within most social encounters and willingness to try to new avenues. This has led to me fostering a level of knowledge that others seek out.

It also helps that I post daily content, information, and do weekly live Q&A’s as well.

Any advice for managing a team?

My management style has always slightly differed than many others. I am an extremely high drive and sociable person, but my management style focuses on people who are able to work without much input.

If you have to micromanage an employee, either you are a bad boss or they are a bad employee. People should be able to take a task and run with it, communicate different aspects of the project, and ask questions as needed.

The number one thing I focus on with my teams and with anyone I work with is communication. Without proper communication back and forth, you are likely to get a lot of
– missed deadlines
– crossed wires
– bad data
-unhelpful projects

Always focus on building your team up and communication expectations clearly.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.myamazonguy.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noahwickham/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MyAmazonGuy

Image Credits

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