Kristen 0:00
How would it feel to add a new income stream to your business that generates income while you sleep, doesn’t demand your constant attention, and actually fits around your life instead of consuming it? It might sound too good to be true, but it’s not. Today I am talking with Kathleen Kobel about a business model that does exactly that, and it is something you’re probably already a little familiar with, and you can easily add it as a way to diversify your income without sacrificing the main thing that you do in your business.
Kristen 0:34
Kathleen is an expert in e-commerce and specifically the Amazon influencer program. Now, if you just heard the word influencer and you are thinking, nope, I’m out, then stick around, because that is not what this is at all. If anything, this program is the opposite of influencer marketing, because it lets Amazon do the marketing for you, which is why I was so excited when I first learned about this from Kathleen a little over a year ago. She has helped launch and grow over 1000 brands on Amazon for multi million dollar companies, and now she teaches entrepreneurs and content creators like us how to build profitable, sustainable income streams.
Kristen 1:17
She’s the author of the new book The unconventional business model and creator of the influence and earn program. If you thought the only way to make affiliate income on Amazon was posting links in your blog posts or sharing them on social media, then you are about to learn a completely different approach that lets Amazon do the heavy lifting for you.
Kristen 1:40
Are you a digital product or course creator, selling on platforms like Teachers Pay Teachers, Etsy, or your own website? Ready to grow your business, but not into the kind of constant hustle that leads straight to burnout? Then you’re in the right place. Welcome to The Savvy Seller. I’m Kristen Doyle, and I’m here to give you no-fluff tools and strategies that move the needle for your business without burning you out in the process—things like SEO, no stress marketing, email list building, automations and so much more. Let’s get started, y’all.
Kristen 2:20
Hi, Kathleen, welcome.
Kathleen 2:22
Hi Kristen. Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to chat with you today.
Speaker 1 2:26
Me too. It’s been a while since we’ve caught up, and since then, you’ve written a book.
Kathleen 2:33
I have.
Kristen 2:33
Congratulations.
Kathleen 2:35
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I’m very excited to talk about the book, it’s definitely a labor of love, but I’ve gotten some good feedback. People say it’s very inspirational and motivational. So I’m happy to talk about it and let your listeners know more about it.
Kristen 2:51
Such a big accomplishment. I just am so impressed with people who can write a whole entire book about anything. So your book is called The Unconventional Business Model, and it’s all about kind of challenging the traditional ways that we go out and make money in the world. What was your inspiration for writing it?
Kathleen 3:10
You know, I think my biggest inspiration, well, first off, I’ve always had this on my bucket list, right? As an entrepreneur, it’s kind of like, you know, one of those milestones you always kind of aspire to. Once you get past a certain point of, you know, however many years of being an entrepreneur, it’s like, I really need to write a book. I need to write a book about all the things that I’ve done and all the things that I’ve learned that have really gotten me to where I am today. And just a lot of very motivational things from other people being like, you should really, you should really talk more about that. You should really teach people you know more about that. How do you get to stay at home working for yourself all day? I want to know more about that.
Kathleen 3:49
So, you know, besides it being a bucket list thing, it’s really, I wanted to just kind of get the word out and challenge the conventional business model, right? Because we’re all taught you go to school, and then you get a job, and then you, you know, stay in that job for however long, and then you retire. And now your life is good, right? But I don’t want to wait till I retire, and, you know, for my life to be good, and my life is great. And I’m very much not retired, but it’s because I’ve created this, my own, you know, unconventional business model, which is a business that works around my existing lifestyle, as opposed to the other way around.
Kristen 4:25
Yeah, I really love that you emphasize that building that business that fits your lifestyle, because so many times, and I know a lot of my listeners who, most of my listeners either are full time entrepreneurs or they’re still working a full time job, and they have a side hustle. And so for a lot of us, when we start out that way, our business is taking over our lifestyle, not fitting into it. And that’s one of my big things that I talk about, too, is building a business that really works with what you want your life to be like, instead of like you said, the other way around, instead of your business taking over your life. So for those listeners who are kind of already established entrepreneurs, what would you say is the biggest takeaway from your book around how to build a business that really fits your lifestyle?
Kathleen 5:13
Yeah, you know, I think the biggest takeaway is really just that. You know, not only is it never too late, right, especially for those people that are already full time entrepreneurs, but it’s also okay to pivot your business when the business is not working for your lifestyle. And I’ve been there quite a few times on my entrepreneurial journey, right, where I’ve started a business, and it’s been great until it’s not, because now I’m working 80 hours a week, and I’m burned out, and I don’t want to go to work anymore. And so, you know, I’ve kind of had these cycles, and I’m sure many of your listeners have been through these cycles too, right, where we create this business or this side hustle, and we have these expectations, and then it doesn’t really pan out how we want to.
Kathleen 5:57
So one of the big takeaways with the book is that it’s okay to pivot. It’s something that I’ve done over the last few years, and it’s worked out really well. It’s very scary, right? Especially when we have our established businesses. But there are things you can do, whether it’s delegate, whether it’s sell your business, whether it’s, you know, pivot your business and take it in a different direction, like, that’s okay if your business is all of a sudden not really serving your lifestyle anymore, like how you want it to be.
Kristen 6:25
Yeah, I love that. And you know, my story is super similar. I I started a business while I was teaching full time. And that business that was, it was a hobby business to begin with, right? Like a lot of people who start a side hustle, it slowly started to take over all of my free time. And so the thing I thought was gonna give me that extra income so we could do the things is now taking up all the time when we could do the things. And so I really did have to make a pivot. And I love that encouragement, that it’s just it’s never too late to change what you’re doing in your business, how you’re doing your business, you know, to get some help so you can delegate things out, whatever it needs to look like to make your business fit your life better.
Kathleen 7:07
Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, we really look to, even as entrepreneurs in building our business, there are still some very conventional business models, right? But if we get creative and think, you know, okay, I only want to work, you know, five hours a day. I only want to, you know, have this many clients every week. You know, we really can start to when we put those, you know, kind of boundaries on our business and on our time, we can really find something that works so much better if it’s not already working again towards our lifestyle.
Kristen 7:39
Yeah, I love that so much. And you know, I mean, as entrepreneurs, if we’re not pivoting, probably our business is dying at some point, right? Pivoting and changing is just part of the process.
Kathleen 7:51
So true.
Kristen 7:52
So let’s talk a little bit about one of the kind of unconventional things that you do for business. A lot of my listeners are super familiar with traditional affiliate marketing. They’re already sharing links in blog posts and on social media to Amazon affiliate links and other places where they have affiliate tracking. But I have learned a lot from you about the Amazon influencer program, and it’s a little different. It’s actually a lot different. Can you explain to everybody, kind of what it is and how it’s different from posting like those traditional affiliate links?
Kathleen 8:28
Yes, yes. And I know we’ve, we’ve chatted about this before, and it was so exciting to just tell you all the possibilities. So I’m very glad you’re giving me the opportunity to share it with your listeners as well. So think about, you know, your traditional affiliate program. You know, Kristen, like you said, lots of people are probably already utilizing the Amazon affiliate program. And so you’re posting your links, you know, whether it’s on social media or a YouTube channel or, you know, wherever, and you’re promoting these things that you already use and love that are for sale on Amazon.
Kathleen 8:59
With the Amazon influencer program, it’s kind of like a step two in that you can actually create content for all of these things, you know, that you’re already promoting. You can create photos and videos and, you know, kind of talk about the things. And then once you’re in Amazon’s influencer program, they actually allow you to upload this content to their site to Amazon, and then they disperse it to different places on Amazon, and basically put your content in front of Amazon customers who are deciding whether or not they want to buy that thing that you’re talking about in your video or is being featured in your photo.
Kathleen 9:36
And so it takes out one of the most difficult pieces of affiliate marketing, I think, which is the marketing, right? Because you need that audience off Amazon. You need someone to be able to market those links to. So with the Amazon influencer program, you’re creating the content and uploading it to Amazon, and Amazon’s doing the marketing for you. And so that’s really the biggest difference with the associates or the affiliate program and the influencer program, and it’s why it’s such an exciting opportunity, because you don’t have to have a humongous following, you don’t have to be posting on social media 10 times a day in order to make decent money with this opportunity.
Speaker 1 10:16
Yeah, one thing I really love about it is who you’re marketing to as well. So we’ve talked on the show before about how much easier it is to sell something to a warm audience than a cold one, and essentially that’s what you’re doing here. Because instead of throwing links out to things you think your audience might like all over social media where you know they might be interested and they might not, you’re actually putting this content right on the product that they’re already searching for. So they’re already interested by the time they look at your video.
Kathleen 10:48
Exactly. They are literally deciding, should I buy this thing? They click on your video, watch it, and if they end up buying the thing, now you’re earning commissions.
Speaker 1 10:59
Yeah, and I will say, I love those videos on Amazon. I was just buying some noise canceling headphones about a month ago, because right above my head is a drum set.
Kathleen 11:08
Oh, nice.
Kristen 11:09
It’s wonderful. Love my children support their talents and their endeavors, but it is literally sitting above my head while I am trying to work. So I was looking for the good noise canceling headphones, and I actually I found a review on the ones that I bought where the girl was comparing these headphones to those headphones. And I was really curious, so I went and looked, and she did put the same video on both of them, and it really helped me make a decision, because she talked about them and compared them, and she got some affiliate income off me that day.
Kathleen 11:47
Definitely, you know, and that’s not a video that you’re ever gonna see from one of those brands or one of those manufacturers, right? So it’s such a different way, it’s such a different approach that Amazon is kind of allowing us to do, but it’s a win, win, right? Because you bought the headphones. You didn’t keep searching, right? You bought the headphones because you watched that influencer video. So Amazon wins, they got the sale. The influencer wins, they earn the commission, and that seller wins because they also got the sale. So it’s very cool. It’s it’s great, yeah.
Kristen 12:20
I absolutely love it, and I love how passive it is, too, compared to having to market constantly. I know I follow a few people who send out really great Amazon affiliate links to some cute clothes and things like that, but these people are posting 10, 12, 15 times a day, and I just cannot imagine a world in which I want to be posting that often.
Kathleen 12:43
No, oh my gosh, never. And I think that’s probably one of the biggest misconceptions about the Amazon influencer program, is that it’s called influencer because don’t even have to be an influencer. You do have to apply with your social media. But the barrier to entry is is not as difficult as people may think. If you go on any of my social channels, you won’t find a lot of information. Like, I have a great YouTube channel, you know, I have a I have a Facebook group, but as far as like, posting these kind of things from Amazon on my socials, it’s just kind of something that I find a little exhausting.
Kathleen 13:18
And so I have found other ways to create this content, upload it to Amazon, I upload it to YouTube, and like so I can still make money in different places, even just with one piece of content. And I am by no means an influencer of any way, shape or form, but I know Amazon, and I buy stuff from Amazon, and I very much have kind of integrated it into my lifestyle.
Kathleen 13:46
You know, talk about unconventional business model, because people are like, Well, where do you find the time to, like, make all these videos and film all these products? And I’ve just kind of naturally worked it into my routine. If I buy something on Amazon, I open the box, I try it out, but I’m recording at the same time. And I also love that these videos, you know, and like Kristen, you’ve seen these. I’m sure lots of people have seen these on Amazon too. They’re not like 25 minute, highly edited, produced YouTube videos. They’re like one to two minute videos where people, myself included, are literally just using my iPhone to record, you know, my favorite features, or here’s how you use this thing. Very minimal editing, and then you’re uploading. So within 10, 15, 20 minutes, max, you have a little mini income stream now that is making money for you on Amazon.
Kristen 14:39
Yeah, and it’s just sitting there making money whenever someone searches for those products.
Kathleen 14:43
Exactly.
Kristen 14:44
And I will tell you, I got excited and I got started. And then, you know, life got busy. Of course. And I need, what I need to do, I love what you said about just grabbing your phone when you’re opening the box. Because, let’s just be real, I order way too many things from Amazon. My friend calls it the blessing bus when it shows up in front of my house, because we get our deliveries on the Amazon van most of the time now, but I just don’t always take the time before I then, you know, open it and start using it. And now who knows where all the parts are. And so I love that tip about just doing it right as you’re opening the package.
Kristen 15:23
So I have, right now, three whole videos. They’re about a minute and a half long each, and I checked before this call. I did them on really little products. I just wanted it to be something that felt super easy to get started and figure out what I’m doing, right? So I did them on really little products, which means that the affiliate money I’m getting is pretty small for each one. I got some big stuff I should really do them on for later. But I checked this morning, today’s the seventh, and I’ve made like $12 off of one of those videos this month. Yay. On like a, I don’t know it’s a really cheap product, so it’s just sitting there, like, making money without me doing anything.
Kathleen 16:03
Right. And so that’s $12 this month, and we’re not even halfway through the month. And then you have the month after, the month after. So it’s, right, and now it’s passive income because you’ve done that. And now if you do that 100 more times, think of the potential.
Kristen 16:23
What if I had done this on all the things I got from Amazon last week, because we’re getting ready for a vacation, and I’m ordering all the, all the beachy things.
Kathleen 16:31
Oh yes, yes, it’s in season now, right? Because everyone’s ordering it. So those sales are even higher.
Kristen 16:39
I just, I just love this as as a way, especially for my audience, we are entrepreneurs, most of us, we already have some sort of business going, but this is such a great way to take something we are, let’s just be honest, probably already doing, which is ordering on Amazon, and turn it into some really passive income that really helps us diversify our business. Because if there’s anything I have learned, it’s that the more places you can be earning money, the safer your business is in the long run. Because if anything ever happens to one of them, you know, you have backups. You have other things going on.
Kathleen 17:14
Yeah, absolutely. No, I love that. You can never, you can never have all your eggs in one basket. And you know, this is one of my many income streams. But even with, you know, the opportunity of this, you know, you can, like you already said, right? If you’re already posting links off site, now, that’s another way you’re earning on Amazon, right? There’s other opportunities as well. If you start, you know, creating videos for Amazon and uploading them to Amazon or YouTube or whatever.
Kathleen 17:42
Some of the best, you know, opportunities for me have come from being in the Amazon influencer program, indirectly, because now I get a lot of brands that contact me and they’re like, Hey, do you want to try out this new outdoor patio furniture set? We’ll send it to you for free. Or, you know, one of my favorite brands I work with, they sell shoes, and I have three small children. So every month, we get five new pairs of shoes, one for everyone in my family. Not only does it make me money, but it saves me so much money not having to buy shoes for my kids, who just beat them up, you know. And so it’s just, it can kind of snowball into other opportunities that maybe aren’t in the forefront right away.
Kristen 18:26
Yeah, that’s awesome, too. I mean, goodness we, I have two boys, so we are always needing shoes around here.
Kathleen 18:33
Yes, same. They wear them into the ground until I’m like, okay, you guys should have showed me these earlier. You need new shoes. You can’t go to school in those.
Kristen 18:44
I actually just said that to my son last week. He said, Mom, I need new shoes. And he took them off, and the heel had completely worn out. There’s no cushion left. He’s like, it kind of hurts. Like, why didn’t you tell me earlier? I’m sorry I don’t look inside my 13 year old’s shoes.
Kathleen 19:05
Exactly. Okay, good. I’m glad I’m not the only one.
Kristen 19:10
So this really can be a pretty big opportunity, especially, you know, we were just talking about $12 isn’t a lot, right? But $12 in a week on one product that probably doesn’t even cost 20 bucks. When you start multiplying that by the 52 weeks in a year and adding more products, and especially when you start doing a little bit more expensive products, or you’re earning a little more for each one, this can be a really big opportunity.
Kathleen 19:35
Oh, yes.
Kristen 19:36
And especially for people who are already kind of used to creating content. So maybe the idea of making a video isn’t so scary, especially if you know it’s just a couple minutes, and a lot of times you don’t even have to show your face, which is nice, because I will tell you all of my videos were recorded, probably in leggings and a tank top and no makeup or hair fixed.
Kathleen 19:56
Yes, I love that about it, because you can be in the video or not. So like, I’ll have days where I do, you know, the clothes and the makeup, and those are the videos where my face is on screen, and then the rest of the week, nope, I’m just behind, behind the phone, behind the camera. Because at the end of the day, the Amazon customer doesn’t really care about you. And I mean that in the nicest way possible. They want to see the product. And so as long as you’re highlighting the product, you don’t have to put your face in there. You don’t have to say, you know, a million different things about it. You just have to, very simply, show the product, show how it works, say what you like about it, and stop the camera.
Kristen 20:33
Yeah. And unless it’s the kind of thing where you need to show how to use it, and your face needs to be in the camera, it really isn’t usually necessary, which is really nice.
Kathleen 20:41
Yeah.
Kristen 20:42
So for people listening who are thinking, This sounds really good, how can somebody get started?
Kathleen 20:48
Sure, so I have a free master class that I’d love to share with your audience. It’s on my website at kathleenkobel.com/masterclass. And it really, I take you through like, my five step system as far as how to apply to get into the influencer program, kind of some tips and tricks on how you can get in more quickly, even if you don’t have a huge following, and then how to get approved for that on site commission, which is the opportunity we’re talking about, where you can actually upload your content that lives on Amazon.
Kathleen 21:17
So it’s it’s a very nice step by step, because you could Google it, and you could try to find information, there’s a lot of information out there. But this is completely free, and so I kind of walk you through that, and then it also gives you a little more information about, like, what are the opportunities, where does this content live, right? And so I really just walk you through that, so that would be a great place to start. I also have a YouTube channel, if you just search my name, Kathleen Kobel, I’ve got tons of free videos, tons of free information, from beginner to advanced strategies, all about how to earn with the Amazon influencer program.
Kristen 21:52
And that is actually how I got started with mine, is I took your master class to learn all the things and figure out what I needed to be doing. And it did help so much just to have somebody that I knew I could trust. We all know there are some sketchy, shady things out there. And I don’t know if it’s as strict on the influencer program, it probably is. I know the best way to get yourself kicked out of the affiliate program on Amazon in general is to miss some little bitty something in their Terms of Use and make a mistake that you never intended to. So it was really good to have somebody I knew I could trust to teach me to do it the right way and keep me from making those mistakes so that I could get it set up. And honestly, when I decided I was going to set this up, it took me, I don’t know, half a day, maybe.
Kathleen 22:38
Yeah. No, and it really doesn’t take, it really doesn’t take that long to get set up. It doesn’t take that long to film and just to, you know, echo what you said about someone you trust. There’s a lot of bad information out there, and it is very easy to get your affiliate account, your influencer account, just taken away for something that you might not have even known. You know, you might not have even known you broke a rule.
Kathleen 23:02
You know, for example, you can’t talk about pricing in your videos for Amazon, right? Because pricing fluctuates. But if you don’t know that, and you know, you’re probably not gonna get kicked out for that, but at the same time, your videos will get rejected, and if you don’t know why, right, that’s, it’s always good to kind of latch on to somebody who knows what they’re doing. And I’ve been doing this for four years now, but I’ve been a seller on Amazon for 15. And that’s kind of how I found this opportunity was through my seller experience. And so, you know, I know Amazon front, back, side to side, and there’s a lot of rules and a lot of nuances, but if you just stick to the rules, and, you know, create honest, quality content, you can make a lot of money with this program.
Kristen 23:46
And definitely it just feels good to know that you can, that you can trust somebody to steer you in the right direction. Definitely would encourage everybody to go check out your master class. And we’ll put a link for that in the show notes, along with all the other links for where to find you. Remind us again, before we close out today, remind us again what the name of your book is and where people can find that if they’re interested in reading.
Kathleen 24:12
Yes, yes. Thank you. My book is called the unconventional business model, earn more, work less, and build a life you love. And it is available on Amazon in all the forms, Kindle, paperback, hardcover, and you could even listen on Audible. I recorded the audiobook, and that actually just launched not that long ago. So if you’re like me, you’re a busy entrepreneur and don’t really have the time to sit down and read, you can also listen to it too. So yeah, you can find the unconventional business model all over Amazon.
Kristen 24:42
Yeah, I actually saw that today when I clicked the link over to your book before we hopped on here, and didn’t realize that it was on Audible. And I am definitely going to be using an audible credit for that, because I am one of those people who I will I can devour fiction books on my Kindle or in paperback, but if it’s non fiction, I have to listen. It just, I don’t know, it’s how my brain works.
Kathleen 25:08
Same. Totally understand. And that’s I was like, I’ve gotta, I’ve gotta get the audio book out there, because it’s just so much easier to consume. Couldn’t agree more.
Kristen 25:16
Yeah, and I love that you read it yourself, because it is so fun to listen to the actual author read their own book, as opposed to, you know, some other person. It’s always fun.
Kathleen 25:25
No, definitely. I actually worked with, I worked with a company that helped me with the writing and the launching of the book and everything. And, you know, one of the things they were like, Okay, do you want, you know, one of our voiceover artists to do the audiobook? And I was very adamant, no, because I’ve listened to other audio books by, you know, people who didn’t write it, and it’s just, it’s just different, right? And so, you know, you really, there’s, there’s a little bit of extras, you know, in the audiobook, I mean, just slight little bit more commentary, and it’s, it’s a little bit more authentic. So, yeah, definitely grab the audio book if you want some. I think it’s only like three or four hours too, so it’s not super long, but get some motivation and inspiration, and you’ll probably be really set to go apply for the influencer program if you haven’t already, if you read the book.
Kristen 26:14
Thank you so so much for being here. Always good to catch up with you and hear more about what you’re doing, and I know my audience is going to be really interested in the Amazon influencer program, because it’s just such a great opportunity for people like us who are already creating content.
Kathleen 26:31
Most definitely. Thank you so much for having me, Kristen, this was so fun. I really appreciate it.
Kristen 26:38
I’m so glad Kathleen could join us today to share about her book and about the Amazon influencer program. Like I said during our chat, this is something I am really just getting started with, but the possibilities are really exciting, and I wanted to bring her on so you could hear straight from the expert about how it works. If you’re curious about getting started with the Amazon influencer program, your first step is to watch Kathleen’s free masterclass. I grabbed it right after she told me about the program for the first time, and it gave me such a clear picture of how this all works and how to get started. I loved it. And so I went on to take her full Influence and Earn program, and I can honestly say it is 100% worth it. The guidance that she gives in both the master class and the full program really helped me get everything up and running so easily, and it answered all the questions that I had.
Kristen 27:29
I’ve dropped links to both her free masterclass and her book in the show notes, as well as her social links, so make sure you check those out if you want to learn more or connect with Kathleen. And as always, I would love to hear what you think. Shoot me a DM on instagram @kristendoyle.co if you have questions or if you just want to chat about this episode. Thank you so much for hanging out with us today, and I’ll talk to you next time.
