John Gill of Willow & Grace Designs: Five Things You Need To Know To Run A Very Successful Amazon Business

As a part of my interview series about “Five non-intuitive things you need to know to run a very successful Amazon business, I had the pleasure of interviewing John Gill.

John Gill is the Co-Founder, President & CEO of Willow & Grace Designs. When John began the company, he was riding 30+ years of entrepreneurial success, and is now an Amazon / E-commerce expert, hosting exclusive events for fellow sellers to exchange their expertise.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you share with us the “backstory” about what brought you to this specific career path?

Several years ago, I had to close down my telecom business of 12 years due to major changes in the industry. While I was trying to figure out my next business venture, I received an email pitching an online course on how to sell on Amazon. I actually purchased the course for my wife and agreed to go through it with her to offer guidance and answer questions due to my business experience. She decided it was not for her in week two of an eight week program. Fortunately, I saw this as an opportunity and decided to finish the course and implement what I learned. Several months later, I launched my first product (a bike light), which was a huge success.

Can you explain to our readers why you are an authority about selling on Amazon.com?

Very simple, I have been doing it for 10 years, made every mistake possible, and learned valuable lessons along the way. I have spoken at live events around the world to tens of thousands of sellers and have hosted 14 of my own live 3-day events.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started this career?

Very early on when I was deciding on my first product or brand to launch on Amazon. I came up with the idea to sell puppy pee pads. I created the branding, packaging, marketing plan, found a vendor in China and was ready to place my first order. Thank God after all the work, time and money I spent getting it ready to sell, I decided before placing a huge order to dig in deeper to make sure I covered all bases, only to discover I did not calculate the weight and size of the finished packaging, which meant that the minimal profit did not make sense. Therefore, I had to scrap everything and start from scratch. I left this idea and eventually moved on to the bike light, which became my first successful product and made me a ton of money.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Actually, my first official product which was a success right out of the gate was selling so well that I almost ran out of inventory (this is a critical mistake that can drastically hurt your growth). I had inventory on the way to Amazon warehouses but did not know if it would arrive in time. I got advice from a very successful friend who told me to raise the price by $5 to slow down sales so that I would not run out before the new inventory arrived. I raised the price but sales grew about 30% (which created more panic), so I raised the price again an additional $4 but sales did not slow down — only leveled off…The good news is my inventory arrived on time. The lesson learned is to test your pricing for maximum sales and profits to find your balance. In this case I raised the price a total of $9 and kept it at that price, which equated to hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional profits.

Are you working on any exciting projects now? How do you think that will help people?

I am working on several Amazon projects and currently have many very successful brands, which I am currently in the process of expanding into brick and mortar retail. I am also in discussions with several large big box retailers. I think the lesson to learn is to not lock yourself in as an Amazon seller only — it’s important to sell on several different channels and platforms, which actually helps your Amazon sales as well.

Ok. Let’s jump to the core of our discussion. You are a seasoned Amazon expert. Can you share with our readers five, non intuitive, insider tips, in order to be as successful as possible on Amazon? Please share a story or example for each.

1. Most important is product selection — Know your competition, know what your potential profits could be. I don’t have any interesting or funny stories, but I will say that there were times when I did not do the proper research, and those products were not as successful.
2. Know your audience, their wants, needs and problems — back in the day I was successfully selling camping lanterns, and my vendor offered me a pink version of one of my most successful products, which I thought was brilliant. Since no one at the time was offering pink lanterns, I thought this would be a big hit with female consumers. Boy was I wrong — I couldn’t even give them away.
3. Have a great listing with strong images — never use more than 6 and have several lifestyle images to give the buyer an idea of how it would feel if they had your product.
4. Be simple, don’t try to prove how smart you are with complicated terms or words. When I read a great listing, I look at the images to identify the problem the consumer has and discover how the product solves it within the listing. I once had a student who was selling a device which tested the water coming from your refrigerator for purity. He used many high tech words and terms which lead me to believe he was selling to the refrigerator repair industry, because only they would understand his listing. When I asked him who his audience was, he actually told me it was for regular consumers who own a fridge. We changed the listing using simple terms, identified the problem the consumers were looking to solve, and updated the listing….the result was a 33% overnight increase in sales.
5. Keep your review average at 4.5 or above. It has been proven that conversion rates are much higher when you have a high review average. I’ve experienced the difference in sales based on my review average.

Amazon sellers have a reputation for being great guerilla marketers. Do you use any clever and innovative marketing strategies that you think large legacy companies should consider adopting?

As it relates to Amazon, I believe one of the keys to success is not so much marketing strategy, but more so the importance of networking. Amazon is constantly changing, adapting and becoming more challenging. Strategies we used years ago or even 6 months ago do not work today. Therefore, being a part of groups that are knee deep in Amazon success is important because these sellers are usually on top of the challenges and offer solutions. I would say this is one of my biggest keys to my success.

Because of the position that you are in, you are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

Great question…I have worked with and coached many sellers. The big difference I see between those who succeed or fail (which means they quit) is not having a strong reason why they MUST succeed. The example I use is, if you and I are standing in the street and we see the house across from us engulfed in flames and I turn to you and ask you to please go into the burning structure and get my wallet which I left inside, I believe you would look at me and laugh…but if I were to say that one of your loved ones is in the house and you have 5 minutes to get in and save them, I believe you would not think twice. In both scenarios, I am actually asking you to do the same thing, which is to go into a burning house. The only difference is the reason why. Most of us suffer from fear, doubt and insecurities but having a strong and compelling reason makes us unstoppable. If you were saving a loved one you would not hesitate to wonder if you were strong enough or smart enough, you would just go.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Everything that happens in your life, good or bad, happens for a reason and a purpose that serves you”. As I reflect on my life and look at situations which at the time I thought were devastating, I can now look back and say every single one worked out and turned into an amazing blessing.

Some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them :-)

If I had to pick two, it would be Elon Musk because he is fearless, innovative and brilliant. The second would be Tom Brady due to his work ethic and burning desire to win and excel to the highest level when most did not believe in him.

Thank you so much for these great insights. This was very enlightening!