Since the beginning Scott’s blog, website, and podcast have been all about making money through Amazon Private Label sales. Scott will always be teaching people how to get started selling products on Amazon because it’s a great platform where buyers are already hanging out. You can test product ideas and start generating revenue right away. But if you put all your eggs in one basket - even the Amazon basket - you are at the mercy of the platform where you’ve put all those eggs. On this episode Scott begins talking about how you can begin to build your own platform, that you control, to sell your own products and have total control over the revenue you make. The best way to build a sustainable business. If you want to build a business that will benefit you financially over the long term you’re going to need to have entire control over the costs you have to pay to serve your customers - AND you’ll need to be able to interact with your customers freely. If you’ve been selling private label products on Amazon for any length of time you know that those are two things you DON’T have when using the Amazon platform. When you’ve got control over those things you’re able to make decisions and do promotions in a way that are able to move your business forward at a much more consistent and rapid pace. You can hear Scott’s outline of why this stuff matters, on this episode of The Amazing Seller. Blogging to provide valuable content to your ideal customers is a great way to build a sales funnel. There are many people who have built a significant business on the back of a blog. But if you want to go this route to build your own platform for product sales you need to know that it’s a very crowded space - which only means you’ll have to do an excellent job at it. As you blog, adding valuable content that helps your ideal audience or customer you’ll be building the trust your audience needs to feel comfortable purchasing your product. And in the meantime, you’re building systems into your blog that captures the email addresses of those who come to your blog. It’s an amazing thing that really works. You’ll want to hear Scott’s approach to this idea on this episode. You can use a giveaway to build an email list and stimulate sales. If you want to start building your own mailing list of people who are interested in your products you can do it right away by doing a giveaway. A previous guest on Scott’s show - Mike Jackness - did this with amazing results and got thousands of email subscribers. You can use those emails later to provide a discount to those who did not win the contest, provide them valuable content to help them with their particular area of interest relating to your products, and to promote future products in your market to increase future sales. Scott walks through the details of how to set up an effective giveaway on this episode. If you want to start building a business, Amazon is a great place to do it. If you’ve never sold a product or service online before, there’s no better and easier place to get your feet wet than by selling on Amazon. It sounds intimidating at first and there are lots of things to learn and tweak as you go along, but you can do it. Scott’s focus up to this point has been to help you build and maximize a sales channel on Amazon so that you can build the life and business that you truly want. If you’d like to get in on one of Scott’s live workshops that teaches you the 5 steps to building an Amazon sales machine, you can find out how to get in on the next workshop by listening to this episode. OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF THE AMAZING SELLER [0:03] Scott’s introduction to thIs episode of the podcast! [3:40] How you can get into a free workshop about Amazon sales! [5:32] The best way to build a sustainable business (VistaPrint example). [8:11] What if you could pay $1 and make $5? [11:35] What if you could follow up with customers immediately and remarket to them? [14:59] Why having a person’s email address is po