- Speaker #0
You've dealt with the NBA, the Olympics. What was the craziest thing that you've ever sourced?
- Speaker #1
24 karat gold iPhones, which are fully custom for the best football players in the world. For Barcelona, a player called Lamin Yamal. And for Real Madrid, Mbappe and Jude Bellingham. If you are manufacturing, let's say, a tent with a supplier, and it took like maybe six months in development, and then you finally got that product, and the supplier has... billed you for their product development cost and their engineer cost and their sample cost, but they've just put it into the unit price. The cost of your product is like $55, but the actual cost of the materials and the labor might only be $30. When you're paying tariffs, you don't want to pay a tariff on product development. You just want to pay a tariff on the actual cost of the goods. Well, if we're ordering a thousand units, why don't I just pay you an invoice for $25,000 as a consulting fee? And then you also just... bill me $30 for the product cost. And now you're paying tariffs on $30 rather than on $55.
- Speaker #2
Your watch on marketing misfits with Norm Farrar and Kevin King.
- Speaker #3
Man, you got that button down packed now, Norm. You're a professional button pusher.
- Speaker #0
How?
- Speaker #3
AI is not going to take your job because you're a professional button pusher.
- Speaker #0
Absolutely.
- Speaker #3
You're good for the future because they're saying all the, I was watching a YouTube video last night and they're saying all the, it was the inventor of AI, actually. He was on the Diary of a CEO podcast and the guy's been working on like 50 years and now he's taking a different tact. You know, he's like, hey, this is actually going to get dangerous. But one of the questions was like, so what job should your grandchildren be looking at? And he's like, plumber. Because AI is going to be a while before AI can do some of the little manual handy tasks, but it's going to be automating everything else. One thing, though, yeah, I mean, go ahead.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, I was just going to say, I don't know if you've ever heard Mike Rowe talk about it. He's saying the exact same thing. He's actually put up a scholarship for people to get into the trades for blue-collar workers because that's where the money's going to be.
- Speaker #3
Yeah, that's what. That's basically what he was saying, too. It's interesting. It's an hour and a half long. I usually watch those in 2X, but the accents were a little strong. The guy's Canadian, actually. Do you know the guy that invented AI is Canadian? Yeah,
- Speaker #0
he's my neighbor here.
- Speaker #3
Lives in Toronto.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, he's my neighbor.
- Speaker #3
That's the guy you have dinner with that you couldn't tell me about?
- Speaker #0
Yeah, exactly. I was like,
- Speaker #3
Norm, where are you getting all this insider information? He's like, I can't tell you. You know, speaking of insider information, our guest today has a lot of insider information when it comes to sourcing. He's probably one. You know, there's a lot of companies out there that help you source a lot of people. But I think this guy's had his boots on the ground and I think he grew up. I'm sure he'll tell us. But since the from the crib, I think he was sourcing stuff out of his crib with his family. And that's a problem that a lot of marketers are having right now with in this world.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, absolutely. You know, everybody's trying to do something different and they're all following the same stupid advice they're getting with all these other video, you know, videos that are out there. And also, you know, I've got, I went through school through marketing and a lot of what they teach you just doesn't apply. You know, at least when I went through, which was just about a year ago, but it just doesn't apply. You've got to break the rules.
- Speaker #3
That's before Abacus's, right?
- Speaker #0
Yes. Yeah. I still remember, you know, the Abacus. But you got to break the rules. And so our guest today is one of those rule breakers. So would you like to bring him on, Kevin?
- Speaker #3
With pleasure. I remember the first time I met this guy, I actually had not met him in person yet. And our mutual friend, Athena Saveri, was like, hey, I've got this guy that's a sourcing guy. it's like a He's like a guru. I was like, oh, dude, I need someone like that to come on the Helium 10 thing I was doing back in like 2016 or 2017. And she's like, no, he's mine. I'm not going to share him to the world. You cannot have him. I'm not giving you his information. And then I just kept pushing her. And I was like, come on. And so she finally did. And then Kian and I connected. And we've hung out a few places, done a few things. He's in my Dream 100 for my other business. This guy is super smart. He's like down humble. uh but knows everything pretty much about uh sourcing and manufacturing and getting products to market so it's uh welcome a kian gozari uh to the marketing misfits how you doing man how you doing guys uh great what's
- Speaker #1
up guys how's it going hope you're well thank you so much for having me and um you know it was funny i was listening to what you guys were saying about like sourcing from the crib and um i've got this photo let me show you i'll put it on my camera see if you can see it But that's me and two Chinese suppliers at like five vehicles.
- Speaker #3
Really?
- Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Speaker #3
How old are you there?
- Speaker #1
I'm like four or five years old. So basically what happened was that like my dad went to China for the first time, like, you know, when China were coming out of like a communist rule and they were allowing people to have their own private factories. And as the Chinese were like making their factories, they didn't really know like, you know, how the Western world like wanted their goods. So my dad went over to China kind of like. late 80s and just kind of showed them like look this is how we desire products in the west and we're kind of working together and then these chinese suppliers would fly over to the uk to visit my dad and so like i was four or five years old and like he's got his like chinese guest over at the house and he's like kian kian wake up wake up i want to introduce you to these guys so that photo was like me just sort of like days getting out of bed and i've got like two chinese guys with their armor on me i'm like what's going on here so like from from an early age i've always It's been like. very very curious about you know like what goes on in China how come my dad's always going there so like it just planted the seed at such a young age and I went there for the first time when I was 21 but for the next like you know 16 years I was hearing all the stories of what happens in China and how products are made so like I had like a really good like running head start you know when I got involved in the game so it's just been cool and you know like the the guys that I met there when I was five years old. I also met like their... sons on that trip as well and then when i did my first canton fair which was november 1st 2010 the same guys also had a booth as an exhibitor and their kids which i met when i was five years old was also like running their family business as well so it was like an amazing connection it's like hey meet this supplier we're working with them we've known each other for 15 years and now we're both involved in the family business so we were like really really really helping each other and really loyal to each other. So I got a lot of great like... uh, knowledge and mentors and, um, support, you know, from, from day one. And that was like 15, 16 years ago as well. So I've done a lot since then as well.
- Speaker #3
So when you grew up, when you were a child, when someone asked you when you were five, what do you want to be? Most kids say, I'm going to be an astronaut or a doctor, or now they say, I want to be a creator or an influencer. But back then, what'd you say? I want to be a Chinese sorcerer.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. I want to be, I want to be in product development. So, but it was cool. You know, like I learned a lot of lessons and I guess like anyone, who's listening to this who is a parent and who has young kids you know i would strongly advise and recommend it you get your kids involved at a young age even if it's not in the business but just when you're driving them to school just have a bit of back and forth and say like you know i'm working on this product i'm going to make these changes it's going to cost this amount or like you know i'm thinking about hiring this person these are their qualities you know what do you think or you know i want to invest more into marketing i'm thinking about getting into tiktok shop that's going viral at the moment do you think that's a good strategy And they might, even if they're five years old, 10 years old, they might not understand it at the time, but fast forward 10, 15 years. And when they're in business, they can refer back to these conversations that they had a long time ago. And that will definitely gear them up, you know, for success in the future and kind of get that part of their brain of like critical thinking, you know, working at a really young age, even though you probably won't offer good suggestions today, but when they're older, they'll definitely appreciate it a lot more.
- Speaker #3
Hey, Norm, you'll love this, man. I talked to a seller the other day doing 50K a month, but when I asked them what their actual profit was, they just kind of stared at me.
- Speaker #0
Are you serious? That's kind of like driving blindfolded.
- Speaker #3
Exactly, man. I told them, you got to check out Sellerboard, this cool profit tool that's built just for Amazon sellers. It tracks everything like fees, PPC, refunds, promos, even changing COGS using FIFO.
- Speaker #0
Aha, but does it do FBM shipping costs too?
- Speaker #3
Sure does. That way you can keep your quarter four chaos totally under control and know your numbers. Because not only does it do that, but it makes your PPC bids, it forecasts inventory, it sends review requests, and even helps you get reimbursements from Amazon.
- Speaker #0
Now that's like having a CFO in your back pocket.
- Speaker #3
You know what? It's just $15 a month. But you got to go to sellerboard.com forward slash misfits. sellerboard.com forward slash misfits. If you do that, they'll even throw in a free two-month trial.
- Speaker #0
So you want me to say go to sellerboard.com misfits and get your number straight before your accountant loses it?
- Speaker #3
Exactly.
- Speaker #0
All right. You know, I remember in kindergarten, I was asked, what do I want to do when I grow up? And I said, I want to be an olive stuffer.
- Speaker #3
An olive stuffer?
- Speaker #0
Yeah. Put the red things at the olives.
- Speaker #3
You knew back then that was AI. That was, yeah. You knew back then that AI is not going to take your job if you're not.
- Speaker #0
Exactly. So, Kia, I'm wondering, with everything that's going on right now, everything that's, like, everything's up in the air, how is that affecting your business?
- Speaker #1
Not a lot, to be honest, because, like, the same principles apply of, like, you know, we need to be getting our products at the absolute best place, best quality, best supplier. um and best price and those same principles apply you know whether you are looking at china versus other countries i always say that you should have a even before all this tariff stuff i was always saying that you should have a china plus one strategy meaning china is most likely the best place for you to manufacture goods for 90 of the brands out there but if anything was to go wrong in China. And the reason I've been like saying this for a while is that like, when I was in China in like 2010, 2013, 2018, sometimes like a factory would shut down because they emit too much pollution. And the government would shut them down for a month. Like, you know, whenever they had one of these like G7 summits in Beijing or whatever, the factories in the neighboring cities would all get shut down for a month because they didn't want the smog coming into Beijing when the world leaders come in. And it was so funny because I was living in China at the time and it would post all these like pictures on the news of like complete blue sky and this is when like china had very very bad pollution and then all the world leaders leave and then boom it just goes back to gray smog again so there were so many things that like like that variables were like you know you've got production that has to go out and the factory's like i'm sorry like we're shut for the month um and all sorts of things would happen with like you know raw material costs and labor costs so it was always important to have a if I had if I couldn't manufacture from China where's the next best place to go and for anyone wondering well like you know where do I go next just consider what is the raw material of your product and then what is a country which specializes in that raw material so for India it's like cotton canvas wood leather handcraft but if your product is like you know bluetooth headphones then you shouldn't be going to India so you can do a simple Alibaba search of like if you search by products on the left hand side of the page it shows all the countries which have a listing for that product import yeti is probably the best website out of all of them to see where you're money where the market leaders manufacture their products and you get all sorts of good information of what hs codes they're using and what countries they're manufacturing from and also i would speak to your chinese manufacturer before switching to say look you know the tariffs is going crazy right now um what is it that you could propose to us can you give us a lower cost of goods or are you setting up production lines in other countries. I actually had a really interesting YouTube video that I put out when I was at the Canton Fair back in May and I interviewed like maybe eight suppliers and said and this is when the tariffs like came in and it was like 150 percent it was really hot and like it was affecting a lot a lot of suppliers business and I was asking them like you know how are you responding and like what are you doing for your customers and how is it affecting your business and first of all it depends on what percentage of exports go to the US market. So I had some factories which have 500 workers and 80% of their exports go to the US. So they were screwed because now 400 out of 500 workers don't have anything to make because all the orders have like stopped or halted, right? So then that's an opportunity if you're in an EU market because then suppliers are basically willing to make the product at cost because they need orders to keep their production line running, right? So there's like opportunities there. And in some factories we're saying, yep, we've set up production lane. in Thailand or we've set up a factory in Myanmar so they're going over with their Chinese systems and their production line managers but then they're hiring local workers and bringing in their systems and then I met one factory who they said that they've gone into a joint venture with a factory in Bangladesh so like there's a factory already in Bangladesh making a similar product and then Chinese factory comes in and say look we'll acquire 50% of your factory but we're going to bring you like 50 different customers and we're going to bring our orders to your factory so as a result your factory will expand we'll bring in our production line techniques you have your workers and we're going to bring a lot a lot more orders so then there are a lot of joint ventures because like the chinese know that their orders are affected so long as this tariff situation is yo-yoing back and forth but rather than us saying right let's burn the bridge let's forget china let's go to another country your manufacturer is already solving that for themselves because they also need to figure out you know where they're going to be exporting their goods from so That's always the benefit of having a good relationship with your supplier and just being able to get on a call with them. Because so many people, I think, buy from Alibaba, never really visit China, don't have a good relationship with their supplier. But when the situation kicks off, like, hey, let's get on a Zoom call, let's get on a WeChat call. What are we going to do about it? What's the strategy? What do you suggest? What are you doing for your other customers that you're exporting to? And you figure it out. And I think the really serious buyers are the ones which go over to China and sit down face to face. you know see what's the situation over there and get their suppliers to hold stock for them you know free of charge storage and then when the tariffs come down then you ship out there's always a solution like it's and the good thing is that like everyone is in the same situation so although it's terrible that you know there's a hundred percent higher for whatever most of your competitors have that situation as well right it's not it's not only you so it's just whoever figures out the best solution so it's um to answer your question you know it's just business as normal like you There's a lot of things that we can do and there's a lot of hoops we can jump through. But ultimately, it's still pretty simple to get a good solution to all of this.
- Speaker #0
Isn't it important to go and try to meet up with your supplier?
- Speaker #1
I would say so, yes. I mean, like I've been doing it for like 15 years and lived there, got an office there and travel there every three or four months. I'm actually going back to China next month as well. So I can see firsthand the benefits of, let's just say for product development, massively speeds up the product development timeline, reduces the sample costs, reduces like decision-making, you know, you can, and it actually saves you money as well because like, think about, the sample's never right first time, right? So they send you a sample. It's like, all right, change this, change that. wait a couple of weeks send another one yet no still not big enough to do that right changes change that where if you're in the factory you can have like three or four iterations of samples done in like three or four days all albeit while going out for dinner with your supplier and building your relationships and getting better credit terms on your order and see what items they're producing for other brands around the world and then going to visit other backup factories and then like working on developing like your next items that you're going to launch for later in the year. So there's so many different advantages because Chinese factories don't necessarily do a good job of selling themselves. They don't say, oh, hey, we just bought this new machinery for testing. So now we can improve like the waterproofness of your product. Like you just go in the factory and see like, oh, what is that? That's a cool machine. It's like, oh yeah, well that measures the salt spray so that we know if this tent is pitched near the seaside that the fabric will always survive. I'm like, well, that's cool. Let me make a video out of this and I'll use this for marketing. So like there's so many cool things that we get to know and see and in general these trips more than pay for themselves based on the product cost savings you get credit terms you get better relationships that you get more products that you get to launch speed up sample timelines so i would always emphasize whether you're a beginner intermediate or an advanced seller you you should really be going to your source and building up a relationship with them it's probably one of the only things that ai can't take over i know um you know ai is such a hot topic but like what's the point in using an ai software to find your supplier when it's literally like deciding who you're going to marry like this supplier that you're going to work with for the next three five ten years can either ruin your life or make it the best business experience ever so like don't rely on a chat gbt or a software to like pair you with someone like you want a process of elimination and talking to many different suppliers and who'd you get along with and then right okay this is the person this is a company which we're going to be together for the next 10 years and build an amazing business for both of us and
- Speaker #3
you said that what is it about the chinese that makes them the world's factory. I know there's systems and they set out with intent like 30 years ago to do that. But now they're all over the world. You look at the border of the US and Mexico, there's all these Chinese factories coming in there and setting up shop. A lot of them in Italy, I remember during COVID, the story I tell a lot that when the virus started spreading, there's this little area in Italy that got really hit really bad. And a lot of people don't realize there's a lot of Chinese factories there. And there's a lot of people coming back and forth from China. that made in Italy, you think is some Italian craftsman sitting on the floor banging out the leather. It's actually a Chinese factory. And you're paying a premium for that, the word Italy. So what is it about the Chinese that, and then along those same lines, because I know you'll talk about this for a bit, is a lot of people are saying with these tariffs, they're like, oh, just bring it back to the US. Trump was like, we're bringing back everything to the US. That's not really realistic in a lot of cases. It'll work for some products, but most cases-
- Speaker #1
they've got a 20-25 year head start so can you talk about that a little bit about their strong competitive advantage and in manufacturing and why is that for sure so i would say first of all the mentality of like hard work like you know i went china for the first time 2010 and it was really eye-opening the first thing for me was seeing that how hard these guys work and anyone who's been to china like knows what i'm talking about and like straight to the point no distractions put into work so that that's one thing and then you know in terms of bringing the production to you know us or another country most products when you look at their production it's either labor intensive or machine intensive right so if we're talking about a backpack it's a lot of materials cut so stitch it put it together right so that requires skilled labor whereas if it's like an iphone case you know you can just have an injection molding machine and you know fill it with plastic and then it's just a machine just churns out all these products so machine intensive products probably could go to usa and other products other countries but whenever your production requires labor intensive like bear in mind that like china for a long time has had a low cost workforce but what a lot of people forget is that yes it's a low cost workforce but it's a very low cost skilled workforce that these are very very skilled workers with with their hands with sewing machines and like you can't just say okay well i can get low-cost labor in Bangladesh or Myanmar, but they can't. actually make things properly like operate a sewing machine and things like that that's been like years and years and years of experience and passed down through generations so it's it's the skilled workforce it's a hard-working mentality and it's also the infrastructure that they've built as well right like for anyone who's been to china recently like you've seen like the ports that they've built the the roads that they've built the high-speed rail that they've built so like when you're trying to move products around like you know having worked with like different countries like you know india and bangladesh and places like that sometimes your container gets stuck because the trucking takes like two days and the roads closed or there's like massive potholes and it goes like gets damaged or whatever it may be so there's a lot of challenges just on the logistics of your goods like working with other countries as well so i think china as well if we want to get like political because they're like a one-party policy they can put forward like a 20-year vision and a 20-year plan. Whereas if you look at the US, it's like red versus blue, Republicans versus Democrats, you know, four years in power, and the opposite party comes in and chops up everything down. So it's like, think of all the energy that it's been like, Republicans versus Democrats. And then imagine, okay, forget all that. It's one party and we move forward together and we've got a 20-year plan. So think of the energy that goes into that. So when like, you know, Chinese are investing and setting up, you know, purchasing raw materials and mining in Africa and Australia, and like setting up production in other countries and building infrastructure in other countries, like that's all part of a 20 year plan. And I think that's what really allows them to get ahead and be such a dominant force around the world for production. It's like it's having the labor, it's having the vision, it's having the capital behind you as well. And the desire to be the best as well. You know, they really, really want to be like proud of themselves and to be the world leaders. And I think a lot of it is like top down when your leader has that vision and it kind of filters down into the rest of the country. And just to give you an example, which is totally different, but let's say marketing related, is that, you know, I moved to Shanghai in 2011. Right. And the main shopping street is one called Huaihai Lu. And when I was there in 2011, everyone desired goods which were worn by Westerners. Right. So. As you're walking down the street, you see like LeBron James in a Nike store, you see Roger Federer, you see Steph Curry, like you just see these like models like for Tommy Hilfiger from like American movies, Brad Pitt, all that. Brad Pitt was like the face of Chrysler, all this stuff. You see it everywhere. And then gradually, they started to like phase more like sort of Chinese, like, you know, Jackie Chan and like, then more like Chinese, Chinese, like influencers to be the marketing. and then now when you go down hua ha lu and you go down into like shopping center in china it's behind all these brands like Nike and Adidas and Tommy Hilfiger, it's all Chinese people. And like, what I've noticed is that Chinese are very much proud of being Chinese. Before they weren't, they were like, I want to buy this because this is what they were in the West. But now it's like, no, we're now setting the standards, we're setting the trends, and we're proud to be Chinese. And I think that mentality from a marketing perspective also holds true, like from a production standpoint as well, that, you know, for a long time, they were learning from America. And to bring it back to tariffs right trump first put the tariffs in in 2018 because he felt chinese companies were stealing us ip that's why the tariffs first came in and now you can now it's kind of reversed right seven years later it's now chinese are really innovating with like phones and cars and things like that and now it's like the west which are kind of getting ideas from china but they're gone are the days where they're stealing ip you know now they are the ones like innovating so they've always had a vision they've always had a plan um So yeah, I went off on a bit of a tangent there, but hopefully that gives a broader perspective.
- Speaker #0
Can you give me some of your information on the difference? Well, let me just back up a bit. I've had a lot of conversations with people that say that they don't want to deal with sourcing agents. They don't want to deal with brokers. They only want to deal directly with the manufacturer. And you kind of know that they're not dealing with the manufacturer most of the time. But what are your feelings on that? You know, do they need a sourcing broker? Can they reach out to a manufacturer? Or, you know, what do you think?
- Speaker #1
So I'm going to be biased because, like, I love sourcing. I love product development. So I would never, ever, ever delegate that to someone else. However, it kind of depends, like, what part of the business are you good at, right? Because obviously sourcing is my thing. So I would maybe outsource, you know, marketing. someone who's a marketing expert and can send traffic to a listing and can get like crazy like you know youtube views and good with affiliates and stuff like that and all of a sudden you tell them hey you should be doing your own sourcing they might be like yeah i probably could but like i just want to focus on the marketing and in that aspect maybe someone like that should work work with a sourcing agent because they will do cut out a lot of the headaches for them and you just have to accept that you're probably not getting the best price you're probably not getting the best quality because a lot of that price and quality comes from building relationships and chinese factories very much like to do relationships like business boss to boss and if you work for sourcing agent then the sourcing agent has that relationship the sourcing agent dictates the price the sourcing agent can change factory without you ever knowing lower cost of goods lower quality and you probably wouldn't even notice but they can then pocket more margin i'm not saying that every sourcing agent is like that but those are kind of the games that can be played and I feel that like everyone's vision and ambition for their brand is to start, grow, scale and then exit. And I think if you think of like your valuation for your brand, like when you work for a sourcing agent, a lot of them don't declare who the factory is because they don't want you to go direct like to them. But if a private equity or an aggregator is buying your business and you can't tell them who your factory is, you're like, oh, I buy from this guy. Then like your valuation massively goes down if you don't know where your goods are being made. and you know I think if you are working with a sourcing agent, you have to look at, well, is it a one-man show? Am I just dealing with this guy called Tom in China? Or am I dealing with a company? Because a lot of people I know deal with one person. They're like, oh yeah, that's my guy in China. But what happens if that guy gets hit by a bus? Then do you know where your goods are made? Can you continue your production? Can you develop your next product? So I would always say, if someone's unsure, why not try both? Try it yourself. There's a lot of information out there. um for you to learn sourcing i would say like my youtube channel it's got a lot of information there and you could also just try so learn it yourself try it contact suppliers get some prices get some samples and then because you'll learn a lot through that process as well but then also give it to a sourcing engine and if your prices are coming back you know six dollars 590 605 and in a sourcing agent it's giving you 650 you're like well okay i'm 50 cent cheaper than the sourcing agent and the quality is the same i'm doing a good job at this i'll just do it myself But if you're getting $6 and sourcing agent is getting you like 520, you're like, well, clearly the sourcing agent knows something that I don't, or it's got a relationship that I don't. Sourcing agent is actually saving me money. Let me just work with them. But you want to make that decision based on knowing what your capabilities are and what your team's capabilities are. So I would say if you're unsure, do both at the same time. Then with the information that you get back, decide whether you want to hire an agent or not.
- Speaker #0
I got a follow-up to that. Is there a way, because we see this a lot. Exactly what you said. People want to go to a sourcing agent. They don't know a lot about sourcing, but they don't want to use a sourcing agent because they won't give them the manufacturer's information. Is there a way that you could tell a supplier or a seller or even the sourcing agent, is there a way to get around that where you can secure yourself and not worry if they do go directly to the manufacturer?
- Speaker #1
Yeah. You could definitely sign some sort of agreement, whether it's like an NNN or something like that, and something which is written in both English and Chinese, and it's got like their company stamp on it to make it legally enforceable. Now, at the end of the day, I don't think anyone's going to like sue each other. But bear in mind that the sourcing agent also gets protection from the factory. And I've seen plenty of times where like, a brand is buying from a sourcing agent, and then that sourcing agent has obviously found that factory, then brand finds out where who the factory is and they go direct to the factory and they're like hey just find out who you are let's cut out a sourcing agent i'll just buy from you directly and then the factory actually says no like if you want to buy from me you have to buy from the agent because they brought that business to me so if that factory then shuts off that agent they're also shutting off all the potential business that agent could bring them as well because that agent is probably bringing them business from other brands as well so it is almost like a gentleman's agreement and and there are like other factories other sourcing agents which do reveal like who the factory is And you can just sign something to say, look, this is what we agree to pay, like 5% of order value for every order that we do together. And sometimes a sourcing agent can handle things outside of just, you know, finding the factory. But they'll also do like, you know, arrange the samples for you and, you know, check all your barcodes and do like your pre-shipment inspection for you and things like that. So they can do more work than just sort of find your factory and be like very useful to you and be like your boots on the ground there. but
- Speaker #0
I wouldn't work with a sourcing agent which wouldn't declare who the factory is. And if they do expose to you who the factory is, then I would honor the agreement that you have, that you continue working together because they found you that factory. And if you ever want to work directly with a factory and you think you can get a better price, then just go find another factory. You're not tied to that factory for the rest of your life. You can still shop around.
- Speaker #1
Are you looking to quickly boost... new Amazon product launches or scale up existing listings to reach first page positioning, the influencer platform Stack Influence can help.
- Speaker #2
That's right. Stack Influence pushes high volume external traffic sales straight to Amazon listings using micro influencers that you only have to pay with your products.
- Speaker #1
They've helped up and coming brands like Magic Spoon compete with Cheerios for top category positioning while also helping Fortune 500 brands like Unilever launch their new products.
- Speaker #2
Right now is one of the best times to get started with Stack Influence. You can sign up at stackinfluence.com or click the link in this video down in the description or notes below and mention Misfits, that's M-I-S-F-I-T-S, to get 10% off your first campaign. Stackinfluence.com. I see this happen a lot on like... Kickstarter and stuff. Someone comes up with a good idea, they get some prototypes done, and they have no clue about the manufacturing process or the logistics process. And they make promises that this is going to be out in two months, and it ends up being seven years, which happened to me in one case. What is it when, if you're going to go direct and not use a sourcing agent, what are some of the gotchas? I know you've given the example, or I think it was you that gave the example of like changing the material in a zipper, you know, and... you think you're getting a better price, but actually you're getting an inferior product and things like that. What are some of the gotchas that you got to watch out for if you are going to go direct?
- Speaker #0
Yeah. You know, it's really funny though, that you mentioned like Kickstarter and a lot of people like raising money for a campaign and then it gets to manufacture like, Oh yeah, I don't know what to do now. That was becoming such a big problem that, um, I actually worked with Kickstarter directly and Kickstarter on their website. They have a free course on how to launch your product. And it gives you like step-by-step guide and there's a few different trainers. And I've done a free course on Kickstarter on how to develop your product because it was such a big problem. And the reason Kickstarter wanted to get behind it is that it's not good for their platform. Like if a product raises 800K or $2 million and then that backer can't deliver, that creator can't deliver, it makes Kickstarter look bad because like I came to your website and I bought this like smart GPS watch for $200 and a year later, I don't have anything.
- Speaker #2
that looks bad on the brand but also looks bad for kickstarter so i have one like seven years really yeah i bought it in 2017 it was a as a scale it's called a shape scale um and the you stand on it uh it's like a circle you stand on has a arm that goes around 360 around you it starts down to your legs and then slowly raises up and goes around your torso and then around the top part of your body, there's this 360 degree 3D scan and it shows you like. where all your fat is, where your muscles are, where your skeleton is. It's like a DEXA scan, which pro athletes use. It's 99% as accurate. They came out with it on Kickstarter in 2017. I think I paid $349. And then every year I would get emails of, oh, we're in testing, or here's our beta guys, or here's the pictures from the production line. And finally, in 2015, earlier this year, actually, um I saw something in a newsletter, like cool new products. And one of the cool new products was this scale. And I was like, that looks familiar. I think that may be the brand, because I'd almost forgotten about it. So I go to their website and the thing is available on their website. And it's now shipping. But they had changed the business model. So when they priced it originally, they priced $349. Realized we can't make this for that. We need to charge a lot more money. We need to actually go and step individual consumers using this in their house. We need to go after people who are professional trainers or spas or whatever. They'll buy this and we can charge them $10,000 for the machine and a cost per scan. So they switch to that model. And when they switch to that model, I messaged them and said, hey, you said you're shipping now. I ordered one of these. And they're like, yeah, yeah, you're in the queue. We'll let you know. We're doing some final testing. I was like, no, no, it says on your website. I can put it in my card and it says it'll be here next week. And they gave me some excuses. So I went on LinkedIn, messaged every single one of their... their people on LinkedIn, their CEO, their whatever. And finally, they agreed to ship one to me. You know, if I paid a $200 shipping fee or something like that. So I got this $10,000 device for 500 bucks, but it took seven years. They changed their business model and I was low on the totem pole. But that's an example of a big problem that happens, like you just said, all the freaking time.
- Speaker #0
it is a very common problem in the crowdfunding industry and the most notorious one there's a brand called the coolest cooler and i think they launched in july 2014 and it was basically a cooler that you take to the beach and it had like all singing all dancing compartments for everything like bluetooth head speakers all this sort of stuff lights on it and all that anyway it raised 13 million dollars and had over 62 000 backers and they couldn't deliver it and to this day it's still not being delivered as well they got that they get that money like right
- Speaker #2
away right like
- Speaker #0
yeah yeah so so the the whole concept of crowdfunding and kickstarter is that you get paid by your customers before you start production because getting paid by your customers allows you to kickstart your production but then they get the money and they're like well we don't like it's not going to cost us we need um we need more money and then you after you've sold it and finish your campaign you can't then go back and ask your backers for more money and that's what causes a big storm of problems but it to go back to your question in terms of like you know what are the as pitfalls. The biggest one I see within the crowdfunding industry is mold costs and tooling costs. Because anything that is launched on Kickstarter or crowdfunding is generally the first of its kind. This has never been done before. So for that reason, it requires like a mold and tooling to make that shape, right? And sometimes like, you know, a creator will go to a supplier and say, okay, like how much for this product? And they're like, yeah, $5. And it's like, okay, cool. I've sold like 10,000. Now let's do the production. Yeah, it's $5. five dollars but your your mold cost is like twenty eight thousand dollars and you need seven different molds i like whoa i didn't factor in for that so mold costs uh is a really big one as well and also i'm shocked absolutely shocked to see how many creators launch and finish and scale a kickstarter campaign without having a final sample in their hand like a lot of them launch a campaign just based on an idea and i guess like anyone which is involved in e-commerce whether it's Amazon, Shopify, Kickstarter. I would never ever give a purchase order to a supplier or a deposit to a supplier with or sell a product to a customer without having a final sample in my hands that I'm like this is what I want this is what I 100% want to go into production and as a result of this sample I'm now going to pay you my deposit whereas like a lot of like creators on kickstarter will like find a product online like make some modifications get a price not a sample and then do their campaign and use all their imagery and stuff like that. there is a much more conscious effort. And I guess like for wherever you're selling to have success in your product, you have to be the biggest critic of your product. You have to be testing your product. And I would say like, when it comes down to product testing, there's like three main places you should go. Like one, you should test the product yourself. Two, you should send it to a third party, you know, whether it's Intertech, SGS, BV, and they should be giving you certification based on the functions of your product. So you've actually got like lab reports. And then third, you should be giving it to influencers as well. Not when the product is ready to sell, but when it's in development. Because imagine like you've outlined the top five like YouTubers or TikTokers, you know, to sell your product to help like, you know, market your product when it launches. But if you reach out to them to say, hey, I'm launching this like innovative new travel backpack. I'd love for you to test it out and let me know, you know, what you're happy with and what you're not happy with. And is there anything you think I should improve before I launch it? And they might get it and say, you know what, this was a really cool product, but the shoulder straps were like a little bit too thick. And I was sweating a lot over here. And it's like, OK, cool. Yeah, let's make them thinner. That's really good feedback. And then when you go to launch a product, the creator, the influencer will then say, I was involved in the product development process of this product. And based on my involvement, we changed these straps and now they're fixed. So happy to help bring this product to market. They feel a lot more passionate about something that they were involved in as well. so that's like really, really testing your product before you go to sell it on Shopify, Amazon, Kickstarter, and then you can launch a product with confidence and you can sleep at night, you know, knowing that you're getting, you know, six figures, seven figures for your campaign, knowing that you can fulfill it as well. And I think a lot of people underestimate like how much marketing content you can get when you go to the factory, because the Kickstarter campaigns, which convert better are the ones which show proof of concept. So if you're in the factory and you see all these workers behind you, you see all these machines behind you. and you show like a mold and you said like this is the mold which is going to help launch my dreams this is a mold which is going to help you know manufacture my product Then the backers are watching it and saying, okay, cool. I can see where it's going to be made. I feel confident backing this campaign. So you can utilize all of that in the marketing of your product as well whilst validating that it's actually going to be a success and bring it in at the price that you want it to bring it in at.
- Speaker #1
But isn't the pre-launch process something that we don't even talk about? Like you're going back and you're talking about molds and more costly things. But even on a simpler approach, I would think that. A high majority of sellers don't even think about a pre-launch process. They don't market it. They don't think about marketing it. They don't try utilizing it. And they have no knowledge of it. It's not talked about. Like, when was the last time you heard a podcast about pre-launch strategies? Yeah. You know?
- Speaker #0
That's a really good point because, like, the crowdfunding model is let's market the product, then let's figure out how to make it. And, like, Amazon is more like let's make the product, and then once it's launched, let's figure out how to market it. So you kind of need someone to marry the both worlds together.
- Speaker #2
That's Kevin and Norm dragging through. Actually,
- Speaker #0
that's three of us on this podcast. All right.
- Speaker #2
There we go. So what about everybody with these tariffs? As we're recording this, it's at 55% for the U.S. from China. And I think other countries vary from 10 to 100 plus. A lot of people are saying the prices are not really going up. too much here in the States yet. There has been a slight increase. I think Walmart increased like 3% or 4%. But we're not really seeing a lot of those getting completely passed on throughout the entire supply chain just yet. Someone's absorbed those. Probably a combination. What do you see are some of the strategies that people are using? Legal strategies, not the illegal, let's put it under the HS code or let's route it through a different country. But now even you can route through vietnam or hong kong or vietnam or whatever it is that and you certain amount of goods have to be made certain place and you can save a little bit there's all these like little creative strategies that people are coming with their housing can and only ship it across it what are you seeing some of the people you work with uh because you work with you've worked with some of the biggest brand i mean the olympics and uh big uh celebrities and stuff in the past helping them with their custom products what are you seeing that the smart people do right now yeah i think the brands which were able to hold their prices
- Speaker #0
are probably the ones which were holding on to quite a significant amount of stock because like the big brands like they tend to like order like maybe if they have their own warehousing then they might order like a year's worth of stock so they're still like eating into that um so they've not been hit by those like larger like tariffs yet but i think if you look at the innovation of your product that you're importing right tariffs were never really an issue before so we never really had to look at this so like if a tariff was like you know four percent eight percent you know you're like, okay, cool, I'll just, I'll pay it. But now when the tariffs go up to 50 and 150, you're like, well, let's look at everything in the product and the process and see like where we can just sort of shave off. And going back to like, you know, Kickstarter, right, that's like innovative products. And anyone which has launched or shipped or imported a product of innovation required like an element of design, right? So if you are manufacturing, let's say, a tent with a supplier. but it's a tent for like indoor use and it's got all these different compartments and it pops up pretty fast it's like you don't just say to a supplier hey like i want a pop-up tent for indoor use right um it's like okay well you know how big do you want it like how fast you want it to pop up like what what materials do you want it and they start sketching it they start getting their engineers involved they sample it they send it to you doesn't quite work out and it took like maybe six months in development and then you finally got that product well that was a six month development time on the product and the supplier has billed you for their product development cost and their engineer cost and their sample cost but they've just put it into the unit price right so the the cost of your product is like 55 dollars but the actual cost of the materials and the labor might only be like you know 30 dollars but they've just added an extra 25 for all their product development now when you're paying tariffs you don't want to pay a tariff on product development you just want to pay a tariff on the actual cost the goods so like we obviously want to keep it legal this is probably like the best gray that you're going to get and obviously like i said it requires like your product to be innovative and this is true like you you have been built for product design work from your factory so you can say to your factory say like look you invoice is 55 for the cost of goods what was the cost of the actual product and material and what was the actual cost of your design and development work and they they would say, well, you know, $30 is the cost of the goods and 25 is... our like sort of design fee for helping you develop this product it's like okay cool well if we're ordering a thousand units why don't i just pay you an invoice for twenty five thousand dollars as a consulting fee and then you also just bill me thirty dollars for the product cost and now you're paying tariffs on thirty dollars rather than on 55 and the supplier's still getting the full amount you've just separated what was product development and what was the actual product now You don't want to take advantage of that and go crazy and just bill yourself $5 for the cost of goods and $50 for the cost of product development. But this is where having a good relationship with your manufacturer and getting on a Zoom call with them, we're going to see them in China, and just say, look, how are we going to split this up? Because your supplier is also incentivized to fix this because the higher, the more you pay on tariffs, the more expensive your goods get. You pass that on to your customer, they don't buy it, then you don't have an order for your supplier, and then now their production line isn't busy. So they're... incentivized to also help you solve this but that's like one legal and ethical way is to really just and if your product is just like an iphone case and there's no design involved then like that strategy doesn't apply to you this is more so if you are innovating i would just separate what is the product development and what is the design
- Speaker #1
cost as an amazon seller even an e-com seller one of the strategies to keeping your price down is turning your inventory So if you don't have a ton of inventory in your warehouse and you can just hopefully the tariffs will come down and you're doing this either once a month or once a quarter trying to turn that inventory, what can you do? Because you're probably, if you're in retail, you're stuck to a contract that's probably not going to let you increase your price, right?
- Speaker #0
Yeah, that's a really good point, right? And like, let's say, for example, you sell. like 12 000 units a year 1000 units a month right but you give your supplier a forecast order and they manufacture a lot of your goods like i would be saying to my manufacturer like you just hold the goods in your factory uh free warehousing and then when the tariffs come down i'll then ship it out right so that's essentially what happened when the tariff rates like when trump was coming into office he said you know it's going to be an additional 20 then he put on another 10 then and he knocked it up to 150. Then it went to 250. Then it came tariff pause for 90 days. So in that sort of yo-yo time, as soon as he announced, right, okay, tariff pause, then you can be like, right, ship the goods. Like they were ready. They were in the supplier's warehouse. And like, because they were giving you free storage, you were ultimately able to just send it out when the tariff cost was lowest. But remember, we had a similar situation in COVID. Remember when the factories all shut down and then like nothing was happening in Chinese factories? production essentially stopped and then all of a sudden it's all right right you're good to go again container prices went from four thousand dollars a container all the way up to twenty thousand dollars container right and then people same with the tariffs they're like i can't import these products at this cost if i'm paying 20k for a container i'm no longer profitable and what i was saying to suppliers then was saying you absorb 50 of the increase so if it was 4k a container now it's 20 the increase has been 16k and if i pay that 16k I'm not profitable, so I'm not going to order goods and I'm not going to sell anything. If I don't sell anything, you don't make anything. So how about the increase of 16? Let's split it 50-50. I'll pay 8K, you pay 8K. And then as a result, we ship the products. We're both less profitable. I still get to sell them. We don't pass on a massive cost onto the customer. We keep selling it and then we keep running. We keep getting orders and then we'll just ride out this period and then we'll still remain number one when this passes. Similar thing with the tariffs. Like if you have a 50% tariff, just say, look. it was 4% now it's 50% the difference is 46 let's go 23 23% and on the value of the goods that amounts to like eight dollars a unit let's split that 50 50 and then let's ride out this period let's keep selling this let's not stop let's not lose ranking let's not lose momentum and then we'll ride out this period and then after that we'll we'll still be ranked high whenever and also stop selling and that also comes down to like you know how good of a relationship do you have with your manufacturer. because they're also facing tough times as well. You know, they want to continue selling and making products.
- Speaker #2
Sometimes, though, the pricing, whether it's priced in RMBs or USD, can make a difference too.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, I tend not to get involved in that because I think that's more like kind of like Forex trading. And whenever I've tried to figure it out, I've been wrong. So, like, I don't want to gamble. like my um inventory costs based on if the r&b or dollar will go up or down but one very good thing you can do to sort of get product cost savings is that when the dollar strengthens against the r&b you can actually get discounts and the supplier doesn't tell you about it so like if you go to a website called xe.com and you put dollar against r&b and then um and then you chart it right and you can chart it for the last six months last year last five years right And then you can look at, okay, like $1 equals 6.3 RMB like last year. And then today $1 equals 7 RMB, for example. And then you could screenshot that and you can send it to your supplier and say that like... I paid you $100,000 for a purchase order last year. And then I paid you $100,000 for a purchase order this year. And last year you got, you know, 630,000 RMB. And then this year you're getting 700,000 RMB. So you're making 70K RMB more just on the exchange rate alone. So therefore I want this, and that is 10%. Therefore I want a discount of 10% on my cost of goods. And they might not give you the full 10% because they'll say, yeah, yeah, but material costs went up or labor costs went up. And we just absorbed that. Like, okay, cool. well let's agree on half and then all of a sudden you get a five percent discount on your cost of goods because you've looked at the exchange rate and you've charted it you've screenshotted it and you've put in like where you put where you gave purchase orders to your manufacturer and how the exchange rate has benefited them because when it's the other way and when they receive less they're the first to tell you about it to be like by the way your price has gone up because the exchange rate is you know so but but when it goes in their favor they don't say anything So it's always good to just go to xe.com, dollar against the RMB, chart it for the last three years and then look at when you've given purchase orders to your supplier and just look how much more extra they've made as a result of the exchange rate and then you can get that back and a discount on your next order.
- Speaker #1
So we are coming up to the top of the hour and I want to take a little bit of time to talk about some of the craziest things that you've done. Like Kevin was talking about it earlier, you've dealt with the NBA, the Olympics. a bunch of things and we talked before the podcast you want to get into some of these like first of all what was the craziest thing that you've ever sourced um well actually what one that i've done recently is um like 24 karat gold iphones which are fully custom for like
- Speaker #0
the best football players in the world like uh for barcelona a player called and for real madrid like mbappe and jude bellingham and like vinnie jr all these guys i met them in saudi and then i went to madrid and barcelona and met them there as well and they were basically wanting custom gold iphones and a friend of mine has a company for that uh here in dubai and uh i basically helped with that but not only just doing like one-of-one custom pieces for the players i was like let's gift it to the whole team for every player and then let's get a sponsor on board to put their name on the phones and then we'll we'll charge a sponsorship fee and then the sponsor gets to deliver it to the team and then meet all the players so it's you're not selling the sponsorship you're more selling access to the best players in the world and when you have access to those guys you're in like a hotel conference room with them for like 30 minutes and you can talk to them about whatever you want you can like get photos with them you can get them to sign jerseys or you could talk to them about your business you could develop like real relationships and friendships um which is what i did and like i managed to get some sponsors on board it deals with um with the teams and I went to meet the players and then you know they said oh you know we really like the phones now we want some more can you deliver this to Madrid next week so I went over to Madrid with new phones met the players again but then met their managers met their agents and they're like you know what you're doing the rest of the time in Madrid I was like oh just on holiday for another few days they're like well we invite you to the game come along we've got a seat for you in the box and then I met like the players like parents and the agents and the managers and then they started introducing me to people and then they're like you know what how's dubai all that i'm like yeah it's amazing and they're like you know we're looking for like real estate partners in dubai this is like the clubs talking and then it's like they're like let me introduce you to head of partnerships and then i went to meet barcelona's head of partnerships and started to discuss you know and they were like you know do you know these uh real estate partners in dubai quick click thing linkedin search and i found some people and then but so it was all just like what started off as like let's do production of a product was then let's do sponsorship then let's then meet the players then build relationships then meet the clubs meet the teams meet head of partnerships now we're talking about real estate so like it just shows you like you know i'm i do sourcing i do product development but then all of a sudden i've got like signed shirts for the best players in the world i've got access to any games and one of them's in dubai right now i'm going to meet them for dinner tomorrow night so it's really really crazy you know what's possible if you just open these doors that you have in front of you and just and see where it goes
- Speaker #2
Hey, Kevin King and Norm Farrar here. If you've been enjoying this episode of Marketing Misfits, thanks for listening this far. Continue listening. We've got some more valuable stuff coming up. Be sure to hit that subscribe button if you're listening to this on your favorite podcast player, or if you're watching this on YouTube or Spotify, make sure you subscribe to our channel because you don't want to miss a single episode of the Marketing Misfits. Have you subscribed yet, Norm?
- Speaker #1
Well, this is an old guy alert. Should I subscribe to my own podcast?
- Speaker #2
Yeah, but what if you forget to show up one time and it's just me on here? You're not going to know what I say.
- Speaker #1
I'll buy you a beard and you can sit in my chair too. You can go back and forth with one another. Yikes! But that being said, don't forget to subscribe, share it. Oh, and if you really like this content... somewhere up there, there's a banner, click on it, and you'll go to another episode of the Marketing Misfits.
- Speaker #2
Make sure you don't miss a single episode because you don't want to be like Norm. Speaking of Dubai, I mean, more and more people I'm hearing in the entrepreneur and marketing world are in Dubai. A lot of people are going to Dubai. I know there's an American guy that's a big guy, Jason Flatland's working with on these big like... He had 59,000 people on a webinar where he was selling, did like $9 million or something on this webinar. And the guy's based in Dubai. And then you're based in Dubai. What is it about Dubai that's attracting a lot of people? A lot of people in the West haven't been there. They have probably some image in their mind of, oh, there's a bunch of oil rigs everywhere and a bunch of guys wearing different kinds of clothing and stuff walking around. but what what I've been to Dubai a couple of times, so I know. But what is the attraction of Dubai for everybody?
- Speaker #0
Yeah, great question. I mean, I think probably people's perceptions who have not been here might be quite negative because they might have just seen some stuff on social media of a very flashy lifestyle. And don't get me wrong, that stuff definitely exists. But I always say that Dubai is like the Joker card in a deck of cards, that it can be anything you want it to be. Like if you're into partying, it's got the best nightclubs. if you're into like entrepreneurs. entrepreneurship it's got like amazing like e-commerce guys entrepreneurship guys crypto guys if you're into gym and fitness it's got the best gyms in the world all your healthy eating and it's a very very convenient life as well like there's a lot of help like drivers and maids and all that sort of stuff at low cost it's a very beautiful place the weather is very nice and probably the best thing is that it's the safest place in the world as well there's literally zero crime like everyone's just got like flashy things expensive things like the way you reserve a table in a restaurant is by putting your phone down and then going up to order like it's that safe and like i'm not exaggerating so it's like you can really build the life of your dreams being out here and i would say there is a difference to like if you come here on vacation versus if you live here and both are like amazing experiences but the quality of living in terms of like the apartments and the villas that you have access to and the cost being and obviously i forgot to mention like no tax you know so you're basically making you know double your income which then you have a much higher disposable income and then it's like well there's no wonder everyone around here is driving like lamborghinis and ferraris because like what you know when someone says to you oh you don't pay any tax like oh that must be nice that's cool but i've been living here for five years and like when you haven't paid tax in five years you realize how much that compounds because that first year where you save tax imagine if you invested at all let's say in the stock market in crypto into real estate cool and then the next year you have even more in compounds and then you invest that and then they invest that and then all of a sudden you've got a really really big pot which started on year one which just compounded and it allows you to basically grow your business a lot faster because then you can obviously spend that on more stock or employees like more help more staff etc investment properties so life gets very good very quickly here and i would say that everyone that you meet here is very ambitious like you don't um You don't see many people here who are not doing well for themselves and are not willing to help other people. So when you go to events, it's like someone's killing it in crypto, someone's killing it in real estate, someone's killing it in online business. And you just share ideas. There's so many different networking dinners that you get invited to. You get these really big creators, influencers, YouTubers, everyone's just sharing ideas and learning from each other. And it's a very, very positive environment. And you're also center of the world as well, because you've got one of the best airlines in the world in Emirates. nearby you've got Abu Dhabi you've got Etihad nearby you've got Doha you've got Qatar Airways so literally within an hour of where you stay you've got access to three of the biggest Gulf Airlines in the world which can take you anywhere you want to go very very quickly like for me working with China quite a lot it's a seven hour flight for me to get to China so I could leave at night time and be in China in the morning and it's nothing it's like seven hour flight four hours time difference so I get a lot more hours online with China so the You're at the center of the world in a very safe place, allows you great connections, great network, and allows you to scale up your business and make money very, very quickly. So what's not to love about it? A lot of people don't realize it's a huge expat. I mean, what's there, 7 million, 8 million people, something like that in Dubai? And like 4 or 5 million, 6 million of them weren't born there or something like that?
- Speaker #1
Yeah, so Dubai's got 90% expats, 10% locals. So imagine the town where only, imagine being in America and only 10% of people are American. Like, that's crazy. But credit to like the leadership of the country, even though it's 90% expats. all the expats here are like very very well behaved because they love the place that they live in and um it's created such an incredible environment for them that therefore you know they don't commit crimes and obviously like anyone who commits crimes to punishment it's very very severe and very harsh which is what deters people from doing it so they've created a very very safe environment for people from all over the world different cultures uh to come together and now they're Now they're going to have gambling. That's right. You know, they've loosened. You know, they loosened the laws on alcohol a long time ago. Because whenever I say I live in Dubai, people are like, oh, I heard you can't drink there. It's like, you've got the biggest party places in the world here. You can drink anywhere you want, on the beach, clubs, everything. It's fine. So they slowly, slowly, slowly. Because actually, think of Dubai not as a city, but think of it as a business. So what does a business need? Customers. How do we keep customers happy? What do they want? They like to drink. Cool, let's ease off alcohol. They want safety. Cool, let's make sure there's no crime on our streets. They want high-quality living. Let's build. really nice apartments they want big attractions well let's build the biggest skyscraper in the world burj khalifa let's build the biggest mall in the world dubai mall let's build the biggest fountains in the world so like they've basically built everything in a way to make it the best product in the world and as a result that attracts so many people and people keep on moving here as we have problems you know there's all sorts of problems going on in europe in america uh you know crime safety politics everything and as that increases increases just more and more people move to Dubai. A lot of Russians and Ukrainians are here as well since the war broke out there from like 2020. So like a lot have come to Dubai as well. There's a lot of wars in the Middle East as well and a lot of people are coming here for safety. So as there's chaos around the rest of the world, Dubai is the number one destination that they flock to after that. So you could say tourism is their number one export and then those tourists end up staying. When I came here December 2020, I came on a two-week holiday and then I just stayed and I've been here for five years.
- Speaker #2
So it's a big melting pot.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's incredible. I would say for anyone considering it, just book a ticket, come out for a week, see how you like it, and I'm sure you'll be pleasantly surprised.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, other than the August heat, where it's 118 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade, Dubai's, yeah, it's got it all. And it even has a little Amazon business over there too.
- Speaker #1
It does, it does. And, you know, like Amazon's growing quite big here because like from Dubai, you can supply the rest of the Middle East because Dubai is actually quite a small market. There's not a lot of people here compared to other countries. But Egypt market is very big. Saudi Arabia market is very big. Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait. But you can fulfill all those countries from the UAE. So like having an Amazon business here, it's quite popular as the UAE and Middle East grows a lot larger.
- Speaker #0
And it's become a big iHub too. Huge AI.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, massive, massive AI and blockchain.
- Speaker #2
Yeah. I wouldn't, I guess he shouldn't be ordering a chocolates for Valentine's day then.
- Speaker #0
No, they'll come in a little refrigerated box. Oh,
- Speaker #2
that's what they told me here. And they all know. No, we there.
- Speaker #0
That's someone we there for like we're in Canada.
- Speaker #2
We're not in Dubai. Where did you go? All right. I think we're at the top of the hour of, all right. I got one question for you. We always like to ask.
- Speaker #1
our misfits at the end of every podcast if they know a misfit i know loads of misfits actually so uh it depends on which category of of misfitting you would like to you would like to talk to someone we'll take them all yeah i can uh i can throw a few suggestions your way whether they're in the sport world the crypto world uh e-commerce i can uh i can give you quite a few the
- Speaker #2
only criteria is they have to think outside of the box and they became successful So there you go. I'll leave you with that.
- Speaker #1
Perfect. Perfect. Thanks.
- Speaker #0
Well, if people want to reach out, Kian, how do they find out more about either your training or if they want to, they need someone to help them source some products or whatever, what's the best way for them to do that?
- Speaker #1
For sure. If you have any questions about, you know, product development, supply chain, it's my passion. So you can reach out to me anytime. And if you want it to work together as well, just give me a shout. Best place to catch me, probably Instagram, where I'm Kian underscore JG. You can also find me on LinkedIn, Kian Gozari. I do have a YouTube channel as well. called Sourcing with Kian. So feel free to check out the channel if you want to learn more about sourcing, product development, supply chain. And I film a lot of videos in China when I go to factories and I show like behind the scenes of inside factories and how I talk to them and also go to the Canton Fair and show you around suppliers there as well. So yeah, hit me up on Instagram, LinkedIn or also YouTube as well.
- Speaker #2
That's really strange because we heard how popular you were. So Kevin and I had an Instagram. We just opened it up called The Real Keynote. We're the official channel.
- Speaker #0
We're trying to leech off him. We're trying to take some of that IP.
- Speaker #1
Nice, nice. Let's do some joint posts.
- Speaker #0
Let's do it.
- Speaker #2
All right, Keon. Appreciate it.
- Speaker #1
Thank you so much for having me on. It was a pleasure. Thanks. with you guys again, and hopefully the audience got some value out of this, and I look forward to seeing you all again soon.
- Speaker #2
Very good. Thanks.
- Speaker #0
Dude, are you ready to move to Dubai?
- Speaker #2
Yeah. But only if Dallas can come, you know.
- Speaker #0
I think they allow dogs. It's not a big dog country. I think it's more of a cat country.
- Speaker #2
You know what happened? You know why I turned off my camera?
- Speaker #0
No, what happened?
- Speaker #2
Dallas the Dumb came down with a boiling hot corn on the cob.
- Speaker #0
Really? He went?
- Speaker #2
Yeah, like still steaming. So I went upstairs and Connie had put it aside for supper. So I guess I get that piece.
- Speaker #0
That's your, you get the doggy flag. Oh, yeah. Get the doggy flag.
- Speaker #2
Yummy.
- Speaker #0
Oh, that's good. The doggy bag. Huh. Yeah. I wonder what we could do with that. That could be a Marketing Misfits thing.
- Speaker #2
There we go.
- Speaker #0
Sell a doggy bag. Doggy bags of all the leftovers from all these people who have their tariffs, extra products that they can't bring in. Just buy those and put them in doggy bags. That's the new business. That's our new business right there.
- Speaker #2
Got it. Just like that.
- Speaker #0
Well, if you want other ideas or help with your business, the best way is to listen to the Marketing Misfits podcast. Where do they do that at, Norm? How do they do that?
- Speaker #2
Well, if you want to see the full-length version, you can go to our YouTube channel. That's Marketing Misfits Podcast. And that's these versions right here. The long version is about an hour long. But if you don't have time and you just want to get some really cool snippets, three minutes and under, go to Marketing Misfits Clips on YouTube. And also our TikTok channel has just, I think it's about three or four weeks old and it's doing fantastic. So check out those clips as well.
- Speaker #0
Awesome. We're here every Tuesday with a brand new episode. So check us out. Make sure you hit that subscribe button for this if you like it. And go check out the library of past episodes. There's 60, 70 of them in there. A lot of really good stuff. So add that to your playlist when you're driving around, when you're working out, when you're folding the laundry.
- Speaker #2
Complete new format.
- Speaker #0
That's right. Turn on the Norm and the Kevin and learn something and be entertained at the same time. Until then, I guess we'll see you next week. I'll see you again soon, Mr. Farrar.
- Speaker #2
All right. I'll see you next week.
- Speaker #0
Ciao.
