1690 – The Most Lucrative Investment Opportunity: Amazon Storefronts with the Automation Empire’s Ron Earley

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0:58with us right now ron early ron you are the ceo of automation empire you're found on the web at automation empire.com ron thank you so much for joining us thank you for having me josh man we were hitting it off so well i'm like we better hit record here uh you're down the road in sarasota i'm up in in orlando but uh yeah share with us a bit about uh who automation empire is who you serve and what you do? Without a doubt. So Automation Empire is an investment company that caters specifically to the wholesale world. So we partner with some of the biggest brands and manufacturers across the world, whether they be pet, toy, baby distributors, things that you buy inside of Walmart.

1:41And we freight those. And then we help individuals that are trying to start investment portfolios by starting them storefronts on amazon.com. So we leveraged some of these brands and manufacturer deals. We'll start storefronts for some of these investors and then we manage their storefronts. And it can be anywhere from taking care of the sourcing for the product to cultivating the relationships, repackaging it, utilizing our warehouse, and then managing the storefront so it's a passive flow of income. Yeah. So all of a sudden my brain's going, well, I got to ask you about, in terms of investment opportunity, why an Amazon storefront, who is that better suited for?

2:17It's part one. And then part two, what are the potentials or, you know, when done well, right? And you fulfill all the best practices. What are the potentials in terms of, you know, comparing versus investing in real estate, for example? That's actually, so that's a great, it's a great comparison to use because I think a lot of times, even though the digital world's not new to us, it's no secret that we're moving into a digital age. and maybe sometimes people will put more value on a physical asset, something that's tangible, like a piece of real estate and think that there is more value there.

2:53But the truth of the matter is you can only put so much money into a house. You can't grow a house. So the asset can't really, can't scale in value the more money that you put into the house. There's a roof, there's a ceiling versus like a digital storefront, something on Amazon, the more money I'd put into it, the more it cash flows for me and produces on a month-to-month basis. The beauty in this is if you look at like a Dollar General versus a Walmart, if I went to go buy a Dollar General, it'd be a lot cheaper than buying a Walmart. There's bigger volume, more sales, more revenues coming through a Walmart.

3:27So the more cash that I push through my Amazon storefront, it actually grows as an asset class. So it produces me more money through the month. And then when I decide I want to sell the storefront, based off of how much it's produced, it's worth a lot more. Yeah. Right. So cash flow on a month to month basis. And it compounds year over year. It's really hard to beat. That's fantastic. You know, because you think about like you're on your exit. Right. And exits probably baked into this right at the get go, I would think. Right. It's not like so someone's looking at this. And so your job is to work, you know, to obviously make your investment.

3:59We're going to work it. We're going to work this thing together. And then, you know, if we can achieve these goals, your exit, it's not just, well, what's the face value of the company? It's we're looking at multiples now as opposed to real estate. What's the market say it's worth? That's what you're going to get. You're not going to get multiples necessarily. And if, I mean, if you look, if you look at like a scaling factor, online commerce, that whole online consumerism world, there hasn't never been a retraction in the last 20 years. It's just been on a steady upscale. so it's not really a matter of should i get a digital asset it's when can i get a digital asset that way you can start capitalizing on it because you don't necessarily need to create an exit strategy but they're always bioavailable based off of what sources you have to source your products and that's what makes our model so lucrative so i'm now leveraging my personal partnerships in the wholesale world that way you don't have to have your foot in the door with any of these people that are producing these products like we just uh we just signed our partnership with hasbro and Disney.

5:00That takes a lot of work to be able to get your favorite products like that. And then coming into the holiday season, now, if I have partnerships with those brand deals, and I help you start a storefront, I can now leverage my partnership with them to front your storefront with product. So your asset, before it even sells a product, already appreciates in value just because of what products you can get your hands on to sell. uh and you know this working with amazon specifically versus we are going to start uh you know an online storefront from scratch you're going to use a maybe a store platform um what are the kind of advantages to just kind of jumping immediately into the amazon ecosystem it's a it is a lot to unpack i mean what we what we run is no it's no small operation and it could be very much a full-time job because as much as Amazon provides for you, they can be very difficult to work with.

5:55They're very strict and by the system, but also there's a reason why they're one of$2 trillion companies. They have very, very strict guidelines and policies to live by in order for you to abide by their rules. And if you don't, then you run into issues where they're holding onto your inventory that you have product or holding onto your cash that's now stored in your Amazon storefront bank account that you have hard time getting access to. And there are logistic problems that if you just jump into it without doing research or getting someone that's a mentor or in the field, you could stand to lose a lot of money.

6:26It could become very problematic very fast. Yeah, it's true. You lose everything, absolutely lose everything and then some. Yeah, but there are benefits too. So this isn't like anything that we can necessarily cut a corner on. So just to give you some context, for us to manage the close to 700 stores we currently have our overhead sits about 270 000 a month and that's anywhere from software processors staff warehouses our freight company that we do our distribution transportation through and any active server processors that we do because each individual account that you have to have runs off of a different ip address they can't the your computer your storefront can't be attached to the same storefront or the the accounts get linked so just in servers and processors that we run with our Columbia office is, I mean, it's staggering and growing the more that we grow and the more accounts that we move into that.

7:23So that's, it's a whole different animal itself, just to unpack. Yeah. Who, Ron, would be maybe someone that might be listening to us and go, oh, that sounds really good. But you're, you might have a conversation and go, I'm not sure that you'd be a fit because what we're really looking for would be someone that's committed to X, Y, and Z. It's not just anyone with money, right? They need to have a certain personality, you know, kind of a, you know, maybe a business owner mindset would probably be pretty helpful. I don't know. I'm just taking some stabs here. No, that's, I mean, that's, it's, it's a really good question.

7:56Very good question. And I appreciate you asking because I think that this is transition for me. So in 2017, I used to mentor individuals on how to do this themselves. And that was how to, how to really start and run a storefront from at your house. And this is how me and my wife got started. We did something very similar versus what we run and what we manage now, in order for you to afford product like this and grow a storefront to the magnitude that we want, it takes patience just like any other business. This is not anybody that thinks that they're going to quit their daytime job or it's a get rich quick scheme.

8:26It's not that. We're growing something that, again, it's going to appreciate over time. It's going to scale over time, but also takes time. It's not like a flip of a switch. We just talked about how Amazon runs by strict guidelines. And it's almost like playing chess with your business and how slow you want to scale it at first, because the more credibility I get with Amazon in their eyes, the more bio availability they give me. And things like buy blocks, which is that one little golden button that your wife probably clicks as much as mine does. Because every time I come home, I have five packages sitting at my door.

9:00I have to earn that right on Amazon's platform. I have to be a credible seller. I can't push$50 ,000 to$100 ,000 in product on my first couple of months. it'd never be allowed. They'd hold up my cash. So it's accumulating the reviews. It's doing good business. It's slowly starting to scale. That way I can get to the magnitude that I want to. And then also being responsible with my funds, because if I can generate profit out of the storefront and I flip it back over into buying more product, my store is going to now grow and scale at a very steady rate. That's going to eventually climb to the point to where if I did want to step away from a day job, I could do that.

9:37That's not what my goal is personally, but it's probable. It just takes time to get there. So I would say anybody that thinks that it's a way to opt out of working, it's the wrong example for you. Don't look at it as something you can add to your asset class, something that you want to put in your investment portfolio that you plan on compounding. Yeah. And listen, anyone that tells you, you know, you're going to get in business for yourself, or you're going to build this investment, It's going to be completely hands off, easy, just kind of sit on the beach, sip martinis from day one to look at what they're selling.

10:10So I would imagine you've had some pretty good case studies over time. I mean, it looks like just based on the size of your team, tell me about kind of the scope and who you work with and kind of what your organization looks like today. So we have different package sizes with brand exclusivity deals and some of our package for just a typical buy-in range for the highest tier investments, it's$120 ,000 buy-in, which is, I mean, it's pretty hefty and that's before product capital. And it lands you an 80-15 profit split with private managers and private brand accounts. There's a lot more due diligence in a setup like that.

10:45And then we have things that are more catered towards kind of like a first-time property investor. And our next tier package is more like it's a$45 ,000 buy-in. That's a 70-30 profit split. We do have particular brand deals that are with it, but it takes longer to grow into that class. And we're a broad range. So we might have higher tier investors in that$120 ,000 package versus the last person I just did a testimonial to. We have a local firefighter that he's not too far. And he just came up and he did a podcast with us not too long ago giving a testimonial and he asked to come and do it. And I'm grateful for having people like that on board, but I wouldn't necessarily say it's one specific person over the next versus It's a mindset over the wrong mindset.

11:31I don't think that you need a particular job to invest or a type of job to invest into something like this. You just need to understand what it is and what you're getting your hands into before you decide to put your hands in there. Yeah. So let's just say, for example, in the case of the firefighter, what does he do? What is his participation or her participation in this process ongoing? going? So Frankie does the same setup that everybody else would. So as soon as you would sign on, we have a power pack of information. People have different time schedules. You don't have to book a call with us, but I want to make sure it's very thorough.

12:08Again, with Amazon's policies, the idea is not to leave you in the dark. I want to walk you through it so I know it gets set up right the way I can get to doing my job a lot faster. So we'll give you a setup information as soon as you get an entity set up that now the business, the asset is in your name. I'll walk you through how to start the Amazon storefront. And that's in that packet of documentation, or you can book a Zoom call with us. We'll walk you through the setup process. And then our very next call that we book, we go through. It's an application process that I act as a guarantor on your behalf to get our brand partnerships so we can start catering those distribution deals and sourcing products for you.

12:45So that's the beginning process of really what you need to put your hands in. And then it's just a matter of fronting capital. And then we try to do our touch-up calls for the month just so you understand where your storefront sits. And then all you'd have to do is click a button at the end of the month and pay your bill. What, I wonder if you've ever had this question, right, where someone says, well, if this is so great, why don't you just start 1 ,000 stores? Oh, without a doubt. And the truth of the matter is it's really difficult to fund 1 ,000 stores out of one pocket. Any good investor knows that capital is king.

13:17And the other beauty in this is I also can't start a thousand LLCs. That's not possible. And my idea behind this isn't just leveraging capital that's being funded to me to take a profit split out of. Like, this is what I do and it's what I'm really good at. So now if you can offer out a service that helps other people grow and they fund capital out of it, I can profit off of it. I get bigger brand deals because of what I can now afford. And I have 700 exit strategies in two to three years. that's hard to walk away from uh there's a run of those who are listening to us right now your your website is automation empire.com what are the what's kind of that discovery process or that you know kind of that very very early hey i'm interested in learning more do i talk to someone can i really dive into something a little bit deeper um what would you recommend so we we do want to make sure like, like we crossed that bridge about having the right mindset.

14:15I have information that's currently on the website that'll give you a grand overview. That way you can actually put some questions together and you feel educated before you jump on the call with one of our qualification advisors, but they're going to walk you through a step-by-step process to make sure that we're actually the right fit together. I don't want to just take anybody's money. I'm sure that you've been in this situation yourself where you'd rather not just give somebody their money back, but pay them more to go away. I don't want to work with people like that. Nah, it's not the best situation.

14:42I'm looking for people that they're good with communication. They're looking for growth opportunity. They're looking for taking advantage of situations that are actually being presented to them and understanding the quality of what a good investment actually looks like. So going through that process, it's another Zoom call. You'll get on with the qualification team. We're really good about making sure that the investors feel like they're part of the family. We do several immersion tours. People come out to the warehouse whenever they want to. Every year, we usually do a vehicle giveaway just as a give back to our investors, which has been pretty incredible.

15:17And we do our best to make sure that we're heavily involved with the people that are actually involved with the company. Yeah. Okay. To our listener right now that's been listening, where should they go? What should they do? How do they kind of begin that next step? If you do head to automationempire.com, take a look at that website video. It's very, very short. I do. I personally do a six and a half to seven minute description of the layout and the business, all the process and all the logistics that go through it. And it's enough for you to get those questions put together. And if you want to book a qualification call, book with the team, we'll jump on a Zoom call with you.

15:53We'll get the chance to talk one-on-one. You'll talk with one of the team members and any other information that you might need to get you to move forward or any other questions that might bridge any other gaps, I promise you, we'll get answered in that first call. Yeah. Ron Early, again, CEO of Automation Empire. $1.4 billion in products sold in your work, Ron. So it's been great having you as a guest on the podcast. Again, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate you for having me, Josh. Thank you.

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