Build an Ecommerce Team to 8 Figures with Fernando Campos - a podcast by Michael Veazey

Building an Ecommerce Team to grow to 8 figures on Amazon
Intro: Fernando Campos of Marketplace Ops and Pixelfy - who supercharge Amazon sales for brands by managing their accounts.  Fernando and Nick built a business by learning to build an ecommerce team. They currently have  40 team members in their 8 figure businessWhat’s the starting point with  building an ecommerce team?
It is important in the early days to understand the process.But frankly Fernando doesn’t really document things
He’s more people and team-oriented.Focus on your strengths! If you’re not process-driven, you can hire someone who is!
In this case, you may start to build an ecommerce team earlier rather than automate processes with softwareHow did you start to build your ecommerce team?
About 7 months in. It was someone in the Philippines.It was driven by the tasks that were taking up Nick’s time (Fernando’s business partner) Nick was handling customer support and Fernando was aware that wasn’t a great use of  his time.

First principle of outsourcing for Amazon: Set a value on your timeThere are things that only owners can do


Financial planningStrategy
HiringThese are all high value tasks
For example, finding another product that would generate $500 profit a month is a very high value task.Gradually Increase the value you set on your time as you build your ecommerce team
Fernando’s barrier was $50 an hour valueBecause of valuing his time
Then pushed up to $100Now it’s around $500 per hour
Specific tasks were possible to learn but would we do it as well and would it be fun. For example hiring a photographer!What to outsource first for Amazon
There are a lot of repeatable tasks.They have an assigned value and complexity.
Simple/lower value tasks:Customer support
Admin tasksMore complex tasks would be:


Product developmentSourcing

How did you find the faith that you would produce than your ecommerce team cost?They outsourced at $80K USD a month revenue, which was probably a bit late. The business was profitable at that point so could easily afford the cost.
It was clear Nick could use his time better by then.How did you hire your 2nd team member?
They took a step back and asked themselves“What are going to be the big levers for growth?”
The answers were:Product development
Sourcing, logistics planningSo they were the next two hires in CA, USA
They helped standardise the process for product development.Fernando enjoyed this but had to fit it into his time.
They would need operational support so theyOver the years, Fernando has got a bit lazier about figuring out processes!
Most tasks and responsibilities will recur. It’s better to bring someone onFernando is good at getting something off the ground not in a super structured way.
He then hands over to his team to structure and refine processes.The hiring journey - how Fernando's ecommerce team grew over time...
When to Hire specialists for your Amazon teamYou start off by hiring for potential.
Now it’s much easier to bring someone in with the right backgroundNext phase
Brought in people below team in CA and they became managers.This is where they really started to see improvement.
It elevated the roles of the people in CA to management and let them focus on strategy and process and how to scale to 10-20MEarly 2016 - hiring in the USA
Why hire in the USA for your outsrouced team?The people in CA had some mutual friends and good backgrounds.
They didn’t really know if they could hire high level people in the PH.Nowadays they are more confident in this.
They were more focussed on hiring admin tasks overseas.More and more they started hiring more and more PH team members.
Financial struggle in 2017 - had to dolayoffs
Mid 2017 Laid off part of team in USA (from 7 to 4 inc Fernando and business partner nick) and part PH.

Further episodes of Amazing FBA Amazon and ECommerce Podcast, for Amazon Private Label Sellers, Shopify, Magento or Woocommerce business owners, and other e-commerce sellers and digital entrepreneurs.

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