SPI 939: The Easiest Passive Income Gig for Creators Is on Amazon with Kathleen Kobel

SPI 939: The Easiest Passive Income Gig for Creators Is on Amazon with Kathleen Kobel

Kathleen Kobel: My background is very much in Amazon, and when I discovered this opportunity, I pivoted because it was easier. And so, how do we get in, how do we create a great video, and how do we actually earn money? You do have to apply for the Influencer program. But don’t be too concerned if you’re like, “Well, I’m not really on social media.” I’m not really on social media anyway either. But once you get into the program, then Amazon wants you to create videos to basically unlock onsite commission. And what that means is that you want your video to be featured on that product page.

‘Cause if you’re an Amazon customer and you’re wondering, “Hmm, should I buy this?” and you click on a video from an influencer that’s how you actually earn with the Influencer Program, when people watch your video on Amazon. And when I say video, we’re not talking 10 to 12 minute highly produced YouTube videos. We’re talking one minute. You do not have to have fancy equipment or lots of, you know, on-screen experience. But, have many people that have quit their job or retired to do this full time.

Pat Flynn: Hey, Liz. You enjoy passive income, is that correct?

Liz Wilcox: That is 1,000% correct, Pat.

Pat Flynn: I mean, who doesn’t, right? Money that comes in because of stuff that you’ve done before. It’s not automatic out of nowhere. You put in work up front and reap the benefits later, of course. And there’s a number of different ways to generate revenue.

But today, we’re gonna be talking with Kathleen Kobel, who, I mean, has probably one of the easiest-to-try passive income ideas. You wanna give a little teaser of what we’re about to talk about, Liz?

Liz Wilcox: Yeah. We’re gonna talk about the Amazon Influencer Program, and no, you don’t need filler or perfect hair to start.

I’m really excited about this one.

Pat Flynn: Yes, and it’s not to be confused with the Amazon Associates program, which I’ve talked about extensively before. That’s the affiliate program. This is the Amazon Influencer Program. Let’s just dive right into the interview. Here is  Kathleen Kobel with Liz and I both investigating. Here we go.

I’m here with Liz, and we’re here to welcome Kathleen to the show. Kathleen, welcome to the, SPI Podcast.

Kathleen Kobel: Thank you. Thank you so much, Pat, Liz. Thank you guys for having me.

Liz Wilcox: We’re super stoked, and I gotta tell everybody listening, so Kathleen is actually my middle name, and I can tell Kathleen is also from the Midwest, so automatically, you guys, this is gonna be a great episode.

I can’t wait.

Pat Flynn: Oh, wait, I have to ask, Kathleen, what’s your middle name? It’s not Liz, is it?

Liz Wilcox: It is not. It’s Marie.

Pat Flynn: Marie, okay. Yes. Still a great name.

Liz Wilcox: Thank you. Yes.

Pat Flynn: Kathleen and I have worked together. She was a part of the Superfans Fast Track group, a small cohort that was very successful, and Kathleen had a very unique business that we wanted to share with you because not only is her journey unique, but it provides a unique opportunity for a lot of people looking to make additional revenue and passive income.

And so let’s talk about that. Kathleen, what is it that you help people do, and that you’ve had this experience with, that you are now helping others with?

Kathleen Kobel: Yeah, so now, and I help people, I do it myself ’cause I think that’s the only way to be able to teach other people, but I make money with the Amazon Influencer Program.

So creating short, kind of product review videos, uploading them to Amazon, and then Amazon features them across their pages, on product listing pages, on some of their other pages. So it’s a fun way to not only be creative and utilize my Amazon skills, I’ve been a seller for a very long time, but I’ve been able to teach other people how to do this and make money doing something that they love, something that kind of feeds their creativity, but then also, you know, allows them to do things like pay their mortgage or take their family on a vacation.

Liz Wilcox: I was gonna say, I’ve got to interrupt and ask you. So I’m not a huge Amazon shopper. So I’ve had friends that have done this and been part of the Influencer Program, but I don’t know what it actually is. Like, you make videos, and then where do they go on the platform?

Kathleen Kobel: Great question. The optimal place for videos…

So, so when you sign up as an Amazon Influencer, you get your own storefront page. So every influencer, so for example, mine’s like shop slash my name, Kathleen Kobel right? And so I go and I upload all my content directly to my storefront, my Amazon Influencer storefront, and then Amazon decides where they’re going to then feature my content across Amazon.

So if you look at an Amazon product listing page, you’ll see some images, and you may see a video, and if you click on that video, more videos will pop up, and that’s when you will start seeing some of the influencer videos. And so it’s such a unique opportunity because Amazon is allowing us to create content that then lives on their website, as opposed to the Amazon Affiliate or Associates program, where it’s up to us to do the marketing.

It’s up to us to grow our, our channels and feature Amazon’s content and links. Whereas with the Influencer Program, it kind of takes away that marketing, and it’s really more about strategy and product selection and creating great videos.

Pat Flynn: Hmm. And we’ll get into how to create a great- Product review video.

And it’s just great that Amazon then figures out where to place that obviously alongside that product. I know there’s competition, and we’re gonna talk about how to kind of see yourself through that competition. But there’s other ways to generate revenue through Amazon, and that’s why I think this is the most interesting ’cause it’s probably, in my opinion, probably the lowest barrier to entry to, to do.

There’s, like you said, the Amazon Associates program, which is their affiliate program, but you still have to do the marketing yourself. And if you don’t have an audience or a little bit of a following, they might not even let you in because there are guidelines to that. And then we recently, or not recently, but a long time ago, we had an episode, it was episode 99. I remember this because it was almost 100, but it was Cliff and Jessica Larue who came on the show, and they were teaching how to white label products and sell them on Amazon, and that’s what they were doing. And that’s obviously a much more involved process that has a lot of research strategy, but can do very well.

They also did things like they would buy things off of clearance aisles at Target and Walmart and then resell them on Amazon for more, and that worked really well. A lot of people actually did very well following that. So we’re excited to teach kind of this process, and you have more in-depth information obviously on your website, and you teach this stuff.

You mentor others with it. But when it comes to creating these videos, where does one get started with this? H- like what, what is the process, and how do you create a good video that gets seen? And, and just by creating a video, are you getting paid or are there nuances to that?

Kathleen Kobel: Sure, sure. So real quick, I just wanna go back to what you said, Pat, about episode 99.

I listened to that way back when it came out, and I had already been doing some of the stuff that they were doing. So I’ve done the retail arbitrage, I’ve done the white labeling. I had a, an agency. I still consult with some brands as far as selling on Amazon and managing their brand on Amazon. So my background is very much in Amazon, and when I discovered this opportunity, I pivoted because it was easier.

It was more fun, right? And so, you know, to go back to, um, what you’d asked, how do we get in, how do we create a great video, and how do we actually earn money? There is a small barrier to entry. You do have to apply for the Influencer program. You have to have one social channel that has some decent engagement.

But I say that with the caveat of I have students that got in with 30 TikTok followers, right? So you don’t have to have thousands of people. It’s really just about engagement. So don’t be too concerned if you’re like, “Well, I’m not really on social media.” I’m not really on social media anyway either. But once you get into the program, then Amazon wants you to create three videos to basically then unlock onsite commission.

And what that means is that when you upload your videos, not only do they go on your storefront, but then they get opened up to the rest of Amazon’s web pages, which ideally you want your, you want your video to be featured on that product page, right? ‘Cause if you’re an Amazon customer and you’re wondering, “Hmm, should I buy this, you know, microphone?”

And you click on a video from an influencer that says, “Hey, here’s the microphone. Here’s what I love about it. Here’s maybe something that didn’t work for me,” right? People are gonna be more likely to not only watch that video and ideally buy, right? That, that translates into a conversion for Amazon. But then that’s how you actually earn with the influencer program is when people watch your video on Amazon, purchase the thing that you’ve highlighted or tagged in your video, that product, then you earn the commission there.

So similar to the associates and how you earn, but your, again, your content lives on Amazon, so much more visible to the customers that are already there.

Liz Wilcox: So you have to have the product, or how does that work? ‘Cause you mentioned, “Oh, I have this microphone. Here’s this microphone. Isn’t it beautiful? Don’t you love the foam on top?”

You know, whatever you’re saying, right?

Kathleen Kobel: Yes.

Liz Wilcox: Like, so do I have to have the microphone, or how does that work to even get those products if you wanna do this more part-time to full-time?

Kathleen Kobel: Yes. So for when you’re uploading content directly to Amazon, you wanna have the product. That’s part of their requirement because it’s, you know, if you don’t have the product, how can you really speak to it, right?

When you’re, when you’re marketing on other channels, Pinterest, you’re making collages, or Instagram, and you’re featuring Prime Day picks, right? It’s a little bit different, and Amazon wants people to come in and really showcase the product and their experience with the product. So that is one of the requirements of the Amazon content that you upload to their site is that you have the product in your hand, and you’re featuring it in the video, and really, the product is the hero of the video.

You can show your face. You don’t have to, right? But it’s all about the product. So you have to have it for your content, but you don’t necessarily have to purchase it on Amazon. It doesn’t have to be from your order history. It just has to be available for sale on Amazon so that you can tag that product when you upload your video.

Pat Flynn: I know a few people who have done pretty well with the, with the Amazon Influencer Program, and one of the things that they do is whenever they go on vacation with their family, they make sure to go to an Airbnb because whatever is in those rooms or in that house that happens to also be on sale on Amazon, I mean, he’ll, he’ll be there with the family, and in between, he’ll film, you know, 20 to 30 videos of just, “Here’s the air condition unit over here.

Here’s this bike that’s in the garage. Here’s this thing and this fishing pole,” whatever, and that works. Like, that’s legit, right? Like, you could do that.

Kathleen Kobel: That is such a– Oh, yeah. That’s such a smart way to grow your product catalog of videos, right? But also to maybe pay for a vacation, right? ‘Cause when he’s recording all those videos, uploading to Amazon, over time, right, whether it’s the next day, week, month, those videos will continue to earn for him for however long, you know, kinda Amazon allows it.

So potentially he’s, he’s paying for his vacations too by renting Airbnbs and filming relevant products in there too.

Pat Flynn: I love the idea of kind of just filming a video once, putting it out there into the ether, or in this case, you know, Amazon, and then it’s doing its thing, and you kinda don’t have to do anything else after that, right?

Or, like, there’s no, there’s no boosting or anything like… It’s, it’s just kinda hopefully the video does well enough to be seen and, and connected to that page, so you can get paid, right? Or, or are there things you can do to make those videos seen a little bit more?

Kathleen Kobel: Yeah. So there are definitely things you can do to make the video seen, um, what Amazon is looking for.

So, you know, really the, the prime placement of your video, and when I say video, we’re not talking 10 to 12 minute highly produced YouTube videos. We’re talking one minute. Uh-huh. Here’s my phone. I’m just showing you what my product is, right? You do not have to have fancy equipment or lots of, you know, on-screen experience.

But, so the biggest thing to do, and what I always recommend is we wanna get the video on the product listing page, right? So I’ll use my water bottle as an example. I’m creating a video for my water bottle. I wanna tag that water bottle on Amazon, the exact color, the exact size, but just the one product, and that gives us the best chance for Amazon to say, “Okay, they featured one product, so we’re gonna put that on this product page,” which is exactly what you want, right?

If you start tagging all these different colors and sizes and maybe kind of different variations of the water bottle, it’s gonna be less likely to actually show up on that product page. So what I teach is, you know, do one product, you know, tag one product per video, and that gives you the best placement.

But Amazon rotates videos, right? So maybe your video will be on the product page for a day or a week or a month or a year. So we do go back and do some maintenance, right? Especially for my high converting videos. I or my virtual assistant will make sure that they’re always on the product page, and if they’re not, we do things like try a different thumbnail or tweak the title.

There’s certain little editing things that we can do that then re-trigger Amazon to review those videos and ideally get them back up on that product listing page for the Amazon customers to be able to see. But I’ve had videos four years old that are still on the product page and still earning money for me today.

So it very much can be passive once you put the work in, but there are opportunities to kind of optimize along the way too.

Pat Flynn: That’s fascinating. Wow. So titles and thumbnails are important. I know that on YouTube it’s kind of the same thing. So any quick tips related to that that work specifically for the Amazon Influencer Program?

Kathleen Kobel: Yes. With the titles, you want something that’s intriguing, but not too clickbaity, right? So when, when people say like, “Honest review,” or, “Watch this before you buy,” it tends to get less views than just, you know, my favorite features of. Mm. Because it’s, you know, people are just looking for like, what are your favorite features?

Or maybe they have a question, right? Sometimes I’ll feature a question as my title, and if that’s the question that customer is thinking about before they purchase, they’re gonna be way more likely to click on my video. And same with the thumbnails. You know, we, we like testing the different thumbnails with titles and texts and that, but really what I have found is as long as the product is the hero of the thumbnail, it tends to get more clicks than my videos that are not, and they’re more text-heavy.

It’s, it’s really, it’s all about the product with Amazon, so the better you can represent the product, the more likely people will click on your content and ideally watch and purchase from you so you can earn.

Liz Wilcox: Okay, Kathleen, you’ve sold me. I’m in. This, this sounds super fun. So- You mentioned, you know, you have some students, you teach this now, and you’ve been doing it.

You mentioned, like, you know, you have videos that are four years old, so you’ve been at this a while. If I wanted to check this out, right, we have a lot of listeners that are trying to make passive income, trying to figure out something online, would you say that this is something viable for full-time income, or are you recommending to people, you know, this is sort of one thing in your suite of how I make money on the internet?

Kathleen Kobel: The thing I love about this opportunity is you could go either way with it. It’s one of those things where you get what you put into it, right? So if you want to spend an hour a day or three hours a week on it, you absolutely can. But if you really want to invest and start making some serious money, put the time in, create the videos, do the product research, get better at creating those videos and seeing what works within your account.

Once you start creating and earning, replicate that, and you very much can make this a full-time income. I have people that do it on the side of their job. I have people who are working towards quitting their job, and I have many people that have quit their job or retired to do this full time.

Pat Flynn: Wow.

Liz Wilcox: That’s awesome.

I know a guy that’s been doing this for a while, and he was able to quit his job, start a business, like retire his wife. It’s been, it’s been a whirlwind for him. But I’d love to hear, like, if I’m going to go all in, let’s say I’ve been dabbling for a while, I want to go all in, but, you know, my family doesn’t let me go to the Airbnbs, uh, you know, and get more products.

Like, what are some other creative ways that I can get products to make videos that I don’t have to pay for? I don’t have to just- Yes … go out and buy these products.

Kathleen Kobel: Great question. So when I first started kind of running out of things from my order history, and yeah, you don’t necessarily want to invest a bunch of money either, right, if you’re not making a ton.

So I’m, I’m scrappy. So what I would do is I would go and I would contact any of my friends who had a wedding registry or a baby registry, getting married or, um, having a baby. And one of my most successful kind of excursions to is I went to one of my high school friend’s houses. She was having a baby, so I, I vetted her baby registry.

I did the product research, made sure the products, you know, were selling well, and I took the top twenty-five things she got for her baby registry. I went over there, and not only did I help her assemble things and put them together, but I filmed everything, and many of which was already stuff that I’d used for my babies but, you know, didn’t have anymore ’cause they had outgrown it.

And so baby stuff is expensive, right? So I went there, I recorded twenty-five videos. I threw her some cash, helped her build everything, and that was probably three years ago now, and I would say half of those videos still make me pretty decent money there. And she was like, “Thanks for helping me.” And I was like, “Thanks for helping me,” you know?

Um, so if you have friends- That’s cool. Absolutely go and see if you can go record there. The other thing too is that a big part of the Amazon Influencer Program, you know, within Amazon, there’s a program called Creator Connections, and that basically allows sellers to partner with influencers to say, “Hey, I have these products, and if you promote them and sell them, right, I’ll give you an increased commission.”

So instead of Amazon’s typically between one and four percent, with these Creator Connections campaigns, and this is all through Amazon, you can make anywhere between an extra ten and fifty percent. So there are actually over seven hundred thousand campaigns in Creator Connections right now, where as an influencer, I can go and search through all those campaigns.

I can ask for free samples. They’re very willing to send free samples. You can ask for, you know, you can send them your media kit. You can really turn this into a business where you’re getting free products, you’re partnering with brands, you’re earning from Amazon, you’re repurposing on all these other platforms.

So that’s why I kind of say you get what you put into it. But as far as getting more products, right, Creator Connections, free samples, and then asking your friends and family to just go to their house, those are two of my best kind of scrappy ways to get free stuff and be able to make money off of that.

Pat Flynn: Kathleen, I imagine when you start diving into this world, you kind of see the world through a different lens. Are you always, like, looking around at different products wherever you go? You’re like, “I could film a video about that. I could film a video about that.” Are you seeing things differently now?

Kathleen Kobel: All the time, like, to the point where I have my Amazon app that I’m scanning.

How much does this cost? Doing a little product research. Okay, Heyon family, I just need two minutes to make this quick video.

Pat Flynn: That’s so funny. You had mentioned product research a couple times. So let’s go maybe through the process, and I’m curious, what does that research entail? Let’s say there is a– Let’s pretend it is a microphone to go with Liz’s example again.

You know, I have a microphone here. I wanna film it, but apparently I gotta do some research first, and then let’s just go through, like, the start-to-finish process. So I have this microphone. What research do I need to do first before I start hitting record?

Kathleen Kobel: Right. So, and you don’t have to, right? Especially if you’re just getting started.

I would say just keep creating that content because as you get through and you start seeing your analytics and your earnings, you’ll kind of see what’s working and what’s not. But when I say product research, it’s like if you create a video for a product on Amazon that doesn’t sell very well, the odds of you earning commission from that is going to be pretty low because if the product already isn’t selling well, it’s not getting shown very much.

It’s, you know, it’s already not selling well. Sometimes Amazon will boost products when they get new influencer videos on there to be seen a bit more. But, you know, I would much rather be making a video for a product that says, you know, five hundred plus sold in the last month, and you can see that right underneath the title and the star review rating on Amazon.

You can see how many units were sold in the last month, and that’s where I would start. At least fifty, right? Ideally a hundred or a thousand. And yes, that can make it more competitive. There could be more videos on there. But you also know the product is selling well, so if you can create a better video than the ones that are on there and, you know, kind of get that better placement, it could be a very high income earning video for you.

And, you know, there’s a couple other things I look for, like the reviews, right? I very rarely create a video for a product that has an under four-star review, and that’s partly because the Amazon customers don’t love it that much, right? I can see that, especially from the seller side. But also a lot of times sellers will take down products and create new product listings.

It’s, it’s a little bit of a gray hat area, but, you know, they’ll take down product listings if their reviews fall below four stars because that then impacts their searchability with Amazon’s algorithm. So, you know, if it’s under four stars or it’s not selling well, I’m not gonna take the time to create a video for it unless it’s something, you know, I use and love, and it’ll take me two minutes.

But just kind of looking at some of those features to really make sure that, you know, you’re creating videos for products that are already selling. You know, people are like, “Oh, I create all these videos, and I’m not making any money,” but they didn’t kinda take just the extra step to see, like, is this product selling, and does it already have good ratings to where your video will have a better shot at being shown?

Pat Flynn: Got it. And then you had mentioned looking at maybe other reviews to try to make yours a little better. What are you doing or looking for to make your videos better? Like, what does that mean exactly?

Kathleen Kobel: Sure. So I’m always watching other people’s review videos to see what did they cover? Was there something they missed?

Like, was there some sort of experience that I had with the product that maybe has been left out of these other influencer videos, and that would be something that I would highlight or feature when the product carousel, you know, when the video carousel is already filled up. So typically, you can have about five influencer videos on each product page.

Amazon tests this, but if you go and you’re an influencer, you see there’s already five videos, it means now there’s some competition for you. Mm-hmm. So you’ve gotta do something a little bit different to try to, you know, kinda knock one of those other people out of the placement. And Amazon rotates. We don’t know exact– We have no control over where our videos, you know, fall in that video carousel or if Amazon puts them there.

So I just like to watch and see what are other people doing, what can I learn from their content, and why is Amazon featuring theirs to try to figure out, you know, what should I be saying in my content?

Pat Flynn: Got it. Okay. So I’m gonna film a video. I got my phone, or I can probably use my phone or anything else that’ll record good quality nowadays. But am I recording horizontal? Am I recording vertical? And what is the ideal length for, for one of these videos?

Kathleen Kobel: Yes. So ideally around one minute. One minute, okay. Between one and two minutes is the sweet spot that I have found, that most of my students have found because the attention span, right?

You’re, think about, you know, you’re an Amazon customer and you’re deciding, “Should I buy this?” People are not really gonna watch, like, a 10-minute video on Amazon when they’re deciding, “Should I buy this?” YouTube, for sure. They’re doing more research and there’s a lot more in depth that you can go. I think some of my longer videos are maybe four or five minutes, but I don’t have anything longer than five minutes.

One to two minutes is really the sweet spot to just be able to kind of answer those low-hanging fruit questions and say the top features and benefits without losing them. And then as far as horizontal or vertical, you can do it either way. Amazon does not have a requirement. I personally record 90% of my videos horizontally, and that is because I’ve always done it that way, but the seller side with the, the brand videos that show up on the product pages, there was a requirement to be horizontal.

So when I first started with the influencer program, like I’m gonna stick with Amazon’s requirements for seller, I’m gonna do horizontal. You absolutely can do vertical, but another reason why I do horizontal is because I repurpose to YouTube, and with one or two-minute videos, they become shorts if they’re vertical, right?

Whereas with they’re horizontal, now they’re regular videos. I can create a description. I can use an Amazon affiliate link, right, to promote that on YouTube. So I do horizontal. You can do however. If you repurpose on TikTok or Instagram, maybe you wanna do vertical, right? So that’s really kind of what I base the orientation on.

Pat Flynn: Yeah.

Liz Wilcox: So you’re repurposing. Is that solely for the purpose of getting that Amazon affiliate cash?

Kathleen Kobel: Yes. Yep.

Liz Wilcox: Awesome. Yep. Double dipping. I love it.

Kathleen Kobel: Yeah. Double dipping, triple di- Amazon has international. You know, you can create one video and post it in 10 different places if you’re strategic about it.

Pat Flynn: I have seen, there, there I think was something called Amazon One Link or something like this a while back that you could, as an Amazon Associates affiliate, you could get one link that you could share, and it would determine kind of what country a person was from, and then send them to that affiliate link.

But you did have to sign up to the affiliate programs for those different countries, and we still have that working at SPI, actually, for a lot of our stuff. So what you’re saying is you can take that one video. Do you have to individually sign up for separate Amazon Influencer programs, like the Spanish one, the Italian one?

And if you do that, would you recommend having voiceover in that language, for example?

Kathleen Kobel: Yes. Yes. So for example, I’m signed up for US, Canada, Australia, and UK. Okay. Because they’re all English-speaking. All English-speaking. Yeah. Right? And so you do have to sign up separately, but if you’re already approved in one, it’s mostly just a login process.

You don’t actually have to submit videos. Like, you’re pretty much in, it’s just a matter of signing up for them. But you can do– You can get people to do voiceovers. I, I just haven’t, ’cause I’m like, “Well, I have four.” So with most of my videos that I upload to Amazon US Influencer Store, I’ll then upload to Canada, UK, and Australia, and now, now my videos are on four different marketplaces instead of just the one, and it’s the same video.

I’m not doing anything different.

Pat Flynn: That’s cool. How much editing are you doing on these videos, if any at all?

Kathleen Kobel: Not a ton. I’m mostly just editing out any kinda dead space. There’s not a ton of, you know, transitional editing. I mean, depending on the product, right? If, if I have a smaller product that I’m just kinda featuring, you know, kinda up above and doing a demonstration, very minimal, if any editing.

Most of the editing comes from, like, some of the larger products where, like, let’s say I would do, like, an assembly, and maybe I would speed it up, right? And I have a voiceover going while I’m building the product so they can kinda get an idea of what it takes to assemble something. That maybe is a little bit more editing, but that’s just more so for– to keep their attention and to, uh, not actually do a build in real time.

Pat Flynn: Yeah. I like that idea of showing, like, the assembly and how easy that is. That’s a great, you know, opportunity. I’m curious if there’s any other cool tricks or things like that that would– ‘Cause again- If a lot of people are doing this, you want your videos to stand out. So I’m just curious if, if anybody’s doing anything really creative with the videos, or is there such thing as too much creativity, right?

‘Cause like you said earlier, maybe it’s, it should just be about the product. ‘Cause I’m thinking if I were to do this, I’m like, okay, how do I stand out? Maybe I have measuring tools that becomes my thing. Like, all my videos are gonna have, like, really precise measuring tools to go along with these things that make it so that people know that this is the exact size, and this, it’ll fit in this kind of space, in a, in a cubby hole or whatever it might be.

Liz Wilcox: I’m picturing, listen, I, I’m picturing Pat on Amazon Influencer. Should I assemble it or keep it apart?

Pat Flynn: Yes, exactly.

Liz Wilcox: That’s what, that’s what I’m picturing. And every time he assembles it, right?

Pat Flynn: Or will it break, right? Like, I don’t know if there’s, like, a-

Liz Wilcox: Oh, I love that …

Pat Flynn: Like a tester. Oh, yeah. Maybe this is too far, Kathleen.

Let me know what you think. It’s like, okay, everything that I am going to review, I’m going to throw off of my roof and see if it survives. And just that creates a hook at the end. It’s just like, “Okay, we’re gonna see if this survives a 20-foot fall.” And like, “Oh, Legos. Of course it broke, but I can put it back together.”

Yeah. I don’t know.

Kathleen Kobel: That’s a pretty brilliant way to distinguish yourself from what everyone else is doing, right? And maybe it wouldn’t apply with every product. You know, I don’t know if you can, like, throw a refrigerator off the roof or something like that.

Pat Flynn: I mean, I’d wanna watch that.

Kathleen Kobel: You could try, right?

Liz Wilcox: It would definitely break, but we could do it. Buy it anyway.

Kathleen Kobel: But I feel like people would watch.

Pat Flynn: Yeah. I don’t know. I’m just curious on, like, how far one could take that creativity or, or, or if that even matters to Amazon, ’cause I know it’s algorithmic in terms of what shows up, and I don’t know if, like, watch time is important or not.

Kathleen Kobel: You know, it’s not necessarily about watch time, but about the percentage viewed. So what I’ve found is as long as the customer is watching 50%, my video tends to get shown more and convert more. So that 50% mark. And again, Amazon doesn’t tell us what qualifies as a conversion. How long do people have to watch it, right?

But like I said, what I’ve seen is at least 50%. Um, one thing I will say, though, is, like, if the video is, like, too highly produced or kinda too YouTube-y, it’s a bit of a turnoff for Amazon customers ’cause they’re like … They … You know, they kind of forget that you’re just a regular person when they’re just watching a video where you’re like, “Hi,” like, “this is the product.”

Like, I don’t even talk about myself ’cause at the end of the day, the Amazon customers don’t care about me. They care about the product. They just wanna know about the product, right? It’s similar to YouTube, but so different in that you’re not really building your persona on, on Amazon. You can. Absolutely you can, but they have some really big, you know, celebrity influencers on there.

And just your average customer, maybe they’re following them, but they just wanna know, right? Like, is this water bottle gonna fit in my cup holder? Is it easy to clean, right? And so if I do too much producing or I do too much editing, it kind of loses that, like, authenticity. Like, I’m just a regular person showing you my water bottle and trying to help you decide if you wanna buy it or not.

Pat Flynn: I think that’s where things are at in general today. People want real. People want-

Kathleen Kobel: Mm-hmm …

Pat Flynn: Authentic. I mean, even in, in the world of email, Liz, like, just clean, like, friend-to-friend style emails versus the highly designed ones are, are working better. We’ve seen that work better at SPI, right?

Liz Wilcox: Yes, for sure. And y’all, you can’t see me, but I’m literally sitting on the ground of my nephew’s uh, bedroom trying to get this podcast done, and I’ve found that people just really respond to that.

Like, “Oh, Liz, that’s so relatable,” right? Mm-hmm. And I think w- if we- That’s the word … apply that to the Amazon thing, like the influencer program, if we had to boil it down, I think it’s just like a review system, right? We’re just leaving- Mm-hmm … natural reviews, so the more natural it looks, the better, right?

Like, if I’m buying a top from a Facebook ad, I click on it, and I, I always look for the pictures, right? Like, does this fit to size? Like somebo- I don’t know if you’re getting paid to make this review. I need to see a picture, right? And so I’m always looking for those pictures. So now it’s sort of like clicking in my head, okay, Kathleen, yes, people on Amazon, they’re looking for the pictures, but if they can see a video, that’s even better, of the product, right?

So- Yes … I’m super stoked about this because this seems so doable. Like, you can be a creator without having to put all your creative energy into it. So getting creative in the fact of like, where can I find products versus how can I produce this, which I know for Pat and myself, our audience sometimes really gets into their heads- Yeah, about, you know, producing, and I mean, I even saw in our SPI community, somebody said they researched YouTube for 18 months, and they’ve only produced five videos in those 18 months. And I thought, oh no, let’s get you moving, baby. Let’s get you moving. So I love that this can get people, you know, doing those reps, getting creative without having to be this polished whatever.

So on that tip, thinking about who’s listening, do you have any, not words of wisdom, but like what kind of… You have a lot of students that you teach to do this. Like, what kind of character traits or what, what does it take to like sort of make it in the Amazon Influencer Program right now?

Kathleen Kobel: Honestly, the biggest thing is just staying motivated and consistent because all the rest of the skills are so learnable and doable.

It’s really just about sticking with it and, you know, people are like, “Well, how quickly can I make money?” And it’s like, well, as soon as you get your first three videos up, you can start making money with those first three videos. You can make three one to two-minute videos, you know, within a day. You don’t even have to do any editing.

But it’s, you know, when, when people start seeing results, they tend to stay motivated, and when they don’t, they tend to kind of fall off, right? So you– Like I said before, you don’t need to buy a five hundred dollar camera. You already have one i-in your hand. You have a thousand dollar phone, right? So you, you just, you just use your phone.

You don’t have to have any fancy equipment. You don’t have to pay for a bunch of software tools. There are plenty out there that, that are very helpful. But just getting started and just kind of getting over that like, “Oh gosh, my video, my first video is probably gonna stink. It’s not gonna be good.” No, it’s not gonna be good.

But you know what? If you can just have that mentality of I’m trying to help the Amazon customer decide if this is a good purchase for them or not, I’m trying to be helpful, that’s really what helps me, especially with consistency and knowing what to say. Like, I’m just trying to be helpful, and if I just keep in that mindset, everything just flows so much easier, and it’s exciting.

It makes me wanna keep going and find more products and create more videos. And in turn, I keep making more money because the more videos, you know, you upload, the more opportunity. Every video is, is a little income stream. So lots of opportunity.

Liz Wilcox: I love that. Can I be nosy? Y’all, I know what you’re thinking listening to this.

Like, what is the video that has made you the most money? And if you wanna share, like, how much money did it make you?

Kathleen Kobel: Sure. So one of my very first videos, it was my third video. So like I said, you have to do three videos. Amazon approves them, and then you can hit the ground running and make, you know, hundreds or thousands.

It was my third video, so one of the very first ones that got approved. It was a double laundry hamper. It was nothing exciting at all. In fact, it’s a terrible video, but it’s me with a selfie stick and my phone, and I’m s- just like you, Liz, I’m sitting on the floor of, of a bedroom, and I have it behind me, and I, you know, I’m like, “Hey, guys. Like, I’m just– I’m a tired mom, and I do a lot of laundry, but I have this double laundry hamper because it helps separate my lights and my darks, and it just is one less step for me to have to do.” That $30 hamper m- has made me about $8,000 over the last- Wow … five years of that video being up. Yes, it was one of my first ones, but cost $30, and it’s made me over eight grand, so it’s very d– And it’s one of my least favorite videos to watch of myself, but apparently everyone else likes it and, and likes to buy from it, so I’m okay with that.

Pat Flynn: I love that. Thank you for sharing that, and thank you, Liz, for being curious, as I know everybody else is. As we wrap up here, and Kathleen, thank you again, where can people go to learn more from you and dive into this world a little bit deeper?

Kathleen Kobel: Yes. Yes. I would love to have everyone come visit my website, kathleenkobel.com.

It’s just my name, but if you go to /masterclass, kathleenkobel.com/masterclass. It’s a free class that just takes you through my five-step system on how to, like, get started, how the program works. It gives you a nice overview, so you can really figure out, like, “Is this a good opportunity for me? Is this something I can kind of fit into my lifestyle right now?”

And it’s totally free, so check that out if you are interested in taking that next step to see if it’s a good fit for you.

Pat Flynn: Kathleen Kobel, K-O-B-E-L, dot com slash masterclass. I have one last question, and then Liz, you can, you can close us off here after. It relates to what you were saying earlier about consistency.

We’ve seen that to be a magic formula for anything. YouTube, social media, podcasting. That consistent showing up and not being too bogged down on the perfection is, is really key, and this is why our challenges have worked really well recently. It’s like, “Hey, for this period of time, this is what you’re gonna focus on.

It doesn’t matter how bad they are. Just keep going every single day.” Our 30-day video challenge, our seven-day live challenge, et cetera. If you were to offer a challenge for people watching now that would help them at least understand that this is something that they could stick with and see some results from, you know, just trying it out for th- three videos to get approved and then a couple more is just not gonna cut it, right?

Like, we need to keep staying consistent. How many videos would you recommend a person do to just really give it a good shot without, you know- Leaving everything else behind and, and going full-time with it right away. But just to kind of get a taste of it, how many videos would you recommend a person do per day or per week, and for how long?

Just to kind of get started and get a feel to see if this really works for them.

Kathleen Kobel: Sure. Well, I think, you know, it’s all about your time, right? ‘Cause some– I know some people that churn out twenty-five videos a day. I know some people that do ten videos a week, right? But I think once you get to that between, like, forty and fifty videos that you’ve uploaded to Amazon.

So I would say fifty videos, that’s really when you will start seeing– And again, I’m talking one-minute videos, right? Oh, yeah. We’re not talking about, like, highly produced. And fifty videos could take you a few months to get to, depending on your, on your schedule. But the more consistent you can be with it, the quicker you can get those first, like, fifty videos up, you’re going to start seeing your earnings.

You’re going to start seeing analytics come through with how many views you’re getting on your videos, and you will be able to figure out what’s working for you, you know, within your account. And kind of figure out, you know, “Well, how many videos works for me to stay consistent but to also continue earning?”

You know, it’s, it’s really about the, the more content you can get up on Amazon, the quicker, the better. Mm-hmm. But then sometimes people take the summer off, right? And if– I know people that have three thousand videos up, and they’re like, “I’m just gonna take the summer off and see what happens.” And they continue to earn, and they continue to make money every single day with the three thousand videos that they have.

You know, if they don’t do anything for five years, maybe those three thousand videos will stop earning eventually.

Liz Wilcox: Sure.

Kathleen Kobel: Um, but, you know, the quicker… I always tell people, once you get in, download your order history, sort by price, and start with the highest price items and work your way down. Create those videos as quickly but as, you know, as best as you can, and you will find your flow.

You’ll find a good groove, and just keep going down the list. Stick with it, and you, you will start seeing money come in.

Pat Flynn: I like that. Fifty is a, is a achievable number, so I appreciate that- Yes. Yes …for, for the audience here. Liz, why don’t you take us home?

Liz Wilcox: Okay. Well, I’m super jazzed, you guys. If you don’t know, I’m trying to put the I back in SPI.

I love income, so this was really exciting. Thank you, Kathleen. If you are interested in that Amazon Influencer Program, definitely check her out. The link will be in the show notes. Thank you for listening.

Pat Flynn: Thanks, Kathleen.

Kathleen Kobel: Thank you guys for having me.