From Magician to Millionaires’ Mentor: Tomer Rabinovich on E-commerce and Epic Events

Join hosts Michael Michelini and Lisa Yuson as they sit down with Tomer Rabinovich, e-commerce expert, author of Riding the Amazon Wave, and founder of Top Dog Summit. Broadcasting from Thailand, Tomer shares his journey from performing magic shows to building multiple 7 and 8-figure Amazon brands, creating a thriving community of elite sellers, and designing a life of complete freedom across continents.

• Tomer’s VIP Page
• Top Dog Summit: jointopdog.com
• Tomer’s Book: Riding the Amazon Wave on Amazon and Audible
• Messless Supplements: getmessless.com
• Cross Border Summit 2025: 2025.crossbordersummit.com
• Cross Border Summit 2026: 2026.crossbordersummit.com

Thank you Tomer for being on the show, and thank you everybody for listening in.

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(00:00) Episode 475 of Global from Asia. From magician to millionaire’s mentor, Tor Rabanovich on e-commerce and epic events. Let’s tune in. Welcome to the Global from Asia podcast where the daunting process of running an international business is broken down into straight up actionable advice. Yo, what’s good Global from Asia family? Welcome back to the Global from Asia podcast.
(00:31) We’re closing in on our 500th episode. Can you believe it? I’m Mike, your host, broadcasting from the heart of Asia, and I’m pumped to be here with my awesome co-host, Lisa Yusen. >> Hey everyone, Lisa here, and I’m just as excited as Mike. We’ve got an incredible episode lined up today. But first, can we talk about the Crossborder Summit 2025? It’s less than a week away, happening November 3rd to 5th in Thailand.
(01:01) And let me tell you, the energy is electric. Attendees and speakers are buzzing like never before. Everyone’s ready to network, learn, and level up their e-commerce game. >> The summit is going to be a gamecher. We’ve got an all-star lineup, including today’s guest, Tom Rabanovich, who’s dropping serious knowledge on scaling from seven to eight figures.
(01:23) Whether you’re joining us in person or catching the vibes online, you’re not going to want to miss this. Check out crossbersummit.com for all the details. >> Absolutely, Mike. And stick around because today, an e-commerce rockstar, author, and the mastermind behind Top Dog Summit. From magician to millionaire’s mentor, his story is wild.
(01:46) Plus, we’ve got a listener question and some hot tips you won’t want to miss. So, let’s get into it. >> Before we get to the main discussion, a quick shout out to the Crossber Summit 2025 happening November 3rd to 5th in Thailand. This year’s event is packed with experts like Colin Raja covering crossber e-commerce strategies, networking.
(02:09) If you’re serious about global business, grab your tickets at crossbersummit.com. Thank you everybody for tuning in to our globalia podcast. getting up there in the numbers though almost 500 500 shows and we’re a week we’ll be a week into the crossber summit we have exciting speaker Tol Rabanovich coming in also based here in Thailand and we’ve met a few times over the years many years now like going on 10 years in in the space how are you doing today >> I’m very good Mike how are you >> I’m great I’m great we have a lot in common both in the industry a long time
(02:42) both into the community building and you have amazing community top dog and your summits that you do mainly in in the Europe space geography but you’re all over the place you’re just speaking in Singapore and you’ll be sharing with us at the crossber summit and at the Canton fairs you come too often I don’t there’s so many ways to introduce you and you work with a lot of aggregators in the aggregator stages you you’re multiple brands and you’re also into this very active in the space with your contributions your book I’ve read and I
(03:14) really enjoyed writing the Amazon Wave book and there’s so much it’s a real it’s a real treat to have you on the show. We’re gonna focus on more of the origin story kind of in ecommerce. I know you maybe a little bit of your magician background if you’re willing and you’re into you’re from Israel originally and how did you get into ecom? How did you get into I know you talk about in your book and in your other content but just for the listeners today get an overview.
(03:42) What do you think? Ready? >> Yeah, sure. I started like a lot of people I think back in the day I just had a regular day job. I finished graduated from college. I studied business economics in Israel. You do three years in the military. So I serve the military in Israel >> for three and a half years and then jo sign up for college after that.
(04:03) And I was I knew ahead of time even before college I’m going to have a business of my own. I used to be a magician as you mentioned and did some shows and my parents pushed me to get a degree first before I decided on anything. So I’m like okay I’ll just do a business degree and I also thought I’m going to be a magician forever at that time.
(04:21) And then after my business degree I got an offer to join this company that what they do it’s like a government institution that helps businesses to be formed and also grow. So I joined them as a like low-level employee and just in charge of like courses and training and stuff and work with a lot of different consultants.
(04:43) I got them people to join like their programs and stuff. That was very interesting to meet like a lot of successful people and entrepreneurs. And as soon as I started that I had like a lot of free time because working 9 to5 I think has you have a lot of free time what you do that and then I saw Robert Kosaki posting on Facebook.
(04:59) So Robert Kosaki is the guy who wrote Rich Dad Poor Dad and he said this is the first thing I’m pushing that is not my own thing and that was amazing selling machine. >> Oh really? I didn’t. >> So he was pushing like the fourth cohort I think. So I signed up to ASM4 and had success with my first product and then when Prime Day happened a day after I came to my boss and said I quit because I just made my salary yesterday profit.
(05:28) So I think it’s like time to leave. So that’s what got me started. And I also met my wife like in college and I told her I don’t want to grow have kids and then come back I don’t know 700 p.m. at night working 9 to5 and I also don’t want to be a magician because magicians work mostly nights and holidays and stuff. So I don’t think that’s very good when you have kids and I think that’s not something you think about before you have a family.
(05:52) So I just wanted to dictate my own time and manage my calendar the way I want it to be managed. and they think this is an opportunity our parents or grandparents didn’t have just work from their laptop and make money that way. So that’s what got me started in this industry and then because I’m very comfortable on stage doing shows and stuff pretty quickly in 2017 I already started speaking at events and I think being a magician I think you are very good at learning things because you have to learn from books and videos and just learning by
(06:22) yourself and teaching yourself a lot of things. So I also think you become a very good teacher pretty quickly. So I’m very good at like simplifying complicated things. So that helps me like be hopefully a good manager or CEO of my companies and also helping other sellers with their with what they need. So, I went to a lot of masterminds in like 2015, 2016, paid like 10K, 15K for the masterminds and I kept getting upsold in all of those different events and that was very upsetting.
(06:56) So, I just decided I’ll just make the event I want to go to. So, in 2017, I started doing Tab Duck Summit and the first three of those were in Israel. So 2017, 18 and 19, I had a business partner at the event back then and we had 20 people in the first event, like 35 in the second event, 50 people in the third event.
(07:14) You know how it goes. I think had a similar trajectory there. And by 2019, we had so many people that just come back and are sick of seeing Israel all the time because most of the people came outside of Israel. So it wasn’t even like Israelis coming to the event anymore. So in 2020, I decided, let’s take it outside of Israel.
(07:31) My partner didn’t want to do that. He just wanted to, I don’t know, cancel the event. He was sick of Amazon by then. So, I’m like, let me just buy you out. So, I just paid his portion of the business, bought him out, and then already had people sign up for event in Bulgaria in 2020. And then COVID happened.
(07:49) We pushed our event by two years. So, we did our event in 2022 Bulgaria. 2023 was Austrian, sorry, we did Santorini, then we did Austrian Alps, and this year we did in Portugal. and next year is going to be Cypress. So what we do in our event it’s a bit different. So all of our speakers are eight figure sellers. All of the attendees are seven or eight figure sellers.
(08:12) And initially we didn’t have any sponsors. I just wanted like bigger sellers help smaller sellers scale their businesses. No flop or anything. We charged more unlike other events because it was a full 3-day event. We really wanted to make it unique and also actionable for the sellers there. And over the years we just changed a bit, modified a bit.
(08:31) So you mentioned I worked with aggregators. So I brought two of the aggregators to my event to sponsor that. That was the first time I brought sponsors in Bulgaria and from then we also had a few sponsors every year but that was never like the main thing and I never made any money on this event.
(08:47) It was always about let’s just bring smart people together and we had 30 40% coming back every single year because they know the entire lineup changes the country changes as well and they just get to see a lot of the same people every year but a lot of new people kept coming in so that was a lot of fun and it is a lot of fun and it’s something that they do every single year.
(09:05) >> Awesome. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. That’s a hard one. Different country every year man. We’re we haven’t we did in China as you you came a tour one of ours in China which is awesome I think 2018 and then >> back here and I moved to Thailand after I also had a co I guess everybody has co stories but we almost did one in the first one in Thailand in 2020 my wife is more the brains than me and I was almost I don’t know I just wanted to put the for some reason I just wanted to lock in the hotel >> right >> and they were like pushing sales pushing
(09:38) me to get the lock in the date Right. >> It would have been November 2020 and it was like January 2020. It’s like New Year’s. I wanted to pay the hotel or a deposit and then my wife like why do it? So luckily luckily I didn’t put deposit cuz I don’t even think that place stayed in business but maybe they’re around.
(09:53) I don’t want to get into the name but >> so yeah we paid a deposit to the hotel in Bulgaria and we told them and that was a new hotel that just opened just before CO. >> Ouch. >> They took a big hit but we told them give the deposit because we know this is going to end at some point. we still want to do the event with you and we don’t want you to raise the price >> okay >> once that happens.
(10:12) So they said okay that’s fine and I think they thanked us for like keeping them alive with having a deposit with them. It was like a very big hotel in the center of of Sophia which is the capital of Bulgaria. So that was anyway a lot of fun event there. >> Great. >> Yeah. >> So that was I took some notes that was a lot.
(10:33) I was went through the whole a lot of the story in one shot here which is great. Maybe going back earlier. Yeah, I I still haven’t been to Israel if you can believe. I It’s on my list. I might even be be maybe not Isra. I’m 25% Russian from my >> and I some of my Israeli friends think I should go try to like get my Israeli try to become Israeli from that.
(10:57) But I didn’t get to know her much. But but I really want to I want to go there. But I remember I read in your book that about the restaurants. There was some really good restaurants in Israel. >> Yeah, Israel is one of the best places to eat together food. Yeah. Like >> I think the best food is in Israel. I’m obviously biased, but I just came to Israel to be with the family and stuff for a few weeks and I just couldn’t stop eating the food. It’s just so good.
(11:23) And Thailand is very good. Has very good food as well. But Israel is just amazing in terms of like cheese and vegetables and like very healthy, very good food. But yeah, so that restaurant that you remember is I think this is the chapter that is being discussed the most in my book called the six-star experience which is all about how do you get more five star reviews for your business.
(11:43) It’s by focusing on six stars and then you land at five, right? Aiming for the moon and land amongst the stars. That restaurant is just a good example of very good customer experience and they are very successful now. They are based close to where I live, like two minutes from my house. >> Wow. >> But that is like very isolated.
(12:00) That’s two hour drive from Tel Aviv and it’s like far from everywhere. But it was now I think recently like number one burger restaurant in Israel or something crazy like that. And it’s not I don’t think it’s because they have the best burger necessarily. I think it’s just because of the entire vibe when you go into the restaurant and everything they do for you.
(12:22) So I think that’s just what a lot of e-commerce businesses are missing in business in general, not just in e-commerce. I think most people just overpromise and underdel and I think it should be reverse where you underpromise and then overd deliver, right? So I always try to underpromise with everything I do, my events, my products and everything.
(12:40) And then I have an opportunity to surprise everybody when they get something from me. So >> agree. Yeah, we do a lot of stuff at our event that is crazy. And so I can give one example. So last year at our event, we did we told everybody, you need to get to sleep. You need to go to bed early today because you need to wake up at 4:00 a.m.
(13:00) tomorrow cuz we have a hot air balloon. >> We need to get to and then we and we took everybody out to dinner. So they go on the bus, they get off the bus, and when you get off the bus, we have like your names written down, and you get an envelope. And that envelope, and that was just when AI kind of started blooming. That was like two years ago.
(13:18) So you get this envelope and inside is a postcard with a picture, like an AI image of you on a hot air balloon, right? If you had your spouse with you, it’s like the both of you. And then there’s an entire song written out and you have all the rewards and everything. Then you have a QR code to scan. It sends you to a page where you can listen to the song. And we use Sunoa.
(13:38) No one knew what Sunoa was back then to write to do the song. And then we edited the video. So it doesn’t even look like Suna anymore. So it looked like very good. And then the day after, so after the hot air balloon, everybody got back to the event and then we explained to them how we did all of that.
(13:55) And it was very specific to you about you and about your business and your journey. And then get ready to the hot turbulent adventure or whatever. uh we keep doing those types of things at our event and again it’s part of an experience right it’s not just about scaling your business or whatever people always want to come and see what we’re going to do this year >> nice so when we had first met and you were doing events in Israel and it was 2018 and this I think you were also mentoring a Canton fair group and you’ve always been
(14:26) very hands-on what when did when you did say earlier that maybe lifestyle. Why Thailand or Asia or was where was it? So was it directly from Israel to Thailand? Was there some Europe or other places? >> Yeah. So the way I built my businesses to begin with was to have complete freedom if possible.
(14:49) So we never owned a house in Israel. We always wanted I always wanted to have flexibility. >> Same. >> Move around. When CO started, I told my wife, let’s just get out of here. Like this is not going to end anytime soon. Israel is very restrictive as it is. So it’s going to be very difficult. We decided to stay in Israel.
(15:06) We had small kids and it just made sense. So, we stayed in Israel. But then when the war started to two years ago and I just saw a lot of US forces coming into Israel on like huge ferry boats and stuff, I told my wife, “Let’s go. >> This is time to leave.” So, we took three suitcases, took our kids, left the country, and the only flight we could find was to Rome.
(15:30) So we flew to Rome in Italy and then we spent a week there. Then my parents lived in Milan back in the time. So we went to Milan to my parents spent another week there and we thought okay this is going to be over and we might go back to Israel and then we saw it’s just getting worse in Israel and where we lived it was safe but we also knew we are living on the border with Lebanon up north.
(15:50) So we knew that might heat up as well and will escalate. So we just said okay let’s find somewhere to go for a few months. And it was winter. It was like November 2023 and we thought, okay, what are we going to do? And we thought we can stay in Europe, but it’s winter time. It’s going to be very cold and what are we going to do here? So, we just said, okay, let’s just go to Thailand.
(16:10) Thailand is very nice this time of year. We did our we spent our honeymoon in Thailand. Uh 10 years before that, so we thought that’s going to be probably a good location and also very safe in terms of Israelis, Jewish, whatever. It’s very safe. No like anti-mitism going around or anything like that. So we knew it’s a very safe place for us to be in.
(16:32) So we flew to Kosamoy to begin with and we thought maybe we’ll move to Copangan later because we know a lot of Israelis move over there. But we just fell in love with Kosamoy pretty quickly and put our kids in there was a kindergarten just opened the kindergarten school that just opened by Israelis as well but had a lot of international kids there.
(16:51) So we just put our kids there and it was very good for them and they picked up English in three months. They came with no English and the kids like pick up things pretty quickly. So they learned English very fast and that was Yeah. So we’ve been in Kosamo for the past two years. >> Cool. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
(17:13) Thanks for sharing. Yeah. My kids they had some we had some time in I think my others listening. I lived in China like 12 years total. I in 07 got married there but came here before co to Thailand and then the bad joke is it was like the longest time with your in-laws during the holiday like in this case was Chinese New Year but any culture was going to your in-laws for a holiday ended up being years in China >> crazy >> back here but same the kids had lost their English in China and then it picked back up in 20 23 we had come back too. So, yeah, it was
(17:50) crazy times the world. >> Yeah. >> Are we back to normal? I think we’re some I don’t know. I don’t even know what is normal anymore. >> Yeah. So, I really think that everything is moving very quickly, right? Even Israel, the war apparently is over, but now it’s not over. So, we don’t know what’s going on anymore.
(18:05) So, I think everything is moving so quickly. AI and like everything everything is just right. Everything is changing every day. I just want to be flexible. I just me and my wife had this discussion just said let’s just leave one year at a time right now not stay not lock in for the next 10 years we’re going to do this people keep asking us are you coming back to Israel we’re like we’re going to stay in town until the end of the school year and then we’ll talk to you so we don’t want to make any rush decisions right now and I think a lot of people
(18:31) around us are the same way like a lot of them came here temporarily and just stuck around a lot of people left already and came back and like people keep moving around and I think that makes a lot of sense I also think because of the way our businesses are structured. I’m completely fine. Let’s move to the US. Let’s go to Portugal.
(18:47) Let’s do whatever. Move to different places. For the kids, obviously more difficult, right? To move them around and it makes it more difficult. But I do think for them to have this unique experience >> is something they will be thankful for when they grow up and they’re still in touch with some of their friends in Israel.
(19:06) And I think I really think this is an opportunity again no one had before us before our lifetime. So I I want to take advantage of it as much as I can. >> I agree. Yeah, we’re really blessed as like online business owners and in this space. I think most listeners as well are pretty mobile and it’s definitely our generation, right? Like our parents, they didn’t have these privileges.
(19:27) So it’s a great advantage >> cuz yeah, like you said, I don’t even want sometimes I regret maybe I could have there was a couple chances I almost got a condo or something in the US when before I came to China, but I’m glad. I’ve always stayed flexible, too. I think more and more people. There’s that founder of Telegram.
(19:44) He’s >> Yeah, I heard that. Yeah, he doesn’t own anything. >> He doesn’t know anything. Nothing. Like, and he’s got billions. I guess that’s the new >> It’s freedom, right? Like I think that’s what he says. I think that’s what you’re saying. It’s my thought, too, right? Of course, I have stuff. Honestly, I’m a little bit I got the back here.
(20:00) I got But I can just leave it. I’ve been so destroyed co I lost so many things. I had stuff and I couldn’t go back to those places and people left. people got locked. I I lost stuff I like like autographed books by the authors. Cool stuff but it’s gone. Yeah. So I think it’s also because at least for me it’s also because of the co and yeah we don’t know what’s the future.
(20:24) So I think >> but the funny thing is like we deal with e-commerce, right? And we deal with physical products. >> Yeah. That we’re stuck with the supply much. But I think again I think it’s like I think people consume a lot more than they need. And I think entrepreneurship is all about creating stuff.
(20:42) So what I preach is that you need to create more than you consume, right? So if I watch YouTube for two hours, then I need to work for like four hours, right? I cannot just consume stuff all day long. >> And I think that’s what most people do. Like even in their like in their job, they might be creating things, right? But then when they come home and they watch Netflix for four hours, I don’t think that’s very productive. Yeah.
(21:00) I think it’s all about creating things. And I think the more I talk to entrepreneurs, I notice that a lot of them are less interested in what most people are interested in. So it might be going out to a bar and get drunk, right? Or it might be watching Netflix or it might be even sports, right? A lot of them watch less sports as their business kind of grows.
(21:22) And I think it just happens naturally to entrepreneurs and you probably do some friends on the way there, but then you get new ones, right? Can you get ones with the shared mindset to yours? >> And I think this is a very lonely business if you like it’s your choice, right? If you want to make it lonely, but I think it’s like a lonely journey.
(21:39) So I think events like yours, like mine, I think that’s when people can really find their tribe and connect with like-minded people. So I’ve been going to events since I started this journey in e-commerce because I think this is like the only way I can still stay sane. And also my days I don’t know how your day looks like these days but what I do so I it took me a long time took me maybe two three years into this business because I had my day job for two years right after I quit it was very difficult for me to manage my time because when I
(22:12) had my job it was like 9 to5 anywhere before after I could just do this right but after that I just was working for 10 hours but nothing gets done and I realized that I just need to dictate what I want my life to look like. So I used to prioritize what comes first. That was like the first thing.
(22:34) Then I put like my kids next, my wife next, and myself. If I had any time for myself anymore, I would put myself last. And all I did was reverse that order. So I would put myself first. So these days I’m going to the gym like four or five times a week. I take care of myself. I eat healthier, right? I do all that. Then my wife comes next.
(22:50) We have date nights and we just spend a lot of time together. Lunch we have together every day. And then my kids come later. And then the business is with whatever is left on the calendar, right? But the calendar is just dictating my life. So I think for I can work 18 hours a day if I wanted to.
(23:09) There’s always more stuff I can do, right? But I think I I think if you work efficiently for four hours and doing deep work and then have two, three, four more hours dedicated for like meetings and talking to people and stuff, that’s more than enough to scale any business. So I think people are uh workaholics especially like in e-commerce and it’s very easy to get sucked into this thing but you need to remember there’s a life outside of that and I helped so many sellers exit their businesses and I saw a lot of them fell into depression afterwards because all
(23:39) they knew is running a business and they didn’t have a life beyond that and I think when someone uh when I coach the these days I coach and figure sales and when I helped them like scale to an exit I tell them why do you want to sell what’s after selling and we need to have something there and if it’s all like starting a new brand I tell them so don’t sell what’s the point of selling so it needs to be like it can be starting a new brand or taking a break or whatever but if you need a break let’s just automate your business and
(24:04) then you can take a one month break or whatever >> and a lot of sales exit because they need a break because they wanted to sell the business there’s a lot there couple of points back earlier about consuming versus creating and there was I think it was Derek Civers I don’t want to quote wrong but somebody says you want I don’t want speak about death.
(24:26) You want to finish your life like on empty. A lot of us have these ideas in our head and like later I’ll do this, later I’ll do that. But you want to almost have the goal to be on empty of these creative ideas. >> You don’t want to have regret, right? >> Yeah. Yeah. So I’m I love I guess maybe that’s part of being an entrepreneur.
(24:42) Maybe there’s different types of entrepreneur, but I love creating. So I try to my create like deep work in the morning. So I had a call before this, but I try not to do too much in my mornings. My mornings is my creating or deep work time. >> And then like you said, >> afternoon like we do these podcast recordings, meetings, calls, email, admin, >> and then I try to have evening with my family.
(25:07) It’s my 4:44 or so, like 12 hour day or so. >> Yeah. So, what I try to do these days is I drop my kids off at school. Then at like close to 9:00 a.m. I’m at the gym, right? Then like an hour and a half later, I go to a coffee shop. I change locations. I get four or five of those on the island. I work until 2 to 2 to 30 p.m. Then I have some calls after that.
(25:27) My wife’s pick up the kids at 4:00. I have lunch with her at home usually before 2:30. And then the entire afternoon we spend with the kids and then from 9:00 p.m. until 11:00 p.m. I might have like more calls or more things going on because I work a lot with the US as well. >> So it’s like the only time I can talk to them.
(25:45) >> But this is what my life looks like now. When I was in Israel, it was a bit different. If I’ll move somewhere else, it’s going to be a bit different. But the whole point is to organize your life in a way that fits you. >> Yeah. >> Otherwise, it’s going to be the other way around. >> Agree.
(25:59) And yeah, there was some there’s a lot man, I’m blanking on the other sections, but yeah, people don’t people just want to sell their business because they feel like it’s like the next box to check on their list, right? I’m with you. I don’t really I build stuff that I want to have long term and hopefully grow and build up more.
(26:16) I think it’s going to get harder harder to start new ones. >> Yeah. So, so what I what I tell people, right? So, I tell them first, if you want to exit, it needs to be for life-changing money. You cannot just exit for let’s say a million dollars. If you live in Romania, that might be life-changing for you, right? >> So, life changing to me means that you don’t need to work again, right? >> So, for most people, it’s probably closer to the $10 million mark, right? I would say between 5 to 10 million is probably where most people feel
(26:42) comfortable living off of that money, right? Unless, let’s say you have a $2 million business in revenue right now and you’re thinking, I’m going to sell and then start a new one. I’m like, it’s going to be easier to scale the $2 million business to 4 million instead of selling this one and building another one for 2 million.
(27:00) Like, it’s just how things work, right? It’s a lot easier to scale a product that sells 10 units a day to 20, then launch another product sells 10 a day, right? It’s usually like just easier to do that uh to a certain extent, right? At some point, obviously, it makes sense to just start over. But I think so many people get this wrong and and they sell for the wrong reasons.
(27:19) They sell from a weakness point and not from a strong point. All the buyers, doesn’t matter which buyer you talk to, they all want to buy a business that’s going upwards and not downwards, right? And I think sellers most I worked with this company as a consultant that does funding for sellers.
(27:38) And I told them, I came to with this realization and I told them, if someone comes to you begging for money, you probably don’t want to give them any. And you want to find those that don’t even need they need money and you want to find there. They’re like, “Yeah, that’s exactly how it works.” So, it’s the same thing here. >> Yeah.
(27:54) I say this to my kids and my my son is having I don’t want to embarrass him. He may watch this one day, but he’s trying too hard to make friends, right? like he wants so he’s like overly like friendly and the friends like push back like they think something’s almost wrong is how I’m not is so involved in his day-to-day school but I said when you want to >> people want something that they can’t easily get right so if you’re like desperately trying to sell your business or get a business partner a wife a girlfriend a friend or anybody like it’s
(28:27) human nature right so you have >> yeah but you just need to work on yourself right it’s all about working on yourself to make yourself irresistible, right? To make yourself your business yourself. You one of a spouse, whatever it is, right? You need to work on yourself and that will show up, right? The opportunity will present itself to you.
(28:42) >> Yeah, it’s I hope you like I hope people like I think this is fun balance between business and life. But if you think it’s how both of us live. So the other thought is you mentioned you had a business partner with the conference in the first few years, but how about your brands? How do you structure those and how did you scale with inventories? We talked about we’re mobile.
(29:00) We don’t have real estate, but we have inventory. So, I know a lot of people, even myself, we it’s not my favorite thing to do is buying inventory. And I know you talk about in the book and content, but >> so the way I see it, I think entrepreneurs don’t like to manage things, they like to create new things. I tell Amazon sellers that they need to have two managers in their business.
(29:19) They need to have one that is in charge of operations. operations when I say operations supply chain PPC and anything to do with KPIs so with like pricing and coupons and all the like day-to-day stuff that has to do with the business to maximize profitability right then the other side the other type of manager you need is a manager that is more creative and they are more focused on growth and more project based so the operations manager is more day-to-day stuff and then the marketing creative manager whatever you want to call it is more
(29:50) growth and project based. So before so usually we as entrepreneurs we like the growth part more. So the first person we should hire is an operations manager. So they might start part-time. They might start full-time. You might pay them like a th000 $2,000 a month. But you don’t need someone who is very skillful.
(30:10) You just want someone who is very sharp with a growth mindset and just can learn everything there is to know about this business either from you or from courses or whatever. and then they can grow into this management role and then hire people underneath themselves. I think with the mistake most sellers make is they hire a customer support person, a PPC person and a social media person and they have all these people reporting to them and they’re still the bottleneck of their business and it’s worse than just doing everything themselves. Once you
(30:37) have that operations manager and you can just focus on growth, it’s so much more fun that way. And once you have the creative manager to just bounce off ideas with them and now they’re leading the project. So they are the ones finding products. they are the ones doing whatever and then they just ask get the green light from you to push it forward.
(30:57) So I will say that’s I think one of the biggest mistakes sellers make and that’s that’s scalable when you have two managers and then you have a few more people underneath them. I teach to have five more people under two and three under under those two people. But that’s pretty much all you need to scale to eight figures if you’re all you’re doing is Amazon in most cases.
(31:15) Again it depends on the products that you sell. If you sell clothing and you have 2,000 SKUs, you might need more people, right? But for most businesses on Amazon, you have two, three products doing really well. Another 10 20 products are doing okay, and that’s most businesses. So for those, I think it’s more than enough to have these seven people.
(31:32) And some people are okay with having just two people. And also those two people are going to work together and they’re going to figure out like strategy and stuff. And again, everything is going through me, right? I still give all the green lights. If we have a new product, let’s say as an example, we have a new product.
(31:47) So they do the research, I approve the research, they go to suppliers, I approve the supplier, they go to send a sample, they send a sample to my house, I approve the sample and then and so on, right? But everything gets through me. Nothing gets like over my head or anything. And I think that’s that’s the easiest way to scale. >> Cool.
(32:04) Yeah, I remember you mentioned this in the book and at the green light. I’ve used that and and we’ll be lucky to have you at our summit this year coming back after free COVID. last time I had the pleasure to have you and we’ll be sharing you’ll be sharing about this exact kind of formulas and growth of getting to eight figures from seven and growing your business and I’m really excited for your session and just of course just having you there for our our event to see see how it’s going.
(32:28) So that’ll be actually it’s one week. We’ll be one. We already got your flight. You’re already coming in, but it’ll this show will be like one week before. So already some people from your from your community is coming, >> which is great. >> We’ll have a good group. >> You sign up. Yeah, that’s great. >> It’s going to be good.
(32:46) And then yours, when’s your next top dog? >> We usually do our event end of May or early June every year, >> but we do it right after Canton Fair. I think you’re doing the same just the other. >> Yeah, I do. Yeah, do it in the second in the fall. Yeah, after phase three. So, >> yeah. >> And then it’s join topdog.com for those.
(33:04) >> Join topdog.com. That’s a link if you look for my book. It’s Ride the Amazon wave obviously on Amazon Audible. And we also just launched a new brand. We actually launched a supplement brand called Messless, which is about being more productive and less messy your life. >> Cool. >> So, if you go to get messless.
(33:19) com, you can check that out as well. >> Okay. Yeah, I can link this on the notes, too. And thanks for sharing with us, Tom. I’m excited to see you. >> Thank you so much. Yeah, I’ll see you soon. >> Wow, Lisa, wasn’t that an incredible chat with Tom Rabanovich? From magician to e-commerce guru, his journey is straight up inspiring.
(33:40) I’m already pumped to hear him speak at the Crossber Summit next week. Totally, Mike. Tor’s insights on scaling, community building, and living life on your terms are gold. And speaking of the summit, it’s happening November 3rd to 5th right here in Thailand. The attendees and speakers are more excited than ever.
(34:00) Trust me, you don’t want to miss this. Grab your spot at Crossborders.com. >> Oh, and don’t forget to check out Tor’s book, Riding the Amazon Wave on Amazon and Audible and his new supplement brand at getslist.com. Plus, if you’re loving these community vibes, look into his Top Dogs Summit at jointtopdog.com. >> Couldn’t agree more, Mike.
(34:28) Thanks to our listeners for tuning in and a big shout out to our Global from Asia community. Got a question? Drop it in the comments. Until then, keep hustling and forging your own path. >> That’s a wrap, folks. Global from Asia, where the daunting process of setting up and operating a global business is broken down into straight up actionable advice. See you next time.
(34:51) >> To get more info about running an international business, please visit our website at ww.globalfroasia.com. That’s ww.globalfroasia.com. Also, be sure to subscribe to our iTunes feed. Thanks for tuning in.