Ian MacIntyre
Oxygen Seller
@0:06 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)
Hello everyone and welcome to the shades of entrepreneurship. This is your host, Mr. Flores. Today I'm here with Ian.
How are we doing my friend? were actually talking there momentarily about oxygen seller. So Ian, give us a little background.
@0:26 - Ian M
Who is Ian? Thanks so much for having me. My name is Ian McIntyre. I'm a serial entrepreneur and coach, both business and life.
And oxygen seller is a company where we help people expand their brand or develop brands, bring them to the Amazon market place as a primary, but not just there to multiple e-commerce platforms through the whole creation process of identifying products, bringing them to manufacturing and then to market.
Basically, I was a martial arts instructor and stunt. I got injured very badly and pretty much spent about 20 years going through health challenges.
So I needed to start to develop skills that would allow me to work from home successfully. Along that journey, I started coaching a lot of individuals, friends coming over, then started coaching them on some of their business endeavors, eventually becoming a full blown coach and consultant as well as working on a couple of my own companies.
And that led me to the path of Amazon ultimately to start selling product and really understand the e-commerce landscape, a little bit of experience back in the day with eBay, definitely more so with Amazon and how much of a behemoth that's become.
And then also looking at so many of the other landscapes like TikTok and what have you and just bringing that knowledge to other people because I love to share with people and help people find the opportunity to succeed more so than where they may have been already.
@1:49 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)
You know, I got to admit it has been fascinating to see the growth of Amazon in comparison to the eBay just because eBay has been around for so long and I recall, know,
or even in the middle school days, jumping on eBay and selling little things. now it's, it's, it's, it's almost obsolete.
They keep trying to reinvent themselves with various things like, you know, creating a sneaker reselling platform. But again, I think it's, it's remarkable how quickly Amazon outpaced it.
Now, you mentioned you were a serial entrepreneur, so I would love to kind of get into that. But before we get into that, I'm actually really interested to hear, tell us more about your stunt double days.
How do you kind of get into that? What injury and then how that injury occurred to trying to kind of kick start your entrepreneurial career?
@2:36 - Ian M
Sure. So what I primarily did with stunts was work with Tesla coils, which are basically giant lightning generating machines.
So I would get into a metal suit and I would either get hit by 15 volts of lightning or project them off of my body.
And so we did this for stage shows, for TV, for film. Yeah, it was quite a wild time. It's taken me around the country.
It's taken me to a few different. So it was a phenomenal experience, but I was a martial arts instructor as well.
And what ultimately put me down was a really bad, a doctor tear, basically a groin tear. Unfortunately, what happened is it developed a massive piece of scar tissue that would put pressure on all these kinds of nerves, mimicking other injuries.
So as I went to doctors over the years, we're basically misdiagnosing and chasing the wrong thing. And so it took about a decade to resolve that injury.
And then another decade to resolve a whole bunch of other health problems that had developed in the first decade.
So I spent a lot of time, not just with poor health, but trying to create solutions and thinking outside of the box and who I could see and what I could do.
And with that also trying different business models, some didn't work out so well because my health would inevitably catch up to me and other ones like e-commerce definitely allowed me to plow forward.
@3:50 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)
So it was quite a journey. Yeah, I gotta say, as a dad, I'll be remiss without saying this, but it sounds like your stunt double days was shocking.
Yes, folks, I know.
@4:02 - Ian M
I know. Horrible, horrible. you for sticking with me here. You know, in a way, it almost had to be said.
@4:09 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)
So Adam, somebody had to do it at some point. So let's start about, now you mentioned you started transitioning to the entrepreneurship world.
@4:17 - Ian M
What was your first entrepreneurial endeavor? Was selling comic books, actually? It was reselling buying comics from a shop and then selling them at school to other students.
@4:31 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)
A true entrepreneur at heart. Now, did you start doing this during when you were going to school, or was this post-industry injury?
@4:40 - Ian M
No, no, This was middle school when I started doing that. love it. always had that idea and just kept pursuing different opportunities.
And then for a while, did the normal, jobs, got food service jobs, load here jobs, to really help enforce that.
That wasn't for me, but also I found, you know, I'd go up to the manager and go, you know, if we rearrange the
these shelves a little it'll work better and was getting the well corporate pays a lot of money to somebody to arrange it this way and I realized I didn't have a lot of sway and I always wanted to have more of an impact sometimes that impact didn't lead to good things but that's business that's a learning and so you know that's okay but I always was pulled to let me take the reins and see what I can do and so as you have this entrepreneurial itch at a very young age right and then you this injury occurs after post industry injury what was your kind of first you know real endeavor back into the entrepreneurial I granted I would say being a stunt devil probably has his own entrepreneurial you know tactics as well within within that industry so for me I started doing two things what I did for money was started selling books on eBay and what I did is a little bit more of a hobby just as developing the skill was starting to do life in business coaching and so it was a couple years of me working with does it
of people that started to really show that I can do more with that and started consulting businesses, helped a couple businesses recover from the edge of bankruptcy.
So, because I was used to dealing with so many challenges in my own life, taking the approach of how many challenges some businesses have, I didn't find it to be overwhelming.
@6:18 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)
In fact, it was more like a puzzle to solve. How can I resolve this in the most efficient way possible?
It seems like with this new endeavor, the oxygen seller, you kind of, again, identified an issue, created a solution and now you're essentially giving it to the masses and kind of educating.
@6:37 - Ian M
So, tell us little bit more about oxygen seller. What is it and what are you doing? So, fortunately, I partnered with a prolific Amazon seller, somebody who sold over $350 million worth of products in the last 15 years.
And he had a course several years ago, I went through the course and that was a huge exposure to me working through all of this.
And so, we were talking and he, it's, bringing back the course. I'm going to be leading the coaching and managing a lot of the day-to-day.
He is absolutely involved in helping with levels of inspiration that are hard to match because he understands the systems in and out.
So it's from a concept how to create that brand, how that brand messaging can connect with people, how to think outside of the box with products and getting them manufactured, but then also how to practically manage the platform and the day-to-day actions.
And for some people they're ready to go and other people they need a little bit more of that personal encouragement and that understanding and support to make sure that they can find success as well.
So I mean at my core I'm a teacher. I love helping people get that knowledge faster because I look at my time being injured.
If I can help somebody shorten the gap between where they are today and where they want to be, that's an incredible feeling.
@7:54 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)
Yeah folks and if you have not yet, again it's a great opportunity to plug the newsletter. Please subscribe to
the Shades of Entrepreneurship newsletter, because we'll have this information on the newsletter. But the beauty thing about their website, it's really called the Amazon Mastery Program.
So I always think of YouTube as YouTube University. It's a great platform to go get educated on a lot of different niche things.
But what this team is really doing, first thing, section one, Amazon Seller University. So really diving into the ins and outs of the logistics that you're gonna need to become an Amazon Seller.
But then not only that, how do you continue to launch products on it and then continue to earn a revenue on that?
so it really interesting system.
@8:39 - Ian M
Now, how did you guys, how did you and your partner kind of connect and just determine, hey, you what, I think we have a great idea here.
So we've just been talking about it for quite a while. And I've gotten to him many times to get some ideas, refine ideas, see if I'm on the right track with what I'm pursuing.
And as we've just been talking and my coaching is getting more involved in general working with people. It became, well, it's sort of a natural fit.
We want to put this together and the answer was a resounding yes. And so it's exciting to be able to see people grow with what they're trying to do and find sometimes their passion is what they lead with, sometimes making money is what you lead with to find your passion.
And either way is fine, the idea is how do you get there? And I love YouTube. is fantastic and I've learned so many things.
But at the same time, you can get a lot of really good general and occasionally good specific. But to get that one-on-one, that intimate group to be able to bounce those ideas back and forth, it really helps to take that extra training.
@9:42 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)
I couldn't agree more. Having a cohort of individuals to bounce ideas off of and really go over some issues that you may not think is relevant to other individuals.
But it's interesting because what you see is, you know, through entrepreneurship, and your ship, it's still a business. So everybody has marketing issues, everybody has staffing issues, operational issues and just finding the best practices to kind of help focus on those areas of need.
But having a cohort is so important, know, that kind of networking capabilities is just really nice to have, but yeah, it's really, again, the personalized touch is important because again, YouTube, like you mentioned, YouTube's great, but you can't ask questions, right?
It's not like a live session. I'm you can add a comment and hopefully they'll get back to you and never know.
But this, this educational series that you created really is kind of hands on approach guiding entrepreneurs to success, correct?
@10:42 - Ian M
It is. It really is. And that's the thing is all the ins and outs, like any business, there's a million little things that nobody's going to tell you because there's just so much to do.
But as you're going through it, you get each piece, you advance, you build upon it before you know what you've launched a product.
Now you can launch your second. third product following the same ideas. And then again, taking it off platform because as good as Amazon is, do I want to miss out on TikTok?
Not at all. What if I can also sell the same product on eBay at the same time just to sell more units?
So the idea is the framework that you lay down to be able to achieve this. And Amazon has made the process pretty user-friendly as things go.
This is where we also come in to make it a little more user-friendly. But then to take that and expand beyond because business is always changing.
It's always evolving. And if you're more on the forefront of that and able to pivot as things come up, you really extend the life of your business and the amount of money that you can make from it.
And creating that, you know, this sort of quiche saying of financial freedom, but it's not when you have it.
And so being able to have that reliable income, steady stream that you can build even while you work another job is really pretty, it's advantageous.
I mean, one thing I'd like to point out is These days, a lot of times to get a product into stores.
Before you had to know somebody really haven't in, go through a very lengthy process, build up a ton of inventory.
Now, if you do a lot of business on Amazon, you might be able to pitch that to a store that goes, well, you sell a ton of these.
We want it on our shelves. So it becomes that pipeline to be able to take that product to multiple places.
@12:21 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)
Yeah, that's very, very true. The grassroots effort folks is alive and well. Using Kickstarter campaigns to see if proof-of-concept is there is really important, especially if you're going to have to do a lot of capital investment to build out that product or store that product.
Ensuring that you actually have proof-of-concept before you go in and dive into the deep end is extremely important. The last thing you want to do is put in a large order of a couple of thousand units and you realize that you actually don't have a market for what you created, which happens often.
So just buy it and be mindful. And let's take a step back and start thinking about your journey into the online space, whether it be eBay or Amazon or whatever it is.
What were some aha moments that you're like, I never thought I'd need to think about this when I'm selling online?
@13:16 - Ian M
What are some things that you've learned throughout your process? One of the major things is the logistics of getting everything shipped out.
Now, if you have a few items that you're sending, it's not that big of a deal. But you get 30, 40, 100 items going out in a day, there's a lot of logistics there in what you need to manage and getting everything out.
And how much time it takes. One thing that's very popular now with Amazon is using a prep center. Someplace that you're gonna send all of your goods to, they're gonna label them, package it all up, ship it out, and how much time that can actually save it.
So there's just a lot of these little things to consider like that. Learning key words. And SEO. Because one of the things is sometimes you start with a product idea and.
It works other times you're just looking for what people are searching for so what you get you're putting right in front of them So there's all of these different concepts and it used to be at a point in time where these were entirely different careers to put each one of these Pieces together and now there's so many resources online One person can do it which really makes it nice But then you can also hire other people sometimes in other countries where you get quality work for lesser price So you can grow your business from a single person into something quite sizable without needing to take massive amounts of investment Or partners that you really don't want to work with to achieve your goals So I think it's freed up a lot of the ability that we can take which is incredible Yeah, and you know one thing I'd always encourage entrepreneurs is you know before you start outsourcing things do it couple times Like get get yourself a Knowledgeable with and that you don't have to you can be the jack of all trades master of none But the goal is is if you're gonna be the CEO and you're running this organization.
@15:00 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)
It's imperative that you really know the lot of the ins and outs and that includes all the operations, the marketing, the sales funnel, know, those pieces and then just creating, you know, creating a structure around those operations.
So when you do decide to let go of the reins, the next person that comes in can continue to move forward with it, you know, have a location where all your policies are located, who's the owner of that policy, when was it last updated, right?
And then on a quarterly basis, review them. I think what we're seeing too from a legal perspective is a lot of things are coming down the pipeline that now make you, they're going to force you to change, you know, your workforce policies, your diversity policies, all these different things.
So being mindful of that is really important. And I got to tell you, one of the most surprising things for me in the online space was cost of shipping.
@15:50 - Ian M
That is my joke.
@15:53 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)
Yeah. Tell me how your your team kind of manages, because again, the cost of shipping for a small podcast like myself.
@16:00 - Ian M
is is astronomical 15% essentially my costs and we just got noticed that USPS is raising the rates on certain packages.
So these things happen and when that happens you have to factor that cost into what you have. Sometimes products become less viable.
Other times you have to raise your price sum or you just make a little bit less money but it's okay.
So it's like any business expense you need to be on top of it and looking at things I mean quarterly is a big thing but really looking at it at least monthly you want to know before a big report comes out so that you can make those adaptions and ideally you're not working so tight on your margins that you're able to absorb some of these costs because it's not necessarily just shipping it can be so many other things that happen and to your point with hiring not only to agree with what you're saying but one of the problems is sometimes people think they hire somebody and they're done it's solved and the reality is not only do you have to train them but what if you have to go through three or four people
You try out to find the right one and that's not a big deal if you walk into it kind of expecting that But if you think it's one and done every time that's just emotionally draining as opposed to going well It might take me six people to find the right candidate But that candidate when they're trained will then buy me back X amount of hours a day So there's just there's a lot of factors to consider.
@17:21 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)
I Completely agreed and the best way to kind of Low or like lower the learning curve for these new employees is creating operational policies that they hey Here's the thing that you're gonna read before the first you know the first couple of weeks of your job You're basically reading on operational policies understanding where things are at understanding why we do certain things a certain way Talking about your brand guidelines.
So so if publications come out things are all structured Here's the font we use the size we use the color, you know, all of these things Go into a big picture when you think of large institutions even the small ones It's all about consistency when it comes to any entrepreneur the biggest
challenge is really consistency sometimes. Now Ian, you mentioned you've done a lot and you're building this program, this new organization.
Now what would you say is some of the challenges either you've faced or maybe some challenges that sellers might face, you know, new sellers kind of going into the Amazon space, what are some challenges they can expect to face and what are some of the challenges that you faced.
@18:26 - Ian M
So that's a great question. The probably the biggest thing is you're going to end up doing, I don't know, 10 to 15 different tasks that you may have never done before.
So off the bat, it's just how new everything is. And whenever there's something new you're doing, there's extra challenge to learning curve to it.
You have to do it more times than you think. So for example, reaching out to manufacturers. If you've never done it before, I recommend, you know, at least reaching out to five, maybe 10 so that you can get the experience, see who's contacting you back, how they're communicating, what their samples will
Right. So ultimately, the next time you might need to talk to two or three, but in the beginning, you kind of need to go overboard on things to understand how it works.
Another big challenge that I've seen a lot of people have is that analysis paralysis. So in one sense, it's you got to go do a bunch of stuff.
But if you spend too much time overthinking it and not taking those actions, you don't actually move the needle forward.
So it's having all of those conversations, getting familiar with it and understanding mistakes will be made. So trying to see where those pitfalls are or more commonly are so that you can try and avoid them or at least recover faster and understand mistakes happen.
So I'd say from that emotional standpoint, it's just being okay with an iterative process. You're going to be learning from a taking action standpoint.
It's like you said consistency. If you're consistent, even if you don't have the most time in the world, but you put in that consistent one to two hours a day, now you're able to build off of that.
just like money in the S&P, it compounds. That's skill compounds, that knowledge compounds. If you put in a lot of hours into a product that doesn't work, you could say you failed there or more likely you learned all of these steps that you can now apply to the next product before you launch it.
So these are just the common things because if you have that stick to it attitude and work on being consistent, any of the problems that arise are manageable.
It's just you might need to wait a day or two, breathe it out and come back to it and go, okay, let me get through this part and get on to the next part.
And then it starts to work itself out.
@20:33 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)
Very well said listeners that listen to the show often know I say this quote, I've never felt day in my life.
I either succeed or I learn and Ian exactly amplified that or amplified that by stating, you know, hey, you you may have been focused on a product for five years, but the amount of things you've learned through that product design phase, through the stage case, through that, creating your business through taking sales calls is really important.
one of the things you also mentioned was, you know, reaching out to, to the vendors, right? What are some questions an entrepreneur should be asking, especially if somebody that's new that's pretty green to this space and they're reaching out to manufacturers, what questions should they be asking?
@21:15 - Ian M
So there's a lot of the basic questions, which are, you know, can they make this product? What's their M.O.Q., their minimum order quantity?
So you have an idea of the baseline of what you would need to spend. I like to get an idea, maybe in the first conversation, maybe in the second, but what kind of pricing breaks there are.
So again, you have this idea, what their lead time is. So how long is it gonna take them to get you that product?
Sometimes if it's a very small product and you're ordering from China, you might have two options. It could be air-free, which is more expensive, but gets you faster or it's coming via ship.
And that could take a couple of months. And then I like to ask some things a little more general, what do when your bigger clients make orders, what do they do, so I know how to best operate.
within your frame. Because as much as you want them to make your product, if it's easier for them to communicate with you, that helps a lot.
And then one of the things that I like to do, especially if you're going through China, you're going through Alibaba, but you can do this with other countries as well, get them on so Alibaba has an app where you can do a video chat, get on video with them, see the factory, have them show you around real quick.
You might not know what everything is, but you want to see is it does it look like a disaster?
Does it look like a functional place? Are things, you know, is this someplace you could see yourself working with to have that understanding?
So it's a lot of technical questions just to get the idea and then a little bit of that reassurance of, you know, make sure you actually have a factory.
You know, some people are brokers. Now, if you're contacting a broker for a being a broker, that's okay. But if they're a broker that says they're the manufacturer, and then they're going to another warehouse to get the job done, you now have this communication barrier between you.
in the end result. And so it gets a little harder. And if they aren't good at their job or take their foot off the gas, now you're stuck in a position where you're trying to reach a different factory.
So it's all of these little things that show you the process to make sure that you're getting the goods as you're supposed to.
@23:19 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)
That's a great point. That's a great red flag, I think, for entrepreneurs to think about making sure you're knowing who you're working with.
Like you mentioned, it's not the broker. It's actually the manufacturer, ensuring that they have a factory, ensuring they can do your product.
What have you ever faced any difficulties with a manufacturer that you're like, I'm glad I went through this moment because again, we're you're learning.
And then when you went through that moment, how did you pivot from it?
@23:51 - Ian M
I've absolutely had that happen. I went with somebody that I didn't know as well that this was earlier on as I was learning this process.
And everything's good up front. I didn't do a particular large order, but the product was wrong and we also hadn't discussed Anything about if there's defects in the product.
Are we getting some free units? Is there a discount? How are we managing it? It ended up getting resolved But the amount of back and forth that had to happen the amount of pushing that had to happen Really made it was a very stressful event.
had a lot of money tied up. I said it worked out in the end We got the correct product, but I would have liked to have not had all of that stress And there were moments where it seemed like it could have gone very bad You know, I was frustrated So I would be heated at times and I had to humble myself and calm down a lot and say okay Look, just want a resolution.
It's not about right or wrong at this point It's about getting it fixed and moving forward and so that really taught me the more you can vet up front There's no guarantees, but it some of the vetting up front can avoid these situations and that really
But that peace of mind is it's worth its weight.
@25:04 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)
Have you ever had a moment of self doubt?
@25:07 - Ian M
I have had somewhere between one and three million moments of self doubt. I've had a lot of self doubt.
I actually, I don't like having it, but I've self doubt all the time. And the reality is I keep checking in with myself and saying, okay, I've overcome these challenges before and these other ones in these similar situations, and that gives me confidence.
And for the listeners out there that haven't really done a lot necessarily, so that self doubt, you don't have as much evidence.
It's okay, you build that over time. And so by taking that action, by working it through, if it doesn't, as you said, if it doesn't work out, you've learned something.
And if it does work out, you've also worked, hopefully, learn something, and you gain that success, you build that strength over time.
So that's what happens to me a lot. I'll have that moment of self doubt, is this going to work?
I just paid the money and I get to get the product, I just listed the product, is it going to sell, but the reality is at every stage, it either does what I want it to, or I learn quickly why it didn't, I make that adjustment, and then it has the chance to do what I want it to.
@26:13 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)
Yeah, in Pozzar syndrome, it's quite the phena, a phenomenal, you know, emotional toll on people. And I got to tell you, there's a saying, you know, successful people are never satisfied with success because they're too busy searching for the next successful thing, you know.
And so essentially what that means is they're constantly trying to make them improve themselves, make themselves better, right, learning.
And so that's one key thing to think about, folks, is don't feel like you've failed because one product or one person said anything negative, if I believed in that, then I would have stopped after my first negative YouTube comment because believe me, they do come.
But you know, continuing to push forward, doing consistency, making sure you're building relationships outside of your inner circle, really kind of working.
like Ian mentioned, working with vendors and manufacturers and, you know, talking with other like-minded individuals within your industry. There's a lot of people that are willing to network and share their information like Ian is doing right now with their website.
And so, again, go check out their oxygen seller, it out. Again, it provides a lot of great insight in how to build a brand on Amazon.
Now, Ian, with that said, there's a lot of, there's a lot of sellers on Amazon, right? There's millions of people probably.
How does an entrepreneur differentiate themselves? How do they build a brand on Amazon?
@27:37 - Ian M
So, one of the best ways is to build a brand. And what I mean by that is you start to brand what you're doing.
So, a brand isn't just a logo, it's not just a name, it's a story. And so, by creating a story, by creating one of the things we do, so you have product pictures and then you have what are called lifestyle photos.
And those are, you know, somebody using the product. Somebody of authority using the product and starting to show that this product is something that isn't just something what people want, but it fits in their lifestyle.
This is what I need. This is incredible. This is the thing that I lean towards. And so by creating the story behind it, that might be a real person.
It might be a fictional person, but something that ties it together that tells the story visually with pictures, with the written word, with videos, with the motif.
It could be the colors and the additional items that are in with your package. All of these things together tell something more rich and fulfilling than just we have a product.
And for example, look at Nike. Nike is ubiquitous with sports. Not any one sport. Yeah, Jordans have basketball shoes on lockdown, but they have tennis, have runners, they have golf, they have all of these different things.
You don't necessarily attribute it to a sport, you attribute it to sports. And people that don't play sports still wear the products, but you have this thing that does support an active lifestyle that supports a this messaging this branding behind it.
So now you're a little bit more bought in and some people still just go by average, no name shoe, and that's okay.
But Nike is one of the big dogs for a reason because this brand is there. And so that doesn't happen overnight, but at the same time, that story that you're weaving into your product, it allows people to connect with it in a way that beats out lot of sellers and their products that do great without it.
But there's also products that become so hard to overcome that competition and some of these products also end up being able to sell the entire brand for an exit strategy, which can pay incredibly well.
So that's kind of the idea and that's one of the things we work on is helping people to understand how to bring that brand to life, how to think about it.
And you can also leverage AI these days, GPT or whatever else. us to give you ideas and flush out a potential story is to want to go in there and give it your own personal touch but it helps you if somebody's not very creative give me 10 brand ideas based on these parameters give me another 10 and it just spits them out you go wait kind of like this this connects with this when we take these two or three over here put it together and refine it and so now all of these things together I think really give you a leg up compared to a lot of the competition yes very very true and you know folks if you don't be afraid to kind of put yourself out there when you're building a brand I know it sometimes weird to hear yourself on a podcast or hear yourself on a recording but the best way to build a brand is building a community and how you build a community is not outside of selling items but become a subject matter expert within that field you can do this leveraging TikTok and you mentioned you know we get not TikTok leveraging LinkedIn leveraging Instagram doing little reels even if it's a 30 second
@31:00 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)
and clip talking. I've seen so many new golf brands have been coming to fruition from the actual social media sphere.
And this, again, it's usually individuals is talking just generically about what they know about golf, what they like about it.
And they create a small community. And then they start showing off different items like, Hey, I like this golf ball because of this reason.
I like this golf club because of this reason. Next thing you know, they're being asked to, you know, become a brand ambassador for a specific golf company.
Now they're all of a sudden creating their own golf brands. And so you're really seeing a very organic, in fact, torch warrior where was just recently on the show that that, you know, she really scaled her business through TikTok.
And so you're seeing there are various ways to build your brand. But one of the things, you know, mentioned is just one is consistency, making sure you're really consistent.
The storytelling that you mentioned is very important as well, but it has to be authentic, right? know, You know, you can go on a JAT GPT and you can refine your story, but it still has to be your story and it has to be authentic to you because that's really what's going to kind of pull the heartstrings.
You mentioned Nike and I think they're they're slogan is, you know, everybody's an athlete, right? And so even they have the tennis and the basketball and the football and all these other things.
But they also have clothes that even if you do not feel the shape what an athlete, so to speak, should be like, you are still in fact an athlete in their eyes.
And so when you put on their product, when you put on their brand, you kind of feel this, this bit of a lure of like, yes, I'm a little bit more fit slimming them.
I can jump higher. remember that back in the day when I used to get to Jordan's, I always thought I can jump higher and stick out my tongue.
I still can never dunk it, unfortunately, know, but, but the sense that that brand created around that is really important.
Les Schwab's a local Oregon tire company, you know, used to have the brand where every single commercial you would see.
And as soon as you get into their parking lot, they'd have an employee running out to your car to open your door for you.
That was their brand. so when you started to go to these locations, you kind of expected that kind of level of customer service.
I used to ask people, hey, what's one of the best stores with the best return policies? And almost everybody would say Nordstrom's.
Nordstrom's had a phenomenal people would say, take a tire back and they take it back, back in the day.
Things have changed certainly, right? But it's, again, the brand that they created around that is so important. Again, with consistency or with messaging, right?
then building that community, right? Now, Ian, you've had a lot of experience you've been doing this for some time.
What advice would you give aspiring entrepreneurs?
@33:52 - Ian M
I would say that it's important to see what's out there. See what might work. And I know. Oh, in a way, that's tricky because there's so many different things, but start to explore what might work for you, what you can imagine yourself doing on a daily basis because entrepreneurship takes time.
And it's okay that it takes time, but as you start to look around, you're going to have to dig in somewhere.
And you can always pivot later, but I know it's a big trend these days to go from one thing to another thing to another thing, you do three, four things in a year.
And the reality is, it's going to take time if there's elements you don't like about it, fair, but get ready to dig in, to learn, to grow because success doesn't happen overnight for most people.
And that's okay because the strength that it helps you to get to where you're going gives you resilience. So no matter what comes up, you're more prepared.
with that, it's ultimately take action and do your best to be consistent with that action. For me, if I'm trying something new, I like to run it until I know.
what makes it successful. And that's looking at other people, networking, having conversations, learning, maybe taking courses, looking at videos, trying it myself, and reaching a point where I say, okay, I know what this takes to be successful.
Is that where I want to go? there's been a couple times where I pivot and go, that's not where I ultimately want to end up with that.
And that's okay. And then I pivot. So take the time, really understand it, figure out how to make it grow.
Because once it does, it's an incredible feeling. But the learning process is it's worth it, even if it doesn't feel like it in the beginning, it really is.
@35:36 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)
Yes, yeah, I completely agree. And again, share your ideas with other folks that are outside of your inner circle.
So you can really get good inside of, do I have a product market fit? And then if you do, okay, well, what sort of minimal product creates something and take it out there and see if individuals are willing to reach in their pocket and actually purchase that item.
And if so, then they'll create now, now you have a business, now you can start focusing on creating a business plan, right?
slowly scale. from there. Like Ian mentioned, know, Rome wasn't built in a day. So take your time building these and just have fun learning.
There's going to be certain aspects of any career that you do not like. There's always something that you do not like.
However, take time and enjoy those learning opportunities because you will eventually scale to the point where you will be able to kind of handle off some of these tactics and operational things that you maybe not want to do and might not be your favorite.
But having an understanding of what those things are important for your business and how to manage them if you're one of your key players leaves an institution or organization for any reason right is really important because the last thing you want to do is is have that knowledge shared gone once an employee leaves because that's very difficult no matter how much funding you have.
It's very difficult to replace knowledge.
@36:57 - Ian M
It really is and that's that's a powerful statement. And so understanding what you're doing, but also what's interesting about business these days is there's so many ways to do it.
So sometimes it's also thinking within what you're doing. So to what you said earlier, building that brand and community yourself and getting on social media is an absolute win and I recommend it for everyone.
But what if you really aren't that person? You can hire influencers. can have other people market your product. So if you can't get over a hurdle, who can?
How does that approach happen? If you can go out and put in that literal sweat equity and use your body all day, what advantages do you have?
If you were like me, you had some help problems, you can't do that, what can you do digitally? So there's so many ways to do things.
Don't let anything discourage you, but at the same time, as you start to grow, as you start to improve, document, have your system set up.
Be able to be prepared that if somebody you bring on leaves, you can hire and train the next person.
Your entire business doesn't shut down. He's in the beginning. It's all dependent on you. And as you grow, you want to be able to remove that dependence and still have that success.
@38:07 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)
And I'm sure, Ian, know, this better than most, it's sometimes very difficult to let go. It's like, you know, your parent letting go of your baby.
And so you want to succeed, but creating operations that align with the quality of work that you're trying to put forward is imperative in order for it to continue to succeed.
Because one day, you know, the way I tell people, the first 30 years of my life, I'm building my resume in the last 30 years, I'm building my legacy.
I don't want to be working here in my legacy, but I really want to build something that continued to move forward while I'm not here.
Now, Ian, before we leave, can you please let the audience know how can they get in contact with you?
What's the website? How, if they're interested in learning more about you, how can they find out some more information?
@38:52 - Ian M
Absolutely. oxygensellor.com is our site. I'd also like to offer anybody, a one-hour masterclass, on putting out product on Amazon, it won't give you the full detail because there's a lot more information than that, but it will give you the full overview and understanding it.
And if you send me an email, e-n-i-a-n, at oxygen-seller.com. I will be more than happy to send that out to you.
And then social media, we're just getting YouTube going, so that's oxygen-seller. And then my socials, Ian McIntyre, on LinkedIn.
But I'd say to keep it really simple, just email me, at oxygen-seller.com. Even if you don't want the masterclass, if you have any other questions, whatever it is, just let me know, and I'll get back to you.
@39:37 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)
I love it. And if that folks is too difficult, you can simply visit the shadesofe.com and sign up for the newsletter.
We will have Ian's information as well as the offer that he just provided to the listeners on the newsletter the week before the episode airs, the week the episode airs, and the week after the episode airs.
So again, visit the shadesofe.com. Go ahead and hit that subscribe button on the newsletter. And if you feel so kind, please feel free to visit Patreon for $5 a month.
You can actually help support the podcast, which allows me to bring phenomenal guests like Ian onto the show that can share their knowledge for free.
So again, instead of going to a very high price education university, like I did in Syracuse, all the go orange, I do love you, you can save some money by listening to this podcast.
So again, Ian, there any last words you have for the audience?
@40:26 - Ian M
Yeah, I'd say just keep working at it. If you're ready today, do it. If you're not ready today, you might be ready later on and just be open to it.
Pursuit what you can and you might surprise yourself as to how far you can go.
@40:41 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)
I love it. Ian McIntyre, oxygen seller, folks, again, if you're interested, visit oxygen seller or you subscribe to the newsletter at theshadesofe.com.
This episode, as well as the transcription will be on the website. And you can view this episode on YouTube or you can follow us on
link in Facebook and Instagram. We also do post some TikToks here and there, although I'm going back on that consistency.
I kind of need do a better job about the TikTok. But as you said, we wear a lot of different hats as entrepreneurs.
So sometimes you got to figure out which one's going to drive the most value back to your website. so far, TikTok hasn't been the one for me, but that's okay.
We'll continue to work on it. All right, folks, thank you again for listening and have a great night.