#407 – From Freedom Ticket Student To 7-Figure Seller: The Inspiring Story of Marcela O’Campo’s Amazon Breakthrough
Join us as we sit down with Marcela O’campo, who shares her inspiring journey from Colombia to the United States and her remarkable success in the Amazon business. With a background in industrial design and engineering, Marcela transitioned from a global career at Johnson & Johnson to launching her own product line in 2020 after discovering the Freedom Ticket from Helium 10. By 2021, she achieved her first seven-figure year, transforming her life and providing her with the freedom to work from home and care for her family. Listen in as Marcela recounts her experience and the sources of inspiration that fueled her entrepreneurial journey.
Our conversation continues with Marcela detailing her career transitions and the personal decisions that led her to embrace the Amazon business platform. From leaving a thriving corporate job in Brazil to facing significant hardships in Colombia’s countryside, Marcela’s resilience shines through. She speaks candidly about the challenges of agricultural business, financial struggles, and preparing for motherhood, all while discovering the potential of Amazon’s marketplace. Marcela’s story is a testament to aligning past professional experience with new opportunities and the pursuit of entrepreneurial success.
Lastly, we explore the practical aspects of running an Amazon business, from managing a seasonal gardening product line to navigating the visa process for a move to the U.S. Marcela shares her insights on balancing family life with business growth, the importance of unique product designs, and the potential for international expansion. Additionally, she addresses the economic contrasts between Colombia and the U.S. and emphasizes the value of educational resources like Helium 10’s Freedom Ticket. Tune in for an inspiring episode filled with practical advice, personal stories, and the excitement of entrepreneurial ventures.
In episode 407 of the AM/PM Podcast, Kevin and Marcela discuss:
- 00:00 – From Colombia to the US
- 06:59 – Colombia’s Image and Entrepreneurial Opportunities
- 11:59 – Language Learning and Travel Experiences
- 14:26 – Transitioning to Online Business With Amazon
- 19:50 – Discovery of Amazon Business Opportunity
- 22:15 – Unique Online Business Success
- 23:58 – Product Design and Manufacturing Process
- 31:23 – Wholesale Marketplace for Small Retailers
- 34:51 – Business Relocation for Safety and Growth
- 35:25 – Amazon Business Visa Journey Success
- 40:26 – Balancing Family, Business, and Growth
- 50:12 – Opportunities in International E-Commerce
- 53:25 – Comparing Wages and Opportunities in Colombia
- 57:14 – Empowering Success Stories in Selling
- 58:33 – Billion Dollar Sellers Newsletter and Events
- 59:13 – Kevin King’s Words Of Wisdom
Transcript
Kevin King:
Welcome to episode 407 of the AM/PM Podcast. My guest this week is Marcela O’Campo. Marcela just moved to the United States about almost a year ago now from Colombia, and this Amazon business has completely changed her life. She got a background in industrial design and engineering and worked for Johnson & Johnson all over the world and then decided she wanted to start a family and wanted the freedom to actually do what she wants and to be able to work from home and take care of her kid and take care of her family. And so she discovered the Freedom Ticket from Helium 10, took the course, launched her product in 2020, and last year hit her first seven-figure year. It’s completely changed her life and her business. She talks about her journey and a lot of good inspiration in this episode. I think you’re going to really like it.
Kevin King:
Marcela Ocampo, how are you doing?
Marcela:
Hi, Kevin, I’m great. Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here and an honor.
Kevin King:
Maybe I should say bienvenidos.
Marcela:
Bienvenido.
Marcela:
I can never say it right. You see, that’s how good my Spanish is.
Kevin King:
I was married to a Colombian for a long time and I still can’t even say it right. You see, that’s how good my Spanish is. I was married to a Colombian for a long time and I still can’t even pronounce things right. But everything’s good for you?
Marcela:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s great, it’s great. I was looking forward to talking to you on this podcast. This is very exciting for me.
Kevin King:
Have you been listening to the podcast in the past?
Marcela:
Yeah, I love the podcast and I love all the female guests that you have had, because they’re such an inspiration for me. So listening to their stories, how they started, really gives me a lot of ideas and a lot of encouragement to grow my business. So, yeah, I enjoy it a lot.
Kevin King:
So do you get a lot of inspiration for your business from podcast, or you get it from watching people on YouTube or going to events, or what do you find that you get most of your new ideas or your inspiration from in your business?
Marcela:
Well, now podcasts and I’m trying to go to events here in the US because I didn’t have a visa before I moved here to the US, just like eight months ago, and I didn’t even have a tourist visa. I’ve had this business since 2019 but I couldn’t come to the events because I didn’t have a tourist visa yet. But last year I had the investor’s visa, so I have. We have the permission to live here for five years and then renew it and so now I’m excited to join the events. So we met in Camping on Bright and that was my first event. So the inspiration.
Kevin King:
Your very first event?
Marcela:
Yes that was in the U S. In the US. I went to one in 2022 in the Mexico trip with Amy and Tim, but in the US that was my first event and, yeah, the rest of the inspiration has been like podcast and YouTube.
Kevin King:
So where are you originally from?
Marcela:
I’m from Cali, Colombia.
Kevin King:
Cali, Colombia. Oh, I love Colombia. Colombia is a great place but it gets a bad rap. Have you noticed that since you moved to the United States, that if you say, oh, I’m from Colombia, people automatically sometimes have this negative impression because of, like TV shows and Narcos and what’s that, Griselda or whatever, and shows? That they have this negative connotation of Colombia. That’s just not really true.
Marcela:
Exactly. Yes, I mean I. When I meet people and I tell them I’m from Colombia, so some of them say that it’s great that they have been there and they have traveled and they love food and they really like the way Colombians treat foreigners there. So a lot of people do say that and some other people ask like hey, is it that dangerous? Is it like Narcos and like what happens there? And I cannot lie. I mean I’m not going to say my country is the safest and that nothing happens and that everything is okay, of course not. And that’s actually one of the reasons why I moved here to the US, because I wanted a more safe place for my family and for me. So it is mixed. So I love my country and it has a lot of great things, but at the same time it is a reality. That is, in some of the parts it’s not safe and you got to to be careful too when you travel.
Kevin King:
What’s that saying that the tourism board uses in Colombia? The only risk is you might want to stay.
Marcela:
You might want to stay.
Kevin King:
Yeah, that’s their slogan. I remember the first time I went to Colombia was 2009. And at that time, one of my business partners and one of my other businesses, Mark Don and I were doing a lot of photo shoots all over the world, and one of the places that we had considered was maybe even Columbia, because there’s a lot of beautiful women, a lot of cool stuff there. And so I went to this trade show in Los Angeles and it was for film companies, so every booth was like a different location. It might have been a castle in Italy, it might have been a country, it might’ve been some nice mansion or something like that. One of them was Columbia and I was like that looks really cool, I’m going to go. And a lot of people said, Kevin, you shouldn’t go to Columbia, it’s not safe, it’s all these cocaine and all this stuff. It’s like no, look, it looks good. And the people in the booth are like no, it’s beautiful, the people are nice. So I ended up going and I had a good time.
Kevin King:
I went to Cartagena, I went to Bogota on that trip and I had a good time. I love the culture, I love the people, I love the spirit. I ended up meeting my future wife there on that trip. Just by coincidence, she worked for the travel company that I had booked for with and she was the girl that just took me to the docks one day and said, here, enjoy your trip. And I said, no, and you’re coming with me, right? She’s like no, I got to go back to the office and I convinced her to come with me and we did long distance for a while, ended up getting married. We’re divorced now, but I ended up. She ended up moving to the United States, I into the United States. I’ve been to Colombia probably 25-30 times.
Kevin King:
I got married in Cartagena. Actually is where we did the big wedding, and so I love the people. I love the food, the spirit, the music. Carlos Vives, I had a traditional Colombian wedding with six bands. We went to like 6.30 in the morning with six different bands. So it was really, really cool. But it gets a bad rap.
Kevin King:
I find it to be a really cool place. Would I want to live there full time? No, I know Medellin right now is a hotspot for a lot of e-commerce sellers they go to. There are a lot of digital nomads and stuff. Medellin’s a popular place which is kind of up in the mountains, about 3,000 elevation. It’s a cool city, but it’s not somewhere I would probably want to live permanently, but it’s a great place to visit. So those of you out there that may have a bad image of Columbia, it’s not necessarily what you might think, but the opportunities, like you said, are far greater here than they are in Columbia, and so America is the place to be if you really want to start a business and make something for yourself. So I think you made a smart move by actually coming here. Now, you came with your whole family. Is that correct? With your immediate family?
Marcela:
Yes, with my husband and my son. So we made the move last year. I started thinking about coming a few years ago, but living there was more comfortable for me because I had my family and getting help at your house is easier. So, yeah, because of the schools. I really like the school system there, yeah, so everything was easier for me in terms of like day to day. But then my business was not going to grow as fast and I couldn’t see more opportunities also for my husband. So we decided to move last year and it’s been great. We’re living in Orlando and we’re enjoying it. I mean, this city has a lot of green, lots of parks, nature, all the springs. We also have the beach nearby, so we’re enjoying this time here.
Kevin King:
Is he Colombian also?
Marcela:
Yes, he’s Colombian.
Kevin King:
So how did you pick Orlando? Of all places to go, usually people pick Colombians, pick Miami or New York or maybe Houston, but how come Orlando?
Marcela:
Oh, because I had a friend here from my childhood. So with my husband we were thinking about some other places, but we wanted to pick a place that we had friends close by, because we don’t have any family here, and so we visited some cities and also we liked Orlando because of I mentioned before the rivers, the springs, like all the nature. We have huge oak trees here and I love nature. So I’m like no, I like all the, all the plants that I love to do. I can find them easily here, and that was something that I was looking forward, because in Colombia we have amazing forests, we have mountains, we have a huge biodiversity, but it’s hard to get to those places safely, right. So if you’re a tourist, of course, in all the areas that you’re going to go, it’s safe because you’re going to be where the tourists are. But then if you want to enjoy like waterfalls deep down the jungle, or rivers or things like that, then it’s going to be more remote, and so for me it was hard to enjoy those places, and so when I moved here, it’s been great because I’ve been able to enjoy that with my son. He’s only six years old, so he’s having a blast like doing all these amazing plants here and the museums and all those things that he likes.
Kevin King:
Probably one of the biggest changes, though, is, like you said, you went there because one of your friends was there, and that will help. But in Latin culture, especially in Colombia, the family unit and the friends, it’s a big part of the culture. In the United States, if I’m going to meet my brother, we organize it two months in advance. He calls me up. He’s like Kevin, you going to be around Memorial Day weekend? Yeah, I think I’ll be here. All right, I’m gonna come with my girlfriend. We’ll visit you, if that’s okay, we organize it. In Colombia, you don’t do that. You just show up. You know someone’s. Your uncle just shows up one day, knocks on the door hey, what’s for dinner tonight, what are you cooking, or whatever, and it’s a whole different, a whole different thing. And then in the in the us, really, if you found that to be true yourself, than, in the US, really, have you found that to be true yourself?
Marcela:
Of course, and I already have, like more Colombians, friends here that I have met along the way, like other moms with their kids, and we’re building a community. So it’s nice to have that here, away from home, cause we are close. I mean, we need that connection, we need, yeah, this sense of community. For us is like a very important part of life, and mainly for me because I work from home and this Amazon business is great, but it can be also lonely, so for me it’s amazing to have my friends close by for brunch or for a coffee or like dinner, so it’s nice to have them close.
Kevin King:
Now, where did you learn your English? Your English is really good. So you grew up in Colombia. Did you go to American school?
Marcela:
I went to Australia actually.
Kevin King:
Australia.
Marcela:
Yeah.
Kevin King:
Oh, okay, so you lived in Australia for a while.
Marcela:
I lived in Australia for a year because I did part of my university there like an exchange program because I didn’t know English. So I asked my parents that I that I wanted to go for a year to learn English and at the same time I would do like one semester of my university.
Marcela:
I studied Industrial Engineering so it’s the university that could do like this semester for me. And then when I came back, I loved traveling so much. It was my first time outside of the country and when I got home I was like dad, I want to learn more languages, I want to go to Brazil. He was like no, you just came back and I was like, no, I need to go. So my brother supported me and my mom and they said, no, let’s just buy you tickets and then you can go and do another semester of the university there in Rio de Janeiro.
Kevin King:
So you speak Portuguese too?
Marcela:
Yes.
Kevin King:
Fluently?
Marcela:
Yeah because, later after that, then I graduated from Industrial Engineering in Cali, Colombia, and I started working for Johnson&Johnson, and there we had teams from the US and from Brazil and everywhere, so I had to speak Portuguese and they hired me for a job in Johnson&Johnson, Brazil. So I lived in Brazil for two years more, so I had the opportunity to continue speaking the language.
Kevin King:
Awesome. What did you do for Johnson&Johnson with Industrial Engineering? Were you designing products or what were you doing?
Marcela:
So an Industrial Engineering can basically be in any part of a company because we can see it’s like business, but with a little bit more manufacturing background. So in Johnson&Johnson I was part of a global leadership program. They choose, like, young talents and put them like in different rotations, job rotations. So I started in sourcing, which was very helpful when I started my Amazon business, because I learned how to negotiate, how to like, learn about, like, yeah, the different parts of negotiating with suppliers, of negotiating with suppliers, with global teams. And then I joined supply chain, so all the inventory planning for Latin America. And then I went to manufacturing and then in Brazil, I was doing plant procurement.
Marcela:
So it was great because I was part of some teams that were always thinking about, like, cost reduction projects. So we had to think outside the box and be with multiple areas of the company. So we had to come together as teams and then do these big workshops and bring all the departments together and see, okay, we have this process, how can we make it more cost efficient? Or how can we make it greener? Let’s do this project to reduce cost and also be better for the environment.
Marcela:
So that was a great school. It was five years and I felt like I learned so much. I learned so so so much and I had the opportunity to travel to the US for work, for conferences and, yeah, different opportunities, and I was living a great life with my corporate job. But then it got to a point where I saw the female managers having little time for their families and I started getting closer to my 30s and so I started thinking about my priorities and then I made the decision to go back to Colombia, marry my now husband and support him in his business so that I could like get ready for having a baby.
Kevin King:
So he wasn’t lucky when you were doing the corporate life, y’all weren’t together when you’re doing the corporate life?
Marcela:
We had a break like a two-year break. We’ve been together for like almost 20 years now.
Kevin King:
Okay, okay.
Marcela:
So when I was in Brazil, we had a break. But then I realized that I wanted to marry him. So one day I just called him and I told him like hey, let’s meet. I’m going to Colombia this December, so let’s meet and let’s talk. And during that conversation we realized we wanted to get married.
Kevin King:
D.id you propose to him?
0:16:17 – Marcela:
Basically married. So I basically, in that conversation, I didn’t see him for two years, we didn’t even talk, so he didn’t know, like anything, he wouldn’t know, that I would quit my job in Brazil to go back to Colombia and marry him. But I just, I don’t know, I was just sure that that’s what I wanted, for some reason, and so I told him that if he wanted, I could quit and I could go back to Colombia. And he had a farm he was doing. He’s also an Industrial Engineer but he had a family project and he was. He had an agriculture business. He was planting soybeans and rice and corn in a big scale. So I told him I want to come and live in the countryside with you.
Kevin King:
It’s for the family.
Marcela:
Yes, I think right now when I look at the Marcela at that time, I’m like that was a little bit crazy. So I told him hey, I have trip planned to India, so I’m going to go to India for a month and then after that month I can come back to Colombia and live with you. And he said OK, and so we got married and I lived in the countryside for two years, which was super, super difficult for me.
Kevin King:
Were you working on the farm?
Marcela:
I was working more on the things that I knew how to do, which was negotiating the raw materials and stuff. But it was hard because after two years, I mean, being in the agricultural business in Colombia is hard because the government doesn’t give a lot of help and protection, so a lot of things happen with the weather and stuff. So we lost that business. We went to back Ramsey and I became pregnant with my son during that difficult time. Like I became pregnant and then a month after everything happened with the crops, so everything went down and that was a super difficult time because we lost everything and I was ready to become a mom. So, yeah, so I had to move to my parents house back in Cali with my big belly and, yeah, those were very difficult times for me
Kevin King:
So is that when you discovered Amazon around that time?
Marcela:
Yes. So I wanted to be a present mom for my son. I wanted to be there and during the first 18 months he wouldn’t sleep well, so I was very sleep deprived. I couldn’t think about like ways to like start a business or anything. I was just focused on my baby. And during that time my husband started a car dealership in Cali with what we had left and then we moved to an apartment just the three of us and life started back again. And that’s where I started looking for opportunities for building a business. But at the same time I didn’t want to have a physical like a restaurant or a shop, like I didn’t want to have a physical store and because it requires a lot of capital and I didn’t have much money left to invest in something new.
Marcela:
It was a time where it was hard to trust myself because I had been out of the business for like four years, like two years in the countryside, plus two years now being a mom. So it was very hard for someone to hire me and I also didn’t want a job. So I started looking for opportunities and then one day, out of nothing, a friend told me like hey, have you heard about Amazon, the Amazon business? And I was like no. So I watched the video on YouTube and they described the whole process of how it works like in five minutes, and I was surprised because I didn’t know you could sell products on Amazon. I thought Amazon was selling all those products. I didn’t know there were sellers.
Kevin King:
Do you remember who that video was, which company or who it was?
Marcela:
The first one, I don’t remember. But then I started researching more about this business because I felt like it was aligned with my background, like it was something that I could do.
Kevin King:
So this is about 2019?
Marcela:
That was 2019, late 2019. Yes and after looking for courses and stuff, then I found helium 10, and that’s when I found you.
Kevin King:
Oh, you did freedom ticket. Okay, you did the second one, I guess, then or third one?
Marcela:
I don’t know which version was available in 2019.
Kevin King:
Okay, that had been the second one. Yeah, okay, cool, awesome, so you went through the whole Freedom Ticket course.
Marcela:
Yes, so that’s in the time my son was about two years old and then he joined the daycare, so I could dedicate at least four to five hours to study, and I love this course. I had tried some of them before, but I loved yours because it was very easy to understand the message and also because you were also focusing a lot that we should treat this business as a serious business. Right like this is not something that can be taken slightly. If you really want to scale and if you really want to have a big business, right like this is not something that can be taken slightly. If you really want to scale and if you really want to have a big business, then you have to study, work hard, treat it like the business the real business it is. So the way you were describing the business model and the way you explained step by step was very clear to me and it made me think that it was possible. It made me think that that I could do like this step by step process and do it. So it was great and I’m forever grateful for that.
Kevin King:
I’m glad I could help. Did you, did you start the business while you’re still doing the course, or did you finish the whole course first and then start?
Marcela:
So I finished the whole course and I was doing product research. But what happened was that, because my resources were so limited, I could not waste like $5,000 on a product that was not going to work, so I was very hesitant to launch and I didn’t have the confidence to say, okay, yes, I’m sure this is the product that I want to launch and everything. So that’s where the pandemic came. So I kept researching, but I wasn’t sure what to launch. And in July 2020, Amy Weiss from Amazing at Home, she had a course and so I could finally find the product and she helped me validate it and I could launch with confidence. So I found my supplier and then I launched it, and it made the process also a little bit easier.
Kevin King:
Are you still selling that product today?
Marcela:
Yes, yeah, I’m selling the same line of products. And it’s been a great journey because seeing something that you create and that people actually want to buy it, and then when the reviews start to come, it’s like a dream, or for me, it felt like that. I was super grateful to see something I had seen in my head come to life, be a physical product and people actually buying and saying like I love this, or I gave this to my mom or to my friend and they loved it, and so it was very rewarding. I love watching my reviews.
Kevin King:
What category are you in?
Marcela:
In gardening.
Kevin King:
In gardening, okay. So is it seasonal for you? Do you have downs?
Marcela:
Yes, that’s why I want to create another brand that’s not seasonal, because the slow seasons are hard and also, like watching the inventory levels are hard. But at the same time, I love gardening too, because I love nature, and that’s how I found my product, because I wanted to launch something that was something that I liked and that I enjoyed. So I started looking for things that were related to plants and stuff like that, and so when I found the niche, I immediately saw that there were a lot of Chinese products that didn’t have a lot of design or that it could be improved. So that’s where I started designing my products.
Kevin King:
Everything you’re doing is coming out of China or are you sourcing? You said you went on the Mexico trip. Have you found anything in Mexico? Or everything right now is still China?
Marcela:
Everything is still China.
Kevin King:
And are you customizing it a lot, or did you find an existing product and just modify it a little bit, or are you creating stuff from scratch?
Marcela:
So I saw the opportunity because the products were there, but they didn’t have a nice design. So I started researching about this niche because those type of products they’re not common in Colombia. We don’t see those there. So when I told my mom and dad what I was launching, they were like what is that? The people actually had that. So I cannot draw. I’m very left brained when it comes to drawing but I knew in my mind what I wanted. So I have a designer in Bogota and she can read my mind and understand my baby drawings and she can transform them into better designs. So she helped me, like, create them, and then we have the copyrights for my designs and that’s how we create them nowadays too. Like I see it, I have this vision of what I want, and then she will translate it and then we can take it to the manufacturer for them to do it.
Kevin King:
So how many SKUs are you up to now, four years later?
Marcela:
I don’t have a lot of SKUs. I have only seven right now.
Kevin King:
That’s not bad, you don’t need to, that’s good. Is one or two of those like the dominant one, or are they all kind of equally spread out?
Marcela:
I have three dominant, very dominant, and the rest are variations of them.
Kevin King:
And what do you think you’ll hit in sales in 2024? Do you think you’ll hit seven figures in total sales in 2024?
Marcela:
So actually last year we reached our first seven figures, and I think we’re going to do the same this year, and I’m trying to launch some new brands, so hopefully we will have them soon too. I’m in the process of like developing and looking for new suppliers, some new brands, so hopefully we will have them soon too. I’m in the process of like developing and looking for new suppliers and new ideas.
Kevin King:
So what are some of the rules that you use when you’re evaluating a new product or these new brands? Are you looking for certain margins? Are you looking for certain demand? Are you looking for certain differentiation, or what are some of your key criteria when you sit down to actually look at what you might consider selling? What’s that process like for you?
Marcela:
So one of my criteria, of course, is margins, but also it’s about my intuition and what I like, because I kind of launched something that I don’t like because I won’t know how to differentiate or how to spend hours researching or looking for ideas for something that I actually don’t feel like identified with.
Marcela:
So I try to look for things that I like and when I go into the niche and I see the products that are available, I see if I could really make a difference there in terms of design not only colors, but in terms of adding features or adding things that would make it more special and also that they’re not that easy to be copied, because then someone can come and copy you very, very easily. And I like things that are highly giftable because I feel like when you’re thinking about someone special and you want to make them happy, then you’re going to invest more and if you see something that you love, you’re just not going to care. You prefer the better version that’s ten dollars more, five dollars more, rather than the Chinese version that’s going to look cheap and it’s not going to be nice even the packaging and stuff. So those are the things that I try to see apart from the profits.
Kevin King:
What kind of margin is a minimum for you right now, with all these new fees and everything that’s happening with Amazon? What kind of margins are you looking for? What’s your goal? Source it for $2 and be able to sell it for 20, for 10 X or for five X? Or what do you try to shoot for from your landing costs to your actual selling price?
Marcela:
I would say at least seven X.
Kevin King:
That’s good, that’s really good.
Marcela:
Yes, cause I try to differentiate my product and that’s why I also don’t like saturated markets where everybody’s selling a lot of things with ton of reviews. I prefer these other, more niche markets where people are really looking for something special, right, something that they see and they feel like this was made for me, this is exactly for my needs, or for my friend. Or I see that, for example, my friend likes butterflies and this is the perfect gift for her because it has a really nice packaging, really nice butterfly in this design. So I see a lot of my products that are giftable. So I see what it can do, products that are giftable. So I see what it can, it can do and and I love when people share that their feedback from the friends and family like, hey, this was a very special gift, it was very thoughtful. I feel happy that my I don’t know grandfather loved it, or my daughter or anything.
Marcela:
So I think with babies also, when you have, when you are in the in the baby gift categories, or for best friends or for moms, people don’t mind spending a little bit more, but giving them something nicer.
Kevin King:
So are these gifts, like father’s day gifts, mother’s day gifts or birthday gifts, or you said seasonal, so is it really are people buying it during Christmas time as well and giving it as a gift?
Marcela:
Yes. You can buy it anytime but the really high season is, yeah, like summer.
Kevin King:
Are these decorations? Are they tools or what is it? What type of stuff?
Marcela:
Decorations.
Kevin King:
Okay, so garden decoration and stuff.
Marcela:
Yes.
Kevin King:
Cool. So something you would hang on your back, you put on your back porch, or something you would put inside the garden, like inside around the plants or something like that to like make it look nice.
Marcela:
Yes.
Kevin King:
Okay, all right, cool, I think I got. I got what it is, okay, cool. And are you just in the US right now, or have you expanded in the Canada or anywhere else?
Marcela:
Yes, Canada and Mexico, and I also sell on Etsy and Faire and some other smaller stores.
Kevin King:
How’s Faire doing for you?
Marcela:
It’s doing well. It’s doing well. I like it.
Kevin King:
Explain what that is for people that have never heard of it.
Marcela:
So it’s basically wholesale. So you have your product and then you decide if you want to sell cases of like 20 or 5 or 500. So you decide what your MOQ is. So small boutiques and small stores or big stores can come to Ferry and buy your product and then you sell it for, of course, a lot less, because they’re buying in bulk.
Kevin King:
So it’s F-A-I-R-E right F-A-I-R-E, I think it’s how they spell it. It’s kind of weird, kind of weird spelling. But yeah, it’s a lot of boutiques. So if you ever go to these, you know you’re in a tourist area maybe, and you see these little eclectic shops that have all kinds of cool, interesting, uh, oddball stuff. A lot of those guys are buying from like Faire or from people like you that has these interesting products and that’s a great place to easily expand out. It’s a marketplace for small independent retailers but, like you said, some big chains go in there too and look for things.
Marcela:
Yes, and I like it because when we reach new shops, we tell them like, hey, this is our portfolio and if you want to feel safe buying from us, then you can do it through Ferry. And because they have payment terms, they have free shipping, they have a lot of things that make customers feel safe, because sometimes they feel a little bit hesitant to pay for a product from someone they don’t know, from a smaller company like us. So it is great to have this option for them to buy and then have these facilities to do everything.
Kevin King:
You could do it with business pricing on Amazon and some businesses. You can do business discounting. Do you do that as well for those that just prefer to use Amazon? You have, you should. Amazon offers terms too for businesses, so you can go in and you can set up your business pricing and set up level discounts. If you buy whatever, 10 units, it’s 10% off, or 25 units is x amount off. You set up all these tiers.
Kevin King:
I think you can do five or six different tiers and I did that when we were selling hand sanitizer and I do it for some of my other products and you might be surprised at what we had, like the national parks and a whole bunch of people buying through the business program. And especially since you’re a minority and a woman, you actually could probably have a major advantage because there’s big corporations, the buyers. They have a mandate that we have to buy X amount of our products are from minority-owned women businesses and so by going into the business section on Amazon and you got to get a little, you can Google this and find it, but you get certified as a minority-owned female business and there’s filters there. So when they go in there to look for whatever your product is.
Kevin King:
If I’m going to look for hand sanitizer and I type in hand sanitizer, I can click some filters only showing results from companies that are owned by women, that are minorities, and it eliminates all your competition and then all. Maybe you’re the only one left standing, or maybe there’s a couple of you and you can. You can get some major advantages that way. So I would. If I was you, I would take a look at that, and it might, might add some extra dollars to your bottom line, and it could definitely help. I would definitely emphasize that and do that.
Marcela:
Thank you, I will take a look.
Kevin King:
And see what you can do there. But you said one of the things you said earlier is that one of the reasons you wanted to move there. But you said one of the things you said earlier is that one of the reasons you wanted to move from Columbia to the US is for your business. But this Amazon business is something you can do pretty much from anywhere in the world. So what advantages have you found by coming to the United States and you’re still working from home taking care of your son which you could have done in Colombia. But what are the differences in running the business from here versus running the business from, say, Colombia or from Brazil or from somewhere else?
Marcela:
So one of the reasons why we came here was also because of my husband, because he had the car dealership, but he had a business where someone sold him a stolen car like all the papers were false and it was a huge, huge problem. So we lost a lot of money and then he started receiving threats so it became like almost impossible for us to live there. So we had to like get out of the country as soon as possible.
Marcela:
So Amazon saved us in some way because we had a plan B right. When everything got so, so dangerous and worrying then we had this option of like getting this business visa, and come here and coming here for my business. It was in the back of my mind for a few years, but I hadn’t made the decision. But when everything happened there last year, so I just said, okay, let’s just go and take this as a new start for my company. Also because, being here, I can understand better the American market, what Americans like.
Marcela:
So I can go to different stores and get ideas. I can go to different like gift shops. I can go to Walmart. I can go to different, even the street markets and see what people like and buy. So it’s got. It’s giving me a lot of new ideas and fresh ideas. I can also attend the different conferences and for my husband it’s a new start because then he can like start a new company here. So that’s what we’re looking for. We’re looking forward to having this Amazon business and at the same time, we’re looking to expand to a physical I don’t know maybe a franchise. We’re looking for opportunities to invest here in the US, because if we want to keep our visa for more years like more than five years then we have to provide employment for Americans too. So that’s the plan.
Kevin King:
So to get a that’s a J1, is that a J1 visa or is that an investor visa?
Marcela:
E2. E2 investor visa.
Kevin King:
So you have to invest a certain amount of money in a business here, right?
Marcela:
Yes, that was correct.
Kevin King:
It’s like a quarter of a million dollars or something like that, or what’s the rules? So you had to show. So, in order to do that, you had to show that you invested a quarter of a million dollars in your Amazon business basically?
Marcela:
Yes.
Kevin King:
And then you have to hire, like, two people from, like, a part of town that’s not so well off, or it’s a disadvantaged part of town like, or some minorities or something like that, right. Isn’t that part of it as well?
Marcela:
To start, I had to tell them the business plan, like my, my plan was for hiring people, so I had to show them that the investment had already been done which we had invested, of course, the resources that we had in Colombia. We showed that we had sent them to here to the US and China for buying inventory, so we could demonstrate that investment, but the, the employees, we could hire them later. So we didn’t, we didn’t have to hire anyone yet, and that that was part of my concern when I was applying for the visa, because I thought they were gonna say, okay, you have an online business, why would you like to move? But we explained that we had plans for a franchise here, for buying an existing business or build one. So it was okay. But right now, of course, I have to actually do it. I have to hire people, I have to have a physical, like a warehouse, I have to have different things to be able to continue living here.
Kevin King:
So I find it interesting that’s kind of cool that they let you show the money that you’ve been spending on inventory sending to China to buy the stuff for your gardening business and they let that count as investment into a US business. What was your, was your company incorporated in the US when you started it?
Marcela:
Yes, yeah, so I’ve been paying taxes since 2020 and so it helped me to show them that I had been like paying taxes all these years and that my company was here. I just was in Colombia.
Kevin King:
That’s awesome and you didn’t have to use the asylum thing or the other issue at all in getting that. You got it all. How long did that process take? Because sometimes that can take a while.
Marcela:
I was lucky because the embassy in Colombia is closed and they’re not giving you any appointments. But I had to travel to Tegucigalpa in Honduras, to the embassy there and tell them that my embassy in Bogota wasn’t working but was not giving us any appointments, so they allowed us to get the visa there.
Marcela:
So it only took us like two or three months. Everything was I mean we made the decisions and I had to hire lawyers and I feel like last year I also didn’t launch any brands, any new products or anything, because it was very stressful. And then, when we decided to come here, I had to work with the lawyers, with the accountants, with companies that were helping us build this business plan, and so our focus was moving our family from there to here, and then we arrived in last September, so we had to buy everything from zero. So I mean, I look back at those years, like these past years, and really this business has been such a great blessing for me because we are here, because of it, we are here and our family is safe and we’re having a great time enjoying this country and looking at opportunities, talking to other Colombians here and see that they have also built their businesses.
Marcela:
Talking with people like you in this business, in this, in these conferences, it really opens up your mind. It is possible to scale and to build a great business. So I feel very grateful for this business and Kevin, for you also, as I mentioned when I met you, because, yes, this has been a great journey. It’s been very rewarding and this business has allowed me to be with my son a lot. Be there with him, spend time with my family, make some amazing trips, be on my own terms. This is, for me, the real freedom.
Kevin King:
How do you balance being a mother to a young son, the demands of your business, being a wife and now the mother to a little puppy? How do you balance that? Do you have a schedule that you do, or certain work hours, or you just work whenever you can? How do you balance that?
Marcela:
It’s been hard being here in the US because I don’t have my mom and the support group that I used to have, but I try to get these six hours that my son is in school. So I try to do everything that I can during these six hours, and then when he comes, then I spend time with him but he goes to bed early, so at night, during all the things that I have to do, I listen to podcasts and I continue learning. But it’s not easy because, for example, I’m looking at some new niches or new products and then I’m super happy researching, reading, getting ideas, and then all of a sudden it’s 3pm and I have to go get him and then life stops right there. And so, of course, I feel sometimes frustrated. It’s 3 pm and I have to go get him, and then life stops right there, and so, of course, I feel sometimes frustrated because I would like to have unlimited time to work and build this business.
Kevin King:
Is your husband helping you in the business right now, or is he doing his own thing?
Marcela:
So he used to have a job at a car dealership until last week because he used to work even weekends until 9pm. We couldn’t even see him. And so right now he’s looking forward to get another remote job so that he can do his Amazon business too because he’s been learning and trying to find products too. So that’s what he wants to do. Do to have the freedom that I have.
Kevin King:
That’s awesome. So he’s not part of your business. He’s going to start his own business.
Marcela:
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think he’s going to start his own business and we support each other and stuff, but he likes different things that I like. So yeah, now that he has more time, he’s going to start learning more and getting more involved, I think.
Kevin King:
Now he can do the new Freedom Ticket that just came out a couple months ago, Freedom Ticket 4.0, the all new revised one. So he’s going to learn some things he can like. I learned something you didn’t learn, Ha ha.
Marcela:
Yeah, exactly yeah, we’ll see what happens with him. But he loves the Amazon business because he sees that this business allows you to have a great quality of life. I mean, I can just go and take walks when I want. I cannot work for the whole day if I don’t want to and then at night I just do the basic things that I have to do and then I would work the whole weekend because I’m excited about something. So I like that. I’m never bored with my Amazon business. Of course, the PPC part is not my favorite and all this operational part is not easy and it’s not my favorite part. I love creating, I love building stuff, but in general I think this business is fun. It gives you like energy.
Kevin King:
What do you find is the most challenging thing in your business? What’s the hardest thing of running? Like you said, Amazon, it gives you a lot of freedom and you’re really enjoying the creative process. But what is the most challenging thing? That? Not necessarily the thing that you hate, because you don’t like doing PPC or whatever, but what’s the most challenging? Is it the cash flow? Is it having the money to grow? Is it dealing with all the new changes on Amazon? Or what’s the most challenging thing?
Marcela:
The most challenging thing for me is being able to find products that you can protect because it’s very like you invest some money on developing your designs, bringing something new, something of great quality and then you have Chinese sellers that are just making little adjustments and selling it for half the price. So, launching new products that you can protect and scale or at least for months or years, you can have this like safety, without being a patent, of course. So launching things that can be protected for me is the hardest part, and that’s why I haven’t launched so many more, because I see that that is a real challenge. They are super fast. Even your factories like they see that that’s a nice product and then they try to replicate it somehow and sell it somehow.
Kevin King:
Do you do like with your factories? Do you do a non-compete with them, an in-in-in agreement, so that they can’t actually knock you off? Do you do something like that?
Marcela:
Yes, but still, they find ways, they find ways.
Kevin King:
They just don’t do it, but their uncle does it. That has a factory down the street or something.
Marcela:
Yes, so it’s a challenge, and also that it can be lonely. It can be lonely because back in Colombia I didn’t have any friends, anyone that I could ask questions about this Amazon business, because no one was doing it. And even now, when they ask me what I do and I tell them they were like, wow, now it’s a little bit more common, at least for them to know, but I didn’t have like a group of people that I could like talk and ask and solve questions.
Marcela:
I had to always pay for an hour for someone to come and help me, like, hey, how can I do this? How can I do that? How can you help me validate this or that? So it was a challenge, although right now with Brandon, because I joined Cellular Systems and right now I’m having the opportunity to be part of the Mastermind group, so the inner circle. So it’s been great to get to know more people and having those discussions with them.
Kevin King:
Do you find that most everything out there is in English. There’s not a lot of Spanish or Portuguese stuff for Spanish or Portuguese people who want to sell that maybe are not as fluent as you or as good in English as you.
Marcela:
Yes, that’s a big thing for some friends and some people who ask me like, hey, can this be? If you don’t know any English, can you do this Amazon business? And of course it’s possible. I mean, some people have done that somehow. But it’s an extra layer of difficulty because the softwares, the suppliers, Amazon it is everything in English. So if you know nothing or very little, you’re gonna have to translate and everything. And sometimes for me, I have to replay some videos, for example, for PPC or a very technical, I have to replay them. So imagine someone who has to translate and replay and learn.
Kevin King:
Well the United States is the second largest Spanish speaking country in the world. Only Mexico has more native Spanish speakers than the United States. So do you do any on your marketing or anything oriented towards the Spanish market for your products here in the United States, like any influencer stuff or maybe part of your listing? Or do you have a listing that’s all in Spanish instead of just English or anything like that to try to appeal to that crowd?
Marcela:
Some of the keywords I use. Some of the keywords in my listing, but I haven’t done any influencer marketing in Spanish. That’s a great idea actually, thank you.
Kevin King:
That’s a big market and it’s under looked, underutilized, so it’s not as many people doing it, so it’s not as competitive. And there’s a lot of people it’s not just the Americans buying off of Amazon in Spanish, but you also have a lot of people from Latin America that are buying off of Amazon in the US in Spanish as well, and the Brazil Amazon Brazil is booming right now. I don’t know if you’re on Amazon Brazil, but you might want to take a look, since you’re fluent in Portuguese, you might want to take a look at that too. That marketplace is one of the hot ones right now. I mean, it’s still small compared to, you know, the United States. It’s still, but it’s growing rapidly and that could be a good opportunity there.
Kevin King:
But a lot of people you know in El Salvador and Guatemala or Honduras or even Colombia, they order on the US Amazon.com and then they have it either so in some cases they can have it shipped directly to their country it takes a while, it’s not prime, it takes a while or they can. They have mailboxes, like in Miami, these little drop boxes, and once a week that company just gathers all their packages and their mail, puts it in a box and ships it to them. There’s a lot of people that do that as well, so there’s opportunity out there to tap into that that a lot of people overlook.
Marcela:
Yeah, yeah, I’m going to take a look. Thank you, that’s a great idea.
Kevin King:
So where do you want to go with the business? Do you hope to sell it one day, or do you just want to have fun and keep running it and enjoying life? Or are you hoping to sell it at some point and maybe start another business? Or what’s your goal?
Marcela:
I would like to keep it for a while. I want to create more with my brand. I want to create more with my brand and maybe next year I’ll start thinking about other options for selling it, but I want to create more for now. And yeah, I want to create more brands. I want to create more things. I think there’s a lot of opportunity still in the Amazon space. So I’m looking forward to really focusing this year on product research and product development and one of my dreams is to go to different countries and see what I can source from Latin America and from Asia. So that’s one of my biggest dreams that I want to do this year and next year.
Kevin King:
So what are some of the countries? You said you went to India. That was just for a tourist trip, though, right.
Marcela:
Yes.
Kevin King:
Where are some of the places you want to go? Turkey might be a good place for some of what it sounds like, for some of what you’re doing. Morocco could be another one that could have some really interesting stuff. India, Vietnam, Thailand.
Marcela:
India, Vietnam.
Kevin King:
Indonesia, Mexico, even maybe.
Marcela:
Yes, I would love to go to all of them and my first priority would be going to China this year for the Canton Fair in October, I think it is. Yes to visit my supplier and I’m also developing another supplier and now that I’m gonna be in China, I want to visit more countries in Asia and also Turkey. And I’m gonna go in July and June to Colombia, so I want to also take a look at what type of like industry I can also find, because I have met some Colombians and even Americans that are sourcing from Colombia products that I wouldn’t even imagine that are made there. So I also want to explore that opportunity, because creating employment in Latin America would also be a big dream for me to be able to support and give back.
Kevin King:
So what’s the average wage in Colombia? Is it like about a thousand dollars a month or something like that? That’s considered a pretty. I know the minimum is lower than that. The minimum is like what’s five or six hundred dollars a month.
Marcela:
Less yes, like $400.
Kevin King:
And that’s working six days a week right. And then, but the average person like working in a bank or having a decent job not the rich people, but the average middle class person is about $1,000 or so a month, right.
Marcela:
I think even less.
Kevin King:
Even less, okay yeah.
Marcela:
And so some people graduate school and they get paid like $600, $500, six, seven. So it’s hard for a lot of professionals to get a job and like really get a good income to be able to pay back school and because everything is so expensive and it’s hard, then when you grow and then you have more like master degrees and you start growing the company, then it gets better. But that’s why you see a lot of people right now learning English and then having remote jobs here in the US where they can get paid, for example, $1,000 a month and then with $1,000, you can do a lot more. You can live comfortably with $1,000 in Colombia. I mean not have a lot of things, but you can rent a small apartment, pay a car, buy grocery and even do some things. Well, depending on where in Colombia, right. Cali is a lot less expensive than Medellin and Bogota, but in Cali with $1,000, you can do some things. You can live. I don’t think it’s a whole family, but you like a person, just one person can comfortably live with $1,000 there.
Kevin King:
Yeah, that’s why a lot of people like Medellin. They’re like we can come here and for fifteen hundred dollars a month we can have a nice apartment, we can eat what we want, we can party, we can have a maid, we can have this, we can have all all this kind of stuff, which, which is true, but you, you also sacrifice a lot of other things too. I mean, it goes both ways. At one point, like 20 years ago, I actually considered moving out of the US and I joined something called International Living and they had conferences around the world. They did one in Panama and I almost moved to Panama.
Kevin King:
But when I made my pros and cons list of like what’s good about Panama and what’s bad, what’s good about Austin Texas and what’s bad, Austin Texas came out on top. What’s good about Austin Texas and what’s bad? Austin Texas came out on top. And ever since then I haven’t even though, despite some of the problems that the United States has or some of the issues here we’ve all got our issues it’s still the good outweighs the bad when you compare it to almost anywhere else in the world, especially for entrepreneurship or business.
Marcela:
Yes, yeah, it’s true.
Kevin King:
I think you’re discovering that too, and I think you’re discovering that too, and I think you made a smart move in doing what you did moving your family here and I’m glad that this business, this Amazon thing, has really in many ways helped change your life and your future, for your entire family. Well, Marcela, I really appreciate you taking the time and telling your story today. This has been awesome. This has been really cool. I appreciate you coming on and telling your story today. This has been awesome. This has been really cool. I appreciate you coming on the uh, the AM/PM podcast.
Marcela:
This was very fun, thank you. Thank you so much, Kevin, for having me.
Kevin King:
If people want to, someone wanted to reach out to you. Are you on LinkedIn, are you on Facebook or somewhere, or do you prefer just to remain anonymous?
Marcela:
On LinkedIn I’m Marcela O’Campo, and also on Facebook, too. Our Instagram is Marcela O’Campo 87.
Kevin King:
Awesome, great. Appreciate it again Thanks.
Marcela:
Thank you, Kevin, bye-bye.
Kevin King:
Most people ask me Kevin, if you’re so successful selling, why don’t you take the time to actually create a course teaching people how to sell on Amazon. One, the course is free if you’re part of helium 10, so it’s not like we’re selling the course to make a lot of money. It’s a free part of helium 10. But it’s stories like Marcela’s that actually are the reason that I do what I do. Everybody needs a helping hand. Everybody needs to hear from someone that’s actually in the weeds doing it, not someone that tried to do this and failed. And then they go out and they start a course, which happens about 60-70% of the time. The people that are actually teaching are actually failed sellers or people that are no longer doing it or not in touch with it anymore. But when you can create something and it can help change someone’s life, not only financially but the life of their family, and give them the opportunity to actually leave one area where there might be some bad things happening and go to another area, like she did, coming from Colombia to the United States is really, really cool, and so for me, that’s what it’s all about is everybody needs a little bit of a helping hand, everybody needs a little bit of a lift, and if I can do that through the Freedom Ticket, through the AM/PM p]Podcast and by helping people like Marcella, it makes it all worthwhile. So I hope you enjoyed this episode with her and we’ll see you again next week.
Kevin King:
If you haven’t, be sure to sign up for my newsletter, Billion Dollar Sellers it’s billiondollarsellers.com. Brand new issue every Monday and Thursday. And don’t forget to look at billiondollarsellersummit.com. My next event is in Iceland in April of 2025. I’ve also got something coming up in September in Austin. So if you’re a seller and you’re stuck and you need some help from my Dream 100, take a look at the little thing that I have going on in September in Austin, Texas. It’s a small, private incident event where you can get hands-on advice from some of the smartest people in this industry. In the meantime, some words of wisdom for you go out there and make every day your masterpiece. Make every day your masterpiece. Take care.
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