Episode Summary

Lisa Kinskey of Noviland talks about End to End Amazon Supply Chain Solutions. In this Prime Talk Podcast Video Sponsored by GETIDA – Lisa Kinskey – Marketing Assistant – Noviland – Noviland was launched out of pure need. Finding new overseas suppliers was time-consuming.

About Lisa Kinskey of Noviland – Noviland was launched out of pure need. Finding new overseas suppliers was time-consuming. Communication was full of difficulties. Coordinating quality inspections & international logistics was a headache. Every order there seemed to be something wrong that could’ve been prevented. We know you can always just deal with these issues, but it always consumes a lot of time and energy – resources that can be better spent elsewhere. We’re determined to solve all these supply chain issues that we’ve all experienced.

About GETIDA – With e-commerce growing annually by at least 30%, it will become harder and harder to audit what can amount to anywhere from 1-3% of your annual revenue. GETIDA is actively dedicated to improving the overall operations of Amazon FBA sellers. We’ve developed robust auditing software that keeps track of your Amazon FBA inventory transactions, refunds, seller data analytics, and FBA reimbursements easily and clearly. We maintain an agreeable, established relationship with Amazon, and our dedicated case managers draw on that relationship when filing FBA reimbursement claims on your behalf.

 

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Yoni Mazor 0:05  

Hi everybody welcome to another episode of Prime Talk today I have a special guest today I’m having Lisa Kinskey. This is the marketing assistant at Noviland which is an end-to-end supply chain solution for e-commerce sellers. So Lisa, welcome to the show.

 

Lisa Kinskey  0:19  

Hi, Yoni Thanks for having me it’s it’s so weird being on the other side of it now as a guest I don’t have anything to do.

 

Yoni Mazor 0:25  

Thank you so much for having me with the show a few weeks ago was really a delightful event for you and Francois but today is really going to be all about you it’s going to be the episode of the second ski you’re gonna share with us Who are you? What are you Where are you from? Where do you grow up? How’d you begin your professional career all the way to where you are today with e-commerce so I guess without further ado, let’s jump right into it.

 

Lisa Kinskey  0:47  

Sure. So I am a Georgia girl born and raised born in Woodstock, Georgia, which is just north of the kind of like metro Atlanta area. My parents are originally from Ohio but they moved down here and I want to say 1980 and then of course that’s just where they planted the roots and it’s where I’ve been ever since.

 

Yoni Mazor  1:07  

So this was the reason for the move was what job opportunity or just the cold was too much already or?

 

Lisa Kinskey 1:12  

My mom left because it was too cold. But my dad’s dad started a business down here and I think my dad came down to help my grandpa with that and my mom was a business I owned a liquor store actually.

 

Yoni Mazor  1:28  

Yeah it was a liquor store is regulated by the state over there I live in North Carolina back in the day and you can only get alcohol or liquor in like these stores where you get a license from the government I think it’s even operated but I think it’s called ATBS stores I think which means for alcohol bottled tobacco anyways I don’t want it be maybe I caught tobacco it yes alcohol tobacco store isn’t like that,

 

Lisa Kinskey   1:50  

No but I don’t think the same here because like I know in Pennsylvania it’s very strict like all government-run and you can’t like I don’t know you’d like you can get like beer at Walmart but like you have to get liquor from like a state owner. It’s not the same here you can…

 

Yoni Mazor  2:03  

Every state has its own store Yeah.

 

Lisa Kinskey 2:07  

But I think they moved out here to help with the liquor store but the way my dad tells the story is that he didn’t ask mom to come with him she just said I’m getting in the car. But they’ve been here ever since. So yeah, born and raised in Woodstock. That’s where he went to high school. Went to Kennesaw State had got a degree in management graduated in December of 16. And you know I did three or four years of college.

 

Yoni Mazor  2:27  

Four and a half All right, that’s good Yeah.

 

Lisa Kinskey  2:32  

I took um you know, finance and accounting weren’t my strong suit had to redo a couple of those but also I did a study abroad while I was in college, too, so I got some credits that didn’t actually go to my degree but

 

Yoni Mazor 2:44  

Why did you go abroad to Italy, which part?

 

Lisa Kinskey 2:48  

So it’s in the Tuscan region we spent two weeks in and then a couple of days in Florence and a couple of days in Rome with a day trip to Sienna and a day trip to Pienza which is really exciting because my dad’s side of the family is originally from Florence so it was like going back to visit where the family originally came from which was super cool.

 

Yoni Mazor  3:06  

Tuscany is in the south right if I’m not mistaken?

 

Lisa Kinskey  3:09  

Kind of Yeah.

 

Yoni Mazor  3:11  

That’s a boot yeah Italy looks like a boot.

 

Lisa Kinskey  3:13  

Yeah, it’s not like at the bottom of the booth or anything.

 

Yoni Mazor  3:16  

No, I know there’s an island in Sicily that’s an island it’s not really connected to the EU physically got it. But growing up Did you do anything out of the ordinary and involved in entrepreneurship or special activities during Junior High High School anything? Music anything and culture community?

 

Lisa Kinskey  3:33  

No, not necessarily. I mean, when I was in middle school, I did chorus maybe a few years before that even I don’t really remember but my parents are entrepreneurs so my parents owned a heating and air company my whole time growing up and then my dad owned a hot tub company for a little while too and mom has always helped out with you know, they just did the businesses together so like for the H back dad would go do the service calls and everything and mom would help take care of the bookkeeping and kind of the behind the scenes stuff. So I was raised by a really hard-working entrepreneur, you know entrepreneurs, and that kind of instilled a lot of my work ethic so you know the dream was kind of to always takeover by fac company which I knew nothing about it.

 

Yoni Mazor  4:16  

Was it just you taking over the age of a company that was the talk in the house.

 

Lisa Kinskeyr  4:19  

Yeah, well that was my idea, and then.

 

Yoni Mazor  4:23  

Romantic Yeah, but uh, hold on so when you grew up you had to kind of help them in the office or go away with to do repairs. What was the dynamic?

 

Lisa Kinskey 4:30  

No, I didn’t have to I would go sometimes to the office with my mom which wasn’t very far from the house and I wouldn’t go super frequently just sometimes. But when I would I would like to want to answer the phones and I would like want to you know, take down the messages or whatever and she would let me she was so sweet. Even though she knew I couldn’t help anybody. It was just like, let me go you’re comfortable with it.

 

Yoni Mazor  4:50  

Even though you call it maybe even Bhatia you were comfortable with it.

 

Lisa Kinskey  4:53  

Yeah, yeah. And it was, you know, that was kind of always the dream I was raised. I say this raised as an only child. I Have a half-brother who lives in Ohio. So I was like the only kid in the house. So I think that I got lucky in that I didn’t really have one person that I could attach to and kind of stay quiet. I was always really an outgoing kid, I was always out hanging out with my friends. And I was just a social butterfly. So I think that helps a lot with, you know, having to, you know, speaking to people and things like that. And then later on when I got into sales, it was definitely super, super helpful.

 

Yoni Mazor  5:24  

God. So let’s, let’s talk about 2012. That’s when you graduated high school and you wanted to go to university, right? So where did you go? And what was the decision? Meaning what do you start learning on Sunday, you had a pivot in the middle. So what was the dynamic there?

 

Lisa Kinskey 5:38  

So I did graduate from high school in 2012. And actually didn’t want to go to college, I went kind of just because it seemed like the smarter decision you know, you can’t really do much anymore without having a piece of paper in your head,

 

Yoni Mazor  5:52  

what you want to do instead of going to college. that’s a little bit unusual, right? Because I guess today the paradigm is college, right? Everybody wants to go to college. So what was on your mind,

 

Lisa Kinskey  6:03  

I don’t think I had a plan. I think I just decided I was gonna figure it out. Whatever. I really don’t remember that I had any kind of plan at all, I just decided that I was going to work and just kind of make it happen. I don’t know

 

Yoni Mazor  6:16  

Just grow up overnight after college, you on your own, you’re an adult in the world, and boom rocket. So what pushed you into university eventually?

 

Lisa Kinskey  6:24  

Probably ultimately, my dad, he, you know, kind of pushed me in saying, you know, you don’t have to go to school if you don’t want to, but it’s definitely going to be the better decision for you. And you know, obviously, every kid wants to make their parents happy. So went to Kennesaw State, I stayed there for all four and a half years. And I didn’t have you know, because I didn’t really want to go to school, I didn’t have a major specifically that I wanted to do. I didn’t have any big interest in you know as I said, I had to retake finance. So that wasn’t my forte. I didn’t want to go for like chemistry or exercise phase or anything like that. So I just got to run of the mill, management business degree because you can…

 

Yoni Mazor 7:00  

Did you actually enjoy or studying learning or university or anything you would discover your kind of actually feels like you belong there or you like…

 

Lisa Kinskey  7:09  

I enjoy psychology a lot, but there’s more like kind of the medical side to it. That is not my forte, I can’t I’ve got white coat syndrome-like crazy. So um, but I like the psychology part of it. I like learning about, you know, specifically like mental illness like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, you know, like multiple personalities, things like that, that always interests me. The stuff that’s covered in like Criminal Minds, you know.

 

Yoni Mazor  7:35  

Stuff like you know, it’s always good to do like a Hollywood show or movie about all these paranormal things. But I said 2016 but by the way, the four and a half years you were studying you went away, or it was a stay at home or was a living.

 

Lisa Kinskey  7:50  

Yeah, I stayed at home. I was very blessed. My parents let me live at home rent-free. I did work crazy, crazy hours, you know, to help pay for school and things like that. But I lived in Woodstock and just commuted to Kennesaw, which isn’t super far, the traffic’s crazy, but not super, super far. So I was able to, you know, actually graduate from school debt-free because my parents were gracious enough to let me live at home.

 

Yoni Mazor  8:14  

That’s right. That’s right. And this is a state local, private college we’ll cancel.

 

Lisa Kinskey  8:19  

It’s a public university here in Georgia. It’s actually the second or third largest university in terms of student bodies, second only to either UGA or Georgia Tech. I can never remember the ranking.

 

Yoni Mazor 8:30  

So good. Sounds good. Small question on the sidelines, or how many people always get confused. You know, Woodstock, Georgia, Woodstock, New York where they had the big festival in the 60s. That’s kind of the story of your life is trailing you all the time.

 

Lisa Kinskey  8:42  

Yeah. actually asked me that like two weeks ago, he was like You keep saying, Woodstock. Is it though? Woodstock? I was like No, honey that was in New York.

 

Yoni Mazor 8:51  

So small history over here. So yeah, back in 1969. Or 67. Yeah, the late 60s, a massive event in upstate New York. Woodstock, New York was a dairy farm. But it’s not gentlemen. They kind of scrambled together this big show and became a ballistic success because we had the legends like Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, you name it there were there Beatles even I’ll be wrong. But that was a massive, massive thing historical and people were splashing in the mud. everybody kind of knows. What’s the next stoation. But we were talking about here Woodstock, Georgia. You know, the vicinity of Atlanta, Georgia. Different World different vibes. And this is taking us to that vibe of the world. So 2016 you graduate and what was the Navaratri? Well, what was you’re in a junction? Probably. So what do you do?

 

Lisa Kinskey  9:37  

Yeah, graduating in December of 16. I actually had very different plans. I was in a relationship at the time that would have led me to move across the country. And that actually did not come to fruition. So I was about three weeks from graduation, with plans to move to Washington and I was like, I don’t have a job. I don’t have anywhere to go. So this year.

 

Yoni Mazor  9:59  

Washington State. So we got to pick up all these names that have multiple locations and states. So we got to stay…

 

Lisa Kinskeyr  10:06  

Washington state, which is a very different climate and a whole different world for me. But that didn’t, you know, silver lining, everything works out in the end. It’s best that I didn’t go but um, so that was my plan. So anyway, I’m about three weeks from graduation, and my plans totally change. And so I texted a good friend of mine, and I said, Hey, like, we’re about to graduate. I’ve got to move out of my parent’s house, like, I’ve got to figure something out, do you need a roommate? And she said, Well, no, I have two cats, and you’re allergic to cats. And it’s also a one-bed apartment. I can’t help you there. But do you want a job? So I was like, Yes, yes, I need a job. That’s cool. I need a real job. So now that bartending is not a real job, just the sleep schedule is terrible. So I interviewed at and my employer that I was with up until the Coronavirus, layoffs all happen. It’s called sjv data solutions, formerly sjvn Associates. It’s a criminal background screening firm. And I started with them on December 27, of 2016, and I was there up until March of 2020. And so that’s where I got to experience a lot of different things I worked in their customer service, originally, I got to do solo.

 

Yoni Mazor  11:14  

What’s the, what’s the mission again, and the purpose of this company, just take us there for a moment.

 

Lisa Kinskey 11:17  

Sure. So SAP data solutions is a background screening companies, they do pre employment and tenant screening. So if you ever go to get a job, and they want to run your criminal history, whenever you do education verifications, or employment verifications, if you are in the medical field, and your employer needs to confirm the legitimacy of your medical license, as JB kind of takes care of that, on the back end, there is a middleman called a consumer reporting agency or a CRA. And they’re the ones who it’s kind of complicated, there’s multiple layers, but you apply for a job, depending on your state, the type of employment, the company, and those specific laws determine what you’re able to return and make a hiring decision off of. And sjv, his job was to just go grab all of the records that we could find, and then provide it back to the CRA to then, you know, filter through essentially and determine Okay, what can we make a decision on, you know, this, that or the third.

 

Yoni Mazor  12:14  

So basically, the purpose of the mission of the organization is to help other companies make a smart decision, if that person has a clean history, no, no issues with the records, in terms of legality or legal things or issues? And then they can really go back in and negotiate or do whatever they want to do. In terms of employment. That’s kind of the mission and purpose. Exactly, yeah. Got it. But the What was your mission? Or was your role in the company? Where do you start? Where do you finish? What was the experience? Like?

 

Lisa Kinskey  12:40  

Yeah, so started as just a regular customer service representative, worked up to be an account manager, which is, you know, a CSR customer service representative with more designated larger accounts, then worked a hybrid position between sales and customer service for a while. And then I was in sales full time and then saw

 

Yoni Mazor  12:59  

Do you sell this? When you say, sales? It seems almost like it’s very needed, right? This is the solution, isn’t it? So how do you attract clients or businesses? What’s the competition? Like? What’s the landscape?

 

Lisa Kinskey  13:11  

Yeah, that’s a great question. So background screens, specifically in certain areas are highly commoditized. Right? It times it’s just a race to the bottom. As far as price is concerned, a lot of these counties, especially, you know, in the higher populated areas, everything is able to be automated through the court, computer systems, and everything is online. So a lot of these companies are building what they call robots. They’re just automation systems to grab the information from the website automatically and then send it straight through. So they’re very fast. And they’re very accurate as well. So the industry in itself is still relatively new. The guys who started the companies that are you know, so like sjvn, for instance, it’s named after the owner, Scott Vanek. He started the company in his garage in 1998, in Chicago, when he was actually a police officer in the move to Atlanta in 2000. And he still runs the company, as far as I know, I haven’t seen any news of anything different, but he still runs the company. And the same is true for a lot of the guys who started the businesses that are competitors of sjv today, so it’s still a relatively new industry.

 

Yoni Mazor  14:17  

You guys. I mean, sjv was nationalized, is national or regional for the most part.

 

Lisa Kinskey  14:22  

So they have offices in Kennesaw and then I don’t know. They also had a call center for the verifications department that used to be based in Phoenix, Arizona. I’m not sure if that’s still the case. But we had employees all over the US about 500 employees that just did court research because some of the courts you have to go in and use their computers a lot of like more rural places like in South Georgia, you actually still have to go through and flip through the docket books to get formation. So we had folks all over the US doing that stuff.

 

Yoni Mazor 14:55  

But we didn’t realize it was so granular because it’s dependent, so many courthouses, and run around. Local records. So it’s, it’s nothing is digitalized. And you have to go there and flip the paper and maybe take a snapshot of it and see what see what’s going on with the data.

 

Lisa Kinskey  15:08  

Yeah, some of them, you have to do that other, you just have to go in and log into the computer system that the court has there, they just don’t make it available online. So it’s still, you know, about, there’s a good portion of the searches that still take a physical visit to the courthouse.

 

Yoni Mazor  15:23  

Got it, but tell me that the clients were mostly a fortune 500 companies or small businesses, or both, or what was the mix.

 

Lisa Kinskey  15:29  

So with sgbs position, we worked exclusively with consumer reporting agencies, we didn’t work with end users, which would be the hiring company. So like when, you know, Novi land hired me, they would go through a consumer reporting agency to gather all of my information. So especially if you’re like higher up in a financial firm, they want your, your civil records, your credit records, things like that. So they’ll go to a consumer reporting agency who then farms out the actual legwork to companies like sjv. So we could work exclusively.

 

Yoni Mazor  15:57  

SJV is more like a supplier doesn’t do. B2C, it does B2B. And mostly on a wholesale level where it’s a few buttons and large bodies that they need a wholesale amount of data and information, possibly 100%. Sorry, I was on the impression that you know, I’m regular photographs, maybe liquor store, like your your, your grandparents, and I want to hire somebody I just reached out this is JB, in Santa Santa case, they go to all these other bodies, and these bodies utilize sjv in the backend to get in. You’re exactly right. Yes. Got it. All right. So interesting. I’m not too familiar with this industry. And it’s a it’s nice to get an insight of the dynamic of our work. So it’s pretty cool.

 

Lisa Kinskey 16:33  

Yes, it’s not, it’s not something that anybody talks about. 

 

Yoni Mazor  16:38  

this is the belly of America. I’m not sure in other countries really how it works, the ability to give no records on, you know, potential employees and stuff like that. It’s I think it’s a monitor system that America keeps in the United States keeps on perfecting.

 

Lisa Kinskey 16:51  

Yeah, it is. I mean, because we used to conduct international searches as well, we didn’t have teams across the world, but we had partners. And there’s a lot of countries that really don’t keep criminal records.

 

Yoni Mazor  17:03  

I’ll give you example for my country, you know, and my country is so small, and Warner is in Israel, just for context reasons. So there’s just like, almost everybody knows everybody. So somebody comes in, and he’s like, you give a call. Do you know this guy? Oh, and you know, this lady? Yeah, that’s all good. That’s like almost clannish. But here. Yeah, it’s a big country. 300 million plus people, you have to have standardized systems and the ability to really see what’s going on.

 

Lisa Kinskey 17:26  

Yeah, you do. And for that, for that example, exactly that you just gave of like, hey, do you know this guy? Oh, yeah, I do. There’s so many folks who just tried to put like their best friend down as their manager, you know, when at whatever job they worked, it’s like, no, I need to confirm that, like, you really work there. So there’s a lot more that goes into it. And privacy laws abroad are very different as well, like I remember if you wanted to get, and I’m hoping anybody from Australia is listening, I’m gonna butcher this. But I remember in Germany, specifically, you had to have written authorization from the applicant themselves to even submit a records request. And then they had to review the results of the records request and sign off on that before we could even return it to the consumer reporting agency. So these would take months to get done. Because you had to submit through the verifying body in Germany, and everything was done by mail. I mean, they would take absolutely forever. And then it was a story if the applicant lived in Germany, as opposed to in the US. So it’s there’s a lot of intricacies that go into it.

 

Yoni Mazor  18:21  

Sounds like you guys were doing a global work. So besides Germany, which other countries? Did you guys get involved with?

 

Lisa Kinskey 18:26  

All of them. All of them? Wow. As like, you know, we couldn’t get records out of North Korea for, you know, obvious reasons. And then I think there were some laws in China where we weren’t able to do searches. I mean, there was a very, very short list where their privacy laws just didn’t allow for us to do searches, which was true of all of the reporting bodies like nobody, you used to internationally by default.

 

Yoni Mazor  18:49  

Or that was more of a specific request of the CRA, buddy?

 

Lisa Kinskey  18:54  

You had to ask for it. Yeah. So a lot of the searches out on…

 

Yoni Mazor  18:57  

Basically, it’s an add-on. I’m sorry, it’s an add-on as a solution you say we could do nationally or internationally, right? It’s like an add-on for whoever is requesting searches entirely?

 

Lisa Kinskey  19:05  

So you would either run a domestic either like a statewide search, a county search, a national search, or you could order in international for the specific country. And then if you knew that this person lived in multiple countries, you had to have individual searches for each of those countries because the processes are different.

 

Yoni Mazor  19:21  

Well, interesting learning. I didn’t realize a river was cool. Alright, so 2020, right, March, you know, big, big month for the world. global pandemic hits in COV