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.
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 COVID-19. What was your story?
Lisa Kinskey 19:34
I was already working from home for a while. So I was on the marketing team at that point in time. It was just me and another gentleman, Nick Fishman. He's incredible. He lived in Oh, gosh, I forget now Chicago, I want to say anyway, I was already working remote. So when they were like, and nobody's coming into the office, everybody's remote. I'm like, well, this doesn't affect me at all. We're all good. Well, then once all the courthouses closed down, of course, there's no Nobody's hiring because nobody's going into work and all the courthouses are closed, there are no records to be processed. So I was laid off in march along with about 40% of the workforce. And from there, it just started applying to other places. Because at that point, we didn't know when, you know, the sjp business was going to be coming back. They ran with a really lean team. And I think they've brought most everybody back, which is, you know, good for them. They seem to be doing well. But it just started applying the next day just started putting in applications after application. And, you know, along with everybody else in the US.
Yoni Mazor 20:36
Oh, yeah, that's a rough moment. So in March, everything comes to a standstill, especially for your organization, your business, complete freeze. You didn't like to step back and said, let me take unemployment you have next day already applied. And I think those first few weeks, that's when unemployment just soared, it was just, it was like a bungee jump in reverse. It was all jumping up the, you know, 10s of millions of people just applying for new jobs overnight. It was kind of devastating on a, on a physical level. Okay, so you're in that mix, what happened? You get lucky or was a little bit.
Lisa Kinskey 21:08
Got very lucky. But it took a couple of months. And, you know, as my dad said, I sat in the catbird seat pretty much the whole time, because I got laid off in March when you know, and my income at that point in time allowed for me to get the full amount with the unemployment. I was living off of unemployment. But it's didn't mean I wasn't looking for work. I absolutely was. But I was getting that. And then with the additional, you know, a stimulus that we were all receiving on unemployment weekly. So I was receiving that and I was looking for a job. And I finally I interviewed at Novi land on July 1, I want to say, and then I started on July 13th. And that additional 600 everybody was getting with their unemployment checks was going to be running out at the end of July. So I really, like was able to take advantage of, you know, all the way to the finish line. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, right up until the end. So I got very lucky finding this that Navy land. And it's funny because, you know, folks were like, well, what, what made you go to no VLANs? You know, we just hired on a new guy, jack. He's incredible. And, you know, I spoke with him before he was hired on he was like, you know, why did you choose No, VLANs? I was like, Sure, I'll be honest with you. I applied to over 200 places between March and June, you know, in July, I don't remember submitting this application. I was just looking for a job like, will this cover my bills? Do I have the skills for this? Fantastic. I don't mind commuting. Like, let's just go I need a job. But it's not what got me here. It's what keeps me here. And I'm very, very happy to be at Nebula and I'll be here. Like I said a year in July. And they're just an incredible team and I don't you know, really believe in the business. Bu,t But yes, when I was starting it was you know, Francoise was like, What do you know about supply chain? I was like nothing, but I will.
Yoni Mazor 22:52
Alright, cool. Very cool. So yeah, your friend just took my question away, like what brought you how'd you get to know Wheatland? So I guess I was a numbers game. And now you submitted a bunch of applications and that clicked and hit. But take us to the moments where they explain to you what it is, what's their mission? What's your purpose? And how it began to resonate with you and really take form where this is your professional career right now?
Lisa Kinskey 23:14
Yeah, so, you know, Neverland, as you said before, it's an end-to-end solution for supply chain management, and specifically for anybody looking to source products overseas, but we help a lot of e-commerce sellers. And when Francoise was kind of explaining everything to me, you know, he started here when he was in Ohio. Yes, he did.
Yoni Mazor 23:34
Okay.
Lisa Kinskey 23:36
We work very closely together. So which is also really cool. A lot of times the person that you interview with isn't the person that you work with. So that was also a unique experience. And that was a different discussion that we had to have he and I were, you know, working for a startup as opposed to a larger company that the company I worked for when I was in college was, you know, Brunswick, which got bought out by Walmart, IMF, but they have all the bowling alleys around the states. And I worked for them for four years, and then I worked for, you know, sjv, which is still considered a small to medium-sized business, you know, but they weren't a startup by any means. And he was like, This is gonna be very different. This is a very, you know, tight close-knit team. You know, things are done a little differently here. Like you can definitely help bring some of the corporate mentality but there's gonna be a lot that's different. I'm like, Hey, man, I'm totally good with that, you know, and it's been so great. But so I interviewed Francoise he hired me on we work together every day. But as he's explaining to me what we do i the only mindset that I know to come to it with is the consumer mindset, right? So he started as an intern when he was in college. And this is essentially I don't want to say all that he's known but you know, he didn't really have like a set career beforehand. He went to school for industrial engineering. And I come to it from like the mindset of like an Amazon-like purchaser, so he's like, you know, this, that and the other happens. I'm like, oh, I just thought like, Amazon-owned the product, and I just, they just like had a warehouse down the street, which is how it got to me so quickly. Like you don't actually think about everything that goes on in the back end like the majority of what I wouldn't say the majority, but there's, you know, everybody in this industry knows, Amazon doesn't own all those products. It's Amazon business owners, you know, the e-commerce business owners that sell through Amazon and all the different platforms.
Yoni Mazor 25:24
Yeah, I think more than two-thirds of Amazon's sales are from third-party sellers, which means Amazon's only owning a third of what's going on in their own marketplace, which is phenomenal, because when it started, of course, they are 99.9% of the retail volume. But third-party sellers is so robust, and they grow so fast, and they're so creative, and they can explode with competitive dimness, but also variety, which Amazon wants. That's what's winning.
Lisa Kinskey 25:47
Yeah, absolutely. So so he's explaining all of that to me. And it's, you know, took a little while to wrap my head around. And I still feel like there are new things that I'm learning every day, especially once you talk about, you know, expanding into these different marketplaces like, you know, Walmart, Magento, big commerce, things like that. But then on the supply chain side of everything, too, there's, and everything in this industry is in acronyms. And I don't understand why. And it's always like, letters. But you know, when you talk about like the Incoterms, and I, gosh, just the nuances of selling on Amazon, altogether, I don't know, it makes sense that there are so many different services for it, because no one person can know absolutely everything about it be an expert, because one, they're always changing the game, right? And two, there's just too much.
Yoni Mazor 26:33
So no, Noviland, what does it actually do? Let's say I'm an Amazon seller, I reach out to you guys, what's the pitch? What's the mission? How does it really work? What's the secret? What's the juice? What's the sauce? And why should the sellers jump on it?
Lisa Kinskey 26:44
Yeah, so Nov land is able to help you build and grow your e-commerce business. So we help source from a network of over 4000 factories overseas, specifically in China. And then we handle the sourcing, the quality control inspections, you know, we'll do we'll sell out your ship out your samples to you, we handle the shipping and logistics, we also have three pls here in the US. So we offer the full stack of solutions from start to finish. And it's all managed through a proprietary platform that was built by our IT team. So it's a one-stop-shop, literally to run your e-commerce business.
Yoni Mazor 27:20
When I come in, it's not just I'm getting phone calls or emails, I'm actually logged into some sort of a dashboard, where I give visibility for the whole process of how my products are being sourced overseas.
Lisa Kinskey 27:29
Yeah, absolutely. So you can review your quality reports. From there, you can submit rfqs, which are requests for quote, and we'll send you know, and you're always working with an overland team member, you're not having to juggle WeChat and WhatsApp and your email and text messages and staying up until God knows when to get on the phone with somebody from China. So you're always working with an overland team member who is then managing those communications for you and they say okay, here's your RF cue, we're gonna put these out to the factories that we know handle this type of product or this type of material, and then come back to you with you know your proposals and we're gonna make the decision there for whatever is best for your business. And from there, you can submit your orders, submit reorders, ask for samples, adjustments to samples, and then track your shipments things like that.
Yoni Mazor 28:14
So it's like all the wayto Amazon's fulfillment center because if the ambition is to obviously source your product, but haven't pinpointed all the way into Amazon fulfillment center, ready to be sold to the consumers that kind of the dynamic als?
Lisa Kinskey 28:25
So we handle the shipping and logistics and offer FBA prep within our three PL Of course, we can ship over to your FBA fulfillment center for sure, like just straight from the boat, or I guess from the cargo ship would be the better way to put it, but we can ship it straight from there or we can be kind of like the filler into your FBA too. So especially with and I know that this recently changed, it used to be 200 per person. And now there's the product type cap, which is fluid, apparently based off of the account, but you're still gonna need a feeder, right? Especially if you have tons and tons of product that you're selling. You want to have enough inventory domestically, wherever that you know, be that you're selling so that you're not waiting on product to come over on the ship to you know, just barely refill your inventory in time so your ipi doesn't drop and especially if something like the Suez Canal happens again I mean my god-like that's crippling.
Yoni Mazor 29:19
The proposal called the ever or something the everglade or something ever given.
Lisa Kinskey 29:21
It wasn't forgiven, but it was but it's owned by the company thing called evergreen and yeah either
Yoni Mazor 29:29
that affected you guys that affected no VLAN Oh, it affected everybody. I think it affected everyone
Lisa Kinskey 29:33
I mean that and then the ports being backed up in Long Beach and in Los Angeles with one just not enough employees and then two they had that huge COVID outbreak so there was just a huge backlog but effective infected everybody.
Yoni Mazor 29:46
So you have to recalculate the routes or the timings of deliveries and stuff.
Lisa Kinskey 29:50
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Yoni Mazor 29:52
Gotcha. So what kind of sellers do you tip Okay, before that actually, I actually connected what you said where it's not just all about from the board into the fulfillment center where you guys are not relying on can do is you basically imported to the United States, you can store it in a facility and then drip it into FBA. So you're not so reliant on the global cargo shipping, you know, all that, you know, volatile effects. So if you have enough cash, you can buy in bulk supply instead of 30 days or 90 days you buy maybe for six months, or maybe even a year, because you have a solid business, and then you can avoid all the noise in between the oceans. And because it's a lot of pressure going on. Plus, there's inflation going on, you know, the price of moving things around the world is becoming more expensive. So you can run a bog, you take the data, once you have it, stored here domestically in the United States, and then drip it in. That's kind of the magic here.
Lisa Kinskey 30:43
Yeah, exactly. I mean, but the real magic of what Novi land does is just being able to manage absolutely every single step through the platform that we've created. And you don't have to jump around.
Yoni Mazor 30:53
But what about the the self-fulfilled? Once you have it stored in the, let's say, a warehouse in the United States, you can drop it into FBA, but you also have capabilities of doing what they call FBM fulfilled by merchant? Yeah.
Lisa Kinskey 31:05
Yeah we do FBA and FBA FBM. I was really lucky.
Yoni Mazor 31:07
Because I've actually participated with a few forums of sellers that are struggling because of the whole change of quantities in the agent level. And from 200 to today's level, and the account level and all these tiers, like you mentioned a fluid. So they're really, really struggling to say, How am I going to win this, you know, sourcing from China overseas, in the United States, it's painful, the pricing is going up, I know it's a skyrocketing, it's everything's last minute, but I can't even if I wanted to bombard Amazon FBA fulfillment that I can't, because all these limitations, so what I do, I can't, and I need when you source, you want to have basic purchasing power. So if you start making your order, smaller, smaller per unit cost you losing, I mean, you're losing your margins, right, there's gonna be more expensive, if you buy more and more in bulk, your margins actually improve. So put the seller a lot of many sellers in a position where they're being squeezed out, or they can't buy too much, because Amazon cannot hold too much. Because they don't have that in between, whereas in the United States where you can take it in, and then safely ship it in or even do sell fulfill it to back it up. Because you can send FBA and then by the time you drop it in, you might even sell out. So having that FBM fulfilled by merchant option is great. So you keep the spirit and the wheels spinning. So you know, you never lose traction, you'll never lose demand because you're always selling because the moment you have an inventory, boom, your rank starts to drop. And it's very painful for the sellers because you lose momentum or rank. So I think that's very important to sellers to acknowledge that there's a viable solution with no real and to have that ability. And with the combination of FBM fulfilled by the merchant, I think these days and the criminal mind and that's kind of powerful, you should probably stress it out as you go along. But okay, so what do we have next? For the number nine? So next question for me that I have is, what's the typical size or lifecycle of resellers that you guys work with, especially in the Amazon space? Are the new sellers, newbies, or more established more enterprise level? what's the dynamic there?
Lisa Kinskey 33:05
Yeah. So you know, Francoise does all of the onboarding calls with each of our users. So if you guys do sign up, and even if you just want to have an exploratory conversation to see if we're a good fit for you definitely, you know, reach out, everybody can send me a DM or reach out to Francoise and we'll get you hooked up. But for an answer, you know, who, like brand new super fresh sellers aren't necessarily the best fit for us to start out with generally, somebody who's already placed a few orders or is already sourcing a few products, really, our strength is in helping you kind of streamline those services that you already have. But with the factories that we work with, and the mo Q's that exist and kind of the where our buying power comes in is with those sellers that have maybe a little more capital behind them. So somebody who's kind of already been doing it for a little while, but just wants to really scale their businesses is the best kind of fit.
Yoni Mazor 33:57
You got it. Yeah, I think it makes sense. Because after this, we experienced all the types of pain points that are out there with outsourcing. And there's, you know, this gets complicated very, very quickly. And if, if then you hit a wall, it can be detrimental to your business. So having a reliable partner and I like living overland, that it's able to do it perfectly every time even if it doesn't go perfectly to take care of it. You do all the firefighting or whatever is needed to behind the scenes they don't even realize so you know, you have something that you know, some somebody that's there just clutching and making it happen. And that's scalable, it's reassuring, so they can focus on many other things that are needed for e-commerce business, and especially selling on Amazon.
Lisa Kinskey 34:33
Yeah, exactly. And being able to just kind of outsource all of your services to a trusted partner, as you said, helps you to work as the e-commerce business owner helps you to work on your business instead of in your business. Especially if you're wanting to scale you don't want to be managing those WhatsApp, those WeChat those all have different messages with your freight forwarder over here and then your quality team over here and it just it gets to be too much like that's cool, and that's fun. And I think I personally think that it's important to understand Every step in every facet of your business as an owner because otherwise how can you train folks to kind of help you out But at a certain point in time if you want to scale that's not sustainable. So being able to have a partner who has those solid relationships and processes and systems in place is really vital to be able to help you scale.
Yoni Mazor 35:17
Yeah, I think also what happens is because they experienced so much pain and now you relieve the pain, they immediately understand and appreciate the value so that makes a long-lasting partnership.
Lisa Kinskey 35:26
100% Yeah.
Yoni Mazor 35:28
I gotcha. All right. So So what's the what's the mission for you guys right now so look into the future a year three years, five years a word Do you know what I want to be and then we're all there. Also want to touch a little bit I know that you do have you, you're an entrepreneur, so you have also another venue that you work on so you can share with us a little bit about that so we can better understand your spirit and your hustle right?
Lisa Kinskey 35:49
Sure. Yeah. So as far as where we want to be in a few years we have some really exciting projects coming up that I can't talk about, but just know that just be looking just be on the lookout probably in the next couple of months we're gonna have some really exciting stuff coming out so I can't really talk about it but I know that the plan is definitely to continue to grow the no VLAN business and to grow the no VLAN team we just moved into this new office we have so much more space. And I where I personally would like to be is I would no longer like to be an assistant I would love to have a team under me and either be you know, manager director at some point in time, Francoise, I'm looking at you. But um, but that's kind of the goal here. Like I would love to stay here for the long haul. But definitely, the goal is to just can continue growing and help you know, more and more users in any way that we can.
Yoni Mazor 36:39
We got I want to add a small small question. So besides obviously, the main purpose and mission of an overland with helping with intent, supplying, or sourcing. How else are you helping sellers besides that in terms of your community approach or education, or I'm basically hinting for your show, so go ahead.
Lisa Kinskey 36:55
I know I love the plug. Thank you so much. So Francoise and I published a podcast, it's called Link Up Leaders, and our goal is just to link e-commerce business owners, and anybody who's curious about e-commerce or supply chain with leaders in both of those industries, so we've had incredible guests like you on the show. We've also had, oh, gosh, we've done so many, you know how many names Can I remember? Carlos Alvarez? We've had Norm Farrar. We've had the guys from firing the man.
Yoni Mazor 37:26
David and Ken Yeah.
Lisa Kinskey 37:27
Yes, yes, David and Ken Thank you. We've had Dustin Cain and Chris Graham Lich from two Amazon sellers and a microphone. Chelsea Cohen from so stocked, we've had megillah Bard wash from India sourcing trip and global sources. She's incredible. We've had some folks from Seller App, I mean, really, we just want to bring as much information and knowledge as possible about e-commerce and the supply chain, it's very not salesy. We just want to be able to create kind of this knowledge base and the source of education for anybody who's wanting to start scale or even successfully exit their e-commerce business. You know, we're hoping to have some guests on that work specifically in exits and we had on Jake Barnett with fortunate he works along with iacobelli, with cubilia, and CO, you know, so just from every part of it, like protecting your IP to selling your business to PPC, that's, that's really what the show is all about. And then also, we just, we just have a ton of fun. I like to say, you know, it's a podcast run by to millennials, like really anything. And I think in our second episode with Tyler scelzi, we talked about Tinder for like, five minutes, it was like, that has nothing to do with ecom. But it's a good time.
Yoni Mazor 38:34
So it's electric commerce, where do you want to basically you have a partner apart, you know, dating or you know, hanging out, you go with your device, you pay money to this app? Yeah. And you purchase your, your, your human needs, right? Which is interacting with others, right? It could be a short-term thing or a long-term thing. You know, I have a good friend that I got married after that, you know, over they found on Tinder, so you never know, right? So is e-commerce in a different domain that we usually take my think of, or maybe even take for granted, but it definitely is e-commerce. Just FYI. Exactly. Yeah. Very, very cool. So I love that that's what it's really all about that information flow. And knowledge base is really what it's all about, that sellers and entrepreneurs really need to keep on refining their game, refining their performance, and really succeeding with this admission over time because the terrain always changes. It's hyperdynamic, and having resources that you know, flow into you and improve your knowledge. That's awesome. So thank you for that in the show and for having me there, I appreciate it. Alright, so I want to touch a little bit on your entrepreneurial spirit. What do you kind of do on the side? I think that's unique. That's unusual. So go ahead and share with us.
Lisa Kinskey 39:40
Yeah, so I plan weddings on the side. And that came from a history of just being so I've been a bridesmaid six times. And which is more than most women in general, especially most women who are only 26 and I'm not done. I do have more friends getting married lower.
Yoni Mazor 39:56
That's great. Yeah. Congratulations to everybody. You know, all your friends. Get married.
Lisa Kinskey 40:00
Yeah, absolutely.
Yoni Mazor 40:00
They've got they've all been beautiful they're such great people but anyway I'm just you know, by nature I'm a very type a kind of person and I'm very you know, I need to know the details and I need to know you know, where are we going What time do we have to be there? How does everybody need to be dressed Does everybody have you know, it's just very detail-oriented and that's what a lot of weddings is. And of the six times that I was a bridesmaid twice, I was a maid of honor. And there's just a lot of organization there's a lot of party planning, I did event planning when I was in college as well. So I kind of just decided at some point in time to you know, make some money out of it instead of just helping even in the weddings where wasn't a bridesmaid I was still helping, you know, set up and tear down and cut the cake and do all of this stuff at these weddings. And I was like, why don't I get paid to do this? Like, let's just put some money behind it. So I ended up getting a certified wedding and event planner. certification, I guess, through Kennesaw State University's extended.
Lisa Kinskey 41:02
That's serious you got the university to stamp to certify you that's big. That's pretty good.
Yoni Mazor 41:06
Yeah, yeah, I did, I did through their continued education. That's what it is. So so that the some of the letters on the end of my thing, so CW up, but I just decided to go ahead and get certified. And then, Funny enough, I actually finished my certification in May of 2020. So that was a project that I had begun before the pandemic, of getting my certification. And then, of course, unemployment gave me plenty of opportunities to finish it out.
Lisa Kinskey 41:32
So that's what I got my Ronnie because very hard to get married. So once you're ready to you got your certificate, are you ready to move to Florida, you know, weddings are kind of put on hold, but all good things, you know, it's gonna come back better than ever, so you're always gonna have the opportunity to develop their well.
Yoni Mazor 41:45
And that's what's funny is I, you know, yes, like a lot of weddings were put on hold, and a lot of folks who were supposed to get married in 2020, or even waiting until 2022. But I finished my certification in early May. And I posted on Facebook that I'd gotten it and my previous manager at Brunswick zone, Jim Woodward, actually knew somebody who was in need of a wedding planner. And so a week, two weeks later.
Lisa Kinskey 42:06
I believe straightaway, yeah, that's amazing.
Lisa Kinskey 42:09
But they actually hired me in May, and they were getting married in October. So I had about five months to plan this whole wedding. And we had to replace the caterer three weeks before the wedding because the caterer had gone out of business because of COVID. And I had to replace the DJ three days before the wedding because the DJ got COVID. So there's a lot of hoops to jump through a lot of problem solving a lot of putting out fires as you said, and Francoise, thank you for being tolerant of all my midday phone calls during that time.
Yoni Mazor 42:39
That's pretty amazing. Because you're being baptized on the fire and a few minutes, and during the COVID days, you're gonna make it anywhere, you know, the paraphrasing for The New Yorker makes it there and make it any worse, if you made as a wedding planner, and COVID you're gonna make it anywhere at any time. So kudos for that. Alright, so I just want to kind of tie things together. Because I think it's very interesting on your personality level, so you're highly structured, the thing for you is to be very structured, ain't no visibility on anything. So paying attention to all the details just makes it a good experience for whatever is needed, right. So you're doing it as an entrepreneur on the wedding level. But for some for sellers, every time the source that's a whole event on its own, and it can be very structured, and a lot of attention to detail. So I think you're in but your spirit is kind of embodying a no realize mission as well. It's all about structure, it's reliable because every time you source that's an event and it's it triggers a whole chain of events that need it needs careful attention, to make sure that the experience is great and good. And the event is successful. So it's interesting to tie that together. Okay, so now we're gonna package the episode a little bit, see what we got as a recap, and then, you know, head off to the final stage of two points. So let's see what we got so far. So bone res, and Woodstock, Georgia, right? Parents, originally from Ohio, you grew up there in 2012, he graduated out of high school, and you want it to college, but for four and a half years. And then 2016, when you graduate, a friend of yours, were given the opportunity to go into a company that deals with information about people, you know, background checks, and credit records and stuff like that. He did it for about four years until the pandemic hit march of 2020. And then, you know, you had to kind of pivot quickly and reinvent yourself. And actually, you find yourself entering a new industry, which is the industry of e-commerce. So while you found overland within overland in less than a year, you understand really what are the pain points and the needs and the mission and purpose and value of an overland. And nobody then I assume did grow because there's a need for that. And the whole industry is growing. In addition to all that, you and Francoise actually, beyond the core mission, create another mission where you create a knowledge base with the podcast with the show to help educate the sellers and make sure that they get more transparency and visibility and other things that are not immediately related to normalizing mission. So that's basically that's beyond the fact that you guys are trying to accomplish them. Did I get it so far? Is that right? packaging? represent? Yes. Very cool. So thank you for that. And thank you for sharing. All right, so let's touch the last two points, right. So the first thing will be is, somebody wants to connect and learn more about you, we're going to find you give them a handout. And the last thing would be is what is your message of hope and inspiration for entrepreneurs listening out there?
Lisa Kinskey 45:19
Yeah, absolutely. So if anybody has any questions for me, you can always email me directly. I'm also always on LinkedIn. So you can find me there. It's Lisa Kinskye, k i n s, k e y. And then if you guys want to check out the show, it's called link up leaders. We have a Facebook, LinkedIn YouTube channel, we have all those three as oh and Instagram. Pretty much all the social we have that for Neverland and for linkup leaders as well. So definitely, like share, subscribe, ring the bell for notifications, all that good stuff. And then, yeah, as far as any, you know, hope or inspiration for entrepreneurs, I don't know if it's necessarily hope or inspiration, but maybe just a piece of advice. No time is ever going to feel right. You are never going to be ready. So do it now. Like now today is the day, there's no better day, you know, no time like the present I think is the saying not all of your ducks are going to be 100% in a row and as Taipei's I am and I like to think that I can control everything like that. It's it's not true, something is going to go a little awry, or you're going to maybe not be 100% ready to go but it's better. I heard something on a podcast one time. And it escapes me now but it was um I think it was shared Jones and she said do is never perfect and perfect is never done. So good. Start now. If you've been thinking about it, just do it. Here's your zine, do it.
Yoni mazor 46:47
Love it, just do it. The big companies also use that phrase and we're going to borrow for the moment, and then no better time to now just Just do it. Right. Lisa, thank you so much for sharing was fascinating. I hope everybody else enjoyed and learned something new. Stay safe and help everybody. So next time. Yeah. Thanks, Yoni. Bye, everybody.
