In this Prime Talk Podcast Sponsored by GETIDA – Tomer Rabinovich - Amazon Seller & CEO of Top Dog - talks about the success he found riding the Amazon wave, and also more information about his life's journey. #TomerRabinovich #amazonseller
About Tomer Rabinovich of Top Dog -
My name is Tomer Rabinovich and I’ve been selling on Amazon since 2015. I run multiple successful brands on Amazon and have been helping sellers in the last 2 years through mastermind coaching sessions. I got the chance to speak at many different Amazon-related events all over the world and paid over $100,000 in business development as well as personal development. However, something was missing in ALL of the events – and that’s when I decided to create the Top Dog Summit.
Yoni Mazor 0:05
Everybody welcome to another episode of Prime Talk today. I'm excited to have a really special guest. Having told me, Rabinovich, so Tomer is a few things. First of all, he's an Amazon seller.
Yoni Mazor 0:15
He's also the CEO of top dog, which is a leading consulting firm, helping seven and eight-figure sellers to grow and also make an exit. And he's also the author of the book ride the Amazon waves tomorrow. Welcome to the show.
Tomer Rabinovich 0:28
Yeah. Hi, Yoni. I think it's a long time coming. So very good to be here.
Yoni Mazor 0:32
Yeah. So we're friends for a few years already in the industry. So I'm really happy to finally have you looking forward to the episode. And really, this episode will be the story of Tom Rabinovich.
Yoni Mazor 0:43
He's going to share with us everything you know, who are you? Where were you born, and where did you grow up? What was it like for you to grow up? How did you begin your professional career, station to station until we reach where you are today, especially in the world of E-commerce? So without further ado, let's jump right into it.
Tomer Rabinovich 0:59
Yeah, so I was I'm from Israel, as you know. So I grew up in a place called Givati. Allah here in Israel. It's small, I don't know how you say a small town, I guess. Like 500 families had a very good childhood. I think overall. I was kind of a
Yoni Mazor 1:21
Was a which part of the North, the center of the south it's like,
Tomer Rabinovich 1:24
Northern Israel. Yeah, that's me kids without if you know what that is. Yeah, so I grew up I was a very shy kid, I think as a kid was mainly with myself, like computer games, stuff like that. They had a few friends, obviously, but mainly playing games and playing a bit of tennis as well for some years.
Yoni Mazor 1:45
And where did your parents work in industries, where they were involved when you were growing up? Yeah, so
Tomer Rabinovich 1:49
My dad was in high tech he still is working for a big company, tower semiconductor if you know what that is. So
Yoni Mazor 1:57
It just got sold Dental, right, recently.
Tomer Rabinovich 1:59
Yeah, it got sold. And he also, he's now running a new facility in Italy. He's the CEO of like a new factory. They opened their two years he and my mom was like, relocated over there.
Yoni Mazor 2:13
They're involved in any industries as well or
Tomer Rabinovich 2:16
No, my mom stopped working. Many years ago, she was in pharmaceutical sales. Selling to pharmacists, stuff like that. So yeah, that's so
Yoni Mazor 2:30
when you were growing up, so that was your environment, your father in the high tech industry of Israel, which is a booming industry until today, it's a real growth engine, in terms of economics, typically more reserved, to the centre of Israel, where the industry happens by you guys are more the periphery,
Yoni Mazor 2:45
but semiconductors tower, it's a strategic company and has its own very distinguished history and an era of the digital economy, all the way leading up to where it is today with Intel. But for yourself, we're doing anything, that's our entrepreneurial nature, we're going up and try to make money on the side. You know, for whatever reason, you need money for the kid.
Tomer Rabinovich 3:05
Yeah, when I was 10 years old, I got into magic. So I became a magician. Like a professional magician. Few years after that. I think when I was 12, I think I did my first show when it kindergarten for 50 shekels that's like, I don't know, maybe 12 bucks or something. So yeah, that's where I started. And when I was increasing, or 16, my mom helped me to kind of shed an idea for me to sell flowers door to door where I live.
Tomer Rabinovich 3:35
So every Thursday, I will go out with two big buckets and just walk around door to door and just knock on the door and sell roses. One bouquet for 15 shekels and two for 25. So that was the deal. And then they had flowers for the weekend. Like Friday, Saturday was the weekend in Israel. So I did that for a few months. And that. And I think like for me, I always kind of knew I'm going to be an entrepreneur.
Tomer Rabinovich 3:59
I think when I got into magic I read a lot of it when I was 16 1718. I read a lot of business books, and Rich Dad and Poor Dad joined the military as well. So I was in intelligence in the military and learned everything about spreadsheets there. And they seemed that was also the first time I had a real role model.
Tomer Rabinovich 4:19
My commander in the military was a very smart, very intuitive guy. And I remember like in the military, it's like, you know, it's very structured, you can do whatever you want. And he just told me, Look, I'm going to give you like, you can do whatever you want. Because you do a good job, you work fast. I don't care when you do the work that needs to be done. Just get it done. And that was a very different approach,
Yoni Mazor 4:43
Like your Google or something. But yeah, yeah.
Tomer Rabinovich 4:46
So I liked that. So I had some nights where he wouldn't sleep obviously because I need to finish some stuff and then they had days where I could do whatever I want. So I had all the freedom he wanted and they learned a lot from him on how to manage other people. All and how to kind of run a business. You know, like every aspect of the military is like running a business I guess.
Yoni Mazor 5:08
Okay, so once you finish the army, I guess after the army wars, annexation,
Tomer Rabinovich 5:13
Yeah, so after the army flew to the so everyone in Israel, like after the military, they want to travel. So like three and a half years of service and then I found an opportunity to kind of like, you know, in Israel, a lot of people go to hustling the US and selling small kiosks, right? Like terrible density products, and makeup products. So I ended up reaching out to this company, it was selling magic kits, because I said, Okay, I'm going to be a magician, so I better improve my skills and just do magic 12 hours a day,
Yoni Mazor 5:46
hold on, let me get the stretch after the army went to work, so you can save money for the trip, or you or you first did the trip anyway,
Tomer Rabinovich 5:52
I just wanted to make money. So I didn't do it on a trip I just wanted to, I didn't even care about money. To be honest, I just wanted to improve my skills as a magician and learn sales in the process, because they knew I'm going to have a business at some point. So it made sense to me that like sales are no one skill you must have. So that's, that's what I did was
Yoni Mazor 6:10
Also knowing English from being experienced selling in English was also important for your part of the mission as well No,
Tomer Rabinovich 6:15
I always had good English tasting from computer games and magic, and I learned everything from books and videos. And so that's where I kind of got my English, I never really besides those nine months, and it never really lived in the US, or visited the US for more than a couple of weeks.
Yoni Mazor 6:34
A year was that when you want to do so basically, sorry, you're sorry, you know, being on a free world.
Tomer Rabinovich 6:41
That was maybe 2009 somewhere on that.
Yoni Mazor 6:46
Pretty much a year ago released, you finished your military service and got released
Tomer Rabinovich 6:51
Until the end of 2009. That was probably in the US. Got back to Israel. And then I told my parents like, look, I'm going to be a logician that that's what I want to do. And they're like, Okay, but you have to go to college first. That's like, you have to do this first. Basically, yeah. And then I just decided to go to like the easiest, the easiest route I could, which is I wanted to go through like business economics. So I went to college up north, called that size. So that's like in the northern part of Israel, like 30, like 10 minutes from the border, basically,
Yoni Mazor 7:26
Lebanon? Yeah. Yeah.
Tomer Rabinovich 7:29
So I studied there for four years. I did, I was supposed to do three, but the last year, I decided to stay one more year, and try to get elected to be the head of the student body. So I did that for my final year. And that was very intense. I had like 3040 volunteers underneath me, helping me with everything that is needed, like organizing events and, and helping us students with whatever they need, basically,
Yoni Mazor 7:57
To take leadership over there in school, what was your motive or motivation? For one, protecting the role of the head of the student body? President?
Tomer Rabinovich 8:07
Yeah, so I think like being a magician, you are you kind of try to satisfy everyone, I guess, to some extent, and I enjoyed giving value I think doing magic is giving value to others. And then what happened in my third year of college, I was in charge of all of the events for the students.
Tomer Rabinovich 8:26
So like, bring stand-up comedians, and music shows, stuff like that. So I what I've done throughout the year, like every single week that we had a show, I did the opening act for that show, like 510 minutes of like, magic tricks, or like it was very funny, I would say like I was kind of warming up during the opening acts for comedians, that year in some, some places as well. And then what happened was the person who was in charge, like the person who was in charge of me, she was the head of the student body, and she did a terrible job. And then she wanted to get elected for another year. And I'm like, that's not good to get, it's not going to happen. And then I offered myself to be elected. And then she fooled her. How do you say?
Yoni Mazor 9:10
Political connections? Or are you just
Tomer Rabinovich 9:13
Like, she just backed out? She just was like,
Yoni Mazor 9:17
yeah, so he's got the opportunity to create a better environment and help out sounds as you started from the cultural aspect of things for you know, for your
Tomer Rabinovich 9:25
but I also think like for me, I said to myself, like when am I going to have an opportunity to manage like 40 people or whatever thinking in the US colleges, you started college at 18 but in Israel, because it's like 2425 Usually, so it's very different. You know, like you know what you're doing,
Tomer Rabinovich 9:41
You know what you want. So I think for me like when I was I think 28 or something, that's what I did. And that was very intense for me as well and they learned a lot it was obviously like it didn't have, any college to do. So I would just focus on that. Mainly, like voluntary, I think it was a coveted buck a month that you get for doing that thing. And it had some magic shows in the same year and that was it. That was my income.
Yoni Mazor 10:08
So you committed yourself that's pretty good. Okay, so you graduated what year? What? 2013 14?
Tomer Rabinovich 10:13
Something 2013? Yeah, probably in 2013 I graduated. And then, and then I I said to myself, Okay, I'm going to leave the north and I'm sick of it like, it's fine. I've been here for a few years. I'm going to move to Tel Aviv and look forward
Yoni Mazor 10:31
To Hollywood. Yeah, it's like going to Hollywood. Yeah, or my place there. I
Tomer Rabinovich 10:35
Didn’t I didn't care about living in Tel Aviv? They like it. But they said to me, like, look, this is what everyone is doing. I'm just going to do that as well.
Tomer Rabinovich 10:41
Went to a few interviews but didn't get the job. Luckily, right. And then I got a call from GDS Mona, a place very near to where I went to college. And they said, look, we have this new thing. We're going to help small businesses grow. Once you got in an interview,
Yoni Mazor 10:58
This organization that reached out to you was a government non-profit or for-profit, government.
Tomer Rabinovich 11:03
Government thing reached out to me, I mean, they knew me because they knew like I did some scholarship stuff with the college. Also, when I was the head of the student body, I had some connections there. So they just wanted me to come to an interview I did, ended up getting the job, and worked there for two years. At the same time that I started because this was a nine-to-five job. And I had a girlfriend back then. And what happened was, that we stayed in their parent’s attic.
Tomer Rabinovich 11:32
And because they didn't have an apartment left like the apartments and didn't have anything, I remember us being in the attic and I was looking on what to do, what can I do with my all this free time that they have, they don't have called they can just do whatever. And then I saw Robert Kiyosaki posted something on his Facebook page about an Amazon selling course that was Amazing Selling Machine.
Tomer Rabinovich 11:55
That was the end of 2014 ASIC. And I remember it was $3,500. I didn't even know what the affiliation was right, like being an affiliate for them or whatever. But I remember he posted this is the first thing I'm advertising that is not my own thing. So I said, Okay, this is probably legit. This is not the fake stuff. So I remember asking my girlfriend they said, what do you think like this is 5500 bucks? Should Do you think I should go for it? And I wasn't even sure it was a good idea. And he said, Yeah, I think you should.
Yoni Mazor 12:27
So let me get this straight. You got you. You have an eight-to-five job in the northern part of Israel. You live in the attic, of, your girlfriend's parents, and just surf the web. You are familiar with Robert Kiyosaki because when you were younger, you read his book. And you say you promoted as an affiliate, probably the ASM Amazing Selling Machine, of course. Like I'm doing this.
Tomer Rabinovich 12:46
That's it? Yeah. Yeah. And then I said to myself, look, I didn't trust anything. Like all the numbers, they showed that nothing like I said, this, this might be fake. There's a 30-day money-back guarantee. I'm just going to do whatever this 3500 was all the money I had in the bank. Right? That was like my entire life. I knew I'm going to need money for inventory, obviously, but I sell them stuff. Look, I have a job. Now. I don't have any, expenses because we live at their parents’ house. Yeah, and that girlfriend is now my wife. Obviously. That's one of the reasons why
Yoni Mazor 13:19
That's good, good. A partner you got? Yeah,
Tomer Rabinovich 13:22
Definitely. Yeah. So
Yoni Mazor 13:24
Of course, you assume that.
Tomer Rabinovich 13:27
That's the course launch of my first product.
Yoni Mazor 13:30
What year was that also 214 or 214? Right? That was
Tomer Rabinovich 13:33
215. March 15. Was the like the first sale of the product. And it took off immediately and did well. Went out of stock multiple times because of cash flow issues. But that product was still selling until I think a year ago. So for a long, long time. Did well with it. So yeah. And what happened was I had that day job. And after a year, I can't tell my boss that was 2016. I came to my boss and I told him Look, that's it, they quit. That was one day after Prime Day. That was the second Prime Day. And he said what happened? I said, Look, I made my salary in profit yesterday. I think it's time to leave
Yoni Mazor 14:15
A yearly salary. Monthly salary one day yesterday, I did it digitally without having any bosses.
Tomer Rabinovich 14:22
Yeah. And he was like, what are you doing? What do you mean? Like he didn't even know I was signing I was on
Yoni Mazor 14:28
A small questionnaire so you helping businesses and northern provincial to do why just brick and mortar businesses, any type of businesses, what was the activity type,
Tomer Rabinovich 14:34
Any type of business? So it's like in our area, you know, like, so basically, like someone can come in and say, Look, I need to help with my financing or I want to start a business or I want to move to a different location or whatever. So we have consultants that we connect them to, and then they help them out. That's basically
Yoni Mazor 14:55
Something or you help more on your rotation of things or business development.
Tomer Rabinovich 14:57
I was more on the operation side of things than Have
Yoni Mazor 15:02
Have you found your dimension of business with your venture with Amazon? I'm just, I have to ask, did you ever tie it all back in that agency today? Do you help them? Or is any business moving to the digital Amazon? Well,
Tomer Rabinovich 15:15
One funny story that happened. So I bought a lot of like top speakers in Israel to like small events, as we've done for like the local community, from like, all over the place, like, a guy like a guy with a big supermarket chain came to speak to them and whatever. One time, I think it was like maybe right before COVID, I think I got a phone call from someone saying, hey, I'll work for this government thing. We want you to come and speak about Amazon, right?
Yoni Mazor 15:43
Your work for
Tomer Rabinovich 15:47
Pizza. Yeah, so that happened, a few years ago. And that was a lot of fun. But
Yoni Mazor 15:52
Okay, so back to the first 16, you quit your job? And what did you
Tomer Rabinovich 15:55
Know? So I like a day after I came in, and he said, Okay, what do you want, he said, Look, if you work from home, I'm going to stay. So he let me stay He changed my position to something else, he liked me. And then I said for another year, I didn't do a lot of work, I just needed to do whatever was needed to be done, and focused on the Amazon stuff. But that was important, I think because they had very good cash flow that like because of the daily job that kind of covered the all of the expenses, events them.
Tomer Rabinovich 16:21
And I think that if someone wants to be an entrepreneur, they should do their best to kind of work in the job that is like least amount of time and the most profit. And also, unless it is beneficial to their skill set, right? Like if it's beneficial, the money's not important at that point. But anyway, I was working for another year, and then the CEO actually left, and then like a serious CEO came in to replace them. And then it's okay, that's it. And I sped because of him, you know, so yeah, I left, and then the system has been in the Amazon game since I was 17. Probably,
Yoni Mazor 16:58
But I started here. So I want to step back a little bit. And I want to capture the moment where essentially you take the course, right, and the whole thing and you launch a product, but what captivated you, okay, he spent $3,500 your life savings? If you share with us those moments, what made you confident enough to say this is going to work? I'm going to do it because, after 3500, you have to kind of scrape some more inventory, inventory, some more money from your job to keep investing into this. What were the single positive signals you were getting? From everything that you're seeing them? Is that what compelled you to have this? Did you go all in as you are today?
Tomer Rabinovich 17:29
I think that it's stellar like when you first launch your first product, and you get a sale. And let's say it's with PPC without PPC doesn't even matter. It almost doesn't feel real to you, you know, and I think that is very addictive. Feeling to get those cells to keep refreshing is still essential to see what's going on. I think that is something that we can all relate to as sellers. So I think that's what happened to me. And I remember I went with my parents at some point to like this winery, whatever. And they said, look, these are our numbers, and whatever it is took a big winery place. And I remember and I was doing everything on my own at that point. And I remember my dad saying you're making more money than these guys, you know, with like, a very, like a one-man show running like a relatively big business. So I think I think that's that's
Yoni Mazor 18:20
But even during the course what made you feel you felt like the second is like second nature for you. It's very comfortable for you. I understand all that. Because very data-driven. It's a lot about spreadsheets, maybe every connects to your position in the army that you had you were very comfortable with spreadsheets, then I
Tomer Rabinovich 18:35
Think Amazon kind of took all my skills over the years because there's no suggestion I liked the surprise element. So I liked to see how can I surprise my products when they open the packaging. When do they use the product? How can I make a very good customer experience on that end? I also think that all these spreadsheets, and data stuff, I think helped me as well. I built a lot of different spreadsheets over the years to kind of support my business. And that's what I also teach other sellers over the years. So I think all my skills and I also learned like Photoshop, stuff like that in college a bit like not in high school.
Tomer Rabinovich 19:07
So I have a lot of skills that fit being an Amazon seller. And when I first started selling I said look, I'm going to sell magic kits, you know, like, I know the industry, I know that niche, but then I checked the numbers and they didn't seem to fit anything. And also the other issue you have with magic tricks is on Amazon, you could refund anything in 30 days and once you know the secret doesn't mean much. Selling the tricks, you know, so I didn't end up going that route and just sold like random products.
Yoni Mazor 19:38
Got it. Okay, let's jump back to 217 you are kind of detached from your job. You're really on your own. Let's move forward. What's the next major milestone or station for you?
Tomer Rabinovich 19:46
Yeah, so I and my wife got married in 2016. And then in 2017, We had our firstborn, and two weeks after he was when I Would you left my job when he was born two weeks after that we moved to a nicer apartment. And I remember, like, I had all this free time, all of a sudden, you know, I had all this free time, and I didn't know, I wasn't as effective as I was when I had a full-time job.
Tomer Rabinovich 20:18
Because I had all this, like, I had a lot, a lot more hours a day to think to fill in. And that was just on Facebook or wherever, you know, we're just watching, like YouTube videos, or just like even Amazon-related videos, but I didn't implement anything. And we didn't work in my own business. And it took me a few months to understand that, okay, um, I need to be a lot more effective with my time, and started blocking my calendar to do different things. So that's what happened.
Tomer Rabinovich 20:47
And I also, I and my wife went to a few Amazon-related events around the world. And what happened with me early on is that whenever I went to any events, I tried to give value. Wherever I was, like, if there was, if there was an opportunity, I would offer myself to jump on stage and give a bit of value. I remember there was a contest in Barcelona that was another amazing.com event. And there was a risk, I said, if you have a good tip to share, you can go up on stage and you get a $500 gift card if you win.
Tomer Rabinovich 21:20
So I went up on stage and I said, Okay, how about people about Lightning Deals at a time, so I'll give a tip, it doesn't work anymore. So anyway, I give a tip about Lightning Deals. I said, Look if you choose if you pick me, I'm going to give you three more tips about Lightning Deals. Yeah, hacking systems, I ended up putting that contest and that got me to speak in Romania as a result got me to speak.
Tomer Rabinovich 21:44
And then I went to another event in Majorca that got him to speak in Hawaii. So I mean, everything affected everything else. And I think it all starts with giving value. I think whenever I talk to sellers, I never I mean, you've seen me speak on stage, and you never saw anything. I never pitch anything. I just tried to give value as much as I can. And I think that's, that's not seen enough. In our industry. Unfortunately, I think people are constantly pitching themselves. And I think it's, it should be a lot more about getting jobs and the people will come.
Yoni Mazor 22:14
Right. Okay, so basically, this, your experience being successful with, you know, finding your place in the niche in the industry, selling on Amazon, and putting yourself out there to exposing that sharing that and that experience and disabilities, boom, put you in a dimension where you're traveling the world, you're in a really in this global community of Amazon sellers, which are entrepreneurial, robust, innovative,
Yoni Mazor 22:36
It's fun, it has its kind of fun layers into it. But then I can what, what's the next thing that happened for you because I want to, I guess, touch more than the position where the second layer that of dimension that came in is a top dog where you not only, you know, share the experience with, with events, you also actually, you know, really walkthrough, you know, companies and seven, eight-figure sellers, which are major businesses in the industry in the niche. And then, of course, all the way to launching your book. So let's touch on those points.
Tomer Rabinovich 23:03
Yeah, so we started what happened was, I went to a lot of events, 2015 16 seemed pretty much everything there is to see in the industry at the time, and I kept getting up. So like I was buying the upsell, right paying like 40 to engage with events. That is a very intimate event. And then I'm being absorbed again. So I'm like, okay, it never ends in this industry. I knew like the magician industry,
Tomer Rabinovich 23:23
I went to events with magicians, also a lot more fun, by the way. But anyway, so I kept getting Epsilen. I said, Look, this is not the right way to write an event like I, if there is a PPC agency, right, they can learn from the agency, on YouTube on a podcast, they don't need to go to an event and listen to the same thing. They're talking on their podcasts. And it doesn't make a lot of sense to pay money for that event. And I got along a lot better with the sellers in the audience, like in the networking sessions and stuff. So I decided to build an event that is sellers helping sellers. So all the speakers are sellers, and all the attendees are sellers. And that's what I created as a friend in 2017. And we did it two or three years in a row principle in 18 and 19.
Yoni Mazor 24:03
And that was the name of the event or what was thought that
Tomer Rabinovich 24:07
Summit was the name of the event. And that was before I had any consulting anything. I even started speaking at events where I didn't have anything to sell to anyone I just wanted to give value to people and also kind of, you know like I was working on my laptop every day all day long.
Tomer Rabinovich 24:20
I wanted to kind of meet people and socialize like that is something that they missed from being a magician and becoming an introvert but they still want to kind of talk to people and again, share value and just your knowledge with them. So anyway, top luck was for three years and I think in 2018 or something that they started doing consulting for sellers and that was also by accident like I I wasn't interested in Romania with a good friend and I remember people asking us what's the best way for us to kind of scale our business and we said,
Tomer Rabinovich 24:55
Okay, if you form small masterminds together of four or five, six people, and you just meet Every week on zoom that is gone, that's gonna work, you know. And they came back to us and said, look at that it doesn't work. And then they said, what if one of you comes and coaches us, you know, so then I created a program called mastermind coaching. So basically came in once every two weeks, and every other week, they met without me. And the goal was to help them with their business.
Tomer Rabinovich 25:22
And then I started to create content behind it to support it. And I have been doing those mastermind groups like small groups for the past four years now. So close to a few 100 people in those masterminds mainly against seven, eight-figure sellers. So it's mainly like, was for bigger sellers. But the only thing is that they all share their stories from day one with like, join what they sell, and make sure everyone is in different categories, different niches, let me just help them to help them with their businesses. But
Yoni Mazor 25:50
Let me get let me see if I understand the format. So you bundled together, you know, seven-figure sellers don't inherently clash with each other in terms of categories and products or Acehnese that they sell this way they feel comfortable with each other and sharing everything that's going on, and how the business sharing is sharing of profit or loss. Keywords and tactics are narrow, there's a goal.
Tomer Rabinovich 26:11
So the first call just starts with the kind of talking about their stories, sharing their screen going through their stories with someone from my team kind of hosting, hosting the call with them. And then what we do is we tackle like the big rocks of the business because that's where the money is.
Tomer Rabinovich 26:25
So product selection, keywords, listing all of those different topics. But let's say we talk about product selection, we don't just talk generically, I don't give them a one-hour presentation on my product selection theory, they have access in the back end for content, and then they have some tasks that need to complete, like fill out the spreadsheet, get sent their packages that they want to do.
Tomer Rabinovich 26:47
And then on the call with me, we just discussed their pots, we don't waste any time on the theory stuff. And that's how we do everything. When we talk about images, I have my way of kind of approving the images with my systems. They use that and then during the call, we just talk about the images and what can be done better.
Yoni Mazor 27:04
Call to Action and structure words, you know, all this do all this homework, do all this work as we do it, we can analyze what why how you did it, why you did it? And how can we improve the finance so it's much more action driven than just theory driven?
Tomer Rabinovich 27:15
Yeah, it's like a four, four months process. It's pretty intense, you know, they have some stuff to do. But I also respect the fact that they are all bigger sellers. So it doesn't take a lot of their time doesn't take too much of their time. And a lot of the work can be handed off to their VA as if they have them. So again, the product of the program was improved over the years now it's like it works very smoothly by now.
Yoni Mazor 27:37
Nice. And what's the freak in touch for a minute, I guess on the whole world of I guess making an exit aggregator, all this movement that started in the past, I guess two plus years. You know, if we could touch a little bit, what do you think your experience was? What's expensive with a top dog in your community?
Tomer Rabinovich 27:54
Yeah. So with the exits. Look, what happened with me was I was approached by a few different aggregators. And I asked him, I asked him, Well, how did they hear about me and he said, Look, we wanted to buy some selves out, and they said your name that you helped him out to scale or whatever. So they've been through my different programs or my events. And I started working with a few of them, always starting with me doing the mastermind thing for the brand managers.
Tomer Rabinovich 28:24
So basically, taking the brand managers telling each other look, choose one of your brands, one of your products, and then just analyze that on every call. And that helped those aggregators. And then, with one of them, I moved over to help their m&a team to kind of look at businesses telling them what they think they should acquire, not with another company, I helped their prod development, a builder or prod development process, almost from beginning to end. I mean, there is no I didn't do the whole thing, but the criteria and how to validate products. So that was like a six-month project.
Tomer Rabinovich 28:58
And whenever I worked with a negative aggregator it was always equity plus some money, like per hour. But so what I can say is like, I help them sellers exit their business like connected them to aggregators, auto brokers, or whoever. And then I've seen a lot of sales being done from the other side of it from the aggregator side, by also recommending things by being very close to the m&a teams and kind of see from the inside how they look at businesses, how they analyze them very differently from what we Amazon sellers think. So that was very interesting. Yeah, so that's my experience.
Yoni Mazor 29:36
So that's your experience, but what is your way the situation right now, you know, the trend is kind of, or the excitement because we're, it's kind of, you know, everything's cyclical. So right now, it's kind of subsiding a little bit. And what do you think that is what happened was very quickly from two-plus years, like, it went on to like, you know, hockey stick, rise, and now it's kind of cooling off. What do you think that if you have any answer to that, or thoughts or ideas, no,
Tomer Rabinovich 30:04
I honestly don't think I'm the biggest expert. You know, the on the topic. I mean, I'm not buying businesses myself, I'm not seeing as much as brokers See, or even accuracy with businesses like coming up today work with news coming up to them. It does seem like multiples went down. Obviously,
Tomer Rabinovich 30:21
it does seem like at least the bigger aggregators out there are buying much fewer businesses, but they're also looking to buy bigger and like, more stable businesses like businesses that can be actual real brands. That's what I'm seeing, there are still a lot of smaller aggregators buying like one to $3 million brands, but I think the bigger guys understand it, to scale they need bigger stronger businesses.
Tomer Rabinovich 30:46
And usually, they want to keep the sellers with them for another year or two, if they can, because then they can move everything over smoothly in a year or two while keeping the team, the team, well, whatever, but then they can take I think it's a lot easier, you know, once you grow to let's say, 100 billion like to that size of revenue a year, it's a lot, it makes a lot more sense to buy a $20 million business than $21 million businesses, and try to scale like one business, let's say 40 million to double that, instead of scaling,
Tomer Rabinovich 31:15
Like those 20 brands that are random, and you have brand managers, and it's scattered all over the place. I think that's very difficult to scale. So I think they understand that now. And I think that's what some of them are just doing. And as you and I both know, some of them start acquiring businesses and just focusing on money then and that's, that makes sense as well. But for Amazon sellers, I think that right now, there is still a lot of opportunity in terms of like selling your business, there is a buyer for everything, but the question is what's going to be the multiple how much you're going to get for it? Yeah, I
Yoni Mazor 31:47
Guess the recommendation here might be that as these buyers are looking into the reality of things, they want to buy good assets. So when you build your Amazon business, make sure it's a good asset, a valuable business if it’s fulfilled with value. So you're going to have a good business and good income. And if you ever want to sell, you're probably going to have a good outcome. So it's always good to have a good business. So keep that in mind. And yeah, so thank you for sharing that.
Tomer Rabinovich 32:13
I also think that whenever you think about selling your business or building a business will sell I think that's a smart move, to begin with, like building a business will be sellable in the end. And when you think about, let's say product research, right? You see, you should think long term. So if you launch, let's say, a power bank, that's going to become obsolete in two years after you launch it.
Tomer Rabinovich 32:30
So if you want to sell your brand, you need to think five, or eight years ahead. So I noticed it's very difficult to sell partners, and it's going to sell for five, or eight years, but you should, at least the price that you selected, allow yourself to start for a long, long time. And that's one of the reasons why I've always loved the pet niche home in kitchens, sports, and outdoors, like those are going to be selling for many, many years. Right? If you sell a dog leash on Amazon, and it sells well, yeah, you probably have a good chance of being bought by an aggregator
Yoni Mazor 33:01
Yes. So evergreen products, products have a look, the time horizon on their side are focused on those niches, and parent providing good value there for consumers and you're probably going to have a long term, healthy business. Okay, so now I guess after the consultancy, something completely new. I just want to recap a little bit. So you still selling you are very involved with you know, speaking and you know, leading the community with your experience and also consulting creating your events. And that's enough. So you decided to write a book, write the Amazon wave. So tell us all about this, how this happened? Or come to fruition?
Tomer Rabinovich 33:33
Yeah, yes, there'll be pandemic hits. Right. I was supposed to be at an event in Prague. And they knew the different flying they already said, Look, if you're flying, you cannot come back to Israel. So I said, Look, I'm not going to go and they let me speak on zoom on the screen live during the conference.
Yoni Mazor 33:52
Like the Oscars when they ask you if they can't attend. So the big screen so the same thing, but the whole presentation. Yeah.
Tomer Rabinovich 33:57
Remember I said I opened with this is the first time I'm speaking with no pants on. So that's how I opened my thought. Anyway, so I did, I did that. And then I said to myself, Okay, so COVID is probably going to be here for a while, as he sold some company-related products during the pandemic, which made which make good profits. But then I said, Okay, I cannot speak at events, I cannot do much. I have a few options, podcasting, blogging, YouTubing, whatever. But I ended up deciding to write a book. I think what I like about the fact it's a book,
Tomer Rabinovich 34:30
I think that's something that not a lot of people in dentistry are probably going to do. That's one and the other thing I think everything that they always did was always I'm always better at project-based stuff. So if I'm trying to do let's say, I tell the look, pay me 100 bucks a month, and I'll give you a service every month. That's for me, that's very difficult to do. And I rather have like a start and finish for everything. So if you think about the mastermind, that's exactly that. Like it starts it ends and we're done. And that's cool.
Tomer Rabinovich 35:00
And then events, right? They put events together. It's like a three-four day event. And it's done. And so same thing with the book. And it's a massive fight. It's gone take me a lot of time to complete. But once it's done, it's done. I don't need to deal with it. I don't need to touch it. It's. So that's what I liked about having a book. And that was probably the most challenging product ever launched on Amazon.
Yoni Mazor 35:23
So yeah, I want to do I want to remind everybody listening to watching this, you can find the book on Amazon, right Amazon wave? Yeah, it's, it's a cool contribution to look like that. It's a good crowd contribution, you know, for the community because he we're gone touch in a moment, the book the inside of it. And if you can give us a synopsis in a nutshell, or give us some teasers. Yeah. So you know, if you think about selling on Amazon, you're currently selling on Amazon, I would probably say it's a must-have book, which you can buy on Amazon to leave reviews on Amazon. We all know how it all works. But yeah, if you can share with us a little bit, Winston, how it came to fruition. But take us a little bit inside what can we expect there?
Tomer Rabinovich 35:59
Sure. So actually bought every single book on Amazon at the time just to see what they did with like how to sell on Amazon books. It was all very basic stuff. And it was really how to sell on Amazon. That was what the books were about. These days, you only have books to learn how to sell on Amazon, you have YouTube, you have podcasts yet have so much free content out there, or even like paid courses, they're really good. So I didn't want to do that. I also didn't want to speak to beginners that were never my audience.
Tomer Rabinovich 36:24
So I decided to write a book for Amazon sellers, like those who are the launch of at least one product on Amazon. And if you exited your brand, whatever, like this is what you want to read like this is I know, as long as Gonzalo has a lot of us read a lot of different books. But this is the book three like this was Amazon sellers.
Tomer Rabinovich 36:43
So the first chapter is about mind-set, and the mind-sets anyway, we're going to talk about all that about the book. But the mind-set is very different, I think that what most people think when we think about mind-set as an Amazon seller, then the first half of the book is about the foundation. So everything from product research, sourcing, part development, listing, creation, launching all of that it's like the first half. And in every chapter, there is something different
Yoni Mazor 37:09
Chapters are it's, it's more like, really instructions or like the massive to do these tasks. What's the narrative there?
Tomer Rabinovich 37:17
No, no. So it's just it just a lot of different tips and stuff on how I do things. And I'm sure that in each chapter, you're going to find something like a gym you didn't think about before. That way doesn't matter what level you're selling in. So that's like the first half of the book. And then the third quarter of the book is about running your business. So inventory management, PPC, KPIs. KPIs are a big one,
Tomer Rabinovich 37:43
I don't think that's being discussed enough in the industry. So that's the third quarter and in the final quarter is about scaling your business, having a team in place systems in place, exiting, if that's what you want, and also postings, that's kind of what I've seen, with different people that I've helped with or I know in the industry. So that's, that's the book. And again, it's not if someone that doesn't tell them about the book picks it up, I don't think it will make a lot of sense to them.
Yoni Mazor 38:11
Yeah, let's say they're good with picking up. I mean, I'll be honest, like, over the years, I see that some people, we just, they're kind of born to do this. It's like Amazon and all the Amazonian lingo, and its second nature to them. So if you pick up the book and becomes a little second nature, and that kind of resonates, you probably that's a good position. If it's super foreign to you, it looks like you know, it's from you know,
Yoni Mazor 38:31
out of this space, and it's painful, it's like, you know, drinking a nail, and nails, then it's okay, you maybe should take a course going to prep yourself, launch your product. But once again, you gutter be adamant, you got to know that you want this, once you're in the game, and then you'll probably understand all the lingo, all the nuances, which is very important to get the full value of the book. But what do you call it? Right? The Amazon wave? Is there a kind of a whole?
Tomer Rabinovich 38:53
Thing? Actually, like, I think the name took me the longest time to figure out. And I had a lot of different options there. But I think like, I think we all understand that Amazon is just becoming more and more difficult, right? It doesn't become any easier. Over time. If you also need more skills, you need to change your thinking, you need to have an open mind, and you need to have no ego to kind of success in any business.
Tomer Rabinovich 39:17
But this is moving so quickly. Writing a book was also very challenging like PPC was the longest chapter at the beginning. And then like I changed the whole strategy, and how would you be perceived?
Tomer Rabinovich 39:27
Then I deleted the entire thing and started again from scratch and just talked more macro level on PPC and what it is, and whether should you use an agency. Should you do it yourself? Should you use freelancer, as we talked about that aspect instead of just trying to kind of solve PPC in a book that is impossible to do? So write down some way, I think Amazon is the wave, I think at some point, it's going to become close to impossible to launch your products unless you are differentiating, you know,
Tomer Rabinovich 39:54
Unless you're bringing something new to the table. As long as you have a good product, you're always going to have a chance you know, on Amazon e-commerce in general, but you need to start with a good product. But again, it just becomes more and more challenging. So I think now is still a very good opportunity to start an Amazon. But what I tell sellers that are looking to start, I don't again, talk to them a lot these days, but what I tell them is, look, if you want to go all in on this, then do it. But if you like your day job, if you think this is realistic, whatever, don't even start like it's not that it's an actual business.
Yoni Mazor 40:29
I 100% agree. So what you're kind of trying to say is, look in your past for the years, you know, back in the day, it was a bit more simple, a bit more like you know, you can do it on the side, you did it kind of inside, right you have your regular job and everything. So it was a side hustle, pet project, passion project, and eventually worked out to be able to go all in and make this your profession we've seen over the years, just you know, Amazon keeps on raising the bars, and all these elements and requirements of what to do how to do.
Yoni Mazor 40:57
So you have to calibrate yourself and your team into a more professional, this is my profession, sending as you go to school to become a lawyer or a doctor because this is your profession. So when you consume all this Amazon content and selling and Amazon content, you should shoot as I'm going to me and my team will become professionals in this because you want to ride the Amazon wave all the way and capture all that momentum that is there. Is that kind of how you look at it?
Tomer Rabinovich 41:19
Yeah, and even let's look and see about PPC for a sec. Right. So PPC, I had friends in Israel that did Google ads for a few years and kind of hustled Google ads in small agencies and help people out and made a lot of money that way. And like your will as these days are so complex, you cannot do it yourself, you know, you need an agency, Facebook ads, you could do them maybe in 2015 2016
Tomer Rabinovich 41:40
Now it's the complexity of an agency. So Amazon PPC is I would say 90% they’re already like maybe 10% 5% of people might be able to do it themselves. But it is getting too complex to kind of do it yourself without very serious software to support you. And then if you have software maybe the agency is on top of it at this point, like it's so complex, there are so many details and nuances, etc. That is close to impossible to do on your own at this point.
Yoni Mazor 42:08
And what do you think these companies are Google slash Facebook and Amazon build these platforms these advertising platform solutions? Why did they build like that were so robust, so complicated, all you know eventually becomes like almost a little jar, you know, flying an airplane or something.
Tomer Rabinovich 42:23
I don't know but I think it's a natural evolution of the company. That's what I think I think anything that is if you look at Facebook, then you had Instagram and we have tick tuck so tick tuck ads are still simple to do by yourself everything is doing pretty well you know, overall, over time, it's going to become it's going to, the same thing is gone happen, you know, so I think it just like a matter of time until Amazon and again it's going to happen in every aspect of this business like you will need more money to come in you will need more resources you will need you already need like a lot of knowledge to start selling on Amazon.
Tomer Rabinovich 42:57
So again, it's not going to become easier but I still believe like if you think about my parents, your parents like they had to work every day in office nine to five nine to seven whatever we don't like I spent my afternoons with my kids every single day I can travel I can work from anywhere that was never an option in that generation. So I think that Amazon is a huge opportunity still to this day. It just itching to understand what it is that a business is and its need to take a big risk when you run it.
Yoni Mazor 43:29
Yeah so it's like I said it's a profession but it comes with the ultimate reward of freedom of life wherever you want. Manage your time however you want and hopefully if your family person and that's kind of an objective there you know spend your time probably with your family and to get that ability to fulfill yourself alright so beautiful stuff so I want to start packaging the episodes who will be gone and hit it to the final round so born raised in Israel northern part EMIC is LED
Yoni Mazor 43:55
and then your parents you know your father was a semiconductor industry your mother was in pharmaceuticals but then kind of stepped aside to help the family grow and then you growing up you already kind of had a knack for magician and entertaining and pleasing people you finished high school you go to the army for three and a half years you went to the intelligence you had you know a good leader there that kind of a soldier you know you're gonna manage your time you study you qualify your skills you're also able to deal with Excel sheets and manage data and stuff like that.
Yoni Mazor 44:27
Then when you finish the army instead of going to the regular route of traveling like most of us as I did you said I'm goanna go you know still magician products in the United States for a while.
Yoni Mazor 44:37
That was right you know you got released in 2008 and 2009 then you return digitally and start your education because your mother said do you want to be a magician great but get your diploma first, which you did. So from 2009 around 2013, you’re in the tail hyraces University in the northern part of vigilant catch one. Then he wants to get your very you know, into pleasing the audience and things like that were very involved with it.
Yoni Mazor 45:00
All the culture of things that led you to become the president of the student body and make all these connections there. Alright, so than 2013 Are you the graduate you go to tell me a little bit, a little bit of a stance, and then you get an offer in the north, go back in there and become, you know, part of this government agency helping other businesses. And then 2015.
Yoni Mazor 45:21
You know, Robert Kiyosaki read his book, when you were younger, you saw the opportunity, Amazon came knocking on your door, you took the course, and then you launch your product, and then your business, and that was the business you kept your job for another like year or two. And then 2016 1718, are you creating your events, right, top dog events or the summits in Israel, in between, or even before that you also got the ability to travel the world and share your experience with other sellers and all these conferences. And then the top dog also kind of formulated itself into your consultancy, when you're helping other sellers, 20 heads, all the javelins kind of gone. And then you will hone yourself into writing the book, right, the Amazon wave, which three years later today, we're 2020 has been launched, we get everything crooked so far.
Tomer Rabinovich 46:05
Yeah. Listening on a podcast, like you only don't write anything down, he just
Yoni Mazor 46:11
Mentally average. And it's so good. So thank you for sharing. It's fascinating. Now I want to kind of touch on the final two points of the episode. So the first one will be if somebody wants to reach out and connect, where can they find you? I guess, but the last thing will be good.
Tomer Rabinovich 46:24
Yeah. So if you go to join top dog.com. That's our website. If you can email me Tomer and join top dog that's calm as well. Facebook, LinkedIn, also fastball.
Yoni Mazor 46:32
Right? So join top dog.com. That's the website, feel free to reach out. And the last thing will be what your message of hope is. And inspiration for entrepreneurs listening out there?
Tomer Rabinovich 46:45
Yeah, I honestly think that you need to remember why you start why you started this journey. You know, it doesn't matter if it's Amazon a different business. But the reason I think is always freedom is freedom is different every time but screen means time, right? So I think that I got lost in my journey. And that's also a big part of the book as well, but had a big team, I had like a lot going on, I had my event I had so much stuff going on. And I kind of neglected what's important in life.
Tomer Rabinovich 47:15
And why started in the first place, I kind of dumped everything, I had my entire team, let them all go. Again, a lot of weight also back then it was a mess. And then it just started from scratch again. And then I said, Look, I'm putting myself first I'm goanna build around my agenda, even though I'm not the biggest or yet another most successful, whatever, but I'm going to focus on what's important for me, and that's what I did.
Tomer Rabinovich 47:37
And I think for the biggest, most successful people that I know, that's what they do, they just focus on owning their own time and felt laser focused once they sit down and work, close everything else. And that's what I can recommend everyone do like think about, you're not just the end goal, if the end goal is to say,
Tomer Rabinovich 47:57
Within two years, don't kill yourself for two years until you exit. You have to enjoy the journey. If you don't enjoy the journey, it's meaningless. Like you're not working towards anything. It's not, it doesn't end, you know, even if you do exit, you might not have to do it over again.
Yoni Mazor 48:18
Alright, so always remember the Y enjoy the journey. We're just open to it. But make sure it's always kind of balanced and you leave space and temporary still to it all makes sense. Beautiful stuff summer. Thanks again for joining us today has been fascinating. I hope everybody else enjoys this different healthy next time. Thank you very much.
