In this Prime Talk Podcast Sponsored by GETIDA – Vincenzo Toscano - Founder & CEO of Ecomcy- talks about his journey from starting as a Rolls-Royce engineer to becoming an Amazon Seller, also more information about his life's journey. #vincenzotoscano #ecomcy
About Vincenzo Toscano of Ecomcy -
Ecomcy is a team of Amazon marketing experts in the UK (London) who has helped companies who would rather not invest substantial time, effort, and resources to become marketing experts or PPC consultants for Amazon but instead want to leverage our significant experience to do things right the first time. Our marketing experts will help you achieve your sales goals on Amazon’s platform.
Yoni Mazor 0:05
Everybody, welcome to another episode of prime talk. Today I'm having a special guest. Today I'm having Vincenzo Toscano. So Vincenzo is the founder and CEO of eco MC, which is a leading agency in Amazon brand management. So Vincenzo, welcome to the show.
Vincenzo Toscano 0:20
Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Yoni Mazor 0:22
Hi, Dennis. Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to have you on our show today. So today's episode was going to be the story of you, right? The story of incentive discount?
Yoni Mazor 0:32
Are you going to share with us everything? Where are you? Where are you from? You know, where did you grow up? How did you begin your professional career, station to station until we reached where you are today, especially in the world of E-commerce? So without further ado, let's jump right into it.
Vincenzo Toscano 0:48
Yes, for sure. I mean, let's talk for sure. When I was born, I was born in Italy, in Naples, specifically, I live they're older, I was around four or five years old. And then my family decided to move abroad for business purposes. And that's how I landed in Venezuela.
Yoni Mazor 1:04
So as far as all these business purposes, what was the business and what industry are they involved with?
Vincenzo Toscano 1:09
So that involved buying and selling automobile parts and tires? As a wholesaler, in Latin America?
Yoni Mazor 1:17
So automobiles is a Nepali? So I know you know, there's a big car industry in Italy and Napoli which, which big brands are there, which was a Fiat is it?
Vincenzo Toscano 1:30
Fiat is a big one, for sure. I think the reason why they decided to move to Venezuela is that during that time, which was the 90s, Venezuela was becoming like the Dubai of Latin America for the industry was in very early stages in terms of automobile repair paths and things like that. So this other opportunity together with other family members started their business in the
Yoni Mazor 1:53
Yard. Okay, so when I started, I went to Caracas.
Vincenzo Toscano 1:56
Yeah, I was living all my life in Valencia, which is around two hours from Caracas. That's where my family settled, basically lived there for around 1617 years. So everything that I did my school, my high school, basically, all the hustle, my primary education High School.
Vincenzo Toscano 2:16
And then of course, as we all know, the Venezuela Federation started to get worse, I mean, at NASA with the government economics. So I started to pursue options to start looking for a professional side of Venezuela. And that's where I started to explore all your countries. So my first country was the United States. So I went there for one year, I still
Yoni Mazor 2:37
Was on this board some years on it. So what year did you do this after you finished high school? Yes, for sure. Yeah. And University as well. Have you finished university?
Vincenzo Toscano 2:45
No, I started and finished high school in Venezuela. And it started around one year of university in Venezuela. But the situation was so bad. That
Yoni Mazor 2:54
What were you're then the situation became very,
Vincenzo Toscano 2:58
To the US in 2013 2014.
Yoni Mazor 3:01
This is already after which of us passed away? Yeah. So
Vincenzo Toscano 3:04
When my daughter came into power,
Yoni Mazor 3:06
Against the power, there was a power struggle. And then I think the door evolved, and he cracked down on the people. And then the walls kind of started sanctioning Minnesota, right?
Vincenzo Toscano 3:16
Yeah, I mean, everything goes very bad. I mean, you couldn't find food, you couldn't find medicines, shelves were closing down, you need to queue to get even gas, which is something very weird because when a cell is like, has the biggest risk of being federal, but us, and we didn't even have gas during that period. So everything was very bad. And that's where I think was the big fear when a lot of people from Venezuela, even to the side pursue options outside of the country.
Yoni Mazor 3:43
So 2013 the situation there because very frail, you look outside and your first station is the United States.
Vincenzo Toscano 3:50
Yeah, United States. And I started learning English, because of the new English during that year. And that's why my first step into learning the language. I went to New York semester there for nearly one year learning English at this institution is very famous called Kaplan. That is for language. I think with the K right Kaplan with the K. That's correct. Yeah, Kaplan. So I started there one year, then, I also saw the opportunity to explore Canada, then from the USA, I jump into Canada, because the USA, I didn't like it that much.
Yoni Mazor 4:23
But it's very interesting, you know, coming from Venezuela slash Italy. What were you know, culturally? What was your experience? I'm very curious about the tickets
Vincenzo Toscano 4:31
Out there. Yeah, for sure. I think the number one thing is, I mean, first of all, when you go to a state coming from a country like Venezuela, not having the papers is very difficult to settle there. So I find it very difficult in the long term to pursue a profession and become a stakeholder. So that's why I decided to travel or countries also because the reality is that the states whenever it comes to doing a degree are super expensive. You're talking 200k or more, and I thought that was super weird.
Yoni Mazor 4:59
He was saying, you know, the department you know, the paperwork was is hard to handle to, to set up the legal grounds or which is very technical. But beyond that getting your education there is cost $200,000 For a degree not in a good school, but if you want to have a good school and be professional in the industry, it takes a lot of resources that were not at your disposal.
Vincenzo Toscano 5:21
And that doesn't guarantee you can stay in the conundrum you know, a lot of people are they paid that amount of money and they need to go back to Venezuela, which is crazy.
Yoni Mazor 5:33
So 2014 I moved to Canada.
Vincenzo Toscano 5:34
Yeah. 2014 I went to Canada I stayed there for around six months, almost a year also doing English.
Yoni Mazor 5:41
Canada, which area is Toronto.
Vincenzo Toscano 5:45
So Toronto, I stayed there also a continuing my English studies because I still was in the early stages, like getting my typical, you know, certification of English. So then you can enter into a university. When I was exploring already a place to start my university degree the same company Kaplan, which is the same way I moved to Canada as well. They start offering a plan to go to the UK to pursue my degree. So I started exploring different universities. And then I ended up choosing after all the products that Kaplan gave me at the University of Sheffield, which is in the north here in the UK
Yoni Mazor 6:21
And north of London. Sheffield. So Kaplan University has in common a university.
Vincenzo Toscano 6:27
So actually Kaplan was like the bridge that allows you to jump from just English studies to entering into
Yoni Mazor 6:35
Tuition for languages is right for the most part, but it helps you pinch on when to jump in and bridge and to Sheffield University.
Vincenzo Toscano 6:42
Yeah, that's correct. 100%. So, the degree they wanted us was aerospace engineering. So it has nothing to do with what I'm doing right now. Completely different. So I pursue my A degree there. I also did my masters in specializing in what we call control systems and software within the aerospace industry. Yeah, I mean, it was four or five years during that period of getting my degree, my master's. So after
Yoni Mazor 7:11
You moved to the UK to Sheffield, what 2014 or 1514,
Vincenzo Toscano 7:16
And 14, so I finished graduating by 2018. So
Yoni Mazor 7:20
It wasn't until you graduated. But all these years financially, how are you supporting yourself? Your family helped
Vincenzo Toscano 7:26
Jobs or? Yeah, for sure. I mean, my family was supporting me from overseas, so that was a huge bonus. Whether they stay there or might not. Yeah, they're still in Venezuela. Yeah. Run the business. Yeah.
Yoni Mazor 7:40
Got it. And they're still going automobile, auto parts and everything.
Vincenzo Toscano 7:44
Yeah, I mean, the business still goes. And the thing is with all the situation is going economically inflation dies, like or 1,000% or even more every year is crazy. So it's difficult, but they're still surviving.
Yoni Mazor 7:57
Wow. Okay, good. Yeah. Hopefully, they're making the right decisions. You know, throughout these challenges, it's historical. What happened there, as you said, you know, the value of the money is inflated so much and 1000s of 1000 percentages, then you need a whole, I saw a picture, I think it's very famous, you see a whole supermarket cart full of cash just to buy toilet paper, which is a roll of paper. Yeah.
Vincenzo Toscano 8:19
I mean, and the craziest thing in Venezuela is the prices go up so quickly, that if you go to a shop, maybe 10 am for a price if you go in the afternoon, the price is higher. So daily price regardless. Yeah.
Yoni Mazor 8:37
Throughout all these challenges, your family was able to financially help you. It's pretty amazing. 2018 You finally graduated, and what do you do? What's your next step?
Vincenzo Toscano 8:45
Yeah, so doing that step I started working in the industry as an aerospace engineer. I was working for Rolls Royce, which they have also a division that does turbines for airplanes, right?
Yoni Mazor 8:58
So what kind of division that does? Its turbines, the engines of the airplanes, or the turbines, the turbines. Yeah, the turbines. So you're working for Rolls Royce, you're an aerospace engineer, and you're working on the turbines for the jet engines.
Vincenzo Toscano 9:11
I'm trying to what's working with the plan. That is the 8380, which is a plane that's two full floors. I was making the engine for that airplane. There was right. That's a European company. That's correct. That's correct. So I was there for almost two years working in that industry. But the reality is that just after one year, I like the job and everything. But the thing is because I come from a family and background is all about business and doing your own thing. The fact that the job was controlling my life in terms of location, how much money I could make, and the amount of time I would have to invest into my career to make the amount of money that I wanted to. It was challenging for me in terms of mind-set and continued to be happy at that job.
Yoni Mazor 9:55
And you're living in Sheffield when you're working there or you already moved to another city.
Vincenzo Toscano 9:59
Yeah, surely the city where I was working was Darby you have Sheffield. And you have Darby that's more to the south, which is considered the most centric city in the UK and is in the middle of
Yoni Mazor 10:12
The UK. If you drop a pin in the middle of the map of the United Derby that I had another guest on the show, Emma Shermer, Tamir, she said, if you drop a pin in the middle of United States, you get to Columbus, Missouri. That's what I got. I got to have the two Reference Centres, the US. Virgo sun of the UK is pretty cool.
Vincenzo Toscano 10:31
Yes, for sure. I mean, yes. And then I start doing my research, you know about ways to do extra money on the side to have my side hustle besides my job, because my mission, the long term was for sure to have something on my own. So that's where I encountered Amazon FBA. So I started digging further
Yoni Mazor 10:51
Away was that when you eCommerce and Amazon came knocking on your door, that's the moment while he was.
Vincenzo Toscano 10:57
He was with us at my team meeting at the end of the lesson, actually at the beginning of 2018. Yeah,
Yoni Mazor 11:04
because we got a job with Rolls Royce, you're an engineer, you know, good company, big company, you can have a career path, but the bug entrepreneurial bug that you have also was in the family was going into you and you found out about e-commerce and Amazon. How'd you find out what you find?
Vincenzo Toscano 11:19
Yeah, I mean, I like the fact that you could have a business from basically not having a physical location. Hi, almost no employees. I like that. Because the reality is that where I come from, in Latin America, to make a business, you need tons of money, because you need I mean, Latin America doesn't have this kind of huge business that you can do online. The reality is that typical traditional businesses like a restaurant, a pub, or you know, typical businesses, take a lot of upfront cash. So when I come to eBay, I fall in love with that. I mean, just the thought of making your brand and pros, I realized that the lot. And that's where I started pursuing that mission. So I started sourcing different products. I have my brand and start selling multiple products in
Yoni Mazor 12:02
So you found out you did online research, but what was the content that was YouTube videos what was the mechanism? Give us a little bit of insight on that. Yeah, helped you right?
Vincenzo Toscano 12:14
Yeah, for sure. I think two big things for sure. You two podcasts. So in terms of podcasts, you know, the heat podcast like cellar sessions, a helium 10, which back at the time was am pm podcast,
Yoni Mazor 12:27
Still, running? Jim Jordan is running NPM by Manny Coates. And then for his talk for like a year or two. And then Tim Jordan is now running that show. It's still going. Yeah,
Vincenzo Toscano 12:36
That’s cool, right? And then there was this awesome podcast from Casey Goss, which was data, data AI-driven, or something like that the podcast around Viral Launch. So there was this huge content around this space, which I thought to myself was very vulnerable. And what I did every day, while I was working my nine to five is how in my headphones on a podcast or PPC listing,
Vincenzo Toscano 12:57
I mean, all the typical topics that you find her on Amazon. And that's where I got my foundation. I mean, the reality is that the issue a lot of people have when studying Amazon is that they think they need to know everything 100% To take the first step. But the reality is that when I felt around 50 or 60% Ready, I took action. I mean, I thought even if I lose money, you know, it goes wrong, that's part of the process because the mistakes are making my first second lunch, I'm going to learn it and fix it and avoid that in the long term.
Yoni Mazor 13:27
So you got to look at it, it's very interesting. I want to touch that point. Think of it as a school, you want to be a doctor, you want to be a lawyer, whatever you want to be university, and you pay upfront. Yeah. But you're going to make it you're not going to make it. But you know, when you do it, you're going to make mistakes, you're going to fail exams or whatever, send me with this, like you said, once you felt like you know, 50 60% of the material, start doing it, you fail, even if you lose some money, but you're learning as long as you're learning like university, you're going to come up professional in that industry.
Yoni Mazor 13:54
That's the money you pay, that's tuition. And I think it's so much cheaper than paying 200 grand like he's saying that says, and getting a degree where then it just gets a job, you're still going to jump in, he already had a degree route a job in a good company. And you said that you felt financial it could take you many, many years and a lot of effort to be able to, to become so financially independent, where you can spend also a good amount of time on Amazon, pay all these fees, makes looser money makes the money. But as you learn, and you become professional, you can make something financially that will have a lot of impacts.
Vincenzo Toscano 14:23
Yeah, I mean, for sure, I think that's the beauty of Amazon. I mean, if you try to do any other type of business, like a restaurant, something like that, there is no way that you can try the Business modules with to 3000 $5,000 you need to put hundreds in there. So the fact that you can start with such a low barrier, which nowadays of course is much higher,
Yoni Mazor 14:43
still very reasonable compared to other traditional, you know, old industry, businesses, hotels, bars, restaurants, I can mention anything in real estate, really, even real estate as they're getting higher and higher, and we're in terms of inflation, so that's understood, but it's very fast. Is anybody saying during the work day do you have your headphones on your work? You're productive, you're productive.
Yoni Mazor 15:05
What are you absorbing and absorbing, learning and learning, it's very interesting how the new medium of podcasts, YouTube, whatever it is, it's creating and taking such a talent from the aerospace industry. This is not another job. Aerospace is, you know, people every day and then they have the best engineers in the world making sure that the engines and everything worked properly. But e-commerce Jovi has a talent for his domain. And okay, so you start launching and take it to take us through those moments of you know, your first steps in the industry.
Vincenzo Toscano 15:30
Yeah, so I started launching my products in my brand. So I reached a point where everything was done very well, I mean, I was making similar or even much more money than my salary. So it was this moment in place where I started thinking, Should I decide to jump or not, I was afraid. It reached a point that I say, okay, you know what, let's go 100% into that. So I decided to stop my job and focus on the percentage that's pretty
Yoni Mazor 15:56
Dramatic. And what was that? What was that moment? So
Vincenzo Toscano 16:01
I will say was already towards the end of 2018. Towards that, so less
Yoni Mazor 16:06
Then a year the whole thing is less than a year. Yeah, because I made almost the same income and you have enough confidence to go and that's pretty, pretty dramatic.
Vincenzo Toscano 16:15
Yeah, I mean, the reason why I also had the confidence which is what I'm going to touch on Next is that I saw that because I was very active on LinkedIn or the social media channels, assessing people a lot of people getting back to me, can you help me with this? Can you teach me and they say okay, why?
Vincenzo Toscano 16:29
Why I have my Amazon brand why I don't jump also create an agency and that's where it comes he came to fruition and the thing is because I started putting my services all over the place I mean, I put my services on the website you can think of a fiver up for a social media all these channels I'm showcasing my experience how could have a calm see reached a point that was also making the same revenue than my salary. So I had my Amazon brand, I have a come is and I said, Okay, worst case scenario, if the brand goes down, I have a constant if it comes goes down, I have the brand so I have like the word backup. And if they
Yoni Mazor 17:03
Fall, you have a degree Oh, yeah, you've already got the degree within four or five years of school. So I think yeah, it gives you enough confidence to make all these entrepreneurial decisions, but it's calculated it's not like crazy this is
Vincenzo Toscano 17:17
And honestly, it's very important that when I took the decision I had emergency fund savings. So it's very important that whenever you take this decision is not that you do crazy without any money in the bank is good that you have a cushion. Or maybe you have something that can protect in the case at least for six months to one year if things go very bad so I always took those steps into
Yoni Mazor 17:39
that 100% stability as keys because the other mind-set I see also if you're watching this as a video, you have the picture on the wall with the fish wearing start fitting a shark What do you call that thing with the shark? When it's sharp? Oh, you call that
Vincenzo Toscano 17:54
Yeah, I have it on.
Yoni Mazor 17:58
Anyway, it's a fish it's a shark. So, in other words, is the fish that's otherwise we see that the shark wing that has so it's all about the mind-set so yeah, so having an emergency fund in the right stability is very important the monster so you do it in a way where it is good. It's not under pressure under duress for the wrong reasons right now also when he launched a business you launched it, you launch an Amazon UK or Amazon US or both.
Vincenzo Toscano 18:24
Yeah, mainly was UK and Europe only you can Europe. The thing is also while I was working with my brand, it reached a point where the reality is come see start to grow much faster than my Amazon business time of clients, I need to also start hiring people.
Vincenzo Toscano 18:40
And it reached a point that I need to decide if I pursue my brand or come and it comes he was performing much better for me in terms of ROI of my time and everything and the results I was getting from my clients so at that point I decided to stop selling just for a peer because I'm going to launch new products and brand shortly. And now focusing just when it comes to body all my research into hiring the best people in the field making sure I do the right partnership with the right people marketing going to events, using all my time to make commas very stable and one that's the case. I'm going to go back to keep launching ideas I have
Yoni Mazor 19:17
Yeah, what was the moment you pause the retail activity and focus just on you know, the sellers your clients? Well, yeah,
Vincenzo Toscano 19:24
Let’s say I would say by the meet and afters and 20 that was already a point where it comes he was much higher than
Yoni Mazor 19:32
Two years in since you started retelling yourself. The ability to help other sellers was overpowering or overshadowing and becoming more of a better investment on your time but ROI or return on investment time. I think it was a very wise decision because honestly, I experienced almost the same thing with theta. You know we're doing a lot of retail but also a lot with helping sellers but the moment we stopped doing retail and put our focus on am I just helping others made a big impact and boom, it was an explosion. Have the ability to be the best at what we do in our niche.
Yoni Mazor 20:05
And I think you're hopefully experiencing the same thing we said all the time. Because think about it, let's be honest, right? For a moment. I'm trying to help other sellers. But I'm a seller. But something all of a sudden becomes very wrong with my account, what comes first, my client also, at the same time, something wrong. Something happened or wrong, happened to me at the same time? Who comes first? Yeah, right, honestly, see what happens? Yeah. Especially if you're a big seller,
Yoni Mazor 20:30
If you're successful, you have a few millions of dollars of revenue, and your account got suspended, suspended or something happened, all your focus is there to save that, and then maybe the same thing happened to your client, which might be even bigger than you. But guess what they're waiting in line, they're waiting later because your focus energy is on you. That's just human nature, your family, your pocket, your mom is first and then the others, right? So I think that that's probably a blessing in disguise for you that, you know, you made that decision. And you know, you have the full focus, and then something happened to them that and it's a challenge, boom, you all on it. And I just do the old team, the whole organization.
Yoni Mazor 21:00
Now, in the same way, that you are a no aerospace engineer, and you're able to, to create a toe to design, you know, turbines for jet engines, which is super complicated. I think your ability now to construct an organization that is focused on providing the best solutions and the best ability to survive in this, this airfield called outselling an Amazon? I think that's very unique here, you probably I almost want to say that it might be too easy for you a little bit. No.
Vincenzo Toscano 21:26
I mean, yeah, it's some of the things for sure. When it comes to like the typical big files of analytics, the numbers, and I think that's usually that comes easy to me, just because I was trained for that in engineering, like looking at graphs, making correlations, and understanding data. So that's something that comes easy to me. And I think that helped me a lot when it comes to scaling, my clients' brands because I can easily identify a metric related to our metric. And I already kind of designed a solution based on my mind-set of engineering, like finding the root cause, what can be done to fix it? And what is the solution?
Yoni Mazor 22:04
That's easy. First off for you, but on the flip side was the challenge you're going on right now. So you've achieved a good amount of success for your client? What are your challenges? Now? What are you today that you'd like to be in the future? That growth? What's the growth? Do you want? Experience? What's challenging and getting there?
Vincenzo Toscano 22:18
Yeah, I think the number one challenge for sure, with our clients, is the growing competition in the marketplace. So when you start managing a certain amount of brands, right, it's very easy. That is difficult sometimes to keep up with all the competition by jumping into the mic.
Vincenzo Toscano 22:34
I mean, the last year alone, when we saw all this aggregator jumping in all these investors like we need to redo a lot of strategies from zero mean, PPC, influencer marketing driving traffic from outside, I think it's become much more Chinese for agencies. Because now on a 24/7, you need to be a fan of the new strategies, what people are doing, the competitors attacking you, what can you do to counter-attack, which four or five years ago, it wasn't the case it was a more peaceful scene, which is not the case.
Yoni Mazor 23:06
Give us an example. Do you get attacked by a new counter-attack? I'm not too I'm not sure. So give me some examples.
Vincenzo Toscano 23:13
Yeah, for sure. I mean, the first thing that we do is audit the competitor and see everything sorry, they are doing in the back end. So we analyze what they're doing with the PPC. What are they doing with everything that has to do with influencer marketing? Where are they trying to traffic from? So we have a very good system when it comes to analyzing the back end of these competitors.
Yoni Mazor 23:35
And we are starting to see this as a boring engine because you work for Rolls Royce, right? So you see the boring engine, you deconstruct it, take it apart now working roses do the same, redub, even better, right? That's kind of what you're doing. But on the Amazon field with competitors, okay. And then when you deconstruct it, you see this there? How do they attack your clients? For example, they're attacking Oh, you know, with quotation marks by just aiming at the same keywords. That's what you mean or attacks?
Vincenzo Toscano 24:01
Yeah, for sure. They are the two spectrums. So you have the nice attacks, which are PPC and the typical clean stuff. But we also have the nasty side of things, which is, you know, that you become competitors, changing your back end with flat files or doing these kinds of things that can take your listings down. So
Yoni Mazor 24:20
yeah, I want to touch that actually, you for mentioning that if you need also to put on mute for a second and clean it up to take a moment I'm going to speak a little bit. So you say you get attacked with a fire? What does that mean? Somebody? What does that mean? Actually with the flat file? If you're a competitor, do you do something with a flat file that affects your client or another Amazon Seller positive for a moment?
Vincenzo Toscano 24:38
Yeah, for sure. I mean with the flat files is very well known in the space that some of the strategies we see that some of the actually the Vanessa Hong Kong is in some of the episodes and webinars is that if you don't take full control of your back end, a competitor can jump in and put keywords in the back end to make a pro look as an adult category or get flagged for based
Yoni Mazor 24:59
On yours. Soon. Yeah. So just the biggest example there are two Amazon sellers, Amazon today Amazon Seller be Amazon Seller as the victim. Amazon's Toby's the attack. Right. So Amazon Seller B, takes the flat file and uses it as the essence of Amazon Seller a. Right? Yeah, it changes everything in the back end. And so maybe it's a doll product or pesticides or something that almost an Amazon has all these restrictions on and boom, it throws you out of the game. Yeah.
Vincenzo Toscano 25:23
Yeah, for sure. And sometimes it's difficult because a, I mean, we have seen even the poles, for sure, I'm pretty sure you have seen that in LinkedIn, social media of some big sellers, they have encountered these issues. And it's difficult to get the momentum lag. Because if you're one month, not selling, you lose all your organic ranking your momentum, even if you fix everything, the amount of money that you need to reinvest to get that ball rolling again, sometimes people don't even get back on track.
Vincenzo Toscano 25:50
I mean, there is this thing, a family just kills you. Yeah. So it's crazy. So I mean, that's why I say nowadays, agencies hire more difficult because as the competition arises, they always bring to the market, more dirty tactics. Because when you cannot compete Forli the only solution people sometimes find is doing things that are not correct. And I think now, more than ever, agencies need to learn and train themselves about how to counter-attack this and avoid your client list and being down from morons or things like that.
Yoni Mazor 26:23
Okay, so that was a great example of how you get attacked, how do you counter-attack? Just by playing defense? Or there are other clean ways to counter-attack that, for example?
Vincenzo Toscano 26:31
Yeah, I mean, to defense for sure. When I would take a defense that is never doing anything against TOS is always within the rules of Amazon. And the first thing that we do is we have a system where we put what is what the competitor did to take advantage of BBC, influencer marketing, or any other strategy to get an advantage on specific keywords or in sales.
Vincenzo Toscano 26:51
And then we section what are the possible things that they did to do that to our product. And then we implement solutions to counterattack that. So for example, if we saw that the reason why all our says was that our competitor has been dominating the top of the placement on all the main keywords for the product, the way to counteract that is to make our PPC campaign defense strategy to get that placement back, even if it's not profitable for a short time, but regain that momentum and avoid a competitor to take advantage in terms of sales. So things like that
Yoni Mazor 27:25
We’re seeing the counter-attack is seeing where they're spreading their spin on PPC. But you outbid them at every corner and exhaust them and then gain control and all these eyeballs and hopefully bring the momentum back. Yes, that's correct. But what if they have big budgets? What happens? Yeah.
Vincenzo Toscano 27:42
I mean, usually what happens if the budget of the competitor is like the focus, maybe an aggregator or some big factory in
Yoni Mazor 27:49
China, or the government?
Vincenzo Toscano 27:53
Yeah. So while we do on those instances, is that usually, we try to go for the low-hanging fruit. So if we can't compete in the main keywords, then we need to redesign our strategy. And then instead of going for the competitor, very competitive keywords, we might go for the long tail keywords, and we might shift some of the budgets from PPC to outside of traffic.
Vincenzo Toscano 28:15
Because the thing is, sometimes these big corporations like in China, have big deep pockets, as you mentioned, sometimes they don't have a very good understanding of what is influencer marketing driving traffic from outside of Amazon. So we find that they're putting all their money into PPC. And that's the only strategy sometimes you can counter-attack that by thinking outside the box and going outside of Amazon and implementing strategies.
Yoni Mazor 28:40
So you're saying so this is an example where inside Amazon PPC you have your competitor has endless budgets, but they're trapped there, that's a weakness, that's the strength. But that's a weakness because you're reliant just on putting all the spin on Amazon.
Yoni Mazor 28:53
So you go outside of Amazon, where they have no presence or really limited presence, and you outperform them there. And that's how you cannot talk with them. Because you get the traffic direct your listeners with them can't do anything about it. And you grant back the rank and the momentum. And all of a sudden they're shaky, they're losing rank, and they're losing sales. Yeah.
Vincenzo Toscano 29:08
Yeah, for sure. I mean, Amazon will not allow the low external traffic. So if you
Yoni Mazor 29:15
Reward more than the comments with juice rank, so if you can
Vincenzo Toscano 29:19
Win them over external traffic, for sure, in the long term, if you do things correctly, it should have you getting back on track. Yeah,
Yoni Mazor 29:28
Got it. Got it. Okay. So that's one challenge competition you get to give great examples of attacks and counterattacks and defense. What is the challenge, you guys?
Vincenzo Toscano 29:37
So I think another challenge is when you're looking to grow your brand in a very competitive category, so we find a lot of brands are maybe entering late the game, and then they'll have enough reviews. They don't have maybe the best competitive price.
Vincenzo Toscano 29:54
So I think it's challenging for us as an agency because sometimes we believe in the product and we think that you have a better preposition in terms of offering the market than the competitors. But I think agencies nowadays need to become more selective and honest with their clients, I see a lot of agencies that take everybody on board.
Vincenzo Toscano 30:14
And that's not the correct strategy moving forward, especially if you want to build a good reputation for yourself and your clients. Because I think that even if the product is right, and even if they want to jump into Amazon, sometimes we find that for them jumping into Amazon might completely kill them because they don't have the money or the budget to backup,
Vincenzo Toscano 30:32
They tend to a $10 per click, they don't have 15,000 reviews, like in some categories. I mean, sometimes it's, it's really, and you’re going into a trap. So I think that is very important. And I would advise the agencies moving forward also take into consideration that when working with brands for sure,
Yoni Mazor 30:52
Right. So it's in the challenges for you, even though there are a lot of brands that don't want to kind of work with you guys. But you see, and you believe in the product, I think it's amazing. But you see the landscape, you see all the KPIs involved, and you know, the odds are not in their favor. So you have to kind of turn them down instead of taking them, give it everything you get, you can try to do the best you can but it's going to be a failure, that's going to be a discord for you. For them, it's not going to be a good experience. It's not really where to grow anything.
Vincenzo Toscano 31:18
Yeah, for sure. I mean, the thing is, it all depends, because sometimes we will client that we are very clear with them, like, this is what is happening, this is the challenge you're going to encounter, this is what they're going to do when you aren't in this in this category in terms of how they're going to attack you to make sure you don't succeed. Are you willing to pay the price in terms of budget? Some people say yes because they're very passionate, they have investors behind it, and they think they can win. So if that's the case, then we're happy. But if somebody comes with a limited budget, and they think that just because the product has a specific feature, or color or patent or whatever, yeah, sometimes it's not enough. Yeah,
Yoni Mazor 31:56
Good. And you have to be transparent about it and honest with them, so they can make an educated decision. And that's also a challenge for you to get that way. Okay. So that's about the challenges happening now. But today, let's see how big is the agency that you have a company. What's eCommerce? What's the story behind the name?
Vincenzo Toscano 32:14
So I come to see, I think I was looking for a name that could reflect e-commerce and at the same time agency. So that's how I make e-commerce.
Yoni Mazor 32:25
Very cute. And you can see, what's the size of the team today? And, you know, what do you want it to be in three to five years?
Vincenzo Toscano 32:32
Yeah, so at the moment, we are 10 people on the team, we work remotely. So we got people all over the place. In terms of where we're looking to grow, I mean, we'll see also, within the next five years to be a team of 50 or even 100 people, I mean, I don't have any limit in terms of growth, I think I also don't want to over hire people. I see a lot of agencies are hiring,
Vincenzo Toscano 32:56
Like so many people in different positions, and then really, they end up killing the growth because then all the bodies you put on a position that maybe are not required, yet, they end up killing your cash flow. So I want to make sure I grow steadily, without affecting my client's performance and the service we provide by saying if the thing is to grow to 50, or 100, or your mod to keep offering the level of service we're offering, then there is nothing for
Yoni Mazor 33:22
you guys, you want to go three or five years, you know, grow big, do more much more positive impact, but with the same quality and experience for the sellers. Yes, the division there. Got a very, very cool, okay, so lets somebody wants to kind of, you know, reach out to you guys and do a come see right and then be a client and you take him in you see the landscape is okay, everything looks good. What do you guys do? In a nutshell? What do you guys do to make it work within a year or two? What's going to happen? What's the experience? Give us a short kind of expert, you know, experienced
Vincenzo Toscano 33:54
Performance here. Yeah, so the first thing that we do for sure makes a free audit and consultation on your business and brand, we make a full analysis of your Amazon Seller Central account, your goals, your vision, and your product, to understand where you are, where you want to get to, and then really see if we can add value to you. So we identify that we can add value to you. And it makes sense terms of also financially because for some people doesn't make sense financially. Then we move forward to the next phase, which is of course boarding you within our team. Usually, we gave you a project manager that takes over your brand. And that product management manager is in charge of basically taking care of the brand or the high level.
Vincenzo Toscano 34:35
And then you have the people underneath the house with typical discontinuation, PPC launch strategies, and then in the long term for sure, the roadmap is going to vary depending on your goals. If your goal is to just keep growing your current sets of products.
Vincenzo Toscano 34:51
Then we'll focus more on the optimization roadmap, which is more, about making sure your listing is always optimized keep testing images, new a blue sky On 10, and new PPC campaigns. But if the strategy is growing with more products, then we focus towards launch strategies, making more brand awareness outside of Amazon, bringing more eyeballs from maybe other strategies such as the typical influencer, that will do, or doing giveaways, things like that. So I think it depends on your roadmap. But at the end of the day, we want to make sure that whatever roadmap that we choose, is aligned with the goals you're looking to receive in the long term.
Yoni Mazor 35:30
Very cool, one small question technical, maybe even you also, when you work with outside traffic into Amazon, for your clients, you deal with email, email campaigns, email marketing, we build an email list for the seller, and then you use that too, to engage with consumers.
Vincenzo Toscano 35:48
Yeah, I mean, email marketing is all going to depend for sure on their own if they have one. Because a lot of people nowadays, when they're just an Amazon brand, don't have an email list. Because Amazon doesn't give you one by the view if you have one for sure we make use of that. We use it for new product launches to promote seasonal a promotion, like Black Friday, Christmas, and things like that. And also to even do for example, if you're doing an Amazon live, we blast all that to our email list to bring people in the Amazon live so they can take advantage of promotions straight to your brand. And in their first show different strategies will implement with email marketing. Yeah.
Yoni Mazor 36:26
Very, very cool. All right. So let me get back into the story here and see what we got so far. So born in Italy, around the age of four or five, he moved to Venezuela. Very close to Caracas, I think he said Valencia, and from your family was in the auto industry in parts.
Yoni Mazor 36:41
And then 2013, kind of your first year in university and things become very, very volatile, and Venezuela, so you moved to the United States in New York, and then you work in English to it with Kaplan institution, and then moved to Toronto, in about 2014. And then carbon was helping you bridge your ability to find a university in the UK, United Kingdom, and Sheffield in the north.
Yoni Mazor 37:08
So from 214, all the way through to 18 to 19. You study and you graduate and you get a degree in engineering, aerospace, aerospace engineering. Throughout that time, your family is also helping you financially. And then you get a job with Rolls Royce, right working on a turbine engine for Rolls Royce. You see, you look forward to where you are, you say, Okay, I'm a professional with a good company, good industry. Financially, this is where I am, this is where I will be after all this hard work.
Yoni Mazor 37:34
And it felt like you know, something that is burning inside you, I guess maybe the Italian passion and the family passion for doing entrepreneurial, entrepreneurial things with burning money. So you kind of look, look around and see E-commerce is a growing opportunity where there's no physical boundaries, boundaries, no entry to a barrier, the barrier to entry financially is not that steep and that you can probably afford it to start absorbing and absorbing content and information.
Yoni Mazor 37:57
Once you feel you've crossed that 50-60 % Understanding line, you put yourself in the mix, you started late in the launching of your products he started selling, that's around 2019. And then within less than a year, you quit your job, right? You got to because you're making enough income from your retail activities. But also you find that you know, we've been very active in social media and providing value all of a sudden, you know, people reach out more and more and start asking for your help and help and that created. You come to see your come agency, right? It comes to you as its path.
Yoni Mazor 38:26
And then yeah, basically, after you quit a job to two successful businesses, retail and agency come to you, but you fail. You know, if I catch a return just focused on helping others, I can probably do more impact. And that's where we are today. You are fully engaged and committed to that you have a team of 10 and you pouring your heart and soul and focusing your creativity just on helping others. In the future. You might think of you know, a launching again, so you can have that retail activity again. But this is where you are today.
Vincenzo Toscano 38:53
We got everything correctly so far. Yeah, 100%. You nailed it. Very good. Very good.
Yoni Mazor 38:58
So thank you so much for sharing it. I learned a lot. It was fascinating. So now I want to close up the episode with two points. The first one is if somebody wants to reach out and connect, where can they find you? But the last thing will be is what is your message of hope and inspiration for entrepreneurs listening out there?
Vincenzo Toscano 39:12
Yeah, for sure. Regarding your first question, if somebody wants to reach out to me, I'm very active on LinkedIn social media, you can find it by the insurance scanner.
Vincenzo Toscano 39:20
You can also find our agency comes in all the social media channels or go directly to the website www.coms.com where you can get your first consultation for free. When it comes to a message to all entrepreneurs out there, I would say focus a lot on your mind-set when it comes to pursuing this journey. I think having the right mind-set is key because if you come into this business thinking that this is easy, the money is waiting for you that you need to work hard and you need to have a positive mind-set. You're going to hit yourself towards a wall.
Vincenzo Toscano 39:54
So make sure you keep a positive mind-set. You keep learning, you're resourceful. So whenever you don't have something, make sure that it sold is a solution to find a resource in my May budget for your business or might be a connection. It might be something that can help you for sure. If you implement those mind-set skills, I think that you can make it. So take that as a tip and make sure you implement
Yoni Mazor 40:20
Beautiful thing. Min-set is important. Take action. You know, be resourceful and push, just keep on pushing, keep on pushing and be positive for sure. Keep the positive energy and called positive mind-set and you'll probably over time we're going to find a good amount of success. Beautiful stuff. So instead of thanking you so much, I wish you and your company team continued success. Thank you for joining us today. I hope everybody else enjoyed it, stay safe and healthy the next day.
Vincenzo Toscano 40:41
Thank you
