#690 – The Amazon Seller’s Guide to Building Wealth

Ever wondered how strategic partnerships and innovative ideas can turn humble beginnings into e-commerce superstardom? Join us as we catch up with our favorite guest, Janelle Page, who opens up about her incredible journey. From launching a supplement line with Dr. Sten Ekberg to designing stylish safety eyewear with influencers like John Malecki and NataLee from Designed to the Nines, Janelle’s story is a testament to the power of creativity and collaboration. She also shares her latest real estate adventure, renovating a historic Victorian home in Utah.

Discover the magic of transforming hobbies into thriving businesses as we discuss the rise of niche audiences. By channeling passion and utilizing innovative content strategies, we explore how her pickleball newsletter amassed 1,100 subscribers in just eight weeks, unlocking unexpected opportunities like creating content on a luxury yacht in Croatia. Janelle shows us the importance of marketing prowess in scaling a pickleball facility, “The Kitchen,” and establishing a strong e-commerce presence, proving that with the right mindset, even pastimes can become entrepreneurial goldmines.

Branding and storytelling take center stage as we delve into the art of launching successful products. Learn about creating the three-in-one charger, Alpha Charge, and the Mess Less brand, both tailored for entrepreneurs. Janelle illustrates the importance of knowing your audience and utilizing platforms like Kickstarter and TikTok for impactful product launches. Drawing inspiration from successful branding strategies, the conversation highlights how personal branding, strategic investments, and networking at business events can lay the groundwork for long-term success. Tune in for an episode brimming with insights and inspiration for aspiring entrepreneurs!

In episode 690 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Janelle discuss:

• 00:00 – E-Commerce Success Strategies With Janelle Page
• 05:30 – Testing Product Market Fit Before Investment
• 06:26 – Building Niche Audience in Pickleball
• 09:40 – Becoming Co-Owner of Pickleball Facility
• 15:25 – Entrepreneurial Brand Strategy and Product Launch
• 18:07 – TikTok Launch Strategy for Product Launch
• 20:21 – Investing in Branding and Diversification
• 30:01 – Investment Opportunities and Strategies
• 31:59 – Building Strong Brands Through Storytelling
• 38:12 – Amazon Seller Networking at Business Events

Transcript

Bradley Sutton:

Today, we talked to one of our all-time favorite guests, Janelle, and she’s going to talk about everything from her current e-commerce launches to brand strategy to making money with real estate franchises and even oil wells. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I’m your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that’s completely BS-free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world, and today we’ve got one of our favorite guests back on the show, Janelle. Janelle, how’s it going?

Janelle:

It’s awesome. How are you, Bradley?

Bradley Sutton:

I’m doing just delightful. Now for those I said favorite, get one of our favorite guests. So you might be like, wait, this is the first time I’m hearing about her, so we’re not going to go too much into her backstory now because she has been on the show. So if you want to take note and listen to a couple of her episodes before so you can see a little bit about her humble beginnings to superstardom,  check out the very first time she was on the podcast was way back in 2021. That’s episode 294. So make sure to check that out. And then she was also on episode 401. Latest one was episode 558 from last year, and so we try and have our favorite guests back on once a year, and so it’s been over a year. So we want to come back and see how you’ve been doing. Are you still in? Is it Utah, where you live?

Janelle:

Yep, still in Utah. I’ve got a new house. We bought an old Victorian 1890s. It was a totally like condemned and we’ve been fixing it up. It’s pretty rad.

Bradley Sutton:

Are you doing one of those like Facebook or TikTok, like you know, like progression videos I’m like addicted to those on Facebook. Like there’s this one guy I watch. He bought a house in like the Balkans he doesn’t say where, so you know it could be Serbia or wherever, but it was like 5, 000 euros and it was just like completely like just bricks pretty much, and he’s been like building up. Did you do that?

Janelle:

Yeah, I mean I did a some, a few TikTok videos on him and it’s pretty cool. Like Victorian, everyone that likes into old homes loves to follow along, see what we’re doing like there’s a big upstairs and we just blew out the back wall because it sits on half an acre and overlooks a reservoir with the mountains in the back and I was like I want it, I want that view. So we just blew out the back wall and a lot of the Victorian purists were like, oh, you know, sacrilege, you’ve like destroyed a historic home. It is a historic home. But I was like I mean, the ghosts haven’t come to haunt us. I think they enjoy the view as well. So I think we’re okay.

Bradley Sutton:

Yes, and you know, part of the reason you can just go buy fancy homes like this is because of your e-commerce success, and that’s what we’re going to be talking about today. Now, I remember the last couple of times we had talked about some projects you were doing with different celebrities and things that. Did any of those products ever get launched?

Janelle:

Oh, yes, like so several of them. I partnered with many YouTubers and celebrities and done six and seven figure launches. Some of my favorite, most fun ones, like Dr. Ekberg for anyone that he’s got a very large channel on YouTube and he’s like a holistic doctor, helps people like, you know, chiropractic kind of his background, but we launched a supplement line with him. But first, usually before I launch a physical product, I like to test the market with like some merch. If you see, like people, a lot of creators, they’re really good at creating content and they can build an audience, but what they’ve never done is tried to sell, and so the first time you try to sell it can be a total bust. And what I like to do is test it in an easy test. It’s just some merch, right, and if the merch sells, then you know, okay, the audience will buy. Then I’ll test with like a digital product, and not all creators, you know, have a digital product, but I can usually figure out an angle for something. So we did a blood work course and that course did. I mean it’s done several millions now, but a couple of years ago when we launched it, it did six figures like within a couple what two days and then a million dollars. So it’s been really fun to work on that project. But then we started his supplement line and we started with one of those electrolyte powders. Now he’s got a couple more and it’s called Euvexia. So that went really well.

Janelle:

And then I’ve done with John Malecki. If any woodworkers here like I think it’s so fun to watch people build like live edge furniture. But he has one of the largest carpentry channels on YouTube and we launched his shop shades, which is super cool cause you know, like in the shop. Have you ever like remember in high school you wore those big old goofy like protective eyewear and he would never wear it and his guys would never wear it in the shop. And he’s like I’m like we got to make some like cool glasses, like Oakley, you know, like designer shop shades. So that’s what we made. We called them shop shades and those were really fun and did the same thing with a DIY design Natalie she’s got I’m trying to think what her channel is Designed to the Nines. We did Safe is Sexy series and we launched her some Cheetah eyewear and then we did her whole Athena power drill line, all the power tools. So those were just a few.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, so somebody might be listening, like, well, I’m not a celebrity, but hey, there are some people out there who might have a following somewhere. Maybe they had a newsletter, you know. Maybe they have a big Instagram following, and when we say big, it doesn’t have to be a million or something. Maybe you’ve got an email list from something you have done. Maybe it’s a YouTube channel. So let’s just say there’s an average Joe, not necessarily a celebrity, but still, you know, built up an audience because of one of their previous endeavors or whatever it is.

Bradley Sutton:

I can understand the reason behind testing. It’s like, hey, just because you’ve got an audience doesn’t mean it’s an audience that’s going to buy a product. And so what would your like? What you know? I think you mentioned merch and some other things like how could just somebody out there go ahead and do this same process where it’s like, all right, before I jump in and invest, you know, twenty thousand dollars into a product that my audience might not, you know, work? Are you talking about merch by Amazon or print on demand stuff, or what are you talking about?

Janelle:

Except for you know, like with, if you’ve already got an audience, I would recommend doing not print on demand because the quality is a little bit not awesome, right? So if you’re partnering with, like Brian Tran or Mr. Beast, we’re not going to do a print on demand. That would just not look well on the brand. But you know, a test for you or whatever, if you’re small, just dabbling a print on demand would be fine. Or you can even people buy shirts and use Cricut you know what I mean? Their own little like if you go to Etsy, a lot of people are making shirts and apparel and stuff with their Cricut machine.

Janelle:

But to answer your question, this is what I’ve been doing. Just recently you asked me what I’ve been up to. I’m building, for the first time, a niche audience and I tell you, just like you said, it doesn’t have to be a big audience. I’ve worked with creators that have the largest audiences, you know, I wouldn’t say in the world, but some of them have very, very large followings and some of the largest YouTube creators and those are slam dunks. Right, you can do million dollar launches all day long, but I was like I’m a case in point. I just started building an audience in the pickleball space. It’s kind of a hobby of mine, a passion. I started what like eight weeks ago, so not even two months I’m up to. I just crossed like 1100 subscribers on my newsletter and I’m doing nothing like awesome to like grow it besides just creating really good content in my newsletter.

Bradley Sutton:

And you started this from scratch. This is like to the rest of the audience who’s like? Well, not only am I not a celebrity, not only do I not have a big following, but I can actually start from scratch to build something, community.

Janelle:

No, 100%, like if I was smart and I’m smart, but I’m just saying the play for me would be build a newsletter and marketing and product launch strategy where I’ve, you know, made millions and done all these awesome things. That would be really low-hanging fruit for me to build the following there. But I was like I’m just passionate about pickleball. I can’t stop talking about, I research it whenever I’ve got a free moment I’m watching YouTube videos on, and so I thought what better way for me to like, feed my passion and to write a newsletter, see if I can grow an audience? I don’t even know what products I’m going to offer yet. I mean I can see some digital courses. I have ideas because I’ve launched so many products in the past. But I’ll tell you what in just eight weeks. I just what two days ago, got offered to go on. A private yacht, has a floating pickleball court. They’re paying my way and my husband and they just want me to create content and help them with their branding and marketing. So I was posting on LinkedIn my most recent newsletter episode, because I always do like this week in Five Dink Friday. Five Dink Friday is what it’s called. If you want to go check it out. You can go to the website and just see like what I’m doing. I should probably build it in public, but anyhow, I’m just saying the things start happening at.

Janelle:

I only had when she, like last week, a thousand followers, so I’m not even that huge, but she’s like sees, like this girl serious, she’s making good content. We want her on our ship. She’ll discover it. It’s Croatia, it’s nine days, it’s four thousand bucks a person. I know, dude, I’m like I’ve never been on a private yacht. You should see the pictures of this bad boy. I mean, I’m like this is so cool. So you know, even if I never launched a product right there for two months, like writing a weekly newsletter, maybe I’m 80 hours into it and I just got like an 8,000 ROI. And think about the people I’m going to network on that yacht, the people that can afford to go on that like totally my target market. They’re going to be like wealthy, retired or business owners. So I just want people to understand like it’s not that hard and I didn’t do anything but start creating content. When you create value, that is what earns money creating value, educating, teaching, sharing. So it’s how I’ve built all of my businesses.

Bradley Sutton:

So for this this newsletter was were you just like, hey, I’m going to start a newsletter, or was the end game like, actually, you’re looking to maybe start a pickleball brand, as well, like physical products.

Janelle:

Like I have a partnership. So when I moved to Utah, this new location, I started playing pickleball about a year and a half ago and the facility that I was playing at super cute, it’s called The Kitchen. They were like, hey, you do marketing. Could you help us? And I was like, oh, you know, maybe. And at the time I was working with a lot of the athletes helping with develop a pickleball supplement line and so they kind of knew she must be kind of smart. So they were like, hey, you know, do you want to help us with our marketing? And I kind of told them, like my fee structure? And they’re like, oh wow, they’re just like a mom and pop shop. So they’re like, maybe how else can we work together? And I was like, hey, I love pickleball. Maybe there’s, let me just take some equity, you know, or we’ll figure it out. So that’s how I became a co-owner of The Kitchen and so we actually have right now eight physical locations here in Utah and we’re franchising and I’ve helped them build out their franchising and consulting. So I kind of head up I guess I’m like the chief growth officer, helping them just grow the business.

Janelle:

I’ve started an e-commerce shop for them, because they had no, they weren’t reselling any products. And I was like guys, you have like 10,000 active members between your locations. Like they’re going to like Pickleball Wholesale or Pickleball Central and buying paddles and balls and like why not have a website that we sell our own stuff? And so I kind of showed them that model and they were like whoa and like we don’t even have to carry inventory, we can like white label through other big you know companies. There were so many different ways we could put this together because they were like well, how are we going to have, you know, outlay all this cash to bring all that inventory? And it’s like well, let’s just start out white labeling. And if you decide you like it and then you want to make higher margins, later we’ll start sourcing and creating our own. But that’s about what six months live, you know, we’re selling anywhere from 15 000 just in. That’s in profit because we’re not carrying inventory. So that was like the first thing. And then they were kind of like all right, what else you got? And I’m like, well, we could scale a lot faster, open more locations, we can start.

Janelle:

I love coaching programs and teaching and consulting. So I was like why don’t we turn your model into like a coaching program? We started a coaching program that’s like $35,000 and we help people open. The difference with our model is we’re small and profitable. A lot of these big facilities come in. They have massive overhead, like with staff and heating utility bills. On a big like 12, 15 court facility they just those won’t pencil. So we build intimate, small locations that are staff-free, totally automated and they’re highly profitable.

Bradley Sutton:

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Bradley Sutton:

I think just in general, what you’re talking about is something that entrepreneurs might be listening to. This like I’m never going to open my own pickleball court, but, guys, gone are the days where everybody, or most people selling on Amazon is just like I’m selling on Amazon and that’s it. The next stage of that. No, you got to be selling. Nowadays. You got to be selling on Amazon. You got to be selling TikTok Walmart. You got to be selling on Amazon Germany ‘ve got to be selling TikTok Walmart. You’ve got to be selling on Amazon Germany. But then it still doesn’t stop there. There could be a global pandemic and it shuts down supply chain and stuff. But the more you can diversify your cash flow is, the better. You know, like Janelle’s in all these things. You know she’s still an entrepreneur, but you know, she’s selling on Amazon, she’s starting content. She’s still an entrepreneur, but she’s selling on Amazon, she’s starting content, she’s building brands, she’s opening pickleball courts, she’s consulting with companies. But guys most people, I think who are interested in selling on Amazon are like hey, I want to make generational wealth or I want to just have a great job where I don’t have to work 40 hours a week and diversify my income streams. Janelle, you’re literally living that life. But you know, I think five, seven years ago, not many people are having this kind of conversation because it’s just like no, I just be focused on Amazon and you’re good, and you’re good to go. 

Janelle:

Like you said, you, what do you do when you have that exit or you’re making a lot of money, you’ve got? You’re either going to give it to the government and taxes or you start doing some investment strategies, right so that’s how I got super into real estate. You know, I was like I can either buy this portfolio of homes or invest in this syndication or I can just write a check to uncle Sam. So you, and sometimes, to be honest, sometimes I hate being a landlord and or my property managers suck and I’m like I should have just written the check to uncle Sam, you know. But you know, like you say more money, more problems, and it’s like you know, boo-hoo, but I’m just saying no. Like there are some times where I’m like, wow, like that, the ROI on that, yeah, it’s awesome, but for the headache it caused, not awesome. And people talk about passive income and I’m like you know, I don’t know. Besides, like oil wells I’ve done oil wells I don’t know that there’s anything that’s truly passive. You, I don’t know that there’s anything that’s truly passive. You know, everything has taken work and takes up some mental bandwidth and I do try to just do the things that I love, knowing that you’re going to have to put some kind of effort and brainpower into it at some point. You know, if you want that return.

Janelle:

Speaking of e-commerce, though, since this is why people are watching, they’ll probably be like why is she talking about all this other stuff? I do still launch brands. I still have brands. In fact, Tomer and I partnered on a brand. We’ve been working on this for two years and it’s launching. Finally, August 11th, we’re having the launch party, and I’ll be posting about it on LinkedIn, and my social media is like starting tomorrow leading up to it, because on August 11th, we’ll have a big old launch party and we’re going to show the strategy behind it, how we’re launching just free education. Tomer, if people don’t know, he’s really awesome in the Amazon space, does a lot of coaching and consulting his top dog community, and he just brought me in. He’s like hey, I want you to help with the brand strategy and help partner up.

Bradley Sutton:

I remember a couple years ago he was talking about like a business bag or something like that. Is that the same one or this is completely different?

Janelle:

It’s similar. That’s what took so long the R&D to create. We call it the Alpha Charge and we’re going to be launching that on Kickstarter. But right now, we’re doing some testing, driving a whole bunch of traffic, Facebook ads just to do price testing. But it’s a three-in-one charger. It’s a laptop protector I wouldn’t say necessarily a bag, but it does have a shoulder strap. It serves as a charging bank. It’s, you know, can carry your laptop, and then it’s a workstation, portable workstation. So it’s three in one and it’s pretty sleek and sexy.

Janelle:

In fact I was, I guess I can’t share a link, but we can put it in the notes or they can go to LinkedIn and check it out. And then you know, in the meantime we are working on the supplement line. So it’s a brand made by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs. Cause that’s the thing I’m huge on. If you’re going to go into a space, niche down, pick a person, solve their problems like Tomer is like we’re going for entrepreneurs. I’m like excellent.

Janelle:

I don’t know a brand right now that anyone could say oh, that brand’s made for entrepreneurs or digital nomads. There’s nothing there. So that’s where I’m like okay, there’s a gap in the market, we can go in, we fill that and now we’re going to make products. And it gives you laser beam focus in your PD, which is your product development. You now say what problems do my people have? Even helps if you’re that person and how can we create products that solve those problems or fill those needs? So it’s given us really good focus and we’ve got three products that are now hitting the market all at the same time. Pretty much, and, yeah, I’m pretty excited about that. It’s called Mess Less.

Bradley Sutton:

Mess Less.

Janelle:

Yep, it’s all about cleaning.

Bradley Sutton:

I can already tell what it might be about, so I like that.

Janelle:

Well, because it’s like, as entrepreneurs, we wear so many hats, right, and you can get unfocused on the 80-20, you know, the 20% that moves 80% of the business forward. And so we’re trying to clear the noise, the clutter, get you focused. And our flagship product is Mess Less Focus, which is a productivity supplement designed to help you, you know, get off the caffeine. You’re not going to have the jitters and the crazy crash, but it’s a nootropic with like five clinically studied ingredients. It’s super incredible formulation, because I’m a nerd about formulas, you know that. And then, we created a stack. So restore is the nighttime, because rest, you need to be refreshed and wake up so you can do it all over again. So that’s the you know the supplement stack that we started with.

Janelle:

And then we have Alpha Charge, and then I won’t talk yet about the other products in the pipeline, but I’m super excited because we have been working on the launch strategy, like we’re going full on. Like Amazon to me is just one sales channel. You know, right now the fastest way to build a million dollar brand is TikTok. We use it with our brands. We can blow things up super, super fast on TikTok. So we have a full TikTok launch strategy that we’ll be going over and sharing with you. We’ve been working our butts off on that. We’ve got, you know, the organic content strategy, of course, our Shopify and everything built out, and then our Amazon strategy as well and that we’ll all kind of talk about on the launch. And then we’re going to build this in public, although we haven’t been showing the two-year journey, we’ll kind of do it in reverse, but it’ll be pretty cool.

Bradley Sutton:

So then let’s say again, going back, you know like I want people to understand, some things are different when we’re talking about celebrity. Some things are different when we’re talking about what people like to call gurus. If that’s what you consider Tomer or Janelle, and then so you have there’s a tendency that’s like oh, I could never do that, that’s me, but a lot of what you guys are doing, it could be anybody, regardless of your stature in the industry. So let’s just say there’s an average Joe, average Sally in 2025. They’ve got, you know, 10 grand to invest into a new product. And let’s just say that the, you know the product is not anything major like an appliance.

Bradley Sutton:

So just the product alone. You know, maybe you’re only talking like three, four, $4,000 or maybe $5,000 maximum, you know, landed here in the States. What would be your kind of like launch strategy, like, are you like, hey, no, nowadays it’s important to have that audience first. So you know what, before you even think about the product, do what you did with the pickleball and start that. That yeah.

Bradley Sutton:

Regardless of what that is once the actual product is launched. Do you preach simultaneous Amazon and TikTok and somewhere else you know and Shopify maybe? Or are you using, you know, Kickstarter, like what is the $10,000 blueprint per Janelle page here in 2025?

Janelle:

Well, you probably already know this, but I’ve never been like the person that’s like find a keyword and like just go do a product and stick it out there and try to capture the traffic. I mean, it works. That’s like a lot of people do that. But I build brands and a brand is a feeling and it’s meeting needs from a person and you want them to be like, to feel like they belong to a movement or like they’ve found their people, and so I’m more focused on building the story, building the brand and solving real problems, creating products with those solutions and even if it’s like a me too product, if you have a story that you can tell that makes it look like you’ve done something different. Like they always tell the story about the beer I can’t remember if it’s Coors or Miller Light that basically started saying that our beer is made from spring, fresh spring water. They were all pulling their water from the same place, but it wasn’t until, like Coors actually, you know, made it sound like theirs was something special. So they were able to create that product positioning, that differentiation in the market that made them feel special and cool. And so it’s like if you’re about to launch a product and you just basically saw it was an opportunity on Amazon. Well, guess what? Amazon’s a freaking flea market and it’s a race to the bottom. Whoever’s willing to make, you know, make the least amount of profit. You got to build a brand. You got to be like, because unless you’re made that product yourself and you’ve got a patent on it, if you’re getting it made in China or Pakistan or India, I don’t care wherever. Those factories can go right in and compete against you and guess what? They cut out the middleman. So your only advantage is your branding and your marketing and your storytelling and the feeling that you create with your consumer and that connection. And so if you’re not going to do any of that, I would tell you keep your $10,000 and go buy a window washing business.

Janelle:

That’s actually going to be, you know something that you, you can control your destiny within your I just I don’t feel like the world needs another, like spatula or dog leash or you know you found if the factory can make it and you haven’t done anything unique and you don’t have a story to tell, like you’re really going to last like not long at all and it’s a constant rat race. They’re constantly having to find a new product to launch, because you’re it’s just understand the cycle, understand the game you’re signing up to play, because that’s the game. You’re not building a brand, you’re looking for product opportunities that have a certain life cycle and then it’s going to turn and burn and you’ve got to launch another product. So it’s a fine business model if that’s the part you enjoy, because I imagine if you enjoy looking for the product opportunities and that’s the thing you love, then you’ll probably be very successful with that system. But that’s not the part I love.

Janelle:

I love the branding. The branding, the storytelling, the connecting and like thinking about like how do we launch the next product in the line, and like building a bigger list and like getting passionate, loyal, raving fans. You know that’s what I like.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, now let me just completely flip the script. Let’s say I’m an established Amazon seller. You know, I’m not making, I’m not becoming rich on my Amazon products, but I have decent cashflow. I was able to get $10,000 just sitting here, like that was all pure profit from whatever time period. I’m like instead of you know. Like, you know, some people are like, hey, I’m just going to use, take that $10,000 and go into a new product. Nothing wrong with that. You got a formula of what works with your brand, go ahead. But it works with your brand, go ahead. But let’s say you know what.

Bradley Sutton:

I was inspired by Janelle’s diversification podcast here. If I only had $10,000, what would you do with that $10,000? As far as like, is that enough to like invest somewhere, doing something with real estate? Is that enough to invest in a you know like, at least to get a down payment, to have a loan for a franchise or something? What would you do if you were just average Joe or average Sally with an extra $10,000, looking to not have all your income come from e-commerce?

Janelle:

Invest in myself first. Personal brand is where all of my opportunities have come from. I spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, I would say, a year, just in education alone mentors, business coaches and so it’s like what is it that you want to do? I hired the number one creator on LinkedIn to be my business coach cause I’m like I want to build, you know, I want to learn LinkedIn and I know it’s a massively underutilized platform right now. I mean people. It’s growing but like, how do I take advantage of that and grow my personal brand on LinkedIn? So and I’ve done that all throughout my life when I wanted to build an agency, I said who’s got the most successful marketing agency that I know of? And I hired him as my business coach.

Janelle:

Same with YouTube. When I wanted to figure out YouTube, I said who’s the most successful creator on YouTube? It leads to so many different opportunities. From that hiring my business coach for YouTube. We created a business together because he knew all the YouTubers, but he didn’t know how to launch products. That set me up for, you know, making very, very good money and connections, because I got to now work with the largest YouTube creators and help them launch products.

Janelle:

So even already in LinkedIn, hiring the coach just the people I’ve met the top creators in the world on LinkedIn. You know it’s like $10,000 can buy you a course in anything you want to learn and one-on-one coaching with probably the best in the world at whatever you want to do. So it’s like another product. Sure, figure out what the ROI is at on that. And if you enjoy the model and stuff, great. But if you’re kind of like, yeah, you know, I don’t know that I love this model and I want to diversify it and be like, right now, AI. I wish I loved AI. I don’t, I’m creative, I’m marketing. Like I tell my kids I’m like, freaking, go into AI, learn how to build agents. Like it’s just the coolest, coolest thing. It doesn’t excite me. I don’t want to get up in the morning and freaking learn about AI. I truly, truly wish I did.

Bradley Sutton:

I’m kind of in the same boat. I understand some of it, you need to know nowadays. Just yesterday I downloaded ChatGPT on my phone for the first time. Never had ChatGPT on my phone. I use it on the computer. I’m like all right, yeah. So you know, I use it on the computer. I’m like all right, yeah. So little by little I’m going, but yeah, I’m a little bit similar. Like I wish I could just dedicate myself to it. But it’s like so new, I’m like, oh my God, and so frustrating sometimes with all the hallucinations. I’m like it just kind of makes me crazy. But yeah, I get your point.

Janelle:

More billionaires made in the next few years in AI than any space. So if you’re just an opportunist space, so if you’re just an opportunist, that is where you would go all in, go all in. You know, and I know what all in looks like. I do it when I get passionate about something like pickleball, right. But to me I love money. Don’t get me wrong. I think money’s wonderful and I’m motivated by money. But there’s a point where I’m like I’m not willing to do something, where I wake up in the morning I’m not excited. I’m excited to get up and talk about marketing and branding and pickleball. If it was AI, I’d be like it’d feel like work and I don’t feel like I’ve worked a day in my life for the last few decades, but I am. If you ask my husband, he’d be like you’re always working. I’m like I am. It’s so fun so I wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, so, per, you know, investing yourself is good. And then, just in general, what about in like once you know something and you’re better at something? What about in like businesses? What’s the? You know, there’s nothing, that’s zero risk. And no matter what kind of business you start, no matter how perfect your playbook or how perfect your coaches were obvious, just like with Amazon. There’s nothing, that’s a sure thing. But the whole point is like, hey, we want to try something that, you know, is the least amount of risk possible. Is there anything that you could, you know.

Janelle:

I always say like my wealth advisors, like you, are so risk taker. And I’m like I am, because I would not consider myself that. But I think I read a book, the Secret to the Millionaire Mind, and I was like, oh, that’s kind of how I think and that’s what he was saying is like people who do really well with money and attract money are people who just see it kind of like as a faucet and it flows, and so like when I like make a lot of money, I like take it and I’m not extravagant at all, I’m very, very frugal. Like I wear the same shoes, same watch, like I just the things I like to buy are assets, the other things that make money, and so like I’ll always try something different. Like I was like oil wells, I’m going to do oil wells. I love my oil wells, you know. So I love learning. I did that.

Janelle:

And then real estate man, I’ve done so much in real estate and I, like I said, I love, hate it. My husband and I, we buy fixer uppers, we own a roofing and remodeling company and then we just on a bunch of wholesalers list. So anyone on here who’s like I want to get into real estate. The best thing to do is just go Google wholesalers. In my area, they’re people basically come across deals all the time. They’re meeting with people that are going through divorce or maybe someone in the family died and they don’t want to deal with selling the house. It’s a hoarder house so they’ll like, literally you can pick these houses up for like 50% off. A lot of people do the tax sales. I always think that’s just too much work. But a wholesale list I’ll get like I probably have every wholesaler in Utah and they send me deals and I just look at it and I’m like, dude, that’s a sweet. You know that’s a sweet house. We’ll go check it out and you know I do have enough cash sitting around that I can just buy them in cash. And then it takes us three to six months and we’ll sell that and we usually want 100,000 profit and, you know, just do two or three of those a year. That’s pretty sweet. So I mean getting started.

Janelle:

Though you could get a loan, but it’s really difficult with wholesalers because they want a quick close. So you need to just work with a hard money lender and I do hard money lending, so I’ll 100% give someone half a million dollars at 15% interest, and imagine if you’re doing the fix and flip on that you’re only needing to have that loan for three to six months so you can make the numbers work. And then you just hire a crew you know a contractor who does the fix up for you, you sell it and then you would pay off the loan and you’d keep the profit. So that’s kind of a good way that we’ve made money fast is doing that, and then ones that we like or maybe they don’t sell as fast, we’ve just held onto as rentals.

Janelle:

So I think I have like 20 doors and I have like several syndications. Syndications is where you come together with other investors I think I talked about this at Helium 10 event a long time ago but you just give them like a hundred grand or 150 grand or 50,000. Some of them, most of them require like a hundred thousand dollar minimum investment and you buy like big apartment complexes. I’m talking like 50 to 500 units, you know.

Janelle:

All you do is you just get a check in the mail like every quarter and your returns are only going to be like eight to 12%, whereas when you do a fix and flip you’re going to make you know a make you know 100 grand on you take.

Janelle:

If you take 500, 000 and in six months you make 100 grand as your return, that’s a pretty phenomenal return.

Bradley Sutton:

I’ll be cool with that.

Janelle:

Yeah, there’s so many different ways and everyone says we have to make money, we have to have money to make money, and I’m like it is. It is kind of true, because a lot of these things you have to be an accredited investor. But if you can scrape some of your money together or start saving, you really can unlock some of these cool opportunities out there. Because there are a lot of ways to make money. There’s a lot of ways to lose money too.

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah, I love it. We’re hearing stuff that probably half the audience never knew was an actual thing. I love it. All right. Going back to the last question then, for you know, going back to e-commerce, then you know, from the beginning you said you’re really into branding. I think it’s obvious that people can see it now the way that you tackle you know your projects and things. So in 2025, people are just starting, or or they’re, they’re realizing that. You know, like man, I’ve never paid attention to my brand and I think that’s why I’m not doing well. What would you say to them as far as, like some, just you know, bullet points of things that will help them build their brand story and their image, et cetera.

Janelle:

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, first, I always like to say would someone tattoo your logo on their face or, if not even on their face, on their arm, or put it on a decal on their truck or on a hat? This is the first thing. Whenever I’m looking at people’s logos or their brands, I’m just like that is the stupidest thing. No one would ever even buy merch or wear a shirt and that’s a free billboard. If you can’t give away your product with the logo on it and have someone that would be like that’s sick man. I want to wear it. Like start over. So I’m I’ve called myself like a brand Nazi in that regard, even though a logo is not a brand. You know what I’m saying. Like you should be so in love with your logo and just be like man that is so sexy, because sexy sells, it’s cool, you know so a lot of the time when I see someone’s logo, I’m like we got to start, like that’s not even acceptable. It looks like clip art. We’re not doing that, so we fix that.

Janelle:

Then the story and everyone will be like I don’t have a story. I’ve never met anyone that I cannot pull a story out of and create something that’s incredible. So maybe I’m just a really good storyteller. But people will come to me and they’ll be like, well, I have a story. And then they start telling me about their product. Like I was working with these ladies and they’re they sell incredible products on Amazon. They’re lotions and creams and they’re from Taiwan. And they’re telling me they don’t have a story. And then, but they’re telling me that their mom used to. When they were kids, they had eczema and their skin was terrible and they had psoriasis and their mom made all these blends from the herbs that she found in the garden and in the natural landscape of Taiwan. And I’m just sitting there being like are you kidding me? Like this is the coolest story. So they come to America in college and they break out in eczema and they can’t get any products here that help them with their skin. So their mom’s sending them over the lotions and potions that they make and they kind of have this light bulb moment of hey, we should like make these products here.

Janelle:

I’m like that story’s killer, you know, it’s just so funny. And that’s every YouTuber I’ve ever worked with, or just even regular company I work for just regular companies all the time and they’re like I don’t know what the story is and sometimes we make one up, but most of the time they’re sitting on one and they just didn’t know it. Cause we we get so close to everything you know that that we’re up close and personal with that we can’t see the awesomeness that it is because it’s like the fish in water. David Foster Wallace has that incredible speech. You know, a fish in water. He doesn’t know he’s in water because he’s swimming in it, you know. So take that outside air. So I think what else was the question? I think I was answering something larger than that. So the story is super important for the brand and then it’s just your people. Like if you obsess about your person, if you can’t in your mind picture the person that is perfect for your products and who you’re making it for, I just feel like you’ll never really catch fire. Because everything that I’ve ever done that’s just gone super viral or super awesome as a brand is because there’s a person behind it that I feel passionate about and I can speak their language, my marketing career.

Janelle:

But we, with my very first company I was working with, we were launching a supplement product. We had launched it and it was recovery proteins and you know stuff made for athletes, and they were at like the Arnold one weekend, which is bodybuilders, and then the next weekend they’d be at like an MMA competition. They’re trying to sell their recovery protein and their creatine and all this stuff and they just were not getting traction anywhere, like a couple of buys here and there. And then there was this little sport that was just starting in like Cucamonga, California, and it was called CrossFit and it was like brand new and it was blowing up like pickleball and we were like why don’t we just go all in on CrossFit and let’s like go and make, let’s pretend our supplement is made by CrossFitters for CrossFitters. You know Like we kind of re-ranked back into the positioning and the storytelling and then it was. It gave us laser beam focus. We knew now who our athletes were, that we needed to lock up. We weren’t spending every weekend at different events. You know, trying to.

Janelle:

I went after every single CrossFit athlete. I created a pro tier and an amateur chair because I wanted the up and comers to give them free product in exchange for endorsements. I knew what magazines I need to advertise in. I knew the language to speak. You don’t. You don’t talk about a gym. If you’re talking to CrossFitters, they go to boxes and you don’t talk about doing your workout. They do wads, you know, and they do Ralph and Murph, and there’s all this like language, and there’s secret signs and symbols that you build this lexicon, and now you have people that are so freaking passionate about your product that you freaking blow up and we became the official supplement sponsor of the CrossFit games. We were everywhere.

Janelle:

Progenix was like the shit bomb and then and then you can start branching out Once you’ve, like, created that foothold in a market. Guess what happens? Crossfit is not just a sport in and of itself, but there’s doctors, there’s firemen, there’s policemen, all these people that like to do CrossFit for a workout. They’re not necessarily like CrossFit athletes, although we locked down that market. Now we start attracting surfers who are doing CrossFit. So we got the surf community. We had a bunch of yoga instructors that love doing CrossFit for, like, their hit days, whatever. So now we’ve got the yoga, we get mountain climbers, we’ve got spear fishers that do CrossFit, and we then could move into these other segments and start growing. So you go narrow first, so you can go wide later, and that’s how I like to think about the journey of a brand and how to gain traction and then grow.

Bradley Sutton:

I love it. I love it All right. So, guys, I don’t know what kind of demographic we didn’t touch today, but if you’re an influencer, you’re a celebrity, you’re just an average Joe or Sally, or you’re somewhere in between. You’re a experienced Amazon seller looking to invest in other things. We talked about it also. So thanks, Janelle, for covering such a wide variety of topics. How can people find you out there on the interwebs if they want to reach out for more guidance?

Janelle:

Okay, go to janellepage.com that’s my website. Or, if you like pickleball, for sure, go to FiveDinkFriday. Spelled five, like F-I-V-E and LinkedIn. My Instagram is kind of like my scrapbook but yeah, connect with me. I love helping you and guys, this is for reals. I’ve been using Helium 10 since 2014. Like, I’m not kidding you, like I don’t get paid to say that or anything. All my employees, all my VAs, like everyone, uses Helium 10, it’s a great product.

Bradley Sutton:

Love it. All right, Janelle. Thanks a lot, I’ll be seeing you at Amazon Accelerates, or what events you’re coming to next. What?

Janelle:

Probably BDSS. We always see each other there. I don’t know. I haven’t even looked at what I’m going to next, but I’ll probably top dog. Do you ever come to that one?

Bradley Sutton:

I have not been to that one. I think one was recently in like Portugal or something.

Janelle:

I was like, oh man, I wish I could go to that one. I went, and when I learned how to kite surf, it was amazing.

Bradley Sutton:

Oh my goodness, All right, I’ll try and go to the next one for sure.  

Janelle:

For sure. Anyhow, super fun to be here.

Bradley Sutton:

Thank you so much. We’ll talk to you later.

Janelle:

Okay, cheers.

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