Our World Is Changing And Ecommerce Is No Different

Retail has drastically changed since the beginning of the pandemic, where eCommerce saw a huge influx of growth. This has forced brands to have to be agile in order to stick around. Brands can no longer sit on one channel and focus on dominating there alone. I speak this week with Destaney Wishon, CEO of BetterAMS, an advertising partner and service provider for brands on the Amazon marketplace, all about that change and how it's affected brand's decision making, even giving us a peak behind the curtains of what BetterAMS has done to remain relevant.

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Michael Maher  00:00

All right, welcome everybody to The Longer Game where we talk about retail. The tagline is retail, reimagined, we'd like to look at what the future of retail is going to look like. So we talked about what it's doing now, and how we think it's going to evolve into the future. Today I have with me Destaney Wishon, she is a founder and the CEO, she's the boss lady at Better AMS. Welcome to the show. 

Destaney Wishon  00:27

Of course, thank you so much for having me. I've been waiting on this one. It's been a while figuring out our schedules. But we are here

Michael Maher  00:36

We're here. And you're almost about to, there's a big Amazon show that's coming up next week. Or I mean, almost this week, and you're leaving in a couple hours to go to, to get ready for prosper, and to go there.

Destaney Wishon  00:51

It's the biggest show of the year so far. Thanks. I'm really excited. We've already had a ton of messages about brands being there. But the last minute stress of packing and getting ready and balancing work is a lot. So,

Michael Maher  01:08

You are definitely a worker bee. Like you're on it, like, I feel like 24/7. I mean, that's what I see,

Destaney Wishon  01:17

I have nothing better to do, especially winter. So Bentonville gets pretty cold in the winter, and I don't like leaving the house.

Michael Maher  01:25

Okay. See, you're just telling, I mean, I think one of the things about, you know, you are the CEO, I'm the CEO, but I call myself the Chief Idea Officer, it was honestly just something a branding guy worked with came up with, and I was like, oh, that's kind of cool, I'm gonna use that. And it really doesn't mean anything, because it's just a title. But when you are owning and running a business, it's so easy to work. Like it, especially if you have a strong work ethic, which I know that you do. It's so easy to work and just keep going and just keep going and pushing and pushing and pushing. That's honestly probably why you've seen so much success in your business and so much growth in your business, because you've invested a lot of time in it. So I mean, I feel like when people think about, honestly, before the pandemic, when people think about oh work from home or work remotely, they're like, Yeah, I can just watch TV and do whatever. And I'm like, No, I actually want my business to grow. I want it to be successful. So I'm gonna invest time in it. Did you ever get that from people before the pandemic, like, oh, working remotely like that must be cool.

Destaney Wishon  02:35

100% I get working remotely, being able to take off whenever you want, and travel, those are the three things that always come up in conversation. I'm like, I work 24/7 I rarely leave the house when I travel, it's for work. And it adds up. I mean, it takes a toll for sure. I wouldn't change it for anything, but it's risk and reward. It's not one sided.

Michael Maher  03:03

Oh, for sure. One of the things that I have a tendency to just like go and honestly, if it's work, like I'll just keep going and keep working like just one more thing, just one more thing. And my daughter is nine now, I had to get better about not just saying just one more thing and saying alright, like I'm gonna shut it down for the day because I do want to see my family I want to spend time with my family even if they're in the other room. And I'm you know, in here working but sometimes even in the same room just being there. I'm working. And so there's like a little bit of connectivity there. But I had to get a lot better at saying no to work because I actually wanted to see my family. Now there have been times where when I've been building something where I just didn't see them and it was like this is just a sacrifice, you know, it's just part of building a business. Everything I build, I've always been doing something else full time. So like when I first got started in eCommerce, I was managing a Starbucks and I just hated it. And so I wanted to get out of it. And I had already sold music equipment on eBay and so I knew and understood how it worked. But I had a friend who was doing he was selling on eBay and Amazon and that was a reseller that was, you know, before there any ads everything was just all organic like now I sit back and I'm like, How did that even happen? Like you just white like try to get what yours some of them were not, you know, on totally white backgrounds and then and then organic like SEO like that just seems so crazy now knowing how I mean obviously you're running an ad agency, but like my agency is super advertising focus as well. That's what I, that was the thing that I did before I started really focusing on building the agency and having to step away from some of the client facing stuff. And it just seems crazy now to think back like, oh my gosh, it was all organic. But yeah, I worked a full time job while I sold on eBay, did that for a year, then left, pursue entrepreneurship full time. 2016 my business kind of crashed or not kind of crashed, it did crash. And I was like, shit, what am I gonna do? So I got another job, while I figured out, okay, I immediately I was like, I'm gonna start doing some consulting and freelancing and see, see what happens. And I went really brought it first. Ecommerce wise, because I had some different experiences, and just saw Amazon was a huge opportunity. And so, you know, just went all in and just started, I started building an agency before I was, like, I just hired someone, to me, train them how to process and then, you know, it grew from there. But um, yeah, I mean, it's it. But like that year where I was building the agency and working somewhere else, I was working a full time job. And then I would come home, and I do all my freelance and consulting stuff. And so I basically didn't see my family for a year. I would drink like a couple beers every night while I was working consulting, and it was like, good craft beer. So I put on a good amount of weight that I was finally able to, it's finally able to get back off. But yeah, it's it can be very stressful with the building of something because you know, it's, it's relying upon you.

Destaney Wishon  06:39

100%. Something that I don't think necessarily helps as we are in this ecommerce boom, I mean, COVID can be argued was a catalyst for a change in consumer habits. And then, on the brand side, we saw a lot of budget shift from retailto.com, a lot of decisions being made when foot traffic dropped. So if you're on LinkedIn, or if you're looking at all of your peers in the space are doing, it's everyday, there's another round of money being raised. So there's another acquisition in the space, or there's another brand doing this or that or this and when you keep up with it, it can be this constant rat race of just trying to get to the next level trying to get keep up with everyone else. And I think that's really important to call out any commerce right now. Because it's the hot thing that everyone's wanting to take part in. So you just have to realize what you're doing and what you're capable of, and sit back and decide what you want. Because if you don't want to be a part of that, then the seven year, workweeks and doing everything it takes may not be for you, you should sit down and decide maybe I want a lifestyle company, or maybe I want a performance based company, and all of those things are really going to be derivative from founder, because if you have a founder works 80 hours a week, it's gonna be really hard to have a culture of people who work 40 hours a week. So that's kind of something we had to get really aligned on.

Michael Maher  08:02

Yeah, well, that's, that's good that you guys at least talked about that and set expectations, you know, about what you wanted to be. And I think, I'm thinking now about, as my agency evolves, some of the, you know, founding principles are things we bring people through when they onboard, like, here's who we are, as a company as this stuff, some of that stuff has changed. And it's, or I'm just like, hey, I have a better idea of what, who we really are as a company. So I want to make sure that people know that going in. And so we have like some, you know, founding pillars, and it's kind of basic stuff like honesty, communication, stuff like that. Communication is one of the biggest things that's anytime someone is really not worked out on our team. It's been, they just didn't communicate well. And you, especially being remote. I don't need to, I don't need to micromanage you. But I need to know that you did you know, these three things and that you're working on the next couple things that are coming up, you do them how you need to do them, because I trust you, because that's why you're in that spot. But you have to communicate, if you don't communicate, it can make it really hard for me to know, I'm assuming you got it. And then I come back a week later. And it's like, Oh, you didn't even touch that. Like, what, why didn't you say anything?

Destaney Wishon  09:21

100%. I think another catalyst of the environment we work in is flexibility. I assume that, 60 to 70 years ago, jobs are a lot more operational, because the industry didn't change near as quickly as what is now. Right now, Amazon can make one change that could completely change the projection of so many brands and so many agencies, and they're able to pass that down really quickly in force in industry change because of their dev team. So things like that caused us to have to be so much more flexible to build to kind of maneuver. So if we just have strictly enough operational focus agency, we're always gonna be a little bit behind. So we had to really sit down, figure out what that looked like expectation wise on people, we're hiring, because there's people, they're really good at following processes. And there's people that are really good at making their own decisions with context. So we still are very big believers in SOPs and building out processes, you need people to take that context and make their own decisions. Because truly, I mean, there's been days where we've like woken up, and Amazon's made some for change, like, wow, this is gonna really drastically affect everything we're doing, you know, supply chain, that was another big indicator, everyone who is relying on their day to day systems and forecasting, they continue to rely on that they were SOL, like, you need people that can think really quickly and just be much more flexible in this industry.

Michael Maher  10:50

I think that's a very sage thing to say. And I think you're right, that you have to be able to be flexible. And honestly, I think being on the service side of things, there's, I feel like it's a little bit more honestly, job security, like when Amazon changes something or they do something, if you're able to adapt and learn it, you're able to help brands better. The companies that like I feel bad for a lot of the sass companies out there who, sometimes Amazon could just change something, and it totally eliminates the business. And it's like, okay, like, you didn't know this was gonna happen, or Amazon releases something changes the way the API is hooked up. And so people software stop working, and they're like, Okay, we got to fix, we got to fix this thing. And people are complaining about it. And like, they don't get any warning, even though they might be on the Amazon developer Council, they're still not getting the insights *inaudible*.

Destaney Wishon  11:51

100%. Another, we see that it is on the brand side, retailers were typically a lot more bureaucratic, especially when you're looking at the OG in the space like Walmart, where they have a lot of different buyers that are within the process before any decisions made. Amazon's not like this. They're very siloed with their internal teams. And I mean, we see on the ad side, a product team will roll something out that the partner reps don't really know anything about like, Amazon just pushes that, concept across their teams without getting into what it looks like to work within Amazon. But on the brand side, they sometimes don't keep up. So when we're working with some of the largest like CPG brands who come from retail, it's like, no, you're going to move a lot quicker, and that we shouldn't need to have this seven week approval process to get this push through. Because that's seven weeks of private label. Right? And seven weeks is a short period. I mean, even just on closing deal cycles, it takes a long time to get things done over there. Ecommerce moves way too quick there, all these other brands are being a major competitive advantage over them when that happens.

Michael Maher  12:58

How reticent? Are you seeing some of these, you know, bigger CPG brands be, to that need to change and how many of them are actually saying like, okay, we can change, we can do that, because I've seen a lot of resistance. And it's hard, especially when you're going from like, if someone's like, if someone's moving from vendor central to Seller Central, they're moving from one P to three P, it's hard for them to start saying no to purchase orders, because they're so used to doing that. Or if, they're dealing with problems with people selling to distributors, who are then selling their products on Amazon. And they're like, you know, we don't want anybody else selling on Amazon, but ourselves. It's hard for them to turn off sales to distributors, because that's revenue that's coming in, but it's like, it's totally about the future, it's about the long game, you're gonna start getting retail, and you're gonna start owning the marketplace. So how many of them that you feel like you're working with? Are you actually seeing *inaudible*

Destaney Wishon  13:59

On the micro level, I think it's turned into a game of education. There's so much lack of education and true understanding about how to work the platform. So as you mentioned, we're seeing that pretty frequently, whereas a lot of resistance to change, because they have assumptions on how the platform works. So we're having to sit down and fully educate. This is why this matters. This is why you need to do this. And it takes a lot of time. And I think that's where there's a shortage of people to truly educate the market on these things. So I think that's what needs to change first and foremost on the micro level in order to get people more acceptance to the risk that's going to happen when you do make a transition like that. Even on the ad side. It's very similar. We have to explain why you want to lower or eyes on certain terms and why you want a higher rose and have expectations branded, right. On the macro level though. I think it's going to cause um, there's got to be a shift in organic organizational change. I mean, we have worked with brands that have placed really awesome eCommerce talent, they know what needs to happen. They're great to work with. But then they go to their board members and their board members like, well, we can't handle that row as on the platform. And I'm like, You're buying billboards, you're spending, you know, $100,000 a month,

Michael Maher  15:14

You have no idea what that is.

Destaney Wishon  15:16

*inaudible* or Billboard, and you're not willing to see a $2 row as on your number one keyword, which is going to influence organic rank, which is, again, we've got to go back to the micro of education, and why they need to do that. But it's going to cause a really big shift in the industry. And if people don't start paying better, there's such a shortage in talent that I think that's causing even higher issue or higher churn rate, bigger issue on the brand side.

Michael Maher  15:46

You think that you're saying there's more churn internally on the brands? 

Destaney Wishon  15:50

Yes, I don't think that it can be as competitive as the money that's being moved into the agency side, the SAS side, the aggregator side, there's a major talent shortage. And I've heard that argued across the board, but I truly don't think there's enough people who truly understand the platform well enough. And then when you're getting these really, really high salary asks that are causing this crazy shift in where people want to work.

Michael Maher  16:19

Yeah, so I couldn't agree with you more. And what's interesting is, I, and I don't think it's a brag if something's the truth, or even if it is a brag if you know if it's the truth, like I'm very confident in myself and my agency's capability to perform. And we've got case studies to prove it. I know you have seen great success with your clients. So when you can go confidently into a situation and say, Hey, like, I know this space very well. I know it and the results, that what brands we work with, showcases that it's an app, but I even know all the other people who are really good at it, too. So I like I talked to, you know, prospects, and I just say, you know, one of the biggest things that as these big retail brands start to pay attention to Amazon. And I honestly think a lot of some of the bigger CPG companies looked at it as well, you know, who cares? If we add another 20 million of revenue on, you know, onto our brand, we're focusing on what's going to get us, you know, over a billion or 2 billion, or whatever the case might be. And then Amazon turned into, like you said, people don't know what Amazon is, it's not just a marketplace. It's a product search engine, it is a brand qualifier, people will go and look and say, Is this brand good quality? Because if not, I don't want to buy their product. And you could be they could be in a target, or they could be on the person's website and say, Well, I want to go check Amazon and see what's there. And if they're not there, they're not represented well, then that's changing brand perception, and, you know, losing brand equity. So that that I think was a huge shift for people, and they're still kind of adjusting to that. But yeah, I feel very confident my skill set, but I tell prospects, I said, even if you don't work with me, you need to work with a guide, like you need to have someone that's working with you, I and I know like 10 other people that can do it really well. And they're like, probably, you know, 10 out of 15, or something like that. You know, that like there's 1000s of people in this space, but the people who and I would say, from a, you know, there's a lot of people who can do different tasks relating to Amazon, and they can do those tasks well, but when it comes to knowing and understanding the platform, creating strategy and executing on that strategy, that's a very rare breed. There's, there's a lot of people who have maybe worked higher up at CPG companies, and they knew that Amazon was a big part of what they were doing, they know okay, well, we need to do this and that, but they don't actually know how to go out and execute. So putting those three things together that knowledge of the space, creating strategy and execution. Like though I've heard people say, unicorn, I that's not my term. But I've heard people say, you know, that that, essentially, there's such a small handful of people that can do that. And now there's so much money that's entering into this Amazon, eCommerce, digital space, that you're like you're saying, There we're seeing this need for talent, and it's just not it's not where it needs. 

Destaney Wishon  19:48

It's a really fun combination of having to have that skill set of all three, right? You have to be really, really good at every aspect of Amazon. And then you combine it with the entrepreneurial challenges of making sure you're having an amazing culture. Because there's so much opportunity this space, you can say yes to every single brand. And before you know it, your people are burned out and you see turn, that's a major issue we're seeing. Number two is paying your people well, that can be really hard marginally as a startup, you're constantly in this pace of like hiring someone filling their capacity, having a little bit more profit to move forward. But as we're seeing across the board, margins are decreasing for brands, they're also decreasing for agencies, like there's the shortage of talent. And when you combine it with just like regular difficulties of being an entrepreneur, it's fun. It's an insane space to be in right now. I'm incredibly, incredibly thankful and blessed. But it's definitely not an easy combination having to hit both of those factors. Because if you want to continue being a thought leader in providing a premium service, you need to have the talent to keep doing it in if you decide to sacrifice one or the other. Yeah, things go downhill fast. And that's what we're seeing, because it's such a seller's market, that anyone can start an agency and say they know Amazon.

Michael Maher  21:07

Sure, yeah. Yeah, anybody can say, and, and then, you know, if they've been like, kind of doing something they can, they can, like, you know, say, have been doing this since 2014. But really what you've been doing, I haven't really been doing it for, you know, maybe the past year or two. And I think the aggregators coming into the space has been, it's been interesting. And it's been, it's caused a lot of buzz around things that are going on. But I also have to remember that, you know, a lot of the aggregators are coming from the finance world. And so that's a very different world, than the Amazon world. And so, it's being able to, I think the aggregators that are going to win are the ones who are gonna say, hey, we need the people who know what they're doing to really come in and do it. And we just make sure that we're, you know, getting healthy margins on what we're doing. And that we're, we're acquiring the right talent, we're doing all that stuff, or, or, I mean, eventually, what I think one of the hardest things about being an entrepreneur and being a smaller business. And, you know, small business could mean you're doing 20 million, like, that's not a, that's not a big business by the world standards or commerce standards, but we're not doing 20 million, that would be, that'd be cool. But that's not what we're doing. But you know, it being a smaller business, you have to build out all the processes, you have to build out all the things yourself. And some of the bigger organizations are able to say, well, we've got this thing built, because we paid someone to create this whole thing, and you're out there, you know, and this is very much part of my personality, it's just getting out there, out front, you know, a little messy, figuring things out, and then turning it over to people, my team so that they can perfect it and build it into a system. And I'm just continuing to, you know, make headway going out. But I mean, that's a, it's interesting, because you're having to create all the resources that are going to help train people into education for people.

Destaney Wishon  23:19

100%. And that differentiation, what aggregators doing a spot on I think, right now, it's a model there, it was assumed that you could go in and send products, basically, through this optimization machine, and they would come out on the other end much, much better. But I think they're all starting to realize that while there's differences across categories, or why you really need to understand what made a brand successful, you need to dive into the audience before making optimizations and changes. And that does it requires specialty talent. Like you said, on the agency side, what we're always looking to do is just look at my biggest weaknesses. Number one is operations. So thankfully, Taylor and I met because that's Taylor strongest skill set, and in hiring people under us who are just inherently better at us than anyone at these certain skill sets. So Alex got brought on board because he's great at managing people. Taylor and I don't want to manage people like that's not our skill. Okay. We're the most like autonomous people in the world will go all day like without checking in on anything. So Alex was brought in. So being able to really know what your strengths are, focus most of your time on them. And then on the flip side, build out a team to support you on your weaknesses is huge.

Michael Maher  24:36

I think I heard someone say this, someone that was somewhat I would say, somewhat of a mentor when I was getting going on the agency side of things. And she was just telling me, you know, she had a digital marketing agency. And she said, you know, as you grow, there are certain things that you have to give up. And she's like, there are people on my team that are doing things that I have no clue how to do, but I know that we need to do them and we need someone who knows what they're doing when it comes to doing that. But there's no way that I can possibly know how to do every single thing, like you said, hiring people that are better than you, the people on my team, who we have a, what we call a Tactical Department. And it's really the people that it's the backbone of our team, because they're taking all of the reporting from Amazon and turning into our reporting that we give to clients. They're doing all the case management, they're uploading, you know, content, optimization, all that kind of stuff. And they, like some of them are, they're based out of the Philippines, but some of them are engineers, and they're like, wicked, smart people. And I'm like, Hey, can you show me how to do that pivot table thing in, and excel again? Or how do I do this, this one thing, because I didn't, like I'm not a classically trained business person. That was not my, that was not my pedigree. And, you know, my parents were like, well support whatever you want to do, as long as it's not murdering people. And so I had a supportive family. But, you know, I, I truly believe that, that God has used me as a vessel to say, hey, this guy was not good at business. But look, what I've been able to do through him is take taking the unlikely and turning it into something that can be effective. And now I can help other people who are starting entrepreneurs and say, hey, you know, like, think about this, remember this, this is really super important. But yeah, I mean, absolutely, there's people on my team that are doing things that I'm like, Man, I really need to make sure that I hold on to this person, because I didn't, I don't want to lose them, because they're gonna, I'm gonna have to start filling in on this thing. And I don't want to do it, because I'm probably not gonna be,

Destaney Wishon  26:45

100%, that can be really hard to let go of, especially when in the beginning, the business is your baby, it's usually tied to your personal brand, you have some form of association with all of your clients. So every person you hire, and every step you take further away from the core of your agency, it's scary, scary to put all of that faith of what you've built into another person, even though it's only gonna be 10, or 15%, of what you're building. But it's kind of the quote of like, What Got You Here Won't Get You There. In the beginning, you're scrappy, you're doing everything you're trying to figure it all out, then you get a bargain, you need to hire someone else. And then you start figuring out how to outsource because you realize your time is not best spent spread, then it's best bit siloed in these certain aspects, and then you get there. And then you realize you can hire people that are better than you to do things that you come up with, and just your ideal generation. And that's, that's a cool cycle to go through.

Michael Maher  27:37

Do you feel like you are like, I mean, though, I didn't realize it was an entrepreneur until a couple years ago, seriously, I just was like, Oh, I'm just a, you know, small business owner, whatever. And then I look back on my life, and I was like, Oh, my gosh, there were all these things that I did that were very entrepreneurial. And so I'm not, I'm not a classically trained business person. But I'm definitely an entrepreneur at heart. And it seems like that's very much your spirit as well. Would you say that? That's pretty true that like, if you look back on everything that you've done, you've had more of an entrepreneurial side to you like a be scrappy, start something, make it work, and then figured out there.

Destaney Wishon  28:19

Two answers. One, if you ask my parents, they'll say yes, I was like the bossiest most independent child in the world. They always joke that it is, but I would have, if you would have told me five years ago, which I started this four years ago, if you were told me five years ago, that I'd be the CEO and have 20 employees and be able to travel and just do everything I'm doing, I would have said hell no, there's no way. I don't think I would want to do it. And I don't think I have the capabilities to do it. Speaking on stage, speaking on podcast, I've been like, I don't want to do that. But I was together a presentation on confidence as an entrepreneur for a female group. And what I realized is that when people think of failure, they think if I start this job and take the risks, start this company, and I fail, I lose my job, I lose my house, everything falls apart around me. But that's not how failure is failures, these really small steps and successes the same way. When you decide to start a company, you're not automatically thrown into leading 20 people and doing all these things. It happens in baby steps. And it brings you to where you need to come like I have to my first podcast and I figured it out and it wasn't that scary. And then I hopped on my first webinar face it's like yeah, all these little things will occur that make it so less scary. You just have to view success and failure as baby steps instead of just, Oh, holy shit. I'm a CEO. It evolved and now I feel like so at home in my role. I truly love every aspect of what I'm doing. It's why I work so much. It's just the most amazing thing ever, but I would have never just jumped into about five years ago.

Michael Maher  30:03

Yeah, for sure that's, there's a comment called Hannibal is called his name is Hannibal Burress. And he's pretty funny. He says this thing, or he has this bit where he says, you know, when everybody, when everything like gets starts getting really bad, or like bad things happen, people just start saying cliche things like take it one day at a time, man. And he's like, Isn't everybody's been taking it like, do you have some kind of weird way that you can do in like, weeks or months at a time, like your time traveling, like, doesn't everyone have to take it a day at a time, but that really is true. You learn, okay, the way that I, you know, handled this person, that was bad. And I need to change that. And I need to make sure that moving forward, I, you know, prepare someone before, you know, I give them bad news, or whatever the case might be. So you learn those things as you go. And it really isn't in baby steps. And the reason people say take it one step at a time is you can't, I mean, like, if you're taking two steps, I guess you're hopping. So I guess you could take it two steps at a time. But like, you've literally have to just put one foot in front of the other one. And that's what leads to the success of,

Destaney Wishon  31:20

100%. One of the biggest things that got me started was when I got an email to speak on stage, or when someone asked me for an opportunity, I would say yes, within the first five minutes, because I knew if I gave it time, I would talk myself out of it, out of lack of confidence. And it was just answering the emails. And that was my one step at a time of showing up and answering the emails and moment I answered the email, I would do whatever it took to make it successful. But that's a scary moment, even in the beginning it is. It's, you have to take the baby steps, it's showing up posting the content, it's recording all of your podcasts, even if you're only getting one to two downloads, because it adds up and it takes time. But if you're that's, 

Michael Maher  32:04

That's the long game built content like that is absolutely the long game you like this podcast does not have a ton of subscribers or listeners. But I noticed over time, like you know, of course, the earlier episodes are starting to get listened to more. And there's more and more people coming. But it's a long game, you have to, hence the name, The Longer Game, like you have to start building stuff now and not expect the results to happen right now. But happen over time. And just like that, like I think I think about businesses that you know, raise much capital and just start up and they get really, really big and then maybe they fail. And I think about American Idol, which is weird. But I think about all of the stars that won that show. A lot of them did not go on and have successful careers. And it's because they weren't. Some of them were incredible singers. But they didn't take it one step at a time. They didn't slowly build an audience, and then happen to have a hit single. And then they drew in a bigger crowd, but they still had that core audience. And so that's that's a huge part of you know, building the core essentially. And I love that you said you would you're basically saying yes to things that challenge you or scare you a little bit. And that's been my approach is, you know, hey, I'm not 100% sure how to do this. But I know if I commit to it that I will figure it out. And I'm even willing to spend money or lose money on something if I promise that I'm going to take care of something. And that's why I'm very careful to like, if I don't think I can get something to you know, we're not going to promise it. Or say I'll get into you next week, I'm going to say hey, this might take me a little while I'm not sure I'm going to put I'm going to figure it out. But I don't want to promise because then I look like a liar. I don't want to be a lie. 

Destaney Wishon  33:55

That mental model is insane. I think of like some of the moments where I was so scared, and I knew I was gonna fail. And even when I did fail, it was like two hours of being like, Well, that was terrible, then you get over it and you move on. But in order to know you overcome failure, you have to fail more in order to fail more and to have that internal feeling you have to take bigger risks. So one of the first things I did was went skydiving. This was before I even started as an entrepreneur. I was so scared to skydive, but I was like, let's do it. The buildup of hours before it, was ridiculous. The feeling inside of me was the worst thing ever. But then you're in a plane for five minutes you jump out and you're done. And that has been like a metaphor for every single thing I've done in my life. I remember moments I've like broke out in hives because I was so scared to do something. And then I did it and then you're done. And then I realized that hour of stress was never worth it. But you don't know that, you don't know how well you can handle failure until you fail more and in order to fail more you have to say yes and take bigger risks.

Michael Maher  35:00

Love that. What do you think for companies out there that are knowing that they're needing to get into eCommerce or get into Amazon? What's their skydiving moment? What do you think they're thinking of when it comes to like not getting on Amazon or maybe even trying to figure out themselves and going out a guy like what's their skydive, 

Destaney Wishon  35:24

You just have to do it. Amazon is recently I believe, past Walmart is the largest retailer. And what is the risk of not being on there, I think that is much higher than the risk of failure on platform in all honesty, and I think that's something that people don't realize. Advertising, every single aspect of Amazon, there's very little barrier to entry. So I would rather lose $5,000 not doing great on the platform, but realize it's not for me, then sit back and watch everyone else succeed on the platform and lose a lot more in the long run. It's The Longer Game, that's what everyone's got to be after in this space.

Michael Maher  36:04

Man, that was the best sell of the name of this podcast, I might just take that clip, and play it over and over and over again, Destiny, if people want to find you, and talk to you know more about you, should they look in Mexico? Should they look in Las Vegas? Where if? Or maybe on the web somewhere? I don't know, you know, how can people get in touch with you and find out more? Right?

Destaney Wishon  36:27

Yeah, so weejuns is probably the best place easiest to contact, we have a ton of content there that we just post frequently. If you're interested in learning more about the company betterams.com. But other than that, reach out to me on LinkedIn.

Michael Maher  36:42

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here. This has been The Longer Game where we talk about retail. And I'm thankful to be in a space where there are other people who like we could be vying for potentially business. I mean, I know we're doing content and other things like that. Are you guys doing content optimization and things like that? Okay, so you're very focused on ads. So but at the same time, we could still be going after some of the same business. And I have friends, who I call friends who are other agency owners, and I know we bid on the same projects, or we put out proposals and one of them got it or I got it or whatever the case might be. But I feel very blessed to be in a space where there are people who there's the seems like there's a camaraderie, it's not as you know, duking it out, like you think of like the, you know, Microsoft and the apples of the world, like being at each other's, you know, throats. And I feel like there's so and maybe it's just because there's so much opportunity for people to take over the opportunity. Maybe, maybe as things start to wind down, it will become less like that and become more cutthroat. But yeah, I'm thankful to be in this space. So if you guys want to find destiny, she said, and by the way, it's Destaney. And it's not Destanay. Don't say that, it's Destaney. I made the mistake of doing that. But go find her on LinkedIn. She's putting out some interesting content on there. She's talking a lot about advertising. And if you are a brand, and you just want to even get your feet wet and know and understand how advertising works on Amazon, you could look at any of your content, and it would start to explain things and again, like she said, you know, taking baby steps, just finding out like, Okay, well I know that we need to start doing this. And I know how now and now I know how this works. Now I need to go find someone who can do it for us. So anyway, that's the show. We don't have an outro, we just say goodbye. 

Destaney Wishon  38:46

Thank you.