Sellers Playbook How to Sell on Amazon Course... Is it a Scam?

in #ecommerce6 years ago


A few months ago my business partner had seen an ad on Facebook that Daymond John was putting on a Shark Tank Entrepreneur seminar at a hotel near us. While we didn't really have any intention of attending the paid weekend seminar we thought it would be interesting to checkout.

Ever since he has been getting retargeted with Facebook ads for various other seminars, how to sell on Amazon, how to trade stock options, how to run an AirBNB business, etc. Occasionally on a Friday afternoon we'll head over to check one out. I always find it interesting to see their sales tactics during these events.

Anyhow, most recently he got one about a how to sell on Amazon Course put on by a company called Sellers Playbook out of Minnesota. I'm pretty sure I've heard of this company before. Prior to attending I did a quick Google search on them and saw a bunch of ripoff report complaints about how the $1,000 course is nothing more than a sales pitch to an upsell of a course that cost $35,000 to $37,000, which is absolutely insane.

Anyhow, we attended the presentation. The entire thing was a big commercial for Amazon, but they told us very little about what their course was about or what Sellers Playbook was all about. The presentation talked about how much Amazon did in sales. They talked about how Amazon is rolling out new services like they will put groceries away in your fridge or put packages inside. They showed us videos from CNBC about how busy Amazons warehouses are and how large Amazons profits are and then said it's mostly 3rd party sellers and how would you like a piece of that 150 Billion?

The only thing they really told us about their course is your gonna learn how to find good products, how to win the buy box, and you get access to their 2,000 trusted sellers, which are basically just a list of Alibaba suppliers they have maybe vetted minimally. They also told you that you get access to a BSR calculator on your backend dashboard with them, yeah the same tool that Jungle Scout provides for free on their website.

I wanted to also talk a bit about paying for information and/or training in general. I find that most people fall into one of two camps. They love paying for info and find it valuable, or they think anything that's not a tangible product is a ripoff. The truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Information is incredibly valuable and learning someone's methods who is doing what they are teaching can also be incredibly valuable. That said so many courses are vague and don't really teach you anything. So many courses are nothing more than an upsell to another course, and so many courses are taught by people who know how to make money selling courses, but not necessarily doing the activity they are teaching you about lol.

Another thing about courses is majority of people who buy a course don't even complete it. Don't waste your money on a course unless your committed to actually going through it. I can attest to this myself, I don't buy a ton of courses but the majority I do I don't even follow through and complete.

Lastly, I would encourage anyone thinking about buying a training course for hundreds or even thousands of Dollars, I would encourage you to give learning on your own for free a try. There's tons of free resources on Youtube and blog teaching you everything inside of a course all for free. Granted the info may not be completely organized for you but it's all out there.

If you still feel you need a bit of further assistance there's sites like Udemy that have Amazon courses and other courses for $10 or $20 as opposed to paying thousands. There's also sites out there like Teachable or SKillshare where for a flat fee of $10 or $20 per month you have access to unlimited courses on photography, ecommerce, and Amazon selling and you have access to all their courses for a flat fee.

I guess what it boils down to is like anything in life, there's good products and bad products. If your going to buy a course I personally would say there's very few courses out there worth multiple hundreds of Dollars let alone thousands of Dollars.

Have you bought a course or product about selling on Amazon? Which course was it? Did it help you? Would you recommend it to others?


These guys attended the paid event and were given their money back and asked to leave because they seemed too knowledgeable

This video is a testimonial from one of the Sellers Playbook employees that was at the meeting I attended. While it's possible he actually went through their course and had success and they hired him, it seems to me like they are having their own employees leave testimonials as if they were customers to add legitimacy to their program...

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yeah, I have done some Amazon Affiliate sales in the past. For holidays and stuff. You can make a lot even though the Comissions are small.

And , YES , there a lot of scams out there. Not just AMZN but many digital information programs on how to make money can be a scam these days.
I've run into a number of them the past 10 years since I have been doing it !

Lots of scams out of there. You are right. In 2018 about 75% of the info is on the internet for free. The other 15% can be bought in courses or ebooks for $10-50. The rest of it is shit you gotta learn through trial and error.

I agree trial and error while frustrating is the best way to learn.

Hey Johnny, you should make a video calling this bullshit BitConnector out.

He's claiming all these affiliate marketing things you just debunked will allow people to passively make $10,000 a month while on vacation.

This guys a fucking clown:

haha a while back I made a video talking about how one of these Bitconnect promoters sent me a cease and desist letter. I'll leave it at that, you can probably figure out the rest ;)

Yep yep, I read all about it... and this guy is pathetic. He has a course on how to get a 100,000 Instagram followers, and barely has a 1,000 himself. How fucking stupid is that?

While I suppose it's possible he's built up large followings within certain niches and not on his personal brand page, this guy is kind of a known bullshitter. I remember when he and Tanner J Fox did the $100,000 Bitconnect investment but conveniently the camera went away before they actually submitted it, and fast forward to today Tanner claims he's never invested in Bitconnect. Anyone who makes these lambo videos imho is on some bs trying to pitch courses. I think most people who sell courses make more money off the courses than they do actually doing the activity they are teaching people about.

Again, not saying anyone who sells a course is a scammer, if you have a knowledge base that people wana know about it would be kinda dumb not to make money off it and I am a huge fan of multiple streams of income but just be very careful who you trust and who you buy courses from as there's more garbage out there than helpful stuff

I totally agree with you bud, plus everything could be found for free on the internet, so I never understood people paying for this shit, especially courses in the thousands like the scam that is Amazing Amazon Seller course... what a fucking scam!

Yeah if I can pay $50 bucks to have someone else organize the material for me and save me from watching 10 Youtube videos, and I also get a peak at their method cool but thousands of Dollars, I just can't wrap my head around it.

I have a buddy who just bought some 10 hour lecture off ebay for $1500, he thoguht it was a steal because it normally sells for 5k. Blows my mind

Wow, doesn't he know that they mark them down like that on purpose as a marketing scheme? Oh, and I hear ya, organizing stuff on say a Udemy course is fine, for maybe 10 bucks, but anything more is too much!

Researching how to do something is procrastinating. Learn by doing and lean as you go. Thats the only way anyone ever becomes successful. If you listen to my advice then you don't get my point. All the information you could ever need is free unless you need a piece of paper verifying that you learned it.

Yes and no. To say nobody should ever research anything seems kinda silly. WHen your beginning something new you'll probably need some guidance. That said I agree over learning is just procrastination. If you want to start a Shopify store you dont need ot learn everything about every element of shopify. Start by setting up your shop, if you get hungup learn just enough to finish that step and move on. I

I think its important to find guidance or help when needed but learn just enough to do what your doing and go back to completing that task. Continue pressing forward untli you get hungup learn just enough to do that and continue to move on.

I agree many people research and learn and never do anything

Yes very true. The whole thing gives me a Ty Lopez vibe.

i agree with the trial and error part. Usually most of the courses use pressure selling and scarcity this is something I noticed in a lot of their promo emails or facebook ads. Its very common. I think Youtube and Udemy are great ways to learn starting with YouTube than moving on to a paid options but something not too expensive but do this after you get some experience.

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