✅ My Sales Formula That Never Failed…  

What you’ll find in this week’s newsletter:

• ✅ My Sales Formula That Never Failed… [True Story]

• 🚨 Amazon Accelerate’s Full Recap

• ⚠️ TikTok Deal Details

• 🔥 Amazon’s AI Doesn’t Care About Keywords Anymore…

• 🤖 How to Remove ChatGPTs Hidden Watermarks

🚨 Reply to this email with “#wheelofkelsey” to win a seat at Kevin King’s Billion Dollar Seller Club (BDSC) for 3 months, announced on Wednesday! (Congrats to Steve, Simon, and Zeb for last week’s win!)

P.S. You can also grab Steve Chou’s free “Create A Profitable Online Store In 6 Easy Steps” mini course mentioned in last week’s podcast episode.

✅ My Sales Formula That Never Failed… [TRUE STORY] 

Back in the 1980s, when the business world had in person meetings, I teamed up with a partner who was almost my business twin.

We could practically read each other’s minds.

We were selling a variety of items such as keychains, pens, mugs, t-shirts… with thousands of competitors out there.

But we had a special edge…

We promised orders that were on-time, every time exactly as they ordered it.

We always went the extra mile behind the scenes.

When we stepped into Fortune 500 boardrooms, we had this tag-team approach that really made us stand out.

If the conversation leaned business, I took the lead.

If it leaned sales or relationship-building, my partner did.

We were always humble, always honest about what we could do.

And that dynamic not only got us the sale, it got us the next level of trust.

We ended up handling not only the one off orders but big catalog programs and became well-known in the industry.

The takeaway?

One plus one can equal three when you blend strengths.

A great partnership can turn an ordinary pitch into something extraordinary.

Enjoy the rest of the newsletter.

— Norm

 🔥 Amazon Accelerate 2025: 3-Day Recap

Day 1: Smarter Ads, Deeper Data, and Automation

Amazon’s opening day focused on better measurement, seller insights, and automation.

• Advertising Upgrades:

  • Conversion Path Reporting: Visualizes every ad touchpoint that leads to a conversion, so sellers can see which combinations actually drive sales.

  • Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA): Moves beyond last-click models. Sellers who optimized with MTA reported 62–64% higher sales compared to RoAS-only optimization.

  • Long-Term Sales Tracking: Measures the 12-month value of brand engagements like detail page views and branded searches helping justify upper-funnel spend.

• Seller Central Insights: ASIN-level journey analysis and keyword impression trends give sellers sharper visibility into what drives sales.

• Fulfillment Strategy: Hybrid FBA + FBM is now a best practice, using FBM to cover FBA gaps, hedge seasonal stock, and test regional delivery promises.

Day 2: Agentic AI and Unified Analytics

The second day introduced “Agentic AI” tools, intelligent assistants that act like team members.

• AI Tools:

  • Seller Assistant: Acts like a team member. It can detect policy violations, rewrite listings, and even submit appeals automatically.

  • AI Creative Studio: Works like a virtual creative director—researching, storyboarding, and producing ad-ready video and image assets for free.

  • Enhance My Listings: Continuously updates product detail pages by analyzing real-time shopping trends.

• Operational Changes: FBA commingling is ending (saving sellers $600M annually), returns have been streamlined, and inbound reimbursements are faster.

Day 3: AI Across the Seller Journey

The final day emphasized AI integration and global logistics as Amazon’s long-term play.

• AI Product Launch Engine:

  • Upgraded Opportunity Explorer: AI-driven product recommendations, demand forecasts, and competitive gaps.

  • Forecasting for new products: Predicts sales performance before investing in inventory.

  • Product Performance Spotlight: Acts as an AI coach, breaking down ad vs. organic sales and flagging opportunities in real time.

• Supply Chain Expansion: New programs like Global Warehousing & Distribution (GWD), Multi-Channel Distribution, and EasyShip aim to cut costs and speed up delivery worldwide.

• Funding & B2B Growth: New lending partners (QuickBooks Capital, Unpacked) offer credit up to $5M. B2B-exclusive ads and bulk order fee discounts create higher-margin opportunities.

🌎 Where in the World is The Beard Guy?

🚀 The TikTok Deal is Almooooost Done!

The U.S. government says a deal is close that will give America control over TikTok’s U.S. operations and its powerful algorithm. The agreement could be signed in the next few days.

TikTok’s “For You” feed will be copied and retrained only on U.S. user data. Oracle will run the system, check the code, and make sure it meets U.S. security rules. This means the content Americans see will come from a version of the algorithm built just for them.

Oracle will also handle U.S. TikTok data to prevent access from China.

Americans will hold six of the seven board seats, giving the U.S. clear control over decisions.

Who’s Involved?

The deal will be led by Oracle, Andreessen Horowitz, and Silver Lake. Around 20% of TikTok’s U.S. stake will likely stay with Chinese investors. The White House says it wants “patriotic investors” and experts in cybersecurity on the board.

President Trump is expected to sign an order this week, giving 120 extra days to finish the deal.

While the White House believes China has agreed, some details are still unclear. Experts warn a U.S.-only algorithm could change the TikTok experience and make it less valuable for users and creators.

Read more about the deal

🛒 Amazon Excess Inventory: Why It Hurts and How to Fix It

Every seller runs into excess inventory at some point whether from overestimating demand, supplier delays, or simply doubling down on products that don’t sell.

What Is Amazon Excess Inventory?

Excess inventory is stock that isn’t moving fast enough to justify keeping it in storage. Amazon flags inventory as excess if:

• Units are over 90 days old.

• You have more than 90 days of supply.

• Holding costs are higher than the cost of taking action (like discounting or removing it).

Amazon calculates this using your sales history, unit costs, and demand forecasts. You can track flagged items in the Manage Excess Inventory tool inside Seller Central.

Why is too much inventory bad?

• Storage fees grow the longer products sit. Fees spike during Q4.

• Long-term storage fees kick in after 6–12 months.

• Excess stock lowers your Inventory Performance Index (IPI) score, which can lead to tighter storage limits.

How to Get Rid of Excess Inventory

1. Use Amazon’s FBA Liquidations

Recover 5–10% of your item’s average selling price by liquidating through Amazon. Not profitable, but better than paying ongoing storage fees.

2. Create Amazon Outlet Deals

Sell excess units at a discount in Amazon Outlet. It improves cash flow, boosts sell-through, and frees space.

3. Run Lightning Deals

Flash sales that last up to six hours on Amazon’s “Today’s Deals” page. Highly visible and optimized for conversions.

4. Removal or Disposal Orders

Request Amazon to return stock to you (removal) or discard it (disposal). Useful if you want to resell elsewhere (eBay, Shopify) or cut your losses.

5. Sell to Liquidators

Third-party liquidators (e.g., B-Stock, Excess2Sell) buy bulk stock at steep discounts. Fast but least profitable.

6. Use Inventory-Minded Marketing

Coordinate marketing with inventory management. Push slow movers through flash sales, PPC campaigns, or listing refreshes to turn them back into cash.

🔥 Steve Chou’s New AI System for Ecom Sellers 

My takeaways from this episode! (Episode out soon on YouTube)

1. AI-Powered Cross-Sells & Upsells

• Shopify’s default “frequently bought together” is limited. It only works if you already have large sales data.

• Have AI analyze product images and attributes to auto-generate related recommendations. Example: if a customer buys a red rose handkerchief, the AI suggests other red rose products.

• Implementation:

  • Tier 1: actual “frequently bought together” data.

  • Tier 2: AI-inferred product similarities.

• Placement is critical:

  • The add-to-cart popup drove the highest conversion uplift.

• Impact:

  • Average order value up 20%.

  • Overall revenue up 14–15%.

    

2. Identifying Best Customers with AI

• In his business, 10% of customers generate nearly 50% of sales.

• Instead of manually combing orders, AI now flags high-value segments:

  • Wedding planners, event coordinators, and repeat bulk buyers.

• AI assigns a probability score (0–1) for whether a customer is a planner.

• For scores above 0.6, his team proactively calls, offers VIP service, and assigns a rep.

4. The RAG Framework (to Prevent Hallucinations)

• AI “hallucinations” are dangerous in customer-facing roles.

• Solution: a RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) database, which restricts AI answers to your verified content.

• Example:

  • Steve created “SteveBot” trained only on his podcasts, courses, and blogs.

  • When asked a question, it retrieves the answer with source links back to his lessons or videos.

5. Steve’s best prompt frameworks:

• “Ask me questions until you’re 95% sure you understand my request.” (forces AI to clarify before answering).

• “Take a contrarian view, give pros/cons, and rate on a 1–10 scale.” (avoids AI always agreeing).

• “Write the prompt I should be giving you.” (AI designs its own optimized instruction).

🔥 Amazon’s AI Doesn’t Care About Keywords…

Here are my favorite tips from this episode!

1. Don’t Have One Target Audience

• Sellers often assume a single avatar. In reality, every awareness stage is a different persona.

• A buyer at the “unaware” stage behaves completely differently than someone “most aware.”

2. The Five Levels of Awareness Still Rule

• Unaware → Don’t know they have a problem. Best content: curiosity hooks, education.

• Problem Aware → Know the pain, but not the solution. Best content: highlight problem back at them.

• Solution Aware → Know solutions exist. Best content: comparisons, categories, FAQs.

• Product Aware → Know your product and competitors. Best content: trust-building, differentiation.

• Most Aware → Already know your brand. Best content: urgency, launches, discounts.

3. Content Gaps Are the Biggest Weakness

• Most sellers only create feature/benefit content. That’s too narrow. It only appeals to solution/product aware buyers.

• Huge missed opportunity in content for unaware and problem aware audiences, where discovery and growth happen.

4. Structured Content Trains LLMs

• Publish Q&A, structured snippets, comparisons, and testimonials so LLMs can “learn” your brand and suggest it when buyers ask natural-language questions.

5. Strategic Shift: Training Algorithms, Not Just Buyers

• LLMs (ChatGPT, Rufus, etc.) convert 9x higher than ads when they recommend products.

• To be that recommendation, you must flood the web with consistent signals across PR, blogs, Reddit, TikTok, and social.

Find this episode of Marketing Misfits on YouTube and anywhere you listen to podcasts

And that’s it, Beardos.

See you next Monday!

- Norm

Interested in sponsoring the Lunch With Norm Newsletter? Reply back to this email for more details.