409 : Elizabeth Thompson – Accept that good enough is going you to push forward. You might end up being surprised by how much better they are than you.

eCommerce Momentum Podcast

Real talk from a real seller. How true is this for you: “I can do it better myself!” or “No one can do it as well as I can!” Well I know I can relate and have said those things only to be humbled when someone picks it up faster and improves on what I was doing. Humble indeed. But Elizabeth had a plan and worked her plan. With strong support from her husband and kids she has built a real future that will move on her terms. Great story and she says you can do it too!

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Here is transcript- It is automated so it is not perfect but it does seem to get better over time.

Elizabeth: [00:00] A, I’m thinking about leaving my nine to five. My first thing is you need to have six months of emergency fund. You cannot just leave as like, you don’t know what’s going to happen. And that’s my biggest encouragement is make sure you can pay your bills for the next six months if something happens.

Cool voice guy: [00:16] Welcome to the e-commerce momentum podcast where we focus on the people, the products, and the process of eCommerce selling. Today. Here’s your host, Steven Peterson.

Stephen: [00:30] Hey, it’s me. It’s Q4 got to bring up my Amazon seller tribe. Um, this is probably, you know, one of the last chances you’re going to get to join this year. So I’ll run this for a couple of weeks. But, um, the good news is you can still get in, right? They are allowing people in, but at some point they’re going to cut it off. So I suggest you join today. Try it with 14 days for free. Okay? So you don’t like it, you don’t get value drop. Um, however, don’t only measure on the value of what you’re buying, measure on the value of the impact it has on your business. And what I love about this group, the Amazon seller tribe is the amazing way they invest into your business. They will help you with all the questions. Go out and check out amazing freedom.com forward slash momentum dash arbitrage.

Stephen: [01:14] Look at the testimonials. Those are real people. Reach out to them, right? You can kind of figure out who they are and go out and figure out and ask them, is it real? Are they really helpful? Will they help my business? And you will be blown away again. You get 14 days free if you joined through mind link only and they do pay me. So I don’t want you to, I don’t mislead anybody. Um, but I believe in them. I’m in the groups, you’ll see me and you’ll get to talk with me to so amazing. freedom.com forward slash momentum hyphen arbitrage. I know it’s a lot momentum, hyphen arbitrage and you’re going to get 14 day free trial on the daily fine list. Make a purchase, get your money back and then say, huh, I can do this again. Wash, rinse, repeat, wash, rinse, repeat.

Stephen: [01:58] Amazing. freedom.com. Forward slash momentum arbitrage. They are going to close it. [inaudible] here. It’s going to happen. Get ready. Welcome back to the e-commerce women a podcast. This is episode four Oh nine, Elizabeth Thompson. Now I’ve had Elizabeth on way back more than than two and a half years ago, episode one 79 and she gets back in her story of how she came to that conclusion to jump ship and do her own thing and the encouragement of her husband. So now we are almost three years later, their business has exploded. Um, and it’s had challenges and they dealt with the challenges and she talks about some of those challenges and what triggered that and those things. Um, really help, I think, uh, give you a perspective that, you know, just doing your own things. Not easy, right? Nobody said it was going to be easy. But on the other side of it, it’s incredible.

Stephen: [02:51] And she talks about quite a bit of that. Um, the good enough is a big, a big thing. You know, you do do things perfect. We don’t do things perfect here. So why am I expecting others to do perfect? I shouldn’t, I should be doing good enough. And she makes some great case for that and what it’s done for her personally. I just think it’s so healthy. It’s such a cool story. Let’s get into the podcast and we’ll come back to the e-commerce women in podcast. Very excited to have back a guest two and a half plus years ago. I had the pleasure of speaking with Elizabeth Thompson. Welcome Elizabeth.

Elizabeth: [03:28] Hi, how are you? I’m good. How are you?

Stephen: [03:31] I’m not doing as well as you, but man, I’m doing okay. That’s funny. It is funny. Um, you know, I want to start off with this because uh, you know, kind of the pre stuff that we go back and forth a little bit. I had yet on two and a half years ago and you are really, you are killing it. You are crushing it and from the outside. And when, when I talked about coming back on, you said, Hey, I feel more confident now, and I would sit back and wonder, you know, like, like I said in our pre call, it seems like you’ve given yourself permission to accept the fact that you know what you’re doing. Is that a weird, the way I said it?

Elizabeth: [04:08] No, but the way you say it makes a lot of sense. Yes, I agree with that.

Stephen: [04:13] Well, why, what, what was it that turned the switch to give you permission? I mean, it, it, it can’t be a dollar amount. It can’t be, it’s gotta be something like some switch. What was it? I’d love others to get that switch turned on.

Elizabeth: [04:27] Um, well I think I believe in silence is about 2006, so Amazon, uh, full time since 2011 and, um, I think that I finally just gotten to where I feel very comfortable in where we are. It’s still was to where it didn’t, I didn’t feel as successful, I guess then I, that as I do today. Um, I think it has more to do with the fact that we’ve gotten to where our account is just is very comfortable in terms of I’m not having to do as much work as I used to because I’ve been, I’ve been better at delegating, um, my old tasks to other people.

Stephen: [05:08] Let’s stop there a second. What does that mean? Right. So, so you’re not doing as much work. Are you doing different work? Cause I can’t imagine you’re committed. I mean there’s no, I know you, you’re like the rest of us.

Elizabeth: [05:22] Yeah. Different. I would say I’ll say different work. Um, and um, I’ve different work but I would say be more different work and I’m still working crazy amount of hours. Um, but I think it’s different. Also. I think you’re going to talk to me more about fact. My husband has not come onto our business full time. And so it’s different because before we had his income to fall back on, now we’ve had over a year that is the two of us full time in the business and we’re now realizing that Hey, we can be successful at this with not having other outside income coming in. As I said, if that makes sense.

Stephen: [06:00] It does. But I want to go deeper on this, this work. Is the work more suited for you? I mean, do you feel like the work that you chose or you’re ended up with, maybe that’s a better way to say it, the work that your ended up with that you couldn’t delegate or you chose not to delegate, is it more suited for you and that’s what makes it not seem like work?

Elizabeth: [06:21] I think overall I feel like overall it has never really seem like work. Um, and I think that it’s just that, like I, I at first I delegated out like the prepping and the listing and the, I know every, all the warehouse tasks. Then I started delegating out the shopping piece of it. And now I’ve gotten to the, where I’m can delegate out some of the admin work, um, is I think every time I start doing something else more, I’m trying to learn something for myself and then I can delegate it out until I feel very confident in doing it myself. I don’t feel comfortable delegating it out.

Stephen: [06:54] Okay. So that’s it. That’s it. You’ve got the confidence in each task, therefore you’re ready to hand it out. You’ve got it to optimal for you and then therefore you can show somebody else. Hmm. Interesting. Yeah. Does, does each build on each other. So you know, now you, you’ve gotten rid of a task and now you’ve moved on to a new task. It’s not like you’ve given up stuff, right? You’ve got other stuff. And so is that now make that next one make more sense. I mean, so I always think about this way. It’s like when I go and do something and I’m always like, Oh, that’s why they did it. It’s like all of a sudden there’s like a clarity. I never understood why we did it that way. Now, boom. Oh, this makes it easier when I do this.

Elizabeth: [07:32] Correct. Yeah, I would say, yeah, mean I think whenever, when I like, I guess you go back and going back to the training piece of it. I mean I think I always thought about no money to ever do this the way I do it. And so, um, and so it was very difficult to hand things off. Um, and instead of, so like when I, once I’d started handing off smaller tasks, like the prep or the list, it, I realized I was like, wait, other people can’t do it. It might not be the exact way that I would do it, but it still, right. I mean, and so you look back in my account and I think about, okay, well you can look at it in terms of your account metrics have met, account metrics changed since I left. Other people start doing these tasks. No they haven’t. And so that’s my biggest concern is, you know, uh, you know, a possible suspension or you know, the IP claims or unauthentic claims has that, you know, have those changed? No. So I guess they are doing a good enough job to where I can delegate these tasks.

Stephen: [08:31] So good enough. I was thinking exact same thing. So good enough is good enough. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Right? It was that the enemy of great is good, right? Or the enemy of good is great or something like that. Whatever that is. Yeah. Um, does it help? And I’m, you’re going to be like, duh, of course. Do, does it help that you’ve surrounded yourself and your relationships have gotten stronger with other similar types of sellers? Therefore you get the best of, you know, any challenge that you’re in?

Elizabeth: [08:59] Absolutely. I, I could not be where I am without the different Amazon sellers that I, that I know. Um, it, it’s crazy that you can have this camaraderie with people all over the United States who do the exact same thing that you do, but they’re not like in the cubicle next door to you. Like I was when I had a career, um, in like a nine to five job in these are my, these are the people who I would consider to be mine. You know, my cube, my cube mates that are all over the country.

Stephen: [09:29] But you never had that level of relationship with your [inaudible] to be honest.

Elizabeth: [09:33] Not at all, never, never. And that you got, that’s a really good point. And I really thought of it that way. But um, yeah, I’ve got a couple of different mastermind groups that I’m in and just, um, definite, very deep relationships in terms of just being able to help me. Like if I, if I have questions, you know, usually we just grab, get G get on PM or I can call them on the phone and just hash out whatever the issue is at the time. Or if I need a contact or if I need help figuring something out, I have so many people I can go to that I know was like, you know, drop what they’re doing to help me out.

Stephen: [10:08] You know, thinking about let, let’s go a little bit back on that cubicle thing. It’s, it’s fake relationships. There’s no depth to it. Oh, what’d you do this weekend, Elizabeth? Oh, you took the kids there. Oh, well, let me tell you about my day. Let me tell you [inaudible] that’s the way it is. Yeah, that’s real. You wouldn’t go on vacation with those people with you. You wouldn’t go hang out in Orlando at a conference and spend four or five days of your life and put together a bunch of effort to do a conference with them, would you?

Elizabeth: [10:34]