Yonah (00:08)
Hey, my name is Yonah Nimmer and welcome to The Amazon Playbook, where we dive deep into the strategies and stories behind the most successful brands on Amazon. In our upcoming episodes, we'll be sharing conversations with key partners who have been instrumental in the growth of brands like RayBans Gucci, and many more household names. This episode today is brought to you by Amazon Growth Lab. At AGL, we help brands on Amazon achieve explosive growth.

with a focus on organic visibility. Now, John, I know you've probably spoken to a lot of agencies, and I imagine most of them are just talking about PPC, and they're not taking really a holistic approach. And that's really how AGL differentiates. You know, an example of what this can lead to is, this past January, we had a client that signed up, and since then, their revenue has 10x'd. It went from nearly 100k to a million dollars. Does that mean that we're gonna have that same success with every single brand that signs up?

No, obviously not. But it's an illustration of the experts that work here and the tools and capabilities that we have. If you're ready to take your Amazon presence to the next level, let's make it happen. Visit amazongrowthlab .com to learn more. Now, before introducing today's guest, I just want to give a quick shout out to Zuhal and Ha-kyung from Mavi. John, have you heard of Mavi Jeans?

John Anderson (01:33)
I have, I actually own quite a few pairs. Great, great, I love them. Yes. No, no, I love them.

Yonah (01:36)
Really? You're kidding. That's so funny. I'm actually wearing my Mavi jeans as we speak.

John Anderson (01:44)
Yeah, they're super comfortable and great quality.

Yonah (01:48)
Yeah, we're on the same page. feel like most jeans, I feel like really constricted and it's like the only pair that I have where I'm like, I can just like, you know, it doesn't matter if I like wanna go to the gym after or just like sprawl out on the couch. just, my legs go in all directions.

John Anderson (02:04)
Yeah, absolutely. I love Moby. They're a great brand. I love those jeans.

Yonah (02:07)
Yeah, that's amazing. I did not expect that. Cool. Well, now to the exciting part for the audience, which everyone has been waiting for. Let's introduce today's guest. John Anderson is the president of Biogents Inc, a world leader in creating cutting edge mosquito traps. He's a seasoned executive with over two decades of experience in growing businesses. Throughout John's career, he has managed sales and marketing across B2B.

John Anderson (02:11)
Yeah, me neither.

Yonah (02:37)
direct to consumer and retail distributions, working with major retailers like Amazon, Walmart, Home Depot, Lowe's, Target, the goes on and on. I'm sure I can barely scratch the surface when introducing yourself. So maybe you can start off just by telling us a little bit about Biogents and really, yeah, I think most people probably have never heard of Biogents. So what is it?

John Anderson (03:01)
Yeah, thank you, Yona. I really appreciate that. And I want to say quickly, thank you just for having me on the show. It's always a pleasure anytime we get together and talk. The more I meet with you, just it's just excellent how much I learned more just about the Amazon space and e -commerce and everything to do with that world. So a little bit about Biogents. We're a scientific company and we essentially believe that there's a better way

to get rid of those pest -y mosquitoes, those nuances, than just through pesticide or just spray, which is what's common out there. And so we developed a non -toxic pesticide -free solution for mosquito control. And it's our mission really to just make the environment a little bit more friendly, cut down on those pesticides, and yet really help, it's a strong word, but really help eradicate mosquito -borne diseases.

by essentially getting rid of mosquitoes. So that's kind what we do here at Biogents

Yonah (04:05)
I happen to be the person anytime I go on a camping trip where I'll be at around a campfire with like five other people. And for some reason mosquitoes only come to me. All of my friends are like, there are mosquitoes out. I don't feel anything. And then like two hours later, I have 20 mosquito bites all over me. So definitely something I need personally. And yeah, maybe you can tell me a little bit more about how it works. Because I know a little bit about Biogents, but I imagine...

John Anderson (04:15)
you

Yonah (04:34)
Most people that are listening are imagining, hey, it's probably a non -toxic spray that you put on your skin. So maybe we can give a little bit more details into, I know you said you're a, you know, it's science driven. What does that process look like and how does it actually work?

John Anderson (04:48)
Yep.

Yeah, yeah. So you actually brought up an interesting point where you're out with your friends, family, whatever, and you tend to get bit the most, right? A lot of people have that experience. I myself and my wife, get eaten alive, it seems, mosquitoes. Two of our kids, just, they don't seem to be affected at all. And then another one of our kids is, they're like us, mosquito bites everywhere. There's a reason for that. And Biogents actually wondered that.

And so our founders, there were a couple of scientists, Dr. Martin Geier and Dr. Andreas Kroos, they're from Germany, they're biologists by trade, and they really specialize in mosquitoes. And they asked that question, why are mosquitoes biting certain human beings, so to speak. And what they found that there was certain pheromones, certain lactic acid, and again, I won't get into the details, I won't bore anyone with the scientific side.

But they spent literally almost 20 years of research researching this and they found that there is a specific scent that some humans have and others don't. And it's a mixture of galactic acid and some pheromones and so forth that draw in particular mosquitoes. So what they did, they studied that, they analyzed that, and then they created what we call it the BG Sweet Scent. But it's a patented attractant.

and it's a specific formula that acts like a human. It smells just like a human to the mosquito. And so we put that in our traps. Now it's important to note that RBG Sweet Scent can go into any mosquito trap, but our traps are specifically designed to mimic a human being. And a human being, how you're scented this is given off of you. There's a certain pattern, pattern to it. So our traps are designed to specifically mimic a human being.

With that specific smell, the BG -suicid, so it's going to attract the most mosquitoes in there. Again, back down science, we have over 400 peer -reviewed publications on this. We're only company that has that. We just have such a high efficacy rate. Because again, that's what the founders do. They are biologists, they're scientists, experts on mosquitoes, and they really study what attracts the mosquito the most when it comes to biting certain individuals or certain humans.

Yonah (07:11)
It's cool to hear because I feel like, you know, most business owners that I speak to in today's day and age, they're like, I'm like, hey, what made you start this business? And they're like, we took a data driven approach. We studied the market. We, you know, looked at basically analytics and figured out, hey, this is a market with high demand, low competition. But it sounds like, you know, with Biogents, it really came from passion. It came from a place of, you know, I actually want to solve a problem in the world and make the world a better place.

John Anderson (07:41)
Absolutely, couldn't agree more. And it's very interesting because Biogents kind of did the reverse or the backwards way of what a typical business would go about. Biogents was founded on the science. They had a purpose to really just learn more about mosquitoes. Specifically, they wanted to help countries that were really high with mosquito -borne diseases, dengue and a few others. But with that approach,

They focus more so on the data and the efficacy as opposed to a lot of other companies, especially in the US. When people start new companies, they really focus on the marketing, right? You got to market it perfectly. You got to say the right thing. You got to really drive that emotional self. Biogents didn't do that. If anything, I would say our strong suit is backed by the data and the science. Our weakness, and what we're still getting better at and figuring out is how do we market this?

because we're very well known in the scientific community with researchers. Matter of fact, this year we were the official protector of the Tour de France. We had our traps around the Olympic Village. But when you come to the US specifically or other regional markets and you say Biogents, a lot of people have not heard of us again because we've lacked maybe on the marketing side, but where we've really hit it home and where we really built the foundation of the company was on the data, on the scientific side.

Yonah (09:02)
It's like you can be a Nobel Peace Prize winner. You can have an award from the biggest institutions in the world, but if you have the Amazon Choice badge, your world is gonna change drastically more.

John Anderson (09:14)
That's right. That's right. And so that's why it's so important for us as a company to, we have the foundation of the scientific side. Now we really need to focus on how do we do this marketing thing? How do we brand it? How do we get the name out there? How do we educate the consumer? Why we're different and why you should test out our mosquito traps as opposed to just spraying pesticides or anything else out there.

Yonah (09:42)
So I know that you personally have experience of helping other brands scale from almost no presence to doing, I don't know the exact figure, but I would imagine just based off of looking back in analytics, tens of millions of dollars would be my guess. So I'm curious. I know that Biogents essentially brought you on because you basically have two scientists that they're like,

hey, we're really good with science, but when it comes to business, we don't know anything. And they basically are like, we need to find an expert who can help scale this business to the next level, AKA Incomes John Anderson. So the moment that you kind of come into the business, I'm sure that especially if it's not run by, and I do an air quotes, businessmen,

things aren't going to be structured in a way that is probably marketable. It's going to be more scientific approach. So how long have you been there and do feel like you've had to rip everything out from inside out? And I know at least I like to focus on the 80 -20 rules. So I'm curious, like, what were your first steps of like, this is what's going to make the biggest impact to, you know, affecting the bottom line.

John Anderson (11:00)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Great question. I'll try to break it down and hopefully I can cover everything here. A little bit on my background. So I've been doing CPG consumer product goods in that atmosphere for almost 20 years now. And my previous role, I'm with Biogents Fairly New. I started with them May 1st of this year.

My previous role, was VP of sales retail division, consumer division for a company called AP &G Atlantic Pasting Glue Company. Their brand is Cashmaster. I led their strategy as far as how do we reach the consumer when it comes to retail. And when I first started with them, and even five or six years ago, a big strategy for brands is mostly being in stores.

You gotta be in stores, who do you partnership? You want people to go to the major retailers, think of Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Lowe's, it depends what product you're selling, but especially in pest control. You wanna be in those key retailers. And to this day, I believe that's key. If you're gonna build a brand, that's where people are shopping, you wanna be in there. But how you go about it a little quicker is understanding the consumer and where they can find you the quickest.

And so it's important that consumers will see you in stores as they're shopping. But what's more important right now, especially with building brands or getting your reputation out there, is where customers find you, whether they're on their mobile phone or on a computer. Because right now, consumers, they have an issue, when they have a problem that they want to solve, they're first going to their phone and they're looking it up. And a few years back, used to be Google was everything. And not to not Google, Google's great. I use them all the time. They're still very important.

However, what we found is the last few years, a lot of our consumers, their first spot is going to Amazon. And they're really looking at Amazon, they're seeing reviews, they're seeing if the brand is on Amazon. They're first learning about a brand and what that brand means on Amazon. And so in my experience, unless you're a billion dollar company like Nike, Nike, they've been established for so long, right? Everyone knows them.

they'll search just Nike or so forth. But if you're a newer brand or you're, would say a mid tier brand like Biogents like catch master, you really need to understand branding. Branding starts with how you first appear when customers search you, what they first see. And sometimes that's your website. Often though, more often than not, it's not your website. That's not their first initial contact with you. Their first initial contact is Amazon and seeing you on there. So

When I came on board, Biogents had a very small presence, I guess, on Amazon, but not much. It wasn't a main focus of theirs. And I basically mimicked what we did with Cashmaster. When I came on board with Cashmaster almost five years ago, we had a smaller presence on Amazon. We were selling to Amazon.

selling to them. Yes, vendor. Sorry, I think of the words here. There's so much down there.

Yonah (14:13)
central.

There's like way too much jargon and crazy parents when it comes to the Amazon ecosystem. If you're not confusing things.

John Anderson (14:23)
Yeah, and honestly, that's where you and your team come in to come in to play with all the expertise, which has helped me out. But I do know on the vendor central, that's where you're selling to Amazon. Amazon, at the end of the day, kind of has control of your brand, how they're going to sell it, how they're going to price it and all that. And so we talk about control and we went seller, we went seller central on Amazon. The reason being is it wasn't that we first thought we were going to get bigger sales. It was almost

Initially the opposite effect. We went slightly smaller sales to be honest with you. However, what we got to be able to build our foundation on was our branding. How we looked on Amazon. When someone searched us up, what was their first impression of our brand, of the images, of our wording? We could have a little bit where we can engage with reviews and so forth. it was really taking that aspect of

Yonah (15:15)
For anyone who doesn't know what vendor central is, what do you mean when you say that you can take control of your branding? Did you not have the ability to change your images, your SEO when you were vendor central?

John Anderson (15:27)
From my understanding, yeah, you do vendor central. The biggest thing is for us and what's most important if you're an established brand or you're building brand. So, I'll give you an example. When I was at Cashmaster, we were an established brand. The company has been around since the 1950s. They are a top company on the pro side and consumer side when it comes to glue boards. That's what they're known for at Cashmaster.

specifically rodent glue boards, even fly sticks and so forth. When we were selling Binder Central and we would sell to Amazon, they were buying truckloads pallets. However, when they would price it or put it on Amazon, they would price it for whatever they wanted to. So sometimes that pricing on Amazon would undercut our pricing strategy, whether it was to a pro or to Walmart, or we were selling at Lowe's or to True Value or any of those other stores.

And so you really couldn't control your brand presence because your brand presence is not only how you look and what you're perceived at by the consumer, but also at what price point you're trying to be in.

Yonah (16:35)
Would you not give them like a minimum MSRP or like map pricing?

John Anderson (16:39)
Well sure, can give them whatever you want. Doesn't mean they follow it and they don't. So most companies you can do, and industry is commonly called MSRP, Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price. And of course you can kind of suggest to the retailers, because at the end of the day, Amazon's a big retailer just online, so you're just, hey, we'd like you to sell it for this. But once you give them the product, once they buy from you, they can essentially sell it for what they want, even if it means they're gonna take a loss.

At the end of day, they don't care because they have multiple business units where they can make money up on the back end. there's, mean, we could talk hours on that whole strategy of Amazon of why they would even lose a little bit here just to get more traffic to their website because maybe they're, they just want to get you to get to do a quick sale so they can pick up more business on another item that they're making margin on, or they're trying to create or open up warehouse space. There's all sorts of reasons of why they would do that. But at of the day,

The bottom line is you as a brand, as a company, whether you're small or big, you don't have control of that pricing. They're going to sell it for whatever they want. Pricing is a big deal when you're trying to control your brand image, especially as you're trying to grow and you're really trying to mitigate, we call it channel conflict, of where you're selling on what channels. Whether you're in retail stores, brick and mortar, whether you're online, whether it's Amazon, or your own website, Shopify, BigCommerce, whatever you're selling on there.

And so really the only way to do that is to take over or take control of your Amazon sales, sales transfer. Another thing with that is if you're branding, you have a brand, your brand registered, you want to be able to control or at least have a say of who's selling your product on Amazon. Because if you're selling elsewhere and someone else has your product, right, anyone, almost anyone can create a seller central account or

In my case, when we were at Cashmaster, we were selling to some larger distributors that were just selling vendor to Amazon themselves. And so they were really undercutting price because they had to make margin and they were selling Amazon was going to make margin and we had no control, no say over that. And so it really is gaining back control of your overall brand, your overall image, what pricing you're going to put it at. And so you can really mitigate any type of pricing conflict.

across the different selling channels and different websites whether it's Amazon eBay your website so forth

Yonah (19:04)
So, you know, when you were working at AP &G, sounds like being in physical retail stores was a big part of the strategy as well. What percentage of your guys' sales were online versus in stores? And where do you see that changing and heading over the next 10, 20 years?

John Anderson (19:25)
Yeah, really good question. So there's this misconception, well, I say misconception, maybe not so much of a misconception, but there's this big trend that, especially if you're a brand, you don't need to go into stores. And I want to caution that because it really depends what category you're selling into. And Pest Control specifically, about 70 % of consumers still bought in store as opposed to online. 70%, 71%.

And that's actual Nielsen POS data that we have. So it's actual sales data. not like we're just making up the numbers, but about 71 % of actual consumers still bought in store. And it makes sense because especially in pest control, it's an impulse item, right? You're at home, all of a sudden you see a rodent, a mouse, rat, whatever, mosquitoes are around, and you think, wow, I can't stand this, or your spouse comes in and says, get rid of that now, right? It's an impulse item. You're heading to the store, you're 15 minutes away,

you're gonna buy a trap or whatever it is, you're gonna come back and you're gonna try to be the hero and save it that day, right? Even Amazon, as good as Amazon is, and a lot of your bigger cities, you can get one hour, two hour shipping, but typically it's one day, two day, right? it's, Pest Control is still where people want it now. So it's an impulse item. Now with that being said, what we noticed is people would still go into Home Depot.

or they would go into Lowe's, but while they're in stores, specifically we got this data from Walmart, while they're in a Walmart store, they would price comp Amazon to the item right in store. So they would come to the store, they would see Cashmaster, and they would see an item in there, and they would look, okay, I see the price here, and then they would go on Amazon and see what the price was on Amazon. And if it was cheaper, they would price comp it, they would talk to you and try to get Walmart to price comp it, vice versa, or they would order on there, and so it just caused lots of issues. So the reason I say that is we still,

It's very important to go into stores and to have that presence to be going to grow. However, it's equally important to make sure that you're controlling your presence on Amazon because it can really conflict your strategy going in store. Secondly, if you're a newer brand like Biogents, Biogents were well known across the world. Very, very popular in EU, Africa, Asia, Pacific, but we're new here to the US market.

outside of government and researchers and so forth. So we're new to the consumer market. We're not right now in retail stores, Walmart, Home Depot and so on. And so now on the back end, for me to get into Walmart or into Home Depot, I need to prove to the Walmart buyers and to Home Depot and all of them that we actually have a viable product that consumers want and they're going to buy that. Right. And so when you're going into retailers, it takes a year to get in. They do line reviews.

You'll review, example, this year, you would do a line review back in February, and that's for all product going into 2025. So they're about a year out when they're reviewing products, right? So for me, if I want to get Biogents into Walmart, into Target, into Home Depot Lowe's, I need to come to those retailers with a story, with data, with proven sales, and say, listen, the consumer wants this product. And not only do they want this product, but here's the price point that they're willing to pay for that.

And there is no quicker, no better way to prove that out. Also get quick customer feedback than to go through Amazon. Amazon already has the visitors. People are already visiting them. They're already going there. So you can put a product on there. You can see what the competition is doing. You can see where you sit in the whole marketplace, so to speak. And you can do a lot of testing and figure out and get that right. So then you can take that data and be ready to go as you expand the business into retail stores.

Yonah (23:14)
Said so well. I also think it's so it's always very counterintuitive where you know if the internal thought is I want to sell in Walmart stores Amazon is basically Walmart's biggest enemy So, know what you would think is we need to launch on Walmart online we should never tell them about our Amazon sales because they're gonna be really unhappy with it and Let's just scale on Walmart I imagine the reason that you're not doing that is because

John Anderson (23:27)
All right.

Right.

Right.

Yonah (23:43)
Walmart has a fraction of the capability of sales that you can get then on Amazon. What did you see? Like one, like as you're coming into Biogents is launching on Walmart a priority or is it just focusing on Amazon right now?

John Anderson (23:50)
Right.

So that's a great question. And again, I'll talk a little bit about my history and then what's our strategy with Biogents because I'm with Biogents now. And so it's very important that I want to talk about the strategy and push that. However, it's kind of like how when you introduce the podcast, we look at past case studies because we kind of know what worked, what didn't work within the case studies and how we can get better. And so when I was at CacheMaster, our goal

was to grow and to be customer -centric. The same go here at Biogents. Customer -centric to us means we want to meet the customer wherever they're at, wherever they want to buy, wherever they feel comfortable buying. Whether it's Walmart, Amazon, a webshop, whether it's their local True Value, their local A store, we wanted to meet them where they were at. And so we had to be able to sell on Amazon. We had to be able to go and sell on Walmart and Home Depot and all that.

However, a lot of your retailers or a lot of brands trying to grow it, they think, if I sell on Amazon or if I sell wherever, I'm going to upset Walmart or I'm going to upset Home Depot or whatever. And what we found was when we were able to focus specifically on Amazon, and this is just very true, we specifically focused on Amazon when we were at Catchmaster to grow Amazon. We put in quite a few resources. We partnered with experts.

on Amazon to do it with agencies because we weren't the experts ourselves. And so we really put some time and energy and focus on that. We took over that Seller Central account where we took over the power, so to speak, of how we looked on Amazon. We took off third party sellers and we really controlled that experience. And what we found was that was a much easier conversation when I was in front of Walmart buyers because you can try to hide it.

You can't hide it. All Walmart buyers know that Amazon's there. All your Amazon people know that Walmart is there, right? They are competitors. It's the U .S. It's healthy competition. And so we just faced it front -on. said, listen, when we were in front of Walmart, yes, we're selling on Amazon, but here's the difference. We are selling on Amazon. We control the pricing. We control if they're gonna do a sale. We control all of that. Guess what? We are selling to you, Walmart. We control all of this as well.

So we're gonna make sure that we're giving you the same terms, the same pricing, that's on Walmart. So you're never gonna get undercut on Amazon. You're gonna get the same, if we run a promo here, we're gonna offer that, we're gonna run a promo with you on here. We can work with the promo, we call it a promo calendar, so they're not conflicting as well. If they're gonna run, know, crime day sales, that's a big thing for Amazon, we can give you a special Walmart as well for your day. that really, at the end of the day, that made the Walmart buyer feel a little bit

better because they're like, okay, at least we're all getting a fair shot. going to give me the top sellers on Amazon. I'm one of the top sellers here. So that was number one. Number two, what we noticed after a couple of years of doing this, not only did our sales on Amazon go through the roof, we were barely noticeable. And after four years when I left the team, not me, but the team had built it up where we were the number one keyboard in all of Amazon. Huge accomplishment, multi, I won't give a number but was

It was high up, multi, multi, multi, million dollars in the sales side. But not only were there are Amazon sales going up, what we noticed is our in -store sales, Walmart, Lowe's, True Value, they were increasing as well. Because again, our customers, while they were in Walmart, they would go and search a product on Amazon and they would say, it's the same price here. If I'm in store, I can buy it right now as opposed to waiting for two days. And then a lot of time what it showed,

was they would buy in store now, but then they had the trusted plan, they knew it, then they could go home and then they could order for their backups on Amazon. And so what we noticed after a few years, by us giving some attention and focusing on Amazon, it helped our branding, it helped our pricing, it helped our margin, which was important for us as a company, but also it elevated all of our sales across all the channels because Amazon is just a strong presence when it comes to branding.

Yonah (28:19)
Yeah, and I hear this time and time again where it's a holistic ecosystem, right? Where it feeds into one another. The moment that you're actually in retail, now people see your product, they know you, they search you on Amazon. The moment that you're in Amazon, people go to stores, they recognize your product because they've seen it before on Amazon, they're more likely to actually pick your product off the shelf.

John Anderson (28:31)
Yep.

Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. So with our strategy here, I came on board and I'm a big believer in, like you said, you know, the 80 to 20 Pareto principle. We only have so many resources and so much time to do. And so one of the first things I did was Biogents had an agency in Germany. They're actually good. They weren't bad. We've had these conversations before, but one of my top priorities as president of Biogents, I dissected our Amazon team.

right away and I said we've got to do an RFP request for proposals, what we call an Amazon agency in the U .S. that understands the U .S. market, understands branding, understands Amazon and all the nuances with it and that can move quickly. And so that was one of my first initiatives. That's what I did and we've seen success on it. I had to do that because before we had even all of our marketing material and everything right,

We had to set up and get the foundations correct on Amazon, because then we can get feedback. We can see what the competition is doing and that's where we can build our marketing game plan off. But for us and our strategy right now is built off of Amazon. Why? Because we have a customer -centric approach. We want to go to foundation on Amazon so that will increase what we do on Shopify, increase what we're going to do. We have now opened up Walmart .com so that we can prove out those sales, really find the customer wherever they want to buy.

and then eventually be able to get into retail stores as well.

Yonah (30:11)
So I imagine throughout that process, you spoke to dozens of different agencies. What was the process like of, yeah, trying to find experts in the field? Were you impressed with everyone you spoke to? Did you feel like there were some people that you hop on a call and you're just speaking to a salesperson that knows nothing about Amazon? Tell us a little bit about that process.

John Anderson (30:16)
Yes.

Yeah.

Yes. Yeah, so that's a very interesting process. This is the second time I've gone through it now because when I was at Catchmaster, we did it twice. We went through kind of almost two agencies. And so this was my bioagency, this was my third time doing the process. Gosh, it can be overwhelming to be honest with you because if you just go online and do a quick Google search, there are a ton that pop up for Amazon agency.

And this is where we get into it. And Yoni, you and I, we didn't script this at all, just so anyone listening, like the Mavi jeans, I love those jeans, I had no clue that they're on this. We didn't script any of that. So this is just open, honest conversation. But when you start doing that, and again, I've gone through this experience, it gets overwhelming because your first taglines is majority marketing. That's what most agencies do. So they're really good at the marketing side.

because they'll all say, we're the number one here. We did this, we did X, Y, and at the end of the day, sometimes it's just one person that did that and they had one success and they built a business off of that. Sometimes it's a large agency, which they can be good, but then you gotta almost wonder, are they gonna give you enough attention that you need, especially if you're smaller or a mid -sized business, to get the growth? So there really is such an array of differences.

when comes to that process. For me, if you're the first time doing it, would encourage you to get, you know, contact, initially contact at least 10 different agencies, narrow it down to three or four where you're having face -to -face interviews, meetings, and have a couple of talks with them. And then at the end of the day, what I mostly look for, and, you know, am I allowed to say we have a partnership now? Okay.

Yonah (32:23)
Yeah, absolutely.

John Anderson (32:25)
The reason I chose Amazon Growth Lab, why I went that route was what makes them unique and different, at least from my perspective, is they'll put skin in the game. So this is what I like about it. So a lot of your agencies, they'll come out, they'll look at your Amazon business, whether you have established business or not, and they're going to charge you XYZ for the month, and then they want PBC and all this other stuff. And you're not 100 % sure if it's gonna work or not. You think it will or not, but they just want more marketing dollars, they want XYZ.

What I appreciate about what you guys, you guys put skin in the game, you say, hey, here's a rate. We're going to grow with you. And we essentially will make more money when you, John, you what else makes more money. I love that. OK, same way when you're thinking of sales, when you're thinking of true partnership. At the end of the day, if you have a partner with a great company, you need to pay them well because it's not an easy job. However,

I want to pay for work being done and proven work and where I see the growth. And that's where you guys truly set yourselves apart because you're willing to say, we have a base pay because we are doing this work. But really, you guys don't really make money. Because I know what the contract is until we're making money. you're incentivized to really grow with our brand and to really have a true partnership with our brand and really understand

what we're looking to do in our products and how to take it to the next level. Because at the end of the day, the whole contract's tied into that.

Yonah (33:55)
And how has been working with AGL so far been? Like what have been the pros, what have been the cons, what has stood out?

John Anderson (33:59)
Great.

Yeah, so we're still kind of in the infant stages. We've been with you guys now, I think, couple months. Here's what stands out for me is communication. When you partner with an agency, typically you're going to talk to one person. And it makes sense. They're going to assign one person to your account. That's who you're dealing with. With you and your team, I've talked to, gosh, I don't know, four or five different people to include you as CEO.

multiple times, you make yourself available. You're like, John, if you need anything, here's my number, here's where you can get ahold of me. And then what I appreciated about you and your team is you have multiple layers of contact. And so at the end of the day, when you're onboarding with a new agency and with a new brand, communication is key. Because at the end of the day, we don't know a lot about Amazon, that's why we're partnering with you.

And then today, you, your team is still learning about our brain and what sets us apart, what makes us unique. And so the only way to do that is to communicate, to talk to each other, to share and to be open and to try ideas. And I think that's what I've really appreciated about this process. I've had multiple people to include yourself. Yona constantly asks me, John, what can we do better? How are we doing here? But the biggest thing is really the communication.

It's excellent, it's great right now. And in sharing the learning curves. You know, there's been a couple of times where the team was shared, hey, we tried this, it was a little awful, we're gonna do this for you, great. That's what I'm about. Amazon is ever -changing. You know, I've been selling in that space very closely now with the team for the last six years. What you did last year, you can't always do the same this year. So you've gotta trust a team that's willing to test.

and try and think a little bit outside of the box, kind of push boundaries a little bit. Because if you're going to really be a game changer, sometimes you gotta change the game. And the only way to do that is to communicate and to test things out and to truly have a partnership. So.

Yonah (36:20)
I think what we really love about working with Biogents is we're very aligned in the aerial view. There are some brands where we start working with where, you know, sales will go up immensely, right? We'll like 2x their sales over two months. And then suddenly there will be one day where, you know, they sell a couple of units, just a handful. And suddenly a lot of the times the business owner freaks out and they're like, what's going on? We were on like an upward trajectory and everything's falling apart.

John Anderson (36:46)
The world's funny.

Yonah (36:50)
and when you look at a really small sample size of time, it doesn't really tell you much of a story, right? It could be that, you know, there was a natural disaster that day and a lot of the world wasn't even shopping because they were so focused on are their family members healthy? It could be that, you know, Amazon had a bug.

John Anderson (37:08)
it up.

competitors could have ran a hot campaign that day and just, you know, try to take all sales. You know, you bring up an interesting point because I've always had this philosophy, not just with Amazon, but just in business in general and sales. But it's probably, I agree with you, it's more so on Amazon because there's the good and the bad at Amazon. The good is you can see those sales daily, right? So you can really track it and then make it so easy because you've got the Amazon app.

You can go in and you know, even me, my position in the sales team, first thing they're looking at is sales. Because, okay, let's be honest, revenue is a key metric, right, for business. We gotta have revenue, we gotta have sales. That's what keeps the business going. However, I'm a big proponent that to do the long -term gain, especially on Amazon, is to understand to build your brand. Whatever brand that may be. But to build your brand, because if you're just worried about sales, you're gonna have a great day.

gonna have a bad day. And you may have a great few months, but then there's gonna be a competitor that's gonna come in. They're going to somehow figure out how to do it cheaper, how to, or pay people less or whatever it is, they're gonna be able to uncut your price. And if you're only worried about that sale and the price, and you're not building that trust, that brand, you're not building that image, that reputation, your Amazon sales are gonna be like this, you're not gonna, life's gonna be hard for you.

So for me, it's all about, no, no, let's set goals. Let's be consistent. Now, if we hit two, three weeks of just negative, what's going on here? Let's figure it out. Let's change them things up. But I'm never scared of one day, two days of bad sales, which conversely, I'm never going to Disney World because we had two great days of sales either. I understand it's the long -term play. How are we going to figure this out long -term?

and figure out what went right, what went wrong, and really dive into this. And it's a long -term play. And that's one thing the UNI football team does. They're all over it. They're looking at this. They're constantly thinking, okay, we missed it here. we did great here. What worked? Why did we do great here? What worked? What didn't do? Could we have done better? They're asking those questions. They're presenting those questions. And then my goal is to be as an open book.

Yonah (39:05)
What you're describing.

Hmm.

John Anderson (39:26)
and empower you guys to just go do what you do. And at the end of the day, it's maybe cliche, but you trust the process. You trust the process.

Yonah (39:36)
completely agreed. What's interesting always is I think everyone agrees with you conceptually, right? Like, know, an analogy that I think will hit with a lot of the viewers is everyone knows when it comes to the stock market, you buy when it's low, you sell when it's high. But what do people actually do? They panic. So the moment that a stock starts crashing, let's sell everything. The moment that, you know, greed is in the air and stocks are going up, we have to buy it. And I think

John Anderson (39:50)
Yeah.

Yeah, they panicked at myself.

Right.

Yonah (40:05)
You know, what I see oftentimes with business owners is they have the same philosophy. Sales are good for two days. They're going out and they're celebrating. Sales are bad for a day. They're really bummed. think the business is falling apart. and yeah, I commend you for the long -term focus vision that you have. And I think that that's why you've seen so much success in the past. And that's also why, you know, I believe so much in where Biogents is headed. Cause I think that, you know, with any business, the truth is.

John Anderson (40:09)
Right.

Yonah (40:34)
You're only as good as your team. On Amazon, you can have the best product in the world, but you're not just selling a product, you're selling an image, right? The customer can't, they can't see the product. They can't feel the product. They can't smell the product. They can't taste the product. So at the end of the day, you're conveying a story through an image. And I think that, you know, that's a real skillset that I've seen from you and your team. And it's one of the reasons that I think we're going to go so far together.

John Anderson (41:05)
I appreciate that and you really hit it on the head. You can have the best idea or best product in the world and this has happened and it gets nowhere. And then you can have a okay idea or a mediocre idea or product and you can have the best people in the world and they will take that product to the next level because they'll listen to the consumer, they'll listen, they'll tweak it and mold it and turn it into the best product or the best idea.

And so really, and again, I would encourage anyone that's going through this process. When you're looking to partner with someone on Amazon, I highly recommend you guys, I really do. You're looking at not only what they bring to the table, but you're looking at character and trust. So I trust you, I trust your team. You guys are open and honest, you're fair. That's, think, what really sets it apart and just helps me.

When you say, John, you can look at that vision. Well, the reason I can hold to that vision and know it's true because there are some days when you're like, man, sales are down. Are we going to, how are we doing? But the reason I can hold to that is because at the end of the day, I trust you and the team and you guys have built that. And because I trust you and the team, then I'm able to step back and just trust the process because that trust was built. No different when you build a brand. When you build a brand, when we're building a brand, we are going to have hiccups, we're going to mess up.

being customer centric is how do we build that trust and connect and continue to do trust. And sometimes as being vulnerable, that's being open, as being, we missed the mark here, we're going to get better here. Or, okay, how do we make this better here? We actually did really good here, but how do we do gooder? How do we get great on that? And I think that's what you guys bring to the table and where I always want to be because I want to be a, you know, we've talked about this before, Jonah, I want to be a true partnership to you guys.

And I love, I want you guys to be a great study. I want us to be a great case study for you. because it's not so much that we did a certain tactic, although that's important. And I think we should be sharing that. But I think the real story here is, is really when, when two companies come together and you can really build a true partnership. And if you really take a step back and say, no, no, no, we're going to actually try this partnership out. And that means trust. And that means.

Yonah (43:17)
Mmm.

John Anderson (43:23)
trust the process and open communication, direct communication, I think you have success. we had that at Catchmaster. We've already seen it right now in that couple months. I'm ecstatic with what you guys have already done. And we haven't even updated a lot of the marketing stuff yet at all. And we're already hugely successful on the month. And again, we're just getting started.

That's what I like about it. I love the tactics. I think they're right. But the reason I don't put so much importance on the tactics or strategy is because those will constantly change and they should. Business constantly changes. So what shouldn't constantly change is your partnership and the trust and who you work with. That should be established and then get together and get those tactics, figure them out, strategy, update that. That's continual.

Yonah (43:55)
That makes sense.

I'm honored that we've been able to build such good rapport and we're just getting started. We're in our infancy. So as we come to our last like 10 minutes or so, I'm curious, have you had any mentors along the way? Has there been anyone that's been like foundational in, you know, helping you become the successful like, yeah, I mean, marketer, businessman.

John Anderson (44:15)
Absolutely.

Yeah. Gosh, I've had a, there's a few. There really is a few. So I will tell you this. When I first really started on this journey, as far as like the leadership and how I want to run things, whether it was a division when I was at APNG or unit or whatever now, I'm essentially running Biogents, I the company, I would give a quick shout out to Jill.

I'll send this to her, but she was a part owner. She was a manager with LeapFrog Brands when I started there. She was just a tremendous mentor for me on the leadership side on what it meant to be a leader and to have trust and to really just build out an amazing team. Secondly, and again, I'm going through maybe cliches, but I would give a shout out to Jonathan Frisch.

he's one of the owners and he was my, I directly reported to him at catch master. I, one of the biggest things I learned from, from Jonathan Frisch and from the catch master team was, you know, they had this philosophy and I've done this that, Hey, we, we, hired you because we, trust you, respect you. And so we're just going to get out of the way and let you do your job that we hired you to do. And, and a lot of the times, you know, Yona, you kind of said it, of course, you know, if you go to business school,

If you read any type of book, they say that all the time. You hear that all the time, but it's not practiced so much, especially when you get in the real world. And Jonathan practiced that every single day for the last four years. He did not, yes, he was highly against it. He trusted me even on some times where he's like, if there was somewhere he could nudge, he would do that to elevate me. But he really let me run with it. And it really built a solid trust.

Yonah (46:17)
not being micromanaged.

John Anderson (46:35)
And I just learned a lot on that. When it comes to this whole e -commerce and Amazon, I will give a shout out to Brian Beck. He really opened us up. He does B2B sales. He does do a little bit Amazon consulting as well. So just be in the front on that. if you're a brand and you're wondering if you should sell B2B, look up Brian Beck. He's got a great book out there. I'm a good friend of him, but he's a great mentor when it comes to e -commerce and sales, especially if you're manufacturer.

and you're wondering how you sell from B2B and then you want to sell on Amazon or so forth. I encourage, we're manufacturer. We have multiple channels where we sell to include distributors. We sell highly on Amazon. Of course, through Amazon Growth Lab, you should do it. And one of our, you know, the reasons that helped me adjust that thinking was Brian Beck, that you should be selling on Amazon. You should also then be looking at B2B and what that looks like. On Amazon, you can do B2B.

as well, but then also on your own website and so forth, because you can really grow your overall brand and overall sales. It's scary because you're afraid you're going to upset people. But if you get the right people in your life and you partner with the right agencies, you mitigate all that conflict. And that's what it's all about. So you can grow it together and actually strengthen not only relationships and partnerships, but overall sales. So I appreciate you on it for let me

Yonah (47:58)
So, you know.

John Anderson (48:00)
Have the time to do that.

Yonah (48:01)
Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think that the position that you're in where, you know, you basically successfully scaled a brand on Amazon, you know, you basically said that Jonathan the Catchmaster gave you essentially the ability to run the show, right? He's not holding your hand along the way. He's like, hey, man, results will speak for themselves. If you're able to grow the bottom line within six months, your salary pays for itself. If not,

John Anderson (48:30)
Mm -hmm. It's true.

Yonah (48:31)
You know, we'll see whether or not it makes sense for you to be here. You know, after talking to you and getting an understanding of, you know, the immense scale that you were able to bring Catchmaster to, I'm sure he was blown away by what you were able to bring to the table. I'm curious though, you know, you've basically successfully scaled one brand on Amazon initially. Now you're going to essentially try and do the same thing for another brand.

And, you know, once again, you're in this position of power where you're an empowered leader and you're having trust of, you know, you bring your vision to life and we'll follow. Do you feel like you've made it in your career? Like, is there a sense of like...

John Anderson (49:14)
No, I wish. That's a great, and I don't take that lightly. That's a great question. I will tell you this. I've been in this for almost 20, a little over 20 years, and I was in the military before. And when I got out the military, my first job I was in sales, and there were some circumstances that happened. They sold the company. There was a lot of issues. I lost my job on that.

And I remember sitting back and I was a really good sales guy. I was one of their best and I was known in the company as John the best sales guy, best sales guy. And I remember sitting there and I hated that because I, sales is good and if you're good at sales you make a lot of money. But I remember thinking to myself, I'm not just a sales guy. can do so much more. want to lead. To me it's not just about the money. It's not making about the sale. I really want to make a difference in people's lives. And so when that happened, I made a decision and I made some goals.

I was gonna go back to school, was gonna finish my MBA and be a CEO at some point. And so I was newly married at the time and I went back to school, I finished my MBA and then kinda it put me on this trajectory with my career to where I was just, okay, how do I get into a leadership position? And how do I get where I'm just managing and learning all that? And so I will say that this position is a dream position for me because I had a personal goal to be a president or CEO by age 50.

I'm a few years earlier than that, so I hit my goal. I'm happy with that. However, with that, I wrote down the goal on paper. I've made it smart, know, specific, measurable. So I did that whole thing. My wife knew about it. She would hold me accountable to it. I was very, even when I went to AP &G and I went there, I was constantly learning, reading books of, okay, how do I get myself to be a leader to the next level, next level?

Yonah (50:45)
Did you write down the goal on paper out of curiosity?

John Anderson (51:10)
Because I wanted at some point to get to where I was a CEO now with that being said once you get to this position You know, I learned this really at APNG The more you know or the more you lead or the more, you know, let's call it power Whatever you want to call it you have if you're doing it, right the more you know that you need help and that you're not the smartest guy in the room and the best leaders are not the smartest people in the room, but the best leaders are the ones that can get the

came together and get the smartest people in the right room working together. And so once I kind of learned that concept, even at Catchmaster, we had significant growth on Amazon. And just overall as a company, not because of me, I would love to tell you, I didn't know, but I was able to understand the bigger picture and not just worried about a single account like Walmart, which when I first came on board, that was our biggest account. But I could say, no, no, let's look what's best for the company, let's look what's best for our branding.

Yonah (52:03)
Hmm.

John Anderson (52:07)
and let's bring in really, really smart people that we're going to listen to. And we're to help guide and sometimes when we have to guide, at the end of the day, we're going to empower them, get out of the way and let them do what they do. And that was a success. And so the reason I said that is I feel in a sense I've made it, but then there's, you know, I've got so much more goals just with bio -agents where we're going to take bio -agents at. And we've talked about all this. I've got so much more goals of what we're to do on Amazon.

and what we're going to do on the brand. And then now I've almost found a little deeper purpose because of Biogents, where it's not just consumer driven in sales, but Biogents really has a mission to really change the world. Mosquitoes is the number one killer of humans. I did not know that before joining Biogents. They kill the most humans out there, of course, spreading disease.

And so that was kind of an eye -opener, again, because Biogents is funded by scientists. They're trying to make a difference in the world. They're not worried about the business side. However, for me, I know for them to fund and make a difference in the world, you got to the business side. And so I've gotten a little bit more of a purpose that, with Biogents, we can really start making a difference with mosquito -borne diseases, start mitigating that, start controlling that. so again, I...

Do I feel like I've made it in a sense? I'm happy where I'm at. I love it. I'm extremely grateful, little bit of luck, lots of hard work, but no, I'm just getting started. so I'm nowhere near where I want to be or I'm ready to retire or anything like that.

Yonah (53:40)
something.

Nothing tells me in 20 years you'll say the same thing about just getting started.

John Anderson (53:47)
Yeah, okay. My wife might not let me do that in twenty years, but...

Yonah (53:50)
That's so good. So yeah, I have one last question for you before I ask though, I want to point people to your website, which is www .biogents .com. And I know you've talked about, you've been reading a lot of leadership books. What's one book that you would recommend that's like, this made the biggest impact on your, yeah, understanding of marketing and career.

John Anderson (54:01)
Yeah.

One book, I gotta narrow it down to one book. So I have a personal goal every year and people that know me know this goal. I'm pretty adamant about it, like people doing me, holding me accountable. But I do 52 books a year, so I read a book a week. So I'm big on reading, lots of reading. Last year I was at 60. Both, both, I'm consuming, consuming, consuming.

Yonah (54:15)
Okay, we can do three.

audio books or physical reading or both?

One book a week.

John Anderson (54:42)
And now they're not all huge books, right? Sometimes it's an easy read where it's 100 pages, but I have to do at least 52 books a year. But if you want to say, like I have to look this up because if you're going to make me say, John, what's the most and I got to do one, I would say.

Yonah (55:01)
I didn't realize we were dealing with 52 a year.

John Anderson (55:05)
52 a year, yeah, I've been doing this for the last four years now. At minimum, 54 a year. Yeah, one of the biggest ones that has most impacted me, and I just recently read it was the diary of a CEO. And that's really good, there's a podcast on it as well. It's a Stephen Bartholomew, that was a good one that just kind of helped ground me on.

Yonah (55:10)
Wow.

remarkable.

John Anderson (55:33)
just what it's like to be a president, what it's like to be a CEO, thinking big picture strategy. But that's how to influence people. If you're just getting started and you're in the business or you're on Amazon, you definitely should be reading how to influence people because anything in life, if you can't influence, you're gonna struggle. So that's really made a difference for me.

Yonah (55:36)
Hmm.

Well, for anyone that's listening right now, if you read less than 52 books a year like me, totally understandable. If you feel bad about yourself right now, you're not alone.

John Anderson (56:02)
Yeah, no, it's again, they're not all. Yeah, they're not. It's not like I'm reading these big, big books.

Yonah (56:07)
That's amazing and very inspiring.

Yeah, I imagine they're just like short 800 page novels.

John Anderson (56:18)
Yeah, yeah, that's it. I will get through one or two of those a year. But no, reading won't change your life. It will.

Yonah (56:24)
as fairytales.

Yeah, I completely agree. completely agree. Before this conversation, I considered myself a big reader, and now I'm redefining what big reader means.

John Anderson (56:37)
It doesn't take much time. 25, 30 minutes in the morning and then you gotta do 20, 30 minutes at night. it's an hour a day. You have to dedicate. Some people look at that and they're like, and then also the more you read, the quicker you get. So when I first started this, it was hard. What's that? Yeah. So much more. And I tell people don't even do that. Start one book a month.

Yonah (56:54)
When you break it down, when you break it down into tangible steps, it's so much more people, right? Like saying, read 52 books a year, really difficult. Reading 20, and you're not even saying, yeah. And you're not even saying, read an hour a day. You're saying 25 minutes in the morning, 30, 35 minutes at night. It's like broken down to small bite -sized pieces, which makes it easier.

John Anderson (57:06)
12 bucks. know, 12 bucks a year. Start with one buck a month.

Yes, yeah, it makes it much easier. And then the more you do it, the quicker it gets. And then before you know that, that's almost like you're, it's where you get peace and tranquility. It's like, can't wait to read. What's this? I want to see what they, it's interesting perspective, but it really, yeah, you're drawn to it.

Yonah (57:34)
amazing.

Well, I love how, you know, from the moment I met you, I saw how you operate from the mentality of a student for life. And that really illustrates and shows. Yeah, totally. Well, today we've been talking to John Anderson, president of Biogents. John, if people want to learn more about you, yeah, where can they reach out to you or learn more about you and Biogents?

John Anderson (57:49)
Yeah, appreciate that. Absolutely. Always be learning.

Yeah, so of course, please feel free to visit the website, www .biojents .com. You can look me up on LinkedIn, John Mark Anderson. Otherwise, if anyone wants to shoot me an email, john .anderson .biojents. I will try to respond. get a lot of emails, but put in the capture, looking forward to me, or maybe put this podcast on there, or AGL, Amazon Growth app. I look at all those emails, and that will get my attention. And then I'd love to have a conversation.

I love meeting people. love hearing their story. I feel I don't care where anyone's at in their journey. I feel I can learn from them and hopefully they can maybe learn a little bit from me. But yeah. I'll be off of you. Yoda. Likewise.

Yonah (58:46)
Every time I talk to you, I get inspired. So thanks for...

Well, thanks for the time and amazing chatting.

John Anderson (58:58)
All right, I really appreciate you. a wonderful day. Thanks, Jonah.