🦈 Has the Prosper Show jumped the shark?

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What was once the grand daddy of all Amazon events has lost most of its relevance and luster and pretty much jumped the shark. It’s chance to redeem itself is happening March 4-6 in Las Vegas.

Founded in the mid-2010’s by Chad Rubin, James Thomson and Joseph Hanson (they later sold to event company Emerald X and are no longer involved), the Prosper Show quickly grew to draw one of the largest audiences of Amazon sellers, often drawing in excess of 1,500 attendees.

Only Amazon’s Accelerate (2,600+), Helium 10’s Sell & Scale (1,000+) and Amazing’s (2,500+) early events have also drawn over 1,000 Amazon-specific attendees to a show in the USA.

The Prosper Show has spiraled over the past few years into pretty bad content and a service provider shill fest. In fact, last year most of the exhibitors who paid a pretty penny to have a booth (one of the biggest sponsors spent over $250,000 to exhibit) complained there were few sellers and mostly just other service provider employees wondering the exhibit halls.

In fairness, there are some good speakers and presentations – but not very many. Way too many speakers just spew corporate B.S. or general theory from people who have never been in the trenches selling and are pitching a service.

If you are brand new to selling on Amazon and would like to practice your industry jargon vocabulary, you may get value. But for experienced sellers, many of the talks are a waste of time. Cherry-pick wisely if going.

If you plan to head to Vegas and are an experienced seller, you can skip the full ticket and just get a much cheaper exhibit hall pass for the lunches and to visit the service providers (the show does have the largest exhibit hall outside of Brooklyn’s ASGTG and Amazon’s Accelerate). Some booths may be able to provide value to you.

There are loads of free exhibit-hall only coupons sprinkled around the internet – just be aware Prosper likes to sometimes revoke free passes at the door and make you pay top dollar, as they did last year for quite a few upset folks.

The value really is in the networking if you go to Prosper. Successful Amazon sellers like to work hard, and they often have the money to play hard.

From 2018 to last year, and especially during the Aggregator boom years of 2021 and 2022, cash was flowing and the parties were off the hook.

Lavish, and sometimes loaded-up 3 per night one after the other at premier venues. A Google sheet of all the parties was even circulated so everyone could keep track of what was happening when.

For years, Tim Jordan organized a night club event that started with a handful of people the first year to a full-on sponsored event with 400+ people in the VIP area at Caesar’s famous Omnia EDM club. Tim says that as of this week, he’s not planning on hosting it this year.

In fact, there are very few extracurricular events announced so far, which is unusual. Maybe this year is the year you see more small get-togethers and smaller dinners/masterminds in the evening, which would be awesome.

If you are going, the afterparties that do emerge should be a priority, even for the introverts.

Rich Goldstein is planning on doing his traditional Barbara Streisand Suite party at the MGM Lofts on Wednesday March 6, and Brandon Young is planning his traditional Seller Systems/Data Dive Top Golf event the night of March 4, which last year drew 450+ people.

The events are not cheap to host, and both guys are actively looking for sponsors – they’ve become harder and harder to get in the Amazon event space.

There are a LOT of AMAZON events in the USA – way too many. Most are not good, and most lose money. There are less in Europe, but there are a few worth checking out (European Seller Conference in Prague and Seller Sessions Live in the UK for example) for those who don’t want to venture across the pond.

The best value, bar none, for experienced sellers are the smaller masterminds and events run by actual successful sellers who still get their hands dirty in the business daily.

The speakers are not the same circuit speakers doing the same old presentations they do on webinars and at other events. The value in the average event is in the hallway while someone is presenting, not in the lecture room.

You actually will learn something actionable from the talks you can take and immediately apply to your business, plus you develop valuable connections with other like-minded people at or above your level (you never want to be the smartest person in the room).

There is one more group that also throws events worth going to, and that is the Million Dollar Sellers run by Frankie, Ian & Eugene. Their events are usually members-only, but right before Prosper kicks off in full swing in Las Vegas, MDS is hosting their second “Inspire” conference March 3-5. This event is worth traveling to Vegas for or changing your ticket to come earlier.

MDS pulls from their members, all 7-figure and up sellers, who share actionable strategies and tactics on what is working right now for them in their business. You’ll gleam some valuable insights and hang with some of the most successful Amazon sellers in the world.

There aren’t corporate shills or speaking circuit runners looking to drum up traffic for their agencies. They are real sellers spewing real information.

Unlike Prosper, this is a no B.S. pavilion where the real value is for those venturing to Vegas the first week of March (in addition to the networking and afterparties).

I want to emphasize getting out to events is one of the most important things you can for your Amazon and e-commerce business. It expands your mind and network. But you have to spend your money wisely and carefully or you can waste several days of your life.

🌎 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW
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Principle: The Price Reframe

If you spread 2 months’ salary over an infinite amount of time … It sounds like a bargain.

“The frame matters just as much as the picture” – Steven Bartlett 

If you want to turn potential buyers into actual buyers, then you must invest time framing your offer.

Think about every selling point you offer– ask yourself: how can you reframe each to make it more positive? 

• 25% fat ❌ → 75% lean ✅

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Remember, get your framing right and you’ll see sales skyrocket.

Alright, so how can you apply this right now to sell more?

In e-commerce, position yourself positively against the competition.

When people are choosing your product, they are saying no to all the others.

Clever marketers use that to their advantage and frame their product as the obvious (and winning) choice. Multi-million dollar supplement company Huel does just that. 

They take each nutrient and show how they perform better than the alternative.

Clever framing makes them the obvious choice.

How you frame your product or service makes a huge difference to the bottom line.

Think carefully about how you present your product and the words you use.

When you change the frame, you change the game.

In this video Jake Martin at Levo shares insights on how to effectively use product inserts with your Amazon products.

He explores different types of inserts, offers and strategies to convert customers into your own email list. He dives deep into the world of product inserts and shows how they can boost your sales and customer engagement.

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• Highest Converting Product Insert for Capturing Customer Emails

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✌🏼 Probably didn’t make friends at Emerald X today, but that’s OK. One thing you can always count on: I tell it how it is.

See you again on Monday …

The answer to today’s STUMP BEZOS is
70%