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Learn To Source Products in China, Jordan, and Mexico With Amy Wees

Amy Wees is the CEO of Amazing At Home, an ecommerce consulting company that has helped over 1,000 brands launch private label products on numerous commerce channels, including Amazon. Amy’s wealth of knowledge and experience in product development and sales and marketing has enabled her to advise emerging entrepreneurs to develop their own successful businesses. Amy is an entrepreneur, consultant, and business coach who also shares ecommerce tips and tricks on her podcast The Seller Roundtable.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[01:52] Amy Wees shares her professional background
[04:31] Amy’s entrepreneurial journey starting Amazing at Home
[08:29] Utilizing skills learned in the military to entrepreneurship
[12:05] Amy talks about sourcing trips to help brands source products from Mexico, Jordan, and China
[18:51] The value of creating relationships with your manufacturers
[21:02] The benefits of attending sourcing shows and trips as an entrepreneur

In this episode…

Sourcing the right products for your ecommerce business can be a challenging task. As an entrepreneur, you may be uncertain about the best places to source high-quality products. While it’s true that foreign markets like China, Mexico, and Jordan offer unparalleled sourcing opportunities, navigating these markets can be daunting.

Entering foreign markets can be a complex process that requires a deep understanding of the region’s language, culture, and business practices. If you’re looking to source products from these markets, ecommerce expert Amy Wees recommends seeking the help of industry experts. These professionals have the experience and connections to connect you with manufacturers and suppliers from China, Mexico, and Jordan. She shares how she’s running sourcing trips and trade shows for entrepreneurs to learn how to source their products profitably, meet with manufacturers and service providers, and network with other industry professionals.

In this episode of the Quiet Light Podcast, Pat Yates sits down with Amy Wees, CEO of Amazing At Home, to discuss techniques for sourcing products from China, Mexico, and Jordan. Amy shares her entrepreneurial journey starting Amazing at Home, their sourcing trips and shows to help brands source products from Mexico, Jordan, and China, and the benefits of attending the sourcing shows and trips as an entrepreneur.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Sponsor for this episode

This episode is brought to you by Quiet Light, a brokerage firm that wants to help you successfully sell your online business.

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Episode Transcript

Intro 0:07

Hey folks, it’s the Quiet Light Podcast where we share relentlessly honest insights, actionable tips and entrepreneurial stories that will help founders identify and reach their goals.

Pat Yates 0:32

Hello, and welcome again to the Quiet Light Podcast. I’m Pat Yates. I have a great conversation today to have a lot of opportunity to hang around with this lady, she is so sweet Amy Wees. She is a great entrepreneur, you’ll see around all kinds of shows she owns a company called Amazing at Home. She actually is one along with Tim Jordan that helps build trade shows going to China to Mexico to Jordan, she does a lot to help entrepreneurs be able to source their products and build their businesses. I just think every time I talk to Amy, I seem to get some great information from her. So if you’re thinking about manufacturing a product or if you are manufacturing product, maybe you want to hedge your bets on the one you have look at another country. This is a podcast you’re gonna want to listen to and you’re gonna want to look up Amy Wees. I am excited to talk to her. So let’s get right to it. Amy, welcome to the Quiet Light Podcast. It’s awesome to have you here today.

Amy Wees 1:24

Thank you so much for having me, Pat. It’s great to be here.

Pat Yates 1:27

It is exciting to talk to you. Because I know that a lot of people at Quiet Light know you. We’ve seen you around so many shows so many things and ran into a prosper and thought, man, we just need to get on and chatted up because you’ve got so many amazing things going on. So I’d love for you to talk a little bit about yourself, your background, a little bit about Amazing at Home Ecommerce Consulting, maybe give the people an overview of you and where you’re from your background.

Amy Wees 1:52

Yeah, so I didn’t plan to be doing any of this. That’s for sure. I don’t think any of us do plan any part of our entrepreneurial journey until we’re actually on it. And we’re like, oh, wow. Okay. So for me, I grew up in Wisconsin, and my whole family, pretty much my whole family still lives there. And I moved away at a young age. And I joined the military actually, worked in retail for a little while, I worked at Target, worked my way up from cashier to executive at a Target store in Seaside, California. And I’ve worked at McDonald’s, I’ve worked in restaurants, I’ve done all that kind of stuff. And I was working as an accountant for a home healthcare agency. And I was trying to go to school full time, this was when I was like 19 years old. And wow, I find it to be so hard to go to school full-time, and also to work full-time in school. I didn’t really understand or work didn’t really understand that if the books were due at the end of the month, they didn’t understand if I need to be in class. I ended up joining the Air Force. And it was the best thing I could have done. I spent 18 years in the Air Force. I worked on ground radar. So it’s like air traffic control but helping aircraft when they’re actually flying. Air traffic control helps aircraft when they’re taking off and landing. My job helped them during wartime. And when they’re on their missions flying the friendly and not-so-friendly skies around the world. So that was my first job. And then I was a work planner later so that my job was to take big visions and turn them into executable plans, which carries over into my businesses now. And then later on, I did cybersecurity for the Air Force healthier for stand up some of their cyber protection teams. And I retired left that in 2018 to be a full-time entrepreneur and here we are today.

Pat Yates 4:08

So that’s amazing. So you’re in the military, which by the way, thank you for your service. It’s always amazing. And it’s one of those things that I think when you get that realization, you’re used to such structure and sometimes entrepreneurs have to think so differently to be that’s an interesting transition right there. So how did you decide I’m just going to be an entrepreneur, you didn’t want to work for someone or was it something that you learned in the military maybe?

Amy Wees 4:31

No, actually, it’s really funny that you asked that. I didn’t plan this at all. I invented a product. I invented a litter box cleaner for cats. And I’m actually selling that business now. Quiet Light is helping me to sell that business. But I invented this litter box cleaner for cats because I had cats and I wanted to solve my own problem that I was having and Pat, it never occurred to me that I would ask, but my job. This was like, oh, well, I’ll just kind of sell this thing on the side, and whatever. And during the process of inventing this product, I kind of, I was very frustrated, because I’m a very educated woman, I went to college while I was in the military, and I have five college degrees and two master’s degrees. And I’ve been through so much military training as well. And I found it so hard to develop a product from scratch. And I found that there were so many people that kind of wanted just to take your money and not really help you. And that really upset me. And I kind of made it my mission, I was like, Okay, I’m going to figure this out, this can’t be that hard. I’m going to figure this out. And I want to really share with others along the way, I was an instructor in the military. So for me, breaking down processes into easy-to-understand steps is something that comes very naturally to me. So I felt it natural to share with others. And that’s how Amazing at Home was born because I started just sharing videos, like telling people hey, guys, I built this 3D printer today, I call this manufacturer I learned this, I was just sharing whatever I could share about this. And before I knew it, people started asking to consult with me. And I kept saying no. And finally I said, yes. And I was still working full-time at my job. And those people that I was consulting with, they had incredible success. And then word spread. I never ran an ad or anything for my services. And before I knew it, I was coming home from work, a day job, I was working on launching my product, and I was coming over to my day job every day. And I would have coaching calls at like five, six, seven, eight, nine o’clock at night. And then I’d get up and I do it all over again. And I’d have stuff going on the weekends. And finally, one of my mentors, I met him at church, his name’s Afton. He’s a life coach. And he told me, he’s like me, you have to quit your job. And I was like, what do you mean, you don’t understand? I can’t just quit my job, you know? And he’s like, no, you told me you’re turning people down. Like you have to quit your job. And I was like, no, you don’t understand. So anyway, Pat, I had no idea I didn’t, I was so wrapped up in my career and growing, I had a six-figure career, it was very scary for me to think about leaving my job and going out on my own.

Pat Yates 7:51

That’s kind of amazing, because I think every single person that comes in and tries to build any kind of a business always has to come from a background where they probably learned something that’s a takeaway, that they’re going to be able to go ahead and just pancake into their business philosophy. So was there one thing that you were in the military other than being obviously super organized, which really helps you as a coach? So I can see that trade already, because you balance so much with the shows? But is there one thing you took away that made you think I’m gonna be great successful as an entrepreneur, just one trait.

Amy Wees 8:29

Something about working for the government, Pat that is, and maybe working for corporations, big corporations, sometimes it’s like this as well, I would imagine. But something that’s very frustrating is that, your unit will have a budget. And your leadership will ask you to put together like a proposal for you to go on a certain mission or for the funds to be spent in a certain way. And in cybersecurity, there were a lot of things that could be solved, there were a lot of missions that I knew that we could do that would make a significant impact. And so I would spend so much time putting these large proposals together, of how we could do this with a tiny team, minimal resources, and we could make a massive impact. And I would go all the way up to my chain and my chain would say, sorry, Amy, we already gave that funding to someone else. Wow. And I had this drive, and I think that and I put up with this for a long time working for the military, because that just happens over and over and over again. And I understand, governments, corporations, they have budgets, they have things that they need to be able to do and they can’t always see your vision and you need to be mature enough to be able to also kind of be a team player. Right? But that always frustrated me. And I think that it just goes to show that even when I was part-time consulting and copywriting so I was also copywriting on Fiverr. And I made $100,000 in six months on Fiverr just copywriting just part-time. And it’s because I’m so organized because I’m, and because I had dry that was like, okay, I know this offer, I know how to present it, I know exactly the formula that it takes to repeat this process over and over and over again and get excellent results. I was already leading teams, I was leading major operations, like so for me transferring that skill into business and being able to like, yep, I know exactly what I want to do, I’m going to propose it, I’m going to figure it out, I’m going to do it with minimal resources, I’m going to have massive impact. I just carried that over into my business. And I couldn’t believe that it actually worked. I couldn’t believe I was actually making all this money and doing all these things. And having such a massive impact because I was able to do it now. I had permission. And I only had to give myself permission. And that was so empowering and incredible. And it made me never want to go back.

Pat Yates 11:11

It’s kind of funny, even though I’ve been an entrepreneur and also been a coach, and I was an athlete in college. And sometimes you say it’s not what you do, it’s how you do it. A lot of times in sports. And I think with you, it really embodies that it’s like you can be the best at a process because you’re organized, you’re gonna learn from what your mistakes were, you’re gonna get better the next time you do it, I think people that have that ability are amazing. So I can see why that’s so successful. So one thing I definitely want to step into, though, I want to talk a lot about your sourcing trips. And this is stuff that’s really amazing. And if you’re not from around here, you need to really listen to this part. Because if you’re thinking about manufacturing in any country, especially if it’s Mexico, which is a departure for some people’s we talked about, this is someone you need to know because they do shows all around the world to talk not only educates you on how to run your business to source products and actually meet manufacturers. So, Amy, I know that’s a broad introduction to a really, really smaller topic. But why don’t you tell everyone about these shows that you do and where they are?

Amy Wees 12:04

Yeah, so Pat, when I first became a full time entrepreneur, I took my first trip, and I brought people with me, I took my first trip to China. And I had already launched a few products for my private label, and I was sourcing from China already. And I was doing the Alibaba thing, find a factory, whatever Trading Company and just try to get a good price. And I went to China, and I took people with me, and it made a profound impact. Not only did I save a ton of money on my products that I was already sourcing, I got lower prices, I found more manufacturers, more options. But I also it opened up a world of understanding a network that I didn’t have before, and an amount of innovative products that I would have never seen if I would have just stayed in my kind of narrow mindset of like looking at software, looking for opportunities of what was already on the market and then sourcing it on Alibaba, you go somewhere like the Canton Fair, in China, which is the largest sourcing exposition in the world, there are over 80,000 suppliers in a space the size of four large airports, it’s insane. And the amount I mean, imagine if you are a manufacturer presenting at one of these shows, you’ve got 80,000 competitors, so you’re bringing your most innovative stuff and just walking through this show the amount of ideas you get the innovation, you talk to suppliers that are, they started in this category, and now they’re doing this, they have this, so much experience and building those relationships is just incredible. So that’s where it all started this spark for wanting to help people source started in me going to China, not only that, I paid $42,000 for my injection molds that make my product and I used an intermediary in the US and they went to China. So when I went to China myself, I found that I could have gotten those same molds for less than half of that price. So it’s just, it’s a huge you don’t know what you don’t know. And so, any of these countries that you go to, to source wrong. So we started in China, and then during the pandemic when people wanted to get out of China and they wanted to kind of source closer to home. We myself and my partner Tim Jordan we started a company in Mexico, basically, we have a trade show there, the only multi-category trade show in Latin America, because there is no Canton Fair. In Latin America, there’s no Canton Fair in any of these countries, there’s no multi category trade show. And for ecommerce entrepreneurs, you need multiple categories. And so we started one, we were totally off our rocker for doing that, but we did it. And it was incredible the impact that we had, and Quiet Light came alongside us for that. That’s incredible having you guys. But we also had sourcing trips. So not only could you come to our trade show, but you could come to our sourcing trip, and we went on factory tours, and we kind of just taught you about the culture, because the number one thing that we the number one question that we get is, well, can you just find me a manufacturer for this pencil there, whatever it is in Mexico? And our answer is always, no, we can’t. Because you need to go to these countries and actually build relationships. It’s not China, you can’t just call them up one stop shopping. There’s no Alibaba there, you really do need to build relationships. And in any country that you go to, including China, you need to build relationships. There’s a difference when you do that. So we started these sourcing trips. And then when we did that, in Mexico, my friend Talal Asad, he is Jordanian and he helped us with Mexico. And he said “Amy, I’ve always dreamed of doing this in my country. Can you help me do this in my country?” And we did. So we started, last year we started one in Jordan, I couldn’t believe it. In Jordan, there’s a free trade agreement, just like we have in Mexico. So you don’t pay tariffs. The Jordanians make nearly everything, right. They make all kinds of different products, plastics, textiles, everything, you name it, just like Mexico. And they’re already used to exporting. So the thing about Mexico is, yes, it’s close to home, but your manufacturer may not be used to exporting yet. So you might have to do some work there to work together to get used to the exporting. And then as part of our mission there is to actually educate both sides, right educate and help both sides for trade to increase trade. But in Jordan, they’re already exporting, they’re in the middle. They’re a tiny country in the middle of the Middle East. So they’re already exporting. So they’ve already got that down. So then it’s just a matter of finding your manufacturer and working with them there. So we’ve got Jordan, we have Mexico, and we have China sourcing trips. And this next upcoming China one in October, we’ll actually be headed to Thailand as well for a sourcing trip. So always adding on, and having a lot of fun there. But if you haven’t been on a sourcing trip in your life, you got to go because it really, really makes a huge difference in no matter where you source from in what you do.

Pat Yates 18:03

I would 100% agree with that. And that’s why I’m glad we’re talking about this. I think people underestimate how important face-to-face contact would be like, if you’ve even been working with someone for a while in China, you should probably go see him if you’ve ever done everything virtually, like you said, you don’t know what you don’t know, which is weird, because Chuck comes on your trips. And that’s like his favorite saying, but I think that having gone on the Mexico trip. So for listeners out there, I did the Mexico trip, I did the sourcing, we were actually in what was it, the plastics manufacturing facility, that we got to watch how they had their process, they did a great job. It wasn’t the most refined location or anything like that. But then we went to a broom factory that had incredible setup and braid automation, everything from start to finish. And I think the more people think through their product, they really should, especially in this day and time, hedge their bets on where they’re manufacturing, correct.

Amy Wees 18:51

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I always tell people, it’s simple economics, right? I mean, we definitely want to source our product a lot of people want American-made, and I have a product that’s made in America. And it’s not as easy. It’s not as easy as we want it to be, right. And so I do think that wherever you’re sourcing from has to make economic sense for your business, but at the same time, there’s just so much out there that you don’t even realize, and for years, I would go to Mexico on vacation. And I love Mexico. Maybe it’s because I moved to San Antonio, Texas from Hawai’i. And Mexico was like the closest place that I could go to find a decent beach. Yeah, I always traveled to Mexico and I couldn’t believe I’d go to the retail stores and stuff. And there were so many things that were common things that were made in Mexico. And I kept asking myself, especially with the sourcing background and having been to China and all this just like where are all these manufacturers. How do I find them? And for years, I wondered about that. So when this opportunity presented itself to actually go and find them and build a business around, it was just so incredible to see the amount of innovation that you can find in every single country, and how your business can really take advantage of that. If you’re familiar with your process, you’re familiar with manufacturing, you know how to build those relationships, the opportunities are incredible.

Pat Yates 20:32

Yep, I agree with that. One thing about the sourcing trips, and especially what I meant to mention is a lot of people may be nervous about going places alone. Like, if you don’t have someone supposed to go with you, you want to go to China, you go to Mexico, you want to go on sourcing stuff, you really don’t know what you’re around. So doesn’t this even give it more comfort that they’re with a lot of entrepreneurs, they network, they talk to people about businesses, do seminars, learn so many things. So I’d love you to talk a little bit about that within the conferences and sourcing shows.

Amy Wees 21:02

Yeah, that is such a good point. I was so terrified to go to China, my first time. It was so unknown to me. And so many people, I close every single person that comes on the trip, I have personal conversations with them, I make sure that I answer their questions, because this is a huge leap. And it’s the same for Mexico to do the same thing. Talk to everyone who comes on the trip or considers coming on the trip. And it’s really overwhelming to think about, “okay, I’m gonna go to this foreign country that I know nothing about. Where am I going to stay? How am I going to communicate with the local population? How many to get around? How do I even get in the country? Are they gonna confiscate something for me?” There’s so many questions, and then you wonder, “when I’m there, how will I eat? Like, what will I do? Is there Uber, like, what could I do?” So we take all of that off of your plate, like, you just lie there, and we tell you what airport to fly to. And we’re there to pick you up, we have a person with a sign a private driver that takes you to the hotel, and then we get to spend that time together. So what’s wonderful about it is we take care of all the meals, we take care of whatever trade shows, we’re going to whether it’s ours or someone else’s trade show, we take care of all of that registration for you everything that needs to get done. And all you do is show up and learn. And then we also invite speakers, we do workshops. So that way you have this immersive learning experience. And really the magic happens on these trips, in the relationships that you build. Because when you have an experience like this, where you go on a trip to a foreign country, with a group of entrepreneurs, you build relationships, like you will never build, just going to like, prosper in the US, like you’re familiar with that, you’re gonna go to the restaurants you want, you’re gonna do this, this or that. And you don’t have that deep networking. But when you go on a sourcing trip like this with a group of people, you become friends for life. And it’s just really incredible to see the partnerships that are built the innovation that happens, there’s like this power of we always call it we call it the trifecta, like the power of three, where people would come back from Canton Fair, at the end of the day after seeing all these products, and they’d get to talking with somebody else who was on the trip. And if another person joined, before they knew it, they’d have created a whole business or a whole new line. And there’s just something about that, versus if you just went by yourself, and you’re just looking all day and you get back and you’re just kind of in your own head, you don’t have that same experience. And it really is just a life-altering business alternative experience for sure.

Pat Yates 23:57

That’s so great. I mean, I just was so taken by the trips we took to Mexico. I’ve been there twice on your trips, and I thought they were just so amazing. We met so many good entrepreneurs. Quiet Light was smart to get involved with this, because we made so many great relationships. So I want people to be able to look this up if they want to you got some shows coming up. So can you tell the people what sites those are? Where they can go out and deal?

Amy Wees 24:17

Yeah, for sure. So if you’d like to join us in China, you can go to amazingathome.com/china. And then if you’d like to join us in Mexico, we actually have a Mexico trip coming up in August. And that is going to be themexicotrip.com. If you’d like to check out our trade show in Mexico, it’s evolatam.com. So like evolution, evolatam.com.

Pat Yates 24:53

Sorry, go ahead. No, I was gonna say, we’ll make sure to get those on the site. I thought you were finished. Go ahead and last one.

Amy Wees 24:59

Yeah, so that was it. China trips are amazing. Oh, and if you want to come with us to Jordan, how can I forget about the amazing Jordan? Oh my gosh the food, the food, the food in Mexico, the food China, the food in Jordan I could just eat my way around these countries they’re amazing. But Jordan is at sellandsourceme.com, sellandsourceme.com.

Pat Yates 25:27

That is great. I know we could sit here and talk entrepreneurship all the time. I think I had such great experience at all the ones that I went, I’ll encourage people to look then if they’re trying to think about manufacturing any of those locations need to understand and meet vendors. Amy’s a great person to do that with obviously, you can help their businesses on Amazon, things like that. Just an amazing job, Amy, I appreciate you coming on the Quiet Light Podcast today.

Amy Wees 25:48

Thank you for having me. It was fun.

Outro 25:52

Today’s podcast was produced by Rise25 and the Quiet Light content team. If you have a suggestion for a future podcast, subject or guest, email us at [email protected]. Be sure to follow us on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. And subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next week.