How to Use Meetup Groups as an Innovative Marketing Tool with Carlos Alvarez, Ep #14

Are you looking for a networking opportunity and a place where you can learn? A place where you can meet like-minded entrepreneurs looking to grow their business? Today’s guest Carlos Alvarez started a local meetup group and never imagined how large it would grow. Now he hosts 14 meetings a month—10 in English and 14 in Spanish! It is the largest Amazon Seller meetup group in the world!

Carlos works his marketing magic running Blue Bird Media and Marketing Solutions and hosting the South Florida FBA – Amazon Sellers meetup. His biggest mistake as an entrepreneur led him to his first victory. This episode covers his evolution in Amazon sales, some of the best tricks of the trade, and why meetup groups are an amazing learning tool and sales tactic.

Are you looking for a networking opportunity where you can meet like-minded entrepreneurs looking to grow their business? We talk all about meetups and more in this episode of #MaxizimingEcommerce with guest Carlos Alvarez. #Ecommerce… Click To Tweet

Outline of This Episode

[4:55] Kevin introduces his guest, Carlos Alvarez.
[7:50] Selling novelties using Alibaba
[8:50] Losing everything launched his first profitable business
[11:20] Creation of his meetup group
[15:50] Using meetups as a marketing tool
[18:50] Finding great product reviewers
[21:05] Carlos talks through a product launch
[28:15] Take advantage of everything amazon offers—including ebooks
[32:00] Amazon Treasure Hunts
[35:50] How to connect with Carlos

It all began with a mistake and…bugs?

Carlos started his sales career 15 years ago when he decided to launch an eBay business. He simply sold things around the house to make some extra money. Soon he started purchasing goods at garage sales to sell. This morphed into the novelty business—purchasing in bulk through Alibaba. When his supplier through Alibaba didn’t have the $81,000 in stock that he wanted he tried finding another supplier.

The supplier stole all of his money.

So he started over and began selling the little he had remaining, including his pet snakes. As he was waiting in the pet store, he saw someone pay $25.00 for bugs to feed their snake. A light-bulb went off in his head! He went to the local library and found an article about breeding insects to save zoos money and his next business was born. Carlos started to breed millions of insects and sold 30-40 units a day. One year later, he sold his insect company for 2.6 million dollars.

The creation of his meetup group

Carlos would meet up with local Ecommerce sellers and friends on the weekends to talk about what was or wasn’t working and brainstorm solutions. Their businesses grew and they were making money—but still tossing around the same ideas. So Carlos decided it was time to start a meetup group where anyone could join and more minds were available to give insight.

His friends didn’t show up—but 4 new people did. Eventually it grew to become the largest Amazon Seller group in the world. They have sessions for beginners to experts. They cover everything from arbitrage to wholesale and more! The opportunity to network, to learn and glean insight, and to surround oneself with other entrepreneurs is invaluable.

In today’s episode of #MaximizingEcommerce Carlos Alvarez joins us to talk about the power about meetup groups—as a tool for learning AND growing your business. #Ecommerce #AmazonSeller #AmazonFBA #ProductSales #Entrepreneurship #MeetUp #MeetUps Click To Tweet

Using meetups as a money-making marketing tool

What do you do when you want to work against the grain and utilize a tactic that no one else is taking advantage of? How do you stand out in a crowded market? Carlos had the ingenious idea to utilize meetups. For example, he posted fliers everywhere and marketed a free meetup for people to learn how to scuba dive. He connected with a scuba shop and paid an instructor to train everyone who came to the event. They got the training they desired and a free scuba certification!

Instead of utilizing coupons or giving his product away for free, he offered people something of value. So why wouldn’t they purchase from his Scuba company? Not only that, because they felt rewarded by what they had gained, he received good reviews. So for a small amount of money—versus giving away thousands of units of product—he grew his business and made money. Keep listening as branding, email marketing, quality reviewers, and launching products are covered!

Dominate your niche by taking advantage of Kindle Direct Publishing

Writing an ebook on a subject that directly relates to your brand or product can work as marketing magic. Carlos talks about selling tomato tools and the idea is this: you go look up books on everything related to growing and selling tomatoes and check out their table of contents. You would then compile a list in an excel spreadsheet and write 2-3 paragraphs on each of those items.

Within hours one (or a ghost-writer) can compile an ebook covering everything a person would need to know about growing tomatoes. Amazon even allows linking to your products, your author page, and more! So someone searching for resources will find and read the book and be directed straight to your product. Carlos is full of amazing and revolutionary ideas to market your brand—listen to the whole episode of Maximizing Ecommerce for more outstanding marketing moves!

Are you looking for innovative ways to market your product? Dominate your niche and take advantage of Kindle Direct Publishing. Listen to this episode of #MaximizingEcommerce with Carlos Alvarez to find out how! #Ecommerce #AmazonSeller… Click To Tweet