[Top Agency Series] Navigating Amazon’s Complex World With Andrew Morgans

Andrew Morgans is the CEO of Marknology, an Amazon agency specializing in brand acceleration and building. With over 13 years of experience in the Amazon industry, he has helped over 15 brands achieve successful exits and owns eight DTC brands. Andrew has personally worked with leading international brands such as adidas, Marvel, and Swiss. Blending a deep understanding of the Amazon ecosystem with a unique upbringing as a child of two active missionaries, his insights and expertise are sought after by companies around the world.

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

• [04:46] Andrew Morgans discusses how Marknology revolutionizes Amazon selling for brands
• [09:01] The pivotal moment that led Andrew to reject traditional job stability for the risks of entrepreneurship
• [17:44] How Marknology’s services have evolved
• [24:28] The key initial hires that helped shape Marknology’s early success
• [28:33] Amazon opportunities and growth strategies
• [30:13] Andrew’s past trials, including being kidnapped and how it shaped his resilience and entrepreneurial spirit
• [38:46] Marknology’s customer success stories 
• [43:33] The benefits of owning a 3PL warehouse for e-commerce

In this episode…

Transitioning from a stable career to launching a thriving business in the competitive e-commerce landscape requires a bold vision and a strategic approach. How can one navigate the challenges of market saturation and consumer expectations in this space and thrive?

Andrew Morgans, an Amazon expert, shares his story of starting as an e-commerce manager before founding Marknology, a marketplace agency specializing in Amazon. By identifying the need for brands to navigate the complexities of Amazon, he created tailored services to address these challenges. His approach was informed by personal experiences, including pivotal moments that inspired him to take risks and trust in his capabilities. Andrew emphasizes the importance of relationships and innovation, discussing how his agency helps brands launch, scale, and optimize their presence on Amazon. He also reflects on the role of family in his business, noting that his siblings have been instrumental in supporting and growing the company.

In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz interviews Andrew Morgans, CEO of Marknology, about the journey from e-commerce management to founding a successful Amazon agency. Andrew discusses how Marknology revolutionizes Amazon selling for brands, the evolution of its services, Amazon opportunities and growth strategies, and how his past trials shaped his resilience and entrepreneurial spirit.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Andrew Morgans on LinkedIn | Website
• Marknology

Special Mention(s):

• SweetProcess
• CGM
• Upwork

Related episode(s):

• “[Sweet Process Series] How to Save Hundreds of Hours a Month Using Top Productivity Tools with Adi Klevit of Business Success Consulting Group” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[Top Agency Series] Navigating a Merger and Becoming an End-to-End Digital Partner With Kevin Hourigan of Spinutech” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[Top Agency Series] Best Practices for Hiring Tech Talent with Matt DeCoursey, CEO and Co-Founder of Full Scale” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[Top Black Business Leaders Series] Insource: How to Increase Efficiency with Existing Staff and Rapidly Onboard New Staff with Owen McGab Enaohwo of SweetProcess” on the Inspired Insider Podcast

Quotable moments:

• “Walk through the fire, come out better on the other side.”
• “I really set up Marknology to solve all of those things that you need, and over the years gained expertise in each of those areas.”
• “Chaos has turned me into a good entrepreneur because — I think that I didn’t really realize it — what was normal for me growing up there is not normal for everyone else.”
• “It’s just about getting your reasons together and being able to bet on yourself.”
• “Anything I’m trying to do, whether it’s being a security guard or leading my company, I’m striving to be the best.”

Action Steps:

1. Develop comprehensive SOPs: Creating detailed standard operating procedures can streamline processes and improve efficiency.
2. Invest in e-commerce training: As e-commerce evolves, staying informed about the latest strategies and tools is crucial in optimizing product listings and understanding marketplace dynamics.
3. Focus on quality content: High-quality, optimized content can significantly impact sales and brand perception on platforms like Amazon.
4. Build strong relationships: Cultivating strong relationships within your team and with external partners can drive business success.
5. Leverage data and analytics: Utilizing data to track performance and make informed decisions is essential in today’s business environment as it helps refine strategies and maximize resources, ultimately improving profitability.

Episode Transcript

Intro  0:01 

You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr Jeremy Weisz.

Jeremy Weisz  0:22 

Dr Jeremy Weisz here, founder of inspiredinsider.com, where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders today, is no different. I have Andrew Morgan’s marknology.com. You could check them out. Andrew before I formally introduce you. I always like to point out other episodes of the podcast people should check out, since this is part of the top agency series, a really good one. You’ll appreciate this one. I had Adi Klevit on. She’s an agency. What she does is done for you SOPs. So she goes into companies and she helps them map out and streamline their process by documenting SOPs, it could be streamlining their client onboarding, their staff onboarding, and a variety of other things. We geeked out on our favorite productivity tools, software tools on that episode, that was a really good one another really good one was Kevin Hourigan. Kevin Hourigan had an agency started in 1995 so it was really interesting to hear the evolution of business, the internet and agency life and still running a thriving agency, Spinutech, and then obviously we have to mention Matt DeCoursey, who I just realized you guys are buddies, and that was a great episode as well. Another Kansas City-based, Founder, CEO at Full Scale, so people can check that out.

And SweetProcess is another one, good one. I don’t know if you’ve heard of SweetProcess, Drew, but it’s a software that you can use to house all of your SOPs so it makes it searchable. And I had the founder on — we use SweetProcess. We actually love it, and our team can find anything they want by just searching inside of the platform. And so people can check that out. Again, we’re going to talk about streamlining processes on this episode, and this is brought to you by Rise25. At Rise25 we help businesses give to and connect to their dream relationships and partnerships. How do we do that? We do that by helping you run your podcast. We’re an easy button for a company to launch and run a podcast. We do the strategy, the accountability and the full execution So Drew we call ourselves the magic elves that run in the background and make it look easy for the host so they can create amazing content, create amazing relationships, most importantly, run their business.

For me, the number one thing in my life is relationships. I’m always looking at ways to give to my best relationships, and I have found no better way over the past decade and profiling the people and companies I most admire and sharing with the world what they’re working on. So if you thought about podcasting, should you have questions, go to rise25.com, or email us at [email protected]. And thank you to B Jim Sheety started CGM Marketing. We are talking today, because B introduced us. You can check them out at CGM Marketing. He’s a matchmaker for marketing agencies and companies, and he basically makes that perfect match. So and he’s vetted, I don’t know, thousands of marketing agencies and hundreds of partners over different marketing niches, so check that out.

And I am super excited to introduce Andrew Morgans. He’s been helping brands scale on Amazon for over 15 years. He’s the founder of Marknology, which is a marketplace agency that has worked with brands from all over the world to help them navigate the complexity of selling on Amazon. He actually has eight of his own D2C brands, and has helped over 15 brands achieve a successful exit on Amazon. Drew thanks for joining me.

Andrew Morgans  3:46 

Hey, thanks for having me. That was amazing. Shout out to B shout out to DeCoursey, and I’ll have to take a listen to some of those episodes as well. Have definitely had an expert helping me in the business in the last couple of years, getting my SOPs and my process in line. So a very unique skill, and something that a lot of us creatives need help with. So, it sounds amazing, and it sounds like I’m in good company.

Jeremy Weisz  4:14 

100% and I’m going to pull up your website, so if you’re listening in the audio, there’s a video part, Drew, I’m going to have you just start off and talk about Markology and what you do. And we may get to it, folks, that he may tell us why and how he was kidnapped at one point. But we’ll maybe say that till, till later on. So start us off with Marknology.

Andrew Morgans  4:38 

Yeah, get him with the cliffhanger. I like that. I like

Jeremy Weisz  4:42 

It’s a crazy story, so they’re gonna have to wait to find out what happened.

Andrew Morgans  4:46 

Yeah, started Marknology, I guess we’re going on 11 years now, 2013 and I’ve been in the Amazon e-commerce space for a couple of years, from a startup to an e-commerce manager. And if you do the math, or if you know anything about this industry, like, that’s at the very beginning of the industry. And I just started freelancing while I was an e-commerce manager, the startup blew up on Amazon. Then I moved an e-commerce manager, and that toy brand was blowing up. And I was like, wow, I think I’m on to something. I didn’t even know what the word entrepreneur meant, at the time, I’m just a hustler, and I had a degree in computer science, so it’s kind of pursuing that path, and just found e-commerce and fell in love, and the rest is history. I mean, honestly, I was just sitting inside a small, medium-sized retailer, seeing all the problems and hurdles that they had to go through, from mainly conversations, you talked about relationships, and it was my job as e-commerce manager at a company like that.

That was a very successful toy catalog company at the time, and trying to transition into e-commerce. It was about relationships inside the company, whether or not we were going to be successful. It was, there was the head of the customer service, there was the head of accounting and bookkeeping and AR. There was the buyers, there was the brand managers, there was the design team and the head of design. There was my CMO and my COO or CTO, whatever. He was a hybrid kind of position. There’s a CEO. I had the other guys in the technology team. And I’m saying all that to say inside a company there’s real people and there’s real departments, and there’s real challenges to overcome. And it was never about just getting that Amazon seller with the private label brand to say, like, hey Andrew. Like, help me launch a brand on Amazon. Like, I want to quit my nine-to-five. I think I always had it in my mind I wanted to help brands like, like, this toy company, like, at a different level than that Amazon seller.

Even though the Amazon sellers were really the ones pioneering the space at the beginning, I was kind of looking ahead and saying, hey, if this company needed my help, and this company needed my help, and I already know what kind of conversations they’re having behind closed doors, I think I can really help a lot of brands. And so I really set up Marknology to solve for all those things that you need, and over the years, gained expertise in each of those areas. So we help brands get launched, we help them get profitable, we help them scale. We help them train their teams. We help them build processes for their e-commerce Department, their marketplace department. We are known in the space for our content on Amazon and helping brands really develop the content that they already have most times for D2C or different things like that, and helping them there’s just nuance to each of these marketplaces that we’re talking about, specifically Amazon, where instead of like having a journey a lot of times that you get one shot with the customer on your product page. And so how do you conveying your story, your branding, all of that.

How are you ranking in the algorithms? How are you getting good reviews? What’s your post-purchase like, if you’re transitioning from a 1p relationship to 3p, how do you do that? So, I think we’re one of the more experienced teams in the space. We’re here in the Midwest, so a little bit quieter than maybe some of the shops on the coast, but we’ve worked with brands — probably 400 since we started. If I had to guess, brands as small as mom and pops to Fortune 50 companies that we would know, biggest food brands in the world, stuff like that. So I’m gonna stop there, Jeremy, because that’s a lot. But like, how did we get started? It really just started trying to solve a need. And I was just really passionate. I loved that I could make a little change and see a sale within 10 or 15 minutes. And that’s what really hooked me.

Jeremy Weisz  8:35 

Yeah, talk about, you know, starting the agency, because you could have kept working for these brands. I mean, sure, you were in high demand. You could have worked for an individual company and really helped blow it up, but I think you saw something helping multiple and I don’t know, even starting your own on Amazon. What kind of was the initial, okay, I should just make this into my own company and serve lots of brands.

Andrew Morgans  9:01 

Okay, so there was a moment like, I know some people say it just kind of happens. For me, there was a moment it was, it was a couple of things. One at the company I was at, I had hit every goal that they had set and then some — crushing it, and I got like, a 20-cent raise. And it just kind of broke my heart, like they had promised me, training conferences, like different stuff like that, if I was going to be taking a low salary, like I at least was hoping to gain experience and knowledge, and they just weren’t delivering on either side. So when I got a 20-cent raise, which, if you do the math, is like $800 bucks a year, and it was 400 up front, and 400 if we hit the black that year or something. So it was like nothing. It was really like 20 nothing. And I just was like, this isn’t going to help me. I was also going through a divorce at the time, hopefully not too TMI for the show, but I was going through a divorce, and I was heartbroken.

How young were you at the time? I was a, so one I was, I’m a missionary kid, okay, and we had been together for four years, but I was 25 and just kind of hit rock bottom. And what I did have was, was my job, and success at my job. I was kind of crushing it, and so it really was like a source of a way to deal with what I was going through. Was really to just focus on work and where I was getting some positivity and the community at my work, and I just leaned into that. And I was like, anything I’m trying to do, even if I’ve been, you know, I’ve worked at a warehouse. I’ve been a security guard at a casino, going through college. I’ve done a bunch of different things. Whatever I’m doing, I’m trying to be the best, like, I’m trying to do it with excellence, and that’s just who I am as a person. I know it’s one thing to say, but that’s just who I am. It doesn’t matter what the job is like, I’m going to try to optimize it and do it the best way I can. And e-commerce has like, unlimited amounts of optimization that you can do. So it’s like, it’s a job never done, which is also a perfect kind of job for someone like me. And so some of the reason, was that the company I was at was not letting me implement or try all the things in ecommerce that I wanted to try.

Jeremy Weisz  11:17 

What kind of things did you want to try?

Andrew Morgans  11:22 

I was doing simple stuff, like negotiating the look back period on, like a retargeting agency that my company was using, and it was like they had them in, like a 14-day look back, and it should have been like three, and they were getting credit for all of those sales. And I, like, negotiated that. And it was like a huge deal, really, like several $100,000 difference from the 27-day difference in the holidays around toys and that kind of stuff just excited me. Like, wow. Like, if someone has to be paying attention, this is like, no one was showing me the ropes, no one was showing me no one to school for e-commerce or or any of that. But I was excited about it. Another thing was, like, content and images. I was doing a little freelance project on the side, and started working with Adidas, and I was helping them build some content pages on Amazon on the side. I mean, for like, pennies at the time, really, but they had amazing content from photo shoots that Adidas did at a big scale.

And I was able to add those images and that content to their listings, because they were also a vendor, central seller at the time. And I saw the difference, like, immediately the advertising improved drastically. Immediately, the conversion rate on the pages trains drastically. No one at the time was adding images or lifestyle images. Are really trying to do anything on Amazon. And we’ll take a look at some of these, as you’re talking about, because they’re like, let’s just do giveaways. Giveaways alone will, like, launch the products and reviews and it they weren’t wrong, but it was like, I knew what good marketing and branding and content should do, and I had had this taste with Adidas, and I was like, I want to do that on our listings. I want to add keywords. No one was talking about SEO on these platforms. Like, that’s how early it was. Literally no one was thinking that the keywords in your product description, your titles, your bullet points mattered, little things that I just couldn’t get by in from honestly, like with leadership to try and do those are just a couple examples. It was like the team was too busy with catalog or whatever. Like, let’s just use the white background photo we have.

I’m like, no, we really need to lean into this. So it was like one just really kind of being insulted a little bit with the raise and being kind of like, you know, false promises. The other one was, I really just wanted to be the best in e-commerce. And I felt like there are some people outside of this company that are willing to try these things with me in this freelance capacity, but like within my company, they’re not. So I really just wanted to, like to try that, but my first move was not to be a business owner. I started applying at other jobs in the area. And there was actually not going to name them here, but they’re like, a financial services company that had an e-commerce department here in Kansas City that’s very well known. Like, my dad would have been proud of me if I worked there. Type of, like, that’s how I felt at the time. And I was like, after going through kind of this low point I was in, I was like, if I got a job there, like the family, everyone’s going to look at me and be proud.

But I had started, like, I had my day job, and I had started freelancing on the side a little bit, and getting a little income from the freelance and I basically was going to these interviews. And let’s say I was making like, 43,000 at the time. E-commerce managers make so much more now, right? But it was like early guys, I’m telling you, like this very few companies had an e-commerce manager. So 43k in Kansas City, lower market, but I was supposed to be learning and growing and all this stuff. So I went and applied at this other job I just mentioned, and they were offering me like 80k okay, so almost double, which is, like, pretty significant at the time, and it came with the prestige, the clout. But I walked in there and it was just so stuffy. It was just so stuffy. And there was a part. Me that was just like, I don’t think I can do this. Like, I don’t think, I just don’t want to be in this environment. I don’t want to go back to suits. I want to be such a baller that I can wear whatever I want.

I can have tattoos and, like, it doesn’t matter. I wanted to be able to be seen just for that. And then the other one was a sports store, and it was very close to the same salary, but a better environment. And it was like, they sold, they’re at rally house. They sell, like, clothing, sports, stuff everywhere. And I love sports, especially at the time before I was doing my own entrepreneurial thing. And as e-commerce manager, you would sit there and probably watch, like, the Sweet 16, the Final Four, and then you’re making deals, go on the website with whoever wins, and sending out emails. Wow. Missouri Tigers won, like, get your hoodies. But they had, like, the new CT, the new CMO, or CTO that just done crocs, and they had a news infrastructure on their website. And there was going to be a lot of proving to do there. I felt like a lot to learn, a lot to prove.

And this little like baby, I was starting over here with my freelance I knew that if I went in there and had to prove myself there like this, would suffer. And I said all that to say there was just this callous moment for me, because I had been building this business, kind of on the side for a year or so, trying to just, like, pay off bills and debt. And I just said, I’m gonna go in on me. I’m gonna just bet on me. And this thing I’m doing on the side to be bigger than double my salary here. And it was $500 a month at a time for a client, or $800 a month for a client at a time. It wasn’t like it is today. And, yeah, I just went all in. I can remember like it was yesterday.

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