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Episode 51 – Karina Molostova Quits Medical Studies & Modeling to Happiness & Success Selling on Amazon

Meet Karina Molostova, an ex pre-med student and model. She jumped ship to become one happy Amazon seller—well on track to making 7-figures annually. Find out how she got started and learn why overlooked basics might be the “secret recipe” to a successful Amazon product launch.

Episode 51 covers:

  • 01:42 – Karina’s Time as an Anteater (UC Irvine)
  • 02:20 – Premed and Modeling Kept Her Busy
  • 04:00 – Research in the Lab Helped Her Develop Skills for Amazon
  • 05:00 – In 2017 a YouTube Black Hole Led Her to Amazon
  • 07:55 – A PPC-Only Launch Strategy Worked for Her First Product
  • 08:30 – Karina – “To Start, Don’t Worry About Your Brand, Just Move Forward”
  • 10:30 – How Did She Ultimately Pivot and Build Her Brand Awareness?
  • 12:20 – Outsourcing Takes the Weight Off Her Shoulders
  • 14:30 – Karina – “Stick to the Basics, and Create Great Images and Keywords”
  • 16:45 – Helium 10’s Black Box was Her Tool of Choice
  • 18:00 – PPC Combined with a Sweet Spot in the Market is a Powerful Combination
  • 19:37 – Bradley Offers a Helium 10 Based Bundling Tutorial 
  • 23:07 – The Process, not the Product, is Her Passion
  • 26:00 – She’s Not Afraid to Change Paths to Find Her Happiness 
  • 28:25 – How to Get in Touch with Karina 

Enjoy this episode? Be sure to check out our previous episodes for even more content to propel you to Amazon FBA Seller success! And don’t forget to “Like” our Facebook page and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play or wherever you listen to our podcast.

Want to absolutely start crushing it on Amazon? Here are few carefully curated resources to get you started:

  • Freedom Ticket: Taught by Amazon thought leader Kevin King, get A-Z Amazon strategies and techniques for establishing and solidifying your business.
  • Ultimate Resource Guide: Discover the best tools and services to help you dominate on Amazon.
  • Helium 10: 20+ software tools to boost your entire sales pipeline from product research to customer communication and Amazon refund automation. Make running a successful Amazon business easier with better data and insights. See what our customers have to say.
  • Helium 10 Chrome Extension: Verify your Amazon product idea and validate how lucrative it can be with over a dozen data metrics and profitability estimation. 
  • SellerTradmarks.com: Trademarks are vital for protecting your Amazon brand from hijackers, and sellertrademarks.com provides a streamlined process for helping you get one.

Transcript

Bradley Sutton: In this episode, find out two little utilized strategies that can help take you to a six to seven-figure business. Also, find out why a pre-med student on a path to a career in medicine dropped everything, including a promising modeling career to go into private label. Say whaaaaat?

Bradley Sutton: How’s it going, everybody? Welcome to another episode of The Serious Sellers Podcast. My name is Bradley. I’ll be your host today as I am every episode actually. And with me, I have a different guest. So you’re always stuck with me, but every week at least I have somebody different. And today I’ve got somebody in person. I’m looking at her right now because usually, I do these virtually, but she lives near us. So she actually came in. I met her at the SellerCon convention or conference, Karina. How’s it going, Karina?

Karina Molostova: Hello, it is going amazing. How are you?

Bradley Sutton: I’m doing just delightful. I really wanted to reach out to you because I’ve been watching what you’ve been doing on YouTube. You were actually one of our affiliates before, but I had not met you in person until the conference. So, let’s talk a little bit about your background, first of all. You went to– did you go to high school here in the United States?

Karina Molostova: Yes. I’m actually born in Russia, I lived there until I was about eight, and then I moved to the USA. I went to high school, went to UCI here for Biology. So, very familiar with the local school over here.

Bradley Sutton: So, UCI, is that Anteaters?

Karina Molostova: Yes.

Bradley Sutton: So, you’re an Anteater like your mascot there.

Karina Molostova: Yes, and that’s University of California, Irvine. For those of you who don’t know the abbreviations.

Bradley Sutton: Okay. So as an Anteater, you study Biology. That makes a little bit of sense right there. So, you got a Bachelor’s then in Biology?

Karina Molostova: Yeah, Bachelor of Science in Biology.

Bradley Sutton: Okay. So, when you first started that, graduating in high school, you’re like, “Hey, I’m going to major in Biology.” What were your career goals at that time?

Karina Molostova: Much different than they are now, but kind of the same concepts. I always enjoyed learning and progressing, and I wanted to do a fulfilling profession that would also help a lot of people. So, my initial goal was to have a comfortable life to be able to travel and to be able to do good for others. I was really on the path to doing Doctors Without Borders, and at the same time, science is very powerful. I was going to go to med school, continue my knowledge there, and that was my reasoning behind going for Biology and then pre-med.

Bradley Sutton: Okay. You did go pre-med as well?

Karina Molostova: I was on pre-med, yes. And I worked at a hospital. That was my old nine to five as well as– we can go on. Long story, I tried different things. I was also signed to a modeling agency simultaneously.

Bradley Sutton: While you were in college, you were doing modeling as well?

Karina Molostova: Yes, and especially more so afterward when in the process of– I had a gap year. So in the process of wanting to apply to med school and working at the hospital, I was also signed to an agency in LA. She’s local here too as well.

Bradley Sutton: Excellent. So, how was that for you? Did you make enough money doing that, or was it fun? Was it not fun? Did you have second guesses about maybe I’ll be a model full time instead of pursuing the–

Karina Molostova: Well, I didn’t think I want to be a model full time. It was something that I have wanted to do, and I’ve done it a little bit through my college and high school, but more serious when I got signed long term. But my goal was always to do something more fulfilling and more long-term. It was always going to be medicine. But then that changed when I was working at a hospital which was a trauma 1 center, and with surgeons and I realized their lifestyle was nothing that I wanted. And I commend them immensely for all the things that they do. But it’s just such a different expectation that I had, and I realized that basically 80 percent of the things I wanted to do, I wouldn’t get out of that profession. And that’s how I kind of came into this entrepreneurship.

Bradley Sutton: Were you freaking out? When you came to that realization, cause you had already spent all this money on college or all this time, or you were like, “oh my God, what have I done?” Well, did you have a moment like that? Or how was it?

Karina Molostova: No. Actually, I really enjoyed my college experience. I also worked at a lab for Alzheimer’s, so I did a lot of dissections, and a lot of just really fancy-schmancy lab stuff. And I really enjoyed the learning process. I’m the type of person that enjoys the process of things. I didn’t regret it and I learned a lot. And I think it helped me develop other skills, which helped me with Amazon as well. But I started to realize more so when I started to get around the people that were in the actual setting. This is what my life is going to be in the next two to four years, and I imagine going through school for that long. And I said, “okay, so something’s off here, something is really, really off and I need to change this asap.”

Bradley Sutton: What year is this, when you came to that realization?

Karina Molostova: Two years ago, about.

Bradley Sutton: So, 2017 around, around there. Did you try anything else before? What was the process like? How did you end up to the point where, “Hey, let me try this Amazon thing?”

Karina Molostova: Well actually there was no let-me-try-this-Amazon thing. It was more of getting knowledge online, and then the YouTube black hole leads you to things. I was trying to look up a video of something completely irrelevant and random and somehow private label, Amazon FBA came up. And instantly, it was like a light bulb went off on my head and I’m like, this is it. Why am I not doing this? The same night I found it I binge-watched videos all night until 4:00 AM. Got into a course, literally executed within those few months, and it’s history ever since.

Bradley Sutton: That was towards the end of 2017?

Karina Molostova: Yes. My first product launch a little bit over a year ago, April of 2018. I started sourcing my products during the amazing Chinese New Year’s. That was a lot of fun. I had that excruciating month of time gap.

Bradley Sutton: Are you still selling your first product?

Karina Molostova: Yes, actually that’s the one. I had– well I’ve launched two products at the same time. And the one that I thought was going to be, oh my gosh, the numbers were there, the revenue, it looked amazing. Didn’t go so well. And the second one I launched as a “why not? I’ll just do it”, actually turned out into a full-blown brand right now that I’m still continuing to sell and dominating in the whole entire market.

Bradley Sutton: How much did you have to invest in that? Normally people only have enough to invest in one product. But you did two. So, what kind of cash did you have to have upfront to be able to start with two products at once?

Karina Molostova: Honestly, when people ask me this question, I feel it could be a little bit misleading because it all depends on the units you order, your launch strategy, the product, the wait. My first product was maybe two or three times more expensive than my second one. Launching the second one was a lot less cost. Way less cost. And so that was that.

Bradley Sutton: So what’s that mean? Are we talking $20,000?

Karina Molostova: No, no. The first one, I think it was under $5,000 maybe. I don’t know. Around four.

Bradley Sutton: Okay.

Karina Molostova: Given all, yeah. And then the second one was significantly less than that. And I ordered a small MOQ (minimum order quantity) too. My first mistake with the first product is that I ordered too many units. And then that was kind of– well, something fortunate happened with me actually with Amazon lost all my inventory of my filled product. So they gave me a refund, which was nice.

Bradley Sutton: Hold on, hold on. So from your first shipment, they lost everything? Or, you started selling and then...

Karina Molostova: Yeah. So I started selling. I thought it was going to go so well. I had this perfect listing. I had this strategy and it didn’t do so well. PPC was expensive. It just wasn’t working out. And then I said, okay, so I guess I’ll just take the loss. It’s not really selling. I lowered it to breakeven, but you know how it goes. And then all of a sudden, just randomly, Amazon lost all my inventory, so they had to reimburse me for it. So I think I even made money on that product.

Bradley Sutton: That is great. That was a blessing in disguise.

Karina Molostova: It was a blessing.

Bradley Sutton: All right. What was your launch strategy on those products?

Karina Molostova: Actually PPC. So, I launched with PPC only and it did really, really well, especially for my second product. The first product, the biggest mistake was I was a first-time seller. I didn’t really know as much as I do now. And looking back now, I can spot an oversaturated market from 50 miles away. And that’s what it was. It was something where new sellers kept getting put on every few weeks because everyone was doing a me-too product and my bundle wasn’t enough. My amazing listing, so I thought, wasn’t enough. So, wouldn’t make that mistake again.

Bradley Sutton: From day one, you mentioned how you build a brand off of this. From day one, was that your goal? Like “Hey, I’m going to make a brand, I’m going to make social media for this, I want to build a following”, or was it something that just happened because it did so well?

Karina Molostova: People are really stressing the importance of branding and I totally get it, but as a new time seller and someone that’s trying something out for the first time, I think people should just stress a little bit less on that. I think they should do something that they see progress in and gives them a little bit of motivation and then from there go on and see how it goes. Because in the end, it’s just a product, right? If you want to kill it, you can kill it. You can find a new one. There are so many opportunities within Amazon and if you really– if your goal is to build a brand, I believe you can find a market that you can build a brand. But I never thought about building a brand. I heard it and I knew about it, but in the long run too, I saw the potential of it becoming a brand. I just didn’t know how I was going to do it. But then, when it started selling well, and when I studied the market even more so and keywords, I really saw how I could take up more real estate on Amazon. And then, that’s when I started branching out in the same categories and building it into an actual brand.

Bradley Sutton: Okay. Were all your subsequent product launches all from the same brand of that second product that you had launched?

Karina Molostova: A lot of them were. But, I also ventured out into other brands since then, and I’m looking to build other ones. I have another Amazon seller account now, so I’m building a brand within that. When I find a good product and not just some, I don’t like to go after rinky dinky products. I really like products that could be packaged as premium and bundled, and really add a lot of value to the customer. And something where I see the market has not very strong listings. I really like to be creative on the listing side as well. And when I see that, that’s gold to me. And I know I could build a brand out in that, but I just really enjoy it. I enjoy launching products in a similar industry and actually building brands as opposed to having random products. I’m just building out different ones.

Bradley Sutton: What do you do to help? Technically, somebody could just say, I have five products and I made it the same brand. I’m building a brand. I’m assuming that you do a little bit more. What kind of things have you done to kind of take that next step to really build your brand awareness out there?

Karina Molostova: Well, of course, all of them have to be if it’s a brand in the same niche, right? So it’s actually very, very helpful because you have similar customers. I really like using Facebook, ManyChat, email autoresponders. Even though Amazon doesn’t give you people’s emails addresses, they do give you the first name, the last name, and the address. And from that, you can take it into Facebook, use ManyChat, use targeted ads, make lookalikes from them to get more audiences. And then, a thing I love to do too is to help the launches of other products is that the email autoresponders have the people tag – So you’re allowed to send a mass email to everyone even though you technically don’t own the emails. I like to blast them with emails that go through Amazon, and when I have a new product out.

Bradley Sutton: Okay, so you never got in trouble?  Amazon never said, “hey, we don’t like you emailing everybody.” Cause sometimes Amazon is so picky with when and who you email.

Karina Molostova: I haven’t gotten anything but again, I don’t make my emails spammy or anything against TOS (terms of service).

Bradley Sutton: Never take them outside of Amazon and stuff like that.

Karina Molostova: Not yet, especially now with Amazon having direct eyes on you. That’s just too dangerous and I’m not risking that.

Bradley Sutton: Okay. All right. So how many SKUs in total now?

Karina Molostova: I think about seven or eight.

Bradley Sutton: Okay. And do you have a projection? How much money do you think you might gross this year 2019?

Karina Molostova: My goal is that I’m seriously really focusing on scaling. I grew fast in the first few months. I got to six figures pretty fast and then ever since then increased that mark. But I’m really trying to get to seven figures and the thing that’s been holding me back, it’s not even the knowledge of Amazon. I really think it’s outsourcing. And I’ve taken major advantage of that over the past few months, and I have noticed so much. So much weight lifted off my shoulders with actually hiring people to help me out with things that..

Bradley Sutton: Is that local, or are you going to VAs (virtual assistants)?

Karina Molostova: VAs, yeah. It’s so much help honestly, and I think everyone says this and you never really understand that until you do it yourself. You should do it earlier than you think you should do it, because it is worth every single penny and more. I just want to give everyone raises already because it is helping me so much.

Bradley Sutton: What kind of things do you outsource then?

Karina Molostova: So first, I have a YouTube channel as well, so I was editing, it’s called intoamilli, so it’s like my name. And then they’re editing all my videos for me. So I got a really, really good graphic designer because that is a huge component of Amazon. Amazon is all visual. That’s the only way that people really get to see what they’re buying is by what they’re seeing. And before I would have to go through so many freelance graphic designers to construct a listing, make 3D renderings for me, combined pictures if it’s a bundle, package designing. I’m super cautious about the way I designed my packages. But then it would just be a headache. I would have to be outsourcing a new person every single time or somebody that wasn’t good. And now I found a person that is just an expert at what they do. And literally within one text message, I tell them what to do. They work on it, it’s direct communication. And, she just basically– the number one thing that I had trouble with is the actual graphic design part of it, which also does other things for me. Basically all creative aspects with my heavy guidance of course. And then other Amazon tasks. I also have someone that helps me with the Amazon side of things, just monitoring my listings, and I have her talk to customers through my ManyChat. I have a visual person and then I also have someone that does more the techie Amazon things. I don’t give away too many tasks yet. I’m still supervising because I want it to go really smoothly. But it is very, very helpful. It does take a lot of pressure out of me so I can focus on doing other things.

Bradley Sutton: Okay. And what else do you think you do that maybe might be unique? VA’s is something that you think that, oh yeah, everybody does VAs, but actually the actuality, very few people outsource. What are some other maybe unique strategies or things that you’ve done that really have helped you get to six figures so fast and really on the way to seven figures? What are some things that maybe you can share with us?

Karina Molostova: When it comes down to it, I don’t really think you have to go too unique. I think knowing the basics are very, very important and that is where most people mess up. I get a lot of messages, and on Instagram of people saying, “can you take a look at my product? Why am I not getting sales?” And the two biggest mistakes they make is A. Their listing isn’t– the main picture doesn’t look nearly as good as it should. And B–

Bradley Sutton: What do you mean? Let’s stop there for a second. Let’s talk about that cause I think that’s interesting. I don’t think enough people talk about that. What makes main image good versus bad?

Karina Molostova: I think over time you really have to develop that third sense. It’s sometimes you just look at something and it just looks off. I’m not saying it looks bad, it could be possible, but people tend to think that their image looks a lot better than it actually does. And when you compare it to the overall market, it looks exactly like everyone else, or it doesn’t look up to par, or it looks too simple. I am really big into 3D rendering and just making it look – I prefer not even having photography done, but actually having a rendered version of it with a really talented graphics artist. Either just get someone that’s really talented to do it, make sure it’s super optimized in the little box that Amazon gives you. It fills up every single corner as you can, and just you have to get really creative and re-position things in very creative ways. And I don’t think that’s something that you’re born with. It’s like you just have to look at enough pictures to understand that you can do a lot better. And sometimes there are markets that have crazy numbers, but not a single listing is amazing. There’s not a good single seller. I mean enter those markets.

Bradley Sutton: So, 3D images. Yeah, I think that’s good advice. Obviously, some markets or some kind of products, 3D wouldn’t work, but in many, it makes something look a lot better. So what was the other thing you said other than images that you think sellers are making mistakes?

Karina Molostova: Keywords. I was saying it’s going back to the basics. Having and knowing your main keyword and Helium 10 really helps out with that. A lot of people guess what it is, and that’s a mistake. And then another thing, they enter something super niche specific, and they think that’s their main keyword. So, they find the one and a lot of sellers, run the extension, see that they’re selling really well, and assume that it’s coming from a really niche keyword and they try to target it, they put it in their title, but in reality there is a larger keyword that’s contributing to all the sales that all the sellers are looking at are actually getting their sales from; that main, bigger keyword. And people don’t understand that. For example, somebody would send me a gold picture frame and say I’m not getting sales for this. And okay, first off, your listing is not that great; the main image. And second off, the main keyword is actually pictured frame. It just so happens that some of the sellers are gold picture frames and people are buying it, but they’re ranking for the bigger keyword. And if you just go after gold, it doesn’t have as many searches, and then they’re not getting any sales.

Bradley Sutton: Okay. Alright. So keywords and images are two very important things. Do you have any unique PPC strategies, your launch, did you say your launch technique was strictly through PPC?

Karina Molostova: Yes.

Bradley Sutton: What does that consist of? How do you launch just with PPC?

Karina Molostova: It’s basically ignoring ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sale) and targeting exact match phrases. I go really heavy on PPC. I find out the main keywords, I exact match them, go heavy bid on them, try to get to the sponsor, to the top of the page for the main keyword and other keywords. And then I just do manual keywords too. I just try to get as many sales through PPC as possible, and can I just point this out? That this is also very relative to the market you’re getting to. This does not work for every single market, especially if there are competitive markets that you need to do giveaways or some other strategies. But, I tend to go from markets that I’m not trying to compete with the big brands, with the big sharks out there. I’m not saying I also go for the lower hanging markets, but I find that sweet spot where I really do a lot of research on the market to make sure it’s something that I could improve on as the actual offer of the product. I bundle things, improving on what I’m giving to the customer, improving on the listing, just studying the competition and improving much better than them. When I do launch with PPC, I really stand out. I’m not a me-too product that looks like everyone else. It already draws attention to people. That’s what’s different because if you go into something that’s like a product that everyone else is doing, and you don’t really differentiate, or you just have a lower price, or a slightly better image, PPC might not turn out so well, because then you’re just kind of blending in. To launch that way, you have to really make sure that you have something really special that attracts the customer.

Bradley Sutton: Okay. You mentioned bundling before. How do you decide– what’s involved in your research process to decide, “hey, this is a product that should go with this or not and I know I’m going to crush it”?

Karina Molostova: I basically find the main keyword, or the main three, open up every single person that’s doing well on the first page and just study the competition really, really well. I look at the frequently bought together section. That’s super important because that’s Amazon’s algorithm telling you, “Hey, people are interested in this”. And that’s–

Bradley Sutton: Do you know Helium 10 does that? Did you see that new feature? That’s a brand new feature.

Karina Molostova: No, I did not.

Bradley Sutton: We now have the– I figured that maybe you didn’t, but you go to Black Box, and on the very last tab is called Product Targeting. So, you put an ASIN right there, and you know how Frequently Bought Together sometimes changes throughout the month. One week it’s this product. But there are two products usually, right? But then next week based on buyer behavior, it might be something different. So, we actually have a history of all the ones in the last 30 days that we’ve detected as Frequently Bought Together. So, using your technique, if somebody is wanting to bundle, I said that’s under Product Targeting because actually, we did that so that people can do a Product Targeting PPC, right? So, hey, instead of just showing yourself on liked products, show yourself on the frequently Bought Together Once, or we also show a Customer Also Bought. But I think using your strategy of bundles, that would also be a good way, right? That you can have the visibility of all the different products that have come up or the Frequently Bought Together.

Karina Molostova: That’s awesome. I didn’t know you guys had that feature. Well, less manual work.

Bradley Sutton: We’ll have to make a video for that. All right, we’ve talked about bundling. We’ve talked about PPC, we’ve talked about your launch. Let me just completely switch gears now, and something I’m sure you’ve noticed, was SellerCon, your first conference or you’ve been to other Amazon conferences?

Karina Molostova: I’ve been to a lot of other conferences, not Amazon-specific conferences.

Bradley Sutton: Okay. I’m sure you noticed at SellerCon, there is a vast disparity as far as male versus female. So many males are in the Amazon world. So, I’ve talked to, I have a lot of friends that are women who have asked me because they see that, “hey, I’m doing Amazon”. And the vibe I get, you can tell me if this is similar to you or not, the vibe that you’ve gotten. But sometimes they’ll tell me, “Ah, I look at YouTube videos and I do this, and I see it’s mostly men who are into Amazon and I’m not sure, is there a place for me?” Have you noticed that too? There’s a disparity, and if so, what kind of words of wisdom can you give to other aspiring female entrepreneurs?

Karina Molostova: My personal philosophy is that whatever you think in your mind is what you see. So, whatever you expect is what you’re going to get. If you think that there is no place for you in ABC, there won’t be a place for you in ABC. I’ve never really, personally, I haven’t felt that I was just doing what I wanted to do, what I felt was right, and I have never had any setbacks with that situation. But I really think that people need to really focus on themselves, and literally ignore everything else that’s going on. If you just focus on doing well on progressing yourself, on just learning, and the only thing you should be thinking about is how you feel in a certain moment. And just getting yourself to a happy state, and knowing that there is a lot of opportunity in this, and that male, female, animal, not animal, if you’re 16 or 70, it really doesn’t matter. The thing is it’s an equal opportunity. You’re going to get what you expect, what you put into it. Just be completely unconcerned with whatever else is going on around you and just do what you got to do.

Bradley Sutton: That’s great advice. Your particular niche, for your brand that you’re in, is it equal for the customer base, your customer Avatar, is it something that’s for men or women or skews to one or the other?

Karina Molostova: Actually, I have several. My big brand skews to women, and I did not do that on purpose. My other brands are definitely just for everyone. But I think that’s also interesting because when it comes to Amazon, I did not go after a product I was “passionate about”. That wasn’t my mindset going into it. My mindset was let me just make a better offer for the customer in whatever product I maybe, because I actually enjoy the whole Amazon business model itself, not necessarily the product. Any product for me is fun to scale and to invent and see what I can make better out of it. Not necessarily one product, but I definitely think you have to know your customer, your Avatar as well when you’re doing that. That’s for sure, whatever it may be. But don’t go into a product thinking that you have to do a specific one or that, okay, I’m not passionate about fishing. I’m not going to do something in the fishing niche because honestly it’s just a product and people just overthink this too much. It’s just the product. You can literally just go out of stock, never sell it again. You can find another one. I find winning products so often on Amazon, it just keeps growing and growing and fewer people are putting in enough effort as they should be. There’s definitely so much opportunity, and as long as you know how the business model works, eventually you will find success and it doesn’t need to be a specific product.

Bradley Sutton: Yeah, I think that’s great advice. I’ve taught that many times about you can’t always just do something you’re passionate about. It’s about going where the opportunity is. Maybe me, I’m obviously not passionate about some kind of women’s makeup, right? I don’t know anything about it. But, if for whatever reason I find that’s where the opportunity as well, what I need to do is I need to study all I can about it and that’s what I need to go after. Maybe I’m passionate about Mason Jars, but it’s probably saturated. That doesn’t mean I need to go after it. It’s a good point. But if you can find the best of both worlds, and that’s great. Maybe, I am passionate about makeup. Alright, maybe in a past life I was a makeup artist. Well, if that’s where the opportunity is, I actually have a little bit of an advantage because it’s like, “wow, I know all about this already”. It gives me a little advantage. Maybe for your first product, it did help a little bit. That you understood your Avatar a little bit better if it was for women. But basically, I think the moral of the story is don’t just focus on that. If I love fishing, I shouldn’t be just “oh no, I have to do a fishing product”. If I know nothing about fishing, which I don’t. If that’s where the opportunity is, I need to focus on that. I think that’s good advice. Now what about male, female, old, young, whatever? What about people who are in your situation where they are– they went on some educational and career path, completely different. They are a Biology major, they’re a Chemistry major, and they’re having second guesses about, “Do I want to continue on this path? I invested $100,000 in my education for this and now, I see Amazon is a great opportunity.” What would you say to them? What motivated you? Because for every person like you who did take that leap and now you’re doing great, there are probably five other people who go through the same thought process, but they just stick with what they did, because “I’ve invested so much in that, maybe I’m not happy in this, but still this is what I’ve got to do. I’m not going to make that leap.” So what would you– words of wisdom will you say for people like that?

Karina Molostova: I was in the same situation. I did not know that I was ever going to be in this place and it’s just for me, the reason I even went into it, because I feel like I always had that type of personality. And this is bringing me to exactly what I want to do. Something with a deeper purpose because now I can educate people and just having a bigger goal when it comes to this. I knew what I was doing wasn’t making me happy and it wasn’t going to make me happy in the long run. I knew that the skills that I had or wanted to have wasn’t going to touch as many people as I wanted to touch in the future. And to everyone else that’s in the same situation, that’s life, right? But sticking to something that you don’t enjoy or sacrificing something you do want to have really badly in the future is going to be the biggest mistake because in the long run– I went to full four years of college, countless sleepless nights, and premed, you always have to keep your GPA up, everything; the lowest grade was in B. It’s putting in a lot of work and time and money and effort, but it’s not what I wanted to do. So whether you lose $100,000, at the end of the day, I know it might be a tough pill to swallow, but money is just money. If you even lose all your money in an Amazon product, truly you can Uber and earn your money back, get a job, earn it back. It’s going to come back. What’s not going to come back is the dream that you killed by not taking any action, or actually pursuing it. You just have to push yourself to step out and change your mindset around things, and actually, do something that you see will bring you to the right thing. Because you could be going up a ladder, but then at the end, it’s leaning against the wrong wall. And then what’s the point of that? Then, you’ve just lived your whole life and you said, I’m not where I ever want it to be. And that’s, in my opinion, is way scarier than losing any money than losing your track, or changing your path, your original path that you were on.

Bradley Sutton: That’s great advice. Karina, thank you so much for coming on here. It looks like you’re well on your way to seven figures. We’re definitely going to reach out to you maybe beginning of next year and see how your 2019 ended up. You mentioned you had Instagram and YouTube; I believe so. Can you spell out how people can find you, and maybe they can contact you there if they had more questions?

Karina Molostova: Yes. Well, my full name is Karina Molostova, but my Instagram and YouTube handle is intoamilli. So that’s i n t o a m i l l i. Like into a million, but million in short. intoamilli.

Bradley Sutton: Ah, okay. I didn’t get it at first when I first saw the Instagram. Now, it totally makes sense.

Karina Molostova: I thought it was pretty catchy. I guess..

Bradley Sutton: Yes. Now I was like, wait a minute, maybe this is her nickname or something like that. But, now that you say it there, I’m never going to forget that. If you have more questions for Karina, please reach out to her there, and you’ll visit her channel. And we’re about to film some content for her channel, so you can see me on her channel, and the upcoming video coming up soon.

Karina Molostova: Yeah, it should be really fun. And guys, I’m really active on my Instagram and YouTube. I’m very, very responsive to all questions. I love doing that. So just send me a message if you have any questions.

Bradley Sutton: All right. Thank you, Karina, again, for joining us.

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Published in: Serious Sellers Podcast

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