Episode 68: The Market Of Building Business Relationships On Amazon With Keith Hartnett

Marketing is all about relationship-building. The most valuable relationships are measured by their quality vs. their quantity, but almost every relationship begins with an exchange of value often marked by some series of back-and-forth interactions. My guest today, Keith Hartnett, the Founder and CEO of Better World Products, knows all about the power of relationship-building.

Keith is here to talk about his vision to shift to the retail landscape and bring new life and wealth into our shared communities. Learn more from Keith about how to bring your products to the market, build relationships, and create processes that will help you scale and more.

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Listen to the podcast here:

EP 68: The Market Of Building Business Relationships On Amazon With Keith Hartnett

My guest is Keith Hartnett. He is the Founder and CEO of Better World Products. They help people grow sustainably on Amazon. They do brand management, Amazon listing optimization, and other activities on Amazon to help your product shine on that platform. He and I met at 1% for the Planet Summit a few years ago and hit it off. He’s a great guy. He has been helping out with Nederland Area Trails Organization with some things for them. We had a fun conversation about building relationships and how to launch a product on Amazon. This is a fun show.

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Keith, how are you?

I’m good. How are you?

I’m doing well. Thank you for bearing with the technical challenges we were experiencing there. I appreciate your patience.

No problem at all.

Thank you so much for being on the show. You have been gracious with your time and company helping out one of the nonprofits that I’m on the board of, which is a Nederland Area Trails Organization. Trying to help us get our acts together a little bit in terms of Google grants and leveraging some of the awesomeness there. We probably would love to chat with you about that a little bit but first, I would like to hear a bit about your company, which is called Better World Products and you help people get optimized on Amazon. Is that right?

I’m the Founder of Better World Products. I started the company several years ago. Back then, it was a way to fund my travels around the world but since then, we have turned into a marketing and advertising agency with a specific focus on Amazon and a priority on helping bring better products onto the platform.

How do you define better products? What are your criteria for that?

One of the things I found out the hard way is we certainly can’t seek perfection. There are lots of different ways to figure out a better product, whether that’s product design. It could be simply efficiencies in the way they do things. It could be certifications, fair trade, US organic, could be vegan, someplace in their supply chain. It could be nonprofit partners that they have committed to, whether they are a member of 1% for the Planet, The Conservation Alliance or something like this. It could also be that they are a B corp and they focus on creating a better world in that way.

You have a broad range of ways that people can identify and I know we met originally at 1% for the Planet conference out in Portland.

It seems like a long time.

That was a fun experience. We have been able to go to several of the 1% for the Planet Meetups. That has been cool. They always have great speakers. It’s such a great organization and we met there. How long has your company been a part of that program?

I was looking at our account before and at least in 2018. I started pretty quickly. I knew that was a part of what I wanted to do going out of the gate.

Have you been able to work with 1% partners?

Do you mean companies or do you mean nonprofits?

With the 1% Program, you select a nonprofit partner to donate your volunteer time or 1% of your top-line revenue goes toward environmental causes. I was curious if you have been able to land other partners in terms of other 1% companies who may need to launch their products on Amazon.

We have. One of the toughest parts about trying to mix sustainability in Amazon is that people in the sustainability space hate Amazon. 1% for the Planet or B clubs, these are going to be the people who are on edge trying to push the limit to that. You can go there openness to Amazon. I’m sure it shifted a lot since the pandemic but we did a lot of outreach the first 2 or 3 years, and we’ve got a lot of rejection.

I can understand that Amazon, though, started with some things that seemed unique or at least thoughtful in mind. It feels like it has pivoted a bit over the last few years to have significantly more corporate greed feel to it, which is a bummer because it is such a widely used marketplace. Maybe you can speak to the search engine aspect of it as well. We have seen that in conversations of how people are starting to use Amazon almost as if it were a search engine for products. Have you seen how companies have been able to capitalize on that particular shift?

One of the main things we do is SEO for Amazon. There’s a heavy SEO component the same as it is with Google or any other search engine. Amazon is a search engine the same way. It has a lot of different places to enter data and even now has its climate pledge program that people can filter for when they are searching for products.

They can filter for specific certifications. They can also filter for things like veteran-owned businesses, small businesses, anything along those lines. There are a lot of SEO components to it. Most of what we work with is making sure the product can be found by the people who are the target audience and would want to buy it.

It’s pretty noisy on Amazon. I don’t even know how many skews or whatever their equivalent to that would be but do you know how many different products are listed on Amazon at any given time?

One of the biggest obstacles to anything is building trust with the customer and showing them that they can trust the purchase of the product.

Tens of millions, at least in the US. Globally, it’s probably in the hundreds of millions.

What can people do if you do have an eco brand? Do you want to spread the word on that or do you have a brand that you think would do well on Amazon? What are some of the top DIY things that people can do to try and help improve their performance there on the platform?

I can tell you one of the things we look for before we can even work with a brand is that they’ve got great product photography and that’s going to help you everywhere, no matter what. A lot of the things that you want to come to the table with Amazon are going to help you everywhere. It’s going to be standard. It’s making sure you’ve got good marketing channels.

The stronger your marketing off Amazon is, the stronger your results on Amazon are going to be because it doesn’t matter where people see the product. They are probably going to go to Amazon and buy it. That’s one of the things that we tell people a lot of the time if they are trying to start and want to start on Amazon. I would recommend them building their own channels first.

Would you recommend eCommerce on their website, leveraging Shopify or something like that? Is that the play?

If they are a small startup, they are getting started, and then you’ve got your local community, Facebook Marketplace or Instagram, it’s a real small business hustling thing you’ve got to do to figure out what you are even building. When you are bigger than that and you’ve got people who want to buy the product, then Shopify. After that, I would say go to Amazon once you have verified that the demand for the product is there.

Are there any penalties? I know at one point, people spoke about penalties for duplicate content on different platforms. For example, if you use the same blog posts on your website and have that republished on someone else’s website. There were a lot of buzzes that Google, who’s the elephant in the room here, was dinging people for that. Real-world examples don’t happen that much but would you say that people would need to come at Amazon from a different perspective in terms of their content, particularly their copy?

A big part of our process in the beginning when we are deciding what to write about is not only figuring out what the benefits that you bring to the market are but also figuring out, through analysis of what’s already on the market, what customers are looking at. A lot of what we will do is mind the reviews that people have left on your competitor’s products. We will see what people love and hate about the products. We will take that and focus on that for your listing copy and integrate the SEO as well, figuring out what people are searching for.

They could get their copy dialed on their own site, take that to Amazon and make some additional tweaks based upon what you are seeing over there.

Generally, I wouldn’t recommend it because you are missing the SEO component but if you are doing it yourself, you’ve got to work with something. If that’s what you are going to do, use all of the space. If you have 200 characters or bytes in the title, make sure you are utilizing all of that and understand that what’s in front of the title is going to be more important. What’s on the second half of the title is going to be cut off in a lot of cases, whether it’s in the search results, the different types of ad placements, on mobile or desktop.

You want to make sure you are prioritizing what people care about in the front. If you have 250 bytes in each bullet, 2,000 bytes in the description, you want to use all of that. You want to fill out all the fields. The big thing about food is the nutritional information. You can put all that information in specific fields. You can say it’s organic, see the allergens, and all of that. The more information you put in there, the more Amazon is going to trust your product, the more people who are filtering out those allergens for your food products are going to find your product.

That’s great information. I bet there are a lot of listings out there that could use some optimization help because people don’t understand how that whole system works us. Amazon is the giant out there, at least in the US. What are you seeing in terms of trends? Are people sticking with Amazon or are you seeing things shift to other online platforms? What’s the latest in bringing a product to market?

What we saw during the pandemic were two things. One, it wasn’t explosive growth for Amazon but in the early stages of the pandemic, it was only explosive growth for essential items. Amazon didn’t permit anyone to ship anything else in because they needed all that warehouse space for the essential goods. What that’s turned into overtime with a mess that the supply chain is in is that, it’s hard for people to get most of their inventory in.

In that case, what was originally Amazon’s value prop of having everything, they suddenly find themselves out of stock of a lot of things very frequently. People have also tested Walmart. People like eBay. What we are seeing now is that the pandemic is not over but people are pretty much over it because they are going back out. People are trying to understand in a lot of what we have to communicate is that sales are going down. It’s just people are moving back into the real world again.

Amazon sales are going down but brick-and-mortar sales are coming back up.

Amazon is still huge. It still acquired an incredible amount of customers who are now loyal to the platform. It was a great idea several years ago. It’s an even better idea now. It will probably be an even better idea next year. It’s like, “If you’ve got a website, you’ve got to be on Google. If you are selling a product, you’ve got to be on Amazon.”

What are some of the things that you have seen your clients position themselves as a Better World Product? Are there any unique things that people have done to take something that might be otherwise not necessarily thought of in that category and how it show up?

What I was going to say originally is what we have been focusing on now, the Climate Friendly Badge. As you might know, one of the biggest obstacles to anything is building trust with the customer and showing them that they are what you think they are and they can trust your purchase of a product. Amazon carries a lot of that weight by having a Prime member and knowing they can return it. That’s their big value prop.

It’s not only convenient but they trust that buying from Amazon is a low-risk event versus buying from a Shopify store. They don’t know what they are going to get in that case. The Climate Friendly Badge has been added now. It’s a very big badge that shows up both in search and on your product page that tells people not only that you have these certifications but about the certification. Amazon is working directly with each of these certifying bodies to plug right into their databases. It will pop up a lot at the time.

The other thing, which is probably from a business standpoint, one of the biggest motivating factors or something that gets them the badge quite often is unit efficiency. Naturally, that brings down the costs of products. Businesses are doing this necessarily but Amazon is also now rewarding it by giving them that badge as well for having a best-in-class efficiency. There’s less waste, basically.

That badge comes to people who have strong environmental policies around the production of their products. Is that where that typically shows up?

They’ve got a plug into USDA Organic and Climate One. I can send you the page as well. They have got about 19 to 20 badges that they integrate with and are adding more all the time.

Do you see Amazon making any moves from a corporate standpoint in that same direction, or are they trying to tap into the product-based or product level of that?

I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn and I see a lot of people popping up. They are hiring a lot of jobs that they are focused on around sustainability, especially in logistics about the circular economy. They are hiring people with the circular economy in their titles. A lot of these are a lot of them are focused on understanding the regulatory changes but you can see that fatally shifting focus happening there.

Now, it feels like it’s coming if the pressures from the EU back into other areas. People probably are seeing an opportunity where if they have to do it for the EU, they might as well do it across the board, so you are seeing those badges start to pop up.

They have marketplaces all over the world. They want to keep growing them. They want to make sure they are compliant. In the US as well with the FDA and children’s toys, in particular, gotten hit hard regulatory-wise. They have lost a lot of big cake, which they probably deserve to lose, and are starting to clean their act up a lot. They are entering the maturing phase of where they are at in terms of the marketplace, where they are not focused so much on growth because they have hit a lot of those big areas. They are not looking to break a lot of rules anymore. They are looking to follow the rules and maintain what they have.

It’s always interesting to see how one area shoves an entire marketplace in a certain direction, and likewise, how hard people will fight for that to not happen even if they are positioned well to take advantage of those regulatory changes. It’s interesting how hard some big businesses will fight against that stuff. It’s fascinating to see what are some of the other ways that people can take advantage of some of these certifications on Amazon. You mentioned not only the Climate Pledge but a few other badges. What are some of the other ones that are available?

In terms of marketing badges, the biggest one is Prime. That’s the decision, whether you are going to ship your inventory to Amazon or try and ship it to the customer yourself. Most people on Amazon will filter you right out. The first thing they do, there’s a big little button that says, “Go get the Prime.” That means that you shift your inventory to Amazon and Amazon is handling the shipping. That’s going to be the hugest advantage that you should probably be taking advantage of because everyone else is. You will lose a lot of sales if you are trying to do FBM shipped from your house or your normal logistics facility.

Prime would be analogous to fulfill by Amazon. Is that correct?

Yes.

I have heard that terminology before as well. That allows customers to take advantage of the Amazon shipping flat rate shipping for the two-day deal that they have had out there for a number of years now. It was clearly working pretty well for them.

That’s the big value prop and the reason they have been able to grow so fast.

I have seen a couple of other things pop up that we will do comparison shopping around. If you don’t need it in a couple of days, there are a couple of mechanisms out there that are getting pretty interesting in terms of doing comparison shopping against Amazon, for example, if you don’t need it quite as quickly and they will show you the cost, plus shipping and the timeframe. It’s cool to see people starting to push around on that. I know that’s one of the things that Amazon captured a lot of market share. Are there any other cool things that you are seeing Amazon changing that people should be aware of consider taking advantage of in the coming months?

Nothing comes off the top of my head. I know the other big plates that we help a lot of people with this advertising. They continue to develop their advertising options. If that is a place where you are at and you can spend maybe around at least $5,000 a month on advertising, you are looking to drive sales. That’s something that you should be focusing on.

Those will be promoted products within Amazon.

That’s their PPC option.

People should probably be considering a $5,000 per month spend on that.

I’m a little biased because we do it professionally. We do it when people have trouble with it but people always have trouble with it now because it’s complex. The good thing is that it’s not worth bringing on managed services if you are not spending enough. It’s not possible. You will lose money on the management fees.

You can do it yourself. The easiest advice I can give is to try and segment things out as best as you can. You have options between two different main campaign types, auto and manual. You are going to go with auto, choose 4 or 5, break them into segments. What you have is you have four different targets. You can target close-match products, loose match substitutes, and compliments.

You are looking at me like trying to buy. What if you see it? You will understand what you are looking at, focus each campaign on one of those, and shut the other targets off. In that way you can be more drilled down the algorithm, understands what’s going on more in that one. It’s a lot easier to manage, the more you can segment things out.

You don’t usually hit a home run the first time. It usually takes a little bit of batting cage work.

That makes sense in terms of where to start because if you aren’t doing any segmentation, it cast such a wide net that is probably not as effective.

The hard part is that that’s the best way to do it but it creates more work. You’ve suddenly got a problem where you have created a lot of work for yourself but you don’t have time to manage.

When someone comes on for engagement with your company, what does that look like? What are some of the first things they should be prepared to answer or have ready to go when they are engaging with Better World Products?

The key understanding of what you think your actual problem is and where you want to go. On the consulting side, a lot of what we do is strategic plans and putting all the pieces together to figure out what’s the best way to get you from point A to point B. Understanding and telling us what point A and point B are is important.

The first part of the process there is we look and see what you’ve got going on for listings, it’s just auditing but we give video feedback. We use Loom a lot. I will go through the listings, the advertising account and give you feedback there. If you’ve got account health issues, I can look through that and give you feedback there, and tell you what’s going on and if we can help you in that situation.

It’s a strategy-first approach to it where you are making sure you understand the landscape and not only what’s going on now but where your clients are hoping to go to put a plan together.

Of course, if it’s even feasible. A lot of people want to hit certain sales targets these days but their supply chain isn’t strong enough to get the inventory and hit those sales numbers. We can crank up, say the PPC, and we can get you those targets but you run out of stock for two months. There are dozens of ships lined up in California and you’ve got a two-month wait to get it in the country.

That’s becoming an increasingly barge challenge for many sectors of the economy in terms of goods. I have a friend who owns a bike shop here in the Nederland area, and they are seeing huge impacts in terms of being able to get any products. They are doing a lot more repair. Unfortunately, my other friend works there and he’s a pro mechanic.

I can attest to this myself. If you are in the Nederland area, I will go ahead and plug them into the shop. It’s called Tin Shed Sports. Marcus is the Owner, and my buddy Eric works there. He’s a world-class mechanic and he helped me limp along on a rear derailer in 2021 that has no business being alive still. It’s cool to see how people can help you keep something going as opposed to necessarily having to replace it immediately.

If you are selling products, that’s certainly not a good solution for you is to be able to fix it and that’s a pretty big challenge. I’m sure that the most sophisticated companies are doing all of that analysis in terms of when they anticipate materials to come in and how much they want to throttle on or off their advertising, or even their search spend to keep ahead of fulfillment.

It’s a lot of spreadsheets.

Is that something that you and your team helped with as people figure that out or do most of your clients have that mechanism sorted out?

Some we will figure it out and some of them have it locked down but for those who don’t, we help. I love Excel. It’s one of my favorite places to play. That’s something that we do.

That’s cool to know that you have a whole suite of services that you can offer for people who may be one a little bit of consulting or one soup to nuts having you and your team manage their Amazon play. Do you do other search stuff? You mentioned early on that people should have their channel, try and get that going as they can, and then add other channels as they mature. Do you help them with their off Amazon work as well or are you strictly Amazon?

We try really hard not to do that. One of the great things is that we do a lot of graphic design and infographics. All of that can be repurposed if you need it. If we have already made it for your family size and need to resize, that’s no problem. We can do that. That’s fine and you can repurpose the copy as well.

That’s great because at least you can work in one direction or the other. That’s fantastic.

A lot of what we will see is we will write copy for the Amazon listing. I will go and check their website a couple of days later and all that copies are on there as well.

Is there anything people should look out for if they are doing that in terms of either punishment, benefit or anything?

Google has a pretty good understanding of when something is from Amazon. They have gone back and forth on whether they want to rank Amazon on the top of the page for when people are searching for brands when they want to rank the actual brand up there. I don’t think you’ll be harmed for it. I don’t think there is an SEO element for Google for what they look at for Amazon sites, but I don’t think it would conflict you anything.

I’m trying to remember how does Google shopping works? Is it pulling Amazon listings in there as well at this point or does that go back and forth as well?

You have to have a separate thing set up there but I intend to duplicate content because it’s eCommerce. It’s not unique content. Google understands that it’s going to be the same content everywhere because it’s the same product, I don’t think it should be anything to worry about.

What are some of the things that you have seen nonprofits do in Amazon that’s worked well? Most nonprofits don’t necessarily have a product. We have certainly had a few on the show that has. Are there some product places that would be wise for nonprofits to consider to put on Amazon?

It’s an option. I remember we were talking about this before and it was an interesting topic. The first thing that comes to mind is their KDP program with Kindle publishing books, publishing content in that way. Amazon has Amazon Merch, which is an entire print-on-demand platform. If they’ve got merch that they want to put out, they can integrate it. They used to be able to integrate it with Shopify. I don’t think that works anymore but if that’s something we want to do if they want Nederland Trail coffee mugs, that’s an option. They could do that as well.

That would keep them from having to have inventory because it’s print-on-demand merchandise.

All they have to do is do the creative part of it.

That would be the one product that they have is merch. That would be an interesting play to see, instead of having to buy large quantities of T-shirts or whatever. You just print on demand.

It’s a good option. It gets rid of that upfront cost and gives you access to a wider market.

It seems like if nonprofits could find opportunities that were aligned with what they do with the services that they provide and the people that they serve, you could co-brand all sorts of things I would imagine that would work. I’m thinking about NATO in particular. In theory, we could find toolsets, gloves or things like that that are not a hat or a T-shirt that people might be interested in buying to support the nonprofit as well as get something cool that they could use on the trail.

One of the great things about trails and nature is that you can take amazing photos. You can put together a photo book, trail books, a knowledge base that those hikes have given you, and you can go into a lot of details.

It sounds to me that’s one of the first things that everyone who’s trying to sell something on Amazon should look into is how good or not so good are the photos that you are using on. Tell me a little bit about your Conservation Alliance partnership. Tell us all about how that came to be and what you are doing with Conservation Alliance?

This is an evolution of how we are trying to organize the agency to give back first, being a member of 1% for the Planet and thinking about the companies we want to engage with. Next, with Conservation Alliance, how do we want to give back to our communities engaged with them? That’s part of the reason that I reached out to you and we are now working with NATO as well, as to work with lots of smaller nonprofits to help give back in that way.

Conservation Alliance, we became a member a year after 1% for the Planet. A lot of our contribution is the main annual membership fee. We engage with them on the grant cycles that are going on but I wouldn’t say we have so much cash that we can fund a $50,000. It’s amazing seeing it and seeing where that’s all going. We are allowed to vote, so we can vote on a different project.

One of the things that I would like to do more is to bring the team together and have them engage around, picking who to vote for. I have talked to the Conservation Alliance and they said, “Individuals within the organization could cast separate votes,” which is an interesting concept. I would love to do that more and that is where I’m looking to head to. Also, I have tried it once and I will try it again next year, which trying to pursue B corps. In that, is the third step of the evolution of who we work with, working with our communities, working on ourselves internally, and making the lives of the people we work with better.

What were some of the challenges that you ran into with B corp certification?

I needed 80 points to pass and we’ve got 79. It’s a very complex process. We worked with some amazing consultants on the job. The hardest thing is putting together all the paperwork and it’s going through that process. I have a lot of respect for all the B corps out there and how incredibly organized all of their internal documents must be.

We have explored B corp here at Relish Studio a number of times as well, and we had a similar challenge where we would get to the point where we were over 80, and then they would come back and ask us some questions that made an adjustment to it, which is fine. It wasn’t that I was gaming it. I didn’t understand exactly what was required or what have you.

One of the things that I have found from my experiences is it does feel like there’s a little bit of a challenge for small businesses to become a B corp because there are many things that small businesses can’t take advantage of to score points. For example, building ownership or major lease in a building, where you have the opportunity to shove that buildings, what they are doing around a little bit as a small business. Even when we were in a green building, the percentage of that we occupied was so small that it didn’t push the numbers up as much as one with hope or one with like.

The B corp ethos is very sound and it encourages people to go out and take a look at it no matter where you are because, if nothing else, it shines a little bit of light on what you are doing and allows you to think through things. Even the process can be incredibly beneficial for cost savings and then employee benefit in terms of the lifestyle, etc. as well as thinking through who your vendors are, and what benefits you might provide for your team.

I love the way they have it laid out there. I forget the categories but they have them all grouped together with all their questions. It’s a great way to think about, “What are the different areas you should be thinking about when trying to make your company better?”

The first time we went through, we’ve got our audit pretty much immediately. It was like we said, “We are ready.” They scheduled our audit within the next couple of weeks and the second time we went through it was going to be three months or something before they would get us through the queue, which I thought was amazing. It demonstrated that within that 1 or 2-year period, understanding of B corp and desire to build a business that was aligned with those kinds of ideals, how much that had grown up even in that short time.

People oriented systems and processes get people to do their best work, enjoy it, and feel fulfilled while doing it.

It was a little frustrating because we had to wait but it was a cool wait. It wasn’t because they didn’t want to. It was that they were that backed up. It’s pretty cool. When we do it and try again, I will probably try and do it over the course of time, as opposed to deciding, “I’m doing this and setting up. I need to get this done in the next week,” or whatever because there’s a lot to it.

You keep working towards it. It’s how it goes.

How are you expanding your reach and your ability to serve more clients and for getting more Better World Products into your system?

All we do are on LinkedIn now. It’s a combination of LinkedIn and Organic SEO. We do a lot of copywriting now, a lot of blog posts, and engagement on LinkedIn trying to make sure we are connecting with stakeholders who are from organizations that we want to work and engage with. Most importantly, being patient and building those relationships, going to see people, hopefully, more and more at conferences. That’s a big thing.

When I started my business, I grew up with computers and stuff. I thought I could do it all from the computer but businesses are full of people and people do business with people. I have to get out there and talk to people. I enjoy it and I’m looking forward to doing it more. Generally, I’m a little bit more introverted. Getting to that point is a bit harder but my first conference in a long time was an amazing experience. It’s good to get out there and see people.

It’s pretty interesting how long it has been since we have been able to have that experience of being able to make dozens of connections in a very short time with people that you have maybe never met before. Have you seen effective use of any tools in the interim that you feel people have done a remarkable job of facilitating that interaction without having to be in person?

I would say that my favorite tool is Loom. Recording the videos, whether that’s doing the audits a lot of the time because they are not always expecting it. Suddenly, they can see you talking and that’s so huge to building trust. When you see someone and you see them talking, you get used to it, get a feel for the person and if you are going to trust them, they will move to follow or not.

That’s the biggest ops doing that through LinkedIn. I love LinkedIn. An email has been great. I have built scalable sales outreach systems with email but I didn’t like it. Any of the times I did it maybe it’s something that we have to return to in the future but I’m pretty sure that continuing to slowly build relationships will get the job done.

We look at marketing as relationship building and whether it’s a tiny relationship where somebody already knows that they want something, they have gone to Amazon and found it for the price that they want. If it doesn’t show up, there’s probably a bunch of other options of where they could buy that exact same product.

Considering what that first impression is, “How can you make people trust you and build a relationship even in a very transactional environment.” We do that when we are selling bigger ticket service-type stuff through multiple engagements, interactions, and following up when we said we would. I completely agree. Loom is an amazing tool that, if you haven’t looked into it, can be incredibly valuable because it is something that not everyone is using yet. It does stand out.

I have been doing follow-ups to conversations with a quick Loom video that they have an embed a gift in your email. This is my bubble head moving around and it doesn’t say anything but people are like, “What’s that?” They click on it and you can see when people have watched. It’s an incredibly cool tool. I’m giving out the secret there.

It’s something that every business leader could benefit from that system or process in their sales, followups or interactions. People in the nonprofit space could use that as well to outreach to a donor. That would be a tool that I would certainly be trying to use to provide a little bit of personality and a little personal touch to things.

It would be valuable to nonprofits because it does help build trust. It’s hard when you are starting to record those videos in descendants people. What’s great is that Loom is a great video. It’s a great tool internally as well. We use it for all of our systems and processes to help give people an initial idea. That visual demonstration is so powerful and it pushes things along a lot easier than it does and it’s great.

We have done thousands of videos internally. Only one person is going to see that video and we are going to forget it exists but it helps us communicate much better. We are going back and forth, giving feedback and copywriting. We are not going to send an email that a person isn’t going to understand or that they maybe had a bad day and they read it.

It’s hard to get tone, email, and texts, for sure. I had Alyson Caffrey from Operations Agency on the show. She runs an agency that helps specifically marketing agencies figure out the process and they leverage Loom within the processes. They will save those Loom videos, write out the process, and then link back to the Loom video. That’s another way to keep those things alive a little bit, and also give people an extra place to go look if they aren’t understanding the screenshots and process development that has been put out. That’s another way to use that fantastic tool.

It makes it better for everyone. A lot of what I do is try to think when I’m designing systems and processes, “How do I design people-oriented systems and processes?” You’ve got people that allow them to do their best work, enjoy it and feel while you are doing that. Human engagements, that’s a huge part of that.

Seeing people and building that connection, even if it’s over video and you are a few thousand miles away, it still works. It helps people be more engaged with everything and allowing them to communicate that through to their own video. I have found that they enjoy it, even they don’t like it at the beginning. They are a little shy. They don’t want to turn on the camera. After a while, they are comfortable on the camera, recording things and enjoying it a lot more.

Once you start doing something hell, it becomes to do it again, twice and four times. We all have to practice. You don’t usually hit a home run the first time you get up to that. It usually takes a little bit of batting cage work, etc. This has been such a fun conversation. I appreciate your bearing on the technical difficulties at the start. How can people find out more about what you do for businesses looking to get onto Amazon?

They can find this at BetterWorldProducts.org. It’s a multiple and you can always find me on LinkedIn. My LinkedIn profile is LinkedIn.com/keithhartnett.

Thank you so much for being on the show. I love having these conversations and learning more about different ways people can engage, get their product to market, make more connections, do more business and inspire more people to do good things for the world. I also want to make sure that people take action. At the end of every show, I asked my guests if there was one thing that you would have people do after reading, what would you have them do?

Get beautiful photos. Lots of them, hundreds of them.

People go out, take a lot of photos that you can use to support your organization and the products that you are selling. Give Keith and his team a shout at Better World Products. Keith, thank you again for being on the show. It’s great to have you.

Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.

I will talk to you soon.

Important Links:

• Better World Products
• 1% for the Planet Summit
• 1% for the Planet
• Nederland Area Trails Organization
• Climate Friendly Badge
• USDA Organic
• Climate One
• The Conservation Alliance
• Tin Shed Sports
• Loom
• Amazon Merch
• LinkedIn – Better World Products
• Alyson Caffrey – Past episode
• Operations Agency
• LinkedIn.com/keithhartnett

About Keith Hartnett