Hope you all are staying safe and a special shout out to those of you in Serbia. Crazy times we’re in now and I hope you all are staying safe and keep moving forward with your businesses.
This week was tough for me. I’ll be honest it’s been really challenging finding a healthy balance between taking care of my family and running my business at the same time.
We are living in temporary housing out of an AirBnB in Japan. We can’t return to China or the US due to Covid and travel restrictions. The situation with Covid-19 is stable here and living conditions are pretty good all things considered.
But it’s not easy for my wife and I since essentially we have been traveling out of 2 suitcases with a 19-month-old toddler since last November.
In terms of work, for various reasons, many of our projects have fallen behind deadlines. And it’s really been a struggle for me to delegate and trust others to get things done on time.
I know it’s not the right mentality but sometimes I do think by the time I delegate this task to someone else, I could have done it myself.
The third thing is that my dad has been sick and he’s in Los Angeles and I can’t visit him now due to Covid. He’s in his 80s and it’s been tough not being able to visit him or even know if I can see him again.
In any case, I’m sure many of you may be struggling with similar or even worse issues so I wanted to offer some advice to you guys as fellow entrepreneurs (as well as myself).
This entrepreneurial journey is not all rosy all the time.
The journey is filled with high highs and low lows.
Most people only focus on the highs with Lambos, Lifestyle, and Luxury but it’s simply not the real picture. It’s only a highlight reel like what you see on ESPN Sportcenter.
So I recorded this short 3min video about the Entrepreneurial Roller Coaster to explain the highs and lows that we entrepreneurs go through.
Note: I didn’t invent this concept – it was based on a book written by Darren Hardy of the same name.
[VIDEO 3mins] The Entrepreneurial Roller Coaster for eCommerce sellers
The key takeaway is when you hit the lows, stay strong, keep moving forward and you will ride it out!
Sometimes it’s only when you hit rock bottom, that’s when the next breakthrough will come.
Whether it’s a product idea, making a new connection, or simply surviving long enough for people to discover you.
Next in the Amazon news world…
Amazon will require US sellers to reveal their names and addresses on the Amazon marketplace.
This requirement was already the case in Europe, Japan, and other marketplaces but if you’re a US Amazon Seller, effective Sept 1st, 2020 Amazon will list your Name and Address publicly on the seller details page. So if you have your home address listed you may want to consider having an alternate address for your business for the sake of confidentiality.
Below is an example of an Amazon UK Sellers Detail page with their Business name and address listed publicly for any shopper to see.
Free Trump Tariff Tool
Finally, for those of you sourcing new products from China, I learned that the good folks at the freight forwarder Unicargo is offering a free “Trump Tariff Tool” where you can check the tariff rate of your products based on the HS Code. If you’re not sure what it is, you can either ask your supplier or a freight forwarder like Unicargo.
Note this should not be taken as formal advice and it does not replace checking with a customs broker but for your initial cost calculations this is a quick way to estimate your tariff rates.
https://www.unicargo.com/trumps-import-tariff/
Hope that helps.
Gary
PS: Are you on Instagram? If you’d like to follow me on my entrepreneurial journey then please follow me at garyhuang8020
