T.G.Cochrane

10 things I wish someone told me before I put my first dollar into an Amazon brand: 1. Revenue is a vanity metric. Contribution margin is the only truth. 2. The listing is 80% of the sale. Most founders spend 80% of their time on ads. 3. Inventory planning will break you faster than bad ads ever will. 4. If you don't own the Buy Box, you don't own your brand. 5. Your best customers leave reviews without being asked. 6. Unauthorized sellers will find you. It's not if, it's when. 7. Amazon support will give you 3 different answers to the same question. 8. The best PPC strategy is a great product with real demand. 9. Every founder thinks their agency is "different." Most aren't. 10. The only honest incentive is shared financial risk.

What's the one decision you made for your brand this year that felt scary at the time but turned out right?

If you're a wellness brand spending $20K/mo on Amazon ads and you haven't audited your channel for unauthorized sellers: I promise you're funding someone else's margin. We see this in almost every beauty/wellness brand we audit. The ad spend isn't the problem. Who's winning the Buy Box is the problem.

I rebranded my company 6 months ago. New name. New positioning. New website. Lost 2 clients who were confused by the change. Gained 4 who said "finally, this makes sense." Clarity is expensive upfront. It compounds.

Which of these 5 do you NOT currently track? Be honest.

I manage $32M+ in Amazon revenue across our portfolio. Every Monday morning, I check the same 5 numbers for every brand. Here they are:

@Waller7J Short term wins usually kill long term deals.

You never want to win a negotiation too badly. If you can't find a way for both sides to benefit in the long run, you'll end up losing.

@Ibrahimxdarwish Trust before the call changes everything. Content is doing the heavy lifting now.

I book 10-20 calls per month from Twitter. But the only reason I could do it and close them is because I make YouTube videos. I use YouTube videos all over my sales process: - In my follow ups - In my Twitter posts - In pre-call emails - Etc. Even if people find me on Twitter, most of them watch at least one YouTube video from me before our call. And the difference that makes is insane. Trust is higher already, their objections are already handled, and everything is just much, much easier. That’s why I always tell my prospects: No matter where you’re getting your leads from, if you’re not making YouTube videos, you’re making signing clients and making your sales process much harder.

@Dylanmadden Most people aren’t held back by ability it’s just risk tolerance shaped by environment.

Your family wants you to be safe. They'll push you toward a job with benefits. A predictable income. A path they understand. They're not trying to trap you. They just can't see what they've never seen. But their comfort is not your ceiling. You can love them and still choose differently. You can respect where they came from and still go somewhere they've never been. At some point you'll have to decide whose life you're building. Theirs or yours.

@Tim_Denning Passion fades. Obsession compounds.

It’s easy to outperform 99% of people. Don’t “follow your passion.” Chase your obsession.

@leonabboud Feels like brand is becoming the only sustainable way to lower CAC long term.

Hearing this from all my entrepreneur friends how the cost of acquiring customers using ads or outbound has drastically gone up in the last 2 years. It's now costlier than ever to convert cold prospects. The only solution is to build a personal brand to bring that cost of acquiring customers down.

@russellbrunson Building is easy. Turning it into something that converts is still the game.

People are vibe coding apps in a weekend. Imagine what happens when you combine that with a funnel that actually converts.

@Nicolascole77 Self-awareness is still the rarest skill in business.

Entrepreneurship is an exercise in being brutally honest with yourself. Because everything is your fault. Declining revenue? Your fault. Unhappy customers? Your fault. Which is why so few people are entrepreneurial. They don't want to look at themselves in the mirror.

@trentjhughes A lot of “agencies” are quietly turning into software companies with service wrappers.

Services as software is the most underrated business opportunity right now Old agency model: Lots of humans Low margins Low multiples New model: AI does the work One person does the job of seven 75% margins Tech multiples The businesses being built right now in this model will look like software companies on paper Most people are still building the old way The ones who figure this out early are going to win big

@matt_gray_ Leverage starts when you stop being the operator for everything.

Want more time? Fire yourself from 80% of tasks. Hire a Chief of Staff. • Delegate email • Delegate scheduling • Delegate content distribution Save 20 hours a week. That’s 1,040 hours a year of your life back.

@andrewchen Distribution speed is insane now. Products that hit product-market fit scale faster than ever.

open AI reportedly now has 1 billion weekly active users Gmail took 15 years to reach 1B Facebook took 8 years ChatGPT did it in 3!! crazy growth curves as tech adoption grows and marketing channels reach billions

@dklineii Most bottlenecks in companies are decision delays, not bad decisions.

As a new manager, I thought asking for help was failure. My job was to figure it out. Always. What I learned: escalating is a critical skill. Most managers do it wrong. Too often. Too lazy. Too late. Here are 4 tests I use before asking for help:

@serialsales The niche angle is what makes this interesting. Generic agencies struggle specialized ones scale.

Who wants to get totally distracted and start an agency where we just sell voice agents to businesses who know nothing about AI Completely dominate a niche. Charging a setup fee and a small monthly retainer just for hosting and management Literally a copy and paste business using the skills that a lot of us in the online sales and marketing space already have I wouldn't be too mad about a super sticky 50k per month with extremely high profit margins... Heard this on mfm pod yesterday, and it just won't leave my head Guy is charging barbers a $2,500 setup fee and $250 a month. Barbers get paid to cut hair, not talk on the phone. Their voice agent books the appointments for them So many similar industries where these businesses can easily ROI on something like this Won't even bat an eye at the monthly retainer If you want to run this, DM me on why you think this is a great idea or something

@GrantCardone Most people know this already the gap is execution, not awareness.

There’s never been a more ways to create financial freedom in human history. These things won’t help you… • Blaming • Making excuses • Government doing it for you • Procrastinating • Giving up

@Bencera Small teams with high ownership + AI leverage is such a strong combo right now. Less coordination, more output.

Stop hiring teams. Build a team of solo founders. Each person owns a KPI. AI is their team. The best performers rotate into the hardest problems.The worst get exposed. Pure meritocracy.