Episode Details

I'm back from my trip to Idaho with some good news regarding my health. AND while I was gone, the first shipment of inventory arrived from China and it's time to get things rolling. I also discuss how my things shifted from my original plan after running into the Hazmat issue I talked about before.

For the full transcript head to http://brandingblitz.com/7/ or see below.

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Hello again! I'm JR, and you're listening to episode 7 of the Branding Blitz!

If you're subscribed to the show, you've probably noticed a break since the last episode was released. If you're not subscribed to the show, you should probably pause this episode and go subscribe. Don't worry, I'll wait for you.

Anyway that gap was due to a number of things. The biggest is that the day after recording episode 6 I went on a trip to Idaho to visit some of my wife's family. We'd been planning this trip for a while and in some ways it turned into an inconvenient time to travel with my health issues and trying to start up this business. But it actually ended up being a providential blessing. The dry air up in Idaho made a HUGE difference in my health. I was able to breath again, I was able to go outside and enjoy the fresh air. I wasn't completely cured, but it made a big enough difference that I was actually able to do some light exercises which I believe will help build up muscles overtime to gradually pull my spine back into shape. So that was encouraging... in fact it was encouraging enough that we made the decision to move there later this month.While I was in Idaho, I also got a call from the pulmonologist with the date for my appointment. After waiting several weeks to even get something scheduled, we knew we wanted to stay in Oklahoma long enough to have the tests done and see what the pulmonologist has to say about the results. So in a little under two weeks I have my appointment, and then I've got some people coming to help load up a truck the next couple of days after that, and off we go to Idaho.

So part of the delay with a new episode has been due to planning and working toward that move. But I also got hit pretty hard with breathing issues after we got back. Luckily, I had a handful of good days where I was able to get some important things done, but then I ended up spending several days in bed. So I'm just now getting caught up enough to record another episode.

As I mentioned at the end of the last episode, I had a box of inventory from China waiting for me when I got back. And I was able to get that all checked out, processed, and shipped to Amazon in those good days that I had before ended up essentially bedridden.

Before I get into that, I have an update on the Hazmat issue I talked about in episode 6. About 2 weeks after I opened that ticket requesting that the product be investigated or they at least tell me why they think it's Hazmat, they finally changed it so it is no longer considered a Hazmat product. Still no indication of why it got flagged in the first place or why it wasn't unflagged with my initial review.

So a process that I was assured would take 3 or 4 days ended up taking over a month – nearly 5 weeks - to get resolved.I had put a lot of upfront work into getting ready for my first product. I had ordered samples, ordered my top competitor's product to compare quality, designed packaging, dug into a bunch of relevant government regulations, did a fair amount of back and for with the supplier, and was ready to place an order. If I hadn't decided to create the listing to get the FNSKU before placing the order, I would have been in for a huge