Today we’d like to introduce you to Melina Brokmeier.
Hi Melina, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I was born in Germany and grew up in a place called Mönchengladbach. Even when I was little, I had big dreams. The older I got, those dreams became defined goals. You could say that I was strongly inspired by my father, who was a successful entrepreneur and had a company in Hong Kong that manufactured private label products for the European market. I always wanted to be just as independent and successful as he was – and also get out into the big world. In my teenage years, I decided I needed to take the first step and leave Germany. I was drawn to the USA, where I attended a boarding school in Boca Raton. I also completed my degrees in New York: my Bachelor’s in International Business at Berkeley Collage and my Master’s in Real Estate Finance and Investments at New York University.
After graduating in 2019, I started working as a Business Development Manager in New York for a private membership club. When I was approached by AMZTOTAL, I was not only inspired by the success of the company but what encouraged me the most was the mindset and attitude of Lorenzo and Anthony, who are the founders of the company. Within a short period of time, we aligned on the vision and goals set forth for launching AMZTOTAL on the US market.
I already knew Anthony from the TV show “Die Höhle der Löwen,” the German equivalent of Shark Tank, where founders present their companies. At the time, he had emerged from the show very successful with several deals – so I knew that I would be dealing with someone who was bursting with entrepreneurial spirit and ambition – and I was right. His business partner Lorenzo also won me over immediately with his business ideas and passion for FBA. There was no doubt that I wanted to be part of the team. I quickly became aware of the huge potential behind an Amazon FBA agency like AMZTOTAL in the USA and was also attracted by the opportunity to expand my knowledge in this area while at the same time building and managing my own team.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
We have the advantage that we didn’t have to launch a completely new company from scratch but could build on the business model of our German sister company. This allowed us to adapt and further optimize AMZCOMPLETE’s proven success strategies for the U.S. market. Of course, there are not only linguistic but also cultural adjustments to be made here, some of which were challenging, but having already spent more than 12 years in the U.S., it was a fairly smooth transition. The Corona situation also put obstacles in our way at one point or another: For example, due to the lockdown, it was not so easy to travel back and forth between Germany and the U.S., which would have been very helpful for building up the business in the early days.
Our next goal is now to increase the brand awareness of AMZTOTAL throughout the US – the potential of FBA is huge here, which was also the main reason why Anthony and Lorenzo rolled out their company here. I think our different mentality plays a decisive role here: Germans do like to shop online, but mostly when they are making very specific purchases. In America, online shopping is much more prevalent in everyday life and people also like to order simple drugstore items on Amazon, for example. In addition, the market in the U.S. is of course, much larger. If your product is not listed among the top five sellers in Germany, it will be difficult to be successful. The U.S. market is so huge that even in 14th place, you can still bring in very profitable sales. To put it in a nutshell: Amazon in the German-speaking world is the baby shark and now we are setting course for the great white shark.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about AMZTOTAL?
I am the director of AMZTOTAL, which is the US sister of AMZCOMPLETE, the world’s leading full-service Amazon FBA agency. Founders Anthony Filipiak and Lorenzo Kotalla from Germany have been helping people who have little to no experience with FBA build their own profitable Amazon business since 2018. In total, both companies consist of over 100 employees who are absolute experts in their specific fields and already serve over 600 satisfied customers from the US, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Most of our customers see FBA as an exciting investment opportunity; they either want to build a second source of income or want to fully shift over and become an Amazon FBA seller full time. For each of them, Amazon FBA writes its own success story – and that’s what makes the collaboration so exciting for us.
To help our customers launch successful Amazon businesses, alongside helping with important sub-steps, we also impart helpful knowledge about Amazon FBA in personal coaching sessions and special training programs. Many people interested in FBA usually fail at the first hurdles: “What do I have to consider when setting up an Amazon business? What kind of product should I actually sell and how do I find a suitable manufacturer?” We take our customers through all those steps and support our clients every step of the way. When customers book our full service, for example, it usually works like this: Our research team does an in-depth analysis of the amazon market and finds the perfect niche product and how to optimize it and thus set it apart from other competitors. Our purchasing team then ensures that the item meets all quality standards and requirements and takes care of price negotiations with the suppliers. Of course, a good product alone is not enough – it must also be visually appealing because the first impression on the buyer counts.
Our marketing team, therefore, ensures the ideal set up of the Amazon product page: with psychologically optimized packaging designs and branding, professional product photos and a convincing advertising copy. Meanwhile, our logistics team ensures that everything goes according to plan when importing the goods from abroad and that the products arrive safely at the Amazon warehouse. But the process doesn’t end here – on the contrary; this is where it really starts: To ensure that our customers also generate sales on Amazon quickly, our strategic amazon marketing team ensures that the item receives the highest possible visibility and that it is purchased by a large number of customers every day. To ensure that they are successful as Amazon sellers in the long term, our after-sales team then takes care of constant optimization. They also ensure that the goods are regularly reordered to avoid running out of stock. This cycle is then played out again and again. Of course, we now have many experienced customers who do most of this on their own, but especially for those who are starting out with FBA, we are always here to help.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.amztotal.com
- Instagram: amz_total
- Facebook: AMZ total
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-0USC4azBy8lrmJZ3SOuZg/about
