In this episode of Adil Talks 2.0, host Syed Zurriyat Adil interviews Steven Pope, the founder of “My Amazon Guy,” a $20 million Amazon agency with over 500 employees. Steven shares his journey from being a television reporter to building one of the largest Amazon agencies in the world, discussing high-level scaling strategies, the reality of client retention, and his unique “Us vs. Amazon” brand positioning.

Five Key Points

1: The Reality of Agency Churn: Steven openly admits that the average Amazon client stays for about 8.5 months. He argues that agencies shouldn’t fear this number; instead, they should focus on a robust acquisition model. He also suggests that if you haven’t lost a client in two years, you likely aren’t charging enough for the value you provide.

2: “Us vs. Amazon” Positioning: Rather than competing against other agencies, Steven positioned his brand as a collective front with his clients and even other agencies against the complexities of the Amazon platform. This allowed him to sell his SOPs and training materials to competitors, turning potential rivals into customers.

3: Strategic Talent Allocation: A core rule for his $20M scale was never putting expensive talent into “tactical” or “back-end” roles. He believes all high-cost employees must be client-facing or in leadership, while technical execution should be handled by lower-cost, high-efficiency labor.

4: The “Platinum Rule” of Leadership: Steven moves beyond the Golden Rule (treating others how you want to be treated) to the Platinum Rule: treating others how they want to be treated. He explains that this is the only way to attract and manage people who are smarter than you, as their motivations often differ from your own.

5: The Lead Gen “Quad” Strategy: Steven broke down his growth into four stages: referrals (to $1M), content/YouTube (to $10M), cold outreach (to $20M), and finally, paid ads (targeted for $50M). He emphasizes that while content builds the brand, outbound sales (cold calling) is a “trade secret” that significantly accelerated his mid-stage growth.

Final Takeaway

The most successful businesses aren’t just service providers; they are education-first entities. By making “My Amazon Guy” a hub for learning and SOPs, Steven created a flywheel where he trains his own workforce, builds authority through transparency, and creates a culture of meritocracy that attracts both top talent and high-value clients.

Podcast Transcript

[00:01:58] Syed Zurriyat Adil: Hi Steve, how are you?

[00:02:00] Steven Pope: Hey, doing good. Thanks for having me on.

[00:02:02] Syed Zurriyat Adil: Yeah, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. So would you mind introducing yourself for people who don’t know you? I doubt anyone doesn’t know you, but yeah.

[00:02:14] Steven Pope: That’s all right. Nobody actually cares who I am; they just care what I say. So it’s okay. But I’m the founder of My Amazon Guy. We’re a 400-brand agency, perhaps the largest Amazon agency in the world. We have over 500 employees around the world as well to help our clients. And so, I founded it about six years ago. I’ve been selling on the Amazon platform for over a decade.

[00:02:49] Syed Zurriyat Adil: Awesome, awesome. So I’m going to dive right into it and ask you… about a decade, that’s like 2014. So yeah, that was pretty easy to, you know, advertise. But how have you seen this whole dynamic change, especially after COVID?

[00:03:16] Steven Pope: We had a really good bump from COVID. It was interesting as an agency because in March of when COVID hit, I lost 30% of my whole business. One out of every three clients fired me in about two weeks. And then about two weeks after that, I gained 50% new clients.

[00:03:41] Steven Pope: What happened was all the big corporate retail box stores kind of just were like, “I’m out.” And then all of these native-born Amazon brands—the hustlers—they just started hitting hard.

[00:04:14] Steven Pope: Every problem that I experience running an agency can be tied back to people. It’s people, people, people. You need process and you need product, but 90% of my focus is on people.

[00:04:41] Syed Zurriyat Adil: I was saying that you have built a really good institute. The Learning Academy is really something in itself. How did you get started on that?

[00:05:05] Steven Pope: I like to joke that I actually run an education company that happens to be an agency. With that brand position in mind, no other agency is making that claim.

[00:05:23] Steven Pope: 67,000 people have applied to work at My Amazon Guy in the last two years. I realized there was this huge opportunity, and we launched MAG School almost two years ago.

[00:06:44] Steven Pope: I couldn’t hire 67,000 people yet, but I wanted to help the 66,500 people that I haven’t hired yet. That was my way of doing that.

[00:07:02] Steven Pope: A second thing we did is we started creating SOPs and started to sell those to the community. 40% of the people who bought my SOPs were agencies.

[00:07:23] Steven Pope: It says “Us versus Amazon” on my shirt. That’s a unique brand position. It’s not me against you, other agency; it’s all of us against Amazon.

[00:07:57] Syed Zurriyat Adil: When you have corporate clients, those are usually very steady. But you’re saying the hustlers are harder to maintain? How was that transition?

[00:08:57] Steven Pope: Agencies have a high-turn model. The average Amazon client will stay at My Amazon Guy for 8.5 months. Most agencies are scared to reveal that number.

[00:09:25] Steven Pope: With a high-turn model, if they’re only staying nine months, that means I have to replace my entire clientele once a year. That means you need to have a good acquisition model.

[00:09:43] Steven Pope: For those that don’t have a high turn, they may not be charging enough. If you haven’t lost a client in two years, chances are they’re taking advantage of you.

[00:10:41] Steven Pope: It’s not passive income. For the people who can build a brand, you can’t pull a profit out in the first year or two.

[00:11:41] Syed Zurriyat Adil: There is a pricing battle going on between agencies as well. What would you advise to agency owners?

[00:12:16] Steven Pope: If you win on price today, you will lose on price tomorrow.

[00:12:41] Steven Pope: I kind of reject the notion that there’s a pricing battle out there. I think the environment we’re all in together right now is so new, it’s the Wild Wild West.

[00:14:42] Steven Pope: Advice number one: don’t put any expensive talent into tactical roles as an agency. Your expensive talent should be client-facing or in leadership. No exceptions.

[00:15:25] Steven Pope: I try and do a modest retainer and a modest revenue share.

[00:15:39] Steven Pope: When I did high revenue share and low retainer, I’d grow them to millions of dollars and then they would fire me because they didn’t want to give me $20,000 checks.

[00:16:18] Steven Pope: You need to win those deals based on a value proposition. “Just trust me, the proof is in the numbers” is not a persuasive argument.

[00:16:44] Syed Zurriyat Adil: I think technical people should be taught to communicate with clients. How do you handle that in a 500-person company?

[00:17:43] Steven Pope: It’s a lot more difficult to do that than to hire somebody with zero experience who can communicate. The class clown is typically the better communicator.

[00:18:08] Steven Pope: Running a 500-person agency is not easy. I tried to build the agency around me and my personality.

[00:19:40] Steven Pope: I decided I was going to hire based on competency and merit because I hated being the guy driving results at my last companies and not being listened to.

[00:20:12] Steven Pope: Within the first 90 days of starting my agency, I was producing $43,000 in monthly recurring revenue.

[00:20:43] Steven Pope: One of the solutions I came up with was culture. I decided I’m going to wildly attract a cult following on core traits: learning, teaching, tech-savvy, and eagerness.

[00:21:43] Steven Pope: I started out as a television reporter, then went into e-commerce. Then I landed in women’s plus-size clothing and they did this thing called Amazon. I’m like, “What is this?”

[00:22:23] Steven Pope: Niche your services, not your product lines. Be as generic as possible on product niches, but your services need to be narrow and specific.

[00:23:46] Syed Zurriyat Adil: In the first 90 days you had $47,000 in revenue. How did you keep that momentum until $20 million? Most people would say “this is enough.”

[00:24:29] Steven Pope: High-drive people—it’s never enough. I was comparing myself against world-renowned people like Elon Musk.

[00:25:09] Steven Pope: I want to be able to make substantial impacts. I want the system I’m building today to outlive me.

[00:26:54] Syed Zurriyat Adil: What is needed to take it to 1,000 people?

[00:27:18] Steven Pope: Leadership is the key. The thing I have failed to do by 2024 is hire enough leadership to replicate me.

[00:27:48] Steven Pope: I do not believe most people can manage more than eight direct reports at any given time. Right now, I have about 70 people that directly report to me. It’s not a good thing.

[00:28:57] Steven Pope: You want to know how to grow a business? Ask the customer, “What do you want?” Give it to them. Then ask, “Did you get what you wanted?”

[00:29:53] Syed Zurriyat Adil: Most of your following is from Pakistan. A couple of years ago you said Pakistanis are hungry, but then that changed. What happened in between?

[00:30:32] Steven Pope: Pakistan is the most eager country in the world when it comes to Amazon. At the same time, there’s a lot of challenges.

[00:31:03] Steven Pope: I created an international row that was not a good situation. I would not do it again. I could have said it a lot better. The intent was to help, but it didn’t come across well.

[00:32:39] Steven Pope: It’s simply going to take time. A lot of people who enter the space need a job, so they feign experience and knowledge. That’s the problem.

[00:33:02] Steven Pope: If someone says, “I have no experience but here is my tenacity,” I hire that person more frequently than the guy who says, “I can do everything.”

[00:35:45] Syed Zurriyat Adil: When are you coming to Pakistan?

[00:35:58] Steven Pope: I chose to invest more in the Philippines than I did in Pakistan and I’m making my home base there. That’s not going to change.

[00:36:26] Steven Pope: I feel like the Filipino culture is easier for me to personally integrate with the American culture. It was a business decision.

[00:36:51] Steven Pope: I have zero employees in India. Our Pakistan number is down to six at My Amazon Guy. In the Philippines, we have more than 400.

[00:37:37] Steven Pope: I basically forced our recruitment team to focus on the Philippines. I wanted a single-based culture unit.

[00:39:07] Syed Zurriyat Adil: What was the story behind the Lamborghini?

[00:39:17] Steven Pope: I went to lunch with agency owners and they were all driving Lambos. I asked why, and they said, “Because it leads to more business.”

[00:39:41] Steven Pope: The first place I took it was to the UPS Store to drop off an Amazon package. The guy said, “Do you sell on Amazon? Can I buy your course?” He didn’t know who I was, he just saw the Lambo.

[00:39:59] Steven Pope: The Lambo actually got totaled. I didn’t like it that much, so I picked up an Audi R8. That’s what I drive today.

[00:41:40] Steven Pope: I’m not a car guy. I drove a 2008 Mazda 3 up until two years ago. I don’t care about status.

[00:43:04] Steven Pope: I type 108 words per minute. I’m able to shout a bunch of orders. I’m a dreamer and a visionary.

[00:44:40] Steven Pope: John Aspen was not an influencer before he joined My Amazon Guy. I created him in a sense. He took a job with PickFu, and I’m very happy with my investment.

[00:45:34] Steven Pope: The risk is that some people you invest in will move on, but it’s better for everybody involved.

[00:46:46] Steven Pope: I live by three rules: The Silver Rule, The Golden Rule, and The Platinum Rule.

[00:47:11] Steven Pope: The Golden Rule is treat others how you want to be treated. The Platinum Rule is treat others how they want to be treated.

[00:47:26] Steven Pope: You cannot attract people smarter than you if you don’t use the Platinum Rule.

[00:48:12] Syed Zurriyat Adil: How has lead generation changed from the start until 2024?

[00:49:37] Steven Pope: There are four ways to acquire leads. Referrals got me to $1M. Content got me to $10M.

[00:50:18] Steven Pope: What got me to $20M is when I started cold outreach—emails and cold calling. I have a 20-person outbound sales team.

[00:50:45] Steven Pope: Paid ads is the fourth quad. That’s how I plan to get to $50M. It’s the most expensive but it’s working.

[00:51:39] Steven Pope: I have a 26% conversion rate from meeting to contract.

[00:52:23] Steven Pope: I think conferences are overrated. You don’t need a conference to learn how to sell on Amazon.

[00:55:08] Syed Zurriyat Adil: Do you have any closing remarks?

[00:55:15] Steven Pope: My favorite business book is The Road Less Stupid. It helps you prevent bad decisions by simply thinking.

[00:55:22] Steven Pope: My biggest mistake was a $2 million investment into the SAS world. I tried to build PBC automation software and everybody hated it.

[00:56:19] Steven Pope: The lesson is: stick to what you know.

[00:57:32] Syed Zurriyat Adil: It was really nice talking to you, Stephen. Thank you so much.