Create a 6-figure business leveraging the world’s largest online mall, a.k.a. Amazon. The Amazing Selling Machine promises to help you earn an extra $5,000 per month, working only 2 hours per day. How? Through an easy-to-follow Amazon-selling beginner’s guide that has been continuously developed for over a decade. Is ASM still the best course for learning FBA?
As a stay-at-home mom, juggling kids and a side hustle while maintaining a clean home, I need a low-maintenance but quick-income biz. Matt Clark and Jason Katzenback launched the Amazing Selling Machine Evolution (ASM 13), which promises new and updated Amazon FBA training. In this Amazing Selling Machine Review, I’ll go in-depth with ASM’s latest offer, ASM 13. I will also talk about what you should expect in the program, its founders and co-creators, and what people are saying about it online.
Amazing Selling Machine (ASM) is a guided training program that teaches in-depth beginner Amazon FBA knowledge. Its latest version is called Amazing Selling Machine Evolution (ASM 13). This 2023 course update of the long line of ASM courses features 60% new content compared to its previous version, ASM X. They claim to have 30,000 members to date in over 138 countries. The course costs $5,000 and claims to give the highest level of FBA and private-label training. Amazing Selling Machine Evolution includes an 8-week course, one-on-one ASM mentorship, a private resource vault (discount coupons on tools, templates, and email suppliers), and coaching calls. The ASM team also boasts new features in this new version, which includes an Amazon branding tool suite, a private sourcing agent, exclusive launch strategies from ASM affiliate Dan Ashburn, and more. The course costs $5000, or 6 payments of $997, making it one of the more expensive Amazon courses. It has a 30-day refund policy subject to limitations stated in its Terms of Service. The refund period starts on the first day of access and all cancellation requests should be sent to support@amazing.com.
Matt Clark and Jason Katzenback founded Amazing Selling Machine (ASM) in 2012. They were joined by two other co-creators, Mike McClary and Rich Henderson, in 2013. Rich created most of the course materials for ASM. He has an affiliate marketing and SEO background and was hired by Jason in 2013 to work for the company. Mike is the Chief Product Officer. Just like Rich, he joined in 2013 and worked as an accountant before joining ASM. Jason was ASM's CEO for many years. He has an engineering degree and background but quickly realized that his passion is in business and teaching. Around 2015, the business experienced hardship when Jason had to leave after his daughter was diagnosed with cancer. So, Matt was left to manage the business alone. Matt Clark was born and raised in Houston, Texas. His childhood and early teenage years were rough after his parents divorced and drugs got him into legal trouble. After his graduation in 2008, he got a banking job with Citigroup. One of the biggest changes he made on ASM during his time as head was to shift from a premium-priced course to a cheap monthly subscription to get more enrollments. It didn’t turn out well. Matt bluntly admitted that sometimes his optimism and ambition drove him to make bad decisions. As of writing, he already left ASM to focus on his other company, Archon Media, Inc.
Amazing Selling Machine 13: Amazon
The best thing about ASM is its longevity. It’s been in the market since 2011, and has one of the biggest online communities, with over 30,000 members in 138 countries. Getting into a mastermind with all these Amazon business owners offers a higher level of value. What I like about ASM is its features, like top earner badges, that help other students stay motivated. The platform also has a module roadmap that helps students stay on track with the lessons. Many say it’s one of the most comprehensive Amazon courses a few years back. However, as new e-commerce courses emerged, ASM slowly fell behind. E-com courses like Tim Sanders’ Private Label Masters and Kamil Sattar’s Ecom King became more and more popular because they offer updated and practical training lessons at almost the same price point as ASM.
The most common complaint about Amazing Selling Machine (13 and its previous versions) is that it's outdated and very basic. Rich Henderson conducts almost all the training on ASM, which I find quite odd. Among all the ASM creators, he’s the one with the least Amazon experience. The training is fair, but lacks social proof from real students who took the course and/or had success with it. Rich only covers theoretical stuff, he doesn’t show you how to do it step-by-step. In his example on the material, he’s using a Google Ads account without billing information (which means he isn’t even using it). Maybe he doesn’t want to expose business secrets. But showing real examples helps students understand the modules better. For a course that costs at least $5,000, you’d expect to see real conversions from successful PPC or Facebook campaigns. Another issue with ASM is it seems to lack organization and coherency. The modules teach 5 different advertising strategies, but they barely scratch the surface of each topic. Just picking a good product and selling it on Amazon is not enough to build a successful Amazon store. The goal is to rank up so the business can scale. ASM didn’t focus much on these essential strategies. I’m not surprised it has a poor Trustpilot rating. Amazing.com is only 2-star rated and Amazing Selling Machine is only 2.7 stars.
FBA has a lot of unknown variables, from the supplier to the quality of inventory you’re getting. Many FBA gurus will convince you that the biz is easy and there’s a lot of income potential. It’s not wrong because e-commerce is already a $6.3 industry based on the latest data, growing at an annual rate of 10.06%. What the coaches don’t tell you, though, is how tough the competition is. Especially with Amazon FBA. Big players are so far ahead, leaving small businesses (including new sellers) behind. Recent Amazon statistics reported by Yaguara.com show there are over 9.7 million sellers on the platform, and 2.3 million of them are actively selling. According to the SellerApp, around 94% of these active sellers are using the FBA order fulfillment method. The truth is that sellers who win on Amazon are the ones who have access to capital and can launch multiple products at once. You’ll need around $5,000 capital to stock inventory and launch a new product on Amazon. This biz is not for those with limited capital. But Matt isn’t completely honest about this.
Is Amazing Selling Machine Evolution (ASM 13) Fit For Stay-At-Home Moms?
Amazing Selling Machine Evolution could be fit for stay-at-home moms if they are existing Amazon sellers. But it’s not for moms on a budget because the course is expensive and upfront costs are high. Amazon charges standard rates such as fulfillment fees (starting at $3.22 per listing), monthly storage fees (starting at $0.87 per square foot for non-peak season), and surcharges for aged inventory items. Although it offers flexibility and income opportunities, hard work in this biz doesn’t end with just launching a product. Amazon FBA is also a highly competitive biz. There are over 600 million products listed on Amazon today, and 7,000 more are added by third-party sellers in the United States every minute. Moms will need to work more hours and outspend competitors on ads to gain more traffic and succeed in this biz. For these reasons, Amazon FBA is not my recommended biz for stay-at-home moms. Local lead generation is my number 1 choice because it offers time freedom, upfront costs are low, and the operating fees for running the biz are very minimal. You’ll only need about $500 initial investment and you won’t need to pay recurring fees to run the biz. With Amazon FBA, you need to constantly launch new products. But with local lead gen, you generate leads on autopilot and sell them at 85% to 90% profit margins to small business owners.
Amazing Selling Machine Review on YouTube
Ivan Brozincevic is the man behind the Free Affiliate Marketing Business YouTube channel. He is an affiliate marketer with his own program offering. The channel is Ireland-based and has 3.82K subscribers with 433 video uploads that have been viewed more than 221K times.
Ivan of Free Affiliate Marketing Business on YouTube gives a comprehensive review of ASM. He points out that the training is comprehensive and could be worth the price point for serious FBA sellers. But he’s not convinced that it’s a beginner-friendly course. Ivan reminds people considering this program of the associated fees for running this biz. Amazon FBA is capital-intensive and would need hard work and attention to set up and manage. He cautions interested investors about the undisclosed additional expenses of the program, like paid ad costs, listing expenses, and multiple FBA tools.
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