Welcome back to another episode of the Resellers Mindset Podcast.
My name is Mike, also known as the used book guy on YouTube, along with my friend
and fellow full-time reseller, Johnny B.
We help people start and grow their reselling businesses from the ground up.
We also have a weekly zoom call and private discord for all YouTube members.
Head on over to youtube.com backslash use book guy to join the channel and gain
access to the full length podcast zoom call and private discord today.
Let's get into this week's episode.
What is up everybody?
Welcome in episode 37, Resellers Mindset Podcast.
If you're watching on the YouTube, you're probably thinking, where is Johnny B?
Well, I got a special guest co-host today.
Johnny B lives down in Texas.
So his weather is kaput, friend, colleague, fellow YouTuber, reseller, all-star.
I say Steve, but everybody knows him as rake and profit, right?
So, uh, he's going to hang in here with me today.
And we've got a good topic and I think it's perfect.
It's almost like the stars in line.
Cause I've been wanting to talk about this for a while and social media,
YouTube and reselling, like how do they co-mingle?
Um, what effect it has on growing your business or maybe you want to get into
YouTube and kind of, you know, basically document your journey and we're just
going to dive deep dive into it.
So just for those that don't know, uh, I've been doing YouTube for three years now.
All right.
I have six, a little bit under 600 uploads.
Steve over here, he's one of the OGs, right?
He's, he's got close to 3000 uploads and 10 years of a YouTube videos.
And I did, I did go back and watch your first ever YouTube video.
Right.
And you're just chilling in the garage flipping bikes, right?
You're like, the bikes I'm flipping, but it's crazy to go back and look
at some of your early stuff.
And, uh, I'm just curious because I've never heard this.
Why did you get into YouTube 10 years ago?
So, um, you know, I used to start like all different types of little
businesses, or at least I wanted to.
Like, I would always start these little businesses and, or, or want to, like I.
Long story short, like I would just start things and quit things,
start things and quit things, start thinking, start things and quit things.
Like everything I did.
Right.
And I was like, why am I not successful?
Right.
I'm reading, thinking grow rich.
Um, and, uh, I just, I started to fall in love with reselling and I was
watching like other YouTubers and they have like a hundred subscribers, 200
subscribers, like I think the biggest YouTuber at the time back in like 2013
have like 800 subscribers.
And back then, uh, live YouTube, uh, just started to come out.
Used to have to use a Google something.
It was called like you, there was no, there was no, like all these
softwares and stuff and whatnot.
And it was like really sketchy.
But, uh, I started to like find bicycles and stuff.
Cause I was watching this YouTuber bonafide hustler and, uh, he had like
200 subscribers and I'm like, this guy like is my idol, like he's famous.
He only had 200 subscribers though.
And I started flipping bikes and making money and, uh, like I was
consistent for a couple of months.
And for me doing something, anything for a couple of months back then without
quitting and giving up, uh, was huge.
And I was like, man, like this guy bonafide is so cool.
And I started like seeing these other people and I'm like, I want to start
sharing my tips, so I just started sharing tips and for me, I think I just
wanted to feel like some sort of community and I, for some reason, deep
down in my soul, I knew like, if I want to stick with this, I have to get around
other people, I have to connect with other people and, uh, I didn't know
like you could make money.
Like I didn't know there was adsense.
I didn't know you could create like coaching and different things like that.
Like I just literally started it because I wanted to maybe just
share tips or feel cool.
It was like kind of the same way for me, right?
Like I thought to myself, I got out of a crappy job, kind of like you did,
right?
Your cracker barrel is my CVS, right?
So it's like, you get out of a job and you find a way you can make money.
And you realize like, all right, I'm not miserable.
This actually isn't really that hard compared to working, you know, 40, 50
hours a week.
And you're like, well, if I can help one other person get out of that same
situation, then it's all worth it to me.
So like, you know, you just have this idea in your mind.
I don't think you can go in if you're on the fence about starting YouTube, like
I'm going to start a YouTube channel to make money and ain't going to work.
I'm here to tell you that right now.
Uh, and that's, that's something we'll get into like revenue and everything
down the road here, but you have to have the mindset.
And I think that's probably why we've been around and made so many videos is
that we're just out here trying to help people and, you know, make things easier
in the reselling world, but that, that comes both ways because we make things
easier, but it's almost as if we're at a point in society where everybody wants
everything handed to them.
And I think the best way to learn personally is by, you know, just doing it
yourself, making the mistakes.
What's your take on that?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I think it's good to have like mentors and friends and, you know, folks
who could help support you and whatnot, but you're going to learn the most by
doing it on your own and making mistakes.
Like you have to take action.
If you're not taking action, you're just watching videos and you're just
sitting on the sidelines.
Like nothing is going to happen.
And, you know, I think back over the last, you know, 10 years of
building up multiple businesses.
I mean, I remember when I first started my business, dude, I was $23,000 in debt.
I had no, I mean, I might've had like a thousand bucks in cash, but I had.
I had no assets.
I just had like a loan for like a Hyundai Sonata and everything.
And, you know, I remember back then, like, I was just completely broke.
And now I don't share this to brag, but like literally less than a year ago, I
passed like over a million dollar net worth from building everything up and
whatnot.
And the point I'm saying is like, the reason I share that is thinking back
everything I've done to be able to make money, all my successes that I've had.
And I've had plenty more failures.
It's all because I just said, you know, I'm going to try this.
I'm going to give this a shot.
I'm going to try this YouTube.
I'm going to try, you know, this eBay to Amazon, or I'm going to try selling
books, or I'm going to try flipping bikes and try flipping clothes.
And it's never like, you never see results fast, at least for me, like I've
never been like the smartest student or the brightest or the quickest or like
catch on the fastest, but yeah, you just have to take action.
You have to make mistakes and you have to push through really takes, I would
say like, at least for me, a couple months to figure out, is this something I
like, is this something I joy and is something I have, you know, potential to
make a lot of money with, but you have to try.
That's all I can say as corny as it sounds.
I know, but I mean, if you think about it too, right.
It also takes consistency.
So, right.
If you scroll through the YouTube channels of both our channels, there's
videos, right.
There's never like a five year gap where we don't do anything, right.
That's always consistent, you know, every, every week there's something going on
on the YouTube channel every day, whether it's a short of post consistency goes
hand in hand with giving something a shot and you can't expect to really get
results, whether it's your business or YouTube, if you're not being consistent
with it.
When I first, you know, got into YouTube, I was subscribed to all these YouTubers
and I can't tell you how many of them had just fell in all like fell off the face
of the earth, right.
They stopped making content.
And I think it's because you almost get in that mentality of, well, what's the
payoff, right.
I'm putting all this time into YouTube.
I'm editing videos.
I'm uploading videos.
My videos are only getting, you know, five likes, you know, 50 views, but
everybody has to start somewhere and looking back, you know, you can't go in
with the expectation, you know, I can't expect to get the same amount of views.
You do.
It's just completely different growth pattern here.
I don't even get that many views anymore on YouTube, man.
We might as well jump into that because YouTube has turned into a crap show
lately for me, at least.
I don't know about you, but YouTube, the, I think that I think it's a whole
mindset mentality, almost like behavioral shift within the, within the world.
Honestly, back when I was getting into reselling, watching you bona fide,
bona fide still puts out great videos.
I'm still subscribed to him.
He's a legend.
Dude, he just crosses it.
Cash flips on Facebook marketplace all day long.
Come ride his bikes, give them the cash and get out of his driveway.
Right.
But I do think like the mind shift has changed from people wanting to actually
see something that's educational and learn something versus something that's
almost like click baity whiny, like, Oh my God, eBay sucks.
Amazon sucks.
Or, Oh my God, this person said this about this person.
I seriously think the mind shift has changed drastically.
And you've almost can see it.
Like if you still have cable, like the show is to come out, it's all like
reality TV drama nonsense.
And I think that's where YouTube is headed, unfortunately.
So people that myself and yourself to try to put out videos, try to give
you actual facts of how you can do things.
You're just not going to get traction anymore on YouTube.
I don't know what your take is on it.
Yeah, man.
It was funny.
I put a post out the other day and I think I was like kind of being a
hater, but I'll just be honest.
Like maybe I was hating it is what it is, but I was looking up.
Like the funny thing is I was telling a friend the other day, like I could
put my heart and soul into creating a video, like I could literally show my
exact recipe for how I'm making money with eBay to Amazon, because that's
what I do now, right?
Like I don't really thrift.
I don't do a lot of things I used to do.
I can put my heart and soul into a video.
It gets like a thousand views, right?
And it's amazing.
And then half the comments were like, oh, this is stupid.
You're going to get kicked off.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And it's like, dude, you have no freaking experience of living
in your parents' basement.
Then I could create the dumbest video.
That's like a short, like go look at my Instagram, man.
Half the videos are so stupid, but I've stopped resisting what the
people want and I'm just giving it to them.
Like I don't ever cross that line of like being an unethical
scammer or anything like that.
But it's like, I'll post the dumbest video with like, you know, I love my mom, right?
But I'll post a video of her and I'll put like, my mom makes three to 5,000 selling books.
There's nothing to learn.
It's just straight up click bait.
It's not a lie.
She does it, dude.
I'm not even kidding.
My Instagram has 3 million views in the last two weeks.
Stupidest videos ever.
Dude, I have over 300 DMS.
I got just yesterday on Instagram.
People are so excited.
I'm thinking to myself, this is the dumbest content ever.
Also, I looked on YouTube the other day, typed in Amazon FBA.
There's this Indian dude, right?
And he's like got 100, 200,000 views on every video.
They're so stupid.
You're going to lose so much money.
Like if you're a brand new seller, do not go into private label and wholesale.
You're going to lose like thousands of dollars and lose money.
Oh, I got this product for $3 and I'm selling it for 30.
Like, no, you're not like you're a liar.
Do you think you think it's all right?
I'm going to throw this out.
There's the hot take coming in hot here.
I've been triggered.
This is a hot take coming in for me here.
I think the majority of people want to take the easy way out.
And when you just hear the word private label, wholesale, Amazon automation,
you think you can just sit back here in my warehouse and a check
comes flying in the window every week.
But I seriously think people want the path of the path of least resistance anymore,
which sometimes these things can work.
I'm not saying, you know, if you do this, you're 100% guaranteed.
Yeah, exactly.
But I do think when you put in the work, you put in the effort,
you're going to have a different experience and you're going to have different results
than somebody that's just trying to take the easy path.
And unfortunately, the world we live in, the easy path is all anybody wants anymore.
It's ridiculous, man.
It's it's it's absolutely insane, man.
And like half my comments, like I was watching a video the other day
and the guy was saying, like, you actually like you want to trigger people now.
Like if you don't trigger people, your videos get no views.
Like you have to like you have to be very polarizing and you have to trigger.
The thing is, I'm never going to break my overall values.
Like my overall values is I want to be honest.
I want to be ethical.
Like I want to help people make a difference.
But I also do want to make money.
I want to grow my coaching businesses.
I want to help and serve.
And if it requires me to post some stupid content with stupid text,
even though it's legit, but it's just so corny.
And like if that brings people in and I could help them and serve them
like on a higher level, then so be it.
But yeah, the game is like completely changed, man.
But I feel like social media is full of scumbags nowadays.
And, you know, I'm not perfect.
I've fallen into scumbag territory from time to time,
because sometimes you just cross the line a little too much.
And like, OK, like you got to get back to, you know, being, you know.
Yeah, but I mean, that comes with ten years of basically being a public figure,
you know, in the in the reselling world, like anybody.
Like if you make one wrong step because you have the notoriety,
then it's like the world, the sky is falling around you
because you are that personality in the reselling community.
You are that pillar.
So God forbid, like, you know, like you say one thing, you know,
like your your April Fool's video, like people are freaking out.
Oh, my God, like he's got his own crypto coin.
They don't even watch to the end, dude. Right.
I have people still messaging me from three years ago when I told them that.
So I did in April Fool's.
This was like two or three years ago. I do it every year.
I'm like literally just trying to kill my subscribership.
I did one saying that I'm going to be.
Yeah, I got a job with corporate Goodwill and I'm giving them all my guides and courses.
I'm going to teach them how to price items correctly.
And, you know, I just want to say thanks to my audience.
You know, we're still going to give you some good deals,
but we're pricing items correctly.
People still cuss me out about it.
They never watch the video, but I don't blame them.
It's like they watch the first two minutes and then they're like, OK,
he's really doing this and then like he's not going to blow it up till the end, guys.
Wait till the last minute of the video and then you'll know it's a joke.
But I think that's that's just hints on the society, right?
They just see that one thing and they just run with it to the max.
And it is it is tough kind of being in the spotlight that you're in.
And it's almost as if people trust us to a point where if we decide to do something,
like for me, for example, like I put out those trigger sets, right?
And like your hope, these people's businesses can revolve around these trigger sets.
And I always tell people, fair warning, don't copy and paste.
My business is different from Steve's.
Steve's is different. None of us are the same.
But I still get all the time like these triggers aren't working.
What's going on? Why isn't this working?
I just tell people, listen, just because I put out this video, this is a guideline for you.
If you copy and paste, you might get better results than me.
You might get worse, but you can't just take everything at somebody's word.
And we do have to realize, like you said, I mean, I always joke about it.
Like if I wasn't ethical, I could just make the most crazy repricing video
and change your repricing sentence to this.
And everybody's stuff plummets because people don't want to put in the time
to understand it themselves.
They're just going to go, all right, he's got this, I got that.
He's got this, I got that.
It's like we almost have to be 100% with people because in actuality,
we have other people's businesses in our hands and we don't even really think about it that way.
So true, man. People are just entitled.
They want results quick.
They don't really want to work.
And I feel like everybody listen.
I feel like the folks who are listening, obviously your podcasts are different,
but in general, for anybody who maybe if you're new and you're just listening
to Mike's podcast and whatnot, you got to think long-term.
You really, really do.
I tell a lot of folks now, this is my new thing and reselling freedom,
all my programs and everything, six to 12 months, six to 12 months.
If you want to start paying yourself and making some money, like, yeah,
you could make money flipping something in two, three weeks and a month.
But in terms of buying supplies and tools and making mistakes and returns and Amazon's
lovely little reserve that they have now for new sellers, right?
Let's just try to make it as difficult as possible for new sellers who are waiting
for the postcard and now they got the whole deactivation thing scaring everybody.
And it just takes a good six to 12 months to get to that point.
That's just my new thing now, but no one wants to hear it.
They'll just click on your video.
They don't want to hear that.
And the thing is, if you're selling used media, you need the buy box
in these categories. And I have people that are in my discord
that have been selling books for over a year and a half and still don't have the buy box for books.
And if you don't have, if you're not buy box eligible, guess what?
You're not getting probably a chance.
What is that? Why do you think they're not getting it?
I'm curious. Obviously, we all know there's feedback in your volume and being an FBA seller.
And I mean, I wish I had an answer.
We've tried everything to figure it out.
I will say this when it comes to, if you don't have the buy box,
you got to at least merchant fulfilled five items.
I don't even care if you're going to break even merchant fulfilled.
I think Amazon wants to see as many stats in your account as they can.
So if you never merchant fulfilled merchant filled, you never got a review, get a review.
You got to do all these things.
So you have all these metrics with inside Amazon to maybe it flips the switch.
But this is possible, right?
You could start selling used media today and it could be five, six months before you actually
become buy box eligible.
And you're not going to get nowhere near the amount of sales.
And from that day on, when you get the buy box, all of a sudden you're like, whoa,
this is Amazon.
Holy crap, I'm making all this money.
So a lot of people really don't see that kind of stuff.
And to go back to the YouTube aspect of it, I can make a video about it and it's not going
to get no traction because there's nothing click bait to it.
I can just sit here and say, oh, how do you get the buy box?
Right. There's no really like cook line and sinker.
And I think YouTube has just changed and people have changed.
They don't really.
And there's nothing wrong with paying for a course,
paying to be in a group around like minded people because that stuff's invaluable.
But I think at some point you have to take, like you were saying, take the action yourself.
I can join every group out there in the world and all the information can be in front of me.
But if all I do is watch YouTube and read other members' posts and never do anything,
it means nothing at the end of the day.
Dude, I'll tell you this right now.
I've got a hundred eighty nine thousand subscribers.
This is how crazy YouTube is getting, right?
Hundred eighty nine thousand subscribers.
And I'm consistent.
I've only made one thousand two hundred dollars off AdSense from that.
And I'm posting two to three times a week, man.
So like the truth is, like and I know this is kind of not really following exactly what you were saying,
but I want to share this like I'm really going to start doing a mix of like obviously stuff
that's really valuable, that really helps people, but it's not going to get views.
And then mixing it with stuff that like has the ability to go viral and like posting stupid stuff,
because at this point now it's like you can't fight the system.
Like it's like how do I say it?
Like if you're selling on Amazon, maybe you're like,
I don't want to sell these items because I think they're stupid,
but people are buying them.
Sell those.
You know what I mean?
So it's interesting, man.
Like my YouTube channel, it's just it's dying because I'm not changing with the times,
but I'm going to make some big changes.
I'm not sure about you, Mike.
I'm in the same boat here.
I know they're pushing shorts heavily, so I think my approach is going to be
and if you're getting into YouTube or maybe you need subscribers or watch time,
YouTube is pushing the YouTube shorts program real heavily.
And I think that could be the kind of position where I push those more like,
oh, make $100 on Amazon selling this, right?
And it's just an item I sold on Amazon, right?
As a YouTube short, 15 seconds short, that drives more traffic to your overall page.
But I do think it's one of those things, right?
I'm perfectly fine with growing slow.
And but it just, I guess it frustrates me kind of like you said,
like the nonsense I see out there on YouTube and it gets to views like, dude,
I seen somebody this is a while ago.
They since quit YouTube.
They would buy books from thrift stores and Saran wrap them themselves and sell them as new,
dude.
And the comments are like, what Saran wrap machine you got?
Like, I'm getting on this, right?
And I'm just thinking to myself like, oh, my God, like, how is this going on?
Like, this is illegal.
And there it is.
I got a group.
It's funny.
I got a group of guys in my area, five of them.
They're all they're all together.
They all come in.
They buy.
It's so funny because my mom tells me all the time, like she's there like almost every day.
I'm like, she'll only find a couple of books now.
It's like it's a lot harder at these thrift stores, at least where we are.
They come in, they'll leave with 50, 60 books.
And one time I was trying to figure out what they were doing.
So I was like kind of peeping around.
They're buying them all and selling them as new.
That's what they're doing.
I can't wait for them to get a $3,000 lawsuit from Oz.
It'll happen.
And that's and that's a frustrating part of it because a lot of people, you know,
are like, hey, how's this person selling this book for this or for that?
And I'm like, listen, you got to realize not a lot of people have business sense.
And like you said, you got to play the long term game here.
It's almost like it's a war of attrition.
You know, the price tankers, you hear it all the time.
Oh, the price is tank.
Well, guess what?
The price tankers will go away.
Sure.
Somebody else will come along.
But you have to realize, I think we're at a tipping point here in reselling
where there's a lot of people stepping out of the game.
Everybody thought it was the hot thing in during the pandemic.
Everybody's stuck inside.
I want to start flipping stuff to make extra money.
I think we're on the down the downswing now when it comes to overall people getting into it.
And I see it all the time.
I mean, I'm out scanning stuff and Scowdley is telling me that somebody's selling his book
for one penny like this is really going on out there.
Like people, people are dumb as nails and you just have to accept the fact that
they will go away and you just ride the tide and come out higher on the other side.
Yeah, I see it all the time.
I put a post in our group the other day.
There was a merchant who was down at like, I don't know, 50 bucks or something.
And then FBA was at like 78.99.
And if you look in Kepa, you can see on in Kepa who was getting the buy box and at what price.
Some sellers have no idea.
A seller came in FBA and brought the price all the way down to the merchant price.
I'm like, you're a complete moron.
Like you could have sold this for seventy seven dollars, but you thought you had to go price it at fifty four.
They're probably not a moron.
They just they never took time to really learn how to price items, how to analyze.
But the truth is, like you were saying, if you get into products and have a market,
they'll sell out.
The market will come right back.
You don't have to chase.
Yeah.
And I also want to comment on, like you said, the YouTube.
I don't know what the thought process is behind people that like ourselves, we have YouTube channels.
But I'll tell you what, YouTube is maybe a twenty fifth or a fiftieth of the money I make compared to the business.
Right.
So I put out three videos a week.
I pay an editor to do one of them, one of my one of my lifelong friends, thankfully.
So the time I invest, I mean, with Google AdSense, I'm lucky if I get like fifty or seventy five bucks a month.
Right.
And that's basically, you know, what?
Twenty three times five, fifteen videos a month.
So the mindset that people think that, hey, because they do YouTube and you have X amount of subscribers that you're making all this money.
That is the furthest thing from reality that I can say.
Sure, there are YouTube resellers and they understand that.
Right.
And they kind of they have to switch with the times, kind of like what we're talking about, switching with the times to bring in more views when it comes to that.
But there are YouTube resellers that can make five figures a month.
But the reality is, you know, ninety eight percent of us, we're out here getting fifty bucks a month if we're lucky.
And a few of the smaller resellers that I'm subscribed to are like, hey, like how much you actually make when you get monetized?
And I'm like, if you got a thousand subscribers, you'd be lucky if you take home twenty bucks a month.
And that's just the reality of it.
And a lot of people, even with resell, they don't understand that the business aspect of having a YouTube channel, it's like a labor of love.
It's like a teaching job.
Right.
They don't make enough money, but we do it to help other people.
So the YouTube revenue really is not as great and as amazing as people make it out to seem.
And I can tell you that firsthand.
And you already gave your numbers.
So, I mean, it's crazy out there in the YouTube world.
But I also want to get into, like, I don't know, what are some, like, misconceptions that I think one big thing for me is when we make a YouTube video, me or you, it takes time out of our business.
And I always tell everybody if I didn't, everybody should be doing better than me with their business because I have time basically with YouTube that you don't have.
I got to record when I'm in a thrift store.
I got to stop and record my phone while I'm in the thrift store.
I got to record a wrap up.
People don't have those obligations.
And sure, I understand I chose to do this, which is fine.
But you also have to realize you're only getting a tiny slice of the overall business when we make these videos.
Yeah, I'll tell you what a misconception is.
A misconception for a lot of YouTubers is they think that they have to only make money from YouTube.
There's actually a lot of other ways to make money.
So you remember how I told you I only make about a thousand bucks a month from YouTube.
I make about eight thousand a month reoccurring just off affiliates promoting Flipmine, Scout IQ, the tools and supplies I use, Be Cool.
What else do I promote?
Seller ramp.
But these are all things I personally use.
You can't promote things you don't use because you're going to be unethical.
And we've all made, like maybe you haven't, but I've been doing this for a while.
I didn't know anything about marketing.
I didn't know like a lot of people don't realize like internet marketing is the same thing as just being in person.
Like you have to be a normal person.
Like you have to be honest and stuff.
But yeah, I do about eight thousand a month, man.
Pretty passive because the cool thing is like with a lot of these things like Scout IQ or even Scoutly or like listing software's now, you know, I've switched over from Accelerist over to GoToLister.
So now I promote that and I don't even pitch it that much.
People ask me.
I just send them a link and I say, hey, it's an affiliate link.
But if you're a reseller and you're a YouTuber, you should 100% promote the things that you are using that you like.
Right.
I don't promote things that I don't use or I don't like because you're just a scumbag.
But yeah, a lot of these affiliate programs have really good reoccurring payouts.
So you don't need a lot of them to make pretty good money, actually way more than YouTube.
You have to.
And also as YouTubers, we have to value our time.
Right.
He's sitting here and you're probably like, holy crap, he's making AK and all he's doing is sending links when he gets messages.
Well, guess what?
That's just not him.
All of a sudden, he walked into this.
It's 10 years of doing YouTube.
It's 3000 videos of doing YouTube.
It's being in every different Facebook group and just growing basically your personal brand.
I know it's like it's mind blowing to people.
Right.
You know, eight grand a month just from having these affiliates.
But that's the possibility of it.
But like you said in the beginning of this, this is a long term play for you.
Right.
You didn't go in expecting to make a grand a month your first year, five years, probably ever on YouTube.
And now here you are.
But this takes steps.
This takes a lot of effort, a lot of time.
And if you probably put your eight grand a month every month over all the hours you spent, you're probably making minimum wage if you're lucky.
Right.
All the time you put in to resell.
And so it's like you work hard and it pays off at the end of the road.
Yeah. But like I still make more money with my Amazon business.
And my Amazon business right now is doing over 50 grand a month and about actually a little over 12000 profit right now.
Now, I invest a lot of it back into my business because I'm trying to get to 100K by the end of the year.
And you can't grow that rapidly without investing a lot of your profits back in.
But it's kind of eye opening.
And I do think another thing you don't see on YouTube, you don't see a lot of the nitty gritty.
Right.
Like I've even thought about doing this right.
Just like kind of like a day in the life.
But like we were saying a day in the life really isn't going to get you views.
It isn't going to get you clicks on YouTube.
Right.
Nobody wants to see me.
Like the other day I went to the post office FedEx UPS.
I completed the triple threat challenge.
But like if I recorded that nobody cares.
Right.
Like but people don't see behind the scenes.
They only see that 15, 20 minutes that we actually recorded.
And there are so many moving pieces going on behind the scenes.
And that brings me to the point of I understand people need help and people want to reach out.
And everybody expects a response within an ample amount of time.
But it gets to a point like I can't even imagine.
Like you got 300 DMs.
Right.
Like I get emails and messages and I have to discord.
I'm over on the Facebook reselling freedom.
And it's just like I can't imagine at some point it gets to be impossible.
And that's where we have to really weigh our options and our time.
And basically what's going to get us the highest return on our time when it comes to money.
And like you're saying, you know, I have the discord.
You know, you have your Facebook groups, your mentorships, your coaching.
And that's why, you know, at first I was hesitant to do it because I'm just like,
well, you know what, I don't want to charge somebody.
So it's whatever.
It's 2.99 a month.
Holy crap.
Like, oh my God, 2.99 a month.
Like this is going to $2.99.
$0.99.
Not 2.99.
And it's a tax write off.
Right.
So I'm like, but I have, I got to a point where I said, okay, this is taking too much of my time.
And unfortunately I can't continue down this path because the business still has to go.
I'm not a YouTuber.
I'm a reseller that just does YouTube on the side, basically.
And I think you probably hit that infliction point years ago.
And it's just like, what's your mindset on that now?
Because you get hundreds of DMS every single day.
Like you do, like you set a limit on yourself.
Like, all right, I'm going to respond to 10 DMS a day and that's it.
Yeah.
It's funny.
For me, I really like to do quality.
So like a lot of times when I respond, like I like to give a good quality message.
So a lot of times I'll just do voice responses.
I mostly respond on Instagram and Facebook now, like YouTube and stuff.
Like it's just too hard to like get back to all of these.
I have a couple of people on my team now that help out who will go in and like redirect to my Facebook group
or send to, you know, my free five-day book selling workshop or try to help people out.
But it's impossible.
So I try to build systems.
I try to respond to at least five people per day, like give a good quality response.
Like something that actually helps them, not something like, hey, check out my course.
Like that's not really like very helpful.
You know, build a relationship, trying to kiss on the first night.
But yeah, man, I just try to do as much as I possibly can.
I have a team that helps me now.
I know you work with like a lot of my virtual assistants now too.
And you kind of see how I do it and whatnot.
So, I mean, just try to do the best you possibly can and set up systems.
I will fully admit that I used to have my business email on YouTube.
And to the advice of my wife, she said, take it down, right?
Because I'm getting all these emails and I guess it frustrates me, not so much the questions,
but the questions I get when I have a specific video, you know, that specifically addresses that question.
It's like, if you just would have scrolled for two seconds,
you would have seen the repricing video.
You would have seen the removal order video.
And it's like, it got to a point where it was just too much.
And I've straight up said to people, listen, if you want information, join a YouTube channel,
get over in the Discord because I don't have time to sit here
and basically do your whole business for you through an email for free, right?
And unfortunately, listen, I'm all about helping people.
I'll respond to every YouTube comment until I get to the point where it's impossible.
But I have to value my time as well because my business supports my family.
And I think it kind of goes by the wayside, right?
If me and you stop responding to every, any comment we ever seen, like that's it, right?
We're falling off the face of the earth real quick.
No, it's true, man. It's true.
You got to value your time, but you really do have to want to help people and take time, man.
Some of the best business relationships I have now was because I responded in a DM,
sent a couple of messages back and forth.
They were in town. We connected. We met up.
And next thing you know, like we're in business together,
they put me onto some hot leads or they taught me about a software or,
you know, so relationships are everything in this business.
I know I'm going off course a little bit, but I can't say it enough.
If you want to grow your reselling business, relationships, relationships, relationships,
relationships are everything.
Yeah. I made a video the other day saying, stop whining about reselling.
And because think about it, if we all made videos about, you know,
everything's sucking all the time, then everybody's going to be down in the dumps.
And I try to do the opposite, but that's all you see on YouTube anymore.
At least, at least my feed is, you know, all my suggestions are people complaining about reselling.
And when you just watch that kind of content, you hear it all the time, you start to believe in.
I think this is where the relationship comes in to be most important is when you surround yourself
with like minded people, all of a sudden you're going to start getting the results of those other
people. And I can attest to that because if I was doing this myself, I probably wouldn't be as
motivated as being able to be like, okay, I got all these people, you know, you got all these people
over in your mentorship crushing it. Right. So you're like, wait a minute, you know, you know,
my young paddle one can't do better than me, the master Jedi. So it's like, you're more motivated
to go out and do it. And then they're more motivated. So you do have to surround yourself
with like minded people or people that you kind of, maybe you don't have that mindset right now,
but you want to be in that mindset and you want to get the results that they get.
Dude, you're so right. The funny thing is I like to share a story. I, you know, this was probably
maybe close to a year ago when I launched my eBay to Amazon course. So for folks who don't know,
like I buy items from eBay, I sell it on Amazon, like long story short, I'd been doing it for like
18 months after my car accident, started off just doing like a couple hundred bucks in sales,
a couple flips. And now, you know, I'm doing over a thousand items a month. If you guys follow me
online, you see all my crazy videos and pictures of the mailman dropping stuff off. But when I
launched that course, I don't know what I was doing. I think I was doing like 25,000 a month
in sales or something. And I thought I was like a hotshot, like, Oh, I know it all. Like, look at
me. I'm so cool. And I met this guy in there who joined the program and I didn't know it at the
time, but he was actually doing close to a hundred thousand a month. And that's the funny thing about
successful people. They're never too cocky to learn. And even though I was doing 75% less,
he went in and I taught him a bunch of stuff and he leveled up his business even more. But guess
what? I learned so much from this guy, Ben. And now we're actually a business partner. We're building
out a software and everything for eBay to Amazon and different things. And this guy's helped me so
much with my business, man. Like I won't go into all the details, but the way I used to do things
nine months ago, Mike, stupidest things. Like I just did the most inefficient things in my business
in terms of reconciling my inventory, checking it in the way I received all my eBay packages.
It was just a mess. Like even though I was making money, it was a mess. Learned so much because I
got around people who were smarter than me. Yep. And I do think it doesn't even have to be like,
all right, say you want to do eBay to Amazon or say you want to do thrifted books. I don't think it
even has to be somebody that's in the same business. It's almost better to have somebody
in a different business, right? It's like, I can see a completely different aspect, a completely
different business and what Steve's doing right in his business. And where can I pick pieces out
and fit it into mine so that it makes sense? So don't get in the mindset, oh, I can only be around
eBay to Amazon people because that's what I do. That is the wrong way to approach it. You've got
to be looking at all kinds of different aspects. And I honestly, I don't care what your business
is on YouTube when it comes to reselling. If you're given knowledge, you're given tips,
I'll watch it. I've watched plenty of good eBay sellers that have great quality videos and I'm
learning from it, right? All the OA guys out there that put out tons of content, like Joji,
right? Joji's that dude. I feel like I could probably, the stuff he teaches, I have no reason,
no reason to watch it other than having the knowledge. If the day comes and I got to start,
OA or flipping like he does, I feel like I'm equipped. I could probably jump in today and
knock out a few leads, but that's just because I'm like, hey, this person knows what they're
talking about clearly. And even though it's not my business type, he's got the mindset that I want
to be around. Dude, I'm so pumped up. He's going to be putting out a course too. I'm trying to push
him to put it out because I want to go through it. He sources a lot of items, a lot of books off
of Amazon. So he'll buy books off of Amazon and then flip them back on Amazon. And a lot of people
say you can't do it. You can, but you have to buy from merchants and you want to have another
account. And there's a whole process to it, but he uses, you ever seen his videos where he uses
the Keepa product finder? Dude, it's a cheat code. It's a cheat code. Just send it to me, dude. Just
give me the Keepa alerts. I don't even need to do anything besides when I get an alert. I even asked
him, he did the one live. I said, dude, can we set up this thing so that it automatically buys the
item if it hits our point? And he's like, oh, I don't know. That'd be good software to have.
I'm like, yeah, because then it's just kind of, you just let us spend your money and it comes in,
you just send it back in. Yeah. Yeah. That's another, you know, not to go off on a tangent,
but I will. That's another good way to make money. It's a long game though, building out
softwares. There's so many inefficiencies. I'm building out three right now. And the thing with
software costs a s- can I swear on this? I won't. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can. It costs a ton of money.
Yeah. To do, and it takes a ton of time. I'm building out three right now and it costs so
much money. It takes so much time. But the cool thing with software is like, if you actually are
in the game, like I'm in the eBay to Amazon game, like every single day, like I don't think there's,
I'm not trying to be cocky or anything, but there's like, there's not really, like I've gone through
so many situations. Like I know all the pain points that all the eBay to Amazon people are
going through. Cause like I'm going through it every day and there's a million inefficiencies.
So like say you're running an eBay business or a book selling business, or you're like big into
like doing bulk pickups or something. There are opportunities to create softwares that will speed
up the process, save time, or help you make money faster. Like Flipmine, for example. Geez, what an
amazing software to be able to buy from eBay to Amazon. So that's a, that's a long game thing.
That's one thing I'm looking to get into now because there's so much opportunities to not
only make money from it, but the cool thing with a software company, and I won't mention any names,
but there's some software companies in the Amazon space who have sold well into the seven figures.
Scout IQ dude, come on. If you're, if you're selling used books, you know, Scout IQ, the amazing guys
over there sold the software good for them, but that, that is right though. Right. But yet again,
we're back to that first thing you said at the beginning. This is all you're thinking down the
road here, right? You're not living in the moment today. You're saying, all right, I'm building
something that's bigger than today, bigger than 2023, right? You're looking down the road here.
What can I do? And I say it all the time that the scanning apps suck like Scoutly, Scout IQ, like
that could easily be done in a much better, cleaner way. Right. There's so many opportunities
and there's so many crappy Amazon software out there and they're everywhere you look. There's
thousands of these things. It's just crazy to me. And you know, the funny thing is that's why,
like, for example, like go to Lister, that's why I switched over. Accelerless is still great.
Like I have nothing bad to say about Accelerless, like big shout out to Travis and all of them.
Like they're doing it. And I love it. And they've helped my mom out in a lot. But like, for example,
just go to Lister example, Avery's a six, seven figure seller. I don't know if he's doing seven
figures now. I'm pretty sure he is. He does a lot of OA now, but he's in the game. Like a lot of
these guys who create like no offense to Scoutly, like this guy doesn't sell on Amazon. Like even
like a lot of these software people, like I talk to them and they don't know what the heck they're
talking about. Like their softwares are still good, but man, like I like to stand behind people who
are actually in the game doing it because they can optimize it so much better. That's why I was a
big believer in Scout IQ. You know, and I still use it when I go out and whatnot. I know a lot of
people are kind of switching over and whatnot. I have nothing but love for Scout IQ still, but
like that's why everyone loves Scout IQ because Caleb was in it. You know, he was a believer,
you know, excuse me. He was a reseller and optimized it. What are your thoughts on that?
I agree 100%. And I do think you have to have skin in the game to even kind of validate what
you're doing, right? You know, that's like, if you're selling, if you're pushing a course for eBay
to Amazon and you sold 10 items your whole life, eBay to Amazon, right? It's one of those things
where I've never sold anything my friend did, but that's the reality of it though, right? As much
as we sit here and joke about it, like you have to have some kind of track record, but that's to
us, right? We've been in the game for years. Now somebody that's brand new, they don't give a crap
about that, dude. They're just like, well, what's the easiest ticket? What's right in front of me?
What's the ad that's popping up on my screen that's making me this crazy promise that's going to
change my life overnight? And it's the furthest thing from absolutely being wrong that is out
there. And unfortunately, a lot of new sellers fall into these traps. How many people come along
in my groups? They start out, the big thing, where can I buy Gaylords of books? You want to know what
to do with a Gaylord of books if I dropped it off at your house today? That's the last thing you want
to do as a new seller. But people do this, Steve. Like I've literally have seen people say, all right,
I just started selling books. I ordered four Gaylords and then I never hear from them again.
And it's one of those things where it's just like, you can't get, this is hard work. And I think you
hit on it the other day in one of your videos, like reselling is hard work. No matter what you see out
there on YouTube, there are so many things that go on behind the scenes. There's so much hours we put
in behind the scenes besides that little 20 minute snippet of our day you get. 100% man. And that's
why I'm a big follower and a big fan of your channel, man. And for everyone watching, like
you're in good hands with Mike. Like Mike tells it how it is. That's one of the reasons, man,
I wanted to work with you and partner up with you with coaching and doing these videos and stuff is,
you know, you tell it how it is and you're real and it is hard work and it's challenging. And like
we said before, six to 12 months, I think a big takeaway for all of us. And I'm like, this is
hitting home for me as well. Like thinking about the different things I'm doing is like, think
long-term. Forgot what interview I was watching, but it was some Amazon interview and I think it
was Jeff Bezos or something. Someone on the Amazon team was like, everything we're doing today is to
affect the stock price in like three years from today. It's the truth. I mean, and that's, that's
with any business, anything in life, you know, nothing, I would say nothing good comes easy,
right? You might get lucky and buy a scratch off and with a whole bunch of money, but guess what,
you're probably not going to. So start figuring it out today and just be smart about the people
you put yourself around and don't get caught up with just consuming content. Take an action.
What you said is the biggest thing you can do. I don't care how many videos you watch. It's not
exactly what you're going to deal with in the, in the time of need, right? You can copy my trigger
sets. Well, guess what, what happens if you're out and the trigger set disappears and you don't
even know what a trigger set is or understand exactly how it works. I'm not there to pick up
the phone and answer and build you a trigger set over the phone. You have to understand what you're
doing yourself. Just in case something like that happens. We're not always going to be there. I
can't always call Steve and say, yo, what's going on? This ain't working. That's not the reality of
it. Well, I'd pick up for you, man, cause you're holding the rake in crypto coins. So, you know,
that's part of the, you know, that's part of the, that's a super long-term play. Maybe I'll be able
to cash it in when I'm a hundred years old, but I'll say, you know, a serious note to kind of final,
to end things off, I'll say, start, start slow. You know, I know we all want to buy the gay lord
and we all want to freaking spend five grand on Flipmine and scale eBay to Amazon. Like don't
even start with eBay to Amazon. Don't scale with bulk. Start with bulk. Like just go to a thrift
store, sell a couple of things around your house. Learn about the annoying things that have to do
with restrictions. Learn about how to list your first item and how to ship and get yourself out
of that reserve, that Amazon reserve. Like go slow. Like I had a lady, she was a couple of years ago.
This was, this isn't like a new story, but I'll say this and I'll kind of end things off with this.
We, we met up with this, with a group of folks, I host this free event. It's the Connecticut
thrifting meetup. We usually host it like once a year and we all like get a hotel and we hang out
and have fun and drink and thrift all day. And I met this sweet woman. She was amazing. I don't
remember her name, but I could still picture her. And she was like, Steve, like I literally just,
I came because I wanna, I need to start selling books and I have to pay my mortgage by the end
of the month. And I was just thinking to myself like, oh crap, like this is probably how the
average person thinks. Like, and I told her, I said, you're not gonna be able to pay your mortgage
doing this. Like you're gonna hit reserves. You're gonna have like a couple of weeks where they
don't pay you out. Like you have to find items, then you're gonna make a bunch of mistakes and
then items aren't gonna sell. And then you're gonna have a shipment that gets lost. And like
you're just gonna get smacked around the first three months. Oh yeah. Yeah. I think that, I think
that's a good thing to kind of wrap this up here is what you see on YouTube is not the real picture.
Of a business. Unfortunately, that the YouTube algorithm is gonna push the click baity stuff.
So just, just be aware, right? And surround yourself, get in some of these groups,
invest in yourself, right? You know, everything you do for your business is a tax write off,
you know, 2.99 a month, write it off. You know, you do one of Steve's mentorships, write it off.
It's less taxes you're gonna pay at the end of the year. I can't say this enough is invest in
yourself, put the money back into your business and just understand, right? When, when, when you're
on YouTube and you see these resellers, we have businesses and cats too, right? You know, we got
cats, we got to feed. So we have to value our time. At some point we have to say, okay, we need to
get some kind of return on our time. Surround yourself with like-minded people. Thank you,
Steve, for filling in as a guest host. I appreciate it as always. And we will talk to everybody
next week on the next episode. Peace. Peace. Thanks for listening to another episode of
the resellers mindset podcast. Today's full episode and all previous episodes are available
to all YouTube members, along with the weekly zoom call and private discord. Head on over to
youtube.com backslash to use book guy and consider joining for as little as 299 a month.