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 used 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 into another episode of Resellers Mindset Podcast,
Mike alongside Johnny.
And as 2023 comes to an end,
we thought it'd be a good time to kind of share
our biggest wins and losses of the year.
So maybe it could help you not step into the same pile
of crap we did in 2023.
And maybe some of the wins are ways you can probably win
in 2024.
So I guess I will start it off and not, you know,
kind of throw it to Johnny just right away.
I'll start off with one of my,
one of my bigger losses for me in 2023.
And that's gonna be focusing too much on bulk pickups
as a solo entrepreneur media seller.
So just to give a little context,
I used to do heavy ads for free pickups for books,
pay for DVDs, pay for CDs.
And it's fine, right?
You get the idea that, oh, it's free.
So you're always gonna win.
But somewhere along the line,
I stopped taking in the time I was spending
on the free pickups into consideration.
So yes, it's free.
How much time am I spending?
And if I spent this time doing other parts of the business,
how much money would I make in comparison?
And I quickly realized this that,
hey, every time I go do a free pickup, yes, I make money,
but at what expense?
How much time am I taking to make the 300, $500
from the free book pickup versus if I was just outsourcing?
So for me, probably the first seven, eight months
of the year, I was free pickup guy, right?
Somebody rings my line, hey, I got free books.
Come get them.
I'm right there, right?
That week, cut everything out, I got to cut out.
And I was sacrificing thrifting days for pickup days.
And we all know getting through a bulk pickup,
especially if it's a car full,
it's gonna take you a full day.
Then you gotta get rid of stuff.
It's a whole nine yards.
And I didn't really realize the cash loss,
even though the items are free,
my dower per hour is way lower with bulk
than it is if I'm just out cherry picking
and it's a lot less work because I'm only taking
at things that I know we're gonna sell.
I don't have to get rid of any of the bad stuff,
any of the garbage.
So for me, that was probably one of my biggest losses
of 2023.
So Johnny's probably thinking he's gonna come at us
with his biggest loss,
but we're gonna make him go to the good side
and give one of his biggest wins of 2023.
My biggest wins?
Definitely opening up my own brick and mortar.
I'm gonna say you're sitting in it.
Yeah, which kind of plays into what you were just talking
about, it saved me a lot of pickup time
or exploring finding places to do stuff.
It's already had kind of established sources
and it was just like, there's all this other stuff.
I'm saving it, not wanting to get rid of it.
And I tried to get rid of it a couple of times,
but I didn't like the deals that were thrusted upon me.
So I had to decline them and like, okay,
I gotta figure out what to do with this.
It's either this or literally throw them away.
And so I decided to give this a whirl
of the brick and mortar.
And it's probably been the best thing I've done
other than I am locked down in my book dungeon.
I can't leave, cause I have store hours now,
but I have inventory that comes to me,
walks in my door, they drop it off or set it down for me
and will it on this side of the warehouse,
process it just like I would any other bulk pickup,
except I don't have to go out and get it.
I don't have to waste my time unloading,
loading my truck, unloading my truck,
wasting my employees time with that as well.
Cause usually it's a bulk pickup,
the things are heavy and it just goes quicker
if I were to go out and get stuff.
Now, do we still do pickups with our regular sources?
Yeah, we still do that.
But any kind of one-off things like what Mike's talking
about free pickups or let's try it at a state sale.
It looks like they got some good stuff.
We don't necessarily do those as much anymore.
We'll do them every now and then, but it's on our time.
We need to do this kind of thing.
I agree, man.
Just the stories you tell me about the stuff you got,
you're coming in and you're buying from people
or people are donating.
It kind of changes the game for you.
And I do want to preface this, right?
Like Johnny didn't go just open up a store in a mall.
He already had his warehouse.
He works out of his storefront.
So he doesn't lose anything by having the storefront.
He only gains from it.
And I think a lot of people,
especially in thrift and in reselling,
they're like, oh man, a storefront, that sounds great.
Yeah, well, it's easy when it's just sitting right there
in front of you on the other side of the screen
versus having to go to a physical location
that's not your warehouse in the whole nine yards.
But I do think that's definitely your biggest win.
My biggest win for sure this year was raising my ASP.
I know it's like, it's kind of like arbitrary to say,
like you hear somebody, oh, you raised your ASP.
Like you just wave a magical wand.
Well, with Amazon, we use software.
So all you gotta do is increase the target profit
you're looking for per item and your ASP goes up.
So if you look at last year,
I was around the $15 mark for media on Amazon for an ASP.
And that's kind of like, for books, it's terrible.
Like if you sell a book for $15 on Amazon,
if it's a hardback, maybe making two bucks, three bucks,
that's just not gonna cut it in the world
of you being a solo entrepreneur
trying to build an Amazon business.
So this year I raised my ASP to right around $20.
And you wouldn't think that $5 difference
makes a big difference in how much you make.
But with Amazon, that $5 mark from 15 to 20
is where you flip the tables
and you start taking more of the sale than Amazon does,
especially with DVDs and CDs.
So it's cheesy as it sounds, and we hear it all the time.
I can't find the better stuff.
I'm living proof that I had the same thrift stores
last year.
I basically did the same amount of sales
last year to this year, but this year I made more money
because I increased my ASP.
So you can basically do less work, right?
Because you're not buying all the junk
and make more money by increasing your ASP.
And I'm in the same exact thrift stores that I was last year.
I can't even, like, I think about it,
like carrying an inventory at Amazon of 4,000 items
versus this year where I'm barely staying above 1,000 items
because my stuff is selling so quick.
I wish I would have did this years ago,
but I had the mentality of if I can turn a dollar into $3,
it seems like it makes sense.
But yet again, what's your time worth, right?
Is prepping the extra 3,000 items a year worth it?
Probably not, and especially the way
the fuse are structured on Amazon, especially with books,
especially how heavy books are.
Third floor, four flights of steps up and down.
Definitely wasn't worth my time.
So increasing my ASP was definitely my biggest win.
I mean, I don't even have to carry crazy amounts of inventory
to make more money than I was making last year
when I was literally three, four, five, six Ikea bags
every single time I'm out because I'm grabbing
the two, three dollar profit stuff.
Leave that behind for somebody else.
If somebody else wants to play that game, that's fine.
But you as a single person with a media business on Amazon
got to value your time.
You got to get in, you got to get out.
And just because you have more items listed
doesn't mean you're going to make more money.
I would argue against that.
If you're sending in the low dollar stuff,
you're going to make less money than somebody like me
who's sending in the high dollar stuff.
And sure, you might be able to say, well,
my sales are $3 million.
Well, what's your profit at the end of the day?
Sales means nothing in reselling.
Anytime I hear somebody talk about sales,
I'm like, well, what did you actually make on that?
Because you don't know what they paid for that.
And especially with Amazon, like we said,
you sell a book for 15 bucks.
If it's a bigger hardback, if it's a coffee table book,
you're losing money guaranteed.
So the sales really means nothing on Amazon.
And that's why I kind of wanted to raise my ASP and say, hey,
I'm going to put more money in my pocket.
The best decision I made from the beginning of the year,
this is one of the ones I made early on in around January
and February before restock limits even lifted.
I said, I'm only going after the better stuff.
And I was like most people like, well,
I got the same thrift stores.
Is there going to be better stuff?
Well, I'm here to tell you, when you start
looking for the better stuff, you find it,
as long as you're doing the actual work.
So that's my biggest win.
I think it's Johnny's times for one of his losses of 2023,
because you started with a win.
There's so many losses this year.
Which one shall I go with?
I think the time lost I spent on taking some advice
from some bigger sellers of just listed all.
I wasted a lot of time in that.
I kind of went over some of my numbers
before this fall with Mike.
It was not worth the time I spent and my employees time
that I paid to have spent doing this thing.
We were doing like 60 items a day,
but it was all, it was literally anything.
We were listing anything.
Didn't really matter.
Because we were going with my model that proved to work,
just vintage stuff.
If I do a quality listing, I can jack the price up on that.
Did not translate well onto modern stuff,
which is mainly what we were listing in that cycle,
because I already had that stuff boxed up and sorted.
They're like, okay, let's just pull it out
and list it and get it over with.
I was running ragged during that time.
I was waking up at four in the morning
and not getting home to like one or two in the morning.
It was bad times, but I was doing it day after day.
Well, how could you only function on two hours of sleep?
Well, you're right.
That's why I drink two days a day and it sucked.
It sucked diddly diddly.
Now it ballooned my store.
It was nice to have that vanity thing of a large store.
Woo, yeah.
But it did not translate into the dollar per hour,
which we preface and emphasize on this podcast a lot.
That was a lesson learned.
I didn't trust my gut instinct of not to do that.
I just took some information that I assumed to be correct
because it's what they do,
but it did not translate to what I was doing.
So again, we kind of reiterate this.
What applies to one business may not apply to the other.
It did not apply to mine.
And I stuck with it longer than I should have
because we did it for like two or three months.
And then I said, no more.
But the stuff was already listed.
I'm still trying to trim through it.
50% off sale, 75% off, just to get it out of my store,
honestly.
And in a few months here,
we're probably just gonna rip all that down
and get all the garbage out of my store.
But it's peak season right now.
We're just trying to sell off what we can
with that cycle of inventory.
So listing bad items, there we go.
Let's go with that.
No matter, you can't polish a turd.
I'll say that.
I tried.
Many turds were polished during that time.
I have one that's like, it's kind of wishy washy.
It's like a good thing and a bad thing, I guess I could say.
And that relates to eBay in my business.
Most people know I don't mess with eBay, rarely any.
And you could argue both sides of the fence.
A more focused attack on Amazon only for me
makes me a whole lot more money.
But if I did dabble in eBay some,
I probably could put an extra,
I would say if I listed maybe 15 items a month,
I could probably put an extra $5,000,
maybe five to 10K in my pocket
at the end of the year with eBay.
But for me, eBay doesn't excite me.
And I finally came to the conclusion
towards the end of the year.
I just, I'll have an eBay pile for,
if the time comes and the Grim Reaper
comes and gets me on Amazon,
I'll be ready to rock and roll on eBay.
But allowing, I think it's like this.
I can't list as fast as people
that do eBay proficiently, right?
And I accept that.
So by me like half-assing eBay,
like, oh, maybe I'll throw a listing up today,
maybe tomorrow.
It just didn't work.
And it just keeps my mind distracted on something else.
So now I'm to the point where,
if it's something for eBay, right?
I got a little eBay stack down here.
Let me grab something from my eBay stack
for stuff to get listed.
Tommy Wiseau presents the neighbors.
You know Tommy Wiseau, the guy from the Room movie?
Yeah, The Room, I was gonna say that, yeah.
Well, it's got an autographed picture inside of Tommy.
Yes, it is.
It's like a kid's DVD, isn't it?
It is one of his TV series, I guess, that he-
Oh, a TV show, okay.
Yes, so this was something I got.
And autographs, you know,
you can only sell this on eBay, right?
So it's one of those things where
there's money in this stuff,
but it doesn't excite me.
And I do think it has to excite you
for you to actually be willing to do something.
Because if you're miserable doing it,
kind of like, you know, when you were 4 a.m. to 1 a.m.,
right, it's not fun.
It kind of ruins it for you.
And you're not gonna be,
and I think that's what happens on eBay
with a lot of people is,
you feel like you're in this never ending grinding rut
where you really don't get results, right?
Because in all my experience,
I've always, my Amazon sales
have been way over my eBay sales.
Even when I only sold on eBay as an everything seller,
it was nowhere close to what I do on Amazon now.
So for me, it was a win that I finally accepted
the fact that I suck at eBay.
And if the time comes, I know how to do it.
And I have the people around me, right?
I'll just be like, all right, Johnny, how do I do this?
All right, I'm joining tech's group.
I'm gonna be in every single call.
I'm gonna figure it out.
So that was a win, but like,
I lose Tommy Wiseau's autographed DVD
that's gonna sit here because I really don't feel
like listening it because the platform does nothing for me.
So it was a both sides of the fence for me.
I just focus on what's working.
And we had Ed on last week and he sells on multiple platforms.
And I think he's a good example of focus on the platform
that's giving you results.
It's almost like a separate way of thinking
when you start looking at, okay, well,
is this platform giving me results?
But the problem with that argument is most people
don't try different platforms, right?
They're scared to start Amazon.
They're scared to get on Bonanza.
They're scared to sell on Etsy or something like that.
So for me, I'm glad I'm on multiple platforms.
So I can pivot if I got it,
but just focusing on the platform
that's giving you results, right?
If you're doing $5,000 in sales a week on Amazon,
why are you gonna shift to go do eBay,
just so you can do eBay and make 300 bucks a week?
It just doesn't make sense.
But so many people get caught in this trap.
Like, well, I'm a reseller, so I gotta sell on eBay
and Amazon and I'm like, no, if this is working,
I'm going that way.
If that's working, I'm going that way.
There's a lot of truth there.
Like, you have a good thing going,
why are you gonna deviate from that good thing?
I did this with my example of trying to list everything.
That was, by everything, I mean all books,
not some burros and kazoos.
But going with the one that's paying you the most money,
I also think we fall into the trap of insecurity
that this good thing can go away.
I need to diversify to have some security
and peace of mind.
And that's a valid argument.
But when you can allocate time and or resources
and somebody else's time to do it for you,
that's when you should make that move.
I don't think you should try to split your mind
having multiple things you're trying to juggle
at the same time, because it gets overwhelming
and you can do two things okay,
but you can really do one thing great.
I'd rather you do the one thing great
than do two jobs sloppy, essentially,
is what I'm trying to get at.
Diversifying should be as,
when I tell people to get on multiple platforms to sell,
I'm just talking about you creating a seller account
on that platform, testing it out, saying,
hey, does it work?
Am I selling anything?
But like Johnny said, you can't give 100%
to multiple different things.
So you have to focus in, especially with,
and people complain about platforms.
If the platform ain't working,
try selling the same stuff on a different platform.
See if you get a different result.
Just saying in the same platform
in the same little bubble you're in,
it's just limiting beliefs, honestly, with reselling.
I think more people need to branch out to more platforms.
Even if Johnny tells me, hey, this platform sucks,
well, that's Johnny's experience.
Maybe he was listening incorrectly,
he's selling different items than me.
We all sell different stuff.
So maybe you on that platform is actually good,
but people just take everything at word, right?
Like I can make a YouTube video saying,
don't ever sell on Bonanza.
Well, I'm sure there's people out there
that probably make a good amount of money on Bonanza.
They just sell different things
that are in demand on that platform.
No, absolutely.
And what's interesting is I attended a Poshmark call.
What?
The bookseller attended a Poshmark call?
I did, and I asked her book questions,
and she was shocked that I did,
because it's primarily known as a clothing and shoe platform.
She's like, okay, I'll indulge you, Johnny.
You're a pretty good guy.
And so she did.
We did some deep dive on what books
actually sell on Poshmark, and it's different.
It ended up being like fashion-related things,
or how-to for home decoration type of stuff,
and or your really bad trashy romance stuff, lots.
But in most scenarios, it was lots of books.
But in those two primarily categories,
to make any real money.
This goes to Mike's point of certain things do better
on certain platforms.
So if you're listing Westerns on Poshmark,
you're probably gonna do terrible,
maybe not sell any of them for months.
Now, if you were to do Westerns on eBay,
you are gonna sell a lot more.
Now, if you were to do Westerns on Amazon,
maybe sell a lot, lot more.
So it just really depends what item does well where.
If you're trying to do them all,
well, that gets questionable on, okay,
you're not really focused.
You're kind of taking a shotgun approach
instead of a scalpel.
Then I would say to you, okay,
how do you do the best shotgun blast you can?
So you have to be surgical with your shotgun.
And this is a horrible analogy,
so I'm gonna switch it back over to Mike.
If you're gonna list everywhere cross-listing software,
there is even limitations to that.
So like Johnny said, your turd isn't gonna sell on Bonanza
or Etsy or eBay or Amazon.
I think another one I wanna jump into is,
it's kind of on defense both ways for me,
is relationships within basically reselling, right?
So whether that's me and Johnny's relationship
or you in a thrift store or you in a library,
for me it's worked both ways.
Being somebody that's on YouTube, has the podcast,
on all social media platforms,
posting short videos every single day,
you can get burned out pretty quick
when it comes to trying to basically save everybody.
And I've come to realize somewhere along this year,
I can't give an exact date or the exact morning I woke up
and I told myself, Mike, you can't save everybody.
Some people just ain't gonna do it
and that's just a reality and usually those people
will suck the most life out of you
when it comes to questions.
How do I start this or how do I do this?
And it turns into three hours of your life,
you're never gonna get back.
And then the person doesn't go and do anything.
So for me at least with relationships,
I was getting to a point where I'm investing all this time
and I'm not saying there's gotta be a payoff, right?
You asked me a question, I'll give you an answer.
I respond to every comment,
even if it's something that's negative,
but I do think there is a balancing act behind the scenes
that has to go on because I can't sit down
with every single person
and curate a business for them, right?
It's not that hard to figure this out.
You just go and scan.
I don't do anything different than anybody else.
I have relationships that I've built with stores
and that gets me to the next one is,
you have to be thinking outside the box.
The thrift stores are the lowest hanging fruit
where every reseller is going to go.
I don't wanna hear this nonsense.
Well, I don't like talking to people
and I don't wanna ask if I can scan in the back room
or I don't wanna tell people about my business.
And it's so silly to me because the relationships I've got
are just me talking to the person,
even at the cash register like,
hey, you guys got a lot of books out here.
It's my first time here.
You got any more?
Oh yeah, well, we got 50,000 discs
in the back, well, all of a sudden, boom,
your business blows up overnight.
This relationship isn't gonna go anywhere.
You're supplying them with money.
And all it was, and people, hey, what do you do?
I sell media full time.
I have a little online store that I support my family with.
And people are like, yes, support your family.
It's me, Deb and the cats.
Well, listen, I treat my cats as my kids.
Yeah, I raised four kids off these stinky books
that I sell, right?
I think people have to start thinking outside the box
with relationships, libraries.
Everybody knows I work with libraries behind the scenes,
getting their donations for next to nothing
besides donating to the library.
They don't even ask for it.
I just do it in good faith.
And thrift stores, and I got thrift store back rooms as well.
And it's all built off relationships.
So that's been a huge plus for me
is maintaining these relationships
and seeing what else you can get from relationships.
Because once you get one library, then guess what?
If they hang out, if there's a big library party
in central Pennsylvania, and they're like, hey,
we got all this stuff we got to get rid of.
Well, hey, we got a guy that gets rid of it.
And all of a sudden, your network starts growing.
But it also works the other way.
When I have a million people saying,
well, I can't find better items.
Well, I can't miraculously make better items go to you.
And I will say this, resellers are lazy people, man.
I always tell everybody, scan the bottom shelf.
If you go in any thrift store and you scan the bottom shelf,
I probably would guarantee you're
going to find at least one accept on the bottom shelf
because people don't want to do it.
So relationships for me, it might be different for you,
Johnny, because you don't have a YouTube channel.
And if people yell about you on YouTube,
you really don't even got to respond to it.
But for me, I lost a lot of time,
wasted a lot of time with a lot of people that are just like,
I want to do this.
And unfortunately, this has happened to me
in the past where it's like a friend or a family member.
And you're like, hey, I can show you step by step
how to make an extra $40,000 in profit a year
doing this business.
And it turns into a never ending conversation that never
actually takes any steps.
It's all talk.
And talk means nothing.
You have to actually go out there and do it.
I mean, my relationships apply different than yours.
You probably get some of this.
Well, I'm not going to say that.
You probably get more of this than I do.
Hey, Johnny, you want 100,000 books?
Hey, Johnny, you want 60,000 romance novels?
No, I don't get that.
Hey, Johnny, you want 40,000 blah?
These are all true stories.
And you know what my answer to every single one of those
was?
No.
And it's not want.
They want me to buy them.
Those are the messages I get by doing this podcast, which
is great.
And then some other people message me for what I want.
I'm like, yes, I want that.
Because if you don't know in our Discord,
I have a thing of what I will buy generally.
And then usually they'll show me photos.
I'll be like, yes, I'll do that.
But the generic 60,000 romance novels?
No, no, no, no, no.
I guess I kind of put you in this situation.
I guess.
You did.
I get solicited, Mike, to buy these studs.
You could still do it.
You wouldn't even exist on the internet.
And you'd probably be much better off.
But here I am.
I drove you into this realm.
I mean, it'd probably be worse if I had my own YouTube channel.
Because I would offer to buy if I had my own YouTube channel.
You're like, yeah, I'll buy, but only certain stuff.
But I would still get those messages for the people
that don't read what I want and don't want.
And if you're listening to this and you're
one of those fine people that offered me such a prestigious deal,
I thank you.
But you guys got to remember, I operate out
of a 1,000 foot square foot warehouse.
I have a second one that's like 250.
I'm not set up to take in 50,000 plus books,
because I already have 50,000 of my own books.
Thank you.
Now, a couple of boxes here and there I could do.
But I've also met other people where
I have long established relationships through this
that know what I want.
And I say yes to them every time.
And some people just, they don't even bother asking me.
They already know and just send me a box.
And sometimes I just end up with a box.
Mike sends me boxes too.
It's my payment for showing up for you fine gentlemen and ladies.
That's not enough money, but oh well.
No raises this year in inflation.
Maybe an extra box, we'll see.
But no, relationship building is great.
And with some of my local people,
I had to readjust some of those relationships.
Like you've done business this way for over a year now.
I think we can shift over to this kind of way of doing things
if you're OK with that.
And some of them said yes, some of them said no.
The ones that said no, well, we parted ways.
But the ones that said yes, it makes my life a lot easier
now because we got to look at how we are doing things
and how we can improve doing those things to save time,
which goes into what Mike's been addressing several times
in this episode, your profit per hour.
Is it more profitable for an old man
to hand you one book at a time and give you
the life story of the book versus like, no,
you go over to your corner and let me do my thing
and then I give you money and I take the books?
Sorry if this person is listening to this episode,
but I made a thing talking about, do you know,
do more than 50% of resellers know how much they actually
make per hour?
And someone responded saying that knowing how much you make
per hour does not matter.
I thought to myself, like, that is the silliest thing I've ever
heard because your overall number means nothing
at the end of the year.
At what expense is the $20,000 you
made at the end of the year?
I think we get so just like, oh, you know,
like yet again, a YouTube relationship,
I guess kind of thing.
And I responded to the comment.
I said, you have to know how long it takes
you to do these processes.
You have to know every part of your business as a reseller.
You can't just be like, well, I sold $20,000 this year.
I think I probably worked, you know, 100 hours, right?
Maybe 200 hours, somewhere in there.
Like, I think that's how we win going forwards.
But I do think relationships are important.
I always tell everybody to surround yourself
with like-minded people.
And it works both ways with this, right?
Because if you only go on YouTube
or you only listen to podcasts and every title is,
eBay's a dying platform and eBay sucks
and I'm not getting sales for XYZ reason,
you start to believe it.
It's one of those weird phenomenons
where you hear it enough and even though it's a lie,
you start to believe it, right?
Just because this person is saying there's no sales.
And this has been overtaken by YouTube.
I mean, I could go on for hours this year
about how the negative reselling videos
get the most clicks, right?
So 2024, I'm not gonna have a single positive YouTube video.
Everything's gonna be the sky is falling.
I'll have 50 trillion subscribers
and everybody will agree with it.
So when it comes to relationships,
like in your inner circle, get yourself around,
you know, like-minded people
that are kind of in your business
or can offer you some kind of insight, right?
Like, honestly, what am I gonna do
talking to somebody that sells shoes full-time, right?
I can maybe bounce off a few ideas,
but like, it really doesn't relate to my business
at the end of the day.
And there are processes you can learn.
I say it all the time, like,
listening to Chris and tech over the years,
it's, I never even really had an eBay story
that was anything worth anything,
but you learned processes.
So there is something to be said about that,
but you have to control the time you spend on relationships
and surrounding yourself with certain people.
No, I agree with that.
I mean, Tech's Group is primarily clothing sellers,
but there's tons of non-clothing information in there
that are great for business that I need for my business.
Just like when I come over to Mike's group
about just Amazon practices, that's what I go there for,
or Jack's call on Tech's Group,
or even sometimes Max's call for his antiquarian books,
because I'm not an antiquarian expert.
People think I do antiquarian,
but I really don't, I do vintage,
and there's a very giant gap in years on that.
Or I actually met Kayla, or talked to Kayla earlier this year,
who does the antique book collective,
I can give him a call or an email or message,
and he'll respond to me.
But if I didn't do what I'm doing now,
like through this podcast,
I would have never met these people.
I would never had access to these people.
So putting yourself out there,
it comes to the price group solicitation of 100,000 books,
but it comes with some other positives.
And if negatives end, man,
I should start my own YouTube channel.
I'm great at being negative.
No, I will never do that.
I also think when it comes, not only with sourcing,
but people that help you out from time to time.
Like if you have, I don't know, cousins,
or something to help you unload the truck.
Just going with them and talking with them
about how we can do this better for the next time
to improve relationship with them.
Because if you don't,
you give them the phone call to help you out,
they may just say no,
because things have not gotten better,
and you've provided a horrible experience
from the previous time.
But if you work with them a little bit,
they'll be more inclined to help you
as long as they have the mentality of things getting better.
Now, if you have employees,
well, you set that standard and that tone.
And I actually go to mine a couple of times a quarter
and like, is there anything we can be doing better?
What helps you out?
What can I do for you?
I offer to serve them in this capacity.
What do you need to do your job better?
I'm not even talking about equipment.
I'm just talking about workflow stuff or processes.
I think these are vital.
And then you also have to self-examine yourself on that.
How can I do my job better?
Which in turn may spill over
to improving their quality of life.
So let's, as we wrapped this up,
let's throw out a few kind of rapid fire wins and losses.
I guess I'll start, we'll just go back and forth here.
So after all, one of my quick wins here was
refining my thrifting routes,
only thrifting two full days a week versus,
I go to 12 stores in a day versus three stores
over four days.
That made a huge difference in my mental health
and my productivity because I know today, Johnny,
I'm going thrifting.
There's nothing else going on.
I'm focused exactly what I'm doing
in and out business transactions at thrift stores.
That was a huge win for me this year.
And I'm gonna continue that on the next year as well.
Getting more sleep.
Surprisingly, you could think a little better
when you do that.
So when I brought on the employee,
I could sleep in a little longer
after that stint of 60 listings a day.
After that, I got to sleep a little bit more
and I noticed I was a bit more clear-minded on planning
than struggling with it.
Because sleep deprivation, that's a real thing
and it's harder to focus and concentrate
on critical delicate tasks, even in planning.
As far as a loss goes,
getting out of Amazon, I should have stayed in.
Yeah, hindsight's 20-20, I guess on that one.
You just love eBay so much.
I do.
Another one that kind of relates to the thrifting,
the streamlined thrifting is having a schedule
and an actual calendar that I use
for all my monthly stuff.
I never had a calendar until this year.
Deb yelling at me, Johnny yelling at me for months.
I'm like, you two leave me alone.
I don't want a calendar.
It's actually so much better
understanding here's what I have exactly going on
throughout the month, days I can do stuff,
days I can't do stuff,
incorporating that into your business.
And for me, especially with YouTube and social media,
getting a scheduler to schedule out my posts and everything
freed up so much of my time.
Getting back into Amazon was a win.
So I left and I came back.
All in the same year, funny.
And as far as a loss goes,
probably,
it's hard to say if it was a waste of time or not
because now I know.
We'll just say it was.
Me trying to go on these long adventures
to get rid of my duds,
because I remember from other episodes,
I went to flea markets, I went to bookstores,
I went everywhere under the sun.
I went to flea markets, I went to bookstores,
I could think of to get rid of these places
other than just flatly donating them.
Because I wanted a deal and a proposition.
I spent a good three weeks,
which was time loss elsewhere.
And there's a loss for you, time lost.
Time lost is definitely,
I mean, the first half of the year, I lost so much time.
That's just the facts of everything that comes with this.
So I agree, time lost hurt me too
for the first six months of the year
until I finally started figuring out what makes sense to do,
what days and hammering down a schedule.
I really like, I didn't have any huge losses
when it comes to buying or selling on any platforms.
Like I said, the ASP kind of bumped up
the profit I made this year over last year.
And I really didn't have any huge buys
where I could go and spend $5,000
and take a huge roll of the dice.
I just kind of just been consistent with it, honestly.
Another one for me, I guess would be
understanding my sources.
And this sounds so stupid to people
because I know resellers don't track
what their sources are producing.
But if you're gonna have a thrift route,
which you need to have,
you have to understand what stores make sense
to hit how often.
And if you don't know what you're pulling from these stores
or what the stores even have to offer,
how often are they getting new inventory?
It's an easy conversation to have when you're checking out
with whoever's at the register.
Hey, how often do you guys put out new books?
That's it.
You don't even have to be greeting, be like,
hey, do you have a back room full of books?
You're just asking a normal question
and they're just gonna assume you're a reader.
Like, hey, oh yeah, we put them out every week,
every two weeks.
Then all of a sudden you start refining things.
So for me, it's just that literally understanding my sources
and how often I need to go to these places
and fit them into my routes,
that makes everything so much more streamlined.
I know when I go to the store that I should find stuff
because it's been X amount of time
and I know they put out X amount of inventory
within that timeframe for me to scan.
Hey, here is both a win and a loss at the same time.
I spent a lot of money on bullpen hiring
and I'll clarify what that means.
I hired a lot of personnel with plans
only to keep maybe one or two of them,
ended up with one, which goes into my win.
Probably the best individual I've worked with
in and outside of corporate.
She comes in very quiet, does her work, goes home.
Never complains.
Does whatever I ask of her with a smile.
She smiles, she doesn't talk, she smiles.
She is great.
However, I spent about nine to 10 grand
over that bullpen hiring scenario.
So that was a financial loss,
but it turned into a net gain
with having probably the most productive individual
I've ever had the pleasure of meeting.
Or an employee.
All right, I'm gonna wrap it up here.
I can't top your amazing employee you have over there.
Two times I've heard her, she sounds like she's super nice
and I'm grateful you found somebody through all this.
Hey, you're so mean to her on the phone.
So mean.
I'm trying to get her out.
Yell help three times if you need me to fly down to Texas
and break you out from Johnny's warehouse.
I got nothing to top that though
because when you have a good employee,
nothing beats it in this business.
You gotta be willing to take the risk to hire a few people
because the first person you hire
ain't gonna be the superstar.
And if it is, I mean,
you're literally a unicorn in the world.
So it's tough to hire somebody,
but if you get the right person, the sky's the limit.
You double your production overnight.
I mean, it's kind of crazy.
So as always, we appreciate y'all listening
and we'll talk to you in next week's episode.
Thanks for listening to another episode
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