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 into another episode, Resellers Mindset Podcast.
Mike next to Johnny over here.
He is the brains behind this topic and it's a good one.
Listen, he's the, I'm going to be straight up.
He's got the business focused topics.
He's the brains.
I'm just a beautiful face.
Sorry, Johnny.
Um, why are you waiting?
And I'm going to let him take us away here into why he thinks you're waiting
and why you probably shouldn't be waiting.
I think.
Even outside of reselling, I think all business owners want to wait to some
degree for their own reasons, either it's cashflow, it's not the right time.
Um, it's not the right opportunity.
It's not right.
Insert reason of choice here.
Um, but I found even myself when I just pulled the trigger on something that I
know I'm going to do anyway, versus waiting for X is always beneficial.
Um, I waited just till I found or saved up just enough to get a warehouse kind of deal.
I had money before and I was waiting and waiting and waiting.
I had more than enough money.
It was like, why did I wait to do this later?
Or why did I wait so long to hire an employee?
Why am I still waiting to rehire another employee?
That's a good question.
Well, there's a reason for that.
I'm going to be moving.
Um, uh, why am I waiting to go out and source?
Why am I waiting to pack that box?
Why, why, why, right?
We wait too long.
I think even though in our world, it goes really, really fast, especially in the
reselling world and or business world, there are good reasons to wait.
And then there are, you're getting in your own way reasons to wait.
And I think most of us fall on that latter one.
Um, so yeah, that's the gist of mine.
What do you think about all that?
Mike?
I think you need, you got to wait for something that's going to be
for something though, man, right?
Cause think about it.
If you just do everything, you're going to hit some road bumps.
You're going to run into some potholes.
Yeah.
The argument you're 100% right, because you're going to come out the other
side smarter, better, uh, every single time you're always learning in this
business, but like I'm trying to imagine a life where you just don't have these
little things you ponder in your head related to business, like, why won't I
just go buy the pallet of X, Y, Z?
Why won't I just go do this?
Or why does the used book guy only work 20 hours a week instead of 40 hours a
week, right?
These are questions that we all ponder and wonder, and they're in all types
of things in life, right?
I'm going to give a personal real life example.
Um, my wife, Deb, I was, you know, we were hanging out for the longest time.
And you know, why did I wait so long to ask her out to beat my girlfriend?
Right?
Like I literally had to have somebody be like, yeah, why don't you just ask her
out already, like one of her close family members.
And sometimes Johnny, you do need like an outside source to kind of push
you along the way.
Me and you kind of bounce things off each other, say, you know, you'll tell
me to jump in, I'll tell you to jump in and you kind of just do it.
So when you're by yourself, I think it's harder to just trust your instinct or
just like be willing to take a quote unquote risk with something in the
business, because if that one thing goes wrong, then like you're set back
in million years when that's really not the case.
Right.
I agree with that.
It's you shouldn't always just go do it.
Hey, there's a plug for Nike.
Hey Nike, if you want to sponsor this podcast, we'll let you in.
Um, there's something to be said about that.
The good and the bad.
Um, why don't I just do, oh, a that's expensive.
It's cash intensive.
Well, you need, in my opinion, you need to wait a minute to build up that cash
roll and then some for when things may inevitably go wrong or nothing may go
wrong, but having that safety net, I think we worry about being safe.
And I think that is healthy.
We always want to do our business safely.
I am fully 100% committed to that.
But then again, we, we go past the safety net, like we're safe.
Why aren't we doing this yet?
Why?
And I think that that's more what I'm focusing in on where you're past that
safety net, either it's cashflow or, you know, the idea of sound and you want to
do it's on your to-do checklist to do.
And you're just not doing it and you're getting in your own way.
That's, that's what I'm really wanting to be laser focused in on this podcast
topic now, why, why shouldn't you do something is the counterpoint to that
question, the pros and cons list.
And I think that's also healthy to analyze the reasons why you shouldn't go
do that thing, whatever that thing may be, whether it's an acquisition or
something, hiring an employee, moving, sourcing, packing a box.
I mean, all of those are, do I have enough?
Do I need more space?
Do I need more help?
These are the questions and checks and balances we have to analyze over and
over again, as business owners.
But I do think we get a little slower on that because we want to be extra,
extra, extra safe.
And I don't think two extra plus your one extra is needed personally.
Yeah, I agree.
I'll give another, I got, dude, this is like, I don't know, you're like,
you're trying to just expose me here, but I got another one.
Those don't know I've been in market looking for a house now for probably
two years plus I gave up for a little while there and I'm the type of person
that's like, well, let's just get a house.
And Deb's like the counterbalance to me is like, well, we don't need to just
have a house just to say we have a house, right?
Let's wait for the right opportunity to come along.
So you have to balance yourself out within this.
You can't be the crazy lunatic that's just like, I'm doing everything all the
time, no matter what it is.
And you can't be the person that's like, well, I never, ever want to take a risk
in anything I do and I'm scared of any type of change.
So it's, it's hard to see from both sides, but you're right.
Cause you can't go one full blown, never do anything and change anything.
And you can't go, you're changing everything every single month.
Neither of those works.
So you have to find that balance within your business.
And I think a lot of it does come down to cashflow in the business, right?
Because we talk about reselling all the time and how, you know, you need to be
making money because you're a small business owner and the reality is a lot
of resellers it's, you know, anybody can do this.
A lot of us don't have business sense, understand how business works,
expenses, income, actual profit going into your bank account.
I do think that is like the crux of this whole conversation when it
relates to reselling is the capital people have.
And especially since a lot of resellers start broke, you know, kind of like we
did, you know, dead broke, just trying to make some extra money.
We're, we're kind of hesitant to pull the trigger.
And I used to be that way, right?
I used to be the guy that didn't want to spend more than a dollar on anything
out at the thrift store.
Now, if it's, I don't even care how much I pay for an item.
If I know I'm going to make money on it on the backend, that doesn't affect me,
but it's, it's a huge mental mind shift.
You have to get over of just being like, well, you know, it's okay to spend more
money if it's worth it.
Right.
I'll get, I'll give an example of my own here recently.
Um, the landlords were to come talk to me about buying the place.
I already decided I wasn't going to buy and I was going to move, uh, more in town.
And then I was talking to a friend of mine and he gave me the advice because he
knows I plan to move to a bigger city anyways, like, why are you going to move
a couple of miles up the road when you want to move to a bigger city?
Why don't you skip all that and relocate there?
That's what you want to do anyway.
I'm like, my idea was, I think it was comfortability.
I'm comfortable in my little town, right?
And that would have been a little bit more comfortable doing that transition
versus the bigger transition to move to the bigger city.
Things are going to be more expensive.
And I think that was a mental mind block.
How much is real estate going to be over there?
I didn't even bother looking.
I took a second to look.
I was like, it's not that bad.
Why don't I just move out there?
So, um, it's be spending another month and a half here, and then I'll be
looking for a place in that bigger town later, but back to the topic of.
Well, back to the topic.
Um, we get in our way so much.
I get in my way.
I am my own worst enemy in my own business.
And that, that was the basis for this whole conversation was that one
thing I decided last week with the help again, like you mentioned, talking to
somebody without that outlet.
I don't, I don't, I think it makes our business choices take way longer or
never come to fruition because we're always in this, it's not the right time.
We don't have enough money or this, that, and the other, but if you bother to do
the research or take the time to figure out how to make it achievable within our
means, then we can soar like Eagles.
Aha.
Yeah.
I think you're right.
You have to understand your situation and don't just do something crazy just
for the sake of doing something crazy.
Sure.
You can, you can win in any coin flip, right?
Or any roll of the dice.
You can come out ahead, but like Johnny said, it has to be calculated.
I'm not, Johnny's just not moving and he's got $0 in his pocket and he's
got his little stick in his bag tied to the end of the stick, like the old
cartoons, right?
Like this is a planned attack.
He has the finances to do it.
And except the fact that not everything can be done today, right?
So sometimes waiting has to be a part of your business, right?
If I want to go get a warehouse, um, and get truckloads of books, whatever that
may be, then I'm going to make sure I have the finances available.
I'm not just going to jump into something and try to figure it out as I go.
So these bigger moves or bigger jumps in your business, um, like for sure.
I'll tell you one, like I've made so many of these stupid, why did I wait
mistakes?
And I look back and I'm like, why did I wait so long to get a storage unit?
Like, why was I sorting books out on the sidewalk for three years?
It was, it's a hundred bucks a month, $120 a month.
I easily could afford that.
But it's one of those things you're like, I'm so cheap as a reseller.
I never want to do it.
And like, why did I wait so long to quit CVS?
Because I was so comfortable with CVS, even though I was making more money
reselling that I waited probably a year and a half too long to quit.
I could have quit a year and a half sooner.
I could have been a year and a half further into my journey.
But those, those options were there for me.
I already had the finances to back those decisions, but even then, when you
have the finances, you just have this something in your head is like, I can't
do it.
Like I don't want to do it.
Like I'm scared to do it.
Yeah, like the whole, I didn't even bother looking at real estate prices.
Right.
And if I had bothered, I don't know what it was, it was maybe a fear and
apprehension, but I think it circles back to what we were saying.
Uh, comfortability, comfortability breeds complacency.
And when we're complacent, we don't go anywhere.
We're just doing the day to day.
And that's okay at some stages, but as most of us are in, we're in the
cost and grow, grow, grow.
We, and we want to maintain what we have and what we've grown and we don't
want to take any, I'm not going to say risk, but we don't want to go outside
our comfort zone.
I think is the best thing here.
Like, well, if I go source an hour farther out, maybe, maybe I'll find
some better things, but if we never bothered to do that, we just stay in our
bubble and never go outside our bubble.
We may have missed big opportunities that may be those life-changing
purchases or best purchase of the year kind of scenarios.
If we don't do those kinds of things, and that's just, uh, one side of our
business, the sourcing side or, Hey, I know this repricer is expensive.
If you're going beyond reprice it, but how much more money will I get by using it?
Um, or if you haven't gotten the repricer yet to begin with, and you have the
funds to do so, and you're still replacing manually, you're spending a lot
of time when your repricer set up properly can automate all of that for you,
which frees you up in time to go do other aspects of your business and increase
your revenue even further out.
And again, if you're just starting out, this topic may be a little far fetched
for you, you're barely making a hundred dollars right now.
I get it.
I've been there in the reselling game and it's hard to think along those terms,
but focusing on the bigger picture, knowing where we want to go makes
these decisions easier.
But I think once we hit those milestone goals, we don't take another second to
what are my new goals?
I need to go, what I have, your goals just don't stop there.
I mean, it could if you want.
Um, but if you're planning to always go forward and you reach your milestones,
never bother to make other milestones, that's a mistake.
I'm just going to say it's a mistake.
And I've fallen into this trap myself.
Uh, I try not to, I try to analyze what I'm doing on a daily, weekly,
monthly and yearly basis and keep on adding to the list.
When the list runs out, then I'm in trouble, right?
Or I've really made it and can retire one or the other.
At the end of the day, as a reseller, it starts and it stops with you.
Right.
So this idea, why are you waiting?
It can be made.
The argument can be made in so many different ways.
Like Johnny said, why are you waiting to list those items on eBay?
Why are you waiting to send this inventory into Amazon?
The only way this business works is if you actually do the work and waiting
to do the work is detrimental in almost every single situation.
Right.
So the idea eBay, you're going to list, you know, one item a day,
or you got your draft bank.
Like if you got the inventory, why not just keep listed?
Why limit yourself?
Same with Amazon.
Uh, you limit yourself.
I mean, I don't even have like a daily, I don't have a daily number of
items I want to send to Amazon.
Right.
Like I source my week, what I find goes in, it's not like I'm like, well, I
got to stay out there and get, you know, 300 items every single week.
I run my routes of what I find I send every single week.
And it does relate to that because you have to actually do the work and
stop sitting around waiting for, you know, I don't know, unicorns to
show up with profitable inventory.
You got to get out there and it sucks.
I mean, I got a ticket two weeks ago because I forgot to put a stupid
quarter in the meter.
I was in a thrift store for like, I don't know, like 15, 20 minutes.
And I came out at a $20 ticket.
Um, but the crazy part is I made well over $20 in that thrift store.
So like waiting is so stupid in this business because there's so much money
to be made and it drives me crazy because I'm, I do things in a way where
I don't put a lot of time into it.
And I still make thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars every
single month.
And if I waited, if I just, you know, waited and decided, well, I'm not
going to do this or I'm not going to track my sources and, or I'm not
going to go here today, Johnny, it's too far.
Well, I got a ticket today, Johnny.
I'm not going out tomorrow because I got a ticket.
You got peddled to the metal man in this and there ain't no waiting for
nothing or nobody.
And if you're by yourself and you don't have somebody to talk to and you
have a big decision, just comment on the podcast, I'll give you a straight up
answer and Johnny might even come through and give you a more straight up
answer.
And, you know, you can decide if you're going to go the path of the light side
or the dark side.
I'm not saying who is the light side and who is the dark side here, but, you
know, it exists.
Can I be the dark side?
It sounds like fun.
I mean, everybody listening knows you're the dark side.
Fair enough.
Yeah.
And it's like, like this thing behind me, why don't I just send it all in at
once?
I mean, that's a very fair point, but it's my cue more or less.
I can have work every day for myself.
The time that it overflows.
Yeah.
That I've waited too long to send it in.
But now I pack boxes every day.
I mean, it's and to the point of why don't I just send it in?
I mean, if I did that, that would throw off everything else in my
business that I do.
So production would slow down.
I'm not, I have people.
Well, I did have people till I shut it down coming in every day, dropping
stuff off for me to process.
And it would, and if you stop processing, it just piles and piles and piles up.
That's, that's an issue, at least.
In the bulk thing counter argument.
Well, why don't you just get an employee?
So you could do both at the same time.
Oh, that's a win right there.
But then again, you've got the hurdle of, well, I'm going to move.
So if I hire somebody, are they going to relocate hours and hours away?
Probably not.
So checks and balances, right?
We have to analyze what does this decision throw off and other
aspects in my business, or does it only improve my business?
So you just got to analyze that data set.
And I guess we can tap into risk on this.
What, what is the risk assessment?
Is it, is it, how many X more dollars will I get by taking this small risk?
We doesn't even have to be a major risk.
I'm not saying blow out your bank account for one purchase, but again, like,
I guess we'll go back to sourcing.
Why don't I try a new avenue of sources?
I've never been to a state sales before.
Why don't we give that a whirl?
I'll throw off my thrift route, but it not only does it improve my business,
but it also helps me to make a profit.
So I'm not saying I'm not going to throw off my thrift route, but an opportunity
may come from an estate sale where you're buying somebody's whole collection,
or now you're getting backroom access at the estate sales, or it's a whole
network of estate sale companies that which you didn't even aware of and exist.
And they love you to death.
They want to give you all the inventory.
You'll just never know if you don't actually go.
But then again, the risk assessment, well, I have my thrift route.
It's steady, right?
Again, builds complacency or the other word we were using.
Comfort, comfort and complacency, I think go hand in hand.
I think when it comes to
thrifting and sourcing, there should never be waiting.
Even if I decide to go to my first estate sale in my career
and I find zero items, I guarantee I'm going to have a conversation
with the person that runs it.
And something might not come out today, but you plant the seeds
and they'll grow at a later time.
I think sourcing has to be go, go, go.
If you have an opportunity, you have to take advantage of it
because we have so little dollars invested into this.
And I'm going to argue here as well.
If you don't have the cash that should not
not having cash is not an excuse in this business because
you can get this inventory for zero dollars and zero cents.
You just trade your time.
And I talked to a lot of people, I do a lot of coaching behind the scenes
and people starting out during that situation.
We all started there, right?
Like we want to start this business with 100 bucks, like 500 bucks.
We don't have all this crazy money to start this business
because we're we're in a situation where we're trying to grow our finances.
And I always tell everybody, get free pickup ads out there.
Get the free be alert app.
This idea that money has to limit the inventory you can find and send
or find and list on eBay is 100 percent B.S.
because it's all out there for the taking free.
When I started resounding eBay talked about this all the time.
Me and Deb drive around the rich neighborhoods on trash night, dude.
Ten o'clock at night. Can't see nothing.
You got your you got your flashlight on your phone.
All the inventory is free.
Anybody can do this.
The idea that sourcing has to wait is kind of B.S.
Now, there are situations where maybe you don't have a lot of thrift stores
like myself, right?
Like I couldn't thrift five days a week because I'd be in the same stores.
Well, what have I done differently this year?
Going to record shops, I paired up with more bulk sources, libraries,
clean out companies, things like that.
There is an endless opportunity of not waiting when it comes to sourcing
right at our fingertips.
But we can't think past that initial layer of, well, only the thrift stores, Johnny.
So this is it for me.
I can't I don't even know if any other building exists in the universe
besides the Goodwill.
Right. And then here's the best one, I think, outside of sourcing, probably.
Why are you waiting to network?
Why are you afraid to ask the question to the person you're getting stuff from
and or get advice from?
Why haven't you joined the Use Book Guy group for $3.99?
$2.99, dude. Hey, hey, hey.
$2.99. Whoa, sorry.
Sorry. You should be charging $3.99.
Shameless plug there.
Shameless indeed.
But if if you're sourcing from the same guy, whether it's the flea,
it's the thrift, it's the estate sales, the libraries, why aren't you asking
the critical questions?
Do you have any more?
Do you have other places you have inventory?
How often do you get things and you're just buying?
You never ask these questions.
They don't know to give you the answer unless you ask the questions.
They have all the answers.
The answer may be no or not today, Junior,
because they don't like you or maybe they do like you.
And oh, yeah, come in the back and like Pulp Fiction.
Pulp Fiction briefcase full of gold coming out.
That's exactly what that'll be like.
And it's up to you to do that.
And it's why are you waiting to do so?
I'm if you're more of a shy or introverted person,
I can understand a little bit of apprehension there,
but you got to make those plays.
It may be harder for you, but you got to do it.
And it's the only way you're really going to win.
Yeah, the idea that you could just, you know, be a lone ranger out there
in the reselling world is it's far fetched because everybody knows
it's getting harder and harder to find the items.
Everybody is more aware of what items are worth.
So you have to be willing to put yourself out there, I guess.
And, you know, you're right with what you say when it comes to
building their relationships and getting around like minded people.
But you don't, you know, you don't want to just listen to people.
And I do think it kind of goes hand in hand, like almost.
It's almost as if they got to see a real popular YouTube video
for them to go try something, right?
Like they they know there's a possibility that you could get X, Y,
and Z from the dollar tree and sell it for money.
But until they see that smack them right in the head, like
they're never going to do it.
And you got to take self initiative in this business.
Think about when you started your business, you had no idea what you were doing.
You're by yourself.
In most cases, you're trying to find something you can sell for more money online.
Like right there is the biggest hurdle you're going to take
in your whole business is just starting.
So everything else, I mean, and you're not going to win every time, right?
You're not going to win every single risk you take, but you're going to learn
every single time, whether you win or lose financially, you're going to learn
something in the business that you didn't know previously.
Right, exactly.
And I think it's like a vicarious version of proof of concept.
You need to see somebody else to do it before you're even willing to try it.
But I'm telling you, there are things in my business that nobody
has ever tried or done before that I've had to come up with my idea.
And nobody could tell me if it'll work or not.
And I just have to go do it.
I mean, I could have asked and got an opinion, but even then it's an opinion.
They don't know 100%.
That's why we say don't copy people or don't copy people fully because
what works for them may not work for you.
So you got to be willing to try things.
Even the things people have failed at.
If you think you can make it successful, even though it's been proven to fail
and then you do it and you are successful, everybody would have told you not to do it.
But you did it and proved everybody wrong.
And I'm not saying that's the goal to prove everyone wrong, but to be sure of yourself,
be confident in yourself and your business decision.
And if you want feedback or opinions, that's all we can give you, really.
Even Mike and I, we can give you our opinion and what's worked for us.
Nothing more, nothing less.
But if you want to rock the boat and you think you can do it better,
even though both of us are saying no and you do it, more power to you, my man.
I wish you nothing but success.
And I'll have a smile on when, hey, you were wrong, Johnny.
I love that.
Do it, please.
I've had different situations come up over the years where I had opportunities arise
and they were at the time big heavy workload opportunities.
A perfect example was after the library sale pickup, this is one of the biggest library sales around me.
And they were like, yo, you're going to need a U-Haul.
It's going to be tens of thousands of books.
And they're like, well, the last guy, he don't sell books no more.
Well, thankfully, John Muscarella, Shameless Plug, Side Hustle Experiment on YouTube,
I was over on their podcast as well.
He was the book guy that used to pick up the books.
So the first thing that came to my mind was like, because he was 20 minutes away from me,
I shot him a message.
I'm like, yo, like, were you this person, right?
Like, were you this guy that picked up all the books?
And he's like, do not do it.
Right.
So like what Johnny was saying, yeah, if you want to rock the boat and go for it.
But I'm here to tell you, if somebody has experience doing something
and this kind of relates to any type of new endeavor you want to go on,
there's always somebody out there that's kind of at least paved the path a little bit before you like,
if I wanted to start selling video games, like I'd have a conversation with Jack.
Like I would sit down and pick that dude's brain 100%.
Take risk where it makes sense to take risk.
If somebody else has already done it, that same exact thing,
and you know that person put in 100% effort and they're like, hey, don't do this.
Don't do this.
But if it's something like Johnny did with his eBay business,
where nobody's really doing the listings like he is putting the care into listings,
give yourself a shot at it.
There's no, if somebody has never done nothing, I mean,
we've lost innovation in this world as a whole, I believe, not even just in reselling, right?
Like when's the last time somebody invented something that was like super helpful to society,
right? It doesn't exist no more.
And I think you're right because in the reselling world, it's just copy pasta.
Everybody wants to just do the same exact stuff, list the same exact things, the same exact way.
And you know, it's, there's something to be said.
I know you hate it, but like live shows on what not like,
at least it's something different than what everybody is doing.
And that's probably why some people have seen success is because
it's kind of like a change in that person's business.
And it's a change almost when it comes to a different business model, but you still resell.
I want to give you a perfect example.
Somebody messaged me from our group.
I'm not going to say who they are, but they asked me this.
Can you give me an idea of what the bottom dollar profit is to send into Amazon on zero cost items?
I can't give them that answer.
I answered him back with a question.
How much profit are you willing to make per item?
How many of those items are worth X that you want to make X dollar profit on?
And it took him a second to get it, but I think he finally got it.
He's like, oh, okay, I'll just go with this if that's the case.
But I had to do the initial shoving for him to get the cog wheels turning on what he should be putting in the box.
Like, do you want to be clearing 10 cents an item?
Do you want to be clearing a quarter?
Are we going to move off to dollars?
Do we want 10 dollar bills?
Do we want 100 dollars?
We want Benjamin's.
It's totally up to you.
So when he asked me, how do I run my business, I can't answer that.
It's like, how do you want to run your business is the counter question.
I mean, even that was kind of a specific question, but it's always what works for me may not work for you because I don't know the outlying variables.
Do you have a child with leukemia?
Do you have a family of 12?
Are you by yourself or are you wanting to drive Lamborghini's and live in the penthouse?
I don't know any of this and I could spend all day with you and figure this out, but I don't want to spend all day with you.
I'd rather you use your brain and you come up with your own solutions.
Honestly, we could be guidelines and show you the different paths.
But what path you decide to walk your merry butt on, that's up to you.
Yeah, I always I tell myself this a lot lately is my YouTube channel, my reselling business is I'm never going to be the biggest YouTuber.
I'm never going to be the biggest bookseller, but I never set out with those goals.
My goals were basically just to show people that this is possible.
So the words you said earlier was proof of concept.
I'm literally just proof of concept that this business works in when it comes to thrifting media and just not doing any type of warehouse bulk.
You know, bulk operations.
That's all I am. Proof of concept.
I have no crazy aspirations to be the biggest bookseller and do millions and millions of dollars for me.
Proof of concept.
You see me do it.
And like you said, people need to see someone else do it.
Right.
That's why a lot of people join the channel.
Like, you know, should should this podcast be bigger than it is?
One hundred percent.
Should my YouTube channel be bigger than it is?
One hundred percent.
We'll get there with time, with consistency.
But just seeing somebody else do something.
All right.
All of a sudden, you know, you're like, all right, let's go for it.
You know, we tried different things behind the scenes in our reselling business and some of them stick.
A lot of them don't.
But you don't commit.
I'm not committing my whole bank account to it.
I'm not betting everything on black here and just letting the ball spin around the roulette wheel.
You may calculated risk.
And just because it's something you want to try doesn't mean you have to just throw everything at it to see.
I'm not risking my whole business to start selling records on Amazon.
Something I've never done before.
But if I wanted to try it.
Sure, I'll do a little bit of research.
I'll buy some records, see how it works out.
You don't just go full fledged like, all right, I'm the used record guy now.
Yeah, I mean, and even things we've done before that we no longer do today.
Like I used to sell water damaged books on eBay, actually.
They were cool.
The book itself was cool.
And I would notate in the description.
There was no lying about it.
Hey, this thing is water damaged.
But that was, and I built my sourcing up where I no longer have to do that.
So I no longer sell water damaged books because they're hard sell to begin with.
But at the time, it's all I had access to.
Well, not all I had access to.
It was part of what I had access to.
I was like, why not?
But my business changed.
I decided to improve the quality, which then I could increase the prices on if I just had better quality goods.
And yeah, sometimes it takes a minute to establish.
Like it took me a while to line up sourcing the way it is today.
And it's just improvements to our own workflow.
But looking back, why me now, looking back at me then, why did I sell water damaged books?
I hardly sold.
I sold maybe 10% of the ones that listed.
That was a big waste of time.
I'm thinking now, but looking back then and thinking how I was back then.
Well, it's what I got.
I got to list it, right?
So things have changed.
Yeah.
Why are you wasting time doing things that you know aren't going to produce any results?
Maybe if you're lucky, you'll produce some results.
So why are you just working just to work?
We get so caught up with so many little things that produce zero for our business.
It's crazy to me.
I think there are non-negotiables for waiting.
We kind of talked about it.
Sourcing, saving money as a non-negotiable and reselling, whether that's for taxes.
You should be making enough money to at least put something in the savings.
So you should never wait to source.
You should always save money.
What are some other non-negotiables for you?
You think like why you should things you should never wait to do in reselling?
I think, well, you should if you have a chance to improve your quality of work,
whether it's technology or packages of stuff, and you have the funds, excess funds to do this,
why are you waiting to do that?
Go ahead and pick up the thermal printer if you want a thermal printer, right?
You're using the tried and true standard printer.
You're taping it on.
But the time you're wasting is it compounds.
And if you're new listening to this, you have no idea what I'm talking about yet,
but you will.
You will figure out ways that you're wasting time or getting a cart or a dolly
instead of hand carrying everything.
Your back's going to hurt.
But as soon as you're able to, you should make those necessary improvements,
I believe, are non-negotiable.
But again, that's based off.
You have the excess funds to make those necessary purchases for your business.
So it's a precursor.
You need the available fund, excess funds.
Got to pay your bills.
I get it.
Got to pay them.
But if you have excess funds and you're waiting on getting these things, why?
I got a question for you.
What if I had 100 items to list on eBay and I could get all 100 items up and listed today?
Should I list the 100 items today or should I space those items out over time?
Question for I answer that.
Are you going to go out and get more items after you list these to list 100 items every day?
No, it ain't going to be every day.
Maybe like.
So one time thing, are we talking about listing them or listing and drafting?
Maybe I'm brand new.
I got 100 items sitting around the crib that I'm going to sell.
And it's my first 100 items.
I can get them all listed today.
Quality listings.
I'm not saying they're going to be shit.
They're going to be good listings.
I mean, should you just list all 100 so you can sell as many of them as fast as you can?
Or like, should you just kind of space them out since eBay's got the stupid algorithm?
You should space them out because eBay's got the stupid algorithm, in my opinion.
Counterpoint to that is if you are going to go have a major surgery and you're not going
to be able to source for a while.
Again, you're the brand new state.
I get it.
Go ahead and list those 100 items.
You can make some dollars while you're in recovery mode.
Or you gambled.
You bought all this inventory.
Let's say there are 100 Eastern Press books and you spent more money than you ever spent
on this business before.
Yeah, go ahead and list them.
But to keep eBay happy, because you're going to need your cash flow.
Oh, sorry.
We're stepping back for a second because you're going to need your cash flow back
because you just blew your entire wad on one purchase.
Go ahead and list all of them right now.
And as the money starts trickling in, start sourcing again.
You shouldn't gamble, but a good deal is a good deal, right?
Outside of that, play the algorithm game how eBay wants you to play their game.
It's algorithm based and they want you to list consistently every day.
There are a few outlying scenarios and I mentioned just a couple of them
where you need to go against the sage advice here of being consistent.
Yeah, that answer irritates me.
But I think you're right.
I hate the idea of having things ready to go.
And if I don't have nothing else after that pile, I got to space it out
because that's how the platform wants you to do it.
It's just like, because you know the money's there, right?
So it's like, shit, I want to get this money back as fast as I can.
But there are other factors you have to take into consideration.
Right.
And another one is you'll burn yourself out if you just plow through the 100
and it'll be harder to go back and do it again
because you remember the pain and suffering you endured to get those 100 up, look at these split.
Now, the other thing is if you're going to list 100
and you plan on listing 100 every day provided you got the cash to do for it
and you decided to take on this hefty achievement,
good for you, first of all, but wow, that's a lot.
Okay.
Yeah.
We're going to wrap it up here.
Why wait?
You shouldn't wait.
I mean, that's at the end of the day.
And if you do have some crazy big decision and you need some guidance or you need,
well, not even guidance, you need opinions.
Our opinions are free.
We won't even charge you the 2.99 in the YouTube comments
and we'll give you the opinions one way or another.
Just put the pedal to the metal.
It's crazy to me.
I was packing up boxes yesterday and like one box of DVDs
and CDs, like thousands of dollars in profit.
And I think to myself, what a world we live in, Johnny,
where I can do one 16 by 12 by 12 box and expect to make well over $1,500.
And it took me 20 minutes to list it and it cost me $50 to source it.
It is a mind blowing this opportunity.
Don't wait.
Don't delay.
Don't wait.
It's a limited opportunity like the late night commercials, right?
This 1999 is flashing on the screen like by today, don't wait.
The opportunity is here.
And yeah, it's just a good topic, man, because we gave points of perspective
in our business where we waited and we shouldn't have.
You're never going to be perfect, right?
It's never going to be the perfect situation.
You're never going to have everything planned down perfectly, right?
Johnny's going to be moving.
There's going to be bumps in the road.
You kind of can like say, all right, well, I got a little bit of an idea
what might happen to your little bit prepared mentally,
but you're never going to be prepared for everything.
So what's your final thoughts on waiting?
Don't get too comfortable because you'll be complacent and you'll never grow.
I mean, sure.
And sweet.
We will talk to you all in next week's episode.
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 $2.99 a month.