Welcome back to another episode of the Reseller's
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 usedbookguy 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
back to another Reseller's Mindset podcast episode.
Mike next to Johnny. Johnny's laughing because
we had to do that twice. I completely botched
the first intro and that's a -okay. My question
for Johnny is, now that reselling has become
more cool, I guess you would say more hip, has
it lost the profitability side of things? And
I kind of say this because... I'm out in the
thrift stores every single week and I see a lot
of younger kids wearing the vintage style, you
know, shirts and clothes, even the vintage style
furniture. That type of stuff has seemed like
a huge resurgence almost. And I think it's tough
to balance the cool with the profitability on
the back end. But I will say this, the stuff
I see the kids going for, right, like the vintage
tees and the type of furniture and the weird
like art style type items these kids are buying.
It's actually profitable and in demand, right?
They're not worried about the junk me and you
are after. You never see the kids going in there
chasing down the books. They're always like going
to the clothing racks and flying through the
clothes to see what they can find. I'm curious
what your take is on how it's, I think it's kind
of shifted here over the past year. I think reselling
is as cool as it's ever been, but I will say,
you know, at the end of the day, I don't resell
to be cool. I resell to make money and pay the
bills. I'm going to lean with it's more on the
cool side and more so on the social club side
within the cool sphere. I see it as more of a
not just look at me Instagram post, but the types
of resellers, the newer resellers I'm seeing
coming in. And I don't, well, maybe disrespectfully,
maybe not disrespectfully, I'm going to say they're
not business owners. And I know this. And when
I'm in groups and try to treat them as business
owners, I have to stop. And just because they're
not and I'm wasting my time by trying to, I don't
know, impart some wisdom onto them. They're not
there for the wisdom. They're there to hang out
and sell cool things or quote unquote cool things
and not run a business. Can you have both? That's
a tall order. I've seen it done, but usually
they find out they make more money one or the
other, and the other thing takes a backseat,
especially for like in YouTube reseller land
or Instagram reseller land, like they have an
Instagram store and all that. But also with the
rise with live selling, again, more social club
things. Hi, Jim, you buy from me a lot. I don't
know Jim on eBay who buys from me a lot, and
I don't say hi to him either. I just take Jim's
money. So I do think there's a social club coolness
factor beyond the swag, but the swag stuff I
think has been around a lot longer. Like, hey,
look what I got. Cool score. Yeah, yeah. I think
the live sales kind of changed the game completely
when it comes to the overall landscape because
you're like a personality, right? Like you're
a TV star almost. And these people come to every
single one of your live sales and they buy something
from you, even if they really don't want it or
need it. And they're willing to pay whatever
it takes to get the item specifically from you.
And I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing.
I will say a lot of people, especially as we
trend downwards with this IRS requirements where
like this year it's going to be like $2 ,500
or whatever. I think a lot of the cool kids are
going to get impacted by this because before
it used to be $20 ,000. You could sell a lot
of cool stuff and be under that threshold. So
theoretically, you wouldn't have to report that
income to the IRS and pay taxes on it. That is
kind of going to, you know, make the cool kids
either realize, all right, this needs to be treated
like a business or just altogether give up with,
you know, the idea of live selling and selling
the cool, expensive items. Because, I mean, there's
shirts out there that will put you over twenty
five hundred dollars. You find one of these,
you know, super rare T -shirts. There you go.
Right. You got to pay taxes on that. And we don't
think about that when we find it. And the social
media aspect of it, like Johnny was saying, right,
like it's. It's cool to have a large following
on social media. It's cool to wake up to have
DMs every single day. It's cool to have a million
likes on one of your Instagram reels. So I think
we're only going to see more of that because
the market is there still to make a lot of money
reselling. It's just, I mean, I appreciate seeing
younger people get involved in reselling. Like,
and I appreciate the fact that stuff they want
to sell. to them is in style and they actually
make good money on it right it's not like it's
just junky stuff they're chasing after i mean
these are 100 plus dollar shirts the furniture
um anything you can think of there's there's
almost a market for it now because retro and
vintage is so hot in any facet of imagination
that people are making a lot of money off stuff
that me and johnny probably wouldn't think is
cool right like we're i don't know i'm never
going to pay hundreds of dollars for a t -shirt
but like There's people out there willing to
do it because it's cool to have the original
Jurassic Park t -shirt that one of the crew members
had on set when they were filming it. What annoys
me, and it's a subset of a subset, is there's
resellers who are listing 10 to 20 items a day,
and they're barely scraping by, but they're okay
with it, and they have no aspirations to turn
this into... a business and grow their business.
They just want to do that. Those are the people
that annoy me the most. And I'm like, you're
wasting my time. If you're going to treat this
unprofessionally, why are you in a professional
group to learn and grow and get better and make
your business better? Get the F out. I think
you're right. I think what happens here is that
these old, old timers, not necessarily age wise,
but like your resale business is old. in like
the retrospect so an old reselling business would
probably be somebody that's in business for like
two plus years we'll say just for the sake of
this argument is that they're grinding and they're
selling the junk right like the menace to society
cds and like they're making like three four bucks
a piece and then some 20 year old hops on whatnot
and he's got a hundred vintage band tees that
he paid you know a thousand dollars for that
he's going to sell for ten thousand dollars and
it just instantly creates like this saltiness
factor right like you're instantly salty that
you've been working for over two years you're
still making nickels and dimes and this kid his
first whatnot stream or maybe he launches ebay
store and you get recommended his youtube channel
or his instagram or his tiktok and he's selling
like 100x what you are every single day i think
that kind of creates the the I guess, disconnection
of people like me and Johnny who've been doing
this for a while, but we actually make money.
So we're not salty. We're happy for those people.
But the people that aren't making money that
have been doing this for a while, and they see
the kid run in when the thrift store opens and
run straight to the clothing rack. I've literally
seen this. They're like, oh man, what a scumbag.
I think you're just salty at the end of the day.
I think you are 100 % envious that some young
kid who's... basically following the trend what's
going on in society what people actually want
which you should be doing in reselling right
like you should be keeping up with things you
should be making changes but i don't know man
it's i think it's like i'm it's crazy the the
subset i'm talking about we see it very little
in your group because it's smaller i see it a
little bit in tax group because it's a larger
group they're paying this membership fee 30 some
odd dollars um And they they log on and they
go, hey, look what I got. It's cool. Blah, blah,
blah. For cool reason. And I'll do this for the
whole hall. And this is after hours, not during
any call, because he's got a 24 hour room over
there. I'm sitting there and wanted to pull my
hair out or reach through this computer screen
and strangle this person. And then it just transcends
to this is my life. hears me talking about my
life has nothing to do with business it's just
their personal life and it's this weird social
aspect like they don't have friends in real life
or we're there to listen to them and it's like
a cheap form of therapy and i hate it i hate
it i hate it i hate it because it has nothing
to do with business if you need professional
help please go get professional help because
the reselling groups are not for that i'm sorry
they're not um And is it everyone? No, it's a
very small subset of people, but I do see it.
And I guess the people like you post and I'm
guilty of this. I post gifs and other people
post pictures of cats. I don't care about pictures
of your cats. That has nothing to do with the
business, but I'm very business focused and I
get it. People do have a life and there is some
camaraderie that goes along with like sports
ball, which you guys talk about sports ball and
I'm okay with that, but it's quick. It's like.
10 seconds long, good, yay, team did well, move
on, back to business. These people, it's not.
It's the whole segment, last an hour, 45 minutes.
It's redonkulous long and I hate it. I think
though, I think what you're missing here because
you don't value it, but I know a lot of people
do is like follower count, right? Like likes,
how many likes is my stuff getting, right? Like
people, subscribers count on YouTube. People
value that like more than they do money. right
like yeah give me a million subscribers on youtube
or a million dollars right like there's there's
kids out there that are going to take the subscribers
every single time and it i think you can win
in both aspects of it because there's people
out there doing it right now and you just have
to be willing to figure out what you want to
do right think about it these people that are
crushing like the the cool categories right now
are like super into it right like this is their
niche we always talk about niching down well
guess what they know exactly what they're looking
for believe it or not they've actually done the
research they know if they see you know the deaf
leopard t -shirt band shirt from 1993 it's this
it's this one it's worth this much before they
even grab it off the rack they do the research
because it's interesting to them right versus
maybe the average reseller who's just out there
looking for anything that they can make a dollar
on, you're really not as invested in it because
you're just looking at, oh, well, I'm just going
to sell whatever I can to make a dollar. When
these kids or the new generation of resellers
are like, listen, I'm looking for these specific
lamps, right? These lamps are super hot. And
if I ever come across this lamp, I know what's
worth that much, right? Like instantly, I know
I'm buying that thing instantly. I give them
credit for kind of jumping into a space where
it's almost been conquered by people that are
just like, You can make a lot of money, but it's
going to take a lot of work. I don't think a
lot of these people are really working that hard
because they know where to get their stuff. You
know you're not going to find the majority of
these items sitting on the Goodwill rack. They
know they got to build a relationship with the
rag shop or some next level to have in their
relationship. So they're already leaps and bounds
ahead. And I don't think they realize it because
they just see it as cool. They're just like.
I love what I sell. I'm going to make a lot of
money. And I'm really not thinking about the
next level. I think in that aspect of it, it's
okay to enjoy it and make a lot of money. And
then you can kind of figure out what you want
to do. That's why it's intriguing to me. These
people I see, just like, man, for me, it's the
vintage t -shirts. That whole category is crazy
to me, how much people are willing to pay for
some of these shirts and some of the younger
generations out there that are willing to pay
for it, willing to have businesses revolving
around it. You don't see them going into the
thrift store and buying 100 vintage T -shirts.
You might see one YouTube video out there where
they maybe find like five or 10, but they're
already at the relationship level. They understand
that the thrift stores ain't going to make or
break their business because it's not there.
They know it's not there. Sure, you might hit
one every once in a while, but they automatically
have to go to that next level of having a profitable
relationship. That's all it comes down to at
the end of the day. Any reselling business is
all relationship based. What's up, Amazon sellers?
We wanted to take a second to talk about GoToLister,
the software me and Johnny both use to list and
manage our inventory and grow our businesses.
With the fastest listing speeds out there and
built -in profit analytics, it's a no -brainer.
Easily and quickly have items available for sale
using 2D barcodes and get more for your items
with its built -in smart pricing. Make sure to
check out the 30 -day free trial at gotolister
.com backslash Mike or using the link in the
description below. There we go. There's some
key things. If you're going to build a big following
like that, to me, it's like, what's the monetization?
Or how are you going to monetize it at the end
of the day? Or else to me, again, I don't get
the dopamine hit from followers. It's like, okay,
you have followers. What are you going to do
with the followers? Are you getting DM behind
the scenes, getting access to cool deals? Okay,
I'm all for that if that's what's actually happening.
Or are you planning to open like a merchandise
store? Okay, now there's money behind this building
clout, look at me kind of stuff. If that's your
business model, cool. It's not a business model
I personally necessarily want to do, but I see
the money then. If you're getting $20, $30, $40
items that are the haul videos or whatever, you're
building something. It's a different kind of
grind. So maybe you make up for, okay, I got
a $20 item. It's super cool though. But I also
know I'm going to get 5 ,000 subscribers or...
5 ,000 views on this video, which is going to
translate to X dollars. Okay. That worthless,
I'm not worthless. That $20 item is now a $50
item. Okay. It's a different way to do business
and sourcing, but I can see the appeal because
the money's there at that point. Yeah, for sure.
So it's like they add on the new generation ads
on this extra stream of income, which is, you
know, their TikTok live, their TikTok shops,
their YouTube income, right? Their ad revenue
on YouTube. I think it's super smart to have
as many streams of income that you possibly can
have. That's a good point. I didn't think about
that. They have multiple streams of revenue for
sourcing one item. Yes. Okay. That was a click
for me. There you go, Mike. I mean, it's sure.
It's going to take a while to grow a social media
following a YouTube channel, but I think... you
know, that's what this next generation is, right?
It's electronic, it's digital, it's videos, it's
vlogs of everything you're doing. Not even the,
they don't want to see the business stuff. They
don't want to hear you talk about this, that,
or this. They just want to see the cool stuff,
right? Like they don't care where you got it
from. They just want you to - They're more into
like title and SOE optimization than I am about
the perfect listing. Yes. They just want to,
you know, the people they're after to subscribe
to their channel, they just want to see the -
the dope t -shirts that they got that they're
going to resell they just want to see the the
cool furniture the cool whatever it may be or
the proper hashtags yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
it's i think it's great and you know trading
cards is another one where there's a lot of cool
factor in it when it comes to you know having
a social media following and doing live breaks
and things like that there's so many ways they're
monetizing reselling that just your average ebay
seller or your average amazon seller like Sure,
the argument is, well, if I just focus on my
business, you'll make more money. Well, most
likely, yes. But it's a different generation.
It's a different mindset completely around reselling.
It's more of a social aspect, like Johnny was
saying, than it is an actual business aspect.
But they still make money on the back end. That's
kind of the benefit to it. And those are the
ones that are winning, the new resellers that
are passionate about what they're doing. And
they're in a trendy category, right? We look
at eBay, they got like the authentication for
certain collectibles, right? Like the sneakers,
the cards, that's what we're talking about here.
The cool kids selling that type of stuff, making
a lot of money, but they don't even think of
it as a business because it's so cool to them,
right? Like what could I sell that will possibly
be so cool to me? Like if I could just have a
whole business related to selling like Halloween
memorabilia, right? Like I haven't. infinite
access to Michael Myers memorabilia and I could
just sell it forever and be that like hype man
around that franchise like that's kind of my
equivalent to it and when you do that for free
because you just have so much fun with it Yeah,
when you got the stuff, you got the stuff, right?
I would need the relationship to always be getting
more of this type of inventory. People would
know, hey, he's the guy. You want something Halloween
related? I'm going to him. And it's kind of the
same aspect when it comes to the live selling
and getting a following, growing a following
and translating that into money, right? Because
at the end of the day, we need money to survive.
So what they do is that's what they do. They
build their social media. They push out content
that people want to see, which is not, you know.
Not the used book guy content where I talk about
how to do certain things and settings and repricers.
No, they got the flashy stuff that people want
to see. The thousand dollar item, right? The
item they got for a dollar that, you know, is
going to sell for $2 ,000. That's what gets people
in the door. But there has to be a back end to
that, right? Because it can't just be a one -time
thing because your following is going to go away.
You're not going to get all your followers from
one post or one video. So you got to continue
to grow that aspect of it. And that's what they
do. That's what the kids do nowadays, Johnny,
right? They're on their phones. It's content,
content, content, 24 -7, getting the views, getting
the likes, making money on the back end. That's
the future of reselling, man. You say so. I'm
a grinder through and through, so that's my game.
That being said, I'm on the podcast, right? I
do calls and all this, that, and the other. So
I'm there a little bit, but it's not my focus,
honestly. But no. Here's another thing. Sometimes
people ask, what's the most expensive thing you've
sold? I don't know. Let me go look it up. I don't
really care about that. I care about my bottom
line. What did I get for the month? I don't care
about a singular sale. And that breaks their
brain that I don't because we're thinking differently,
right? They want to see the cool flashy McFlash.
And I don't care about the cool flashy McFlash.
I care about what's going in my bank account.
It's the same with me, dude. Everybody in the
group, probably everybody that listens to this
podcast will 100 % sell a more expensive item
than I will this year. Like that's pretty much
guaranteed. I'm not like sure if I come across
the gym, but like I've never sold anything like
that was super crazy, right? I don't even think
I've ever sold anything over like 300, 400 bucks.
I mean, I was that way. I've had one expensive
sale. It was some dumb magician book I found
at the bottom of a pallet that was signed. They
only made 30 of them, and half the magicians
in there were dead, and I actually sold it to
a living magician. That was the coolest thing
I've ever sold. I thought it was cool at the
time, but I've seen other books I thought were
equally cool. They just aren't valued at that
level. They're like a couple hundred dollars.
When people ask that, they seem disappointed
when I give that answer. Like, oh, there's no
glory in books. I'm like, no, it's about the
money. It's tough to kind of get it through because
like we're talking about here, right? The cool
fact there is being like, yeah, like I sell a
thousand dollar book every month, right? You
know, I've sold this one. I sold that one. I
sold that one. They're like, hey, what have you
ever sold? It's over a thousand dollars, Mike.
And I'm like scratching my head. I'm like. not
once not once like i got nothing and they're
like oh unfollow unsubscribe uh yeah i don't
have they think we're like the antiquarian crowd
where that's all they kind of target yeah and
you and i are are not antiquarian sellers i'm
a sell -through guy give me my fast money all
the time um but it's not it's not cool it's not
flashy i get that but i'm just like I'm like
Johnny said, the grinding type where I just want
to make money to cover my bills, put money away
for retirement. So I don't have to resell my
whole life. And I think that's another thing
with the younger generation of reselling is like,
they don't see this as like a life plan, right?
They're just like, I'm going to make, you know,
30. This is what I'm going to do until I figure
out what I want to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm
just going to run this up as much as I can. And
I'm just going to pivot away. I'm like, some
of us have been reselling for all these years
and we're like. I still live dollar to dollar
and I got no money and I got no plan. Like that,
I think that kind of what, what pisses off a
lot of us that have been reselling a while is
like, we've been doing this for years and this
person just came on the scene and they, and they're
selling X amount of dollars and like, yeah, you're
going to be salty about it. But like, what's
stopping you from doing that? Nothing. Yeah.
And again, I don't think they're necessarily
wrong and it's a new generation of selling. It's
just not. I'm an old man, Mike. It's not my generation
originally. To me, it's like you do the hard
work and you get paid for it. And that's all
there is. I don't have to worry about followers,
subscribers, view counts, this, that, and the
other. Do I see a benefit to it? Yeah, we mentioned
a couple of them earlier. Like if you're able
to get relationships, to get bigger deals, go
for it. If that's the play, like you can't, you're
not hitting that in your local area. Well, increase
it to the internet and then you'll get a couple.
I mean, even doing this, I've gotten a couple
and they've been great. Or there's smaller relationships
like, hey, I got a box of books for you, Johnny
Inch. Like, yeah, I'm interested. Go ahead and
mail that out. But dude, see the thing here is
you work hard, but it's hard work that has a
payoff, which we can't sit here and say that
the majority of resellers do, right? A lot of
resellers work really hard and the payoff really
isn't on the back end. And this is the thing
I struggle with for years and years is. If we
have a business where the margins are what they
are, we all should be having a pretty nice bank
account on the back end, regardless of where
you live, regardless of what your overhead cost
is. So the problem with it is Johnny can sit
there and say, yeah, he works hard and that's
fine because the bank account goes up and I can
say the same thing. But the opposite side of
that coin is people that have been reselling
for a while and maybe aren't getting their results.
So instead of seeing that kid who's like, selling
20 K a week on eBay or whatnot, or wherever that
may be. Instead of seeing that kid and being
like, wow, like that's eyeopening. We see it
as, oh man, oh, that that's not real. Or like,
that's not possible. And you just kind of take
the opposite approach instead of being like,
wow, like maybe I should take a second look at
what I'm doing. Right. Because if I've been doing
this for five years and this kid makes 10 grand
a week and I'm making 10 grand in three months,
like. Maybe I should take a second look at what
I'm doing because clearly if I'm motivated and
I want to have a profitable business, what I'm
doing ain't it, right? And sure, if it's something
you're not passionate about, then yeah, right?
I'm never going to sell the vintage t -shirts.
But like, it doesn't even have to be topic related.
It can just be business related. Like maybe you
can take something away from that person that's
like... well, here's my relationship. Here's
how I get the stuff I sell. Then you're like,
well, wait a minute. I don't have to rely on
the Goodwill bins, right? I don't have to go
to the Goodwill bins five days a week. I can
build a relationship. Then your business kind
of blows up overnight. There's so much more to
it than just a cool factor. But I do think a
lot of people get offended and like turned off
when they see somebody brand new selling X amount
of dollars when they've been doing it for years
and they've never hit those numbers. We've had
Jack on the call, so I'll mention him. We had
an interest. It was his call that I attended.
And we kind of went off a little bit on people
should stop reselling. And if you fall in this
category, you should just stop, period. And one
of those is what you just mentioned. Like after
five years and you're making no money or you're
making the same money you were doing in year
one, you probably should just give it up or time
to have that hard sit down and analyze your business.
And or change the entire business. Because what
you're doing is just plain out not working. You're
going to get outpaced by simple inflation. Bottom
line. And we've seen people resell out of their
vehicles and they live in their vehicles. Unless
you've chosen to live the van life or the RV
life, you're effectively homeless in my opinion.
And you're just paying to fill up the tank and
eat a couple meals of ramen. You should probably
reevaluate your business. I know you're all in
at that point, literally, because you have nothing.
So maybe take a step back and see, okay, how
do I get out of the van life into a house life?
What business model does that look like for myself?
And think about it like that. And as far as all,
can you have fame and fortune? I think you can
have both. But if you don't necessarily care
about the fame, maybe just grind it out like
us grinders that are talking to you right now.
You don't necessarily need to be on YouTube or
Instagram or this, that, and the other. And that'll
give you more minutes to pump into the grind
part. If you want to split focus for relationship
building, I'm all for that. Or if you figure
out some other ways to monetize, like we're talking
about, I'm all for multiple streams of income.
I'm more power to you. You can make that work.
You got to choose. And if you're unsure, you
haven't really chosen. You're just doing the
status quo of whatever that is. And maybe it's
working. Maybe it's not. But maybe it's time
to make a decision. Make a call. What kind of
reseller are you? I agree because I think about
it this way. I say it all the time. If this is
any harder than it is for me, I'm probably better
off just going and getting a job. I'm not going
to grind this out to make the money I make. Because
guess what? We got no retirement match. We got
no health benefits from eBay or Amazon, right?
I firmly believe that if you are working super
hard in a restaurant and making no money, it
is time for you to move on to something else.
Because these people work too hard to make the
little bit of money they do. I'm just thinking
to myself, there are so many better ways, easier
ways to make money, right? Think about somebody
brand new who comes onto the scene, has one relationship.
And they have an infinite supply of basically
great inventory versus somebody who's been doing
this, grinding thrift stores, which is the big
thing, grinding these garage sales five days
a week, making less than six figures a year.
We need to take a step back because this ain't
it. You are spending way too much money and time
to get little to nothing back, right? Like, just
you got to figure something else out. And I hate
to be the bearer of bad news, but there's a lot
of resellers that just drag it along. Drag it
along, drag it along. I have multiple streams
of income and there's so many other stupid, easier
ways to make money than doing what I do, doing
what me and Johnny do, having this podcast, having
the YouTube channel, having the group. This was
like one of the hardest ways to try to make a
damn dollar. Like I could just go do stupid influencer
videos that are 20 seconds long. They get paid
forever from Amazon, right? I could go do whatever
it may be. I could go to a job, nine to five
job, Monday through Friday, make $35 an hour,
have the benefits, have the retirement match,
right? I don't know what it is with resellers
and not just dragging it out. It's because anybody
can do it and anybody... I guess the cool factor
does play into it at some point, though, right?
Because the reason you keep dragging it out is
because you think you're cool when you tell people,
I got my own reselling business. Yeah. And then
when they ask, how much do you sell? And you're
like, I sell about an item a month, right? Like,
well, I talk about my reselling business. I'm
talking about how much I'm selling, right? Like,
yeah, I sell stuff. Here's how much I'm making,
right? Like, that's the first thing coming off
my mouth is. Here's what I'm selling. Here's
how much I'm making. Here's my sales, this, that,
this, that. Whenever I have a conversation with
somebody that doesn't know what I'm talking about
versus being like, oh, I got a little eBay store
and I keep the stuff on this nice little pretty
shelf that I have. And yeah, it's so cool. You
should come check it out sometime. And then the
person comes over and like, well, can you like
pack an order? Can you ship anything? Like, can
you do something here? And they're like. I don't
have anything to ship. It's slow season right
now. You know, the sun's not shining and there's
a storm coming and nobody's buying from me. Where
I see people struggle with like what you're saying
the most, it's because they don't have full lens
clarity, is when they have a husband or wife
who's making money at day job. And they decide
to do supplemental income. And instead of getting
a part -time or full -time job themselves, they
want to do the reselling. It may be because they
like it because they got kids and it's a flexible
schedule. But they may make $20 ,000 or $40 ,000
extra, which is good. I mean, you're stacking
on to your spouse's global household funds. And
they justify it that way. But I want them to
say, no, I want to make more than my husband
or spouse. or equal to that way it's not a competition
per se but you should want to make more than
the other person because that's a business at
my point and that can be your first benchmark
making more than them i'm not saying be ruthless
competitive with them but i'm saying that should
be an initial goal um because you've at least
doubled your income Can you imagine if you double
your household's income, what life -changing
abilities that will give you? That small house
you're in, you can move into that dream house
of yours with that kind of money if you double
your income. Or, you know what? We're planning
on Billy, Cindy, and Bobby Sue going to community
college. You know what? They could be Harvard
grads if they want to. We got money in the bank
for that. It's giving yourself the opportunity
of options with the income empire you built for
yourself. But again, it's harder to see when
you have full -time income with a partner that's
doing that and you're bringing in, I don't know,
X dollars. It's hard to evaluate it like that
because you're fine. All your bills are paid.
You got a roof over your head. Rehax Makat, right?
I mean. How many days, how many 10 -hour days
at the Goodwill bins every week? for you to quit
reselling. If I said, if Johnny, if you want
to keep reselling, I need you to be at the Goodwill
bins, open to close X amount of days. How many
days would somebody have to tell you, you got
to be there for you to quit? Just, I have to
be, I don't want to be there. You don't have
a choice. You don't have, you don't have a choice.
If you want to continue reselling, you have to
be at the Goodwill bins, open to close. X amount
of days. How many days is your threshold? Before
I just quit reselling? Yeah. I don't want that
live. So it's probably like one day. One day.
I am, dude, believe it or not, I am in agreement.
I'll go for one day a week if that was like,
if I had to, right? If I wanted to keep my Amazon
business. i would i'd be willing to do one full
day at the goodwill bins every single week and
honestly like that would probably get old after
like four weeks and i'd like the hell with this
um it's the idle time that gets to me that's
like sitting on my hands i constantly have to
be doing something and if they aren't rotating
my stuff at a frequent basis or they got stuff
sitting in a pallet for them to go through, I'm
done. I don't want to be there anymore. I got
to be doing something. There's easier ways to,
there's more enjoyable, easier ways to make money.
No one's going to sit here and tell me that that's
enjoyable. Going to the same thrift store five
days a week for 10 hours, right? Like just go
get a great job at that point. You're going to
make more money. There's way less risk in that
aspect of it, right? You already have no life.
You know what I got? If you love that life, But
there are two options. Either you're really good
at Ben's shopping and you got the wherewithal
to sit there between rotations, pack your lunch,
be there all day, right? Good for you. But if
you're just like a mediocre reseller, I've seen
it before. You become a sourcer for somebody
and you get paid way more money than you would
yourself being a reseller. Go work for, if you
love that lifestyle, but you're making no money.
Go work for Joe. Joe is going to have some requirements
for you to pick out the stuff at the bins, but
you're going to make way more money working for
Joe because Joe pays you every week based on
how many pieces you give him. Yeah, but that's
not as cool. That's not as cool, though. It's
not cool at all, but it's technically a job at
that point. It's steady. It's tough. I think
you can have both. I think as technology continues
to crazily advance, right, like AI is only a
piece of what it's going to be in the future.
It's only going to get harder for the smaller
person. I mean, think about this, right? Like
we in the media business space, all the mega
sellers have the conveyor belts, right? So we
can never process as much as the conveyor belt.
I think we're going to see those types of innovations
in other categories, right? Like you've already
kind of seen it with clothing where they can
just lay something flat on a conveyor belt. It
takes the photos and knows exactly what the brand
is, exactly what the measurements is. I think
this is what we're trending towards. So I think
kind of niching down and getting with the trends
is a good way to make a lot of money reselling.
You don't have to be cool, but you better be
making damn money. If you're not cool, you better
be making money. If you're making money, you
can try to be cool, right? Maybe you can squeeze
your way and kind of be kind of cool, right?
I think I'm kind of cool at the end of the day.
Or open yourself up a brick and mortar, be a
boutique shop, be a vintage t -shirt shop. There's
plenty of those going on. Or the antiquarian
bookshop, if you're an antiquarian seller and
maybe you want to do some extra income there
in addition to your eBay. Or, I don't know, the
retro video game shop. These are things that
exist and they make, from what I hear from people
doing them, they make decent money. Maybe even
better than... online business but they had the
gumption to go out and do that because they realized
what they were it's that self -realization that
i think most people don't have because like we
said earlier i think they're just floating along
either trying to figure out what they want to
do or they're hoping for the best and getting
the worst results i agree i'm gonna wrap it up
here with the cool slash profitable argument
You can have both. I think we're going to see
more changes in the resale landscape over the
next three to five years than we ever have previously,
right? It's only going to continue to change.
There's going to be new platforms. There's going
to be new options. And it's okay when somebody
else comes along and brand new and is making
more money than you. Don't be salty about it.
Be happy for them and see what you can take away
from how they built their business to what it
is today. It's not always a bad thing when...
You know, live selling becomes a big thing. Do
you think I'm worried about Amazon going under
because of it? No, not at all. Right. I'm like,
that's cool. You want to live that life and a
knock it out the park, make as much money as
you can. But at the end of the day, the cool
people make a lot of money for the most part.
Right. Like, so let's get with the cool kids.
We don't got to be cool. But if we're going to
be grinders like Johnny's talking about, we better
be making damn money because we're not doing
the social media. We're not doing the YouTube
channel. You know, I say all the time, everybody
should be making a lot more money than me if
you're doing this full time, because. You're
not juggling everything. And yeah, the multiple
streams of income pays off. But like I said,
if you just focus solely on the business, the
argument can always be made until the end of
times. You're always going to make more money
than somebody who's trying to build social media,
a live stream audience while reselling. So that's
going to do it for this week's episode. We'll
talk to you all next week. Thanks for listening
to another episode of the Reseller's Mindset
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