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
into another episode of Reseller's Mindset. podcast.
First time we've had a guest on in a long, long
time. Listen, me and Johnny get caught up with
our own thoughts and not a lot of people, you
know, it's not like everybody's knocking down
our doors to come on the podcast, right? So we
got Max next to us today. I'm curious because
I don't know all of Max's backstory from when
he started. He has been a member of my group,
Full Disclosure. I won't take credit for everything.
I won't take credit for anything that he's done.
So Max is going to introduce himself. kind of
tell you what he does, how he's got to where
he's at. So what's up, Max? Thanks for hanging
out with us today. Yeah, it's no problem. If
you want the fun story, I can tell you that I
got into it because I originally volunteered
at a library before. When I was in high school,
you had to volunteer to get a scholarship for
college, and I started an eBay store for them.
And I'm going to be honest, I don't like selling
books on eBay still. No offense to you, Johnny.
But it got me into the book business, and I...
From there, I left that volunteer position and
I saw some guy at a thrift store scanning. I
didn't ask him anything. I kind of just saw it
and thought it looked cool. So I figured out
his entire business and I did that. So let's
get the craziness out of the way. Just not some
random guy we drug on the podcast. I need two
things from you. Your age and the last 30 days
in sales you've done on Amazon Selling Media.
Doesn't have to be exact. You don't need to be
exact. I want to the penny, Max. To the penny.
Oh, my God. To the penny? Okay. Well, I'm 76
years old, and my sales numbers for the last
30 days are $75 ,365 .38. 38 cents, man. It's
pretty funny because we... we kind of rag on
max on our calls because like he's he's the youngest
we don't even need his exact age most of us are
like we're all in our late 20s 30s 40s 50s 60s
70s 80s 90s and we're looking at this kid and
he's like yeah i'm just doing 75k a month and
we're like yeah here i am in the struggle boat
doing like 17k a month and he's just like i'm
just over here chilling and that's a very good
point like our age bracket we hardly see sub
30 or younger people I don't know what the reason
is. They're trying a bunch of things. Maybe they're
still in college, and they haven't gone through
the misery of working their full -time job. It
hasn't eaten them away for the past 10 years
or so, and they're trying to look for something
else. So it actually is a good thing, I think,
when we see younger resellers come in. It brings
a new kind of energy. Even me and Mike, we get
worn down from time to time, and the younger
guys seem to be a little bit more enthusiastic,
which makes us more enthusiastic by just being
around them. So, Max, was reselling where you
started the library your first quote -unquote
job, or did you do things before the scholarship
leading into reselling stuff? Yeah, so I sold
on Mercari. I sold video games before. When I
was 13, when COVID started, I started buying
up video games. And then my dad said, if they're
so valuable, why don't you sell them? So I started
just picking up Mercari video game lots and then
selling them. And then I was going to actually
go on to that library position, just doing basic
book circulation, put stuff on the shelves. But
then I saw the eBay store and I said, that's
pretty cool. I've done stuff like that. So I
did that. So I got introduced to it younger than...
just the library position, but that's really
what got me into books. Less so much DVDs. I
did see some DVDs, but that's really what got
me into it and got me interested in it. And on
another note, the younger people, they're close
and far between, I'd say. Because I found plenty
of people who want to sell at my age or younger,
and they don't have the attention span. I, uh,
I, I've, I've gotten some people, some scanners
before and they go in and they drive 40 minutes
to a bookstore. They scan one rack of books,
shelves, and then they, uh, they watch a TikTok
and then they scan a book and then watch another
TikTok. And it's, uh, next thing you know, two
hours goes by and they've scanned maybe another
rack. You start watching TikTok, Mike. So, all
right. So we've been reselling since we were
13 years old. teenage years and onward. So do
you do this? I'm going to guess you do this full
time, though I'm not 100 % sure neither is our
audience here. Yeah, I have other jobs as well.
This is probably something I spend the majority
share of my time on. You could consider it full
time, but I also have like two other jobs in
college on the side of this as well. Two other
jobs in college. So two jobs, college, a full
time reselling business. We're going to call
you a marathon man because that's a lot. You're
making a lot of money. Do you see college as
necessary? Yeah, that's an interesting thought
because there's 100 % a route where I can go
and I can just continue reselling on and on and
it would provide me that value. But if it was
some sort of stupid major, let's say gender studies
or something that doesn't have application, I
would completely agree and say. Yeah, just dropping
it right away, it wouldn't have any value. But
I'm studying construction, and I want to work
in construction longer term, in construction
management specifically. And I see that there
might be greater value in some of the services
offered compared to reselling. So it's an economical
thought of trying to maximize the value of your
time. And in my current plan, I believe that
is higher right now. Of course, that can change.
If I hit $100 ,000 a month, I'll let you know.
Sure. And that's a great adjacent. It just helps
your business as well, because I can't tell you
how many do it yourself projects I've had to
construct for my reselling business, whether
it's building up a shelving rack or figuring
out a layout or blueprint of the space I have
and trying to reverse engineer. How do I get
the most things in here? So I think that's a
great skill set to tack on, especially going
the college route. So construction, are you looking
to build like mini malls or overpasses, houses?
What are you looking to do in the construction
realm? Yeah, something that I got offered is
I got an offer from a construction firm to work
for them. And they'd offer me some sort of ownership
stake in the future. They work in primarily in
renovations, but newer home construction is something
that I really, really enjoy. I love building
buildings and seeing just progress and systems
being made. It's just something that I find joy
from. I can see it in my own business as well
because I like building systems and I like building
programs that other people can subscribe to and
it's noticeable. Last question before I let Mike
have you again. Are you putting any money away
or are you just plowing it into your three businesses
here? Yeah, I'm setting some money aside. I'm
setting aside a decent paycheck, just a good
bit of money. In the thousands, but I'm setting
it aside. I want to buy a house in the future
when I move up to college because I'm currently
at my hometown right now, but I'm going to have
to move up in about a year. So I'm trying to
do something interesting and trying to almost
put my business more on a cruise control overall.
Of course, I'm still putting plenty of love into
it, but being able to operate it with people
doing a majority stake of the day -to -day is
my ideal plan for at least reselling. All right,
so everybody's like... Yeah, cool. His kid's
doing 75K. I'm going to throw the asterisk out
there that he has a business model where he's
not like me, where he just goes by himself. Sure,
he does go out by himself. Every single time
I see him, he's in his car leaving a thrift store.
But he has a business model where he co -signs
other Amazon sellers to sell items that they
cannot. So if you're not familiar with Amazon.
You start selling on Amazon, you start selling
used books, right? And then you got to get ungated
to sell CDs. You got to get ungated to sell DVDs.
Well, you get ungated in that category. And even
within the book category, there are brands you
are still gated in, right? So the big one that
came down this year was Universal. Sony's been
gated forever. Disney's been gated forever. So
he decided, hey, I can sell these brands. Now,
why can he sell them? It's the same reason I
believe I can sell them. It's based on sell -through
and volume on Amazon land. In his case, he did
have to get invoices to be able to sell these
brands, but he knocked it out right away. So
the idea is I'm still outsourcing and I come
across the Criterion Collection DVD and I can't
sell it because I'm gated. Well, I send it to
him and he sells it for you. And you split the
profits 50 -50. So a lot of people in Amazon
land, everybody was waiting for the Disney gate
to come down, the Sony gate to come down. Then
Universal happened. And everybody winds up with
a huge pile of stuff they can't sell. So what
are you going to do? If you send it to the buyback
companies, they give you basically nothing. So
he said, all right, I see an opportunity in the
market. Why don't I just take people's stuff,
build out the processes and the system so that
when he sells Mike D's Book Guys DVD. He can
say, all right, I owe him $6 .25, sends it to
them, gets paid. So give a little bit of insight
on why you decided to start that business and
how much of your business is your consignment
versus the stuff you source yourself. Okay, well,
I can tell you that I know that when I started
selling off the bat, I had a bunch of items gated.
And it's not something I think is particularly
enjoyable for any sellers. And especially in
the context of items that you could see as valuable
and having to turn away greens because I know
you're chasing that high when you're scanning.
And if you have to turn something that's good
away, it's really just as, it can be heartbreaking
sometimes, at least in my opinion. And I know
that if you put hundreds of dollars into gates,
you could be tying up your money in more inventory,
which could give you an even greater return in
the end. And I believe that consignment is a
good way of just simply monetizing that and getting
more use of your money. buying more cheap inventory
versus buying 500 or 100 discs of something that
you probably don't care about, like the minions.
And right now, in my own business, I can tell
you that about 40 % of my inventory is consignment
and 60 % is my own stuff. I've been letting that
grow especially more in recent times as I've
been trying to get it more self -sufficient.
But that seems to be the golden number right
now. I like the... I like the idea of consignment.
It sounds glorious, right? Because everybody's
like, Mike, why don't, why didn't you just do
what Max did? And I say, Max, good luck with
all the headaches that are coming your way. And
I'm sure he deals with these from time to time.
He's only been doing this for a few months, but
I mean, if you just look at it from an overall
perspective, right, he's selling tens of thousands
of dollars of other people's stuff. And I know
the headaches that will eventually arise with
this. I mean, he's just started this whole business
model of consigning and it's. Sure, he's been
on Avery's channel and my group of a couple hundred
people, but I know people are consistently sending
him. And I just know that the work and the infrastructure,
it just doesn't appeal to me. It's the same thing
Johnny does with eBay. It doesn't appeal to me
in any way, shape or form. So I don't have a
problem with it. It's kind of cool to see that
you still actually get out there and. bust your
ass in the trenches yourself you're not just
relying on the consignment taking that the full
lazy route that's what i if i'm going consignment
i'm never leaving the house again dude i'm open
it and if the sun's too shiny i gotta like reach
out and grab the box and get sizzled up by the
sun to pull it inside i mean that's pretty much
it man um so okay i'm gonna ask you some fun
questions here max you don't have to answer them
do you have employees yes i have employees Okay,
how many employees do you have, my good sir?
Well, it depends on what you consider an employee.
If you're talking about independent contractors,
I have plenty. If you're talking about employees,
I have three right now. Okay, we'll call them
full -time and part -time. So three full -time,
how many part -time? It's above a reasonable
amount. Above a reasonable amount. I'm almost
to double digits right now. I have some people
that come in and then they wash out. So having
a real count of good people, it can vary. But
it's almost near double digits of people who
are actually decent. Gotcha. So we probably got
people listening and they're screaming at the
top of their heads. That's so much overhead.
Can you talk a little bit on how their pay structure?
Yeah, so how I go about it is what I do is I
offer them their cost of goods. So they'll get
a debit card. So I have to have pretty good trust
with them to set it up. And then I give them
a scanner and I make sure that they do a damn
good job. And they'll get a 50 -50 consignment
cut after the cogs are deducted. And bad inventory
that they buy will be just deducted from their
pay. So if they buy something that's completely
water damaged or completely unreasonable, that
gets deducted out. But that's how I pay them
through. And I use the same consignment infrastructure
I have for... I actually started off with my
employee infrastructure, and that's when I jumped
over to consignment. I have the database set
up, so it's like, why not use it in more applications
than one, you know? Right, absolutely. So we're
numbers -oriented here. So we said 75K. After
all your overhead and your cost of goods, how
much of that do you think you clear? I clear
not throwing it back into inventory. It probably
is in the range of 10 to 15. Before you do another
purchase for more inventory, sure. Before I do
another purchase for more inventory, about 10
to 15 is my number. I throw a lot into inventory
because I like growing. And I know one of the
biggest metrics I use, and you can use yourself,
is if you go into GoToLister. I know specifically
GoToLister has it, is if you go to the computer
version and go to the homepage, you're able to
see over a period of time how many items you've
listed and sold. and just keep making sure that
item listed count is higher than your item sold.
Like right now, usually on average, I'm about
one and a half times in the last 30 days of what
I sell. So I'm still growing by that rate. Excellent.
And thank you for being honest with your numbers.
People love it when people are honest with their
numbers. That's really good math for those who
are saying it's not, you're wrong. It's really
good numbers. So on that, Have we plateaued yet
or are we still on an upward trend? Yeah, so
I'm still growing right now. Last month, I can
tell you that I cleared $70 ,000 of revenue.
And this month, I'm on track to project about
$78 ,000 or $80 ,000. And that's still a little
bit of growth. It's not as fast as some of my
previous growth months. If I look at my last
12 months, I was exponential between $20 ,000
and $70 ,000. And now I'm still growing. It's
not as fast. I think one of the reasons is there
was a really big book sale that I hit, and I
jumped 6 ,000 items. I think Johnny saw it before.
I did. We hauled in 6 ,000 books from this book
sale that we bought. It was a humongous book
sale. But right now, I used to go send in double
what I'd sell, and now I'm at one and a half
of what I sell. So I'm going to reach that plateau
point soon, but it's probably not going to be
before $100 ,000 a month of revenue. Gotcha.
When you do hit that point someplace down the
road, are you going to just get more staff to
grow more again? Or are you just going to stack
cash for a minute? Yeah, well, there's two ways
to think about it. There's two ways that I acquire
inventory. It's either through consignment or
actually paying for it. So I can grow endlessly
with what I consign because technically I'm not
paying for the items. I mean, you've probably
seen that as well. You're not at the bins. You're
not paying 69 cents a pound for each item. So
it's easier to grow when you're not paying for
the inventory. It definitely is helpful. And
in that avenue, that's what I want to expand
on further. Of course, my time is not going to
be stuck on cherry picking forever because, you
know, I'm studying stuff and whatnot. And it's
just trying to set a proper balance because,
yes, I could go and cherry pick. And I only cherry
pick probably a couple days a week, a few days
a week at most right now. And I could very easily
cherry pick more if I wanted to, but I'd rather
focus more on consignment and making sure my
backlog doesn't get too far behind. Right. I
know you're a busy guy. So on the reselling business
aspect only, how many hours a week are you pumping
into it? Right now, I probably push full time,
if not 30 to 50 hours, usually on a week. I don't
usually push more, but something that I do is
I don't actually keep track too well. It's kind
of hard to set a number on it, especially when
you're thinking about it because that also should
be counted, but I don't even think about it sometimes.
I go to sleep thinking about GoToLister sometimes.
Nice. So you've got 30 to 50 hours there. So
job B, how many hours there? Some other jobs,
there are definitely a lot less hours. One of
my other jobs is I'm a realtor. I probably spend
maybe five or six hours a week, and I have to
work with clients to help them do whatever. And
my other job on top of that is just some fun
property management stuff, and that's probably
three or four more hours a week. All right. We'll
just call it 10. So we're at 60 hours. Then we
got good old college. How many hours are you
pumping into college? I'm going to be honest.
It's probably 10 hours a week at most. I don't
think it's much more than that. I know I'm online
school, and online school nowadays is a lot easier
than actual college. Some of the stuff I do is
definitely – Cutting corners, you could say.
But some of the classes that I take include business
management and entrepreneurship. And I'm going
to be honest with you. I've learned more from
not that class than taking the class. Yeah. All
right. So we're at 70 hours a week between reselling
job A and B and college. And do you have free
time, sir? Or you just. Eat and sleep and work.
In terms of free time, I mean, it can be occasional.
I'll go out and do an escape room every other
week. Okay. I don't take too much free time for
myself. I want to take more free time, definitely.
I think with more consignment as time goes on,
I think my biggest time sink is just going out
and cherry picking. And I think that's most people's
time sink. It's going out and cherry picking
items, finding the good stuff. And that's a...
Definitely what I'm spending the most time in,
just making sure that I am completely backlogged
at all times. Cool. Very cool. So yeah, Mike,
you doing 50 hours in your business over there?
I try not to work more than five hours a week.
Once I get close to double digits, 10 hours,
my body starts shutting down. I don't have the
13 -year -old Max Hustle lifestyle inside this
body no more. But I mean, you know, I make what
I make. And I'm curious, Max, you got to choose.
Books, CDs, or DVDs, you can only sell one of
them. Yeah, that question has rolled through
my mind plenty. That's probably counted for 20
of the hours a week of the calculation there.
The thing about it is there's pros and cons for
all of them. And I can tell you that I'd probably
be between either books or probably DVDs in my
opinion. I can tell you why. The benefit of books
is the cap on the highest priced book is definitely
a lot higher. than that of the highest -priced
DVD, 100%. You'll see $100, $500, even $1 ,000
books or book sets, but you won't ever see a
$500 DVD set. So there's a benefit there, but
that also comes with the cost of extra weight
and storage costs, and for that reason, books
take up more space, and you have to be more conservative
about them. But DVDs, you can almost see it more
of a volume game. Of course, the maximum price...
It's lower, but the average value that you get
because it weighs less is more viable, and you
can take a lot more and make more money, not
even mentioning how bulk is profitable in that
case. I know some people do book Gaylords, but
they have to be really, really good book bulk
in order for it to be viable. You have to be
pulling out library sale quality every single
time for it to be able to pay off unless you're
getting the things for free. I would go DVDs
for those wondering. Well, we know what you would
do, Mike. I do have to press the concern, though,
that gates are getting quite high for DVDs. I
remember seeing that there's 100 -unit gates
for almost every brand now. Of course, they'll
get ungated with time, but it can be a lot more
daunting now, so the barriers to entry is a lot
higher. And I'm not even talking about the whole
disc repair situation where you have to fix them
and you have to have full machines to be able
to fix that stuff. So on the note of CDs... And
there's a reason I stepped out of disc media.
And I recall it mainly being because of CDs.
They are the fragilest things in the world. There's
money in it. There's always money in it. But
it's a lot of work when you're dealing with CDs
between case swaps. And you got the same thing
you got to do with the DVDs. You got to clean
them a lot of the time or resurface them. So
have you thought about not doing CDs? That's
a really good question to raise. Because you
can do more DVDs and more books if you cut the
CDs. Yeah, that's interesting because I didn't
talk about CDs and their pros and cons, but CDs
are the DVD's little brother. And I think not
rigging rid of CDs entirely is the play because
there's still value to be made in CDs. Even if
you have an employee going out and doing it,
it'll still make your value back 2x or 3x. I
know that there's work with it, and all you can
do is... The biggest issues for maintenance is
just disk repair and case replacements. That's
what we've said here, and that's definitely the
biggest hurdles. And what you can do is you can
almost cheer your trigger set. So if you're getting
a low -dollar item, you could just completely
opt out of the case replacement. Either be a
bit meaner and send in the bad case, or just
not send it in at all. And reduce your workload.
directly related to the amount of profit that's
involved in each item, almost like anything you
could say. So up the margin on CDs would probably
be the better play, you're saying? Up the margin
on CDs that require more work is definitely the
better thought to have. Because if you have a
mint CD that goes for, what, $15, that'll be
more than fine. You don't want to jump around
too much with it. You don't want to throw it
out if it's just as much work as a DVD or a book
even. I would. The used book guy, here I go.
I would. Take CDs over books. Books are now at
the bottom of the list. What I started with -
Mike, you're not on brand. You're not on brand.
I am way off brand. I have evolved into the not
used book guy if I had a choice, but I don't
have a choice. And usually the benefit of these
three things is they all exist in the same spot,
right? It's not like we're going way out of our
way for one of the three categories or whatever
it may be. But I do agree that CDs suck. You
always got to replace the stupid front cover
on these things. It's never nothing else. So
I buy the new cases and then I just wind up swapping
this and throwing out the back one. But I still
think I don't know. I mean, as we continue to
go down this path on Amazon, like what's your
what's your outlook on Amazon as a viable business
model when it comes to being banned and gates
and how tough it's gotten so far in the past
year for new sellers in the media space? I think
100 % that it is a lot harder to enter the field
now compared to a year ago. I think that's completely
undeniable, especially with all the gates and
requiring hundreds of dollars just to be broken
down. But I think the best thought you can have
is that means if it's only getting harder as
time goes on, the best time to try it would be
now. Trying it even a day later, another gate
could come up. Let's say Criterion throws up
a gate for 100 units. So therefore, to get the
best advantage, it would be to try now. And if
it doesn't work out for you, that's fine. And
if you're talking about the actual long term
of the business, there's risk involved, yes.
And it's just either building and diversifying
your business away from being solely Amazon or
simply playing your cards right and reducing
your risk in... actually getting to that point.
So spending more time on quality assurance or
any other venture to prevent risk from going
on, like not selling textbooks is totally viable
if you want to have something foreseeable for
the future. So what are some things that if there
is anything that you won't sell on Amazon because
you feel like it wakes up the Grim Reaper? I
can tell you that there's people who have lists
of stuff that they feel aren't great to sell
and for the most part i will i will break those
rules sometimes i'll sell sell tux books if they
come up clear on uh the books run counterfeit
checker i will sell beach body uh there's a few
brands i'm superstitious about but i think every
amazon seller has superstitions i'm gonna be
honest with you i would never want to sell elf
on the shelf i have a feeling that elf on the
shelf is just one of those ips waiting to happen
but some stuff that i won't sell is stuff that
might come off as such. So I won't sell in the
DVD world the purple discs that are even the
archive films. I won't sell them on my own ventures,
even though I might have the account help to
protect myself from inauthenticity warnings.
I just don't want the risk that's involved with
those. And I won't sell obvious ones like Dogma
or The Chosen that we've seen plenty before.
If there's clear awareness and evidence that
there's risk in selling an exact item, I probably
won't sell it. Of course, I know that you guys
are a little bit more Puritan on textbooks and
all that. I've sold The Chosen brand new, probably
within the last two months. Really? I'm the only
Puritan here. YOLO, baby. Go down shooting. I
know people have gotten fun cease and desist
letters from The Chosen people. But, I mean,
you can even still get by with that. There's
a tolerance. It's like you're a teenage kid and
you're just trying to break the rules and see
how far you can go. and I think we're all in
that exact boat, I included. So CDs, DVDs, and
books, do you sell anything else on Amazon? Yeah,
I mean, I'll sell the usual cassette tape. A
good rule of thumb for those is if it's somebody
my age would be able to identify, then it's probably
going to be good. I do that, and I don't play
around with much else. I would love to joke around
and say I play in the VHS game, but that would
be a lie. What about video games? I do do video
games as well. I don't go too heavily in it because
my sources don't provide that many of them. I
do come across video games, and I have the buy
box for video games. I used to find them mixed
in with the DVDs all the time. I know some people
who do Facebook pickups, they'll come by and
they say, ooh, I'll find video games in this
DVD lot. I don't think those days are here anymore.
The bigger issue with video games is they've
gotten a lot more of a critical... appeal now
and everyone now knows what the value of earthbound
is and all the valuable games are all well known
now so it's a lot harder to find video games
than what it was before i was uh in amazon yeah
just like you could find guitar hero guitars
the bends once upon a time not no more um so
okay do you sell anywhere else besides amazon
I don't do too much eBay. I do a little bit,
not an incredible amount. I've sent Johnny a
consignment box, a few of them at that. And I
don't focus too greatly on eBay or other ventures.
I've solely been putting a lot of effort into
Amazon because it provides the best value. Of
course, there's that risk there. But if all fails,
I have other jobs and I have other ventures to
fall down on. And that's the diversification
that's really important to follow through on.
All right, last question before I let Mike have
you here. What is the biggest lesson you've learned?
And I know you've only been doing this for a
short minute, but, well, since 13, I guess. What's
the biggest lesson we've learned from 13 to now?
Well, I can tell you probably the best lesson
is to, ooh, that's a good question, would be
to simply just do it and don't trust everybody.
Because everybody can give you the best results,
but you have to find the right people. And almost
like finding friend groups in middle school or
elementary school or high school, you got to
find the right people. And if you're surrounded
by the right people, then you'll get sent to
the right places. That is really good advice.
All right. I need you to defend what you said
two questions ago. You stated that Amazon is
the best platform to sell media on. Okay. Defend
yourself. What about all the eBay sellers like
Johnny? Why do you prefer Amazon over everywhere
else? Why do you think it's the best one? I do
sell on Amazon, guys. I know. Well, I mean, the
benefit of Amazon is you, at least in the FBA
program, is there's the amazing sell -through
that a lot of other platforms don't see. And
then there's also the premium that Amazon can
give for a lot of listings, sometimes really
unbearably high bumps and premiums. That benefit
itself, it pays itself off. The fact that you
can just continue to scale endlessly because
I know a lot of eBay sellers or a lot of FBM
sellers, merchant fulfilled sellers, they get
limited by either space or manpower and time.
For example, merchant fulfilled sellers, they
might not be able to hold more than 3000 books
and they'd be limited at that rate and sell through.
So they have to be profitable at that point to
stay in business, which a lot of times many sellers
won't be able to. If your space is really cheap,
then you're a lot better off. the fulfilled by
Amazon model is a lot better in that way because
you can you can scale almost endlessly because
you're completely outsourcing the the shipping
process of it and That's half the that's almost
half the job And you can, when Amazon does ban
you, because everybody on the internet says you're
going to get banned on Amazon, all of us will,
right? You can actually clip this podcast and
send them and you can be like, look, guys, I'm
trying to promote your service out here to the
people, right? Then maybe they'll let you back
into selling the platform. But I do think you're
correct. How many pieces of inventory do you
have currently on Amazon? Last check I had, I
had over 27 ,000 items. Sheesh! I can tell you
that it goes up by about 2 ,500 items a month.
And it's still growing right now. And the whole
thought process and theory is eventually the
items that you send in, if it's at a constant
similar rate, is you'll eventually catch up and
you'll sell as many as you send in. Because your
sell -through rate will stay approximately constant
and... you'll pull the same amount out as you
send in and that's equilibrium and that would
be the hypothetically the most profitable point
because you're only paying enough inventory to
replenish what you currently sell and that's
that's the best point to be at in any business
so if you're growing it's going to cost you more
money than than not i can tell you that i throw
way more money in than i get out of it a lot
of times because i'm buying up more inventory
than i then I reasonably need to maintain, like
I sell what, 5 ,000 items, which is about a 20,
24 % sell -through rate a month, which is about
average for people in the media scene. And I
send in more than that. If you add the new active
inventory after that, that means I send in 7
,500. You can then almost project your revenue
with that. So if you just multiply that, send
in by your average sales price, you'll get your
expected revenue, which is higher. I got a crazy
idea for it. It just came to my mind. You should
have something like where the top co -signee
with you at the end of the year gets like, I
don't know, send them a fruit basket or something,
a box of chocolates or, you know, like it. Or
what about, like, are there employee incentives?
Like, say if I'm your best employee, besides
you paying me more money because I'm making,
you know, I'm out there sourcing more, like,
do you offer your employees incentives? I'll
be just like you and I'll go take your fans out
to mini golf. There you go. It's funny. True
story. I met up with somebody in the group. We
went mini golf. They had two courses and he's
like, nobody ever lets me pay. All right. In
my defense, everybody's like, I'll pay, I'll
pay, I'll pay. I'm like, all right, whatever.
He pays for the first course and I'll like, I'll
pay for the second course. Well, since we already
played the first course, the second course was
half off. So I paid like five bucks. It was,
it was pretty comical, but I do. Go ahead. As
long as people aren't leaving reviews on my store
saying, I know what your business is, I see you
consigning, I'll be fine. Am I right or am I
right, Mike? Yeah, it's tough, man. Give me some
headaches when it comes to having the amount
of employees that you have that you've had to
kind of deal with and experience in the past
month or two. Well, I mean, something you will
always realize, you've probably seen it as well,
is your employees will never do as good of a
job as you. ever. And if you, if you have somebody
get remotely to that point, you got to give them
an ownership stare and then give them a in charge
in the business. And they probably still won't
do it as great as you do. Essentially, probably
they might do it better. You never know. But
if you, if you're teaching somebody how to do
your job, they will only be as good as you are
at the job, unless they actually want to seek
to learn more, which more often than not, they
just want to get paid and they want to get the
job done. So probably not, but. If you have employees,
they're going to be idiots half the time. You're
going to have to tell them, no, you can't put
all the good condition discs. You can't just
remove them from the cases and throw them around.
And you know there's plenty of conundrums and
drama that has to be made because you have to
have other people working. I'm going to put you
on the hot seat now. So you being on the younger
side of the resale world, what do you think about...
when you see people complaining that reselling
doesn't work and reselling isn't the way it used
to be, and they've been reselling for longer
than you've been alive, right? Because personally,
I think to myself, right, the margins we have
in this business model, we should be able to
save and invest in our futures. I know no resellers
save, nobody's investing. And I'm curious, somebody
that's as young as you, I don't need specifics.
I know you consume reselling content, but what
do you think when you hear somebody that's been
saying, I've been reselling for 15 years and
this is the worst it's ever been while you're
sitting over here doing $75 ,000 a month? Yeah,
I could just tell them, have they tried looking
for improving their business? I mean, the biggest
issue that comes involved that many people in
the world even have is they just don't adapt.
react to changes because yeah you've been in
it for 15 years but you uh you don't even know
what scoutly is or you don't even know what you
don't even know that amazon sells stuff if you're
if you're backwards yeah you will see the face
of it being the worst in 10 years it's like uh
it's like being a typewriter salesman in the
digital age you know yeah it's true it's it's
hard to because everybody we've had on this podcast
they just knock it out of the park But for every
single person I have on the podcast, like yourself,
I see 10, 10 YouTube videos and 10 different
resellers saying that reselling is you can't
make money reselling anymore. So that's why I
was curious what your what your whole take on
the whole situation is that, you know, you can't
make money. Meanwhile, you're over here just
like folding bills away. And I'm over here like
Patrick Star with I have three dollars and that's
all I got to show for myself. Well, I mean, it's
definitely a higher bar, but it's not unprofitable.
It's just as profitable. And if you're growing
your business, you're growing your business.
But as long as you run the business right, it'll
be profitable. I mean, if you're throwing out
a 10 grand a month on spaghetti strainers every
month, you're probably having an issue. Right,
exactly. Okay, let's talk about sourcing for
a minute, because one of the major things we
hear from people is, I can't find anything. Yeah,
so there's plenty of sources out there. The fun
thing is, the best way to source is just simply
being creative. I can tell you that the best
sources that I've ever had is just from being
creative. I mean, I source at plenty of places
that aren't the average. I don't mind paying
up, so I know Mike flaunts the record stores.
I actually haven't been to a record store before,
I'm going to be honest. I've been to sources
that charge even more. I've been to one, but
they didn't allow resellers. I don't even dip
on that one. I'll source at the typical thrift
stores. I'll stop in the Goodwills. I'll do your
run of the mill, but then local connections is
definitely one of the better things to do. If
you come off as somebody who will help you, and
especially if you offer cash incentive, it helps
a lot more. I know there's people who go out
and say, I'll take your books for free. Sure,
they'll get some success. If you find people
and you'll say, hey, I can sign your books, they'll
be even happier because they'll be getting some
money. You just have to make sure that that value
is there. And if not that, then tell them you'll
buy them Olive Garden or something. All right.
Now the not -so -fun question. We talked about
probably your biggest thing you took away from
reselling. What was your biggest mistake you've
done in reselling? The biggest mistake I've done?
The biggest mistake I've probably made in the
Amazon scene of reselling? Yeah, we'll leave
the scope there. Okay. I think something that
happens in general is, at least when you're younger,
one of the mistakes you make is you offer too
much in your value proposition sometimes. Because
I'll go 20 miles when I only needed to go one
mile in some cases. So I'll be working at a deal
and I'll... I'll offer the full nine yards when
they would have really taken the whole one yard.
And those type of mistakes can be costly. Yeah,
it could be a beneficial relationship. But over
-offering sometimes is not the most beneficial
thing. And it can bite you in the end. And that's
definitely one of the bigger mistakes that I've
made, at least early on. I either overpay employees
or I over -offer on lots because I feel like
I have to satisfy them. But in the end, you're
really just trying to get a deal for yourself.
Absolutely. That's a good one. That's something
we could all learn from. So do you stay local
for your sourcing or do you hop on a plane or
your private jet from time to time? I can tell
you that 99 % of the time I don't source more
than an hour of where I live. An hour from where
you live. Okay. I'll go to book sales. You're
not going over the great divide to find these.
I'll go to book sales over two and a half hours
away, but I've never sourced past that point.
Even when on vacation, I haven't sourced more
than that far away. Gotcha. So let me ask you
this, because I know you live in a city, but
if you were to live in a small rural town where
things are more than likely an hour away, would
you change the way you do things? That's a good
question to have. I'd say if I lived in a small
town, of course, I would focus on building the
connections with the people in that small town.
Because you can either go in two ways. You can
either widen your grip, or you can tighten what
you already have control over. In mafia terms,
you could sort of say. And if I was in a smaller
town, what I'd do is I would... I'd probably
try and work a deal with the library there. I'd
probably try and work a deal with the thrift
store because there's probably one or two thrift
stores in the city. There's at least an antique
mall, at least. I'd work with those people. I'd
work with the storage unit people, and I'd try
and be known across that town. And once I have
every avenue, every, I say that with an asterisk
because that's really hard to imagine, that's
when you would want to start going out further.
It's either you go wide or you get a tight grip
on one closer area. And I think since I'm in
a city, I try and get a tight grip on one good
area. And I don't go out further for that reason.
And for that reason, that's why I don't travel
out so far. I also have people who go out further
than me because it's their job to do that. So
I try and keep a smaller area and radius. And
if I was in a smaller town, I'd probably do that
if I was only sourcing like that. Scale 1 to
10, how worried are you about getting banned
on Amazon tonight? If I was worried, I'd have
initial stress. Yeah, I'd probably say I'd be
a 5 or a 6. Yeah, it's something that sits in
the back of your head. But, I mean, during the
Cold War, everyone had a fear of nuclear war,
but that doesn't mean that it was going to be
realized. My man, I believe let's make the money
today while we can. If we get banned, we get
banned. You're just going to go start something
else, right? I mean, everybody that's listening
to this podcast is like, This kid could probably
start any other business in the world and be
successful. And I have the same mindset with
myself. If worse comes to worse, then I'm out
of here. I'll just go start something else. And
that's all there is to it at the end of the day.
I think a lot of people are afraid to start Amazon
because of, oh, I might get banned. I might get
banned. When you started Amazon, how much...
Were you worried about getting banned? I remember
when I started Amazon, there wasn't as much content
around us and there wasn't as much noise. So
I didn't even think you could get banned on Amazon,
right? Kind of like eBay, you need to basically
rob somebody to get kicked off the platform.
So I was just like, whatever, I didn't care.
But I'm curious, when you started, were getting
banned, was that even playing a bigger factor
than actually going out and sourcing products?
Well, I can tell you that I tried starting Amazon
on two occasions. Once in middle school, which
I got canceled down because I wasn't 18 and there's
an age limit for Amazon. And I got all into all
the YouTube content and I got scared away just
because of the content alone. And the second
time around when I went in for books, I'm going
to be honest with you, I barely watch any content.
I just simply like tending to my own garden and
growing my own farm to see how I can do it. I
usually don't look at other people's. I don't
look at a lot of other content for that reason.
Yeah, there's the content out there. And it's
cool. You can see titles. But I don't keep an
eye on what other people are doing for the most
part. Of course, you'll need it to see developments.
And those will pop up. And for the most part,
the day -to -day content you'll see is not going
to be the most valuable. It's going to be either
more of the same or it's going to be a sales
pitch for software. And just... Just being going
into it blindly, I think, was a lot better than
going into it educated because the way that you're
educated gives you an alternative picture to
what might really be the case. Because I can
tell you that on my first time around, there
was a bunch of doomsday seeking thought about
penny undercutting and price crashing. I mean,
it is a risk, but it's not a risk that is so
large that you have to be worried about it. Do
you penny undercut? No, I don't in the first
three months. I know. I stopped doing that a
while ago just because I noticed in my own data
that when I stopped penny undercutting, my sell
-through dropped about 20%, but my average sales
price went up about $2. You're still not getting
off the table here because you still do it after
three months. So technically, you're a part of
my gang. So good try trying to weasel your way
out and being like a nice guy like, hey, guys,
I let you get a pass for three months, but then
I'm tanking everything. You don't consume a lot
of content. I'm curious. How did you find Mike
over here? I'm going to be honest. I was bored,
and I scrolled around on YouTube. I still see
some content, and I'm going to be honest. I came
across his channel by almost pure luck. Luck.
We got Max because of luck, Mike. We need more
of that. What a lucky group of guys we are to
have Max, right? promoted one of my ugly mug
youtube thumbnails it was probably one of the
worst clickbait videos that i made that's why
i make them from time to time to get people like
max reeled in and then i can take credit for
his whole business because he found my video
even though he started reselling long before
he found my video i ran in i ran into your channel
probably about two months after i started selling
books and that's also i can tell you from my
sales graph because i can still see my first
few months of sales graphs that I started to
increase a few months afterwards. So there could
be some attribution. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know
you said you're sending me checks in the mail.
They're lost somewhere in the mail. I get it.
They'll show up eventually. I'm not worried about
it. So we're going to wrap it up here, Max. He
actually still does consignment, right? All of
his information will be in the description in
the comment section. So if you want to sell on
Amazon or maybe you're the person, I've thought
of this too. What about if you don't even have
an Amazon account and you just let Mac sell it
for you, right? So maybe you're the eBay seller,
kind of like I do with Johnny. I don't sell on
eBay, but. I technically kind of sort of do because
I send him my stuff to sell on eBay. So I'm like
a full, if Johnny's a full -time eBay seller,
so am I. Everybody can be a full -time eBay seller.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So if you're interested
or you have gated items, Max is the guy for it.
He's vetted. He's not just some random guy I
found off the street. He's been doing this for
months. He'll give you your numbers. He's on
every one of our coaching calls, basically, that
we have within my group. He's active in the Discord.
He's readily available to answer questions. Max,
final thoughts? On reselling, final thoughts
on you overall and your business, where you plan
on taking this and the consignment opportunities
people have, maybe some of the wins that you've
had with co -signees. Well, I can tell you that
reselling is definitely a good skill to have.
I know majority of people, they won't be able
to see it. I can tell you that if I had a number
of people on hands who call me a scalper or some
other derogatory reseller name, it's definitely
a large count. There's going to be a lot of flack
for reselling because some people, they don't
have the understanding for it. They'll go and
get their doctorate and be a doctor and never
resell anything in their entire lives. But just
because they don't understand doesn't mean that
you can't understand. And therefore, that's an
important thing to go for. And in my own business,
I'm going to continue consigning and doing good
with that. And I'm just now growing it again.
I'm opening up resurfacing consignment. There's
going to be more information about that. And
you'll be able to outsource all your resurfacing,
too, if that's something that you don't ever
want to deal with. Because I'm going to be honest,
I can't stand a JFJ. A JFJ is evil. The JFJ is
the most vile machine I've ever seen. It's dirty.
It gets your hands crusty. and it's not something
i enjoy so you know what me and the jfj screw
all of you i love my little jfj i've had the
same one since i started but i do agree it's
a little messy but you know what dude sometimes
you got to get down and dirty what is like a
for somebody that can't find it at the description
or the comment below what's a email address or
the best way to contact you if they wanted to
reach out okay so uh my my fax page is on the
discord server But I also have a – and I'll give
you the link so you can put it into the video
below. And I also have a Facebook page of my
name as well, MaxDam, M -A -X -D -A -M. I can
also give you a link to that. And you can reach
out to me either through message or you can reach
out to me through Discord. I have more contact
information in my Facts page and everything you
need to know about my consignment program and
my new resurfacing program if that's something
that interests you. And I'm more than willing
to talk to you all because I – I'm knowledgeable
about it and I've given some advice if you can
sign with me. Yeah, I mean, you can't go wrong
when you have somebody that's readily available.
It's not just you go and kind of deal with a
chat pod or something like that. That's why when
you first brought it up to me, I was like, hey,
this makes sense, right? Like you're somebody
that's readily available. The same with Johnny,
you know, that's why I was telling him to do
it. He's readily available. If anybody has any
type of question, they literally can reach out
to you directly and get an answer within the
same day. So like that type of service doesn't
exist in the resale world. It's hard to come
by with the softwares and the bigger companies.
you can't get that type of personable response.
So we appreciate you coming on and we'll probably
have you on again, probably this time next year.
So thanks for hanging out with us this week.
Yeah, it's a pleasure talking around and I'll
be bringing some interesting updates next year.
All right, we'll talk to everybody next week.
Thanks for listening to another episode of the
Reseller's Mindset Podcast. Today's full episode
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