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 resellers mindset podcast
i'm like next to johnny today we are separating
fact from fiction so if i told you that my current
age was 43 years old do you think that's fact
or do you think that's fiction fiction there
you go all right it's kind of it's kind of it's
kind of easy to do these things but in the reselling
space there is both a lot of facts and a lot
of fictions and a lot of the fictions come with
opinions right and us as i don't know i like
to think we're kind of like batman and robin
i don't care if i'm you know robin dude if you
want to be batman i'll let you be batman you
know i'll probably look better in the red uh
than the all black anyway so i think of us as
kind of like batman and robin and we have to
do what's right and i think the big thing about
doing what's right is telling people from real
experiences and backing it up with real numbers
that, hey, here is the potential. Hey, here is
exactly how you can achieve X, Y, and Z because
here's exactly how we achieved it. And it's not
like we have some secret unicorn that me and
Johnny ride on and we magically get the best
books, right? We magically get... The most inventory.
There's nothing proprietary to me or Johnny's
business at all. And when you have that in place
and you build the business, you can say, all
right, well, here, if you want to make five thousand
dollars a month, here's exactly how many pieces
of inventory you need to have. Right. If you
want to list X amount of items on eBay, you want
to have better quality listings on eBay. Here's
exactly what I do. Right. It's all it's facts
that everything we talk about, everything we
do. It's factually backed up by the business.
And I think that is like, there are, you know,
there's a handful of really good resellers that
do exactly what we're talking about. But I think
the problem with reselling is it's so catchy
and so get rich quick type of stuff that for
every, you know, podcast like us, there's five
others that are like, oh, just go start TikTok
affiliate and get rich today. And it's like,
wow, that sounds great. But like, where do I
even begin? Yeah, I mean, my unicorn is not so
secret. It's real. And I tell everybody I have
a unicorn. But no, I mean, you're absolutely
right. We don't do anything special. We just
do the same thing over and over again. And we're
not in it for the flash. Like, hey, look at my
thousand dollar book. No, it's just widgets to
us. And we send in our widgets and we get paid
or we list our widgets on whatever reselling
platform we get paid. The people. wanting to
talk about numbers but they're false numbers
they're mainly just flashy gross numbers they
aren't their true net and it's like doesn't do
anything with me for me you could maybe making
10 of that whole number for all i know your overhead's
so high you're making negative dollars um it
doesn't really tell me anything about them uh
not that it's any of my business i get it but
when you put yourself out there like that um
it is our business dude if someone says hey you
start selling on start selling on pango books
or eight books you can make 10 grand 10 grand
a month right like then it becomes our business
because if you're in our communities or even
if you're posting a comment right like it's misleading
information because anybody can say anything
out there or anybody be like oh start this and
you'll make five thousand dollars a month and
it's like okay well you know even with the numbers
right because you even hit it you know numbers
don't mean shit and it when somebody says i'm
selling ten thousand dollars a month for all
you know they could be losing goddamn money right
Exactly. They can be in the red so far down and
credit card debt up to their eyeballs, and they
are hop, skipping a jump away from filing Chapter
11. I think the problem is it's hard to focus
on something for a long period of time, right?
I mean, just think about the hundreds of thousands,
millions of items we've scanned, like, between
me and you, right? Like, dude, it's... It's not
glorious by any stretch of the imagination. I
can't tell you the book I scanned last Tuesday,
let alone yesterday. I mean, yeah, I mean, like
we, I went to the, uh, I went, I had a long,
long thrifting day. It's like eight to seven
or whatever. And I go in the pawn shop and there's
like 3000 DVDs. And I'm just like, FML, man.
Like I'm going to be here forever. Like what
a life delete. I'm in this grubby pawn shop scanning
stuff. And like, it's. It's not exciting. And
I think that's where the the I guess I don't
know what it would be called, but like the the
temptation to to try something else instead of
just focusing on that. I mean, all the different
business models we've seen over the years we've
been doing this podcast and every single one.
I just wave a goodbye. Right. Even if there's
people in my ear like. hey, Whatnot's catching
fire, right? When Whatnot first started to pick
up steam, I'm like, there ain't no shot, right?
Like I know what I can get away with in Amazon
land, eBay Live, right? That was one, I heard,
you know, people whispering about it. Oh, eBay
Live is going to pick up, you know? Oh yeah,
yeah. And then even other completely different
business models, right? Like online arbitrage
and retail arbitrage. I'm just like. Just send
me on my way with my scanner and let me just
scan all the doodads and send them in a box.
And I think it's hard. I do think that's probably
the biggest thing is consistency and not getting
bored of what you're doing, even if it makes
you money. People still do people. People can
make serious money in this. Right. I've literally
I've seen this happen firsthand. People make
ten, twenty thousand dollars a month doing exactly
what me and you do. And for some reason, dude,
that little devil on their shoulder is like,
hey, I got a new business venture for you. And
then they start to, you know, kind of neglect
their main source of income, you know, their
business. And you just they kind of it's just
a never ending cycle. And then you slowly, slowly,
slowly go away. Right. I mean, I get it. What
we do is the same thing, and it's boring. And
when you're bored, you'll do anything to do something
that's not boring. But when you're stacking cash
in your bank account, I don't know. You should
stay bored. Now, if you want to try something
out on an experimental level, sure, but it should
be getting experimental effort. It shouldn't
be getting your full effort or your primary effort.
And it's kind of hard when you're in the community
and somebody says, we're going to all do this
now because it's amazeballs. And I'm making amazeballs
kind of money. And you're a fool if you don't
want to make amazeballs money with me. And then
everyone's like, okay, I guess we'll do this.
It sounds dangerous, but okay, I trust you. amazeball
guy and you just see this huge swing i saw this
like with ra or the the whole nike thing the
nike outlet thing for that still goes on it's
just i see it over and over and over again these
little fads that pick up and then they fade for
like one or two years and then what was left
before is still here it's just like why don't
we just do the still here's all the time it's
a delicate balance man because think about it
right like the the people we have in our groups
um we can't make drastic changes right like we
can't what johnny's saying like if i go into
the discord and you know we got a weekly call
later today and johnny's call later this week
and it's like hey uh well johnny's johnny's uh
not gonna list the same way on ebay he's done
doing his own listings he's only using ai right
and mike's done using the certain software that
he uses to you know reprice his items What's
up, Amazon tellers? 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. People do.
People will change right along with like it's
it's almost the blind leading the blind in the
resource space. So when me and Johnny try things
and we've tried plenty of things, most of them
never make it to the surface because they wind
up sucking. Right. But we have we have made,
you know, some pretty significant improvements
trying different things. But it's something we
try. Get results and then evaluate. Is this something
that we think other people should do in their
business? Because we know when we say something
that maybe somebody out there tries tries exactly
what we did. And for me personally, I always
want to lead people down the path where there's
the least amount of risk so you don't get banned
and you can make the decent amount of money.
Right. Like I'm not promising you you're ever
going to be a millionaire by any stretch of the
imagination. But I feel like. If you want to
grow this business from zero to 20 grand a month,
like I have the blueprint for you to do that
after 20 ,000. All right, listen, you're on your
own. All right, hot shot. You should have enough
money. You can get it yourself a nice little
space, whatever it may be. But the things we
try, you know, I'll give an example of a real
life example, like sending in the fast moving
inventory, regardless of what it's selling for,
right? Tried that for months. I skewed it out.
We can see exactly what's going on. How many
of those are we actually selling? And then we
can say, hey, maybe if you're dealing in bulk
inventory, maybe you should try this and just
see what kind of results you get. You have to
you got to tread lightly now, especially you,
because now, you know, you got your own group,
your own YouTube channel. And, you know, you
can't make crazy rash decisions and put them
out there or just like throw random opinions
out there. Right. Like we had, you know, Max's
in the discord the other day saying, oh, I'm
changing my repricer. And people are like, oh,
my God, what's going on? Like, I'm just like,
everybody relax. Right. Like everybody just calm
down. Well, I had to learn this lesson pretty
hard and I felt bad afterwards. Felt mainly bad
for myself. But when I was doing my send everything
into Amazon model, when they just like, okay,
there's no restock limits anymore. I was like,
all right, I'm going to play an experimental
this year and see what happens. That experiment
went really well for nine months and really terrible
for the last three months of the year. And people
were copying me and telling me this. I'm like,
I told you don't do it. I'm running an experiment.
I don't have the final results in, but this is
what I'm doing. People were doing it anyway,
and I'm pretty sure they suffered the same results
that I did by copying me. I felt bad for them
a little bit. I know someone. I got one -on -ones
with the guy. I won't expose his name and everything,
but he did exactly your model. But I'll tell
you what, he did the same thing you did, right?
He hit the same exact point where, you know,
you're like, all right, well, maybe this doesn't
make sense. And dude, he's doing better than
he ever has nowadays. So maybe, maybe. I mean,
I took some, I took some positive things away
and stuff that I'll continue to do, but the end
result, it doesn't work. You can't outpace it.
I mean, unless you're constantly hiring employees
and, but that's a never ending red lining your
overhead. It's you will never win. It's hard,
dude, because there's so many resellers. like
social media resellers and youtube resellers
man it's hard to find good resellers i mean it
is it is really hard to find somebody that's
going to be transparent and show you the exact
processes because what we're talking about I
mean, I guess me and Johnny don't care, right?
Like we can tell you everything and we know most
people aren't going to take action. Like I have
nothing, there's not, I wish I had some stuff
that I could hide, right? Like some secret things,
right? Like, but unfortunately I don't and I
still put it all out there because I know at
the end of the day, I'm still going to go and
I'm still going to scan and I'm still going to
find stuff. I believe there's enough media for
us all to make a decent amount of money on Amazon.
A lot of people out there that are in the reselling
space, if they have some type of secret sauce,
they're hesitant to put it out there. And I don't
blame them one bit, right? But then the same
thing is you can't go give your opinions and
tell somebody, hey, just give this generic blanket
statement of like, hey, go sell on eBay. You
can make $30 ,000 a month. I am. Well, I could
go buy a damn scratch -off ticket and win a million
dollars. I mean, you're basically telling me
the same thing. That sounds like the better play
right there. But no, I mean, yeah, I learned
to watch what I say even if I'm running an experiment.
I don't really say I'm running experiments anymore
because I don't want people to take it as the
gospel set in stone truth of, hey, this sounds
great. Johnny's doing it. I'm going to do it.
So you're very much right. I got to watch what
I say these days because people may – what do
they call it? Lemmings who jump into the ocean
blindly? Dude, I'm basically illiterate. You're
talking to the wrong person. Yeah. a frog heading
into incoming traffic i don't know uh i have
dude i have i have had an experiment going on
now since the beginning of the year and it's
been successful depending on how you look at
it and i'm still not sure if i want to put it
out there because it doesn't pertain no don't
do it keep it to yourself it doesn't really pertain
to reselling as in reselling but it's uh you
know it's not like i'm getting one over on everybody
i wish i was i wish i could have like this this
trump card i just be like you know what yeah
i'm the best and i never told anybody up until
this point but you all suck because of this one
thing that i do that you don't oh man i mean
there's very little innovation in what we're
doing and the information that we do It's usually
been done before, but we are arrogant, or at
least I'm arrogant enough to think I can do it
better somehow. And I try things. Or maybe I
have a half -cocked idea and I don't know the
outcome. The math's kind of funny because it's
Excel math, right? But what's the real math play
out in Amazon land or eBay land? The only way
to know is to try it and find out. And a lot
of those things, they just don't work, honestly.
And usually what's been said over the last 20
years, that still holds up. There's no really
reinventing the wheel. Now, do new and different
opportunities come along? Do new and different
pieces of equipment come along and or streamlining
of systems? Yes, with technology and all that.
We've got AI pretty much at our fingertips. So
I believe there's innovation there. But as far
as the day -to -day, you're still listing, you're
still sitting in boxes. It's pretty much the
same. Now, repricers get fancier these days,
sure. The listing process, though, I think we've
taken a step back in the listing process with
the softwares as of late, but we can blame Amazon
on that one. Yeah, I think you have to look at
each platform and maybe we can just... dive into
each one and think like maybe some blanket statements
that we see all the time like amazon you can
make a lot of money fast is like the biggest
thing like you can like johnny said at the beginning
of this you can show off your orange bars on
your phone that you're doing twenty thousand
dollars a month right like within six months
if you really go hard that's that's it's not
amazon's not fast money by no stretch of the
amount anybody that tells you amazon's fast money
you need to run the opposite direction because
it is not fast money uh It's nowhere close, at
least a month, probably closer to two months
until you get your money if you sell an item.
So just have that in the back of your mind. I
think we kind of trip that over to eBay. I think
the eBay challenge is you can make a lot of money
on eBay. And a lot of people say, yeah, you know,
I just sell my stuff on eBay and I make $5 ,000
a month. Well, you know, it's a blanket statement
here. But what are you selling? uh what's it
what type of listing quality are you doing right
like there's so many other things and it's not
that blanket statements are misleading but they
kind of sort of are to a new person who's looking
to start because when they just see the comment
or the social media short, real TikTok that says,
hey, I just started selling on eBay this first
month and I made $10 ,000. Well, sure, if you
had, you know, a gold necklace sitting around
your house that was yours that you wanted to
get rid of and it sold for, you know, $10 ,000.
And sure, yeah, I guess your numbers check out.
I guess you could sleep easy at night, but it's
still kind of misleading. And then, you know,
if we kind of switch from the eBay, you look
at the other big one is whatnot, right? Just
go sell and whatnot. Well. I mean, most resellers
don't understand and most resellers aren't content
creators. So the idea that you can just, hey,
go start a whatnot, sell $5 ,000 your first month.
No, you need to have a personality, right? You
got to be willing to get quality items at a really
low price and take some of the money. Some of
the time, because not all of your items are going
to sell in the beginning because you're not going
to have an audience, but sure. It sounds great
at the surface level, right? People tell me and
Johnny go start whatnot. And if we wanted to,
sure we could, but we understand there's other,
I think that's why, that's why we stay in our
lanes, dude, because we know for every one of
these statements, there's like 50 other things
that go into actually building that business
the right way. That is not talked about. Maybe
a whole podcast just trying to cover one aspect
of it. We could do that, but it'd be boring and
dull to people that are already doing it, which
is most of our listenership. We had her on a
while ago, but Hunley had a great quote that
she uses from time to time. Everybody chooses
their hard. So what's your hard? Is it Amazon
hard? Is it eBay hard? Is it whatnot hard? They
all got different shades of what hard means,
and it's just what's your tolerance level. I
will say that once you get over the software
hurdles and the sign -up hurdles and waiting
for your money hurdles, Amazon's pretty straightforward.
Now, do they throw us an email once every three
months? Do they break the buy box every other
month? Yeah, but that's just part of the game.
But after that, it's just easy and stay in the
course, essentially. I mean, it's the same thing
with your eBay, though, right? Like the type
of books you sell, right? You have that figured
out. And if somebody came to you and was like,
hey, Johnny, how are you making $10 ,000 a month
on eBay? You'd be like, well, here's my 55 ,000
step process because I know you. It's not even
under 10 steps. It's ridiculous. It's like he
pulls out a book. It's like this. Start reading
from page one, mister. Like when I had my photographer
come in at the beginning of the year, I had three
sheets of paper explaining how to take photos.
but it was for all scenarios to be fair for different
book types. He looked at that, looked at me and
I was like, yeah, we're just going to do this
section today. This is a little small piece.
We'll work up to these other parts of the sheet.
Don't worry, kid. I think, dude, I think one
thing that's under, I guess, under talked about,
it's not even a goddamn saying, but I just made
it one. One thing that's under talked about.
It's choosing a platform based on what you want
to sell. I think this is huge. I think based
on the type of items you want to sell, you have
to decide on a platform that best caters to that,
right? Like I do think Amazon, if you want to
scale a media business, is going to be your best
route when it comes to overall workload and kind
of how big you can grow as one person. Now, if
you start talking about collectibles and video
games and jewelry and car parts, right, and clothing,
it's not Amazon by no stretch of the imagination.
Like, Amazon loses across the board in a lot
of – almost a majority of other categories are
not a good fit for Amazon, in my opinion, just
because the return policy is ridiculous, right?
And you can't afford to sell high -priced items
to get, you know, kind of scammed all the time.
But I do think you have to – what you choose
to sell you have to make a decision what platform
is going to be the best not just because johnny's
on ebay or mike's on amazon or vice versa you
have to say well i'm going to sell trading cards
well then guess what amazon ain't it so now you
got to choose you want to do the live selling
or do you want to sell on ebay now make a decision
there do you want to sell on tcg player right
like there's even these other niche sites that
you know aren't the big players that still might
even be better for your category based on what
you're selling Right. And then are you selling
new? If you are, there's a lot of risk management
to factor in. Who's going to ding you the hardest
and how soon? Or versus on some other platform
where they don't really care that you're selling
new. It's fine. The brands might come after you,
but the platform is going to leave you alone.
And so you got to take all these little things
into consideration. If you're not married to
a widget, go for the easy money. And I'm not
going to say it's that's a bad statement. Let's
let's say the least. Path of Resistance money,
we'll go with that. And that's probably Amazon,
honestly. But if you care about the objects you're
selling, it may not be Amazon. Like my little
mass markets, they don't do so well on Amazon.
I can make a lot more money putting those up
on eBay, though it takes me a little longer as
far as the listing process goes, but I'm okay
with that. I like doing it. Then if you're wanting
to sell stuff for... For the goal of getting
an audience, like a social media brand presence,
then Whatnot's probably your play, honestly.
If you're wanting to, A, you're the brand, so
if you decide to pick up and set up shop somewhere
else, well, you've got a following. Most of them
are probably going to follow you around wherever
you end up going. Yeah, but you can't have the
personality of Eeyore. No, or Bill Nye the Science
Guy. Hey, guys. Welcome back to my Whatnot show.
It might work, dude. It might work. Here's a
Skittle palette of drugs. Please take these so
I can be entertained. And I do think this, right?
I think what me and Johnny are saying, you're
going to find winners regardless. And I just
challenge you all when you find somebody that's
winning and doing kind of what you want to do.
I do believe most resellers are willing to kind
of say, hey, here's kind of what got me here,
because a lot of us have built this from nothing
and have kind of changed our financial past.
Right. Like clothing, like I would never do clothing.
I think it's an absolute crime. But there are
people that absolutely. crush clothing and i'm
like i don't know how you do it but uh kudos
to you and if i ever do want to learn how to
do it then i know where i can turn and look to
uh it's crazy that even like the car parts right
like it's it's there's opportunity and there's
successful people you just have to find ones
that are willing to to kind of tell you like
it is it's not always you know It's hard for
me and I've gotten better at this, telling somebody
that you got to change your business, right?
Like this isn't going to work. This isn't sustainable.
I used to stray away from like telling people
like your business sucks, but like, and kind
of taking the Johnny route and being like, hey,
you got to just work harder. But I have gotten
better at that. And at the end of the day, like
we said, all we do, it's consistency. And all
we care about is scanning the most stupid items
with our scanner. You're looking over on YouTube,
like without this, I don't exist. Isn't that
crazy to think, dude, I don't have my scanner.
I can't go do nothing because I don't know nothing.
But that's like, that's why I love Amazon. I
don't need the skill set. So in the book Apocalypse,
when your scanner fails, I'll be okay. I'll protect
you, Mike. No, I will have the database downloaded
from like. But your battery is going to die unless
you like get a potato to wire up to it. That's
why I guess that's why I wound up in Amazon land
is because I seen it as there's no possible way
I want to learn everything there is to learn
about books or even sit down and spend time.
If I can just go and work harder than people
and just scan more items and I can get better
results than like. I'm more – everybody that
knows me is going to agree with me. I'm more
confident in my ability to outscan people than
the confidence I have in knowing what books are
profitable and having any type of book knowledge.
Right. I mean if you ever watch like a Let's
Go Shopping or Haul video or even some of your
scanning videos, they're what, 15, maybe 20 minutes
all in all? But the reality of time spent to
produce that 15 minutes of content. I promise
you guys is hours easy to scan an entire wall
of books. You're seeing it in 15 minutes condensed
down. It's an hour, maybe two. It just depends
how grand you're going to be with it. I think
people trying to get into it. Oh, I got 15 minutes
to spare. Even if you say it took you an hour
or two hours, what they're seeing until they
experience it, it doesn't click for them. They
just think it's a 15, 20 minute thing. It's not.
Yeah, I think I think you're right, too. I think
I think a lot of people even to this day still
cut corners on scanning things. Yeah, I think
a lot of people still go in and I still think
they try to. Well, that shelf doesn't look good,
so I'm not going to scan it. Or that's fiction
books. I'm not going to scan those. Or like them
trade paperbacks, right? Like no matter how many
of those I post, Johnny, like the trade paperbacks,
we can post them until we're dead. People still
ain't going to even look. Even when I look at
the damn things and like I get excited when I
see the trade paperbacks because it's something
different than me scanning, right? Because I'm
just going to look for. trade paperbacks like
movie tie -ins and things like that so like that
excites me but i know people see that whole section
and they're just like damn that waste of my time
yeah they thumb their nose up at it or it's just
it's terrible yeah but i'm a okay with that because
it's more money for me and the market less saturated
but uh there's other things like that i mean
i bought cassettes honestly but there's i know
there's money in it i know several people even
you've made money with cassettes that I think
it's a harder game to play overall, but there's
definitely money in it. And even in clothes or
the toy collectible crowd or the movie memorabilia
crowd, there's money all over the place. What's
another one that's a paper product? Ephemera.
I think Ephemera is a very hard game to play.
It's very specialized. You really got to know
what you're doing because it's like all paper
products, essentially, that aren't books or whatever.
And knowing about... postcards and receipts or
photos of dead children they don't got their
eyes closed because they're alive they're dead
but um there's weird markets for everything and
there's a buyer for that stuff everywhere i think
another thing that i take into consideration
is like how readily available is the stuff that
you sell if i'm going to put a statement out
there that hey you can go make ten thousand dollars
well how many items are you selling where can
i find this stuff right and Every single source
that we go to is out there, right? Like library
sales, estate sales, flea markets, thrift stores,
pawn shops. There's another one, record stores.
It's all out there. So when I tell somebody,
I can say it with confidence that, hey. If you
want to make X amount of dollars, there's exactly
what you do, right? How many places do you have
around you that you can go source? That's the
biggest thing we need to understand from the
beginning. That's going to decide if you want
to do this business, if you're going to have
to get bulk inventory, or is it possible just
to run kind of thrift routes like I do? And it's
all reverse engineerable from there. But that's
another thing that comes into it because there's,
you know, somebody selling designer bags or,
you know, car parts. Well, if you don't got a
place you can get this stuff, right, then that's
not going to be feasible. So it sounds good at
the surface level when you start peeling it back.
And we sell stuff that's everywhere. Thankfully,
I think like almost 99 % of the households in
America have one piece of media in the house,
whether that's a book, CD, DVD, cassette, record,
whatever that may be. So it's everywhere for
us. I guess that kind of makes it easier, and
I guess that makes us a little bit more jaded
when we hear people talk about other business
models, and they're like, just go start selling
PSA 10 graded Pokemon cards. I'm like, shoot,
yeah, well, if I could find them anywhere, of
course I would. I'm out here scraping the bottom
of the barrel for a $12 book. Yeah, but going
back to the following me just because you're
a person of influence kind of thing. taking the
person out of it i mean i see people try to follow
trends like this like whatever's like i don't
know the hottest christmas gifts or whatever
you got that small narrow window and if you're
behind that window you're gonna lose a whole
bunch of money or you're doing it at the height
and it's going to be a decline you're not going
to make as much money You got to be prepared
to do that. And then I see people jump from trend
to trend to trend to trend to trend. They really
don't have a business. They're just trying to
do what people are screaming about that's popular
for, I don't know, 15 minutes. And they don't
have a full business because they're usually
on that mid to they've lost a whole bunch of
money kind of thing. And they're trying to chase
it. I'd rather not chase. I'd rather do something
that's steady all the time, whether that's eBay
or Amazon. Or anything, really. I mean, I get
the appeal. People want to make a quick buck.
Everybody does, right? I mean, we mentioned earlier
the lotto ticket. That's the quickest buck there
is, right? Walk in the gas station, walk out,
and turn on the TV and hope. But I'd rather not
hope. I'd rather have a guarantee, honestly.
I think another advantage we have is... Okay.
I believe you can make a thousand dollars selling
any, any category in the universe. But I also
think to myself, is this scalable, right? Like
Johnny's saying, I've done some of these chase
the bolo type items, right? Like I flipped a
COVID test when they were at, like when you couldn't
find them anywhere, it was like a certain brand
one and you could buy them for like 15 bucks
and they were selling for like 60 bucks each.
And like, I would literally would list them while
still in the store and they would sell before
I checked out. And like, I was driving all around
town, right? Like, getting them all, selling
them all. But, like, okay, I made probably, like,
$1 ,000, we'll say on that. But, like, that's
it, dude. It's done, right? Like, that business
doesn't exist. One and done. You got to find
another one and done. That business didn't even
exist, like, a month after I did it because they
stopped letting people price gouge because I
was selling them on eBay. And they wouldn't even
let me sell the damn things anymore, right? So,
like Johnny said, like, what's the risk associated
with? And another one that I was doing, shit,
what was it? Remember there's that Crack -A -Barrel,
like, Ghost Lantern thing that they put out once
a year? People go crazy for that thing. I believe
it, dude. It's like anything that's limited edition,
right? People that go to the theme parks and
buy stuff. Or the movie theater popcorn buckets,
right? Or the new Disney pins or weird stuff
like that. I guess if you're into running around
the world, going to all the stores and looking
for stuff, maybe that's somebody's jam, right?
Maybe somebody's like, yeah, I love going to
every Target or Walmart. It certainly wouldn't
be boring. I mean, you're trying to get there
within... store our windows hoping they have
i don't know 10 units yeah i think that works
right so when somebody says they sell ten thousand
dollars a month in furbies right like so be it
i mean if that's if they say hey i go to 30 targets
and 20 Walmarts. And this is exactly how I do
it. Sure. But you know, it sounds good. Like,
cool. How do I sell $10 ,000 in Furbies? And
then you're like, you got to go to at least 20
targets. I'm like, well, I got like three targets
in like a 50 mile radius. So this 100 % is not
going to work for me. Your back seat is filled
up with pre -filled gas cans. And on the way
back, you're chucking them out because you need
rooms for all the Furbies. You just got to find
out what you want to sell. Where's the best place
to sell it? And do you have enough of it in your
area to build a business on? And if you don't
have enough, even if it's something that interests
you, right? I'm sure there's a Furby supplier
out there somewhere, right? So you can have...
pallets and gay lords of furbies delivered to
your garage or your storage unit if you wanted
to but these are the next level questions that
we don't think about when we see that initial
flash of start selling on amazon make twenty
thousand dollars a month you're like well dude
if i had twenty thousand dollars right and they
never amazon sellers never ever say that line
based off their profit it's always this i've
never ever heard of amazon i'm even guilty of
it because i just like joined in on the fun i
i made twenty thousand dollars a month on amazon
made in quotation marks living the dream right
um yeah i mean as far as what we're doing some
of it's a little bit forecastable i mean all
the actresses and and actors and musicians we
kind of know some of them are getting up in years
and maybe you want to hold on to i don't know
what's her name just got in the hospital dolly
parton right she was she just got recently checked
in the hospital she is up there in years um she's
the same as a share by the way i found that interesting
but anyway if you know somebody's in dwindling
health and you have a whole bunch of their stock
in maybe now's the time to send it in before
well I hope they don't die, but they die. And
then the prices skyrocket out of that stuff for
a quick minute. Same for anything that hasn't
come to film or it's a reboot of a film that's
coming out. Well, that stuff, you've got months,
sometimes years in advance that this stuff is
going to hit mainstream media. It's going to
come out in theaters again or be released on
television. You got the Stephen King Welcome
to Derry thing coming up. I bet you there'll
be a little uptick in Stephen King type stuff.
pretty much i bet mike's paycheck on it it's
not much you bet mike's paycheck that's coming
from johnny it's not much it's tiny i do i guess
i'm gonna wrap it up here right because i don't
think it's bad to take risk in life and i do
think being an entrepreneur is the best way to
get ahead financially in this country um or anywhere
in the universe as a matter of fact because you
control your outcome, right? Most of the time,
you are the business, you run the business, you
decide how profitable and not profitable you
can be. There's going to be changes along the
way. But I look back to kind of, you know, I
fell for it, right? How I started in Amazon.
It's not like, you know, I just was like, hey,
I found somebody that was, you know, the used
book guy before the used book guy. I listened
to a podcast with. a roamer, the roamer and John
Muscarella and neither of them sell books anymore.
And I'm still here selling books. I don't know
how I feel about that, but, uh, it's a, that
kind of, but I guess the saving grace that was
is, you know, John, he lives 20 minutes from
me. So like, he's in my backyard. So I was like,
well, this guy can do it in my area. Then clearly
there's a path to do this if he's doing it in
my area, but I kind of took a risk and I I've
taken many big risk in life. And you know, some
of them not so calculated, but you know, what
me and Johnny were saying is if you work hard,
I think you can dig yourself out of any hole,
any type of situation you have going on. Right.
And sure. Some of us have way worse hands than
others, but don't let that be a deterrent for
you being successful. And if you do see an ID,
I see it all the time because I watched the hot
dog cart videos, right? Like. So my YouTube feed
is like these crazy entrepreneurs with, you know,
Turo businesses, car washes, hot dogs, laundry
mats. Like I get it all thrown at me and I think
to myself, damn, that would be awesome. So I
understand the appeal of it. And it got me here.
I listened to some podcast or two jackasses that
no longer sell books. And here I am kind of doing
my thing years and years later. But it was something
where. I wouldn't have drug it out, right? If
it wasn't financially made sense, like I wouldn't
have kept doing this. I would have stopped doing
this a long time ago. I'm motivated by money,
all right? Listen, I know, breaking news, Mike
doesn't care about books. He's only in it for
the money. That's all I care about. There's some
girls out in Vegas that share that exact same
philosophy, Mike. Dude, I only care about the
money I can make from this business. So whether
it was books or whether it was phones, right?
Whether it was remotes. I just wanted to find
the path of least resistance to make the most
amount of money. And I gave it time while still
working a job. So that was calculated. It's not
like I just jumped in and said, hey, Deb, guess
what? We're going to be living on my Amazon money.
And I haven't even sold a damn thing yet. Right.
Like that was calculated along the way. So there
I challenge everybody to try something they want
to try. You just understand that it can't be
your sole. reliant source in the beginning because
it's going to take time. Even if it is the get
-rich -quick scheme, how many people hit the
scratch -off lottery are broke a year later?
Oh, yeah. I mean, that's kind of the same thing.
It's the same thing when you try a business model
or you try something. Even if you get success
early on, that doesn't mean long -term success.
It's the same thing if me and Johnny stop doing
what we're doing or maybe we switch some things
and our results go down just because we get the
results we get today. This is not guaranteed
for us to keep getting these results going on.
We still guess what? Even though I'm making more
money than I ever have, that means I got to go
out more than I ever have. And, you know, that
means I'm scanning more than I ever have. It's
not like I it's not like my workload cuts back
and my paycheck goes up. That is not the case
by any stretch of the imagination. That's the
way it works. Give me your final thoughts on
this. I mean. The American dream is supposed
to be work really hard and you get paid for.
your work, right? And I think reselling is a
direct correlation of that, but you got to work
smart in what you do because you could be spinning
your wheels working. hard as in you're just pumping
in a lot of hours but you gotta pump in the hours
the correct way whether that's doing research
or updating your repricers or sending in inventory
actively or changing your sourcing to get better
quality of inventory it's an active production
of repurposed hours versus just well i i went
to the little free library i took all the books
and i sent them all into amazon i'm gonna hope
for the best now that's not gonna work long term
You got to know you may take the one book that's
actually worth your time from that little free
library or go to a place where you can get more
than one book at a time is an even smarter place.
So all this stuff compounds. And year over year,
you should be a smarter, more savvier reseller
than you were the year before. And I do think
if you work hard like that, you can indeed live
that quote unquote American dream that we've
been talking about and hearing about since we
were wee little lads and lasses. I agree. All
right. We'll talk to everybody in next week's
episode. Thanks for listening to another episode
of the Reseller's Mindset Podcast. Today's full
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