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 usebookguy 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
to another episode of Reseller's Mindset Podcast.
Johnny's topic today, it's a good one. What is
the end game of your business? I don't think
we think about this enough. I think a lot of
us are just in like, how do we make it through
next week? And how do we pay the bills next month?
Right. So the idea of thinking about like, you
know, what is the actual long term play? Some
people, you know, there's a lot of good content
creators. There's a lot of good people in this
group that are retired. from their actual work
and they do resell is like an extra thing to
keep them active and have i guess i guess a little
bit of extra casino money uh for me personally
uh i don't want to be like 90 years old and reselling
no offense if there's somebody that's 90 years
old reselling at least in the way i do now i
think in the future there will be more advancements
they kind of already exist where you can buy
things and ship them to a prep center you never
have to touch the items i think that would appeal
more to me as i continue to age i'm also on the
third floor so like i'm kind of jaded in my thought
process like i don't want to be carrying things
up three flights of steps as i get older but
i do think there is interesting aspects to it
to people that have kids or people that have
you know a really profitable business that can
almost run itself and passing that on to family
and i don't know man what's your thoughts on
this i think it's probably one of the most impactful
things you decide to do but here's the thing
when you ask somebody I don't know. If you won
the lottery, what would you do? They list off
all these things. If you really get down a brass
tacks, we're not talking about lottery money
here, but it can be a significant chunk of change
on a recurring basis. So based off of that kind
of math, not lottery math, what can you feasibly
do or want to do? And if it's not enough, how
much more do you need? So I'm going to use you
as an example here. I think you want a home,
maybe a little bit of land. And then enough income
to pay your bills and do something spur of the
moment or just because you can and will kind
of do and you want your time. So how do you get
to those metrics? How do you get your time and
enough money to do all of that? I think that
knowing that crystal, this is what I need and
this is what I want. You can then do the math
to get there. Like, what do you need to do number
wise, numerically at least? what you're selling,
how you're selling it, that may need to shift
to meet that goal. Maybe it's not books. Maybe
you need to sell, I don't know, refrigerators
to get there. But knowing that, knowing that
you need to sell refrigerators, not books anymore,
that's a key component. Yeah, I agree. I think,
I think it all can be reverse engineered, but
knowing. what, where you want to be when the
time comes. And it's kind of, you know, like
having goals and we don't like to talk about
financial things, but like, you know, I invest
every single day. Sure. I'm not putting a thousand
dollars in the market every single day, but I
have my retirement accounts to automatically
deduct money from my account every single day
that gets invested. I think we have to be thinking
long -term because, you know, you see this so
much. And it saddens me when people are struggling
and they're older and they have no savings and
they have no retirement. It like hurts my soul
because, you know, if you just make a small commitment
over time, it's going to grow so much. It's like
the idea of investing. And even if you just put
a dollar a day into, you know, retirement and
it'll grow over the 20, 30, 40 years. But it
seems so small today. Right. Like, Johnny, why
am I going to put a dollar in today? What the
hell is that? I think people are so short sighted.
I think we've got to start thinking about the
long term play as we continue to age. Maybe even
if you're older and maybe you don't feel like
reselling anymore. Just start thinking of ways
to be like, OK, here's how much I need per month.
What can I do to maybe cut back the work, maybe
make the business less stressful? And I can still
generate income because I think a lot of people,
unfortunately. fall into that weird spot of you
can never really hang up the boots you can never
really retire because you always have to be because
the cost of life goes up everything goes up by
the time we're old thing gas will be 55 a gallon
right so like we can account for we know everything's
going to go up everything has always gone up
in price since the beginning of time right shipping's
going to go up 10 times next year right we can
account for these things so start planning for
them today and start saving for your future and
if you have a business is it transferable i can't
pass my business down to anybody because it requires
me going out and scanning things, right? So I'm
basically giving somebody a job. I'm not giving
nobody no types of blessings. I'm giving you
an e -yo -yo scanner and my YouTube link and
saying, hey, good luck, figure it out, right?
But I do think there are a lot of reselling businesses
where, you know, you take a step back where you
can have people run the business for you. You
can say, I'm the owner, I oversee things. You're
not really required to be hands -on because I
have a good team underneath me. Those are the
businesses that are the ones that can be, you
know, family tree changing because you have this
ongoing LLC business employees, actual real estate
space for your business. Unlike me, who's just
a apartment living, you know, scanner guy. I
ain't got nothing to pass down. The scanner be
worth nothing by the time I go. Right. I mean,
generational wealth or generational businesses.
For those that are interested in that, I mean.
That requires a little bit of setup. You're probably
want a family trust because you're not going
to they're probably not working when they're
five years old. But you can start putting money
in there for when they're of age to start coming
on in the business. And then if they decide not
even to do the business, well, they got a little
bit of money coming in and you can readjust your
plans. OK, I need I need legacy management now
to manage. I probably need a board of directors
because my family has no interest in coming on
board like I planned when they were a little
bitty. But If they do come on board, you can
make the transition pretty seamless if you start
today, honestly. A little bit of legal, a little
bit of account setup, pay us some paperwork,
and you're good to go. I'm simplifying a bit,
but that's pretty much the brass tacks of what
it is. Now, what's up, Amazon sellers? We wanted
to take a second to talk about GoToLister, the
software me and Johnny both use to list and manage
our inventory and grow our businesses. With the
fastest listing speeds out there and built -in
profit analytics, it's a no -brainer. Easily
and quickly have items available for sale using
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backslash Mike or using the link in the description
below. Again, I don't think a lot of people know
what they want out of life or what they really
want that like reasonable. We got to come down
to reasonability. What do you want? Do you want
the home? Do you want a vacation? every month
do you want to go tour europe for six months
out of the year or or asia or somewhere else
whatever you want to do or you just want a cabin
in the woods and be left alone um or maybe you
want to and there are folks who just want to
work till they die i'm probably i probably fall
more into that camp i always have to have busy
but maybe i just want to open up a bar and hang
out with bar people um that's my end goal but
that requires a little bit capital to do that's
not my end goal i'm just using that as an example
um So your goal can be big or small, but knowing
that at the end of the day can help you in your
current business, or maybe you need more than
one business to make those goals a reality. And
you go into more owner territory than self -employed
territory at that case. Now, I think it's critical
to know. We get money from reselling, and Mike
mentioned it earlier, is are you putting any
money aside? What kind of investments are you
doing? Are those the right investments? Do I
need a financial advisor? Because I don't know
what I'm doing here. I'm just kind of guessing
what sounds good in the news cycle. I can't help
you there. Maybe you do need a financial advisor
or a tax advisor because all your investments
are either taxed up front or taxed at the end
or taxed all the time. So you've got to figure
that out as well. So there are certain nuances
there, but everybody should at least have a savings
account, bare minimum. I don't care who you are.
That's the lowest barrier to entry other than
cash and gold and the safe and vault or under
the mattress kind of deal. Because at least you
get a little bit of compounding. It won't be
much, but at least your money's growing. It's
not shrinking unless you're touching it. Don't
touch your savings account. Unless you're saving
up for the home, then yeah, pull the trigger
when you can. I think... I think another thing
too is utilizing your reselling business for
X amount of time to have X amount of dollars
to pivot into another business that can be more
profitable, right? Because it's... I personally
think it's super hard to rescale a reselling
business successfully if you compare it to other
type service business models that I've seen.
Listen, my whole YouTube was like people that
like are trying to pitch like different ideas,
right? I got people with laundromats. I got people
doing car detailing and things like that because
that's the type of shit I'm interested in. I'm
an entrepreneur at heart. And I think a lot of
people get stuck in the reselling cycle and they
could potentially be more profitable if they,
like you said. Maybe they got to start selling
refrigerators. I think people, resellers are
so scared to spend more money to make more money.
And it's literally just holds us back completely.
Like I used to be, I used to be that way. I used
to be like, I want to, I like, I don't want to
spend more than, you know, a hundred bucks today.
And now I'm like, I want to spend as much money
as I possibly can in every store I'm in to make
more money. But in the beginning, I was not like
that at all. I think all of us are like that
in the beginning. We're like, we don't want to
spend nothing. I do think we have to think about.
If we spend more, are we getting the ROI? Are
we going to make more money? You just don't spend
to spend. But if the opportunity is there, we
need to take it as resellers. We know what works.
We know what sells. And if you have the capital
to get more of those items that you know we're
going to sell, there's no stop. You got to block
yourself out. I had a bunch of one -on -ones
yesterday, and I said this to multiple people.
I said, you're a better reseller than you think
you are. If I had to drop... one of your best
friends in your life and said, you have to train
them to be a reseller. I guarantee you would
train them in everything they need to know. But
for some reason, we second guessed ourselves
when it comes to opportunity. And we second guessed
ourselves with the data that we understand. We've
sold this item before. Sure, we're not paying
a dollar today for it. Maybe we got to pay $10
and it's going to sell for 30. But you know,
that thing is guaranteed to sell and you're guaranteed
to make money on it. And we still struggle with
it just because it costs more than the dollar
we paid the first time we found it. That is so
fundamental right there. It's marginability.
As long as it's profitable, you can scale, but
you've got to be clearing money. And yeah, you
could say that item or SKU can tank or this,
that, and the other. But again, that's stuff
that's out of your control, man. But if the data
today and the data you've had all along is showing
profitability, even though a little less margin
year by year. That's a -okay until it becomes
unprofitable. Then it's not okay at that point.
But you're a business owner. You should be monitoring
that stuff all the time. You should catch it
before it even gets to that point. But, and yeah,
people are afraid to spend, like you said, 10
bucks because we're used to this huge margin.
There are a lot of businesses that don't have
the marginability of reselling and we scoff at
20 % margin. How dare we? But a lot of businesses
can thrive off. 20 there's some operations that
make a business out of three percent margin that's
tiny but when you're talking a billion dollar
operation three percent say okay sir ma 'am um
and there there's this thought of i could just
make more money by pumping it into reselling
because the the return on investment's so good
you're not necessarily wrong But I do think a
little bit of diversity helps you in case of,
again, these unforeseeables. Let's say you got
Section 3 and you're three months into resolving
this. Or maybe it takes you six months because
you need to bring lawyers on to get your account
back. And what are you doing for those three
to six months? You got no extra money. You don't
even have savings because you bankrolled, you
bet all on black, which is Amazon, which is not
a bad bet at face value. Every now and then,
they may tell you to take a walk from the table
and cool off. You better have a pile of cash.
Yeah, you better have a pile of cash. Johnny
literally explained my business over the past
two years at the beginning of his little rant
there. And he said, you can have a higher sell
-through with lower margins and make more money.
If I look at my exact Amazon business year to
date, over the last year, I'm up 48%. My average
sales price is down $2 per unit, right? But I
made... probably an extra 20 % to 25 % in actual
tangible dollars so far this year than I did
last year. So I sold less. I had a higher ASP.
But now that my sell -through is higher, my margins
are lower, I make more money than my old business
does. I'm living proof. It makes perfect sense.
And that is a very viable model to go. And it's
hard for people to swallow that. I don't know
why that holdup is. Again, it may be fear. It
may be, well, why sell something for $2 instantaneously
when I could sell something for $20 in 12 months?
It's boring, dude. It's lame, right? Having an
average sales price of $15, dude, nobody's getting
excited when you sell a DVD for $15. And it excites
me because I know I probably spent a dollar on
that. I just made $6 or $7. And I think to myself,
man. Like I used to work a job where I had to
work, you know, when I worked in Macy's, I was
making seven and a quarter an hour, like before
taxes, like that one DVD was equivalent to me
working one hours at Macy's, right? Like, so
for me, I'm like, hell yeah. Like I just made,
I just made one hour of Macy's wages over here.
But I think for your average resellers, like
you said, they want the big booms. They want
to see, oh, I went to the thrift. I went to the
bins and I turned this dollar into a trillion
dollars. I'm here to tell you, you don't. you
don't need to have all the crazy good finds to
have a nice profitable reselling business. Like
I probably sell five to 10 items a year over
a hundred dollars. And that's the highest I go
like all year long. Right. And Johnny already
sold one of them. So theoretically it's between
four and nine because I don't find this stuff
around me. Like this is what is. readily available
to me in my area. It's the stuff that's worth
between $10 and $25. And that's all I buy for
a dollar. And I take my dollar and turn it into
between $5 and $10 as much as I possibly can.
It is what it is. I mean, it pays the bills.
It keeps the lights on. I'm comfortable with
that. In business as a whole, you can make money
at two ends of the spectrum. Cheap stuff, we'll
call it Timu items. There's a bajillion of them.
Or the Rolexes. There's not a bajillion Rolexes.
And we all try to get these Rolexes because,
again, it sounds good, like you said. Finding
the Rolexes is a huge Herculean task to do, and
it's great when they happen. But trying to build
your business off the Rolex model is a lot harder
than the Timu model because the Timu stuff is
everywhere you look. It's everywhere. It's abundant.
If you find an abundant pile of Rolexes, hey,
call me. I'll go 50 -50 on it with you. Yeah,
I think you're right too. Like even if you wrap
it back to like, what's your end game? My end
game requires me having more money. So in order
for me to get more money, I had to lower my margins
to send in more items to sell, right? Like that's
the only way I make more money. If nothing else
changes and I'm in the same area and I'm going
to the same thrift stores, I'm hitting the same
spots over and over again, I have to find more
items to scale my business because I need more
money for my end game, which is to have a house,
to have a little piece of land, not have no...
neighbors and get my time back, right? So I said,
well, I need more money. Like we all do. We all
need more money. How do we get there? I could
have changed what I sold. Maybe I could have
started selling Nikes, right? I live by the outlets.
Maybe I start flipping clothes and shoes from
the outlets, or I can lower my margins a little
bit. raise myself through. I'm not buying slower
moving items when my margins go down. I'm buying
faster moving items. So if I'm going to take
less money, I need it to sell quicker so I can
turn that money over quicker and quicker. That's
been my whole focus this year is sell through.
So yet again, we get back to what is your end
game? What do you need to do to get there? It
would be impossible for me to... maintain high
margins in media and scale this business because
i don't have the quality of stuff around me my
only play was okay i focus on a higher sell -through
i lower my profitability a little bit but i sell
10x more units than i did last year and i make
more money right and having a high asp or getting
your asp as high as you can is always a good
goal but if you could sell a million two dollar
items and you can only find, I don't know, five
of these $1 ,000 items, you're better off selling
the $2 items. Your area impacts what kind of
items you have access to. The right deals come
along maybe, I don't know, once every six months
or once a year, and you're in a position because
you waited to get that mega score of just awesome
stuff. But for the rest of the year, It's okay
to pick up the lower end stuff, honestly. Now,
is it a bit grindier that way? Yeah. So it's
a happy medium of trying to find the best things
you can, sure. But you also need to work with
what you got. And if what you got is Teemu items
and not the refrigerators or the Rolexes, that's
fine. You just gotta... Okay, if I'm stuck with
$2 items, how do I make a business off of $2
items? Or am I in the right business? I need
to look elsewhere to find whatever that elsewhere
item is to get me my, I don't know, $10 items
I desire. Because maybe it's not books. Maybe
it's not CDs. Maybe it's, I don't know, makeup
or you opening up a laundromat or doing something
even outside of reselling. It's all dependent
on what you personally want. Yeah, I agree. I
just looked. I'm up 73 % on units sold year to
date from last year. It's a lot of units. It
is more work, right? 100%. But in the Amazon
land, it's really not because all I'm doing is
slapping a label on 98 % of the stuff. The other
2 % maybe has got to get resurfaced or it doesn't
go through. So I think it is a balancing act,
like Johnny said, like I'm sitting here telling
you, I'm buying more items, I'm sending more
items that requires more time out of my life.
But the trade off is more actual profitable dollars
into my bank account. At the end of the day,
right? Like I tell you all, it's impossible for
me to work 40 hours unless I'm driving three
hours one way. So even if I do have to chip in
the extra time, if it is going to make me more
money. where I'm currently at, my bubble of reselling
that I have, then that's the commitment it's
going to take at the end of the day. And like
I said, it's not exciting. I love finding that
book I sent you, the damn nice little gold, shimmery,
really expensive books, Franklin, whatever the
hell they're called. I always forget the name
of them. Easton Press. Easton Press, right? It's
not that I don't book for this stuff, Johnny.
I think people are like, he don't even look for
this stuff. I'm like, I'm out here in these stores
like, please, please, please. I'm telling you.
the people that actively look for and sell this
for their entire business model, they travel,
they hop on planes because they don't pop up
every day. Well, they do pop up every day, but
you're in Pennsylvania. It's in Iowa. It's there
and available, but it's in Iowa. Yeah, dude.
It's not that I don't look for them. I do my
due diligence when I'm in the stores. It just
doesn't exist around me. And when it does, it's
a nice bonus, right? Every once in a while, sure,
I come across one. Yay, I come across something
and it's worth a lot of money. But other than
that, I think that's the idea of like your end
game and focusing on, you know, I don't even
think it has to be monetary. I think you'd be
getting your time back and having just like.
an extra piece of income coming in right it's
never going to be fully passive no matter what
you do in life there's nothing that is fully
passive but i do think you know doing the legwork
up front and really thinking about what you want
to be down the road when the time comes where
maybe you just get bored of reselling right that's
what happens to a lot of people people are just
like I don't enjoy this anymore. It's not fun.
And I think you got to do something you enjoy.
I enjoy going and scanning things and finding
some cool stuff every once in a while or whatever
it may be. I think a lot of people lose that
pretty quick in resale because they realize.
I got to go to 100 thrift stores in a month and
I can't just survive off my one local thrift
store or Goodwill bins. And then like you just
get tired of it. But it's such a great opportunity
financially. And if you just want to get your
time back and have a little bit of extra money
that people but people. Everything we're talking
about, man, like people can't think about next
week rather yet, you know, me and Johnny sitting
here saying we want to grow old. Johnny's still
going to be reselling. I'm going to be sitting
over here smoking a peace pipe being like, yeah,
I quit reselling 20 years ago. I'll let you sit
near the conveyor belt, Mike. It's fine. But
in all seriousness, if you've created a business
model that is a grind, whether it's got a huge
route going on or you just have so much stuff
you just sift through. You need to come to the
realization, okay, either I'm in the right business
and I need to put in processes, systems, and
probably personnel to make this viable of any
real dollars. Otherwise, you probably need to
be looking at something else that's higher margin
to do or a different business entirely. It's
those reality checks that impacts you personally,
whether you stay in reselling, go do another
business. Or you figure out, okay, my business
needs some major adjustments because I need to
be making X in value per item. I'm not. How do
I do it? Is my widget right? Or my process is
wrong? Yes, no. And then follow the chain of
commands to figure out how to get there. You
can do this. It's a little bit of thinking power.
It really is a little bit of thinking power.
But take some time. Make a list of what you actually
want for you and yours, yours being your family
probably. If you're a single person, well, you
could be selfish and make your personal wish
list with no compromise. Get in that man house,
not a cave, the whole house is the man house,
and do with it as you see fit. Figure out how
much that costs and figure out, okay, am I making
enough money to get there by 10 years? No? Okay,
my timeline needs to be 15 years. Are you okay
with that? Yes, no? That's the other thing. People's
timetables, they don't think about that. When
do they want to hit the goal? I think that's
a very important measuring stick because that
tells you on a year -to -year basis if you're
on or off track. And if you're off track, how
do I get back on? What do I need to do? If you're
not okay with the longer timescale, what needs
to change? What do I need to do to change my
business or shift businesses entirely to make
that a reality? A lot of it too is like, you
have to understand your business on a financial
level that most don't. We talked about this on
the call we had is like, I broke down my pay
per hour in the month of October on a call that
I did. And I think people... People don't know
their numbers, so they think their business sucks
more than it sucks or they're not getting the
results they should be getting. But if you really
sit down and break down your actual numbers,
you will see how much you're making per hour.
And I think it will surprise a lot of people
to know that you're probably making more than
your typical job that you can go find in your
local area that doesn't require a degree or doesn't
require tens of thousands of dollars to go get
a degree. So I think we have to understand that
at that level. Everything we're talking about,
the times have changed in resale. It's not like
it used to be. You have to have business. We
had it easy back in the day. Yeah. I mean, people
that had it easy back then, there were still
people falling flat on their face, but the people
that were smart, like you are required to be
today, were super successful. Now, it's required.
They got to pile cash, more cash than... Yeah.
Yeah. So nowadays it's required to even have
that type of business mentality to even be any
type of successful because you can't just list
it and forget it. You can't just send anything
to Amazon. You got to know what, what is the
data you're looking at? Does it sell? Has it
ever sold? How many photos do I need? Do I need
to do this? Do I need to do that? And if your
end game is this to be forever for you, or is
it to be for the next 5, 10, 15 years, you still
have to be profitable today. And what goes into
that is things are changing. Dude, how much shit
has changed this past year in reselling a loan?
Don't matter what the platform is. So much. There's
a long list. It's completely new. Like if somebody
was reselling. in 2024 and just started to get
back into reselling today in 2025, they would
be like, what the hell has happened around here?
I had two friends I talked into doing Amazon.
And this year had a lot of problems. And I had
some interesting conversation. This isn't normal,
but it might be. And you need to be OK with that.
And I didn't have a crystal ball knowing that
we would have the buy box issues three months
out of this year, maybe fourth, because we're
headed in December in a few days. I'll help you
because I talked you into this the best I can.
But at the end of the day, they were both profitable.
They were okay with that. But I was talking probably
potential forecasting for 2024. We're in 2025.
And that forecast I did with them doesn't work.
It doesn't comply. Now, adjustments need to be
made. And knowing when to make those adjustments
is good. But that's the thing. There are things
that... these curve balls that come at us and
our business has to sustain those impacts and
if it can't your business is broken and you need
to reevaluate it now it's not broken because
of anything you did because again these are things
out of your control but you need to be able to
fix it when it gets broke or is broken or is
on the way to being broken because It's all this
is on you. It's nobody else's control but yours.
Even if those things hit you that are out of
your control, it's still on you to be able to
fix them. Yeah, you're right. And I mean, you
had the Amazon buy box and we have this eBay
promoted listings where somebody clicks on a
listing, whatever, and it still sells. 10 years
later, you still get charged a promoted fee,
right? Like we can't control this. You got two
options, right? You either figure out a way to
deal with it or you quit. Because we're tired
of hearing you cry. I don't even have to tell
you, Johnny, about tired of hearing you cry.
I'll say it for both of us. You can't change
what the platforms change, right? You can just
go sell somewhere else. Good luck, Chuck, right?
Make your own platform and make it the Disneyland
of reselling. I'll jump on board. I like Disneyland.
But until then, suck it up, buttercup. It's tough
because I get it, right? Like it's an extra percentage
coming out of your pocket. But at the end of
the day. We're playing on their platforms. We
are at the will of whatever they did. If the
platform says, hey, we're raising fees 10%, you
will have two options. You go sell somewhere
else or you just stop selling. You know, you
just quit or you just, well, I guess that's straight.
You stop selling, you move somewhere else or
you account for the extra 10%, right? Or change
what you're selling. Exactly. So there's always
going to be pivots. I mean, we just, anybody
listening to this as a reseller this year, even
if it's just... you know, even if you're selling
on whatnot or any of these other platforms, just
look at the post office. The post office goes
up every three months. I feel like the cost of
shipping things. So every, every person, no matter
what platform is impacted by changes in reselling
constantly. So if you're end game. You don't
know what your end game is. Good luck figuring
out how the hell you're going to get anywhere
or if you're even making a dollar at the end
of the day. Like we got to have some type of
goal, whether that's retirement or whether that's
next year or whether that's by the end of next
month. You should have something laid out where.
This is my expectations for the business. I want
to make this much money, track it, know your
numbers down to a T, down to the penny, spend
some time actually being a business owner, not
just being a lister and taking photos and filling
up a box, dive into your numbers, dive into the
actual profitability of your business. Because
if not, dude, who cares? You're just useless.
You're just roaming through life and you have
this big, beautiful opportunity of reselling
and you kind of just let it go by the wayside.
Right. For a person like me, I'm always going
to be doing something in books. I mean, even
before I started reselling, I was in book publishing.
I'm probably not going to change my widget, even
though I'm fully aware. That's a weird zoom in.
Okay. I know. Got to watch the video. Subscribe
to the used book guy on YouTube to see this amazing.
Oh, my God. It like zoomed in super high when
I went to drink my Mountain Dew. I was like just
my whole head. That was the plug Mountain Dew.
We're looking for a sponsor. Yes, we are. Zero
sugar, please. Yeah. But anyway, I like the widget
I sell. I'm probably never going to change my
widget. I may add things on to it because I'm
fully aware there are other widgets that are
way more profitable that I can do. And some other
people that are in different categories like
Johnny, why are you wasting time in books? Because
I see it all the time. A lot of the resellers
transition in books to do something else. I don't
want to do that. I love books. I'm a weirdo.
But I'm okay with that. And I'm self -aware of
that. So I make my business work around playing
with books however I can. I do consignment with
books. I do eBay with books. I do Amazon with
books. I plan on opening up a bookstore and all
these other weird things with books. Now, could
I take an easier path by selling another widget
and doing other things? Probably. But we talked
about our end goal. My end goal is working with
books until the day I die. That is my end goal.
And having money along the way to do whatever
the hell I want. As of right now, I'm doing just
that, so I'm where I need to be. Now, if you're
not okay with that, and you're not in love with
your widget like I am, and you're not a weirdo
like I am, change your widget. Do something else.
I got an idea. Everybody's widget should just
be a dollar bill. There you go. We're playing
with dollar bills. I'm in love with my widget.
I'm like Mr. Krabs. I hate the books, but I love
the dollar bills. I don't see a book. I see a
dollar bill. I was just like, oh, what is this
thing? This is a pretty big dollar bill here
I have in my hand. Let me send it on its way
so it can come back and make me more money. But
you're right, dude. My end game was to move to
California, buy a 3 ,000 -acre farm in the middle
of nowhere. Something's got to change because
I don't have that income currently to get there.
But that's not my end game. My game is nice little
place, a little bit of land. I'm good to go.
Just keep pumping money into retirement. I don't
live the lavish life like people got to force
me to buy things for myself that are expensive.
So, yeah, for me, it's different for everybody,
though. Right. But understanding what yours actually
is, is the only way you're ever going to be able
to. get there to even see the light at the end
of the tunnel and if it is working forever i
still will challenge you like hey what do you
want to do along the way what are some cool things
you want to do along the way What are maybe some
business things you want to buy? Some people
want to go the route of an employee or some people
want to go the route of the fanciest, you know,
software or their own warehouse space or their
own little, you know, storage unit that they
build in the back of the yard, their own barn,
their own reselling barn or something like that.
Everybody's got to have aspirations, right? I
think a lot of people just judge through like,
oh, yeah, I guess so. I guess I'll do this. You
need to sit down and you need to do what people
do when they get diagnosed with cancer or they're
80. 100 things to do before I die list. And then
figure out if your business can do those 100
things. If not, readjust your business. If you
want to go see Niagara Falls or the Great Wall
of China, those are, depending where you live,
can be expensive trips. Figure out if you can
see all the Niagara's and Great Walls of China's
in the world, whatever that 100 item list is.
Add up all the numbers. What does it cost today?
What's it going to cost? 10 years from now, add
some inflation in there. Give yourself some conservative
number buffer because it's going to be more.
You can't do all 100 in year one unless you plan
on doing that at 80. I've given myself a cutoff
time at 80 years old. We're doing the bucket
list. So now you're giving yourself a timetable,
right? From whatever your age is now until 80.
Can I make my business be able to do that so
I can go take my 80 years old vacation? I agree.
We're going to wrap it up here. Just start thinking
about what the end game is for you, even if that
is, you know, pivoting to another business altogether.
I think resale is a beautiful opportunity and
we'll talk to you all in next week's episode.
Thanks for listening to another episode of the
Reseller's Mindset Podcast. Today's full episode
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