Welcome back to another episode of the Resellers Mindset Podcast.
My name is Mike, also known as the used book guy on YouTube,
along with my friend and fellow full-time reseller, Johnny B.
We help people start and grow their reselling businesses from the ground up.
We also have a weekly zoom call and private discord for all YouTube members.
Head on over to youtube.com backslash use book guy to join the channel and gain
access to the full length podcast zoom call and private discord today.
Let's get into this week's episode.
What is up everybody? Welcome to episode 31 of Resellers Mindset Podcast.
I don't need Johnny B's help today.
I can do all 31 myself.
We got a pretty exciting episode today.
We're kind of, I've been thinking about this, right?
Like if we had to start back from nothing, how will we go about building
the business we have today?
Or maybe, you know, maybe it doesn't have to be books.
Maybe you want to do clothing, shoes, something like that.
So I figured we'd break it down.
I think three months, month by month, what we would do each month to
build a reselling business in the category of our liking.
There's a good stepping stone starting point.
I think by three months, you kind of know where you should, where you're at
with your business and where you can go from here.
So day one, I'm going to, I'm going to ask you a question right off the beginning here.
So is your store name important on eBay?
It's not important on Amazon.
Is it important on eBay?
It's like, if I'm going to sell sneakers, should I be like the used Nike guy?
Does that matter?
It matters, but not in the way you're thinking.
It matters.
The big push you want to get followers because you want to send the newsletters
through eBay to get more repeat buyers.
Because once they're a follower of yours, they're going to get your
newsletters, you can send them specific coupons because that just increases
more buying power, that you're forcing the traffic because they're getting emails
or they're getting eBay notifications from you.
So having a shorter store name when either in the thank you note or when
you're sending the messages is very important.
I didn't know this very early on.
I have a really long store name.
It's really long.
It's almost, I think it is at the character limit, but I did that.
I created my store name very fun.
Like I took a known book character.
I put a fun little adjective into it.
Instead of bookstore, I went with bookshop because I was accounting
for foreign buyers as well.
It sounds fancy to Americans, but it's also the word that the UK people use.
They use the word bookshop instead of bookstore.
Same thing in Australia for my Australian buyers.
So I went through a methodical process without any rhyme or reason
to what's good for eBay.
I went, what was good for the customer kind of deal.
If I had to do it again, I would have picked a much shorter name,
especially when I send people the URL.
Cause the URL is like a foot long.
Is there any restrictions to the store name?
Like, can I just, can my eBay store name be like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Taylor
Swift, like just the name?
Like, is there restrictions?
Like, can, is it copy like written stuff?
Like I can't be George Clooney on eBay.
So like as my store name, like, cause I'd be curious, right?
Somebody's like, Oh wait, George Clooney is selling this.
Like, I feel like, Hey, all of a sudden they think I'm George Clooney
and I'm in the penthouse suite and I'm selling off my old crusty books
as George Clooney, but that's not the case.
Um, I know they have limits on your username, but your store name is different.
Right.
I don't, I don't think there is off top of my head.
I'd have to look again to see, let's see.
I bet George Clooney, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,
10, they're probably all taken.
There's probably multiple George Clooney cones, cloney George Clooney clones.
But I think overall, I think to, I think the takeaway is that like your
name really doesn't matter, but I can see a lot of people getting called up with
the name, like, Oh my God, what should the name be?
Like the name is really not that important.
It's more important for you to kind of jump in and just start listing
items and selling items.
So we figured the name doesn't matter.
It is what it is.
Don't do anything offensive.
Uh, if anything, just keep it simple, right?
You don't gotta be anything special or, you know, I'm not the Mike use book
guy store shop on eBay or anything like that.
I don't try to drive sales through, you know, other platforms.
So I don't think you should get caught up in that make a store.
Now we're going to jump into like, I don't know, like money, like if you're
going to start a business, everybody has a different starting points.
Most people kind of started on the side.
I don't think most people kind of jump into this with no experience
and like $10,000, right?
And they had never done resale in their life.
I think most people are doing this on the side, in addition to their, their
job, part-time, full-time, or they have a limited income, maybe their stay at home
parent, so starting out money can be an obstacle, but there's ways you kind of.
Can get around spending a lot of money.
You want to throw some, some tips out there if you want to be cheap and
you want to start a reselling business.
If you want to be cheap, um, don't go buy out, don't go out and buy a lot of fancy
camera and lighting equipment.
It's not needed.
Um, that may be needed if you're selling like Gucci sweaters or Louis Vuitton
type stuff, but for what the stuff you're going out, you're buying a used item.
And the public perception of what eBay is, the garage sale, the internet, the
expectation beyond as long as it's not blurry, it's okay.
You can invest money later on to get fancier light boxes and, or improve
your lighting and your photo station.
Sure.
Uh, same thing with software.
I mean, there's lots of third party software programs you can get as well.
That quote unquote enhance your listening.
It's totally another thing.
You don't need any of that.
You don't need a store subscription starting out either.
Um, you can build into that later and that just helps you out with your
final value fees, essentially.
Um, you don't need to go spend a whole lot of money on boxes.
There's plenty of free boxes for your shipping supplies, which you may have
to spend money on would be tape and that's okay.
So let's say you weren't getting a store description.
Cause that's what I spend my store subscription money on.
Cause I get a coupon with your subscription once a quarter.
Cause I get a coupon with your subscription once a quarter is tape.
Um, you, I would not go down to the post office and buy their $5 rolls of tape.
You can go to Dollar Tree.
You can go to Amazon.
Um, if you figure out a place that you can get a discount in bulk, but again,
you're starting out, you don't need to do the bulk purchase discount yet.
Um, even at yard sales or auctions, I see office supplies at those places.
That's great.
You can get, I don't know, a whole box of tape.
There'll be different kinds of tape, very rarely are the same, like
Scott's tape kind of deal, like a couple of bucks, maybe five bucks.
And that's way cheaper than even Dollar Tree or Dollar Store, whatever
dollar saving store you go to.
Yeah.
It's funny because, uh, somebody actually in our area posted on Facebook that
they needed boxes and, uh, like moving supplies.
And I actually took them a bunch of boxes and a few rolls of tape for nothing.
So there you go.
You don't have fun moving.
This is extra stuff I got.
So there's, there's so many ways.
I had to start back, like when it comes to starting out and like finding inventory
and buying inventory, depending on what category category you're in, it can be
expensive and I think I would literally just take the route because this is
something I'm building, right?
You're building a business here.
So this is, we just walked through the door the first day, the first week,
first month, and you got to be thinking long-term, right?
So we don't want to spend a lot of money upfront because you got to find out if
this is something you enjoy doing.
Some people get into reselling and they're like, all right, you know, maybe
this isn't for me down the road.
So I would be super cheap when it comes to finding inventory, freebie alerts,
right?
That app, so many people have made so much money off the freebie alerts app.
Hold all the free items in your area.
You can set up hot words, keywords for me.
It's like books, CDs, DVDs.
If you're doing clothes, shoes, anything like that, yard sales, garage sales,
flea market, you want to get this stuff for as cheap as you can.
Sure, you're not going to have a lot of the home run starting out, right?
You're not going to, you know, go to a Goodwill and you're going to pay $30 for,
you know, the first item you're going to sell on eBay, you're not going to pay
$30 for a pair of Nike shoes, right?
That's not the way you want to build.
You kind of want to, all right, let me get my foot in the door.
Let me list some stuff that I got for next to nothing.
So even if I sell it for $20, I'm still making, you know, 10, 12 bucks after
fees and after shipping.
I think that's kind of a point where people kind of get called out right.
They're like, I got all this money and I want to go spend it on inventory.
Well, you don't need a printer either.
Cause that's the big pitch is to get a thermal printer.
Yes, it is worth it when you get it, but you don't need it right away.
Even if you've got to go down to the library and use their printer, that's okay.
That's a big cost savings.
You don't need no damn thermal printer.
I used a normal printer I had from like 2006 for the first five years of me selling
online.
Yeah, it sucked.
But guess what I'm cheap and I wanted to save money.
So you don't need a Rolo.
You don't need a DIMO.
You know, you just, you just need something that works.
And if you ain't got that, then you can even take the QR codes into the post
office and they can print you the label right there.
Yeah, they do that now too.
So you don't even need to go to the library.
You just go, you're trading time for money.
Just realize that you need the money and you're just starting out.
Do it.
Absolutely.
So yeah, I would get in the mindset of like just trying to find inventory and
in places where it's, you know, it's really, really cheap.
Rummage sales, church sales.
I mean, I even thought about this, right?
You know, like at least around me, I have all those clothing and shoe donation bins.
How many times do I drive by those?
And there's like 10 trash bags piled up outside.
Okay.
All right.
So what's stopping me from pulling over throwing those 10 free trash bags of merchandise
into my car?
Clearly to people that have the bin don't care because the bins already overflowing.
Right?
So I'm just helping the neighborhood look a little cleaner and I got 10 trash bags
of inventory and might not be the best stuff.
Whatever I don't want, I can take right back and put it right back where I got it from.
But I'm just thinking outside the box here.
Like we got to, we got to start changing the way we think, especially if we just
starting out a business.
If you're just starting out today, it was different even a couple of years ago when
I started.
Okay. In good conscience, I can't recommend thrifts anymore.
The prices have changed dramatically.
So, but that's going to change all the time.
I'm not saying avoid them altogether, but that should be your last stop.
The last thing you do.
I agree with Mike, rummage sales, estate sales, auctions, garage sales, storage unit sales.
Those should be your top of your priority list of where to go for stuff.
Because you're going to pay less.
You're going to pay what you were paying at thrift stores two, three, five years ago.
Going into a thrift store, I mean, your area is like $2 or $3 or more now.
Mine's, mine's hovering closer to a dollar for a paperback.
A few places are still at the, where when I started a dollar for hard 50 cents for paper,
which is still good, decent, but you're going to get quarter
or less or maybe even 50 cents for hardbacks.
These other places, even if you buy in boxes or bulk kind of deal.
I would be so cheap.
Like if I had to start out again, I would be more, more cheap than I am today.
I would literally have conversations.
And I think that's another thing, right?
If this is something you think you're going to take seriously from day one,
the first time you go into that store, that rummage sale, that garage sale,
you have conversations with people, right?
Hey, you know, yeah, this is what I do to support my family and my cats.
I start up telling people, hey, you know, this is what I do to support my family.
Well, it's what I do to support my family.
I'm sure I don't tell them I'm selling old crusty books, but it's like,
if they ask, oh, what are you buying that for?
I'm like, oh yeah, you know, I have a resale business and I do this to support my family.
And just having those conversations and relationships are going to open doors
down the road for your business that they're going to be invaluable.
And I think at least for me, when I started, I really didn't care.
Right. I go in, I scan, I'd be out of there.
I didn't want to deal with nobody.
Now I'm kind of the opposite, right?
I want to somebody ask me about what I'm doing.
Hey, this is what I do.
You know, you know, anybody that's selling media, I'm the guy for it.
I think relationships are the future of reselling.
The only people that are going to survive are the people that have the relationships, right?
The vendors, the libraries, ask any huge seller.
They're not out in thrift stores.
There's no huge seller that's just in thrift stores seven days a week.
They have the inventory come to them.
And it's kind of put things in perspective.
Thrift stores can get you to a certain point, but after that, you're going to need something else
to kind of grow.
So I would work on building relationships early on.
So now we're going to kind of get into, okay, we got this stuff for cheap.
The next step is going to be listing it.
Okay. Now there's a million different ways you can list things on eBay.
Amazon's kind of straightforward.
So when you're starting out on eBay, you know, there's a lot of details you can do.
There's a lot of things you can do right.
You can do wrong, but my advice is just list the stuff, whether it's perfect,
whether it's the perfect Johnny B listing or the half-butted Mike the Use book guy listing.
As long as you have things listed and you're promoting your listings,
you're going to see results at some point.
You know, it's not like they have to be perfect.
So I think a lot of people get caught up with everything has to be perfect before I can
kind of make this listing live, right?
That's kind of like how you are today, but I don't think you can have the JB mentality
day one.
Like, I don't think that works because it's just analysis, paralysis analysis.
You can, you're just going to list five items a day.
You're not going to do what I do.
You can have, you can go into the same mentality.
Just realize you need to start very, very small.
Like, I'm not kidding.
If you want to do my kind of listings, start at five.
And when that feels comfortable or it's taking you 30 minutes to do five.
Okay.
Maybe you grow into six.
Don't do a big jump from five to 20.
You're going to hurt yourself and cry.
I know like you hear a lot like, oh, I got a list every day.
I got a list every day.
Well, starting out that might not be feasible for you.
So maybe if you can set one day aside where you create some drafts, so you have them to
launch for the week, I think that would be the best approach.
Don't get caught up with having to go into the eBay every day.
Like people have obligations, especially if you're working full time or you have kids.
It's hard to kind of put time out to build something on the side, especially if it's
something you're not getting no results from, right?
We're still brand new to this.
We're month one in our reselling business.
So it's like, well, I'm putting time in, but I'm not getting nothing back.
So that's kind of going to take me to the next thing is like, what do you think the
reality is of like, when should you like, I don't know, get money back.
When, when should you feel like you should be getting paid back if you just started
today?
Like how long for you to get a paycheck for you to be comfortable with?
I think early on in the first three months, this is assuming you got a real job and you
haven't done, you haven't transitioned to full time.
You don't need it.
So I'm going to answer it in two parts.
One for the guy that needs it.
When the guy that doesn't need the one, the guy that doesn't need it, pump it all back
in for a year.
You're that will enable you, even if you don't reinvest all the money back into the
business right away, you have money sitting around.
It's okay to have that money sitting around for that right deal at that right time.
It comes up maybe once or twice a year where if you were to cut yourself a paycheck and
you, I don't know, spend it on whatever you spend money on, fun times in Vegas and stuff.
You, you, you're going to exclude yourself from those deals.
Now, if the person that needs it as their paycheck answers a little different, pay yourself
what your means are today.
Don't change your lifestyle today.
And it's the same thing reinvested all back in beyond that, pay your base bills, whatever
you need to live on and pump this back in.
Cause this is, this is your stock market.
This is your real estate investment.
This is your investment in yourself.
That's why you got to put it back in because you get what you need to get.
You get what you put into it.
And if you're just taking out all the time or you're taking out more than you really
need, it's, it's not, it doesn't become an investment anymore.
It becomes a, a paycheck to do funsies things with.
And if you want to do funsies things, that's okay.
I'm not saying don't do that, but if you really want to grow it, that would be the way I would
take it and then gradually grow your lifestyle over time.
Okay.
The business is built up enough where I can maintain my operations where maybe I can get,
go from a car to a truck.
Cause A that enhances my business B it's a newer car and more reliable or a home.
You've been living in that apartment of yours for a couple of years now.
You and the Mrs.
Side, Hey, we need a kid.
This apartment can't take a kid.
We need a home now.
So, okay.
Can the business do it?
You, and if you built it up and you plan it out ahead of time, getting a house,
ain't a problem at that point, unless you've been going out to stick dinners every,
every day eBay pays you out or Amazon pays you out.
So I truly believe in putting it back in until you get to that point in staging your life where
you're forced to make a lifestyle change is the best way I can put it.
I think I'm going to preface this by saying, if you start on Amazon today,
you are not getting paid probably for at least 60 days.
Maybe a little bit less if you're lucky, but it could be 90 days.
Now eBay, I'm curious what's your take on this?
If I started eBay account today, I list, I list my Bluetooth scanner here today.
It sells today.
I ship it tomorrow.
Does eBay hold funds as a new seller or do they see that I ship this?
So I'm actually going to get paid when I should, even though I'm a brand new seller.
You get paid the next day.
I mean, weekends, of course, because the processing things are down,
but you get paid the next day and they have a thing.
If you want to lose 3% of your money, they'll pay you within 10 minutes,
but they're taking 3% of your money.
So that's kind of like food for thought.
If you're kind of thinking about jumping into reselling on eBay or Amazon,
even if you jump on, if I sold this on Amazon, you know, the same scenario,
Amazon is going to wait for the return period to clear as a new seller,
which is at least 30 days.
And then that money will hit your account.
And they still might keep a little bit in account reserves for you.
So there is a huge difference if you're brand new,
how quick you actually can get paid from the items you list and you actually sell.
It's crazy to think about.
We sell the same thing on eBay versus Amazon,
the difference in how long it takes to get paid.
So I think that kind of covers the first month.
You want to get inventory for cheap.
You kind of want to start listing.
It doesn't have to be perfect.
Your store name doesn't matter.
We want to save as much money as we can.
So now we're kind of into month two, right?
Month two, you should already have sold a few items.
You know, you're not going to sell all everything you,
everything you find, you're not going to sell.
That's just the reality of it.
Things just don't sell or, you know, maybe you break even.
So month two, you got a little bit of money coming in.
Now you got to start thinking about, you know, hey, what do I want to do?
Where do I want to take this?
What does this business look like going forward?
Because if it's something you want to take seriously,
maybe you're selling Bluetooth scanners
and you don't like selling Bluetooth scanners.
So you're going to say, I'm not a big fan of this.
So I'm going to switch to something else, right?
Maybe I want to just want to sell, you know, t-shirts, something like that.
So I think month two is kind of a point where you kind of can be like,
hey, let me dabble in a few things, see what I enjoy selling,
see what kind of gets me passionate.
Because if you're passionate about something, you know,
kind of like how you are with the sci-fi books,
you're more inclined, you're more motivated to actually sit down and do the work.
I mean, that's just, that's just the way of life.
If you're motivated, if something interests you, sure, you're going to go do it.
So we're talking about how to get motivated to you found what you want to do.
Month two, yeah, you're getting a little bit of sales.
Like what's your month two look like?
My month two would be, okay, I know what I'm kind of doing now
and identifying where I'm the slowest and weakest at.
Is it my shipping?
Do I need to work on how I ship things?
Is it actually processing the stuff, the pre-processing and post-processing?
If you don't know what post-processing that is, that's putting your inventory away, people.
Don't just like shove it off to the pile, it gets that later.
Because if you do that every day, it builds up, something sells,
you got to look at this giant unorganized pile and try to find it
so you can get shipping it down on time.
And the shipping thing itself, not just the shipping station area,
but what time are you going to the post office
or what time are you putting your books out for front porch pickup?
I'm not a porch pickup guy, I go to the post office every day.
Because that's one of the bigger things with eBay, they have to have it scanned
and I don't trust my rural carriers to scan it at the front porch and take it away from me.
I trust myself to take it to the post office,
look at the clerk if she scans each and every one of them
and we chit chat while she's doing this.
And if it's a large thing, like I have 60 packages or whatever,
it could be a 15 minute conversation while I got like nine angry people behind me
regretting that they came in at the time I did.
And that's the thing, I talked with my postal clerk early on,
when's the best time to come in where I don't interfere with your customers
that makes your day easier and makes my day easier?
Because I don't want to get there either where I'm at the back of the line.
I want to walk in when there's nobody in
and I don't care really if people come in behind me.
Do you scan forms?
No, no, I have them manually scan it each time.
I treat it like it's Q4 one week before Christmas time every day of the week.
Oh my God.
Love it.
I love it.
I don't care who's behind me.
I don't.
Oh my God.
You're going to go out in the parking lot one day,
they're going to all be waiting for you.
They're going to meet you up in the parking lot.
No, but you know what?
My metrics are 100% across the board, never had an issue.
Dude, life isn't about metrics, all right?
It's about convenience, all right?
I mean, come on, put yourself in those shoes.
How many packages have you shipped last year that they had to scan every single one?
Probably like 3,000.
5,100.
Okay, I'm going to make a YouTube video.
I'm going to get a little postal scale and you're going to have to scan and weigh every single one 5,100 times.
I already do that when I put the bailing label on.
Oh my God.
Now we're getting carried away.
So yeah, month two.
Yeah.
So where's your weak point?
Is it storage?
Is it shipping?
Is it sourcing?
Do you need to have a better sourcing route?
Or if you're online shopping, are you wasting too much time on Facebook?
You know you're not finding hardly anything, but you know for a fact you're finding better stuff from eBay,
like eBay to eBay flipping or Craigslist or Nextdoor, whatever.
Whatever your weak point is identifying that and how can you make it better?
Not just identifying it, but going through the full thing.
How do I make it better, more efficient?
Because the more time you save, the more time you can put back into the next thing that's weaker and solving that riddle.
Or spend more time sourcing, buying more things to sell more.
Crazy how that would work.
I will say this, like when I first started because I was working full time,
I went to different thrift stores, but if it sucked, I just wouldn't go there.
If it was a good thrift store, like I had a good will that was really, really good for everything at the time.
And I would just keep going back there, right?
You know if it's going to keep producing stuff for you to sell, there's no point in trying a different place.
Especially if you only have part time, right?
We don't have all week to be sourcing.
We got maybe one day.
If you keep going to that goodwill or salvation army or wherever and you keep finding decent stuff
and you're selling the stuff from there, I just keep going back until the well dries up.
There's no point in driving an extra 30 minutes to go test out a store and you get nothing.
When you could have just went back to your goodwill where you always go
and you leave with a cart full of stuff.
So I think month two, you should all be keeping track of your sources.
Whether you're brand new or whether you're doing this for 20 years.
You should know what your sources are producing.
What stores are your good stores, your okay stores, and your bad stores.
And kind of develop routes around those and how often you go to those.
So I think month two, you're kind of figuring out, all right, well, this store, you know,
my local goodwill is the only place I got to go.
I keep getting stuff from there and you just stick with that and continue to grow.
I think what you want to see in month two is growth.
Whether that's your knowledge should be growing, your income should be growing,
and the amount of stuff you're finding should be growing.
And that's with the same time investment.
We're not switching the time investment month to month.
It's the same.
So you should be growing in all these different areas in the second month.
Any other things you want to touch on in month two before we move on to the third and final month?
Yeah, I had two regrets I didn't do earlier on.
I wasn't experimenting with like going out to newer locations.
I wish I would have done that.
Where I would add like, I don't know, I'm dropping this.
So I'm going to slide this newer one in this month that I've never been to,
to see how that shapes and do that over and over again.
Because eventually, like Mike was saying, you're tracking all this stuff.
And let's just say you were going all to the known ones and you dropped all the old ones,
and that's your route.
But I do think extending your route very small, like one a week,
for an experimental thing to add to the route.
Because you don't know if it's going to pop up good, bad, or ugly.
You don't know until you do.
I wish I would have done that earlier on.
In month two, I would also try to figure out, maybe start talking,
this goes back to what we were talking about previously,
networking with the people you're buying from a bit more,
striking up those conversations.
I wouldn't push just yet how to get them cheaper from the same place,
but start that rapport building with them.
Start asking how their day is.
Or if they've told you something you don't really care about,
like their husband or their wife had a surgery, ask them how they are doing.
So you come off as a human being versus the smelly bookseller you are.
Hey, just because we don't shower,
use deodorant doesn't mean we stink.
We smell like money.
It's the money smell, you're right.
All right.
Month three, we're committed.
Right?
So whatever business we're doing, we are committed to it.
We know this is something we want to do.
We're still doing it on the side in addition to our normal job.
Now it's time to kind of, let's see where we can take this.
You should have made money from the stuff you sourced month one, month two.
Not everything have sold.
Most of that stuff, you know, it'll sell, but a lot of it won't.
So don't get in the mindset of something you bought two months ago
should be sold by today.
That's not the reality of it.
Some things, even if there is a sell through, you know,
the market goes up and down all the time.
Maybe you got to look at repricing your items that you bought in the first month.
So now you're committed to this.
So now I'm going to require you to get business cards, right?
You're committed to this.
You know, this is what you're going to do.
You need to get a stack of business cards because relationships are how you win.
And every single person you go to,
every single garage sale you go to and you buy something from them.
Here's a business card.
Oh yeah, it's two bucks.
So here's, here's $2.
Here's my business card.
You know, if you know anybody that wants to get rid of their shoes, their clothes,
I can buy them from them at a reasonable price.
I think that is kind of growing your network is so important, not only sources,
but you have to look at people as a source.
And it's the most important source because the relationships are what's going to
break the game wide open for you.
So business cards are a necessity.
You're committed to this.
You don't got to be anything fancy, right?
You don't want to be sitting there for 10 days trying to design a business card,
slap something together with your name, your number, what you buy.
It can be black and white and even on a sheet of paper,
but I prefer cards like he's talking about just for professionals.
Cards are cheap, right?
Yeah.
And then you also, you should have kept all your receipts to this point.
So you're going to have to start bookkeeping
because this is something you're committed with.
You're going to make over the threshold every single year.
So you're going to get 1099.
So you're going to have to file your taxes on this.
So you're going to have to start bookkeeping, which seems overbearing,
but I promise you it's not quick books or even you could pay somebody
to do it at the end of the year for you.
Either way, it's really not that bad.
So month three business cards, we're getting our, getting the word out there
that I'm the used book guy of Harrisburg, right?
Anybody that's got books, they know to come to me.
Now we got to build upon that, right?
So where are we headed after we get business cards, JB?
I would, I would in month three and you're committed to it.
You know what you're doing.
You've chosen your niche.
I would re-examine your storage situation.
If I'm going to continue to do this, especially if you're an eBay seller
or let's just say even for giggles, you're an FBM seller that does FBA too.
Even your FBM piles, you're going to grow out of essentially.
So examine it.
How long before I'm going to need to find a bigger space?
If I need a bigger space, what size space do I need
for what length of time?
Is it a storage unit?
Is it your shed out back?
Are you going to convert your garage if you got a garage?
What's your plan?
Because you're going to get yourself in a situation where,
uh-oh, I don't know where to put this.
I have nowhere to put it.
I've gone all the way to the ceiling or even look at that.
Okay.
I'm not utilizing my storage, right?
That was a light bulb for me back in storage unit days.
I wasn't going all the way to the ceiling.
I was going six foot, which is what most people do
because it's easy to reach it.
But go on taller, even it required me getting a ladder.
I was able to save cost for the same thing I was already paying for.
It's the same cubic square foot, what it's called.
I was utilizing not just the square footage, but the cubic going all the way to the ceiling.
And that caused me to not buy probably two additional units
by utilizing the same space or preparing to go into a storage unit.
How can I use all of it?
Like Mike's here, I think you spent a fair bit of time reorganizing your unit, right?
I'm stacked to the top on the walls all the way up.
I can't even reach the box.
I just throw them up there because I know what's in there.
It's labeled on the outside.
So I know if I got to get something, then I can figure out how to get to it.
But I'm literally stacked to the ceiling in there on the walls.
Now, a big hack I figured out for storage unit life.
In three months, you're probably in books,
you're probably looking at storage unit life after three months.
If you're doing it every day.
Or bins.
I think a lot of people start with those bins, like the ones you got, the lids you got behind you.
I think that's kind of like the starting point is those big plastic tubs.
So I think at three months, you at least have to have some kind of tub system set up, right?
I mean, at minimum, because you should have enough things listed where
you're not just going to be able to say, oh, look, there it is, right?
You're going to have to say, all right, I need to go to tub A.
And when I was in everything, seller started, I had tubs.
I think I had like five or six tubs and I sucked at my inventory system.
I just put in what tub it was in.
So I would just pop open the lid.
I did the same thing.
I was in tub life and it was stacking them on.
I found tubs that could stack and they were big because books.
And I did the same thing.
I didn't really, I didn't even label my tubs.
I just labeled the row, the rack row was on essentially.
I was still the storage unit this way.
But even if you're doing this out of your room, that'd be another thing.
You've got a spare room.
That's your new storage room, man.
Convert that out, move that desk that you haven't used in three years out.
Maybe that's your shipping table now.
You have something, even if you live in an apartment,
there's a spare room, even if it's the living room,
or you can assign like half of it or quarter of it to your business.
I think, I think month three, you really have to start thinking about
what you want to get out of the business, right?
Because some people do this and they want to keep it part-time.
They want to stay working full-time.
They get a job they like, or some people kind of want to take this full-time.
Either way, I think you have to find like the equilibrium of time you want to invest
versus results you expect.
And I think they kind of go hand in hand, right?
The more time you put in, the more money you should make.
I know that doesn't seem to be the case.
A lot of people like wasting time in reselling.
So I think you got to set a realistic expectation about,
okay, I want to make this amount so I can leave my job.
Or I want to make this amount, but I only want to work this amount
because I only want to do this on the side and I kind of want it to be stress-free.
So on month three, you should start thinking longer, you know, down the road.
What do you want to get out of your business overall?
What do you think about that?
No, I agree.
Doing the roadmap of, okay, I spent a quarter of the year learning.
I'm going to spend the next three-fourths of the quarter figuring out
where I'm taking this thing and when I'm doing those stuff.
Everybody has an idea.
But not everybody can execute those ideas.
It's important to do both.
Yes, come up with the initial idea, put a timeframe on it,
or a deadline for yourself, a personal deadline.
I think those two things are key for growing your business continually.
Because if you just have the idea and never execute an unsaid idea,
you're spinning your wheels.
And consistency kind of goes a long way in this.
I don't want people, okay, you know, I look at my sales for April, right?
Maybe I want to do this full-time.
And my sales for April were, you know, well above what I need them to be.
And I immediately start thinking, oh my God, I'm quitting today.
Like I'm out of here.
Like I had a month of sales that are great.
I would caution people on saying there's anomalies that happen, right?
In the reselling world, maybe you sold something, you know, that was really expensive.
Like I sold a $200 camera today and I usually never sell $200 items.
So it's like, if you have an anomaly in that month of sales and you say,
all right, I'm quitting my job, that might not be the reality.
I want to see consistent sales across the board here, consistent payouts before you can really say,
hey, this is something that is actually going to work.
And I'm actually going to be able to get the money I need and expect from the business on a monthly, weekly, daily basis.
Right.
And the other critical thing I would say in month three, because you spent the first two months learning how to get the stuff, mail the stuff, process the stuff, put away the stuff, right?
Start learning the tools that are given to you.
I spent a whole year not doing newsletters, not doing coupons.
I did okay.
I could have done a whole lot better if I took some time out to because I was too busy doing those other things I just mentioned.
I assigned no time to learn coupons.
I assigned no time for building my followers on eBay.
And for you Amazon people spending a lot of time learning your price tool, I think is critical and examining the market and seeing what the market's doing,
especially if you're the textbook people planning on when to send it in that kind of thing.
But learning your repriced tool.
What's the other one, Mike?
It's not inventory labs, but what's the one you're listening for?
Listing software.
Learning your listing software or getting a listing software and starting to learn it to get your time back, learning the tools that are necessary for your business.
Yeah, I agree 100 percent.
So you're starting out.
You're kind of just learning everything, right?
Month two, you're getting a little bit of money in your pocket.
Things are feeling nice.
Month three.
All right.
This is what I want to do.
We're going to take it seriously here.
It's time to ramp it up.
You're having a conversation.
You got business cards.
You got flyers.
You're all over the place and you're still trying to get the inventory for as cheap as you can.
Even to this day, I'm always chasing a deal.
If I can get something for cheaper, then I'm 100 percent going to do it.
So as you grow, and that's another thing, as you build relationships, you get better deals.
So it's almost as if when you first start, you're going to pay more for items than down the road.
Do you agree with that?
Yeah.
Unless you go to a new place and you're starting up with that new place, you may behave more initially, but then you got to network again for three, six months before you get a better deal at that place.
But for your already established places, they're going to give you deals.
They're going to say, don't worry about it.
Just take this extra box for free.
Or, hey, we got a big donation this weekend.
There's not enough floor space.
I don't want to pay my employees, speaking on their behalf.
I'd rather you just come in and take it because you buy from me every week anyway.
Just take it.
It's fine.
You do business with me every week.
It's cool.
Yeah.
I think the big takeaway is kind of to sum this up is if I had to start out again all over, I would focus on building relationships early on.
I would focus on a lower buy cost.
I would focus on my processes better being more consistent across the board with thrift stores.
Just being in general, like kind of building towards something bigger, always having the end game, you know, in my head like, hey, what's next?
Like, where do I want to be in a year?
Where do I want to be in two years?
Because honestly, when I started, I was just like, like you said, it's fun money, right?
Oh, so I went into the Goodwill and I picked this up and I made 80 bucks on it.
I'm just going to spend my 80 bucks at the casino. So it's like, hey, it is what it is.
It's not a big deal.
And, you know, it's just fun money.
But if you're going to treat this as a business, starting out and you get to that three months and you're like, all right, I'm all in, then take it seriously.
I think a lot of people kind of take the reselling business and kind of think it's like, I don't know, it's like, oh, it's like a shifty thing to do.
Well, resellings, it's just supply and demand.
It's what every company in the universe relies on.
It's supply and demand.
We're doing the same thing.
We're just doing it as single people, not a huge corporation.
So I would take, I would treat it much more like a serious business.
Develop these relationships way earlier.
I'm glad I have the relationships I do now, but I would have developed these.
I mean, I'm talking, I would have had all these relationships within six months guaranteed if I just would have had the conversation to begin with.
Like it's just the conversation. That's all it boils down to.
So I would treat my business as a business if it was something I really wanted to do and just build upon it.
Any last remarks, JB?
Yes. Don't pull the trigger on growing too fast.
It's really tempting, especially, hey, this is working.
Everything's on full cylinders.
Don't go from, I don't know, you're listing 20 a day. You want to jump to 40.
It's real tempting to do that.
I can get 40 of whatever you're selling. I can.
And list it. That comes with huge complications that compound.
Your shipping is going to go up. Your customer service is going to go up.
And your listing time is going to go up because you're not used to listing 40.
It's like I'm going to use a weightlifting reference.
You're bench pressing 100 pounds. You say I could do 200 pounds.
And it's harder than you think, folks, when you make that jump.
Increase slowly. If you do decide I can do more. Sure.
So you've given yourself, you're listing that 20. It used to take you three hours. Now you're down to two hours.
Figure out what you can do in that same three hours. You assigned yourself.
Don't do the 20 to 40. Maybe it's only 22 or 23 extra.
If you're making a jump small and then maintain that until you shave it off another hour.
You've gotten quicker. You've gotten faster.
Now, in Amazon land, I don't know.
I don't know how to equate this day Amazon. Amazon is easy.
It's the same way because your money is going to be held up.
You got to grow slow. You don't have a choice because if you go spend 10 grand today and sell everything for 10 grand tomorrow,
that 10 grand is going to sit there for, you know, two months.
So you're kind of screwed. You don't have you have no choice but to grow slow on Amazon, which is good.
I mean, there's nothing I think it's the right way to do it.
You don't want to just all of a sudden, you know, have a million things.
And the final words of this podcast is going to be sourcing is the easy and fun part.
Listing it is the actual work. If you go out and buy stuff, you have to list it.
You have to pack it and ship it to the customer to get paid.
I know all the videos you see out there with people out there finding great things.
You have to list it. You have to sell it or it means absolutely nothing.
So we will talk to you guys in next week's episode.
Thanks for listening to another episode of the resellers mindset podcast.
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