Seller Club Podcast

Episode 84: The Seller Scaries - Part 1

• Seller Club Podcast • Season 1 • Episode 84

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Glen fearlessly leads us through the first half of a VERY scary top-ten list for full time eBay sellers, including inconsistent income, pressure to perform, the fear of failure, and more… there was SO much good (scary) stuff to discuss in this list, we saved the other half for Part 2! Stay tuned!

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SPEAKER_00:

Yo, what is up everybody? This is Ken the Hustle Bee with Sello Club Podcast and let's drop that beat. Yo, yo, yo, what is up? How are you guys? Good, good.

SPEAKER_02:

It's hot, it's summer.

SPEAKER_03:

But uh the sales heating up though?

SPEAKER_02:

That's the real question. I have to say Definitely What from one podcast to the next, they're definitely improving.

SPEAKER_00:

Why? What did you do? The changes I made is working. Oh, that's helpful. Because remember, like when I said like we were listing a lot, and I was like, why is it not? And it's just like starting to hit. And then Oh, right.

SPEAKER_03:

Like it hadn't really caught up. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00:

It hasn't recycled. Um, and also for some reason, I have I've always had like a 5% promotion. And you know ad spend? Ad sp, yeah, right. And and uh 5% like well promoted listing, right? I guess. Right. And then for some reason, I've always kind of just like created a new listing or created a new campaign. So I was like, there's so many campaigns here. Deleted all of that, and then created a rule base. This is something the first time I've used. Oh, really?

SPEAKER_03:

See, that's how I always do it. I figured that's how you do it.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, when I when I started doing it, that feature wasn't there yet.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, I see.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so I've always just kind of like copied it, right? So you can always copy it, always do it the way you do. So now, well, to anybody that's old school like me that don't know, now you will know that there is a rule-based um promotion. So when I set this up, it was easier on the setup because you know you don't have to like click the all the listings that you want to add onto that campaign. Right you just say, like, what's the rule? Um, my rule was anything under$300, I promote for promoted listings for five percent, right? What I didn't realize after I created that, okay, it put everything, then every listing that you put in that's under$300 gets put on that campaign. Genius.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it gets automatically included whenever it comes on the parameters. Yeah, that's when I will, you know, that's when you never settle. Maybe that's what you that is so funny to me because you are such like an ads user and like lover and slash kind of expert, and you just didn't realize that one little nuance. Isn't that the greatest though when you learn something that like unlocks it for you?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and it's like it's and and also too, I was in a mode where I need to change something because you know the red's getting redder.

SPEAKER_03:

Sunburn, like a sunburn in the summer.

SPEAKER_00:

So I had to find some green grass. Um, so I did, I did, I did. Um, and then uh, well, this week we're if we're if we're gonna continue this uh uh surge, we're we're gonna be in uh end up in a really good week. So summer surge after all. That's my update. That's my update. So I'm sorry to uh you know to uh for all the haters out there. I'm sorry for you know ruining your celebration. Sorry you gotta see me win. Summer's real, you know, summer summer slowdown ain't real. That's funny.

SPEAKER_02:

So I did have five like five days in a row of just trash, it's like sales. Like and so I think my highest out of the trash day sales was like two to three hundred bucks.

SPEAKER_03:

Um one man's trash is another man's treasure, I'll let you think. That's true.

SPEAKER_02:

But my lowest day was eighty-one dollars, remember?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Sub$100 days are bummer.

SPEAKER_02:

Someone come on now. But the last two days, they've been good. So I can't, yeah. One one$500, the other one eleven hundred.

SPEAKER_03:

So that is interesting, like when there's a little like lull like that. It's not maybe a whole week, but yeah, just kind of a little cluster of days where it's like, what is going on here? Yeah, but it makes you panic.

SPEAKER_00:

Like, like, I mean, even you know, not I mean, you probably don't panic like you used to, Glenn, but it still doesn't feel right. You know, like I'm doing the same thing every day, and it's like, what happened? Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03:

I think it's interesting though to take note of A, the fact that those do happen, and B, maybe the context in which they happen to some degree, like, you know, this is the beginning of summer. A lot of people are hitting their vacations right at the beginning, as soon as they are, you know, done with school or whatever. And I don't know, it's like it's a transitional time. So I feel like those little blips are like more likely to happen during those times. I feel like this same thing happens between Christmas and New Year's, where it might be like amazing one day and then be like zero the next day.

SPEAKER_00:

Like I think those transitional times are like all the dads are out there buying mulch in, you know.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, they're way late to the game. They're buying mulch now. Come on. That was March. Come on.

SPEAKER_02:

Sorry. March mulch. That's what it is.

SPEAKER_00:

Is that what it is?

SPEAKER_02:

I don't know. No, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00:

Also, you have to know.

SPEAKER_03:

Don't let Glenn answer this.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. Don't let Glenn that mulch. Did you know that Glenn has turf? Fake turf? I think I did know that. Okay. Yeah, yeah. It's so not mulch, in other words. It's so cool because like this guy, like, you know, like one time he shared his story's backyard. I was like, man, that's green, green. And like mine's like dying. And I asked them, I had to ask them.

SPEAKER_03:

Like, yeah, it's plastic.

SPEAKER_00:

Or whatever.

SPEAKER_03:

Is it plastic? I don't know. I assume it is some kind of plastic.

SPEAKER_02:

The bad thing is we get so much dirt and like sand and like wind that it just gets stuck in there too. Like, so how do you clean it?

SPEAKER_00:

Like, do you have to like wash it?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, you have to kind of like blow it with the blowers, or you can also kind of like sweep it or something? Yeah, sweep it too, or yeah. Yeah, it kind of sucks, but when it's really stuck in there, at least. So you have to keep on top of things.

SPEAKER_00:

Can you wash it with water? No.

SPEAKER_02:

Um yeah, I think you can. I think but you haven't? No.

SPEAKER_03:

It can like rain, you know.

SPEAKER_00:

Like, yeah, but it never rains.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that's another time. Um But I mean our topic today is a uh is a hustler hacks uh OG original topic to where uh nobody knows. Nobody knows, but it does lead from how Ken said going into like the scary sales, you know what I mean? That's where I wanted to lead this episode. So uh this episode is top ten scariest parts of being a full-time uh eBay seller. So very, very scary episode. Um, some would say spooky even, eerie, creepy, definitely, sinister.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, insidious. Wow, wow, wow, wow, using big words.

SPEAKER_02:

Ghostly. Ghostly, that's what it is.

SPEAKER_00:

Ghostly would demand. I can't see him.

SPEAKER_02:

I know. Okay, so here we go. Top ten scariest parts of being a full-time eBay seller. And actually, number one is inconsistent income. Which you know, for for an example, they're saying like some months you might be making three thousand, five thousand, five hundred. What happens? What's the deep uh decline? Why? So you have to figure that out as uh the business owner. But inconsistent income is number one. And I think that if you have things in play, I don't think you should see that much of a deep, deep decline. You know what I mean? Like, I only made 200 bucks this month. Yeah. When I usually make five grand a month or something, like that's that's a big decline. Yeah, that's a huge decline. So I don't really see it like that. Um it's kind of interesting too on the whatnot side. There was uh some guys talking about like tips on selling on whatnot, and they're saying how like if you start things at a dollar, things can be very inconsistent. Like you don't know what it's gonna sell for one show to the next. The funny part is I've done the dollar auctions and they've been pretty consistent for the last, I don't know, like years, I guess. You know, so I think that when you have systems in play, right? Let's say whether it's eBay or whatever you're selling on, I think that you you'll be fine as long as you're consistent.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and also too, on the whatnot side, you have a stop loss procedure that you have created, right? Like you figure out that after X amount of time the price decrease or the sale lowers. So now you have figured okay, you know, whatever it is, and anything over a hundred bucks, I'm making ten percent less. Or anything over a hundred items, I'm making ten percent less. Or if I show this item more than five times, then the value goes down. So like those are the advantages of whatnot because there's really no comps. So it's up to you to kind of like kind of like create your own comps, right? If it's kind of like the strategy I've always done is if it's hitting for good money, you gotta back-to-back it. And if it's not hitting for good money, hide that thing for a while. Hide it for a while. Um, so so that's kind of like uh you know my take on that. Um, but I don't think inconsistency is a bad thing. Because if you look at it on the downside, yes, but there are other times that it's upside that.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, no one's complaining about it on the end. Yeah, yeah, nobody's complaining about it.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh man, my my my mod just went up inconsistently. Right.

SPEAKER_03:

We don't tend to call it that when it's going well.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, it's like, oh, are you great? Are you great? Like credits to me, right? But but when it when it's down, it's like, oh, something's wrong with eBay.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. What came to my mind when you said the name of this first scary thing is like inconsistent income in spite of consistent activity. Like, I think that's when it gets scary. And obviously on the downside of it, right? When you're like, but I'm doing the same thing and I'm doing the same thing that's worked, that's based on data, that's based on cops, that's you know, been optimized, and I'm being efficient, and somehow my income's going down, like, or I can't rely on it from month to month. But I do think for from the perspective of like full-time seller, there's also like generally, like, I feel like my store pushed these limits um over the last couple of years when my overall sales have been kind of more down because of all the transition of moving and downsizing my store and all this different stuff that was going on that kind of all work together. But like, like right now, kind of like you were saying earlier, okay, I might have an inconsistent amount of income from one month to the next, but it's not gonna be like 10,000 one month and 200 the next month. Like there's like drastically, there's a range that's like relatively consistent, right? The exact amount's not consistent, but I c I kind of know what to expect, right? Even if even if my activity does vary a little bit, it's still gonna fall within that normal range. Probably not gonna, you know, drop down to 10 or 20 percent of what I made the last month. Like it's just not gonna happen that that drastically, right? It's gonna be more gradual.

SPEAKER_00:

So consistency is not a bad thing.

SPEAKER_03:

Not always, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

As long as your input is consistent.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Consistently right and doing best practices. Some people do consistent wrong things. Yeah, right. I'm like, dude, you're selling the wrong item over and over and over again.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. And you're trying to have to do it. Like in your real life current example, Ken, it's like, okay, you're listing, you know, you listed a bunch of stuff.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

That was the right that was the right thing to do, and you consistently know how to do that well, item over item and month over month. But you know, obviously it ebbs and flows on a daily or weekly basis. So now you're seeing like the fruits of that. You know that if you put that effort in, like it will shake out.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

It might be a little bit varied when it shakes out exactly, but it will.

SPEAKER_02:

I agree. I agree. All right. Number two, uh, which is questionable health insurance, time off, and retirement plan.

SPEAKER_03:

Questionable as in non-existent.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. You mean you mean non-existing.

SPEAKER_03:

Questionable, like where there? Yeah, where? Where is that?

SPEAKER_02:

Um you know, find it somehow. Um, health insurance number one sucks, which I we already know. I mean, I've been going through this.

SPEAKER_01:

Which we already know.

SPEAKER_02:

This is like oh just getting worse and worse. It's paid time off. Well, what's that?

SPEAKER_00:

Or like if you yeah, if you get time off, you're not getting paid at all.

SPEAKER_02:

And then retirement plan. Well, retirement plan is kind of funny because um, I mean, my parents are still working, they're trying to retire, and uh that's not going down anytime soon. Um my my father-in-law and mother-in-law are retired, but even then in retirement, they're still finding other ways to see like what other monies to make. So you're not really like completely done with working. I mean, maybe some are, but there's a lot of people that still go work at Walmart or go work a part-time job somewhere. Um, they also threw in there as far as like getting sick and or injured, how do you find that time or someone to I guess back you up in a way? You don't. Right.

SPEAKER_03:

You can, but it takes a lot of so let's hear from our pros.

SPEAKER_00:

What about Anna first is Anna, and uh, Anna first, Anna first. She's she's pretty well versed with retirement because she's well planned.

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, I have I have goals for sure. But yeah, I mean, one thing I'll say this is a it is a scary prospect. So for me, in my personal situation, like my husband does have a W-2 job, so I have health insurance through his job. But but if he ever wanted to go full-time double down on the eBay store with me, then we would be right back in that same boat. Um, but I do think like this is a little bit simplistic, like there's absolutely no denying that these are huge hurdles for anybody who's like a full-time business owner, like eBay store or otherwise, right? Where you have to provide all of these benefits for yourself. And it's really the system is not set up for that. Like it is not not easy to compensate yourself with those things. But I do think on in kind of from a different perspective, like like we all probably need health care, you know, at some point, even if we're very healthy and rarely need to visit the doctor or have anything happen, you know, that requires a procedure or whatever. But hopefully, you know, with some of your freedom and flexibility that you have running a business, you're taking care of your body. I mean, that's one thing that I see people take kind of for granted a lot when they have like health insurance or even like a gym membership or anything like to take care of their physical well-being that's like built into their benefits at their job. And they're like, Oh, it's cool, I have health insurance, so I'll just like work myself into the ground and like completely burn out and get sick. It's like, well, it would be better maybe if you could actually take your time enough in your life to like take care of yourself. And like it's hard. Like, you know, you work really hard as a business owner or as an employee of someone else's business, like either way, you know, people work work themselves too hard. But I do think that's uh maybe one thing to consider if this is a scary thing for you, like at least you can do something about the flexibility and the wherewithal to kind of like maintain your body, maybe better than a lot of people who are in a corporate job situation, just because you can like you're your own boss and you make you make the rules about how you're gonna allocate your resources and your time to take care of yourself. So obviously that's not a magic wand. Like we all have unforeseen things that we have to deal with, and healthcare is expensive. So that's a tough one. Um, but it's kind of the same for like retirement planning too. Like you can open, you know, a business owner, uh like IRA type of situation. You can you can save for retirement in really similar ways to people who have like a 401k through their job. But again, it's not something that a lot of people uh just know about. Like you have to find you have to educate yourself about it, you have to figure out, you know, how to basically do it yourself. But it's available. So a lot of people probably don't know that, you know, and when you're running a business too, it's like so much of your time and attention is on the business, and it's hard to like learn another thing, right? Have another learning curve and make sure you're setting yourself up and setting some stuff aside for the future. But what were the other ones? It was healthcare, retirement, oh, paid time off, ha ha.

SPEAKER_02:

Or getting sick, getting injured, yeah, oh yeah. Things like that.

SPEAKER_03:

Which, yeah, same thing. It's like I I I mean, my husband could probably do most of what I do pretty easily in my business because he's the most familiar with it. But I don't really have a good plan for that. Like, I don't have a written manual of how to do every single thing to run my store that I could hand to a stranger and say, like, here, you take over today. So obviously it just it depends on the situation, but it would be a difficult uh transition if I could like, you know, even for short term, even for two months, it'd probably be the easiest thing to just turn my store off, right? If it was like a short-term thing. But and if it's a long-term thing, like I don't know. Like that that that would potentially have to be someone else's problem to figure out, which would be which is not a great thought, honestly. Like it's a good idea to plan for that stuff. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But what I could add to that on that last part, that's the main reason why me and JC are basically quote unquote trained to do each other's job. Yeah. Um cross-trained. Yeah, and right, like that's kind of like a core, you know, I learned that from you know from school. Cross-training is important. So employees could, you know, fulfill each other each other's roles. Um and that's I always say, like, you know, like because you know, you can't really like not think about worst-case scenario. And my always thinks like worst case scenario, if I'm not here, you can run it just the way I would. Probably even better. And vice versa. Um it suck you, you know, it might suck for a while because you're not familiar with it, but you're familiar with it enough. So that's one. I think that's always kind of like a good um, you know, like find somebody that you trust with your life to at least know the process, kind of like what Anna said that John is familiar enough.

SPEAKER_03:

Step one, find somebody to trust with your life. Period.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, and then the concept of retirement is not a thing for me. Um, I I never w heard the word retirement until I moved here to America. So I refuse. You know, I'm an American citizen now and everything like that. I've lived here for a while. Um, I love McDonald's. I love ice cream, you know. I'm American through and through. Um I love custard. I love ice cream.

SPEAKER_03:

Do you really want to make a joke about how the ice cream machine's always broken at McDonald's?

SPEAKER_00:

No, no, no, there's other ice cream places that are way better. There's yeah, you know. Um but but I that's one thing I refuse to embrace the concept of retirement. Um and and I and I've I've always said it. It's um it's an older model when everybody um, you know, it was in the industrial age where everybody was factory workers and replaceable, and you give your life for 40 years and we exchange you for 25 years of comfort or something like that, right? Uh you buy your Corvette when after you retire. You know, that's kind of like the model where you buy an RV and you go see the world, you know, for three or four years before you can't walk anymore. So I yeah, I can't I I I refuse to do that. So that's why I the I'd rather struggle now to truly find the things I want to do. That way I don't have to retire from the life that I'm living. So that's kind of like how I see it. Um and I said, worst case scenario, worst case scenario, I'll get a group of people like, hey, let's buy an island in the Philippines. Like I said, you know,$100,000. We'll get an island.

SPEAKER_03:

A group of people, Glenn.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, we we we we you know, like that's why I'm cheering Anna on for gardening, you know. Worst case scenario can my garden is popping.

SPEAKER_03:

Right, that's what I was saying, right? Like popping.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, Glenn can consistently uh put on fire. Yeah, he can put on the fire, right?

SPEAKER_03:

He can clean the turf. There's not gonna be turf.

unknown:

He can clean the turf.

SPEAKER_00:

That um um, you know, he can get water or something like that, you know. So I can cook, I can clean it up.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm just gonna be buying hats. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'd be slinging. I mean he's actually made of hats.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we'd be slinging some uh some uh woven hats, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, like a strong you need that at the beach.

SPEAKER_02:

So well one of one of the things that people get, I guess, like well, eBay sellers, um, but they get asked, I guess, is like what is the end goal? Like, if there's no retirement, how do you get out of being an eBay seller full time?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I mean I feel I feel similar to Ken about uh about work, like knowing myself. Like I don't really intend to ever not be working, but I would love for it to be optional. Like you know, and it's like I think it I think that's really truly how I think of it. Like, at what point will it be optional because I have earned enough money to have other investments that will give me enough passive income where I don't have to like work for a specific dollar amount. And that number one, inconsistent income becomes less scary because that income would all be gravy, right? Yeah, but I do think like kind of what what is your life's work or or if you are gonna retire, as in like close the chapter. I mean, you could technically say I retired from my first career, you know, when I was 29. Like, but I didn't really retire, you know. It's like I closed the chapter on that and I shifted to something else, and I'm still like a productive working person because that's just what I like to do and who I am, and I have to at this point to afford my life, right? Like most of us. So it's like I I wouldn't, I mean, even if I was 60 or 70 years old, I don't I don't know if I'd consider it a retirement. It's like I would maybe shift to something else, but it's all really it's about how much do you depend on like that income, um so that you feel like you have to keep doing something whether you want to or not.

SPEAKER_00:

I think and Glenn could probably add on to this, I think a lot of it too is like the feeling of needing to have money or income. Yeah. Is is so fake because it is the fact that you bought in the quote unquote status quo that you gotta have this, this, and this. And when when you gotta have the house, you gotta have the nice car, you gotta have brand new this, brand new that. And if you bought into that, you're gonna feel like you have to have income. I mean, I mean it's not a feel, it's a fact that you have to have income to pay off those X amount of things. Right. Things that you owe as well. Right, right. I I think and and and I've always said, Yes, I'm teeter tottering on like, yeah, I don't need it, but sometimes I like nice things, so I'll just work for it and I'll exchange X amount of time of my life and I get to do it. And that's the only thing why I hate um healthcare because that's a sports car car payment. That's why I don't have a sports car because I have a health payment. Yeah, um, but but that's kind of like what it is, and and for me, eventually my goal is to ultimately win off myself of the need for stuff and when I get rid of that, truly I don't need an income. I mean, literally, like you can make ends meet way easier because I can look back when I was in my apartment, my monthly expense was so low. Yeah, imagine if I had the inventory that I have right now with the expense of the apartment that I had, I'd feel so rich. And and I feel like that's what I wanna get to the ultimately at the end of this clin, right? Like I want my store to get so big and my expenses get so small that way having to make that money monthly doesn't you know it's disproportionately advantageous for me. So uh w what's your take on that? Because you have kind of like paid off one of the biggest debt on a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02:

I've I've paid off all the debts, uh, and then I have uh a child.

SPEAKER_00:

So we didn't talk about any kids stuff, which uh we'll definitely add on to your a kid's add-on, but but I feel like that's not a debt, like you you are like I feel like it's an expense. It's an expense, but I feel like it's a rep replacement expense. Put it this way.

SPEAKER_03:

What do you mean?

SPEAKER_00:

If I wanted to buy nice clothes for me, and if I had a kid, I wouldn't buy stuff for me. It's just a replacement expense.

SPEAKER_03:

So if you're already buying yourself nice clothes, right, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_00:

Like, for example, like Glenn, like he was a sneakerhead before, buy new shoes here and there. He now he just doesn't because that money just went to the kid. So that's kind of just like relative. That's how I see it. You just have to do it 18 years.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I already know what if you've if Ken wants to get out, or even if I want to get out of uh whatever we're selling on eBay. Um, we build up the store biggest possible, you try to get to like a million store value, yeah. And then you just tell sneakers envy, hey, 500,000 for this, take it for half, and here it is. Yeah, make it.

SPEAKER_03:

So we're all banking on Jim at this point. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm down to do it too.

SPEAKER_03:

He'll do it now, he'll do it tomorrow, he'll do it next week. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02:

Exactly. You find that eBay seller that's hilarious.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. No one wants to double up their store.

SPEAKER_03:

I actually I talked to someone at eBay one time about that. About like, what if you wanted to sell your entire inventory to another seller? Could they import your store into their store somehow? And like currently, that's not a capability, but I do think that's really interesting. I mean, eBay is about to be 30 years old. So there are people long careers of this who have built a brand and they've built a buyer base and they've built, you know, they've niched down and stuff, and like that's like like you would sell any other stuff.

SPEAKER_00:

It's a specialty store, right? You you sell a specialty online store, right?

SPEAKER_02:

And a genius.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm just saying, I asked them to figure it out, please. Here's a lot of things. It sounds like it was gonna be very complicated.

SPEAKER_02:

Separate category on just eBay stores for sale.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02:

And then you would try to find your niche and you would just buy out your competition. Hey, I'll I'll buy your store. It's already on there, and then import those listings. That is fire.

SPEAKER_03:

So every time you have a zero dollar sales day, your store shows up on that stores for sale, and you might entertain an offer for your whole structure over it. Yeah, that's what it is.

SPEAKER_00:

eBay eBay storesforsale.com. And it it will go like uh it's kind of like a stock market, right? Like, oh, I just had a thousand dollar day. Like, oh, the valuation of my business just went up.

SPEAKER_03:

But like imagine that if you could literally transfer your listings like with the current watchers and the history and everything to someone.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh yeah, you can't, it will have to reset basically. Right. The API backend can import everything besides the views and it becomes a new listing, basically, right? It's an it's an import, it's a it's a copy-paste listing.

SPEAKER_02:

Or the valuation goes down because you sold like$2,000 worth of product that day, and then now you can't replenish it.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. Yeah, you did replenish it, right? But what if okay, what if oh, also I've got a fun thing to tell you guys off the air that we cannot share with listeners yet. But remind me to tell you when we're done uh recording this. But anyway, this is not that, this is something else. But um what if it just in in our fantasy land of being able to sell your whole store? What if it was like instead of a dollar amount, it was like, okay, here's the value of my inventory, right? And here's the pennies on the dollar that you would pay. Like that's how the pricing worked. Just like I think it'd be interesting if that's like a it's like a stock market, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Like that.

SPEAKER_02:

We just put your business on auction.

SPEAKER_00:

You know what I'm saying? Seven day auction. You know what's smarter? I would be so terrified. Oh no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_03:

Immediate payment payment or not?

SPEAKER_00:

This is what we need to do. We need to uh create a new account and whatnot, and they're gonna give you like uh 30-day no fees and you sell everything 30 days and then you're out. You're out done.

SPEAKER_03:

So if you had to do it today, that'd be a pretty good strategy.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, whatnot's on my DMs. They want me to go back and uh so I haven't I haven't responded yet.

SPEAKER_03:

I mean tell them they're welcome to sponsor the podcast.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh I was kind of thinking too, like, what about all the stuff that I have listed? Like if it hasn't sold on the free, what was it? Uh Black Friday, they have no fees. Yeah, yeah. What about everything that I listed throughout the year that has not sold by by Black Friday? You just sell it on that one day.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

You just clear out inventory so you have fresh inventory every year.

SPEAKER_03:

That'd be a super clean slate.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's that's fun, but that's not fun when you have to think that you have to replenish like 3,000, 4,000 items.

SPEAKER_02:

It's also not fun when you're thinking, I guess, like long term, because after that.

SPEAKER_00:

Then you're like zero, you know, then your income. Talk about inconsistency. Just and this is my thing. When I when I sell my eBay store, I'm just gonna get royalties.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. There we go. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_00:

Let me like, okay, 500 half a mil store, I just want 30% of the sales. After 500,000, after 500,000, I only get 10%.

SPEAKER_02:

And then five, and then you're out, you're out completely.

SPEAKER_00:

No, no, 10%'s the bottom. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00:

That's that's the royalty for the brand.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, okay. For the brand.

SPEAKER_00:

Right? Kind of like kind of like what the actors of Friends did. Did you know this? Fun fact. Friends. Hey, we're friends, stipulated to do that two percent of the revenue of the the show they get uh in perpetuity. Well, when they set this up, this was TV, right? Yeah, what happened is now they're on streaming platforms. So now I think uh like combined actors get 20 million a year. Incredible. So smart. What a smart move. So that's what we gotta do. We just gotta make our brand so big.

SPEAKER_02:

You gotta make a show. And then you have to hit a hundred episodes.

SPEAKER_00:

You gotta make a show on the real life of eBay sellers kind of like uh Kardashians.

SPEAKER_03:

Hey, maybe I'll change the name of my store from Anesthetic Messellany to Anesthetic Perpetuity instead. Yeah, even harder.

SPEAKER_02:

It's an extra syllable. I don't even know where we can get to all ten of these. Um, five and five. Part one and part two.

SPEAKER_03:

I like this conversation though.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, okay, let's not against it. Here's the third one. Pressure to perform. You're the boss, you're the internal or external. Yeah, it's gonna be both. You're the sourcer, you're the photographer, you're customer service. If you're not constantly producing or improving your eBay business, it can stagnate and or die.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Which is the scariest part of this whole thing. Um so pressure to perform, which I think is definitely a real thing. It's because another problem um on YouTube and everywhere else is that there's ways to make passive income and you're just chilling on the beach, and everything's just there's no problems, and not only that, you have just like a six-pack of abs. You don't even work out. I mean, you're just ripped.

SPEAKER_03:

Passive abs, too.

SPEAKER_02:

Everything is just passive. Yeah. And so I think well, that's one of the issues too. So when people see like your eBay side, you're like, damn, that's a lot of work. It's like, well, work is work. I mean, you can love your work, which makes it a lot easier. Um or you can just pretend, which I think a lot of people do. Um, and then that's where it's just gets harder and harder. But with eBay and with any business, you're gonna have to constantly work at it, and you can't just have old products in general, you know. It doesn't matter if you're listing, if you have your own website, you gotta continually add new items. Um, if you have a storefront, people are gonna come in. Hey, what's new? Nothing, it's the same in the last three months. I mean, that can't happen either. So even if you look at, let's say, Starbucks or other, they have promotions going on. Hey, that's um what is it called?

SPEAKER_03:

Pumpkin spice time, and then then you have uh the holiday time, and then you have you know, they constantly have to run promotions and time of the year drinks and so in like the dining industry, it's called LTOs, limited time offers.

SPEAKER_02:

Limited time offers.

SPEAKER_03:

It's the McRib, it's PSL.

SPEAKER_02:

That sounds nasty. Every time I see it, I'm like, oh the McRib. Um so yeah, pressure to perform. Kenny.

SPEAKER_00:

Um I'm here to become a diamond, so I need it. Sign me up for the pressure. So um, yeah, I noticed that if if the life if life and this is take it aside. If you know me, if life's too good, I don't like it. Um it makes me soft and makes me soft like carmin. It makes me fat and makes me slow and it makes me blah. So that's kind of how I feel about it. Um I feel like there's gotta be a strive for something, whether it's a business, health, family, relationship, there has to be a strive. And trust me, I know that because there's been moments in my eBay career where there's been it's been two good sales or everything's green. When everything's green, I know, I feel like that's a red flag for me. When I everything's green, that's a red flag. Because it just breeds complacency. So um I've never felt so good, you know, recently until like the last two weeks because I was digging in trying to find a way to, you know, do the different stuff in my eBay store. And you know, like that's kind of like polar opposite for what people would do because like, oh, we're sales are down, why you feel good? It's like uh actually because now I actually had to buckle myself myself in a seat, work for four, five, six hours on a laptop or on a computer, and find a way to tweak something, clearance something, and then and then now it's like okay, now sales are back up, what's next? So that's always gonna that's my take. Um pressure's good. I see pressure is good.

SPEAKER_03:

I was um just trying to look this up really quick and I couldn't find like the actual what the what the official version of this is, but I've heard this concept many times about how you we all need an optimal amount of challenge, right? Like if it's not challenging enough, it's boring, we're not pushing ourselves, we're not growing, right? If it's too challenging, it's really stressful, or we literally can't do it and it's defeating, or we won't try because it's too much, right? But um, I I had read recently that the optimal challenge is something like 4% beyond our current skills. And so, like what you were just saying, it's like you sat down, you know, you put in some hours on the laptop, you had to think outside the box, you had to take a survey of everything and figure out like what can I do here. But imagine if you had never looked at the eBay website before and you were sitting down trying to do that. Yeah, yeah. It would have been way more than 4% of a challenge, right? Yeah. Like that was probably just about right, where it was like, okay, this was a few, a few points above what I'm used to doing. I have to do something different. So it inherently has like some challenge, but it's not so much pressure that it's crushing me. It's like actually kind of exciting and invigorating and like motivating you. And then you feel really accomplished when you figure it out because it's actually like reachable, right? It's like you can figure it out because it's based on the foundation that you already have. It's not like totally brand new challenge, it's just blindsiding you. So I think that that kind of pressure is really good for us. Um, but I do think like another side of this is that kind of like like you're saying, Glenn, all the hats, right? The day in, day out of like, now I have to handle this. Oh, there's a grumpy customer in my inbox. Oh, guess who gets to deal with that? Me. Oh wow, you know, UPS uh overcharged me for postage after the fact. Well, who's gotta go figure out if that's accurate and you know, appeal and blah, blah. Oh yeah, me. Like it's like all the tasks you have to do, plus you have to stay on top of sourcing and shipping and the cyclical tasks of your business, obviously. But I do think that in spite of all that, like in my experience, I feel way less pressure relative to other types of work I've done in other settings of work because like there is pressure and there isn't pressure. Like what I loved about um one thing the scavenger life, uh, JN Ryan on the scavenger life always used to talk about was like it's not passive income, but it's like deferred income. Like you will like, and I literally put this to the test when I moved and I didn't list anything new for almost a year, and I sold things for a year without listing new stuff. And it was like that was all income from effort I'd already put in. And so, you know, I needed a lot of time in that year to get things moved and settled and get things back up and running like normal. And I was only able to do that because I'd already put in all that other work, you know. So it's a little bit of a time warp, but it's like, I mean, I was still the one doing all that work. So the pressure was on me in the past to have already gotten that work done, you know. But in the present, when I was going through that, I was really grateful for it. And I didn't feel like there was a ton of pressure to try to do absolutely everything at once on top of a huge life transition because of the way that it's set up. You know, it was set up for me to benefit from that deferred income. And I do think passive income is great, deferred income is the next best thing. So I love that. That to me takes a lot of the pressure off, at least in the short term.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Exactly. All right, we got two left uh before we get to part two, which will be our next episode, but uh unpredictable expenses from maybe uh IRS, random things coming in as far as like doing tech stuff, uh broken equipment, and or let's say uh if you use your car to source and uh your car breaks down, well, you have an expense there, or hey, I can't source today because well, I can't go anywhere. Um maybe phone broken or whatever you use to take photos, maybe computer is down or whatever you use to uh list, um, anything like that. Um unpredictable expenses in the business, and if you're not prepared for it, it can crush your cash flow in an instant.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, it can.

SPEAKER_02:

Yep. So Kenny.

SPEAKER_00:

Um yeah, but the beauty of where we live is there's credit cards, there's other things that you can defer to. Um I I think even at one point if you uh if you get your car repaired, you can defer it for X amount of payment. Three months, six months, something like that. So as long as you have cash flow coming in and your business is you're you're taking care of the business, that's one of the things that I worry the least because there are multiple finan uh ways to finance in this country, which is way better than the country I was at before. So I think we shall remain nameless. Yeah, yeah. So I I see it as a huge benefit, right? Like, worst case scenario if your car breaks down.

SPEAKER_03:

Whose island do you want to buy?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, the island I want to buy, right? Um, you know, like if your car breaks down, right? Worst case scenario, there's a reason why you your car broke down because either one is it's just really old or you just put too much mouse. So the person to blame is it's really you because you have you should have saw it ahead. Um also that's why for me I pay the premium to get newer cars. That way I don't get to those kinds of repairs. Um so if you're on the other option that you keep your cars longer, you should you know expect those repairs. So Anna can add into that.

SPEAKER_03:

Uh my car has 265,000 miles on it. So I'm definitely in that camp. But I mean, you more or less have to budget for that all the same, right? Where it's possible, where it's like, okay, this is gonna this the lifespan of this car is gonna include some serious maintenance and repairs and multiple sets of tires and whatever. Um so yeah, but I I think kind of like agree with what you're saying, Ken. Like most things, like, yeah, okay, if you drop your phone in the toilet and you have to suddenly buy a new phone, like that's it.

SPEAKER_00:

You can get a monthly payment on your phone for 20 bucks.

SPEAKER_03:

You can. So and and there are multiple ways, but I think just in general, like I try to keep tabs on, you know, obviously, like um there are different like credit cards I have used for my business, or like eBay has a great capital program. There's, you know, it's good to like at any moment have your your finger on the pulse of like if I had a five thousand dollar emergency in my business, do I and if I don't have the cash reserves for it, it'd probably be great if you did.

SPEAKER_00:

Start building it.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, start building it. And if you don't, like what are the levers you could relatively safely pull to like keep your to kind of protect your cash flow, right? Or to protect your business from a big expense. Um because we do have a lot of things available. And I mean, I really love that eBay's a seller capital program. I've used it, I've tried it out because for that exact reason, so that I know, okay, if I have a good experience, and I did have good experience with this program, if I ever needed it or I wanted to, you know, do a huge inventory purchase or something and I wanted to use that as my way of funding it, you know, would I be comfortable using this? Would it be easy?

SPEAKER_00:

You know, so it's really good to know what your options are, even if you're not like for necessities for necessities you always have options, I believe. Unless you've used up those options for unnecessary things. You know, if Glenn bought a Lambo, right, and then you know, his debt to income ratio is really lopsided now, and then his Lambo broke.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. And then Well, and that's the other thing. Like, don't don't live your life or run your business completely maxed out. Like, yeah, have some room.

SPEAKER_00:

Just 90%.

SPEAKER_03:

90% maxed out. I did not um endorse that part of the advice.

SPEAKER_00:

I would just like to sometimes 90, sometimes 75.

SPEAKER_03:

Glenn's like, you jokers, what are you doing?

SPEAKER_02:

Oh man.

SPEAKER_03:

What do you think about that?

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, I do I do agree. Um, and I think I think the debt to income ratio stuff and all that comes into play. And I think Kenny well, Kenny also makes a good point, too. I think there's always like that battle to where uh hey, you only live once, or uh, or I just want to like build up this uh this savings and then so that that is a constant battle, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, there's people that only live once, there's people that only die once. You know? Um that's kind of like the YOLO, you know, and then there's like the super conservative that that you get to an age, let's I will say like at 65, I will never enjoy a sports car. I'd be in pain to get in and out of sports car, right? And that's what people don't understand. Try to ride a sports car uh exotic. Most older rich people don't because they can't. And it's so hard, it's so bumpy, it's so uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, so well, it's also just a question of like what what equals quality of life for you? Yeah, you know, being comfortable or looking cool, like you might have a different priority. You know what I mean? Like, if it's your lifelong dream to drive that car, it might not matter if it's comfortable, but like, yeah, it at the end of the day, like like same going back to the retirement conversation. It's like, what do you actually need to have the quality of life you want? If you don't know how to answer that, you should start asking.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Alright, we got one left.

SPEAKER_00:

One left. Let's do this.

SPEAKER_02:

It is fear of failure. So it's all on your shoulders. And if your eBay business fails, you have no one else to blame. Uh fear of losing everything, or maybe just uh the pressure and fear of running a business can take over. And this one's kind of funny in a way, because I feel like uh the numbers don't lie, and I see the numbers are doing well, and I'm like, I don't know, are they really doing that well? Or like could they be doing better?

SPEAKER_00:

Because now you gotta feel like you gotta compare yourself to another person exactly like you. Which is not possible.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, exactly. Well, maybe I think I just feel like uh if maybe if I went this direction, it would be doing better. But even though it's already doing well here. So the constant thought of it could always be better, right? Yeah, it could always be better in your situation because we have so many different opportunities, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03:

Like, is it scarier to think about being mediocre or being really successful and then losing your traction and never getting it back and just like spiraling downward? Or trying really, really hard and never being successful in the first place?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh man, it hurts. Try and win.

SPEAKER_03:

All three of them are all three of them are awful. Really?

SPEAKER_00:

I I would be comfortable. Even comfortable if it's not on my own doing that it was just a matter of the perfect the perfect storm happens and I lose it all I would it would be exciting for me. I get to do it again, but I get to do it smarter this time.

SPEAKER_03:

I've thought about that with the prospect of selling my whole store. Like would I sell it and then not sell on eBay anymore? No, I would sell from like I would just like I would start over.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I would just start over and skip all the you know how like when you play a game, right, and then there's levels to a game, and the game is and you get to auto-save every level 10, right? And then you die on the level 9. Yes, it's hurts, but it's so much quicker to get to nine again. So that's kind of how I see it, but also the fear of failure, I think a lot of the fear of failure is actually carrying too much what other people think. That's I think that's kind of what it boils down to. And I think because I was risky enough earlier in my life, I've eliminated that fear. That failing is part of trying so hard at something that not a lot a lot of people has done, and you're the one that's showing them, oh, not this way, oh, there's a hole here, yeah, oh, there's a wall here, and that's kind of like how I felt when I discovered Glenn's YouTube channel, and I was like, Oh, Ross, oh not a good Ross, oh a good Ross, and I was like, Oh, this is it, you know, and if I ever do it again, I'll just watch the same thing again and do it again.

SPEAKER_03:

You'll stand the test of time, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So I feel like that's kind of like how I see it. And again, going back to the fear is just the fear is not about you don't die when you lose a business here, technically, unless you jump off a plane because you lost it. You don't like there's no physical ramification of actually losing a business besides yes, heartache, and that's just you being too emotional and blaming other things and not having complete uh responsibility and accountability of your actions. So worst case scenario is start over again, get a job, get your finances back, drive for Uber, DoorDash, so many things now. Um do a TikTok shop, you know, or work for our like worst case scenario. This is me. Worst case scenario, if I lose everything, I'll be like, hey Glenn, can I work for you? I'll be your live streamer.

SPEAKER_02:

See, there we go.

SPEAKER_00:

You know what I'm saying? Like I just approach stream, uh huh? There's options. Yeah, I should just work for somebody that's gonna be like, I thought you were gonna say sneakers envy again. Yeah, or or we go live stream, you know. That's that's kind of like that. I'll be his shipper, I'll be his driver, you know, like all that stuff. So that's kind of like that's why you have to explore other opportunities where you can just make ends meet. And if you find that way that you can make ends meet, anything over will just will just push you forward, and anything less will just put you where you right where you were starting.

SPEAKER_03:

So yeah, it also brings to mind the idea that people who are successful in business like know when to quit. They know when to pivot, they make quick decisions, quick assessments, right? And really what that can look like from the outside is like a lot of failures, failure over failure over failure, start over, start over, start over. But really, it's more like reiterate, reiterate, reiterate.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, redirect, like let go of this plane, let go of that plane, let go of that that, you know, it's just like jumping from a different building that's jumping from one building to the next building in the air, hurtling through the sky.

SPEAKER_03:

It's fine. Don't worry about it. No, but but I just think that um the more comfortable, not like desensitized or like numb, but the more actually comfortable you are with failure, the more overall successful you're gonna be. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

All right, I think it definitely makes sense. And man, the So, Glenn, what do you think?

SPEAKER_03:

You ready to go fail?

SPEAKER_02:

You're ready to fail. Well, going back to Anna's first part, and also the Well going to like spiraling, spiraling down to nothing. Okay, that I don't like. But you you would never go to nothing.

SPEAKER_00:

That's one thing, especially you. You'll have your house. Worst case scenario. Right, yeah, you lucky. Worst case scenario, you'll have your house.

SPEAKER_02:

But I think people also put this pressure on themselves to where like they feel like they have to do something forever when they don't.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

So, like, so like when when football players retire and they don't really know what to do next, it's not that you're like a failure now because you had to retire from the league. Yeah, it's just that maybe you got older, maybe you had an injury, maybe something happened, and you're gonna find another part of your life that you're going to move on from.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, that's what I told myself when I retired from football.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm gonna go into making a podcast, podcast for eBay. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. I mean, who knew?

SPEAKER_02:

No. I agree on that. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with going into because you're growing, I mean, into something else, and you should be changing.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

You can't play a sport forever, or you can't, I guess you can't have the same career forever, but yeah, don't do it just because unless you're a man of white, she can have the same career forever.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, also, like going back to that idea of being comfortable with failure, I think something that is probably necessary for that is to not tie up your entire identity in what you do. Like it's way easier to shift to something else or to try a new career or to try a new skill or a new job or be interested even in something else when you're not like, I am a football player, that is who I am, period. End of story. It's like I'm a person at first, and then I'm a great football player, and I'm capable of learning and doing other stuff and being interested in other stuff. Like it's night and day difference if you put all of your identity into your job or into your art or your you know your occupation, your skills.

SPEAKER_00:

What I got from that is you know, like just my mind is like don't let your career and what you do define who you are. Let yourself define what you do in the effort that you put in, right? Like, I am kin as a seller, I am kin as an Instagrammer, I am kin as a workout person, I am you know like, but but other people have kind of like got it backwards, like I'm only known for this as a seller. Like that actually is not good because you're only known for what you do. You gotta be known for who you are.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, not what character.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so so that's why I've always believed, like, worst case scenario, I can work and I can apply my never settle mentality on the on the next work that I do. Um, and I feel like the shift of careers shouldn't be an embarrassment, it should be actually an adventure, and that's what I will see it. Yeah, um, you know, like I I have dreams sometimes that I work at a Nike outlet, I have dreams sometimes I work at a Foot Locker. I mean, imagine all the knowledge that you have. I'm just gonna be like, let's go. You know, like like think about all the advantages that you already have and have developed because you're a business owner, and apply it to somebody else's business with and also if you don't like pressure, then you'll shine there because there's no pressure to make money, there's just pressure to do day in and day out. Yeah, yeah. That's what I said. Like after I clocked out the whole building work burns down, not my problem.

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, that goes back to how these are so scary for for full-time resellers. And I do think not being full-time does mitigate a lot of these, right? Because that just inherently means the stakes are lower, you're not depending on it as much. Um, but you know, for for full-time people, like that that is a huge consideration. Like that I I know multiple, you know, other sellers that have been full-time at times and went back into the kind of traditional workforce for different periods of time because they didn't want that pressure on their store and they needed a break from that pressure, and that's totally fine too. And even uh one or two that I know actually have done both at different times and kind of come and gone from being full-time sellers multiple times. Like you can do that, yeah, which is really cool.

SPEAKER_00:

And it's possible in and of itself. I think that's the ultimate cheat code to actually have a business and have a full-time income. Yeah, yeah. Jim.

SPEAKER_02:

Jim. True.

SPEAKER_03:

That's uh Jim's third reprisal this episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, this is supposed to be scary. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Now it turned into motivation, inspiration. Um, you got this moment. Um, and that's kind of just the vibe. That's kind of like the flow that I am in personally. So I definitely like this. Um because your sales are back up. Wow. So shallow. You're like, yeah, everything's going great. I'm on green. No, no. I'm actually I'm not on green yet. I'm a little red. It's okay. Not a big red, a little red.

SPEAKER_03:

A little red.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, just a little red. So well, I appreciate the OG Hustler Huck's topic.

SPEAKER_03:

I know, it's so fun.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep. And there's still part two. So are you guys listening? You you you better catch it. And if you guys have any interjections or any commentaries, send it on our DMs. Send it our DMs because we'll answer it in the next show. So also, huge shout out to our sponsors for this podcast, eBay for sellers, eBay Open is coming up. We're gonna have a booth there and sign up for either the virtual or the in-person event. There's still tickets, and also to sell a ledger, you shout out for seller ledger for organizing our books. Thank you all. Make sure you follow me on Instagram. We'll see you in the next episode. Peace. See ya.

SPEAKER_03:

Goodbye.