307 : Lonnie Honeycutt – Reselling on Amazon and Ebay is fully accessible to anyone! Effort is what gets you results.
Lonnie is not just an optimist, he is a practitioner of effort equals rewards. Therefore higher efforts get you higher rewards. We also dig into how to start or join a group of like minded sellers who can help you grow your business! Great solid advice.
Mentioned:
Lonnie’s Youtube channel- Garageflips
Craigslist Hunter Show
Sponsors
Gaye’s Million Dollar Arbitrage List
Transcript: (note- this is a new tool I am trying out so it is not perfect- it does seem to be getting better)
Stephen: [00:00:00] I’m excited to talk about my sponsors today, Gaye Lisby’s million dollar arbitrage group. Amazing, amazing group. This is a teacher. This is Gaye, she was a teacher. She is a teacher. Still. You need to learn. This is the type of environment you want to be in because she’s going to help you understand why, and I think that’s the hardest part of this business is understanding why. Why is the red one popular when the green one isn’t? Well, there’s usually a reason and what gay does is probably parse that better than anybody and she’ll explain the reasons for those things. I think that’s really powerful. Yes, she puts out a list. You’re going to get a good use of that list if you get in the group. Now here’s the deal. The group isn’t always open, right? So you get on the waiting list and you can join the waiting list through my link.
Stephen: [00:00:46] I’m doesn’t cost anything to get on a waiting list and if you like her service, which I find that most people do that. That’s why there’s not so many openings. You’ll be with her for a long time and so it’s amazing. Freedom Dot com. She’s part of Andy Slam. It’s group, amazing freedom.com. Forward slash momentum and you’re going to get in the waiting list. That’s all I can get you on right now. You can use my name and see if that gets you anywhere. But what I like about in the uh, what I like about what they teach in that group or the things that are going on, you know, the current things. I’ve seen a lot of stuff going on about stores going out of business. Well here’s where an opportunity is, here’s why you want to do this. Hey, be cautious about this, you know, with toys r US coming out, you’ve got to think about this and that’s the learning that you need to do.
Stephen: [00:01:30] And Gay is better than anybody else I’ve seen. So amazing. Freedom Dot com. Forward slash momentum will get you to the waiting list. Then hopefully we can get you in the group and then you’re going to see me in there and we can chat anytime you’re ready. Karen lockers. Group solutions. The number for ecommerce solutions, four ecommerce.com, forward slash momentum. It’s going to save you 50 bucks. Karen’s our account manager. We recommend her to everyone because she’s done so well for us. I mean that’s quite frankly the reason we’ve been paying her for last few years, but she’s become an important part of our team. Her and her team are so involved in our account. I just see the emails coming back and forth, hey, we did this for you. I just saw two listings today. I’m like, wait a second. Why did they show up? I didn’t put any listings up.
Stephen: [00:02:11] They got a. They got a set off to the side by Amazon and they reactivate them for me. You know what I mean? That’s the stuff that just happens when you have a strong team and I can’t recommend Karen enough if you use my code momentum. Karen pays me. I don’t want to hide that. Of course we all know that, but you’re going to save $50 and it’s a great opportunity to really, really build out your team with somebody you can trust. That’s why I recommend them. So solutions, four ecommerce solutions, the number four e-commerce dot com, forward slash momentum. It’s going to save you $50. Oh, and by the way, she’s going to do an inventory health report. Why is that important? Well, guess what fees are going up. Is your inventory health number declining like ours is? Well, here’s why and what they can do.
Stephen: [00:03:00] What I like is I get a spreadsheet from them and it says, Hey, here’s a bunch of inventory. Here’s what we recommend. And I’m like, Yep, refund. I mean a delete a returned to us, blah blah blah, whatever it is and it’s or destroy and it just happens. That’s what I like. The other thing that I have Karen helped me with a lot is creating new listings. You know, we do a lot of the research ourselves. We upload our images and then boom, magically the listing goes live and I don’t have to worry about it. Those are the services that Karen offers. Can’t recommend her enough solutions. Four ecommerce.com forward slash momentum. Save 50 bucks. Use My code. You save $50 a month every single month and it’s a great service. Plus you get that free inventory health report. I think it’s a really powerful way, so I can’t.
Stephen: [00:03:45] I’m so excited how many people have been joining her because I see it and I’m excited because the messages I get from people saying, hey, this is great. I finally feel like I can focus on something else because Karen and her team are watching this for me and I highly recommend her. Next up is scale and scope and we’ll set it on. It’s. It’s amazing. I mean it really is amazing when you sit back and think about, hey, I want to get this product up and it similar to this product and that’s what that product does well. Well therefore, if that product does well, they have the right keywords, they’ve chosen things correctly, so guess what? You scope and you could see all that stuff and that’s what the most powerful thing in the world is to copy somebody who’s done it right. That’s what you want to.
Stephen: [00:04:29] You want to take advantage of that, right? I mean it’s, it’s fair to see and so therefore you can take and apply it to your listing and immediately get that same benefit. That’s what scope does for me. SELLERLABS labs.com, forward slash momentum. It’s going to save you $50 on the service. Oh, by the way, it’s free to try. So sign up, try it and say, oh, this is how it’s done. Boom. And then you’re going to. The light’s going to go on and you’re going to be like, man, I can get my products out there. I just can’t wait. Can’t wait. So we’re labs.com forward slash momentum. The other day I bought another domain. Yes, I bought another domain. It’s almost like A. I’m admitting guilt, but it’s because I had an idea and it was something that was a pretty good idea I think is going to go pretty far.
Stephen: [00:05:18] And so what do I do? I go to try Godaddy.com forward slash momentum and save 30 percent. So domains aren’t very expensive. You get a few services, it adds up a little bit and I usually buy three years. I usually by privacy, by the way, I recommend that to buy that, you know, it’s not that much money, but when you can save 30 percent it makes it that much sweeter and it makes it easier when you’re buying domains and especially if you buy a bunch of domains. I am a domain collector and so I do tend to do that, but that 30 percent makes it a lot easier and I use go daddy because what I like is I can pop in and address I’m thinking and it’ll say nope, nope, could try this version or try this extension and then boom, there it is.
Stephen: [00:05:58] Hey, you better hurry before it goes away and the right, you know, and so try Godaddy.com forward slash momentum save 30 percent. Also want to mention about grasshopper, who was just talking to somebody the other day and they were like, Oh yeah, use this company called grasshopper. I’m like, Dude, did you buy it through my link and save 30 percent? Hello? No, they missed that. So save 30 percent. It’s try grasshopper.com. Forward slash momentum. No surprise there, but you’re going to save 30 percent and what the real cool part about that is they’re using it for their private label business and it gives them virtually a second phone on their current phone without having to get another number. They can make up a vanity number. They don’t have to go and do all the grief and sign loan contracts. Pretty easy stuff, and so if you’re creating a brand that you want to identify, you want to look professional, you want to look like a real company. Grasshopper is a great tool. It’s an app you put on your existing phone and boom, you now have a customer service to. You now have a sales department. You’d have a manufacturing division. You could forward it to somebody else. You can have it go to different voicemails, different departments, and it’s all included. So try grasshopper.com, forward slash momentum. Save 30 percent.
Cool voice guy: [00:07:13] Welcome to the ECOMMERCE moment, didn’t gas where we focus on the people, the products, and the process of ecommerce selling today. Here’s your host, Steven Peterson.
Stephen: [00:07:27] Welcome back to the ECOMMERCE momentum podcast. This is episode three. Oh, seven Lonnie Honeycutt, man. Hell man, I can talk to Lonnie all day. Um, we definitely talked longer than what the show shows because you know, we’re probably kindred spirits in some ways. You know, he sells a lot on Ebay. I still sell a lot on Ebay. He knows a lot about a lot of things. So I’m sitting there listening like, man, I can learn a tremendous amount from this guy and I’ve gotten to watch him on youtube over time as he has a show. He has several shows that you’re going to hear about all these crazy shows later on, but garage flips, that’s the title. He uses the, uh, his name of his channel and he puts out content every single day and it’s compelling content because it, it’s very instructional and then you listen to why he does it and it really, I guess I would have thought it was for a different reason, but his realness comes out and you see the real Lonnie.
Stephen: [00:08:23] And what a great guy. I’m so glad I did this interview. Let’s get into that podcast. Alright, we’ll come back to the ECOMMERCE momentum podcast. Very excited about today’s guest because he is a process type of individual. Something that I really, I strive to be and you know, I talk about a lot, you know, the standard operating procedures, how important they are. Well this gentleman has mastered it and there’s one in video that I can’t wait to talk about. Lonnie honeycutt. Welcome Lonnie. Well thank you steven. I appreciate you having me. I appreciate you and I appreciate all your
Stephen: [00:08:56] youtube. So Lonnie has a youtube channel called garage flips, that’s his name on there and he pumps out man. You pump out content to, I mean volume of content.
Lonnie: [00:09:06] Is that intentional? Oh absolutely. I’m really good friends of mine that you’ve had on your podcast recently. Steven stuff. Reese, ocular love those guys. I do too. I really liked Steve, but he likes my voice. Hold on. Hi Steve. It’s Steve. Great. So it’s still, but I noticed that, you know, they, they burst on the youtube scene and they were instantly successful like almost overnight and a lot of it has to do with their personality and the knowledge and the content is good. But a lot of it also has to do with the fact that they made a conscious, conscientious effort to upload every single day. They’re there on youtube every single day. And at first I was like, man, that’s a little too much. You’re, you know, you’re like a saturating the market that people could get tired of you. But it’s not, that’s not the case. I think there’s a lot of, I think you can really have a lot of success on youtube by uploading every day. So I started doing it about, I don’t know, a month ago or so, maybe a little more. And Man, it has made all the difference in the world. So definitely deliberate.
Stephen: [00:10:17] Wait a couple of our precall we’re talking about process and I think it gets easier the more you do. I mean common sense would tell you that. Right? So do you spend less time editing now? I’m five or six days a week versus that one or two that you’re trying to get. Perfect.
Lonnie: [00:10:37] Absolutely. Um, when we were talking about this a few minutes ago, like I’ve, I’ve gotten really good at trying to record very clean clips, very clean clip. So, um, I, I think about the editing while I’m filming so I basically want to dump all of my clips into one a, one video and I’ll watch it through the. I’ll watch the front end and the back end of each clip, but I won’t watch the middle part because I’ll know that’s good. And then I’ll just, I’ll go ahead and start. Um, you know, I’ll go ahead and start with what’s it called when it puts it all together at the end rendering, rendering and then I’ll just render it out and it’s ready to go. Man. It’s like most of my vlogs might take. I may spend five to 10 minutes on the editing process. So it’s, it’s pretty negligible.
Stephen: [00:11:34] That’s really strong that you’re only spending that amount of time because video, I mean I do audio. Audio is a lot easier to do. I mean it’s just a, hey, I’m going to rerecord something. I don’t have to worry about what it looks like, right, with what you do. You’ve got to worry about, you know, hey, your mouth was talking this way and the words are saying this and we just jumped in, that kind of thing. Um, that stuff happens and I think people understand. I just, I agree with you. I think it’s a consistency of content, not necessarily quality all the time. People understand that you’re human and I think that makes, that, adds something to it that you’re human. I think when it’s too well done, people can’t relate.
Lonnie: [00:12:12] Yeah, I agree. And in one of the things that I truly believe is that you’re better off putting out kind of a halfass product rather than, you know, putting out like one thing a week. Of course that can change though because some people do have really high production value and they do really well with it. So, I mean, I don’t know that, I don’t know that that will apply to everybody, but for me, um, for, for me it’s more important to get something out every day and to not spend too much time. Because if I spend too much time on it, I’ll stop doing it.
Stephen: [00:12:47] Yeah, it becomes a job. You don’t want it to become a job. It’s still. John Lee Dumas told me, he’s like, Steve, talk to that. Talk to your audience, not the rest of the world that he calls it an Avatar. Who is that person you’re speaking to? That one person. And if you speak to that one person. So when you think about who your audience is, Lonnie, who would that be?
Lonnie: [00:13:05] You know, that’s a really great, that’s a great point because I think sometimes I forget. Um, I think that, uh, typically talk to someone that I think is like me. Hmm,
Stephen: [00:13:18] thank you. What would that be? Oh Dude, we’re going deep here. What with, who would that be? Tell us what will you.
Lonnie: [00:13:24] That would be somebody that is at my experience level and it has my, my level, whether you consider high or low, my level of knowledge about most things. But the fact is, I’ve been, I’ve been reselling a fulltime close to four years now and most people that watch my videos, they, they’re a good percentage of them are just getting started, you know? So I’ve found whenever I dial it back some and I get really basic, I get a much better response than when I try and talk to someone that is like, I would consider on my level whatever that is. I find whenever I, whenever I bring it down and get more basic, I get a much better response. So
Stephen: [00:14:07] I think that I have to keep in mind. Yeah, I think that’s important though, because if you’re trying to bring people, I mean, what’s the goal? Well, let’s ask that. What’s the goal of your show? Why do you, why do you do it? Right? I mean because that’s really, that’s really it because if you’re doing it just so you can keep, you know, kind of a Gary v thing where I want to have my kids or my grandkids see my life so they would know. Or do you want to help people because you’ve been helped,
Lonnie: [00:14:32] man? I don’t know. That’s a really good question. I think a first. I think when I first got started I was watching. I was watching this guy, nick hills. It’s in the UK. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him. You need to check them out.
Stephen: [00:14:48] It’d be a really good guest for the show to hills. H I l l s?
Lonnie: [00:14:52] Yes, Nichols. Okay. Nick and Andrea Hills. There are a UK based reseller couple, but I was watching him and I saw the, the community, the sense of community. He Ha. He had built around him and I saw that he was part of something and I was. I started watching some guys here in the states and I’m like, man, I want to be part of that. And I think by nature I’m kind of a creator type. I’m not a consumer as much like A. I get wrapped up and stuff, man and I, I can’t just consume something. I have to be making something. It’d be part of it. And I saw that community that they were, they were part of. And I wanted a taste of that because reselling is a lonely thing, you know, and um, the best way I saw to be part of that community was to put my own stuff out there, good or bad because I didn’t have much experience at the time. And uh, I just decided to start putting stuff out there now about trying to help people. I don’t know.
Stephen: [00:15:54] Sure. Seems like it. Because here’s the thing I noticed about you and John and Steve and Steph is you’re not trying to one up each other because that’s one of the other things. Just like, oh, I know more than you. I have this or you know, or you met those people that I don’t care what you’re selling. They’ve had one, they had a better. They’ve had, you know, Oh yeah, I’ve sold that, I’ve sold that, you know, everything. And, and, and it almost comes across as a little egotistical sometimes. And what you guys do is you’re like, wow, I never knew that. And then I add to that and if you just get smarter, and I think that the more you give, the more you get. That’s my philosophy in life, right? So for me, the more I give out, the more I seem to get magically. Right. And let’s face it, I get smarter talking to people like you every single time.
Lonnie: [00:16:37] Man, you know, this is like, I think one of the key moments for me so far in reselling and youtube and everything else was when. Because when I first got started I was like, Oh man, reselling is easy. I got this. You just go buy stuff and you flip it. Well it turns out it’s not really that easy. It is at the heart, you know, the base of it. But there was a moment where I realized, man, I don’t know anything. And it was scary at first, man, it was like I didn’t realize that I didn’t realize the amount of knowledge it actually takes to be a reseller and it hit me all of a sudden. And at first it was kind of scary and I was like, man, I don’t know anything here. But then I thought about it some more and I was like, you know, the fact that I don’t know anything means that as I learn, there’s like unlimited potential, unlimited possibilities to learn and make more and more and more money, be more successful. And so once I, once I took hold of that and I realized kind of what I didn’t know, that was the turning point for me as a reseller,
Stephen: [00:17:49] that’s hard as a guy because you know, it’s like asking, do I tell this all the time? It’s the God’s honest truth, right? Asking direct, all I know where I’m going. No I don’t. I have no clue. Thank God for a ways was a he. Because otherwise I’d be really dumb and really stupid. But you can’t ask. It’s almost again, it’s almost like it’s saying that you’re weak in some ways, Lonnie, because you don’t know. Right? Like that. So I don’t like that stuff. All right. So what, what makes you so good at reselling? What, what, what did you, what were you going to do? Let’s start back there. Let’s go way back.
Lonnie: [00:18:22] Okay. So what was I going to do,
Stephen: [00:18:24] do with life? I mean when you. Well, I mean because some people go straight to college, some people go into a trade, some people go into military service, some people just stay home and work in the factory and then figure these things out. So the skillsets there. So we already know that because you’ve proven that. But how you got there to me is interesting.
Lonnie: [00:18:46] Okay. So, uh, when I first got out of high school, I knew I wanted to go to college. I want to be an electrical engineer and I’m the way I was going to go to college. I went ahead and joined the air force and Air National Guard right out of high school, went to bootcamp, went to basic electronics school and learn a satellite wideband communications. And I was actually in the guard for 20 years.
Stephen: [00:19:08] No kidding. Well thank you for your service. That’s awesome. You don’t see, you don’t look like you could be in there for 20 years. Oh Man,
Lonnie: [00:19:14] I’m 44. You’re pulling it up, keep it going, keep it going. So, um, so yeah, I mean I’ve always been kind of a tech guy, techie, you know, kind of electronics and stuff like that and um, I, I kind of, you know, I went to school and didn’t finish life, kind of got in the way. I ended up, you know, a man, I’ve had all kinds of jobs. I worked with the phone company for Awhile. I was a phone man, I was a poker dealer, I was a poker, a poker room supervisor, type A. I worked for apple for awhile, doing tech support from home. I’ve done it all. I’ve done like I was a photographer for a while. I’ve done a lot of it
Stephen: [00:19:55] different. Let’s just pause here for a second. So, wait, let me just think about this. You’ve learned about electronics, you’ve learned about negotiating, dealing, right? You’re, you’re handling things, handling transaction, handling money, getting good at all those different things, customer service, calculating odds, right? Just looking at stuff like that. Those are all skill sets. And then you add photography too, and I think we’re seeing a pattern here and if you watch your shows, you tend to sell a lot of electronics. You repair electronics. I notice because I’m thinking to myself, how does he know how to fix it? I was watching there that I’m like, how does he know how to do that now? It makes perfect sense. So I think we’re seeing a pattern that you are being led to this direction. Did it, looking back, does it feel like you were led to where you are today?
Lonnie: [00:20:41] I think so because, uh, my dad, uh, he, he an entrepreneurial spirit spirit to him, he was into like woodworking and things like that as a hobby. And he would build furniture and he would, he had like an antique booth. He’d sell them and sell the stuff there. He got me involved with Ebay like in a man 1995
Stephen: [00:21:06] six or something like, did he approach you or you approach him?
Lonnie: [00:21:10] Oh, he approached me. He said, man, you gotta check this out. And uh, we, we went to a few country auctions together and then we pick up a few items and then, you know, list them on Ebay as an auction because back then it was all auctions and uh, we’d have fun, you know, just like selling odds and ends on Ebay. It wasn’t a business, it was just purely for fun hobby kind of thing.
Stephen: [00:21:31] Do you think he was teaching you, I mean, looking back at those times, do you think he was teaching you to fish? Like, Hey, you know, this is, let’s see if you got this skill set and this might be something valuable you can do on the side is a b plan. If this other thing doesn’t work out.
Lonnie: [00:21:46] I don’t know. I don’t know if it was that or more just like it was something cool for us to do together. Okay. You know, uh, but he definitely had the spirit about him and uh, for whatever reason, he never really pursued any, you know, going down that path. You always had jobs and stuff, you know. Uh, but I think if he were alive today, he’d be pretty frigging proud of what I was doing right now.
Stephen: [00:22:12] No kidding. And when do you think about, because you have kids, so when you think about your kids because you involve them in the business somewhat, is it, is it different? Is it just to play around or are you saying, you know, what, this role does get hard at some point and to have a skill set, especially if it’s a young woman, to have a skillset where you can be independent. You’re not relying on anybody. There’s value there. Which approach are you at?
Lonnie: [00:22:38] I’m with my kids, my, my youngest daughter, she’s, she’s really young. She’s like nine years old, but my older daughter, um, she’s got a lot of interest in art and I really try and I really try and help foster that, you know, and um, she’s really an animal. She wants to be a veterinarian. Uh, I don’t really see her being a reseller at some point, but um, and, and honestly, neither one of them really get into what I’m doing at all to be honest.
Stephen: [00:23:11] They just don’t love it. They don’t. You don’t see that passion in it?
Lonnie: [00:23:14] No, no, but I think they do see. I think they do see and appreciate the fact that I value freedom and I value the ability to drop whatever I’m doing at any time and do what I want to do. Like yesterday for instance, it was the awards program at my younger daughter’s school and it wasn’t a big deal. I’m like, no. My wife told me, hey, the awards thing is at 10. I’m like, okay, hop in the car, go. You know, if you have a nine to five, you may not be able to go and you’re going to have to go beg somebody for some time off. You have somebody to cover for you, whatever. And I think they see all these little instances where I’ve created a life of freedom where I can pick and choose the things that are important to me and do them and I don’t have to ask anybody’s permission and I think they see that. See the way I’m living now
Stephen: [00:24:11] as a dad though, what they also see is somebody who’s built their life around that, that for your daughter, that very moment you were there for her, it was her life. She was the center of your universe for that moment. That’s a very cool place to be as a kid, to know that your parents care that much, that they have this freedom. How many other dads were there? Well, let me qualify that weren’t, that didn’t look stressed out that they had to get back to work.
Lonnie: [00:24:40] That’s, that’s a good point because I mean, you see them in, some of them are dressed alike in their work clothes or whatever. And uh, I, you know, I got to give it to them. We have pretty good participation at our school for stuff like that. But uh, yeah, I mean, and there, there were definitely some, it was kind of sad. There were a few kids that came up for their email awards and stuff and you know, nobody was there to take their, their, their photo with their teacher, with their, you know, with their certificate or where there was nobody there taking their picture. And I was like, man, that’s sad. It parents probably appearance probably outright now, uh, you know, trying to make a living to put food on the table for that kid and you know, that’s, that’s important. But right at that moment that kids looking out and all these other parents are there and nobody’s there to take their picture.
Stephen: [00:25:29] Well, as soon enough they’ll be gone and you won’t have those moments, you know, thinking about the things. Somebody said this to me once, you know this, this type of life, this entrepreneurial life costs something, right? You give up a security or you give up, um, you know, a specific time schedule, right? Because you could play in your life. You could, hey, we’re going on vacation in July. Art that, wait, I got two weeks left. Yep. I’m going to use them. So it’s kind of rigid, but you know, you’re going to get paid during that time. You don’t have that luxury. Looking back, I mean, you know, I could ask the obvious question, was it worth it? Of course. But what have you given up that looking back you thought would be valuable that you realize really doesn’t matter?
Lonnie: [00:26:10] Uh, I would say, uh, probably gave up a pretty good bit of money the first couple of years. Uh, to be honest, I wasn’t very good at reselling. I wasn’t near as good at reselling is I thought the first few years and uh, it, it costs me thousands of dollars of potential money I could have made if I would have been in a job. So, um, but,
Stephen: [00:26:36] so that’s real. That’s real. I mean, that’s, there’s some cost. You’re not getting it back
Lonnie: [00:26:41] straight, straight up, dollars a and it’s, you know, there is security there. I’m more confident in my ability to make a living as a reseller probably then my wife was, I think she’s coming on board a lot more now lately because I’ve been doing better. But, uh, you know, there was some doubt there for awhile, you know, so there was, it costs my wife some of her security.
Stephen: [00:27:08] That’s important too. Um, it is, it’s really important for a cause that can put pressure on your marriage. So, so thinking about this, what was it, what was that turning point where you realized, I’ve got this because everybody has, you know, we always joke in our world, uh, in the Amazon world frozen, when frozen, that movie came out, you could buy anything that had a um, uh, any one of those, you know, those girls in the picture and boom, it would sell, right? So everybody thought they were geniuses, right? For selling all that junk, but it wasn’t. When that went away, those are the people that made it. What was it for you that you said, oh, wait a second. The light bulb went on brighter may because it was probably beyond. Yeah, I know you’re saying you’re not very good, but you were, if you made it, you know, you’re good. But when it got brighter, when the clouds clear, what was it for you?
Lonnie: [00:27:53] Okay. So recently I’d say in the past 12 months, uh, it was actually as I would say, more as a result of the reseller rally.
Stephen: [00:28:06] I know Chad. Yes. And Peter. Yeah. Love those guys. Great guys.
Lonnie: [00:28:12] Dab, Dab states, place, you know, they all got together to have the resell rally and um, man, I made some connections there, you know, like real life where you actually press the flesh real people. And I made some connections there and a man, the these guys and girls had become some really, really good friends and we talk every day. We have a chat where we all talk every day. I can’t disclose everything that goes on. But um, I have a network now. People that encouraged me that I encourage them, uh, when I need help with this specific like product category or something. Like if, if I get a pair of shoes and I’m like, man, I don’t know a key word for this. I send a message to Ronnie heart and he’ll like, oh, well that’s a, that’s a harness type boot. I’m like, oh, okay. Then I go look it up. There it is. And I have a hat, I’ve actually built a network now of people that know everything and I would like a [inaudible].
Stephen: [00:29:16] Well, I’m going to pause you there because this is one of the biggest questions I get. How do you do that, Lonnie? I’m shy. I don’t know. How do, how do you pull out there? Because you know, I just go meet people and nobody talks to me or you know, that kind of thing. How do you get that?
Lonnie: [00:29:32] You know how I got it? It, it’s, it’s exactly. It goes back to what you said earlier, Steven. It’s like, uh, you, you give out and then you get back. You know, like that all started, that whole chain of events started when I started making videos on you.
Stephen: [00:29:48] Wait, wait, wait, wait. So you’re saying, let me just pause this because I want people to hear this because this might be the big pro tip for the moment. He’s had a bunch of them even in a precall yet some pro tips. But here’s one. So you’re saying by putting yourself out there, swallowing your pride, making videos, some of them probably not so good. Some of them really good random shore both. Oh yeah. And, and just, you know, probably getting some negative comments but still pushing through and then you got a little recognition. So when you went to the event that it was like people knew you. It’s like, you know, when you go there, they almost know your family because you’ve talked about them and you talked about the difficulties in your life and challenges of selling and everything’s not so rosy and then they realize you’re a human being and that’s somebody who I like to hang around with because I have those same feelings in that. And so therefore there was a natural attraction. Is that what you’re saying?
Lonnie: [00:30:39] Yeah. Yeah. And I’ve, you know, we love it. We’ve formed relationships with likeminded people and it, man, it doesn’t have to be just content creators, you know, now, now the question, that question has been posed to me, how do you get involved with something like that? Man, you, I don’t think you can get involved. Like really have that experience, unless you put yourself out there in some capacity.
Stephen: [00:31:06] I don’t know. That’s scary.
Lonnie: [00:31:10] Yeah, it is. Because there’s, you have to show a vulnerability, vulnerable, vulnerable people have flaws. I show. I try to show a lot of flaws on youtube.
Speaker 6: [00:31:22] Um,
Lonnie: [00:31:24] and I, I think, I think, uh, I think like the draw to my youtube channel is I, I’m not like, I don’t make it look easy. I don’t make it look like I’m smart or anything like that. But I think what I do manage to do on youtube is make reselling look accessible to every man. You know what I mean? Like I think that people watch my channel and they say this doofus is just going out and buying used junk from yard sales and then I’m looking at this video and he’s selling, you know, hundreds, thousands of dollars worth of this stuff every week. I can do that. He’s not doing anything special, you know, and I try to relay that, relate that to people.
Stephen: [00:32:07] But to me, what I see is that it’s not a grind because I don’t like that term because that’s a negative connotation. It is a wash, rinse and repeat. It’s a continual effort. And I’ve seen you even say, you know, this was a kind of a waste of a day, a bust of a date purchasing. However, I often say this and I’m going to see if you agree with me the things I don’t buy. I’m thankful for many times because at this point in my life I kind of know most things like you right? Or have a roundabout, you get surprised and when you see that item, that’s when it’s exciting, right? Because it’s like, wait, I’ve never seen that before. There must be some value. Right. But when you see the same stuff and you know that there’s no value and you come home and the car’s empty, you’ve actually want because you don’t deal with it. Right. I mean at the, at some point when you scale to what level use scale too. That’s real fair.
Lonnie: [00:32:58] I, yeah, I agree with that. Like if you, if, if I go to the thrift store every day, which I do pretty much when I make my post office run and if I, if I bought something every single day, then that would be an indicator to me that I am, my standards are off because there’s not always something out there to buy, you know? And that’s also why I advocate getting a little bit off your topic there. That’s also why I advocate when there is stuff to buy, you gotta buy it all. Like if, if, if I’m having a really good day buying, I’m going to keep on buying, I’m not going to stop them. Oh I bought enough today that because those days where you don’t find stuff are going to come to.
Stephen: [00:33:43] You’re the one with the Manga, right? Where you went to the garage sale. There’s the bookshelf with manganese. Is that right? Did you ever got that deal done? But yeah, I would have bought every minute because I’ve sold Manga before and it’s one of those, that’s what you know, right. I have sold at so many different times and so whenever I see it and it’s the right price, I’m the volume buyer, so I would have bought the whole bookshelf, um, just because that’s my style, my style. I would have said, okay, how much, you know, I would have bought the whole thing. What happened? Why didn’t, why didn’t it get done?
Lonnie: [00:34:14] Okay. You know what? That’s a really good. That’s really good. A really good point you make there. I didn’t really know that much about Manga at the time, but I saw how much of it was, was there anytime you have a lot of something like that. Man, if you can’t sell them individually, I can lock them up or whatever I got to do and I can make money. Right. But I was haggling over, I don’t even remember the numbers, but I think they wanted like, let’s say they wanted $300 and I wanted to pay $200. Okay. Which that’s not very far apart and by the time you sell this stuff it’s negligible. 100 bucks. Right. Because it was, a lot of, it was like hundreds of books, right. And they’re like, okay, well let me, let me contact our son. It’s his stuff. He’s in Los Angeles. I’m like, oh, okay. So they get on the phone with him and I go back later and yeah, we talked to our son and he said he’s just not ready to sell yet. He changed his mind. So by me, by me, you know, splitting hairs over a few dollars, I lost the whole deal and I probably could have made a thousand bucks or whatever on it.
Stephen: [00:35:25] So for me the math goes like this. I sat back and I say, um, you know, there was how many hundreds of books where they’re, like, you said there were hundreds.
Lonnie: [00:35:32] It’s been awhile, but yeah, it’s, I don’t know, 300.
Stephen: [00:35:35] Okay. 300 some books and you say that’s an extra x number of dollars. That’s how I get there. In my mind I’m like, wait, that’s an extra, you know, a dollar per book or $2 per. But whatever it is. And I’m like, okay, can they sell, you know, will they sell for an average of seven or $8 a piece and then you. And so we’ve all been there so I’m not judging you in any way, but it’s, it’s a good example of what’s still out there. What would it took for me because I don’t do yard sales anymore because I’ll buy too much stuff. I don’t need more stuff. I have a warehouse full of stuff so I have to go back from it. Um, and so, but what it took for me, seeing that as like, I’m like, wow, those deals are still out there because you get up every week and you do it right. It’s not like a, Hey, I’m going to go out once a month and expect home runs every time. It’s how many things did you, how many garages did you go to where you didn’t buy anything before you found it? Yeah,
Lonnie: [00:36:24] but most of them man, like it’s a number. It’s totally a numbers game. Like, I’ll wake up in the morning, I’ll hit, you know, 20, 25 yard sales and I may only buy stuff at like six of them, you know. But
Stephen: [00:36:38] that’s a good thing. Numbers. Yeah, that’s a good thing. Now. Um, what, what have you learned, um, about not buying that you can translate for others? Um, because I, you know, a lot of the things or hey go look for Manka. Well that’s easy, right? Unless it’s in bad condition, but hey, don’t go by this. Um, what could people learn from you on that?
Lonnie: [00:36:59] I would say you just mentioned condition. I would say the first and most important thing you can learn as a reseller is conditioned is everything. Like I don’t buy hardly. I buy hardly nothing in like in really bad condition now, unless it’s something I haven’t bought before and I just want to buy it and kind of research, check it out for the most part. Condition, condition matters way more than people realize when they first get into reselling. Whenever you’re dealing with stuff you can’t overstate condition of things, of items. And uh, yeah, I don’t know, man. I would hate to say, you know, I don’t buy the low lower costs stuff that’s gonna, you know, you know, don’t buy this stuff for a dollar that you’re going to sell for 10. I would hate to say that because I feel like that’s almost part of the learning process.
Stephen: [00:37:49] Yeah. Yeah. If you. Todd Todd, Kelly’s a gentleman I know and he always says this, our Mechelle, excuse me, ton forester. Matt Kelly says this, if you bought it and the worst thing that happens is you break even. That’s a great deal by them. All right. Because you know, there’s no risk, right? If worst case scenario you break even, Lonnie, that’s a good lesson to learn because there’s only upside, right? I mean it breaking even is better than losing money. Right. And so that means there’s only upside on that deal.
Lonnie: [00:38:19] Yeah. And I really think that it’s hard to replace experience as a reseller. I do. And I think, I think you have to go through it. You have to have, you can do it like you can do it in a smart fashion, but I think like if you look at say Pete craigslist hunter, and you look at like a Chad golden finger picker, they bought a lot of the crap, you know, and they didn’t have success with it and they filed that away in their brains and they did it again and they got better and better and better. We see them now. We didn’t see them 20 years ago. You know what I mean? I think a lot of. I think you just have to go through it sometimes. I think you just have to have your own experiences and find your own way.
Stephen: [00:39:03] Well, doesn’t now the time that you put into that group help accelerate that for you. Yes. To me that’s the. That’s the real lesson here is the hard work you did putting in all that effort and continue to do for putting in all those videos, editing all those videos, which is a lot easier than editing audio. I, I’m, I will qualify that by putting in all that hard work. It allows you access to Chad and, uh, um, Peter’s mind or you know, Ronnie’s mind and so you can, you get a quicker filter on it and then you retain it that much quicker because, hey, if Lonnie said it, it’s true.
Lonnie: [00:39:42] That’s, that’s true. If you, if you surround yourself with people that you, you trust, like there’s, there’s some, you know how there’s some people that will tell you, hey man, that’s worth 100 bucks. You’ll be like, oh really? And then you’ll kind of scoot off to the side and you look it up on your phone and verify and then you say, Oh yeah, it is worth 100 bucks. And then there’s another group of people that if they say that’s worth 100 bucks, you’ll just say, oh good. You’ll just buy it without even looking it up. Yeah. That’s the people that I really like where I don’t even have to verify what they tell me. And that’s, that’s the people that, some of those people in that group I’m talking about, uh, I ha, I had that, that they had that amount of knowledge where I don’t even question them and they’re always right and they wouldn’t tell me if they had any doubts.
Stephen: [00:40:29] And here’s the thing is that to get that, you have to give that. So, you know, I don’t want to downplay that in any way in order to make those kinds of relationships in order to get to that level of trust. And, and, um, it’s being real consistent over time, um, and giving not with expectation. And so if you’re looking for one of those groups, go to these meetups. Don’t sit in the back like church, good upfront, be out there, but be honest, don’t be the one upper, Ooh, don’t like one uppers. Not a big fan of one upper. Oh No, because I’ve been that guy sometimes and I don’t like it.
Lonnie: [00:41:04] Now, one of my best, uh, one of my best friends in reseller friends is John Cincinnati.
Stephen: [00:41:09] I had on your show, I’ve had all my, all my friends when you’re Tanya and there. Yeah, I’ve gotten, I’ve made the rounds to money, but I’m attracted to what you guys do because here’s the deal, is there is a real passion about what you do. There is something different than going to skin endcaps at target. I don’t see that in your guys’ eyes and I’m sure maybe you guys do it once in a while, but you’re not passionately talking about that. That’s what I like, because that’s real and you know what I mean, that, that’s sustainable, that’s, that’s fulfilling. So that’s why I’m attracted to it.
Lonnie: [00:41:41] But, but I talked to, I talked to John and you know, he’s got this great business. Look what I found out bed the auction, right? And it’s, it’s like a big thing. He’s got like employees and he’s got like 500 items coming in a week and he’s turning them over every week. Um, I’ll listen to all, as I listened to your podcast, it was really, really good.
Stephen: [00:42:03] He is, he is, uh, it’s, it is a lot of responsibility and he makes, it sounds so simple and easy and I’m like, there’s so many moving pieces. One little flaw in any one of those areas. It would seem like it would collapse and he just makes it smooth and I’m sure it’s not, but he makes it smooth. It’s very, that’s an outlier.
Lonnie: [00:42:24] Yeah. I’ve learned, I’ve learned by talking with him that yeah, you’re right. He is the, he is the glue that holds together. I’ll also kind of figured out that I don’t think I ever want to have an employee. Oh, well that’s self awareness. That’s not bad. I don’t think I’m a good boss. I don’t think I would be a good boss. I don’t think my expectations would be unrealistic. I wouldn’t trust somebody. I wouldn’t. I would always be double checking their work. I just don’t think it’s something for me, you know?
Stephen: [00:42:56] So what does that make you do different than. Because to me being that self aware you have, you only still have limited hours in your day, just like everybody else. So what do you do better? What do, what do you do to offset that?
Lonnie: [00:43:08] The only thing I can do to offset it, because there’s a limit to how many, uh, there’s a limit to how many items or whatever I can sell, especially on Ebay, right? There’s a limit to how many things I can list and package shipped and all that. So the only thing I can do is try to sell more valuable, try to source you, sell more valuable items. So that’s the only thing I can do.
Stephen: [00:43:32] So hence the reason you’re walking past things more and more so while you were at a yard sale and you saw a million things you can buy, you’re like, it’s not worth the effort, not worth the effort, not worth the effort because I want that item where I can make that much more. Right.
Lonnie: [00:43:46] Well, I mean some of the things are worth the effort. It’s just not worth my particular effort. That’s a moving. It’s a moving target. It’s, it changes, you know, because like I have stuff that sells that are listed like a year ago. And I’m like, oh my gosh, I would never buy that today. But I’m still, you know, it’s still in my store or whatever, so I’m going to go ahead and ship it out and stuff like that. But man, it’s almost like an Ebay store can almost be like a, a timeline, you know, the stuff that hadn’t sold yet. You go back and look and you see your photos and the type of items you were sourcing and a man, it’s changed big time. It’s really changed. So I mean, I’ve definitely seen that I’m going to have to, uh, I’m going to have to get higher profit items and I’m doing it, you know, it’s slow. It’s a slow, slow growth because it’s not, it’s not like a switch you can turn on. It takes hard knocks. It takes learning. It takes, you know, it takes capital.
Stephen: [00:44:42] Well, here’s something that you do though. I think this is a great segue into this because one of the things that you do better than anybody else is do videos. Nobody does video. So when you’re selling higher price, first of let’s, let’s qualify it, you’re selling electronics. You have a skillset in electronics, you have a background in electronics. So therefore you have a confidence about that, so therefore you’re a user so you know what’s important and so when you’re selling one, you’re speaking to that consumer, to that one buyer. Um, that’s, that’s a powerful thing that takes extra effort and energy. But man, it’s got to be so rewarding when it, when it comes to fruition,
Lonnie: [00:45:23] it really is in a. let’s see, I had a sale last night, actually bought a, a cash register at goodwill for five bucks, sharp cash register and I’ll shut my video and uploaded it to youtube and then I put the code in a to a listing and everything. Somebody bought it last night and you know, a hundred and 50 bucks. So that’s a really nice
Stephen: [00:45:46] profit. So. So let’s just break that down. So hold on a second. You spend $5, she had to spend time to go by it, just like you would buy anything else. So that’s the same amount of time. There’s no extra time there, but coming back and more than likely there’s probably some clean up on a big electronic like that testing and then videoing. Right? And there’s not as easy to photograph. Um, so that takes probably a little more effort in.
Lonnie: [00:46:09] Excellent. You know what, you know what, here’s the deal though, with the electronics of the photographs aren’t, aren’t as important is when you’re selling a say a long men’s shirt. Uh, the, the, the, the like, especially for something big, like a cash register, a, there’s not that many people that want to sell that stuff because they don’t want to ship it.
Stephen: [00:46:34] So that’s the reason people are avoiding it.
Lonnie: [00:46:36] Yeah, I think so. And then, uh, you know, like the pictures, as long as they’re clear, as long as they’re good quality, clear pitchers, man, they don’t have to be on a perfectly bright white background and all that stuff. It really doesn’t matter as long as they’re good solid pictures, pictures, you know, so it’s actually easier than clothing.
Stephen: [00:46:57] So then the hard work then is doing the video now. That’s what it sounds like. But according to you, it’s really not that hard stuff.
Lonnie: [00:47:05] No, it’s not. It’s a one shot thing. I put my phone, set my phone on a tripod, and I take about three, three to five minutes, typically one shot and then I don’t even edit it. It goes straight to youtube. I have a channel set aside just for product demos and uh, that’s it. I mean, how much does that cost? What all that, what you just described now? Ten minutes time,
Stephen: [00:47:33] right? No, the moneywise nothing. Just it’s free. It’s all time. So you got an extra 10 minutes, you would think into that too, that a video to sell $150 item. Have you gone back and looked at what your average selling price has done over the years?
Lonnie: [00:47:50] Uh, it’s, it’s, I haven’t looked in the past couple of months. It used to be around $30. Okay. That’s great. But I think I’ve, I think it’s higher right now. I haven’t worked in the past couple of months, but I’m pretty sure it’s a lot higher. I’ve been selling a lot higher, higher dollar items lately. But um, and I found whenever I do put the video in, I charge those customers for that time because they get, they get an extra level of confidence when they buy from me whenever I put the video in. So I charge a premium for that video.
Stephen: [00:48:24] So, so, so let’s take that cash, which somebody else is selling it for 100 bucks. You got it at 150. I mean, is that the premium?
Lonnie: [00:48:31] Uh, I don’t know if it’d be that high, but it, you know, maybe I’ll make an extra 20 bucks enough to, off enough to offset definitely enough to pay me for the 10 minutes.
Stephen: [00:48:41] And so thinking about that, knowing what you know today, where’s your direction? Where are you going with this?
Lonnie: [00:48:48] Who Man, that’s a good question.
Stephen: [00:48:50] Well, because it’s easy to revert back to what you know. I mean, you know, you’re having success with this, but he was like, will it last? Is it, you know, do I go all in on this? Because these are harder to find items, right? That cash register, you don’t walk into goodwill and see one of those every day. When’s the last time you saw one? As a matter of fact?
Lonnie: [00:49:07] Um, I think that was a goodwill. That was the first, first time I’d ever noticed it right away. I bought two of them at the same time,
Stephen: [00:49:14] but still this morning. But forever, right? I mean, think about it all the time I’ve been selling you just don’t see them. So do you. Is it. And I always think of a scavenger life. Jay and his wife, they. Yeah, they talk about this, you know, is that they’ll see it again, you know, they just know they’re willing to put off that. Um, if the price isn’t right that I don’t know that I’m that strong.
Lonnie: [00:49:39] I, I, you know what I think. Here’s, here’s the thing, because I know you, I know you do a lot of interviews with different types of resellers and a lot of them are like Amazon sellers, right? That are buying a do, doing a lot of Ra type stuff, retail arbitrage, right? Things like that. And I think, you know, a lot of those business models are really good because you’re repeatable, right? There are things that you can do over and over and over and you know, one of the dangers are one of the perceived dangers of buying and selling you stuff like I do from the sources I get it from is they are a bunch of one offs. And can you repeat that? It doesn’t sound like you probably could.
Stephen: [00:50:26] Well, no, I would like the cash register.
Speaker 7: [00:50:28] So you’re not gonna see them again?
Lonnie: [00:50:31] Maybe not, maybe not, but that, that’s, that’s the key, right? That’s, it’s walking. You have to get to the point where you can walk into a situation and I identify value even if you’ve never seen it before.
Speaker 7: [00:50:45] Hm.
Lonnie: [00:50:47] You have to be able to identify quality in an item even if you haven’t seen it before. Like I know nothing about shoes, but I, I walked by the shoe aisle and if a, if a pair of shoes looks expensive and the leather fuels like high quality I think. I think being able to identify quality is the key.
Stephen: [00:51:09] That’s it. That’s the trait, you know, I was thinking about an Amazon world so that cash register would fit because you know with, if you’re going to sell shoes on Amazon for example, right, so you’re gonna look for shoes that are under a certain rank, right? Because the lower the rank, the better, right? The faster utterance. And so you have these parameters, I guess is where I was going with the two. You have these parameters in your mind, I’m going to buy these shoes, not too many variations with a below this certain rank for a certain dollar amount that I can make a certain profit on. Right? Those five or six, you know, multiples go into calculate. Should I buy it? Well in that cash register, it’s going to be a, as a purchase price, right? B doesn’t work. I mean working probably first a. see when they do sell, do they sell for a certain dollar amount? It’s unusual. That means it’s unusual to everyone. To me, that’s one of the big tools that you have sent your in there all the time. You know what’s unusual, what’s rare, right? And so if you can identify that there is a market in Ebay, gives you that tool by looking at completed listings, right? And current ones for sale. So you could see how many are on the market. So you have all those tools. To me it’s actually very similar.
Stephen: [00:52:15] I do. I just think there’s a gut check thing sometimes more so on Ebay with Amazon. The tools give you the certainty of people rely on these apps that tell you, you know, hey says to Behi with the Ebay, you’ve got to throw in the gut check thing. I think that’s, that’s a real fine tuned skill over time.
Lonnie: [00:52:36] I, I think, I think I really, I really think there’s a lot of feel or what we perceive as feel and intuition. But what is really knowledge and experience that you don’t realize at the time, you know, that we mistake for intuition. But yeah, I mean when you walk into a thrift store, 99 point nine percent of the stuff in there is junk. You know, you go to a yard sale, 99 point nine percent of the stuff is junk. So being able to quickly, quickly sift through that stuff, that’s the skill you need to have and to reject everything and find the jump.
Stephen: [00:53:14] When you, when you, uh, I was thinking about this, I mean I don’t know how many items a week you sell and you’re trying to raise your esp. So I mean, do you set a goal when you go out on a Saturday or Friday, whatever day they are, your market and say, okay, I want to pick up 20 items or a thousand dollars of retail or anything like that. Do you have those kinds of things in your mind?
Lonnie: [00:53:34] No, because I think if you go out with that, there’s kind of expectations then you may force yourself to buy things I wouldn’t normally buy because you’re having a kind of a bad day or whatever. I think you, you, I, I don’t do that. I get the stuff’s there, buy it. If it’s not adult and I, if I set goals, I would push myself to buy, you know, not as good stuff or not good enough stuff.
Stephen: [00:54:00] What would you say then is your biggest strength? Because I’m sitting here listening to, it’s almost like a discipline that you have. What would you say that’s one of your biggest strengths?
Lonnie: [00:54:11] I would say I would say one of my biggest strengths is I’ll learn. I learned really fast. I, I do. I mean I have a pretty decent memory. Um, and, and I’m, I’m pretty curious about, you know, about things and I love items that, that was the reason that I initially started my channel. Really. It’s because I love, I really like the stuff I buy, like I find it interesting.
Stephen: [00:54:41] Um, what would you say then are some of the struggles that you come up against and then how do you push through them?
Lonnie: [00:54:50] Some of the struggles that come up with?
Stephen: [00:54:52] Yeah, you’ve got to come up against. I mean like those days when you can’t find anything or like the days you got a headache, you don’t feel like going out, but you’re like, man, I gotta keep going. I just got to push through this. I mean, what do you run into? Um, or people rip you off or whatever.
Lonnie: [00:55:06] Okay. So for instance, I had kind of a slow sales, we can and I didn’t have a lot of orders going out Monday morning, which is pretty rare. Usually Mondays are like just really busy packing stuff and you know, there was a time when I would have been kind of down about it, stewed about it, disappointed, you know, and now identify those kinds of times as a sales were a little slow Saturday, Sunday. So I’m not shipping a lot now I have more time to list which will generate more sales later. Um, so I don’t know, just finding, finding the positives in bad things that happened. I mean, I just think there’s a lot. I have a lot more confidence now than I used to that longterm things you’re going to be okay.
Stephen: [00:55:56] When you think about advice, where would you have gotten your best advice? You Dad, someone else? And then what was it?
Stephen: [00:56:07] Well, because I think about with your dad being an entrepreneur, I mean, I can’t get past that because to me as a dad, when I think about what I’m teaching my boys and both of them are college educated and I don’t know whether they’ll ever come into this business full time, whatever, but I think about every chance I can, I can try to teach them, you said about value, how to identify value me, you know, like I can’t pay full price for anything anymore. I’m, I’m, I’m ruined in that way. Right. Um, and I, I helped them that way and so to me, I hope I’m giving them that advice that they could later on apply in their life. I’m wondering what about you?
Lonnie: [00:56:39] I, I think, I think the biggest thing I probably got from my dad was he was a very, very honest man,
Lonnie: [00:56:49] had a lot of integrity and I think that’s the biggest trade off probably gotten from him. And I try and conduct my business like on Ebay. Um, and, and whenever I’m at yard sales, I mean, I’ll tell a little white lie every now and then. But um, I mean I try and really like my, my integrity is like very important to me and you know, the perception of my customers is very important and uh, I try to be as honest as possible. That’s the biggest thing I got from my father. It really is. And I think it served me very well.
Stephen: [00:57:24] Well, I think over time your kids see that and then they just know that that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Right. And then, you know, it just, it exacerbates itself or multiplies itself as, as their lives go on and it just gets bigger and bigger. That’s a touch one life. So I would tell you a story. So I’m, I’m watching a video and video games and I have, and I’m not bragging somewhere in my warehouse somewhere, I haven’t seen him in years. Nintendo system, Super Nintendo systems game, you name it. I’ve got them all because I’m used to by him and by him and by him. And I’ll be like, oh, I’m going to sell, I’m going to sell them himself. Never sold them. And so somewhere in my warehouse, I mean there are hundreds of these things, right? And I’m watching a video the other day have you testing games and I’m like, oh, because we have a man cave set up in our warehouse and I’m like, I have all these games systems out and then I’m watching you with this device.
Stephen: [00:58:11] I’m like, man, that devices cool. You could just put different games in there and this and that. So short version is this, I’m putting away inventory the other day, just stuff moving in because we moved into this new warehouse and I look in a box. I’m like, is that that darn machine that I sent you the picture up? I’m like, that’s what he, that’s what he had. I’m like, I have one of these. This is what happens when you get too much inventories. I have one of these things that can save time and all the rest of that. So I saw that because of you. I pulled it out and now we’ll put it out there. And so again, it’s like what you said about getting to know others, you learn something and then therefore you can apply it in your business. There’s value in that.
Lonnie: [00:58:48] Absolutely. And even somebody that’s like doesn’t have much experience, man, they probably, they probably are doing something that you don’t know about because I think we all very few resellers, um, we all bring some type of life experience from before we were resellers. It makes us unique, very unique. Like for me, it’s electronics or whatever. I don’t know what it would be for you, Steven. Like what would you, what were you doing before you were.
Stephen: [00:59:18] I was an accountant, you know, I just retired last year, so I’m pretty good at inventory systems. That’s where I can handle volume.
Lonnie: [00:59:26] There you go. So, I mean, but I did want to mention too that one thing I’m a really big influence on me was uh, watching. There were two channels I watched that I really got a lot from and that is a peak craigslist hundred records. And, uh, there’s, there’s another, there’s another guy that used to make videos and he hasn’t made videos in a while, but, um, and they were called a wheeler dealer and banana peel. You ever heard of these guys?
Stephen: [00:59:58] Uh, no.
Lonnie: [01:00:00] Crazy, crazy picker life.
Stephen: [01:00:02] Crazy picker. I’ve never heard of such a thing. I’ll have to look it up.
Lonnie: [01:00:06] Very cool. Channel, go check it out. They’re not making videos anymore unfortunately, but I want to, I do want to mention them because I learned a lot from them as far as I think a lot of us think we’re working hard, you know, like man, we’re really getting it. We’re getting after it. But I don’t think, I think that hard work is kind of undervalued now. I hear a lot of people saying, you know, work smarter, not harder. But honestly, I, I think that since I’ve been working, like in the past year I’ve worked harder and man, those results I’ve gotten from working harder and they’d been worth it. Man. Like working harder does work
Stephen: [01:00:49] well. What are your habits? Because I was sitting there thinking about, you know, you, because you’re a mostly an Ebay guy, right? So you’re having to do, you have to trade time for money listing one person shop. So you’ve got to buy, you’ve got to clean, you’ve got to test, you’ve got to list you gotta pack, you’ve got to ship, right, wash, rinse, repeat, wash, rinse, repeat. Um, what are some of the habits, your personal habits that allow you to do the volume you’re doing? I’m in that world because, I mean, it’s easy when I buy a pallet of shoes, right? I mean, I, you know, I’ll place an order or I don’t want to say one by about Pamela shoes. I’ll stay with that. So I place a wholesale order and one or two pallets come in or they even go to a prep center. Sometimes I never even see them. It’s different. I mean now on the other end, there’s other work and there’s different, you know, research and stuff like that. But it’s different. I’m not going through and putting them on the power. I’m not pulling them off the path, you know, all that difference with your world. It’s really effort, result, effort, result, effort, result.
Lonnie: [01:01:49] Yeah. Um, well, I mean, the thing is with Ebay you have to list. It’s all about listing on Ebay. So I make an effort to list what I want to make everyday there you can try and I try and whatever.
Stephen: [01:02:06] I’m an accountant so I’m an accountant so I want this formula. Okay. So if you want to make $500 a day, you try to list that amount of retail, of market price. Okay.
Lonnie: [01:02:16] At least because, I mean there’s going to be some, it’s not very high now, but there’s gonna be some amount of stuff that never sell,
Stephen: [01:02:22] right? So you’re going to have to consider that. Okay. So if you want to make $3,000 a week, you say to list three or 4,500 if your sell through rates, you know, whatever. Right? So there’s a pro tip right there. And real market prices, right? Not, not what you wanted to sell for, what its market, what the market is currently paying.
Lonnie: [01:02:43] Right? And I mean, yeah, so I mean I try and lift, I think that’s a good goal is to try. If you want to make $300 a day or $400 or 500 a day, that’s how much you got to list every day. If you’re picking. Well, if you’re picking well, like if you’re not picking well you may only end up selling half of which you list. She doesn’t, she might have to list double.
Stephen: [01:03:04] Do you then hack that and say, okay, you know, I ran into, you know, a garage full of Manga and it’s going to be $6,000 by the time it’s done. So therefore, you know, that takes care of six, seven days and so I can move on to something else. Does it allow you that flexibility?
Lonnie: [01:03:23] Uh, yeah, sure. I mean whenever you, it. But that’s, that’s an opportunity for them.
Stephen: [01:03:28] Well yeah, I was going to say, or you that rigid, you would still say, hey, that was yesterday. I killed it. Okay, now today, 300 stays, Steve, get up, let’s go. That’s your opportunity for growth whenever you have those days. So. Okay, so which are you, I’m sorry, what’s that? Which one are you? Are you the guy that would coast on that $7,000 or would you be the guy getting up and I, I think I know the answer and getting up and listen at 300 again tomorrow.
Lonnie: [01:03:52] I would like to. I would like to say I wouldn’t coast. I think we all tend to coast a little bit from time to time, but no, I mean I,
Stephen: [01:03:58] you’re up the next day listing. Yeah, that’s why you’re having success. So there’s a magic formula right there, right? Yep. You hit a home run. Okay. Tomorrow let’s your backup at. Let’s see it over again. It is really kind of a baseball kind of a career to last forever seems to go in the season lasts forever, right? All stars can make it to the next level by putting in the extra effort and I think, Ooh, I like it. I liked, I liked that. I think that’s powerful.
Lonnie: [01:04:23] I think my youtube shooting schedule kind of helps me too because I’m like, my viewers are used to me doing garage sales on Friday, doing garage sales on Saturday, hidden estate sales on Sunday. Show him what I sold on Monday, you know, and I’m like, that’s kind of in the back of my mind, you know what I mean? Like that. That’s almost like a, a, an accountability
Stephen: [01:04:50] totally is. So you’re out every Friday, every Saturday, every Sunday because you have people that are kind of relying on you. They’re there waiting for you.
Lonnie: [01:04:59] Sort of. I mean obviously I need to get inventory, but it, the youtube component is in the back of my mind for sure. Like I don’t want to let those guys down. They want to see the stuff, you know,
Stephen: [01:05:09] I think it’s very impressive what you’ve gotten from it because a lot of people would come on and say, well, you know, I just want to give back. No, you’ve gotten more than what you’ve given. Um, again, you didn’t have any expectation, but look at what it’s brought you. And the more you do it, the more it brings you. And I think there’s some real powerful. So those people who are shy, the people who said they can’t find other people that, uh, to hang out within that, this is a good opportunity. You heard Lonnie say, this is a method to find those other likeminded people because they’re going to get to know you over time. They’re going to find out whether you’re real, because consistency over time is what the measure. A very, very cool. All right? So the goal of this podcast is to help people move forward.
Stephen: [01:05:50] And I do want to get to how to contact you if they have more information. But I think you’ve got. I think you’re a good example of somebody who overtime who says, Hey, I wasn’t the best one I began, but through continued improvement, over time I’m getting better and better. And then there’s a confidence about you. Not An egotistical way, just a you can. I just no doubt in my mind. You’re gonna be successful because you’re doing the work. What would you say to that person that’s stuck, that can’t get past their Lonnie? What would you say to them?
Lonnie: [01:06:20] You know what, I hit that. I hit that point a lot of times in, in reselling and uh, and on youtube you’ll hit walls, you know, nobody’s watching, you know, getting subscribers and you feel like nobody cares or you’re not. You’re not getting sales man. There’s no. That is what that is. What separates the people that make it from those that don’t, you know, some people will quit and some people will keep on pushing, keep on swimming or whatever. Right. From a, the dory movies. But I mean that, that is, that is the test. They say like there’s some kind of quote about how it’s not crowded at the finish line.
Stephen: [01:06:58] That’s good. Have you ever heard this quote? I’ve never heard it, but it makes perfect sense.
Lonnie: [01:07:02] You know, it’s like the people like my, my youtube content, it’s not flashy or anything like that, you know, I’m not pretty, uh, but I’ve just like for two years I’ve just kept plodding along, putting it out there. Same thing with reselling plodding along and man, you have to just keep pushing no matter what. You just keep going. I mean, and that’s, that’s it’s easier said than done, but that’s what I’ve done.
Stephen: [01:07:27] And you got to go to your daughter’s a award ceremony and be that dad that she’ll remember forever ever to
Lonnie: [01:07:37] something else too is I also feel like I’m not really employable at this point, so there’s a little pressure there because if this doesn’t work out, the reselling thing doesn’t work out. I’m not sure that I could. That would be a very good employee for anybody at this point.
Stephen: [01:07:52] That’s good. That’s self awareness. Again, all. So somebody wants to follow up. So I’ll have contact info for the youtube channel. Crush flips. It’s crushed flips on youtube. Um, other ways that somebody has a followup question that they can, uh, ask you.
Lonnie: [01:08:06] Oh, just look me up on Youtube. Not Youtube. Facebook. Honeycutt.
Stephen: [01:08:11] Okay. And I’ll put the contact. I’ll put it out there too.
Lonnie: [01:08:14] And we also have a facebook group. I do a
Stephen: [01:08:16] weekly show with John, the Cincinnati picker. It’s called this week in reselling. And we have a facebook group for that, it just search this week in reselling and you’ll find the facebook group and we also do another show where a lot of research or the reseller six pack, we get together every week on Sunday we have some drinks, we talk about reselling spelled out or the number six, uh, six spelled out resellers six pack, that’s the name of the show and the name of the facebook group will love it. And it’s a lot of the people you’ve had on your show before again, and I just say to people, because a lot of people started in this world and it moved on and now they’re saying, man, I used to enjoy myself more in that world. And you know, there’s nothing wrong with coming back to it and saying, hey, you know, there’s, there’s a part of your life that you want to fill in because it’s very rewarding when you do have those, when you did find that cash register and seeing it to the end. Now that’s very rewarding. I know that feeling. Um, so, so that’s a cool place to go. Um, and you know, who knows a love. I love the circular movement of this world. It really is. I mean, people ebb and flow in and out and I think that’s what makes it so attractive. I don’t know of any other business. How about you, Lonnie, that this, this kind of community exists, this kind of competitor community exists in a positive way?
Lonnie: [01:09:46] Yeah. It’s uh, it’s very, it’s, it’s this community like on Youtube and facebook or whatever. It’s very tight knit and it’s a very, it’s, it’s a lot of people, but it’s, if you almost like a very small world.
Stephen: [01:09:59] Yeah, it sure does. All right man, I wish you nothing but success. Thank you so much.
Lonnie: [01:10:05] Thank you, Stephen. I really appreciate you having me enjoyed it.
Stephen: [01:10:08] And I told you what a great guy, you know, his description of how to get that group of special people in your life, those special, a likeminded individuals. His method is probably the best sounding advice I’ve heard when it comes to something I get asked it all the time. How do you meet friends like that? How do you get friends like Andy and Lee, Ron and nate and all the rest, Chris Green in that? Well, you put yourself out there, right? And then you give, give, give, give. But he says it really best. I mean he put in the effort and not knowing that what it would lead to, but there’s the lesson he put in the effort with no expectation and look what it’s done for him. Could you do the same thing? Absolutely. Do you look stupid doing it sometimes, yes. Do you sound stupid? Listen to some of my earlier podcast. You all the mistakes I’ve made. Yes. But over time you get better. It gets easier. As Dan Miller says, Steve, I don’t edit my po, I’m his podcast. He just does it right. You got to get better. That was Dan’s advice to me. And he’s right. And so I’ve taken that advice and hopefully I’ve gotten better and better and better. Got a long way to go for where I’d like to be. But man, I just keep working. And Lonnie’s advice think is just some of
Stephen: [01:11:14] the best. Uh, what a great, great opportunity to make those friends that you’re looking for. Go put out some content, put out the effort, help others with no expectation, ecommerce, momentum.com, ecommerce, momentum, Dukkha, take care.
Cool voice guy: [01:11:28] Thanks for listening to the incomers momentum podcast. All the links mentioned today can be found at incomers momentum. Doug, come under this episode number. Please remember to subscribe and the lake us on itunes.
