353 : Cyndi Zlotow – Success takes perspective of the channel you are selling on with Amazing Taste

amazon seller podcast

Is $100k a year a lot of sales on Amazon? Answer: Depends. Is $100k a lot of sales on Etsy? Answer: Depends. See understanding what selling those volumes with the cost structure you have in place will help you understand whether those are good numbers. You need to understand why the channel is making changes. Why the channel is adding/losing sellers. Master where you are, get the most from where you are and stop worrying about things you can not change. Takes some perspective.

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Transcript: (note- this is a new tool I am trying out so it is not perfect- it does seem to be getting better)

Cyndi:                                   [00:00:00]               So I talked to a lot of people over, um, you know, through the course of the day I’m building their businesses and they always talk about trust, value and relevancy. How much does your buyer trust you? Meaning that’s your conversion rates. So that buyer comes in when that buyer comes into your listing, they have to trust you that this is the right product for them.

Cool voice guy:                  [00:00:22]               Do they focus on the people, the products, and the process of, here’s your host, Steven Peterson.

Stephen:                             [00:00:35]               He wanted to talk a few moments about some sponsors scope from sellerlabs. Um, when’s the last time you created a listing? Right? And when you create that listing, you’ve got to come up with the keywords, right? It’s all key word dependent. I don’t care if it’s a private label or wholesale. You’ve got to get it right. Well, what’s the best way to get it right? And if you’re selling a similar product that’s really successful, you go and you take and use their keywords and that’s what scope does for you. So phenomenal tool brought to you again by seller labs. The leaders in technology, when it comes to Amazon right now, they are just crushing it with all their products, but scope allows you to get that listing right, get ranked for those key words as fast as possible. Therefore you get the sales. So go to [inaudible] dot com, forward slash scope.

Stephen:                             [00:01:24]               Use the code word momentum, save a little bit of money, get some free key words to test, try it out and see if you see an improvement. If you don’t adjust, what’s cool about what I love about a seller labs is that you then message and say, Hey, I didn’t get this right tyler. Hey Jeff, this isn’t working right. What am I doing wrong? And Boom, you’re going to get the help you need and that’s what you’re going to get from solar lamps. And it’s a very special group that had been very. I’ve been very fortunate to be connected with them. And again, I look over time they’ve delivered every single time. You know, same thing I can say for Karen from solutions for ECOMMERCE. I mean, she’s been carrying my account for a couple of years now. Um, and our account, my wife and I, and she really does handle things for us.

Stephen:                             [00:02:06]               Um, I mentioned, uh, just last week we created a new listing with, I forget how many variations, but again, all the flat files uploaded done as I needed. I pop in, so she’ll send me a template, I pop in some information and then boom, it’s handled await. These pictures weren’t done right, blah, blah blah. This UPC needs to poom modified, adjusted. And again, the communication’s been phenomenal too. I get an email back saying, hey, this was done or this, you’re missing this, Steve. Hey, you gotta do this. So, you know, we have those challenges too and that’s why I like working with somebody who’s been doing it. I’ve been doing it for a long time to do, you know, Karen also does listings for Ebay. Yup. Lots of them. So if you want to build out that channel, which of course you should, it’s q four, you should be selling everywhere.

Stephen:                             [00:02:50]               You can, um, Karen can help you with that too. So you gotTa tell her I’ve sent you. So you’re going to go to solutions four ecommerce forward slash momentum. You’re going to save 50 bucks every single month. You gotta to save that $50, but more importantly, you’re going to get an inventory health report. Um, did you just get hit with monthly longterm storage fees? Well, guess what? If you haven’t, they’re coming. You want to get that inventory right and she can help you with that. You’ve got to tell her I sent you again, solutions. The number for ecommerce forward slash momentum will get you into that. Save the 50 bucks. Get that inventory health report though. That’s really, really important. Get that going right away and I don’t want to miss my coach when it comes to retail arb or online or when I have a question and I do.

Stephen:                             [00:03:29]               Not that we don’t, we don’t really do much of it anymore, but when I do have a question, I go to Gaye Lisby because why? Because she’s really. She is a coach. I mean, she’s really phenomenal, but she also puts out a daily list and you’re going to get that list five days a week. You’re gonna get tons of leads, the number of, uh, agreed to amount that you’re supposed to get. She lives. She usually gets to those in the four days and then the fifth day seems to be a bonus most of the time. Phenomenal Group, small amount of buyers where this list is going to end, the best thing is the nuggets that you learn. Hey, why is the red one better than the blue? One? Gaye can help you with those questions. I saw. Hey, I got, um, I got to the dreaded letter about a brand.

Stephen:                             [00:04:08]               Here’s the, here’s the way you approach it. Hey, receipts. Um, how do you, what’s the best practice? I saw her leading instructions, teaching me the accountant how to do a better job with it. And it’s phenomenal. So it’s Gaye Lisby. He’s made a million dollars selling. I’ll have the link in here. You’ve got to use the link and it does help me. I don’t want to say it that way, but it’s part of amazing freedom with Andy, slam inslee, Ron Hirsch, corn, and nate’s lamins. So, you know, you can trust. Okay, so come back to the website. Take a look at it and you will get a savings and you can get two weeks free right now only through my link. You get two weeks free. Try it. You don’t like it? I get it back off, but right now is the time to make money. Get cash flow going right now.

Stephen:                             [00:04:54]               And so join you. Get two weeks free. The only way you’re going to get the two weeks praise. If you use my link, it’s on this episode. Come on out and give it a try. You will not be disappointed again. You’re going to see me in there. So reach out if I can help you too. Let’s get into the podcast. Welcome back to the ECOMMERCE momentum podcast. This is episode 353. Cindy Zlatko. Now you’re gonna. Hear that naming and be like, hey wait, wait. Where do I know that name? She goes by amazing taste. You’ve seen her out on youtube. You’ve heard of amazing taste stores. Um, longterm seller sells on Ebay, Amazon, Poshmart, Maccari, etsy, a sales and a lot of different places does coaching. So that’s probably where you recognize her from. Um, but man, there’s some really key takeaways from this interview that you really need to listen to. If you’re in a relationship, this is a great episode for you. If you’ve been thinking about, could I work with my significant other, this is a great episode for you. If you’re thinking that it’s hard selling on Amazon, it’s hard selling. Anybody hate me, they eat those

Speaker 4:                           [00:05:58]               platforms hate me. Um, this is a great episode for you to get some perspective and it’s the takeaway that I get from Cindy is she has a lot of perspective and I think that if you apply that perspective to a whole bunch of things, it’s almost that being grateful and recognizing what you have not what you don’t have will change a whole bunch of things for you and a man. I, I just think she does a great job with it and I’m very, very impressed with it. Let’s get into the podcast. Alright, we’ll come back to the ECOMMERCE momentum podcast. We’re excited about today’s guest. This guest’s name has come up actually several times over the last couple of years, but it was at a conference and somebody took the initiative to introduce me to them and I always appreciate that because when somebody comes with somebody else’s recommendation, especially face to face, it gives that person an acknowledgement of the contribution they made in their life and that’s very cool because that just incents you to do it more so very excited about this. Welcome Cindy Gelatto. Welcome Cindy.

Cyndi:                                   [00:07:01]               Thank you. I’m happy to be here.

Speaker 4:                           [00:07:05]               It is very cool. When somebody took the time to bring me to you say, hey, that’s not the first time you brought up your name, but it was just so cool that he thought, well enough of you for what you’ve done in his life. Do you get that? I mean, that’s kind of cool, isn’t it?

Cyndi:                                   [00:07:20]               Oh, absolutely. This ecommerce world, the community has so many amazing people and I’ve been very blessed to have been able to be a part of so many different people’s journeys. I’m Brian who you spoke with and just so many people along the way and being able to be a part of their businesses and help them grow and watch them succeed. It’s been amazing.

Speaker 4:                           [00:07:46]               It’s kind of humbling in a way, isn’t it?

Cyndi:                                   [00:07:49]               Very much so that I am able to talk to them and that they want to hear what I have to say and they want to see here those insights. It’s incredibly humble.

Speaker 4:                           [00:08:01]               Well, the other thing is, is that they’re looking for. They’ve seen. You’ve had a lot of success and so I guess let me qualify a couple of things. First off, you can hear my voice. I’m nursing a cold or a cough or something like that, so I will turn my mic off and cough my brain cell. But Cindy has a business called amazing taste and that’s probably where people are, like, they’re not connecting with the name and they’re going to say, oh wait, I know I’ve seen your posts. You post a lot of stuff. Um, and you’ve been around for a little while. This isn’t new for you, is it?

Cyndi:                                   [00:08:28]               No, no. I have been been selling on Ebay for 16 years now and her

Speaker 4:                           [00:08:35]               and in like years like, or an Ebay years, you’re like 88 or something. Exactly.

Cyndi:                                   [00:08:41]               And have lived to tell the tale. So yes. And a part of the community back when it was the Ebay community boards. So from the beginning. So absolutely. Um, I was under a different name for a few years in the beginning, but under amazing taste for a very long time now

Speaker 4:                           [00:08:58]               when, when you think back to the Ebay of old Ebay have now to be fair, right? Amazon didn’t really exist in its form, right? It was probably a book thing way back then, you know, probably just sell them books. Um, it didn’t have none of the, I’m going to stretch. I mean, almost none of the retailers had real, uh, on ecommerce sites. It was, you know, there are, there were some, the magazine companies went online, right? The catalog companies, but there wasn’t the same. So ebay really had, um, had had it all potential. And I’m not a negative guy because I do love Ebay. I sell a ton. We’ve got, and I’m not bragging, but we got 5,000 skews, so we’re a large salary. We’ve been selling forever. We have more than one account, but, but when you think back to the days of old versus the days of new, how, how do you see, how do you stay motivated and not get discouraged?

Cyndi:                                   [00:09:59]               Oh Gosh, I think I see more potential now. And then I did that.

Speaker 4:                           [00:10:05]               Well, that’s interesting and I would agree with you, but I want to hear why, why you would say that.

Cyndi:                                   [00:10:10]               So back in the day, back in the days of the day, um, you know, somebody would come onto either, I mean, I started most listings, didn’t have pictures and there was no paypal, there was no Ebay brand. People didn’t know what he was. And so you were really asking somebody to come onto the internet, which was still fairly new trust that what you said in a listing was what you were actually selling because there were no pictures. And then to send you a personal check through the mail and then hope that several weeks later what they received was what you were selling. There weren’t returned, there was no buyer protection, it was really a very large risk for the buyer. So as Ebay has grown and changed and as ecommerce has grown and changed and those things have come into play, there’s a lot more trust now between buyers and sellers as much as you know, maybe that’s not what we hear. There really is. And I think that’s shown by the amount of transactions that happen on Ebay today versus how many happened back in 1996. So I feel like there’s, that trust continues to grow and as that trust continues to grow, there’s going to become more and more sales. There’s more growth potential there. As more people figure out how to navigate the site, find the sellers. I actually think we are still at the very beginning of the growth potential of the bay.

Speaker 4:                           [00:11:58]               I don’t disagree with you. I also believe that um, their technology didn’t keep up with their desires because they’re publicly traded. That’s my opinion. And so you have to make the short term, you know, you make these terrible short term decisions rather than the long play. But that seems to have changed. Um, and so I see, I see them catching up and it’s painful. It’s so painful. These chain, every time they make a change when you have thousands of everyone’s like, oh, just do bulk editing. No, it doesn’t work that way. When you have thousands of listings, you could change 500 at a time, but when you change that, it finds everything else that’s wrong with it that you had no intent to mess with. And those also get flagged and so that won’t let you change them. So you had this expectation and so then it, it just takes you down a path that rightfully they should get fixed. But at the time when we did it, it was fine. And so it’s just painful. Um, and again, I say discouraged, not turned off because it is, it’s frustrating. I guess I should say it that way. You know, the thing that you’re describing, um, when you’ve been a longterm seller like you or me, is you have perspective and new sellers coming in are like, oh man, he bay sucks. I just did this. They change it. But it’s like, wait a second, you don’t have the perspective of what they’ve. Yes. Yeah, yeah,

Cyndi:                                   [00:13:16]               yes. I remember back in the day when the entire site would go down for hours, maybe even half a day, and if it was all auctions then there was no fixed price. So if your options ended in the entire site went down while you were just up the creek, so to speak, it’s my grandmother would have said that there was no recourse this I just went down and so now you know, to me these changes, they are painful and I get it. And the glitches that we have had this here have rivals some of those early years, but I still got sales on those days.

Speaker 4:                           [00:13:54]               Yeah, that’s better. That’s perspective, right? How many ecommerce sites. But we have some shopify stores. How many sites don’t have sales in a day? I don’t think there’s been a day I’ve, we’ve ever not had sales on Ebay ever. And so I agree with you there. No matter what. Their audience is huge and you can drive it. The other thing too is in some ways there are a lot more sophisticated sellers that you’re selling against, used to be able to get away with so much because there were, you know, you had an exclusive, uh, let me look on your site. I’m trying to think of something, coffee Mug and look at your Kaufman. You had that only coffee Mug, but now you know, people know that there’s value and so these sophisticated people who have them also, and so you have to compete now where you probably didn’t back then.

Cyndi:                                   [00:14:39]               Yes. And buyer expectations are a lot higher now than what they used to be. I mean, I remember, you know, I used to ship every three days and that was cutting edge, you know, like I was one of the fastest shippers out there and now buyers expect that item on their doorstep almost before they’ve even ordered it. So buyer expectations have changed. So you’re not only competing with that more sophisticated seller, you’re also up against those buyer expectations, which has forced anybody who’s been in the game this long to become a better seller. We have to,

Stephen:                             [00:15:15]               you have to. But here’s something I’d like to know what your opinion is, where they’re more part time sellers or fulltime sellers way back then.

Cyndi:                                   [00:15:26]               That’s a good question. I would say that the majority of people, we’re probably part time ecommerce seller. So it was like a side hustle. Yes. Simply because it was so new and it was very risky. Um, most of them had brick and mortars somewhere, so they had an antique store. They had a, you know, a retail location of some sort that they were, you know, kind of testing the waters in the ecommerce world before they went all in.

Stephen:                             [00:16:03]               I wonder if that then does create the problem of today where a lot of people are full time sellers but utilizing parttime techniques still. So it’s Kinda like you said, the, the buyer expectation is that I’m sitting here 24 slash seven ready to ship, right? We have a whole team, a giant warehouse of people ready to ship. So on a Sunday night they kind of expect you to ship on a Sunday night because if you buy something on Amazon on Sunday night, it’ll ship. Generally it’ll ship on Sunday night and you’ll actually like, wait, what? There’s actually somebody out there and, and, and you know, that change a lot of people haven’t kept up with and I think that’s part of the frustration because I designed my life around Ebay, right? And therefore I had these great, like you said, three day handling time, right? As opposed to, you know, one day. And so now all of a sudden the expectation of the buyer has changed so much. He based saying, Hey, you gotta get with it. And some of us are fighting it. And uh, I think that’s a challenge.

Cyndi:                                   [00:17:06]               Absolutely. I think it’s a challenge for any small business though, whether you’re a small business that’s a brick and mortar and a town and Walmart comes in or you have a small business online, it’s a small business problem. You have to figure out how are you going to compete against the walmarts of the world and those people are on Ebay and those people are in your local town. It’s just how much market share do you want? How much growth do you want and how much of your life are you willing to trade off for that?

Stephen:                             [00:17:43]               I think that’s great. Again, we’re back to perspective. You’re right. All those small businesses that closed in your town didn’t adjust when Walmart came or the big boxes came and so therefore now some did make it because they twisted and they change and they got better at other things. I think that’s a really good perspective. So. So why Ebay? Why, why start selling for you? What was it for you that true you there?

Cyndi:                                   [00:18:10]               So Eva was completely accidental actually was part of an Mlm. So part of a multilevel marketing, a soled rubber stamps way back in the day.

Stephen:                             [00:18:23]               Stamps.

Cyndi:                                   [00:18:24]               Yes, back in the crafty raise, which anybody who follows me now we’ll find that rather humorous because I’m really not a crafty person, really not a creative person in any way, shape or form. But that’s what I did. There was a market and I could get a product. So I was in, um, but then we had our third child and he was really sick. Um, he was sick the entire first year of his life and so having a party in my house or going to a party just wasn’t going to happen, but I still wanted to be able to make money. We still had bills to pay that I wanted to be able to contribute to and now I had all this product. So somebody said to me, have you heard about Ebay? And I went, no, what’s he,

Stephen:                             [00:19:10]               what’s this?

Cyndi:                                   [00:19:11]               What is, what is that? And they said, well, you know, you can just go and, you know, say what you have and you can sell the staff and people send you money. And I was like, all right, well I’ll try it. I’ve got all this stuff that I can no longer get rid of it and I’m no longer using because I now have this, this sick little guy and I now had three kids under the age of five. So let’s get rid of it. And that’s how it started. I, that is honestly how it started. I had a product, I needed the money, I threw those things up. It was all auction. They started the mall at ninety nine cents, they immediately got bids and I was like, holy cow, this, this can happen. So then I started looking for more stuff, you know, like a drug and those sales where you get more money for something and you thought you would, it’s like a drug. And so I wanted that again, you know, what else do we have I can sell. And so I started selling everything, all of the kids’ toys that, you know, they weren’t using m their clothes that they had outgrown. And suddenly then I didn’t have any more product. I had sold everything. And so then I started looking around, you know, what’s in my area that I can get, that I can put online and sell. And it just grew and grew and grew.

Stephen:                             [00:20:26]               Do you think that you had special skills? Looking back and being honest and not. This isn’t an ego issue, but it’s real. Um, do you think you brought some special skills to Ebay which made it successful for you? Maybe not easy because I don’t know that it’s easy, but like the fact that you were able to get past all the hurdles with the photos and all that junk that was back then, which made it really hard. Do you think you had some skills that that when you look back you can say like for me, I’m a noticer, how about for you?

Cyndi:                                   [00:20:58]               I think that for myself and for anyone who is successful on Ebay, you have to have a special level of stubbornness because there are always. Whether you start today or whether you started 16 years ago, there were hurdles to climb. When I started, there was no youtube. There was no guide, there were no. There was no facebook, so if you wanted to sell, you literally had to get on the site and figure it out on yourself on your own. There was nobody healthy and there was nobody teaching. There was none of this, so there are. There was a special level level of stubbornness that this site is not going to be smarter than I am. I’m going to sit here. Is that determined personality? I’m going to sit here and I’m going to figure this out. There’s money to be had here and I’m going to figure out how to get it.

Stephen:                             [00:21:46]               Well, what you just said, you know, you, you’re going to be smarter than it a person created it. I mean, that’s the thing that we got to realize there’s not, this is not ai stuff yet yet. Um, so therefore if somebody created it, they did it logically for them or however they were instructed or whatever. So you just have to pull it apart, Parson and then put it back together. So it’s understandable for you. And my wife would say it was probably a man. There’s a lot of man speaking there and so you gotta you get through that, right? You’re married, you could get through that and then you can do it on your own and then rebuild it. So it works for you. That’s, I think really the difference between a lot of people who give up early and push their way through.

Cyndi:                                   [00:22:26]               Absolutely. You have to be willing to put in the time on your own. I mean, I’ve gotten so far as to find Ebay’s patent to their search algorithm. It’s out there. You can find it and if you want to read it and do you want to dissect it and do you want to figure it out? You can do that. You’re a nerd. Yes. I come from an accounting background, so I am all numbers. I mean algorithms are just math equations. That’s all that they are. And so as soon as I realized that it was just a math equation, I was all in. It’s like, this is now you’re speaking my language, I can figure this out. So I, I came in, I figured out Ebay’s algorithm algorithm and it’s not, you know, it’s not precise. Ej changes every day and there are a lot of moving parts to it, but you can figure out that at least the moving part.

Stephen:                             [00:23:19]               Well, let’s talk about that part set for a second because I think it’s a much respect for the accounting profession. You would have been the tax person that I would have hired or whatever. I would have been the big guy pictured because I don’t, I can’t, I can’t do it, you know, even though it came from the professional, I just can’t get down in there and stay in there because it’s like I’m not that smart but, but let’s talk about just a couple of the key points today that you would say that are really, really important for Ebay’s algorithm, which would

Speaker 4:                           [00:23:46]               transfer over to Amazon and would transfer to Google when shopify and all the same there. There’s a, there’s a few core components. Could you break something down that you think from Cindy’s perspective?

Cyndi:                                   [00:23:56]               Absolutely. Um, I think most of the sites, whether it’s at sea or Amazon or poshmark, all based on this same key points, uh, the big one’s going to be conversions. Um, Ebay, Amazon, etsy, all of these sites want to see you making sales. Sales are what drive their bottom line. It’s what brings in buyers. Sales are the key part of this. If you’re not making sales, Ebay, Amazon, whomever it is, says, okay, you may not, you must not have products that buyers are looking for today. That’s a pretty simple equation,

Speaker 4:                           [00:24:39]               so why would they support that? Why would they push your stuff that’s not gonna sell, right? That’s the premise. Because they have options. They have another choice. They could push steve stuff which will sell

Cyndi:                                   [00:24:49]               exactly. Back in the day, like you said, there was one coffee mug on your site. It was mine. I didn’t have a choice. If somebody typed in that coffee Mug, they had to show mine today. There’s a million of them.

Speaker 4:                           [00:25:04]               You got me thinking about it. I wonder how many searches if I do coffee mug would come up.

Cyndi:                                   [00:25:10]               Oh my goodness.

Speaker 4:                           [00:25:11]               Will it tell me? Four hundred and 85,000. Eight hundred and 53.

Cyndi:                                   [00:25:18]               So think about it this way. If you’re going into a town and you are going to stay at a hotel and there’s a hotel that everybody stays at, your friends have talked about it. It’s always full. It’s hard to get into great reviews and then there’s another hotel over here. It’s the same price. It looks exactly the same, but it’s always empty. There’s no cars in the parking lot. Which one do you go and stay at?

Speaker 4:                           [00:25:42]               You just said something that connected with me as an old guy’s mind that I had not thought of what you just said. It blew my mind right there. My kids who it might, my uh, older one’s 32, they won’t do anything without reviews. And so what you’re saying to me is that sales on Ebay or sales on any platform or really reviews because people made the decision to buy. Oh, I never made that connection until you just said it. It was like, Huh? And, but your whole bunch of people are like, all right, come on Steve. Really? But it’s a citrix. I had not made that connection. That’s really people applauding. They used to say, you know, the customer’s spending money with you was the applause. Right? Exactly. That makes perfect sense. So conversions are critical.

Cyndi:                                   [00:26:25]               Okay. Yes, yes, absolutely. And so then we go into, okay, we’re making conversions. How many of those buyers then are coming back? What’s your return rate? What’s your feedback? Right? It all comes back to that hotel. So, so how many did those buyers come back? How many times do those buyers go onto yelp and leave a review for that hotel? These are all things that you’re telling the site that you’re selling on. I’m a trustworthy seller. I have products priced competitively. I have good pictures. I create trust with my buyers. You have to tell that you have to tell Ebay, Amazon, poshmark, shopify, whatever it is, you have to tell that site. Listen, buyers, trust me. I have good products. I priced competitively. When my buyers receive their items, they’re happy. Those sites don’t know that. Inherently.

Speaker 4:                           [00:27:23]               What you’re saying then is, and break that down further. So every one of the key metrics, right? The deliver on time as described by blah, blah, blah. Every one of those little metrics is you building your reputation. Every one of those. Our reputation building for you.

Cyndi:                                   [00:27:40]               Yes, absolutely. Very cool. Absolutely.

Speaker 4:                           [00:27:43]               Yeah. That’s a. that’s a great perspective to sit back and think about that. So, so the better the pictures, right? Then the buyer knows what they’re going to get and they’re more likely to say, yes, I got what I wanted because I saw the pictures and it’s exactly as I always like when I get those comments exactly as described. And I’m always like, yeah, that’s a, that’s a pat on the back. Right? But that is a reinforcement of what are some of the other ones then that you would say or, or, or it. And let me ask you this way. What would you say is the most important one? If you’re going to start building that out and then if you could do a couple in order what you would think.

Cyndi:                                   [00:28:20]               Um, so I talked to a lot of people over, um, you know, through the course of the day I’m building their businesses and like always talk about trust, value and relevancy. How much does your buyer trust you? Meaning that’s your conversion rates. So that buyer comes in when that buyer comes in to your listing, they have to trust you that this is the right product for them. So what’s your trust factor? What’s your relevancy factor? Do you come onto a marketplace and say, I have this coffee mug and even though everybody else has this coffee mug listed at $20, I’m going to list 100 because I think it’s amazing. Now if it’s signed by the creator, if it has a gold handle them, maybe it is. If it’s just the same thing and you just decided that yours was five times better than everybody else’s, that’s not relevant. The site’s going to see that it’s not relevant. All of these sites understand what your product is worth, whether you want to think it or not.

Speaker 4:                           [00:29:21]               Well, Amazon deals with things. They call it the buy box and I know you’ve just trying to get more and more into that, right? And you start to see some of that. But the concept is basically this, just because you, like you said, you think you’re a gold plated or whatever it is, your gold colored coffee Mug is worth a lot more than everybody else’s coffee mugs, yet it’s the same coffee mug. Um, and you price it accordingly. You’re not relevant. Right? So that doesn’t show. So they don’t show it in Ebay’s world, you’re suggesting that their algorithm says the same thing and then it just shows

Cyndi:                                   [00:29:57]               and we actually did because I’m a nerd, so I love to do a test. I love to run an ab test. I think it’s fantastic. I love to get other people involved. We run ab tests together and then we come back and we report our data on and then I like to make a spreadsheet of it because I’ll take the nerd all the way to the top level. So, um, we, we do a lot of live chats on instagram and there’s a site called checkup flippa.com and check a flip. You can go onto type in any product that you want to sell anything and it’s going to tell you the average sold price and the conversion rate. Two huge points for anybody selling on Ebay. So what we did was we took that check, a flip average, sold price and said, okay, what if we go on the premise that that sold price is the relevant price for that item. If I priced within 10 percent of that price, what does what happens to my search ranking?

Speaker 4:                           [00:31:05]               Ten percent above or 10 percent below either way,

Cyndi:                                   [00:31:08]               either way, within 10 percent. So we had several people. We tested it across several different products, several different verticals as categories and every single time if we priced then what we what we were saying, we were saying that checkup flip was competitive pricing. So if we priced within 10 percent above or below of that price, we went up to the search rankings, which tells me, okay, Ebay saying your item is worth x amount of dollars. If your pricing is just way out of hand. Then we say it for which makes sense. If we look back at why did he say get rid of sales? What did they say? You have to wait 14 days to start a sale because from what I can tell opinions by Cindy, take it for what you paid for it. From what I can tell people, we’re pricing very uncompetitive. Lee, they were pricing way high and then they would start that sale. The sale price would bring it down to a competitive price. So if we make people sit at that start price for 14 days, then maybe they will bring their price competitive from the start.

Speaker 4:                           [00:32:30]               Wait, don’t go. Don’t leave that because that’s, that’s a big fundamental change, right? For a lot of people, because that was the way it was done, right? You’d mark it up because you know you’re going to discount, right? But now you’re saying, no, you’ve got to kind of price it, right Steve. But here’s the challenge then, do I need to change my listing from a good till cancelled two, a two, not an option, but to a lesser, it’s a 30 day sale or whatever it is. I don’t know what their smallest listing is, but because you’re pricing it now, so therefore your costs are lower. I mean, do you get what I’m saying? You’re, you’re changing one side of it. Has the rest kept up? Where have I not? Am I saying it right?

Cyndi:                                   [00:33:08]               Um, so I, I think so. Um, so this is what we have seen. If you will watch those checkup, flip conversions, you can sell that item within 30 days and then then the good till cancelled. Thirty day conversation doesn’t come into play. I want all of my items to sell within 30 days, so found an issue for me.

Speaker 4:                           [00:33:30]               And have you experienced that?

Cyndi:                                   [00:33:32]               Yeah, we our average turnover and we have some items that will sit longer for sure. We go into them knowing that that conversion rate is longer and so we look at our profit margins. If I’m going to sit on an item for longer than 30 days in, my profit margin needs to be higher than an item I can flip within seven, so I pay attention to those conversion rates. It’s the same thing you would do if you are an Amazon seller. If you’re an Amazon seller and we sell on Amazon. Also, you look at that item and you say, okay, this is my profit margin. This is the rank of that item, and given the rank of that item, I can get an idea of how long it’s going to take me to sell it. That conversion rate tells me the same thing, so now I’m saying, okay, this item is going to sell for $20, but it only has a five percent conversion rate.

Cyndi:                                   [00:34:24]               It’s going to take me six months to sell that item. Do I really want to sit on an item for six months to sell it for $20 in my world? No, no, no, no, no, no. I’m passing on that item now and I’m moving on. Part of the world of ecommerce and building a successful ecommerce brand is staying ahead of it, knowing that, okay, things that I sold a year ago may not be selling now at all. Or maybe they sell for way less. So staying on top of that is crucial to my continued ability to pay my mortgage

Speaker 4:                           [00:35:03]               so that, you know, we were talking earlier about sophistication, a sellers coming in with sophistication. This is a good example of that, right? Is and, and this isn’t hard to do. It’s painful to do. So I’m, I’m looking. Here’s a good example. So I’m looking at a Lego freestyle sitting in my office and it’s old. It’s cool and I don’t know where I bought it years ago and whatever I found it, I’m like, oh, that’s gotta be worth something, and then I go and I use checkup flip and I pop that in and when I put the actual number in it didn’t have any sales my so now I shortened it a little bit better keywords and boom, it shows some and they’re selling for a lot lower than what my expectation would be behind. I’m I should know all sending, I’m a guy, I’m supposed to know everything but it’s just painful yet. But there’s a perfect example and it says it’s only 19 point four, four percent sold, so that means 20 percent of them were going to sell and these are what they sold for. So if you want to put yours out there and be part of that 80 percent price it high sophisticated. Very, very cool. I’m not familiar with this site but I can see the value. So now you take this approach on every listing you do.

Cyndi:                                   [00:36:16]               Every new listing that I’m doing, meaning a new brand that I’m doing or a new item. If so, I’m not looking at every single item that I list for no way. I would never have the time, but if I see. I see. So we saw a lot of clothing. If I see a brand starting to slow down, if I start getting a lot of what I would consider low ball offers, I take that as an indication like that low ball offer never upsets me. Take that as an indication of, Huh, maybe I’m not as aware of what the market is for this item is I think our. Yeah, so now I’m going to go and look at it because the market changes quickly and so what the market was on that item when I listed it maybe different than it is today. And so when that low ball, you know, the first lowball offer that comes in, you just go, yeah, whatever, but the second one that comes into you have to really start to think maybe the market is trying to tell me something. Maybe this is the value of my item and it does, but I’m not in. You know, I have a good friend, Monica over on instagram and she says, I’m not in the storage business, I’m in the selling business. I don’t want to be in the storage business if this is what the market says my item is worth and I have to be realistic enough to admit that, or I just and stuff

Speaker 4:                           [00:37:37]               does that. Then. So then logically you’re changing your buying patterns, so you’re like, okay, check not buying that. Again, got rid of it. Recovered what, what I can recover. Now let me add another twist to it though, because you sell on multiple channels. Does that now, I mean a, do you extrapolate that across? I mean as an Ebay seller, the same as an Amazon. I mean it’s an Ebay buyer, excuse me, the same as an etsy buyer, the same as an Amazon buyer and now that there’s so many other specialized little, you know, apps to sell on. Um, do you have to think that way?

Cyndi:                                   [00:38:11]               I think you need to be very aware of the differences in those buyers. There are a lot of similarities, but there are items that will sell better on one platform to the next and being diversified allows me to find the best platform for that item to get the best Roi on light on the, on that item. So I look at it like, okay, I, I have this brick and mortar that you know, I want to open up. I can now look at the Internet as, okay, where’s the best town? Who gets the most traffic for the type of products that I’m wanting to sell and that may change. That may, that has changed within the last year. Sites that I was doing really well on now are getting saturated and so I’m moving away and you know, I’m constantly watching. I watch google analytics a total nerd. I told you I went to cook. I watch google analytics a lot. I want to know what these sites bounce rates are. I want to know who’s gaining in market share. I want to know who’s losing on time per visit so that I can be making those ships. If the buyers are shifting from one site to another, I want to be there for them to find me.

Speaker 4:                           [00:39:34]               What do you think buyers shift from site to site? Is it marketing? Is it, um, um, disappointment and then they just move on, you know, they went and they said, Oh, you know, uh, I’m not liking this. This wasn’t a good experience. And then I move on. What do you say?

Cyndi:                                   [00:39:50]               Um, I think some of it’s marketing. Social media plays a big role, especially as we get this new generation of millennials and oh gosh, what’s the next one? Generation X, Y, Z, whatever they are. I have one. I don’t know what they are. Third Young. As those kids come up, their buying power and their potential buying power is tremendous. So social media marketing becomes a really big deal and where they shop and how they shop. And then we go to buyer experience. Of course, if I go onto Ebay and I order a product and it comes and it is an a used pizza box and horribly flawed. The chances of me buying from you now or less, even though you’re not the one who sent me in a pizza box, you are on the same site.

Speaker 4:                           [00:40:45]               You represented Ebay. People use pizza boxes, right? That’s what your perception is, right? I mean, that’s what you’re thinking in your mind. I can’t buy from them Jesus, and then you know what we used to say is that you would tell 28 people that same story and so therefore those 28 or tainted by your perspective and your perspective is your experience, right? Yes. Hmm. Which I know a lot of them out of sellers

Cyndi:                                   [00:41:09]               who were upset by the new service metrics and we go back to the seller dashboard stars and all of that, but honestly it helps us all because if you’re a seller who’s not shipping in pizza boxes and you’re shipping on time and you have good product, then those things should never be an issue for you. But if your cell sending them pizza boxes, then that’s going to give you a ginormous red flag. Listen, your buyers aren’t happy and that affects us all. It’s not an all bad thing. Did it make us all up our game? Of course it did. Is that a bad thing? Maybe not.

Speaker 4:                           [00:41:49]               And that, that seller one little negative behind the scenes and you don’t get to see every comment that EPA gets, right, your, your record, you don’t get to see everything. They would then probably the algorithm would push them further down the list because it’s so when they’re starting to see lower sales, it probably is, or it could be a piece of that. Um, as you said, with um, with some of those conversion factors, those things that aren’t helping you, um, your, your reputation was tarnished a little bit. Can you get it back?

Cyndi:                                   [00:42:23]               Of course you can. Ebates is probably one of the best sites for being forgiving. If, if I go on to Amazon today and I mess up on Amazon, man, they are just completely unforgiving. They will shut the door on. You, lock it, throw away the key and never look back. They just do. That’s, that’s the world. It’s their playing field. They get to make the Eba really does allow sellers to make a change. They give you lots of warnings, they tell Ya, you know, this is coming, this is what you need to fix. So, and then you can get it back. Is it easy? No, no,

Speaker 4:                           [00:43:04]               it’s not perfect, but I don’t know anything that is perfect, you know, I mean, uh, my air conditioning went out at my warehouse or my heating system in my office is brand new and it, a surge protected power went out, nothing to do with it. And so guess what, it went under surface. So therefore I’m cold. So I had to put an electric heater it. Whose fault is that? Who Do I blame? Right. Nobody. I mean, this is what happens. Right. And so, and I think the same thing when, when, when, there are problems, I think when you look at it globally, I was very encouraged again, when I saw, I met that Brian Burke and I really was encouraged what a cool guy, smart, caring. Um, my experience too with an anchor store, we have access to a US rep and when you can actually call when we’d been selling on Amazon since we’ve been Fba since 2011, and it’s so back in that day, I used to email somebody and actually get a response. Now you can’t, you can hardly ever talk to anybody, but on Ebay when you have an anchor store, you actually get somebody and we’re talking to the guy actually sells. So he understands. He’s like, Oh yeah, this is what, you know, here’s how I do. I’m like, Oh dude, I get it. Somebody who actually understood the business. It was so powerful and I must admit I, I, I’ll tell that story 28 times. And that’s a positive story, right?

Cyndi:                                   [00:44:19]               Yeah. Yeah. Brian Burke, he’s a fantastic guy. We’ve met him, known him for several years now, and he goes to meetups across the country. If you ever have a chance, you should go. It’s one of the first people to say this and this is what I really appreciate. He’s one of the first people to say, I don’t know the answer to that, but I’ll help you find it. It’s cool and that’s really cool to me when somebody can not just appease you, not just say, oh, it’ll be fine. We’re or we’re looking into it or were aware, but actually say, you know what? I don’t know. I haven’t heard about that. Or you know what? That’s a really big issue. I’m going to email that to somebody right now. Any. Well that says a lot to me, to the spirit of the company. Then we’re like you’re saying with Amazon as a seller, if I have a problem with Amazon, it’s far more difficult.

Cyndi:                                   [00:45:13]               Not that you can’t. Not that there aren’t ways, but it is far more difficult. If I had a posh mercs and new clothing side, I can’t call them up until just recently. Etsy is just starting to change, but I couldn’t call ECC when I had a problem. There’s no phone number. I can’t call and we sell them a car. You right now, and we’ve got an issue there and it’s going to be an issue because there’s no, there’s no easy customer service lines there either, so I, I appreciate that fact. Even if I call in and I don’t get the answer that I like because that happened.

Speaker 4:                           [00:45:52]               Yeah, that’s painful

Cyndi:                                   [00:45:54]               it and it is, but I appreciate the fact that at least there was somebody to call and rant at and that’s just the truth of it. Sometimes, you know, I still didn’t get the answer that I wanted, but at least I was able to call him. She upset about it. Cindy,

Speaker 4:                           [00:46:09]               I appreciate that you were speeding to get to your kid’s soccer game because you’re a mom that cares, however, I’m still going to give you the ticket. Right. That’s really what it is. Right? But it’s the truth. At least you got an answer. I mean, to me, I think a lot of times when you send, I get frustrated and it’s every website and I don’t want to and it’s probably me that I didn’t reply to it. I get a zillion questions across my websites and I try to reply to every person on one with a personal message from me, but I’m sure I’ve disappointed somebody. Um, and so that stinks. The fact that I sent it back to you as have a good example, somebody sent me this unbelievable note last night was very kind. It was very, very, but he’s like, hey, you got, we’ve got a bunch of commercials.

Speaker 4:                           [00:46:50]               He didn’t call it that, but that’s where they are sponsors at the beginning of your shows. That’s a lot. And, and I’m like, well, that’s awesome, you know, for the comments. Thank you very much. However, I put them all up front so you can skip past them if you don’t want to listen to them. I understand that, but, you know, I do have sponsors to help pay for everything. And so I used to spread them out throughout the thing and break my concentration. I don’t do that anymore. Um, and so that’s what it is. So I don’t know whether he liked the answer, but that’s the truth. And at least he got a response. Right. What are you, what are you seeing with sellers that are coming to you now because you got your coach and a lot of people, you’re helping a lot of people and you’ve been doing it for quite a while, but what’s the difference that you’re seeing today versus the sellers of the past?

Cyndi:                                   [00:47:33]               Um, I think sellers today are more tech savvy. Yeah. Um, I think people too, right? Yes. I think if you’re older and you’re still in the game, you’ve had to be, comes tech savvy whether you wanted to or not. Uh, so I think that there are more tech savvy. Um, I think they’re more aware of the opportunities that are available to them. That’s a good one that maybe we didn’t fully recognize. You know, if I could go back, I would have sold so much more stuff than holy cow, then I could have just retired. I had no idea the opportunities that were there

Speaker 4:                           [00:48:09]               available. This is you saying this or this is just to, you know, go deeper there. Go ahead. Tell me what you would do different because I think this is a really powerful point.

Cyndi:                                   [00:48:19]               Oh Gosh. When I look back, I was, you know, we didn’t have smart phones so you couldn’t go into a store and look something up. There was no scanning a barcode. You just had to trust your gut that you knew what you were doing and there were no. There was no returning to a thrift store.

Speaker 4:                           [00:48:38]               You Bet. But it’s the myths that you didn’t say, okay, I sold this Las Vegas Golf shirt and it’s sold so quick, I should then therefore create this list. This is the Internet of the back into it was a legal pad and bring that list to the store with me and buy every single one and go to every thrift store. Just, I mean, is that, is that the stuff that you missed?

Cyndi:                                   [00:48:59]               I missed trusting my gut. Oh, okay. So the mess wasn’t the shirt. It was the video game. It was the DVD, it was the electronic. It was everything else that I was like, Eh, I don’t know if I can figure out how does ship that, so I’ll just stick here where it’s safe because they know how to do this stuff and he played it safe for way too long. If I could go back, it would have made some of those bigger moves sooner because now I see the potential. The potential is terrific.

Speaker 4:                           [00:49:37]               Perfect. So would you have scaled faster too? I mean, does that another. Okay, so. So let’s take it forward. Yeah, because this is where I see this being very, very applicable for new sellers coming in. Is this the opportunity. I mean, what you’re telling people is to scale quicker now we’ve got to be cautious here at Amazon is different. We really got to be cautious here because I don’t want to go into this gray area. Everybody’s gonna go out and buy everything on targets and captains and sell it on Amazon. It isn’t going to work. Okay. You’re not going to be satisfied with the results you get. Okay. I’m not that you can’t be successful, but we’re like, let’s stay on Ebay because I think it’s an easier place to do when you start seeing those successes. Uh, selling the Las Vegas Golf shirt, you should go all in. Is that what your advice is?

Cyndi:                                   [00:50:27]               My

Speaker 4:                           [00:50:28]               advice is absolutely of trust your gut and ignore the noise is. So if your gut tells you I sold this shirt, you’re looking at your, your data, you know your buyer. Go all in. If you’re listening to the noise and there’s a lot of noise that is saying, oh no, you know, Ebay is going gonna die, or Las Vegas Golf shirts are going to die, or you know, nobody’s going to buy that and ignore the noise. Trust your gut and lean into what you know, you know, golf clubs. Lean into that. That’s a good one. Lean in. Oh, I love it. That’s a great, that’s a great description. Lean into it. Love it. Yeah. It’s not a bad.

Cyndi:                                   [00:51:21]               Yeah. It’s not about going and buying a wholesale lot of golf shirts tomorrow because that may be a very bad thing.

Speaker 4:                           [00:51:29]               Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cyndi:                                   [00:51:30]               But you know, your business and I think as entrepreneurs who get into this, whether you’re getting into today or you got in, you know, a gazillion years ago, you have an innate feeling in, in your soul that you can feel that this is going to be good. And you know, when you’re at a store, you know when you’re looking at a skew and you just go, ah, that’s something, I don’t know what yet, but it’s something lean into that

Speaker 4:                           [00:51:58]               leading into it. Oh, I’m going to use that a lot. That is such a, you know, when I think about what came to mind, especially with clothing, is Jason t Smith thrifting board where Ronnie heart hearts pickers or Steve Rake and back in the day when he was really selling clothing and he really put the effort into it, right? What was it that they do? A or Jason with this Tiki mugs is a good example. His tiki business, he leans into it. He makes it his business to know everything about it, find every single one and then describe it and do everything right. So good. Oh, that’s so good. Cindy. Now I know, uh, your name is coming up, so, so you’re doing a lot of coaching out there and, and specifically what are you coaching people on?

Cyndi:                                   [00:52:45]               So the coaching just became, came about because I had done a lot of these kinds of interviews and a lot of people just trying to figure out their way and there’s no, there’s no real blueprint for this. And how do, how do you get here? I’m sorry. I talk a lot to people about how I scaled my business, you know, um, I did this for 10 years, 11 years by myself, made a good full time income for myself before we decided that my husband should quit his job and he should go full time with me and in order to do that, um, we sat down and he didn’t think it could be done. He had a good corporate job with good benefits and he said, okay, if you can triple your sales in six months, I’ll quit my job. Let’s stop there a second because this is, I think, very powerful.

Cyndi:                                   [00:53:35]               No, I think this is exactly because this is a question that comes up a lot. How do I get, how do I bring, you know, Jim cockrum always said bringing hundred husband’s home and that resonates with people. I mean, that’s connection, right? To, that’s assuming mom is home and now we’re going to bring the husband’s home. Um, I think that’s a very powerful thing. So you guys sat down first off together and agreed to this. Came to terms. Yes, yes. How much we would need to make. How much is health insurance? I mean, we have three kids and um, while they weren’t in college, now we’re all headed that way now are they weren’t in college then they’re headed that way now. I’m so looked at, you know, okay, how much do we really need to make and how much can you really make? Selling used sweaters, I didn’t even really possible. Nobody buys them. Is it really possible to have a mortgage to send a kid to college to, you know, live. We live right outside of Chicago to live in a fairly expensive area selling you sweaters anyway. Is that possible? And so we sat down and he was driving, he had a long commute to this job and really wasn’t happy. Um, and so I said, okay, you tell me what I need to make for you to quit and challenge accepted. I’ll go do it.

Stephen:                             [00:54:56]               Let’s stop there. Second, because this is important with this. What are your relationship allowed you to make it a life goal? I mean, because I think that that’s, you know, some people would have seen that as a burden. Oh Jesus, I’m going to get a triple my sales team to carry him. You’re saying it. No, this is exciting for me. This is an opportunity for us to get deeper in our relationship. And I know I’m getting a little mushy here, but it’s, it’s real. And I just love to hear this stuff.

Cyndi:                                   [00:55:31]               I knew it would be best for our family is going to be best for our kids. And best for our relationship was very. He was very unhappy in corporate life. Um, you know, it was a lot of stress and we work really well together. I don’t know that it necessarily should be a life coach for everyone. Um, my parents who have been married over 50 years, great relationship cannot work together. They should not be in this. And they would tell you that. So I’m not speaking out of turn. And they would tell you that absolutely they have a great relationship because I’ve interviewed a couple of couples and they work on separate floors. That’s a very common because I can’t sit next to each other. We’re mark and Robin. They have their desks budding up against. He goes, she knows everything. I know everything right? But, but in that example of your parents, your dad could be the shopper and your mom came to the office, this

Stephen:                             [00:56:21]               person, so you could exist but just

Cyndi:                                   [00:56:24]               apart a little bit different. And so we knew how it was gonna work for us. Um, and it was incredibly exciting and we both kind of felt like you get one chance, you get one chance at life. And we knew that. So we set this goal of this is what you need to be making for me to quit. And then we have six months and if in six months we can’t go from there to here, then we tried it. But at least to try it, at least you don’t think woulda, Coulda, shoulda.

Speaker 4:                           [00:56:53]               Well, here’s the. Here’s the. Here’s the thing, cindy, what if he would’ve stayed at that job cut even more unhappy and resented you? Because here you are having the time of year. I mean, you know, I don’t want to put these bad thoughts out there in the universe, but it’s true. How many relationships have you. And I seen it with our friends that have ended because they drifted so far apart where you said, hey, not me. I’m taking care of my man and he’s stepping up. I mean, that’s a marriage that, oh, that’s a relationship. Oh, give me the tingles. I know it’s Corny, but I’m serious. If you listen, if you’re listening to this and you guys are struggling in your relationship, this might be the answer. And guess what? When you travel and what? My wife and I were just away, she didn’t make it to Chicago. We were in Florida the week before for an event and when we travel, it makes those events so much better because she’s part of it. It’s so exciting. It does take your relationship to places that you only wish you can get to. And um, I think, I think it’s very, very powerful. So you built a plan, a challenge, accepted you stepped up.

Cyndi:                                   [00:58:02]               But I fully admit I went and found myself a small business coach because I didn’t know how to do that. How do I take a business from point a and triple it in six months? That’s crazy. Nobody has that kind of sales growth. So I went and found myself with.

Speaker 4:                           [00:58:23]               Well, let’s talk about that. What, what did you look for in your coach? Because I think that’s important too because everybody puts a shingle out, you know, they’re uh, they’re 18 and they’re giving life coaching on instagram. Right? Hey, follow me. He sent me a check and I’ll teach you how to be a really successful.

Cyndi:                                   [00:58:42]               I wanted somebody outside of ecommerce. I wanted somebody who had actually worked with small businesses. Um, and the, I guess I’ll call it the quote unquote real world out there in the tangible world, uh, that had worked with small businesses, had worked with venture capitalists, um, so knew what it took to get a business funding. Those are all things that if you’re going to scale, we didn’t ever take funding or anything like that, but those were, if you could take a business from that from point a to being available to funding, then that’s a success. So I wanted somebody who understood that and then on the flip side had worked with large companies. So I found somebody who, um, was willing to sit with me and had done all of those things, had worked with fortune 500 companies all the way down to little startup company.

Speaker 4:                           [00:59:45]               That’s not the way most people are doing it is this, is this a place again where you’re coaching people to say, hey wait, you want to get out of our circle? Because it’s a little incestuous and we have these preconceived notions you need to, you do need to get some bigger perspective, right? I mean that, that really is what you’re describing is, is the world’s a little bigger than just Chicago, a little bigger than Ebay and Amazon. Instagram. Yeah. Okay.

Cyndi:                                   [01:00:09]               Yes. And so when I do coaching, then that’s what I bring to it is more, let’s look at this as a business and not as reselling because there’s a difference there. There’s a difference. And I’m reselling a product and I’m building a business. There’s that mind shift that happens there. When I had that mind shift from selling a product to I’m building a business, that’s when I tripled my income within six months

Speaker 4:                           [01:00:37]               and I saw it in his eyes. I mean, he’s, you know, but it was so cool. The page you, you guys were just, you could see it that together. You both had that, that buzz, that, that electricity. It’s very, that’s very, very cool. Um, and uh, I think it’s a, I hope. I hope people hear that. Again. Go back and listen to that again. This is what it takes. And look at the benefits. Did you ever think that your relationship could get this much closer?

Cyndi:                                   [01:01:04]               Oh Gosh, no, no, because we had a great relationship before, right. You know, and we’re very happy and loved hanging out together and I’ll be entirely honest, a little scared before we took that leap to is it going to be good or is it going to be really, really bad, you know, like we’re going to be together now 24 slash seven as one of us gonna end up killing the other one. Like is this going to be really, really bad at? But to us it was worth a shot. Um, and we both really felt like it’s going to be amazing and it honestly, it has. We’ve been able to travel together. We did some stuff together for Ebay at a bay open. We’ve been able to connect with the community to gather and people will tell me that Matt makes me less nerdy is so we’d bring, we bring different sides to it, you know, he’s, he’s much more creative and artistic and he sees things so much differently. So he brought this, this perspective to our business that I never had it. I’m all data. I’m all numbers, you know, show me the spreadsheet and he is more of, you know, like the trend looks like this, the trend feels like that. And I didn’t even know that my business was missing that

Speaker 4:                           [01:02:30]               you don’t know what you don’t know. Yeah. That innocence with love because, you know, it comes from the right place. Yeah. You know, I sit back and I think about these things a lot and I think of um, the opportunities that ecommerce today affords people. I, uh, I, I’m back to where we started the conversation that the opportunity has never been better and I would say that on every channel because I have not met somebody on etsy killing it yet. I have not. I know there are people that are just like, but I haven’t met them yet, but I have met people that are really successful for them and it’s all relative. But I, I’ve met many million dollar sellers on Ebay now. Think about that. Ebay many million dollars, um, and you know, $100,000,000 sellers on Amazon. And so, uh, now I’ve met people that are really having success with poshmark.

Speaker 4:                           [01:03:29]               And, and you sit back and you think about this. Each one of them are so unique and different, but they lean in and that’s, I think, the key. Ooh, Ooh, I love that phrase. I just probably the best description of what outliers are doing. They’re leaning into their strengths and they’re just going with their gut. Cindy, you’re teaching us stuff today. All right. So I do have a final question for you, but before I do that, somebody wants to follow your first stuff on instagram. You’ve got a great instagram, um, and it’s called amazing tastes store. Yes. All right. And I’ll have a link to that. Um, any other way that somebody, if they have a followup question or they’re fairing trusted in your coaching. Um, and again, Steve doesn’t benefit, but again, if this connects with you, if what she said connects with you, then lean in, this might be the chance. This might be the opportunity to have somebody lean in with you. And I always say, if you could find that person you connect with, man, you know, there’s so many great people out there. So,

Cyndi:                                   [01:04:27]               um, so I am amazing taste on youtube. Uh, we’re going to put up some videos this month. We don’t, we haven’t in the past, done a lot of youtube, um, but we’re gonna have some videos this month or just frequently asked questions, things that we see a commonality. So we’re gonna be posting those this month so you can find me there. I’m or on instagram.

Speaker 4:                           [01:04:52]               Instagram is probably the best way if somebody wants to Cmu, that’s just one of the easiest tools. It’s so simple. Everybody has that. So. Alright. And I’ll have a link there again, it’s amazing taste store. Okay. So my final question is, you know, the goal of the podcast is to help people get who gets stuck because I know and I think you’ve seen so many people that the light just didn’t click and then all of a sudden when it does, it’s like, oh my God, you know, and then you can’t them and they just surpass you. Which is so awesome today, right? Yeah. Yeah. I love it. What’s your best advice for somebody who stuck right now?

Cyndi:                                   [01:05:28]               My best advice for somebody who’s stuck right now is to take a breather, walk away from it from a moment, and then come back and look at why you’re doing it. If you don’t know why you’re doing it, you can’t be successful. So really think about why do I want.

Speaker 5:                           [01:05:44]               Yes,

Cyndi:                                   [01:05:45]               you know, and it if you go and you decide I’m going to run a marathon and your why to running a marathon is just because somebody told me I could. Somebody told me I should. That’s never going to be strong enough for you to get out in the morning on a Tuesday when it’s dark and gloomy and you want to stay in bed and go run those miles. Your why has to be powerful enough that it gets you through those places that you’re stuck because we all have them. Some days. This is just a grind, so what’s your why? Why are you doing this? What is the purpose? What’s your goal is, excuse me, is your why that you want to be able to take your kid to Disney. Then go print out a picture, Disney and tape it to your computer is your why that you want to bring your husband home from work. Then you get that picture of that cubicle and you take that to your computer and the next time you’re feeling stuck, you’re feeling like this is a grind. You take five minutes and you look at that picture and you really talk yourself through, why am I doing this? Why do I work so hard? That’s what gets you unstuck is knowing your why.

Speaker 4:                           [01:06:57]               This perspective, you’re the perspective of speaker. You are. You really are. I mean, I think it’s so important to have that perspective. I was sitting there thinking about that guy taken that long commute and when you’re talking about bringing my husband home and how many possible accidents every. I mean this is all stuff to think about and it’s like all these terrible things that we all see on TV and to potentially sacrifice additional time for yourself to help avoid that man. That’s what it’s all about and that’s why those relationships get deeper. Oh, give me the chills again, Cindy, you man, I really appreciate you taking the time. I wish you nothing but success. Thank you so much.

Cyndi:                                   [01:07:35]               I appreciate the opportunity. I really do. I appreciate the opportunity to connect with more people and hopefully to encourage people to recognize that there is still so much potential here. This is a great life and we’re not special in any way, shape or form. We’re not. If we can do this, anyone can do it. It’s completely possible. Does not matter where you are, your economic background, your education background, the opportunities are available to us all. So well put. Take care.

Speaker 4:                           [01:08:10]               Great episode. Great Lady. Um, very, very cool. Uh, I met her and her husband at Econ Chicago and I’m telling you they had an electricity about them. It’s like they were one unit. I mean, that’s so cool when you could see a couple of you guys know what I’m talking about when you see him in her and you could just see they, they just continue. It’s just like one there. They are truly one as a. When you do get married and they had it. And so it’s just so cool to see, and again, I appreciate her perspective a talk because I gained some perspective and I think some of the connection she made I had not made before and it really, uh, really, uh, has some influence with me. And so I hope you got something from it too. So he come a ecommerce momentum.com, ecommerce momentum.com. Reach out to me if I can help in any way, I get a lot of notes. I get a lot of emails and I’ll do my best to answer every single one.

Cool voice guy:                  [01:09:00]               Thanks for listening to the ECOMMERCE podcast. All the links mentioned today can be found at [inaudible] dot com. Under this episode number, please remember to subscribe and the lake us on.

 

 

Stephen-Peterson

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