Rob and Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper talk about a principle that can radically change your flipping business this year.
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Rob: Alright, guys, we are so excited about today's episode. We are talking about that principle that can radically change your business this year if implemented.
Melissa: So we go on a walk or run almost every morning and listen to a book or usually a podcast. We don't actually, we do some books, but it takes a little while to get an actual, like get into a book. But one of the podcasts we listened to started talking about this. And so, it's called 10x is easier than 2x by Dr. Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan. And so we just started it. So we wanted to talk about it because it's a pretty cool principle that, yeah, that you can apply and that we've applied in some areas and that we want to work to apply in other areas.
So we kind of wanted to break it down. You know, we like to throw some mindset stuff in some of these podcasts cause we're learning a lot of this stuff and hopefully we can pass it on to you what
Rob: we learned. Absolutely. So this book was amazing to start off and we listened to it probably last week or two weeks ago.
We will listen to a couple sections of it. It was only the intro.
Melissa: Was it? We just started the first chapter today.
Rob: So it was really good, but it is the whole, the whole gist or the whole message underlining message of the principle is it is easier to actually 10x your business with how much effort you put into your business versus just going from, 2xing.
So getting, this year, maybe say you made $10,000 last year on eBay this year, going to $20,000. So to Xing what you've already done, it's easier to go from $10,000 to $100,000. And that might sound crazy, but let's break it down and really, really talk about this principle.
Melissa: I think that one of the biggest underlying principles is like he's, the reason why he's saying it's easier because it's like there's steps that you have to do obviously, but instead of just going working harder doing more of the same things that you're doing, you have to do something different than you're doing. You can't keep doing what you're doing and just do more of it In 10x, it's just not possible.
So you have to do things differently. So you might have to show up differently. You might have to change some habits that you have. You might have to do stuff that you're not doing in order to get to that 10x. So it's pretty, it's like, oh, okay, like now what does that mean? And there's also, there's less distractions because there's only certain things you can do to get to that level, versus where you can you can work harder.
Of course, it's always, you can always work harder. You can always do more of the thing, but maybe then you're just doubling. And you may be fine with two Xing. That's, that's a great goal too. It's not a bad goal, but it just makes you think a little bit differently. Like, what do I have to do?
Rob: But the point of the book is to say that it is easier to go 10X versus 2X. So maybe right now, take that example again, that you're maybe at $10,000 a year and you're flipping business right now. And to go to $20,000, you got to put in twice as much effort as you did this year. This last year, you got to go twice as much.
So maybe you're selling $20 profit on items. You know that instead of doing that one $20 profit item, you have to now do two to jump you to that next level. And then it multiplies, to get to that $10,000 range. You have to do double what you're already doing. And you might be like, all right, I'm already capped.
I'm already spending every waking moment that I have on this side hustle to make that $10,000. How is it easier to go from $10,000 to $100,000? And that's really, really what he really starts to get your mind thinking about. Okay, well, there's got to be different ways to be able to do this, versus just doubling what I'm already doing because I don't have enough hours in the day to do that.
I can't do that. So how do I do that? And it's thinking about it a little bit differently.
Melissa: Yeah. So, go ahead. No, and I, like, this is something that we have pretty much applied in our flipping business, and that's why we've gravitated towards these higher value items, higher profit items. Like, we sold 50, oh, I still have to have, I have, just have the tally.
I just gotta go and, and add it up. But it, it was like, just under $100,000 for 54 items, I believe it was. So in the 50 range. And so the average sale price is about around $2,000 an item. And so that's kind of crazy, but that's what, what we've gravitated towards. And, and you know, it didn't happen overnight.
We started with the lower stuff and now we like you're, and that was one thing he's actually said in the book today, you're more picky about the stuff you buy, because if it's not going to make like what the kids will do some lower stuff, but if it's not gonna make you at least like now you're really more like.
$800 is kind of your low your low point where before it was a hundred dollars like and you still will not So if you guys want to pass up free money, if it's in the trash. If it's going to make $50 or $100 and it's in the trash, we'll still, we'll still grab it because it's got to go back into like, it doesn't need to go to the trash and it's just fun to get stuff out of the trash.
Rob: And show other people what's available because we do a lot of videos and stuff like that. So we want to show people what's available for them. But the majority, like when I am actually sourcing, I'm not looking for an item that I can make $100 on. I'm not looking for an item that I can really make $500 on.
I really want to make $1,000 to $5,000. That's where I'm picky at what I'm doing. And that is the 10 X principle. It is being picky with what you're doing so you can work less and make more money. So you guys, if you've been around here for a little while, you know, Melissa and I, our motto is work smarter, not harder.
We want to work less in our business, so we have more time to spend as a couple, with our kids, to be able to raise our kids, to go do stuff with our kids. If we're doing less in our business, but still making really, really good money in the business, it allows us to go and do that other stuff. And that's really, really what we've honed in on our flipping business.
Melissa: Yeah, and now we're trying to grow more on, like, YouTube and our podcast. So now that's kind of where our focus is. Like, well, how do we get that? 10x growth in that so that's where we're kind of shifting our mindset and like how do we grow that and one of the things that I've put on me more recently we go to bed a little bit late like around 11 or 12 And so I'm like, let's go to bed earlier cuz I, in my mind.
I'm just I work at night I think I'm working at night I'm getting but I'm not getting as much done as I need to do. Like I'm really not so I'm a lot more productive if I would just get up an hour earlier instead of trying that, you know 8 to 10, 8 to 11 at night instead of trying to work then actually just relax and go to bed versus It's trying to stay up and work.
I could just get up at six, get a full hour of work before the kids get up. And then I think that would be a lot more productive. So that's something that I'm personally working on. So to get to that point of being, yeah, a little bit more productive. So that's just a habit. That's just one example of something I'm doing.
Rob: And for what most than I do on our coaching aspect of the business, we actually have coaches. We, we meet with coaches on a normal weekly basis and we're learning or constantly learning so we can get better so we can help more people. Like, I think we've voiced our goal. This year in 2024, we want to help a thousand people change the trajectory of their finances of being able to really making a significant income in this business.
And we can't do that with what we already have, our normal skills of what we already do. We have to go outside and we have to be willing to invest in coaching ourselves because we are coaches and we want people to invest in it as well, but we still have to do that ourselves to learn new skills, to learn new skill set on doing better.
Exactly. And just how to help more people. You can't help more people if you're stuck in where you're doing for us. So we know we have to be, that has to be part of our, our work is, you know, investing into ourselves, learning and growing and constantly growing and, and our own selves and our abilities of what we're able to do.
Melissa: Yeah. I do think it's funny cause, actually, Dr. Benjamin Hardy who wrote this book, he wrote it with Dan Sullivan's principles, but he wrote the book. He actually spoke at our mastermind that we were at last year and gave everybody a copy of his book, but we'd never read it. And then I, we heard these other podcasters that we listened to reading it and like, oh, I forgot.
Like we listened to him. That sounds, that's. pretty cool. And so then we started the book. And so, but like we had access to the book a long time ago. He was at the mastermind. If we would have listened to it, then we could have gone and asked him some cool questions, but we hadn't, but he did a presentation and it was good.
But, but yeah, anyway, so I just thought that was kind of funny. He was there and, we could have definitely asked him questions cause it's a definitely an interesting principle. Like what do you have to do to show up differently? What do you have to, yeah, do to, get to those goals and you talked about it today in the book too.
If you're I don't know who said the quote if you're reaching for the moon, like if you make your goals, you're making big goals in your business. If you're reaching for the moon, you're going to land in the stars. If you, like, if you don't hit that goal, you're still going to be way further than you were before.
So that was kind of a cool, I don't remember who said it. So I butchered that quote. So anyways, this was just kind of us, like what we've learned from, from a book and hopefully it helps you to maybe think a little bit bigger this year. Think of what are some of your goals for your flipping business?
Do you want to grow it? What do you, where do you want to see yourself at the end by the end of the year?
Rob: Yeah. And for us, that's what we have really tackled. And this has been a nine year journey where we're at right now. But it took us time to get to this point. You know, we, we didn't want to.
Melissa: Well it's really 27 years, you've been flipping.
Rob: I have, but the coaching aspect of it. Yeah, you're right. So, but that's, this is just where we've gravitated towards because it, to be honest with you guys, if you break down flip per flip, if I'm doing a $20 flip or even let's, let's just call it a $100 flip. If I'm doing a hundred dollar flip versus a thousand dollar flip, there's not that much more time invested into that flip. That's something that is
Melissa: you hone your skills of sourcing and you learn how to do it.
Rob: Yeah. You learn the skills you need. It is not that much more labor intense or anything, compared to flipping that $100 item versus going to $1,000 item, but it does save you.
A lot of time and effort when you are able to go to that next level and do that.
Melissa: I just wanted to add, we just finished up a shipping boot camp the other week, last week. And, we palleted, or not palleted, boxed up a, cooktop that was a $1,700, cooktop. You have it listed right now. So now it's ready to go.
It's ready to be shipped. But I broke down the numbers because it is, like, for time per hour and after the fees, after eBay, fees and shipping costs will be and materials. Your total profit was $1,301. So $1,300. And if you divide that, you had to do fix a little bit more on this one, so you had a little more time invested.
So you said maybe around five hours on this one. Normally they're around three because the packaging, they're all around the same, like finding the packaging, but we, we gave it even five hours. That's $260 an hour and because you had to fix something on this one, but normally, yeah, like that's, that's pretty good.
I would say that that's a pretty good hourly return. Absolutely. $1,300 for five hours of effort, so.
Rob: And how many of those items for $20 items, would you have to work to get that $1,300 in profit on a $20 item? You have to think about all the time it takes to find those items at either the thrift stores, yard sales, flea markets, or if you're searching on the apps, how much time are you putting into those items, that you're finding them?
And then once you find them, you still have to clean them, picture them, get them listed, and then even after you do all that for all these hundreds of items that you get, you still have to fulfill it. So every single item that sells typically sells to somebody differently. So you have to package that item up on and ship it out, each individual item. Versus really honing and learning your skills to do it for one single item. It just shows you what the potential of this business is. When you don't settle for 2xing and you go to that 10xing and you see what the potential is and trust me, Melissa and I have been doing it for a while.
We've taught hundreds, thousands of people to do the same exact thing and understand it and learn the skill set to do it. And it is totally, totally doable. You just have to embrace it. You have to be willing to learn how to do it, how to find those items, how to ship those items, how to list those items.
And when you do, do that. It just changes your world. It just changes everything that you're able to do with the time that you're freeing up on that.
Melissa: Yeah, it's overcoming your fears, really. It's overcoming the, or the doubt that you can't do it. Because we've seen so many people have that, like, I can't do it.
I don't think I'll be able to do it. And then once they Like, ship their first big item or whatever. They're like, why did I wait so long to do this? This is not as hard as I thought. I put all this stuff in my head, that it's gonna be so hard, I'm never gonna be able to do it. And they do it, and they're like, that really wasn't that bad.
And so, it's like, no, now you got one under your belt. You're good to go. You're gonna rock it. So, so it's pretty cool. And one thing we did notice that, we have gravitated towards, like I told you that cooktop, that we shipped, or we boxed up last week, a $1,700 cooktop. We have gravitated in our business towards that.
To these higher profit items and a large percent of that percentage of them are appliances. So yeah, we have we noticed that even on our road trip last summer, we picked up 17 items and 14 of them were appliances and it was I think we invested a thousand dollars And the return was $33,000 so. So, and most of them are appliances.
Rob: So, and that being said, I'm going to challenge you guys right now. Be one of the people that we can actually jump in and help you grow your business this year. One of that thousand for us. We want to help you guys do that. We'll also put a link below if you guys want to jump onto a call. The quickest way, like Melissa just said, is going to the appliances, really jumping in and learning, not just how to find appliances, how to clean appliances, how to ship appliances, all that kind of stuff.
But jump onto a call with myself. I want to jump onto you and talk to you and see if it is a good fit, if there's something that we can help you to 10X your business this year to take you to that next level. And like Melissa said, we have an appliance flipping course, that we want to jump in and help you guys really, really go to that next level with your business.
Melissa: So if you go to applianceflipping. com, there'll be an application there. You can fill it out. It'll prompt you to book a call and see if this is a good fit for you. And if not, and that's totally fine. But if it is like this could change the trajectory and 10X your business this year. And that's just something that we would love to see happen and help you and be a part of that with you.
So thanks so much for listening and we will catch you on the next episode.
Rob: You guys are amazing. Have a wonderful day.