Rob and Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper talk about what you can do to see huge growth in your reselling business.
The Furniture Flipping Summit: https://furnitureflippingsummit.com/
Check out our FREE Workshop: https://courses.fleamarketflipper.com/flipper-university-workshop-webinar
You can find us at: https://fleamarketflipper.com/
Reseller Hangout Podcast - Do You Want Huge Growth In Your Business?
Rob: What's up flipping fam super excited for today's episode to talk about what you can do in your business to see unparalleled growth. What is it? Stay tuned.
Melissa: All right. So what is this one thing that we're trying to talk about? We're going to unpack it with a couple of different things, but it's getting uncomfortable. Like being comfortable with getting uncomfortable, really is what it is.
Rob: So what does that mean for us guys? It's that thing that, you know, you need to accomplish that thing that, you know, will set your business apart.
You have to be willing to step out on a limb, getting uncomfortable doing it, and then you will see the growth. So.
Melissa: A lot of people are uncomfortable when they first start out on eBay. Like even if maybe you're a veteran seller now, but what about when you first started? Like that was not something you were comfortable with.
And there's probably a lot of people listening who are selling locally, but then they're afraid to do eBay because it's a little more of a monster and it's just getting past those, those fears of being uncomfortable.
Rob: And once you do one listing on eBay, then you can do another and then you can do another and it becomes more easy.
It is being uncomfortable, putting yourself out there, figuring it out, and you will learn through the process, but it does take time. Now, this related to us just recently, we got asked to speak on stage at an event, and that is something that terrifies me. I do not like to be up in front of people speaking on a stage.
Now I can do it on a computer. We can do all kinds of trainings and stuff like that with hundreds and thousands of people that doesn't bother me one bit, but being up on stage is what is, that's very, very
Melissa: Even in front of 10 people.
Rob: Absolutely. That is a very, very much, uncomfortable for me. So we're doing it. We accepted the challenge and we are absolutely doing it.
And it will have, I don't know how many people will be there, but, hundreds, if not, maybe thousands. I don't know. But it's one of those things that we want to grow. We want to grow in our business. We want to get better at this. So we did, we took the challenge and Melissa and I will be doing it together.
Melissa: It's a presentation on eBay, so that is something that we know about.
But now it's just getting past the uncomfortableness of actually talking in front of people. So like this, I mean, we feel like we are talking to you and it seems, I don't know, it's like a conversation. Kind of, I guess, and, and even when we do like lives or videos and that's a little different though, when you're actually in front of people and you can see their reactions, I don't know. It's a little bit terrifying, but we'll hopefully learn from, we will learn from it for sure.
Rob: So we're taking on this challenge and then I even, it caused me to reflect back on our business. Okay. When did I do this in our business? And I've done it multiple times, but one of the biggest, uncomfortable positions that we've been in our business was one of our first freight shipments, which was a dining room set.
We bought a dining room set from a local auction for $350. This is a big set. It was solid wood, probably 10 foot long table, had 10 chairs with it, had a hutch with it that actually had, where you put your silverware in the top. It had a little door in the backside that you could slip the leafs in on the table.
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful set. We bought it, tried to sell it locally, for $700, you wanted to double our money.
Melissa: We had it listed for a month or a couple weeks.
Rob: I think a month local on the local market. Facebook Marketplace, OfferUp, Craigslist had it listed on all the local markets, because it's big. What do you do with a big item?
You sell it locally, right? Well, that's what we thought. So we did it. We could not sell it until I jumped onto eBay and started looking at some of these other dining room sets similar to this, that there was one thing in common with all the ones that had sold. The sellers offered shipping on them.
So that was like, okay, wait a minute. This is an aha moment of if I can figure out how to ship this thing, I might be able to sell it on eBay. I might be able to get more money than I'm asking locally because I'm getting it in front of more people. And yeah, that was the route that we took.
So right as soon as I did that research, saw it on eBay, I figured out, okay, if I can take pictures of this, if I can get it listed on eBay. And if it does sell, I'll offer shipping on it and I will ship it to the buyer, I don't know how to do it. I don't know what I'm doing. It's gonna be totally uncomfortable for me to figure this thing out and very, very scary for me.
But I did it. I threw it on there. It sold in less than a month. And we shipped it. We had to throw it on a pallet. We had to strap it. We had to get it ready, and then we had to ship it. We did not. So we paid $350 for, it could not sell it locally for $700, but then when we actually threw it on eBay, listed it for was it $2,400?
$2,200, no, $2,400.
Yeah. $2,400. We sold it for $2,400. I sold it for $2,250.
Melissa: I think you took an offer.
Rob: Okay.
Melissa: $2,250.
Rob: $2,250. This is guys, remember, this is the beginning of our journey. So don't quote me on, I know it was $2,000 to $2,400 somewhere in there, but we also charged an extra $500 for shipping, which that was the key. That gave me a little bit of wiggle room to figure out how to get this thing on a pallet.
How to find a shipping company to pick it up, and deliver it to the buyer, but it was totally, totally scary and uncomfortable for us to do this, but that has opened the door for the last five or six years that we can relate hundreds of thousands of dollars that we have been able to make just off of shipping larger items.
So it was the growth, it was the catalyst that catapulted us into the next level of our resell business. And one of those things that we can look back and say yeah, this was huge. We were totally uncomfortable, totally scared about this, but one of the best things that we ever did for our business, that allowed us to sell those higher profit items, those larger items, ship them and spend more time with our family, more time doing the stuff that we love and less time actually working in the business.
Melissa: And that was a time that you were under a little more stress too, because, we now had three kids to, that we had to provide for, and we've just gone full time. We were just kind of thrown into full-time reselling.
And so now you are responding. You don't get stressed very often. Like if you, you know, Rob, he does not, like stress is not something that he does very often at all. So, but you could tell he was stressed. So he's like, okay, now I gotta, we gotta provide for these three little kids and, let's do this. So that was kind of what gave you that extra push to, to go ahead and get uncomfortable.
That wasn't really your mindset I don't think a while back either.
So, yeah, no.
Rob: But it's huge. It's huge. So what portion of your business right now? What is it? Do you need to start listing on eBay? Are you selling a locally, but you need to go to eBay? What is that? I want to encourage you guys.
I want to challenge you guys to go to that next level, whatever it is that you know that you need to do. But it is uncomfortable for you to do it. It feels so crazy. There's resources out there everywhere to help you tackle that. Where we live in an age now where everything is online, you can find YouTube videos, you can find courses, you can find all kinds of crazy stuff to help you tackle whatever that is, so you guys can go to that next level in your business. So that's what I wanna encourage you to do. That's what I want to challenge you to do is look at that, and make that step in the right direction, whatever it might be for your business, what is that growth that you need to take?
Melissa: Yeah, because I mean, it can catapult your business if maybe it's freight shipping for your business, whatever it is for your business.
Like that, that was ours for our business. And then yeah, whatever it is for your business, maybe it's now you want to learn how to negotiate. Cause that can be uncomfortable learning negotiation, you know, especially in person, we just talked about that in a previous episode.
Rob: At a yard sale at a flea market. What is it guys?
What is it that, you know, those are the kinds of things in your business that will take them to the next level once you hone in and really, really tackle these skills that you need to learn for the business. What is that for you guys?
Melissa: And if you can find yourself like, you know, what you need to do, like think what is stopping you?
Is it the thought of being uncomfortable like the thought of the unknown? Like we're here to encourage you to go do that because if you don't do it, nothing's going to happen. If you do do it, and then you're successful, you're successful. If you make a mistake, you learn and then you were successful from your mistakes.
So there's really, nothing bad can really happen from doing the thing instead of, but not doing it you're never going to get it.
Rob: That's all part of growth. It's part of growth. You will learn. You will get better and better at it. Like us. We've learned many, many things throughout the process of our shipping journey, with the freight shipping, that step and even negotiation, all the things that have to do with flipping, negotiating, buying, shipping, anything, any level of it, we learn every time we do it more and more. The more we do it, the better we learn, the better we get at it.
So it's one of those things that you will make mistakes, but you just learn from them and you get better at them. So it's just really cool.
Melissa: So hopefully you don't make too many mistakes on stage. We'll have to keep you guys to keep you guys posted.
Rob: But even speaking about like, kind of this first freight shipment that we did guys, kind of sparks, we're kicking off the furniture flipping summit. We would love to have you guys register for that.
Yeah, definitely. It's going to be an amazing event four, is it four days?
Melissa: Four days, May 17th through the 20th, it's an all virtual, we're going to have a whole bunch of different furniture flippers talking about painting techniques, restorations, different flips, beginner tips.
Rob: Business! We're going to bring in people to help us with QuickBooks.
And I think it's with QuickBooks, but keeping your book, bookkeeping,
Melissa: taxes, LLCs, is how to protect your business legally. And we're going to be at talking a little bit about eBay and shipping. So, yeah.
Rob: We'd love to see you guys there. It's absolutely free to register. We'll put the link below. Jump in, furnitureflippingsummit.com, jump in there and we cannot wait to see you at that next event.
So you guys rock, have a wonderful day and we'll talk to you soon.
Melissa: Bye.