Rob & Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper talk about getting lucky with their flips.
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How Do We Get So Lucky On Our Flips
Rob: What's up, Pro Flippers? On today's episode, we're talking about how we get so lucky on our flips.
Rob: So today we're talking about why and how we are so lucky on all of our flips.
Melissa: Which is a comment that we do get sometimes on social media because we post what we find, what we flip, and a couple times here and there we hear, you're so lucky in what you can find, you're so lucky in what you can flip, and we hate to break it to you, but a lot of it is not left to luck. So that's what we wanted to dive into today.
Rob: Absolutely. So a lot of people see what we do and say it is luck. And, like Melissa said, it's not really luck. We're almost three decades into this business and we've trialed and error ed a lot of stuff. We've done a lot of stuff.
We've sold small items. We've sold big items. We've sold high profit items. We've sold low profit items. We've done a lot. Three decades. We've made a lot of mistakes. Three decades is a long time to be in this flipping business, to see the different platforms come and go, to see the different carriers for shipping come and go.
I mean, it's just a lot of different trial and errors that we have done throughout the years. And does luck really play into it? Not to say that luck doesn't ever play into anything, but
Melissa: you can be at the right place at the right time. There's an item on the side of the road and you happen to you have, like here's one example you happen to walk by except for that is our route that we walk every five days a week. So is it luck that somebody put that out there?
I mean we just pass by it every day. So like we are consistent and I think that that is where the luck comes into play is when you're consistent. It's the same thing like when you go to the flea market or when you go to thrift stores and you find something, it's not that you went to the flea market one time out of the year and you found something. Like we would go hundreds of times. You went every when we were really in I mean you have, we've sourced other ways now, but in the beginning, like, you did a lot at the flea market, and so you would go every Saturday and Sunday, walk around the whole thing, hour, two hours, whatever, if we went with you, it took longer, because with the kids or whatever, and you went there and sometimes you left with nothing because it wasn't worth it, and sometimes you found gold, so it was just being consistent.
Rob: And I will say, some people who make this comment, they might see one of our, Melissa does, yeah, does social media stuff, and we love showing people what the potential is of something that we've paid $40 for turning into $1,700 and somebody might see that and be like, that's so lucky. That is not something that can happen every day just because they might see one thing that we do.
But for you guys, we're just letting you know, this, these are things that we have done for years. We have been at the grind, we've been consistent, and we do it and it pays off now for us to make, $70,000 to $100,000 a year and spend five hours a week at it. We're doing it because of what we love, what we know, and what we're very, very experienced on how to do it.
So that's why we do what we do, and how we get the results. It doesn't play into luck, it's how we get the results we get because we've been at the grind.
Melissa: And that's, I think, another thing people see, like, if we go to the thrift store and find something. You know, we've stopped into hundreds of thrift stores.
Thousands of thrift stores over the years and sometimes we'll go in and find something and sometimes we don't and so it is just again back to the consistency, but I want to add to it's developing that I like you might walk into the same place and then you Rob might walk into another the same place and he might spot something because he's been doing this for 27 years and you might pass by it, but the more you do it, the more you grow that it.
So what you can find and you learn specific items that you kind of lean towards and what sells, and then you get to know those items. And that's why we talk about like finding kind of a, a niche kind of items that you like to go for and then expand it from there, because then you can really get to know, and you don't go into the thrift store so overwhelmed.
And then you might get luckier because you can spot that item faster than somebody else can spot it. So.
Rob: That's it. So you might be here right now going. Okay. Well, I don't have three decades of experience. So what do I do? Well, the best time to start flipping was 10 years ago was last year, but when's the second best time today you start today and you start to build it.
We're three decades into it now, just about three decades into it. And I'm here to say. I love it just as much now, even more now than I did three decades ago because I know so much more now. My time is so much more valuable. I'm able to really capitalize and take advantage of all my experience and all my knowledge through those decades of, of really going through the grind and learning stuff.
And you can do the same thing. You can start today and you can start to learn and you can totally do it. Today is the best day to start, you know, start learning this process, start learning everything you can about the flipping business. And I'm telling you, in 10 years from now, you're gonna be like, oh, I'm so happy that I started.
And I'm so excited about this business. I kind of explained this business as a, it's like Christmas morning for an adult, for an adult, he loves Christmas. For an adult, it's like Christmas morning every single day. I can jump onto my app. I can look for something to buy and I might be able to find something for $30, $40, $50, a hundred dollars that I can turn around and sell for a thousand, $2,000.
And it's like, that is amazing. That is so much fun to be able to do that and do it as a profession, do it every single day. You can go on and do this. And it's just so much fun to be able to do it. So it doesn't really get old. You're always dealing with new stuff. It doesn't get the monotony of, okay, well I'm doing the same thing over and over.
Well. I just listed a wheelchair last night that I paid $200 for, and I listed it for $4,200. So it's one of those things that, yeah, the money is there. You can do it. And today, who knows what I'll list. I might list a VHS tape that I got sitting in my warehouse. It's never been opened. And it's probably a $200 or $300 flip that I paid a dollar for.
So it's one of those things that, that this is so much fun. This business is so much fun. But, luck does not play in, in the beginning, maybe. I had some lucky flips, but that's how I learn. And that's how I build the experience to keep going and get better and better at this business.
Melissa: And I would add like, yes, of course there's a, there's the luck of maybe you are at the right place at the right time.
And there is that thing like, or you got to the thing first before somebody else did, like there is a component of chance that does, but you greatly increase your luck by the more you're doing it, the more consistent you are. I wanted to, like, the one famous Bill Gates quote, people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.
And it's so true, like, when you're starting to learn a new skill, that first year is tough, like, it, in our business it's really, like, it can be a quick return, which is really cool. Like, you don't have to build a whole bunch, you have to build a little more once you get to the, like, trying to do the bigger flips, but, it's, you can get a quick return right away. But to really start to see more return on your time, like, you start to see that as you get more experience, as you develop your eye, you can start to say no to items.
You're going through an item, oh, that item's only gonna make me $40, I'm not gonna pick it up. Like, you start to know that right away without having to look it up and it makes things a lot easier and that just comes from experience and, and doing it over and over again, but then you, your time. It's just condensed.
Like, you've learned it, it takes some time to learn it, and that is where a lot of people like, they're, they're diving in, they're taking their time. And they might get frustrated, and then they stop and they go find to the next thing, like, on to the next thing, on, how many side hustles maybe have you tried, how many, you know, different things, you are the. The king of different shiny object syndrome, like, you did that for years, you would just go from one thing, oh, this is a great idea, oh, that's, you know, how many tests, like, you try to get a roofing license.
You, what did you did so many different
Rob: pool cleaning, landscaping, house painting, real estate, like carousel business, everything you can think of under the sun. I've tried it. And something that boils down today, Melissa and I on our jog this morning, excuse me, on our jog this morning, we were listening to Alex Hormozi.
We love listening to Alex Hormozi, for business, coaching advice, that kind of stuff. And he was talking
Melissa: He's the epitome of like overnight success, but for the last decade.
Rob: More than that, but it's one of those things that he was talking about people might have, there might be 10 steps to get the success that you want, and people will go six or seven steps, not see the exact results that they want, and then they'll give up and they'll go to something new.
And we can totally relate to that until you really focus and know that this business is so much fun and you really go all into it. You might be on step, you know, one, you might be on step five, you might be on step seven, but you don't see that result until you hit step 10. And that's kind of what he was talking about with businesses that people give up way too early.
If you go all in and you know, this is what you want to do. And you just keep going and you learn from every single instance, every single transaction that you do, you learn and you take it with you. You get that much better and you really, really hone in on your skills. And then you'll have the same type of luck because you know exactly what you're doing.
And you have the experience to go along with it.
Melissa: Yeah, another thing he said was volume negates luck. So, it's true, like, the more you do, the more luck you will have. Because you are just putting in the work to do it. And then you just get more efficient and the work actually gets easier. Like, you still are doing work, we still go pallet stuff up.
But, like, we just did an episode, you just sold three items for a $6,000 profit. And like, so, our time was not a lot spent on that, which is pretty cool. Probably less than 10 hours. Yeah, so you get to you know, I don't know, like, you, you get a lot more efficient at what you're doing the more time you put into it and the more effort you put into it.
And I wanted to also add like some people think, like you guys have all the time because now you're doing, it was lucky you got to go full time. We had to make that conscious decision to do that, and that was super hard. It was not easy and it still has, it's not like an easy road. We still are trying to do coaching and balance that and figure out what is the best use of our time.
And so it's, you know, it's finding that balance. So, but it definitely, it's making those decisions. It's making a conscious decision, decision to put in the effort where you will see the result. Also I wanted to I was just thinking about what Dan had said.
Rob: Yeah, years and years ago my brother in law, love my brother in law, he told me one thing and he saw me take all these different routes of all these different businesses. When I was younger, this is what I did. I did this. And I went to something else and I went to something else. And mind you, through all these things that I was doing, I was flipping on the side and I never thought it could be a total, a true career, but my brother in law told me, he's like, listen, you are an amazing, I don't know if you added that, but my brother in law by far, I mean, super, super successful.
Melissa: So you would bring all your business ideas to him because he had a very successful business.
Rob: Absolutely. So, and he would tell me, listen, all you have to do is focus on one thing. And John Lee Dumas, a podcaster, he, he says, focus is follow one course. And my brother in law didn't say that, but this is just other things that I think about.
And my brother in law said, you focus on one thing, no matter what happens, and you know this is what you want to do. Stick with it, keep doing it, keep doing it, over and over and over and over, and you're gonna get better. You can't do something for five years, 10 years and not be really good or the best at it when you put that much time and effort into it.
And that's what really changed our business, changed my life is when I went all in on flipping. We went full time into it knowing that this is what we had to do to provide for our family. We knew we wanted to do it and that it gave us the most amount of freedom to spend with our kids to spend with each other.
And that's where we went all into it. And I mean, the rest is history. It, it's always a learning process,
Melissa: high value flips,
Rob: exactly. It's always a learning process, but we're learning and getting better daily because we still do it. We love it. But that is, that was such great life changing advice to me.
Stick with one thing until you get success and keep doing it no matter what. And like I said, I love this business. I'll do it the rest of my life, no matter what. I mean, I, I just absolutely love it and I can't imagine doing anything else. And that's how we keep continuing to get better and better and better at what we do.
Melissa: Yeah. Another thing I can think of that some people might consider lucky to it'd be some of the contacts you've created, but we talk about that all the time. And this, because contacts are big, like they're so huge, but that was only created because you went to the flea market every single weekend. And for two days, like Saturday and Sunday, almost every weekend and then you build relationships.
It was that easy. So you got all this phone numbers from all these people that said, hey, come check out my warehouse, check out what I don't have. Like, and then you develop those relationships of people you want to keep working with. And that, I mean, that didn't come from luck. It came from consistency. So so yeah, so just being consistent, you never know, like what doing that muscle, what that can do in your business.
So I just wanted to add to that. So.
Rob: I think it's great. I mean, on the contact side of it. I just went over to my contact's house last night. He has four golf carts that he just got. He got them for free. They need batteries, but he gave me one of those golf carts and asked me if I would sell the other three golf carts.
Now this is once the batteries are in this thing, it's cleaned up. It's a nice golf cart. Actually a GEM. I don't know if you're familiar with that, but this is just showing you the value, what can, what the possibility is by being friendly, by building contacts, relationships with people. He gave me one of these golf carts and probably $5,000 to $7,000, a four person or five person golf cart. I'll put new batteries in it, probably pay five, six hundred bucks on batteries, for the golf cart. But it's going to be between $5,000-$7,000. That's what it's going to be worth when it's done and I'll keep it as our family. We'll use it for a while, but we'll use it for a while until we get sick of it and then we'll sell it.
But just shows you the power of a contact. He wants me to sell the other three that he has. He's going to give me this one and he's doing that because he likes me. I help him out when I can. He helps me out when he can. And he, it is, it's totally building a relationship and that's just the power of what contacts can do for you by building relationships with people by the, the consistency in this business in doing it, you'll, you'll create those contacts, you'll build those relationships and trust me, you cannot underestimate how powerful that is, how this guy that gave me this golf cart.
I mean, he's made us hundreds of thousands of dollars through the last. I would say five to six years just being in contact with him, the stuff that he gets in the deals that he gives me on it. He has made us so, so much money in the last, last couple of years.
Melissa: Just a little side note to help anybody.
If you're trying to create contacts, being consistent is one of them. If you don't have a flea market, you can be consistent at thrift stores because thrift store managers, sometimes you can say, hey, I look for these kinds of items. If you get those in, you can give me a call. And sometimes like we like the larger items and they don't want to sit on them and they'll give you a call.
We've made many relationships with them as well. And then also on the app. It's like if you see somebody is selling something and they actually have like 12 or 15 listings of kind of the same kind of items, maybe used items, they might be a scrapper and they might be trying to get rid of stuff and they might be a good contact.
And sometimes you have, you, I know we were walking downtown and you saw a guy with a loaded truck. You're like, I need to get that guy's phone number. So sometimes go chase him down, go get his phone number and say, hey, I, you know, I sell some of this stuff too. So if you come across this stuff, like what, what kind of stuff that you're looking for?
So it's just, there's so many different ways and it's so worth it.
Rob: And it doesn't even have to be a scrapper. I, one of our students has a contact with a mattress company that she's able to get stuff that is for whatever reason they can't sell it. They get rid of it. She's able to get that stuff and she makes thousands and thousands of dollars every single month off of that contact.
Melissa: And a leather guy too, somebody had a contact for,
Rob: and I think about the Dyson, I forgot the, the one of our students had a Dyson contact that made her $5,000 to $10,000 a month on creating that relationship. Being the person that you, you, you create the relationship to where you can help that person get rid of the stuff that they have, and then you can turn around and make money on that stuff as well.
So. We can't stress enough. Contacts are huge. I don't know how we got to contacts from our luckiness that we have. But I guess it is just showing you guys some, some stuff that we've done in our business that have led to people looking in saying, hey, that's lucky. But it's also almost three decades of work, hard work at what we do, that has paid off and it will pay off for you as well.
You just have to make that decision, jump in and go all into it.
Melissa: A three decades. No, absolutely not. You can get there. You can start seeing results right away. But like if you give yourself, like this is what your shirt that you're wearing a year now, you'll wish you start. A year from now you'll wish you started today and you can grow so much in a year.
You can and learn so much if you put a little bit of effort into it and then your efforts compounds. What is that compounding? It's like you learn so much and then you don't have to keep doing some of those same things because you learn them and now that you have that time back. And so, so yeah, we love this business and we want to say go create your own luck.
Yes, there is. I'm not going to negate. There is an element of luck that you're in the right place at the right time. So for anybody who's going to comment that like, yes, there is an element of yes, stuff was there. You were passing by it and that's lucky that you were driving by it. Okay. Yeah, I will give you that for sure.
But there is a lot that you can do to make yourself luckier. So we'll add that. So, did you want to add to the, one of the places that like people say, you know, how do you find some of those items? So Rob just created a sourcing tutorial.
Rob: Yeah, absolutely. A training on how I actually went on, found items on Facebook marketplace in 15 minutes, I went through found two items that were, we should be able to sell for, I think $7,000 combined, $7,000, and I think it was $250 and $120, totally invested into it. So, very
Melissa: That's exactly how he goes through and sources everything! Goes through and talks about pricing and everything, so.
Rob: And these are not contacts!
This is something just anybody can do! I just went on the Marketplace and I found it, so If you guys want to see that absolutely free, check out the link below. Yeah. Melissa will put the link below, jump in there. You guys can check it out and just kind of see what our processes are for finding high value items.
Cause that's what we focus on in our business is the high value, the stuff that doesn't take us that long to do the whole process. And we make a lot more money doing it. So if you want to check it out. All means. Grab the link below, check it out, and then let us know too. Let us know, hey, this was so cool.
I'm, I'm so excited about this. We'd love to hear your comment, just let us know.
Melissa: All right. And thanks so much for spending time with us today.
Rob: You guys rock. Have an amazing day and we'll see you on the next episode.