Hey business building Warrior welcome to silent Sales Machine radio we love to talk to the successful students from our community who are using the internet creatively to launch and grow multiple income streams most of the time around here when we interview a student it’s someone who’s using the Amazon Seller
Training that we have inside the proven Amazon course and they’ve built a beautiful business based on those strategies but today we’ve got someone who’s been in the community much longer than that the gentleman you’re about to hear from his name is Ben he’s now a
Coach on our team as well but he’s been in our community for way over a decade maybe 15 years something like that we we’ll hear it in the story here in a moment but the thing I love about his story is he’s struggled he’s risen he’s crashed and burned he’s risen again he’s
Flamed out he’s had weird law thing legal things happened to him he’s had competitors do strange things to him and this is all before Amazon even came on the scene he’s been doing e-commerce as long as I have in different ways and there’s not a lot of us out there like
That and I think if you just listen to his story hear the things he’s talking about it’s going to be a little Peak behind the curtains of what this e-commerce Adventure has looked like for a couple decades now if you want to skip that part and you just want to hear the
Amazon part and the parts that are relevant for today and for now and the things that you could go do well I would encourage you to listen to the rest of it there’s so many good lessons in the stories he has today there is some great content at the end talking about a
Couple Partners he’s working with now they’ve got a $70,000 a month business helping Brands get onto Amazon and just how organically they stepped into that if you’ve got even basic Amazon Seller skills you could be helping Brands get on Amazon it’s one of the modules in our proven Amazon course Library actually
When you buy The Proven Amazon course you get all the modules day one instantly and one of them is the proven product partnering and that’s a significant part of Ben’s income now is that business model but we don’t talk about that till towards the end of the
Episode and I’ll stick a note in the show notes when that part starts because this is a longer episode and if like I said if you want to skip over the early days of eBay and some of the things he’s done you can skip right to that part and
Hear some of that part of the story but I really think you’ll benefit from hearing the journey you know I mean he he had police show up at his place and slap handcuffs on him because he didn’t have the right license to be selling the car parts he was selling on eBay at
Point crazy stuff like that just a for me a very interesting journey and hopefully you agree but it is a longer episode so I wanted you do the service of saying hey we’ll stick a link in the show notes to where you can kind of pop
Into the current day and what he’s got hopping right now he’s doing some liquidations and you’ll hear him talk about it we emphasized this in the audio today as well you can go to liquidation buy these pallets and such do not sell that stuff on Amazon you’re crazy to do
So it’s a very unnecessary risk he’s had trouble with it even doing it just with eBay and Facebook Marketplace and he shares very transparently but there’s some opportunity there but the thing I want you to listen to today something that I think is very important for you to understand is there’s a difference
Between putting some money in the bank running on a hamster wheel hustling and building a real business that you can step away from that you can sell at some point that’s an asset that you’re growing that can be handed to someone else and they can take over that’s a
Very important distinction because if you’re looking to hustle put some money in the bank that’s great typically you’re newer younger into the industry you’re a little more maybe desperate for some resources go that route we can help you very easy skills for you to learn doesn’t cost you any money even hit some
Yard sales that sort of thing he talks about that today but when you’re ready to build a real business we’re here to help you can get over to silent jim.com say our coaching link and sign up for a conversation with us we’d love to talk about your e-commerce Journey see if
Maybe a coach is right for you maybe you just need to proen Amazon course maybe all you need is our free podcast that’s great too but if you got some time to listen to a couple guys reminiscing about the history and their Journey about 20 years through e-commerce Ben
Has been doing this a long time like I said he’s seen some highs and lows and he shares very transparently today the first time he’s ever shared his story too which is really cool so hopefully you’re encouraged by that as well but God bless you business building Warrior
So glad you’re a part of our community I’m going to get bent on the line right now enjoy our conversation so Ben welcome to silent Sales Machine radio hey Jim how you doing I’m blessed man it’s good to see you again my friend nice to see you too
So hey full disclosure here I’m a little bit nervous okay this is actually going way out of my comfort zone because a lot of times you know when I was a lot younger I got really nervous in certain situations and uh matter of fact if you
Could believe this when I was a kid I wanted to be an actor and a singer so I I was used to be very comfortable with this kind of thing yeah and it was one moment in time I just went to high school right after going to a you know a
Grade school it was a Catholic school that I knew everybody and was very comfortable I got on stage I did plays I sang the whole nine yards and then I went to a guidance class my first day of a high school in a big big school new
Play and yeah and and they just said hey who wants to read this poem and you know every kid put their head down like oh no no no what not don’t pick me don’t pick me and me hey you know very expressive I’m Italian my hands are I’m like I’ll
Do it so I grab the poem and I start reading it and I’m very expressive I’m doing my thing yeah and little by little I noticed that all the kids were staring at me and just really peering into my soul just like and I just got this overwhelming feeling like I was not
Accepted you know I guess you’re all you’re on edge your first day of at a new place yeah sure and honestly I had a I had a panic attack wow and at that point I just went and just disenrolled from all my my drama classes the entire
Rest of my life I could not do this ever again and so here I am 53 years old yeah and I just realized you know I joined the uh mentorship program not The mentorship Mastermind you were in a mastermind from the last conference right the last conference and I and I
Didn’t want to do it I was just petrified and I said you know what if I’m ever going to move forward and uh and start to make some progress Beyond where I’m I’m at right now I just got to get out of my comfort zone and do things
Like this so I did that glad I did it and uh this was a big one for me man congratulations and thank you it truly is an honor and I think that’s going to encourage some other people because I know I mean I talk to these people we’ve
Had you know 11 Live Events and I’ve you know our 12th one’s coming up may of 20124 and you’re gonna be there right it’s gonna be so great but I’ve talked to a lot of people who say oh they’ve just got these incredible stories like would you please get on the podcast and
Their their excuse or reason or rationality I I just I I can’t I can’t can’t do something like that I just so let me say to them something that I’ve said to you in the past as well and and when I’ve seen people take this journey a necessary part of your growth in
Business is using your voice using your face getting out there sharing what you know sharing your story telling people who you are what you do and I’m so sorry for that you know young high school kid that you know they’re probably no one in the room is thinking what you thought
They were thinking but it doesn’t take much when you’re that age man I I remember those moments we all had those moments where like okay my social life is over I just totally destroyed my chances at having any kind of normal dating life you know trip the hallway or
Something right it’s just and it sticks with you for life man life it’s like working out right it takes you forever to build up this strength and these muscles then you stop for a week or two and you’re Flappy again it’s like what yeah it’s easy the default condition is
To isolate and and eCommerce is a lonely thing and you don’t need to compound it by hiding and that’s become the greatest predict just if I can soapbox for a minute that I’ve discovered the greatest predictor of who makes it and who doesn’t is the people who are willing to
Build relationships with intentionality have conversations get in a mastermind group go to meetups go to Live Events those people make it people that struggle are the people that stay home try to do it themsel you know maybe jump on the Facebook group once in a while to
See what’s up but that’s about it me those people they struggle consistently you need relationships and it’s even I always have a copy of one of my favorite business books right here business secrets from the by Daniel he’s going to be our keynote speaker in May by the way
At the proven conference and we’ll get into e-commerce here in a minute I promise everyone but listeners but he mentions in a couple chapters in there you know several very specific tips biblical strategies regardless of world viiew these things apply and basically the summary of it is you know if you’re
Going to do business successfully you’re going to need some basic math and just as important is you going to need some basic speaking presenting meeting people using your voice using your face going places talking to people telling them what you do you can’t succeed just sitting quietly behind your keyboard
Hidden buttons it just doesn’t work true it’s not sustain you think you think you can you know what I’m saying because it’s easy in the sense of oh I could do this you know but you hit a wall really really fast and I’ve hit that wall
Multiple times and I know this is what I’ve been lacking so I’m I’m hoping that this encourages a lot of people who may be going through the some of the same things I am and look man just just throw you what what’s the worst thing that
Could happen you know I my voice might tremble I might you know just stutter through some things but the TR something yeah yeah but the truth of the matter is I I do love helping people I have done some courses and things I have got up in
Front of a class and was able to teach people how to do e-commerce and the love of that is what pushed me through it and after a little while good for you the nervousness went away and and and I feel it starting to dissipate already you make it about the other people exactly
Exactly my mentor challenged me again Rabbi Daniel laen he said Jim yeah I don’t want you to ever speak with notes or slides ever again what yeah kidding me do that you know but you know the last couple conferences I hop up I’m the opening speaker and I’m probably going to keep
It a lot shorter this year but you know I bring other guests up and we have things to but I just you know I memorize a short bullet point in my head and that’s the stuff we’re going to talk about I did it like an hour and a half
And I went from being ridiculously nervous the first had sweating and good stammering through Reading off my notes and uh but it’s a skill you learn you Dev and it serves you very very well to do so so congratulations and the reason we spent so much time at the start of
This one today you know I love hearing your story Ben and I love telling stories about me everyone does but the main reason we’re doing this is to encourage other people to hop on the podcast if you’ve got a story to share how this community or this podcast has
Served you well and helped improve your life your business your money dude let us know and hop on here like B being very brave today man appreciate you dude hey I feel good about it and uh I do want to I do have tons of stories got engaged in school she’s from Binghamton
New York it’s about twoh hour drive west of Albany so she graduated before me and then we moved out to Bingington and uh we got married in 94 and I went to work right away for um both IBM and uh locked Martin I was working as a contractor but
The next defining moment was when they came up to me I was at Lockheed Martin um and they uh my manager came up to me and said congratulations your employee of the month fantastic what I again hand me an envelope inside this envelope kid you not no one ever believes me it’s
God’s honest truth McDonald’s coupons movie tickets W I don’t remember what the third thing was I thought you say a $50,000 check or no no and and they and they said I said oh good one and I literally hand it back to my manager laughing I was like you got me and he
Got all serious and said Ben look times are tough man this this is it and I said oh if this is the Pinnacle of my existence here I said I quit on the spot he hands on the spot he hands me your employee of the month and I quit and I
Was like he was just stupified and I was just like absolutely I’m not gonna do so I opened up my computer store in Upstate New York and this was gosh right probably late 90s it was a little bit of a of a chance I took but I I really
Believed in it called up one of my frat brothers I said dude let’s start a business man and he’s like what do you want to do I was going to open up a computer store they did that and that’s what got me on the road to e-commerce
But what I did was when I first started selling computers we were assembling them servicing and supporting them and I enjoyed the business I really do but I had so many people who would try to do it you know who would come to me and they didn’t want to pay top prices to
Dell and Gateway and all those guys but they wanted my support you know and I was just like look you can’t have both you know you have my support you got to pay a little bit of a premium yeah and uh so I struggled with that business and
Then decided uh instead of selling computers I was going to rent them so I started putting them in uh cafes and hotels and we ran a public internet business and um the next uh lesson I learned from that was I had a customer on the phone and I was super excited to
Talk to him about it he was grilling me about these internet vending machines right because it essentially was a vending business I put them in a cafe I’ll never forget the day first week I went to go empty the machine and I know you in the vending business right you
You did something similar 25 years ago had a vending out yeah and it’s a cool business right but let me tell you when I went to this Cafe and I opened up that uh because what I did was I created a metal box I had a machine shop build me a metal box
Put the dollar bill acceptor in there and found some software called net stop or something like that and plugged in the dollar bill acceptor into the software and then it would just anytime somebody put a dollar in it would dial up the modem and you’d hear the you know
All that those sounds and um people were putting ones fives tens and 20s so I would go once a week and I have a picture somewhere maybe I give have you put it on this because it’s it’s just loaded with bills and people were in the cafe or drinking coffee they’re like
Dude I’m in the wrong business because they see the machine I loved it I loved it I had such a blast doing that but very shortlived that’s basically the start of my e-commerce journey is I put uh we started selling these cars on eBay funny thing was we would put wrecked
Cars up for sale on eBay they’d soup them up and I mean they made them look with the with paint and the the stickers and the whole nine yards so we would then first we would repair them and make them look good and sell them then we
Decided let’s let’s try to sell wrecked cars in other words let’s not fix them so instead of doing all the the you know improvements to the car we just we would pull off the nasty looking torn up pieces we would detail the inside of a wrecked car and then take pictures and
Sell them and people we sold them as fixer upper cars and we were one of the first ones on eBay to sell fixer upper Vehicles you got other people into that business model we helped a lot of people and it’s been 20 years ago but that was
It AB that was a hot opportunity there for yep couple years at least right oh yeah yeah and uh just oh I forgot one thing it’s easy to jump from one thing to I mean there’s so much and then me as a computer guy who could do software oh
My gosh everything I would see was just like turn it into a program program it right but time is your most limited asset and you know but but then um okay I’ll try to I’ll try to zip through this last part but it’s very important so we
We got the um we got the car business go so one weird thing that happened in Upstate New York is we had a a policeman come by one day and he’s like hey guys no oh so we we ended up when the two cars sold I made all that money I shut
Down the computer business and I pivoted into I was suddenly a salvage car dealer you know my wife’s like what are you doing I like just just bear with me what we’ll get there she’s a saint by the way she deserves a medal for dealing with me all these years SP
Of yeah I mean there’s God you know God’s gonna be like just just go she needs to go to my wife’s session yeah that’s what I keep telling I’m I’m gonna I’m gonna they laugh at us absolutely like just steal a line from my wife’s presentation she she’ll say hey when
They come to you with their latest idea don’t roll your eyes don’t say how just say wow and they’ll go away and probably never do it anyway so true I I can almost see the look on her face when I bring some so now now I just
Temp temper it down a little bit I just go oh I might do this or I might do that you know but anyway so so the cop came by and he’s like this looks awfully fishy guys you’ve got you’ve got I see a
Lot of w cars here I don’t see a lot of customers coming in and I said let have a seat I’ll show you exactly what I do so I went through I showed them our listings the eBay listing took them around the shop and everything else they didn’t stop
One day in the morning I went to go get my fingerprints done to apply for dealer license in the state of um Michigan uh to to be able to buy cars there and I go back to the um to the our shop and I get
A call from a guy he’s like hey I I saw this part on eBay and I want to come and pick it up so okay if I pay with cash and I was like well I won’t be here but my partner Vlad will and come on in and
He’ll I’ll tell let him know you’re coming I went to the uh DMV to get my deal license and submit my my fingerprints I get a call from them Absolute pandemonium in the background it was a sting operation no way they came in they brought my partner brought
The car part out gave him the cash slapped the cuffs on him arrested him it’s a felony in New York state to sell parts without a dismantler license I had a salvage license and I had and I had a parts license the Parts license is not good a salvage license you needed a
Dismantler license that’s insane and like I just said I’m very reserved I’m very sh I don’t I walked into the same troopers barracks that I got my fingerprints done that morning and my partner’s in the same exact spot getting his fingerprints done he’s arrested white light own material go I
Walked in there swearing like a truck driver and a cop had to grab me and drag me and it was off he’s like are you out of your mind do you know where you are I was like yes I do because I was here this morning and now my partner is
Getting his fingerprints I’m like please tell me what the crime is and he goes did you do something to a to a customer or did you have a a competitor I was like maybe I don’t know and he’s like because this came from the DMV and later on I I remembered one
Customer that bought a car from us and he did request that we repair the vehicle and get it ready was an Acura and we started the work on it it was about three days into it and he calls me and says hey rip up that deposit check
Because my customer bailed on me so I won’t be taking the car I’m like well I already started paying guys so I can’t rip up the deposit check and he said you don’t want to bleep with me and I said sir I am just doing business here asked
For work he hung up the phone yeah he went after you wow shut the business down we I had to prove ownership of every vehicle on the lot and we moved the business from New York to Georgia because of that my partner just said look I don’t want to be in New York
Anymore I said I don’t either my wife’s not going to move so he was 10 years younger he he brought the wife and family he moved down to Georgia we transplanted the business down there so got the business going there and we were still doing I was doing it remotely I
Was still listing cars uh we started doing more wholesale we got that business up to about $8 million a year but I will say this the margins were razor thin yeah and it was a very false sense of security because you you see the the big checks you see things moving
Yeah but you really weren’t making a whole heck of a lot of money and I kind of turned a blind eye to it you know finally my wife agreed her job was she she wasn’t happy with her job she’s like all I’ll take the leap move the family
Down to Georgia um when we moved down there the business kept growing doing well you know like I said but we we borrowed money to get that business going and and floor plans you’re familiar with floor plans basically they provide you a line of credit and they
Hold a title so you go to the auction like you have this massive line of credit you just buy cars and they put it on your tab right and they keep the title as collateral and then when you sell the car you pay it off and they
Send you the title and you give it to the customer lot of deal in bulk yeah but it it’s essentially Mafia money you know honestly and I learned that the hard way and that’s what happened it came to a crashing Hall so we we did
That for quite some time we we were in that business about eight years but I stopped doing everything else because I figured this is my retirement this is so I did put all those eggs in one basket and um one day the the guys came along and said you know what you’re you’re
Selling cars uh used to be 30-day turnaround and now you’re at 40 days we’re gonna we’re going to pull some of that line of credit back so they they cut the lines 35% overnight and I think we had a like 1.5 million in buying power and that dropped down to whatever
And we already had that line pegged and I knew that was the end of that business I knew came over and I’ll never forget the day I stood there in front of that window and watched as a fleet of tow trucks came in and plucked every last
Vehicle off our lot put them all on flat beds and drove them away liquidated them for pennies on the dollar wow I could have done that for so much more I told them and see some of those cars because they were Salvage we knew we had to do
Something so we started buying Motors replacing engines we started adding value to the vehicle they had no idea what we did right so that’s everyone lost and then I get this letter this polite letter from their attorney saying uh Dear Mr minino so we um have just liquidated all of your
Assets and you owe us $300,000 please write a check and mail it to this address it was like literally a one-page thing and they they honestly thought we had like because we were doing such volume they thought we had accounts in Switzerland and you were hiding dude I’m
Done I have nothing and I told them I was like if you liquidate all these cars you’re not going to get anything there’s no you can’t squeeze water out of stone you know yeah right and um it I was financially destroyed and that was 2014 so after the peak when we were
Doing 8 million a year it all went to zero yeah coming up on 10 years ago and everything all my eggs in onek that’s when God came to the rescue because I was at the depressed is night not even the word because I had risked everything
I promised my family the Sun the moon and the stars and I failed miserably and um yeah that was that was a very rough time Have you shared this story publicly before um I a few people a few people um but not publicly no no it’s incredible I
Just I just want to express some gratitude man because there’s a lot of transparency here and it’s not an uncommon story either you know and we just wrapped it up right here it’s like well okay what’s the next chapter going to be but man I’ve I’ve heard and and
Not unsimilar to the story of mine and I’ve never gone completely broke but I tried a bunch of different stuff that some of lasted for a while some of it just about broke me those lessons the the things you learn along the way are valuable because we have some people
Come in one of my favorite questions to ask now is have you ever run a business before I don’t care if they succeeded or failed kind of irrelevant you’re going to learn a lot of the same lessons either way and for people say no never have I’m like and your perception of how
The world works is very different from reality because if you want a big dose of reality try to run a profitable business you’re going to get smacked in the face with reality all day every day whether you like it or not even the days you don’t feel like it right you’ve been
On that road man so to you coming up on building Warriors man yeah there’s a reason we call you Warriors man I try to think of myself you know as Rocky and and it’s just Ivan Drago beating the crap out of me I keep I keep getting up and I’m blooded and
Battered and and I’m like I can’t stop yeah oh you’re back for more huh it’s like yep here I am here I am you bring it what what do you got for me today it’s either going to be the government or it’s going to be someone you thought
You could trust that you can’t anymore or it’s going to be a supplier that you thought was in you know or a price that you thought was set or a customer that you thought was going to pay something Jim those lenders were our best buddies
And the guy that used to take us out to dinner he ended up cutting the locks on our lot and we had him on camera and he was looking around thinking we were hiding cars behind he cut the locks and came in saying that it was in the
Contract he was allowed to do that but but after that so so I was at Point God came in and and check this out this is gonna this one’s gonna put some some chills on up up your spine here I started I’m like what do I do now now I
Have this computer engineering degree but you know as well as I do if you don’t use a computer engineering degree for 10 11 years it’s usess couple years Cracker Jack box man throw it away it’s useless so but I have to try right so I start sending whatever the website was
Back then indeed something I I started sending out 40 50 resumés I got one response and it was a food startup of all things right I wanted to get in the food business and they wanted an IT manager and it said and when I tell you
Jim that this thing lit up off the page like it was just took the wording was looking for uh an IT manager understanding that times change and your skill set may not be up to dat prefer business experience and I was like now the money wasn’t great yeah but I didn’t
Need money at this point you know what I needed right and I was like I emailed and I was like here’s my thing here’s my resume I attached it I get an email back and I told my wife I called her I was like hun something I’m feeling it this
Is something she’s like okay okay let’s see what happened Boom come in for an interview never forget it I go there it’s a converted Pizzeria Chef Kristoff is in the back so it was a food delivery like so they would make meals and we would sell them and deliver them here in
Atlanta but when I went there I walk in in my three-piece suit you know I hadn’t done an interview in forever and there is my uh well spoiler alert right my my boss business partner now but there he is sitting down and he must have just
Finished a game of tennis he was in shorts and t-shirt you know so I’m like oh okay whatever I sat down he started grilling me about the car business not anything else I had to put it on my resume I had to explain what I was doing for the
Last sure he starts asking me very specific questions and I’m like man is this guy trying to qualify me or disqualify me we talked for an hour and a half we got into the startup the business the funding you know and I’m it’s just like boom boom boom we’re just
Hitting it all so when we’re all done he says to me I said listen I’m not going to lie to you I said I’m in kind of down spot right here and I could really use a job and I just want to know what my odds are and he’s like I wouldn’t
Give you an hour and a half of my time if I wasn’t 100% convinced that you’re the guy for me he’s like you’re probably wondering why I was asking you so much about the car business ready my family owned a salvage car auction no way we bought 80% of our inventory from his
Auctions their auctions they sold to a big major company that does Sal Gage auctions multi-million dollar sale now they’re investing the proceeds one door closes the other door opens how on Earth you tell me how do I send out 40 resumes one person replies get better yeah I was
On the phone with him five years prior five years prior ioke talk just just see my partner would always go I was the guy in the office so I we both just like went wow and today he not only gave me a job and I’ve been an IT manager ever
Since he has multiple companies and I kind of I’m still part-time with him um and I do you know support all his companies and he gives me benefits for that but he also put and I told him I was like look I will work for you and I
Will be your best employee but I need to get a business going at some time again I was like I it’s just in me he understood 100% he’s an entrepreneur I’m an entrepreneur and he funded this new e-commerce company that I have right now pardon the interruption we’ll get
Back to the show show in just a moment but I’ve got to tell you about the sponsor that we have today hummingbird hu MN b i r d humb bird.com there’s a link in the show notes they provide services for all your trademarks corporate setup branding marketing and
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Making sure you do it right without paying too much as an e-commerce seller as an Amazon business building Warrior they’ve got some incredible services that you should go check out at humminbird.com that’s spelled hmnb d.com let’s get back to the program he not only gave me a job and
I’ve been an IT manager ever since he has multiple companies and I kind of I’m still part-time with him um and I do you know support all his companies and he gives me benefits for that but he also put and I told him I was like look I
Will work for you and I’ll be your best employee but I need to get a business going at sometime again I was like I it’s just in me he understood 100% he’s an entrepreneur I’m an entrepreneur and he funded this new e-commerce company that I have right now wow that’s amaz
Yeah call him Divine appointment so many I have so many St no doubt no doubt in my mind the one person on the planet that could connect at that level and solve problems you had and bring your past experiences your past failures even and turn them into assets like how many
People could have taken your past failures and turned them into assets that day an hour and a half conversation absolutely five people on the planet maybe and you sat down to lunch with one of them the best one of the five incredible to this day it gives me
Chills amazing just wild yeah that’s just I mean that’s you know when you see when you turn your problems over to God man you call out and like hey okay and there was a lot of going on right there you can probably imagine I I was
Stripped there to my very core and just like but you know I gotta say this though you know I took those risks right my family didn’t you know as a dad as some that is the most painful thing any father could ever experence husband and father could ever experience you know
You make a decision right and yes you know you I truly believe with everything in my heart and soul that I could do this and and entrepreneurs do but I was humble to realize that I don’t control everything man you know and it’s like you can only do so much and it really
Knocked me down and I said okay I’m G to do this right the next time around so I I went to work did the nine-to-five thing it was great having a boss who was an entrepreneur because we would brainstorm so I got to scratch the entrepreneurial itch without having to
Put any money on the table and obviously financially I had to rebuild I had to totally rebuild because I was wiped out and my wife’s been a trooper ever since um she’s really hung in there and what drives me right now as you can imagine
Is to to make up for what you know because there’s failures and then there’s like failures you know and I’m GNA make this right and I’m G to do it the right way so I I started over but I started slowly and just building up one little
Brick at a time because the fast like you always say that fast curve up it’s scary higher you go wealth hastily gained as soon departed it’s a proverb man yeah and you don’t have to look very far to to see examples of it everywhere the vast majority of people that win the
Lottery doesn’t matter how much it is their life is a wreck it’s a disaster within a very short period of time in one way or another right some of the most people I knew had all kinds of money you have to lose all your money to
Have a miserable life and it’s very it’s very dis deing when you see big checks coming in because you think I’m good man as long as that money’s coming in I don’t need to worry about yeah it’s not that way yeah so so now I have two
Businesses right now right so what after all of that I said okay I’m just gonna start dabbling and I started you know let me go back to eBay let me go back to Amazon um and I started doing that I joined the coaching program so I did
That for a little while and then I got into private label so my uh my wife’s cousin said Ben I believe in you I’m going to put some money down and let’s let’s start an Amazon business so I started doing private label and um I did these uh
Necklaces the essential oil necklaces a a good friend who who sold essential oils through what’s one of the uh Young Living Young Living and she says that you know and I saw the market was hot so I started and built a brand and started doing this is probably 20 2015 I think
Exactly what you say about you know private label is 100% true it crashed and burned you know it was great for a while but you know I was selling them for 12 13 15 bucks at that price point here come the vultures man and the and the the price just tanked tank tanked
And that one went Kut so time and time again your failures are not failures your failures can be massive successes so don’t even ever think and I’m talking to the people to the listeners here don’t think that when you struggle or you bump your scrape your knee or whatever something really bad someone
Else that can turn into something great if you just zoom the camera angle obviously we’re humans we have emotions where I was I was really down and that’s why I say that God came in when he did because if he didn’t I don’t know where
I was going at that point honestly I was just I was at my darkest worst point in my life and you know I got that spark that little bit of Hope to start going the direction but I’ve learned that there’s that’s always there that’s always there and that and this community
Has always been you know the podcast listen to it all the time why it’s just enlight you know like you’re in your car wasting time just driving what am I GNA do pop that on there by the time you get to your destination business number five
Is no no but I’m just saying like you just feel that incredible boost and you know you just know you hear people’s stories like you said people who are in 10 times worse situation than you ever will be who are killing it and it’s just like man guy said blind and he’s work
He’s doing this he’s blind yeah I mean what are we complaining about right all right I’ll shut up now that was a lot please ask me questions because I know I just dumped a bunch of stuff and um i’ I’d love to that was quite a timeline
Quite a story man and and that yeah but it’s I think it’s going to impact a lot of people to hear just all the ups and downs and where you’re at now the confidence you have now and that you found some things that are truly dialed
In and working well for you you know I do want to hear a little bit more about the business model you said that you’ve got the the two brothers working with you now and I didn’t catch exactly what it is that they’re doing though okay sad business so because they were already in
The business of producing food and they were making food from scratch but they had connections with all those suppliers they would buy all the ingredients are they helping those Brands get on Amazon then exactly yeah so they already have all those connections but but what what happened was they started with just hey
Let’s go to the Distributors we were already some of those distributors were selling their products but they had the relationship and they said what what do you have they’re from Columbia so they started there and let’s try some of these candies snacks and oh wow you know they understand the product they created
Listings you know it came easy to them because they were so used to it and they were able to quickly climb the ladder but every way every step along the way right so starting off with just the basic products they’d run into a snake never ever did it ever stop them they
Would just go okay how do we work around this right they would learn YouTube videos study and then they’d go okay so it’s been a slow progression but when I say slow that’s comical right because it’s been less than a year so we’re talking from zero and right now we’re probably
$70,000 per month in sales probably margins are are in the in the low 20s I would say but now you know ever you know because they would run into things like like with Goya right okay we’re selling Goya products talk to them and Goya has their own brand right and so they
Realize we we have to have our own brand you know what I’m saying like so all the things that that are taught here on a pretty regular basis they’ve kind of just evolved into that very very rapidly and they’re at the point now because they have the skill of making food is
They’re starting to create some of their own spice mixes what they see is selling well they go wait a second we can make our own private label version of that you know and it’s low risk they never take big risks they just do simple test yeah is this on your your Amazon selling
Account or theirs so we we we have a separate account we created a brand new account the three of us okay you know um so that’s all dedicated to that company and that brand so yeah they’re they’re at the point now where and they’re just expanding talking to different brands
Going to the shows the food shows that they always have gone to but now they’re going Booth to boo talking to the the guys that create opened an agency around here we call it the proven product partnering model helping brands get on Amazon and establish a presence they
Don’t want to mess with it themselves it’s so expansive it’s aaz I mentioned them to to Jonathan when I was at the event you know and Jonathan’s here in Georgia so he came down and we all had lunch together and he loves the guys and
They love he love him and and they were just kind of brainstorming and they’re all like ah you know it was it was really really cool you know a lot of fun yeah man it’s it’s it’s huge opportunity and anyone with basic Amazon selling skills can start talking to Brands and
Do the same thing it’s one of the modules inside the proven Amazon course proven product partnering teaches you the things you need to know to launch and once you got a few happy Brands your reputation carries you forward and we’ve seen some people pick up a lot of
Accounts very quickly with that strategy yeah very cool I know a lot of your listeners are probably that that probably scares them right and for me it was frightening and when I watch them do it so effortlessly I realized one thing when you start talking about what you
Know those Brands look at you like you are just wow man you they’ve never heard of FBA they’ve never heard they don’t know what an as is they don’t know what it means to set up a new listing based on the keywords that some of your competitors are using what’s it mean to
What what do you mean I need to have a good headline on the listing they don’t know any of that exactly you become more empowered when you start talking about that like don’t don’t approach these people thinking oh my gosh oh my gosh no you’re just having a conversation with
Them hey yeah have you ever thought about Amazon well yeah we don’t know what to do and then you just start talking about what you know like a like you’re conversing with a buddy and next thing you know they’re like can you help me and you know wow you know and and
Naturally that will progress to the point then of course you know yeah you’re G to be like I don’t know what to do that’s what the group is for right that’s what the course is for it’s all there somebody’s done that you don’t even have to worry and I know the guys
Have even have like an affiliate program right you just connect them and hand it over to the guys and you know you can get a percentage and they’ll take do all the heavy lifting so there’s so many opportunities Beyond and that’s a way for you to slowly just start getting
Your confidence up to where you could do it yourself but at the beginning you’re just helping people and it feels amazing so yeah just having conversations I want to make sure too that we we’re clear with everyone you mentioned liquidations and you’re doing really well with them
But you’re selling on eBay and Facebook Marketplace you’re not selling liquidations on Amazon that can get you in trouble very quickly right very quickly and I did at the beginning I learned that lesson the hard way right so I did get slapped it turned out that
One of the products I had been selling was so this is a auction that has Freight you know like there’s all kinds right liquidations returns from Home Depot and Target the ones that everybody knows but then there are also things that uh were insurance claims right so
This was a pallet that was on its way to a particular reseller that was based here in Georgia um it was a pet food product amazing um sales rank and everything else I’m like whoa you know and it did it sold amazing the owner calls me and says that when she received
That shipment one or two pallets was missing she placed a claim and the claim was denied and those two pallets showed up at the auction wow and so it ended up being this huge court case now I was 100% in the so so my my boss that I mentioned earlier and now business
Partner he’s an attorney which comes in handy and he said your 100% legitimate ownership like I didn’t have to worry about anything criminal but obviously as far as Amazon was concerned you know got me squashed from the listing um yeah that was still on Goods basically right
Right from their on another it happened again with this powder product I forget what it was supplements you know the CEO sent me an email really nasty email I said you know what I’m GNA call get on the phone with him I’m explaining to him dude here’s what’s going on he was it
Was nice and he goes do you realize you’re selling against me you’re buying for less than I manufactured this for he’s like stop and I’m like okay I said look I didn’t do anything wrong I said I’m just a guy looking for product I
Find them I bid on them I win them and I sell them I was like I’m not the criminal here he’s like I understand but do you understand what you’re doing to my business so we we became friends and I said well let let me be a a wholesaler
For you and he’s like you know what he told me you can’t make enough profit I see what it sells for on Amazon I can’t sell it to you for enough margins for you to make it worth your you know he knew that but but he was really cool and
He bought the pallet for me bought it he said take he said take it off of you know but what the lesson in that is number one don’t sell that stuff on Amazon number two Don’t Be Afraid take up the phone to pick up the phone and I
Was scared because I was like this you know but I was like I gotta do it I just got to do it and it ended up working out okay you know that’s cool but there’s so much stuff the cool part about is every two weeks I go to this auction 1600
Pallets and I spend an entire day there it’s like replans like when you go to the store but the coolest part of this is that I’m buying a pallet of stuff for sometimes less than what your first order from the wholesaler would be so my risk profile is ridiculously low now
Where it gets a little hairy if I could show you the warehouse you I’ve got a warehouse in four storage unit is full of stuff because you could sell 10% of your product and you’re already making a profit but slow movers sit for a long
Time and you need to store it um when you’re buying it in that kind of quantity but you can make that calculation when you go to those auctions you can go in there and just look up the product and I do all my research the keepa everything else and I
Place my bids accordingly because it’s it’s it’s silent bid right we’re all bidding on a hidden piece of paper you don’t know if the guy next to you is is going to bid or not right I’ve gotten materials for my home I’m redoing floors I got vanities we redid the bathrooms
For pennies on the dollars so there’s there’s other benefits to it but that’s something that I become very passionate about and um I’ve learned a ton and I’m going to keep learning more because what that has done is allowed me to go part-time in my other business and it
Really has funded not only my business growth but the second business I started with these young men I’ve been able to finance that company you know what I’m saying um and that I know is going to blossom into into an incredible business it already is um very low risk profile
Yeah yeah fantastic well you’ve learned some very valuable lessons I think it’s going to serve some people well to just kind of listen through your story they’re going to relate so many good lessons to pull from this today for sure yeah and that’s why I wanted I wanted to
Share it because I wanted anyone who’s afraid yeah there’s a like at the end of the tunnel man just yeah just dive in you know like one one day at a time I mean I know a lot of times this stuff weighs on you heavily and you might but
Don’t let it stop you from doing something that you know would work or and and just just dip your toe in the water the beauty of like you say it all the time Ecommerce is something and garage S I mean I still go to garage sales and and those are anyone who’s
Like I don’t know what to start with go to garage sales man there’s garage sales in my Comm in multi-million dollar subdivis divions that you go there’s there’s $5 items that are brand new that are worth a hundred I promise you it’s there but just just don’t even buy just
Spend the day going on eBay or whatever you know eBay I love it because you can see sold items and how fast they sell and and you’ll see like oh I’ll put a dollar on this I’ll put a dollar on that you risk $10 and you have a chance to
Make hundreds and you learn why not the the business I’m most excited about as I just kind of listened to your story and where you’re at right now is what you have going with those two young men because that’s actually an asset that you can sell at some point you know one
Of the reasons that we steer people away typically of going super deep on only like liquidation yard sale that kind of thing is because you end up with a death pile of product it’s hard to move typically now you can make a good living but when you’re done no one wants that
Business man and you can’t set it and forget it kind of thing you’re the decision maker who’s on the line right so that’s the reason we we tend to Usher people towards the repins model than wholesale or branded bundles and CU now you’re building an asset and now you can
Sell it someday but those opportunities out there to to hustle and put money in the bank liquidation eBay yard sale I mean my phone rang here just a couple days ago as we’re sitting here earlier this week and someone has best estimate I can tell between 25,000 $100,000 worth
Of stuff in a house you know the husband has died the wife is now in an assisted living and they’re they’re ready to to empty the house and sell it’s like just turn it into money can you help us free inventory we’re G oh I saw I saw that
Post exactly so after all of our expenses are paid we split what remains with them and they’ve got just all kinds of incredible fines and stuff that’s still in the box and collection collections from you know 70s 80s 90s it’s incredible those opportunities are everywhere didn’t cost me anything right
So if you’re ready to hustle you have a team you can take advantage of those kind of things man beautiful beautiful I tell you one more quick story and I promise I’m done for sure County auctions County auctions I stumbled on one I walked around there was these four
Four machines on the ground it was an outdoor sitting in the grass walked up and I’m looking at these things they look like washing machines were affable he starts the bidding at $1,000 no bids he keeps dropping dropping 500 500 5 250 250 100 50 25 $10 I’ll take it for $10
You want all four of them $40 no idea what they were people were coming up to me at the auction what are these I don’t know I’ll figure it out they were water Samplers okay big old washing machine looking thing you put it by a lake owned
By the water company the water uh department and it had a computer in it it puts a tube into the lake and takes samples through as a pump puts them in test tubes and then they bring it back and test it on a regular basis insulated protected from the elements $15,000
Brand new each one of them two of them were functional and two of them were not the two that were functional I sold on eBay for $2400 each and the broken ones I sold for five or six $600 a piece $40 investment just going to the auction
Just go Um I think auctionzip.com is the website that will has a lot of the goofiest auctions that you’d be like this looks ridic just go pro I promise you what was that website again I auctionzip.com AuctionZip it’ll show you all the local auctions and then you can
Kind of just you’ll see like one was a movie studio I’ve been to auctions that just caught my eye I was like oh let me go never never fail to put serious money in my Pock like I said I’m using all of that money to get to a more stable
Business because one 100% I agree with you that you know I want to sleep at night I I don’t want to wonder you know I I had those were very nerve-wracking when I had those issues you know I got a letter a lawyer letter you know I’m just
Like what what am I you know I thought I was just buying and selling what the heck but it’s it serves the purpose a lot of times you don’t have a lot of money you know so you do those things save the money and then go do replans
Man that that’s the path right because people are afraid to go to replans thinking I don’t have the money that’s a great way to to raise money and to learn you’re also learning so that helps it’s a good way to weit into e-commerce it’s the that’s the lowest entry point is
Just flipping stuff and I mean someone just posted in the Facebook group today they just posted on the you know in their neighborhood say hey uh I’ll I’ll split you know if you got stuff you want to sell I’ll I’ll sell it online and split the money and your phone rings
Constantly MH there’s just no excuse if you’re ready to go into hustle mode but once you’ve got those funds getting into something a little more intentional where you’re building a brand building branded bundles oh yeah maybe getting maybe opening an agency like you talked about helping some other brands which
You know it’s not a complex business model it just isn’t you at that point you’ve got the skills to tell Brands hey I can help worst case scenario is we sell a few items on Amazon right it’s not a huge risk for anybody it’s a great business model proven product partnering
That module but yeah lots of opportunity I I love that you’ve your story kind of wandered into some very sustainable stable consistent producing ideas allowed us to end kind of like with a with a note of hope there’s a lot of people out there kind of struggling
And hopefully I think this is gonna encourage a lot of people like all right I I just need to get out there and do some of this I hope so and then if if we can be of help you know we’ve got a great coaching program you’re going to
Be doing some coaching with us probably maybe I started as a coach you know that was another very frightening thing for me but I I know I could help people and and regardless of what I feel and it’s it’s just something to help me grow and help
Me grow while I help someone else grow you know and it’s like it’s a win-win across the board so yeah I’m looking forward to it yeah well excited to have you on the team look forward to seeing you in May at The Proven conference but
But we need to wrap this episode up man this is one of our longer ones I’ve done I’ve got I’ve got to finish my day out here I don’t want to interview an Italian man no dude you did an excellent job it’s great hanging out with you and
And I it it was real definitely got easier as we got going oh for sure man we’ve got a great story and it just shows the longevity of of what’s kind of happened is kind of a story of the industry you know where you end up now
Is is a really good place so it’s good to see you there man thanks for being such a a loyal part of this community for so long Jim thank you and thank you for doing what you do because you know it again it’s the information’s great and everything else but it’s the hope
That gives a lot of people like me uh to know when whatever’s going on that somebody out there has worse and has done amazing things you know so don’t ever stop doing this because it’s just amazing how it changes lives and um we we all I know I’m speaking for the
Entire Community when I say thank you very much for everything you do and keep rocking it brother thanks for that man I appreciate it yeah I love doing it been very quick 23 years dude I’m telling Ecommerce it goes quick man goes quick but God bless you man we’ll we’ll
Connect again soon thanks for hanging out with us thanks Jim take care bye for now bye hey thanks for hanging out with us today I hope you enjoyed the episode Before I Let You Go one last reminder humminbird.com today’s sponsor for all your trademarks corporate setup branding
Marketing needs and yes Tax Services as an Amazon e-commerce seller book a schedule appointment with them today to take care of all those paperwork things you don’t want to have to mess with they’re really good at it they’ll take good care of you tell them I sent you
Humminbird.com hu mnb d.com thanks for being a sponsor of this program hey we’ll see you next time
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