Laid Off 2 Days Before Christmas, Now He Makes $60k/Month Reselling⏐Ep. #276

Two days before Christmas, they laid me off. And I was like, "You've got to be kidding. I'm never going to work for someone else that can control my income like that. I did $60,000 in sales first month. My son looks at me and he never says anything like this. He goes, "Dad, you need to buy this thing." And how much was it? $700,000. Oh, okay. And so that's what got me really fired up. And so literally, I'm selling everything. I'm trying to make $1,000, $700, to buy my family our dream yacht. I started with that $1,200 purchase and then took that profits, bought the next one and I just kept rolling. What'd you sell them for each? $50. Wow. And you paid $2.28 for something like that. So $25 on your life. Start with something you already own. Don't go into debt to learn how to sell because it's not the buying. It's for selling. Now, what types of items sold particularly well and what types of items just didn't sell? So I run across this guy on Twitter and he claims to have made $60,000 his first month, half of that being profit, reselling random things in middle of nowhere rural Washington. Restaurant equipment, clothes, furniture, appliances. He bought him for pennies on the dollar. He put him in front of this old towing shop that he rented for super cheap and he just sold, sold, sold. Once his goal, save up enough money to buy a $700,000 boat. If you've liked any of my previous content about reselling, you are really going to like this one. Please enjoy. How did you go from Jim Roe being born as a baby to making $30,000 profit his first month in business? Yeah. So grew up as a single family at home with my mom working as a bartender and I just posted on X today. My dad was an alcoholic and what it's like to be raised by an alcoholic. One of my traits is I'm a problem solver and so I like to problem solve and I also like to help people. And so that's become kind of my superpower in life without knowing what I was doing. It was just there. So anyway, I've done lots of different things. I owned a tool company. I got into the diamond business. Then I went into construction and owned a glass company. It rained 98 days in a row in Seattle and I came home one day and I go, I don't want to put in another window and I don't want to drive on that freeway because it's crazy traffic in Seattle. And my wife goes, what do you want to do? And I said, I want to do something where I sell somebody something. They love it and they pay me right there and they want to come back and she goes, what is it? And I go, I want to open a restaurant. And so we literally moved to her hometown, which is on the sunny side of the state, opened up our first restaurant. I had never worked in one really and she worked in one in high school that was a little fast food place. So I was the cook, she was the waitress and we opened up and the place took off. And so we grew the restaurant business from 2002. Currently, we still own that original restaurant, but we opened up nine other restaurants and a brewery and a nightclub and a pizzeria, all sorts of things and then COVID hit. So when were these nine different restaurants under different brand names? Yeah, that's an ADD problem right there. I don't know how I feel. I did use something different. Yeah. So thank God I married the right person to deal with this craziness. Same. Yeah. So anyway, I COVID hit and it just so happened that that was going to be my daughter's first year at Boise State. And I always just planned on, you know, I didn't start saving when she was born for college fun. I always had great cash flow and knew how to make money and all of a sudden all my restaurants were closed. Washington State shut everything down. I laid off 180 employees. And so at the same time, there was lots of news about college debt and people wanting free college and all of that. And I'm trying to teach my kids that there's no such word as free. And so I hold right go broke. I want you to go to college and have fun and have that whole college experience. And I'm going to start a different business each year to pay for it because I want to show you how this really works. And so I started a junk removal business and it took off right away. People kept giving me couches and stuff that were still good. So then I saw a Ryan Panetta YouTube video on couch flipping and I was like, I should just sell all these couches. So I literally take them out of the people's houses, put them in my trailer, take photos, list them on marketplace and just keep going. And so I started selling. Never even unload it. No, don't even load on the trailer. And take it to the bar. Yeah. Wow. And so I started building kind of a reseller story and putting all this stuff that I would get from junk removal. So I had a little bit of experience in in dabbling in the reselling and then I started buying storage units and all sorts of things. Anyway, fast forward as we started selling our restaurants, I had a warehouse full of restaurant equipment because we would take over a restaurant and they would have stuff that we didn't need. We build a restaurant or something would break and we could repair it, but we couldn't repair it in place. So we put it in the warehouse and buy a new one. So anyway, I had all this stuff and so I just started reselling it because we were selling our restaurants and I did so well reselling restaurant equipment that I went on gov deals and started buying more. And my wife was like, I thought we were selling everything. You're buying. Yeah. And I thought they had. Sorry. So you were just selling stuff that you had just accumulated over the years and finding success at it. And how are you finding buyers for this? Where were you selling it? Marketplace, but also I leveraged my experience. So I got a hold of all of the sales people that were selling food to restaurants and made turn them into sales people. So I'd pay them 10% commission on any lead that they would give me. So all they had to do was give me the lead and I'd take care of the rest. Hold on real quick. So you had sales people selling food to restaurants? Was that? No, there's already people selling food to restaurants. Like Cisco employees? Yeah, exactly. So I reached out to Cisco sales people and said, hey, by the way, I have a full list and that warehouse full of equipment. And so if any of your customers need anything, I'll pay a little commission because they're in restaurants all day. And I was just trying to duplicate myself as fast as possible. So sorry for those watching you're listening. Cisco and US foods. Those are like the two mega conglomerate food distributors for restaurants, right? Exactly. Cisco and US foods. So you were buying from both of them or just Cisco? So when I was in the restaurant business, I mainly bought from US foods. Okay. So, but when I started selling restaurant equipment, I knew, hey, here's all these sales people that are visiting restaurant owners every day in the chat. Let me just turn them into a sales person for my little side business. Yeah. Reselling restaurant equipment. So were you using US foods employees or Cisco employees are both for this? Bulls. Okay. So you just kind of called up your rep and was like, hey, I'm doing this thing. And now I love this idea because this sounds like something I would do. Like you're piggybacking on an existing workforce that's already talking to the same customer base. But oftentimes in actuality, executing on a plan like this is a lot more complicated than how it looks on paper because you get them on the phone and they probably don't have a high degree of ambiguity. Like they probably like working within a box. And I could just see the conversation going like, oh, yeah, okay. And then like it completely leading their mind or like it just doesn't even though they're already talking to the same people that are buying these things. It's just like it doesn't go into their workflow, right? Yeah. 80, 20 rule. So you just had to work through a bunch of people. Yep. Okay. And I didn't need a lot because I didn't have a lot of inventory. And so I found a few that were selling product for me all the time and give them me referrals. Yeah. Now did you find that some of them were like, oh, yeah, okay. Let me see. And like they never worked out. And then some people were just gung ho. And are the gung ho ones the ones that worked out or was there not a correlation there? So I know most of them and they're also the best already in their business of selling food. They just take care of their problem solvers also. So they take care of their customers and they understand that the value is not how much they're selling them a box of french fries for. But it's the problem solving that they bring to the account. And so those few salespeople actually brought me a lot of business. How many did you have to work through and then how many did you end up with? I probably only worked through about 20 and ended up with three really good ones. 80 20 rule. I mean 85 15 basically. Yeah. Yeah. That's impressive. And you didn't pay them anything base just 10% and the gross of what they sold. Yeah. And most of them didn't want it. I offered it in the beginning and most of them were like, no, we're good. We just wanted to help our customer. Oh, they were willing to do it for free. Yeah. It's just problem solving. And they become a more valuable salesperson to their account when they're taking care of their problems. Yeah. And if I'm you, I'm hearing that offer and thinking, thank you. I appreciate that. But a, you know, you deserve what your time is worth, right? Like you deserve to be paid. And then what you're thinking is like, be, if I don't pay you, you're not going to be motivated to name drop this equipment. Like, like realistically, you'll say that you are and you want to help me. You might a couple times, but if you have skin in the game, like if you're actually getting a check from this, then it's like, oh, I'm going to go out of my way to sell this stuff. Is that kind of what you were looking at it? Yeah, we would just Venmo or we're also gift. So sometimes I'd buy people a really nice gift and send it to them as a thank you. And so in a way, we moved, we moved from that model to a commented. It's kind of funny. I commented on an ex post from Shannon Jean that I saw. And I think I was trying to just show off a little bit and I messaged him and I said, well, I sell lots of used restaurant equipment thinking that would impress him. And he goes, oh, neat, niche and not only was the Godfather of this business. He goes neat, and he goes, "You should look at Beastock and buying Costco and these other auctions." And so I'm a quick starter, so that night I went on to Beastock, signed up with my business license, got approved, and actually I think that night made my first bid. And so I did exactly, I was a little, I was a quick study, so I did exactly what he said. He said, "Buy something that you actually might need and sell the rest, and I needed a shed for the coffee shop I had built and sold to my daughter." And so I bought one of those Costco sheds, and they sell for $1500. So my max bid was $1500. I want it to black. - Two in my garage right now. - Yeah, oh yeah, I saw that. And I ended up winning for less, put the shed together, sold the rest of the stuff, and then I had already placed another order for some furniture. So my wife came out into the warehouse one day, and semi had showed up, and I had loaded the place full of furniture, and she's like, "Oh my." And I go, "Don't worry." So that Saturday we put everything in the parking lot behind our storage unit, and I went live on Facebook to all my current customers, and I said, "You know me as restaurant, as the restaurant guy, but here's something new that I'm doing." And then my wife's actually demonstrated a couch right in the parking lot, because it had stuff I didn't know about. Like a chain lounge with storage under it. I have no idea. - She went like full Vanna White. - Oh yeah. - She just switched into Vanna White mode, and you're like, "Man, you're built for this." - Yeah, and so we ended up selling all this stuff and made about $3,000 that Saturday. And I literally looked at her, and I go, "This is a little better than the restaurant business, isn't it?" - 'Cause it was just her and I, you know? - Yeah. - Now of that $3,000, how much would you guess was profit? - No, no. That was the profit part of it. - Whoa. - Yeah, yeah. So we sold a bunch of furniture and made $3,000, and I was like, "Cham, how hard is it to make $3,000?" To make $3,000 in the restaurant business, you're gonna do $30,000 in sales with a big team. And this was just her and yeah, you're right, Vanna White. In the parking lot, it was the craziest day, and people loved it. And I go, "You know what? We're in a small town. I know how much competition there is in this market." Let's just do this. - Competition is with regards to the restaurant business? - No, in the furniture. - Okay. - Yeah. So we have a lack of shopping opportunities in the small town that we're in. - Now, let me ask you this. When you go live on Facebook, is that on your business page, on your personal page? How many followers were there? - I saw all of them. So thankfully, long ago, I was taught the power of a database. And so I've often built up my social media. And so I think on my restaurant page, I probably reached out to, oh, thousands. But I know that day we probably had, we probably had 30 or 40 people come down to the sale. - In person? - Everybody was buying. - So during COVID, I would go live with today's special and what we were doing because COVID every day was something different. Some days we were serving you in your car in the parking lot. Then we were able to, we put up a big 50-foot tent in our parking lot, and we put tables and chairs in the tent. We were serving you in the tent. Other days we were doing delivery, then we could deliver drinks as well. So I was going live every day. It's kind of funny. So my target market is women 55 and over. Older women love Jimrow. And everywhere I go in town, we run into someone that's like, I love all your videos. And we watch them every night. And people are like, oh, we have our kids watching with us. So I got really pretty famous in a way in my small little market for going live on Facebook. - In your city of 25,000? - Yeah. Now, how many people were joining the live stream? And when you say 30 to 40 people showed up, were you live streaming to get people there? Or were you selling stuff over the live stream and shipping it? What did that look like? - Yeah, great question. So on that one, I was live streaming just to show people what I was doing in a show off the furniture. And now that we've grown into my store, I actually will do Facebook lives and sell product. And it's really powerful because I don't have any fees. I'm reaching out to my target market. I'm talking to people typically that know me and trust me. And it makes the sales process super easy. - I love that compared to some of the other stuff that I've done, like what not, and Facebook marketplace and things like that where I have to teach them about my brand. - Yeah. Now, if someone watching or listening to this right now had 500 or a thousand Facebook followers just on their personal page, is this something that they could do? And like just at least attempt with a Facebook live to sell stuff like this? - Yeah, 100%. I think you start, even if you have a couple people watching, you don't need a lot. You need the people that actually like your brand and want to follow you. But you can also do this. You could also borrow someone's, someone else's Facebook following. And so I use that in business all the time. If someone else has the database, I just team up with that. - What would the profit sharing look like in a situation like that? Maybe it's a, maybe like my daughter's coffee shop has a huge following because she works so hard at it. So maybe I do something there and I buy everyone that comes in a free drink. And then they come in and I sell them furniture or something like that. So you know, you just make it a win-win. - Yeah. Okay. So on this day that you made 3000 bucks, it was furniture, like return furniture to Costco. - Yeah. It was return furniture. A bunch of loves not love seats recliners. We sold bunch of recliners. And then I made a video of a customer that bought the recliner and I posted that as well. So people were actually seeing what was going on. - Like a testimonial. - A testimonial, exactly. - And so people would basically earmark whatever they bought and then show up and pay you for it. - Yeah, no, they just came down and bought it that day. Now they earmark what they want. And we either deliver it or they come and pick it up. So that was day one. And then I went on a search to find a building. And I actually had a really good one in mind. It was an old auto part store on our main street with a big glass storefront, lots of traffic going by it. And I made an offer that like the day I, I think the next day, the realtor that got the offer called someone that had previously looked at it and used my offer to lease it to the other interest. And I was like, oh my gosh, I'm so frustrated. But I'm a problem solver. So I, the next spot that was available was this old tow truck shop literally with the big bay door in the front. It's a tow truck shop. And I was like, well, this will work because I can put stuff inside the shop and the outside fenced in area. I could use to pressure wash and clean the restaurant equipment that I was still selling. And so I literally moved a little bit of inventory I had into that shop. And I was like, all this sell what I have is my business model always sell what you have. And so the day I opened there was in October. I literally puts the like seven things that I had in inventory. I rolled them out next to the street by the sidewalk. And I didn't even the for lease sign was still up. I didn't have anything. I had an old me on open sign. So I plugged that in. And people would drive by and just pull in and they're like, what are you doing here? Yeah. This looks so. Yeah, they're just so curious. Right. Like what are you doing? And I told them I go, oh, I'm selling warehouse returns from all the different big stores and I have these items. And that's the warehouse that I did $60,000 in sales from first month. Okay. So was this tow shop on like a busy road like on a main drag. Yeah. So location location location and I'll go into that because I ended up moving out of this space. Our only big shopping is a Fred Meyer store. So we have a Fred Meyer that carries, you know, housewares and shoes and food and hardware and all that stuff. Garden department. What's the name of the city again? It's called the Pittsburgh Washington, Ellen's bird 25,000 people. Yeah. And that's what college students in that's when they're in town. So it actually goes down. And so I was one block away from the Fred Meyer. So there was a ton of traffic. And that was really the magic because I could put anything out by the street. I had I appeal people were going to pull in just out of curiosity. And so in one of the Costco returns I got I got a big chicken coop and we're in a farming area. I put the chicken coop together and I put it out by the road. There you are. So you have me there. That's Ellen's bird. Yeah. So I was just to the west there. I am with the red roof right here. Yep. That one. Okay. So right now it's central Washington septic, but this used to be you. Yeah. I released it to them. There I am. All right. There it is. Macintosh is towing. That was you. Yeah. So you got this constant. Macintosh is they haven't changed it either. Okay. So you you would just load up like random couches and inferniture on the right. So what other stuff would you load out there? Yeah. So in the beginning I only had like seven or eight items for sale. And so I put them all right out on the sidewalk there. And then I had an open sign and then from one of my restaurants I bought one of those blinking reader boards with the arrow. I plugged that in and people would see that. And but here's the thing about that building Chris is people would only come there if that big white door was open. So when we opened it was in October. Well in Ellensburg it's like 35 degrees outside. So. So it was the craziest thing is people would come shop and it would be 35 degrees outside. It was maybe 40 degrees inside with the heat running. How long did it take you to realize that you needed to leave that door open? It was well, it was the first time I shut it to try to stay warm. It was more of a comfort thing for me. Yeah. And then I was like, no one's coming in. I was like, let's roll the door back up. And I can tell you, I never looked at the gas bill to see what it was cost to me to keep the building. We just need to eat. It's very, very, very sweet. Yeah. And the north of there is the Fred Meyer. So we had a lot of traffic coming from that location. And then we started to fill in up the whole building. So I even had women's clothes. I had a shoe, little shoe department in there. I had the furniture. But here was the other thing. I had it so full of product that every morning it would take about 30 minutes to put stuff out. We had to put stuff outside because we needed the space so people could walk around. So they'd take about a half hour to 40 minutes to move everything out. And then at the end of the day, we'd have to reverse that and put everything back in. So what was your lease term on this building and how much did you pay a month in rent? Yeah. I leased it. I want to say it was $3,200. I did a three year lease. My son was a sophomore. And I had just planned on let's do this until he graduates as a senior. And so I did a three year lease. And then I ended up finding the new location in downtown Ellensburg, which is where we're at currently, which is 6,000 square feet in the old Sears building. It was a Sears store. And so I was really worried. You are an hour. That's where you went. Yes. That's where I met. So I released that tow truck shop to the septic pumping company and moved into the Sears store. Okay. So you did that $3,000 a day. That was a Saturday. Is that right? Yeah. And the next day, Sunday, you're like, let's go find a lease. We're starting this. Yeah. Okay. And I think Monday or Tuesday, I made the offer and was so as September, October, when I got going, I moved into that building somewhere around the beginning of October. Yeah. Well, I know it was the beginning of October because I started moving in in September. And the people that were in there, I knew them and they were moving out. Okay. Yeah. So you're comparing this against the restaurant business and you're like, this is way better. This is way easier. What was it about your history or your experience that just told you this is going to work? I need to sign a lease on this. Like what gave you the confidence to do that? Yeah. So I've been in sales a long time. So I started off selling my very first job was a crazy one. I sold tools over the phone. And I kind of got that's windaled, but tricked by this telephone sales company. And I was young. And so I jumped in both feet and we were selling tools from 3 a.m. in the morning. We'd start calling people on the East Coast and then move across the country. So I went from that to a real tool store, a great company in my area called Tacoma Screwed anyway through some unfortunate things that happened in my life, which one was a divorce. I ended up randomly in the jewelry business because a friend of my wife was like, why don't you come work with us at this great company, Ben Bridge Jewelers and get yourself straightened out and then you can go back to whatever it was you were doing, right? I didn't know what a Garnet was. The first customers came in and they were like, do you have Garnets? And I go, we do, but they just moved around. They just rearranged the whole store and I looked at this one lady that worked with Linda and I go, Linda, where did we put the Garnets? And she pointed. What's a Garnet? Also, what's a Garnet? Yeah, there they are. The red one. I went with the sign that says Garnet and so I went from that to wholesaling diamonds and wholesale diamonds for quite a few years and I ended up selling a tin-curate diamond, made a bunch of money and I wanted to take a month off and spend some time with my daughter and so I was at home spending time with my daughter, painting my house actually and my brother, my older brother called me and he goes, go to the Union Hall today, talk to this guy and you're going to be a journeyman carpenter and I go, hmm, I think it's the thing older brothers think they need to do and I go, Greg, how much does a journeyman carpenter make? At that time, it was like $20 an hour and I go, Greg, I just made $35,000 selling one diamond. I'm not really the hourly type of guy and he goes, go down there and he's my older brother and not always the nicest older brother as a kid. For some reason, I went to the Union Hall and literally the next day they're sending me out on a job and a journeyman carpenter but what that really meant was they handed me a shovel and they said here dig this trench that was like in the hardest dirt you could find in America and we built, we ended up building a loading dock at Bell Square Mall, this big shopping center in Bellevue, Washington and I was like, wow, that was really cool because I had never built anything before, it was always sales and so seeing something go from nothing to something was, it was pretty satisfying. So they sent me to another job where we built a building for Paul Allen and I heard that they were laying people off but I was like, I'll just out work everyone, they're not going to lay me off and like two days before Christmas, they laid me off and I was like, you've got to be kidding. And so I went home and I was like, I'm never going to work for someone else that can control my income like that or whether or not I'm even working. So you go to the tow shop, did you say October 20 to 24 was your first full month? Yeah, October of 24. Okay, now what type of stuff were you buying? How did you get to 60,000 them? Yeah, so I had a lot of furniture, I had appliances, I had like the chicken coop, I had pressure washers, I put in shoes, I started ordering quite a bit from Costco so we even had a kitchen to a little funny that I say kitchen department, it was like the entry way of the tow truck shop and so we had a kitchen department and so we just were selling. Oh, and we had exercise equipment too. So I'm starting to run paid ads directly to my newsletter because right now it's where I'm seeing the most potential because here's the thing, social platforms don't let you own anything. The algorithm changes and your reach disappears. Email is the only channel where you actually own your audience and be high for people who are ready to grow bigger than ever. It's got a built in ad network. Sponsors come to you directly through the platform, you approve, you get paid, you pay no platform fees on paid subscriptions, whereas sub stack takes 10%. Beehive takes nothing and now you can sell coaches and coaching directly to your list. You don't need to stitch five tools together. Be high, let's you do everything in one place and you pay zero commission forever. Name another newsletter platform that can do all that. I've been on be high for over two years and it is without a doubt one of the biggest reasons my newsletter is growing like wildfire. So go move your email list over to be high now and get 30% off your first three months at beehive.com/cris. That's B-E-E-H-I-I-V dot com slash Chris. I was testing everything because I really wanted to learn like what is it that's going to really sell that I can grab on to. So I didn't get into the crazy story so I wanted a fishing boat. So this is really the part that got me really going in. My wife said great idea I want you to have one but I had like a bathroom on the fishing boat. So we went to a boat show and somehow Chris we end up on a 65 foot yacht and I had my son with me and this thing is so nice and so we're on the yacht and this other guy walks on the yacht and he goes is this your boat or you buying it? And I go man I love it and he goes if you don't buy it I want to buy it. I go do you already own it? Like it was such a setup and he goes no he goes but this is the best boat at the boat show and I go I think you're right. So anyway the captain of the boat at the end of the boat show had to move it back to the marina and he goes Jim I don't have anyone going with me if you guys want to go for a boat ride you're more than welcome which I thought was a good sales attack. Yeah you respected the guy. And I jump you know sales people are using a sales. I'm like yep we're going to the marina with you and so it was a beautiful day in Seattle. We cruise the boat across Lake Union which is in downtown Seattle you're looking at the space needle and we're going to go through the bowler locks and he goes Jim I need to go get the ropes ready you drive and I was like oh here we go. Here we go. So it had dual captain chairs so my son and I are sitting there and we're driving and there's salmon it's September and salmon are jumping everywhere out in the water and we love fishing and outdoors and all of that and my son looks at me and he never says anything like this. He goes dad you need to buy this thing. Like you can only have this experience on this boat. Yeah he goes how much was it? 700,000. Okay. Yeah okay. So thankfully I had the money in the bank but I was like this does not. And the captain goes Jim just making off on it and he goes I think they'll take a little less and so I go let me think about it till tomorrow and so I literally stayed up all night and went over like what it takes to maintain a boat like that and blah blah blah and my son was a sophomore at that time and I'm like I'm not going to have time to even use this boat the way I would need to for the expense and it's a dumb thing for me to take my family's money and put it into a boat. So I call him and I tell him can't do it can't pull the trigger and I go but keep looking for a smaller boat for us and anyway that I think the next morning I was so irritated with myself that I didn't have dumb money just to write the check and I was in the kitchen my wife was making a cup of coffee and I go Shan how about if I make a thousand dollars seven hundred times doing Jim Roe stuff and I buy a boat like that and she goes yeah do it and so that's what got me really fired up and so literally I'm selling everything I sold I sold a couple Rolex watches I had I sold a food trailer I was selling restaurant equipment I'm selling all this furniture and I'm going after it now is this like are you seeing this revenue as like separate like extra like just with a boat and then you're you're stashing the other stuff aside for bills and all that I mean our bills were taking care of at that point and so this was just let me go after the boat but what I found out here's what I found out so I was a thousand dollars seven hundred times but I'm I'm happily married and I have kids and stuff and I found out that I actually need to make a thousand dollars fourteen hundred times because yeah the wife we paid for everything you know I started paying for everything and I was like okay that's okay just I'll just keep going and so I'm still on that journey to hit that number but we we did buy a fifty foot our starter boat and so we've been enjoying that so how much was that that was three hundred and twenty and so and you go out there for days at a time yeah so crazy as it is now because I'm in a small town I'm delivering product to the Seattle market like as often as I can it's just an excuse for me to drive over get a new customer sell something and then I'll go stay on the boat and and then come back and so it's literally five minutes from downtown Seattle like I can be in front of the waterfront in in a few minutes boat ride it's spectacular yeah okay so October 24 that's what got me going yeah so that's your motivation so you're buying all kinds of stuff you're saving up the boat you want stuff that will probably sell for a good margin because you don't really know what the margin is until you sell it right you're just kind of guessing and trying to be conservative I'm sure tell me what happens in October like what do you buy what do you sell how do you hit that sixty thousand oh so I forgot a big one so Shannon Jean post this crazy auction where there's a thousand of these industrial hinges uh down in California or no yeah I think they're down to California so anyway I look at it and they're aluminum hinges and I I was in the glass business so I had a little bit of familiarity with them but I don't know the market for those really well I just know on eBay a few of them are selling for like a hundred and twenty five dollars a hinge and so I did the math on how much the aluminum weighed and then I looked up the scrap price and I was like I'll just put in a max bid for that number and worst-case scenario I scrap them so anyway nobody bid and I ended up winning these thousand hinges and they landed at my store for like twenty eight hundred dollars holy cow and like retail is a hundred K for these yeah yeah yeah and sorry what was the scrap value for them it's like forty five hundred or something like that and you're like that's like your last case that's like your like your worst case scenario worst case scenario I'm melting them yeah so anyway I have this idea I was like I think I could sell them back to the manufacturer because they can't make them for what I just bought them for mm-hmm even the box is super nice like it's a good idea it's like a two dollar box for sure I think it's a five dollar box because I bought boxes and so I call I look up on their website their manufacturer reps and the first one is pretty close to me and I call them in the morning and he answers the phone I go do you want to hear the craziest story and he goes you know he doesn't know who's calling I go yeah and I go my name's Jim Row I'm trying to make a thousand dollars seven hundred times to buy my family our dream yacht and I just happen to own a thousand of these hinges that you guys sell and he's like a thousand he's like how do you get those and I just tell him here's what I'm doing and I go I'm looking for ways to make a thousand dollars I go do you think the company would be interested in buying these back and right out of the gate he goes nope and he goes kind of a tough hinge to sell and blah blah blah and he pushes me off and I go okay so I call the next manufacturer rep down in California and he answers same company different company different rep and he I say the exact same thing to him we want to use your crazy phone call the day goes it's still early and so I tell him and he goes I was reselling in college he goes I love it he goes I actually know a customer that could use those and he emails me the info and and he goes I'll do you one better I'll email the company too so they know you're gonna get a hold of them I was like wow so that company makes security screen doors and they needed a hinge like this so I get a hold of them and he goes hey we'll take a hundred of them well the hundred paid for the whole shipment and I was like okay thank you so much I was so excited about this hundred unit sale and then I was like jammer so weak so I call them back I call them back and I go so what would you sell them for each for the hundred fifty bucks a wow and you paid would you pay for me dollars and twenty eight cents or something like that so twenty five X on your money for the ten percent of them yeah so so here was the crazy thing so they were in they were down by where Shannon Jean lives in California I won't name the city and I was like if I deliver these things I could take him to dinner because I'd like to meet him and so I called him back and I go hey if you guys can if you guys can do another hundred I'll save you the freight and I'll personally personally deliver him to you and that way we get to meet and we can build a relationship and I can see what you're doing and see if I can help you in any other ways and I go sure we'll do it so about another hundred off of me and I put him in my pickup literally like that weekend and drove to California and then I took Shannon to dinner oh my gosh yeah it's the craziest deal ten thousand bucks but but like you know I still have have seven hundred of those hinges so it's on my to-do list right now is get back in the get in the hinge selling game okay all right so October 2024 yeah so that was a big one though that kind of fired me up I was like was that in October yeah okay so that's 10 of the 60k yeah where did the rest of it come from furniture chicken coop you name it just drive by customers in Facebook marketplace yeah yeah a lot of a lot of appliances we're selling everything like it was it was kind of bonkers we had three bins of women's clothing that we separated into like small medium large extra large and it's freezing outside and women loved standing at these bins looking for clothing that would be good for them and it's 40 degrees in the shop and they they still actually come into our nice new retail store and they're like oh we loved doing that over there it was unique now what types of items sold particularly well and what types of items just didn't sell yeah so I get asked this all the time I've been really successful selling everything I think the thing that will slow you down is when you get something that needed to be worked on so like we got a patio table in and the table was cracked that would slow me down personally what I found out is it shouldn't there's a buyer for everything but but I always have to tell myself I'm not my own customer because I don't buy cracked patio furniture but other people do they're happy to buy it yeah and so it was really me slowing things down one side realized that there's a customer for everything maybe it's just a price adjustment or remarketing it a different story something everything's done really well I haven't I haven't found things that just sell now if you look at this business model as renting a spot on a busy road and selling all kinds of random things right let's say that's the business model yeah is there any market or any scenario where that business model wouldn't work no yeah because we're buying stuff that we're buying anyway yeah so realize the thing the thing that frustrates me is I don't want to be captured by my market size so I've really expanded my market now because I have the time to do it also I sell a ton of stuff all over the state and my friends are like why are you delivering this stuff and I'm like a couple reasons I'm making a customer that's not a customer for this one transaction they're gonna buy from me forever and so I do a really good job of getting them getting their information so I can remark it to them but also just making a friend and they're like we have a friend that can get us stuff at a discount thank you yeah so so I I've capped larger markets so there's there's a person in the tri cities that I think you know a Mike the weatherman that does the couch flipping yeah yeah so Mike just sold a set of golf clubs a couple golf bags and some furniture that I had because when he doesn't have a couch to flip I wanted him to have other product and then I have a little shop at my in-laws house in the Seattle market and so I put stuff that actually won't there's stuff that's slow-selling in Ellensburg Washington that's like the high-end wine cooler the farmers don't want a high-end wine cooler they want a freezer to put a side of beef in and so I take anything that fits that market over there and I put it in their warehouse and and then I just meet people there or even my in-laws will go down and meet people on on market place and and take care of the transaction yeah so I'm trying to do that more places as a matter of fact my brother retired from the construction business because he's taken care of his sister-in-law and I just got him a pallet of used vacuum cleaners which we tell nobody to buy but because he was mean to me as a kid I bought him a pallet of it and but all you have to do literally with these vacuum cleaners is clean them up they all work they're just like I just cleaned when it was full of confetti and birthday cake and the return reason was doesn't suction anymore well yeah yeah what do I so but the unique thing the parts of a dice and vacuum sell really well on eBay and for more money than I'm buying the whole vacuum. - Wow. - Wow. - And so I was like, there's a great market. You just have to clean them. - Yeah. So what did you do after the month of October? You scaled to the sear spot? - Yeah, so here's the transition. So when October, November, December, January, February, March, and we were doing well. We were hitting that 60s and even a little higher, sales volume every month. And then I got the opportunity to move into the sear store. And this will be a good lesson for everybody. So the sear store, 6,000 square feet, center of town, great retail space, move into it, no traffic. So the car, we don't have the cars driving by. I don't have the sidewalk to put stuff out on. And so sales actually dipped. - Hmm. - And hit like, and I had, I didn't have a long period of time from when I was moving, but I literally had that reader board sign that I was telling you about, said moving the address, we were handing out flyers to tell everyone, I still get people coming in the store. And they were like, oh, we found you. I weren't you the one that was in the tow truck shop. And I was like, yeah, that's us. So I've had to do more marketing now. But the shopping experience is much better. And my goal of selling the business is better because it would have been hard to sell. Even though I know you and I might buy a business based off of profits, there's a lot of people that would be like, I'm running a store out of a tow truck shop and I have to have the door open and I got to roll all this stuff. Out doesn't seem appealing. This, this retail store looks like the real deal. - Yeah, yeah. - Interesting. - Yeah. And then what was your rent at this year's compared to 3,000 a month on the other place? - It was, so my rent's 4,500. - Okay. - But I'm in a 6,000 square foot space. So I actually, I was below market for the space that I moved into. And it wasn't much money. But my sales did take a dip and I was like, Jim, did you do this? Was this a mistake? And I was like, no, you just need to market more. And so I just turned on the marketing and keep growing. So I was complaining about this exact situation. I'm like, oh my gosh, my small town is frustrating the heck out of me here. We have this great store, great prices, but I'm slow. So I posted on Facebook a post, Jim's thinking about going out of business. We had our biggest day of the year. We did $15,000 in sales. Everyone came in. They were like, are you really closing? I go, no, I'm just thinking about closing. - You were honest, you were honest. - And they all cracked up and they know. - They gave it. - We had our best days. So my next, as a matter of fact, I decided I'm gonna do it every month. I just haven't thought of my next hook. - Yeah, yeah. - Jim had a nightmare about closing his business. - Yeah. - Jim's thinking about closing. - So all this started with like a $1,200 palette, right? - Yeah, the very first one was the, the, - Yeah. - And then you just kept rolling profits back into it buying bigger and bigger orders. - Yeah, so I'll tell the numbers. And then finally, and you'll understand this, when I got into the shop, I had all this extra space. And buying options is fun. It's fun to find the deal. But a lot of people don't think about the next part. You gotta sell it. And so I was like, okay, to control me from just being so excited about finding the deal, I'm gonna give myself a budget. And I was like, I looked at my wife, I go, that's my budget, don't ever let me take anymore. It's either gonna make it or not make it based on this and so we've stuck to that. And this morning she actually told me she goes, because now we pay more bills out of that business. We're paying car payments. And we have a loan, we have a government loan that got us through COVID. And so we're paying that payment as well. And so we're using the business to kind of fund some of that other stuff. - What happened to the restaurants? - Sold all of them, but the original. And so it did really well. I was very fortunate. I bought all the real estate for all of our businesses. - That's awesome. - So even though the restaurants were grind, I was really in the end, I was in the real estate business and the real estate did really well. - So if someone wanted, do you still like the restaurant equipment business? Would you suggest that others drive that? As a matter of fact, a couple of Sundays ago, on X, I posted, tell me, if you're into getting into the reselling business, tell me where you live and I'll find an auction near you. And so the whole Sunday I sat there on my couch sending people all over the country of these auction deals. And one of, I think you know him, he's in Utah. He bought a piece of restaurant equipment for like dollars. And he just listed it on marketplace for I think $3,500. He's gonna start it and make great money. And then another one was dog whistles. I found these dog whistles for sale on gov deals for like tenies. And on eBay, they sell for 10 bucks a whistle. - Holy cow. - Yeah. And then a really good guy in Kentucky reached out to me 'cause he had already bought some restaurant equipment but he doesn't know anything about restaurants. And he had three of the identical ovens for months and he goes, Jim, no one's responding to my ad. And I go, okay, you have three. You're not selling any of them. Offer a warranty. And worst case scenario, if something's wrong with the one you sell, you have two more as backup. He just messaged me yesterday. He goes, I changed the ad to warranty. It sold in two days. - Holy cow. - And I was like, dude, I love it. So. - Do you have to know a lot about restaurant equipment or can you just use JCPT? - No, but you should call me or text me. Yeah, there's a few, like I don't buy everything. Restaurant equipment's gonna be dirty, greasy. You want gas appliances more than electrical appliances because a lot of restaurants don't have the capability to put up to install big electrical items. But there's a ton of money to be made in the used restaurant business. Because it's a business, like if I need another and I'm in the restaurant business and I actually need another. You know, it's to help me make money. - Would you say there's a lot of money to be made in finding these random local auctions, like liquidation auctions or is there more money in like the Beastock GovDeals nationwide stuff? - I think the Beastock GovDeals is fantastic. Beastock does a great job. And I also think that there's more tools offered to you. Like Beastock does a lot of teaching as well. So and then Shannon Jean, I mean, great network of people that are helping. And everybody, that group is powerful, man. Everybody wants you to succeed. I would do that and get your feet wet and then start looking for some other things. - Yeah. What would you, sorry, go ahead. - Yeah, I think it's, you know, I love this business because I get my money back and I can build up my bank and then make some different decisions on directions I want to go. So like the other day on GovDeals, I literally got home, I logged in and there was a minute 50 to go on this. 19, 89, Ford F450 truck. And it's the kind that has the big toolbox on the back with the welder and the crane and all. And it was red and I was like, what a cool truck. And it had like 79,000 miles. And the bid was 8,000. And I quickly Google searched. I'm like, just the truck is worth that. What if I parted all out? And so I did $100 more than the other bidders. And there was a lot of bids going on. No one bid. So I win this truck and went over and got it. I sold it. I actually, it's GovDeals when they post their photos. They put a watermark on everything. So you can see the GovDeals watermark. In the air. Yeah, I posted those photos on my Facebook. I said, this truck will be in Ellensburg on Monday. And a guy reached out to me and bought it for 14,000. That's crazy. I wanted to keep it. I drove around with my son. He didn't, he'd never seen a doorknob before. Not a doorknob, but the window crane. You're right. You never see a window crane. Yeah, he's like, yeah, what's that? I'm like, that's amazing. That's your air conditioning. Yeah. That's as long as you're driving. If someone wanted to start doing this liquidating items, what is the number one piece of advice you would give them? I think start in your house. It's the selling. So I tell people to learn how to sell before you learn how to buy, learn how to place. You know, you're going to post something on marketplace and you're going to get 50 lowball offers. I want you to understand how to respond to those and still keep them as future customers. And so I might post something that's like a brand new set of golf clubs for $500 and someone will shoot me an offer for $250 or $300 and I go, I'd love to help you. These are brand new. I do get some lightly used ones in. If you want me to reach out to you when I have one of those in your price range and they say yes and I just keep them there going until I sell them. So like last week, last week I sold or about two weeks ago, I sold three digital pianos and a golf bag. I made, I netted in my pocket $1,100 and I drove over to Seattle and delivered all of them. So that's awesome. And that was off of one old marketplace listing, but people keep reaching out to me for digital pianos. And so I just keep it going. I keep the add up. Tell me about this window thing. So I went out with a buddy of mine who owned a glass company and he goes, I really want to sell my glass company and we're still young kids and I go, why are you making like 400 years of money to get a glass company? Why don't you just hire someone to run it and he goes, do you want to run it? And I go, sure. And so that got me in the glass business and he literally trained me for like two weeks and then he went to Mexico for a month. I guess he was really burned out. So he was in Mexico. I'm running his glass company. I break all of his sales records. Just same. hustle and solve problems. He comes back and I it was kind of a you know that tin man sales where you're selling replacement windows and things like that. Like like we'll take a picture of your house before and after and use it for marketing but it was a little shady the guys that were teaching him were shady and I didn't love their sales tactics and so anyway one day I was at a job and the delivery showed up with the invoice for the windows and they had just told me sell every window for a thousand dollars. You don't even have to measure just sell them all for a thousand dollars. Well which was what I was doing and so then an invoice shows up and I'm like oh my gosh like we're making thousands. I'm selling you a window for a thousand dollars that we're paying a hundred and fifty dollars for and I just put 22 of them in your house and so I go Gary you need to give me a raise or put me on a bigger commission and he goes this is his exact words. He goes just start your own glass company and I looked at him with that weird look like really and so I went to kinkos that night at midnight and made a business card and a flyer and printed them all out and the next day with Shannon my fiance we drove to this neighborhood that had all aluminum windows and we taped these flyers on people's doors. Set up six qualified appointments I sold all six new windows and that week every day when I get home after an appointment we would figure out our cost and what I sold them for and that week I made fifty two thousand dollars selling windows and I was like oh we're rich and this is this is now with the the woman I married to but I was so in love with her I was like you're in good hands yeah and the mistake that I made because I was still new in business was I put the windows in myself and so when I started installing windows I wasn't out selling and that kind of created a snowball of cash flow and other things so I made it but it would be much more successful now if I jump back in so if you if your competitor was selling in for a thousand what were you selling for no my competitors some of the competitors would be close to that but most would be selling that same window in the five hundred dollar range is that what you were at to no I was selling at a thousand so we were expensive for you mean when I started when you have the job or when you started your own business so I did it so I had the job selling them for a thousand dollars a whole and then when I put the flyers on people's houses I was quoting at a thousand I was just more flexible and so the very first sale I it's still ingrained in my memory I was I was in the house husband and wife twenty two windows two patio doors and they want to buy but they said Jim let us think about it and I go yeah no problem and I sat down on their couch and I started reading a book and I didn't say a word even though I know what I'm doing it was the most uncomfortable few minutes of my life oh I'm sure and they're sitting they're like what is he doing we thought we had him with that let us think about it and you're like oh you think I'm that that's the first time I've heard that yeah so all of a sudden they say something to me and I look up and I go you know what I probably didn't show you enough about the features and benefits of this window literally like straight out of the zig-zag-ziggler book and so I went over the windows again and they they told me they go Jim we had another quote and it was quite a bit less than yours and I go oh can you get it was sure enough they bring me out an estimate from somebody else well it was so much it was seventeen thousand it was like five thousand dollars less I think than where I was at and I was like how do I lower the price I want the job still how do I lower the price without looking like an idiot yes I said you know what I can't lower the price like this but we do have a marketing department that spends money on marketing can I call them and they go sure so I walk down to my van and I called myself the marketing and I went that up and I said you know the yard sign that I want to put in your yard when I'm installing your windows and they go yep I go would you keep it here for three months and they said yep and I said I have other appointments in your neighborhood if one of your neighbors wants to call you to see how I'm doing would you be willing to take five phone calls I go I'm not gonna bother you with the bad ones just the good ones and they go sure and I go okay we can we can approve it then and then the last objection she she wasn't even an objection but she threw it out at me she goes Jim last time we had a contractor they left our house messy every day and I don't know where this came from but I said I'm here helping you pick out the right window I'll be back here with my brother because I was hiring my brother to install a home because I never put a window in before other than the few from the other company and I said I'll be back to put the windows in with my brother and then my mom comes to make sure we leave your house mom clean and finishes up the final paperwork and the lady goes we'll take them and I was like I just invented the mom clean clothes and so I called my mom and I go mom when I'm done putting these windows because I was so excited I just made this big sale I go mom when I when I put these windows in I need you to come to their house and make sure that we cleaned it and she and then she's the well why wouldn't you clean it and I go I am gonna clean it I just need you to come do it and get the paperwork and and the other half of the chat so that started my window business and a way we went that's amazing and but I didn't I didn't love the business and I am a good salesperson but at one point in that cycle I would get a twitch in my left eye every time I set an appointment and I'd be looking in the mirror can you see my eye twitching no as a muscle reflex that was just like gym this isn't aligning with how you really want to help people and the mom clean clothes and all this other stuff that I would have to go through to get to the sale and so that's why I was like I want to get out of this and do something that people just love and want to pay me and and come back more and more so that's what pushed me into the restaurant business okay do you think that like someone starting a window business today is still viable I mean I I would love to teach someone how to do it or jump back in it because it's even more viable because of technology but now you can send me a photo that instantly gives me so much more information and helps me pre-qualify you and and so many other things what one of the big one of the big problems was traffic in Seattle so the final straw was I was driving home and I got a message that someone wanted a free estimate on a broken window and they were south of me and I looked at Southbound traffic on the freeway and I was like it would take me two hours to get to them how do I replace a four hundred dollar window yeah when I'm gonna be stuck in traffic yeah now with the phone super simple I mean I was on a call with a guy just the other day and he had just invested in a local window business and he was like they're kind of stagnant how should they find customers and I just pulled up the Facebook the meta ads library and started looking for window companies here in DFW and saw you know dozens of them with dozens of ads each and I'm like Facebook ads and then you kind of looked at like what the Facebook ads were doing there were still images they were before after they weren't instant form they led to the the landing page with the contact us for my set just copy exactly that and a week later he's like dude our leads triple Facebook yeah like that's it so when you come on like endless lead flow plus high margins it's got to be a good business the window business I it's great margins so I ended up you know I was for my lead Jen I hired crews that would literally tape that same flyer in neighborhoods every single day and so I'd get four guys back in the day Hannah must back of flyers and rolls of tape and they would just canvas the streets and tape these flyers on people's doors so yeah it's pretty crazy and then later because you know I didn't know any better I back than it was called full truck so I picked the very center seam of your phone book so I got both pages where it automatically opened because that's where the staple seam was and I had a double add on both sides super expensive so now I'm working for the phone book company I really have to sail a lot more windows so yeah okay so love the real business crazy I love it yeah Jim I've got another episode starting in three minutes but where can people find you if they want to reach you this has been amazing I appreciate you so Twitter I think is the or link to you the spot under reseller row restaurant row Jim row you'll find me and join the Shanna Jean group and I'm in there helping people all the time so okay we'll link to you thank you Jim yeah appreciate you