[00:02] Hey guys, what is up? Welcome back to another episode of the Smart Flip. Guys. Today I have with me Aaron Goldstein. Aaron Goldstein, owner of Mercury Electronics and the Vegas phone buyer.

[00:13] And guys, today we're going to be talking a little bit about Aaron's background and then we're going to dive into talking about the direct buying that he's been doing that he's recently started doing.

[00:25] What over the past what, four months now? Is it four months?

[00:30] We'll be diving into that a little bit and going over things like that. And we'll be dropping that price sheet also in the description in the first comment below for you guys.

[00:39] That way you guys can check that out and sell directly to them. So with that being said,

[00:45] welcome to the podcast. Welcome back to the podcast. Aaron,

[00:49] I know spoke a little bit more about negotiation than anything else. For those of you that don't know, Aaron is the negotiation and reach out coach now inside of Accelerator.

[01:00] He basically helps our students find their first couple of deals, helps them negotiate a little bit. And you know that, that sort of thing. We now have it in two ways for game consoles and your phones.

[01:13] So with that being said, let's, let's talk a little bit about you, Aaron. Dude, how did you start phone flipping and how'd you get to where you are now?

[01:22] I was working a job making about $25,000 a year. And I'm like, this is not cutting it. And I was living super cheap too, which was the thing. I went to actually Craigslist in my area and I typed in places to rent, like the cheapest places.

[01:36] I sorted it by cheapest. The first place that popped up was like a shed. I don't even know if it had a bathroom or not. And the second place was this, a mobile home.

[01:44] It was about 360 square feet super old.

[01:47] And I think it was, I think I forget the price now. I think it was 375amonth.

[01:52] So I moved in there and this thing, I mean was a, this was a hoop de doopty. Like there were certain places in the floor you couldn't step on because it would, it would crank down during the winter time.

[02:02] The pipes would freeze sometimes. So I would go to Planet Fitness, the shower, because the shower, you know, wouldn't work. And sometimes I, I'd go to the gas station to use the bathroom like on the way home because I wouldn't want junk to pile up in the toilet for a couple days till the pipes would finally unfreeze.

[02:16] So I'm living like super cheap. And I'm still, like, freaking. And I maxed out all my credit cards, and I'm still, like, not able to. So I'm like, something's got to change, right?

[02:22] I'm like, this is just not good enough. And I was looking for a way to make money. I was actually trying to do a Shopify store. So I was trying to make money online, and that just wasn't working for me.

[02:30] I'm not saying it doesn't work. I was probably doing something wrong, but it was like, it wasn't working,

[02:35] so. But I was looking for a way out. Had an old friend of mine walk into the store that I was working at,

[02:41] and he basically told me that he was making money buying and selling electronics, and he was selling them on ebay. And he sold. Showed me a screenshot. This was Anthony, right?

[02:51] He showed me a screenshot of the money he was making. He made, like, 50, 57,000 or something. And of course, that wasn't profit, but I was like, that's a very good amount of money.

[03:02] And that's how I got started in the business. He introduced me to the old, you know, David Kosciusko. And I bought David Kosciusko's program just because I'm. I bought programs before.

[03:11] And I understand that, you know, sometimes some programs are put together better than others, just depending on the person. But I understand the importance of, you know, I just wanted to get it started right away is what I wanted to do.

[03:22] I just wanted to skip the learning curve and have someone tell me what to do. And I've done stuff like that before. You know, when I got into fitness before, I'd pay a personal trainer.

[03:29] They would tell me exactly how many reps to do, exactly how many sets, exactly how to do it. So I just had experience in kind of that space before. And so I bought the program.

[03:38] I did payments on it because I couldn't do the full amount.

[03:41] Me, too.

[03:41] And I also didn't pay some of my bills for a month just so I could use that to pay for the program.

[03:47] And I got started with it right away. I just did exactly what the program did. And I think one of the things I did that allowed me to be successful is a.

[03:53] I took massive action. I bought the program at, like, midnight in the first four hours. I just went through the program and did exactly what it said. So I'd go through a video, take action, Go through a video, take action.

[04:02] And actually, that day when I woke up, I had a lady contact me. I bought two phones from Her, I met her at Denny's. I sold them on ebay. I paid like $80 each and I sold them for like 160 or 180.

[04:14] So within 24 hours of buying the program, I made 100 and like $82 in profit after the ebay and the shipping, et cetera, et cetera. And one of the things I liked about the program is it seemed, you know, if I'm just going to be honest with you, Chris,

[04:27] there's pros and cons of the program. What's one of the cons? The cons is you're probably not going to be making to $10 million a year flying in a private jet next to Grant Cardone or Alex Her Mosey or, you know, in the Rothschilds or whoever it is.

[04:39] It's got all the planes, right? But one of the pros is you can start making money right away. And that's what I liked. I'm like, okay, you're gonna post some ads.

[04:49] Which we were, we were posting ads back then, or now we would call it. You're gonna turn on ads or do reach outs and you can literally start picking up items, you know, that day or the next day.

[05:00] So in my experience, it seems like the business is like, you know, maybe real estate. If you get into real estate, you're not going to flip a home tomorrow. If I buy a real estate course, Chris, I'm not going to flip a home tomorrow and make 20 grand.

[05:13] I'm not going to have a thousand apartment complexes tomorrow. Maybe in 20 years, but not tomorrow. Then there's businesses where it's more of like kind of hustling and grinding, but you can start making money right away.

[05:24] And it seemed that that's what this business was. And that was my experience my first week. Even though I had a full time job and I was getting off work at 9:00 at night, sometimes 9:30, I would just do meetups before work, after work or on lunch break.

[05:36] And I was picking up items. My first week I made $500 in profit. And I was like, this was really good, especially for having maxed out all my credit cards, only making, you know, about $25,000 a year.

[05:47] And what happens? I just kept doing it, I just kept scaling it up and I just kept hitting it hard. Every day I'm hitting it hard, hitting it hard. A few months later, I was doing about $1,500 a month and it was great.

[05:57] I ******* remember I finally had money for the first time where it's like, I Had money to buy stuff. I remember we had this pizza party at my work, and I took out like fifteen hundred dollars in cash because I, you know, I had the extra cash on me to buy the phones.

[06:11] And I counted out like, the 15 or 20 bucks that I owed for the pizza. And that was the first time I had money like that for years and years.

[06:18] Because before that, I mean, I was just living paycheck to paycheck. All the credit cards were maxed out, and I kept getting those $35 bank of America overdraft letters in the rail.

[06:25] I really hated that, actually, for my taxes. I added that up. And I think that that year before I started phone flipping, it was like I got like over $1300 in those overdraft fees because I kept hitting.

[06:37] I didn't have any money. And then what was nice is as I started phone flipping, I didn't have to do that, right? Because I just started getting the money. I just kept flipping it over and over.

[06:44] I quit my job about five months later after I got started. When I quit my job, I was doing about $2,000 a month.

[06:52] I was super nervous to quit my job. I was just super nervous. And I remember Alex from Mosey talking about it. So I guess it's like a common thing. But I was just so nervous to quit it, I guess just because of the security.

[07:01] Even though I was making two to three times what I was making at my, you know, phone flipping. And I just remember when I quit my job,

[07:09] deals started coming in. And what happened is I had all this free time opened up, all this free time. Because what I did and what I realized I did without really realizing it is I was just putting all my attention into the phone flipping stuff.

[07:20] So my life was unbalanced for a bit Because I'm working my job 40 hours a week. And, you know, if you're working 40 hours a week, you're probably working more for like 4550,

[07:29] because you got to drive there, you got to drive back. Sometimes they don't pay you for lunch break. Sometimes there's some stupid meeting or you got to do this. So it's like if you're working 50 hours a week, and then I'm doing the phone thing before and after, I'm doing it every second that I can.

[07:41] I didn't really have a life. I wasn't dating at all. I wasn't spending any time with friends. But then it's like the phone flipping is the same time. But Now I got 50 more hours of free Time I'm like, this is.

[07:53] It was ******* great. I mean, it was great. I started hanging out with friends, started having a social life. I started having time to go to the gym. I started just being able to care about other stuff.

[08:01] It's almost like when you're kind of up to your neck in debt and there's no money. For me, I was in survival mode is what it felt like. And I could finally, like, take a step back.

[08:11] I could finally relax a little bit. It was really, really nice. So I kept doing that. And then,

[08:18] you know, I did that for years and I actually took some time off. I had this other business that eventually went down, so I took about two and a half years off.

[08:24] I got back in the phone flipping February of last year and my first three months into the business, my first, My third full month back into the business in a brand new city, I did over $8,300 in profit.

[08:37] And I loved it because it showed me that the skill set I had. And you know, all these YouTube podcast people talk about it, but it's like once you have the skill set, you can use it forever.

[08:46] So it's kind of nice. I had the skill set of being able to negotiate and understanding these phones. I was just able to reapply it again. And my learning curve was a lot lower.

[08:54] Right.

[08:55] So I got back into it. And now, of course, I probably. I don't know what I fluctuate at, but maybe it's 10, $12,000 a month in profit. It might be a little bit more.

[09:05] You know, Yesterday I did eight pickups, and it was nothing crazy about 400. No, I think it was $390 in profit is what I made yesterday.

[09:15] So it was. And then of course, I became a direct buyer too, just because it's. I understand what.

[09:22] One of the pants things I didn't like about other direct buyers was that they would take too long to pay. And me in the business, I want the money right away.

[09:30] A, I want it because I need to buy more items, and B, I don't want to have to think about it. And because I'm probably insecure. Even if I send it to someone I know, if they don't pay me for three days, I'm like, okay, what the hell's going on?

[09:40] Yeah, knucklehead's gonna be a scam. So there's peace of mind. So it's like, I understand it because I'm on the other side. So that's one of the reasons I became a direct buyer.

[09:49] And that's still the model that I have payment within 24 hours of when any items land. So when your package arrives, even if it's on a weekend, I pay you within 24 hours.

[09:57] I can't tell you how many times I send it to a direct buyer. Gets there on Thursday,

[10:02] Friday, they send me the little screenshot invoice thingy with the item that looks right. I don't hear from them ******* Saturday or Sunday. Because I guess these guys live high and mighty and they can take the weekend off.

[10:14] And then I get a payment on Monday, and then maybe it's a wire and it doesn't hit till Tuesday. I'm like, all right, it's been like five days and I finally just got payment, so I pay within 24 hours.

[10:23] That was one of the pain points I was trying to solve.

[10:26] That's the real thing, though. Like, I, you know, especially if you do pay on delivery,

[10:32] it can take days for them to just. Number one, you know, not. I mean that usually, you know, there's some out there that answer quick. But yeah, the payment is kind of a headache.

[10:44] Especially. Especially on the weekends when, let's be real, you're getting most of your deals.

[10:50] That's when most of the deals are your best deals happen on the weekend. You know, like, everybody got paid. You know, they're. Or they didn't get paid or they got a bill to pay or, you know, all that stuff.

[11:01] Everybody is buying stuff on the weekend.

[11:04] So, I mean, I don't know. 1. I know some phone flippers that they only do business on the weekend and that's where they make all their money. And it's like three to five hundred dollars a week and just work on the weekends.

[11:16] But I also want to talk about your schedule here real quick. You don't wake up till like 2pm every day.

[11:22] Right?

[11:24] That's true. And I do lose some deals from that. Because timing matters. There's always. It's pretty consistent. There's. Maybe I lose a few deals a week, if not more because someone messages me at 7 or 8 in the morning and I'm not up till probably 1 or 2 in the afternoon.

[11:37] And one of the reasons I'm in Vegas, so I like to go to the club and I like to talk to girls.

[11:42] So just. That's probably the main reason. Cause, you know, sometimes I'll be at the club till one or two in the morning. So it's kind of like, all right, I'm getting home at three, going to bed.

[11:50] But yes, but I'm still able to make enough money just because I'm having enough leads. And the negotiating is good. But I do lose deals because I'll message people, I'll be like, oh, it's already sold.

[11:59] Yeah.

[11:59] Which makes sense. And it also understands kind of the. There is kind of an urgency with what we do and kind of timing. And that's one of the things I teach and I do.

[12:08] If I have a hot lead and they're messaging me back quickly, I prioritize this. Right. I prioritize these people. I'm kind of. I feel like I'm kind of like, on call a little bit.

[12:17] It's like on call, slash. I'm like. You ever see any of those movies where it's. It's like they send the bad guy to do, like, the. To kill someone.

[12:24] Yeah.

[12:25] And, you know, he's just hanging out at the hotel, and then he gets to call and he goes and he works for a half an hour. That's kind of what I feel like I'm doing.

[12:32] I'm just hanging out thing, going to the gym. I'm doing this, I'm doing that. But then when I get a lead, boom, I'll negotiate. And then sometimes it's boom. A quick meetup, and it's the 70 bucks profit or a hundred bucks profit.

[12:42] That's a good way to look at it.

[12:44] Yeah, that's kind of.

[12:45] I usually do either the scheduled meetup model or they. They just come to me. You know, I've met. I've met people, you know, while my kid is in gymnastics class, while I'm at the gym, while I'm whatever, You know, like, if I can't meet them in my scheduled times, and they'll just come to me.

[13:01] And that's usually how it works for me. But,

[13:04] I mean, it really depends on what you prefer. You know,

[13:09] a lot of people, you know, let's. Let's talk about that real quick, actually. So for the people that say they don't have enough time for phone flipping, you know, you did it before work, after work.

[13:22] Is it just excuses that people are making?

[13:25] Well, for me, anything that's not the end result is an excuse.

[13:28] That's how I look at it with myself.

[13:32] Right. I wanted to get better at women. That's one of the reasons I moved to Vegas, because there's lots of. There's lots of women here. So I could. I could have said at the first area I was born in,

[13:41] there was people, but there wasn't as many women and attractive women that I find is here. So I could have said, it's not my fault, it's where I'm bored. But I just took responsibility and I moved here and it's been better, you know, now I'm going on a few dates a week.

[13:52] So it's anything to me. The way I view it for me is anything. If I don't get the end result that I want, even if the reason's valid, that's still my fault.

[14:00] And at the end of the day, if I die not getting the things that I want, that's still on me. So I just rather take full responsibility. I could say, oh, you know, there's all this corruption in the banking system and all this inflation.

[14:10] So I can't make money in a business. I can't do it because there's all these things and all this corruption underneath. And they got the Federal Reserve and all this ****, which is true.

[14:19] And there is inflation and. And there's higher taxes than there was before. They didn't even have the income tax, you know, till, what was it, the 16th amendment. So I got to pay all these extra taxes.

[14:27] It is harder than it was before.

[14:30] But there's still lots of people doing it,

[14:32] right? At a smaller scale, like me, at a bigger scale, like Alex from Mosey. And there's a lot of people that we don't see on social media that are making it happen too.

[14:39] So if they can do it, if there's one other person that can do it, I can do it. And then I think about some of the students that have bought the programs in the past, like Remy.

[14:47] He was working 60 hours a week. He has a wife and two kids. He was able to make it work. And then he was able to eventually quit his job and go full time, right?

[14:55] Maybe it took him a little bit longer, I don't even know if it did, to be honest with you, but he was able to make it work. We had that one lady who was like 70, I forget her name.

[15:03] She was in one of the first programs and she was like. I was like, you know, she was able to make it work. I think she was working 50 or 60 hours a week.

[15:10] So I don't know anything. But the good news is their excuses doesn't affect the U.S. right? It's not going to affect me growing out and picking up items. And that's one of the reasons this business model will always be available, is because there's always going to be a decent percentage of people who are going to have excuses who are not going to do this.

[15:25] Maybe because it's fear of the unknown. Maybe because they actually believe their excuses, whatever it is. But that's why this opportunity is always going to be available. Because there's if, if,

[15:37] if 100,000 people all of a sudden decided to start phone flipping, it would get saturated really quickly in an area.

[15:42] Yeah.

[15:43] But because there's so many people that have the excuse they let the fear of the unknown stop them, there's always going to be that opportunity. That was one of my concerns because I've been in this now for eight years and I've seen them like, well, is it going to get saturated?

[15:56] Sometimes it could be a little bit more competitive in certain areas, but it's like it's never going to reach that saturation point where no one can make money with it.

[16:04] Like now one of the things I got to do is I'll pick up the phone now because there's, you know, big, big players in my area and if I just text them after they call me sometimes they might not respond.

[16:14] They'll sold it to someone else. So sometimes I gotta be a little bit more on it. But I mean, it's perfect. I did eight pickups yesterday.

[16:20] Right.

[16:20] I made with the pickups I did. I think it was, I'd have to do the math. I think it was $490 in profit. I'd have to do the math. But it was, you know, we're still able to make it happen.

[16:31] So an excuse is an excuse in my book.

[16:33] For real? Yeah. We got one student right now who just. He hit $12,000 in net profit working 8 to 5 every day. Every day during the week he works 8 to 5.

[16:46] He picks up phones and electronics. After he works, he's, he's closing deals while he's working. I think he's even picking stuff up on his lunch break. Like so, like, I mean, and his goal is to save.

[16:57] I think it's a hundred grand. Like that's his goal. Like so.

[17:02] And you know, there's no excuse really. Like,

[17:07] it is what it is. Right. So I love that.

[17:12] So what made you want, want to become a direct buyer? Was it just the 24 hour payment or like, like what was the. I mean, obviously you just like making money, I'm assuming.

[17:22] But.

[17:25] I like making money, yes. And the other reason was I wanted to, you know, help people out. I wanted to be able to be able to. The what I wanted in a direct buyer.

[17:34] I wanted to be able to do that.

[17:37] Got it. Awesome. So what are you paying the best prices for right now?

[17:45] Best prices for icloud lock stuff,

[17:49] icloud lock, chimera, those type of things. And then paying very good prices for some sealed carrier lock phones.

[17:58] Interestingly enough, paying good prices for. And then also carrier locked iPhones with like,

[18:04] you know, like cracks. So it's kind of niched down. It's like I got the price sheet and the price sheet, we have all sorts of items, but the best ones is the main ones is like anything that's icloud locked, icloud iPhones, Apple watches, iPad, very good for those.

[18:19] And basically going after the devices that are either damaged or non usable. Essentially.

[18:26] Yes,

[18:27] got it. And then also like the carrier lock sealed iPhones, our prices went up pretty good for those a couple weeks ago. Like the iPhone 16s of anyone that had my price sheet the first like month, the iPhone 16s, it wasn't that good.

[18:38] But now it was. A couple weeks ago I finally got that fixed. So it's like anytime there's like a, you know, this is more of a direct buyer thing, but there's like a little issue where my prices drop.

[18:46] In one specific thing I'm trying to, you know, push it back up by solving something.

[18:52] What's that like trying to find like. Because obviously direct buyers sell to other direct buyers for normally a premium or they sell somewhere else. But what's it like having to constantly maintain pricing as a direct buyer?

[19:09] That's something I never want to deal with. Like I can't stand that. Is that, you know, like, what's that like?

[19:16] So it is as a direct buyer, the profit margin, direct buyers are making money and the profit margin is smaller.

[19:21] So the price sheet, if you're giving prices, has to be on it. And you have to be on it as far as maintaining prices. You have to have a tap and a feel on the market.

[19:33] And the other thing is you have to have the capital because you know, sometimes it's, I'll have, you know, tens of thousands of dollars moving out. That's one of the things I've noticed.

[19:41] Like right now,

[19:43] you know,

[19:44] I got a package for eight grand that's going over here. I'm about to do another drop off of nine grand. So it's, you know, to be a direct buyer maybe, you know,

[19:56] I mean, I guess you could do it at any level, but it's like you also need money to pick up items locally. And then maybe the direct buyers you're selling to, they're called tier two direct buyers.

[20:04] Maybe those guys take a little bit to get you paid, right? Like One of the guys I sell to, he sometimes takes a week or two to get paid. So sometimes I got, you know, $10,000 just being tied up till he's getting money from, you know, wherever he's selling it from or what he's doing with it.

[20:19] Sometimes people aren't selling it. Like, you know, like one of the things for icloud, like phones is those get broken down for parts. Yeah, yeah.

[20:27] People just take parts out of them and then resell them.

[20:29] Right. And they have a network and a distribution network. So sometimes it's like almost like the **** stars show where there's, you know, someone that had a jewelry store, bought an item, and he sells it to the **** shops guy, Rick, and that guy sells it to, you know, listed at an auction,

[20:43] and the auction takes their percentage and it goes to a person. Sometimes there's like, you know, a hand. I don't know how many middlemen there are. Sometimes might be five middlemen.

[20:50] Yeah. I've noticed there is a ton of middlemen in this business. Like. Like a phone can switch hands like, three to four times before it gets to, like, its destination. Right.

[21:03] Like, where somebody will actually use it or take it apart or whatever. Because I've noticed, like, sometimes, because there's a lot of, like, local resellers that don't sell online either or don't even know direct buyers exist.

[21:13] Like, I've noticed that,

[21:15] and I did a survey a while back, and I found out that only about 2 out of 10 phone flippers sell online at 2 direct buyers. Most of them flip locally.

[21:25] Oh.

[21:26] Which is quite interesting.

[21:29] I thought it was a higher type of deal than that. But most of them are just side hustlers. Right. So they don't even think this can be a business.

[21:38] But a lot of those people will actually sell to what they consider their local direct buyer, which is somebody like us. Right.

[21:45] And then we sell to another direct buyer, and then you guys sell to another one. So, like, there's so many middlemen in the business.

[21:52] But what I have noticed is the profit margins go lower and lower and lower as you go higher. Right. So it becomes a volume game towards the top, it seems like, where it's just like, you got it.

[22:05] You got to just get a lot with a lot of money.

[22:08] That's true. And then sometimes you do have price drops. So if the price drops, if someone sends an item and the price drops, it's.

[22:14] There's definitely other things. There's nothing wrong with it. Of course, you know, you can make some fine money with it, but you have to be on it, and you can't.

[22:21] You know, if you make some mistakes, you could be out thousands of dollars. And also, if you're looking for, you know, someone in, you know, freaking wherever it is, if you're looking for someone in Mexico City or you're looking for someone in Dubai or wherever you're selling to, depending.

[22:34] And sometimes certain items go to certain places. It's like the first time. Do you trust them? Because a lot of these guys do pay on delivery. Are you going to trust someone to send them?

[22:42] You know, I just found a new guy, and I sent him $3,100 in product, and I got paid, but it's like, you know, this was a brand new guy. I checked around and a lot of people hadn't heard of this guy.

[22:51] It was a newer guy. So it's like, you know, do I want to risk this, you know, to possibly, you know, be able to be more competitive? So it's definitely a thing.

[23:00] Almost a good example of this. I did one pickup in St. Louis. So I go and I meet up for the pickup. Three freaking guys come. Three guys come to the meetup.

[23:08] And what happened was it was this guy's phone, and this guy knew this guy, and this guy knew this guy, and this guy knew me.

[23:15] So I bought the phone, and everyone ended up getting a piece.

[23:19] What?

[23:20] Yeah,

[23:22] I don't know what they got. Maybe it was 20 or 30 bucks a piece, But I paid the money and everyone got like a cut because it was like a.

[23:28] And then, you know, you know me. I don't know what I did with it. I sold the one guy. He probably saw it.

[23:34] That's funny.

[23:36] Business.

[23:38] So crazy how this business works. And just.

[23:40] It's interesting.

[23:43] So, like, I get a lot of dms because. Because obviously we own a coaching company that. That helps people grow their business. And I'm getting the question all the time.

[23:52] Oh, you ran away almost just grabbing another water. Oh, yeah, you're good.

[23:58] So I get the question all the time, like, what does it take to become a direct buyer? And I'm like, well, how much capital do you have? And they're like, I have $500.

[24:07] I'm just like, you got a long way to go, buddy.

[24:11] What would you recommend to those people that are starting within that 500 to $1,500 threshold? I mean, I'm assuming you'd recommend go local, obviously, but to build up capital, what would you recommend doing?

[24:28] Well, I could just say what I did when I got started. I had about $193 in my bank account. And of course, all my credit cards were maxed out.

[24:36] So I just did it locally. I built it up, I flipped it, and I focused on local.

[24:43] And then once I had enough money, then I had the ability. Once I had enough savings, that's when I would have become a direct buyer. And in about a year and a half, I saved up a hundred grand and I didn't become a direct buyer then.

[24:53] I didn't even think about it. But I would say, like, you could become a direct buyer,

[24:58] you know, it would, it would be more beneficial for me to, I guess, have less competition and say, don't be a direct buyer. You could do it at any level.

[25:05] But if you have a thousand bucks, you're going to be buying maybe one or two items and maybe you're going to make 60 bucks profit on it, right? And then you got to wait for them to get shipped and you got to ship it.

[25:16] For me, I'd rather just use that item and flip it locally and then wait till I get a good sized nest egg and be able to do it on some sort of scale.

[25:23] And for me, it seems like 20, 30 grand is a good sweet spot because then I can buy enough items as a direct buyer to make it worth it.

[25:31] And then also I can pick up items locally.

[25:34] That's something I wanted to touch on there a little bit too. Like, most direct buyers don't buy locally.

[25:41] Most, I've noticed almost all of them buy from other resellers or phone flippers. You do both,

[25:49] which I think is fantastic. And I think, because there's nothing that beats that local like purchase, right? Like the, the negotiation, all of that. Like all of that. The five skills you need at that level are also where you know you're going to get the most profit per device that you're buying.

[26:09] Am I right?

[26:10] Well, this is true because it's.

[26:13] The direct buyer is more competitive. Be in this business for six months, you're going to know a bunch of direct buyers and you're in these Facebook groups and everyone's posting their price sheet, right?

[26:22] I mean, there's no sign there's me, there's Alice, there's best deal, there's Freaking Easy, there's Gemstar, there's we could go down the list. So with a direct buyer, you got to be fairly competitive on price,

[26:34] which I'm not saying you can't do. But it seems like if anyone wanted to be a direct buyer, it seems like the average profit is maybe 20 to $40 an item is what it seems like kind of the average is.

[26:44] So you kind of need, like, a little bit of deeper pockets to be able to withstand that. When I'm doing local pickups, my minimum profit's 50 bucks. And a lot of times I'm making 70, 80 bucks.

[26:53] Like the last deal I did last night, I paid $160 for one item, and I'm going to make $152 in profit.

[27:02] Yeah, you can't get that as a direct buyer.

[27:04] Right. The phone before that, I paid $380, and that's going to be about $75 profit. So it's more money. And one of the reasons I do. It's like, Aaron, why don't you just sit back and do the direct buyer thing?

[27:15] I like making money, so I want to do the, you know, unless you're really scaling the direct buyer thing, which would take time of finding connections, because no one's going to tell you their connections.

[27:26] So you got to go out there and kind of be business savvy. And, you know, I've gone to, you know.

[27:31] You know, you gotta figure that out on your own. You can't. You know, you're gonna ask Alice, hey, Alice, why don't you tell me who you sell to? They're not gonna tell you who they sell to.

[27:38] Right. And a lot of times there's different people for different things. Certain items might be going to Mexico City, but certain items might be going to a Hong Kong, and certain items might be going to Dubai.

[27:47] Right. So it's just building that up. And that's one of the things I'm in the process of doing now, because, you know, no one's telling me this, so I'm trying to figure it out.

[27:54] This is why I'm paying certain, better prices for certain items.

[27:58] Yeah. Because the people that are paying the best prices, they don't even really interact with you on Facebook or any like. So they usually find you, is what I've noticed as well.

[28:11] Like, they usually are just kind of. At least that's what's happened to me is, is these people will simply just see me and they'll be like, hey,

[28:22] students,

[28:25] sell to us. You know, Sell to us. And that's kind of how it works. So. Because I've noticed you use the same type of tactic, like you'll show your pickups, and then people will just find you that way.

[28:36] So that's very smart.

[28:39] But,

[28:40] like, you know, if you guys. One thing we hadn't noticed across direct buyers, I'VE used a lot of them.

[28:47] Aaron pays within 24 hours. No bullshit,

[28:51] right? Like, that's one of the best things that I've seen.

[28:55] And he pays on the weekend.

[28:57] Barely ever sleeps, you know, other than during the day. But, like,

[29:03] that's that. In my opinion, that that is something that was sorely needed in this industry because everybody seems to not work on the weekends. There's no communication on the weekends.

[29:13] There's none of that. And Aaron does all of that. So I don't think that'll be changing anytime soon either.

[29:21] So.

[29:23] No, because I'm picking up items. I'm responding to leads all the time. So it's like I might as well just be responding to other people. It's like I'm working all the time.

[29:29] I want to be making, you know, some money.

[29:33] Love it. So what would you. So I get this question a lot, especially whenever I send you a price sheet. How do we know that you're legit?

[29:42] That's a very good question. So how do I know that you're not going to send me items and Aaron's just not going to pay you? This. Is this the question?

[29:48] That's the question. Yeah.

[29:50] So it's a very good question.

[29:53] So there's two things, A.

[29:57] And for someone that's known me and known me in the business for a while, they just know that I'm not going to do this because of my reputation. The other thing you can do is if there's any concern, you could post in any groups you could post in any groups about phone flipping and say,

[30:08] hey, I'm thinking about sending Aaron money. Has anyone not money thinking about sending Aaron some electronics? Has anyone had any issues with him paying? So you could do that. And you'll see there's zero responses of anyone having issues.

[30:21] But don't take my word for it, post it. And if you're concerned and you're in a few groups, post it in a few groups. Post it in a few groups and just look for one negative comment.

[30:29] And if you don't find any negative comments and everyone says good things, that helps build trust and credibility.

[30:34] Yep.

[30:35] You can post in. You can post in my group,

[30:38] the.

[30:41] What the heck is my. I forgot the name of my group.

[30:44] Nothing held back. Phone flipping. You guys can post. There is also another really good one,

[30:48] B2B phone flipping and sales. I think it is. That's a really good one.

[30:54] So definitely reference check. You know, Aaron works with a lot of guys. I think you're working with, man. Who are you working with? Now you work with Navon. I think he's one of our students.

[31:04] I think you've sold him a few phones, actually. I think you guys have actually worked together, like, sold each other phones.

[31:10] Yes. Yeah. He's sold me some of the stuff that I pay good for, and I've sold him some of the stuff he pays good for. Yeah, it's interesting, too. I've noticed that some direct buyers sell to other direct buyers.

[31:19] Like, I can tell you some of the ones. And I've seen this guy sell to this guy and, you know, there's this really big guy, he sells me a lot of demo phones.

[31:28] Like, so it's.

[31:30] Yeah, it's. It's kind of like people just kind of whatever people are paying the most for.

[31:33] Well, it seems like every direct buyer also has their niche as well. So,

[31:38] like, I remember whenever I was being mentored by Matt Senka, the only thing that he would buy was like, no power,

[31:47] damage beyond repair, like, phones. That's all he would buy. And he had, like, you know, he had millions of dollars worth of business going through that business Weekly, like,

[31:59] and like, that's all he would buy. And it was crazy to me to even, like, think that that was a market, but, I mean, it is so kind of cool.

[32:09] I noticed that too.

[32:12] Like, there's a market out there. The great thing I love about the electronics industry and the phone industry and stuff like that is, like, there's so much,

[32:22] like, you can make money off of almost anything we just had. Oh, heck. Catherine sells to you too, I think.

[32:30] I think she sold you a few phones. She just did. Last, last time we interviewed her, she did $16,000 in profit in like four months as a, as a brand new person to the business.

[32:42] Like, nice, wild. You know, I think she was. I think she's out there in Vegas with you, right?

[32:48] Yeah.

[32:49] So, yeah. So, like, for everybody watching this, like,

[32:54] there's, there's. There's money everywhere. Like, me and Aaron kind of started in the same place. I went more marketing and software. Aaron went direct buyer. So.

[33:04] But, you know, there's.

[33:06] There's so much, so many different ways you can make money out here in this space that, you know, whether you want to start with damaged phones. Like, in my personal opinion, cracked and damaged phones are bread and butter because people don't have an emotional connection to that, that device anymore.

[33:26] And I always, whenever I buy a phone, I always check with Aaron's sheet first, and that's when I make my offer. Right. If something, if he's buying something for 400.

[33:34] I offer like 250.

[33:36] I like to aim low. Right. And, and then go from there. So is there anything else you want to add on to the direct buying side of the of things?

[33:47] Aaron, you want to show off your price sheet? You want to explain how that works for people?

[33:52] Sure,

[33:53] go for it.

[34:03] Put it right here.

[34:05] So here's the sheet and maybe we'll post a link to it, but we got different tabs. So the, the stuff I'm paying the best for is the icloud lock stuff.

[34:14] And if you have any, you know, direct buyers already, go ahead and you can compare my prices to theirs and especially the 16s. I just got the prices raised on these actually last night, which is nice.

[34:28] So these are the parts only. Is anything that's icloud locked or chimera blocked? We have the, you know, your Apple Watch Ultra 2 paying 215 for those.

[34:38] And then we have the other items as well. But the good stuff is like,

[34:43] is like the main stuff is the icloud lock stuff. And then iPhones and again, specifically the anything that's like carrier locked.

[34:55] Anything that's carrier locked. IPhones. If it's carrier locked iPhones,

[35:00] we pay good prices for those. So like, this is a 16 Pro Max. You know, a 16 Pro Max, 512 gigabytes sealed or open box, unactivated is 915.

[35:14] And this is actually higher than. I don't like to say certain names, but you could chop around and see that this is basically these prices are good. And then anything that's kind of damaged too, it's kind of odd.

[35:24] But if it's like a, a 15 Pro Max carrier locked with like a cracked screen,

[35:31] we paid pretty good for those. We also have a B minus column as well, which is nice. So we have a B minus column because we know like anyone that's in the direct buyer game, we know if there's some heavy or medium scratches, that's there's a deduction.

[35:45] So now you can see the exact price on it. So if it's B grade, you know, if this is B grade, it's 525. But if it's B minus and you don't know what the exact deduction is from your direct buyer, we say it right here.

[35:55] The direct, the Exact amount is 495. And then C grade is 465. So we pay pretty good for these. Cause you could see, I mean, this is only a $30 difference between B minus and a cracked screen on a 15 Pro Max.

[36:08] A lot of other direct buyers, they might be 80, 100, $140 deduction on a C grade. C grade is crack screen.

[36:16] So I know it's kind of an odd niche thing, but it just icloud locked carrier locked iPhones that are sealed and carrier locked iPhones that are issues.

[36:25] Feel free to check it out. And if you have some other items, we have those as well.

[36:29] Yep,

[36:30] good stuff. Love that. And if there's any high rollers that are watching this video, we there's also some stuff if you sell us a certain amount of devices.

[36:40] Like for example, if you sell sell Aaron, like $15,000 worth of devices, we'll give you our reach out tool for free, which is pretty cool.

[36:48] And there's a couple other things like that too. There's a bunch of resources also in that price sheet on top of that. But we'll drop that in the first comment below so it doesn't get removed or anything.

[36:59] That way you guys can download it. You can Contact Aaron through WhatsApp on his price sheet.

[37:07] If you contact him through Facebook Marketplace, you probably won't get a reply or Facebook anyway. Make sure to message him and say your name because we don't know who you are.

[37:19] If you message us and say, hey, all we're going to do is send a price sheet. So with that being said, Aaron, is there anything you want to tell the newbies that might be getting started or the people that are up and coming?

[37:33] You know the best way to.

[37:36] Is there a certain amount of devices that you like to get at a certain time or any little details like that?

[37:42] I wouldn't say the time matters. I would say just taking action. First step is we have to have enough opportunities. So that's a combination of reach outs and or ads. Like me, I'm spending $30 a day on ads and I'm on maintenance mode.

[37:55] When I got started a year and a half ago, again I was spending 50 to $60 a day. So I'd say it's like some of the main things I see is people are just not getting enough opportunities.

[38:03] They might be spending $10 a day on Facebook or Google Ads and they're wondering why, you know, you can't do anything on that. I mean, I'm spending 30 and I'm on maintenance and I'm also ranked organically on Google.

[38:13] So I'm probably getting about five leads a day for free from Google.

[38:17] So we have to have enough opportunities. Like when I'm doing the calls for the reach outs, we teach it's about 1 out of 15. If you follow the right script, which of course we give you.

[38:26] It's about 1 out of 15 people we reach out to. And this is just good because if someone's doing five reach outs a day, they're like, I'm barely picking up anything, not doing enough.

[38:34] We know Navon was doing like 130 reach outs a day, right.

[38:38] And you have your button now which just sends the reach outs automatically. So now there's like no excuse. Just hit the button and yeah, we'll run.

[38:45] So I would say the first thing is making sure we're getting enough opportunities. That's probably one of the main things. I'm probably getting about 20 leads a day now. Like probably about 20 leads a day from.

[38:55] I could just count today from the day so far. One, two, three, four, five.

[39:00] Now, one, two, three, four, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. So about 12 leads so far today. It's about 2:30. My time yesterday was 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, six, seven, eight,

[39:16] nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19.

[39:21] And then I got one lead from the other place, about 20 leads yesterday. And this is from Google. So we have to have enough opportunities. And the second thing is you actually make more money now than you could before.

[39:31] And the reason is we have better systems and processes in place to get you from 0 to 100 faster and more efficiently with less air. And the second thing is there's actually more items to buy.

[39:40] Eight years ago it was really just iPhones. You know, these smartwatches and these iPads were just kind of coming about.

[39:47] Now it's more of a thing. You see a lot more people. There's a higher percentage of people now that have smartwatches or iPads than they did before. So there's actually more opportunity now because people have more electronics now.

[39:59] You got, you know, the Oculus Quests that are coming out and the Google Lenses. So there's actually more opportunity and people are making more money now than they were back then.

[40:07] When I got started, it was more of a part time gig. That's how it was advertised as. And I think the top person was doing four to five grand a month in profit.

[40:14] I mean, you and me, we know all sorts of people that are doing four to five grand a month on profit, on easy mode and a lot more people that are doing, you know, well, not a lot, but people that are really pushing that want to push it, that want to make that good money,

[40:26] that are doing $10,000 plus a month and that just because of we got the systems figured out and they're smoothed out and there's just more items to buy. You got gaming consoles.

[40:37] You got Matt over there buying gaming consoles. You know, we weren't really buying that back then. So it's actually a really good time to get into the business because the opportunity's never been better.

[40:45] I totally agree with that because especially with like game consoles weren't even a thing a couple years ago for buying and reselling. Wasn't thing honestly. It's still super underground as well.

[41:03] We were talking about that one girl that's out there with you.

[41:09] She like that's almost all. She flips that and cameras. You know, she barely flips any phones. She just doesn't feel as comfortable with phones. But the crazy thing is is her margin on consoles and Cameras is over 100% almost every single time.

[41:24] Wow.

[41:25] She's doubling her money almost every single flip. That's crazy. Crazy.

[41:33] It's really good.

[41:34] So like that's really what it comes like, you guys, there's honestly never been more opportunity than there is now. Like it's crazy considering now. You know, we got our, our lead machine here in re accelerator now where you press a button and it sends reach outs for you.

[41:54] You can do a hundred of those a day like without an issue. You got the Facebook ads which are still, you know, they're not as great as they used to be, but they still work.

[42:02] And there's people. I mean we got David Inguez first week in the program made, I believe. Believe it was like he bought something for 200 and sold it to you, Aaron, for like 600 and something made like $400 on, on his very first phone flip.

[42:17] Like that's wild. Like where, where else can you do that? And then we got the Google Ads as well. And the Google Ads, obviously Aaron loves them because they're amazing.

[42:29] Take a little longer to get started, but they're, they work and they're great. And then you got Google my business. And then you got the repeats and then you got other resellers that'll sell you phones and then you like, then you got **** shops on top of that.

[42:44] Like it's. There's so many opportunities now that if you fail, it's honestly your fault.

[42:51] So,

[42:52] so many more opportunities than we had in the beginning for sure.

[42:57] We used to do all this **** manually, you know, you remember posting five ads a day. Aaron, I came right.

[43:02] You're fighting with the platform because they're deleting three of them and all this.

[43:05] Yeah, I remember. I, I can't. I had somebody, somebody sent me that sheet from next level a while back and they were like, here was the, the checklist of what you needed to do every single day.

[43:16] And it was like three ads on Let Go, two ads on Offer up, five on Craigslist every single day.

[43:25] It's crazy. And now that it is what it like, I think it's easier now than it's ever been.

[43:31] Well, yeah, you don't even have to post the ads anymore. I mean, I'm using the same freaking Google Ad you set up for me of February of last year. Yeah, the same one.

[43:40] The same one. No, no adjustments need to be made. It just runs. Just runs and pops out leads for about $2.50 a lead. So it's great. I just kind of wake up, respond to ads, go around, pick up items, rinse and repeat.

[43:52] Doesn't get much better than that.

[43:54] No.

[43:56] Well, any closing thoughts on the podcast, my man?

[43:59] No.

[44:01] The only thing is, I would say just don't let fear stop you from taking action. When I got started in this business, I looked at all the other competitors in my area and all their ads and I was like, there's.

[44:10] I don't know if I'm going to be able to compete up against these guys because I saw all these ads from all these other guys and I was just gonna be another person, right?

[44:17] A small little person. But I just had faith and kept taking action. You know, I didn't let fear of the unknown stop me from taking action. Leila Hermosi talks about it, she was like, just stick with the plan, not your feelings.

[44:29] Just take the actions that are required and that can get you the end result if you're taking the right actions. So that's kind of the model I live by now.

[44:36] I mean, it's true. I mean, in our starter kit program, by the way, guys, that is,

[44:42] it's worth every bit of 997. I should be charging $997 for that program and I'm not.

[44:49] It's $7 a month. And I say in that program,

[44:54] watch the video,

[44:55] do the thing it says to do. Still blows my mind. How many of you that'll just run through the videos? Like blows my mind and just not start,

[45:06] watch the video, do the thing, stop. Like just. And I know You People watching YouTube right now are you just listen in to every podcast that comes out and you never do anything.

[45:17] Like do something, do 20 reach outs today. It doesn't take that long.

[45:23] Like, I give you guys that stuff for free, right? So also we give it away for free because we want you to sell to us. So plug. Right, so sell, sell stuff to Aaron.

[45:35] But with that being said, guys, I mean, that's, that's the end of the podcast.

[45:40] If you want to be on this podcast, let me know. We can plug your business,

[45:43] obviously, if you're not a scammer. But also if you want to scale your business or your operation to $10,000 a month, we have,

[45:53] we have the sauce like it's here.

[45:56] It's been popping out six figure flippers for a while now.

[46:00] So if you're ready to take your phone flipping business to the next level through reach outs, Facebook ads, Google Ads, Google my business and the rest of it. We just had one of our students who went from $5,000, we interviewed him two months ago.

[46:13] He's doing $5,000 a month. He just did $12,000 in profit, net profit. That's after expenses and everything. He increased by $7,000 by just doing what we say.

[46:29] And it's not hard, it's just, it's a volume game and you just gotta know what you're doing. And that's what we teach. We teach you guys how to run your own ads.

[46:37] We teach you guys how to close your own deals.

[46:40] I don't think you need to hire an agency to do that for this business, in my personal opinion.

[46:46] I remember I was talking to Matt Senka about this one time and I was talking to him about automating the whole business and he was like, man, people are just lazy as hell nowadays.

[46:55] Like, they're just, they're too lazy to answer a message and that's why they suck.

[47:00] So don't suck.

[47:03] Answer your messages. Reach out for deals. They're literally just sitting out there on Marketplace and offer up. With that being said, guys, this has been another episode of the Smart Flip.

[47:13] Check out the accelerator and stuff and resources and all of that below in the description and we'll see you guys on the next episode.