[00:02] Hey.

[00:02] Hey, guys. What is up? Welcome back to another episode of the Smart Flip. Today we got RJ with us. RJ's been in the phone flipping industry for quite a while at this point.

[00:13] I think a little bit longer than myself and Aaron Goldstein or around the same time. Can't totally remember.

[00:19] But for those of you guys tuning in while you're driving around picking up deals in your car, we got a great one for you. You guys today. Couple of things before we get started.

[00:28] Make sure to check out the resources and stuff below. We are also on Spotify and Apple and all of that good stuff now, or you know that, that saying, wherever you can listen to podcasts or whatever it is.

[00:41] With that being said, also make sure to check out the Tech Flips to Profit ebook. You can grab the audio version for free on episode 11 of the podcast. It's about two hours long.

[00:50] You can listen to it, get, you know, kind of interested in the industry, see if it's the right thing for you. If you want the PDF version, you can look below.

[00:59] Should be about a $4.95 thing. Couple upsells after that. It's how I get rich. Just so you guys are aware,

[01:06] you know, but. Just kidding, obviously. But with that being said, let's kick this thing off. We got a great guest today. What's up, rj? How you doing, man?

[01:14] What's going on, guys? Awesome to be here. Thanks for having me.

[01:17] Yeah, absolutely. You know, I've been wanting to bring you on for a while and I'm glad we finally found a good time. You're so busy all the time.

[01:24] I know, you know, picking up all the deals.

[01:29] Those of you who don't know, RJ is out in Vegas. He's out there with Aaron Goldstein.

[01:34] And the city is big enough for the both of them too, so I don't think you guys ever cross. Well, I think Aaron does. Every now and then he reaches out.

[01:43] I think he's told me that a few times.

[01:45] Yeah, he's, he's, he's reached out a couple times on my. Because we'll, because my wife and I will sell, you know, the lower end phones. We'll post them locally. And Aaron will,

[01:56] Aaron will message, message my wife's account because we post, you know, she helps posting it on, on her, her,

[02:03] her account for the local sales. So she always says that Aaron's just, just ripping off quotes on, on all of our phones. And I said, just let, just let him, just let him go.

[02:13] He's, he's, he's he's going to be going. He even know it's you. He's. He's spamming, he's going and pushing it out, but.

[02:19] Oh, he's just using retail hawk is what he's doing. Yep.

[02:23] So I, that's what I told him.

[02:24] Using that freaking Chrome extension and just messaging everybody in the local area.

[02:28] Dude, that's so funny. But I've also, I've also, I've also sold a bunch of phones to, to Aaron. That's kind of crazy how it all all evolved out here.

[02:38] It's something to wear, you know, with, with everything that he's doing. You know, just a little bit of background. I, I started back in 20 of 2018 and Aaron had, had started his, his teaching group,

[02:55] but we were also both a part of David Kosciusko's group. So it was right at that time where I started and, and I was learning from Aaron on text negotiation.

[03:05] That was a, that was a big part of my, A lot of what I do today is still the, the core basics of, of what Aaron teaches in, in text negotiation.

[03:14] But again, that was, that was back then when it was, you know, free ads on, on Letgo and Facebook Marketplace and, and Craigslist. I remember doing all the Craigslist ads, man.

[03:28] There was.

[03:29] Started this thing with, with no ad spend. I, I was, I was a stickler with money, man. It was, it was pay zero dollars and figure out how to get phones with free leads and it was a grind.

[03:41] You were posting. I was having to wake up every day and, and post ads on, on three different platforms and try to get as consistent as possible. And you have to worry about, you know, your ads getting flagged and, and accounts getting shut down and just kind of the,

[03:57] the whole underground world of, of marketing back then.

[04:00] Yeah.

[04:01] And the industry was such a, was such a crazy place. But to see now where Aaron, Aaron's coming to my city over the last couple years and watched him explode with growth and success, that was, that was scary.

[04:14] You know, because it's in the area. It's like, okay, this is, this is the grand master. You know, it's taught me everything is now coming into my territory. But what that actually, that was actually a good thing for me because what I had feared at first a little bit with that was,

[04:29] was, oh my goodness, what's going to happen to me?

[04:32] But you know, and it's, it's been awesome. Vegas is a massive city. There's plenty of room for both of us. And now I've, I've Bought a bunch of phones. I've been selling phones to him.

[04:41] He's been selling phones to me and figuring out how to. How to coexist and help each other.

[04:47] But that's just. That's how it is, man. So it's been. It's been a wild journey over the last six, seven years throughout this industry.

[04:56] So with that being said, I would. I would go to say, like, you found how to be collaborative with the competition, essentially. And there's quite a few other phone flippers in Vegas.

[05:06] Quite a few.

[05:08] I've met many of them at this point. And what's funny is we had to start capping cities a little bit for students because we capped it to two typically that are active in accelerator because we noticed,

[05:24] like. So I say that competition isn't real, right? You can collaborate and all that, but what we did find out here,

[05:31] what, a couple months ago, Matt, especially with you as well, in Tulsa, he trained three other people to do what he did in his city and,

[05:41] you know, wasn't a fan.

[05:45] But he's still getting deals.

[05:46] Yeah, he's still getting deals too. But what we did notice is those people that take it seriously, they can sometimes become competition,

[05:54] at least, you know, when they have those skill sets that. That Aaron and myself and Matt provide. It's like, you know, it can be a little. Can be a little difficult at that point, especially when you got the same skill sets.

[06:04] But with that being said, like, you can also collaborate a lot, right? So, I mean, we got you. I got Eugene in my area. I have Tyler Bass a little bit further from me, and I found ways to collaborate with both of them.

[06:18] And, you know, like, if I can't get to a deal, they. They can works out, you know, and then we just split the profit on that, which is great. So you gotta find ways to collaborate, you know, and it sounds like you and Aaron are collaborating really well.

[06:32] Um,

[06:34] so I want to. I'm kind of curious, dude, how are you running your business nowadays? Um, I know you've kind of gone.

[06:39] You.

[06:39] Is it still mostly Facebook ads? Is it Google Ads at this point? What?

[06:43] Oh, it's. It's for me now. You know, I've been. I've been doing paid. I was. I'm. I'll. I'll say this for. For everybody that's listening. I'm a. I'm a late. I don't like change for me, so I'm last to.

[06:58] To, you know, for. I guess, for. For my journey. You know, I loved the. I told you. I love Free ads. I was figuring out how to make. Yeah.

[07:07] Money for, for no cost. Right. Getting leads for free. I was, that's how I, I started in this business for the first two, three years. So even when Facebook paid ads first came on the scene, I was one of the last people to, to even attempt and jump on board to that because I was having success with the free ads.

[07:26] So, you know, paying $10 a day and adding cost to it is like, that was, that was always been a thing for me.

[07:35] So I was a late bloomer to Facebook ads. I finally started doing that because that's kind of essentially after a couple years, that's where the market really shifted. Let go, got axed, and it was harder and harder to do the free posting, so I had to embrace that.

[07:51] But just to give you guys the little bit of info, I'm resistant to some of that change. So I'm still working through some of that today with, I'm the polar opposite of Chris.

[08:01] Chris is very innovative and you're always looking for the new ways to make things simpler, easier, more efficient. And I get stuck on,

[08:12] man, this is what's worked. It's what's always worked. That's where I'm comfortable.

[08:16] So over the last two to three years, I've worked with you on that, trying to make sure that I open up my brain and willingness to change to make my business more efficient.

[08:29] So over the last two years, I've been doing Google Ads. I've been doing Facebook ads ever since, paid Facebook ads ever since 2019. Really?

[08:39] I was on paid Facebook ads from 2019 to about 2022, only running about 15, 20, 20 bucks a day. Maybe 25 is what I grew to. But, um, over the last two years, I bumped that up to, to $50 a day ad spend on Facebook.

[08:59] And then I ended up adding on the Google Ads for about 20 to 30 bucks a day. So for the last two years, I've been running between those two, about 80 bucks a day in ad spend.

[09:13] Hey, $80 a day on Facebook.

[09:17] No, 50 on Facebook. 30 on Google.

[09:19] Oh, cool. So awesome, dude. I mean, so I want to ask about that real quick. Which one do you close more of right now? Is it Facebook or Google?

[09:28] Oh, Google.

[09:30] You know, it's, it's. And again, you know,

[09:33] it's crazy because,

[09:35] because you asked how I run my business. You know, I, I, I make anywhere between 10 to 20k a month, just depending. Now, I told you about, you know, we've, we've had some medical stuff with, with fertility with my wife and I that I've been dealing with, traveling out of state for doctors over the last year.

[09:54] So it's been really tough for us. But even with all of that,

[09:59] this year was probably the hardest year in our business because of that. Because what happened was there's a, there's a flow that happens every year and we all know that, that come phone flipping.

[10:12] You know, September is when Apple releases the new phone. So for us, September, October, November and then we leave for, or Christmas, we'll leave out of state. But from September through December is go time in our business, the busiest time of year.

[10:27] So for me, for the first six years in this business, I had been running ads and not doing anything basically from mid September until really Thanksgiving, I'm working seven days a week and I'm trying to maximize that time of the year and put things together and try and hit 20k months in profit and get as many of those as I can before,

[10:49] before we leave for, for.

[10:52] But this year was a change to where my business got so big over those last six years. From working that hard, keeping ads for, for 365 days a year, even when I'm on vacation.

[11:07] You taught me don't let the flow stop. Like don't turn them off, just turn them down to, you know, $1, $5 a day, whatever it is.

[11:15] So that was what I've done. And I built up such a, such a following of repeat customers that I didn't even realize that turning off my ads, we had to turn them off in September of this year, turn them off to zero because of the travel that we had to do over October,

[11:33] November, December is the worst time of the year in 2024 was us having to leave multiple times a month for medical procedures, for our struggles. And even with the ads turned off in late September of this year,

[11:50] I was still making 12, 13k a month with just repeat customers and just my Google website, you know,

[11:59] and that was something that I didn't even think was possible. I self admittedly had been running this entire business off of fear. I can admit that from 2018, like if I turn off the ads, you know, Aaron's in town, there's a bunch of competition Las Vegas.

[12:14] If I turn off my ads, the customers are gonna be go, that's over. And that's kind of been my mindset. And this has been a, you know, God works in, in funny ways.

[12:23] You know, this whole stuff with the, the struggles actually forced me to turn things off and to open my eyes that hey, you can have more control of your business than you think you.

[12:34] And that was something that I did not believe. I told you this. You know, when I was working with you last year, I was still in the midst of my fear, and you were telling me, take days off, turn off your ads, don't go out and get phones, Organize your inventory.

[12:48] And I still couldn't get myself to do it. And I finally started doing that this year. So it's been a big, big change over the last. I would say four to six months for us.

[12:58] That's awesome the way we do things.

[13:00] Yeah, man. I mean, sometimes there's days where you just gotta. You just got. You gotta organize the inventory, you gotta get stuff listed, you gotta get stuff shipped. You gotta do.

[13:09] You know, like, those days are just as important as the days where you're picking stuff up,

[13:14] you know, Like, I mean, we. You know, we have this issue in recenterator, right, where we help people generate too many leads and find too many deals, but it's almost like they forget the last part to sell it, you know, like, that becomes.

[13:31] That becomes an issue,

[13:32] which is crazy.

[13:34] I was taught, and not that I was taught, but.

[13:37] And this is something, I think, for all people that are new coming in and trying to figure out their. Their growth pattern. I always calculated projected profit, and that's how I make money.

[13:49] My day goes around, and when I'm talking about a successful day, it's how many. How many items am I picking up? I don't even count lead flow anymore. This is all stuff that I need to get back to.

[14:01] This is something that is. I'm not talking out of. Out of confidence. I'm talking kind of to myself. I have to get back to the basis. Because when you do have.

[14:10] When you're spending $80 a day between two ad sets and you're getting.

[14:15] I can't even count how many leads on, you know, between. Between Facebook and Google. You're just trying to catch up and you're missing stuff and boom, boom, boom. All of a sudden, it's just.

[14:24] I just went off of projected profit. And so when you're $500 made today in projected profit, $600 made. Seven hundred. A thousand, twelve hundred. I'm not working today. I'm gonna go golf.

[14:36] I had two meetups and I made $300 projected profit. You start to. You start to. That's what calms me down, is, okay, I know I did good today, but that's projected profit.

[14:48] Now if anybody That's a. That's a guy or A girl, you know, if you have a significant other or girlfriend or boyfriend that's working with you or and whatnot, they will tell you that you have plenty of profit in your office that you can list today.

[15:04] But for me, that wasn't projected profit. My brain after so many years was program said, no, no, no, I have to go get a new customer today. Like, it's almost, it's almost like it became a,

[15:17] it became an addiction.

[15:20] I can't lie to you,

[15:22] was very good in the beginning. And it's that hustle mentality that a lot of guys have when they come first, come into the industry. And it's awesome you want that.

[15:30] But if you're ever going to grow and you're ever going to want to,

[15:35] to scale this thing, that's where you're gonna have to take a hard look at what you're doing. Because eventually this business will outgrow one person and even two people if you're hustling the way that I did.

[15:47] And I refused to accept that. You kept telling me that over the last couple years and I refused to put the systems in place to make the business easier on my wife and I.

[15:59] So now over this last six months, you know, going and making 15, 20 grand a month. I've got four boxes of five grand in cost in this box, six, seven grand in cost in this box.

[16:12] I've got stuff all over the office that I don't even have tagged. I forgot what I paid for them. I'm being very transparent with you guys. It gets really messy really quick.

[16:21] And now I have been, I've been wondering where the cash is at in certain situations because of my own lack of organization.

[16:30] So yeah, so anyway, the last, the last six months has been a real eye opening experience to where we had to have some real hard conversations, my wife and I, about my tendency to just blindly look at the next deal and just sell out for it all day, every day.

[16:49] It's literally, it's like, it's crack for me. You know, I say I'm gonna stay in the office and do this. As soon as I get a lead that's closed on text messages, I say I'm not gonna go out today.

[16:58] And then I'm like, hey, I'll just be back in one second. It's a repeat customer and I'm gone. And then I'm back three hours later with, with four phones and, and my wife's looking at me like, what the hell?

[17:08] So anyway, just being very transparent with you guys. It is the starting this business is easy.

[17:16] Growing it and scaling it has been a very big challenge for, for myself to get over.

[17:25] Dude. I mean,

[17:28] I get it, right? Like,

[17:30] I had to start implementing some things.

[17:34] So the way I do it now is if I buy something, I call it the buyer's high, right? Like,

[17:41] let's be real, you get a dopamine rush when you buy something you were talking about. It's like crack. You know,

[17:50] What I like to do is I still meet people at Starbucks and everything. So I just bring my computer with me and I, I add it to my inventory sheet immediately after I buy it.

[18:01] That way I know what I paid. Because in the past, what I've done is if I don't bring my computer with me, I won't, I won't do it. You know, Like, I'll.

[18:10] So, like, you know, somebody can show up and, like, my computer's already open. I'm ready. You know, Like,

[18:18] I run that imei, I grab the IMEI from SIG W Report and I put it in the fricking spreadsheet while I'm at Starbucks, while I'm checking the phone out. That way I just don't forget because I.

[18:29] There's been many times where, heck, I still have some phones and stuff over here that I forgot what I paid for.

[18:34] Like, there's a couple. There's not a ton anymore, but there's a couple. And that's just simply because I didn't stay in the buyer's high and, and, and put it down in that moment.

[18:45] I mean, this goes with gaming consoles. This goes for all of that stuff. You know,

[18:50] we get so addicted to the buying because it's fun, you know,

[18:56] and you're, like, looking at the dollar signs. But it's funny, man. Like, we, we forget about the part where we actually have to sell it.

[19:05] And it's. And I know a lot of people will, you know, if they, if they have started, they haven't had their, their 10k profit month or anything like that. If they're just, they're kind of going, man, these are massive numbers.

[19:16] It's, it's, you know, I, you know, can't wait to get there. That's what I was thinking when I first started. I just wanted to get to making 10k in a month.

[19:23] And how do you do that? You've got to build customer, customer clientele and repeat customers and all of that.

[19:31] But in that journey is getting lost in that journey, you know, what got you to 10k and what gets you to 20k eventually, there is going to be a point in everybody's business that there's going to be a point where your methods are going to have to change to be able to keep your.

[19:51] And that's not to say that it's going to be different for anybody, for everybody. And you don't know when that's going to be because everybody's situation in life is different.

[20:00] But it's coming. And I assumed, I kept listening to all you guys and I was making so much money again,

[20:08] I came from a job that I was making three grand, you know, a month or 3,500amonth total. And all of a sudden, within six months, I'm making seven grand a month and eight grand ten.

[20:20] And all of a sudden you guys couldn't tell me what to do. I that's. I was like, you know what I mean? Like,

[20:27] you know, I was. I was like, that sounds great. Okay. I was listening to you guys, but I wasn't listening right to the people. It got to a point where I thought I started to know what you guys know and I started to do my own thing.

[20:39] And that's a very dangerous. Confidence is dangerous in this business. In the beginning, it's very dangerous. So that's why I stay safe, stay connected into your groups. But I think if I had to go back and I could change anything,

[20:55] it would be the way that I track my business from the beginning and building those systems in place. Like when you had the KPI sheet and came out with it.

[21:05] Something like that. I can't tell you the amount of headache and frustration in my relationship with my wife and myself and stress that I've caused over the last year by running a business that profits, you know, 15, 20 grand in a month.

[21:21] And I don't track it properly. I don't have the proper metrics tracked. And so for me now it's when you don't have everything tracked properly and you don't know where all your inventory is and your.

[21:33] And your final, you know, your total numbers of your sitting inventory plus cash, plus this, which self. Admittedly, I didn't think I had to. Cause I was paying all the bills and I just knew I had enough.

[21:43] You know, bills are getting paid, we have a bunch of product. We're going and I'm awesome. Let's go, let's go hit the golf course.

[21:49] If you're not tracking, eventually it gets to where now all of a sudden I'm making $500 in a day and it's not enough. I'm stressed out. Even on the days I'm making $500 profit in a day because I don't know where everything is at.

[22:04] I feels like I don't have enough money because it's all in inventory. It's in here and it's in there. So anyway, I didn't mean to keep harping on the same kind situation,

[22:14] but it's brutal because I don't think enough people talk about the, the downside or the dark side of this business when, when you start to get to these, these levels.

[22:24] And you guys have been instrumental, you and Mad in your guys's program that I've been looking at. And it shined a light on what I'm not doing. I'm making the numbers.

[22:36] But everything you guys have, have done and taught in your guys way of going about the business was something to where I was like, well, no, I drive to all my customers and I get there and I beat the competition there.

[22:47] And that was a good mindset for the first two to three years. But it's affecting me in ways that I didn't even realize it would affect me now with how big it is.

[22:57] So now it's forcing me to do things that I don't want to do right now, which is not pick up phones and completely overhaul all of our office and our systems.

[23:07] And I've spent the last two days not buying any phones, having to organize icloud locked phones and broken computers that I bought a year and a half ago. But you know what, it's what needs to get done.

[23:19] And then I put myself into that situation. I had to put my ego aside and just get it done.

[23:25] So don't do that to yourself. Track your stuff,

[23:31] track your numbers, track your sitting inventory, wherever it is in your office right now. I'm telling you, it'll be therapeutic if you, if you have a bunch of product that you don't even know what you paid for, just stop right now.

[23:44] Get it all on paper, into a sheet somewhere. Track it, know where all of your money is at and it will, it will, it will give you the confidence to, to run the business, not bog you down.

[23:55] Yeah,

[23:57] I like that. I have a, on my newest KPI sheet, I have it to where like it says, like I have it to where like the day that I buy it.

[24:06] And if it hasn't sold yet, it literally puts a big black thing that says not sold yet. Yeah,

[24:15] and that's very easy to see. It's very visual, right?

[24:18] Yeah.

[24:19] It's very telling too, you know, I mean, last month all of my items went out on an average of four days. They all sold within four days. Who.

[24:31] That's, that's, that. No, just, I'm, I'm saying just the fact that, you know, that number is what impresses me. That's, that's the bigger thing. I would love to be able to, to track that type of information.

[24:43] Yeah, I mean, we. I. I was working with a student. He was on his 30 day check in about a week ago now.

[24:51] And I was like, all right, let's see. You know how many days it takes you to get rid of stuff. Took him 14 days to get rid of mo. Almost all of his stuff.

[24:59] And I was like, that's too long, bro. Like, I was like, how long are you taking to, like, you know, list stuff? Are you price cycling? Are you doing the stuff you need to be doing?

[25:07] Are you making the invoices to direct buyers immediately? I was like, look, you just went full time.

[25:13] You need to be doing this. You have time now.

[25:16] Time to, you know, it's time to pony up.

[25:19] And when you say, when you say price cycling, what is, what is that?

[25:23] That's Matt's term. Right. So, Matt, do you want to explain price cycling with ebay?

[25:28] Sure.

[25:29] Well, a lot of people in this business, like you said, rj, are great at buying.

[25:33] A lot more of them are really bad at selling. And you've got to be good at both or, you know, you won't be able to buy food. And so price cycling is something that I discovered flipping consoles, where essentially what you do is you look at an item, you look at its highest sold price,

[25:53] you look at its lowest sold price, you start the item at its highest sold price, you price it down competitively but consistently daily,

[26:02] maybe by like a dollar a day, depending on the cost. You know, higher items, I usually price down more. Lower items, I price down less. But you just put your hands on your store on a daily basis, and as a result, the algorithm and ebay goes, oh, look at this guy.

[26:17] Trying to be accommodating to offer a fair price for our customers. And generally it sells somewhere between the high and the low, which makes common sense. But for people that are out there that are like, ebay's slow,

[26:31] business isn't really picking up like I thought it would. Most people don't. They don't do this. They just put their stuff on ebay. It goes into the void, it sits there stagnant, doing nothing.

[26:43] And you can't, you can't do that. You gotta keep the. You gotta keep the flow going right. And if the current stops, the sales stop. And so that's why I tell people,

[26:53] sell, sell or list your stuff as aggressively as you source it. And you will never lack for sales like that. Ching ching will be all the motivation you need to, to keep it rolling.

[27:06] But.

[27:07] And that's something that, Because I want to. Now that I. Now that you said the term. That's, that's. Yeah. So the price cycling. So that's what. That's something that I'll do.

[27:15] You know, we've, we learned back in the beginning was, you know, $5 a day until it sells. But again, some of the lower stuff, you don't need to do $5 if it's, if it's really on the low end.

[27:27] But I also, I also will, you know, obviously, you know, delete the listing, relist it to kind of pop it up to the top after, you know, a couple of days.

[27:36] If I've, if I've lowered it a couple of.

[27:41] But that is, that is something to. Where you caught you when I, when I heard you say that. I always.

[27:48] I've been stuck on ebay with, with a couple of listings and when somebody says, when somebody says it's slow on ebay, it's not selling. And this is not to, to anybody directly.

[28:01] But here's what I think, because I know this is really what it is. You probably bought the item too high and you're not wanting to.

[28:09] You're really stuck on a, on, on a. I've done it, I've done it hundreds of times. You put it on ebay. You're not, you're lowering a little bit. It's not selling, but you really know where your, your profit margin is at.

[28:21] And you really thought it was going to sell in this area and you leave it there and, and you do that a couple of times. And then I had to wake up and go, hey, rj, you're buying these items too high right now.

[28:31] You need to, like, that's. Ebay is not slow. You need to look at these items and go assess, reassess,

[28:38] figure out how to, to buy these a little bit lower than what you buy. That's, that's, that's. That come to Jesus talk on some of. If you got a lot of stuff on ebay that's selling, quote unquote, slow, slow after you've posted it and are doing the price cycling,

[28:53] it's usually not ebay, it's usually you. And your buying price is usually what we all refuse to kind of admit and look At I'm just being very honest with everybody.

[29:03] Yeah, it's true. The market will declare itself when you do research on ebay, since it does give you fair market value for any item. Like any item. Right. I mean, those numbers, like the, the public have spoken, like people have said, hey, this is what this item's worth.

[29:19] If it's higher than this, it's probably not gonna sell. If it's a little lower than this, it. It looks favorable. And I think a lot of people aren't aware that sometimes maybe we're just being a little stingy, a little greedy, or maybe just not as fair on our ROI and what we're buying,

[29:37] you know, as we should be when we're paying for product.

[29:40] Yeah, yeah.

[29:41] I was a same student the other day. I was on a call with him. He had like $3,000 worth of iPads. And I was like, what are you doing with these, dude?

[29:50] You got like a good amount of your capital tied up in these? And he's like, I'm trying to sell them for more on ebay. I got them from a wholesaler.

[29:56] I'm like, oh, so you just got to break even. Education got it.

[30:03] And it happens. I'm. I'm all like, I'm all. That's another thing I will say for a lot of people, man, is as long as you're safe with it. I'm in the very beginning of this all, really.

[30:14] It's bankroll dependent, right? What, what you can spend on phones, what you're able to afford and whatnot. I didn't have a lot. I had about 500 bucks when I first started of.

[30:23] Of of money to figure it out. So, you know, for me, I didn't have the luxury of going and trying new things. I had to buy a phone, make sure it sells and,

[30:32] and profit.

[30:34] So that, that taught me some great things, which was how to,

[30:40] how to lowball, how to make sure that I'm. I'm comfortable with making sure that I make a profit on a phone. Going through the nose was a big thing. I think that's one of the biggest thing in the beginning is just being comfortable with that you're going to get rejected offers.

[30:55] It's going to happen. But you know, for, for me, once, once I got comfortable at that one year mark and I was buying everything. Bad price, you know.

[31:07] Yep.

[31:07] Sprint T Mobile bad. Didn't matter if it was unlocked. They told me on. I was doing. I was just, I had, I had my offer, right. I was, I was the lowest of the low.

[31:17] Balls. And I was okay with them saying no, whatever,

[31:21] but that made sure that I knew that whenever I bought a phone I was profitable, which is important in the beginning. You have to have that confidence to do it.

[31:28] But once you do grab that confidence later on and you, and you start to build a bankroll,

[31:37] you do need to, you do need to take some shots, try some different things and you're going to learn like I love that term that you said, the break even, the break even lesson.

[31:49] Yeah, I've lost, I lost a bunch of money on stuff that I was testing out, trying to buy items I didn't know anything about, assuming the market, trying to beat them there.

[31:59] And I lost some money on some stuff. But I'll tell you this,

[32:04] new repeat customers have come out of me reaching out on marketplace, going after consoles, going after items I'd never bought before, not knowing if my, you know, I took before I took your class, Matt, on consoles.

[32:19] I was still buying consoles and stuff, but I had no idea what I was like, yeah, I'll buy it. And I'd try and look it up on there. And I lost on because I didn't know what I was doing with consoles.

[32:28] But you know what? I also, before that, somebody sells you a console that I lose money on, but they come back to me in a couple of weeks and they're selling me their phone and their husband's phone and wife's phone and iPad and whatever.

[32:43] You get repeat customers by getting out there and doing other things that people are not doing. You know,

[32:49] somebody's selling a,

[32:52] an iPhone SE unlocked for 50 bucks and nobody wants to go drive 20, 30 minutes to them. In the beginning I'd get my butt there. I'd go grab that little stupid phone and buy it for 50 and I'd put it on local, you know, local marketplace for 120 and take no less than 100.

[33:10] But I had to sell it locally. I couldn't sell it on ebay because there wasn't like you get the confidence to do different things outside of just buying. All it was was ebay at the beginning.

[33:19] That's all we that. But now, you know, there's times where I'm able to look on ebay. You know, sometimes with the Apple trade ins or whatever, I'm able to buy off ebay and figure out a different market off ebay and do stuff.

[33:31] So you will, you will learn. But the bigger thing is don't let fear stop you from trying new things and growing different markets and growing different relationships.

[33:41] City right on I call it diversification. Right. Like, how can you become more valuable to the customer? Well, you can buy more things, right?

[33:50] Right.

[33:51] Like, let's be real. Like, our customers look at us like. Like an atm, you know, that's. That's what we are to them. You know, we just. We just talk, you know,

[34:03] but they, you know, how do you become much more valuable to the customer? Well, you can buy more of their stuff. Right. I can't tell you guys how often I.

[34:12] Another stat that I have the average amount of items that I bought per customer last month, 2.3 items.

[34:19] That's insane.

[34:19] Per customer.

[34:20] That's insane.

[34:22] So now some of those. Now it evens out, right? Some of those customers had like four or five items. Some of them had one. But, like, overall, it was. It was 2.3 last month in January.

[34:32] So a lot of that was. They had. They had an iPhone, then they had an iPad and they had an Apple Watch. Right. Nice. Because they usually do. A lot of the time they have an iPhone, the likelihood that they have another Apple product is very high.

[34:47] Apple has built their ecosystem in a certain way where it just works that way. So always ask, like, always ask, you know, like Apple watches. I bought a Apple Watch Ultra the other day for $230.

[35:00] It's going to sell for 450.

[35:03] They can't sell that to an eco atmosphere, you know. That's awesome. So it's like, yeah, like. And with the consoles, like, that's one reason, you know, we brought Matt on is he.

[35:13] He's the console king. He knows the ins and the outs of everything. Consoles, VR and everything.

[35:22] And like, that has been just such a massive,

[35:27] like, it's. It's a blue ocean in terms of, like, people there.

[35:31] You know, I part out everything. Everything. Not just consoles, everything we have. If I have.

[35:39] My God. Yeah.

[35:41] Broken phones and locked devices or whatever, figure out how to tear that thing apart and put it on there, and I'm making more money. It sells slower on eBay versus, like, you know, going to a wholesaler in certain situations.

[35:53] But, you know, you. You opened up my eyes to that. And that's because I put my ego aside and said, I'm making a lot of money, but I want to be able to grow in a different area.

[36:04] And that's why I hit Chris up last year and he told me about Matt and everything about your console knowledge. And I go in and you just went through with me and you just said, look at what's just sitting on offer up in your city right now.

[36:20] Just look at it. It's just, and I couldn't believe that if I don't even have ads going for,

[36:27] for my phones, I could literally just go and make money just off of consoles. And then I started doing it and started having immediate success and it was just another area to where I go.

[36:42] When I sat with Matt, I realized that I'm going to be okay if the ads don't go down. I think that was the first time I started to feel the safety of this business.

[36:53] You know, I, I left this, I left my job. I was working at Apple in Vegas.

[37:00] I left in 2019. Covid hit four months after I left. Okay, in 2020 because it was late 2019 that I left. And so I'm freaking out about just, I'm, I'm, I'm a new full time,

[37:14] you know, bone flipper business owner. And now Covid's down. I'm, I'm doing Uber and picking up phone. I'm freaking out about. I don't, I don't know what's going to happen here.

[37:23] So I was, I never really recovered from that. I'm always edgy about,

[37:29] man. Things are changing, ads are changing, competition's changing. Apple every year is doing a restriction that makes phones harder to purchase. But once, once I got with you guys last year and Matt showed me a whole new world with consoles and that you don't even have to run ads if you don't want to.

[37:48] You could literally make a living off of buying consoles. Off the reach out method, there was a lot of peace that got brought to my, to brought to within side of me that I didn't have before.

[38:02] So I want to say thank you to you guys for that because you opened up my eyes that the money is out there, whether it's in phones, consoles, even electronics.

[38:10] There's other things that you can do. We're resellers. I'm not a, not a phone flipper. I'm a reseller is what I am. Sometimes I forget that because I get too focused on just the phone.

[38:23] The Samsung, the iPhone, or maybe the iPad is really all I'll catch myself focusing. And the bigger profits are in the console. Like there's bigger profits per dollar spent on a lot of these other items.

[38:35] And I'm over here fighting the world to pay $400 to make 65 on a phone, right? And while Matt and you guys are over there and it's like, or you could go make $65 on $30 spend,

[38:50] you know what I mean? Or that same $400 spend and you can make 250 like you were talking about earlier today with your valve index. So that don't have too much stubbornness and ego that you're not learning.

[39:02] You're gonna. This business is gonna change every month, every day. Stay connected is the biggest piece of advice. I was connected, but I wasn't connected. I wasn't listening to you guys.

[39:14] I was assuming that I knew what it was going to take. And now there was a. There was so much stress. Years taken off my life because I wasn't asking the questions.

[39:22] I was assuming. And then you start, you know, driving around like people are, and you're not listening to podcasts like this, to where you're over there and you're overthinking things on the road.

[39:31] And I'm just thinking about all the bad things about this, this, this industry, you know, it's gonna, it's moving. I'm not making enough money today. Whatever it is, is this even the right industry to, to be in?

[39:43] What am I doing wrong? Like, you start wigging out, man. You really do. And, and I know that I'm not the only one that has done that. We all do it.

[39:50] If you're not connected and you're not asking questions and continuously trying to grow.

[39:55] Yeah, Yeah, I think, I think there's a lot of ways in which you can overreach. I can overreach because I'm afraid something's not going to happen.

[40:04] I can overreach because you know what? Like, it's been so good. Like, I. I'll just keep buying more. I'll just keep buying more. And I think that one thing, I think you've.

[40:14] You've kind of danced around. And I don't. It's been said, but maybe not specifically is that even to the person that's listening, this, that I think doesn't like being. Or having to be organized.

[40:25] If people could only understand that the organization is only going to cause your business to run much smoother, to scale much faster. And it's also going to be something that you can actually like and enjoy.

[40:37] Like, you're not going to be a jerk, you know, because you're trying to, you know, reinvent the wheel and get everything organized or sorted every day. And for me,

[40:46] I will tell you, you know, creating systems is Chris's bag. It's not mine. But. And he does great at that. But for me, like, the way that I justify the importance of the system is like, hey, Matt, if you, you, if you do that thing over there, like, it's going to actually allow more room for you to run and do the other stuff you like doing,

[41:05] which is buying, which is connecting with people, which is treating them well, you know, which is helping other students. And I think that people got to be aware of that, that we all have, like, we all have things that we excel at and things that we don't.

[41:18] And this business entrepreneurship is going to ask you to wear a hat in multiple roles, many of which you probably are going to suck at. And that's a problem for you to solve, not to complain about, not to jump on some Facebook group and tell the world how hard your life is.

[41:35] You have to fix that. And so you can't manage what you don't measure. So if you haven't taken steps to be organized,

[41:43] it's probably owning you right now in your business. And I hope people are really taking that away from hearing you today, rj.

[41:48] Absolutely.

[41:51] It goes to that old, old saying, you know, the, the tail is wagging the dog, right?

[41:58] Like, it's a real thing. You know, I. I have a dog, and he wags his tail aggressively. You know what it does to him, it moves him all around, you know, so it's like,

[42:09] it's. But it's true. You know, Hormozi says it in, in a much more aggressive way. And he just, he basically says, like, if you don't track, you don't care,

[42:18] you know, and that's. It was powerful. You know, that hit me like a ton of bricks. And I was like, but I do care.

[42:24] But then I had to think about it. I'm like, but I don't track well enough. So I guess I don't care, you know?

[42:33] You know, and that one thing about this industry is, like, it's,

[42:39] it's such a stepping stone, you know, like,

[42:43] you can start this business with little to no money. You don't need an llc, right in the beginning, right?

[42:49] But if you start doing some of the things that we teach in accelerator, because essentially what we do is that we help people turn this into a real business,

[43:00] and that's what we excel at doing.

[43:03] We don't side hustle to a business, and that's kind of where we come in.

[43:08] But all of the skills that you learn over time, you know, they make you a better person. They make you. Honestly, they make you better in your life as well.

[43:15] So for a good example of this, I started tracking my business really well, and guess what that led to. That actually moved over to, like, me tracking my life really well.

[43:25] Yeah, I Got consistent in my business,

[43:28] and I got consistent in my life.

[43:30] Right. You start seeing certain things, and you can apply them to certain other aspects of things, too.

[43:37] So. And. And then they. And then they work together, and then they go both ways, you know?

[43:41] Yeah, yeah.

[43:42] I'm on 75 hard right now, and it's like, you know, that translates over to consistency in my business, too, because I'm already doing the same stuff every day. So it's like, if I just do the same stuff every day in my business,

[43:53] I grow. Like, it's. It's one of those things, right? And I think that's something a lot of people don't realize is like, they expect that $10,000 profit month. You know, the first month they jump in.

[44:04] That's not usually going to happen. And if. And if it does, usually there's a ton of pain behind that. Let's be real. Like. Like that first 10,000, if. If you get it too fast, it can break you.

[44:18] Like, that's. That's really true because there's a lot of lessons that have to be learned in that,

[44:24] and a lot of people are not prepared. I've seen so many people who started this business have done incredibly well, and then they back out because they can't handle it.

[44:35] Right. Because it's harder than a job. Let's be real. Like, yeah, you work for yourself, but now you work 24 7.

[44:42] You know, I remember because this is. I mean, this is part. I love talking about this because, like, the hustle to the business, right?

[44:50] Yeah.

[44:51] And I remember when I first started, I was working at Apple. You know, everybody's goals are different. So what did I. What did I say I want versus what did I.

[45:00] I really want? You know, I said I want to run a business. I want to be. I want to be the man. I want to make 20 to 30 grand a month.

[45:08] And that's what I want to be when really, when I think about, like, where I was making the money at my job, I just wanted to replace my. My job income or match it at three grand in profit a month.

[45:20] So when. When you have that mentality to where I could tell you guys that I was, you know, I want to person this entrepreneur, when it comes down to it.

[45:31] What I really found out, what I really wanted that time is I just wanted some extra money. And then I got that extra money in the beginning, like you said, very quickly.

[45:40] Right. And it happened so quickly that what got me to seven grand a month in profit consistently, you know, four months into doing this Thing then to ten grand in six months.

[45:51] All you know what got me there was just, just hustling and there was so much money that what do you do? You leave your job. This is it. And now I've got more time and this is, this is what, this is.

[46:03] I did it, I, I've done it right? I, I, I know what I'm doing. That was the mindset that, that got me there and that's that dangerous, Dangerous Dan, because that's, I was, I, I was side hustling, I was side hustling hard.

[46:16] And when I left, like you said, you start this thing and you start doing habits that got me there, which is just answering leads, getting customers, buying phones and flipping it as fast as you can.

[46:30] That's all that I knew. Being an entrepreneur, having organization, tracking your numbers, understanding what you are actually doing on a day to day basis was not a part of anything that I was about.

[46:44] When I was literally getting on these calls telling you guys how to quit your job, right? I was all excited. Let me tell you exactly how to do this, man.

[46:53] You gotta hustle, you got to go, you got to make sure that you're, that you're there. I was saying I wish I could listen to one of my things from 2019, just listen to myself.

[47:01] And I was going, man, what do you, this the stuff you don't even know right now about yourself, right, that you're about to learn through this journey.

[47:10] And so that's why I think for today, you know, you guys listening to my story,

[47:16] I'm not ashamed of it at all. I was ashamed of it probably two years ago, just, just kind of making all this money and, and, and riding my high horse.

[47:27] But really it's like, man, you're not tracking a lot. There's a lot of disorganization going on and really you have a lot of stress and fear about where this business is actually going to go versus the excitement that you had in the first two years of this business.

[47:41] The excitement turned to, to fear because I was refusing to grow and do the grown up things, which is be an entrepreneur and be active in your own business.

[47:52] But yeah, that's where this isn't going to be for everybody when they start. Everybody listening to this podcast, you may listen to this and go,

[48:03] I don't want any part of that. I just want to be able to make my money and make my extra three grand a month and keep my job. Or my monthly expenses are two grand, 2,500amonth and I can make four grand and be happy.

[48:17] That's where they want to stay. And you can do that.

[48:20] But for me, you know, things change when, you know, I have a wife now, we're trying to have kids, and we're having difficulty having kids. Those medical bills, Holy ****.

[48:29] Yeah. What I make now in a month, all of a sudden, that's not enough. And I'm blessed to have this business. But God's telling me, God is telling me, hey, you want.

[48:39] You want what? What you and your wife want. It's time to start doing the things that you refuse to do as a man.

[48:46] And you were a little boy. I don't mean to talk down on myself, but that's kind of where it was. It's time to grow up. And I didn't know where to grow up.

[48:55] And what I found out is what you guys talked about. It's growing up in all areas of my life. And right now, my business requires you to be organized and be the entrepreneur that you said you were going to be six years ago when you started this.

[49:09] So it's all coming to a head. So I. I hope everybody can listen to my story and just kind of understand that you can get to 20 grand a month side hustling.

[49:18] You can. I don't suggest it, because if you do get to 20 grand a month side hustling, your life is going to be miserable if you're not organizing.

[49:25] It's true. It's very, very. Like, I don't. People dream about it, right? They're like, I want to be making, you know, this amount per month. And, you know, like, so I do, you know, I do the reselling.

[49:38] I do. We do Reelerator, we do software with resell Deck and Resale Hawk.

[49:44] A lot of you guys probably look at me and think that that stuff is easy.

[49:48] I wake up to fires every day, three to four, almost every. It's. They're all emergencies every single day. Like, and I'm not talking little stuff. I'm talking software breaks. I'm talking like, resell deck is down or something's not working or, you know.

[50:07] Yeah,

[50:08] it's. It's. Honestly, at this point, the, the. The reselling side of things is easy compared to everything else. And, you know, I make a relatively good amount per month on all of those things.

[50:20] But the thing that most people don't realize is, like,

[50:26] as you scale up in whatever business,

[50:29] it becomes much, much harder. And it's going to much more time and it's going to demand much more skill.

[50:36] A lot more skill.

[50:39] And Like, I remember. I remember I'm. I had a couple years ago. I was probably about two and a half or. No, about a year and a half ago now.

[50:48] I remember one of my good friends,

[50:52] I.

[50:53] I messaged him and I was like,

[50:56] bro,

[50:57] I feel like I'm about to have a panic attack with how many messages I'm getting right now between the reselling, between, you know, support stuff and things like that. And I was like, the messenger.

[51:07] Notifications just won't stop. Like, it's like, ping, ping, ping, ping. I'm sure. I'm sure you've understood that. RJ and Matt.

[51:17] Oh, yeah.

[51:17] Where it's just. It's that. That just that noise over and over again, and it almost drives you insane. And I remember him. He was like, bro, just turn all your notifications off.

[51:29] I was like,

[51:31] but people need me, you know?

[51:34] And he's like, I don't care. Turn them off or you're not going to be able to talk to them at all. You're gonna get frozen, and you're not gonna be able.

[51:40] And, like, that's the kind of stuff that happens when you start making more. It's like you start having near panic attacks because,

[51:49] like, you can't handle the amount of, like,

[51:53] of what you have to handle at that point, you know?

[51:57] So go ahead.

[51:59] Yeah, no, no, go ahead.

[52:01] I was.

[52:03] You just hit on a really good point.

[52:06] You start to become numb to it.

[52:10] The last year it's been. It was so much for us to handle that I started to become. I was paying $50 a day on Facebook ads and not responding to any messages for three months just because.

[52:25] And not. And didn't turn off the ads. I want that. You know, I was addicted to the ad flow. It's like, all right, business is there. But I had so much going on with my wife and travel and fertility, and we don't have time for this right now.

[52:40] To where. When a time we would come back from our trips and get back, and it's like, all right, it's time to do what I do and hustle. And all of a sudden, that drive's not there anymore.

[52:52] I'm just numb to all of.

[52:55] I used to make sure that you respond to every customer. It's how you started in the beginning. And now all of a sudden, I'm going days without even looking or following up or people are wondering if I'm off the planet because.

[53:06] And I couldn't figure out why. And it's because I was burnt out from my business. I didn't have the stamina and all of those messages coming in, never turning it off, had finally caught up with me after about five years of, of just running it a certain way.

[53:23] And this is all stuff that you guys got to be careful because I said that this would never. I was like, I was like, how do you just have messages on, you know, other people talking about burnout business?

[53:34] I was making so much money and it's like, no, it's not going to happen if you're not organized and you're not doing it. I've watched you.

[53:42] Your capacity, Chris, to handle more has grown.

[53:48] You didn't wake up today with the ability to handle everything. You went through it and you knew that you had to put systems in place. That was the difference between me and you a couple of years ago is that we were talking about the same stuff, but you were trying to implement systems.

[54:03] Systems and I was trying to avoid that. It was even. This is, this is really, this is just a thing today is what it is. You know, it's, this will go away tomorrow.

[54:15] That's really what my mindset was. And I'd suffered last year because of it. Not financially, but just stress and health and, and worry wise because of my actions. And yeah, man, that is, that's something that is, it's,

[54:30] it's crazy to, to talk about it. I know, it's funny. It's like, well, let's talk about the excitement of somebody who's been there. And it's like,

[54:39] let's peel the layers back. I'm very grateful for where I'm at. I cannot believe that with all the medical stuff we have going on, the only way we can get through this is because I have the ability to go out and make 500 to a thousand dollars a day.

[54:53] Pretty consistent. When I decide, don't get me wrong.

[54:57] I was talking to my wife kind of about this yesterday and this morning. You know, she was, she's pregnant, right? So she's in her,

[55:06] she's. She gets moody obviously. And she was talking to us, she's like,

[55:13] she's like, do you have to go pick up that deal right now? And I was like, oh, it's 12, so yeah. But like I was talking, we were talking and I was like, like,

[55:22] look,

[55:23] like currently we are very rich in what we have. Very rich. Because I'm home all the time.

[55:31] All the time. And sometimes like once you go full time, I feel like we forget that a little bit. You know, we are now at home literally 247 and that, that in and of itself in this day and age is very rich.

[55:48] Like,

[55:49] so I think, you know, in my mindset that, that, you know, it became apparent a couple months back. I was like, yeah, things are getting busier. I agree. But at the same time,

[56:01] I'm here all the time.

[56:04] Yeah.

[56:04] And I remember hearing somebody talk about how their kids were growing up so fast, but they were also working eight hours a day, you know, so, yeah, your kids are going to grow fast when you're working eight hours a day.

[56:17] I get to see my kid every day. I homeschool him. We, you know, we do all that stuff,

[56:22] and that in and of itself is. Is, you know,

[56:26] I mean, we might not be super rich, you know, monetarily wise, but I think as far as life goes, yeah, very rich. You know, not a lot of people get to do what I get to do or what Matt gets to do now, you know, or what you get to do.

[56:41] You know, it's why.

[56:42] It's why we did this.

[56:43] Exactly.

[56:44] Was for the time.

[56:45] Yep.

[56:46] And so that's why. That's why I was. Yeah, it's letting you know, too. It's that gratefulness for. For that this business allows me to be in places and do things like going to handle all this infertility stuff.

[57:00] I keep harping on it, but we have the time to. To do that, right? To go and take care of what's important to us and to you guys. So, you know, I don't.

[57:08] I don't want the. The first half of the podcast,

[57:11] like, hey, I'm miserable up here. It's just, it's. It's not as easy as you think. When you're making money in this business, you need to change to be able to support your business.

[57:21] So that's why I just wanted to make sure that everybody knows it's not just what got you to 10k. Probably most, I will say, probably 70% of the people what got them there.

[57:32] Eventually those habits will need to be looked at and changed to make sure that you're not burning yourself out in the next year or two, so you can enjoy and look back on the gratefulness that you should have for what this business allows us.

[57:46] Man, you're right. We're sitting here, it's 10am on a Friday, right. And we're doing podcasts or whatever, and I get to choose when, you know, when I go do certain things.

[57:58] Today, that's all because of this business. So it has it there. But for me, it's.

[58:05] I guess the key points are. Are track everything Right now, even if you're tracking nothing, it's okay. I don't care if you're making 23. I don't care if you're somebody like me making 20k and you haven't told anybody that you haven't tried.

[58:17] It's okay. You're not the only one out there. I was too just start tracking today.

[58:22] Stay connected in a group like your guys's group. I, I think that's vitally important.

[58:27] Oh yeah.

[58:28] Connected in the community for changes in the market, changes in strategy and just keeping your mind fresh. You have to, it'll keep you sane.

[58:38] But then also too, it's,

[58:40] it is something to where make sure that you're, you're challenging yourself daily.

[58:46] And what is, what is your business going to look, look like in the next year to, to three years? That's something that I wasn't looking forward to. I was just trying to survive daily.

[58:56] Make $500 a day. Go, go, go, go, go. But now that I'm starting to track and starting to get a little bit older, value my time a little bit more.

[59:05] Yeah, I don't need to, I. What I found out, Chris, I don't need to make 20k in a month if I only need to make, I only need to make around, around 10 to 12k to get all the bills paid, put some in savings, invest and, and pay off some of the debt that we have and be sane and have time with my wife and,

[59:24] and not be able to do that. I didn't think that I was all I, all I was. And Feldon actually helped me with this because Feldon, I don't want to get too much into his, his story with his sister, but you know, he had a tragic loss this last year and it really changed his perspective because he was the same.

[59:40] He was trying to build his website. He was, he was wholesaling, doing his thing and man, he was, he was getting up there. But you know, he's making that for 30, 40, 50k a month, but he's got zero I'm.

[59:51] When you say zero time, zero hours of the day to himself. He is at the mercy of everybody. It got so bad that once that happened, he took a step back and he's scaling everything back and getting it to where that's what we've been talking about, me and him over the last couple of weeks is I don't need to be running this hard blindly trying to make.

[01:00:15] We're at 20k. That's not enough. You start to get in that mindset of not enough. And you're never going to be happy. You got to figure out what your real goals in the business are and what you need to survive and what you want the business looked at, look like in three years,

[01:00:28] whatever that is,

[01:00:30] and have a plan because I didn't have one. And I. The, again, I've been the dog, the tail's been running me,

[01:00:36] and it just doesn't have to be that way. So I hope that. I hope that definitely helps some people.

[01:00:42] I think one thing there, like, you highlighted it pretty good.

[01:00:48] Like, I. It was.

[01:00:50] I don't know, ever Since I turned 30, I guess I've been looking at time a little differently because my, my oldest boy is now 6. So it's like, where'd the time go?

[01:01:01] You know? And you start seeing things happen quick. And it's like, okay, I need to. I need to figure out what I need to do that I can do consistently every single day, but also, you know, go outside and, and fly the drone that I have that I bought my son.

[01:01:19] You know, like, how can I. And I've even. I've had to implement like an AI boss for myself. Like, this is a real thing just for you guys listening. Like, like I, I in chat GPT, like, I put together what's called an AI boss, where it's like, hey, I go in.

[01:01:35] Here's what I did today. Here's what happened. I got an AI calendar. Like, everything is, is mapped out at this point to,

[01:01:42] to give me the most bang for my buck when it comes to time. Right. I was in that, in that area where it was like, I need to sell, sell, sell, sell, sell.

[01:01:51] You know, I need to buy, buy. Like, it was Matt, you know, I was in the DMS with you almost every day, you know?

[01:01:57] Yeah.

[01:01:57] Like, Matt is literally my sounding board for some things. Like, some. Sometimes I just need to reach out to him, send him a voice memo. And I remember a couple weeks back, actually, I.

[01:02:09] Somebody sent me some message asking for some sort of discount on some software, and I, like, lost it.

[01:02:15] Like, yeah, I've had those moments.

[01:02:18] I was like,

[01:02:19] I blocked him. And I was like, I can't. I can't do this right now. Can't. I've been. I built it because it was one of those things.

[01:02:26] I was holding my boy back. You know what I'm saying? I had to hold him back.

[01:02:29] I. I built the thing from scratch. And this dude was like, I can't make 70amonth to pay for this thing. And I was like, you what? Like Bro, I'm gonna lose my **** right now.

[01:02:42] So it was one of those things, you know, so,

[01:02:46] so yeah, I mean, Matt can tell you I've scaled things back quite a bit in terms of like marketing for the program and you know, and I've actually put more focus back on the flipping business now actually, because,

[01:02:59] dude, that's way more fun. It's so much easier. Like, like a lot of people think running softwares and running a coaching program is, is like easy stuff and the money just flows in.

[01:03:08] Nah, bro,

[01:03:10] these people got problems.

[01:03:11] Yeah. Yes, yes.

[01:03:14] So like just going out and flipping something is. Is honestly the. Probably something the, the best thing that I can do to, to number one, keep, keep up with the industry stuff.

[01:03:26] I mean, we recently increased the price of re accelerator and everything just to work with more serious people and all that good stuff. But like, like today, like, I'm going after this podcast.

[01:03:36] I'm going to buy a phone, I'm going to make 120 in profit on it. And then I'm actually, for everybody listening, I'm actually driving to a deal today, like 30 minutes to go buy a valve index.

[01:03:47] Hey.

[01:03:47] Oh, but you know what I'm gonna make off of it? I mean, Matt, you said everything was gonna sell for like 13.50 or something like that.

[01:03:53] Yeah. You stand to make at least a grand off of this deal.

[01:03:55] Probably. I'll drive 30 minutes to make a grand. I'll be real.

[01:04:00] Well, that's good of you, Chris.

[01:04:01] Yeah, you know,

[01:04:04] I thought about getting it Uber to me, but, you know,

[01:04:08] index. I don't want to. I don't want to throw that in a car with a random stranger. So I think it's awesome.

[01:04:14] I think there's.

[01:04:16] I would like to express this in regards to.

[01:04:21] I think that what. Rj, what you've said is that, you know, the business can't mature any, any further than the man. Right.

[01:04:28] Like, these things have to go together because, you know, if there's a limitation in me, it's going to somehow manifest in my business in some way, shape or form.

[01:04:38] And then the thing about the money though is I think what it exploits is freedom. You know, a lot of people get into this, they chase this dream because what they want is the freedom.

[01:04:49] But what they don't realize is that, you know, when you get to that place where that freedom is on,

[01:04:54] it's. It's on offer, it's on access. A lot of us don't know what to do with it because we've never had it. And it will, it will challenge the man, it will challenge your demons and definitely like call out some, some places that, you know, need to,

[01:05:11] that we have to, you know, take, take a deeper level of ownership and stuff.

[01:05:14] Yeah, that's why, and that's. You said that so perfectly because I think that's why I love what you guys are doing with the podcast.

[01:05:24] It's, you know, people are going to be listening to this while driving,

[01:05:28] so they get to listen to us being open and honest about kind of what real in the business, the real feelings. And there's a lot of people that are going to listen to this that they're, they have the same fears and they're not sure.

[01:05:40] And it's just.

[01:05:42] So I needed something like this when I first started as a podcast. Like this as I'm driving around and I just left my job and I'm not sure and this or that, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[01:05:51] There's. You're going to have doubts. And what I would say is do not be afraid to admit and look inside of you on areas that you're going to need to grow as a human, not as a business owner, but just as a, as a human.

[01:06:08] Really look at, look at why you're at, where you're at or why you're feeling the way that you're feeling about the business is another question you need to ask yourself.

[01:06:17] Why am I feeling this way and is it the business or is it me?

[01:06:22] That's usually what it's come down to in me when I self reflect on it.

[01:06:27] I'm ****** off at a customer. I did the same thing you talked about, Chris.

[01:06:30] Listen, I've told a lot of customers off, not happy about it, right? But my wits end when somebody wants $700 for their iPhone 11 and I can't take it anymore and I just gotta give them an education on how you could even send that out.

[01:06:47] I've been at that point in the day and stressed out or whatever and a lot of it is because I was thinking a lot about all the stuff that is wrong in the world when really it's stuff that I'd neglected in my own business is why I was there.

[01:07:04] And it's just something to where it's okay. Once you just admit that you were wrong and that you made some mistakes, admit it to somebody else, mentor somebody inside the business.

[01:07:14] It's important for you to get that stuff out. If you're having struggles in your business or whatever and you're not sure why or you're frustrated about whatever you need to have an outlet, whether it's a mentor in the business, your wife, a girlfriend, whatever it is, somebody.

[01:07:29] But don't hold that stuff in and not talk about what you're really feeling about your business, because once you start talking about it, then you can start getting down to it and then make the necessary changes.

[01:07:39] But us men, men,

[01:07:42] we got egos. It takes us a while to admit what we're wrong or we're, we're messing up somewhere or something's not working because of us. So I blame the business for a while.

[01:07:53] You know, maybe this business isn't for me. I was looking at other stuff. I need to go try and find another, another deal. And it's like, no, that's, you know, you can go to another, another side hustle, you can start another one.

[01:08:04] Go ahead, go do it with the same skills that you have and you'll be successful, you'll go make money and then you'll be stuck in the same stuff because you're not growing as a, as a human.

[01:08:14] So there's a, there's a lot of deep, deep stuff in, in this podcast, just about ego and self reflection. But I feel that it's important, man. I'm, I'm just, I'm just one example of, of somebody that has struggled with a lot of this stuff.

[01:08:32] But that's okay. I'm okay with it now. It wasn't okay to admit some of that three years ago. You know, I was still trying to hold on and tell you guys that everything's good, everything's great.

[01:08:41] I'm making 15 grand a month and, and hell yeah, man, I'm gonna tell you exactly what to do. It's like, dude, you need to shut up and you need to figure out what your inventory is in your office so you can have some, so you can be stress free and start listening.

[01:08:53] And Chris and Matt, when they tell you to take a day off and to list your inventory, I would have done that three years ago. My wife and I wouldn't have had to had as many fights as we have over the last two years.

[01:09:03] But I think a lot of people. So one thing I do want to point out is a lot of you guys think that people are doing super well, you know, mostly due to social media.

[01:09:14] But people, you know, usually just.

[01:09:17] They're posting their highlights, right? Like that's all social media is. It's a highlight reel, right? Same thing with YouTube. Same thing with stuff like that. I mean, that's one reason we created this podcast too, was like, like let's, let's.

[01:09:29] Let's actually look under the hut hood here a little bit.

[01:09:31] It.

[01:09:31] You know.

[01:09:32] Yeah.

[01:09:32] Like, what's actually happening. Because, dude, I've talked to so many people that were, you know, we're doing 40, 50k a month, right. And. And then we actually look into their numbers and these guys are making nothing like.

[01:09:46] But they sound good, right? Like, the messaging and the talking and all of that, but most of the. In. Most of the time. And I've had. I've had to do that myself, you know, like, until we.

[01:09:58] We thoroughly, like, track things even further than what we were tracking,

[01:10:05] you know, I realized, like,

[01:10:07] I. I had to put systems in place for myself. Like, Matt knows this every. Like, I don't make decisions on the weekend anymore,

[01:10:16] so.

[01:10:16] Amen.

[01:10:17] Like, that's. That's a thing for me is I don't make decisions on the weekend because they're usually wrong.

[01:10:23] Yeah. Decision fatigue is a real thing. And people need to understand, like, if your brain's tired, it's probably not the time to decide to switch up something in your business,

[01:10:33] you know, and if, you know people, if you're listening to this and you're thinking about joining accelerator or console kings, obviously we'll help rj.

[01:10:42] Chris has his course, I have mine. But we're just here to kind of speak. Maybe the point for today is, like, if you find that you're chasing that freedom, you want to get free of your job, you want to make more money,

[01:10:54] but one thing you're going to need with that, that I think is very exposed in this podcast today, is you're going to need structure. If you don't have structure,

[01:11:01] water can just go anywhere it needs to be channeled. And so it takes more than just the willingness to hustle. I'd say that is the base element. That grit to stay in the game is important, but it's not going to keep you there.

[01:11:13] And so we would love to help you. If anybody's hearing this and wants to.

[01:11:17] Team up, well, I gotta get prepped to go buy this phone and then grab that valve index, but go make my 800 to 900 today, okay?

[01:11:27] What it's all about, baby.

[01:11:29] All right.

[01:11:29] But with that being said, guys, thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Smart Flip. Rj, we'll have to have you on again, man. This was great stuff, for sure.

[01:11:37] I think it was also pretty therapeutic for you.

[01:11:39] Oh, dude.

[01:11:42] Now, you guys. You guys are awesome. I love everything that you guys have done over the last couple years. I've been watching, watching now Matt too. You just watching you guys take this thing off and grow and again you guys are growing, growing a business and you guys are helping other people and it's just,

[01:11:58] it's something to where people like you guys man are. I don't think you guys realize how much this helps. I didn't realize how much this helps. I was making a lot of money but talking to you guys over the last year, you guys saved me from myself and a lot of the,

[01:12:12] the self, the self deprecating thoughts and fears and whatnot to where it's okay to have them. So I just want to say thank you for having me on. Yeah man, I'll come on again and, and the next time I'm on, hopefully I will have a structured plan for my business where I could tell you guys,

[01:12:27] listen, this is how, this is how you structure your business in your office and keep your love it. I'll make sure that. But thank you guys for having me on.

[01:12:36] Well, thanks guys for watching another episode of the Smart Flip or listening whatever you're doing. If you're driving around picking up deals, we'll be back next week with another podcast, maybe another guest.

[01:12:45] We'll see. But if you guys have, if you're interested in, you know, checking out some of the resources we have, feel free to just look below.

[01:12:53] And you know, once again, the ebook, if you're brand new, the ebook is a great place to start. You can get it for free on episode 11 of the podcast on YouTube, Spotify,

[01:13:02] Apple, all of that. With that being said, guys, I gotta go buy some stuff and make some money. So see you guys later.

[01:13:09] All right, guys.