[00:02] Hey, guys, what is up? Welcome to another episode of the Smart Flip the Phone Flippers podcast, and we are definitely growing this thing. We've gotten a ton of positive feedback from you guys.

[00:12] And today, guys, I have with me Eric Riz.

[00:17] How do you say your last name, dude?

[00:19] Brizzle Vado.

[00:20] You got it, Zelvato. Got it. Cool. So I have Eric with us today. Me and Eric have talked back and forth for years at this point, and I wanted to bring him on because he's definitely seen a thing or two in the industry.

[00:33] Scaled up, scaled down, healed up again, scaled down again. So I'm gonna ask him a little bit about that stuff today, and I think it'll be a good one.

[00:44] Like I said, Eric's been around for a while at this point, and.

[00:48] Yeah. So let's. Let's rock and roll, dude.

[00:51] Dude. Let's start off with, you know, going over yourself a little bit. Where are you located? What do you do? Plug your business a little bit, you know, if you want to buy from some other resellers that are watching this.

[01:02] Sure. So I'm in Nashville, Tennessee.

[01:06] I've lived here for. Since 2017.

[01:11] I started flipping electronics in general summer of 2021, like, June, July.

[01:20] So we're going on our fourth year right now. And I will say that, yeah, my. My business took off very, very quickly. Like, it turned into something that I was not anticipating at all, very, very fast.

[01:33] And right now I kind of feel like I'm. I'm. I've been playing catch up the past couple of years. Like, I've just been, like, falling over my feet, like, trying to get some footing underneath me while I'm, like, experiencing all these aspects of business that I've never experienced before.

[01:47] And, you know, I was calling myself a business, but I was like, now I understand. I'm like, dude, no, I just, like, surviving and happen happened to also got lucky and was, like, making a bunch of money.

[02:00] So. But you come to realize very quickly that that's just making money is not being like business. Like, just because you can make some money does not mean you're a businessman.

[02:09] Does not mean you own a business.

[02:11] There's a lot more that that goes into. Into that, which I'm sure we'll get into.

[02:16] But yeah, So I started out literally just Facebook Marketplace, buying and reselling anything I could buy on there. I did gaming consoles, iPads, phones.

[02:27] I would buy crack stuff and repair it and then flip it back on there.

[02:32] I did weights at one point. Like, anything that I. I saw was able to be resold for a higher amount of money I would buy.

[02:42] And at that time, I think I was probably doing about 1500, a thousand to fifteen hundred dollars a week gross.

[02:48] No ads, strictly just out there driving around, picking up stuff. And then I remember chatting with you for the first time and it was like, all right, well, how do you not work as hard?

[02:59] Yeah, yeah, how do you.

[03:02] Yes, I remember. How do you do less? Like, are you doing less work? And I'm like, no, I'm doing a lot of work right now. And I. I probably even had the mindset where I was just like, or I'll just work harder and like, do more.

[03:16] And now I'm like complete virtual opposite. I'm just like, I don't want to be involved in anything unless I have to be. So it's like, if. If my brain or whatever I.

[03:26] Information I have is not needed, then you don't need me. I was like, please, please, please do not call me.

[03:33] I tell my VA all that all the time. I love him to death. And we chat all the time. But he'll be like, he's like, I get to bother you more now, boss.

[03:39] I'm like, no, you don't. Actually, you couldn't bother me less.

[03:42] So.

[03:43] But yeah. So I think there's a lot to be learned on that ground floor.

[03:47] I use every aspect that I learned strictly running no ads, strictly just doing cold calls or like reach outs on Facebook and Craigslist that I recommend that every person starts off doing.

[04:01] Yeah, I think if it wasn't for that and that tenacity that put me in the car driving around for 8, 10 hours a day picking up stuff.

[04:11] If I had not done that, I don't think I would have been able to weather the storm that came the next three years.

[04:16] So I mean, it's true. So I mean that, that's one thing I had to come to a realization with later on as we were scaling out and helping people was that part right there was I didn't do.

[04:30] So I scaled up without reach outs at all. Like, I never did that in the beginning. Like, it was all free ads. Whenever that was a thing, right. Like, like the marketplace ads and whenever they would stick and you wouldn't get banned and stuff like that.

[04:45] Like that offer up, let go all of those apps and we would just post ads and that was how we did it.

[04:51] And Craigslist, of course. And I never did reach outs in the beginning. I hit my first $10,000 profit month on ads and Facebook ads. Alone. That was it.

[05:03] So I came from, like, almost like the complete opposite side, right? So a couple years later, it was actually about two years ago now, Matt Shirley joined my team as the console coach.

[05:15] And all he did was reach out.

[05:18] I was like, okay.

[05:21] And. And then he. So I was like, you know, just teach my students how to do it. I don't want any aspect of that where. Whatever.

[05:27] I have my thing. I got Inbound happening all the time with Facebook and Google. I'm good, you know.

[05:33] And then, you know, my students started posting, and they were like, yeah, I just scored this, you know, meta quest and made, you know, this. And I was like, oh.

[05:43] And then they started posting rooms full of ****. And I was like, what is happening? And it was 100% reach outs on that one, too. So, I mean, that's. That's kind of whenever I started looking back, and I was like, all right, I missed that part.

[05:56] I got to go back and relearn because I totally just skipped over it.

[06:00] And I just became an ads expert because, you know, I was addicted to just inbound, and it was nice, you know, So I went the total opposite way that most people find the game, you know, Like, David never even taught reach outs, right?

[06:15] He just. Ads. Craigslist ads was the way, right? Like, me, me, Aaron, and the rest of us were the ones that kind of dove into the other places. But. But, dude, let me ask.

[06:28] So, like, what was that, like, aha moment whenever you realized you could. You could scale this thing? Like, what was that moment for you?

[06:37] I. It was when I started running ads and when I started to spend a little bit more, like, started out 10, $15 a day, something like that. And then eventually I was like, okay, well, like, it's going well.

[06:52] It's like, let's spend some more, like, $45 a day, then 50.

[06:58] And then when I was at $50 a day, we were. I was getting a ton of leads coming in, and I was closing every single day. Then I started finding repeat customers, individuals that would bring me stock on a regular basis, even if it was, you know, one.

[07:14] Even if it was just once a month, it doesn't matter.

[07:18] And then I started doing some business with, like, stores that would. I would sell to, and then they would sell me stuff. And when I started to realize, I'm like, wait, like, the more I put out, whether it's me going to a store to talk to somebody or putting our business out there through leads, posting stuff on Instagram, like, whatever it might be, there's all These different ways to generate leads.

[07:40] And the more leads that you can generate, more opportunity you have, the more opportunity you have. And more devices, you end up closing over time. If you just look at the percentages and when I started doing, regularly doing high volume, every single, whether it's revenue, product, however you want to look at it, devices, when I started generating that on a repeat basis month after month after month, that's when I was like, okay, like this can be something big.

[08:05] You know, when it got to the point where I didn't even know how much I was making, I was just like, okay, I think I just made four grand today.

[08:12] I was like, let's just keep going. And I would watch like the cycles of the year, like, okay, like November, you know, new phone comes out. You know, iPhone 13 was phenomenal launch for me, but the next couple years sucked.

[08:26] But then even just watching the market like, okay, these new phones come out, then what happens? People start selling their old phones and some of them will do the trade ins for the credit, but some of them, they, some of them know that that's, that's not money.

[08:37] That some of them know that that's just a credit on their account and they want cash and they understand that like they can, they could take less. So they don't ask you stupid questions like, well, why can't you give me a thousand dollars for my iPhone 8?

[08:48] Because it's not worth that much. That's just what Verizon's giving you for credit.

[08:53] And so it was kind of at that point that I started looking at things differently. I was like, okay, well I'm building relationships now. You know, these relationships are allowing me to either get more devices or get a higher price for the devices that I'm selling, whatever it might be.

[09:06] I've had relationships where I have buyers that would give me money in advance prepaying.

[09:11] So I was like, okay, well this helps me get stuff at. I just started kind of seeing the pieces and I understood. I was like, all right, well, I don't know what all these pieces mean, but I do know they go together.

[09:21] And I do know that when they go together, that means we're gonna make more money.

[09:25] And so in the beginning, all that was was just spending more money on ads. That was scaling for me. It was just spending more money on ads.

[09:33] And we've gotten up to, I think $200 a day is, is the most we've spent on Facebook and Instagram. Right now we're at a hundred.

[09:41] Working, working my way back up to that 2 to $300 threshold. So we'll see how it goes.

[09:45] Are you spreading out the. I can't remember. Did I set up your ads whenever you joined Dave's program?

[09:50] Yes, you did. Okay. Yes.

[09:52] I couldn't remember. Done it 200 bus times.

[09:56] And we do spread it out. So we use. I mean, I use video ads. I use the pictures. I use high quality and low quality. A little bit of both.

[10:05] And we definitely, like, we try to spread that. That money out. Yeah. But I. I did realize that the biggest thing is when you're spending more money is there is.

[10:16] Okay. There's, like. There's, like, thresholds, and you have to kind of break through. And so you might see a big jump from 25 to $50 a day, and you might see a big jump from 50 to 100, but from 100 to 150, there might not be much of a difference at all.

[10:30] They're that talking about, like, cost per lead.

[10:33] No. Like, amount of leads coming in.

[10:35] Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, you're in your local market, so it's. It kind of capped a little bit.

[10:39] Exactly. And so also what I found was that when we made the jump from 100 to 200, there was a difference.

[10:47] And then, like, big. I mean, we were closing probably 15 plus phones a day every day.

[10:52] Like, the way I like to look at that, like, if somebody's coming to me and they're like, you know, how do I scale? And I'm like, all right, well, like.

[11:00] Like, number one, how much capital do you have? Right. And the way I like to look at the ad spend is like, if you're spending. Let's just. Let's just baseline it at 50 if you can.

[11:10] If you know without a shadow of a doubt, and you're. You're comfortable in your closing experience that you can make more than $50 a day. Spend $50 a day. That's one phone.

[11:19] Right. Like, if you can make more than 100 a day and you know that you can, like, you're closing 1 to 2 out of 10 on Facebook or more or better spend it.

[11:29] Right. But also they're in a specific way to spend it with Facebook, which you've probably come to realize if you throw it all in one campaign, Facebook literally just eating up, it just spits it out, and there's no receipt.

[11:43] Yep.

[11:44] And we just watched, like you said, we watched just our closing it. The more leads you get, you have to keep track of it more. And so we just want, like, I know my va.

[11:51] I know what he closes. I know how good he is and I know like if, if there's leads in, like he's always like, ah, there's no leads today. Like what I'm like, go do some Facebook market marketplace, reach out.

[12:01] But he's a hungry guy, so he goes and like he, he closes deals, you know, and he does not let up on it on, on leads. Like his follow ups are ridiculous.

[12:10] So. And that's the biggest thing. The more leads that come in, the more, more management that takes. So there's. Okay, I can spend even if you have the money, I've got the capital and I'm able to close.

[12:19] Okay, you can close when you have 10 leads a day coming in.

[12:23] How many can you can you close when you have 40 leads a day coming in? And then not only that, but are you, how much are you leaving on the table?

[12:31] Yeah.

[12:31] So if you're not able to sit behind a screen and just close leads all day long, you're probably not utilizing those because it's like that takes time to sit there and, and talk to people and then follow up.

[12:44] Sometimes nobody responds. But when you have people that, if everybody starts responding back and then I have to manage all these people and then wait, I've got to go run and get to appointments.

[12:52] Oh, shoot, I forgot about the people I was talking to. Yeah, that was a real big problem.

[12:56] It's a real issue, man. Like whenever you, whenever you close like five deals and you're like, oh ****, who was that person? Like, that's why like for me, I utilize my software, resell that can.

[13:06] I like have to put their name. Then I add some freaking notes next to their name on who they were and what I offered. And then a cool. Like the other day I closed like three or four in a row.

[13:16] And I, I do a lot of my stuff through phone calls now actually. So. Because I've noticed it like, so I actually did a, a time audit on myself on how long it actually took to negotiate certain deals.

[13:28] And for one deal it would take up to like 30 minutes. And I was like, okay, that could have been a three to four minute phone call.

[13:36] Yeah.

[13:37] Knocked it out like that. Yep. And I would have hit the like the level two, like personal experience being on the phone with them. So nowadays especially like Facebook and definitely Google, if it on Facebook, if I'm getting a lead that's like 13 and newer, right?

[13:54] 13 Pro or something newer, I'll just ask to be like, what's your phone number? I'll call them and knock it Out. And with Google, I call all of those now, it's just honestly better because they're looking to sell right away.

[14:08] So it's one of those things. But so I got a question here, so I'm assuming I know the answer to this, but what has been your most successful marketing tactic by far?

[14:23] My. Yeah, my most successful marketing tactic has been Instagram.

[14:29] And not only the Instagram ads, but also like, I went and got professional videos done that were super expensive and I ran ads with them and I also posted them on my Instagram for 30 days.

[14:46] So like, when people like, I, I'm. I. I was getting stopped by like homeless people at the gas station. They're like, oh, wow, that phone guy. I'm like, first off, why do you have a phone?

[14:57] Second, it's like, why are you on Instagram? And third, like, what? Like I've seen you before, like all the time. People will come in here and like, I don't handle like any of the.

[15:07] I don't run any, I don't handle any appointments. I don't handle people that come in. So like they deal with Vaughn, but then they'll come in like, I recognize you.

[15:16] And I'm like, from where? And they're like, oh, I did those videos. That's right. But no, I've had that combination.

[15:23] Yeah, dude. Like that comment, like still to this day, because people go to your Instagram or they go to your Facebook page, so like, they're not just going to be in those messages.

[15:31] And I like, I forget that they do that. So they go and check to see like, oh, is this, this person real? They gonna like steal my kidney.

[15:38] Yeah.

[15:38] So whenever we get Google.

[15:40] Yeah. Whenever people come in, I tell them to leave us a Google review. And I literally just say, okay, let everybody know we didn't kidnap you and steal your kidneys.

[15:47] We gave you some money and sent you on your way.

[15:50] Isn't that funny though? Like how people like. So I call it like a lot of, A lot of the regular like lower level phone flippers that are below the 5k mark.

[15:59] They act almost like the one night stand type. Flippers is what I call them is like they'll meet up with somebody, they'll just won't talk to the lead, they won't talk to the person.

[16:08] They just do the deal transact. It's every everything is transaction. Right. Like with them in the beginning and that's okay. But like, eventually you got to break out of that and you actually got become a human and a business owner.

[16:20] Yeah. And that act, that is what changes the business for you is like people start referring you. And I'm sure you see this big with Instagram. I don't know if you're doing this, but like with the photos that we take with customers.

[16:33] Yeah.

[16:33] Or that I take with customers. Like one thing I'll do is if they have an Instagram, I'll get their Instagram handle posted on Instagram and all of their friends will see that tag and the photo and know that they got cash for their phone.

[16:47] So that's a really good way to get referral, especially if you're utilizing Instagram. I don't know if you remember, I actually learned that in Dave's program from another guy named Eric.

[16:56] And that's all he would do. That was his entire marketing strategy. And I was like, bro, like, that is wild.

[17:04] You know, we're trying to. I'm so bad about it, but like we have great interactions with our people and I just, I'm so bad about remembering it. I started, I got a GoPro and I started putting it on my head.

[17:15] Yeah.

[17:16] Or the interactions. And we're going to make shorts and stuff out of them.

[17:21] Run it as an ad too.

[17:23] Yeah, that's true. You could run it as an ad.

[17:25] Here's how the process works, you know.

[17:27] Yeah, yeah. And look, that person left alive.

[17:31] We didn't kidnap them. So another question I got here is what systems and process have you put in place that you wish you would have implemented to.

[17:45] Let's see, which one do I wish I would have implemented sooner?

[17:51] Tell you mine, it was negotiation for sure.

[17:54] Yeah. I mean I would go with. I'd go with like my va.

[18:01] So which is everybody does it differently. Some people, you know, they close their own leads. They.

[18:11] Maybe they do. I know some people tried to do some hands free stuff.

[18:15] Maybe they have a friend do it. Or like another Flor. You said you're talking about having flippers do it.

[18:20] I hired two VAs when I, when it's been two years now. I think I kept one of them.

[18:29] And that guy makes me so much money and makes my life.

[18:36] Like most of the, the most stressful part of this business was making sure that like everything was organized. Like my account, like knowing what my points were coming up, making sure that follow ups were done.

[18:46] And now every single day I wake up, we've got our group chat with my, with my partner Vaughn, myself and, and Khalid. And he puts all of our appointments in there and it's nice and organized.

[18:58] Exactly what time it's at who the. What their name is. If there's a phone number, it's there. What are we buying from them? Well, how is it described? You know, how much we're paying for it?

[19:07] And then boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. All those for the day. If another one gets added, we go back in. Boom, boom. Readjust it. If follow ups need to be done, we tell them, hey, follow up with X, Y and Z person.

[19:17] He goes and does the follow ups. He lets us know where they're at, how far away they are. All the stuff that, like, you need to be doing when you're, when you're, when you're doing this.

[19:26] And that's. To me, it was the part that was. That was stressful. It caused me the most amount of stress, was making sure that all that stuff was done. Because imagine like, you're.

[19:34] You're. You're driving to go pick up a device, and the customer's like, oh, yeah, we were running 20 minutes late.

[19:44] You know what I mean? Sent her out. Whatever. That stuff happens. And sometimes it happens. Sometimes they, they did give you enough time, but you just didn't see the message.

[19:51] Yeah.

[19:52] Because you were doing whatever else.

[19:54] So that, that for me was a huge. And then getting a lo. Like a location that I would. I wish I would have done sooner, even if it was just a cheap place to rent and sit at and do my work app and meet up my people.

[20:06] I used to do at a coffee shop when you told me to stop driving around. And I, I, I didn't want to because I was like, well, yeah, but I'm gonna get less deals.

[20:15] And then I just went on the street. That's what I thought. I'm getting less deals.

[20:19] I'm not gonna. Let's talk about coffee shop days, dude. So I'm assuming.

[20:24] So there's something that I call lineups. Whenever you start doing that. Did that ever happen for you?

[20:29] Oh, yeah, I just. I would. That's what I would do every day. I would line them up. I would literally just be like, for the next day, I would just be like, hey, I'm gonna meet here.

[20:37] Whoever was the first appointment. I would try to get everybody else to do about the same time.

[20:42] And for the most part, I'd get most of them. Would be in that timeframe, I'd get most of them there. And then maybe I'd have to, you know, come back later the day for, like, the last one.

[20:50] Um, but I lived super close, so I lived a mile and a half down the street. So I'd Just go home, hang out, do whatever I need to do and then come back later if I needed to.

[20:59] But I, and I will tell you this, every time I was tempted to leave and drive and I did leave my coffee shop, something bad ended up happening and it wasn't, it never worked out.

[21:09] So I just stopped. I'm like, I'm not driving anybody.

[21:11] Yeah, the no shows hit harder whenever you start doing like. So I actually drove to a lead for the first time and a while a couple of days, a couple of days ago.

[21:21] And they no showed me. And that's, you know, that hasn't happened in a long time, Chris. And I was just like, screw this man. Like it was like a 45 minute drive and I'm like, I, you know, I broke my own rule and I, I got bit for it basically.

[21:39] And so, yeah, I mean like for the, for the one man show type of flipper, the solo flipper, like that is the move in my opinion. Like if you can get to the point where your negotiation skills are good enough to be able to do that, that is a really good place to be until you're able to take it.

[22:00] So I usually Recommend Hiring around 10,000 in profit. Like hire a negotiator or somebody to handle sales. Like that's kind of the recommendation on my side of things. But like the main people we help are those one man show type flippers and help them get to 10, 15k a month.

[22:17] And that is one of the best things that you can do is start lining people up all at the same time. And it makes you look really freaking good as well.

[22:26] Like if you got four or five people meeting you at one time, you're the man dude. Like, yep, he's passing out money to everybody. And then let me know if this happened to you.

[22:37] Was there other people in that Starbucks that came up be like, what do you do? Like what are you doing? Did that ever happen?

[22:43] So we would get. I had, I think I had one person, I did and one person that like one or two people that ended up like grabbing a card from me and like selling me something down the road.

[22:52] Not a lot, but what I did have at the coffee shop was all of the, like everybody there knew who I was and like treated me really, really well.

[23:03] Yeah.

[23:03] And so it's nice when you have a place. Like they like, they would be like, oh, what do you do? Like blah, blah, blah, like talk to you, whatever. And like they'd always know what I'd gonna, I was gonna order whatever else.

[23:12] Like I remember one time I had a lady that freaked out and, like, threatened to pull a gun on me or something, and I was just like, oh, God, I felt so bad.

[23:19] So I just brought a bunch of donuts the next day, and they were like, oh, you have to do that. We didn't care. And I was like, I mean, I appreciate it.

[23:25] So.

[23:26] But, yeah, that. That's a great. I'm sure that does happen more often than not.

[23:31] Yeah, dude. So, actually, a couple of months ago, one of my repeat customers called Starbucks, and they were like, hey, is Chris the phone flip the phone guy there? And, like, the.

[23:43] I was there because it was my scheduled meetup time, and the barista was like, hey, Chris, there's somebody on the phone for you. And I'm like, oh, my God. Not.

[23:54] And this is, like, the third time it's happened, by the way.

[23:57] Chris the phone flipper there.

[23:58] Chris is a phone dude there. And I was like, I'm so sorry. Like, they're. They. They have my number.

[24:07] And it was just one of those things. And that's happened three times at this point. It happened twice in Beaumont, and.

[24:13] Oh, that's.

[24:14] And. But, like, once you start getting. Like, once you're getting good and that stuff starts to happen, like, you're in a good place normally because refeed customers are coming, and that's.

[24:27] That's the game right there. But.

[24:30] So you started this a while back. I know you were. You were doing Facebook, Marketplace and everything before you started doing the ads.

[24:39] But, like, I have a question on advice for others. Like, if you were to look back and tell, you know, yourself five years ago, exactly what to do, what advice would you give someone who's just starting out and wants to take their flipping side, hustle the next level?

[24:52] So they're the person that's running around town all day long, running ragged.

[24:57] You know, wheels are falling off the cars type of stuff. Like, what would you tell that person to do to get to the next level?

[25:04] I tell them to do what I'm doing now after almost four years, which is writing down all of your processes.

[25:11] And I think a big issue, like, I'm. We're getting ready to start a trucking company, and in January, February, in six months from now, whenever that is. And one of the things that I realized, I was like, if I want to have more than one business, I need to have every single thing that we do in a day, in a month, in a year written down.

[25:35] So if anybody has questions down the road, you think right now you may never have employees. But, and I tell guys now, I'm like, get the 10 grand. See how you feel about, about the industry.

[25:45] Once you get to ten grand, you.

[25:47] May not want to go beyond that. You can do that one man army all day long. You may not want to go beyond that. You. You may not want to ever have employees.

[25:56] Who knows? For me, I always wanted to have other businesses and stuff, so I knew that I was going to want to grow this to a point where I could learn how to structure businesses.

[26:05] So I would say, put your processes down. Get. Get some white sheets of paper, do a rough draft, sit there and put down what is my process for dealing with leads and like generating leads and closing deals.

[26:18] Write all that stuff down, every single detail that you can remember, and then go over and say, okay, well, now taking up my devices and putting them in inventory. What does that process like?

[26:28] Okay, getting them from inventory into buyer's hands. What does that look like? All right, what does it look like when I'm shipping? Okay, what does it look like? Every single detail.

[26:36] What needs to be done and what you do. That way, if you decide down the road you want to bring somebody on, your stuff is very well organized and you are very structured.

[26:45] And all you have to do is say, follow this book or videos or however you want to put it out. Put it out there. Now there's all these AI generated ones that you can basically just type the stuff in there and it'll write everything for you and create like a, basically an employee handbook.

[27:01] But put that together, because then if you have an employee that comes in, plug and play, plug them in, let them run. You just help them, you know, go through the process.

[27:08] If they have questions, they go back to the handbook. Then if you want to bring in an investor down the road.

[27:13] Yep.

[27:13] You're not like, oh, well, this is kind of what we do every day. You're just like, yep, this is how everything runs. It runs smooth as day.

[27:19] All you gotta do is plug in more money and it goes to the outlets. Money flows. Another one. Put your process for your money. Flow through all that. And while you.

[27:29] And you can do that while you're learning it, because the truth is that it takes you time to figure out how you're gonna do things, you know, and things might change down the road, but if you have it all written down, you can just go in and be like, well, that didn't work.

[27:40] Let me adjust it so I would, I would really have, like, write all that stuff down. And then the second most important thing is figure out exactly what you want for this business and exactly what you want for your life.

[27:54] Yeah. Plan it out the big picture and then, you know, go.

[27:57] Yeah.

[27:58] One thing I like to do when it comes to systems and processes nowadays and you guys probably see me pump out a ton of content. And the reason I'm able to do that is because I have a system and a process for doing it.

[28:10] So one thing I like to do and so I'll make a video like I. So a lot of times I'll make a rough draft video and you guys can do this whenever you're creating stuff too.

[28:21] This is make out a video and, and just like, just say everything at once and like, this is my process, this is what I do. And videos, taping yourself actually doing the process is a good way to do this too.

[28:37] Like, but for me, I like to, I like to use my whiteboard a lot to actually like visualize a lot of things. And I know a lot of people on my channel love that because it's a very good visualization.

[28:47] But what I'll do after that is I will actually take the transcript of that video and I will put it in chat GPT and I will say make this a systems and operations manual.

[28:58] And now I will edit it as needed. The massive G code to.

[29:02] You know much time you could have just saved me, I'm sitting here down. I hate writing if my brain freaking fries.

[29:09] Yes, it's a way better idea. I use dictation so much it's ridiculous. So I'll go to my notes app and like, so if I'm trying to write an ad copy or something like that, I would literally just say it and then I will plug it into AI and be like now rewrite it, keep, make it sound human and you know, give me like five different variations and it does it and it's great.

[29:33] So yeah, so that's awesome. Dude, I love that. And write everything down. Guys remember that like especially even in the early phases because as you move away from the early phases you will forget and that stuff will come become day to day, just mundane stuff that you do.

[29:51] Like I get asked all the time really simple questions about my like daily process on what I do. And like for me it's just part of my process daily. It's nothing new.

[30:02] But to some other people it's like mind blowing like that that I do that and I'm just like, dude, what are you talking? Like this is something I do every like 20 reach out today.

[30:11] Like that's the thing in our accelerator programs, like, that's. You have to do that minimum. How do I bang out 20 reach out today?

[30:18] Dude, I just have it preset in Marketplace and I just bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. Like, it's like a shotgun and I get it done in five minutes.

[30:25] And then, you know, my script for that is, hey, we run a business that buys MacBooks, iPad, smartwatches, iPhones, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[30:33] If I were to pay cash today, would you go any lower? I send that out 20 times in five minutes. And I only respond to the people that respond to it.

[30:44] Yeah, Like, I don't spend time actually looking at the description. You know, I just shotgun everything out and then deal with the negotiation afterwards. And it saves me a crapload of time.

[30:55] And I know for a lot of people that have watched my videos, they've implemented that and it's worked really well for them.

[31:01] I'm going to now.

[31:04] So I mean it. That's. That's part of the game, dude. It's. It's like for. So for example, whenever Matt came to me and, and he started showing me the reach outs and everything because I paid him for a consultant and everything.

[31:20] And I was like, the way he did it. He calls it his three ping method, where you sent three messages right away. But he kind of snipes deals in a way.

[31:28] Like, he has a process for sniping really good deals. And he makes insane ROI. His average ROI per device last year was, I think 72% wild. Yeah. Only game consoles.

[31:40] Crazy.

[31:41] But I was doing it and I was like, okay, I hate sending three messages to one person every single time. I can't stand it.

[31:51] So for me, it was like, all right, how can I make this easier? How can I make this better? And so I did. I just shotgun the same message to everybody.

[31:59] And I'm very upfront about my business model with everybody. And, like, I'll even tell my customers how much I'm making. Like, doesn't matter to me.

[32:07] Yeah.

[32:07] And they're cool with that. Like. And do you do the same thing? I'm sure you do. I will.

[32:12] If they, if they're like, oh, you're gonna make X Amount More, I'm like, nope, actually, this is what we're gonna sell it for. And this is what I sell it for.

[32:18] This is what I make, and I'm fine with that.

[32:20] For those of you guys out there that don't think we do that and don't think we run an honest business, that's exactly what we do. I tell every single customer, if they ask, I aim to make $80 in profit per device that I buy.

[32:32] That is my goal, especially locally. Right? So be honest with your customers. You'll get. They'll come back more often. Trust me.

[32:41] So let me. I got a couple questions left, but how do you deal with slow periods, dude? What do you do during the slow times?

[32:49] I just hang out, dude. To be honest, I think we. Because we know what we need to do to be successful every day. And so if we're doing it, I used to freak out, be like, what do I need to do?

[32:59] What do I need to change? What do I need to upgrade? And I'm like, sometimes you don't. Sometimes you just got to wait. Sometimes you're doing the right things and it's just a little bit of time.

[33:05] Yeah.

[33:06] And you'll start to. Yeah, sometimes you see a little bit of time, and then next thing you know, it's booming. And like my va. I tell him all the time, he's like, you know, he'd be like, oh, it's slow right now.

[33:15] I'm like, yeah, dude, this is this time of year. You know this. You've been swimming for two years. Come on. It's the same thing. And I just let anybody know, like, ah, it's slow, whatever.

[33:24] So what? It's always slow at some point, and then it's always fast at some point. It. And I had a friend tell me this recently, too. He's like, I only.

[33:31] I would only get concerned if it was slow for like three months.

[33:34] You know, that's true.

[33:35] And maybe there's something. Something wrong and not check yourself, right? Not to say that you don't check yourself. I always check myself. I check myself and see, like, okay, well, am I, Am.

[33:46] Am I not doing what I normally am doing? But I'm like, we do this. We do the same thing every day. You know, it's like we. We run our ads, we do our reach outs, we do our stuff.

[33:54] Like, we don't. I don't have to worry about those things too much. I know there are aspects of my business that I will.

[34:00] We are scaling up and I will make more when those things occur. But it's a process, and so it takes time.

[34:08] And I think that's a big thing. People freak out. Especially if you're spending money on ads. I get it. You're watching, like, that's 25 a day or $50 a day.

[34:15] Like, yeah, whatever. I might spend. I might. Even if I had two days with no devices which doesn't ever happen. But if I had two days with no devices, well then, okay, but then I get the third day and I have five devices come in and boom, I just made my entire week's, you know, ad spend or whatever.

[34:33] So, yeah, we just chill out. And honestly, like, I will take that time to check in on maybe like, old connections that I don't have anymore. You know, I, I always say it's like, it's really never.

[34:45] We have so many different avenues for devices like that. It's almost like never hard to be slow.

[34:51] Yeah.

[34:52] You know what I mean? Like, it might be slower than it was at a different time, but we've got, we've always have something coming in every single day, you know, And I, I, I realized like, also the more that you buy, the less dead leads you have.

[35:05] True. Yeah.

[35:06] So we started just buying more stuff. I get, I get different buyers. Like, we started selling to China and there's items that they, that they buy that I'm like, we never even bought these, but they buy them and these prices are really good.

[35:17] So I'm like, well, we'll buy them too.

[35:19] So I just, I always am just trying to expand, like my phone flipping portfolio.

[35:24] Yeah, right. There you go.

[35:27] I love that. No, I think that, you know, that's a big part of this business. And like, I don't know what you're scaled back up to now. What are you doing?

[35:34] Like, what is the monthly right now if you, I mean, if you don't.

[35:36] Want to share our last two months.

[35:40] So June and July, I haven't checked August numbers. June and July, we did about 25, 000 gross profit, I think.

[35:49] And I think we probably did about 200 to 200 to a quarter million in revenue.

[35:59] And August, I'd have to, I have to check our numbers still. But it was, it was close to the same.

[36:05] So yeah, we're still working our way.

[36:06] Back up, but heck yeah, dude. Well, I mean, so I want to go back here real quick to the slow, the slow parts real fast.

[36:15] So one thing I've noticed being in number one, the phone flipping space and then like the coaching space and the marketing space and all of that is slow. Times are inevitable.

[36:25] You got to live by the quarter and track your freaking numbers. Because if you've been doing this for any amount of time and you've been tracking that entire time, you can just look back to the previous year and be like, oh, yeah, it was slow that time too.

[36:43] Okay, not. So nothing's wrong here, you know, it's just like, that's just the time of the year. All right, cool. And because a lot of people just freak out, you know, and they'll, they'll like blow up their business a lot of times and shut off their ads and like all of this crazy stuff because, you know, they didn't make, you know, a thousand dollars this week and they'll just like burn their business to the ground.

[37:10] And like, I've seen it happen many, many times.

[37:13] But like, once you actually start tracking those numbers and you have like a spreadsheet stuff put together, you can just start realizing like, oh, wow, okay. It's not, it's not me.

[37:23] It's. It's just the time and that's fine.

[37:28] So like example, you know, from February to like around now, actually it the slowest parts of the year. Yep, by far. And like I had one of my students reach out and he's like, dude, I can't seem to break six grand a month.

[37:42] And I'm like, okay, well if you're doing six grand right now, that means you're probably gonna do 12 coming up in the holidays.

[37:50] Like, trust me, dude, six grand a month of profit right now. And you're struggling a little bit, but you're still doing well, you know, relatively well for somebody who's still working a full time job.

[38:02] Like, I'm like, dude, you're gonna be, you're gonna crush it in, you know, September. Ish. After the Apple launch through February, like just go ham, you know, crank your ads up, do, do all the stuff and you'll be fine.

[38:18] Like, it's, it's funny to me. Like I can calm these guys down pretty quickly because they just, you know, it's just like what I said, they don't know what a slow time looks like yet.

[38:27] And I remember Dave always said he's like, just do the same stuff every single day. And like, just keep letting it build up, right? Like if you're not closing deals, just keep making offers and keep making offers and like, even if you're closing, nothing.

[38:42] Because what will happen is, you know, you know how it is. Like a Saturday will hit and people still haven't sold their device. And then they'll be like, hey, you still willing to do blank that item?

[38:53] And you'll get hit with like 10 of them in the same day. And that's what we call the wave.

[38:59] And it's a real thing. But you have to be around long enough and you have to do than enough to make that wave happen, you know? Yeah.

[39:06] Think of like a multi year thing. It's like I always say, like, we try to make our. I try to make my slow year my slide. See how I can improve my slow time of the year.

[39:16] So that's like my base, like. Or I'm just like, okay, like, I want my average profit. Like last year we, our average was 30,000. I had 42,000. I had as low as 20,000.

[39:27] So I'm like, okay, well that's pretty **** good. I'm like, so this year I'm like, how can I make my lowest month 30 and my highest month's 50 or whatever, you know, like make it a game.

[39:39] Like, work on like every year. It's like, okay, I'm going to make my, my lowest months better. You know, raise that ground floor up. Like, we do bare minimum, we do this much now.

[39:48] Bare minimum, we do this much now. Because those highs, they don't always last.

[39:52] The other aspect is like, I made mistakes that I made very early on was like, every month is just going to keep.

[40:00] Yeah. Lifestyle inflation, baby.

[40:03] Yeah. And so I screwed myself. I'd be blowing money thinking, like, we're living good, but I'm like, you need to stash up live as. Like, we just, dude, we just cut our overhead down hard.

[40:14] And I'm just like. And I'm like, it's still too high. You know, I'm like, how can I cut more if I. Honestly, genuinely speaking, if I could not take a salary right now, like, if I could take no money right now, I would, I would, I would not take a dime.

[40:26] Like, I would just take what I needed to survive, which I kind of am. But I mean, like, I need, I need more than I want to be, be able to take.

[40:34] So like, I tell people like, dude, and that's, this comes back to the whole point of like, what do you want for your life and what do you want for this business?

[40:43] Because you need to think about long picture. Especially if you've never made six grand or ten grand or fifteen grand a month. I was doing numbers in this business by myself that I had never seen before.

[40:53] Yeah. And I screwed myself too. Like multiple times. Like, so, you know, I did my first $10,000 month in flipping and then I thought I was hot after that. Like, like, I was like, this will keep happening forever.

[41:10] And it was a December, right? Yeah.

[41:14] You're like.

[41:17] So, you know, I upgraded apartment, I bought a new car, I did all of the stuff because I thought, yeah, I was, I was like, this is, this is how it's gonna, it's how it's gonna be forever, you know, and go up from here and then, and then, and then March hit and it was not happening.

[41:39] And it was back to the struggle bus, you know? And like, that happens in a lot of industries. Like marketing, for example. It happened the same way.

[41:47] In that one, I figured out how aggressively markets affect marketing.

[41:54] Like, whenever Covid happened, I lost six grand, like in monthly recurring revenue in a week. And I was like, yeah, dude, it was, it was a thing. I was like, ****.

[42:05] Because everybody cut their marketing altogether. What was great about that, though, was, I mean, Covid in itself wasn't great, but, like, I learned through that experience that reselling can thrive in any market.

[42:18] Oh, yeah.

[42:19] All like 2020, 2021. I learned very quickly that Internet based businesses will die very fast when a global something happens.

[42:29] But, like, the reselling game, it actually gets better.

[42:33] Like, because people need money more than ever.

[42:35] Yeah, I know. I wish I was phone flipping during COVID Dude, it was, it was fun.

[42:41] Like, like, people were scared to meet, but they were like, I need money. Like, I need to buy food, you know? Yeah. And like, you could just lowball everybody. And people were still buying on ebay because that was part of their business.

[42:52] And, you know, it was a thing. But let me ask you these, like, last three questions, and then we'll wrap this thing up. It'll be around an hour. So.

[43:03] So what motivates you to keep growing your business? Is it financial freedom, the thrill of the flip, or something else?

[43:10] Oh, you, you, you broke up just a little bit. Could you repeat that?

[43:13] Yeah, yeah. What motivates you to keep growing your business?

[43:16] Oh, honestly, it's giving to others. I, I, I have things that I want to do with my business. Like, I have an amount in my mind of what I want to make by the time I'm 40 years old, let's say.

[43:31] And I know what that number is. And I literally was just making a video this morning, and I was talking about how anything that I touch moving forward, it's all about how beneficial can this be to other people.

[43:45] Like, when we want my, my buddy and I want to start this chucking business, I'm like, all right, well, like, I want to make sure that we can do this amount because I want our drivers to make X amount.

[43:52] The drivers need to have insurance. Like, I want to make sure that, you know, everybody's taken care of. Well, I do the same thing in this, in this industry. I talk to my guys and I'm like, look, when we can get to here and when I get this stuff structured, like I want to be able, we'll be able to afford to pay you this.

[44:05] Like, you know, if you can do X, Y and Z things for us and like you can learn these things, we'll be able to give you the raises, like whatever.

[44:12] Because at the end of the day, if you're going to run a business, you know, if you're, if it's just for you, that's fine. But if you're going to run a business and you're involving other people, right.

[44:22] My guys give a lot to me. You know, sometimes they're not working for eight hour days, sometimes they're working 10 or 12 hour days, you know, and so it's like I gotta make sure like you guys are, you guys are giving me and allowing me to grow.

[44:35] So I need to make sure that I give back to you. And that's the way that I, I view business. So I have my, my desires for myself and for my family.

[44:43] But ultimately I think I, what drives me the most is knowing that like I think it'd be badass to be able to, to pay my employees like super well. Like to me that's being a successful business owner.

[44:55] Like if everybody gets health insurance and I can give you guys like we can go out for nice dinners and like we can do like to me that is winning.

[45:04] So. And there's, there's sacrifice that's required in that 100.

[45:07] I remember Steve Wozniak, co founder of Apple, right? He would drive by the, he would drive out of the Apple headquarters and there would be this big. And he talked about it all the time too.

[45:18] I've listened to a couple of his, his stuff on podcasts and he would. There was a big neighborhood right outside of the Apple headquarters, built million dollar homes and almost all of them were Apple employees.

[45:30] And that he said that's what he was most proud of was that right there was how much of an impact he had made for those people. So that's big, dude.

[45:39] I love that.

[45:42] So how has phone flipping impacted your life personally?

[45:49] Well, it, dude, it's changed my life completely. I mean it completely changed my life in a lot of ways. Like a lot of ways. Phone flipping for me was the first thing outside of my professional swimming career that gave me joy again and that I like enjoyed and had a passion in.

[46:09] So when it started to become very successful, I was like, oh, this is amazing. Like I found the thing for me.

[46:16] I went through that too.

[46:17] Yeah, yeah, I was like, this is it. Like, I found my thing. And what I realized through that is I also. I was like, oh, I actually just like being an entrepreneur.

[46:25] Like, when I started learning more about business, I'm like, oh, I actually just like business in general.

[46:30] And I was like, man. Actually, when I look back at my childhood, I'm like, this makes a lot of sense now. I'm like, I remember one time shaking out the buckeyes of my buckeye tree, and we lived in Ohio, and I was like, I could sell these for 50 cents apiece.

[46:44] Nobody would pay 50 cents a piece for those. But this is my child brain. I could sell these cents a piece, and I count them up, and I was like, I would make a thousand dollars.

[46:52] And I was just like, this is, you know, not a great business model, but, you know, like. But the idea is there, and that's what gets you started, is your brain starts moving and you start seeing pieces, and you start making the pieces fit together.

[47:07] It.

[47:13] Cut out.

[47:29] It.