User Power
Value/Post Ratio
120%
- Dec 20, 2013
- 25
- 30
So it's been a long time since i made a post on here although i have never left as far reading the forum goes, there really isn't any where else like it on the internet.
I recently bought and read MJ's latest offering Unscripted and i really felt compelled to post what it reminded me about.
My backround and current profession is in construction, i had a small business in it many years ago but found it to be time starved with extremely tight profit margins that didn't seem worth the heavy finacial investment many of the jobs would take.
I started looking around for other ways of earning income and was always interested in business and got into all kinds of various methods including heaven forbid stock trading!
Nothing really worked although i did learn alot. Fast forward to i would say was the last couple of years and after reading threads by biophase among others i became interested in ebay and amazon.
The thing i found with ebay was that although it's a perfectly feasable business, to match the money i can earn at work and go fulltime saw me working longer hours than i do working at my job which i quit for 3 months to see how it would go. I was doing the usual, buying at charity shops/Goodwill and boot/yard sales. I found sourcing from these places while fruitful at times mostly were hard to find products with decent margins after fees on ebay. This was mainly because many people and stores selling second hand were using ebay as price indicator which ruled alot of resellers out of it.
Of course on top of that you would have competitors on ebay partaking in a race to the bottom pricing strategy.
After returning to work at my job i started to look into Amazon and saw youtube videos of a guy in the states who was doing real well souring books with an app at goodwill and book fairs and reselling on amazon fba.
After digging deeper i discovered a facebook group in the UK, downloaded a paid app and again over a period of 2 months sent a ton of books up to amazon.
This is where the lessons of MJ started to ring in my ears, Amazon as many here will know are a totally different animal when you are selling through them instead of buying from them. Their support was terrible and many of the problems i had, i just muddled through, researched what i could and carried on. Control is everything! and with Amazon as well as ebay you don't have much of it, some of the books i sent over sat in storage for over 2 weeks as i tried to get sense off amazon as to why my books were not live on their site. On top of this and some of the top guys on the facebook group were bemoaning how sellers were going in at ridiculous prices and it all felt very familiar to ebay.
Now i can't say for a second that both market places are a waste of time as there are people making fortunes on them. But reading unscripted has reminded me you need to have your own ship.
To build true value takes time, new skills and most probably years of sustained effort. Again i have learnt a ton in my time here and i did see an interview with MJ in which he said software skills are a big bonus in the online space. I've been learning alot on sales and marketing through books as well as was advised too from the great guys and girls here.
Being a construction guy this stuff doesn't come natural to me but it can be done, i can find and fufill a worthy need with the help of Mj's books.
It's going to be a long campaign but a worthy one and if it's one thing i have learnt it's that Control is everything!
I recently bought and read MJ's latest offering Unscripted and i really felt compelled to post what it reminded me about.
My backround and current profession is in construction, i had a small business in it many years ago but found it to be time starved with extremely tight profit margins that didn't seem worth the heavy finacial investment many of the jobs would take.
I started looking around for other ways of earning income and was always interested in business and got into all kinds of various methods including heaven forbid stock trading!
Nothing really worked although i did learn alot. Fast forward to i would say was the last couple of years and after reading threads by biophase among others i became interested in ebay and amazon.
The thing i found with ebay was that although it's a perfectly feasable business, to match the money i can earn at work and go fulltime saw me working longer hours than i do working at my job which i quit for 3 months to see how it would go. I was doing the usual, buying at charity shops/Goodwill and boot/yard sales. I found sourcing from these places while fruitful at times mostly were hard to find products with decent margins after fees on ebay. This was mainly because many people and stores selling second hand were using ebay as price indicator which ruled alot of resellers out of it.
Of course on top of that you would have competitors on ebay partaking in a race to the bottom pricing strategy.
After returning to work at my job i started to look into Amazon and saw youtube videos of a guy in the states who was doing real well souring books with an app at goodwill and book fairs and reselling on amazon fba.
After digging deeper i discovered a facebook group in the UK, downloaded a paid app and again over a period of 2 months sent a ton of books up to amazon.
This is where the lessons of MJ started to ring in my ears, Amazon as many here will know are a totally different animal when you are selling through them instead of buying from them. Their support was terrible and many of the problems i had, i just muddled through, researched what i could and carried on. Control is everything! and with Amazon as well as ebay you don't have much of it, some of the books i sent over sat in storage for over 2 weeks as i tried to get sense off amazon as to why my books were not live on their site. On top of this and some of the top guys on the facebook group were bemoaning how sellers were going in at ridiculous prices and it all felt very familiar to ebay.
Now i can't say for a second that both market places are a waste of time as there are people making fortunes on them. But reading unscripted has reminded me you need to have your own ship.
To build true value takes time, new skills and most probably years of sustained effort. Again i have learnt a ton in my time here and i did see an interview with MJ in which he said software skills are a big bonus in the online space. I've been learning alot on sales and marketing through books as well as was advised too from the great guys and girls here.
Being a construction guy this stuff doesn't come natural to me but it can be done, i can find and fufill a worthy need with the help of Mj's books.
It's going to be a long campaign but a worthy one and if it's one thing i have learnt it's that Control is everything!
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum:
Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.
