Latest / Curiously Guided Podcast / Ep.113 | How Shay Replaced Her Full-Time Income By Selling Other People’s Trash Online with Shay Schindler, Sales Consultant & Professional Reseller

Transcript

Ep.113 | How Shay Replaced Her Full-Time Income By Selling Other People’s Trash Online with Shay Schindler, Sales Consultant & Professional Reseller · Curiously Guided Podcast

• 0:07
  Mariah: Welcome to the Curiously Guided Podcast.
• 0:10
  Shay: We're your hosts, Mariah.
• 0:12
  Shay: And hey guys, I'm Shay.
• 0:14
  Shay: We're two online business consultants passionate about rewriting the rules to success within both life and business.
• 0:21
  Shay: We believe that curiosity is our superpower.
• 0:24
  Shay: And trusting the nudge is a muscle that's meant to be strengthened.
• 0:28
  Mariah: Especially if we want to create a life that feels good from the inside out.
• 0:33
  Shay: So if you're ready to open your mind and let curiosity guide the way, let's get into the episode.
• 0:40
  Mariah: Ooh, guys, this is such a special episode here.
• 0:44
  Mariah: I'm so excited.
• 0:45
  Mariah: We're recording on a Monday, and I feel like I've been thinking about this all weekend.
• 0:49
  Mariah: So I, Mariah, get the opportunity to interview my fellow co-host, Shay, about something that she is an absolute genius in.
• 1:00
  Mariah: And I'm really, really excited to kind of spend most of the episode like untangling the different parts of her brain that go really deep into sales.
• 1:10
  Mariah: Because on the podcast, you know, we're on season six, dude.
• 1:13
  Mariah: Like it is no surprise what Shay does.
• 1:16
  Mariah: Sales consultant, sales, sales, sales.
• 1:18
  Mariah: Okay, great, cool, cool, cool.
• 1:19
  Mariah: But she's found herself in like this unique arena of sales that like never gets talked about in the online space.
• 1:28
  Mariah: Like most of the time when we talk about sales, and even Shay, it's like, oh, I'm a sales consultant, or like I'll do sales calls for like bigger brands.
• 1:35
  Mariah: And like that is kind of normal, but like there's so many other ways to do sales to make money online.
• 1:45
  Mariah: And Shay's story is really unique.
• 1:48
  Mariah: So, Shay, welcome to your own podcast.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's so fun to be here.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited to have this conversation.
• 1:55
  Mariah: Okay, so let's just dive right into it.
• 1:59
  Mariah: So you replaced your full-time income by selling other people's trash, which that's such like a fucking click-worthy, like little title.
• 2:09
  Mariah: We love that.
• 2:10
  Mariah: How the fuck did you get into that?
• 2:15
  Shay: Well, uh, it goes way back.
• 2:19
  Shay: I actually started selling things on eBay.
• 2:22
  Shay: I can remember like the very specific situation.
• 2:26
  Shay: I wanted to play tennis.
• 2:28
  Shay: I was a junior in high school, and my parents would not buy me a tennis racket, and I needed to figure out how to pay for one.
• 2:34
  Shay: So I just started selling like things around the house and things in my closet.
• 2:38
  Shay: My dad is a big auto parts, car parts guy.
• 2:41
  Shay: So he already had an eBay account.
• 2:43
  Shay: And this was back in 2004.
• 2:47
  Shay: So um I put things up on his eBay account and they sold, and I was able to buy my tennis racket.
• 2:54
  Shay: And from there, I just and back then it was like a whole ordeal to take a photo, to upload it to a computer.
• 3:02
  Shay: Even the way you got paid, it was like it was pre-paypal at the beginning where people were sending checks.
• 3:08
  Shay: PayPal was like an innovation, and so it was a whole thing, but I was immediately just uh entranced, I guess, by this whole process.
• 3:18
  Shay: I'm like, oh shoot, there's stuff.
• 3:20
  Shay: My parents were always going to like flea markets and um estate sales.
• 3:25
  Shay: And so I was like, oh, there's all this stuff all around us all the time.
• 3:28
  Shay: I could be making money selling it online.
• 3:31
  Shay: So I kind of got the itch very early and I resold things throughout high school into college.
• 3:38
  Shay: I got into like vintage jewelry um and all kinds of antiques and like old dishes.
• 3:46
  Shay: And then when I got my degree and got my big girl job, I kind of took a break from all of it for a really long time.
• 3:52
  Shay: And if you guys know my story at all, um I my husband and I went and lived abroad for about three years and we started teaching English while we were over there, but then we stopped that and opened our own agency online.
• 4:06
  Shay: And part of that, the reason that we opened the branding agency was because we had made a brand for our own products-based business.
• 4:14
  Shay: Like literally, I remember being in Asia and I missed selling things online, especially like products, so much.
• 4:20
  Shay: I was really missing going to the thrift stores.
• 4:22
  Shay: I was watching people on YouTube and I was like Jones and for it.
• 4:26
  Shay: Over in Asia, they don't have as much of that thrifting culture.
• 4:29
  Shay: There's like a stigma about old people's old things.
• 4:34
  Shay: They think it like means death or it carries death with it.
• 4:36
  Shay: So I couldn't get that itch and I was craving it, which was interesting.
• 4:40
  Shay: So Bobby and I actually got into Amazon FBA and we launched our own product because I was like, I want to sell products online.
• 4:45
  Shay: What could I do while we're abroad?
• 4:47
  Shay: Um, and through that, we learned how to do logos and branding.
• 4:51
  Shay: And that's how we actually got into online business with our web design and branding agency.
• 4:56
  Shay: So it all came through this desire of like, I like selling products online.
• 5:00
  Shay: And so fast forward, you know, we I was going to some assist estate sales and thrift stores just for fun, but I was not really selling anything formally.
• 5:09
  Shay: Um and I, you know, if you guys know my story, we had our online agency.
• 5:15
  Shay: We did not like running it together.
• 5:17
  Shay: I really like the sales side of things.
• 5:18
  Shay: So I dropped that and started doing high-ticket sales for other creative agencies online.
• 5:24
  Shay: And through that journey, I've loved high-ticket sales.
• 5:28
  Shay: It's really a wonderful fit for me and my skill set.
• 5:31
  Shay: It allows me to um not work a ton every week, to be honest.
• 5:36
  Shay: And I was in in my previous job, I was in a really stressful high-ticket sales position.
• 5:42
  Shay: And I um I was back working with Amazon sellers again.
• 5:46
  Shay: So I was back in the e-commerce space and I was kind of evaluating Amazon listings and telling people how they could conversion optimize their listing.
• 5:54
  Shay: And it kind of again in that online product space space.
• 5:58
  Shay: And it kind of reignited that, oh, I like selling things online again, bug.
• 6:04
  Shay: And in that job, I was really um unhappy and looking for forms of escape.
• 6:09
  Shay: So I started just cruising online auctions.
• 6:12
  Shay: We have all these online auction or auction houses near us that run these online auctions.
• 6:16
  Shay: And um, I started buying stuff and I started loading my eBay store just as like something to do to help me not think about this sales job that was like stressing me out.
• 6:27
  Shay: And fast forward even more, I quit that job and I've kept building my eBay store.
• 6:32
  Shay: Um, I picked up another part-time sales job that takes up a couple hours a week.
• 6:38
  Shay: It really doesn't eat up too much of my time.
• 6:40
  Shay: And I've been focusing on the eBay store.
• 6:43
  Shay: And um I'm to a point now where the eBay store is a greater part of my income even than that previous sales job.
• 6:52
  Shay: So it's replaced my previous full-time sales job's income.
• 6:56
  Shay: And what I'm really proud of is it does not take up that much of my time.
• 7:01
  Shay: Um, I, as you guys know, lifestyle design is my number one priority in life.
• 7:05
  Shay: I'm not trying to buy an island, as I always say.
• 7:09
  Shay: I want to live a good life and be comfortable, but I'm not just trying to hustle and make money for no reason at all.
• 7:17
  Shay: So, a lot of the online resellers, if you are in the space at all, you'll hear a lot of like hustle, hustle, hustle, list a hundred items a day and source for eight hours a day and spend your weekends.
• 7:28
  Shay: And I'm like, no, no, no, that's not me.
• 7:30
  Shay: I don't even really like being in thrift stores that much, if I'm being honest.
• 7:34
  Shay: So the cool part about reselling now is I feel like I have developed enough of an expertise in it, and I'm really kind of taking this, you know, I did high-ticket sales, I do high-ticket sales, and I'm taking this kind of high-ticket attitude into the reselling space.
• 7:51
  Shay: And I'm really focusing on higher value flips, um, kind of that idea of like quality over quantity.
• 7:59
  Shay: And um, I'm starting to share about it now online, and that's been really cool.
• 8:03
  Shay: So yeah, I've kind of developed an expertise in like flipping more high value things, and it is um blowing my mind how much money we've been able to make with it so far.
• 8:14
  Mariah: Yeah, and we're gonna get to how much money Shay makes with it because we're gonna make her drop some numbers.
• 8:20
  Mariah: Uh, but I just want to reflect like we connected back in 2020.
• 8:27
  Mariah: And since then, like you like selling products online has always been a thing, but it's never been your main thing as long as like I've really known you.
• 8:37
  Mariah: And then you started kind of telling me about like reselling, and then like you would get like super excited about it, and but like it was never a thing that was like you were gonna go all in with.
• 8:49
  Mariah: It was kind of this thing where it was like, this is just a fun hobby to pass the time, and it's like it was so fun to hear you talk about it to the point where I told my husband about it, and then we opened up our own eBay store, and then we're going to like garage sales and trying to flip things, and like we both had an eBay store going on, and then just learning about that world is so cool.
• 9:16
  Mariah: But it's like in the beginning, I feel like you almost, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but like maybe didn't want to admit that this is where you really wanted to spend your time.
• 9:27
  Mariah: Like you were kind of like, oh God, like, am I gonna be selling people's fucking trash online?
• 9:32
  Mariah: And you're like, this is not like a reputable career.
• 9:36
  Mariah: Like, what's happening?
• 9:39
  Shay: Yeah, I still am working through that, to be honest.
• 9:42
  Shay: I have a bit of like, like, I have my graduate degree, I have a master's degree, and I've done quite a bit of like career hopping.
• 9:51
  Shay: And then in the high-ticket sales world, it's all just like, you know, as fancy lux, nice cars, nice bags, all the cosmetic surgery in the world.
• 10:02
  Shay: And it it felt embarrassing to start telling these people, like, hey, I was spending my weekend digging through the sorter's basement to like flip their trash online.
• 10:11
  Shay: It's like, what am I doing?
• 10:13
  Shay: It it's a little, it's been a bit difficult for me to take myself seriously.
• 10:17
  Shay: And I do blame my parents a bit because this was always their side hustle.
• 10:22
  Shay: So the messaging they give me is like, Shay, please don't do this full time.
• 10:27
  Shay: Like, what are you doing?
• 10:28
  Shay: Please don't.
• 10:29
  Shay: We're like, they're like, you've seen us do this.
• 10:31
  Shay: What are you thinking?
• 10:32
  Shay: What are you doing?
• 10:32
  Shay: You got your graduate degree, girl.
• 10:34
  Mariah: So they're like, please don't be trash girl for us.
• 10:37
  Mariah: What does your daughter do?
• 10:39
  Mariah: She's she is trash girl.
• 10:42
  Shay: When I told my mom, kind of like what's going on, she was like, Well, Shay, you come by it honestly.
• 10:49
  Shay: I mean, they're definitely the ones that have exposed me to it, but they have more of that old school mindset of like, you need the nine to five job that you work at your whole career, and it gives you all the safety and security.
• 10:59
  Shay: And that's just not really the world that we live in anymore.
• 11:01
  Shay: And the reason I wanted to talk about this is a bit of a deviation from what we normally talk about on the podcast, but to get back to the idea of how you can make money online, I think there are so many people out there, especially today, as AI is taking jobs, people's spouses are losing jobs, stay-at-home moms need flexible schedules, retirees need to bring in some extra income.
• 11:25
  Shay: Like we're all feeling that burn of I need to bring in some extra income and I know that there's opportunities online.
• 11:31
  Shay: And to me, reselling is like one of the easiest entry points.
• 11:36
  Shay: You know, if you have some interest in going to a thrift store or going to yard sales, which so many of us do, how empowering is it that you can just like like I want to take a trip to Mexico with my friends.
• 11:48
  Shay: So I'm like, all right, I'm gonna hit up an extra estate sale every week and source an extra X amount of items, and I get to go to Mexico.
• 11:55
  Shay: Like that, to me, that power when I need money, I know how to go out and get it.
• 12:00
  Shay: And how fun is it that I go out and get it from a yard sale?
• 12:03
  Shay: Like that feels fun and silly, which I liked.
• 12:05
  Shay: But more importantly, it's really empowering.
• 12:07
  Shay: And I think it's a skill that if you're interested in it, it can be a really, you know, I've turned it into a full-time income on part-time work, but you could absolutely have a really solid side hustle to maybe help go on extra vacations every year, pay for a new car, or pay for a house project, you know.
• 12:26
  Shay: So I just think the skill of being able to know what's in demand and spot value and then list it online, it has so many applications, which we can talk about more.
• 12:38
  Shay: There's so many different ways to like slice and dice reselling that you can kind of tailor make it to fit like whatever kind of life you want to live, which I think is awesome.
• 12:47
  Mariah: Yeah.
• 12:48
  Mariah: And I think what's really interesting that me and Andrew learned when we were doing it.
• 12:51
  Mariah: So we didn't really get into like estate sales and auctions.
• 12:54
  Mariah: We were from Buffalo.
• 12:56
  Mariah: Buffalo is like, it's it's old, it's old around here.
• 13:00
  Mariah: And so, like, there's garage sales, literally, so fucking many of them all the time, everywhere, every weekend.
• 13:08
  Mariah: And even when we moved to like Asheville and we moved to Tampa, like we were still trying to find garage sales, and there wasn't really that many around.
• 13:16
  Mariah: And so we realized like these older cities and St.
• 13:19
  Mariah: Louis, where you're from, is kind of similar to where it's like these older towns have so much good shit.
• 13:27
  Mariah: But the other thing that I want people to realize is like, this is like the best part, in my opinion.
• 13:33
  Mariah: Inflation never hit garage sales.
• 13:35
  Mariah: Like things are still 50 cents a dollar, two dollars.
• 13:40
  Mariah: And so when we're talking about flipping them, it's like the ROI from certain things, even in like estate sales, especially if those people selling things from the estate sales don't know what it's worth because when you think about it, you're doing an estate sale, you're essentially trying to empty out this entire fucking house.
• 13:58
  Mariah: A lot of the time, it's like you just want this shit to go.
• 14:01
  Mariah: And so you're you don't have the time, or these estate sale companies don't have the time to look up the value of every single thing.
• 14:08
  Mariah: So it's like if you have your niche or your specialty, it's like you can really go in, zone in, and like make some pretty incredible money from this stuff.
• 14:21
  Shay: Yeah, you bring up a good point about your location.
• 14:26
  Shay: I think that's something that is interesting.
• 14:28
  Shay: Like you and I live in these old, like working class cities, I guess.
• 14:35
  Shay: There's all of these big old houses that someone's grandma has lived in for 60 years and like hasn't touched anything.
• 14:40
  Shay: And there are a lot of good yard sales and estate sales, but not everybody is like us.
• 14:46
  Shay: But there are good things about where you live.
• 14:48
  Shay: Like my husband and I went up to New York City this past summer, and the thrift stores, you guys, I sourced a$1,500 dress for like$60.
• 14:56
  Shay: And my husband got this Amy Leondor jacket that's like$800 for like a couple bucks.
• 15:01
  Shay: Like the quality of name brand in New York City is nothing like I will ever see here in St.
• 15:08
  Shay: Louis.
• 15:08
  Shay: Like St.
• 15:09
  Shay: Louis people just don't value fashion like people in New York do.
• 15:12
  Shay: So there is something about regional differences in like people in Florida, they're not doing yard sales a lot of the year because it's too hot.
• 15:21
  Shay: And but actually, those places with a lot of older folks, there's a ton of estate sales because they are downsizing or passing.
• 15:28
  Shay: Arizona is a place I follow some resellers.
• 15:31
  Shay: So it's kind of like geographically, it can change what you can find.
• 15:35
  Shay: But to your second point, my favorite way to resell is kind of finding those gaps in the system, like you're saying.
• 15:43
  Shay: So these estate sale companies, they have not a lot of time to clear out an old house that's typically full of stuff.
• 15:51
  Shay: And so they're gonna pull out what they know is valuable and what the family has tagged as valuable.
• 15:56
  Shay: But just to give you an example, this year, my husband Bobby, in the top of a closet, found a$500 Gucci purse for$4.
• 16:05
  Shay: Like they just had it in a pile of purses.
• 16:08
  Shay: This woman was had tons of purses, and they had pulled out a ton of brands, but this Gucci was not really logoed in a prominent way.
• 16:16
  Shay: Like there was just one tiny marking that Bobby noticed.
• 16:19
  Shay: So, like, literally, we pulled out a$500 Gucci bag for four bucks, and the estate sale company missed it.
• 16:24
  Shay: And we've found like Dolce and Gabbana, we have found Versace, we have any kind of name brand designer for four bucks because they do not have time to get to everything.
• 16:34
  Shay: Typically, in the basement is like the gold that's the stuff that they didn't have time to price.
• 16:39
  Shay: But there is like something, it feels like treasure hunting in a way, you know, like you're these.
• 16:48
  Shay: I think there's a lot of like talk if you're in this world, like, oh, thrift stores are so pricey and the state sale companies mark everything up, but like there's always going to be these little gaps in the system, no matter how sophisticated everybody gets.
• 16:59
  Shay: And if you can just kind of be curious, honestly, curiosity is the best skill in all of this, and patient and find those little gaps.
• 17:06
  Shay: There's just a ton of money to be made.
• 17:08
  Mariah: You mentioned like there's different applications.
• 17:11
  Mariah: Can you say more about what you were thinking when you said that?
• 17:16
  Shay: Oh, like the different ways to slice and dice a reselling business.
• 17:19
  Shay: Yeah.
• 17:19
  Shay: Yeah.
• 17:20
  Shay: So that um I just mentioned the purses.
• 17:24
  Shay: I love my husband and I love vintage fashion, vintage bags.
• 17:27
  Shay: Like I like to find an old beat-up coach bag and bring it back to life that just gives me a lot of joy.
• 17:33
  Shay: And so we focus on that, and that typically that's the stuff we like.
• 17:37
  Shay: But there's a lot of people in it that got in it for video games.
• 17:40
  Shay: They love video games.
• 17:42
  Shay: So they started going to estate sales to find or yard sales to find video games, and that's all they sell is video games.
• 17:48
  Shay: And then there's some people who are like super social butterflies and they have learned about whatnot and they sell live.
• 17:56
  Shay: And so they do like QVC style shows where they go live and they just like sometimes they'll pop up in the thrift store, literally set their cameras up and just pull things off the rack and sell live on whatnot.
• 18:08
  Shay: And I was joking around about Mariah, like the idea of like setting up at an in-real life market or like selling live on whatnot is so draining to me.
• 18:17
  Shay: Like, that is not my jam.
• 18:18
  Shay: I love the quietness of setting up my eBay listings, but that's my personality.
• 18:23
  Shay: If you're an extrovert and a social butterfly, you can get on here and be as social as you want.
• 18:28
  Shay: You can pop up at the weekend market and make Mariah has a friend that makes like four to eight K at like one weekend market.
• 18:34
  Shay: There's just different platforms you can work on that suit you, or you can specialize in what you sell and only sell things that are interesting to you.
• 18:44
  Shay: There's just, you know, you can be a hustle hard.
• 18:47
  Shay: You can go, they're called rag houses, where they just literally have tons and tons, like mountains of old clothes, and you can go and sort through those clothes.
• 18:55
  Shay: To me, that makes me want to kill myself.
• 18:57
  Shay: But some people just love that idea.
• 18:59
  Shay: That sounds so fun to them.
• 19:01
  Shay: So I I've really enjoyed reselling because I can really tailor it to I don't want to be working that many hours.
• 19:09
  Shay: I want to be focused on high-priced things that I get excited about, which is typically like bags and old stuffed animals.
• 19:15
  Shay: But that's me.
• 19:16
  Shay: And I also really like like discontinued products.
• 19:18
  Shay: I think like anything that's kind of hard to find is kind of my specialty.
• 19:23
  Shay: But a long story short, I what I've always liked about the online business world is if you're really interested in sourdough, you could build a whole business around sourdough.
• 19:34
  Shay: And if I'm really interested in old stuffed animals, I could build a whole business around old stuffed animals.
• 19:39
  Shay: It really can be tailored based on your curiosities and your interests and how your energy works, honestly, as a human.
• 19:47
  Shay: I'm not a super high-energy person.
• 19:48
  Shay: So the idea of being at a thrift store for eight hours in one day, that that's just like not ever going to happen for me.
• 19:55
  Shay: So I really loved like I have really created my dream life, and the eBay business supports it in the way that I needed to, and in the way that I wanted to, and then that can always change if I wanted to.
• 20:08
  Shay: And we could move, you know, like yeah.
• 20:10
  Shay: There's people that um are location independent, like they have their inventory so organized in the storage unit that they will set it all up and then they'll go to Spain and they'll just have somebody here that runs to their storage unit and packs it up in ships when it's time to go.
• 20:24
  Shay: So like you can travel the world with this kind of business.
• 20:27
  Shay: You can work whatever kind of hours you want with this business.
• 20:30
  Shay: It's ultra flexible.
• 20:32
  Shay: And then I just like to learn.
• 20:33
  Shay: You're a researcher like I am.
• 20:35
  Shay: Like that, it's infinite learning.
• 20:38
  Shay: It's like there's a million things I could be learning about and researching and doing my rabbit holes on.
• 20:43
  Shay: And so it feeds my curious mind and keeps that novelty alive.
• 20:48
  Shay: I'm always learning something new, and that really like gives me a lot of energy.
• 21:00
  Mariah: All right, y'all.
• 21:01
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• 22:22
  Mariah: Yeah, I think the coolest part is exactly what you're saying.
• 22:25
  Mariah: Like there's so many ways to A, sell it or like get materials, right?
• 22:29
  Mariah: There's so many ways to like get these products.
• 22:31
  Mariah: There's you've named uh like a ton of them.
• 22:33
  Mariah: It's garage sales, it's estate sales, it's auctions online, it's like all of these different ways.
• 22:39
  Mariah: And then you get to choose the little niche.
• 22:41
  Mariah: If you want a niche, there's people that just like sell, you know, the basics of everything.
• 22:47
  Mariah: And that was kind of like me and Andrew when we were doing it.
• 22:49
  Mariah: Like our favorite flip.
• 22:50
  Mariah: It wasn't anything crazy, like, you know, the numbers that you're gonna share with us later.
• 22:55
  Mariah: But our favorite find was this lady at a garage sale sold this huge box of, you know, like the little Yankee candle like tea lights, like those little small things.
• 23:08
  Mariah: She sold this big box.
• 23:09
  Mariah: It was like four for a dollar or like eight, it was like four for a dollar.
• 23:15
  Mariah: And there was like 300 of them in the box.
• 23:18
  Mariah: And Andrew was like, I'll give you$10 for this whole box.
• 23:22
  Mariah: And she was like, Yeah, cool.
• 23:25
  Mariah: So we took home 300 of these like Yankee candle, very specific scents.
• 23:31
  Mariah: We're sorting them, we organized them, we put them on eBay.
• 23:35
  Mariah: We sold each one of those for$4 each in like different packs of like people would buy a pack of eight, people would buy a pack of three, like depending on how many.
• 23:46
  Mariah: And we they kept fucking selling to the point where I was like, I have to show, like, I'm tired of going to the post office because at this time, like, this wasn't our full-time thing.
• 23:55
  Mariah: But it's like we I we must have made$700 from like these little fucking candles.
• 24:05
  Mariah: But it's exactly like you're saying, like, a lot of these scents were outdated or discontinued.
• 24:10
  Mariah: And it's like, oh, my mom really likes Apple Orchard Yankee candle.
• 24:14
  Mariah: I go, thank God, because they're stinking up my fucking basement.
• 24:17
  Mariah: Like, I don't like the scent of none of these fucking things.
• 24:20
  Mariah: But it's that was such a good reminder of like you never know what is going to be valuable to other people because we live in a big whole world where everybody's curious about different things.
• 24:35
  Mariah: And so it's like you can choose the niche that you want.
• 24:37
  Mariah: Like, I know Andrew made a bunch of money selling old Kodak film.
• 24:43
  Mariah: Like that was something that we bought at like a some estate sale, whatever.
• 24:47
  Mariah: And it's like these little things you almost wouldn't even think about.
• 24:52
  Mariah: But then you do a quick search on eBay, which is the cool part about now compared to like where you were coming before when you were a teenager.
• 24:59
  Mariah: It's like now we have the app, we have the internet, we have Wi-Fi.
• 25:03
  Mariah: You can literally at Goodwill, at a garage sale, type in Yankee candle, Apple Orchard, and see if there's anything available and if they're selling online.
• 25:12
  Mariah: Like you don't have to buy and source all of this shit and then have it all sitting in the trunk of your car because you're not sure if it's gonna sell.
• 25:21
  Shay: Yeah.
• 25:22
  Shay: And even with like a Yankee candle, that's such a good example because there's some old Yankee candles, the ones that have a black band on them are a good tell that sell for hundreds because it's exactly what you're saying.
• 25:33
  Shay: There's some scent that someone is in love with and they can't find it anymore.
• 25:37
  Shay: And if it has a barcode on it, it's even a step simpler.
• 25:41
  Shay: AI is so smart now.
• 25:42
  Shay: You can, well, I don't know if the barcode's AI, you can scan the barcode and eBay will show you what's available and what's sold.
• 25:49
  Shay: But then you can also take a photo if there is no barcode and AI will pull up um similar listings.
• 25:55
  Shay: So it is, in terms of like doing research, it is as easy as it's ever been.
• 26:00
  Shay: I actually use AI to make all my listings as well.
• 26:04
  Shay: All I have to do is upload photos, like a handful of photos, and I say generate listing, and AI will write my title, it will write my description, it will fill out all those subcategories that people are filtering for on eBay.
• 26:19
  Shay: Um it'll kind of prep everything for me, and I just have to review it and press posts.
• 26:23
  Shay: So, like reselling as a uh, I don't know, field of work is in some ways easier than it's ever been just because of AI and all the tech that's around.
• 26:36
  Shay: Um, but it is competitive, right?
• 26:38
  Shay: Like you hear people complaining about thrift stores aren't what they used to be, and uh, you know, estate sales are no fun anymore.
• 26:45
  Shay: Because like we all have access to information, but there are, I mean, we're such a consumer society.
• 26:52
  Shay: There are just infinite products.
• 26:54
  Shay: There are so many different things that I feel like everybody, there's no way everybody's gonna know like what's valuable.
• 27:01
  Shay: And usually the rule of thumb I ask myself when I'm out is is this difficult to find?
• 27:06
  Shay: Like, if I there's this um moondrops line of Revlon lipstick, it's those old green tubes, you'll recognize them, like our moms all had them.
• 27:16
  Shay: There's a few shades of that that sell for hundreds and hundreds of dollars.
• 27:20
  Shay: And so at a thrift sale or an estate sale or thrift store, if I were to see that, I would be like, oh, this is moondrops.
• 27:26
  Shay: I know that's good.
• 27:27
  Shay: Oh, this shade, nobody can find that.
• 27:29
  Shay: It's not made anymore.
• 27:31
  Shay: Where else am I gonna go to find it?
• 27:32
  Shay: Like literally, eBay or Etsy is the only place for things like that.
• 27:38
  Shay: And that type of stuff, I think it's really fun.
• 27:40
  Shay: And that's when you can kind of set your own price when you start to be selling very rare, rare things.
• 27:46
  Shay: But it really comes down to like you and I joked about this like keywords and understanding what people are searching for.
• 27:56
  Shay: And it can be wild stuff.
• 27:57
  Shay: Like I shared with Mariah last week, um I picked up some old diapers like from 1998.
• 28:05
  Shay: It's an open package of Huggies diapers, it's half full.
• 28:10
  Shay: The diapers aren't used, but it is from 1998, and it's gonna sell for over$100.
• 28:16
  Shay: And when I was researching diapers, I found that there's old packs that have sold for$3,000.
• 28:21
  Shay: And it's because us humans love to collect.
• 28:25
  Shay: And there's collectors out there that like branding, they like the history of diapers, they like other things about diapers that are maybe a little weird.
• 28:34
  Shay: But there are people out there that collect these old diapers and they don't make them like they used to.
• 28:39
  Shay: So they will spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to try to get these diapers.
• 28:44
  Shay: It's kind of like tapping into nostalgia, I guess.
• 28:47
  Mariah: It when you told me that, I'm like, that beats any other sort.
• 28:53
  Mariah: Like, I remember when you told me maybe it was like a year, a year and a half ago, because I never thought about cosmetics.
• 28:58
  Mariah: But me, it's like Victoria's Secret used to have the shade of a liquid lipstick, and they have since not carried it.
• 29:05
  Mariah: It was my favorite liquid lipstick, and I would pay a fuck ton of money if somebody can give me an unlimited supply of that specific shade of it.
• 29:14
  Mariah: And I was like, oh, that makes sense.
• 29:15
  Mariah: And I remember I don't know if it was like you found like some baby powder and it was like a pre-form, it was like something weird that, and you were like, it's even been like used, and these people are willing to spend money on it.
• 29:28
  Mariah: And I was like, I've been to Estates House, and I'm like, I never even think to go into the bathroom.
• 29:32
  Mariah: I'm just like, no, where my brain goes is like more like Yankee candle or even just like stamps, or do you know what I mean?
• 29:39
  Mariah: Like the more traditional collectors' items.
• 29:41
  Mariah: And then you told me last week about diapers, and like my jaw was on the floor.
• 29:45
  Mariah: Like, what the fuck do you mean?
• 29:47
  Mariah: There's so like well, these things are crazy.
• 29:50
  Shay: Oh, and you would not believe how much money I've made this year selling empty boxes.
• 29:55
  Shay: Just today, I sold an empty cardboard box for twelve hundred dollars.
• 30:01
  Shay: I'm not joking, twelve hundred dollars.
• 30:03
  Shay: I've also found um like an old Nintendo, a old Super Nintendo box, like that the system came in.
• 30:12
  Shay: I found it, I was taking out the trash and I looked at the dumpster and it was sitting there.
• 30:15
  Shay: My neighbor had thrown it away.
• 30:16
  Shay: She was cleaning out her son's room.
• 30:18
  Shay: I sold that for over a hundred dollars.
• 30:21
  Shay: Why would people want an empty box?
• 30:24
  Shay: Well, this is the interesting part.
• 30:26
  Shay: All of um, a lot of the empty boxes I sell are in like computer games or video games.
• 30:31
  Shay: Think about when people bought this stuff, they pitched the box and they saved the game.
• 30:38
  Shay: So now, collectors these days, it's actually the hardest to find a box because so many people threw them away.
• 30:44
  Shay: But collectors want the whole kit.
• 30:46
  Shay: They want the box, the system, everything.
• 30:48
  Shay: And so the boxes have actually become more valuable sometimes than the systems themselves.
• 30:53
  Shay: But the box that I sold for$1,200 is a really cool story.
• 30:57
  Shay: I, in an online auction, there was um just so a weird photo of three things.
• 31:03
  Shay: One was a letter from an astronaut at NASA.
• 31:06
  Shay: One was this cardboard box that looked blue, I couldn't really see, and the other one was just some junk.
• 31:10
  Shay: And I paid$10 for it because I was excited about the astronaut letter.
• 31:15
  Shay: And I sold the astronaut letter immediately for$30.
• 31:18
  Shay: But I, as I was about to throw this box away, literally the oldest, crustiest box you can imagine, I Google image searched it, and all of a sudden the sold comps were like thousands and thousands of dollars.
• 31:29
  Shay: And I was like, what is going on?
• 31:31
  Shay: And the lid of that box has these baseball cards.
• 31:35
  Shay: The the lid is made out of baseball cards to where, like, if you got it, you would cut it up and you would have this whole collection of baseball cards of Stan Usual from the 1950s, which is a big deal, especially here in St.
• 31:45
  Shay: Louis.
• 31:46
  Shay: So my box had the lid intact and it had the glove in it, which is like unheard of very valuable.
• 31:53
  Shay: So literally, I got this cardboard box almost all of these for free.
• 31:57
  Shay: Like this lot was already paid for with that NASA letter, and it just sold.
• 32:02
  Shay: So, like, literally trash, like cardboard boxes, empty boxes have insane value online.
• 32:10
  Mariah: You paid your mortgage selling an empty box online.
• 32:15
  Shay: No, last week we had a$2,000 car bill, so I cannot tell you like how wonderful it is when you have to give$2,000 to the mechanic, and then you have um a cardboard box sale come through for$1,500.
• 32:29
  Mariah: That's wild.
• 32:30
  Mariah: Can you give us like some more numbers like what you've sold recently?
• 32:33
  Mariah: And just like, because I mean the idea of this is fun, right?
• 32:37
  Mariah: Especially when we build in it.
• 32:40
  Mariah: This is another benefit to it.
• 32:41
  Mariah: And I think that this is why a lot of people actually get into it.
• 32:44
  Mariah: This is why we got into it is like me and Andrew aren't really consumers like that.
• 32:49
  Mariah: Like we don't care about like the newest shmi schmir shmi.
• 32:52
  Mariah: And we notice that garage saling inflation has not hit it.
• 32:56
  Mariah: It's the same fucking price.
• 32:58
  Mariah: And so we're able to get things for very, very cheap that usually we would have to spend, let's say,$200 for.
• 33:06
  Mariah: Like we got our old toaster oven from a garage sale, we spent$4 on it.
• 33:11
  Mariah: It was like a hundred dollar toaster oven.
• 33:13
  Mariah: Somebody was just like, I want a new toaster oven.
• 33:15
  Mariah: And it's like, I'm really excited when we have kids, where it's like instead of buying the next big thing, it's like, no, I'll just go to garage sales and give my kid 50 cents.
• 33:26
  Mariah: And now this kid walks away with like that toy that they want, like that type of thing.
• 33:29
  Mariah: So it's like almost like you're saving a fuck ton of money too when you go to these places.
• 33:36
  Mariah: But and I think that that's why a lot of people get into it is like you can, you know, it's something to do on the weekends, it's kid friendly, it's family friendly.
• 33:43
  Mariah: It's like me and Andrew will go and get a coffee and we'll walk around some garage sales and like it's just something to do.
• 33:49
  Mariah: You're not spending a lot of money and you're also saving money, but people don't even think about this.
• 33:53
  Mariah: Like reselling.
• 33:55
  Mariah: So if you could share some numbers and shit, I feel like that would be so fun.
• 33:59
  Shay: I will, but to your point, you're right.
• 34:02
  Shay: Like, I don't hardly ever buy anything.
• 34:07
  Shay: I never pay full price for anything.
• 34:08
  Shay: Like, I was even, as soon as you started talking, I accidentally turned on.
• 34:12
  Shay: I'm sitting on top of this vibration plate and it accidentally turned on.
• 34:16
  Shay: I got that.
• 34:16
  Shay: I wanted a vibration plate so bad.
• 34:18
  Shay: It's like all the rage right now.
• 34:20
  Shay: But I was like, I'm not about to spend$300 on these vibration plates.
• 34:24
  Shay: So I just kind of took a little note.
• 34:25
  Shay: Okay, I want this.
• 34:26
  Shay: And sure enough, a brand new in the box one popped up in an online sale like a couple weeks later.
• 34:32
  Shay: And like I wanted a ninja creamy and I found one at thrift store for$35 last week.
• 34:38
  Shay: And those are expensive.
• 34:39
  Shay: It's just like, even if I don't find it in real life, all my cosmetics, you can go on eBay and you can send offers to sellers.
• 34:48
  Shay: So they probably, for some weird reason, got a landslide of the cosmetic that you love, and they have this whole box sitting in their basement that they want to clear out.
• 34:56
  Shay: And so you can say, Hey, even though you have this listed for 30, I'll give you 22 for it.
• 35:01
  Shay: And a lot of times they'll say yes, because they have 45 more and they just want to get it out.
• 35:05
  Shay: So this idea of the secondhand market, I think there's like this bigger thing here of like this reaction to consumerism.
• 35:15
  Shay: Like we're just told, like, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye.
• 35:17
  Shay: And that's fine.
• 35:18
  Shay: I'm all about like buying for what is important for you, but you don't have to be spending so much money all the time.
• 35:24
  Shay: Like you, this is recycling.
• 35:26
  Shay: This is keeping things in the system, and it's also saving money.
• 35:30
  Shay: And for me, it's making money.
• 35:32
  Shay: So um, I was telling Mariah, it's awesome.
• 35:35
  Shay: I love that we're shooting this week.
• 35:37
  Shay: We are just outside of quarter four.
• 35:40
  Shay: We're at the end of quarter three.
• 35:41
  Shay: And if you don't know about retail, quarter four is where it's at.
• 35:44
  Shay: So we know that things are about to start popping off once we hit October.
• 35:47
  Shay: But Bobby and I have had our best week, like seven days ever this past week.
• 35:53
  Shay: And we've had about like a 7K, like$7,000 week.
• 35:57
  Shay: We've had like, I told you, I sold this G.I.
• 36:00
  Shay: Joe complex for$1,500.
• 36:04
  Shay: I sold that box for$1,200.
• 36:07
  Shay: We're having my goal was I want to have less like under$50 sales.
• 36:12
  Shay: And we just had a ton of over$100 sales this week.
• 36:15
  Shay: So we are just having like a killer week and it's not even quarter four yet.
• 36:19
  Shay: So I am pumped about that.
• 36:21
  Shay: But when I say I've been able to match my old numbers, like typically we are hitting like five figure months at least every month.
• 36:27
  Shay: And then once we get into quarter four, I know that our numbers are gonna double.
• 36:31
  Shay: So it's it's gonna be silly.
• 36:34
  Mariah: Shay, this is like fucking insane.
• 36:36
  Mariah: Like, this is insane.
• 36:37
  Mariah: And like, in like the best way, because it's literally just like, oh, like you're just selling old diapers online, and it's like, okay, bitch, I'm making 10k.
• 36:45
  Mariah: Like the online business space is like 10k months, 10k months.
• 36:50
  Mariah: You have to sell your coaching package or build an agency for 10k months, and it's like, no, you have to find like G.I.
• 36:57
  Mariah: Joe's old fucking knife from 1997 at your neighbor's garage sale.
• 37:03
  Mariah: Like, that's what you have to do.
• 37:05
  Mariah: Yeah, yeah, literally.
• 37:07
  Shay: I I love it because it's a bit silly, right?
• 37:10
  Shay: Like, I'm like, this is so fun, and it's paying my bills.
• 37:14
  Shay: What?
• 37:15
  Shay: You know, and it's been cool because I didn't know if I believed at the beginning that I could do this and hit these in income numbers in a way that didn't kill us.
• 37:26
  Shay: Because um, like a little behind the scenes, you know, my husband can't work a full-time job.
• 37:31
  Shay: He's got some health limitations, so he's kind of come in and helped me on this as well.
• 37:35
  Shay: It's been like such a blessing for us, but I was a bit worried that oh, if I want to hit these big numbers, it's gonna look like everybody else online.
• 37:42
  Shay: It's very similar, Ryan, to the online business space.
• 37:45
  Shay: I just didn't see anybody doing it in a way that I wanted to do it, which is no, I am not 40 hours in the thrift store every week.
• 37:53
  Shay: And there are people that do that.
• 37:54
  Shay: And no, I am not listing 100 items a day, and no, I am not what nodding for four hours a day.
• 37:59
  Mariah: Like that's just we saw people have to literally rent out a warehouse in order to hold all of their stuff in order to make a full-time income.
• 38:09
  Mariah: And me and Andrew saw that, and we were like, we're such minimalistic people.
• 38:14
  Mariah: We were like, that feels like our version of hell.
• 38:20
  Shay: Yeah.
• 38:21
  Shay: And I'm the same.
• 38:22
  Shay: Like, we've got our basement, and that's it.
• 38:24
  Shay: Like, we're not, I'm not it's not again, not for me, aware else, it's not for me.
• 38:29
  Shay: And so it's kind of like what you've done with your business of I didn't see an example of anybody doing it the way I wanted to, but I I kind of suspected that it could be done, and I know myself and how I like to work.
• 38:42
  Shay: And it has been, I don't know, a couple years of building.
• 38:46
  Shay: Like, I would never encourage anybody quit your job and start reselling full time.
• 38:51
  Shay: Like it really does, it's like a snowball, like it's a momentum thing.
• 38:54
  Shay: And you start small and you learn and you get better, and now we're able to like spend a bit more.
• 38:59
  Shay: And and like this G.I.
• 39:01
  Shay: Joe thing, I spent$300 on it, but then a month later I sold it for$1,500.
• 39:06
  Shay: But if I were to tell my mother-in-law to spend$300 on something, she would say, no, right.
• 39:11
  Shay: So it's a bit of a mindset shift, but it is cool.
• 39:14
  Shay: It feels like the theory is starting to like prove itself.
• 39:18
  Shay: I'm like, oh no, I think we can do this our way.
• 39:21
  Shay: I think we can focus on like higher value, higher uh margins, lower quantity, and keep it like working in a way that works for us in our lifestyle.
• 39:31
  Mariah: I'm really glad that you mentioned that this is like a couple years, like in the well, I mean, to be completely frank, it's a lifetime in the making, right?
• 39:38
  Mariah: Like you've been accumulating and acquiring these skills since you got your first tennis racket when you were a teenager.
• 39:46
  Mariah: And so it's like this is not just like everything.
• 39:49
  Mariah: I know that AI and the bro marketing fucking meta ads want you to think that like you can make nine million dollars by blowing your nose.
• 39:57
  Mariah: But like if you want to build something that feels fun, where you enjoy the journey that feels sustainable, that feels fulfilling, that requires you to find something that you're curious about, to stay curious about it, to keep learning about it, to keep adding your skills together, to keep questioning things.
• 40:17
  Mariah: Like it requires so many different aspects and things to slowly shift.
• 40:24
  Mariah: Because I think a lot of us see, you know, people going viral and it's like, oh my God, in just one second, I could go viral.
• 40:29
  Mariah: Yes, that is true, but that is not the norm.
• 40:31
  Mariah: So, what is the norm?
• 40:32
  Mariah: The norm is these small micro tweaks happening behind the scenes, and then before you know it, you're living your dream life.
• 40:42
  Mariah: And like, that's kind of what happened to you.
• 40:44
  Mariah: It's like when we first started this podcast in 2021, it's like, oh, well, here's my dream life.
• 40:49
  Mariah: This is what you know I really wish to happen.
• 40:51
  Mariah: And it's like, and now we talk now, and it's like, bitch, you're living it, but it wasn't overnight.
• 40:58
  Shay: No, that's such a weird realization.
• 41:00
  Shay: Like, we I mentioned that we've just now started to share content around this, and it it was weird to get to a point where I wasn't totally overwhelmed and I had enough space on my schedule to start even thinking about filming and editing, but it it's cool to be here now because I'm thinking about when we first got started, I was so overwhelmed with posting like one thing a day, and now we do like five, 10, 15, and like it's been a game of systems.
• 41:28
  Shay: Like, I have had to grow and really embrace routines and systems and batching things.
• 41:36
  Shay: You know, I do all my photos on one day, I kind of do all my listings together.
• 41:40
  Shay: It's been a slow learning how to keep inventory.
• 41:43
  Shay: Before Bobby came on, I just had shit all over the house and I just kind of relied on my mind to find it, which is not what you do, right?
• 41:50
  Shay: But I guess it is if you're learning.
• 41:52
  Shay: But it has been such a we always say business is a self-development journey.
• 41:57
  Shay: Like I have had to show up as a more consistent person.
• 42:02
  Shay: I've had to kind of create my own.
• 42:05
  Shay: I don't have a boss telling me, hey, go out this weekend, hey, source this weekend, hey, are you getting your listings up?
• 42:10
  Shay: You know, like I just had to set, okay, I do five a day, I do photos on this day, I go out.
• 42:15
  Shay: I typically go out two mornings a week, like Friday morning and Saturday morning, and that's about all the sourcing that we do.
• 42:21
  Shay: Um, but you're choosing hard.
• 42:23
  Shay: Like I'm choosing, and honestly, I was voting state sales anyway.
• 42:28
  Shay: So it's like, you know, and then the hard stuff, if you can create nice systems around it and get AI to help you and batch all your stuff together, it's really not too bad.
• 42:37
  Shay: But me, when I was first starting this, would have been totally overwhelmed.
• 42:43
  Shay: I was totally overwhelmed by everything.
• 42:44
  Shay: I didn't, I literally just like this these past few months feel like, oh, wait, I have a little bit of space to start thinking bigger and thinking about something else.
• 42:52
  Shay: So it is kind of cool to like look back and be like, oh, I've grown.
• 42:57
  Shay: Like my capacity has stretched.
• 43:01
  Shay: I am now showing up as future me, the person I wanted to show up as.
• 43:04
  Shay: And then now I have this really cool day-to-day life that I still almost have to like pinch myself to believe.
• 43:10
  Shay: I'm like, is this true?
• 43:11
  Shay: Like, I get to like talk about silly diapers and old stuffed animals and like make really good money and and do it in a way that I want to do, even though a lot of people told me it was impossible.
• 43:23
  Shay: Like, that's really gratifying.
• 43:25
  Shay: It's just like I want to share that with everybody.
• 43:27
  Shay: I think if you are interested in it, I just to your to your point, this does take time.
• 43:32
  Shay: And I had a friend race out reach out and say, Hey, I'd love to bring in a couple extra hundred dollars a month or a thousand dollars a month, where do I get started?
• 43:39
  Shay: And it kind of like threw me for a loop because I was like, like you said, it's been a whole lifetime of me being curious about this stuff.
• 43:46
  Shay: But if you are listening to this and interested in getting started, the advice I gave to him is what is interesting to you?
• 43:54
  Shay: Like, what are your he was had a football background and I was like, okay, like, are you interested in old sports?
• 44:00
  Shay: Sports memorabilia.
• 44:01
  Shay: Typically, there's like a profitable niche in almost any arena, any kind of hobby you have.
• 44:08
  Shay: There's some kind of crafters.
• 44:10
  Shay: Oh my gosh, crafting supplies, some old quilt kits.
• 44:14
  Shay: Oh my gosh.
• 44:15
  Shay: Like it it what are you interested in?
• 44:17
  Shay: What kind of lights your fire?
• 44:18
  Shay: Because I think a lot of resellers try to force the biggest model you see online is sourcing clothes and flipping clothes.
• 44:24
  Shay: So I think a lot of people try to force that.
• 44:26
  Shay: And they'll go to the Goodwill bins and I gotta find these clothes I buy for$2 and flip for$20 or$30.
• 44:32
  Mariah: And you have to find them before a while.
• 44:34
  Mariah: You have to find them before everybody else.
• 44:37
  Shay: Oh, it's competitive.
• 44:38
  Shay: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 44:38
  Shay: And like the flips are pretty small typically.
• 44:41
  Shay: So it's not that the payoff when you do all the numbers isn't that great in the end.
• 44:45
  Shay: But I we like clothing, but what we like is like Vietnam camel pants that sell for$300 and like rare old vintage clothes.
• 44:59
  Shay: And so we stopped doing bins and thrift store and trying to force it in that way.
• 45:05
  Shay: And we start focusing more on this gets me really excited.
• 45:08
  Shay: I would be excited.
• 45:09
  Shay: The question I ask myself is like, would I be excited to photograph this and list this, or am I going to be salty about it?
• 45:14
  Shay: This$20 fucking sock that I make to open that Goodwill bins.
• 45:18
  Shay: And so my advice to him is whatever it is, you tell me what what kind of tickles your fancy, what gets your heart racing.
• 45:26
  Shay: And we can find a niche.
• 45:27
  Shay: You can find some kind of collectors that are in some kind of world, but start there.
• 45:31
  Shay: Start where your interest goes, or maybe just go to an estate sale and see, see what happens, see where your eye takes you.
• 45:37
  Shay: But I think that you have to be, I see things all the time that I could sell, but I'm like, no, no, no, no, no.
• 45:44
  Shay: Like, no thanks, not for me.
• 45:45
  Shay: And I'll skip it, right?
• 45:46
  Shay: Because I'm just not interested.
• 45:47
  Shay: And so the cool thing about it is you can kind of focus in on where you're interested in.
• 45:51
  Shay: And then I think for a lot of people, that becomes kind of like a gateway drug.
• 45:54
  Shay: Like you find out video games are valuable and then you open the door to like the whole secondhand market, you're like, wow, it's just like a skin, 10 ways to skin the cat kind of game.
• 46:04
  Mariah: Yeah.
• 46:05
  Mariah: And okay, so I was actually gonna ask you this.
• 46:08
  Mariah: Like, if if somebody needs money, because that's essentially what you're doing, right?
• 46:12
  Mariah: You've taught yourself a skill to be able to make money kind of when you need it.
• 46:16
  Mariah: It's like, okay, you have a$2,000 auto bill, or like you want to go to Mexico in six months with your friend, like, how do I make some extra money?
• 46:24
  Mariah: Where do you start?
• 46:26
  Mariah: Was kind of gonna be my next question.
• 46:28
  Mariah: So you're saying, like, figure out what you're interested in, or at least uh maybe even a couple things that you're interested in, like that type of thing.
• 46:38
  Mariah: There's also a shit ton of content on YouTube.
• 46:40
  Mariah: You can, if you're just like, I don't even know, like if you're just like, bitch, I don't even know where to start, you can literally type in like reselling on YouTube.
• 46:49
  Mariah: And there's like a bunch of vloggers, me and Andrew used to watch that stuff, uh, just to see like what they were selling, just to get some ideas of like, I didn't even know.
• 46:57
  Mariah: So, like, what comes to mind for us is like pots and pans.
• 47:00
  Mariah: Like, there's like really, really high quality pots and pans of vintage versions, like that type of stuff that can typically sell decently well.
• 47:10
  Mariah: And so it's like, okay, let's say I have an idea of like what I want, and let's say I find it.
• 47:15
  Mariah: I go somewhere, I find it, I find it at a garage sale.
• 47:17
  Mariah: Like, then what?
• 47:18
  Mariah: Like, how do I turn this whole junk into like money in my bank account?
• 47:25
  Mariah: Okay.
• 47:26
  Shay: Well, if I found it at a garage sale, I would first look it up.
• 47:30
  Shay: I would research it, like we mentioned earlier.
• 47:33
  Shay: Um on eBay, you can type in the name.
• 47:36
  Shay: Typically, a pan will have like a model number and a name, or if you can't find that, you can take a Google image search of it, and Google image will typically give you a name.
• 47:45
  Shay: Type that into eBay.
• 47:46
  Shay: The first thing you want to look for is the basic economic concept of supply and demand.
• 47:52
  Shay: So when I type in that pan name, I want to see the first thing that eBay will show me is how many people have listed, like how many are available to buy right now.
• 48:00
  Shay: Let's say there's like 50 listed.
• 48:03
  Shay: And then there's a toggle on eBay that you can turn on that says, okay, show me solds in the last 90 days.
• 48:08
  Shay: How many of this pan have sold in the last 90 days?
• 48:12
  Shay: And so you can put that on and it'll change and show you all the sold ones.
• 48:16
  Shay: So let's about 25 have sold.
• 48:18
  Shay: So what that tells me is resellers will call that a 50% sell-through rate, but it tells me, like, okay, these are moving.
• 48:26
  Shay: About half of them that are available are gonna sell every 90 days.
• 48:30
  Shay: So if mine is good quality and I have nice photos and a good title and a good price, a competitive price, it's probably gonna sell.
• 48:38
  Shay: So the first thing you want to do is like the worst thing I did, I know I said go for your interest, but I think one of the biggest mistakes new resellers make is they'll see like this super cute little mushroom painting that's from the 70s, and they're like, this is so cute.
• 48:52
  Shay: I love this.
• 48:53
  Shay: I know somebody else is like me and is gonna love this.
• 48:55
  Shay: And that's how they make the buying decision.
• 48:57
  Shay: That's the worst way to make a buying decision.
• 49:00
  Shay: You can your personal taste is no reflection of like if there's a weird collector's market for this.
• 49:04
  Shay: So it's worthwhile to look up and just make sure there's some sold on eBay in general and get a sense of a price.
• 49:11
  Shay: At the yard sale, if they're charging, some people are weird at yard sales, like everything will be 50 cents, but then this pan is weirdly$50 because that person has some kind of like strange attachment to it.
• 49:22
  Shay: So if the pan's only selling for 70 and this person wants to charge you 50, not a lot of meat on the bones there, right?
• 49:29
  Shay: So you got to kind of factor in, like, okay, I think I can sell it for this much.
• 49:33
  Shay: So is the money that they're asking worth it?
• 49:36
  Shay: And so then if it is, you take it home, get some nice lighting.
• 49:39
  Shay: I don't have any kind of fancy lighting equipment.
• 49:41
  Shay: I in my kitchen, I have this corner that's kind of like lit by a window on the side at the right times of day.
• 49:47
  Shay: I just throw some things, things up there and shoot the photos, and that's all you have to do.
• 49:51
  Shay: And then you can go to eBay, set up an account, add a product.
• 49:56
  Shay: I think it's actually easier.
• 49:58
  Shay: Remember all those solds I told you you could look at.
• 50:00
  Shay: You could actually click a button that says sell similar on all those sold listings.
• 50:05
  Shay: And so then eBay will just take that listing and copy it for you.
• 50:08
  Shay: So you don't even have to create the listing.
• 50:10
  Shay: And you can just keep all the same settings.
• 50:11
  Shay: You can tweak the title, you add your photos, you add your price, add your shipping information.
• 50:17
  Shay: Your bank account's already connected to eBay.
• 50:20
  Shay: And if you're buying things that you know people want, typically they'll sell in a reasonable amount of time, maybe a week, maybe a month, or a few months.
• 50:30
  Shay: Um in eBay, the way I have eBay set up is I get weekly payouts.
• 50:35
  Shay: So, like every Tuesday, I get a payout to my bank account.
• 50:39
  Shay: So if you get something listed and it sells, whatever payment schedule you'll have, eBay will pay you.
• 50:45
  Shay: And then that will in a couple of days later hit your bank account.
• 50:49
  Mariah: It's so funny because when you say it, it's like all of it is very logical.
• 50:52
  Mariah: And I remember me and Andrew being very surprised that actually how easy eBay made it.
• 50:58
  Mariah: Like, I don't know.
• 50:59
  Mariah: When we were getting into it, we were almost like, bitch, it cannot be this easy.
• 51:02
  Mariah: What do you mean I can duplicate a listing?
• 51:04
  Mariah: What do you mean I can scan a barcode?
• 51:05
  Mariah: What do you mean I can see how many have sold in the past 90 days?
• 51:10
  Mariah: Like it's they're almost making it too easy.
• 51:14
  Mariah: But if you think about it from eBay's perspective, eBay is a business, it's a platform that it wants people to buy and sell on.
• 51:21
  Mariah: So it does them well because they're gonna take a small percentage of each sale.
• 51:25
  Mariah: It does them well to make it easy for you to buy and sell things.
• 51:31
  Mariah: And so it was like mind-blowing to us about actually the hardest part was a figuring out shipping and b figuring out like photos in the beginning.
• 51:43
  Mariah: Like those were the two kind of like hardest parts.
• 51:46
  Mariah: Once you figure that out, though, it becomes like this repeatable system.
• 51:51
  Mariah: But then my next question is, and this is like a lead-in question because I already know the answer, but it's kind of like, okay, so like you post you post this listing and then it's like how the fuck are people finding this listing?
• 52:04
  Mariah: Like you just post it and like it just sells.
• 52:06
  Mariah: Like to to a normal person, you're just like that that's like old school Instagram.
• 52:12
  Mariah: Like, what do you mean?
• 52:13
  Mariah: I just post and like my friends see it.
• 52:16
  Mariah: That feels like unheard of now.
• 52:19
  Shay: Yeah, yeah.
• 52:20
  Shay: And it is, it's funny that you called this a leading question because it's so leading for your background.
• 52:25
  Shay: The answer is keywords.
• 52:27
  Shay: So hear that it works.
• 52:29
  Shay: You hear that everybody, every everybody listen, it's SEO, bitches.
• 52:35
  Shay: eBay works just like any other search algorithm.
• 52:38
  Shay: It works like Google, it works like Instagram.
• 52:41
  Shay: Um, it if you imagine, you know, there's somebody out there that is wanting.
• 52:46
  Shay: I gave Mariah this example last week.
• 52:48
  Shay: I just sold part of this is knowing the trends.
• 52:51
  Shay: And so right now there's a trend called Y2K Celestial.
• 52:56
  Shay: Um, and it's all about like 90s suns and stars kind of design.
• 53:00
  Shay: There was like this really popular pattern in the 90s.
• 53:03
  Shay: And last week I found this really cool reversible blanket that has that 90s celestial style.
• 53:08
  Shay: I was telling Mariah, I was disappointed because I thought it would sell for a lot of money.
• 53:12
  Shay: And when I went and looked um and did my research, I noticed there was a lot, just like Murray, listed for less than I wanted to price mine.
• 53:20
  Shay: And there was quite a few available.
• 53:22
  Shay: And I was like, oh shoot, that's not a great sign.
• 53:25
  Shay: And so in my title, I noticed nobody was using that keyword, 90s celestial or um Y2K celestial.
• 53:33
  Shay: And I know that a lot of people are going in there and searching it.
• 53:36
  Shay: So I made sure to include that in my title.
• 53:38
  Shay: And I'm not kidding you, that blanket sold for$20 more than everybody else's blanket on there within 24 hours, because I am using words in my titles and my descriptions and all of those little sub-information categories that I know my person is searching for.
• 53:55
  Shay: And so I think this is where I think I bring my like my Amazon knowledge of just like how to write a good title, how to take photos in a way that tell a story because nobody's really reading.
• 54:06
  Shay: Honestly, your writing is more for the algorithm, your visuals are for the human.
• 54:10
  Shay: So, do your photos take people through a logical journey?
• 54:13
  Shay: Do they tell the story of the product for a person with a low attention span?
• 54:16
  Shay: Like I was able to take all these things that I've learned about conversion optimized design and SEO keywords and apply them to my listings.
• 54:25
  Shay: And so there is something to be said about having some online know-how as like a competitive advantage because all of those resellers, they're sick at going to thrift stores and yard sales, but they do not know a thing about keywords and keyword-based sourcing.
• 54:40
  Shay: But think about a lot of Gen Zers, they're gonna get on there and what they're not gonna know the brand of this blanket.
• 54:45
  Shay: They're gonna type in 90s celestial, and then my blanket is gonna come up.
• 54:49
  Shay: And so I'm gonna get paired with them.
• 54:51
  Shay: And I could probably sell mine faster and for a higher price if I position it correctly.
• 54:56
  Shay: And so I think that is like the cool part of like you mentioned my like my background and my knowledge.
• 55:02
  Shay: Like, yeah, I have the reselling, but it's been cool to bring in my like online skill set of keywords and conversion optimization.
• 55:10
  Shay: And I'm really seeing that make a big difference, even in how I set my ad campaigns up within eBay.
• 55:15
  Shay: Like it's absolutely helped me, I think, like have a competitive advantage that not a lot of people do.
• 55:20
  Mariah: Yeah, because you understand how the internet works.
• 55:23
  Mariah: And it's like obviously I can go off on tangents about SEO and all of that, but like if we break down like what SEO is, you said this really cool way of explaining it last week is like SEO is kind of just like a meeting of the minds.
• 55:37
  Mariah: It's essentially like your people want something and you have what they want.
• 55:42
  Mariah: How are we going to connect both of you together?
• 55:45
  Mariah: It's through words in which they are searching.
• 55:48
  Mariah: Like it's really not that complicated to kind of understand how it works.
• 55:54
  Mariah: But I think that in the marketing and the online business space, you know, we see all of these people trying to have some hot takes like SEO is dead, AI, GEO, AEO, B-I-N-G-O is in.
• 56:06
  Mariah: And it's just like, but the core of all of it, even like when we're talking about AI visibility, even if these fucking Gen Zers were to go to AI, Chat GPT, and they're searching, what are the words they're gonna be typing in?
• 56:19
  Mariah: I want a sun and moon, like totally 90 celestial style from like the Y2K that my mom used to wear.
• 56:26
  Mariah: Like, where can I find one of those?
• 56:28
  Mariah: And I'm saying this like I'm my niece, and I'm just like, like, I could see her like typing that in.
• 56:32
  Mariah: And it's like, so what these AI platforms are doing is essentially breaking down that prompt into keywords so that they can search their own databases.
• 56:40
  Mariah: So even if we're talking about like AI specifically, it doesn't matter because it's all using keywords.
• 56:46
  Mariah: Like keywords are the middleman when it comes to finding things on the internet.
• 56:51
  Mariah: eBay, Amazon, like products, services, it does not matter.
• 56:57
  Mariah: Keywords are, God, I just love what you said.
• 56:59
  Mariah: Like keywords are like the meeting of the mind.
• 57:03
  Shay: There's actually resellers online, like clothing resellers, that their whole game is keyword-based sourcing.
• 57:11
  Shay: So they will pay attention to like they know this fall, Ralph Lauren plaid is a trending keyword.
• 57:17
  Shay: And so that's how the they literally print out a list and they do the SEO research.
• 57:22
  Shay: They know the keywords that people are searching for in terms of fashion trends, and that's how they source.
• 57:27
  Shay: And they don't even list the brand names in the title.
• 57:29
  Shay: It's literally all just like what are those keywords that people, academia and whimsigath, like there's all the you wouldn't believe like the keywords that people use to describe fashion, but that is how they are finding their customer.
• 57:43
  Shay: It's not by listing this obscure brand name top from the 80s, it's sequined 80s party top, like for Coachella or something.
• 57:51
  Shay: Like, you wouldn't believe how much I'm putting like festi and like Coachella, and I'll do like holiday, you know, that can kind of affect people's searching.
• 58:00
  Shay: But it's literally can you connect with that person right now at this point in time?
• 58:04
  Shay: What would they type on their keyboards?
• 58:06
  Shay: And then can you get those words on your eBay listing?
• 58:09
  Shay: And that will help it.
• 58:10
  Shay: The other thing I wanted to mention before we wrap up, there's this idea of cross-listing now.
• 58:15
  Shay: Do you know what that is?
• 58:17
  Mariah: Yeah, I think it's where you have like one listing and then you put it into all of these other apps because there's like, I think you said there's now what or what not or she what or it what or whatever, what what.
• 58:28
  Mariah: I wish it was called what what because I would probably die.
• 58:30
  Mariah: I'd also do what was called what would.
• 58:32
  Mariah: What what?
• 58:33
  Mariah: But like there's eBay, and I know that there's Depop because like I've bought some things on Depop before.
• 58:40
  Shay: Yeah, yeah.
• 58:41
  Shay: So these days there's a lot of platforms.
• 58:43
  Shay: There's Poshmark and Depop invented as kind of a new one all on the clothing world.
• 58:49
  Shay: And there's even like for nicer clothing, there's this thing called Gray old, and there's all kinds of platforms.
• 58:55
  Shay: And whatnot is the new live selling platform.
• 58:59
  Shay: Um Etsy has been interesting.
• 59:03
  Shay: So Bobby and I used to only sell on eBay, and then we signed up for a service.
• 59:07
  Shay: There's all these services that will offer cross-listing.
• 59:10
  Shay: So we signed up for the service called Nifty AI, and it allows me to take my eBay listing, connect my other platforms.
• 59:17
  Shay: So I'm on Etsy, Poshmark, and Depop.
• 59:19
  Shay: And then all I have to do is click a button and it makes a listing on each of those um platforms.
• 59:25
  Shay: And the cool part about it is when it sells on one platform, the cross lister will take it down on all of them.
• 59:31
  Shay: So you don't have to worry about inventory.
• 59:33
  Shay: It kind of manages your inventory for you.
• 59:35
  Shay: And I was a little skeptical when we first started.
• 59:38
  Shay: I did it last October, and I was like, is this gonna be worth my time?
• 59:41
  Shay: I got to set up all these accounts and do all this dumping through hoops, and then I got to go through all my inventory and figure out each platform's rules and blah, blah, blah.
• 59:49
  Shay: But it tripled our sales.
• 59:51
  Shay: Like when we started cross-listing, our numbers multiplied by three.
• 59:55
  Shay: And the biggest takeaway for me, Etsy, is if you sell antiques um anything older than 2007, Etsy, I sell things on Etsy for like 20 to 30 percent more.
• 1:00:11
  Shay: Like I market up more and they sell faster.
• 1:00:14
  Shay: And it's like the customer on Etsy just expects to pay more.
• 1:00:17
  Shay: And I don't think that they shop on eBay.
• 1:00:20
  Shay: And so it's blown my mind processing absolutely works because you're you're broadening your reach.
• 1:00:27
  Shay: So there's all these people that are like dedicated to the like I only shop on Depop.
• 1:00:31
  Shay: I get the best deals on Poshmark, I'm an Etsy only girl, or I'm an eBay only.
• 1:00:34
  Shay: And so you're kind of limiting yourself if you're only on one platform.
• 1:00:38
  Shay: So a big explosion in our business was when we kind of broadened and started getting in front of more eyes.
• 1:00:45
  Shay: So again, it's that idea of like reach and impressions that keywords can get you as well.
• 1:00:49
  Shay: You just want to get out in front of as most eyes as possible.
• 1:00:53
  Shay: And you do that by using the same language as your person, and you do that by meeting them on the platform that they're on.
• 1:00:58
  Shay: And there's so many cool tools now where it's like as simple as it's ever been.
• 1:01:03
  Mariah: And I think my favorite thing is like, and you don't like you just started kind of like social media for like reselling, but it's not to like sell your products, like all of this is happening without you dancing on TikTok.
• 1:01:19
  Mariah: Like, all of this is happening without like you having to like post on Instagram.
• 1:01:24
  Mariah: So, like, I have one of my best friends, one of my best friends in real life, she has been reselling for a long time, years.
• 1:01:33
  Mariah: She's always loved like um thrift shopping and reselling, and she's really been into like clothes.
• 1:01:40
  Mariah: That's kind of what she does.
• 1:01:41
  Mariah: And then she has two babies now, and so now she resells like kids' clothes, like vintage kids' clothes and like vintage Disney kids' clothes is like really like her kind of lane right now, which it's cool because like her shop and what she's selling has molded to what she's interested in since she started having kids.
• 1:02:03
  Mariah: Now she's looking at kids' clothes, like that type of thing.
• 1:02:05
  Mariah: And so she was the one where it's like she'll do maybe like two pop-up events a year.
• 1:02:10
  Mariah: I know the first pop-up event she did, she made like 8,000.
• 1:02:16
  Mariah: And then it got a little bit more competitive and like whatever in the past couple of years.
• 1:02:20
  Mariah: And I'm pretty sure like recently she did an event and like in one weekend she made 4,000.
• 1:02:24
  Mariah: And like, that's fantastic.
• 1:02:27
  Mariah: She's a stay-at-home mom of two babies, and like being able to weave this in, but I know that she sells through the apps a little bit, but a lot of her selling is happening, like she's creating different Instagram posts for like uh basically every single item when she's not doing events, and it's like if you tell me that I have to do that, I ain't fucking doing it.
• 1:02:49
  Mariah: And I think the cool part about your story is like you're still not on social media, really.
• 1:02:57
  Mariah: Like, you haven't gone from like, wow, I'm only posting whatever I want, like personally, to oh fuck, now I have like a business Instagram to run, and this is how I'm selling them.
• 1:03:07
  Mariah: No, you're literally finding every other way to be able to sell this stuff, and you're making a fuck ton of money without social media.
• 1:03:18
  Shay: That's such an interesting point because I have tried to avoid social media for the most part.
• 1:03:23
  Shay: Up and and yeah, I I didn't need, I think that is a message that you get when you're looking when how do I make money online?
• 1:03:31
  Shay: I think the first thing everyone is gonna say is something about social media.
• 1:03:35
  Shay: And it's not true.
• 1:03:36
  Shay: There are just so many ways to make money online.
• 1:03:39
  Shay: You can really tailor it to you.
• 1:03:41
  Shay: And I am just now, we talked about my own personal growth.
• 1:03:44
  Shay: I was not comfortable being visible and sharing and having my face on screen, but I am now.
• 1:03:50
  Shay: That's a capacity that's like a cool.
• 1:03:52
  Shay: I'm like, oh, cool.
• 1:03:54
  Shay: I want to do this.
• 1:03:55
  Shay: I noticed, I was like getting ticked.
• 1:03:58
  Shay: I'm like, I'm selling cardboard boxes for$1,200 and nobody knows about it.
• 1:04:02
  Shay: So, like, literally, it just got to a point where I was like, I want to be sharing.
• 1:04:06
  Shay: I think people need to know about this.
• 1:04:08
  Shay: I'm tired of having all this, like, cool, I got all these diapers I'm sold for$100.
• 1:04:13
  Shay: Like, I want to brag about this to somebody, you know?
• 1:04:15
  Shay: And so I have also learned so much from those communities.
• 1:04:18
  Shay: But yeah, it's like the social part is coming now at a point where I'm ready for it and I feel like I want to do it, which is really cool as opposed to like back then when I felt forced to do it and I I just avoided it.
• 1:04:31
  Mariah: Completely different.
• 1:04:32
  Mariah: It's completely different.
• 1:04:33
  Mariah: Now you're going into it and you're just like, fuck yeah, I'm talking about these diapers.
• 1:04:38
  Mariah: So then you show up excited and then it's not draining you versus like, oh fuck, now I gotta post diapers.
• 1:04:44
  Mariah: Like that's completely different.
• 1:04:50
  Shay: Yeah.
• 1:04:51
  Shay: And it's all like, I think one thing that I have noticed, my big takeaway is like anytime you're trying to do something new, it just takes some time.
• 1:04:59
  Shay: So, like right now, that just this week we have our first long form YouTube video going up.
• 1:05:04
  Shay: We've posted some shorts.
• 1:05:05
  Shay: Now we're just trying to get into the longer form.
• 1:05:06
  Shay: And I wanted it to go up last week, but it didn't because I didn't have a thumbnail ready.
• 1:05:11
  Shay: And you know, it's like when you're starting something new the first time through, is it's gonna take some time.
• 1:05:17
  Shay: And I've been getting frustrated with that because I'm like, oh my God, it was taking us so long to get these videos out.
• 1:05:21
  Shay: I've got all this stuff recorded, I want to get videos out, but we're figuring out editing, we're figuring out thumbnails, we're figuring out descriptions.
• 1:05:29
  Shay: And I'm trying to remind myself, just like this business, like once you do it and once you get the wheel rolling, it gets a lot easier and you get systems in place.
• 1:05:38
  Shay: And I'm look now looking forward to when we have the whole system, right?
• 1:05:43
  Shay: Like we have the folders where I've added all the video to my husband has the templates for the editing, and like we know how to make the thumbnail in 30 seconds.
• 1:05:50
  Shay: Like, this is all gonna get systematized just the way the eBay business has.
• 1:05:55
  Shay: But it just takes time.
• 1:05:57
  Shay: And I've been really trying to not like be my Myself up around, oh, that video went out, should have gone out last week, but we didn't have it done on time.
• 1:06:05
  Shay: It's like, okay, it's the first fucking one.
• 1:06:07
  Shay: Like it'll get easier.
• 1:06:08
  Shay: We'll be able to get more into system and routine.
• 1:06:10
  Shay: And I know that these things just take time.
• 1:06:13
  Shay: And there's no need to like beat myself up about it.
• 1:06:15
  Shay: So that I definitely just like feel like a stronger human being at the end of all of this as well.
• 1:06:21
  Mariah: Well, yeah.
• 1:06:21
  Mariah: And I mean, just like what a good reminder that like good things take time.
• 1:06:25
  Mariah: And also, like you getting it up last week was on your own made up fucking timeline.
• 1:06:31
  Mariah: You chose that date, you pulled that date out of your ass.
• 1:06:33
  Mariah: And then it's like you're creating stress comparing to this made up date for no reason.
• 1:06:39
  Mariah: And it's that's a really good thing to, I guess, like sit with, even if you don't want to resell, even if you don't want to sell other people's trash, it's kind of just like, where are you making things harder than they need to be?
• 1:06:50
  Mariah: Where are you overcomplicating it?
• 1:06:53
  Mariah: And what if you just allowed yourself the grace to figure it out instead of comparing yourself to all of these people?
• 1:07:00
  Mariah: That A, you don't know how stressed out they are, B, you don't know what kind of life they want, you don't know what lights them up.
• 1:07:09
  Mariah: And it's like when we're caught on social media, we can just compare ourselves to all of these different aspects.
• 1:07:16
  Mariah: Um, is there anything else that you want to share about your journey, what you learned, or anything like that?
• 1:07:27
  Shay: Yeah, I think like as we've had this conversation, I've kind of been surprised about this idea that like you can create whatever kind of business you want, but I never realized like the tangents of like your journey in this.
• 1:07:43
  Shay: I think that you and I both I had a belief when I was first starting this of like, oh, I've never seen this done before.
• 1:07:50
  Shay: I know that there's a way I want it to be done, but I'm not sure that it's possible.
• 1:07:54
  Shay: It's possible.
• 1:07:55
  Shay: Like if you have, if you're curious about something, like that's on your heart for a reason.
• 1:08:00
  Shay: And even if you've never seen it done or done in the way that you want to do it, just know that like the time we're living in right now is unlike any other time in human history for making silly businesses happen.
• 1:08:11
  Shay: Like you can truly build and make money and share content around anything.
• 1:08:17
  Shay: And like, what a cool time to be alive.
• 1:08:18
  Shay: This is our wild, wild west, right?
• 1:08:20
  Shay: So just if you've got some kind of weird dream on your heart, like know that my weird dream is selling trash, and I've figured somehow I've figured out a way to make a full-time income for me and my husband out of it.
• 1:08:35
  Shay: Um, you can you can figure it out.
• 1:08:37
  Shay: You can figure it out, make it work, just like unapologetically know yourself and know what you want and how things work for you and start building.
• 1:08:46
  Shay: And like Mariah said, like, yes, there is a bit of like being aware of keywords and what's in demand, but like I just think if you I have never you'll learn it as you go.
• 1:08:56
  Shay: And I've never felt so like sustainably curious about something in my life.
• 1:09:03
  Shay: Like, I've always been jealous of people that are like, I came out of the womb knowing that I wanted to be a cross-country skier and it's the only thing I've ever cared about.
• 1:09:11
  Shay: I've never really been that passionate about anything, but telling this story, I realized my curiosity has always kind of gone back to this.
• 1:09:18
  Shay: Like, at no matter what chapter of my life, my curiosity keeps going back.
• 1:09:23
  Shay: So I just think that's like a really powerful guide and tool.
• 1:09:28
  Shay: And I just want to tell you like, honor, honor your curiosity in whatever way that manifests.
• 1:09:33
  Shay: It may not be selling trash, it may be something else.
• 1:09:35
  Shay: And even if you haven't seen what you want exist, just know that Mariah and I have both done it and you can make the business selling trash if you want to, or whatever that looks like.
• 1:09:45
  Mariah: And it's the baby steps set up.
• 1:09:47
  Mariah: Don't discount the baby steps, don't discount the baby steps.
• 1:09:53
  Mariah: We did not figure this stuff out.
• 1:09:55
  Mariah: We didn't wake up one day and go, ah, and like the answer just dropped into our brain.
• 1:10:02
  Mariah: It's gathering data through doing the thing.
• 1:10:05
  Mariah: In order to figure it out, you need to get into the world and experience.
• 1:10:10
  Mariah: You need to try something.
• 1:10:12
  Mariah: You will learn things as you try them.
• 1:10:15
  Mariah: Do not sit there and try to strategize from point A to point Z because it's not going to look the same.
• 1:10:22
  Mariah: Can you be curious enough to take one step forward?
• 1:10:26
  Mariah: Oh, that's so good.
• 1:10:27
  Mariah: I'm so glad that we did this episode.
• 1:10:28
  Mariah: But Shay, before I let you go, we have one question that we ask every human on the podcast.
• 1:10:33
  Mariah: What has been sparking your curiosity lately?
• 1:10:41
  Shay: What has been sparking my curiosity lately?
• 1:10:44
  SPEAKER_02: This major so this major's like she didn't know this question was coming.
• 1:10:49
  SPEAKER_02: To be fair, I did it.
• 1:10:51
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't think about it.
• 1:10:56
  SPEAKER_01: I this is gonna sound so dumb.
• 1:10:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um how does he say this?
• 1:11:03
  SPEAKER_01: I've I've started reading, like especially like audible.
• 1:11:07
  Shay: Like my husband and I all go on walks every morning, and we've been reading books and listening to books together and fiction books.
• 1:11:14
  Shay: And I am just getting I've had this realization before, but like I don't know.
• 1:11:22
  Shay: I feel like I'm addicted to my phone.
• 1:11:24
  Shay: I feel like I'm like way too in the digital world all the time.
• 1:11:27
  Shay: And something about reading and getting lost in these stories has like helped me ground and like reconnect with like the bigger picture, and like life doesn't have to be so rushed all the time and feels much more spacious.
• 1:11:41
  Shay: And so I've been kind of curious about this is so nerdy.
• 1:11:44
  Shay: Ever since I saw um the Odyssey this summer, I've just been reading all these stories about like Greeks and like feminist retellings of the old Greek stories, and like uh I've been learning all about like Greek myth and all that.
• 1:11:57
  Shay: So that reading and getting into like really Greek myth has been sparking my curiosity in a way that it never has before, and it's feeling really fun.
• 1:12:07
  Mariah: That does feel fun because it's counterbalancing literally us staring at fucking screens all the time, and like what a gift to remember.
• 1:12:16
  Mariah: It's so funny.
• 1:12:17
  Mariah: It's like we hear what it what are you wasting time?
• 1:12:20
  Mariah: It's like what a phrase to go through.
• 1:12:23
  Shay: You have to fight.
• 1:12:24
  Shay: It was interesting to notice those voices.
• 1:12:26
  Shay: Like, I'm like walk going on a walk with my husband and listening to a book or like researching all about Greek myth, like the oldest stories of all of humankind, but I still have this voice being like, you could be working harder right now.
• 1:12:38
  SPEAKER_01: That isn't interesting to like notice.
• 1:12:41
  Mariah: It's like, oh, we shouldn't be wasting time.
• 1:12:44
  Mariah: It's like, isn't the whole point of life like, aren't we just here to waste time?
• 1:12:49
  Mariah: Isn't our entire existence literally figuring out ways for us to waste time?
• 1:12:58
  Shay: And what a blessing to have time to waste.
• 1:13:00
  Shay: What so I think throughout human history, nobody had any free time.
• 1:13:04
  Shay: We're the we're living in time with free time.
• 1:13:05
  Mariah: What a blessing.
• 1:13:06
  Mariah: We can do whatever we want.
• 1:13:08
  Mariah: Shay, this episode was so fun.
• 1:13:10
  Mariah: Thanks for being a guest on your own podcast.
• 1:13:14
  Mariah: If people want to find out or learn more about your reselling journey, and like you said, that you're gonna have a long form video coming out.
• 1:13:22
  Mariah: Give everybody the tea.
• 1:13:23
  Mariah: Where can they follow along and like this side of your brain?
• 1:13:27
  Shay: For sure.
• 1:13:28
  Shay: So if you are interested or just curious, follow me at the SmarterReseller.
• 1:13:34
  Shay: I'm on almost all the platforms Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
• 1:13:38
  Shay: And the long form content would be on YouTube as well.
• 1:13:41
  Shay: But yeah, the Smarter Reseller.
• 1:13:43
  Shay: Give me a little subscribe.
• 1:13:45
  Shay: You can keep an eye on my story and all the weird stuff I have going on over here.
• 1:13:49
  Mariah: Like and subscribe, like and subscribe, like and subscribe.
• 1:13:51
  Mariah: And then will you share the link to your eBay story too?
• 1:13:55
  Shay: Oh, sure.
• 1:13:56
  Shay: My store, my eBay store is called them the new lost and found.
• 1:14:00
  Shay: You can type that in eBay and it'll bring it up, or we'll share it in the link as well.
• 1:14:04
  Mariah: Yeah, that's so fun.
• 1:14:05
  Mariah: Me and Andrew check out your eBay store sometimes just because we want to see what you're selling.
• 1:14:10
  Shay: And it's in part, that's how I've learned the most is I'll find people selling things like that I want to be selling, then I'll stock what they've sold recently.
• 1:14:19
  Shay: And I you learn so much just by doing that.
• 1:14:21
  Shay: That's a smart move.
• 1:14:22
  Mariah: So much.
• 1:14:23
  Mariah: So we're gonna put all of those links in the show notes below.
• 1:14:26
  Mariah: But I think we're ready to close this episode down.
• 1:14:28
  Mariah: So remember, friends, that you have the power to create whatever the fuck you want.
• 1:14:33
  Mariah: Follow the nudge, ask questions, and let curiosity guide the way.
• 1:14:37
  Mariah: We'll see you in the next episode.