Selling From The Beach
Selling From The Beach
From Coca-Cola Delivery Driver To Full Time Amazon with Wayne Seto
Thinking about moving from part-time to full-time Amazon seller? Concerned you might be too old to get into the Amazon reselling business? In this episode I talk with Wayne Seto discussing the ups and downs in side businesses, how his business has changed since he now supports a family full time, and a lot more!
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Welcome to the Selling from the Beach podcast, where we talk about selling online, making money, and creating a lifestyle that you want. Recording from the white sandy beaches of Costa Rica. Here's your host, Rob Cosman.
Rob:Are you over 50 and think you're too old for the Amazon business? Have you tried a bunch of different businesses along the way with some limited success? This episode should give you some inspiration and a case study that you're never too old to figure it out. Today I have Wayne Seto on the show. Wayne talks about some of his adventures along the way to the Amazon world, the good and the bad. From early corporate marketing career burnout, Coca Cola delivery man, running a dollar store, making coconut shoes, 2 a. m. slipper deliveries in Asia, and much more. We talk about growing, expanding, and changing up the business as things become more intense going full time. Wayne is pretty candid on his mistakes, which a lot of people never really want to dig into. Let's jump into the interview.
Hey Wayne, welcome to the show. Thanks for coming on, man. Hey, thanks for having me, Rob. I'm glad that you have me on here because I know there's a lot of, I've seen some of your guests and stuff on this podcast and you got some pretty big heavy hitters and, and I always kind of feel like I'm a bit of a grinder and just kind of making my way through life and just trying to figure it out. So I'm pretty flattered that you asked me to be here. Dude, well, I mean, I haven't done a podcast for a long time and cause again, it's like priorities change, whatever. And I'm like, no, I got to do it again. Who do I know? And I love just kind of going through my Rolodex and. I've known Wayne, I guess. I had to go and look this up for the show, but 2017, I think, is, is... Kind of when our paths cross, or you came to me as a accounting client. And every time I talk to you, like, so Wayne's in our OA masterclass and we'll be talking about something at random and Wayne's like, Oh yeah. Like we were talking about ticket sales the other day, Taylor Swift. And then Oh yeah, I used to sell all these tickets. Blah, blah, blah. I'm that's another layer of Wayne. Every time I talk to you, there's a new something to peel back. I feel like you've done so many different things and I don't know where this is going to go today, but I'm like, okay, look. I think it'd be super fun. I like your, your story where you've gone, what you're doing now. And every time, you jump on one of the, the masterclass calls Oh, Hey, Wayne, where are you now? And you're like, Oh, I'm in Bangkok. Oh, I'm in Calgary. Oh, I'm in BC. Oh, I've been Thailand. I don't know. You're always all over the place. So yeah, I don't even know how we first met. I guess just the whole online Amazon. Yeah. I was looking for an accountant from what I remember. And your name just kept on popping around and some of the sellers that I was friends with, they used you, right? So, I mean, there's nothing better than a reference because you needed somebody that knew the Amazon thing and it's like, where do I go? Right? So I had no idea how to do any of this stuff. So that's how we, so we did the one hour consultation, right? And, but you were a seller too, right? And I think that was that was a bonus. And then that hour consultation, I picked your brain about selling and stuff. And you know, you gave me some stuff to work with too. Right. So that's how we met was just that first consultation. Yeah. Okay. So that was 2017 and you weren't, you just started selling on Amazon. Just give us a little bit of background to like how you get into it, what you were doing and then kind of where it went. Well, let's see 2017. Yes. At that time, I was still working at Coca Cola. Like I was a delivery truck driver. I was there for, up until a couple years ago. That was like 18 years. So, when I met you, I was probably already there for 12 or 15 years driving truck, right? But prior to that, and it was a real transition because I came out of university in 91 from, from UBC. I had a Bachelor of Commerce. So I was a marketing guy, right? And... I was I had I was doing I was running a dollar store with a buddy of mine. We used to work together. We used to be sales reps for like this package goods company right out here in Vancouver. So we used to do stuff, sell stuff like procter and gamble and general mills and all that kind of stuff. So we kind of did wholesale out of the back of the dollar store and it kind of went from there. But by the time we hit it was tough because I had to do all the sales and I didn't like that pressure. And eventually it just kind of wore me down. So when I went to Coke, it started off as. I guess what they call merchandisers, right? So it's guys that go out to like a big box store and then they put up pop. It's real physical work, but, but it was mindless and that's kind of what I wanted. I just wanted to punch a card, swipe in and swipe out. And that's what I did. But then after 10 years of that, then it was like, yeah, I don't know if I could do this. You know, cause I started driving by then,. Cause they paid for the license. So I was driving. Big rig truck, 53 foot trailers delivering to a superstore and stuff like that. So you started, you got a bachelor of business, then running a dollar store and doing sales. And then you decided to go apply for a job at Coke to stock a shelf. Yeah. I went complete 180. Like when I quit when I was, when I left sales, with my friend, I went on EI, so because I wasn't working,? So, in between there, I remember the day that I stopped doing that I was driving my car and I was just screaming from the top of my lungs. I was so happy not to do that. And then the idea of just not thinking. So, I did kind of like a 180. Went the other way and just, I went from a suit and tie to steel toe shoes. Just like that. And I did that for 18 years until I started, doing the Amazon thing. So then did that mindless, whatever, which I find really weird knowing half the stories I do know, but anyhow, then when did it switch? Then you're like, okay, I'm going to start selling on Amazon and start this, you know, computers and selling obviously sold before. So it wasn't that far of a stretch, but like what, take me through that. Well, it was, 2012, 2011, 2012, my old roommate there's a bit of a story that leads up to the Amazon until how I got there, but my old roommate, he was living in the middle of B. C., so he was growing marijuana, at that time. So, so he came back from one of these ayahuasca ceremonies, and the thing that he figured out when he was growing the marijuana was that he used coconut fiber. Because there's a gross enzyme and it retains a lot of water, they use it in like a lot of the agricultural industries and stuff. So he came home high, after one of these ceremonies, put his feet on the the mat, and he thought, these feel pretty good, so he cut out pieces, attached it to his foot, and he thought, I could make shoes out of these and he thought to himself, if I wake up the next morning, it's a good idea. I'm going to try and do this. And it was so he started making these, I guess, technically they're biodegradable shoes. That's how we, so we started a shoe company out of that. So we were making, so we went out of the research. We were like where's the best place to find coconut fiber, right? So it led us to Sri Lanka. So we went to Sri Lanka. It was kind of a tough place to work. And then he found a shoemaker in Thailand. So we ended up in Thailand and we started making these shoes. So it was hemp straps and then it was for the souls to bind it, he was using a natural rubber,? So get from a rubber tree plant and we, we did this for a couple of years and then, I I got into the flip flop shops. So the guy that was behind that. He was the guy behind taking Marble Slab Creamery from, like, 50 stores to, like, a thousand stores, he was, a franchise expert, but he happened to live in Vancouver, because I think his wife or his brother in law married somebody that was from Vancouver. And I used to sell shoes when I came out of university and I went back to the old my old boss and I said, can I sell these things? And they said, no, but this guy might be interested. So that's how we got introduced to this guy. And he actually gave us. A spot in some of the stores and we're going to do an online spot on his site, you know, but my friend, when he went back, he tried to tinker with the the flip flops and end up kind of messing it up and we're like, Oh, we can't send this thing in. Cause it's just, you know, you can't send that product out, but in the end, the whole thing is kind of feels at all. Cause it's because it was kind of all handmade and it was, and because it's so resilient, it's hard to make a pair exactly the same. over and scale it to do like a thousand pairs so that whole thing kind of fell apart. But at that time though, he got it on the dragon's den. And then, we had orders just kind of the next day, the phone was just ringing off hook. And that was my deal. I had to deal with all that stuff. But in the end, it was just to do this on scale was a really tough one. And, and I still get odd messages. Instagram people saying, Hey, I want to invest in this. I want to do this because it was a really great idea and I tried raising money on Kickstarter. I had no idea what I was doing and kind of fell short. So this whole shoe idea kind of fell away. In 2015, when I was at Coke, I kind of hit this bottom, if you will. And it was like, I took a sabbatical, I told them I just need a year off,, it was a little bit of a fight. I lived in Southeast Asia, I lived in Thailand at the time. At that time, 2015 was kind of the, you can see it's kind of the peak of the whole digital nomad thing. I was living in Chiang Mai, and that was sort of the hub because it was cheap, and it was like good Wi Fi, and it was safe, and you had a lot of digital nomads there and there was a guy, I was at one of the meetups, and I was like trying to figure out, what can I do? And he goes, well, why don't you do Amazon FBA? I had no idea what that was. I realized afterwards, this guy, he was a PL guy. He had a, he had his own groups and stuff where he built a following. He sold board games and stuff like that. And but it wasn't until around like 2016, 2017, I was 47 at the time. I'm probably not going to get married. If I'm not getting married at this point, I'm not going to get married at all, so I'm just going to enjoy myself. And towards the end of that year, I ended up meeting who is now my wife. So I ended up doing the back and forth to Thailand. The good thing about the coke job was that there was lots of holidays, so I could... I was able to go back maybe two times a year, we did a long distance thing. So I was thinking, well, I need a way of making money. If she comes to Canada, Coke's not going to pay enough. With those coconut shoes, what I did was I made insoles. So because part of the benefits of that shoe was you wear bare feet and they would exfoliate your feet. Women really liked it because we had it in some spas and stuff. You get really smooth feet out of it. And so that was the tagline exfoliate the soul. So I made a whole bunch of these, a packaging for and stuff, cause at that time I thought you could just, the way people made it sound was like, you could just make, any product, throw it into Amazon and it'll sell. And that just didn't happen. Then I looked into FBA a little bit more, then it was like, people are actually buying stuff from Walmart I just couldn't believe that people actually do this and that there was money to be made in it. And so I started with books. I think everybody did that thrift store and stuff like that. And, and I almost quit. It took me about three months to get my first sale. I remember, it was a stock trading book, like stock, technical analysis. And that sold. And then, you know, another book sold. Then it was like, okay, this people actually buying it. There was actually a little bit of a payout. And then, I remember selling I had a Goodwill store and it was like in the auto mechanic book And it was a dollar. And it sold for like 200 bucks on.ca. So I kind of went into a little bit more, started going to meetups and then I had the consultation with you, but then I think one of the turning points was just going to a lot of the meetups. I met a bunch of sellers, kind of gave me some clues into stuff, and then when I I first met you face to face was at the True North conference that we had, you spoke there and then you start. Meeting people and you get to see how they actually run their business. It's a lot of work, but my God, people actually make money doing this, right? That's the same thing, like when I first went to my first conference, it, Chris Green had a scam power. It was the last one I think he did. And it just blew me away. They, had all these people, he said, okay, put your hand up if you know you sold a hundred thousand. And then all these hands just kept staying. And they're like, okay, 200, 500, a million, 2 million. And there's still hands up. And that's when you're like, okay, this, this can work. So you're still, so you're starting thrifting, you're doing that, you're still working at Coke at this point. Yeah, I was still working. You're still madly in love with this woman overseas. Yeah. Then I started thrifting between deliveries when I was delivering my soda pop break. And part of it was at that time, Coke was like, if you get your shift done, it was like an eight hour shift. If you get all your deliveries done in like six, then you can just go home and get paid for eight. So guys were really hustling and then, leaving after five hours and it just irked the company that, you're working five hours getting paid for eight. So then they started forcing it to work eight. So guys were hanging around the lunchroom waiting till the eight hours were over. So I just kind of paced myself during my deliveries and in between, I'd go into a thrift store, Valley Village and then some of these guys I knew from before, because when I was a rep, I knew some of these buyers and managers. So some of these guys, I'd go on between my shifts, I'd go talk to them and then, you know, you try to get like a bulk deal and that kind of thing from these guys. But yeah, I would just kind of park my truck, go and get a shopping cart. Save on Foods is really good because it had a really good toy section same with Superstore. And then I'd just load these up in the cab of my truck. But the trick was I had to get back,, get to where my car was parked at the coat plant. Unloaded it into my car without the manager seeing me because I got this product, coming out the side of the door and then I'd go back. So that was kind of routine. What I did for when I was doing ra I tried to just hustle as much as I could and it was tough'cause I had to like I took an afternoon shift, like it was three to 11. So it allowed me to. Working on the Amazon stuff during the mornings and stuff like that. Get home at 11 and you're packing stuff like into the morning. it was a grind. It was a bit of a grind. Right. So, but it works. That was the thing. It made money. So I just kept doing it. And if you've got that job still that you can live on, then all you're doing is rolling those profits over to your inventory and your cashflow and, you know, just kind of building up that base of inventory. Right? Yeah, exactly. Cause I know I got friends that are pretty well off business guys and, a couple of them took a leap of faith and they just quit their jobs and they built their companies and they're like, you should just go and sink or swim. Like for me, just in my personal experience, I was, I wouldn't do that. I mean, the Coke thing just kind of helped to cover any shortfalls and just kind of made things work and take some of the stress off. And you just need that cash flow just to live. And I mean, you're the one that told me at our first meeting that it's a very capital intensive business, right? And especially as FBA and cash is like oxygen to this business? If you don't have it, it's really, it's a real tough go. That's what I found over time. Cause I felt like I was broke all the time for like first five or six years. You're just rolling it over and you're just spending and you're trying to get that spend, you're trying to feed the beast as they say. So, dude, it's still tough and everybody, because it's a weird business where. If I can grow that business 200, 500, 000%, if I just buy more stuff, if I have more cash, I could buy more stuff. Like what other business can you grow that fast? So you see that and then if you've got that personality and you know, you're hyped and you're going and you're just like, yeah, I'm just, I always can buy more, buy more, buy more like this week, my helper is going away. I have a helper in Sasaga I send stuff to she's going away. And I had some flips that were going, some Amazon flips, and it weren't going to get there until after she left. And as much as it pained me, I just, I canceled the order. I said, you know what, I don't want her neighbor picking it up or the box lost. And she's like, oh, you know, that's too bad. There's some really good deals you got. And I'm like, there's always something else to buy. I can spend money real easy, real quick, let's just wait. But would you keep going in this business? And I've had other people on the show too, you know, like Max, the very first episode said the same thing. Where do you get to the point where, okay, now I need to enjoy some of it because you're working so hard, you're busting your ass, you've got that inventory level up, but at some point you've got to say, okay. Some of it needs to come back and not just credit card points, but, let's take some off the table. So when did you make that jump? Because obviously you're like, okay, I've got that. You had another job after Coke, but then at some point you quit all of it and fell in love, got married and do this full time now. Right? Yeah. I mean, I didn't go full time up until very recently when you Because probably, maybe just like a year ago, because I wasn't really paying myself, because I had these other jobs when I took parental leave when my first son was born, I took 12 months off, then I had holidays still sitting there, so it was a bit of a fight, but I tacked on those two months of holidays so I was away for 14 months, and when it was time to go back to Coke, I was working in the movie industry at that time, so I was driving in the movies, and when it was time to go back, I said, yeah, I can't go back. The stuff with the movie industry is it really easy cause you only really move when they're filming or when they start moving. So once they start filming, you're sitting there for 12 hours, you might do odd jobs. So then I'd be trying to buy stuff while I'm sitting in my car or my truck. The downfall is it's it takes, it's a lot of time. You could be working like 16 hour days pretty easy. It's really good money in the sense because these guys make the money on the overtime, but there was a point there where I was in the movies, and I was thinking, even though the money is good, in a way, it's costing me money because I could be spending more time sourcing, I could be, working on the business and growing it. And so what happened was the movies start to slow down because you get the writer's strike on right now? And so nobody's working, all my buddies there, they're all sitting at home and they're about to find alternate jobs. And then I just realized I could pay enough to myself what I was covering in the movies. And I wouldn't have to work 16 hours a day. And it was kind of a, I shouldn't say a simple choice, but it was like it was the best choice. To go with the tough thing with doing the movies was when I did a couple full shows I had to make a deal with my wife because my son was just born and she was like, you gotta at least have the whole Sunday for your son, you got to spend time with them and, but it became hard because I still had to run the FBA on top of working 16 hours a day on, and I did hit a point where I did kind of crack and then so, I mean, I still have my, my teamsters membership there. And now in Calgary, they have kind of a a robust industry here. I kind of keep it, I could probably work here and just kind of work part time if things go sideways, but I've gotten accustomed to this lifestyle. And it's not easy. I know people think I have to kind of keep that in perspective because I there would probably be like a thousand people that would like trade spots with me. But going on one stream. Of income, just like I moved to Calgary because we got priced out in Vancouver cost of housing, and this was sort of the best choice, and I got another kid on the way, what do you do, stay in Vancouver for 2, 500 bucks a month? Renting a one bedroom. I think the median price is close to 3, 000 now in Calgary, they don't have rent caps So the rent is starting to spike here and people like me are moving in here And so the real estate is really kind of moving but that's the thing that the DFB has given me is You got options you got choices I could have moved anywhere Now I even told my wife we were in Thailand just a few months ago And I was in the beach in the morning, I tried to get up, do some work before her and the kid wake up and I went back to her and I said give me like three years. I got to maybe try and scale this thing out or whatever, and we can keep the house in Calgary, maybe rent it out and, and just move there. But it gives you a whole bunch of choices that I never had before. So that's how I kind of got here was part of it was, this is what I kind of want to do. And part of it was. This was actually the best option just because of the circumstances of the way the world is right now. So, this is how I want to pre calibrate for now. Yeah. So, are you prepping your stuff now? Are you just all OA? Are you doing RA? Are you using prep centers? What's your current,, Right now it's, about 90, 95 percent OA. Got a few wholesale accounts and stuff that I built up when I was in Vancouver. It's all prep centers right now. So I got three prep centers that I use in Canada. I have a prep in the U. S., but I haven't used them for a while. Because I haven't done U. S. to U. S. for a while. So most of it, pretty much all of it right now is cross border. And now that we have the house in Calgary, my wife's like, we should do R. A. again. And, which I wouldn't mind, but the thing is also is I haven't prepped stuff in a few years now. And that new workflow, I have No idea. My prep centers every once in a while call message me and they say, Hey, there's a glitch. There's a problem with this in the in the prep. What should we do? I have no idea. The prep guys, they probably know that system way better than I do. I've probably gotten a little bit soft too, and I just don't want to be prepping anymore, but there's a few things, there's a few websites that don't ship to these prep centers and only ship to residential, so I may have to I may have to do a little bit, might be a good idea you just gotta find a prep center that you can actually just do the drop off, I did it a few years back. I just decided that we went to a Christmas vacation, my mother in law's in Orlando. Oh, I'm going to go to Nike and, do some shoe sourcing. And I did. And I just dropped it off at this guy's house and you know, that was his prep center. Yeah, perfect. I don't want to do it. Cause I'm the same. I kind of forget and I'm not nearly as good, and I'm lazy. I know Bettina would fold it all nicely and clean this box up. And I'm just like, Oh God, I don't miss this at all. Yeah. No, no. I hear you. All right. So you're full time now you're well into, seven figures. You're living in Calgary. You're doing most of it from Canada down to. com or are you doing CA stuff or what? Yeah, most of it's, it's CA to. com, right. And then there's CA to CA stuff. And I just started playing a little bit with us to to. ca a little bit. And just trying to figure out that process and see how that works. I'd like to get back into a little bit of U. S. to U. S. I mean, that's just such a big pond though, there's just so much competition. There's just so many ways you can slice that, I have to come up with a bit of a strategy and a plan if I'm going to go back into us to us. I like calm to calm, but at the same time, when you're doing flips and stuff can tank a lot quicker. But, you know, ca. com is great. I've done the south, us up to Canada. But the stuff that you just have to make sure the margins are there cause the cost of the ship it and bring it across the border and then your cash flow because you're paying the GST on the goods coming in. So that's a bit of a pain. That's why, I want to be following my GST quarterly. So I'm not waiting till the end of the year to get a 20, refund kind of thing. Yeah, exactly. Now we're going to go another way here. You joined the masterclass and I was. I'm pretty shocked when I saw your name pop up and join, I think it was two years ago or something kind of came in and I've never actually asked you, like, what kind of put you over the edge? The thing is like, it's so competitive, and to be honest, I've been kind of writing a lot of those years a lot of my business is like scanning TA and stuff like that. And I, it was just kind of easy way to do it. I didn't really look for other methods I just needed more you know, arrows in the quiver type thing. And I just needed, because when I messaged you, I said, like, what is the course involved? And, and you didn't do any TA in your course. And it's just all different stuff. And I was like, I don't do. Any of that stuff, you know, so it's like I needed a different angle You just need a different way to compete out there just because there's just so many New sellers and stuff like that. So you gotta kind of learn some new methods so that was kind of the big impetus to to do that and you were offering like bolos in your group The first one I mean the first bolo there that you posted in the group and that pretty much paid for the course, I don't know if you remember it It was like a color changing hot wheel and you were like, you know, you guys want to gamble on this This may sell at this point, may not. Sure, I'll gamble on this and the stuff just started going. Every time I had to keep alert on it. And every time this thing came into stock, I would just buy it out, buy it out, you know, 27 years, 30 there, 50 years, 6 year. And I just kept on buying it. And at some point, you know, Amazon eventually came into stock, but by that time, I had already made my money on it and paid the course and so on and so forth. So it was good. It's awesome. I got to go back and look and see what that was. But yeah, I don't even remember, I've done hours and hours and hours of videos in it and everything, but I mean the real value and I still get so pumped is, you know, our chat. When we do our monthly calls, but also just on the WhatsApp when guys, guys and girls are posting things that they see, and it just sends you down the rabbit holes. And that's, that's, that's how we keep getting all these layers of Wayne's. We were talking about Taylor Swift tickets cause, we flipped some tickets. I've done a few and we went down that rabbit hole one day and you started talking about flipping that. It's just trying to go different ways. Clothing and shoes and, trying not just chasing the hottest toy or whatever's on clearance at Walmart and Toys R Us, because guess what? Those things. That's what new sellers are going to pick up and, buy and send too many in, not realizing the sales velocity on CA and then it's going to tank it was so good having you in the course. And every time he was always like another story from Wayne, like, we were talking about Airbnb the other day. And you started talking about when you were doing that and it was a Thailand or where. Yeah, it was in, it was in Thailand. So what happened was, at that time, this is how I ended up meeting my wife because I invested my it was an old friend of mine, well, not a friend anymore, but it was a guy I knew in Vancouver. He was living there, and we put money together into opening up a hostel there. So he, so the base of his money was coming from Airbnbs, so I helped'em run the Airbnbs while we got the hostel going. It was probably about like 20, 25 units. A couple that he owned and the others he managed, and some he arbitraged and so I'd be the guy that's answering all the messages and stuff like that. And that's how I met my wife, because her good friend, had a couple condos that we were managing. And she was a rep for, cosmetics brands and stuff so she worked the airports, both airports, in Thailand. My job was to coordinate with her. Okay, passenger's coming off it. And then she would give'em the keys as they came off the plane. So this is how I got to know her and this is how I eventually we started dating and stuff? But what happened was I sunk all my money into this partnership, went sideways And that's the thing I should have known better.'cause I've known this guy since and Vancouver and, and always something sketchy that he did it was always kind of like gray area and but at that time, you know, I wanted to get outta Coke and I'm really tough on myself in terms of like you know, lacking self confidence. And I was like, I don't know how to do this. I'm going to try and ride this guy's coattails, you know, so I was in it for about 60 K that I lost on it and that I'm still in for another 60. I was carrying another 30 on Atlantic credit. So after the, partnership There's a point I was like, I'm not getting my money back that so the one thing I kind of learned from that was yeah, you want a partner who's kind of knowledgeable and stuff, but and then you kind of want, you got to trust them to, you actually got to like them. For me, I know some people are you don't have to like them, you know, they just have to be good at what they do. But if I didn't go down that path, I would have never met my wife. So it's that saying that life happens for you, not to you,? And that's kind of what happened with that, and then that was the year 2017. That's when everything kind of came apart. And then my dad passed away at that time. My life was kind of okay, but I'm not like super duper happy, you know, and that's when I decided to, Propose to my wife at that time, because I was like, I don't want to live, scared all the time. That's what kind of happened to me in terms of mindset when my dad passed away but I had no way of like paying for this wedding. And that's what happened with the FBA thing.. It was like it wasn't until like 2018. We got married in 2019. So we're on 2018. How am I going to pay for this thing? So, you know the guys that I met at meetups they had to put together an RA Bolo group. And that completely changed the way my business went. And cause these guys, I mean, there's some of the biggest sellers, Canadian sellers that you probably know right now. And I remember the two guys that put it together. They're like, everybody's got to pull their weight. Or you're out of here. And I was like, in my mind,, don't kick me out of this. Because for me, the biggest thing was how they looked at a deal and how they would cut up a deal and how they ran their businesses. It wasn't so much the bolos. I was out there, I was trying to find bolos and, you know, always stuff, my TA stuff and you go into stores. Because we all lived in different parts of the country. And that was kind of the, the idea is that we wouldn't cross in each other's territories. But that was the thing, because these guys were some of the smartest people I know, men and women. And that's how I learned a lot of this stuff. It's the same with the group that you have. Everybody has like certain areas of knowledge and stuff like that, but you get to see how everybody runs their business. It's invaluable like that. People always ask like, what tips would you give? Like if you're starting new that group that surrounds you. It's huge in my opinion that made the difference to where I am now, or whether I'd still be just like flogging stuff in a Walmart, person. It fires you up, right? Like that's a, so a couple of things. One, if you're listening to this and you're thinking about starting or you are, and you have a partner, get a partner's agreement, like write it out. You don't necessarily need to go get a lawyer, but I mean, you can get an online one, whatever. Everything is rosy. Everything's great at the start. You're not going to fight. We love each other. We're going to crush this business, blah, blah, blah, until you're not. Until something changes and somebody's not pulling their weight. And then how do I buy them out? How do I get rid of them? When do we put more money in? You know, all that figured out beforehand. Think about the worst case scenario. Think about somebody got hit by the bus. What happens, you know, to their half of the business, all that. Do it first. But the thing about this business is you could also just do it on your own. And if you have some other people that are also in it, then yeah, that's where you, you know, you kind of see what other people are doing and, you know, as you said, How you look at a deal, like I'll post something and everybody will look at it different ways. Some people it'll fit, some people won't, some people don't have the cash right now. Some people don't like the sales rank, the color, the reviews, whatever. I mean, you know, it's just, it's cool to see what other people look at and things that you don't necessarily, you might've missed or, Oh, I never thought about that. Or this really bothers me. And someone else says, yeah, I don't care about that. Don't worry about that. You'll, you'll be fine. And that gives you the confidence to, to make some of those purchases then that, you know, are outside of your comfort zone. Right? Yeah. Yeah, totally. Totally. So you're full time in Calgary, married. You got another kid out of the way. You said three years, you think you want to go like three years hard and then move overseas again, or what? I'd like to I mean I think for next year I'd like to at least come up with another income stream of some sort because I tell you I mean, it's I mean it sounds great To go full time and kind of be on your own, but you know, so now that I'm carrying a mortgage and all this stuff and you're only on one income stream, especially with how finicky Amazon can be at times, right? It's it's a little bit nerve wracking, it's one of those things where you get a bunch of IP claims and stuff like that. I got to put on a good face. I can't tell my wife. I just got a letter in the mail and from a lawyer or whatever. So, so ideally that, yeah, I'd like to figure out like some sort of income stream. And I was talking to a friend of mine the other day and you know, the Amazon seller, and he was saying cause in that group, we've all kind of like really kind of grown over the last few years. And so everybody's looking for another income stream and, and all these things that he looks at, he, he says it's just underwhelming compared to what you compared to. FBA in terms of ROI in terms of how quickly you can turn stuff, get money back, even when I was doing the Airbnb, like, let's say you, you tried to arbitrage it or you actually buy a property or whatever,, it's a lot of capital to outlay. To get the money back in a certain time is just as competitive as FBA is, it's the best option right now. You look at. Airbnb has been hot for how long? And now you heard about all this decline. Cause everybody went out and bought them and now places are cracking down. The rates are coming down. People are going back to the hotels. You even say that the other day, you want your free breakfast. Is that what you said? Well, yeah, because now that I'm a platinum on, on, on on Marriott Bonvoy, right, you get, you get breakfast now, right. It's kind of hard, but it's also just the the, the service end of it. Right. Like I'd like. You know, people call me Mr. Cito, like people like changing my towels and, you know, it sounds elitist, it sounds terrible, but I was on the other end with the Airbnb, right? Cause people would treat it like it's a hotel. So I'd get calls at like two in the morning. You know, they want slippers, right? Are you kidding me? This is an Airbnb. You're supposed to be a host but that was the thing, in Asia, especially Bangkok,, we used to get a lot of people from Singapore and China, because it was so cheap to shop in Thailand and then you get the VAT back when you leave. So, every weekend there's, was a spike in bookings because people come with empty suitcases and they shop all weekend and then they leave, so it's but they would treat it like a hotel, But for me as a guest, It's just a little more comfortable and there's less goofy stuff that could happen like bookings canceled or you go there and a pipe doesn't work or the fridge or whatever, I'm the same man. I like, I like my hotels. I like using my points, you know, the credit card points. And, even here, we Vacation down the road and we get a resident rate, which is super cheap. And it's just, it's easy. It's nice, but yeah, back to your point. I do the same, obviously I have an accounting business. I sell a bunch of courses, but it's like, it all still revolves around. The Amazon business, because it's still growing, there's still new sellers coming in and there's still lots of stuff to sell. But yeah, you go and look at other streams and what you do. And it's like, no way can I, instead I've taken the mindset, well, I just look for new categories, or something that's,, slightly off. The other day we were doing the ticket sales. We're talking about that. Which is cool, but, you know, and you can make great flips, but then, you're buying tickets and the concerts are,, four months away, six months away, and, they're going to expire, my inventory is not going to expire unless it's grocery, but,, the tickets are eventually going to expire. So it's kind of, when am I going to sell this when, as opposed to buying something that maybe it's going to get discontinued or it's a longer hold it's a bit of a mix. So. Are you doing any like longer holds or is everything kind of like quick or, are you just turning everything over? Well, the only long holds I have right now is there's a bunch of discontinued Lego stuff. Cause that's like, thanks to you and the group. Cause I would just get Legos at whatever, you know, would come up on a scan so the whole. Lego, discontinued Lego thing, that was a whole new world that was opened up to me when I joined your group, to be honest. So I got a bunch of them sitting in in my prep centers, in the,, on pallets, you know, paying the storage every month. But we're kind of getting close to Q4, so I'm hoping to kind of unload it. And that's the thing is, I guess, like, we were talking about having,, different little fishing holes, like you were talking about before, like a moat that's a little more difficult. And but there's always something to learn, because with the Lego stuff, I was like, just because it's discontinued, I thought, well, any discontinued set will sell. So I'm just kind of buying everything. And I'm kind of learning the hard way., and then you get these sets where, yeah, it's discontinued. I haven't seen it for a while. Okay, we just got to wait for everybody to sell through. And then Costco or somebody comes up with like a boatload of these. So I don't know. I mean, I think that's, that's one of the things over time that I've kind of tempered a little bit. And I think especially with, with with the group that I joined with you is like there's a real sort of analytical component. Cause there's a part of me where I have that real addictive personality, where I just kind of I'll move without thinking and I'll just buy a bunch and then Then you're like, Oh, what did I just do? I'm stuck with this. And yeah, you've got to kind of temper that. You're going to kind of find a middle ground to all that I find, or else you can get really stuck with stuff. Absolutely. You know, and if you've got a couple of guys and you know, you're like, Hey. There's 200 units left. You want to chop it up. I'll take a hundred. You take a hundred, you know, and then we bought it out and then we got, you know, okay, great, but it's easy to do that. It's easy to spend a bunch of money, but then that credit card bill isn't going to get paid,, until you sell it in six months. So you can't tie up all your cash that way. And, you know, you're like me too. Sometimes I'm just like. It's like poker. I want to get all my chips in when I see a, good opportunity. And you just want it easy. Oh, I can buy a hundred units here and I know this retailer ship it to me. Great. I'll, I'll take the hundred units, as opposed to, okay, do I really need a hundred? You don't, maybe I should tone it down. Just get 10 or 20, I'd rather be. Dammit, I should have bought more than, Oh, I got stuck with too much. But going deep is easier for sure. Well, I mean, it was like you were saying earlier, it's there's always another deal. And I think that's where I've started to come to. Cause before as I started, you know, the sourcing wasn't as good. It wasn't finding as much stuff, and then as you grow and as you scale. We basically played a margin game, right? So there's more sellers. Also, it's harder to find bigger ROI stuff. And then you got to keep that spend going because, you need the cash, you need to stop rolling all the time. So you try to make that spend. And then I start talking myself into buys that probably aren't so good because I need to spend, And, that's the challenge I have right now too, is, is sometimes you look at a, keep a chart and it's like, sold this high price, but historically it's probably. This is where it needs to be, but then I'll, I'll tell myself, Oh, but I can't really find it anywhere else. So it probably could go a little bit higher and then you just talk yourself into a bad, bad thing? It was, it was like that when I used to trade junior mining stocks you get into this thing where the whole idea is that you just buy a stock and you have a certain thesis or story that, if it'll pan out, because what the mining stuff you basically want to hit that. One big rookie card and I'll box the hockey cards. But if it doesn't pan out, then it goes to like nothing. So once you kind of go from, I believe it's going to go make me this money. Once it goes from I believe to like, Oh, I hope I don't lose my shirt on this, or I hope it can sell at that price, then you're kind of getting into trouble territory. So, I try not to get like, and that's sort of a human thing you kind of have to kind of find like, with all these little ventures that I've come into, you kind of got to learn a little bit about yourself and, and what type of person you are. Because for me, I have to kind of dial it back and not. Get into this knee jerk reaction on stuff, because I, because now I got a wife and a kid, I don't swing for the fences anymore as much, because I got to look after them. It's like my kid's RSP. You put into some, you know, I don't put it into like junior mining stocks, like I wish I would have before, right? I would have paid his college tuition, but by the time he turned six, I'm not trying to get into that mindset anymore, I was always coming from a place of scarcity where it's like, Oh, I can't find another deal or I should buy more of this because I may not be able to get another deal again. And then it all turns around once you get into Q4 because it's like all the stuff starts moving there. Well, everything sells and then you get into the next season, then Oh, we're back to normal stuff isn't selling. So kind of you know, it's really nuanced. There's a lot of things you kind of got to take, take an account with the buying. Yeah. I mean, I, we all still have bad buys. I mean, I get stuff that oh, it's finally selling. I bought that last black Friday. Fantastic. It's, you know, almost a full year sitting on it. But you try to limit those, I look at things, I'm like, okay. That's a, yes, that's where I'd love it to be up there, but realistically, it's probably going to be here. Worst case I'm here. And what does that margin look like? But I'm the same, like, yeah, I can buy into the hype and you know, people are posting stuff and oh yeah, that looks great. Oh, let's snag three of those and two of those. And but it's just, yeah, I'm trying to get same thing. There's always something else to buy. I can let this one go. I don't need to force it. I don't need to make this because the cashback is really good. No, the cashback is good, then that's a bonus. And maybe I will look a little harder on that website today because it's 10 percent cashback. But to say, okay, I'm just going to buy stuff and the 10 percent is going to get me the margin I need. No, I don't like that because if the cashback for whatever reason doesn't get booked or they ban my cashback account or something, then I'm stuck and those weren't good purchases. If you were brand new starting out again, like what would you do? What would you tell someone who's brand new starting or just starting to like, I've got a taste. I want to start to grow it. You know, I've got that three year vision. Same thing. I want to, I want to be on the beach. Nothing wrong with the beach. I want to get there. I want to, you know, be location independent. I just want to, have it all online. What's the plan? Would you tell someone to get there? I think I already mentioned, but one of the things is like the group of people around you, I think it's just so invaluable and you want everybody that's sort of kind of kind of growing together and, and, and sharing stuff and maybe even a little bit ahead, in that group that I'm in, I always feel like I'm the low guy in the totem pole You need that group to it makes a huge difference, everybody kind of rolling in the same way and sharing ideas and stuff like that. Cause when I was in Vancouver, before everything got locked down, I was, I was helping doing some meetups so, you get to meet different people and, I think one, surround yourself with a really good group of sellers, like just willing to kind of grow together and share and do your part I think. For myself, I think you need to be really consistent with, with doing stuff, like you're sourcing, whatever it is that you're going to move your business forward with, it's just consistent work, just being stacked on top of each other over time. And whether you're trying to learn how to manual source, flips or TA you got to be doing that every day. For me, the light at the end of the tunnel, when I first started was, how am I going to pay for this wedding? a friend of mine was like. You need certainty in your life, you need something that you're absolutely certain about and everything surrounds that and I that's how I kind of worked. Like Kobe Bryant used to. I saw some interviews where he's saying, well, what if I get up earlier at 4 am and weren't doing extra workout every day or 3 times a week or whatever. And over a year, like, how many more hours would I get better at? I find that's really true. I'd recently bought a stock trading course, I used to do technical analysis so I want to get a little more serious about it. And I remember like that first book that I sold, I actually have that book from like 20 years ago. And then when I bought this course and I was kind of going through the modules, I was thinking, well, what if I never stopped learning the TA from 20 years ago? Probably a good chance that I would probably be a pretty good trader 20 years later right now, but I just stopped, and I find with the The FBA stuff, like you gotta be doing it consistent. You gotta be doing it every day. And it's like putting deposits in a bank at some point, it'll pay out. Cause it was a point where all of a sudden when I was sourcing RA or otherwise, like something would click and you would just see it. Whereas you would never before. Right. And that's from the existing work. I remember I went through a gambling phase when I was younger and I thought, well, I'm going to buy like a Dodge Caravan and I'm going to drive around and just play. Poker games everywhere. But when I was looking for, when I was thinking, I'm going to want to buy a Dodge Caravan, all you see every round is Dodge Caravans that's the thing I find with the sourcing is like you, it kind of sounds hocus pocus and you hear all these self help books and stuff like that. But when your mind is kind of pointed in that direction, like you'll start seeing stuff And you just have to put in the work of sourcing Because you said, you know, in my course, like I don't do any tactical arbitrage stuff, I manually source and because. If you're new, like learning how to use the software. I mean, you got to do that first and then also learn the business if you're just learning the business, but like, I just do the manual because I, I have so many places to go, I planted all so many keep alerts and seeds and, you know, I get stuff all the time, but back to your point. I'm looking at stuff and you look at so many listings or you look at so many opportunities you can start to, you know, get good at it and you can get through the crap, I'm sure I missed stuff, but at least I can quickly go through and like, okay, there's a good nugget or that's something that probably would work out well and you've got that experience and that gut to say, okay, you know what, I'm going to give it a go. I think it's going to be well, it'll do good based on that experience you have, like your gut instinct is developed from. Doing so many things over and over and looking at it and, you know, whether it just becomes second nature or, you know, that's what you're, you're relying on, you're training yourself. And then once you get a little more confident with that, like, and it took me a little while where you you start leaning into buys a little bit more, where you cause that's what, how you kind of, cause I remember one of the earlier meetups, one of the but you, one of your earlier guests, Dixon, right? Cause he was living in Vancouver at the time we did meetups and I was doing a lot of RA and he said, the way to scale it is areas like once you find something good, you just go and you clean up every shelf like, in, in, in that's in the area. And that's kind of the start, but, but I think I had to get comfortable spending, at 1st, it was like, 500 bucks on 1 skew. Then it was like. 1000. You know, so, you know, then you get to the point where the first big one was like these, these coffee makers, I remember it was a pallet. It was seven grand. And I was Ooh you just start feeling really uncomfortable with it, but that's the way you scale is like, you just have to kind of lean into the bigger buys. And that's something that nobody ever really told me when I first started was like like, you got to spend, like, you got to be not afraid to spend. And you kind of have to be comfortable with that and it takes a little bit and, you know, there's always this worry about an IP claim and stuff like that. But at some point, you kind of have to push the envelope a little bit or have more SKUs or that one kind of goes sideways. You can maybe liquidate it somewhere or whatever. But so now, I can spend like 10 grand on a single SKU and it, it doesn't rock me internally, like it used to be. That's a great point though. Yeah. Because especially when you first start out and I tell people this all the time, like sell more expensive things because there's a psychological issue where people are like, I want to buy 20 items to sell for 40 or 50 or 10 items. People feel more comfortable buying 10, 10 items than 100 item. You know, they couldn't imagine buying 10, 100 items. So that scares people away. Same. That's why I like selling shoes. I mean, you know, buying 5, 000 shoes, you know, you're flipping for a double and you can easily spend two or three, five grand just on like one pair of shoes across the sizes and across the colors, like it's real easy, but. As you start to gain that confidence, you know, it's just a lot of averages then, right? Yeah, even, even like heavier stuff, you'll create a little bit of a moat for yourself even because it just dawned on me recently, like I moved here to this new house in Calgary and I bought a, a bed frame for my kid's room. And it was it's long and it's heavy and it showed up and I was like, I don't care if this thing is crappy. I'm not sending this back because it's too much of a hassle. That's how my thinking was as a customer, but like any little thing where you have like a little higher barrier to entry, like, it's worth doing. That's why I like, your, your new shoe course, because I've always had kind of this thing about variations and stuff like that. But it's another way to create a moment, right? And as we move along here. So you need these different types of moats in your business, or else you know, my margin will just get squeezed. Right. So I'm always kind of looking for a different way to find that margin. It's because it's going to, it's funny you said, what are the shoes? Cause yeah, the guys are blowing up the chat. One of the guys just, he's like, Oh, I sold my first shoe, you know, massive profits. It's like, yeah, see, then you start to get a little bit more confidence. You see some of that early wins and then you can kind of build up on it. Wayne, this has been, it's been great, man. This is I don't know how many stories you've told me and you're like, Oh yeah, I used to do this or I used to have that. Like it's just so many different things you've done over the years. Blows my mind like. Yeah, I guess that's why I was kind of surprised when you messaged me and you asked me to be a guest because I was like, I didn't really kind of consider, I thought, what have I really done? And I guess I've tried a lot of different things. And I think I probably had more failures and successes, I guess so I'm a little tough on myself. Oh, but I failed at this, this and this, but you just need a win big enough to offset that stuff. And I think the FBA has been by far the biggest win where I've kind of made it work. And a lot of it is just because the consistency, I mean, you're talking about 2017, right? So it's all that time put into there where I never, a lot of the stuff where I did before was like, you know, the scalping tickets in high school, you did it for a short time, paid for my college and that sort of thing. And, but it wasn't something that was everlasting and long. So that's how I always kind of viewed myself as like. And I'm trying to change that once I hit the first seven figures, you know, one of the guys in my group was like, well, you know, you got to start thinking about your, it's a real business. Cause I always think of myself as like, Gary V flipping garage stuff. I'm always that hustler. And I had to start changing my mindset that I actually have a business and you have to run it that way, because when I first set up the sole proprietorship, and then you move it into a corp, it's always like, but I have this other job. So I don't really care how much you spend. On a new printer, because the corp's paying for it. And then you're just really loosey goosey with your money, and then it's like, I can have this bad buy, because it's like, the company's taking the hit, it's not really me. I think all these so called failures and I think what was her name? Because you were at that that first conference. And they brought in, what's her name? Michelle Romanow. I think that was her name. She was at Dragon's Den. But her story was that she, you know, she went through all this, failures, they had that big thing, which she did in university. And then they built this business and it was ready to go. They were going to pitch it to some angel investors. And then 2008 happened and everything just kind of went in the tank, you know,, but then she talked about how it wasn't that few years of the internet company that she built and sold. It was all those years of failures. That built up into this, right? So I guess all this hustling and all these little things that I've tried kind of led me to here, because I guess my mind always kind of works in the way that you're just somewhere and then something happens and you're thinking, well, he's probably making 10 bucks a unit on this or whatever, you know, I remember when I was working at Coke and we were delivering the the food for the vendors and stuff. And I'm thinking, and. This guy's probably making like six bucks a hot dog. How many hot dogs is he going through a day? It's like, this guy's probably making this much, and he probably only does a few fairs a year, right? So my mind always, always kind of calculating like that, and it's always been kind of like that. And for whatever reason, when I went to university and school, because back then it was all geared towards corporate jobs, and this idea of making, I don't know what it is. It was like making money in a conventional way. It never really appealed to me, I don't know, because at that time it was always like I was a marketing guy so, everybody wanted a job with like Ogilvy and Mathers or like Young and Rubicam and, you know, finance guys wanted like a Bay Street job. You know, the accounting guys, he wanted like Arthur Anderson, Cooper Flybrand Delight Touche, you know, those were the big names back then. And that just didn't really appeal to me, and, you know, it was like this I don't know if you've ever seen that old movie with Paul Newman Color of Money, where he says to Tom Cruise because they were like pool hustlers, and I'm probably going to butcher the the quote, but he says something to the effect that money won is twice as sweet as money earned. And that was always, so doing all these things like scalping tickets and, buying precious metals and flipping stocks or doing the FBA. Like that's sort of my version of of money being sweeter then punching a clock at Coke. There's a little bit of that gamble when you buy stuff. There's a little bit of, I am not a hundred percent sure, but I've got enough data and I've got enough of my gut to tell me we're going to make money on this. It'll do good. And you're like, and I'm beating someone. Well, that's the thing. The data too is important. Cause when I first came, it started doing the RA and when I first started, I went purely by, by sales rank. I wasn't introduced to keep it yet. And, I just get my head handed to me. Cause it was always, you know, I didn't understand the difference between dot CA and the rankings were so much different, you know, so I'd be buying, like going to a thrift store and you buy a game that was like 150, 000 rank on. On dossier, and that's 100, 000. That's not bad, right? Because I was watching a lot of the American channels and stuff like that. And then it would just sit there so keep that's an essential thing. Like if you're starting, you just got to have it or else you're just kind of like going blind. And I say, keep us number one and seller board is another one. Like, I don't understand, like, Hey, I'm an accountant. I'm all about some numbers, quick books. Great. That's for your tax accounting, but you need to know, especially when you're first starting, it doesn't matter if you're first starting out or whatever you need to know that what you're making on that individual unit. What you're making on all your units, like, especially when your cashflow poor, you know, I need to make sure that the stuff I'm selling is generating a profit so that I can continue to grow that nest egg of inventory. Right. And so many people just keep a track and Excel, just don't do it. Don't, you know, do that post analysis to say, okay, what was good? What wasn't. Do more of the good stuff and less of, you know, the crappier stuff that has the lower margin sat too long, ended up tanking, so I say, when you make that buy, put what you think you're going to sell for, you know, even if just an Excel, Hey, I think I'm going to sell this for a hundred bucks and then when you do it, see how it shook out, you know, did it go down? Did you get the a hundred dollars? Did it pop up to the one 20 you hoped, you know, do some of that post analysis. Yeah, no, I totally agree with that because I kind of did the Excel sheet thing for the long time and, and I think it was a couple of years ago or a year ago, you messaged me when you were doing my my, my corporate filing and you're like, are these inventory numbers, right? And I was like, yeah. And you were like yeah, because you're making way more money this year. You're making way more sales, but you're making like roughly the same amount of profit. So you're basically making more, you're putting in more work for the same type of money. And I remember that middle part of the year, like there was some sort of really lean months. So I had to kind of start dialing in on this because it's hard to make really good business decisions when you don't have that information. You definitely have to have that or else it's just gonna be hard to making business decisions looking forward, you know, for sure. It's funny. I just had a power flicker here. Cause of course it's Costa Rica we're still on, but yeah, like, dude, I see it. Some people get so obsessed about that sales number and they're like, I want to sell a million. I want to sell 2 million. I want to sell 5 million, whatever it is, or I want to sell a hundred thousand. I'm in a unique position where I get to see a lot of sellers and what they make and what their sales are. And I get guys that are, and girls, that are selling like half a million dollars, and they're making way more than some people that are selling a million, two million, sometimes selling more items and more things doesn't necessarily work out. You still gotta, monitor that margin. It's funny the things that I message you, you're like yeah, stick with you. And I'm just, if I see something and it kind of jumps out at me back to your gut, like, my gut says something's off, my gut says something's weird here, or, you know, does this make sense to you? Because, and then you're like, well, you know, this happened, that happened, okay, fine. We can get there. But, you know, it's just you got to make sure that you're profitable, got to keep making money, you talked about when you started the shoes in PL, like, it's a tough slog. I see a lot of people starting with PL and they're just like, you don't know how much money you're going to need to sink into ads here. You're, you're naive. Cause the thing is it gives you like a snapshot of, of your business, like when you don't know the numbers, you just swim in blind if, if you don't, and it's like yeah, for sure. Those two pieces of software, you know, and all the software stuff, it was it was a learning curve for, for started, cause I don't really consider myself like tech savvy and stuff like that. Learning this stuff and what it can do, and then you get into this thing where is this software a scam? Is it, is it good? Or is it bad? And, you know, cause I came from the era, like when I was in high school, computer science was, I don't know if you remember those computer cards. There's like 10 print, check it off 20 go to, and you put it in and it runs a computer program. And then when I was at UBC, when I was in university. So what are we using now? Like, a word, right? So back then we're using WordPerfect. And then Excel, prior to Excel was Lotus one, two, three, right? But what I was using was something called a VP planner. So, and I never really kept up with it. So you, I go there 10 years later, I'm going to job interviews and I put down like computer experience and I put VP planner and they're like, what is this stuff? So when I came into the, to the Amazon thing, I kind of felt so far behind the eight ball cause at that time I was like, how am I going to learn all this stuff? There's just so much. It was all just so new and you just kind of have to attack it piecemeal and you just kind of do a little bit at a time back to when I had the hostel and the whole thing that went sideways was my business partner, because I didn't really believe in myself I find if you don't believe in yourself, you just believe in anything. Because at that time I was like, I got to leave coke. So the pitch from him was you'll make some money from what you put in the hostel and give me like an extra 200 bucks a month to round out, you know, to run the social media, to run the, the hospital. And then it was like, yeah, I guess you could live in Thailand like that. But got to value your time and your efforts a lot more or else you'll be just taking whatever. Is given to you and it took me a while because I came in with a real sort of confidence problem coming into FBA and it took a while because I was that guy, I don't know if you know, when we first started, like there was one group where they got a lot of flack, and it was here in Vancouver, and they had like a little conference or get together and it was you know, I was learning. It was like, okay you get a bunch of Costco donuts, And then I realized they're just pitching their courses, but at that time, you know, the one guy was pitching the TA course, he just made it sound so easy. You know, I'm looking to make 8, 000 profit this week. You know, it's like ketchup chips because they don't sell in the States. They don't make them in the States. Bag of Ketchup chips were selling for like 24 kicking horse coffee was selling for 48. And I'm thinking everybody's on com, like people must be stupid, like this is easy money. So it's a 2, 500 tactical arbitrage course. I took that cause I was like, I don't know anything about computers. I don't know anything about the software. I'm willing to learn how to pay to learn this stuff. And we did four sessions. And that was it. And I was kind of, cause I was new, I was kind of sheepish and my dad had just passed away and I was like, I didn't really want to say anything. And it was like you know, but luckily at that time it was Dickson's group, they had Christopher He did two, like four hour sessions or something for free. And it was just so invaluable just learning all that stuff. But like now I'm not opposed to paying for stuff, but you kind of got to know what you're getting yourself into. But yeah, the software stuff and then the computer stuff, yeah, that was, that was kind of a scary thing at the beginning, you know, and it's like but you just have to be meanwhile, you're doing tactical arbitrage. It's even more complicated than, you know, like manual sourcing and stuff. And so you've obviously figured it out. You've jumped in. Dude, whenever I talk to you, it's so funny because you're just one of the reasons I want to get you on. You're just brutally honest, man. You never sugarcoat it. You're like, yeah, terrible decision over here. Terrible decision over here. Really good decision here. Really good decision here. You just, you're honest with it, man. And, and I, and I'm impressed with what you've been able to do and how, how far you've grown when we get on our chats and, you know, you come in and you're like, yeah, I started to look into that more, you know, I went down the, we were talking about bras the other day and you went down the bra rabbit hole and now you're all about bras I mean, it's not as easy as everybody thinks it is. Like, it took a lot of time and work and it's just work I mean, because when you think about it, it's you could probably Google how to make a lot of money or. Good businesses, ideas, whatever, there's probably like a ton of them, but in the end, it's execution How well you can do those little thing to kind of get you there. Because there's probably a ton of FBA stuff when you go a ton of videos, but in the end can you do that consistent work over time, you know, and get better at it. Cause I honestly think it's like, it's a tougher game these days. I'm one of, I don't want to be one of those guys like, Oh, back when I started with so much, those were the golden years or whatever. But I mean, when you think about it, what does Amazon do per year in sales? Like 500 billion or something. And you're looking to shave like a little piece of that somehow or some way where there's PL wholesale or whatever. And it's there and it's, you just have to, you just got to figure out a way of like getting your piece. Because it's not going away, I go through this thing where, oh, you know, it's a recession or whatever times it's getting tough, like, but people are going to spend It's part of our life, especially like, my oldest brother, he's always been like this, go to the bank and I don't trust computers, I don't trust the government stuff and I fill up my banking slip and get my deposit out, and then, a few years ago, he started buying his underwear from Amazon. Then he starts buying, like, shoes from Amazon. When a guy like that converts, you know, it's here to stay. So you just have to kind of figure out how to get your piece. Now that, cause I'm, carrying the the family and stuff like that. I don't really kind of get into riskier buys. I try to make sure that UPCs match and, you know, and pictures match and you see, like, one picture where the handle's a little bit, slightly got a different tone or color. I don't really push it as much just because I can't risk it like I used to. So I try to stay out of it. The good thing is I do think that, I'm gonna knock on wood here, that the suspensions that are happening, usually it is bad actors. Not people that run into, you know, IP claim this, that, you know, I think it's, it's better for sure, but yeah, don't force it, don't force bad buys. Don't force bad sources, if it's off, as I said, there's always something else out there to buy. And if you're not finding enough stuff. Then you probably just need to expand your scope of it, you know, go outside. I'm always like, yeah, stay in your lane, you know, because as entrepreneurs, we all like to chase shiny objects, I'm about stay in your lane, but sometimes you can deviate and see where that goes, but take small risks test something, try it out, start, looking at a new category, new types of products Go after those once you figure out a bit more of what works or what didn't work If it didn't work, then don't do more of it. It's only a small loss, right? But you can't afford to as you said, you know, you're not swinging for the fences You know, just some singles and doubles and those singles and doubles just keep adding Yeah, you win a lot of games with singles and doubles exactly. You pay your mortgage, That's what you need is just consistency way man. I'm This was definitely, it's fun, and it's so good to chit chat with you, and there's so many different things I could ask you for more of, like, we could go into that story, and you've obviously done a ton of stuff, but, you know, that's also, hopefully and I think you've got that mantra, it's all brought you into here, and it sounds like it sounds like you're happy with where you're, where you're at now, eh? Yeah, I mean this the whole FBA thing really is life changing. There's no other way to describe it. When I came out of university, this idea of working remotely, like the internet was a new thing. This wasn't even on the radar doing something like this. I guess that's the thing you kind of hone your skill sets in the meantime, because I mean, with all this AI stuff that's coming, who knows what can happen. Because when I came out of university doing this, talking to you, you in Costa Rica, I mean, in Calgary, like this is not even on the charts so you just kind of keep on doing your thing and being teachable and being open, who knows what's going to come down the pipe and just try to see some cash for some opportunity. People, people still need stuff. People still need to buy shoes. They need to, they're going to buy toys. They're going to, you know. Buy stuff so AI all that aside people still buy stuff. Thanks so much for coming on today, man It was it's awesome just to have the chat share your knowledge experience and hopefully that you know Somebody who's looking to grow and say okay I want to keep working that job for a while and then eventually make that transition. Maybe this helps them but Dude, thanks so much for coming on today, man. Yeah. Thanks rob. I mean, I really appreciate Like I said, it's really flattered to be part of the podcast.
Rob:Well, hopefully that was entertaining. It gave you a little bit of inspiration. If you're still trying to figure it out and feel like life is just passing by too quickly, it really isn't. There's still lots of time to get your Amazon business rolling. If you're brand new, make sure you check out our book selling on Amazon from the beach. Guess where you can get it. Yes. On our website, but also on Amazon till next time. Thanks for listening.
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