Going Big with eBay Selling Used Cell Phones on eBay€¦ · Going Big with eBay Going Big with...

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Going Big with eBay Going Big with eBay Selling Used Cell Phones on eBay Jim Cockrum: Hi, this is Jim Cockrum of SilentJim.com and MySilentTeam.com . Today I have a very exciting interview to conduct with two people I have not known very long. However, I have been blown away by their success story, and they have agreed to share it with us. As part of taking this course, you get to hear firsthand the crazy results they have been getting on eBay for a very long time. Without any further introduction about me, I want to tell you about these guys. You know who I am. Max and Diana have been doing amazing things on eBay. Max and Diana, we will jump right into your story. Would one of you tell us what you are selling on eBay and how you got started? Max: We sell used cell phones which we buy directly from people who either change their contracts, upgrade their phones, or whatever. We sell them on eBay. Jim: It is a pretty straightforward business model. Over the years I have told many of the people I have taught, “Hey, don’t jump out there and try to sell the popular products because everyone is trying to sell those products.” I’m sure you know a popular model of the cell phone out there; everyone is selling it. How do you guys make money on it? What is your secret? You are not buying these wholesale. You are actually buying them from individuals, correct? Max: Yes. Early in my eBay career I tried buying wholesale, but like every other hot product, it is over-saturated because there is a lot of competition. You want to buy from individual people, and you want to buy used models in a certain price range. You can buy them for $100 and sell for $180 or $200 on a regular basis. We do this over and over again with many different models. Jim: Your profit margin stays very high this way. You are selling a popular product, but you still have a high profit margin. One thing that impresses me about you guys is that you make SilentJim.com presents: Proven eBay Course II 1

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Page 1: Going Big with eBay Selling Used Cell Phones on eBay€¦ · Going Big with eBay Going Big with eBay Selling Used Cell Phones on eBay Jim Cockrum: Hi, this is Jim Cockrum of SilentJim.com

Going Big with eBay

Going Big with eBay Selling Used Cell Phones on eBay

Jim Cockrum: Hi, this is Jim Cockrum of SilentJim.com and MySilentTeam.com.

Today I have a very exciting interview to conduct with two people I have not known very long. However, I have been blown away by their success story, and they have agreed to share it with us. As part of taking this course, you get to hear firsthand the crazy results they have been getting on eBay for a very long time.

Without any further introduction about me, I want to tell you about these guys. You know who I am. Max and Diana have been doing amazing things on eBay.

Max and Diana, we will jump right into your story. Would one of you tell us what you are selling on eBay and how you got started?

Max: We sell used cell phones which we buy directly from people who either change their contracts, upgrade their phones, or whatever. We sell them on eBay.

Jim: It is a pretty straightforward business model. Over the years I have told many of the people I have taught, “Hey, don’t jump out there and try to sell the popular products because everyone is trying to sell those products.”I’m sure you know a popular model of the cell phone out there; everyone is selling it. How do you guys make money on it? What is your secret? You are not buying these wholesale. You are actually buying them from individuals, correct?

Max: Yes. Early in my eBay career I tried buying wholesale, but like every other hot product, it is over-saturated because there is a lot of competition. You want to buy from individual people, and you want to buy used models in a certain price range. You can buy them for $100 and sell for $180 or $200 on a regular basis. We do this over and over again with many different models.

Jim: Your profit margin stays very high this way. You are selling a popular product, but you still have a high profit margin.

One thing that impresses me about you guys is that you make

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your eBay ID public. I want to tell people what that is right off the bat.

Diana: It is $Diana$.

Jim: It is $Diana$. There is credibility right there. This is what greatly impressed me about you guys when I first discovered you. I thought, “Wow, there is their eBay account.” This is extremely rare in the world of teaching people how to make money on eBay. Most people do not share their eBay ID.

This is how I distinguish who the really honest people are. If you are going to teach someone, you should be able to show them exactly what you are already doing, that you know what you are talking about. You guys do this.

Tell me what a good week is and what an average week is. How many phones are you moving and what are your profits?

Max: I like to play around with different strategies. Some weeks I like to move out a whole lot of inventory; some weeks I like to focus on profit margins. It depends on how much I want to work.

We have had recent weeks where we have sold about $35,000 in a week.

Jim: That is phenomenal; $35,000 with the cell phones in one week. How big is your company? Do you have something like 12 people working for you?

Max: No, it is Diana and I.

Jim: It is the two of you.

Max: We get some help once in a while to do some shipping if we’re lazy; we hire some students.

Jim: That is beautiful. It is like the perfect eBay success story. I can tell you that everyone listening to this right now is drooling, and they are jealous of your success. I just want to congratulate you guys. You truly have cracked the code on eBay success.

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I want to start sharing with everyone in a moment exactly how you do what you do. Tell me a little bit about how you got started. What is your story? Are there any special skills you have that would allow you to do this?

What impresses me is that you are everyday, normal people. There is no big special college degree needed; there is no special training needed. What is your story? We will let people connect with you a little bit.

Max: We were going to college; going every day, studying, and doing whatever. I always wanted to get into business. I never really wanted to work for a boss. Diana and I made that our mission in life, to not work for somebody. We wanted to live the kind of life we wanted to live.

Diana: We wanted to work our own hours.

Max: Yes, we wanted to work our own hours. I was always looking for a way to make money. We actually got lucky when we heard that you are able to unlock iPhones and sell them at a profit.

We tried this out one day. We got an iPhone, and we unlocked it. Actually, the first one we got broke; we broke it by accident. They were very expensive and they still are.

We broke it, but we bit the bullet and got another one. We unlocked it and pretty much doubled our money. From there on, we took off.

Jim: When you say “unlocking the phone,” explain for people who are not technically savvy what that means. I do not want to intimidate them. What do you mean when you say “unlock the phone”?

Max: It depends on which type of phone. For 99% of phones, it is as easy as just going into the phone and putting in a simple code which you get.

Diana: It is just pushing some buttons, dialing a number, and that’s it. Boom! It’s unlocked.

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Jim: Once the phone is unlocked, it can be used on any carrier, correct? Is that the point of unlocking it?

Max: If it is a GSM phone like T-Mobile or AT&T, it can be used on any GSM carrier. If it is Verizon or Sprint, those are different.

Diana: Yes, they work on CDMA.

Max: There is a system with those where you could unlock them, switch them over to a different carrier, and almost double the value of each phone.

Jim: We will get back to unlocking the technical side of it. I want everyone to trust us at this point that it is not complicated to unlock a phone. Can we agree on that?

Frequently, it is not even necessary. More often than not, it is unnecessary, if I recall correctly. Isn’t that the case? What percentage of phones do you find it necessary to even play with the unlock?

Max: We don’t really do it. This is for somebody starting out who just wants to increase the value of each phone. I would say unlocking a phone would increase about 10% to 15% of its value. If the phone is worth $200, it would be worth $220 or $230.

Jim: I understand. That’s great. We can move on from the unlocking. Go ahead.

Max: People who are starting out want to increase their capital as much as possible with every sale, so in their case they can do it, or they can just simply put the phone up, sell it, and move on to the next one. It is whatever they would like to do.

Jim: You mentioned a $35,000 number. What is your profit on that after shipping, PayPal fees, eBay fees, and stupid customers that keep the item and want a refund and all that mess? Let’s say you are paying yourselves a few dollars per hour, or you outsourced it and were paying somebody. Give me a ball park estimate. What is the “put it in the bank” profit after a week of running your business?

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Max: We like to try to focus for about 20% to 25% profit from revenue.

Jim: Approximately $7,000 would be 20% of $35,000. You have $7,000 to $8,000 a week in the bank after you have paid all expenses, fees, and everything.

I do not want to be misleading and make people think you are making $35,000 profit. That was the sales volume number. It makes for a very impressive eBay account to be selling that much per month. It gives you a lot of credibility, and there are a lot of things you can do with an account of that size.

I do not want to miss the point that once you have a big, active eBay account with a lot of positive feedback, there are many things you can do. These are the other things I teach people how to do, but this is a good way to get to that point by very easily selling the same item over and over again.

It is very easy to do your listings, is it not? I think you have a pretty repetitive process there. Do you do pretty listings with lots of graphics, colors, and fonts? Are you pretty basic with your eBay listing?

Diana The listing is pretty basic. It just gets right to the point. We do not want to distract the customers with any fancy nonsense.

However, one thing we focus on is our zero risk return policy. We let the customers know right away that when they shop with us, they are completely covered. For 30 days, if there is any reason you do not like the phone, you can send it back and you will get your money completely returned.

We have a little video on the bottom where I say this. It shows them I am a person; I am not some kind of company. I am here to help them, and I want them to be happy. This is why people choose to shop with us.

Jim: That’s beautiful. I have a similar philosophy, and I encourage people. I talked to a guy a couple of years ago who actually sold, in some cases, antiques. These items were worth $800, $1000,

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and $1500. He had the exact policy you just described.

I use him as an example frequently, and you guys are backing up a theory of mine that, I think, has been proven over and over again: that is to always offer a full money-back guarantee on everything you ever do online. The number of additional orders you will receive will more than make up for the fools out there that will try to take advantage of you.

People want to feel like they can get their money back if they really need to, and 95% of the people will never take advantage of it because you are delivering the goods. They want to have the security.

want to glide past that point of offering a full refund policy. Do you have something else to say on those lines?

Max: This has always been the way we thought about it. If you offer people the warranty, they will be more than happy to shop with us even if the price is higher. This is the great thing about it also.

Diana: They are willing to pay a little more because they are covered.

Jim: Your conversion rates go up, and your profit margins go up when you offer that. Yes, you will have the occasional fool that will take advantage of you, but most people are good; most customers and shoppers are good people. Have you discovered this?

Max: They just want our products. They need a new cell phone, and they come online. We try to seem very professional, very friendly, and this is how we operate. People see our feedback and they feel comfortable shopping with us.

Jim: Let’s jump into what I would consider to be Part 2 of this interview. Give us the details of how people can do what you do. Let’s try to put a process behind this so others can learn.

I know you have a book out there, and most of the people listening to this call have that book in hand as part of their course. That book details one method you use to get phones and acquire a lot of inventory.

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There is also another method you use to get a lot of inventory that really is not addressed in the book. I want to talk about this as well.

Talk about the two methods you use. Perhaps there are more that I am unaware of. How do you go about finding the phones? This is really the challenge, is it not? This is the work of the business and after that, it is easy. Am I correct?

Max: After you know how to get everything, the rest is put together for you. For instance, eBay already exists; you do not have to work hard to get people to your online store because eBay is already there.

Jim: The customers are there. For our listeners, how many people might look at one of your phone auctions? Let’s make that point right now. Are you talking about 100 or 200 people, at least, on each of your auctions?

Max: They go from 50 to 150 for every time I put something up. This is a lot of people. I list hundreds and hundreds of items weekly, so this represents thousands and thousands of people looking at my phones.

Jim: People will find you if you list popular items like cell phones on eBay. The customers will be there, no question. Most people on this call or listening to this class probably realize this.

Just for the true newbie out there, you are going to have customers buying these phones without question as long as you are buying the right phone models. This is something else we cover in this course.

You can figure out what the popular and hot phones are by researching eBay; anyone can tell this pretty quickly. We will have more information on this in just a moment as well.

Let’s talk about how you get your hands on the good phones. How do you do it?

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Max: We have several different methods we use, and each one brings us a certain amount of phones and we combine them.

The method we used when we first started — we based our whole business around this — is, very simply put, auctions and misspellings. There are thousands and thousands of things listed every day, and people are going to misspell items.

They log on, and they want to sell their Blackberry. They might misspell “Blackberry” by deleting one “r” and they put it up. They do not even care; they just want it to sell. You can get it for about half of the price it would normally sell for.

Diana: People are unable to find it because they are searching for “Blackberry” with two “r’s” and it doesn’t come up. These auctions with the misspellings get a lot less use. As a result, since they are auctions, they do not get as many bids, and the ending price is a lot lower than the market value.

Jim: he book you wrote covers in detail how you find those misspellings and what tools you use. If you had to describe in 30 seconds or a minute how to find misspellings — the tools you need, how you jump in at the last minute and win these auctions — how does that strategy work? Sum it up for me as best you can, and we will let people read the book as part of this course to get the details. Give us a summary.

Max: You would choose a model. Let’s say you want to look at Blackberries. You go onto the Misspell search engine, write in “blackberry” the correct way, click Search, and it generates all of the possible misspellings for that item. You do not need to come up with clever ways to misspell.

Before I knew about the search engine, I used to do it by hand. I used to try to figure out how people would misspell it. It worked, but when I figured this out, it was a lot easier.

Jim: What tool do you use? I know there are several out there, and I’ve used a few different ones in the past. We have a popular YouTube video out there about finding misspelled items. I have never done it with cell phones. What tool do you use to find them? What is the

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Web site?

Max: It is Missing-Auctions.com.

Jim: Again, that site is Missing-Auctions.com. Okay, very good. Is there any other tool you need? I guess that site identifies all the auctions that have the word “blackberry” misspelled that are currently running.

What do you do then? There might be some in there, for instance, that might be a child’s doll called a Blackberry Doll or something. You do not want those. You filter down so you are only looking at the phones.

What do you do? Do you place a bid immediately? Let’s say something has six days left on it.

Max: We filter by the cell phones and Smartphones. We have an account called eBay Sniper. Let’s say you find a perfect Blackberry. It is misspelled. It is at $10 right now, the market value is $200, and the auction is ending in a few days.

You do not want to start placing bids now because you will draw attention to it. People will see it going up — the few people who do see it — and they will jump on it.

You have an account with eBay Sniper where you put in the auction number and your highest bid. Literally in the last five seconds of the auction ending, the software automatically puts the bid in for you in the last second. This keeps the bid low and gives you the highest possible chance of winning it for dirt cheap.

Jim: That is beautiful. How many times do you estimate you have bought items this way off of eBay?

Max: It would be thousands.

Jim: The reason I ask you this question is that I still have people who doubt me when I say you can make a ton of money just off the misspelled listings on eBay.

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They say, “Well, no, eBay has this spelling correction thing now that automatically adjusts it.”

No, people misspell the titles of their auctions all the time, and they will continue to do so forever. Human error is part of eBay, and taking advantage of that human error can be huge.

Like you said, this guy throws his Blackberry out there, and he doesn’t care if he gets $10, $20, $50, or $150. He does not care; he just wants to get rid of it and get some cash. He has no idea what it is worth.

He spells it wrong, and you swoop in there and grab it for $40. If you wanted to, you could even keep it in the same box and slap a new label on it, right? Do you ever do that? You probably open it up and at least look at it, right?

Max: You want to ensure that your customer is going to be happy with the product. You open it up, turn it on, and make sure it charges. All of these things take, literally, several minutes. You make sure everything works, click a few buttons, and it is good to go. You throw it in a box, put it up, and wait for it to sell.

Diana: I want to mention something about the misspelling on eBay. Now when you search for something, if you misspell the item you are searching for, eBay will correct it automatically for you. If you try to write “Blackberry” and misspell it, eBay will automatically fix it for you and you will not see the misspelled auctions. You need to use Missing-Auctions.com.

Jim: That is a great point. It basically eliminates all of our competition for those of us keeping an eye on the misspellings because eBay makes it hard to find the misspellings.

However, if you use this tool, they are very easy to identify. I have done this with popular cameras, Play Stations, and any of the popular items out there. You can do this on any given day, and you will see a lot of opportunity out there. This is just a free tip for everyone listening to this course. Misspellings are still a huge opportunity on eBay. They will continue to be indefinitely.

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Max: eBay has no way of stopping people from rushing and misspelling things. People put up their own items, and this means they are going to misspell them; they make up their own titles. Every title cannot be fixed by eBay. The mistakes will always be there.

Jim: There will always be misspellings. This is part of it, and it is a huge opportunity. It is one major way you find inventory. Again, this is covered in the book that comes with this course.

What are some of the other ways? If you do not mind, tell me what percentage of your inventory is found using misspellings and what percentage of it is found using the other techniques you are going to describe for us. If you would, break it down for me. How else do you find phones?

Max: We have several other methods. Another popular method that accounts for a good majority — I would say 30% or more of our inventory — comes from CraigsList.org.

Jim: CraigsList.org is the free classified ads site. They are worldwide as well. This brings me to a question I want to ask you. Can people in other countries do this? Have people read your book and done this in the U.K. or Canada or Australia?

Max: We have had many people from Canada be successful with this; we have had people from the U.K. We have even had people from Ireland and Portugal use this system.

Jim: That is beautiful. Cell phones are global now. You can go to the poorest third world countries and find them. I was in Guatemala for about a hundred days. It is about the poorest Central American country, and everyone has cell phones there.

You can sell on eBay from there. I did it while I was there; I ran my eBay business. FedEx and UPS are global; they are everywhere. You can run a business from anywhere, so this is a global opportunity.

Go ahead and finish your point.

Max: The thing with CraigsList which is really amazing is that you have

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no competition. You are in your local area. Like you said, cell phones have become like the closest thing to people pretty much.

Diana: They have become like a body part.

Max: That’s it, exactly. You can log onto your local area, and there will be tons and tons of deals and nobody competing against you.

Jim: How do you find them? What category do you search on CraigsList, and is there a tool you use to search CraigsList for these deals? Are you just looking at “phones for sale”? Is there a category for that?

Max: I go to “Electronics for Sale,” and then there are popular models I like to look for that I am dealing with at the moment. I might put in “iPhone, Blackberry, Palm, HTC,” and then I just see if people are giving deals. I then Instant Message them and say, “I would like to buy your phone.”

Diana: You can negotiate with them.

Max: You can negotiate; you can drop the price down. In one day you can get 15 or 20 phones, and you are good for a good amount of time.

The profit margin with CraigsList is a lot higher. These people do not really know the market value; they just want to get rid of their phones. They put them up, we negotiate, and we take them and sell them.

Jim: Perfect; that sounds simple enough. There is a CraigsList tool I like. It is called SearchAllCraigs.com. It lets you search all CraigsList sites, not just the local sites, but globally for items. You could search cities in your region, I guess, simultaneously using this.

Perhaps this is a tip you could use in your business. I find it hard to believe that I would have much to offer you at this point. You have such a good thing rolling.

Do you use anything like that? Are you just jumping into your local

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classifieds and searching by model.

Max: I just jump in and open my eyes. I find the phones, we pick them up, and that’s it. I have never actually tried searching multi-area.

Jim: You can search a bigger area that way. It is a tool to play around with at least. For those listening, I have used it frequently. You can pick up what is popular on CraigsList and get some good ideas.

I like just hanging out on CraigsList and seeing what people are selling and buying, what is moving and what is not moving. There are all kinds of opportunities. I love the local CraigsList.

I have always been a classified ads junkie anyway. It is my favorite part of the newspaper. You jump in and say, “Wow! There’s a good deal!” It is a fun way to generate business ideas. CraigsList is the ultimate destination; a very, very popular Web site. I am sure most people on this call have heard of it. It is a vital tool in your business, it sounds like.

Are there other ways that you get phones?

Max: There are several other ways where we use our existing customers who buy phones from us. They end up selling their old phones to us, and they can do this on a continuous basis as they switch up or whatever.

I sell somebody a phone, and they are happy with it. They buy a brand new model of something, and when they get it, I offer to buy their old phone from them. They tell me what it is and I tell them my price.

t this point they already trust you. They’ve gotten their phone, they are happy, they give great feedback, and they are more than willing to do more business with you.

Jim: That is a great idea. You just sold a phone to this customer, and you know he has some other phone. Typically, the people buying the latest and greatest have —

Max: They have the latest and greatest last week.

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Jim: They have the latest and greatest from two months ago sitting on their desk. They do not know what they are going to do with it. As I am sitting here in my office, just to my left I have a box that probably has nine cell phones in it. I have no idea what to do with them.

There are a lot of people, I think, that would be in that same category. If I just saw an offer from someone that said, “Hey, you just bought a new phone. I’ll buy any of your old phones. Tell me what you have,” I would say, “Sure, here they are. Whatever offer you make, here are my phones.” That is brilliant.

Max: Cash in your pocket for these things lying around is great.

Jim: Yes, and I know they have just been sitting here collecting dust forever. There are things you can do with them, but I have never done any of those things. I think I am typical. This is the way most people are when it comes to their old cell phones.

Max: It is also very green to do this because these things are not going in the garbage. They go to people who want them. Ultimately, what I do is relocate the phones to somebody who actually wants this phone rather than having it go into the garbage.

Jim: That is beautiful. Let’s say I have nine phones, and six of them are useless to you. However, you have resources you could donate them to such as women’s shelters. I have seen that battered women’s shelters will sometimes use discontinued older phones or whatever.

You might make an offer that says, “These two phones are worth something to us. We will give you $40 each for those. Just send us the rest, and we will give them to a battered women’s shelter.” Who would not take you up on that offer?

I’m thinking, “I do not want to waste my time figuring out how I can make an extra $30 on these stupid phones. Here you go; I will just send them all to you right now.”

Do you cover shipping in that case then? How does that work?

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Max: It is all part of the system. They send it to you, and you include the shipping. The shipping is very cheap. If you ship it correctly, the box and the envelope are free, so we just cover that when we pay them. They ship for as little as $1.50.

Jim: That is beautiful. I want to point out, too, for the people listening to this course that you have generously agreed to help monitor the discussion forum associated with this course. If people have questions on the details of this or whatever, if new information comes around, you guys will be available.

I really appreciate that. I know this is not an offer you will have out there for ten years, but for the most part for 99% of the people listening to this training you are available, answering questions, and still running this business. It is a beautiful offer.

For any of these little details that we seem to be skipping through for the purpose of this call, Diana and Max are available. Go to the forums that are part of this course, and there are experts there including Diana and Max. They will help to make sure you get your questions answered.

Max: People get stumped. You can read a book, but sometimes you have questions; maybe something was left out. We always make sure to help people out and give them a little extra push to help them get exactly where they want to be.

Jim: It is a fun business to be in, helping people gain financial independence. I know you are just getting your start in this, but you have already done it yourself. This makes you more than qualified experts.

I promise you that there are people listening to this call who want to be where you are, and they appreciate your offer to help. “This course was a total steal,” they are thinking in their minds at this point. They are going to make a ton of money selling used cell phones on eBay starting tomorrow. It is a business you can start quickly.

Let me ask you a logistical question. You were just telling me a

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cool testimonial you read recently about someone that works full-time and does this business. How many hours a day do you work, and what does your typical work week look like to do the volume you are doing?

Max: Diana and I generally like to work three to four hours. We work four if we are really hauling. We work three to four hours a day each. It is not too much.

Diana: We work Monday through Friday.

Max: Sometimes if I am bored on a Saturday or Sunday, I just go on and make some more money. I get some more phones and expend a little extra effort.

Jim: You basically have a part-time job that brings in $25,000 a month profit in the bank. That is just beautiful. It makes you the envy of pretty much everyone on this call, I can tell you right now.

One of the things I will encourage you to do, as well as everyone listening to this call, is to find ways to outsource the $10-per-hour work. I came up with a new phrase just a few days ago: never touch box tape. This is my new motto for anyone doing anything on the Internet.

Maybe right now it is necessary and you want to keep it in the family; I understand those things. However, at some point, if you are going to truly expand, never touch box tape. This means it is $10- or $12-an-hour job that can be outsourced. You can find a trusted neighbor or friend and get those people into your business. Without creating competitors, you can do these things.

This may be a little encouragement for you and for everyone listening to the call. I am a big fan of multiple income streams. To do that, you need to have time free to set these things in motion.

Max: I would absolutely agree with you. I have been working on automating my CraigsList buying with a person who will pretty much make the deals, drive around, pick up the items, and bring them to me. I do not have to do it. The supply is coming in, and this person is doing the leg work. It is a $12 an hour job, so I do

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not have to do it. I can focus more on selling and expanding the business.

Jim: Once you have established yourselves as credible leaders in the business of how to make money on eBay and how to make money on the Internet, you could very easily make a whole lot of money from teaching people what you have done, if not more than you are already making. People want credible leaders and credible teachers.

Anybody listening to this call, it is the same way. You could start up a local class in your community saying, “I am doing really well on eBay and you can come learn what I am doing and how I do it.” You may not want to give away your secrets, but just teach a general eBay class.

Say, “I am making a lot of money on eBay,” and people will come. They want to know. People want part-time work for full-time income. Everybody will eat that up, and if you are a credible teacher that can be trusted, it is a huge opportunity.

Again, this is just another freebie for everyone listening to this. It is kind of a next step from here. It does not stop with cell phones; it can always get bigger. Whatever you are into now can always get bigger if you automate it.

What other tools and Web sites are you using right now that are the must-have part of your business that you rely on every day? What tabs do you have on your Internet browser?

Max: We have one thing in our favor which we have used since we started. As we were getting into the business, it just came naturally for us to say, “The price of an item increases if you add more stuff.”

Let’s say you sell a cell phone with just the home charger. It would be X amount, but if you have a leather case and a car charger, it would be worth X-plus. It is worth more because you are including it as one package. People do not have to go find a car charger and a leather case. If you include everything in one package, people are willing to pay more for it.

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There is a site called WholesaleAccessory.com where you literally buy car chargers and all these different things for very, very cheap. It is something like a dollar or $1.50 per item and it increases the price of the item up to $10 and $15.

Jim: For an extra two or three dollars you are adding $15 or $20 of value to the auction.

Max: That is it, exactly. You are increasing the conversion rate because when people get there, they see it is a full package with everything they want in one auction. They want to grab it as soon as possible; they do not want to miss it.

Jim: Perfect; that is a great tip. Are there any other Web sites that come to mind? Diana, is there anything you use and rely on?

Diana: We also use Terapeak.com to research market values of items on eBay, items that are hot. This is a good one.

Jim: Yes, I use Terapeak, as well. Terapeak.com is awesome. I probably pull it up two or three times a week myself. I think it gives you 90 days of the data of what has sold on eBay. You can know what the item is worth.

If you go to eBay itself, they give you a little bit of data on what has sold. I think two weeks or a month is the most you can off of eBay for free. Then you need a tool like Terapeak.

Max: I would say using Terapeak is for more advanced sellers. I would say when you are first starting off, you should rely on the Completed Listings in eBay, looking at them by item. At first you want to get the hang of the business.

If you look at the 90-day, the way the electronics business works is that as time passes, things lose value. Something that has been out for a few years is worth less every three months; the price drops about 10% or whatever.

Jim: They should just use eBay’s free tool.

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Max: That is right. I would go to Completed Listings and look at how things have been selling recently in order to base my selling price and my purchase price.

Jim: That is a great point.

Max: The most accurate way of seeing what something is worth is seeing what it sold for today and yesterday.

Jim: When it comes to electronics, you are exactly right. If it is an antique item, something made in the 1800s, you want 90 days of research. It is likely there have only been two or three of them sold in the last 90 days, so you want to see what they sold for.

That is a great example of the use of eBay’s free Completed Listing feature versus Terapeak. I think people will find that very valuable.

We have talked about a lot of issues on this call. I think this will be a fun report for people to read through or listen to no matter how they are doing it.

I have a couple of issues to hit with you. These are kind of random things that came to mind. I actually presented your ideas to a few members of MySilentTeam.com and asked, “Hey, what questions might you have for these guys?”

I have just a couple of wrap-up questions, and then we will call it quits here. I encourage people to jump on the forum where they can discuss with you, Max and Diana, and with our experts, and to read your book where you talk about how you find the misspelled listings. There are a lot of good resources out there after people are done listening to this. Most importantly, just go get started.

Before we wrap up, do you ever have to erase personal data from the phones? Is this ever an issue? Do you worry about that? How do you take care of it if you pull up a phone, and it has all the phone numbers?

Max: It might have pictures and background?

Jim: Yes, exactly.

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Max: It is generally not a concern at all. Sometimes you get a phone where the person was using it one day and literally just put it in a box and shipped it the way it was. It has the pictures, backgrounds, music, ring tones, and it is filled with their stuff.

When that happens, every phone has a hard reset and it is usually very easy. You take the battery out and hold the red button (the End Call button). It is a little different with the Blackberry, but it is very easy.

Diana: Just Google “hard reset” for whatever model you have, and you will very quickly find that it takes no time at all.

Max: Once you learn how to do one model, you will know how to do it forever. If you ever come across that issue again, you just do the same thing and you are good to go.

Jim: It is a non-issue, really.

Diana: Yes, it does not even come up.

Jim: What about helping people switching from one carrier to another? Your customer says, “Well, I want to buy that phone, but I’m not sure. Can I use this with Verizon?”

Do you get a lot of technical questions from your customers trying to buy phones from you, or are they a pretty educated audience? How technically knowledgeable do you need to be about the cell phone business in order to do this? This is the bigger question.

Max: To tell you the truth, I am not technical at all myself. I am more business oriented. I do not know many things about cell phones at all. I am not asked very many questions.

Sometimes someone may ask, “How many mega pixels does this camera on this phone have?” People are generally very educated about what phone they want. They come to eBay already wanting a certain model which is how they find what you are selling. They put in the exact model they are searching for, and you have it up for sale.

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Diana: If someone asks a question that is too technical or too specific, we just tell them to call 611 from their phone, and they will sort everything out there. This usually solves their problem right away.

Jim: That is a great tip, too. They all have free support on the phones, don’t they?

Max: Let’s say they ask you something really technical, and you just don’t know. You simply copy and paste that exact thing into Google, and generally you will have an answer within the first two clicks.

When you answer a really technical question for them, answer correctly, and give them the exact information, they will most likely buy from you. You were able to answer the question, if it does come up. It is rare, though.

Jim: Another option, of course, is to not respond because, again, you are getting 150 to 200 viewers on each auction you put out there when it comes to cell phones. If one guy doesn’t know enough to know if he wants the phone or not, just move onto another buyer, right?

Max: You can usually tell when someone is serious and asking a serious question, or if someone is just wasting time and asking a million sellers random questions. You can usually tell these people apart.

I would say almost 85% of the people buy without even asking anything. They know what they want, and they come in and buy it.

Jim: People know what they are looking for; they know what they want.

What about dealing with older phones? I mentioned the box of older phones next to my desk here. Some of them are probably four years old. Is it a waste of time? Is there money there? What is your take on that?

Max: I generally do not like to buy phones that are of a resale value of less than $50 to $60. I like to sell phones that are $60 and up simply because otherwise there is not enough profit margin there

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for the effort.

Diana: There is also less demand for the older models. People are not interested in such old models.

Max: Let’s say somebody you sold to has five, six, or seven phones in their drawer. If you buy them where your cost is two, three, or four dollars per phone and the phone is worth $40, your cost is pretty much zero. What money you get for it is still profit. It all depends on cost and demand.

Jim: You could do a search on eBay and determine if this is something worth your time or not, basically. I get the impression that you guys have at any given time maybe 10 or 12 hot phones you are going for and looking for which is most of your business. Everything else is kind of secondary. Would this be an accurate assessment?

Max: I like to be very organized, and Diana is the one that organizes. I am generally sloppy, but I like to have all my information.

She created a spreadsheet for me where I have all the models I deal with, and the current price I have been getting them for and selling them for. At any given point, I can reference the exact prices for what I can buy and sell right away.

Jim: How many phones would you say you are keeping track of that you regularly refer back to? Just looking through your eBay account, I saw a lot of repeats of similar models, recent phones. Are you keeping track of 100 phones? Are you keeping track of a handful?

Max: I would say I have in the spreadsheet around 100 phones. Like you said, I generally deal with the hotter models, probably 10 or 15 phones. I never really thought about that, but it is true. The hot models are the ones you are focusing on.

Jim: The 80-20 Rule applies in a lot of places. I think it is called the Pareto Principle: 80% of your profit comes from 20% of your phones. That principle holds true, so you can sound like you are really smart by throwing that out there some time at a party: “Hey, the Pareto Principle, 80-20!”

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Most businesses operate that way. I know in my case, 80% of my money is made from 20% of my mailing list. Those are the really good customers that buy things, trust me, and believe in me. The other 80% are just hanging out and producing 20% of the profit. Everything works that way. When you start looking for it, you see it everywhere.

This has been a fantastic call, and I know it has just been the start for you guys. It is just the start for the people listening to this course. They need to get out there. There is literally no better opportunity in the world than selling things on eBay. It is the easiest way to get started on the Internet. It is one of the easiest — if not the all-time easiest — businesses you can run from home.

I know you are living proof. The testimonials from the people you have taught are also living proof.

I want to encourage people, after you have listened to this course, do not just let it sit. Get out there on CraigsList and look for some phones. Use some of the strategies Max and Diana have taught us today, and get some phones out there. Sell them on eBay and get your business rolling.

This is how they started, and now they are doing $30,000 plus a week in cell phones on eBay. The profits are awesome and the hours are great. You can work your eBay business at three o’clock in the morning if you want to. It is a 24-hour-a-day opportunity that you can do anytime you want for a few hours and keep it rolling.

Max: It does not stop at cell phones. We are literally just cracking the market. There are cameras, laptops; we have not even had a chance yet to even look into those markets because the cell phone market itself is so enormous. We have not even had a chance to step into anything and start looking around there for opportunities. There is opportunity everywhere.

Jim: That is why you need to outsource and automate. A year from now, you will be doing five other products. You can teach us about the other hot markets you have discovered. We would love to learn

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about those from you and people will pay, including me, to learn from you as you keep experimenting and growing your business.

I love partnering with you guys; you are the real deal. You are genuine people, and I appreciate your offer to help. I hope you profit greatly as a result of it.

For those listening to this course, as we wrap up this recording or this transcription, I encourage you to jump over to the forums. Let me encourage you to get in there; get in the discussion. Meet people who are doing this. Tell us what road blocks you are running into, and make it happen.

This is a great opportunity that has been dropped into your lap. You have to take action or it will go nowhere. If you do take action, this is some low hanging fruit you can go after and make your dream of having an online business a reality.

Thanks, Max and Diana. You have been awesome. I am looking forward to continuing to work with you both. This is our first shot working together, but I know it is going to lead to many other great things. We’ll talk to you very soon.

Diana: Thanks a lot, Jim.

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