Note: This transcript was automatically generated and may include typos.

Welcome to the Dollar Sprout Podcast, where it’s all about building a business that offers consistent income and flexibility so you can live life on your terms. And now your host, Megan Robinson.

Introduction

[00:00:18] Megan: Welcome back to the Dollar Sprout podcast. Thanks so much for being here with me today. Today’s guests are two.

[00:00:26] We actually have two guests today. Um, Rob and Melissa Stevenson of Flea Market Flippers. They have a business. , uh, reselling. So you’ve probably heard of flipping. Maybe you’ve seen videos of people buying tables and furniture at estate sales and then turning around and sanding them and painting them and then selling them for more.

[00:00:47] So it’s kind of the same. I mean, it’s the same concept for a business, but Robin Melissa actually focus on, um, particularly items that nobody else really wants to deal with, um, because they’re too big to. ship for a lot of people. So they often do flips on things like commercial appliances and things where they have to figure out freight shipping, and it’s allowed them to do some really impressive flips, um, that you’ll hear more about.

[00:01:20] But one for example that I thought was really crazy was, um, a bus wash. If you don’t know what this is, then. . I didn’t either. So you’ll hear Rob, I think describe it on the show, but this is an item that they paid $500 for and they turned around and sold it for $14,500, which is just crazy. So definitely a different kind of flipping business than maybe what you have seen or heard of in the past.

[00:01:53] And Rob has been doing this for 25 years. Since he was about 16 years old. So there was just so much wisdom in here to share. There was so much that they were sharing in tips that I was just writing them all down. And then you’ll hear me towards the end of the episode. I kind of read out all of the different tips that they gave throughout the show because there was just so much and some of it blew my mind.

[00:02:17] Um, but they share things like specific formulas that you can. For how to know if an item is gonna be profitable or not, and how much you should pay for that item. How they won two out of the three refund requests that they received in the last year. And tips for how you can avoid refund requests from your own customers if you decide to pick this up as a side hustle or business.

[00:02:43] Yeah, and then again, just all of those crazy stories that are so fun. Um, and it’s so fun to hear Rob and Melissa talk about these, um, cuz you can tell how passionate they are and how excited that they get about finding good deals. So it’s a really fun episode. I hope you enjoy it. Please welcome Rob and Melissa Stevenson.

Interview

[00:03:04] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: Awesome. Thank you so much for having us. We’re so excited to be here.

[00:03:08] Megan: Yeah, thanks so much. Um, so will you tell the audience in your own words what it is that you guys do in your business? Um, I know you guys have different sides of your business, so, um, can you just tell people what you do and what products and services you offer?

[00:03:23] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: Yeah, absolutely. So we buy and sell used items. We take it from a local market, uh, which, um, in our local market, we’ll buy stuff. And then we actually, um, and to give you an example, it’s like, uh, commercial restaurant equipment, exercise.

[00:03:36] That’s what we’ve gravitated more towards now because it makes more money. But yeah.

[00:03:40] Any thing that we can make money on, we’ll buy, but from the local market, we buy stuff and then we actually throw it onto eBay, uh, from 90% of our sales we throw onto eBay and we sell it. And then, uh, we also have a coaching program that we teach other people how to do exactly what we do.

[00:03:54] Megan: Very cool. So you guys really found your niche in the, uh, in the flipping space.

[00:03:59] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: Yep. We do a lot of larger items, so the stuff that people won’t ship. So that’s kind of where we’ve honed in because most people won’t ship appliances or exercise equipment, and we will. So we’ll ship pretty much anything. So.

[00:04:13] Megan: Yeah. And how long have you guys been doing this? You guys have been in business for quite a while now, right?

[00:04:18] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: He’s been doing this since you were 16?

[00:04:20] Yeah, almost 25 years now. Yeah. So I’ve been flipping in Yeah, in some facet for like over 25 years. Um, but as honing into really a larger higher profit items, um, and, um, coaching Yeah. For the last seven years.

[00:04:36] Yeah. And that was more when we jumped in full-time. Yeah. You honed into that a little bit more.

[00:04:41] Megan: Huh, very cool. 25 years. So you have a lot of, a lot of good wisdom to share with us for, for new people who maybe wanna get started with this as a side hustle today. Um, that’s awesome. Well, I definitely wanna hear about, you know, your all’s background and like how you got started when you were 16 years old.

[00:04:57] Um, but before we get into that, . Um, do you guys mind sharing a little bit about the behind the scenes of your business? Um, what does it look like these days after being in business for that many years? Um, what’s your business? Revenue and profitability?

[00:05:13] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: Yeah. So we, like, we ha our time is split really between obviously flipping and then the coaching parts.

[00:05:18] We have two parts of the business, um, and we do it full-time. Both, both of them, but they, they feed into each other, so we’re still, he’ll never stop flipping no matter how much teaching we do. Like, he just loves finding stuff. so loves finding the deals and, and making, and it’s fun to still be relevant obviously in what we’re teaching, why we teach.

[00:05:36] Yeah. Um, but like we start every day basically with a run, listening to a podcast and then. Start our day that way almost every day. Um, and, uh, and either do one part, you’re working on the flipping part and I’m working on the back end of the other part. Yeah. Um, making videos and stuff. And last year for our flipping business we were, we sold 58 items for, uh, $80,000.

[00:06:01] And then, um, profit was like 65,000. So our, our biggest thing for. , uh, flipping is finding the items at the right price. So, and then being able to sell them. We, our goal is 10 x on our items, so, and higher profit items and higher. So we only had 58 transactions, which most resellers are doing thousands of transactions to get that, to get that.

[00:06:24] So, um, our goal is to have less transactions so that we can, you know, clean list, take pictures. List less, spend more time with our family, spend more time with our family, and we also have the other part of the business too. So, and this is the flipping portion of our business, probably takes up, I would say, five to 10 hours.

[00:06:40] if that five to 10 hours a week is all we’re spending on the flipping portion of what we do, um, we have a lot more time into the coaching, into, uh, social media, into, um, the, yeah, like the coaching portion of the business takes a lot more of our time.

[00:06:53] Megan: Very cool. So how much, okay, so you, how many streams of revenue do you guys have in your business? I know you mentioned you have the flipping side of your business and you have coaching. Do you also like, have affiliate revenue or anything like that?

[00:07:08] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: We do a little bit, like we’ve worked a little bit with affiliates. There’s a couple of people that we promoted, like we don’t sell on Amazon, so we’ve, you have a couple, uh, friends that sell on Amazon or, uh, little things we haven’t done as well in affiliate marketing as we probably could have

[00:07:22] So, um, that hasn’t been a big revenue stream. Um, and even, uh, have we started doing more ads on our website. and then we cut those off. So that’s not even a stream anymore. It’s mostly our own products that we, um, that we sell. And then we have affiliates like that promote us too. Um, but it’s mostly our main business is our own products.

[00:07:42] So yeah. And eBay sales, what we’re selling is eBay sales. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:07:45] Megan: Very cool. Okay, so, so Rob, you mentioned that you’ve been doing this since you were 16 years old. I have to. what gets a 16 year old into flipping stuff on eBay or online? How did that happen?

[00:07:59] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: Yeah, definitely. So I come from a bigger family.

[00:08:02] I have six older sisters. I’m the youngest and only boy. Um, as a kid, my parents would take us to yard sales, um, to find cool stuff, but also to be able to provide for a big family. That’s how, uh, I grew up. So, uh, going to yard sales, my parents also had a side hustle. They would buy. From yard sales as it when I was a kid, uh, they would bring it back.

[00:08:21] This is before smartphones, before eBay, even any of that stuff. They would buy stuff in the yard, sales in the local arena. Um, and they would, where it reached a smaller amount of people. So many people at a yard sale, one yard sale on a weekend. You might have reached like 300 people. Um, they would buy it from a yard sale.

[00:08:37] They’d bring it back and they’d list it in the local classified section, which had the potential of. 20 to 30,000 people. Um, so I got it modeled at a young age. My parents did this and this wasn’t like their full-time gig. This is just something that extra money. Cause they had a lot of kids Exactly.

[00:08:50] Exactly. That. They had a, they enjoyed it. So they did it as a side hustle. And uh, I got modeled that from a young age and then, uh, when I was 16, talked to my mom and she kind of helped. , you know, uh, helped me into the business and helped me start doing some stuff, uh, when I was 16 years old. I know one thing that like, uh, one thing that you got started, you wanted to buy that car.

[00:09:10] Yep. That was a, what was it? A Ford Mustang. And he totaled up, like he, you were a working part-time at, um, red Lobster and he was like, okay, I have to work so many hours if I wanna buy this car. Like, what were you making? How much an hour? Nothing ? No, I think it was like $250 every two weeks is what I was making as a post at Red Lobster.

[00:09:28] And then he found the first thing that he really flipped was a Nordic track ski machine and bought it for $5 and sold it for 350. Three 50. Did you just say that? Sorry. No. Okay. Yeah. Three 50. And um, then he is like, okay, well that’s a lot I can do. Sell this one item versus working how many hours at Red Lobster.

[00:09:45] And so that was kind of like his journey into it, I think. Absolutely. How he got started.

[00:09:50] Megan: Yeah, well there’s no more motivation than, you know, wanting to buy a nice car or like having, you know, something you really wanna buy, especially if you’re a car guy. Um, very cool. So, so, You got into it when you were 16, and then how did this kind of become both of your all’s thing?

[00:10:09] Melissa, at what point did you start getting into the flipping business? Is that something you were doing before you guys met?

[00:10:17] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: Uh, no. I had no idea what. So, like I knew about eBay, but I had no idea like you could actually make money on eBay. Like I had no idea. Um, so he kind of, you know, showed me what he was doing and I still didn’t really know what he did, uh, to make some extra money.

[00:10:32] But at um, we were about to have our third kid and I was a personal trainer and I was like, this is crazy. Like three kids under three, I have to stop and just be home with the kids. So we kind of made that decision and then right after we made that decision, I. eight months pregnant and his job said, sorry, like we’re cutting health benefits.

[00:10:52] And it was supposed to cut like April 1st and or March 31st, and I was due April 1st. And I was like, well that’s not good . So, so we had to kind of make a decision, are we gonna jump into this full-time? And then I can help him do stuff, like more of the listings. I can do work on the back end of it. And if we both jump in and both add some more hours, what can we do?

[00:11:11] So that was kind of how I really. Pushed into it and uh, and yeah, so then we dove in with both feet and cuz we knew, what were we making then? We made 42,000 part-time, part-time. Um, the first year we actually kept track of it first. Yeah. Well that was, and that was part-time. And so that when we finally went in, with both feet full-time, we were able to get to 130,000.

[00:11:31] So, um, and it was a hundred thousand dollars profit. So it was like, that was a, was with three kids Under three . Yeah, with three kids. So it was like, like, okay, we can do this. So the coaching part of the business wasn’t really, um, that big then. So that was kind of around the same time that we had started that too.

[00:11:47] So, um, it was really cool to be able to see that and be like, okay, well we’re doing this part-time. What can we do if we do it full-time? And we’re both doing it and along with taking care of our, our family, but,

[00:11:57] Wow. So you said 130,000 the first year. You guys went like both full-time into it. Was that more that you guys, more than you guys were making at your jobs before?

[00:12:06] Megan: What were you, what were you doing before you like really went into the business? .

[00:12:10] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: Yes, it was definitely more. Yeah. Um, cuz I had already gone back part-time, um, from personal training. And you really were only at your job for the health benefits. You still weren’t, you weren’t making very much. No. You were making more flipping.

[00:12:21] Yeah. Um, anyway, we just had it for the health benefits for the most part. And I worked for a report company. Uh, we did home homeowners, uh, insurance. Insurance, yeah. Inspections, right? Yeah. So that’s what I did as my full-time. And she was a personal trainer. But yeah, this was definitely making more. Um, doing this and we are on our own hours, being able to work together and working at our own pace and our own hours to make the money that we did the first year.

[00:12:45] Megan: So it sounds like the motivation where you, for you guys was largely like wanting to have more. time freedom, wanting to like have more time with three kids under three and be able to like be present as parents. And is that accurate?

[00:12:59] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: Yeah. We, whenever, um, before we had decided to jump in full-time, we could both really, we had our own schedules, so like we would just, uh, uh, make him opposite.

[00:13:08] Like, I would work these days. He would work these days so we could be home with the kids. Cuz we really, it was important to us. Not to do daycare, and that’s not for everybody, but we really wanted to just be home with the kids and, and take care of them. So, um, so we alternated, but then when we could both be home and work on it together, I mean, they were just in the mix of everything.

[00:13:25] Yeah. So they, they’ve been going to the flea market and, and yard sales with us since they were babies, so .

[00:13:31] Megan: Very cool. Awesome. And now you said you work on the flipping side of the business five to 10 hours a week and. in total. How much time you guys put into the business Right now?

[00:13:40] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: We really should calculate how many hours that we do

[00:13:42] We do a lot of hours on the coach, the coaching side of it. Oh. Cause we do a podcast three times a week. We do like the videos. We do, we have a small team that’s helping us. But um, we’ve hosted three summits this year, so like, it’s. It. There’s a lot, I guess, behind the scenes, so I really should calculate the hours.

[00:14:00] So the flipping side, we try to stay at five to 10 hours a week and bring in roughly, our goal is round around a hundred thousand dollars a year for the flipping aspect of it. And this isn’t, Hundreds or thousands of items. We’re trying to stay under, you know, a hundred items a year, selling it roughly, um, 75 to a hundred items a year to be at that price, at that, uh, that income.

[00:14:21] Megan: Yeah, that’s amazing. That’s definitely the most impressive part, I think, about your all’s flipping business because like I see people all the time talking about flipping items online and they’re making a profit of like a hundred bucks or like 150 bucks and that’s like a big profit. But you guys. , you make a lot of profit on the items that you, on the individual items that you guys flip, which I’m really interested to hear more about. Um, how did you get into this niche of, you said used restaurant equipment?

[00:14:52] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: Well, that’s one of the, that’s one of the things that we did. Like I just shipped out something yesterday that we bought for $400 and we sold it for $10,000. Um, I just shipped it out yesterday. That was one of our flips. And it was, it was a commercial oven is what it was.

[00:15:05] Uh, countertop commercial oven called a turbo Cheff. Um, but like one that goes in like subway or something that Yeah. Starbucks exactly. Up your food fast. But way before that, when we actually jumped into this full-time, we both quit our jobs. We were in it full-time. We had the kids, um, we, we were flipping.

[00:15:21] And I had flipped, like I said, many, many years prior to that. But I’ve never done a larger item flips. Um, I bought something from a local auction, uh, table and chairs. , um, and a buffet, it was huge. So it was like eight or 10 chairs, a beautiful, uh, real wood table buffet with it. Um, I bought it at a local auction for $350 and I tried to sell it locally because that’s how we had always anything that we had bought big.

[00:15:45] We sold it locally and I was trying to get $700 for the table or seven 50. Um, and I had it listed for like two months and I could not get the thing sold. So I jumped onto eBay and I started looking on eBay and saw all the comparable tables. The only ones that were selling were the ones that people were offering shipping, um, or companies that were offering shipping.

[00:16:03] And that was kind of my aha moment of K. Okay, wait a minute. And they were getting way, way more money than $700 for sets like this. So I was like, okay, I’m gonna list this. If I can get it sold, I will figure out the shipping portion of it. And that was our first. Freight shipment that we did. Um, we sold it for $2,200, not even 700.

[00:16:20] We sold it for $2,200 and then plus 500 shipping, then another $500 for the shipping portion of it. So, um, and we did that in less than 30 days, and that was when we were like, okay, there’s something to these larger items and being able to ship the larger items because the profit is here.

[00:16:34] Megan: What is like, what is the barrier to entry there for people who are going from flipping like tables that they find on Facebook marketplace and they like, you know, paint and fix up a little bit. What, what’s the barrier to entry to like, Going into that niche or like, you know, shipping those larger items was a lot of logistics or what all did you guys have to figure out to make that happen?

[00:16:57] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: The, well the major thing was shipping. We had to figure out how to ship large items. I mean, we’re selling it on eBay.

[00:17:02] So eBay, the transaction itself is not hard. Like eBay is pretty, you know, you list it and, um, and more people. people can see it than they can in the local market. So, um, we’re not selling it on our own site, we’re selling it on eBay’s. Um, that’s, but that’s, then it’s the shipping is where like the freight shipping.

[00:17:17] Um, and that’s one of the big things is eBay. Like we, I talked about how my mom would buy stuff from yard sales that had a potential of reaching a yard sale on a weekend in my area, maybe 300 people. She’d buy something from that yard sale and then she’d put it on the classified section, which had a potential of whatever the town is for, that classified 20, 30, 40,000 people.

[00:17:36] So she could ask more money for the item and she could get it sold quicker that way. So we do the same thing now. We buy on Facebook, marketplace, offer up, Craigslist will find stuff locally, we’ll bring it back, we’ll take pictures, and then we throw it on to eBay, which has like, I think last time I looked, 152 million registered users, which are just taking it from a smaller market.

[00:17:54] putting it onto a lot, lot larger market that has a bigger, um, pool of people looking for that specific item. So that’s how we’re able to make the profits that we make on our items. And the item has to be worth a certain, like there is a, um, like it has to be really worth at least, I would say $500 on the low, low end.

[00:18:09] Would you say to ship if for somebody, cuz you have to think of the customer. Um, who, cuz it’s gonna cost us around a hundred to $300 to ship something on for the most part, unless it’s like a super huge pallet. Um, so we have to know like, is the customer. Willing to pay, um, let’s say $600, and we know we’re gonna pay 150 in shipping.

[00:18:27] Is that profit still there? So we have to always take that into an account because sometimes it’s not there. And so it’s not worth shipping. Yeah. Um, so the profit has to be there to do it. So

[00:18:36] Megan: Do you have any like, unique tools that you guys have created or how, how do you figure out, um, like if that profit is there on those larger items?

[00:18:46] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: I think it’s just knowing the, uh, your time and invite, like what would you say the, well, the, you don’t really have to know a lot. The biggest thing is finding out what that item retails for. Yeah, sure. So our formula for anything that we’re buying, uh, I’ll take that example of the thing I just shipped out yesterday that Turbochef, I paid $400 for that.

[00:19:02] We actually bought two of ’em, so I paid $800 for two of them. I checked the retail on that before I bought it, so I jumped on my phone. I, I Googled it and I saw retail on that item was $23,000. So if somebody was gonna buy the same exact item that I got for $400, if they were gonna go and buy it from a store, they were gonna spend $23,000.

[00:19:21] Now our formula is anything that we’re getting. We can sell roughly for 50%, maybe even a little bit more depending on condition. Um, we can sell it for, uh, 50% of what retail is. So that’s kind of the formula that we work by, and we’ve been really, really accurate for years and years of, okay, if this thing is.

[00:19:39] $10,000, I should be able to get roughly $5,000 for it on the resale market. Um, that’s kind of the formula that we, uh, we adhere to when we’re looking for those items. Like Melissa kind of talked about, the item has to be worth a lot more, um, than what you’re selling it for, for it to, um, make sense for somebody to be able to put the extra money into shipping, uh, shipping costs of free.

[00:20:01] And then our goal for finding the item is, uh, 10 x less . So if they’re, yeah, selling something for a thousand dollars, like we’re looking to spend about a hundred. So it’s kind of where our goal, our goal, and that leaves us enough room for shipping and our profit. So cuz we usually do free shipping, we just build it into our price.

[00:20:18] So yeah. So we are picky about what we actually source. We, we don’t want to, and our goal is selling less items with higher profits. Um, that’s really our goal is to be able to work less in the. Um, and more, have more time with our families. We don’t, don’t wanna spend a hundred dollars on something to make $200.

[00:20:33] It just, it’s not worth after all the work and, and fees and stuff that, that’s just not worth it. So, yeah.

[00:20:39] Megan: Gotcha. So two things that I have heard you say is, um, Find something, if you’re gonna do this, find something on a smaller market, list it on a much bigger market, first of all. And second, you look to get, uh, 50%, roughly 50% of the retail value out of these larger items that you’re selling. Do you have any other, like rules of thumb that you guys play by in the flipping part of your business?

[00:21:07] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: Um, I think it is just being a little bit, we’re more picking out of what we buy. I. , we were on a buying freeze cause we have so much to list , but yeah. But you can’t pass up a good deal ? No. I’m really good at finding deals and sometimes a deal might need something.

[00:21:21] Like I might find something that is like, I’ll give you another example. just last week or the week before I found another turbochef. So when my one Turbochef sold, uh, my buddy sent me a, uh, a picture that he, I mean a, uh, listing that he found on marketplace of another turbo chef. And the guy was asking $300 for it, but he said when he put power to it, it didn’t come on.

[00:21:41] That’s the kind of deals that I want. And this one is bigger than mine and it’s worth probably 25 to $30,000 as retail on this other turbo shelf. So I messaged the guy and I asked him if he would take $150 and he said 200. And I said, well, let me think about it. And he goes, okay, come pick it up. I’ll take $150.

[00:21:55] So I’m getting this. 25 to $30,000 oven for $150, but it doesn’t power on and that’s a no-brainer to me. But you’re right, it doesn’t power on, but you know, you can even sell it for parts E. Exactly. The parts on these ovens are super, super expensive. Some of the parts are two, three, $4,000 a piece. So I knew I had something there that I would not lose $150 and I typ typically would make more money.

[00:22:16] Well, I got it and I have a little bit of knowledge from doing this for years and years and. And YouTube and looking something, you can look up anything on YouTube, how to fix anything. Exactly. So I knew that if it didn’t have any power at all, there’s fuses in there. So the first thing I did, Pop open the top, look at the fuses.

[00:22:31] The fuses were blown. I went and got two new fuses, put it in it, and uh, that fixed the oven perfectly fine. So I had $30 in fuses because they’re special fuses, $150 into the item. And then I have it listed for another $10,000. So roughly under $200 into an item that’s gonna sell for nine or $10,000.

[00:22:49] That’s just being picky at what we’re trying to buy. Um, and we just wanna be really, really picky looking for those.

[00:22:55] Megan: Yeah, you’re obviously very good at finding deals. You guys know a lot about this, having done it for years and years now. How long did it take you to get to this point though? How long did it, did it take you to get good at finding deals?

[00:23:10] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: I mean, you’ve done it for so long. Yeah, but I, I think like one thing that we tell people that when they’re starting and they wanna find like looking and training their eyes is look for stuff that, um, you enjoy. So like you now, we gravitate a lot towards these items because they know they make us so much money.

[00:23:25] But, um, like starting out with stuff that you really enjoy doing, cuz you already know what things are worth or you know a lot about the item. Yeah. So one or the other, if you enjoy it, it’s a hobby or you. Like you collect something. Yes. Um, and, and you know it, like you can spot it and it’s just quick. So, um, that’s the easiest way to get into this is, and it, it’s a lot less learning if you already know a really good item, um, that you’re working with on a day-to-day basis in your full-time job.

[00:23:52] Or something that you have a hobby and you’re working with because you absolutely love it, you’re passionate about it. Um, those are the best, um, best things. And then you can learn new niches at a time and then you can spot ’em. So it just makes it a little easier than trying to look for everything, cuz then it’s overwhelming.

[00:24:04] You’re like, oh, well this could be worth something. Now I gotta look all this stuff up. But if you kind of pick and like you’re more picky in the beginning and then you expand your knowledge, then um, that helps. Yeah.

[00:24:13] Megan: So when you’re starting out, look for stuff that you enjoy and or that you know a lot about.

[00:24:19] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: Like Pokemon cards, , that’s one that I wanna get my kids into. Pokemon cards. Our kids love Pokemon cards, and so we’re trying to teach ’em like how to find the, like look for the ones that are worth. So our daughter finally is starting to be like, oh, this one is an older card, so it could be worth more. So, yeah.

[00:24:34] Um, so yeah, it’s fun.

[00:24:36] Megan: Nice. Keeping it, keeping it going throughout the family, throughout the generations. I love it. . Yeah, that’s, uh, that’s something that Ben Ben Huber from Dollar Sprout. Yeah. Uh, a couple years ago started. Flipping Pokemon cards and I think he’s pretty good at it. So there’s, yeah, Ru there.

[00:24:54] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: He was just a little while ago and was showing what he was doing. I’m like, that’s crazy. Like so much, so much on Pokemon cards. That’s awesome. .

[00:25:02] Megan: I know. It is crazy. So, I mean, you guys have been in a in business for a long time, so everybody in business, you know, makes mistakes or. Does deals or comes up with things they think are gonna be great and aren’t so great. Have you ever had something that you found that you thought was gonna be a really good deal and ended up being a really bad deal?

[00:25:25] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: Um, the one bowling game that one comes to mind. Yeah. one within the last probably two or three years. Yeah. We bought, was a bowling arcade game. Um, because you like those games.

[00:25:35] I love. I’m a, a kid at heart, so I’m always into arcades. I’m always into fun, fun stuff. Um, so yeah, we actually bought one of these. The cool thing is we redeemed ourself, but this was a bad buy. , um, we had to drive up to, it was like two or three states north of us. Yeah. Um, we found something on one of our road trips.

[00:25:54] I didn’t have the room for it, so we had to come back home, get my trailer, um, and go back up and pick up the item that I wanted, uh, which was a bus wash. Um, but I wanted to make the most outta the trip. And I found two other items up there in the same area. And the arcade that I bought was a bowling arcade from, I think a seventies, something like that.

[00:26:11] Um, Thought I could get roughly $2,500 for it. Um, the guy said it wasn’t working or it needed a couple little things. So when I got there, it was in a lot rougher condition than I had assumed it was. And that’s when we should have walked away. I should have walked away from it. Cause you’re not obligated to buy it.

[00:26:26] No, but he didn’t walk away. I didn’t We bought it and we trucked it back to Florida. Um, I got some pictures of it. I didn’t spend too, too much time with it. Think we barely broke even. Yeah. On the money that I spent. And then you have time into it. Exactly. The money that I spent on it, I don’t remember what I paid for.

[00:26:41] Maybe 150 bucks. Yeah. I think $150. But then after I sold it, shipped it eBay fees that I paid for it and shipping. You sold it for 400? Yeah, four or $500. I like it was, Break barely breaking even so broke even. And I, yeah, I messed that one up. Big . But the cool thing is the bus wash and the oven that we bought on that dude, we killed it on those.

[00:26:59] So it made up for my really screw up that I did on my fu. The only fun thing that I bought , I, I screwed up on. But the other two, we really, really killed it. We made ridiculous profits on those other two things, so it wasn’t a total wash. .

[00:27:12] Megan: Was there a lesson learned from that one?

[00:27:14] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: Walk away when you know you should walk away.

[00:27:15] Walk , walk away. Exactly. Don’t, don’t get too attached. We, I, trust me, we tell people to do this. I preach this all the time. If the deal’s not there, walk away from it. And in the heat of the moment, I couldn’t do it. We are, yeah. And if it wasn’t an arcade game, I think you could have done it. Absolutely. But it was just the fun.

[00:27:32] Ness. Yeah. Of I agree. Wanting to, I don’t know, have that, I guess. Yeah. So don’t be afraid to walk away. There you go. That’s the best lesson. If the deal’s, yeah. Not there. If it’s not in good shape, walk away .

[00:27:44] Megan: I think that’s also true. Yeah. Just in like any kind of business. , I think we can get emotionally attached to the things that we like or the things that we create. Yeah, so I think that’s just general good business advice. , don’t be too emotionally attached. Make sure the numbers are there. Make sure it’s something people are gonna buy. Checks out. Um, Do you have any stories of when you did walk away from a deal?

[00:28:09] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: Sometimes I walk away, um, because I know it’s gonna be more work and the seller will bring down the price to where it’s almost a no brainer for me to buy.

[00:28:20] I’m trying to think of something that I did that on recently. Market. Sometimes, yeah. A lot of times they’ll want the sale so bad that they’re bringing it down to a ridiculous price. Just want it gone. Um, kind of like the oven. I told you I got, he wanted 300, I offered him 200 and then he’s like $150. I offered him 150 and he said 200.

[00:28:37] I was gonna walk away at 200 cause I didn’t wanna put the extra $50 into it. Um, and he came back and said, okay, 150, I’ll do it. And um, but that was, that was a really, really good deal. I’m trying to think of something that we’ve walked away from that you regretted. Not that that I regret it or that I should have walked away from because the money was there.

[00:28:53] No, they regretted. Thought you regretted that. Oh, I do that all the time. . I’ve done that at the flea market. Like I’ll walk through the flea market and I’ll see something that I want and I’ll walk away from it. And then on the way back, driving back to my house after the flea market, God, I forgot to get it.

[00:29:07] Sometimes I’ll turn the car around and go back to the flea market because I’m like, shoot, I really should have bought that. and I go back and I buy it. I’m trying to think of a specific item. I’ve done it for the bats. I did it with the bats for Brody. Oh yeah, that’s right. A a whole bunch of brand new, uh, T-Ball bats.

[00:29:21] Our son got into T-ball and, uh, we, the bat, I told him to go look for a bat at the flea market for our son, and he comes back with. 35 bats. Well, no, I came back with two bats and then you and I was like, the guy had 30 or 40 of these bats. I probably should go back and buy ’em. . And I talked myself into going back to the free market and then buying the rest of these bats, which we ended up, uh, buying.

[00:29:45] Yeah. After I walked away from him. Yeah. We sold him as a lot. We did, but yeah. And we made decent money on it. So . But it was fun.

[00:29:50] Megan: That’s so funny. So, I’m curious what I know you’ve talked a lot, talked about several really big flips that you’ve made. Do you have like anything that sticks in your mind as being like just chef’s kiss the best decision you’ve ever made in your flipping business in terms of like items you’ve bought and sold?

[00:30:11] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: Yeah, I would probably say two that really out the bus wash is really a big one. Yes. So we bought that bus wash that I told you with the arcade. We paid $500 for that bus wash. Um, we sold that for $14,500. Um, so that was a amazing flip, uh, with a lot of high profit on that.

[00:30:28] Um, and it was a, and it was a probably one of the biggest pallets you’ve ever done too. It do. Which was, it’s kind of like rewarding to know like, oh look, it, yeah. We actually did ship that. So that was, went on a pallet that was like 12 foot long, seven foot wide, six foot tall. So it was huge pallet that I had to build and put into it so I could ship that, uh, that, and you always think, so I’ll get this done this afternoon and like it takes him an extra day or two.

[00:30:51] Yeah. It takes, takes me a little bit of time. So our highest profit that we’ve ever sold is actually a parking lot security tower. , we invested a lot more money into it. Yeah. I don’t like putting that much into it, but, but I did my rule of thumb on this and I did the research before we bought it, and this unit was $125,000 unit, so a parking lot security tower, um, 125,000, 127 south thousand, something like that was retail on it.

[00:31:16] Uh, we got it for $5,000. I paid $5,000 for it at a local auction. Uh, we ended up selling it in 30 days for $25,000. So that was our highest flip. Um, and it was huge profits. We absolutely loved that one, but it scared me. I don’t like those big investments. I like investing $50, a hundred dollars. 5,000 was a lot.

[00:31:33] Yeah. But I have confidence that he would do it, so I had to have confidence in him. And he sold it within a month, so. Yep.

[00:31:40] Megan: I’m so curious. Where are you finding all of the buyers for these on eBay? Or like who buys a bus wash or a SEC Parking lot. Security tower.

[00:31:52] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: Yeah. Yeah. We, yeah. We’re not looking for the buyers.

[00:31:54] No. It goes back to the amount of people that go to eBay, uh, because of their pool of people that are, um, the, the, their registered users are on there. It’s just a bigger pool of people. You have a lot better odds selling unique items on eBay because people go there and they look for it. But the other thing is they show, they show up on Google too.

[00:32:12] Google anytime. So somebody’s looking for like, Security tower for whatever purpose, like it would show up on Google. Like we’re probably the only one on eBay and it’s gonna show up on the top of Google. So, yeah.

[00:32:22] Megan: That’s so funny. Just these like items, I don’t even know what a bus wash is. Items that I don’t even know what they are. And you’re like flipping them for so much.

[00:32:33] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: One singular, uh, like wash a car wash. It’s just, yeah, but it, it walks around the bus so it, like, it’s powered.

[00:32:40] Megan: Oh.

[00:32:40] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: If you think about the old type of, yeah, the old types of car washes that have those foam bri uh, bristles that spin around. So that’s what it does.

[00:32:47] But this is actually a mobile one. Stands like 10 or 12 foot high. It’s electric, so it has a little, like a, a little handle on it, and you just walk it around the bus and wash the bus. Um, all the way around. It washes the sides and yeah, it’s, they’re pretty cool. But the retail on that was, I think 25, 20 $5,000 and the guy got a really good deal at, at 14.5.

[00:33:06] Megan: Do you guys intentionally go for deals like that you think Nobody else wants to?

[00:33:11] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: I think that’s kind of one of our, our tactics because a lot of people in the local markets, they’re gonna can’t move these items because it’s in the local market. Um, and it’s a larger item that a lot of people won’t ship.

[00:33:23] So that kind of is our niche, is the larger items that people will not ship or they can’t move them in the local markets. Those are what we can hone in and get on a really good deal. One thing that I’ll tell you this is like if you take anything away from. Whole interview is your money’s made in your buy.

[00:33:38] You have to get that item absolutely as cheap as you possibly can. So on the back end, when you are selling it, your money is made because you, you have a low, low, um, entry into it. So that’s one thing. Your money is always made in your buy.

[00:33:52] Megan: Yeah, that’s a great tip. That’s, yeah. I’ve heard people say the same thing about real estate investing or like, you know, flipping as well. Get the best deal you can up front, cuz that’s how you know you’re gonna actually make money in the end, which makes sense. Um, so last question before we move into our rapid fire because I’m so curious. You guys have talked about like the, um, some of the best deals that you guys have had. What would you say, is there anything that just like when you think back on it makes you cringe because you lost money or. Whatever didn’t go right. Do you have any deals like that in mind?

[00:34:32] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: I, the one was a wash that, that one, uh, that we talked about. The, um, the pulling arcade machine. Yeah. Um, I think. . I don’t know if I can think of anyone that really, but the, I’d probably say one of the things that would be the most frustrating that you have to deal with sometimes is if somebody like tries to do it, we don’t really get that many returns.

[00:34:54] But if they try to change an item and try to do an item not as described, it doesn’t happen that often with our items, because I think we have a higher, I don’t know, caliber of buyer because they’re spending so much money. But it does happen every once in a while, and you do have to. , get on the phone with eBay and get on like Yeah.

[00:35:11] And do that whole process, which isn’t fun. Um, but it’s like one out of, I don’t know a lot that that happened. Well, just outta last year, I think. What do we have two refund requests? Or three? Three. And you won two of ’em, cuz the other one was completely your fault. . So last year we’ve only had three refund requests, but those.

[00:35:28] Yeah. The two we did not have to give refunds on because of how we set up our business, how we do everything. Uh, we don’t take returns and that kind of stuff. We advertise, um, we always and the guy had altered something or he signed for it cuz you have to sign for your items if they’re over $750. Yeah.

[00:35:43] And he tried to go to his credit card and claim that he didn’t get the item and we’re like, uh, you signed for it. So . There you go. . Yeah. So, but it’s just like the logistics of go back and. So, yeah, I think that’s the one that sticks out in our head. It was a, um, escalator cleaner is what we sold. We sold it for $1,200.

[00:35:59] Um, made great money on it. I think I only had to pay like $25 for that. An option, right? Yeah. Three of ’em. Three of ’em in one lot. So I didn’t pay that much for that. It was an amazing flip, but dealing with the guy that bought it, I think he was a, um, a dealer. He got it. Took the whole thing apart and then tried to send back, um, uh, one of his, otherwise a broken one that he wanted to get the money back for.

[00:36:19] Um, we ended up winning it because eBay saw that he took it apart. He sent me all kinds of pictures, taking it apart, doing stuff to it. Um, ended up we won the case. So it didn’t really, but just logistics wise, it was, it was a headache to have to go back and forth with this and, and deal with eBay and deal with the return and all that kind of stuff.

[00:36:34] So, um, yeah, it’s not. Um, rainbows and cupcakes in this business. You do have little things like that, but thank goodness we only had out of our whole year. Last year, three of these we dealt with, um, and two, and two of ’em, the two large ones we won. The one that we didn’t win was my own fault, and it was like $125 for a small scale that we sold, um, that we just, we ended up giving the, outta the refund.

[00:36:55] He sent it back to us. I resold it, listed it the proper way, resold it, and didn’t lose any money at. So, um, but yeah, I think that’s, that’s probably the biggest thing that we think of cringe wise is having to deal with something like that when a, a seller, um, is dishonest or has issues, but it doesn’t happen all the time.

[00:37:10] We don’t deal with it very much at all. And everything is different too. And that’s one thing that we do try to tell people that when they’re in this business, you’re gonna have people that do a return request or gets damage in shipping. And like, that’s probably a little more common than a return request Yeah.

[00:37:23] In our business model. But, um, like everyth. You can figure out like every, like each one, you just have to be a problem solver and try to figure out what happened, how you can best come up with a solution for you and the buyer. And um, and yeah, you can usually figure everything out. So

[00:37:38] Megan: You said the way you set your business up makes things easier when you have, you know, situations like this. Do you have any tips for like how people who are flipping, just getting started, maybe selling items on eBay, um, how they can make sure they have their bases covered in situations where they might have like, You know, a bad buyer who tries to scam them out of, you know what, whatever. Just, I think some people are nervous that that’s gonna be the case, you know, when you start selling online is that they’re gonna get taken advantage of. So do you guys have any tips on like how you can avoid that and just have your bases covered?

[00:38:15] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: Yeah, I’ll, uh, I’ll sum it up in one line. This is one thing that I tell everybody when you’re starting off under promise overdeliver. So we physically are, we physically try to turn people off from the items that we’re selling.

[00:38:29] So I’m taking every single that item that I’m selling, if there’s a scratch on it, if there’s a dent on it, um, I’m taking close up picture of that and showing people. In my eBay listing, and I’m also telling people if I don’t have any pictures in there of that, and there might not even be any scratches, DS or scuffs on it, you see?

[00:38:46] Yeah. I still will put that in my listing that this is a used item. Please have proper expectations. It is used, it’s not brand new. Um, don’t, yeah, I’m setting the expectations and then a lot of times when people receive my items, they’re like, oh, they give me great feedback and say, this is in way better condition than I assumed.

[00:39:01] So you always want to under promise. Overdeliver. That’s how you’re gonna set yourself up for a good business. Now, back in the beginning, I used words like mint condition when I first started selling on eBay. Mint condition, amazing condition, awesome. I mean, it’s stuff like that that set up. Try to sell your item.

[00:39:17] It’s set up bad expectations when the people got it, and it was not what they had expected. So under promise, overdeliver. You’ll be okay. That’s, that’s the biggest o underlining thing that I think. Yeah. And a lot of people, like you’ll, if, like looking at a lot of resellers, they do recommend taking refunds and it’ll, sometimes you have to, if you have a very competitive item, because eBay shows your items more.

[00:39:37] If you accept refunds, you have a 30 day refund policy. Um, for our business, it doesn’t really make. Sense to have that. Um, so we don’t have a re we have no refund policy, but sometimes things get damaged in shipping, and so then it’s just a shipping claim. The buyer gets their money, we get our money, we just have to go through the shipping claim process.

[00:39:53] So that’s probably the most common thing that happens in our business. And just knowing that is something like if a, um, somebody. Writes in on eBay and says, you know, this item is damaged, I wanna refund. Well, it’s not really refund, it’s a shipping claim. So that’s where you just kind of step back, evaluate the situation.

[00:40:09] Then you’re just nice to the buyer and say, okay, I’m so sorry I got damage to shipping. Can you send me pictures? And then, um, of the item, and then you just start the shipping claim. And then, I mean, it sucks that the buyer doesn’t get their item, but they still get their money back and you get your covered, you get your money back.

[00:40:23] So, um, it’s just making sure. Evaluate the whole situation before you just all of a sudden send ’em a refund and get, you know, frazzled. So, yeah.

[00:40:30] Megan: Yeah, I feel like that’s great advice. And I also see, I think I’ve also done before, cuz I’ve flipped a few items. Nothing like huge or anything, but, but you wanna sell your item, you know, upfront. And so I think a lot of people make that mistake that you were mentioning earlier, Rob, about just really trying to sell it in mint condition and, um, I feel like that’s just such good advice. Not do that under promise and overdeliver. Are there other like really prominent mistakes that, uh, you see people make all the time as coaches and this now, um, that anybody who wants to get into this listening could avoid?

[00:41:10] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: I think the biggest one is overpaying for items. Yeah, that’s a big one. People get into this. You have to know what your time’s worth. If you’re buying an item for $10 and you’re selling it for 15 or 20, you just spent a lot of time cleaning an item, picturing an item, listing an item, uh, shipping fulfillment.

[00:41:26] You spend a lot of time to make very little profits, so you really have to know what your time is. Uh, don’t, don’t get into the whole thing of, even if you’re doing a hundred of those items, you think of all those things that I just said, and you gotta multiply it by a hundred because you’re doing it that many times on an item.

[00:41:42] Um, just know what you’re, what you’re doing. Be willing to walk away from an item if you can’t make the profit that you need to, to make what you’re worth an hour. So I think that is a really. Something that people don’t really think about. Uh, they’ll buy something for $5, sell for $10, and it’s like, great, you made a little bit of money, but after it’s all said and done in your time and fees and shipping, did you really make any money?

[00:42:02] Or are you just, you know, busy work. Um, that’s the biggest thing is just really realize, hey, this is what I need to be making. And then don’t. Don’t feel bad walking away from deals that you’re not making 25, 30 $5 on the flip. Uh, just because you are worth a lot more than you’re Yeah. But there is a time in the beginning that there Oh, absolutely.

[00:42:19] That, that is important to sell those items while you’re buil building your feedback because like, Obviously we’d like the higher dollar items, but somebody’s not gonna go buy, uh, a thousand dollars cooktop from somebody with zero feedback. So like those smaller items do have a play, like when you’re first starting out.

[00:42:34] So start out, and this is referring to eBay? Yeah. So when you’re deal dealing with eBay, that’s what she’s talking about. You really have to have that good feedback. So building up to it, like 50 to a hundred feedback, and then you can add those higher value items in, and then people trust you. They know you’re not there to scam anybody.

[00:42:47] You, you have a business. So, um, those items do have a play. But in the more, in the beginning, I would.

[00:42:52] Megan: Yeah. You guys have given so many great tips for people who maybe wanna get started in this as a side hustle or business today. I’m gonna read back some of them. Um, and then would love to know if there’s anything else that you guys would recommend for beginners.

[00:43:06] So you guys have said. Find something on a smaller market listed on a bigger one. Just go like local places and then list on like eBay or something. Um, look to get, I guess you look to get 50% retail value on your items, right? Would you say? I guess that’s a general rule of thumb.

[00:43:26] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: Yeah. Yeah. If you can adhere to that, absolutely. That’s a, that’s a great, uh, great benchmark.

[00:43:32] Megan: Okay. And then you said, uh, look for stuff in the beginning that you enjoy and or know a lot about, which makes sense. Um, if the deal isn’t there, walk away. Don’t get emotionally attached. Your money is made in your buy, so make sure you’re getting a good deal upfront.

[00:43:48] And then when you go to list under promise and over-deliver, take closeup pictures of every flaw. Make sure people know that it’s a used item. Um, yeah. And then start with smaller items and build up your feedback. Kind of get the hang of it before you move on to much larger deals. I think all that makes sense. Do you have any other tips? Anything that comes to mind for anybody who’s just getting started? Take your course!

[00:44:19] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: I think that sums it up. I can’t really think of any other ones. You, I mean, you really hit them all on. Those are the, the biggest mistakes that people make. You just went down the line of that stuff.

[00:44:31] If you adhere to that and really try to follow those, um, you’re gonna be successful in this business. You, it just takes a little bit of time, uh, to build. Uh, build that business blueprint up and then, yeah, the sky’s the limit on what you wanna do. If you wanna scale and go bigger, you’re, you have the right foundation.

[00:44:46] Megan: Can you tell us before we get off here, I had said one more question before rapid fire so long ago, and I know I completely lied, . Um, can you tell us before we get off here, before we move to rapid fire questions, um, would you mind to just talk a little bit about your course and your coaching, how it works, what people could expect if they, you know, wanna go check it?

[00:45:05] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: Yeah. I think that’s one thing when you say of over, um, or underpromise and over deliver, that’s what we wanna do with all of our stuff too, even with our course and everything. And I think, um, like we started this six, seven years ago. Yeah. Started teaching, um, people how to do it. One of our friends actually said, you should teach people you love this and you’re really good at it.

[00:45:24] So we started that seven years ago and, um, I, I don’t know, I think. Most awesome parts of the whole thing is our community, our group. We have a really cool, um, community of people that are so helpful and like if somebody has a question and that like, yeah, I don’t know. How would you add to that? The, the community is very, there’s a lot of different communities out there reselling communities and, um, and.

[00:45:49] there can be some drama and people don’t wanna share what they’re doing and winning and like what they’re selling, but everybody, like our people, I don’t know. You’re all over the country. Like, I just sold this. And then people, they look for it in their area and like, it’s not competition. Everybody is helping each other.

[00:46:02] Yeah. And it’s just such a fun place to be. The cool thing is peop people that are at all different levels of flipping. Yeah. So we have over a thousand people in our private community, uh, who have gone through Flipper University, um, that are at different levels. So when you have a question. To get a, a legit, a quick, a good answer you posted in the group and then you’re gonna have 10, 15 people give you some solutions that they might have dealt with the same problem or they might be going through the same thing and they’re, they’re helping you walk through it.

[00:46:27] It’s really, really cool. So the community is really amazing. Um, and. That is attached with Flipper University. And like we said before, we’ve kind of have gravitated a little more towards appliances because we know that those make the most money. And like we have a lot of people in our group that are doing appliances too.

[00:46:42] And one of the guys like if you need a part, he’s got all the parts. So he’ll, he helps our people with the parts that they need to. Stuff. So like it just has made this whole, I don’t know, it’s really cool. It is. And say, okay, I just sold this for a thousand dollars cause Adam gave me the, or uh, sold me the part that I needed.

[00:46:57] And it’s just like, I don’t know, it’s just a really cool thing to see all that happen. Yeah. So, so to go back to your question, , we do have something called for university, uh, that we actually walk people through this whole process of, uh, kind of from start to finish. You guys can start out with not knowing anything about flipping.

[00:47:13] Uh, we get you in, we teach you how to build your eba. Um, you set up your accounts and do all that kind of stuff, and then go to the next level. I mean, and you can all go all the way up to start flip flipping high profit items. Um, and that’s really where we’re at. Um, like Melissa said, we’ll do this the rest of our lives.

[00:47:28] I absolutely love, love flipping items. Um, we don’t flip tons and tons of items, but I wanna stay relevant for our community, so I’m. Really the top, the highest dollar items that I possibly can so I can keep people up to date with what’s going on with the sale. If there’s problems throughout the sale. I wanna be able to tell our people exactly the issues that I had to help navigate them through the same issues or get them to fix the issues before they get into the same problem that I had.

[00:47:53] Um, so yeah, it’s a real cool community and you just love it. You’ll never die. No, absolutely love what, I love what I do. I’m very passionate. If you can’t hear it in my voice. I love, love. .

[00:48:01] Megan: Yeah. Melissa said before you guys came on, she was like, yeah, let’s talk about some deals that really gets Rob worked up.

[00:48:07] He loves talking about deals. Um, and yeah, you can tell that you love it. You can tell that you’re very, very excited, very passionate about it, so I love that. Um, awesome. Well, thank you for sharing a little bit about your, your course and coaching. Um, would love to get some rapid fire questions in here finally, as promised, um, before we head out.

[00:48:29] So. Are you guys good? Good to answer some rapid fire questions. Awesome.

[00:48:34] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: Let’s do it.

Rapid Fire Questions

[00:48:36] Megan: Okay. So first question is, what is one of the best or most worthwhile investments that you’ve ever made in your business?

[00:48:46] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: I wanna say to this one that I don’t know if I can think of just one, but we are constantly always investing in coaches.

[00:48:53] So we have pretty much, since we started seven years ago, I mean, We did that with Caitlin, like we started every year. We’ve always invested in coaches at trying to get us to the next step that we wanna be at. And I even currently, right now, yeah, we’re in a coaching program and we have a coach. Yeah. Um, besides the coaching program.

[00:49:15] So we’re always investing in ourselves. We, we don’t just sell coaching ourselves. We are very huge advocates of. Always learning and growing, because if you want to get good at what you’re doing, you’re constantly doing that. Like Melissa said, last seven years, uh, we’ve had tons and tons of coaches who have helped us go to the next level in all aspects of our business.

[00:49:32] Every year we go and see, okay, we, this is what we want to accomplish, who in is in this space that we need to go and that we can learn from? So, um, so yeah, and I think that that, I don’t know, I think it’s always great to be learning because that. , you’re always improving and you can, we can only serve our community better if we know how to do that better. So.

[00:49:53] Megan: Yeah. Yeah. 100% agree. You don’t have to sell me on courses in coaching. I’m like, you know, huge advocate. Spent so much Yeah. over the years. Um, and I love it. I also, like, I don’t know about you guys, but I very much like need the accountability sometimes as an entrepreneur. . Maybe you guys, I don’t know, maybe you guys use each other for accountability, but like, I need, I need somebody there to tell me, like make, make sure that I’m staying honest to doing what I want to do and what I say I want to do. So, yeah.

[00:50:27] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: True for sure. Absolutely.

[00:50:29] Megan: Yeah. Um, okay, so second question is when you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do to get back on track?

[00:50:39] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: I would say the first thing that helps us every day, like I mentioned earlier, that we start the day with a podcast and a run, um, pretty much every day. And I think that helps us get focused for the day even no matter what happened the day before.

[00:50:53] Like if it was crazy, um, I’m the one that tends to get overwhelmed. He kind of is more laid back. , and like you said about the accountability, we, we are accountable to each other and I think we balance each other out a lot. So I think that that helps. Yeah, because I’ll go into a state of overwhelm pretty quick and he’s like, what’s going on?

[00:51:10] like, come on, . So, um, so yeah, I think that that helps a lot. So I agree if focusing our, in that. Really helps us kick off the day. We spend roughly an hour, hour and a half with each other, uh, listening to an amazing podcast, getting great ideas. That goes back to investing into ourselves with other coaches.

[00:51:27] But podcasts, I mean, are amazing to be able to listen to other people and then implement it into your business. Um, we do that while we’re getting exercise, while we’re trying to, um, invest in our marriage, uh, invest in, um, our business and healthy, we’re, we’re trying to stay healthy. So yeah, we can keep up with our young kids that are crazy.

[00:51:45] Megan: Yeah. How old are your kids now?

[00:51:50] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: Now they’re 10, 10, 8, and six. Yeah. It’s crazy.

[00:51:54] Megan: Ten, eight and six. Wow. Yeah. awesome. Um, yeah, I love that you have that morning routine, that ritual that you do together. I do the same thing. If I have a day where like I skip my regular gym routine, it is all downhill. It’s not a normal day. I might as well just like sleep through the day and go to the next day. .

[00:52:15] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: Yeah. It sets the tone for the day and yeah, you can really, like, even just on the way, our way back from our run, we’re like, okay, so what is the, what is the main thing we need to accomplish today? Okay, focus, because you do need focus for the flipping part too.

[00:52:26] Like I gotta get stuff listed, so like we got, yeah. So it helps us both.

[00:52:31] Megan: Um, well, last question I have, and I will let you guys go is about failure. So how has a failure or an apparent failure set you up for success later in your business?

[00:52:44] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: I was thinking about this one and I think that, um, our biggest, the biggest failure I can think of in our business was we quit six months into starting our flea market flipper, our brand.

[00:52:57] Like we created the course, we did all the things. and nobody showed up and we’re like, we quit. This doesn’t work. Like we can’t help anybody. So we quit for another about six months and then all of a sudden both of us were like, we probably should revisit that and see, you know, like if that’s can, we can work on our blog and work on all the things.

[00:53:18] And, and we both had that idea at the same time. And so I think having that, and I think the reason why we quit too is because we had a really good friend who, um, created a. made a million dollars in 13 months, and then we’re. . Okay, well it doesn’t work . So we were like, okay, we’re a failure. You know, we’re a failure because we didn’t go that model.

[00:53:38] Yeah. But that wasn’t our course. Like that wasn’t what we were supposed to do. And I think that has set us up to know, like to, for all the work we’ve done over the last seven years, like it’s a lot, but it it, you just in. , you enjoy the rewards? I think better than if it was so fast. Like it’s been a slow growth and I think that that’s okay.

[00:53:55] I think we’re better off for it. Yeah. Than, uh, than fast growth. I mean, I would like fast growth, but . Yeah. And I, I also think about failure. You have to be willing to learn. Failure sets you up to learn. Everything that I teach in Flipper University that Melissa and I do was a failure. It’s everything has been failures that I have done, and I’m trying to help people cut that failure out.

[00:54:15] Your journey. Um, so, but you have to be willing to learn. If you screw something up, if you make a, you know, you, you lost money on shipping, you did this. Well, how can I learn from this? So my next one, I don’t do the same exact thing. So those failures are the learning process. And you think about even other.

[00:54:31] Portions of your life when you’re in low or bad spots, what can you learn from those low ba lower bad spots? What can you take from that to keep you out of those for the next, you know, the next go around when something like that kind happens? So the most people learn the most through failures. Um, and that’s the same thing with us.

[00:54:47] We’ve done it, uh, we try to help other people, you know, cut that failure, um, ratio on half, but at the same time, . That’s when you really, really learn a lot is when you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re making failures, but you keep going. You don’t stop. Yeah, don’t stop like we did originally. We stopped. Yeah, we quit

[00:55:01] But you have to stay the course, stay the track. Keep going and really try and take some, some good nuggets away from what you did wrong and how you can fix it on the next go around. .

[00:55:10] Megan: Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree. And I’ve done the same thing. You know, I’ve quit so many projects or so many like would be businesses that don’t exist today, probably too early.

[00:55:21] And I look back and I think the same thing, like, oh, you know, those people who make a million dollars in 13 months are the exception, not me. It is. It is slow growth and that’s okay. It’s okay to have slow growth also. . Very cool. Well, thank you guys so much for coming on the podcast and for sharing your story and for all of the amazing tips that you gave to our audience today.

[00:55:46] Um, one more time just to close us out. We tell people if they wanna get into your community, if they wanna learn more about your business, um, where can they find you?

[00:55:55] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: Uh, flea market flipper.com is the best place to find us. It’s where all the things are. So , it’s kind of our hub.

[00:56:03] Megan: Perfect. Well, thank you guys so much for being here.

[00:56:05] Rob and Melissa Stephenson: Thank you so much for having us. Absolutely. Thank you.

Outro

[00:56:08] Megan: Thanks so much for being here and for listening to the Dollar Spa podcast today. Be sure to check out the show notes for any links and resources that were mentioned in today’s conversation. And if you enjoyed this episode, then don’t forget to like, subscribe, and leave us a review wherever you’re listening to this podcast.

[00:56:25] Thanks again for being here and for being part of the Dollar Sprout community, and I will see you in the next episode.