Laid Off 2 Days Before Christmas, Now He Makes $60k/Month Reselling

Two days before Christmas, they laid me off. And I was like, you've got to be kidding. I'm never going to work for someone else that can control my income like that. I did $60,000 in sales first month. My son looks at me and he never says anything like this. He goes, dad, you need to buy this thing.

And how much was it?

700,000.

Oh, okay. Okay.

Yeah. And so that's what got me really fired up. And so, literally, I'm selling everything I'm trying to make $1,000, 700 times to buy my family our dream yacht. I started with that $1,200 and then took that profit, bought the next one, and I just kept rolling.

What'd you sell them for each?

50 bucks.

Wow. And you paid?

I paid $2.28 or something like that.

So 25x on your money?

Yeah. Start with something you already own. Don't go into debt to learn how to sell, because it's not the buying, it's the selling.

Now, what types of items sold particularly well, and what types of items just didn't? So I run across this guy on Twitter, and he claims to have made $60,000 his first month, with half of that being profit reselling random things in middle of nowhere rural Washington. Restaurant equipment, clothes, furniture, appliances. He bought them for pennies on the dollar. He put them in front of this old towing shop that he rented for super cheap, and he just sold, sold, sold. What's his goal? Save up enough money to buy a $700,000 boat. If you've liked any of my previous content about reselling, you are really going to please, enjoy. How did you go from Jim Rowe being born as a baby to making $30,000 profit his first month in business?

Yeah. So, grew up in a single family at home with my mom working as a bartender. And I just posted on X today, my dad was an alcoholic and what it's like to be raised by an alcoholic. And one of my traits is I'm a problem solver. And so I like to problem solve, and I also like to help people. And so that's become kind of my superpower in life. Without knowing what I was doing, it was just there. So, anyway, I've done lots of different things. I owned a tool company. I got into the diamond business. Then I went into construction and owned a glass company. And it rained 98 days in a row in Seattle. And I came home one day and I go, I don't want to put in another window, and I don't want to drive on that freeway because it's crazy, crazy traffic in Seattle. And my wife goes, what do you want to do? And I said, I want to do something where I. Where I sell somebody something, they love it and they pay me right there and they want to come back. And she goes, what is it? And I go, I want to open a restaurant. And so we literally moved to her hometown, which is on the sunny side of the state, opened up our first restaurant. I had never worked in one, really, and she worked in one in high school that was a little fast food place. So I was the cook, she was the waitress. And we opened up and the place took off. And so we grew the restaurant business from 2002 until currently we still own that original restaurant, but we opened up nine other restaurants and a brewery and a nightclub and a pizzeria, all sorts of things.

Were these nine different restaurants under different brand names?

Yeah, that's the add problem right there. I don't. Yeah, I feel you're something different.

Yeah.

And thank God I married the right person to deal with this craziness.

But same.

Yeah. So anyway, I Covid hit, and it just so happened that was going to be my daughter's first year at Boise State. And I always just planned on, you know, I didn't start saving when she was born for her college fund. I always had great cash flow and knew how to make money. And all of a sudden, all my restaurants were closed. Washington State. State shut everything down. I laid off 180 employees. And so at the same time, there was lots of news about college debt and people wanting free college and all of that. And I'm trying to teach my kids that there's no such word as free. And so I told her, I go, brooke, I want you to go to college and have fun and have that whole college experience. And I'm going to start a different business each year to pay for it, because I want to show you how this really works. And so I started a junk removal business. It took off right away. People kept giving me couches and stuff that were still good. So then I saw a Ryan Panetta YouTube video on couch flipping, and I was like, I should just sell all these couches. So I'd literally take them out of the people's houses, put them in my trailer, take photos, list them on Marketplace, and just keep going.

Never even unload it. No, you just load it on the trailer, then take it to the buyer. Yeah.

And so I started building kind of a reseller store and putting all this stuff that I Would get from junk removal. So I had a little bit of experience in dabbling in the reselling, and then I started buying storage units and all sorts of things. Anyway, fast forward as we started selling our restaurants, I had a warehouse full of restaurant equipment because we would take over a restaurant and they would have stuff that we didn't need. We'd build a restaurant or something would break, and we could repair it, but we couldn't repair it in place, so we'd put it in the warehouse and buy a new one. So anyway, I had all this stuff, and so I just started reselling it because we were selling our restaurants, and I did so well reselling restaurant equipment that I went on gov deals and started buying more. And my wife was like, I thought. I thought we were selling everything you're buying.

Yeah, yeah. So you were just selling stuff that you had just accumulated over the years and finding success out of it? Yeah. And how were you finding buyers for this? Where were you selling it?

Marketplace. But also, I leveraged my experience. So I got a hold of all of the salespeople that were selling food to restaurants and made turn them into salespeople. So I'd pay them 10% commission on any lead that they would give me. So all they had to do was give me the lead and I'd take care of the rest.

So you had salespeople selling food to restaurants, Was that.

No, there's already people selling food to restaurants.

Like Cisco employees.

Yeah, exactly. So I reached out to Cisco salespeople and said, hey, by the way, I have a full list and a warehouse full of equipment. So if any of your customers need anything, I'll pay a little commission because they're in restaurants all day. And I was just trying to duplicate myself as fast as possible.

So sorry. For those watching or listening, Cisco and US Foods, those are like the two mega conglomerate food distributors for restaurants.

Restaurants, Right, Exactly.

Cisco and US Foods. So you were buying from both of them or just Cisco?

So when I was in the restaurant business, I mainly bought from U.S. foods.

Okay.

And so.

Okay.

But when I started selling restaurant equipment, I knew, hey, here's all these salespeople that are visiting restaurant owners every day and chefs. Let me just turn them into a salesperson for my little side business. Yeah, reselling restaurant equipment.

So were you using Us Foods employees or Cisco employees or both for this? So you just kind of called up your rep and was like, hey, I'm doing this thing and.

Exactly.

I love this idea because this sounds like something I would do. Like, you're piggybacking on an existing workforce that's already talking to the same customer base. But oftentimes, in actuality, executing on a plan like this is a lot more complicated than how it looks on paper because you get them on the phone and they probably don't have a high degree of ambiguity. Like, they probably like, working within a box. And I could just see the conversation going like, oh, yeah, okay. And then, like, it completely leading their mind or like, it just doesn't. Even though they're already talking to the same people that are buying these things, it's just like it doesn't go into their workflow. Right.

Yeah.

80.

20 rule. So 80.

Okay. So that's. You just had to work through a bunch of people.

Yep.

Okay.

And I didn't need a lot because I didn't have a ton of inventory. And so I found a few that were selling product for me all the time and giving me referrals.

Yeah. Did you find that some of them were like, oh, yeah, okay, let me see. And like, they never worked out. And then some people were just gung ho. Are the gung ho ones the ones that worked out or was there not a correlation there?

No. So I know most of them, and they're also the best already in their business of selling food. They just take care of their problem solvers also. So they take care of their customers, and they understand that the value is not how much they're selling them a box of French fries for, but it's the problem solving that they bring to the account. And so those few salespeople actually brought me a lot of business.

How many did you have to work through and then how many did you end up with?

I probably only worked through about 20 and ended up with three really good ones.

80. 20 rule. I mean, 85. 15, basically.

Yeah.

That's impressive. And you didn't pay them anything based just 10% on the gross of what they sold?

Yeah. And most of them didn't want it. I offered it in the beginning, and most of them were like, no, we're good. We just wanted to help our customer.

They were willing to do it for free.

Yeah. It's just problem solving. They become a more valuable salesperson to their account when they're taking care of their problems.

Yeah. And if I'm you, I'm hearing that offer and thinking, thank you, I appreciate that. But A, you deserve what your time is worth. Right? Like, you deserve to be paid. And then what you're thinking is like, B, if I don't Pay you. You're not going to be motivated to. To name drop this equipment. Like. Like, realistically, you'll say that you are and you want to help me, and you might a couple times. But if you have skin in the game, like, if you're actually getting a check from this, then it's like, oh, I'm going to go out of my way to sell this stuff. Is that kind of how you were looking at it?

Yeah. We would just Venmo or we would also gift. So sometimes I'd buy people a really nice gift and send it to them as a thank you. And so anyway, we moved.

Believe not. Just because you're watching this doesn't mean you're subscribed to my channel. YouTube's going to show you stuff even if you're not subscribed to it. Over half of people that watch my videos are not subscribed. It would mean the world to me if you just hit subscribe. Thank you so much.

We moved from that model to. I commented. It's kind of funny. I commented on an ex post from Shannon Jean that I saw, and I think I was trying to just show off a little bit. And I messaged him and I said, oh, I sell lots of used restaurant equipment, thinking that would impress him. And he goes, oh, neat niche. And not knowing the godfather of this business, he goes, neat niche. He goes, you should look at B stock and buying Costco and these other auctions. So I'm a quick starter. So that night, I went on to B Stock, signed up with my business license, got approved, and actually, I think that night made my first bid. Whoa. I was a quick study. So I. I did exactly what he said. He said, buy something that you actually might need and sell the rest. And I needed a shed for the coffee shop I had built and sold to my daughter. And so I bought one of those Costco sheds, and they sell for fifteen hundred dollars. So my max bid was fifteen hundred. I wanted.

I have two in my garage right now.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, I saw that.

Yeah.

And I ended up winning for less. Put the shed together, sold the rest of the stuff, and then I had already placed another order for some furniture. So my wife came out into the warehouse one day and a semi had showed up, and I had loaded the place full of furniture. And she's like, oh, my. And I go, don't worry. So that Saturday, we put everything in the parking lot behind our storage unit, and I went live on Facebook to all my current customers. And I said, you know me as restaurant as the restaurant guy. But here's something new that I'm doing. And then my wife actually demonstrated a couch right in the parking lot because it had. It had stuff I didn't know about. Like a Chase lounge with storage under it. I have no idea.

She went, like, full Vanna White. She switched into Vanna White mode.

And you're like, 100%.

You're built for this.

Yeah. And so we ended up selling all this stuff and made about $3,000 that Saturday.

Whoa.

And I literally looked at her and I go, this is a little better than the restaurant business, isn't it? Because it was just her and I, you know. Yeah.

Now. Now, of that 3,000, how much would you guess was profit?

No, no, that was the profit part of it.

Whoa.

Yeah. Yeah. So we sold a bunch of furniture and made 3,000. And I was like, shan, how hard is it to make 3,000? To make 3,000 in the restaurant business, you're gonna do 30,000 in sales.

Yeah.

With a big team. And this was just her. And. Yeah, you're right. Vanna White. It was me and Vanna White in the parking lot. It was the craziest day, and people loved it. And I go, you know what? We're in a small town. I know how much competition there is in this market. Let's just do this.

And competition with regards to the restaurant business?

No, in the. In the furniture.

Okay.

Yeah. We have a lack of shopping opportunities in the small town that we're in now.

Let me ask you this. When you go live on Facebook, is that on your business page? On your personal page?

Thankfully, long ago, I was taught the power of a database. And so I've often built up my social media. So I think on my restaurant page, I probably reached out to, oh, thousands. But I know that day we probably had. Probably had 30 or 40 people come down to the sale.

But everybody.

Everybody was buying.

Yeah.

So during COVID I would go live with today's special and what we were doing. Because, Covid, every day was something different. Some days we were serving you in your car in the parking lot. Then we were able to. We put up a big 50 foot tent in our parking lot, and we put tables and chairs in the tent. We were serving you in the tent. Other days we were doing delivery. Then they. Then we could deliver drinks as well. So I was going live every day. So my target market is women 55 and over. Older women love Jim Row. And everywhere I go in town, we run into someone that's like, I love all your videos. And we watch them every night, and people are like, oh, we have our kids watch them with us. So I got really pretty famous in a way in my small little market for going live on Facebook.

In your city of 25,000?

Yeah. Yeah.

Now, how many people were joining the live stream? And when you say 30 to 40 people showed up, or were you live streaming to get people there, or were you selling stuff over the live stream and shipping it? What did that look like?

Yeah, great question. So on that one, I was live streaming just to show people what I was doing and to show off the furniture. Now, in my. Now that we've grown into my store, I actually will do Facebook lives and sell product.

Okay.

And it's really powerful because I don't have any fees. I'm reaching out to my target market. I'm talking to people typically that know me and trust me, and it makes the sales process super easy. I love that compared to some of the other stuff that I've done, like whatnot and Facebook Marketplace and things like that, where I have to, you know, teach them about my brand.

Yeah. Now, if someone watching or listening to this right now had 500 or a thousand Facebook followers just on their personal page, is. Is this something that they could do and like, just at least attempt with a Facebook Live to sell stuff like this?

Yeah, a hundred percent. I think you start even if you have a couple people watching, you don't need a lot. You need the people that actually like your brand and want to follow you. But you can also do this. You could also borrow someone's el. Someone else's Facebook following. And so I use that in business all the time. If someone else has the database, I just team up with them.

What would the profit sharing look like in. It could be a situation like that.

You know, maybe it's a. Maybe. Like, my daughter's coffee shop has a huge following because she works so hard at it. So maybe I do something there, and I buy everyone that comes in a free drink, and then they come in and I sell them furniture or something like that. So it. You know, you just make it a win. Win.

Yeah. Okay, so on this day that you made 3,000 bucks, it was furniture. Like, return furniture to Costco?

Yeah, it was return furniture. Bunch of love. Not love. Seats. Recliners. We sold a bunch of recliners. And then I made a video of a customer that bought the recliner, and I posted that as well. So people were actually seeing, like, what was going on.

Like, a testimonial.

A testimonial Exactly.

People would basically earmark whatever they bought and then show up and pay you for it.

Yeah, no, they just came down and bought it that day. Now they earmark what they want and we either deliver it or they come and pick it up. Okay, so that was day one. And then I went on a search to find a building, and I actually had a really good one in mind. It was an old auto parts store on our main street with a big glass storefront. Lots of traffic going by it. And I made an offer. I think the next day the realtor that got the offer called someone that had previous look previously looked at it and used my offer to lease it to the other interest. And I was like, oh, my gosh, I'm so frustrated, but I'm a problem solver. So the next spot that was available was this old tow truck shop, literally with the big bay door in the front and you know, it's a tow truck shop. And I was like, well, this will work because I can put stuff inside the shop and the outside fenced in area I could use to pressure wash and clean the restaurant equipment that I was still selling. And so I literally moved a little bit of inventory I had into that shop. And I was like, I'll just sell what I have. Is my business model. Always sell what you have. And so the day I opened there was in October. I literally put the like seven things that I had in inventory. I rolled them out next to the street by the sidewalk. And I didn't even. The. The for lease sign was still up. I didn't have anything. I had an old neon open sign. So I plugged that in and people would drive by and just pull in and they're like, what are you doing here?

Yeah, it looks shady.

They're just so curious. Right? Like, what are you doing? And I told them, I go, oh, I'm selling warehouse returns from all the different big stores. And I have these items. And that's the warehouse that I did $60,000 in sales from first month.

So was this tow shop on like a busy road, like on a main drag?

Yeah. So location, location, location. And I'll go into that because I ended up moving out of this space. Our only big shopping is a Fred Meyer store. So we have a Fred Meyer that carries, you know, housewares and shoes and food and hardware and all that stuff. Garden department.

What's the name of the city again?

Ellensburg, Washington.

Ellensburg. 25,000 people.

Yeah. And that's what college students in. That's when they're in town, so it actually down. And so I was one block away from the Fred Meyer, so there was a ton of traffic. And that was really the magic, because I could put anything out by the. By the street, and if it had eye appeal, people were going to pull in. Just out of curiosity, in one of the Costco returns, I got. I got a big chicken coop, and we're in a farming area, so I put the chicken coop together and I put it out by the road. So you have me there. That's Ellensburg. Yeah. So I was just to the west. There I am with the red roof right here. Yep, that one.

Okay. So right now it's Central Washington septic. But this used to be you.

Yeah, I released it to them. There I am.

All right, there it is. Macintosh is towing. That was you?

Yeah, exactly.

You got this cobblestone sidewalk.

Macintoshes, they haven't changed it either.

Okay, so you would just load up, like, random couches and furniture, Put it right out there. What other stuff would you load out there?

Yeah, so in the beginning, I only had, like, seven or eight items for sale. And so I put them all right out on the sidewalk there. And then I had an open sign. And then from one of my restaurants, I bought one of those blinking reader boards with the arrow. And so I plug that in. People would see that. And. But here's the thing about that building, Chris, is people would only come there if that big white door was open. And so when we opened, it was in October. Well, in ellensburg, it's like 35 degrees outside. So it was the craziest thing, as people would come shop and it would be 35 degrees outside. It was maybe 40 degrees inside with the.

How long did it take you to realize that you needed to leave that door open?

It was. Well, it was the first time I shut it to try to stay warm. It was more of a comfort thing for me. And then I was like, no one's coming in. I was like, let's roll the door back up. And I can tell you, I never looked at the gas bill to see what it was costing me to heat the building. We just knew we needed bliss. Yeah. And so just north of there is the Fred Meyer. So we had a lot of traffic coming from that location. And then we started filling up the whole building. So I even had women's clothes. I had a shoe. Little shoe department in there. I had the furniture. But here was the other thing. I had it so full of product that every morning it would take about 30 minutes to put stuff out. We had to put stuff outside because we needed the space so people could walk around. So we. It take about a half hour to 40 minutes to move everything out. And then at the end of the day, we'd have to reverse that and put everything back in.

So what was your lease term on this building and how much did you pay a month in rent?

Yeah, I leased it and I. I want to say it was $3200. I did a three year lease. My son was a sophomore and I had just planned on, let's do this until he graduates as a senior. And so I did a three year lease and then I ended up finding the new location in downtown Ellensburg, which is where we're at currently, which is 6,000 square feet in the old Sears building. It was a Sears store. And so I.

That's where you are now or that's

where you went next? Yeah. So I released that tow truck shop to the septic pumping company and moved into the Sears store.

Okay. That $3,000 day, that was a Saturday, is that right?

Yeah, that was a Saturday.

And then the next day, Sunday, you're like, let's go find a lease. We're starting this.

Yeah.

Okay.

And I think Monday or Tuesday, I made the offer and. And was. So it was September, October, when I. When I got going, I moved into that building somewhere, I think around the beginning of October. Well, I know it was the beginning of October because I started moving in in September and the people that were in there, I knew them and they were moving out. So.

Okay, yeah, obviously you're comparing this against the restaurant business and you're like, this is way better. This is way easier. What was it about your history or your experience that just told you this is gonna work? I need to sign a lease on this. Like, what gave you the confidence to do that?

Yeah. So I've been in sales a long time, so I started off selling. My very first job was a crazy one. I sold tools over the phone.

Okay.

And I kind of got, not swindled, but tricked by this telephone sales. And I was young, and so I jumped in both feet. And we were selling tools from 3am in the morning. We'd start calling people on the east coast and then move across the country. So I went from that to a real tool store, a great company in my area called Tacoma Screw. Anyway, through some unfortunate things that happened in my life, which one was a divorce. I ended up randomly in the jewelry business because a friend of my wife was like, why don't you Come work with us at this great company, Benbridge Jewelers, and get yourself straightened out and then you can go back to whatever it was you were doing. Right. I didn't know what a garnet was. The first customers came in, they were like, do you have garnets? And I go, we do, but they just moved around. They just rearranged the whole store. And I looked at this one lady that worked with me, Linda. And I go, linda, where did we put the garnets?

And she pointed and I also, what's a garnet?

Yeah, there they are, the red ones with the sign that says garnet. And so, so I went from that to wholesaling diamonds and wholesale diamonds for quite a few years. And I ended up selling a 10 carat diamond, made a bunch of money, and I wanted to take a month off and spend some time with my daughter. And so I was at home spending time with my daughter, painting my house, actually. And my brother, my older brother called me and he goes, go to the union hall today, talk to this guy and you're going to be a journeyman carpenter. And I go, I think it's a thing older brothers think they need to do. And I go, greg, how much does a journeyman carpenter make? And at that time it was like $20 an hour. And I go, Greg, I just made $35,000 selling one diamond. Like, not really the hourly type of guy.

Yeah.

And he goes, go down there. And he's my older brother, and not always the nicest older brother as a kid. So for some reason I went to the union hall and literally the next day they're sending me out on a job and I'm a journeyman carpenter. But what that really meant was they handed me a shovel and they said, here, dig this trench. That was like in the hardest dirt you could find in America. And we built. We ended up building a loading dock at Bell Square Mall, this big shopping center in Bellevue, Washington. And I was like, wow, that was really cool. Because I had never built anything before. It was always sales. And so seeing something go from nothing to something was. It was pretty satisfying.

Yeah.

So they sent me to another job where we built a building for Paul Allen. And I heard that they were laying people off, but I was like, I'll just outwork everyone. They're not going to lay me off. And like two days before Christmas, they laid me off. And I was like, you've got to be kidding. And so I went home and I was like, I'm never going to work for someone else. That can control my income like that or whether or not I'm even working.

So you go to the tow shop. Did you say October 2024 was your first full month?

Yeah, October of 24.

Okay, now, what type of stuff were you buying? How did you get to $60,000 that month?

I had a lot of furniture. I had appliances. I had like the chicken coop. I had pressure washers. I put in shoes. I started ordering quite a bit from Costco. So we even had a kitchen a little. Funny that I say kitchen department. It was like the entryway of the. The tow truck shop. And so we had a kitchen department. And so we just were selling. Oh, and we had exercise equipment too. I was testing everything because I really wanted to learn, like, what is it that's gonna really sell that I can grab onto? And so we decide this little warehouse.

Were you more concerned about margin on the pallets or the truckload that you're buying or the items or both?

Oh. So I didn't get into the crazy story. So I've. I wanted a fishing boat. So this is really the. This is the part that got me really going in. My wife said, great idea, I want you to have one, but I'd like a bathroom on the fishing boat. So we went to a boat show, and somehow Chris, we end up on a 65 foot yacht. And I had my son with me, and this thing is so nice. And so we're on the yacht and this other guy walks on the yacht and he goes, is this your boat? Are you buying it? And I go, man, I love it. And he goes, if you don't buy it, I want to buy it. I go, do you already own it? Like it was such a setup. And he goes, no. He goes, but this is the best boat at the boat show. And I go, I think you're right.

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So anyway, the captain of the boat at the end of the boat show had to move it back to the marina. And he goes, jim, I don't have anyone going with me. If you guys want to go for a boat ride, you're more than welcome. Which I thought was a good sales tactic.

Oh, yeah, you respected the game.

And I jumped. You know, salespeople are easy to sell. So I'm like, yep, we're going to the marina with you. And so it was a beautiful day in Seattle. We cruised the boat across Lake Union, which is in downtown Seattle. You're looking at the Space Needle, and we're going to go through the Ballard Locks. And he goes, jim, I need to go get the ropes ready. You drive. And I was like, oh, here we go, here we go, here we go. So it had dual captain chairs. So my son and I are sitting there and we're driving, and there's salmon. It's September, and salmon are jumping everywhere out of the water, and we love fishing and outdoors and all of that.

And.

And my son looks at me and he never says anything like this. He goes, dad, you need to buy this thing.

Like, you can only have this experience on this boat.

Yeah.

He goes, dad, how much was it?

700,000.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, okay. So thankfully, I had the money in the bank. The captain goes, jim, just make an offer on it. He goes, I think they'll take a little less. And so I go, let me think about it till tomorrow. And so I literally stayed up all night and went over, like, what it takes to maintain a boat like that and blah, blah, blah. And my son was a sophomore at that time. And I'm like, I'm not going to have time to even use this boat the way I would need to for the expense. And it's a dumb thing for me to take my family's money and put it into a boat. So I call him and I tell him, can't do it, Can't Pull the trigger. And I go, but keep looking for a smaller boat for us. And anyway, I think the next morning I was so irritated with myself that I didn't have dumb money just to write the check. And I was in the kitchen, my wife was making a cup of coffee, and I go, shan, how about if I make $1,000 700 times doing Jim Row stuff and I buy a boat like that? And she goes, yeah, do it. And so that's what got me really fired up. And so literally, I'm selling everything. I sold. I sold a couple of Rolex watches. I had. I sold a food trailer. I was selling restaurant equipment. I'm selling all this furniture, and I'm going after it.

Now, is this, like, are you seeing this revenue as like, separate, like extra, like, just for the boat? And then you're stashing the other stuff aside for bills and all that?

I mean, our bills were taken care of at that point. And so this was just. Let me go after the boat. But what I found out. Here's what I found out. So I was $1,000 700 times. But I'm. I'm happily married and I have kids and stuff, and I found out that I actually need to make a thousand dollars fourteen hundred times because taxes. Yeah. The wife, we paid for everything. You know, I started paying for everything, and I was like, okay, that's okay. Just, I'll just keep going. And so I'm still on that journey to hit that number. But we did buy a 50 foot, our starter boat, and so we've been enjoying that.

So how much was that?

That was 320. Wow.

And you go out there for days at a time.

Yeah. So crazy as it is now, because I'm in a small town, I'm delivering product to the Seattle market, like, as often as I can. It's just an excuse for me to drive over, get a new customer, sell something, and then I'll go stay on the boat and. And then come back. And so it's literally five minutes from downtown Seattle. Like, I can be in front of the waterfront in. In a few minutes. Boat ride. It's spectacular.

Yeah. Okay, so October 2024.

That's what got me going.

Yeah. So that's your motivation. So you're buying all kinds of stuff. You're saving up for the boat. You want stuff that will probably sell for a good margin because you don't really know what the margin is until. Right. You're just kind of guessing and trying to be conservative, I'm sure.

Yeah.

Tell me what happens in October? Like, what do you buy? What do you sell? How do you hit that? 60,000.

So I forgot a big one. So, Shannon Jean post this crazy auction where there's a thousand of these industrial hinges down in California or no. Yeah, I think they were down in California. So anyway, I look at it, and they're aluminum hinges, and I. I was in the glass business, so I had a little bit of familiarity with them, But I don't know the market for those really well. I just know on ebay, a few of them are selling for, like, $125 a hinge. Wow. So I did the math on how much the aluminum weighed, and then I looked up the scrap price, and I was like, I'll just put in a max bid for that number, and worst case scenario, I scrap them. So anyway, nobody bid, and I ended up winning these thousand hinges, and they landed at my store for, like, $2,800.

Holy cow. And, like, retail is 100k for these.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nuts.

And, sorry, what was the scrap value for them?

It was like, 4, 500 or something like that.

Jeez Louise. And you're not like, that's like, your last case? That's like your, like, your worst case scenario?

Worst case scenario, I'm melting them.

Yeah.

So I had this idea. I was like, I think I could sell them back to the manufacturer because they can't make them for what I just bought them for. Even the box is super nice.

Like, it's a good idea.

It's like a $2 box, for sure. I think it's a $5 box, because I bought boxes. So I call, I look up on their website, their manufacturer reps, and the first one is pretty close to me. And I call him in the morning, and he answers the phone. I go, do you want to hear the craziest story? And he goes, you know, he doesn't know who's calling. I go, yeah. And I go, my name's Jim Rowe. I'm trying to make $1,000 700 times to buy my family our dream yacht, and I just happen to own a thousand of these hinges that you guys sell. And he's like, a thousand? He's like, how'd you get those? And I just tell him, here's what I'm doing. And I go, I'm looking for ways to make $1,000. I go, do you think the company would be interested in buying these back? And right out of the gate, he goes, nope. And he goes, kind of a tough hinge to sell. And blah. Blah, blah. And he pushes me off and I go, okay. So I called the next manufacturer rep down in California, and he answers.

And I same company, Different.

Same company, different rep. I say the exact same thing to him. Is your craziest phone call of the day? He goes, it's still early. And so I tell him, and he goes, I was reselling in college. He goes, I love it. He goes, I actually know a customer that could use those. And he emails me the info and. And he goes, I'll do you one better. I'll email the company too, so they know you're going to get ahold of them. I was like, wow. So that company makes security screen doors, and they needed a hinge like this. So I get a hold of him and he goes, hey, we'll take a hundred of them. Well, the hundred paid for the whole shipment. And I was like, okay, thank you so much. I was so excited about this hundred unit sale. And then I was like, jim, you're so weak. So I called him back. I called them back, and I go, hey, sorry.

What'd you sell them for? Each.

For the hundred fifty bucks.

Wow. And you paid. What'd you pay for two dollars and

28 cents or something like that?

So 25x on your money for the 10% of them?

Yeah. So. So here was the crazy thing. So they were down by where Shannon Gene lives in California. I won't name the city. I was like, if I deliver these things, I could take him to dinner because I'd like to meet him. So I called him back and I go, hey, if you guys can. If you guys can do another hundred, I'll save you the freight and I'll personally, personally deliver them to you. And that way we get to meet and we can build a relationship and I can see what you're doing and see if I can help you in any other ways. And they go, sure, we'll do it. So they bought another 100 off of me, and I put them in my pickup, literally, like that weekend, and drove to California. And then I took Shannon to dinner and.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah, it's the craziest deal.

10,000 bucks.

But, like, you know, I still have 700 of those hinges, so it's on my to do list right now.

Yeah.

Is get back in the. Get back in the hinge selling game.

Okay, all right. So October 2024.

Yeah. So that was a big one, though. That kind of fired me up.

I was like, wow, was that in October?

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So that's 10 of the 60K?

Yeah.

Where did the rest of it come from?

Furniture, chicken coop, you name it.

Exercise, Just drive by customers and Facebook Marketplace.

Yeah. Yep. A lot of appliances. We were selling everything like it was. It was kind of bonkers. We had three bins of women's clothing that we separated into, like, small, medium, large, extra large. And it's freezing outside. And women loved standing at these bins looking for clothing that would be good for them. And it's 40 degrees in the shop. They still actually come into our nice new retail store and they're like, oh, we loved doing that over there.

It was unique. Now, what types of items sold particularly well and what types of items just didn't sell?

Yeah. So I get asked this all the time. I've been really successful selling everything. The thing that will slow you down is when you get something that needed to be worked on. So, like, we got a patio table in and the table was cracked. That would slow me down. Personally. What I found out is it shouldn't. There's a buyer for everything.

Yeah.

But. But I always have to tell myself I'm not my own customer because I don't buy cracked patio furniture. But other people do. They're happy to buy it. Yeah. And so it was really me slowing things down once I realized that there's a customer for everything. Maybe it's just a price adjustment or remarketing it a different story. Something. Everything's done really well. I haven't. I haven't found things that just don't sell.

Now, if you look at this business model as renting a spot on a busy road and selling all kinds of random things. Right. Let's say that's the business model.

Yeah.

Is there any market or any scenario where that business model wouldn't work?

No.

We're buying stuff that we're buying anyway.

Yeah. So realize the thing that frustrates me is I don't want to be captured by my market size. So I've really expanded my market now because I have the time to do it. Also, I sell a ton of stuff all over the state and my friends are like, why are you delivering this stuff? And I'm like, a couple reasons. I'm making a customer that's not a customer for this one transaction, they're going to buy from me forever. So I do a really good job of getting them, getting their information so I can remarket to them. But also just making a friend. And they're like, we have a friend that can get us stuff at a discount. Thank you. So I've tapped larger markets. So there's a person in the Tri Cities that I think you know of, Mike the weatherman that does the couch flipping.

Yeah, yeah.

So Mike just sold a set of golf clubs, a golf couple golf bags and some furniture that I had because when he doesn't have a couch to flip, I wanted him to have other product. And then I have a little shop at my in laws house in the Seattle market. And so I put stuff that actually won't. There's stuff that's slow selling in Ellensburg, Washington that's like the high end wine cooler nobody want. The farmers don't want a high end wine cooler. They want a freezer to put a side of beef in. And so I take anything that fits that market over there and I put it in their warehouse and and then I just meet people there or even my in laws will go down and meet people on. On Marketplace and, and take care of the transaction. Yeah, I'm trying to do that more places. As a matter of fact, my brother retired from the construction business because he's taking care of his sister in law and I just got him a pallet of used vacuum cleaners which we tell nobody to buy but because he was mean to me as a kid, I bought him a pallet of them and but all you have to do literally with these, clean with these vacuum cleaners is clean them up. They all work. They're just like I just cleaned when it was full of confetti and birthday cake. And the return reason was doesn't suction anymore.

Well, wonder why.

Yeah, wonder why. So but here's the unique thing. The parts of a Dyson vacuum sell really well on ebay and for more money than I'm buying the whole vacuum for.

Wow. Wow.

And so I was like, there's a great market, you just have to clean them.

Yeah. So what did you do after the month of October? You scaled to the Sears spot.

Here's the transition. So we went October, November, December, January, February, March and we were doing well. We were hitting that 60s and even a little higher sales volume every month. And then I got the opportunity to move into the Sears store and this will be a good lesson for everybody. So the Sears store is 6,000 square feet center of town, great retail space, move into it, no traffic. We don't have the cars driving by. I don't have the sidewalk to put stuff out on. And so sales actually dipped and didn't have a long period of time from when I was moving. But I literally had that reader board sign that I was telling you about said moving the address. We were handing out flyers to tell everyone. I still get people coming in the store. And they were like, oh, we found you. Weren't you the one that was in the tow truck shop? And I was like, yep, that's us. So I've had to do more marketing now, but the shopping experience is much better and my goal of selling the business is better because it would have been hard to sell. I know you and I might buy a business based off of profits. There's a lot of people that would be like, I'm running a store out of a tow truck shop and I have to have the door open and I got to roll all this stuff out. Doesn't seem appealing. This retail store looks like the real deal.

Yeah. Yeah.

So interesting. Yeah.

And then what was your rent at the Sears compared to 3,000amonth on the other place?

So my rent's 4,500, but I'm in a 6,000 square foot space. So I actually, I was below market for the space that I moved into and it wasn't much money, so. But my sales did take a dip. And I was like, Jim, did you just. Was this a mistake? And I was like, no, you just need to market more. And so I just turned on the marketing and keep growing. So I was complaining about this exact situation. Situation. I'm like, oh my gosh, my small town is frustrating the heck out of me. Here we have this great store, great prices, but I'm slow. So I posted on Facebook a post, jim's thinking about going out of business. We had our biggest day of the year. We did $15,000 in sales. Everyone came in, they're like, are you really closing? I go, no, I'm just thinking about closing. You were honest. You were honest. And they all crack and, and they

know they get it.

We had our best day. So my next, as a matter of fact, I decided I'm going to do it every month. I just haven't thought of my next hook.

Yeah. Yeah. Jim had a nightmare about closing his business.

Yeah, Jim's thinking about closing.

So all this started with like a twelve hundred dollar pallet. You just kept rolling profits back into it, buying bigger and bigger orders. Yeah.

So I'll tell the numbers. I started with that, that $1200 purchase and then took that profits, bought the next one and I just kept rolling. And then finally, and you'll understand this, when I got into the shop, I had all this extra space and buying auctions is fun. It's fun to find the deal, but a lot of people don't think about the next part. You got to sell it. And so I was like, okay. To control me from just being so excited about finding the deal, I'm going to give myself a budget. And I was like, I looked at my wife, I go, that's my budget. Don't ever let me take any more. It's either going to make it or not make it based on this. And so we've stuck to that. And this morning, she actually told me, she goes, okay, because now we pay more bills out of that business. We're paying car payments, and we have a loan. We have a government loan that got us through Covid. And so we're paying that payment as well. And so we're using the business to kind of fund some of that other stuff.

So what happened to the restaurants?

Sold all of them but the original.

Okay.

So did really well. I was very fortunate. I bought all the real estate for all of our businesses.

That's awesome.

So even though the restaurants were a grind, I was really. In the end, I was in the real estate business, and the real estate did really well.

Do you still like the. The restaurant equipment business? Would you suggest that others try that?

As a matter of fact, I. A couple Sundays ago on X, I posted, if you're into getting into the reselling business, tell me where you live, and I'll find an auction near you. And so the whole Sunday, I sat there on my couch, sending people all over the country these auction deals. And one of. I think you know him, he's in Utah. He bought a piece of restaurant equipment for, like, dollars, and he just listed it on marketplace for, I think, 3,500 bucks. He's gonna sell it and make great money. Another one was dog whistles. I found these dog whistles for sale on gov deals for, like, pennies. And on ebay, they sell for 10 bucks a whistle.

Holy cow.

Yeah. And then a really good guy in Kentucky reached out to me because he had already bought some restaurant equipment, but he doesn't know anything about restaurants. And he had three of the identical ovens for months. And he goes, jim, no one's responding to my ad. And I go, okay, you have three. You're not selling any of them. Offer a warranty, and worst case scenario, if something's wrong with the one you sell, you have two more as backup.

Guys, I hate to break it to you, but you're not very likely to actually start a business based on something you see or hear on this podcast, unless you spend a little more time with me and with other people that are doing just that. So come check out tkowners. That's tkowners.com where hundreds of people are launching, starting, testing, experimenting with business ideas that they heard from this podcast. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. Check out tkowners.com we'd love to have you.

He just messaged me yesterday. He goes, I changed the ad to warranty. It sold in two days.

Holy cow.

And I was like, dude, I love it.

Do you have to know a lot about restaurant equipment or can you just use chatgpt?

You should call me or text me. There's a few. Like, I don't buy everything. Restaurant equipment is going to be dirty, greasy. You know, you want gas appliances more than electrical appliances because a lot of restaurants don't have the capability to put up to install big electrical items. But there's a ton of money to be made in the, in the used restaurant business because it's a business. Like if I need an oven and I'm in the restaurant business and I actually need an oven, it's to keep me. It's to help me make money.

Would you say there's a lot of money to be made in finding these random local, local auctions, like liquidation auctions, or is there more money in like the bstot gov deals nationwide stuff?

I think the bstock gov deals is fantastic. B Stock does a great job. And I also think that there's more tools offered to you. Like B stock does a lot of teaching as well. And then Shannon Jean, I mean, great network of people that are helping and everybody, that group is powerful, man. Everybody wants you to succeed. So I would do that and get your feet wet and then start looking for some other things. I love this business because I get my money back and I can build up my bank and then make some different decisions on directions I want to go. So like the other day on gov deals, I literally got home, I logged in and there was a minute 50 to go on this 1989 Ford F450 truck. And it's the kind that has the big toolbox on the back with the welder and the crane and all the. And it was red. And I was like, what a cool truck. And it had like 79,000 miles and the bid was 8,000. And I quickly google searched. I'm like, just, the truck is worth that. What if I part it all out? And So I bid $100 more than the other bidders. And there was a lot of bids going on. No one bid. So I win this truck and went over and got it. I sold it. I actually, it's gov deals. When they post their photos, they put a watermark on everything. So you can see the gov deals watermark in the. Yeah. I posted those photos on my Facebook. I said, this truck will be in Ellensburg on Monday. And a guy reached out to me and bought it for 14,000 and I wanted to keep it. I drove around with my son. He didn't. He'd never seen a doorknob before. He's like, not a doorknob, but the window crank.

He never seen a window. Oh, one of these things.

Yeah, yeah. He's like, dad, what's that? I'm like rolling air conditioning.

Yeah. As long as you're driving. Yeah. If someone wanted to start doing this, liquidating items, what is the number one piece of advice you would give them?

I think start in your house. Start with something you already own. Don't go into debt to learn how to sell, because it's not the buying, it's the selling. So I tell people to learn how to sell. Before you learn how to buy, you know you're going to post something on marketplace and you're going to get 50 lowball offers. I want you to understand how to respond to those and still keep them as future customers. And so I might post something that's like a brand new set of golf clubs for $500 and someone will shoot me a offer for 250 or 300, and I go, oh, I'd love to help you. These are brand new. I do get some lightly used ones in. You want me to reach out to you when I have one of those in your price range? And they say yes. And I just keep them there going.

Yep.

Until I sell them. So like last week, last week, I sold or about two weeks ago, I sold three digital pianos and a golf bag I made. I netted in my pocket eleven hundred dollars. And I drove over to Seattle and delivered all. All of them. So. And that was off of one old marketplace listing. But people keep reaching out to me for digital pianos.

Yeah.

And so I just keep it going. I keep the ad up.

Tell me about this window thing.

So I went out with a buddy of mine who owned a glass company, and he goes, I really want to sell my glass company, and we're still young kids. And I go, why? You're making like 400 grand a year. Why don't you just Hire someone to run it. And he goes, do you want to run it? And I go, sure. And so that got me in the glass business. And he literally trained me for, like, two weeks. And then he went to Mexico for a month. I guess he was really burnout. So he was in Mexico. Mexico. I'm running his glass company. I break all of his sales records. Just same thing. Hustle and solve problems. He comes back. It was kind of a. You know that tin man sales where you're selling replacement windows and things like that? So, like. Like, we'll take a picture of your house before and after and use it for marketing. But it was a little shady. The guys that were teaching him were shady, and I didn't love their sales tactics. Anyway, one day I was at a job, and the delivery showed up with the invoice for the windows. And they had just told me, sell every window for $1,000. You don't even have to measure. Just sell them all for $1,000, which was what I was doing. And so then an invoice shows up, and I'm like, oh, my gosh. Like, we're making thousands. I'm selling you a window for a thousand dollars that we're paying $150 for. For. And I just put 22 of them in your house. And so I go, gary, you need to give me a raise or put me on a bigger commission. And he goes. This is his exact words. He goes, just start your own glass company. And I looked at him with that weird look, like, really? And so I went to Kinko's that night at midnight and made a business card and a flyer and printed them all out. And the next day with Shannon, my fiance, we drove to this neighborhood that had all aluminum windows, and we taped these flyers on people's doors. I set up six qualified appointments. I sold all six new windows. And that week, every day when I'd get home after an appointment, we would figure out our cost and what I sold them for. And that week, I made $52,000 selling windows. And I was like, oh, my gosh. And this. This is now with the. The woman I'm married to. But I was so in love with her. I was like, you're in good hands.

Yeah.

And the mistake that I made because I was still new in business was I put the windows in myself. And so when I started installing windows, I wasn't out selling. And that kind of created a snowball of cash flow and. And other things. So I made it. But it would be much more successful now. If I jumped back in, if your

competitor was selling him for a thousand, what were you selling him for?

Some of the competitors would be close to that, but most would be selling that same window in the $500 range.

Is that what you were at, too?

No, I was selling at a thousand, so we were expensive. You mean when I started my own.

When you had the job or when you started your own business?

So I did it. So I had the job selling them for $1,000 a whole. And then when I put the flyers on people's houses, I was quoting at a thousand. I was just more flexible. And so the very first sale, it's still ingrained in my memory. I can. I was. I was in the house. Husband and wife, 22 windows, two patio doors, and they want to buy. But they said, jim, let us think about it. And I go, yeah, no, no problem. And I sat down on their couch, and I started reading a book, and I didn't say a word. It was. Even though I know what I'm doing, it was the most uncomfortable few minutes of my life.

Oh, I'm sure.

And they're sitting there like, what is he doing? We. You know, we thought we had him with that. Let us think about it.

And you're like, oh, you think I'm. That's the first time I've heard that.

Yeah. So all of a sudden, they say something to me, and I look up and I go, you know what? I probably didn't show you enough about the features and benefits of this window. Literally, like, straight out of the Zig Ziglar book. And so I went over the windows again, and they told me. They go, jim, we had another quote, and it was quite a bit less than yours. And I go, oh, can you get it? And sure enough, they bring me out an estimate from somebody else. Well, it was so much. It was 17,000. It was like $5,000 less, I think, than where I was at. And I was like, how do I lower the price? I want the job still. How do I lower the price without

looking like an idiot?

Yeah. So I said, you know what? I can't lower the price like this. But we do have a marketing department that spends money on marketing. Can I call them? And they go, sure. So I walked down to my van, and I called myself head of marketing. And I went back up, and I said, you know the yard sign that I want to put in your yard when I'm installing your windows? And they go, yep. I go, would you keep it here for three months? And they said, Yep. And I said, I have other appointments in your neighborhood. If one of your neighbors wants to call you to see how I'm doing, would you be willing to take five phone calls? I go, I'm not going to bother you with the bad ones, just the good ones. And they go, sure. And I go, okay, we can. We can approve it then. And then the last objection, she. She wasn't even an objection, but she threw it out at me. She goes, jim, last time we had a contractor, they left our house messy every day. And I don't know where this came from, but I said, I'm here helping you pick out the right window. I'll be back here with my brother, because I was hiring my brother to install help me, because I never put a window in before for other than the few from the other company. And I said, I'll be back to put the windows in with my brother. And then my mom comes to make sure we leave your house mom clean and finishes up the final paperwork. And the lady goes, we'll take them.

And I was like, you signed.

Your mama invented the Mom Clean clothes. And so I called my mom, and I go, mom, when I'm done putting these windows, because I was so excited, I just made this big sale, I go, mom, when I. When I put these windows in, I need you to come to their house and make sure that we cleaned it. And she. And then she's, well, why wouldn't you clean it? And I go, I am going to clean it. I just need you to come do it and get the paperwork and the other half of the check. So that started my window business, and away we went.

That's amazing.

But I didn't love the business, and I am a good salesperson, but at one point in that cycle, I would get a twitch in my left eye every time I set an appointment. And I'd be looking in the mirror. Can you see my eye twitching? No. As a muscle reflex. That was just like, jim, this isn't aligning with how you really want to help people. The mom clean clothes, and all this other stuff that I would have to go through to get to the sale. And so that's why I was like, I want to get out of this and do something that people just love and want to pay me and come back more and more. So that's what pushed me into the restaurant business.

Okay. Do you think that, like, someone starting a window business today is still viable?

I would love to teach someone how to do it or jump back in it, because it's even more viable because of technology. Now you can send me a photo that instantly gives me so much more information and helps me pre qualify you and so many other things. One of the big problems was traffic in Seattle. So the final straw was I was driving home and I got a message that someone wanted a free estimate on a broken window. And they were south of me. And I looked at southbound traffic on the freeway, and I was like, it would take me two hours to get to them. How do I replace a $400 window when I'm going to be stuck in traffic? And so now with the phone, super simple.

I mean, I was on a call with a guy just the other day, and he had just invested in a local window business, and he was like, they're kind of stagnant. How should they find customers? And I just pulled up the Facebook, the meta ads library, and started looking for window companies here in DFW and saw, you know, dozens of them with dozens of ads each. And I'm like, oh, Facebook ads. And then we kind of looked at, like, what the Facebook ads were doing. There were still images. They were before, after. They weren't instant form. They led to the. The landing page with a contact us form. I said, just copy exactly that. And a week later, he's like, dude, our leads tripled Facebook. Yeah, like, that's it. So when you combine, like, endless lead flow plus high margins, it's gotta be a good business. The window business.

It's great margins. So I ended up, you know, I was. For my lead gen, I hired crews that would literally tape that same flyer in neighborhoods every single day. And so I'd get four guys back in the day, hand them a stack of flyers and rolls of tape, and they would just canvass the streets and tape these flyers on people's doors. So, yeah, it was pretty crazy. And then later, because, you know, I didn't know any better, I got a full Back then it was called full Truck. So I picked the very center seam of your phone book. So I got both pages where it automatically opened because that's where the staple seam was. And I had a double ad on both sides. Super expensive. So now I'm working for the phone book company. I really have to sail a lot more windows.

I love it.

Yeah.

Jim, I've got another episode starting in three minutes, but where can people find you if they want to reach you? This has been amazing.

I appreciate you. So Twitter, I think, is the or link to you best spot under reseller row. Restaurant row, Jim Row. You'll find me and join the Shannon Jean group. And I'm in there helping people all the time, so.

Okay, well, link to you. Thank you, Jim.

Yeah, appreciate you.

You're probably listening to this or watching this right now, thinking, oh, my buddy could do this. Oh, my friend this. Oh, my, my father. Oh my brother in law. Yeah, send this to them, please. Just share this with them. I want to enable entrepreneurship and you sharing this episode with them helps that happen. Thank you for doing that.