590 – Make money on the small stuff: Tom talks Small Sales

Episode 590 – Small Sales
[00:00:09] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with Episode 592 Screw the Commute podcast. Today we're going to talk about small sales. See, I'm going to go over the value of small sales as opposed to always going for the big stuff. And you'll find that you can make a lot of money doing small sales. I hope you didn't miss Episode 589. That was about VPNs or virtual private networks. This is a service you can purchase that really ups your privacy of where you're searching. It's got plenty of business uses and pleasurable uses, too. So that's episode 589. And of course, anytime you want to get to a back episode, you go to screwthecommute.com, slash and then the episode number. And while you're at it, you should pick up a copy of my automation e-book. I've been hitting you with this for, like, 600 episodes. I don't know. So you're crazy if you haven't downloaded this thing and use the the ideas. Or maybe you just like to just play with your computer and spend hours doing stuff that should take minutes. Maybe that's what you like. Maybe that's you. Maybe that's why you haven't downloaded it yet. Maybe you're too lazy to learn. Take, I don't know, 15 or 20 minutes and learn a new technique that'll save you hundreds of hours. Maybe you're that stupid. I don't know. So download the darn thing at screwthecommute.com/automatefree.

[00:02:00] All right. Let's talk about small sales. So I was having breakfast the other day and I usually watch some type of YouTube training video as I'm having breakfast. I don't have any particular topic I'm searching for. I usually just scroll through the suggested videos until I see something that interests me. Now, I may need some specific training, like boning up on stuff like I have to put in a water heater this weekend, which is going to save me probably $1,500 for like an hour's work. So I just reminded myself of the things because I don't do it like a plumber does all the time, but I have the ability to do it. So I might watch something on wiring, a hot water heater or some stuff like that. But anyway, I just got video suggested to me this was a woodworking guy and he was talking about small sales. And so he makes furniture and and sells the items he makes at craft and home fairs. And maybe he takes four days to make a coffee table or end table or something. And he charges maybe, I don't know, 400 or $600. He didn't really say how much he charges. But but anyway, he goes to these fairs and he sits there all day and sometimes he sells one of his tables or chairs or whatever he's selling or and sometimes he doesn't.

[00:03:28] One day at the fair, he was talking to one of the antique vendors who had been selling it these things for many years. So he was very experienced and and he told the woodworking guy, you've got to have lots of items for sale than just your big ticket items. He had a bunch of lower priced items for sale in addition to his big expensive antiques. So the woodworking guy went home and he went through his scrap wood pile. I mean, this was pulled he pulled out little pieces of wood that were too short for use on any of his larger tables and stuff. And and he started making some wall hangings. And this was basically throwaway wood. This wasn't good for anything. He even got his kids involved in making stuff and he made some arrows and some religious crosses. It was basically junk wood. And all the while he was remembering what the old timer had told him. And. And that was the people come to these events. They planned to buy something. And he also said that everybody has 20 bucks to spend at one of these things. So when he was the woodworking guy was thinking about what to charge for this basically scrap wood that he was turned into wall hangings. He charged 20 bucks or maybe 30 or 40 if they were really big.

[00:04:59] And he also said that arrow wall hangings sell well, for some reason, I don't know. So he and his kids made arrows and they put little picture hanging things on the back side, and he sold them for 20 bucks. Then he had an old four by four, so he cut it into one inch sections, sanded them a little and put polyurethane. I think that's what it's called on on them and sold them as a set of five for 30 bucks as coasters. Now, do you know how many one inch coasters you can get out of an eight foot four by four? Right. I mean, if you take into consideration the thickness of the saw blade cuts, you can probably get 93 or 94 coasters out of a four by four. So that's approximately 19 sets at 30 bucks a set. That's 570 bucks from one four by four and a little bit of effort sanding them down and polyurethane. So he took his wall hangings and coasters to his next show and each show thereafter. And he could pretty much guarantee it would be a highly profitable day whether he sold any of his big ticket items or not. So what's the purpose of this story? Well, the purpose is to get your thinking of how selling lots of little things can not only give you a great cash flow, especially if they're digital.

[00:06:35] And in addition, they lead people to buying your bigger stuff. Now, I don't know if this woodworking guy was smart enough to capture information for follow up from people buying his wall hangings and coasters. But at least he could put a business card in with each purchase so people would remember him and call him for more stuff or or maybe some big ticket customer furniture. Custom furniture or. Or maybe he glued his business card onto the back of the wall hanging. I know that would have been a good thing, but as an online marketer, you have an even bigger advantage in that you will get the person's email address when they buy something from you online so you can keep in touch with the buyer pretty much forever. So, you know, as long as you keep giving them good value. Also, you don't have to have a woodshop or a metal shop or any kind of physical tools other than a computer. And you don't have to haul stuff to craft shows and flea markets and sit there all day. What we're talking about is a concept that I mean, there was a book written about it called The Long Tail. And to me, that means a lot of little stuff adds up to big stuff. Now. I knew one guy who sold enormous amounts of $7 or less special reports, and he made a fortune. And like I just said about the woodworking guy, hopefully capturing the email addresses of his buyers for follow up, you can use your smaller products to lead to the bigger sales.

[00:08:18] Many of the more than 1700 mentees over the years. That I've had got introduced to me through one of my eBooks that start around $17. And as I teach in my book, Masterminds. Each e-book should give great quality but lead to something bigger. Most of my ebooks lead to my mentor program for Internet and digital marketing, or my pro speaking mentor program or online courses from $97 to $497. Or to my school, which has a $19,100 tuition. Which I might add, is a bargain compared to how families and students are getting ripped off by major colleges who teach the kids nothing, and other than to party and protest and put them in debt for many years. So spend some time developing a bunch of lower priced products, preferably E products, online courses, e-books and so forth that give you a 97% profit and good cash flow. And they also lead to bigger things that you sell or speaking engagements or consulting contracts or whatever. And of course, if you want the best training available in online and digital marketing, get in touch with me and we'll discuss your future online. Well, folks, I got to run. There's a flea market this weekend. I've been looking for some wall hangings. All right, I'll catch you on the next episode. See you later.
 
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