The Exhausting Reality of Being a Streamer | Pack Fresh Podcast Ep. 32

Everyone sees the Instagram posts, the crazy, crazy streams, the packed out shows, but with a lot of people don't see is the behind the scenes and everything it takes to get there. Today we're going to talk about the five hardest things about being a streamer or a vendor. If you're thinking about getting into this hobby more as a business, this episode for you. So welcome back to the Pack Fresh podcast where we talk about all things Pokemon TCG and give you a little peek behind the curtain of what it's like to be a seller in this crazy hobby. And they were really given quite the peek behind the curtain. So let's, let's get into it. It's not all rainbows and sunshine, you know. It is not, it is not. It is probably the best job in the world, but there is definitely some, some stressors and there's some, some, there's a lot of stuff you gotta go through and we're gonna talk about that day. I mean I'm, I'm excited to have this one. Yeah, it's a good one. Job's a loose term though, right? According to most of the people in the comments that say to get a real job. So it's always a good one. Perfect. We'll just get a real job. Thanks. Number one out of the five, finding inventory. This is truly a job that just never stops. You always have to have fresh inventory. You have to keep replenishing. I've seen this more and more. I mean this, this one applies to both streamers and vendors at shows. I've had so many vendors that at, at shows where I've bought majority of what they have or their, all their sealed product or a certain like category of product they have. And then I'll see them at another show like a month, month and a half later and they really haven't even bought anything else or refilled anything. They're just lacking now. So. Right. That's, that's one of the hardest things. How do you grow the business? How do you do better if you're still selling just the same leftovers every time? So, so that's one of the things that separates the better vendors, the better streamers from everyone else in the group. Obviously, you know, you source a lot of inventory. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about, you know, how that looks for you. I mean it's non stop. Right. Like I, I stream every single day, Monday through Friday and then Saturdays and Sundays are pretty much my days to go replenish because I stream during the day. Most people like on Facebook, Marketplace and stuff like that. Like that you're just talking to throughout the week. Don't really want to meet in the middle of the night, right? Like that's, it's already a sketch thing. So I don't want to deal with that. I don't want to go to some random person's house in the middle of the night to pick up, you know, 10 packs of black Bolt. But I'll usually find a show or I'll do, you know, meet up, you know, schedule three or four meetups on Saturday and Sunday to then, you know, be buying out collections and buying just as much as I can. And it's just all week, just whenever I have for a free second quote, unquote, it's just always talking to people, messaging people on Instagram that have things posted for sale, right? Like people do story sales all the time on Instagram and stuff like that. And I'm just constantly trying to talk to people. I have other people that I send buy lists to and stuff like that where it's like, okay, if you can find this for me, you know, get it for whatever you want it and I'll pay this, right? And, and whatever it is. But it's just a constant, constant flow because it could get wiped out in a day, right? Like if I have a really good stream, like a really, really good stream the next day I'm like, that was awesome. But now, no, do you go from here? I need stuff again, you know, so. And it's, it's just like that constant balance of like, okay, how much can I buy this weekend if, you know, if next week I have a really, really good week, then the weekend after that, what's going on, right? Like where can I go? What can I do to, to constantly just have new stuff, right? And just always be refreshing and, and having a restock day and having like stuff like that, that's always been my like thought process is just like if I constantly have new stuff for people to look at, then you know, maybe I have a, a good chance of those people coming back again and then again and again just makes it something a little fresh as well. So it'. Yeah, the same stuff day after day after day. It's just gets mundane. Nobody. It's the same things I've seen every day. I don't want this. I need something new, right? And so you put a little something new and it kind of just refreshes the whole catalog because it's just not the exact same stuff. You have something new, you Have a new focal point, you have a new box to break, you have new blisters, you have new. Something new or something unique. And, and that just really adds quite an advantage over people who aren't doing that in the same industry as you. I would say it also, when you're sourcing, you want to have a good mix of inventory. Yes. With, with this particular category, right. I mean, some stuff you sell two, three of the same thing over and over and over again. Pokemon, you could, I mean, you could probably do pretty well carrying say just the great sets, right? If you carry like top five sets of right now and that's all you carried, I'm sure you would do pretty good. But outside of that, it's nice to just have like a wide variety of stuff for people. Also modern. It's also just super competitive, right. Like if you were to go that route and you're like, oh, I want the, the top five most popular sets. Like everybody wants that, right? Like everybody wants those sets. Everybody need those sets. And I mean there's been times where we're having to get like quantity of something. That's another thing that like, I think a lot of people don't really know and understand is like when I'm like buying say Ascended Heroes, right? Like everybody wants to send it to Heroes. It's amazing set. It's going to be ripped for a very long time at a very high volume. I could find 10, 15 packs at a time at a screaming deal, I'm sure. But like I need thousands of packs, right? Like there's, there's weeks where I go through what, two, three thousand packs of Ascended Heroes. And it's like to get that type of quantity, like that's a lot of 10, 15 pack deals. It's a lot of 10, 15 pack deal, you know, so it's like you got to pay more for those. It's like very counterintuitive because it's like you think you're like, oh yeah, well, I'm buying 5,000 packs of this from you, like, give me a really good deal. And it's the opposite. It's like you're paying up to get the convenience of being able to buy so many packs at a time. A lot of people definitely don't understand. I mean it is in other categories of, or other sales channels. Obviously, you know, buy in bulk, you get a deal. The problem is with this is bulk is in high demand. So it's really hard to accumulate so many packs. So for some, for one person to have 5,000 packs to sell you. It's. You're definitely going to pay up on that. Collections. Buying collections versus distributors. Now I think everyone just thinks, oh, distro is this great magical machine that everybody makes all this money off. I just. I don't think people really understand how it works, how few people actually have distribution. And then the fact that they're like, oh, you have distro. You should charge this X price because you have it. Like, I just made a deal with one of our distributors last week where we brought in like 110,000 worth of inventory and we're going to end up losing like nine grand on the deal when. When it's all said and done. Yeah. And it's part of the cost of doing business. You have to make a deal like that because they kind of figure out how much you're going to get based off your. It's based off of your spend. So if we don't spend that, someone else is going to spend that, and then they become that much higher than us. So you lose that. And then there's products that come out that MSRP is 55, but you can sell it for 90. Well, that's how you make back all this other money you're losing. So distributing it's a big game. Not everybody can play it because so few people have it like a normal vendor or streamer. They don't have distribution from anybody. Right. And what I've heard, and correct me if I'm wrong, but what I've heard is, you know, I mean, like, you were kind of touching on. You have to keep buying from them. Right. Like, if you. If you're not buying from, then they'll cut you back on the stuff you actually want. Right. Like, so you won't get as much of, you know, say Ascended Heroes 2 comes out, you want 10,000 packs of it, but you've only been buying a thousand packs of every other set, whatever. Right. Like, that's like the only what you've ordered, though. They're going to be like, well, no, like, we're going to give the 10,000 packs to the person who's been buying 10,000 packs consistently from us. Everybody. Yeah, they definitely do that. What? And then the other thing I've kind of heard is they're not always just charging that low price. Right. Like, it's. You get some stuff at that, you know, to be sold at MSRP price. But that's not always the case. Yeah, it's. And it's never enough for what you need either. Right. Like, we Were just looking through pitch black and it's like the volume that we've sold of pitch black, maybe 8% of that comes from. Not even 8%. Probably 5% of that comes from distro ad distro pricing. Right. The other 95% comes at full market buying from other people that we have in the, in the pipeline. So that 5% just blends in and gives us a little bit better overall pricing on all the Pokemon that we're receiving. Right. But. Right. Doesn't do very much for us. And then as soon as your first wave comes, then they'll come out with some Pokemon deals. Every distro does it differently. Some charge basically market price on those items to rebuy. So you're. You want them? Yeah, of course I do. Sure. I want the spend you basically pay market. Some of it's over market. Yeah. And then you. Yeah, of course I'll take it. Thank you. Some of them will keep it at that allocated price, but they'll be like, oh, you need to also buy $8,000 worth of supplies, like top loader sleeves, you know, so they'll do that two, three times a month. You end up with two pallets of top loaders. You know what? Okay, sick. Now I have just a warehouse of shipping supply or like card supplies. So it's, it's interesting buying a collection, though. It's. It's kind of the same thing. Right. Like, so distro kind of a game, buying a collection. It's, you know, you're buying everything. Yeah. A lot of times, I mean, you're not going to get the deal you want unless you're buying at all. Right. Like if you're, if somebody has a $10,000 collection. Right. Of all kinds of stuff and you're like paying, picking and choosing. You're like, oh, yeah, well, I want the evolving skies from here. I want, you know, this, this. I want like all the top items. And then they're gonna be like, oh, you're leaving me with Pokemon Go and Battle styles and you know, like all these, like, you know, lower tier sets that like, aren't really movers. Right. I'm sure there's fans, but generally speaking, right, like, you know, it's like a bunch of ETBs that like, for me don't really move that well. Right. Like ETBs just take up a ton of space and you know, you don't necessarily want those, but unless you're buying all that, the person you're buying it from isn't going to be like, yeah, sure, let's. I'll give you a great deal on all this, and I'll just keep all the stuff that I wanted to get rid of in the first place. Yeah, yeah. And that. That kind of reminds me with the same thing with Distro even, because all these products came out and we had chaos. Wave 1, Wave 2, the Series 2 boxes just came out. Also the new decks came out. And so it's. You don't pick and choose with this either. You're buying basically the whole collection. So, you know, we're getting cases of all this other stuff. You know, we're also getting 25 cases of decks that no one wants. Right. So now you got to figure out something to do with 25 cases of decks, and there's no way you're breaking even on those. So that's just another. Another thing that kind of makes it hard. But the other thing with buying a collection is it's not always just sealed. So they'll have graded, they'll have raw. Right. It's their entire collection. They want to move an entire collection. So now you have to have multiple different outlets, or most vendors or streamers kind of only do one thing. No one's really running singles on Tuesday and then ripping on Thursday, you know. Right. So now you gotta kind of work with some other people in the space that. That do that, and maybe you can trade them for some deals that they made and you can trade your raw for their sealed or, you know, whatever you're looking for and just kind of build a path that way. Right. I mean, I've traveled very far for shows and stuff like that, but. Or like a, like, local ish collection. I want to say I've driven probably three or four hours to. To pick something up. I mean, I would probably go further if it, you know, if the deal was good enough. And it made a lot, you know, made a lot of sense. Yeah. But, yeah, probably about three or four hours is probably the furthest that I've, like, driven for something. And I know, like, so the other thing to look at here is like, where are you at in this? What level are you at in this? Because right. If you're early on, you probably don't have that much cash. You're just starting. You, you know, you got a lot to. To kind of work through. You're building up an audience, things like that, going to miss opportunities purely just because you can't afford them. Yeah. Here I got this collection I want you to buy. It's 50,000. You're like, I only have 20,000, you know, I guess I can't get it, you know, so that missing out on stuff like that is tough, too. I had a lot of deals like that come by. Like when I was just starting out, you know, I had five, $10,000 of, you know, liquid money to work with every weekend. And it was like, I'd be at a show and people would be like, well, I can deal with you if you buy this, but, like, you need to buy all of this. And it's like, I don't have that. I don't have that. You know, it's like, you know, I. I want this. Or like, you know, recently I had a deal come across even, and it was like some booster boxes, some XY booster boxes. And like, it was like 15 booster boxes in total, and I picked out like six of them. I was like, yeah, you know, these ones I'm interested in. And they were like, well, take them all. And I'm like, I don't know if I want all of them. Right. Like, you know, and it. It was like at the end of a day of a show, and it's like, I already spent a bunch of money and I'm just like, I don't think I want all those. Like, it was just stuff that wasn't all the greatest stuff and whatever, but they were like, well, I have somebody who will take all of it, so unless you want to pay the full ask on these, then whatever. Right. It's like, I guess I'll make the next deal. Yep. Do you remember any times where you bought too much of something or not enough of something? Yeah, yeah, all the time. That stick out. I have one in my mind that sticks out. I mean, I wish I had bought. I had an opportunity to buy triple the amount of ascended heroes than I bought, and I really wish I did because it is a ton, ton harder to get now. And I would probably still be working through that. It was a large amount of packs, but. But it was, you know, it was a price that really made sense. And. And it was just all at once. Would have been really, really great. I do agree. That would have been really, really great. One that sticks out in my mind is Crown Zenith. We were buying Crown Zenith for like, what, three, like, $3 a pack? 370 a pack? Yeah. And then what did they have it for, like $5 or like, oh, it's so greedy. We don't want that. Yeah, I'm not buying this. What do you mean $5 for? Please take me back. I'll take 500,000 packs right now. Yeah, that's. I just, I think back to that conversation we had and I'm like, get out of here. We're not buying those from you. Trying to get us for all this extra money. Once you have all this inventory and you're doing this every day and you're, you got enough stuff and you found good connections. That brings us to, you know, our number two topic here, streaming and vending. Looks easy until you do it. And Wash will tell you from his kind of point of view here, me having a store hiring streamers, I see it from a little bit of a different angle. Yeah. But for both of us, it's, it's like everybody on the outside, even, you know, people that apply to work, it's the same thing. They're like, you just open packs, what an easy job. Blah, blah, blah. It's like, well, sort of. Right, Yeah. I mean, that is true. Right? On the, you know, on the very, very surface level, right. Like, it is a very fun, fun thing to do. But there is a lot that goes into it. And to do it at what I would consider a high level, you know, you are entertaining, you're selling, you're reading the chat at the same time, right? You're doing one thing, reading the chat. You're fixing any tech issues that come up, which come up a lot, right? Like you're tracking orders, making sure payments go through, dealing with trolls, right? Like, and then all on top of that, you're live for. At least the way I do is, you know, four, five, six hours. And you have to keep high energy throughout that whole time because at the end of the day, it's entertainment and people don't want to come in and watch you stream if you're sitting there. Here's a pack. Nice. You got a hit, right? Like it's golf. Yeah. Yeah. Like, yeah, that would be a crazy stream. I'm sure some people would enjoy it. But yeah, at the end of the day, it's like, you know, you're, you're, you gotta stay positive through the whole thing and, and it doesn't always go well, right. You know, whether you are dollar starting and like, you're just getting cooked, right? You can't be sitting there complaining. Nobody wants to hear you complain, right? Nobody's going to sit there and be like, I feel so sorry for the streamer man who has a super fun job. Right? Like, you know, there, you know, other people are at their jobs and they're like using you as a getaway. You Know, to like have a, you know, have an escape from that. Yeah. You know, and, and it's like one of the ways I see it too is like I have that responsibility to. If they're having a shitty day, if they're having a crappy day, then like, it's on me to help make it less crappy. Right. Like, and, and, and I take like a lot of pride in that. So it's like I would say yes with like a grain of salt. Right? Because. Right. There's some people that all they do every day is come in and complain about how crappy their day was. And it's like, that's like a different issue because now you're dealing with somebody who all they do is complain every day in and out. It's like, can you just relax a little bit? Like. Yeah. I mean, it can grind on you too, right? Like if you like, you know, I mean, it happens a lot where like people don't have somebody to talk to and so they come into the stream and they'll, you know, they'll just talk about their problems, you know, asking for anybody to respond. Right. And like it puts you in a really tough spot because it's like that sucks. But like stream still has to go on, right. And like it's, it's a very, very, like it drains you emotionally, right? Because you're like, like, damn, that really sucks. And it's usually people you care about, right? Like, it's people you see you talk to every single day a lot of times and it's like, damn, like, what do you do? You know, and a one off. I get it because I mean, we have a lot of members in our communities that they're in the streams every day. They love watching. They like, you know, participating in the streams or watching the streams, engaging with the chat, which is great, you know, and obviously everyone has a bad day here and there. For sure. It is what it is. I mean, everybody. There's no one that just wakes up every day and has the best day ever, every day. So I, I understand that. And you do you feel for those people and it's like, man, that's terrible. I feel so bad, you know, and it's. What can you do? I mean, nothing really, you know, like, keep it moving. Show condolence and you know, kind of move on with that. But it's like, yeah, try to like, show them something to get their mind off of, you know, whatever they're dealing with and. Yeah. Or related to a story of something that happened like that to you, you know, because that's as. Everybody has bad days. A lot of people have had the similar bad days, so. Yeah, interesting. That's you. It's a good point. Everybody has bad days. I mean, like, you know, the thing I. I struggle with a lot, like, personally, is like, if I'm having a bad day or a bad week, really trying to, like, not bring that in the stream. Right. And it's like, again, everybody has bad days. Like, if you're in a bad mood or like, you know, it's just. Nothing's going right that day. It's. You still got to hit, go live. Right. You still have to, you know, be energetic and still be. It's your job. Right. Like, you still gotta. You gotta do the thing. Yeah. And I've been in sales a long time, and it's always the same training. It's, you know, you have to check all the extra stuff at the door. Yeah. And now you're in this mode and it. I mean, some stuff that happens, it's tough. Yeah. That makes it a tough day, you know, but you still do it. You know, you might seem a percentage down from where you're normally at, you know, but that's like personal life interfering with what you're doing. Right. There's also. You could be having a good day and you get started vending. You get started streaming, and it's a dead stream or it's a dead show. You know, low viewer count or low buyer count or low people, like, amount of people that have come to the shows. You know, some of these shows right now, it's the beginning of summer, there's graduation parties. This affects both card shows and streams. I've seen kind of a dip in both for the last couple of weeks because there's just so much other stuff going on and people are filled with other options and other things to do because it's nice outside, finally, the weather's better, you can get outside, you can go camping, you can go on vacation, you can do all these things. Kids are out of school for the summer, so that's also a big part of it. So the last couple shows I've been to and some of the streams has been a little tougher. It's, you know, now you gotta manage something like that. Right now you gotta manage. I usually get 40 viewers. Tonight I have 10. Or you normally have 15 viewers, and now you have four. You know, that's a whole different night for you. So it's like, how do you manage that? And I'd say, like, the Hardest part is when you don't have engagement in the chat. If you have a couple people and they're engaging back and forth in the chat, it makes it so much easier. Even if it's the slowest night, you just have to act like it's still a busy night. You be. You have to be the same, whether it's five viewers or 500 viewers, you have to have that same energy. If you're bored on camera, staring at your screen, like, getting lost in a daze, like, you're never gonna attract new people because as they swipe by, they're like, what the heck? Lost interest. I'm outta here. Yeah, I mean, you never know who's gonna be popping into the stream for the first time, right? And it's like if you're. If it's slow in there, which it will be. Everybody has slow days. Everybody has slow times. You know, I deal with it all the time, right? Like. Like a lot of times I'm very fortunate to have a great stream with a lot of people who are super active and always talking, and we have an awesome community. But even then, there's still days where it's just. It's just slow. People are doing stuff that day. Like, you know, a lot of the regulars just, for whatever reason, didn't make it on the same day. And, you know, just not a lot is going on. But you kind of just got to push through that because who knows, somebody could come in, swipes in for the first time, and that is their first example of you, their first few seconds with you. And if you're still sitting there, positive, and. And looks like you're having a good time, then they might stick around for another 10, 20 seconds and maybe they say hi, right? Like, then you have a new person to talk to. But if you're just sitting there and you're not saying anything and it looks like you're uninterested, and it doesn't look like you want to be there. They probably won't say hi, they're gone. You only have so many seconds with everybody. And, you know, honestly, it is. It's so hard to stay positive when it's a low viewer count, when, like, the sales are so slow. But you have to, because every couple seconds, at least, somebody's, like, scrolling through. Even on a slow day, like, people trickle in and out, and if you can grab their attention, they might stick around. You might even have a customer for life, like, depending on the circumstance. You never know. And if instead you. You decide to just. It's a slow night. I'm just going to end the stream now. You don't know because maybe in a half hour from now, somebody comes through that would have, you know, bought a good amount of stuff. You never know. So. Yeah, or even bought one thing, right? Like sometimes that's all it takes. I mean, like there, there's nights where, you know, I'm on stream and people haven't bought anything for an hour, two hours. And then all of a sudden somebody buys one thing and then that snowballs into somebody else thing is like, you know what? Yeah, I'll buy something too. And then another person, yeah, sure, I'll buy that. And then one of those people maybe goes back in and you know, and then soon enough it's like we're moving, right? Like things are happening again and. Or they rip like a niche product that somebody like a bunch of people didn't know what it was. You have a few people in there and then they all want to get one because. Right. They're like, wow, that was kind of cool. I want one of those. And then it just kind of starts a little opening train, you know, on. Let's. I want one. I want one too. You get burned out. I have dealt with burnout several times throughout my career. I, I dealt with it a lot in my, like, call of duty streaming times where, you know, I, I am a work of all workaholic, big time, right? When I really enjoy something, I am all in, right? And so it was for me in that time, streaming all day, every day, then creating content, editing videos, posting videos, researching how to improve, improve those videos, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now it's sourcing and doing all these other things and, and preparing and doing inventory and shipping and all these things. It gets to be a lot for sure. And I, I've learned over the years, like, I mean, you know, like after I get off stream, I, I try to unplug for a couple hours and spend some time with my wife and, and you know, have some dinner and all that stuff and just kind of get away a little bit. But it's tough. I mean, it's, I have a constant fear of if I'm not doing something, then I'm falling behind. Right. And it's not the healthiest, not the healthiest thing but though, I mean, if you won't do it, someone else will. That's always how I think about it as well. I'm, I'm always working. It's, yeah. Crazy. I don't, I don't deal with burnout very often. But, you know, if it hits just sometimes it's like 15 things go crazy in one day, you know? Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I mean, when. Sit there and fix all that, you know, burnout is brutal. I mean, like when it hits you, it. It hits you. I mean, like when I. When I get burnout, it's. It's like I feel like I'm trying to do things and there is, you know, 50 things tying me to the ground. And it's just like everything feels like it's taking longer. I'm like, not having fun with it and. And it's. It's just everything is harder and, you know, that's. It's not fun. It's not a fun feeling. Yeah. Yeah, it gets. It gets to be a lot. You know, I think shell burnout gets a little crazier because you're traveling. Yeah. And for the most part, if it's like, say you're like a full time vendor, it's your only job, you're traveling, it's a lot of hotels. You're just setting up, working all day long, finishing for the night. If the catalog all the stuff you bought from out throughout the day and price it and get it ready for the next day, and then you vent through the entire weekend and then trav back home and then do it again the next weekend. And I could see the days are just so much more longer and mundane. And the fact that it's a set amount of hours every day. Right. Like, yeah, Stream is always a set of or should be a set amount of hours. Right. Some people just kind of hop on, hop off whenever they want. But most people be like, we're live this amount of hours, you know, up up to all day every day. But then you're streaming, you're not doing any of these other things. Right. So I think it just gets to be a lot. And it's like. Then you just deal with like, normal stuff, like getting sick. Right. You get a cold. Yeah. You still gotta go live. Can't take three days off, two days off. Whatever it is. You lose your voice as a string. It's tough, but it's like, all right, we're gonna. The amount of times where I've felt myself losing my voice and like, just willed myself to not and just like have tea and like, you know, all of the. The tricks in the book, like, try to, you know, you gotta do it. Yeah. You know, and the nice thing about our. Our group, our friend group is, you know, we do travel a Lot. We do stream a lot. We work a lot. But you know, we also will be out there and then we kind of treat ourselves as well. So it's kind of nice. Like it's not all work all the time. Take a little flower break and you know, reset and it's always, you know, it's nice. I, we kind of manage it and balance it pretty well. I think it's something everybody has to figure out what they can, you know, handle. Basically everyone's going to have a different threshold. Have you ever wanted to end a stream after 20 minutes? You just go live and you're like, no, not today. After 20 minutes? Probably not. Maybe an hour. Maybe an hour. I mean, I, there has been times where it's just been like, it's been crazy slow. But I, I have like a rule for myself that like I'm going to stream for a minimum of this and if it goes longer, it goes longer. But I'm just gonna stick it out through this time and you know, if it's slow through that whole time, then. Oh, well, right. That sucks. But we're live again the next day. You know, you move on. It happens. It does. And try to not get discouraged. It can be hard sometimes. I mean, there's times where, you know, you have a couple of bad streams in a row or slower streams in a, in a row and like, you're just like, no, like, this is, this is rough, but you just gotta keep doing it, get back on the horse and, and yeah, there has been times for sure. I mean, like, there's, it's, it sucks. You know, like if it's really slow and you're already having a bad day and those things compound and you're just like, this is brutal. This is brutal. Being here right now, I, I would just love to get off, be done. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, you know, we talked a lot about kind of the mental part of this. And you know what, this takes a toll mentally on you. Yep. Which kind of leads us into our third topic, which is more the physical portion of this card. Shows and streaming are just physically exhausting as well. So you're loading up thousands of pounds of inventory. If you're selling sealed. Yeah. You know, loading all these cases of product up. Even if you're loading singles, Boxes and boxes of singles are also not light graded cards. You know, some people, they fly in with a couple suitcases worth of stuff. It's an easy setup that's a little better. You're kind of dealing more with high end inventory. Right. Not a lot of people at the shows only deal in high end inventory, right. So they're bringing quite a bit more stuff with them. And you're loading. Like we just did a show last week, it was a two day show for like Thursday. You gotta pull everything out. What do you need? You need all these display cases, you need all the stuff you're gonna sell. You need, you know, all like this whole list we have tablecloths and signs and all these things. Put it all together. So it's like this literally starts Thursday for a fri or for a Saturday. Sunday show. Thursday you're getting ready. Friday you load it all into the vehicles, drive up there, set up Friday, then you set up all day to selves. All day Saturday, all day Sunday, take it all down, bring it all back, carry it all back in. Then Monday you put it all back away. So I mean this goes from Thursday to Monday just for a two day show. You know, it's like, my gosh, like. Yeah, I mean it's like, you know, I think people who aren't in the space. Right. To give you an example of what it feels like is have you ever moved houses? Yeah, it's like moving every weekend. Like every weekend, you know, one of your bedrooms and just pack it up and move it and then bring it back and set it all up and then the next week and tear it all down and bring it back again. It's, it's definitely a lot. And then you gotta be on, right. Like you, you know, you don't get to have a couple of beers and kick the feet up and you know, just after the day of, yeah, you're, you're out the whole day selling, selling, selling. And then it's work. All the stuff you bought get back, do it again, you know. Same thing with streaming. I mean, you know, there's, it's not every day, right. But you have days where inventory is a lot. We work in an industry where everything is so heavy. It is, it is all. I mean, cardboard is heavy. So whether you're moving 20 cases of bulk cards or you just received 120 cases of product that need to be broken down, I mean, you know, it's like, where do you find the time? You know, you're streaming for six to eight hours, you know, you gotta ship for another two hours, you have to run all your errands. So it's like, you know, you start out two hours for that, do this stream for six to eight hours. End of the day, you know, kick your feet up kinda While you break down pallets of product to get the packs out and you know, get ready to do it all again the next day. So, yeah, I mean, it can be a lot. I mean, like, I had a buddy come by and we had two pallets of product that we had to break down. And like, you think in your head you're like, two pallets. That doesn't seem too bad. It is a lot, right? Like, it's every single. If you guys have ever opened anything Pokemon that is like a collection box, there is an unbelievable amount of waste. So it's like just to get those promos and those packs out, you're, you know, opening up the side, pulling out the plastics, taking them apart, taking the packs out, putting them, you know, you can't just throw them either. You got to put place them nicely, sleeve up the promos. Then you got to flatten those boxes. And it's like you have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of these. You do it over and over and over again, right? It gets to be a lot. And I mean, your hands are hurting for days after, like, you know, the amount of like paper cuts I've gotten just like breaking down boxes. It's kind of crazy. But it's crazy. I mean, we just broke down like two pallets of the ascended the X boxes last week. And it's. Those are brutal because it's only four packs per box, right? Break down an entire box for four packs. And I mean, man, that was so much work for like 2,000 packs. It was crazy. Yeah. The 10 pack boxes make it a little easier because it stacks up a little quicker, but it does like, wow, this is just a lot crazy, you know, and then something that, that, that goes along with that would be all this work. And you're not even taking into account of like, this is an everyday thing, every weekend thing. You're missing events, family events. You know, I've missed several things that of my daughter going to school or, you know, events. I make everything that I can, but it's like, you know, I can't do that. This is last weekend at that show. I missed my nephew's birthday. Like, you miss things and it's, it's something you have to do in order to get to where you want to be. A lot of people just be like, no, I can't do that. I'm going to do this instead. It's like, you can, I mean, you can do whatever you want. You're a business owner, right? But you won't get to that next level unless you push through some of that stuff. It's hard to make everything be everywhere, please everybody when you want greatness, you know, so. And none of that's cheap. No, it is not. It gets expensive. Which kind of brings us into our fourth point here. The cash flow is a little bit harder than the profit. Yes. This is kind of one of the biggest misconceptions in the industry. Like you can be profitable and still have no cash. This is actually like business owners. Every. You know, I've owned several different types of businesses. It's the same thing. You're, like, crushing it and have no cash. And you're like, what is going on? Where is the money? Where does it go? And you're buying inventory and then paying vendors, and you have hotels and you have flights and you have fees when you sell stuff, and shipping fees and shipping supplies and all these things. They just keep adding up and adding up. And you're like, where is all my money going? I have to be making money. I'm literally crushing it. You know, taking losses on certain deals that you had to. Like we talked about earlier, where you have to take something like that, so you take a loss, but then on some other stuff you'll do pretty well on. And you have payroll if you have employees, and you have all your top loaders and your one touches and the fees for the tables. And, you know, if you take credit cards at the booth, you're taking a percentage of that for that. And you have just so much, Right? Yeah. And people will just think, we sold 20 grand this weekend. I just made 20 grand. Right. Well, there's a lot more to it, right? Like, there's a lot of hidden fees and stuff that people don't always account for, right? So it's like you go, say you're going to a card show with $10,000 to spend, right? And you buy $10,000 worth and say your profit margin is 20%. Okay? You made. You're. You're gonna make $2,000 profit, but that's a profit margin on if there was nothing else, right? So it's like, how much did it cost you to fly there? How much money did you spend on food while you were there? How much. How much money did you spend on whatever, you know, whatever other activities? If you did anything else, and it's like, okay, hotel, flight, all these things. Now you've probably spent another, what, thousand, fifteen hundred dollars. So now your profit's only five hundred. And that's after you sell everything from that ten thousand dollars. And that's you know, saying, it's like, you know, for me, streaming, it's like, that's if nobody used a coupon, that's, you know, hopefully your, your fees were not crazy on stuff, right? Like, there's other things on the other end too that you're just like, you don't give a deal to anybody. Like, exactly. You know, there's a lot of other things that go in there and people just see like, oh, I can make this off of this. And it's, it's really just not the case, you know, so $20,000 you spend, you sell when. How much of that, how much of that $20,000 is dead inventory? Right? Like, it's like not everything you buy sells instantly, right? There's a lot of stuff that I've had that. It's like I've had this thing for six, seven months, you know, and it's like bad inventory is. She's cooked. Age Receivables is definitely something to look at, like in a lot of categories. They don't want to see that for like over 30 to 60 days. After 90 to 120 days, they just look at it as dead inventory and they'll just clearance it out to get rid of it. Right. We are in a category that is so much different because all these collectibles, they, you know, as they age, they become worth more and something somebody doesn't want in six months might be the hottest thing out there. So it's so much different than like what normal business books would tell you, what normal, like business protocols would tell you, because it's just not how it is. It still is not great to just be sitting on 2, 3, 5, 10, $20,000 in inventory. That's just sitting there. Unless that's the goal, Right? It was a long term hold, then it's completely different. But if you're trying to just buy and sell makes it a little harder when it doesn't sell and you just bought it because now you could have bought something else that your community would have wanted to buy, but you're stuck with this. So it's like now do you rotate out of that item? Do you try to sell it? I don't know. We have to. It's a tough balance. Yeah, it's really tough balance. Figuring out how to move the money, the best way for you and how much money do you have? It's always reinvesting that money. You know, the way people look at it is, you know, they have $50,000 to their name, they bring it all to A show. If they don't spend all $50,000, you know, they think that trip was like a fail. But in my mind, it's like you're just going to make deals to make deals then. And if you have a way to move product fast, that makes sense. But if you're going to sit on some of this, it doesn't make sense to just make any deal just to spend all of your money just because you're there. Because then what happens? You come home and then somebody that you buy from normally hits you up and wants to sell you something. And it's a way better deal margin wise. And now you don't have no money and you're back to the other step we were talking about where you don't have enough money to close this deal now because you spent it on something, you're going to end up making 10%. Now, you could have made 30 on this, but you just poorly reinvested. It's. Yeah, I mean, a struggle I used to always have, like when I was not taking as much cash to, to these shows and stuff. And I mean, I still, I still run into it. It's just at a different scale, but it's like, you know, I know next weekend, for example, is XYZ show. It's this huge show that I'm a travel to. I'm spending all this money, I have all my flights booked, and it's like, okay, I want to take $50,000 with me to spend there. Do I just not buy anything for the next week and a half so that I can maximize how much I take there? And the answer is just, is no. Because if I can find a deal locally that is a good deal, I'm going to take a good deal, right? It's like, you know, who knows at that show if I can find the same deal for the same price, right? Like, it might even. It might be more, right. It might be not there at all. And, and so I, that was something I always struggled with because it was just like, okay, well, I really want to take all this money, but this deal's really good. So that was, that was always like, I was always back and forth with that. And I've kind of learned to just take the deals that make sense. Just makes the most sense, right? Like, take them. If someone's like, here's a good deal, and you're like, wait, I don't want this. I'm going to a show next weekend where I'm gonna get good deals. Yeah, that's just, that's crazy because most of the time you're not gonna get good deals. First of all, right, if you have a good deal, just take it. No matter when it is. Like, sure, I would love to. Physically, mentally, money, however you say that monetarily. Monetarily. Sure, sure. Why not? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kind of brings us into the. The fifth point. The stressors of this job and always having to manage all of these things and everything we've talked about all the way through, they are. They kind of take a toll. You know, we talked a little bit about burnout before, right? And we've covered a few, you know, kind of parts of this throughout, every single one of these points that we talked about. But just dealing with this level of stress, dealing with the fact that, you know, this could lead to burnout if you don't make the right decision, you could go out of business. Truthfully, like, yeah, you. I bought something that took up, you know, 50% of my capital and now it's not going to move for a year. Well, that was a terrible choice. And now you just lost out on how many dollars. Like, there's just so much that they have to go, right? So you got a fear that that inventory is not going to sell, fears that your stream numbers drop, fears that you make a bad purchase, fear of hiring employees when you're growing and you need help because it's just overwhelming the amount of stuff in a day that you have to do. You have to keep your customers happy. You have to always be, quote unquote, on, you know, when you're especially streaming and at a show. No one, no one wants that golf announcer personality that we were talking about. You're always answering messages, talking back. When people are messaging you. Even when you're not working or in the off hours, you worry about tomorrow. What am I going to do? What am I going to have? Like you said earlier in one of the points, you have a great show. I just sold all this inventory. What do I do tomorrow? You know, if your answer is take the day off, you're on a different level. You know, like, that's just. That's never comes to my mind, like, what can I do to get inventory tomorrow morning? Right. Have for tomorrow afternoon. Because days off are just not the answer. You know what is gonna happen if you're succeeding, right? People are gonna start mimicking you. You see some of the most successful whatnot streamers, and I watch people impersonate them all the time. They impersonate how they act, how they talk, how they run certain you know, they title things, how they, you know, and it's like people, if you're one of the lead, call it like top dog streamers or vendors. People are going to copy what you're doing because they just think like, what you're doing works, but they don't understand the actual sauce to it. So they're going to just imitate you or, you know, copy everything you're doing and think that they, they can make it their own, you know, which also is competition. There's a lot of friendly competition and there's a lot of people that are not so friendly in the competitive space. So there's also people that struggle, you know, with the stressor of comparing themselves to everybody else. Well, this person has this many viewers and this person has this many viewers, and I don't have that. Everyone's different. You can't, you know, you can't compare yourself to that. The social media pressure you post or, you know, that whole thing with Jason Page and the other guy and then what a whirlwind for both of those guys of social media pressure for the week. Right. Like, my gosh, that's a lot for people to deal with. Talked about a little bit earlier. Balancing family, you know, never truly taking a day off. I'll be on vacation somewhere and my phone will still ring. I'm still answering it. Right. And it's. You're always working or at the end of the night, I'll go out for the day. When I'm on vacation at night, I have to catch up on all the work. You just, you have to get stuff done. So it's, it gets stressful. It does, it does. I manage, I manage stress pretty well, thank goodness, you know. Yeah, I mean, I, I've, I've learned a lot about myself, like through, you know, all of these different things. And you know, had I had not done content creation and stuff before this, I think the social media side of things would have really, really taken a toll. Because, I mean, you, I mean, even if you look in our comments, there's some crazy stuff in there, you know, and, and like just hearing those things directed at you, even though, you know it doesn't matter, it still is just crazy to see. Right. Like, you're not used to it and. Yeah, I mean, I've, I've definitely learned to, to live with a lot of those things and brush them off and do what you can, but I mean, there's still sometimes, you know, it'll get to you a little bit, but. No, for sure, sure. No. 100%. I feel like just everybody's different. So your journey, your personality type, your burnout rate, what you can handle, you know, it's. It's not all for everybody. Right. And if you see and compare yourself to somebody else and you're falling behind what they're doing, you just feel like you're being left behind while really, you're just not on the same path they are. So comparing yourself is like, one of the worst things. So many people do that it's like, why are you comparing yourself to other people? Just. I know you do you. You know, if you can only handle working 3, 4 hours a day before you burn out versus somebody who can work 16 to 18 hours a day before burning out, like, you're not even in the same playing field. So it's like, don't compare yourself to their output. You know, start smaller than you think and just grow into, you know, what it is. So I think that mixed with this community is kind of relationship driven. So the more relationships you have with people and build with the people in the seller community, I think that is more important than the profit margins because profit comes with deals, and the deals come with the relationships you have. And you and I personally know a ton of people in this industry we talk to weekly. Right. And people, you know, they'll always come to us with deals and talk to us, and, you know, it's great. It is great. But treat your customers right. Yeah. You know, don't compare, you know, yourself to someone who's on chapter 10 when you're on chapter one in a different book. You know, I think it's not that bad. No. No. I mean, obviously this has been like a heavy episode. Right. There's a lot. There's a lot of, you know, I don't want to say negatives that we're talking about, but. But it's, you know, being real, right? Like, we're, you know, we're being real with. With. It's not all amazing, right? Like, we. I would love to get on here and just be like, oh, it's the best job ever. It's so easy. And, you know, everything goes right all the time. It's like, that's just not the case. Right. But a lot of times it's great. I mean, I. I love this, and, you know, I hope. I hope I can do this for a very, very long time. But, you know, there. There's those. There's just those things. You just got to. You got to work through it and try to improve every day. And, and focus on the things that you can control is if you're, if, if you let the things that are out of your control affect you, then that's where things really start to unravel. Right. It's like this one thing I'm having an issue with. Well, I can change something that directly affects that. Let's do that. But it's like, you know, oh, I'm not getting enough people in my room today. You can't really control that. Right. Like, there's like, some small things you can do to, like, try to help it, but at the end of the day, you know, who knows? There's so many other things. Like, oh, maybe the app's just slow today. Right. Like, maybe there's just not as many people out shopping today. Who knows, right? Like, it's not worth your brainpower to, like, go down that path and, and like, worry about those things. If you worry about, and pay attention to the 10, 15, 20 people who are in your room, instead of thinking about all the people who aren't, I think you're going to be better off. I would agree with that and I agree with you. It is, it's great. I mean, I love what we do. It's a lot, but it's a lot of fun as well. So it's a great time. Question for the viewers. If somebody handed you $5,000 today to start a Pokemon business, what would you do? Would you vend, Would you stream, buy, sell, flip? Let us know. What's your path? What path would you take? Day one, 5,000 cash, blank slate. Where do you go from there? I think, I think that'll do it. We'll probably watch the IG post for a few more of the question posts. Yeah. So we can do that Q and A episode. We've got quite a bit of good feedback and questions from people, and so we'll probably just put that up a few more times just to, to collect some more questions. And then I think the next episode we'll be talking about Pitch Black, probably. It's coming up pretty quick here is. And then we'll go from there. Yeah, yeah, this was a good one. I mean, I, I, I hope people can appreciate, you know, this kind of side of things and just kind of get a little bit more of the behind the scenes of what it's like to, to, to do this every single day. And yeah, let us know what you guys think. Yeah. As always, thanks for listening and we'll see you in the next one. Peace.