Set Up Before You Set Up Season 6 Ep 8

Hello, and welcome to the Ball Card Show, the eSports podcast for the eSports Collector. I'm Jason Otero. I'm Gary LeMaster. And this is season six and episode eight. We are back from our biggest show that we have ever set up, the National in Nashville, Tennessee. Are you still tired, Gary? Because I am catching up. I'm catching up. Yesterday was brutal. I got up. I knew I needed to source. We sold so much inventory. So I went to my normal Monday stop, and it was a chore. I was tired. I got home, and I looked at what I needed to price, what I needed to separate out for whatnot. I mean, if you guys follow us on Instagram, you saw both of our stories where we were both just like, I don't want to do this. I don't want to. I just want to sleep. I posted something Monday morning. So like with eBay, I've kind of learned like if I there's metrics that I try to keep every day of shipping and listing and blah, blah, blah. And if I'm going to be gone, and I wouldn't be heartbroken if it was slowed down a little bit, I'll stop it. So like Tuesday or Wednesday, I'll quit listing. I'll make sure I'm caught up on my shipping before I leave, but I'm not going to like feed the machine because I want it to be a little slower. I would be mad if I came back from a three-day trip to 200 orders over the weekend. And like most of the multi-quantity, I was like, well, there's no point. Like I was, I shouldn't complain, but I, but the people saying, I wish I was at, you can have it too. We can all have it, but it's, it's, it's becoming a thing, man. I, I don't know. I, the time, everybody that listens to this is like, are you still talking about your eBay store? Yeah. Do something about it. You called me at about three o'clock and you said, Hey, you got some time? And I went, yeah, I'm just driving right now. He said, you said good. Cause, um, let's figure out what we're talking about for sure. Tomorrow. Let's hammer out what things look like this week because at four o'clock I'm done. I'm not reachable. This is the end of the day for me. And I mean, at the end of the show, like we get back home and it, listen, if you're in business with somebody, if you're friends with somebody that you're not married to or related to, it doesn't matter how much you love that person. It doesn't matter how much you enjoy spending time with them. When you're with somebody for 72 hours straight, the only time you are not in their presence is if you're on the toilet. Yeah. You're ready to be done for a minute. You share a hotel, you kind of share that experience as well. Yeah. Whether you like it or not. I mean, I didn't think there was anything too nuts about the situation. Whoa. Hey, I miss her. What you said? Oh, I realized halfway into laughing. I look like an idiot now. My bad. Uh, yeah, no, I mean, we're like, by the end of the trip, it's we're siblings and we've been standing within six feet from each other. It is, it is what it is. Good thing we were really busy. I will say this, uh, obese men will never realize how fat they are. Then to just do three days of letting gravity do its work with concrete Oh God, it was bad. I'm just going to exist while being fat on this concrete for three days and then I'm going to get in the car on the ride back and feel like I just did the Murph with CrossFit three times. You laughed at me every time we stopped because getting out of the car was a series of creaks, groans, noises. Gary was like a folding chair, like five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 steps. And he's up. So, hey, uh, before we get too deep in, Oh yeah, we have a new segment that you're going, we're going to show you here in just a minute, uh, about a month, a month and a half ago. Uh, and we got a lot of great feedback on it. We interviewed JT from triple crown 24, great YouTube channel. If you haven't seen that interview, go watch it. And if you haven't yet, go follow him on socials. Yeah, great guy. He's semi local to us and he is going to be a new contributor to the ball card show. It's not going to be every single week, but it's going to be occasional, right? When you find something cool. So check out this new segment from JT at triple crown 24 called out of the box. This past weekend at East gate, I found this 1999 upper deck, black diamond Javon curse final cut gold number to 50 in a value box. And I tell people all the time, there's a huge difference between a out of 50 card from 1999 and an out of 50 card from 2026. So they we've become really numb to low numbered cars. It seems like the one of ones in the out of tens or what we're really chasing out of 50. That's cool, but it's someone that we see pretty common, not so much back in the nineties and early two thousands cards that were numbered under a hundred are really difficult to find. And that's evident by the sales history of this card. This card has only sold a handful of times over the years per card ladder. I was stoked to find this in a $5 box. I didn't know exactly how much I could get for it, but I knew for sure that it was worth more than the $5. This is a card that someone out there has probably been looking for and just needed someone like me to come along and dig it out of the box that it was sitting in. All right. So for those of you, especially those of you that kind of found your way into the ball card show because of the content around the low end and the bargain box value, eBay and moving that kind of stuff, we'd really encourage you to go give JT a follow. And here's why JT does something with his content that I don't think, I know there's other people that do that, but I don't think they do it as well as him. I'll just say it the way that I feel it. He will pause, like he'll have shots of him at a show from behind the table working deals. And when something interesting is happening, he'll pause and he'll spend three minutes just walking through his mindset. Here's what I know about the card. Here's what's happening in the negotiation. Here's what the thing that the buyer said that makes me think X, Y, or Z. So for those of you that are just gaining experience and you feel intimidation with shows, I can't encourage it enough. But the stuff JT finds, man, he is lethal in those boxes. Absolutely lethal. So take notes, listen to the things that he's looking for, the reasons he believes cards will be worth pulling out of the box and should be something to help you out with. And by the end of the year, I mean, there should be, you know, 30, 50 new cards that you're looking for that you hadn't even had on the radar before. So I think it's awesome things to look for. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Go give him a follow. He always has cool cards in a showcase. If you see him set up, he's down around Cincinnati area, but he's all over the Midwest just like us and a lot of the big national shows too. So while we were in Nashville, yep. Yep. And addicts did their giant promotion at shops all across the country on Saturday night. Tops hobby rip night. Yep. Yeah. And I felt it for a grand slam collectibles a little bit because they had at the Nashville show, like, I mean, 20 tables, I don't know. It was huge. It was a 12. It was a 12 table table box. Yeah. And they had to pack up. I'm just thinking, man, you have to get all this stuff in massive show, pack everything up, put on a show there. But once again, I will say this to the nth degree, fanatics has taken a massive step forward in the collector experience in regards to what they do that is special at hobby shops. Well, they have taken a big step forward versus what we've seen for the last 15 years where that's what I'm saying. And I think the difference is, is that fanatics is trying as a manufacturer to directly engage the end consumer in a way that Panini never did, that tops never did before fanatics like tops hobby rip night has been around for years and years. But in the past it was, Hey, here's some packs to give away at your shop. You do your own thing. Yeah. Now fanatics is driving a lot of the content and, and really pushing the LCS is to do it. Um, we were set up with underdog collectibles out of Knoxville, Tennessee. They had a huge hobby rip night. Shout out to them. Oh yeah. Taking care of us, Matt. Like that meant so much to us. We'll talk about it in a little bit. Biggest show we've set up at, but the opportunity for somebody to say, Hey, and, and what I love was what we connected through was a local buyer and seller that had a connection that we built relationships over time just saying, Hey, this might be a fit. I think you guys would, you know, he may be able to hook you up on that. So anyway, I interrupted you, but no, no, that's okay. But like, so they had a huge one. Uh, our friends up at Mars cards in Cleveland, they showed their stuff. Our friend Vic, who if you are a deep track listener, yeah. Our second season on the pod, uh, Vic was a guy who, uh, he owns boomtown, uh, sports cards in San Antonio, Texas. Vic was a guy that Jason and I met on Facebook. This dude has grinded his way. Absolutely. He was doing dollar dice rolls on Facebook and pull boxes. And then he worked his way up with his group to retail blaster breaks. I'll be messaging each other on Facebook of like, Hey, message. So-and-so cause we still have three more spots on this box right before everything popped. And then when everything went nuts and COVID, it was a whole different thing. But like, we were so excited to get the reds in a series one hobby. I'm going to get 20 cards total, maybe a couple of rookies, but it was so fun, man. And Vic worked his butt off and built that room. And then he got some allocation as a breaker for the room. It wasn't much. And then he's, he decided to go all in and you know what, I don't care what business you decide you're going to be in. If you have the balls to just take your entire, everything that makes your life work financially and go all in on a business props at one of the hardest times to do it. Yes. And, and he did that. And now this guy has when be in his shop two or three times a year, he's sponsoring stuff at Spurs games and they had a, he held a show. Yeah. He had, they had a massive hobby rip night. Um, looked like there were probably three or 400 people in that shop and he's just, they're ripping in time with each other. Um, so it's a really cool thing to see. Because what we do point out a lot of times as we point out the stuff that we're super annoyed at, and there's plenty of that, but when it comes to fanatics trying to actually bring the collector closer to the experience, which is what, you know, they're, they're supposed to be doing, I feel like there really are checking those boxes. I feel like, um, when you look at what, you know, I'm where this is a rabbit trail a little bit, but you look at fanatics fest, that experience is different than anything else that exists. And I know at first, everybody's like, Oh, they're trying to compete with the national. No, they're not. They're trying to create an experience that helps people to connect this dot. There is accessibilities to experiencing the game and I'm closer to the athletes when I'm collecting period. And as a card collector, I think subconsciously we would all say, well, that's kind of true. Even if I'm not going to meet so-and-so I'm a little more connected this way. I'm engaged a little more with that. So that hobby rip night is, is super fun. It was interesting seeing all the, uh, rip night Cooper flags walk up. I had a red and I think that I might be off on this a little bit, but it was something crazy. Like seven, 500, 200, and then one 50 by morning. Well, then one 10, every sale was less than the last, like, which is normal. It's not a rare thing. That's not a card I'm going to average the comps on. I'm going off the last one. Yeah, I tried, but it was like, I didn't even want to play off the last one because that's not the landing spot. Yeah. That's well, to me, to me, it was buy it off of the last one and sell it within an hour. Like that was, that was where my head was at on it. Uh, the seller wasn't too interested in that, but that's okay. Um, hobby rip nights. Great. I think, um, that is a super positive thing that fanatics is doing. Wow. There are many things I don't like about, uh, I don't think gatekeeping is the right word, but just as emphasis of no more shops, no more shops, we can be hypocritical to say, Oh, they should just be opening shops left and right. When we're also saying PSA, shut it down. If you can't get it right, you know, like shut down the grading, slow it down. So there's, there's a dance with this. We're not a, we're not fanboying fanatics by any means. No, but I think they're cognizant of the idea and the fact, I think they are, they're well-versed in what caused the sports card market to completely collapse in the early nineties. Yeah. I think they understand what caused it and they don't want to repeat that. Um, they're going to, they're going to tow up as far to the line of production as they can without pushing everything over it because that hurts them if they do that. Yeah. Yeah. I can see that. I, uh, I was very encouraged to see the engagement with that. It's not something that just happened once when the licensing changed. It's not something that's, you know, now does every LCS owner want to have to put on a big production with this? No, but the ones that, that fight it, I don't think that's going to be a winning battle. I think that's the way I would put it. You got to engage on some level. It doesn't mean everything's going to be the biggest thing in the world, but I think it's important that there's at least, um, that's one of the good things, right? Here's some, get some people excited, give them out, you know, that kind of thing. I think that there is a, uh, direct correlation between a, if you're an LCS owner and you're watching this, there's a direct correlation between your willingness to play the game, the way fanatics wants you to play the game and your ability to get product and, uh, all that fun stuff. Right. At the end of the day, um, there's a creator, uh, out on the West coast. Uh, his name's keen. You guys may follow him. He does really good content. And he, um, he did a, a little post the other day that was a really great reminder. And it, if you don't like the way fanatics does stuff, guess who doesn't care fanatics, they don't care whether you like it or not. They're going to say you're going to do things. And the point was, if you're trying to do business like you did in 1995 with a Beckett magazine, you're, you're a dinosaur and you're not going to be able to carry those exact same business principles into now. If you're a shop and you want, and you're saying, Hey, they keep cutting my, my allocations. I can't get X, Y, and Z. They want high quality content. They want you engaging on social media. They want you pumping their brand out there. If you're not willing to do that. That's okay, you don't have to, but you better change the way you make money in your shop to singles instead of wax. Yeah. Which is not really being encouraged. No. But that's what's gonna happen. Yep. That's where that's heading. Okay. Uh, Hobby Rip Night was pretty good. Now, we're gonna do a new segment that we have not titled yet because we don't want to have a bad name. We want your help. What about a name? Do we want to tell them a name we thought about? I loved the name. Ball card, mail bag, ball sack. Yeah. But I don't think I don't know. Yeah. I don't know if people will. We want your help in naming it and and here's where you're gonna do that. We have a discord now. Yeah. And we have been blown away by the growth rate within that discord in just a few days. So if you haven't done so yet or the link tree to all of our stuff is in in the description to this video. Go click on it. Go hop in the discord and help us name this segment. We want it to be fun. We want it to be maybe a little edgy and funny. But yeah, with within that PG-13 realm. But there were a few questions in there that we picked out this week. And they and they go together really well. I'm going to tackle the first one and Jason's going to tackle the second one. And it'll make sense. Right now, again, in discord, there's a channel mailbag in the mailbag. You can ask any questions and we'll try to answer in there as well. But I think some of these questions will be helpful to everybody that's watching if you're not in discord yet. So this question is from C4 Collectibles. He says, hey, fellas, at what point is a player no longer considered to be truly labeled as a prospect? Speaking about baseball, I'm really looking for how to define it as it pertains to the hobby, when to hold and when to fold. So as somebody who has traditionally done a whole lot in the Bowman and prospecting world, that is a question that is a little bit loaded. I would say that from a if they haven't been to the bigs yet, that cutoffs of any more. And this is going to sound really, really like a young age, but that cutoffs about 22, maybe 23 years old. There's exceptions, but there are exceptions. And those exceptions occur for about a month after call up. But if you're a guy who doesn't, Caleb Durbin is a great example of that. He was second rookie of the year voting in the National League last year, is 27 years old. His cards don't have any value. He's a really good player. But when people are buying Bowman firsts of players, they are in at least theoretically, they are investing long term in guys who have huge high upside. Yeah. So think think of the guys whose Bowman first cards have had the most value on call up. And for a little while afterwards, in the last few years, it's all guys who have been called up at 19, 20, 21, 20. They're on track, essentially. Right. Yeah. Well, they get five extra years to add to that potential Hall of Fame resume. Juan Soto came up to the bigs at 19. Bryce Harper was 18. Connor Griffin, if he makes the opening day roster this year, will be 19 on opening day. I think that would be stupid for the Pirates to do, but they may do it just to sell tickets. But if you are looking at guys, so we talked about a guy last year in the call up segment named Tim Elko. Tim Elko. And if you bought his cards and sold them immediately on call up when I talked about him, you made a little bit of money. But now those cards are back down to be worth what they were before he got called up because he's 26 years old. Functional bat at a big league level, slightly above replacement level bat. But he's not going to get hobby buzz because he's too old. So for me, long answer to your question, 22, maybe 23. But really, 22 is kind of the cutoff for me as far as investing goes. No, that was a long answer, Gary. I don't know if mine's going to be as long, but I'll try to make it thorough. OK, fair enough. Thorough with it. This is Rye Boy 808. Hey, love the pod. Thank you. Currently newer to selling, says he's been doing it almost two years, but just mostly in the last four months. I have a nine to five at 10 car shows on a weekend. Long context. Here's my question. Now that I have picked a lane low in Bowman autos and getting out once I hit 900 to 1100 percent increase in value. Great margins. He's targeting five to fifty five dollars. What should I do to supplement supplement cash flow in between? I can only go out and buy so many low end Bowman autos and now increasing to 10 to 15 base autos. Should I be going after non auto numbered Bowman base, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So let me back up really, really, really, really, really quick and say this at first. Now, that's a lane that a lot of people can do really well. The reason you can do really well on the prospecting in Bowman is because it requires a lot of work. It requires a lot of studying and paying attention and staying on top of what's happening with players, what's happening in farm systems with trades. Somebody was great at high A, but how did they do it to A when they saw some real pitching? So there's like there's so many things. And for that reason, I don't even mess with it. Now, secondly, with this discussion about 900 to 1100 percent profit, I think that there are some of you that hear that. You're like, yeah, right, blah, blah, blah. But remember when you were doing this and you were early on and you had your first couple big gainers on players that you bought and you're like, oh, I'm just going to keep doing this. Right. The law of averages, though, will say if you buy enough of those 50 dollar Bowman first autos, seven out of 10 of those are never going to realize gain, if not more. So what you're doing with your model isn't a bad idea when it comes to the lane of Bowman prospecting, because there is a knowledge delta that a lot of people aren't willing to cross. And if you're willing to do that and you know your stuff, you can find tons of the 15 to 50 dollar Bowman stuff in value boxes at your local car shop. Those owners are not wanting to go through there and keep price changing prices on cheap Bowman auto. If it wasn't a hit for the most part, it's going to be in the box. But what I would encourage everyone to think about when I hear a question like this, because it's not only this, it's like I'm buying all the Cooper flags and I'm going to hold on to them. I'm going to pay full price now because in two years they're going to be this or I'm going to buy up all the Mike Trout because Mike Trout's cheap right now, which is true. But if your metric is 900 to 1100 percent, I'm really concerned that you might face a massive fatigue in losses when you have several of those players that just never quite hit that number. So here's what I would encourage instead. Same filter, shorten the window down and shorten down your margins. If you could pick five players this month that you think have upside or you could get a 30 percent margin on them, but you could do it in two, three weeks. That's how you generate the cash flow, constant sales velocity. Now, as that happens, you're going to find the one or two like for me, Josue De Paula. I don't know what it is. Maybe I'm just too married to this kid's stuff. But he's the one guy that when I see it and I get it right, I'm going to price it as if I don't care if it sells right now. I'm going to be at the top end of the comp range, maybe even a little bit over this time of year. But by the June, July, August, if there's not much talk, guess what? Get out for me, right? So I think it's encouraged to think about how quickly they'll sell through. I would not build a business expecting 900 to 1100 percent margins or everyone would be doing that. There's a reason not everybody. Gary and I wouldn't do anything besides Bowman if it was just go find them and you're going to 1100 X. Now, it's reasonable. It's reasonable on Bowman on the under $10 autos to say two to 300 percent. Yeah. Yeah. You get two to three. Absolutely. And but again, like to Jason's point, if your goal is to supplement in between when you buy them and when they finally get called up or get hot, you got to do stuff other than Bowman and you got to work at it. Like, there's not. Or you're buying current hot players that under market. Yeah. This is the thing that a lot of people don't believe. We'll talk about it more because there were a ton of new collectors walking up to sell to us at Nashville. Yeah. More than we were expecting. But there's a deep belief in this space because product is so expensive, because wax is so expensive, because we see the marketing cycle with Fanatics and Golden and all these words, only massive cards, just nukes, right? That we have this expectation that surely if I hold on this, it's going to go up. And I'm just here to tell you the large majority of your cards don't do that. That's just not how it works. You know, the market will respond to you in real time. So what I would encourage is I'm not saying do away with the Bowman auto game. I think there's a lot of merit to that. But figure out maybe 25% of what I spend on this little side hustle, this business, this flip is stuff that's more liquid, and I'm going to try to get it at like 75%. So I'm trying to get $10 cards for $7, and I'm trying to sell them for $10. And if you can do that 30 times in a month, you know, you're starting somewhere. But if that smaller percentage of your inventory begins to churn over, it can actually fund more of those holds. Yep. But be smart. Just because it's a $3 auto doesn't mean it's ever going to be a $9 auto. Right. And even more importantly with Bowman, please listen to this. Please listen to this. With cheap Bowman autos, here's something you have to remember. Sometimes that $120 comp all of a sudden is because Jimmy's never making it past 2A, and his entire family wants his autograph before they can't find the cards. And I'm telling you, I sell to them all the time on eBay. I'll send Gary screenshots of family members leaving notes. Oh, this is my like. So is there a reason this player is going up? If you see that comment, check it. Make sure there's a reason that their value is going up. What do you have on that, Gary? Anything else? No, I think you nailed it, although you were longer than me, so there you go. Well, yeah, that's fair. But I love Gary because, especially after this long road trip, I'm even more annoyed. He heard me say that sentence, and then he literally looked so that he could keep score. That's how his brain works with everything. There is nothing we will ever do where you give a name statement or stat where he's like, how can I make this a competition that they don't know that they're in? Go ahead, Gary. What do you have next? No, I was just going to remind everybody that that has been our first mailbag that we don't want to call mailbag. So make sure if you have questions for us, jump into the Discord. The link is in the description of this video. Jump in and ask us questions and help us name this segment. What about just the sack? Huh? The sack? I don't hate that either. That's not a little much. Not a little past PG-13. Yeah, well, it's just uncomfortable. Well, that's I don't hate uncomfortable. Let's talk about this Nashville trip, man. We had a lot of fun. Yes. So Gary and I, as you know, did it full time for a while. Moved into the show scene locally. Now we're doing regional. This one was about a six and a half hour drive from my house to Nashville and about 1200 tables this time. A really big show for us. Biggest show that we've set up at. We're going to get into the metrics, but the first thing I want to tell you guys is Gary's feet smelled so bad. It wasn't the feet, bro. Listen, I went downstairs to the lobby. I'll give you the shoes. It wasn't the feet. By the way, now that I'm booking this, we were at the Brentwood Hilton. It was amazing how many other full time car dealers were there, huh, Gary? In a clean hotel with amenities. All right. So I go down and I get my Fiji water. You know, they should be sponsoring us. And well, I started before that. It started. See, here we go, guys. Gary, you tell me the story about. Well, it started when we first got back to the hotel room and I took my shoes off and I just kicked back on the bed and you were looking at some cards you bought and you turn around and looked at me like an animal in the zoo and went, Bro, I'm not trying to be mean. You got to do something about your feet. That's how it started. Which is met with immediate defensiveness and, oh, it can't be. That's the crown jewel for Gary. It's right in front of him. And he's like, I'll argue about it. Like, I can't imagine you as a teenager. It had to be the worst thing. Gary, did you sneak out of the house last night? There's a busted window. Shingles missing. He's got a shoe in the gutter. Can't help you. I didn't break out. I exited the house. I didn't. Oh, did I leave from the roof? Yeah. Yeah, I did that. Why didn't you say so? Yeah, that's Gary, guys, by the way. So I walk in and just as polite as can be. And I'm like, hey, I'm going to gag if we can't do something. I'm going to go get a drink. But like, figure this out. Like, I get it. We've been standing on our feet for like 13 hours at that point. Nobody's got good smelling feet. So common courtesy is to address it. But he denies it. And by the way, those SpongeBob dress socks ain't helping anything. But I went in and washed my feet. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, you did. Not yet. You didn't. I did before you came back. No, no, no, no, no. Important, important feature. Important feature in this story. I get back in the room. He has balled up a sock. And he's looking me in the eyes, sniffing his sock as if to say, see? Because the sock didn't stink. No cloud worth gagging over in the hallway, in the lobby, in the elevator. There wasn't a square foot outside of our room that smelled like that. The moment I get in, I say, have you considered it's your feet? Well, I washed them. And I don't smell it in the socks. I said, well, then how about your shoes? Yeah, they're over there. They stink that bad? I don't know. Like, I'm talking to my kids. Like, cover it with a shirt. Go bury it in the backyard. Throw it in a throw it. Throw it out in the hall. He's like, well, I like your shoes. The point being that it wasn't my feet. It was the shoes. I will give you the shoes, but your feet created an odor that was trapped because you decide to wear moisture wicking childhood socks with Jordans. You're so angry. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You got them big canoes. Just like treat those Jordans were like a sauna for the boat. You act like I'm the only person on this trip that had an issue. We decide second night. Hey, let's go. We're going to have sushi. There's like a little like. Shopping area right behind the hotel easy walking distance. We're gonna have sushi We decide that we want to get a drink first. So let's stop at this little bar if we get in there and we realize Oh, they have some time about the french fries. Oh, yeah They had some pretty awesome food and they had these garlic parmesan tossed french fries with crab lump crab meat on top of them Chef's kiss fried green tomatoes with a shrimp remoulade on top of them. Also Look at how his fat boys are getting worked up here in the camera. So we decide we're not gonna get sushi We're just gonna stay here have a few drinks eat some good food Then we leave and Jason's like, you know what? Let's go. Let's go find. Let's go find a bar Have a couple more drinks. Yeah, he said let me get on my phone. Let me find it now By the way, Brentwood is the deadest place I've ever been to in Tennessee on a Saturday night I've never seen anything like it to be a What a disaster he looks me right in the eye after looking his phone. He talks about me with these socks He looks me right in the eye. He goes. Yep found a bar. It's right up here. It's a 10 minute walk I'm gonna walk. I said, okay cool. We get to walk in two things one Five-minute walk actual 10-minute walk say how does my walking pace? This dude is a Olympic power walker Hey, I am my hips hurt as we're going we're walking uphill my hips hurt my back hurts I'm breathing hard here. Are you okay, buddy? No, I'm not. Okay. I'm fighting for my life on this walk And as we get up to where we're going this dude turns around looks at me Dead the eye and goes by the way, there's not actually a bar here. I Was just I don't know. I just wanted to go exploring. It looked like there was some stuff over there He knew that there was no chance. I was gonna do that. So he just lied to me and get me to power Hey We've walked into that fine Establishment that we weren't dressed well enough for sat at the bar and had a drink and they had already cleaned up the bar and We're just waiting to close Well, that's what 70% tips are for. Yeah, so that was our What everybody tries to shut down two hours early, right? That was our our experience there You guys already saw our stop at Bucky's on the way down The jerky was immaculate. I had it for breakfast every single day. We're gonna try to post a little more short-form stuff So hopefully you guys are enjoying that as well. But All right show itself let's get to the show itself the we didn't do is any show and tell That's all right. Well, we'll leave the people wanting a little bit. Yeah, we'll leave the people one I think that we were so if you came to the Nashville show one Overwhelming amount of people came up and introduced themselves to us, which we can't tell you how much that means to us Some weird yeah, and sometimes yeah, we're out here grinding this help we're out here making this content and we know people watch it, but When we have over the course of a of a three-day show Dozens and dozens of people come up and introduce themselves to us. It means a lot. It makes us feel like we're not just Right in a basement doing something But we were right inside the front door with underdog collectibles out of Knoxville, Tennessee And so we got that first wave of traffic the whole day What I saw more than anything else was a massive disparity in the buying and selling we sold a ton By noon, we were said oh, no. Yeah. Oh, yeah on Friday within the first like I'm hours 35% more inventory value than I normally do. Yeah, that's a big leap for me like for me and Gary So like here's something to consider when we talk about that Full time sounds cool the trade-off is Your ability to roll over inventory and scale. Yep gets hit every two weeks when you pay yourself Yep, because you have bill like that's what full-time means is like I'm providing So to reach further I'm like man, I'm reaching a little bit. I'm reaching a little bit here I'm gonna get some extra stuff by noon. I look to him and I was like, I don't have enough stuff Yeah We could have doubled what we took and been just fine. Yep Which again, that's another one of those things that sounds great in theory But you need to have the cash to do that right like you want to take 50k worth of stuff You got to have 100 or whatever. Yeah, whatever it is. So you got to have the cash to do that The selling was amazing Very few people were trying to beat you down on price And if they if they were they realized it was a big room and if it wasn't happening there They just kept it moving. Yeah, I actually respect. All right. See you later. I was like cool. Yeah, no worries But the flip side of that was and part of it I think was that we were the first people that a lot of people spoke to when they came in but I also talked to a lot of other vendors and They had the same experience when I tell you on Saturday, which was the busiest day of the show by far like When the show opened there had to have been a thousand people in line to get in the door it was crazy When I tell you that I had some variation of this conversation with 75 or 80 people on Saturday. That's not an exaggeration Person walks up the table. Hey, are you guys buying? Yep. Sure. Let me take a look. See what you got Yeah, I'm interested in this one. Do you know kind of what they're selling for? Yeah, they're doing about a hundred Okay. Well, let me double-check make sure that's right, man. I look they are Okay, what do you need for it? Could you do 120? and I would just look at people and Just pause and they'd go. Well, well, I mean, would you do a hundred and Jason started laughing because that what was I saying Jason? Finally Gary was like and and what do you think I could sell that for and you'd watch him go like it was It was over and over and over and over and over being grumpy about it just flat-out you were well You had to walk off. I mean by about the 30th conversation. I was I was like, I can't do this all day You know what? Gary wants Gary wants prime real estate at a 1200 table show and he'd wants everybody to pay full and sell to him at 70% That is false That is not what I'm looking for at all you didn't get grumpy though you were you had to take a moment Let's talk about I did I did get grumpy because the first probably two hours of the show and it's not the first day Yeah, the second because I think part of it was the first day the selling was so crazy and the way I look at shows is If one of two things is happening I'm happy if I'm either selling a good bit or if I'm able to buy one of those two things Because either way is what I'm making money and The first by two and a half hours, maybe three hours of the show on Saturday Neither was happening. I wasn't for you. Yeah for me. We're walking right past you and spending money with yeah, I wouldn't Anything I wasn't selling anything and everybody that tried to sell to me What had hit the pipe before they came in or they just didn't know I think that was a lot of it That's what I kept saying to you, but you just were like in your fields, which I've been there Here's the reality when we're looking at that showcase and we see that type of volume. It's a huge opportunity One of the best things that can happen to you in a card show in my opinion Not everybody does this other people have other systems to track? But if I'm at a card show and stuff is flying out of the showcase I'm trying to buy and get it in the showcase as soon as possible because Here is where you can buy at 80 85 percent I did on the skeins Helix PSA 10 rookie You can pay stronger if you know and you see the type of volume and what people are buying and you have two more days So you and I in a moment of panic are like we need good stuff now in the Midwest I'll say this. There's a couple differences. I noticed one If this is a southern thing or just a Nashville show most buyers paid stronger than what we typically start with For offers up in Ohio in the Midwest Cincinnati, you know, Indiana that area they were just paying stronger the funny thing for me was the Boca boys I Might be the only guy that got full value with backyard breaks in history They came about a bunch of stuff for me not knowing. I was the one that talked so much crap But you had like that happening there's insecurities like do I have enough stuff do I get enough stuff? Where do I go buy enough stuff? Am I gonna have empty showcases today? So it's easy to get spinning and then when you're hit with one after another after another And I didn't know he was get worked up I was having similar experiences that day and then finally I was like man, there's a lot of brand new collectors It's been three months. They don't know they looked on eBay. That's what they know. They don't understand So there was a lot of hey, this is card ladder. This is the best tool to use. This is what we use every day This is an industry standard Here's what these have sold for and then when you would say it looks like it's sold for a hundred They would say I don't know 110 just assuming because they hear buy it and sell it and make money, right? So You there was a lot of educating But I would rather there was a quote that my professor had a professor had in college that I loved and it was I went to study theology, right and he said I would rather have the job of restraining the fanatic than trying to wake the dead and I would rather be at a show with 1,200 tables and constant traffic where it's a little bit more challenging on buying But if I can figure out my stuff You know, I don't disagree But that goes back to the what you were talking about 10 minutes ago with the way my brain is wired when I'm watching People flow past me and I'm not selling anything and I'm not buying anything and I look over and Jason's going through Piles of stuff he's buying People are selling stuff and I'm selling stuff for him because he's busy buying stuff. My brain's going And I did I was like I need 10 minutes I'll be back Do you think that the person that? Didn't know what was going on got a different experience with me than they got with you I think that in general people get a different experience with you than they get with me That's fair, but I will say this though, let's let's get into temperaments a little bit so challenging situations difficult Sellers and buyers not closing a deal, but just breaking the ice again that going that is a wheelhouse for me I am totally fine. And I enjoy teaching people something that I never gonna buy for me One of the things I'm most proud of from that Nashville show is how many people Walked the entire room and came back to me and said, you know, I'm gonna buy you a new car I'm gonna buy you a new car. I'm gonna buy you a new car. I'm gonna buy you a new car Walked the entire room and came back to me and took my 75% offer on stuff the reason came back and thanked you Yes, or I said, hey, they might pay stronger there We had people commenting on Stuff we've been posting saying they were so honest. They helped me get the most value Guess who's gonna walk up to my table next show? So it's like so you can take him to the next person to get more value, which is fine. Yeah, which is 100% fine Yeah, that's how it works, bud. Yeah, it's not all mine I don't get all of it, but I get what people want want to give it when they're working with me So I think that that approach is is really important now gary on the other hand So direct straightforward to the point blah blah blah his repeats are so loyal. They'll nod at me They don't like my personality like his diehard loyals are like, oh great another cartoon personality to deal with at a card show, right? They would rather you know buy from the guy dressed as a cartoon than the guy acting like one, right? Yeah, so You have a way of developing loyal customers and they are like, oh, thank god somebody that's so direct They're not going to go back and forth and talk about stuff. I don't want to talk about Yeah, and here I am three minutes into this, you know rant, but I I do think Uh for both of us, there are some key takeaways that areas for growth. Do you want me to go first? Sure I think I need to Make a mental note before I start shows There's probably five percent of that showcase ten percent. Maybe where it's like hey This is a card you just stay there man Give it the whole show and if it doesn't sell in the whole show and there haven't been other comps You might still have the right sticker. Yep That's a hard thing to believe for a guy that was coming from the reselling ebay world of like flip it get what you can Buy again flip it get what you can buy again but I still think that there were some deals where You know, we're 10 15 slabs in and they have another car that they really want and they're really trying to work that down And I could have said no and still gotten the deal You know, I could have said no and maybe held out or I could be coming back with the car But I didn't give up that But I would say that there were a few bigger ones that I put in that showcase where I just wanted to keep it moving That I could have held out a little longer That would be one of the things that I could improve on. What about you gary? I know you love self-reflection in front of a bunch of people Oh, I I think your favorite I think the biggest one for me is This was a show where I made the Decision and you guys all gave me a hard time about it listeners. Let's talk about it. Um jason even did a video making fun of me, but This size of a show I made the conscious decision to come into the show with much more More hyper liquid stuff than I normally do and I use that term because I hate admitting that that means case hits But I did I came into the show with 18 or 19 case hits and Within the first 30 minutes of the show 17 of those 18 were gone And within the first 24 hours of show the last one was gone. It was the most expensive one um I think that at the end of the day uh as much as I hate it and I don't know that it would mean as much at smaller shows Especially where we have a little more brand recognition at these types of shows if you're gonna play this game where the cost to be there is a whole lot higher and uh You gotta have the stuff that the big buyers want and they're willing to pay strong on. Um I think that's my big takeaway from it. Yeah Is there anything you would do different with those conversations if that starts happening again at another big show as far as what what conversation? so like Like for you and I so if we get hit with a wave where it's like, okay People are walking up to sell stuff And we're noticing that like the large majority are Not quite sure how they even want to go about the negotiation um Would you would you handle it differently? I'd like to say yes, but probably Not if I did Well, I mean, I think that I remember at one point you're like, I'm gonna I'm gonna get a breather. I said good. Yeah Because I've been I've been there too man Somebody not even trying to and they just able to you know, it's a lot of interactions in one day Yeah, and at the end of the day for me What I you know this about me and I've said it on this podcast before there are very few things on planet Earth That frustrate me more than feeling like I'm wasting time and I made the conscious effort at This show to not ask some of the front-end questions that I normally ask like What percentage do you need to be at if you're selling this stuff? I just was like, oh, let's see where things go and Where things went when I didn't ask those questions was we me wasting a lot of my time So, do you think it if you're noticing That there's a higher uptick of new collectors because I I can't so you were upset I understand that you felt like that was happening and it was like a bad combo of like a random Dead two hours off the rip and that right? Yes. Yeah, I would have been in the same boat I look at you sometimes when that's happening by noon and you're like, oh, I'm already done X and I'm like must be nice I'm like, alright ready to pack up and leave right? Yeah, which by the way guys If you're going just show scene and you don't have any other streams of revenue in this space Buckle up emotionally you are not completely. There's much that you are in control of but you're gonna have shows where it's just like There's some shows where there's no rhyme But Gary could I have the Gary and I could have the exact same showcase and for whatever reason the flow of track it Traffic's hitting one side of the table over the other and that person's gonna do twice as much. Yep. It happens but I think some of you're saying like so some of those lead-in questions might be more helpful because I think there's a lot of dealers that are newer to this that are getting some experience and they have five shows where they're able to buy right and then they get Hit with that show. We're buying is tough Yeah, and so I think one that I would be ish. I may lead that question a little bit more with With somebody that's newer, you know, hey, you're selling to a dealer. Have you ever done that before? You know if they seem like that, you don't want to start that with everybody But if you kind of get that impression, okay, do you have an idea what you're expecting on like? The cards worth ten bucks, what are you expecting the dealer to pay? Do you have any idea or do you just want me to add up this pile and give you an offer, you know, but Most times they say oh sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and then you get to the number and it's exactly what you talked about Yeah, so I don't know that it would matter that much I think it matters more how they interact with us Because I think there's a percentage of the people where that deal never happens, but they remember how we treated them Yeah, so I get I mean yes and no but if it was if it was 20 people like that non-stop we wouldn't be able to yeah anything done and that's that's why I had to step away in that situation because I had I Had been a good boy. I had not snapped. I had not like lost my mind and I felt it coming I was like I'm gonna I'm gonna look at somebody and call him stupid in a minute if I don't walk away But can I do something that I don't normally do on the pod just lean in a little here If if everyone was suffering you would have a little less problem with it fair Think about that for a second. No, I Know there's no question. You literally just said the same thing about yourself when when you're Eating turds and the people besides you on either side are not eating turds You start to question yourself, what's the healthy response? Oh I'm not interested in therapy. I don't know what the healthy response. I'm not trying to give you therapy I'm trying to be a resource to people that do this Sure What's the health response and I don't want to give them the idea that it's we just have a crappy attitude and tell them that The buyers are stupid and I'm tired of these new collect Oh, well, that's I tried to do what I thought was healthy and just take a deep breath and look at you and go Hey, I'm gonna go to the restroom. I'll be back in about five or ten minutes well I think what I would say that the answer is when we feel like that is to take a deep breath and remember that this Show no matter what this does is such a small piece of everything that happens sure in this business period sure and Yeah, yeah like on a day where let's be honest after Friday We wouldn't want to but if we had to pack up and head back we had a great week. Sure Sure, and so it's hard to maintain that perspective and expectation But the other thing I said too is like look we still have stuff in these showcases, but this stuff got picked hard So we're sitting here with collectors and user stuff, right? Not a lot of that super liquid stuff and then we're in a prime spot where this traffic's coming in Like I'm not surprised that a lot of that was there now I will say this what a lot of stuff over $300 that we even saw walk up No, and the stuff that we did was like 10% $900 card. What do you need for it 13? Yeah, there's a lot of that But like again if you're a new collector this year, what have you seen What have you seen over and over and over These cars just keep going up just keep going up just keep it like the show. Hey narrative is huge like in Front of people right now. There is a player whose market has not stopped and we're about to be into the season again Has that happened in baseball since trout eight ten years ago? No, and I think that that's a I Think we are reaching the point with show. Hey and Shop talk is coming up here in a minute and Keith just sold a show Hey snap sold and we'll talk about it because he posted in all of his socials Yeah, snap sold on base Bowman chrome base Bowman chrome show Hey rookie snap sold at 1550 On eBay snap like 10 minutes posted me and said, what do you think this card did now again? I am I know the trajectory of show. Hey, but I still don't believe and I am I immediately I was like, oh jeez That's probably a crazy number. I don't know 9 to 11 hundred bucks. He's like 15 over 15 immediately and and I think we are Reaching the point with show. Hey It doesn't matter how good he is at a certain point a market can't bear Exponential growth That card is the one that surprises me. Well, it's his it's his number. Sure It's his main it was his first rookie card. Sure came out before it's the card He's it's one of the few Examples in baseball where a Bowman rookie card is worth considerably more than a tops rookie shirt. Sure By a margin of four or five hundred percent. Yep Um But at a certain point we have to ask if we were talking about this before the episode like what current Existing players as they were playing has this happened with before and what has happened to their markets. You just talked about trout Mike trout in Covid his PSA 10 rookies were doing 3,500 bucks 3,800 bucks base ones now They do eight to nine hundred Jordan rookies during Kovac got PSA tens got to two million dollars now. They're 150 LeBron current player his tops chrome refractor PSA tens were six figures now, they're 20% of that at a certain point this show. Hey market is going to shift and it likely will have nothing to do with his Quality as a player, but at a certain point it will collapse under its own weight Don't I really hope some of you guys aren't the ones holding the bag when that happens Like I would not touch a raw base Bowman chrome show. Hey, Otani rookie I don't think I would pay more than 600 bucks for one. I would touch it immediately and sell it Well, if I had an outlet at some point soon You're gonna touch it immediately and be unable to sell it Yeah, like that's the but I don't think it's gonna happen before the end of the season unless something happened Like do you think it's in the next six months? I'm in the world would cause that injury mark. It's not well Yes, that's that's it though. That's it. Well injury and and again the market just at a certain point at a certain point It doesn't matter Whether you're an investor or whatever at a certain point you look at a market and go There's too much of this for it to be worth what it is. Why did the beanie baby market collapse? those sucked Let's just I mean it sucked to us But to the people who were into Pokemon is experiencing it right now. The Pokemon market is slowing down. It's not collapsing But it's drastically slowing down as people shift their focus elsewhere Mm-hmm Have you have we seen I mean we haven't seen anything like Shohei in baseball since cards existed true but we've I mean Shohei has been active as a player. This will be his eighth season One of those seasons was a strike season or a kovat season not a strike season There's a very high probability. We have a knockout or a strike is a great point here And of those other seasons two of them he was injured He's basically had three MVP seasons in four healthy years. That's awesome But he does have real injury concerns and we may have a lockout Is he an amazing player, of course is he gonna somebody walks up to you with a home and chrome rookie This year this week at a show and asked a thousand bucks. You're not buying it. I I Don't believe you It's 60% maybe Nobody's gonna do that with a show, right? But my point is is at a certain point, especially if you aren't like us where you're constantly churning inventory I if I'm just a guy on the sidelines buying some stuff and hoping it goes up in value I'm sure not paying 1500 bucks for a base raw What were these what were they talking like two three years ago when we were setting up? I sold PSA nines of that. I had some nines 240 bucks 250 bucks 150 to 250. Yeah, I don't think I had any tens, but I had several tens were like 600 bucks. I Mean if a Ross 15 tens, I mean I've sold his I sold his tops all aces insert for a hundred and eighty dollars They were $30 cards three months ago It's interesting so so here's so all of this is a filter if I'm getting into the space I'm hearing about its show. Hey, it's not Zion. It's not jaw. It's show. Hey, it's show. Hey and the difference if You're a new person with what you're hearing from what a lot of the people in the late teens coming into Kovac got into was The person that is growing is not a new rookie, but it is an established great That is a little bit unique from what many people experienced in the last five years coming into this So if I'm a new collector It's very believable that what I have is gonna go up That's all I've been here. I just know I've seen this movie over and over Oh, I don't disagree at all. That's maybe what trout what trout stuff was going up But it's the greatest of the generation gives you the perspective. That's what I'm trying to say. Yeah, it's not Oh, why are people doing this? I know why people are doing this So it's not gonna let that piss me off because they have no idea I'll explain it to them and if they want to stay delusional with information It's not delusion when you don't know when you understand and then you're like, yeah I still want to be higher than it's ever sold for. Yeah. Well, no, you know It or it's got to be the right card for it Well, yeah, but even then like that right card isn't gonna be the base Bowman chrome rookie. No raw. So All right. Well before we get to the meat and potatoes, we've already been going an hour So we will try to get into the meat and potatoes as best we can. What do we have next Jason? Coming up next we have shop talk with Keith Newhart from Newhart cards Hi, this is Keith Newhart and this is shop talk this week I wanted to take a step back a little bit instead of taking or talking Specifically about what we're doing in the shop and those type of things I wanted to talk about what happens when you first start what happens when you first decide I'm gonna start a business First thing the easiest part to do it as a business plan, right? So a business plan is basically a written statement. This is what I'm gonna do You know, these are these are gonna be my these are gonna be my people This is kind of what I want to do. I want to sell sports cards for a living Okay, what's the next step after that? I think it's gonna be your business model, right? So how am I gonna sell those sports cards? How am I gonna buy those sports cards? So a business model basically runs you through the process of how are you gonna make that business plan work? How's it gonna run? For us that was early on it's an ever-changing model, obviously So when we first started the only thing we wanted to do is we wanted to really focus on buying You know get that buying machine up and running and at that time, you know 100 or 200 dollars at a time was a big buy for us and and we've talked earlier on it about eBay being such a big part of our plan because there were days when one or two people would walk in so that business model at the time was buy singles have a little bit of wax on the walls and You know kind of get it started that way now 10 to 15 years later so many different parts of that model that didn't even exist then first of all repackers That was not a thing now It's a fairly significant part of our business that we sell to other people who are then putting that package together putting in another product So that did not exist back and then so that changed our model second of all Three years ago. We started selling TCG. We started selling Pokemon I I went into that kicking and screaming didn't want anything to do with that, right now It's 10 to 15 percent of our business and growing exponentially far Exceeding what what the sports card market is doing to be quite honest with you. So Kind of wanted to talk about that again You know Gary and Jason started to discord no idea what that means But I'm gonna be a part of that. So come and come and join that and then Next week. I think we're going to talk about probably the single most asked question is a little tease So we'll be back and talking about that next week So again, if you have any other questions drop it in the discord send us a text or an email and we will reach out To you. So thanks. This has been Keith at shop talk All right, so a quick challenge for those of you that may be like moving into the business side of this you hear it He says, what did he talk about a business plan and a business model? So spend some time thinking about that. I think a lot of people have a plan, but when you get into the model, it's like, I don't know what I want to do first. I want to do everything. It's going to force you to kind of plan out what those steps might be. Again, a reminder with our new discord, go get, go join us. Uh, Keith is going to be on there once I show him how to use it. Once I learned how to use it, we had to learn how to use it. And Keith's going to try like every week to hop on and look at questions. Some of them he might answer in the video. Others he'll just answer in the discord chat, but you have a spot in there to just ask an LCS owner, anything you want. I think that's pretty cool. Uh, and then, uh, on top of that, Gary and I just want to say, thank you. I'm talking with Keith last week and he said that some of you are starting to pop into the shop just from hearing the podcast, seeing videos, wanted to meet Keith, wanted to hang out there, spending money with him. That means a lot to us that. Because of, um, being able to, to partner with him on some content stuff that you've had that level of trust, um, and you're bringing liquidity to that local community and that LCS. And I think that's, that's great. Uh, I'll try not to be too grifty about that, but it just, it's, it means a lot to us that somebody that we believe in the way that they do it, uh, which is the most important thing that who they are as they lead that business, um, that, that they're getting some love as a result of you guys. So, so that, so that's fantastic. Meat and potatoes, Gary calls it. We're going to talk about going up the show ladder. So our experience from deciding that we're going to mess with this to larger and the national level shows, and then talking through the different dynamics, uh, that you need to consider. Um, and this is all based of our experience and failures. I think that's a really important detail. You hear Gary and I fuss with each other and I leaned into him and that because it was what I felt in the moment. Gary knows that I don't ever apologize for being like, why'd you feel like that? This because I expect the same thing for him. It's the only way we get, we work through stuff. Well, and, and we, we very clear, we have gotten comfortable at the three to 500 table show. Sure. Like we're pretty comfortable there. Yeah. Yeah. This Nashville show was a huge leap for us. Um, almost triple the size of the biggest shows we have done leading up to it. Uh, so we don't ever want to pretend when we talk about something like this, that we have every answer out there, but we will share our experiences with you. And we get a lot of questions. Hey, I'm thinking about starting to do shows. What do I do? Should I look around here? It's Xenia or East gate. And those are three to 500 table shows. Should I do that show? Probably not right off the rip. Yeah. Um, so let's talk about what that looks like, like starting and how to climb it. Okay. And just for perspective, you're going to need to do all these. So you're going to have different strategies each week. We just got back from Nashville, but this Sunday we're going to be at a 100 table show in circleville, Ohio, where I went to college, a little small town of 15,000 people. It'll be a local rural show. Uh, and there's different dynamics there. So as I was buying inventory today, that was a filter. Some of the stuff I picked up was different than what I normally would because I was considering that. So let's try to do this in the history of context. Okay. And what I want to do, Gary, if it's okay, cause I know that you stayed in it and whether you were setting up and all that, that was kind of off and on for a long time, let's zero in on like the last six, seven years. Okay. Oh, sure. Uh, six, seven years and, and talk through that a little bit. And let's start with the staple show in Columbus that many people experience as their first show on South high street. Rob Dolby's run that for a very long time. Does many shows, how many tales that 20 to 40 tables, 25 to 40. Right now it's probably 25. At the time it was consistently 30 to 35 tables. Okay. So that's the size of the show that I would think you and I would say, that's the show we kind of cut our teeth on. Is that fair to say as dealers? Yes. That was a regular show that we started with. Yep. And I remember it was, it wasn't the first show I ever did. Uh, the first show I ever did, I made the mistake of trying to do a big show. I drove all the way, almost to Chicago to do it. The first show I ever did was a four hour table show and I was completely lost. I didn't have the right inventory. I thought it was a big deal. I have like 10 cards that were worth a hundred bucks. I was just roll. And I came home from that show with like $2,200 and thought that I had just crushed the world. Right. And I probably did less than anybody in the room. Um, so yeah, we, I, that show on South high, um, It, it really was like the staple monthly show that I did. And then you started doing, uh, and I'm a pretty firm believer that if you're wanting to do this, those are the type of shows. You want to start at, um, for lots of reasons. One, you don't have to have crazy amounts of inventory to be successful. Um, a rule of thumb that I was given when I first started doing this was a good way to judge your, your starting point as far as your amount of inventory, um, is if you have about 30 to 40 X in inventory tag value, what your tables cost you. It's not a bad spot to start. So if it's a $30 table and you've got 1200 bucks, a thousand to 1200 bucks worth of stuff, pretty good chance. You're not going to lose money doing the show. If you guys, well, I'll just be honest. When I was starting with this, I hadn't, I, there was no formula for me. Sure. I wasn't thinking about any of that. I had been selling pretty effectively on eBay, doing everything, selling, doing a lot of apparel on eBay. There was still a lot of opportunity to source good stuff. It wasn't as competitive. It was pre COVID. Uh, I just had Sally May bills that went nuts and the church I was working at was full of crap and started paying me less and offering less benefits and there was dishonest, just all kinds of the fun stuff people get in big churches. And so I was like, I've got to go figure out how to make money when I'm not working way too many hours a week. And that was eBay. Cards picked up. And then I, honestly, I was pretty, pretty good on the Facebook sales. I did very well with that. I would flip a lot of dollars box sales. Oh my gosh. I would do very well on that. And it was like setting up at a show. That's where all the old guys buy and sell cards. That's this and that. And Gary kept talking to his comment. It's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. Like, yeah, I'm sure it's a blast. Blah, blah, blah. And then he's like, well, you need to price everything. I was like, this sounds like tons of work. I can just throw it up on Facebook and say, yeah, five bucks, 20 bucks, you know, whatever. Um, so setting up at that was overwhelming. I remember everybody in the room and a 30 table show on your first one. You walk in, everybody smells blood in the water. I can't tell you how many guys that they probably don't even know it now. They probably laugh at it. They probably didn't realize it did it. But guys that are super big, regular, some of them are show promoters now and do this full time too. They were like, what you got in that box? Let me see the box. Everybody wanted that box. I knew it was somebody that had no clue what they were doing was bringing in a bunch of cards. And, uh, it was overwhelming, but that small environment is great because I think I developed a handful of relationships right the way. And I didn't even know everybody's name, but it was just, there was a place to discuss this and hang out. Um, it was right as everything was about to go nuts, right? Was this, was this right before lockdowns and stuff that I started messing with this early, early 2020. Okay. Um, and, uh, but I remember the first time I came home with a thousand dollars in my pocket and I was like, Oh, this is unbelievable. And that probably was like 70% of my table, you know, people probably bought some, some big boxes. I remember buying cards that I was so pumped about and I realized I had comped that wrong. It never was right. Some of those smaller shows, you've also got tables that are at 300% tags and they don't care. They just didn't want to be at home. Yup. So that, that, that scene was really good because it taught me what got attention. There's a 30 table show. Um, there was a handful of people, uh, people at that time that were basically sourcing to do thread sales on Facebook. There wasn't, there were nobody's doing whatnot or anything yet. It was either breaking Facebook sales or eBay or shows. Right. Um, but I started paying attention to what would people slow down for? They didn't like my sticker. What inserts were they slowing down? And I would watch their eyes. I would watch where their eyes stopped. I know it sounds super weird, but it was just trying to make a note of it. But that early small show scene, if, if I hadn't committed to that and gone to a bigger show, I, there's no way I would be doing cards right now. I'd have been so overwhelmed. So, so when you, when you were doing those, those shows, um, because for a long, the longest time you were only doing one, maybe two shows a month, you were, you weren't on the same pace that I was, I didn't want that. Yeah. I just thought it was like a supplemental thing for my reselling business. Cause cards was a 2020 cards was just a portion of that. Yeah. Right. So, so let's talk about for guys that are like, okay, I'm going to do that. When did you know, and then I'll give my answer, but when did you know that it was like, okay, I think I'm ready to try a 75 to a hundred table show, because the difference between a 30 and a 60 table show is minimal, that next step up is probably that 80 to 120, 75 to 125 table show. I, um, I remember the exact moment I had just done that small show. And it was a week where our family really needed me to sell some cards. I was looking at that and I came home and I had only done 200 bucks. I'm getting emotional. Remembering that I had spent so much time pricing this out and I was like overwhelmed. I was burned out at work. I needed that win in my life. I know it sounds silly, but I know that there's guys watching this, that this is providing an opportunity. And I came home and I cried in front of my wife and I felt even more stupid that here I am crying because I couldn't sell enough cards cause I couldn't, I was going to do it and I couldn't, and I was pouting about it. I don't remember that, but I remember like that next Monday. I woke up and I was just like, oh, we ain't done. We ain't going out like that. And if I was willing to have that experience with something where I didn't have a lot of extra time to invest in that and believed that I was going to learn this, I was going to let myself quit on this so quickly. That's when I knew like, I kind of love this shit. Yeah. I think I really do love doing this because to evoke that kind of the emotion out of me over something that was just an extra thing that maybe didn't even matter in hindsight. I look back at that, like nobody at home was upset. Nobody at home was mad. You know, that was something I had put on myself, but I wanted this. That was when I realized I want this. I want to do this. I don't know what capacity, but for me, it was the failure that was like, no. Like my superpower, you know, this Gary, I am a cockroach. That's it. I'm a resilient dude. I go, I deal with stuff. There's lots of, it's come away and I just stick with it. And I just stick around and keep going through it and come out the other side of it. And so it was failure for me. I remember that show vividly. I remember my wife putting her hand on my back, comforting me. And I'm like, I'm such a freaking loser. I'm being emotional about how I did this card show. Why does this matter so much to me? And I remembered something I had heard back in the day when I was in some leadership and some ministry stuff. And it was like, what keeps you up at night? What do you care about? There's probably a reason for that, you know? So that's my very emotional Ted talk about it. So for me, and those are, I mean, yeah, I think that when you're climbing the ladder and you go for a year, it's time to go, you'll know when it's time to move from that small 30 table show where everybody knows everybody. And it's the same buyers coming in every month to buy new things for their collection and dig through the same dollar boxes that they've looked at a hundred times before. For me, that is, that was when, as you do this for a while, the quality and the price point of your inventory will start to rise and for me, when I reached the point where my sales were going down, as the quality of my inventory went up, it was me recognizing that the type of buyer that is at this small local show with very, very few exceptions, wasn't interested in transitioning with me as my inventory scaled. And at that point it was like, okay, it's not time to never do this show again. Cause I continue to do that show on South high till probably about two years ago. Um, when it reached the point where I, I needed to take different inventory to that show in order to sell things. It was like, okay, there's gotta be a place where this new stuff that I have at a higher price point, a higher quality is desired because I see it selling other places. So then it was like, okay, what's the next step. And for me, that was getting outside of the Columbus area, which is where I did most of my stuff, you know, a Lancaster show here or whatever. And it was like, okay, Xenia. And at the time it wasn't Xenia, that show actually was taking place in Dayton. And it was about 120 tables. And I was like, okay, let's see how this goes. And lo and behold, I got there and I still was able to sell some of that lower end stuff. But now the stuff that I had been raising the quality of my inventory for was moving there. Um, and then when that Dayton show got sold to the gentleman who ran Xenia, then Xenia turned was Xenia at the time was now everybody knows it as a, one of the bigger regional shows in the country every month. But at that time, when Xenia first went, it was 140, 150 tables show in one building at the Xenia fairgrounds, not three like it is now. So I think for me, each step on that rung was as the quality of my inventory went up, the people at the shows that I was at weren't interested in moving up with me. It's time to go to the next level. Yeah. Um, that was the metric that I used. Now you're still going to need to, as you climb those ladders, have stuff at different price points. But then the game wasn't, how do I continue to raise? It was, as I'm looking at different shows in different regions, how do I figure out which ones make sense for me? Yeah. Right. I mean, was that a similar experience for you? I think, um, once I was determined that I wanted to push that a little further and see what could happen with it. Um It was when I started noticing by noon Because my filter was do I have enough cards and people will give me cash for cards? I wasn't thinking about churning inventory. I wasn't thinking about the next week. I wasn't thinking about the next hour I was thinking is somebody gonna pause at my showcase and hand me money um And I remember one show where I felt like I was given too many discounts, which you remember early on I just wanted a handshake and five bucks a card people were loving me early I know that I know this box is worth 3k, but if you're gonna give me a grand right now, cool I'll take it. It was like that It was and I was there was a fear of like I don't want to come back with nothing, right? Probably that filter from that day where I was like i'm never gonna come back with that again If I do that again, i'd quit right? But as I began to notice like stuff was churning I would have a day like that and I was still up The value was up. I sold cards for more than I bought them for good job me. Uh with the whole day. Um When I quit opening wax Was probably around the time where I began to go do mid-size shows and realize I get started making money Way more money if I just quit ripping these packs and go buy cards that I like And so I think what's weird to me is it's been a bit of a blur I really do have a hard time mapping out exactly what year was this show or that show But looking back when I committed to monthly I will be here for this show That was that step to because before that it was just call somebody are there any extra tables next week, right? Find a show right? And then it became hey, I like this show. Can I have a table every month? Yeah, and that was probably the first I mean, it was just a verbal commitment. I'm on the hook 35 40 bucks back then, right? uh, but I think that was that step in that direction. Now. I had the advantage of having you as a friend and you were Three four years ahead of me on like the show scene in the space You're like you want to do more shows like you were so excited. You were so excited because we set up separately Yeah, we were we weren't set up together with anything. The podcast was I don't know when would that have been? We were probably recording it, but it wasn't like we were telling anybody about it. No, it was more just for us. Yeah But so yeah, I think that switch to the mid-size is when I started noticing I had to think by halfway through the day Oh, do I have enough stuff when I started noticing that is when I began to push out to some of the bigger shows I was like, oh I could sell a lot more. There's more people here And now we're to the point where the opportunities to do things like we just did Are in front of us and in full transparency for you guys because that's how we do things. I think it's part of why You guys that are watching it resonates what we do with you because we don't try to bs This these types of shows That we're having put in front of us Are a much bigger Uh, not just opportunity, but it's a lot of a push for us. It's a risk for us. It is Hey, I gotta stretch the money. I'm gonna spend I will I I want to keep x dollars liquid at all times And I depleted that for this show by 80 Just to like make sure I was ready for it now, did it pay off? Yes But it did it pay off Has it hasn't paid off enough times for me to feel comfortable doing it. It's going to be uncomfortable to do dallas It's going to be uncomfortable, right? Yeah, philly It's going to be uncomfortable to do the east coast show because I know that I stretched hard for this show and it wasn't enough Yeah, I gotta stretch more I think I think what a lot of people do at the point that we're at where they make their biggest mistake is they're going to Overextend and tap into credit that they shouldn't or The space that I was completely naive to was basically this loan sharking that happens with people with a card But there's some of it that's healthy There's some of it that is just rough stuff But when people see people that are willing to work every week and they're churning through money They realize they can get better yields than they do in the standard market. They just go after you I'll throw you some money you throw me some points But boy, they they can make the wrong decision buy the wrong inventory one bad collection purchase You're in big trouble. Yeah So that's the hard thing is that you and I have committed like we're going to scale this thing organically And it's going to take two three years longer now Somebody wants to parachute in and hand us a few hundred grand and say hey, give me something You know, we're going to look at anything sure, but I think we lose some steps in the process that are very important money doesn't solve What we need money doesn't isn't complete enough to solve the growth that's needed for you and I to sustain larger shows We know and learn systems inventory One thing that's blaringly obvious is buying we have got to organize it We got to organize how this is going to happen at tables because right now we're just so used to at 300 tables Sure, everybody come up just handed everybody if you can't send people somewhere you're losing all kinds of money That's not being seen in the showcase There's not much organization the people they're going to waste your time If they have to wait in a line for five minutes might skip right along and save you Yeah, but there's things that we're going to have to do to be more efficient at that size I think yeah, and I think that as as you're if you're watching this as you are scaling and growing and moving up that show ladder um One of the things that is so so valuable And it is something that comes very natural to jason It doesn't come super natural to me, but being in jason's proximity has helped not being afraid to network and ask People who have been there it doesn't and listen as a guy who's damn near 50 Who has done a lot of things in his life? Who's been reasonably successful at a number of different things? I have to Swallow my pride and be willing to ask a 25 year old Yep that has Done better than me in this. Yep. Yep Yep, and and learn um, and we've been able to develop relationships with people, um people that we had on the pod who are More successful than we are in this space and be willing to swallow your pride and say hey How did you do this? Yeah, what was the and sometimes listen, let's not be naive. Sometimes the answer is I had a whole lot of money to do it with Sometimes yeah, sometimes that's the answer Um, but a lot of times it's not a lot of times some of the people guys listen when I say this It applies to me. It applies to jason. It applies to some of the people that you watch In content in this space more than you possibly can imagine We buy cool stuff But it's a stretch sometimes You see a guy drop 15 grand 50 grand 100 grand on a card Don't assume that there's hundreds of grands or tens of grand behind that waiting They dropped 30k on this card and it left him with four grand They got to move that card pretty quick to get liquid again. Yeah, um It's not it's not an endless stream of cash behind this stuff So well the next thing too for us gary, I think you're making great points is the next step beyond us Is the I don't know a better way of calling it but like your arbitrage path is already laid out So the guys that are doing the huge national shows that are buying the 30 000 cards probably already have three to five names Or the right auction house in mind. They may shoot a message before they even put an offer in Yeah, you and I at our size, especially if we have a little bit of a local love from from the content or whatever We can just keep going one off one off one off. This is the right type for the showcase Yeah, but I think at that scale those guys are like i'm gonna buy it all and this is gonna be already on whatnot By wednesday, this will be to this buyer. This is going to fanatics auction gold and whatever And here's the really big boys that this buyer buys from me. We we had a guy we talked to at the show this weekend and Another vendor who was there And he only had one showcase out and it didn't have that much stuff in it And he just had a big thing up and he sat in front of it all weekend. It was buying And nine out of ten cards that he handed somebody money for he was paid for before the next morning and they were in the mail Yep Yeah, I think when you talk scale there's a visual that a lot of people have that are setting up shows that eventually It's just going to be windfalls of money and it's all right there, but it's still You're not selling out. Like if you sell all of your cards, you're giving up like when people say. Oh somebody bought me out That's great What was your percentage? Really did you make money there or did you just get your cash or did you get cash because now you got to go buy it again, yep uh, but yeah, I think there's different systems that need to be like so for us that my reflection is We got to get way more efficient at how long buying takes We got to find a way to be quicker to move a conversation along politely and to be helpful When it's not there if there's other people waiting and we both struggle with that from different sides. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely for me, it's I risk being too rude And you risk spending too much time. Yep. Yep yeah, so there's just I think there's some some uh, some growing pains there for us, uh along the way with that kind of stuff, but I don't think we'll be at more like Less big shows like we're gonna be doing that more. Yep and I think we're gonna have to figure out what we tough is like you're not going to be able to do all the big shows and Keep those promoters happy that you've seen every single month for the last 10 months. Yeah, you're gonna have to make some decisions Yeah, and and sometimes those decisions are hey, we love you. We we love what you do We want to continue to be a part of it whenever it's possible for us to do so if that means We're gonna pay you five or six hundred dollars this year for tables that we never use and you resell them to somebody else That's what we'll do um Yeah Yeah any other reflections i'm sure that we could have gotten a little more into the weeds on this, but I Just an encouragement to anybody more than anything, right? Like people that are starting in this I know some of you messaged you were setting up your first shows You ran one last week I mean i'll tell you there's two ways if you had a rough show, right? First that's the first time I think i've cried on this right? But like i've been there man And there's a couple ways that that can motivate you can motivate you to quit or it can motivate you man I really want to figure this out. I'm gonna take this seriously Yeah, um, and I didn't realize how important that decision was. I didn't realize how fortunate I was to be as stubborn as I am All right, honestly like it paid off, right? Yeah, so you had a bad show. So what there's another show next week Always another deal. Oh, it's your comps right go get a table and run it back Yeah, figure it out. You're gonna learn learning is way more important than the money right off the bat Yep, I know it doesn't feel like that but and self-reflection matters like if you had a bad show Sometimes sometimes and it's the rarity It really just was a funky show. Yeah, nothing you did was wrong. You didn't do anything wrong Um, I had one of those about six months ago. Jason and I were sat right beside each other We priced our stuff very similarly. Jason literally did 10 times as much as I did It's not funny. I'm just remembering that day Yeah, because I looked over you and like how much you done you're like five hundred dollars Um, but that's the rarity here's the hard part for anybody who is a entrepreneur to hear Most of the time when that happens You did something wrong. Yep Look inward first most of the time you did something wrong. You were too aggressive with your stickers You were too married to your cards you bought them wrong you weren't willing to take a loss on something the Most of the time especially with the state this hobby is in right now. Yeah, if you're setting up at shows And you aren't able to sell stuff. You either don't have stuff people want or you're priced wrong. Yep Now is that always the case no But be willing to look at yourself before you point fingers at the promoter before you point fingers at the stubborn customers If you had a card in your showcase for 120 And you got 10 offers at 95 And you didn't take one of them You're probably the problem. Yeah, it's probably a 95 to 100 card Yeah, and if you paid a hundred dollars for it It may just be time to take that five dollar loss and get back to work with the 95. Yep All right A lot to think about there put everybody through the wringer. We promise guests are coming up. We're working on Excuse me a fun list of those. Yep reminder We're on whatnot three times a week every sunday at 4 30 eastern Both of us do a show together and then gary and I typically have an individual solo show every week Gary's flirting with the idea of some different theme shows like a goat show a 90s show so be paying attention as inventory changes I'm the type of guy that like picks a lane and then I just I don't mind experimenting with it Gary and I are very different like that Um, but I really like what he's on too. There'll be some fun stuff on with that Discord is available for you. Yes, please. I think we have like 60 people already in three days a minute ago There's 15 people just hanging out in there. Yeah, there is different content I would encourage you if you find your way in to check out the welcome video It was gary and I after a couple brewskis in uh, nashville, and it is funny Uh, but go give a discord, uh join that and join in the conversation there shows the next few weeks this saturday Gary will be set up at northgate cincinnati Um, my daughter's birthday. She has eight friends sleeping over with her. Jason's 50 50 I I probably won't make it out to that one. I can't do that to my wife. I don't think uh, But sunday I will be with gary in circleville at that show That's at the high school the following week One of our favorite times of the year ship. Shawana in indiana up in amish country If you haven't been it's the one show I ask people about all the time I tried to convince 10 people to go to ship. Shawana while we were in nashville, uh two days, uh, lots of fun Uh, so make sure to check that out. Then what do we have the week after that? There's another one mid or we have a week off. Uh, we have we have a week off and then bronco bash Uh over daleville, indiana, it's a 300 plus table show close to anderson Yeah, so if you are in that area, uh or within a couple hours, it'll probably be worth the trip out and then uh It'll be xenia time again, and then i'll be gone for a couple weeks on vacation And you'll just get to see jason and before you know it it's gonna be summer Because time isn't real I can't wait. All right. Is that it gary? Is there anything else we got to cover? No, we just went 90 minutes with just us All right. We love y'all. We'll see you on discord This has been the ball card show Esports podcast for the sports collector. Bye now. Peace.