The Challenge Of Change S6 Ep23

This episode of the Ball Card show is brought to you by our friends at Pristine Auction, where items are guaranteed authentic for the entire time you own it. Not just at the win, not just while the cert holds. If you own it, Pristine stands behind it for a limited time. Take advantage of $20 off your first auction when you register with the code Ballcard. Win the real thing. Pristine Auction Foreign. Hello and welcome to the Ball Card show, the sports podcast for the esports collector. I'm Jason otero. I'm Gary Lemaster, and this is season six and episode 23. And Gary, do you love the way the sun kissed my skin? D.C. if there's a glow about me, there's definitely a glow. It's more of a glare. Oh, that's just. But that's just me. But the. The sun was intense down there. As you can tell. I. I was in a. I was wearing a fishing hoodie most of the week. On your face. Well, they do go like this. And up here. Now, the lighting's not doing me any favors here. But you know, Antigua was very nice. Enjoyed it. Celebrated 20th anniversary with the wife. Had a vacation several days. First time in a minute. It was solid. Dude. Was it? I did some reading. Did Antigua have everything Chillicothe could offer? You're gonna try to get me in trouble with Southern Ohio? I tell you what. You don't know it, but you. You say chill coffee and they don't like the tone of it. You're gonna get some messages. Did it carry the. Did it carry the scent of paper mash? I will say the beaches of Antigua hold nothing on the banks of the Sciota in Chathe. They're very different. Yes, they are. But I don't want to get in any more trouble. I will also say it's so important that your luggage arrives when you travel out of the country. Cuz mine didn't. No, I was. I was like already. We. We flew with American, which I can't tell you how many times we've had like a. Something happen in a trip flying with them. And I was just like dreading it. And we got down there, I was like, oh, it went well. And then the luggage, you know, that their. Their carousel just keeps running and my stuff isn't there. You. You sent me a text and said, guess whose luggage never left Columbus and who had to spend 150 bucks at the gift shop so he could look like Dick Van Dyke on the beach. I did too, man. So two thoughts. I had one. Thank goodness this wasn't my wife's. Stuff. That was the first thought I had. The second thought I had been way more expensive. There is no chance that they have my size on this island. There is no chance that there's. That there's big boy clothing down here. They surprised you. Well, the resort had it. Yeah. I just had to sell a kidney to be dressed like Dick Van Dyke on the beach and a linen shirt and like pleated Tommy Bahama shorts. You have deleted shorts. I'm. I am just. It feels, it feels like 1997 in a nutshell. It's back though. The look is back. It wasn't down there, but I found clothing that fit. About 24, 26 hours later, my bag arrived. So all was good in the world, but it was a great trip. Fun catching up. But let's talk cards. We just finished up the Midwest Monster at Indianapolis. Big show, tons of traffic, it was very busy. We had a lot of dealers that we were like on the way out at the end of the show, we're like, oh my gosh, you were here like. And usually you're able to take a few laps and say hey to people. Not one of those weekends for those of you saying the sky is falling. It wasn't falling in Indianapolis, I'll tell you that. No. Midwest Monster was not one of those doom and gloom scenarios for the hobby. A lot of people most of the day on Friday. And this was strange because Friday, like the show started at noon, which is a work day. And from noon until 8, we had 5, 6, 7 people at the table almost non stop there. Really realized wasn't a brand. People just saw me crudely drink water out of a Gatorade bottle. That's like, hey, yeah, you make, you make do. Absolutely. Don't at me. You gotta hydrate. But. But we were, we were buried almost the whole day. It was about the third or fourth show in a row where the selling has been really good. The there h. There wasn't that much buying opportunity. There were a couple of things that came up. Now we did see some wild cards. I think the craziest thing we saw was a guy who walked up, had a case and he goes, yeah, this is the first card show I've ever been to. And then he opens the case and it's like PSA 9 Otani rookie auto to 5 or to 10. 1 of 1 Derek Jeter Sterling, the four color patch, the auto Wimby rookie PSA 9 to 50 auto pack. It was wild, like, stuff like that. And people are like, this is our first show. A quick reminder, by the way, those people exist in. In the hobby, and like it or not, that dude's definitely collecting. Yes. Because he's not even been to his show. This is the first time he even thought about selling anything. I asked him, I said, so I don't know if you know this, but these are not small cards. You know, you're not just a casual, casually interested person here. So tell me, like, what, What. What is the hobby for you? And he's like, well, I just see stuff I think is unique that I like, and I buy it. Yeah. So the collectors are out there and they're spending money on big cards. Yeah. He has never even heard of a repack. He wasn't even interested in shell and show at first. He gets that big card. I said, listen, I'm gonna tell you right now, I can't afford anything else in that. In that box, but I would like to still see everything you have. Yeah. But what was crazy was the cards that he had bought that he had sent off for grading, he was emotionally attached to. He had tags on the back of them. I'm not sure he would have sold them even if somebody said, I'll pay you what's on that tag. He might have. They were the right type of cards to set your prices. Yes. But then he also had in that box, and we ended up buying it. A Drake May Topps chrome on card, rookie auto to 75, a really cool insert, Equinox insert. And that one he didn't care about at all. He was like, oh, right, yeah, I'll sell it for this. We were like, okay, okay, cool. We'll take it. Right. There were a lot of people walking the show who were obviously collectors. They would look at a card in your showcase. They didn't take their phone out to check comps. They just went, I like that card. Would you take this for it? A lot of times it was a super fair offer. We just said, yeah, sometimes we had to counter. But the number of people who weren't even checking comps was fun for me to see. Not because we're trying to overprice things, but because it tells me that people are buying things for themselves. They're not buying it to flip it anywhere else. They. They just. I had the 62 mantle. It was a seven. Yeah, right. Or 606, actually. You were walking away from the table when that guy came up. It was awesome. Yeah. And he was completing the set, and that was the one he needed. It was the last. So that was such a good One that's like a perfect scenario because he wasn't super married to the grade. But it was slabbed. It was a 7, which is OC. I price it as a 5 and I thought it would even take a little bit longer. People really don't like qualifiers. But I thought if there is a card, Mickey Mantle is probably the guy where an oc, you know, qualifier or a miss cut is still going to move. And it did. So there was a lot of that. The other thing that's starting to happen too is, and I love this, as we have highlighted more of the end user cards. There was a, there was a post I made at the Ship Sha show. We got like a super packers collector, Jordy Nelson collector. And he came back and two or three times just showing me, hey, here's the new packers cards I picked up. It wasn't about a transaction. What about any of that? No, but seeing more of that happen at our table makes me happy. Yeah. Because I know a lot of that room. It's not about that. It's all about you got money or time for me. Right. So it just felt really cool to, to, to see some more of that stuff happening and to pick some stuff up. Yeah. So you were wanting to talk about a couple interesting things that you started to notice at the show. Let's dive into that. Yeah, I, I think that one of the things that people are starting to feel is a really heavy pressure to source. Especially the guys that are out every week. When I tell you that some of these guys are buying half a million dollars worth of cards a week to sell to the large repack companies, that's not an exaggeration. And they're starting to find that dealers in general are starting to realize that it's not their job to make money for somebody else. Right. If they can. I tell people this all the time. If there's a card in our showcase that can all make money on cool, no problem. Sometimes I'm going to be the one that makes the money. We're going to be the ones that make the money. We've put the work in to do it. And the days of these guys just being able to scoop everything up in a showcase for, you know, whatever they feel like is gone for the most part. Yeah. You were, you're saying to just hand over money or give people money. Why does it feel like that to you as a dealer? I think obviously I'm, I'm in the same boat as you. But I think people maybe that aren't in our scenario but maybe flip a little bit or set up once in a while. They can't quite understand why. Why are there such strong opinions about that? It's not uncommon for someone to ask for a deal. Why is it different to you of somebody coming up on a hundred dollar card and saying, hey, can I give you 80? And someone that you talking, you know, you know that they're sheeting everything out for a repack flip. Right. It's the same number. Why is it different to you? Well, that's why, because it's not the same number. When, when a conversation begins and ends with will you take a percentage? Not a number, not an offer. It's not an offer. I have a card tagged at a thousand dollars that are not offering me 800 or 900. They're saying, Will you take 88%? Of what? Of my tag? Of a random value you're going to assign to it? Yeah. What, what are we, what are we trying to have a conversation about? One of the things that the longer we do this, the longer this is our full time thing, the longer we have this platform that we have, the more I'm convinced, and I've always been convinced, but the more I'm convinced that relationships matter more than anything else. Yeah. And when the only relationship that you as a buyer want to have with me as a seller is a transactional one, I have no investment in that. There's no emotional investment to that. Why do I have an incentive to reward you? Right. Why do I have an incentive to do that? We had somebody walk up to the table and it was a small card. You had a Hakeem Elijah on SGC 10 cracked ice in the showcase, hasn't sold in two or three years. It's, you know, $20 on it. It's a 20 car. And this guy goes, well, what do, what do you, what do you want for that? And you were like, well, I've $20. There's literally a white tag right there. The dollar sign, two and a zero on it. But I'll listen to an offer. And he was like, well, I mean, what do you really need for it? He just wouldn't give an offer. And finally it was very obvious that he wanted to buy the card for 10 bucks or less. And. But he didn't, but he wouldn't say that. But then he. Do you remember what he said with the grading and the fact that it was in an SGC slot? Oh, yeah. He's like, well, I saw a PSA 10 did three years ago, $18. And you were like, oh, okay. At one point I said, I, I still haven't heard a number. Yeah, I haven't heard an offer. His argument was, well, SGC is down. So the comp from a couple years ago and the card ladder value and we're talking a 20 car. Yes. this point, my heels are dug in. And I said, I tell you what, I'll make you a deal. That's a fair point on SGC. On these other ones that are SGC 10s, if you want to go back to SGC pricing, blah, blah, blah. Can we look at these other ones as well to compare that to? Right, yeah. Didn't want to do that. And I said, well, just feel free to shoot me an offer. And he never made an offer because it was about a percentage below value. Someone convinced these kids, their, their kids are usually younger. Hey, if you can work down the sticker value and get a percentage, you're golden. Yeah. And it got to the point where. And it wasn't all. And I would also point important clarification here. We have good relationships with a lot of repacks. There are several repackers that spend a lot of money with us on a regular basis and we have such a good relationship with them. We'll literally ask them, hey, what price band are you buying and what percentage are you trying to hit? And then we will go build a stack for them if we have that kind of stuff and it makes sense for us. Yeah. Because every dealer, not all, but if you're buying right. You're going to have some stuff that you can move or some stuff that didn't perform as quickly as you wanted. Yep. And that $100 comp is going to be there in a year because it's unique. And clearly the market is not going to spend a hundred dollars on this card. So move it. That person can lean on that comp and get paid. It's a win, win for everybody. Right. What you just said there. We have a relationship with them and it's not just built on that. Most of those guys will come to our table and sit there for 20 minutes and talk about life and talk about, you know, what they're doing. And it's a relationship, it's a community. And that's. It feels like a lot of conversations at shows with the guys going through as fast as they can are just bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. And when that happens, for me it's a, well, you want me to buy from you at 80%. Okay. If we can develop a relationship that makes sense maybe I can do that. But if the only thing you're asking is what percent do you buy at all that tells me is the next person that comes along. I could give you a hundred thousand dollars but if somebody offered you 1% more, I'm gone, you're not talking to me anymore. So things have to be mutually beneficial. That same kid with the, the Kim Elijah card then pulled cards out of his showcase out of his box and wanted to sell them to me. And a couple of more my kind of things. It was like an MJD Rookie Auto Maurice Jones shoe Rookie Auto. It's like a 20 card, 15 to $20 card. And he wants 30% over for it. But he wanted. It's like it's not a two way street. Guys, I can't explain to you enough how much better this hobby can be. Whether you're just a collector, whether you're a dealer, whether you're somebody who flips to fund their collection. This hobby can be so much more rewarding if you build relationships. Yeah. That are mutually beneficial things for everybody involved. Because you find guys we've got a, a person who is relatively local to us here, developed a great relationship with. He's an Eddie George super collector. And I know that if we can find cool stuff that he'll want it and, and maybe he'll wait a month to see if we sell it for a bigger price somewhere else. But there's a relationship there and he knows that if he finds cool stuff that we want he's going to reach out to us. The community and the relationships are so much more important than the fleeting one off transactions. And, and to, to kind of make a positive approach that it's okay that somebody walking the room needing to source because they do flip it 5 and 3% up the chain to somebody in a repack. It's okay for us to come to a mutual understanding that I can't be that person for you. Yeah. And you can't be that person for me. And we're cool. And there are people I could do a list of names but there's that that wouldn't help anything. That we no longer do big stack deals. But every show if we see each other it's a handshake hug. How are you doing? And I send them business and they send me business. And sometimes if it comes down to just a percentage then my mentality is it sounds like we're both playing the exact same game here. Yep. This is kind of going to be hard for us. But yeah. The relationships Are everything. There's a fatigue going around with some of these. These things. But here's what I would encourage the person that's outsourcing like this because it's easy for us to be critical from our side of the table to the person that's out walking the room. And this doesn't seem to be working for them. I think it's really important that they understand that what worked for you six months ago, buying probably needs tuned up. And that happens to us, too. Sure. Like, you're like, hey, everything changed in the room. That happens to us, too. It happens to us when we have, you know, $30,000 of cards that are over 200 bucks, and all of a sudden the market shifts down to the below $100 mark for most of your bread and butter show inventory. It happens to us, too. We have to make shifts. It happens when all of a sudden sh. Is a guy where, hey, I was moving a lot of that. And then you realize, oh, man, I've been g. That I didn't have to. Right. But people wanting to move this quickly. So I, I think adapt to it. If you're having the same struggle tug of war with dealers, when you walk up and you're always starting with percentage, try a different approach. Be genuine, don't be fake. But if something's not working for you, the answer, I promise the answer isn't, well, if this isn't working and this show sucks, I just need to go super fast around the room, interrupt every deal, and start throwing numbers around. Yeah, the opposite of what you want is going to happen. Yeah, the opposite. So you got to kind of be in your space and. And depend on those relationships and be more direct. I think it would be so refreshing to some dealers if they're like, listen, I can, I can. I can move about 3 to 5 points if I can buy stuff around 83 to 85%. I don't know what the number is. I'm just saying hypotheticals here, but I think there's probably a lot of dealers that would just respond well to that and be like, oh, well, here it is. It's not going to be these slabs that you think it's going to be, but it, but here's 10 cards that might make sense. Sure. And I get my money back. I may not have made anything, but I freed up some bricks and, you know, so anyway, we're. We're going. We're going a little over on a rabbit trail. I thought it was interesting. We're seeing that dynamic shift relationships really Matter. And if you're outsourcing and you just can't get anything done, I. I can't encourage it enough. Believe in yourself enough to go set up a table and go. Believe in yourself enough. And if you're just moving that channel through other stuff, still set up and buy. Yeah. Like, if the show scene is where you want to have an impact and move money and buy and sell and flip, even if it's for a repack, I don't know a faster way to build relationships than to buy a table, meet the people around you that on a regular basis. Yeah. You'll probably get more. You'll probably get more. But just a reminder that no dealer owes that to you. Gary and I were in $1,300 on this show between tables and hotel and gas before we even sold a card. Yeah. Right. Yes. So. And. And at the margins you run on this type of stuff, you got to ask, all right, how many cards did I need to sell to cover that? So when you're saying, like, I'm just asking for this percentage, that percentage, just understand there's a lot of costs involved, time involved, but you could decide to take that risk on yourself, and it may be way more profitable. So. Right. That's 100% the case. And again, I would encourage anybody who feels like dealers are overpricing their cards or are just out to get people. Set up at a few shows yourself and see how it goes. I think that it's a very valuable experience if you walk shows to buy on a regular basis. Set up as a dealer once or twice. Yeah. Feel that out. Give it a try. Give it a try. And dealers, it's so easy for us to get bitter. Oh, yeah. But every now and then, we're so desperate for inventory that we go walk the room and get kicked in the teeth for an hour. And remember, it's not easy. No. Have a little empathy. Sometimes that person's been through and been shoved around and not been treated very well. Right. Yeah. Because of a reputation or an expectation that wasn't very fair. Right. So try to balance that out as well on the dealer side. And remember, hey, it's nice being on this side of the table. Those of us that have gotten comfortable with it, we'd rather pay for the opportunity to buy from our side of the table as dealers, but. Right. It's not always easy. It's not always easy. All right, let's move this on. I am real excited about this. Keith had a video. Somebody came in and ripped a bunch of wax it popped off and they bought like a flawless case and some other boxes. They were ripping a ton big stuff and went a little viral with this. Like he, it went viral, I guess like over a million views, all this kind of stuff. But Keith went down the rabbit trail of checking out comments and he was having a heyday with it. So let's head up to Delaware, Ohio. Newhart Cards. Keith Newhart with Shop Talk. Hi, this is Keith at Newhart Cards and this is Shop Talk. Gonna use my phone here a little bit. Wrote some things down. So imagine a shiny piece of cardboard has any inherent value. Take your gum out before you film. Shit is disgusting. Don't grab cards by the corners, idiots. Bad choice of boxes. Like your bad choice of hand tattoos. So last week we had a viral video. So a client came in, opened a 24 flawless football box. Right. So next thing you know there's over a million views and everything. So I thought it would be fun to look at some of the kind comments and remarks that they had. So let's just kind of get back to that. So imagine buying sports cards that have no playability. I get buying Pokemon. Why do a lot of these sports card rippers annihilate their fingernails? They down to the nubs. Woof. Ouch. Rinsed. What an L. This one's amazing. Here, I'm looking for a 1980s Scott Campbell hockey card if you have one. Our guy Chase paying the shop's rent for the month. More bad tattoos and gum chewing references constantly. So the moral of this story is Topps isn't the only one that's, that's, you know, putting out bad boxes. Panee's been doing it for years. This was another one. It just happens to be a six thousand dollar box. So this has been Keith at Newhart Cards and this is Shop Talk here at the ball card show. When we decided to partner with Pristine Auction, it's because it felt like such a no brainer. Pristine has gone out of their way to make sure that the entire collector experience is as transparent and, and seamless and authentic as possible. They offer fast paced live selling auctions where every sale sets a recorded comp. They offer 10 minute auctions where 10 lots go up and you can bid on them for 10 minutes. And they offer traditional daily and weekly auctions as well, if that is more your speed. Most importantly, every item you purchase from Pristine, they stand behind and guarantee to be authentic for the entire time that you purchase. Own the item for a limited time. When you register at Pristine and sign up with the code ball card. You'll get $20 off your first auction win, as well as three months of gold status as a consigner Win the real thing. Pristine auction. Thanks, Keith. You remember the old mean tweets that they would do like on the late night? Reminded me that where he's going through all the comments on that. I do have a big announcement. Gary. I did just get a text from Jeremy. Okay. So six years ago, me and my buddy got done wine and garage springs and we'd come over to my house and open a couple beers and talk about sports cards. Yep. Then we turn on a microphone that nobody would listen to. I remember our first interview was a guy that now has a huge shop down in San Antonio, Vic. We couldn't figure out the audio. It echoed the whole interview and we had no solution to him. I think Gary was holding a USB mic in his hand like this. We didn't even have microphones. Nope. For six years we've been doing this podcast, you know, and it was about 18 months ago we decided to turn on a camera and start really going after this because we're selling full time. And a piece of that we wanted was to be able to be a part of a. Of a larger group that had a similar mindset around collecting, that they enjoyed it, that they appreciated that there are people out there that are doing this for a business, but they didn't forget the collector in the process. We have just finalized an agreement with Sports Cards Nonsense Media Network to be a part of that family. It's exciting. This is something. Yeah. Super excited about this. This is something that Mike had mentioned, an idea of doing something like this when we joined them Cut the nonsense last fall and then in the spring. And we've been talking with them and try to find a way to do that. But to us, this is a significant moment for the content, for the hard work that we put in that we look around that network of people that we really do respect, people that we spent time, people that have been on our show like Alex and Gordy, people like Mike that from day one have kept it 100% exactly what they're thinking. Jesse, all those guys. So we are. We're joining the network. There'll be a lot more rolling out about that over the next few weeks. But we could not be more excited to bring our blue collar approach, our honest, direct takes. And here's what I'm excited about. One of the things that we had a conversation with, with the team about was our brand is credibility. Our brand is just being very direct and honest, regardless of. Of who's involved. And we wanted to know that that would still be valued. And what's really cool, which more will roll out soon, is that's exactly what they want us to bring to the network. So the podcast is not changing. The podcast is still the ball card show. You will see it. It'll still drop a regular basis. There won't be anything like that. But we will have some very fresh fun and definitely not boring content coming your way very soon that I can't give a whole lot more info. And while I'm at it, Gary, if I may, that was a. Another thing happened in the last couple days. We signed. Oh. Contract. Yeah. To be selling on ebay live. So we're going to be making a leap to ebay Live. There's quite a bit of process there, but it's going to be at some point in July that you'll see us on there as well. So in 18 months, we turned on a camera, we began publishing this stuff. Grown socials, had to learn how to use TikTok and Instagram. No clue. No clue. Still don't know. Not for the most part, no. Been beyond to see a community build and then here we are on the other side of, of a network deal which just seems very surreal to both of us. So don't want to toot my own horn, but in words of Jim Carrey and liar, Liar, that's a big deal, bud. So we got a lot to figure out. Let's take a few minutes here and talk through what we mentioned at the beginning. This is like perfect timing that, that we get the thumbs up to share that as well. Let's, let's go ahead and take a minute here and dive into what do we need to do to merge all this together with everything else that's happening with now the ebay live and all this is coming in together. You ready to get to work? Yeah, it's, it's, it's a lot and it's exciting and it's scary and we've, we've been talking about this for a while and we knew that we needed to do it at some point. We didn't know what that point was. And finally we realized a lot. Like deciding to have a kid. There's never going to be a perfect time. There's never the right time for it. There's never the right analogy. No, no. I mean, my goodness. But in general, it's like it's never going to be perfect. It's never Going to be the time where. And it's just like, let's pick a day and let's go. So we decided, come hell or high water, that the Nashville show was it. We're doing this. It's us. No more you, me, and the ball card show. It's all the ball card show. And whatever it takes to make that work, we're gonna do it. And then all these other things have lined up, and they're all part of it. They're all part of why we're able to do that. Yeah. So we have a lot to figure out. Yeah. But I want to pause for a moment because I think it's important. I want to encourage anybody. And again, this is not me saying, hey, we've arrived. This is all. We have so much work to do. So much. We have so much more pressure than we did before. But to the person that just had a show that sucked, the person that's looking at their inventory saying, man, I got to write the ship here. The person that sales are down right now, but you'd love this. Just keep your nose down and go. Don't stop. Trust your gut. If you really love this, keep working at it. Be smart. Change what you need to change. Quit doing something that's not working. But as we're getting ready to experience kind of a new chapter in our business with all of this that's developing at the same time, which is snowballing, which is a little frightening and exciting at the same time, I want to remember that in the last year, Gary and I have had 20 times where we felt all of those same emotions. Yes. And in the last three years, we've had a million times that we felt all those same things. And so just an encouragement as we're excited and talking about these things that are developing for us, that we've worked really hard for, that we've earned. Yeah. I want to encourage you to just keep going. I just think it's important to remember, like, this stuff doesn't just happen out of nowhere. You have to. You have to create that. And we're excited to celebrate that. But I want to encourage anybody else to just feel down. Just keep plugging away. Keep plugging away. You just never know. Keep building relationships. Keep going. All right, Gary CO WORKER PARTNER IN CRIME we got to talk through this a little bit. So, yeah. Joining Inventory live selling show efficiency. The stuff we're nervous about. Let's dump into the weeds here for a few minutes and talk about it. Yeah. We've got Nashville coming up. We're merging our inventory. We put some money in the account together, and this whole beast of ebay live rolling in. At the same time, we've also experienced the moving target of whatnot and trying to figure out what works best for our community and for us. So a lot of irons in the fire. Oh, yeah. Content. We got that too. So let's break it down. I'll let you take the driver's seat here. Where do you want to jump in? What. What's going on in our mind? What are the things that we're working on through right now? Well, I. I think the. The overarching of why we're doing this is really important. Like, there's all the different bits and pieces of it, which we'll dive into. But in general, when you have two people that work as closely together as Jason and I do, but there are three different businesses, you're going the same general direction, but there are three poles happening, and. And maybe one's pulling a little to the right, one's pulling a little to the left, and one's trying to pull straight forward. And you. You creep forward instead of all of that horsepower and all of that energy pointing in the same direction and going the right in. In one place. And that was the reasoning behind. Okay, it's time to do this. We were nervous that we'd be able to pull it off. You know, we have bills to pay, and we got bills to pay. And jumping into this full time is scary because it's like, okay, I can pay myself if I sell a ton of cards. That's the thing. You have to sell so many. Yeah, you have to sell so many cards. Whether it's lighter or bigger cards, you have to sell a lot from cards. I mean, how many times have you and I run through these numbers just to make sure? And every time we think we feel okay about it, we're like, I don't know. Let's run these numbers again. Yeah. Yep. So we started working through inventory. At one point, Gary had ebay, I had ebay, we had whatnot. Gary had a separate whatnot show, I had a separate whatnot show, and we had a joint whatnot show. We're setting up at shows, sharing two or three tables, separate inventory. In those tables on top of the showcase inventory, we're trying to, like, space out. Hey, well, I think it's your turn. Well, I think it's your turn. Right? And it's never even. There's always one of us that's going to end up buying better that day. And the other one has to be okay because we. All we can do is trust the intention. And the reality of it is, is that even though you trust the intention of the other one, when. When you have periods and we've both had them where one person didn't do just a little bit better, they did a lot better. Maybe it was two or three weeks in a row, and then you're looking at your inventory going, I'm falling behind what's happening here and what's going on. And it doesn't matter how much you love somebody, how hard you work, how close you are, that can create tension. You and I are lucky enough that we both know each other well enough that when we feel those tensions, we've always just talked through it. We don't let things fester. But. But an animated talking. Yes. Yes, sometimes. But at the end of the day, this decision eliminates all of that. Now it's not who's doing better, it's who's better at this. Let them focus on it. And who's better at this. Let them focus on it. And it's going to make everything we do not only more efficient, but we're going to become so much more lethal at what we do. Yeah. I think at one point we had all that going on, and we were trying to source three different. What? Yeah. Shows. So imagine like everything walking up and you guys have seen us do this. It was confusing. Right. Jason's got a stack. Here's stuff Jason wants. Then there's this stack of whatnot, but he thinks it's whatnot for both of them. And then there's the whatnot that's just Jason. And then you had the weird 90s stuff that went to Gary because that's his wheelhouse. So I'm sending it over there. Unless it's a goat from that era. And then I wanted. Because I knew what to do with it. Right. So we would come back from these shows and you're just so fatigued because you're trying to manage so many different things within the buying and try to make it as equitable as possible. And you're trying to manage knowing it's not going to be perfect. Yeah. And you're trying to manage your relationship. You don't want the other person to be upset. You want the you, and you don't want to feel upset. There are times that I felt frustrated and I felt bad for feeling frustrated, and I wanted to try everything in my power to hide that frustration and communicate that I was happy and excited for you and you know me well enough to know that I was still frustrated. Right. You know, it's like. And we would have a conversation probably once every three months, but I would encourage anybody that's in this space. And working with a friend. One of the things I think is really important. I know it's a silly question to ask, is like, if. If we blew this up and ruined our business, how would it happen? Yeah. Yeah. And the thing that we kept coming to, both of us agreed with our personalities. Comparison would be the thing that would completely kill the opportunity for us to work together. We will never scale to where we're about to be if we started playing that comparison game or if I started worrying. People talk about a scarcity mindset. And the visual I have is. Have you ever seen, like, a puppy dog? That's like, their paws are way bigger than they are, and it's like, time to eat. And there's no one else in the room. Just. There's no other dogs, just humans. Nobody's going after this dog's bowl. But the way he's hunched over that thing, two bites, looking up like, there better not be anybody to take anything from me. Right. I think that mindset, and you see it in shows you can tell who's who, who's thinking that way, because they. They just. They create all this pressure. Like, that mindset would have completely brought us down, and it came close a few times. Like, we've had a few conversations where it's like, hey, I don't think we're done fighting about this. Yeah. But we had to have that commitment to talk through. So what are we going to do? Yeah. You know, if it was a time where he had two weeks in a row, I was like, well, I don't expect you to give it to me. And there's nothing we can do to fix it because we're not doing joint inventory because we can't yet. So I'm just going to scream and hope that you feel empathetic. Yeah. That's what I. For you, you know? Yeah. And we had. We had a lot of times like that. Now we're about to have a whole different set of pressure and that our checks are coming out of the same pool. It's all coming out of the same spot. And I'm. I. I know there'll be new pressure with that, but I don't doubt that we'll be a lot more efficient. Yeah. So let's talk through our strategy for now, what we think we need to start doing at shows to be more efficient. So, again, it was like we were there, but we were both doing our own thing. All these hundreds of shows that we've been doing together over the last few years, now we're all under one roof. So we're trying to talk through this, thinking through it. What do you think changes with our approach at shows to begin with? I think the biggest thing is that it's going to allow us both to stay in the lane of not only what we're comfortable at, but what we're good at. You are really good at developing relationships quickly with people, which means that when somebody walks up to the table with their case, you need to be the first person they talk to. If we're trying to buy. I'm oftentimes better at holding margin, especially on the unique and interesting stuff and showcases. When people are trying to build big stacks, I'm a lot better at saying, you know what, man, I can't sell you this card for what you want to pay. Let's set it off to the side. I. I think that right off the g. Off the rip, that's going to be a huge benefit for us. The other thing that you were just talking about telling people with the ebay live thing coming up, the amount of inventory that we're going to have to source is triple what we've had to. Yes and no, because I was sourcing some of that individually. But yes, with our. Yeah, but. But even then, like, the. The amount of volume that we need to run for the model that we're running to make sense, y. That that level is up. So now when we're at a show and it's a little slower than. Than it needs to be for two of us to be at the table, one of us can go, hey, I'll be back in two hours. I'm gonna go spend some money. And that person can go walk knowing that they're not missing anything, that they're not missing any opportunities, like, all that kind of stuff. Because if we. When we get slammed, if there's just one of us, it's not easy. No. But if it's the same for both of us. If I'm. We used to be. If I'm taking the lap, I assume the risk that if Gary has three people on his showcases and one on mine, he has to talk to the three people. His. Yeah. And ask if they need anything. Yeah. But it's not the same. Yeah. So now that. So now that shifts a little bit. We're going to have to. The big thing. I'M focusing on is because of the volume we need, we're going to have to pay up. We need to be as close to the front entrance as we can anytime it's possible. We need to be on every wait list for every major national show that exists. Ones that we would even been like, oh, I don't know if we should do that. We should, we should get on the list. We should be there. We have the reps. We just, you know, and some of those lists take a little bit of time. So, you know, that's, that's the other piece of that too. The other thing with the live selling is that we are trying to elevate our average sale. I think up be up until this point anything that was like below $20 in Interesting, we're like, oh, that's probably in a whatnot pile with a few others sprinkled in. But the idea was we moved a large majority of our inventory through showcases. Yeah, that's shifting. It's going to happen. We're going to make. We are. Our business has to become that. We are live sellers who set up at shows, not show dealers who occasionally sell live. Just from a pure volume standpoint. Yeah. So a lot of what we buy won't get churned in the show. So like on a three day show, unless we absolutely need to. Like when we're buying up the stuff that Gary loves, like the honeycombs and the zebras and the, and the Sunday Kings and the, you know, Casey, Gary just loves it. Right. Especially anything that's 150 bucks and under. Yeah, Like a lot of that stuff's just going to go to a box and make it, make it to ebay. So that's going to be a shift for us too. What I love about ebay is we. The feedback we'll get is going to be so quick and it's going to be a response that happens swiftly, for better or worse, that we will learn to adapt quickly. But we want to elevate that average sale. We're going to target around the $20 average, which just means that we've got to lift up and, and run more $50 and up cards. There's still going to be affordable cheap stuff in there. I know $20 average doesn't sound that big until you realize that means you'll have several cards that are 100 bucks and you're going to have several cards that underperform at 5 to 10. You know, so, so that, that's the math on it. But we're gonna have to Lift that a little bit as well. Yeah. But we're nervous about it. We're nervous about being a month in and the cash flow. Can we buy enough? Can we buy enough cards? As we're doing shows, we're nervous about our communication and understanding. Like, we like the way we've individually been buying for showcases. We've loved it. It's worked for us. We're here because it's worked. But we've never had to buy them together. Yeah. So, like this week, Gary was looking at a nice Mahomes auto. It was a bigger one. There weren't a bunch of directs. That's a card I know you probably would have taken a chance on. Right. A month ago. Yep. And we passed. Because right now, on a bigger card, do we want to build a case? Yeah. Well, I. You. I sent you a text with the picture of that card, and I said, I think we can get around here. What do you think? And your response was, hell, no. That's a new. And Gary's not wrong. He's not wrong that we could. But what we have to be able to do is work through these first few months. Yeah. Before we need the liquid. Yeah. We need a little more. What I would call the boring. Yeah. Right. Well, those of you that love to repack, you'll be thrilled. Bowman stuff. Today you were like, talk to me. And I went, nope, we buy. We buy 20, 26 Bowman two months from now. Yeah. That's when we buy that. Yep. So there's a filter for us, but what we're not going to do is avoid some of the things that we're fantastic at. So there will be deals where Gary finds the super rare 90s 2000 stuff, but he's going to get it so. Right. That it's okay. It's not. Yeah. Because we're trying to basically set a comp with that card, but we're gonna have to get super efficient with that. What else are you nervous about, Gary? What else are we working through here? From a nerve standpoint, we've kind of covered it. I mean, the things that I'm excited for are just the. This weekend. Even though it wasn't our first show together, knowing that the next show in Nashville was, I felt no pressure. There was no pressure on my shoulders. When stuff came up to the table to get bought, I didn't. I wasn't thinking about it. I wasn't worrying about it. It was like, if I buy it, I buy it. And if it doesn't sell, it's in our joint Inventory. Anyway, if Jay's. It's the same thing. Like, those are the things that I'm excited about. I'm excited about that stress being gone and us just being laser focused without worrying about those things. There'll be different types of stress. I'm nervous about the amount of work. I'm nervous about the amount of sourcing we have to do. That's where the relationships come into play. I've already started reaching out to people saying, hey, you know, we're going to need to be sourcing a lot more. We're probably going to be trying to pay a little stronger than we have in the past. If you've got 30, 40, 50, 100 of those 20 to 50 cards, reach out to us, we'd love to take a look at the sheet, like. Right. Those are the things I'm nervous about, the sourcing, because that's the, that's the, the thing that could seize the engine. Like, if without that oil, that engine can seize. It's more about the volume, too. Right. It's not necessarily the process, although I think it means we've got to, you know, on these shows that we travel in for, we've got to be there right when they open. Yep. Because there are going to be people with value boxes up right away. Yep. It's funny, whenever we go to these larger shows, like, Right. Once stuff is open up and set up, it's like the same handful of people that are running really high volume through online sales. Like, yeah. You run into the guys at Great. They got sweat pouring off. Rob told me this week. He's like, jason, we have to stop talking. I have to go buy cards. And then he kept talking. You kept talking. It wasn't me that time. We run into clever Alex down at the Nashville show. He is hauling. He's like, if I'm here digging, we can chat. But it's, it's work. It's work. It's work. It's got a hustle. And, you know, there's all those people are looking through those boxes, too. So I think that's, that's where it's at for me. I, we talked a little bit more. I think we should dive just a tiny bit deeper on this because I think people deal with it on the emotional end of it, which everybody loves Me talking about feelings. Shout out to our boy Hammer down in Oklahoma. He loves it when I talk about feelings. But I, I, I was feeling a lot of. A lot of stuff. Whenever it's like, okay, we just finished up our last Separated show. Here we go. And I had a good 40 minute freak out of all the things that could go wrong. Right. And Gary's talking with me as my friend and listening and he's like, well, what if we do this? And when I'm in that headspace, he knows I'm going to make him talk and I'm going to make him listen to me, verbally abuse him for about 30 minutes to get that out. And then he's like, what's this really about? And I said, I am. It just slipped right out. I'm afraid of failing you. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Like you're afraid in these times when it's like this is the biggest opportunity we've had. The next few months could literally shape the trajectory of our business. Yeah. It could impact our families differently. The opportunity we have to, to work with SCN to share our heart and our business. And I'm sure there's some of you just like me that like, you didn't grow up with aspirations of having a card business. No. There were other paths. And if you're in your 40s, there's a good chance that more than once you failed and that stuff lingers in the back of your head. But I'm just here to remind you, do it scared. Do it happy. Do it ready. Do it unprepared. Do it when you're sick. Do it when you're tired. Do it when you want to give up. Don't stop. Do it and just do. Just go for it. I'll regret forever if I let fear get in the way of taking this step. Well, that was the thing. Like we, when we, when we first started, really going okay. And all these things were kind of coming into play. The SCN thing, we were kind of negotiating that and talking to them. The ebay thing was like this. We, we really had to stop and go with everything that's happening with the growth of our brand over the last 18 months. And for a lot of you, that's all you've noticed is for 18 months. So this feels really fast for you. This is six years of work, folks. This is six years of work coming to fruition. If this isn't the time to push our chips into the middle of the table, then that time's never going to exist. Yeah. What's our, it's like, yeah, go ahead. What's our worst case scenario? Our worst case scenario is we, we like jokingly said this, but it's the truth. We, we make a quick logo and throw an ad on Craigslist that we're the Monday garage door guys. That's what we did before. We'll come fix your garage door cheap on Mondays. And Mondays we go try to make a little bit extra money. Yeah. Like, that's our. There was a gut check we both have to have before we make. Because the reason we're doing all of this in detail, some of you are like, nobody cares. The reason we're doing this is because we know that's not true. I can't tell you how many people have come up and said, me and my buddy are thinking about doing this. Me and my buddy were thinking about. And sometimes it's like, well, he's got a hundred grand and I've got a hundred grand. And I figure with that, we can't go. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Or sometimes it's. Or sometimes, like, I have no money and I'm going to sign a lease. Right. It's like, I know there's people also kind of weighing this out, but it's a reminder that it's important that when you work with somebody. You know, Gary reminded me. He's like, listen, I'm used to this type of pressure. You know, he owned his own business for a long time, and he's entrepreneur. Like, Gary was an OG in the frozen yogurt game that came through the Midwest, like, five years behind all the pink tech bubble, like the dot com thing. Like, we launched a business with some VC money and it failed spectacularly. So that's my business partner. But just a reminder, like, hey, I've been through this. All this stuff you've been praying and hoping for is happening right in front of you. You going to play or you going to get in the game? And so that's little bit of the emotional where I am. And I just would encourage you, if you're going to go into business with a friend, make sure they don't lie to you and make sure they tell you what you need to hear because it's true, not because it's what you want to hear. Right. And I need a friend like Gary that could be like, all right, you're spinning out. I'm going to give you 20 minutes of this, even though it's annoying as heck. And then on the other side of this, I'll ask the question you're finally ready to. And I wasn't expecting to say that. And I wasn't expecting that answer to come out. Yeah, Yeah. I didn't think it. I don't I didn't think it was about, like, I know I'll be okay. Yeah. But it was about failing you and failing us and failing a dream and all that. And I know it's super emotional, whatever, but those of you that say you don't feel it, you just bury it deeper. Yeah, but that's promise. That's the promise that's going to get to the surface, like, yeah, the most successful things in life. I don't care whether it's your professional life, your personal life. The things that have the most success in every person's life boil down to the quality of the relationships that they surround themselves with. And we are both blessed to be in a relationship and in a business with our best friend that, like you said, you tell me the things that I don't want to hear because you know I need to. And my first reaction is almost always to be defensive because that's how my brain works. And then I stop and go, okay. Yep, there's validity there. If they could hear us when we're. When we're fighting, they'd think we hated each other sometimes. And we're stuck in a car for three hours and we got an hour before. And sometimes we both realize, oh, man, this is going to be a minute. But our commitment on the front end, the very first time we had different opinions, it was probably about the podcast, is like, are we willing to. To fight through whatever it is so that we don't leave something. Yeah. And have the other person wondering, are they cool? How do they think? What do they feel? I don't ever have to wonder that. I asked Gary, and he tells me, or he says, I'm not exactly sure. I have a couple feelings about it. And we. We will deal with that. And I also, probably once every six weeks, we look each other, say, I hate your guts. I'll see you tomorrow. Yeah. Right. But we also, about once every six weeks, look at each other, go, God, I appreciate you so, so much. Like, yeah, it's just as important to affirm those things as it is to deal with the negative stuff, too. Yep. Yep. So we're gonna bring you guys along with us. There's nothing that you're gonna miss out on. Whether you. Whether you want to or not. Whether you want to or not. Through SCN Network or. Nothing changes. Our podcast is still happening. Our videos. Now, I know one question people are gonna have is, are you going to be told what to say? There is not been a single restriction. Nothing like that. We. We. We own our podcast. Y. We are talking about adding in some really fun elements that are sure to get your attention in the space. And we're been given a little bit of a green light to go after some bad takes, and that's a big part of what we're trying to bring to the network. So love us or hate us, especially if you hate us, you'll be seeing us soon. Keep clicking. Keep commenting. Keep clicking. Yeah, keep coming. We'll let the. We'll let the trolls feed us, not the other way around. That's fine. That's fine. All right, Gary, I know we have more, but I feel like this. I think that's a good spot. What do you think? Yeah, I'm with you. All right, stay tuned. And don't Forget, don't forget, $20 off your first auction win on Pristine with the code ball card. So head to Pristine auction for that. This has been the ball card show, the sports podcast for the esports collector. Bye now. Peace.