- Joined
- Mar 7, 2011
- Messages
- 16
Rep Bank
$395
$395
User Power: 750%
Hi
A recently purchased & read in full the FastLane book on my Kindle
I can say for sure it - has totally changed and re-shaped my outlook on the road to wealth
I am very much new to the forum here and still digesting the full site content. Reading 2 days straight now. It will still take me several weeks to take on board fully the finer points and the various different opinions of the road to wealth and how to get there
I am UK based – aged 34 - free & single - live on my own with good family backing and with moderate saving arrived by the traditional means (saving 10%) - no credit card or loans/debt
My life thus far has not really been a 'traditional' one, not one Joe Public follows
In the early stages, yes it was
I did reasonably well at high school (not highest in class but not the lowest), then did my advanced education again to reasonable set of grades, not outstanding
The next steps took me onto university to do a 3 year degree in Geography with no set careerer path in front of me only 3 years of student debt to look forward to at the end but it was the subject I chose to do because I most enjoyed at school and had a reasonable level of interest
i.e. I had no definite path to follow
It was this time at uni when I found the eBay. As internet was still in the minority here in the UK, dial up modem at 3p per minute ! Around 1997-1998.
Via the university internet I has fast access to everything state-side, this was when eBay.co.uk did not even exist !
Long story cut short, as I had been an active collector of music/cds/LP/memorabilia. I made a fledgling business through university buying CDs wholesale state-side and wholesaling them to shops and dealers in the UK. As a rough approximation I could buy in $$$ and sell for £££ which at the time was a healthy spread and I made some good money during my degree years. As this grew, I bought more and sold more. Some weeks I would be making profit of £1000-£1500 per week. In between studying. As balancing the degree and eBay became harder, the eBay wholesale buying won and my degree suffered and I ended up passing and graduating with a 2.2 degree (i.e. not too good)
But hey I enjoyed both, and it learned me early in life I did not have to be reliant on someone else for cash and I could hold and survive for myself. I had the skill set inside me to succeed and make money. Even at 19-20 years of age. I could not just make a good wage I could make a very good wage
Now fresh out of university and my sheeple mindset, i set off to trudge the 9-5 slow road for the next 40 years. As mobile telecoms was beginning to boom I took an entry level job with Orange (a UK mobile phone provider) in their new customer service centre near to where I live.
Initially working on front-line taking calls, I soon progressed to role of team coach then team supervisor then off from front-line into projects team. From project coordinator I was then seconded to a Project Managers role. A site of 2500 staff promotion was fast and easy to the right people. All this in around 3.5 years. Salary from £10,000 per year to £28,000 per year
In a slow lane, it looked like I was doing well, I was doing reasonably well for a first full time job in a short space of time however everyday was a chore and although it was reasonably fun to an extent it was still working for someone else. Now all this time, I was still wheeling and dealing music related things on eBay and turning a nice extra pocket money in my spare time
Then the business as a whole was bought out by FranceTelecom, major coperate buy out in the billions, ie soemthing I had no control of.
Everyone in seconded roles had to return to there substantive positions and were free to apply for the roles they had been doing.
This also meant a £9,000 pay cut for me.
I applied for the job I had proved I could do showed I could succeed in.
Long story short I didn’t get it and down the snake I went. It was like playing that kids board game for real.
Dejected by this I had an epiphany moment and rude awakening, I said it to myself ''im worth more than this, if they cant see the value in me as a person and what I can do for them, I deserve better”
I thought I have now done well on eBay for close to 5 years and I have money in the bank, lets see if we can make something of it. I had savings enough I pay my bills for 6 months so I put my notice in and left. That was in 2003 and I have not looked back since. Hey if it dont work I can always search for another job if it dont work out.
I have been my own boss since then, never been in the red with the bank, I have not had to go hungry, I have not had to raise cash from credit cards or overdraft. All fine for nearly 8 years.
So all the early learning curve of fast lane I think I have experienced
From 2003 I have done various different eBay items in this time, not just music. DVDs, info Cds, eBooks, posters, PUA stuff, designer clothes, bootfair collectables re-sold.
I learned that it was a good idea not putting all my eggs in one basket with a single niche product, better sell a few high turnover items and as one began to slow it could be replaced with the next one you have on the back burner, but always being active to look what was selling out there. Using the tools out there to help, tamebay goofbay watchcount advanced search terapeak. Always making enough to do OK but never truly life changing amounts.
Some months after costs I would be left with like £2500-£3000
An average months wage after this time was around £2000
As I was working for myself and no boss my own hours. A good wage in my old mindset, plodding along getting by.
As I don’t buy into all the trappings and tokens and trinkets and generally live a cheap and easy life this wage sustains me fine
Now my daily plodding (getting by) in working life circumstances have arrived to an age of 33 now, after nearly 8 years full time im still on eBay only.
Now having realised I need to get my head out of the sand and change things to step up a gear to make it too the fast lane I am at a loss where to even start.
Now I am looking at the eBay changing business models, I am working just as hard as I did and have always done but nothing seems to change, I don’t get that bit further forward and that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is the same distance it was some 8 years ago.
I will now give you details of my current main income stream and would appreciate anyone’s experience and involvement as to how I can get out of the eBay rut and hopefully into the fast lane
I sell professioannlly printed photographs, I have a Fuji professional lab I can print anyone of 400,000 stock items from
10x8 inch photographs of celebrity/tv/film etc.
Cost to print is £0.39
I sell for £3.99
eBay top rated power seller year on year for 6 years, combined feedback across three selling IDs of 25,000+
It is not a high price selling product, but the margins are very good. I also don’t have to hold stock as everything is printed to order.
Each of these 400,000 master images I have uniquely referenced so I can identify the photo to the eBay listing
I also have all of these master images shrunk to thumbnail size
I include a burned DVD catalogue of other photos I have by the same celeb and I now do a good part of my monthly sales person to person away from eBay directly (saving fees)
Now I use eBay for maybe 50% of my monthly income and 50% comes from after sales, direct and indirect. Done un-proactivley and without any research or experience.
Now here are a list of queries I have to spring board things up a gear
I would love a web site for to display all of these but with 400,000 where the heck to start?
Would the effort be worth it? The time alone to list this many products would be huge. A mammoth task
Now as I have only used eBay exclusively for sales all my business life thus far I have no experience whatsoever with the other facets of business
direct email marketing
after sales email
how to get people to return to me
SEO
gaining monthly repeat customers ongoing
inroads into getting my photographs into retail stores
I would like to build a contact database for all my previous sales but I have experience of MS access, I don’t even know if this would be the best medium to start
How could I utilise twitter and facebook to my products
Now as the product I sell is quite niche, I believe I have the largest and best selection of photographs out there. Yet I only have the time to list to eBay. It is me just me and not enough 'time' in the day to expoilt it any more than I am doing already.
Facts are facts and my products sell
i.e. a single eBay photo sale for £4 once they have viewed my full DVD catalogue, their usual follow average follow up spend is £24 (x6 more photographs)
so a single eBay/lead is a potential £28
Now with the beauty of googlemail and PayPal reporting I have full access to all the contact details of ALL my previous buyers for the past 12 years.
Email and home address and what they bought
When I viewed the spreadsheet this is close to 32,000 previous customs I have full sales records and contact details already.
Ready to chase up and sell to, but dont have TIME to dip my toe into emailing them.
But I don’t know where to start.
Now a couple of months back (prior to reading the FastLane book) I came to the realisation, that no one single man can mange nearly half a million photographs, I could list a different photographs for sale everyday for the rest of my life and not list the same one twice
As a couple of friends who are out of work due to the financial downturn, I gave them the offer to wholesale bulk buy from me. As I pay £0.39 per photograph to print. I would wholesale x100 photographs to them for £100
So I make £61 per x100 and I have not lifted a finger. They do all the listing to eBay, they do the uploading deal with the email postage logistics etc.
Now with these two people i've made like £122 on the very first batches, they are happy they are earning cash and working for themselves. Now this has increased and one is buying x500 photographs per fortnight from me.
Now although this seems money for nothing, I have no real idea if I am doing things right.
Sorry for this memory/thought to page, splurge but I would really appreciate if anyone could point me in the right direction of how I can kick this business to another level.
Does it read like it is true fastlane material ?
Am I better focusing my efforts onto a related idea
Any steps you could recommend to set me off on the fastlane
best wishes
Paul
A recently purchased & read in full the FastLane book on my Kindle
I can say for sure it - has totally changed and re-shaped my outlook on the road to wealth
I am very much new to the forum here and still digesting the full site content. Reading 2 days straight now. It will still take me several weeks to take on board fully the finer points and the various different opinions of the road to wealth and how to get there
I am UK based – aged 34 - free & single - live on my own with good family backing and with moderate saving arrived by the traditional means (saving 10%) - no credit card or loans/debt
My life thus far has not really been a 'traditional' one, not one Joe Public follows
In the early stages, yes it was
I did reasonably well at high school (not highest in class but not the lowest), then did my advanced education again to reasonable set of grades, not outstanding
The next steps took me onto university to do a 3 year degree in Geography with no set careerer path in front of me only 3 years of student debt to look forward to at the end but it was the subject I chose to do because I most enjoyed at school and had a reasonable level of interest
i.e. I had no definite path to follow
It was this time at uni when I found the eBay. As internet was still in the minority here in the UK, dial up modem at 3p per minute ! Around 1997-1998.
Via the university internet I has fast access to everything state-side, this was when eBay.co.uk did not even exist !
Long story cut short, as I had been an active collector of music/cds/LP/memorabilia. I made a fledgling business through university buying CDs wholesale state-side and wholesaling them to shops and dealers in the UK. As a rough approximation I could buy in $$$ and sell for £££ which at the time was a healthy spread and I made some good money during my degree years. As this grew, I bought more and sold more. Some weeks I would be making profit of £1000-£1500 per week. In between studying. As balancing the degree and eBay became harder, the eBay wholesale buying won and my degree suffered and I ended up passing and graduating with a 2.2 degree (i.e. not too good)
But hey I enjoyed both, and it learned me early in life I did not have to be reliant on someone else for cash and I could hold and survive for myself. I had the skill set inside me to succeed and make money. Even at 19-20 years of age. I could not just make a good wage I could make a very good wage
Now fresh out of university and my sheeple mindset, i set off to trudge the 9-5 slow road for the next 40 years. As mobile telecoms was beginning to boom I took an entry level job with Orange (a UK mobile phone provider) in their new customer service centre near to where I live.
Initially working on front-line taking calls, I soon progressed to role of team coach then team supervisor then off from front-line into projects team. From project coordinator I was then seconded to a Project Managers role. A site of 2500 staff promotion was fast and easy to the right people. All this in around 3.5 years. Salary from £10,000 per year to £28,000 per year
In a slow lane, it looked like I was doing well, I was doing reasonably well for a first full time job in a short space of time however everyday was a chore and although it was reasonably fun to an extent it was still working for someone else. Now all this time, I was still wheeling and dealing music related things on eBay and turning a nice extra pocket money in my spare time
Then the business as a whole was bought out by FranceTelecom, major coperate buy out in the billions, ie soemthing I had no control of.
Everyone in seconded roles had to return to there substantive positions and were free to apply for the roles they had been doing.
This also meant a £9,000 pay cut for me.
I applied for the job I had proved I could do showed I could succeed in.
Long story short I didn’t get it and down the snake I went. It was like playing that kids board game for real.
Dejected by this I had an epiphany moment and rude awakening, I said it to myself ''im worth more than this, if they cant see the value in me as a person and what I can do for them, I deserve better”
I thought I have now done well on eBay for close to 5 years and I have money in the bank, lets see if we can make something of it. I had savings enough I pay my bills for 6 months so I put my notice in and left. That was in 2003 and I have not looked back since. Hey if it dont work I can always search for another job if it dont work out.
I have been my own boss since then, never been in the red with the bank, I have not had to go hungry, I have not had to raise cash from credit cards or overdraft. All fine for nearly 8 years.
So all the early learning curve of fast lane I think I have experienced
From 2003 I have done various different eBay items in this time, not just music. DVDs, info Cds, eBooks, posters, PUA stuff, designer clothes, bootfair collectables re-sold.
I learned that it was a good idea not putting all my eggs in one basket with a single niche product, better sell a few high turnover items and as one began to slow it could be replaced with the next one you have on the back burner, but always being active to look what was selling out there. Using the tools out there to help, tamebay goofbay watchcount advanced search terapeak. Always making enough to do OK but never truly life changing amounts.
Some months after costs I would be left with like £2500-£3000
An average months wage after this time was around £2000
As I was working for myself and no boss my own hours. A good wage in my old mindset, plodding along getting by.
As I don’t buy into all the trappings and tokens and trinkets and generally live a cheap and easy life this wage sustains me fine
Now my daily plodding (getting by) in working life circumstances have arrived to an age of 33 now, after nearly 8 years full time im still on eBay only.
Now having realised I need to get my head out of the sand and change things to step up a gear to make it too the fast lane I am at a loss where to even start.
Now I am looking at the eBay changing business models, I am working just as hard as I did and have always done but nothing seems to change, I don’t get that bit further forward and that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is the same distance it was some 8 years ago.
I will now give you details of my current main income stream and would appreciate anyone’s experience and involvement as to how I can get out of the eBay rut and hopefully into the fast lane
I sell professioannlly printed photographs, I have a Fuji professional lab I can print anyone of 400,000 stock items from
10x8 inch photographs of celebrity/tv/film etc.
Cost to print is £0.39
I sell for £3.99
eBay top rated power seller year on year for 6 years, combined feedback across three selling IDs of 25,000+
It is not a high price selling product, but the margins are very good. I also don’t have to hold stock as everything is printed to order.
Each of these 400,000 master images I have uniquely referenced so I can identify the photo to the eBay listing
I also have all of these master images shrunk to thumbnail size
I include a burned DVD catalogue of other photos I have by the same celeb and I now do a good part of my monthly sales person to person away from eBay directly (saving fees)
Now I use eBay for maybe 50% of my monthly income and 50% comes from after sales, direct and indirect. Done un-proactivley and without any research or experience.
Now here are a list of queries I have to spring board things up a gear
I would love a web site for to display all of these but with 400,000 where the heck to start?
Would the effort be worth it? The time alone to list this many products would be huge. A mammoth task
Now as I have only used eBay exclusively for sales all my business life thus far I have no experience whatsoever with the other facets of business
direct email marketing
after sales email
how to get people to return to me
SEO
gaining monthly repeat customers ongoing
inroads into getting my photographs into retail stores
I would like to build a contact database for all my previous sales but I have experience of MS access, I don’t even know if this would be the best medium to start
How could I utilise twitter and facebook to my products
Now as the product I sell is quite niche, I believe I have the largest and best selection of photographs out there. Yet I only have the time to list to eBay. It is me just me and not enough 'time' in the day to expoilt it any more than I am doing already.
Facts are facts and my products sell
i.e. a single eBay photo sale for £4 once they have viewed my full DVD catalogue, their usual follow average follow up spend is £24 (x6 more photographs)
so a single eBay/lead is a potential £28
Now with the beauty of googlemail and PayPal reporting I have full access to all the contact details of ALL my previous buyers for the past 12 years.
Email and home address and what they bought
When I viewed the spreadsheet this is close to 32,000 previous customs I have full sales records and contact details already.
Ready to chase up and sell to, but dont have TIME to dip my toe into emailing them.
But I don’t know where to start.
Now a couple of months back (prior to reading the FastLane book) I came to the realisation, that no one single man can mange nearly half a million photographs, I could list a different photographs for sale everyday for the rest of my life and not list the same one twice
As a couple of friends who are out of work due to the financial downturn, I gave them the offer to wholesale bulk buy from me. As I pay £0.39 per photograph to print. I would wholesale x100 photographs to them for £100
So I make £61 per x100 and I have not lifted a finger. They do all the listing to eBay, they do the uploading deal with the email postage logistics etc.
Now with these two people i've made like £122 on the very first batches, they are happy they are earning cash and working for themselves. Now this has increased and one is buying x500 photographs per fortnight from me.
Now although this seems money for nothing, I have no real idea if I am doing things right.
Sorry for this memory/thought to page, splurge but I would really appreciate if anyone could point me in the right direction of how I can kick this business to another level.
Does it read like it is true fastlane material ?
Am I better focusing my efforts onto a related idea
Any steps you could recommend to set me off on the fastlane
best wishes
Paul
Dislike ads? Become a Fastlane member:
Subscribe today and surround yourself with winners and millionaire mentors, not those broke friends who only want to drink beer and play video games. :-)
Membership Required: Upgrade to Expose Nearly 1,000,000 Posts
Ready to Unleash the Millionaire Entrepreneur in You?
Become a member of the Fastlane Forum, the private community founded by best-selling author and multi-millionaire entrepreneur MJ DeMarco. Since 2007, MJ DeMarco has poured his heart and soul into the Fastlane Forum, helping entrepreneurs reclaim their time, win their financial freedom, and live their best life.
With more than 39,000 posts packed with insights, strategies, and advice, you’re not just a member—you’re stepping into MJ’s inner-circle, a place where you’ll never be left alone.
Become a member and gain immediate access to...
- Active Community: Ever join a community only to find it DEAD? Not at Fastlane! As you can see from our home page, life-changing content is posted dozens of times daily.
- Exclusive Insights: Direct access to MJ DeMarco’s daily contributions and wisdom.
- Powerful Networking Opportunities: Connect with a diverse group of successful entrepreneurs who can offer mentorship, collaboration, and opportunities.
- Proven Strategies: Learn from the best in the business, with actionable advice and strategies that can accelerate your success.
"You are the average of the five people you surround yourself with the most..."
Who are you surrounding yourself with? Surround yourself with millionaire success. Join Fastlane today!
Join Today
