This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Today's listener has gone all in with reselling headphones. She has learned to profit from buying and reselling headphones during the pandemic and she's doing pretty well. So she's wondering, should she focus on this category and try to scale it up or use what she's learned to enter other categories? Welcome to a new week. Welcome to side hustle school.
My name is Chris Guillebeau. I am so glad you're here. We have a global community of people. All over the world, which is funny how that works, right? A global community all over the world who are all interested in creating freedom for themselves through the form of an income generating project.
Lots of people out there who have jobs or are going to school or pursuing some kind of hybrid lifestyle. These days, a lot of people have multiple jobs. A lot of people have learned how to work remotely which has lots of benefits but also requires a bit of a learning process. So over the past year, a lot of people have been thinking how can I have more control over my circumstances? How can I pay off my debt or just have some money in savings or be able to enjoy myself a bit more?
And one of the ways you do that is by learning how to operate a side hustle. And hopefully you can do that in a way that's not too stressful. Not much risk, not much stress. How can you apply these lessons to yourself? And whenever I tell case studies, I often say inspiration is good but inspiration with action is better.
That's because I hope that this daily series will be helpful to you, not just in a motivational sense but also in a practical sense as well. That's in fact the reason why I make this show, the reason why our whole team works on this for you. So thank you for being part of it. Today's question, should I keep selling headphones or expand to new categories? That question is coming up in just 30 seconds after this quick message from our sponsor.
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Hi, Chris, this is Kelly from Detroit. And I've been listening to your show for a couple of years now. I started reselling during the pandemic and have hit on a specialty item, headphones. And I learned all about the various models from Bose to Sony to the new Apple AirPods Max that cost way too much money. Believe it or not, even though those are really new, there's already an active reseller market for them.
I'm doing pretty well bringing in around 1,500 a month in profit, but now it's decision time. Do I keep doing this and potentially do it better with more inventory or do I take what I've learned and start selling items in other categories? I can see arguments both ways. So I know there are pros and cons. If you had to choose, which is better?
Thanks, Chris. [Music]
Hey Kelly, thank you so much for listening. Thank you for the question as well. Really good question. This is something that a lot of people deal with, especially in the world of reselling, but sometimes in some other categories as well, like when they start doing something and they're like, "Oh, I can make a little bit of money doing this." Do I go deep or do I go wide basically?
Do you take what you've learned in this market and apply it to other markets? Or do you just keep doing the same thing, but you do it better and with more scale? And there are pros and cons, just like Kelly said. So what I try to do in these situations is give as much of a direct answer as possible, 'cause I don't wanna be wishy washy, but I also wanna help listeners who are facing a similar situation, like how do you answer that question for yourself, since there are multiple answers. So I think the way that you answer this question is to consider a bit of a more focused question, okay?
And everything ultimately comes back to goals. Like what are you trying to do, right? What is your objective here? Are you trying to do anything other than sell stuff over and over? And just to be clear, there's nothing wrong with that.
Nothing wrong with it at all, especially if you've never done something like this before. It can be a fun process to go through and you're gonna learn a lot along the way. So if your objective is just to do that, you're like, I just wanna have that $1,500 a month in profit extra, which is pretty nice, right? Well, then your direction is gonna be a little bit different if you're trying to actually use that as a stepping stone to something else. Because under the right circumstances, a reselling business can be good for lead generation, right?
You can acquire a lot of leads for another service or product that you're going to sell. Alternatively, a reselling business can lead to a retail consignment shop under a little bit of a different direction. So to answer Kelly's question directly, like if you had to choose which is better, I would say if reselling itself is the goal, then I would branch out. I would take what I have learned and apply it to other markets. I might go from headphones to something else in the electronic space, let's say electronics or audio space or computer equipment.
So it's still broadly the same category, but perhaps thinking of it a bit wider. If I really liked the headphone market though, or whatever market it is, 'cause it could apply to something else, then I might not be as quick to start selling all kinds of other stuff. Just because that opens up a ton of options that can actually be counterproductive when you really need to be thinking about how to build a core business. If, for example, Kelly got into this and she was like, "I actually want to create an e-commerce site selling headphones. I want to provide consumer information about headphones.
Maybe there's something else there as well, like going deep." Then in that situation, you really need to be thinking about how can you actually build out that business? So if Kelly can answer that one question about her goals, I think that answer is going to give her the answer she wants for which one is better. And I hope that's helpful to some other listeners as well. If you have a question of your own, come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. We will continue to feature them throughout the year, along with updates from other listeners as they launch their projects.
Wherever you are in the world today, I am cheering you on. Do something, do just one small thing to get closer to a goal that you believe in. Whatever that goal is, whatever brings you closer to more autonomy and independence, being able to hopefully make the world a better place as well, but also making the world a better place for you, because that's okay too. All right, enough for me today. I'll be back tomorrow.
My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
