Looking for some clarity on my businesses

[Average Investor]

I am running my reselling business primarily and I am starting out a coaching business. With the coaching business I can really see that this is the opportune time to strike in the niche that I want. I have a huge advantage of connections and could potentially work with some well known clients in that industry. I am still in the midst of getting my coaching together, but luckily I have been deep into health stuff for about 4 years. It is hard for me to allocate enough energy into this that I would like. I am nearing the peak season for my main business for reselling, so I need to be out buying a lot of inventory and listing it for sale. It is also a opportune season to start getting ready in the niche I want to build in at the same time.

I am planning to bulk up my reselling business and I want to liquidate it between quarter 4 and quarter 1. My goal is to be able to move to a new city and start exploring life more. I would really like to get my coaching business to even make 1-2k a month, but right now it isn't making anything yet. My expenses are fairly low and I could probably pay them without too much effort reselling, but I really need to bulk up my cash to be able to move. Not to mention to have a decent cushion, when I move. 

With the coaching that feels like I am definitely in the right direction with my life purpose. I have done a shit load of work to get to this over the last 4-5 years. It is something that I am considering doing for the long haul. It opens up a lot of questions on what I should be doing. 

Am I not playing it smart by keeping at the reselling? If I skip this sourcing season, I will probably have to get a job or something to even be able to move out. I think if I play it smart that I could save up maybe $20k from selling everything at the end if I did put consistent effort here. Maybe more if I only did that and just went hard at it. This is like the only thing that I am really good at this point to make money. 

I am trying to put in the extra work, but I am just struggling a bit to have the extra energy to keep up with everything. Once a week I will do 10 hours straight of sourcing inventory and that really taxes me for the weekend. 

 

[Yarco]

Hopefully I'm not just saying obvious stuff you're already aware of, as you're the expert in this field, but some ideas that come to mind...

Consider keeping the sourcing business, but trimming a lot of the fat to make room to start transitioning into coaching.

Look back through all your records and try to identify the 20% of kinds of items that make up the bulk of your sales (both # of sales and dollar value.) If you track how long stuff is in your inventory, I'd focus on quick flip items and drop stuff that you end up having to store for months before they sell.

What do you know you can consistently source lots of, that sells quickly, with a good margin. That's your holy grail.

You should have a pretty good eye for now for when something is going to be more trouble than it's worth.

Maybe take the time to really specialize on being an expert in one thing, like antique plates or something. Ideally something most other resellers will overlook... so probably not stuff like baseball cards, books, video games, etc. Things you really need an eye to spot the hidden gems from the trash, but which pay big dividends.

Find a way to make more money with less work. Sounds too good to be true, but there's probably a way.

After you move, you don't have to be done with reselling forever. You can do your coaching for a few months in the off-season. Then if you want to add a bit more cushion to your savings, you can pick up reselling in any extra time next season if you're getting less clients than you'd like.

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For coaching, don't sell yourself short. It'll be harder to sell a $500 coaching session than a $20 one. But probably not 25x harder. Resist the urge to start off with offering low prices, or you might anchor yourself to those prices and have a hard time raising rates. If you do offer introductory discounts to people so you can gather testimonials or something, try to keep it private.

Create bundles and packages with discounts to get a higher spend per customer. If your sessions are $100 each, don't even offer individual sessions. Do a 4-week minimum commitment so you're always getting at least $400 per sale. You can give some reason like needing to work with someone for multiple sessions to start getting them progress and results, which is probably true anyway. Then you only need to sell 3 - 5 packages a month to hit your goal.

I don't know if you're keeping it intentionally vague for this post, but make sure you've really nailed down something specific you're coaching about. Don't just be a life coach, you need to really specialize and set yourself apart.

I can only speak to the writing world... you'll command a much higher rate if your entire website and business is around being a legal writer or medical writer, vs just a generic freelance writer.

Try to phrase it in terms of what you do and offer to your client, as opposed to a more bland genetic title like "Health Coach". 

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Something you may or may not have considered, or maybe it's too big of a risk to spend the time on without knowing what the potential payoff could be... But if you have all this knowledge about reselling and the stats to back up that you've actually made a decent living doing it... then why not create your own course around it?

If you're going to be going out and sourcing this summer anyway, strap on a GoPro and record yourself doing the work you'll be doing anyway. Walk through the process and explain what you're buying and what you're passing on, and why. Then go through the whole process... bring the stuff home, do a step-by-step on how to list on eBay. How to handle shipping, tips to cut down costs or speed up the process, organizing your inventory, handling complaints or refunds. Heck, I'd probably pay $200 for that just out of curiosity to see how it's all done. I watched a couple videos of Gary Vee going to garage sales and it was fascinating.

Add an upsell where you offer 1-on-1 coaching sessions on reselling when people buy your course.

Edited May 18, 2022 by Yarco

[Average Investor]

2 hours ago, Yarco said:

Maybe take the time to really specialize on being an expert in one thing, like antique plates or something. Ideally something most other resellers will overlook... so probably not stuff like baseball cards, books, video games, etc. Things you really need an eye to spot the hidden gems from the trash, but which pay big dividends.

Right now one of the main things I am doing is selling vacuum parts. I am still honing this down, but I think you are right here. I just need to tighten the ship even more. I have a few other categories I am in just for the fact I cannot just get vacuum parts. I have to travel about an hour to get to a good sourcing location. 

I think you are right about not having to fully leave. If I were to start all over again, I would do used clothes on a small scale. Clothes are all over the place and don't require as much of a hunt to find. It would give me the most repeatable process and I could just hone in on that. I don't know that category though right now, so I was thinking about just sticking mostly with what I know this summer. I am always learning new stuff though and learning my categories better.

 

2 hours ago, Yarco said:

I don't know if you're keeping it intentionally vague for this post, but make sure you've really nailed down something specific you're coaching about. Don't just be a life coach, you need to really specialize and set yourself apart.

I am working with esports professionals on how to reach peak performance and optimal health. It is specific to health coaching, but I could offer some life coaching with it later potentially. A lot of the clients I would be working with have 100k+ in the bank. These clients make more than the average person. 

I have been racking my mind a lot of what I should really charge. I know I can get people great results and I am only getting better. I really would like $150 a session honestly, but $100 would be fine and that is a one hour session. I would be doing some research on the back end, but I would want to do that anyway. I really want repeat long term customers. 

I thought about doing it cheaper, but the reality is that I am only going to get better. There is really not a lot of people that can offer the kind of results that I have. I suppose I worry about just getting those first few initial clients. I feel like if I can even get one good testimonial from someone in this field it would be a total game changer for me. 

I would honestly be ecstatic to be making a couple thousand a month doing this. I would like to earn a lot of money, but I suppose I am unsure at this time on how to leverage this further. I think the $100-$150 is a realistic price. I think there is really like 50-100 potential clients in this. I can go for other games or things later too though. 

 

2 hours ago, Yarco said:

Try to phrase it in terms of what you do and offer to your client, as opposed to a more bland genetic title like "Health Coach". 

I am basically a biohacking coach. I will have to think of the wordage that fits this better to this. 

2 hours ago, Yarco said:

Something you may or may not have considered, or maybe it's too big of a risk to spend the time on without knowing what the potential payoff could be... But if you have all this knowledge about reselling and the stats to back up that you've actually made a decent living doing it... then why not create your own course around it?

If you're going to be going out and sourcing this summer anyway, strap on a GoPro and record yourself doing the work you'll be doing anyway. Walk through the process and explain what you're buying and what you're passing on, and why. Then go through the whole process... bring the stuff home, do a step-by-step on how to list on eBay. How to handle shipping, tips to cut down costs or speed up the process, organizing your inventory, handling complaints or refunds. Heck, I'd probably pay $200 for that just out of curiosity to see how it's all done. I watched a couple videos of Gary Vee going to garage sales and it was fascinating.

Add an upsell where you offer 1-on-1 coaching sessions on reselling when people buy your course.

I actually had the idea to do that a few summers ago, which would have been pretty good if I followed up with it. I agree it isn't a bad idea. I am just not sure how much more energy I can put into this. I am just not as excited as I use to be. I like sourcing, but the rest of it is a bit of a grind. I don't think I could handle adding anything on top. I want to reduce this more. 

Honestly, my income is pretty meh from this. It isn't terrible, but nothing to brag about lol. I would have to work my ass off to make 6 figures doing this. I am more in the 20-30k net range. I don't have anything too impressive here. I think this year it will be better, but still. I need to figure out a better process to improve this. This year I have changed a lot with it though, so I think it will a fair bit better. 

 

[Yarco]

7 hours ago, Average Investor said:

I am working with esports professionals on how to reach peak performance and optimal health. It is specific to health coaching, but I could offer some life coaching with it later potentially. A lot of the clients I would be working with have 100k+ in the bank. These clients make more than the average person. 

Okay this is going to look VERY different than most other forms of coaching, I think you're gonna want a much more flashy "gamer" looking website compared to a more sterile / academic feel coaches in most other niches.

I'm sure you're familiar with healthygamer.gg already, that's what I'd try to model the look and feel of my brand after instead of trying to totally recreate the wheel. I recommend checking out some old videos from Devin Nash as well. He used to be the CEO of a gaming team and now he runs a talent agency for gamers called Novo.tv so he has a lot of industry insights. Both for business/marketing and general industry insights.

7 hours ago, Average Investor said:

I have been racking my mind a lot of what I should really charge. I know I can get people great results and I am only getting better. I really would like $150 a session honestly, but $100 would be fine and that is a one hour session. I would be doing some research on the back end, but I would want to do that anyway. I really want repeat long term customers. 

Totally different approach here given the context. Try approaching teams like Faze, Team Liquid, Cloud9, 100 Thieves, etc etc. You are right that they have a TON of money behind them right now, and they are looking into the exact type of stuff you are offering. The big names could be hard although you mention network connections. Maybe start with smaller teams as a case study and build up from there. Be sure to do polls to try and capture stuff like player happiness and energy levels before and after your coaching.

If you offer to do a seminar for an entire team or organization, that's already going to be thousands of dollars a pop instead of $100 coaching sessions. Of course you can do both, but try to go for scale if you can. 

If you can get a couple of teams to pay you a retainer of a couple thousand dollars per month to be on-call and basically provide coaching advice whenever they need it at 24 hours notice, you'll be in a really good spot.

Edited May 18, 2022 by Yarco

[Average Investor]

5 hours ago, Yarco said:

Okay this is going to look VERY different than most other forms of coaching, I think you're gonna want a much more flashy "gamer" looking website compared to a more sterile / academic feel coaches in most other niches.

I'm sure you're familiar with healthygamer.gg already, that's what I'd try to model the look and feel of my brand after instead of trying to totally recreate the wheel. I recommend checking out some old videos from Devin Nash as well. He used to be the CEO of a gaming team and now he runs a talent agency for gamers called Novo.tv so he has a lot of industry insights. Both for business/marketing and general industry insights.

I am looking to build out something similar in terms of site appeal. The devin Nash content is really good so far. I will see what I can learn here. 

5 hours ago, Yarco said:

Try approaching teams like Faze, Team Liquid, Cloud9, 100 Thieves, etc etc.

I am not quite at that level, but once I establish myself more that would be a possibility for sure. Not to mention some of the people I work with will have potential of being recruited by these teams. I looked into the 100 thieves coach and it would take me a good bit to get there. The guy has like some super high degree and a good bit of prestige. I don' really think a degree matters so much. I think people mostly just want the results. I have considered a degree, but I am very scared of the idea of being 100k in debt. I would potentially pursue natural medicine.

5 hours ago, Yarco said:

If you offer to do a seminar for an entire team or organization, that's already going to be thousands of dollars a pop instead of $100 coaching sessions. Of course you can do both, but try to go for scale if you can. 

This is something that I can do. I have over two years of toastmaster experience and I can perform well doing this kind of stuff. I will see what my clients want and build out from that. 

5 hours ago, Yarco said:

If you can get a couple of teams to pay you a retainer of a couple thousand dollars per month to be on-call and basically provide coaching advice whenever they need it at 24 hours notice, you'll be in a really good spot.

I have one potential deal for four clients, but I am kind of at a stand still with it. I am wanting to really build up a nice display of what I can offer. One or two deals like this would be crazy. I would drop the reselling if I have a bit of diversification with my clients.