Wooooow.
Thanks to Outright for throwing me such a softball question on my first day back in the Blogosphere (rolls eyes). I mean, you all understand that I spent 8 weeks this summer at beaches on the Atlantic, a campground in ya-hey-there-you-betcha-land, a Warner Brothers studio in LA watching Conan, and a side trip to visit family in South Carolina unexpectedly, right? My brain is a soft, jellylike mushy thing now, fueled by mojitos, sunscreen, and sand. Couldn’t we have started with something to put my brain back into first gear vs. going 0 to 5th gear? No? Ok, hand me a latte and here we go…
There are two kinds of “gurus” in the world.
The first kind of guru earns the respect of his/her peers by accomplishing things. Think back to your childhood. Who were your heroes? Your Father? Mother? Babe Ruth? Neil Armstrong? Bill Gates? Steve Jobs? Jimmy Carter? Your high school band teacher? (yeah, me neither, but SOMEONE’S seen Mr. Holland’s Opus). You looked up to these people and called them Heroes. They were people who inspired you, helped you, mentored you, amazed you. They did great things and you respected them for it.
Then you grew up and chose a profession, and “heroes” melted away and “gurus” rose up and took their place. If your career became Finance, you began to wonder how Warren Buffett made all that money, or how Alan Greenspan rose to such heights. If you became a computer guy, it was all about Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or the dozens of other computer geniuses who shaped and continue to shape your industry. These people were and are the best at what they do and they are people who have earned your respect because of their accomplishments. They are “gurus”, and you will pretty much listen to anything they have to say.
Then, of course, there is the other kind of “guru”: the guru who tells you he’s a guru. You may have never heard of this guru, but there he his, telling you how great he is and then telling you that you can also accomplish what he’s done – for a small fee. Somehow, you manage to find this “guru” on late night television, or in paid results of a Google search, or in an ad on the side of your Facebook feed.
They must be experts, right? I mean, look at everything they’ve told you they’ve accomplished! They’re a bit fuzzy on the details, but that doesn’t matter much, because if you read the mile long, single web page of theirs and pay them $49.99, they will give you THE SYSTEM – the MONEY MAKING MACHINE THAT COULD MAKE YOU MILLIONS! AND ALL WHILE WORKING FROM HOME!!!! (sorry – they capitalize everything and so I suppose I must as well).
The main difference between a real guru and a fake guru is one thing: need. Real gurus don’t need anything from you. They don’t know you, they don’t care to know you, and they gain nothing from knowing you. Fake gurus need you BADLY. Their e-books and how to guides won’t make them a dime unless YOU buy them. Their “MAKE A FORTUNE ON EBAY BY DROP SHIPPING!!!” model will not work unless YOU buy product from them to dropship. The funny thing is, in all of the Top Seller meetings I sat in on at eBay, I never saw any of these gurus. Huh. Weird.
When I was an eBay youngling, I wanted to sell more DVD’s. Of course, I fumbled and bumbled my way along for a bit trying to figure it out with some success. But I still really needed a guru or two to help me get to where I wanted to go. My gurus ended up coming in 2 forms: an expert in DVD sales on eBay and an expert in the DVD category itself who worked for eBay. As I grew my DVD business on eBay, I began to look at the very large sellers of DVD’s – my competitors. The largest competitor was literally 15 times my size, and so I decided to seek out the CEO of that company and see if he would tell me anything. So I flew to eBay Live the year they were in New Orleans, walked up to the DVD/Music/Video Games eBay booth, and just stood there for hours and waited for the seller to show up. Eventually he did, and soon after that I figured out that, once I got a few beers in him, he would tell me anything! He’s still a good friend to this day.
The other guru who really helped me worked for eBay in the Media category. At the same eBay Live in New Orleans, I asked him to meet with me and we talked about the DVD category in general and what was making some sellers so much more successful than others. After a while, he leaned in close and said “so would you like to become a large seller?” I told him yes. He sat back, opened up a notebook, and started writing down names and phone numbers. He handed it to me, smiled, and left.
The names and numbers all became large suppliers of mine over the next 3 months and bingo, I had my big boy pants on. Within a year, my company was the 25th largest eBay seller in the world out of over 1 million sellers. We listed over a million items at a time and sold 5,000+ items a day out of a 36,000 square foot warehouse with 35 employees. I got us to that from selling out of 1 bedroom in my house in 3 years.
My gurus were people who had already accomplished what I wanted to accomplish or had significant knowledge in a related area who could really help me.
The problem is that being an “eBay guru” is literally impossible, as much as it’s impossible to be an “e-commerce guru” or an “Earth guru.” Anyone who has been a medium/large seller on eBay will tell you that eBay is just a sales channel – last I checked, there are dozens of other things that you need to be a “guru” of to succeed. Inventory sourcing, contracts, accounting, warehousing, shipping, software, employees – it takes a village to be good enough at all of these things to be a successful eBay seller. Or, you can be the Village Idiot like I was and try to manage all of these systems yourself. After a while, I felt like the coach in Bull Durham:
“What’s our record, Larry?”
“Eight and sixteen”
“Eight… and sixteen. How’d we ever win eight?”
“It’s a miracle”
You don’t need eBay gurus in your life. You need to be good at business in general, and you need to be smart enough to surround yourself with sharp people who are good at something that you’re not.
If you have to seek out an eBay guru anyway, they MUST have these traits:
1. They must be selling on eBay right now. Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. Find a doer.
2. They must have been selling on eBay for 5 years at least. Staying on eBay is like trying to hold a tiger by its’ tail – eBay changes everything so often that your current business model is dead 6 months from now.
3. They must keep secrets. If you find an eBay seller who’s willing to tell you EVERYTHING about their business, run and hide. No decent seller will be willing to tell you all the secrets of their business.
A funny side story here: one of my competitors in DVD’s got so tired of people asking him where he got his product at conferences that he started replying “oh, we just steal everything” to everybody, including to the CEO of eBay. Always good for a chuckle.
4. They must be selling on other channels as well. Show me a large eBay-only seller and I’ll show you someone about to go out of business. eBay is but a sliver of the pie.
Happy selling!
Kevin Harmon
eBay Guru
twitter.com/imadness
http://www.linkedin.com/in/thekevinharmon
kevin@redshortsmedia.com