Hey guys, this is Neil Waterhouse.
Received an email from Damon Bill.
Hi Neil, I saw you presented at the eBay event in Melbourne.
Really appreciate how you took the time to
answer everyone's questions as well as sharing so many valuable tips which we've
learned on the way.
In depth of knowledge is nothing short of outstanding.
Thank you so much for not just sharing
but also caring about others who are still growing their eBay businesses.
The information you shared
has saved my wife and I possibly years of trial and error.
A question if I may,
What is the one big mistake new eBay sellers make
which can make the difference between failure and success?
Well Damon, thank you firstly for the kind words
In regards to your question, one of the biggest mistake
new eBay sellers make which can determine if they succeed or not
This is a great question and the answer this question is I say it's not just for eBay
but for virtually all businesses
and also most aspects of life.
Building an eBay business is all about taking consistent baby steps
that is one small step at a time
that takes you to the top of the mountain.
And at the top of the mountain is where your final goal is located.
Sure there will be hurdles in the way
and these hurdles need to be navigated.
It's how we navigate these hurdles
that ultimately can determine failure or success.
For most new eBay sellers,
the first goal is to build my income large enough
to replace the full time income.
They do this so they can quit their jobs and work from home.
The first thing I do with any project and not just building an eBay business
is to break the project down into small manageable incremental baby steps
Almost everything in life you think
about it is a project of some description
and every project requires small consistent incremental baby steps
Many people, myself included, get nervous,
scared about the steps required about any new project
as often that we knew things which we need to learn.
And this can often put us out of our comfort zones.
However when the project is completed
we've overcome these obstacles
we normally feel a great sense of achievement
Even going out and buying a new home printer
can seem very scary for many of us
As very often they require some sort of setup
and very often they're not plug-and-play like it says in the box.
We know from our past experiences of life, we're going to be more likely
going to do some kind of problem solving to get this new printer working.
This is going to require us to get our
great mind to fire up
And often we don't want to do this
Often thinking requires more effort
than manual labour.
Many people think
lifting up heavy things
half a days is hard
Sure is
but thinking and using
working things out
and problem solving is also very very hard work
You do that, you also at the end of the day
All you can do is collapse in the bed
Just like it's been half a day
working hard, lifting boxes
or whatever
Most the time after you complete a project and look back and discover
(Was it, was a cat at my feet somewhere? Excuse me. It's just a cat jumps out somewhere.)
Most the time after we complete a project,
we look back and discover
most of things we were scared about
we're not that hard, the problem's solved after all.
When building eBay business from scratch
questions come up which need to be solved
and obviously you can't solve
(Sorry about this cat in the background, she's distracting me)
Anyway, what was I saying
Anyway, these questions that come up
we call these hurdles or barriers to entry
The only way to overcome these hurdles
is to solve, obviously solve the question
are called are the $100 and $1000 per hour work
As often we have to get out of our comfort zone to find the answer.
Every time we answer one of these questions
and solve the problem, we leave more
and more of the competition behind us.
And that's because
these barriers, barriers to entry
they cowl the competition.
People get to this problem and they just give up and they go and look for the
next thing and then they, they find the next thing then they find more
barriers to entry on that so they dropped that move to the next thing
So this good news
So the more barriers to entry that we get through,
the more of the competition that we'll leave behind
Sure some hurdles are more difficult to overcome than others
However unless you're trying to reinvent the wheel
or do something brand new,
the answer to any hurdle is not normally that hard to find.
And selling with eBay,
the path is well-paved before us.
There's over half a million of us now
working from home
doing it full time on eBay
over half a million
So we don't have to reinvent the wheel to do this
One of the people which I coach was having issue last week
with copying images to his website
and many new eBay sellers have the same problem
And they give up, however Joe
he refused to be beaten
And I received an email on Monday morning which came in sometime
over the weekend saying he had solved the problem
Joe went on and say it was just a simple password issue
However if Joe had not persisted he would not have worked that out
And he would'nt know that it was just a simple password issue
This is exactly what it takes to
succeed as an entrepreneur
It's all about baby steps 'till to the top of the mountain, one small step at a time
Every time another hurdle appears we just have to knuckle down and solve it
The very first step to everything in life and including building eBay business
is just to get started and then don't be surprised when the first hurdle appears
as it always will with anything
Awhile back I discovered our family boat had a leaking transom
and this leaking transom caused the transom to rub
The transom for non-boaties out there at the back of boat.
This boat is made of fiberglass
However at the very back of the boat is a layer of 2-inch timber
which is sandwiched between two layers of fiberglass and one of the bolts
anyway it got, then there's some space and some water penetrated through and
saturate the whole transom which then rotted out the transom,
so it had to be, cut it out and replace it.
When I discovered this, I thought it'd be
fun to do as a project, you know, replacing the transom with my kids
My father taught me you need to fix something to really appreciate it
and this is always something I'm always trying to install in my kids.
My initial thought of the, this rot in the boat was
how hard can it be to replace a transom?
Yeah, famous last words
I've certainly never done like that before
And I knew, it'll be a learning curve and hopefully or something
the kids could really get their teeth into too.
Well, yes it certainly was a much
bigger job than first anticipated and there are many hurdles to get through
And I just broke it down
into small manageable baby steps and found the solution to every problem or
hurdle as they arise.
I find projects so much more fun and relaxing when you can just focus on that
one small baby step at a time.
The thought of doing the whole job would just be way too daunting
However doing one small baby step at a time is manageable
And it also makes it fun
When that baby step is completed, you can then take it off
which gives you a great sense of accomplishment
and also gives you the the feeling you're moving forward
These baby steps, as each step for every project I'm doing on a spreadsheet
Yes
many people call this an overkill, however imagine continually update the
project and also calculate the rough date of completion is the same strategy
to break everything down into small baby steps for most of all projects
whether businesses and I really like building a businesses
or hobbies like, I'm building model aircraft
as you see behind.
Everything is simply a project with small incremental baby steps
And the baby steps always lead
to the top of the mountain where the final goal lies.
You know, if I look around like some of these
You can't probably, can't see them too well
this aircraft behind me
it's got turbine engines
Yeah they take quite a long time to build
and I had to learn a lot like
they have these little engines like this thing here
it's actually a jet that actually runs on jet fuel
And you know I've never done this before
like everyone, we don't, we're not born with knowledge
but we just have to learn it
So Dan to answer your question
In all this doing the eBay business since 1999,
the biggest secret I've seen about people who succeed on eBay is
simply the people who have persisted by taking small consistent baby steps.
These are the ones which are cred, you know, the greatest success.
It's the same for almost all things in life
Imagine if we all continue things that we had started as kids
When I was 13, I started learning to play the drums at school
However, you know, my peers told me I was not good at it
so I succumbed to the peer group pressure and gave up
I can only dream today about how good a drum player
possibly could be if I persisted and continually
done more baby steps over the last 30 years
since I was 13.
The same goes for most things in life
All we need to do is consistent baby steps
and will eventually get to our goal
It's not a race, remember it's just consistent baby steps
Many people come to me
I have not accomplished as much as I was hoping to do
and then X you know the last week or month or whatever
It doesn't matter, it's not a race
We have to be patient with ourselves
Most of us, myself definitely included,
underestimate how long things are gonna take.
If you ever employed a builder it almost certainly have no experience with how
long things take and how much longer they're taking was originally predicted
for the project
The same goes for most things in life
If we expect things to take longer than first anticipated,
we can run a much less stressful life.
Yes, so sorry about the cat in the video
That's all for this week.
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Until next week guys
List more, sell more
This is Neil Waterhouse