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00:02

Hey guys, and welcome back to the tattoo business show the best place for actionable advice for entrepreneurs. This is Ted, your friend and host speaking. On today’s show, we have my friend Brian Berg, the chief Mac men of sell your mac.com, a website that specializes in buying and selling Mac products.

 

Today, Brian has bought over $45 million worth of bank products and has helped over 100,000 customers from flipping Macs. Joining us is Brian shares how he got started flipping Mac’s, the challenges he faced as he grew, sell your mac.com and one particularly painful lesson where he was cheated out of over $250,000 All these in more on today’s show of the disc quick commercial break.

 

Hey guys is Ted, thank you so much for joining me on my show. And for all the support. If you ever found any value from the show, I would love if you could subscribe to the show, leave a review on Apple podcasts and share the show with somebody who find it useful as well. All episodes Tuesday resources are available on tattoo a.com.

 

So make sure you log on to tattoo.com that’s tdto.com and make sure you sign up for the newsletter if you want to hear updates from me directly. And now let’s dive right in. Hey, Brian, thank you so much for joining us today. So nice to have you here.

 

01:11

Hey Ted awesome to be here with you and your listeners very excited.

 

01:14

Thanks Brian. Now this stuff a very simple icebreaker Could you share with us who is Brian book we’re using booking

 

01:20

Wow, the Mac man is always on so that is tough. Oh

 

01:24

man, man is I wouldn’t say

 

01:28

I honestly am working around the clock on Apple deals. But when I’m not working I’m spending a lot of time with my kids. So I am Brian the family man when I’m off work.

 

01:37

Yeah, I saw a video of you and your daughter on LinkedIn the other day. Super cute. Oh, thanks. I

 

01:41

got two girls and a boy now and they do love LinkedIn videos doing some fun unboxings with me and other cute stuff, though.

 

01:48

Oh, it sounds like Brian book is a family man. Now Brian, you are the chief Mac men of sell your mag.com. And you’ve purchased over $45 million before Mac products to date. But before we get any further in this interview, share with us. What’s the obsession with MAC’s

 

02:04

I’ve definitely been Mac obsessed my whole life. And the one reason is they work so much better than any other platform. In my opinion, the ecosystem itself has been designed to work very well together and keep other devices out for the most part. And you know, some people have a problem with this walled garden approach.

 

But it’s actually led to very high privacy and security on a platform, which I definitely stand behind. I don’t want marketers to be able to tap into my data if I choose not to let them and I don’t want people to be able to see my emails and stuff like that. So these new features that Apple has for privacy are one of the best reasons why I’m a huge Apple fan.

 

02:42

You know, for me, I really love the Mac interface is so user friendly,

 

02:45

so easy to use, everyone can use it. My two year old knows how to do iPads already. So super easy. You know,

 

02:52

I like to also mention the Genius Bar, it’s always such a good experience going there. They really take care of you. And it makes the whole process of having the faulty piece of equipment a lot more manageable.

 

03:02

They do take care of you, you know, even when you’re out of warranty, it’s basically free support anytime you need it.

 

03:06

Yeah. And I like the idea day feels like you’re talking to a friend at the Genius Bar. Now, Brian, let’s explore your story. Let’s go all the way back to your childhood. I understand that you actually had the entrepreneur but even as a child, what do you work on back then

 

03:21

it almost felt like I was bored with it. You know, I was always buying and selling stuff. It started on the sidewalk when I was a little kid buying selling lanyards and then quickly transitioned to buying and selling stocks when I was a teenager. And then in high school, I was selling car parts that I was familiar with.

 

And college is when it kind of turned more towards technology. And I started buying selling cell phones. And most most of my friends were too lazy to take the initiative to sell them on their own. So they were happy to sell them to me and have me flip them for a small profit. So that’s kind of where I got my my big juice on eBay and knowledge there. And then when I graduated college, I was perfectly set off to take this to the next level and really turn into a business.

 

And it was the fact that I did not land a finance career that led me to then launch my business that will hopefully become cellular mac.com

 

04:15

Oh, so actually understand you went to Tulane University so edit for your time you were still looking for a career in finance, was it what you’re trying to build yourself up to it’s do

 

04:24

my whole life. I thought I was gonna be a Wall Street trader or work at a hedge fund. And it kind of came crashing down when Katrina the hurricane hit our town, New Orleans, and everyone got dispersed.

 

And you know, first that first semester I went to Boston University and no recruiters were allowed to meet with the Tulane students because we weren’t technically full students apparently. And I agree but

 

04:51

you allowed to use the facilities and you actually dare physically Yeah,

 

04:54

I had a had a student car. They told me I was a student up until the point where I wanted to meet the recruiters and they said no, no, no, you’re not They’re not technically a full student.

 

It was a weird catch 22 And then second semester two lane no recruiters when to come visit us because it was a ghost town down there and kind of still under martial law at the time.

 

05:11

So when you went into lane, you said you were flipping phones back then what was the process like in? Were you going around just asking people? Hey, do you want to flip your phone?

 

05:21

Basically, I did my best, best collection of phones at the fraternity and sorority houses. So being a being in a fraternity myself, you know, I knew a lot of people in the great frat space. And I would go around to some of their meetings and basically tell them ahead of time,

 

hey, if you guys have phones, you want to sell I’ll collect them and pay you on the spot. So in a typical meeting, let’s say there’s 50 people, I might collect 1015, cell phones, and you literally just have cash with me and you’d be buying them for you know, 2040 50 bucks, and then go around and sell them on eBay the next week.

 

So is a great inbound channel, just reaching out to these fraternity and sorority groups in advance. And then I had has made devices like possibly self,

 

06:05

no, Brian, this is actually very interesting for me, you clearly got your start in entrepreneurship from flipping items. Now flipping is definitely a great way for anyone to learn about entrepreneurship and the skills that go behind it. But could you share from your experiences? What’s the best way one can get started? And what avenues Can you explore?

 

06:20

I’d say definitely find something you’re passionate about the the things I was flipping, I wasn’t passionate about that not last very long. So if you’re looking for a long term thing, you know, find your passion. And that’ll also lead to you being an expert in what you’re buying and selling.

 

And if you don’t build your expertise, you don’t really know if it’s a good deal and how to price it out appropriately. So that was one of the reasons that I really, really gravitated towards technology and Apple is that I knew what I was working with.

 

And I was able to understand the price and the margins, you know, very quickly. So tell people to you know, find their passion and become an expert in their space, and then they’ll have an advantage when they go start flipping. And probably the best way to do it is eBay.

 

You know, eBay is sometimes overlooked, but it’s still an unbelievable channel to sell stuff. There’s still over 150 million active members on eBay. So yes, I think it’s top top 10 e commerce site.

 

07:16

Great tips Brian do I see that eBay space could be a lot more competitive today because of all the AI robots trawling the website for great views there

 

07:23

are?

 

07:24

Tell me about it.

 

07:25

Not me. I’m a real person. But in general, yes, there are some internet trolls out there, you know, searching for the deals. So you gotta be gotta be one step ahead.

 

07:33

But of course, eBay still a great place to get started into the basics, right? Yeah. And

 

07:37

it’s, you know, it’s a managed marketplace. So there’s, you know, there’s help for buyers and sellers on there. And there’s tools the, you know, help you make your listings very quickly and stuff like that much more trusted space and trying to sell them, you know, on Craigslist or Facebook marketplace, for example. So

 

07:52

guys, if you’ve ever wanted to start learning about business and entrepreneurship, then a great ways to do flipping just like Brian, you can start small by selling lanyards in overtime, you can build yourself up to sell things that you’re passionate about, use resources available to you like eBay and Craigslist, you will have never been more connected.

 

And it’s a great time to be an entrepreneur. Now back to you, Brian. So you were flipping handphones in university, how did you eventually start sell your mac.com Please connect the dots for sure.

 

08:17

I went through lots of stages. So right after college, I was working out of my parents basement, and I was filling it up with technology so fast, and my parents bought the house in about three months. So my next step, I had to find a place to live and to run the business.

 

I found a two bedroom condo. And you know that lasted for about a year it was bursting at the seams. my dining room table was my smileworks my second bedroom was my office, absolute chaos boxes and boxes of phones and Apple products everywhere. So what happened after that? So the next step, I went to a house and it was a ranch house.

 

So the first floor I lived in in the basement was our workspace. And about a year in we actually got a cease and desist letter from the city. They said I couldn’t have more than one employees. So yeah,

 

09:07

so how many employees do you have at a time right

 

09:09

then I had five team members I see you’re well over the limit. So yeah, we were all working out of the basement and apparently the city didn’t like it. So it was our opportunity to get a nice gentle push to finding our were big warehouse. So that was our our first step into getting an official

 

09:23

commercial building. A few when you should go into business into a commercial warehouse space actually felt

 

09:27

pretty awesome. In hindsight, I’m glad I got the cease and desist because it was almost a necessary step. I think sometimes as an entrepreneur, you’re afraid to make that leap. You know, I wasn’t paying any extra money for rent at the time.

 

So you know, we kind of kept it going as long as we possibly could. But we really needed a loading dock and stuff like that to be able to accept more product efficiently. So it was really good timing in general and allow the business to expand from there.

 

09:52

So Brian, you are in an inventory heavy business apart from the amount of warehousing space that you required when the both are next to you facing the business. So biggest

 

10:00

bottleneck was probably cash. You know, we didn’t have enough money to purchase the amount of inventory needed to keep our sales growing to the levels I thought were needed. such it’s such an inventory intense business, and you know, so much cash required to pay your customers, you know, ahead of you actually selling the items.

 

So when people are trading their Macs in, you know, they’re sending it into us, and we’re sitting in payment the next couple days after we receive it, but it might take us, you know, two or three weeks to sell it, for example. So you have to be able to have, you know, a month of cash to support that business. And it’s really tough when it’s growing rapidly. So yeah, that was that was my big challenge, trying to fund some of these larger purchases,

 

10:39

oh, you must be stressful managing the cash flow, making sure you have enough inventory space, making sure you delete his model, there’s so many factors that you have to be aware about. Right, Brian?

 

10:48

That was our constant challenge. I think I think being an entrepreneur is stressful in general. So you just got to roll with the punches.

 

10:54

So Brian, with that said, what are some of the standard operating procedures you have placed in the business itself to make sure that you can run smoothly these days, I

 

11:02

think one of the best things is putting people in place that you know how to help manage the team. And I couldn’t do it all myself. So finding people that have the right skills, you know, both in operations, marketing and business development, for example, were really crucial to helping us out. Another big key learning, I think was giving up control.

 

You know, as an entrepreneur, you really want things to be 100% perfect all the time you want them done to the best that you could be doing them. But you have to be okay with someone doing them, you know, 80% as good as yourself, or 80% of speed. And that’s the only way to keep growing. So when I handed off different parts of the business to my key leadership, team members, that was a big eye opener for me that you know, they could handle these, these jobs and roles and help the company keep growing. Brian, curious,

 

11:49

any of the key leaders in your business today, Paul, the original team that helped you in your earlier days,

 

11:55

pretty close to the start, you know, I’m the only founder but a lot of these guys signed on pretty early. So I think my my three, my three key members have been here over 10 years now.

 

12:05

So I guess someone eventually saw the transition process from you moving into your warehouse, right

 

12:10

to two of the three were with me then and one one came on board later. But yeah, it’s it’s been been a long time having the leadership team together.

 

12:18

Brian, you clearly has some success retaining talent over the years, could you share some tips on how you actually managed to do so

 

12:24

I would say being open with your team about the direction that you’re headed, and being very transparent in how you’re taking care of everyone. You know, I, my team has been there from the start, because I’ve been able to build loyalty and trust with them. And that’s definitely a two way street. So I think it goes a long way to work with people that are your friends. And I certainly there’s some downsides to having your friends in the company. But that loyalty and trust is a great base,

 

12:54

I think this is to a point to be said about being able to confront a person. So you can be good friends with a person and still end up being bad business partners to get it. And today,

 

13:03

I’m learning to confront issues like that a little bit more. Head on now. But it’s definitely a tough thing to do, because I lead with love. And you know, it’s a very family like environment at our office. So sometimes it’s tough to give the tough love.

 

13:18

Yeah, exactly. I guess we’re all learning about that process as well. Now, Brian, here’s my next question. There seems to be a rise in competition on the number of third party sellers selling refurbished Apple products over the years, how have you been able to actually compete over the years,

 

13:31

there is hyper competition, I would say there’s many companies popping up in this space. Even companies like Apple that, you know, are using a third party to do their trading program, they’ve been really pushing that program in general now and making it much easier for the customer to, you know, get their get their credit at the point of sale.

 

So I would say the best thing we’ve done to stay ahead of the competition is continuing to make it fast and easy for people to trade in. So we’re always kind of optimizing the tools on our website. So like last year, for example, we launched our serial number code tool. So all you need to do is put your serial number in and it’ll spit out exactly where your devices, it took us a year to develop this database that basically has every single apple serial number ending,

 

you know, in the world to help map these things out. So with that, we’re able to help our customers have a much faster experience. And also just kind of a white glove service we offer you know, we’re willing to go any length for our customers, whatever they need, you know, we’re open to requests as a lot of these other larger companies, for example, they’re not going to do anything extra for the customer outside of our normal process.

 

14:41

Brian is certainly the service you provide really encourages customer loyalty. Do you have any stories of your customers coming back to you over the years,

 

14:47

almost everyone comes back? It’s really just the time people have to wait between trade ins. Every single person says they love working with us. We have the number one ratings in the entire world for Apple trading. So yeah, everyone’s coming back. And you know, if people have anything they need, we definitely take care of them.

 

15:05

I guess there’s a good thing about Apple users, once you’re in the ecosystem, you can not leave. Exactly, yeah, it’d be very unlikely for you to switch out why would you ever switch. So I guess every two to three years, you see a customer come back, and you can say, hey, is you again, and I

 

15:19

think now people are getting way more types of products. You know, before it was, you know, just the Mac back in the day, then it was a Mac and an iPhone, now it’s Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch. So people are kind of constantly adding new products, whether they’re getting new air pods and new Apple TVs, you know, and watches every year. So I think we’re gonna see people even more frequently going forward.

 

15:39

Yeah, on this point, I must say it’s quite sad to see the iPod die away. I do remember using it, you know, growing up, and it was so iconic. And when he was subsumed into the iPhone, and they started ceasing production, I was sad to see it go, I left going to the Apple stores, and spinning the wheel of the the iPod itself.

 

I mean, touchscreen is nice. Oh, it’s all iPods are smeared analog touch, and then they will stick clicking sound, I don’t know, it’s just this level of satisfaction that I always would get when I use the iPod itself. And I really loved it. And you know, it’s sad to see it go, did you use an iPod back then as well?

 

16:14

I did definitely use an iPod. And if anyone out there has an iPod, you’d be shocked with some of the oldest iPods or work. So go flip it yourself.

 

16:22

These days. It’s a classic idea. And I guess, well,

 

16:24

the original iPod like first generation ever is going for 100 to $200. So do and and it’s it’s almost unusable. You have to have a firewire cable to train the songs. And it’s super slow, but it’s more just iconic than anything. Yeah.

 

So I think there’ll be a market for that, you know, for a long time. And I mean, there, people are still selling, you know, older iPod Touches and stuff when people need them to pop in the gym or uses a remote control in their house.

 

16:54

There’ll be a market for antique, quote unquote, iPods in the rise in the future, because we’ve seen video games like the Nintendo 64 rise in pop culture and the games the original must do seem to have gone through the roof is quite crazy. Do you think that will happen to Apple products as well?

 

17:12

I do. And you know, you mentioning the the quality, I think if they’re in pristine condition in the box sealed, that’s definitely gonna be worth a lot more. I have seen some worth 1000s of these older first generations if they’re perfectly sealed in the box.

 

And you know, people on eBay are selling brand new iPhones, in display cases untouched. You know, for 1000s of dollars. So some people out there love this iconic Apple art. Yeah,

 

17:37

I wanted to not have to go and check it out. My No, Brian, your business is based on the internet. So could you share with us how big a role does SEO play in your overall business strategy,

 

17:48

SEO has been huge for us. And we it’s been a focus literally, since the day one, we launched our website. So we wanted to build your math.com to be the top and Apple Search. So when you go on and you search for sell Mac’s on my Mac, you know where to sell my Mac, any of these types of terms are literally number one in the world.

 

And that has led to an immense amount of organic traffic. And other companies are paying, you know, considerable sums to buy that traffic. But you know, we’re getting 80% plus of our traffic organically. And it’s really working with a great SEO team, a great web team. And the combination of that has led to tremendous results. So if anyone out there is is curious and wants to work for my SEO team, you know, definitely reach out to me, I’ll hook you guys up.

 

18:32

Oh, that’s so cool. And of course, SEO is a very long term strategy. And he really takes us to get it. Right. Right takes years.

 

18:40

Right? How long have you been working on it all

 

18:42

since we launched the website 12 years ago, and every year every year, it’s a continued effort. Oh, you know, you’ll fall off if you don’t continue to kind of put money and effort into it. And you know, we’re building new landing pages all the time, that have SEO specific content. And we’re also building tons of content pages like last year, we launched

 

3000 new pages on our website. And that that helps keep us up to number one. So that’s that’s a lot of the strategy is a lot of contests.

 

19:10

You know, despite having invested in the SEO content in the rankings itself, that is a return in investment in the sense that you don’t actually have to spend as much on the advertisements, as you said before. Exactly. That allows you to play a little bit more in the margins because the resale market, I guess that’s where you’re really trying to compete, right. And when you

 

19:28

think about it, people would much prefer to find your content organically because it’s not salesy at that point. So I would say it’s much better to invest in SEO than to buy the paid ads, even for the same traffic. Although the paid ads do have a very high intention. You know, when they’re searching, where do I sell my Mac? It’s a good chance they’re gonna be your customer guess

 

19:48

if you’re organically ranking on the first page of Google, at least that you earn a spot there and if you didn’t pay for the ad itself, I guess the customer psychology would be along the lines that this comes Honey is more legit.

 

20:01

I agree. Yeah, I definitely look at that number one organic, I suppose number one paid because anyone can pay. And that could be a bad company. But, you know, we’re number one on the paid and then the organic. So it definitely helps to have that strategy,

 

20:13

Brian uses shared customer reviews forms a big part of a business, can you share how you’ve been able to ensure good customer experience from both sides of it, because I understand you have customers who are selling you the MAC products, and then you have customers who are buying from you as well,

 

20:25

I would say it all starts with instilling the right values in our team. And I’ve always made a very heavy focus to help the customer and go to any length necessary, you know, we’re willing to, you know, take it on the chain, if there’s an issue,

 

we’ll go, we’ll go above and beyond to make that customer feel like we did the right thing. And that type of mentality with our customer service team, you know, has led to these amazing, you know, 100% ratings across the internet.

 

And we will just continue to do whatever it takes for the customer. And not everyone’s willing to do that is kind of the Zappos approach. You know, if they call and ask to order a pizza, and you only sell shoes, well, you get the call and help them get the pizza. So if they ask us for something that we don’t do, we’re going to help figure that out. And that brings, that brings people to give us, you know, insane reviews.

 

And we also, you know, do what we say when these products are graded, you know a certain way, we’re not going to send you a Mac that’s, you know, worse condition than described. So you’re very happy when you get your computer and then you’d be incentivized to leave top review. And you also have to ask the customers for reviews, you know, we have a follow up email after the process that says please submit a review. So be very mindful to ask your customers because they’re not going to go out of their way to find a link and leave a review unless you ask

 

21:37

for it. Who know, Brian, could you share some stories of how you’ve helped your customers? How did you go to the extra mile, I

 

21:43

wish I had my customer service team, I’m here to give you guys all all the downloads are interesting. So you know, for example, if there’s a if there’s a shipping issue and your Mac was lost in transit or something like that, we would still pay you for it, we’re not gonna we’re not going to try to wait six months for you know, FedEx to make,

 

make a case and have that all worked out, we’re gonna just going to jump on it and make sure that we take care of the customer. And then on the sales side, for example, if you got something and you weren’t happy with it will immediately cross ship you another computer, you know, maybe there was a dent that we didn’t notice or something,

 

for example, we’ll send you another one in better condition. And then you can just ship the Old One back whenever you get it. So just trying to make sure that we don’t delay in our processes to make make the customer get the right product and make them feel like they got a good deal. Right.

 

22:32

So it seems that they placed a lot of emphasis on making sure the customer knows that you trust them and your data to help them with the process. Right, right.

 

22:38

Fortunately, most people are honest. And we definitely have scams that happen more often than I’d like to report. We’ve had people send us really crazy things in the mail and tell us it was a Mac when it was not. He didn’t get away with it. I read one of the one of the craziest ones, someone sent us a you know, 40 pounds of refrigerator hoses and said it was a $5,000 Mac inside was he

 

22:59

playing they did not get shipped it all the way back to you. We pay the shipping. So

 

23:05

they use our prepaid label you abused? Yeah, yeah, we’ve had some crazy things arriving at our place. But yeah, it is

 

23:11

crazy. Well, I would say that I really appreciate what you’re trying to do for customers, because I purchased secondhand phones before. So just recently, I bought a secondhand resale Apple phone that was supposed to be as new in terms of its quality. But when I received it, it was not as good as it was promised.

 

And when I started making inquiries about making the return, and you were really trying to block me a lot of red tape. So you know, on the policy of the website, they say there’s a 14 day return policy, no questions asked. But when I started asking the question, I wasn’t right. So in the time they took to actually send a password to me, and it took about a week, so I can’t be penalized. You’re never gonna use them again. Exactly.

 

So that’s the second part of the story that she gets crazier. So after they eventually agreed to respect the 14 day policy, they got someone to pick up the phone and they were supposed to process the refund. But after a week, nothing happened. And in fact, a third party courier company actually shipped the phone all the way back to me

 

24:08

the exact car and again, like I don’t want it.

 

24:11

Yeah, exactly. And then the shipment details. Somebody from the reseller she called the tech party to pick up the phone and send it back to me so I’m never sure if they were aware what was going on. Wow,

 

24:19

that’s unfortunate and one of the things is you know, if someone has a bad experience, if you make it right, they’re going to come back so this person this company had just replaced had just giving you a quick refund and not giving you red tape. You would have came back the shop later but you know now never again,

 

24:36

perhaps the opposite. They’ve made it so hard. And if she messed up so badly, I would never have used them or recommend them.

 

24:42

Well, you can buy on our eBay store and it offers international shipping all the way.

 

24:51

Now that I know that Brian is going to be Firstly, he would definitely look into this and now Brian, we were just talking about how some of your customers would abuse your Trust. So weird earlier on which he did have about $250,000 worth of cash, could you share with us what happened?

 

25:06

That was a very rough time, you know, is one of our largest deals we’d ever done. I had a prepay for a almost million dollar deal, I had a prepaid about a quarter million dollars for this huge iPhone purchase. And they never came.

 

And, you know, I don’t, it’s hard to know if it was set up to be a scam from the start or not. But the supplier was a trusted, legitimate company. And, you know, he claims that his supplier never gets never sent them to him. And I ended up filing a court case after you know, months of waiting and stressing out about this, and I won the cases in court, this is in Australia, actually.

 

Okay, and then the gentleman fled the country. So I think he knew he was wrong. And he ended up in Egypt last time I checked. And it was kind of chasing, throwing throwing good money after bad money at that point. And I couldn’t even continue the lawsuit to try to recoup it. And it took me seven years to pay the money back from the person I borrowed it from.

 

And the business would have been bankrupt if I was not able to get, you know, short term funding at the time. So this really kind of trashed the business. And my biggest learning is I will never wire money for bolt deals. Again, I only pay on my credit card or with PayPal. And I’m willing to pay the fee to someone to accept that except my PayPal.

 

And if they won’t do that, I almost know it’s a fraud. And we’ve still had people try to fraud us even though I’m using my American Express. And it’s crazy. I get my money back now every time but people are still willing to be bad humans out there.

 

26:49

Sad.

 

26:50

Yeah. And people. He has a clawback mechanism, right. If the other party doesn’t follow through to me to do that is a way that people can actually claw that money back to you,

 

26:59

even the big companies, they

 

27:00

get the money right away. But you can claw it back, you know, there’s no incentive for them to scam you because I got 90 days to report it. So the only thing that product the 90 days, you know that money is coming right back.

 

27:11

So the door service is like Pay Pal have a service fee is kind of like paying insurance for the whole process. Exactly.

 

27:18

I can sleep so much better at night. Yeah, kind of maybe the most stress you had, that was

 

27:22

one of the most stressful things ever. So I’m happy to put that behind us. So guys,

 

27:26

as Brian has shared, he previously had a very bad experience where he was cheated out with about $250,000 because he actually prepaid for goods that never arrived. Since then Brian has made it a point to only make payments with services like PayPal where there’s a clawback mechanism.

 

So had this in mind the next time when you transfer funds, if you want to be protected, you can use a service like PayPal to make sure that if there’s anything wrong that goes down the road paid, how can Claudia money back if you make that claim within a set amount of time?

 

So Brian, I know being cheated must have been a very traumatic episode for you, could you perhaps share with us how you recover mentally from this whole process,

 

27:59

it was really tough, there was a lot of sleepless nights and doubting myself, if I could continue if I was the right person for the job, if it was even worth trying this business anymore. And it took the encouragement of others and me recognizing personally, that I could keep going and you know, telling myself that I really had to had to change my story, to just accept that this was, you know, a necessary business evil and a massive learning opportunity.

 

And I kind of look at all my biggest failures as learning opportunities. And that’s the best way to keep proceeding. And as an entrepreneur, you know, fortunately, not every lonely opportunity is this expensive. But you got to take them for what they’re worth. And if you can never make a mistake like that again, you know, you could you could say maybe it’s worth it in hindsight.

 

So, you know, fortunately, I was able to have my family kind of rally around me and help support me at the time, because I was definitely in a low place for a while,

 

29:02

Brian, but one thing I must say is that you really recovered from that whole episode. You’re always smiling and you’re wishing acts of kindness, you really clearly rose from this challenge.

 

29:13

I know. And I would say it’s the determination and perseverance that entrepreneurs need to get past stuff like this, you know, if you don’t have that, that inner drive and determination, you’ll you’ll you’ll fall when these crazy things happen to you. And it’s kind of inevitable. This is why businesses don’t last more than five years in generals because bad things happen. You know, we’re in our 12th year to sell your Mac and my 15th year out of college running this business. So you know, we’re still alive and live and going strong.

 

29:40

am very good to hear that. Now, Brian, could you share with us? Where is the business today? And where do you want to take it to in the future?

 

29:45

Well, the business today is a $10 million company and we’re definitely looking to take that to the next level. You know, I think it certainly has potential to get to the 50 to $100 million range, and we’re going to need a lot more human and Real capital to get it there. So it’s a pretty exciting, you know, kind of inflection point that we’re at right now.

 

And it’s been a little bit steady the last couple years, you know, with during COVID, and stuff like that we haven’t really pushed on it to try to grow it to what it’s currently potential is. So I think that you’re now with with the right team, we really could take it to the next level. So Brian,

 

30:22

what are some of the new strategies they are currently exploring to take it from a $10 million to a $50 million business, there must be something new that you’re going to apply to as you bring it to the next level.

 

30:32

But one of the things I’m personally doing is really trying to grow the business through my LinkedIn relationships. So in the last couple of years, I’ve been exploding my presence on there, and people are really starting to get to know me as Brian the mack band.

 

And I have at least one opportunity every single day that comes into my LinkedIn inbox. And you know, some are large, some are small, but continuing to be posting on LinkedIn and getting my content out there, it leads to a lot of opportunities. So I really encourage people, if they’re trying to grow their business on social media to look at LinkedIn as a channel.

 

This is where all the business people are. And if you become a business influencer, like I have over the years, it can lead to a lot more opportunities. So I’m very excited to be leading the charge on LinkedIn.

 

31:17

That’s a very interesting point, Brian, in fact, that’s how he first came across you through LinkedIn. We’re sharing videos of beauty acts of kindness. So that right? Yeah, really did. And I’m glad to have made a connection with you

 

31:28

appreciate that. People love kind content. So if you’re saying something fun or kind, it definitely gravitates people towards you know, Brian,

 

31:34

since we’re on this point, could you share this button journey was like for you, when you were growing your LinkedIn profile? Could you maybe share some tips on how I just can do this as well,

 

31:42

I would tell people to be very consistent with their posting, if you’re not posting content almost daily, it’s gonna be tough to significantly grow your audience. So I’ve been posting daily now for almost three years. And in the last two years, it’s twice a day, at least.

 

So that has led to people looking for my content and following me to come back for more, if you believe me, yeah, exactly dead. I caught you on LinkedIn, this has led to a loss of opportunities to be on podcasting, continue to spread the word. And then when it comes to content creation, you need to share content that is kind that brings people in that is inclusive,

 

you know, ask them questions, try to get them involved in your content. If you’re posting just about yourself and your awards and your business, no one’s gonna be that interested. Or you’re gonna have a very small niche following. So trying to get get out there and grow your audience requires you to really expand the scope of your content and think about your audience.

 

You know, when someone has a break to hop on LinkedIn for two minutes, or do they really want to see. And if you have that type of mindset and approach, it’ll lead to good results.

 

And if people do want to know more, I am doing one to one LinkedIn coaching and master classes. This year, I became a certified Vistage speaker. And I’ve been traveling around delivering LinkedIn solutions. Thank you. So very fun.

 

33:03

So Brian, entrepreneurship is never an easy journey, as you shared earlier, who do you see played a significant part in your success that you’d like to take some time right now to say thank you to

 

33:13

I’m gonna give a shout out to two people, you know, one of them is not alive anymore. And that is Steve Jobs. And just seeing how he was able to pull together so many different modalities to create apple and to the unbelievable slumping is today, and his perseverance to push through even some of the darkest times of apple and finding innovative ways that keep keep the company growing, that really spoke to me from an entrepreneur standpoint.

 

You know, it’s like when he came back as interim CEO, he had a in 96, he had a cut all the products besides four. And ultimately, he was the right CEO to get the company back on its feet. And people really doubted him the fact that he would partner with Microsoft, for example, to get money they needed to remove myself like that seems crazy in the moment, but you know, he had the foresight of what it would take to keep the company moving forward.

 

And you know, I definitely, definitely look up to him for that. And the second person would be my dad. He has been a doctor now for 45 years and has been so impressive watching his determination every day to help people he takes care of, he’s cared for over half a million eyeballs in his career. And it’s just been such an impressive run that he never takes time off of work, and I really look up to him for his perseverance to get there.

 

34:32

Now, Brian, if the listeners only remember one thing from today’s conversation, what would you like it to be?

 

34:36

I would say passion. You know, my passion is all about Apple, but you need to find your passion to help that start your entrepreneurial journey. And if you want any other advice, definitely follow me on LinkedIn. I love sharing and helping people reach their goals on there.

 

34:51

So Brian, if the listeners need your help, how can they get in contact with you if you go to sell your

 

34:55

mac.com you can find information about our company and you can use my personal promo code Mack Man for a bonus there. And you also could check out my new personal website, Brian, the Mack Man calm. And I have information there, how to connect with me and how I can help you on LinkedIn.

 

35:13

Okay, Brian, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your story and your passion for Mac.

 

35:19

This has been really fun. Thank you to everyone for listening, and I look forward to helping support you on your journeys.

 

35:25

Guys, thank you so much for joining Brian on today’s show. So if you want to buy or sell a Mac, why not look out for Brian on sale yo mac.com. Now before if you received any value from the show, I would love for you to subscribe to the show, leave a review on Apple podcasts and to share the show with somebody who find it useful as well. All of these tools and resources and my email list available on patreon.com. That’s tdto.com that’s all for me today. I’ll see you guys next time.

[This transcript has been automatically generated by a digital software and will therefore  contain errors and typos. Please kindly take note of this and only rely on the digital transcript for reference.]

00:02

Hey guys, and welcome back to the tattoo business show the best place for actionable advice for entrepreneurs. This is Ted, your friend and host speaking. On today’s show, we have my friend Brian Berg, the chief Mac men of sell your mac.com, a website that specializes in buying and selling Mac products.

 

Today, Brian has bought over $45 million worth of bank products and has helped over 100,000 customers from flipping Macs. Joining us is Brian shares how he got started flipping Mac’s, the challenges he faced as he grew, sell your mac.com and one particularly painful lesson where he was cheated out of over $250,000 All these in more on today’s show of the disc quick commercial break.

 

Hey guys is Ted, thank you so much for joining me on my show. And for all the support. If you ever found any value from the show, I would love if you could subscribe to the show, leave a review on Apple podcasts and share the show with somebody who find it useful as well. All episodes Tuesday resources are available on tattoo a.com.

 

So make sure you log on to tattoo.com that’s tdto.com and make sure you sign up for the newsletter if you want to hear updates from me directly. And now let’s dive right in. Hey, Brian, thank you so much for joining us today. So nice to have you here.

 

01:11

Hey Ted awesome to be here with you and your listeners very excited.

 

01:14

Thanks Brian. Now this stuff a very simple icebreaker Could you share with us who is Brian book we’re using booking

 

01:20

Wow, the Mac man is always on so that is tough. Oh

 

01:24

man, man is I wouldn’t say

 

01:28

I honestly am working around the clock on Apple deals. But when I’m not working I’m spending a lot of time with my kids. So I am Brian the family man when I’m off work.

 

01:37

Yeah, I saw a video of you and your daughter on LinkedIn the other day. Super cute. Oh, thanks. I

 

01:41

got two girls and a boy now and they do love LinkedIn videos doing some fun unboxings with me and other cute stuff, though.

 

01:48

Oh, it sounds like Brian book is a family man. Now Brian, you are the chief Mac men of sell your mag.com. And you’ve purchased over $45 million before Mac products to date. But before we get any further in this interview, share with us. What’s the obsession with MAC’s

 

02:04

I’ve definitely been Mac obsessed my whole life. And the one reason is they work so much better than any other platform. In my opinion, the ecosystem itself has been designed to work very well together and keep other devices out for the most part. And you know, some people have a problem with this walled garden approach.

 

But it’s actually led to very high privacy and security on a platform, which I definitely stand behind. I don’t want marketers to be able to tap into my data if I choose not to let them and I don’t want people to be able to see my emails and stuff like that. So these new features that Apple has for privacy are one of the best reasons why I’m a huge Apple fan.

 

02:42

You know, for me, I really love the Mac interface is so user friendly,

 

02:45

so easy to use, everyone can use it. My two year old knows how to do iPads already. So super easy. You know,

 

02:52

I like to also mention the Genius Bar, it’s always such a good experience going there. They really take care of you. And it makes the whole process of having the faulty piece of equipment a lot more manageable.

 

03:02

They do take care of you, you know, even when you’re out of warranty, it’s basically free support anytime you need it.

 

03:06

Yeah. And I like the idea day feels like you’re talking to a friend at the Genius Bar. Now, Brian, let’s explore your story. Let’s go all the way back to your childhood. I understand that you actually had the entrepreneur but even as a child, what do you work on back then

 

03:21

it almost felt like I was bored with it. You know, I was always buying and selling stuff. It started on the sidewalk when I was a little kid buying selling lanyards and then quickly transitioned to buying and selling stocks when I was a teenager. And then in high school, I was selling car parts that I was familiar with.

 

And college is when it kind of turned more towards technology. And I started buying selling cell phones. And most most of my friends were too lazy to take the initiative to sell them on their own. So they were happy to sell them to me and have me flip them for a small profit. So that’s kind of where I got my my big juice on eBay and knowledge there. And then when I graduated college, I was perfectly set off to take this to the next level and really turn into a business.

 

And it was the fact that I did not land a finance career that led me to then launch my business that will hopefully become cellular mac.com

 

04:15

Oh, so actually understand you went to Tulane University so edit for your time you were still looking for a career in finance, was it what you’re trying to build yourself up to it’s do

 

04:24

my whole life. I thought I was gonna be a Wall Street trader or work at a hedge fund. And it kind of came crashing down when Katrina the hurricane hit our town, New Orleans, and everyone got dispersed.

 

And you know, first that first semester I went to Boston University and no recruiters were allowed to meet with the Tulane students because we weren’t technically full students apparently. And I agree but

 

04:51

you allowed to use the facilities and you actually dare physically Yeah,

 

04:54

I had a had a student car. They told me I was a student up until the point where I wanted to meet the recruiters and they said no, no, no, you’re not They’re not technically a full student.

 

It was a weird catch 22 And then second semester two lane no recruiters when to come visit us because it was a ghost town down there and kind of still under martial law at the time.

 

05:11

So when you went into lane, you said you were flipping phones back then what was the process like in? Were you going around just asking people? Hey, do you want to flip your phone?

 

05:21

Basically, I did my best, best collection of phones at the fraternity and sorority houses. So being a being in a fraternity myself, you know, I knew a lot of people in the great frat space. And I would go around to some of their meetings and basically tell them ahead of time,

 

hey, if you guys have phones, you want to sell I’ll collect them and pay you on the spot. So in a typical meeting, let’s say there’s 50 people, I might collect 1015, cell phones, and you literally just have cash with me and you’d be buying them for you know, 2040 50 bucks, and then go around and sell them on eBay the next week.

 

So is a great inbound channel, just reaching out to these fraternity and sorority groups in advance. And then I had has made devices like possibly self,

 

06:05

no, Brian, this is actually very interesting for me, you clearly got your start in entrepreneurship from flipping items. Now flipping is definitely a great way for anyone to learn about entrepreneurship and the skills that go behind it. But could you share from your experiences? What’s the best way one can get started? And what avenues Can you explore?

 

06:20

I’d say definitely find something you’re passionate about the the things I was flipping, I wasn’t passionate about that not last very long. So if you’re looking for a long term thing, you know, find your passion. And that’ll also lead to you being an expert in what you’re buying and selling.

 

And if you don’t build your expertise, you don’t really know if it’s a good deal and how to price it out appropriately. So that was one of the reasons that I really, really gravitated towards technology and Apple is that I knew what I was working with.

 

And I was able to understand the price and the margins, you know, very quickly. So tell people to you know, find their passion and become an expert in their space, and then they’ll have an advantage when they go start flipping. And probably the best way to do it is eBay.

 

You know, eBay is sometimes overlooked, but it’s still an unbelievable channel to sell stuff. There’s still over 150 million active members on eBay. So yes, I think it’s top top 10 e commerce site.

 

07:16

Great tips Brian do I see that eBay space could be a lot more competitive today because of all the AI robots trawling the website for great views there

 

07:23

are?

 

07:24

Tell me about it.

 

07:25

Not me. I’m a real person. But in general, yes, there are some internet trolls out there, you know, searching for the deals. So you gotta be gotta be one step ahead.

 

07:33

But of course, eBay still a great place to get started into the basics, right? Yeah. And

 

07:37

it’s, you know, it’s a managed marketplace. So there’s, you know, there’s help for buyers and sellers on there. And there’s tools the, you know, help you make your listings very quickly and stuff like that much more trusted space and trying to sell them, you know, on Craigslist or Facebook marketplace, for example. So

 

07:52

guys, if you’ve ever wanted to start learning about business and entrepreneurship, then a great ways to do flipping just like Brian, you can start small by selling lanyards in overtime, you can build yourself up to sell things that you’re passionate about, use resources available to you like eBay and Craigslist, you will have never been more connected.

 

And it’s a great time to be an entrepreneur. Now back to you, Brian. So you were flipping handphones in university, how did you eventually start sell your mac.com Please connect the dots for sure.

 

08:17

I went through lots of stages. So right after college, I was working out of my parents basement, and I was filling it up with technology so fast, and my parents bought the house in about three months. So my next step, I had to find a place to live and to run the business.

 

I found a two bedroom condo. And you know that lasted for about a year it was bursting at the seams. my dining room table was my smileworks my second bedroom was my office, absolute chaos boxes and boxes of phones and Apple products everywhere. So what happened after that? So the next step, I went to a house and it was a ranch house.

 

So the first floor I lived in in the basement was our workspace. And about a year in we actually got a cease and desist letter from the city. They said I couldn’t have more than one employees. So yeah,

 

09:07

so how many employees do you have at a time right

 

09:09

then I had five team members I see you’re well over the limit. So yeah, we were all working out of the basement and apparently the city didn’t like it. So it was our opportunity to get a nice gentle push to finding our were big warehouse. So that was our our first step into getting an official

 

09:23

commercial building. A few when you should go into business into a commercial warehouse space actually felt

 

09:27

pretty awesome. In hindsight, I’m glad I got the cease and desist because it was almost a necessary step. I think sometimes as an entrepreneur, you’re afraid to make that leap. You know, I wasn’t paying any extra money for rent at the time.

 

So you know, we kind of kept it going as long as we possibly could. But we really needed a loading dock and stuff like that to be able to accept more product efficiently. So it was really good timing in general and allow the business to expand from there.

 

09:52

So Brian, you are in an inventory heavy business apart from the amount of warehousing space that you required when the both are next to you facing the business. So biggest

 

10:00

bottleneck was probably cash. You know, we didn’t have enough money to purchase the amount of inventory needed to keep our sales growing to the levels I thought were needed. such it’s such an inventory intense business, and you know, so much cash required to pay your customers, you know, ahead of you actually selling the items.

 

So when people are trading their Macs in, you know, they’re sending it into us, and we’re sitting in payment the next couple days after we receive it, but it might take us, you know, two or three weeks to sell it, for example. So you have to be able to have, you know, a month of cash to support that business. And it’s really tough when it’s growing rapidly. So yeah, that was that was my big challenge, trying to fund some of these larger purchases,

 

10:39

oh, you must be stressful managing the cash flow, making sure you have enough inventory space, making sure you delete his model, there’s so many factors that you have to be aware about. Right, Brian?

 

10:48

That was our constant challenge. I think I think being an entrepreneur is stressful in general. So you just got to roll with the punches.

 

10:54

So Brian, with that said, what are some of the standard operating procedures you have placed in the business itself to make sure that you can run smoothly these days, I

 

11:02

think one of the best things is putting people in place that you know how to help manage the team. And I couldn’t do it all myself. So finding people that have the right skills, you know, both in operations, marketing and business development, for example, were really crucial to helping us out. Another big key learning, I think was giving up control.

 

You know, as an entrepreneur, you really want things to be 100% perfect all the time you want them done to the best that you could be doing them. But you have to be okay with someone doing them, you know, 80% as good as yourself, or 80% of speed. And that’s the only way to keep growing. So when I handed off different parts of the business to my key leadership, team members, that was a big eye opener for me that you know, they could handle these, these jobs and roles and help the company keep growing. Brian, curious,

 

11:49

any of the key leaders in your business today, Paul, the original team that helped you in your earlier days,

 

11:55

pretty close to the start, you know, I’m the only founder but a lot of these guys signed on pretty early. So I think my my three, my three key members have been here over 10 years now.

 

12:05

So I guess someone eventually saw the transition process from you moving into your warehouse, right

 

12:10

to two of the three were with me then and one one came on board later. But yeah, it’s it’s been been a long time having the leadership team together.

 

12:18

Brian, you clearly has some success retaining talent over the years, could you share some tips on how you actually managed to do so

 

12:24

I would say being open with your team about the direction that you’re headed, and being very transparent in how you’re taking care of everyone. You know, I, my team has been there from the start, because I’ve been able to build loyalty and trust with them. And that’s definitely a two way street. So I think it goes a long way to work with people that are your friends. And I certainly there’s some downsides to having your friends in the company. But that loyalty and trust is a great base,

 

12:54

I think this is to a point to be said about being able to confront a person. So you can be good friends with a person and still end up being bad business partners to get it. And today,

 

13:03

I’m learning to confront issues like that a little bit more. Head on now. But it’s definitely a tough thing to do, because I lead with love. And you know, it’s a very family like environment at our office. So sometimes it’s tough to give the tough love.

 

13:18

Yeah, exactly. I guess we’re all learning about that process as well. Now, Brian, here’s my next question. There seems to be a rise in competition on the number of third party sellers selling refurbished Apple products over the years, how have you been able to actually compete over the years,

 

13:31

there is hyper competition, I would say there’s many companies popping up in this space. Even companies like Apple that, you know, are using a third party to do their trading program, they’ve been really pushing that program in general now and making it much easier for the customer to, you know, get their get their credit at the point of sale.

 

So I would say the best thing we’ve done to stay ahead of the competition is continuing to make it fast and easy for people to trade in. So we’re always kind of optimizing the tools on our website. So like last year, for example, we launched our serial number code tool. So all you need to do is put your serial number in and it’ll spit out exactly where your devices, it took us a year to develop this database that basically has every single apple serial number ending,

 

you know, in the world to help map these things out. So with that, we’re able to help our customers have a much faster experience. And also just kind of a white glove service we offer you know, we’re willing to go any length for our customers, whatever they need, you know, we’re open to requests as a lot of these other larger companies, for example, they’re not going to do anything extra for the customer outside of our normal process.

 

14:41

Brian is certainly the service you provide really encourages customer loyalty. Do you have any stories of your customers coming back to you over the years,

 

14:47

almost everyone comes back? It’s really just the time people have to wait between trade ins. Every single person says they love working with us. We have the number one ratings in the entire world for Apple trading. So yeah, everyone’s coming back. And you know, if people have anything they need, we definitely take care of them.

 

15:05

I guess there’s a good thing about Apple users, once you’re in the ecosystem, you can not leave. Exactly, yeah, it’d be very unlikely for you to switch out why would you ever switch. So I guess every two to three years, you see a customer come back, and you can say, hey, is you again, and I

 

15:19

think now people are getting way more types of products. You know, before it was, you know, just the Mac back in the day, then it was a Mac and an iPhone, now it’s Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch. So people are kind of constantly adding new products, whether they’re getting new air pods and new Apple TVs, you know, and watches every year. So I think we’re gonna see people even more frequently going forward.

 

15:39

Yeah, on this point, I must say it’s quite sad to see the iPod die away. I do remember using it, you know, growing up, and it was so iconic. And when he was subsumed into the iPhone, and they started ceasing production, I was sad to see it go, I left going to the Apple stores, and spinning the wheel of the the iPod itself.

 

I mean, touchscreen is nice. Oh, it’s all iPods are smeared analog touch, and then they will stick clicking sound, I don’t know, it’s just this level of satisfaction that I always would get when I use the iPod itself. And I really loved it. And you know, it’s sad to see it go, did you use an iPod back then as well?

 

16:14

I did definitely use an iPod. And if anyone out there has an iPod, you’d be shocked with some of the oldest iPods or work. So go flip it yourself.

 

16:22

These days. It’s a classic idea. And I guess, well,

 

16:24

the original iPod like first generation ever is going for 100 to $200. So do and and it’s it’s almost unusable. You have to have a firewire cable to train the songs. And it’s super slow, but it’s more just iconic than anything. Yeah.

 

So I think there’ll be a market for that, you know, for a long time. And I mean, there, people are still selling, you know, older iPod Touches and stuff when people need them to pop in the gym or uses a remote control in their house.

 

16:54

There’ll be a market for antique, quote unquote, iPods in the rise in the future, because we’ve seen video games like the Nintendo 64 rise in pop culture and the games the original must do seem to have gone through the roof is quite crazy. Do you think that will happen to Apple products as well?

 

17:12

I do. And you know, you mentioning the the quality, I think if they’re in pristine condition in the box sealed, that’s definitely gonna be worth a lot more. I have seen some worth 1000s of these older first generations if they’re perfectly sealed in the box.

 

And you know, people on eBay are selling brand new iPhones, in display cases untouched. You know, for 1000s of dollars. So some people out there love this iconic Apple art. Yeah,

 

17:37

I wanted to not have to go and check it out. My No, Brian, your business is based on the internet. So could you share with us how big a role does SEO play in your overall business strategy,

 

17:48

SEO has been huge for us. And we it’s been a focus literally, since the day one, we launched our website. So we wanted to build your math.com to be the top and Apple Search. So when you go on and you search for sell Mac’s on my Mac, you know where to sell my Mac, any of these types of terms are literally number one in the world.

 

And that has led to an immense amount of organic traffic. And other companies are paying, you know, considerable sums to buy that traffic. But you know, we’re getting 80% plus of our traffic organically. And it’s really working with a great SEO team, a great web team. And the combination of that has led to tremendous results. So if anyone out there is is curious and wants to work for my SEO team, you know, definitely reach out to me, I’ll hook you guys up.

 

18:32

Oh, that’s so cool. And of course, SEO is a very long term strategy. And he really takes us to get it. Right. Right takes years.

 

18:40

Right? How long have you been working on it all

 

18:42

since we launched the website 12 years ago, and every year every year, it’s a continued effort. Oh, you know, you’ll fall off if you don’t continue to kind of put money and effort into it. And you know, we’re building new landing pages all the time, that have SEO specific content. And we’re also building tons of content pages like last year, we launched

 

3000 new pages on our website. And that that helps keep us up to number one. So that’s that’s a lot of the strategy is a lot of contests.

 

19:10

You know, despite having invested in the SEO content in the rankings itself, that is a return in investment in the sense that you don’t actually have to spend as much on the advertisements, as you said before. Exactly. That allows you to play a little bit more in the margins because the resale market, I guess that’s where you’re really trying to compete, right. And when you

 

19:28

think about it, people would much prefer to find your content organically because it’s not salesy at that point. So I would say it’s much better to invest in SEO than to buy the paid ads, even for the same traffic. Although the paid ads do have a very high intention. You know, when they’re searching, where do I sell my Mac? It’s a good chance they’re gonna be your customer guess

 

19:48

if you’re organically ranking on the first page of Google, at least that you earn a spot there and if you didn’t pay for the ad itself, I guess the customer psychology would be along the lines that this comes Honey is more legit.

 

20:01

I agree. Yeah, I definitely look at that number one organic, I suppose number one paid because anyone can pay. And that could be a bad company. But, you know, we’re number one on the paid and then the organic. So it definitely helps to have that strategy,

 

20:13

Brian uses shared customer reviews forms a big part of a business, can you share how you’ve been able to ensure good customer experience from both sides of it, because I understand you have customers who are selling you the MAC products, and then you have customers who are buying from you as well,

 

20:25

I would say it all starts with instilling the right values in our team. And I’ve always made a very heavy focus to help the customer and go to any length necessary, you know, we’re willing to, you know, take it on the chain, if there’s an issue,

 

we’ll go, we’ll go above and beyond to make that customer feel like we did the right thing. And that type of mentality with our customer service team, you know, has led to these amazing, you know, 100% ratings across the internet.

 

And we will just continue to do whatever it takes for the customer. And not everyone’s willing to do that is kind of the Zappos approach. You know, if they call and ask to order a pizza, and you only sell shoes, well, you get the call and help them get the pizza. So if they ask us for something that we don’t do, we’re going to help figure that out. And that brings, that brings people to give us, you know, insane reviews.

 

And we also, you know, do what we say when these products are graded, you know a certain way, we’re not going to send you a Mac that’s, you know, worse condition than described. So you’re very happy when you get your computer and then you’d be incentivized to leave top review. And you also have to ask the customers for reviews, you know, we have a follow up email after the process that says please submit a review. So be very mindful to ask your customers because they’re not going to go out of their way to find a link and leave a review unless you ask

 

21:37

for it. Who know, Brian, could you share some stories of how you’ve helped your customers? How did you go to the extra mile, I

 

21:43

wish I had my customer service team, I’m here to give you guys all all the downloads are interesting. So you know, for example, if there’s a if there’s a shipping issue and your Mac was lost in transit or something like that, we would still pay you for it, we’re not gonna we’re not going to try to wait six months for you know, FedEx to make,

 

make a case and have that all worked out, we’re gonna just going to jump on it and make sure that we take care of the customer. And then on the sales side, for example, if you got something and you weren’t happy with it will immediately cross ship you another computer, you know, maybe there was a dent that we didn’t notice or something,

 

for example, we’ll send you another one in better condition. And then you can just ship the Old One back whenever you get it. So just trying to make sure that we don’t delay in our processes to make make the customer get the right product and make them feel like they got a good deal. Right.

 

22:32

So it seems that they placed a lot of emphasis on making sure the customer knows that you trust them and your data to help them with the process. Right, right.

 

22:38

Fortunately, most people are honest. And we definitely have scams that happen more often than I’d like to report. We’ve had people send us really crazy things in the mail and tell us it was a Mac when it was not. He didn’t get away with it. I read one of the one of the craziest ones, someone sent us a you know, 40 pounds of refrigerator hoses and said it was a $5,000 Mac inside was he

 

22:59

playing they did not get shipped it all the way back to you. We pay the shipping. So

 

23:05

they use our prepaid label you abused? Yeah, yeah, we’ve had some crazy things arriving at our place. But yeah, it is

 

23:11

crazy. Well, I would say that I really appreciate what you’re trying to do for customers, because I purchased secondhand phones before. So just recently, I bought a secondhand resale Apple phone that was supposed to be as new in terms of its quality. But when I received it, it was not as good as it was promised.

 

And when I started making inquiries about making the return, and you were really trying to block me a lot of red tape. So you know, on the policy of the website, they say there’s a 14 day return policy, no questions asked. But when I started asking the question, I wasn’t right. So in the time they took to actually send a password to me, and it took about a week, so I can’t be penalized. You’re never gonna use them again. Exactly.

 

So that’s the second part of the story that she gets crazier. So after they eventually agreed to respect the 14 day policy, they got someone to pick up the phone and they were supposed to process the refund. But after a week, nothing happened. And in fact, a third party courier company actually shipped the phone all the way back to me

 

24:08

the exact car and again, like I don’t want it.

 

24:11

Yeah, exactly. And then the shipment details. Somebody from the reseller she called the tech party to pick up the phone and send it back to me so I’m never sure if they were aware what was going on. Wow,

 

24:19

that’s unfortunate and one of the things is you know, if someone has a bad experience, if you make it right, they’re going to come back so this person this company had just replaced had just giving you a quick refund and not giving you red tape. You would have came back the shop later but you know now never again,

 

24:36

perhaps the opposite. They’ve made it so hard. And if she messed up so badly, I would never have used them or recommend them.

 

24:42

Well, you can buy on our eBay store and it offers international shipping all the way.

 

24:51

Now that I know that Brian is going to be Firstly, he would definitely look into this and now Brian, we were just talking about how some of your customers would abuse your Trust. So weird earlier on which he did have about $250,000 worth of cash, could you share with us what happened?

 

25:06

That was a very rough time, you know, is one of our largest deals we’d ever done. I had a prepay for a almost million dollar deal, I had a prepaid about a quarter million dollars for this huge iPhone purchase. And they never came.

 

And, you know, I don’t, it’s hard to know if it was set up to be a scam from the start or not. But the supplier was a trusted, legitimate company. And, you know, he claims that his supplier never gets never sent them to him. And I ended up filing a court case after you know, months of waiting and stressing out about this, and I won the cases in court, this is in Australia, actually.

 

Okay, and then the gentleman fled the country. So I think he knew he was wrong. And he ended up in Egypt last time I checked. And it was kind of chasing, throwing throwing good money after bad money at that point. And I couldn’t even continue the lawsuit to try to recoup it. And it took me seven years to pay the money back from the person I borrowed it from.

 

And the business would have been bankrupt if I was not able to get, you know, short term funding at the time. So this really kind of trashed the business. And my biggest learning is I will never wire money for bolt deals. Again, I only pay on my credit card or with PayPal. And I’m willing to pay the fee to someone to accept that except my PayPal.

 

And if they won’t do that, I almost know it’s a fraud. And we’ve still had people try to fraud us even though I’m using my American Express. And it’s crazy. I get my money back now every time but people are still willing to be bad humans out there.

 

26:49

Sad.

 

26:50

Yeah. And people. He has a clawback mechanism, right. If the other party doesn’t follow through to me to do that is a way that people can actually claw that money back to you,

 

26:59

even the big companies, they

 

27:00

get the money right away. But you can claw it back, you know, there’s no incentive for them to scam you because I got 90 days to report it. So the only thing that product the 90 days, you know that money is coming right back.

 

27:11

So the door service is like Pay Pal have a service fee is kind of like paying insurance for the whole process. Exactly.

 

27:18

I can sleep so much better at night. Yeah, kind of maybe the most stress you had, that was

 

27:22

one of the most stressful things ever. So I’m happy to put that behind us. So guys,

 

27:26

as Brian has shared, he previously had a very bad experience where he was cheated out with about $250,000 because he actually prepaid for goods that never arrived. Since then Brian has made it a point to only make payments with services like PayPal where there’s a clawback mechanism.

 

So had this in mind the next time when you transfer funds, if you want to be protected, you can use a service like PayPal to make sure that if there’s anything wrong that goes down the road paid, how can Claudia money back if you make that claim within a set amount of time?

 

So Brian, I know being cheated must have been a very traumatic episode for you, could you perhaps share with us how you recover mentally from this whole process,

 

27:59

it was really tough, there was a lot of sleepless nights and doubting myself, if I could continue if I was the right person for the job, if it was even worth trying this business anymore. And it took the encouragement of others and me recognizing personally, that I could keep going and you know, telling myself that I really had to had to change my story, to just accept that this was, you know, a necessary business evil and a massive learning opportunity.

 

And I kind of look at all my biggest failures as learning opportunities. And that’s the best way to keep proceeding. And as an entrepreneur, you know, fortunately, not every lonely opportunity is this expensive. But you got to take them for what they’re worth. And if you can never make a mistake like that again, you know, you could you could say maybe it’s worth it in hindsight.

 

So, you know, fortunately, I was able to have my family kind of rally around me and help support me at the time, because I was definitely in a low place for a while,

 

29:02

Brian, but one thing I must say is that you really recovered from that whole episode. You’re always smiling and you’re wishing acts of kindness, you really clearly rose from this challenge.

 

29:13

I know. And I would say it’s the determination and perseverance that entrepreneurs need to get past stuff like this, you know, if you don’t have that, that inner drive and determination, you’ll you’ll you’ll fall when these crazy things happen to you. And it’s kind of inevitable. This is why businesses don’t last more than five years in generals because bad things happen. You know, we’re in our 12th year to sell your Mac and my 15th year out of college running this business. So you know, we’re still alive and live and going strong.

 

29:40

am very good to hear that. Now, Brian, could you share with us? Where is the business today? And where do you want to take it to in the future?

 

29:45

Well, the business today is a $10 million company and we’re definitely looking to take that to the next level. You know, I think it certainly has potential to get to the 50 to $100 million range, and we’re going to need a lot more human and Real capital to get it there. So it’s a pretty exciting, you know, kind of inflection point that we’re at right now.

 

And it’s been a little bit steady the last couple years, you know, with during COVID, and stuff like that we haven’t really pushed on it to try to grow it to what it’s currently potential is. So I think that you’re now with with the right team, we really could take it to the next level. So Brian,

 

30:22

what are some of the new strategies they are currently exploring to take it from a $10 million to a $50 million business, there must be something new that you’re going to apply to as you bring it to the next level.

 

30:32

But one of the things I’m personally doing is really trying to grow the business through my LinkedIn relationships. So in the last couple of years, I’ve been exploding my presence on there, and people are really starting to get to know me as Brian the mack band.

 

And I have at least one opportunity every single day that comes into my LinkedIn inbox. And you know, some are large, some are small, but continuing to be posting on LinkedIn and getting my content out there, it leads to a lot of opportunities. So I really encourage people, if they’re trying to grow their business on social media to look at LinkedIn as a channel.

 

This is where all the business people are. And if you become a business influencer, like I have over the years, it can lead to a lot more opportunities. So I’m very excited to be leading the charge on LinkedIn.

 

31:17

That’s a very interesting point, Brian, in fact, that’s how he first came across you through LinkedIn. We’re sharing videos of beauty acts of kindness. So that right? Yeah, really did. And I’m glad to have made a connection with you

 

31:28

appreciate that. People love kind content. So if you’re saying something fun or kind, it definitely gravitates people towards you know, Brian,

 

31:34

since we’re on this point, could you share this button journey was like for you, when you were growing your LinkedIn profile? Could you maybe share some tips on how I just can do this as well,

 

31:42

I would tell people to be very consistent with their posting, if you’re not posting content almost daily, it’s gonna be tough to significantly grow your audience. So I’ve been posting daily now for almost three years. And in the last two years, it’s twice a day, at least.

 

So that has led to people looking for my content and following me to come back for more, if you believe me, yeah, exactly dead. I caught you on LinkedIn, this has led to a loss of opportunities to be on podcasting, continue to spread the word. And then when it comes to content creation, you need to share content that is kind that brings people in that is inclusive,

 

you know, ask them questions, try to get them involved in your content. If you’re posting just about yourself and your awards and your business, no one’s gonna be that interested. Or you’re gonna have a very small niche following. So trying to get get out there and grow your audience requires you to really expand the scope of your content and think about your audience.

 

You know, when someone has a break to hop on LinkedIn for two minutes, or do they really want to see. And if you have that type of mindset and approach, it’ll lead to good results.

 

And if people do want to know more, I am doing one to one LinkedIn coaching and master classes. This year, I became a certified Vistage speaker. And I’ve been traveling around delivering LinkedIn solutions. Thank you. So very fun.

 

33:03

So Brian, entrepreneurship is never an easy journey, as you shared earlier, who do you see played a significant part in your success that you’d like to take some time right now to say thank you to

 

33:13

I’m gonna give a shout out to two people, you know, one of them is not alive anymore. And that is Steve Jobs. And just seeing how he was able to pull together so many different modalities to create apple and to the unbelievable slumping is today, and his perseverance to push through even some of the darkest times of apple and finding innovative ways that keep keep the company growing, that really spoke to me from an entrepreneur standpoint.

 

You know, it’s like when he came back as interim CEO, he had a in 96, he had a cut all the products besides four. And ultimately, he was the right CEO to get the company back on its feet. And people really doubted him the fact that he would partner with Microsoft, for example, to get money they needed to remove myself like that seems crazy in the moment, but you know, he had the foresight of what it would take to keep the company moving forward.

 

And you know, I definitely, definitely look up to him for that. And the second person would be my dad. He has been a doctor now for 45 years and has been so impressive watching his determination every day to help people he takes care of, he’s cared for over half a million eyeballs in his career. And it’s just been such an impressive run that he never takes time off of work, and I really look up to him for his perseverance to get there.

 

34:32

Now, Brian, if the listeners only remember one thing from today’s conversation, what would you like it to be?

 

34:36

I would say passion. You know, my passion is all about Apple, but you need to find your passion to help that start your entrepreneurial journey. And if you want any other advice, definitely follow me on LinkedIn. I love sharing and helping people reach their goals on there.

 

34:51

So Brian, if the listeners need your help, how can they get in contact with you if you go to sell your

 

34:55

mac.com you can find information about our company and you can use my personal promo code Mack Man for a bonus there. And you also could check out my new personal website, Brian, the Mack Man calm. And I have information there, how to connect with me and how I can help you on LinkedIn.

 

35:13

Okay, Brian, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your story and your passion for Mac.

 

35:19

This has been really fun. Thank you to everyone for listening, and I look forward to helping support you on your journeys.

 

35:25

Guys, thank you so much for joining Brian on today’s show. So if you want to buy or sell a Mac, why not look out for Brian on sale yo mac.com. Now before if you received any value from the show, I would love for you to subscribe to the show, leave a review on Apple podcasts and to share the show with somebody who find it useful as well. All of these tools and resources and my email list available on patreon.com. That’s tdto.com that’s all for me today. I’ll see you guys next time.