Today we’re interviewing Joanna Bradley, a Flipper University alumna and high-profit flipper. Joanna will share how she broke through some of her flipping obstacles to grow her reselling business by sourcing high-value items.
How Did You Get Started Flipping?
Joanna says she started flipping early on when she had her baby, who is no longer a baby, and at that time, she bought a $1,000 crib for $100. When she was done with it, she sold it for $300. Little by little, she sold more items like that. Eventually, she found Flea Market Flipper and was inspired to start her flipping journey. Initially, she described herself as a watcher in the Flipping for Profit Facebook group, but once she saw other folks selling high-profit items, she realized she could too.
What Was The First High-Value Item You Sold?
The first high-profit item was one she found while sourcing with another Flipper University alumna, Stacy Gallego. The two had the idea to go dumpster diving around the university, but trash pickup was the day before, so they moved to plan B and went to Goodwill. There, Joanna found a box about 2.5 feet tall and didn’t know what it was. She didn’t have internet then but had a gut feeling, so she grabbed it. Right around the corner, there was one for Stacy. They turned out to be medical-grade air purifiers and sold for about $500.
Another flip was a commercial lighting one where the guy sold ten lights for $10, and Joanna had her husband pick up four lights for $40. The guy ended up giving them all to her for $40. Once she listed them, she kept saying she wanted to find one person to take them all for $750 ($75 each). She kept putting that out into the universe and got a message through eBay, and the guy said, “If you can ship through my UPS account, I want all of them, and I’ll buy them at full price.”
Joanna moved mountains to make that work. She had to take three trips in her SUV to the UPS store, and they were like, what in the world is this? But she made it happen.
What Got You To The Next Level?
Joanna says it’s hard because you see somebody with success, and you think that success is just for them. She started looking and could never find the high-value stuff, but she had a fellow flipper in town who always found the high-profit items. One day she woke up and decided to start looking three times a day for 10 minutes, and the next day, she found a Sleep Number, and then it grew and grew.
Joanna is now one of our moderators in our sourcing courses and helps others find amazing items. Not only has she overcome this limiting belief that she had, but she’s also doing this for many other people, and she finds thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars of items for other people every month.
Joanna says that once she convinced herself she could do it, she searched for different words more consistently. She started looking in different categories and found profitable items.
How Did You Package Your First Item?
Going back to the industrial lights, Joanna was at work when she got the message on eBay from the guy who would take them all if she could figure out how to ship them on his UPS account. She was sitting in the car in the parking lot, almost panicking because they sold, but doubt started to creep in about shipping. Joanna talked to Stacy and she told her just to figure it out. And Joanna did. Initially, she didn’t have a trailer, so she took three trips to the UPS store to get them all there.
How Do You Put Fear Aside And Become A Doer?
Joanna says it’s important to analyze what’s working and what’s not. She wasn’t finding high-value items, so she asked herself why.
She started looking for Sleep Numbers with different search terms, under air beds or beds. She started looking at every picture of every mattress and found so many that were just mistitled.
She had one item where she saw an Ekorne Danish chair in a picture and went to meet the guy. She didn’t want to call attention to the fact that it was a $2,000 chair, but she knew even if it wasn’t the real deal, she could probably make her money back because it was in good shape; it was the real thing. The seller’s dad had bought it, and he just didn’t need it once he had passed away. Joanna purchased the chair for $100 and sold it for $1,400. That was her first freight shipment too.
Joanna and her husband drove the chair to the freight terminal and built the frame around the crate, and packaged it in the parking lot; then YRC went around and picked it up with a forklift, and that was it. Joanna says she and her husband looked at each other and were like, “Why was that so scary?” Then they went home and found another one.
What Is One Of Your High-Value Flips?
Joanna sold a $2,400 Miele German oven. She also sold a bathtub that she got for free for $1,500 locally.
What Is A Big Takeaway?
Joanna says the most instrumental thing was don’t panic if somebody has a return. You don’t have to answer the first second and return their money. It doesn’t mean that you did anything wrong. Ask questions and problem-solve. Everything is figure-outable.
What Advice Do You Have For Someone Dealing With Fear?
Joanna says the biggest thing is believing in yourself. Remind yourself that you can figure it out and there is a solution. You learn more from the mistakes than if everything was just super easy all the time. You get stronger with every experience and every sale.
Show Notes
Free Flipping Course: http://freeflippingcourse.com/
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FURTHER RESOURCES
Let Us Find High Profit Items FOR You!
FREE Workshop How To Turn Your Passion of Flipping Items Into A Profitable Reselling Business
Download These 47 Household Items To Resell TODAY!
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