This week on the Seller Community Podcast from List Perfectly, Clara joins us, and Clara and I sit down and talk with my new co-host, Trish Glenn, Super Sale Trish. Trish tells us about living and growing up in Boston, her background before she started selling, her brick-and-mortar store, her seller events experience, what she does with List Perfectly, and more. So listen in on this great chat we had with that lady from Boston, Trish Glenn, Super Sale Trish.
The Seller Community Podcast from List Perfectly is the e-commerce resource for the seller community across all platforms and a hub for information on growing your business. Find out more at thesellercommunitypodcast.com, leave a message or ask a question at anchor.fm/sellercommunitypodcast, or email us at podcast@listperfectly.com.
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Seller Community Podcast on Anchor
Doug Smith (snoop.dougie) linktree
Trish Glenn (Super Sale Trish) Instagram
Episode Links
Transcript
Intro
Doug: Welcome to season three, episode 34 of the Seller Community Podcast from List Perfectly. This week on a very special episode of the Seller Community Podcast, Clara joins us, and Clara and I sit down and we talk with my new co-host, Trish Glenn, the fabulous Super Sale Trish. She tells us about living and growing up in Boston. We talk about her background before she started selling. We talk about her brick-and-mortar store. We talk about her seller events experience, what she does with List Perfectly, and a ton more. So listen in on this great chat we had with my old buddy from Boston, Super Sale Trish.
Trish Glenn, Super Sale Trish
Doug: Welcome to The Seller Community Podcast. This is a very exciting episode today. We have officially welcomed Trish to the show a couple of times as the new co-host, but now we wanna dig a little deeper into Trish. Dish on Trish.
I’ve known Trish for a long time. I met her in Diane Lassonde’s Kitchen several years back at a Bostonian meetup. And then, we’ve just bumped into each other at many seller events. I think we became fast friends and it developed over the years and now I’m happy to work with her and even happy to be working with her more closely on the Seller Community Podcast, so I’m very excited to learn more about Trish today with Clara as well.
Clara: Wow. What a great intro Doug. Okay. I’m gonna try too much there because I’m biased. Dear audience, I’m biased because Trish is my amazing friend. Not only do we work together, but a friend that will be there with loyalty will be there through thick and thin and, oh, I said it.
Okay. Very hard to say us. I speak multiple languages. I said it. Okay. So I just wanna say I’m honored. I’m Clara, I’m the co-founder and Co-CEO of List Perfectly. I had the pleasure of meeting Trish for the first time in person back in 2019 through Theresa Cox, the first user of List Perfectly. And she came to support List Perfectly, even though she didn’t use List Perfectly.
And here we are on eBay Open, here we’re in Poshfest.. We have no idea what to do. But Trish is wearing the List Perfectly shirt. We’ve never attended any Poshmark event. To those of you in the audience, you’ve been on eBay Open thinking radically the opposite that happens on eBay Open, it’s Poshmark.
Poshfest is just incredible. A whole different audience. So with much further adieu dear audience. Not only a loyal friend, an early supporter of List Perfectly now, an incredible and valuable team member who makes me look cool at events like Camp Listing Party, and eBay Opens, she’s organizing everything on the operational part.
Then she just co-hosted a YouTube session where we were talking about how to boost your sales with eBay analytics and then we’re constantly working together on how to help carry the right information of our sponsor List Perfectly through different events because List Perfectly doesn’t have a sales team or digital marketing.
So Trish travels around the country and meets up with many sellers. Then she meets up with eBay team members, and she has to talk to eBay team members, and she has to talk to List Perfectly team members. Then she goes to different meetups all over the country. Thank you, Trish. You are amazing. Thank you, friend. Thank you for your support and I know that it’s been only less than a year that you’ve been working with us officially.
Trish: Officially. We’re just at about a year right now.
Clara: You’ve been working and supporting us so hard all this year. So I wanna tell you, thank you for always believing in Amanda, myself, and List Perfectly, and most importantly, the List Perfectly team that now you know, is your family, and we’re constantly interacting with each other. So thank you for believing in us for all these years. Trish, welcome. Welcome.
Trish: Thank you. Thanks for having me. I must admit, I was friendly with Theresa when she said to me, Do you wanna come to Poshfest? I was like, why in God’s name are you and I two eBay girls to the core going to Poshfest? We’re gonna represent List Perfectly. And I had heard about you, and so we went, we had the greatest time. There are some really amusing pictures of the four of us at Poshfest. Looking pretty unPoshy I must admit.
Clara: Come on. Share with the audience the story of when you arrived there, so to the audience that you’re not, you’re hearing and not watching us. And if you’re watching us go to YouTube, at the List Perfectly channel. But if you are not, Trish, she’s a very fem girl. And she loves her femininity if you please. So she was like, oh, wait a second. I need to up a notch, What happened there?
Doug: I gotta go back upstairs.
Trish: And these women you look like, you’re gonna to see, a Taylor Swift concert or the Kardashians or something. These women are dressed, they all have makeup on, and they have their hair on point.
Clara: And what time was that, Trish? At what time?
Trish: 8: 30 in the morning. We’re talking like, yeah, like really? And so I said to Theresa, of course, I had makeup on. No one ever sees me without makeup. So I had makeup on. I said to Theresa, We’re in jeans and a T-shirt. I was like, mortified. So we had to run. I bought a big necklace that had LP colors and big earrings. And Theresa with her little backpack is just looking at me like, what is wrong with you? I need to match these poshy girls.
Clara: Yeah. We need to mingle. You’re like, we need to mingle here. I felt I’ll never forget that first Poshfest. Yes. I admit I went with my tennis shoes and my T-shirt of List Perfectly. And of course, The Clothing Vault like it is in my closet name. But that was an unforgettable adventure. Trish.
Doug: And I had my first big boy suit on, and I think I was wearing two girdles. An upper girdle and a lower girdle.
Trish: I don’t even know what that means. A lower girdle.
Doug: Tough to get in and tough to get out of. Let’s just say.
Clara: What is it called? The brand? The lady. She did a startup. Spandex. Spandex. I know That’s hilarious. So Doug let’s talk about that. So we were, last year was the first time that we did a Poshfest with Trish. And that was entertaining, right?
Doug: It’s fun. It’s just a different environment than we’re used to, I think. And just we’re all eBay-centric. A little more casual. Yeah. And it’s like I don’t dress up that much. So like jeans, if I’m really dressing up, it’s dress shoes, jeans a black Calvin Klein T-shirt and my sports coat.
Trish: I would say a blazer.
Doug: But that was good. Trish definitely shined there.
We had fun.
Trish: We had fun. Yeah, we had seen it last year.
Clara: You too, Doug. You too.
Trish: Yeah, we had a great time and I’m really looking forward, We’re going to Poshfest again. It’s gonna be awesome. I think that it is great for us to mingle in that Posh community, especially because we all, most of us started on eBay and work for LP. So we have a way of looking at things and I really love it now that we’re getting some bigger posh, I love that Tiffypie. She shares stuff with us. In Sara Boykan, Lynn, Lynn’s Closet. We have some really great big Poshers who really help us ingratiate ourselves to that community, and hopefully, we ingratiate them to the eBay community too,
Clara: We’re taking advantage of this because Trish has a special surprise ready for all of you attending Poshfest. I can’t wait. Don’t say it. But List Perfectly has a big surprise to all Poshmark attendees. You still have time to register for this event, but we’re attending Poshfest, let’s talk about a little of the event that we’re sponsoring, our sponsor List Perfectly is sponsoring eBay Open 2023. Trish, can you share with our audience experience, because there is still time to register back in the day in 2019 when I had to do guerilla marketing for List Perfectly on the door of eBay Open. Okay. It was $500 to get in. Yes. You heard it right? Come on, check it out. Okay. 2019, $500. So only Amanda could get in. Okay. And I have to stay outside, saying hi. And, but how is eBay open? Because you’ve been, can you tell the audience you’ve done so much with eBay? What is that about that you’ve done?
Trish: I went to where I first met Doug in 2018. No, I met you the first, or second time I saw him at the 2018 eBay Open. So I went to the 2018, and 2019 eBay Open where I saw you. It was great. And then the pandemic happened. And so then in 2019, 2020, they had their first virtual. Everything was virtual and they had their first virtual eBay Open Diane Lassonde and I did a presentation, so we were eBay Open speakers.
Clara: They just published that one. If you haven’t gone to Facebook and then on Facebook now we’re not asking you to share your family pictures. What we’re asking you is go and follow the page of eBay for Business and you can find many useful tips and amazing posts. But the most important thing is, it was so beautiful that eBay did like a, went down memory lane, and shared your speech with Diane. That was incredible. Trish, how was that really? What was that about? What was that session about and what did you talk about? And what was it that you shared with Diane, please?
Trish: It was basically about different modes of selling and different modes of buying and how to, just an overall view. But what was really great about it was everything was shut down. The pandemic was going on. Nobody was out. We weren’t really doing much, and so eBay still wanted to have this, so, nobody was going to anyone’s houses. So Diane and I both tested and then we both waited. Then I went to her house so we could actually do it together, and we, I did our hair and her makeup and we’re in there and we have all these extra lights, and I’ve got four different computers and a thing so that we could have a monitor. And eBay was so sweet. They’d have somebody like, walk you through.
Clara: Oh yes. Teresa told me yes. We’re sellers, we’re not used to being there in this spot. Especially with eBay events, it’s so many people. I forgot about that. Everybody told me it was such a nice and elegant event.
Trish: It was. We didn’t do it live during the eBay Open, which was wonderful. Because you’re worried about the tech stuff. So it was recorded a couple of days before we had to send it in. It had a deck which was, which I mean by like a PowerPoint. Yep. And we went back and forth, but we had to apply and you had to apply that year. And we applied and we got it, which was great. And we had some interactions with eBay. Brian Burke, who is part of the eBay community, came to our eBay meetup, and we…
Clara: Love you, Brian!
Trish: Brian’s the best. We had an eBay meetup. Diane and I did it together. So we had a few experiences with eBay, but that was my first big experience like doing something. And unfortunately, it was during the pandemic, so I didn’t go to the eBay campus or anything.
And last, this past year, I was very lucky to go to eBay. List Perfectly went there, to eBay headquarters. List Perfectly went there, and I was very lucky to be able to go. We got a tour, and then from that I got asked to speak at an all hands, which they bring in sellers to come in and ask questions and do answers. And, it’s not public, it’s not a public thing. You don’t get any recognition or anything, but it’s a really big deal. And it was great. I was thoroughly thrilled. It was awesome. Thank you, Clara. Without you, I don’t think that it would’ve happened.
Clara: It was a team effort again, and thank you for, again, comes with your always believing in List Perfectly and always, not only in List Perfectly, but as a friend, you believed in me and Amanda. And we’re so lucky that we got to meet you through Theresa. And then little that we know your friends have been our friends.
Trish: We’re all in the same group now, you’re in our group. Don’t worry. Doug, you’re one of us now.
Clara: Yes. But hold on, I wanna, because, okay, audience, what you guys don’t know is that Doug also is an East Coaster. So we’re gonna be talking a little about the accent, Trish’s accent, because she’s from Boston. Did I say it right? Hahvahd. Yeah, exactly. So it’s just like the key is not to pronounce the Rs, but I noticed that when you are with East Coast friends and I’m telling you audience, okay, one mimosa or one gin and tonic, and I’m telling you that accent comes through Doug. I don’t know. All of a sudden you’re that New Yorker that you always had inside of, come on, tell me that I’m lying.
Doug: You listen for the OHs!.
Trish: He does that, he does do that.
Doug: Yeah, it does come out when I’m around Trish. Yeah, there definitely is that. But ladies, and gentlemen, the big reveal today is that Trish’s accent has been fake the whole time.
Trish: I’m really southern.
Doug: Yes, it’s right. And I just wanted to say, since it is Presidential debate week and Clara’s had her chance. Yes. I wanna know that I’ve heard that she has to say Trish is my friend through thick and thin and is very loyal and makes me look good too. Thank you, Trish.
Trish: You’re welcome Doug.
Clara: To our audience. Just in case you don’t know, Trish Super Sale Trish is also, you can find her on eBay, Instagram, and different social media platforms, but she’s from Boston. Trish, tell us what’s, and I’m considering seriously moving to the East Coast. I had the pleasure of living many years by the beach in Long Beach California and Orange County, Huntington Beach.
Now I did the desert in Phoenix, Arizona. I would, I’ve never guessed there is so much life on freaking 120 degrees. You can’t believe it. Animals and plants become alive. It’s just insane. But you, in Boston recently, we had a life-changing experience and I’ll call it like that, where we did a bucket list with a twist with Diane, our amazing friend.
She is having some challenges with the C word. Okay. And yep. And so we wanted to make sure we did something amazing. Now you took it to the next level because we went to see a game. Can you tell us about, share with the audience that experience, because you love Boston and I literally, could tell the love that you have for your city and your community and the way you spoke, even to janitors or, the hospitality team. It was just impressive. Share with our audience that experience, please.
Trish: I think that Boston’s a unique place. It’s not that big. I live about 30 minutes south of Boston, and when you’re going to Boston you say, I’m going to town. Like you would say, anyone would know what you meant. If you say, oh, I’m going to town. They know you’re going to Boston. It’s got a small-town feel. Yeah. And it’s one of those places that we are rough. We are rough people like we will tell you to go… but I also think we’re also the type of people who, if there’s a problem we show up like we’re, we’ll tell you to go screw, but then we’re right there. When someone’s gonna get in a play, we’re right there. And I think that comes through in how we treat people. We don’t, in general, I don’t think there’s much of a classist attitude for Bostonians. I think we think, it doesn’t matter if you are the CEO, no offense to Clara, or the janitor. You’re both people, you both put your pants on…
Clara: No offense taken.
Trish: You both put your pants on the same way. And I think that it’s a northern thing that we kind of treat everybody the same. And I also think…
Clara: I’m so attracted to that. I’ll be honest. Yeah, it’s different. It’s come on, audience. You gotta admit. Okay. Listeners, West Coast and East Coast almost feel like a different country. Am I lying?
Trish: Yeah. No, and flying around. I have a great job. I’ve done a ton of traveling this year and I am very thankful for it. My dad died about a year and a half ago, and it was the worst thing that ever happened in my… The worst thing.
Clara: And we love you, Judge Marini. We love you, Judge Marini. Okay. This beautiful episode is dedicated in your memory. We know we feel you around you, and we see you through your daughter and we’re so happy, and dedicated to Judge Marini aww I might give you a little tear, but I thought this could be meaningful to you.
Trish: It is meaningful. And my dad was a great guy and he was a judge. He was a politician. He was a tough man. You didn’t wanna cross him, but if anyone ever had any trouble, he was the first guy I would call. And losing him a year and a half ago was a terrible thing. And it was way worse than I thought it would be.
He had been sick, so I knew it was gonna happen, so it was way worse than I even dreamed. And when I got this job, it really saved me in the sense that other people cared if I showed up. Other people depended on me. Other people were waiting for me to do what I was supposed to do. And I was so thankful to have that because if it was just me and eBay, I don’t know what would’ve happened.
Because while I love eBay, guys, if you don’t list, you are the only one who knows. And so being self-reliant is a great thing for eBay. And if you have that, intestinal right, shut up and list people. If you have that internal strength that you can just keep going, that’s great. And I have that normally, but I lost it when my dad died and then this opportunity came along and I just threw myself into it. And I’m more thankful than I could ever express with words for that because without it, I think I really would’ve been a little lost.
Clara: Yeah. No, it’s so important. It’s so important to, if you’re going through something challenging or if you experience any loss, whether it is a father, a partner, a pet, okay, a friend, okay, maybe they didn’t die, but maybe that relationship was broken for some reason. Okay? Just know that in e-commerce, not only, you can choose to be an eBay seller or a multi-platform seller, but at the same time, the roads that e-commerce and reselling opens because as we List Perfectly the sponsor, we hire only people that have experience on e-commerce and reselling. So that was just and the fact that you were so kind for many years and we were honest and we’re like, no, List Perfectly, it’s not ready for you. Volume seller. We really no. I can. Yes. So we needed to get it ready and to have your friendship and your honesty and your loyalty waiting for us all these years and believing in us, that means a lot, Trish.
I don’t know what. Doug, what else can we do? Take it over from here? Yeah, because I’m too excited you do something because I’m gonna make it to the Clara show again. You’re so amazing. You’re such an audience. Doug is such a cool dude, so he just goes with the flow. But no, Doug, please come on, man. You’re amazing. Tell us, what do you have for Trish, because you guys have known each other for so long.
Doug: Oh. That Boston stuff was beautiful, but let me get my Yankees hat from back here.
Trish: I told Doug this. I’m just gonna say this. I told Doug this when we were together just recently. I told him when I was a child, we were taught to hate New York. Right? And everyone I knew hated New Yorkers. We hated them. But then 9-11 happened and it was never the same after that. After 9- 11, Boston and New York, it’s, don’t get me wrong, we still have a rivalry, but now it’s like your playful friend who you wanna hurt. It’s not real, it’s not a real rivalry anymore. Really. 9- 11 changed that. So there, Doug, I don’t care if you love the Yankees.
Doug: I do love you, Trish. And yeah, I did meet Trish in Boston, and then, eBay sent me to Boston once, and I remember that first morning I got up and I stretched and I wanted to open my windows to hear the birds and I opened my windows. The first thing I heard was, Hey, I’m f-ing walking over here.
Clara: No way!
Doug: From the street. I swear to God.
Clara: Okay. I know. Okay. Audience, there’s gonna be two sides to this story. Okay. To those of you that are listening and not watching, like three, she’s making all kinds of mannerisms and gestures and she’s getting now very, it turned from pink to red. Lots of no makeup. Okay. It’s not makeup.
Doug: That is a true story and I didn’t realize until years later that was Trish down there.
Trish: Listen. If it was me, I would’ve said…
Clara: I love it. He made you blush there. That was very priceless. Okay. Oh my God. This is priceless. Okay.
Doug: So what is your favorite thing about being from Boston?
Trish: It’s funny, God until I took this job, I didn’t realize I had much of an accent. Now on a daily basis, someone repeats something I say. And so now I’m a little so now I’m whatevah.
Clara: I love it! Whatevah.
Doug: Now you drink your tea with your pinky up.
Trish: I don’t, I definitely don’t do that. I’m a pint girl. And you know what’s so funny too, is I love beer. And I didn’t love beer until I got older. That was, I never drank it in my twenties. I really didn’t even in my thirties. And then in my forties I started, we went to like different tap rooms or brew houses that have got bigger on here. So we would go and now I really like beer and I don’t say that word. So it just complicates the whole thing.
Clara: No audience. But the best is to get with Trish, she can get a beeah at the bah. Okay.
Doug: When we were in Colorado for a List Perfectly event. Trish and I were out, we were out to dinner and we went out to get a drink and I said, I’m gonna, I’m gonna order a Sam Adams for you. And she, that’s, if you’re ever in Boston with me, don’t you fricking order that.
Trish: Don’t! I’ll slap you! I’ll take a Samuel Adams, please. Please. They’d all be like, Where are you from buddy?
Clara: But additionally, Trish, you live only 45 minutes from Amanda’s parents’ house and audience Amanda is the technical co-founder of List Perfectly. She’s natively from Rhode Island, so it’s just so freaking convenient to go and visit her family, then have family time. They go to Boston and do something else. And both states. Oh my God, the food.
Trish: Well and up here is so small. You can go, in eight hours you can drive through…
Clara: Five states.
Trish: Going where you live it takes you five hours to get out of the state. Here you’ve already gone through, so it’s different up here. But it’s fun. I like it. The only thing I do not love is snow, and I loved it for a long time. Just the older you get, the harder it’s…
Clara: I know. I love it. That was, did you know that was the reason that I ended up staying here in the USA I was originally going to Canada, but yeah, after rollerblading. Okay. On Huntington Beach, Venice Beach, and everything else, you’re like, no, I think I’ll, I think I’ll skip the snow shoveling. Okay. I’ll skip that.
Trish: At least now you can pay someone to shovel for you. Clara.
Doug: Were you roller skating in your shorts with your boombox?
Trish: Yeah. And headband.
Clara: Yep. Yep. Trish, you had a life before selling online. What was your career path early on, please?
Trish: Sure. So for a long time, I worked for a company that did OSHA regulations in the construction industry, and we specialized in hotels and restaurants, and I was, I did for them what I do for you. I went to events, and I bought event space. I didn’t run big events, but I would go and do the booth and I did that for a long time and I did do some onsite visit stuff for OSHA for this company. I never worked for OSHA, but I was making sure that if OSHA came in you would pass. And some mitigation stuff, so to make sure if something happened that we could mitigate the issues and all those things.
So I did that for a long time. And then my daughter was older and I traveled with that. And she went to a boarding school for her ninth grade of high school, and she went to this boarding school and I traveled the whole year. And she did very well and said she was going back. And so I resigned my contract and in September she said to me, I don’t wanna go. And I was like, oh. So she didn’t wanna go back to boarding school, so she didn’t go back. And so I left my job and I needed to figure out something to do. And I, through a haphazard sense of things that happened, I ended up buying a brick-and-mortar women’s consignment store.
Clara: Interesting. Okay. Now, buckle up audience, what happened with that?
Doug: Yeah. And what was it that made you decide to do that?
Trish: So both of my parents were entrepreneurs. They both always worked for themselves. My dad, he was a lawyer. He would flip houses. He bought a car wash place once, and he did it for a while, then flipped it and sold it, and then he would do things. And he was a lawyer, but he had his own practice. So he always worked for himself. And then he got into politics, which I know isn’t entrepreneurial, but it is.
Clara: It is., You’ve got to raise funds. Okay. Come on. That’s not, it’s like a startup. You’ve got to raise funds. Okay. You gotta get your name out there. Then you gotta get awareness, and then you gotta get product fit. Okay. Or whatever. It’s okay. Or platform. Or political plan fit Okay. With your audience. And then target the right audience
Trish: You’re exactly right. And my mother sold real estate, so she, same thing, marketing herself, blah, blah, blah. So I always grew up and I was an only child, so I grew up in this household where you always were doing something like that. There was a lot of bootstrapping. You were just getting it done. You were just going to, so I always had this idea that even when I had a regular job, I did like craft fairs or I did, or I painted houses, or I painted furniture for a while. Like I always did extra stuff to make money. Cash wise. I just, that was just in my blood from growing up as a kid. And so I had been selling jewelry to this consignment store and this woman said to me, I’m gonna sell. And I said, oh. And I said maybe I’d be interested. And so she gave me books, her books. And I went and looked at them and I brought ’em to my dad. And my dad said I think you can make this work. And I said, okay. And my husband said, do whatever you wanna do. And I said, okay. So I bought this.
Clara: A lot of family support, huh?
Trish: Yeah, very. Yeah. Yeah. A ton. Wow. And I bought it and immediately realized it was a very big mistake.
Clara: Oh, no, really?
Trish: It was bad. And I, the woman I think, cooked the books a little to try to sell it and it was a very big mistake. And so, after about a year, I moved from one place to another for cheaper rent. That was a mistake. Very big mistake.
Clara: Oh wait. Why was it a mistake? No. Don’t leave me there. So cheaper rent. It sounds like a great deal, but what was the problem?
Trish: It didn’t have the frontage. It didn’t have visibility. And then, and so…
Clara: You chose an affordable rent versus a great location. There you have it on brick and mortar, that’s Oh, that’s challenging.
Trish: It was death and I thought I’d build up enough of a clientele that I could move. ’cause it was very close, but I didn’t.
Clara: So the clientele did not go to that other location, huh?
Trish: Not as many as I needed, no. I think, you’re driving home, you’re on a main road, you’re like, oh yeah, I’m gonna pop in there. So it’s just in your mind. Yeah. But if you are not right on the main road, you think, oh crap, I gotta go. You have to cross the lane. And maybe I didn’t. And I was failing miserably. Doug has heard me say a million times, I was an abject failure. It was awful.
Clara: We’ve all been there and you feel like whatever you do is just adding to the failure.
Trish: Exactly. That’s exactly how I felt.
Clara: And you feel like a little hamster on the spinning wheel and you’re going faster, but you can’t get out of a spinning wheel.
Trish: Exactly. So I don’t know what you guys all know about consignment, but the way consignment in most brick-and-mortar work is you drop it off. Let’s say you bring me 10 shirts. I sell five shirts, and I give you the money for the five shirts. And then those other five shirts, you can either pick them up if you come back within so much time. And if you don’t, they revert to the store. And then most consignment stores just donate. And so that’s what I did. ’cause that’s what the person did for me. But when I was, when I didn’t have enough money, I started hoarding that stuff. And I had a tent sale and I had a tent sale outside. Everything was $2. I made $10,000 in a weekend.
So then this woman, I’m ringing her out and she bought I don’t know, a hundred items, so she’s giving me 200 bucks. And I said to her, what are you gonna do with this? And she goes, she looks at me and I go, I don’t care. I realized she didn’t wanna tell me, and she goes, I said, I don’t care what you’re doing. I’m just wondering. ’cause they were all different sizes, blah, blah, blah. She goes, yeah, I’m gonna sell ’em on eBay.
And a light went off for me. I was like, oh, I was just watching money walk out the door. Like I’m thinking. So from that moment on, instead of hoarding the stuff to have A yard. A big bag sale. A tent sale, yeah. I started hoarding it and I put it on eBay.
Clara: There you go. Wow. What a transition. And you went from being the source of us picking from you at a very low price. So we can keep big margins and now you’re like, wait a second. I’m being just the middle person when I could be the before the middle person, I can be directly doing this and still keep your volume selling as you like.
Trish: Here’s the thing, at that moment I was so disgusted with myself that I hated clothes. I hated selling. I hated women. I hated everything. I was…
Clara: Oh my God. Oh, wow. We’ve been there, Trish. Okay. Yeah, we’ve been there. We all have been there. When you’re like, okay, I’m not reselling it, how many of you listeners said, I’m not reselling anymore, and then the 12 hours. Okay, 12 hours. Okay, you get a sale and you’re like, okay, I love reselling.
Trish: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So what happened was I decided I had to close the store and I had three, three storage units full of clothing and I. Because when you close, most people don’t want their items back. I give them, I gave them a month. Everyone sent a letter. I sent you the money I owed you. Nobody wanted their stuff back. So you end up with so much stuff. And I thought, and now I owe my family, I’m taking money from my family, either my dad or my husband to pay all the bills to make sure I didn’t, I did not wanna leave in a way that I would owe anybody any money.
So everybody was paid. And I said to both of them, I’m gonna sell this stuff on eBay, pay you back, and when I’m done, I’m, that’s it. I’m going to get a job after the second. So I had three units after I finished the second unit. I went to my dad and I had, I don’t know, a couple of thousand dollars I owed him. And I said to him, Look, this is really working. I like showed him the eBay stats and everything…
Clara: Listener, there comes the part when you say, no, I’m not gonna get those jobs or job. Okay. And you’re like, no, can’t stop reselling. This is working.
Trish: And he just handed me the money back and he said to me, go buy whatever you need. You can do this. And I was like, okay, thank you. So he gave me a small amount, for him, a small amount of money. For me it wasn’t a small amount of money. Gave me a couple of thousand dollars and that snowballed.
Clara: Yeah. For every seller, reseller, for us, a couple I always tell my story, I have to sell my mom’s jewelry and her fur coat. And that was tough. But I flipped $1,700 into 30,000 in 90 days. And that’s the power of reselling. I love our. Let’s thank our parents. My mom is also resting in heaven and your dad, and they’re our angel investors.
Trish: It’s true. And he would call me every day and say to me, what did we sell on eBay? Every day he called me. And he wanted to know how many I listed how many I sold and what the margin was. And he was very vested in how well I was doing. And so well, that one day he went in and bought some things and I almost lost my account. Because I had been at his house and I used his…
Clara: Yep. And the IP address.
Trish: Yeah, the IP address to check my account. Like I didn’t, wasn’t doing anything.
Clara: Yeah. But no, eBay goes by IP address.
Trish: So I had to call, thank God I knew somebody to call. They got me in touch with somebody else and I, and they looked and they let it go and he paid for them. And I said it wasn’t, and it was a buy-it-now. It wasn’t an auction. He wasn’t trying to, but he didn’t understand.
Clara: Yeah, this was done auto, this is done automatically, by algorithms and formula. So they…
Trish: It almost, this almost all never happened because my father…
Clara: Back in the day, people, okay, this happened back in the day. eBay does not have that issue anymore. Yes, you can check your eBay account from anybody. Now they know they have better software to prevent…
Trish: But it was funny. And this of course is 2016, maybe 2017. This was a long time. So it was funny.
Clara: Yeah. And it seemed fancy. Absolutely.
Trish: So I kept with a volume model because that’s what I had when I started. I just wanted this stuff gone and I had no money into it. So for me, I started with a volume model. A volume model worked for me. My average selling price is like $23. It is low, but I buy it very cheaply. I’m usually about 55 cents. I do have multiple…
Clara: I have the rule, I have the rule of 10 x. You are exceeding by far my rule of 10 x.
Trish: But I also don’t, I sit on things for a while. Don’t have a high turnover rate. I do have a high sell-through rate, but that’s because I’m listing so much. And I think you know my…
Clara: Okay. Wait. When you say I, I sit on things for a while. Okay. Okay. Audience, We have a different definition. For us the rest of the people we would do six months. Okay. Maybe sell through. What’s your, okay? It’s over 45 days. She’s freaking out.
Trish: No, I sold something yesterday that I had for three years. That was the oldest thing actually. And the photos. Oh, it might have even been older than that. I should figure it out. ’cause I think the photos were taken inside my store. That was a long time ago. But I don’t, I run sales. I try to push inventory. I don’t worry about it, I just worry about what I sell every day. I don’t really worry about how much I have. I’ve got room. I have about 15,000 items right now on eBay. And they’re all at my house. I don’t pay for outside storage or anything, so it’s not like my overhead. I don’t have any overhead. That was one thing I learned from having that store. I did not wanna have that kind of overhead if I could avoid it, so I don’t have a dining room or parlor because it’s full of inventory. That’s what’s in my curtain. And I’m good with it. It works for me. And when I took this job, my daughter took over my business. She had worked for Marriott, my husband works for Marriott, and she worked for Marriott and lost her job.
Clara: We love you, Liz.
Trish: She lost her job during the pandemic. And it’s a great thing that you can offer your child stability, and that’s because I work for LP. So because I work for LP, she gets to work my business and she does that and I pay her. So it’s, it all worked out. It’s good.
Doug: Nice. And so you started in brick and mortar, and then you went online. What are a couple of things that may be translated between the two?
Trish: I think good customer service. I think that you need to stay on top of your customer service. And I run a mastermind group on Listing Party, and I say account help. I’m always talking about account health because Account health is the one thing that can get you shut down. Yeah. You need to make sure your metrics are good. You need to make sure you stay good. And I think that I got that from my business.
I needed to go out of my way and make sure people who came in were happy because I had one chance. If somebody pulls up to your store and walks in, you have one chance for them to make it, to come back to feel comfortable. And I try to feel the same way about eBay. I want anyone who has a problem. I give feedback immediately.
These people who say, oh, I wait for them to give me feedback. All they owe you is to buy, is to pay. That is all the person owes you. The only thing that person owes you is when they buy it, is to pay for it. So I have automatic feedback. I give everybody five stars. I try to, if anybody has any problems, I take returns.
I have free returns and 60-day returns. I’ve done 30 also. I do not think there’s any difference between 30 and 60. It’s the look of it, it looks like you’re going out of your way, even though I don’t think it really changes anything. And I don’t have a lot of rules and regulations on my page. I really try to make everything easy for the customer. Same as I did at my store.
Clara: Well said. Words of wisdom. Preach it, Trish, Preach it. Now how do you go from, okay, you go from brick and mortar, now you discover eBay, you’re doing volume selling. How did you get into doing seller events? How were you, how does that happen to a seller? I wanna become an eBay speaker, or I want Brian Burke to call me on my phone and tell me, Hey, do you wanna come on eBay for Business podcast? All that stuff that you do for, okay, how do we do that?
Trish: That happened because of Diane Lassonde. So I went on meetup.com. I was still in my store. It was failing. I was selling on eBay. I was starting to get my feet wet on eBay, and I knew I had to close the store, but I wasn’t sure how to do that transition yet. And I went on meetup.com and I was looking for a local e-commerce group, and she had one. And so I went in and asked a couple questions and she said, we’re having a meeting, come. And I couldn’t because my store was open so many nights a week. And maybe three days later, this woman walked into my store and said, Hey you, I’m Diane. You wrote to me on Meetup, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, Oh, hi. And she just, she immediately comes around my counter. She pushes me over. She starts looking at me, she’s pulling up your eBay. Let me see. Blah, blah, blah. Whatcha doing?
Clara: Diane going Diane on Trish. I love it.
Trish: Totally went Diane on me. And I said to her, I can’t. And she goes, run the group with me. And I said I can’t even think about tomorrow. I was so overwhelmed. I was so mad. I was so disgusted with everything that I couldn’t even think about the next week. And…
Clara: This is going through closing your brick-and-mortar. That was weighing heavily on you.
Trish: Yes. And it, and I felt like a failure. I felt like I had spent this money and I was losing it, and I just felt awful. And so she said to me, she gave me her card and she said to me, when you’re ready, please show up. So maybe three months later I’d closed the store. I put everything in storage. I’m at home working and I went to her meetup. It’s at a restaurant local to where we live. And I went in and she immediately was like, Hey, it’s a Passion for Fashion lady.
And she and I became very fast friends. And maybe three weeks after that, it was not very long. I went to one meeting and then three weeks later there was another, ’cause they were once a month. And she said they’re having an eBay Open in Las Vegas, who wants to go with me? And no one said anything. And she looked at me and I go, I’ll go now. I didn’t, I’ve met her twice now in my life. Was that 18, 20 17? 17. Yes. 17. I don’t know her. I don’t really I don’t know her. We are just I’ve met her twice now and she’s who wants to go? And I was like, I guess I do. And so she’s fine, we’ll share a room, I’ll get it. I was like, okay. So the next thing I know…
Clara: Reseller life hundred percent, let’s share a room. The only thing we have in common is reselling online, so we’ll figure out, the rest.
Trish: We’re gonna go. In the meantime, my dad, his cancer went to his brain and he had to have brain surgery he had one brain surgery and then they didn’t get it all and they were going to give him another brain surgery at Mass General. And it was two days after we were leaving and he was awake, he was, with it. And he said to me, I still want you to go. I think it’s important that you go to eBay Open. And I said, I don’t want to, I’m not going. Yeah. And Diane called me and I told her this and she said, my daughter works at Mass General.
Now, I don’t know Jen at this point. I’d have never met her. And Jen. And she says my daughter works at Mass General. She’ll go, she’ll find out who’s doing the surgery. She’ll follow him. She’ll make sure he is okay. And she will tell us if you need to come home. And I did that and I trusted this girl who I’d never met. And so Jen, who’s now a very good friend of mine, of course…
Clara: We love you, Jen.
Trish: Jen went and saw my dad about 10 minutes after he got outta surgery, walked in the room, he is she’s I’m here because your daughter’s blah, blah, blah. And she called me and she said, we’ve done well. Diane has just been that force in my life since then. That she wants you to do well. She would do anything for anybody to do well, she wanted, and she believes like you do that e-commerce is big enough for everybody. She took her meetup very seriously. She took me very seriously. She wanted me to do well. She knew how, and so anyways, so that’s why she and I went to eBay Open, and then, since then, We’ve been intertwined since.
Doug: Can’t say one without the other.
Trish: True now.
Doug: So give us the details of how you connected with Clara and Amanda and List Perfectly.
Trish: So I went to Poshf est with Theresa. So my dad was dying for a few years and he, Diane had some bucket list things he wanted to do, and one of them was to go to the Grand Canyon.
Clara: Oh, I forgot the Grand Canyon.
Trish: That’s why I was in Arizona.
Clara: Oh my goodness.
Trish: So when Teresa said to me, I told her, I was, I’m coming to Arizona, my dad wants to go to the Grand Canyon. She said she had an Airbnb. And she said to me, why don’t you and your husband come first? And you can go to Poshfest with me. I’m gonna go rep LP and I was like, okay, I had heard of LP, she had talked about it. I had not met them yet. So I went to Arizona and then I stayed at her Airbnb and she and I went to Poshfest wearing our little posh, our LP shirts and my hair’s all done and I got all the makeup on, and then I had to buy jewelry and then there are Clara and Amanda.
And so we hang around, we’re talking to people doing things. I’m buttoning, you know me, I talk to anyone who will listen to me. Everybody is talking to everybody about LP. After the second day, we were sitting out by a garage like a parking garage, and it had a brick walk in front of it on this little ledge. And Theresa and I were sitting there and Clara and Amanda were there, and they’re talking about LP and they’re going on about what it can be and how it is. And Theresa is just, Theresa sees the vision as Theresa sees it. And I remember after they walked away, I said to Theresa, I’ve not been doing this long enough. I don’t get it, but I understand that you guys believe it. I didn’t even understand it, and I believed it because they believed it so much. And I was just like, okay, where do I sign? You know what I mean? They were so infectious, especially Theresa. She’s then this could happen and then you could do this and this would affect this.
And I didn’t know enough about e-commerce at the time to get all the pieces and then, The following Christmas, I think Amanda was there to see her parents, and Amanda and Clara came to Diane’s house again in her kitchen just like you, Doug. And they had a meeting and that was maybe six or eight months later.
And when that happened, I could see it, like I got it, I saw. So I started using it immediately. And at that time, LP was still pretty new, and I outgrew LP very fast. Because mine was a volume model. So because I was doing volume, I outgrew LP very fast. And so I went from having everything, all my eggs and all the baskets as we say, to deciding if I was gonna continue to grow with my specific business model.
I had to just do eBay and that’s what I did. And what I’m so excited about is that soon, the Pro Plus will be out. That plan is basically for volume sellers, it’s for people who have a lot of inventory. It’s for people that need to be managed, needs to be automatically managed and not somebody having their hands on every single thing.
And I am just so excited. So what’s interesting to me with LP is I went from using it. Then outgrowing it to now LP has grown past me and I just think that’s great. That’s just great.
Clara: Aw, thank you, friend. That means a lot. That means a lot, to have you doing operations, being the director of operations, and doing events and every so many things community lives like we did today on YouTube. How to Boost Your Sales with eBay Analytics on List Perfectly channel on YouTube. I highly recommend you go and see what Trish talked about, how to use analytics in the right direction for your business. So we’ve done, this has been an incredible session. But now, Doug and our listeners wanna know what’s next for Trish.
Trish: I don’t know. I don’t, I dunno. I plan on…
Clara: Buckle up.
Trish: Yep. Exactly. I plan on helping LP grow. I think that LP is a great product and it’s run by wonderful women whom I adore and respect I want LP to, for all the resellers to know about LP and what they can do for their business. And I think that I am particularly, Passionate about Listing Party.
I love Listing Party. I do multiple ones of them. I and Listing Party for anyone who’s listening to this who doesn’t know if you belong to List Perfectly. You automatically get a subscription to Listing Party. And it is just a place where resellers can get together and learn from each other and do different things. And I run a mastermind group…
Clara: And watch Trish and learn from Trish. Okay.
Trish: I do a mastermind group and then we also now have a six-figure, like a six-week course.
Clara: Congrats. It’s such a success, Trish.
Trish: That’s great. And I really think, Listing Party for me is like a whole separate thing that I just adore and I can see how great it is and I can see the how that the community, it would really help the community and not just the community, but it would help business owners will really help a business owner get to the next level.
Because for me, as somebody who struggled to make this work, yeah, I really understand that anybody can do this with the right work. This is really about, e-commerce is just about figuring out a way for you to make it work for yourself. Because anybody can make money doing this. It’s hard. I don’t wanna make it sound like it’s easy, it’s hard work, but anybody can do it.
And the entry-level zero, it’s practically zero. You can start with things just in your house and everybody has things in their house that they can sell. And then ask your family and your friends. It can be a snowball. Anybody can do this. And so for me, it’s also a way. It’s about teaching somebody to fish rather than give them the fish.
Because for me, I’m gonna say this for the 45th time, anybody can make money selling. Anybody, yeah. It just takes time and determination, but it does not take money. You can build up that money. So if you don’t have anything to start, ask people for used clothing, trust me enough, go to the landfills.
You can get used clothes if you want them.
Clara: Yeah. Usually, this question goes to our audience, so I’m gonna ask it myself, Clara, anything to add? Okay. And I’m gonna, I’m gonna literally, listeners, I really wanna share this with you, how generous e-commerce is and how anybody can get started on e-commerce.
And when you said it’s hard work reselling, I’m gonna correct you a little there because everybody knows that I used to be a cashier at Target. And let me tell you that my dear is hard work, okay? Being a cashier in Target and so forth. Okay, here it is. Okay. There, there audience. There it is. So yes, I’m showing my badge with my bullseye that I was a cashier.
And let me tell you, okay, when you are on that returns desk, okay, and people are trying to return an Xbox that has been used for 30 days and abused and they’re swearing that the Xbox didn’t work. And you gotta literally be 45 minutes and to the point that comes, security and you have to escort the guests because they get belligerent and they’re not reasoning.
That for me is really, that was the hardest job that I have ever done. And I’ve been working since I was 13 years old. I cleaned houses, you name it. But for me, reselling, when people tell me it’s hard work, I say buckle up. Okay. Let me tell you what hard work is. Okay? Fast food. Those people in fast food services, if you’re in fast food, come over resell. Let’s make money.
Trish: Yeah, I agree with you completely. It’s way easier than a lot of ways. The differences. That you have to do it when you work at Target or you work at McDonald’s, or you work at Burger King, and someone else is standing there expecting you to do this work…
Clara: Telling you what to do step by step. Yeah, that’s so true. That and certain that people hold them back from being their own boss. And that’s what we’re preaching. Come to the mastermind. Here, Trish will show you how to get started. Okay? I’m not telling you, go to the six digits next level class. Okay? That one we’re not gonna show you how to ship an item. No. Okay. By this point, you need to know what FedEx, DHL, UPS, USP S, and so forth. But if you wanna get started, there is a Mastermind class every day. This woman goes live at 9:00 AM Eastern Standard Time, and she has a mastermind class. If not come over to YouTube every Friday every Friday, 11:00 AM Pacific Standard Time which would be 2:00 PM Eastern in that we go live, we give free List Perfectly memberships, we give advice. Today, Trish did such an incredible talk about analytics on eBay. You don’t have to be a List Perfectly customer and join us to get the right information and don’t be held back by the unknown.
You have what it takes. If you’ve been on those jobs at Target, and Burger King, you’ve been with the toughest jobs. Okay. Reseller. Yes. It’s much easier to just surround yourself with people like Trish, Doug, and our amazing community that will guide you and help you and answer those questions that you need to in order to be successful.
Trish: And I think some of this is you just need to do it. You need to have a plan where I’m gonna list so many a day and you do it no matter what. And that is the difference between working for yourself and working for somebody else. And so if you can get that through your head. I went years where I listed so many a day and I did the shipping even if nothing else happened, right? Those two things happened. And if that meant that I needed to use a bank, I’m really big into using a bank system for your listings. There are ways that you can get around, but I always made sure I shipped and I always made sure things went live. So you, there are ways to be able to make this work for yourself, and that is what’s great about e-commerce.
You can design a life, you can design a business, and you can design a way that works for you and your lifestyle if you are a mother with young children. If you are somebody older who takes care of their parents, if you, somebody who still has a second job, if you, if this is gonna be your second job.
You can design this with some forethought and some thinking about what you’re doing and you can design this to work for you. Absolutely e-commerce is big enough for every single person. I really believe that. And I believe it. I sometimes think we almost sound like MLM people, even though we’re not really, we’re not really selling anything. I’m not gonna get anything if anyone joins.
Clara: Doug. Okay. What is MLM? Okay. I don’t know. What is that?
Doug: Multi-Level marketing.
Clara: Thank you. So I’m like, okay, no, we don’t do that stuff. Okay. I’m not even into it, I’m not gonna put one ounce of my energy into that, okay. I call it the BS marketing, but, okay. Yes.
Trish: But sometimes I’m so passionate about reselling that I think maybe I come across a little bit like that, but I just think with no money, with very, with 10 bucks, you can start this business.
Clara: I thought you were saying you’re gonna start an M and M reselling business. Okay. Aw, man. I misunderstood.
Doug: I like M and Ms too.
That’s the crazy thing with my son, he’s got some friends that sell and I’m like, dude, you could do this. If only you knew some people. I dunno. I dunno.
Trish: It’s amazing to me ’cause my daughter who works for me, right? I’ve tried to give her my business and she’s yeah, I’m fine working for you. I know, because when I was that age I would’ve been like, yes!
Clara: No. These younger generations are like, no, let me test the water and see if I like it.
Trish: I know. It’s crazy to me.
Clara: If that tells you how abundant e-commerce is and yeah, we wanna welcome you and we give you plenty of resources. You can follow our sponsor @listperfectly on social media channels, but sure, surely, if you need some kind of coaching and mentoring and motivation every day, Trish, Super Sale Trish on Listing Party, giving mastermind classes, and what an inspiration. Thank you for doing that project, Trish.
Trish: Yeah, no problem. Also, if you’re a reseller, find out, look in your local area, and see if there is a local meetup. Having people who you can talk to in person is invaluable. Listing Party, I already said this. I love Listing Party. I think it’s great, but being able to go and physically see somebody once a month in a group that is, go and find yours. If you have one meet in start one because eBay will support you.
Clara: Yeah. No, eBay has meetups in every freaking state. Okay. So there is no excuse to not get together with the community. And thank you for, I think we have you for a longer than usual. This is gonna be a longer episode than usual. But I love everything we talked about, Trish, and thank you for your time. Thank you for your friendship and for everything you do for List Perfectly.
Trish: You are more than welcome and right back at you. I’m very thankful to be here. I love my job and I even love Doug, so it’s all good.
Doug: Wait, so wait, but before we go, I do want to ask you, besides working with me, and Clara, what’s your favorite part of your job?
Trish: I dunno. That’s hard. I really love going places, so I’m really good with going to the event. I love an event. I love setting it up. I love everything about them. I really do. I love a hotel. I’m good. I love all the things, but I really do love Listing Party too. I dunno. I just have a great job. I really do. I have a great job.
Clara: I’m so grateful she does the things that I could hate to do. Okay. No, I don’t wanna organize events. Okay. No way. Okay. No. I just love showing up there. So, Trish, you’re asking an incredible, great question.
Trish: So I just make it so Clara can just walk right in.
Doug: Claire’s the singer for the band. She walks in and then leaves.
Clara: Yeah, I feel so important. VIP.
Doug: I’ve got the drums, the cymbals. I’m there early, I’m there late. Trish brings them all in, in the big suitcase, and then I can play drums and then I leave.
Trish: The last time I flew home with a trunk, and two suitcases. A computer bag and my pocketbook. And I, so then I have to rent one of those dollies. And I’m renting the dolly. I got it all on. I have fun.
Doug: Alright, this was fun. Thanks for coming on. We’re so lucky to have you and I’m so excited that you are the new co-host of the Seller Community Podcast…
Clara: Congratulations to our new co-host.
Trish: I’m really looking forward to it. To be honest with you, I really, this is, I really am looking forward to this. I think it’s gonna be great and I’m gonna make Doug do lots of new things.
Doug: Thank you, everybody.
Clara: Thank you, Doug. Thank you, Trish. What a fun session.
Trish: Thank you.
Doug: It was fun. Thanks, ladies. Until next time.
Outro
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