Overview
This week in episode 16 we were lucky to have the opportunity to turn the mic around on Griff from eBay! Griff has been with eBay since 1996 and was one of the very first eBay employees. Griff founded eBay customer service and the eBay online community. He’s worked in customer service, seller education, seller engagement, hosted eBay Radio, and now hosts the eBay for Business podcast. We also have Seller Shoutouts and the news!
The Seller Community Podcast from List Perfectly is the #1 resource for the seller community across all platforms and hub for information on growing your business with List Perfectly. Find out more at thesellercommunitypodcast.com/podcast, leave a message or ask a question at https://anchor.fm/sellercommunitypodcast, or email us at podcast@thesellercommunitypodcast.com.
Listen on Apple Podcasts
Listen on Anchor
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Pocket Casts
Listen on Google Podcasts
Listen on Breaker
Listen on RadioPublic
Links
thesellercommunitypodcast.com/podcast
thesellercommunitypodcast.com
Seller Community Podcast on Anchor
Listperfectly Facebook Group
@coloradoreworn Instagram
coloradoreworn linktree
@snoop.dougie Instagram
snoop.dougie linktree
@listperfectly Instagram
Episode 16 Links
eBay for Business Podcast
The eBay Community
Wsradio.com
voicemarketingradio.com
@flippedthrift Instagram
@ryansthriftfinds Instagram
fullcartclub.com
@fullcartclub Instagram
Jack Valentine on YouTube
HEROINE
@Swagslayerfashion Instagram
SwagSlayer Fashion YouTube
@ThePinkDivaStudio Instagram
Transcript
Intro
Doug:
Liz, Liz, Liz, you want to hear something weird? Facebook memories today is the anniversary of the day I first stepped foot at eBay. We went up a week before and took a picture with the sign. It was like a Saturday or something, I don’t know. Five years ago today we took a picture with the signs. So, that was the first time I’d been up there and stepped foot on eBay soil.
Liz:
Wow. So that is a great intro into episode 16. Sweet 16 for the Seller Community Podcast from List Perfectly.
Doug:
Well. I’m very excited Liz, because this week we had the one, the only Griff. Griff from eBay. Griff and I worked together for most of the time I was at eBay. He’s been with eBay since 1996. Everybody knows he was one of the very first eBay employees. So everybody knows Griff, obviously from eBay radio, from the eBay for Business Podcast. They may not realize that he’s had a ton of other roles at eBay. And he’s going to talk about all those, the educational roles, the events, roles, the customer service roles, the community roles. And he’s going to talk about a lot of eBay history as well. So, it was a great chance for us to kind of turn the mic around on Griff because he doesn’t do this too much.
Liz:
Yes. This is a very special episode. Super excited, to kind of flip the tables and be able to interview The Griff. Be sure to stay tuned because after Griff, we will have seller shoutouts, special ones.
Doug:
Yes.
Liz:
And we’ll have some List Perfectly news. Also, very special news.
Doug:
That’s very exciting. The seller community podcast is produced by List Perfectly every week for your enjoyment and show notes are always found at thesellercommunitypodcast.com/podcast. All right, let’s get started with our featured guest, the one and only, mighty Griff.
The Evolution of Seller Community with Griff
Liz:
Today, we’re joined by an eBay legend, the eBay legend Griff. We’re turning the mic around on him and we get to interview him today. So Griff has been with eBay since 1996 and was one of the very first eBay employees, Griff founded eBay customer service and the eBay online community. He’s worked in customer service, seller education, seller engagement, and hosted the eBay radio, and now hosts the eBay for business podcast. Griff, thank you so much for joining us today.
Griff:
It’s my pleasure. Thanks for that great introduction. I had no idea that I was responsible for eBay.
Liz:
In seller’s minds that tuned into the eBay for Business podcast and even eBay Radio. When it was on. When I think eBay customer service, I think podcast, you become the voice of eBay in my head every week.
Doug:
You may want to see a doctor and that’s true. It is true. The voice of eBay for so many years and Griff, you taught me so much. We were on the team together and I learned from you. So hopefully, hopefully you’re proud.
Griff:
Oh, absolutely. Very proud. You were a good student. Sit up straight breathe, right, right from your dad. Cut down the obscure references though. Those are, yeah. And that’s important. Remember to breathe in, you can always cut out breaths. You want as much power coming from your diaphragm as possible. And this is of interest to our audience. I’m sure. But
Liz:
This is all the training I’ve had to endure the last 15 episodes.
Griff:
Well, I am so pleased to be here. I don’t know what you’re going to ask me and I don’t know if I can answer it all.
Doug:
All right, Griff. So your name is nearly synonymous with eBay. How did you discover eBay?
Griff:
It was 1996. I was in between careers having a tough time in my life. And I had started building and selling computers locally. And a friend of mine who I’d never met, I just knew him through email, through a news group, an IBM newsgroup, he worked for NYU in New York City, New York University in their IT department, and he was in charge of de-assessing all their equipment. He’d put it up for sale in their newsgroup. And one day he knew I had a list of things I was looking for the next group of computers I was reassembling. And he said, “I can’t, I don’t have this chip available here. But I found this website called Auction Web, and the chip you want is there and you can buy it. You have to bid on it. It’s like an online auction.” I was intrigued, and that was it. That’s how it started. That was my first purchase. And I think I actually have saved somewhere in my archives, the email that showed that I won that. It Was on May 10th, 1996, “You won!” like for 12 bucks or something. And I was hooked. 1996! A lot of our listeners were probably not born. That’s how I got involved. And I started buying stuff. I actually started to list a few things. It was really not easy back then. You had to do everything yourself, there was no picture services. There was no payment services. Everyone got paid through the mail. There were a few merchants who put up credit card links, but the majority of people that we’re listing, the only way they could accept payment was you had to mail it in check or money order or cash, and to wait for the check to arrive, and then you have to wait for it to clear, and then you shipped it to the person, but it all worked. It was all unique. And it was a lot of fun. And there was a lot of people coming to try it out. They’d heard word of mouth, or they discovered the site. Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay, the real founder, not, you know, I have nothing to do with that, put up a chat board where we could all hang out and sort of support each other. I started getting more involved in that with showing people how they, how you host pictures and back then you’d actually have to have your own FTP or web server, know how to upload digital files there and know how to reference them using image tags, inside a description. It was a long learning curve, but I always pride myself on my skill at making things that sound arcane and hard to understand, make it easy to understand. So, I started doing that a lot. So I spent a lot of time there. That was like providing customer service for free. And I came to the attention of PR and Jessica Cole after I disappeared for a couple of weeks in the Fall, I got a phone call asking where I’d been? Am I okay? And do you want to work for us? And after a short period of negotiations, I believe it was like maybe 15 seconds. I said, yes. And that’s how it started. But you have to remember, none of us knew what it was going to turn into. I wasn’t ready to make that big of a commitment pick up and move to the west coast. So I said, eh, nah, I can’t do that, but I can work from home. I mean, it’s all internet, right? So why can’t we see if that works? And they agreed to it and I’m glad they did. Not only because I wasn’t ready to move, but we started to grow shortly after that at a rate that it was really hard to find customer support people in Silicon Valley, everyone at that time with the new internet bubble wanted manager jobs and huge stock packages. And Pierre was pretty, uh, he said, “you know, I’m not going to do that”, but he couldn’t get anyone to work customer support. So we started hiring people locally and in Vermont I had at its peak, I had about 18 people working in what used to be my art studio and then became the computer studio and then became kind of satellite office to eBay, customer support. We call it eBay east and a lot of those people stayed with eBay for quite some time. I think they’re all gone now. But, there were quite a few that stayed when the offer came to become employees and they took, they took eBay upon them. And I wouldn’t have been able to do that if I had just moved to the west coast.
Doug:
So what was it back then that you think made eBay stand out? And what makes the eBay stand out still today?
Griff:
Well, back then there was, it was the newness of it. There was really no competition, which surprised us. Yahoo! tried to jump in the space a year or so after Pierre started eBay. It never really got any traction. And there was another site that started up based in Cincinnati called “Up for Sale” that they had the right kind of had that eBay sort of vibe and they were young and they were really creative. And so we did what any rising company would do. We bought them!
Liz, Doug, Griff:
(Laughter)
Griff:
We incorporated the four guys into our IT team and we closed the site down.
Liz:
What were the early days of customer service like for eBay?
Griff:
It was interesting because it was, it wasn’t really organized well. It’s been 25 years. Our customer support department resembles nothing of what we did back then. And rightfully so. I mean, we were only, we started out servicing less than 10,000 active sellers and buyers in the, in the first iterations of customer support. So, you could get answers pretty quick. There was no real set process. We had a pop server. We didn’t even have like an internal customer support server and everyone had like a pop email address. That served us well for a while. But then minute the sites started to go, the minute we hit a million users and it kept growing exponentially, there was no way that was going to work. So it was a lot easier for a small group of people to provide customer service to a growing group in the first years, you know, I’d say the first two or three years, but after that, it just became untenable. The growth continued so quick for almost, I want to say about 10 years and that provided a constant challenge. One of the cool things we had in customer support, because it was where a lot of people congregated is we were actually with the help of some, IT guys, well, specifically Mike Wilson, who really built this out. We were able to have customer support people on a discussion board, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And most of those were remote employees or contractors who used aliases and just became presences on the chat board and each one had their own personality and the sellers mostly, but some buyers. They loved it because they always felt like they were talking to a human being and they were, I mean, they were talking to real people. That was a lot of fun. And as the site grew, that kind of grew less supportable over time. And by the time 2008 came and we had the big layoffs, our community team at the time that which was still supporting those community chats, and at that point there were several of them, that whole team got laid off, except for myself. I drove into the office that day, knowing there were layoffs. I had a bunch of boxes in the back of my Morona, and I thought, “huh, what a new adventure! I’ve never been laid off before. This will be exciting!” Only to find out I’m the only person not. My boss and her boss were both laid off and they had to tell me this. And I thought, you know, “I’m always left out. Everyone else got laid off but me.” I don’t think it was so much that it was an active let’s keep him, I just think it’s like, “no, he’s been here. I mean, what are we going to do with him? We’ll find something.” But the, at that point, community customer support took a big hit.
Doug:
So, speaking of community, customer support and the evolution of community, tell us about Uncle Griff.
Griff:
Well, if you haven’t figured it out yet, I am a bit of a ham. I love performing. It’s something I’ve done most of my life. The judgment is out as if, whether I’m any good at it, but that doesn’t stop me from doing it. I figured out that there were a lot of fights happening on that chat board. People would get angry at each other, sometimes not seller-buyer, sometimes seller-seller. I discovered from watching other people and other forums that the best way to dispel a lot of hostility is for someone to come in and be a clown. And so I thought, who better? So I created this persona that I used whenever I was on the chat, helping people that summer, and his name was Uncle Griff. And that’s how I got that. I still have it as an email address. And I, he did that. He was a persona. He’s not real. He was a cross dressing, dairy farmer of some certain age who lived in upper west butt crack Vermont. Do I have to tell the whole story? Lived in a big house, on a hill, very gray and weathered, you may be getting a picture in your head of a certain movie. He lived with his mother who, just like Mrs. Bates, happened to be dead. She’d been dead for years, but that didn’t stop uncle Griff from taking her out in the old Packard. And he used eBay to buy duct tape because when you have a mummified body that that’s old, you need a lot of duct tape, hold them together. Otherwise, limbs fall out of the car. And people thought this was amusing, and it was great, because it would just, you know, I, Uncle Griff, would show up and say, “it’s time to get into mother’s closet and start pulling out stuff and wearing it and we’ll play dress up!” And some people would say, “Oh! You are absurd.” But, eventually people stopped fighting and they’d start getting into it. And it worked.
Liz:
So that evolution of community. Can you talk to us about how that’s evolved over time and what it is today?
Griff:
So, what’s evolved, what’s good about it, and that’s what I like to focus on, is that there’s always one of the things that eBay highlighted was the human need or the human desire to help other humans, which wasn’t invented by eBay. But I think eBay filled a kind of need at the right time at the right place where a lot of people wanted to take advantage of the democratization of trade that a site like eBay provided, with this global reach of buyers and with a middleman that wasn’t charging 25, 30% for the pleasure of having access to buyers. But, it was hard. It was hard for people to get started. And I wasn’t the only one, there were thousands and thousands of sellers who had some expertise about how to do internet stuff and how to do business stuff, who would step up and, and freely give advice. That was the most positive and the most heartening part of the early eBay community, as it reflected everything that was good about people in the end. Yeah, there were people that were nasty there. I mean, it’s just the way humans can be, and everybody has a bad day including me, but it really did give a chance to highlight what was good about people. And, you know, it was, it became sort of cliche that Pierre said his ethics about starting the site was people are basically good. I think you have to believe that, or why even be alive? Jeez! And seller after seller proved that. And a lot of sellers established friendships and relationships with other sellers, and they never forget. You never forget those who mentored you, especially if they did it for free. That’s what kept me engaged for years. Because I was only going to do this for a few months. I was sure there was another, a career in the arts I could go through and ruin, like I’d done so many and it just got more and more interesting over time. And I never got back to my former life and in many ways, I’m very glad I didn’t.
Liz:
I grew up and learned so much on those boards and I am still friends with a couple of people from way back then. We didn’t put the connections together until later, but we were able to go back and be like, “Wait a minute. Was that you?” It’s amazing what you remember. Right?
Griff:
Yes, yes, yes! That’s the value of eBay events. And there were always so many of them and they’ve disappeared for the last year because of, well, you know, it was kind of a weird year. I won’t go into it, but you know, they’ll return. And I think that’s why a lot of people go to those events. It’s not just to meet eBay employees or learn something, but they get to actually talk with other people and other sellers that are in the same sort of boat or situation they are. And there’s strength in numbers, especially when you’re in a group of people together. And it’s never is not exciting. Even employees who’ve been at eBay for a long time, they, they really fight to get on that list that they can go to something like eBay Open because it’s not just, you know, it’s in Las Vegas and there’s everything to do with Vegas. It’s because of the event itself is so much fun, exhausting, and hopefully we’ll do them again. And I hope they do because for the last three years that we did those events, I had to rent a scooter because my knees were going. But as I’ve made it very clear, I have brand new surgically implanted knees and I’m going to walk that distance.
Doug:
Wow!
Liz:
So now people are going to have to chase you down on foot and not run after the scooter saying, “I hope your battery dies.”
Griff:
Oh, I might literally jog and smile.
Doug:
Can you tell us a bit about eBay’s education initiatives and what you did with that program?
Griff:
Yeah, I wasn’t alone. I don’t want anyone to get the idea that these were, you know, singular efforts. Everything that any of us do at eBay, it does take part of a team including today with the podcast, by the way. Yeah. So the events team that had started up and it was, it was run by a man and a woman at eBay, Abby Green and Tom Cotton. And they started this idea about what if we had these seminars and we went across the country and we advertised and charged very little money. And we had a daylong, or maybe even two days of seminar where you can learn the basics of eBay or maybe a more advanced course for people already doing this. And in June of 1999, we had our first test run and we had, it was the first eBay University class. And it was in San Diego at the Sheraton near the hotel. And it was great. It really worked and people had a lot of fun and they decided to build that out. And that was 1999. The program ran until 2007. And during that time we were on the road about 24 weekends a year going to different cities, big cities and small, well, there was Sioux falls. I’ve never, I mean, why would I ever go to Sioux falls? We had a great time, and lots of, lots of fun. So I miss that part. That was, it was a lot of work doing all that traveling, but we, I kept a record and I believe we saw over 100,000 sellers in those eight years. It wasn’t scalable. So, somebody else on that team came up with the idea of, well, why don’t we provide this material to people who want to teach it, and then they can hold the seminars and not necessarily rely on us showing up. So that, that became the EBU program with eBay education specialists. And that lasted from 2007 to about 2014, 15, but that was the core of the education program, but there was always aspects of it where different sellers started side careers, teaching people and coaching people on starting a business or just getting listings up. And there’s many people who still do it today, even without support of eBay. And I think it’s just an extension of what we were talking about earlier about people wanting to help other people learn how to do something so they can succeed. It was great.
Liz:
We just had Danna Crawford just on a couple of episodes back, speaking of eBay educators.
Griff:
Yeah. She’s never stopped doing it. She’s very good at it. She loves doing it, she has a passion for it.
Liz:
In my brain, I’m thinking, okay, eBay is moving, eBay is shifting. They’re going out. Not only to all of these events, constantly traveling, educating on top of that, somehow eBay Radio started. How did that, how did eBay Radio come about?
Griff:
There was this guy, and I guess I could tell you his name. He was a very interesting character. His name was Chris Murch, and he was based in San Diego. He was, a can do why not entrepreneur, and he started this idea, this was before we met him about internet radio. He saw that there was, this was before podcasts, that you could start internet radio, and we could compete with earthbound, tertiary radio. So he started wsradio.com and he started searching for different content providers, different, you know, ideas for episodes. He had things on collecting and politics and sexual health and everything you can think of. And he loved eBay. So he had this idea in his head. He wanted to get eBay to have a show on his network. And he got a meeting with a guy who was an early eBay employee named Kevin McSpadden. Kevin lives here in the Bay Area, and he was part of our advertising team. And he had a meeting with Chris and his team. And I happened to be walking by the conference room and Kevin says, “Oh, Griff, come here, come join this meeting, I think you’ll find this interesting.” And I said, “Okay.” And I went in and I sat down and this short woman was there and this bearded hippie kind of guy was there. That was Lee Mirabal and her husband John Sell, I would find out, and I sat between them and I was listening to Chris Merch’s presentation. And Kevin says, “and you know, if we do this, who would be great, Griff could be the host” and Lee Mirabal turned to me and said, “yeah, you’re an interesting guy.” And I said, “wait a minute, Lee Mirabal, did you have a radio show on WNBC AM late in the day?” And she said, “yeah.” I said, “I used to listen to it in Vermont when they would up the frequency you used to be on right after Alan Colmes.” She said, “yes, you remember that show?” And we hit it off. And so we decided to try it, see if it worked. And I think that was in the Spring of 2003, and our first broadcast was live from eBay live in Orlando. We started, we did it for 15 years after that. Lee was invaluable. I learned everything I know about radio and engineering and everything from her, but I don’t know if I’m doing her a service or not saying that, she knows more than I do. Anyway. I was a difficult student. She would say things like, “whatever you do, don’t eat on the air.” And of course I’d eat on the air and she’d go, “oh, please, you’re doing it again.”
Griff:
We had a great dynamic because she was the great radio straight woman. I was the fool. That’s what I do. So it was a great dynamic. It worked for a long time. eBay Live stopped happening in 2008. Lee said to eBetsy, who was at that time working for her in in their Voice Marketing group, she said, “well, we should just have our own events.” So while eBay Live had disappeared, Lee and Betsy started these yearly eBay Radio parties in Las Vegas, which grew, I mean, it wasn’t as big as eBay Live, but who cares? It was still a lot of fun. Lots of people flew in to come to it. And they did it from, let’s say 2009, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. I think for seven years, I could be wrong. Maybe it was eight years. Great fun. It was a lot of fun. Those were, those were some of the most memorable events and that led to eBay Open. Well, yeah, I think the idea was that eBay wanted to revisit eBay Live. eBay Live was a different type of event. That was like a huge conference. There were 10-20,000 people that would attend those, and eBay Open was always restricted to about two, maybe 3000 people. It’s still fun though. I don’t want to make any promises cause I actually don’t know, but I have a sneaking suspicion that once COVID is, you know, in the past that we’ll be revisiting big events like that again.
Liz:
So how did the podcast evolve from eBay Radio?
Griff:
Well, it’s funny because there were some assumptions made outside of eBay that the reason why the radio show stopped is because eBay cut the budget, which was, which made me laugh hysterically. And I’ll tell you why, because eBay actually said, “oh, you should just continue what you’re doing.” And I said, “with the same budget?” And they said, “yeah,” and that’s when I decided, well, how am I going to replace Lee? And I don’t. And at the same time, maybe this is a good time to pivot to some other format that actually might draw customers. In one thing I always disliked about live radio was the same things that I liked about it, which is that it’s really immediate. You never know what’s going to happen. There wasn’t really a big delay button. You could push a Griff, said something totally inappropriate, which I think is why I think a lot of people listened, waiting for those moments because I just tend to do that. I know it’s very bad. With a podcast we could focus in on content, and it took about a year for us to get the right feel. We tried many different things as Doug remembers. Now, I think we’ve hit where it works, which is it’s still human. I will never try to sound corporate. And I try to get our corporate guests to never sound corporate. And I think with some success. Now we’ve had to stop the tape. A lot of times when I say “you’re using jargon, get rid of the jargon. You’re talking to human beings, not fellow shareholders.” And it works. It also made it possible for us to actually focus more on content rather than just pure entertainment, which I think even though we had a lot of guests and a lot of topics on eBay Radio, there were three hours and then two hours on Thursday and a lot of time to fill. So I would resort to shtick and schlock and being a ham, which I find tiring. I don’t know. I don’t know. Maybe the audience never did, but I, you know, I always knew in the back of my head, “what am I doing right now that relates to helping eBay sellers, besides making them laugh or making them eye roll?”. We should really be focusing on content and with the podcast we can, we’ve gone to that format. I would hope we continue doing, even after I leave eBay someday. So I’m looking for someone inside the company who I can pass this on to, but as Doug knows, people come and go at eBay and it makes it really hard to build something like a podcast and then hand it to someone. So I’m looking at a way to make it portable to someone else easily who’s interested so that they could just come in, maybe spend a week getting updated on how everything works and then hand the keys to them someday.
Doug:
All those podcast episodes, all those guests. Do you have a favorite episode and a favorite guest?
Griff:
I don’t have just one, but I do have some really favorite guests and of course they’re sellers. One of the, my favorite ones was one I just did recently with the guy named Tron, and he was one of our Up and Running grant winners. I’ve never had a guest who I could just wind up and then let him go. And he just, he talked over an hour and I knew at the time I said, “well, it’s going to be an editing challenge, but hey, I can’t say I don’t got content.” He was just so enthusiastic about his product that he built. I don’t know if you’ve listened to the episode, he builds brewing products. He’s doing well on eBay. His excitement was infectious and it just made it a lot of fun. Not only to record, I’m sure you guys are figuring that out, but when you have an interesting guest, it’s fun to edit too. It doesn’t become tedium at all. And even more recently Sandra Gustard who was another Up-and-Coming grant winner. She was last week. And I may be thinking that they’re the best guests, because my short-term memory isn’t allowing me, right now to roll back. We had others, Doug’s friends, the hustlebee and hustlerhacks were lots of fun to have on the show. They were really, really naturals. A lot of our sellers are kind of natural when it comes to being on a podcast, at least those eager to do it. At least I find, and they’re very helpful to sellers who are listening and there’s nothing more reassuring. There’s nothing more fulfilling when you’re doing a podcast and you’re the host and you’re listening to a guest and you know, what they’re saying is helpful and that your listeners are gonna find it interesting.
Griff:
When you hear that. I don’t know how you guys feel. I always feel like, yeah, this is the reason why we do this. Not just so I have a platform to, you know, be a ham, but we actually have people that have expertise and have a story to tell. And the story is very interesting. And this is another example of teamwork. I think the advantage of doing this with eBay really helps is that we have a Seller Marketing team that helps find these people. And without the social team or the Seller Marketing team doing their work, I wouldn’t even probably find these people. So that’s a great example of the symbiotic relationship between teams or within teams that even that really, really makes a job like the managing and editing a podcast a lot easier.
Doug:
And what you said, well, you both said really resonates with me because that’s what I always say, at some point when I was at eBay, a switch flipped and that’s when I started doing the events and meeting all these sellers and hearing their stories and about their lives and getting to really know them. And that’s what Liz and I love about this podcast too is that we are talking to the wider seller community, just eBay but so many different sellers across the board and it’s…I love the stories and all the connections.
Griff:
Yeah and you would think they would all be the same mostly, but they’re not. It’s true. There’s as many stories as there are eBay sellers and some of them, some of them are pretty interesting. And then some of them are just like “what? You did, what, when you were doing what?”
Liz:
Yeah. I love hearing about other sellers. I love hearing their stories. And I think that’s what really draws me into the podcast. Other than I like getting my news and information too, but just that whole, I love connecting with the community as a whole, which is why I’m so happy to be doing this with you today, Uncle Griff from community, what I see as the original seller community. So along with the most memorable podcasts, what would be like your proudest eBay moment?
Griff:
One of them was on my 10th year anniversary. I didn’t know this, but they had planned this little surprise event and Meg was there and I was asked to come down to join a meeting. I thought I was doing a meeting with, you know, another team. And there was one of the rooms in building seven was filled with people sitting in, sitting in chairs. And I knew something was up because I could see that Howie and our two friends, Michael and George were there. Howie and George have now passed on, but Meg gave me a commendation for being 10 years. And everyone was, you know, they were all there and she, and she gave me how many people have worked in the company where they give you one, they give you one of these, have a thought or younger folding book I wrote. And it just, it just overwhelmed me. I just thought that that’s a moment I’ll never forget. The other moment I’ll never forget was in 2005, the eBay Live in San Jose. We did it at the, you know, in the headquarter city and the HP Pavilion, which is the big Sharks Arena downtown. We had rented it for the keynote speech and it was literally filled. So you can imagine how many people were there. And I was the emcee for that event and I found that it was memorable because I’ve never performed in front of that many people before. It’s interesting when you’re doing that, you, you learn your abilities and your limits and what you can and what you can’t do. And you’re trying to keep a group of 10,000 plus people entertained. There were about 15,000 people and you look over in the control booth while you’re walking around with a mic and they’re doing this extra time, stretch it out.
Doug:
All right Griff, through all you’ve seen, is there a single biggest misperception you’ve heard about eBay?
Griff:
It’s, it’s an ongoing, urban myth. You know what it is? We haven’t seen much of it lately, but we’ve seen it. I’ve seen it for 25 years. I’ve never understood why it gained any legs. And that’s this, the old urban myth of eBay rolling brownouts or rolling blackouts where we, we take huge swaths of inventory and we make it unsearchable. We remove it from search. And that said, yes, it’s a myth. Yeah. That one always used to infuriate me and confound me and everyone else at eBay. We look at and say, “where does, where does this come from?” I mean, today, we know that conspiracy theories are everywhere, but back then, that one just always surprised me. There was a bunch of other little ones, but that’s the one I think that, that stuck with me because up until recently, that was still something you would hear a lot from people. It tended to be people who would say, “well, I noticed a drop in sales, so you must have taken all my listings out of search.” And I would say, “well, no, we don’t do that. There’s, it’s actually not something that we would ever do.” How does that benefit eBay strategically to take your inventory off of search?
Doug:
Well, I used to get that too. It’s like, “well, eBay must be doing something.”
Griff:
It comes from a frustration of not understanding how markets work. I don’t think it’s necessarily an intentional decision to vilify eBay. I think it’s the easiest target. When you may not understand how your market works, the kind of inventory you’re selling, how frequently you can expect sales. And I think a lot of maybe a lot of the reason why we don’t hear so much about the urban, you know, the rolling blackout myth is because now there’s such extensive traffic reports that you can see that people are finding your listings by the impressions and traffic reports and the page views. And then if you’re not converting, you know, that sellers are finding your item, they’re just not buying it for some reason. And there could be a number of reasons. And your job as a business owner selling on eBay is to find out what that might be. The reason we do our best to try to explain the most common reasons when they come to listing practices, which are, you know, less than favorable. But sometimes it’s market-based and say, if you sell a line of, for lack of a better word, kind of knickknacks from thrift shops, you know, that’s not, that’s not like a go-to market. That’s always chugging. That’s a very specified niche market of buyers who are looking for particular things. And it’s why if you do sell in that market, the only way that you can be guaranteed to make a good living is, is to have more than a hundred items up. You know, a lot of people who complain “my items, aren’t selling,” They have a hundred items. How do you expect to make any volume when you only have a hundred items? This kind of inventory, which is a varied kind of, one of a kind inventory, you could call it. In some cases, you need thousands of items that Lynn Dralle, she’s a big proponent of this. You know, she’s actually made a good business out of it, but she, like other sellers of, of her type of inventory will tell you that when you’re selling those kinds of vast and varied collectibles, you have to have a lot of them, especially if they tend to be low ASP or low value items.
Doug:
And the example, you used to give, is you used to sell a ton of Tommy Bahama shirts. The market changed, and they don’t sell as much anymore.
Griff:
No, they don’t. I have, I have very specific opinions why. I don’t know if I should say. I can tell you, I think without denigrating any single demographic, I think the primary buyer for Tommy Bahama shirts has grown old and died off. I think that that style has kind of not Hawaiian shirts in particular, but that style of casual shirt just isn’t as popular as it used to be. It could come back. I mean, if you’re sitting on some Tommy Bahama inventory and you got time and it’s not selling, put it away, see what happens in another five years.
Liz:
The market got flooded. They’re mass produced now. They’re not just at their stores or at high end department stores. They’re all over the place now. I mean, I know, I used to be in that market. Now I’m like, “okay, what? I used to get a hundred dollars for now, I’m getting 35 bucks.”
Griff:
Yeah. If you’re lucky. Remember the embroidery ones were very popular. You’ve gotta stay on top of the trends. If you’re selling any sort of a pre-owned or general line of apparel. I always advise people to get on as many retail clothing, seller websites, or even their mail order catalogs. I get several still delivered to me. These are companies that do a Hell of a lot of market research before they make an investment in a clothing line. So they know what’s going to be hot for the next year. And in some cases, they actually help set those trends. They’re doing all the work. You only have to sign up and subscribe to their catalog, and you get an idea what the trends are, and you can look for similar merchandise.
Liz:
So Griff, you’ve pretty much seen it all, you know, you’ve seen the trends you’ve seen the, you know, really just e-commerce explode on eBay. What do you see the future of online selling? What’s that growth look like?
Griff:
Right. I think it’s here to stay. Definitely there’s competition, which was something that we did not have in the beginning of eBay. And I think it actually, it habituated us into a kind of mindset which actually worked against us, but now, you know, the competition is great. It helps drive us. So buyers and sellers have choices. So that keeps us on our toes. I think the future is definitely with a younger demographic. There was always a concern that younger folks wouldn’t be active buyers or sellers because that’s what their parents did. And they would rebel against that. We’re seeing that not to be the case, however, how they congregate and how they share information is definitely changed. So even if you’re an old fart like myself, it it’s probably wise if you’re in business to get a feel for all social media platforms, because that’s what they’re using, even something like TikTok, which you know was initially based, it was primarily very young kids. So you understand what they’re doing and you get a picture of how you should be marketing, how you should be sourcing inventory to help supply that market. Remember somebody like myself, I’ve had the benefit of living long enough to see the antiques business basically collapse as younger people disown it. They have no interest in most of the antiques that, when I was younger, I made a living buying and selling, and instead they’re more focused recently on mid-century modern, which I’m sure if you’re, if you’re around my age, you kind of kick yourself saying all I needed to do was rent a big storehouse and just fill it with that stuff when people were giving it away, and I’d be a rich man. Yeah. Okay. You miss that trend. What’s the next one. You gotta be, you have to have some forward vision if you plan on being in business longer than 10, 20 years so that you can meet those demands before they come. And I think a lot of sellers are actually very good at that.
Liz:
We just talked about that on our last podcast about the social commerce and how eBay is bringing in TikTok with the younger sneaker sellers.
Griff:
Yeah. With great success, by the way, that has turned out to be a really brilliant move on the verticals team part at eBay. That’s just been really, really amazingly productive. Hopefully there’ll be able to extend that across other categories in the coming years.
Liz:
So what is the hottest eBay issue right now?
Griff:
The hottest issue for the last year obviously has been Managed Payments. That’s a huge change for sellers. I think more as a perception of what it’s going to entail than the actual execution. We were joined at the hip to PayPal since 2002. And actually before 2002, when it became the payment choice of buyers and sellers before eBay purchased them, that move to a different sort of payment processing, I think scared a lot of sellers. How’s this going to work? We’re now coming towards the close of that. We actually will be complete with our relationship with PayPal by the end of the Summer, almost everyone except sellers in certain categories, which can’t be supported by eBay payments. But yeah, that’s, that’s been the biggest driver for customer support contacts. And it’s also been a lot of questions on social. I think second would probably be the rapid changes that are happening to categories and item specifics, which entail work on the part of sellers and not understanding maybe the why behind item specifics. I try my best to explain it in layman’s terms to dispel that notion that, yeah, it’s just eBay employees sitting around in teams thinking “I have nothing to do this week. Is there something we can do to annoy sellers? Let’s build that.” That’s not what it is. Listen, having to make changes to your item specifics, it is work, but it’s work that pays off. I’ve made them to my listings and I try to pay attention to them. But there’s some misunderstandings about recommended and required the difference in a lot of sellers. And I think we made a wrong move here. I know that I just interviewed Harry (Temkin) and he mentioned that this is going to change, although it was well-intentioned. I think the gamification of item specifics with that little blue circle was probably not a good idea because a lot of sellers look at that and say, unless I complete that circle, my item’s never going to appear in search. So they’re filling in, in some cases recommended items specifics that have nothing to do with their listing and that’s wrong, that’s the wrong behavior. So they’re revisiting that. I said, “just get rid of the gamification,” but I think they’re going to keep some version of it. So in the meantime, I’m saying it’s, I said, quite bluntly, just one seller today who is complaining about she has to, she has to fill that blue circle. I said, “do you list on eBay to win the blue circle game? Or do you have to ask yourself that question?” And you have to believe me when I tell you don’t need to fill the blue circle in.
Liz:
I will tell you as somebody in the community, I am thankful for you for publicly saying that, and Harry for publicly saying that so that other sellers can help other sellers to spread that word. It makes it a little easier for people in our community like me to say, “but listen to eBay. Griff said it, you don’t have to do it,…”
Griff:
But that one’s, that is definitely true. You don’t have to fill that blue circle, that confounded blue circle, just fill in the ones that are applicable in the recommended section. If they’re not applicable, leave them blank. You’ll be fine.
Doug:
So you’ve referenced a couple of big changes over the past couple of years, and we know sellers don’t like change that much.
Griff:
Pretty much. That’s a human, I wouldn’t say sellers. I think that’s a human attribute.
Doug:
Humans don’t like change that much. And humans do sell on eBay. What’s in your opinion, the best eBay change you’ve seen over the past few years?
Griff:
Oh, there’s quite a few. That’s hard to actually quantify or list out in priority for many reasons that may be becoming apparent. Now I think the PayPal separation and eBay managing payments if for one big reason, and it may have just been my pet peeve for years, but the idea that we weren’t able to net fees from the point of sale, always as a seller, kind of drove me crazy. I hated it. I hated eBay giving me the money. And then at the end of the month saying, “now give us some back, you got to give us some of that money back.” And the natural reaction is, well, why didn’t you take it upfront? Then I wouldn’t have to look at this invoice. And some sellers would look at that invoice and they would forget naturally as human beings, we gave you that money. We paid you what they saw as a bill. And it was that just generated a lot of negative sentiments. So, and we knew that the only way we would get to fee netting is if we manage the payments, we couldn’t do it with the PayPal set up. So, I think that in many ways, this will prove over time to be probably one of the best things that’s happened at eBay. I’m pretty positive about our new employees and new and new execs, but convincing Jordan Sweetnam to come back was like one of the smartest moves they could’ve made. No one understands selling like he does. And I think you’re seeing the results of that now, bringing back somebody who understand the old eBay, he was part of its formation and knew its DNA inside out like Jamie Iannone to be our CEO, another brilliant move I think. So a lot of the best things about eBay I think of the people and Doug, you may be able to back me up on this. I don’t know. But one of the joys of working at that of eBay still, still to this day is the astounding amount of talent that walks into that building, and when they take a job and how it manifests itself, both in the working environment and the things that get done, we have, and I don’t want to sound like I’m blowing smoke, but we do have some of the youngest best talent you can imagine.
Griff:
And a lot of it is just astounding to see the ideas that come up and the execution. I think we have some of the best women in Silicon valley working at eBay. They oftentimes even outshine their male counterparts. And I think that’s something to be proud of. So it’s an, it’s a really fun place to work. We haven’t been able to see each other for a year in real life and some of us have become agoraphobics so we may never leave the house again, but it’s still a pleasure. I actually love Zoom. I know it’s fun to beat up on it, but it’s how I get to see everyone. And when I deem that I’m presentable I’ll actually turn my camera on and let them see me.
Doug:
What you said is definitely true. eBay was an amazing place to work. I still love it. I’ll never forget it. I got to do a bunch of cool stuff, work with a bunch of cool people, but it probably doesn’t get the credit it deserves not only being a groundbreaker, but even currently in tech with things like the Tech Blog or the tech that they do, that they share on the API stuff that they put out there for free use.
Griff:
Oh yeah. That’s so true. We’ve stopped. We are off that radar. You know, we were the bright, shiny penny, 20, 25 years ago. We’re now the old corroded coin that no one looks at when it comes to that part of the world, but we’re still here and we’re still chugging along and there’s no company that makes a bigger difference in other people’s lives than eBay.
Liz:
I actually just saw a thing in LinkedIn where female eBay employees were doing the Women in Tech with the younger, you know, kind of teaching them and bringing them up in the tech world. So it’s not just about eBay employees sitting there saying, “how can I change an item specific?” It’s it is tech based, like you said.
Griff:
It is. Yeah. And it’s strategic. It’s not just, you know, little programs that I think I can work on. You know, our Seller Marketing team is, you know, it’s a mixed group obviously, but it’s been driven primarily, in many ways by women over the last several years with great effect. I mean, when I read about other places in the Valley that supposedly have these toxic workplaces, it just makes, it makes me more happy that I actually ended up at a company where it’s, it’s just not the case. It really is filled with great human beings who look out for each other., You know the recent buzzwords about diversity and inclusion they’re important. But in my 25 years at eBay, they were always just the assumed part of the DNA. And that was put into practice from the very beginning. I think that’s because of Pierre actually, you know, his belief system really permeated the early eBay and continues today.
Liz:
So Griff you’ve been working with sellers for over 20 years. What is your best customer service advice that you could give sellers for their buyers?
Griff:
Well, it’s going to sound cliche cause it’s, it’s really not something I invented or came up with, but I think it pays in every human interaction, especially where something is going wrong is to put yourself in the other person’s shoes, empathy, you have to have that. And it’s also the same way when you’re a seller. And there’s so many aspects of being a seller who sells online as opposed to face to face, which can lead you to believe that you get suspicious about your buyer’s intentions. We see this with sellers all the time, again, natural reaction, it’s kind of a, you know, a risk protection, self-preservation, but you have to, you have to avoid that in business. You have to act actively work against that. Can it happen? Can a buyer take advantage of you? Of course it can happen in any business but to build a whole customer support or service practice around the possibility that someone might rip you off results in a business customer service practice is not going to serve you well at all. It’s not going to serve your customers. And it’s important not to have that mindset. You need to get out of it now for some people who try to sell, you know, they try out selling on eBay. It may not work for them. They may not be able to overcome that fear of the risk that they feel they’re taking on. And that’s okay, that’s fine. And not everyone is gonna be a concert pianist. Not everyone is going to be a doctor and not everyone is going to feel comfortable being an entrepreneur selling that, you tried. It says more about you than anything. It shows that at least you were open to the experience, but there are, but that’s possibly, I think the worst thing a seller can do is allow themselves to get into that mindset. And you hear it today. Still you’ll be reading chats or you read social media posts where people talking and they’ll use phrases like scam buyers and buyers out to rip me off. And, and I think, “boy, I don’t think you should be in business if that’s how you think, that’s going to color how you’re going to deal with customers who might have an actual concern.” You’re going to immediately go to that place where “they’re trying to take advantage of me” and that’s just not going to work in business.
Doug:
Griff. Do you have a few minutes to stay around for our lightning round?
Griff:
No. My agent said nothing about a lightning round. What’s this?
Doug:
So if you need to make up points, Griff this is where you can do it. Fast questions, quick answers. A few questions to make up some of those points. Are you ready?
Liz:
Okay. Griff, first up. What was the first item you sold online?
Griff:
Oh, it was a computer chip.
Doug:
What was your most memorable sale?
Griff:
You caught me, in the lightening round. Um, most memorable sale pass. I can’t remember. Sorry. I tried.
Liz:
What was the highest priced item you have ever sold?
Griff:
An Oriental rug for several thousand dollars. That worked out. That was a while ago. By the way, the market’s changed since then.
Speaker 3:
The crowd likes that one Griff.
Griff:
I made good profit, thank you.
Liz:
What do you know now that you wish you knew when you started selling online?
Griff:
How To take my own advice. I was so good at giving it out, but I wasn’t always good at employing it. I mean, I can’t use the word. It begins with an A, but I do have a tendency to be one of those A people. And I wish I had taken my own advice when I was younger.
Doug:
So do you have anything to add before we go?
Griff:
Oh, do I have anything to add? If you’re going into business, regardless if it’s on eBay, if it’s at a store, if it’s at any platform, be open to every possibility, never say no right off to anything, always consider it. And if necessary, do the next step, test it. Whether that’s new inventory, new pricing, new, new platform. I know people sell on many platforms. Never say no, test it first. Don’t assume that something isn’t going to work for you. If your plan is to be successful and to grow a business to even if it’s just a certain level that can keep you comfortable and happy. The only way you’ll get there is if you’re open to the possibilities or the opportunities, or even the challenges that are going to be presented to you. True entrepreneurs face these and rise above them and never say no, never say no to anything.
Doug:
And well, thanks for joining us Griffin. And this always makes Griff uncomfortable. He’s a true legend at eBay. And I remember before I knew him, people would say, “oh, that’s Griff. You know, Griff.” He loves this one “Griff is richer than God, because he’s been here forever.”
Griff:
You know what I used to say to that? Right? Cause it was always two things. What were the two things that people said about me behind my back, one is that I’m richer than God. And the other one was another one. I can’t remember. And I would say, “yeah, one of those things is true.” I can’t…wait…Doug, you were the one who told me this and you must remember they were.
Doug:
There was another one. I remember “richer than God.” And then that you, maybe…
Griff:
I, something I’ve got the, I make things happen or something at eBay. Yeah. One of those things is true.
Doug:
Oh no, actually, no. You’re right. Because I was, when I got on the team it was like, “oh, you know, Griff. Now you’re connected. You can get anything you want. You’re going to go places.”
Griff:
Is that what? Yeah. Right? Yeah. Right. None of those things are true in that place.
Liz:
And look at you now, you got a podcast with me. I’m sorry.
Griff:
Well, I’m going to let you two fight that out. What’s been great about your podcast, it’s very conversational, which is what podcasts should be. And after you’ve edited and tightened it up and gotten rid of all the crap that I’ve said, it should be a pretty good episode, I think.
Doug:
Yeah, I think so too…
Liz:
Oh, it’s going to be a great episode. So it’s funny. I almost like when you’re talking, I almost drifted off because I listened to the podcast…listen! You cut me off!
Griff:
When I listen to you, I fall asleep. It’s great.
Liz:
I said, I drifted off because when I listened to you, I normally am in my reseller space. So I listen to you on these AirPods every week. And so I started just to put on my reseller hat and forgot that I was like interviewing you. And like, just taking your advice. And I’m like, okay. Yeah. Yeah. What are they going to ask next? I’m supposed to ask that because I’m just so used to having you in my head. I’m like, this is real, like he’s on my screen. I get to interview Griff.
Griff:
And she doesn’t charge me rent for that headspace…
Griff:
You are so like, your voice is just so flowing. So it just becomes like this memory in your brain and I’m like, yeah…
Griff:
It’s how you get people to do thing you adopt, you know, a sing song voice. You can get people to wash your windows and mow your lawn.
Liz:
Griff, thank you so much for joining us today.
Griff:
My pleasure.
Doug:
Yes. Thanks Griff.
Griff:
Thank you. Continued success with your podcast. Thank you.
Seller Shoutouts and News
Doug:
All right, Liz. I know you’re super excited about the seller shout outs this week. So why don’t you just take it away?
Liz:
So, I follow these two on Instagram. Jack Valentine @flippedthrift, and Ryan @ryansthriftfinds. Jack kind of started using the phrase, “the full cart club.” So, when he would go thrifting and be able to fill his cart, it was the “full cart club.” That caught on in the community, on Instagram with his followers on YouTube and both Jack and Ryan just started to use it more and more. They just recently came out with their own line of merchandise for “full cart club.”
Doug:
Nice.
Liz:
So they’ve got some really cool t-shirts hoodies, towels, stickers, pouches face masks, and more @fullcartclub.com. So, one of the tags is “Get in loser, we’re going shipping” with some boxes stacked, a full cart club with their full cart and “thrift it, list it and get it out of my house.” So these are all things that sellers can relate to. So, sellers making merchandise for sellers, keeping it in the community. I love it. You can find it again at fullcartclub.com and on Instagram @fullcartclub. Be sure to also watch their YouTube channel. They’re both on the YouTube channel, Jack Valentine. Oh, I may have already made a purchase.
Doug:
I’m sure. What’d you get? You’re going to surprise?
Liz:
Some stickers. I will surprise you. No, I just got some stickers.
Doug:
Where are you going to put them,?
Liz:
On the back of my laptop! Where else do you put stickers, Doug?
Doug:
I’ve got, what do I have on mine? You know, what’s a bummer is that when I left eBay, maybe here they go. People are going to be like, oh God. I had a bunch of seller stickers on my laptop that I had to return. And it’s like, you can’t, I couldn’t get them off. But it was a bummer. I think I had Colorado stickers as well.
Liz:
Yeah! Colorado stickers. So if anybody needs a sticker to send Doug, because he lost them all, maybe I’ll get you a Full Cart Club.
Doug:
There you go. Yeah. If you want to send me stickers, put them on something.
Liz:
So yeah, go check out Full Cart Club, check out Jack and Ryan.
Doug:
(singing) A little diddy about Jack and Ryan… Selling stickers as much as they can! And I love all like particularly this week, the fun shout outs from other sellers that are like, oh, Doug, happy, glad you got Kevin back. And then mentioning the geese, and then, you know, getting to know us a little bit and we’re getting to know them more as well.
Liz:
This is what this podcast is about, is just bringing this community together. And the longer that I am doing this podcast, the more I’m realizing really how big this community is. And I love learning about all the different corners and all the different sellers and all the different things that sellers are doing.
Doug:
And Liz, you told me that I have a new homegirl, my homegirl, Irina so special homegirl shout out to Irena. Thanks for listening, thanks for the comments, and thanks for your support. She’s, she’s a big supporter!
Liz:
Big supporter of the podcast, active on Facebook, always learning, but yeah, she’s a great part of our community. Thank you, Irina. So, Doug, this past week users have noticed that List Perfectly has come out with their 12th platform.
Doug:
Very exciting. And this was one repeatedly requested by sellers.
Liz:
Seller’s requested it, List Perfectly said, “okay, here you go. Here’s Heroine.” Heroine is the sister site to Grailed. So Grailed is men’s luxury and streetwear. Heroine is women’s luxury and streetwear. That’s kind of their focus, it’s been highly anticipated. List Perfectly users, you may see the Heroine button when you look at the different menus in List Perfectly, be patient, it’s not quite released yet. Be sure to stay tuned to Instagram and the Facebook group for announcements on the official release.
Doug:
Welcome Heroine to the List Perfectly family. Then Liz, this is super cool and we’re so excited to be able to announce the winner of the List Perfectly laptop and Ring light giveaway.
Liz:
Yes, yes. Please do the honors.
Doug:
Let me get the envelope, Liz. All right, Liz. So the winner of the laptop and Ring light giveaway from List Perfectly is, Tiana of @swagslayerfashion. Yay! We are thrilled for you Tiana, and she’s a huge part of the seller community and on Instagram, right Liz?
Liz:
Yes, she is. I follow her and watch all of her posts every day.
Doug:
Follow her on Instagram @swagslayerfashion, and subscribe to her YouTube channel @swagslayerfashion. Guess what Liz? There’s more.
Liz:
There is. And it just so happens that Tiana recently did a video with fellow reseller, Rhonda from @thepinkdivasstudio, who I also follow on Instagram. So, just a couple of weeks ago, they did a whole video on Heroine, on the website, walking you through every step and every nuance of Heroine. So, make sure that you go check out that video. All right, cool.
Doug:
And I’m sure I’m following them. If I’m not, I will follow them.
Outro
Liz:
Thanks for joining us on episode 16 of the seller community podcast from List Perfectly. This week, we talked to Griff, we had a seller shout out and we had the news.
Doug:
You can find us at thesellercommunitypodcast.com/podcast. You can leave a message or ask a question for us at anchor.fm/sellercommunitypodcast. You can email us at podcast@thesellercommunitypodcast.com. You can also post a question in the List Perfectly Facebook group use the hashtag #sellercommunitypodcast and mention Liz or Doug, and always remember that List Perfectly Facebook group is not just for List Perfectly users, it’s for all online sellers. And there’s a ton of conversation on there weekly, daily across the board. You’d be surprised the volume that we get with just questions about selling on other platforms. There are a ton of experienced sellers on there like Liz, who can help and answer your questions.
Liz:
You can listen to us anywhere you listen to podcasts and be sure to subscribe and tell your friends. You can follow us on Instagram. I am @coloradoreworn, Doug is @snoop.dougie and of course follow @listperfectly.
Doug:
All right, Liz, that wraps it up.
Liz:
What a fun episode!
Doug:
So everybody, all our homegirls homeboys home-geese
Liz and Doug:
See you next week!
Liz:
Oh, you were late on that one Doug.
Doug:
A little bit, but it’s like we’re harmonizing.
Liz:
We’re trying.
Doug:
That’s what I was going for. The harmonizing, the lower part.
Liz:
Who me?
Doug:
I’ll take the lower part.
Liz:
Okay.
Doug:
All right.