This week, Clara and Doug recap Flip Con, the first and biggest West Coast seller event of the year, and discuss the importance and need for seller events, and their place in the seller community.
List Perfectly is the ecommerce resource for selling across multiple e-commerce platforms including eBay, Poshmark, Etsy, Mercari, Kidizen, Grailed, Depop, Tradesy, Facebook Marketplace, Instagram, and Shopify.
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Transcript
Doug:
All right. So every once in a while we do these special episodes where I turn the tables on Clara, or she turns the tables on me. A couple of weeks ago, we went to a fabulous reseller event, the biggest event on the East Coast. We were there, Clara and I were there. The List Perfectly team was there, it was a great event, but we wanted to take some time just to recap this event. Lits Perfectly sponsored it and I wanted to get Clara’s perspective on how she thought the conference went. So welcome to the show, Clara, you’ve been here before.
Clara:
Thank you, Doug. Thank you so much. I am the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of List Perfectly, but most important. I’ve been a reseller just like yourself and most important is that I built List Perfectly with my own reseller income and no investors and still no investors. So for me to attend a Flip Con event, it’s just, that I’m already excited Doug to talk about it. This is just, it was especially because it was so recent and we were all together. What an event, right?
Doug:
Yeah. It was a great event. You know, great to be there, to see so many of the seller friends that we know, meet some new sellers and, you know, hang out and network and learn some too, make some connections. But now, what did you think of it overall high level?
Clara:
Overall? I thought it exceeded my expectations. I was, you know, every time that you have, you know we’re talking about supporting our community, these are resellers. They don’t do live events for a living. These are not people that went to university to do public relations or any kind of event organizing or anything. This is people that out of their dedication to their community, they’re like, okay, nobody else is doing it. I gotta do it. It’s like, it feels like myself. You know, when I was like, okay, nobody else had the software. Okay. I gotta build it. So I have some high empathy especially for you please, these people that are like, you know, visioners and they take the risk. I was so proud to take that risk together and go on this journey and go through this event. As I said, it exceeded my expectations for being in a first-time event. I cannot even wait to answer more questions, but know we’re gonna get into detail, right?
Doug:
Yeah, definitely, definitely. And so what, what would you say really, really stood out to you?
Clara:
The energy of the community and that energy was propelled by, you know, having a location that was strategic. I think that the organizers, and the sponsor communication and, having thorough communication and worrying about our community. That was what made this event so successful when we were all winging it literally. We’re all pretending to know what we’re doing, but no, we’re all winging it. You know, I’m not also a pro-sponsoring events. Okay. This is the first company I’m a CEO of. I’ve never been a CEO of a software company. So when resellers come and ask you, Hey, Clara would you like and come and sponsor my event? You know, you have a big responsibility that I took to, to the core, to my heart. I had to deliver.
Doug:
So List Perfectly is doing a lot of events this fall. How important is that to you?
Clara:
Crucial because the few events, we could be doing more events, but the events that we chose with List Perfectly to be present, be active, and be sponsors, because it’s not about just sponsoring, it’s about doing many things more that I will elaborate on later, but, you know, it’s crucial for the identity of List Perfectly to grow my company in the right direction, to understand my community, to communicate with them at a deeper level. That’s what is important to me from day one. The community has been the leader of List Perfectly and has been the guide that has successfully gotten us through so many difficulties that building a new enterprise or business brings on.
Doug:
You referenced some other events. So what other events is List Perfectly attending and which ones are we sponsoring besides Flip Con?
Clara:
Oh, the number one of course is not the most immediate, but I wanna bring the one close to my heart. This event is very close because it’s going to be organized by dear friends and more than friends. One of them is the first user of List Perfectly and without much further ado, let’s talk about Theresa Cox. She is a member of the BOSS group on Facebook. She founded that group and then she built up that group and included incredible people like Vikki, Victoria, Eagan, you know, also Katie and so many other admins in that group. So she built that group and building that group, they were the first ones to somehow be taking the risk along with List Perfectly to do an event after the pandemic lockdown was let up and we could take an airplane without seriously, you know, considering results without knowing, you know, what the medication the medical solutions were. And I think that those are the things that make List Perfectly so entwined or so related with the community because we are constantly feeling not only their successes, but the challenges, that’s how we want to stay in contact and build our own community and build our company around it.
Doug:
And you just mentioned community. And so I’ve done a lot of seller events over the years and you have too, but what’s always interesting to me is every event I do, I always meet sellers that say, this is their first event. So what would you say to someone who’s never been to a seller event? Why should they go?
Clara:
That’s a great question because I am gonna be blatantly honest here, Doug. I was guided by my co-founder of List Perfectly Amanda, who’s a technical partner of List Perfectly. I had such a strong coach that in that time from 2008, when up to the time that List Perfectly went viral 2019 that was my journey. Okay. It was a time when so many things happened in eCommerce, right? Remember? We went from no community from you shouldn’t be asking, not even about shipping from slowly social media started, started to get in. So, you know, we are having, you know, channels like Pinterest, the first ones to take a chance, you know, on eCommerce and InstagramFacebook pages you know, we’re having new marketplaces on top of eBay. Until then, you know, eBay was the number one marketplace undisputed that nobody else would take. So That was very crucial to determine, you know, the direction of what sponsored events would be reselling and what community means to List Perfectly in what events we wanna be sponsoring.
Doug:
And so what does community mean to you and List Perfectly?
Clara:
Community means family in the community that I had that took me, that made my dreams happen. All I had to do is to be a reseller that was picking up good habits. And then I got those good habits by relating with the community back in the day wasn’t so virtual when I started in 2008. Okay. But there were still some resources and they were minimum. We have little digital editions, like eCommercebytes, you know, and something like that, you know, but nowadays we have so many resources. So community means to me the way that I can find myself still in touch and rooted to who I was okay before becoming successful with List Perfectly because I will never forget that I was a reseller that was up to $200,000 in debt. I will never forget okay counting pennies to go and pay the credit cards because I took them as high as I could, you know, without maxing them out. So those were times that once you’ve been a reseller and you’re literally, you’re paying mortgages and your car payments and your day livings, you know, with the reselling income, that changes you forever, that gives you a, a view of life that is setting you for success, if you wanted. Okay. For any other industry, that’s my experience, and that’s why community is so important because there would be no List Perfectly. They would be no Doug and Clara and no Seller Community Podcast. There would be no The Clothing Vault because I used the community again to grow, grow my reselling business, www.theclothingvault.com, which I still have the website there, just to show that I did it, you know. And for me to give one answer, sorry that I extended, you know, but to me to give one answer about what community means to me, Doug is just so hard.
Doug:
Yeah. Yeah. So the seller community is online and offline. So Flip Con was an offline event, in person. So what was the first in-person seller event you ever attended?
Clara:
eBay Open.
Doug:
All right. Yeah. That’s a good one.
Clara:
eBay Open, yes. My first reseller event was eBay Open 2019, which I couldn’t even attend because I didn’t have enough money to attend. So I stayed at the door. That’s a reseller event. Okay. You didn’t say sourcing, right? Because, so I did many sourcing events, but when it comes to reseller events where you just sit down and you have people teaching you how to sell online and how to optimize and how to ship faster and should I do promoted listings? Should I do social media? No, never. So we just winged, I just winged it by myself. And eBay Open 2019, which I couldn’t attend because at that time I was at $200,000 in credit card debt because I was building List Perfectly with my own money. We decided to go with our money because we wanna build it our own way with our own technology. And that was life-changing because I would’ve never guessed Doug that staying in the door and away from the door because you don’t, I, you know, I’m a former lawyer.
Clara:
So I knew that I had to stay a certain amount of feet away from the door. So I even have the security of the hotel and the police just come by and I could go back and then come like I had to do what I had to do. It was, yeah. You know, and not that you don’t have the money, but at that time, every penny I had was used to build List Perfectly. And that was so powerful for me, that I remember when there was even a moment that the police came and told me, what are you doing here? And I’m like, I turned around. I’m like, I’m a reseller. And you can see my logo because I am The Clothing Vault. Right. I’m a top-rated seller at that time, top-rated top, top, top. Okay. And the security still doesn’t pull me. And they’re like, do you know anybody at eBay? And I say, Theresa Cox and they’re like, oh, okay. And then they walk away. I’ll never forget that. It was just a life-changing moment. I’ll never forget the pain that I have in my shoulder because I was passing so many flyers and it was just so rewarding. And there, there was a moment that we were on the way to, there was a hallway on the way to eBay Open and, you know, people started to realize what List Perfectly was, and sellers were starting to talk. Right. We’re starting to have peak influencers. Hey, can we interview you? So here it is, you know, Raiken Profits, incredible Casey rockstarflipper, Casey Parris, you know, and like, Wade Coggins. I’m like, no, I didn’t even, I had no idea at that time. I was so camera shy. So can I answer many questions in one? Okay. Community is everything to me, like I said, there would not be LP Seller Community Podcast or anything if it wasn’t because of those incredible things that we did for our community and, our resellers and, our members.
Doug:
Yeah. No, I definitely agree. And so now though, it’s come full circle, you’re sponsoring other reseller events. So I know you well, you’re very passionate. You’re very, you’re very into feelings, how things feel and how they resonate. So you’re sponsoring Flip Con. What did that feel like for you?
Clara:
It felt so rewarding. It felt like, wow, we took the chance. We did it because remember I have no investors, Doug, this is my money earned. Every penny that I put on that Flip Con comes from the members that pay the membership on List Perfectly. So I have to be such a savvy investor to make sure that every penny counts. That’s how it is for me. I don’t get $10 million, you know, $25 million from investors. I’m not even looking for investors. I have to, with my own money, determine which investment is gonna render the best return of my investment for every penny. And starting with you, you know, you are a team member. I gotta make sure, you know, I cannot let down my team. So the responsibility that you have for your community, for your team, for yourself, for your partners, tremendous for the feeling that I got, that they were so transparent, we do it together. We did it, you know, you know, with communicating just, we’re all winging it. And just to make it happen was so rewarding. Doug, it’s easy to say, oh, Clara. Well, it is to say, because you’ve, you know, you taken some kind of risks by yourself and you reaped the investment. But at the same time, the more returns you get, the more you gotta invest to find that that investment was not only okay. Yeah. Yeah. You get the profits, you know, you get the signups, and so forth. But the connection that I got with the community, I didn’t even know that some of my members have the same condition that I have of deformative arthritis. And here we are at the event, hugging each other. And I tell them, you’re not alone. You’re not alone. And this person is crying, you know, with me. And I’m like, oh, thank you. You know? And like, I don’t think they understand how rewarding that is for me.
Doug:
So these events, they’re about networking. They’re about learning, but also we have some fun there. What was the most fun you had at Flip Con?
Clara:
For me, you know, I’m, I’m so excited and I’m so energetic all the time, but the main part that I had the most fun with was the happy hour because of the networking. Networking and talking to anybody and relating. And, and for me, I have to be honest, the day that we arrived, that was the day before, that was a smaller group. Okay. I got a chance to get to know people even better and that was really nice. That was really, really, it meant a lot that I arrived one day earlier. And we got this pre if you please, pre-happy hour. And then of course, the day of the happy hour that, that, that Friday was that was incredible.
Doug:
But on the other hand, especially for organizers and sponsors, it’s a lot of work. So what was the biggest challenge that you had at Flip Con?
Clara:
The biggest challenge for me, to be honest, is that I’m seeing the organizers okay going above and beyond. You can, you can see them. I, as a CEO, know when entrepreneurs are playing poker face. Okay. And you can see them having their incredible professional okay demeanor, but you know, you can see that little bit of sweat coming from the side. Okay. On, on their head. Okay. And, you know, they’re worried about, do we have, you know, the drinks did the caterer arrive did the tickets were, you know, I know in their heads, they’re going through so much and I could see that. And that was a beautiful thing. I could see that so much. I have such a relationship with Josh because we got to know each other last year in person. And it was so meaningful when we met each other, you know, that was a reason we partnered with each other because we have the same values. We know that working with each other will allow us to have a relationship where we can grow and understand that sometimes there will be challenges and successes we are ready to celebrate. And that was a beautiful thing over there to see the organizers really working above and beyond to deliver an event that was done, just heavily packed one day. But it’s so much going on to make it happen. On that one day, it was an honor to be part of the team and to watch them, you know, and understand their responsibilities and how much the audience wanted to hear from them. And at the same time, they have so many other contractors depending on them. And they have a phone on one hand and they’re hugging someone in the other one. So that was incredible.
Doug:
And one of the things that you did is you had the opportunity to get up on stage and tell your story. So how did it feel to speak in front of 300 excited and motivated resellers?
Clara:
Honestly, I have stage fright. To those of you that you don’t know, I freeze. Okay. One time I had to pitch my company to investors and I froze for three minutes and nothing came out. Okay. I could remember every language except English. I don’t know what happened, Doug. And you were by my side, you know, we did a conversational presentation. You were asking me questions and I was so excited to answer them. Didn’t feel like anything. I was surprised. I’m like, are you kidding me? I’m not having, I’m not freezing. Am I speaking in, at one point I was, was looking at you and I’m like, are you gonna tell me Clara speak? And I was waiting for you to tell me, Clara, you froze, speak…nothing like that happened. I’m like, am I speaking? Because when you get that stage right in your head, you’re reciting what you rehearse. But nothing is, at least for me, nothing comes out. And I was so surprised. I was such a the energy. And when we sat down, the audience was so excited and then I shared mainly my reseller journey because that was my point. I wanted to converge with the audience, you know? Fine. I did List Perfectly. I did many things, many other businesses, but what about my reselling journey, which is the one that funded List Perfectly? And that’s why we decided on you, thank you, Doug, for helping me to present List Perfectly, and helping me to feel more comfortable on a stage when you are in front of 300 people. That’s not easy, people. Let me tell you. And when you have 300 people in silence in a big humongous room. It gets you, it really gets you.
Clara:
So for me, I think that being so close and comfortable with you the fact that we were not sticking to a script, the fact that we’re ourselves, the fact that we didn’t go and do a sales presentation, which is what I did not want about list Perfectly you know, I can later hire a sales team. You know, I love sales, you know, I’ve done sales myself. I’m not against sales, but I wanted to connect with my reselling community, you know, I wanted to connect at a deeper level. And You helped me to do that in such an effective way that I walked off that stage. And I remember there was a moment when I walked off the stage and I was like, let’s let, let’s see what this audience does if I lift my arms. And I remember when I lift my arms, so the crowd goes Ahhhh again. And I’m almost out of the door and I just wanted to see, and that’s when I did the TikTok and I said, that’s not special effects. That’s real. And you know, so that was for me, life-changing to see that you could have such a touch okay. With people in such a life-changing event. If you know those of you that attended Flip Con, and you’re listening to this audience, if you feel that Flip Con changed your life, just know that Flip Con changed mine because you, the community, changed mine. And that’s what you do for our reselling community. And that’s what makes eCommerce so beautiful. And you are a political scientist, I’m a lawyer. We both don’t wanna do our degrees. And here we’re in eCommerce. I’m like, no, we’re not doing that.
Doug:
Why’d we go to school?
Clara:
<Laugh> yeah. Just to learn, you know, the scientific part. They’re like, okay, done. <Laugh>
Doug:
Thank you for letting me be a part of that. Thank you for asking me to be on stage with you. I was nervous too. And I knew that you were nervous, but you, I don’t know if you remember, you exploded, you ran into the room and you waved and people were clapping and you went up there and we sat down as you said, it was connecting with the audience. And that was super important, but you did a great job again. No, thank you for letting me be a part of it. I was proud to be up there with you.
Clara:
You wanted to! I can only give the opportunity and that you wanna be there, you know, but now the confidence came from being teamed up. Like I always say, you know, there is no I in team, you know, how we operate in List Perfectly Doug. And that was an incredible event. Exceeded my expectations. I wanna give a special thanks to Theresa Cox. I wanna give a special thanks to Trish Glenn for making the List Perfectly responsibilities with Flip Con a success and delivering what the organizers wanted. Can’t wait for more of that, right?
Doug:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Looking forward to what’s coming next. You did mention this earlier, so I wanted to circle back around to talk about the strategic location and the venue, and the hotel. So talk about that a little bit, what you thought of it and how important something like that is to an event like Flip Con.
Clara:
Well, I thought that the location was incredible because for me, coming from Phoenix, Arizona, was a four hours flight to North Carolina. So I have, you know, back problems. So for me was the fact that the location of the hotel was so convenient, like, what is it 15 minutes? And that was because I took an Uber. Okay. But you know, there were shuttles, there were so many options for you to arrive conveniently and on a very convenient budget as well. One thing that I thought about the hotel location, to be honest, was like, whoa, the location yes. It’s by an airport. But the team at that hotel went above and beyond and waited to tell you what, okay. So I didn’t, you know, Josh and, and Caleb are going, you know, at thousand miles an hour, okay to try to accommodate everybody’s needs, you know, and requests for the event in the, we realized we don’t have a table to present, okay the List Perfectly merchandise. We don’t have a table. So of course there goes Trish. She made friends already with the manager of the hotel. We got a table in five minutes. We are set up then Josh comes and says, sorry, we didn’t take care of this. I’m like, Josh, we got it. Don’t worry. Okay. We, we got it. We’re fine. Okay. We’ve done this before. Okay. Not many times, but we’ve done it before. Okay. You know, we’re fast learners. Okay. So, and that was just, I have to say that was incredible, I wanna say, special, thanks to the team and to the hotel that we stayed at. That was an incredible, great choice because not only did I have great food, I had incredible service.
Clara:
I have a great location. I had accommodations. Okay. And perks that I didn’t ask last minute, delivered in five minutes. I’m gonna be honest. The room service was not great, Doug. I ordered breakfast and it came cold. But they removed it. I just said it because I love the girls, you know, I said it, you know, Hey, by the way, you know, because I didn’t want the chef to, to get fired and the people on the serving part. Okay. They speak Portuguese. And the other one is from Puerto Rico. So immediately I speak both, like, obviously I speak Spanish and Portuguese, so we start talking and just because they asked me, I say, well, I love everything. It’s beautiful, the food here, but I will never order, you know, breakfast in the room because it was just substandard, you know, but I don’t wanna say anything because I don’t want anybody to get fired. And then they’re like, no, please let us know because then other people could get, you know, a complaint. And then in that way we give positive feedback. So it was nice to not even be reprimanded in Portuguese or Spanish when nobody else understood what we were speaking. Sure. And that told me that they had such beautiful standards, beautiful ethics, and the way everything was addressed, even when we were being loud, remember in the lobby of the hotel. <Laugh> and they asked us to, can you please? Okay. I think because yeah, we wear a happy hour. We took it to the lobby. So it should have been done in the restaurant, which is right next to it, but we should have not hogged the lobby and the restaurant. So it was nice that they were even so kind and polite. And one time that they, I think they, with their, with their breakfast, that it was a ton of us, 300 people.
Clara:
So yeah. Remember, they misdirected me where to go because the main lobby was now where they put the tables. Now the lobby is to eat breakfast and we’re not supposed to be there the day before. And one employee indicated to me to go to the lobby sitting area for breakfast. And then another one tells me, no, you shouldn’t be there. And I was like, oh, okay, sorry. And then the manager comes like, I’m so sorry. So that was really nice. Yeah. That they, there was like a very, from me coming from the management perspective, I have to say exceeded my expectations. That’s what you expect to see when you have people doing this professionally and that they deliver, to be honest in the location and hotel. Wow. Thumbs up. Do it again. Do it again.
Doug:
Yeah, definitely. No, very nice people. Very nice staff, very accommodating talking about networking again. And we kind of talked about this a minute ago and I’ve always said this. I learned this early on at events and it’s, especially seller events. One of the best places to network is at happy hours. And somebody has a glass of wine. They relax a little bit, but it’s very, it’s much less formal than when you’re in the presentation hall or things like that. So happy hours are a great place to network. So how was networking for you at FlipCon during the happy hours?
Clara:
You gotta understand, you know, you have CEOs that you’re being, they’re being strategic and they have a list of the people and they already have an assistant, you know, telling you which people you should be talking to, which people you shouldn’t, you know, I had none of those. Okay. So I’m just spontaneous. So I had such a great time because I didn’t even know that the cha.ching.king was already using List Perfectly. And I was like, Hey, so, you know, because you know, I know he’s friends with Courtney Hayes, and the last time, it’s been a while since I talked with Courtney. Right. You know, a little while. Right. And then I say, Hey, so, you know, it was a surprise to me to see how amicable, how I felt and then to have people come and tell me glad I was talking to you. I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were the CEO of List Perfectly. I’m like, what am I gonna say? Oh, hi, I’m the CEO to everybody. Oh, you’re talking to a CEO. I’m, I’m gonna put the CEO badge…remember that we have, I’m not gonna do that. You know, you know, I’m, I’m a reseller. And I think that’s the main thing that I want the community to take from me. I am every reseller I’ve, you know, I happen to be a CEO of a software company because the software was designed for me and you know, and I’ve been the tester and I, now I built a team and so forth and a community and many other things that I never thought they would take off. And they did, to be honest. Yeah. I thought I would be crying for 300. I thought that it would take me three years to get a thousand users.
Clara:
Yeah. It took me 1,500 users in just 24 hours. That was it. You know? So that was mind-blowing for me. So, you know, for me, these events and everything that we’re doing with the community and for anybody that needs, or maybe if you don’t have a business partner as I did myself, or maybe if you don’t have social media, these are the events you should be attending because, or you are gonna do social media or you get a business partner that believes in you with a supporting family and supporting life partner, or okay. You start attending these events because it’s way too hard to do it alone if you please.
Doug:
So Josh has already said that they’re gonna do Flip Con again next year. So let’s say there’s a seller that you bump into that was thinking about attending this year and is thinking of attending next year. What would you say to push them over the edge?
Clara:
Imagine if you thought about this year. Okay. Yes. You know, sure. You know, there was incredible feedback for things to be done better, and sure. But you gotta understand List Perfectly was the only sponsor and, you know, this was their first event. So imagine what we’re gonna do next year. Save now the time, and plan accordingly, Josh, Caleb, ourselves, you know, and anybody and the whole community. Okay. So excited to support Flip Con and, it’s been an incredible success when we’re just trying to figure it out. Imagine now that we’ve got the system, imagine, so imagine what next year is gonna bring. Okay. So they heard loud and they heard loud and clear feedback. JoshHairy Tornado, go to his YouTube channel. Hairy Tornado just made a video about it. Feedback about the event and that he’s saying it as it is. Okay. That’s something I highly recommend to you Hairy Tornado, like hair. Okay. Hairy Tornado. That’s the YouTube channel for Josh Varnell and one of the co-founders of Flip Con.
Doug:
And we’ll put the link in the show notes, so you can go there and see it. But Clara, anything to add before we go?
Clara:
Thank you, Josh. And thank you. Each one of you helped us make this event such a success because, you know, we need it. And, you know, we love seeing each other network and learning, and that learning is fun, and what better way than doing, to like attending this event? Thank you so much. It means so much to Flip Con, to List Perfectly, and to our community. Let’s do it again.
Doug:
All right. Yeah, no, it was great. And thank you, Clara, for coming on and talking to us about Flip Con, your perspective, and your experience. I had a great time too. I thought it was a great event. And then next up, we’ve got eBay Open, then we’ve got PoshFest and then we’ve got BOSS Reseller Remix, and then…
Clara:
Wait, there is more, there’s more!
Doug:
Wait, there’s more!
Clara:
Thank you, Dougie.
Doug:
All right. And yeah. So hopefully we’ll see you next year at the next Flip Con or at one of the upcoming events. We’re gonna be at all of them.
Clara:
Yes, let’s do it. Thank you, Doug.
Doug:
All right. Thank you, Clara.