Shownotes
Can you get or keep your dream job and make it align with your business? Does that make sense for everyone? Eric will tell you that sometimes the best road traveled is one you never dreamed of. In his case he gets them both. A dream job helping others and a great aligned business. Traditional no by standard career advice. But sustainable by design, yes!
Mentioned:
Sponsors
Viral Launch – Save $50 with this link (Use coupon code: Momentum)
SPECIAL OFFER FOR MY LISTENERS ONLY
Gaye’s Million Dollar Arbitrage List
Tactical Arbitrage – Get an 10 day free trial with code: “Tactical”
Freeeup– Save 10% (forever) and get an instant $25.00 voucher for your first hire.
Amazon Accounting Podcast: Before we get into the chart of accounts we want to mention our course: AMZACCOUNTING SIMPLIFIED
WE CAN HELP YOU CREATE YOUR CUSTOM ACCOUNTING SYSTEM WITH QUICKBOOKS ONLINE AND MASTER YOUR AMAZON FINANCIALS
You’re overwhelmed with accounting software options and are afraid you’ll pick one that might limit you down the road.
You have no idea how to adjust your Amazon deposits for gross sales, refunds, and fees.
You’re confused about the difference between inventory and cost of goods sold not to mention how to track them.
You’ve invested so much time reading blog posts, downloading free accounting resources … now, you’re stuck on information overload AND still don’t know where to start! Then consider joining a program to help you build a foundation. One that can evolve with your business. One that can help you get control of your business once and for all.
Are you overwhelmed thinking about your business accounting? Do you not know where to start? That’s why we do this podcast. We want to help you the seller. Remember we are sellers too. After working with hundreds of clients we have we think the best simple chart of accounts you need to get your accounting system started. We have the answer…..
Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get your copy!
Here is transcript- It is automated so it is not perfect but it does seem to get better over time.
Eric: [00:00] It’s, it’s like the dopamine receptors are, are a lot less sensitive than they used to be, but it can be, I don’t know if you’ve heard about the jacket flip, but I found that during my last contract. Oh, so, so one of the weekends I was working, uh, it was in northern Arizona, southern Utah and I went to a yard sale and bought a vintage Levi’s jacket from um, from a yard sale. You know, it was a dollar 50 and I thought maybe it was worth like 500, maybe it was like $1,000, something like that. Yeah, it’s a biggie. It’s a biggie type big e type two blanket line jacket, beautiful condition. This was work wear. So you’re thinking that it would have been trashed? Most of them would have been trashed. I knew it was early because it was a Biggie, you know, pre 1973 or whatever it is and being in such good condition, I was like, this thing has to be worth like really good money. And I, once I got, I didn’t even have to signal there. This is how rural it was. Like there was no cell service. I couldn’t look it up till I got like two hours away and then I started looking it up and the value of a destroyed one on Ebay was asking $1,200 and I was like, okay, well
Cool voice guy: [01:08] welcome to the ecommerce momentum jazz. Well, we focus on the people, the products, and the process of ecommerce selling today. Uzi, your host, Stephen Peterson,
Stephen: [01:22] if you’re ready to set up a strong, reliable accounting system when it’s a real strong foundation for your business, we think we have the answer for you. If this is from accounting, we will go. You’re here listening to us on this podcast. We set up a course and it’s called Amazon accounting simplified. Yep. Simple. And we only say Amazon yet it’s really all across ecommerce. We’re talking about integrating quickbooks into your existing or new ecommerce business, and new is great because you could set it up right that way, but, but if you have an existing business, how do you integrate, how do you get quickbooks online specifically? How do you get set up in there? Well, we have modules. There’s over 48 modules that will walk you through each one of those steps. I’m going to talk about cost of goods and I didn’t even talk about it.
Stephen: [02:02] We’re going to dive in, parse it, peel it back and help you understand what it takes. How about chart of accounts, setting up the right accounts, ones that you can use to make decisions. We’ve had hundreds of clients and we come up what we see at have seen as the best practice and I think that’s going to be the best thing for you. Reconciling 10 99 from paypal and Amazon. Good luck. Challenging. Well, we’re going to, we have modules, unique modules for each of those because they are unique and so vendor management, accounting for Amazon loans. It goes on and on. I’m just skimming the top. There’s 48 plus modules and more will be added over time. It’s going to help you get up, get set up or get caught up with strong foundational accounting books. Um, we use it to help make decisions. We use it to help predict cash and cash.
Stephen: [02:49] Pinch points. What you’re going to have. If you’re buying inventory and you’re waiting to get paid for it, you’re going to run out of cash at some point. Wouldn’t it be great to know you? It’s not great that it happens, but it’s great to know when it’s gonna happen. So you can plan for, you can make different decisions based on real solid information, historical information that you keep building. Best part about quickbooks online is our CPA signs right in and does his tax voodoo right through the system. And so I don’t have to hump it over there and we can get a little better rate by doing that. So how do you find out more about it? And again, you should look into it. AMZ accounting, simplified.com forward slash, podcast I’ll say it again, amz accounting, simplified.com forward slash podcast check out all the different modules.
Stephen: [03:30] Checkout what you can do if you really want to get your house in order. If you’re really looking to get that building block established and in locked in place, and then you can build from there, then we recommend the courts. So you’re looking for an advantage to help you will a brand, while one of the tools that you can use his scope, you could check out their product and then check out their competitors and find the keywords that are competitors are using and check out theirs and see that they’re not. And then say, okay, I’ve got an idea. Let me do this. Let me enhance your brand. That’s the thing you can bring to the marketplace. When you can enhance the brand, you’re going to win that account. So try it. You get a free trial, but seller labs.com forward slash, scope use the code omentum and save 50 bucks.
Stephen: [04:12] It’s a free trial. Try it and see if you can enhance the brand. It’s time to get the listings right. So what should you do? You should get your images right, right. So amazing freedom has a program to help you do then, and we’ve used them. It’s phenomenal what they can do. You got to go look at this. So you go to amazing freedom.com, forward slash photos and take a look at the examples of what you can do with an image you take and you give them some sample images. Um, some simple images and then what they do is they take and um, insert them with the lifestyle photos. And so all of a sudden you’re going to see an example of what a plain image looks like and then what it can be enhanced to. Why is this of value to while you were in the wholesale business.
Stephen: [04:53] And guess what? You want to add value to the brand. And this is just a simple way to do it. They offer all those kinds of services. Scroll down to the bottom. If you really want somebody to help really improve this service and you want to bring value to that brand because you want it exclusivity, the services that they offer for listing enhancement will blow your mind. So again, it’s amazing. freedom.com forward slash photos take a look at what you can do for your brands that you’re trying to get. Welcome back to the ECOMMERCE momentum podcast. This is episode 384 Eric Spears, Aka college picker. Man. Oh Man, I, I’m so inspired. You know, I, I say that probably every episode because I get to talk to the most incredible people. But here’s a perfect example, um, that I’m going to use when somebody says, Steve, I want to leave my corporate job.
Stephen: [05:46] How can I leave my corporate job? It’s sucking my soul out. I’m going to say, okay, are you willing to make some trade offs? Yes. Okay, great. Then come and listen to this episode. I’m going direct them to this episode because here’s a kid kid to me. I have a son older than him so I can call him a kid who has figured how, what it takes to be debt free. I mean, we didn’t get to that part of the call, but he’s completely debt free by design. Now the guy has a Pharm d degree and he’s young. He should be paying payments for 30 years on that debt for college. Yet he isn’t because that was such a, a line in the sand for him and he put himself through college. So that is a line in this and an absolute for him, his absolutes and probably the most important absolute.
Stephen: [06:26] And we never got to it in the story, but I am now because it’s so important to him. But he has figured out a way to define his life and he is married so it’s not like he’s doing it alone, um, on his terms and yet still sell an ecommerce, still enjoy all the thrill of the hunt and do it at the level that he wants for his life right now. He can ramp it up if he needs to. He can pull it back if he needs to. It’s all done by design. So this is an episode for those of you who are looking to leave their corporate job or looking for another way. I just want you to keep an open mind and understand they’ll be some tradeoffs. This might be right for you. It might not be, but start thinking that these things are possible today.
Stephen: [07:09] They are. Let’s get into the podcast. Alright, welcome back to the ECOMMERCE men and podcast. I’m very excited about today’s guest because he’s kind of like one of the coolest jobs in addition to being an ecommerce seller. But he’s got like one of the coolest, most modern things that I’ve heard of. Never. I never heard of it until I read it. I’m like, whoa. Um, but what I love is the consistency, uh, knowing who you are, being aware of who you want to be and not pretending to be anybody else I just think is so rare today. And we’re very lucky to have Eric Spears, Aka the college picker on the show. Welcome, Eric. Well, thanks for having me a congratulations. You’re, we’ll set 400 podcasts. It’s a lot of work you’ve put in. I can tell on the website. Uh, I thank you very much.
Stephen: [07:55] I’ve been very fortunate. Um, you know, I’ve been very lucky and I’ve met some amazing, and it’s funny, I tell people this all the time. They’re like, well, how do you know so many people? I’m like, I put myself out there and I will help anybody. But I also, when I go to an event, I’m not the wallflower sitting in a corner. I’ll go and talk to anybody because they all got great stories. I’m not some expert. They are, and I learned something from every single person I meet, let alone that I talked to on my podcast. Yeah, that’s awesome that you can put it all together and an archive with just like all the good stories on your website and just have all these people that maybe wouldn’t have been able to have a platform to tell their stories on and get it out there.
Stephen: [08:30] So it’s very professional. I really like what you’ve been doing. Well, I appreciate that. It’s not as nice as your doctorate, but it is an MBA in ecommerce. I would say. Well, I hope to add value to your all your listeners. I know a lot of them are Amazon sellers, not kind of what I do, the one off flips, but I still hope to add some sort of new angle. ADDS some value to their lives or maybe something, you know? All right, I’m going to blow your mind. I have them pulling it up. I never lie. 5,176 active listings on Ebay on this account. I have more than one account. Okay. 5,176 top that my friend active Sku’s on Ebay. So I am a flipper myself. I uh, in addition to Amazon. So you will add value because you’re going to teach me some things, you know when I think about what you’ve done, you started in college period. Correct? I mean this was hence the name to college picker. Right? You were in college when you got into this world. Absolutely. Yeah. So why though? I mean, what was it? What was it that you were trying to do? I mean, were you an entrepreneur because you’re going to study to be a pharmacist? W W what was it that drew you here?
Eric: [09:40] I wasn’t even studying to be a pharmacist at this point. I was still an Undergrad not knowing what I wanted to do. Oh wait, wait. You are one of those undeclared undergrad students undeclared. But I was, I knew I was in sciences because I enjoyed chemistry. I enjoyed biology. I enjoyed math. So I knew I wasn’t going to go get like an art degree. So I was in sciences and I didn’t really know what I wanted to do.
Stephen: [10:03] And so you know where your parents cool with, cause I had both of my boys, uh, both of my boys who go out college graduates and they were pretty specific in their career when they went in. I don’t know if I would let them or if I would pay for an undeclared. How did that conversation go a tad?
Eric: [10:19] I’m going to...