Jim Cockrum/Ben Mannino – Bonus Interview

Going Big with eBaySelling Diabetic Test Strips

Jim Cockrum: Hi, this is Jim Cockrum, and thisis an amazing bonus recording that we’re creating for youright now.

This is an interview with someone who’s goingto potentially ignite your test-strip business and your eBaybusiness. Who knows what direction you might take thisinformation? This is really powerful.

This is another perfect example of taking onecreative idea and mixing it with another creative idea, tocome up with a whole new idea that exponentially increasesyour results and your income.

I’m excited to introduce right now one of the guyswho has really been there since the beginning, contributingin some very creative ways tohttp://www.MySilentTeam.com/ and to the communitythere.

His name’s Ben Mannino and he is just anentrepreneur’s entrepreneur. He’s always coming up withnew ideas, new approaches, and new ways to do things.He’s done and tried so many things that he knows whatworks, and I’m honored that he considers me one of theguys he’s willing to share his ideas with and bounce ideasoff of.

Ben, how are you doing, man?

Ben Mannino: Good. How are you doing, Jim?

Jim: Doing great, buddy. Thanks for carving outa valuable half hour or so of your time today. I know it’salways tricky pinning guys down and I’m so excited wefinally got each other pinned down to do this interview. Iknow we’ve been trying for weeks, but hey, man, it is greathaving you on the call.

I know you’ve done some cars on eBay, youwere selling those in a consignment model. You’ve soldbooks, you’ve sold all kinds of stuff. You even had a coolconsignment model going with a mom-and-poppack-and-ship store, which we’re going to talk about more.

I’m really excited to talk about that, because Ithink it has some big repercussions for our test-strip sellers.

So tell me a little bit about what you’ve been doingon eBay and off eBay, and kind of how we came togetherfrom your perspective.

Ben: Sure. Well, as you said, I’ve been doing quitea bit, mostly with eBay since about 1996 or 1997, just whenthe Internet was getting started and eBay started to getpopular.

I started out selling Internet vending machines,which is going way back. I was doing all kinds of thingswith computers, and we found a way to kind of make a fewdollars putting a dollar-bill acceptor on a computer.

That’s kind of what got me started in the wholeentrepreneurial thing in eBay, just finding parts and thingslike that.

In my computer business, I had two guys workingfor me, and as we got along there, I started doing somework for some big companies like Time Warner.

I put a lot of eggs into one basket probablyaround 1997; I started doing cable modem installations forTime Warner. What happened was when AOL bought TimeWarner, if you remember that…

Jim: Sure.

Ben: They came along and said, “Hey, we don’tneed these subcontractors anymore.”

Jim: Oh, yeah.

Ben: That pretty much shut down the door ona big income stream for us. I had two employees at thetime and I thought, “Gosh, what am I going to do now?You know, I’ve just been so used to making that steadyincome.”

So they approached me and said, “Hey, Ben, wedo these cars on the side. We kind of fix them up.” That wasthe time with The Fast and the Furious, and the cars wereall kind of wings and body kits and things like that.

Jim: [Laughter] Right.

Ben: I said, “Hey, you know, I’m willing to put themoney up. Let’s try it.”

So these guys would go to these insuranceauctions where you’d buy these wrecked cars. We boughttwo wrecked cars, and I was really nervous. I thought,“Gosh, what the heck are we going to do with these things?”

They said, “Don’t worry. We have a body shopwhere we know the guys, and they’re going to let us dothis.”

Well, to make a very long story short, these guyswent in there and turned these wrecks into beautiful worksof art. They put them on eBay Motors. They sold in aboutunder a week. I made more profit on those two vehiclesthan I did in two months running my retail computer store.

Jim: Wow.

Ben: I thought it was a fluke. I thought, “Gosh,that just can’t be what I think it is,” so I ignored it. Thereality of it was, I said, “Hey, we have enough money. I canpay you guys; let’s do another,” and it was the same thing.

We kept doing this, one at a time. I wasn’t goingcrazy with it, but what I came to realize very quickly was

that doing these types of things, there are so manybusinesses out there that you don’t realize there’s even abusiness around it until you try it.

Jim: Sure.

Ben: So we did it, and little by little I just decided,“You know what? I’m going to start pulling away from thecomputer end of the business and do more and more withthe cars.”

Again, to make a long story short, here we arehow many years later. That’s my full-time business rightnow, selling cars on eBay Motors. There are three partners,and we sell insurance auction vehicles. We don’t even fixthem anymore; we just sell wrecked cars. We buy wreckedcars, detail them, and sell wrecked cars. This all came fromjust that one event, how many years ago?

Jim: It’s beautiful, and I’m sitting here thinking,“You know, there may be some people on this call whothink, ‘Aw, I don’t know anything about cars. I can’t fix carsup. I don’t…’”

I guarantee that you live within two miles ofsomeone who would die to have that as what they do fora living, like some retired guy who knows what he’s doing.Partner up with him and sell the cars for him on eBay. Youhave a book in the bonus pool of MySilentTeam that talks alot about this.

Ben: Exactly, exactly. I talk about that and say,“Hey guys, don’t think because you don’t know anythingabout cars that you can’t do this business, because I’ll tellyou what. I’ve been in the business for how many yearsnow, and I still don’t know the first thing about vehicles."

Jim: Really? I didn’t know that. It’s like me; I don’tknow anything about building Web sites.

Ben: Honestly?

Jim: People assume I do because I’m this Internetguru. I couldn’t build a pretty Web site to save my life. Imean, no matter how easy they make it, they turn out uglywhen I try to do it. I have someone else do it.

Ben: Exactly, and the beauty of it is, this is like byaccident. My partners are geniuses when it comes to it, andyou know what? That’s fine, because I know how to put theauctions up, I run the database, I do the Web site. All thethings that I’m good at, I do. Those guys take care of therest.

Sometimes you run into a person who says, “Oh,you’re in the car business. Hey, what do you think aboutthis and that?”

I say, “Hold on, hold on, hold on.”

Jim: “What kind of catalytic converter should I getfor this '67...”

It’s like, “Hold on, buddy, you lost me at catalytic.What?”

Yeah, exactly. That’s how I am with cars, too,even though I worked in a mechanic's shop as a kid in highschool. I filled the tires with air and changed the oil. That’sabout it, man; I was pretty useless. I’m not one of thosemechanical guys.

However, I can see how this business model wouldwork. It’s all about creative partnerships, and that’s a lot ofthe value of MySilentTeam. You find people who are strongwhere you’re weak, you partner with them, and you learnto think creatively.

This is just another opportunity to make a point.I make this point all the time: don’t be the guy with skills.Be the guy with big ideas, and then find the people with theskills to get you there. If you’re working on skills, eventuallythere’ll be someone who can work faster, cheaper, andbetter than you with the same skill. What do you do then?You now are irrelevant.

Ben: It’s a leap of faith at first, but once you do itand you see the results, you’ll never look back. You’ll neverlook back. It’s just a matter of doing it that first time. LikeI said, talk about a leap of faith. Here I was, “Oh, my gosh,I’m a car salesman now? I have a computer engineeringdegree and I’m selling cars."

My wife’s just like, “What are you doing? What areyou doing?”

Jim: Right.

Ben: Then you show her a few sales and she says,"You just keep doing that."

Jim: Multiple streams of income, man. It's abeautiful thing. It works, it works, it works. People haveto buy into that model, and you have to convince yourselfthat eight streams are better than one, even if those eightstreams add up to a little bit less money than that oneyou’re used to.

If those streams are independently operating, youcan lose one and you can add two more later. You get themgoing and you automate them.

Ben: Now the obvious question is when doing thecar stuff, how did we get into these other areas?

Jim: Great!

Ben: Well, what happened was I lived in upstateNew York near the Binghamton area with my wife, ourfamily and everybody. We pretty much had the kids inschool and everything else. We didn’t want to just up andmove down to Atlanta, Georgia, where we are now.

I’m going to jump about a year or two ahead. Wegot a body shop, and we were doing this and everythingelse. Anyone who has read my book probably knows thestory about it. I’ll make it really short, but it’s an interestingstory.

We were selling parts on the Internet, and wewere the victim of a sting operation. We had a guy come inand basically set us up. He called up and said, “Hey, do yousell parts?”

We said, “We sure do,” and he came down topurchase a part from us and pick it up.

He says, “Can I pay in cash?” We said, “Yeah, noproblem.” So he shows up to buy a part with cash in hand.It was ridiculous. It was almost like a set-up for a drug dealoperation.

Well, in New York State, selling parts on theInternet is a felony if you do not have a specific dismantler’slicense. We had two licenses, but we did not have adismantler’s license.

We had no idea because selling parts was not aprimary business for us. We just did this to make a fewbucks off some of the leftover car parts we had parted outfor other projects.

Jim: Sure.

Ben: They arrested my partner.

Jim: Wow.

Ben: That day, they came in, put cash on thetable, and the guy had all of our eBay auctions printedout. They brought it down and showed everything, and wehad to go to the New York Department of Motor Vehiclesand prove that we owned every car on the lot. It was anabsolute nightmare.

Now, what does this have to do with anything?Basically at that point we decided New York was not theplace to do business. We moved the business. My partnermoved his family; his kids were really young at the time, soit was no problem.

He moved down to Georgia and we found a placehere. The cost of doing business was cut in half, the costto operate the facility was cut by a third. We just had somany cost benefits by moving the business here, not tomention the highest concentration of insurance auctions inthe nation is right around here.

So he moved there and I stayed behind in NewYork, where I basically did the job remotely. These guyswould take the pictures, I had a process in place and theywould provide me with the photos, and I would do theauction listings remotely.

It worked for a while. The business was growing,but now here I was back in New York, and I still wasexperimenting with different types of things. You know thedeal, Jim. You just can’t sit back and say, “Okay, this is fine.On to the next thing." Right?

Jim: Right.

Ben: So that’s what got us into the consignmentarea of the business because I realized, “Hey, you know,I’ve got eBay skills." I’d been doing this for five or six years,at that point. I knew so many people who would come up tome and say, “Oh, you do eBay stuff.” They would talk aboutconsignment and what sells well, and what we could do.

Well, a friend of mine approached me and said,“Ben, I’ve got an idea about a consignment business. Youknow, there are so many people who have this stuff. Maybewe can do it as a business. We can partner up and do it onthe side.”

I said, “Okay, let’s give it a shot.” So we sat downand discussed different models and what we thought wouldwork. We realized that it would be very costly to rent aplace, kind of start from scratch, and do the whole thingfrom the ground up.

There was a local mom-and-pop pack-and-mailstore, and it was actually called Pack-N'-Mail. I know acrossthe nation there are a ton of different ones that arefranchised; some are not. This was actually just a momand dad running the place. They had three locations in thebusiest commercial areas in our particular city there.

Jim: Before you go any further, I’m kind ofthinking from the listeners' vantage point here. There are acouple of things I want to define before we go too far.

One is consignment selling. Not everyone willnecessarily know what that is, but that’s just selling otherpeople’s stuff. You’ve probably seen those eBay store frontswhere people can come in and drop off their junk and you’llsell their stuff on eBay.

No one is suggesting you should do that on thiscall. Actually, I’m suggesting the opposite. Never do that.You’ll end up wasting your days talking about other people’sgarbage and junk that they bring in and drop on your lap,and then they’ll want to talk about it all.

Horrible, horrible, horrible business model. Youwill not meet anyone who got rich with that business modelunless they really put in a lot of time, effort, energy, money,and hired the right kind of people who were flat-out meanto people when they come in with junk. That’s the only way.You don’t want to go down that road.

That’s what consignment selling is. Picking up thebasic eBay skills to sell a few things on eBay, you can dothat in an afternoon. Do not be intimidated by that. Onceyou have that skill, you have a rare skill that can be used tosell other people’s stuff.

That’s what we’ve talked about a lot with you sofar, Ben. We will get to this test-strip model here in just aminute, because this is kind of a bonus interview for thosewho are starting to sell test strips on eBay.

Go ahead and continue with your story. I’ll tie it into test strips here in a minute.

Ben: Absolutely. Absolutely. So, one day the twoof us just decided, “Let’s walk into the store.” We went intothe pack-and-mail; I had been in there a few times droppingoff some stuff to be delivered.

They were a very nice older couple and we walkedup to them and just basically said, “Hey, could we have afew minutes of your time? We’ve got an idea for a businessopportunity we’re thinking about.”

They took the time to kind of say, “Hey, let’s gosit down.” We did, and we basically told them we wereinterested in doing an eBay consignment model, like a jointventure with their shop.

The thing was, I knew they had heard the ideabefore because they go to these trade shows and thingslike that. There were some of those franchise companiespitching the idea to them and they had been introduced

to it, but they didn’t want to do it themselves. They didn’tthink it was in line with their business model, but theyloved the idea of somebody else running the business.They would just do the strong parts of their business thatcomplemented the concept.

Jim: They’re good at packaging and shippingthings.

Ben: Correct.

Jim: That’s what they’re good at, which is thepainful part for those of us who sell on eBay. We hate thatpart.

Ben: Absolutely.

Jim: So that’s what they do. That’s what they love.

Ben: They love it, they’re great at it, and thebeauty of it is they would price their services into whateverthe auction was. We kind of worked it in there. It’s going tobe professionally packed and, from an auction standpoint,here you are putting into the description that this is goingto be professionally packed.

Jim: Right.

Ben: They loved the fact that we said, “Hey, thisis the company doing the packaging.” So it really was a win-win opportunity.

Jim, I don’t know how much of the details youwant me to go into; I can touch on some of the areas.

Jim: Yeah, we’ll go through it. It’s going to be acase-by-case thing, I think, as people get in there and talkto these folks, but we can throw out some general ideas.I’m going to try to bring the loose ends together so peoplesee how these two worlds merge.

I know one of the challenges you had when youwere doing it, because you weren’t doing diabetic test stripswith these folks.

Ben: No.

Jim: You were doing any kind of random stuffthat people might bring in. They had to meet certainqualifications with their items, because the last thing youwant to do when you’re a consignment seller is talk topeople constantly about their junk. You don’t want to dothat, so you have to figure out a way to eliminate that.

I know you had some kind of approval code wherepeople had to call you after they filled out the form, right?

Ben: Yeah, and it evolved.

Jim: You gave them an approval code.

Ben: Yeah, it evolved because when we first satdown with them, we really didn’t have much of an idea ofwhat we wanted to do. The trickiest part for us was knowingwhat’s junk and what’s not? Unfortunately, there are somany collectible things you can look at and say, “That’strash.”

Then, lo and behold, it goes for $150 on eBay. Youjust never know.

Jim: Right, you just don’t necessarily know.

Ben: Right. Then as we ran the business, wecame to realize that we’ll never know. It’s just a matter ofcreating the best-case scenario, improving your odds, andjust trying to come up with ideas for things.

Jim: What if…let me introduce a what-if here. Thisis the “aha” moment that we’re going for. What if there wasa product out there that you could train somebody for twominutes, and they could even identify it over the phonewithout seeing the product.

“Yeah, this is valuable to us. Yes, we’ll take it. Yes,we know exactly what it’s worth to us. Just bring it in, we’llgive you cash.” In about 30 seconds, you can train someoneto recognize a box of sellable test strips.

So let’s talk through this. You give them a list of,“Here’s the list of brands that we’ll buy. Here’s how muchwe’re willing to pay per box. If someone brings in a sealedbox, and its expiration date is far enough out, give them

cash. I will reimburse you, Mr. Pack-and-Ship owner, andthen you’ll ship it for me as soon as I supply you with theaddress.”

Ben: That’s perfect.

Jim: How beautiful is that model, because you’renot dealing with people’s random junk anymore, right?

Ben: Exactly. It takes away all of the guesswork.The guesswork is what took up the most time in thatbusiness.

Jim: Right. Then you have to train people. Is theright person there who understands the relationship I havewith this pack-and-ship owner? Uh, oh, they hired a newguy for $12 an hour and he doesn’t know what’s going on.You have to go in again to train him. Now it’s so simple. Allthose details fall into line.

Ben: Oh, absolutely.

Jim: Here’s the mind-blower for me, Ben. Whyonly work with people in your town?

Ben: Yeah.

Jim: Why not take a four-hour trip to the next bigcity one Saturday, and go from place to place and have thisconversation? Or call ahead of time, say that you can takethem to lunch, figure out who the owner is, and do a littlehomework. Now you’re up and running in a city four hoursfrom you.

Ben: Oh, absolutely. You don’t need to superviseit as much because so many of the variables are alreadyclear-cut.

Jim: Yeah. All you do is run the ad, people call youstill, and you figure out which pack-and-ship is the closestlocation for them, of all your partners.

You have someone else answer the phone at thispoint, because you’re a big operation, right? They say,“Well, you want to take it to 86th Street and X road. There’sa location there. Just take the boxes in and they’ll give

you cash there. That’s all you have to do. Done. Make surethey’re open. Here’s their phone number.”

Ben: It’s a public location, so it’s safe. Safety is abig factor.

Jim: Safe location, safe drive-out, you never meetthese people, you never deal with them. They drop theirstuff off, they get their cash, they’re happy. You get anemail from the pack-and-ship saying, “Hey, we received sixboxes of X strips over the weekend,” and you email themback five days later, saying, “Send them to these people.Here’s their address.”

Ben: Bingo.

Jim: Done. Cash in your pocket.

Ben: Quick in your pocket. Yeah.

Jim: How beautiful is that?

Ben: It doesn’t get any better.

Jim: Now, to my knowledge, no one’s doing thatmodel yet. Now they may be out there doing it. I can justhear this big rush of people, thinking, “Oh, who are thepack-and-ship owners in my town?” The potential here is sohuge.

Ben: Oh, absolutely.

Jim: There are no holes in this. It works, so howcool?

Ben: Looking at that business model was Nirvana.That was just like having something fill that where you canclearly define, “This is value. This is not.” It’s the perfectproduct for that type of a business model.

Jim: There are a few other products that comeclose. We’ve done old electronics, working or not. Now youhave to figure out if it’s working or not to get top dollar;but those do well. Typically they’re heavier than you expectthey might be, like old stereos and things.

Old books, old magazines, collectibles; oldcameras do phenomenally. Do a search on eBay sometimefor antique cameras and older cameras. They call themvintage cameras if they're from the 1960s and 1970s andthey still work.

That’s easy to run a Craigslist ad for. Get a bunchof that stuff cheap and then make a good profit.

Still, you have the issue of, “Okay, what if itbreaks during shipping?” or “What if the guy who takes itdoesn’t quite describe it accurately?" With test strips youeliminate all of that.

Now there are some other beautiful businessesthat you can get into, and I’ve just mentioned several, butthe test-strip business just really eliminates a lot of thoseissues from the plate.

I’m excited about going down this road, but if Ihad to pick a number two product to get into for this model,where you can probably do the consignment model and pullit off quite successfully, it would be old books.

I know you know quite a bit about that business.Let’s use the last five or ten minutes to talk about sellingold books on eBay. I have some other people who arereally making a killing doing this, so I’m going to tie thatinformation in. You don’t have to be completely thoroughhere.

Let’s tell them about your ScanLister product andhow that works and what you have going.

Ben: Well, at the time, one of the things my 12-year-old came up and said was, “Dad, why can’t I get ajob?” He's 13 now.

I said, “Anthony, I have the same exact question.Why can’t you get a job?” He said, “I have to wait, youknow. I’m ready to work! I want to make some money!” Hewas completely honest. He said, “Hey, I understand; I wantto buy a lot of stuff, and to get that stuff I need to sell.”

Jim: "There’s really only so much allowance I’mgoing to give you, kid. You can only take the trash out somany times, you know."

Ben: He said, “What can I do, Dad? What canI do?” He’s a young entrepreneur like his dad. He’s outthere with the lemonade stand. He’s done all that stuff, butI said, “Anthony, we could really get going with eBay orsomething.”

So he tried. I said, “Why don’t you just take someof the books and stuff?” It was such a tedious process; getthis, take the picture, write in a description, and researchwhat prices. These are not high-ticket items to start with.So by the time you jump through all the hoops you’re goingto think, “Oh, there has to be a better way to do this.”

I think I bought the scanner on eBay, or I foundit somewhere. I had this scanner in the house for awhile. Iwas playing around with it and realized that…

Jim: Like a barcode scanner, right? Like what yousee in the grocery market or whatever, just a smallerversion of the same thing.

Ben: Exactly. I started playing around with it, andit just hit me at one point. I said, “Man, if you could justswipe this barcode and get all the data that you have tomanually type in, how cool would that be?”

I had a programming background, so in my“spare time” I started writing the program. It was just bitsand pieces, and I was able to put this program together.I finally had a prototype to the point where the processwas scanning it in, recognizing the barcode – either ISBNor UPC number – talking to http://www.Half.com/, gettinginformation back on the product, and then finally gettingone listed. There was so much more that needed to bedone.

Just jumping aside to outsourcing, that’s when Irealized, “Hey, it’s time. If I ever want to get this thing tomarket, it’s time to outsource.”

So I did. I outsourced the programming work tosomeone in the Philippines, and he did a fantastic job. He

had the product finished up for me which, honestly Jim, if Ihadn’t done that, it would never have gotten done. So thereit was.

Jim: Beautiful.

Ben: Yeah.

Jim: Just to make a little side commercial…

Ben: Sure, yeah.

Jim: Where did you hear about the concept ofoutsourcing to the Philippines?

Ben: That would be you, my friend. That would beyou. [Laughter]

Jim: I was hoping that’s what you were going tosay. I’m not the only one who knows.

That’s another example I learned from the peopleI listened to, but that’s the value of having a community.When you use the word outsource, I have to give this littleten-second commercial.

Ben: Sure.

Jim: Here are your choices. You can spend thenext six months in your spare time, and I'm guessing yourtime is worth $80 an hour. I’m going to assign that, okay?Let’s just say that’s what it’s worth; or it may be $150.

How much time and effort and energy would’vegone into you finishing that, whereas you could findsomeone in the Philippines who, to them, four or five dollarsan hour can support their entire family? That is a greatincome, and they have college educations and degrees inprogramming. Outsourcing is one of the concepts I teach.

Some people are very resistant to that term“outsourcing” though, because they see that as one of theproblems in the United States. “Oh, we’re outsourcing allour work to foreign countries.”

Ben: Yeah, and that’s the way I felt. Absolutely.

Jim: If you don’t want to go that route, that’sfine. I’m not telling you to, I’m just saying that’s an option.You’re looking at taking six to eight months to finish yourprogramming project.

Your other alternative would’ve been to findsomeone for $65 an hour. You could’ve paid $7,500 to dothis same exact job. It probably would not have been asgood, to be honest with you, as this guy who did it in thePhilippines. He finished it in a few days for under $100.

I’m using round numbers here, but that’s thereality of it. That’s the reality.

If you want to choose to use the expensive helphere in the United States, that is awesome. I hire friends allthe time and have them do $12 to $15 an hour work for methat I could easily outsource, so I get it.

You just need to know that option is there. I wouldbe doing a disservice if I didn’t let you know the option isthere to hire very talented people who speak English.

Ben: Yeah. I will say beyond a shadow of a doubt,I thought I would get back this piecemeal work and wouldhave to spend all this time fixing it up. Honestly, it cameback and it was better than I could’ve done.

Jim: www.MySilentTeam.com is a place where youcan go to learn, discuss, debate, and take sides on theseissues. We have people on both sides of this issue and Ihappen to fall more on the side of, “You know what? I’mgoing to find the least expensive way to get the job done soI can provide my customers with a maximum value for thelowest price.”

Some people would disagree with that, and wehave good, healthy, fun debates on the forums ofwww.MySilentTeam.com. We teach you all the options. Yougo down the road you want to go down, but we’re going toshow you all the options on the table.

That’s my philosophy. Good, open, healthy debatewhere there’s no name calling, but you can take a strongstance on whatever you want to take a stand on, knowing

that you’re in a community of entrepreneurs and like-minded people. Just another side benefit ofwww.MySilentTeam.com.

Anyway, so you have this product out there,ScanLister. You can run a barcode on a book.

Ben: Any book, CD, DVD, video game, anythingthat has a barcode on it. I chose www.Half.com as theplatform because I wanted to make the product so easy touse that really, a kid can use it.

When you get on eBay, Amazon, and a lot of theseother sites, the problem is there are up-front fees andso many different things. There are more hoops to jumpthrough, whereas with www.Half.com, there are no listingfees. It’s quick, it’s easy; you list the product for sale. Thesoftware even goes out, researches the prices for all thesedifferent items, and sees what they're selling for out there.

You can price your item very aggressively, or ifyou want to get a better dollar amount for it, you can. Putit out there and just swipe it, scan it in, look at it, price it,and let it go. That’s it.

Jim: So let me fill in a couple of blanks for people.Again, I’m thinking like someone who's listening to this call.

He said www.Half.com. That’s a site owned byeBay, specifically to try to compete with Amazon. That’swhere you put all your books, your CDs, your DVDs,anything with a barcode that you’d buy at like a Barnes &Noble store. It's that kind of stuff.

It all goes on www.Half.com. You can get somegreat deals there, by the way, if there’s a movie orsomething similar you want to pick up.

Old books go for just a fortune, if you get the rightold books.

There are some other resources that I’m going tobe giving people where we talk specifically about trackingdown the books that bring $150, $300, or $500 a popfor putting them out there on Half.com, because collectors

go there to find their books, right? Those may not havebarcodes on them.

You can go to the library store and spend $20 at alibrary sale, bring home $400 worth of books, and just scanthe barcodes. Beep-beep-beep-beep. Now you have 15 ofthem ready to upload to www.Half.com. Hit “Go” and boom,they’re all uploaded with the price and the setting that youput in there.

You said your 12-year-old’s doing it? My six-year-old sorts the books from different categories into stacks; theones that are in really good shape and the ones that are inpoor shape. He can scan them – if it’s one that doesn’t comeup, we put it in a different stack. Mom and Dad will helpwith that one later. A kid can do this.

Ben: It’s fun. They love it, because it’s like beingat the supermarket. Beep-beep, there it goes.

Jim: Exactly. A picture pops up with the book andyou say, “Yeah, that’s the right book. That’s it, okay.”

Then once you get your whole list in, you hit “Go”and boom, it uploads them all to www.Half.com. There areno listing fees. It sits out there until it sells.

Ben: When it sells, it sells. You pay for it when itsells.

Jim: Right.

Ben: Another tidbit is the fact that I understandnot every book is going to sell for top dollar. You’re puttingtime into it. You’re putting it in the box and shipping it andwhatnot. So the other feature I added to ScanLister, whichI’ve gotten a lot of great feedback on, is the ability to printflyers.

You can print out a flyer to enclose with theshipment. Once again, Jim, this is an idea that I had fromyou. Basically, you can sign up as an affiliate of the softwareand say, “Hey, I think it’s a neat product and I think otherpeople might be interested in it.” When you print out thatflyer it has your affiliate code embedded in it.

Say you sell a book for five dollars and maybe youmade a couple of bucks. You mail it out to your customerwith the affiliate flyer enclosed. They open up that flyer andthink, “Oh, this is neat! This person scanned it in, and this isa cool business that I can do at home too.” They go online,enter your code, and you get 35% of the sale. Basically, youcan create…

Jim: A commission.

Ben: Exactly. From everything you ship out –whether you made a dollar, five dollars, or ten dollars – youhave the potential to make a sale. There are people whohave made money by doing this; they sell a three-dollarbook and then boom, they get an $18, $20 commission.

Jim: That’s beautiful. This is a lesson from mybook that's sold at http://www.SilentSalesMachine.com/.People who buy product X might also be interested in what?People who buy a lot of books on www.Half.com might beinterested in what? Turning some of those books into cash.

If you can give them Ben’s tool that helps themdo exactly that in the easiest way imaginable, by scanningthe barcodes on the books on your bookshelf, you’re done.

Ben: That’s it.

Jim: Some of them are going to sell every fewdays. The sell-through rate is phenomenal, by the way. Imean, we put like 20 books up and within a week four ofthem had sold. This is just random stuff off the shelf. Wethought, “I don’t know if I’m ever going to read this again.Let’s just try this thing.”

Ben: Yeah. It’s so much fun to come home andsay, “Oh, look at that! It just sold!”

Jim: So I don’t want to go too far down this path.If people are interested in this topic, there is a free book inthe bonus pool by your friend and mine, MaryJo Jilek. She’sawesome. She sells a bunch of books on www.Half.com.She has it down to a system. ($4,000 per month) She's notthe only one either. We have several members of MST thatare doing VERY well...you can meet them on the forums ofMySilentTeam.com.

When you came out with your barcode system,she was doing back-flips because it cut so much time outof the listing process. It just made this business so simple.She was listing books manually and now she just scansbarcodes. She’s doing really well.

Ben: Yep. She has all the knowledge and know-how of www.Half.com, and all that experience, so bothproducts just complement each other beautifully.

Jim: Well, hey, I just realized we neglected tomention this. Are you still selling that book about how to docars on eBay?

Ben: That is www.PartTimeCarDealer.com.

Jim: www.PartTimeCarDealer.com. Okay.

Ben: Yeah. We have links to it in MySilentTeam.It’s still linked there.

Jim: Yeah, it’s around there.

So everyone who’s listening to this – if they’re notalready a member of www.MySilentTeam.com – will be afterthey listen to this, no doubt, because they’ll be crazy not to.Just look at Ben Mannino. He’s there in the profile as one ofour experts.

I have a relationship with every person on thatlist. I know how they roll. They’re creative, interesting,exciting, successful people like Ben that you just need tosurround yourself with.

If you have naysayers in your life and peoplesay, “Ah, you need to have a real job,” well, let me tellyou what. Real jobs have one drawback. If you lose it,your whole income is gone; whereas with multiple streamsof income, they come, they go, they fluctuate, they’re up,they’re down.

I get checks from things I did two years ago. I’veforgotten I was even still a part of it and here comes this$482 check. I’m thinking, “What company is this? That wasa product I promoted two years ago.”

Ben: It’s exciting.

Jim: It’s just so much fun.

Ben: Yeah, every day is a new adventure, it reallyis. Sometimes your mind gets in the way and you thinkyou can't do this because of all the naysayers you surroundyourself with. Look at some of these success stories andrealize these are just ordinary people like you and me.We’re just people who go out and apply this.

Come up with a few ideas, and just try them.Close your eyes and dive in the pool. Just give it a shot,because you’ll be surprised sometimes at what ends uphappening. You'll realize it’s just something so beyond whatyou ever thought possible.

Yet the results come by taking action, howeversmall. It’s something that’s going to put you on the pathto success. You really just have to try it. Surround yourselfwith people who are into this kind of thing; who takechances and get results. Do the same thing.

Jim: That’s what we teach the 3,500 or so peoplewho have joined MySilentTeam. That’s what we push there,the entrepreneurs’ mindset. I say this all the time: there’snever been a better time in human history to be anentrepreneur.

Ben: Absolutely.

Jim: Especially if you live in the United States orone of the other westernized countries where you haveeasy access to the Internet. Are you kidding me? It’sirresponsible not to have a side business for the day andage we live in.

I’m totally serious. You’re laughing, Ben, but I’mthinking if you have kids and you’re relying on one sourceof income to support your family – or maybe both parentswork – it's irresponsible.

Quote me on that, because you should havemultiple streams of income. The Internet makes it so easy,

and there’s no such thing as job security. I don’t care ifyou’re a doctor or a lawyer.

Ben: No, no, absolutely.

Jim: Our country is about to go after the wholemedical profession and shift it up. Who knows what thoseguys will be making five or ten years from now?

Ben: Jim, my wife’s a pharmacist, and when wemoved here to Georgia, she has not been able to find a job.

Jim: Those used to be the secure jobs. It used tokeep you set for life to get those jobs. Not anymore. Nowyou have a team of lawyers coming after you every day.

We’re living the dream. This is the time. We livein the information age where I can put together a PDF file,and this is a true story. Ten years ago I put together a20-page PDF file. That’s just a word processor file savedso that anybody can open it on their Mac or their PC. Tothis day, that Web site and that little book that I literally,literally have not touched in five years, sells a handful ofcopies every week. Still, to this day.

Being in the business of information and multiplestreams of income and eBay, it’s just such a huge potential.

Ben: Oh, yeah, absolutely.

I'd like to share one small circumstance, becauseI think the listeners would love this. When I was doing theInternet vending machines, I spent half my day on thephone just telling customers about it. A customer I wastalking to on the phone actually pointed out to me, “Hey, Idon’t want to take up all of your time. If you would put thisin a book, I’d buy it.”

I just stopped. I thought, “What?”

Jim: Right.

Ben: It was just such a foreign concept to me. Ithought, “Are you kidding me?” He said, "I'd give you $50for it."

Just because that one customer said he wouldbuy it, I went ahead and spent the next two weeks writingthat book. For the next year-and-a-half or two years, TheInsider’s Guide to Internet Vending is the book I wroteabout how I did the business I that did on a daily basis. Wehad just talked about it for free.

I put it into a book and it created a new streamof income for my business while I was doing my other stuff.That’s when I realized, “Wow, I didn’t advertise it, I didn’tput an ad anywhere." People would just go on Google andfind it. It happened by accident, definitely.

Things in your head that you think aren’t worthanything are absolutely worth money. You have to realizethat.

Jim: Everyone, absolutely everyone has a bookin them. If they don’t, they know someone interestingthey can interview and share the profit with. Creativepartnerships are huge. We could talk all day.

Ben: Yeah.

Jim: So we should be charging people a whole lotmore money than I did if we keep going, buddy. I’m tellingyou, we have to do this more often.

I hope everyone listening to this will agree. Theprice of the course was justified just in listening to this, andthis is just a tiny piece of what we’re giving people. So man,thank you so much.

Ben: You’re welcome.

Jim: Look for Ben. If you go towww.MySilentTeam.com, we’ll keep you updated on whatBen’s into and what all he has going on. Just look for hisprofile; it’s on the homepage.

If you’re not a member of MySilentTeam, join it.If you don’t want to do that, go buy one of Ben’s products.It’s good to have other entrepreneurs in your head whoare motivating you and driving you toward these kindsof things. If I can surround you with guys like Ben, I’veaccomplished my job.

Ben, thank you so much for your time, for hangingout with me today on the phone and doing this greatinterview. It went in some directions I didn’t expect, butman, what good content.

Ben: Absolutely.

Jim: I so appreciate it. Man, that ScanListerproduct, just seriously, dude. I have a stack of booksdownstairs and that’s what my kids are doing for incomenow.

"Your allowance is a set number. It’s not goingup, buddy. If you want to make money, sell some books.”[Laughter]

Ben: Exactly. This is the new allowance of the newage here.

Jim: Yeah, eBay is the way to go. Get them startedearly. I’ll tell you, I have a little nine-year-old and he cando more on YouTube than I ever thought imaginable. He’steaching me how to use YouTube. I’m serious, he has itdown. He has his own channel with more followers than Ihave.

I have a mailing list of 100,000 people’s emails,and he has more followers on YouTube than I do. I thought,“How’d you do that?” He said, “Dad, I just talk about coolstuff!” I asked, “What do you mean?”

So, yeah, how fun to be raising that generation ofentrepreneurs.

All right, buddy, I’m going to let you go, man.Thanks a lot for your time. I’ll talk to you really soon.

Ben: Okay, take care. Thanks.

Jim: All right. Bye.

Ben: Bye.

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