Four Positive Pointers to get you Motivated to List

‘Four Positive Pointers to get you Motivated to List’
by Lynn Dralle, The Queen of Auctions

We all get a little overwhelmed at times. We don’t know where to begin, where to pick up, or how to keep the motivation going. It is especially hard when you run an eBay business out of your home and don’t have contact with other co-workers. Here are some of my top Positive Pointers to help you get going!

1.     Thrift Store Run

Whenever I am feeling a little overwhelmed, I try and do a quick thrift store run. It always lifts my spirits and there is nothing like the “thrill of the hunt” to get you excited about eBay.

My dad is here, so I asked him if he wanted to go to a few thrift stores with me last Friday. Sure!

I was walking the aisles and thinking to myself, there is nothing here, when out of the corner of my eye I spotted this stack of dishes all taped together.

Well, they didn’t look like much and at $4.99 weren’t probably going to be anything. But I had a strong gut feeling about them. I thought I recognized the pattern. When I turned them over I got my confirmation! A total score. I had once found six bowls in this same pattern and they sold for close to $60.00 each!

And, on top of that, I got to use my Dad’s senior discount to buy them. So the six plates ended up costing me $4.49 or 74.8 cents per plate!

Talk about motivation. I couldn’t wait to get home and list them! Here is one of the plates that already has bids.

See the auction here.

I give YOU permission to take a break every now and then and go out and have some fun at a thrift store! The treasures that you find at thrift stores and garage sales are those that you can’t wait to race home and list. We all need that extra motivation sometimes!

2.     Queen’s Court Fellowship or Grab an eBay friend

The Queen’s Court forums are a fantastic way to connect with a co-worker. It is like having a bunch of like-minded eBay buddies in your office with you. They are an incredible bunch of people, motivational, supportive, kind and extremely helpful. If you want to learn more about the Queen’s Court, you can check it out here.

What I also do is to grab an eBay friend, like Mo or Lori, and drag them out for a little thrift store or garage sale shopping. My friend Lori has just started selling on eBay and we go to the same gym for exercise classes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Just this past Friday, I asked Lori if she wanted to hit a few thrift stores after our workout. “Sure,” she said because she was looking for some skinny jeans for her daughter Paige (Indy’s best friend).

Because Lori was looking for clothing, we went into a thrift store I usually don’t visit (because their prices are through the roof!) There on one of the shelves was a Royal Doulton Toby Jug. I couldn’t believe it and it was only priced at $6.00!

Here it is.

The great part of this story is that I just wrote about Royal Doulton for my Dinnerware Success eBook and mentioned that it is usually overpriced! Luckily, this time it wasn’t and I raced home to list it. Instant motivation.

3.     Challenge and Reward Yourself

Another way to keep yourself inspired is to set challenges for yourself and when you meet those challenges, to reward yourself.

When I have a very successful Saturday garage saling, sometimes I set a little goal for myself. If I can get my 100 items all photographed and listed before Sunday night, I will treat myself to a movie matinee during the upcoming week.

I suggest you think of some goals and rewards that will help motivate you in your eBay business.

4.     Paper Clips

Some of you may already know about my paper clip trick and some of you may not. So here it is!

I take my I Sell sheets and bundle them into stacks of 15 pages. I know that I can comfortably list 15 things per hour. I write on the top sheet the hour time frame that I will be listing those items.

As you can see in this example, I am going to list these 15 items between 2:30 and 3:30 pm today. It is now 2:06 pm as I am writing this, so I must finish the ezine so that I can start listing!

I hope these Four Positive Pointers give you some ideas to help you out when you fall into an eBay rut. It happens to all of us and if we can turn it into a game, a challenge or something motivational, it will really help our attitudes and our businesses!

Happy eBaying!

Lynn