Corey Chambers on eBay

How to Be Successful

by Corey Chambers, eBay Guru to the Stars

Running the largest eBay Drop Off Store in Southern California, it seems like more and more people are talking to me like I’m successful.  I’ve decided to take their word for it.  I’ve also recently learned that others seem to look up to me in that they expect me to help uplift and motivate them.  Is it because I’m a tall, middle-aged white man, so everyone expects me to have my act together, be successful, have the flows of life go pretty much in my direction?  While those things may or may not be the case, I certainly feel that my life has had at least its share of challenges.  This article is about success through overcoming obstacles, and I will share with you some of the obstacles in my life (including some very recent ones!) and how they became stepping stones to success.

Running a business is inviting challenge.  A regular job has its challenges, but nothing like running a small business that is not fatly capitalized.

I’ve spent countless hours over the past 6 months building more locations then adding listings to Google Local online business directory.  These locations were in addition to my main eBay warehouse headquarters in Santa Ana, CA.  After these listings became the biggest source of customers, more than 25% of my customers have been finding me through Google Local, Google decided to pull the plug and remove all of my listings.  I could have sat and moped, been depressed because a quarter of my business just evaporated in the blink of an eye.  Years ago, the wind would have been knocked out of me for hours, days or weeks.  Today, I know that the old adages are correct.  They are not just sayings, they are reality:  “Behind every cloud is a silver lining,” and ”Turn lemons into lemonade.”  I need to make up for the vanquished Google Local listings, so I will write blogs.  Through my internet marketing research I have found that blogs are another secret weapon to online marketing.  Google and other search engines give much credit for lots of important words.

I’m getting customers while enjoying the process of sharing my success lessons with others.  What a deal!  I love helping others while uplifting myself at the same time.  You and I are doing it together.  I think that’s very special.

The Google listing debacle was just the latest obstacle to success that I jumped over without hesitation.  A couple months ago, my close friend bid on a bed that I was selling.  Evil eBay decides that I must have been shill bidding because my friend and I have used the same IP addresses before.  The reality is that my friend was bidding on this bed, and eBay should have been glad to get a piece of the pie.  eBay is chronically threatening and punishing its sellers.  eBay punished me by limiting my account so that I could only sell with a Buy-it-now, and I could not sell auction style for two weeks.

I’m an auction seller who relies on auctions, so I could have been very down not being able to sell items at auction, but I already learned over the years that venders, governments, customers, competitors, they will always be presenting problems and challenges.  If these challenges are looked at as a lesson and an opportunity, they become a great learning opportunity.  When approached with 100% conviction to make something good come out of these challenges, a breakthrough will happen.  In this case, I knew that I would get an opportunity to learn more about Buy-it-now transactions.  Buy-it-now sales can be faster and sometimes make more money than auctions.

Well I learned that Buy-it-now auctions definitely were not better for me than auctions.  For most used items, the buy-it-now process is more time-consuming and less efficient overall.  But by tackling the challenge with gusto instead of withering from the challenge, I came out stronger.  It prepared me for the Google Local debacle.

I’ve only mentioned my two most recent challenges.  Let’s get into some real failures of mine.  One of my most notable failures was flunking out of air traffic control school in the Air Force, and getting mediocre to bad performance reviews in the military.  I was not destined to be a life career military troop.  I am a creative person and an entrepreneur.  I’ve learned that Walt Disney received a dishonorable discharge from the military.  Turns out that creativity can be quite unhelpful for a military career.  I learned discipline and I learned some important organizational and management skills from the military.  I also had some great times with my military buddies and served my country in a successful peacekeeping effort.

Sign Images –  that was the name of the sign and banner company that my brother and I started after my Air Force sting.  And boy did that have its challenges and failures.  I never made more than about $5 per hour of profit from that business.  Many would see that as a failure.  But how much money are you earning while doing schoolwork?  Zero.  I got paid for learning some extremely valuable business skills.

I am now successful because I chose to be successful, I worked toward success knowing that I would never give up because I enjoyed the entire process.  I am successful because I say I am.  I am successful because I feel successful when I write checks out for tens of thousands of dollars per month to my customers and vendors.   The admiration and acceptance of others is icing on the cake.  Success is my path, not my destination.  I make much more money that I did making signs, and my trappings of success are much more than they were back then.  Still I am only at the beginnings of my financial goals.  The true factors of my success are love and happiness.  They create success.  Success does not create love and happiness.  I know that my business will grow to be a billion dollar empire.  That is not success, that is simply one financial goal.  The billion dollars will alllow me to run a powerful lasting business that will leave a great deal of money to charity, making the lives of other better long after I leave this physical world.  That is true success.

Thank you for reading my blog.  I hope that I was able to help you at least a little bit on your success journey.  If you have any questions about eBay or selling your items, feel free to contact me at coreychambers.com

 

 

Corey Chambers is a Trading Assistant on eBay with a Registered eBay Drop Off Location store in Santa Ana, CA.  Corey offers free pick-up in Orange County, Los Angeles Downtown, Los Angeles West Hollywood, Long Beach, Torrance, Diamond Bar, Corona and Palm Springs, California.

  coreychambers.com