Entrepreneurship

Growing up in my life, I've been lucky to have my younger brother. We used to fight a lot and not get along as much, but in all honesty he's a great kid. And while he's awful at traditional "inside the box" classroom thinking, he is incredibly gifted at handling other people, and is also a natural salesman. Two years ago, when he was a High School freshman, he started a mini-business, mass buying candy and selling it to his friends at school. He failed miserably, but this showcases how his mind has always been. In the summer before his sophomore year, he became interested in buying and selling Jordan's. For those who don't know, Jordan's are shoes made of $20 of material by Chinese children and sold in America for $200 because of the logo. Different shoes are released sporadically in incredibly limited quantities, running almost entirely on the principle of supply and demand. Originally, my brother talked me into funding his idea when he needed extra money: he would do the work, and throw me a pair of sneakers every once in a while. The first sneakers we bought were from a random guy we found on Craigslist; he was about 30 years old, and sold us a pair of Military 4s and Blackcat 4s for $180 so that he could buy the soon to be released Fire Red 4s.

Each Jordan release (e.g. 3s, 6s, 11s) relies on the its release's design plan, with slight modifications (military 4s are blue and white, fire red 4s are close to the same but red instead of blue, etc...) So we started out with about $280 worth of shoes that we paid $180 for. We eventually found a Facebook group of kids selling and trading kicks, and became active. Our second purchase was $50 and the Blackcat 4s for a pair of copper foamposites. We then found a kid offer eggplant foams for an Xbox 360. We were really excited at the prospect of trading our spare xbox 360 for a pair of eggplant foams, but when we inspected the foams, we found out they were fake and ended the deal.

We also found a couple of great deals on worn down kicks, paying under $80 for each of them. By the time our collection grew to 6 strong, I told my brother I was taking full ownership of the military 4s. I said he could do whatever he wanted to the other shoes, but the 4s would always stay as my personal pair.. A week or so later, I slept over my friends house for a few days. I came home to find out that my brother sold the military 4s for $100, so he could go to Six Flags (the fact he sold the 4s below market value bothered me in and of itself). I was incensed, and told him I was out of the business and he had to reimburse me, as well as replace the military 4s. We came to a deal where he gave me some money, the copper foams, and a pair of fire red 4s, and from that point on we went our separate ways.

We are now a year and a half since he started his shoe trading business. Since then, I've made a few trades with him for new shoes, and get good deals because we're blood related. However, in the truest sense of a hustler, my brother can be brutal in taking advantage of kids who don't know what they're doing. Since that original investment of $180, my brother now has a collection of about 12 shoes, including much coveted sneakers like Bred 11s, Olympic 7s, Lebron South Beach 9s, and dead stock (never worn) Concords.

His shoe collection, which is probably worth about 3,000 right now, is impressive considering he's invested about 500 of his own (and my) dollars into it. This also isn't including when he sells his kicks when he needs his money for something, and when he's traded sneakers for things other than sneakers (Such as for beats). Is this atypical for someone who trades kicks? In all honesty, it isn't. I know a kid who has about 60 pairs of sneakers, and the connections to get any pair he wants. He used to sell them in my High School, and was the go to guy for any fashion accessories, from belts to sunglasses. These people, the successful entrepreneurs, exploit market inefficiencies.  

Why do I bring this up? Because market inefficiencies are all around us; most of the world we live in can be broken down into financial terms. Want a girl? Go to a place where you have the least demand (Competition both in terms of quantity and quality), and the most supply (Single, or at least willing, girls). People can monetize anything (Although many things aren't worth monetizing). For example, the drug market works in this way. Someone (A supplier), buys massive quantities of a certain drug, and sells it to dealers at an inflated price (Who then sell their product at an inflated price). Collectable items such as baseball cards work in this way as well; certain cards have insane disparities between actual value and what someone is willing to pay for it. Cars operate in this fashion, and if you know how to work on cars, you can make some serious money on them. Living so close to my brother, I can watch a naturally great salesman at work; here is what's necessary to be successful in this type of model. Here are the keys (In descending order of importance)

• Know your market

You have to know the worth of what you're selling (Or trying to get), where the best places to sell or buy it are, and how to tell if something is real or fake. The more information you have on this, the easier it is to take advantage (If it's your cup of tea) of people who don't know what they're doing, and the harder it is for you to be taken advantage of.

• Reputation

I'm counting connections in here, but it's easy to make connections. It's much more difficult to make great connections, but that is what you strive to do, and good connections aren't going to do business with you if you're a scammer, liar, incompetent, lazy, or inconsistent. We all strive to be in a position where we have so much business that we have to turn it away. When I interned at a private investment firm, I learned about the Strattonites, and read the book The Wolf of Wall Street. In all reality, the firm was a complete scam, where they pumped and dumped the market. On the inside, the firm was rotting. But to the outside viewer, this was an investment firm which brought consistent returns no matter what the condition of the market was, with people who seemed like successful rockstars of the investment world (If I remember correctly, it was mandatory to drive a sports car if you wanted to work there). They had so many people wanting to invest with them that they actually turned people away on a fairly regular basis. The air of exclusivity created by this actually made the Strattonites more in demand. The same happens with so many things. Girls will crawl over each other for a shot at someone in the same position that the Strattonites were in. Jordan is marketed so well, that kids will look at who's wearing what, and buy them to be like their idols (Whether it be celebrities, or the popular kids, or whoever it may be).

• Common Sense

Don't put yourself into a position where you put yourself at a disadvantage. Identify the markets best to be exploited, and when to conserve your resources. I remember one night where my friend and I was ran into a group of mutual friends, with three boys and three girls. We flirted with the girls, but it wasn't going anywhere with the other guys lurking. My friend and I talked about it, and decided to bring everyone to a party where we knew everyone. We made it our plan to alienate the guys, and eventually made them leave. With the girls by themselves, we had a nice group of two guys and three girls. My friend took a girl and went his own way, and left me with the two girls. I managed to make out with the girl I wanted, but the other girl was upset she didn't have a guy anymore, and wasn't up for a threesome. When I realized nothing was going to happen, I left in the middle of making out with my girl without saying a word. They called for me to come back, but I just ignored them and trudged onward. What's the moral of this story? If you're the three guys with your girls, and you see two guys trying to assimilate with your group, don't let them into your group. You'll end up having to go jerk off that night. Do not put yourself in a position where you're at a significant disadvantage. On a sidenote, don't ever make yourself desperate for a sale/purchase, you'll end up being screwed over.

• Plan of Attack

Anything with sales isn't for the light-hearted. If you're selling shoes, you have to know what you want, you cannot defer to the other person for the final price. Decisiveness is important, and if you see a worthwhile business venture, it's important to go for it. Going after dead leads, or things with a limited reward in comparison to what you can get elsewhere, won't necessarily help. But if you see what you think is a great deal, you have to at least go for it. My brother won't bother with most of the people looking to sell him sneakers. However, if he sees a kid selling a pair of sneakers at a price much lower than market value, my brother forges a deal immediately. Decisiveness is so important, you have to know what you want, not kind of know what you want.

There are a number of other factors involved in being a successful salesman, such as topics which address the sale itself (Likability, Contrast Principle, etc...), but the most important thing is to put yourself in a position to succeed (Either by finding something which you will naturally be in a position to succeed in, or making the conditions within the environment). These four points are the most important things to making that happen.