My Internet Experiment

I’m currently reading “The Now Habit” by Neil Fiore, Ph.D.

I picked it up along with some other books that will help me deal with some of my inadequacies in my business and personal life. Procrastination has long been a problem of mine that I believe started in school, and then proceeded throughout my life. I’ve seen it thwart my success numerous times, and I’m finally sick of it.

I’ve tried a lot of stuff including steam rolling my own fears and following the advice of Just Do It. While this works in some instances it adds to the stress of the activity, and the probability of failure. What I’ve found interesting in “The Now Habit” is that it addresses these underlying fears and allows you to move forward in a stress free productive way.

What’s also interesting is that it points out that you’re not always a procrastinator, there’s something in your life even currently that you absolutely go about doing with no reservations. For me it’s been learning about new opportunities on the Internet. I absolutely love to go out and learn everything I can with no reservations. Everyday I soak up new information, I rarely if ever procrastinate on this task.

What tasks do you go about eagerly? What’s your inner dialogue with those tasks vs. the tasks that you procrastinate doing? What’s the difference in expectation?

Enjoy this post and start paying attention to your inner dialogue, your expectations of what should be vs. what is, and why you procrastinate. I think you’ll start finding patterns that you can use to correct yourself. If you find any value in this post check out the book he does a much better job at explaining it than I do.

You’re fresh ready to start something new, a little excited, a little nervous. You’ve got this crazy idea that you are going to sell something on eBay and make some cold hard cash 7 days later no hassles no problems. Right?

7 Days later - You’re buyer’s paid you, you’ve made more than you thought possible, you’ve even shipped the item the same day because you’re so excited that you sold something on this fascinating site called eBay.

Alternate 7 Days later - You didn’t get any bids, you had 42 visitors or worse no visitors, you’re items still sitting in your house staring at you wondering why you failed to sell it.

Now - What happened in either incident? Some might call it beginners luck, or beginners bad luck. The truth is that eBay can be a mysterious mistress - especially to the faint of heart and the newbie seller. She holds a lot of secrets that as a newbie you can’t even begin to unravel.

I remember one of my first auctions, I didn’t know what the heck I was doing, I saw all of these fancy listings with auction templates, shipping terms, paying terms etc… I was nervous, but I had read a book explaining how to do everything, so I listed it anyways. This book stated that low opening bids attract more bidders - I listened and listed. 99 cents for a brand new set of snowboard bindings. 7 days later that’s what they sold for, or maybe it was $2.35 or something. WAY under what I had paid, it was one of my first losses, and a bad one at that.

I didn’t understand what had happened, why did the last pair I sold go for $28.57 and this pair only brought $2.35 what did I do wrong? Now I was hooked, I started looking for answers everywhere, I had to explain this phenomena. I had to solve the problem. I eventually did and today I look back with fond memories of all the losses that drove me to do better with my listings.

Are my listings perfect now? No, but I have vastly improved over the days when I was using eBay’s listing system, and selecting any option I thought would help sell my item.

So what’s this post about? It’s a post of encouragement and a reminder to anyone who’s going through the challenges eBay throws at you - keep going you will see the light, and seek the education you need to get you through the tough spots.

A few quick reminders on listing items

• Research it first - Don’t go listing blind
• Find your key words for you title.
• Know how much is the lowest you’re willing to take, I recommend a starting bid of $9.95 at least otherwise it may not be worth your time.
• Don’t list cheap things - make sure it’s worth over $9.95
• If you’re going to start it at a price above or below that look at eBay’s fee schedule to save some money
• Read my Shipping Article and apply it - know how much to ship before you list.
• Use the basics - don’t select every option known to eBay - A simple Gallery Image should be enough.
• Take good pictures - host them yourself
• Write a good description including anything that’s wrong with the item, and the good things about the item.

Well that about sums it up, I’m sure I’m forgetting something but that should get you off to a running start.

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