Welcome to the Scaling Success Stories series!
If you’re new to this series, I ask online entrepreneurs questions regarding growing and scaling their business.
This is the series description:
You can get your fill of online business tips by reading the other interviews on the Scaling Success Stories page.
Interview with Melissa and Rob Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper
It was my pleasure interviewing Rob and Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper, a popular side hustle blog that teaches readers how to monetize their passion of going to flea markets, thrift stores, and places of the like. They’ve been doing it for over 20 years and last year, they had over $133,000 in sales.
Check out what Melissa, on behalf of the team, had to say to my questions!
1. Why did you start an online business and how does your passion still drive your business’ growth today?
Our business is flipping used items for profit (think eBay, OfferUp, etc), which is something my husband Rob has done for 22 years now (and we have done 11 years together as a married couple.)
Three years ago, we decided to pursue the online business because we had good friends (in real life) that made a lot of money very quickly online by creating an online course. (They made a million dollars in their first 13 months online).
So, naturally, we wanted to do the same! HA!
We created a course to teach people how to flip items – before we had an audience and before we really knew what we were doing.
So needless to say we didn’t make that million dollars in 13 months (and still haven’t hit that mark), but our passion for this business has only grown!
We love what we get to do every day by flipping items and we want others to be able to feel the same way!
2. At what point did you realize that your business was “taking off” and that you could really make money from it?
This is really just happening for us at this current moment and it’s SO exciting! The other week we had 5 days in a row where we sold a course every day ($497 $597 price points), with no launches or promotions or ads running. Just from systems that we have set in place.
That was a week we want to keep duplicating. One course sale every day is our current goal. We are on the verge of seeing that and it’s so flipping exciting! 😉
3. At what point did you realize you were living the life you wanted to?
Rob and I talk about this a lot. Even before our blog made much money we were really living the life we wanted to. It was just more stressed financially.
We are home with our kids – which is a huge priority for us, and we spend a lot of time as a family.
We make it a point to walk almost every evening about 2-3 miles with the kids and it’s our favorite time of day. We talk about what we did in the day, what needs to get done that night (because we do a lot of our blogging work in the hours of 8pm-12pm), and some of our goals and dreams.
I think the fact that we are content with our lives is both helpful and hurtful.
Helpful in the fact that we are grateful for the little things, but a hurtful in the fact that the hard push for change isn’t always there. So those nights when the decision is to create content or watch Netflix, sometimes the latter wins.
When you don’t dread getting up the next day – but instead you can’t wait to get working on a project – you know that you are living your passion!
4. One of the biggest fears of outsourcing is trusting the people you hire to run your business the way you would. How did you overcome this and where did you find the right freelancers and employees to help you grow your business?
We started outsourcing this past year, which was a HUGE step for me. I hate spending money on things I know I can do myself. But then I realized (after a lot of people telling me) that if we ever really want to grow, we need help!
We actually started outsourcing with one of my favorite tasks: Pinterest. I love learning about Pinterest, creating pins and trying new strategies that worked. But it was taking up a lot of time. So, I started looking for someone and started in my Facebook blogging groups.
I have made a lot of friends with bloggers in these groups and if they can recommend someone then they are worth checking out.
I thought it would be tough but it actually felt so good to have the extra time to work on other projects!
Now we are in the process of working with a VA and would like to eventually grow a team of about 5 people.
Editor’s note: In their interviews, McKinzie Bean, Kara Fidd, and Leah Gervais mention how they use referrals when outsourcing.
5. A common myth is that as you grow and scale your business, you have to sell your soul to make money, especially when you venture into paid advertising. How do you debunk this myth in your business?
We have done everything very organically in our business this far. We blog about our daily lives of flipping so it’s a little different than some other business models. We want to show other’s what’s possible, and we do so by doing it ourselves.
We are just venturing into paid ads, but in doing so it doesn’t mean we have to go against what we stand for.
There are ways to sell with integrity and ways to sell that are shady. We choose to sell with integrity and know that the people who don’t are the ones who won’t last long.
6. Why do you think most people fail to grow their businesses and what advice would you offer them to keep pushing, despite all the setbacks?
I think the biggest reason people fail to grow is that they aren’t making the big things a top priority and staying consistent with them. It’s so easy to get caught in the trap of social media and waste so much time on there when you think you are being productive.
I found that it helps me to sit down at night and write down my top 3 things I want to accomplish the next day on the blog. And, those do not include posting to social media.
And, do those 3 things 6 days per week.
If they don’t get done, I don’t beat myself up, but they are a top priority the next day.
Being consistent and persistent over time is the key to seeing success on your blog.
Editor’s note: Carly Campbell also mentions that you have to drill down to find what works and Tracie Fobes uses a similar method for establishing what tasks to do.
7. How important has niching down been (no matter how hard it hurts) to your business’ growth and profitability?
I think it’s very important for Google to be able to rank you, but you can have some subtopics of your main topic, too. You want to be known for your thing and when someone searches for your thing – there you are!
We broke down our blog into 5 categories with flipping items. All pertain to flipping items but different aspects about it.
I’m still going back and deleting some old posts that don’t really fit anymore.
8. What do you attribute your success to and how do you explain it? Do you think the same strategies will help you reach your next monetization goals? Why or why not?
Consistency has honestly been our biggest attribute to success. (Of course, along with a lot of prayers!) When we consistently create posts, film videos, do Facebook lives and e-mail our list – we grow.
We also do this as a couple which does help a lot. Rob is the visionary and I am the executor.
He creates the content in the fact that he is out there flipping items every day – making crazy money from a $20 item! And I blog about it. And take care of the 572 things that come with that. Haha. He has also gotten pretty good on camera – which helps a bunch when you are working to grow a YouTube channel.
9. To scale, you really need to have a systemized business. What steps have you taken to build those systems and how do you optimize them?
We are in the learning phase of this now. I have a hard time giving up control and sometimes feel like it’s easier if I just do it then hand it off to someone.
I am in the process of creating some videos using Loom for our new VA and I know that will help us a ton in the long run as our team grows.
10. If you could speak face-to-face with yourself when you first started your business, what pearls of wisdom would you impart?
I would tell myself to not expect to make $1 million in 13 months! 🙂
I love this quote by Bill Gates:
Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years. ~Bill Gates
I would tell myself to be in this for the long game. And also to take time to learn SEO and how to write a good blog post. We didn’t pay attention to those and if I knew then what I know now, it should have been the first thing we paid attention to.
About Rob and Melissa Stephenson
My name is Melissa Stephenson and I blog at Flea Market Flipper with my husband Rob Stephenson. We have three young kids (ages 6,4, and 2) and they are the biggest reason we flip items and blog about it. Flipping and blogging both give us the flexible schedule we need to be very involved in their lives.
Conclusion
Thanks for participating in my series, Melissa and Rob!
As you can tell, it’s NOT EASY growing and scaling an online business, but there are some things you can do to aid you in the process.
Inspired by Melissa and Rob?
Now, it’s your turn!
I assembled the Scaling Blueprint to show you how to…
- Outsource Effectively
- Systemize Your Business
- Shatter Your Revenue Goals
After working with six-figure and seven-figure clients, I know the difference between how they function.
Let me help you start scaling successfully.
Cheers to future success!
