4 min read

Being NICE at an estate sale made me an extra $1,000

Being NICE at an estate sale made me an extra $1,000

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I went to an estate sale last weekend. It was listed on EstateSales.net and I scoped out the pictures and they had a lot of GOOD books. I was able to look up specific books ahead of time and even see exactly where they were in the house.

I generally don’t rush to get to estate sales SUPER early, regardless of what’s for sale. I always find things to FLIP but I don’t enjoy the stress that can come with the “rush” when people can almost fight over getting to certain items first.

So this sale hands out numbers and I was #43. I was about an hour early so I went back to sit in the car until it opened at 9am. On the way back, I have a friendly conversation with another guy and asked him if he’s looking for anything in particular (a common topic at estate sales).

We chat for a bit (he wanted to pick up an expensive Bose radio that he saw in the pictures) and I told him that I was going to get some books. I asked him if he used Google Lens and, even though he had an Android phone, he had never heard of it. I showed him how it worked on some pictures from the EstateSales.net app and he was amazed. He tried it on his phone but he didn’t have service (even though I did (Verizon)).

I told him that if he needed to look up anything during the sale, just come find me and I’ll look it up real quick since I had service and he didn’t.

At this point, some people are likely thinking that I’m an idiot for ‘revealing’ that I was going for some books, tipping my hand that the books were profitable flips. Or that I’m a fool for showing my “competition” how to use Google Lens. Or what a dummy I must be to offer to look something up for someone else (a “competitor” even).

And I get it. I just don’t agree.

Because that’s where this picture starts to make sense.

You see, this guy got there WAY EARLY (like 6am) and got two numbers. But his girlfriend decided not to stay so he had an extra number. So he offered to give me #17 which I happily accepted.

By the time I walked in as #17, there was already another book scanner scanning books. But they must not have looked ahead using the pictures online because ALL of the books that I REALLY wanted were exactly where they were in the pictures. So I just grabbed them without scanning them and then scanned some more without the stress or pressure of the “rush”.

And all of this happened because I was just being nice. Which I guess could be a ‘strategy’ but I think people should just be nice anyway because it’s the right thing to do.

Being #17 likely made me $1,000 more than #43.

But I did all of those nice things anyway, without knowing that it would “pay off”.

I’m confident that if you do the right thing frequently enough, good things will happen. But there’s no ‘guarantee’ so many people won’t do it because they think transactionally. The guarantee is that if you don’t do these things, you’ll never go from #43 to #17.

REMINDER: my newest book, The Flip Game, is launching LIVE on a special webinar on June 21!

The Flip Game Launch Webinar
Join me on JUNE 21 for the official launch of my new book, The Flip Game, and get the Kindle Edition FREE! On the webinar, I will reveal by THREE BIGGEST SECRETS that I’ve learned over the past 24 YEARS selling on eBay. That’s right, I first started selling on

And I want to give you a copy FOR FREE! ($9.95 value)

Get all of the details here: https://www.flips.net/booklaunch/

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