Current website work

Well, I have been writing about past events that have brought me to the present. So just an update as to where I am now. I am currently working on my website,
treasures2yourdoor . It is definitely being a learning experience. I am having to learn a on of stuff about vintage glassware, depression glass, etc. Of course the one item I am selling that I am not having to learn about is the horse tire swing. Any way check out my site and give me suggestions on how I can improve it.

Sharon

treasures2yourdoor

Roofing Specialists

Don't Be Greedy Continuation

I just realized that I did not finish my account of buying eight storage units. First off, these storage units were about an eight hour drive from my house and we only had two pickup trucks with us. Eight storage units will fill two trucks, a 20' trailer AND the largest U-haul truck you can rent.

In order to get everything packed in the vehicles, we were unable to keep the units separate and we did not think to mark the boxes with identifying marks. Therefore, when we got home and started sorting through all the stuff, we could not throw anything away that appeared to have a missing part because we did not know if that part would show up later in another box. It only took a year to to sort through and sell the stuff.

The main lesson I learned... Never buy that many units at one time. The "fun" of the project quickly is gone and it becomes plain WORK!



Sharon

treasures2yourdoor

Roofing Specialists

 

A Little More About Rocks

Now if you find yourself with a big bunch of rocks, don't be in hurry to sell them to the first person with $100. They may be getting a really good deal. Did you realize that some people pay good money for rocks -- especially if they are all catagorized, clean, and in some cases shiny.

The person who purchased the storage unit that was full of rocks learned lots of lessons on that one. He sold the rocks too cheaply not realizing that they did have value. Then he had an adventure with the box that he accidently kept. It was a box of geodes - sort of pretty. So he thought he would see if he could sell them at the flea market. This is how he related the story...

I was sitting in my booth during a lull in business. A woman walked up to me and demanded to know where I had gotten the geodes I was selling. She was rather rude and bossy acting. I asked, "Why do you want to know that?"

"Because these look like MY geodes and I want to know where you got them!"

"What do you mean 'your' geodes?"

"Someone broke into my house a few months ago and stole my rock collection. It was worth thousands of dollars. These geodes look like the ones I had. WHERE DID YOU GET THEM?"

"I bought them at an auction in a town about 2 1/2 hours from here."

"Oh, then, they are probably aren't mine. Sorry to have bothered you."

My friend now wonders if perhaps he did sell a stolen rock colletion worth thousands of dollars for a measley $100!

Watch Out for Rocks

When taking that two or three minutes to look at a storage unit and decide whether or not you want to bid on it, there are several things for which to watch. Neatly stacked boxes that are labeled usually mean that at one time someone valued this stuff. Then if the boxes are stacked in an orderly fashion from floor to ceiling, chances are you will find good items for resale.

Now about those boxes. If they are labeled, read the label. If this looks like a great unit and none of the other regulars at the auction are being a little slow in their bidding, before you jump in and shout out that highest bid, read the labels AGAIN! If the boxes are labeled "agates," etc. you had better be a rock hound. Those boxes have the strong probabilty that they will be full of ROCKS. Rocks are VERY heavy -- even if they are small boxes. Then if by chance you are having to clear out this unit and while you are loading your trailer with these back breaking boxes and it starts to rain..... well, you know what happens to cardboard when it gets wet. It has a tendency to disinegrate. Then instead of boxes of rocks you now have PILES or rocks.

Yes, this actually happened. Thankfully I was not the one who was excited to get the bid, but I did know the person who did. Now the rest of the story is..... rocks are worth money if you happen to know the right people. Don't just offer them to the first person who comes along for $100.

Next time the rest of the rock story.

Don't Be Greedy

Now if one storage unit is good and is profitable, doesn't it make sense to buy more. Well, yes, it does --- as long as you don't become too greedy all at one time. First, do you have enough room to store and sort through more than one unit.



Now I have access to a really BIG area, but i learned the hard way, Do NOT buy eight units all at one time -- especially if you are eight hours from home and have to rent a U-Haul truck to get them home. But if you are brave and do something like that there are some tips that might help. I'll get to that on the next post.



Sharon

Storage Units Are Not for the Faint-Hearted

Okay. So now you have been brave and purchased your first storage unit. You have high hopes and dreams. The number one being that you will be able to sell the stuff for a profit! You have it to your home, garage, or barn. This is where the feelings of being overwhelmed surface. It is one thing to have a "ton" of your own stuff, but it can be overwhelming to have a "ton" of stuff that once belonged to someone else. You have absolutely no idea what you will find in the boxes.

Sorting through a storage unit of stuff is not for the faint-hearted. REMEMBER you are dealing with items from someone else's life. They may not have the same values as yours. You may want to protect your children from view points that may not be the same as yours by not letting them go through the stuff. If you are a person that is easily shocked, you probably don't want to be in the business of buying and reselling units. The reading material that you find in storage boxes may not be the kind you would allow in your house.

I remember in the early days of my adventure there was one unit we labeled "The Porn Unit." Oh my, it was a shocker. Everything in the storage unit was neatly boxed and the boxes were stacked high. I won the bid for $25.00. I was sure we would find a lot of good stuff to sell. Probably everything in the unit would have sold, but I WAS NOT WILLING to sell it. There were boxes of porn material. Then there was more of it interspersed in the boxes of regular household stuff.

Now here is another valuable lesson. When going through a unit, if you find questionable literature and items that you want to destroy, put them all in one trash sack or area. Don't spread them out through the general garbage. That way you know exactly where the stuff is that needs to be burned because you don't want to put in the curbside trash for some kid to find and be warped for life! This leads to another valuable lesson.

Magazines DO NOT burn EASILY! Don't think you can drop pounds of magazines into the trash barrel, drop a match, and they will just disappear in flames. It doesn't happen. You just about have to burn them one at a time. If you are planning to shred them, you better have one more heavy-duty shredding machine because they will burn up the cheap ones.

Well this unit was not a total loss. It did contain many good items that I was willing to sell. Collectibles from this unit convinced me that there was good money to be made on eBay. Between the eBay sales and the garage sale, I made a really nice profit. Though I must admit, my hourly wage was significantly lower because it took to much time to burn the magazines.

Coming in the next posting ----- Watch out for the rocks!

Another thing learned at auctions

By watching the regulars, I learned to look at the floor just inside the unit and see how many cut locks were laying there. The units that had the locks cut off of them several times were not worth as much because things of value had usually been taken from the unit.



Units that have packed boxes stacked neatly and compactly into the area are better units than those that are just piled in chaos. Often the piles of chaos means that the owner knew they were going to loose the unit, so they went in and dug through the boxes taking anything that was of value or had a good resale value; or whoever put the stuff in the unit didn't care about anything so often the stuff would be broken.

The Steps to Buying at Storage Unit Auctions #1

Now if you are thinking that you would like to purchase storage units at auction, there are a few pointers you should know. The first thing you need to do is decide how much you are willing to spend at auction. Next, go to a few in your area and find out what the market is. Watch the "regulars" -- those buyers that make all the auctions --figure out what the average range of the bids is. This is important because you don't want to be "suckered in" to bidding more for a unit than you should. The "regulars" don't like new people coming into their turf. I have been at auctions and watched regulars who never paid over $25 for a unit bid against a new person just to get the bid so high there would not be much profit made on the sales of the contents. One example that I remember well was a unit for which the new person paid $110. If the "newby" had been watching the crowd around, he would have seen the regulars snickering as they kept pushing the bid higher.

The First Storage Unit

Curosity began the journey. Courage took the next step. The next auction arrived. I took my $200, prayed the Lord give me wisdom to choose a good unit, and joined the ranks of those seasoned veterans who were looking for merchandise for their stores. There was a small unit that I won with the bid of $70. I was now the proud owner of a storage unit of "stuff." The unit was not totally jam, packed full; but there was enough stuff in it that I couldn't even begin to see what all was in it. I had twenty four hours to clean it out.

I went home and told my husband that I had been "brave" and bought a unit -- just a little one. He asked if I wanted him and his crew to pick it up for me the next day. I told him that I didn't want him to go to all that trouble. I could take our little "baby" truck and get it myself. After all, it was a very small unit and how much could it hold. He convinced me to let him and the crew do the job for me.

The next day I heard the trucks coming in. I looked out and was in for one of the shocks of my life! There were three pickups with their beds overflowing AND a sixteen foot trailer full of stuff. Somehow the little bit of stuff that was in the small storage unit seemed to have multiplied.

We unloaded the stuff into the one bay of our business' shop. What "treasures" we did find. Their were appliances, an antique sewing machine, boxes of clothes that were new with tags, all kinds of household items, toys, and then some plain junk. I allowed my children and our employees to go through the stuff and take what they wanted. One needed a washer. Another needed the dryer. One got a new wardrobe of name brand clothes. After everyone had taken what they wanted, I had a yard sale and sold the rest. The "left overs" of the unit brought in $300.

At that point I was hooked. I knew that money could be made. I began to share with family and friends this new found, part time job. And I tried to share with them what I had learned to that point. And that is a whole other story. . .

Curosity -- The Beginning

People say, "Curosity killed the cat." In the world of humans, curosity can change your world. It did change mine. In fact, it was the first step that brought me to the business of treasures2yourdoor.com. Our family has been one for whom entrepreneurship is a way of life. In our early twenties, my husband came home one day and calmly announced, "I quit my job. We are going into business for our selves." That is a whole another story in itself about our family's journey to the building of MASCON, INC.. Back to the current tale ..... the details of the first step that led to the journey of a web-based business.

I really did not just get up one morning and think, "I want to have a eclectic business that deals treasures such as vintage glassware, depression glass, Christian music, and even garden furnishings such as horse tire swings." Actually it was just a normal business day in 2003. The newspaper came in the mail and I was in the last section and noticed "Public Notices." Now I am sure that part of the paper has been there ever since I began reading newspapers. It had just never seemed important before. Little did I know that portion of the paper could change a person's life.

I noticed some postings concerning auctions. One announced houses were going to be auctioned on the court house steps. My curosity got the best of me. I marked my calendar and on the appointed day, I went to the court house to see what happened at one of these auctions. I went home thinking, This is TOTALLY UNBELIEVABLE! I saw some house sell for fantastically low prices -- a three bedroom for less than $2,000. I shared this information with my husband and soon we purchased our first rental property.

By now I was hooked on reading the public notice section of the newspaper. I noticed there were other auctions being listed. Some were advertising Storage Unit auctions. Once again my curosity was peaked. I figured that I needed to find out what they were all about. So my calendar was was marked and on the appointed day I arrived at the storage units to find a bunch of people standing around. I sort of "eased drop" on different conversations to see if I could figure out what was going on. The manager appeared and announced that we were starting at Unit 42 and for everyone to follow him. The next stop was in front of the door of a storage unit. The door was raised. We were told we could look inside but go inside or touch anything. In about 90 seconds he asked if anyone wanted to make an opening bid. Someone yelled, "Five Dollars!" Now I was standing in amazement at the realization that anyone would only offer $5.oo for the amount of stuff at which I was looking. I could see appliances, all types of furniture, and stacks of boxes. Someone else said, "Ten Dollars." and the bidding went on. That unit sold for $40.00. I was in shock. It looked like to me someone had gotten a really good deal. We went on to the next unit and the scenario was repeated. This was better than shopping at Walmart!

I went home an told my husband, "I want to go to the next auction and buy a unit. I think there is money to be made! Well, naturally no husband in his right mind would dare tell his wife she couldn't do something she wanted to do! He just asked how much money I needed. I was conservative and told him $200 would be enough with which to start.

Little did I know that what had started as curosity was now the first step toward a future business,treasures2yourdoor.com.

In the beginning ....

Every endeavor has a beginning. Every point in life at which we find ourself has a beginning. Sometime that beginning is easily defined. Sometimes it takes a lot of reflection and searching to find an answer to the question, "How did I get to this point in life?"

This is the beginning of my reflection. How did I reach this point of sitting in front of a computer screen trying to figure out "How do I complete my assignment?" What was the journey that brought me to this assignment? Oh yeah, you don't know anything about the assignment. If this is to make any sense to you, I should fill you in on The Assignment .

THE ASSIGNMENT: Register a blog and start writing. Now you have to understand that I barely know what a blog is. Up until a few days ago, to me the word "blog" was just another obscure, meaningless word in my world -- if it was even a word in my world. It was just a word that rhymed with "clog" --- which could be a wooden shoe from Holland or the thing that is responsible for all the yucky water standing in a sink and refusing to budge until the plumber is called. But because of my journey in life, today it has a totally new meaning to me.

Ahhh, but now it is coming back to me. I had heard something about "blog." I now remember hearing something about people having space on the internet to write about their life in journal form and others could comment back on their life. Oh me, oh my. Woe is me! It is coming back to me. I remember my comment in that conversation, "You've gotta to be kidding me. Anyone that does that has WAY TOO MUCH time on their hands and they need to GET A LIFE'!"

Well, those words seem to have come back to haunt me; to become, as the saying goes, "my famous last words;" the words I will have to eat. It seems that I have joined the ranks of those, who in my previous opinion, need to "GET A LIFE!"

So, join me as I share my journey into the world of our family's web based business, Treasures2YourDoor.com.