Digital Social Hour - Making Millions off of Sports Cards | Eric Michael DSH #246

Episode Date: January 26, 2024

On today's episode of Digital Social Hour, Eric Michael talks about how he has made a living off of sports cards. APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://forms.gle/qXvENTeurx7Xn8Ci9 BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail] SPONSORS: Opus Pro: https://www.opus.pro/?via=DSH Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

So do you think you can make an actual living off sports cards? Yeah, I have a friend that went to St. John's University. He got basically straight A's. He was going to go into med school. He was flipping sports cards just like me through college. And he decided not to go to med school because he was making so much money from sports cards. So yeah, I mean, I know people that make a million plus dollars a year in profit just from flipping sports cards. Welcome back to the show guys i'm your host as always sean kelly got with me a sports card investor and expert eric michael how's it going it's going well man thank you for having me yeah absolutely you're the first guest i think from ruckers yeah ruckers

small world man all the way back in new jersey yeah did you make it all the way through it's a long story but i failed out at the end the very very end because i uh i got into entrepreneurship and just didn't have the time and failed a bunch of classes then i ended up graduating three years later i took one more class three years later to finally graduate so i did eventually wow not many people in entrepreneurship make it through college no not like i got into entrepreneurship at the very very end so like i realized i don't want to work a job so i was like okay um you know let's get into like shopify drop shipping all that stuff yeah bailed me out but i took the one class i needed to a few years later so is that when you got into

sports cards or was that later no so the way i got into sports cards so it's a it's a funny story so my senior year of high school you know so people you know parents buy their kids cars people get cars and there were two high schools in my town i'm from a town called wayne new jersey there was the middle class side of town which is where i'm from and there was the richer side of town it's called wayne hills uh the other side of town the high school and i heard about someone who bought his own car car car not card car with thirty thousand dollars and i was like who our age we're 17 could have thirty thousand dollars what is going on his name was

dylan and i had a friend who was friends with him so i was like yo can you like hook me up i want to see how he's making money and this is back in 2015 and i was like i got in touch with him i was like dude like what's going on like how do you have 30 grand to buy a car he's like i buy and sell sports cards c-a-r-d-s cards and i was like no you don't what the things you put in like your bicycle wheels he was like yeah no i do i was like no way you could actually make money doing this stuff and long story short i just i got hooked i started harassing him i was like man like i'm a huge sports fan gotta teach me how to start making money doing this stuff he showed me he showed me and at this time i was delivering pizza pizza. And I saved up about $4,000 from delivering pizza.

And I finally bought my first sports card. It was for you sports nerds out there. He was a New York Mets prospect at the time. His name was Steven Matz. He was a pitcher for the New York Mets. And I bought his card for $500. I got it graded. I sold it about 10 days later on eBay for $888.

You know, a lot of money at the time, a few hundred dollars for someone that was 17, but it was a huge just mindset shift from trading your time for money. And here I am all of a sudden, now I just clicked a few buttons on a computer, bought a card, didn't do much with it, got it sold. And I made $388.

And then I was just absolutely hooked after that. Wow. Dylan has, you know, he changed my life. That's awesome. So yeah, that's kind of how I got into into it i don't even know who that pitcher is yeah he was uh he was a big prospect for the mets and then injuries plagued him yeah um he's still in the league or he may have retired his name's steven mats but back in the day he was a big prospect so do you think you can make an actual living off sports cards yeah i have a friend that uh i have a friend that went

to st john's university and he you know got basically straight a's he was going to go into sports cards? Yeah, I have a friend that went to St. John's University and he got basically straight A's. He was going to go into med school. He was flipping sports cards just like me through college and he decided not to go to med school because he was making so much money from sports cards. So yeah, I mean, I know people that make a million plus dollars a year in profit

just from flipping sports cards. So yeah, I mean, it's very, very possible. So what's like the strategy you see from the top people making money? Oh boy. Including yourself. So there's two ways to make money. So like I teach people how to buy and sell sports cards

and my whole thing is teaching people how to make a predictable side income, an extra one, two, $3,000 a month. And the easiest way to do that is doing something called grading. So grading a sports card is essentially what it is. You buy a card, you send it to a grading company. If the company deems it's a 10, you can make money.

You could buy a card for $100, spend about $20, $30 to get it graded. A few weeks later, you could have it back. If it's greater than 10, you could triple your money. It's not that scalable, but you could easily make an extra two to three grand a month doing it. And that's what I teach because it's realistic.

It's sustainable. It's predictable. It's fun. Yeah. If you want to start making big, big bucks, you have to start to go into the big, big cards. So like I'm not going to spitball names here, but like, for example, I have a friend that about four years ago, before the pandemic, so sports cards got massive during the pandemic, as I'm sure you know. And he bought, before the pandemic, what I think is the most valuable sports card in the world.

So it's a 2003 exquisite logo man, like the one of one signed by Michael Jordan and LeBron James. He purchased the card for a million dollars, like four or five years ago, something like that. And now that card's like, I mean, at least $12 to $15 million at least. Jeez. You have to start playing with those bigger cards. I saw the other day on Facebook someone posted the Brock Purdy 101 National Treasures for like,

I'm assuming the guy probably purchased it for like $100,000, then he'll probably go to flip it for like $150,000, $200,000. So if you want to make big, big bucks, you have to buy big, big cards. Wow. But that's kind of how it goes. So you buy these bigger cards, and you like to buy big, big bucks, you have to buy big, big cards. Wow. But that's kind of how it goes. So you buy these bigger cards, and you like to buy them raw, right? Pre-graded. The big cards, you can't.

Any big card you're going to buy, you're probably not going to find in great condition if it's raw. Okay. So you have the whole grading aspect of things. And the way I do sports cards mostly is this is the way sports cards go. So what you can do is you can buy a card of the offseason. So let's take right now. Right now we're speaking. It's in September.

So right now what's hot is football, basketball. Basketball is around the corner. What are people not buying right now? People aren't buying baseball. Baseball is kind of in the crapper. It will shoot up a little bit with some guys who do well in the playoffs. But for the most part, baseball of in the crapper yeah it'll shoot up a little bit with some guys who do well in the playoffs but for the most part baseball's in the crapper there's a lot of really good prospects that are really cheap right now like just to spit some guys out there like marcello

meyer who's a prospect for the boston red sox and if you do it correctly what you can do is you can buy one of these prospects like marcello meyer really cheap right now and wait a few months to like january march and these prospects will see a big big increase or bump in value if guys think they're going to be called up to the majors um that following spring so like what i'll do a lot of the time is like i'll buy like a five thousand dollar card of marcello meyer right now just because i know it's cheap and i'll sit on it wait till january february hype will start to build in january february march people are going to think he could possibly be the starting shortstop for the red sox and i'll go and flip that card for

anywhere between like eight grand ten grand twelve grand wow depends how the market reacts but um that's kind of how to do sports cards on like a bigger bigger playing field just like yeah timing the market buying low selling high when everyone zigs you zag type of thing interesting so you're buying in the off season and then you're also buying people you think will get to the next level yes yeah so like if you're doing things correctly like for baseball like the way sports cards works it's backed by hype and demand let me give you a great example so like i know i'm probably gonna get a lot of hate for this but so like justin fields and trevor lawrence right most guys watching this probably know who they are. Yeah.

So they, most people would say that Trevor Lawrence has accomplished a lot more, right? Has a much better passer rating. Has thrown for more touchdowns. He's actually won a playoff game. And Justin Fields, he makes a lot of great plays, but he hasn't shown an ability to throw from the pocket. And just, he hasn't proven that much. He's talented. But, so that's the point. But, so these guys trevor

lawrence and justin fields leading up to the nfl season this year we're selling for about the same which it doesn't make much sense because trevor lawrence has accomplished a lot more right but people get excited with the hype that justin fields provides one because he's in a big market in chicago right just there's more bears fans so people are going to dump money into justin fields yeah and two he's just an exciting player so like I personally don't think Justin Fields will be a successful NFL quarterback. But that's just my take. You never know. But if you're doing it right, you've got to ask yourself,

okay, back in February and March, while football's down, what player is going to receive a lot of hype and demand? You could realistically say Justin Fields made a lot of great plays. He's really cheap because football's cheap in February and March march he's a big market he's in chicago and i you know they got a little bit lucky justin fields investors because i wasn't justin fields investor i sold everything before the season just because they signed dj moore um they got some some offensive line help but um but yeah so you just have to play into like the volatility and the hype of the market like yeah ask yourself like coming season, like a week or two before the season, who's going to have

a lot of excitement? Whoever that is, that player will increase a lot in value. These are, a lot of the times, significant returns. I flipped a Justin Fields, it was called a Gold XRC. I paid about, I think I paid about $5,000 and I sold it about three months later for $9,000. Wow. And the car just sat on my desk, honestly. five thousand dollars and i sold it about three months later for nine thousand wow so like and

the car just sat on my desk honestly so like if you do it right you can make these massive returns that's awesome what's the most you've seen a sports card sell for just the most i've ever seen a card sell for so it was the record sale i think it was the most expensive sports card ever sold it was a 1952 tops mickey mantel it sold for about 12 million something yeah that's crazy and what's crazy about that card so like a 1952 tops mickey mantel that is like the holy grail sports cards because that was like it's mickey mantel 1952 was the first year tops was around so like that card is the holy grail sports cards and what's crazy about that card is the one that sold for 12 million was it was

graded in sgc 9.5 so it's like a specific grading company but there's actually two out there that are psa 10s wow one of them i believe is owned by a lawyer in new york and the other is owned by the owner of the colorado rockies damn and that card auctioned would sell for more than what that last mickey mantle did probably hovering around 20 million maybe 18 20 million i'd guess that's crazy so yeah um that's the biggest sports card i've ever seen sold like i didn't see it but like i heard about it what about you personally what's the most expensive card you've sold or own uh the most expensive card i've ever sold was this is actually an interesting little flip. So two years ago at the National Card Show in Atlantic City, I got a text message from a friend saying that this guy was looking to sell this card of Justin Herbert.

Justin Herbert was extremely hot at the time. This was like late July of 2022. And I met up with this guy in the hotel lobby of the tropicana in atlantic city um we did like a cash and trade deal and long story short i gave him about uh gave him about 75 000 for the card through through a few cards about half of it was cash i took that same card and i flipped it the next day at the car show for 110 grand in cash damn so yeah that's the biggest card all cash all cash yep so people are pulling up to these card shows with just briefcases of cash?

Yeah, big time. Yeah. That's scary, man. Yeah, it is. How'd you fly home with that? Well, I went to the bank in Atlantic City. I went to, I found a Chase Bank in the area and I deposited the cash.

Well, I took about half of the cash and spent it at the card show. The other half, I just went to the bank and deposited. Wow. Have you ever met Gary Vee at these card shows? I have. to the bank. Wow. Have you ever met Gary Vee at these card shows? I have. It was funny. Back in 2020, the national card show in Chicago,

I was thinking about starting the coaching program, the same one that I do today. And I was debating whether or not to do it. And Gary Vee was at this card show. And he was getting bombarded by all these people. And I went up to him and I was like, hey, man, I think I'm going to start a program to teach people how to do this.

And he looked at me dead in the eye and he's like, kid, that's a great idea. And I was like, okay, he must think it's a good idea if he actually gave me the attention to look at me in the eye. So that's kind of one of my sparks for starting to teach people how to make money doing this stuff.

Nice. So how much would you say the average person would need to get started if they want to make one to three K a month? Like you said earlier One to three K. That's all they need. Yeah, like you could start like you could start with $500 flip a card Sell for 800 get a great itself for 800 take that 800 roll it over. I mean I started with $4,000 That's what I saved up from delivering pizza back in the day

But like yeah, the more money you have the more money you're gonna make but I mean you could start with a few hundred dollars that's all you need to buy a card and get it graded that's crazy and you're doing this full-time like this is your main income yep that and the teaching people how to do it nice how many people are you teaching uh we've taught about up to this point probably around 600 geez yeah that's a lot yeah it's uh words gotten around that um like we actually like do a decent job helping people like uh part of the problem with like the coaching space is like a lot of people don't practice what they preach and they give these big promises and don't deliver on them but like we go out there and tell people like hey like this is a realistic side income you're gonna make an extra few grand

a month is this something you want to do people want to do it um right they just want that extra few grand a month on top of their nine to five jobs. They love it. It doesn't require any fancy technology, no websites, no funnels, no ads. All you need is your phone and an internet connection, really. What cars do you see potential in? I know there's Star Wars cards, there's Pokemon, there's all these types of cards. Do you stick with just sports?

I stick with just sports because it's the easiest to make money with. Okay. So like Pokemon, for example. So like Pokemon, the most sought-after cards are the original set from 1999. Yeah. That's when Pokemon first started. And that's it. That's the original set.

It ends right there. That is the original Pokemon cards. But with sports cards, there are original cards being printed every single year because there's rookies, right? Yeah. Who was a rookie this year? Like Kenny Pickett cards were, his good cards came out in early 2023 and like, you know, those are his original cards.

And the next year, there's going to be original cards. And the next year, there's original cards being printed every single year. So like, there's just a lot more money and a lot more opportunity. It's easier, honestly, to make money. And I like sports too. I don much so yeah do you stick with mainly rookie cards because i know some people buy second year some people buy certain variants yeah it's mostly rookie almost all rookie yeah like 95 of it i would say it's just they like if you're gonna buy a card get it graded and sell it like those cards are going to have the biggest margins, the most liquidity.

It's 95% risk. Does it still take months to get the grades back? Because when I used to send stuff to PSA, it took like six months. Yeah, PSA is wonky. It depends. The way it works is the more you spend, the more money it costs to get a card graded,

the faster you're going to get it back. I'd say for me personally, the average card I buy is probably $3,000. So I'm okay with spending more money to get it back. So I'd say for me personally, the average card I buy is probably $3,000. So I'm okay with spending more money to get it graded. So I'll spend $150 to get it graded. Wow. Probably takes about two weeks, three weeks to get back.

But like if you're buying a lower end card, that might be $100. It doesn't make much sense to spend $75 to get it graded. So, or $150 to get it graded. So you're going to probably spend the lowest service, which right now is about $19. Yeah. It'll take five to six weeks. depends it could be eight weeks it could be four weeks guys so it's gotten a little better it's from the pandemic it's gotten way better that's

when i submitted mine took at least six months yeah like it was crazy because i mean during the pandemic like sports cars just took off like no one would imagine yeah blasted off they were just hammered you couldn't lose yeah you literally couldn't lose. It was crazy. Like just everything, it seemed like everything you touched turned to gold. It felt like a crypto bull run. Yeah, yeah, it did. It's it.

And it's funny because that's one of the most common questions I get. Like people like comment on my Facebook ads and stuff like, oh, the sports card market has crashed and it's definitely down since the pandemic. But like, so before the pandemic, just to kind of give like an example, like a LeBron James Topps Chrome PSA 10 rookie card was about $2,000 during the, before the pandemic. Yeah.

At the height of the pandemic, that same card was about 30,000. So it really went up a lot, but it's come down since the pandemic. But that same card is about seven, eight grand. The sports card market has about three to four times from before to after the pandemic. So, but yeah, so. Yeah, it's all relative, right? Everything crashed from the pandemic so um but yeah so yeah it's all relative right everything crashed from the pandemic real estate yeah all the alternative assets right what goes up must come down it has to right it was too good to be true but yeah i mean i was literally buying any card on ebay and it would go up yeah next week yeah that's oh my god yes those were the days

it was a wild time like i had i had all these cards that like like the pandemic started in like uh what was it like march of 2020 so like i had all these cards i was sitting on all these baseball cards i bought like in you know november and december and i was gonna wait till before the season in march to sell them and like you know i'd probably make on average about a 50 return holding cards for an extended like a few months but like all of a sudden the pandemic started boom these cards like three to four times i just cashed out huge um but yeah everything was just going up yeah nuts have you ever bought a fake card or been scammed or anything oh yeah uh oh yes yes um the unfortunate thing about sports cards is it is an easy place to scam people so like um yeah like i bought a fake card before but like when you buy a fake card and you buy it on eBay, you're protected.

So I bought a card. I've got my money back. How'd you know it was fake? So I bought a card of Michael Jordan. It was like a 1986 Fleer, Michael Jordan. Yeah. And what somebody did is, I wish I had like an example, but I don't. So they took the real card of Michael Jordan.

It was graded like an eight or something. The card was probably is probably worth like five grand yeah and they like made a little slit in the case and they took the real one out and put a fake one in that look good so now it's in the case and it looks real like it looks like a real card yeah and they took the real one and they submitted it to psa again so now they have another psa wow you see that so they just doubled their money that's crazy so i had the fake one and i looked at the card and i was like this don't look right this looks a little bit off i asked a friend he confirmed it was fake and um ebay gave me my money back but um yeah there's a lot of a lot of just like any business right like there's a lot of you know rug pulls scams but if you know how to navigate your way through it you could make a lot

of money i probably got a scam too i was buying so many cards that i wasn't even checking if i got them all you know what i mean i was just buying so many yeah that will that will happen yeah and i i took a big l i bought a lot of zion yep uh so did i that was yeah that was uh zion i made money sold it he went down i bought more zion and then it went down and i lost so if he ever plays again it might go up yeah yeah i have a bunch of zion with me i bought a bunch back and like not with me but back in arizona yeah i bought a bunch in like february and march um you know hoping he would look healthy and his value would go back up it's went up a little bit but not as much as i expected but we'll see why didn't you get into breaking at all uh because people are with that right

car breaks i mean breaking is it's a great thing but and it gets a lot of people into the hobby but i mean there's a few reasons i was doing well flipping the sports cards and i like to control my own money so when you break right you're getting product from like panini and tops and you're kind of at the mercy of them how many boxes and cases they'll give you so I was never that into it and I started the coaching program and the reality of breaking is I don't have anyone against any breakers

but when you break a box of cards it's kind of like we're in a casino right now going to a slot machine and pulling the slot machine you can get lucky once, sure, maybe but over the long run you're going to lose a lot of money I've never made money opening cards never, right? it's there's a reason these companies like panini and tops make a lot of money right unfortunately it's at the expense of the consumer so i said to myself i'm gonna brand myself and really go all out on a business i'd rather help people make

money right then you know maybe help people have fun but losing money so that's kind of my motivation for getting into coaching and teaching people how to actually make a sustainable siding yeah that's respectable man i've seen people spend six maybe even seven figures on just buying cases and boxes of cards trying to chase that one of one and they just get wrecked it's a losing game dude and the worst part about it is like i mean a lot of people that come into my program they come from the world of breaking they'll come to me and say hey man like i'm down like thirty thousand dollars like can you help me make money and then they end up coming into the program and learning how to actually make money but but yeah so like yeah breaking it's just all right it's a slot machine you're gonna lose money

in the long run yeah you're the luckiest person in the world so that's just how it goes yeah same with owning a sports card shop because the value of these cards they're just changing so quickly you could be stuck with so much inventory right yeah i mean that's why sports card shops do a lot of breaking because it's like a sustainable thing like you know there's no like like they take these boxes and like for example they'll get a box from panini for like a thousand dollars and they'll break it online through the you know through 10 to 15 different people paying them they'll end up doubling their money with the box. Right. Which is another reason why breaking is such a not profitable thing

because you're really paying strong to get into these boxes. And even if you just bought the box what it's worth, the whole thing, you would lose money. Yeah. Now you're essentially, even though you're only getting a smaller bit of it, you're paying essentially double. So it's a losing game. I mean, it's fun.

It drives the hobby. Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against it. The cards i buy and make money on come out of these boxes right so like um but in the long run you'll get crushed yeah i noticed like the older heads kind of hate it too yep they do there's like that divide with like the new social media kids yeah i mean yeah i see a lot of that too when um you know a lot there's a lot of like original collectors that don't like all like the promoting and all the social media and all the stuff that's coming around sports cards because like they just want like you know they're just old yeah grubby people i know this one dude i think his username is shine 150 or something i've heard of him i think he buys a lot

of big cards dude yeah he makes a lot of money off sports cards but he buys like he's like you but like on another level because like he'll buy like the one-on-ones yeah yeah that's a yeah that's a uh that's a crazy game to play i like to play in the i like to play in the ballpark of like buying cards that are five to ten grand yeah i've played in the ballpark of buying cards like 25 50 100 grand but like they're just too hard to move too risky right yeah not even too risky they're not as liquid right like selling a card for 10 grand is a lot of money but a lot of people have 10 grand yeah 100 grand different ballgame right like it's very hard to move a lot of the times when you're ready to sell a card you can't sell it but like a ten thousand dollar card

i have a bunch of them i can go on facebook make a, and I'll be flooded with offers. Oh, yeah? Yeah, for cards that are worth $5,000, $10,000, $15,000. But $100,000, $50,000, it's a whole different ballgame. So where do you sell yours mainly? On Facebook? Yeah. The main places I buy are Facebook. So when I'm buying cards to get graded, they mostly come from eBay.

When I'm buying cards to hold, like these higher-end cards that are already graded, mostly from Facebook or card shows when I get to go once in a while. And then when I sell, selling is 95% through Facebook. That's just where I've done the best. I know a lot of people on Facebook. I have a lot of connections at this point. Sometimes I'll just hit people up on my phone.

But if you have a, there's no right or wrong. Instagram is great too. I prefer social media just because there's no fees. You could build connections. Because eBay takes what, like 3% or something? 13 13 13 yeah bro yeah they're printing money on no wonder they like sports cards they're the real winners dude they're the real winners they make a crap ton of money yeah because i was wondering why they started going like they started marketing

sports cards a lot i don't know if you noticed yeah they would like sponsor conferences i mean dude it's smart like yeah they see where it's going and like fanatics i'm sure you've heard of it how they're taking over in like 2026 like i mean they're smart they make a crap ton of money from sports cards ebay um so that's why they're promoting it so hard yeah are you excited about the fanatics takeover or worried uh no i'm excited like i mean i don't know what's in store obviously but the owner michael rubin i mean i know he's knows a lot about sports cards he knows a lot about business so whatever decisions he makes is going to be best for the hobby and to make money so yeah i don't know what he's going to do he hasn't probably released any

of it he may not even thought of it himself yet but whatever he does like i mean i trust him the dude's a multi-billionaire i feel that and the dude the thing i like about rubin is even though he's super rich and stuff successful he's still in the culture yeah like he still hangs out with exactly exactly and so kind of a i guess a similar situation to that so you know who nat turner is yeah so he bought psa i forget when he bought them it was like a few years ago during the pandemic right yeah but he's a guy who's been in the hobby he knows the ins and outs has bought a lot of sports cards and part of the reason psa blew up is because he's the owner for sure the decisions he's made has the collector in mind right he's come from the hobby yeah as to like

something like beckett i forget who the owner is but he's not really involved in the hobby he looks at it more like just like a business like an x's and o's just numbers type of thing so like beckett's kind of taking a step back and PSA is taking 10 steps forward. Nice. Because Nat Turner understands what drives the hobby, getting cards back quicker, really valuing the PSA 10. He's made it like a little bit harder to get that PSA 10 over the years. So yeah, I mean, that's kind of like a similar situation. Like someone who has a lot of money, who's been in the hobby for a long time is now taking a big like i guess part in the hobby yeah is it true they're trying to switch to like

ai um ratings like they're gonna have a computer look at the cards now instead of human you know what that's a common question i get but i don't think it'll ever happen because human error is a big part of grading so like if you had in something like some sort of AI robot that was grading these cards, people would figure out or have some sort of software or something where they'd be able to look at a card on eBay and just know what is going to get graded before it even gets graded,

which diminishes the whole value of cards. That would screw up the whole hobby. Human error is what makes grading great. Sometimes you can send in a card that you're sure is going to get a 10, grade 9 sometimes you send in a card worst feeling yeah vice versa right you'll send a card that like god has this blemish and it gets a 10 right right right so if they ever did that people are smart enough to come out with softwares that kind of mimic whatever ai they're using and then you would know if the card's going to grade a 10 or 9 before buying it

and then it's that's true grading goes out the window yeah you could just upload an image and it would give you a grade exactly so i don't think they'll ever do it that's a good point um in terms of like just in general what are you feeling about moving forward like do you want to go more on the coaching side or more on the investing side uh coaching i like helping people but as the coaching like kind of the way it's a funny story so kind of the way like sports cards went for me is like i was flipping cards for like a few hundred dollars it's really pumping them out as as my coaching program has gotten bigger the cards i bought has got bigger so like i'll still spend 50 grand in a month on cards yeah but now it's

just i'm only buying eight cards instead of 80 right as before so like the money i'm investing in sports cards is just getting bigger and bigger i'm just buying less cards instead of 80 as before. So the money I'm investing in sports cards is just getting bigger and bigger. I'm just buying less cards but cards that are bigger. And kind of what helped me out a lot, so this will be a shock to a lot of your audience. So what's helped me out a lot in sports cards, so I was someone back in 2020 when me and my buddy John Suarez started the coaching program. I just thought I was teaching people how to make money with sports cards. And as soon as you start a business running ads and funnels and websites and hiring people, you realize, oh my God, teaching people how to make money with sports cards is easy.

Like, I have to post content, market, make database decisions, hire a sales team, CRM, all this crazy stuff. So I really became like a system process driven person. And I had a bunch of VAs, what a VA is a virtual assistant for you guys out there who don't know, they're essentially overseas workers, you could pay them three, four, $5 an hour, which is great. It's above minimum wage in our country. And they'll work for you and kind of do whatever you want. And I had a bunch of VAs on my team, I still do, you know, posting content and doing all this random stuff. And as my coaching program got bigger and bigger and bigger, I was like, damn, I don't have as much time to buy sports cards.

So then I had the great idea one day of maybe one of these virtual assistants could find these cards for me. So I took one of the virtual assistants. I got on a two-hour Zoom with him. I trained him. I had him watch my program. And I was like, here's a spreadsheet. You're going to work for three hours a day. You you're gonna find cards for me to get graded and then we'll uh you know we'll see what happens and this guy was kid it was amazing like i was just waking up every morning or going on this spreadsheet at the end of the day and instead of me putting in a few hours

to find cards this va did it all for me and i'd pay him like you know 15 20 bucks a day and i was just buying tons of cards and i still do it to this day so that's something we do in our coaching program we give people we have like a recruiting agency over in the philippines yeah that trains these vas how to find sports cards and our processes and what to look for in a card and all that stuff so a lot of our students actually don't put a lot of time into finding these cards because that's one of the most time timely things in sports cards so we're virtual assistants that do it that's smart find the cards for us and it's an amazing process yeah it saves a ton of time super smart eric it's been fun man anything you want to close off with or promote um not really man i mean just like if

you guys have any questions about sports cards you can hit me up on instagram at eric michael mlp i'm more than happy to answer any questions you guys have about sports cards, you can hit me up on Instagram at Eric Michael MLP. I'm more than happy to answer any questions you guys have about sports cards. But yeah, that's really it. I just wanted to come on here and provide you guys as much value as possible with the sports card market. Awesome. Thanks for coming on, man. I think it's cool to see new investment vehicles. Yeah, for sure, man. I appreciate it. Absolutely. Thanks for watching, guys. And I'll see you next time.