Ep 240 || Up & Running Grantee Joe Sorrentino

[podcast_team]

The application process for the 2023 Up & Running Grants is now officially open and this week, Rebecca Michals converses with 2020 Up & Running Grant seller, Joe Sorrentino who will share how the grant impacted his business and why you should apply.

Episode Links:
Up and Running Grant
Joe Sorrentino’s eBay Store
Recurring Links:
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eBay Seller Spotlight Podcast
eBay for Business Podcast Listener Survey
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Rebecca: I'm Rebecca.

Griff: I'm Griff, and this is the eBay for Business Podcast, your source for the information and inspiration to help you start, manage and grow your business on the world's most powerful marketplace. And this is episode 240. Please welcome back to the studio, the Director of Seller Community Engagement, Rebecca Michaels. Hey, Rebecca.

Rebecca: Hey Griff. Thanks for having me back. I'm really pleased to be here.

Griff: I heard that the reason you can make it today is that you've actually are bringing a special guest.

Rebecca: I am bringing a special guest this week. Maybe you've heard that this week is Small Business Week, which is April 30th through May 6th. And so in honor of this special week, I wanted to make sure that everyone is up to date on our current Up & Running Grant program, which is now officially accepting submissions. And what better way to do so than by speaking with an actual real live Up & Running Grantee seller, Joe Sorrentino, who sells on eBay as The Junk Juggler. But wait a second, Griff, before we get into that, shouldn't I be reading the news?

Griff: You're right. Normally you would, I'd wondered if you'd pick up that there wasn't a sheet in front of you with news on it. I forgot to tell you that Brian and I put the news on a short hiatus for a month or so, but the news will be back in May. In the meantime, we're gonna feature slightly more compact springtime podcast episodes. Even the news needs a little vacation now and then, don't you think?

Rebecca: Definitely. All right. News. We'll see you soon.

Griff: Well, I think without any further ado, why don't we just jump in and meet Joe?

Rebecca: Great, let's do it. It is Small Business Week, so I wanna say Happy Small Business Week to all of our eBay sellers. I really believe in eBay's mission, which is to create and grow economic opportunity for everyone. It's a really powerful mission and, and the reason that every person at eBay comes to work each day, it's like embedded deep in our DNA as a company to empower and create that economic opportunity for entrepreneurs, for sellers all across eBay. And one of the things that we know is how important access to capital is for small retailers. For the past four years, eBay's been investing in its small businesses through the Up & Running Grants program. We initially dedicated $500,000 to funding small businesses on eBay during the pandemic back in 2020. And the program has now reached 2 million given to sellers. So to celebrate Small Business Week this year, we are bringing back our Up & Running grants again for the fourth year. And I encourage you to apply for this grant. Real actual People win and that could be you. We just opened applications on May 1st to award another 50 small business sellers, each with $10,000 in funds, plus some mentorship and other critical small business resources. And so this year also eBay is expanding its grant with an additional stipend now that's worth up to $500 for each grantee to apply to eBay refurbished for office equipment, technology, other tools to keep their small businesses up and running. So it's $500 to spend on, you know, what we might call a technology suite. 2023 Up & Running Grants applications are open right now and they close on June 9th at 6:00 PM Eastern. So get your application in soon. Sellers can go to ebay.com/upandrunning to learn more, or you can click on the show notes to access the application. We'll put those in the notes at the end of the show. We started the program in 2020, and today we have one of our first ever grantees joining us. Welcome Joe Sorrentino of The Junk Juggler. And you were awarded a grant back in 2020.

Joe: Yes, I was. Rebecca, thank you so much.

Rebecca: Tell us a little bit about your business and how you got started selling on eBay.

Joe: Overall, I'm an eco-friendly junk removal service based in Western Connecticut, and I'm also an antiques and collectibles dealer. My mission is to keep as much junk out of the landfill as possible by means of recycling, reselling, and reusing. So what makes my business different than the traditional toss and go junker removal services is that I don't charge by volume or of the trucks base alone. I also factor in the actual contents that are being removed and offer discounts to the volume prices when there is quantity or quality of donate able contents, antiques, vintage, and collectible categories.

Rebecca: Oh, interesting. Do you haul from businesses or do you like go to people's homes and Haul? Who's your customer?

Joe: My customer is both the everyday mom and pop working families. I also do commercial properties as well. I have a few contracts with storage facilities and even ranging to healthcare facilities for certain junk removal and labor jobs and the whole nine yards with the antiques and collectibles business. I've been been doing that for over 10 years now.

Rebecca: When you find items that have value and worth, that's what you sell on eBay, that's where your inventory comes from?

Joe: Correct. It comes directly out of estates and commercial properties and eBay is my favorite part. It's the fun part about business, you know, the hauling and sweating and getting things out of small Connecticut homes with skinny driveways is not as fun. It's more fun when you list an auction item on eBay and you don't expect anything from it and the auction gets bit up. It's part of the fun of my job.

Rebecca: It sounds like you're really a part of your local community. When you won the grant back in 2020, how was your community dealing with the pandemic and, and how was your business affected by the pandemic back then?

Joe: The pandemic impacted my business in more ways than one. At first, it was that initial wave of people not letting contractors into their workplaces and homes. My normal flea market and donation drop-off points, seized operations for many months following it caused a dip in cash flow and the normal service and sales operations. There is one thing that stayed up and running and fairly consistent, which is eBay and the up and running grant. With that, I'm very thankful for remaining steady and getting me through the rough patch. Things settled out and sort of normalized for me towards the fall of 2020. But what came after that I was not expecting at all. The 2020 into 2021 winter months came in and I noticed the service side of my business was taking a turn for the better. I started to notice a trend of people moving and relocating, working from home, mainly coming out of New York City, but also a handful of Connecticut residents moving to places that I would never expect. I realized that come the spring of 2021, I might be in trouble, which means scaling at a level that I was not used to and didn't necessarily have the cash flow on hand for. Coincidentally, this was around the same time I saw the opportunity to apply for the eBay up and running grants. So being able to recognize the shift in the housing market and relocating trends, it inspired me to let my story be heard and apply for the eBay Up & Running Grant.

Rebecca: How did you hear about the grant and why did you take the leap of faith and apply for the grant? What was your thought process there?

Joe: I initially saw it in the winter of 2020, so we're about, what, nine months into the pandemic. I was just reading through it and I was like, God, you know, I've been so passionate about being an eBay seller for all these years I've been in business. I said, let me give it a shot. I did not think I was gonna get chosen because of my business name, The Junk Juggler. I said, why would they ever promote a business called The Junk Juggler? But the real thing is that junk is such a versatile word. I would call it, everybody's definition of it is different.

Rebecca: I think that's actually a classic story of eBay, you know, finding treasures, finding that unique thing, and you're in a unique position to be able to see stuff that someone maybe doesn't see value in or see the time to invest in. And you've turned that into a business. So I, I think that's really great. Do you remember the moment that someone called and said that you, you got the grant?

Joe: Absolutely. That is definitely was an interesting part of my business and, I'll remember that phone call probably for the rest of my life. I remember getting the phone call in February of 2021, which I think was maybe a month and a half, two months after applying for the grant. February is typically a very difficult winter month to get through being self-employed. Not only was it in the heart of the winter in the Northeast, it was one year into the pandemic, but I had also made a huge mistake in some paperwork and business filings with the state regarding sales tax and remittance. That caught up with me and I was called out on it. Operating a service and sales business is complex, combined with being a young entrepreneur naive in certain areas, I made some unintentional mistakes at the time of the phone call came in.

Rebecca: I remember sitting right here in front of my computer buried in paperwork and receipts. I don't think my head was comprehending the good news with what the eBay rep was trying to tell me that I was chosen as a grant recipient and it didn't hit me until I got off the phone and received the official recipient email. I was shocked to say the least, I had to literally disregard the news and stay focused on the sales tax issue that was on hand until it was complete with those required monthly filings. It all worked out though, luckily I was smart enough to save all the paperwork, the sales data receipts and all on a monthly order, and it was just a matter of data entry, creating custom tailored spreadsheets specific for my business with a bookkeeper and an accountant overview. I had the situation under control in about 45 days after the state contacted me, say the least, it came at a moment when I really needed a financial cushion to get other critical work done. But it allowed me to take a deep breath and tell myself everything's going to be okay. So after sitting on the grant money for a few months, while it took care of that other issue, my theory on the housing market started to turn true. My phone started ringing more come spring 2021 and I decided this was the best time to go big or go home. The eBay Up & Running Grant helped us achieve another milestone in business with the purchase of a larger and more specialized trailer. This trailer allows us to haul more items out of a customer's home, resulting in an increase to the estate fresh collectibles we were able to bring to the eBay platform. It also provides more room to separate the donations and recyclables which benefit the local community as well as our eco-friendly and sustainable mission.

Rebecca: So do you consider yourself, I think you said at the beginning the eco-friendly, the sustainability is a huge part of your business, but we haven't really talked about that. Why is that such an important part of your mission and and so important to you personally?

Joe: Back when I graduated high school back in 2009, I picked up a job at a now nationally franchise junk removal service and continued it for a few years into college. At the time, I had no idea about the reselling world and the worth of antiques, vintage and collectibles, but I always found it odd that this company would tell us, tell the customers you're donating the contents. But at the same time, after the job they would tell us, go straight to the dump, dump it and go to the next job. This totally just did not sit right with me as I knew we were throwing away perfectly fine goods that somebody could use. After graduating college in 2013, I moved back home and my mom dragged me into a thrift store. I remember picking up a pair of aviation headphones and thinking, wow, $10 price tag. I had to buy these for over a hundred when I was in the professional pilot flight program in college. Some light bulb went off in my head and I knew I'd be able to flip them on eBay to another student pilot for a decent profit. And so I did. I got hooked on the reselling on eBay and slowly graduated up to flea markets, then to auctions and so on. Selling on eBay has helped me pay off my student loans. In 2015, I got a truck and had visions of all that stuff we used to throw away back when I worked for that other junk removal service. I decided I could totally start doing junk removal. I came up with the catchy name, The Junk Juggler, the logo, and the slogan, we can handle your junk. And it's been off to the races since then.

Rebecca: When you found out that you were receiving the grant, it's not just about the money, although it sounds like that was incredibly important. We also provide training and I think you did actually engage in the training and go through the training program. Was it helpful and valuable for you?

Joe: Absolutely. You know, as a grant recipient, we had the opportunity to participate in the Seller School and Academy. Doing those seminars was just beneficial in kind of taking a second to pause and click around the website with our host who was running the seminars there. And you know, that's not something I do every day. As an eBay seller, you're kind of in robot mode listing, listing, listing pictures, pictures and condition, description, but taking an hour of each seminar and focusing on eBay and just kind of looking at the whole screen in front of you and clicking through some of those additional tools and resources that you would never click through if it was just a regular workday listing on eBay. So the more you click around, there's so many hidden tools there. The trove of information waiting to be found that I never knew about, it was definitely beneficial in saying, okay, hold on, let me see what this button takes me. You click that and it takes you into an additional information that you never knew was there that really helps drive traffic to your eBay store and, gives you the tools you need.

Rebecca: Do you sell exclusively auctions? Do you do a mix of auctions and Buy It Now? What are you thinking about which you use?

Joe: Typically, I like to research an item before I put it up on eBay. You know, I like the items that have what I call, you know, a little bit of juice to them. I like things that are rare, unique, different than the everyday odds and ends, but if I, I can't find any, uh, sales history of items, I definitely post an auction format first. If I can find sales history of them, I, I will do Buy it Now with Best Offer, you know, and, and run the comps to similar items.

Rebecca: What's the coolest thing if someone comes and is like, Joe, you're selling an eBay. What's the cool thing that you tell them about that you found? You already talked about the headphones that you found. What's another thing that you found that was just an exciting find something a big sale?

Joe: First thing that comes to mind is I don't really deal too much in the, the clothing and fashion industry, but there's one time I cleaned out a gentleman's house, uh, went up in the attic and brought down some clothes and it got some of the stuff back to my warehouse, which also acts as the sorting grounds. I make piles of donations and this is the eBay pile and this is the flea market pile and so on and so on. But I had this really interesting pair of lederhosen. I didn't even know what they were called. I had to post it on Reddit to figure out, they just looked like a pair of overalls to me. But they're were German lederhosen. . You could tell there is quality to them because of very thick leather. They looked old, they just had a lot going for them. I just kind of put it up on eBay as an auction format and all of a sudden, you know, overnight I'm looking 20 watchers and that's a little bit unusual. And the watchers kept growing, the bids kept growing and then I think in the last two minutes, all of a sudden it got bid up to like around $1,700 and I was shocked. I was like, I didn't see that coming at all. So maybe the highest one sold for $300, $400. So, and it was very interesting, like they went back to Germany where they were made. The guy wanted to know that, you know, the family history of them and I told him what I knew. He sent me pictures wearing them to Octoberfest type festival. And that would be a good example of the auction items that I would tell people when they ask me, Hey, what's, what's the best item you've ever found?

Rebecca: I love that it went back to Germany. I love that sense of going full circle.

Joe: Absolutely. Back to the homestead.

Rebecca: Yeah, exactly. I took some time before we started our conversation to read over your grant application. And again, I've seen a lot. It was really strong. It was really strong. What advice do you have for someone who's thinking about applying this year?

Joe: That was me guys. That was totally me sitting behind the computer saying, should I do it? Should I take 30 minutes? And I did and I'm totally happy I did. You really gotta do it. You gotta tell your story, be honest and share your eBay selling passion. eBay is built upon small businesses and sellers just like you, and there are multiple recipients. And let me emphasize the multiple. There was 50 just in my round alone. So if you ask me, your chances are very good and the reward is worth it. With the application, you'll allow yourself to reflect both on your positive times and negative times, which is an important step to reflect upon moving forward.

Rebecca: Joe, I think that's where we'll leave it because that is really great advice.

Joe: Thank you Rebecca.

Rebecca: Thanks for your experience with the grant program and some of your insights about running your business and the things that you've learned over the years. So I wanna encourage everyone, apply for the grant. You might win, just like Joe has won. I really look forward to seeing all the applications and reading stories of our sellers taking their businesses to that next level. As a reminder, the award is $10,000 in cash plus mentorship and a business acceleration course. And this year we are expanding that grant to the additional stipend of up to $500 that you can spend on eBay refurbished technology. So again, go to ebay.com/upandrunning by June 9th at 6:00 PM. Joe, any final thoughts?

Joe: That is it guys really. Thank you for having me and I'd be happy to answer any questions that anybody has, not just you Rebecca. Feel free to reach out and really go for it guys. eBay is doing a great thing and I want to encourage everybody, all the sellers, you know, small businesses just like me to just apply and tell your story and go for it.

Rebecca: Thank you so much. Thanks for your time.

Joe: Any time Rebecca, have a good day.

Griff: Wow, that was a great interview. Kudos to you Rebecca. Well done. I loved it.

Rebecca: Yeah, you know it, it was actually really cool to hear from someone who was in one of our first classes of Up & Running winners.

Griff: I agree. And I love the business model. It sounds so much like my business model years ago of getting the junk out of people's house and then you find treasure sometimes as well. So good for Joe. And of course we are gonna encourage you to make your submission as soon as you can because you only have a week to get those submissions in. It lifted my heart to hear a seller saying if you have any questions, just you know, ask me.

Rebecca: Hey Griff, you said questions?

Griff: Yes questions.

Rebecca: Well as always, if you have a question, we would love to answer it. Just call our hotline at (888)723-4630.

Griff: That's (888)723-4630. You can call that hotline anytime of the day, any day of the week. We'd love to hear your voice. Leave a question or comment. We might put it on the air. I should mention here, you're probably wondering where the questions were this week we're actually putting the questions on hiatus two, they'll be back next week.

Rebecca: And of course, just like Brian always says, if you're not a call on the phone person, you can always email us at podcast@ebay.com. That's podcast@ebay.com.

Griff: And now it's time for your weekly Three Point Podcast Checklist. Number one, check the Announcement Board at ebay.com/announcements for up to date seller news every day.

Rebecca: Two. If you haven't done so already, did we mention this? Submit your Up & Running Grant application today.

Griff: You can never repeat it too much. If you don't enter, you can't win. So that's a good thing to keep in mind. And number three, you need to review anything in this episode. Well, it's really easy to do. You can go to community.com, find the podcast link, and then you can check the transcript for this episode. And in fact, any episode and you can see follow up on what you've heard and you can find the links we referenced during the episode in the episode links.

Rebecca: Now speaking of episodes, who's on the call sheet for next week Griff?

Griff: Oh, I'm glad you asked our next episode. We're gonna welcome back eBay seller, Sarah of Sarah Styles. You remember Sarah? She was at eBay Open.

Rebecca: Yeah, she's fabulous.

Griff: So we know from our past interviews that Sarah loves measurements and data and managing the data to track her business. She's gonna talk about the different eBay tools you can use to help manage and grow your business.

Rebecca: I just wanna wrap up by thanking again our guest for this week, eBay seller and Up & Running Grantee, Joe Sorrentino.

Griff: The eBay for Business Podcast is produced and distributed by Libsyn and podCast411. Thank you Rebecca. That was fun.

Rebecca: Thanks for having me.